real life wrote:If my kids are taller and stronger than I and are more resistant to the flu, is it because they have 'evolved'? They show distinguishable differences with their ancestors, don't they?
What if their kids are small and prone to flu? Have they 'evolved'? For they too show distinguishable differences with their ancestors, right?
In a way yes, but in a way no. They're not a different species, if that's what you mean. They have evolved resistance to the flu. If their offspring, however, are smaller and prone to flu, then that doesn't mean they've evolved. They've lost an attribute that makes them weaker and less capable of surviving. That is not evolution.
Quote:Bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics need not have 'evolved' but may indeed have the ability to resist harmful environmental agents, just as we do.
That's still evolution. Micro-evolution, which you Creationists keep saying is different from macro-evolution, despite the fact that both require the same process of mutation then natural selection.
real life? wrote:Now if evolution truly is taking place, we ought also (besides all the micro examples that everybody seems to wish demonstrate the theory) be able to see some half finished organs and biological systems.
I keep telling you. Half-finished biological systems do not exist. You keep creating a strawman then attacking it. Evolution states nothing about half-finished anything.
I gave you examples of hearts with varying different chambers. I gave you examples of eyes that have less features than ours and eyes that have more features than ours.
You ignored them as irrelevant, despite the fact that they're proof of these "half-finished" organs you insist on finding.
Quote:Or the lungs , half finished and without a trach?
Oh, you mean like gills? Oh you might say that gills are gills, not lungs, but they are lungs of a sort. They help fish to breathe, but there is no trachea present.
Quote:When the first living critter supposedly popped itself together from non-living matter, it had better be instantly successful at nourishing itself, excreting waste, protecting itself against chemical destruction, reproducing itself etc.
And it had better do it in a hurry because likely it's life span was short , similar to one celled critters today.
If it wasn't instantly successful at all of these endeavors, the result is death and it's back to the ol' drawing board for Random Chance to try to 'evolve' a living being from dead matter.
There really wasn't any room for half-measures.
Your point is completely ridiculous.
I gave you an example of an eye that was less than half-measure. The "eye" of a snail is only one type of cell. Compare that to our eyes, which are numerous different types of cells. Yet the snail survives.
There are creatures out there with hearts that have less chambers than ours, yet they clearly survive.
Quote:Evolution absolutely includes the idea that one celled critters did indeed produce multi-celled critters as their direct offspring.
It also includes the idea that two types of one-celled critters come together to live symbiotically. They share DNA, as single-celled critters are far better at sharing DNA than others (Heck, if passing on DNA is considered sex, bacteria have orgies with all sorts of different species and cells) and eventually reproduce as one.
Quote:It also necessitates that non-birds produced birds and non-mammals produced mammals as their direct offspring, etc.
Your continual effort to run from this very obvious consequence of evolution is quite interesting.
Birds are the direct descendents of reptiles like the raptor. The anatomical similarities are evidence of that, as well as the physiological similarities. DNA similarities are also present.
Quote:They are different 'species' only because we have arbitrarily decided to call them such.
All taxonomical distinctions are, by definition , arbitrary.
So, pointing to numerous similar critters and intoning , 'they are all different species' is really saying nothing.
By some definitions of 'species' , the qualifying critter cannot interbreed with a member of another 'species' . If we use that criteria, then obviously we didn't start with two 'species' here at all. Both mom and pop in your example were members of the same species , if interbreeding is the line of demarcation.
Yes, but you failed to read the part that the third species created cannot breed with its parent species. Thus is is a new species, regardless of whether you want to quibble about the definition of the parent species.
Furthermore, you wanted proof of an intermediate gradual change. Well, this is an intermediate gradual change.
