“Then God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind’; and it was so.” (Genesis 1:24)
Whatever Robert Locke might be he wants to make one thing perfectly clear: He does not buy into the literal Creation story as told in the Bible. Here then is the beginning of an article he wrote titled: The Scientific Case Against Evolution, which was published in 2001. “I AM NOT A CREATIONIST, and must confess that until recently, I treated people who questioned evolution with polite dismissal. But there has recently emerged a major trend in biology that has been suppressed in the mainstream media: evolution is in trouble. More importantly, this has absolutely nothing to do with religion but is due to the fact that the ongoing growth of biological knowledge keeps producing facts that contradict rather than confirm evolution.”[i] So we’ll agree with Mr Locke and use that as a jumping off point to present a cursory summary of just a few of the problems with Neo-Darwinian Evolutionary theory.
- Evolutionary Theory Can’t Explain the Origin of Life – This is the ‘Really Big Argument.’ There is no plausible theory of how life grew out of chemical soup. No matter how many billions of years you propose the chance remains essentially zero. As Geisler & Turek point out in their book I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist: Darwinists “don’t even have an explanation for the source of non-living chemicals, much less an explanation for life.”[ii]
- The Problem of DNA – Scientists can’t explain exactly where the massive amount of information contained in DNA may have come from. Science has been unable to explain the “high levels of complex and specified information” found in the genetic code.[iii]
- Limits to Evolutionary Change: Microevolution Yes! Macroevolution No! – According to evolutionary theory, mutations cause new information to enter the gene pool. Advantageous mutations then are reinforced by the mechanism of natural selection or the survival of the fittest. The surviving organisms will display the new characteristics dictated by the mutation and eventually, over countless generations, new organisms are formed. As Charles Darwin famously observed on the Galapagos Islands, the finches he saw there had beaks that adapted to the changing climatic conditions. Dry weather increased the population of finches with large beaks. It was easier to breakdown the hard seeds produced by that climate, (seeds being an essential part of their diet). In wetter weather, small-beaked finches increased. But that wasn’t macro-evolution. The changes were always cyclical. And the information that dictated beak size was already in the gene pool. You see, there are strict limits to change. Dogs remain dogs and finches keep on being finches. A couple of famous experiments have added to our understanding in this area. Scientists conducted an experiment with fruit flies over hundreds of generations. It went on for three-and-one-half decades. “Instead of waiting for natural selection, researchers forced selection on hundreds of generations of fruit flies.” Yet they found that: “There were many mutations, but none caught on, and the experiment ran into the limits of variation.”[iv] Researchers concluded: Fruit flies remained fruit flies.[v]
Then there is the famous experiment begun by Dr Richard Lenski in 1988. It has followed the genetic development of over 60,000 generations of bacterium. But the observed changes produced only “disruption, degradation, or loss of genetic information…. Mutations that result in a gain of novel information have not been observed.”[vi] Geisler and Turek: Natural selection has never been observed to create new types.”[vii]
- The Problem of Irreducible Complexity – Charles Darwin wrote in The Origin of Species: “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. But I can find no such case.”[viii] Well, unfortunately for his theory, those complex organs have been found. In his book Darwin’s Black Box, Michael Behe defines Irreducible Complexity as “A single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly (that is, by continuously improving the initial function, which continues to work by the same mechanism) by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional.”[ix] Robert Locke simplifies it for us. Evolution cannot explain “how anything could evolve that doesn’t make biological sense when incomplete. The wings of birds are the classic example: what good is half of one?”[x]
Simply put: Of what benefit to the organism is an eye that cannot yet see, or wings that cannot produce flight. How or why would an insentient nature choose for such as these?[xi] According to the law of natural selection, nature could only select for components that in themselves produced a definite survival advantage for the organism. A sightless eye or flightless wings would produce no such advantage. In fact, “nature would select against the continued production of the miscellaneous parts if they are not producing immediate benefits to the organism.” So how could the complex systems known to exist on all levels, from the molecular to the fully articulated organ systems ever be developed? Michael Behe in Darwin’s Black Box argues exhaustively that it could not. Behe shows that on the molecular level, the information required by the complexity of the process requires more than a mere chemical reaction. Complex information screams design.[xii] Irreducible complexity describes a system that has several interacting components, the removal of any one of which would result in its failure. Behe uses the example of an everyday mousetrap. Remove a part and it is useless. Not any single part would catch any mice. It is the whole system that is necessary to make the system operable. In the natural, a system would have to be chosen in the whole. It could not logically be the result of countless, successive, miniscule modifications. Yet in nature so many of these systems do exist. Eyes and wings are but two examples. Each would have had to come into being as a unit.[xiii] This blows the theory of natural selection out of the water. Natural selection holds that each change must be useful. Each biological selection must give a survival advantage to the organism or it would not be selected.….Because the intermediaries would be nonfunctional,” and therefore not survive.
