Charles Darwin was born on February 12th, 1809, the same day as Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was destined to become President of the United States during its darkest and deadliest hour when more than 500,000 American lives would be lost in the Civil War. At the war's end in 1865, Lincoln himself was assassinated dying at the age of 56. Darwin would live until 1882 and die at the age of 73. However, Darwin’s theory of evolution would captured the minds of millions and lead them from faith in God to scientific fatalism. Here’s the story.
Until the 19th century, in the western world, the idea that God created the world about 6,000 years ago was quite universally accepted. Archbishop James Usher´s The Annals of the World first published in 1658 dated creation to about 4004 BC. The age of the earth and geology traditionally had followed this Biblical world view. Society was largely structured on the values laid out in the Bible.
It was in 1788 that James Hutton first published The Theory of the Earth, his book on geology. Here he explained uniformitarianism, or the idea that the present was the key to the past. In other words, by measuring the rates of natural processes in the present, scientists could extrapolate backwards to determine how long it took for geological features to form in the past. Traditionally, the geological column had been judged as the result of Noah´s flood. Hutton suggested that geology must be judged by natural causes present today and not by supposed events of the past. “The past history of our globe must be explained by what can be seen to be happening now… No powers are to be employed that are not natural to the globe, no action to be admitted except those of which we know the principles,”[1] was Hutton's mantra.
Rather than seeing the Grand Canyon as the result of massive amounts of water draining off the continent at the end of the catastrophic flood event that happened some 4,500 plus years ago, it was now seen as the result of slow natural processes over millions of years. Hutton wrote, “But surely, general deluges (such as Noah´s Flood) form no part of the theory of the earth; for the purpose of this earth is evidently to maintain vegetable and animal life, and not to destroy them.”[2] The final line in his book stated, “The result, therefore, of our present inquiry is, that we find no vestige of a beginning,–no prospect of an end,"[3] confirming his idea that the creation and flood events should not be accepted as valid.
Charles Lyell, a contemporary of Darwin, following on Hutton´s ideas, wrote his own tome, The Principles of Geology, which was published in 1830. Lyell, like Hutton, was from Scotland. Lyell had trained as a lawyer and used his lawyer´s power of persuasion to draw a brilliant defence in favour of uniformitarianism and millions of years rather than the hitherto idea of catastrophism. Catastrophism was based on the Biblical events of the creation and the worldwide flood of Noah and therefore needed only thousands of years. of earth time to explain the geological record.
Lyell himself confessed that his goal in life was to get “Moses out of science,” for until that time the creation-flood / catastrophism or Biblical viewpoint had dominated the geological interpretation of the geological column. Lyell saw himself as “the spiritual saviour of geology, freeing the science from the old dispensation of Moses.”[4] His Principles of Geology was the most influential geological work in the middle of the 19th century and helped consolidate the concept of millions of years. He said during a lecture that “….the physical past of geological inquiry ought to be conducted as if the scriptures were not in existence.”[5] Such a position is not unbiased, but is recommending that science take an anti-Biblical stance and not accept the Bible's historical record of the flood event and dismiss it with the over 240 similar Flood Legends found in cultures around the world. In other words, scientists should not take their initial assumptions from what the Bible claims, but to the contrary, scientists should avoid Biblical assumptions flat out.
When Darwin took his five year trip around the world, passing through the now famous Galapagos Islands off the western coast of South America, he took his Bible with him. He had graduated university with a Divinity Degree, though it seems his object was to have a job which would offer him sufficient time to study nature. Erasmus Darwin, his grandfather, had already written a book called Zoonomia in which he speculated about a natural law that enable all the variety of animals to develop from a first animal. During Darwin's trip to the Galapagos, the captain of the ship, the Beagle, offered Darwin a copy of Lyell´s “The Principles of Geology.” Its reading slowly changed Charles' worldview. He abandoned the creation/flood model and accepted uniformitarianism and millions of years.
