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Christianity vs. Evolution. Can they be reconciled?. Introduction.
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Christianity vs. Evolution Can they be reconciled?
Introduction • Charles Darwin (12 Feb 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist who believed that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection. • He published his theory for evolution in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species.
Introduction • The scientific community and much of the general public came to accept evolution as a fact in his lifetime, but it was not until the 1930s to the 1950s that a broad consensus developed that natural selection was the basic mechanism of evolution. • In modified form, Darwin's scientific discovery is the unifying theory of the life sciences, explaining the diversity of life.
Effect on Society • The social effects of evolutionary thought have been considerable. • Because the theory of evolution includes an explanation of humanity's origins, it has had a profound impact on human societies. • Its rejection of the Biblical account of Creation has led to a vigorous conflict between creation and evolution in public education, primarily in the United States.
Effect on Society • Some single out "Darwinism" as the cause of many, if not all, of modern society's ills. • In the controversial book From Darwin to Hitler by Richard Weikart, Weikart claims that Darwinism's impact on ethics and morality played a key role not only in the rise of eugenics, but also in euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, and racial extermination, all ultimately embraced by the Nazis.
Effect on Society • The notion that humans share ancestors with other animals has also affected how some people view the relationship between humans and other species. • Many proponents of animal rights hold that if animals and humans are of the same nature, then rights cannot be distinct to humans.
Effect on Religion • Before Darwin's argument and presentation of the evidence for evolution, Western religions generally discounted or condemned any claims that diversity of life is the result of an evolutionary process, as did most scientists in the English scientific establishment. • However, evolution was accepted by some religious groups such as the Unitarian church and the liberal Anglican theologians who went on to publish Essays and Reviews. as well as by many scientists in France and Scotland and some in England.
Effect on Religion • In response to the wide scientific acceptance of the theory of evolution, many religions have formally or informally synthesized the scientific and religious viewpoints. • Several important 20th century scientists whose work confirmed Darwin's theory, were also Christians who saw no incompatibility between their experimental and theoretical confirmations of evolution and their faith. • Some religions have adopted a theistic evolution viewpoint, where God provides a divine spark that ignited the process of evolution and (or), where God has guided evolution in one way or another.
Effect on Religion • In an October 22, 1996, address to the Pontifical Academy of Science, Pope John Paul II stated that Evolution is "more than a hypothesis" - "In his encyclical Humani Generis, my predecessor Pius XII has already affirmed that there is no conflict between evolution and the doctrine of the faith regarding man and his vocation... Today, more than a half-century after the appearance of that encyclical, some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than an hypothesis. In fact it is remarkable that this theory has had progressively greater influence on the spirit of researchers, following a series of discoveries in different scholarly disciplines."
Arguments against Evolution • Life Science • Astronomical & Physical Science • Earth Science
Macro vs Micro Evolution • Macroevolution - A naturally occurring, beneficial change that produces increasing and inheritable complexity. Increased complexity would be shown if the offspring of one form of life had a different and improved set of vital organs. • Microevolution, on the other hand, does not involve increasing complexity. It involves changes only in size, shape, or color, or minor genetic alterations caused by a few mutations. • Microevolution can be thought of as “horizontal” (or even downward) change, whereas macroevolution, if it were ever observed, would involve an “upward,” beneficial change in complexity. • Ever since Darwin, evolutionists have made excuses for why the world and our fossil museums are not overflowing with intermediates.
Law of Biogenesis • Spontaneous generation (the emergence of life from nonliving matter) has never been observed. All observations have shown that life comes only from life. • This has been observed so consistently it is called the law of biogenesis. The theory of evolution conflicts with this scientific law when claiming that life came from nonliving matter through natural processes.
Acquired Characteristics • Characteristics gained after birth cannot be inherited • For example, large muscles acquired by a man in a weight-lifting program cannot be inherited by his child. • Nor did giraffes get long necks because their ancestors stretched to reach high leaves. • While almost all evolutionists agree that acquired characteristics cannot be inherited, many unconsciously slip into this false belief. • New genetic traits are not created; instead, the environment can switch on genetic machinery already present. The marvel is that optimal genetic machinery already exists to handle some contingencies, not that time, the environment, or “a need” can produce the machinery.
Mendel’s Laws • Mendel’s laws of genetics and their modern-day refinements explain almost all physical variations occurring within species. • Mendel discovered that genes are merely reshuffled from one generation to another. • Different combinations are formed, not different genes. • The different combinations produce many variations within each kind of life, but there are limits to such variation. • Breeding experiments and common observations also confirm these boundaries.
