One of the problems with evolution is that it is so hard to define. When someone says for instance, "I don't believe in evolution", what are they saying? We all know what they are saying. They are saying they don't believe that life started as a single celled organism and through a process of random mutations and natural selection over billions of years gave us modern man. But we don't take it at face value. We start trying to redefine terms and box ourselves and others into logical conundrums that no one can fully follow. Because of this I always define evolution when I begin to speak about it in the Darwinian sense that it is taught and understood in Biology today.
Part of the problem with evolution whenever it comes to discussion is that people simply do not deal with the terms in the settings they are developed within - and we use language indicating we know the hearts and intents of all.
Claiming "We all know" assumes you and others agreeing are the SUM total of EVERY GROUP in the world when it comes to evolution - which is silly. There are others saying "We don't believe in evolution" who specifically mean they don't believe things evolved WITHOUT God being present - or that species changed from cats to dogs, even though they DO believe in changes within species over time.
However, when you fail to actually ask "What do you mean?" instead of assuming you know the intent behind everyone using a term - or IGNORING OUTRIGHT where others clarified a term - you end up not setting the stage for actual discussion. This is where it gets a bit ludicrous whenever people claim "Well, they're just changing definitions" when the reality is that no one considers they see a "re-definition" because they ALREADY assumed the wrong definition or didn't like the answer they heard.....which is really a form of self-focus. Biologists have had to deal with this whenever they define evolution not just in the Darwinian sense but also in the sense of how it was and is seen in GENERAL (From Darwinian to Asa Gray's style to limited evolution, etc.) and over several groupings when it comes to Biology. Speaking of evolutionary theory has having to automatically be based SOLELY in Dawrin's views is akin to claiming that speaking on medicine assumes one automatically supports those believing that cutting wrists to bleed out diseases is right - or that those studying the world in astronomy must hold to the VIEW that early people did when claiming the Earth was the center of the universe. Those who made the ground for a view to develop later in time are not automatically the ones whose ideas are in discussion during every conversation related to them
You cannot start a conversation on evolution without making sure others are on the same page - and if not on the same page, you cannot make it where you're having two different discussions.
Case in point: When on a college campus such as Kennesaw State University and the Biology teachers note that evolution means that they do NOT believe all life started as a single-celled organism and through a process of random mutations, people in Church settings tend to shoot back "That's not what evolutionists believe!!!"..
But they have no evidence of such since other evolutionists have already spoken COUNTER to what they chose to believe. Thus, it then becomes an idea of what others WISH to believe about a group and what a group has actually said. This is why it is best to actually deal with direct quotes of scientists and see all discussing the issue - no different than others having agreements in WOF and disagreements in WOF as well....and no one wishing to have words placed in their own mouths.
If we cannot agree to NOT have words placed in the mouths of others, then there's really not any honest discussion since the goal is seeing others through our own filters - and that doesn't make for rational discussion.
I go for case-by-case basis. If I'm on a college campus, I don't go into a classroom for Anthropology and say something foolish like asking "What is evolution?" and then claiming of the professor who's an atheist that "You believe men came from MONKEYS!!!" - for that's way off base since that has been an old claim other secular evolutionists have long pointed out they do not hold to anyhow. The same goes for saying "You all believe we came from soup!! THAT's not what Christians believe" when the reality is that MANY Christian Biologists have noted that man came from the Dust of the Ground just as every other beast of the field did (Genesis 1-2). Thus, that means that we cannot avoid the fact that man was made from simple elements....
But if you already have a caricature and try to impose that onto others, then that's not honest discussion - that's an agenda.
There are already numerous biologists, in example, who are of the mindset that Creation has a Creation. Francis Collins is one of the dominant examples, seeing that he is the leader of the Human Genome project and representative of many other scientists who trust in God. main point was and always will be that the DNA itself has a creator. Collins already noted that DNA is Gods language. (from "
The Language of God" and
The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief ) - Moreover, he notes that he sees plenty of "pointers to God," natural phenomena that imply the existence of a biblical God. In
The Language of God, Collins argues strongly for scientific evidence of intelligent design (though he doesnt call it that) in cosmology and human psychology. He adduces the fine-tuning of the universes physical constants at the Big Bang, and human moral instincts, as features of physical existence that defy purely material explanations. I cannot see how nature could have created itself, he writes. And DNA sequence alone
will never explain certain special human attributes, such as the knowledge of the Moral Law and the universal search for God.
However, turning to biology and the evolution of life in its countless forms, he dismisses intelligent design as an argument from personal incredulity. He writes that a religious believer may coherently believe in life as having been specified by God, and in genetic language as a kind of communication from God, even though, as per Darwinian theory, the evolutionary process was entirely unguided. Collins reconciles the seeming contradiction of a specified yet unguided history of life by observing that God stands outside time and so is unlimited by the human temporal perspective.
