[BaseballMan]

Poland was still behind the Iron Curtain then. It was the summer of 1972, and I was travelling to that country with student colleagues. Our tertiary course involved Marxism, and we wanted to see something of its implications in practice.

Entering East Germany en route, I felt a certain sense of excitement; I had not penetrated the ‘Berlin Wall’ before. ‘No-man’s Land’ and the ugly prison defences separating East and West Germany were chilling.

Even more chilling was the concentration camp of Auschwitz in southern Poland. I saw hair, spectacles and teeth piled high, and the gas chambers where thousands of victims were mercilessly destroyed. It was summer, but the birds did not sing. There was death in the air. A Polish boy who acted as our guide whispered, ‘My grandparents died in this camp. It is my duty to let people know what happened.’

Underlying question
Three years later, my wife and I went to visit an East German pen-friend, Dorothea, who was not allowed to visit us. Once again, we traversed ‘No-man’s Land’ and went beyond the Berlin Wall—this time feeling very vulnerable.

We have been many times since. On one occasion we asked our friend, ‘Do you ever see the situation changing?’ The answer was a short ‘No’, but her resigned look of despair spoke more eloquently.

I trust you can imagine, therefore, the tears and the joy that flowed in November 1989 when the Wall came down. The prison doors had broken open, and our friends were free!

Yet lingering beneath the surface was a question that would not go away. I had seen the horrific impact of Nazism on the life of a nation. I had then experienced the similarly grim effect of a different ideology—Communism. Why had such enormous evil been unleashed upon so many people?

A common denominator
A timeline of evolution-inspired terror

1860: Karl Marx
The ‘spiritual father’ of the communist system, Marx was an avid adherent of Darwin. He combined his social and economic idea with evolutionary principles. Marx wrote that Darwin’s book ‘contains the basis in natural history for our views.’ His disciple Lenin applied utter ruthlessness and terror in Russia—the term ‘rivers of blood’ has commonly been applied in describing his reign.


1918: Leon Trotsky
Fanatically committed to Darwinism and Marxism, communist leader Trotsky was brutal against the Christian church. He said that Darwin’s ideas ‘intoxicated’ him, and ‘Darwin stood for me like a mighty doorkeeper at the entrance to the temple of the universe.’ With no Creator’s laws to restrain him and the justification of evolution, he felt free to use any means to attain power and political ends.


1930: Joseph Stalin
The world’s worst mass-murderer studied at Tiflis (Tbilisi) Georgia, theological college. A friend later said Stalin became an atheist after reading Darwin. He was expelled from the college at 19 because of his revolutionary connections. After understanding that evolution provided no basis for conscience or morals, he felt free to torture and murder to whatever extent he chose to achieve his communist goals.


1940: Adolf Hitler
Formed his racial and social policies on the evolutionary ideas of survival of the fittest and the superiority of certain ‘favoured races’ (as in the subtitle of Darwin’s book). Hitler’s reign resulted in the murder of six million Jews as well as many blacks, gypsies, the retarded, and other groups deemed unfit to live. The evolutionary ‘science’ of eugenics provided him with justification for his decrees.

1975: Pol Pot
The death in 1998 of Cambodia’s Pol Pot marked the end of one of the world’s worst mass murderers. From 1975 he led the Khmer Rouge to genocide against his own people in a bloodthirsty regime which was inspired by the communism of Stalin and China’s notorious Mao Zedong. Chairman Mao is known to have regarded Darwin and his disciple Huxley as his two favourite authors.

In those years since my first visit to Poland, I sought to understand Marxism and Nazism, and what shaped the worldviews that had justified the horrific actions that I had witnessed. I discovered a common denominator.

Marxism, so I learnt, sought to be scientific. It was anchored in a social and economic theory that was believed to mirror the true history of life. Central to that theory was the struggle between the class that owned the means of production (the capitalist ‘bourgeoisie’) and the working class (the ‘proletariat’) that did not.

Evil, in the socialist worldview, is the oppression of the working class by the bourgeoisie. Having been enlightened by Marx regarding the ‘true history of life’, men and women could now take control of that history. They could accelerate ‘nature’ as it sped towards its goal of a world revolution that would banish such ‘evil’ and produce a socialist utopia.

Hitler, I discovered, shared a similar worldview, as outlined in his book Mein Kampf (literally ‘my struggle’). He believed that people, like animals and plants, were engaged in a constant struggle for survival. The climax of history would be the survival of the fittest race—which he believed to be the ‘Aryan race’, as embodied in the German people.

