Why you should think that the Natural-Evolution of species is true


A constant problem for some in this forum who don’t understand the process. Some of them actually seem bemused because they think some animals grow longer hair because it gets colder.

And others who claim that all changes are deleterious when one can only determine that by how the changes affect the organisms ability to survive if the environment changes. So growing longer hair cannot be called a positive or negative change unless we know what the environment is doing.

If it’s getting warmer, then it’s a negative change. If it’s getting colder, a positive one. At which point someone (hi Techno) will say ‘How did they know it was going to get colder?’


What? Source?


The Holy Spirit was sleeping for so long, and now we find out?


There are essentially two types of mutations:

  • Those that follow the “program” that is the material aspect of the organizing principle that is any individual organism. This is what was created - a kind of being that expresses itself in the form of individual organisms, and undergoes what is referred to as microevolution. This would be part of what some consider the designed the genetic and epigenetic components in life that are involved in the flowering of life on earth.
  • The physical aspect of the organism experiences random chemical reactions occurring outside its organizing principle, the soul if you like. Because the workings of the cell are information-in-action (the anatomy and physiology), any such activity occuring at the atomic level, due to matter’s inherent properties, is destructive to the overall order. A good deal of what is termed speciation occurs through gene deletion; stuff that happened within a progenitor no longer functions in the offspring. There is no cumulative process of DNA transformation caused by random physical factors that can explain diversity and the growth in complexity that is observed in nature.

As to natural selection:

  • It is the shadow of the fact that things, in addition to existing as themselves, also exist as components in something greater. A tree is a tree and at the same time, a component of the ecosystem that is a forest and the earth. We can pull an organism out of its environment and this happens in nature when it does not fit within that greater whole. If it cannot survive, it cannot procreate. Those creatures that do fit and reproduce their kind of being, contain as part of their genome and associated cellular processes, the possibility of changing their physiology and also passing these changes on to their offspring.
  • Natural selection is what one sees from a utilitarian perspective. Beyond this limited view, we know that nature is an expression of beauty and the tendency, within a hierarchy of increasingly psychosocially sophisticated animals, the capacity for love that characterizes mankind - Homo caritativus had we chosen correctly at our beginning.
  • Although natural selection does not involve selection, it does select out those creatures who do not fit in, whose relationship with their environment does not provide them with the necessities of life. So in addition to the term describing the conservative tendency for the continuation of species who are in existence, natural selection speaks to destructive natural relationships, those responsible for the world-wide decline in species.
  • What natural selection describes, is not a creative process.

Both random mutations and natural selection exist in the world, but as aspects of death. They work counter to creation. To suggest that these tendencies could somehow be responsible for the emergence of this garden planet is irrational.


I bought a dinosaur tree today, in honour of my sister.

A Wollemi pine. It came with a certificate and a care for me booklet. It is a living fossil, and is also found in the fossil record.

This suggests Noah crashed his ark into the blue mountains in Australia

A perfect example of creation and evolution.


That’s why they got Russell Crowe to play him in the film. He could nail the accent.

‘G’day, Shem. I’m gonna build a boat. Fair dinkum I am!’


We have 2 proofs now. My only question is , why did yabringthefunnelwebsalong


He apparently didn’t bring specific creatures along. Just ‘kinds’. So it would have been just your ordinary common-or-garden variety of spider. Then it ‘micro-evolved’ into a funnel web when it got off the boat.

No, seriously. I read it somewhere.



I do love Noah too


First all, the basic ToE does not negate the concept of creation in any way. Yes, there’s some randomness involved, but then that would even beg the question what created the randomness?

Secondly, what mutations do is to increase the diversity of the gene pool, and we know with certainty that this happens as it’s been observed many times over in experiments. Now, even though most mutations are either “negative” or “neutral”, some are “positive”, and that becomes important in creating this greater diversity. But even those that are “neutral” may have a “positive” effect that could come into play in the future if there’s an environmental change.

For an example of the latter, studies on rats have found that some rats can withstand substantially more radiation than most other rats, but that doesn’t provide any real “positive” advantage today. But if there would be a nuclear war somewhere down the line, heaven forbid, there could be a new movie produced with the title “Planet of the Rats” playing at your local theater in the future.


In this case, a group of interbreeding metazoa.

How does that invalidate my data? The pairs of species I showed cannot interbreed across species boundaries.



Friedman’s “Who Wrote the Bible?” is a good starting point.



The question involves who.

When you say random, what is it that are the factors in the randomization exactly? For example, coin is flipped and has a 50-50 chance of coming up heads; there is a two sided coin being spun, falling and landing after a certain distance.

Can you name one, so we can understand what you are referring to?

Can you provide the stats?

