Treacle Worshipper

Calzaer, I apologise for further hijacking the thread

Tani, I read about this also. There is an Oxford Uni physicist working on it, and getting lots of resistance from some of the scientific community (unsurprisingly ). I will see if I can find anything else about it. (I forget his name, unfortunately.)

Re: Magus' claim that evolution happens over vast periods of time. I quote from The Times (London, UK) 20th Feb. 2003:

Scruffy little weed show Darwin was right as evolution moves on

"The discovery of the York groundsel shows that species are created as well as made extinct, and that Charles Darwin was right and the Creationists are wrong [...]

"Richard Abbott, a plant evolutionary biologist from St Andrews University [Scotland, UK], has discovered "evolution in action" after noticing the lone, strange-looking and uncatalogued plant in wasteland next to the York railway station in 1979. He did not realise its significance and paid little attention. But in 1991 he returned to York [...] and noticed that the plant had spread.

"Yesterday, Dr Abbott published extensive research proving with DNA analysis that it is the first new species to have evolved naturally in Britain in the past 50 years [...]

"[T]he York groundsel is a natural hybrid between the common groundsel and the Oxford ragwort, which was introduced to Britain from Sicily 300 years ago. Hybrids are normally sterile, and cannot breed and die out.

"But Dr Abbott's research, published in the journal of the Botanical Society of the British Isles, shows that the York Groudnsel is a genetic mutant that can breed, but not with any other species, including its parent species. It thus fits the scientific definition of a separate species."

Article by Anthony Browne, Environment Editor.
[Mods, please note I have quoted selectively from the article, not reproduced it in full.]

There you go, Magus, a modern evolutionary development. And you can look it up in the Botanical Soc journal.
TW

lpetrich

Ah, but a creationist would say "That's only variation within a created kind".

Without explaining how they recognize "created kinds". Which they sometimes call "baramins". However, their pages on "baraminology" are mostly hand-waving.

Treacle Worshipper

Originally posted by lpetrich
Ah, but a creationist would say "That's only variation within a created kind".
Ipetrich, I appreciate you're not a creationist, so this goes out to anyone who is as well, but how can a whole new plant be considered variation?

Without explaining how they recognize "created kinds". Which they sometimes call "baramins". However, their pages on "baraminology" are mostly hand-waving.
OTOH, if they can't even define their own terms, why should we pay them any attention?

Tani,
I was wrong, the guy's working at Imperial College, London, not at Oxford. His name is Joao Magueijo, and this is his homepage, with links to his papers:
http://theory.ic.ac.uk/~magueijo/vsl.html

TW

Tani

ok last out of topic post on this.

this is not just astronomy btw, it's general physics. if this guy is right, that would mean einstein was wrong. anyway i read it on an article in discovery magazine (they don't have the article online, oh well), you can track the links they provided.

lpetrich

One has to marvel at how much evolution creationists are willing to accept.

Some of them speak of a "cat kind", though they are not very specific about what species it includes. Let's see what a "cat kind" might include:

Domestic cat: Felis sylvestris catus
Small Old World wild cat: Felis sylvestris
Similar small-cat species: Felis
With some bigger-cat species (lynxes, cougar, etc.): Felinae
With the biggest cats (lion, tiger, etc.): Felidae
With hyenas, mongooses, civets, etc.: Feliformia
With Caniformia (dogs, bears, weasels, etc.) : Carnivora
With even-toed and odd-toed ungulates: Ferungulata
With bats and some insectivores: Laurasiatheria
With other placentals: Eutheria
With marsupials and monotremes: Mammalia
With mammal-like reptiles: Synapsida
With other amiotes (other reptiles, dinosaurs, birds): Amniota
With amphibians: Tetrapoda
With lobe-finned fish: Sarcopterygii
With ray-finned fish: Teleostomi
With cartilaginous fish (sharks, rays): Gnathostomata
With lamprey: Vertebrata
With hagfish: Craniata
With amphoxus: Notochordata
With urochordates (sea squirts, etc.): Chordata
With echinoderms and hemichordates: Deuterostomia
With other bilaterally-symmetric animals (arthropods, annelids, mollusks, lots of little worms, etc.): Bilateria
With sea sponges, cnidarians, etc.: Metazoa
With choanoflagellates (collar-flagellate protozoans)
With fungi: Opisthokonta (one trailing flagellum)
With the other protists, algae, and plants: Eukaryota (with a cell nucleus)
With all prokaryotic organisms (no cell nucleus): all of cellular life

For more, see sites, like UC Berkely Museum of Paleontology (much of it nicely nontechnical) and the Tree of Life site (rather technical).

lpetrich

However, creationists nowadays claim that a "created kind" includes several species, meaning that most of the species in a kind had split off from other species in that kind.

Which is what you had described for those plants -- the origin of a new species, or speciation.

And creationists are unable to give any clear criteria for recognizing the bounds of a "created kind"; they sometimes differ very dramatically on what's in a "created kind". Some creationists claim that all bacteria are in a single "created kind" -- and bacteria have an enormous amount of diversity.

Magus55

Well, considering how many christians have existed, a Billion true ones isn't really that far fetched. And, the only requirement to be saved is to have Faith in Jesus. The rest comes later and doesn't affect salvation. Anyone on Earth who sincerely confesses Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour, asks for his forgiveness and believes in His sacrifice and ressurection for our sins, will be saved according to the Bible. Church, Eucharist, tithe etc etc isn't required to be saved, it will come later after you devote your life to Jesus and want to do good for Him.

The number is a guess. Only God knows how many will be saved. All he told us was the number was innumerable.

Treacle Worshipper

Originally posted by lpetrich
However, creationists nowadays claim that a "created kind" includes several species, meaning that most of the species in a kind had split off from other species in that kind.

Which is what you had described for those plants -- the origin of a new species, or speciation.

Ok, I follow so far. But isn't the point of evolution that it creates new species that have adapted to their environments? (That sounds like evolution has volition & purpose, but you know what I mean!) And given enough time, one species can develop into many different species, given different conditions, so you end up with birds & bats & cats?

And creationists are unable to give any clear criteria for recognizing the bounds of a "created kind"; they sometimes differ very dramatically on what's in a "created kind". Some creationists claim that all bacteria are in a single "created kind" -- and bacteria have an enormous amount of diversity.

So what they're saying is that if you can't get an apple tree to turn into a monkey, you don't have evolution? Because things have to stay within their "created kinds"?

TW

Treacle Worshipper

Fair enough, I agree there have probably been a billion Xians & more throughout time. But I thought only the ones alive on earth got raptured & the rest were resurrected at the judgement?
TW

lpetrich

That's right.

And sometimes they make analogies like evolution is dogs giving birth to kittens.