It is indeed conceivable that a bird could evolve. It is logical and makes sense. It fits the theory of evolution nicely that flying fish exist and seem to be "stepping stones" from fish to birds. Your point of view is valid and well supported.
Some intelligent people look at flying fish and see the handiwork and design of God.
I guess the point of my original post was not to get into a detailed debate, but to comment on the assumption (prevalent in most Slashdot posts to this kind of article) that everyone who rejects evolution is an idiot. The "religious right" and the "scientific left" both could use a bit more empathy and understanding of the other sides point of view.
And that is the weakest part of evolutionary theory, the part where a small changes don't explain everything. There has to be a big jump, a macroevolution, to go from single celled to multi celled organisms. I don't believe that we have ever witnessed a macro-evolutionary jump, and we have no smoking gun. All we have is logic and our limited understanding. I would hold that it is just as probable that there never has been a macro-evolutionary jump, that God designed single-celled organisms and that he also designed multi-celled organisms.
I think that at some point there has to be a big jump. Small changes do not get you from an organism that swims to an organism that breathes air. Or from a creature that walks, runs and jumps to one that flies. Either there was at some point a "macroevolutionary" jump, or the species were designed to do very different things.
You are right, your frog example is interesting but is an example of metamorphosis, not macroevolution. Life is indeed very diverse.
You are also right that I have limited ability to cope with the idea of 3 billion years. I think this is generally true of mankind, and I think that our science gets fuzzier and fuzzier the farther back we go. Assumptions and best guesses pile up, and we reach unjustified conclusions. We just don't have enough hard, empirical evidence to support one species evolving into another species.
Even assuming that you are correct about 3 billion years, the part where you lost me was "the first multicellular organism to accident its way into existence". Sounds about as scientific as spontaneous combustion.
Maybe it would be constructive if we stopped assuming that the 48% of people who reject evolution were all dribbling idiots. After all, the ability to see both sides of an issue is probably a good indicator of an evolved species.
Before I get too far, I feel it necessary to head off the inevitable insults that will come my way for presenting a differing opinion. Yes, I am an intelligent person. I have been a network administrator for 10 years, I am an RHCE, I scored high on my SATs. And I am also a Christian who believes in "Intelligent Design", the simple concept that God masterminded creation. I believe that he planned and designed the human species. I do not believe that we evolved from other species. I understand that there are intelligent people who do believe in evolution, and it is possible that I may be wrong, so I try and look at both sides of the issue.
It might help to acknowledge that what you accept as "fact" influences what theories you are prepared to believe. I think it is a fact that the Earth is round, therefore I am inclined to reject the theories of the Flat Earth Society, no matter how much evidence they present. Many people are atheists. Since they don't believe in God, they are well prepared to look for and accept scientific explanations for our existence. If, on the other hand, your faith tells you that God exists, and you accept that as "fact", then you are less likely to believe that God had no hand in designing humans.
It simplifies things a bit to recognize that there are 2 types of evidence: logical (or circumstantial), and empirical. Sometimes logical evidence can make perfect sense, but might still be wrong. This is why criminal court cases are stronger if they have empirical evidence, such as a smoking gun and a witness. Unfortunately, none of us can claim to have witnessed the Earth 1 million years ago, so we have no empirical evidence of the state of the planet and its species at that time. And don't tell me that some species adapting to a different environment over the last hundred years (micro-evolution) is empirical proof of macro evolution. No one in the last hundred years has witnessed the spontaneous birth of a new species. I think that natural selection makes perfect sense within a species, but it is a stretch to extrapolate that to fish crawling out on dry land and developing legs.
What most posters on here don't seem to realize is that they sound just as dogmatic and close-minded as the Creationist believers they casually dismiss. How about instead of dismissing those with a different point of view as dribbling idiots, we actually discuss the issue with an open mind.
I have a NetGear FA310TX. The tulip driver that it uses will not compile with GCC 2.95.2, but if I set my compiler to be EGCS 1.1.2, then I can compile it. That may be something worth trying for you.
If you read through the stay motion, it looks like the appeals court is drawing a clear connection between the napster case and the Diamond Multimedia case. Basically it seems as if the Appeals Court will rule that file sharing on the Internet is fair use. It looks like Napster is a slam dunk to at least win eventually in appeal, no matter what the lower court decides.
Recently my 11-year old son came to me and said that he couldn't access his personal profile on Yahoo. He simply wanted to update it since it indicated he was still 9 years old (He had signed up for it when he was 9). They wanted him to get his parent to approve. So I checked it out and and put in my username in the required fields, etc. Then it asked me for my credit card number to verify my age! Their disclaimer indicated there were no charges, it was just for verification, blah blah blah. We decided to create a whole new account instead. It seems you can't do that without a credit card number either.
My son has a Netscape e-mail account now instead. And when he signed up for we indicated that he was 18. I don't like to teach my child to lie, but I think its important for him to realize that he doesn't need to comply with every stupid regulation and beaurocratic nonsense that comes along. The government and/or megacorporations should not entitled to stick their nose into every nook and cranny of our lives!
