My mother-in-law started paying for subscriptions to National Geographic for me about six or seven years ago for Christmas. She renews my subscription each year. To be honest, I don't really enjoy the magazine all that much. Occasionally I come across an article that interests me, but in general, I find the fact that they promote macro-evolution as though it is an observable, proven fact, a bit tiring.
In this November 2004 issue, the cover depicts a lizard head, and above that, the heading " Was Darwin Wrong?" When I flipped to the article on page four, the question from the cover was answered in bold 3 inch text..."
NO! The evidence for Evolution is overwhelming."
The author - David Quammen, goes on to make a very good case for micro-evolution, which knowledgeable Christians do not dispute, however, he then takes a giant quantum leap, and somehow uses the overwhelming evidence for micro-evolution to assert that macro-evolution is every bit as legitimate!
Without getting into a "creation vs evolution" argument, I will provide a URL link where the difference between micro and macro-evolution are explained.
http://www.icr.org/pubs/btg-b/btg-094b.htm A quick example of micro-evolution...
One of the most commonly used examples of evolutionary change is one which involves a population of “peppered moths” in England. Indeed, many museums and educational institutes worldwide use this as one of the most striking examples of evolution ever witnessed by mankind. The story goes like this: Prior to the industrial revolution in England, the peppered moth population consisted predominantly of light-colored moths (containing speckled dots). A dark-colored form comprised only a small minority of the population. This was so because predators (birds) could more easily detect the dark-colored moths as they rested during the day on light-colored tree trunks. With the onset of the industrial revolution and resultant air pollution, the tree trunks and rocks became progressively darker. As a consequence, the dark-colored moths became increasingly difficult to detect, while the light-colored form ultimately became easy prey. Birds, therefore, began eating more light-colored than dark-colored moths, and today over 95 percent of the peppered moths in the industrial areas of England are of the darker-colored variety.
OK, now to the meat of this topic.
The author seems perplexed as to why Christians do not accept the theory, and cited a 2001 Gallup poll... "where no less than 45% of responding U.S. adults agreed that God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so. Evolution, by their lights, played no role in shaping us."
"only 12% believed that humans evolved from other life-forms without any involvement of a god"
I wonder if the fact that the absolute lack of even a single series of transitional fossils, which caused die-hard evolutionists to produce many fake "missing links" to prove their case, turned the general population onto the fact that macro-evolution only exists in the minds of anthropological fanatics!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1248079.stm The author asks the question..."Why are there so many anti-evolutionists?"
His conclusions...
In part - "Creationist proselytizers and political activists, working hard to interfere with the teaching of evolutionary biology in public schools"
Is this guy serious? has he been trapped in a cave for the past several decades? Evolutionists have had free range in our schools for years! The evolutionists with all their whimsical artwork spread throughout the text books depicting half man - half apes, as though they had just seen a colony of them at the local zoo - or the orangutan's jaw that was used to construct Piltdown Man. At least that was an entire jaw! another "missing link" was constructed from a single tooth! It was later discovered to be a pigs tooth!
I can go on, but I believe my point is made.
Quammen then goes on to assert that who do not accept macro-evolution are inflicted by..."honest confusion and ignorance. Many have never taken a biology course that dealt with evolution nor read a book in which the theory was lucidly explained"
The inference here is that all those who believe in the theory, have taken biology courses which dealt with evolution and have read books in which the theory was lucidly explained....oh ya, and Christians are confused and ignorant!
I'll skip through more insulting journalism and skip to a photo of a bare chested - heavily tattooed man at the end of the article.
The man is standing, facing the camera. He has no shirt on, and has a massive crucifix scene tattoo from his collar bones down to his waist-line. The scene covers his entire chest and abdomen. The caption reads..."A former convict in Russia, carries two enduring remnants from his prison time: a Crucifixion tattoo and drug resistant TB. He hopes God will help him, but evolution-based science is what guides the search for an earthly cure."
What arrogance!
I have just read my last National Geographic.
Bronzesnake
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