How Would *You* Prove Evolution?

By Daniel Miessler on August 27th, 2007: Tagged as Debate | Evolution | Macroevolution | Religion | Science

darwin

I need some help here. I have a friend with whom I’m debating evolution. He is a fundamentalist Christian (wait for it), but he has an uncharacteristic understanding of, and respect for, science.

So he’s an extremely intelligent guy who doesn’t deny the validity of science. In fact, he actually accepts microevolution. He’s familiar with the various moth studies and such, and accepts them as solid. What he disputes is the concept of macroevolution. For those not up on the terms, macroevolution is any evolution that occurs at or above the species level, meaning that over time the offspring species would become unable to mate with the parent species.

But Rick’s main argument concerns less subtle differences. He doesn’t care if moth A becomes moth B, and that after many generations they won’t be able to procreate with each other. He wants more than that. He quite simple rejects the notion of all life having a common ancestor.

So here’s the problem: his argument is that he and I both have beliefs; I believe in macroevolution and he believes in God. When I show him that my beliefs (and not his) are backed by empirical evidence, he refutes the evidence using assorted websites that dispute various parts of the findings. After this happened for like the third time I realized something.

If I cannot explain macroevolution to him — or anyone else — that means I don’t totally understand it myself. And if I believe it without understanding it then it IS a belief. So on that point he’s absolutely correct.

All that remains is me thinking that my belief is based on more evidence than his belief, and that’s where the evidence comes in. Hence a never ending cycle simply because I don’t understand the science well enough myself to articulate and defend it.

So that raises the question in the title of this post: how would YOU explain macroevolution to someone who believes in science but simply doesn’t believe there is enough evidence to support it? Is it possible to do without learning a whole lot of biology yourself?

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  • Vashra

    Being a Creationist who believes in God but is fully accepting that Evolution is one of the many nifty mechanisms of how life develops on Earth, I’d love to hear more about how y’all prove macro-evolution. My understanding is that for now it is still a solidly unproven theory, though the recent discovery of ring species may give us some new clues.

    And if yer wonderin’ how a Creationist can possibly embrace any aspect of evolution, it’s because I can read the words on the page in Genesis. Did you know it says, even there, that God “caused the Earth to bring forth” the fish and fowl and so on? Sounds like He wrote a very dynamic program and then pressed “start” to me. If we find out that all nonhuman life on this planet started as a pool of goo struck by lightning while Q and Captain Picard looked on…well that does nothing but adhere to the text on the page of my holy book (except of course for the presence Q and Picard hehe).

    I will admit I’d be surprised if we ever find the “missing link” that puts humanity into the evolutionary queue, but I see no reason why there cannot be every aspect of evolution throughout the other various kingdoms of life … and it’s entirely possible that despite that break in the chain that seems to separate us from the animal kingdom that we ourselves are evolving in our own ways. The jump points in the Bible where humanity is instructed first to be fruit eaters, then general herbivores, then omnivores, would seem to indicate some development occurs over time.

  • Stephen

    Untill scientists can catagorically and unequivocally say beyond any shadow of a doubt that macro evolution is true, the whole debate is a pointless, childish show, the sort of “my dad is bigger than your dad” argument that took place on the school play ground. How many of the scientific theories of 100 years ago are held with any certainty today ? how many of the sure and certain scientific facts of today will still be held in another 100 years !!!

    • http://danielmiessler.com/ Daniel Miessler

      They already know it’s true. And there’s no such thing as macro-evolution; it’s just evolution.

      Please read “The Greatest Show on Earth”. It’ll clarify everything for you.

      • Timmy

        They do not know it’s true!!!! There is 0.000000000… proof of evolution. People keep saying it’s true. If it is so true then I would like to see proof. It cannot be micro evolution (One animal mating with another of its kind resulting in a different breed of the same type of animal) because everybody knows about that and GOD made it that way. And you cannot say that apes and humans have so many things alike they must be related. That is not proof, that is just guessing. I want proof of an organism evolving into a completely different organism and I want proof that the world is billions of years old AND I want proof that the world and life was caused by a huge explosion!

  • 7331gljoe

    Wow – just read through most of this post. Interesting read. I would like to add my $0.02 as a Christian who respects the scientific method.

    I think a fundamental flaw with most people’s approach to Creation vs Evolution is categorically denying the possibility of one or the other. Evolutionists (not all scientists are) are people who believe in evolution. Scientists are people who seek to prove or disprove specific hypotheses in the pursuit of greater knowledge/understanding. Proving that living organisms have mutated doesn’t preclude or disprove intelligent design.

    Here are some scientific hypotheses that either support intelligent design / creation or question evolution. I don’t have time to cite the original scientific findings or publications but you can easily find them to read more about them if you like:

    1 – ‘clocking’ or dating methods are very suspect: a) The rate of change (10% decline since 1835) of the earth’s magnetic field. If you go backwards in time, it would have been strong enough to prevent life as little as 10,000 years ago.

     b) The oceans' salinity.  It is gradually increasing.  You can only roll that clock back so far before there's no salt in the ocean at all.

    c) Carbon dating. Carbon 14 found in diamonds. Carbon dating of Pennsylvania coal beds completely inconsistent with 'millions of years' age. Carbon 14 in the atmosphere wasn't measured reliably before the industrial age.

