The 10 Things You Should Know About the Creation vs. Evolution Debate Read Online Free PDF Page A

around the world, even atop
high mountains. In this view, then, things in the past took place
at enormously different rates and intensities from anything seen at present. This view obviously goes against the uniformitarianism accepted by evolutionists.

    I address uniformitarianism and the fossil record in chapter
4. Now, however, I must shift attention to the critically important distinction between microevolution and macroevolution.
Microevolution vs. Macroevolution
    A distinction must be made between microevolution and
macroevolution, for much modern confusion on evolutionism
is rooted in a confusion of these categories. Simply put, microevolution refers to changes that occur within the same species, while
macroevolution refers to the transition or evolution of one species
into another.24 Macroevolution "consists of changes within a
population leading to a completely new species with genetic
information that did not exist in any of the parents."25
    Creationists and evolutionists agree that microevolution has
taken place. Creationists believe all the different races of human
beings descended from a single common human ancestor
(Adam) .2' Likewise, all kinds of dogs have "microevolved" from
the original dog species created by God.Z' In no case, however,
have scientists ever observed macroevolution.21 I argue later in
the book that the genetic pool of DNA in each species sets
parameters beyond which the species simply cannot evolve (that
is, dogs can take on new characteristics, but they cannot evolve
into cats, for dog DNA always remains dog DNA, just as cat
DNA always remains cat DNA).
    Scripture indicates that God created the initial "kinds" of
animals, and then reproduction took place, generation by generation, "according to its kind" (Genesis 1:21,24). This type of
evolution is "micro" in the sense that small changes have taken
place in the DNA of specific species to bring about minor
changes in that species. So, for example, human DNA allows
humans to have different eye colors, different hair colors, different heights, dark skin or light skin, a bulky frame or a scrawny frame, a thin body or a fat body, and so forth. The possibility
for all kinds of variations such as these are encoded into the
DNA of the human species."

    All of this contrasts with macroevolution, which, as noted
previously, refers to large-scale transitions of one species into
another through the process of natural selection." Evolutionists believe that only the best-fit members of each species survive
and transmit their genetic characteristics in increasing
numbers to succeeding generations, while those less adapted are
weeded out." Through this "survival of the fittest" mechanism,
species can allegedly evolve or transform into entirely new
species. Simple life-forms can allegedly evolve or transform into
more complex life-forms.
    This is where the confusion often emerges in the theory of
evolution. While microevolution is an observable fact, evolutionists have in the past tended to speak of evolution as a single
unitary process (merging micro- and macroevolution into one
category) such that proof for microevolution is viewed as proof
for macroevolution. This conclusion is entirely unwarranted.'2 The
extrapolation from microevolution to macroevolution is an idea
rejected even by many nontheistic biologists."
    An illustration of this folly involves the well-known evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould, who wrote an article entitled
"Evolution as Fact and Theory" in Discovery Magazine. In the
article he emphatically stated that scientists now have "observational evidence of evolution in action." However, the examples
he cites are actually examples of microevolution in action, not
macroevolution.34 Some evolutionists try to claim that macroevolution is microevolution over a very long time (like billions
of years), 35 but such a claim flies in the face of everything scientists have observed in the world of