fact-checkers?

[arib]

So, sometime within the last two weeks or so, President Bush discussed the plans for the governemnt's response to a potential flu epidemic, focusing especially on the H5N1 variant of bird flu.

Does anyone know if he mentioned anything about the virus mutating?

'cause y'know, that'd be, like, evolution and stuff.

Comments

[thevortex.livejournal.com]

Not exactly evolution, no.

The Vortex

[arib.livejournal.com]

Not exactly, no. But enough to make your average creationist uncomfortable. :-)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Nope, Creationists these days accept mutation. See, they believe that something can turn into another form of the same thing. So, like, the fact that whales have vestigial hip-bones that show that they're descended from walking creatures, that doesn't bother them. All it shows, as far as they're concerned, is that there used to be whales with legs. And whales with legs can turn into whales without legs; that's not a problem, 'cause they're still whales.

Now, if you're a normal, rational person, you'd say, "Wait -- so the entire argument against evolution is that you don't believe that God allows things to change their NAMES? That something can turn into anything else within the same category, even if that means changing from a land-dwelling critter to a sea-going critter -- so long as it remains with the same NAME?"

And if you're a creationist, you'd say, "Yup."

So a virus can mutate into another virus. A sparrow can mutate into another sparrow. A whale can mutate into another whale. These are all "microevolution" which is "changes within a category". What they don't believe in is "macroevolution" which is when a category is created by something from another category turning into something NEW.

The fact that the categories are entirely artificial and human-created is completely missed.

(And, theologically, I could even make an argument to justify that: Adam gave names to all the creatures. That means that humanity created the category names, so creatures can only change within the categories that Adam assigned.)

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

... Whales had legs?

[dmmaus.livejournal.com]

Their ancestors did. Google for Ambulocetus ("walking whale").