: : Yes, well, that's entirely different from saying that races are separate species. Surely you can see that, can't you? : No not really, the mere fact that you admit that races, isolated for a "long enough" period of time, become another species demonstrates its own absurdity. Can you offer any human evidence that this is certainly the case? I don't agree with that.
Of course not because it is a meaningless question. You're asking "can you offer evidence that any members of one species, humans, are actually another species?" That question has no scientific meaning. As Farinata and I have BOTH explained, repeatedly, anatomically modern humans have not speciated (but see below). Humans are a relatively recent species, less than 200,000 years, and have not had time to speciate at all. HOWEVER, as we have both also explained, IF humans (or any other animal or plant, for that matter) were to speciate, it could only happen as a result of gene pool isolation, exactly as it has happened in all living species previously.
: Moreover, factor in "survival of the fittest" and you get a eugneicism of sorts. Margaret Sanger, the American eugenicist and founder of the modern day Planned Parenthood movement, coined the phrase "more from the fit, less from the unfit". Who did she determine to be "unfit"? That's right, people not of her race.
"Survival of the fittest" is not a valid descriptor for Darwinian theory. This term is straight out of Spencer and Darwin loathed it for its connotations. "Fitness," in Darwinian terms, is merely a measure of reproductive success. I don't give a flying hoot about what Ms. Sanger may or may not have said about who should reproduce, as it's an irrelevant topic, as far as the (demonstrated) reality of evolution is concerned. And again, we have already explained that "eugenics" is not Darwinian. This Ad hominem argument is ineffective and a dead issue. Let it go, please, as I get bored having to constantly re-state every single point I've made. Go back and read Farinata's and my previous posts on this topic if you still don't understand why you can't tar Darwin with the eugenecist brush.
: : That's how DNA works, and that is what Farinata and I were talking about with so-called "races." Now, does that make sense?
: Again, no. A book will always be a book. It won't change into a web page without a designer or programer. Bad analogy for evolution.
Wrong again. Although "a book will always be a book," if I were to change all the letters in the Bible, say by moving them one space down in the alphabet (so all A's are replaced with B's, all B's with C's and so on,) would it still be "the Bible?" It would still be a bound collection of pieces of paper with writing on them, but is the phrase "Jo ulf cfhjoojoh..." the "divine word of god?" I think you'd have to agree that "Jo ulf cfhjoojoh" does not have the same inspirational value as "In the beginning," but is, in fact, fundamentally different in some way. Yes, it is still "a book," just as humans, roses, and three-toed sloths are still life forms, but it is most decidedly not THE SAME book, just as these are not all one species.
: Good analogy for the Creator however. Every manuscript copy was produced by an intelligent human being. In fact, the intelligence of the human being is infinitely greater than that of a manuscript. All of the creatures upon this earth have some commonality in component design, so that's simply evidence for a common Creator.
Well, ok, you've used the "design argument" before, as have many of your colleagues, and I find it faulty for a number of reasons. Most of these are addressed in the FAQs about creationism found on Foley's Talk Origins website and I don't really need to get into them here.
However, to date, no creationist has been able or willing to answer the one question I have about "design" arguments in general:
Premise 1) Assume that "god" created us (humans) in his own image (that is part of the argument, correct?)
P.2) Observe the very large brain-weight to body size ratio found in humans (exceeded only by the ratio in ants and, perhaps, bottle-nosed dolphins) and the phenomenal complexity of organization of this brain (apparently unexceeded, but I'm not so sure about the dolphins).
P.3) Observe how the use of this large, and complexly-organized brain has enabled humans to understand the way biological evolution works.
P.4) Assume that "god" is smarter than his "creations" (that's also central to your argument, I believe).
From this, we must conclude that "god" would also have been able to figure out how biological evolution works, and thus have been able to use this simple set of organizing principles to create life; Q.E.D.
Now you'll notice that this argument takes the existence of "god" as a given, and also takes the purported absolute superiority of "god" and "his" similarity to humans as givens. These are all central parts to your arguments but, coupled with the observed data from biology, STILL lead to the conclusion that evolution is a reasonable explanation for the existence and diversity of life on earth.
The only alternative that you and other creationists have offered suggests that your god was only able to work in ways that were understandable to partially literate nomadic sheep herders that lived 4000 years or so before modern science was developed. It seems to me that YOUR argument places a lot more limitations on your god than mine does, frankly.
: Actually some scientists have done some recent work in this area and have shown that not to be the case. See Neandertal Takes a 180 .
OK, once again, (everybody sing along) "Hugh Ross is NOT an impartial source of information." His claim is patently false, and my experience with his previous work suggests that this may have been deliberate. Yes, neandertal was not a direct ancestor of modern humans, but NO, we are not unrelated, since we share a common ancestor. The lineages diverged, roughly 500,000 years ago. Look up the reference that Ross (probably intentionally) misquoted, rather than just reading Ross' claims. He's almost as bad as Duane Gish (who is quite possibly the least ethical debater alive today), frankly, and you shouldn't take anything he says at face value. The original article (quite contrary to Ross' assertion) notes that we are, in fact, quite closely related to neandertals, although that relationship is analogous to cousins, rather than grandchildren. This is a result of the fact that neandertals (actually, their erectus-grade ancestors) were separated, geographically, from the lineage that led to us. This is, in my opinion, the perfect example of the divergence of lineages that you asked for above. The genetic and biological similarities between neandertals and us are so overwhelming (greater than 99%) that we can not be unrelated, but there are differences, and these are due to the process of genetic divergence in geographically isolated populations, which is exactly the point that Farinata and I were making all along. Do you get it this time?
I'll be honest, Robert, I'm getting pretty bored with this thread. You keep making the same arguments over and over, even though we've repeatedly explained why they are invalid. I'll tell you what, go check out Foley's website mentioned above (http://www.talkorigins.org) and look at all the arguments presented and refuted there. If, after doing that, you still feel that there are holes in evolutionary theory that Foley and his contributors HAVE NOT covered, then write back. I'm not going to respond to any argument I've already refuted, since repetition does nothing to advance the argument and just exaspirates everyone involved.
-Floyd