Once Darwin had abandoned the Biblical model and accepted uniformitarianism with the millions of years, his mind was now open to finding a new reason for the variety of life, not based on Biblical assumptions. Hutton had already toyed with these ideas, but had “rejected the idea of evolution originating species" as a "romantic fantasy". Hutton thought that natural selection allowed species to form varieties better adapted to particular conditions and was therefore evidence of benevolent design in nature.[6] Creation scientists agree with his idea completely.
People normally picture the scientist as an unbiased scholar searching for the truth of the how and the why of things or of nature. But the truth is quite different. Every scientist starts off his work with assumptions, or a belief system of how he interprets the world around him. The data or evidence does not speak for itself, but needs to be interpreted. The scientist´s world view will affect how he interprets the data or evidence that he discovers.
Let´s take a look at how the scientists on a famous TV program such as CSI or Bones do their science. The investigators are trying to find out how something happened. They cannot go back in time, so they make a theory, a speculation, an hypothesis, and then check to see if the evidence fits their theory. If the evidence shows the theory false, they throw out the first theory and develop another one or revise or adapt the first. By doing science in the present, they try to determine how the murder might have occurred in the past. However, since they were not there in the past, they can never be sure if they are right. Often in the program they first think it is one person, and then another, until finally they come up with the right person. Ultimately, they try to get a confession, or have an eyewitness testimony, because all they have is circumstantial evidence which might not hold up in court. Sometimes in a program a bad cop fudges the evidence to make it look like someone was guilty, when they were not. Sadly many of today´s scientists are fudging the evidence in order to have the public believe that the evolution of “molecules to man” has really taken place.
The famous British biologist David Watson, was Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at University College, London from 1921 to 1951. Back in 1929 he was dubious of whether natural selection was the mechanism for evolution and confessed the following: “Evolution is a theory universally accepted not because it can be proved to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, [the idea that the universe and all life in it originated by divine decree] is clearly incredible.”[7]
Charles Lyell, a contemporary of Darwin, following on Hutton´s ideas, wrote his own tome, The Principles of Geology, which was published in 1830. Lyell, like Hutton, was from Scotland. Lyell had trained as a lawyer and used his lawyer´s power of persuasion to draw a brilliant defence in favour of uniformitarianism and millions of years rather than the hitherto idea of catastrophism. Catastrophism was based on the Biblical events of the creation and the worldwide flood of Noah and therefore needed only thousands of years. of earth time to explain the geological record.
Lyell himself confessed that his goal in life was to get “Moses out of science,” for until that time the creation-flood / catastrophism or Biblical viewpoint had dominated the geological interpretation of the geological column. Lyell saw himself as “the spiritual saviour of geology, freeing the science from the old dispensation of Moses.”[4] His Principles of Geology was the most influential geological work in the middle of the 19th century and helped consolidate the concept of millions of years. He said during a lecture that “….the physical past of geological inquiry ought to be conducted as if the scriptures were not in existence.”[5] Such a position is not unbiased, but is recommending that science take an anti-Biblical stance and not accept the Bible's historical record of the flood event and dismiss it with the over 240 similar Flood Legends found in cultures around the world. In other words, scientists should not take their initial assumptions from what the Bible claims, but to the contrary, scientists should avoid Biblical assumptions flat out.
When Darwin took his five year trip around the world, passing through the now famous Galapagos Islands off the western coast of South America, he took his Bible with him. He had graduated university with a Divinity Degree, though it seems his object was to have a job which would offer him sufficient time to study nature. Erasmus Darwin, his grandfather, had already written a book called Zoonomia in which he speculated about a natural law that enable all the variety of animals to develop from a first animal. During Darwin's trip to the Galapagos, the captain of the ship, the Beagle, offered Darwin a copy of Lyell´s “The Principles of Geology.” Its reading slowly changed Charles' worldview. He abandoned the creation/flood model and accepted uniformitarianism and millions of years.
Once Darwin had abandoned the Biblical model and accepted uniformitarianism with the millions of years, his mind was now open to finding a new reason for the variety of life, not based on Biblical assumptions. Hutton had already toyed with these ideas, but had “rejected the idea of evolution originating species" as a "romantic fantasy". Hutton thought that natural selection allowed species to form varieties better adapted to particular conditions and was therefore evidence of benevolent design in nature.[6] Creation scientists agree with his idea completely.
