What Does the Fox (Err, Hummingbird) Say?

Well, I'll suggest one thing I don't think the hummingbird would say. I don't think it would say that it came about by a random series of mutations over the course of millions of years. This past week, I've talked to many students who were able to talk to me with 100% more ease than a hummingbird could have conversed with. And those students all declared that we have evolved from a single cell over a course of billions of years. The more I discuss creation and evolution with students, the more I realize that it is, indeed, an incredibly important subject to consider because evolution strips value away from the creation and robs God of glory. Here are a few examples of conversations I've had with students recently. The responses they've given encompass the answers to evolution that most students give.

Last week, we traveled to Blacksburg, Virginia. We stayed with a wonderful family, Tony and Desiree Pierson, and their children. We spent three days at Virginia Tech, where many wonderful conversations happened between us and students, as well as the members of the church on campus there; Thursday morning we awoke early and departed for Charlotte, North Carolina, where we set up at UNCC. While there were students who came out just to argue, there was a resounding number who came by to read the banners and express how excited they were to see Tom and us with the banners on their campus. 

Early in the afternoon, I caught sight of a girl to my left who was reading the banners with a deeply interested look on her face. "Well, I guess you could say I'm an atheist-that's what I've started telling people, just because it's the easiest thing to say," Brittany explained when I asked her thoughts on what the banners said. Our conversation lasted for nearly the next hour, and right before leaving she admitted to me that she'd had a friend waiting to meet up with her while we'd been talking. For some reason, she'd felt compelled to keep that friend waiting as we discussed aspects of the Bible, why we can trust it, who Jesus is, and why 'religion' is not the answer. 

Brittany had grown up in a Christian home, she told me, but after coming to college and learning more about her major, Biology, she decided that science answers questions a lot better than religion does. I raised a few questions to her concerning the proof for evolution. I shared an amazing detail involving the hummingbird that I'd just read about in Amazing Evidence, and how it flies backwards by means of a rotator shoulder blade. When I asked for her take on the fact that no fossil record shows evolution causing the rotator shoulder to develop, she paused. "Well, you can't just take the fact that there is no proof for that one example," she finally responded. "We have a lot of other records that show evolution-like which ones? Well, I can't really think of any right now..." her voice trailed off. Her responses were the same to a few more examples I shared with her. Now, I am not sharing this to prove that I won an argument against evolution. I share it to point out that most students who accept evolution do not understand that it is simply one way of interpreting science, and that many do not understand that evolution oftentimes tries to add to the facts of data in order to keep the idea of an Intelligent Designer out of the picture. 

I shared a lot of my personal story with Brittany, giving example after example of how I arrived at the conclusion that what the Bible has to say about God and His existence as well as the gift of Jesus Christ was real, even after what I'd experienced and seen in others who called themselves Christians but who were not living according to the Bible. We talked about how religion has done a lot of good in the world, but how it has also committed a lot of evil. I explained how anyone doing evil in the name of Jesus Christ was twisting the meaning of the Bible for their own advantage. "Having a relationship with the God of the universe is so much more than going to church and following a set of rules," I explained. "It is experiencing the Creator of the Universe, and discovering how much He loves you at a personal level." Brittany listened intently to what I had to share, and she even ended up taking-and promising to read-a copy of Inspired Evidence, which she had initially said she did not want. Lord, use the seeds of truth that I planted. Use the seeds of truth that I sowed, and cause her to think about You more deeply than she ever has before. 

My next conversation involved a student, Eric, who claimed to be a Christian. Strangely enough, he easily argued for the side of not only evolutionary thinking, but also the invalidity of the Bible, as well as for the side of atheism! By the end of our conversation, I had a much firmer grasp of what he meant when he said, "I go back and forth on being a Christian based on a couple things I'm not sure about." It turned out that he was unsure of a lot of things. Here is how our conversation started. 

After coming back from getting a bite to eat in the afternoon, I found a group of about eight students standing in a group in front of a banner, non of whom I recognized and all appearing to be deeply involved in discussion. Not wanting to miss anything, I approached the circle to hear Eric slowly and carefully explaining principles of evolution and why everyone in the world ought to believe in it and accept it as truth. I jumped in and asked if I could join. They widened the circle for me, and as soon as I could without being rude, I began raising questions. I again brought up the amazing architecture of the hummingbird: I pointed out that there is no fossil record for this shoulder having evolved; no evidence exists of an 'in between' rotator shoulder before it became fully functioning. His response? Eric began explaining how polydactyly works: a random mutation causes a 6th finger or toe to grow where there ought not to be one. "Somewhere along the lines, a random mutation just caused a hummingbird to pop out a weird bone in it's neck that made it able to fly backwards." Eric concluded.

Unfortunately for this answer, mutations need new information in order for the majority of them to benefit. According to Answers in Genesis book 2, "Virtually all observed mutations are in the category of loss of information. This is different from loss or gain of function. Some mutations can cause an organism to lose genetic information and yet gain some type of function. This is rare but has happened. These types of mutations have a beneficial outcome" (Bodie Hodge, 75). 

Now, I am NOT a scienc-y person. There is a reason I did not major in biology. There is a reason why I majored in English. However, I do understand certain aspects of science. And I was not buying Eric's explanation of the hummingbird's strange problem with polydactyly causing a perfect rotator shoulder to sprout out of nowhere, and somehow to cause the rest of the hummingbird's offspring to inherit this exact mutation in such an incredibly perfect way. Eric had declared himself to be a Christian who 'goes back and forth on certain issues.' Turns out, he goes back and forth on just about every issue. As I probed further, we got deeper into the discussion of God and evolution. Since Eric called himself a Christian, I asked, "If God created the world using evolution, why would He have waited billions of years before human beings evolved adequately enough to be in relation with him?" Eric stared off in to the distance for a few seconds. "Well, God works in mysterious ways! Right? Isn't that something people say?" Ah, my friend, He does. God does indeed. 

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance? Who can fathom the Spirit of the Lord, or instruct the Lord as his counselor? Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him, and who taught him the right way? Who was it that taught him knowledge, or showed him the path of understanding? Isaiah 40:12-14