I risk presumptuousness by answering a question not addressed to me, but I believe that, when it comes to evolution, Walden shares a dissenting viewpoint with others of his religious persuasion.
“Raptors? You made raptors?!”
I confess that the chief reason why I prefer evolution to
intelligent design isn’t scientific; it’s that I’ve seen lots
and lots of nature in action and if there’s a designer
he/she/it/they were unspeakably cruel, it seems
to me. Not nice, at the least. So I hope there was no designer; things
are bad enough already.
Well, y’see, it all stems from a bad childhood experience, involving a pterosaur, an archaeopteryx, and a couple head of carabao…err… I mean… ahem… no… it wasn’t that.
It wasn’t that? But that was shaping up into a really good story!
Coming from Walden, though, shouldn’t it be a epic poem?
The main evidence that now makes the theory of evolution so compelling is not so much the fossil record but clearly observed mutation in viruses and bacteria, which, together with the theory of natural selection explains why some thrive and others die out. We can actually ‘observe’ evolution these days.
Actually, it was quite common for a T-Rex to be tarred and feathered long before Mark Bolan hit the scene.
Cruel to our human perceptions, perhaps. But hasn’t the human species, alone, superceded/suspended the evolutionary process? And is not the most unspeakable cruelty found on the planet dealt out by human hands? It goes well beyond our being the “climax predator;” in nature (if one accepts evolution as working hypothesis) there’s the relatively clean and simple process of “survival of the fittest”; but for humans, it’s becoming “survival of the cruelest…” in many spheres, not just the obvious ones. (Sorry, folks; this train of thought is the direct result of coming to c&f directly after reading the daily news 
)
It’s been observed and documented even in larger animals, like finches in the Galapagos and guppies in Trinidad and Venezuela. In the case of the guppies, the process has been reproduced experimentally. (See The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time by Johnathan Weiner.)
I’ve noticed, by the way, that there are a surprisingly large number of people who don’t seem to distinguish among evolution, natural selection, and speciation. I often run across Web sites where someone argues against one of these while actually talking about one of the others. Of course, the most common thing is to lump everything under the term “evolution”. It’s funny, because evolution is the simplest and best established of the lot. It is commonly defined as “changes in the frequency of alleles in a population over time.” I find it hard to believe that anyone believes that gene pools go on unchanged forever, yet I constantly see people claiming that they “don’t believe in evolution”. For that to be true, they would have to doubt both that mutations occur and that meiosis takes place.
Of course, in a world where Immanuel Velikovsky http://www.kronia.com/symposium_papers.html still has followers, I shouldn’t be surprised at what people are capable of believing.
I suspect that what many people doubt is not even natural selection, since the analogy to artificial selection is so clear, but rather speciation, which is the part that doesn’t seem to fit well with a literal interpretation of Genesis.
For those who have no religious reason for rejecting these ideas, but don’t know much about the details, http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/BIOBK/BioBookEVOLII.html does a pretty good job of laying out the basics, though it’s necessarily brief.
A good many, probably most, of the writers, calling themselves scientific creationists (as opposed to the theological use of the term creationism, which speaks of the Christian doctrine that the human soul is not pre-existent) admit to this, but, for whatever reason, do not hold to the notion that all life forms that we see come from the progression of lower organisms into higher.
I’ve said nothing of my religious, scientific, or philosophical views on Darwinism, speciation, evolution, cattle breeding, spotted sticks, et al, but as long as you bring up literal interpretation of Genesis, I will say this, that I believe that Genesis, like most of Scripture, speaks on more than one level.
For those who have no religious reason for rejecting these ideas, but don’t know much about the details, > http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/BIOBK/BioBookEVOLII.html > does a pretty good job of laying out the basics, though it’s necessarily brief.
Now hold on theyah, Senatah! Are y’all in league with the Recohdahs?
There was an archæopteryx named Norm,
Who with pterosaurs flew like a storm,
They got in my way,
And two carabao did slay,
Alas, with them, that’s just the norm.
Walden: “Well, y’see, it all stems from a bad childhood experience, involving a pterosaur, an archaeopteryx, and a couple head of carabao…err… I mean… ahem… no… it wasn’t that.”
I just knew it! Weren’t you told, when you were younger, that you should never accept candy from strangers or you should never put your tongue on a frozen flag pole, or especially, never ever ever mingle with pterosaurs? What could you have possibly been thinking? Well, I guess the burnt hand teaches best…as my old gaffer used to say.
The other problem is that the term “evolution” is very non-specific. Those that have problems with evolution usually don’t understand the complexity of the issue. When you speak of Darwin’s Finches and the like, you really are speaking of MICRO-Evolution. Micro-Evolution absolutely does occur (as you pointed out, Dar)…the concepts of “survival of the fittest”, “natural selection”, etc fit into this area of evolution nicely. When pressed (and when the facts are set in front of them), most people who don’t believe in evolution will concede that they DO believe in this (although you do get some who don’t). More often than not, it’s MACRO-Evolution that they have a problem with…the whole theory of the missing link and that there was a major evolution of species at one time or another. I for one am not an advocate of Macro-Evolution…I just don’t buy it on a religious as well as a scientific level. I just don’t think the proof is there. But micro-evolution is indisputable.
Anyway, just my $.02 worth for this morning, for what it’s worth 
If Charlie Darwin’s theory of evolution were completely accurate, there still must have been some sort of Creation at some point.
The difficulty in denying the full Darwinian package on scientific grounds springs from the facts (i) that it seems impossible to deny that the Darwinian mechanism does and has given rise to speciation and (ii) that if you hold that some species arose through other means you postulate a second mechanism where one would have done, thus violating scientific methodology. Why should there be two ways in which species can arise when one explantion is capable of doing the job?
Just as evolution can now be observed, so too can speciation. In Britain the herring gull and the lesser black-backed gull are reckoned two species. But as you move westward you find populations of herring gulls getting to resemble their British cousins less and less and the black-backed critters more and more. This process is smoothly continuous—in effect it is the gradual fissioning of populations. What you see is speciation occurring across space in just the way Darwin held that it occurs across time.
…I am sorry for getting the evolution/creationist discussion going again…really…I will have to go to bed with no supper tonight…after writing a hundred thousand times: “I will not start/encourage a controversial topic again.”…sigh. 
My apologies, again, Walden, for supposing anything about you. I was just taking a stab at the question.
Oh…and Mike: Yes. I suppose I meant speciation, not evolution. Annoying habit of slipping into the vernacular.
You shouldn’t be sorry. I don’t understand how or why people think controversial things don’t need to be discussed. I enjoy talking about the Creation vs. evolution debate, abortion, Susatos, and all that other stuff because it gives insights into how people think, and each person is different.
…Carnberry, you’re right! I am not sorry…I am pathetic…no wait…uh… 
All thoughout my childhood, paleontology was my ‘big thing’. Growing up in a household where both parents were teachers…and one an anthropologist…provided me with ample opportunity and inspiration to delve deeper into aspects of evolution, speciation…what-have-you. But that’s not to say that these are the correct, or the only views on the matter.
As homosapiens, in our quest for a deeper understanding of our life, universe and spirituality, we amble down a multitude of pathways in search for the answers to these questions…who can honestly say that any one answer is correct or incorrect? And in the long run, what does it truly mean to have the answers? I, for one, am quite content to be highly opinionated and listen to or read the equally high opinions of others…it makes living that much more enriching and boredom free.
…of course…if I disagree with you…all bets are off 