2008-11-25 09:46:24

Evolution: I'm Not So Sure

Every intelligent Christian knows that the creation stories in the Bible were just that; stories. The world probably wasn't created in seven days. Instead, Christian scholars accept a combination of creation and evolution as the way we came to be. The Big Bang; it probably happened. But we, as Christians, believe that it didn't happen all by itself; God had His part in it. But that aside, the real reason for this article is to talk about evolution.
As I mentioned earlier, non-psycho Christians accept evolution in combination with creation. However, I was reading an article recently that made me question how real evolution is. The article, Tapping Into What a Deer Sees, and Doesn’t, was mainly about determining how a deer sees so that better camouflage can be made for hunters. However, the scientists that figure all of this out weighed in for the article. The point of camouflage is two fold. First, it needs to contain a micro-pattern so that it blends in with the environment while still. Second, it needs to contain a macro-pattern so that it doesn't look like a person while it's moving. They likened this to a leopard and a tiger. A leopard's spots are a micro-pattern, helping to conceal it while it's slowly stalking it's prey. A tiger's stripes are a macro-pattern, helping to break up the overall outline of the tiger so that when it's running other animals don't know it's a tiger.
Those two statements got me to thinking about evolution. Evolutionists would say that over time the animals adapted to their environment and the way they attack their prey to get the types of fur they have; spots, stripes, etc. I call foul. There's no way that can happen. Try applying evolution to humans. Humans have liked to swim for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. Do we have fins, flippers, or gills? No. Where's the evolution? I honestly don't see how evolution is feasible. Just because I like to swim doesn't mean that my body "learns" this and my kids will have flippers for feet. DNA doesn't change because of habits and lifestyle. Humans will always have human genes that give them hands and feet.
I think we've been looking at it wrong the whole time. We don't evolve to adapt to our environment, we evolve to adapt to ourselves. Tigers didn't think, "Wow, I like to run, I should really change my fur so animals can't see me when I'm running," and a thousand years later, poof! Tigers have stripes. No, tigers have always had stripes and they figured out that they can't be seen when they run, so that's how they attack their prey. Leopards didn't think, "Wow, I'm lazy, I wish I could do nothing and be hidden so food comes to me," and a thousand years later, poof! Spots! Leopards realized that they couldn't find each other when they were motionless, and they applied that to attacking prey.
So, what do all of you think about this theory? I'll posit that evolution=adaptation and that evolution, as we currently understand, is false.

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8 comments

2008-11-25 15:09:55

Entropy says...
Well there is no God, so there is evolution. Period.

2008-12-02 21:03:12

Professor Goose says...
Your logic is flawed. The homo genus (which contains modern humans) is 2.5 million years old. Mammals are 200 million years old. Moderns humans themselves are only 200,000 years old. Through DNA sequencing, it has been estimated that the human lineage diverged from chimpanzees about 5 million years ago, and from gorillas about 8 million years ago. All those numbers prove you're right about there being no evolution in thousands of years. The numbers also prove your logic is flawed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_evolution

P.S. Lay off the kool aid.

2008-12-02 21:14:47

slonkak says...
I'm not saying that the earth is only a couple thousand years old. I'm just saying that evolution as most people think of it doesn't make sense, thousands of years or millions. Cells don't think. They don't know that they need to be water proof so they can form a fish one day. I can understand that cells can mutate and genes can be messed up, thus different species. I just don't see how species can "figure out" what they need to do and make their DNA change. How does that happen?

2008-12-02 23:17:36

Professor Goose says...
Through variations in genes, certain specimens of the species develop traits that either help or hinder their survival. These specimens mate with other specimens and over millions of years, the traits that help the species become commonplace. The traits that hinder the species die off. Cells don't change themselves. It is the randomized combining of DNA through mating over millions of years that causes evolution.

Take cheetahs as a very simple example. Millions of years ago, they may not have been as fast as they are today. But perhaps some specimens were faster than others because of gene mutations. Because of the environment they lived in, being fast was an advantage. These faster specimens were able to hunt more prey and were better fed and survived longer. Other hardy specimens who could survive mated with these fast specimens. With each generation, the slow and the weak slowly died off. After repeating this cycle for millions of years, you are left with a finely tuned organism that is designed for/adapted to its environment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection

2008-12-02 23:27:49

slonkak says...
Now that makes sense.

2009-01-09 21:31:48

Baldur Ã�Ã³r Emilsson says...
I highly recommend the book "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins for anyone that is interested in this topic. It describes Darwinian evolution and natural selection perfectly and makes it absolutely clear to the reader how genes and evolution work.

2009-01-09 21:34:23

Baldur Thor Emilsson says...
Heh, you might want to check the UTF-8 support on your server/hosting plan. My middle name is not really as interesting as it seems up there =P

2009-01-09 22:29:40

slonkak says...
Interesting. After checking what got saved to the db, it appears that the function I use to sanitize comments didn't understand some of your characters. Not sure whether to blame PHP, Apache, or the OS at the moment, but I'll take a look at it.