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It is indeed conceivable that a bird could evolve. It is logical and makes sense. It fits the theory of evolution nicely that flying fish exist and seem to be "stepping stones" from fish to birds. Your point of view is valid and well supported.
Some intelligent people look at flying fish and see the handiwork and design of God.
I guess the point of my original post was not to get into a detailed debate, but to comment on the assumption (prevalent in most Slashdot posts to this kind of article) that everyone who rejects evolution is an idiot. The "religious right" and the "scientific left" both could use a bit more empathy and understanding of the other sides point of view.
And that is the weakest part of evolutionary theory, the part where a small changes don't explain everything. There has to be a big jump, a macroevolution, to go from single celled to multi celled organisms. I don't believe that we have ever witnessed a macro-evolutionary jump, and we have no smoking gun. All we have is logic and our limited understanding. I would hold that it is just as probable that there never has been a macro-evolutionary jump, that God designed single-celled organisms and that he also designed multi-celled organisms.
I think that at some point there has to be a big jump. Small changes do not get you from an organism that swims to an organism that breathes air. Or from a creature that walks, runs and jumps to one that flies. Either there was at some point a "macroevolutionary" jump, or the species were designed to do very different things.
You are right, your frog example is interesting but is an example of metamorphosis, not macroevolution. Life is indeed very diverse.
You are also right that I have limited ability to cope with the idea of 3 billion years. I think this is generally true of mankind, and I think that our science gets fuzzier and fuzzier the farther back we go. Assumptions and best guesses pile up, and we reach unjustified conclusions. We just don't have enough hard, empirical evidence to support one species evolving into another species.
Even assuming that you are correct about 3 billion years, the part where you lost me was "the first multicellular organism to accident its way into existence". Sounds about as scientific as spontaneous combustion.
Maybe it would be constructive if we stopped assuming that the 48% of people who reject evolution were all dribbling idiots. After all, the ability to see both sides of an issue is probably a good indicator of an evolved species.
Before I get too far, I feel it necessary to head off the inevitable insults that will come my way for presenting a differing opinion. Yes, I am an intelligent person. I have been a network administrator for 10 years, I am an RHCE, I scored high on my SATs. And I am also a Christian who believes in "Intelligent Design", the simple concept that God masterminded creation. I believe that he planned and designed the human species. I do not believe that we evolved from other species. I understand that there are intelligent people who do believe in evolution, and it is possible that I may be wrong, so I try and look at both sides of the issue.
It might help to acknowledge that what you accept as "fact" influences what theories you are prepared to believe. I think it is a fact that the Earth is round, therefore I am inclined to reject the theories of the Flat Earth Society, no matter how much evidence they present. Many people are atheists. Since they don't believe in God, they are well prepared to look for and accept scientific explanations for our existence. If, on the other hand, your faith tells you that God exists, and you accept that as "fact", then you are less likely to believe that God had no hand in designing humans.
It simplifies things a bit to recognize that there are 2 types of evidence: logical (or circumstantial), and empirical. Sometimes logical evidence can make perfect sense, but might still be wrong. This is why criminal court cases are stronger if they have empirical evidence, such as a smoking gun and a witness. Unfortunately, none of us can claim to have witnessed the Earth 1 million years ago, so we have no empirical evidence of the state of the planet and its species at that time. And don't tell me that some species adapting to a different environment over the last hundred years (micro-evolution) is empirical proof of macro evolution. No one in the last hundred years has witnessed the spontaneous birth of a new species. I think that natural selection makes perfect sense within a species, but it is a stretch to extrapolate that to fish crawling out on dry land and developing legs. What most posters on here don't seem to realize is that they sound just as dogmatic and close-minded as the Creationist believers they casually dismiss. How about instead of dismissing those with a different point of view as dribbling idiots, we actually discuss the issue with an open mind.I have a NetGear FA310TX. The tulip driver that it uses will not compile with GCC 2.95.2, but if I set my compiler to be EGCS 1.1.2, then I can compile it. That may be something worth trying for you.
If you read through the stay motion, it looks like the appeals court is drawing a clear connection between the napster case and the Diamond Multimedia case. Basically it seems as if the Appeals Court will rule that file sharing on the Internet is fair use. It looks like Napster is a slam dunk to at least win eventually in appeal, no matter what the lower court decides.
Try registering with an age that is less than 18 - You will get the following URL:
http://edit.yahoo.com/config/register
Dont be so cynical, not everyone on Slashdot is just trying to cause trouble!
Recently my 11-year old son came to me and said that he couldn't access his personal profile on Yahoo. He simply wanted to update it since it indicated he was still 9 years old (He had signed up for it when he was 9). They wanted him to get his parent to approve. So I checked it out and and put in my username in the required fields, etc. Then it asked me for my credit card number to verify my age! Their disclaimer indicated there were no charges, it was just for verification, blah blah blah. We decided to create a whole new account instead. It seems you can't do that without a credit card number either.
My son has a Netscape e-mail account now instead. And when he signed up for we indicated that he was 18. I don't like to teach my child to lie, but I think its important for him to realize that he doesn't need to comply with every stupid regulation and beaurocratic nonsense that comes along. The government and/or megacorporations should not entitled to stick their nose into every nook and cranny of our lives!