Hitler and Stalin both applied their ‘scientific’ logic with a ruthless, overwhelming determination. So did Mao Zedong in China, where countless millions also perished in the name of a utopian Marxist dream. And they not only convinced themselves, but millions of others—people just like you and me—that they were right to do so.

But where did these ideas come from? What was the ‘scientific’ basis for such evil?

A way of seeing
Hitler’s understanding of the history of life, and that of Marx, Stalin and Mao, was not devised by a German, Russian or Chinese. It was shaped by an Englishman named Charles Darwin.

Darwin’s book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859), laid the groundwork for their worldviews. They each applied the principle of ‘survival of the fittest’ to their own situation.

For Marx and Stalin it was class struggle; for Hitler it was racial struggle. And because Darwinism undermined the authority of the Bible on origins, it meant that, logically, there was no accountability to God for the mass murder they used to implement their ideas. In fact, such tactics could be justified by Darwinism. Without an absolute standard of right and wrong, those in power are not accountable to any standard. So ‘might’ becomes ‘right’.

As Darwin’s evolutionary thinking became widely welcomed and absorbed by society, it not only convinced leaders like Marx and Hitler, but it became a ‘scientific’ framework justifying the public acceptance of their actions for the ‘benefit’ of all humanity.

Frightening dream
Over the years, I have visited East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. I have become accustomed to seeing crude and faceless residential slab blocks encircling towns and cities.

Recently, I visited Romania as well. I was not surprised to see the same thing in her capital city, Bucharest—which was at one time called ‘Little Paris’.

The sheer scale of the destruction was a shock, not only around Bucharest, but at its very heart. I listened to a Romanian woman whose family home had disappeared to make way for the Grand Avenue that leads to the People’s Palace of (now-deposed) communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

As I walked the length of this cultural wasteland, I found it difficult to articulate the depth of sadness I was feeling. I was seeing the impact of Darwin’s thinking, as interpreted through Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and then Romanian leader Ceausescu, on the life of yet another nation.

They were wrong
On the Sunday of my visit I shared these thoughts with a group of Christians in Bucharest. As an Englishman, I could only stand before them and express immense regret for what one of my countrymen had released into an unsuspecting world.

Hitler was wrong. Stalin was wrong. Ceausescu was wrong. Darwin’s theory, upon which those tyrants based their actions, was wrong, too. The evidence was before my eyes; its radical effect on the lives of everyone I was speaking to. For them it was not just an interesting theory, but a frightening practice.

At the same time, however, I was also able to point them to someone who was right, not just in theory but also in practice. He understood the true history of the world and the true nature of life, because He created it (John 1:1–3).

That person is Jesus Christ, God in the flesh (John 8:58). He came to Earth to verify and fulfil statements that He had made in earlier times concerning the beginning of life. And He added to it with inspired insight into what is yet to come. And He validated all this by rising from the dead.



http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation...darwin.asp

[BaseballMan]

(....continued)
Not from chaos
On that Sunday, I referred to a passage from John’s Gospel, chapter 10, where Jesus said, ‘I tell you the truth … the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; but I have come so that they may have life, and have it to the full’ (John 10:1, 10).

That same Jesus is the Word (John 1:1) who has spoken into history from its very beginning. ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth … God created man in His own image … God saw all that He had made, and it was very good … Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array’ (Genesis 1:1, 27, 31, 2:1).

We do not come from chaos, ascending via ‘survival of the fittest’ to reach a utopia of our own making. We come from perfection, through failure into pain and death—which came into being when our first parents sought to exclude God; just as Darwin, and then Hitler, Stalin and Ceausescu had done these years since.

Each of these was wrong about the past; this is evident in the death and destruction their ideas wrought. But Jesus was right—as is equally evident in the good fruit of His own life.

They were also wrong about the future. The Utopian dream will not be fulfilled by man, but by God. History is heading towards ‘that day’—the promised new heavens and new earth, which follows the death of death and the destruction of the ‘old’ (2 Peter 3:10).

All those who love Jesus can look forward to the heavenly Marriage Feast of the Lamb of God (Rev. 19)—of which all marriages and all positive relationships are but a foretaste. Those new heavens and that new earth will be the home of the people who love Jesus, living together with Him for eternity in a relationship that is rich, full and perfect. And every tear—even those from Auschwitz and Bucharest—will be wiped away.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation...darwin.asp

[thecavemaster]

Galapagos Island, in my estimation, suggests that animals are highly adaptable over the course of time to changing environments, passing on those adaptations to offspring, enabling enhancing genetic traits to move forward, providing greater sustainability to the species. Reducing evolution and Darwin to "we didn't come from no apes" and (IMO) using Darwin to justify Stalin's purges or Hitler's hatred of the Jews is more than a little unfair to good ol' Chuck.

