So What ?

Much of the debate between Darwinists and Christians is over definitions. Many Christians lose the battle before it is even begun because we are not fully aware of the definitions that are being used. Evolution can mean change over time and as such is a fact. However granting that definition of evolution as a fact does NOT grant factual status to every theory Darwin wrote. Darwin wrote two very specific theories of evolution. His general theory, what is now called microevolution, states that there is inherent variability within each species. This is Biblical. God said "bring forth abundantly . . . after their kind" (Genesis 1:24). Within a kind (species) there is great variability (among humans e.g., height, eye color, skin, hair, nose, fingers etc.). However and this is a BIG however Darwin wrote a specific theory of evolution that states that all species evolved from a single universal ancestor, macroevolution. Macroevolution dismisses God as Creator.

Darwin’s “Spiral of Life” is shown as illustrating natural selection winnowing the evolving species in a random lottery of survival of the fittest. The Theory of Evolution is presented as the only scientific theory that offers a solution to the changing pattern of life. To add to the confusion evolutionists frequently point to a Biblical version of creation and say that God spoke animals into existence in a one shot 24-hour sequence of 6 days that were immutable. Since it is obvious that the earliest animals are not still roaming the Earth this is cited as a proof that the Biblical “story” of creation is wrong. (Although brachiopods and stromatolites are ancient species that still exist). They are evaluating the Bible with the same perspective as the Bishop of Ussher, which is a 24-hour, creation day. Bishop Ussher was mistaken in his interpretation of God’s creation timetable. Evolutionists are also incorrect in limiting God’s creative capacity. In His master plan “one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day” (2 Peter 3:8). Christians need to be reminded that God continued to create for six full days. God's last creation acts, as revealed in the Bible, are Adam and Eve. Since modern mankind does not take the stage until approximately 40,000 years ago God had a lengthy and active week.

Evolutionists have also ignored the problem of Mass Extinctions. The Darwinian model, has sought to explain extinction as a slow dying away of species. The extinction of the dinosaurs was explained as a lengthy process driven by environmental change and the failure of species to adapt to new ecosystems. Their extinction was hastened as the temperature on the Earth became too cool or too hot. In either case the vegetation changed. There were fewer lush savannas and when the vegetarians died out the carnivores starved to death. All these scenarios were challenged when the asteroid theory burst onto the scene. Which by the way, did not come from a biologist or an anthropologist. A geologist, Walter Alvarez and his father Luis Alvarez, an astrophysicist dared to challenge the Darwinian supposition of a gradual transition. They proposed the theory of an asteroid impact as causing the extinction of dinosaurs. Neo-Catastrophism -rocked their world. Once the physical evidence -an iridium signature - was verified scientists re-evaluated the fossil record. They began searching for other asteroid impacts. A re-evaluation of the signature of life reveals at least five Mass Extinctions in which over half of the species are rapidly and permanently eliminated from the record of life. After each of the five Mass Extinctions new species, new morphologies appeared. This harmonizes with the repeated pattern of long periods of stasis followed by the sudden appearance of new species that are completely suited to the changed environment.

Darwin knew there were gaps in the fossil record and he wrote his theory with the clear knowledge that if transitional fossils were not found his theory – failed. Before we and our children ingest the theory of Darwinism and the materialism that undergirds it we must re-evaluate it using 21st Century science.

What Darwin Thought Civil War Science 21st Century Science Roadblock

Infinite Time Steady State Cosmology Big Bang Singularity

Infinite Universe Steady State Cosmology Big Bang Finite Universe

Randomness Copernican Principle Galactic Fine Tuning Anthropic Principle

Abiogenesis Fantasia Principle Late Heavy Bombardment No Primordial Soup

Gradual Evolution Spiral of Life Cambrian Explosion Biological Big Bang

Human Evolution Neanderthal Out of Africa Recent Arrival of Adam & Eve

When Darwin wrote The Origin of Species he thought that he had an infinite amount of time within an infinite universe to randomly mix and remix an infinite amount of matter in infinite combinations. The Steady State Cosmology based on infinite time and matter in an eternal universe has been disproven. The Big Bang Theory has been tested and is considered the most accurate theory available (i.e., 99.97 accuracy). The universe was created by a singularity. A onetime event created all matter, energy, space, and time as we know it. Our universe was created ex nihilo- out of nothing. There was no pre-existent matter that clumped together to form stars and planets. There was no black velvety expanse of space that slowly “evolved” into matter. Nor was there even time, as we know it. The creation of all things both seen and unseen required a Creator. A Supernatural being, who exists outside of the matter, space and time that we know.

