[__ Science __ ] Can Creationists Accept Evolution?

[Highway54]

True but the mathematical odds render that impossible.

True but the mathematical odds render that impossible.

I understand what you are saying Dorothy Mae, but that is only in our less than infinite thinking minds. There is truly no limits. To us however, we are quite limited, none of us, even though all of us say it, can comprehend that God had no beginning. I am unsure if any of us will ever be able to comprehend that maam Ecc 3:11

 

[Barbarian]

Since everyone has their own interpretation of what evolution means @Barbarian, may I ask you to define it sir?

Actually, "evolution" merely means "change." Darwin didn't care for the word; he only used it once in his book. He referred to it as "descent with modification." Since the rediscovery of genetics, there is a precise scientific definition for biological evolution, however. It is defined as a change in allele frequencies in a population over time. Creationists usually confuse biological evolution with agencies of evolution, like natural selection, or consequences of biological evolution like common descent.

 

[Dorothy Mae]

I understand what you are saying Dorothy Mae, but that is only in our less than infinite thinking minds. There is truly no limits.

God himself has limits and has no problem with those limits. If I may turn tables, it’s only our less than infinite minds that imagine He insists on having no limits.

This is not minor because the God of Abraham et al has particular ways He acts and works. Moses knew those ways. As did all of them. Knowing God means knowing those ways although they are beyond finding out. Nevertheless there are very consistent ways He works. He is not subject to our insisting He is beyond understanding.

To us however, we are quite limited, none of us, even though all of us say it, can comprehend that God had no beginning. I am unsure if any of us will ever be able to comprehend that maam Ecc 3:11

We can hardly comprehend that we had a beginning so that’s no surprise. We cannot comprehend Him hearing billions of prayers to Him at the same time. But we can comprehend His joy in a man repenting and receiving forgiveness. We can comprehend truth. The concept isn’t beyond us.

 

[Barbarian]

He is not subject to our insisting He is beyond understanding.

A pretty fair summary of the issue, it seems to me, is here:
Therefore, we conclude that it is possible to know God because God has made himself known. Yet we qualify this statement with two caveats. First, our knowledge of God is real but never exhaustive. The Holy Scriptures teach both God’s knowability and his incomprehensibility, just as Paul prayed for the saints “to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge” (Eph 3:19). Louis Berkhof said, “The Christian Church confesses on the one hand that God is the Incomprehensible One, but also on the other hand that He can be known and that knowledge of Him is an absolute requisite unto salvation.

Why It’s Both Possible and Impossible to Know God

It is possible to know God because God has made himself known. Our knowledge of God is real but never exhaustive.

www.crossway.org

 

[BroRoyVa79]

Depends on what someone means by "creationists" but since I see the OP was posted by AIG, it's obvious that they mean Young Earth, of which I am.

But I don't believe a Young Earth, or more recently called by them, Biblical Creationist, can reconcile Evolution with the Bible for a variety of reasons. First, most people when talking about this get caught up in biological evolution and completely forget that the term has been applied to a sort of cosmic evolution as well in an attempt to explain all beginnings. So, with that said, Genesis 1-2 is out of order with the assumed natural way the universe formed and the natural way the Sun, Earth, Moon, and solar system formed. It is also out of order with biological evolution and how life formed. That's the first problem. To embrace Evolution (using the term here to fit all forms of the belief in regard to origins), you have to start claiming parts of Genesis as some type of mythology, mytho-historical whatever, etc. to say Evolution happened because you cannot reconcile it with Genesis 1-2. From there you're going to start having a problem telling me what part of Genesis is history and what part isn't and how that's not an arbitrary selection on your part rather than just embracing the whole book as history like Jesus and the Apostles and Prophets did. Next you're going to have an issue reconciling theology later in the New Testament, to be specific, Romans 5:12-21, let alone properly dealing with passages like Exodus 20:11 which is God speaking:

"For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."

Doesn't say there that God took millions of years, let life form over those millions of years, let the universe come into existence after a Big bang, etc. God clearly says He made heaven, earth, sea, and all that is in them in six days.

You either have to let God and his revelation to us be true or fallible, finite man's musings about reality in which man gets things wrong, changes his mind, finds out new information that shatter's his original theories, etc. So, 100 years from now everything that you're led to believe about evolution could be shattered by some revelation that changes all that and yet here we are choosing it over God's word and how He told us He created things. That doesn't make much sense to me.

So, no, I don't think Young Earth/Biblical Creationists who let the Bible say what it says and mean what it says can reconcile Evolution with the Bible.

With that said, I find it interesting people claim creationists (using the term in line with the OP) don't define evolution properly or understand the theory when in the linked article by OP alone, they're quoting evolutionists' definition and understanding of the theory and I quote (emphasis mine):

Defining Evolution​

According to evolutionists, biological evolution is descent with modification. In fact, the UC Berkley evolution website, which is perhaps the best lay-level explanation of evolutionists’ view of their own dogma on the internet, explicitly forbids calling evolution just change over time.2 If evolution were simply change over time, no one would argue with it. Children mature into adults, caterpillars develop into moths and butterflies, and new species form.3 All of these things are change over time, and essentially no one would argue with them. But evolution encompasses a lot more than simply change over time.

Evolution, according to evolutionists, means “All life on Earth shares a common ancestor, just as you and your cousins share a common grandmother. Through the process of descent with modification, this common ancestor gave rise to the diverse species that we see documented in the fossil record and around us today. Evolution means that we’re all distant cousins: humans and oak trees, hummingbirds and whales.”4 In other words, evolution (as the word is commonly understood) is an explanation for the entire diversity of life on earth.

They source the evolutionist they're quoting from this: An Introduction to Evolution. In which in the third paragraph you clearly see, and I quote:

All life on Earth shares a common ancestor, just as you and your cousins share a common grandmother. Through the process of descent with modification, this common ancestor gave rise to the diverse species that we see documented in the fossil record and around us today. Evolution means that we’re all distant cousins: humans and oak trees, hummingbirds and whales.

I mean they copy and paste it verbatim.

AIG falsely claims that Darwin thought all organisms had a common ancestor. He did not. He suggested that there may have instead been a few kinds that gave rise to others. I'm thinking that this is more of an issue of ignorance on the part of AIG than an intentional attempt to mislead us.

