Creation Moment 3/26/2015 - Terms

"Whenever talking about challenges to "evolution," it's vital to carefully define terms, otherwise confusion can result. There are three common usages of the term "evolution":

• Evolution #1 -- Microevolution: Small-scale changes in a population of organisms.


• Evolution #2 -- Universal Common Descent: The idea that all organisms are related and are descended from a single common ancestor.


• Evolution #3 -- Darwinian Evolution: The view that an unguided process of natural selection acting upon random mutation has been the primary mechanism driving the evolution of life.

No one doubts Evolution #1, which is sometimes called "microevolution." Some scientists doubt Evolution #2. But the Scientific Dissent from Darwinism list only concerns Evolution #3, also called Darwinian evolution or Darwinism. The scientists who have signed the dissent statement say this:

We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.

I defined Evolution #1 by equating it with "microevolution" -- small-scale changes in a population of organisms. Collectively, Evolution #2 and #3 might be termed macroevolution, which is defined as follows:

Macroevolution: Large-scale changes in populations of organisms, including the evolution of fundamentally new biological features. Typically this term also means that all life forms descended from a single common ancestor through unguided natural processes.

Unfortunately, evolutionists sometimes purposefully confuse these definitions, hoping you won't notice that they have overstated their case. They will take evidence for microevolution (Evolution #1), and then over-extrapolate the evidence and claim it supports macroevolution (Evolution #2 or Evolution #3). Indeed, sometimes evolution advocates will

equate microevolution and macroevolution, the idea being that macroevolution is just repeated rounds of microevolution added up. I will address these inaccurate claims.

The signers of the Scientific Dissent from Darwinism List have many scientific reasons for being skeptical of Darwinian theory. In writing this, I do not intend to speak for any of them in particular, but the following section briefly lists some of the types of scientific data that are often cited by those challenging Darwinian evolution:

• Genetics -- Mutations Cause Harm and Do Not Build Complexity: Darwinian evolution relies on random mutations that are selected by a blind, unguided process of natural selection. This undirected process has no goals. Being random, it tends to harm organisms and does not improve them or build complexity. As biologist Lynn Margulis, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences until her death in 2011, said: "New mutations don't create new species; they create offspring that are impaired." Similarly, the past president of the French Academy of Sciences, Pierre-Paul Grasse, contended that "[m]utations have a very limited 'constructive capacity'" because "[n]o matter how numerous they may be, mutations do not produce any kind of evolution."


• Biochemistry -- Unguided and Random Processes Cannot Produce Cellular Complexity: Our cells are like miniature factories using machine technology but dwarfing the complexity and efficiency of anything produced by humans. Cells use miniature circuits, motors, feedback loops, encoded language, and even error-checking machinery to decode and repair our DNA. As Bruce Alberts, former president of the U.S. National Academy of Science, observed: "[t]he entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines." Darwinian evolution struggles to explain the origin of this type of integrated complexity. Biochemist Franklin Harold admits in a book published by Oxford University Press: "There are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations."


• Paleontology -- The Fossil Record Lacks Intermediate Fossils: The fossil record's overall pattern is one of abrupt explosions of new biological forms, and generally lacks plausible candidates for transitional fossils, contradicting the pattern of gradual evolution predicted by Darwinian theory. This non-Darwinian pattern has been recognized by many paleontologists. University of Pittsburgh anthropologist Jeffrey Schwartz states: "We are still in the dark about the origin of most major groups of organisms. They appear in the fossil record as Athena did from the head of Zeus -- full-blown and raring to go, in contradiction to Darwin's depiction of evolution as resulting from the gradual accumulation of countless infinitesimally minute variations." Likewise the great evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr explained that "[n]ew species usually appear in the fossil record suddenly, not connected with their ancestors by a series of intermediates." Similarly, a zoology textbook observes: "Many species remain virtually unchanged for millions of years, then suddenly disappear to be replaced by a quite different, but related, form. Moreover, most major groups of animals appear abruptly in the fossil record, fully formed, and with no fossils yet discovered that form a transition from their parent group."


• Neo-Darwinian Evolution Has Been and Continues to Be Critiqued by Mainstream Scientists: Everyone agrees that microevolution occurs. But mainstream scientific and academic literature is saturated with skepticism about the neo-Darwinian claim that microevolution offers an adequate basis for justifying macroevolutionary claims.

Evolutionary biologist Stanley Salthe likewise describes himself as "a critic of Darwinian evolutionary theory," which he insists "cannot explain origins, or the actual presence of forms and behaviors" in organisms. Biologist Scott Gilbert has stated in a report in Nature that "[t]he modern synthesis is remarkably good at modeling the survival of the fittest, but not good at modeling the arrival of the fittest," and evolutionary paleobiologist Graham Budd admits: "When the public thinks about evolution, they think about the origin of wings and the invasion of the land, . . . [b]ut these are things that evolutionary theory has told us little about." Eugene Koonin writes in Trends in Genetics about the increasingly undeniable reasons to doubt core neo-Darwinian tenets, such as view that "natural selection is the main driving force of evolution," indicating that "the modern synthesis has crumbled, apparently, beyond repair"." EN&V

A Prayer for ALL Church Leaders on this Topic

Give me now wisdom and knowledge,

that I may go out and come in before this people:

2 Chronicles 1:10