By Dennis Edwards:
What do you think? Are you a chicken or egg believer? Or do you think the question can’t be answered? I believe, if you have thought your world view through, you should have an answer. Think about it for a few minutes before we go forward and see if you can come to a conclusion. Which beginning story makes more sense to you, a chicken or an egg?
After giving it some thought maybe you have come to the conclusion, like many others, that the only correct answer can be “an egg.” Hasn’t science shown that the first life, the first cell or “egg,” formed in a primordial soup 3.5 billion years ago and modern man is evolution’s fine-tuning? I think we can soundly conclude that modern science would seem to indicate that “an egg” is the correct answer to the proverbial chicken & egg question. Because, really, we are asking the question of beginnings, how did it all start? Science has concluded that life began when a lightning bolt brought together some chemicals forming the first cell or living organism long ago. But does that story really “hold water?” Could a lightning bolt really have changed chemicals into amino acids, the precursors of proteins needed for the first life form? We have the famous Stanley Miller experiment which seemed to indicate that it could. Isn’t that what we are taught in our science books and biology classes? Amino acids can form naturally under the right circumstances. But let’s take a look at some of the more recent studies in science and see if they sit squarely with the evolutionary assumptions.
First we will look at an argument articulated in the book "Evolution the Grand Experiment." Dr. Carl Werner notes that first we need to understand what components are necessary for the first living cell. Very simply put, the essential compounds for life to exist are DNA, proteins and a cell membrane. All living organism from bacteria to man are composed of these elements. DNA contains the genetic information for the forming and reproducing of the organism. Proteins provide the chemical catalyst and structure of the cell. The cell membrane holds it all together. DNA carries the information for the forming of the proteins of the cell and passes the same information on to the next generation cell. It is an instruction book for how to make the cell. The information in DNA could not arise naturally, as all sophisticated information has an intelligent agent or mind as its source.
Another problem is that DNA makes proteins and is itself made up of proteins. How is that possible? DNA information is needed to design and make proteins and yet DNA itself is made up of proteins? We have another chicken and egg problem.
Dr. Werner has calculated that the minimum amount of DNA letters needed to make the first single-celled organism would be 18,000 DNA letters. Scientists have observed DNA forming naturally in the laboratory up to 20 letters but it then begins to break down. The needed 18,000 letters must be in a specific order to convey the information necessary to form the cell for life to begin. It is very specific information, not just random letters. Werner calculated the mathematical possibility of getting those letters in the right order by chance, like evolution proposes. The chance is 1 out of 1,201 followed by 10, 837 zeros. The chance of winning the national lottery every day for 365 days in a row is 1 out of 4,244 followed by 2,881 zeros.
Conclusion: a naturally forming first-cell is mathematically impossible. That is why famous evolutionary mathematician and astronomer Sir Fredrick Hoyle 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.” Hoyle concluded that the first life needed to have been seeded by some alien intelligence. Evolutionists just do not want to accept God into their worldview.
Let’s go back and pick up on another aspect of the problem which we vaguely touched on, the information problem. Information theorist Dr.Werner Gitt explains that when we find information we always conclude it has been formed by an intelligent mind. If we found the words “John loves Mary” written in the sand on the beach, we conclude that an intelligent person wrote the message. We don’t for a moment postulate that the moving of the waves over millions of years may have naturally formed the message. Nor would we think that seagulls, or turtles, or some stray dogs playing on the beach accidentally wrote the message. We assume correctly from our past experience that an intelligent mind formed the message.
Whenever we see sophisticated information like the above sentence, we conclude it was formed by an intelligent mind. The whole SETI experiment, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence is based on the idea that if we can listen and receive an intelligent message from outer space, that would prove we are not alone in universe. Yet the amount of information found in the DNA molecule is mind boggling. Just a pinhead of DNA it has been calculated is sufficient to make enough books that if they were placed one on top of another you could make a pile of books from the earth to the moon 500 times. Yet scientists argue that DNA must have formed naturally because, as evolutionist Professor of Genetics Richard Lewontin confessed, “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.”
We could also talk about how natural selection does not add new genetic information to the genome. Natural selection in fact deletes information in order to make the organism more highly selected for a particular natural habitat. Natural selection does account for the variation within a certain kind of animal, like the over 1000 different varieties of dogs. But natural selection does not change a reptile into a bird. When natural selection does take place, genetic information is deleted.
We could talk about the inability of mutations to add new genetic information. Mutations also can cause variation in a type of organism. But mutations are not capable of changing the organism into a completely different organism even over millions of years of time. Like Dr. Wildersmith has said, “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.” Neither natural selection nor mutations are mechanisms for adding new genetic information. New genetic information is a must for vertical evolution or molecules to man evolution to take place. 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.”
There is no mechanism for macro evolution, the slow process of molecules to man evolution, to take place. Evolutionists always use examples of variation within a type as their “proofs” of “evolution” taking place. These “proofs” are then magically extrapolated upon by adding millions of years of time to make the changes that neither natural selection nor mutations are capable of making. Time is the great magician.
But rather than go through those arguments any further, I would like to touch on another argument made by Dr. Greg Bahnsen called the transcendental argument. Dr. Bahnsen argues that we all have presuppositions which we bring to the table in any situation. The idea of the “objectively neutral” scientist is a misnomer. Everyone has presuppositions, our belief system, which in effect, monitors or controls the way we process the world around us. Two scientists looking at the very same evidence or “fact” can come to two totally different conclusions. An atheist will look at the Grand Canyon and see “a slow process over millions of years” while a Bible believing scientist will see sediments laid down rapidly by water over a short period of time related to the affects of Noah’s flood.
