Introduction

According to Genesis 2:1-3, God rested on Day 7. Since the around the appearance of Homo Sapiens, the earth does not appear have evolved anything else. Specifically, no new "kinds" have appeared on the earth. It makes it seem as if Evolution has ended. Has it? Let us take a closer look.

Has Evolution Ended?

In the 1992 Article "Has Human Evolution Ended?", Discover Magazine asks the question like this:

"In a recent op-ed piece for the New York Times, British geneticist J. S. Jones asked a provocative question: Has the human species stopped evolving? Are the glory days, when it seemed we were always coming up with something new--opposable thumbs, bigger brains, upright posture-- gone forever? Or will we continue to evolve?"

A Google search on evolution and evolutionary timelines reveals very little in the way of the appearance of new species since God created Homo Sapiens 200-250Ka (thousand years ago). In fact, while Wikipedia's detailed Evolutionary timeline goes up to 75 years ago, every entry after Homo Sapiens (200 Ka) is the recording of an extinction. So did Evolution stop?

Natural Selection Still at Work?

Geneticist J. S. Jone would say that while Evolution appears to have slowed, Natural Selection is alive and well, as some humans are found to survive and reproduce in modern conditions more easily than others. As Jones explains (emphasis added):

"Consider the evolutionary consequences of the shrinking ozone layer that protects Earth from shortwave ultraviolet light. The Environmental Protection Agency predicts an increase of 12 million malignant melanomas over the next 50 years in the United States alone, many striking people in their reproductive years--a problem that former Interior Secretary Donald Hodel reportedly thought we could fix by simply wearing hats and sun block. In the absence of a better solution, some of us are taking his advice. But hundreds of millions of people on the planet have no access to sun block and must depend for protection on the melanin pigment in their skin. Of course, the amount of melanin in people’s skin varies, leaving some far more vulnerable to UV harm than others. Those with pale, freckled complexions are already 4 to 20 times more likely to develop melanomas, a risk bound to increase as the UV flux increases. Unless we patch the ozone shield, this new kind of selection could weed out the fairest of us all."

While the merits of Global Warming are still debated, the fact is that skin cancer is on the rise, and UVA protection is no longer enough. But is this selection against the fair-skinned evolution? Perhaps on a micro-scale it is. But I wouldn't expect a new species to arise from it. Those arise from advantageous changes that appear to enter the gene pool by chance. The Discovery author puts it this way:

Luckily for our species, natural selection is continually sorting out this flood, retaining good mutations, removing bad ones. Because most have slight effects, the selection process is largely invisible. If you carry a gene that reduces by 1 percent the likelihood of your having children, you are unlikely to notice its effects. Even so, this weak selection is enough to reduce the frequency of the gene in the population over time. Indeed, once the gene is rare enough, it might be eliminated entirely if all its carriers fail by chance to reproduce. Conversely, if a new mutant gene increases by 1 percent the likelihood that you will have children, chances are it will stealthily spread through the population. Evolution is going on invisibly all the time.

This is in fact theoretically sound, but observation cannot help but point out that such micro-evolutionary changes have not produced a new species in quite a long time. The scientific record may correctly identify the Evolution that has in fact taken place up until the appearance of Humans, but skeptics of Evolution may also be correct when they say that micro-Evolution is as far things go today.

Perhaps Evolution has Simply Slowed Down a Lot

While geneticist J. S. Jones believes Human Evolution is coming to an end, the Discovery author above has a much more mainstream view, that Evolution has no ended, but has slowed down quite a bit. The scientific community will take no issue with the fact that new species do not appear in the fossil record for quite some time. They also observe that the mechanisms of Evolution all appear to be alive and well... but if that is enough to say that Evolution is alive and well, then one must say that it has slowed down to a crawl.

Scripture and Science Confirm Each Other

Whether Evolution has ended or simply slowed does not really matter, Biblically. What the scripture says is that the different kinds were "created" up until Homo Sapiens appeared and that afterwards God rested. Even if a new species were to appear on occasion, this would seem to be the case.