Evolution, Christianity, and God

If you're here, you know I'm Catholic.  The Catholic Church teaches that believing in evolution isn't incompatible with faith in God provided that we understand that God shaped and formed the direction evolution took, and thus it is still ultimately His hands that guided the creation of man.  I used to be solidly in the pro-evolution camp.  It was what I was taught in school and by the authorities I knew. It was not questioned by anyone I knew, and so it must be true, right? Except that as I've grown older, I've started to question and have doubts about it.  In fact, the more I research it the more doubts I have about it.  

To be clear, there are actually two types of evolution: microevolution (change between generations) and macroevolution (change between species).  Microevolution has incontestable proof since it can be observed with every passing generation.  My son does not look exactly like my husband or exactly like me nor does he exactly resemble his grandparents.  However, macroevolution - which is what Darwin proposed and which evolutionists push in our schools - is NOT proven. Here are some of the amazing "plot holes" that are overlooked by main stream science when dealing with Darwin's theory of evolution:

1) Not one recorded observation

Human beings have been capable of studying bacteria since the 1500's.  Bacteria can reproduce once per second, so if there is a species that ought to have provided us recordable and observable proof of evolution at work, this is it.  Yet in the more than 500 years that we have been able to observe and watch bacteria at work, we have never once recorded an instance of bacteria becoming something other than bacteria.   This alone should make you stop and ponder the validity of Darwin's work.

2) Biochemical limits to Evolution

There are limits to how far the proteins which are the building blocks of our DNA structure can change before they are useless to us.  There are also limits on how much mutation can occur between generations.  The bottom line is that while our genes do allow for some flexibility and variation within a given species, there is a limit to how far the changes can go.

3) Mathematically Improbable

In the 200,000 years that mankind in his anatomically present form has existed, according to proponents of evolution, our species has managed to vary only by an astonishing 60 of the 100,000 genes that each human being carries.  That's less than 1/10th of 1% variation between any two human beings in over 200,000 years.  Now, chimpanzees vary by between 1.5 and 5% of their genome, depending on how you count it. That doesn't sound like much until you calculate how large a jump it would have taken for the very first human being to make the jump from monkey to human.  In one single child, you would have had to have anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 genes all at once mutate.  Assuming that happened, it had to have happened not once but twice - to a male and to a female near enough to one another and close enough in age in order for the two of them to be able to reproduce and create another species.  The most probable scenario which would fit those requirements is a brother and sister, but even then this is still incredibly unlikely because the brother and sister couldn't be identical twins which means you're still talking about two people with completely different genetic structures managing to have the exact same kinds of mutations at the exact same rate making them able to be re productively compatible. Furthermore, if they were a brother-sister pairing, then you're talking about a higher risk of physical and mental defects of the offspring which in turn means a lower chance of the next generation surviving.

In other words, to make the theory of evolution work, you have to pray for a mathematical miracle.  I won't go so far as to say it's an impossibility, but I will say that the odds of it being a recreatable event are so tiny that it is about as close as you can come.

4) Based on Logical Fallacy

Let's say I walk into the museum today and I spot two paintings that use the same paints, the same brush strokes, and the same style of painting.  Is it logical to conclude that one painting evolved from another? Or is it more logical to conclude that both paintings were created by the same person?

Darwin's Theory of Evolution takes two creatures who have similar bone structures, similar characteristics, and assumes that one HAD to come from the other.  That's a possible explanation, but it isn't the ONLY explanation.  It isn't even necessarily the best explanation.  As much as atheists hate the Intelligent Design hypothesis, it actually fits the facts just as neatly and nicely as Darwin's Theory AND doesn't have the same plot holes to contend with.

Now, these are just four holes in the tapestry of evolution, but they are pretty sizable and while they aren't conclusive proof that macroevolution doesn't happen, I can tell you that I don't stand so solidly on that side of the fence anymore.