[BaseballMan]

Galapagos Island, in my estimation, suggests that animals are highly adaptable over the course of time to changing environments, passing on those adaptations to offspring, enabling enhancing genetic traits to move forward, providing greater sustainability to the species. Reducing evolution and Darwin to "we didn't come from no apes" and (IMO) using Darwin to justify Stalin's purges or Hitler's hatred of the Jews is more than a little unfair to good ol' Chuck.

No one is justifying Stalin or Hitler. It is themselves who justified what they did using Darwin's studies.

Galapagos Island shows nothing more than a finch that developed different types of beaks based on the environment they were in, which can be refuted as they were created that way and were not discovered until Darwin studied them. Still, it proves nothing more than a spieces can make small changes within itself, such as a beak to soften or harden. It proves nothing that the animal will completely change over time into something completely different.

[thecavemaster]

No one is justifying Stalin or Hitler. It is themselves who justified what they did using Darwin's studies.

Galapagos Island shows nothing more than a finch that developed different types of beaks based on the environment they were in, which can be refuted as they were created that way and were not discovered until Darwin studied them. Still, it proves nothing more than a spieces can make small changes within itself, such as a beak to soften or harden. It proves nothing that the animal will completely change over time into something completely different.

Are you suggesting that the whole of Darwin's research is contained in one group of finches? If "god" can change covenants, surely animals can evolve as well?

[launchpad4]

If Darwin's theory of evolution is completely correct then why do things exist strickingly similar now than they did thousands of years ago, also if evolution was true couldn't species still be evolving into new ones. I don't understand what is so "scientific" about a study that went completely against the scientific method and can not in my opinion be justified when it is argued against. The only thing said when you question Darwin's Theory is that you are uneducated, well I am quite educated and I just don't get it.

[thecavemaster]

If Darwin's theory of evolution is completely correct then why do things exist strickingly similar now than they did thousands of years ago, also if evolution was true couldn't species still be evolving into new ones. I don't understand what is so "scientific" about a study that went completely against the scientific method and can not in my opinion be justified when it is argued against. The only thing said when you question Darwin's Theory is that you are uneducated, well I am quite educated and I just don't get it.

Explain (in brief) how Darwin's methods were so unscientific within his professional timeframe as to merit your scorn... Do you question parts of Darwin's work or the whole of it?

[ComfortEagle]

If Darwin's theory of evolution is completely correct then why do things exist strickingly similar now than they did thousands of years ago, also if evolution was true couldn't species still be evolving into new ones. I don't understand what is so "scientific" about a study that went completely against the scientific method and can not in my opinion be justified when it is argued against. The only thing said when you question Darwin's Theory is that you are uneducated, well I am quite educated and I just don't get it.

Some animals don't need to evolve, they are already adapted to their environments. If something were to change that required them to evolve, then yes it may happen.

Here is an example of evolution at work, it is about the peppered moth in England:

"The evolution of the peppered moth over the last two hundred years has been studied in detail. Originally, the vast majority of peppered moths had light colouration, which effectively camouflaged them against the light-coloured trees and lichens which they rested upon. However, because of widespread pollution during the Industrial Revolution in England, many of the lichens died out, and the trees that peppered moths rested on became blackened by soot, causing most of the light-coloured moths, or typica, to die off from predation. At the same time, the dark-coloured, or melanic, moths, carbonaria, flourished because of their ability to hide on the darkened trees."

-Miller, Ken (1999) The Peppered Moth: An Update

"Since then, with improved environmental standards, light-coloured peppered moths have again become common, but the dramatic change in the peppered moth's population has remained a subject of much interest and study, and has led to the coining of the term industrial melanism to refer to the genetic darkening of species in response to pollutants. As a result of the relatively simple and easy-to-understand circumstances of the adaptation, the peppered moth has become a common example used in explaining or demonstrating natural selection to laypeople and classroom students."

http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/global...dmoth.html

[Coach_Owens87]

Some animals don't need to evolve, they are already adapted to their environments. If something were to change that required them to evolve, then yes it may happen.

