The theory of evolution, as set forth by Charles Darwin in 1859, stated that all plant and animal life evolved over long periods of time from simple to more complicated forms through mutation and adaptation. He also taught that only the fittest of each species would survive. He further postulated that the first living cell evolved in a “warm warm little pond” and that it took billions of years for the present diversity of living things to evolve. At the time, it was thought that the few “missing links” in the fossil record would be soon filled.(Darwin, 1927 ).
Today, however, there is today a considerable body of scientific evidence that refutes this entire theory.The findings of the last 50 years both deny the possibility of Darwin’s theory and make a very good case for creationism. Creationism is the belief that all of life came into being suddenly, that it still exists in much the same form, and that the earth is much younger than Darwin thought. The Law of Biogen!esis states that life only comes from life. The Harvard University Nobel Prize winner (in physiology and medicine) George Wald wrote(1954) that “the reasonable view was to believe in spontaneous generation,” (evolution).
He said “the only alternative is to believe in a single, primary act of supernatural creation,” and “there is no third position.” He explains the impossible odds of spontaneous generation, and yet refuses to accept the alternative. Later, he attempted to find whether a single amino acid change in a hemoglobin mutation could be found that doesn’t adversely affect the function of that hemoglobin. He was unable to find such an instance. He also explored the interactions between proteins, amino acids, and oxygen, with energy sources such as the earth’s heat and the sun’s radiation. He concluded that “the overwhelming tendency for chemical reactions to move in the direction opposite to that required for the evolution of life to be the most stubborn problem t!hat confronts us – the weakest link in our argument for the origin of life.”(Wald,1967). Mendel’s Laws explain most of the physical variations observed in living things.
Genes, the genetic units of heredity, are merely reshuffled from one generation to another, but new genes are never formed. Different combinations create variations, but these variations are limited. Each cow, person, dog, etc. has variations, but the genetic units do not permit dog-people, or cow-dogs.
Breeding experiments by competent biologists confirm that these boundaries exist.(Fix,1984). Since mutations are the only mechanism (according to Darwin) by which new genetic material becomes available, then mutations must have occurred regularly to have spawned all our present life forms, and further, mutation must consistently go from simple to complex to have gotten us out of the primordial ooze. However, many noted biologists, including C.P. Martin and Theodosius Dobzhansky (who mutated the fruit fly), consistently report that mutation does produce hereditary changes, but “invariably affec!t it (the organism) adversely.”(Salisbury, 1969). All animals are born with complex organs (the human brain has over a hundred thousand billion electrical connections), and further, all animals are born with fully developed organs. If evolution were occurring, at some point people could expect to see a reptile whose leg was becoming a wing, but they never have.
Darwin himself attempted to answer a question put to him by Harvard biology professor Asa Gray, regarding the eye, and whether the “inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, and for the correct ionospherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection. This seems….. absurd in the highest degree.”(Darwin,1927). Genetic and molecular biologists can now measure the degree of similarity between most forms of life by examining the sequence of the components of a specific protein.
Relationship is established by the number of changes required to convert a protein o!f one organism in to the corresponding protein of another – the fewer changes, the closer the relationship. This comparison can also be made using genetic material. There is NO evidence on the molecular level for evolution. Each of the many categories of organisms appear to be equally isolated. For example, by isolating one protein (cytochromec) from a snake and comparing it with 47 different life forms, it was shown that the rattlesnake was most similar to man, not to any other reptile(based on that one protein).(Gray,1980).
If evolution had occurred, that contradiction, and hundreds of similar ones, could not have been found. Dr. Colin Patterson (1981) was the Senior Principal Scientific Office0r in the Paleontology Department at the British Museum of Natural History, and he said that “evolution was a faith,” and that he had” been duped into taking evolutionism as revealed truth in some way; that evolution not only conveys no knowledge but seems somehow to convey anti-!knowledge, apparent knowledge which is harmful to systematic the science of classifying different forms of life.” (Patterson, 1981). The renowned Carl Sagan tells us that the genetic information contained in EACH CELL of the human body is roughly equivalent to a library of 4000 volumes.
It is difficult to believe that random selection could produce those amounts of meaningful information. Each DNA cell requires 20 different types of proteins; but the proteins can not be produced EXCEPT at the direction of the DNA cell. This “manufacturing system” had to have come into existence simultaneously with the DNA cell. Chemistry Professor John Walton(1977) of Scotland (from whence came the now-famous sheep-cloning) said “the origin of the genetic code presents formidable unsolved problems.
The coded information in the nucleotide sequence is meaningless without the translation machinery, but the specification for this machinery is itself coded in the DNA. Thus without the mach!inery the information is meaningless, but without the coded information the machinery can not be produced!”(Walton,1977). It is far more difficult to believe that this is random evolution than to suppose it is the result of an intelligent creator. Turning to the fossil record as proof of evolution, and proof of the antiquity of the earth, there are also problems.
