Science Article
November 1999
Answers to Questions from our readers
By William Browing
I. How do scientific creationists challenge the evolutionary theory for the origin of the universe? What is the creationist alternative?
(1) Origin of the Physical Universe. Was there a Big Bang?
The Evolutionist view: There was a "Big Bang" explosion of a "primordial egg" of dense matter which expanded outward with space. The matter, consisting of mostly hydrogen and helium, eventually formed gases, clouds, and condensed into stars and galaxies to produce today's expanding universe. A residual, cosmic background radiation exists which is profoundly smooth and conforms to the black body radiation spectrum as would be predicted by a "Big Bang" explosion about 10-15 billion years ago.
Creationists’ Challenge: There are many observations in the current universe which are not consistent with the Big Bang model:
a) The origin of the primordial egg is not explained. The instantaneous appearance of the matter and energy of the Big Bang violates the conservation of mass and energy laws. A spontaneous and causeless initial "event" is not consistent with the law of cause and effect.
b) The so-called "inflation model" for the Big Bang implies a total “age” for the universe that is uncomfortably small compared with the apparent “evolutionary ages” of galaxies and globular clusters. The discovery of quasi-stellar objects, active galactic nuclei, and radio sources, which are phenomena indicative of ongoing explosive activity, shows the Big Bang to be an inadequate explanation of presently observed phenomena.
c) No adequate model for the formation of galaxies from expanding gas, with their enormous angular momentum, has been derived from the Big Bang. No model for the formation of heavy elements within stars and its subsequent coalescence into planets has been found. The kinetic theory of gases predicts endless expansion, not gravitational collapse. The details of star birth have never been observed. The most distant galaxies should exhibit early stages of development. To the contrary, the most distant galaxies observed by the Hubble Space Telescope appear similar to nearer galaxies.
d) The Big Bang predicts a homogeneous distribution of matter in the universe, which contradicts observation of a very clumpy universe consisting of a web of galactic clusters separated by vast volumes of essentially empty space. Evolutionists claim to have detected a variation in the temperature of the background radiation of 1/100,000 Kelvins, although this is not sufficient to explain the clumps and is not consistent with the Big Bang.
Creation Alternative: Scripture tells us that in the beginning [of space, matter and time] God created heaven and earth, the sun, moon and stars and all the living things on the earth. We have no scientific evidence to the contrary. He evidently created it with an appearance of age, expanding so it would be stable. To extrapolate backward in time to an assumed starting point is mere presumption. At least with the Big Bang, evolutionists are now admitting that there had to be a beginning. Indeed, if there had been a Big Bang, where did the matter, space, and time come from? The Law of Cause and Effect, fundamental to science, would have required a First Cause of all following events.
(2) Origin of Life. How did life originally appear?
Evolutionist View: Chance, random electrical discharges in the “primordial soup” (atmosphere) spontaneously produced organic molecules which got together and combined over millions of years to form single-celled organisms. These organisms evolved into gradually increasingly complex forms of life.
Creationists’ Challenge:
a) The development of the complex design of living organisms from chaos violates the laws of biogenesis, information theory, and probability. Life only comes from life. Laboratory attempts to produce life from chemicals have failed.
b) The probability of a single gene being constructed by accident for the simplest known organism is vanishingly small. Such an organism has thousands of these genes. Chance events with such small probabilities do not occur.
c) The so-called “reducing atmosphere” on the primordial earth required for spontaneous generation of life never happened. Evidence for an ancient oxidizing atmosphere is abundant. Thus, any organic molecules spontaneously generated would have been quickly broken down by oxidation. Accumulation and organization into organic molecules would never occur.
d) Only left-handed amino acid molecules appear in living proteins. Chance combination of organic molecules in the ‘primordial soup” would involve both left-handed and right-handed forms with equal probability, and so life cannot occur spontaneously.
Creation Alternative: There are only two possibilities: Evolution, or Special Creation. Since living organisms could not have arisen spontaneously, we can only conclude that a Creator created life. The abundant evidence in the fossil record, that all classes of animals appear abruptly and fully-formed, supports this conclusion. If such a Great Designer, or First Cause with sufficient intelligence and power to create life exists, it is logical to believe that He would reveal Himself to His Creation. The Bible has been established by archaeology and other sources to be historically accurate. Therefore, we conclude that the Creation story in the Bible is His revelation and worthy of our trust. Such a conclusion about the origin of life is an historical problem, and is outside of science.
(3) Origin of Species. Where did the large number of animal species come from? Were they all on the Ark?
Evolutionist View: Gradually, over 100's of millions of years, chance random mutations caused favorable changes in organisms, that were preserved through natural selection based on "survival of the fittest." This process produced the enormous diversity of species we observe today. The similarity of biological structures (homology) among animals is evidence of a common ancestor.
