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Evolution
ОглавлениеWhat is a theory? Robert Anderson in the September 2001 issue of Natural History says, “A theory is a set of logically consistent abstract principles that explain a body of concrete facts. Not to be confused with an idea tentatively held for the purpose of argument – that we call a hypothesis. Evolution is firmly based on just such a logical structure and is therefore every bit as certain as the existence of Atoms.”
All life on earth has the same chemistry. Gary Taubes in the June 2001 issue of Discover says, “The blue print for creatures – for man, bacteria and everything else alive – is encoded in lengthy strings of DNA. Higher animals, like us, keep this DNA in compact units called chromosomes; we have 46 of them. Sexual creature’s mate, the genetic information stored in the chromosomes of the two parents is intermingled. The offspring inherit a combination of genes from both, and nature throws in a few mutations that provide an opportunity for more advantageous characteristics to come along in the next generation. Species evolve because the offspring best suited to thrive in their environment are those most likely to breed successfully and pass on their genes to the next generation. After several thousand or million years, the result will be creatures uniquely adapted for living in particular environments.”
Karen Wright in the March 2009 issue of Discover says, “The universal appeal of Darwin’s theory lies in its central tenet; natural selection, or “survival of the fittest.” That tenet states that organisms best suited to their circumstances, will be the ones most likely to reproduce; spreading their adaptive traits and driving out the competition. Natural selection creates a dynamic, ever changing biota, driven to evolve by genetic variation, adaptation to different environments, competition for limited resources and cooperative exchanges among individuals. It explains how, from simple beginnings, the diversity and complexity of living things arose.” Stephen Jay Gould in the February 1982 issue of Discover said “Darwin denied evolution was progressive, for the better, and also introduced the specter of Randomness into evolutionary theory. To be sure, randomness only provides a source of variation in Darwin’s theory. Natural selection (a deterministic process) then scrutinizes the spectrum of random variants and preserves those individuals best adapted to changing local environments.” Still, “Chance” in any form was anathema to many 19th century thinkers, both then and now. Even Albert Einstein said “God doesn’t play dice with the universe.” This may have been one of the few times “Big Al” was wrong because an awful lot of this universe is left to “Lady Chance!”
Darwin’s grandpa Erasmus had suggested that humans were all descended from a common microscopic ancestor. The Naturalistic Alfred Russel Wallace agreed with his grandson Charles that natural selection was the mechanism of evolution.
But the battle between evolution and creationism really began with the Greeks, according to Eugenia Shanklin, Science Digest, April 1982. Herodotus, who lived in the 5th Century B.C. believed that differences among creatures must have been caused by environmental factors. He saw gradual changes as the means by which evolution might have brought this about.
Aristotle was a creationist; he believed that all things arose in the state desired by the creator and that while species might deviate from the original design; they did not and could not change their essential form through time.
The Church adopted Aristotle’s position, and for more than 1,000 years, speculation about evolution was forbidden.
Thank God Darwin and Wallace came long. They have shown us that life had a simple beginning without a creative hand involved. Of course acknowledging this fact by the major religions would cause a disconnect from the “caring, loving God in Heaven” concept, who has allegedly made us special. But the conflict lies in the fact we can’t believe them both. So what’s the truth – show me evidence for either and I’ll “believe.”
It appears that life first began when some free-floating molecules formed a coordinated system by chance, and was able to replicate itself. Michael Crichton, Time, September 25, 1995 explains, “in complexity theory, that groups of randomly operating independent units such as amino acids floating in primordial seas, humans acting in their own interests, populations of animals – can spontaneously and without outside direction organize themselves into complex systems-self reproducing DNA molecules, functioning economies, social groups.”
Hannah Bloch and Sylvester Monroe reported in Time, February 5, 1996 that life on this planet emerged surprisingly quickly – as early as a few hundred million years after the earth formed. At the time, the planet was intensely volcanic, with the occasional leftover asteroid screaming in every few million years – yet primitive life forms persisted and flourished.