This claim and attack is weird to me if you're a believer. Everyone I know in the naturalistic evolution sphere admit that Darwin was talking about Universal Common Ancestry, some type of common descent, etc. Here are two quick examples I found online since I'm currently at work and don't have Darwin's book in front of me, but these are papers written by evolutionists discussing Darwin:

And I quote, National Library of Medicine v5, 2010, article The Common Ancestry of Life by Eugene V Konnin and Yuri I. Wolf, they alone quote Darwin for me (emphasis mine):

In the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin famously proposed what we may now call the Universal Common Ancestry (UCA) hypothesis: "I should infer from analogy that probably ALL THE ORGANIC BEINGS which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed."

You can see they source Darwin for that quote. The rest of the article is moot for the point I was making that it was weird to me, to claim AIG is somehow falsely claiming Darwin that all organisms had a common ancestor when I know he said that, I know other evolutionists have said that he said that and other evolutionists have said that. I mean it's right there.

Here's another one, this PNAS article by Elliot Sober also quotes Darwin: (emphasis mine)

I believe that animals have descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number. Analogy would lead me one step further, namely to the belief that all animals and plants have descended from some one prototype. But analogy may be a deceitful guide. Nevertheless all living things have much in common, in their chemical composition, their germinal vesicles, their cellular structure, and their laws of growth and reproduction. We see this even in so trifling a circumstance as that the same poison often similarly affects plants and animals; or that the poison secreted by the gall-fly produces monstrous growths on the wild rose or oak-tree. Therefore I should infer from analogy THAT PROBABLY ALL ORGANIC BEINGS which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed.

Ref.1, p. 484.

Sure, while you might want to argue there's some nuance in Darwin's meaning there, either way, it's clearly there. So, I'm not understanding this accusation against AIG about falsely claiming Darwin believed that when he said that he did.

 

[Hidden In Him]

You either have to let God and his revelation to us be true or infallible, finite man's musings about reality in which man gets things wrong, changes his mind, finds out new information that shatter's his original theories, etc.

Very well put.

How many times now have archeologists and historians been proven wrong that some personality in the Bible never existed, or some event in scripture had "no basis in historical fact," only to eventually find evidence to the contrary and have to change their position? God proves man wrong time and time again, and I see no reason not to trust Him regarding creation as well.

 

[Barbarian]

Depends on what someone means by "creationists" but since I see the OP was posted by AIG, it's obvious that they mean Young Earth, of which I am.

But I don't believe a Young Earth, or more recently called by them, Biblical Creationist, can reconcile Evolution with the Bible for a variety of reasons. First, most people when talking about this get caught up in biological evolution and completely forget that the term has been applied to a sort of cosmic evolution as well in an attempt to explain all beginnings.

That's a common dodge; as you see, "evolution" merely means "change", which is why Darwin didn't like it. Today, biological evolution is merely defined in genetic terms. "Evolution" as merely "change" can be applied to stars, automobile styling, and so on. This is why scientists roll their eyes in frustration at those who try to conflate the informal meaning with the scientific definition.

Next you're going to have an issue reconciling theology later in the New Testament, to be specific, Romans 5:12-21, let alone properly dealing with passages like Exodus 20:11 which is God speaking:

"For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."

Two errors in interpretation there. First since the actual creation story tells us that it's not a literal account (because you can't have mornings and evenings before a sun was there to have them) there's no way to redefine it into a time line. Second, assuming a figurative account becomes literal if it's repeated later, is clearly fallacious.

With that said, I find it interesting people claim creationists (using the term in line with the OP) don't define evolution properly or understand the theory when in the linked article by OP alone

I just showed you that. Notice the link shows that evolution was defined as descent with modification (which as you learned was Darwin's term).

Regarding AIG's error on Darwin:
AIG falsely claims that Darwin thought all organisms had a common ancestor. He did not. He suggested that there may have instead been a few kinds that gave rise to others. I'm thinking that this is more of an issue of ignorance on the part of AIG than an intentional attempt to mislead us.

This is claim and attack is weird to me if you're a believer. Everyone I know in the naturalistic evolution sphere admit that Darwin was talking about Universal Common Ancestry, some type of common descent, etc.

Apparently, you don't know any biologists. Indeed, Darwin didn't claim that all living things on Earth came from one common ancestor. He supposed there might be a number of original forms. Neither did Darwin's theory say how life began. He suggested that God might have just made the first living things. This is what I'm pointing out. Most creationists don't even know what evolution or evolutionary theory is. This debunks both misunderstandings:

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.
Charles Darwin, last sentence of On the Origin of Species
The "quote" you presented is close to what Darwin said, but errs in some significant ways, as you see.

It's very common for creationists to confuse agencies of evolution like natural selection or consequences of evolution like common descent, with evolution itself. That's the errors we see above. In fact, because evolutionary theory makes no claims about universal common descent, Darwin didn't claim so. Ironically, the first evidence for universal common descent came from a creationist, Linnaeus, who noted that all living things fit nicely into a family tree of common descent. But it wasn't until the nature of DNA was made clear that we could test that idea. And not surprisingly, DNA analyses gave us an almost identical family tree to the one made clear by Linnaeus. We know this works, BTW, because we can test it on organisms of known descent.

The rest of the article is moot for the point I was making that it was weird to me, to claim AIG is somehow falsely claiming Darwin that all organisms had a common ancestor when I know he said that,

See above. He didn't say that. From your link:

Both these passages may suggest that Darwin's view was that there was one start-up of life from nonliving materials, or just a few of them. However, this is not what his theory really says. In the fifth edition of the Origin, Darwin adds the following remark:

No doubt it is possible, as Mr. G. H. Lewes has urged, that at the first commencement of life many different forms were evolved; but if so, we may conclude that only a few have left modified descendants.
ref. 4, p. 753.

...
Darwin was not changing his mind here, but was merely clarifying what he intended all along. The idea was already in the first edition of the Origin—not in words, but in a picture. In fact, it was in the book's only picture, shown in Fig. 3. Darwin's view about common ancestry concerns tracing-back, not the number of start-ups. Perhaps life started up one time or many; this may be unknowable and, in any event, was not something that Darwin thought he knew. Darwin's claim is that all of the life that exists now, and all of the fossils that are around now too, trace back to one or a few original progenitors.