Evolution demands that it’s subscribers believe fossils were sediment encased over millions of years, but research shows the record is evidence of the rapid death and burial of animal and plant life. For example, many fossils show by the details of their soft, fleshy portions (such as jellyfish) that they were buried before they could decay. Many fossil animals show the contorted positions indicative of violent and rapid mass burial. Further, many fossils have been found that cut across two or more layers of sedimentary rock. Finally, most sediment is laid down by water. (Gould,1977).
All of these facts are more in keeping with what would occur in a worldwide, catastrophic flood. Looking at the gaps between species, as evidenced by the fossil record, paleontology expert and former Dean of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago states that: We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but… we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin’s time. This means that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information-what appeared to be a nice simple progression when relatively few data were available now appears to be much more complex and much less gradualistic. So Darwin’s problem has not been alleviated in the last 120 years and we still have a record which does show change but one that can hardly be looked upon as the most reasonable consequence of natural selection.
Theological record… does not yield a finely graduated chain of slow and progressive evolution… there are not enough intermediates… There arevery few cases where one can look at a part of the fossil record and actually see that organisms were improving in the se!nse of becoming better adapted.”(Raup,1979).
(Again, mutation is generally destructive to the organism.) Since this Chicago museum has one of the largest fossil collections in the world, surely more of these gaps showing the progression of evolution should have been filled. The earliest part of the fossil record is generally considered to be the Cambrian. Here life appears suddenly, full-blown, complex, and diversified. There are brachiopods, mollusks, flowering plants and vertebrates.
This is the antithesis of evolution, and Darwin himself couldn’t explain it. Further, no one, including Darwin, can explain when and how insects came into being, or any transition to other arthropods(Kay,Colbert,1965). Even more strange, in the Grand Canyon, spores of ferns and pollen from flowering plants are found in rocks supposedly deposited some millions of years before life evolved. There are horse-like hoofprints visible in the sesame Canyon rocks. This same phenomenon was discovered in the Soviet Union, also.
Frequently fo!ssils have been found in the same rocks of land, marine and flying animals, all of which Darwin felt evolved at vastly different times(Lammerts,1987). Finally, there are the apes, from which man evolved. Consider the Pilt down man, taught in text books for 40 years, but now universally acknowledged as a hoax. Or Nebraska Man, who was based on what later was found to be a pig’s tooth. The now infamous Louis Leakey went to great lengths to prove Darwin’s theory and make a name for himself. He “discovered” Ramapithecus, a handful of teeth and jaw fragments, and put them together incorrectly to resemble a human jaw.
In 1978, more bones were discovered, and Ramapithecus was just an ape. Leakey also discovered “Skull 1470” which is definitely more human-like and yet older than Homoerectus and the Australopithecines. Perhaps this proves that man is older than his ancestors. Of course Leakey also discovered the very old Australopithecines, the most famous of which is “Lucy.” L!eakey thought she walked upright, but investigation by many others concluded that she did not, she swung from trees and is a type of extinct ape. Not a link, but an ape(Oxnard,1979). Eugene Dubo is discovered Java Man, and 40 years later admitted itwas a gibbon, and he had with held parts of other bones to preclude identification.
Recent studies of Neanderthal man show that, like Cro-Magnon and Heidelberg man, he was NOT stooped and apelike, but was affected by rickets and arthritis. They are men, and artists depiction of them as “ape-like” is unfounded and not supported by the evidence(Rensberger,1981). To support the evolution theory, it is necessary to assume the earth is hundreds of millions of years old. The techniques used to show this include radiometric dating (Potassium-Argon, Rubidium-Strontium, and the uranium-Thorium-Lead methods). However, in over one-half of 800 published dates that were checked, there were major errors found in the methodology.
Geology teaches that each rock strata and it’s fossils indicate vast “ages” of time, with the oldest and least evolved on the bottom. These “Index Fossils” of each strata are then used to determine the age of all similar plants and animals, based on the notio!n that they had to all have evolved at the same time. Geology also invariably dates rock strata formations by the content of the index fossils found with in each strata. This is circular reasoning.
Radio-carbon dating is based on the assumption that the ratio of carbon-14 in the atmosphere has always been what it is today, which is one carbon-14 atom for every trillion carbon-12 atoms. Carbon-14 weighs 14 atomic mass units, rather than the more common 12 atomic mass units. It is called radio carbon because it is radioactive and half of it will decay in about 5730 years to form nitrogen. Half of the remainder will decay in another 5730 year, etc.
Carbon-12 and 14 combine with oxygen to form radioactive carbon dioxide, which then spreads across the atmosphere. Plants absorb it in the same proportion as occurs in the atmosphere, (onecarbon-14 atom for each trillion carbon-12 atoms) and it then passes through the food chain to enter animal tissues, again in this same propo!rtion. When a plant or animal dies, it takes in no radio carbons, and the half-life(5730 years) clock starts ticking. The newer atomic accelerators can actually count the carbon-14 atoms in a fossil, rather than the less precise method of attempting to count the rare disintegration of carbon-14 atoms, which can be confused with other types of disintegration. Eleven of the earliest human remains have been dated at less than 5000 radiocarbon years, using the newer technique.