Here is an example of evolution at work, it is about the peppered moth in England:

"The evolution of the peppered moth over the last two hundred years has been studied in detail. Originally, the vast majority of peppered moths had light colouration, which effectively camouflaged them against the light-coloured trees and lichens which they rested upon. However, because of widespread pollution during the Industrial Revolution in England, many of the lichens died out, and the trees that peppered moths rested on became blackened by soot, causing most of the light-coloured moths, or typica, to die off from predation. At the same time, the dark-coloured, or melanic, moths, carbonaria, flourished because of their ability to hide on the darkened trees."

-Miller, Ken (1999) The Peppered Moth: An Update

"Since then, with improved environmental standards, light-coloured peppered moths have again become common, but the dramatic change in the peppered moth's population has remained a subject of much interest and study, and has led to the coining of the term industrial melanism to refer to the genetic darkening of species in response to pollutants. As a result of the relatively simple and easy-to-understand circumstances of the adaptation, the peppered moth has become a common example used in explaining or demonstrating natural selection to laypeople and classroom students."

http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/global...dmoth.html

Great point, and good example.

Im not here to challenge anyone's faith, I myself have faith in god, but I do think a lot of people take the things first mentioned by Darwin, and completely take them out of context.

When Darwin was studying in the Galapagos islands he had no idea how animals, or plants passed along "their" traits to their offspring. What he did notice was that species where greatly adapted for life on that island, and that they passed along these "traits" to their offspring. This explains the hole that many people find in evolution, which is how did new species originate? If you take one species and separate them in completely different climates, and leave them there for hundreds of years, they will adapt to that climate. If left alone for long enough, their genes will be completely different, and no interbreeding could occur, which would technically make them different species. It doesn't mean a species learned to walk upright and then gave that trait to their offspring, it's just that a species with the best ability to walk would be able to travel farther, use their limbs more effectively, and would then pass that trait along to their offspring. So if you can agree that species can adapt, then you have technically agreed with evolution.

The work of Gregory Mendel on crossing pea plants showed how "traits" (genes) where passed from one generation to the next, and how interbreeding between the new generations would produce different percentages of each offspring (Tall, short, wrinkled seeds, etc.) Mendel made these discoveries during the lifetime of Darwin, but Darwin did know about Mendel's studies. Mendel's studies later lead scientist down that path that lead to the discovery of DNA and RNA which have greatly increased our understanding of how genes work.

[BaseballMan]

Are you suggesting that the whole of Darwin's research is contained in one group of finches? If "god" can change covenants, surely animals can evolve as well?

I hope you are not basing your reasoning for animals evolving on if "god" can change covenants. He did not change covenants. He did what He told the people He was going to do from the beginning through prophets. After the fall, sacrifices had to be made. It had to be the best of what you had - which was the best ram, sheep, or fatted calf. It could not be the worst that you picked out, or there was consequences. God, through his love and mercy, sent Word through His prophets that one day that would no longer have to be. Then He sent His own Son, from which He conceived with woman, according to Scripture. So that when He was sacrificed, it would take the place of the old way. He would be merciful and loving in that He would give up His own life instead of your best. He would link a way for mankind to get back to Him simply by having the faith of a small child. But He also warned that the proud and "wise" of this world would not accept that. So He did not change covenants. He makes things new and holds to His promises as He said He would.

Animals can evolve, or adapt to their surroundings by detailed features that will help them survive. However, a monkey will never turn into a human, nor an elephant a whale. It's not how they were made.

[BaseballMan]

Some animals don't need to evolve, they are already adapted to their environments. If something were to change that required them to evolve, then yes it may happen.

Here is an example of evolution at work, it is about the peppered moth in England:

"The evolution of the peppered moth over the last two hundred years has been studied in detail. Originally, the vast majority of peppered moths had light colouration, which effectively camouflaged them against the light-coloured trees and lichens which they rested upon. However, because of widespread pollution during the Industrial Revolution in England, many of the lichens died out, and the trees that peppered moths rested on became blackened by soot, causing most of the light-coloured moths, or typica, to die off from predation. At the same time, the dark-coloured, or melanic, moths, carbonaria, flourished because of their ability to hide on the darkened trees."

-Miller, Ken (1999) The Peppered Moth: An Update

"Since then, with improved environmental standards, light-coloured peppered moths have again become common, but the dramatic change in the peppered moth's population has remained a subject of much interest and study, and has led to the coining of the term industrial melanism to refer to the genetic darkening of species in response to pollutants. As a result of the relatively simple and easy-to-understand circumstances of the adaptation, the peppered moth has become a common example used in explaining or demonstrating natural selection to laypeople and classroom students."

http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/global...dmoth.html

The ‘textbook story’ of England’s famous peppered moths (Biston betularia) goes like this. The moth comes in light and dark (melanic) forms. Pollution from the Industrial Revolution darkened the tree trunks, mostly by killing the light-coloured covering lichen (plus soot).

