Simply "Naive" Questions About Evolution and My Shoulder

1) How can something as complex as the human shoulder evolve over an enormous expanse of time and allow survival of a species whose survival is predicated upon the use of a fully functioning shoulder? i.e. How does a species that needs a functioning shoulder in order to use arms and hands (taking out of the equation the necessarily chance evolution of arms, hands, fingers, blood, vessels to transport blood, heart, organs, cartilage, bone, marrow, muscles, joints, cells, and all the things that make up the human body that I have no knowledge of) to build, plow, plant, gather, hunt, hold, nurture, mold, shape, feed and eat survive?

2) Where are the intermediary forms (missing links) in the fossil record? Doesn't it stand to reason that evolving biological life on this planet would leave at least one proven fossil example of partially evolved creatures?

3) Can anyone explain the mind boggling complexity of a single cell and where that cell came from?

These are only a few of my "naive" questions.

"You're Naive"

So, Michael thinks I'm naive (see comment on Don't Play Sports & I Just Can't Make the Evolutionary Leap). I love it! Well everyone (all 2 people who read this blog), welcome to middle school. This is precisely what happens when people are unwilling to engage in an educated dialogue. This is precisely what happens when people adhere strictly to their doctrines without question. Let's be fair. This happens on both sides of the spectrum: from those who cling to the doctrine of Darwinism just because they don't believe in God - to those who believe in God just because "the Bible tells me so."

I would prefer it if Mike told me why he thought I was missing the mark rather than dismissing me as naive. But the issue Michael seems to be dealing with here is that he has no idea how something as complex as the human body could possibly evolve and survive while it was evolving. So, he resorts to name calling or dismissing the questions and the person in favor of his doctrine. He simply can't deal with the gaping holes in Darwinism and the thousands of unanswered questions about evolution. He is not willing to dialogue. So, what does he do? He chooses to silence or ridicule those with whom he disagrees. Most of the time this is done out of fear of what might actually be discovered.

But what is truly sad is that we can't have a dialogue that might be productive. We aren't aloud to ask questions without being vilified and the old adage that "no question is a dumb question" isn't true. And if this isn't true it means that all learning and discovery must stop.

What's interesting is that at this very moment a major documentary called "Expelled" is hitting the big screen and it discusses the very issue Michael has unwittingly raised by his comment. The issue is that Darwinists are unwilling to dialogue about the problems with their religion and theories and because they are unwilling to dialogue they are doing everything in their power to silence the dialogue, the questions and especially the people who ask the questions. The tactics are the same and they are scary.

What are people afraid of? Are we so afraid of finding the truth that we have devolved (thanks Devo-an 80's rock band for those who don't know) to middle schoolish name calling? Sad.

Of course, I could have completely misread the comment and Michael might have really been talking about my naivety concerning women and sports (which was all tongue and cheek). And if that is the case I agree with him. I admit it. When it comes to women, I am a bit naive. Peace.

Explore the Expelled Movie here. And please remember that the movie is about the issue of silencing free speech and those we don't agree with.

Don't Play Sports & I Just Can't Make the Evolutionary Leap

Okay. Here is my advice for all the machismo people out there - don't play sports. Take up reading or playing music or drawing or gardening or investing. Yes - all the things that I (you think now) thought were too sissy when I was younger. Besides, girls dig all this stuff anyway. They could care less if you are a sweaty beast who can hit a little round thing or tackle another guy like you're tackling some animal to catch your supper. I have come to realize this doesn't impress them one bit. But it took my 41 years, a bad knee and 2 bad shoulders to realize it.

I just finished having an MRI on both my shoulders the other day. You know this really big machine that resembles a white coffin, invokes claustrophobia and tortures you with deafening noises you never heard before for 2 hours. So, now I'm doing a little rehab for some partial tears in my shoulderous musculous joint of the deltoidious facitous thing (I think that's what the Doc called it) to avoid surgery.

Then I ask him about my knee and he says, after looking at the x-ray, "Well, you're looking at total joint replacement in about 15 years. But don't worry, I predict that they will be able to grow back cartilage by that time due to stem cell research. So, stop running on the tread mill." I say, "Thanks Doc, I'll just have a bad knee and I'll get fat. That will help."

So, were all the macho years of baseball, soccer, football, lifting worth it? Since it hurts so much today, I think you know the answer.

Back to the MRI. First of all, I have no idea how the doctor knew what he was looking at as he was explaining it to me but there is a lot of stuff inside my body. I mean bones and muscles and tendons and ligaments and cartilage and fluid and organs and veins and blood and cells, etc. I always thought it was one piece of tape-like substance that held my arm to my shoulder. Wow. I was way off. It's complex.

This got me to thinking (imagine the little thinking bubble)...how in the world could all this happen in stages or by chance? It just doesn't add up to me. I mean, if I was somehow evolving and let's say I was just a body (not to mention all the organs that would have needed to evolve perfectly and necessarily for life to function) and was growing an arm but I was missing all the myriad of tendons and cartilage and ligaments and muscles, and veins and arteries, etc. how is that supposed to work? Let's say only a few things grew properly, I would have this floppy appendage growing from my body that was quite useless. How would I eat - you know, get food from anywhere to my mouth? I guess when I reproduced (this isn't so simple either) then the idea must be that the next generation realized that that last part didn't work out so it grew one with a few more tendons or muscles or whatever? Call me naive but it's really confusing to me. It would be a miracle that anything survived on this planet. Ever. How can a whole that is made up of so many millions or billions of parts become a whole if the parts weren't all there in the first place?

Sorry, I am just not smart enough to make the evolutionary leap. Oh yeah, forget about the sports thing - it hurts later in life and girls could really care less. In other words, you're not impressing anyone. Well, it's the truth.