Just published today: What is the Evidence for Evolution? - Common Question - BioLogos. Please check it out, and share with a friend! It’s a good way to introduce someone to the various lines of evidence, in one page, in a simple and understandable fashion.
Any feedback about the page is also welcome.
Excellent summary. The only thing I can add is that since evolution is dependent on deep time, it might be helpful to refer to the the common question regarding how the age of the earth is measured that is already on the site. Perhaps even adding a short paragraph on how evolution and the age of the earth are interlinked would be helpful, as the page is focused primarily on those who are curious but perhaps are not very knowledgeable from a scientific standpoint. It seems that many accept an old earth just because they can see the evidence themselves, but the next step to accepting evolution is a bit more abstract, and more difficult to take.
Did submarines evolve from whales?
The evolution philosophical argument says similar designs equals common ancestry. The same philosophical argument is applied to Vitamin C namely, those animals unable to synthesize Vitamin C are grouped therefore must have a common ancestry.
Paul, first I feel that unlike some other positions, evolution is not a philosophy, but rather an interpretation of data, and takes positions that depend on physical findings and thus can be argued on the physical evidence, rather than being based on a particular philosophical or theologic interpretation, and thus being subject only to philosophic arguments, ignoring whatever physical evidence that does not conform to that view.
Next, evolution does not state that similar design must denote common ancestry, though often that is the case. Convergent evolution is well described in many cases, with the evolution of flight and the eye being two commonly described examples. As to vitamin C, it is not only confirmed by DNA sequencing that some species that cannot make their own are related, but also that some are not by virtue of the faulty gene being due a different mutation. This is the same technology used by various companies to trace where your ancestors came from.
Lastly, submarines did not evolve from whales, except perhaps in the philosophical sense.
Phil, you are exactly correct - evolution is an interpretation of data.
Paul,
It would seem that any interpretation of the data contrary to evolution would have to hold up as rigorously as the interpretation of the data for evolution; but ‘creation science’ has no such interpretation from a scientific standpoint. Their hypotheses cannot be tested, and their enterprise is based purely on calling into doubt the evidence for evolution, rather than proposing a viable alternative that interprets all the data as stupendously well as evolution.
In Christ
Noah
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