In fact he made it clear that he didn't know if there was one common ancestor or a number of them. Until genetics, it was impossible to say. And universal common descent was never part of his theory. He made for specific statements in that theory. What do you think they were?

And again, it seems to me that AIG was not intentionally misrepresenting Darwin's words. I suspect they read their own wishes as to what they wanted him to have said, into what he actually said and believed.

Common descent is not part of evolutionary theory. It's a consequence of the theory. And universal common descent isn't even a consequence of theory. Likewise abiogenesis (origin of life) was never part of evolutionary theory. As you see, Darwin just supposed that God made the first living things. If God had just poofed the first organisms into existence, evolution would still work exactly as we see it working.

 

[Hidden In Him]

Apparently, you don't know any biologists.

Play nice.

 

[Barbarian]

Everyone I know in the naturalistic evolution sphere admit that Darwin was talking about Universal Common Ancestry

Apparently, you don't know any biologists. Indeed, Darwin didn't claim that all living things on Earth came from one common ancestor. He supposed there might be a number of original forms. Neither did Darwin's theory say how life began. He suggested that God might have just made the first living things. This is what I'm pointing out. Most creationists don't even know what evolution or evolutionary theory is. This debunks both misunderstandings:

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.
Charles Darwin, last sentence of On the Origin of Species
The "quote" you presented is close to what Darwin said, but errs in some significant ways, as you see.

Play nice.

I'm just pointing out the facts. You think biologists don't know this? Even as an undergraduate, no one I knew in biology didn't know this. And biologists certainly know it.

 

[BroRoyVa79]

That's a common dodge; as you see, "evolution" merely means "change", which is why Darwin didn't like it. Today, biological evolution is merely defined in genetic terms. "Evolution" as merely "change" can be applied to stars, automobile styling, and so on. This is why scientists roll their eyes in frustration at those who try to conflate the informal meaning with the scientific definition.

Not sure what I'm dodging and the AIG article alone quoted evolutionists' definition that go against yours . I also quoted Darwin saying that he believed all life came from a common ancestor. You seem to have a problem with the facts here as you want to redefine or reinterpret things. And I quote the article AIG quoted again:

An Introduction to Evolution Article written at Berkley University NOT Answers in Genesis:

Biological evolution is not simply a matter of change over time. Many things change over time: caterpillars turn into moths, trees lose and regrow their leaves, mountain ranges rise and erode, but they aren’t examples of biological evolution because they don’t involve descent with inherited modifications.

All life on Earth shares a common ancestor, just as you and your cousins share a common grandmother. Through the process of descent with modification, this common ancestor gave rise to the diverse species that we see documented in the fossil record and around us today. Evolution means that we’re all distant cousins: humans and oak trees, hummingbirds and whales.

You deal with their definition that it's not simply a matter of change over time. Go talk with your fellow evolutionists about that one.

Two errors in interpretation there. First since the actual creation story tells us that it's not a literal account (because you can't have mornings and evenings before a sun was there to have them) there's no way to redefine it into a time line. Second, assuming a figurative account becomes literal if it's repeated later, is clearly fallacious.

The Creation narrative no where tells us that it's not a literal account. Second, you base it on finite human's understanding of how light works after the fact, ignoring God's divine nature and abilities. Third, I already pointed out that the Creation narrative is out of order per how naturalist think the universe was formed by way of nothing. Fourth, there's nothing in the original language from a textual perspective to indicate that the narrative is figurative. Fifth, again all Prophets, all Biblical Writers, Jesus (God) and the Apostles treated the whole of Genesis as history. The onus is on you to prove otherwise. Many a scholar have tried and I've found them unimpressive in their efforts.

I just showed you that. Notice the link shows that evolution was defined as descent with modification (which as you learned was Darwin's term).

Again, they directly quote a Berkley article defining evolution.

Regarding AIG's error on Darwin:
AIG falsely claims that Darwin thought all organisms had a common ancestor. He did not. He suggested that there may have instead been a few kinds that gave rise to others. I'm thinking that this is more of an issue of ignorance on the part of AIG than an intentional attempt to mislead us.

Apparently, you don't know any biologists. Indeed, Darwin didn't claim that all living things on Earth came from one common ancestor.

He supposed there might be a number of original forms. Neither did Darwin's theory say how life began. He suggested that God might have just made the first living things. This is what I'm pointing out. Most creationists don't even know what evolution or evolutionary theory is. This debunks both misunderstandings:

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.
Charles Darwin, last sentence of On the Origin of Species
The "quote" you presented is close to what Darwin said, but errs in some significant ways, as you see.

The quote is exactly what Darwin says. You want to reinterpret it and split hairs so you can maintain your attack on AIG.

I found The Origin of Species, 1859 version in pdf form: Here. Quoting in context from page 220 according to the pdf where Darwin is initially talking about Naturalists' views on the changeability of species, variation, and their views on special creation (emphasis mine):

It may be asked how far I extend the doctrine of the modification of species. The question is difficult to answer, because the more distinct the forms are which we may consider, by so much the arguments fall away in force. But some arguments of the greatest weight extend very far. All the members of whole classes can be connected together by chains of affinities, and all can be classified on the same principle, in groups subordinate to groups. Fossil remains sometimes tend to fill up very wide intervals between existing orders. Organs in a rudimentary condition plainly show that an early progenitor had the organ in a fully developed state; and this in some instances necessarily implies an enormous amount of modification in the descendants. Throughout whole classes various structures are formed on the same pattern, and at an embryonic age the species closely resemble each other. Therefore I cannot doubt that the theory of descent with modification embraces all the members of the same class. I believe that animals have descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number.

Analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that all animals and plants have descended from some one prototype. But analogy may be a deceitful guide. Nevertheless all living things have much in common, in their chemical composition, their germinal vesicles, their cellular structure, and their laws of growth and reproduction. We see this even in so trifling a circumstance as that the same poison often similarly affects plants and animals; or that the poison secreted by the gall-fly produces monstrous growths on the wild rose or oak-tree. Therefore I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed.

He says it right there, twice in the last paragraph, that he believes all animals and plants descended "from some one prototype" and then again "from some one primordial form." Yes, after saying that he believed all animals and plants have descended from a small group of progenitors. He goes on to say that if he were to go further, all life came from one prototype or one primordial form. So, I'm not understanding how you claim the articles quoted him in error.

