Whelp, Ron Paul doesn't believe in evolution.

Not at all. In the affairs of government, it is a non-issue.

As farmers and breeders of livestock, they most certainly would have been aware that they could select for certain traits to improve not only plants and animals, but your man Jefferson no doubt knew which of his slaves would produce the strongest offspring.

They may not have used the term "evolution," and they wouldn't have known what genes were, but they knew how to manipulate them nevertheless.

Bullshit aside (biologically, there's no difference between "micro" & "macro" evolution), we have what you people would consider "macro" evolution.

There's is a species that went from: to in some undetermined period of time...

I'm not up on the distinction between micro and macro here but that's not a convincing example of macro evolution. I was of the opinion that a macro change would be the development on gills on that wolf, for instance, not just a size change.

...all the crazy breeds of dogs out there that got created within recorded human memory...but add on the next step, that a MILLION fucking years could turn an ape into a guy, which isn't much of a step at all, with the environment as the selector...suddenly the incredulity turns on....

Blah, blah, blah, what does any of this have to do with a guy who won't be setting the curriculums in schools?

That's stupid.
Your opinion is ill informed.
I ridicule it.

And a billion years to turn a single-celled virus into you?

Well, maybe you're right after all.

Well, I restate my JohnM question, and clarify further.

How far do you go?
How crazy of a muthafucka do you want in that office?

5 billion.
And viruses don't have "cells", they're smaller than that, they're made of protein strands.
Again, ill informed.

I wonder how many people accepts all the weird, counter-intuitive results from the field of quantum Mechanics but cannot wrap their mind around the possibility of complex biological systems forming and changing drastically on its own.

I stand corrected. 5 billion years. Still more than enough time.

So in your view, until someone coined the term "evolution," it didn't exist? That explains so much.

From that POV, probably no more than which side of the abortion issue or the gay marriage issue a candidate falls on.

But you have to wonder what sort of convoluted thought process goes on in the mind of a guy with a medical degree who - albeit he hasn't practiced medicine for decades - somehow manages to cherry-pick which sciences he accepts and which he doesn't.

If he were some Huckabee fundie, it would be consistent with the rest of his belief system, but it's incongruent in Paul, and it might be inclined to make the thinking voter wonder what other forms of magic he subscribes to.

You're not qualified to have an opinion. I am, as a Bio major in college. And the difference between wolves and modern dogs is more than merely size. And the kind of change you are talking about takes much longer than a few 10k years. Ten times that at a minimum. Most times longer.


All that said, while I like Paul on most issues, his stance on the above and abortion makes me a very sad panda

If the office is properly constrained to its constitutional limits, all you need is someone who won't push the button because he had a bad day and preferably a good strategist in case of war. The rest is window dressing, at most, and you could put (and we might be better off with) a literal chimpanzee in the White House.

However, since the first condition is not met, we need a good person who properly understands the role of the federal government. That's Ron Paul, not JohnM.

Why would anyone need to go to university to get a degree, when we have a shut-in typing from his parent's basement we can learn science from?

You can see evolution in action with bacteria. For example, when a bacterial infection isn't completely destroyed with anti-biotics, the infection gets stronger because the weaker members of the population have been "selected" for extinction in their environment.

Want another interesting example? How about bacteria that can digest nylon, a substance that didn't even exist until the 30s...

Micro-evolution and macro-evolution are terms used to describe the extent to which a change has spread through a population, not the size of that change.

Also should be pointed out, gills on a wolf would be a major change, unlikely to happen. So unlikely in fact that as far as I am aware no land dwelling mammal has ever re-evolved gills. A whale or dolphin uses basically the same breathing equipment we do.

The diversification of wolves into the variety of dogs we see today is a great example of what selective pressure can cause. The difference between a killer whale and a wolf is just a long succession of small changes.

Then there's the whale-camel-hippo connection. But if we get into that, heads will explode...

Considering the current occupant?

Irrelevant. Since all who believe in divine origin but perhaps the total wackos believe in everything you just posted.

Those who believe in creation don't believe there is no nature or changing of nature and life forms. It's a belief in how life originated, not how it lives or changes.

Let me say this again: it is a non-issue. Evolution has absolutely nothing to do with the function of government. It won't fix the budget or the deficit. It won't fix foreign relations. It won't give us a strong defense. It will not maintain the dollar as the world's reserve currency. It will not keep the price of oil affordable. It won't develop new technologies for energy.

In essence, it don't mean shit.

Not only are you getting the terminology wrong (which I see has since been corrected), but you seem to be confusing exactly what evolution is. Evolution is not an active "thing" which just produces random combinations of animals, and frankly trying to argue that since nature hasn't produced something *cough*crocaduck*cough* only serves to make you look like an idiot. Evolution describes changes that occur over time, not toward any specific end, but which simply suited a life form to survive in its environment. Since a wolf is not in an environment where gills would be an advantage to its survival, well there you go.

Interestingly enough, though, most vertebrates actually do possess gill slits in early embryonic development, though they aren't true gills.

Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, IIRC.

There are only so many ways it can be phrased. If the man can be this horribly irrational about this subject, what other wacky fucking beliefs drive his decision-making?

And tell me again, who appoints the secretary of education?

I don't know why this is suddenly an issue. Paul's disbelief in evolution has been public knowledge for quite some time. Can you say with certainty that he is wrong? I can't. I do believe in evolution, but I can't say with absolute certainty that it exists.

And why would we need a Secretary of Education if there is no Department of Education?

I disagree with Ron Paul on some things. I disagree with all of them on some things. But I find myself agreeing with Ron Paul more than I disagree with him.

The logical position, in absence of definitive evidence, is to allow for both possibilities without embracing either as complete and absolute. Right?

Irrelevant. There is a DOE, and it's not going away anytime soon. It's dishonest to say there is no reason to be concerned with president's ability to influence education at all.

And let's not forget what a secretary of education is capable of.

They all keep a deal-killer or ten in their back pockets. Every motherfucking one of them.

Piss on it, I'm writing in Batman. And I wanna see what kind of numbers he gets, too.

You don't even vote and as I've said many times, it is apathy and complacency that put us where we are.

And that's the least of his problems. :santa_cheesy:

I'm always disappointed when someone in a position of authority and influence feels that evolution is "only a theory". It shows the total lack of an education in the most fundamental knowledge of sciences, and a seeming desire to keep it that way.