Most people, if not all, would have no problem with the notion of evolution if used properly.

Evolution simply means change. Changes in existing species as they adapt to changing environmental conditions are observable, testable and, in many cases, reproducible.

Creationists and others refer to this as microevolution. There is certainly scientific evidence to back up the theory of evolution at this restrained level.

It is totally inappropriate to use this scientifically provable process and make the gigantic leap to stating that this change, if traced backwards and given enough time to allow the process to change gradually, would prove that life as we know it originated from some single-celled organisms that in turn crawled out of some primordial soup.

There is absolutely no evidence of evolution that can explain new species’ creation. This is no longer science; it becomes an unprovable, rather illogical, ideology.

Yet this is what is being taught today in our schools. No other alternative is allowed to be discussed. This is not science; it is scientistic philosophy.

I’m not even sure if you are allowed to question some of the many holes present in the theory. Thankfully, some very qualified scientists and intellectuals are beginning to question the weaknesses present, and they are becoming more and more in number every day.

If you have been presented with the theory of evolution or Darwinism and were expected to believe it simply because someone told you to believe it, this is certainly not education. It is, in fact, indoctrination.

In a creation evolution article I read recently, it quoted from a biology textbook used in high school biology classes. "Life cannot arise by spontaneous generation from inanimate material today, so far as we know, but conditions were very different when the Earth was only a few billion years old." (Campbell, Nell; Biology, 1987, Page 504).

Isn’t it great to be able to use time as an excuse to explain anything and everything as long as God is not allowed to enter the equation.

Let’s look at the complexity involved. The entire chain of life is supposed to go like this. First the soup, then amino acids, then protein, then the cell, then the fish, the amphibian, the reptile, the mammal to man. Naturalism, mutation and blind chance are supposed to explain how we evolved.

In the 1950s, two scientists put together what they believed to be the major ingredients those billions of years ago (in a lab using test tubes, which I don’t think existed back then).

This mix supposedly consisted of methane, hydrogen, water and ammonia; and they then ran a current of electricity through this mixture and created a few amino acids (again in a controlled laboratory environment).

It takes a string of amino acids about 400 in length (and remember there are some 20 different types of amino acids needed) to make up an average protein. These acids must also be in a very specific order or else all you have is a worthless mess of chemicals.

The probability that simple chance will form just one functional protein is 20 to the 400th power. That’s a 1 followed by 520 zeros! The article points out that it would be the equivalent of winning the lottery every week for 11 years. Oops, I forgot to mention humans have trillions upon trillions of proteins in them, all functioning together. The article points out that DNA and RNA are also required for life. To date, no one has been able to produce chains of RNA or DNA and can’t produce even one cell!

There is certainly a long way to go to believability in Darwin’s theory. It sure seems as rational to believe in creationism with God as the Designer as the above. I don’t care how many more billions of years you need to make evolutionary theory feasible.

It seems that science has this little black box of explanations, and anything that doesn’t fit with conventional reasoning isn’t allowed to be placed inside. It just gets rejected out of hand.

When you are trying to hit a target of truth using your own theory of evolution as your bullet, it sure is a lot easier to shoot first and then paint the target around the spot where it hit.

There is a story going around. Three scientists approached God, saying, "We can produce life using dirt and don’t need you any more." God then asks the scientists to show him, which they proceed to do by starting to scoop up some dirt. Then God stops them, saying, "Whoa, hold on guys, use your own dirt."

Ah, the arrogance of man. The last column on this subject will talk about irreducible complexity and what the fossil records show.

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Tom Sears is a professor of accounting at Hartwick College in Oneonta. He can be reached at SearsT@hartwick.edu. his column appears every other week.