Hello Christine,
Thanks for the web page. I don't know if I agree with the transitional forms argument that the page presents, but I don't think I nor anyone else on this thread has enough knowledge of science to argue it.
What I said about apes--and perhaps a scientifically-oriented person could explain it more accurately--is that when human and chimpanzee genetic structure is analyzed, only two percent of the structure is dissimilar. That is in indication that we are very, very closely related to them. Maybe you could explain to me why that is so disturbing to Christians.
I don't think this should be disturbing to Christians. The analogy I tried to make in my last post is that 1997 Ford Escort and the 1998 Ford Escort probably are only a small % dissimilar, with many of the same internal parts used in both cars. If a person from a small tribe in Africa that didn't know these cars were manufactured by a company saw these two cars, he or she would note the similarity in looks of the cars. I believe this analogy can be transferred to humans looking at animals. We see animals that look the same and are made of the same parts. Does this mean that they randomly adapted to get this way, or could a Creator, God in this instance instead of Ford, have made them? I believe evolution could have happened, but I don't think it could have happened randomly.
My point with the bombardier beetle follows. The bombardier beetle needs 3 chemicals in its system to produce its defense mechanism. Now evolution says animals evolve slowly creating organs and chemicals in bits and pieces. So an eye doesn't appear. First a part of a cornea appears, than a little part of a lens, and so on.
My question is how could each stage (thousands of stages according to evolution) of the creation of the organs that produce the chemicals afford an advantage to the beetle? It seems that all 3 chemicals are needed in a certain mixture, excreted in a certain place in the beetle, along with the instinct for the beetle to be able to fire the weapon out of its behind. This definitely is an advantage after ALL of the organs to produce the enzymes have been created. How can each stage of the creation of parts of the organs be an advantage when the enzymes only work together?
The same logic is used for how all organs are created, but I find this animal to be the hardest to explain. This is where we go from microevolution (natural selection) to macroevolution.
It is hard for me to imagine that any other group has a vested interest in disproving evolutionary theory except Bible believers. Could you tell me who some of the non-religious ones are, or show me the web pages?
Here's a book by a non-Christian writer. Michael Denton's "Evolution: A theory in Crisis."
Here's a book by an evolutionist who points out the numerous difficulties of evolution. Kerkut "Implications of Evolution."
Mathemeticians enter the fray with probability analysis in:
Moorehead and Kaplan "Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution."
Cohen "Darwin Was Wrong - A Study in Probabilities"
I find these non-Christian authors to be more compelling as they have no bias to attack evolution. If you want more non-Christian books I can probably dig them up for you. Again, I believe God could EASILY have brought us through the stages of evolution. I just don't believe it happened.
God Bless,
Grant |
