Instead of going to a place like talkorigins.org which after all is designed specifically to counter Creationism, I believe it's much more compelling to post something like this:
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/dait/cross-species/page5.htm
Here are extracts, you don't need to read closely, just skim it and get the idea:
Coronaviruses have a high mutation rate and a very high recombination rate. They mutate at a rate of about 1 in 10,000 nucleotides, which translates to an average of about three mutations per genome. Furthermore, they can recombine with different strains and, rarely, acquire features from other viruses, such as HE from influenza C virus. Thus, the replication of coronaviruses gives rise to multiple viral quasi-species, with different biological properties.
[...]
Dr. Baric spoke on Molecular and Evolutionary Mechanisms of Virus Cross-Species Transmission. Coronavirus replication is characterized by high mutation (10-4) and RNA recombination frequencies (about 20 percent), suggesting that these viruses are well positioned to adapt rapidly to a changing ecological niche. Because species specificity in this family of viruses is almost exclusively mediated at the level of entry, coronaviruses are good model systems to study receptor molecule lineages that regulate virus cross-species transmission.
[...]
MHVH2 could also replicate efficiently in human cell lines, demonstrating that virus mutants could emerge with broad host range specificity from mixed cell populations.
[...]
MHVR is a member of the highly homologous carcinoembryonic (CEA) gene family. Humans are known to have about 22 different genes in this family in their genome, including the biliary glycoprotein homologue of MHVR. Although it is unclear exactly which human CEA glycoprotein family member functions as a receptor for MHVH2 entry into human cells, antiserum against the human CEA glycoproteins blocks virus replication, suggesting that phylogenetic homologues of the normal receptor function as natural conduits of virus cross-species transmission in mixed cell cultures.
[...]
The evolutionary mechanisms by which viruses adapt to mixed host cell populations have been a matter of intense investigation. Neutral allele theory proposes that "most mutations are deleterious, that advantageous mutations are very rare, that deleterious mutations are removed by purifying selection, and that less important portions of molecules evolve faster than more important portions of molecules." This model supports the concept of a constant molecular clock that applies nearly equivalent mutational pressure over time to yield phylogenic variation patterns.
Now, not a great deal of that made much sense to me in terms of actually understanding what it all
means. But I'm more interested in what it
represents. Nobody is having any arguments about God. No-one is thinking of the philosophical implications of an aimless, directionless Universe. They're just getting on with dealing with the causes and implications of virus evolution.
Creationists frequently claim that there is no more evidence for evolution than there is for the Biblical view. Looking at the debate from an unbiased (and relatively uninformed) point of view, this may superficially have some force. After all, I personally have no direct experience of evolution; of geology; of palaeontology; of genetics. I read it all in books myself, so where's the difference between that and Creationists reading about life's origins in Genesis?
But in that case, what are all these people
doing? The page is a report from some symposium or other where virus mutation and evolution came up as an important subject. If evolution were a chimera, why would all these intelligent and highly qualified people be wasting their time in a non-"Creation Debate" setting simply talking about evolution as though it were a totally unquestioned fact?
The reason is that
it matters. It's
important. Evolution, like it or not, is the means by which AIDS and SARS have come into the world, and it is crucial to the combatting of those and other diseases to understand how they appear, develop and propagate.
Evolution, they say, is "just a theory". There are ways of looking at it in which that could be said to be true. But even "just theories" are useful if they provide answers to problems, answers that actually work. Genesis 1 does not, I'm afraid, provide those answers.
Some random ramblings on this subject based on stuff in my mind at the moment. Last night I saw the second half of the classic Michael Crighton medical horror
Coma. At one point, the doctor in charge of the organ harvesting talked about American spending on health, and it struck me that the number he quoted was at least in the tens of billions of dollars - in
1977! Even leaving aside inflation, the amount almost thirty years later must have multiplied many fold as the United States becomes increasingly aware of the passage of time and the encroachments of mortality. And yet the government actively encourages the suppression of the education that is supposed to help create the doctors of tomorrow. Secondly, this morning I heard on the radio that here in the UK there is a lot of concern about science courses at universities are closing through lack of funding, and someone said "we're not making enough scientists for our future needs". And it struck me that the Government - any Government - ought to know the numbers of scientists and doctors it is going to need to educate. Again, the state and federal US governments appear to be quite happy to sabotage what is
increasingly a major contribution to the nation's economic health.
