People talk about Evolution as if the theory is one to speculate on or take as an article of faith, why?

Question

It's pretty well substantiated - who have you read on it before rejecting it. I don't mean high school, I mean academic work, scientific work.

Genesis makes sense psychologically but not historically. And if you go for intelligent design you need to throw away Genesis as history - and doesn't this make you wonder about the truth of the rest of it?

Answer 1

Actually, evolution is not substantiated at all. And I'm not talking about the variations and mutations that happen inside a kind or strain of animals (like hyenas, coyotes, spaniels, and the like). That kind of variation is, of course, validated because we've seen it time and again.

No one has ever seen a leap of evolution. No one has ever recorded it. No one has ever created it in a laboratory. No one has ever witnessed it. No one has ever even come close to having evidince to support it.

No, my dear friend. All life on earth did not evolve from one common ancestor. Your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandpa was not a tomato or a prosimian or a protazoa or any other life form other than human.

No one has ever recorded that. It hasn't happened.

Answer 2

Concerning the debate going on about intelligent design and evolution: is it possible that the final answer about which of these two seemingly opposite ideas is correct could simply be yes?

With one position firmly held by the believers and the other just as fearlessly defended by the non-believers, if you happen to be in a position somewhere near the middle, it does not look all that complex. From this position, you wonder why either-or has to be the answer.

If you believe that some higher being created the universe by intelligent design, what more elegant and intelligent design could there have been than a self-regulating system that continually checks its own errors and makes its own corrections in mid-stream as an integral part of the process.

This all seems quite logical to me although it probably won’t satisfy the believers because they are afraid to see any truth other than the one they have been told to believe in. Inversely it certainly won’t satisfy the non-believers because it leaves them stuck with a god that they are so obviously terrified of.

To sum up this view from the center, it might most easily be explained by saying perhaps the designer was intelligent. Problem is, the designer was likely so intelligent that those seeking to prove that it is intelligently designed may be incapable of ever understand it well enough to see it for the elegant self regulating design that it has always been.

The nonbelievers will be similarly handicapped due to the internal terror the have about the idea that there may be a God. Neither side being able to leave their entrenched position for fear they may have to admit they were wrong. While the rest of us stand by trying to figure out what all the fuss is about. Personally I don’t think anyone is wrong, I just feel both sides are about half right.

Answer 3

There is no double vision, not two different truths, there is no confrontation between true religion and true science, ultimately they both see one truth. Now why is there confrontation between evolution theory , intelligent design ..
First people are reading bible as it was some kind scientific book, but it is not , it has some written history, but it is specifically written as theological book, for Jew and later for Christians.
Evolution as a theory has some some aspect that try to answer everything thru evolutionary processes, and as a reaction some find some holes , add something wrong and make a farce.
There is a difference between evolutionary processes that no one denies, and theory that has some holes in it and I think that Christianity does not have anything against processes but perhaps has against theory that tries to be a new scientific religion, if it is theory then it must past scientific criticism. But some people are trying to make it dogma . And in science there is no dogma.
Intelligent design has made another mistake , having found some discrepancies in evolution theory they did no try to take the theory to critics ,bat made another theory with bigger loopholes, that ultimately makes them sometime a laughing matter. So now people perceive that Christians are against theory of evolution an for intelligent design, NO
Christians are for the truth, and theories must confront themselves on the scientific ground with open minds, holes must be explored, misconceptions cleared.
Truth is only one. Religion adores it , science explore it.
And we embrace it thru both religion and science.

Answer 4

Evolutionary theory. Right there youhave the first problem. The word "theory." Religous yahoos immediately latch onto that, claiming that evolution is "just" a theory, with no idea of what the word means in a scientific context.

But I'm convinced that the real reason religous nuts have a problem is not that it is "contridicted" by the bible. I mean, so many things are? What religous nut actually believes, for example that God MAKES rain. I mean, they may believe it in a larger philosophical and spiritual sense, but not that there's an actual old man that MAKES the rain with his hands.

So WHY OH WHY then does the idea than God didn't PUT A HUMAN BEING down on the planet so infurtiate them?

Because basically you're dealing with a peron who's entire sense of self, who'se entire sense of SPECIALNESS, is derived from the "fact" that GOD MADE HIM/HER.

Unfortunately, this is a residual effect of the aristocracy. As much as we clamor for democracy and the idea that our origins don't matter or define us, but that we can break from humble beginnings and become great, the average shmoe still believes that you;re onyl great if you are BORN to greatness, like a princess.

Or like a person made special by God.

There you go.

Oh and to the earlier poster "Don H", I like your answer, however I refute the existence of an "extreme" evolutionary proponent. A scientist or layman who is a proponent and adherent to evolutionary theory is NOT making any comment on the spiritual or metaphyical of any kind. He (or she) does not see evolution as a refutation of any kind. The Question of God, as it were, is totally seperate and Evolution is not pro or anti God any more than the theory of thermo dynamics is or isn't.

Answer 5

There are 2 aspects:

1. The fact of evolution, the observation of the natural continuum is a fact. The question is: how did it happen?

2. The theory is that there is some force that created genetic code. However, for the theory, there are 2 possibilities: a creator created us, or there is some natural force that can create genetic code.

The problem is that no one has been able to verify this force that can create genetic code naturally exists.

Therefore, evolutionists believe this natural force exists, by faith.

Religious believers believe that a creator exists, by faith.

