Coming to Peace with Science: Bridging the Worlds Between Faith and Biology by Darrel R. Falk

Author:Darrel R. Falk [Falk, Darrel R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2008-11-29T12:07:00+00:00

IF CREATION OCCURS BY GRADUAL MODIFICATION (POSSIBILITY 3), WHY DON'T WE SEE IT HAPPENING TODAY?

The fossil record clearly shows that the spectrum of organisms that existed on earth in the distant past was very different than it is today. The life forms have changed dramatically from those present in earlier years. Further, it should be apparent from the just-completed brief synopsis of the fossil record that the change has been a gradual one. Transitional forms do exist in the fossil record, and although the record is incomplete, there are some good reasons for that incompleteness. As a professor of biology, I am frequently asked the question as to why, if gradual change is the mechanism God has used in creation, we do not see those gradual changes taking place today.

The fact is that we do see gradual changes taking place today. Although one well-known example of this, the peppered moth, has been partially discredited,26 there are lots of examples in the biological literature of organisms changing their characteristics with time in response to environmental changes.27 Critics, however, point out that these minor changes are meaningless since they are only thatminor changes.

So, have scientists ever observed anything big, like a new structure? There are examples of new structures. For example, fruit flies with an extra pair of wings can be readily bred. Even here, however, where the changes are big ones, critics correctly point out that the extra pair of wings are totally nonfunctional and it would take many more changes for them to be made functional.

Has science ever observed anything really big, like a bona fide new species? Here, too, science can point to some changes that reproductively isolate two groups of organisms. By most definitions of a species, we now have two where previously there had been one.28 However, even at this, the newly created species do not differ in any major fashion from each other.

Humans have been able to produce all sorts of different dogs, but hundreds of years later, they are all still dogs, members of a single species. Despite the wondrous diversity produced by pigeon breeders, we are still left with pigeons, not a single new bird species. If the Word of God's spoken command and the ongoing Presence of God's Spirit has resulted in creation through gradual modification, then why are humans unable to duplicate the process? Why can't we guide it in a manner that will produce major changes in body form?

There is a simple answer to that question. Simple as it is, however, our limited perspective of time makes it extremely difficult to comprehend. Before addressing that limited perspective in detail, there is one sideline that must be noted. Dogs are still dogs and pigeons are still pigeons because breeders have merely been rearranging the preexisting instructions (genes) for making dogs and pigeons. The time frame over which they have been working, long as it may seem to us, has been too short to obtain many new versions of genes. For the most

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