Can You Believe Both the Bible and Evolution?
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The Greek Concept of Creation
The ancient Greeks had no shortage of creation myths, with many elements taken from the Babylonian model. Two poets, Homer and Hesiod, described the Greek religious system, with its national gods in charge, while living in a royal court full of intrigues and lusts.
In his version Hesiod saw the origin of the universe as deriving from the chaos, the vastness, of space that produced the first goddess, Gaea (earth). She created Uranus (heaven), who became her husband, and they produced many lesser gods. The division between heaven and earth occurred when one of their sons, Cronus, in a fit of jealousy attacked his father, Uranus. Zeus, the one who became the chief god, was born from the irate Cronus and his wife, Rhea.
Sadly, the only surviving writings about Christianity from the first centuries after the apostles come mainly from men steeped in Greek thought and philosophy. These were Justin Martyr (110-165), Clement (160-220), Origen (185-254) and Augustine (354-430), all former disciples of the thinking of Plato and Aristotle. In this way Greek philosophy entered the Roman church and formed much of its theology.
"The problem with Gentile Christians," notes church historian Samuele Bacchiocchi, "was not only their lack of familiarity with Scripture, but also their excessive fascination with their Greek philosophical speculations, which conditioned their understanding of Biblical truths. While Jewish Christians often erred in the direction of legalism, Gentile Christians often erred in the direction of philosophical speculations which sundered Christianity from its historical roots" (God's Festivals in Scripture and History, 1995, pp. 102-103).
In particular, Origen and Augustine began to interpret much of the book of Genesis as allegory. They viewed the Genesis account as filled with symbolic fictional figures representing truth, human conduct or experience. Gradually, this allegorical method became the norm in the Catholic understanding of much of Genesis. These misconceptions were to heavily influence church authorities down through the years. -
No answer for thisOriginally posted by breytonhartge:interesting....
but then how did the evolution occur? would not the mutation have taken place in the genes that formed the egg... so in that essence... the chicken came first... ?
But I am guessing the evolution is complete with the laying of the 'first' egg. Is our genes 100% transferred to our kids? And during birth process, usually some babies experience some form of mutations though
ben might wanna check with his colleagues from the medical school -
What Does the Fossil Record Show?
Can the theory of evolution be proven? After all, it is called the theory of evolution in acknowledgment that it is a hypothesis rather than a confirmed scientific fact.
Where can we find evidence supporting evolution as an explanation for the teeming variety of life on earth?
Since evolutionists claim that the transition from one species to a new one takes place in tiny, incremental changes over millions of years, they acknowledge that we cannot observe the process taking place today. Our lifespans simply are too short to directly observe such a change.
Instead, they say, we have to look at the past-the fossil record that shows the many life forms that have existed over earth's history-to find transitions from one species to another.
Darwin's greatest challenge
When Charles Darwin proposed his theory in the mid-19th century, he was confident that fossil discoveries would provide clear and convincing evidence that his conjectures were correct. His theory predicted that countless transitional forms must have existed, all gradually blending almost imperceptibly from one tiny step to the next, as species progressively evolved to higher, better-adapted forms.
Indeed that would have to be the case. Well in excess of a million species are alive today. For all those to have evolved from common ancestors, we should be able to find millions if not hundreds of millions of intermediate forms gradually evolving into other species.
It was not only fossils of transitional species between apes and humans that would have to be discovered to prove Darwin's theory. The gaps were enormous. Science writer Richard Milton notes that the missing links "included every part of the animal kingdom: from whelks to whales and from bacteria to bactrian camels. Darwin and his successors envisaged a process that would begin with simple marine organisms living in ancient seas, progressing through fishes, to amphibians-living partly in the sea and partly on land-and hence on to reptiles, mammals, and eventually the primates, including humans" (Shattering the Myths of Darwinism, 1997, p. 253).
However, even Darwin himself struggled with the fact that the fossil record failed to support his conclusions. ". . . Why, if species have descended from other species by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? . . . Why do we not find them imbedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?" (Origin of Species, 1958 Masterpieces of Science edition, pp. 136-137).
". . . The number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed, [must] be truly enormous," he wrote. "Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory [of evolution]" (Darwin, pp. 260-261).
Darwin acknowledged that the fossil record failed to support his conclusions. But, since he thought his theory obviously was the correct explanation for earth's many and varied forms of life, he and others thought it only a matter of time before fossilized missing links would be found to fill in the many gaps. His answer for the lack of fossil evidence to support his theory was that scientists hadn't looked long enough and hadn't looked in the right places. Eventually they would find the predicted fossil remains that would prove his view. "The explanation lies, I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record," he wrote (p. 261).
He was convinced that later explorations and discoveries would fill in the abundant gaps where the transitional species on which his theory was based were missing. But now, a century and a half later, after literally hundreds of thousands of fossil plants and animals have been discovered and cataloged and with few corners of the globe unexplored, what does the fossil record show?
What the record reveals
David Raup is a firm believer in evolution and a respected paleontologist (scientist who studies fossils) at the University of Chicago and the Field Museum. However, he admits that the fossil record has been misinterpreted if not outright mischaracterized. He writes: "A large number of well-trained scientists outside of evolutionary biology and paleontology have unfortunately gotten the idea that the fossil record is far more Darwinian than it is. This probably comes from the oversimplification inevitable in secondary sources: low-level textbooks, semi-popular articles, and so on. Also, there is probably some wishful thinking involved. In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions. In general, these have not been found-yet the optimism has died hard, and some pure fantasy has crept into textbooks" (Science, Vol. 213, p. 289, emphasis added).
Niles Eldredge, curator in the department of invertebrates at the American Museum of Natural History and adjunct professor at the City University of New York, is another vigorous supporter of evolution. But he finds himself forced to admit that the fossil record fails to support the traditional evolutionary view.
"No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long," he writes. "It seems never to happen. Assiduous collecting up cliff faces yields zigzags, minor oscillations, and the very occasional slight accumulation of change-over millions of years, at a rate too slow to really account for all the prodigious change that has occurred in evolutionary history.
"When we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the organisms did not evolve elsewhere! Evolution cannot forever be going on someplace else. Yet that's how the fossil record has struck many a forlorn paleontologist looking to learn something about evolution" (Reinventing Darwin: The Great Debate at the High Table of Evolutionary Theory, 1995, p. 95, emphasis added).
After an immense worldwide search by geologists and paleontologists, the "missing links" Darwin predicted would be found to bolster his theory are still missing.
Harvard University paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould is perhaps today's best-known popular writer on evolution. An ardent evolutionist, he collaborated with Professor Eldredge in proposing alternatives to the traditional view of Darwinism. Like Eldredge, he recognizes that the fossil record fundamentally conflicts with Darwin's idea of gradualism.
"The history of most fossil species," he writes, "includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism [gradual evolution from one species to another]:
"[1] Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional [evolutionary] change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking pretty much the same as when they disappear; morphological [anatomical or structural] change is usually limited and directionless.
"[2] Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors: it appears all at once and 'fully formed'" (Gould, "Evolution's Erratic Pace," Natural History, May 1977, pp. 13-14).
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What does the fossil record show? Part 2
Fossils missing in crucial places
Francis Hitching, member of the Royal Archaeological Institute, the Prehistoric Society and the Society for Physical Research, also sees problems in using the fossil record to support Darwinism.
"There are about 250,000 different species of fossil plants and animals in the world's museums," he writes. "This compares with about 1.5 million species known to be alive on Earth today. Given the known rates of evolutionary turnover, it has been estimated that at least 100 times more fossil species have lived than have been discovered . . . But the curious thing is that there is a consistency about the fossil gaps: the fossils go missing in all the important places.
"When you look for links between major groups of animals, they simply aren't there; at least, not in enough numbers to put their status beyond doubt. Either they don't exist at all, or they are so rare that endless argument goes on about whether a particular fossil is, or isn't, or might be, transitional between this group and that.
". . . There ought to be cabinets full of intermediates-indeed, one would expect the fossils to blend so gently into one another that it would be difficult to tell where the invertebrates ended and the vertebrates began. But this isn't the case. Instead, groups of well-defined, easily classifiable fish jump into the fossil record seemingly from nowhere: mysteriously, suddenly, full-formed, and in a most un-Darwinian way. And before them are maddening, illogical gaps where their ancestors should be" (The Neck of the Giraffe: Darwin, Evolution and the New Biology, 1982, pp. 9-10, emphasis added).
Acknowledging that the fossil record contradicts rather than supports Darwinism, professors Eldredge and Gould have proposed a radically different theory they call "punctuated equilibrium": that bursts of evolution occurred in small, isolated populations that then became dominant and showed no change over millions and millions of years. This, they say, is the only way to explain the lack of evidence for evolution in the fossil record.
As Newsweek explains: "In 1972 Gould and Niles Eldredge collaborated on a paper intended at the time merely to resolve a professional embarrassment for paleontologists: their inability to find the fossils of transitional forms between species, the so-called 'missing links.' Darwin, and most of those who followed him, believed that the work of evolution was slow, gradual and continuous and that a complete lineage of ancestors, shading imperceptibly one into the next, could in theory be reconstructed for all living animals . . . But a century of digging since then has only made their absence more glaring . . . It was Eldredge and Gould's notion to call off the search and accept the evidence of the fossil record on its own terms" ("Enigmas of Evolution," March 29, 1982, p. 39, emphasis added).
As some observers point out, this is an inherently unprovable theory for which the primary evidence to support it is lack of evidence in the fossil record to support transitional forms between species.
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We are homo sapiens sapiens, Neanderthals is a different branch altogether, according to science...
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What does the fossil record show part3
Fossil record no longer incomplete
The fossil record has been thoroughly explored and documented. Darwin's excuse of "extreme imperfection of the geological record" is no longer credible.
How complete is the fossil record? Michael Denton is a medical doctor and biological researcher. He writes that "when estimates are made of the percentage of [now-] living forms found as fossils, the percentage turns out to be surprisingly high, suggesting that the fossil record may not be as bad as is often maintained" (Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, 1985, p. 189).
He explains that "of the 329 living families of terrestrial vertebrates [mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians] 261 or 79.1 percent have been found as fossils and, when birds (which are poorly fossilized) are excluded, the percentage rises to 87.8 percent" (Denton, p. 189).
In other words, almost 88 percent of the varieties of mammals, reptiles and amphibians populating earth have been found in the fossil record. How many transitional forms, then, have been found? ". . . Although each of these classes [fishes, amphibians, reptiles, mammals and primates] is well represented in the fossil record, as of yet no one has discovered a fossil creature that is indisputably transitional between one species and another species. Not a single undisputed 'missing link' has been found in all the exposed rocks of the Earth's crust despite the most careful and extensive searches" (Milton, pp. 253-254, emphasis added).
