Creationism - Evolution humor

TD

I tried a serious topic on this subject and got a grand total of 1 response

How about some humor for a change?

Panda

Hah ... very cute ... but it won't change anyones mind ... but it will entertain those who it's meant to entertain. Thanks.

The real humour is in how very sad the argument of the cartoonist really is. Bacteria don't evolve. What "evolves" (increases) is the population or number of stronger bacteria. New kinds of bacteria don't spring into existence. The very opposite takes place. Some existing forms become extinct, allowing stronger forms to become more plentiful.

Growth in the population of strong bacteria is observable, but there is absolutely no evidence of new KINDS of bacteria. For example, ordinary bacteria don't survive very well in the antiseptic environment of a hospital. Only the antiseptic-resistant varieties are able to survive there. The reason why they survive is that they don’t absorb antibiotics very well. The reason why they don’t absorb antibiotics very well is that they don’t absorb anything well, including nutrients. Outside the hospital environment, they have to compete with other bacteria that do absorb nutrients well. Consequently, the so-called "super bugs" starve to death when they have to compete with ordinary bacteria because they are less fit for survival under normal circumstances.

Drugs do not create new forms of viruses or bacteria. Drugs merely eliminate some variants, allowing existing variants to become more plentiful. It is the relative numbers of the various kinds of critters that change, not the critters themselves.

LittleToe

fjtoth:

Mutation / Evolution - semantics...

Abaddon

fjtoth http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/795_antibio.html Above URL discusses how bacteria acquire resistance; Mutation, transformtion, and plasmid transfer. Once these changes are in effect standard rules of natural selection (which you describe quite well) apply. But those three types of change do create evolutionary jumps.where there is a real discontinuity (a better word than spring) between generations; generation 1 couldn't do 'x', generation 2 can do 'x'. Even slow continuous change can create species. Look at the Herring Gull and Lesser Black-Backed Gulls. In Britain they never interbreed. Walk East and slowly, as you walk along the Arctic coast of Europe and Asia into Siberia, the Black-backed Gulls will become more and more Herring Gull-like in their appearance. At any point in your journey the gulls from place A will interbreed happily with those 'nearby', and be physically indistinguishable from them. As you near to the East coast of the USA the gulls become more and more Herring Gull-like until they are Herring Gulls. The species has spread over time in one direction, encircling the globe and getting back to where it's 'journey' started. Whilst at most points in its range it can breed with gulls from adjacent points in its range, when it comes full cricle the differences between the two forms of the gull that have arrisen are so large they are seperate species. This 'spatial' circle-species, where the change from one species into the next is so subtle most of the time it is un-noticable, is exactly how most species change over time. No Homo erectus ever gave birth to a H. hidelbergensis; those are just snap-shots of a slow gradual continuous development we use as it's easy to classify things that way. Speciation is not a point in time most of the time, but a gradual change where the starting point and new point can be defined, but the point where type a becomes type b never arrises as the type a and type b are just snap-shots seperated by time to make the differentation between species that has occured obvious.

AlmostAtheist

... but it will entertain those who it's meant to entertain.

Yep, sure did! "They're intelligently designed." Lovely!

Dave

Satanus

Great punch line

S

funkyderek

fjtoth:

Given that bacteria reproduce asexually, how do you explain the existence of different strains? Do you believe that God directly created the bacteria that cause TB and also directly created an antibiotic-resistant version of the same bacterium? Why? How did the weaker antibiotic-resistant version survive for 6000 years alongside a more robust competitor?

Can viruses evolve? If not, why would a god create some 200 different versions of the common cold virus? What sort of sadistic madman would behave like that?

forsharry

excellent questions, funkyderek!

This is because God is a killer. :) What an interesting topic that would make. Did god create the virii and bacteria before or after Adam and Eve sinned? And if before, did God then take away their immunity to said virii and bacteria?

hmmm...the world may never know. ;)