Evolutionary Tree

[RobertE]

What you don't seem to understand is that the science of animals STARTED with their categorization-- they were organized into families according to their similarities, and those similarities, for the most part, were readily apparent: wolves are pretty obviously related to dogs; birds of all types obviously share similar features, etc.  It can be seen that among animals which produce milk, there are also OTHER similarities: a predominance of 5 fingers, for example-- even in whales!  No assumptions are required-- animals ARE related, by their properties.

Now, it COULD be that a creator said, "I'm going to make a marine animal with flippers-- but just for kicks, let's give it the same number of hand bones as people."  Or it COULD be that whales are descended from animals which benefited from having multiple independently moving fingers.  It COULD be that God made monkeys and humans with very similar DNA, similar behaviors, similar brain parts, and so on, just for kicks.  Or it COULD be that the reason they have so many similarities because they are related.  It COULD be that some species have vestigial organs because God just wanted to test our faith in the Biblical accounts of creation.  Or it COULD be that those species are descended from others which benefited from those organs.


But I gotta tell you, and don't be insulted-- there's a very important difference between the Biblical account and the theory of evolution: the Biblical account is completely useless as a tool for investigation into the world, and the theory of evolution gives us all kinds of things to think about, to research, to hope for, and in general to use our giant monkey brains on.


And, as always, my usual disclaimer about real believers-- if you really believe God made the universe, and you are unwilling to draw connections and to seriously consider how living things are related because of what some 5000 year-old desert-dweller texts tell you, you are not only against science-- you are against God.  If God is truth, then only through seeking truth, and not trying to word-salad your way around it, will you actually be attempting to draw closer to the Lord.

So be a better Christian, and try to learn something about the world.

You misunderstand my point. I am not a literal 6-day creationist. I am agnostic on the subject. My point way back was genetics studies have rendered the traditional Tree of Life, not just wrong, but obsolete by finding that individual species have within their genes conflicting evolutionary histories. If this turns out to be a long-term mystery and the theory of common decent has certain facts that do not support it, what does this mean to the greater Theory of Evolution (modern synthesis)? So far I have heard that it won't affect it at all. I think that is rubbish.

If you look at Science, and evolution in general since the days of Gregor Mendel, Charles Darwin and Linnaeus, we have come a very long way. Through experimentation, through detailed analysis, the understanding of the evolution of all species as a scientific theory and not a "hunch", has increased at a rate which is incredible. When Linnaeus came out with his taxonomical ranking system, it was all well and good, but it is what we had to work with, until science and technology went hand in hand together and brought us gene mapping. For it to tell us that there are over 500 genes that have been turned off compared to chimpanzees is incredible. We can also look at the physical structures of animals, like for example the dugong, the manatee had at one time shared a common ancestor with the elephant, yet only two of those live constantly in water, and the elephant is the only land mammal in the world that does not have a pleural cavity. Just reading a couple of lines like that must make you want to get up, tear your bible in half with your bare hands and go out and find out for yourself what evolution is really all about. Either way, whatever happens, evolution of species will never be a gift of God, but a gift of nature.