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From: stro@ur-univax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Catastrophic Evolution: reply # 2 to
Message-ID: <41500004@ur-univax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 13-Aug-85 18:27:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ur-univa.41500004
Posted: Tue Aug 13 18:27:00 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 15-Aug-85 00:47:21 EDT
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Organization: University of Rochester: Computing Center
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Nf-From: ur-univax!stro    Aug 13 18:27:00 1985


>    If Ron's 116 aren't good enough, I've got  several more.  The
>one that  really kills  Darwinism as far as I'm concerned goes as
>follows: chance mutations  are mostly  harmful or  fatal and even
>these  are  rare.   The  ones  which aren't harmful are extremely
>rare and are isolated  in time  and local  e.g. a child  with six
>fingers  may  be  born  in  Paris  in 1725 A.D. and the next such
>child in Chicago in 1912 A.D.  What are the chances  of these two
>marrying  and   having  six-fingered   children?   Further,  many
>higher animals will  simply  kill  mutants.   Amongst  humans, in
>every century  prior to  this one,  this phenomenon took the form
>of the witchcraft trial.  

Yes, mutations are rare, helpful ones are even rarer; no evolutionist
will deny that.  The thing creationists keep overlooking is that these
mutations have had over a billion years to occur since life began on Earth.
Simple life forms also have much shorter reproduction cycles ( some bacteria
multiply every hour ) which of course increases the probability of a 
mutation in the species. Many, Many mutation may also be so subtle that
they are not appearant to others of the species who might kill them.  The
opposable thumb of homo-sapiens evolved over many thousands of years from the
left most finger of lower primates. Others in the species were so similar to
the ones which had slight mutations that the difference was not noticeable.
Background radiation, a major factor causing mutations, may also have
been significantly greater in the past than it is today.

But why do we even have to talk about this. Go to your local natural history
museum and see for yourself the lovely fossil record of evolution which
is solid, concrete, scientific evidence, not a 2000 year old fairy tale.

If God created the Earth and he wishes us to believe that he did, why did
he also create a magnificent fossil history of life and our planet
which proves that we and our planet developed naturally.  And none
of this "God works is strange and mysterious ways" - which is just a
cop out for "If the evidence doesn't fit the theory, disregard the
evidence."




						- Steve Robiner
						  University of Rochester

       {allegra|seismo|decvax}!rochester!ur-univax!stro

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