- Transitional Forms Cannot Survive – Darwinists propose that reptiles became birds. But how would the transitional forms be able to function? A partially developed system of wings or feathers would not provide an evolutionary advantage. And further, no viable mechanism for that change has been proposed.[xiv]
- A Great Big Hole in the Fossil Record – Back in 1859 when Darwin first proposed his theory, he believed that fossil evidence collected in the ensuing years would fill the evidentiary gaps in his hypothesis. Unfortunately for Darwin the years have not served his theory well. As more and more fossils are gathered, it is becoming apparent that the intermediate forms just do not exist. Despite the ample and well organized record of fossil evidence available at this time there does not exist any evidence for either the traditional gradual theory of macro-evolution or the idea that ‘progress’ came in spurts. There are no forms that show that the basic body plans found during the Cambrian Explosion have altered or that new phyla have been built from earlier ones. Instead what the fossils do show is an existence throughout Earth’s history. When new species have been formed the change has come quickly. This flies in the face of a Darwinian theory that calls for gradual change with many intermediate forms, all progressing up the ladder of complexity.
But this is just not the case. In numerous studies, whether concerning marine life or mammals, or mollusks no gradualism has been found. To the contrary, changes have been abrupt and have lacked the transitional forms linking organisms together. This can be seen most pointedly when studying the Cambrian Explosion, a period of time during which every major anatomical design seems to have appeared ‘simultaneously.’[xv] The evidence is world-wide. Fossils have been found from Canada to Africa to China. Fully developed organs, jointed appendages, lungs and eyes all come upon the scene at once. The change from single celled simplicity to multi-celled complexity was abrupt.[xvi] Further, the various phyla making their appearance during the Cambrian period are unique to that time. For the overwhelming majority of the Cambrian animals no ancestry can be traced. There is no record of their gradual appearance. This phenomenon is an “expression of design” in that it assembled animal life into the 50 known phyla. Thirty-seven of these survive to this day. Significantly not one has been added. There is no evidence for the evolutionary mechanism to have worked since that time. It remains a great mystery why the subsequent changes in animal life have all been contained within the various phyla. And in the millions of fossil specimens existing today there has been found no transitional form. I cannot stress this enough. The ‘missing links’ are still missing.[xvii] [xviii]
- There Is NO Evolutionary Tree of Life – Computer analysis of the data has confirmed these conclusions. The computer models do not produce the neat ‘tree of life’ models long proposed in evolutionary circles. Analysis of the numerically encoded data solving for grouping animal life by the similarities and differences found, produces groupings that do not fit the evolutionary tree. Robert Locke, writing in an article for Front Page Magazine states, “When the computer is constrained to push the data into an evolutionary tree, it tends to generate trees with all species as individual twigs and no species forming the crucial lower branches of the tree that evolution demands.” Locke points out that the former characterization of evolutionary relationships between animals, are somewhat arbitrary at best. Concentrating on one set of animal characteristics may produce one set of relationships, while looking at another may make those same relationships seem entirely illogical. This is further confirmed by analyzing the thousands of proteins that make up living organisms. Examining life on this basic level shows the same distinctness among species, as do the computer models that organize life by anatomical characteristics.[xix] There is no clear pattern of descent.
