It is often said that belief in evolution requires more faith than belief in creation. In view of the evidences presented from the two sides, the statement is definitely true. The reason why many scientists support evolution despite the lack of evidence is that they do not want to accept the existence of a Creator God. Without evolution, they have very few alternatives but to admit there is a God. Some of those who understand the difficulties of evolution even try to construct incredible theories such as the planting of life on Earth by extraterrestrial aliens.
o Sir Fred Hoyle and his fellow astronomer Chandra Wickramasinghe proposed in 1978 the extra-terrestrial origin of life, perhaps from a comet.
o Francis Crick, who won the Nobel Prize for helping to discover the structure of DNA molecules, proposed in 1973 that life may have been sent here by alien beings in a spaceship from a distant planet because he believes that it is unlikely that organic molecules of any complexity could survive drifting in interstellar space. He called his theory “Directed Panspermia.”
o
It seems ironic that brilliant
scientists could advocate so fantastic a theory without one shred of evidence
in its favour, all the while rejecting the straightforward explanation given by
one book (the Bible) that has never been proved wrong. [from Grudem,
supplemented from
When the Bible describes how life was created; the phrase “according to its/their kind(s)” is used 10 times in Gen 1. While the word “kind” may not be equivalent to “species” in biology, it is clear that God created different plants and animals, not relying on any hypothetical natural process called evolution. In Job 38:39—39:30, God told Job that he created and designed animal life. He hinted that he prepared special environments for them, e.g. “salt land for his dwelling place” (Job 39:6). In Job 40:15—41:34, God describes His creation and detailed design of the biggest animals on Earth, Behemoth and Leviathan. Some thought that these refer to hippopotamus and crocodile; other believe that these were perhaps whales, or even dinosaurs.
What are the major propositions of biological evolution hypothesis?
[1] Living material has evolved from non-living matter.
[2] All living things (including man) have evolved from the simplest living things through beneficial mutation of genes.
[3] Evolution took place by means of the random operation of existing natural forces (natural selection or survival of the fittest).
Is evolution a scientific theory?
Scientific method includes the following basic steps:
[1] the observation of phenomena,
[2] the formulation of a hypothesis concerning the phenomena,
[3] experimentation to demonstrate the truth or falseness of the hypothesis, and
[4] validation or modification of the hypothesis based on evidences obtained.
The present state of evolution can be described as having passed through the first two steps. The hypothesis has been stated. However, there has been no progress toward any definitive verification of the hypothesis. In fact, the evidences collected so far appear to weigh more heavily toward disproving the hypothesis. If evolutionists can honestly examine the evidences, the evolution hypothesis should either be invalidated or at least greatly modified. Therefore, evolution is certainly not a scientific theory and is best described as a hypothesis.
Even Darwin himself said in 1858 that his book Origin of Species was “grievously too hypothetical.”
What are
the evidences showing evolution hypothesis does not represent reality?
[1] Evidence from
Genetics: (Mutations are ALWAYS bad.)
A creature cannot be anything physically its genes won’t allow. Even after millions of years in the jungle, monkeys would still be monkeys, because they only have monkey genes.
To be a different kind of creature, the genes
must have mutated. Mutations are abrupt alterations in genes. They generally
occur very rarely. According to the evolution hypothesis, an organism develops
some new positive characteristics through a mutation, thus better adapting to
the environment.
However, scientists who specialize in the study of mutations discover that all observed mutations reduce the genetic information, not increase it. No mutations with additional information have ever been observed.
Mutations delete information from the genetic code and never create higher, more complex information. When mutations occur in human beings, they cause birth defects, including death, sterility, hemophilia, sickle cell anemia, cystic fibrosis, Down’s syndrome, and 4,000 other diseases.
Some evolutionists pointed to mutations with beneficial effects. The most common example given: mutations sometimes make bacteria resistant to antibiotics. However, the fact is that mutations that cause antibiotic resistance still involve information loss. The reason for antibiotic resistance can be explained as follows. To destroy a bacterium, the antibiotic streptomycin attaches to a part of the bacterial cell called ribosomes. Mutations sometimes cause a structural deformity in ribosomes. Since the antibiotic cannot connect with the misshapen ribosome, the bacterium is resistant. But even though this mutation turns out to be beneficial, it still constitutes a loss of genetic information, not a gain. No “evolution” has taken place; the bacteria are not “stronger”. In fact, under normal conditions, with no antibiotic present, they are weaker than their nonmutated cousins.