Creationists’ Challenge:
a) Extensive laboratory experiments have demonstrated that mutation fails to increase genetic complexity or to generate beneficial change in a mutated organism. Mutations are almost always lethal or harmful to the organism, by altering or destroying genetic information.
b) Cells have a built-in repair mechanism that compares the DNA nucleotide pairs for consistency, and incorrect molecules are cut out and replaced by enzymatic action.
c) Evolution of new phyla has never been observed--all body forms appear in the fossil record simultaneously (Cambrian explosion), as predicted by the Creation model. The absence of transitional forms in the fossil record can only be interpreted to mean that evolution has not occurred. Asserting that the human eye could have arisen through chance, random processes is an absurdity (admitted by Darwin). So is the bacterial flagellum. The probability of this happening by chance is equivalent to the likelihood that the Golden Gate Bridge evolved from the Brooklyn Bridge, a tornado struck the city dump and assembled a 747, Mt. Rushmore was carved by weather erosion, and flint rocks gave birth to arrowheads.
d) Homologous structures among animals cannot be explained by common ancestors, because they are sometimes developed according to different genes.
Creation Alternative: The Bible tells us that God created all living things "after their kind." The fact that unlike species do not interbreed successfully is evidence of different "kinds," showing the reliability of the scriptural account. The enormous complexity of life and the high degree of specificity of living organisms can only be explained by Intelligent Design. The great diversity of species reflects genetic variation within created biblical “kinds.” It is likely that fewer species were on the Ark, and diversification occurred after the Flood.
II. Has evolutionary philosophy had a deleterious effect on our culture and society?
(1) Science: Evolutionary theory is not a scientific theory, because a theory of origins cannot be tested through experiment and observation. Applying this false world view to the interpretation of observed data such as fossils, rock, and biological processes leads to functional hypotheses which often require years of research to falsify, (such as the recapitulation theory of embryology). It will take even longer to remove it from textbooks, and may be impossible to correct in the minds of the multitudes that were taught "vain imaginations." Evolution is such a flexible working hypothesis, it can be made to fit any conceivable observation. But if it is to be viable as a model of origins, it must be predictive of as-yet-undiscovered observations. None of its predictions have yielded a single advance in the state-of-the-art of biology, and continued research continually falsifies whatever predictions have been offered. An example given by Dr. Lumsden of ICR is the evolutionary presumption that the 85% of the molecules in the DNA strand which were apparently not used as templates in the protein manufacturing process were "leftovers"--ancient remnants of evolutionary change through mutation. As researchers began to understand the uses of the vast amounts of information in the structure, shape, and reactivity of the DNA strands, they saw a control system that helps to determine when certain genes are activated and others are not. This major failure of evolution theory led us down another dead end path!
It is an amazing thing that evolutionists continue to be so sure about the "fact" of evolution. Yet, 140 years after Darwin, they still don't know how it actually works! The origin of species is the "central mystery." No one has ever seen any example of real evolution taking place today. No one has any real evidence that it took place at any time in the past, and no one knows how it could possibly work even if it did take place. Yet, they call this science! One might conclude that the deleterious effect of evolutionary thought on the scientific method has been to turn science into non-science, and scientific endeavor into evangelism for the religious atheists.
(2) Modern Psychology and The Social Sciences: The fundamental assumption of evolution has misdirected much effort in the social sciences. For example, study of primates as laboratory animals to understand biological data and patterns of human behavior is based on Evolution’s false premises. Racist philosophies have arisen from the idea that man is still evolving into a higher form, and therefore some are more "evolved" than others (Hitler's "superior race"). False assumptions about the evolution of language and literacy have led to many wrong interpretations of ancient civilizations in anthropology. According to modern sociologists, man is an evolutionary product of society. This social determinism, with its categories of "behaviorism," "functionalism," and "voluntarism," makes society responsible for everything man does. Individual responsibility has been abandoned in favor of social responsibility. The inevitable conclusion of this teaching is that society must be responsible for crime and deviancy, because it is responsible for all man's social behavior. Personal blame and guilt then lose their accepted meanings. After all, can you really blame someone for wrong action that was not the result of a personal choice, but was the inevitable consequence of their past history? Man is therefore deemed a helpless victim of heredity and social factors. So we can see how evolutionary philosophy eventually leads to the deterioration of personal moral responsibility and encourages lawlessness.
