God: Fact or Fiction?: Exploring the Relationship Between Science Religion and the Origin of Life

by Brendan Roberts

  Humans are unique as we are hot in logic and can make even complex calculations in our minds. We also differ from apes because apes ‘cannot separate representations from the situations to which they are appropriate’.13 As a result they can’t associate that if one drops the cup on the tile it will break. So they do not refrain from dropping it. But I can reason that if I drop a baby, then it will get hurt. This is where we get moral responsibility from. Additionally a human child can learn to distinguish between nouns and verbs while the ape cannot.14

  Animals work mainly by instinct. But differences between humans and apes are broader than instinct, and include man’s prolonged childhood which results in an extended learning period. In the rhesus monkey the infant is dependent on its parents for one year as opposed to eight or more in humans. The monkey reaches sexual maturity in the fourth year of its life as compared to about thirteen or fourteen in humans.

  Because as humans we are ensouled beings the greatest difference with other creatures is that we exemplify being relational beings in a unique way. We can overcome any extinct or behaviour as we decide to sacrifice even our greatest wants for the good of another person. Even more so we can truly love someone for who they are and even forgive enemies. As relational beings we are also very blessed with being able to enjoy the gift of friendship and share jokes and relax. This relationality also means we can share appreciate beauty and gaze at the stars or a beautiful sunset or even see beauty within a blazing fire or the thunderous pounding of waves on the rocks or beach of the sea shore.

  What was the Earliest Human Ancestor? Mankind passionately underwent a quest to find if humans had an ancestor from another species. In 1993 a team of paleonthropologists from Japan, Ethiopia and the United States came across the remains of such a species, approximately 4.5 million years old, along the Awash River, in northern Ethiopia. These remains outdated and supplanted Lucy which had held the podium of notoriety for 15 years. In Sudden Origins, author and physical anthropologist Dr Jeffrey Schwartz writes:

  The specimens – the bits and pieces – that actually formed the basis of this new, most ancient of potential human ancestors were not very spectacular as far as fossil finds go. There were only fragments of arm bones and skulls and, literally, a handful of isolated teeth, representing different individuals of various ages.15

  It is surprising that we are given illustrations of what are claimed to be our ancestors, when no one had a camera back in the days when the particular species roamed the Earth. The question must be asked: Is it possible that these ancestors could be part of another species and not related to humans? Or did these include the remains of humans and animals together?

  When you study articles regarding new fossil discoveries often you’ll read what one expert claims to be an ancestor of a human, and yet another expert gives a contrary view, that the specimen is not an ancestor but another species.

  It is believed that our species of Homo sapiens evolved about 200,000 years ago from a species known as Homo erectus or Homo ergaster which used fire and made tools and can be traced back to Africa. They are believed to have left Africa one million years ago. Homo sapiens are believed to have emigrated from Africa following their evolution about 200,000 years ago, and another exodus 50,000 years ago.

  Dmansi fossils are fossils which were discovered in Georgia. The skulls, fossils and limb bones are believed to be from Homo erectus or a new species, Homo georgicus and estimated to be 1.7 to 1.8 million years old. It is postulated that we are descended from them and that Homo erectus evolved in Africa and emigrated to Asia and Europe or a more primitive relative could have emigrated to Eurasia.

  Misreading of Data or Evolution Hoaxes It must also be noted that there have been distinguished historical finds that have claimed humans evolved from the ape kingdom, but they have been proved to be either misinterpretations or elaborate hoaxes. The evidence presented is often dubious at best. Let’s look at a couple of examples where we are told that our ancestor’s remains have been recovered, but are not told what else has been discovered at the same site. This tends to be like fossil scrabble, except that this is no game. Java man, otherwise known as Pithecanthropus erectus, or Trinil man, was discovered in 1894 by Dr Eugene Dubois. He discovered the following:

  ♦ Skull-cap of chimpanzee type with beetling brows but no forehead.

  ♦ Two molar teeth.