Continued...

 

[BroRoyVa79]

It's very common for creationists to confuse agencies of evolution like natural selection or consequences of evolution like common descent, with evolution itself. That's the errors we see above. In fact, because evolutionary theory makes no claims about universal common descent, Darwin didn't claim so. Ironically, the first evidence for universal common descent came from a creationist, Linnaeus, who noted that all living things fit nicely into a family tree of common descent. But it wasn't until the nature of DNA was made clear that we could test that idea. And not surprisingly, DNA analyses gave us an almost identical family tree to the one made clear by Linnaeus. We know this works, BTW, because we can test it on organisms of known descent.

Most of what you say here is moot to my original point that Darwin said what he said. The Universal Common Descent part was me saying other evolutionists said that he believed that or extrapolated from Darwin's beliefs that. The article I linked is evidence of that where Konnin and Wolf in their own words say:

In the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin famously proposed what we may now call the Universal Common Ancestry (UCA) hypothesis: "I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed."

These are your people saying that they see UCA in Darwin's Origin of Species. Not me. Not AIG. Not Creationists. You said "I don't know any biologists." Both of these authors work at the National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health. Neither of these authors work at AIG. Neither of these authors work at any Creation ministry that I can find. They work at a secular biotechnology information center for the NIH.

See above. He didn't say that. From your link:

Both these passages may suggest that Darwin's view was that there was one start-up of life from nonliving materials, or just a few of them. However, this is not what his theory really says. In the fifth edition of the Origin, Darwin adds the following remark:
...
Darwin was not changing his mind here, but was merely clarifying what he intended all along. The idea was already in the first edition of the Origin—not in words, but in a picture. In fact, it was in the book's only picture, shown in Fig. 3. Darwin's view about common ancestry concerns tracing-back, not the number of start-ups. Perhaps life started up one time or many; this may be unknowable and, in any event, was not something that Darwin thought he knew. Darwin's claim is that all of the life that exists now, and all of the fossils that are around now too, TRACE BACK TO ONE or a few original progenitors.

Again, in your attempt to maintain your position, you don't realize you reveal something that's in agreement with me. I highlighted it for you. "Darwin's claim is that all of the life that exists now, and all of the fossils that are around now too, TRACE BACK TO ONE, or a few original progenitors." Again, their words. Not mine. So, even if he was flip flopping between one common ancestor or a handful of common ancestors, that's common ancestry. But the point is that Darwin clearly mentions that he believes it could've been one common ancestor and the authors of the article reemphasize that here. I'm not seeing how this is an issue you're making it out to be when it's all right there in his words, and in the article talking about it.

In fact he made it clear that he didn't know if there was one common ancestor or a number of them.

This is still not a denial of common ancestry. Plus, if there are a number of them, that's a descent by common origin within those groups if not UCA. But again, Darwin said he also believed that it could have been one common ancestor as you admit here that he didn't know, but in his own words he admitted if he went further with his "analogy" then all life came from one prototype or primordial form. This is splitting hairs. It's all moot as he says it twice above that he believes all life could come from one common ancestor. You're up in arms with Creationists, particularly AIG, when I'm sure they likely quoted him like all the evolutionist do.

And again, it seems to me that AIG was not intentionally misrepresenting Darwin's words. I suspect they read their own wishes as to what they wanted him to have said, into what he actually said and believed.

I clearly showed that they're not intentionally misrepresenting him. Instead, you are trying to reinterpret his words and you're ignoring what two articles written by evolutionist say.

Common descent is not part of evolutionary theory. It's a consequence of the theory. And universal common descent isn't even a consequence of theory. Likewise abiogenesis (origin of life) was never part of evolutionary theory. As you see, Darwin just supposed that God made the first living things. If God has just poofed the first organisms into existence, evolution would still work exactly as we see it working.

Evolution doesn't fit with the Bible, also I didn't bring up anything about abiogenesis, etc. I kept my argument strictly about keeping the theological narrative throughout the Bible consistent and leaning on the fact that all the authors, the Prophets, Apostles, and most importantly Jesus, considered Genesis, to include the creation narrative, to be history. Not figurative language. Not mythology. Not mytho-history. Not just Abraham's stuff as history. Jesus quoted passages from the creation narrative about Adam and Eve indicating He (God) considered Adam and Eve as real historical people, not mythical, figurative, literature characters or something.

Play nice. New member, for one thing.

Thanks for the welcome. Joined a while ago. Posted a few times back then and stopped. I'm just popping in again from time to time. Not really a new member.

 

[Barbarian]

Most of what you say here is moot to my original point that Darwin said what he said.

Point is, he didn't say what you were told he said.

Not sure what I'm dodging and the AIG article alone quoted evolutionists' definition that go against yours . I also quoted Darwin saying that he believed all life came from a common ancestor.

Your own link says he didn't:
Both these passages may suggest that Darwin's view was that there was one start-up of life from nonliving materials, or just a few of them. However, this is not what his theory really says. In the fifth edition of the Origin, Darwin adds the following remark:

No doubt it is possible, as Mr. G. H. Lewes has urged, that at the first commencement of life many different forms were evolved; but if so, we may conclude that only a few have left modified descendants.
ref. 4, p. 753.

...
Darwin was not changing his mind here, but was merely clarifying what he intended all along. The idea was already in the first edition of the Origin—not in words, but in a picture. In fact, it was in the book's only picture, shown in Fig. 3. Darwin's view about common ancestry concerns tracing-back, not the number of start-ups. Perhaps life started up one time or many; this may be unknowable and, in any event, was not something that Darwin thought he knew. Darwin's claim is that all of the life that exists now, and all of the fossils that are around now too, trace back to one or a few original progenitors.

You're up in arms with Creationists, particularly AIG, when I'm sure they likely quoted him like all the evolutionist do.

See above. As I said, I doubt of they even knew they misrepresented him. As you see, Darwin just thought that God made the first living things, and suggested that it could have been a number of original organisms from which others descended.