If Darwin's theory were true, transitional creatures such as invertebrates with partially developed backbones, fish with rudimentary legs, reptiles with primitive wings and innumerable creatures with semievolved anatomical features should be the rule, scattered throughout the fossil strata. But they are nonexistent.
What about fossil proofs?
At times various fossil species have been presented as firm proof of evolution at work. Perhaps the most famous is the supposed evolution of the horse as presented in many biology textbooks. But is it what it is claimed to be?
Notice what Professor Eldredge has to say about this classic "proof" of evolution: "George Gaylord Simpson spent a considerable segment of his career on horse evolution. His overall conclusion: Horse evolution was by no means the simple, linear and straightforward affair it was made out to be ... Horse evolution did not proceed in one single series, from step A to step B and so forth, culminating in modern, single-toed large horses. Horse evolution, to Simpson, seemed much more bushy, with lots of species alive at any one time-species that differed quite a bit from one another, and which had variable numbers of toes, size of teeth, and so forth.
"In other words, it is easy, and all too tempting, to survey the fossil history of a group and select examples that seem best to exemplify linear change through time ... But picking out just those species that exemplify intermediate stages along a trend, while ignoring all other species that don't seem to fit in as well, is something else again. The picture is distorted. The actual evolutionary pattern isn't fully represented" (Niles Eldredge, The Great Debate, p. 131).
Eldredge in effect admits that paleontologists picked and chose which species they thought fit best with their theory and ignored the rest. George Gaylord Simpson himself was more blunt: "The uniform continuous transformation of Hyracotherium [a fossil species thought to be the ancestor of the horse] into Equus [the modern horse], so dear to the hearts of generations of textbook writers, never happened in nature" (Life of the Past, 1953, p. 119).
Professor Raup elaborates on the problem paleontologists face in trying to demonstrate evolution from the fossil record: ". . . We are now about 120 years after Darwin, and knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much. The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time.
"By this I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information-what appeared to be a nice simple progression when relatively few data were available now appears to be much more complex and much less gradualistic [evolutionary]" ("Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology," Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin 50, January 1979, pp. 22-25, emphasis added).
Paleontology's well-kept secret
What does all this mean? In plain language, if evolution means the gradual change of one kind of organism into another kind, the outstanding characteristic of the fossil record is the absence of evidence for evolution-and abundant evidence to the contrary. The only logical place to find proof for evolutionary theory is in the fossil record. But, rather than showing slow, gradual change over eons, with new species continually emerging, the fossils show the opposite.
Professor Eldredge touched on the magnitude of the problem when he admitted that Darwin "essentially invented a new field of scientific inquiry-what is now called 'taphonomy'-to explain why the fossil record is so deficient, so full of gaps, that the predicted patterns of gradual change simply do not emerge" (Eldredge, pp. 95-96, emphasis added).
Professor Gould similarly admits that the "extreme rarity" of evidence for evolution in the fossil record is "the trade secret of paleontology." He goes on to acknowledge that "the evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils" ("Evolution's Erratic Pace," Natural History, May 1977, p. 14, emphasis added).
But do paleontologists share this trade secret with others? Hardly. "Reading popular or even textbook introductions to evolution, . . . you might hardly guess that they [fossil gaps] exist, so glibly and confidently do most authors slide through them. In the absence of fossil evidence, they write what have been termed 'just so' stories. A suitable mutation just happened to take place at the crucial moment, and hey presto, a new stage of evolution was reached" (Hitching, pp. 12-13).
Regarding this misrepresentation of the evidence, Phillip Johnson writes: "Just about everyone who took a college biology course during the last sixty years or so has been led to believe that the fossil record was a bulwark of support for the classic Darwinian thesis, not a liability that had to be explained away . . .
"The fossil record shows a consistent pattern of sudden appearance followed by a stasis, that life's history is more a story of variation around a set of basic designs than one of accumulating improvement, that extinction has been predominantly by catastrophe rather than gradual obsolescence, and that orthodox interpretations of the fossil record often owe more to Darwinist preconception than to the evidence itself.
Paleontologists seem to have thought it their duty to protect the rest of us from the erroneous conclusions we might have drawn if we had known the actual state of the evidence" (Darwin on Trial, 1993, pp. 58-59).
The secret evolutionists don't want revealed is that, even by their own interpretations, the fossil record shows fully formed species appearing for a time and then disappearing with no change. Other species appeared at other times before they, too, disappeared with little or no change. The fossil record simply does not support the central thesis of Darwinism, that species slowly and gradually evolved from one form to another.
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What does the fossil record show part4?
Fact or interesting speculation?
Professor Johnson notes that "Darwinists consider evolution to be a fact, not just a theory, because it provides a satisfying explanation for the pattern of relationship linking all living creatures-a pattern so identified in their minds with what they consider to be the necessary cause of the pattern-descent with modification-that, to them, biological relationship means evolutionary relationship" (Johnson, p. 63, emphasis in original). The deceptive, smoke-and-mirror language of evolution revolves largely around the classification of living species. Darwinists attempt to explain natural relationships they observe in the animal and plant world by categorizing animal and plant life according to physical similarities. It could be said that Darwin's theory is nothing more than educated observance of the obvious; that is, the conclusion that most animals appear to be related to one another because most animals have one or more characteristics in common.
For instance, you might have a superficial classification of whales, penguins and sharks in a group classified as aquatic animals. You might also have birds, bats and bees grouped as flying creatures. These are not the final classifications because there are many other obvious differences. The Darwinist approach, however, is to use the obvious general similarities to show, not that animals were alike in many ways, but that they were related to each other by descent from common ancestors.
Professor Johnson expresses it this way: "Darwin proposed a naturalistic explanation for the essentialist features of the living world that was so stunning in its logical appeal that it conquered the scientific world even while doubts remained about some important parts of his theory. He theorized that the discontinuous groups of the living world were the descendants of long-extinct common ancestors. Relatively closely related groups (like reptiles, birds, and mammals) shared a relatively recent common ancestor; all vertebrates shared a more ancient common ancestor; and all animals shared a still more ancient common ancestor. He then proposed that the ancestors must have been linked to their descendants by long chains of transitional intermediates, also extinct" (Johnson, p. 64).
Evolutionists exercise selective perception when looking at the evidence-rather like deciding whether to view half a glass of water as half empty or half full. They choose to dwell on similarities rather than differences. By doing so they lead you away from the truth of the matter: that similarities are evidence of a common Designer behind the structure and function of the life forms. Each species of animal was created and designed to exist and thrive in a particular way. Darwin and the subsequent proponents of the evolutionary view of life focused on similarities within the major classifications of animals and drew the assumption that those similarities prove that all animals are related to one another through common ancestors.
However, there are major differences in the life forms on earth. If, as evolution supposes, all life forms had common ancestors and chains of intermediates linking those ancestors, the fossil record should overflow with many such intermediate forms between species. But, as we have seen earlier, paleontologists themselves admit it shows no such thing.
Simple life forms?
Since the fossil record does not support the traditional evolutionary view, what does it show?
We have already seen how several well-known paleontologists admit that the fossil record shows the sudden appearance of life forms. As Stephen Jay Gould puts it: "In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors: it appears all at once and 'fully formed'" (Gould, "Evolution's Erratic Pace," Natural History, May 1977, pp. 13-14).
When we sweep away the evolutionary bias inherent in most views, the fossil record does not show a gradual ascent from simple to complex. Some of the earliest fossils found are bacteria. What is interesting about bacteria is that they are not simple organisms at all.
In reality there are no simple life forms. Modern technology has shown that even a single cell is extraordinarily complex.
Michael Behe is associate professor of biochemistry at Pennsylvania's Lehigh University. Noting scientists' changing perceptions of the most elementary forms of life, he writes: "We humans tend to have a rather exalted opinion of ourselves, and that attitude can color our perception of the biological world. In particular, our attitude about what is higher and lower in biology, what is an advanced organism and what is a primitive organism, starts with the presumption that the pinnacle of nature is ourselves . . . Nonetheless, other organisms, if they could talk, could argue strongly for their own superiority. This includes bacteria, which we often think of as the rudest forms of life" (Darwin's Black Box, 1996, pp. 69-70).
When Darwin wrote Origin of Species almost a century and a half ago, scientists did not know nearly as much about the cell (and single-celled organisms) as we do today. Darwin thought that single-celled organisms were quite primitive. In fact, at that time many still thought that life could arise naturally from nonliving matter-for example, that decaying meat spontaneously produced flies.
Years passed before French scientist Louis Pasteur convincingly demonstrated, through a series of meticulous experiments, the impossibility of the notion. Yet even Pasteur had quite a battle with scientists of his day convincing them that life came only from preexisting life forms. So Darwin's idea-that single-celled meant simple-was not questioned at the time. Later discoveries have shown that even the single-celled organisms found early in the fossil record are far more complex than Darwin and others could have imagined.
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what does the fossil record show part 5
An explosion of life forms
Paleontologists widely consider the Cambrian period, one of the oldest in their view, to be the earliest in which extensive life forms are preserved. Since only the remains of marine life are found in Cambrian strata, paleontologists interpret these deposits as dating to a time before land animals had evolved.
The Encarta Encyclopedia says of this time: "By the beginning of the Paleozoic Era, the steadily increasing oxygen content of the atmosphere and oceans . . . had made it possible for the marine environment to support new forms of life that could derive energy from respiration. Although life had not yet invaded dry land or the air, the seas of the Cambrian Period teemed with a great variety of marine invertebrates, including sponges, worms, bryozoans ('moss animals'), hydrozoans, brachiopods, mollusks (among them the gastropods and species ancestral to the nautilus), primitive arthropods such as the trilobite, and a few species of stalked echinoderms.
"The only plant life of the time consisted of marine algae. Because many of these new organisms were relatively large, complex marine invertebrates with hard shells and skeletons of chitin or lime, they had a far better chance of fossil preservation than the soft-bodied creatures of the previous Precambrian Era" (1997, "Cambrian Period," emphasis added).
Notice that complex marine invertebrates are found in fossil deposits from the Cambrian period. Many don't realize it, but even paleontologists acknowledge that life does not start with only a few simple creatures. At the lowest levels of the geologic strata, the fossil record consists of complex creatures such as trilobites.
