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Evidences Class
Continuing Study on Evolution
I praise you, for I am fearfully and
wonderfully made. Wonderful are your
works; my soul knows it very well.
(Psalms 139:14)
O LORD, how manifold are your works! In
wisdom have you made them all; the earth
is full of your creatures. Here is the sea,
great and wide, which teems with
creatures innumerable, living things both
small and great.
(Psalms 104:24-25)
Great are the works of the LORD,
studied by all who delight in them.
(Psalms 111:2)
The Message Paraphrase
GOD's works are so great, worth A
lifetime of study--endless enjoyment!
University of Virginia
Ultimately, evolution is not
about the scientific details.
Ultimately, evolution is about
God. (Cornelius Hunter)
Response to an Intelligent Design
Club at the University of Virginia
If humans are the product of an
intelligent design, should we also
conclude that pathogens, such as
Salmonella and HIV, responsible for
killing millions of children every year,
are also intelligently designed?
Signed by 50+ professors at UVa
Douglas Futuyma
Do the creation scientists really suppose
their Creator saw fit to create a bird that
couldn’t reproduce without six feet of
bulky feathers that make it easy prey for
leopards?
Stephen Jay Gould
Orchids manufacture their intricate devices from the
common components of ordinary flowers, parts usually
fitted for very different functions. If God had
designed a beautiful machine to reflect his wisdom and
power, surely he would not have used a collection of
parts generally fashioned for other purposes. Orchids
were not made by an ideal engineer; they are jury-rigged
from a limited set of available components. Thus, they
must have evolved from ordinary flowers.
J. B. S. Haldane
The Creator has an inordinate
fondness for beetles to have created
over 250,000 different species.
Evolution cannot think ahead
Nose
Change
Change
Change
1. Small Change
2. Improvement
3. More Survivors – S.O.F.
Trunk
Blind Chance???
100,000 RPM
Evolution or Revolution
The eye must connect to the brain somehow.
But how does the eye know where the brain is
or what the brain is or that it even exists and
is required to make the eye useful. And how
did the eye then wire itself properly to the
brain? And even if it did connect to the brain
properly … How did the eye know how to
speak a language that the brain would
understand and vice versa? (Doug Powell)
Nature Designed (or Created) …
Natural
Selection?
“Defy your genetics; nature designed you to hold as little
muscle and as much fat as possible” (internet ad quote)
Response to an IDEA Club at
the University of Virginia
The notion that humans actually evolved
from more primitive life forms, supported
by vast amounts of data from fields as
diverse as paleontology and molecular
genetics, is antithetical to those who do
not accept evolution.
Signed by 50+ professors
Darwin’s Finches
Darwin’s Mythical Research
Natural Selection in Action???
If the process were to continue indefinitely for
some 200 years; it might even produce “a new
species of finch”.
National Academy of Sciences
Average Height of NBA Players
Average Height (Inches)
80
79
78
77
76
75
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
NBA Season
1990
2000
2010
Two Peppered Moths
 Peppered moths do not
ordinarily rest on tree trunks
 Difficulty in repeating the
experiment in other locales
At first glance:
The Strongest Evidence for
Evolution is the Fossil Record
But how strong is it???
Things to Remember
• Discovery of extinct species is not a
proof of evolution
• Most of the fossil evidence is skeletal
• Evidence is fit to the theory
• You can’t always trust the evidence
Dinoraptor
National Geographic shoots
itself in the foot.
University of Florida Website
Step 1: Hyracotherium or eohippus
A horse is a horse of course
Step 2: Orohippus
18 Ribs
eohippus
15 Ribs
Found in the same strata
Step 3: Mesohippus
Big gap between
steps 2 and 3
The fossil record does not show a
gradual, linear progression from
Hyracotherium (Eohippus) to Equus …
The fossil record of equids shows that
various lineages split into several
branches. Evolution was not smooth
and gradual; traits evolved at different
rates and occasionally reversed. Some
species arose gradually, others
suddenly.
Talk Origins Website (Evolutionist Site)
Step 6: Merychippus
Step 5
• Very close
• Teeth are different
Step 8: Dinohippus
• Almost the same as Step 7
• Some with 3 toes and some with 1
What are you left with?
Akin to the differences in dogs????
17-18
19
18 15
The number of lumbar
vertebrae also changes from six
to eight and then back to six.
Numbers of Ribs
The record of evolution is still
surprisingly jerky … What appeared to
be a nice progression when relatively
few data were available now appears to
be much more complex and much less
gradualistic.
Raup (an evolutionist)
Why?