People normally picture the scientist as an unbiased scholar searching for the truth of the how and the why of things or of nature. But the truth is quite different. Every scientist starts off his work with assumptions, or a belief system of how he interprets the world around him. The data or evidence does not speak for itself, but needs to be interpreted. The scientist´s world view will affect how he interprets the data or evidence that he discovers.
Let´s take a look at how the scientists on a famous TV program such as CSI or Bones do their science. The investigators are trying to find out how something happened. They cannot go back in time, so they make a theory, a speculation, an hypothesis, and then check to see if the evidence fits their theory. If the evidence shows the theory false, they throw out the first theory and develop another one or revise or adapt the first. By doing science in the present, they try to determine how the murder might have occurred in the past. However, since they were not there in the past, they can never be sure if they are right. Often in the program they first think it is one person, and then another, until finally they come up with the right person. Ultimately, they try to get a confession, or have an eyewitness testimony, because all they have is circumstantial evidence which might not hold up in court. Sometimes in a program a bad cop fudges the evidence to make it look like someone was guilty, when they were not. Sadly many of today´s scientists are fudging the evidence in order to have the public believe that the evolution of “molecules to man” has really taken place.
The famous British biologist David Watson, was Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at University College, London from 1921 to 1951. Back in 1929 he was dubious of whether natural selection was the mechanism for evolution and confessed the following: “Evolution is a theory universally accepted not because it can be proved to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, [the idea that the universe and all life in it originated by divine decree] is clearly incredible.”[7]
When talking about evolution, we are talking about “molecules to man” evolution or common descent from the first living organism. The evolutionary tree of life demonstrates all life springing from one source. Biologists often claim that since we can see that a change does take place in a species, "evolution" has occurred. A change within a species or kind of animal is an example of what Creationist scientists call “micro-evolution.” Creationist scientists agree that some form of “speciation” does take place, but never does a new type or “kind” of animal develop. Creationists would call the change that takes place "variation within a species," or “kind” of animal, not evolution.
Dr Jason Lisle talks about the shift of one meaning of a word in an argument to another meaning in his book Discerning Truth: Exposing Errors in Evolutionary Arguments. It's called the equivocation fallacy. He says, “Evolution can mean “change” in a general sense, but it also refers to the idea that organisms share a common ancestor or “particles to people” evolution. Many evolutionists seem to think that by demonstrating evolution in the sense of change it some how proves evolution in the sense of “common descent” or “particles to people” evolution. You might hear someone say, `Creationists are wrong because we can see evolution happening all the time. Organism are constantly changing and adapting to their environment.´ But the fact that animals change does not demonstrate that they share a common ancestor. This is a very common fallacy used in evolutionary arguments.”[8]
Scientists have even discovered that some bacteria possess a genetic capacity to resist certain antibiotics. Mutations are not involved. In other cases, structural defects are caused in the organism where the antibiotic would attach itself, thus making the bacteria resistant. But rather than saying that the bacteria gained resistant, we could say that the antibiotic lost its ability to attach itself to the bacteria. The mutation in the bacteria caused a structural defect in the bacteria, thus, prohibiting the attachment of the antibiotic.
Normally what we see in nature is variation within a kind of animal or organism, not “molecules to man” evolution. The term “micro evolution” is used in these cases, but “micro-evolution” plus millions of years will not give us “macro-evolution” or “molecules to man” evolution. The problem remains; neither natural selection nor mutations can add new genetic information to the DNA.
Sir Fred Hoyle, the famous British mathematician and astronomer, questioned the very origins of the first cell through evolution. He said, “The likelihood of the formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40,000 zeros after it. It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole General Theory of Evolution. There was no primordial soup, neither on this planet nor any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random, they must, therefore, have been the product of purposeful intelligence.”[9] As a mathematician he strongly argued against the mathematical probability of life starting from non-life naturally. Because the improbability was so high, he concluded that abiogenesis, or the theory that life started from non-life long ago, was impossible.