Third, I already pointed out that the Creation narrative is out of order per how naturalist think the universe was formed by way of nothing. Fourth, there's nothing in the original language from a textual perspective to indicate that the narrative is figurative. Fifth, again all Prophets, all Biblical Writers, Jesus (God) and the Apostles treated the whole of Genesis as history.

As you see, the text itself tells us that it's not a literal account. And never in the Bible does anyone say that it was a literal history. That's a modern addition by men to make it more acceptable to them.

Again, they directly quote a Berkley article defining evolution.

Well, let's take a look at what biologists actually say...

Biological evolution is the change in inherited traits over successive generations in populations of organisms.

Biological Evolution - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics

www.sciencedirect.com

National Academy of Science
Evolution:
Evolution consists of changes in the heritable traits of a population of organisms as successive generations replace one another. It is populations of organisms that evolve, not individual organisms.

https://www.nationalacademies.org/evolution/definitions

Evolution is a process that results in changes in the genetic material of a population over time.

evolution

Evolution is a process that results in changes in the genetic material of a population over time

www.nature.com

Biological evolution, simply put, is descent with inherited modification.

An introduction to evolution

evolution.berkeley.edu

Biologists organize their thinking about biological processes using evolution as the framework. There are five key mechanisms that cause a population, a group of interacting organisms of a single species, to exhibit a change in allele frequency from one generation to the next. These are evolution by: mutation, genetic drift, gene flow, non-random mating, and natural selection.

Other Mechanisms of Evolution | Biological Principles

bioprinciples.biosci.gatech.edu

In short, the modern synthesis describes how evolutionary processes, such as natural selection, can affect a population’s genetic makeup, and, in turn, how this can result in the gradual evolution of populations and species. The theory also connects population change over time (microevolution), with the processes that gave rise to new species and higher taxonomic groups

Population Evolution – Introductory Biology: Evolutionary and Ecological Perspectives

pressbooks.umn.edu

So science has continued to use Darwin's definition (descent with modification) but with the recognition that this happens via a change in allele frquencies in a population, something Darwin did not realize. That knowledge cleared up a problem with Darwin's theory, explaining why new traits could persist and increase in a population.
As you see, even your own link debunks the idea that Darwin thought all living things had a common ancestor. He repreatly indicates that he didn't know for sure, suggesting that there might have been a number of original living things created by God.
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.
Charles Darwin, last sentence of On the Origin of Species

Turns out, his hunch was right; genetics has confirmed the family tree of common descent first detected by Linnaeus. But Darwin was a very careful scientist, and did not declare this to be a fact. He just didn't know.

 

[Barbarian]

"Darwin's claim is that all of the life that exists now, and all of the fossils that are around now too, TRACE BACK TO ONE, or a few original progenitors."

Yes "TRACE BACK TO ONE, OR A FEW original progentors." That's what I told you. He didn't know that it was
only one; that required genetic analysis, which confirms the fact. DNA analyses show that universal common descent of existing living things is a fact. And as I said we can check this method by looking at organisms of known descent.

Keep in mind, that this still doesn't rule out that the Earth might have brought forth a number of different forms of life, only one of which survived to produce the diversity of living things today. We just know that all the living things we know about have a common ancestor.

I'm not seeing how this is an issue you're making it out to be when it's all right there in his words, and in the article talking about it.

I'm showing you that Darwin was careful not to make claims he couldn't support. He just didn't know whether there was one common ancestor or any number of them. Turns out, all life today has a common ancestor, but Darwin couldn't say for sure. This is why abiogenesis is not part of evolutionary theory. Is is part of scripture, though. God says the earth brought forth living things.

Evolution doesn't fit with the Bible

Since we see it happening constantly around us, You're wrong about that. This is His creation, after all. There really is no statement about evolution one way or the other in the Bible. But then it makes no statements about protons or thermonuclear reactions, or resonance bonding. And all those are also observed phenomena, like evolution.

I kept my argument strictly about keeping the theological narrative throughout the Bible consistent and leaning on the fact that all the authors, the Prophets, Apostles, and most importantly Jesus, considered Genesis, to include the creation narrative, to be history.

In fact, none of them said it was a literal history. That's a modern revision, not found in the Bible.

Jesus quoted passages from the creation narrative about Adam and Eve indicating He (God) considered Adam and Eve as real historical people, not mythical, figurative, literature characters or something.

I'd be interested in your evidence that real people would no longer be real people if they were included in an allegory like the creation account.

 

[Barbarian]

If you believe all animals were created after their kind, how do you reconcile that with a belief in Macroevolution?

The difference between us is that I am not offended by the way He did it. And since speciation is an observed fact, there's really no point in denying that He did.

 

[BroRoyVa79]

Point is, he didn't say what you were told he said.

Your own link says he didn't:
Both these passages may suggest that Darwin's view was that there was one start-up of life from nonliving materials, or just a few of them. However, this is not what his theory really says. In the fifth edition of the Origin, Darwin adds the following remark:

...
Darwin was not changing his mind here, but was merely clarifying what he intended all along. The idea was already in the first edition of the Origin—not in words, but in a picture. In fact, it was in the book's only picture, shown in Fig. 3. Darwin's view about common ancestry concerns tracing-back, not the number of start-ups. Perhaps life started up one time or many; this may be unknowable and, in any event, was not something that Darwin thought he knew. Darwin's claim is that all of the life that exists now, and all of the fossils that are around now too, trace back to one or a few original progenitors.

This is getting repetitive. Not going to keep going back and forth with you on this when all of the quotes clearly have in them him saying that if he took his theory further through “analogy” all life came from one common primordial form or prototype. You not wanting to agree to that is on you. I’m not going to keep at this with you like I’m bouncing words against a wall or something and you keep denying that part is there for splitting hairs on nuance. Nuance or not, it’s there. Moving on to y our interpretation issues with Genesis. No longer going to deal with this Darwin stuff because I’ve shown that he said that he believed in a common ancestry, yes with caveats. Accept that, stop splitting hairs and move on.

As you see, the text itself tells us that it's not a literal account. And never in the Bible does anyone say that it was a literal history. That's a modern addition by men to make it more acceptable to them.

