Darwinists? I ask you to do just two things...
"It is a cardinal error to theorize before you have all the facts." -- Sherlock Holmes
I noted with great glee that one of our most Darwinist of commenters used this line in a comment thread from this post. Unintended irony is the best kind, don't you think? For of course Darwin knew little or nothing of the composition of the cell as he wrote his most famed books, thinking it to be some kind of protoplasm. In his last years he became more aware of cellular complexity but not to any great extent, nor did he allow such awareness to enter into the private room of his Great Hypothesis, the idea that all life came from one common ancestor!
Darwin not only theorized before he knew all the facts, he theorized while being entirely wrong about everything happening "under the hood" of organisms. He was aware of Mendelian genetics and certainly had to know of Pasteur's findings concerning biogenesis or abiogenesis as you may prefer. He was determined to do what his grandfather could not, and that was to cobble together a cohesive theory of evolution that had a cause and an effect that could be observed and understood. Lamack had to be tossed aside (although from the solemn intonations of narrators who clutter up video of animals and plants in action I am not entirely sure that shade-tree Darwinists entirely understand this) but natural selection with the help of good old mutation stepped up to save the day. So Darwin thought and so many believe to this day.
Tubeworms depending upon sulfides that they provide to specialized bacteria
Those of us who are not hoodwinked into the Darwinist camp have seen quite clearly that the evidence a Darwinist holds up for inspection always turns out to be speciation. Organisms change, but they change by rearrangement of already existing information (occasionally) or by the LOSS of information (usually) and this process is in fact built in to the organism. In fact, the organism is so wonderfully complex and brilliantly designed that scientists keep learning more about how "simple" reproduction works and continually have to revise their Evolution Fairy stories in an attempt to keep up. Meanwhile, real scientists study nature and apply the lessons to produce more efficient engines and better flying machines.
Is it tragic or comedic that we spend millions to turn our electronic eyes and ears to outer space looking for any tiny hint of design (SETI) and blithely ignore it when it presents itself over and over again in nature? In any event, here is what I am asking Darwinists today:
Observe!
In my fifty-seven years on the planet a great deal of my time has been spent observing nature (animals, plants, rock formations, bodies of water, stars, etc.) and thinking about what I see. I have read literally thousands of books and hundreds of them were devoted to science and philosophy. (I also have a weakness for the occasional brain candy of James Patterson or Michael Crichton now that I have read all the Michener and Dickens and White and other classic authors too dead to publish new stuff). I have spent many hours two-tracking with my laptop while watching nature shows on Animal Planet or Discovery or History Channel and etc. I observe and I think.
Last night for probably the third time I watched a Blue Planet episode that included footage of the odd creatures found at the bottom of the ocean. I do not mean deep-sea creatures like the Vampire Squid or the various cold jellyfish that look like neon signs ripped from Vegas casinos. The cold seeps (methane) and 170 degree hot vents (sulfides) found deep in oceans are both bacterial-dependent ecosystems of organisms that could not survive independently. Both have a large contingent of tube worms and arthropods and mussels of various kinds. The mussels and or tube worms are designed to bring nutrients to the bacteria, upon which they depend to live and then other creatures live off of or alongside of them. We have only explored perhaps two percent of the ocean's bottom. What else is there? How many other colonies of intricate interdependencies are there to be found amongst the funnels and vents and cracks and crevices of the mysterious deep?
You have to watch these shows with your propaganda filters turned on. For instance, the narrator at one point talks of how tube worms that can only survive in 170 degree temperatures at the bottom of the ocean on the sides of smokers because they provide a home for specialized bacteria that can only survive within creatures that present them with the sulfides and other nutrients that they then convert into food that allow the tube worms to subsist at the bottom of the ocean completely separate from any energy from the Sun and therefore not part of the normal carbon-based Sun-driven food chain that is familiar to us land based life forms was evidence of evolution. Was the narrator even listening to himself? Such creatures cannot survive in shallow water nor would they be found on land and they certainly would not belong in the family tree of the sea life we find in tide pools along the shorelines.
Mussels depending upon methane on "shore" of an inner brine sea deep below the surface of the ocean
One entire ecosystem depending upon methane. One entirely based on sulfides. This is supposed to be evidence for the beginning of life on Earth?! Can anyone imagine which came first, the bacteria or the tubeworm and what poofed either of them into existence? My head hurts imagining Woolf making some effort to explain the fifty gazillion steps needed to wonderously transform hot emissions from within the planet into these intricate and varied creatures.
