Rapidly expanding thread, if I keep reading I'll die of old age before I finish I think.

Dog breeding. Chihuahua, great dane, black lab, husky, they're all dogs. How did we get them? By eliminating vast portions of genetic material through selective breeding. Have we created a new species then? Is a chihuahua no longer a dog? no. Tito can fuck scooby's sister and make babies just fine. They will also be dogs. Selective breeding can explain everything I've seen put forth as evidence of current evolution.

Moths lightening and darkening to react to changes? Ok, you're a moth. You're a white moth living in a birch forest. What do you figure your odds of being seen by a bird are? Now your forest gets painted black by a rock band obsessed with painting things black, think they've gone up a wee bit? Evolutionists say ooh! proof! They changed colors! Common sense says eh? what if they just got et? Ok, so maybe the white moths mutated their offspring to be black moths so they wouldn't be eaten. Or maybe the white moths got eaten, like most moths do, and the surviving moths were the darkest ones. The darker moths, having been eaten in vast quantities before, would have been a minuscule fraction of the species as a whole, but after the tables were turned, what do you think would happen?

This isn't hocus pocus, it's verifiable fact. When you place a frequently eaten species with a varied range of camouflage in one condition, certain patterns will become the visible majority due to the rest being eaten, when you then change their surroundings, the visible majority will also change, on account of simple math. There is no evolution required, the resulting change is simple selective breeding, by process of elimination. What can't hide gets eaten more often.

Bugs aren't alone in vast variation. Dog breeding proves beyond a doubt that you can achieve near magical changes in behavior, shape, size, coloration. With enough time, you can turn a large enough pack of mongrels into your breed of choice. Toy poodle, saint bernard, it doesn't matter. The genetic material is already there, it's just a matter of weeding out what you don't want.

This also applies equally well to the drug resistant strains we're creating. If you fed the entire population of the world lethal quantities of arrow frog venom, the entire population wouldn't be dead. When we wipe out 99% of a bacterial or viral predator, and the only survivors of our weapon are survivors because it didn't kill them, why would they need to evolve to become resistant? Since it is our genetic qualities that make us resistant to arrow frog poison, the most lethal toxin on earth, and survivors must, by virtue of surviving, already be immune before hand, how would it be an evolutionary trait when their offspring were also immune? How do surviving bacteria evolve a defense against a drug they already survived? If they aren't surviving it, then how is a defense evolved against something that kills everything it comes in contact with? Evolution is an illogical explanation for drug resistant strains.

Is evolution possible? yes. Is evolution likely? I have no clue. Is evolution the irrefutable truth the academic segment of the population likes to believe? There is a good deal of religion in the scientific community, it's just as backwards as the rest of the world. It's the natural result when you have flawed human beings with their own motivations and inclinations coming up with explanations. You get flawed explanations with slanted viewpoints. Any idiot that really thinks about it can void nearly all evidence of evolution with simple explanations that fit equally well or better. The problem is the "how life started" question doesn't get answered, and you're still stuck with a divine being if you do.

Intelligent design now... A relative of anthrax.

Now, this is supposed to be one of the shortest genome sequences done, possibly the shortest. Doesn't it seem a little complex? Exactly how simple is the random fuckup that started life on earth supposed to have been? The molecular compositions of even the simplest lifeforms on earth are ridiculously complex compared to the lifeless precursors they have to have come from. You don't have to be a religious nut to be skeptical of the idea that shit just happened. The watch parts in a bag bit is a laughable argument against evolution not because it's asinine, but because the pocket watch wasn't nearly complex enough to compare to a simple virus.

The theory of intelligent design is that it's highly unlikely everything worked out so bloody perfect by luck, kinda like it's highly unlikely that you can piss on the ground and accidentally spell your name. The more plausible explanation is that you're a wanker and did it on purpose. The more plausible explanation is that random chance wasn't random at all. Intelligent design is emerging because genetics have turned a simple organism into a really complex little bastard. Evolution by chance when some goo turned into a virus made a lot more sense before we found out a virus wasn't simple.

Think, it's not done enough, including among scientists.

Free speech does not equal scientific method. They are different things. If you believe in free speech, then you are permitted to say anything you want, independent of evidence. If you believe in the scientific method, then you only accept as "factual" what is backed up by evidence. Free speech is not a justification for teaching intelligent design as science, because intelligent design has zero evidence to back it up. Free speech is justification for Ben Stein to be able to make a movie that repeatedly lies to its audience in order to confuse their understanding of freedom of speech and the scientific method.

