Jan 7, 2009

With My Evolving Grandchildren

This is my week to deal with the Evolution of Mankind from lower ages to higher. Their parents are on vacation to celebrate almost 20 years of marriage, and I am babysitting for four young people in grade and high schools. Fortunately the oldest one drives and furnishes transportation for the others, so I have stayed home and kept house, including washing lots of clothes. A bad cold means I am generously using the $$ left by the parents to buy dinners rather than make them--although homemade burritos is on tonight's menu.

The grocery store provided an opportunity to pick up a magazine to read. UNTIL I discovered that ALL the articles in the January issue of Scientific American are devoted to "The Most Powerful Idea in Science." At least ten articles promote and defend the theory of the evolution of mankind from lower organisms.

I concluded that the SciAm issue was written in response to the movie, EXPELLED: NO INTELLIGENCE ALLOWED, in which Ben Stein questions both people who believe and disbelieve in the theory of the evolution of man. Stein's subdued, yet penetrating questions and the resulting answers easily show why the theory should be doubted. Most importantly, the documentary demonstrates how scientists who disagree with the theory of evolution--no matter how well qualified, are freqently prohibited from continuing to teach and to publish.

So last night all five of us watched Ben Stein's movie, EXPELLED. The grandkids learned how important it is to question and then listen carefully to the answers from more than one side before believing what scientists say and write. We all laughed as a primary proponent of the evolution of mankind claimed that life could have been 'seeded' on earth by a greater intelligence from some other world--yet that greater intelligence could not be God. The kids were shocked at the demonstrated hatred (of God and imperfect human beings) by some of the proponents of evolution.

The grandkids need to thank their Uncle D who was so generous in buying multiple copies of the video for all his nieces and nephews. The video is an excellent start in training students in justifiable skepticism of scientists who have agendas (funding, political, social, and irreligious) that interfere with honest scientific research.

3 comments:

Kansas Catholic said...

Those grandkids are fortunate to have a grandmother who cares so much to teach them things like this. Hope you get over your cold soon.

Anonymous said...

Yes, it is good to see a close, caring family. I hope your family enjoyed Christmas!

Concerning evolution: I recently took a few courses in biology where one of the professors discredited the idea of a soul and the story that is found in the Book of Genesis; and he rested his opinions almost solely on the scientific method. He was, however, one of the few biology professors I have ever seen or heard of that did not act like he hated religion. He was even-keeled, meticulous, and a good teacher. In the classroom, he never tried to play the role of a politician or tried to act like he was some sort of quasi-theologian.

Anyway, throughout the course he proceeded to teach the details concerning the classifications of species, DNA, genetic traits, evolution, etc. And within his course, I found sufficient evidence to discount the generally-held scientific view that man evolved from single-cell organisms (or from any other organism).


In summary, I found:


1. That the evolution of species is absolutely real and true. It must happen for animals to survive. Essentially, many births are required to ensure survival, and from this profundity of births the species tends to adapt across generations -- those that survive determine the traits that are passed-on. However, no such 'adaptation from many births' has ever been required (or observed) to ensure man's survival, or has ever been recorded in history. This is quite clearly an enormous difference between man and every other species on Earth.


2. The idea that man evolved from the ape or from a microbe has no trail of evidence. For almost any other species -- even extinct species -- the fossil record indicates obvious Darwinian evolution. Also, the ape-like species that are portrayed to be part of man's evolutionary past have no scientific or credibly acceptable proof of being such; and also lack an evolutionary fossil record to clearly indicate such evolution.

3. Whales, cows, and humans are all said to be somehow related to one another simply because they share similar traits (similar bones, similar organs, etc.); and these similarities are used in support of the arguments of Darwinian evolution. But the argument that mankind and other species may have similarities because they both live in a world that has water, gravity, sunlight, darkness, warmth, cold, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon, etc. -- and so have similar 'solutions' (lungs, eyes, etc.) -- is roundly ignored, even though the scientific method requires that such an argument be considered.


The evidence in support of the Darwinian evolution of species is enormous. It cannot be discounted. And yet, it simply cannot be used to describe how mankind has survived until the present day. The fossil record is rife with support for Darwinian evolution for almost every species that has ever lived under the sun. And yet, no similar fossil record exists for man.

Also, if one goes out into the woods and prairies, one can find flowers, grasshoppers, beetles, foxes, bears, deer, groundhogs, squirrels, rabbits, and birds that produce large numbers of offspring -- far too many than could ever be expected to survive in the environment in which they live. One can find bogs where frogs lay thousands of eggs, and yet only a few survive. But one cannot walk into the woods, or into the prairies, or into hospitals where similar numbers of human babies are being born, in order to increase their chances of survival and to propagate their species.


Anyway, these are some of the things I thought about and observed during my classes.

Anonymous said...

Comment #2 above by Anonymous is an outright tissue of lies. To say that there is not a fossil record connecting man to apes is just garbage. Not even worthy of a response and so typical of the the tactics of anti-evolutionsists How do you expect to gain the respect of anyone by posting easily demonstrable lie, Anonymous? The only people you will persuade are the credulous and the ignorant. Is this the target market the Catholic Church these days?

Perhaps you should retake that biology course.