Untold damage has been wrought to social science by the doctrine that man is merely an evolved animal. Racism, economic imperialism, communism, Nazism, sexual promiscuity and perversions, infanticide, genocide and all sorts of evils have been vigorously promoted by one group or another on the grounds that, since they were based on Evolution, they were "scientific" and, therefore, bound to prove beneficial. (Recently, the idea that cannibalism would provide the best source of a nutritionally-balanced protein diet for humans has been advanced by evolutionist anthropologists at Columbia University; i.e., animals do it, so it must have been favorable to evolution.)
(3) Human Moral Behavior: If man is a blob, an accident of nature, then he is autonomous, determining his own destiny (along with chance events and the environment). Conversely, if God created man, then he is under the authority of God, who has endowed him with Godlike qualities such as the ability to choose between right and wrong. So, Evolutionism is the root of the rebellion against God's moral laws in our society today. Evolution has altered the course of history by shifting the base of morality from traditional theism to secular humanism. Under the religion of secular humanism, which has Evolution as its godless philosophy, human moral behavior is not judged either right or wrong. As stated in the Humanist Manifesto, ". Science affirms that the human species is an emergence from natural evolutionary forces; . . .we begin with humans, not God; nature, not deity. . . We affirm that moral values derive their source from human experience. Ethics is autonomous and situational, needing no theological or ideological sanction. We believe that intolerant attitudes, often cultivated by orthodox religions and puritanical cultures, unduly repress sexual conduct. The right to birth control, abortion, and divorce should be recognized . . . neither do we wish to prohibit sexual behavior between consenting adults. . .the state should encourage maximum freedom for different moral, political, religious, and social values in society."
This philosophy of secular humanism (declared to be a religion by the Supreme Court of the U.S.) is the prevailing religion of our society today. During the 1960’s, our public school system began to use “separation of church and state” to suppress Judeo-Christian ethics and promote moral relativism and situational ethics. Moral relativism refuses to tolerate Christians “because of their intolerance." A systematic program to tear down religious morality has been vigorously applied, utilizing classroom techniques such as "Values Clarification" exercises, wherein children are required to publicly take a stance on values-charged issues and suffer ridicule from their peers. The results of this assault on the moral fabric of our nation is reflected in the daily headlines: a half-million gay rightists march on Washington, openly practicing their sexual perversion; pastors go to jail for having Bible studies in their home under the guise of "zoning violations"; non-violent demonstrators protesting government-supported abortion are maimed by police and discriminated against by the courts; millions of unborn babies are killed annually; sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS and herpes have expanded to epidemic proportion, threatening to bankrupt our nation with public medical expense; suicide is the number-one killer of teenagers; Columbine massacres have become commonplace, and so on. Yes, we have seen major deleterious effects. (Comments Invited) -- Editor.
(4) Evangelical Christianity: The compromising acceptance of evolutionary theory by Christians is possibly the major challenge to the authority of the Bible, which is God's revelation to His people, and which communicates the mind and person of God to the Church. The result of lack of confidence in scripture is unbelief, and unbelief will be the demise of the Body. If God's word is not true, then there is no basis for our Faith. (see Heb 4:11-12)
III. Brief discussion of why the following traditional arguments for evolution are invalid scientifically:
1) Recapitulation Theory: Has no scientific basis, and has been proven false by embryologists. A human embryo is always uniquely human, throughout each stage of development. Structural similarities between embryos of different species reveal commonalty of design, not recapitulation of past evolutionary stages.
2) Transitional Forms: The absence of transitional forms in the fossil record can only be interpreted to mean evolution has not occurred. Evolutionists admit that there are none, and that fossils previously claimed to be transitional (i.e. archaeopteryx) are not, in fact, transitional. With regard to the gap between vertebrates and invertebrates, there has never been found any fossil that even alleges to be ancestral to vertebrates, which abruptly appear in the fossil record, diverse and fully-formed. This fact alone is enough to settle the matter: vertebrates did not evolve, but were created.
3) Mutations and Selection: Laboratory experiments with induced mutations show that almost all mutations are either harmful or lethal to the organism. After over thirty years of experimentation with rapidly reproducing fruit flies, after thousands of mutations, we still have fruit flies! No new species have been observed to result from mutations. In fact, no improvements which could be drivers for natural selection have been observed. Therefore, mutations and selection as a mechanism for the descent of species must be abandoned.