Time magazine said in a long cover story describing fossilized creatures found in Cambrian strata: "In a burst of creativity like nothing before or since, nature appears to have sketched out the blueprints for virtually the whole of the animal kingdom. This explosion of biological diversity is described by scientists as biology's Big Bang" (Madeleine Nash, "When Life Exploded," Dec. 4, 1995, p. 68 ).
Contrary to the assumptions of early evolutionists, life does not start with only a few rudimentary species. Even those who hold to the traditional interpretation of the fossil record admit that it begins with many life forms similar to those we find today. At the same time, they cannot explain such a vast "explosion" of life forms in such a short amount of geologic time, which evolutionary theory predicts would take far longer.
Unanswered questions
Supporters of evolution have had to back down from the claims of Darwin and others. "Over the decades, evolutionary theorists beginning with Charles Darwin have tried to argue that the appearance of multicelled animals during the Cambrian merely seemed sudden, and in fact had been preceded by a lengthy period of evolution for which the geological record was missing. But this explanation, while it patched over a hole in an otherwise masterly theory, now seems increasingly unsatisfactory" (Time, p. 68 ).
Again, the facts etched in stone do not match the assumptions and predictions of evolutionary thought. Even if we accept the evolutionists' interpretation of the fossil record, we see life beginning at the lowest levels with complex creatures, with elaborate organs and other features-but with no known ancestors. Life does not start as predicted by evolution, with simple forms gradually changing into more-complex species.
Although toeing the evolutionary line, the Time magazine article admits: "Of course, understanding what made the Cambrian explosion possible doesn't address the larger question of what made it happen so fast. Here scientists delicately slide across data-thin ice, suggesting scenarios that are based on intuition rather than solid evidence" (Time, p. 73).
Evolutionists have been known to pointedly criticize Christians because they don't have scientific proof of miracles recorded in the Bible. Yet here is a supremely important geological event with far-reaching implications for the theory of evolution-but one for which scientists have no explanation. Of course, they must assume that life came from nonlife-in violation of the laws of biogenesis. But don't their fundamental assumptions also amount to faith?
A reasonable explanation is that the life forms found in the Cambrian strata were created by God, who did not work by chance but by design. The fossil record is the only objective evidence we can examine to see whether evolution is true. But, rather than supporting Darwinism, it shows exceedingly complex organisms in what evolutionists interpret as the oldest fossil strata, no intermediate forms between species, little if any change in species over their entire span in the fossil record, and the sudden appearance of new life forms rather than the gradual change expected by Darwin and his followers.
If we look at the evidence objectively, we realize that the creation story in Genesis 1-describing the sudden appearance of life forms-is a credible explanation. -
Evolution: Fact or Fiction?
What have we learned since Charles Darwin's treatise on evolution, Origin of Species, was first published in 1859? Science has advanced greatly since those horse-and-buggy days. In addition to a thorough exploration of the fossil record, a vast amount of other information is readily available.
As we saw when discussing the fossil record, the controversy about evolution is increasing.
Francis Hitching gives a general view of the debate to date: "In April 1882, Charles Darwin died peacefully of a heart attack at his family home in Kent, England. His great theory, the basis of all modern biology teaching, had come to be accepted with a fervor close to reverence . . . Yet as 1982 approached, and with the centenary of his passing, change was in the wind. Feuds concerning the theory of evolution exploded rancorously in otherwise staid and decorous scientific journals.
"Entrenched positions, for and against, were established in high places, and insults lobbed like mortar bombs from either side. Meanwhile the doctrine of Divine creation, assumed by most scientists to have been relegated long ago to the pulpits of obscure fundamentalist sects, swept back into the classrooms of American schools. Darwinism is under assault on many fronts" (The Neck of the Giraffe, 1982, p. 7).
Why the confusion and contention? Simply put, as we saw with the fossil record, the increasing scientific evidence doesn't fit the Darwinist model-and evolutionists increasingly are finding themselves on the defensive.
How has this come about? It has happened mainly because the primary supposed proofs of the theory have not held up to further discovery and scrutiny.
What about natural selection?
After the fossil record, the second supposed proof of evolution offered by Darwinists is natural selection, which they hoped biologists would confirm. "Just as the breeders selected those individuals best suited to the breeder's needs to be the parents of the next generation," explained British philosopher Tom Bethell, "so, Darwin argued, nature selected those organisms that were best fitted to survive the struggle for existence. In that way evolution would inevitably occur. And so there it was: a sort of improving machine inevitably at work in nature, 'daily and hourly scrutinizing,' Darwin wrote, 'silently and insensibly working . . . at the improvement of each organic being.'
"In this way, Darwin thought, one type of organism could be transformed into another -for instance, he suggested, bears into whales. So that was how we came to have horses and tigers and things-by natural selection" (Tom Bethell, "Darwin's Mistake," The Craft of Prose, Robert Woodward and Wendell Smith, editors, 1977, p. 309).
Darwin saw natural selection as the major factor driving evolutionary change. But how has this second pillar of evolutionary theory fared since Darwin's day? In truth, it has been quietly discarded by an increasing number of theorists among the scientific community.
Darwin's idea that the survival of the fittest would explain how species evolved has been relegated to a redundant, self-evident statement.
Geneticist Conrad Waddington of Edinburgh University defines the fundamental problem of advocating natural selection as a proof of Darwinism: "Natural selection, . . . turns out on closer inspection to be a tautology, a statement of an inevitable although previously unrecognized relation. It states that the fittest individuals in a population ... will leave most offspring" (Bethell, p. 310).
In other words, what are the fittest? Why, those that survive, of course. And what survives? Why, naturally, the fittest. The problem is that circular reasoning doesn't point to any independent criteria that can evaluate whether the theory is true.
Selection doesn't change species
Darwin cited an example of the way natural selection was supposed to work: A wolf that had inherited the ability to run especially fast was better equipped to survive. His advantage in outrunning others in the pack when food was scarce meant he could eat better and thus survive longer. Yet the very changes that enabled the wolf to run faster could easily become a hindrance if other modifications of the body did not accompany the increased speed. For example, the additional exertion required to run faster would naturally place an added strain on the animal's heart, and eventually it could drop from a heart attack. The survival of the fittest would require that any biological or anatomical alterations would have to be in harmony and synchronized with other bodily modifications, or the changes would be of no benefit.
Natural selection, scientists have found, in reality deals only with the number of species, not the change of the species. It has to do with the survival and not the arrival of the species. Natural selection only preserves existing genetic information (DNA); it doesn't create genetic material that would allow an animal to sprout a new organ, limb or some other anatomical feature.
"Natural selection," said professor Waddington, "is that some things leave more offspring than others; and you ask, which leave more offspring than others? And it is those that leave more offspring; and there is nothing more to it than that. The whole guts of evolution-which is, how do you come to have horses and tigers and things-is outside the mathematical theory [of neo-Darwinism]" (Wistar Symposium, Moorehead and Kaplan, 1967, p. 14).
Tom Bethell gets to the heart of the problem with natural selection as the foundation of evolution: "This was no good at all. As T.H. Morgan [1933 Nobel Prize winner in medicine for his experiments with the Drosophila fruit fly] had remarked, with great clarity: 'Selection, then, has not produced anything new, but only more of certain kinds of individuals. Evolution, however, means producing new things, not more of what already exists' "(Bethell, pp. 311-312, emphasis added).
Bethell concludes: "Darwin's theory, I believe, is on the verge of collapse. In his famous book, [Origin of Species], Darwin made a mistake sufficiently serious to undermine his theory. And that mistake has only recently been recognized as such ... I have not been surprised to read . . . that in some of the latest evolutionary theories 'natural selection plays no role at all.' Darwin, I suggest, is in the process of being discarded, but perhaps in deference to the venerable old gentleman, . . . it is being done as discreetly and gently as possible, with a minimum of publicity" (Bethell, pp. 308, 313-314).
Sadly, the critical examination of natural selection has been undertaken so discreetly that most people are unaware of it-so the pervasive deception that began more than 140 years ago continues.
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Evolution Fact or Fiction... part2
A look at random mutation
If natural selection is not the answer, what about the third supposed proof-random mutation-as a cornerstone of evolution?
Curiously enough, Darwin himself was one of the first to discount beneficial effects from rare changes he noted in species. He did not even include them in his theory. "He did not consider them important," says Maurice Caullery in his book Genetics and Heredity, "because they nearly always represented an obvious disadvantage from the point of view of the struggle for existence; consequently they would most likely be rapidly eliminated in the wild state by the operation of natural selection" (1964, p. 10, emphasis added).
In Darwin's lifetime the principles of genetics were not clearly understood. Gregor Mendel had published his findings on genetic principles in 1866, but his work was overlooked at the time. Later, at the beginning of the 20th century, Hugo De Vries rediscovered these principles, which evolutionists quickly seized on to support evolution. Sir Julian Huxley, one of the principal spokesmen for evolutionary theory in the 20th century, commented on the unpredictability of mutations: "Mutation . . . provides the raw material of evolution; it is a random affair and takes place in all directions" (Evolution in Action, 1953, p. 3
.
So, "shortly after the turn of the [19th to the 20th] century, Darwin's theory suddenly seemed plausible again," writes Hitching. "It was found that once in a while, absolutely at random (about once in ten million times during cell division, we now know) the genes make a copying mistake. These mistakes are known as mutations, and are mostly harmful. They lead to a weakened plant, or a sick or deformed creature. They do not persist within the species, because they are eliminated by natural selection . . .
"However, followers of Darwin have come to believe that it is the occasional beneficial mutation, rarely though it happens, which is what counts in evolution. They say these favorable mutations, together with sexual mixing, are sufficient to explain how the whole bewildering variety of life on Earth today originated from a common genetic source" (Hitching, p. 49, emphasis added).
Mutations: liability, not benefit
What has almost a century of research discovered? That mutations are pathological mistakes and not helpful changes in the genetic code.
C.P. Martin of McGill University in Montreal wrote, "Mutation is a pathological process which has had little or nothing to do with evolution" ("A Non-Geneticist Looks at Evolution," American Scientist, January 1953, p. 100). Professor Martin's investigations revealed mutations are overwhelmingly negative and never creative. He observed that an apparently beneficial mutation was likely only a correction of a previously deleterious one, similar to punching a man with a dislocated shoulder and inadvertently putting it back into place.
Science writer Milton explains the problem: "The results of such copying errors are tragically familiar. In body cells, faulty replication shows itself as cancer. Sunlight's mutagenic [mutation-inducing] power causes skin cancer; the cigarette's mutagenic power causes lung cancer. In sexual cells, faulty reproduction of whole chromosome number 21 results in a child with Down's syndrome" (Richard Milton, Shattering the Myths of Darwinism, 1997, p. 156). Yet evolutionists would have us believe that such genetic mistakes are not only not harmful to the afflicted creature but are helpful in the long run.
