The Missing Link

Lately, a heated debate has been raised here in Texas over proposed changes to the state science curriculum. TEA officials would like to present evolution as the sole choice for instruction in science classes and, predictably, people of faith would like to present creationism at LEAST as a possibility alongside evolution. The scientists say that Texas students are being "held back" because they're not allowed to consider evolution alone and it's time for education in Texas to come into the modern era and put outdated and unproven notions aside.

Since I am a Christian AND a science teacher in Texas, I'm watching the debate with some interest.

First, to the science community, I'd like to ask a few questions. Science is about empirical evidence, is it not? Theories that are accepted as fact rely on the fact that everything we know about the behavior of the things affected by the theoretical construct are true. For example, we cannot see an atom and therefore have no means by which absolutely verify the physical construction of one, but we can see how atoms of different elements behave, bombard them with alpha particles, etc., to build evidence to support the theory of atomic structure. The question, then, is where is the empirical evidence to support the idea that species have evolved from lower forms of life? I mean, we hear scientists all the time talking about life merely springing forth from the primordial soup and then evolving into the forms we see today, but tell me how it happened! Duplicate your experiment in the laboratory! I'll spot you the living bacteria (life cannot be duplicated without a living progenitor); show me how it evolves over several generations and then extrapolate that into a human being in the approximately 65,000,000 years since almost every living thing on planet earth was extinguished by the K-T extinction meteor impact. Well, I spotted you the tough part; make the unliving alive, so show me how simple organisms evolve over time into something else!

That's just it; you can't! You see adaptation as something that is undeniable and you reason that life adapts over time for survival, but I have yet to see evidence of adaptation over an extended period of time OR fossil ancestors that were substantially different than their predecessors.

Show me the missing link!

You can't, and you won't, because it's not there!

Another question: What are scientists afraid of? If their theories are sound, won't they be held up by irrefutable evidence? Won't they be accepted because they're undeniable? The scientists in this argument remind me of Obama supporters. If what they say is correct, won't it bear fruit? What's the harm in letting the evidence speak for itself?

If the Divine spark that we attribute to God was some sort of cosmic fluke, duplicate it now! If men evolved from some lower form of life, show me the "transitional species" in the fossil record!

At least when I believe that God created it all, I have the very evidence of creation as proof. Scientists tell us that there may be millions of earth-like planets out there, but the more we look, the more obvious it is that there are not! Earth exists in the area around our sun known as the "habitable zone" in ours and similar solar systems. Scientists also tell us that life as we know it must have liquid water (part of why the "habitable zone" is called what it is) and needs chemical components that are typically only found on rocky planets like earth; minerals like carbon, phosphorous, nitrogen, and oxygen. Temperature and the amount of sunlight available are also keys to life; too cold, and liquid water does not exist (at least not on the surface). If it's too warm, only water vapor is possible and, once again; no life! So God placed earth exactly where it needed to be, placed the cornucopia of life there that He willed, and called His creation "good." I'd say "great," or "awesome," but He said good, so that's good enough for me!

I'm sure the secular scientists will win this one, because they own all of the seats of power in Austin. People of faith are seen as simpletons with no scientific background from which to argue, so they're not taken seriously even if they object.

Regardless of the outcome, the scientific community owes it to the public and to themselves to reconsider their stance until irrefutable evidence on their side of the argument has been found. Until then, the fact that the Word of God says what it says and cannot be disproven should be evidence enough of a viable alternative theory!