Well, let's put it this way. God may be behind evolution (if it happened). Or may not. The thing is, there is no way to prove the statement because it's unfalsifiable. Through the history, we've been discovering more and more about the world, and I believe it would be dangerous to rely our faith on something we don't know, because we may discover it in the future. If evolution by naturalistic means is proven and described in the future (it won't, but I'm speaking "what if"), it would shatter most of Theism.
First, it may indeed be falsifiable to show that God may be behind evolution, and to some extent it may have already been shown that God must have been behind some of it at least. Check these out and you learn that for life to even be possible in this universe is extremly unlikely, so unlikely that it must have taken a God of infinite intelligence to dream up a universe like this one
http://www.youtube.com/user/IDquest#g/a http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTS5ZVuK6Jw . This includes the possibility for life to be able to either evolve or even exist in this universe. One can therefore say from the scientific evidence that for life to exist OR evolve, there MUST be a God. Basically, we may have falsified the idea "the universe happened by random chance", which basically leaves only God as a possibility (non random) and PLANNED chance. Another way of saying it, we have scientifically falsified the idea "the universe can exist as we know it without a God".
So now we have an entire universe that cannot have happened by random chance, but must have been planned, I have to ask, if evolution is another thing that cannot happen by random chance (and there is a lot of evidence for the truth of that), could it ALSO have happened by PLANNED chance? After all, we have a LOT of evidence for planned chance, in fact, the entire universe and every one of it's natural laws we have discovered by science, in short, exactly 100% of all the evidence we have of anything everywhere (you can't get more evidence than that). If something that cannot happen by random chance happend anyway once, why can't it happen again? Our mistake is to accept the idea told to us by scientists that evolution must ONLY happen by random chance (known as a faulty dilemma). They are simply starting with the unproven idea (in fact, disproven, see above) that there is no planner, God, and that therefore that leaves only random chance to be around to do it. Since the entire universe and everything in it shows that there must be a planner, then we can say that evolution IS possible IF IT WAS PLANNED. Since we have tried and tried to get evolution to work in a lab, and failed, so far we have falsified the idea, using the scientific method, that life can evolve out of non life by random chance. That does not disprove evolution in this universe where we have already shown that a God must exist for it to exist, however, since it CAN happen by PLANNED chance.
The idea that if evolution were proven "by naturalistic means" would disprove most of theism is a false idea. Already we know that the entire universe shows that there must be a God, so we are stuck with there being a God evolution or no. This basic idea, that if evolution is shown true it would disprove theism is based on a deliberatly false interpreation of the first chapter of Genesis (by Satan, based on the idea that "you have to stop those evolutionists!"). The false interpretation is saying that God made the life by miracle, it is false because no such method is specified in the bible. The bible itself does NOT specify any method of creation except for Adam and Eve, where it very definatly does specify a method. Now, any God, who can and did in the presence of many witnesses walk on water, feed 5000 with a few loaves and fish, and raise others and himself from the dead, could indeed create life out of nothing. Since the bible only specifies a method of creating Adam and Eve however, we cannot say that God DID do a miracle, a breaking of natural law, when God created the plants, and later the fish and birds and animals. Basically speaking, we cannot put words in Gods mouth that God did not say. Therefore we cannot say that God is shown false if life did not happen by miricale, or if life did happen by naturalistic, ie natural laws, ie non miraculous, ways, since God DID NOT SAY that he created the first life by miracle, by breaking natural laws. All it says is "let the earth bring forth grass", that sounds like an "earthly" ie. a natural, method, one that follows natural laws, rather than breaks them (known as a miracle).It is talkling about things we know today, the way we know them, when it talkes about the first plants, it talks to us about plants we know, it does not specify what process they may have gone through or how long that took to arrive at the forms of grass and trees we the readers know. It does NOT say "and God fashioned grass out of clay, and breathed life into it, and it became living grass", therefore WE cannot say that either. If you insist on putting words in Gods mouth that God did not say, go write your own bible.
In short, you cannot prove that the bible is false if you disprove something that the bible did not even say. The bible did not say "God did it by miracle" so if this God, that we have already proven exists (see links above) did it by natural, or "naturalistic" means, this does not disprove God.
