Evolutionary Party Line

Last night I attended a Fyke Nature Association (local bird and conservation club) meeting and heard a fellow science educator's talk / PowerPoint presentation about his trip to the Galapagos. In general, the man did a fine job, having photographed a large number of the species and habitats of several of the islands.

But, as might have been expected, he concentrated on the finches and their "rapid evolutionary changes" brought about by climate changes (wet and dry spells.) "See how fast evolution can happen--within only a few years beaks became bigger or smaller by natural selection!"

Of course that wasn't evolution at all, but slight variations in beak size, with populations increasing and decreasing as food supplies to which each species of finch was adapted became more or less plentiful. When the weather conditions reversed, so did the populations of big and little-beaked finches. So "evolution" goes nowhere. Yes, there is natural selection, but it can't cause any large-scale changes because it doesn't add any new information, but merely selects from genes already present. In fact, as genes are selected for survival in a particular environmental niche, information is actually lost, so any large-scale "advancements" are impossible.

So this fellow science educator (he's a chemist, so let's not be too hard on him :-) was following the party line of naturalistic Darwinism, probably not having really thought out the problems inherent in the "theory."

Late in the talk, he asked the question, "how did this come about?" Someone in the audience shouted, mockingly or out of ignorance, "intelligent design!" which was received with equally mocking laughter from the audience. The speaker chortled, "Yea, right," or something to that effect.

The audience and the speaker had just mocked The Intelligent Designer and had become inexcusable, according to Romans 1:18-20. So, much prayer is necessary as to how to approach these very nice (in the human sense) people who have "exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures." (Romans 1:23) Perhaps some idolotrous birder will happen upon this humble blog and be encouraged to open a Bible instead of a Sibley (that's almost a private birding joke.)

p.s. Perhaps I should quote the entire relevant passage so you won’t have to go to the trouble of looking it up (although that would more a blessing than trouble, especially if you read it in the context of all of Romans Chapter 1—and then keep reading.) But here is the immediate context, after the reading of which you will have no excuse:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures (Romans 1:18-23 NASB)