Where exactly in the text does it say this? Where? I gave you an earlier example in Exodus 20:11 of God talking saying he created the world and everything in six days. I know Theistic Evolutionists and Old Earth Creationists like to gloss over that verse or try to explain it away. Either way, a literal understanding is not the addition of modern men. Again, Moses penned in Exodus 20:11 " For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." That's not a modern addition by men to make it more acceptable to modern ideals. For crying out loud man, historically speaking, creationism was highly prevalent prior to 1849, it wasn't until after Darwin that many Christians started compromising the Bible to try to fit evolution and millions and billions of years into the Bible with bizarre theories on how to interpret Genesis contrary to how it had been understood for millennia outside of a few outliers.

Well, let's take a look at what biologists actually say...

Biological evolution is the change in inherited traits over successive generations in populations of organisms.

Biological Evolution - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics

www.sciencedirect.com

National Academy of Science
Evolution:
Evolution consists of changes in the heritable traits of a population of organisms as successive generations replace one another. It is populations of organisms that evolve, not individual organisms.

https://www.nationalacademies.org/evolution/definitions

Evolution is a process that results in changes in the genetic material of a population over time.

evolution

Evolution is a process that results in changes in the genetic material of a population over time

www.nature.com

Biological evolution, simply put, is descent with inherited modification.

An introduction to evolution

evolution.berkeley.edu

Cutting the rest of this out as it’s repetitive and moot. My responses to you have generally been about your own misrepresentation of AIG. Many of these articles do and say what the AIG article was getting at. That the definition is more detailed than simply the “change over time” that you keep repeating.

Continued...

 

[BroRoyVa79]

Turns out, his hunch was right; genetics has confirmed the family tree of common descent first detected by Linnaeus. But Darwin was a very careful scientist, and did not declare this to be a fact. He just didn't know.

Linnaeus was a creationist. It’s what the naturalist, secularist, atheist do, they ignore that much of modern science was birthed from Bible believing creationist Christians and twist what they originally sought to investigate into an atheistic, naturalistic worldview.

I don’t pretend to be a scientist, I like to let them speak for themselves. One quick example from CMI, Jeffrey Tomkins and Jerry Bergman write an interesting article discussing how the “tree of life” the family tree of common descent has had many issues due to the genetics revolution. This article is from 7 years ago, however, and discusses rogue data that causes problems among other things. You can read it and ponder on it, I'm not linking it to debate with you their science or issues with the tree of common descent.

Likewise, I have seen secular scientists raise problems with the common descent tree of life when they discover that the links they thought were a thing, are proven to be false, problematic, whatever with further study. Some examples:
"Flaws emerge in RNA method to build tree of life" Amy Maxmen, 2014 - Maxmen discusses Turtles and a study carried out in 2011 putting them on the same tree branch as lizards and another study done in 2014 that seemed to agree with the first one, but soon discovered a problem with using microRNA to build the tree branch and had to use alternative methods to get the results they were looking for.
"What is the Tree of Life?" W. Ford Doolittle, Tyler D.P. Brunet, 2016 - in this Doolittle and Brunet discuss the TOL and some of its problems while speculating on the Last Universal Common Ancestor, etc.
They even got to the point where they started redoing it: "Reshaping Darwin's Tree of Life" ScienceDaily - Rutgers University, 2017

Again, not linking this to you to debate the science. Instead, it shows that the secular scientists' musings and studies into nature prove my point about man's musings on reality and constantly changing his mind. Therefore, I do not see man's declarations of absolute truth from science as a hindrance to God's word. Couple years from now what you hold to be absolutely true through man's whimsical investigation of nature will be a new "absolute truth" proclaimed by unbelieving man.

Since we see it happening constantly around us, You're wrong about that. This is His creation, after all. There really is no statement about evolution one way or the other in the Bible. But then it makes no statements about protons or thermonuclear reactions, or resonance bonding. And all those are also observed phenomena, like evolution.

We don't see one kind of animal changing into another constantly. And, no, you can't extrapolate and imagine, for example, that from a bird's (it's species) beak growing longer or getting shorter based on environment that we'd somehow get the bird (it's species) changing into a gigantic monstrous lizard monster over time. We don't see that around us. We just don't. The bird's beaks just change length and the bird has still remained a bird through all of our observations. We see adaptation within a kind. That kind doesn't jump from one kind to another. Dogs are still dogs. Cats are still Cats. And so on and so forth. This is the general problem I have with all origins science theories. They jump to hasty conclusions and move from what they can see operating today in its simplest form and get wildly imaginative about everything else. We don't see macroevolution, which one of your links defines as:

"Large-scale evolution occurring over geologic time that results in the formation of new species and broader taxonomic groups."

We don't see this. It's impossible. Because by the definition's own admission, this takes long periods of time. Minor changes within a kind is not the same and evolutionists tend to try to marry the two to say it's a thing. When it's not.

In fact, none of them said it was a literal history. That's a modern revision, not found in the Bible.

It's not a modern revision not found in the Bible. All throughout the Bible all of the authors, Prophets, Apostles, and Jesus treat Genesis as history. The Apostles, John, Paul, etc. link salvation to the fall in Genesis. Treating Adam and Eve as historical, real life people. I'm not going to repeat this again only to have you repeat that "none of them said it was literal history" when they're quoting it or pointing to it with theology as literal history and building the foundation of soteriology around the fallen nature of man through Adam and by extension Eve.

Romans 5: 12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.​

​

15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.​

​

Paul here is pointing to the historical Adam and the historical event of the fall in Genesis 3 as the reason a sin nature has entered humanity and the reason the free gift of grace through Jesus Christ is needed. This doesn't make sense if you allegorize Genesis 3 or arbitrarily allegorize parts of Genesis around Genesis 3. Diminishes not only the doctrine of inerrancy, but the integrity of the cohesive, consistent, Biblical narrative.

Likewise, the lineage in Luke traces Jesus' lineage back to Adam, treating Adam as a real historical person in Luke 3:23-38. And not just Adam, you have a few of the Genesis individuals in that lineage treated as real historical people. Luke again references a historical Adam in Acts 17:26 when recording Paul's sermon to the men of Athens: "And he [God, see v24] made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the faces of the earth..."

Etc. Etc. Etc. Again, all of the Authors, Prophets, Apostles and Jesus who mention Genesis or people in Genesis mention it all as real, literal history unless the genre of the writing is poetic, parable, etc. in nature. Even then, when Job has Genesis as its topic, it's referencing the works of God (Job 38, for example) as if they were real no different than when Psalms references the Creation event. Especially when you look at this in context of the entire Biblical narrative and let the Bible explain itself rather than man's musings about nature try to explain the Bible.