Bounded Variations • If evolution occurred, organisms that quickly produce the most offspring (such as bacteria) should have the most variations and mutations. • Natural selection would then select the more favorable changes, allowing organisms with those traits to survive, reproduce, and pass on their beneficial genes. • Therefore, organisms that have allegedly evolved the most should have short reproduction cycles and many offspring. • We see the opposite. In general, more complex organisms, such as humans, have fewer offspring and longer reproduction cycles. Again, variations within organisms appear to be bounded.
Mutation • Mutations are the only known means by which new genetic material becomes available for evolution. • Rarely, if ever, is a mutation beneficial to an organism in its natural environment. • Almost all observable mutations are harmful; some are meaningless; many are lethal. • No known mutation has ever produced a form of life having greater complexity and viability than its ancestors.
Complex Molecules and Organs • Many molecules necessary for life, such as DNA, RNA, and proteins, are incredibly complex—so complex that claims they have evolved are absurd. Furthermore, those claims lack experimental support. • There is no reason to believe that mutations or any natural process could ever produce any new organs—especially those as complex as the eye, the ear, or the brain. • For example, an adult human brain contains over 1014 (a hundred thousand billion) electrical connections, more than all the soldered electrical connections in the world. • The human heart, a ten-ounce pump that will operate without maintenance or lubrication for about 75 years, is another engineering marvel.
Fully-Developed Organs • All species appear fully developed, not partly developed. • There are no examples of half-developed feathers, eyes, skin, tubes (arteries, veins, intestines, etc.), or any of the vital organs (dozens in humans alone). • If a leg of a reptile were to evolve into a wing of a bird, it would become a bad leg long before it became a good wing
Extraterrestrial Life? • No verified form of life which originated outside of earth has ever been observed. • If life evolved on earth, one would expect that the elaborate experiments sent to the Moon and Mars might have detected at least simple forms of life (such as microbes) that differ in some respects from life on earth. • Many people, including Carl Sagan, predicted the Viking landers would find life on Mars. • Sophisticated tests on Martian soil samples did not find even a trace of life.
Vestigial Organs • Some structures in humans were once thought to have no function but to have been derived from functioning organs in claimed evolutionary ancestors. • They were called vestigial organs. As medical knowledge has increased, at least some function has been discovered for all alleged vestigial organs. • For example, the human appendix was once considered a useless remnant from our evolutionary past. The appendix seems to play a role in antibody production and protects part of the intestine from infections and tumor growths.
Two-Celled Life? • Many single-celled forms of life exist, but no known forms of animal life have 2, 3, 4, or 5 cells. • Known forms of life with 6–20 cells are parasites, so they must have a complex animal as a host to provide such functions as respiration and digestion. • If macroevolution happened, one should find many transitional forms of life with 2–20 cells—filling the gap between one-celled and many-celled organisms.
Rapid Burial • Fossils all over the world show evidence of rapid burial. Normally, dead animals and plants quickly decompose. • Compressed fossils and fossils that cut across two or more layers of sedimentary rock, are strong evidence that the sediments encasing these fossils were deposited rapidly—not over hundreds of millions of years. • Furthermore, almost all sediments that formed today’s rocks were sorted by water. The worldwide fossil record is, therefore, evidence of rapid death and burial of animal and plant life by a worldwide, catastrophic flood. The fossil record is not evidence of slow change.
Missing Trunk • The “evolutionary tree” has no trunk. In what evolutionists call the earliest part of the fossil record (generally the lowest sedimentary layers of Cambrian rock), life appears suddenly, full-blown, complex, diversified, and dispersed—worldwide. • Evolution predicts that minor variations should slowly accumulate, eventually becoming major categories of organisms. Instead, the opposite is found. Almost all of today’s plant and animal phyla—including flowering plants, vascular plants, and vertebrates—appear at the base of the fossil record. • In fact, many more phyla are found in the Cambrian than exist today. Complex species, such as fish, worms, corals, trilobites, jellyfish, sponges, mollusks, and brachiopods appear suddenly, with no sign anywhere on earth of gradual development from simpler forms. • Insects, a class comprising four-fifths of all known animal species (living and extinct), have no known evolutionary ancestors. • The fossil record does not support evolution.
