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Creation, Darwin 150 years

28th March 2009, hej

 

Creation, Darwin: variation of the Origin the species

This year 2009 is the year of Darwin, not the place in Australia but the man (John Clements Wickham named "Port Darwin" in honour of his former shipmate Charles Darwin).

Darwin was born 200 years ago in February. In July it is 150 years since Darwin presented his theory and in November it is 150 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species.

But a most extraordinary event has been noticed. The study of variation in species begun by Darwin has reached an evolutionary end. Evolutionists struggle with the orthodoxy of hidebound theory or resort to Punctuated Equilibrium. Now all the dynamic work in this area is by ...Intelligent Design proponents and Creationists!

But we should not be surprised, as Darwin was himself a creationist! His investigation was begun in a spirit of admiration for the Creator.

From a book by Ann Moyal, Platypus: the extraordinary story of how a curious creature baffled the world (Allen &Unwin), we learn that Darwin was seeing evidence for belief in God.

Moyal found that when Charles Darwin at 22 visited Australia, “Darwin noticed the conical pitfall of an ant lion and observed how it shot jets of sand at its prey exactly as the same genus, though a different species, did in the old world. Now he asked, 'what would the disbeliever say to this? Would any two workmen ever hit on so beautiful, so simple and yet so artificial a contrivance? It cannot be thought so. The one hand has surely worked over the whole world'”

The 'one hand' was Darwin's Creator God. He saw, at 22, such marvellous evidence for an amazing design by a clever designer.

Darwin, himself, saw in the animals of Australia some early evidence that posed problems for his theory. Moyal continues “For Darwin, the ornithorhynchus (platypus) and echidna with their lack of radiating subfamilies, were both few and aberrant and they posed problems for the theory of evolution by natural selection”. Yet Darwin pushes on and uses the platypus as a key example of ‘natural selection’ in an argument for survival of the fittest!

Darwin's ideas came to a world where some philosophers argued that a Creator must have made everything perfect. Darwin's observations did not fit that theory of the Creator, however, instead of dumping the theory of a perfect creation, many argued then that there must be no god (which was convenient for other reasons).

Now the theory that creation was perfect has died of old age, and Creationists have been liberated by intelligent design and a world of adaptive programming and electronic control technology, they are forging new theories of an adaptive creation that fits the evidence very well.

In a recent edition of the Journal of Creation Dr Peter Borger, a researcher in cellular and molecular aspects of pulmonary diseases, argues that the enormous genetic redundancy (where up to 1 in 10 genes are dispensable) allows variation. In genomes they see both genetic losses and novelties emerging. They are finding in plants, that what are called 'baranomes' have information 'frontloaded' where they adapt to the environment they are conceived in, as well the ability to duplicate and translocate to create new types. This information from the genomes shows that over time the variety in non essential genes in a population is reduced, while the number of variant sub-species populations increased. The result is a wonderful and beautiful array of types in a species ('kind') with some flourishing in extreme environments. This creationist source is very happy to notice that their Creator was such a clever designer that he designed in flexibility, redundancy and sub-speciation! As designing in flexibility is what a good engineer does, this in not a surprising conclusion to make.

So Darwin, made bitter by the loss of his ideal of a Creator of 'perfect' species, may be very happy that researchers in variation of the species are now finding amazing evidence for an intelligent designer, and that, just as he had considered at 22,

“The one hand has surely worked over the whole world!”

Or as Job puts it,

But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach you; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell you: Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach you: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto you. Who knows not in all these that the hand of the LORD has wrought this? (Job 12:7-9)

For further on design in nature

Bees, shells and Design in nature

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