1st April 2003 at 04:29 PM Jon said this in Post #17
You could call this evouliton if you want, however I would say this is "variation of a kind"
Jon, you wanted evidence from the unviverse, but now are playing semantics.
"Many animals have adapted to the slow increase in salinity over the last 4400 years. We now have fresh water crocodiles and salt water crocodiles that are different species but probably had a common ancestor. This is not evolution. "
Notice that Hovind says "fresh water crocodiles and salt water crocodiles that are
different species but probably had a
common ancestor"
What did Darwin call his book?
Origin of the Species" And what was his shorthand defintion of evolution? "descent with modification". Here Hovind admits both in the universe.
What Hovind is trying to argue, Jon, is
not creationism vs evolution, but theism vs atheism. Hovind mistakes evolution for atheism. That's why you get the dodge "This is not evolution." Not because the data isn't evolution -- it is -- but because Hovind thinks that evolution is atheism, and he won't admit atheism. You do the same duck when you say it is "variation of a kind". You have defined "kind" as a separately created group -- proof of God. So, to admit evolution of a new kind means, to you, admitting there was no creation by God.
Look at how Hovind words his challenge for prize money to "evolutionists". He is asking for proof there is no God.
But evolution isn't about saying there is no God. You have to ditch that first. Evolution simply isn't atheism. Never has been. Isn't now. Yes, some atheist individuals do proclaim that; but that doesn't make them correct.
Darwin viewed evolution simply as the means, or "secondary cause" as it is called in theological circles, that God uses to create. Just like Newton viewed gravity as the means, or secondary cause, that God uses to keep the planets in orbit.
"To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual." Origin of the Species, pg. 449.