We are made of many of the same elements derived from soil and water as Genesis 2:7 states " God formed man of the dust of the ground & breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul". Everything in our physical world has a basis in being created out of star dust. Star Dust in other words debris from Super Nova's that occurred billions of years ago particularly during the beginning of time at approximately 13.7 billion years ago. See here how this fact relates to Genesis 2:7 dust to modern day astronomer and physicist view of the origin of the universe, our physical world being derived from star dust. We are made and comprised of the same elements that the heavenly bodies is composed of as well as our terrestrial environment.
Some of our oldest fossil records are linked to a single event called the Cambrian or Silurian explosion. Out of this event evolved some of the earliest arthropods and primarily aquatic species. We can observe today that some species such as the aquatic isopod underwent micro evolutionary changes to adapt to living on land. On the terrestrial isopod commonly known as the wood louse or (roly poly or pill bug) we can observe gills that allow these crustaceans to survive when submerged in water for short periods of time, this reminiscent of their aquatic ancestry. Many animals within the animal kingdom have underwent the process of evolution on a microscopic scale however large evolutionary jumps such as those purported by Darwin have yet to be seen and tested. This is due to the proposed processes taking approximately one million years to occur. However the Cambrian explosion indicates how life all stems from a single point and a plethora of species was produced during this pivotal time period.
The Cambrian explosion is also referred to as the biological big bang it occurred 538.8 million years ago. It is considered a biological epoch because virtually all modern day animal phyla developed during this event which lasted 13-25 million years a blink of an eye in terms of cosmic timeline. Let's look at Genesis 20, In this section of the Bible the following is stated, "And God said, Let the water teem with living creatures", this indicates that according to the Bible life originated in the ocean first and foremost which corresponds with the scientific view of life first developing in the oceans via life forms such as, arthropods and mollusk both being of aquatic origin.
"What is the great difference between supposing that God makes variable species or that he makes laws by which species vary?"- Louis Aggasiz
There is no fundamental difference in these two separate statements. In the eyes of believers the natural development and progression of natural, processes, occurrences, phenomena and organisms in general is often proof in an of itself for intelligent design. The intricacies and very well planned out details of these phenomena cannot occur sporadically without careful thought being put into these natural workmanship(so to speak). It is the thought process behind these extremely detailed and well thought out designs along with the creative intellect that is stand alone proof for a divine creator. To deny such or claim that random probability was the driving force for such well formed organized systems along with tangible/intangible products is unsubstantiated.
There is a great deal to unpack here. I hope you will stay with me as I work my way through it.
First, I congratulate you on having made more effort than most creationists on this forum to look at some of the evidence for evolution. That, for me is a large positive. Unfortunately, from here on it is mainly downhill.
I was disappointed by your reaction to criticism. Here is my take on criticism. This afternoon I and a colleague shall be taking a Teams call from a client, for whom we have just completed a training package. In this call he will give us his views on the value of that training and whether or not he wishes to have more from us. It is my earnest hope that he will be not only forthright in his comments, but brutal. I want him to focus on what was wrong with the package, not on what was right. If he holds back then we will find it difficult to make improvements. It can be unpleasant, at the time, to take such criticism, but it is the only effective way I know of to improve. I encourage you to adopt a similar attitude.
For example, as
@SelfSim has remarked, you completely failed to structure your writing properly and as others implied you did not state whether or not you wanted an evaluation of your writing, or of the ideas in it, or both. At best that is sloppy, at worst it is rude. Then you make what comes across to me as a petty remark to
@Tinker Grey, calling him "buddy", for doing exactly what you appeared to have asked us to do - comment on your writing.
I shall be concentrating on the content of your opening post (OP), but be aware that there are issues with typing, grammar, punctuation and the aforementioned structural failing.
First Paragraph of OP
I don't know how important to your argument is your statement that the supernovaes that produced the dust from which the solar system is composed happened mainly just after the Big Bang. My understanding is that some of that dust has been identified as being more recent and certainly the collapse of the GMC (Giant Molecular Cloud) from which it formed was triggered by a "recent" supernovae. Perhaps
@sjastro can comment on this.
Second Paragraph of OP
I have never, at any time, place, or publication, seen or heard the Cambrian explosion referred to as the Cambrian or Silurian explosion. Between the end of the Cambrian and the beginning of the Silurian we have around 40 million years of the Ordovician. Perhaps you are confusing the diversification of life forms in the Silurian that followed on from the Ordovician mass extinctions.
