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Things Change
 
The observation that things in nature change has been considered and theoriesproposed as explanations throughout recorded history. Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, etc. allproposed theories to explain the “flowing” or “liquid” quality of a changing nature.
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Naturalistic and evolutionary ideas appeared early on in recorded human history.However, not until Charles Darwin (1809-1882) published his
On the Origin of Species
in 1859, with the proposed mechanism of "natural selection", did a purely non-deliberatenaturalistic process become generally accepted by the scientific community as the trueorigin of all living as well as non-living things. Finally, a logical, apparently rational,evidence-based theory had been proposed that seemed to clearly explain most, if notall, of the observed changes in the natural world without the need to appeal to a God or any other superhuman intelligence.Obviously Darwin was correct inhis observations that living creaturesdo in fact change over time. He thenproposed a theory to explain thesechanges. He theorized that the smallchanges he observed in naturecould add up over generations toproduce larger and still larger changes; to the point of evolution between species. He in fact proposed that all livingthings, including humans, evolved from a single common ancestor and that all life
 
continues to evolve. The proposed process of evolution suggested that very slightrandom changes in some creatures give them an advantage in a particular environment.This very slight advantage translates into better survival and reproductive fitness. Theseadvantages are passed on to the favored offspring, who in turn survive better and aremore reproductive. More and more traits are added (or subtracted) in each generationuntil, over the course of millions of years, the incredible diversity of living things that wesee today is the result.This is a great theory. Itsounds reasonable. It doesin fact explain someinteresting observations andit makes some predictionsthat can be tested. Darwindid in fact observe smallchanges, such as changesin the size and shape of finch beaks etc. However, Darwin never did see a finch turninto an iguana or visa versa (or any other such major change). The small changes aretestable, but the larger changes are not because they are theorized to take manythousands or even millions of years to occur. This is far too long to be observed or tested for, even in many lifetimes. Can it then be said that large-scale evolution is notobservable or directly testable and therefore not a true science? Well, not quite.Science convincingly proposes a great many things that cannot be or at least have notbeen directly observed based on what has been observed and tested. However, lets
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