I’m back at home and have more time in front of the monitor. You seem to have spent some time educating yourself in all manner of topics but you have fallen into the pro-evolution trap that so many before you have perished in.
Creationism and Evolution. In science the "false distinction" fallacy relegates creationism to a different category, thereby falsely nullifying it. To evolutionists, religion often disregards science (illustrated in the church-motivated condemnation of Galileo). Science is described as what is observable, repeatable, and falsifiable. With that definition, creationism is not science. Yet, neither is macroevolution. At best evolution is nothing more than a theory, one that requires far greater faith to believe than that there is a God who created everything.
One of the primary dilemmas of naturalistic evolutionary theory is that it forces scientists to conclude that the cosmos in all of its complexity was created by chance. As biologist Jacques Monod, a Nobel prize winner, puts it, “Chance alone is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, [is] at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution”. Chance in this sense refers to that which happens without cause. Thus, chance implies the absence of both a design and a designer. Reflect for a moment on the absurdity of such a notion. Imagine suggesting that Christopher Wren had nothing whatsoever to do with the design of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Imagine asserting that the majestic Messiah composed itself apart from Handel. Or imagine claiming that the Last Supper painted itself without Leonardo da Vinci. Now consider an even more egregious and absurd assertion — that an eye, an egg, and the earth, each in its vast complexity, are merely functions of random chance. Ironically, Darwin himself found it hard to accept the notion that the eye could be the product of blind evolutionary chance, conceding that the intricacies of the human eye gave him “cold shudders”.
In Darwin’s Black Box, Behe further notes that there are black boxes within black boxes. As science advances, more and more of these black boxes are being opened, revealing an “unanticipated Lilliputian world” of enormous complexity that has pushed the theory of evolution beyond the breaking point. Evolution cannot account for the astonishingly complex synchronization process needed for, say, the shell of a developing egg to form from the calcium that is stored inside the bones of a bird’s body. This shell not only provides a protective covering for the egg but also provides a source of calcium for the developing embryo and a membrane through which it can breathe. Furthermore, evolution cannot account for the complex synchronization process needed to produce life from a single fertilized human egg. “The tapestry of life begins with a single thread”. Through a process of incredible precision, a microscopic egg in one human being is fertilized by a sperm cell from another. This process not only marks the beginning of a new life but also marks the genetic future of that life. A single fertilized egg (zygote), the size of a pinhead, contains chemical instructions that would fill more than 500,000 printed pages. The genetic information contained in this “encyclopedia” determines the potential physical aspect of the developing human from height to hair color. In time, the fertilized egg divides into the 30 trillion cells that make up the human body, including 12 billion brain cells, which form over 120 trillion connections. In Darwin’s day, a human egg was thought to be quite simple — for all practical purposes, little more than a microscopic blob of gelatin. Today we know that a fertilized egg is among the most organized, complex structures in the universe. In an age of scientific enlightenment, it is incredible to think that people are willing to maintain that something so vastly complex arose by chance. As Dr. James Coppedge, an expert on the science of statistical probability puts it, “Chance requires ten billion tries on the average in order to count to ten.” In an experiment using 10 similar coins numbered one through 10, chance will succeed on the average only once in 10 billion attempts to get the number one followed in order by all the rest. Coppedge explains that if a person could draw and record one coin every five seconds day and night, it would still take over 1,500 years for chance, on average, to succeed just once in counting to 10. He goes on to demonstrate the difference intelligence makes by documenting that a child can do in minutes what chance would take a millennium to do. “Chance doesn’t have a chance when compared to the intelligent purpose of even a child”. Even more revealing is the fact that a child playing with the party game Scrabble can easily spell the phrase, “the theory of evolution,” while chance requires five million times the assumed age of the earth to accomplish the same feat.
