{"id":2949,"date":"2015-03-16T19:04:28","date_gmt":"2015-03-16T19:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kolbecenter.org\/?p=2949"},"modified":"2015-03-16T19:04:28","modified_gmt":"2015-03-16T19:04:28","slug":"five-answers-stacy-trasancos-evolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kolbecenter.org\/five-answers-stacy-trasancos-evolution\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Answers for Stacy Trasancos about Evolution"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Robert Sungenis<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n http:\/\/www.integratedcatholiclife.org\/2015\/02\/trasancos-five-questions-evolution\/<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n S. Trasancos<\/b><\/span>: Five Questions from Catholics about Evolution: <\/span>In elementary school, children learn about dinosaurs and fossils,\u00a0how fossils form,\u00a0how paleontologists reconstruct skeletons of animals from the past using\u00a0those fossils. There seems no difficulty whatsoever accepting that all kinds of plants and animals lived on the Earth before people lived.<\/span><\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Catholic children learn about Creation, Adam and Eve, Original Sin, Noah\u2019s Ark, and the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. These teachings\u00a0become the foundation of hope, faith, and love throughout the Sacramental life, journeying toward Heaven.<\/span><\/p>\n As a Catholic convert, I had\u00a0no problem accepting evolutionary theory until I thought\u00a0about its implications on\u00a0the biblical account. What about the dinosaurs? How can one species become another? When I realized evolutionary theory meant we descended from ape-like creatures and even single cells, I could not see how Genesis could be taken literally.<\/span><\/p>\n Hence I was hesitant\u00a0to say I accepted the science because I was afraid it would mean rejecting my faith. I tried to dismiss evolution as \u201conly a theory,\u201d but I knew better. I had studied biochemistry and was aware of the nuts and bolts of the evolutionary process\u00a0at the genetic and molecular level. <\/span><\/p>\n R. Sungenis<\/b><\/span>: It is one thing for Ms. Trasancos to tout the fact that she \u201cstudied biochemistry,\u201d it is quite another for her not to alert her Catholic audience that there are many other Catholic and non-Catholic biochemists that don\u2019t accept her opinion that evolution is true. In fact, since Ms. Trasancos did not cite any other biochemists who deny evolution, this means she is neither being impartial nor scientific. <\/span><\/p>\n Michael Behe\u2019s \u201cDarwin\u2019s Black Box:<\/span> The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution\u201d<\/i><\/span>,<\/span> is a perfect example of a biochemist who shows that evolution is virtually impossible. Other books, such as <\/span>Phillip Johnson\u2019s <\/span>Darwin on Trial<\/i><\/span>; Michael Denton\u2019s <\/span>Evolution: A Theory in Crisis<\/i><\/span> and <\/span>Natures Design<\/i><\/span>; Dr. Lester McCann\u2019s <\/span>Blowing the Whistle on Darwinism<\/i><\/span>; Michael Dembski\u2019s work on <\/span>Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe<\/i><\/span>; and Kenyon\u2019s <\/span>Of Pandas and People<\/i><\/span>, and many other works, as never before, have unveiled the foundations of sand upon which evolutionary theory is built. I can only assume that Ms. Trasancos doesn\u2019t want her readers to know about these credentialed critics of her theory, especially since she does not reference any of them in her \u201crecommended reading.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n S. Trasancos<\/b><\/span>: Plants and animals are different kinds of living things, but both\u00a0reproduce via\u00a0genetic material made of the same isomeric forms of 20 different amino acids that build all the proteins for life. Heredity is passed on through this genetic material. The entire taxonomic hierarchy of living things relies on this reproductive mechanism. To reject evolution is\u00a0to reject the foundation of the biological sciences.<\/span><\/p>\n R. Sungenis<\/b><\/span>: Any scientist with the least respect for the extreme difficulties of explaining evolution would be appalled at Ms. Trasancos\u2019 conclusion, namely, \u201cTo reject evolution is to reject the foundation of the biological sciences.\u201d That Mr. Trasancos bases her conclusion merely on the fact that all living things pass down 20 different amino acids simply begs the question: what has the passing down of amino acids have to do with evolution? We don\u2019t need evolution to pass down inherited characteristics. We acquire the same genes our parents had. <\/span><\/p>\n What Ms. Trasancos must do to prove evolution is to show us evidence of HOW and WHY genes would change in order to bring about a whole new species. The only gene changes we know about are mutated genes, but 99% of them are harmful. So how could mutations \u201cevolve\u201d into higher and more complex species? Curious minds want to know. <\/span><\/p>\n S. Trasancos<\/b><\/span>: Suspecting I was not the only one struggling with this question,\u00a0I recently asked my friends what questions they most struggled with. Here are only five. (There were many more.) I struggled with them too.