Now that is a strange assumption....I have read the research, but perhaps without the lens that most evolutionists use when reading the same material.
You assume that because I have read the articles that I must be swept away by the suggestions.....well, I'm not. I actually find them quite comical at times.
Uneducated commentary?.....LOL....you mean unindoctrinated commentary, don't you?
Let me give you an example of the kinds of things that are fed to young students of science....
"Natural selection
Natural selection is one of the basic mechanisms of evolution, along with mutation, migration, and genetic drift.
Darwin's grand idea of evolution by natural selection is relatively simple but often misunderstood. To find out how it works, imagine a population of beetles:
- There is variation in traits.
For example, some beetles are green and some are brown.
- There is differential reproduction.
Since the environment can't support unlimited population growth, not all individuals get to reproduce to their full potential. In this example, green beetles tend to get eaten by birds and survive to reproduce less often than brown beetles do.
- There is heredity.
The surviving brown beetles have brown baby beetles because this trait has a genetic basis.
- End result:
The more advantageous trait, brown coloration, which allows the beetle to have more offspring, becomes more common in the population. If this process continues, eventually, all individuals in the population will be brown.
If you have variation, differential reproduction, and heredity, you will have evolution by natural selection as an outcome. It is as simple as that."
So at the end of the day...what do we end up with? Beetles......just beetles. They might be different colors but they have not changed into anything other than a beetle...so what are we proving? That adaptation can make things change shape and color without changing their "kind".
Let's continue......
"Natural selection at work
Scientists have worked out many examples of natural selection, one of the basic mechanisms of evolution.
Any coffee table book about natural history will overwhelm you with full-page glossies depicting amazing adaptations produced by natural selection, such as the examples below.
Orchids fool wasps into "mating" with them.
Katydids have camouflage to look like leaves.
Non-poisonous king snakes mimic poisonous coral snakes.
The male blue-footed booby, shown to the right, exaggerates his foot movements to attract a mate."
So what do we see here? Mindless Orchids just decided to decorate the cusp of their flowers to resemble a female wasp, complete with the right pheromone, just to attract a pollinator? Undirected chance did that?
The katydids made themselves so closely the leaves upon which they lived that you couldn't tell them apart? How clever of the katydid to think of camouflage as a way to survive.
The king snake realized that dressing up as a poisonous snake would also be a good idea.....and the blue footed boobies must have been influenced by Elvis to put on their blue suede shoes....? Are you getting a sense of what I am seeing as opposed to someone indoctrinated by science?
"In some cases, we can directly observe natural selection. Very convincing data show that the shape of finches' beaks on the Galapagos Islands has tracked weather patterns: after droughts, the finch population has deeper, stronger beaks that let them eat tougher seeds.
In other cases, human activity has led to environmental changes that have caused populations to evolve through natural selection. A striking example is that of the population of dark moths in the 19th century in England, which rose and fell in parallel to industrial pollution. These changes can often be observed and documented."
Natural selection at work
As previously mentioned, the entire series in this online teaching tool shows that natural selection creates variety within a species.
The finches on the Galapagos Islands were not evolving into anything but new varieties of finches. The peppered moths were turning into....peppered moths of a different color. That is what was observed and documented.
What is the data "convincing" people about? Nothing more than what the scientists are suggesting to their intended audience. No facts, just suggestions that anyone can see don't really add up.
Adaptation is a far cry from macro-evolution.
You need more.....?
How about that whale evolution?
"The evolution of whales
The first thing to notice on this evogram is that hippos are the closest living relatives of whales, but they are not the ancestors of whales. In fact, none of the individual animals on the evogram is the direct ancestor of any other, as far as we know. That's why each of them gets its own branch on the family tree."
Hang on....did you read that? "hippos are the closest living relatives of whales, but they are not the ancestors of whales. In fact,
none of the individual animals on the evogram is the direct ancestor of any other, as far as we know."
"Hippos are large and aquatic, like whales, but the two groups evolved those features separately from each other. We know this because the ancient relatives of hippos called anthracotheres (not shown here) were not large or aquatic. Nor were the ancient relatives of whales that you see pictured on this tree — such as Pakicetus. Hippos likely evolved from a group of anthracotheres about 15 million years ago, the first whales evolved over 50 million years ago, and the ancestor of both these groups was terrestrial."
Read that all again and tell me what its saying. They say these things without a single reference to any proof and expect young minds to just accept it all as gospel (pardon the pun).
"These first whales, such as Pakicetus, were typical land animals. They had long skulls and large carnivorous teeth. From the outside, they don't look much like whales at all. However, their skulls — particularly in the ear region, which is surrounded by a bony wall — strongly resemble those of living whales and are unlike those of any other mammal. Often, seemingly minor features provide critical evidence to link animals that are highly specialized for their lifestyles (such as whales) with their less extreme-looking relatives."
Skeletons of two early whales.
I can see the resemblance....can't you?
An ear bone that strongly resembles those of a whale??? That's all the evidence you need?
What a load of old cods.....