    2 – The existence of granite. Granite has frozen decaying isotopes of Polonium that have a half-life of less than a second. If you melt it and cool it becomes something completely different. It can not have gradually cooled as evolutionists suggest the earth did.

    3 – Fossilized human remains of very tall, large men is inconsistent with smaller hunched ‘ape’ men of same geo age.

    My friends, none of these are proof of anything specific. They just all add up to suggest that the world is not in fact millions of years old. And if you take away the age of the earth – evolutionists just HATE it.

    The universe tends toward chaos, not order. Only intelligence can make order out of chaos.

  • Timmy

    Buddy, I hate to say that you are lost. I could go on and on with the proof of creation and disprove evolution. There is no proof for evolution. People have actually made up lies about it to try to prove it. There is a GOD who LOVES YOU and wants YOU to LOVE HIM BACK!!!!!! Evolution was a theory made up from Charlie Darwin because he didn’t want to accept the fact that there is a GOD thus there are RULES. Evolution is just a way of trying to ignore GOD and HIS RULES. He isn’t saying that you can’t have fun in life, He is saying he wants you to have fun with him. NOT ALCOHOL, DRUGS AND SMOKING kind of fun. Good fun. He wants you to accept him as the all powerful GOD WHO can do all things and who created the whole earth and everything in it. He created time, space and love. Now allow me to demonstrate why evolution and the big bang theory and the whole “Earth is billions of years old” thing is wrong and has absolutely NO PROOF. We all agree that you cannot get matter from nothing. You must have something to make something. It cannot just appear. You guys say the earth was created by a huge explosion. (Which doesn’t even make sense, but I’ll get to that later). How do you suppose the matter that caused the big bang came into existence. It’s not possible for it just to appear. It would have had to be made from someone who is never ending and has no beginning. Now to my point that the big bang makes no sense. Just look at the earth and everything in it. Its pure awesomeness and complexity. YOU WANT TO TELL ME THAT THAT WAS MADE BY A HUGE EXPLOSION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! if you plant a bomb in your room and it explodes, IS IT GOING TO CLEAN IT UP???? NO!!!!!!!!!!!!! An explosion cannot cause LIFE!!!!!!! Did you know that there is actually a quote from Charlie Darwin that says, “If you do not find proof of an animal evolving in the next 100 years, DISREGARD MY WHOLE THEORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” They have not found proof in 200 years yet people still want an alternative to GOD. The BIBLE predicts that people will become WILLINGLY IGNORANT OF GOD! Which means people will purposely try to avoid the FACT of GOD. Now, we all agree that people didn’t know the earth was round or that it even rotated, till a few hundred years ago. Why is it then, in the book of Job, it says that the world is round and that it spins on its axis?? BECAUSE GOD CREATED IT, AND HE SAYS IN THIS BOOK THAT THIS IS TRUE!!!!!!!! AND IT IS!!!!! Because this is getting too long, I’m going to let you see proof of creation. Look up all the proof you want online. There is no proof for evolution and if there is I would like to see it. I am no scientist and I can prove creation. Not even Richard Dawkins can prove evolution. I’d like someone to respond to this.

    • http://danielmiessler.com/ Daniel Miessler
      • Timmy

        First of all, in the beginning of the video, there is pictures of birds that through time have longer tales and beaks. He also talks about bacteria evolving to eat nylon. Again I will state a fact. That is NOT evolution. Any scientist knows (I’m not one) that that is all called physical adaptation. It is not the organisms evolving to new species, it is them adapting to their environment. That is how GOD intelligently designed them. Look it up. It’s called physical adaptation which has NOTHING to do with evolution. But the person in this video is ignoring this FACT. Also, the part about the animals breeding and becoming something different is MICRO EVOLUTION which I believe in. It is where one species breeds with ITS OWN KIND to produce a different BREED of the SAME TYPE OF ANIMAL! It is still the same organism. The Bible states that all animals shall bring forth after THEIR OWN KIND! which is exactly what they’re doing. That proves the Bible, not evolution. These things I have stated are facts, and evolution is not a FACT, but a made up theory that is yet to be proven. Let me ask you a question. Why do you want to believe in something that I believe has not been proven, when it gives you no hope. It makes you think that you just came from an ape and that your being on earth is pointless and you’re going to die. You could be believing in a GOD who made you and loves you and will give you eternal life if you believe in him. Another thing is that the reason an ape hand, a human hand and a wale fin look the same is because they were all made by GOD. It’s like Lexus and Toyota. Their cars are different, but they’re the same in many ways because they were both made by the same maker.

  • Johncarver

    evolution is fake and so r u

  • jimi

    theres no such thing as macro evolution,thats creationist nonsense they have made up.they are the joke of mankind.they would have us all back living in mudhuts if they had their way.look at them trying to retard science,they are crazy.

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