OrderedChaos

I know this debate is starting to wind down, but there were a few points that I have seen in it that diserve a little more discussion.

The issue that stands out the most for me is Mr. Bender's responce to one of Darwins postulates that states:

Douglas had a few reservations about that which could be summed up here:

So basically what is being said is God would not allow a struggle between his creations and that is looking after each one. Well what I believe is called for are some examples of just how much organisms over reproduce.

When Darwin was trying to prove this postulate, he used the example of elephants, because at the time they had the slowest rate of reproduction (blue whales may have a slower rate). Using the equation for population growth [N(t)=N(0)*e^(rt)] where N(t) is the population after time; N(0) is the initial population; r is the rate of growth; and t is time passed. He concluded that if all of the offspring survived to reproduced, that after 750 years, one pair of elephants would produce 19 million descendents. Now for a second let us assume that the flood story was true and that a pair of elephants survived the flood 4000 years ago. If we use the same equation and rate of growth that Darwin did we can calculate that after 4000 years of all the orginal pair's offspring surviving to reproduce, there would be 3.27x10^37 elephants alive today. That is only counting one pair of elephants. If you count both the African and Asian Elephants as different "kinds" then double that number. There are obviously not that many elephants alive today, so something must be killing off a large number of them.

Here are some more excellent examples of how an organisms ability to reproduce is far greater then what is able to survive:
·The species of aphid Aphis fabae has the reproductive potential to produce 524 billion desendents in a year. (Gould 1977)
·If the bacteria Staphylococcus aureu's rate of growth and reproduction went unchecked, cells would cover the Earth seven feet deep in 48 hours. (Audesirk and Audesirk 1993)
·Starfish have the reproductive potential to produce 10^79 decendents in 16 years (10^79 is the number of electrons estimated to exisit in the visiable universe). (Dodson 1960)

I think it is hardly argueable that there are enough resources to go around to sustain the incredible rates of reproduction these organisms listed are able to preform. So unless Douglas has some more "ill-defined reservations" about Darwin's postulate, I hope that matter is settled.

I think I will stop here. I may have more to comment on later, but for now it is Friday and I need to get out of the apartment!

scigirl

Thanks OrderedChaos,

I was surprised to read that Douglas did not accept natural selection or at the very least, a struggle for survival.

So it was hard for me to defend these ideas--I thought they were as obvious as gravity.

scigirl

Theophage

Never underestimate a believer's ability to deny the obvious in order to maintain their belief...

(Hey, that should be like a famous quote or something. Feel free to attibute it to me!)

Daniel "Theophage" Clark

ps418

I too was amazed that anyone could doubt the "struggle for existence."

I guess it's harder to see this when one's observations are limited to human populations in wealthy countries, where such a large number of those born make it to reproductive age.