Is there a point to evolution?

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You could say that curiosity is a human thing, just like sexuality. Yet we know that asexuals exist.

Depends on what you mean by random. Personally, I like to see evolution and beings as two separate yet intertwined concepts. If we don't breed then evolution dies, therefore it exerts it's power over us and pushes us in that biological direction. We all keep breeding and eventually one single chain of species will reach and end-point where it can evolve no further. Masters of the universe - wholly adaptable and near-immortal. For something to have a beginning, it needs an ending.

Humans may fail in reaching this point, we may destroy ourselves by war, by killing the environment we live in or be destroyed by another species (though I doubt anything on this planet could muster that). In all cases, if such an extinction were to happen then that would mean that we are a failed design. The chain that we are furthering obviously can't attain perfection.

Towards order? No. The goal is completion. This would be my idea, if I were to adopt one of my own reasonings.

Explain homogenous.

lol explain further. Science and biology was never my area.

I meant in terms of purpose. It is evolution that gives us purpose, without it there would be no point in furthering ourselves. It was a matter of convenience.

Evolution is a pathetic attempt to attempt to explain one of nature's most beautiful processes. And there is no creator, no final destination.

The fundamentalist evolutionist
Denis O. Lamoureux, Freelance
Published: Tuesday, June 05, 2007

There is one thing that we can count on: every year The Journal's Letters pages erupts in a brouhaha between evolutionists and creationists.

Though entertaining, the rhetoric is painfully tired and the attitudes routinely uncharitable. This is not to say that the issue of origins is not important -- it offers insights into understanding the ultimate character of our world.

The central problem with this controversy is that it is entrenched in a false dichotomy.

Most assume that there are only two credible positions: either evolution or creation. Godless atheists on one side, and God-fearing Biblical literalists on the other. To aggravate the situation, it attracts those predisposed to thinking in black and white.

I should know, because nearly 25 years ago I converted from atheism to fundamentalist Christianity. In fact, I left a career to become a creation scientist. And I once dreamed of building a museum like the one in Big Valley.

To launch a serious attack upon evolution, I realized that I needed to be trained professionally. So I pursued a PhD in theology followed by a PhD in biology. However, there were a couple surprises along the way.

I soon recognized that my beloved Bible features an ancient understanding of origins.

Like many Christians, I assumed that God had revealed scientific facts in Scripture thousands of years before their discovery by modern science. Known as "concordism," the best evidence against this interpretive assumption is the creation of the heavens in Genesis 1.

On the second day of creation, a hard dome -- the firmament -- is made to lift a body of water overhead. The sun, moon and stars are then set in the firmament on the fourth day. From an ancient perspective, the blue dome of the sky looks like a heavenly sea, and the luminaries appear to be positioned in its surface. This was the science of the day.

Scripture is accommodated to the comprehension level of ancient peoples. The Holy Spirit-inspired message is not how God created, but that He created.

This approach is modelled on the greatest act of revelation, according to Christians, the Incarnation. God came down to our level by becoming a man. So too with the creation accounts.

My second doctoral program focused on evolution. I entered as an anti-evolutionist. But after three years of seeing the scientific data every day, there was only one conclusion: the evidence for evolution is overwhelming.

Evolution is the easiest theory to falsify. Find just one human fossil with the dinosaurs, and it collapses completely. If Noah's flood was a global event, then the bones of every creature that died before the flood should be found near the bottom of the fossil record. But no such evidence exists.

Surprisingly, it was Charles Darwin's Origin of Species (1859) that offered a clue to relating my evangelical faith and my evolutionary science. He wrote:

"To my mind, it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes like those determining the birth and death of the individual."

I have yet to meet a Christian who thinks that God dramatically intervenes in the womb to attach a nose or arm to a developing child. Instead, we see ourselves as being "knitted together fearfully and wonderfully" by the Lord (Psalm 139). So too with evolution. It can be viewed as an ordained and sustained natural process that "declares the glory of God" (Psalm 19).

Regrettably, a false dichotomy and black-and-white thinking fuel the origins controversy.

Atheists do a terrible disservice to evolutionary science by baptising it in atheistic faith. Science is dead silent on such matters.

Fundamentalist Christians place a stumbling block between their Lord and those who see the evidence for evolution. Scripture has pointed indictment for such a situation.

But there is something new under the sun. I see it in the next generation.

In teaching courses on the relationship between science and religion for 10 years, I have noticed that my Christian students are quickly coming to terms with evolution. These remarkable young men and women have also taught me a lesson: loving God with our mind means to do scholarship faithfully and fearlessly (Matthew 22:19).

Denis O. Lamoureux is assistant professor of science and religion, St. Joseph's College, University of Alberta

Anything can have a purpose if it has a point

EDIT: That's a bit lame, so I'll try again. I think everything in existence has a reason, purpose, meaning etc. If it didn't then it would not exist. How is that?