SEVERAL recent letters to the press, written by religious believers, claim that they believe in evolution – microevolution to be precise. These writers say change within a species is possible but change to another species (macroevolution) is not.

In my view, this is an illogical if not self-contradictory idea. If evolution occurs only within a species, earth should have today just one highly evolved single self-replicating chemical molecule.

Life is thought to have arisen in such a molecule and if evolution, according to the religious writers is true, then this molecule (or even several of them) would not be able to change into something else. According to these folks speciation does not happen. But we know of over ten million different species alive today and researchers have indentified about another quarter million in the fossil record.

These evolution believing religionists will no doubt argue that their God created the diversity of species we see today. The question then will be, if a perfect God created life then why are there changes taking place within that life; why do creationists believe microevolution is occurring? Are God’s creations imperfect? Wasn’t He satisfied with a job so perfectly done that He took time-off on the sixth day?

It seems to me that these pastors and other writers who endorse microevolution are in fact doubting God’s creative genius.

Scientific research provides a much more rational answer; speciation is really extended microevolution. The main difference between micro and macro evolution is that one (micro) occurs within a few generations, while the other happens over thousands of years. The difference is time. Essentially they both describe the same process with macroevolution occurring when microevolution accumulates enough changes to differentiate a separate species.
DAVID SEEGOBIN.