The Sky is falling! The sky is falling! ... has been for a long time

Your respectful Darwin's Undertaker is arising from hibernation. Taxes, stuff, whew! Still got a big pile to dig. But when something really newsworthy pops up, sometimes I can't repress the urge to pop off.

Just saw the Associated Press article by Sam Cage (Monday, May 1, 2006) on Yahoo a few minutes ago. Sez now 16,000 species globally are considered endangered, upped from the 15,000 reported in 2004 by the Swiss-based World Conservation Union (IUCN). According to IUCN, "polar bears and hippos are among the species of animals and plants threatened with global extinction. ... The list includes one in three amphibians, a quarter of the world's mammals and coniferous trees, and one in eight birds." The article quotes Achim Steiner, IUCN's General Director, as saying, "Biodiversity loss is increasing, not slowing down. The implications of this trend for the productivity and resilience of ecosystems and the lives and livelihoods of billions of people who depend on them are far-reaching."

Steiner is certainly correct is assessing the implications as "far-reaching." Indeed! Far-reaching not only in the balance of delicate ecosystems, but also in the loss of a vast diversity of organic materials among which undoubtedly may be found powerful medicinal substances.

For readers of the Bible, the continuing extinction of species is no surprise at all. The Bible reveals that God, "in the beginning", created all things. Hence the origin of great biodiversity of stunning complexity nd beauty. The Bible also says that, due to to the fall of man (Genesis Chapter 3), the universe is also fallen. Hence universal deterioration, degradation, decay, sickness, disease, mortality (death). As described by the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 8, it is a "bondage to decay" (Revised Standard Version). To understand the whole picture, read Romans 8:19-25 to see that God's purposes in the "bondage to decay" are not vindictive and punitive, but merciful and redemptive and restorative.

But I am not blogging this just to wring hands about the loss of species, but to point out that the whole ecosystem thing kind of smells like CREATION, not random evolution. Even one individual organism is so complex that for it to arise by chance can be believed only by the most naiive and credulous. Michael Behe in his book Darwin's Black Box makes this point with clarity.

But let's expand the picture a tad. In today's world, the folks who have a grasp on a lot of details are the ones who know how to put the pieces together - hence the "systems engineer" or the "systems design specialist", or the whole area of Systems Analysis. The IUCN report properly uses the word "ecosystem" because it fairly implies what we understand - the biosphere is a complex interdependent system of many pieces working together. In our real workaday world, all the pieces come together only by a lot of intellectual and blue collar effort and sweat. So why should we give a moment of consideration to the high priests of materialism who desperately want us to believe that all life - and ultimately any possibility of purpose and dignity of man - are derived by blind random purposeless processes? Enough of this nonsense.

And a final word about the numero uno high priest of materialism - Charles Darwin. Darwin succeeded in convincing much of the world (the naiive and credulous masses and a few really clever people who are willingly deceived) that the number of species is increasing through chance processes operating today, which processes have been operative from deep dark time past. Well, Darwin's queer notion is continually disproved day-by-day each time one more species goes extinct and ten more fail to pop into existence to take the place of the one lost.

Do you get it?

Do you really get it? ? ?

Darwin said "more", scientific observation says "fewer." Darwin says random processes are creative, while all observations show random processes are dissipative and destructive. This is clearly recognized in physics (entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics) and in information theory. Now the same is increasingly recognized at the species level in biosystems (see J. C. Sanford, Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome, Ivan Press, New York, 2005).

So ... Darwin is a guy who did not know up from down. Are you a follower? If so, it is past time for you to seriously check out Darwin, then just plain check out - seriously.