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

To: combjelly who wrote (382944)	5/7/2008 7:47:14 AM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574096

"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. So the comment about Christianity w/o the miracles = Judaism didn't make sense. As to the divinity of Christ being a defining difference between Judaism and Christianity, you're okay there. ---------------------------------------------- "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. Oxford, where Richard Dawkins is a professor. Plenty of others. --------------------------------------------- "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". Me too so I know of his standard of "possibility." --------------------------------------------- "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. One of our kids high school biology books had "chemical evolution" bolded as a term to memorize in its discussion of the origin of life. Why? ---------------------------------------------- "Do they change into higher organisms or even into other sorts of bacteria?" Define "other sorts". Prokaryotes are very different from eukaryotes. Have we observed prokaryotes changing into eukaryotes? --------------------------------------------- "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. Sorry, we've never created a new species by selective breeding. We may do so by genetic manipulation in the future - who knows perhaps someone has. But thats an unnatural procedure. --------------------------------------------------- "Mutation and natural selection could produce them all by themselves." Well, most evolution is driven by genetic drift due to individual variation. Thank you, you can add genetic drift to my prior sentence. --------------------------------------------- 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. Yes, biology is a messy science with vague shifting terms. But generally, species means things that CAN'T produce fertile offspring. Using your definition, humans wouldn't all be one species as some religions (and in some past eras civil law) forbid intermarriage and residence on different continents prevents various human groups from intermarrying. "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. Okay, you're getting close to arguing Ashkenazi Jews and Africans are separate species. I disagree.