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From: flinn@seismo.UUCP (E. A. Flinn)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Creat/Ev #4
Message-ID: <686@seismo.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 13-Mar-84 08:45:11 EST
Article-I.D.: seismo.686
Posted: Tue Mar 13 08:45:11 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 14-Mar-84 08:10:43 EST
Organization: Center for Seismic Studies, Arlington, VA
Lines: 27

...


Bill Jefferys comments:

  >>Ray [Miller] knows as well as anyone that evolutionists (even
  >>punctuated ones :-)) believe that speciation takes times which are very
  >>long by human standards, even though they may be short geologically.

Actually, artificial selection can produce spectacular evolution in
short times, e.g., breeding pigeons or other animals with short life
spans.  The whole first part of Darwin's "Origin of Species" deals
with artificial selection, and it is clear that Darwin regarded this
as powerful evidence for his theory that the same type of selection
could take place in nature over longer times.

Have any of the creationists ever *read* the Origin of Species?  Most
of their objections were thoroughly discussed by Darwin, who devoted a
good portion of the book to seriously considering arguments against
his theory of evolution by natural selection, and countering them as
best he could.  His main difficulty was Kelvin's calculation that the
Earth couldn't be as old as it would have to be for evolution to
account for the evidence, but the contribution of radioactive decay to
the Earth's heat budget wasn't known at that time.  Some of the
sillier objections, such as the incorrect argument based on the second
law of thermodynamics, hadn't been thought up then, either.