The lighter forms, which had been well camouflaged against the light background, now ‘stood out,’ and so birds more readily ate them. Therefore, the proportion of dark moths increased dramatically. Later, as pollution was cleaned up, the light moth became predominant again.

The shift in moth numbers was carefully documented through catching them in traps. Release-recapture experiments confirmed that in polluted forests, more of the dark form survived for recapture, and vice versa. In addition, birds were filmed preferentially eating the less camouflaged moths off tree trunks.

The story has generated boundless evolutionary enthusiasm. H.B. Kettlewell, who performed most of the classic experiments, said that if Darwin had seen this, ‘He would have witnessed the consummation and confirmation of his life’s work.’1

Actually, even as it stands, the textbook story demonstrates nothing more than gene frequencies shifting back and forth, by natural selection, within one created kind. It offers nothing which, even given millions of years, could add the sort of complex design information needed for ameba-to-man evolution.

Even L. Harrison Matthews, a biologist so distinguished he was asked to write the foreword for the 1971 edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species, said therein that the peppered moth example showed natural selection, but not ‘evolution in action.’

However, it turns out that this classic story is full of holes anyway. Peppered moths don’t even rest on tree trunks during the day.

Kettlewell and others attracted the moths into traps in the forest either with light, or by releasing female pheromones—in each case, they only flew in at night. So where do they spend the day? British scientist Cyril Clarke, who investigated the peppered moth extensively, wrote:

‘But the problem is that we do not know the resting sites of the moth during the day time. … In 25 years we have found only two betularia on the tree trunks or walls adjacent to our traps (one on an appropriate background and one not), and none elsewhere.’2

The moths filmed being eaten by the birds were laboratory-bred ones placed onto tree trunks by Kettlewell; they were so languid that he once had to warm them up on his car bonnet (hood).3

And all those still photos of moths on tree trunks? One paper described how it was done—dead moths were glued to the tree.4 University of Massachusetts biologist Theodore Sargent helped glue moths onto trees for a NOVA documentary. He says textbooks and films have featured ‘a lot of fraudulent photographs.’5,6

Other studies have shown a very poor correlation between the lichen covering and the respective moth populations. And when one group of researchers glued dead moths onto trunks in an unpolluted forest, the birds took more of the dark (less camouflaged) ones, as expected. But their traps captured four times as many dark moths as light ones—the opposite of textbook predictions!7

University of Chicago evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne agrees that the peppered moth story, which was ‘the prize horse in our stable,’ has to be thrown out.

He says the realization gave him the same feeling as when he found out that Santa Claus was not real.5

Regrettably, hundreds of millions of students have once more been indoctrinated with a ‘proof’ of evolution which is riddled with error, fraud and half-truths.8

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation.../moths.asp

[BaseballMan]

Great point, and good example.

Im not here to challenge anyone's faith, I myself have faith in god, but I do think a lot of people take the things first mentioned by Darwin, and completely take them out of context.

When Darwin was studying in the Galapagos islands he had no idea how animals, or plants passed along "their" traits to their offspring. What he did notice was that species where greatly adapted for life on that island, and that they passed along these "traits" to their offspring. This explains the hole that many people find in evolution, which is how did new species originate? If you take one species and separate them in completely different climates, and leave them there for hundreds of years, they will adapt to that climate. If left alone for long enough, their genes will be completely different, and no interbreeding could occur, which would technically make them different species. It doesn't mean a species learned to walk upright and then gave that trait to their offspring, it's just that a species with the best ability to walk would be able to travel farther, use their limbs more effectively, and would then pass that trait along to their offspring. So if you can agree that species can adapt, then you have technically agreed with evolution.

The work of Gregory Mendel on crossing pea plants showed how "traits" (genes) where passed from one generation to the next, and how interbreeding between the new generations would produce different percentages of each offspring (Tall, short, wrinkled seeds, etc.) Mendel made these discoveries during the lifetime of Darwin, but Darwin did know about Mendel's studies. Mendel's studies later lead scientist down that path that lead to the discovery of DNA and RNA which have greatly increased our understanding of how genes work.

