Questions Evolution Has Not Been Able to Answer for Me
This turned out to be longer than I thought it would be, so
When I was in school, evolution was taught as a theory. Now I hear a lot of people asserting that it's a fact. Hm. To me, a fact is something that is totally provable. It's a fact that I own a Mazda 323 that is older than any of my students. Evolution is not totally provable. We can't hit rewind on history and see if that's how everything actually came to be, but I can get out my car title and prove I own my mc-car (or I can look out the window and see it in the driveway). Not to mention that by its own scientific method, science can't tell us how anything came into existence or why. That would be the realm of philosophy.
But I digress. Even from a young age, I've had some questions about evolution, and I've never been able to find satisfactory evolutionary (ha-ha!) answers.
1. When I was about 9 years old, my family and I went to Bryce Canyon. The park people all said that the formations were fragile, so no going off trails, etc. My mom told me that some of the formations that had been there when she was a girl had eroded away. Yet, we were told these formations were millions of years old. My question then was, "If they're so fragile, how can they be millions of years old? And if they just got this fragile recently, how come they weren't fragile before?"
2. My family and I also went to the Grand Canyon when I was a kid. You can see all the layers, perfectly horizontal, and at the same level no matter what canyon wall you look at. We were told that they were laid down over millions of years. My question then (and now) was, "If the layers are millions of years old, how come there's no evidence of erosion? Wouldn't there be places where layers would be non-existent? Or at least evidence of tree and plant roots growing down into them?" One person told me this was the floor of an ancient ocean, and I said that even in the ocean, things grow. And as the layers were gradually pushed to the surface over millions of years, more things would grow as there would be greater amounts of sunlight as the layers got closer to the surface. But no evidence of erosion, no evidence of plant roots or any sorts of destructive forces. Plus, if it was once an ancient ocean, and it got pushed up, why was it pushed up so uniformly?
3. When I learned about entropy in school (particularly chemistry class) and how with every reaction, there is a heat loss, I wondered how that jived with evolution. If there's a loss with every reaction, how can things get better and more complex? And if things gravitate toward disorder and chaos, how were organisms somehow able to do exactly the opposite? (and with complete random abandon?)
4. When I saw the "proof" in science classes of evolution seen in Darwin's finches, I asked, "How can we be sure that these are truly genetic adaptations and not simply different ages of birds (that have immature beaks) or that they smaller beaks because the diet is poorer?" And if there were irrefutable evidence of this (which was never presented to me), my next question was, "So that proves micro-evolution. What about macro-evolution? How does different beak size prove that one species changed into an entirely different species?"
5. When I saw the "proof" in science class of evolution seen with experiments with fruit flies, I was baffled. They showed more sets of wings, for instance, and said it was an example of a genetic mutation. Of course, it is a mutation, but not a beneficial one, because the fly doesn't fly better... in fact it flies worse or not at all. We see genetic diseases in people that are caused by mutations of genes. But the organism is worse off, not better off. I asked, but was not shown one mutation that was positive (and certainly not one that added to the genome).
There's a video on youtube about Richard Dawkins being asked to give just one example of a mutation that added to the genome. He was momentarily stumped and then answered a completely different (unasked) question. If evolution were a fact, he ought to be able to rattle off a hundred such examples in a matter of minutes. But he couldn't think of one. Neither can I.
6. I recently (within the past couple of years) read that there are hundreds (or more) negative genetic mutations for each generation. That sounds reasonable, considering it's been proven that there are copying errors and negative mutations we can see. Seems like there would be many more genetic mutations we can't see until we get further down the road and they continue until something is obvious. My car, for instance, gets little things wrong with it all the time, but I generally don't notice until it makes horrible noises or stops working altogether. If this is the case, there would have to be more positive genetic mutations to outweigh the negative ones. But I don't see that happening. And I don't see any mutation adding anything; all of them subtract or rearrange what's already there.
A lot of times when I ask questions of teachers of science who believe evolution (I can't really ask Joe Bloe on the street who says he believes in evolution, because most Joe Bloes I know don't know WHY they believe in evolution except that it seems to be the "in" thing) they tell me that it's true, that they just haven't found evidence for it yet. For instance, when I bring up that if evolution is true, there ought to be too many transitional specimens to count in the fossil record. Even if the ones they have are true (which some have been proven to be juveniles of the same species or out and out frauds), that's only a handful. With all the species that are on the planet now, shouldn't there be a nearly infinite amount of transitional and extinct specimens? I usually am told, "Well, we just haven't found them yet."
Really?
Sounds an awful lot like faith to me. Yet followers of science are quick to deride followers of God for having faith instead of facts. Believing in evolution, it seems to me, requires a whole lot more faith than believing in God. And while some people have "blind faith" in God, I think more have blind faith in evolution. It's okay to question God (and God, himself, wants us to find him, wants us to use the brains we're given), but questioning evolution is somehow silly because it's "truth."
