Of course there is an evolutionary process.

Why else would God have given us opposable thumbs?

What's the problem? Fantasy has always out-trumped Reality here in Utah.

People who believe in a literal translation of the Bible please explain, why do you insist in believing the Universe is 12,000 years old, when we have crystals containing uranium, who's decay shows that the crystal is millions of years old.

People who believe in evolution as opposed to seeding of planet earth, please explain how when life was wiped off the earth several times, that it came back in great variety in a short amount of time. This is what the fossil record shows.

I believe that being stubborn and of closed mind is a human trait which we are all susceptible, regardless of whether we are mostly religious or mostly traditionally scientific. We all need to keep our minds open, because if the past is any indication, there will continue to be cherished beliefs we hold that will be proven wrong in the future.

That's probably the most well-written letter I've seen in the paper. Congrats to the writer (Daniel).

Failing to find evidence against evolution that can withstand criticism (evidence), the next best route is to redefine science and scientific theory so that any idea, not just well supported ones, qualify. Don't you know that this isn't really about science and the pursuit of knowledge? Read the "Wedge Document" to learn more.

Of course there's evidence for evolution, but it's mostly because of the loose way 'evidence' is defined. For example, many cite all the fossils as 'evidence' for evolution, but that is not the case. The only thing the fossils do is prove that some creatures died. There is no way to prove that any single fossil is either the parent (ancestor) or descendant (child) of any other. There are no DNA or other linkages between the fossils. A fossil, alone and objectively, proves nothing other than that a creature once lived and then died. The rest is theorizing and speculation. And what a lot of speculation we see today!

But what happens is that bias enters in, and evolutionists claim that because certain fossils lie on top of others they must be descendants, but there is no other justification. In many places the fossil record is upside down.

The fossil evidence, more than anything, proves there are HUGE gaps that have never been filled in. In fact, the fossil record is far more filled in today than in Darwin's time, and there is even less evidence from the fossil record for evolution today than in Darwin's time.

Another 'evidence' cited in favor of evolution is resistance that 'builds up' in bacteria. What actually happens at the biomolecular level, now that we understand it, is that there are many, many different strains of bacteria, and certain medicines kill most--but not all--the bacteria. Those that already had resistance to the medicines survive and propagate.

So these 'super bacteria' are simply variant strains; they never become a new or different kind of bacteria, and if given the chance to mingle with other strains (after the medicine is no longer a threat), they all tend to migrate back to the 'average' type of bacteria. As proof, some bacteria found in frozen bodies of arctic explorers from the late 1800s were cultivated and exposed to today's modern medicines--and there were cells from the 1800s that were ALREADY RESISTANT to those medicines.

They did not evolve any new trait, but the medecine simply killed off most strains and allowed the resistant ones to survive.

If anything, this shows an incredible design that allows these bacteria to adapt and thrive in new environments, while never becoming a different type of organism.

There have been periods of mass extinction. There have always been species that have survived. Everything alive today is descended from those species that survived the most recent mass extinction. When a mass extinction occurs it leaves ecological niches open. Species evolve to fill those niches creating greater diversity. The fossil record has never shown a period of time when all life was wiped off the planet.

If the earth is only 6000 years old, why does the Book of Mormon claim that they gospel wash preached a great many thousand years before Christ's coming? (Helaman 8:18). In fact, the LDS doctrine has supported an old earth for a long, long, time. If some of the members want to listen to anti-mormon, evangelical preachers instead, I suppose it's their right. I will pray for them.

The term "Theory" has a lot of distinct meanings in different fields of knowledge, but it doesn't necessarily require the hypothisis to be Firm to be called a "Theory". A theory CAN run the full range of flimsy-ness to firm-ness.

In science, a theory is a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and opposition.

In common usage, the word "Theory" is often used to signify a conjecture, an opinion, or a speculation.

A theory can start out as an educated guess, but it is refined as we do tests to gather more evidence that either supports or disproves the current theory (and the theory can change over time as we gather new evidence). Eventually some theories are so established that no evidence is likely to alter them. This may be the type of "Theory" you were refering to. But it is painting with too broad a brush to assert that, "Theory in science has NEVER meant a flimsy guess".

But that's just my opnion/theory.

To him who says there is "less evidence from the fossil record for evolution today than in Darwin's time," I'd highly recommend learning science from scientists rather than from creationists.
All sorts of amazing finds have been found since Darwin's time. Feathered dinosaurs are one of my favorite examples.