And above " it would be dangerous to rely our faith on something we don't know, because we may discover it in the future", you are basically expecting that God will be disproved by science in the future. You are acting as if we must reject, even fear science, because any day now it could prove our faith wrong. However, check this out Rom 1:20, here, it says that the visible world, what has been made, back to the foundation of this world (when all that life came along) shows Gods invisible qualities, "clearly" so that we are without excuse to say there is no God. And what do we see? We see two things 1. Evolution is impossible by random chance 2. Evolution seems to have happened anyway 3. Conclusion, there must be a God, since it must have happened by non random, by planned, chance, Rom 1:20 is shown true. That being true, what, exactly, are you "afraid" of? Are you going to go through your life always afraid that some newly discoverd fact is going to disprove God? That would mean that, secretly, you beleive that such a fact exists, right? Otherwise, why are you afraid, why are you willing to reject science, which is Rom 1:20 "that which has been made"? If you say you beleive in God, why is it that you do not believe God, what God said?
Here is what I mean by "planned chance", and it also sorta answers the question, which came first, the chicken or the egg. Once, long ago, there was a birdlike dinosaur (hollow bones, relatively small, that sort of thing). It laid an agg. At the beginning of this universe, the "big bang", God planned a long string of causes and effects so that, say, a cosmic ray arrived billions of years later just at the right time to cause exactly the desired mutaion so that what is inside that egg is a viable mutation that makes it either a bird or at least a viable more bird like critter, that will have offspring that will also run into carefully arrainged and planned mutations that will eventually see it become a true bird, and eventually the first true chicken (the egg having been laid by a non chicken, although it might be a mostly chicken by that time). One does not need random chance for this (which does not work anyway), and it only has to happen ONCE (or a relatively small number of times, too small to be likely to find the transitional fossils), so the desired mutation can happen quickly, one fossil can show dinosaur, the next bird, with no transitional fossil or missing link needed (in the case where God knew that there was no viable transitional form).
What I mean by planned, non random chance, imagine God playing pool. God racks the balls just so, then he hits the cueball just so, it strikes the balls, they all roll around and hit the sides of the table and each other, and, because God is so VERY skilled at it, and is able to anticipate an infinite number of different ways to strike the ball and what would happen if he did, ALL the balls eventually go into the pockets, just on that first break. This is what I think of as a "natural miracle", where something is physically possible, it is possible for balls to go in pockets, but statistically impossible unless it was planned by a being of infinite intelligence. Another example, God in Vegas, at the blackjack table. He watches for a while, then joins the game just before the dealer shuffles. He watches the dealer shuffle, he has already seen the cards as they were played, because he has infinite intelligence he can tell by watching the dealer shuffle exactly where each card is ending up (and thus exactly which card will be played next as the dealer deals), and that is true to matter how many times they are shuffled. When he plays, it ain't gambling... result, God is asked to leave, and is no longer allowed back in any casino in Vegas, he being the ultimate card counter. We say it happened by random chance, it's a gamble, God sees it happening exactly the way he planned it, for him, it ain't gambling, it's skill. Never EVER play cards with God. God could, say, treat cosmic rays just like cue balls, planning a billions of years long series of interactions that will result in that cosmic ray arriving just right to cause the desired mutation in something to create the thing called "chicken".
Of course, God could do it by miracle, but there are several problems with that. First, if you do it by miracle, why take millions, even billions of years, to do it, when you could do it instantly? Despite what the young earthers say, there is tons of evidence that it really did take that long for life to arrive here, and that it really did take place sequencially (as Genesis also says), starting simple, then getting complex later. If you are God and decdide to do it without breaking natural laws, thus leaving evidence of your existnace and nature as seen in Rom 1:20 by the physical evidence that it could not happen unless you existed, you might have to take millions and billions of years, becaus even for you, doing it "by the rules", without breaking natural laws, would take a lot of time for setup of all those billiard balls (cosmic rays, atoms, moleceuls, stars etc) and then carefull timeing of that cueball.
If God does it this way, God would have to do it a certain way, say small dinosaur to bird, rather than some other path that might not work. That makes mutated fish/squirreles unlikely as ancestors of chickens. However, for the platypus...
BTW, from a pro life point of view, it's just an egg or chicken, fertilized or not it does not have a soul...
will it happen again? no one knows for sure.