4) Great Age of the Earth: The geologic time table cannot be verified scientifically. Indicator fossils are used to suggest the age of sedimentary rocks; new fossil discoveries are, in turn, dated by determining the strata where they are found. This circular reasoning does not establish the antiquity of the sediments, but rather provides only a sequence for comparing fossil and strata around the world. Volcanic rocks, which are subject to isotope dating, give discordant dates that show that the key assumptions made in deriving dates from isotope ratios are highly suspect. Recent lava flows from Hawaii and Grand Canyon have been dated at over 100 million years. These discrepancies indicate that the mechanisms involved in the formation of magma compositions are complex, and apparently sources of trace elements other than radioactive decay are present, such as partial melting of continental crust or subducted slabs of oceanic crust. Many observations of physical phenomena on the earth are not consistent with a great age for the earth. Among these are the abundance of Helium in the atmosphere, the current decay rate of the earth's magnetic field, and the salt content of the oceans. All of these observations are totally in opposition to the hypothesis of an earth that is billions of years old. A recent dinosaur bones discovery shows that dinosaurs also lived recently on earth. This dinosaur, reported in October 1992, was found to not yet be fossilized, but rather had protein molecules still preserved in bone tissue. Halleluia!
IV Origin of Humans. What evidence do we have implying men were descended from apes?
Evolutionist View: Man has descended from primitive ancestors who evolved from early primates over a period of a few million years. Evidence of human fossil remains shows an evolutionary tree leading from australopithecines to Homo Erectus to Homo Sapiens (modern man).
Creaionists’ Challenge: Very early fossil remains are clearly Homo Sapiens, as are the so-called "Cave Men" such as Neandertal and Cro-Magnon man. In fact, fossils that are indistinguishable from modern humans can be traced all the way back to 4.5 mya, according to the evolutionary time scale. This fact suggests that true humans were on the scene before the australopithecines appear in the fossil record. Homo Erectus demonstrates a morphological consistence throughout its two-million-year history. The fossil record does not show Erectsu evolving from something else or into something else. Anatomically modern Homo Sapiens, Neandertal, archaic Homo Sapiens, and Homo Erectus all lived as contemporaries at one time or another. None of them evolved from a more robust to a more gracile condition. In fact, in some cases (Neandertal and archaic Homo Sapiens) the more robust fossils are the more recent fossils in their respective categories. (See "Bones of Contention," p.178)
Attempts to associate the australopithecines with human ancestry range from unscientific allegations to outright fraud, and is based on the gross assumption that any fossil primate that walked upright must be our ancestors. Examples: Lucy is an assemblage of bones taken from different strata separated by a mile or so, and the allegation that she walked upright has been disproved by scientific analysis.
Creation Alternative: Because man has not evolved, we must conclude that he was created, as revealed in Genesis, the book of origins. The significance of this conclusion cannot be overstated: whereas man owes his existence to his Creator, he is under the authority of the Creator.
V. Biblical reasons why the geological age system cannot be correlated with the Genesis account of creation and the flood by any of the following:
1) Day-Age Theory. The Day-Age Theory contradicts scripture. The Hebrew word yom is almost always used to mean a 24-hour day. In the case of Genesis chapter one, the context eliminates any indefinite time interpretation by the definitions "evening and the morning" and "God called the light Day". If a "day" is to be interpreted as millions of years, then the command that God gave in Exodus for man to rest on the seventh day as He did would be difficult to follow, indeed. The Day-Age Theory is predicated on the geological ages assigned to the fossil record. Since the fossils speak unequivocally of the reign of suffering and death in the world, this theory accepts as real the existence of death before sin, in direct contradiction to the Biblical teaching that death is a divine judgment on man's dominion because of man's sin (Romans 5:12). Therefore, the Day-Age Theory cannot be reconciled with the Bible.
2) Gap Theory: A fabrication by "scholars" of an imaginary pre-Adamic world which could explain the geologic time table assigned to the fossil record. The theory proposes catastrophic destruction of the ancient world and all its inhabitants, including cave men, in "Lucifer's flood." This theory is not supported by scripture, and presupposes death and suffering before Adam sinned. If true, then death is not the wages of sin and Christ's death cannot atone for all sin. The Gap Theory, therefore, is opposed to the fundamental tenets of the Gospel and attacks the plan of redemption. The Gap Theory does not accommodate the geologic ages, since the system of geological ages is based completely on the assumption of uniformitarianism which precludes any worldwide cataclysm such as required by the Gap Theory.
According to the summaries of Genesis 2:1-3 and Exodus 20:11, the "heavens," as well as the "earth," were made in six days. The heavenly bodies occupying the heavens were made on the fourth day. Since the only mention of the "heavens" in Genesis 1 is in the first verse, it is necessary to conclude that Genesis 1:1 itself is a part of the six days and thus there can be no gap of any consequence thereafter.
Numerous additional arguments against the Gap Theory are given in The Biblical Basis for Modern Science, pp.121-123.
3) Local Flood Theory. A local flood theory contradicts scripture, both Old Testament (Gen 7:19) and New Testament (I Pet 3:3). The local flood idea denies that God judged the entire world and destroyed every living thing. Therefore it is an invalid attempt to correlate geologic ages with the Biblical account of scripture.