>Hi Susan,
>It is possible that whales evolved from some wolf-like creature. What is
>being questioned is whether it happened because of "chance variation and
>natural selection".
>Bertvan
since we can watch variation (whether "chance" or not) and natural
selection happen every day, what would have been different at several
points in the last 10 million years? Each fossil in the series resembles
its immediate ancestor and its immediate descendant. Resemblence usually
indicates relatedness. Yet through time the accumulated differences cause
enormous change. The subsequent descendants look less and less like their
ancestors.
A huge amount of the details of evolution and the history of life have been
documented. The statement "the whale looks like it descended from a
wolf-like creature" has a library of data behind it. That's science.
"God did it" without *any* data behind it isn't science. And there is an
equal amount of evidence behind "the wolves turned themselves into whales
according to some plan or purpose we will not discuss."
Susan
----------
I am aware that the conclusions arrived at in this work will be denounced
by some as highly irreligious; but he who denounces them is bound to shew
why it is more irreligious to explain the origin of man as a distinct
species by descent from some lower form, through the laws of variation and
natural selection, than to explain the birth of the individual through the
laws of ordinary reproduction.
---Charles Darwin
http://www.telepath.com/susanb/
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