Until a few years ago, biologists were at a loss to understand how life could have arisen under such conditions. But laboratory experiments have convinced them that self-replicating molecules are relatively easy to assemble. Another discovery of hot-water volcanic vents deep in the ocean, surrounded by rich ecosystems of exotic life, implies that a hot, young, volcanic planet might in fact be an ideal incubator.
So life began quite by accident in some primordial sea with simple organisms (Ediacarans) sliding by one another harmlessly sucking mud. Here was God’s peace on earth, plenty of room, food, and opportunity. No conflict, no war, just peace loving creatures living side by side in relative harmony. Everything God wanted.
So why didn’t God quit there? Why wasn’t he satisfied? For millions of years these little fellers just sucked their daily mud and didn’t bother one another. God changed it all because it was just too boring! To liven up life a little, he turned loose the world’s first predators.
The Editor Science Digest, January 1982 says that “Trilobites were among the world’s first predators; but scientists aren’t sure what the first predatory organism was. The first entity to consume another entity for nourishment was probably a replicator molecule”, according to Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene. In competing for building block molecules, some replicators, writes Dawkins, “may have ‘discovered’ how to break up molecules of rival varieties chemically, and to use the building blocks so released for making their own copies. These Proto-carnivores simultaneously obtained food and removed competing rivals.” Sinister isn’t it! God has to take it to the next level to avoid boredom.
The Trilobites had powerful jaws and sharp fearsome teeth, April Lawton reports in Science Digest, October 1981. They ranged in size from a few inches to two feet, and God must have enjoyed observing them for over 200 million years hunt down and devour for sustenance, his first simple and defenseless creations. So began the great food chain.
Isn’t there something terribly wrong with this plan for life? If you’re an all-powerful God and lovingly concerned for your creations as “our Father who Art in Heaven” should be, why not send down some manna for every species? Why has God got them killing one another? There is of course, the possibility that they may have gravely sinned by eating some forbidden sea weed and God threw the first ones out of the Mud Garden!
Sara Webb reports in 2006 Discover magazine’s Recap of 100 Scientific Events For That Year, that astronomers working at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Green Bank Telescope have identified eight new molecules that are some of the largest and most complex compounds discovered in space. The finds suggest that elaborate organic chemistry-chemistry that might have helped seed life on earth – may be widespread throughout our galaxy and beyond.
So the chemical ingredients of life can be found in Interstellar clouds of gas located in deep space. This means that life really is no big deal and it implies that given the right conditions and enough time, life will form everywhere in the universe that it can. As it seems to on earth.
Microbiologist Richard Kravse in Discover August 1994 says “During the first 2 or so billion years of life, microbes were alone on earth and they worked out every trick in the genetic book. By developing and exchanging useful new genes, they quickly adapted to every niche they could find; from boiling hot springs to frozen steppes.” So it appears that lots of time and random chance are the “guiding hands.”
But what about animal life? Douglas Fox in Discover’s recap of scientific events for the year 2009, reports about two new discoveries that push the fossil record of animals back another 300 million years. Looks like we started out as a sponge!
“Researchers reported finding a steroid compound in a 675-million-year old stone cores, drilled from former sea beds up to three miles beneath the deserts of Oman. Sponges are the only organisms known to produce appreciable amounts of this steroid, and geochemist Gordon Love of the Univ. of California Riverside, interprets the chemical signature as evidence that sponge like animals had evolved by then.”
“Another team reported in Geology in May that they had found mesh like patterns suggestive of sponges in 850-million-year-old rocks. They turned up in an ancient reef built by cyan bacteria, says Fritz Neuweiler of Laval Univ. in Quebec. The earth’s early oceans initially contained little oxygen, but cyan bacteria produce it as a by-product of photosynthesis. “Here we have a local oxygenated environment;” Neuweiler says, “and this would have supported these early animals.”
We have had plenty of evidence of animal life back 550 million years but these discoveries show we’ve been hanging on longer than we originally thought. The fossil record plainly shows that God would “create” an animal, test it awhile, see where he made his mistake, make a few changes and then run it again. Over and over. Boy God was Busy!