<\/span><\/p>\n Faith and Science Can Co-Exist?<\/span><\/p>\n In America we are told by everyone that faith and science can\u2019t co-exist. Secularists believe it, public scientists believe it, and even most popular preachers believe it. I had an intense interest in biology as a young boy but was told that a Christian couldn\u2019t be a biologist.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n In a letter to Reverend George Coyne, S.J., then the director of the Vatican Observatory, Pope St. John Paul II wrote an often quoted summary of the relationship between faith and science. \u201cScience can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n It is sad that children are told that faith and science cannot co-exist because it robs children of knowing the \u201cwider world\u201d in which both can flourish. It robs them of knowing how to avoid both\u00a0superstition and\u00a0idolatry. The solution for Catholic parents is simple\u2014<\/span>teach\u00a0your kids God made everything<\/i><\/span>. Children are naturally awed by nature, the sun, the insects, the trees, the snow, the canyons and the mountains. If you tell them that God made it all, their fascination will be fueled. Nature is a reliable, orderly, amazing creation, and the Christian world view is rational, sane, and\u00a0<\/span>necessary for science<\/span><\/span><\/a>.\u00a0Remembering that God made everything is\u00a0the key to understanding the relationship between faith and science. To learn\u00a0any science is to\u00a0learn about God\u2019s creation. There can never be any real conflict, only incomplete understanding on our part.<\/span><\/p>\n As it relates to evolution, the Christian believer does not view God as a cause among other causes, but as The Cause, always present and working in the world. He is existence itself, the reason for everything. However the diversity of life\u00a0happened, the entire course of evolution depends on God for its beginning and every activity along the way. Science studies the secondary, observable causes in the physical realm, but we believe those causes are guided by the faithful hand of God.<\/span><\/p>\n R. Sungenis<\/b><\/span>: She makes it sound so nice. The problem, however, is the same as when you are about to go to the witness stand and the bailiff asks you to put your hand on the Bible and swear to, \u201cTell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God.\u201d Ms. Trasancos has only told half the truth. Half the truth is that God created everything. The other half, of course, is HOW God did it, which is explained in the 31 verses that immediately follow Genesis 1\u2019s: \u201cIn the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Be very careful, my dear Catholics. The theistic evolutionist\u2019s ploy to escape the conundrum of \u201cfaith v. science\u201d is to claim that the details of Genesis 1 that you read in its 31 verses are not true or they are irrelevant. If Ms. Trasancos is following the liberal party-line, she believes that Genesis 1 was a made-up story by a Jewish scribe coming out of Babylonian captivity around 515 BC. He made up the story not to give us precise truth of how God created the world; rather, he wanted the Jewish God to look better than Marduk, the Babylonian god. As such, his \u201ccreation story\u201d invigorated his fellow Jewish people as they headed back to Israel to live. <\/span><\/p>\n The traditional Catholic understanding of the authorship of Genesis is quite different, however. It holds that Moses wrote Genesis as he was inspired by God, and that every detail he put in Genesis 1 is the exact truth of what happened. <\/span><\/p>\n Ms. Trasancos wants you to ignore the details of the \u201chow and why\u201d of Genesis 1. They just get in the way for evolutionists like her. She wants you to memorize only the first line of Genesis: \u201cGod created the heavens and the earth,\u201d and then skip to Chapter 2 or 3. <\/span><\/p>\n And if your children ask you about verses 1b to 31, you just tell them those verses aren\u2019t really important because God didn\u2019t give us those words in the first place, and even if He did, they are just story-filler or window dressing and don\u2019t have any real truth to them. <\/span><\/p>\n You will find that most Catholic school children are being taught this contradictory nonsense \u2013 \u201cjust believe that God created everything\u201d \u2013 and don\u2019t ask any more questions. This is the bifurcated world of truth and falsehood that Ms. Trasancos has decided to live in, and that is because she\u2019s convinced that the evolutionists who taught her biochemistry were correct in saying that genes mutate into different species and produce evolution, all by chance.<\/span><\/p>\n S. Trasancos<\/b><\/span>: <\/span>Only a Theory?