As I understand them, strict 'scientific' explanations of macro evolution and strict interpretations of biblical creation fall short of explaining how we got here. I believe that the human organism cannot have simply evolved from much lower forms. There is too much complexity and specialization of structures and cells in people and most animals. I can easily go along with variations in skin/hair/feather colors, some physical structures and behaviors as a function of natural selection. But Darwinian natural selection is clearly not at work in humans today. The human species is not reaching higher heights intellectually or physically, not adapting to a changing environment, and human society appears to be devolving (if anything), not evolving. As for the rest of nature (I've always argued that humans are part of nature, we just build better ant hills), most of the animal species that are becoming extinct are doing so because they cannot adapt to a changing environment. It would seem to me that evolution is failing pretty spectacularly, thus a faulty explanation to completely explain the development of life on earth.
In the same way, strict dogmatic interpretation of Genesis (or any other Biblical text) doesn't work either, because it's an account from a single perspective (the narrative of God). It doesn't attempt to explain the details, and the original audience could care less. The point behind the creation narrative isn't to explain the nature of all life on earth, but the relationship of people to their creator, and the intended relationship of people with their world. I've seen plenty of secular people lampoon the Christian belief in creation, but most of them miss the point (understandably). I was once easily drawn into the Darwin vs. Jesus argument, but now I think it's all spurious.
I chalk up the strictest interpretations on either side of this debate to a form of religion. I do mean this to say that (I think) strict evolutionists are practicing a form of religion even if it's couched in 'science'. I suspect it takes just as much 'belief' to fill in the gaps either way you come down on this, because we simply don't have enough real information to connect all the dots. Scientists are human and invest themselves in their beliefs as much as priests and ministers. It's pretty easy to find and interpret data that supports your claims. It's been my experience that many of these debates end with people crossing their arms and thinking the other party arrogant or ignorant. I would argue that this is true, for those most dogmatic parties, no matter which side they're advocating.
These are my observations, given what I've seen in life so far. Your mileage will almost certainly vary and I respect your right to have an opinion, even if I don't agree with it. I'm a practicing Christian (not always good at it), but as you might have gathered I don't follow the strictest, most dogmatic interpretations of scripture, particularly in this regard.
SP
taken from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroevolution
The term "macroevolution" frequently arises within the context of the evolution/creation debate, usually used by creationists alleging a significant difference between the evolutionary changes observed in field and laboratory studies and the larger scale macroevolutionary changes that scientists believe to have taken thousands or millions of years to occur. They accept that evolutionary change is possible within what they call "kinds" ("microevolution"), but deny that one "kind" can evolve into another ("macroevolution"). [13] Contrary to this belief among the anti-evolution movement proponents, evolution of life forms beyond the species level ("macroevolution", i.e. speciation in a specific case) has indeed been observed multiple times under both controlled laboratory conditions and in nature.[14] In creation science, creationists accepted speciation as occurring within a "created kind" or "baramin", but objected to what they called "third level-macroevolution" of a new genus or higher rank in taxonomy. Generally, there is ambiguity as to where they draw a line on "species", "created kinds", etc. and what events and lineages fall within the rubric of microevolution or macroevolution.[15] The claim that macroevolution does not occur, or is impossible, is not supported by the scientific community.
Such claims are rejected by the scientific community on the basis of ample evidence that macroevolution is an active process both presently and in the past.[6][16] The terms macroevolution and microevolution relate to the same processes operating at different scales, but creationist claims misuse the terms in a vaguely defined way which does not accurately reflect scientific usage, acknowledging well observed evolution as "microevolution" and denying that "macroevolution" takes place.[6][17] Evolutionary theory (including macroevolutionary change) remains the dominant scientific paradigm for explaining the origins of Earth's biodiversity. Its occurrence is not disputed within the scientific community.[18] While details of macroevolution are continuously studied by the scientific community, the overall theory behind macroevolution (i.e. common descent) has been overwhelmingly consistent with empirical data. Predictions of empirical data from the theory of common descent have been so consistent that biologists often refer to it as the "fact of evolution".[19][20]
Describing the fundamental similarity between Macro and Microevolution in his authoritative textbook "Evolutionary Biology," biologist Douglas Futuyma writes,
One of the most important tenets of the theory forged during the Evolutionary Synthesis of the 1930s and 1940s was that "macroevolutionary" differences among organisms - those that distinguish higher taxa - arise from the accumulation of the same kinds of genetic differences that are found within species. Opponents of this point of view believed that "macroevolution" is qualitatively different from "microevolution" within species, and is based on a totally different kind of genetic and developmental patterning... Genetic studies of species differences have decisively disproved [this] claim. Differences between species in morphology, behavior, and the processes that underlie reproductive isolation all have the same genetic properties as variation within species: they occupy consistent chromosomal positions, they may be polygenic or based on few genes, they may display additive, dominant, or epistatic effects, and they can in some instances be traved to specifiable differences in proteins or DNA nucleotide sequences. The degree of reproductive isolation between populations, whether prezygotic or postzygotic, varies from little or none to complete. Thus, reproductive isolation, like the divergence of any other character, evolves in most cases by the gradual substitution of alleles in populations.
Douglas Futuyma, "Evolutionary Biology" (1998), pp.477-8[4]
Nicholas Matzke and Paul R. Gross have accused creationists of using "strategically elastic" definitions of micro- and macroevolution when discussing the topic.[1] The actual definition of macroevolution accepted by scientists is "any change at the species level or above" (phyla, group, etc.) and microevolution is "any change below the level of species." Matzke and Gross state that many creationist critics define macroevolution as something that cannot be attained, as these critics dismiss any observed evolutionary change as "just microevolution".[1]
See also
