I can't say whether special creation really happened or not, because that idea trumps any evidence which would show otherwise... isn't that the whole point?
I think the point is that special creation was the default position for a lot of philosophers, including Darwin, until he discovered speciation at Galapagos. At that point, special creation was trumped by incontrovertible evidence. What other logic could lead to any other conclusion?
I don't believe that special creation happened, but I do believe that disproving it is impossible. I would question the judgment of anyone who would say otherwise.
What's wrong with the judgment which says "Galapagos disproves special creation"? How is that kind of judgment inferior to the judgment that says "if it's not in the Bible then I don't want to hear it", or, in your case "since something like the Creation Myth
could have happened, I remain reluctant over evolution"?
I don't disagree with evolutionists
Don't be surprised if folks identify you as a religious crank since you are using the same lexicon and talking points as the Creationists. Science is not an 'ism' (belief/ideal), so it's taken as a form of disparagement to call scientists idealists/believers. Here you're exposing some unexplained antagonism against science, which, if we want to cut to the chase, readily explains your stance on evolution. Evolution is just science. There is no alternative explanation that fits under the umbrella and there is no other branch of science so universal.
on how the finches came to be so varied.
Then that's the judgment call that comes into question here. There is only one plausible explanation.
There is some evidence supporting the idea of speciation,
Here again you can expect rebuttal as to the judgement. The evidence comes first [observation of new species on a remote isolated atoll which did not exist "In the beginning" and can not therefore have been part of the purported Special Creation] and after weighing all the evidence [including the geology of atolls, dating them, and the geographic origins of the earliest breeding pairs] , there simply is no choice but to admit that the species evolved there. As emotionally difficult as that may be for people tied to their faith in themselves and their reluctance to accept that they were wrong, the science prevails. Once all the evidence is in hand, even a religious believer such as Darwin is forced to take his medicine. (i.e. God cannot lie through His own works.) It's a bitter pill for some to swallow, hence the present culture wars.
Once you acknowledge the evidence for speciation, it's quite easy to see how accumulated speciation explains the genera, and the rest of taxa. Thus the religious question is out of touch with science. Of course the biological evidence also explains the the amassing DNA evidence, which in turn fully corroborates accumulated speciation. Now it makes sense why human DNA and the DNA of yeast have commonality. There's some of the proof that confronts you.
But evolutionary theory does not have exclusive rights to this evidence. That's not how science works.
How science works is that it teaches people how to distinguish fact from fantasy. Apparently that's the piece of human logic that science lays exclusive rights to by default, since Religion won't stake any claims there. But the evidence is free. Hell, people flock to Galapagos in droves out of the love of free evidence. As far as I'm concerned the whole world stops turning whenever I come across another documentary of Darwin's work. There are few subjects in science so freely available -- so easily grasped -- as a 45 minute tutorial from PBS or the Discovery Channel on this question which holds you in a bind.
For example, this same evidence can also support the idea that the same building blocks of life were used to create
Except there can be no special creation or else Galapagos could not exist as Darwin found it. It's not even remotely plausible to suggest it. And of course a century after Darwin published, the now-famous Wilkins, Watson & Crick discovered DNA. Indeed the building blocks you speak of are there. This discovery corroborated Darwin's observation that there was an underlying systemic cause to types and frequency of variations within a generation of organisms, which we now understand is the result of genetic mutation (subjected to selective pressure). That leaves the idea of "building blocks being used to create" out in the cold. At some point, faulty propositions simply have to be discarded. Science is very good about rooting them out, to its credit, not otherwise.
You mean species. All you need to worry about in deciding how to get out of your bind is that the theory of evolution is a theory on the origin of species, not of any other taxa. None of that even matters, since it relates to religion. It did have an entirely different application in a sidebar discussion over gradualism, but the Creationists highjacked the word and blew it up into the meaning you've ascribed to it. (Another thing that connects your statements to Creationism.)
and that each kind was given considerable ability to change over time.
That sounds a little like the Catholic interpretation of evolution which at least answers the mail as far as Galapagos is concerned. It accepts that species evolved by genetic mutation, as operated on by natural selection. The "ability to change over time" for purely stable cases where no selective pressures are in play (rare but also crucial) is covered by the post-Darwin discovery of genetic drift. But you can't have genetic drift without the mutations which give populations the specific alleles available to them. To be clear, genetic drift is a post-mutation stochastic process carried out usu. over many generations. That process is related to the randomizing effect of opportunistic fertilizations and the crossover during meisos which was mentioned by one or more posters here.
I'm not saying I do or don't believe this(although it's pretty obvious isn't it)
Actually, no, there is nothing obvious to me about your beliefs. They seem to be based on some fundamental error but it's not clear to me exactly what that error is.
because it's irrelevant to the discussion and will only serve to derail the thread.
If all we do is rehash Galapagos we've served the purpose of the thread. But of course there are lots of other great subtopics already introduced by the pro-science posters here which are equally as relevant.
I don't think perfect copies are the norm, but I do think variation is the norm...
That's a good step. Next you need only decide whether spontaneous mutations occur (they do) and whether mutations can also be induced (yes) and your practically out of the bind.
without the assistance of mutation.
Oops. That contradicts massive evidence. Even to get genetic drift (which seems to be your preference over mutation) the availability of alleles is governed by the prior mutations which introduced those variations into the pool.
In other words, if mutations suddenly ceased happening, species would still continue to adapt and change just as they always do, and just as Darwin's finches did.
That's impossible in the real world. And of course it's moot since mutation is the clearest evidence which debunks special creation, and it does so in real time (contrary to the "you can't prove it's happening now" claim). Even the Catholics found it intolerable to think that God is so obsessive-compulsive that he simply can't stand to leave his little monsters alone.
Given that DNA is so well understood these days, relative to the evidence that confronted Darwin, what other building blocks would you introduce, and why? And why would you think that DNA does not spontaneously mutate from generation to generation?
