Can polar bears evolve?

Last month sometime the U.S. put the polar bear a "threatened" species via the endangered species act. (Though the evidence of the polar bear's demise is suspect.) Granted, I don't want to see the polar bear go extinct. However it got me to wondering. Many of these folks who are so concerned about our environment and declining populations of some animals also are also the ones who would hold to evolution and the survival of the fittest. What's wrong with this picture? I would think if a species, such as the polar bear, can't adapt it should go extinct according to their world view.

So why protect them? You know the bear wouldn't give a thought to protecting you. Who knows, by protecting the polar bear now we may be causing the future extinction of humans. These bears just might evolve and one day create traps and weapons and things to start hunting us. Or worse, they could bring about global climate change that would turn the earth into a giant snowball. (Hey, if we can warm the globe, why couldn't they cool it?) I've seen "The Far Side" comics by Gary Larsen. Those animals are up to something!

Sure you're laughing at that prospect now. But if you really are so certain that evolution is a fact, it just might happen. After all, weren't we pond scum long ago right along with the bears? Isn't it only by random chance that our branch of the evolutionary tree got smarter first? We humans may one day become the oil that will drive the polar bear's economy!

Or maybe this whole "protection of weaker species" is part of the evolutionist's plot. If we keep the dumber, unadapted animals around there will be no need for them to evolve in order to survive, thus insuring we remain at the top of the evolutionary heap. So in reality they are scared of what the evolution they preach might bring. It must be such a burden believing one is just a little more evolved of an animal than the other creatures.

Here's what I think. It comes from a little book called Psalms,

"For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be."