Evolution

Mark Dunagan
02/13/11 - Sunday Evening

Evolution 2011

Every now and then I find it profitable to go back and look at a topic and see what the landscape looks like this year. Here are some things I either recently discovered or remembered concerning the controversy surrounding Evolution and Creation.

What Evolutionists Believe

When the British Museum of Natural History celebrated its centennial by opening a new exhibition on Darwin's theory, it offered an accompanying brochure that stated, "The concept of evolution by natural selection is not, strictly speaking, scientific". A report in Naturequoted what one of the Museum's senior scientists was telling the public in a film lecture: "The idea of evolution by natural selection is a matter of logic, not science... We can't prove that the idea is true, only that it has not yet been proved false. It may one day be replaced by a better theory" (See: Darwin on Trial, Phillip E. Johnson, pp. 163,168), thus:

• The Theory of Evolution is more of a metaphysical theory or faith, than an established scientific fact. One biologist noted, "We have no absolute proof of the theory of evolution" (Darwin on Trial, p. 168).
• Scientists who hold to the Darwin version of Evolution equally believe that the universe is a closed system of material causes and effects. That is, no God and no supernatural intervention. Stephen J. Gould said, "Before Darwin, we thought that a benevolent God had created us." Because of Darwin, however, we have learned that, "no intervening spirit watches lovingly over the affairs of nature... And whatever we think of God, his existence is not manifest in the products of nature." (Darwin on Trial, p. 193). Thus the philosophical foundation for believing in Evolution is naturalism, that is, there is no God and no spiritual realities; everything that exists is pure matter.
• Evolutionists reject God for a couple of reasons: 1. First, they are committed to a purely materialistic way of viewing the world, holding to Evolution because there is yet no better alternative, for their way of viewing reality will not allow them to even consider spiritual realities. 2. They believe Evolution is true and can't see God using what they believe to be a "wasteful system." One writer noted, "No biologist can deny the possibility that God created man, few would doubt that, if He did so, the mechanism that Darwin discerned was the one that He chose to use" (Darwin on Trial, p. 170). "David Hull's review in Natureinsisted that scientific rationality requires adherence to naturalism, and that Darwinian theory implies a Creator who would have to be wasteful, indifferent to his creatures, and almost diabolical" (Darwin on Trial, p. 195).
• Evolutionists believe that the wonders of the world merely look like they have been designed, but they have not.
• They believe that a "fundamentalist" is anyone who believes in a Creator who plays an active role in earthly affairs.
• They say that the recognition of a supernatural reality amounts to nothing more than superstition and to an abandonment of science.

"To theists, on the other hand, the concept of a supernatural Mind in whose image we are created is the essential metaphysical basis for our confidence that the cosmos is rational and to some extent understandable (that is, science only exists because a wise God made a world that is designed and operated by logical, understandable and predictable laws). Scientific naturalists insist, paradoxically, that the cosmos can be understood by a rational mind only if it was not created by a rational mind" (Darwin on Trial, p. 198). In other words, logic, reasoning and fact-finding, or science, can only exist if we accept the premise that the universe is an unplanned accident, with no purpose, rational, meaning, goal or wisdom behind it.

What Evolution Touches

What you believe about evolution touches everything in your life. It is not just a theory in biology, but rather it is probably the most important dogma in the religion of scientific naturalism. Julian Huxley noted that, "all aspects of reality are subject to evolution, from atoms and stars to fish and flowers, from fish and flowers to human societies and values" (Darwin on Trial, p. 185). It is a religion with its own value system of plan of "salvation" through social and genetic engineering. It will affect everything from how you parent, to how you deal with trauma, to how you view others, to how you process the reality of your mortality, and everything in-between.

More Than One Kind

The most popular theory of Evolution in this country is the Darwinian variety, but this is not the only theory of Evolution that exists. Marxists tend to prefer a model of evolutionary change that proceeds by rapid bursts rather than by constant gradualism, because it fits with their view that social change occurs by a revolutionary leap from one kind of state to another.

The Weaknesses in Evolutionary Theory

• There is no explanation for the origin of life itself. If the claim is made that everything came from nothing or that life first came from non-life (spontaneous generation) then we are in conflict with what we actually know about the Laws that govern this universe.
• There is a clear lack of transitionals in the fossil record, not merely a few missing links, but no chain of links from one species to another.
• There is a sudden explosion of complex life forms at the beginning of the Cambrian age, with no prior ancestors. Life simply explodes into existence in the fossil record, not just simple life or the beginning of life, but complex life.
• The fossil record is not a record of gradual and quiet change, but of huge catastrophic events that wiped out vast amounts of life.
• The theory of punctuated equilibrium advocated by some prominent Evolutionists contends that nothing happens for millions of years and then evolution suddenly happens in a short bursts contradicts the Darwinian theory of slow and gradual change.
• The difficulty of explaining the chance origin of the genetic code.

Specifics: Natural Selection

One of the most distinctive features of Darwinism, is that it is claimed that the process of Evolution was guided by natural selection or "survival of the fittest". It is claimed that this force is so powerful that it can begin with a bacterial cell and gradually craft its descendants over billions of years to produce such things as trees, flowers, insects, birds and man. When Darwin wrote The Origin of the Species, he could not offer any proof of natural selection, rather he drew an analogy between natural selection and the activities of those who breed animals. When attempting to prove that Evolution has happened I find most people making the same mistake. They take the example of horizontal change within a group of animals, like the differences we see in horses or dogs and then use this as proof that man has evolved from a single cell by accident. But cell to man Evolution is vertical change, not horizontal change. It is not change within a group, but change that creates new groups.

What we have learned from animal breeding

• Productive animal breeding takes intelligence and specialized knowledge, yet the point of Darwin's theory, was to establish that purposeless natural processes can substitute for intelligent design and planning.
• Breeders produce variations in animals for purposes absent in nature, such as "cuteness", or novelty. Many breeds of dogs or cats would not exist today if breeders had said, "We only want animals who can survive in the wild". When domesticated animals return to the wild, the most highly specialized breeds perish and the survivors return to the wild type. This proves that nature is not into making new species, rather, nature is a conservative force that prevents the appearance of the extremes of variation that human breeders like to encourage.
• Animal breeding has proven that the kinds are fixed (Genesis 1:11). There is a definite limit to the amount of variation that even the most skillful breeders can achieve. Breeding domestic animals has produced no new species. All dogs form a single species because they are chemically capable of interbreeding. If after 5000 plus years of intelligent breeding, man has failed to produce even one new species, this stands as proof that time and mindless chance could not do better.

Specifics: The Fossil Problem

• The first group of people to oppose Darwin were not preachers, but fossil experts.
• What the fossil record shows is that all life suddenly appears, it appears as complex life forms, life appears as distinct species without any evolutionary chain
• Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking pretty much the same as when they disappear.
• In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and fully formed.
• Species that once were thought to have turned into others turn out to overlap in time with their alleged descendants.
• The fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another.
• The fossil record is a record of mass extinction, world-wide destruction (2 Peter 3:1ff) rather than a low gradually peaceful change over billions of years.

If Evolution is true, how did Evolution always happen in a manner that escapes detection?

Mark Dunagan/Beaverton Church of Christ/503-644-9017
www.beavertonchurchofchrist.net