This my friend is micro-evolution. The slow building of resistance is micro-evolution, change on the small scale. The change of a creature to another creature is macro-evolution. These two things are completely different. Micro-evolution occurs everyday. Macro-evolution supposedly happened over billions of years.

Computer Science myself, but I spent the first three semesters (leading up to a 5-year hiatus) thinking I would dual-major in Philosophy and Physics. I've never lost my existential epistemological bent though.

Yeah, I am quoting myself, but I am doing it to try to get back on track.

I actually met a couple people in my courses that picked CS because it wouldn't require them to accept those pesky facts the sciences like biology would teach them. (Of course, they didn't use those exact words.) I chose it because I've never been particularly fond of rote memorization. While they got by in CS, they were never exceptional students, and usually just scraped by in the logic specific courses.

Yep, supposedly god created us to be a bunch of mindless worshipers and then gave us free will to screw it all up, what a glorious existence we have.

It kinda reminds me of a Simpsons episode were Homer is painting all the electrical outlets with pink bunny faces to "child proof" them.

Well, I am not trying to get into some sort of ping-pong match across the abyss and I will not.

I do not understand, if you are unwilling to listen to a person's vantage point why should you expect the other side to embrace your point of view that runs contrary?

Simply put, since you do not believe in the Bible and I can only surmise that you do not frequent where Christians are, you do not know "Most Christians" to make your point with any reasoned foundation.

Online is no place to try to make a point or persuade people and as such, I was only trying to answer what seemed to be a clear misunderstanding on your part regarding the purpose of life.

One last quote since I do believe the Bible.

The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, And night unto night reveals knowledge. Psalm 19:1-2

Where would science be if it were not for the declaring and uttering of the universe. The Bible sure does seem to know that the universe is a noisy place full of information! )

Evolution, the how and not the why?

Not to single you out, but this sort of misconception is one of the things that people tend to misunderstand about evolution. You talk about how the birds "evolved towards" smaller beaks, but that's looking at it in the wrong order.

Things do not evolve to their surroundings. Instead, those things that have traits that are most apt to their surroundings tend to be the ones that survive. So it's not that the birds "evolved" smaller beaks, it's that the birds that had smaller beaks did a better job of survival, and hence were the ones that propagated more than the ones with larger beaks.

I'll also address the micro vs macro debate, which others have already covered, with a fun quote from House (paraphrased): "If you take a bucket down to the ocean and scoop up a pail of water, and there's no fish in it, can you conclude that there's no fish in the ocean?" We've been studying evolution for a couple hundred years at most. Evolution is on the millions and billions of years scale. Suggesting that because we haven't seen any macro evolution (which is a meaningless distinction, as has been pointed out) in the time we've been studying it is just as logical as concluding there's no fish in the ocean because there wasn't any in the pail.

Bh

SetarcosNous, I cannot comment on the interpretations you mean as I am not sure what you are trying to say there.

However...



I would say the "message" is not flawed, but the "messengers" current interpretation of a godless and meaningless universe is flawed. Those that would out of hand reject God from the equation as if they knew as fact God did not do what He said He did.

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Religion is speculation, evolution is proven.

Religious people say there are gaps in evolution... well if I joined up 3 fossils that would be 2 gaps, five fossils makes 4 gaps an astounding link of say 50 would have an apparently massively disproving 49 gaps! So you can see how that argument is rubbish.

Some more proof that even lizards can evolve in a lifetime is here. This is the fasted known example of evolution on this scale. I will repeat as stated in a post of another, bacteria are the fastest example.
Another example is the Peppered moth is here, it's an interview but there are many other good articles and papers on it.

A general overview (but a long read for a web page) can be found here

Now the thing that gets me angry, the propaganda movie. It links The theory of evolution and Nazis. Playing on emotion rather than logic to make the viewer agree with it. Truly this itself is comparable to what the Nazis did, making the movie (and now me ) hypocritical. The movie itself is morally wrong, this is my opinion and I will leave it like that.

A lack of a non-proof is not proof. The strongest theories have ways, if they are wrong to be proven so. DNA evidence, especially mitochondrial if you’re interested in biology, could have disproved it. But didn't. In fact it just made the theory of evolution even stronger.


Charles

Hmm, did they mean hell was extremely high temperature, or sexy...maybe stolen?

Pfffwt! Everyone knows hell is sexy! That's what they meant!

P.S.
WTF is so metaphysical or paranormal about defenestration!?

I was raised Christian and due to a lot of reading and research I am now agnostic. What's missed by a lot of the people on the ID side is that you can in fact have evolution and the big bang and god all at the same time.
It only falls apart when you try to push fundamentalist beliefs regarding the content of the bible (in most cases, the King James version which even biblical scholars can tell you is one of the most butchered and edited versions of the text so far) being infallible and word for word the word of God.

As for the film. From what I understand it's mainly there to preach to the converted and its arguments are too weak to be enough to really change anyone's opinions. Additionally the connection between the Nazi party, the Holocaust and Darwin's theories are absurd and historically out of context, and the anti-Semitism of the time had more to do with the church than with science.

The point that scholars are being stigmitized for espousing Intelligent Design is true though. Mainly because it's one thing to be Christian, it's another to force your beliefs onto others or to allow them to interfere with scientific reasoning. If you're willing to say that you believe that the Earth is only 6000 years old and that man lived along dinosaurs despite the absurd amount of evidence to the contrary, then yes you will be looked down on by your peers and you might get fired if your job is to teach science in school.
You also don't allow doctors who still believe in "humors" to treat the sick as they might kill em.

I'm just surprised Ben Stein is K.O.ing his career like this. Whatever the truth of it, doing something like this'll pretty much label you as "that anti-evolution guy" faster than it took Tom Cruse to become "that crazy Scientology guy".