Information Related to "Can Evolution Explain Life's Complexity?"
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What have we learned since Charles Darwin's treatise on evolution, The Origin of Species, was first published in 1859 ? Science has advanced greatly since those horse-and-buggy days. In addition to a thorough exploration of the fossil record, a vast amount of other information is readily available.
As we saw in considering the fossil record, the controversy about evolution is increasing. Thomas Woodward chronicles the latest round of the intelligent design vs. evolution debate: "It was painfully real, and when the seething controversy exploded in August 2005—triggered by an offhand comment at the White House—millions of Americans shook their heads, either in disbelief or in anger, as it was discussed in headline news and network newscasts.
"Blamed for the growing crisis was an unlikely group of troublemakers, most with Ph.D.s after their names. This scattered group in recent years had grown into a network of several hundred scientists and other scholars . . . In case you hadn't guessed it, the group bore a name: the Intelligent Design Movement" (Darwin Strikes Back, pp. 19-20). The heated controversy quickly spread beyond the United States to most of the world.
Why the confusion and contention? Simply put, as we saw with the fossil record, the increasing scientific evidence doesn't fit the Darwinian model—and evolutionists increasingly are finding themselves on the defensive.
Why has this happened? Mainly because the primary supposed proofs of evolutionary theory have not held up to further discovery and scrutiny.
What about natural selection?
After the fossil record, the second supporting pillar of evolution offered by Darwinists is natural selection, which they hoped biologists would confirm. "Just as the breeders selected those individuals best suited to the breeder's needs to be the parents of the next generation," explained British philosopher Tom Bethell, "so, Darwin argued, nature selected those organisms that were best fitted to survive the struggle for existence. In that way evolution would inevitably occur. And so there it was: a sort of improving machine inevitably at work in nature, 'daily and hourly scrutinizing,' Darwin wrote, 'silently and insensibly working . . . at the improvement of each organic being.'
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