A, possibly, new entry in the never-ending Evolution vs Creation debate?

[Rataxes]

I realize that the odds of someone bringing up something completely new to a debate that has been going on for so long is very slim. But still, I've lurked on this board for quite some time and read quite a few of these threads. Still I've never seen this particular thing mentioned.

Isn't human controlled breeding a very simple, very real and very obvious evidence of evolution? That we've been able to "create" a variation of a species with new properties, such as the Belgian Blue, simply by selecting the biggest cows and breeding them, and then breeding the offspring again with another big cow, eventually resulting in bigger and bigger cows.

Replace humans with nature, replace the motives of breeding - from getting cows with more meat or cats with smoother fur, to having a greater chance to survive in nature - and give it a billion years or two to make up for the fact that mother nature runs a fairly slow process compared to human breeding. I'd say that would give us Natural evolution. Don't you think?

 

[wesmorris]

Excellent extrapolation if I'm reading you right. In fact, I believe you've touched on the current focus of some reasearchers. I don't think any scientist takes the simplistic idea of evolution to be how humans came to be. It's just the general idea. The current best theory (flavor of evolution) that I've heard is called "sexual selection" in other words, it is competition for mates that drives selection. Stronger mates, or more socially savvy mates gain higher priority in reproduction.

I would hold that this is very close to the right kind of reasoning, but reality is likely a little more complex given the integrated nature of nature. For instance one modification I might add would be that sexual selection has more impact as time progresses. After that intellectual selection and just random selection preceded it at the first spark of life. That's not quite right I'm sure, but it sure seem to be reasonable to me.

 

[spuriousmonkey]

Originally posted by Rataxes


Isn't human controlled breeding a very simple, very real and very obvious evidence of evolution? That we've been able to "create" a variation of a species with new properties, such as the Belgian Blue, simply by selecting the biggest cows and breeding them, and then breeding the offspring again with another big cow, eventually resulting in bigger and bigger cows.

great thinking, but unfortunately you were not the first. Darwin used this anology in on the origin of species. See for instance chapter one in its entirety: 'Variation under Domestication.'
at least you can console yourself now that you are on the same level as one of the greatest thinkers of all time.