We saw fantastic footage of Manta Rays feeding on the eggs of breeding fish and various schools of fish going all hive mind on predators by making themselves into rapidly moving and cohesive balls and funnels far larger than the individual predators and somehow moving in concert to let hungry mouths close on just-opened nothingness in the middle of a million fins and scales. How do sardines all move together or dance into myriad formations in instantaneous ways to avoid Marlin mouths? How do birds know to fly in formations that allow them to go where they should not have enough stored energy to get to, how do sharks and sunfish know when and where to go to access fish that will pick the unwanted parasites from their skins and how do these fish know when it is safe and wise to approach a shark? What came first, the shark or the remora? Who taught terns to "walk on water" in order to pick morsels of food off the surface of the sea?
Sardines form a moving ball-shape mass to evade death by shark
How do Salmon get spawned in fresh water, live in salt water and then know to go back to their birthplace to spawn in fresh water...and then die? Why do mayflies even bother to live and die? By what strange steps would seventeen-year cicadas evolve such a strange life and how could that possibly be an evolutionary advantage? How can the ridiculous duck-billed platypus be understood to have been at the end of a series of evolutionary choices? How do you explain the skull and tongue of the woodpecker, the explosive systems of the bombadier beetle, the unwavering and amazing skill of the mounds of the brush turkey...?
I quote from the Bible.
Proverbs 30
Sayings of Agur
1 The sayings of Agur son of Jakeh—an oracle :
This man declared to Ithiel,
to Ithiel and to Ucal: 2 "I am the most ignorant of men;
I do not have a man's understanding.
3 I have not learned wisdom,
nor have I knowledge of the Holy One.
4 Who has gone up to heaven and come down?
Who has gathered up the wind in the hollow of his hands?
Who has wrapped up the waters in his cloak?
Who has established all the ends of the earth?
What is his name, and the name of his son?
Tell me if you know!
5 "Every word of God is flawless;
he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.
6 Do not add to his words,
or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar.
7 "Two things I ask of you, O LORD;
do not refuse me before I die:
8 Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.
9 Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say, 'Who is the LORD ?'
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God.
It is all too obvious that the cell is designed, that the millions of different varieties of living things are so numerous and complex and wonderful and strange and different to have simply happened. When you lift the hood of Darwinism you find this: By some remarkable chance existence poofed into being and it was JUST RIGHT for the Sun and Earth Moon and the Solar System to exist to be JUST RIGHT for life to JUST POOF INTO EXISTENCE SOMEHOW and by unexplained and unobservable ways. Then, in a statistically impossible series of events (just as all these other events are statistically impossible) not just one thing but a broad spectrum of all sorts of different living things of all shapes and colors and sizes are found in the four corners of the Earth. We find life at five miles above sea level and on the floor of the ocean's deep and everywhere in between. We find it in cold and hot, big and small, useful to man and a pestilence to him, dangerous and peaceful, sedentary and swift, carnivorous and omnivorous and herbivorous and, heck, some things that say bring on those yummy hot sulfides, baby!
Pilot fish hang out with sharks and turtles and rays. Heck, you have things living in you and on you that are too small for you to see but most of them help you live. You think you would be able to digest all that stuff you eat without hundreds of different bacteria living inside of you? You have any idea what a mess the world would be without carrion eaters and dust mites?
THINK! For Darwin to be right is not plausible in any way, shape or form. To believe in Darwin is to throw away all logic and reasoning altogether for the sake of avoiding one subject: A Creator God. A Creator God who did what the Bible says He did explains the flora and fauna and the rock layers and what we know of human history and human nature and morality. If you were not running away from God so fast you would stop and realize how ludicrous Darwinism really is...and in the end, how evil. For it is an evil man who takes the detour sign away from the washed-out bridge and who sets up traps to injure and kill others. You who teach Darwinism to children and turn them from God have done more than simply been mistaken yourselves, you have taken part in the destruction of lives that could have been redeemed.
What does the Book of Romans say?
16I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."
Martin Luther read this passage in a format much like this:
Habakkuk 2:4 (King James Version)
4Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.
Martin Luther read this passage, understood it, and it changed Christianity in Europe. Jesus taught it, of course. Christians are not justified by our works, no, but by our Salvation through Christ attained by faith. Our works are the result of our faith and not the content of it!
18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
28Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
God has given each of us an ability to reason and understand. Each and every one of you can see plainly that life is no accident. Will you admit it or will you defy all reason and logic for the sake of you atheistic naturalistic materialistic worldview?