Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Evolution Issues: American Belief Opinion Poll

Using a survey of 1,983 adults in all 50 states from March 21 to April 8, 2013, a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center's Religion and Public Life Project showed about 1/3 of Americans reject the belief in evolution, apparently as it is commonly taught in public schools and elsewhere in "science" settings, though the frequently unqualified use of "evolution" in the article makes it difficult to account for some of the ideas mentioned or to explain just what it is some of those polled really believe.

When it comes to the poll's results, I thought it would be closer to 2/3+ who would reject the idea as far as it concerns unintelligent evolution being the origin of life or the cause of new, functional species of life, not to mention seeds and plants and a whole lot of trees, birds, insects, and other functional, living things obviously designed for life on this earth, versus randomly forming on their own which, given the amount of time to date, would have resulted in billions of unfit life forms surrounded by some viable mutations which continue functioning/living, etc. 

Yet, that's not what we see, at all.

Though this poll leaves a good deal out of what is involved in such a question, it does describe the belief of some non-evolutionists as involving "a supreme being [who] guided the evolution of living things."

Is that supposed to mean such a being "guided" triggers like lightning, comets, or volcanic eruptions to stimulate cell growth or mutation when, in fact, such things only destroy and never, ever have they been shown to create new life or to evolve existing life? If so, then that is not what many non-evolutionists actually believe.

If by "guided" it is meant many who reject traditional evolution theories like Darwinism believe a Creator or intelligent being(s) designed and caused life on earth to come about and to evolve through the processes of reproduction and growth within each species, then that is something I find many more people are embracing than ever before, and it is what many have taught and believed long before anyone ever considered adding evolution (as understood by Darwin and by others) to the mix of ideas about the origin of life and the existence of so many varied and wonderful creatures, all in one planet!

Everything has a purpose, and random mutations would not be batting 100% in terms of fitness or purpose in this earth if they were all unintelligently evolved, guided, or produced.

Further, no one I know and who also believes in a Creator or in intelligent creation of life as we know it rejects the idea we can "evolve" in the sense of change within a species over time. That's obviously a part of the design of fleshly creatures, which is why we can exercise and grow new tissue in response to demands placed upon us. But that is not the same thing at all as mutating a hyena into a whale!

Evolutions actually believe such things as a whale originating from a land animal like a hyena in part due to the whale's ability to breathe air, which has to be explained somehow, if not by a Creator, since life originally came from the sea, meaning (if evolution as taught in schools is true) evolution not only somehow produced a whale from cells in the ocean but the ocean’s cells first evolved into a land animal (like a hyena) but then re(de)-evolved into a sea creature, one able to breathe air, only now with no legs and with a new tail and a blow-hole all in a perfect shape able to travel the deep blue seas!

Chance mutation? If so, then it is not only one of such highly unlikely chances which would have to have resulted, but billions of them, as many as there are different life forms now and in times past.

It is for these and for many, many other reasons people like me have and will continue to reject biological evolution as the cause of life or as the cause of the existence of new species over time. There is, in fact, not one scientific experiment which has shown anything occurring that is at all like what many evolutionists claim, since all such experiments are in fact, not random or accidental but "guided" by beings "supreme" to their experiments, namely, the intelligent scientists who arranged and conducted the experiment(s) in the first place, whether or not they realize and accept they are causal members in the chain of events leading to their lab results.