<\/span><\/p>\n This is probably the most often repeated dismissal of evolution. Of course, evolution is a theory, but theories are legitimate scientific concepts. Theories are explanatory. The scientific method generates hypotheses, and once a hypothesis is confirmed by repeated and varied testing, it is raised to a theory. So a theory is a well-tested explanation for a broad set of observations. Kinetic theory, for example, provides the basis for the Ideal Gas Laws. It helps the scientist form mental pictures and predict behaviors.<\/span><\/p>\n R. Sungenis<\/b><\/span>: Notice how Ms. Transancos plants an example of a theory from gases in the mind of her reader. The ploy is to have the reader equate gas laws with evolution, as if they are on par with each other. They are not. Not even close. Gas laws are based on things we can see and test. We can\u2019t see and test for evolution, since the theory is straddled with the fact that evolution can only occur over millions of years, not in the single day that gases react in a test tube.<\/span><\/p>\n S. Trasancos<\/b><\/span>: Evolutionary theory also helps scientists form mental pictures to\u00a0explain how the diversity of living things might have happened over time. It explains what caused the changes we observe. Natural selection and genetic drift are\u00a0<\/span>explanations<\/i><\/span>\u00a0for these changes, and genetic studies have provided an explanation of the mechanism of evolution at the molecular level. Is there more to it? Of course there may be more explanations with further study.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n R. Sungenis<\/b><\/span>: \u201cGenetic drift\u201d? In the world of scientific semantics Ms. Trasancos has found a better sounding phrase than the one that has already been discredited as a mechanism for evolution, namely, genetic mutations. When Ms. Trasancos can show us evidence that \u201cgenetic drift\u201d can cause one species to become another species, only then does she have something to talk about. <\/span><\/p>\n The same goes for natural selection \u2013 the theory that by natural processes, biological traits become more or less common in a given species. Natural selection has never proven evolution. Yes, biological traits can be slightly adjusted due to environmental factors from generation to generation, but that doesn\u2019t prove that the genes themselves will change to produce a higher and more complex species from a lower and less complex species. The difference is like turning water to steam. The \u201ctraits\u201d of the water have changed, but the molecules are exactly the same, hydrogen and oxygen. But Ms. Trasancos, without any demonstrated proof, wants us to believe that water will change into carbon all by itself, by \u201cmolecular drift,\u201d as it were. <\/span><\/p>\n S. Transancos<\/b><\/span>: Evolution is also a fact, or a law. Scientific laws are concise statements that summarize results. The relationship between the pressure of a gas in a sealed container and volume of that gas at a constant temperature is Boyle\u2019s Law, named after Robert Boyle who first reported the law in a systematic way. It is not explanatory. It is a statement of fact.\u00a0Evolution is a fact in that it is a measure of the genetic changes that occur with time in a population. Scientists know these changes occur. They can observe them, quantify them, and in some cases, predict them.<\/span><\/p>\n R. Sungenis<\/b><\/span>: So here we are back to the \u201chalf-truth\u201d game. Ms. Trasancos, without defining her terms and only speaking in generalities, wants you to believe that \u201cgenetic changes\u201d are the same as evolution, and therefore, because we see \u201cgenetic changes,\u201d then \u201cevolution is also a fact, or a law.\u201d I\u2019m sorry to say, the only \u201claw\u201d that is being given here is that the misuse of the English language always leads to confusion. Until if and when Ms. Trasancos defines and proves the \u201cgenetic changes\u201d she has in mind, the only thing that has \u201cevolved\u201d is her penchant to throw out mere assertions without scientific proof.<\/span><\/p>\n S. Trasancos<\/b><\/span>: <\/span>Death and Dinosaurs?<\/span><\/p>\n If death did not enter the world until the Fall, then what about the dinosaurs? That suggests there was\u00a0death and carnivorous behavior during pre-human times.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n R. Sungenis<\/b><\/span>: Ms. Trasancos\u2019 argument is a perfect example of the fallacy of <\/span>petitio principii<\/i><\/span>, more commonly known as \u201cbegging the question.\u201d Due to what her secular evolutionist professors taught her in graduate school, Ms. Trasancos presumes that dinosaurs lived before humans. Does she provide even one scintilla of evidence for it? Must she? Not according to Ms. Trasancos, since she has already dismissed Genesis 1:1b \u2013 31 as a myth to which Catholics need not pay any attention. <\/span><\/p>\n Be that as it may, I find it interesting that Ms. Transancos uses the example of dinosaurs being older than men when, in fact, recent evidence from excavated dinosaur bones shows they contain red blood cells, blood vessels, and collagen. You can read one example of this in Mary Schweitzer\u2019s article in <\/span>Scientific American<\/i><\/span>, December 2010, and there are many more available. The discovery means that those dinosaur bones can barely be 7000 years old, much less the 70 million years they are touted to be by the evolution community. <\/span><\/p>\n The article is titled, <\/span>\u201cBlood from Stone.