What
Part of Evolution Theory Do Creationists Accept?
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Author: Doug Sharp |
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This article is written to clear up some confusion as to what pieces of evolutionary theory we really are creating a "revolution" over. Creationists and Evolutionists usually agree on the hard scientific facts. It is the interpretation of the scientific evidence where we may or may not diverge.
Some evolutionists think that in order to believe in the Bible, we need to believe in the fixity of the species. I do not know of very many creationists who believe that way. We allow for quite a bit of "evolutionary" change, in fact, some parts of our theory require it. We believe that all of the diversity of land animals present on the earth today came from Noah's Ark. Each of the animals on the ark contained the full genetic potential for all of the species and subspecies found in the earth. It is a mistake to try to make equivalent a "species" and a biblical "kind." When the Bible says that all life reproduced "after their kind" it did not disallow any change that might take place. This change, which we allow for, is called "microevolution" and we do not dispute this.
Given that, we do dispute that microevolution can produce new genetic information. In fact, we believe that the trend we observe is the deletion of genetic information through mutations, and not the production of new genetic information. A point mutation may result in the expression of a trait that is normally recessive or hidden were it not for the fact that a dominant gene is altered. Most mutations observed by scientists are detrimental to the organism. Much like a computer program that has been altered accidentally with one letter missing or changed, a genetic code sequence that has been damaged will result in a subroutine that will not function as expected. Since there is so much redundancy built into the master plan of life, some damage of this sort may not be detrimental, but it may result in other biochemical processes taking over.
Similarly, if you cut off someone's finger, it won't usually result in the loss of life. The person may continue to live quite well with four fingers. But such damage will not result in offspring with four fingers. Likewise, point mutations generally are not passed on to the next generation. We as creationists expect such events to be extremely rare.
We believe that it is nonsense to expect that environment will affect genetic information. That is Lamarckianism. Instead we believe the other way around. God created certain animals for various niches in the environment. They exist in that environment because they were created that way. It is part of God's design. Gregor Mendel, who was a creationist, fathered the science of genetics.
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Creationists Do Not Dispute: |
Most Creationists Reject: |
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Natural Selection |
Millions of Years of Earth History |
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Microevolution |
Megaevolution: Molecules to Man |
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Variation Within Species |
Embryonic Recapitulation |
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Existence of Fossil Dinosaurs |
Accumulation of Favorable Mutations |
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Extinction |
Survival of the Fittest |
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Genetics |
Origin of Life from Non-Life |
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Environmentalism & Conservation |
Vestigial Organs |
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Homology: Proof of Common Designer |
Homology: Proof of Common Ancestry |
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