So, as I read through this thread....and yes, I read all of it even though a lot of it was quite repetitive...I have realized that Faith is doing a magical job of providing facts to accurately back-up the OP's point of the amount of effort individuals will go through to deny facts when it confronts religious belief.
Now, I know that Faith is doing her best to avoid the arguments from the Bible, which I will commend her on, although instead she has fallen into a trap of misrepresenting genetics. It appears, and I could be wrong so please correct me if so, that she is saying that a breeder works like natural selection does. While the initial premise between the two are very similar (founder effect) in that they start from a small group of animals who have either been forcefully separated, left the original home, or isolated themselves from the parent population in some way, that is where the comparison ends. A breeder is attempting to stem the flow of evolution. If a mutation occurs that is undesirable to maintaining the breed, whether or not this mutation is beneficial, deleterious, or neutral, the breeder will refuse to allow this animal to breed meaning that asthetics, not survival to reproduce, is the deciding factor.
In a hypothetical situation; imagine a breeder is working with pure bred Alaskan Malamutes. One of the puppies is born with a mutation affecting the undercoat of the dog, making it slightly more susceptible to cold. In the wild, this dog could survive or find a new area and breed with another animal in a warmer climate. Whereas, the human breeder has instantly determined that this trait is deleterious. In one instance, there is an opportunity to continue to increase the genetic diversity of dogs with the addition of a dog the size of a malamute, but with shorter hair for warmer climates. In the other, there is a physical barrier guaranteeing the mutation will not propagate. So, what I would ask Faith is what is the barrier that stops mutations from accumulating, as long as the creature survives, in the wild? In other words, what is the barrier that makes it similar to breeding where asthetics chooses the beneficial mutations?
Also, you are stating that genetic diversity is only decreased by the founder effect, and in a sense, you are correct. Initially, the genetic diversity is reduced because of the smaller population size. However, after the founder population begins to propagate (say twenty pure bred malamutes are released onto a tropical island with no other dogs), the mutations will begin to accumulate, at least the neutral (a majority of mutations) and the beneficial (the minority of mutations) will accumulate, while any malamute born with a deleterious (middle of the majority and minority) mutation will be removed from the population by its inability to survive and breed. Say we leave these malamutes to propagate in a new type of enviroment for 1,000 years. With their hunting abilities being closely related to wolves and the pack mentality, we could expect them to survive off wildlife (as so many dogs did when settlers reached new lands), how many mutations could have had time to accumulate within that time? Without a mechanism to stop the number of mutations from growing, there is no telling which direction these purebred dogs could go. We could end up with dogs with no undercoat, that have shorter stature, or any of a myriad of possible options, because there is no longer a breeder controlling the process, just nature allowing what works just good enough to survive and breed. Breeders have specific requirements/Evolution has just good enough to survive and breed, that is an enormous difference between the two that you are forgetting along with your lack of a mechanism to stop mutations from accumulating.
So, Faith, you want to prove your point, there are two issues you need to explain before you can even begin to make sense with your non-biblical argument. First, could you justify your statement that evolution works in similar ways to breeding animals for specific traits? Also, could you explain the mechanism that exists for stopping the accumulation of mutations on the genome in the wild? Explaining these two points should lead us to a way to test your thoughts on the issue, but until then you are the one standing in the realm of speculation.
As for the OP, I feel you have done a splendid job of showing the cognitive dissonance that religion can force someone to live under. You hand wave away evidence, or state that science is biased whenever it goes agaisnt your views and then have a hypocritical stance when it can be reconciled with your beliefs. Why not lose the hypocritical part and find a way to reconcile every bit of evidence with your belief? If you were to say, "I trust the facts currently point to evolution for the diversity of species, I trust that the evidence points to an ancient Earth, but personally, I believe in a Supernatural being without evidence, and that is my opinion of origins," I would have far less issue with you because you at least are separating your objective facts from your subjective opinion, instead of letting subjective cloud your objective.
The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity. - Richard Dawkins
Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. - Issac Asimov
If you removed all the arteries, veins, & capillaries from a person’s body, and tied them end-to-endthe person will die. - Neil Degrasse Tyson
What would Buddha do? Nothing! What does the Buddhist terrorist do? Goes into the middle of the street, takes the gas, *pfft*, Self-Barbecue. The Christian and the Muslim on either side are yelling, "What the Fuck are you doing?" The Buddhist says, "Making you deal with your shit. - Robin Williams
™ Version 4.2
