1 piece of evidence to disprove evolution..

Well, you obviously don't, because if you did, you'd know that there's a perfectly logical path for the evolution of the eye. Maybe you'd like to guess, or search google? Or we could just try and explain it to you.It didn't evolve by random mutation, of course. It evolved by random mutation + natural selection. (It's that selection process that weeds out the failures so all you're left with is the successes.) But the lack of fossil evidence for avian transition isn't evidence that it never happened. It simply means we don't know which of our ample theories on the evolution of birds is the most accurate. Just because we don't know which theory is right doesn't mean that they're all wrong.[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 08-15-2003]

Where your analogy fails is that you didn't make the legos. (I forget who invented legos, but I assume it wasn't you.)See, your mother "made" you, in a sense - but she didn't design the blueprint. She just followed the instructions, if you will. Likewise if you build #121212 Average Lego House you didn't really make it, the design process did.So the fact that your lego house and your lego rocket ship are composed of the same components is significant, because you didn't really make them. They're both decendants of the same prior lego designs.All life is made of protiens. As far as we know it didn't have to be this way. specifically all life is apparently composed of (largely) left-handed protiens, but random chemical reactions tend to generate protiens in equal measures of right- and left-handed. That life on earth is composed largely of the same type of protien is great evidence for common descent. Because the earth is bigger. Basic Newtonian mechanics. Actually, to be most accurate, the moon and Earth both orbit around a point in between them. It's just that the earth is so much more massive than the moon that the point they orbit is located within the surface of the earth (but not at the center).If the earth and moon were of the same mass, they'd orbit around a point halfway between them.

No, because evolution doesn't create the optimum organism. The results of evolution are just good enough. (This is why you have a body that isn't quite suited to bipedal walking.)So, survival of the fittest is about which organism wins when there's competition for resources like food and mates. But not all spiders are in competition with each other - they inhabit different areas or eat different things - so competition hasn't driven a need for venom in all spiders. No, there's light-skinned Africans. And by and large the peoples of the Middle East are light-skinned - as light-skinned as a white guy would be if he lived in that area. So the data bears out exactly what you said we should expect. Again, it depends on how benefical the mutation is, and how competitive the environment is. If the species aren't in great competition the individuals without the mutation may do very well for themselves. Because evolution doesn't optimize. If near-blind ants are good enough to reproduce (and looking at my kitchen, this is clearly the case) then they survive.And it's not like they lack senses. Their sense of smell is quite acute, as it's their primary means of communication. And adjusted for scale they may very well see as far as you.

Why? What's so special about a carrion eater?

Well, that may very well be, but predation isn't the only limit on population growth. After all if the only time you get to eat is when you find something (mostly) freshly dead - and you have only moderate ability to hasten that process yourself - then the size of your population becomes very dependant on food.Luckily (for T. Rex at the time) dead animals are a renewable resource.

That may very well be... I'm of the (largely uninformed) opinion that T. Rex was mostly a scavenger with a limited ability to catch the occasional sick, weak sauropod. I think she was just too big to be a good hunter. But what do I know?

This is rapidly devolving into a debate along the lines of "Star Destroyer vs. Starship Enterprise, who wins?" Nonetheless... Sure. But if the T. Rex is taller than most of its prey, it's attacking the backs of it's potential meals. With as dense ribs as those dinosaurs typically had, nothing the T Rex has in it's arsenal is going to make much of a dent.It's that disembowling claw of the dromaeosaurs, in my uninformed opinion, that really marks them as predators. T Rex just doesn't have the hardware to bring down Triceratops, it seems to me.

Just as an example of how the "superior design" doesn't always take over, consider the example of the zebra mussel, currently taking over most of the lakes in this part of the country. The zebra mussel is a small freshwater mussel with a striped shell, usually about an inch long.It has absolutely no advantages over indiginous mussels, none whatsoever - except for a lack of natural predators and a highly prodigious birthrate. That's all it takes, basically.And, like we said, evolution doesn't optimize. Sometimes there's little benefit to be had with a slightly better claw, or knees that don't give out when you're 60, in terms of reproductive success.

Only if it allows you to protect your children or grandchildren, or something. That's all I could think of, and at some point, your continued existence starts to divert resources that your progeny could be using, so there's a diminishing returns aspect.

Uh, read a book. In mantises that's the female eating the male, after the mating. She's already got what she needs from him. She'll have his kids. His job is done, so he presents a food gift - himself.Asgara's example was of a lion killing the female before she'd had a chance to bear his children, or even recieve his sperm.Surely this difference must be apparent to you?

Yeah, exactly. That was the point - that a species doesn't always need a brilliant new mutation to take over. And that a great new mutation doesn't equate with species domination.

Why does he need to mate any more? Thanks to his selfless actions he's going to be the postumously proud father of half a million or so new baby mantises, who might not have been born at all if he hadn't fed the mother. Sounds like a good deal to me. (Especially since his genitals exploded during the mating to gunk up her cloaca and prevent the deposition of the sperm of his competitors.) Because the spiders who lack them live in environments where they either aren't necessary, or would be a liability. Venom isn't universally useful. What's not to get about this?