I'd be interested in your evidence that real people would no longer be real people if they were included in an allegory like the creation account.

Then tell me, where would Genesis became history for you if the creation account is allegory and what linguistic evidence do you have from the text itself that says it's allegory? At what point do theologically important passages in the New Testament like Romans 5:12-19 become an issue? How are you not arbitrarily deciding when Genesis is actually history and when it is actually allegory? And why do you get to decide when it's history and when it's allegory? Because man believes in evolution and you believe in man? That's not a good excuse for me.

I know of Hebrew experts, who while not embracing a six-day creation, will still tell you that in Hebrew the text is not allegorical and is written as Historical narrative. Case and point, the Wisdom and Poetry books contain a lot of Hebrew allegory. When you compare, say the structure of Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, and even some passages in Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, they don't match up with Genesis 1-11. Those chapters aren't written in a poetic, song, or parable structure. Genesis 1-11 is not written in Hebrew parallelism with repetition of subject matter or sound/rhyme or timing.

End.

 

[Barbarian]

Turns out, his hunch was right; genetics has confirmed the family tree of common descent first detected by Linnaeus. But Darwin was a very careful scientist, and did not declare this to be a fact. He just didn't know.

Linnaeus was a creationist.

Yep. It baffled him that phenotypic classification ended up in a family tree. He was further puzzled when other things, like minerals, did not. But the evidence eventually got him to thinking, something that disturbed him:

I demand of you, and of the whole world, that you show me a generic character—one that is according to generally accepted principles of classification, by which to distinguish between Man and Ape. I myself most assuredly know of none.... But, if I had called man an ape, or vice versa, I should have fallen under the ban of all the ecclesiastics. It may be that as a naturalist I ought to have done so.

Carl Linnaeus Quote

I demand of you, and of the whole world, that you show me a generic character—one that is according to generally accepted principles of classification, by which to distinguish between Man and Ape. I myself most assuredly know...

libquotes.com

(He used "naturalist" in the correct sense, "one who studies nature.")

It’s what the naturalist, secularist, atheist do, they ignore that much of modern science was birthed from Bible believing creationist Christians and twist what they originally sought to investigate into an atheistic, naturalistic worldview.

That's another error. For example, Darwin thought God created living things. The Big Bang was first proposed by a Catholic Priest. Genetics was discovered by a Catholic monk. The Human Genome Project was headed by a devout evangelical Christian, and so on.

I don’t pretend to be a scientist, I like to let them speak for themselves. One quick example from CMI, Jeffrey Tomkins and Jerry Bergman write an interesting article discussing how the “tree of life” the family tree of common descent has had many issues due to the genetics revolution.

That's a good example. The pre-Darwinian "Tree of Life" was based on the idea of a Scala Natura, a sort of ladder from low to high. Darwin quickly realized that it was more of a bush than a ladder. This is one of the important things genetics did for Darwin's theory; it explained why the "tree" was more of a bush. The other thing was that the early classification schemes, such as that of Linnaeus was based on superficial phenotypes, rather than genetics. So it focused on analogies rather than homologies. For an extreme example, fish and whales. They are analogous creatures, but both genetics and anatomical homologies (like lungs, digestive systems, and swimming structures) show that they are related to mammals.

Likewise, I have seen secular scientists raise problems with the common descent tree of life when they discover that the links they thought were a thing, are proven to be false, problematic, whatever with further study. Some examples:
"Flaws emerge in RNA method to build tree of life" Amy Maxmen, 2014 - Maxmen discusses Turtles and a study carried out in 2011 putting them on the same tree branch as lizards and another study done in 2014 that seemed to agree with the first one, but soon discovered a problem with using microRNA to build the tree branch and had to use alternative methods to get the results they were looking for.

Here's why:

The anapsids (turtles and their mostly extinct kin) are a very ancient offshoot of the amniote line. Interestingly, the predicted anapsid/turtle transitional fossil is now found:

​

Biol Lett
2010 Dec 23;6(6):830-3

Transitional fossils and the origin of turtles​

(Proganochelys quenstedti )​

Therefore, I do not see man's declarations of absolute truth from science as a hindrance to God's word.

Of course, science doesn't make "absolute truth" declarations. And since God's word has so far been consistent with the things science has uncovered, it's not a problem at all.

Couple years from now what you hold to be absolutely true through man's whimsical investigation of nature will be a new "absolute truth" proclaimed by unbelieving man.

That's what YE creationism is. Not science. Notice that even AIG now admits that new species, genera, and sometimes families of organisms come from older groups. They just don't want to call it "evolution", although as you have learned that's precisely what evolution is.

We don't see one kind of animal changing into another constantly. And, no, you can't extrapolate and imagine, for example, that from a bird's (it's species) beak growing longer or getting shorter based on environment that we'd somehow get the bird (it's species) changing into a gigantic monstrous lizard monster over time.

That would be more in line with creationism, which supposes that all modern living things evolved by hyperevolution over a few thousand years from a few "kinds" (which creationists cannot even testably define) from the Ark. Rather, we see numerous examples of entire series of transitionals evolving over time in the fossil record. Even honest YE creationists admit that much:
Darwin’s third expectation —of higher-taxon stratomorphic intermediates — has been
confirmed by such examples as the mammal-like reptile groups31 between the reptiles and the mammals, and the
phenacodontids32 between the horses and their presumed ancestors. Darwin’s fourth expectation — of stratomorphic
series — has been confirmed by such examples as the early bird series,33 the tetrapod series,34,35 the whale series,36 the various mammal series of the Cenozoic37 (for example, the horse series, the camel series, the elephant series, the pig series, the titanothere series, etc.), the Cantius and Plesiadapus primate series,38 and the hominid series.39
Evidence for not just one but for all three of the species level and above types of stratomorphic intermediates expected by macroevolutionary theory is surely strong evidence for macroevolutionary theory. Creationists therefore need to
accept this fact. It certainly CANNOT be said that traditional creation theory expected (predicted) any of these fossil finds.
YE creationist Dr. Kurt Wise Toward a Creationist Understanding of Transitional Forms
Dr. Wise prefers his interpretation of scripture to the evidence, but he's too honest to deny that it is evidence.

