christianityMay 1, 2008
“Evolution” is a word I never planned on using on Rational Christianity, given that I feel that “Evolution” has stolen the stage in the God debate, and it shouldn’t have. However, with the “Expelled” movie that recently came out, Evolution is against thrust into the spotlight, with both sides arguing from flawed positions.
Let’s look at five things everyone should know about evolution.
5. Some Evolution Happens
Admit it. Christian or non-Christian, we know it’s true. Things change. Natural selection occurs. It’s part of science. Sound like I’ve converted? Don’t worry I haven’t. But honesty forces me to admit this.
4. It’s “Just” a Theory
And that’s okay. Gravity is just a theory. A theory is not a weak argument. Arguing this point against an Evolutionist simply makes the YEC movement look bad. We have better arguments than “it’s just a theory!”
3. Common Descent Can’t Be Proven
The idea that all animals formulated from the same organism is simply unprovable. This is especially true of plants and animals. It’s also a souped up version of “Goddidit”. If two things are similar, and another thing is later discovered that looks like both, does this mean they evolved from each other?
2. Evolution Is Vague
We don’t know exactly what a “species” is. That’s kind of important. Even Darwin said, “I look at the term species as one arbitrarily given for the sake of convenience to a set of individuals closely resembling each other.”
“Closely resembling each other”? That’s helpful.
1. Can’t be Falsified
This is actually a huge gaping hole in Evolution theory. For a theory to be scientific, it has to be falsifiable. This is what the atheists say at least. “You can’t say Goddidit! That isn’t unprovable! All of reality could have been formulated by a pink, invisible unicorn last night, that erased all the evidence! See? You can’t prove that’s not true. It has to be falsifiable.”
Let’s pretend that’s right. That, unfortunately, destroys Evolution as being scientifically viable. Evolution is, in the rudest sense, a “natural-selection-didit” theory. The evolutionist sees similarities and concludes that they evolved.
But wait. How can we know that it isn’t true? Simple, the Evolutionists say. Just show us a species that couldn’t have evolved. Oops. That’s just it:
You can’t prove that a species couldn’t have evolved, because that would require knowing every theoretically possible prior existence of the species. This means that Evolution can’t be proven wrong. This means it fails a basic test for being considered scientific. Oops.
Evolution isn’t falsifiable. It’s just a souped up version of “Goddidit”. And it’s unprovable. And vague. We know that some evolution happens, we just don’t know if all Evolution happens. And ardently arguing that is nothing short of blind faith.
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