What are we?

ethos said:

I believe that you are speaking about natural selection here and not about evolution. I two believe in natural selection, the need for species to adapt to enviornmental circumstances, but not as evolution suggests that one species can evolve into an entirely different form. I am encouraged however to learn that you do believe in the inspired word of God.

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Evolution is the process. Natural selection is one of its principal mechanisms. Adaptation is the outcome of natural selection. In certain circumstances adaptation leads to speciation.

Adaptation can lead to speciation when two groups of the same species become isolated from each other, each in a different environment. As each adapts to its own environment, it becomes more and more different from the other. If the differences are significant enough that the two groups will not interbreed with each other--even when the isolating mechanism is removed--then they are different species. This process has been observed many times. It has even been observed in labratory experiments.

Now, I am not sure what you mean by completely different form. But I can assure you that evolution requires that every child is of the same species as its parent. It may be however that a new child is not the same species as its ancestor of 4 or 5 million years ago.

JohnJones said:

Natural Selection doesn't have anthing to do with adaptation at all - it does not cause nor guide adaptation. Natural Selection is simply death. Animals die and evolutionists assume that it is because they don't adapt. That's all fine and good, but it fails to exaplain how adaptation takes place. If the will of the animal is not involved, what is? Certianly not natural selection which merely renders verdict on adaptation and does not produce adaptation. (I'm speaking as if this all takes place, although I know evolution is a big croc.)

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All animals die. That is a universal fact. Even the best adapted animals die. So it is incorrect to say that natural selection is death.

Natural selection does not relate to death. It relates to reproduction. All animals die. But some animals die before they reproduce and some animals reproduce before they die. When a novel trait appears that makes it more likely that an animal will reproduce before it dies, then that novel trait will appear in its offspring. And its offspring will pass the same trait to their offspring, spreading it through a larger proportion of the species. Bit by bit over several generations a larger and larger proportion of the species exhibits the novel trait. Eventually every newborn will have the novel trait.

That is natural selection. That is adaptation. That is evolution. And all of that is a matter of observation.

JohnJones said:

Natural Selection doesn't have anthing to do with adaptation at all - it does not cause nor guide adaptation. ... If the will of the animal is not involved, what is?

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The will of the animal is not involved even when the animal has a will, as we do. Your will does not cause mutations to happen or not to happen. Your will does not cause a mutation to be beneficial, neutral or harmful. Your will does not determine whether you will pass a mutation on to one of your children, nor which mutation will be passed to which child.

Since you are human, it is likely that the fertilized egg from which you sprang contained around 120 mutations. You had no say in that. Nor did your parents. It is a probability determined by the frequency of mutations and the number of DNA base pairs in the human genome.

When your chromosomes reproduce and go through the assortation of meiosis, you cannot direct by your will which genes will go into which sperm. You certainly cannot direct which sperm will fertilize your spouse's ovum to produce a child.

All of this takes place without you even knowing it is happening. It is certainly not directed by your will. And that is just as true of every other living creature.

The only will which can have any effect at all on evolution is the will of God.

JohnJones said:

All pre-programmed responses. When God created man from the dust of the ground he programmed his DNA to make these adaptations - these are not adaptation created by evolution nor learned by man - that's why they're constant!

The FACT that these are pre-programmed responses explains why a hog in the wild grows tusks while one in captivity does not - it isn't evolution - it's the absence or non-absence of a condition. It's like God said "If (incaptivity(hog)){ hog->growTusks=false; }" -- This shows why hogs in the wild don't change into a new species! If you take the wild hog and the domestic hog and put them together they can still mate. It's the same with people: skin color is a pre-programmed adaptation not evolutionary, therefore all diferrent colors of skinned people are still the same species and can still mate with each other. This shows evolution is a croc.

This is also why evolutionists ignorantly think fish can give birth to salamanders, whereas God being much smarter than they tells us plainly "every creature reproduces only after its own kind."

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Actually, you were responding to me, not to Vance.

Please show me the biological basis of this "pre-programming". Not an analogy from computer programs.

Adaptation that is based on genetic differences and changes the frequency of alleles in a species or sub-population is evolution. Lots of evolution takes place within species. It's not all a matter of producing new species.