The real miracle of life is how so many people could stand for such nonsense in the twentieth century. First, how could the protozoa be the first form of primitive life if there were already organisms such as bacteria in existence? Molecular biology has demonstrated empirically that bacteria are incredibly complex. In the words of Michael Denton, “Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small, weighing less than 10-12 gms, each is in effect a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world.” Furthermore, far from being primitive, the protozoa that were thought to be simple in Darwin’s day have been shown by science to be enormously complex. Molecular biology has demonstrated that there is no such thing as a “primitive” cell. To quote Denton again, “No living system can be thought of as being primitive or ancestral with respect to any other system, nor is there the slightest empirical hint of an evolutionary sequence among all the incredibly diverse cells on earth.” Finally, as Coppedge documents, giving evolutionists every possible concession, postulating a primordial sea with every single component necessary, and speeding up the rate of bonding a trillion times: “The probability of a single protein molecule being arranged by chance is 1 in 10161 using all atoms on earth and allowing all the time since the world began…..For a minimum set of the required 239 protein molecules for the smallest theoretical life, the probability is 1 in 10119,879. It would take 10119,841 years on the average to get a set of such proteins. That is 10119,831 times the assumed age of the earth and is a figure with 119, 831 zeroes.”
To provide a perspective on how enormous a one followed by a hundred and sixty one zeros is, Coppedge uses the illustration of an amoeba (a microscopic one-celled animal) that sets out to move the entire universe (including every person, the earth, the solar system, the Milky Way galaxy, millions of other galaxies, etc.) over the width of one universe, atom by atom, at the slowest possible speed. (The universe is 30 billion light-years in diameter — to calculate the number of miles multiply 30 billion by 5.9 trillion.) The amoeba is going to move one angstrom unit (the width of a hydrogen atom — the smallest known atom) every 15 billion years (the supposed age of the universe). Obviously the amoeba would have to move zillions of times before the naked eye could detect that it had moved at all. At this rate the amoeba travels 30 billion light years and puts an atom down one universe over. It then travels back at the same rate of speed and takes another atom from your body and moves it one universe over. Once it has moved you over, it moves over the next person until it has moved over all five billion or so people on planet earth. It then moves over all the houses and cars, the solar system, the Milky Way galaxy, and the millions of other galaxies that exist in the known universe. In the time that it took to do all that, we would not get remotely close to forming one protein molecule by random chance. If, however, a protein molecule is eventually formed by chance, forming the second one would be infinitely more difficult. As you can see, the science of statistical probability demonstrates conclusively that forming a protein molecule by random processes is not merely improbable but impossible. And forming a living cell is beyond illustration. As King David poignantly put it, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Ps. 14:1). Finally, it should be noted that philosophical naturalism — the world view undergirding evolutionism — can provide only three explanations for the existence of the universe in which we live. One: The universe is merely an illusion. This notion carries little weight in an age of scientific enlightenment. As has been aptly put, “Even the full-blown solipsist looks both ways before crossing the street.” Two: The universe sprang from nothing. This proposition flies in the face of both the law of cause and effect and the law of energy conservation. It has been well said, there simply are no free lunches. The conditions that hold true in this universe prevent any possibility of matter springing out of nothing. Three: The universe eternally existed. This hypothesis is devastated by the law of entropy that predicates that a universe which has eternally existed would have died an “eternity ago” of a heat-loss death. There is, however, one other possibility. It is found in the first chapter of the first book of the Bible: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. In an age of empirical science, as in any age, nothing could be more certain, clear, or correct.
The first law of thermodynamics states that energy, the stuff of which the universe is made, can neither be created nor destroyed. Two conclusions follow: (1) the total energy in the universe remains constant; and (2) energy must be self-existent and eternal, exactly what the Bible says about God. Is science promoting energy as "God"? The second law of thermodynamics states that while total energy remains constant, usable energy and order continually decrease as entropy increases. Common sense tells us that all fires eventually burn out. Neither our sun nor the other stars could have been burning forever. There must have been a time when neither stars nor the energy of which they consist existed. Clearly, the universe had a beginning, as the Bible declares: "In the beginning" (Gn 1:1). The conflict between these two laws poses a serious problem for science. Energy could not have been here forever as the first law implies, or, according to the second, ages ago it would have reached the state of maximum entropy, but it hasn't. The contradiction can be resolved in only one way: since energy could not have been created by any means known to science, yet has not always existed, it must have been created by God.
And to follow up, as I had indicated, every so called missing link, steps along our way to becoming Homo Sapiens, has been discredited by secular scientists.
Human evolution has many issues, including the realities of genetics, biochemistry, design theory, irreducible complexity, DNA structure, and information systems. However, the reality of the human fossil record alone is enough to reject the theory of human evolution all together. Here are just a few of the major problems with the alleged fossil record of the past century:
Ramapithecus was widely recognized as a direct ancestor of humans. It is now established that he was merely an extinct type of orangutan.
