I understand. It's hard when you realize that people you trusted lied to you. But these are the facts. You were given an edited bit of Darwin's writing:
"all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form"
The real text turns out to be:
"Therefore I should infer from analogy that
probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed by the Creator"
And now you see that this statement is entirely consistent with Darwin's final words of his book:
"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally
breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."
I'm not saying you lied. I'm saying you trusted the wrong people.
The lie is when they lied to you about what Darwin thought. Evolutionary theory is the best explanation we have now for the way living populations change over time. Even honest and informed YE creationists admit it:
Evolution is not a theory in crisis. It is not teetering on the verge of collapse. It has not failed as a scientific explanation. There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it. It is not just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion. It is a productive framework for lots of biological research, and it has amazing explanatory power. There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well.
I say these things not because I'm crazy or because I've "converted" to evolution. I say these things because they are true. I'm motivated this morning by reading yet another clueless, well-meaning person pompously declaring that evolution is a failure. People who say that are either unacquainted with the inner workings of science or unacquainted with the evidence for evolution...
Creationist students, listen to me very carefully: There is evidence for evolution, and evolution is an extremely successful scientific theory. That doesn't make it ultimately true, and it doesn't mean that there could not possibly be viable alternatives. It is my own faith choice to reject evolution, because I believe the Bible reveals true information about the history of the earth that is fundamentally incompatible with evolution. I am motivated to understand God's creation from what I believe to be a biblical, creationist perspective. Evolution itself is not flawed or without evidence. Please don't be duped into thinking that somehow evolution itself is a failure. Please don't idolize your own ability to reason. Faith is enough. If God said it, that should settle it.
YEC Dr. Todd Wood
A blog about the creation/evolution debate from the president of Core Academy of Science.
toddcwood.blogspot.com
See above.