Out-of-Place Fossils • Frequently, fossils are not vertically sequenced in the assumed evolutionary order. • For example, in Uzbekistan, 86 consecutive hoofprints of horses were found in rocks dating back to the dinosaurs. • A leading authority on the Grand Canyon published photographs of horselike hoofprints visible in rocks that, according to the theory of evolution, predate hoofed animals by more than 100 million years.
Ape-Men? • For over a century, studies of skulls and teeth have produced unreliable conclusions about man’s origin. Also, fossil evidence allegedly supporting human evolution is fragmentary and open to other interpretations. Fossil evidence showing the evolution of chimpanzees, supposedly the closest living relative to humans, is nonexistent. • Stories claiming that fossils of primitive, apelike men have been found are overstated. • It is now universally acknowledged that Piltdown “man” was a hoax, yet Piltdown “man” was in textbooks for more than 40 years. • Before 1977, evidence for Ramapithecus was a mere handful of teeth and jaw fragments. We now know these fragments were pieced together incorrectly by Louis Leakeye and others into a form resembling part of the human jaw. Ramapithecus was just an ape.
Ape-Men? • The only remains of Nebraska “man” turned out to be a pig’s tooth. • Forty years after he discovered Java “man,” Eugene Dubois conceded that it was not a man, but was similar to a large ape. In citing evidence to support this new conclusion, Dubois admitted that he had withheld parts of four other thigh bones of apes found in the same area. • For about 100 years the world was led to believe that Neanderthal man was stooped and apelike. This false idea was based upon some Neanderthals with bone diseases such as arthritis and rickets. Recent dental and x-ray studies of Neanderthals suggest that they were humans who matured at a slower rate and lived to be much older than people today. Neanderthal man, Heidelberg man, and Cro-Magnon man are now considered completely human. Artists’ drawings of “ape-men,” especially their fleshy portions, are often quite imaginative and are not supported by the evidence.
Fossil Man • Bones of modern-looking humans have been found deep in undisturbed rocks that, according to evolution, were formed long before man began to evolve. • Examples include the Castenedolo skeletons, Reck’s skeleton, and others. • Remains such as the Swanscombe skull, the Steinheim fossil, and the Vertesszöllos fossil present similar problems. Evolutionists almost always ignore these remains.
Oxygen problem • No evolutionary theory has been able to explain why earth’s atmosphere has so much oxygen. Too many substances should have absorbed oxygen on an evolving earth. • Besides, if the early earth had oxygen in its atmosphere, compounds (called amino acids) needed for life to evolve would have been destroyed by oxidation. • But if there had been no oxygen, there would have been no ozone (a form of oxygen) in the upper atmosphere. Without ozone to shield the earth, the sun’s ultraviolet radiation would quickly destroy life. • The only known way for both ozone and life to be here is for both to come into existence simultaneously—in other words, by creation.
Barriers, Buffers, and Chemical Pathways • Living cells contain thousands of different chemicals, some acidic, others basic. • Many chemicals would react with others were it not for an intricate system of chemical barriers and buffers. If living things evolved, these barriers and buffers must also have evolved—but at just the right time to prevent harmful chemical reactions. • How could such precise, seemingly coordinated, virtually miraculous events have happened for each of millions of species?
The Elephant in the Living Room • Writer George V. Caylor interviewed Sam, a molecular biologist. George asked Sam about his work. Sam said he and his team were scientific “detectives,” working with DNA and tracking down the cause of disease. Here is their published conversation. G: Sounds like pretty complicated work. S: You can’t imagine how complicated! G: Try me. S: I’m a bit like an editor, trying to find a spelling mistake inside a document larger than four complete sets of Encyclopedia Britannica. Seventy volumes, thousands and thousands of pages of small print words. G: With the computer power, you can just use ‘spell check’! S: There is no ‘spell check’ because we don’t know yet how the words are supposed to be spelled. We don’t even know for sure which language. And it’s not just the ‘spelling error’ we’re looking for. If any of the punctuation is out of place, or a space out of place, or a grammatical error, we have a mutation that will cause a disease.
The Elephant in the Living Room G: So how do you do it? S: We are learning as we go. We have already ‘read’ over two articles in that encyclopedia, and located some ‘typo’s’. It should get easier as time goes by. G: How did all that information happen to get there? S: Do you mean, did it just happen? Did it evolve? G: Bingo. Do you believe that the information evolved? S: George, nobody I know in my profession truly believes it evolved. It was engineered by ‘genius beyond genius,’ and such information could not have been written any other way. The paper and ink did not write the book. Knowing what we know, it is ridiculous to think otherwise. A bit like Neil Armstrong believing the moon is made of green cheese. He's been there! G: Have you ever stated that in a public lecture, or in any public writings?
