Maximus said:
Ever thought about the complexity of the human eye?
How did that come about, in concert with so many of the other incredible human physiological complexities?
Ever seen any real, conclusive evidence that one species has ever become an entirely new and different species?
I am just musing, folks. I really could care less about evolution.
I used to believe in it.
Now I don't.
It really depends upon how you differentiate between species, and scientists don't all agree about that. Still, gradual variations across generations have (and it has been observed) produced differences in offspring that are sufficient to prevent the two kinds of offspring from being able to reproduce with one another. That has been observed in fruit flies, and inability to reproduce is one of the ways scientists identify different species. They are still fruit flies. Also, single-celled algae have, as the result of accidentally being moved to a different environment, produced (after several generations of variations) multi-celled offspring, and that is considered to be enough difference to call it a new species of algae. Speciation is a very gradual process that happens in response to environmental changes. One species does not suddenly reproduce another in just one generation. Of course, the question does occur to me, how do they classify the intermediate offspring?
I have owned and spawned some types of aquarium fish that would be a good argument for the occurenc of speciation. It's not that we have directly observed it in their case, but that the genetic relationship is clearly there. Among the small livebearing fish there are some closely related species - guppies, mollies, swordtails and platys - that are easy to keep and breed readily. They share features that indicate how closely related they are, but only the swordtails and platys can still interbreed and produce young that are fertile, although any male among that group of types may attempt to mate with any female. You may also know about mules - the offspring of a horse and a donkey, and mules are normally sterile, although not always. The fact that horses and donkeys can mate to produce young indicates how closely related they are, but the sterility of their offspring indicates how different.
I don't buy into materialistic evolution, of course. (You can't do that and be Christian.) I maybe buy into intelligent design, but I'm not sure how much of it. I'm just not scientist enough to figure all that out, but it is interesting.
Matthew 777 said:
Shouldn't this be rather basic though? If the Bible says something, and the church fathers agree, then we should agree also.
If. The Church Fathers, according to the best information I have so far, do
not seem to agree regarding what is meant by "day" in Genesis 1, and there is a real difference between "historical" and "literal" (of the letter). God told Adam that he would die in the
day that he ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Would you say that's a 24-hour day? Have you also noticed that most of the early Fathers (ante-Nicene) expected Christ to return within a few years or decades to destroy their persecutor, Rome?
It is really fairly arrogant to assume that, if someone disagrees with what you think is patristic or a correct interpretation, that person does not believe the Biblical witness.