“Molecules to man evolution” has no mechanism. There is no way for one type of animal to change into another, no matter how much time is involved. When Charles Darwin was writing his Origins of the Species, the scientific community knew nothing of Mendel´s genetic studies, which were later published in French in 1866 seven years after the Origins. Scientists did not become aware of Mendel's studies until the beginning of the 1900´s. At that time, evolutionists hoped that Mendel´s genetics would offer them the mechanism for evolution. But they were sadly disappointed. Genetics proved a dead end. It clearly showed that a great variety within a species was possible to obtain, but only to a limit. The gene pool was limited; therefore the genetic variation possible from the gene pool was also a limited. Genetics did not help. It just confirmed the idea that there existed a barrier between the different “kinds” of organisms and that barrier could not be crossed. In fact studies have shown that a good course in genetics, even if taught by an evolutionist, reduces the student´s belief in biological evolution.
Today scientists know that neither natural selection nor mutations can create new genetic information. New genetic information would be necessary, for example, to change a reptilian lung into an avian lung. Biologist Michael Denton does a good study on this topic which can be seen on YouTube on “From a Prince to a Frog,”[10] In his book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Denton wrote, “Neither of the two fundamental axioms of Darwin´s macro-evolutionary theory- the idea that all of life forms are linked together and ultimately lead back to a primordial cell and the belief that all the adaptive design of life has resulted from a random process – have been validated by one single empirical discovery or scientific advance since 1859.”[11]
Reiterating the point once again, neither natural selection nor mutations, which evolutionists claim are the mechanisms for evolutionary change, can form new genetic information.
Dr. Lee Spetner, who holds a PHD in physics from MIT said in his book called Shattering the Modern Theory of Evolution: “In all the reading I have done in life-science literature, I have never found a mutation that added information. All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce genetic information, not increase it.”[12]
British scientist Michael Pitman has commented that “neither observation nor controlled experimentation has shown natural selection manipulating mutations so as to produce a new gene, hormone, enzyme or organ.”[13]
A final quote on the subject by Dr. Wilder- Smith a famous British geneticist: “The chemistry of mutations in the genetic code has an effect similar to that of water on a text. Mutations modify or destroy already existing genetic information, but they never create new information, they never create an entirely new biological organ. Herein lays the error of New Darwinism which teaches that fundamentally new information is created by mutations.”[14] Some fascinating lectures and debates by Dr. Wilder – Smith can be found on YouTube.
Today, many children are born with one of the thousands of genetic defects or diseases. These defects/diseases are a result of mutations in the parental genes. Evidence from science clearly shows that mutations are usually deadly or dangerous and not beneficial. The few that may be beneficial, like sickle cell anaemia, are still caused by the loss of or damage to the genetic information.
Why are students still being taught in their textbooks that natural selection together with mutations are mechanisms for evolutionary change? Evolutionists do not want to let the cat out of the bag. They do not have a better answer and do not want to admit that they have not found a mechanism for evolution. They hide the facts because they believe their paradigm so strongly and because the only viable alternative is divine creation. Like one evolutionist Harvard Professor of Genetics Richard Lewontin said, “We take the side of evolutionary science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just so stories, because we have a prior commitment to materialism, that materialism is absolute for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door,”[15] or repeating the Professor David Watson quote, “Evolution is a theory universally accepted not because it can be proved to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible.”[16] Scott Todd from Kansas State University has said something similarly, “Even if all the data should point to an intelligent designer, such a hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic.”[17]
The argument is not science verses religion as evolutionists like to present it. The argument is between two differing world views. Duane Gish said, “The battle is with the evolutionary philosophy and faith, not science. Evolution is a powerful religious concept, which if correctly understood, negates all of Christianity.”[18]
Evidence does not speak for itself. The fossils are not found with dates already attached. They do not talk. Science does not say anything. It is the scientists who make value judgments about their observations. But, if they are good scientists, they should make their judgments based on whether the evidence is in accordance with known laws of nature or physics, not according to their particular bias about origins. The evolutionist Bateson has confessed, “We cannot see how differences into species came about, variation of many kinds, often considerable, we daily witness, but no origins of species. Meanwhile, though our faith in evolution stands unshaken, we have no acceptable account of the origin of species.”[19]
Science can never prove what happened in the past. Scientists can speculate, and can formulate theories. But historical science can never be proved in a laboratory. Historical science deals with speculating about how events or processes took place in the past. Historical science is at best philosophical, because it deals with assumptions about past events. Neither creation nor evolution can be proven in the laboratory. They are historical scientific models or ways to view the evidence and interpret how events might have happened in the past. They are not scientific facts. However, the scientific facts or evidence should align with a scientific model that is accurate.
