Evolution, Part 3

This is probably one my favorite topics, mainly because I have studied it so much in school and I just hate for all that knowledge to go to waste. I have talked about this a lot with my atheist friends who thought it was a great way to prove there was no God, which is something I would like to discuss for a moment. Does evolution mean there is no God? Does evolution say that God didn't create anything? I personally feel that evolution is a proof for God rather than an argument against Him. When an atheist says that evolution disproves God he is really refuting certain interpretations of Genesis, not God Himself. And rightly so, because interpretations of the bible are subject to testing. If science can disprove an interpretation then by all means, be flexible to hear the case. If I say that the bible declares the world will end on Nov 3rd then I have given something that can be tested, we simply see what happens on Nov 3rd. If I say that the bible says ALL species of living things were created seperately with no common ancestor then I have also given something that can be tested by science. How do we know that all life has a common ancestor? Well there are a number of methods.

1. Comparative Anatomy: This was probably the first thing we noticed when we started looking at how similar certain kinds of animals were to each other. If you have ever dissected a mammal you would know that they are all basically the same. Same basic set of bones, same basic set of organs, same basic functions, same basic reproduction.
2. Developmental Biology: Our next great area of study in evolution is the development of animals during growth in the womb. I have heard all about Haekel's drawings and I am unimpressed because if you take a class in Developmental Biology you will not see drawings, you will see actual pictures. And you will notice how similar all creatures are at these early stages. You then learn how chemical signals, generally universal in most organisms, given at specific times are what drive the limbs to come out as 4 legs instead of 2 legs and 2 arms. Slight modifications in this process give different species thier individual charateristic.
3. Biochemistry: At the cellular level you will see that all organisms share a similar life's chemistry. Metabolism of glucose, amino acids and fats. How food is digested, processed and stored. How the body swaps the waste products of metabolism with the nutrients needed to continue the chemistry. All shared, with slight differences, changes that can even be located on specific genes where mutations can be tracked.
4. Cell and Molecular Biology: Protein structure, how DNA and RNA are processed and read, how DNA is fixed when it gets damaged. Protiens are made of some very basic structures (Beta sheets, coils, turns) to produce higher level functionality (zippers and other binding segments or catalytic sites). Slight alterations in how these are expressed from a sequence of DNA can make huge difference in how they act inside a cell. These slight rearrangements come from mutations on the DNA. We have seen many of these mutations as we compare the functionality of protiens in different species. Amazing!
5. Genetics: Of course everyone points directly to this field, and it is truly one of the more important. What we see in terms of body structure can all be related to what we see in terms of DNA structure. This is a phenotype/genotype relationship and really there is no evolutionary theory if there is no mechanism for the changes in the first place. These changes occur at the level of DNA and DNA is very dynamic, even still. Change in DNA leads to all kinds of changes, many we simply try to avoid because they are associated with disease, but many that occur at a slower more benign rate.
6. There are other fields of study but I will stop with these for now.

Observations from scientists about the continuity of life:

• Life does not come from non-life.
• All living things are born and have parents.
• Like produces like, a species produces after it's own kind (sound familiar?).
• All children resemble thier parents but are not the same, genetic variation exists between parent and child.
• DNA changes over time.
• A species may vary slightly in form and function according to the environment in which it lives.

These are really the basic tenets of evolution. Everything else is our way of verifying how these take place and how extensive they are. Science has certainly strengthened the idea of evolution and it grows stronger on a daily basis. This shouldn't be offensive because it is how the Creator of the universe established it. That in this universe, we are subject to laws, natural laws, and those laws work very well without constant tweaking and intervention. The natural laws of the universe appear to be perfect, interacting perfectly with each other and preserving the world we know and the life that God intends to exist here. I have discovered that Genesis is less about being a science text and more about teaching us who we are and about the place we have with respect to the Creator. That we are created beings, in need of something more powerful than ourselves if we are to overcome our low state, that is as animals.