Originally Posted by
Jason Hyatt
Jason: I'm going to take the time to craft a proper response as I am also trying very hard to keep this a civil discussion not a name-calling contest. You've been civil, I've certainly tried to be (and apologies if I came off as "you're dumb". The implied "you're" isn't YOU personally, it's the ubiquitous "you" we mean in conversation. Just like the "they" in "they always say...") and if I'm going to start something I might as well not half-ass it. It's just that ever since undergrad I've been having this discussion and it's exhausting. It requires a very significant amount of background to appreciate the subtleties of evolutionary theory and getting to common understanding can take a really long time -- especially when you have to write everything, use a number of analogies, summarize experiments that took more than one generation of scientist to even perform, etc, etc. Really, that's the problem with the whole thing. Each side tries to distill its argument down to a six-second sound bite and by then we aren't even speaking the same language much less talking about the same topic. I'll do my best to avoid that. From here on out read everything I write with an excited, happy, conversational tone. That's how it's intended. I wouldn't have kicked my ass double-majoring in this crap if I didn't have a deep abiding love for it! :)
Joshua: In large part, that's it. Those four postulates are Darwinian evolution. That's what all the fuss is about. That said, I'm going to make the same effort for you as I promised Jason and give you a proper response. That means a bit of work so you may have to wait a bit for a complete response, but we'll get there.