[GonzoII]

With the modern generation, cell phone signals may touch home better...

[Westbrook]

Why is it “Creationism” and not “Creation”?

Why is it “Evolution” and not “Evolutionism”?

Framing the argument the way the author did implies a bias.

[edzo4]

Isn’t the most logical explanation that it is both

[Fiji Hill]

Honest evolutionists will admit that evolution is not a science. It is nothing more than a theory...

Creationists often slam evolution as being "only a theory." But in science, isn't a theory an assumption that is backed by considerable evidence, such as the theory of relativity or the atomic theory?

[Sirius Lee]

God created the universe and DNA is a computer virus he built and lets run wild from time to time just to enjoy its many expressions. I wouldn't be surprised if either He tweaks it now and then, or has programmed an ultimate goal or point into much of that so-called "junk" DNA.

The universe was created, and evolution is an ongoing process within that creation.

[OldNavyVet]

If each and every one of us began as a fertilized egg that then evolved, over nine months, into a delivered baby, it's pretty hard to not accept Darwin's theory.

Given also the fact that every living thing goes through the same process (seed to germinaton to plant, and etc), it's hard to believe that evolution is not a fact.

[allmendream]

Just because stars form through natural processes doesn’t mean that God did not create those stars. The author of this is a small minded blind fool setting up propaganda and straw men arguments because his faith is a small and weak pitiful thing that demands that God did things the way he can easily imagine.

[tacticalogic]

False dichotomy, or reason?

[albionin]

I think this author makes a lot of unsupported assumption. The example of the microvilli is an example. Isn’t it possible that the humans with the closer spaced microvilli survived and the ones with further spaced ones died out. Also new bacteria are evolving all the time and the intestines are not the only way they can enter the body. When a new strain of bacteria develops it is sometimes more lethal and then it changes to be less lethal otherwise it would kill all of its hosts. And those people who’s immune systems are unable to fight it off die while those with better immune systems survive to pass on their genes.

As for there being no transitional fossils, I saved this from another thread on this subject when someone else provided it.

http://www.transitionalfossils.com/

I don’t see why it has to be either/ or. Many people see evidence that the universe was created by an intelligence and there is also lots of evidence for the process of evolution. Why can’t both be true.

[stormer]

Haven’t seen one of these threads for a while. Oh well, let me give it to you straight: Evolution is a fact, the theory of evolution has developed to describe the mechanisms of evolution. The idea that this somehow restricts your expectations of god is your problem.

[mjp]

Evolutionists reject the idea of a Creator because they claim that facts must be observable by the senses. Thus, this would exclude God.

Their extreme bias against supernaturalism and immaterialism causes them to have an irrational skepticism of all the testimonies of individuals who have personal experiences of God's saving power in their lives.

[sasportas]

To Job's brilliant "experts," and by extension our "brilliant" expert evolutionists, God presents a quiz for them:

Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?

Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where was thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Job 38:2-4

The passage goes on to include the angels, verse 7.

Atheistic and Theistic Evolutionists think they know all about it. The latter claim God did it by evolution. Just a theory, they weren't there. The passage includes the angels, did God create them by evolution also? Little baby angels growing into full grown angels? No, of course not. Same with Adam and Eve. Same with the trees in the garden. Trees have growth rings. They were created supernaturally by a supernatural God bypassing natural process. He doesn't need natural processes to create. The problem with Theistic Evolution, though they claim to believe in God, they really don't.

[BroJoeK]

Fama's article: "Honest evolutionists will admit that evolution is not a science.
It is nothing more than a theory, an assumption that the universe and living things created themselves by a totally naturalistic, materialistic process."

The author's misuse of scientific terms is a certain sign of his scientific illiteracy.
This implies he is not making a scientific argument, but only expressing his religion-based opinions.

In fact: the broad term "science" includes

• confirmed observations, aka "facts",
• laws which mathematically relate data points,
• hypotheses which attempt to explain relationships, causes & effects in nature, and
• theories which are hypotheses confirmed by actual observations of predicted events.

In short a confirmed theory is the highest form of scientific explanation, so saying "evolution is just a theory" is to misstate the science, and demonstrate the authors scientific illiteracy.

Fama's article: "Evolutionists reject the idea of a Creator because they claim that facts must be observable by the senses.
Thus, this would exclude God."

