Transcript Lesson4
Evidences Class Getting to the Heart of Evolution Seeing through the fog. Rule #1: Understand Evolution The millions of diverse living species we find around us in the modern world are all descended from a common ancestor that lived in the remote past. The processes that have brought this diversity about are collectively called evolution. Stephen Jay Gould* Natural Selection or Survival of the Fittest The process whereby organisms best adapted to local environments leave more surviving offspring and spread their favored traits through populations. Stephen Jay Gould* Bacterial resistance to antibiotics Insect pests become resistant to pesticides From the PBS Evolution Website Darwin’s Finches Natural Selection in Action??? If the process were to continue indefinitely for some 200 years; it might even produce “a new species of finch”. National Academy of Sciences Average Height of NBA Players Average Height (Inches) 80 79 78 77 76 75 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 NBA Season 1990 2000 2010 Two Peppered Moths Peppered moths do not ordinarily rest on tree trunks Difficulty in repeating the experiment in other locales The peppered moth “was a prize horse in our stable of examples”. Learning the truth was like learning “that it was my father and not Santa Claus who brought the presents on Christmas Eve”. Jerry Coyne* My first introduction to pseudo-evolution The Simple Mousetrap Irreducible Complexity The lizard developed …. Natural Selection? Nature Designed (or Created) … Natural Selection? “Defy your genetics; nature designed you to hold as little muscle and as much fat as possible” (internet ad quote) The Bacterial Flagellum 100,000 RPM 5% Vision is not 5% of an Eye Vision that is 5 percent as good as yours or mine is very much worth having in comparison with no vision at all. So is one percent vision better than total blindness. And 6 percent is better than 5, 7 percent better than 6, and so on up the gradual, continuous series. Richard Dawkins Rule #1: Understand Evolution Rule #2: Watch out for religious presuppositions Creation Science Henry Morris Ken Ham – The Creation Museum Problem #1 – Some Bad Science Finite Element Model of the Ark??? What’s the point??? Problem #2 – Questionable Bible Interpretation Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. (Romans 5:12 ESV) T-Rex was a plant eater??? However …. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3:24 ESV) And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." (Genesis 1:28 ESV) Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" (Genesis 3:1 ESV) Religious presuppositions are not limited to the creation scientists. Ultimately, evolution is not about the scientific details. Ultimately, evolution is about God. (Cornelius Hunter) Darwinist #1 – Douglas Futuyma Do the creation scientists really suppose their Creator saw fit to create a bird that couldn’t reproduce without six feet of bulky feathers that make it easy prey for leapards? Darwinist #2 – Stephen Jay Gould Orchids manufacture their intricate devices from the common components of ordinary flowers, parts usually fitted for very different functions. If God had designed a beautiful machine to reflect his wisdom and power, surely he would not have used a collection of parts generally fashioned for other purposes. Orchids were not made by an ideal engineer; they are jury-rigged from a limited set of available components. Thus, they must have evolved from ordinary flowers. Darwinist #3 – Steve Jones The feeblest of designers could improve it. (Complex organs) are not the work of some great composer but of an insensible drudge: an instrument, like all others, built by a tinkerer rather than a trained engineer. Darwinist #4 – Michael Ruse Given an all-wise God, just why is it that different forms appear in similar climates, whereas the same forms appear in different climates? It is all pointless without evolution. Darwinists #5 – Dodson and Dodson Had all species been created in the places where they now exist, then amphibian and terrestrial mammals should be as frequent on oceanic islands as on comparable continental areas. Certainly, terrestrial mammals should have been created on these islands as frequently as were bats. Darwinist #6 – J. B. S. Haldane The Creator has an inordinate fondness for beetles to have created over 250,000 different species. Darwinist #7 – Ken Miller [Pseudogenes reveal a designer who] “made serious errors, wasting millions of bases of DNA on a blueprint full of junk and scribbles.” Darwinist #8 – Charles Darwin Why should the brain be enclosed in a box of such extraordinary shaped pieces of bone representing vertebrate? … Why should similar bones have been created to from the wing and leg of a bat, used as they are for such totally different purposes, namely flying and walking? Darwinist #9 – Richard Dawkins All the great religions have a place for awe, for ecstatic transport at the wonder and beauty of creation. And it's exactly this feeling of spine-shivering, breath-catching awe — almost worship — this flooding of the chest with ecstatic wonder, that modern science can provide. And it does so beyond the wildest dreams of saints and mystics. The fact that the supernatural has no place in our explanations, in our understanding of so much about the universe and life, doesn't diminish the awe. Quite the contrary. The merest glance through a microscope at the brain of an ant or through a telescope at a long-ago galaxy of a billion worlds is enough to render poky and parochial the very psalms of praise.