Presuppositions affect how scientists interpret the scientific information. The evidence does not speak for itself. The rocks do not have dates on them. Even the dating methods that assure us that the rocks are “millions of years old” are formed by scientists with “millions of years” presuppositions. In other words, before they look for a method to prove “millions of years” they are already sure that “millions of years” exist. They are merely looking for a method of dating that can confirm their belief system.
In the past, scientists have made the same mistake. One example is the famous experiment by the Dutch scientist confirming Aristotle’s belief that life started spontaneously. He placed some wheat in a bowl with dirty underwear and noted that two weeks later mice had evolved. What surprised him was that they were adult mice. But none the less it was a confirming experiment to prove the then widely held belief that life started spontaneously. His assumption was that life started spontaneously. Afterward he found an experiment that confirmed his belief system and herald it as proof.
Bahnsen’s argument looks at the preconditions for intelligibility and concludes that only the Christian Biblical worldview is logically consistence and coherent. Let’s take a more in-depth look at the argument.
Bahnsen says that our beliefs must be based on reasonable assumptions and not just arbitrary ones. An arbitrary belief is one that does not have adequate reasons to support it. Our beliefs can be compared to the roof of a building. The roof must be held up by sufficiently strong walls. If the walls are not strong enough to hold the roof, the roof comes down. Arbitrary beliefs do not have sufficient reasons to be believed. Beliefs may have reasons, but the reasons must be sufficient to hold up the belief. To believe that the earth is held up by a muscular man called Atlas is an arbitrary belief. There are not enough reasonable arguments for one to believe that “Atlas” in deed exists.
In the same way, to say that the universe, the laws of nature, and life itself are all the result of an inexpiable accident is insufficient wall mass to hold up the roof, the assumption that the existing universe with its natural laws and life itself created itself.
How can an atheistic, evolutionary, materialistic, naturalistic world view account for the laws of logic, the uniformity in nature and objective morality which we find in life? Why would we expect laws of logic in an atheistic world resulting from an non-caused unguided beginning, a result of a random accident? The laws of logic are universal. They are immaterial. An atheist cannot give good reason why they are true and where they come from. But the Biblical Christian has the God of the Bible who said he made man in His image. He has said, “Come and let us reason together.” Therefore we conclude that the laws of logic are a reflection of how a reasonable, universal, immaterial God thinks.
Likewise, though evolutionists try to produce just so stories for why morality exists, none of them are sufficient coherent and conclusive to hold up the truth that objective morality does exist. Where does conscience come from? Why do we each have that little voice in our head telling us to do good and not to do evil? Again, only the God of the Bible who said he had placed His law in our hearts and minds is sufficient reason for the existence of objective morality. An honest atheist said to me the other day, “The one thing I cannot explain is the voice of conscience. Where does it come from? That’s one thing that bothers me.” It should bother him, because it screams out that his worldview is irrational.
How can an atheist explain the uniformity in nature or the belief that tomorrow will be like today, or that the future will resemble the past? He can only assume that the future will be like the past, but he has never been in the future and made observations or experiments there. Therefore how can he be sure of what the future will be like, especially since he believes the universe itself is a result of a random non-caused cause and that the evolution of life is an unplanned, unguided process? His belief in the uniformity of nature does not follow logically from his assumptions of how and why the universe was created in the first place. But the Christian has God’s Word for it. God has said that while the earth remains tomorrow would be like today for by Him all things consist and are upheld by the Word of His power.
What about the assumption we make that our sensory mechanisms relay to our minds reality. In an atheistic non-caused unguided accidental universe why should we expect our sensory mechanism to give correct information to our minds? Like C.S.Lewis said “If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents - the accidental by-product of the “movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else's. But if their thoughts - i.e., Materialism and Astronomy - are mere accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It's like expecting the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk-jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.” Why should we expect our minds to be able to process sensory information correctly to enable us to think and to make sound judgments if we are a result of an non-caused accident with no purpose or design?
The assumption that our sensory perceptions are relaying reality to our minds is a precondition for intelligibility. But in an evolutionary atheistic naturalistic materialistic worldview, why would we expect to have and find this precondition? Where does it come from? The atheist does not have sufficient reason for his belief. It is therefore arbitrary and illogical. However, the Biblical Christian has God’s Word that He has made man in His image. Therefore we would expect that our body and minds would work in a reasonable fashion. Only the Biblical Christian worldview can account for these preconditions for intelligibility. Only the Christian worldview is logical and reasonable.
In conclusion, we have seen that the evolutionary idea that the egg formed first and slowly evolved into a chicken is false. We have seen that God’s Word gives us sufficient reasons for the preconditions for intelligibility. God’s Word gives us the reasons for the existence of the laws of logic. God’s Word gives us the reasons for the uniformity in nature. God’s Word gives us the reasons for objective morality. God’s Word gives us reasons for believing that our sensory mechanism and brain function coherently and intelligibly. God’s Word gives us reasons for the forming of the universe and the first life forms on earth and the massive amount of information in the DNA. Our belief in God is shown to be reasonable and not arbitrary. God’s Word is shown to be true. God’s Word also tells us that He made the male rooster and female hen first, completely mature. We can conclude with authority from God’s Word that the chicken came first, not the egg. God’s Word says so. God is the author of our beginnings, not evolution!