It was a summer’s day in a monastery garden in Czechoslovakia over 100 years ago. Most of the monks saw nothing special about the pea plants growing there. To one of them, however, they were of great interest because he was performing scientific experiments with them.

What particularly fascinated Gregor Mendel was the way in which the plants handed on their characteristics to the next generation. 'What could happen', he thought, 'if I crossed a white-flowered plant with a red-flowered? Would the next generation have red flowers or white? What if I crossed a tall plant with a short one? What height would the offspring be?'

As Mendel performed these experiments and carefully analyzed the results, he realized that he had discovered some fundamental laws concerning inheritance. Greatly excited, he published his findings in a scientific journal—but the scientific world ignored Mendel’s work completely. Discouraged, he abandoned his research. When he died in 1884, Mendel had no idea that 20 years later, he would have become world famous as the founder of a new science. Mendel’s work is now regarded as the beginning of the science of genetics, the study of inheritance.

In the preceding chapters we have looked at the rise of evolutionary theory and the evidence of the fossil record. Now we must consider whether—as is generally claimed—the findings of genetics support the idea of evolution.

Mendel published his findings in the late 1860s at just the time when Darwin’s theory was becoming immensely popular. Mendel published in a reputable journal and his paper was widely circulated and certainly known about. Yet it was not until 1900, 16 years after Mendel’s death, that the work was rediscovered and its importance realized.

Why ignored?
Why were such vital discoveries ignored? The answer almost certainly is that they conflicted with Darwin’s theory of evolution. This is seldom admitted today, yet it is still true that what Mendel discovered disproved one of Darwin’s most important assumptions. This is demonstrated by the fact that after Mendel’s work was rediscovered, Darwinian evolution suffered a temporary eclipse. After a while, evolutionary thinking re-emerged in a slightly different form which was said to be quite consistent with Mendel’s genetics. As we shall see, however, the two are not consistent and both cannot be true.

What did Mendel discover that spoke against Darwin’s theory of evolution? This can best be answered by considering what he actually did. Mendel crossed various races of edible peas. When a red-flowered plant was crossed with a white-flowered, the offspring were found to be red-flowered. Mendel then crossed these red offspring with each other and found that they produced offspring of their own in the ratio of 3 reds:1 white.

We can best understand this by considering the genes involved in these crosses. A gene can be considered as a unit which determines a particular characteristic, in this case flower color. It can exist in one of two forms, one giving rise to red flowers and the other to white. The offspring of the original cross of red-flowered plants with white were all red-flowered, although they did in fact possess both a gene for red-flower and a gene for white.

Mendel concluded that the red gene must be dominant to white, so that any plant that possessed them both would be red. When these red plants were bred with each other, it was possible for two white genes to come together and so give offspring that were white. The chance that the offspring would receive at least one red gene is 3:1, as the diagram shows below.


Mendel's experiment
Mendel found that when he interbred the red-flowered plants obtained as the offspring of his original cross, he got white flowers as well as red. Darwin’s theory rested on the assumption that in such a case as this, the white characteristic was a new character acquired by the young plants which their parents had not possessed. After all, a race has got to acquire new characteristics if it is ever going to evolve.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation...netics.asp

[BaseballMan]

Are you suggesting that the whole of Darwin's research is contained in one group of finches? If "god" can change covenants, surely animals can evolve as well?

Thirteen species of finches live on the Galápagos, the famous island group visited by Charles Darwin in the 1830s. The finches have a variety of bill shapes and sizes, all suited to their varying diets and lifestyles. The explanation given by Darwin was that they are all the offspring of an original pair of finches, and that natural selection is responsible for the differences.

Surprisingly to some, this is the explanation now held by most modern creationists. It would not need to be an ‘evolutionary’ change at all, in the sense of giving any evidence for amoeba-to-man transformation. No new genetic information would have been introduced. If the parent population has sufficient created variability (genetic potential) to account for these varied features in its descendants, natural selection could take care of the resulting adaptation, as a simplistic example will show.

Say some finches ended up on islands in which there was a shortage of seeds, but many grubs were living under tree bark. In a population with much variation, some will have longer, some shorter, beaks than average. Those birds carrying more of the ‘long-beak’ information could survive on those grubs, and thus would be more likely to pass the information on to their descendants, while the others would die out. In this way, with selection acting on other characters as well, a ‘woodpecker finch’ could arise.

The same thing is seen in artificial selection, with all the various modern breeds of dogs being more specialized than the parent (mongrel) population, but carrying less information—and thus less potential for further selection (you can’t breed Great Danes from Chihuahuas). In all these sorts of changes, finches are still finches and dogs are dogs. The limits to change are set by the amount of information originally present from which to select.