Phillip Johnson observes: "To suppose that such a random event could reconstruct even a single complex organ like a liver or kidney is about as reasonable as to suppose that an improved watch can be designed by throwing an old one against a wall" (Darwin on Trial, p. 37).
We can be thankful that mutations are extremely rare. An average of one mistake per 10 million correct copies occurs in the genetic code.
Whoever or whatever types 10 million letters with only one mistake would easily be the world's best typist and probably would not be human. Yet this is the astounding accuracy of our supposedly blind genetic code when it replicates itself.
If, however, these copying errors were to accumulate, a species, instead of improving, would eventually degenerate and perish. But geneticists have discovered a self-correcting system.
"The genetic code in each living thing has its own built-in limitations," says Hitching. "It seems designed to stop a plant or creature stepping too far away from the average . . . Every series of breeding experiments that has ever taken place has established a finite limit to breeding possibilities. Genes are a strong influence for conservatism, and allow only modest change. Left to their own devices, artificially bred species usually die out (because they are sterile or less robust) or quickly revert to the norm" (Hitching, pp. 54-55).
Some scientists reluctantly concede that mutations do not explain Darwin's proposed transition from one species to the next. Writing about zoologist Pierre-Paul Grassé, Hayward says: "In 1973 he published a major book on evolution . . . First and foremost, the book aims to expose Darwinism as a theory that does not work, because it clashes with so many experimental findings.
"As Grassé says in his introduction: 'Today our duty is to destroy the myth of evolution . . . Some people, owing to their sectarianism, purposely overlook reality and refuse to acknowledge the inadequacies and the falsity of their beliefs' . . .
"Take mutation first. Grassé has studied this extensively, both inside his laboratory and in nature. In all sorts of living things, from bacteria to plants and animals, he has observed that mutations do not take succeeding generations further and further from their starting point. Instead, the changes are like the flight of a butterfly in a green house, which travels for miles without moving more than a few feet from its starting point.
There are invisible but firmly fixed boundaries that mutations can never cross . . . He insists that mutations are only trivial changes; they are merely the result of slightly altered genes, whereas 'creative evolution . . . demands the genesis of new ones'" (Hayward, p. 25).
Embarrassingly for evolutionists, mutation is also not the answer. If anything, the self-correcting system to eliminate mutations shows that a great intelligence was at work when the overall genetic system was designed so that random mutations would not destroy the beneficial genes. Ironically, mutation shows the opposite of what evolutionism teaches: In real life random mutation is the villain and not the hero.
This takes us to one last point on mutations: the inability of evolution to explain the appearance of simple life and intricate organs.
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Evolution Fact of Fiction part3
The wondrous cell
Cells are marvelous and incredibly complicated living things. They are self-sufficient and function like miniature chemical factories. The closer we look at cells, the more we realize their incredible complexity.
For example, the cell wall is a wonder in itself. If it were too porous, harmful solutions would enter and cause the cell to burst. On the other hand, if the wall were too impervious, no nourishment could come in or waste products go out, and the cell would quickly die.
Biochemist Behe, the associate professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University, summarizes one of the fundamental flaws of evolution as an explanation for any form of life. "Darwin's theory encounters its greatest difficulties when it comes to explaining the development of the cell. Many cellular systems are what I term 'irreducibly complex.' That means the system needs several components before it can work properly.
"An everyday example of irreducible complexity is a mousetrap, built of several pieces (platform, hammer, spring and so on). Such a system probably cannot be put together in a Darwinian manner, gradually improving its function. You can't catch a mouse with just the platform and then catch a few more by adding the spring. All the pieces have to be in place before you catch any mice."
Michael Behe's point is that a cell missing a tenth of its parts doesn't function only one tenth less as well as a complete cell; it doesn't function at all. He concludes: "The bottom line is that the cell-the very basis of life-is staggeringly complex. But doesn't science already have answers, or partial answers, for how these systems originated? No" ("Darwin Under the Microscope," New York Times, Oct. 29, 1996, p. A25).
Miniature technological marvel
Michael Denton, the microbiologist and senior research fellow at the University of Otago in New Zealand, contrasts how the cell was viewed in Darwin's day with what today's researchers can see. In Darwin's time the cell could be viewed at best at a magnification of several hundred times. Using the best technology of their day, when scientists viewed the cell they saw "a relatively disappointing spectacle appearing only as an ever-changing and apparently disordered pattern of blobs and particles which, under the influence of unseen turbulent forces, [were] continually tossed haphazardly in all directions" (Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, 1985, p. 32.
The years since then have brought astounding technological advancements. Now researchers can peer into the tiniest parts of cells. Do they still see only formless blobs, or do they witness something far more astounding?
"To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology," writes Dr. Denton, "we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometres in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would then see would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design.
"On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like the port holes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials in and out. If we were to enter one of these openings we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity. We would see endless highly organized corridors and conduits branching in every direction away from the perimeter of the cell, some leading to the central memory bank in the nucleus and others to assembly plants and processing units.
"The nucleus itself would be a vast spherical chamber more than a kilometre in diameter, resembling a geodesic dome inside of which we would see, all neatly stacked together in ordered arrays, the miles of coiled chains of the DNA molecules ...
"We would wonder at the level of control implicit in the movement of so many objects down so many seemingly endless conduits, all in perfect unison. We would see all around us, in every direction we looked, all sorts of robot-like machines. We would notice that the simplest of the functional components of the cell, the protein molecules, were astonishingly, complex pieces of molecular machinery, each one consisting of about three thousand atoms arranged in highly organized 3-D spatial conformation.
"We would wonder even more as we watched the strangely purposeful activities of these weird molecular machines, particularly when we realized that, despite all our accumulated knowledge of physics and chemistry, the task of designing one such molecular machine-that is one single functional protein molecule-would be beyond our capacity . . . Yet the life of the cell depends on the integrated activities of thousands, certainly tens, and probably hundreds of thousands of different protein molecules" (Denton, pp. 328-329).
This is a microbiologist's description of one cell. The human body contains about 10 trillion (10,000,000,000,000) brain, nerve, muscle and other types of cells.
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Evolution Fact or Fiction Part 4
Did this come about by chance?
Yet, as complex as cells are, the smallest living things are even far more intricate. Sir James Gray, a Cambridge University professor of zoology, states: "Bacteria [are] far more complex than any inanimate system known to man. There is not a laboratory in the world which can compete with the biochemical activity of the smallest living organism" (Marshall and Sandra Hall, The Truth: God or Evolution?, 1974, p. 89).
How complex are the tiniest living things? Even the simplest cells must possess a staggering amount of genetic information to function. For instance, the bacterium R. coli is one of the tiniest unicellular creatures in nature. Scientists calculate it has some 2,000 genes, each with around 1,000 enzymes (organic catalysts, chemicals that speed up other chemical reactions). An enzyme is made up of a billion nucleotides, each of which amounts to a letter in the chemical alphabet, comparable to a byte in computer language. These enzymes instruct the organism how to function and reproduce. The DNA information in just this single tiny cell is "the approximate equivalent of 100 million pages of the Encyclopaedia Britannica" (John Whitcomb, The Early Earth, 1972, p. 79).
What are the odds that the enzymes needed to produce the simplest living creature-with each enzyme performing a specific chemical function-could come together by chance? Astrophysicists Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe calculated the odds at one chance in 1040,000 (that is, 10 to the 40,000th power: mathematical shorthand for a 10 followed by 40,000 zeros, a number long enough to fill about seven pages of this publication).
Note that a probability of less than 1 in 1050 is considered by mathematicians to be a complete impossibility (Hayward, pp. 35-37). By comparison, Sir Arthur Eddington, another mathematician, estimates there are no more than 1080 atoms in the universe! (Hitching, p. 70).
As long as evolutionists keep their conceptions as vague abstractions, they can sound plausible. But, when rigorous mathematics are applied to their generalities, and their assertions are specifically quantified, the underpinnings of Darwinian evolution are exposed as so implausible and unrealistic as to be impossible.
Scientists' revealing reaction
Molecular biochemist Behe comments on the curious academic and scientific reaction to discoveries about the intricacy of the cell: "Over the past four decades modern biochemistry has uncovered the secrets of the cell. The progress has been hard won. It has required tens of thousands of people to dedicate the better parts of their lives to the tedious work of the laboratory . . .
"The results of these cumulative efforts to investigate the cell-to investigate life at the molecular level-is a loud, clear, piercing cry of 'design!' The result is so unambiguous and so significant that it must be ranked as one of the greatest achievements in the history of science. The discovery rivals those of Newton and Einstein, Lavoisier and Schrödinger, Pasteur, and Darwin. The observation of the intelligent design of life is as momentous as the observation that the earth goes around the sun or that disease is caused by bacteria or that radiation is emitted in quanta.
"The magnitude of the victory, gained at such great cost through sustained effort over the course of decades, would be expected to send champagne corks flying in labs around the world. This triumph of science should evoke cries of 'Eureka!' from ten thousand throats, should occasion much hand-slapping and high-fiving, and perhaps even be an excuse to take the day off.
"But no bottles have been uncorked, no hands slapped. Instead a curious, embarrassed silence surrounds the stark complexity of the cell. When the subject comes up in public, feet start to shuffle, and breathing gets a bit labored. In private people are a bit more relaxed; many explicitly admit the obvious but then stare at the ground, shake their heads, and let it go at that.
"Why does the scientific community not greedily embrace its startling discovery? Why is the observation of design handled with intellectual gloves? The dilemma is that while one side of the elephant is labeled intelligent design, the other side might be labeled God" (Behe, pp. 232-233, original emphasis).
These discoveries reveal that the simplest living cell is so intricate and complex in its design that even the possibility of its coming into existence accidentally is unthinkable. It is clear evolutionists don't have a rational answer to how the first cells were formed. This is just one of their many problems in trying to explain a wondrous creation that they argue had to come together by chance. -
The Miracle of the Eye
Charles Darwin described the eye as one of the greatest challenges to his theory. How could he explain it? The eye, after all, is simply incompatible with evolution. "To suppose," he admitted, "that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances . . . could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree" (Origin of Species, p. 146).
Jesus said that "the lamp of the body is the eye" (Matthew 6:22). Jacob Bronowski wrote that, "if you compare a human being with even the most sharp-eyed of the great apes, say with a chimpanzee, our vision is incredibly more delicate . . . Their ability to discriminate fine detail (which can be tested in a very simple way) is not comparable with that of human beings" (The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination, 1978, pp. 12-13).