\u201d The story is written by field researcher Mary Schweitzer of North Carolina State University who, after excavating the T-rex, watched the crane accidentally break one of its bones. When Dr. Schweitzer looked inside, to her absolute astonishment she saw not only blood cells but the veins and arteries to carry them, which vessels she described as very pliable and resilient as if they were still fresh. But because evolution must fit all past events into a pre-arranged timetable, it has always insisted that a T-Rex cannot be less than 68 million years old. Yet modern biological science says, even with the best efforts of preservation, nucleated blood cells couldn\u2019t survive even 7,000 years, much less 10,000 times that age. <\/span><\/p>\n Notwithstanding, what I found most intriguing about the article in <\/span>Scientific American<\/i><\/span> was not the news about blood in a T-Rex but more about the reaction of Dr. Schweitzer and her immediate superior to whom she showed her findings. His name is <\/span>Dr.<\/b><\/span> Jack Horner<\/b><\/span>, curator of paleontology and one of the world\u2019s foremost dinosaur authorities. As Mary recounts the story, <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHe took a look for himself. Brows furrowed, he gazed through the microscope for what seemed like hours without saying a word. Then, looking up at me with a frown, he asked, \u2018What do you think they are?\u2019 I replied that I did not know, but they were the right size, shape and color to be blood cells, and they were in the right place, too. <\/span>He grunted, \u2018So prove to me they aren\u2019t.\u2019<\/i><\/span> It was an irresistible challenge, and one that has helped frame how I ask my research questions, even now.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Whereas Jack and Mary should have both been beside themselves with astonishment and ready to be moved wherever the empirical evidence led them, instead we have one of the clearest examples of the agenda-driven side of modern science \u2013 ignore any evidence that refutes the <\/span>status quo<\/i><\/span> and seek to turn all evidence into support of it. This is especially surprising of Mary Schweitzer since she is a member of the American Scientific Association whose website says it believes in \u201cthe divine inspiration, trustworthiness and authority of the Bible in matters of faith and conduct...the Triune God affirmed in the Nicene and Apostles\u2019 creeds which we accept as brief, faithful statements of Christian doctrine based upon Scripture...creating and preserving the universe God has endowed it with contingent order and intelligibility, the basis of scientific investigation\u201d1<\/sup><\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n Hoping that Dr. Schweitzer would be more forthcoming, our team of scientists wrote to her and asked if we could do a Carbon-14 test on the T-Rex bone. This would have readily shown how old the specimen was. Other times we have done so show dates in the range of 15,000 to 30,000 years, tops. But Mary refused our offer. Perhaps she was afraid of losing her job as Dr. Richard von Sternberg lost his when after he published an article in 2007 for the <\/span>Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington<\/i><\/span> favorable to Intelligent Design and was subsequently fired by the Smithsonian Institution because his article \u201cdoes not meet the scientific standards of the Proceedings.\u201d Incidentally, Dr. von Sternberg is a practicing Roman Catholic.<\/span><\/p>\n S. Trasancos<\/b><\/span>: In Romans 5:12, St. Paul the Apostle said: \u201cBy one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.\u201d\u00a0In the decree on Original Sin, the Council of Trent taught that the first man, Adam, transgressed the commandment of God in Paradise and immediately lost his holiness. In doing so, \u201che incurred through the offense of that prevarication the wrath and indignation of God and hence the death with which God had previously threatened him.\u201d (Denzinger, 788).<\/span><\/p>\n Those last words, \u201chence the death...God...threatened,\u201d are important, as is the distinction of \u201call men\u201d in St. Paul\u2019s letter. Adam\u2019s sin, as threatened, transmitted death to\u00a0<\/span>mankind<\/i><\/span>, but not to animals. Death is natural for animals. It is how they were created. For man, death is also natural, but God created man for\u00a0everlasting\u00a0life through\u00a0grace. Ludwig Ott explains in\u00a0<\/span>Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma<\/i><\/span>\u00a0on \u201cThe Origin of Death\u201d that man was \u201cendowed with the preternatural gift of bodily immortality in Paradise.