Evolution isn't hard science

Letter to the editor

Posted: Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Wade Rogers seems to believe that the scientific method is no longer valid because it was founded in 1626. This is akin to saying the wheel, lever, and fulcrum are obsolete because they were invented many years ago. These foundational discoveries are what the later discoveries are built upon; they don't invalidate the earlier discovery. The space shuttle wouldn't be able to land safely without wheels.

The fact remains that life springing from a primordial soup and amphibians turning into reptiles are conjectures that cannot be repeated, demonstrated, or observed in the present and are therefore not hard science.

Mr. Rogers observed layers with fossils in them in the Grand Canyon and offers those as proof of the evolutionary time scale. The Mount St. Helens eruption in 1980 formed a series layers up to 25 feet thick in a matter of hours. The "Little Grand Canyon" of Mount St. Helens formed in the days following the eruption and is 100 feet deep. Layers don't necessarily indicate millions of years; they can also be formed rapidly in a catastrophic event.

The fact that there are fossils in the rock of the Grand Canyon indicates the layers were formed rapidly because the organisms must be trapped in the sediment quickly before they can decay in order for a fossil to form. It is more valid to interpret the succession of fossils in the layers as representing the order they were buried in the catastrophe that created the layers.

In speaking of bacteria as providing evidence for evolution, Mr. Rogers once again points to "microevolution" (small changes within kind) as proof of "macroevolution" (molecules to man). Those bacteria are still bacteria. The mammalian circulatory system requires a heart, arteries, and veins to function properly. Do evolutionists really believe the heart, arteries, and veins all formed simultaneously through mutations? The chances are so remote the idea is ludicrous.

Native American, African, Hindu, Islam, Australian, Christian, and African cultures all believe in a Creator. Mr. Rogers dismisses all these beliefs as myths and heralds his evolutionary beliefs as science. Does this strike anyone as egocentric? Students can be taught the scientific evidence for a Creator without religious specifics of who the Creator is or how we are to relate to Him or Her.

Arne Erickson


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