"Large-scale evolution occurring over geologic time that results in the formation of new species and broader taxonomic groups."

We don't see this. It's impossible.

Dr. Wise shows you that your belief is false; there is, as he says, "very good evidence for macroevolutionary theory."

It's not a modern revision not found in the Bible.

That's what it is. YE creationism is no older than the last century. lndeed, in the first half of the 20th century, most creationists were old Earth creationists. That was the version presented at the scopes trial, for example. Only after the Seventh-Day Adventists inserted their doctrines into evangelical churches, did YE become a common belief among evangelical Christians.

The Creationists​

From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design, Expanded Edition​

Ronald L. Numbers
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674023390

Then tell me, where would Genesis became history for you if the creation account is allegory and what linguistic evidence do you have from the text itself that says it's allegory?

For example the mention of mornings and evenings before there was a sun to have them tells us that the "creation week" was not six literal days. This was well-known to early Christians like St. Augustine and even to 19th century evangelicals like the great British Baptist leader, who acknowledged millions of years of Earth history.

Even many Jewish theologians in ancient, medieval and modern times knew that the Bible was often not literal history.

Genesis As Allegory | My Jewish Learning

Genesis as Allegory. Creationism and Evolution in Judaism. Science and Judaism. Jewish Science. Jewish Ideas and Beliefs

www.myjewishlearning.com

 

[Barbarian]

This is getting repetitive. Not going to keep going back and forth with you on this when all of the quotes clearly have in them him saying that if he took his theory further through “analogy” all life came from one common primordial form or prototype.

I'm just showing you what he said:
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.
Charles Darwin, last sentence of On the Origin of Species

No point in denial. But if it comes up, I'll point it out again. As you see, Darwin did not know if God originally created just one common ancestor or created a number of different common ancestors. Accept that, stop splitting hairs and move on.

As you see, the text itself tells us that it's not a literal account.

Where exactly in the text does it say this?

Where it speaks of mornings and evenings before the sun, which by definition, one must have to have mornings and evenings.

And no, even if an allegory is repeated, it doesn't change to a literal history.

For crying out loud man, historically speaking, creationism was highly prevalent prior to 1849

As you see, YE creationism is a modern revision of scripture, no older than the Seventh Day Adventists, who invented it.
And why do you get to decide when it's history and when it's allegory? Because man believes in YE creationism and you believe in man? That's not a good excuse for me.

I know of Hebrew experts, who while not embracing a six-day creation, will still tell you that in Hebrew the text is not allegorical and is written as Historical narrative.

Well, let's see what Jewish sources have to say about that...
But, as Steven Katz notes…, "In Jewish religious thought Genesis is not regarded as meant for a literal reading, and Jewish tradition has not usually read it so." In fact, as we shall argue below, even the compilers of the Bible do not seem to have been concerned with a literal reading of the text. They were prepared to have at least parts of it read non-literally.
...
Whatever the intention of the individual accounts of creation may have been, it is clear from the Bible as a whole that its compilers were not overly concerned with the details of the creation story in the first chapter of Genesis. They incorporated several accounts of creation in the Bible even though no two accounts agree in detail with Genesis 1 or with each other. Genesis 1 describes the creation of the world in six days. The second account of creation is the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2).

Several other accounts are found in poetic form in Psalms, Proverbs, and Job. Genesis 1 says that man was the last living creature created; Genesis 2 says that he was the first. Genesis 1 speaks of the prehistoric waters in purely naturalistic terms and says that God merely commanded them to gather in a single spot so that dry land could appear.

But in poetic passages the ancient waters are personified as rebellious sea monsters which threatened to swamp the dry land, until God subdued them and created the seashore as a boundary which they were prohibited from crossing.

The most notable difference between Genesis and all the other accounts is that none of the others mentions the idea that the world was created in six days. This idea–which is the centerpiece of the whole creationist movement–was apparently not considered important enough in the Bible to be repeated in other accounts of creation.

Genesis As Allegory | My Jewish Learning

Genesis as Allegory. Creationism and Evolution in Judaism. Science and Judaism. Jewish Science. Jewish Ideas and Beliefs

www.myjewishlearning.com

 

[Highway54]

Actually, "evolution" merely means "change." Darwin didn't care for the word; he only used it once in his book. He referred to it as "descent with modification." Since the rediscovery of genetics, there is a precise scientific definition for biological evolution, however. It is defined as a change in allele frequencies in a population over time. Creationists usually confuse biological evolution with agencies of evolution, like natural selection, or consequences of biological evolution like common descent.

Thank you Barbarian for giving me your understanding of the word. I will say I agree with you, and we do in fact change. Even quicker than one might think, I have a prime example, I am from central illinois and the company I worked for had a company in Brownsville Texas. One of our foreman was asked to assist in the operation of the plant, and he went down there and was there for around 12 yrs. He was your standard blue eyed dark haired white guy when he left, when he returned he was quite dark in complexion. No doubt in my mind that if he had offspring that stayed there in a few generations they would develop the same qualities on a more permanent level. Not a species change of course, but adapting to their surroundings, which is basically the way you defined it.

 

[Barbarian]

Thank you @Barbarian for giving me your understanding of the word. I will say I agree with you, and we do in fact change. Even quicker than one might think, I have a prime example, I am from central illinois and the company I worked for had a company in Brownsville Texas. One of our foreman was asked to assist in the operation of the plant, and he went down there and was there for around 12 yrs. He was your standard blue eyed dark haired white guy when he left, when he returned he was quite dark in complexion.

That's a confusion between adaptation possible for an individual, and adaptation due to natural selection acting on reproductive success of the individuals in the population.

No doubt in my mind that if he had offspring that stayed there in a few generations they would develop the same qualities on a more permanent level.

Well, that is an error Darwin made. You see, he argued that if you took Africans to England, in a few generations, they'd be just like Englishmen. Because Mendel's discoveries were not yet known widely, most scientists still thought acquired characters could be inherited. Aside from short-term epigenetic changes, that doesn't happen. But over a longer time, it could be that such adaptation might occur if natural selection were strong enough.

There is a difference between getting a tan and mutations making one's offspring darker as a result of mutation and natural selection.