These posts are based off of a project I presented for my History and Logic of Science class. I decided to put them up here as a possible resource for Christians. Too many Christians have given up the intellectual battle against atheism and evolution and all they stand for. We have been bullied into thinking that we don't even get a seat at the table to discuss such things. Christians need to know that faith and reason are not mutually exclusive, in fact they go hand in hand. Christians need to know that believing in the Bible and in a God who created the universe and everything in it is intellectually defensible.
Evolution is taught in public schools today as an undeniable scientific fact. Children are told that virtually all scientists agree that Evolution is scientifically sound. We are being misled by those representing Evolutionary theory.
On November 5th, 1981 Dr. Colin Patterson, senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History in London and editor of its journal, delivered a speech to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. He revealed what many evolutionists don’t want us to know; the truth behind Evolutionary theory!
Last year I had a sudden realization for over twenty years I had thought I was working on evolution in some way. One morning I woke up and something had happened in the night and it struck me that I had been working on this stuff for twenty years and there was not one thing I knew about it. That’s quite a shock to learn that one can be so misled so long. Either there was something wrong with me or there was something wrong with evolutionary theory. Naturally, I know there is nothing wrong with me, so for the last few weeks I’ve tried putting a simple question to various people and groups of people. Question is: Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing, any one thing that is true? I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural History and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology Seminar in the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, and all I got there was silence for a long time and eventually one person said, “I do know one thing – it ought not to be taught in high school."
Problems with Evolution
Neo-Darwinism, a current form of evolution, states that the evidence for evolution is seen in small changes which will gradually accumulate into the forming of a new species. Roger Chambers in his article Darwin in Fantasyland evaluates this, “Neo-Darwinism promised that tiny changes (microevolution) will gradually accumulate into the new kinds (macroevolution). Evolutionists happily filled the textbooks with examples of microevolution (black moths, blind fruit flies, et al.) and assured one and all that evolution was now proved. Creationist scientists have been pointing out that (1) there are no undisputed transitional forms in the fossil record, (2) the overwhelming tendency in genetics is against change, (3) gradualism is a totally inadequate explanation for the complexity evident in the biological order, (4) the mathematics don’t work – the theory is magnificently improbable, and (5) all the “evidence” for macroevolution consists of complicated descriptions of what might have happened – extrapolations from microevolution. The standard response of the evolutionist establishment has been to declare that all non-evolutionists are, thereby, nonscientists. School children are told to believe that the evidence is there because “all scientists” say it’s there, like the emperor’s new clothes. But that’s not what they’ve been saying to one another (Chambers).”
Douglas Futuyma points out six major examples that are used as evidence for evolution (Johnson 25-26).
1. Bacteria naturally develop resistance to antibiotics, and insect pests become resistant to insecticides, because of the differential survival of mutant forms possessing the advantage of resistance.
2. After a severe storm in 1898 hundreds of birds were left dead or dying in Massachusetts. A Scientist named Bumpus found that among the male sparrows, the larger birds had survived more frequently than the smaller ones, though the size differential was slight.
3. The finches that live in the Galapagos Islands have a variation of beak sizes that fluctuate due to the environment. When there is a draught then the finches with the thicker beaks are able to crack the hardened berries to get to the food inside.
4. Sickle-cell anemia in African populations is associated with a trait that confers resistance to malaria. Those who inherit sickle-cell from one parent but not the other benefit the most, thus never breeding out the sickle-cell.
5. Mice populations have been observed to cease reproducing and become extinct when they are temporarily “flooded” by the spread of a gene which causes sterility in the males.
6. Due to industrialization many trees that the Peppered Moths supposedly live on were covered with soot. Therefore the moths that previously had an advantage because they were light colored and matched the tree now stood out thus providing a survival advantage.
All of these examples that Futuyma provides are only showing adaptation. Adaptation is micro-evolution, though most evolutionist refuse to acknowledge that there is a distinction between micro and macro evolution. Johnson states, “If we take these six examples as the best available observational evidence of natural selection, we can draw two conclusions:”
1. We can observe that circumstances can in fact favor species with a particular trait over others with a different trait. The trait that is not favored will then become reduced for a period of time as long as the circumstances prevail.
2. None of these “proofs” provides reasonable evidence to show natural selection can produce new species, new organs, other major changes, or even minor changes that are permanent. The sickle-cell anemia case only shows that in special circumstances an apparently disadvantageous trait may not be eliminated from the population. The larger birds may have an advantage in high winds or a drought but the smaller birds have the advantage in other circumstances; this is why birds have not continuously become larger.
The fact of the matter is that there has never been found an undisputed transitional species. Evolutionists can only point to examples of a particular species adapting in a particular way to the circumstances that it is in. There is also no new genetic information being introduced. In all six of the previous examples, circumstances are favoring a particular group of species that carry a certain trait; this can not ever create a new trait that was not originally part of that species.
Bibliography
Behe, Michael J. Darwin’s Black Box. New York: Touchstone, 1996.
Behe, Michael J. “Evidence for Intelligent Design from Biochemistry”
(http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_idfrombiochemistry.htm)
Chambers, Roger. “Darwin in Fantasyland” Christian Standard. Oct. 17th, 1982.
Davis, Percival and Dean H. Kenyon. Of Pandas and People. Dallas: Haughton
Publishing Company, 2004.
Denton, Michael. Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. Bethesda: Adler & Adler, 1986.
Ham, Kent. “Creation, Where’s the Proof?” Answers In Genesis.
(http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v22/i1/creation.asp)
Johnson, Phillip E. Darwin on Trial. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1993.
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