The Elephant in the Living Room S: No. It all just evolved. G: What? S: Just stop right there. To be a molecular biologist requires one to hold on to two insanities at all times. One, it would be insane to believe in evolution when you can see the truth for yourself. Two, it would be insane to say you don’t believe in evolution. All government work, research grants, papers, big college lectures—everything would stop. I’d be out of a job, or relegated to the outer fringes where I couldn’t earn a decent living. G: I hate to say it, Sam, but that sounds intellectually dishonest. S: The work I do in genetic research is honorable. We will find the cures to many of mankind’s worst diseases. But in the meantime, we have to live with the ‘elephant in the living room’. G: What elephant? S: Design. It’s like the elephant in the living room. It moves around, takes up an enormous amount of space, loudly trumpets, bumps into us, knocks things over, eats a ton of hay, and smells like an elephant. And yet we have to swear it isn’t there!
Improbabilities • To claim that life evolved is to demand a miracle. The simplest conceivable form of single-celled life should have at least 600 different protein molecules. • The mathematical probability that even one typical protein could form by chance arrangements of amino acid sequences is essentially zero—far less than 1 in 10450. To appreciate the magnitude of 10450, realize that the visible universe is about 1028 inches in diameter. • From another perspective, suppose we packed the entire visible universe with a “simple” form of life, such as bacteria. Next, suppose we broke all their chemical bonds, mixed all their atoms, then let them form new links. If this were repeated a billion times a second for 20 billion years under the most favorable temperature and pressure conditions throughout the visible universe, would even one bacterium of any type reemerge? The chances are much less than one in 1099,999,999,873. • Your chances of randomly drawing one preselected atom out of a universe packed with atoms are about one chance in 10112—much better.
Life Science Conclusions • When Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859, the “evolutionary tree” had only a few gaps. Believers in his new theory thought that these gaps would be filled as scientific knowledge increased. Just the opposite has happened. As science has progressed, these “missing links” have multiplied enormously, and the obstacles to “bridging” these gaps have become even more obvious. • For example, in Darwin’s day, all life fell into two categories (or kingdoms): animals and plants. Today, it is generally accepted that life falls into five radically different kingdoms, of which animals and plants comprise only two. • In Darwin’s day, a cell was thought to be about as simple as a ping-pong ball.
Earth: The Water Planet • The amount of water on Earth greatly exceeds that known on or within any other planet in the solar system. Liquid water, which is essential for life to survive, has unique and amazing properties; it covers 70% of Earth’s surface. Where did all Earth’s water come from? • If the Earth and solar system evolved from a swirling cloud of dust and gas, almost no water would reside near Earth’s present orbit. Any water (liquid or ice) that close to the Sun would vaporize and be blown by solar wind to the outer reaches of the solar system, as we see happening with water vapor in the tails of comets.
Molten Earth? • For decades, textbooks have taught that the early Earth was molten for 500,000,000 years, because it formed by meteoritic bombardment. • Had Earth ever been molten, dense, nonreactive chemical elements such as gold would have sunk to Earth’s core. Gold is 70% denser than lead, yet is found at the Earth’s surface. • Radioactive dating of certain zircon minerals also contradicts a molten Earth. Trace elements within those zircons show that the zircons formed on a cold Earth (less than 212°F). However, based on radioactive dating, those zircons formed on an extremely young Earth, when, according to evolutionists, it should have been molten (exceeding 1,800°F)—an obvious contradiction.
Evolving Planets? • Contrary to popular opinion, planets should not form from just the mutual gravitational attraction of particles orbiting the Sun. • Orbiting particles are much more likely to be scattered or expelled by their gravitational attraction than they are to be permanently pulled together. Experiments have shown that colliding particles almost always fragment rather than stick together.
Evolution of the Solar System? • Evolutionists claim that the solar system condensed out of a vast cloud of swirling dust about 4,600,000,000 years ago. • If so, many particles that were not swept up as part of a planet should now be spiraling in toward the Sun. • Colliding asteroids also would create dust particles that, over millions of years, would spiral in toward the Sun. • Particles should still be falling into the Sun’s upper atmosphere, burning up, and giving off an easily measured infrared glow. • Measurements taken during the solar eclipse of 11 July 1991 showed no such glow.
