Operative word: imagining

Perhaps I should have used it.. imagine if a wolf was given a choice between a weak and strong rabbit both of whom have been prevented from running away for some external reason (let’s say a tree branch fell on them if that helps).

Obviously in a straight race, the weakest is going to get caught first, but if there is no race.. wouldn’t the wolf go for the stronger (better meal) than the weaker?

Eg. This would mean human hunters just have better odds than the wolf but the instinct to go after the best choice meat is still the same.

Good comment, I’m beginning to think along those lines myself, nature doesn’t produce species, it just produces…

With regards to hunting the strongest, how do we know for sure that the wolf would eat the strongest rabbit if it was given a choice – eg. weak small rabbit and big strong rabbit both get stuck in a trap. Along comes a wolf, does he look and consider, hmm I’ll go for the weak one and do my part to keep the rabbit populations going at an acceptable level, or does he simply eat the one which smells best/is nearest or whatever.. perhaps he eats both anyway. Interesting, is there any studies in this that predators will consciously/instinctively choose the weakest?

My guess is that a wolf would also go for the most tasty succulent rabbit (the biggest will keep him going for longer than the smaller and also less chance of getting food poisoning).

Speciation occurs when one group can no longer reproduce with members of the parent group. A horse and a donkey can produce offspring but these mules are infertile and so cannot continue the genetic line. There is a clear distinction between one species and another. In London the London Underground system became an attractive environment for mosquitoes. After about a hundred years of separation the surface mosquitoes and underground mosquitoes can no longer breed. They are now separate species. ==> http://www.gene.ch/gentech/1998/Jul-Sep/msg00188.html

This is evolution at work and is supported by good empirical evidence. A creationist might say that the two species of mosquito are still mosquitoes but the difference is only a matter of degree. When does a mosquito cease to become a mosquito and becomes a different form of insect? At what point is a donkey considered a different kind of animal to a horse from a creationist view?

Thus, while they have no problem with the idea of evolutionary adaptation in general, it’s the idea of one species turning into a different species that they think contradicts scripture.

The flaw here, of course, is thinking of the label “species” as something set it stone. Rather, species are things we identify after the fact to describe what things look like at a particular snapshot in time. While there are some criteria in the definition to be a species at that particular instant, once time is factored in it’s an arbitrary definition based on convenience rather than on some innate property of the lifeforms themselves.

Throwing humans back into the mix, you also see the same effect in husbandry and other forms of selective breeding, giving us dogs with legs of ridiculous lengths and mind-numbingly stupid sheep.

Examples like these provide an important reminder that evolution is great for adaptation to changing conditions but that it’s really not “progressing” towards any particular goal, as is often falsely assumed.

I used to weed my back yard and by pulling the weeds up by hand. Being lazy I’d not bother digging up the root. If the plant snapped off I’d leave the root, the weed would grow back and sometimes managed to flower before I got to it again. After a few years my back yard was filled with nothing but weeds that snapped off their roots easily. Evolution is happening constantly in its tiny but inexorable steps.

most Creationists I know like to make a distinction between what they call “micro-evolution” (change within species), and “macro-evolution” (change from one species into another), and admit that the former happens while denying the latter.

My thumper friend believes that “border collies” are a species.

In South Carolina, our education system teaches nonsense, ala the mythological scripture.