No, I take issue with your assertion that people's belief in evolution is based on faith and that you continue to try and place them in the same vein as people who believe in a god based on faith. It's not the same.
It is.
That's what I take issue with. One is based on fact, the other is based on a belief taught to you from childhood with no basis in fact.
If your understanding of evolution is not correct, it is not based on fact. Yours is not correct. Therefore, it is faith.
I also take issue with the fact that you continue to assert that my understanding of evolution is flawed, though it is based on an actual education and the accepted rule of science while you continue to fail in backing up anything you claim to be as fact.
I have stated the truth as current evolutionary science holds it to be. Your statements are incorrect.
I think what you fail to understand and can't seem to accept is that your opinion is not fact. I understand that it's your opinion and is indeed important to you, but your opinion is not the foundation of scientific facts. And neither is mine or anyone else's for that matter. Until you can prove or at least support your position it is simply hot air.
One of us is right and one of is wrong with regard to positions such as
'humans are being born without appendixes and that is evolution'. It is not. Belief that it is would be incorrect.
Alrighty then... So my notes are accurate yet the statements based on those notes are incorrect? Gotcha'. Glad we got that straightened out.
Correct.
I don't suppose you simply didn't understand what I was saying? No... that couldn't be it. It was definately me. :shrug:
Yes, it was.
Funny...my notes say otherwise... you know...the ones you said were accurate. It is in fact a reaction to stimulus within the environment that causes species to adapt; heat, cold, dry, wet...availability of food ..etc.
Your notes do not say that. You are reading them as they were apparently given to you, but you clearly do not understand them.
When a group of a species migrates into another environment... and become isolated from the original group, the factors of the new environment influence how they evolve but have no influence on the original group...BECAUSE THEY AREN'T THERE!
You did not say that. You said that the isolation was the cause of the evolutionary change. The change happens regardless. One environment may favor it, another may not.
Darwin points this out by using the examples of the different species of finch in the islands pointing out that their beaks evolved to adapt to the available food sources.
No. Their beaks did not evolve to adapt. That is incorrect, and Darwin did not say that. They mutated, which resulted in differently-shaped beaks. One mutation was superior to another for whatever type of food was available on any given island. Your description gives an anthropomorphic reason for evolution. Evolution is purely random chance. You say "X happened, and therefore Y adapted to meet the change imposed by X." No. In reality, X happened, and a random mutation resulted in a Y adaptation, which happened to be more successful based on X conditions.
If a mutation, as you put it, occurs due to an environmental influence it's not evolution?
It does not matter why a mutation occurs, it is not evolution unless it results in a survival or reproductive advantage for that species and it becomes dominant.
Mutations happen constantly. If they convey no advantage, they are not evolutionary.
That's what you're saying. Do you know what an appendix is used for? That is...in animals that actually do use one. Here's a homework assignment for you... research that. Then perhaps you'll figure out why humans aren't using them much any more.
I have not stated anything regarding the use of an appendix. What I have stated is that humans being born with one or without one (a mutation) confers no survival or reproductive advantage, therefore it is not evolutionary. If it is not evolutionary, one cannot extrapolate that eventually, humans will have no appendixes.
Darwin stated that those best adapted to their environment would survive. If my environment has no meat, and I don't adapt to eating grass then I will likely die. It's really not that complicated.
Correct, but *you* adapting to eat grass is not evolution, that's just versatility. If you have children, and one of them can eat grass, it will survive and reproduce better than your children who cannot eat grass. If that child breeds true (passing on the grass-eating gene), then an evolutionary change will have occurred.
The change in environment did not cause the grass-eating mutation to arise. Your child did not mutate in response to the environment. It was random chance that happened to work out.
A real-life example of this is lactose intolerance. It turns out that most people are lactose-intolerant to some extent. Exceptions appear to be genetically-linked to people deriving from Northern Europeans, who had access to goat and (later) cow's milk. Being able to digest milk from cows and goats gave a survival advantage to children born in areas where such creatures were plentiful. That's evolution. The children did not mutate the genes that allowed lactose tolerance to appear in response to cows - it was a happy accident. All mutations are accidents.
Lactose tolerance may well have also appeared in people who lived where cows and goats were not plentiful - but in those locations, it gave no advantage. Therefore, the gene did not become dominant in that population.
Of course it is, because Bill says so. I don't suppose you'd like to actually present any facts or evidence to prove your assertion? I know it'd be a change for you but change is good! You should try it sometime, you know... evolve a little. :rofl:
It would not matter. You defend your statements because you are emotionally invested in them. That is yet another demonstration that they are faith-based.
Did you learn to "stretch" like that in MA class or does it come naturally?
I love those kinds of questions, where any answer given is wrong. Let me try one:
When did you quit beating your wife?