Faint Young Sun • If, as evolutionists teach, the solar system evolved from a spinning cloud of dust and gas 4.5 billion years ago, the slowly condensing Sun would have radiated 25–30% less heat during its first 600 million years than it radiates today. • A drop in the Sun’s radiation of only a few percent would freeze all our oceans. • Had this happened anytime in the past, let alone for 600 million years, the ice’s mirrorlike surfaces would have reflected more of the Sun’s radiation into outer space, cooling Earth even more in a permanent, runaway deep-freeze. If it had, all agree that life could not have evolved.
Big Bang? • For decades, big bang theorists said that the amount of mass in a rapidly expanding universe must be enough to prevent all matter from flying apart; otherwise, matter could not come together to form stars and galaxies. Estimates of the universe’s actual mass always fell far short of that minimum amount. • This “missing mass” is often called dark matter, because no one could see it or even detect it. Actually, “missing mass” had to be “created” to preserve the big bang theory. The media’s frequent reference to “dark matter” enshrined it in the public’s consciousness, much like the supposed “missing link” between apes and man. • Neither “dark matter” (created to hold the universe together) nor “dark energy” (created to push the universe apart) has been seen or measured. We are told that “most of the universe is composed of invisible dark matter and dark energy.” Few realize that both mystical concepts were devised to preserve the big bang theory.
Index Fossils • In the early 1800s, some observers in Western Europe noticed that certain fossils are usually preserved in sedimentary rock layers that, when traced laterally, typically lie above somewhat similar fossils. Decades later, after the theory of evolution was proposed, many concluded that the lower organism must have evolved before the upper organism. • Geologic ages were then associated with each of these “index fossils.” Those ages were extended to other animals and plants buried in the same layer as the index fossil. For example, a coelacanth fossil, an index fossil, dates its layer at 70,000,000 to 400,000,000 years old. • The discovery of living coelacanths was then unexpected
Coelacanth • Thought to have been extinct for 70,000,000 years, the coelacanth was first caught in 1938, deep in the Indian Ocean, northwest of Madagascar. Hundreds more were caught and sold. In 1998, they were also found off the coast of Indonesia. • Before coelacanths were caught, evolutionists incorrectly believed that the coelacanth had lungs, a large brain, and four bottom fins about to evolve into legs. • Evolutionists reasoned that the coelacanth, or a similar fish, crawled out of a shallow sea and filled its lungs with air, becoming the first four-legged land animal. Millions of students have been incorrectly taught that this fish was the ancestor of all amphibians, reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals, including people.
Radiometric Dating • To date an event or thing that preceded written records, one must assume that the dating clock has operated at a known rate, that the clock’s initial setting is known, and that the clock has not been disturbed. These three assumptions are almost always unstated, overlooked, or invalid. • For the past century, a major (but incorrect) assumption underlying all radioactive dating techniques has been that decay rates, which have been essentially constant over the past 100 years, have also been constant over the past 4,600,000,000 years. Unfortunately, few have questioned this huge and critical assumption.
Human Artifacts • At various times and places, man-made objects have been found encased in coal. Examples include a thimble, an iron pot, an iron instrument, an 8-karat gold chain, three throwing-spears, and a metallic vessel inlaid with silver. • Other “out-of-place artifacts” have been found inside deeply buried rocks: nails, a screw, a strange coin, a tiny ceramic doll, and other objects of obvious human manufacture. • By evolutionary dating techniques, these objects would be hundreds of millions of years older than man. Again, something is wrong.
River Sediments • More than 27 billion tons of river sediments enter the oceans each year. Probably the rate of sediment transport was much greater in the past as the looser topsoil was removed and as erosion smoothed out Earth’s terrain. • Even if erosion has been constant, the sediments now on the ocean floor would have accumulated in only 30 million years. No process has been proposed which can remove 27 billion tons of ocean sediments each year. So, the oceans cannot be hundreds of millions of years old. • If the Colorado River carved the Grand Canyon over millions of years, where is the large river delta?
Dissolved Metals • Rivers carry dissolved elements such as copper, gold, lead, mercury, nickel, silicon, sodium, tin, and uranium into the oceans at very rapid rates when compared with the small quantities of these elements already in the oceans. • In other words, far fewer than a million years’ worth of metals are dissolved in the oceans. There is no known means by which large amounts of these elements can come out of solution. Therefore, the oceans must be much younger than a million years.
