Halcyon
Lord of the Badgers
:banghead3
I'm not saying that there is no evidence to back up the theory of evolution, but you have to be sure about what definition you are using for different processes.
Evolution is "any change in gene frequency over time", so yes, Darwin's finch morph development, and the snake you mentioned is evolution, but on such a small scale it is preferrable to call it adaptation. The snake has adapted to larger prey, the finch has adapted to different food sources. They do not have anything significantly different to before, like a new organ or metabolic process.
You will probably find that the finches are still capable of successfully interbreeding, especially with the most recent morph, thus they are still the same species (a species being a population that can successfully interbreed) although they will be sub-catagorised. Human beings have adapted to different climates, black people have more melanin to protect them from the strong sunlight, most white people have become tolerant to lactose post infancy, oriental people's eyes have adapted to snow glare, none of us are however more evolved than the others, none of us have become something different from human.
So, yes life forms do change over time. But since this is a creationist vs evolutionist forum you ought to be aware of the arguments used by the other side e.g. the theory of kinds, that all animal species have descended from the original pairs taken onto the ark by noah, that they have adapted to different environments in the 4,000(?) years since.
Well, no not really because these species already exist, we didn't observe their entirely aquatic ancestors first adapting to land did we?
My entire point is that we cannot go back in time and observe evolution occuring throughout the history of this planet, thus we can never be 100% certain that life did evolve up to this point. We have fossils which seem to show animal and plant groups changing over time, we have continuing adaptation to this date, but we do not have a complete observable record of past living animals evolving into new forms, and we do not have evidence of anything today observably changing into something totally new and never seen before ala reptiles to mammals. This is what the creationists require, not adaptation.
I'm not saying that there is no evidence to back up the theory of evolution, but you have to be sure about what definition you are using for different processes.
Evolution is "any change in gene frequency over time", so yes, Darwin's finch morph development, and the snake you mentioned is evolution, but on such a small scale it is preferrable to call it adaptation. The snake has adapted to larger prey, the finch has adapted to different food sources. They do not have anything significantly different to before, like a new organ or metabolic process.
You will probably find that the finches are still capable of successfully interbreeding, especially with the most recent morph, thus they are still the same species (a species being a population that can successfully interbreed) although they will be sub-catagorised. Human beings have adapted to different climates, black people have more melanin to protect them from the strong sunlight, most white people have become tolerant to lactose post infancy, oriental people's eyes have adapted to snow glare, none of us are however more evolved than the others, none of us have become something different from human.
So, yes life forms do change over time. But since this is a creationist vs evolutionist forum you ought to be aware of the arguments used by the other side e.g. the theory of kinds, that all animal species have descended from the original pairs taken onto the ark by noah, that they have adapted to different environments in the 4,000(?) years since.
Well, no not really because these species already exist, we didn't observe their entirely aquatic ancestors first adapting to land did we?
No there hasn't, but can you show people evidence that god didn't plant the fossils there for us to find?
My entire point is that we cannot go back in time and observe evolution occuring throughout the history of this planet, thus we can never be 100% certain that life did evolve up to this point. We have fossils which seem to show animal and plant groups changing over time, we have continuing adaptation to this date, but we do not have a complete observable record of past living animals evolving into new forms, and we do not have evidence of anything today observably changing into something totally new and never seen before ala reptiles to mammals. This is what the creationists require, not adaptation.
