Devolution

Contra the fallacy the Bible teaches stasis

'As C. S. Lewis rightly said, when man sinned he brought into being a human species which was not the species which God created.' - Arthur Custance

Evolutionists like to pretend that Christianity (and the Bible) deny variation. They're continually criticizing creationists for maintaining that the world is exactly as it was created by God. This is not what the Bible teaches, or what modern creationists claim. Let's look at some examples.

a. the world was created perfect; it is not so now
b. Mankind (through Adam) fell; the consequences were mortality, pain in child birth, etc.
c. the creation was somehow (in ways hard to determine) affected negatively by the Fall... and survival became more difficult
d. a world that was meant to survive on plant eating... became one that featured predators.
e. the flood radically changed the features of the planet
f. mankind began to live less and less long.
g. man became a rebel against the Creator.
h. men had (by animal breeding) created many 'new' species of animals... or at least different in some way. (Not to mention the same with plant domestication.)

- What's usually ignored in all this, is the various breeding attempts by man. Animal and plant breeding is an activity millennia long... and we have little idea of what the results of it were. The question I have is; 'how many 'species' of animals and plants that we see in the world today (or even in the rocks) are the result of man's deliberate interference with the creation? How many were the inadvertent result of man's activities?

- I think it's certainly true that many 'species' have 'emerged' after the creation. (All this depends a lot on how species is defined.) I doubt whether any new 'kinds' have emerged. (I consider the idea fish became felines utterly impossible.)

- it's my conviction that what we see in the world is not evolution, but mutability. (I'd like to call it devolution, but the word seems to have comic book overtones, or sound like an idea from science fiction. (I seem to remember a story on devolution from Larry Niven, in Analog I think.) I think in time people will reject the idea of evolution for that of devolution. Mutations destroy information, and this sink hole can never lead to the progression of creation outlined in the theory of Neo-Darwinism. Despite what evolutionists claim, creationists have learned a lot since Darwin, and they are far more aware of change within the created order. In this restricted way Darwinism has been a good thing for creationists. (That being said, the social toll has been devastating.)

- No one doubts that the world changes. What we're debating is the manner in which it changes, the direction in which it changes. In my view entropy and mutation lead to devolution, not evolution. (Evolution really only means change; but its come to mean a progressive, or 'upward' change... and I see this as impossible.) The change isn't from death to life, but from life to death. (I believe it's only because of the incredible measures taken by the Creator to protect against mutation that the creation hasn't already died out.) If you're keeping up with recent discoveries in biology (or trying to keep up) you'll have noticed the many, and intricate measures there are to combat change within the copying process. Having said that I don't see any necessary reason for life on earth ending in the foreseeable future. I'm merely talking here about the direction of change.

- I don't like the term micro-evolution, but we seem to be stuck with it. I define it as the change in the created kinds over time. I think Mutability is a better word, but I doubt evolutionists (materialists) can be persuaded to use it.

- I'll end with a question. If there had been in the past a creation event somewhat akin to the one portrayed in Genesis, isn't devolution what you would expect to see?

Notes;
1. Lewis/the problem of pain p.83/85
2. Animal breeding (from Topics)
- 'Linnaeus introduced his system of plant classification in his Systema Naturae in 1735 and in this and subsequent editions there is no hint that one species is related to another through some ancestral form. Himmelfarb claims that in the final edition of his Systema Naturae published in greatly expanded form thirty-one years after the first, Linnaeus tentatively suggested that the original number of species created may have been multiplied by interbreeding one species with another (Himmelfarb 1968, 170)
- Himmelfarb (1968, 170) quotes Knut Hagberg's Carl Linnaeus (London: 1952, 197) who in turn quotes from Linnaeus' Dissertation on Perloris (1744) to show that Linnaeus conceded that it was "possible for new species to arise", and Himmelfarb adds that Linnaeus was held suspect by orthodox Christians for saying so.
3. Lamarckism (is it really dead?)
- Lamarck might have been fooled by the variations he saw. (e.g. a bird's beak getting longer let's say.) There are variations; but the question is, 'where do they come from?' i.e. are they 'acquired' from without or from within? i.e. are they the result of acquiring new information? or are they the result of the expression of 'unused' genetic information? are they the result of mutations?