Recognising design is not the same thing as showing design. If you want to claim that life was designed, then you need to show that it was. Same with talking about complexity. We know that buildings, paintings and computer progams were designed because we have evidence of those things being designed, and in many cases, step by step evidence of them being built. We have none of that as evidence whatsoever for anything found in nature. None.
And you clearly don't appreciate science if you basically say that evolution is 'just a theory' when in science, a theory is a way to explain facts and evidence found. It is the highest thing that science can achieve for an idea, such as germ theory, nuclear theory, the theory of gravity and, surprise here, the theory of evolution.
All your commentary shows is a dogmatic incredulity on your part. Nothing more, nothing less.
You said that "recognizing design is not the same as showing design." I understand your point, but let me ask: when we see organized, purposeful complexity, like in a jet engine, a symphony, or even a simple sentence, is it unreasonable to infer design, even if we don’t see the designer at work? In everyday life, we constantly infer intelligent causes based on the nature of the thing itself. Life is filled with such evidence: DNA is a coded language, the cell is like a miniature factory, and the universe is fine-tuned for life. These things point to intelligence, not chance.
Let’s just consider DNA. We would laugh at someone who claimed that a book fell together by itself. That black ink just rained down from the sky, formed letters on a page, and somehow arranged those letters into words, sentences, and chapters that make sense. Then, colored ink fell and made beautiful illustrations of animals and landscapes. Then page numbers fell into the corners, all in the correct order. Finally, the pages bound themselves together into a complete book. We’d scoff at that because it’s absurd.
And yet, every one of us carries a book inside us, our DNA. It is a highly complex, information-rich code that tells your body how to function, develop, and repair itself. DNA contains more information than any book ever written. In fact, if you stretched out all the DNA in your body, it would reach to the moon and back multiple times.
So, if it’s unthinkable to believe that a simple book made itself by accident, how much more unreasonable is it to believe that the biological book of life, our DNA, formed itself through unguided processes? Information demands intelligence.
Now, regarding evolution, let’s return to the scientific method, which is based on:
"The collection of data through observation and experimentation."
To be considered scientifically proven, a theory must be observable, testable, repeatable, and able to be proven wrong if the evidence goes against it.
Darwinian evolution, by definition, cannot be directly observed or repeated, especially when it is said to happen over millions of years. No one has ever observed one kind of animal slowly turning into another with a new body plan. At best, we observe small changes within species (microevolution), but the kind of large-scale transformation required by Darwinian theory (macroevolution) is assumed, not observed.
So, how can you test a process that supposedly happened 60 million years ago? You can’t. It doesn't meet the criteria of scientific proof. It’s not empirical science; it’s a historical interpretation of past events based on limited evidence. It ultimately requires faith, faith in chance, deep time, and natural processes to create things we have no evidence they can produce.
Meanwhile, Jesus Christ, who claimed to be the Creator (John 1:1–3), said,
"In the beginning, God made them male and female." (Mark 10:6). As a Christian, I choose to trust the One who rose from the dead and who was there “in the beginning,” over a theory that rests on assumptions and cannot be tested by the scientific method.
And this isn't just blind belief. Romans 1:20 says,
"For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that people are without excuse."
In other words, the design and order we see in creation is the evidence of the Creator. God has made Himself known through what He has made, and it takes more faith to deny that than to believe it.
In the end, it comes down to this: who or what do you put your faith in? Blind, unguided chance, or the words of Jesus, the Creator?
First, we see it going on everyday in all living populations. Perhaps you don't know what biological evolution is. It's a change in allele frequencies in a population over time. "Descent with modificiation" as Darwin put it. Microevolution is defined as evolution within a species. Macroevolution is speciation. We see both of these going on. Want some examples?
Thanks for the reply. I do understand what biological evolution is claimed to be, "descent with modification" and changes in allele frequencies over time. And I agree that microevolution, small changes within a species, is observable. We see variation, adaptation, and even speciation (like new varieties of finches or bacteria resistance). But we do not see Darwinian evolution. That is fish turning into cats. Here's the key point: Microevolution is not the same as molecules-to-man macroevolution.
Changing allele frequencies within a population does not explain how entirely new body plans, organs, or types of creatures come into existence. You can breed dogs for size or colour all day, but you’ll never get a cat. Speciation, in the sense of slight reproductive differences, doesn’t equal the kind of large-scale innovation Darwinian evolution requires.