If it's truth, it ought to be able to withstand my questions. And answer them.
When I was in school, evolution was taught as a theory. Now I hear a lot of people asserting that it's a fact. Hm. To me, a fact is something that is totally provable. It's a fact that I own a Mazda 323 that is older than any of my students. Evolution is not totally provable. We can't hit rewind on history and see if that's how everything actually came to be, but I can get out my car title and prove I own my mc-car (or I can look out the window and see it in the driveway). Not to mention that by its own scientific method, science can't tell us how anything came into existence or why. That would be the realm of philosophy.
But I digress. Even from a young age, I've had some questions about evolution, and I've never been able to find satisfactory evolutionary (ha-ha!) answers.
1. When I was about 9 years old, my family and I went to Bryce Canyon. The park people all said that the formations were fragile, so no going off trails, etc. My mom told me that some of the formations that had been there when she was a girl had eroded away. Yet, we were told these formations were millions of years old. My question then was, "If they're so fragile, how can they be millions of years old? And if they just got this fragile recently, how come they weren't fragile before?"
2. My family and I also went to the Grand Canyon when I was a kid. You can see all the layers, perfectly horizontal, and at the same level no matter what canyon wall you look at. We were told that they were laid down over millions of years. My question then (and now) was, "If the layers are millions of years old, how come there's no evidence of erosion? Wouldn't there be places where layers would be non-existent? Or at least evidence of tree and plant roots growing down into them?" One person told me this was the floor of an ancient ocean, and I said that even in the ocean, things grow. And as the layers were gradually pushed to the surface over millions of years, more things would grow as there would be greater amounts of sunlight as the layers got closer to the surface. But no evidence of erosion, no evidence of plant roots or any sorts of destructive forces. Plus, if it was once an ancient ocean, and it got pushed up, why was it pushed up so uniformly?
3. When I learned about entropy in school (particularly chemistry class) and how with every reaction, there is a heat loss, I wondered how that jived with evolution. If there's a loss with every reaction, how can things get better and more complex? And if things gravitate toward disorder and chaos, how were organisms somehow able to do exactly the opposite? (and with complete random abandon?)
4. When I saw the "proof" in science classes of evolution seen in Darwin's finches, I asked, "How can we be sure that these are truly genetic adaptations and not simply different ages of birds (that have immature beaks) or that they smaller beaks because the diet is poorer?" And if there were irrefutable evidence of this (which was never presented to me), my next question was, "So that proves micro-evolution. What about macro-evolution? How does different beak size prove that one species changed into an entirely different species?"
5. When I saw the "proof" in science class of evolution seen with experiments with fruit flies, I was baffled. They showed more sets of wings, for instance, and said it was an example of a genetic mutation. Of course, it is a mutation, but not a beneficial one, because the fly doesn't fly better... in fact it flies worse or not at all. We see genetic diseases in people that are caused by mutations of genes. But the organism is worse off, not better off. I asked, but was not shown one mutation that was positive (and certainly not one that added to the genome).
There's a video on youtube about Richard Dawkins being asked to give just one example of a mutation that added to the genome. He was momentarily stumped and then answered a completely different (unasked) question. If evolution were a fact, he ought to be able to rattle off a hundred such examples in a matter of minutes. But he couldn't think of one. Neither can I.
6. I recently (within the past couple of years) read that there are hundreds (or more) negative genetic mutations for each generation. That sounds reasonable, considering it's been proven that there are copying errors and negative mutations we can see. Seems like there would be many more genetic mutations we can't see until we get further down the road and they continue until something is obvious. My car, for instance, gets little things wrong with it all the time, but I generally don't notice until it makes horrible noises or stops working altogether. If this is the case, there would have to be more positive genetic mutations to outweigh the negative ones. But I don't see that happening. And I don't see any mutation adding anything; all of them subtract or rearrange what's already there.
A lot of times when I ask questions of teachers of science who believe evolution (I can't really ask Joe Bloe on the street who says he believes in evolution, because most Joe Bloes I know don't know WHY they believe in evolution except that it seems to be the "in" thing) they tell me that it's true, that they just haven't found evidence for it yet. For instance, when I bring up that if evolution is true, there ought to be too many transitional specimens to count in the fossil record. Even if the ones they have are true (which some have been proven to be juveniles of the same species or out and out frauds), that's only a handful. With all the species that are on the planet now, shouldn't there be a nearly infinite amount of transitional and extinct specimens? I usually am told, "Well, we just haven't found them yet."
Really?
Sounds an awful lot like faith to me. Yet followers of science are quick to deride followers of God for having faith instead of facts. Believing in evolution, it seems to me, requires a whole lot more faith than believing in God. And while some people have "blind faith" in God, I think more have blind faith in evolution. It's okay to question God (and God, himself, wants us to find him, wants us to use the brains we're given), but questioning evolution is somehow silly because it's "truth."
If it's truth, it ought to be able to withstand my questions. And answer them.