  ♦ A diseased thigh-bone of human type.

  Author Arthur Norman Field in The Evolution Hoax Exposed states that: Whoever owned the Java thigh-bone very obviously stood upright, which no ape does. As for the two teeth, they are generally described as ape-like but unusual. Combine the fragments, and the result is a creature standing erect, with chimpanzee brows and no forehead, a human thigh, and with face, feet, body and arms left to be sketched in according to fancy.16

  Therefore the missing pieces are left to the artist to substitute at his own whim and with his own imagination. Dr Dubois discovered fossil remains of Stegodon (an extinct elephant) and of a small deer, and further away remains of buffalo, antelope, ox, pig, rhinoceros, and hyena. In fact he removed remains of twentyseven different kinds of mammals. Further expeditions continued excavating more thoroughly in the same spots with surprising results. There were unearthed immense quantities of fossils but none of them were monkey-men.

  In 1938 Dr Dubois himself recanted his conviction that the fossil remains belong to our ancestor. His conclusion after a prolonged study of anthropological textbooks of the Pithecanthropus bones and other similar written material in his possession, which were largely unpublished, it wasn’t a monkey-man but a gigantic gibbon.

  The second example we will focus on is Piltdown man, otherwise known as Eoanthropus, or Dawn man. This fossil was discovered in 1913 near the bottom of a small gravel pit, four feet deep, about eight miles north of Lewes, England. Field recalls that Piltdown man left us only nine small fragments of skull-bone, and even less than half of a chimpanzee-like jaw bone which were discovered over a lengthy number of years.17

  Piltdown man was exposed as a hoax; in fact being ‘a portion of a human cranium combined with a piece of the lower jaw of an orangutan. The bones were stained with chemicals to give the appearance of great age, and the orangutan teeth were filed to resemble human wear and match the human teeth in the upper jaw’.18 Remarkably, the fraud was not uncovered for 40 years, during which it had been trumpeted as proof of human evolution.

  In 2004 Australian and Indonesian archaeologists discovered a skull and bone remains of what they were quick to determine was from a new species of human. The discovery on the Indonesian island, Flores was nicknamed ‘the Hobbit’. But two years later another comprehensive study revealed the original research compared the remains with modern humans from Europe rather than humans from the same region. The latest study found that the remains were probably that of an ancestor of modern human pygmies living on the island and suffering from microcephaly, a condition that causes an abnormally small head.

  Isn’t it interesting that minimal remains were uncovered at each of these archaeological sites, and that especially Java man was discovered with a ‘supermarket’ of fossil remains pertaining to many different creatures? When we take into consideration the discovery of Peking man in 1929, we realise how absurd the conclusions are from only seven thigh-bones of Peking man amidst remains of over fifty types of mammals, frogs, snakes, turtles and birds.19

  The remarkable evidence pertaining to these cases was presented by evolutionist, Professor H Woollard, professor of anatomy at University College, London. His article was published in a respected scientific quarterly review, Science Progress in July 1938. Professor Woollard says there can’t be absolute certainty that the fossil remains of Java Man came from the same individual. Additionally due to later fossil discoveries regarding Piltdown man he rejects the jaw as being incompatible with the skull fragments. Arthur Field in Evolution Hoax Exposed reveals the teeth of the article (pun intended, lol), when Professor Woollard de
nounces the view that Java man, Peking man and Neanderthal man are proof that humans have emerged from the lower animals due to a series of rising cranial capacity. He relates that other fossils have been discovered which are not different from modern humans, and are older than Peking Man. He concludes that ‘obviously people living contemporaneously cannot be ancestors to one another’.20

  It is pertinent to remember this as we will later explore the example of the discovery of a live creature which should have been extinct for thousands of years.

