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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (382923)	5/6/2008 10:59:58 PM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574045

"I see you've never read the Old Testament. Miracles galore there. " I've read it. And, yes there are miracles. However, what separates Christianity from Judaism, at least initially, was the divinity of Christ. "No, they insist their religious views are mandated and proven by science and no one seriously disputes them as spokesmen for science." Sigh. Name one school, just one, where those views are taught outside of a, as in one, class in philosophy. They can insist all they want. It doesn't mean their influence extends outside of their area of expertise. "You've never read Darwin either. " What does Darwin have to do with it? At the time he formulated his theories, we knew nothing about genetics. Biology was mainly classification. Mendel's work wasn't know and I don't think he had even done it. Things have changed a little in the past century or so. And yes, I have read "Origin of Species". "True in a sense. " In more than a sense. It is outside of its focus. Whether life arose from the primordial slime, from a discarded cigarette butt from alien tourists or got poofed into existence in that original week makes no difference at all. "But atheistic evolutionists always attribute origins to some sort of "chemical evolution". " Now, there are many theories of the origin of life. But it has nothing to do with evolution itself. "Do they change into higher organisms or even into other sorts of bacteria?" Define "other sorts". Prokaryotes are very different from eukaryotes. We classify bacteria based on their shapes and other very vague criteria. But they really don't meet the conventional definition of a "species" because they readily swap their little DNA loops between the various types. Which is why a resistance to an antibiotic can spread to other types of bacteria. "We haven't observed any new species originating and our beliefs about how that happens are speculations," We observe it all the time. Heck, we do it all time. The whole science of animal husbandry and plant breeding creates what would otherwise be called new species if we applied the term to artificially bred organisms. "Mutation and natural selection could produce them all by themselves." Well, most evolution is driven by genetic drift due to individual variation. "This tells us nothing about the origin of species, though as the carriers of sickle cell anemia like Ashkenazi Jews remain part of the human species." Hmm, I think I know what the problem is. Do you know what the definition of a species is? Now, taxonomy is, at best, a slippery subject and is in a state of flux because it is still trying to digest our abilities in gene sequencing. But, when a biologist talks about two different species, they mean two different populations that don't interbreed. Now, that might be because they aren't interfertile, like apples and oranges. Or it might mean that there are some physical barriers that prevent them from getting together. Or it might mean that they don't have common mating calls, scents, etc. that trigger breeding. Now sometimes if the two populations are otherwise interfertile, they will call them subspecies instead of different species. But, that is very inconsistent and a subject of fierce battles between taxonomists. Now, taxonomy started as a way of classifying organisms based on their physical characteristics. Our present system derives from one of Taro's countrymen, Linnaeus back in the 18th century. Taxonomist's quickly started to realize that some of the characteristics they were using to identify would vanish or change if two nominally different species were allowed to interbreed. So they realized that genetic isolation was important in keeping species distinct for at least some creatures. Before Darwin, there was speculation amongst the more extreme thinkers that it wasn't the isolation that kept them as distinct species, but it was the isolation that actually caused it. But, that was more blue sky than anything else. Regardless, genetic isolation eventually became central to the idea of a species. "This tells us nothing about the origin of species, though as the carriers of sickle cell anemia like Ashkenazi Jews remain part of the human species." Actually, it does. Taxonomists have always been squeamish about applying their rules to humans. If for no other reason, traditionally there were reference members of a particular species that were caught and preserved at one museum or another so you could take a creature with questionable identification and lay it next to the reference and eyeball them. Maybe of the Nazi's had gotten into taxonomy, that would have changed... They also never considered the result of animal husbandry as falling under their purview. Partly, I think at least, because a new breed can be created in a matter of decades.