Most convincing evidence for evolutionary theory

As I said above, bird flu isn't a retrovirus. It is a negative-sense single stranded RNA virus. And mad cow isn't even a virus, but a prion (rogue protein rather than a rogue genome).But let me pretend that you did just tell me a cross-kind retrovirus. Now we can move on.The other difference between your view and mine is that you require two viral infections, one in one species/kindone in another. On the other hand, I require only one that is passed on to the two descendant species.To go back to the analogy that iceage brought up, we see this in two different documents.

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Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

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If you had shown me a cross-kind retrovirus, you would have shown, in this example, that both authors of these documents have a sticky comma button on their keyboard. Now you have to give an explanation as to why it got stuck in the same spot in such a big document.PS: It's ok WK. I don't mind this topic. But if it keeps going, maybe we take it out to another thread.Edited by Doddy, : No reason given.

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That's true. I wonder why more evolutionists don't use this as proof. Also, I have to work out a way to explain it simply. Perhaps I should have a picture of a human chromosome and a chimp chromosome and highlight the retroviral elements?Any ideas? What was helpful for you to understand it, what wasn't and what do you still need to know?As for now though, I'd appreciate all talk on retroviruses move to another thread. If nobody has started one in a few hours, maybe I will.

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Well, not it doesn't, but it does have to be able to integrate into the genome. If it can't, then the virus will never leave any trace in the next organism, as it can't enter the genome of the sperm/ova.Also of note, and to bear in mind with the future discussion, is that viral elements are not thought to be involved in the divergence of apes and humans.Anyway, any further discussion on this topic can go to my new thread when it gets promoted: Endogenous retroviral elements as proof of common descent

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Rubbish!Consider an example. Say some toads (maybe just 102 individual toads, certainly not all of the toads in existence) of a certain toad species is transported from a pacific archipelago to a large continent, such as Australia. On that new continent, it faces large distances, drought, new predators and different food sources, and adapts accordingly (long legs, smaller body size and larger poison glands). So much adaptation may occur that it could become a different species to the original on the island (so if these mainland toads were brought back to their island, they wouldn't breed with the island toads). Will that cause the previous species, those still living on that island atoll, to die?Edited by Doddy, : clarify

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HEY! STOP TALKING ABOUT RETROVIRAL INSERTIONS!This thread is not for a detailed discussion on the validity of a certain evidence, but merely to discuss the efficacy of certain evidences in debate, and ways to increase that efficacy. If you want to continue, please do so hereSo, to try get back on track, I recently listened to a interview with Australian Professor Ian Plimer, a noted anti-creationist (focussing on geologic aspects, such as the Noachian Flood), and he advocates the Socratic Method - to pretend you know little about what the creationist is saying and ask them to explain what they mean, then bring up well-placed questions to show how their explanation falls down.How do you think that would work? Anyone tried it?

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Yes RAZD, it is fairly easy to convince a creationist that evolution is happening. They call that microevolution.But, it is much harder (almost impossible) to convince them that evolution has happened and is the way in which life became what we see today. They would call that macroevolution, and dogmatically deny its occurrence.To many, it is just logical backwards extrapolation of what we see today. Others, however, may require something else to show them that this extrapolation is valid. Evidence for evolutionary theory.

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SAVE MY THREAD! Yes, that occurred to me (and was brought up by others, such as Ringo in msg 25, but seeing as this was in the science forum, I decided not to focus on it. Mind if I bring it up now? It might not be completely on topic, but more relevant than the current tangent. After all, it is related to my question in message 23 - how to make the scientific evidence more compelling.What should you do if someone falls back on an interpretation of the Bible, and uses that as their "History book of the universe" (as Ken Ham would say). Should we try to show that evolution does not conflict with their religion, as theistic evolutionist will attest to, or should we avoid religion completely and focus on science. Or, should we attack the biblical literalism? Personally, I doubt the latter strategy would be wise, because that would just add fuel to the fire (creationists mostly consider evolution as a threat to their religion).

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