(Taylor, 1985). Brown(1989) states that the Torah, the Koran and the Bible all describe a worldwide flood, and this flood would change the ratio of radiocarbon-14 to carbon-12 because there would be no forests or plants to recycle carbon dioxide with the atmosphere. With less carbon of both kinds to dilute the carbon-14 that forms in the upper atmosphere (currently at the rate of about 21 pounds per year), the ratio of carbon-14 would increase. Also, the oceans and the atmosphere exchange huge amounts !of carbon dioxide so as to maintain a balance. Aradiocarbon year today could very well be only a year after the flood.
There is considerable archaeological evidence indicating that Noah’s Ark does exist, including ancient writings by Josephus, and Berosus of the Chaldeans. Marco Polo referred to the Ark as being in greater Armenia and, about 1856, three skeptical British scientists and two Armenian guides supposedly found it but refused to publicize the fact. Years later, one of the guides and one scientist independently reported the finding. In 1876 British scholar Sir James Bryce found 2,000 feet above the timberline on Mount Ararat, a piece of hand-tooled wood, four feet long, which he thought was from the Ark.
In 1883, a group of Turkish commissioners came upon the Ark, and described the interior. This was possible because of an unusually warm summer which caused the Ark to project out of the surrounding ice. In 1902, Armenian Georgie Hagopian and his uncle ex!amined the Ark. In 1972, shortly before his death, he tape-recorded a detailed testimony. Several Russians and Turks have reported seeing it and, in 1943, American soldier Ed Davis was stationed in Iran, and he saw it.
He reports that Lourd tribesmen protect it and have removed cage doors and other items from it. George Greene, a geologist, took photos of the two parts of the Ark (it was broken into two main pieces) in 1954 from a helicopter. U-2 pilots in the late 1950’s have seen it. In 1973 a Turkish soldier took Ed Behling to a ledge that over looked the Ark.
All of the sight accounts describe the same size and dimensions, and several TV documentaries have shown aerial photographs(Shockey, 1986). To date, the major impediment to scientific exploration is that Turkey is vehemently non-Christian, and they refuse to let Westerners into the area, nor do they care about climbing a 15,000 foot ice-covered mountain themselves. Dr. Walter Brown(1989), who holds a Ph.D.
In !Engineering from M.I.T.,says there are many earth features whose origin is controversial and involves numerous hypotheses and unexplainable aspects. “Each of these features appear to be best explained as direct consequences of a cataclysmic flood, whose waters burst forth from worldwide, subterranean, and interconnected chambers, with an energy release exceeding the explosion of ten billion hydrogen bombs. It would cause the rapid formation of the Mid-Oceanic Ridge, ocean trenches, salt domes, submarine canyons, the Grand Canyon, coal and oil formations, volcanoes, and earthquakes, glaciers, over thrusts, continental shelves and slopes, and magnetic patterns on the ocean floor.”(Brown,1989). Darwin himself expressed so many doubts about his theory, and yet for almost 150 years it has been considered the basic foundation – the Gospel – of the scientific community. Thousands of text books have been written to present evolution as factual, with only a few tiny, as-yet-undiscovered gaps, and every sci!ence educator spends hours expounding on it. Why do those who are scientists say that they only believe in provable, measurable, experimentally repeatable facts, and yet put so much credence in such a flimsy theory, when it is becoming increasingly more difficult to defend it on any front?REFERENCESBrown, W.T.(1989).
In the Beginning. Phoenix: Center forScientific Creation. Darwin, C.(1927). The Origin of Species.(6th ed.). New York: Macmillan.
Fix, W.R.(1984). The Bone Peddlers: Selling Evolution. New York: Macmillan. Gould, S.J.(1977) The Return of Hopeful Monsters.
Natural History, 86, 6-7, 23. Gray, G.(1980). Student Project “Rattles” Science Fair Judges. Issues and Answers,(12),3. Kay, M. & Colbert, E.H.(1965).
Stratigraphy and Life History. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Lammerts, W.E.(1987).RecordedInstances of Wrong-Order Formations or Presumed Overthrusts in the United States. Creation Research Society Quarterly, 6, 46.
Oxnard, C.E.(1979).Human Fossils: New Views of Old Bones. The American Biology Teacher, 41, 5, 273. Patterson, C.(1981). Prominent British Scientist ChallengesEvolution Theory.(Videotape).Washington D.C.: American Museum of Natural History. Raup, D.M.(1979). Conflicts between Darwin and Paleontology.
Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin,50, (l), 25. Rensberger, B.(1981). Facing the Past. Science 81,(10), 49. Salisbury, F.B.(1969).
Natural Selection and the Complexity of the Gene. Nature, 224, 10/25, 342. Shockey, D.(1986). Agri-Dagh(Mount Ararat): The Painful Mountain. Taylor, G.R.(1983). The Great Evolution Mystery.
New York: Harper & Row. Wald, G.(1954,August). The Origin of Species. Scientific American, 190,46. Walton, J.C.(1977). Organization and the Origin of Life.
Origins, 4, (1), 30-31.