The system he used to “judge” these creatures was “survival of the fittest.” This is where the glorious victors return their genes though their descendants, the losers are returned to dust. There’s nothing wrong with evolution as long as you are a winner! But, does God have any concern or sympathy for the losers? Does Lady Chance? She’s in this up to her Lucky Charms.
God, after creating the first animal, altered his original design, time and time again for 475 million years roughly, in the sea. He then decided everything was harder to observe under water, so he made “Tiktaalik”, a walking fish, to get things up on dry land.
Charles Q. Choi in the June, 2006 Scientific American explains that, “‘Tiktaalik’ is a “missing link” in the evolution of animals from water onto land. Though nearly complete specimens of a flattened, alligator like fish species dubbed ‘Tiktaalik roseae’ possess the scales, fins, snout and lower jaw of a fish, they have the ribs, neck, skull, wrists and fingerlike bones of a land animal. The sharp-toothed predators overlapping ribs would have produced a stiff trunk not required by fish buoyed up by water, suggesting it lived in the shallows, perhaps with excursions onto land.”
So if chased by other sea predators, or if our water hole dried up, we became ‘land rovers.’ We hit the beach a crawlin’.
Tiktaalic was an ‘Acanthostega’ technically, and Carl Zimmer in Discover June 1995 explains how it came to be. “Coastal lagoons were a new ecosystem in the Devonian Period, full of dangers and opportunity. The plants that grew in them created a rich stew of organic matter that a dense ecological web of animals could enjoy. But as in today’s wetlands, bacteria used so much oxygen that sometimes life became hard for gilled fish. Some of them developed lungs and so could breathe air when their gills couldn’t function.”
“And some of these fish with lungs, developed shoulders, hips, limbs, and digits. They couldn’t support themselves on land, but they could grasp the rotting branches in the water and climb past them, rather than simply trying to wiggle through. They could walk on the bottom of the wetlands, their guts supported by the water. They could paddle their oar-like feet.”
So we made land and God said “it was mighty up and walkin’ good!”
Then sometime along in the Triassic period, nearly 200 million years later, God must have made the dinosaurs, though the Bible says nary a word about them. Maybe that’s because the dinosaurs were one of his biggest mistakes and he was reluctant to mention them to the early Bible writers. They were in the way of the little mammals and had to be eliminated. So they became extinct.
Here is where creationism has its first great problem.
What does a “hands on creator” do when he’s tired of his creations? He eliminates them by “extinction.” So extinction is a nice word for “God killed them all” (or allowed it to happen – same thing if you’re all powerful!). So in the case of the dinosaurs, God appears similar to a spoiled child, who, when he’s tired of his toys, he busts them up. They’re all gone! The only remnants we have are the birds. Somehow God missed them.
Now, once God ‘smoted’ the dinosaurs, the mammals were off and running. He let them scamper around for another 200 million years from the Triassic, through the Jurassic, Cretaceous and finally getting bored; he made man late in the Cenozoic. Unfortunately, along the way God had to eliminate an awful lot of species to make room for man. But, of course the earth’s only so big you know, and some just had to be put down. Yes, but most people don’t believe God would deliberately destroy his creations out of boredom, or because he errored, so evolution must be the truth. So let’s see –
One of the first arguments Anti-evolutionists use for an excuse is the “complicated eye” - or vision. Way too much for mutation and selection alone, they say. Maybe not.
McClatchy Newspapers, November 7, 2007 in Washington, Scientists have traced the origin of eyes back to a transparent blob of living jelly floating in the sea about 600 millions years ago.
That creature, the distant ancestor of a modern fresh water animal known as a hydra, could only distinguish light from dark.
But that simple trick was such an advantage that it was passed on from generation to generation of the hydra’s cousins and their myriad descendants. It was the precursor of the wildly different, ever more complex eyes of fish, ants, flies, giraffes and people.
US News November 10, 2003 reports that around 550 million years ago, “the first eyes probably belonged to a trilobite. Eyes equal better predators; predatation means more evolution.”