My favorite is the hip bones found in early whales like basilosaurus.

I like the many-fingered amphibian-fish that were apparently plodding along the bottoms of freshwater streams, using their newly evolved feet for underwater propulsion, rather than for land-crawling.

My favorite is everything was created in 7 days.

Science seems to start from a contrary position to the creation belief taken from biblical scripture. From there they gather evidence from the materials that make up the planets mass and then make a huge leap to conjure up the evolutionary theory.

Sometimes we can't see the forest for the trees like taking the word create and assuming it means something out of nothing. The word create came from the word baurau which means to organize or form. Even Science will acknowledge that you cannot destroy the elements but can only organize or reorganize them.

If I ordered a load of topsoil from another state it might contain materials that had a nut from an old car, a piece of Anasazi pottery, and a dog bone. It does not prove that my yard is where the indians dwelt, the dog died, or the car was built.

Worlds without number does not mean that Diety isn't recycling the same materials. The age of the parts does not equal the age of the sum total of the parts of the creation. An objective view would only conclude that that this or that species existed sometime. Everything else is speculation.

Your obvious intentional ignorance never ceases to amaze me. The lame 7 days comment? Gimme a break. I don't think you are as nearly as stupid as you try to sound.

i can think of a nation's leader, who every time I watch him and hear him speech, I think this is living proof that man evolved from apes.

Henry Eyring had things to say about the Earth being made from parts of other earths. As he was a leader in the LDS church and a prominent scientist, he'd probably be a good source. His biography is worth checking out, although "Reflections of a Scientist" is, I think, better.

Whoever wrote "To Timj" made a couple of mistakes.
One of them is that elements can't be destroyed. They can be. We destroy them to get nuclear energy, or when we set off nukes.
There's plenty of good solid evidence for evolution, but if you're talking to ID people or creationists, you're obviously not going to find it.
It's great that some people on this board have learned about evolution and how it works...I see that they know what they're talking about when they list examples of transitional fossils or when they describe how evolution. I'm guessing most of them have a good background in science, maybe even degrees in biology.

That "Anonymous" guy really gets my dander up, too. He's all over the board with his comments; you never know WHAT to expect from him. Or her. Whomever. Hello?

This topic has been in the paper a lot recently, and I'm tired of trying to convince people what a theory is or how science works. If people want to be ignorant... so be it. I just chuckle to myself when folks who seemingly hate science drive around in their cars, talk on their cell phones, take medicine, work on computers etc... all that technology based in scientific "theories" that work.

I took antibiotics to get rid of pneumonia. Nothing about evolution there, is there?
HIV changes enough to jump from chimps to humans. That takes some major changes...and now we've got two major different viruses (well, actually three, since there's a lesser known less-severe form that affects just a few humans).
But of course, this is all small things happening, and I know that no matter how many small things pile up on top of one another, they'll never amount to something big.

Don't be afraid to think Erasmus 2:32 -
It'll only hurt for a little while.

Now, what about evolution and the talking snake in the garden?

Telling stories again I see, but then again to believe in evolutiion you have to either be good at telling stoiies or believing every story you are told.

To believe in evolution you have to believe the intereptation of the so called "evidence"

And there is simply no basis for doing so.

But to do soyou have to ""magically" make things fit a theory.

That, clealy, is not science.

But evolution ia based on one asumption, one supposition, after another, that is NOT science,

That is hypothesis trying to wear the the clothes of theory and fact.

Do the math:

there has been no change in man in thousands of years.

Then How many thousands or millions of years would it take for a small change to show up?

And How many more millions years would take for there to enough accumlative small changes to make a major change, or species change?

Then you factor in climate events and extinction events, forcing evolution to basically start all over again at a lower level.

There simply is not enough time in the supposed age of the earth for it to have happen.

Let alone the plethora, diversity, variety, complexity that's existed.

Any reasonable person can see the process of evolution for themselves.
But our guilt-ridden far-righters think they will go to hell if they even consider it.

To Timj,

Many evolutionists complain that today the fossil record is less supportive of evolution than in Darvin's day. That was Gould's major complaint, the reason for his punctuated equilibrium theory. Scientists dispute whether the feathers really belonged to dinosaurs. In any event, there are birds predating every archaeopteryx fossil that are virtually indistinguishable from certain living birds. Please research more and you'll find these and many other 'problems' in the fossil record.

