Hi Jeanie

Jeanie: Why? Why would God need to do that? And for what purpose?

Why would god not create the perfect earth in the first place, why this imperfect temporary version? Why create imperfect humans who he must have known would fall when he could have created perfect yet free one’s if he is really all powerful. Who know’s the mind of god? Darwin’s point was simply that he did not know how life started but the evidence showed clearly that it evolved. It could just as easily have evolved from a natural origin as from a god supplied origin. That was his point. At this point we’ve never found anything to show that it was impossible for life to have arisen by natural means without god but we have no proof that god was not involved either so it’s an open question. Darwin pointed out that either was compatible with ToE.

Jeanie: Evidence? Like some relationship? You guys really stretch things. Maybe we are closely related to apes DNA wise, but we're also closely related to dolphins (if Dr. House was correct on tv : ). And, yah, they're smart! We are RELATED TO EVERYTHING. We have the same creator...... But the creator has enough smarts to code the DNA for all "kinds" to be separate. These transitions y'all have yourselves convinced are proof are just variances in the same kinds.

The evidence some from a number of sources and yes DNA evidence is one source. DNA evidence show us to be much more closely related to apes than dolphins and much more closely related to dolphins than fish and much more closely related to fish than to fungus and much more closely related to fungus than to plants etc, That’s all just simple mathematical analysis of DNA. In parallel to that are the comparative fields that examine extant life and fossil life to look at the similarities of structure. These fields independently build a picture of what is related to what and it looks virtually exactly the same as the one that DNA analysis came up with. That’s three sources but there are more. The important point is that they all agree in almost every detail which organism evolved from which. If you want to get into the details of this research each field will take you quite a lot of effort to understand but it’s really worth it believe me. There’s some fascinating evidence our there to get into and to understand. Are you interested in really getting into this Jeanie? I highly recommend it.

As for the idea that kinds are a limit to evolution there is no evidence for this claim. Have a look and see if you can find any factual limit to evolution that conforms with the idea of kinds? WE have observed species of birds evolve into separate species as we watched. Same with insects, fish, plants and bacteria. If you want to see transitions from non birds to birds or from land mammal to whale (for example) you have to go back further into the fossil record as that happened a long time ago and such transitions are relatively rare it appears. If you write off the fossil record as evidence then I can’t help you, you have written off the only source of knowledge we have of what happened in the distant past. You have, in effect, chosen ignorance over knowledge and that’s the end of this discussion.

All the best Jeanie

Russell