Darwin's materialism was extended to the cosmos in what is called the Copernican Principle or the Principle of Mediocrity. Carl Sagan was instrumental in spreading this doctrine in which he proclaimed that since there were millions of galaxies filled with billions of stars that Earth was just a mediocre dirt ball in a back water solar system. To add insult to injury the Milky Way is a small galaxy within a Super Cluster. Mankind was a minor player in a galaxy filled with millions of advanced civilizations. The Mediocrity Principle has been replaced with the Anthropic Principle. The Anthropic Principle states that elements of the cosmos had to be fine tuned for humanity to exist. As Freeman Dyson, an eminent physicist and mathematician wrote "The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming."

From the foundation of the universe from the initial nanosecond of the Big Bang very precise parameters and universal presets were in place. The cosmic density, the strong and weak nuclear forces, the strength of gravity, the cosmological constant, all the deep forces of the universe were written on a razor’s edge. If even one of them were different by even the slightest amount the universe as we know it and mankind would not, could not exist. Dr. Martin Rees' book 6 Deep Forces of the Universe focused on the incredible precision that controlled the universe's origin. Additional research has expanded these requirements. Dr. Hugh Ross cites 125 different aspects of the universe that had to be fine tuned or mankind could not exist. While the number may change what is important is the direction of the numbers. The more scientists study the cosmological bedrock the more awesome the creation event becomes.

Rees however, could not accept the possibility that a Creator, God, existed beyond the material universe. He therefore theorized alternate universes or multiverse to avoid accepting a Divine Creator. He speculated that all of the billions of possible universes were generated. The universe in which the Big Bang was followed by the Big Crunch; a universe filled with nothing but hydrogen, a dense universe filled with monster black holes, intense x-ray and closely packed stars. Rees claims we were just lucky and hit the “good universe”. All of which evades the original question. Who created this perfect universe and the billions of other multiverses?

Darwin did not answer the question of the origin of life in his text The Origin of Species. It was much later that he wrote in a letter to a friend about life originating from a chemical process in a warm pool. The now famous primordial soup. Darwin was faced with a difficult situation. In 1861, Louis Pasteur had proven in a series of experiments that abiogenesis was not possible. By sterilizing a beaker of beef broth and then allowing air in but restricting the access of airborne bacteria no life formed. Thus the theory of spontaneous generation or life from non-life was finally and scientifically disproven. Yet here was Darwin proposing that life had in fact arisen from just such a process.

Wikipedia (that marvel of scientific richness) states that spontaneous generation is an obsolete theory regarding the origin of life from inanimate matter. “The disproof of ongoing spontaneous generation is no longer controversial, now that the life cycle of maggots and other pests have been well-documented. However the question of abiogenesis, how living things originally arose from non-living material, remains relevant today…. Spontaneous generation refers to both the supposed process by which life would systematically emerge from sources other than seeds, eggs or parents and to the theories which explained the apparent phenomenon. The first is abiogenesis, in which life emerges from non-living matter. This should not be confused with the modern hypothesis of abiogenesis, in which life emerged once and diversified .” ( Wikipedia 3/24/09 does speak to what most people accept as a fact- cultural mindset.)

Abiogenesis was disproven and discredited in the 19th century by Louis Pasteur- yet “it” is called a modern hypothesis. Because life from non-life, a chemical creation event is fundamental to evolution “abiogenesis" is treated as a special case. For Darwin’s materialistic theory of evolution to make sense there is to be no divine creation event only a randomized chemistry experiment.

I call it the Fantasia Principle because evolution is so often presented like the Disney cartoon Fantasia. There is a swirl of water a lightning bolt and shazam life is formed. A much more insidious and disappointing presentation is that of pseudo-science. In the PBS series “Cosmos” Carl Sagan was guilty of misrepresenting the results of the Miller-Urey Experiment. The sequence shows a smoke filled laboratory setting in which a scientist turns a few knobs and within seconds the orb begins to fill with a reddish liquid. Sagan then states that globs and globs of the very essence of life are easily formed. The Miller-Urey experiment was fatally flawed. The reducing atmosphere that was used for the experiment was the wrong combination for early Earth. The atmosphere was in fact neutral and experiments using the correct atmospheric gases produce only inert compounds. Additionally the oxygen-ultraviolet paradox has never been fully explained. Without oxygen to help provide a ozone layer to protect life there could not have been any prebiotic life. Yet the presence of even minute traces of oxygen stops any prebiotic processes. Finally geochemical analysis of early carbonaceous rocks provides clear data that there was never any primordial soup.