  Fingerprints Why do humans have the trait of their own unique fingerprints (except maybe monozygotic twins) or DNA? There is no advantage for Natural Selection or evolution to produce this trait in us. The science of fingerprinting ‘acknowledges three premises: fingerprints are formed well before birth, the patterns remain the same throughout life, and every human being is a unique creature’.21 It is the location of the forks, swirls, bifurcations, endings and other details that make it a mathematical impossibility to have identical fingerprints between individuals except in very rare cases. It is remarkable that even identical twins from one split egg, have their own unique fingerprints. Harold Cummins and Charles Midlo in Finger Prints, Palms and Soles explain that the probability can be likened to throwing 25 coins and each one of them landing headsup on a previously designated square – a probability of 1/50 to the power of 25. You can try it if you want, lol.

  Not only are fingerprints and DNA used for identification, but now the eye can be scanned to identify you. Your uniqueness resides in who you are with your certain likes, desires, goals, characteristics, intelligence, personality, talents and also your vocation in life (our work and also our lifelong covenant such as marriage).

  Summary It’s possible that we evolved from tree-swinging, knucklecrawling apes. However we humans differ from the other animals in kind not just in degree. Compared to other creatures we appreciate beauty in unique ways; are the only creatures on earth with an intellect and will enabling us to reason, including between right and wrong, good and evil. We can thus overcome instinctual habits; and be self-conscious beings with interpersonal relations. Our immaterial soul enables one to think in universals transcending our senses; have a unique relationality of God, self and others; have a unique capability of having a conscience; marvel at creation; explore not only our world but our galaxy; and be highly creative beings. We indeed have come much further in adapting to our environment than any other species. Also unique to human beings is our love for the truth. You do not see animals seeking out the truth through practicing theology or philosophy or any of the sciences. Because we actualise existence to such an advanced degree and especially due to our intellect we have such a unique ability to truly love; seek justice; be free and responsible beings able to freely commit for life, forgive others including strangers or enemies, trust others, be trustworthy and faithful to others.

  Though evolution from the ape kingdom is possible, the archaeological evidence that we have done so is flimsy, illustrated by the exposing of elaborate hoaxes and the biological jigsaw often resulting in more than one species being discovered at a site.

  Notes 1. John Morton. Man Science and God, (Auckland; New Zealand:Collins, 1972), p. 30.

  2. See Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, n.16.

  3. Aristotle: De Anima, 415b, 15-21.

  4. See ibid., 412b 17-413a 3.

  5. Francis Selman. Aquinas 101: A Basic Introduction to the Thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, Indiana: Ave Maria Press, 2007), p. 92.

  6. De Ver. 10:8.

  7. See De Ente et Essentia c 5.

  8. St Thomas Aquinas. ST 1a 75:6.

  9. See Quaestiones de Anima 1 ad 14.

  10. Quaestiones de Anima q.1 central reply, last paragraph.

  11. St Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologicae 1a 76:1 ad 6.

  12. Dr Ludwig Ott. Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (Illinois: TAN Books and Publishers, 1974), pp. 94-95.

  13. J.P. Moreland, The Creation Hypothesis: Scientific Design for an Intelligent Designer (InterVarsity Press, Illinois, 1994), p. 261.

  14. Ibid., p. 265.

  15. John A. Hardon. Pocket Catholic Dictionary (New York: Image Books, (Doubleday), 1985), p. 414.

  16. Jeffrey Schwartz. Sudden Origins, Chichester (New York: Wiley, 1999), p. 14.

  17. See ibid., p. 34.

  18. Ibid., p. 36.

  19. Gerard Keane. Creation Rediscovered, Evolution and the Importance of the Origins Debate (Illinois: Tan Publishers, 1999), p. 306.

  20. A.N. Field. The Evolution Hoax Exposed, 1971 first published as Why Colleges Bread Communists in 1941, p. 38.

  21. Ibid., p. 39.

  CHAPTER 5

  INTELLIGENT DESIGN THEORY A tall lanky man with John Lennon-like glasses and an outdated grey shabby suit with flared trousers sits in front of the microphone. He is in luck because flares are finally back in fashion. In another room a geeky scientist stands over his experiment wearing a sparkling white coat starch bleached stiff as an ice coated tree and peering through horn-rimmed glasses. The two are separated so the scientist is not attacked by the out-dated, out of touch Creationist.