Collins already noted that DNA is Gods language. (from "
The Language of God" and
The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief )
There are other examples besides this - but the point is that it is incomplete trying to claim what others supporting evolution believe as a WHOLE when you cannot quote them directly and then say "I know what you mean."
I disagree strongly with Gxg's idea that macro-evolution is simply a lot of micro-evolution added together. Changes in species occur all the time, but they are not evolutionary in scope.
Evolution always deals with change, db. Thus, it would be off claimning that changes occurring within species are not evolutionary in scope. And on the issue, seeing that I never just said that macro-evolution is a lot of micro-evolution added together, it would be beneficial if you could at least QUOTE me and show why you came to that conclusion rather than just throwing something out there. That's part of having rational discussion: Asking for clarification and giving your sources as to why you disagree.
We already talk on the way music or science evolves due to the concept of CHANGE gradually - the definition of the term. We have to deal with the terms as they are and not as we 'd wish them to be.
In fact, I wouldn't even call micro-evolution micro-evolution, if they are not the result of mutation. Now, for those who believe in a form of theistic evolution, they may consider these mutations to be designed or planned, rather than random, but for the sake of argument, let us call them mutations, in this way we can each assign the point of randomness or design for ourselves.
Before going into the "sake of argument", it needs to be established that one actually understands what others in a camp hold to. For evolution itself was never centered around the world of mutation. Also, Humans get very involved with evolution with plant and animal breeding.
Most, (I would say all, but for the sake of argument I will say most), of what micro-evolution describes is not a result of mutation, but a selection of survivabilty characteristics that are already available for selection within the existing genetic code. This is not evolution. It is natural selection at work, BUT IT IS NOT EVOLUTION.
This is selection of pre-existing code within the genome.
Claiming that what micro-evolution describes to not be evolution is NOT the same as showing what other scientists have said evolution to be, seeing that evolution INVOLVES the work of natural selection and altering of genetic code. This is why mirco-evolution was and has always been seen as EVOLUTION - because evolution was never solely related to the concept of genetic mutation alone. That was a forced argument that has often been brought up by others who pigeon-hole what evolution is about. Selection is very non random. In one way of looking at it, the two factors that drive evolution are chance (in the case of mutations and genetic drift) and selection as natural and human directed selection. They are two separate classes of mechanisms that operate together in the case of evolution.
In evolution, mutation provides the raw material and mechanisms such as selection and drift work on those mutations. One is not based on the other but work in tandem so to speak. The mutation is random but whether it is beneficial, harmful or neutral depends on the local environment and this can vary significantly in different environments. The environment that determines if the mutation is advantageous or not. It is the interaction of mutations and local environments that give evolution whatever direction it may take. What is happening is that evolution has both random factors and non random factors. The mutations are random with respect to need. Genetic drift is random but natural selection is very non random. That is why evolution is both chance and selection, both random and non random. Scientific American actually
noted that "Although mutations, the driver of evolution, occur at random, a study of the bacterium Escherichia coli reveals that nature often finds the same solution to the same problem again and again." Additionally,
other scientists have discussed the reality of evidence of Non-Random mutation. (more at
Live Science - Evolution Is Not Random (At Least, Not Totally) )
This also goes into the realm of pre-existing codes in a genome being able to be altered. This goes back to giving DIRECT quotation and reference in the world of science - and from NON-Christian sources, if claiming a definition of evolution that you believe is what they hold to.
Selection of pre-existing code with the genome does not produce speciation (as far as we can tell). Science has not yet been able to observe speciation occur, though there is some argument over both bacteria and fruit flies, which I will deal with in a moment. Even if speciation could be proven beyond doubt, it still doesn't prove evolution however, as the definition of 'kind' is what is really at stake here, and as Gxg correctly noted, 'kind' is a somewhat broader term than 'species'. For instance, if someone is able to observe a new type a fruit fly population come into existence that can't/wont interbreed with other fruit flies, doesn't mean it is not still a fruit fly.
If a fruit fly chooses to not mate with other fruit flies and doesn't have traits of fruit fly, it has changed - thus, the kind is different. It is still in the insect category but it is clearly gone into something different.
We have seen speciation, for example. African cichlid fishes are one remarkable case of "explosive speciation" (the Hawaiian Drosophila of the fish world). There has been remarkable evolution of morphological, ecological and behavioral variation in these fish: algae grazers, snail crushers, plankton feeders, paedophages (clamp onto the mouth of a fish brooding her young in her mouth and force her to spit out here young into the mouth of the attacker), one fish (in Lake Malawi) plucks the eyes out of other fish as food...and all of this has happened within a short amount of time. Another would be the Anole Lizard - more shared in
Anole Lizards: An Example of Speciation | HHMI's BioInteractive. There are many others:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCoEiLOV8jc