Thwarted by their inability to find the right stuff on earth and the billions of years needed to brew "primordial soup" researchers have retreated to outer space. Many astrobiologists repeat the mantra that all that is needed to create life are a rock and a bucket of water. They continue the conversation as if “we” find water on Mars that life must have once existed there. Or that the water under the ice of one of Saturn’s moons makes it a probable source of life. All of which ignores the research from microbiology about the complexity of life and the failure to find a chemical pathway to create life on Earth.

The Panspermia theory proposes that life is everywhere and was transported to earth via comets or meteorites. If you can’t make - life - here on Earth- then it was done in some – as yet undiscovered place. Which ignores the following problems. Intergalactic space is flooded with hard radiation and ultraviolet light which sterilizes comets, or any attempt to form prebiotic matter in interstellar dust clouds. Any possible prebiotic material arriving on Earth would have to survive an incinerating ride through the atmosphere. Calculations show that even given the possible arrival of prebiotic material via a meteorite the amount would be too minuscule to being the process of building a primordial soup. Life appeared immediately after the Late Heavy Bombardment, a sterilization event. A catastrophic event in which the seas were evaporated and the Earth’s surface was a molten fire pit.

However since life did appear on Earth Darwinists focus on the Spiral of Life. They point to the progression of life from simple blue-green algae to more complex organisms as evolution. Which is using a sleight of hand trick with definitions. Using the definition of evolution as a change across time to gain acceptance as a fact; that acceptance is misapplied to Macroevolution. The one diagram in Darwin’s book The Origin of Species is “The Tree of Life.” Darwin thought it illustrated the process of natural selection. Because Darwin saw humans breed pigeons and sheep to amplify specific characteristics and because he saw diversity among the finches on the Galapagos Islands he thought he had discovered a universal principle. A principle he could extend back through an infinite amount of time to slowly produce all of the varied species that filled Earth. The aspect that Darwin mistook as his engine of creation was randomness. Nature, material processes, functioning in a random way would select the most viable species and eliminate those that were unfit. In a cosmic weeding process the strong would survive and the unfit would be removed. The runt of the litter would not survive. The strongest bull would mate more often and its genes would be dominate. Although Darwin knew nothing about genes he hypothesized that the characteristics would be passed to the next generation. With the discovery of genetics Neo-Darwinism was born.

In Darwin's vision a single creature – the LUCA (last universal common ancestor) appeared and began the process of evolution. From this single root over millions of generations tiny changes generated different species. According to the theory there would be a few species which would create another genus over millions and millions of years. Slowly over millions of generations gradual changes would lead from species, to genus, then families to eventually our current level of diversity. Remember Darwin thought he had an infinite amount of time in which to create new species. Darwin believed that it would take millions of failed creatures to make the very tiny changes to smoothly transition into a new species. Since the creatures had no directed goal there would be more failures than successes. “Nature” did not know it was evolving into a dinosaur or a tiger. Life was merely the outworking of survival of the fittest.

One of the biggest flaws in the evolutionary hypothesis is that life appeared suddenly in the fossil record and it was not crudely made or ill-formed. "The Cambrian Explosion established virtually all the major body forms- Bauplane - phyla that would exist thereafter, including many that were 'weeded out' and became extinct. Compared with the 30 or so extant phyla, some people estimate that the Cambrian Explosion may have generated as many as 100." ( Lewin, p.291). There was no gradual appearance of genus, family, orders and then new phyla. The major morphological grouping that of phyla appears first at the Cambrian boundary.

Darwin was aware of the Cambrian Explosion and knew it was a major roadblock to the Theory of Evolution. He believed that the gaps would be filled by further research. He also wrote that if research did not fulfill his hypothesis by filling in the gaps that his theory would be disproved. Darwin stated that nature makes no jumps, but God does. ( Evolution a Theory in Crisis p. 58).

Over a hundred years of research has found a multitude of fossils however the smooth and gradual transition that Darwin predicted is not there. What is revealed repeatedly in the fossil record is the sudden eruption of life, fully functional and perfectly suited for its environment. Even committed Darwinists (e.g., Gould and Ethridge) have admitted that the fossil record does NOT support the slow and gradual transition hypothesized by Darwin. "The record jumps and all the evidence shows that the record is real: the gaps we see reflect real events in life's history- not the artifact of a poor fossil record." (The Myths of Human Evolution p.59) Which is why Gould and Ethridge devised a new theory of evolution called Punctuated Equilibrium. Their version of evolution hypothesized rapid large scale mutation in an isolated population. This rapid mutation would create the changes needed and not leave any transitional fossils. This small population would then distribute the new species into the larger population. There is however no evidence for this fast track evolution and most geneticists believe that such massive mutations would doom any creature.

