TOE and the Reasons for Doubt

That's a religious belief.It has no necessary relationship to the real world.In fact, most such religious beliefs are contradicted by real world evidence. "Kinds," for example, is a religious belief that has failed the test against empirical evidence.Believe what you want, but don't call it science, and don't confuse it with what real world evidence has shown to have happened.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Those here who are suggesting that Sagan supports creationism or intelligent design would do well to read his book, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

All you have to do to support the idea that "all creatures would have been there at the start" is find discrete fossil layers with all creatures represented.Give it a try and see what you find.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Everything you point out argues that Lucy was a transitional, rather than the opposite.(Except the "monkey" comment--monkeys split off many million years before the time period under discussion.)

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Peg, you really should stop offering opinions on science. You have neither the education nor the inclination to do an adequate job, and your a priori belief system leads you consistently to the wrong answers. Geology shows both. You should remember that geological time is measured in millions of years, and "sudden appearances" might have taken several million years. False in several ways. The harmful mutations go away! They are eliminated from the gene pool. What do you think natural selection does, anyway? It eliminates those harmful mutations immediately. They do not "contribute to the degeneration of animal" because the animals that have them either are not born or die soon after. It is a creationist religious belief that the genome is deteriorating, and a false one that is not supported by scientific evidence.Secondly, scientists have been able to produce new species in the laboratory. You are behind the times in your research. Given this, the evidence shows that mutation does drive evolution, when coupled with natural selection. Humans adapt to very cold temperatures mostly by wearing clothes. There are some physical adaptations, among Eskimos and the folks living in Tierra del Fuego, for example, that are pretty interesting but I don't suppose you're aware of them.It works like this: if humans (going back hundreds of thousands of years) could adapt through culture to different environmental conditions, the selection pressure was greatly reduced, and they didn't have to adapt physically to as great a degree as otherwise would be the case.So, no. We wouldn't think that humans in very cold areas would begin to develop fur. Humans can only live in those areas through the benefits of our culture and technology, and those obviate the need to adapt physically. Absolute nonsense.As I suggested before, you really shouldn't bother to comment on science. Being so consistently wrong does no credit either to you or your cause. Take the advice of St. Augustine:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the heavens, and the other elements of the world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and the moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to be certain from reason and experience. Now it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and they hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make confident assertions [quoting 1Ti. 1:7].

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St. Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, 1:42-43.

Peg, I'm not going to bother pointing out all the errors in your post.Just accept that you are not the best person to be posting opinions on science.You do your cause no credit by being consistently wrong, and refusing to actually study the fields you are posting on. Creation "science" is the exact opposite of real science, and it would be best if you can't learn this to at least take my word for it and stick to subjects of which you might actually know something.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Are you aware that Wells is a member of Rev. Moon's Unification church, and only studied for his Ph.D. because he was asked to do so by Rev. Moon--for the purpose of combating the theory of evolution?Jonathan Wells - Wikipedia(intelligent_design_advocate)I don't think I would trust the Rev. Moon or Wells for an accurate opinion on anything pertaining to science. Nor should you.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Many creationists put scripture and "divine" revelation above the scientific method.For example, the Creation Research Society has the following in its Statement of Belief:

1. The Bible is the written Word of God, and because it is inspired throughout, all its assertions are historically and scientifically true in the original autographs. To the student of nature this means that the account of origins in Genesis is a factual presentation of simple historical truths.

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2. All basic types of living things, including man, were made by direct creative acts of God during the Creation Week described in Genesis. Whatever biological changes have occurred since Creation Week have accomplished only changes within the original created kinds.

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3. The great flood described in Genesis, commonly referred to as the Noachian Flood, was an historic event worldwide in its extent and effect.

Would you say that their members, who ascribe to this statement of belief, would be able to do actual science? What if scientific evidence came into conflict with scripture or revelation? Which would they follow?It would seem to me that they have chosen a path that is the exact opposite of science, and in fact is anti-science.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Those contentions have already been refuted.And you prove the point of my post: you should not even bother to comment on science for the reasons I gave in my previous post.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Creationist quote mines do not constitute empirical evidence.I looked up that quote; about the top ten hits on google were all creationist sites. And all seem to have engaged in the same kind of quote mining.When will you learn that when creationists trumpet quotations by evolutionary scientists as supporting their creationist beliefs that they are almost certainly lies--quote mines that make a scientist appear to say something exactly opposite to what he really said?If creationists really had evidence to support their position they wouldn't have to engage in this deceptive practice. But what they have is belief, not evidence, and they envy the reputation science has for accuracy so much that they steal the results of science and then distort or misrepresent those results to make them appear to support the creationist position when they generally say the opposite. That's pretty sad. And that's lying.And you fell for it (again).

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

When it comes to science you don't do any study.You just accept the lies and misinformation of those creationist sources.That's why creationists posting here and elsewhere on the internet can come up with "the second law of thermal documents" and "the odds against evolution are 1⁷²⁰" and other such gems. You've come up with such gems yourself.Why should those of us who know something about science in general, and a lot about a particular field of science, take anything a creationist says about science seriously? They have no real interest in science, and the last thing they really want to do is spend the time and effort to acquire some understanding of it.Creationists have far more than "doubts" about the theory of evolution. Creationists can't tolerate any science that contradicts their religious beliefs and are seeking to destroy those sciences. They can't combat the reputation science has achieved for accuracy, and the evidence, and so are willing to lie and misrepresent in their fight against science. And they want to teach these lies and misrepresentations in public schools. They don't care if they send us back to the Dark Ages to eliminate what they see as a threat to their beliefs from real world evidence.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

One minor problem with your post:

"...a scientist qualified by years of graft and experince?"

Perhaps an edit would be in order.Otherwise, excellent!

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

More creationist misinformation/disinformation.Seems like this is the latest effort to discredit the theory of evolution--to claim (dishonestly) that it is a philosophy rather than a science. This false claim follows closely on the heels of "teach the controversy" and other creationist nonsense. Probably just after you got religion, else why would you turn your back on established science for such fringe nonsense? See, the scientific evidence supports the theory of evolution and contradicts the type of fringe nonsense you have been posting here for days now.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

No, I just assumed you made a typo and meant "craft."But you learn something new here every day. Thanks for the explanation!

This is exactly what I was taught in a Human Races class in graduate school.The only addition I would make is that the northernmost peoples do not rely on the sun for vitamin D because they would freeze to death before they would get any appreciable benefit; the sun is too weak during the summer and nonexistent during the winter. There is no selection pressure for lighter skin in those areas, and the fish oils are the primary source of vitamin D.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.