Emidawg - 14 July 2006 08:49 AM

I believe speciation occurs when a change happens that is large enough to make mating either impossible or not likely to happen due to other factors (ie: size, coloration differences, mating songs and rituals… etc)

This article is more of an example of natural selection, which is a driving force of evolution…  I think it would only become true evolution if the large beaked members of the population for some reason only started mating with ones like themselves… and over time they became unable to mate with the small beaked ones due to morphological differences

Then again Im no biologist

Well, this could happen if oral sex is part of the courtship ritual.

Dan the Scholar

Okay, a bit more on-topic here:  I believe it was recently established, or at least proposed, that whales long ago were dogs that went to sea (seriously).

Anyway, they are mammals, so they were once land animals that returned to the ocean to live and they flourished.

My question:  how on earth (no pun intended here) would a land animal develop a blow-hole?  It is not like a longer beak developing to better catch certain bug-food, or moths (as in the famous WWII London example) whose wing colors (colours?) changed in response to the different polutants in wartime London’s atmosphere when oil went to war and the populace had to burn coal again.  It is easy to see how those things would happen, because the moths who happen to be born slightly darker-colored blended in better with the soot on the tree branches, thus harder for birds to spot (and eat them) so more of them survive, and produce more with like-colored wings, and so on.

But the blow-hole?  That is not something that would spontaneously occur in an individual whale, as it is a unique and entirely new feature, yet they obviously developed.

How?

Dan, who believes quite firmly in evolution, but suspects there is still much to learn about it

Think of a blowhole as simply nostrils that moved further and further up the head, so that more of the animal could stay submerged. 

An alligator’s nostrils are high on the tip of a long nose/mouth because an alligator hides under water watching for prey to come from land, but dolphins/whales started to hunt for underwater prey exclusively so their heads would have been tilting down.

Now, im a creationist and i must say, this is an example of MACROevolution. basically, one species adapting to their surroundings through natural selection, and not changing species. MICROevolution is when one species changes their genetic structure into that of another species. MICROevolution has NEVER been proven. MACROevolution on the other hand is 100% accurate, and i completely believe in it. MACROevolution is why we have races, black, white, asian, whatever. as far as i know, the finches are still finches, just with small beaks, like a black person is still a person, just with darker skin.

er wait…. i screwed that up didnt i?

yea i think i did. well in my last post take each MIRCO and replace it with MACRO and vice versa.

dangit…. i was on a roll too.

Well, gee, there is certainly a lot of evidence that new species appear from time to time, just as others disappear.

Humans have only been here a couple hundred thousand years, for instance.

And just about all other present species have a date of approximate origination.

One just wonders why new species would come about?  It is a spontaneous change, at least in the case of humans, where we all can trace our ancestry back to one African woman about 200,000 years ago, dear Lucy.  For some reason, Lucy bore children that were siginificantly different than those of her contemporaries.

I do not know why fundamentalists question these things and go to great lengths with long unlikely implausible scenarios to explain why scientists are all wrong in their observations.  For one, the Bible is clearly not meant to be taken literally, and two, Jews themselves, the originators of the Old Testament, do not take it literally, and the New Testament, which is the domain and product of Christians, does not even get into such things as creation and dinosaurs and the like.

Carbon dating is pretty darned accurate, as is the tertiary evidence of time segments.  Carbon dating, after all, authenticated the Dead Sea Scrolls, and also debunked the Shroud Of Turin.  Many Scientists are also quite religious, and have no trouble accepting The Word Of God in the Bible while recognizing that dinosaurs died out about 65 million years ago, long before humans or any other primate existed.  Yet for some reason, some people cling to these notions, (which is their right), notions such as that dinosaurs were present on the Ark, another Old Testament story that is not taken literally by the very people that wrote the book, Jews.

(Virtually every Old Testament story or episode is present in some very similar version in the culture and tales of other peoples of Earth.  The American Indians tell of The Great Spirit destoying wicked peoples with a great plains fire; the aborigines of Australia have a similar tale.  The Old Testmant collected these stories, reflavord them into the Jewish culture, and used them as teaching aids, nothing more, certainly not things to be taken literally.)

How come God never speaks to us again, either through prophets or stone tablets or maybe Divinely Inspired documents found on some believer’s hard disk?  Are we not important anymore?  It seems He was always around to talk to Abraham and Isaac and Noah and Moses and Mohammed and St John the Baptist and convert Saul to Paul, all this happens over and over, but now that we REALLY NEED His Guidance, when it truly does look like the Middle East will explode and grow into a real nice Thermo-Nuclear war, where is He?  Why does He remain silent?  Why would he keep popping into people’s lives just like a Pop-Up ad on a computer screen every third day or so, but now?  Now that we have the power to vaporize every living thing, He remains aloof and silent?

(One plausible explanation is that the Rapture already happened, the faithful were delivered to Heaven long ago, and those of us still here are a bunch of doomed losers.)

Dan the Wondering, and yes I am quite receptive to any answer that makes sense, even if it conflicts with a pre-conceived notion of my own, I am truly open-minded, really!

Woah, we’ve strayed a little from the thread here, haven’t we? No offense Maeg, and Dan et al, but reptile’s didn’t just “Turn into” mammals, that’s as benign as the opinion of one of my classmates at school who was christian, and who’s main argument against evolution was that we should find fossils of half-cow, half monkey type things, it’s mot as simple as that at all. Still, i’m hammered and sholld be going to bed, maybe i’lll write something coheranth in the morni.

When you read the book of Genesis, whose viewpoint are you reading from?  since humans were not around for most of the earths history, don’t you think it would have been from God’s point of view? the first chapter in Gensis would have been written in the point of view of an eternal point of view, not a finite point of view.  Chronos vs creros (sp)  Dinos would not have been mentioned because the Bible was first written, the people then did not know of dinos.  It would have been an unneeded detail.  The creation account account is not from a human point of view but from God’s point of view.  There are scriptures (I think in 1 John) that states that for prophecy sake 1 God day=1000 human years.  As of why God does not talk to us now, uhh….he does.  It’s called the Bible.  All the prophecy that is needed is there.  It just take effort and study to see it.  And it is availble to everyone

Nice get out clause that…...

Ex-Assoc posts, in part:

There are scriptures (I think in 1 John) that states that for prophecy sake 1 God day=1000 human years.

Wait a minute!  First, you take every word and phrase of The Bible literally, interpret them to suit your own needs, then turn around and tell us ‘well, days weren’t really days, they were God-Days….’

Which is it?  Literal interpretation, or re-interpretation?

Please do not take this as a personal attack, it is an intellectual exercise!

You have your right to your beliefs, you are quite respectfully not telling me to adopt your beliefs lest I perish in the fires of Hell, etc, which I appreciate, too.

And I am not trying to get you to adopt my beliefs, either, I am just curious on these matters.

Dan the Inquisitive

Mort - 16 July 2006 02:22 AM

Woah, we’ve strayed a little from the thread here, haven’t we? No offense Maeg, and Dan et al, but reptile’s didn’t just “Turn into” mammals, that’s as benign as the opinion of one of my classmates at school who was christian, and who’s main argument against evolution was that we should find fossils of half-cow, half monkey type things, it’s mot as simple as that at all. Still, i’m hammered and sholld be going to bed, maybe i’lll write something coheranth in the morni.

My favourite play on this is the popular, and stupid, question “If we evolved from apes, why are there still apes around?”

It makes me want to cry over the state of our education system.