Science which we perform in the laboratory is called operational science and is done by following the scientific method: observation, hypothesis, experimentation, observation, conclusion, testing and verification. Operational science has given us the man on the moon, mobile phones, laptops, modern medicines and so on.
But “origins” or historical science is speculation about past events and as such does not come under the same category as operational science. We are not able to go back in time and observe what happened at the beginning of time. Scientists speculate about the past and make ideological judgments before doing the science or the mathematical equations. Like Stephen Hawking admits in his book The Brief History of Time. When talking about the big bang, he mentions that he must add “a mixture of ideology.”[20]
Internationally renowned astrophysicist George FR Ellis who worked closely with Hawking said when talking about the Big Bang that, "People need to be aware that there is a range of models that can explain the observations .... For instance, I can construct a spherically symmetric universe for you, with Earth at its center, and you cannot prove otherwise based on observations, (that it is wrong) ....you can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my opinion, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide it. "[21]
The point he is trying to make, as an honest scientist, is that the idea of the Big Bang without a center and without an edge is an ideological decision. Scientists choose a model without a center and without an edge to keep away from the Biblical idea that the earth is special and has a special place in the universe. However, if you start with the earth´s galaxy near the center of the universe, which the observable evidence cannot disprove and seems to agree with, you come to totally different conclusions. Dr. Russell Humphreys, starting with Biblical assumptions, has done some interesting work in area of Starlight and Time, which are worth viewing here.[22]. Today´s leaders of scientific inquiry purposely choose a center-less and edge-less universe for philosophical reasons, because they “cannot allow a divine foot in the door.”[23]
Basically, there are two worldviews in the scientific community: the Biblical creationist worldview and the naturalistic evolutionary worldview. The naturalists believe that the world and everything in it can be explained only by what we find in the natural material world. They do not believe in the supernatural. Naturalism was popular world view in the 19th century and on into the early 20th century. You have many naturalist writers at that time such as Stephen Crane, Jack London, and Ernest Hemingway, to name a few, which ultimately led to the existentialism of Kafka, Sartre and Camus.
We need to understand that naturalism is the underlining philosophy of evolution. The evolutionary scientists have tried or are trying to change the original reason for science and meaning of science. Science originally was the search for the truth of the how and the why of the world around us. Today's scientists like to define science as the search for naturalistic reasons to the how and the why of life and the world around us. Even if the evidence should point to the supernatural, evolutionists will not accept it. They claim that the supernatural is outside the realm of science. Evolutionary scientist Ernest Mayr said in 1988, “In scientific controversies, there is rarely any argument about facts. It is rather their interpretation that is controversial.”[24]
By buildings their theory on the false premise “there is no supernatural,” the evolutionists were bound to come to the wrong conclusion. A false premise will not lead to a correct, logical conclusion. The supernatural does exist. Thousands of people experience it every day. People experience healings. They hear voices that keep them from danger. They have dreams or visions that warn them about some evil or tell them of the death of a loved one. Scientist and doctors have written numerable books about people who have had life after death experiences. Just recently a book about a young child who had a Near Death Experience has been quite popular. People have supernatural experiences that change their lives. The supernatural is real.