Creationists have long proposed such ‘splitting under selection’ from the original kinds, explaining for example wolves, coyotes, dingoes and other wild dogs from one pair on the Ark. The question of time has, however, been seized upon by anti-creationists. They insist that it would take a much longer time than Scripture allows. Artificial selection is quick, they admit, but that is because breeders are deliberately acting on each generation. The usual ‘guesstimate’ of how long it took for Darwin’s finches to radiate from their parent population ranges from one million to five million years.

However, Princeton zoology professor Peter Grant recently released some results of an intensive 18-year study of all the Galápagos finches during which natural selection was observed in action.1 For example, during drought years, as finches depleted the supply of small seeds, selection favoured those with larger, deeper beaks capable of getting at the remaining large seeds and thus surviving, which shifted the population in that direction.

While that is not very surprising, nor profound, the speed at which these changes took places was most interesting. At that observed rate, Grant estimates, it would take only 1,200 years to transform the medium ground finch into the cactus finch, for example. To convert it into the more similar large ground finch would take only some 200 years.

Notice that (although the article fails to mention it) such speedy changes can have nothing to do with the production of any new genes by mutation, but are based upon the process described, that is, choosing from what is already there. It therefore fails to qualify as evidence for real, uphill (macro) evolution — though many starry-eyed students will doubtless be taught it as ‘evolution in action’.

Instead, it is real, observed evidence that such (downhill) adaptive formation of several species from the one created kind can easily take place in a few centuries. It doesn't need millions of years. The argument is strengthened by the fact that, after the Flood, selection pressure would have been much more intense—with rapid migration into new, empty niches, residual catastrophism and changing climate as the Earth was settling down and drying out, and simultaneous adaptive radiation of differing food species.

[Coach_Owens87]

It was a summer’s day in a monastery garden in Czechoslovakia over 100 years ago. Most of the monks saw nothing special about the pea plants growing there. To one of them, however, they were of great interest because he was performing scientific experiments with them.

What particularly fascinated Gregor Mendel was the way in which the plants handed on their characteristics to the next generation. 'What could happen', he thought, 'if I crossed a white-flowered plant with a red-flowered? Would the next generation have red flowers or white? What if I crossed a tall plant with a short one? What height would the offspring be?'

As Mendel performed these experiments and carefully analyzed the results, he realized that he had discovered some fundamental laws concerning inheritance. Greatly excited, he published his findings in a scientific journal—but the scientific world ignored Mendel’s work completely. Discouraged, he abandoned his research. When he died in 1884, Mendel had no idea that 20years later, he would have become world famous as the founder of a new science. Mendel’s work is now regarded as the beginning of the science of genetics, the study of inheritance.

In the preceding chapters we have looked at the rise of evolutionary theory and the evidence of the fossil record. Now we must consider whether—as is generally claimed—the findings of genetics support the idea of evolution.

Mendel published his findings in the late 1860s at just the time when Darwin’s theory was becoming immensely popular. Mendel published in a reputable journal and his paper was widely circulated and certainly known about. Yet it was not until 1900, 16 years after Mendel’s death, that the work was rediscovered and its importance realized.

Why ignored?
Why were such vital discoveries ignored? The answer almost certainly is that they conflicted with Darwin’s theory of evolution. This is seldom admitted today, yet it is still true that what Mendel discovered disproved one of Darwin’s most important assumptions. This is demonstrated by the fact that after Mendel’s work was rediscovered, Darwinian evolution suffered a temporary eclipse. After a while, evolutionary thinking re-emerged in a slightly different form which was said to be quite consistent with Mendel’s genetics. As we shall see, however, the two are not consistent and both cannot be true.

What did Mendel discover that spoke against Darwin’s theory of evolution? This can best be answered by considering what he actually did. Mendel crossed various races of edible peas. When a red-flowered plant was crossed with a white-flowered, the offspring were found to be red-flowered. Mendel then crossed these red offspring with each other and found that they produced offspring of their own in the ratio of 3 reds:1 white.

We can best understand this by considering the genes involved in these crosses. A gene can be considered as a unit which determines a particular characteristic, in this case flower color. It can exist in one of two forms, one giving rise to red flowers and the other to white. The offspring of the original cross of red-flowered plants with white were all red-flowered, although they did in fact possess both a gene for red-flower and a gene for white.

