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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2
face=Arial>From: "Jonathan Baker" <A
href="mailto:jjbaker@panix.com">jjbaker@panix.com</A><BR><BR>> [3]
"Evolutionary advantage"? Perhaps you should rather have said,
<BR>> "survival advantage." Evolution is an unproven hypothesis and even if
it did </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2
face=Arial>> occur, it was Divinely guided. [--TK]</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2
face=Arial><BR>Evolution is a fact, no matter how many Christian zealots like to
claim <BR>otherwise. The descent of Man is the unproven hypothesis, the
idea that<BR>natural selection is sufficient to explain the diversity of species
and<BR>the development of
mankind.<BR><BR> name: jon
baker <BR>
<BR><BR><BR></DIV></FONT></FONT>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>>>>>>></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>You are correct, and it is unfortunate that we have only one word --
"evolution" -- to describe two different processes, which have been loosely and
somewhat clumsily called "micro-evolution" and "macro-evolution."</DIV>
<DIV>Microevolution -- e.g., microbes developing immunity to antibiotics -- is a
fact, as you say. Macroevolution -- the development of one species into
another completely different one, like dinosaurs to birds -- is an unproven
hypothesis. Darwin's "explanation" of the mechanism -- "natural selection,
survival of the fittest" -- is a trivial and tautological "explanation" that
explains nothing, except that those individuals that survive and reproduce,
were capable of surviving and reproducing. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I don't know why you throw in "Christian zealots." You seem to
be simultaneously insulting both Christians and....me! You are implying
that what I know of science is what I got from reading the books of "Christian
zealots." That's rather condescending. First of all, I
have access to both science and Torah quite unrelated to anything Christians
write or believe. And second of all, even the people you call
"Christian zealots" are fully aware that microevolution is "a fact." Who denies
that bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics?!</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>There is a spectrum of beliefs among Christians, all the way from a belief
in the absolute literal word of the Bible -- seven days exactly, the world some
5000 years old -- to various possible scenarios that either read Bereishis
non-literally or supply various back-stories. Some Christians
believe there may have been multiple creations (as the Talmud says, Hashem
created and destroyed many worlds) and/or non-literal "days" that were actually
eras. Some believe in guided evolution (guided /macro/ evolution), some
don't believe in evolution at all (macro evolution). </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The same spectrum of beliefs can be found among Orthodox Jews. So I
don't know why there is a need to condescend to believing Christians, or to
assume that Jews who believe in a literal seven-day creation somehow got that
notion from the Christians. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>For the record, I myself tend to think that the seven days were
probably either [A] seven eras, OR were [B] literal days in which natural
processes were so speeded up that what would have normally taken millions of
years, happened in one day. (Really I think [A] and [B] are probably
equivalent -- not two different things, but two different ways of looking
at the same thing. What is time, with no clocks and no calendars, no sun
and no moon, and no observer?) Having read -- with avid interest -- many
books by scientists who actually believe that evolution
(macroevolution) explains everything, I am more than ever convinced that
most of what they write is ad hoc "just so" stories, building castles in the air
out of the most tenuous, gossamer threads of actual fact. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I have indeed noticed that the majority of secular science writers, who
write for popular science magazines or the science section of the NY Times, are
entirely unaware that there is any distinction between macro and micro
evolution. Because one word is used for both, over and over
the smartest people keep making simple category mistakes, conflating
entirely different processes. That's another way of saying that the
smartest people aren't nearly as smart as they think they are -- and their
condescension towards their betters is entirely unearned. I wish I had a
dollar for every time one of these idiots savants said triumphantly, "So if you
believe in Genesis, I guess you don't believe in modern medicine!?"</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><B><FONT color=#0000ff>--Toby Katz<BR>=============</FONT></B><FONT
color=#0000ff><BR><BR><BR>-------------------------------------------------------------------
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
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