  Is this really a stereotypical portrayal of the two camps? Can we really tarnish all Christians with the brush of a specific sort of creationism or all scientists with the brush of atheism?

  Many wonder whether we can detect the work of God through creation. Therefore it is natural to ask: Can we really reason that God exists through what we see in our world?

  The great scientist, Isaac Newton believes that one can do so through natural reason: Whence is it that nature does nothing vain; and whence arises all that order and beauty which we see in the world? How come the bodies of animals to be contrived with so much art, and for what ends were their several parts? Was the eye contrived without skill in optics? Does it not appear from phenomena that there is a being incorporeal, living, intelligent?1

  So Newton could tell that God exists from what we look at. Earlier in God: Fact or Fiction? I demonstrated the virtual impossibility of the universe and life coming into existence by mere chance. I have also depicted various evidence for the existence of a Creator. The mere fact that a Creator intended life, especially humans as a unique creation with an intellect and will, love of beauty, love of truth and finally love itself through self-gift to another person reveals something about the Creator; the intention and action of the doer reveals something about the doer. What is revealed is that the Creator has the ability and power to do what He intends. Therefore because God intended to create He revealed His desire and power to do so. He thus left His imprint on creation. One such imprint is design.

  How could something so complex as the eye or the whole human body be formed merely by chance? Could it really happen that random proteins, just luckily sequenced themselves? Newton was saying that our Creator had to have the skill (power) in order to fashion us. It’s like saying He is such an incredible artist! God could do so through creating the laws of nature, including a law such as Natural Selection, that is evolution.

  Although Newton appealed to design, should one divorce natural processes from the design principle? Let us look at the definition of Intelligent Design for the answer. According to Mathematician and philosopher William Dembski Intelligent Design is a ‘cluster of arguments that offer a variety of cases that attempt to show, by reasoning... that intelligent agency rather than unguided matter better accounts for apparently natural phenomena and/or the universe as a whole’.2 Therefore Dembski distinguishes between intelligent causes and undirected natural causes. The intelligent causes show purpose and the desire of the agent or creator to act towards an end. In other words: ‘Undirected natural causes can throw scrabble pieces on a board but cannot arrange the pieces to form meaningful words of sentences.’3

  Together with the design observed in nature and artefacts three major principles are central to the Intelligent Design Theory: complexity, specification and irreducible complexity.

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p; Complexity A simple system is going to be easier to produce by chance. But when a complex system is observed the likelihood of chance being the cause is much more remote, though still possible. Thus the pattern can be seen to typify intelligence. Philosopher of Science, Stephen Meyer explains that something with large amounts of specified complexity or with high information content, such as codes and languages always originates from personal agents.4

  Philosopher and theologian, Philip Clayton explains that with the origin of wholly new forms of complexity there arose ‘life from inanimate matter; consciousness from life; human self-consciousness (the means by which the humans became aware of themselves and nature), thereby making science an eventual possibility’.5

  Specification When specification is added to the complexity of a system then the odds that chance was involved are multiplied greatly. In other words high information content and specification indicates design by an intelligent agent. Add a system which is both highly complex and specified and you have a system which entails specified complexity. For example, Dembski reveals the likelihood that the word ‘design’ could be spelled blindly by pulling out scrabble pieces from a bag containing 26 pieces, one for each letter of the English alphabet:

  The chance of pulling the D is 1 in 26; the chance of pulling D and E in sequence is 1/262 which is 1 in 676. Thus, the chance of spelling D-E-S-I-G-N out of the bag is 1/266 or one chance in 308,915,776 (or 108.5). Stated more simply (but less precisely), it would take us nearly 309 million cycles of pulling six tiles out of the bag to be sure we would assemble the word DESIGN at least once. …Clearly, as the complexity of the pattern increases,the probability that it was ‘caused’ by chance decreases exponentially.6