The human eye possesses 130 million light-sensitive rods and cones that convert light into chemical impulses. These signals travel at a rate of a billion per second to the brain.
The essential problem for Darwinists is how so many intricate components could have independently evolved to work together perfectly when, if a single component didn't function perfectly, nothing would work at all.
Think about it. Partial transitional structures are no aid to a creature's survival and may even be a hindrance. If they are a hindrance, no further gradual development would occur because the creature would, according to advocates of natural selection, be less apt to survive than the other creatures around him. What good is half a wing or an eye without a retina? Consequently, either such structures as feathered wings must have appeared all at once, either by absurdly implausible massive mutations ("hopeful monsters," as scientists refer to such hypothetical creatures) or by creation.
"Now it is quite evident," says Francis Hitching, "that if the slightest thing goes wrong en route-if the cornea is fuzzy, or the pupil fails to dilate, or the lens becomes opaque, or the focusing goes wrong-then a recognizable image is not formed. The eye either functions as a whole, or not at all.
"So how did it come to evolve by slow, steady, infinitesimally small Darwinian improvements? Is it really possible that thousands upon thousands of lucky chance mutations happened coincidentally so that the lens and the retina, which cannot work without each other, evolved in synchrony? What survival value can there be in an eye that doesn't see?
"Small wonder that it troubled Darwin. 'To this day the eye makes me shudder,' [Darwin] wrote to his botanist friend Asa Gray in February, 1860" (The Neck of the Giraffe, 1982, p. 86).
Incredible as the eye is, consider that we have not one but two of them. This matched pair, coupled with an interpretive center in the brain, allows us to determine distances to the objects we see. Our eyes also have the ability to focus automatically by elongating or compressing themselves. They are also inset beneath a bony brow that, along with automatic shutters in the form of eyelids, provide protection for these intricate and delicate organs.
Darwin should have considered two passages in the Bible. "The hearing ear and the seeing eye, the LORD has made them both," wrote King Solomon (Proverbs 20:12). Psalm 94:9 asks: "He who planted the ear, shall He not hear? He who formed the eye, shall He not see?"
The same can be said of the brain, nose, palate and dozens of other complex and highly developed organs in any human or animal. It would take a quantum leap of faith to think all this just evolved. Yet that is commonly taught and accepted.
After reviewing the improbability of such organs arising in nature from an evolutionary process, Professor H.S. Lipson, a member of the British Institute of Physics, wrote in 1980: ". . . We must go further than this and admit that the only acceptable explanation is creation. I know that this is anathema to physicists, as indeed it is to me, but we must not reject a theory that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports it" (Physics Bulletin, Vol. 30, p. 140) -
Darwinism Not the Same as Evolution
A word of caution on the use of the term evolution: It can mean different things to different people. The dictionary first defines evolution as a process of change from a lower to a higher state and, second, as the theory Darwin advocated. But they are not the same. Evolution literally means simply the successive appearances of perfectly formed life without regard to how it got there. It does not have to refer to Darwinism, which is the doctrine that gradual change led to one species becoming another through the process of natural selection.
A species is generally defined as a living thing that can reproduce only after its own kind. So, although most scientists mean Darwinism when they use the term, the two definitions of the term are not synonymous and should be carefully defined by the context.
"Why is it," asks physicist Alan Hayward, "that the terms 'Darwinism' and 'evolution' are so often used (wrongly) as if they meant the same thing? Simply because it was Darwin who put the old idea of evolution on its feet. Before Darwin, evolution was regarded by most people as a wild, unbelievable notion. After Darwin, evolution seemed such a reasonable idea that the general public soon took it for granted.
"Many people since Darwin's day have tried to find an alternative explanation of evolution, but none has succeeded. Just as when he first proposed it, Darwin's appears the only conceivable method of evolution. It still seems that Darwinism and evolution must stand or fall together" (Creation and Evolution, 1985, p. 5).
This is a reason many Darwinists are so adamant about their theory. They know the implications if they fail: The alternative explanation of life on earth is a Creator God. Professor L.T. More has candidly admitted in his book The Dogma of Evolution: "Our faith in the doctrine of Evolution depends upon our reluctance to accept the antagonistic doctrine of special creation [creation by God]" (quoted by Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe, p. 109). -
Blood Clotting: A Biological Miracle
One relatively simple process necessary for animal life is the ability for blood to clot to seal a wound and prevent an injured animal (or person) from bleeding to death. Yet the only way this intricate system works is when many complicated chemical substances interact. If only one ingredient is missing or doesn't function in the right way-as in the genetic blood disorder hemophilia-the process fails, and the victim bleeds to death.
How can complex substances appear at just the right time in the right proportions and mix properly to clot blood and prevent death? Either they function flawlessly or clotting doesn't work at all.
At the same time, medical science is aware of clotting at the wrong time. Blood clots that cut off the flow of oxygen to the brain are a leading cause of strokes and often result in paralysis or death. When blood clots, either everything works perfectly or the likely outcome is death.
For evolution to have led to this astounding phenomenon, multiple mutations of just the right kind had to converge simultaneously or the mutations would be useless. Evolutionists can offer no realistic explanation of how this is possible. -
Two Supposed Examples of Darwinian Evolution
Looking for proof of evolution? Biology textbooks frequently cite two examples to show that Darwinian evolution can take place in the real world.
The first commonly offered example involves a species of moths in 19th-century England. The species had two varieties, one light- and the other dark-colored. For years the lighter variety predominated, since its coloration more closely matched the bark of trees on which it rested.
However, as soot from many factories gradually darkened the tree bark, the lighter moths stood out against the now-darkened tree trunks. Birds could see the light moths better and soon devoured most. Before long the darker moths, being better camouflaged against the darker bark, became the more common variety. "In fact this is the first direct evidence actually obtained," says a biology textbook, "to support Darwin's theory that natural selection occurs" (Contemporary Biology, 1973, p. 567). Convincing evidence-or is it?
This actually might have been a case of Darwinian natural selection changing the species to confer a survival advantage-if the light moths had turned into dark ones. But no such thing happened. In fact, both types were already in existence. The lighter moths didn't evolve into darker moths. They were eaten. The proportion of dark moths increased while the light moths decreased.
As a science publication admitted: "Students should understand that this is not an example of evolutionary change from light-colored to dark-colored moths, because both kinds were already in the population" (Science Framework, 1990, p. 103).
So nothing new came into existence. What changed was not the moths themselves, simply the proportion of the types of moths. It is ironic that now, with stricter regulation of industrial pollution, the light-moth population has made a dramatic comeback. Yet this supposed proof of evolution at work is still included in many biology textbooks.
The second commonly cited example deals with finches found in the Galápagos Islands. No less an authority than Darwin himself was the first to offer them as an example of evolution in action.
Darwin measured the beak sizes of the finches and noticed a slight difference of the birds' beaks from one island to the next. He wrote: "Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure in one small, intimately related group of birds, one might really fancy that from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends" (from Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle, quoted in Contemporary Biology, 1973, p. 560).
This was taken as a living proof of "evolution in action," as Julian Huxley called it.
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Two Supposed Examples of Darwinian Evolution Part2
But was it? In reality, nothing new has been created in the varying beak sizes of the finches. However, the finches' beak size and shape varied somewhat according to environmental conditions and a division of the gene pool through geographic distancing.
For instance, in 1977 a major drought occurred in Daphne, one of the Galápagos Islands. While many finches died, researchers noticed the next generation, offspring of the survivors, had beaks 4 to 5 percent larger. Their stronger-beaked parents had been able to open the last remaining tough seeds that remained in the island. The bigger-beaked survivors produced a generation of bigger-beaked offspring that inherited their parents' characteristics.
Then, in 1983, torrential rains caused flooding in the same island. Now there was an abundance of smaller seeds, and over time scientists found the beak sizes of the island's finches had diminished somewhat, adjusting to their different food supply. Now birds with smaller beaks could compete for food just as easily, and more smaller-beaked finches survived to produce offspring. But is this Darwinian evolution in action or something else?
This adaptation within the species is called microevolution. It is the same phenomenon at work when the average height of men and women increased by several inches in the Western world over the course of the 1900s. Better health and nutrition played a large part in producing larger-sized people. In the same way, microevolution is at work when breeders produce varieties ranging from Chihuahuas to Great Danes from the one species Canis familiaris-the domestic dog.
These examples show, as in the rest of nature, that all species do have a margin of change available within their genetic pool to adapt to conditions. This trait is found in man, who can adapt to freezing weather, as the Eskimos do, or to the broiling sun in the desert, as bedouins have done. But bedouins and Eskimos are still human beings, and if they changed environments again eventually their offspring would also go through minor changes to better adapt to their new environment.
What has never been scientifically demonstrated-in spite of many examples of wishful thinking-is macroevolution, or the change from one distinct species to another. Dogs have never evolved into birds or human beings.
Phillip Johnson goes to the heart of the matter: "Critics of evolutionary theory are well aware of the standard examples of microevolution, including dog breeding and the cyclical variations that have been seen in things like finch beaks and moth populations. The difference is that we interpret these observations as examples of the capacity of dogs and finches to vary within limits, not of a process capable of creating dogs and finches, much less the main groups of plants and animals, in the first place . . .
"As any creationist (and many evolutionists) would see the matter, making the case for 'evolution' as a general theory of life's history requires a lot more than merely citing examples of small-scale variation. It requires showing how extremely complex biological structures can be built up from simple beginnings by natural processes, without the need for input or guidance from a supernatural Creator" (Reason in the Balance, p. 74).
So these two supposed examples of evolution at work are really no proof at all of anything-much less how any of these creatures-moths, dogs, finches or humans-came to exist. -
Animal Oddities That Defy Evolution
When Darwin proposed his famous theory back in 1859, he was aware that one of the glaring weaknesses of his speculations was how to explain complex features in animals by small and gradual evolutionary steps. He admitted, "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down" (Origin of Species, p. 149).
Close to 150 years later, research has provided numerous examples in nature in which complex organs in animals could not have developed by small, successive steps. From molecular science on up, many complex systems had to appear simultaneously, with all their components intact, or they would not function, thus offering no survival advantage.
Molecular biochemist Behe explains: "It was once expected that the basis of life would be exceedingly simple. That expectation has been smashed. Vision, motion, and other biological functions have proven to be no less sophisticated than television cameras and automobiles. Science has made enormous progress in understanding how the chemistry of life works, but the elegance and complexity of biological systems at the molecular level have paralyzed science's attempt to explain their origins" (Darwin's Black Box, 1998, p. x).