I don’t know the study you are referring to. The DNA molecule and ancillary processes involved in replication and reproduction can be affected by the random destructive nature of radiation either directly or through the formation of free radicals. The trait you describe could be tied to the capacity to fix damage occuring in the DNA molecule, present in all cases, but superior in some mice than others. It could also have to do with the capacity to absorb or produce antioxidants which act on free radicals. These are present in all mice but variable in their expression as a result of a number of different factors that come together within the individual rat, a representative of a kind of organism which had a beginning, created in time. Please note: " The Planet of the Rats"; this does not illustrate evolution as the cause of diversity - rats from start to finish.


If they exist, as death exists, then they are part of creation. If something, other than God, exists then it is part of creation.

How can they be counter to creation when they are part of creation? An acorn dies when a squirrel eats it. How can that be “counter to creation”? Death is necessary for heterotrophic species to live. Only chemotrophic bacteria and photosynthesising plants do not need the death of others to live.

Nobody suggests that. Evolution explains the origin of species, not the origin of planets. Look at astronomy, not biology, for the origin of planets.

While making the suggestion might be irrational, that does not mean that evolution is irrational. All you are claiming here is that a certain suggestion is irrational, not that random mutation is irrational or that natural selection is irrational. You have completely failed to support your earlier statement.



I hope this gets read, but it seems curious to me that the primary pushback against evolution comes from particular pockets of Christianity. I think WileyC1949 is onto something, because it would seem that the only reason some Christians in particular vehemently deny evolution is because they believe it disproves God.

If evolution exists, its because God created the world and guided it in such a way that evolution exists.
Evolution is not an atheistic science.
Its simply the best consensus idea for how the diversity of life that exists today exists.

That does not mean evolution has the answers for everything - there are many things that it cannot account for, and we are right in pointing them out. Simply put, evolution is an evidence-backed idea for how things are the way they are. It is not the end-all-be-all. This might as well be a scientific debate about the workings of quantum mechanics, because the end result points to God regardless of the outcome. Whatever exists, God created.

Further, it seems that the reason this topic in particular possesses so much mouth-frothing ferocity is because it seems to contradict the Bible (which was never written as a scientific book, so to quote it as such would be equivalent to quoting Romeo and Juliet in defense of the pythagorean theorem - just silly).

Certainly, there are compelling reasons to believe evolution is a real process in the created universe.
Certainly, there are reasons to doubt its all-encompassing claim.
Simply put, we don’t know everything. And that’s okay.

But to claim that evolution and God are mutually exclusive is erroneous.


They are human constructs - ideas.

They arise from observing what is destructive in life:

  • random mutations - changes serving no purpose arising from the inherent traits of components which have been organized into a certain order by an external principle.
  • natural selection - the elimination of what does not establish a relationship with its environment that is necessary for reproduction

By “garden planet” the point being conveyed was that of the unity that is the totality of living forms resting on the elements of this world and the sun, which is the source of the energy which drives the system. This ever changing whole and the myriad of entities of which it is composed, had a beginning is a step-wise process of creation that ultimately saw the emergence of mankind, whose purpose, among others, is to maintain the garden.


Thank you for your contribution.

Some feedback: That would not change the fact that it is simplistic and wrong. People believe it because that is what they have heard their whole lives, and they cannot separate what they truly know from the illusion in which it has been cast.


I don’t. At your option, you may sing your song of victory. I just have no time anymore. When I made my first post, I thought I was just giving my 2 cents to the OP. But I got dragged into controversy and I’m spending more time than I should.

Yes, it works for simple cases, but not for complex ones. Making an inference from an observed sample of evolution to the evolution of the entire plant or animal kingdom does not always result in a successful prediction. Consider this: Children are human. Children are observed to exhibit behaviors a, b and c. Therefore all humans (including adults) show behaviors a, b and c.” Clearly, the inference does not work, does it? Extrapolation has its limits.

Hahaha. Your natural selection agent is beginning to sound like an Intelligent Designer; it intelligently adjusts functions and goals.

Dear LeafByNiggle, I really have no time and I must quit now. You may have the last word on this controversy. You are very smart, like Rossum, and I enjoyed discussing this subject with both of you. If you have not done so already, you might want to read my discussions with Rossum in this thread, because they also relate to what we have been discussing. Regrettably, I had to say goodbye to him as well, but maybe not for long. Maybe I will see you again in another thread? God bless!


Yes, these threads can get quite time-consuming. Out of respect for your need not to spend any more time on this, I will not challenge your assertions further. God bless.


Are mountains human constructs? We can observe mountains. We can observe random mutations. We can observe natural selection. We can observe evolution: here.

Destructive? “Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.” – 1 Samuel 15:3. That looks pretty destructive to me, wouldn’t you agree?

An omnipotent God can destroy as well as create. Why do you object to that aspect of His power?