Piltdown man was hyped as the missing link in publications for over 40 years. He was a fraud based on a human skull cap and an orangutan's jaw.
Nebraska man was a fraud based on a single tooth of a rare type of pig.
Java man was based on sketchy evidence of a femur, skull cap and three teeth found within a wide area over a one year period. It turns out the bones were found in an area of human remains, and now the femur is considered human and the skull cap from a large ape.
Neandertal man was traditionally depicted as a stooped ape-man. It is now accepted that the alleged posture was due to disease and that Neandertal is just a variation of the human kind.
The Current Tree
Human evolution has its currently fashionable specimens that lead from small ape-like creatures to Homo sapiens. These are examples of the most recent alleged links:
Australopithecus afarensis, or "Lucy," has been considered a missing link for years. However, studies of the inner ear, skulls and bones have shown that she was merely a pygmy chimpanzee that walked a bit more upright than some other apes. She was not on her way to becoming human.
Homo erectus has been found throughout the world. He is smaller than the average human of today, with a proportionately smaller head and brain cavity. However, the brain size is within the range of people today and studies of the middle ear have shown that he was just like current Homo sapiens. Remains are found throughout the world in the same proximity to remains of ordinary humans, suggesting coexistence. Australopithecus africanus and Peking man were presented as ape-men missing links for years, but are now both considered Homo erectus.
Homo habilis is now generally considered to be comprised of pieces of various other types of creatures, such as Australopithecus and Homo erectus, and is not generally viewed as a valid classification.
The Most Recent Find
In July 2002, anthropologists announced the discovery of a skull in Chad with "an unusual mixture of primitive and humanlike features." The find was dubbed "Toumai" (the name give to children in Chad born close to the dry season) and was immediately hailed as "the earliest member of the human family found so far." By October 2002, a number of scientists went on record to criticize the premature claim -- declaring that the discovery is merely the fossil of an ape.
Human Evolution: The Theory Has No Support in the Fossil Record
Human evolution is a theory in denial. With all of this fossil evidence (or lack thereof) it becomes increasingly clear to an earnest seeker that human evolution did not happen at all.
Scientific evidence supports microevolution, involving changes that take place within separate species. Creationists have no contention with the concept of microevolution.
The false distinction is between evolution and creationism as "science versus religion" instead of evidence for evolution versus evidence for creationism.
A. E. Wilder-Smith, in his book The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution (T.W.F.T. Publishers), makes a case for both negative and positive mutations (microevolution) working against macroevolution. Negative mutations weaken the creature, a tendency that does not support survival of the fittest; positive mutations make it a stronger creature, helping to preserve its own class. In the latter case, the variations are the means that allow the species to survive distinct from other species.
You seem to believe that religious bias disqualifies. A bias ad hominem fallacy has to do with disqualifying someone's argument simply because the arguer has a special bias in the issue. For example, someone with a religious experience or belief is disqualified from having a valid opinion about his or her own religion. It is fitting to check the soundness of a biased person's argument, but it is wrong to reject the argument solely because of the arguer's bias.
The role of fossils as transitional forms is speculative at best in comparison with documented, trackable microevolution. Yet, evolutionists often use these "proofs" interchangeably as though the reliability of the one naturally follows the credibility of the other.
Evolutionists need to believe in what is best termed the miracle of evolution. If evolutionists debated creationists on equal terms would their position then prove reliable? Not really, because the fallacy known as non sequitur, Latin for "it does not follow", becomes an immediate issue. Microevolution leading to macroevolution, discussed earlier, is an example.
Also problematic is concluding from molecular biology that there is a common ancestry among all organisms. It does not follow that because all life shares a common biochemical basis, that relationship was brought about through evolution. In engineering this type of creative diversity from the same basic building blocks is good design, the result of a designer.
Finally, it does not follow that because religion was wrong about someone like Galileo, it is in error about creationism. The same evolutionists who insist that their own past mistakes should not be held against their position (e.g., promoting false "missing links" such as the Piltdown man) are often unwilling to allow their intellectual opponents to have human failings as well.
Because the above fallacies are common, many people cannot "hear" the scientific evidence for creation, they cannot accept the Genesis account, they cannot listen unbiased to what they consider a biased view. So tell me Vox, which religion, Creationism or Evolution, requires more faith to believe in?
