Ed Leafe wrote:
On Aug 11, 2006, at 3:23 PM, Charlie Coleman wrote:
Are you saying the empirical evidence that Evolution exists is
greater than the empirical evidence that gravity exists? I don't
think I'd agree with that.
No. We have a great deal of evidence that both gravity and
evolution exist. They can both be considered facts.
What the big question is is how to explain these phenomena - we
know that they happen, but *why* do they happen. Gravity has many
potential explanations, and none of them are quite able to explain it
all. Evolution, OTOH, has largely explained how: natural selection.
What still remains to be determined in evolution is the nature of the
mutations that result in the genetic variety among species; there
seems to be a lot of inconsistency there, such as whether things
progress slow and steadily, or whether there is a long stasis
followed by abrupt change (the 'punctured equilibrium' view). Like
most things, once you start digging down to the molecular level,
things are not as neat and tidy as you'd like.
Otherwise we'd be seeing species evolving into other species pretty
often and the fossil record would be very clear.
Well, we have "seen" this, but not on the time scales that are
intuitive to humans. We see species change just like we see
continents drift. The fossil record is about equally even for both
phenomena: enough to draw conclusions, but far from absolutely complete.
About 15,000 years ago, the gray wolf was the only species of dog, so in
an relatively short evolutionary period of only 15,000 years, man has
been able to created all the different breeds of dogs, each having its
origins in the gray wolf. This gives some hint how evolution happens;
how one specie can result in a variety of sub-species, for example.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4965516.stm
Regards,
LelandJ
Hey, why aren't the fundamentalists pushing for warning stickers
in science books that mention plate tectonics? Out of all scientific
notions, that's probably the closest to evolution in terms of
scientific evidence and overall time scale.
-- Ed Leafe
-- http://leafe.com
-- http://dabodev.com
[excessive quoting removed by server]
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