: : Now, a challenge for you, Shaun.: : In 1960, 13% of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria were resistant to penicillin.
: : In 1988, 91% of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria were resistant to penicillin.
: : The generally-accepted reason is that natural selection occurred due to the constant exposure these bacteria had to the antibiotics used in the meat industry; only the naturally resistant mutations of the bacteria survived and bred, leading to strains of Staphylococcus aureus that were resistant to antibiotics like Penicillium.
: : How can you explain it, if you don't believe in natural selection, which is the fundamental mechanism of evolution?
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: That's not evolution, that's adaptation to ones envirnment.
Which is what evolution is, Shaun. Take Darwin's famous example of the Galapagos finches; the shapes of their bills had changed to adapt to their environment; they had speciated; which is one of the examples he gave when formulating the theory of evolution.
: Lets say that in 1960, 13% of the children who were left on a desert island survived thier encounter and in 1988 91% of children left on a desert island survived. Does this prove that evolution is true?
"Survival of the fittest"?; it's a common statement of evolutionists. The organism, when exposed to a hostile force, altered its genetic chemistry to nullify the threat from the hostile force.
Your example isn't exactly apt, though; we're not talking about a group of children; we're talking about an entire species of bacteria. A slightly more accurate analogy would be for all the children to develop gills; so that the sea no longer killed them; that's the sort of radical change in genetic makeup we're talking about.
: Or does it show that as time went on those kids learned how to live and adapt to thier surroundings and fend for themselves? Those stephanie aurora borealis things you were talking about eventually learned how to survive the penicillin thats all.
Bacteria aren't "learning" creatures, Shaun. The ones that had natural resistance to antiobiotics survived and bred; while the ones who didn't died. Over many generations, the genetic trait towards antibiotic resistance became a dominant one, since only the antibiotic-resistant strains managed to survive long. Hey presto; many generations down the line, you get antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
That's natural selection; it's the dynamic behind the theory of evolution.
: I don't think all scientific stuff is stupid. For instance, I do believe the earth is billions of years old and I think its possible that there was a big bang that created the earth.
So how does this fit with your view of the Bible as a true account?
: But I simply cannot believe that living cells just evolved from out of nowhere. Where did they come from? How did the first living cell come about? The only logical explination is that somebody created it.
On the contrary; Urey and Miller demonstrated that the organic soup which characterised the Earth's first surface could form amino-acids such as glycine and alanine; read about it here. Amino acids can form RNA, which acts as a simple Von Neumann machine. Both of the above effects are reproducable in a lab; you can watch them happen, if you want to.
: And how does some kind of amoeba or cell or whatever evolve into a higher life form like a monkey, and then a person? It can't happen.
I wish I knew what could and couldn't happen without even looking...
: If I leave a wristwatch on the ground for millions of years can it evolve into a pc? So then how can a microorganism evolve into a higher life form. It only makes sense that somebody created it.
No. A PC is not a Von Neumann machine; a microorganism is; that is to say, a PC does not have the means to reproduce itself or alter its composition; a bacteria does. A PC has all the evolutionary complexity of a rock; a bacteria is far more advanced.
Shaun, your attempt so far has been to use natural selection to explain the observed data whilst at the same time insisting that evolution doesn't exist; this is an auto-contradiction.
You might like to read the following page - it's pretty comprehensive.
Farinata.
None.