So the eyes have it. Their evolution seems a lot simpler to have taken place than the creationist made it out to be. Notice the driving force, ‘predatation’. The victims would develop better eyes also for self-defense. Mystery solved.
In the September 11, 2000 issue of US News and World Report Charles Petit describes the work of Jordan Pollack and Hod Lipson on the Golem Project at Branbeis University. They’re into “Automatic design and manufacture of robotic life-forms.”
To get machines to design their machines, Pollack and Lipsom borrowed a strategy from Nature: Darwinian evolution, played out not in a warm pond but in the software of a computer. The computer was programmed with a set of designs that were no more than disordered collections of struts, ball joints, and electric motors, plus electronic circuit parts for a nervous system. It randomly altered, or mutated, the initially useless designs. Next, the computer chose the “fittest” mutants – those that showed hints of locomotion – while killing off the other, in a digital version of natural selection. It further mutated these chosen few and then repeated the process over hundreds of generations, gradually evolving more capable robots.
Some work by hunching forward like inch worms, other drag themselves along by walking on elbow-like protrusions, and still others creep sideways, crablike. But they do move – proving how evolution can work. These designs evolved without human aid.
In the January, 2001 issue of Discover, Brad Lemley explains computers can write advanced software, design other machines, predict who will pay their bills, evolve and adapt. It’s called “evolutionary computation.”
Here’s how it works. A genetic algorithm “mates” the first population of individual-solutions, combining them in artfully randomized ways to “breed” slightly varying off-spring-solutions. A so-called fitness function then evaluates the progeny by “looking for a combination that is nearly optimal in cost, simplicity, speed, or any other collection of qualities the programmer desires.” The fitness function then kills off the parents (silicone evolution turns out to be as merciless as its biological counterpart) and picks the best solutions from the off-springs ranks. Those solutions mate; the fitness function sizes up their children, weeds out the losers and mates the winners, then they have children and so on.
The task ends when the off-spring all start to look alike. That means the best solution has been reached.
The implications for life are – pass it on down and get out of the way!
In the article Melanie Mitchell of the Santa Fe Institute, brings up an interesting thought. “If computer systems can evolve and adapt, it does become harder and harder to say there is some fundamental difference between biological life and machines.”
In the same article Bill Joy, Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems says, “in just 30 years, our machines may surprise us in intelligence, then realize they no longer need us.” Not good! However, the genie’s out of the bottle and if we’re not sharp, we’ll have trouble, because evolution drags us kicking and screaming into the future, whether we like it or not!
It’s everywhere, all the time! Evolution happens on the inside, too. January, 2010 Discover explains, “The battle for survival is waged not just between the big dogs but within the dog itself, as individual genes jockey for prominence from the moment of conception, a father’s genes favor offspring that are large, strong and aggressive (the better to court the ladies), while the mother’s genes incline toward smaller progeny that will be less of a burden, making it easier for her to live on and procreate. Genome-versus-genome warfare produces kids that are somewhere in between.”
“Not all genetic conflicts are resolved so neatly. In flour beetles, babies that do not inherit the selfish genetic element known as Medea, succumb to a toxin while developing in the egg. Some unborn mice suffer the same fate. Such spiteful genes have become widespread not by helping flour beetles survive but by eliminating individuals that do not carry the killers code. “There are two ways of winning a race” says Caltech biologist Bruce Hay. “Either you can be better than everyone else, or you can whack the other guys on the legs.” Hmmm! Can any of you “creationists” tell me why God had to go to these extremes?
What about the real world, is evolution still going on?
Science Digest – July 1982. “The Kilihi Rock Wallaby is an entirely new species only 60 generations old. They are descended from a single pair of Australian Wallabies that fled from a Hawaiian zoo in 1916. The Wallabies’ adaption to their new environment was not only swift but extraordinarily thorough. Not only did the animals’ external appearance change, so did the amino acid structure of at least one of their liver enzymes; which helped them safely feed on otherwise toxic plants on Oahu.
