So evolution isn't a fundamental force that abides by any natural laws of nature, and is present in all forms of life?
No, yes, and as far as we know - yes.
Evolution would appear to be a fundamental force, and it must obey the laws of nature - like the laws of chemistry for example.
Evolution has laws as well, you might want to indulge yourself.
The law of common descent states that all members of any species share a common ancestor.
The law of natural selection.
Mendel's laws of inheritance.
It doesn't completely surround us, encapsulate us, build the foundation of humanity and define us as lifeforms?
And bind the galaxy together....
Maybe not.
It hasn't been present and visible for some 2 million years and admired and worshiped as the driving force for all of life throughout the Cosmos?
present and visable yes, for at least 2 billion years (maybe close to double that actually) - admired yes, worshipped no.
No.
* sigh *
You would so love science to be a religion.
I know of no-one who has fallen to his knees and thanked Darwin for his mighty theory, and proclaimed him as their lord and saviour.
The way I see it,
"Parents pass on genes to their mutant offspring who are whittled away by environmental forces so that only the best suited survive."
Did I miss anything covered in your reading?
Not all offspring are mutant.
There other changes, such as epigenetic effects and translocations, replications, deletions etc.
Charles Darwin himself actually put it quite neatly in O
rigin, so to paraphrase him:
Many more offspring are born than could ever possibly survive in nature.
This creates a struggle for survival, where those best suited - or biologically fit - to their environment tend to have more offspring and pass on such favourable traits to their offspring.
A better definition:
Life is the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators.
They fail to understand that the point of the Bible, cover to cover, is an explanation of origins. Darwin rejected this message of origins and wrote his own version.
Funnily, many of your Christian brothers see the bible as a literal history - only the first few collection of stories is about origins.
But hey, what would I know.
Darwin did reject the biblical view yes, because he could not reconcile it with the real world - the world of nature he observed over many, many years.
The purpose of Darwin's book on Origins was an attempt to merge his views on nature with Creationism. It fails because he had too little background in the scriptures and simply thought of it as a mechanical book. He never grasped that the scriptures are about man's relationship with his source, our Father in Heaven. And why we age.
Charles Darwin was actually training to be a minister, so i think his biblical knowledge would actually have been quite good.
I don't believe, having read
Origin, that he intended to merge it with creationism at all - quite the opposite.
Aging by the way is irrelevant.
One quote that does spring to mind is this one:
Charles Darwin said:
I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars.
Darwin observed that nature is cold, heartless, it pays no attention to pain and suffering, it just marches on relentlesly.
This is in direct contradiction to the bible's description Jesus.
Charles Darwin said:
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.
