Patrick Caldon
Posts: 68
Joined: April 2006
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| Quote (VMartin @ July 28 2007,02:33) | Medieval University:
- Why are swans white?
- Because God determined so.
Modern University, 21st century:
- Why are swans white?
- Because it was determined by natural selection. |
I'm not sure you're listening VMartin. Not all swans are white. Repeating, not all swans are white. There are black ones:
In any event I think the modern university would more likely answer: "Dunno, but that sounds like an interesting project for a graduate student. Let's see if we can get some funding from somewhere."
Given that all variation which has been thoroughly examined to date has been the result of natural evolutionary processes (of which natural selection is one) it would be a bit of a turn up for the books if swans were white (and black, and various other colors) because God did it.
More to the point, let's suppose after several years of hard labor we had some explanation of why swans are white, black, and various other colors, as we now do for lots of other organisms. You would just pipe up with: "Why are crimson rosellas red?". Then another several years of labor. Then "Why are galahs pink?". "Why are sulphur-crested cockatoos white?" and so on.
If you're really that worried about bird coloration, make a bequest to a university to study it.
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