The bombardier beetle's chemical weapon
One example of this kind of biological complexity is the bombardier beetle's defense system. It has so many essential parts and chemicals that, if any are missing, the whole system will not work. Moreover, if everything did not work just right, the deadly chemical mixture inside the beetle would prove fatal rather than favorable.
The tiny beetle, less than an inch long, appears as a tasty morsel for many types of animals. But, as they near the beetle to gobble it up, they suddenly find themselves sprayed with a scalding and noxious solution that forces them to beat a fast retreat. How can this unassuming insect produce such a complex and effective defense system?
The components making up the beetle's effective chemical warfare have been analyzed by chemists and biologists down to the molecular level. When the beetle senses danger, it secretes two chemicals, hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone, that end up in a storage chamber inside its body. By tensing certain muscles, it moves the chemicals to another compartment, called the explosion chamber.
But, just as a loaded cannon will not go off without some sort of ignition device, so these two chemicals will not explode without the right catalyst being added. Inside the beetle's body, this catalyst is injected into the explosion chamber. As a result, a boiling hot and toxic liquid is spewed out of the beetle's rear toward the threatening predator's face. All three chemical elements and chambers have to exist for this powerful defense system to work.
How could such a complex system evolve by gradual steps? With only the two chemicals mixing, nothing happens. But, when the catalyst is added in the proper amount and at the right time, the beetle is equipped with an amazing chemical cannon. Could all these components appear by a gradual, step-by-step process?
Francis Hitching comments on the bombardier beetle's defense system: "The chain of events that could have led to the evolution of such a complex, coordinated and subtle process is beyond biological explanation on a simple step-by-step basis. The slightest alteration in the chemical balance would result immediately in a race of exploded beetles. The problem of evolutionary novelties is quite widely accepted among biologists . . . In every case, the difficulty is compounded by the lack of fossil evidence. The first time that the plant, creature, or organ appears, it is in its finished state, so to speak" (The Neck of the Giraffe, 1982, p. 6.
Nevertheless, evolutionist Richard Dawkins tries to dismiss the complex features of the bombardier beetle by simply saying: "As for the evolutionary precursors of the system, both hydrogen peroxide and various kinds of quinones are used for other purposes in body chemistry. The bombardier beetle's ancestors simply pressed into different service chemicals that already happened to be around. That's often how evolution works" (The Blind Watchmaker, 1986, p. 87).
This is not a convincing explanation at all for Dr. Behe, who has studied this beetle's components down to their molecular level. "Dawkins' explanation for the evolution of the system," he says, "rests on the fact that the system's elements 'happened to be around' . . . But Dawkins has not explained how hydrogen peroxide and quinones came to be secreted together at very high concentration into one compartment that is connected . . . to a second compartment that contains enzymes necessary for the rapid reaction of the chemicals" (Behe, p. 34).
Now that the whole defense system of the beetle has been thoroughly studied, even if the chemicals "happened to be around," this elaborate chemical cannon would not work without everything from the molecular level up working together and at exactly the right time. Dawkins' argument is as absurd as saying that if gunpowder, a fuse, a barrel and a cannonball "happened to be around," eventually they would put themselves together, carefully load the ingredients in the right sizes and proportions, and then go off at the right direction without blowing themselves up somewhere along the way. No, all the components had to be carefully and intelligently assembled in order to function.
Dr. Behe notes: "Some evolutionary biologists-like Richard Dawkins-have fertile imaginations. Given a starting point, they almost always can spin a story to get to any biological structure you wish . . . Science, however, cannot ultimately ignore relevant details, and at the molecular level all the 'details' become critical. If a molecular nut or bolt is missing, then the whole system can crash" (Behe, p. 65).
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Animal Oddities That Defy Evolution part2
Astounding bird migrations
Consider another enormous biological complexity-how birds, such as certain storks, ducks, geese and robins, gained the ability to navigate accurately across thousands of miles of previously unknown territory and land in exactly the right zone and at the right time of year to feed and breed. Then, when winter ends in the northern hemisphere, they fly thousands of miles back and arrive safely in their same nesting grounds. Homing experiments have revealed that these birds have inherited the ability to map their location using the stars by night and the sun by day.
hey subconsciously process astronomical data and gauge the altitude, latitude and longitude to fly unerringly to a predetermined place. They have an internal clock and calendar to let them know when to start and finish their migrations. Perhaps what is most surprising is that they are able to reach their distant destiny even on their first trip-without any experience!
For instance, the white-throated warbler migrates every year from Germany to Africa. Remarkably, when the adult birds migrate, they leave their offspring behind. Several weeks later, when the young birds are strong enough, they instinctively fly across thousands of miles of unknown land and sea to arrive at the same spot where their parents are waiting! How can these inexperienced birds navigate with such accuracy across thousands of miles and arrive safely to be reunited with their parents?
In North America the golden plover circumnavigates around most of the northern and southern hemispheres in its migrations. After nesting in Canada and Alaska, plovers begin their trip from the northeastern tip of Canada and fly across the ocean down to Brazil and Argentina, a trip of more than 2,400 miles. When the season is over they travel back north, taking a different route through South and Central America, then up the Mississippi basin all the way to their nesting grounds. They do this flawlessly year after year.
Dr. Huse comments: "The causes of migrations and the incredible sense of direction shown by these animals presents the evolutionist with one of the most baffling problems of science. Evolutionists are indeed hard-pressed to explain how these remarkable abilities evolved piecemeal through mere chance processes apart from any directing intelligence. The piecemeal development of such an instinct seems highly improbable because migratory instincts are useless unless perfect. Obviously, it is of no benefit to be able to navigate perfectly across only half of an ocean" (The Collapse of Evolution, 1998, p. 34).
The salmon's amazing cycle
Some species of salmon exhibit amazingly complex migrations. Hatching from eggs in streams, they spend the first few years of life in freshwater lakes and rivers. After growing to several inches they swim downstream to the ocean, where they adapt to a completely different chemical environment-saltwater-and spend the next few years.
In the process they often migrate for thousands of miles as they feed and grow. Eventually, toward the end of their lives, they leave the ocean environment and swim upriver and upstream against the current until they reach the very stretch of stream where they were hatched years earlier. There they spawn and die, with their decaying bodies providing nutrients for the newly laid eggs. The eggs then hatch to start a new generation, repeating the amazing cycle.
These many adaptations go against the supposed "numerous, successive, slight modifications" of evolutionary theory as well as plain common sense. If a species is well adapted to live in freshwater, why undergo the physiological changes necessary to live in saltwater? And why the enormous and exhausting trip back to their original birthplace only to face certain death?
How do these species, after traveling up to several thousand miles, manage to find the very streams in which they were first spawned several years earlier? No plausible evolutionary explanation has been offered.
The decoy fish
In Hawaiian waters swims the astounding decoy fish. When hunting for other fish to eat, it raises its dorsal fin, which appears as a small, helpless fish, complete with an apparent mouth and eye.
It then stays motionless except for the dorsal fin, which it moves from side to side to make the decoy appear to open and close its mouth. The fin itself becomes transparent except for the upper part of the fin, which looks like a separate fish. It turns a bright red, enhancing the illusion of a smaller fish. This unassuming creature has just created an optical illusion that even a Hollywood special-effects artist would envy. To an incoming fish the decoy looks like an easy meal, and as it moves in for the kill it suddenly finds itself inside the jaws of the decoy fish.
As Dr. Huse notes: "The decoy-fish clearly exhibits great ingenuity, attention to biological details, and a sense of purposefulness. No matter how one contorts one's reasoning, one cannot explain such a marvel in terms of the evolutionary theory. Such clear design does not result from mere chance but rather requires careful and deliberate blueprint encoding within the DNA of the decoy-fish by a highly capable molecular programmer" (Huse, p. 36).
Dr. Huse notes other fish species that use similar deceptions to snare a meal. "One type of anglerfish has a 'fishing rod' coming out of its back with a luminescent 'bulb' at the end of it. Another, the deep-sea angler, has a 'light bulb' hanging from the roof of its mouth. It just swims around with an open mouth, dangling the lure from side to side. Small fish, attracted by the display, swim to their death right into the angler's mouth!" (Huse, p. 36).
He also notes that anglerfish have the ability to move their "bait" in a manner that mimics the real thing; an anglerfish with a fishlike bait will move it in a swimming motion while one with an appendage resembling a shrimp will move it with a shrimp's backward-darting motion. On those occasions when the anglerfish's "bait" is nipped off-as could be expected to happen under the circumstances-the anglerfish can fully regrow it within two weeks (Huse, p. 36).
Gradual adaptations?
Now, with our greater understanding of enormously complex and integrated systems that rule all living systems, we see that Darwin's theory that all life evolved through a gradual system of adaptations can be easily and satisfactorily refuted.
Dr. Behe sums up the results of many years of working in molecular biochemistry: "The simplicity that was once expected to be the foundation of life has proven to be a phantom; instead, systems of horrendous, irreducible complexity inhabit the cell. The resulting realization that life was designed by an intelligence is a shock to us in the twentieth century who have gotten used to thinking of life as the result of simple natural laws" (Behe, p. 252).
Scientist Soren Lovtrup, admits, "I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science" (Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth, 1987, p. 422). -
Cooperation or Competition: Symbiosis vs. Evolution
According to the theory of evolution, all animal life on earth has evolved from a common ancestor. This process has supposedly occurred over an immense time and followed a step-by-step sequence from primitive to advanced forms of life. This would mean plant life first appeared and developed, followed much later by the appearance of animal life.
This idea is contradicted by the fossil record, which shows complex plant and animal life first appearing together in the geologic column during the Cambrian era.
Another obstacle to this theory is the interdependent relationships between living things, called symbiosis, in which completely different forms of life depend on each other to exist.
Darwin's theory of biological change was based on competition, or survival of the fittest, among the individuals making up a species. He admitted: "If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection" (Darwin, p. 164).
Symbiotic relationships pose such a challenge to Darwin's theory, since they have animals and plants of different species cooperating for the benefit of both. For example, the dodo bird ate the seeds and leaves of a plant called calvaria major. The bird benefited from having the plant as a food source, but the plant benefited from the bird's gizzard scratching its seeds as they passed through its digestive system. When the bird became extinct, the plant nearly disappeared as well, because only if its seeds are scratched can they germinate and then grow into a mature plant.
This type of relationship is found in plants and animals. Evolutionists call it coadaptation, but they have yet to come up with a plausible explanation of how this relationship could have evolved in stages.
