Thursday, November 29, 2007

Co-evolution vs Reality

There is a concept of animals and plants responding to one another that biologists call co-evolution. The giant hawk moth and how it developed a proboscis long enough to reach the nectar of the Madagascar Star Orchid is an example.

As one who believes in Intelligent Design, Evolution and its adherents intrigue me.

On the subject an individual may select from two alternatives.
1. Things just happened.
2. Things were created.

Both alternatives rely on faith but only one is accepted as fact by folks such as Smithsonian. Since Evolution is referred to as a theory even scientists do not take it as fact but as a theory.

Alternative 1: Over an unknown period, an unknown number of events spontaneously occurred resulting in nothing becoming matter. Then, over another unknown period, that matter evolved into some material that evolved into the universe and all forms of life. The reason and cause of the spontaneous actions are not addressed.
Alternative 2: Someone created matter from nothing. Then the matter was molded into the universe and all forms of life. Cause and why are addressed in the only literature that claims to know, The Bible.

If the first alternative is correct then we are all accidents with accidental thoughts and emotions and your column as well as the magazine are the result of accidental thinking.

In efforts to prove the universe just happened various theories have been developed. Any theory that does not address the beginning of matter misses the point of the theory, to explain creation of the universe.

Those who disbelieve in the existence of a Higher Intelligence (God) and consider the Bible to be not relevant also have faith. The Big Bang Theory depends on a single point of infinitely dense and infinitely hot matter but does not address its origin. From where did the matter come? Did nothing become this matter, how? How was it hot? The Theory makes major assumptions.

Now to the giant hawk moth, has anyone concluded how the cells of the body of a specific moth determined the proboscis was the problem and it was not the legs or the wings? How about how long did it take for one such moth to “evolve” but it died before another moth with the same characteristics came on the scene but of the same gender? How did the body of the moth conclude it not only needed a modification to the proboscis but it had to be of the other gender? It occurs to me evolution requires more coincidences than a reasonable person could accept. I do not know how long the giant hawk moth lives but I imagine it is a relatively short time requiring the two I mentioned before to appear within that short window.

The use of 50 million years for this and 100 million years for that reminds me of a park ranger, I believe at Estes Park in Colorado. At a presentation he explained how something happened 2,000,008 years ago. He explained how he could be so specific is that 8 years earlier when he arrived at Estes Park he was told the something happened 2 million years ago.

Nice concept but I wonder about its validity if the author was just an accident of nature or “evolved” from a monkey.