Q: EVOLUTION – It poses not so much a question as a challenge to the biblical worldview. Look, here’s the gist of the challenge. ‘You Bible-thumpers are ignorant, turnip-truck-riding hillbillies who have not even entered the 20th century much less the 21st. Stop being so closed-minded and accept the facts.’ But the fact of the matter is that in the closed-minded wing of the scientific community there exists a commitment to credit only material causes for the origin and existence of everything – even while current scientific belief in the Big Bang speaks of a time before matter & energy & time & the laws of physics – and therefore material causes ever existed. A Universe with a beginning – which the Big Bang posits – begs a beginning outside of materialism. This even as the evidence against them continues to mount. Evolution has become the Holy Grail of anti-God materialists; a sacred article of faith that cannot be touched or questioned.
A: THE PROBLEMS WITH EVOLUTION – Now, not the entire scientific community is resistant to the truth when they see it. Take for instance the words of Robert Locke who wrote, The Scientific Case Against Evolution in 2001. To begin with, Locke wants to make one thing perfectly clear: “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] Using that as a jumping-off point, let’s take a quick look at some 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 – Casey Luskin points to the inability of scientists to 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, In wetter weather, small-beaked finches increased. But that wasn’t macro-evolution. Beak size altered back with the changing climate. 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.
In 1988, Dr Richard Lenski 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.”[iv] Bacteria stayed bacteria. No macroevolution seen here….or observed anywhere else as of yet.[v]
- 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.”[vi] 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.”[vii] 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?”[viii] 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, 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.[ix] It is in Behe’s phrase, “irreducibly complex.”
- 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.[x]
- 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.’[xi]
- 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.[xii] There is no clear pattern of descent.
Here’s a final summation. First, there exists no documentary evidence for macro-evolution. Secondly, the predicted transitional forms are absent. While there is evidence of new species having appeared, there are no linking forms above the family level. Next we must consider the incredible complexity of the DNA. Its storage capacity is several trillion times that of our most advanced computers. This suggests design. Science tells us that complex design can only be produced by an intelligent designer. Fourthly, 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. Lastly, 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![xiii] [xiv] [xv]
[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] Norman L Geisler & Frank Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist,
Crossway, 2004, pg 141
[vi] Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, Penguin, 1958, pg 171
[vii] Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box, Free Press, 1996, pg 39
[viii] Robert Locke, The Scientific Case Against Evolution, Front Page Magazine,
2001
[ix] Dr Ray Bohlin, Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemistry of the Cell, Probe Ministries, May 27, 1997
[x] Norman L Geisler & Frank Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist,
Crossway, 2004, pg 148
[xi] General Rebuttal to the Theory of Evolution, www.godandscience.org/evolution/evolution.html, June 27, 2007
[xii] Robert Locke, The Scientific Case Against Evolution, Front Page Magazine,
2001
[xiii] Dr Ray Bohlin, Mere Creation: Science Faith and Intelligent Design,
Probe Ministries, May 27, 2000
[xiv] Curt Sewell, Some Arguments Favoring Creation, Creation Bits Number 4,
November 2, 1999
[xv] Robert Locke, The Scientific Case Against Evolution, Front Page Magazine,
2001
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