‘Again the lightning struck and flung the heap high into the air. Some of the nuts were near enough to the bolts to respond to an inherent attraction and screw themselves together capturing another component in the process and so were selected for the developing plane. Other pieces fell uselessly as unwanted debris and so were not selected. After repeated lightning the major units were formed: engines, panel instruments, struts, fuselage, tanks, seats and lavatory pans.
‘Coincidentally an earthquake ruptured the strata and released oil from an anticline. The oil spouted and poured itself into the tanks, refining and separating into grades on the way.
‘A final burst of lightning flung everything up into the air. There were far more parts than those required by any one aeroplane, but those which were lucky enough to fall into a viable position made up a complete airliner which throbbed into life and made a safe landing.’14
Although this story is fictitious, what the author is trying to show is that people would rather believe in evolution (the ludicrous story of how the aeroplane came into existence) than believe in God the Creator (the manufacturer of the aeroplane). This same thought was expressed by the late Professor Sir Fred Hoyle and his collaborator Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe of Cardiff University who, after studying the amount of information in the genetic code of living systems, expressed the view that the chances that higher life forms could develop via purely natural processes from non-living chemicals ‘is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein …’15 I once used this argument when I was giving a lunchtime talk on behalf of the Christian Union in the Biology department at Cardiff University. A research scientist came up to me afterwards and suggested that the formation of a jumbo jet as a result of a tornado going through a junk yard could be achieved if all the pieces of junk in the junk yard wanted to become part of a jumbo jet! I was amazed at this suggestion and pointed out to him that pieces of junk are lifeless and therefore do not have desires in the way he had suggested. Although he agreed, this scientist then confessed to me that he believed that every carbon atom in the entire universe wanted to become part of an organic molecule that was part of a living system. He told me that he had to believe this, because if he did not, he would have to believe in creation and therefore in a Creator God—and he did not want God telling him what to do in his life! I found—and still find—it remarkable that this intelligent research scientist chose to believe such nonsense about carbon atoms having desires and feelings rather than believe in the loving Creator God of the Bible.
Conclusion
The synthesis of amino acids in experiments such as those conducted by Stanley Miller is a long way from the synthesis of the simplest living cell, comprising, as it does: a membrane that is made in such a way that it is permeable by some substances but not by others; mitochondria, where energy is produced so that the cell can function; ribosomes, which play such an important role in the production of proteins; and a nucleus, with its chromosomes (composed of DNA) which act as a blueprint or master tape so as to ensure that the cell reproduces an exact replica of itself. Finally, the simplest living cell possesses life—that intangible element that presents a problem of such magnitude that chemical evolutionists are unable to give a satisfactory answer to the question of its origin. To believe that life came about by mere chance chemical and physical processes can therefore only be described as an immense exercise of blind faith, contrasted with the rational faith of creationists.
Notes
1 Stanley L. Miller, ‘A Production of Amino Acids under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions’, in Science, vol. 117 (1953), pp. 528–529.
2 Hayley Birch, ‘Stanley Miller’s Iconic “Primordial Soup” Experiment Re-examined’, in Chemistry World, 5/11 (2008), p. 22.
3 Antonio Lazcano and Stanley L. Miller, ‘The Origin and Early Evolution of Life: Prebiotic Chemistry, the Pre-RNA World, and Time’, in Cell, vol. 85 (14 June 1996), pp. 793–796.
4 See ‘Iron–Sulfur World Theory’ at: en.wikipedia.org.
5 J. Oro, ‘Mechanism of Synthesis of Adenine from Hydrogen Cyanide under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions’, in Nature, vol. 191 (1961), pp. 1193–1194.
6 Sidney W. Fox, Nature, vol. 205 (1965), p. 328.
7 Duane T. Gish, Speculations and Experiments Related to Theories on the Origin of Life: A Critique (San Diego: Institute for Creation Research, 1972), p. 30.
8 See Jacques Monod and A. Wainhouse, (tr.), Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971), pp. 94–96.
9 M. J. E. Golay, ‘Reflections of a Communication Engineer’, in Analytical Chemistry, 33/7 (1961), pp. 23A–36A.
10 See, for example, John Noble Wilford, ‘Life’s Origin: A Scientist’s Search for the Very Beginning’, in New York Times, 23 February 1982, at: nytimes.com.
11 ‘Professor Werner Gitt’s Conclusions from the Information Found in DNA’, from The Good News, May/June 2005, at: gnmagazine.org.
12 In 1931, Sir James Jeans, in his book The Mysterious Universe, attributed this quote to Thomas Huxley, who was supposed to have said it in his famous debate with the Anglican Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wiberforce, at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held on 30 June 1860. However, in 1860, the typewriter itself had yet to emerge!
13 ‘No Words to Describe Monkeys’ Play’, 9 May 2003, at: news. bbc.co.uk.
14 E. K. Victor Pearce, Who Was Adam? (Exeter: Paternoster, 1969), pp. 103–104.
15 ‘Hoyle on Evolution’, Nature, vol. 294 (12 November 1981), p. 105.