When you look at all the facts, it is far more likely that a creator created us, than we are a random quirk of nature.

The next question is, who is the creator? That is where the real step of faith occurs.

Answer 6

You can not get published if you present evidence contrary to the dogma.Their are Biologists that think the theory is bunk.In searching this week on evolution,I found that I could type in quite a few things and get many articles on the topic praising it.Then by typing fraud on the end I got the articles that dismissed all the other articles.Why don't the retractions come up in the first search?
Any time you have to take fossils out of their time line to show they evolved you are committing fraud.Any time you make unsupported assumption and support it by demanding some one give a better explanation or accept it you are intentionally building on fallacy.

Answer 7

The first book I read on evolution was "The Naked Ape", by Morris. I was not a Christian at this time and totally open to any ideas about origins. It started out sounding pretty plausible, but the farther on and further in I got, it made less and less sense, and finally petered out altogether, as far as any coherent answer was concerned.

Since then I've read several magazine articles by evolutionists on evolution. Darwinian evolution has already been disproved.
And there are more theories trying to adjust to this or come up with different theories out there than you can shake a stick at.

I've also considered several evidences which are against evolutionary theory. One is the theory of entropy, which is a proved theory. There is still a jar sitting somewhere in Europe which goes on demonstrating the impossibility of spontaneous generation. And if the sensationalism of Darwin's theory had not swept the world by storm, more serious thought given to Mendel's laws of genetics might have swept Darwin's theory out to sea altogether before it ever made ground (I know, the metaphor is pathetic). There are problems with the fossil record, which not being able to be solved, are simply ignored.

I have nothing to say about intelligent design. It's an attempt that is liable to confuse things even more.

After I became a Christian my first view was probably that God used evolution to create the earth. There was this idea that there was a gap between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2 that allowed for this. This seemed to rationalize the problem.

But then I read the Genesis 1 account. And you are right,
psychologically it makes sense. It's beauty and simplicity argued to me (and I have read a lot of mythology) it's incredible integrity. It read nothing like a myth, because it read nothing like what a man would have come up with as a mythological explanation for origins. It's out of order. Light is created before the light bearers (the stars). I know Christians who go nuts over that one. It's just not in tune with the way humans create their mythologies (which, by the way, I believe, usually have some sort of basis in history, and then get garbled). So the point here is that there is nothing garbled about the Genesis 1
account.

Many scholars will tell you, and the two who carry the most weight in this are two German scholars named Keil and Delitzsch, who are incredible in their scholarship, and their soundness and depth of thinking. I don't know any modern scholars who come close, anyway, they consider the Genesis account of Creation to be primarily an historical document.
And they argue their case well. So, for me, Genesis makes sense both psychologically and historically.

A famous, and non-Christian geologist (I'm sorry I forget his name) has admitted that the uniformitarian theory of geology is in tatters (and evolution depends on that theory for a lot of it's argument).

On a more personal note, I used to work for a professor who was studying axolotls. These creatures have gills and land breathing mechanisms as needed. Professor Briggs received a very prestigious award for his work in this area. And I have seen axolotls used in evolutionary films to "prove" evolution.
His grad students were all agog about the work "proving" evolution. Professor Briggs would tell you it has nothing to do with the proof of evolution.

It's a mutation. And many species mutate. But dogs don't turn into horses or monkeys into man. And axolotls aren't an evolutionary bridge from out of the water and onto the land. The mutation is (in my way of looking at it) a God-given mechanism to help one of his creatures deal with drought. My point is that all the evidence "so-called" for evolution doesn't stand up to the rigors of the true scientific process.

There are anomalies (serious ones) which evolution cannot answer. Until then it remains an unproven theory. I believe God psychologically, historically, and where he speaks to matters of origins I believe that the answers will ultimately be found to be compatible with the Genesis account.

Maybe people like evolution, because it makes us less important in the scheme of things, and less accountable in some ways. The Genesis accounts puts us in intimate relationship with our Creator, and in an immediate one-on-one responsibility towards Him in that relationship. That can get very uncomfortable in many ways. On the other hand, and now I'm waxing philosophical on you, evolution leaves man floundering in the universe, and the Creation account gives man purpose, responsibility, and hope.

God bless.

Answer 8

It's because they want to equate mythology with science.

There are over 300 creation stories in the world. They all are valid as stories, and they tell us something about ourselves, and they are valuable. But it's not science.

Science is observable and repeatable, and sometimes something we discover changes a previous supposition. No pun intended, but theories "evlolve" as we learn more.

The two (science and mythology, or even science and religion) are completely different things.

It's sad, really. And I've never understood why the theory of evolution precludes the existence of God. What if that's How God did it?

Answer 9

I don't begrudge people their beliefs in Creationism and I have my own religious beliefs, but Creationism as a scientific theory does not hold water and it is concerning that so many schools across the Pond in the US teach it alongside Evolution as part of science, when it is not in fact, a scientific theory.

Intelligent Design? Impossible to prove. I for one believe in God, but not in Creationism.

In referring to Paul McDonald's entry, I refer to the well documented research into the evolution of apes into human beings.

Answer 10

Genesis makes sense as the foundation for faith in God and an understanding of who we are (created very good) and our responsibilities. (Subdue the earth)
It is not history and science as we know it. That is not to say it is a fabrication or just all made up.
And the relationship between faith and science is complimentary and not antagonistic.