CREATIONIST: "It is obvious that the essence of evolutionary process is slow and gradual change. The change of a species into a new species is believed to require hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years. A drastic change such as the change of fish into amphibians or reptiles into mammals is believed to have required several tens of millions of years." - Duane Gish, 1995
FACT: Note that Gish says twice "is believed", as if he is reporting the consensus of everyone. This is clever verbal footwork to trick the gullible into thinking that what he says is THE accepted "belief." ... No, it does not necessarily take millions of years for new species to evolve, and evolutionists certainly do NOT make this their standard accepted conceptual framework for the tempo of evolutionary change. Many species, as evidenced from the fossil record, show long periods without change. If the environment remains relatively constant and the populations are large in number, natural selection will favor a relatively constant form. This is not only expected, but it is also observed in the fossil record. However, if world (or localized) climatic conditions go through dramatic changes, as indicated in the geology for certain periods in the earth's history, then evolutionists expect many extinctions and changes in forms so rapid that transitional fossils would be lacking or very rare. When transitions do occur from one type of environment to a dramatically different environment (say water to land), then it is expected that extremely rapid changes would occur in tiny isolated populations leaving no fossil record of that change. But does Gish even consider this a possibility? NO. Because any credibility given to the possibility of rapid changes in tiny populations would totally wreck his absurd notions. By his comments, Gish must visualize a finger-snapping God leaping hither and yon creating forms that have a "transitional appearance" just to trick us into thinking it's evolution. We are so lucky to have Gish around to carefully explain how limited God must be with respect to creation!
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