Posted on 08/09/2018 11:40:34 AM PDT by Heartlander
Editor’s note: We were delighted recently to introduce a new series, “Modernizing Darwin,” cross-posted at Shabbat.com, by Geoffrey Simmons, MD. The first post is here. Dr. Simmons is the author of What Darwin Didn’t Know and Billions of Missing Links. He is a Fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture.
Man has been searching for fossils, or stumbling upon them, for millennia. The ancient Greeks and Romans saw the fossilized bones of giant creatures as proof that horrible monsters once walked the land or swam in the seas. Darwin utilized fossils to bolster his theory of evolution. He spent an enormous amount of time hunting down fossils and is rightfully known for a number of interesting finds, including the giant ground sloth Mylodon darwinii.
Many modern authorities continue to use fossils as proof of evolution, chronologically lining up those which appear similar, yet the gaps have only grown more glaring with time. We now delve into the cellular level comparing chemical processes, electrical charges, and genetic differences. It seems to be a secret, but researchers know that it would take millions of internal changes for dinosaurs to evolve into birds, flat plants into trees, fish into amphibians. Note there are no half-fish/half-salamanders or one-third monkey/two-thirds humans, ever.
Upon close inspection, the absence of transitions (smaller steps) is striking. We should be up to our collective elbows with transitional species that once came about by trial and error, and failed to survive. Not so. Even for whales, the largest animal alive. We’ve been told repeatedly that transitional forms will eventually be found, but that hasn’t happened and the problems are steadily increasing in our awareness. Saying that two fossils with similar appearances, yet found thousands of miles apart, are related, begs the question.
Some whales can grow up to 100 feet long and weigh 200 tons. The rib cage of a blue whale is large enough to accommodate a minivan or small truck. Their hearts are the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. Every aspect is so massive. A few fossilized bones from their putative predecessors have been found. But the story is still mysterious, because of the changes required.
Darwin wrote that whales came about as a result of bears going to sea. He had to retract that statement after the first edition of On the Origin of Species was published. Some modern paleontologists say the whale’s ancestor must be the hippopotamus. Maybe because they are mammals and linger in the water most of their lives? But, otherwise they are strikingly (impossibly) different. Other coastal animals, that are now extinct, are also cited, but none of them could survive a day or two at sea. Of interest, the whale’s tail moves up and down, not sideways like fish. And, whales never had scales.
No one knows how blow holes came about, certainly not by small successive steps, or how the internal lungs became connected up to these holes in a way that prevents drowning. Or, how a massive communication center, found in their heads, came about. Or, how the ability to depressurize body segments during deep dives evolved. Calves are born tail first (they cannot go head first in case the process is too slow) and these newborns must rise to the surface immediately for air or else they will drown. The ability to swim must be present from the beginning. Trial and error would never have worked.
Whales are not the only misfit to smooth transitions, just the largest. The number of exceptions may actually be equal to the number of species on this planet. Standouts are kangaroos, woodpeckers, platypuses, giraffes, butterflies, octopuses, skunks, bombardier beetles, the red tide, dolphins, fireflies, tardigrades, sloths, and all micro-organisms. Maybe viruses, too.
Something besides unguided evolution is going on. In actuality, all living organisms are likely exceptions. Just breeding a horse into a faster horse doesn’t eventually change it into something fast like a cheetah. It’s simply a faster horse. The same goes for pet dogs to guard dogs. It’s true, natural selection does happen in a variety of situations, but it doesn’t change a species into another.
An incomprehensibly intelligent engineer and designer must be responsible.
Or your definitions for evolution and God are incorrect.
Yes, I am familiar with Alvin Plantinga and respect him… but guided evolution towards a goal would be intelligent design – both intelligence and design would be required.
Today's chameleon is the current state of the chain for its kind, not the beginning of any other animal.
“The premise of theistic evolution is incoherent.”
Nice try at special pleading.
Over a thousand years before Darwin, Augustine of Hippo wrote that God embedded “seeds” in Creation that would emerge at a later time. I think he used the image of an acorn developing into an oak tree, something that he might have borrowed from Aristotle.
Theistic evolution as per Augustine means change resulting from embedded design. Darwin is change resulting from mere chance. Evolution is a suitable word in both uses since the word was in use long before Darwin and simply means change over time and says nothing about the underlying mechanism.
Darwin showed that material causes are a sufficient explanation not only for physical phenomena, as Descartes and Newton had shown, but also for biological phenomena with all their seeming evidence of design and purpose. By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous.
-Douglas Futuyma's Evolutionary Biology p. 5
Marty Feldman?
The premise of theistic evolution is incoherent.
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And a Christian view of evolution is even more absurd. The Bible clearly states that death entered the world because of sin.
You can’t have evolution without death.
Yes, I am familiar with Alvin Plantinga and respect him… but guided evolution towards a goal would be intelligent design
...
Would Alvin Plantinga agree with that?
The absence of transitional species is telling.
That is a question for him...
Thanks for posting the article. Berlinski is an intelligent guy. I’m more of a classic creationist myself although my dad is a devout atheist and a scientist. The following video from Zoologist Dr Marc Surtees explains the problems with the supposed evolution of mammals to whales.
http://edinburghcreationgroup.org/video/32
The fact the species are labeled and grouped proves “evolution” is a step function and not an analog function.
bkmk
Whales were created for Jonah.
Did you know he never left Ninevah? He supposedly hated the people but I guess after their conversion it became a nice place to live. ISIS destroyed his tomb.
Good video of whale and scientist...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTw8MR67xv8
this diagram of evolution of whales is supposed to show whale transitional fossils, but all it does is create 10 new gaps.
****Man has been searching for fossils, or stumbling upon them, for millennia.****
Still think it’s remarkable that for millennia - billions of humans and all other forms of life have lived and died. The earth should be filled with fossils. There must have been many historic, catastrophic land movements which buried the evidence.
You forget the rearrangement of the DNA...rna...different cell types....fugedaboutit. Changes in sperm....biochemistry....not just happy changes....but functional transitions
diagram of evolution of whales is supposed to show whale transitional fossils, but all it does is create 10 new gaps.
And each new “gap” that is filled creates two more gaps.
“Note there are no half-fish/half-salamanders or one-third monkey/two-thirds humans, ever.”
What about those walking carp in Fla?
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