Do you believe in human evolution?

This is an excellent book that I highly recommend to all who have participated in this thread: http://www.amazon.com/Language-God-S...7193138&sr=8-1

The Author, Francis Collins, was the head of the Human Genome Project which mapped our entire genetic code -- one of the premier scientists of our day. He's also a christian and evolutionist. Although the focus of the book isn't "Proving" evolution, he does put forth many of the examples we use that shows all or most of the evidence we've collected thus far certainly suggest evolution actually happened. As we learn more and more about DNA evolutionary theory becomes even more interesting, and this man is on the forefront of that research.

As for the argument about the addition of genetic material: It appears that gene duplication is one mechanism that has allowed increasing complexity in organisms. Take, for instance, the human coagulation pathway. Here is a basic diagram:
http://dpalm.med.uth.tmc.edu/faculty...js/pathway.gif

The early intelligent design proponents argued that this pathway was so complex that it could not have evolved without a designer. However, imagine an organism with a low-pressure circulatory system -- of which there are many in nature. It would require a much simpler coagulation cascade, perhaps consisting of only one protein. Then, through the course of replicating cells, the gene coding for that single protein duplicates -- once again, this happens commonly and can be observed.

Now with two copies of the same gene, one of these copies is free to mutate at will (because the good copy will still perform the same function). After many copies, duplications, and mutations, you would find an organism that generates a wide variety of different, but related, proteins all functioning in a very similar capacity. And this is exactly what we find in the human coagulation cascade -- this would represent a gain in genetic material, a positive mutation, an explanation of how a complex system like this could evolve, and also fits amazingly well with what we know about the development of the vertebrate circulatory system.

Jam it back in, in the dark.