Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Evolutionary Theory Hole Filled

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Some odd-looking fish fossils discovered in the bowels of several European museums may help solve a lingering question about evolutionary theory, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.

The 50 million-year-old fossils -- which have one eye near the top of their heads -- help explain how flatfish such as flounder, sole and halibut developed the strange but useful trait of having both eyes on one side.

For flatfish, which lie on their sides at the bottom of the sea, this arrangement gives them the use of two watchful eyes.

But the trait has posed a problem for evolutionary biologists because no one had found any so-called transitional fossils -- fossils showing intermediate steps in the evolution of this trait.

"The important thing about this study is it delivers evidence of those intermediates," said Matt Friedman of The Field Museum and the University of Chicago, whose study appears in the journal Nature.

This missing link in the evolution of flatfishes has been seen as a hole in the theory of natural selection. - Yahoo!

I'm starting to slowly realize that evolution and religion can be compromised.

8 comments:

  1. Glen, as a fellow Catholic who attends church weekly, I'll be the first to agree with you that there's nothing wrong with believing. What IS wrong is when you interpret the Bible as anything more than a spiritual document: i.e. a scientific one.

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  2. Indeed, Ben. You'd be surprised, though, at the amount of Catholics who literally believe in the six days of creation.

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  3. Why do we bother God on sundays? Sunday is God's day off. Why is that the day that we all pack into buildings deemed "his house" and grovel away, even though it's supposed to be established that Sunday is his day off.

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  4. Fools who believe in creationism, not evolution, are the reason why Carlin hated religion.

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  5. A friend of mine put it well

    "Everything in the Bible is true, but not all of it really happened." In other words, it's all got a true and meaningful message or idea, but it's not a true account of stuff that happened.

    Even though Jesus did work miracles, he also spread his message of love and all that by telling stories. Parables.

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  6. Well put, friend. In short, the Bible can't be taken literally. Take the morals of the stories with you, forget about all that other junk about seven days...

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  7. "The Bible is one of the most genocidal books...." Noam Chomsky. Lol, I just had to throw that in there. I really don't have anything constructive to add to the discussion; well actually I do, but with my free will I choose not to.

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  8. It IS genocidal! As Carlin said, more people have died in the name of God than for any other reason.

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