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trogdor
Skeptic Friend
198 Posts |
 Posted - 12/08/2005 : 20:31:32
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I was wondering... what do creationists and ID people (I hate to say theorists) think about the flu virus mutating into a new form every year? does God create the new virus? or is it evolution but only on a small scale?
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 12/08/2005 : 20:35:27 [Permalink]
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They'd say, "it's still influenza, so there's no change from one created kind to another."
Of course, that sort of answer screams for them to define a "kind," but they've been unable to do so in any way which can stand up to scrutiny. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 12/08/2005 : 21:03:10 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by trogdor
I was wondering... what do creationists and ID people (I hate to say theorists) think about the flu virus mutating into a new form every year? does God create the new virus? or is it evolution but only on a small scale?
They've been forced to admit evolution happens on small scales (they call it "microevolution"), but deny species can change into other species ("macroevolution"). Of course, scientists make no such distinction. Many small changes, given lots and lots of time, can result in something very different from what you started with. Whenever you ask a creationist what's the dividing line between micro- and macroevolution, this imaginary barrier which they claim prevents an animal from ever changing into a new species, they are unable to say exactly. Like Dave said, they just believe things stay in their own "kinds," but offer no reason why this must be so in principle.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 12/08/2005 21:04:22 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 12/08/2005 : 21:09:14 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricky
When called out on this fact, they claim that it's the same as species, that there hasn't always been one definition of species. And when told that the definition of species has changed to improve it's clarity, they claim that it changes only so that evolution can't be falsified.
Actually, Ricky, when asked, creationists have defined a "kind" at various times as a species, genus, order, and on up to phylum. It depends on whom you ask, when you ask, and what point the creationist wishes to make.
In all cases, however, solid evidence has pointed to evolutionary changes crossing whichever border they set as being the limit for a "kind." |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
Posted - 12/08/2005 : 21:31:36 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
quote:
Originally posted by Ricky
When called out on this fact, they claim that it's the same as species, that there hasn't always been one definition of species. And when told that the definition of species has changed to improve it's clarity, they claim that it changes only so that evolution can't be falsified.
Actually, Ricky, when asked, creationists have defined a "kind" at various times as a species, genus, order, and on up to phylum. It depends on whom you ask, when you ask, and what point the creationist wishes to make.
In all cases, however, solid evidence has pointed to evolutionary changes crossing whichever border they set as being the limit for a "kind."
That hasn't been my personal experience, although I have heard of it from others, such as you. What I'm used to is the Creationist saying you can't define kind, you just know it. This is normally followed up with either "Go ask a child if you have trouble" or pictures of a banana, horse, zebra, and giraffe, and then asked which one doesn't belong.
The only time I've ever heard of "kind" be defined is at the Creationist lecture, in which he said that "kind" was any species which evolved off of the original version of the species. |
Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov |
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trogdor
Skeptic Friend
198 Posts |
Posted - 12/08/2005 : 21:52:18 [Permalink]
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quote:
They've been forced to admit evolution happens on small scales (they call it "microevolution"), but deny species can change into other species ("macroevolution"). Of course, scientists make no such distinction.
this does not seem right. i'm positive that i have seen the terms micro- and macro-evolution in other places than creationist lit. i will try to find a good source. |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
Posted - 12/08/2005 : 21:56:46 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by trogdor
quote:
They've been forced to admit evolution happens on small scales (they call it "microevolution"), but deny species can change into other species ("macroevolution"). Of course, scientists make no such distinction.
this does not seem right. i'm positive that i have seen the terms micro- and macro-evolution in other places than creationist lit. i will try to find a good source.
That is correct, and I believe this came up in another thread.
From Talk Origins:
quote:
The terms macroevolution and microevolution were first coined in 1927 by the Russian entomologist Iurii Filipchenko (or Philipchenko, depending on the transliteration), in his German-language work Variabilität und Variation, which was the first attempt to reconcile Mendelian genetics and evolution. Filipchenko was an evolutionist, but as he wrote during the period when Mendelism seemed to have made Darwinism redundant, the so-called "eclipse of Darwinism" (Bowler 1983), he was not a Darwinian, but an orthogeneticist. Moreover Russian biologists of the period had a history of rejecting Darwin's Malthusian mechanism of evolution by competition.
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Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 12/08/2005 : 22:10:20 [Permalink]
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What I meant was scientists might use the terms, but don't consider them unique and distinct processes from one another. However, I've sinced learned even that is wrong.
From Wikipedia:
quote:
There are a number of views regarding macroevolution. Some evolutionary biologists, particularly Charles Darwin and those subscribing to the modern synthesis, see the only difference between microevolution and macroevolution as being one of scale. Other evolutionary biologists, including Gould, Schmalhausen, and Waddington, hold that microevolution and macroevolution are fundamentally different processes.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 12/09/2005 : 15:33:02 [Permalink]
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| IDers are so far ignoring the real evidence against their "micro but not macro" evolution stand, that of genetic science. So it's no surprise they would ignore the observable evolutionary changes we see in rapidly multiplying organisms. |
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trogdor
Skeptic Friend
198 Posts |
Posted - 12/09/2005 : 19:47:07 [Permalink]
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quote:
IDers are so far ignoring the real evidence against their "micro but not macro" evolution stand, that of genetic science. So it's no surprise they would ignore the observable evolutionary changes we see in rapidly multiplying organisms.
I don't realy see what you are getting at. What genetic studies are you refering to? most of the "observable evolutionary changes we see in rapidly multiplying organisms." that I can think of are only microevolution, but i may have missed somthing. what exactly are you refering to? |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 12/10/2005 : 01:49:55 [Permalink]
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quote:
What genetic studies are you refering to?
Things like the recent comparison between the human genome and the chimpanzee genome.
quote:
most of the "observable evolutionary changes we see in rapidly multiplying organisms." that I can think of are only microevolution,
Microorganisms are in a different kingdom than us animals. Personally I think they should be treated differently. The evolution of new, and novel, metabolic pathways for carbon fixation (i.e. the nylon bug) is significant.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 12/10/2005 : 05:51:16 [Permalink]
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Speaking of "Kinds," I wonder: do creationists consider all primates as a single Kind? Probably not; they can be pretty slippery when confronted with their own illogic, and if they think they're about to be included in Monkey Kind well.... As I said: slippery like an eel in a bucket of warm weasle fat.
Mutation and mutation, put them all together and you have a different species, if not exactly a new one. In the microbiological world, generations turn over so quickly that it's like fast forward on the VCR. I recall reading that there is a new strain of tuberulosis(sp?) that is resistant to treatment, and some old venerial dieases that no longer even notice penecillin. And polio has returned for an encore engagement.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
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Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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trogdor
Skeptic Friend
198 Posts |
Posted - 12/10/2005 : 16:00:04 [Permalink]
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Oh right, the drug resistent TB. people in prsons in Russia get it and it spreds quickly. they start a regimine of antibiotics but do not finish agfter they are relesed. the bacteria that are still alive are partly resistent to the drugs and start they begin spreading again. Even if the US denies evolution, parasites are still useing it work past our defences.
P.S. thanks for the clarification Dude i forgot about nylon bugs. |
all eyes were on Ford Prefect. some of them were on stalks.
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 12/10/2005 : 22:02:19 [Permalink]
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quote:
Oh right, the drug resistent TB. people in prsons in Russia get it and it spreds quickly. they start a regimine of antibiotics but do not finish agfter they are relesed. the bacteria that are still alive are partly resistent to the drugs and start they begin spreading again. Even if the US denies evolution, parasites are still useing it work past our defences.
Lets not forget the drug resistant strain of S. aureus that creates a cytotoxin specific to human white blood cells (leukocidin).
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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UncleJ
New Member
41 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2005 : 00:57:27 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by filthy
Mutation and mutation, put them all together and you have a different species, if not exactly a new one. In the microbiological world, generations turn over so quickly that it's like fast forward on the VCR. I recall reading that there is a new strain of tuberulosis(sp?) that is resistant to treatment, and some old venerial dieases that no longer even notice penecillin. And polio has returned for an encore engagement.
Something to keep in mind when discussing evolution of bacteria vs. evolution of animals is that bacteria have multiple mechanisms to take up DNA from the environment or other bacteria.
Therefore the evolution of bacterial species is mechanistically different from animals in that it does not rely as heavily on mutation.
Take this along with the rapid growth and non-sexual reproduction, and the parallels between bacterial and animal evolution get harder to make.
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"The Church says the Earth is flat. But I know that it is round. For I have seen the shadow on the Moon. And I have more faith in a shadow than in the Church." - F. Magellan
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