USNews and World Report January 24th, 2000 – Tim Appenzeller explains; “A study in the latest Science shows that Natural selection can reshape organisms faster than ever some die hard evolutionist might have predicted.”
“The clock on this experiment started ticking sometime in 1978, probably when a ship carrying fruit or vegetables from Europe docked in the Pacific Northwest. A few stowaways made it ashore – tiny fruit flies of a species never seen before in the New World. Since then the flies have been more than fruitful, multiplying and spreading North beyond Vancouver, British Columbia, and south almost to Los Angeles, in some places virtually driving out native fruit flies.”
“Settling into their new homes, they have evolved a pattern of size differences that mirrors the pattern in their European forebears, which range from Norway to Spain. Just as in Europe, female flies at the Northern end of the range have wings about 4% longer than those in the south. In text book Darwinian Fashion, something in the environment – probably temperature – must be causing the size variations, say the researchers, who used wing length as a gauge of body size. No one knows why heftier flies are better adapted to the cold, however.
A study just 10 years ago failed to find any size difference in the immigrant flies, which means that Natural selection is not only at work, but working at breathtaking speed.”
Science Digest December, 1988 quoting Nature magazine – “Retro viruses are RNA based organisms, rather than DNA – based; like humans and other animals are. They replicate with such a high error rate that they are capable of evolving about a million times faster than DNA-based organisms. Research on the sparse “fossil record” of the most notable of these viruses, the one that causes Aids, shows that two forms, HIV-1 and HIV-2, diverge from a common viral ancestor, sometime around 1951, only 37 years ago.”
In the La CrosseTribune December 5, 2005, Mr. Harold Ristow wrote about President Bush and the Bird Flu in the “Your Views” column. He said, “Recently, President Bush expressed concern about plans for the government to deal with the potential of a bird flu epidemic. In the past, Bush has expressed his support for the teaching of intelligent design as an alternate explanation for species development and variation a long with the theory of evolution. In fact, he has expressed reservations about evolutionary theory in general. Bush may not be aware that the principle concern about bird flu is its potential transmission to humans from birds having the flu virus, and that such a biological occurrence could only arise through the process of evolution (mutation) of the bird flu virus to a form that attacks humans and is transmissible by them. If the process of evolution were not a reality, there would be no reason to be concerned with bird flu, or generally with the development of new viruses and bacteria from those that were at one time killed by specific medications but no longer are.”
Also in the La Crosse Tribune, July 14, 2006 Washington D.C., “Finches on the Galapagos Islands that inspired Charles Darwin to develop the concept of evolution are new helping confirm it – by evolving. A medium–sized species of Darwin’s finch has evolved a smaller beak to take advantage of different seeds just two decades after the arrival of a larger rival for its original food source. Scientific American, December, 2007, Rob Dunn ecologist N. Carolina St. Univ. says “the Cane Toad which is native to Central America has spread over most of Australia. Brought to Queensland in 1935 to combat beetles infesting sugarcane fields, the toads have spread out from their point of entry like the shock waves of a bomb, warty legs and oversize tongues jettisoned into every conceivable ecological crack. Recent research by Ben Phillips and his collaborators at the Univ. of Sydney has shown that the toads are evolving as they spread, perfecting their ability to adapt to the Australian landscape. The toads at the front edge of the invasion now have smaller bodies, reduced toxicity and relatively longer legs, apparently because individuals with those traits were having greater success. The native fauna has evolved in response: the mouths of some snakes are getting smaller, for instance, because so many of the snakes with big mouths were eating the poisonous cane toads and dying off.”
Scientific American, June, 2008 Phillip Yam: “with the goal of making synthetic biological components, researchers have crafted the first artificial enzyme – specifically, an enzyme that removes a proton from a carbon atom. The team, from the Univ. of Washington, the Univ. of California, Los Angeles, and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rhovot, Israel, used a computational model to devise potential enzymes constructed from 200 amino acids. After finding the enzyme that showed the most activity; the group further improved it by making it undergo evolution in a test tube. Seven rounds of evolution – the introductions of mutations – improved the enzymes efficiency 200 fold.”