\u201d (p. 473) As warned, the gift was lost\u00a0as a punishment for sin.<\/span><\/p>\n Ott also explained that in the case of those justified by grace, death loses its penal character. Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Mother Mary were free from Original Sin. Death was neither a consequence nor a punishment for them, but death was natural for their human nature. Other animals die as well because it is natural for them. They were not created with the preternatural gift of immortality. They were not\u00a0given free will. They did not sin against God. By nature, they die and always have.<\/span><\/p>\n R. Sungenis<\/b><\/span>: Once again, Ms. Transancos is making assertions without any evidence. She thinks that merely because she reads a verse of Scripture that speaks about man\u2019s death from sin, this means that animals are not involved, and thus she concludes that animals have always died, and did so before Adam and Eve committed Original Sin. <\/span><\/p>\n Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if we could all be so self-assured, especially when we need to support our previous unproven assertion that \u201cevolution is a fact, or a law\u201d? When evolution is the foundation upon which you discern the truth or falsity of everything, then even the Bible is subject to being falsified by the \u201cfact\u201d of evolution, which is the belief system of Stacy Trasancos. <\/span><\/p>\n The possibility of the animals dying before the Fall of Adam was made possible, of course, by Ms. Trasancos\u2019 other foundational statement concerning how her students should read Genesis, that is, \u201cjust say to your kids that God created everything.\u201d Again, if that is the only commentary she will give to Genesis, it means she is deliberately setting aside the rest of Genesis\u2019 historical details. The details are crucially important in the case of the animals since Genesis 1-3 really doesn\u2019t give much time for the animals to die before Adam sins, since soon after Adam and Eve are created, they are tested in the Garden of Eden. Additionally, the fact that Adam named the animals suggests an idyllic scene in which the animals are both friendly to him and not killing one another, or him.<\/span><\/p>\n If before the Fall all the animals were herbivores, but became carnivores after the Fall, this would mean that the curse of death pronounced by God upon the world would have been the impetus that changed the physiology of the animals. Obviously, Adam and Eve\u2019s physiology was changed, since immediately after they sinned their bodies began to degenerate, which would later lead to their death. <\/span><\/p>\n In the same vein, after the Fall, the serpent\u2019s body was changed from a creature that apparently walked on limbs to one that slithered on the ground and ate dust. Since such physiological changes occurred in one species of animals due to the Fall, it certainly could have happened to others, (e.g., change a herbivore to a carnivore). In fact, Gn 3:14 suggests this very thing, stating to the serpent: \u201cCursed are you <\/span>more than<\/b><\/span><\/i><\/span> all cattle, and <\/span>more than<\/b><\/span><\/i><\/span> every beast of the field, on your belly you shall go...\u201d Here it is evident that the serpent is cursed \u201cmore than\u201d every beast, which implies that the beasts were cursed, but cursed less than the serpent. <\/span><\/p>\n Additionally, the Bible gives no evidence of pre-Fall death or pre-Fall carnivores in the biblical imagery. For example, Isaiah 65:25 elicits an idyllic state of existence, which is characterized as the \u201clion eating straw like the ox.\u201d This would most likely have been the case with the Garden of Eden before the Fall. Added to this is the fact that today a large carnivore would, if need be, not hesitate to kill a man and eat him, but since pre-Fall man was guaranteed not to incur death, this would mean either that the carnivore would have been prohibited from attacking Adam and Eve, or, more likely, that there were no carnivores before the Fall. <\/span><\/p>\n Lastly, it is a common theme in Scripture for animals to be involved in the blessings or cursings on man. For example, in describing the Flood, the narrator makes a point to include the animals at each point the curse is pronounced (Gn 7:14, 21, 23). Yet, when the blessing comes after the Flood, the animals are specifically mentioned as recipients (Gn 8:1,17). In the making of the covenant, God makes it with the animals, too (Gn 9:9-10). Or as Ps 36:6 says, \u201cO Lord, you preserve man and beast.\u201d At the tenth plague of Egypt, in which all the first born of the Egyptians were killed, the first born of all the cattle were killed as well (Ex 12:29). In Jonah 4:11, where God, wishing to withhold destruction from Nineveh, gives the rationale that there were children and \u201cmany animals\u201d there. <\/span><\/p>\n So we see that Scripture ties a tight weave between men and animals whenever a blessing or curse comes upon the land. As such, the burden of proof is certainly on Ms. Trasancos to prove that animals died before man and before there was a curse upon the Earth. The Bible simply gives no indication that such occurred. <\/span><\/p>\n S. Trasancos<\/b><\/span>: <\/span>Microevolution and Macroevolution?