My evolutionary challenge, what does evoution actually mean?

Loudmouth said:

If God did create the very first life nothing in the theory of evolution would need to be changed.

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Mountainmike said:

I refer to the previous poster , where I noted the exception of Coeleocanth. Which does not appear to change over time.

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Gene2memE said:

Appearance can be deceiving. Evolution is much more than just morphological changes and the introduction of trophic novelty.

Coeleocanth has an exceptionally slow changing genome and minimal morphological drift - hence the 'living fossil' moniker.

The genetics of at least one species (Latimeria menadoensis) has been close to 'frozen' (actually just changing REALLY slowly) for several million years, and maybe as many as 30 million - reportedly due to a very slow mutation rate in the HOX cluster and some other unique features of its genome.

However, there are two know species, and they diverged somewhere about 6-12 million years ago. There are morphological differences in fin shapes and underlying musculature between the species, not to mention differences in coloration (one is brown, one is blue), patterning and habitat preferences (one is a cave dweller and one more of a bottom of crevice dweller).

There's also evidence that the West Indian coeleocanth (Latimeria chalumna) has sub-populations which have significant genetic diversity between geographies. Not only that, there is evidence that this genetic diversity is recent, as little as 200,000-300,000 years for at least one population.

So, the coeleocanth continues to evolve. It's existence is further evidence that evolution continues (just not in the ways that most people expect), even if we can't pick it up that easily to the naked eye.

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DialecticSkeptic said:

While I agree that "creation" ascribes a metaphysical cause, I would want to add that it also ascribes purpose and meaning. Although I accept that evolution is a fact and theory, I am first and foremost a creationist precisely because these metaphysical questions—cause, purpose, and meaning—are so much more important and significant in my Christian world-view than the physical questions explored by science. So, in other words, I am not a theistic evolutionist but rather an evolutionary creationist.

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sfs said:

In the same essay in which he wrote the famous line, 'Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution', Theodosius Dobzhansky also wrote, 'It is wrong to hold creation and evolution as mutually exclusive alternatives. I am a creationist and an evolutionist.'

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