Re: small changes piling up: all the changes are always limited in extent. Shuffling genetic information and flipping gene switches on/off does not create new kinds of organisms.

Here's the basic concept that has been proven again and again in virtually every science domain: observed causes always have limited effects, and in order to see radical new effects, there must be a totally different cause. The limited changes we see in all breeding experiments ever done (pigeons, dogs, cats, fruit flies, you name it) have never resulted in a new kind of creature. All we ever see are less-healthy specimens (or seriously deformed mutants, as in fruti-fly experiments).

To prove evolution, I need solid facts. I never see them; all the "facts" just break down.

To Timj (cont.):

The real problem with evolution is that there are many, many problems that just get ignored because they are 'difficult' to deal with.

What I would really like to see is a real discussion of all the evidences for and against evolution, with rebuttals and re-rebuttals to the arguments for each side. Then, it will be much clearer to any observer what the real facts are, and what the biases or inferences from those facts are. But that is not going to happen when evolutionists just put their fingers in their ears and close their eyes and tell us there is no problem with any evidence for evolution.

It seems that, if the theory of evolution is just as strong as gravity, as some would say, that we could therefore prove it just as easily as we can prove gravity. Personally, I am not aware of any single proof for evolution that is as strong as the proof for gravity I can 'test' every time I drop my pen on the floor. So if the theory is strong, it will certainly weather very well under any and all evidence. Can we see that ever happen?

I dont' think you can even fathom 1 million years let alone 1 billion years. try again.

Seeing an object fall is not proof of gravity. It is certainly a confirmation of a prediction made by the theory of gravity, but not proof. You clearly need to bone up on the basic definitions of science and the basics of the philosophy of science.
As for your arguments against evolution, where they are not vague they are incorrect. Be cautious where you get your information. For example, you stated that there are birds predating archeopteryx that are virtually indistinguishable from modern birds: This is clearly a falsehood based on some very incomplete and uncertain information. I personally doubt that archeopteryx is the first bird (it is more likely that birds evolved earlier in the Jurassic), but the story is not what you have told. I think a source that wants you to believe that evolution can't be true has told you a fib.

Re: Book of Mormon:

Your reference to Helaman 8:18 concerning 'a great many thousand years' does not help establish an old earth. The phrase 'a great many thousand' was a fairly common one in Joseph Smith's time that means, simply, 'a great many' or 'a lot' or, similar to our usage today, 'a zillion.' The term was used to represent any amount from hundreds to perhaps millions, and it is still used by some people today in this same sense (even in some articles in Science magazine over the last five years).

You can confirm this yourself by doing a Google search on the phrase "a great many thousand" (you need the quotes), and you will see this quite clearly. There's even one usage, in a book called 'The Romany Rye' by George Borrow, where the phrase 'a great many thousand years' means EXACTLY four thousand years.

To Gopherus:

Re: your "proof of gravity" comments, I agree I did not state my position well. Let me rephrase it:

Some say the theory of evolution has been confirmed at least as well as the theory of gravity. I can see evidence of gravity every time I drop my pen to the floor, but due to the rather long periods required for evolution, I am not aware of any similar way to confirm the theory of evolution.

After tens of thousands of generations of fruit flies and bacteria, the results seem, rather, to disconfirm the theory. Yes, we see variants, but they are always of the same kind of organism, and we never see movement toward a new kind or the creation of a new organ never seen before.

From a biomolecular standpoint, the more change we in organisms that are 'evolving,' the more degradation we see in the genome. The more an organism deviates from the norm, the less robust it becomes.

So if the theory of evolution is so strong, it should certainly weather very well under any and all evidence. But when reviewing ALL the evidence, for AND against, it doesn't do so well.

To Gopherus:

Re: archaeopteryx, you are right that I should have been more rigorous in my statement, so I accept your caution. The findings I am aware of are certainly controversial and disputed, but that's always the case with alleged evidence that goes contrary to the norm. So I will continue to hunt and research and watch for all the wonderful discoveries that keep seeing the light of day.

I realize that perhaps nobody else will ever see this post, since it is so late in the game (if someone does, add your own comment!). This is a fascinating area, that of evolution vs creation vs intelligent design, and it will continue to be fun to watch.

Another important area to watch is how scientists determine the dates assigned to various fossils. This can be quite controversial, as there seem to be so many assumptions required to arrive at consensus dates that it makes an objective observer want to question the results.