Buck, see my post above, but I will give you the "quick and dirty" answers to your earlier post:
Buck said:
Never seen a transitional species, and yes, by transitional that would mean half-x/half-y. Predators prey on the weak (natural selection) if there were a transitional species (reptile/bird) it would be without total function in either group, worthless and floundering on the ground, yet unable to fly - sounds like a good meal!
These transitional varieties would never survive long enough for this "million-year" process. It would be on no advantage to the animal, why would it change?
You are misunderstanding how evolution works. According to evolutionary theory, there would NEVER be a creature which is simply a transitional between A and B. To state it more correctly, *every* creature which ever lived (with the distinct possibility of Man for some of us OEC/TE's) is a transitional, since it is simply a part of the ongoing changes effecting the population group to which it belongs. [remember, evolutionary changes NEVER happen to individual creatures, but to population groups, gene pools]. At every stage of development, every creature is fully functional and self-realized and would take great offense at being labeled "half-way" between two other "real" species (assuming they were capable of taking offense!). The arm to wing idea for example. It is not an arm, then something useless in between, then a wing. When evolutionary changes begin with the group that has arms, causing incremental changes, this change does not have "wing" as its goal. This is hindsight. The incremental changes are each useful in themselves, or they would not happen. Eventually, all these minute, incremental changes may add up to a wing at some point, and if that result is highly efficient, it will stay that way for a long time. Or, better said, the degree to which a feature is efficient in a given environment, the more likely it will be retained by the population group for a longer time. Those features which are not very efficient (maybe due to environmental changes, etc) are under more pressure to change, and the mutations which allow for such change in a beneficial direction will dominate the reproduction processes of the group, leading to change.
This is also why you see some species evolving more rapidly during certain periods, and more slowly during others. When the need to adapt creates greater pressures, evolutionary processes take place at a faster pace (or the creature becomes extinct). Or, should I say, during certain periods those population groups which *do* evolve more rapidly will survive, the others will not.
As for giraffes: If a horse could simply will its neck to grow over the years, how would that desire find itself in the genetic code to produce offspring with the fruit of that desire?
But again, this is not how evolution works. A horse (even though a giraffe is not a descendent of a horse) could not "will" anything to happen. If a creature has a short neck, and the food sources are more plentiful higher up, those with slightly longer necks in a population group will tend to live longer, reproduce more, thus creating more of the same: creatures with slightly longer necks. This continues, with the longer necked among the group being more successful. Necks within the population group continue to get, on average, longer and longer . . . until an efficiency/form balance is reached.
Keep in mind that all the leading Creationist groups agree that these processes take place, and agree that this is why we have such varieties of designs so well suited to the environment. The ONLY difference is that they argue that these changes simply could not continue to the point that the result is a population group that is a different "Kind". I say "why not? Where is the brake in the process that would prevent a group from evolving so much that we would have to consider it a different Kind?"
Another important point is that, while the Creation Scientists acknowledge that these processes take place and explain the diversity we see (within species at least), they have not explained how these changes could have taken place SO dramatically fast from the Ark to today. If evolutionary processes *could* take place that fast (fast enough to creat the bazillions of different varieties of just about everything on earth), then we would see these same "micro-evolutionary" changes going on before our eyes, within a given lifetime. But we don't. Creationists argue out of both sides of their mouth here. They say "we have no examples of macro-evolutionary changes happen before our eyes", but they then fail to explain why we are not seeing micro-evolutionary changes happening in relatively short periods all over the place (which would be the case if their "hyper-evolution" concept were true)! We do have a number of examples of observable evolutionary change, but these are fairly rare precisely BECAUSE it takes so much time.
What's wrong with God simply creating the giraffe as is? Doesn't He get any credit for designing the creature as it stands without being subject to man's ideas?
This begs the question of whether the process of evolution is, itself, Gods idea. But the simple answer is that, of course, God could have zapped every particular species into existence exactly as we see it today. But we know that did not happen. Even Creation Scientists agree that this did not happen. While they say that God zapped each "Kind" into existence, they concede that the particular diversity we see today, with the myriad variations so specifically based on the needs of the particular environment, is due to this natural selection process. The very same natural selection process that evolutionists describe. They just call it "micro-evolution", and say it is limited to changes within certain "Kinds", but they have a great deal of difficulty in explaining exactly WHY it would be limited in some way.
We should nor strive to bring God into our world, but rather seek to understand, with a modicum of humility that we are part of His.
No one is striving to bring God into *our* world. We are looking at Gods Creation, which is definitely Gods World. Were we trying to bring God into our world when we discovered that the Earth revolved around the sun, which was entirely contradictory to the Churchs interpretation of Scripture? No, of course not. It is just that during the course of our study of Gods Creation we happened to discover that our interpretation of Gods Word was incorrect.
The same is happening with origins, and most understand that. I am sure there were a few "geocentrist" holdouts long into the modern times, who believed that all the other Christians had "given in" to the secular scientists and abandoned the plain reading of Scripture when they recognized heliocentrism. In fact, I know this is true, because I remember actually reading some of the small "tracts" my dad (an Assembly of God minister) had around the Church. One said geocentrism was the correct and plain reading of Scripture and that the world had been duped. These were published in the mid-sixties (although I didnt read them until the mid-seventies).
His word is His means of communicate to us, why not believe it?
I do.
