[quote]pushharder wrote:
tom8658 wrote:
Evolution via artificial selection can be seen in domesticated cattle/crops and antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Evolution via natural(ish) selection has also occurred within the human population as recently as the last 10,000 years.
Indeed, this is indisputable, testable, observable and therefore scientifically accurate. What is subject to strict hypothesis (and inaccurate in my view) is the idea that speciation and adaptation can and has produced new genera, orders, families, etc. This is the distinction in this debate.
There is a wall somewhere and is seems to lurk around the genus level. No one anywhere has ever observed a breach in that wall either in the present or in the fossil record. There ARE many examples of extinct species in the fossil record but only sheer speculation to fit the macroevolution model can force those species to be transitionary above the genus level. This is the ignored elephant in the macroevolution room.[/quote]
Once you move past the species level (that is, two organisms are not the same species if they would not reproduce when left to their own devices), any further distinction is imposed by man.
What is higher-level divergence, then, but a long (long long long) series of speciation events?
We have observed speciation, via both natural selection (see London Underground mosquito) and by artificial selection. The reason that we have not observed higher level divergence is that we have simply not kept records for the amount of time that such a change might take. Detailed zoological and botanical records are less than 500 years old - at least two orders of magnitude less than the amount of time that we think selection pressures would take to cause genus-order divergence.
And none of this is visible in the fossil record, or ever will be. We have what could be called transitional forms: sea-going creatures that begin to look like land mammals, and land mammals that have vestigial features of their sea-going ancestors, and a plethora of ancient hominids, but there is simply no way to decisively link them, since the genetic material is long gone.
So, we infer from the existence of these forms, plus the existence of modern forms, plus evidence of divergence in isolated populations, et cetera, that ancient forms slowly evolved into modern species. We also have a testable hypothesis: if this divergence did indeed occur, modern mammals (for example) would share a large amount of common genetic material. This is indeed the case.
This is why evolution is theory, because we will never be sure, even if we do witness higher-level divergence, that it is responsible for modern species diversity. However, it is a theory in the same way that gravity is a theory: there is a large amount of supporting evidence, and it makes testable claims that are found to be correct more often than not. It is a useful tool that has produced medical techniques to the benefit of mankind, and it is the best model that we currently have to reconcile modern biological diversity with the fossil record.
Believe whatever you want, but this is not a matter of belief. It is a matter of reasoned argument and pragmatic assumption. Science is merely a method for attempting to understand the physical world (based on observation and inference) for the purpose of furthering humans’ natural abilities as tool-makers. The supernatural is, by it’s nature, not observable, and not relevant to the scientific method.
Science has never attempted nor wanted to supplant religion, and science would appreciate it if religion would return the favor.