If you want to see a fantastic movie that objectively destroys intelligent design, watch NOVA's intelligent design on trial about the federal court case in Dover that determined that intelligent design is actually religion.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/

A Bush appointee judge ruled in a 139 page opinion, that intelligent design is religion and has no place in public schools.

OK

First off Evolution is true but it is important to notice that the evolution theory does not leave God out. All evolution says is that through natural selection species change. So through God direction species can change. People evolved from a common ancestor as apes and chimps. It never says that God didnt play a part of it.

Look at it this way God is a scientist he made all the laws of physics, mathematics, biology, chemestry, etc... Through his omnipitence he knew how all these laws would lead to earths creation, human evolution, and so on. In fact science could be seen as the discovery and study of Gods physical laws (not moral laws).

The fact is that Intelligent design cuts out these known physical laws and says God (oops, I mean intelligent designer) created all life as it is now. which is simply not true. As an example lets look at humans. Did you know that the allele for 6 fingers is dominant over the allele for 5 fingers. But people dont have 6 fingers because 5 fingers was a preffered trait over 6. this isnt exactly evolution but is similar in the fact that certain traits like that are selected over others. Had almost all humans had 6 fingers at one point then it would have been an example of evolution.

A better example would be Blonde hair this did not apear until later on. Originally females evolved this because it atracted males more than brunettes in the area it first appeared. So originally there were only a few blondes but because it became a preferred trait. This is why in scandanavia you see alot of blondes.

Skin color is also an example as humans moved furthur from th eequator lighter skin colors were preffered because those with lighter skin would have been healthier. The reason is that because there is less light the more you move away from the equator the more light you need to absorb for your body to make vitamin D. This is Some native Africans living away from the equator can have vitamin D defficency.

Yea.. sorry it wouldn't let me edit.   

oh I thought u ment my spelli I lapsed at the end. But yea thanks

"Then how do you explain bacteria that has strangely become immune to some forms of antibiotics? Bacteria is evolving and becoming harder to eradicate.

Just like how certain disease's that we thought we had killed off many years ago have suddenly evolved and become deadler: So yes, Evolution DOES exist."



I believe that would be "adaptation", not "evolution". It's still the same bacterium, just optimized to it's current environment. It didn't say, turn into a multi-cellular organism... I may be mistaken, though; evolutionary biology is not really my thing.

Oh, and PZ Myers gets regular beatings by WWW Link this guy...

What makes that bacterium the same bacterium? 10 changes? 100 changes? You're falling for the same trap as above - there is no goalposts after which something is a species. We can say "something that can't breed with another species" but that's arbitrary and falls flat in many situations.

I think his argument was that you couldn't accidentally spell your name. Sure, I could write it after a couple of tries, but give me a bladder the size of Betelgeuse and a billion of years and I find it hard to see how I'd accidentally end up spelling my name.

To be fair, the Europeans made killing people over it a hobby long ago

As for the original topic, no, it can't. Because Intelligent Design, cutting to the heart, is answering questions with a question that they do not, cannot, and will not answer - what is this 'Intelligent Designer'? Where did it come from? And so forth.

Science is, to put it extremely crudely, the exploration of knowledge - the 'question everything' part. Once upon a time, there were four elements. Then there were a dozen, then there were several dozen. Then there were molecules, atoms, protons, neutrons, electrons, positrons, neutrinos, quarks, leptons, gluons, mesons, etc.

What is Intelligent Design? There was a designer. Now shut up.

Just like when Darwin recanted his heretical teachings on his deathbed, and how most scientists agree Global Warming is a myth, right?

Where do you get your information from? The National Enquirer, or Fox News?



I was going to say: "Please. That's as much an answer as saying '... magic!'"

But then I realized that's pretty much what every page in the Bible says.

Will you shut up? This isn't about whether God exists, this is about whether ID should be taught in the science classroom.



You think it conflicts? You're not religious, and you think it conflicts? I can tell you I KNOW it doesn't. Why? Because I'm familiar with science and I'm Christian. They don't conflict. That's a fact. Now if you want to contribute anything of value, go ahead, but this shouldn't be a place where you insult my views, or anyone else's views. You want to know why? It isn't constructive. It doesn't contribute to anything, not even the argument.

Why can't you just back off?

Does Heliocentricism conflict with religion? It sure as hell did back in the 1600's.

As for everything else, well, "Waaah".