Re: [Phys-l] Global Evolution as fact

[Steve Clark <sclarkphd@mindspring.com>]

According to last month's National Geographic, Finkelstein's description of ancient Israel isn't accepted by all archeologists. Let's not give too much weight to what he says without examining conflicting ideas.

Steve Clark

On Jan 9, 2011, at 6:13 PM, Jack Uretsky wrote:

> This is the patently false cry of the creationists.  There is a surfeit of 
> examples of evolution giving rise to new species,  "Lucy" is a reasonably 
> recent example.  Finkelstein's bood ^The Bible Unearthed" should be enough 
> to send the bible inerrancy crowd back to the trenches and let them 
> exxplain why modern science should give any notice to the 2500 year old 
> propoganda of Nationalistic ex-Babyllonian captives trying to establish a 
> claim to a homeland.
> 			regards,
> 				Jack
> "Trust me.  I have a lot of experience at this."
> 		General Custer's unremembered message to his men,
> 		just before leading them into the Little Big Horn Valley
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, 8 Jan 2011, Woolf, Lawrence wrote:
>
> > *   From: William Robertson
> > *   Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2010 19:45:49 -0700
> > If you read what I wrote, then you would know that I acknowledge that the process of natural selection has been demonstrated in the lab. And yes, evolution on a small scale is a fact. I'm talking about global evolution of species over the history of the Earth. Not a fact. A reasonable inference from the data, and hence a good theory, but not a fact. Scientists should not be afraid to use proper language in explaining their findings. If you understand science, then you would properly explain the laboratory findings as solid evidence for the mechanism of natural selection. You would not use that evidence to state that the global theory of evolution is a fact. One cannot prove a theory, so theories should not be labeled as facts.
> > =============================================
> >
> > Having just read The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins (in addition to many of his other books and essentially all of Stephen Jay Gould's books), I feel compelled to address the issue of global evolution of species.  The book contains 396 pages devoted almost exclusively to the overwhelming and diverse evidence for the fact of the global evolution of species by the mechanism of natural selection (and sexual selection).
> >
> > Fossil evidence is only part of the story.  The most overwhelming evidence is that of RNA and DNA sequences. The Tree of Life, built up from RNA sequences, shows the relationship of representative species
> >
> > <http://www.zo.utexas.edu/faculty/antisense/DownloadfilesToL.html>
> >
> > and how species diverged from common ancestors to produce all the species on Earth.
> >
> >
> >
> > Other evidence comes from many fields including embryology, the geographical distribution of species, commonality of body parts, vestigial and non-optimized arrangement of body parts, and the commonality of the genetic code used by all animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, archaea, and viruses.
> >
> >
> >
> > When the data that exist consist of countless pieces of information from diverse fields, all of which are only consistent with the global evolution of species, with not one counterexample, then global evolution of species is not just a reasonable inference, it is indeed a fact.  In addition, the evidence for natural and sexual selection as the mechanisms for speciation is also overwhelming.
> >
> >
> >
> > Larry Woolf
> >
> >
> >
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