Chapter 8
The origin of species
No book about origins would be complete without discussing the origin of species. In many people’s minds, the word ‘evolution’ is synonymous with the title of Charles Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species. For over 150 years—ever since its publication in 1859—this book has been viewed as the evolutionists’ Bible. This is strange, really, for Charles Darwin was certainly not the originator of the theory of evolution; evolutionary ideas and interpretations have their roots in the philosophies articulated by the Greeks, Romans, Chinese and Arabs.1 Evolutionary ideas were, however, increasingly advanced in Europe and the USA in the second half of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries. This has been written about by numerous authors, including Dr Henry Morris, one of the leading creationists of the twentieth century and the founder of the Institute for Creation Research: ‘Erasmus Darwin was Charles Darwin’s grandfather and was a widely-read and popular writer on evolution even before Charles was born. Wells, Pritchard, and Laurence were all physicians who wrote on evolution and natural selection almost a half-century before The Origin of Species. Diderot in France, Edward Blyth in England, and even Benjamin Franklin advanced similar theories.’2 Dr Morris then noted that Darwin never acknowledged his predecessors and always referred to the origin of species by natural selection as ‘my theory’.
We have already seen that scientists invoke evolutionary ideas when contemplating the origin of the universe and the origin of life. Similarly, when studying the origin of species, scientists (notably biologists and palaeontologists) again turn to evolutionary ideas. Biological evolution could be defined as the development of the first living cell into multi-cellular organisms into invertebrates into vertebrates into amphibians into reptiles into mammals and finally into humans. These events have supposedly stretched over the last 3,500 million years. Biological evolution could therefore be defined as the development from the first living cell into all living and extinct plants and animals, including humans.
Strictly speaking, Darwin’s book considered the origin of species by natural selection, and it is this phrase which makes it an evolutionary account of the origin of species. Yet, in spite of this, the late Professor Ernst Mayr (an eminent evolutionist) of the University of Harvard was critical of Darwin’s thesis: ‘Darwin failed to
solve the problem indicated by the title to his work. Although he demonstrated the modification of species in the time dimension, he never seriously attempted a rigorous analysis of the problem of the multiplication of species.’3 A colleague of Mayr’s at Harvard, Professor George Gaylord Simpson (another eminent evolutionist), has gone so far as to say that Darwin’s ‘book called The Origin of Species is not really on that subject’!4
It is not my intention in this section to attack Darwinism as such—this has been done in numerous books and on innumerable websites over the past thirty years. What I intend to do is to look briefly at the life and discoveries of Charles Darwin and to see where he was deluded. During this section, we will start to examine the scientific data offered by scientists in support of the evolution of life on earth. We will continue this examination by looking at the fossil record, for it is here that we should find the evidence for or against biological evolution. We shall also concern ourselves with the proposed mechanism of biological evolution to see to what extent this accounts for the diversity of plant and animal life found on the earth.
Darwin, species and kinds
On 12 February 1809, Charles Darwin was born—hence the worldwide celebrations of the bicentenary of his birth in 2009. To hear and read what has been written and said about this man during the celebrations, one might think that Darwin was the greatest scientist who ever lived. We were confidently told by the media (such as the BBC), by learned scientific societies (such as the Royal Society), by natural-history societies (such as the National Geographic Society) and by scientists (such as Dr Richard Dawkins, Professor Steve Jones and Sir David Attenborough) that Darwin’s theory of evolution by means of natural selection explains why we have all the different species of plants and animals on the earth today as well as those of the past that are found in the fossil record. We are also told that Darwin’s ideas explain the origin of all the plants and animals, and also why bacteria and viruses become drug resistant.
Darwin was born into a very rich and influential family. His father, Robert, was a GP in Shrewsbury, and he wanted his son, Charles, to follow him into the medical profession. In 1825, therefore, at the age of sixteen, Charles was sent by his father to study Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. In the mid-1820s, Medicine was a very bloody affair, and as it was also the days before anaesthetics, it was extremely painful and traumatic for patients undergoing any surgical procedure. This put the sensitive Charles Darwin off medicine, so, after two years, he left Edinburgh and joined Cambridge University, where he studied Theology in order to become a country parson. It comes as a shock for some to realize that Darwin’s degree was in Theology—and that he did not have any earned scientific qualifications. At Cambridge, however, Darwin was taught a fundamental theological error about Genesis 1; as we shall see, this had a profound effect on how he viewed the Bible as he developed his theory of the origin of species by means of natural selection.