<\/span><\/p>\n I have no trouble with micro-evolution (among species), but I don\u2019t see how macro-evolution (one species arising from another) can occur.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n Evolution happens because of changes in gene frequencies over time. \u201cGene frequency\u201d refers to how often a particular gene (i.e. deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA, sequence for a specific trait) appears in a population. Researchers can determine gene frequency using DNA sequencing techniques.<\/span><\/p>\n Suppose a scientist discovers three genes and calls them gene A, gene B, and gene C. Then she collects DNA from individuals of a population and finds that half of them have gene A, a quarter of them have gene B, and the last quarter has gene C. She has determined that the gene frequency is 50, 25, and 25 percent respectively. If she repeats this study over successive generations and finds that the frequency changes to 30, 30, and 40 percent, then evolution has occurred by the processes of \u201cgenetic drift.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n R. Sungenis<\/b><\/span>: Ms. Trasancos continues to make grandiose conclusions from little or no evidence. \u201cGene frequency\u201d is not evolution. Evolution claims that the DNA in genes has a mechanism that changes the DNA so that the gene will eventually turn into another species. There is simply no indication from science that DNA has that power, even when it is altered by artificial means. <\/span><\/p>\n Ms. Trasancos\u2019 vision of evolution is like mixing 50% water, 25% oil and 25% plastic in a jar. If we come back a few weeks later and see 30% water, 30% oil and 40% plastic in the jar, can we conclude that there has been an \u201cevolution\u201d among the components such that one has transformed into the other, or we will simply conclude that a lot of the water evaporated and thus left more oil and plastic in higher proportions? <\/span><\/p>\n S. Trasancos<\/b><\/span>: Gene frequencies can remain constant for long periods of time, or they can change quickly in response to changes in the environment. Suppose the environment was depleted of a certain food that individuals with gene A needed to live long enough to reach the age for reproduction. Those individuals would not reproduce at the same rate as the others, and the frequency of gene A would decrease. In this case, genetic drift would have occurred because of \u201cnatural selection.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The process is the same on both short or long time scales. Microevolution refers to the evolutionary process over short times and small changes. An example is a bacterium population in a laboratory where a mutation occurs that creates a gene that causes the individual bacteria to divide more rapidly. Macroevolution refers to the evolutionary process over a long time and\u00a0larger changes. Over longer times, more gene frequencies change, sometimes enough for speciation to occur and for one species gives rise to two.\u00a0Is there more to the story? Probably. The structure of DNA was not known in Charles Darwin\u2019s time, but later the theory was expanded with knowledge of genetics. We do not know\u00a0what will be discovered next, and there are\u00a0<\/span>plenty of studies probing other hypotheses<\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0far beyond the scope of these short answers.<\/span><\/p>\n R. Sungenis<\/b><\/span>: Notice how Ms. Trasancos makes the giant leap from what she calls \u201cmicroevolution\u201d to \u201cmacroevolution,\u201d without so much as a hint to her reader that this leap is precisely where the controversy lies. She wants her reader to assume that if \u201cmicroevolution\u201d occurs, then so must \u201cmacroevolution.\u201d She provides no evidence where such a leap has occurred, and if so, how it came from many micro changes that became a macro change. <\/span><\/p>\n Second, once again, Ms. Trasancos treats gene mutations as if they are always beneficial, claiming that if she gets \u201cenough for speciation to occur and for one species [to] give rise to two,\u201d then she has shown that macroevolution is not only possible but expected. There is one big problem with Ms. Trasancos\u2019 little scheme \u2013 it\u2019s not science. Real science shows us that most mutated genes are harmful \u2013 to the tune of about 99%. Where is that little fact stated in Ms. Trasancos\u2019 above description? It\u2019s absent, which means Ms. Transcos, being a biochemist, knows better, and thus is not being honest with her readers. <\/span><\/p>\n S. Trasancos<\/b><\/span>: Descended from Apes? <\/span>Are we supposed to accept that humans evolved from apes? <\/i><\/span>Paleoanthropology tells the story like this: Human evolution began in Africa about 4 million years ago. Humans appear to have evolved from\u00a0<\/span>ape-like<\/i><\/span>