The line between micro-evolution and macro-evolution is not clear cut. However, characterising the changes that permitted acquatic life to adopt a terrestrial habitat as being an example of micro-evolution is stretching the meaning far beyond breaking point. If you disagree please present an argument, in your own words, justifying this assertion. If you cannot do so please acknowledge that the application of micro-evolution in this instance was wrong.
You are correct that all evolution occurs on a microscopic scale, just as a marathon occurs one stride at a time, but after 30 or 40,000 strides you have run 26 miles, 385 yards. And after hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years, macroscopic evolution has taken place as is evident from the fossil record and from genetic analysis and new genera, families and even phyla have emerged.
It always bemuses me that creationists have this seeming obsession with Darwin. His brilliant insight and meticulous research was revolutionary, but we have had more than a century and a half since the publication of
On the Origin of Species in which tens of thousands of researchers have published hundreds of thousands of theses, journal articles and textbooks on evolution.
It is not true to say that "all life stems from a single point" in the Cambrian. There were around three billion years of evolution that preceded the explosion. Life moved from very simple prokaryotes, simpler than the simplest organism extant today, towards eukaryotes - a vast macro-evolutionary development - around two billion years ago, then to multicellularity and then the emergence of creatures with diversified organs (i.e. animals), no later than 700 million years ago and most probably much earlier. The Ediacaran biota of complex organisms preceded the Cambrian explostion. Your assertion that the explosion was an event, a point in time is incorrect. It was a period of rapid change, but much of the groundwork for those changes had been laid in the previous half billion years, only recognised because of improvements in technology and because we have gone out looking for microfossils and biochemical traces in what had been thought of as barren rock.
You are correct that a great diversification occured in Cambrian times (though you ignore the diversification in the preceding Ediacaran, and in the following Ordovician), but to claim it occured at a point in time and to ignore three billion years of earlier evoutionary steps is simply wrong.
Third Paragraph of OP
OK. Nothing wrong as such here, but I just worry that - as written - you appear to equate arthropods and molluscs as an early form of life, whereas they are incredibly sophisticated and complex animals as far removed from the first proto-cells as you or I. I appreciate that, as a practicing Christian, the concept of the
scala naturae may be embedded in your thinking, but unless properly applied that is likely to lead you astray, as it seems to have done here.
Final Paragraph of OP
The two contrasting statements of Aggasiz are the same only to a Christian who is indifferent to whether or not God created life as it is in an instant, or caused it to evolve over time. To a Christian who believes Genesis is the literal truth the two statements are irreconcilable. To a scientifically oriented Christian they will appear incompatible. To a non-Christian the latter one would remain plausible, were it not for the fact they don't think such a God exists. (Those are generalisations - they will not be disproved by anecdotal counter examples,)
It is my opinion that Christianity will enhance its image by distancing itself from the claims of the Discovery Institute. I can develop that point if you wish, but I advise against it.
Contrary to your assertion life is not especially well designed. There are numerous examples. I'll mention one human centred one. Humans can choke on their food if it "goes down the wrong way". Why introduce, by design, such a weakness into humans when it is absent in most animals?
"Random probability" is not the driving force behind evolution. You are attacking a strawman. Natural Selection, and other processes, acting upon organisms whose characteristics have been shaped by genes that have undergone changes due to random probability is the driving force. These processes have been established through the studies of many thousands of researchers in the fields of botany, zoology, biochemistry, genetics, microbiology, ethology, palaeontology and a host more. Hypotheses on the details have been advanced, tested, amended, adapted, combined, and in some instances rejected, leading to a coherent, validated body of evidence, experiment and theory that presents evolution as the best (by far) explanation for the diversity of life on this planet. That is why
@The IbanezerScrooge described your last paragraph as "bollocks".
Additional Comment
Finally, elsewhere you assert that a scientist in one field should be able to comment with authority on matters in another field. Nonsense! Perhaps you are familiar with the humerous definition of an expert: someone who knows more and more about less and less. A vulcanologist who has devoted twenty years to the study of carbonatite lavas in East Africa, might feel comfortable discussing eruptive mechanisms of Icelandic lavas with an expert on those. But they would be unlikely to make authoritative claims on the significance of isotope ratios in relation to magma migration from the asthenosphere below Iceland. And that's two experts within not just geology, but a narro subset of geology. You are simply mistaken in this regard.
