Joe Holloway

If you participate in the evolution debate for any amount of time, you will inevitably come across an argument asserted by creationists in which they concede that there exists something labeled micro-evolution that we see all around us. However--as the argument goes--an intelligent higher-order being must be invoked to explain so-called macro-evolution (or speciation).

The major flaw in this argument is that once you've conceded the existence of natural selection and micro-evolution, you've conceded the very fundamental processes by which speciation is explained. I'm not aware of any evolutionary biologist who has claimed otherwise. They are one-and-the-same.

It doesn't take a very sophisticated thought experiment to arrive at this. All we need is to imagine some other force that is capable of isolating gene pools, allowing the organisms to independently evolve for many generations. We know these forces exist throughout nature in the form of tectonic shift, volcanic eruptions, flooding, mass migration, infighting, land bridges, climate shifts, ice ages, meteor strikes and so on.

Given enough generations, the isolated gene pools will have taken completely separate evolutionary paths, albeit still navigating the slow and gradual curve as predicted by natural selection. If and when these walled-off populations are reunited, the genetics of the common ancestor may no longer be recognizable in either group. Although they share a common ancestry, physical changes in either group could prevent them from evermore co-mingling their gene pools leading to further divergence.

It seems a major component in understanding how evolutionary forces--coupled with other natural phenomena--have diversified the animal/plant kingdoms is: time. Over long periods of time, natural forces will inevitably wall-off gene pools and chart them on divergent paths.

It follows, then, that if you enter the debate with a skewed sense of time (for example believing that the Earth is only a few thousand years old), then you're going to have to continue to invoke magic to explain that which can otherwise be explained by purely natural forces. Given that, we should continue to call it out for what it is: magic, not science.