SUMMING UP
The fossil record does not support on the notion that all life forms existent today are the result of infinitesimal changes across thousands of generations. Rather, it shows an explosion of life forms in the Cambrian period emerging complete and remaining unchanged.
- It can’t explain the origin of life.
- The origin of the genetic code.
- The origin of multi-cellular life.
- The origin of sexuality.
- The gaps in the fossil record. The transitional forms are missing.
- The Cambrian Explosion when so many life forms appeared at the same time with no traceable ancestry.
- The “development of complex organ systems.”
- The development of “irreducibly complex molecular machines.”[xx]
- How amino acids became DNA.
- There exists no documentary evidence for macro-evolution.
- Evolution faces the problem of explaining the generation of life from non-living matter. The biochemistry is impossible. No linking form has been found between complex molecules and the simplest one celled life form. In fact science cannot conceive of an event of inanimate matter that can form even the most basic form of life.
- Finally, the tenets of naturalism violate the first two laws of thermodynamics. The first states that in a closed system, matter can be neither created nor destroyed. The corollary of the second law is that any change in form is accompanied by a decrease in complexity. The increasing complexity then, required by evolutionary theory contradicts the known laws of science. The appearance of ever more complex forms would require an intelligent agent. A Creator, perhaps![xxi] [xxii]
[i] Robert Locke, The Scientific Case Against Evolution, Front Page Magazine, 2001
[ii] Norman L Geisler & Frank Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith t6o Be an Atheist, Crossway, 2004, pg 140
[iii] Casey Luskin, What Are the Top Ten Problems with Darwinian Evolution?, Evolution News, July 12, 2012
[iv] John Michael Fischer, Debunking Evolution: Problems between the theory and reality, New Geology, 2005-2015
[v] Molly K Burke, Joseph P. Dunham, Parvin Shahrestani, Kevin R Thornton, Michael R Rose, Anthony D Long,
Genome-wide analysis of a long-term evolution experiment with Drosophila.
Nature, Vol. 467, September 30, 2010 pgs 587-590
[vi] John Michael Fischer, Debunking Evolution: Problems between the theory and
reality, New Geology, 2005-2015
[vii] Norman L Geisler & Frank Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist,
Crossway, 2004, pg 141
[viii] Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, Penguin, 1958, pg 171
[ix] Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box, Free Press, 1996, pg 39
[x] Robert Locke, The Scientific Case Against Evolution, Front Page Magazine,
2001
[xi] Robert Locke, The Scientific Case Against Evolution, Front Page Magazine,
2001
[xii] Dr Ray Bohlin, Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemistry of the Cell, Probe Ministries, May 27, 1997
[xiii] Michael Behe, Darwin’s Breakdown: Irreducible Complexity & Design at the
Foundation of Life,
Touchstone Magazine, July/Aug 1999
[xiv] Norman L Geisler & Frank Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist,
Crossway, 2004, pg 148
[xv] General Rebuttal to the Theory of Evolution, www.godandscience.org/evolution/evolution.html, June 27, 2007
[xvi] Gerald Schroeder, The Science of God, The Free Press, New York, 1997, pgs
88-89
[xvii] Robert F DeHaan & John L Wiester, The Cambrian Explosion- The Fossil Evidence and Intelligent Design, Touchstone,
July / August 1999
[xviii] Gerald Schroeder, The Science of God, The Free Press, New York, 1997, pg 95
[xix] Robert Locke, The Scientific Case Against Evolution, Front Page Magazine,
2001
[xx] William A Dembski, What Every Theologian Should Know About Creation,
Evolution and Design, Discovery, April 1, 1996
[xxi] Dr Ray Bohlin, Mere Creation: Science Faith and Intelligent Design,
Probe Ministries, May 27, 2000
[xxii] Curt Sewell, Some Arguments Favoring Creation, Creation Bits Number 4,
November 2, 1999
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