"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." -Charles Darwin
"If I hadn't believed it, I never would have seen it with my own two eyes." - Dr. James C. Kroll
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"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."
Charles Darwin
RAC, see how I combined the two quotes. Well, sorta anyway.
Great quotes RAC! The microbiologist in me especially loves the Darwin one, and it is so true!
"The chance that life could emerge this way (Evolution) is comparable to the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein"
Sir Fred Hoyle
DRL, I've taken the liberty to post in its entirety the Darwin quote you posted out of context. Unfortunately, your contextomy does not accurately convey his original point:
"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.
Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real."
—Charles Darwin, Origin of Species
Let it be known I did not create this post with the intention of starting an evolution/creation debate. The idea was to convey that it is our ability to adapt to change which enables our survival - a point Sean also made in one of his climate change comments. But what the hell, we've debated everything else here, why not evolution/creation. It might be fun.
Charles Darwin saw totally different parts of the world.Through this expedition,he came to the conclusion that life adapts to its environment.Galapagos Islands,for instance,fascinated him to no end.He started out preaching but,the people on deck made him think twice about that.
I subscribe to the theory of natural selection and evolution. As "absurd" as it sounds that we got here slowly through a natural process, I am able to accept it far more readily than the alternative of a creator who, himself must have gotten here somehow.
I think the problem we humans have in dealing with these questions is that the scope in terms of choices in selection, time scales in universe or even human history and the complexity of life itself is that they are simply too grand to truly comprehend? How can any of us really deal with a process that takes millions of years and millions of generations to reach the current stage of life? This problem is compounded by the exponential factor in that we are now on a vertical growth path (technology wise if not genetic wise) and we have a hard time really grasping the changes in the last 100 years, let alone the last 100 million.
I don't claim to have all the answers. It certainly might be a comfort to have a faith in a creator - but I simply don't have the wiring in my head to accept that. Perhaps that's what the "leap of faith" is all about. You can't really prove God's existence, that's why you have to have faith.
RAC, it says the same thing to me, Darwin quote that is. He still says in context it is absurd. The question about the eye is this, how did the first animal know it needed sight?
If you don't wish to debate, that's cool. I love to talk about creation, but you probably knew that.
Sean, yes, it is a "leap of faith", but no more that to believe in evolution. See, no human was there for whatever happened. We know there is no real evidence for evolution. No "missing link". We know that many things in evolution have been frauds, or mistakes. No where in the fossil record is there any proof of Macroevelution. Creation scientist believe in Microevelution, but Macroevelution is a pseudoscience at best, just as is creation science.
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