Ok, As I thought I did discuss this in another thread by Shuffle title "History Repeats itself"
Here are my views:
I would disagree despite the "consensus". Label me as you will but I think there are immense leaps being made and assumptions based on presuppositions. I'm sure I will be flamed for taking a presupposition to God's existence as a refutation for evolution, but that's not the case. The mathematical improbability for increased complexity by gene mutation and natural selection does not lend any credence to the "macro" evolutionary model in my mind.
This candid admission is from the evolutionist journal Nature:
"Darwin anticipated that microevolution would be a process of continuous and gradual change. The term macroevolution, by contrast, refers to the origin of new species and divisions of the taxonomic hierarchy above the species level, and also to the origin of complex adaptations, such as the vertebrate eye. Macroevolution posed a problem to Darwin because his principle of descent with modification predicts gradual transitions between small-scale adaptive changes in populations and these larger-scale phenomena, yet there is little evidence for such transitions in nature. Instead, the natural world is often characterized by gaps, or discontinuities. One type of gap relates to the existence of 'organs of extreme perfection', such as the eye, or morphological innovations, such as wings, both of which are found fully formed in present-day organisms without leaving evidence of how they evolved."-- Reznick, David N., Robert E. Ricklefs. 12 February 2009. Darwin's bridge between microevolution and macroevolution. Nature, Vol. 457, pp. 837-842.
The extrapolation of macroevolution being possible because "there is enough time" is a presupposition that falls flat on its face. There have been many discussions regarding it. I understand it's still a highly debated topic, but I firmly believe it is based on unfounded assumptions. Here is a good scientific peer reviewed article discussing it:
http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/...O-C.2012.4
Little snippet:
"Converting an enzyme to a new function is the kind of thing that should have occurred thousands of time in the course of evolution, given the vast array of biochemical functions carried out by extant enzymes. Yet recent work has shown that converting an enzyme encoded by a 1,200-nucleotide gene to a genuinely new function4 is likely to require seven or more coordinated mutations. This is true even though the starting and target enzymes have common three-dimensional proteinfolds and active-site chemistries— just no shared reaction [29].5 Getting seven specific changes in a gene 1,200 nucleotides long is a 1-in-10^22 event, not a 1-in-10,000 event. Even then it is by no means clear that significant changes in gene function can be had with just seven base substitutions."
In 2007, Durrett and Schmidt estimated in the journal Genetics that for a single mutation to occur in a nucleotide-binding site and be fixed in a primate lineage would require a waiting time of six million years. The same authors later estimated it would take 216 million years for the binding site to acquire two mutations, if the first mutation was neutral in its effect. But six million years is the entire time allotted for the transition from our last common ancestor with chimps to us according to the standard evolutionary timescale. Two hundred and sixteen million years takes us back to the Triassic, when the very first mammals appeared. One or two mutations simply aren’t sufficient to produce the necessary changes— sixteen anatomical features—in the time available. At most, a new binding site might affect the regulation of one or two genes.
As for the hominids, some overzealous scientists have been rebuked by University of California (Berkeley) paleontologist Tim White, as he attempts to rein in the tendency of fossil hunters to classify every find as a new species. He said, "To evaluate the biological importance of such taxonomic claims, we must consider normal variation within biological species. Humans (and presumably their ancestors and close relatives) vary considerably in their skeletal and dental anatomy. Such variation is well documented and stems from ontogenetic, sexual, geographic, and idiosyncratic (individual) sources."
Dr. Charles Oxnard completed the most sophisticated computer analysis of australopithecine fossils ever undertaken, and concluded that the australopithecines have nothing to do with the ancestry of man whatsoever, and are simply an extinct form of ape (Fossils, Teeth and Sex: New Perspectives on Human Evolution, University of Washington Press, 1987)
One of the world's leading authorities on australopithecines, British anatomist, Solly Lord Zuckerman has concluded (based on specimens aged much younger than Lucy) that australopithecines do not belong in the family of man. He wrote "I myself remain totally unpersuaded. Almost always when I have tried to check the anatomical claims on which the status of Australopithecus is based, I have ended in failure."
Evolution is presented as fact, yes, but there is not a consensus. There is an entire site dedicated to scientists who wish to sign their scientific dissent from the darwinian model of evolution.
http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/ and the 22 page list (updated and released June 2015) of scientists who publicly denounce the Darwinian model can be viewed here:
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/...oad&id=660
This is bold because as soon as they do this they are essentially written off as intellectuals in the scientific community. Look at atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel for example:
http://news.nationalpost.com/holy-post/w...-darwinism
Evolution as presented for the origin of all species has enormous gaps and holes and scientists fill those gaps with assumptions and presuppositions that it must be a natural process but it is far from "proven" or "consensus", irregardless of religious beliefs, but based on pure science.
This does NOT mean that creation theory can be proven or must be true. I'm not saying that. Yes it is what I believe, but I'm pointing out what I see the problem evolution theory has.