How can plants that need certain animals to survive have existed before those animals appeared in the first place? And how do animals that need other animals to survive arrive without the other creature already being there?
Symbiosis among lower forms of life
An example of beneficial symbiosis (called mutualism) is between algae and the fungus of lichens. While fungi provide vital protection and moisture to algae, the algae nourish the fungi with photosynthetic nutrients that keep them alive. As a biology textbook puts it: "Neither population could exist without the other, and hence the size of each is determined by that of the other" (Mary Clark, Contemporary Biology, 1973, p. 519).
So which came first, the alga or the fungus? Since neither could exist without the other, according to evolution for both to survive they had to evolve independently of each other, yet appear at exactly the same time and with precisely the right functions.
How could two completely different species evolve separately from distinct ancestors, yet depend on each other to exist? Frankly, the idea that thisrelationship evolved stretches the imagination beyond the breaking point.
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Cooperation or Competition: Symbiosis vs. Evolution part2
Symbiosis among animals and plants
Another remarkable form of symbiosis is the relationship between bees and plants.
While collecting the precious nectar that provides their hives with food, bees pollinate dozens of species of flowers and agricultural crops. Without this vital pollination, orchards could produce little if any fruit, and fruit trees would not survive for long. How can these plants exist without first being pollinated by bees? On the other hand, how could bees exist without first being provided with the necessary nectar as food? Clearly, both life forms depend on each other for their existence.
In addition, the bee has to carry out pollination in a precisely specific way for the process to work. If the bee visited other species of flowers at random, pollination could not occur, since the pollen of one species of flower does not fertilize another species. Somehow the bee knows to visit only one plant species at a time and at the right season.
Everything in this symbiotic relationship has to be timed exactly right for it to work-and we can be thankful it does. We can enjoy delicious fruits thanks largely to the untiring work of these tiny creatures that unknowingly carry out exactly the right type of pollination that enables many fruits to develop.
One of the most amazing examples of symbiosis is the relationship between the yucca plant and the yucca moth. Each is dependent on the other for its survival.
The yucca plant is physically incapable of pollinating itself to grow more seeds and perpetuate. The yucca moth (Pronuba) pollinates the yucca plant while laying its eggs inside the plant.
This is a three-step process. First the moth lands on the stamens (the male part of a flower, which produces pollen) of one of the yucca's flowers. It then makes a sticky ball of pollen that it carries underneath its neck by a special appendage unique to this moth species.
Second, the moth flies to another yucca flower, lands on the pistil (the female part, which grows the fruit and seed) and inserts one of its eggs inside the base of the pistil, the flower's ovary.
Third, the moth climbs the pistil and carefully places pollen from its ball inside the stigma's tube at its top, thus pollinating this part of the flower. The moth repeats the first and second steps of the process for one flower until each ovule has one moth egg in it and each stigma has had pollen put into it.
After hatching, the moth larvae feed on the seeds of the yucca. Remarkably, the moth carefully calibrates the number of its larvae growing inside each flower so the larvae will not consume all the seeds of the yucca-because if they ate all the seeds the yucca plants would stop reproducing, thus eventually dooming the yucca moths as well!
By pollinating the plant, the moth develops food (yucca seeds) for its larvae while ensuring the plant can continue its own kind as well.
But that's not all. The life cycle of the yucca moth is timed so the adult moths emerge in early summer-exactly when the yucca plants are in flower. How could such a process as the yucca moth-plant symbiotic relationship have developed by gradual steps in an evolutionary process that proceeds by blind chance? What conceivable sequence of minor changes over thousands or millions of years could have possibly produced a perfect, mutually beneficial arrangement between plant and animal species?
Darwinism offers no answers. It is obvious that this remarkable relationship appeared abruptly or it never could have developed at all.
Symbiosis among animals
All animal life is equipped with some sort of survival instinct. Each knows what kind of food it needs and a means to avoid or defend itself against any predators. Yet, because of symbiotic relationships, some creatures allow other species, which normally would serve as a meal, to carry out cleaning and hygiene tasks without threat or harm. Scientists call this phenomenon "cleaning symbiosis."
It is common for large fish such as sharks, after consuming smaller fish, to have food remains and parasites imbedded around their teeth. Eventually these particles can produce disease or a dangerous build-up of matter that can hinder eating. But certain types of small fish exist that are designed to function as biological toothbrushes and can safely clean the teeth of the larger predators.
The cleaning fish fearlessly swim inside the open mouth of the larger fish and carefully eat the debris and parasites from the teeth. How can a predator fish restrain his instincts of getting a free meal by just closing his mouth and chewing, or avoid lashing out because of the irritating cleaning process? These actions go directly against the self-preservation instincts of both animals,yet they methodically carry out this sanitizing procedure. Some species even set up the equivalent of cleaning stations where the larger fish patiently wait for their turn while others ahead of them have their mouths cleaned.
A feathered crocodile cleaner
Such cleaning symbiosis is also found among a species of bird and a reptile. In Egypt the Egyptian plover hops right into the open mouth of the Nile crocodile to remove parasites. After the job is done, whether the crocodile is hungry or not the bird always leaves unscathed.
How could such diverse animals, which normally have a predator-victim relationship, become partners in a cleanup operation? If these procedures evolved, as evolutionists contend must have happened, how many birds would have been eaten alive before the crocodile decided it was in his interest to let one clean its mouth, then proceed to let it escape? In contrast, how many birds would have continued picking crocodile teeth when they saw some of their feathery cousins eaten alive by crocodiles? They certainly are instinctively aware that better and safer ways of getting a meal are available to them.
Such sophisticated relationships among diverse creatures show an underlying intelligent design and forethought at work. Symbiotic relationships are clearly both a great challenge to Darwinism and a great proof of a great Designer and Creator.
Thousands of years ago, while contemplating the wonders of nature around him, David exclaimed something that is as true today as it was then: "O LORD, how manifold are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all" (Psalm 104:24). -
The Scientific Evidence: A Critical Choice
Consider the powerful words of the apostle Paul: "Ever since the creation of the world [God's] eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made" (Romans 1:20, New Revised Standard Version throughout this sidebar).
Paul's words remind us that we can look at the miracles in the world around us and see compelling evidence of God's handiwork, understanding not only that He is the Creator but glimpsing some of His nature and character.
Let's take a glimpse at a particular flower, an orchid with the scientific name of Coryanthes. Although the scientist's language is a little technical, it's important to read the account in the author's own words as he describes his findings and those of another scientist, a Dr. Cruger. The incredible story is well worth reading.
A built-in bee-bath bucket
According to a famous writer and observer of the wonders of nature:
"This orchid has part of its labellum or lower lip hollowed out into a great bucket, into which drops of almost pure water continually fall from two secreting horns which stand above it; and when the bucket is half full, the water overflows by a spout on one side. The basal part of the labellum stands over the bucket, and is itself hollowed out into a sort of chamber with two lateral entrances; within this chamber there are curious fleshly ridges. The most ingenious man, if he had not witnessed what takes place, could never have imagined what purpose all these parts serve [emphasis added throughout].
"But Dr. Cruger saw crowds of large humble-bees [bumblebees] visiting the gigantic flowers of this orchid, not in order to suck nectar, but to gnaw off the ridges within the chamber above the bucket; in doing this they frequently pushed each other into the bucket, and their wings being thus wetted they could not fly away, but were compelled to crawl out through the passage formed by the spout or overflow.
"Dr. Cruger saw a 'continual procession' of bees thus crawling out of their involuntary bath. The passage is narrow, and is roofed over by the column, so that a bee, in forcing its way out, first rubs its back against the viscid stigma [the sticky part of the flower that receives pollen] and then against the viscid glands of the pollen-masses. The pollen-masses are thus glued to the back of the bee which first happens to crawl out through the passage of the lately expanded flower, and are thus carried away . . .
"When the bee, thus provided, flies to another flower, or to the same flower a second time, and is pushed by its comrades into the bucket and then crawls out by the passage, the pollen-mass necessarily comes first into contact with the viscid stigma, and adheres to it, and the flower is fertilised. Now at last we see the full use of every part of the flower, of the water-secreting horns, of the bucket half full of water, which prevents the bees from flying away, and forces them to crawl out through the spout, and rub against the properly placed viscid pollen-masses and the viscid stigma."
Design reveals the designer
These fascinating design details show us the complexity, variety and even a touch of humor in the world around us. Several scriptures acknowledge that we can learn of God through His creation.
One such passage is in Acts 14. The apostles Paul and Barnabas made quite a stir in the city of Lystra by healing a man who had been crippled, unable to walk, since birth. Idolatry was rampant in Lystra, and the instinctive reaction by the citizens of the city to this miracle was to worship Paul and Barnabas!
What was the two men's reaction? Notice what they told the people: "Friends, why are you doing this? We are mortals just like you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations he allowed all the nations to follow their own ways; yet he has not left himself without a witness in doing good-giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, and filling you with food and your hearts with joy" (Acts 14:15-17).
God's servants deflected these misguided intentions and directed the people to the Creator God.
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The Scientific Evidence: A Critical Choice part2
An orchid that shoots straight
Here's another remarkable example of carefully planned design in the natural world from the same author cited above:
"The construction of the flower in another closely allied orchid, namely the Catasetum, is widely different, though serving the same end; and is equally curious. Bees visit these flowers, like those of the Coryanthes, in order to gnaw the labellum [lip]; in doing this they inevitably touch a long, tapering, sensitive projection, or, as I have called it, the antenna.
"This antenna, when touched, transmits a sensation or vibration to a certain membrane which is instantly ruptured; this sets free a spring by which the pollen-mass is shot forth, like an arrow, in the right direction, and adheres by its viscid [sticky] extremity to the back of the bee. The pollen-mass of the male plant (for the sexes are separate in this orchid) is thus carried to the flower of the female plant where it is brought into contact with the stigma, which is viscid enough to break certain elastic threads, and retaining the pollen, fertilisation is effected."
Here we see another marvelous illustration of God's handiwork. Yet not everyone sees the evidence of creation in the same way. The scientist who penned these observations of the wonders of the world around him was none other than Charles Darwin, and the quotations are from his book Origin of the Species (pp. 156-157).
Does this surprise you? It should. Darwin used these examples to show the ability of plants to adapt and to vary rather than to show the variety in God's design. Why?
Divergent views of evidence
Why don't we all see evidence the same way?
Charles Darwin was not the only scientist in his time who interpreted what he studied in creation as evidence of life without a creator. Many others examined what we see as inspiring, incontrovertible evidence of God's handiwork and concluded that God was not involved.
