In a message dated 7/17/2000 George Murphy wrote:
<< I will say that with we know today (at least if we've awakened from our
dogmatic slumbers) about both scripture and natural science makes it very
doubtful that one can construct a coherent Christian theology which takes the
real world seriously if it doesn't include some form of macroevolution in
which natural selection plays a significant role. >>
I'm coming into this thread rather late. I would be happy to take
macroevolution seriously if there were empirical evidence that natural
selection played a significant *creative* role in it. Precambrian metazoa
have been found, but that they arose by natural selection (NS) has not been
demonstrated, only assumed. While descent with modification from a common
ancestor might be considered such evidence, it lacks a demonstration that
natural selection constitutes the mechanism by which it came about. In
short, I am not persuaded by the data to accept macroevolution or common
ancestry.
The only empirically demonstrated role played by NS that I know of is that of
enhancing adaptation and survival, as suggested by studies of "short-term
evolution," to use Gould's term, also called "evolution-made-visible." These
include studies of camouflage coloration in guppies; the shape of Darwin's
beaks; Kettlewell's industrial melanism studies; change of leg size in
Bahamian lizards, and other such studies, in which the organism adapts to
changing immediate environments. Evolutionists, such as Jonathan Weiner,
extrapolate these studies into macroevolution, that is, that macroevolution
is microevolution writ large. But it is an unwarranted conclusion that
demonstrated survival and adaptation roles that NS plays in the present time
can be extrapolated as a creative role in geologic time, i.e., in forming
major morphological features such as the phyletic body plans of metazoa.
Again, I am not persuaded by contemporary studies of NS that it played a
creative role in the formation of major innovative morphological structures.
J. Z. Young in his classic *The Life of Vertebrates* made a telling comment.
"An organism must adapt to its surroundings as best it can with its given
Bauplan." (p. 4). The body plans of organisms are generally not adaptive.
They need NS. The "significant role of natural selection" in the formation
of the body plans of phyletic lineages in the Cambrian, is to enhance the
adaptations of organisms to their surroundings with their respective
Bauplans, using contemporary "short-term-evolution" studies as the best
evidence we have of the role of NS.
To go beyond that, IMHO is to ascribe creative roles to NS that is not
supported by empirical evidence.
Peace,
Bob
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