After graduating from Cambridge, Darwin joined HMS Beagle as companion to the ship’s captain, Robert FitzRoy, and as the resident naturalist. Although Darwin’s degree was in Theology, all his life his hobby and interest had been in natural history and he had spent a lot of time at university studying biology and geology. During his voyage on the Beagle, and in his subsequent studies after he returned home, Darwin noticed similarities and differences among the plants and animals he observed. For example, the finches on the Galápagos Islands had different bills depending on which island(s) they lived on and therefore on what food they ate. Darwin therefore concluded that all the finches had a common ancestor, and that natural selection caused their beaks to change in order to feed on the food sources that were available on the particular islands on which they lived. This was a problem for him, because in his theological studies at Cambridge, Darwin had been taught (incorrectly) that plants and animals reproduced after their own species and that there was therefore no variation in the offspring. As far as Darwin was concerned, his observations were contrary to the teachings of Genesis 1. But, of course, they weren’t!
What Darwin actually observed on the Galápagos Islands was that finches always produce finches. This is not contrary to Scripture, but is exactly what Genesis 1 teaches—that plants and animals reproduce after their own kinds. It is important to understand the difference between kinds and species. You can get different species within a kind—which is what Darwin observed with the finches on the Galápagos Islands. The different finch species on the Galápagos Islands prove to be only variations within the finch kind. Darwin had been taught incorrectly that birds, such as finches, reproduce after their own species—but the Bible does not teach this. The Scriptures in Genesis 1 teach the fixity of kinds not the fixity of species. The English word ‘kind’ is the correct translation of the Hebrew word min. Hence English translations of Genesis 1 show clearly that plants and animals reproduce after their own ‘kinds’. In many other European translations of Genesis 1, however, the translators have translated min by ‘species’. This often causes problems, as it appears from these latter translations that Genesis 1 teaches that plants and animals reproduce after their own species. This conclusion is simply the result of a faulty translation and is not what the Scriptures teach. This is why it is so important to establish that the Bible we read and study is an accurate translation.
The fact that there are great differences—of varieties as well as species—within a kind can be demonstrated by considering the huge variety that is found within the wolf–dog kind. For many years, creationists have used the wolf and the dog, together with all the different breeds of dog that have been bred over the years (at least 350 different breeds have been bred in the last 400 years!), as a perfect example of a biblical kind.5 I used this example in the first edition of this book as well as in many talks that I have given over the years. Sometimes in my talks, when I have used the wolf–dog kind as a perfect example of the biblical kind, I have been challenged by evolutionists who would not accept it. Today, however, they have to accept it, because in recent years geneticists have confirmed it. They have shown that the domestic dog (including, therefore, all the different breeds) is descended from a single gene pool—that of the wolf: ‘The origin of the domestic dog from wolves has been established … we examined the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequence variation among 654 domestic dogs representing all major dog populations worldwide … suggesting a common origin from a single gene pool for all dog populations.’6 Furthermore, it has also been shown that, not only are dogs and wolves in the same kind, but so also are coyotes and jackals:
Two-kilogram teacup poodles; 90-kg mastiffs; slender greyhounds; squat English bulldogs: For a single species, canines come in a vast array of shapes and sizes. Even more remarkably, they all come from the same stock … Only subtle differences distinguish dogs from coyotes, jackals, and other canids, making family trees difficult to construct and the timing of the transition from wolf to dog hard to pinpoint.7
This is remarkable confirmation of the biblical account of creation—that God made a basic wolf–dog kind and natural and domestic selection has given rise to all the different breeds of dogs as well as such animals as the African wild dog, wolves, coyotes, foxes, jackals and dingoes.
In the plant world, the variation found within a kind can be illustrated by, for example, the different vegetables within the common Wild Mustard species Brassica oleracea. Over the years, farmers and horticulturalists have bred at least six different vegetables from this one plant by means of carefully selecting different traits:
By selecting for stems, you get kohlrabi.
By selecting for lateral buds, you get Brussels sprouts.
By selecting for terminal buds, you get cabbages.
By selecting for flower clusters, you get cauliflowers.
By selecting for stems and flowers, you get broccoli.
By selecting for leaves, you get kale.
These varieties of Brassica, the different varieties and breeds of dogs within the dog–wolf kind
, and the different breeds of horses, pigs, cattle and so on, all demonstrate perfectly the veracity of Genesis 1—that plants and animals reproduce after their own kinds.
These examples of different varieties and breeds are real, are observed, and are the result of artificial selection. But different varieties and breeds are also found to be the result of natural selection. Although the splitting of the human gene pool occurred at the Tower of Babel, the resulting differing racial characteristics of the human race are the result of natural selection. This is why, for example, we find dark-skinned people living in areas where there is a lot of sunshine, and lighter-skinned people living in areas where there is less sunshine. Natural selection has also resulted in the Inuit, the indigenous people occupying the arctic areas of Canada, Greenland and Alaska, who have a high body fat which insulates them from the cold and also acts as a store of calories to cope with the metabolic heat production induced by the cold. In contrast, natural selection has resulted in the tall, thin people that are found in Central Africa (for example, the Maasai), who are well suited to the hot, dry climate in which they live. These and other examples of natural selection are not examples of evolution. In each case, we see that each kind has within its genome the capacity not only to reproduce, but also to produce great variety; this enables plants, animals and people to populate and enrich the planet.
What About Origins? (CreationPoints) Page 18