Some evolutionists are atheists and reject the idea of a Creator, but many are Christians, including leaders of Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox churches.

Fama's article: "The theory of evolution contends that billions of years ago the elements which the universe is made up of were packed into a dense mass at an extremely high temperature.
The mass exploded (the Big Bang)..."

Interesting to note that Fama considers astrophysics' cosmological "big bang theory" to be a sub-set of evolution theory.
Of course, Charles Darwin never intended any such thing.
Darwin made two very simple scientific observations: 1) descent with modifications and 2) natural selection.
These had nothing to do with a "big bang" or even, necessarily, with some "primordial soup".

Fama's article: "Now, if life could come into existence by chance chemical reactions, why can’t the process be repeated in the laboratory..."

Scientifically speaking, there are several hypotheses, but no confirmed theories, about how life first began on earth.
Of those hypotheses, abiogenesis and transpermia are just two.
Efforts to confirm abiogenesis by reproducing "life" in a laboratory have demonstrated that "life" is a matter of definition, but that primitive pre-life organic molecules can be produced under conditions similar to early earth.

But the notion that billions of years of early cellular evolution can be reproduced in a matter of months, even under the most controlled laboratory conditions, is inherently ridiculous.

So all "origin of life" ideas remain unconfirmed hypotheses.

Fama's article: "Just how old the fossils are, is itself a matter of controversy."

No it isn't, not among real scientists.
The evolutionary time-line is well established and repeatedly confirmed through world-wide geological stratigraphy, dozens of radiometric dating techniques, DNA mutation rate analysis, and inputs from many other branches of science.

There is no scientific evidence challenging the accepted evolutionary time-line.

Fama's article: "...the fossil record contains no transitional forms.
Transitional forms are not important to evolution - transitional forms are evolution.
No transitional forms means no evolution!"

The question of "transitional forms" is a matter of perspective.
At its most basic level, every life, including you and me, is a "transitional form" between our ancestors and our descendants.
Research shows that every generation inherits a small number of more-or-less random DNA mutations, making the generation unique and "transitional" between ancestors and descendants.

Most DNA mutations are harmless, or get weeded-out by Natural Selection, and that is why species can live with little visible change for millions of years (the average is approx. one million years).
But when the environment changes (hotter, colder, wetter, dryer, new predators, etc.) and a species must either change or go extinct, then changes can be relatively rapid -- perhaps thousands instead of millions of generations.

As for the alleged absence of "transitional forms", in fact the fossil record is chock full of them, this being just one small example:

Fama's article: "The function of DNA is more complex than a computer’s.
Is it not reasonable to conclude that something this complex had an intelligent designer?"

By definition of the word "Christian", all Christians believe in an Intelligent Designer -- of the Universe, of its physical laws, of Earth itself, and of all life that has ever appeared here.
The scientific question is: what processes did God use to create everything we see?
The scientific answer, in part, is "evolution".
Christians and others who believe that God used evolution to create what we see are called "Theistic Evolutionists".

Theistic Evolutionism is the teaching of most Christian churches, including Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox.

Fama's article: "Within the human body there are a number of irreducibly complex systems.
That is, systems that would not function if they were any simpler."

This often repeated assertion is disproved by innumerable examples from both existing species and the fossil record.
In fact, every "modern" feature can be found in more primitive forms -- in living, fossils and/or embryonic development.

skipping down to Fama's conclusion: "Either an intelligent being created everything out of nothing, or nothing created everything out of nothing.
Which do you suppose is more likely?"

All Christians believe that God created everything out of nothing.
The question is whether He used evolution (as we understand it) to accomplish His purposes?
Those of us, including (if I understand correctly) recent Popes, who think God used evolution are known as theistic evolutionists.

[jda]

Let me suggest a couple of additional ways we see the evidence of God:

1) Eclipses: Our solar and lunar eclipses are truly unique in the universe and suggest a special creation. The angularity between the sun, earth and moon (e.g., the size and distance relationships) means that the moon almost exactly covers the sun during a solar eclipse and the earth almost exactly covers the moon during a lunar eclipse.

2) Factors allowing life on earth: The improbability of the factors that allow life to exist on earth occurring anywhere else in the universe is astronomical, also suggesting a special creation.

There are numerous others, but these, to me, are quite remarkable.