Mendel concluded that the red gene must be dominant to white, so that any plant that possessed them both would be red. When these red plants were bred with each other, it was possible for two white genes to come together and so give offspring that were white. The chance that the offspring would receive at least one red gene is 3:1, as the diagram shows below.


Mendel's experiment
Mendel found that when he interbred the red-flowered plants obtained as the offspring of his original cross, he got white flowers as well as red. Darwin’s theory rested on the assumption that in such a case as this, the white characteristic was a new character acquired by the young plants which their parents had not possessed. After all, a race has got to acquire new characteristics if it is ever going to evolve.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation...netics.asp

Your guy completely missed the point on this one. It seems he only took what he thought has occurred in science and twisted it to fit his viewpoint.

Mendel's discoveries did not conflict with Darwin's evolution, they merely solved a problem with the theory. Darwin believed in blending inheritance, i.e if one parent is tall and the other is short they will produce medium sized children, and all children from then on will be medium sized. This seemed plausible, but it isn't quite true. What we now know thanks to Mendel's discoveries is that genes must separate during gamete (sex cell) formation. There may be two or more forms of these genes (alleles), some genes (dominant) may mask the effect of other genes (recessive). Mendel believed this all happened by chance, or independent assortment, but we now that's not all that can happen.

Mendel's studies showed the genes may mix to produce an intermediate phenotype (the observed characteristics of a gene), but the gene is not lost or blended.

[launchpad4]

Explain (in brief) how Darwin's methods were so unscientific within his professional timeframe as to merit your scorn... Do you question parts of Darwin's work or the whole of it?

The part I question is the fact that his research was done on birds on an Island. I believe that a single species on a single island does not constitute a large enough test group for an experiment.

[launchpad4]

Some animals don't need to evolve, they are already adapted to their environments. If something were to change that required them to evolve, then yes it may happen.

Here is an example of evolution at work, it is about the peppered moth in England:

"The evolution of the peppered moth over the last two hundred years has been studied in detail. Originally, the vast majority of peppered moths had light colouration, which effectively camouflaged them against the light-coloured trees and lichens which they rested upon. However, because of widespread pollution during the Industrial Revolution in England, many of the lichens died out, and the trees that peppered moths rested on became blackened by soot, causing most of the light-coloured moths, or typica, to die off from predation. At the same time, the dark-coloured, or melanic, moths, carbonaria, flourished because of their ability to hide on the darkened trees."

-Miller, Ken (1999) The Peppered Moth: An Update

"Since then, with improved environmental standards, light-coloured peppered moths have again become common, but the dramatic change in the peppered moth's population has remained a subject of much interest and study, and has led to the coining of the term industrial melanism to refer to the genetic darkening of species in response to pollutants. As a result of the relatively simple and easy-to-understand circumstances of the adaptation, the peppered moth has become a common example used in explaining or demonstrating natural selection to laypeople and classroom students."

http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/global...dmoth.html

I'm not talking about how animals change through natural selection, I am referring to the evolution from a single cell organism to humans. I do believe in natural selection and random drifts in genetic alleles of species.

[BaseballMan]

Your guy completely missed the point on this one. It seems he only took what he thought has occurred in science and twisted it to fit his viewpoint.

Mendel's discoveries did not conflict with Darwin's evolution, they merely solved a problem with the theory. Darwin believed in blending inheritance, i.e if one parent is tall and the other is short they will produce medium sized children, and all children from then on will be medium sized. This seemed plausible, but it isn't quite true. What we now know thanks to Mendel's discoveries is that genes must separate during gamete (sex cell) formation. There may be two or more forms of these genes (alleles), some genes (dominant) may mask the effect of other genes (recessive). Mendel believed this all happened by chance, or independent assortment, but we now that's not all that can happen.

Mendel's studies showed the genes may mix to produce an intermediate phenotype (the observed characteristics of a gene), but the gene is not lost or blended.

Genetics and evolution have been enemies from the beginning of both concepts. Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, and Charles Darwin, the father of modern evolution, were contemporaries. At the same time that Darwin was claiming that creatures could change into other creatures, Mendel was showing that even individual characteristics remain constant. While Darwin’s ideas were based on erroneous and untested ideas about inheritance, Mendel’s conclusions were based on careful experimentation. Only by ignoring the total implications of modern genetics has it been possible to maintain the fiction of evolution.

To help us develop a new biology based on creation rather than evolution, let us sample some of the evidence from genetics, arranged under the four sources of variation: environment, recombination, mutation, and creation.

To read further click:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation...netics.asp

[ComfortEagle]

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