Scientific American, February, 2008 Coco Ballantyne points out that “when a bacteria population that survives the first hit of an antibacterial agent vies with the lingering chemical, a small subpopulation armed with special defense mechanisms can evolve. This group then multiplies as its weaker relatives perish, and it will withstand attack the next time the chemical is supplied. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is the governing maxim here; “antibacterial chemicals select for bacteria that can endure their presence.”
So when you use those antibacterial soaps, and those hand-sanitizers found everywhere now; you’re single-handedly helping the little rascals to mutate and next time avoid the “death sauce” and live on to get even with you.
Also, Monsanto is having trouble with ‘super weeds’ evolving around their bio-engineered Roundup Ready herbicides. Farmers are recommended to use multiple herbicides on their crops. This “harmless plant killer” is used every time a farmer’s field is converted from hay, to another crop. Every year in corn and soy bean fields. It’s sprayed along ditches, under overpasses and signs by highway departments, and down the right of ways by the power companies. We can’t keep doing this. Aside from polluting our water supply, with global warming some hot, humid night a plant might punch through your bedroom window screen and grab you by the throat!
By now, you should have a clear understanding that evolution is the key to all life forms and their desperate attempt to survive. Creatures do what they have to, to enhance their chances to live and pass it down to the next generation. You think everybody’s got it and then along comes this.
Louisville, KY, Associated Press, March 7, 2010, “home-school mom Susan Mule wishes she hadn’t taken a friends advice and tried a text book from a popular Christian publisher for her 10 year old’s biology lesson. Mule’s precocious daughter Elizabeth excels at science and has been studying tarantulas since she was 5. But she watched Elizabeth’s excitement turn to confusion when they reached the evolution section of the book from Apologia Educational Ministries, which disputed Charles Darwin’s theory. “I thought she was going to have a coronary” Mule said of her daughter, who is now 16 and taking college courses. “She’s like, “this is not true!””
Christian based materials dominate a growing home–schooled education market that encompasses more than 1.5 million students in the U.S. and for most; a Bible–based version of the earth’s creation is exactly what they want. Federal statistics from 2007 show 83 percent of home–schooled parents want to give their children “religious or moral instruction.” “The majority of home–schoolers self–identify as Evangical Christians,” said Ian Slatter, a spokesman for the home school Legal Defense Association. “Most home–schoolers will definitely have a sort of creationist component to their home – school program.” Those who don’t, however, often feel isolated and frustrated from trying to find a text book that fits their beliefs. Two of the best – selling biology text books stack the deck against evolution, said some science educators who reviewed sections of the books at the request of The Associated Press.
“I feel fairly strongly about this. These books are promulgating lies to kids,” said Jerry Coyne, an ecology and evolution professor at the Univ. of Chicago.
The textbook publishers defend their books as well–rounded lessons on evolution and its short comings. One of the books doesn’t even mask disdain for Darwin.
“Those who do not believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God will find many points in this book puzzling,” says the introduction to Biology: Third Edition from Bob Jones Univ. Press. “This book is not for them.”
Boy, you can say that again. I feel a bit more “abrasive” than Mr. Jerry Coyne. These textbooks with the “Flat Earth” ideas are very close to criminal because education should be based on continuously corrected proof rather than on some narrow-minded philosophy grounded on the greatest myth-book of all time; and that should be written in stone. It’s time for you folks to come out of the dark ages, and see the light! The overwhelming evidence everywhere, makes you out to be some sort of con–artist’s, that are taking advantage of imprintable young children. Now I hate to call you a bunch of liars, but you sure as hell are wrong! How do I know? Pope John Paul II said so!
