From: btd@iastate.edu (Benjamin T Dehner)
Subject: Re: Evilutionary Biology
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 21:51:32 GMT

	Gee.  Stay away from the newgroup for a single day and look at the
fun you miss.

In <1992Dec10.121018.1@woods.ulowell.edu> cotera@woods.ulowell.edu writes:

>So what everybody's telling me is there's no proof of evolution.  You're not
>telling me anything I didn't already know.  Maybe you should tell it to Loren
>the Masterbat...er, that is the Master Blaster.  She's the one that said that
>fossils and comparative anatomy prove evolution.

	Depends on your meaning of the word 'proof'.  Loren is probably using
the word 'proof' in the sense that 'suffifient evidence to be accepted as a
fact'.

>Oh yeah, as far as these independent lines of evidence I keep hearing about,
>think about this.  The DNA of man and monkeys are extremely close.  Their
>morphologies on the other hand are strikingly different.  So much for
>comparative DNA and comparitive morphology agreeing.

	This is so incredibly stupid i'm surprised.  Well, not really, form
a creationist.  Anyhow, now compare a monkey, a man, and a goat, and there
DNA.  You will notice that the man and the monkey are both closer to each
other then the goat.  Now look at a lizard.  The man, monkey, goat, are
closer than the lizard.  Shall I continue?
	And, furthermore, look at what you just wrote.  If the man and monkey
DNA are that close, then it would not take many changes for one to evolve
into another.  (They did not, of course; a common ancestor split.)

>You've probably noticed that I haven't been quoting other postings.  My system
>keeps screwing up when I try, so I had to be sneaky by posting messages from
>outside the newsgroup.  If someone knows how to get around this quoting problem
>please let me know.  It's so much more fun when I can use your own words
>against you.

	Try saving the post you want to respond to in an external file, and
when you try to post, include the file into whatever editor you are using.
Of course, you won't have the '>' before each line, but that wouldn't be hard
to add with a shell scirpt (assuming you are on a *nix system.)

>One other thing before I go, if I'm an Evilutionist, so is Duane Gish because
>in "Evolution. The Fossils Say No!" he also recognizes that speciation occurs.
>As a matter of fact, I don't know any Creationist that denies microevolution. 

	WHAT THE FUCK IS MICROEVOLUTION?  It seems to me that 'microevolution'
as you use the term, is any form of observed evolution.  Macroevolution,
therefore, is impossible (or unprovable) because it has never been observed
to happen -- all forms of observed evolution are 'micro'.  Unfortunately, 
since this distinction is not a part of evolutionary theory (?), you are 
therefore not discrediting evolutionary theory, but your own straw man.

>BTW, you know how everyone was saying how stupid Dan Quayle was for misspelling
>potato.  Well Andy misspelled "complete" 4 times.  What does that make him?

	Chief of Staff?

>--Ray Cote 

Ben

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benjamin T. Dehner    Dept. of Physics and Astronomy 
btd@iastate.edu       Iowa State University 
                      Ames, IA 50011

Newsgroups: talk.origins