Protozoans are living proof of evolution and that the theory of intelligent design is religious nonsense.
According to the Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology, which we get for the Spot the Amoeba competition, protozoans do not need a creator to have existed.
Intelligent Design theorists claim that the Cambrian explosion 545 million years ago cannot be explained by Darwinian evolution – because it happened too fast.
However Farmer and Habura point out that protistan evolution had begun well before then and provided the genomic diversity from which multicellular organisms arose.
Another ID argument that Protozoans disprove is that no one has ever seen the development of a new species.
However Farmer and Habura have seen a case where amoebae became symbiotically dependent upon infecting bacteria. If the symbotically dependent amoebae subsequently tried to interbreed with the parent stock, the parent stock died of the bacterial infection. Thus the two became genetically isolated.
Lastly the ID argument that that the fossil record does not show transitional species do not apply to protozoans as there is a detailed fossil record of protists does exhibit just such intermediate forms.
Farmer and Habura said that a detailed understanding of protistan biology offers scientists and lay persons alike the ability to address current attacks on evolutionary theory, and to “refute the claims of ID creationists who insist on invoking supernatural explanations to account for observable phenomena”.
Looks like a protozoa can make a monkey out of intelligent design theory.
The irony is that the real basis of scientific study should start with creationism. Otherwise the discipline has no foundation in reality.
Wayne
If Wayne's claims are true then there should have been more development of technologies and medicine and what not during the 1000 years Church dominated the thinking. But in reality famines and diseases were ravaging the world and wars did in the survivors. The real tangible development happened only after science developed.
Wait! I get it. Wayne is a Hindu mystic. He subscribes to the view that the whole world is an illusion (concept of maya) a mere shadow (chaya) of reality. There what is perceived in the mind by becoming one with the Universe is the Truth (sat). You get there by losing your bonds (bandha) by becoming immune to pain and pleasure (nirvana). That is the true liberation (moksha/mukthi) from the never ending cycles of births and deaths.
Now it takes perfect sense O Sat Guru Swamy Wayne Hollyoak Punditji.
There are so few published observations of speciation occurring, that I am keen not to lose track of any of them.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/123218620/PDFSTART
I am sure you realize all the Ring Species are speciation events that is going on right now.
For example, there are two species of gulls (herring and black headed I think, need to look up) in the northern Ireland who do not interbreed. But as you go to Iceland, northern Greenland, northern Canada, Alaska, Siberia and Scandinavia
one species slowly transforms into another. Right now there is a continuous chain of breeding intermediaries between the two species. All it takes is a disease or a catastrophe that wipes out one breeding colony and break the ring, your will have two distinct species.
Speciation is such a slow process that it is going on right under our noses and we might not notice it. There are well documented cases of Ring Species of salamanders around a lake in California, bird species forming a ring around the Himalayas. Birds travel much farther than salamanders, so the ring species of birds is global in scale. Salamanders need a lake of several miles in size to form a ring. So if we start looking for ring species in insects or worms, we should be able to find them in much smaller scale structures. Given their lifespans we should be able record speciation in the wild in a couple human generations. Already I heard about a species of mosquito in the New York subways that split off from their street level ancestors.
I am not a biologist. I find ring species a much more convincing response to the standard creationist propaganda and misinformation about speciation. You might already be aware of these. I just thought I will mention it just in case.
Signed:PHYSICIAN THOMAS STEWART von DRASHEK M.D.