My evolutionist friend at work has an interesting way of dealing with life spawning from inorganic matter. He explains that it is outside the purview of evolutionary science. He stated that was a matter for a chemist to work out. He is able to embrace evolutionary theory and "ignore origins of life", and is quite happy. He takes this gap in 'faith'. We laugh together that we're both a couple of 'believers'.
Evolution explains how life
changes. That is, it describes how life diversified once it was here. As far as the theory of evolution is concerned, the first life could have been put here by God. It doesn't change the theory one bit. It's not that your friend accepts abiogenesis on faith. Rather, it is irrelevant to the question of evolution.
First and foremost, when a creationist speaks about the problem of evolution, it begins with origins. This is why, technically, creationists and evolutionist cannot really debate, because they are not debating the same thing.
Then the problem lies with the creationist since evolution does not deal with the origin of life. I think it is only fair that creationists talk about evolution when they want to debate evolution and talk about abiogenesis when they want to debate abiogenesis.
Second to 'origins of life' is another gap I've seen taken on faith.
That is the decoding/reprogramming of DNA to produce more complex forms/combinations of DNA.
Scientists don't have to take that on faith since they observe it in the data they produce in the lab. We can see the direct results of mutation and selection in such simple experiments as the
Luria-Delbruck fluctuation experiment or the
Lederberg plate replica experiment. We can also see what mutations and selection are capable of doing by comparing the genomes of related organisms. Want to know how humans evolved? Compare the human genome to that of chimps, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans (and even neanderthals). The differences seen between the genomes contain the mutations that led to us. Our genomes are a direct record of our evolutionary history which makes genetics one of the most exciting fields in biology.
My friend from work explains this 'gap' by saying that millions of years have elapsed, and that anything could happen in that amount of time. I'll be honest, I'm convinced that given trillions of years that life would not 'find a way'.
One of the first things you learn in science is that reality is not forced to behave in a way that you want it to. Whether you are convinced or not, that is how evolution works. That is how reality operates. You can be convinced that the Sun moves about the Earth, but the Sun and Earth will not obey your beliefs.
Your friend is right. Time results in divergence. There is no way around it. Mutations accumulate over time. The more time there is the more mutations build up in the genome and within the population.
Do we understand every single evolutionary pathway that has been taken throughout history? Of course not. However, all of the evidence we have gained so far points to evolution as being the major player in producing biodiversity. When scientists want to better understand how life changed in the past they use the theory of evolution to figure it out, and most importantly, it works. The theory of evolution is ultimately a tool used by biologists to study life, and they use this tool because it really works.
Have you actually considered what we (evolutionists and creationists) share in common in terms of science and beliefs?
Most of the time, we share very little. What creationists call science and what evolutionists call science are often very different. For example, you confuse evolution and abiogenesis. Scientists don't do that. Creationists do. We just view science from very different places. It seems to me that creationists see science as a competing theology while scientists view science as a tool for figuring out how reality works. That is why you insist that there is religious faith as part of science. You project your own religious beliefs onto science and assume we believe things based on faith. At least that has been my observation in discussions like these.
Edited by Taq, : No reason given.
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