But why did they come to such different conclusions, and why do others still come to those conclusions? Let's examine an important passage in the first chapter of Romans: "Ever since the creation of the world his [God's] eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made," says verse 20.
Paul is saying that the creation is a portal through which we can see the Creator. Although everyone sees the same evidence, each makes a choice as to how to interpret it. Some early philosophers made a conscious choice to reject God. They chose to interpret their studies in a way that would exclude Him. Scholars in various fields since have followed in their wake.
But, since natural structures exist that random cause-and-effect and material causes can't explain, many scientists have been and will continue to be prejudiced in their interpretations. Because nature can't always explain nature, it's perfectly reasonable to infer from natural structures that the supernatural exists-otherwise many examples from the world around us remain inexplicable.
"So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles" (verses 20-23).
We have an important choice to make about the evidence for a Creator God. We must choose whether we will believe it. Our choice will have a profound effect on our lives.
If we see God in what He has made, then we have a constant reminder of His ability, concern, purpose and even His humor. But, if we do not see God, then there is neither hint nor reminder of His purpose for our existence. Consequently we may imperil the normal workings of our conscience, given by God so that we would question our thoughts and actions.
Belief and behavior
In the remainder of Romans 1, Paul bluntly makes it clear that serious consequences come from failing to recognize God in His creation. Reasoning becomes the substitute for God's Spirit and His Word. Eventually people's reasonings become rationalizations that can lead them to justify almost any kind of behavior.
Psalm 14 confirms this: "Fools say in their hearts, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is no one who does good" (verse 1). As does Romans 1, this verse implies that people who choose not to believe in God see no need to abide by a divine code of conduct.
However, as the next verse tells us: "The LORD looks down from heaven on humankind to see if there are any who are wise, who seek after God" (verse 2).
God can guide and bless those who wisely choose to accept the evidence and believe in Him. Let's make the right choice. -
The Search for Alternatives to a Creator
By now you've probably realized that evolution as an explanation for the teeming varieties of life on earth-not to mention your existence as a thinking, rational human being-simply doesn't add up. Furthermore, we've only scratched the surface (see "The Case Against Evolution," on page 10, for suggestions on books that examine the subject in far greater detail).
So why, then, do so many people cling so tightly to a belief with so many deficiencies?
Paul's comments about the philosophers of his day certainly apply to our day:
"For all that can be known of God lies plain before their eyes; indeed God himself has disclosed it to them. Ever since the world began his invisible attributes, that is to say his everlasting power and deity, have been visible to the eye of reason, in the things he has made. Their conduct, therefore, is indefensible; knowing God, they have refused to honour him as God, or to render him thanks. Hence all their thinking has ended in futility, and their misguided minds are plunged in darkness. They boast of their wisdom, but they have made fools of themselves, exchanging the glory of the immortal God for an image shaped like mortal man, even for images like birds, beasts, and reptiles.
"For this reason God has given them up to their own vile desires, and the consequent degradation of their bodies. They have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and have offered reverence and worship to created things instead of to the Creator . . ." (Romans 1:19-25, Revised English Bible, emphasis added).
Rampant unbelief and immorality have a great deal to do with denying and refusing to obey a Creator God.
"It is obvious that Darwin's theory no longer has the standing it had a few years ago," adds Dr. Hayward. "A small but significant minority of biologists have rejected it entirely, and are looking for a better theory to put in its place. So far, though, they have failed to find one . . . On the other hand, the case for the existence of the Creator is stronger today than it has ever been. In every branch of science there is a growing body of evidence that the universe and its contents have been designed-that things just could not be the way they are as the result of chance.
"This evidence has so much weight that even some eminent scientists who are unbelievers have had the courage to face it . . . The most reasonable answer to the question: Creation? is surely: Yes-creation of some sort" (Hayward, p. 65, emphasis added).
"The resulting realization that life was designed by an intelligence," writes Dr. Behe, "is a shock to us in the twentieth century who have gotten used to thinking of life as the result of simple natural laws" (Behe, p. 252).
Not surprisingly, conclusions such as these have not received much publicity. Most people are unaware of Darwinism's many flaws and voluminous scientific findings and conclusions that contradict evolutionary theory.
The consequences of accepting Darwinist theory have been profound. Enormous moral and social damage has been wrought in classrooms and to society. The theory that led Darwin to discard the Bible and reject the existence of God has had a profound effect on millions of other people.
It is no coincidence that Karl Marx, the father of communism, asked Darwin if he could dedicate Das Kapital, his landmark book on communism, to Darwin's honor or if he could write its introduction. After all, Marx believed Darwin had provided the scientific basis for communism. Darwin discreetly declined the offer.
"Genocide, of course," writes Phillip Johnson, "is merely a shocking name for the process of natural selection by which one gene pool replaces another. Darwin himself explained this in The Descent of Man, when he had to deal with the absence of 'missing links' between ape and human. Such gaps were to be expected, he wrote, in view of the extinctions that necessarily accompany evolution.
"He coolly predicted that evolution would make the gaps wider in the future, because the most civilized (that is, European) humans would soon exterminate the rest of the human species and go on from there to kill off our nearest kin in the ape world. Modern Darwinists do not call attention to such passages, which make vivid how easily the picture of amoral nature inherent in evolutionary naturalism can be converted into a plan of action" (Reason in the Balance, 1995, p. 144).
Later Adolf Hitler indeed applied the Darwinist concept of the "survival of the fittest" to the human race. During World War II the Nazis forcibly sterilized more than two million people and began systematically exterminating people whom Hitler considered to be inferior. The Nazis justified their atrocities by rationalizing that they were doing mankind a service with "genetic cleansing" to improve the races.
As long as evolution-with its implications of amorality and the survival-of-the-fittest mentality among "superior" and "inferior" races-is accepted and believed, genocide, as sporadic ethnic cleansings in various parts of the globe show, will have a scientific justification, even though most believers in Darwinist theory would object to this conclusion.
The Bible prophesies that, before Jesus Christ's return, a worldwide commerce of human beings will be in place. This inhumane system will include the trading of "bodies and souls of men" (Revelation 18:9-13). Could this be possible? One only has to remember the Nazi holocaust. Hundreds of thousands were pressed into slave labor. Those too weak, ill, young or old to work faced a merciless death.
Remember, such events happened barely a generation ago in what were considered to be the most advanced and enlightened nations. It could happen again, especially in a world in which so many have adopted a belief in moral relativism and a survival-of-the-fittest outlook. -
Creation and Evolution: The Biblical Explanation
Earlier we examined the weaknesses of the theory of evolution as an explanation for the bewildering complexity of the forms of life we see around us. Now we turn to the Bible itself to see what the Creator God says about His creation.
We should keep in mind that God does not usually explain all there is to know about a subject in one place in the Bible. His Word is not organized so we can turn to one passage and read all of His revelation about a particular truth.
God's truths are not revealed all at once. Although He often provides a broad outline of a truth early in the Scriptures, we find that He later fills in many of the details elsewhere in the Bible. The Bible itself speaks of this principle when it talks of "God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, [and who] has in these last days spoken to us by His Son . . ." (Hebrews 1:1-2).
The nature of revelation
The biblical prophets did not always understand the significance of the prophecies they recorded under God's inspiration (Daniel 12:8-9). Their knowledge of the particular truth they received was sometimes incomplete.
"Of this salvation," writes the apostle Peter, "the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ [which] was in them was indicating when [it] testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven-things which angels desire to look into" (1 Peter 1:10-12).
The prophets obviously had only partial information about eternal truths revealed to them. This is also the case with the account of creation in Genesis 1. God would reveal additional details later. Many Bible readers, however, mistakenly assume everything the Bible has to say about creation is explained there. Yet the Bible adds details later that clarify the Genesis 1 account.
Consider, for example, that Genesis 1:1 says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." It might seem as if this verse describes the beginning of everything, but God later reveals details of events and conditions that took place earlier.
The apostle John, writing under God's inspiration, takes us back to a time before events described in Genesis 1. "In the beginning," he states, "was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made" (John 1:1-3, emphasis added throughout).
Here the Bible reveals that, before the creation of the heavens and the earth described in Genesis 1, the Word was with God, and God made everything through the Word. None of this is revealed in the Genesis account, yet these details help us understand who God was in the beginning and at the time of the earth's creation. We see that John gives us more information that helps us understand what happened "in the beginning" in Genesis 1. (To better understand who and what God is, and how the creation proves His existence, please request your free copy of Life's Ultimate Question: Does God Exist?)
Similarly, Genesis 1:2 describes the earth as being "without form, and void." This sketchy description offers no explanation for why the earth was in this condition. However, God reveals more details in other parts of His Word. We have to compile and consider all pertinent scriptures on a subject to gain a complete understanding.
For example, in another passage God explains that angels were present at the creation of the earth. The book of Genesis doesn't mention this, but it is an important truth. We find this detail recorded in the book of Job, where God asks Job: "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? . . . Who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted with joy?" (Job 38:4, 6-7). The "morning stars" and "sons of God"-the angels-exulted as they saw the earth miraculously come into being.
The angelic revolt
A key to understanding why the earth was "without form and void" involves what happened to some of these angels. Again, nothing of this angelic story is described in Genesis. But, later in His Word, God reveals there was a great angel, Lucifer, who rebelled against Him. "How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God . . . I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High'" (Isaiah 14:12-14).
Here God explains that Lucifer had a throne, representing a position of leadership and authority. He rose from somewhere below to try to overthrow God, but was "cut down to the ground."
Where was this place where Lucifer had his throne? Jesus Christ, whom we saw earlier was the "Word" alongside God at the creation, reveals more details. "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven," He said (Luke 10:1. Lucifer, who became Satan, was cast down from heaven-to the earth!
The Bible explains that Satan retains his authority over this planet. Notice what Satan told Christ: "Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, 'All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish'" (Luke 4:5-6).
Christ resisted this temptation but did not dispute the assertion of Satan's present authority. The Bible shows in many places that Satan has authority over the earth. He is even called "the god of this age" in 2 Corinthians 4:4.
It is no accident that in Genesis 3, shortly after God created Adam and Eve, Satan appeared on the scene. The earth was-and still is-his domain. He had been cast down to earth before man's creation took place. As noted in the account of the temptation of Christ, Satan had received authority over the earth. He then rebelled against God in a battle in which he was cast down to the earth, as Christ recounted.
The earth is Satan's realm. The book of Job records God asking Satan, "From where do you come?" Satan's reply was, "From going to and fro on the earth and from walking back and forth on it" (Job 1:7).
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