M:
Hi judge,
I fail to see how either of those supports the idea that creationism finds hypermutation, natural selection, or allele frequencies or any other measure of genetic change over time more relevant than the theory of evolution.
Judge:
Neither do I :-)
I don't think I claimed this though. I did not claim it was "more relevant". In the first or second post it was stated..."Natural selection can't happen ..right"
I wanted to indicate that this is a strawman argument. Of course natural selection happens and to sugest that creationists or all creationists deny this is a strawman and counterproductive to discussion.
M:
The first paragraph suggesting that Darwin proposed a lower to higher scheme of evolution is unclear to me from my reading of the Origin of Species...though some of the terminology used by Darwin and his contemporaries would today be taken as offensive..much like the reaction you would probably get in New York City if you called an Afro American a negro. In any case, besides there being no support for degeneration I still fail to see how this supports your initial premise.
Judge:
My initial premise is that creationists ackowledge that natural selection occurs, and possibly more so
at times than under conventional models.
M:
The second passage makes a false assertion, that artificial selection works in a way unrelated to natural selection...and then does not support the assertion...
Judge:
Perhaps the explanation is given in the body of the book?
M:
the rest goes on to point out that Darwin and most of his contemporaries did not know anything about the mechanisms of heredity i.e. genetics and then goes on to ignore the fact that there has been over 150 years of research since the publication of the Origin of Species where scientists did know about heredity.
Again, I fail to see how any of this supports creationism or the premise that creationist interpretation somehow relies on mutation or natural selection at all.
Judge:
The point is that the original argument contains a "strawman".Whether creationists
rely on it I don't know but it is certainly ackowledged as occrring in their models...some at least.
It is not seen as being able (in conjunction with random muataion) to justify a beleif that microbes turned into men, thats all.
all the best
[This message has been edited by judge, 09-10-2003]