Man's evolution from monkey a proven scientific fact? No, it's not - Nov 15, 2005

"I watched the show 'A Species Odyssey' on Channel NewsAsia on November 6 and was very concerned with the way the highly debatable theory of human evolution was presented as a fact.

While micro-evolution, ie the process of mutation and natural selection, can be observed in nature and is a proven fact, macro-evolution - the theory that all the organisms we see today resulted from the micro-evolution of simpler pre-existing organisms, which ultimately came from non-living matter - is not a proven fact.

It is in fact contradicted by huge gaps in the fossil records as well as other theoretical considerations (see www.answersingenesis.org).

Because of the evidence and theoretical considerations, many scientists have now repudiated the theory of macro-evolution (see, for example www.discovery.org/articleFiles/PDFs/100ScientistsAd.pdf), and the number is increasing despite the 'persecutions' by scientific establishments wishing to maintian their unwarranted naturalistic philosophy. (See Dr Jonathan Well's The Icons of Evolution, chapter 12).

We must note carefully that micro-evolution does not necessarily imply macro-evolution. Micro-evolution only implies that given enough time, living things may change as they adapt to the environment. For example, given enough time, apes may change.

But micro-evolution does not necessarily imply that all the living organisms that we see today originates from pre-existing organisms. For example, to say that apes may change given enough time does not necessarily imply that man did come from apes. Above all, micro-evolution does not explain how the RNA/DNA comes about in the first place. (See www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/TJ/docs/tjv10n3_origin_life.pdf).

Paleontologists often construct the supposed intermediates between monkeys and humans with much imagination and subjectivity which resemble myth-writing. (See The Icons of Evolution, chapter 11). Many such constructions have in fact been proven false (eg the Piltdown man which deceived scientists from early 1900s to 1953), while the remaining ones are highly debatable (see www.answersingenesis.org).

People should not be given the idea that evolution from monkey to man is a proven fact of science when it is not and the media should not just present one side of the story without presenting the evidence and theoretical considerations that contradict it.

While many books showing the fallacy of macro-evolution can now be found in bookshops and the National Library in Singapore (eg Dr Michael Denton's Evolution, a theory in crisis, Dr Michael Behe's Darwin's Black box), documentaries showing the fallacy of macro-evolution should also be shown on TV to let the public know the truth about our origin.

Andrew Loke Ter Ern (Dr)"

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The George Bush Paradox: Intelligent Design Vs. Avian Bird Flu

"It is not just a simple change for a virus to have a different transmission vector – changing from blood born pathogen to airborne pathogen. To make that kind of a change the virus itself must change form or retain a resilience to survive in an environment that is not its native environment. That the very mutation of an avian flu to a flu that is a human flu would be not only microevolution (a small change to a species), but macroevolution – as a flu that primarily lives and is transferred by humans would to me be considered a different species of flu?...

It seems quite clear to me that for people to manage to be afraid of a flu epidemic and at the same time deny microevolution and macroevolution is foolish. It has every appearance of someone telling people ‘I don’t believe lightning strikes the closest ground point’ but not offering to prove it by standing next to a lightning rod on the top of a building during a thunderstorm...

To be ethically consistent a strict biblical believer must not believe that new versions of the flu can evolve and take devastating tolls on human life. A believer in Intelligent Design must believe that the evolution of new diseases is done on purpose by the “creator”. This creator, I suspect is not a very nice entity.

If the Intelligent Designer creator – be it alien, god or extra-dimensional creature were to present itself to a court after the flu epidemic of 1918 and 1919 and say ‘I confess to creating this flu that has killed millions of people and harmed many millions of other people.’ I strongly suspect that prosecution for murder would be in order."

[Addendum: Then, turning to his antagonist with a smiling insolence, he begged to know, was it through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed his descent from a monkey? On this Mr Huxley slowly and deliberately arose. A slight tall figure stern and pale, very quiet and very grave, he stood before us, and spoke those tremendous words - words which no one seems sure of now, nor I think, could remember just after they were spoken, for their meaning took away our breath, though it left us in no doubt as to what it was. He was not ashamed to have a monkey for his ancestor; but he would be ashamed to be connected with a man who used great gifts to obscure the truth.

--Wilberforce and Huxley: A Legendary Encounter

(as quoted by Yew Jin)]