It is often possible to deduce a benefit from information loss. For example, you can argue that a child born deaf gains a benefit for never being able to hear any curse words.
Mutations are inheritable; they do create changes, but the changes are inevitably downward, or at best neutral. Mutations have never been observed to originate a new hormone, organ, or other functional structure. They reduce, but do not generate, biologic complexity.
Can mutations ever be beneficial with an information gain? There is no evidence of the existence of such mutations, despite intense search by Darwinists. Since not even one is observed, it means that they are highly unlikely, or at least unproven. As the validity of evolution depends on billions of beneficial mutations with information gain, the probability of this is virtually zero.
According to evolution, all life began as a single cell. If mutations can only lead to the loss of information, no advanced multi-cell life could ever be the result of mutations.
[2] Evidence from
Origins Science: (The evolution of life from chemicals is
impossible.)
At
However, through advances in biology, we now know that even a “simple” cell contains enough information to fill a 100 million page encyclopedia. Cells consist essentially of proteins; one cell has thousands of proteins, and proteins are in turn made of smaller building blocks called amino acids. Normally, chains of hundreds of amino acids compose a protein, and these amino acids must be in precise functional sequence.
Evolutionists often quote the experiment done by Stanley Miller in 1953. It is used to prove that chemicals can be turned into amino acids. Miller assembled an apparatus in which he combined water with hydrogen, methane, and ammonia (proposed gases of the early Earth), although no oxygen because it created problems for him (see details below). He subjected the mixture to continuous electric sparks. After a week, he discovered that some amino acids had formed in a trap in the system.
Using the result of this experiment, evolutionists conjecture that in the primitive Earth, lightning could have struck a similar array of chemicals and produced amino acids. Since millions of years were involved, eventually the amino acids came, by chance, into the correct sequences. The first proteins were formed. Eventually, thousands of necessary proteins were formed by chance, and they constituted the first cell.
However, there are reasons why Miller’s experiment could not have happened in nature.
[a] A vital part of the experiment was the cold trap where the synthesized products collected as they were formed from chemical reactions. Without the trap, the chemical products would have been exposed to the same energy source (the electrical sparking). In other words, amino acids caused to form by lightning would soon be destroyed by the same agent, lightning.
[b] Time required would have been several years, and with no way to trap the products of synthesis, they could not stay together in the natural environment.
[c] Accumulation of significant quantities of simple organic compounds would have been precluded by the fact that rate of destruction would have far exceeded rate of synthesis.
[d] Only very small quantities of simple organic compounds could have accumulated since ultraviolet radiation penetrating sea water would have destroyed those compounds.
[e] Amino acids and sugars react with mutual destruction.
[f] Most important of all, geologists conclude that the early Earth was probably rich in oxygen. If oxygen was in the atmosphere, it would have destroyed most of those organic compounds by oxidization. For this reason, Miller’s experiment exclude oxygen from the experiment. In other words, the experiment did not replicate primitive Earth conditions.
[g] What happened if the primitive Earth really did not have free oxygen? Then there is another problem. Without oxygen, there would be no ozone. Without the protection of ozone, the solar radiation would have destroyed the organic compounds anyway.
Presume even that Miller’s experiment could work in nature, the probability of getting just one protein by chance would be 1 in 10260 (calculation by evolutionist Francis Crick). In mathematics, odds worse than 1 in 1050 are considered an impossibility. Thus chance could not produce even one protein, let alone thousands of protein that one cell requires.
Moreover, cells need more than proteins; they require the genetic code. In addition, cells also need devices which actually translate the code to be understood. To believe in evolution, we must believe that, by pure chance, the genetic code was formed, and also by pure chance, translation devices arose and transformed the meaningless code into something with meaning. [Today, it is still not possible to synthesize one self-replicating protein molecule in the laboratory under any artificial conditions, such as applying extreme high temperature, extreme high pressure, and whatever chemical compounds available.]
