Notes and comments on today's evolution talk

I want to clarify a few things and add some notes:

First: When I talked to a few people after church I realized I may have miscommunicated about the role of viruses. It is true that there are some defunct parts of DNA that could possibly be the result of some ancient virus that infected an ancestor egg or sperm cell. But I didn't not intend to tell the class that that is how all viruses act. Sure enough some viruses become integrated into the host DNA, becoming part of it for ever, examples are wart viruses, cold sores, herpes, HIV, etc. But not all viruses do that, and even fewer would infect egg or sperm cells and be passed on to offspring DNA. This is why it is taken as good evidence that species who share possible ancient infections, are related. These are too rare to show just coincidental occurrences in separate species, even if you think the world is billions of years old, (certainly not if you think it is <10,000).

Second: The example of the deficient vit. C gene is more convincing than I think I made it. I should have mentioned that making Vit. C is complicated and requites several parts, several cooperating machinery. We, and other primates, all have defunct genes that in other animals helps them to make vit. C. There are other mammals that have defunct vit. C genes in this process, namely fruit bats and guinea pigs. But their Vit. C making machinery is defunct for different reasons, they have a different genetic screw up, we and apes have the same screw ups. Let me give you a strange example to make the point. Let's say there is a blue eyed orphan kid with cystic fibrosis AND color blindness (both inherited genetic). We screen people claiming to be parents for a genetic match. Obviously using "blue eyes" would be a silly cause lots of people have blue eyes. Color blindness is caused by several things genetically so that, though better, isn't definitive. But cystic fibrosis is caused by very few types of genetic problems. A match for a parent that carries the same cystic fibrosis problem gene as the boy, AND the color blindness, is a match! Now, I know it is complicated, but our relatedness to apes is probably MORE founded than the hypothetical genetic test just described, for the exact same reasons. What I didn't have time to talk about is that this type of information also tells us, scientifically, that modern man, even in all his forms, probably have the same, THE SAME, ancestor... we all came from 1 or just a few father and mothers. (adam and eve?, who also couldn't make Vit. C!!!! - the bible is right!)

Thirdly: While it may absolutely be possible that species where created each in their own form, individually, there is alot of strange things that would have had to be created along with them. Such as: an absolutely defunct Vit. C machinery in Adam and Eve, that we all inherited... why?....and many other strange deficiencies in our DNA and other animals DNA that God would have had to have created in a deficient state.(why?) other examples are the human appendix - useless, the ability of a human infants to support their own weight by gripping onto something - now useless (but similar to other primates gripping onto mothers fur), and, in other animals, such as salmon fish's adipose fin (a useless fin), and many other things rendered useless over time (you can ask me for more examples). Why would he create useless things? I know some would say: perhaps we don't yet know their use... but it's pretty clear that a person with out an appendix... has no change ill or good what so ever.

Fourthly: We didn't have time to talk about how things are aged, but it would have been boring anyway, to sum up, what we are left with is these choices:
1. Things did evolve like they certainly scientifically look like they did. or
2. Things where created pretty much as is, but they LOOK like they evolved.
You see, the science isn't wrong at all to make the conclusions it makes. For example: If adam was made "from dust".. he was made an adult, we assume. So on day 2 of his life, if you looked at him, you would probably say he looked, .... 30 years old? But he was only 1 day old. What about trees, they have rings.... first tries presumably had rings too.. showing "incorrect" ages. The point is, from where the science data sits, it tells a certain story. If we choose to believe something else, it is by faith alone. What we should never do is ever ever, never never ever, give credence to wacky "creationist science" - the world looks old... if it is younger... it's a miracle..

Next time we'll talk about the part of science that leads to God and how to talk about that with seekers.