re: #483 Snarknado!

I’m not arguing with you — your field, not mine — but) it seems to me that calling this evolution (the kind of “churn” that’s taking place everywhere, all the time) without qualifications muddles the issue. I’ve had the pleasure (she said, meaning the opposite) of hearing anti-evolutionists on the subject, and this would draw the response “You see?! Nothing has changed! You can’t add anything! You’ve proved Creationism!!11y” Ad endless nauseam…

What Creationists think doesn’t change reality. And by drawing a line dividing what Creationists can’t deny from what they don’t want to believe, you provide them with a safe have for denial - “I believe in Microevolution, but not Macroevolution!’ But there’s really no division there. I’ve had good results by working from what they HAVE TO accept towards what they WON’T, because what it does is to expose how indefensible their position is.

WRT ‘you can’t add anything’, bullshit! Our genomes are chock full of evidence of adding new stuff. Duplication and divergence. The proteins that make up our cells and do the work are comprised of a rearrangements and revisions of a relatively small number of domain types, reused and revised by mutation and selection.