Evolutionist Thomas Huxley was once reported
to have use an example to make his case for chance origins. He said that 6
monkeys, poking randomly at typewriters, and given enough millions of years,
could write all the books in the
Question: what are the odds of a monkey correctly typing one predetermined 9-letter word, such as “evolution”? Let us assume that the typewriter has only 26 letters and no other symbols. The probability of typing “evolution” once correctly is 26 to the power of 9, equal to 5,000,000,000,000 (5 trillion) attempts. Presume the monkey can type 10 letters per minute; it would take over one million years to type one 9-letter word correctly. To type two consecutive predetermined 9-letter words would take more than a billion billion years. [In comparison, many scientists believe that the universe began in a Big Bang explosion 15 billion years ago.] If a monkey started typing at the time of the Big Bang, he had only enough time to type correctly one predetermined word of 12 letters.
o Another similar example was attributed to Fred Hoyle and quoted in Philip Johnson’s book Darwin on Trial: “That a living organism emerged by chance from a pre-biotic soup is about as likely as that ‘a tornade sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.’ Chance assembly is just a naturalistic way of say ‘miracle.” No wonder he supported extraterrestrial origin of life.
To explain the beginning of life by chance happenings based on probability is unbelievable. An evolutionist scientist Dr. Morowitz formulated a model to calculate the probability for the formation of the smallest living organism by random process. He comes up with a probability of one chance in 10340,000,000. Yet he and his fellow evolutionist scientists still believe that it happened!
[3] Evidence from
Biochemistry: (Biochemical systems do not allow
step-by-step evolution.)
Biochemical systems are very complex. If any component was missing, the system would have no function. It is termed “irreducible complexity.”
For example, blood clotting is a very complex process involving more than a dozen steps. A person with just one clotting factor missing has hemophilia and is at risk for bleeding. If blood clotting had evolved step-by-step over long periods of time, creatures would have bled to death long before blood clotting was ever perfected.
For example, the immune system requires white blood cells (macrophage), B cells, and 4 kinds of T cells. Without any of these kinds, immunity will not work. If evolution caused the existence of these cells one after another. Diseases would have wiped out all creatures long before the immune system could have been perfected.
Biochemical systems, such as human vision, are also irreducibly complex. They cannot have evolved step-by-step because individual parts of the organ are useless unless the entire organ is functioning.
An amusing example of the need for all the parts of a complex organic system to be put in place at once is pointed out by Robert Kofahl and Kelly Segraves in their book, The Creation Explanation: A Scientific Alternative to Evolution. [from Grudem]
o The “Bombardier beetle” repels enemies by firing a hot charge of chemicals from two swivel tubes in its tail. The chemicals fired by this beetle will spontaneously explode when mixed together in a laboratory, but apparently the beetle has an inhibitor substance that blocks the explosive reaction until the beetle squirts some of the liquid into its “combination chambers,” where an enzyme is added to catalyze the reaction. An explosion takes place and the chemical repellent is fired at a temperature of 100°C at the beetle’s enemies.
o The book rightly asks whether any evolutionary explanation can account for this amazing mechanism: “Note that a rational evolutionary explanation for the development of this creature must assign some kind of adaptive advantage to each of the millions of hypothetical intermediate stages in the construction process. But would the stages of one-fourth, one-half, or two-thirds completion, for example, have conferred any advantage? After all, a rifle is useless without all of its parts functioning…. Before this defensive mechanism could afford any protection to the beetle, all of its parts, together with the proper explosive mixture of chemicals, plus the instinctive behavior required for its use, would have to be assembled in the insect. The partially developed set of organs would be useless. Therefore, according to the principles of evolutionary theory, there would be no selective pressure to cause the system to evolve from a partially completed stage toward the final completed system…. If a theory fails to explain the data in any science, that theory should be either revised or replaced with a theory that is in agreement with the data.”
[4] Evidence from
Fossils: (Missing links are ALL still missing.)
Evolutionists made up a “tree of life” to explain how life forms branch out. At the tree’s bottom is a single-celled creature. According to evolution, this little organism gradually evolved into the first invertebrates such as jellyfish.
