May 15, 2006

Now We Come to the Science of the Matter
Everett

Well Farlas, to paraphrase you, if your description of the theory of evolution as it stands today were accurate, I'd be a fool to accept it as true. Fortunately for me, the timeline you've laid out is laughably absurd. No wonder you reject evolution as junk science.

So, what does the science tell us? Let's start at the beginning. From what we can tell, the universe is approximately 14.3 billion years old and something like 58 billion light years across. Contained within this universe are at least 80 billion galaxies, of which ours, the Milky Way, is one. Within our galaxy, there are some 250 billion stars, of which our sun is one. It formed some 5 billion years ago, some 3 billion years after a star that occupied more or less the same location went supernova, blasting throughout our solar system all of the elements currently found therein. Some 4.6 billion years ago, the earth began to form, reaching its current size about 100 million years later. Over the course of the next 700 million years, the Earth's rotation slowed, and the Earth cooled, until the oceans formed some 3.8 billion years ago. At some point, life arose on Earth. Fossils as old as 3.5 billion years have been found in Africa and Australia, and there have been chemical traces of life as old as 3.85 billion years found in rocks in Greenland. For some 3+ billion years, life existed entirely in the oceans until it moved onto land some 416 million years ago at the beginning of the Devonian Period. Primitive dinosaurs showed up at the beginning of the Triassic period, which began some 245 million years ago. The period of the dinosaurs ended some 65 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous. The first human-like animal appeared some 5 million years ago, with the first animal of the genus homo (homo habilis) appearing some 2.2 million years ago. Modern man (homo sapiens) appeared some 400,000 years ago.

This takes care of problems 2-4. I have no idea what your basis is for the assertion that the sun was the size of the solar system when it was first formed. Stars are formed in much the same way that planets are, except they are composed of gaseous elements, especially hydrogen. Gravity draws more and more hydrogen into the newly forming star, and the larger the star gets, the more hydrogen it draws to itelf (and other elements as well, but hydrogen is the priamry fuel for the star). As the star increases in size, its gravity exerts increasing pressure on its hydrogen, until the hydrogen starts to undergo nuclear fusion, forming helium and giving off massive amounts of energy. It as at this point that the star ignites. The star will continue to grow until its gravity has pulled in all of the material it can. Indeed, if Jupiter had grown to be ten times as large as it is, it would have ignited into a small star as well. Thus, Problem 1 is no problem at all, as it is not grounded in any way in our knowledge of the formation of stars and planets.

Your other two objections don't hold water either. It is in no way the case that humans would have evolved four arms if evolution is true. For one, the path of evolution is restricted somewhat by what came before, and the more advanced a creature, the greater the restrictions on possible successful major anatomical alterations. This is especially true for the number of limbs a vertebrate has. From the time amphibians and reptiles evolved, the number of limbs land animals can have has been restricted to four, be they four legs; two arms and two legs; or two wings and two legs. The changes in musculature, skeletal structure, the arrangement of internal organs, and brain structure required are too great to make the growth of additional limbs feasible from an evolutionary point of view.

Your criticism of survival of the fittest is also misguided. When a new species evolves from an old species, it does not lose all of the characteristics of the old species, or even most of them. Evolutionary change is a gradual process where incremental changes are made as one species evolves from another. This is what Darwin's finches illustrate. Over many generations, finches with various beak structures evolved in different areas of the Galapogos Islands, and each species thrived where its beak structure was best suited to accessing the food available to it. The species of finch unable to adequately access the food in different areas of the Islands did not survive in those areas. The intermediate finches, those with slightly different beak structure that had not yet become a separate species still had beaks. Also, it does not necessarily follow that if one species evolves from another, then it will replace the species from which it evolved. It will only happen if both species are competing for the same niche and resources are scarce enough that both species cannot be sustained.

What happens when a species is preyed upon by another? It either dies or adapts. If it adapts, its predator must then adapt or starve.

Also, you and Opalys are right: Man did not evolve from the apes, but man and modern apes did have a common ancestor.

I should hasten to add that although I accept the validity of the theory of evolution and see it as having extraordinary explanatory power, I do not see it as being entirely self-sufficient. Ultimately, evolution, like any other theory in the natural sciences, can only answer the questions of How? What? When? and Where? It cannot answer the questions of Who? and Why? Indeed, the Naturalist answer to these questions must necessarily be "No one," and "There is no purpose." This, then, is the challenge faith. The Naturalist asks "Where is your God in all of this?" The proper response is not to reject "all of this" out of hand, but to trudge through the quagmire of the world, to seek Him where He is to be found, not where we would like to find Him. This is, I think, the true meaning of Job 38:1-4: Job could not see in his sufferings the justice of God and so questioned it, and God called him to account for this. He could not see the right ordering of things in the events that had befallen him; so he doubted God's justice, and, following from Anselm's definition of God, in doing so doubted God's godhead (though not His power). Job's friends committed the opposite offense: They wrongly thought Job had sinned in some manner. In other words, they doubted things were as they were. The Creationist, in my view, commits the error of Job's friends, while the Naturalist, commits Job's error, though for a different reason.

As far as natural laws having a supernatural foundation, we appear to be in agreement. In fact, it follows directly from Aquinas' Uncaused Cause proof for the existence of God.

As for everyone acknowledging Christ as Lord, but not the Pope as supreme pastor, I could make the case that acknowledging the Lordship of Christ implies the acknowledgment of the supreme pastorship of the Pope. I'm not sure this is necessarily the case, though, and I don't see that your point undermines my argument as much as shows the limits of my analogy. After all, even if everyone acknowledges the Lordship of Christ, His Lordship is not dependent upon that acknowledgment. The same holds true for the supreme pastorship of the Pope.

The passage to which I was referring is 1 Timothy 3:15:

"[I]f I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth."

Well, I've carried on long enough. If it's still going, I'll have to jump in on the death penalty debate once the evolution debate winds down.