What the record of life shows is very little diversity of life at it’s inception and then at the Cambrian boundary as many as 100 different Bauplane appeared. Many scientists believe that the basic morphology (body plans) of all life appeared during this brief period. Through time there has not been a gradual increase in complexity there has been a winnowing of morphological complexity. Phyla have been re-tuned and reconfigured after each of the five mass extinctions.

All of which brings us back to the original problem; how did the Cambrian Explosion originate? Biological systems are extremely complex interlocked systems and the sudden appearance of the new body types and “phyla” would require massive amounts of new biological information. Dr. Stephen Meyer calls it the Cambrian Information Explosion. Think about what was required to initiate the Cambrian Explosion in terms of cell grade. Life went from a single cell layer to highly developed specialized cells and tissue (e.g., legs, eyes, gut, exo-skeleton, circulatory system, brain ). There are different kinds of cells and those cells have to be arranged into tissues. Tissues have to be arranged into organs which in turn have to serve a specific function in the body. According to Neo-Darwinism, new biological forms are created from mutations in DNA, with natural selection preserving and building on the favorable ones. The production of new organs or new Bauplane requires adding new information, not reducing genetic information. It is illogical to argue that a process that loses information can explain the origin of a new type of animal. Natural selection works well as an editor but not as an author. Natural selection has demonstrated the capacity to weed out the failures among what already exists but has not shown the ability to generate new biological information or structures. (Explore Evolution p. 94-95)

There is however no more difficult aspect of Darwinian evolution than the origin of humanity. Are we the cobbled together result of random mutation or are we the special creation of God? The iconography of mankind evolving from some quadruped to an apelike creature, to a bipedal creature which transmutes into a Neandertal is engraved in our social conscious. However, the fossil record, when it is examined without an agenda, does not provide the smooth transformation predicted by Darwinian evolution. The fossil record of hominids is a bushy array that does not lend itself to a clearly delineated lineage. What is clearly indicated are the arrival of different species that persist for a period of time in the same morphological envelope and then go extinct. This is a repetition of the animal fossil record. Trilobites were not transmuting into anything else nor were hominids evolving into humanity. They walked across the stage of history and then vanished. All hominid species other than humanity are extinct.

The fossil evidence correlates with the Bible. The founder population is extremely small, even singular. The lineage of Modern Mankind has been traced through DNA back to a single woman - Mitochondrial Eve and a single male, Y-chromosomal Adam, whom evolutionists assure us is younger than Eve. Adam is traced back to a genetic bottleneck in which only one male line survived. Biblically speaking this would reference Noah and his three sons. Their survival on the ark constituted the single surviving male line. Noah's wife and his sons' wives would have carried a lineage back to Eve establishing her as the older woman. The appearance of mankind is very recent. Those characteristics that are truly human arise suddenly. Mankind is NOT a different kind of animal. Homo habilis the "handy man" in humanities reputed lineage used the same tools for over a million years. The "tool kit" that the handy man used were two stones that he whacked together. A sea otter floats quietly in the ocean on his back and whacks a mussel with a rock to crack it and eat his lunch. Homo habilis' innovation began and ended with his whack a rock technology. The arrival of Modern Man is filled with innovation, inspiration, communication, the domestication of animals, and worship. The stone age was rapidly eclipsed by the bronze age, the iron age, the age of steel and now the space age. Language was shared and then cuneiform, hieroglyphics, the alphabet, printing, and movable type prints human "knowledge" and has pushed us into the blizzard of the information age.

A Christian needs to be discerning and look beyond a single answer. Which is another way of saying “Don’t build your faith on factoids or sound bits from CNN or PBS specials." Neither should your faith be shaken when a paleontologist finds another tooth which he claims is the “true” missing link. The cumulative record of science supports a Biblical view of the universe as planned and created by the master designer in line with His wishes. A plan that was billions of years in the making. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9) God the Creator knew what He was orchestrating when He initiated the Big Bang. God’s timing is perfect. The Great Impactor smashed into the proto Earth at exactly the right time, at exactly the right angle to contribute an iron core to initiate a magnetic dynamo which created a magnetic field to protect the Earth. The precisely timed creation of the moon helped to slow the rotation of the Earth. Slowing Earth from a two-hour day to the 24-hour day we take for granted. The creation of the moon stabilized the Earth’s axis tilt and maintains it at the best angle for seasons and the largest availability of farm land. The formation of the moon set in motion the process of plate tectonics, the rock cycle and ultimately the uplift that produced land masses. Earth’s history, when studied with an open mind, is filled with miracles of precisely timed events that prepared the Earth with resources in anticipation of mankind. God breathed life and a soul into His Creation. There isn’t a single factoid that proves God created the Universe. There are multiple - powerful evidences from physics, chemistry, biology, anthropology, geology, microbiology and even - negative proof - the missing primordial soup. Information from all of these different areas provides the strongest kind of data - cumulative support.

