Help Me Understand

[RoadRunner79]

Can all christians that don't believe in evolution explain to me your problems with it. It is just really hard for me to rap my head around someone not believeing in evolution in the 21st century, so it would make it easier if I understood exactly why you don't. And maybe I can help you through your confusions, maybe not.

Thanks!

I have been meaning to respond to your question here, and finally found a moment to do so.  I would start by saying, that I do believe in evolution as in change over time.  A snake with legs does not surprise me, or get me worried. I started out as a theistic evolutionist, and then started to study as questions arose.  As I mentioned to TRS in my introductory posts, I would say that I am skeptical of common descent evolution and think that the arguments against the neo-Darwinian model of devastating (and that it is only held onto, for lack of anything better).  From here on out, I'll shorten common descent evolution to just evolution for simplicity.

First, I see two categories of evidence in regards to evolution, which haven't changed much since Darwin.  There are similarities between creatures, and the appearance and disappearance of creatures in the fossil record.  While the categories of evidence  haven't changed much, we do have more information than Darwin did, and I see some of this as aiding the theory of common descent and some has hurting it.  The discovery and study of DNA has shown us, that the previous assumptions of similarity are at times more than we previously thought.  Sometimes it can be used to correct, and I think that sometimes it hurts the theory.  One of the main assumptions of evolution is that similarities are the result of common descent.  That similar features are the result of similar descent.  This is what I would expect if our understanding of DNA is true.  However when this reasoning doesn't fit the accepted phylogenetic model, then it is said to be convergence and further evidence of evolution (the original assumptions cannot be wrong).  Nature finding a similar method to solve a similar problem.  The reasoning shifts to accommodate the model.  The addition of DNA studies does make this a more convincing argument; however we are also finding that convergence (including at the DNA level) is more common then we thought.  I think that it is reasonable that similar species are more likely to have convergence with a similar starting point, than dis-similar species.  Further and I think that the most convincing evidence for common descent is the presence of retro-virus DNA found along a believed line of evolution.  There is some debate over whether these are really retrovirus's especially when they are found to be functional and necessary.  It is also my understanding that these too, suffer from the problem of convergence.  If this can occur in unrelated species, then I believe that this also weakens the presumption in similar species... again shouldn't similar species be more likely to have a similar retro-virus?

I realize that this could be a fairly long post, so I'm gong to break it up into a couple of posts.   Comments and corrections are welcome; non-constructive criticism will likely be ignored. There will be three posts for anyone who wishes to wait until I'm done.