On the other hand biologists have shown that a complex eye can evolve and has evolved—actually on several independent occasions—from simpler forms of light- sensitive cells. Once you see how much change can be produced within a species, it’s not hard to see how evolution can transform one species into another. Is it such a stretch to believe that the lion and the tiger evolved from a common ancestor, even if there is no way to see this process occur?
I am not a biologist, but what impresses me is that virtually every biologist in the world accepts the theory of evolution. While the debate goes on, it seems improbable that the small group of intelligent design advocates is right and the entire community of biologists is wrong. Consider what two leading Christian biologists say about evolution. Kenneth Miller writes, “Evolution is as much a fact as anything we know in science,” and Theodosius Dobzhansky famously said, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.”
The great strength of evolution as a scientific theory is that it makes sense of two huge facts about life. On the one hand, all living things from trees to cats to humans are formed from the same genetic material. Beyond this, it is evident that many groups of organisms show similar characteristics. So there is a unity to life.
At the same time, living creatures exhibit incredible diversity There are literally millions of living species with widely varying characteristics. Evolution accounts both for the similarities and the differences. It accounts for common characteristics by positing that the creatures possessing them descended from the same ancestor. It explains differences by suggesting that creatures evolved new traits over a long period of time under the pressures of survival.
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