Evolution may be one of the most hotly debated theories. It originated around
550 BC when Greek
philosopher Anaximander suggested that life originated in the sea and was
modified to become all the creatures we see today. Throughout history some type
of "evolution" was a part of some schools of scientific thought although Darwin,
in the 1800's was the first to attempt to present evidence about this theory.
Evolution attempts to explain how complex beings like man came to be, on earth.
For some scientists, belief in God and belief in evolution would not conflict
because they say that the account of the creation in the Bible could be said to
being stating WHO created and science could be telling HOW things were created.
That being said, it seems to be that more and more in modern thought, those
scientists who do believe in God feel that the Bible might actually telling us
HOW God created as well.
I have researched this on and off for almost 30 years since I first read the issue of Scientific American which was dedicated to Evolution after which I became aware of the fact that the theory of evolution has some rather serious flaws.
Asking scientists who believed in and taught evolution has been of little help.
* Confront a scientist with these problems about evolution and their answer is "Well we know it has many problems but it's the best we have to explain nature!"
This seems a bit confusing to me, though to teach a theory as scientific fact to our children in school about which even the most ardent believers admit has serious (and some fatal) flaws!
I have touched upon a few points here - surely there are many more things one could discuss on this subject.
We know, of course, that "natural selection" (or "survival of the fittest") does exist to at least a SMALL degree - we have observed this. But is there any proof of the prevalent theory that animals actually "evolved" from simplier creatures to more complex creatures? In a word, NO.
* Since the 1920's, geneticists have bred quadrillions of generations of fruit flies, their favorite experimentation media. However in all these generations, although some structural changes were observed (fruit flies born without wings etc), the fruit fly never "evolved" into another species. It remains after all those generations, STILL the fruit fly! Either the fruit fly is a "perfect species" or evolution comes in question... surely in all those generations, we should have seen the fruit fly "evolve" to something different, shouldn't we have?
* Another species which has remained virtually the same for millions of years, is the cockroach. Again, is this the perfect species? If not, why didn't it "evolve"?
* The Sept 1978 Scientific American was dedicated to evolution. One interesting point which was made was that they had never found the link between a polymer (complex protein molecule) and the simplest form of life, which is now considered to be the bacterium.
* It should be noted that the "simplest form of life" the bacterium, is ANYTHING but simple. In fact, In fact, it's a highly complex creature that comes in many varieties. It can even sense when it needs a certain trait and receive the necessary DNA for that trait from another bacterium, living or dead! Bacteria are also involved in supporting many types of more complex life including humans." The way some bacteria propel themselves, the flagellum, is a feature of complex design. A very strong point can be made that even this most simple type of life, some of the the complexities of which continue remained unexplained, could have NEVER "just happened" - it would have HAD to be cleverly engineered!
* In a course I took, the text book stated that scientists had never been able to re-create any of the DNA building blocks, "nucleotides" - even though they had totally synthesized the so called "primordial soup" conditions and had worked on this for years. I went to the local university to ask the best scientists we have here, if this statement in the book was true. The scientists I asked about this told me the statement in the book was true and they had not been able to recreate the simplest building block of life as yet.
* National Geographic Magazine observed, in an issue about Australia that animals seemed to have developed there in a different sequence from other places with some of the more complex species appearing BEFORE the simpler ones! (Australia is isolated so a good chance to observe "evolution" if it indeed exists).
* Finally, no one has been able to finding "the missing link" to modern man or "homo sapiens" ("wise man"). Early species of man are thought dead ends, physically too different from homo sapiens (what we are) to be a link and besides, there is some evidence that some of these species may have existed concurrently with homo sapiens.
So, the niggling questions remain? How did protein molecules turn into DNA or living entities? Where did homo sapiens come from?
Hardcore evolutionists want us to believe that complex forms of life "just happened" ("spontaneous generation"), had no engineering, just were coincidences (this to try and deny, the existence of God, of course).
* "I do not want to believe in God. Therefore I choose to believe in that
which I know is scientifically impossible, spontaneous generation leading to
evolution." George Wald (Nobel prize for Medicine in 1967). George Wald,
"Frontiers of Modern Biology on Theories of Origin of Life" (New York:
Houghton Mifflin, 1972), p. 187.
The problem with this is, the rule of the universe is "entropy" i.e. if left alone, the flow is from the complex to the less complex and so to say that higher forms evolved from less complex forms is saying this evolving is going against all the scientific laws we know and defying 'entropy'. The only way we know of overcoming 'entropy' is by the intervention of an outside intelligent, purposeful force. This would indicate that even IF complex forms had "evolved" from simpler ones, the intervention of an intelligent Force would have been necessary.
Can things "just appear" with no engineering?
For example, points out Levin in THIS PERFECT DAY if we visited Mars and saw a Nikon camera lying on the ground, we might think that the Russians beat us to landing there or that some other visitors had left the camera or even that the camera proves intelligent life might exist on Mars. But none of us would believe that the camera just "happened". We know that it is only, complex extensive engineering which will result in creating a good camera. What greater amount of engineering had to go into the human body?
Thus evolution seems to be NOT be the best explanation of creation. Seems to me with the heavy logical proofs and the total lack of scientific proof, the best explanation of where homo sapiens came from may be ... in the Bible. God created!
"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries." - Astrophysicist Robert Jastrow, a self-proclaimed agnostic.
Sue Widemark
Sources:
Scientific American Sept 1978, on evolution
National Geographics
Wile et al: EXPLORING CREATION WITH BIOLOGY (IN, 2005)
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