Let’s look at the original question – SO WHAT? So what if Christians have been shut out of the public forum? So what if science, or much of what we have been taught as facts are based on a Darwinian worldview? Science according to the materialistic philosophy which underpins Darwinian evolution states that nothing Supernatural (i.e., nothing that does not exist in the material world) can be studied. This is so deeply engraved in our minds that we protest that there are no other parameters to envision the world. Two plus two is four. Mathematics is neutral and statistical science is the foundation of how we make decisions in a modern technological society. When working with inanimate objects such as soil erosion we can analyze the amount as a yearly quantity given specific factors in a defined region. We can retest the amount over a long period of time and acquire reliable, consistent and valid data. Which has led to the fallacy that humans can be measured and analyzed in the same manner.

"Jane made a 90 on the test", is a numerically based assessment. If the score were on a 100 point scale, then it probably indicates a high percentage of the information was retained for the test. If the 90 were on a 200 point scale, then it represents only 45% of the information and is indicative of a low level of retention. A more complete set of information reveals that Jane is a 12 year-old, 6th grader, who can only identify 90% of the letters of the alphabet. Having removed the data from its context and then forgotten the source or the purpose of the numbers it is possible to build a scenario that has no basis in reality. If we have a number, for the child "Jane," we are safe. We don’t have to look closely. Numbers serve as our talisman to ward off having to make tough decisions.

Conversely, if it were not possible to assign numbers, the information or situations held little relevance in the "real world." Remember the two-tiered system in which ethics, moral fiber, religion and values were defined as intangibles. Within the corporate culture bottom line thinking swept everything before it. As a society we prioritized the cultural agenda and accepted materialism. We accepted the concept that science is neutral and therefore binding on everyone. That which is accepted as fundamental Truth, binding on everyone, is the root from which everything is woven.

As the illustration explains "eugenics is the self direction of human evolution. " The Third Reich is a searing record of what mankind is capable of doing in pursuit of Social Darwinism - applying biological evolution to humanity. The Nazis' applied the concept that certain people should be removed from existence as “unfit for life." Using the full force of a state system and the approval of science Nazi death camps sought to direct human evolution and purify the gene pool. We protest long and loud that we, as a culture, would never do such terrible things as death camps or genocide. Planned Parenthood is a remnant of the eugenics movement. In 1973, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Roe v. Wade that women have a constitutionally protected right to have an abortion. In 1992, the court reaffirmed that right in the case Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Millions of babies are aborted each year in America as unwanted, inconvenient, or even of the wrong gender. The possibility that fetal body parts from abortions are sold is too monstrous to contemplate. Although it is a highly profitable practice once humanity is seen as a "fetal mass". We have returned to our original conversation about Total Truth. Jesus said that the greatest commandment was "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." (Matthew 22: 37) That is a religious and faith statement as well as command from God. It also teaches us how to measure our lives. Those things that we truly believe control what we say, what we do and how we live our lives. What we believe about how the universe was created will control how we live our lives. Are we random bits of chaos selected from an infinite pool of variables over eons, in a cosmic raffle? Or are we the Special Creation of God ?

Since we were created in the Creator’s image we have a mind that can comprehend, in a finite way the many wonders that God created. He left us a means to find Him. Seek and ye shall find me! The Creator of the Universe created a special place for His children. We have been given the stewardship of Earth and the responsibility of passing God’s many gifts to our children. May all who come behind us find us faithful. We must all make a decision - Do you have a soul? Are you a child of God ? The Jewish nation had a powerful love hate relationship with Yahweh, the Great I Am. God sent plagues on Egypt and the final plague was the first Passover. After a string of mighty miracles Israel took possession of the Promised Land. Yet like all humanity they quickly chose other gods and lived in arrogant disbelief. The Prophet Isaiah, in the 8th century B.C., warned Israel of impending doom if they did not repent. Yet God told Isaiah of the futility of his message.

Hearing you will hear and shall not understand,

And seeing you will see and not perceive,

For the hearts of his people have grown dull.

Their ears are hard of hearing,

And their eyes have closed, (Isaiah 6:9 )

In 722 B.C. the Assyrians took the Northern Kingdom of Israel into exile. Jesus when he walked the Earth was asked why he taught in parables. "I speak to them in parables because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand (Matthew 13:13) and then Jesus repeated Isaiah's prophecy. For those who have eyes to see and ears to hear the Hand of God is writ large across the universe.