Cambrian rock is the low geologic layer containing most of the oldest known invertebrate fossils. In it, we find literally billions of fossils of invertebrates: clams, snails, worms, sponges, jellyfish, sea urchins, swimming crustaceans, etc. But there are no fossils demonstrating how these creatures evolved. For this reason, we hear of the Cambrian “explosion.”
Supposedly, invertebrates evolved into the first fish. But despite billions of fossils from both groups, transitional fossils linking them are missing.
According to evolution, one species was
evolved into another species through a large number of small changes through
mutations. That is why
If evolution hypothesis is true, the geologic
fossil record should reveal the innumerable transitional forms
There are a handful of questionable fossils, thought to be missing links. They include:
[a] Piltdown Man (1912): claimed to be a transitional form between ape and man. It was validated by many British leading scientists to be 500,000 years old. It was finally determined in 1953 to be a deliberate fraud. It was in fact a very recent orangutan jaw, its teeth filed down to make them more human-looking, planted together with a human skullbone, stained to create an appearance of age. Chemical tests, such as nitrogen loss or fluorine uptake, then showed that none of the human bones could be more than a few centuries old.
[b] Archaeoraptor (1998): found in
[c] Coelacanth: a bony fish claimed to be a missing link between
fish and amphibians. It was regarded as an index fossil in the Jurassic rock
and thought to be extinct 70 million years ago. A live one was caught off the
African coast in 1938 and another caught near
The reason why biologists can be misled by a fossil is because 99% of an organism’s body is in its soft anatomy. When only the bone is left, there can be unlimited ways to speculate what the organism originally looks like.
All the missing links are still missing. All life forms appear in the fossil record with no trace of how they evolved. Most new species, genera, and families appear quite suddenly, without ancestors, only a few with possible but disputed links; all new order, classes, and phyla are without ancestors. Most fully formed species appear suddenly without transitional forms.
Since there is no transitional forms, the links between organisms on the tree of life are purely speculative. That is why different biologists construct different trees of life and they is no consensus.
[5] Evidence from
Taxonomy: (There are NO living intermediates between
groups.)
Taxonomy is the science that classifies plants and animals, grouping them by characteristics they share, assigning organisms by kingdom, class, and species. The pioneer of taxonomy was Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778) who strongly opposed evolution. He saw that the larger divisions of living organisms were distinctly divided by large gaps, without overlaps.
If there is evolution of species, we should not see distinctly different groups, but living intermediates between these groups. Evolutionists acknowledge the missing intermediates but say that they must have become extinct. Yet there are not even fossils of any intermediates.
The biochemical “relatedness” between various plants and animals does not support evolution. The difference in anatomy proved to be much wider under careful examination.
o Listed here are all possible ranks, with non-obligatory ranks in brackets:
o Kingdom, [Subkingdom,] Phylum, [Subphylum, Superclass,] Class, [Subclass, Infraclass, Cohort, Superorder,] Order, [Suborder, Superfamily,] Family, [Subfamily, Tribe,] Genus, [Subgenus,] Species, [Subspecies]
[6] Evidence from
Molecular Biology:
(Molecular biology demonstrates the large
GAPS between species.)
Evolutionists believe that fish evolved into amphibians, which then evolved into reptiles, then vertebrates, then mammals, then primates, then humans.
If evolution follows a sequence, then fish must be much closer to amphibians than to humans.
Research of different animals on a molecular level disputes the validity of evolution. An analysis was done on the molecular structure of cytochrome C, a protein involved in producing cellular energy, found in organisms ranging from bacteria to man. The study shows that fish are just as distant from amphibians as fish are from humans.
Molecular biology has served to emphasize the enormity of the gaps between different species.
[7] Issue of Natural
Selection: (Explanation using natural selection has been
abandoned.)
Evolutionists explain how reptiles evolved into birds: Reptiles wanted to eat flying insects that were out of reach. So the reptiles began leaping, and flapping their arms to get higher. Over millions of years, their limbs transformed into wings by increments, their tough reptilian scales gradually sprouting soft feathers.
