Posted by Brian Cryer on 06/11/06 08:09

"Harry K" <turnkey4099@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1149992725.856042.55680@h76g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
<snip>
> > "and yes, that evolution is true" its not first April is it? Oh dear,
you
> > are on very weak ground there. Most people confuse evolution with
natural
> > selection, for which evidence abounds. Every so called "evidence" that I
was
> > presented with at school (evolution of the horse, vestigal organs,
> > recapitulation theory, the peppered moth, etc) or have later heard on
the
> > news have all been disproved. All thats left is the emporers new
clothes,
> > people believe it because everyone else does. Its a good example of
faith.
> > (To be honest its really an example of people being kept in ignorance.)
Try
> > finding one piece of evidence that has not been disproved or
discredited. To
> > save me the time dealing with your response, if you think you've found
> > something then please spend the time researching it.
>
> Would you care to explain what, in your understanding, the difference
> is between evolution and natural selection? Natural selection is part
> of evolution, really one of the basic mechanisms driving evolution.

Simple. Natural selection is a mechanism for selecting between available
genes in the gene pool. Natural selection does not of itself provide any
mechanism for introducting new information. For example, it is commonly
accepted that all the different varieties of dog were derived from a single
common wolf ancester. Natural selection (or at least the mechanism, often
helped along by selective breeding which is the same mechanism as natural
selection just with man doing the selecting), has produced from the original
dog king all the different varieties of dog you see today. However, this has
resulted in a loss of information, and because of this you cannot get to say
an German Shepherd or back to the original wolf kind from an Alsation,
because the necessary genes are no longer available to in the gene pool of
those types of dogs. (But I suppose in theory you could recreat the wolf
kind by trying to combine genes from the different types of dog around
today.)

Natural selection does not provide any means of introducting new
information. It is the introduction of new information that is required by
evolution. It is commonly regarded that mutation is the means for that
introduction of information, but (as far as I am aware) all known mutations
result in a loss of information (which can sometimes be beneficial to the
creature). You cannot get from a single celled creature to man by loss of
information. Plus of course, the fossil record is quite absent of any
evidence of transitionary forms. Like I said before, where is the evidence?

> If you think that those 'evidences' that you mentioned have been
> disproven I invite you over to the group talk.origins to debate it.
> And before you begin:

I wasn't aware of talk.origins, I'll certainly pay it a visit. Thank you.

> Yes, we are descended from a common ancestor with the great apes
> (actually we are a member of the great apes) and that ancestore came
> from a common ancestor with the 'monkeys'. Our nearest cousin is the
> Bonobos.

My nearest cousin is called Angus, and he's an accountant. If you want to
believe you are descented from a monkey then that's your faith, but its a
faith lacking in supporting evidence (like I said before, its the emporer's
new clothes).

> I see no point in continuing as your 'faith' prevents you from
> considering anything other than what you have learned in your church.

Actually, what I learnt about the other supporting literature about the
reality of Jesus' life I didn't learn from church but by independent
investigation.

I agree however that you are not going to change the reality of Jesus, but I
would hope that you will have at least appreciated how your own beliefs
influence how you interpret the evidences presented to you.
--
Brian Cryer
www.cryer.co.uk

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