God Created Evolution

[Dinger]

Shuts the fundies right down, trust me.

[Critters2]

1. That's basically "intelligent design", which is pretty much

where I come down, unless it's being used as a way to sneak creationism into the public schools. Which it usually is.

[Dinger]

2. O.K., I Can See That

And "intelligent" design can kiss my ass. Darwin all the way for me.

[Critters2]

3. I think God is, somehow, working things toward the future.

I also believe only an idiot would argue against natural selection. I say this as I sit here missing the three white-tailed squirrels who used to play in the church yard. This litter of three squirrels with white tails were born here last spring. Cute as could be, and really pretty with those flowing white tails. I loved to watch 'em. But I knew, thanks to freshman biology, that it was only a matter of time until the white tails which caught my attention would do the same for our neighborhood feral cats, the owl who lives in our big oak, or a passing hawk. I seem to have been right. The white-tailed squirrels are gone. The church yard is less interesting.

And Darwin was right.

[54anickel]

4. But, but wait!!! What about the banana???

http://www.scificatholic.com/2008/03/kirk-cameron-goes-bananas_14.html

[Critters2]

5. I have to go type up a funeral service,

and I must admit, the minute I saw the words "Kirk Cameron", I figure I know where this is going. :)

[54anickel]

6. I can't look at either a banana or Kirk without seeing that clip in my mind.

[Critters2]

9. Okay, just watched this, and, frankly, I don't get it.

How is the fact that humans can easily hold an peel a banana an argument against natural selection? Seriously. My brain is not getting this connection at all.

I'd never make a good fundie. :crazy:

[54anickel]

10. Can't say that I understand it myself, even more difficult when looking into the development of

today's banana and it's rather bleak future - which happens to be a damned good argument FOR natural selection. I took them off of my shopping list years ago. Too damned many nasty pesticides used in production.


snip>

With its DNA frozen in time, the hapless banana has not been able to modify itself genetically through natural selection to fend off pests and bugs that have appeared in the past 100 centuries. The most serious threat comes from black sigatoka, a fungus that has spread around the world since devastating plantains in Fiji during the '60s.

Other blights are Panama disease, a soil fungus impervious to fungicides, and weevil borers, a pincer-tipped bug with larvae that gouge burrows into stalks.

We westerners love bananas, but we won't go hungry if they disappear. They taste good in daiquiris and smashed into a baby's mush. The most profitable export fruit in the world, bananas earn $12 billion for Chiquita, Dole and other companies growing crops in South America and Africa.

For the poor in developing nations, however -- more than 400 million people, from Honduras and Cuba to Uganda, Ethiopia and the Philippines -- the banana and plantain are major food staples. They consume 9 of 10 bananas and plantains, 90 million metric tons annually.

snip>

In the 1950s, Panama disease struck and obliterated the Gros Michel, which was replaced by the Panama-disease-resistant Cavendish, the slightly less sweet banana that now appears on our grocery shelves.

Exporters are able to fend off pests by a heavy use of chemicals -- as many as 40 sprayings a year, more than any other crop -- which poor farmers cannot afford. Field hands working in Latin America suffer from high rates of leukemia and sterility from these pesticides.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/04/05/BUGF75VU791.DTL&type=printable

[JerseygirlCT]

7. Exactly! nt

[rrneck]

8. Years ago

a friend of mine was having a hard time finding a job. She was pretty worried about it for a while but she found a gig and everything worked out all right. She told me that the had prayed about it and sure enough, not long after that her prayers for a job had been answered. She felt that it had been divine intervention. I didn't say anything for fear of upsetting her, but I wondered if instead of giving God credit for steering the job her way, she should have been thanking him for giving her lots of brains, drive, and plain old moxie to get a Masters Degree in nursing and beat the streets until she foud a gig. The thumbs didn't hurt either.