According to natural selection (survival of the fittest), a physical trait is acquired because it enhances survival. Yet many natural phenomena undercut the theory of natural selection.
o Obviously, flight is beneficial. Why didn’t all advanced species possess flight since it is a beneficial trait?
o Since the evolution process is still ongoing today, why aren’t at least some reptiles develop feathers?
o Existence of many organisms contradict adaptation and natural selection, eg. snakes live on the ground, but there is no grass eating snake; birds live on trees but there is no leaf eating birds.
o The complex eyes of insects are obviously more advanced than simple eyes of mammals. Unlikely our eyes, they can detect enemies approaching from all directions. Why would all advanced life forms give up the advantage?
Because of these evidences, the modern scientific position (including the one held by evolutionists) is that the struggle for existence plays no part in evolution. This is a retreat from the position of natural selection.
[8] Insufficient time:
(Earth’s history is too short for evolution.)
Even with Huxley’s generous estimate of one mutation (harmful or beneficial) every one million births, the 4.5 billion years are too short for cooling down of the earth, synthesis of inorganic matter into organic matter, and evolution of one-cell plant to human.
What are the difficulties about the evolution hypothesis, even if we accept that many mutations are beneficial?
[1] Assumption 1: one mutation per million births
o Julian Huxley estimated that the rate of inheritable mutation (harmful or beneficial) was around one in every million births. This optimistic figure has not been proved. Let us PRESUME his figure is correct.
[2] Assumption 2: all mutations beneficial
o The evolution to higher species requires inheritable “beneficial mutations with information gains”. Occasionally, some mutations may appear to have beneficial effects but all these are results of information loss. No existence of such”beneficial mutations with information gains” has ever been observed. However, let us PRESUME that EVERY mutation has such characteristics.
[3] Assumption 3: one mutation to evolve into the next species
o For one species to evolve into the next higher species, thousands of “beneficial mutations with information gains” are required. Thoretically, there are innumerable number of transitional forms between one species and the next higher species. Not even a single proven transitional form has been observed. However, let us PRESUME that no transitional forms are required, and that ONE “beneficial mutation with information gains” is required to evolve into the next higher species.
[4] Assumption 4: at least a male and a female of the new species are born carrying the same mutations
o For this new species to propagate, the mutations need to occur in at least one male and one female of the species. However, let us PRESUME again that this ALWAYS occurs for EVERY step up the evolutionary ladder.
[5] Result: 1 member of the higher species per 1 million members of the lower species.
o What do we have after all these assumptions?
o Presume Species A evolved into Species B which in turn evolved into Species C. Then there will be 1 member of Species B for every 1 million members of Species A. Similarly, there will be 1 member of Species C for every 1 million members of Species B. In other words, for every 1 member of species C, there should be 1 million million (1 trillion) members of species A in the world. If humans were evolved from apes and apes from monkeys, then for every human, there should be 1 trillion monkeys in the world. Again, for every human, there should be 1036 members in the each of the thousands of species 5 steps below us. This is of course not what we find in the world.
o Furthermore, the ratio should be much much larger because this ratio (1 million to 1) is based on a 100% success rate for all 4 assumptions above. If only one of the 4 assumptions fails even once, the ratio will be double. In other words, the ratio between species from consecutive steps should be much larger than 1,000,000:1.
o How high can this ratio be? Before answering this question, let us guess what the next more advanced species evolved from human beings would be like. Among the 4 primates, gorilla has the largest average brain size. The average human brain is 2.5 times larger than the gorilla’s. Perhaps we can expect the super-human species to have a brain 2.5 times the size of the human brain. We have not seen one such super-human among the 6 billion people presently on Earth. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the ratio between consecutive species is at least 6 billion to 1. In other words, when in history, the evolution process succeeded to produce one human being, there should be over 6 billion apes on Earth at the same time.
† Our faith does not depend on whether the evolution hypothesis is proved valid or not. However, objecive facts prove that the use of evolution to account for the origin of life is groundless.
†
We have to keep a skeptical eye
on all the pronouncements of proof to evolution. Don’t blindly believe them.
There has been no definitive evidence that can stand under scrutiny since