[InfiniteNow]

There have been lots of posts lately about evolution. Let's poll it.

[Tormod]

More correctly, there have been a lot of posts by very few people about evolution. It's been fairly quiet on that front until today since the last batch of creationists stopped by.

[TheBigDog]

I think it will be tough to find people who do not believe in evolution at all. Natural selection has been very well established. The missing question is "Do you believe that evolution by itself is responsible for all living things?". I can answer "no" to that without hesitation.

Look at wild dogs. They come in a couple of basic shapes and sizes. But in just a few thousand years over a hundred distinct breeds of dogs have come into being, of all sorts of shapes, sizes, temperments, talents and abilities. These did not evolve. They were engineered by man through selective breeding. Same deal with housecats and agriculture. Now with genetic engineering we can accellerate our ability to do this. This is not evidence of intelligent design of man, it is evidence of intelligent design by man - of dogs, cats and roses, tomatoes, oranges, cows, pigs, etc. It is not evidence of divine intelligence, it is evidence of man's intelligence.

Bill

[Tormod]

Originally Posted by TheBigDog

It is not evidence of divine intelligence, it is evidence of man's intelligence.

I think it was Carl Sagan who said something like:

When Percival Lowell saw canals on Mars, it was perhaps the first evidence for intelligence in the universe. The question was, "at which end of the telescope?"

[arkain101]

Lets put up the official definition while we are at it so we know what page to think over.
from wiki,

In biology, evolution is the process by which populations of organisms acquire and pass on novel traits from generation to generation. Its action over large stretches of time explains the origin of new species and ultimately the vast diversity of the biological world. The living species of today are related to each other through common descent, products of evolution and speciation over billions of years. The phylogenetic tree at right represents these relationships for the three major domains of life.

[InfiniteNow]

I knew at least one person here would choose the last one...

[Mercury]

Few years of being spoon-fed about evolution in school, and another few years of self studying through various sources, I gravitated myself towards believing it.

Call it blind faith.

[arkain101]

Believe...

So this is technically asking, do you feel that it might be or might not be.

Who knows ...

[dagaz]

Originally Posted by TheBigDog

The missing question is "Do you believe that evolution by itself is responsible for all living things?". I can answer "no" to that without hesitation.

I believe that once you have genetic information, subject to random mutations, encased by a permeable membrane, and passed on through reproduction (sexual or asexual) you are pretty well on evolution's path. The thing that I'm trying really hard to get my head around at the moment (I'm currently reading Paul Davies' "The Fifth Miracle") is how that first gene based cell got going in the first place.

Also, at what point do the organic molecules making up a cell become a "living thing"?

[the romantic cynic]

Originally Posted by Tormod

More correctly, there have been a lot of posts by very few people about evolution. It's been fairly quiet on that front until today since the last batch of creationists stopped by.

i'd just like to say i love you too.

ps i'm a creationist and a scientifically minded person, yes it does compute.