Quote Originally Posted by Stefan-A View Post
There are several reasons. The most obvious one is that it's psychologically satisfying to do it. Other reasons why it would be in our interest, as opposed to just "fun", is that it keeps the ecosystem better able to withstand disturbances if it has a higher biodiversity and that every species has potentially valuable genetic information that we may one day find a use for. Right now, worms are drastically reducing the biodiversity and resilience of ecosystems in North America.
But if evolution is driving for change, wouldn't the fittest survive? Let's say due to the worm's expansion, hence environmental changes, only garter snakes survive. They're the fittest of the fit; everything else failed. That would be evolution. But due to the lack of diversity, evolution wouldn't be able to happen. Evolution isn't a drive for change: It's a drive for finding the best and keeping it that way. Hence the reason why it doesn't work.


If that ever happened, I'd have to stop believing that the theory of evolution is a viable option. It simply doesn't work that way.
Well, apparently ichthyostega just sorta crawled out of the ocean and became the first amphibian. The fossil record doesn't show a gradual change; the evidence it has suggests a very rapid change. So what if you have sinoropteryx and archaeopteryx, and you say one "evolved" into another? Where's every little step in between, the specimen that is a little different than archaeopteryx, then a teeny bit more, then a little more, that evolution would require? The data shows a rapid change; not a slow one.


And by entirely different, you mean of course from a cat to a dog, not through gradual changes over a long period of time until the existing species is entirely different from the one it started out as. And you are of course incorrect, it has been observed and recorded several times.
Then let's take a look at Canis lupus familiaris. Over the past 1000 years, a relatively short window in the "history" of the earth, humans have spawned the many breeds we see today. In just that little time, we took a "wolf" and made it a "dog." Even so, we still see fertile dog x wolf crosses, of two animals that don't even have the same temperament, hunting techniques, or most anything else. You could barely even classify the dog as a subspecies of the wolf, more or less a variety. The selection and production of the dog by man shows that even within a comparatively short series of time, one thing can change its appearance but not what it is.
Same with goldfish; You can take a crucian carp and convert it to a pudgy, bubble-nosed aquarium pet, but no amount of even human selection could change it into anything near an amphibian. You can only work with what you have: In horses, 64 chromosomes, in donkeys, 62. If you so much as subtract one chromosome, you get a sterile animal. So how on earth do you expect me to believe that evolution defied known science and flopped the count of a few original chromosome sets and made man, more or less even a fertile animal! It's also known that it's easier for things to fall apart than stay together, like when an untended garden becomes overrun with weeds. The same is true with genetics; you can only subtract to get a desired outcome. Using this information, evolution wouldn't be adding genetic information, but rather deleting it. One bacteria isn't immune to an antibiotic; the immunity isn't added but rather the information in the bacteria's genetic structure deletes the weakness to the antibiotic, therefore making it immune. Therefore, to change any feature, you have to delete genetic material that says you can't have it. So, we're looking at the first organism being the most genetically complex organism to exist on Earth . Which coincidently, was formed entirely by accident. You can simulate early Earth conditions in a lab, but no matter how much help you give your materials, you'll never make life. The chances of a whole bunch of proteins and other structures snapping together to make a living organism defies the odds itself!

The evidence. Who's to say that it isn't?
This could go back and forth. But until some one travels back in time, snaps a photo, and brings it back with written observations of how everything occurred, I won't be entirely convinced.