Godless Business…believe us or go to hell.

Continuing my chat with a pastor.  Part 4 can be found here.

Me -> “Mutation (although I prefer the term change) and natural selection and what drive adaptation – you have just described evolution in the same breath you denounce it.

Pastor -> “No I haven’t – name a mutation that has led to the growth of a new limb with an entirely different function than any other current limb on an animal? You can’t because according to evolutionists these changes happened so slowly that you can’t see them.”

Limbs (and other structures) do not magically appear from one generation to the next.  What I described was the slow transformation of of a structure from one purpose to another.  In the case of tiktallik his fins were “transforming” into legs.  In other words the species had evolved (change slowly over many generations) to use their fins to prop themselves up in shallow water.  Why this is an advantage I can only guess at, but it could easily be imagined that it allowed them to more easily see their prey on land or to escape predators in the water.  Whatever the reason, we know it happened, and during which time period.

It is also a misnomer to state that all changes happen so slowly that we cannot see them.  We know and can witness the mechanisms (random mutation and natural selection), and we have seen speciation happen in the lab and in the wild (remember the ring species I described?).

Let me try to draw a few analogies.

Have you ever seen a sapling turn into a tree?  We witness trees of all different sizes everyday. If we looked closely we could see they get a little larger with every passing day, so it is rational to conclude that trees grow from small to large.  We believe this, yet no one has ever witnessed a plant grow from a seed to a full mature tree – we have better things to do that watch a plant grow.

Another – we can observe planets moving in the night’s sky and with careful observation and calculation (thanks to Isaac Newton) we can conclude they orbit the sun.  We calculate Neptune’s orbit takes 164.79 years.  No one has ever witnessed a full orbit of Neptune, yet we accept it as fact based our observations.

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This is another chapter of the continuing discussion I am having with a local Pastor.  Part 3 can be found here:

Me -> “Can you define evolution for me?”

“My understanding of evolution is that it is the process whereby scientists try and explain how life evolved from the simplest of structures to the complex creatures we have on our planet today.”

Not a bad definition, although the “try” part is humorous.  I guess it’s no more inaccurate than the theory of gravity ‘only scientists trying to explain why we don’t fall off the Earth.’

“BTW I don’t believe that evolution talks about the start of life so Darwin’s treatise “The origin of Species” should have had a different title.”

That’s why Darwin didn’t call his book “The Origin of Life” because that’s not what it explains.  He outlines the origin of species.  Have you read it?

“No it’s not – all we have in the fossil record is different types of animals not that they have changed.”

Do you expect an animal to change after it has died?  can you explain the progression of forms over time as indicated by the geological column and dating methods?  Did your creator create this organisms just so they could be destroyed and replaced with other (but similar) ones?  How does your model work?

“And the type of changes that we can measure do not prove evolution, all that they prove is adaptation and mutations.”

Mutation (although I prefer the term change) and natural selection and what drive adaptation – you have just described evolution in the same breath you denounce it.

“The famous moth we all studied in high school biology that changed from white to black so that it could blend in with soot coloured trees is no more evolution than my whole family had brown eyes except me but all of my kids have blue.”

This comes down to your definition of species or “kind” (whatever that actually is).  A species are two organisms which are unable to produce viable offspring – genetic islands if you like.  A “kind” is not defined scientifically and I have yet to hear a coherent definition of one.

Take a single population of moths and randomly split them into two groups.  Place one group in an environment where black ones will have a better chance of survival.  Let random DNA changes in each generation and natural selection take its course.  After a number of generations there will populations of white moths and black moths.  Perhaps at this point they are still able to breed (and are thus the same species), but given enough change the two populations will no longer be able to breed and will become (by definition) two *species* of moth.

Are they still moths?  Yes.  Their descendants will always be moths for one cannot escape your ancestry.  If a moth suddenly turned into an octopus it would be great evidence – for creationism.

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Part 2 of my discussion with a pastor can be found here.

“I think that what gets creationists hot under the collar is that if you’re going to teach evolution in a classroom then teach creation as well – they both have the same credentials.”

From this comment I can conclude you think there is no evidence for evolution (or that is some kind of faith or religion), so the two “theories” are on equal ground?  This shows either a massive misunderstanding of what evolution actually is, or you properly understand the theory but do not accept the evidence supports it.  So I must ask – what do you think the theory of evolution says, and what would constitute as evidence that would support it?

Moreover, you are presenting a false dichotomy.  It’s not a choice between evolution and creationism.  Partly because there are many versions of creation we can choose from (each with exactly the same amount of evidence supporting them), but mainly because disproving one idea does not automatically prove another (except in strict mathematical senses).

Where is the evidence *for* creationism?  What predictions does it make that we can test?  Where are the experiments that conclusively show creation is the only viable solution?  You talk about creationism being science, so where is the research to back it up?

Furthermore, the veracity of the theory of evolution has absolutely nothing to do with the existence of a god or not.  There are many theists who accept the theory of evolution.  The two ideas are not mutually exclusive unless you adhere to a strictly literal interpretation of Genesis.

“Andrew I sat in uni lectures hearing lecturers state with straight faces that finless fish evolved into finned fish with absolutely no shred of evidence.”

Then that is a poor lecture.  I would not expect anyone to accept *any* idea without supporting evidence.  So again, where is the evidence *for* creation?

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