Dale Coparanis posted a long comment on my article 'Evolving' and I have responded as follows:

(Dale's lines are in italics, mine are not. ( I hope) )

As you know, Dan, I'm not a believer in the Faith of Evolution. Those that do believe it, however, want everyone else to accept that from nothing came the present day. Now I would call that a fairly big change.

I can't see any reason to believe it a big change. The present day did not come from nothing, it came from yesterday. I was here yesterday and it wasn't all that different in anyway that I can see. And as for the “Faith of Evolutuion” Well, I can tell you that I have directed evolution and seen the results of that evolution and I have seen the results of many other peoples work in evolution also. So while I do not insist that evolution is the only possible explanation of the present day ecology I can tell you that there is evidence I have observed for the existence of evolution and absolutely none that I have observed for any other explanation. 'Faith' is when you choose to believe something for which there is no evidence. Personally I find 'faith' to be a weakness that I hope we may someday overcome.

To bring it down to a more manageable level, it is believed that we evolved from apes (which evolved from smaller mammels, which evolved from reptiles, which evolved from fish, which evolved from single celled creatures, which evolved from the primordial soup, which evolved from rain falling on rocks, which came about from the earth forming out of space dust, which formed from material left over from the big bang, which came from??? I really like to think that one of my ancestors was a rock.). Therefore, it is quite reasonable to ask what the next step is. Certainly the differences that there are between the apes, "Lucy", pre-cro magnon man, and us are significant. Since evolution, in theory, doesn't stop, what's next? What do we look like? Are we bigger, smaller, fatter, thinner, have more arms, more eyes, fewer fingers?

One thing you should note is that the differences between us and a chimpanzee are in fact very small, when expressed as a percentage of our genome. Another thing to note is that whether you are supporter of the Biblical creationist approach, or tend away from the 'faith' side things, it would appear that you and I are descended from something in a mud pie.

To say that we have reached our evolutionary peak is kind of presumptuous, don't you think? I know that you haven't said that, per se, but you imply that with: "but the 'next step' will become the norm when it needs to or not at all."

Why would you think I suggest that we have reached our evolutionary peak (whatever that is)? And how could you find it presumptuous when you don't even believe we have an evolution to have a peak of? No 'change' in one or more members of a species is likely to become the new 'norm' for the species unless it imparts a significant advantage over those that do not have the 'change'. For example the ability to withstand the HIV virus, which is a possible 'next step' that we already knows exists, is not currently a significant advantage, evolutionarily, for those that have it, because currently only a very small percentage of the species dies from the result of the HIV virus. It will not become the 'norm' for the species. unless some virus shows up that is a lot more contagious and deadly than HIV and these people are also immune to that and everybody else dies off. Then an evolutionary step will have taken place. The 'next step' will becomes the 'norm' when it needs to or not at all

Since we are messing with evolutionary theory by doing work with DNA, one of the logical questions to ask is: "should we?" And, yes, I am serious. Can we be trusted to do what's right? Given the amount of evil in this world I would say no. In addition, given the willingness of many people to do whatever simply for immediate gratification (money, etc.), how can something as important as evolution be tinkered with in the right way?

I share your concern over the potential problems we could get ourselves into tinkering with evolution. True we have done it for centuries and are still here but we have made some fairly serious errors before an now we have the potential to really spoil the soup. But as they say “you can't put the genie back in the bottle.' If you honestly think that any amount of outlawing DNA manipulation can stop it from being done then I believe you are deluded. I would be very surprised if there were not a clone baby or six running around a nursery or six somewhere. And if you think it hasn't even been attempted then I have a nice Caribbean island which I am sure you would enjoy and I think I could make it yours for a very nominal sum if you could just be the first to send me $10,000 in small unmarked bills......

All I can see coming from outlawing research into the field is that good honest people will have no say in what is developed from it.

Your statement: "Every species evolves as needed or it dies out. is interesting. This explains why there are so many "living fossils" that have been discovered and why there is so much diversity in nature. It's really amazing how, accidentally, we have such an abundance of flora and fauna and why there are so many overlaps with them. I mean, just how many different types and colors of flowers does a meadow need?

Certainly there are a number of 'living fossils' . Alligators, crocodiles and many species of sharks to name a few. They haven't needed to change much at all. Or maybe you are talking about those rare finds of things that we know from fossils were once relatively common but had never been seen in recorded history until we started fishing miles down or some such. Well so what! If they still exist un-evolved from millions of years ago then all it shows is that, for at least some part of their habitat, evolutionary change was not required for survival. And, of course there is diversity in nature. Why would you think that evolution would require uniformity? Change happens! But not all change is 'evolutionary.' There are dozens of colors of pansies. Why? Because change happens. But all pansies are not one color because there is no particular advantage of one color over another.