First, evolution has been observed in many
instances. These include microbes that develop resistance to antibiotics; in
changing variants of the influenza virus from year to year as vaccines are
developed to fight each new version; and even in larger, more complex
organisms, as when humans breed new varieties of plants and even animals. An
example of this in Russian selective breeding of silver foxes to become more
like dogs in color variations and friendly behavior. (An interesting overview of
this study is available online at Goldman,
2010).
Second, evolution does not violate the second
law of thermodynamics. This law states that order eventually becomes disorder
as energy is lost from the system. But Earth is not a closed system; energy is
constantly being re-supplied from the sun, so order is maintained and even
increased, as primitive organisms become more complex. Even non-living objects
show an increase in order from a disordered state. Snowflakes, and dunes,
tornadoes, stalactites, graded river beds, and lightning are just a few
examples of order coming from disorder in nature.
Third, thousands of transitional fossils have
been uncovered since the Paleozoic Era began. The fossil record is still very
incomplete and always will be; erosion and the conditions favorable to fossilization
make this inevitable. But the record is still there.
Fourth, when we talk about Darwin’s “theory”
of evolution, we don’t mean “theory” in the sense of some idea that needs to be
proven. Instead, it is a “theory” in the sense that it raises questions and
proposes solutions that can be tested and found to be true or false. And over
time it has been shown to be a correct and workable explanation for the
variations we see in nature; and
Fifth, Darwin’s theory of evolution does not claim that evolution began or continues by random chance. Darwin doesn’t make any claims about how the first life came about, only that once it was here, it changed (evolved) through natural selection.
Fifth, Darwin’s theory of evolution does not claim that evolution began or continues by random chance. Darwin doesn’t make any claims about how the first life came about, only that once it was here, it changed (evolved) through natural selection.
Consider: About a hundred years ago,
scientists, who were then most creationists, looked at the world to figure out
how God worked. These creationists came to the conclusions of an old earth, and
species originating by evolution. Since then, thousands of scientists have been
studying evolution with increasingly more sophisticated tools. Most of these
scientists have excellent understands of the laws of thermodynamics, how fossil
finds are interpreted, etc., and finding a better alternative to evolution would
sin them fame and fortune. Sometimes their work has changed our understanding
of significant details of how evolution operates, but evolution still has
essentially unanimous agreement from the people who work in science, believers
or not, including the entire biology faculty of Brigham Young University
(Science and Mormonism Symposium, Provo, UT, November 2011). (Jeff Wynn and
Louise Wynn, Everyone is a Believer: The
Growing Convergence of Science and Religion [2019], 122-23)