So yes, I'd be open to examples of macroevolution, but they need to show more than just variation within a kind. If you’re saying macroevolution is proven, then can you show:
-The step-by-step formation of a brand-new organ?
-A clear transitional path from one major animal group to another (not just assumed from similarity)?
-The origin of new genetic information, not just the reshuffling or loss of existing genes?
Because that’s the real debate, not whether small changes occur, but whether small changes can build entirely new kinds of creatures over time. If you have evidence of that, I’d genuinely be interested to see it.
If that happened, evolutionary theory would be in big trouble. Common descent isn't evolution; it's a consequence of evolution. However, this has a great deal of evidence for it.
Darwin’s fourth expectation — of stratomorphic series — has been confirmed by such examples as the early bird series,33 the tetrapod series,34,35 the whale series,36 the various mammal series of the Cenozoic37 (for example, the horse series, the camel series, the elephant series, the pig series, the titanothere series, etc.), the Cantius and Plesiadapus primate series,38 and the hominid series.39 Evidence for not just one but for all three of the species level and above types of stratomorphic intermediates expected by macroevolutionary theory is surely strong evidence for macroevolutionary theory. Creationists therefore need to accept this fact.
YE creationist Dr. Kurt Wise Toward a Creationist Understanding of Transitional Forms
Even more compelling, we see all these transitional forms where they were predicted to be, but we don't see any such transitionals where they shouldn't be. No lobsters with bones, no mammals with feathers.
Not surprisingly, the genetic data confirms phylogenies first accidentally documented by Linnaeaus, long before Darwin discovered why they form such a tree. And we know that works, because we can compare the genes of organisms of known descent.
There's more. Would you like to see more?
You’ve brought up a lot of fossil examples and genetic evidence, and I appreciate your willingness to dig deep into the topic. But I think it’s important to step back and ask, "What exactly is being claimed, and what is actually being observed?"
You mentioned transitional series like birds, tetrapods, and whales. But all of those are interpretations based on similarities in fossils, often with large gaps and a great deal of assumption that one form gave rise to another over time. The fossils themselves are static snapshots, they don’t show the actual step-by-step transitions, mechanisms, or genetic pathways. In many cases, these fossils appear suddenly, and often side-by-side with supposedly "primitive" forms.
As for Dr. Kurt Wise, I’m aware of his quote, but it’s worth noting that even he doesn’t accept that these series demonstrate Darwinian evolution. He believes these patterns are explained by common design, not common ancestry. He acknowledges the presence of fossil patterns but interprets them within a creationist framework. Quoting him as if he supports macroevolution is misleading.
Regarding genetics and phylogenies, yes, we can compare genes, and we can see similarities. But similarity does not prove descent. A human-written book and a software manual might have similar formatting and vocabulary, but that doesn’t mean one evolved from the other by chance. It means they likely share a common mind or designer using similar structures.
Also, you mentioned that we don’t find mammals with feathers or lobsters with bones, and I agree. But that doesn’t prove evolution. It actually underscores stability within kinds, not transformation from one kind to another. If macroevolution were happening constantly over millions of years, we’d expect to see many more mosaic forms or odd mixes, not just clean separations between groups.
So again, the real issue isn’t whether you can line up fossils and say, “this looks like it could be a transition.” The question is:
Can gradual, step-by-step processes truly account for the origin of brand-new body plans, organs, and genetic information?
That’s where Darwinian evolution continues to fall short, not in explaining small changes, but in explaining innovation.
If you have evidence of a genuine step-by-step process showing the origin of a new organ system or a new phylum, I’d be open to seeing that. But just lining up fossils based on similarity doesn’t demonstrate that process; it assumes it.
Also, on the topic of genetics, yes, humans share a lot of genetic similarities with other living things, like the chimpanzee. But similarity doesn’t prove common descent; it just shows shared features. Did you know that humans share around 60% of their DNA with a banana?
But no one seriously thinks that means my great-great-great-great grandfather was a banana. That would be absurd. It simply shows that living things share common building blocks, just like different books might use the same alphabet or similar phrases, without being copied from one another. Similarity can just as easily point to a common designer using efficient patterns, not random evolution from a fruit tree.
So again, the core question isn’t whether living things share DNA, it’s whether random mutations and natural selection can actually build the amount of complexity and information we see in life. And that has never been demonstrated.