Naturalism starts with the metaphysical conclusion that there is no supernatural. Therefore, naturalism is false. Therefore, evolution which is founded on naturalism is also false. Honest scientists should be more open to the problems within the theory of evolution and consider the creation model as a viable alternative. Dave Schoch in his book The Assumptions Behind the Theory of Evolution says, “The truth can only be made up of facts, not assumptions. We should not be teaching assumptions as facts to our children, especially a theory that only stands upon one assumption after another.”[25]
In the book In Six Days: Why 50 Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation,[26] scientists with doctorates in various scientific fields give clear testimony and reasoning to their personal decisions to accept the Biblical creation model over the current more popular evolutionary model. These scientists not only reject the Darwinian evolutionary model as unscientific, but chose a literal six day creation event to be the most scientific of the choices.
For more information on the creation/evolution debate from the Biblical creationist viewpoint the following websites are available, although there are many others:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/
http://creation.com/
http://www.creationtoday.org/
http://www.icr.org/
Also, on YouTube many creation documentaries can be found as well as interesting debates between creationists and evolutionists. Jesus said, “Seek and you shall find.”[27] He also said, “You shall seek me and find me when you shall search for me with all your heart.”[28] If you really hunger and thirst after “truth” you will find it. That´s a promise!
Footnotes:
1. Hutton, James; http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/scottishenlightenment/jameshutton/learnmore.asp.
2. Hutton, James; The Abyss of Time: Changing Conceptions of the Earth's Antiquity After the ...
By Claude C. Albritton; page 100 chapter 8.
3. Hutton, James;. http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/vestiges-of-james-hutton.
4. Lyell, Charles; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lyell.
5. Lyell, Charles; God and nature: historical essays on the encounter between Christianity and ...
edited by David C. Lindberg, Ronald Leslie Numbers, “Geologists and Interpreters of Genesis,” page 337.
6. James Hutton - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Paul N. Pearson (16 October 2003). "In Retrospect". Nature V. 425 #6959, p. 665. Comments on Hutton's 3-volume 1794 work, An Investigation of the Principles of Knowledge and of the Progress of Reason, from Sense to Science and Philosophy.
7. Watson, D; http://theevolutioncrisis.org.uk/to-the-reader.php.
8. Lisle, Dr. Jason; Discerning Truth; 20010, page 20.
9. Hoyle, Sir Fred; (1981)"Hoyle on Evolution,"
Nature, Vol. 294, No. 5837, November 12, p. 148
10. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtDX17KjjG0
11. Denton, Dr. Michael; http://www.trueorigin.org/isakrbtl.asp.
12. Spetner, Dr. Lee; Tornado in a Junkyard (James Perloff), 1999, page 26.
13. Pitman, Michael; Tornado in a Junkyard (James Perloff), 1999, page26.
14. Wilder- Smith, Dr.; Tornado in a Junkyard (James Perloff), 1999, pg. 27.
15. Lewontin, Professor Richard; “Billions and billions of demons,” The New York Review; http://dailyevidence.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/the-divine-foot/.
16. Watson, D; http://theevolutioncrisis.org.uk/to-the-reader.php.
17. Todd, Scott; correspondence to Nature 401(6752):423, 30 Sept. 1999; http://creation.com/a-designer-is-unscientific-even-if-all-the-evidence-supports-one.
18. Gish, Dr. Duane; Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics, 1993 p. 42,.
19. Bateson; http://www.scribd.com/doc/132636931/Predicament-of-Evolution quoted by George McCready Price, 1925.
20. Hawking, Dr. Stephen; http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/1998/01/21/review-relative-cosmology.
21. Ellis, FR. George; http://www.allaboutscience.org/big-bang-theory.htm.
22. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mooHSXTR2RE
23. Lewontin, Richard; http://creation.com/amazing-admission-lewontin-quote.
24. Mayr, Ernest; http://bevets.com/evobiaspics.htm.
25. Schoch, Dave; 2008.
26. John F. Aston (Editor), 2001.
27. Matthew 7:7
28. Jeremiah 29:13
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By Dennis Edward - I made some revisions on the original article.
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