Time, November 4, 1996 by James Collins, in his message to a meeting of the pontifical Academy of Science, which had taken the origin of life as its theme, John Paul II described the shift in the church’s view of evolution that has taken place since Pope Pius XII issued his encyclical Humani Generis in 1950. In Humani Generis John Paul II wrote; “considered the doctrine of ‘evolutionism’ as a serious hypothesis; worthy of a more deeply studied investigation….today….new knowledge leads us to recognize that the theory of evolution is more than a hypothesis” The statement by John Paul II reflects the church’s acceptance of evolution.
Father Richard P. McBrien, a liberal theologician at the Univ. of Notre Dame stated, “No scripture scholar today would say we are literally descended from two people.”
Let’s hear from some other people on this. Time, August 15, 2005 ran a feature called “Evolution Wars” which many people responded to. Here are a few responses:
“In my medical practice, Evolution is not just a theory espoused by a long–dead Naturalist. I see evolution at work when bacteria become resistant to antibiotics or when cancer cells grow despite chemotherapeutic regimens. Without Darwin’s theory of Evolution as a framework; medical science would still be in the days of blood letting and demons.” ~Ye Chang M.D. Portland Oregon
“The headline for the forum of experts’ views on the intelligent–design debate; ‘Can you believe in God and evolution?’ posed a misleading question. Belief has nothing to do with acceptance of the theory of evolution or any other scientific theory; observations and data have everything to do with acceptance. Science accepts evolution as the logical conclusion of multiple hives of evidence; countless experiments and observations stretching back more than 150 years. Because beliefs cannot be validated or disproved in the world of science, they have no place in scientific debate.” ~ Fred Spilhaus, Executive Director American Geophysical Union, Washington
“The debate over Darwinian Evolution vs. intelligent design is not one of science vs. religion or of two competing theories. It’s a debate of science vs. non-science. Evolution is a scientific theory supported by scientific evidence. There is no evidence for intelligent design. It is an idea, not a theory. It cannot even be called a hypothesis since it’s un-testable. As such, intelligent design is better taught in a theology or social studies class than a science class.” ~ Eric M. Sandberg, Atlanta
“Intelligent design is just another chapter in “God of the gaps” saga – if we do not yet fully understand a natural process, then it must be God’s work. The church and religious fundamentalists have been at war with science for centuries. They have lost every battle along the way and they are certain to lose to the fight challenging evolution, because they cannot stop the accumulation of knowledge or the search for truth. ~ Jon Peterson, Albuquerque, N.M.
And finally Rick Eienhorn form Aurora, Illinois in the October 31stChicago Tribune summed it up nicely: “It is with great dismay that I read recent letters to the editor in the Voice of the People section clamoring for the teaching of both intelligent design and evolution in science classrooms. There are two problems with this –
“First, intelligent design is not a scientific theory. It never was, and it never will be. It is nothing more than an argument from personal incredibility (inability to believe). In other words, we don’t understand how life became so complex, therefore life must be designed. This is not the kind of thinking that encourages scientific discovery. It is not testable, makes no predictions and adds nothing to our knowledge.”
“Second, science is an investigation, an exhaustive search for answers. A hypothesis can only become a scientific theory once it has evidence to back it up, goes through extensive testing of the predictions it makes and under-goes an incredibly thorough peer review process; the work must be confirmed by other scientists. This means that science is not dictated by the popular sentiment of the day, nor is it decided in the minds of high school students.”
“Simply put, there is not a controversy in the scientific community concerning evolution. The theory of evolution meets the requirements qualifying it as a scientific theory. Intelligent design does not. It is our responsibility to provide our kids with the most up-to-date scientific knowledge. And the only way this can be done is by teaching evolution, leaving any musings about intelligent design where they belong – either at home or in Sunday school.” ~ R. Eienhorn
You non-believers in Evolutions have two problems as I see it. One, most of you don’t understand evolution, and two, you don’t want to. But all you doubters better get on board the train of evolution, or naturally in time you’ll be selected against! Don’t be left behind!
You know it’s true just look around you. We’re living longer, growing bigger and maturing younger than ever before. And some researchers say we’re evolving faster, due to many modern day factors. Anyway you look at it, evolution’s just a “plain ol’ fact!”
