I don’t have a problem with Evolution. Evolution is just looking at the world and the past and noticing a pattern. Evolution itself never claims to be a way of predicting where we’re going, just the process of observing where we’ve been.
I don’t particularly have a problem with Natural Selection, although the statement “Only the strongest survive” can only be true if you’re willing to define “strength” and “survival” as equivalents. But if surviving means you’re strong, then I couldn’t agree more, only the strong survive.
The problem is we take these two ideas, and try to put them with a third to get the Theory of Evolution. These two ideas are fairly innocuous in themselves. As humans we’re quite good at discerning patterns in the past, even, and sometimes especially, when those patterns don’t really exist. So it seems reasonable to assume that when we look to the past we find patterns, and to call those patterns something like progress or evolution. And we’re also quite vain as a rule in believing that anyone or anything that fails does so because it is weak, and so equating strength and survival again seems perfectly natural.
The third idea behind the Theory of Evolution is that there is no God. The theory claims that not only are there patterns behind survival and progress, but that these patterns are completely random, totally by chance.
If you think the Theory of Evolution and Creation can live side by side, you’re either naive or an evolutionist who thinks appeasing creationists will make it more palpable to the masses. If you allow for a god within the Theory of Evolution, then you just wind up attributing the patterns to the design of that god, to creation, and defining strength as survival is just another sliver of vanity. No, if you claim the Theory of Evolution is true, then you claim there is no god but Chance.
But if there is a God, why can’t we show clearly that the Theory of Evolution is bunk? A wonderful question; many have tried to debunk the Theory and have, in my opinion, failed miserably.
I used to say that if the Theory of Evolution is true then entropy demands a god. The only way for things in a system to become more organized is for something outside the system to add energy to the system. And while this is true, I’m not sure that I can claim this means that a god is necessary. The definition of system for this particular context is poorly defined. If the system is just the earth, then the sun could very easily be outside the system, and since it does add energy, entropy’s laws are met.
And I’ve heard many people try to show evolution is silliness by estimating the probability of the human race evolving. Quite frankly, this is simply ludicrous. Probability is the measure of uncertainty of an event. If anyone is uncertain about the existence of the human race, I would suggest willful commitment to a loony bin. We have no way of examining whether or not we were likely to happen, since we don’t have the faintest idea of what was “known” before we came to be, and we don’t have any idea that given what was “known” before we came to be, how many ways could we have or have not come to be. There are few abuses of probability more extreme than giving a number for the probability of human evolution.
People used to say that if evolution is true, then where are all the “intermediates”, the things which are in the process of becoming a new species. The evolutionists responded with the idea of rapid evolution, though I forget the term they actually use. This pretty much means that we should expect to not find many intermediates since they only occur intermittently.
I don’t think the idea of rapid evolution solves a thing. Let’s analyze the situation from a slightly different perspective.
At some point, organism Alpha, whose ancestors reproduced only by budding, randomly “evolved” to instead reproduce by mating. Whether this happened through natural reproductive mutations or during its lifetime is immaterial. Let’s just take a cursory glance at everything that would have had to happen for this to occur. Not only would there have to be a partner who also randomly “evolved” to reproduce by mating, but they would have to have evolved compatible ways of mating and evolved in this way in near enough proximity to mate.
Personally, this alone is enough to make me seriously doubt the sanity of anyone who believes in the Theory, since this had to happen at least once to move from budding to mating, but let’s generalize a little more.
At some other point, organism Beta, randomly “evolved” to become incompatible with its ancestor’s mating habits. And again, a partner would have had to “evolve” in near enough proximity and with compatible mating needs to start a new species. This didn’t happen once, this happened hundreds of thousands of times.
Hundreds of thousands of times… And we can’t find a single solitary example of an intermediate. Whether you have rapid evolution or not, it is complete fantasy to expect that every single time something evolved a suitable mate was nearby, and they mated, and that was enough to start a new species.
The only, and I mean only, way this even remotely makes sense is if you claim there is no God. If there’s no God, Chance is all you’ve got left. I don’t know much about this god Chance, but I seriously doubt you do either. If Chance can “randomly” produce a couple in near enough proximity and with the appropriate mating credentials to establish a new species hundreds of thousands of times, well… Chance doesn’t seem like a very random god to me.
So, in my opinion, here’s where you wind up… If the Theory is true, then Chance isn’t even remotely random. In fact, Chance is so not random, that it alters what it has brought about with enough intent to produce males and females of potentially new species in near proximity. Wow… sounds just like creation.
So, the evolutionists call the Creator Chance, we call Him Jesus. They think God is really good at craps, we think God is so involved in His creation He’d die to show just how random he isn’t. Stop calling God random. Try calling Him Lord, he likes it more. And the world looks completely different when you stop thinking you’re some cosmic accident and actually something God is dying to call His child.
Posted with : The Way
The term for rapid jumps in evolution is “punctuated equilibrium” (or “punk eek,” for short :) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium)
The book “Darwin’s Black Box” by Michael Behe presents a biological argument against the Theory of Evolution called the principle of irreducible complexity – it’s worth checking out. Behe’s a molecular biologist, and he looks at several very small biological systems (for example, the system that allows your blood to clot) and shows how these systems (1) could not function if any part of them were taken away, and (2) are too complex to have developed all at once (even within a time of punctuated equilibrium).
Many Evolutionists believe that Creationism is taken on faith while Evolution is based on science. However, there is currently no explanation for this problem of irreducible complexity – Evolutionists simply say, “we hope to one day understand how that happened.” In the face of evidence that points to a Creator, they continue to take Evolution on the basis of faith. It’s important to know this, because in a discussion about our origins it levels the playing field – elements of faith are required to believe Creationism and Evolution. Knowing this makes it harder to dismiss Creationists as nuts who ignore science.
Your last paragraph especially was awesome, Mike. Thanks :)