Creationism in the Philippines?

Lam/Hector/Jacen, I keep hearing that analogy, but my growing concern with this is that it implies orthogenesis. Unfortunately I'm not sure I can think of an alternative which is as easy to explain. I am beginning to question this argument as well because of the persistent lack of evidence for this type of gradualism in the fossil record.

Nice job. I was thinking along those lines exactly, but was having difficulty putting it into words without getting to technical. Well the original populations very existence would prevent the future population from ever completely evolving into some sort of daughter species because they'd be continually interacting with each other.Wouldn't it take some event, like geographic isolation, to allow the 'future' pop to evolve into a seperate species?That's where the natural selection argument starts to seem thin to me: if the 'future' pop has some sort of advantage due to mutation, why doesn't it overwhelm or replace the parent pop without such a drastic event occurring?The genes just seem too stable over long periods of time. Take sharks or crocodiles, pretty much the same organisms, if not exactly the same, for eons. Why aren't they eventually displaced by a daughter species that has developed some sort of competitive advantage. Isn't that how NS is supposed to work?This message has been edited by custard, 02-25-2005 04:25 AM

See, that's where I get confused. Aren't species undergoing change via mutation every time they produce new offspring?If a species is undergoing constant change due to mutation, and eventually some mutations will be beneficial, why don't we see more daughter species outcompeting their parents?It seems you are stating that an organism can reach a state of equilibrium with its environment: essentially no new change could ever allow its offspring to be more competitive in the same niche.Isn't that paradoxical to the argument you made that species accumulate millions of minute changes until one day, voila! new species?

Great point. But for all we know it has never happened. This is why I am beginning to have problems with the gradualism/accumulated mutations argument.Sorry for the topic stray amix. I'll give it a rest.

Depends on your definition of 'intermediate.' Some would argue that Archeopteryx (sp sorry) is a perfect example of an intermediate fossil, most creationists seem to disagree.

Stephen Gould talks about micro and macro evolution.This is what talkorigins.org says: