"Microevolution" vs. "macroevolution."

Faith You are working from the wrong direction Faith. If we start with Atoms,{forces governing their interactions already in place for the purpose of this discussion} we imagine the odds of any combination occuring in the next moment. We find that initially the odds are equal{within the limits of constraint by fundamental forces} that any combination will occur.Now we let the next moment of combinations occur. The number of possible combinations has now been constrained by the first combination since that has already occured.We run the process over and over through time to arrive at our present day and we look at a snapshot of the marvelous structure of the world and arrogantly assume this to be too intricate to occur by chance. This would be true if we were to have all this interaction occur at once.But after vast stretches of time and umimaginably great numbers of interactions each contributing to a further refinment of the one that follows it we arrive at what seems to be a miraculous coincidence of innumerable supporting phenomena while blinding ourselves to the realization that each moment provides the structure for the next and this is what allows for even the wonderous organization of things like DNA.I heard a story that illustrated the point well. Imagine you are on a golf course and I asked you to specify the exact location of where the golf ball will come to rest, and of course you would not think to imagine that you could. This represents the past moments each contributing to the final arbitrarilly chosen moment we title the present.Now we walk up to where the ball comes to rest and we cannot find ourselves overcome with awe at the incalcuable number of factors that had to occur at just the right time in just the rght sequence for the golf ball to arrive at the precise point that we now can specify from our vantage point of the present moment.The reason for this, of course, is that the incalcuable factors in right order and time had to arrive at that present moment somewhere. That it was that particular point on the course is not miraculous but a consequence of random factors producing some location which they could not help but perform as a result of interaction.This message has been edited by sidelined, Sat, 2006-04-08 01:50 AM

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Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers in the preceding generation . . .Learn from science that you must doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.Richard Feynman