APPENDIX 2: SCIENTIFIC PROBLEMS WITH THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION
© Rosemary Bardsley 2013
We must realize that even atheistic evolutionary scientists admit the inadequacy of, and deficiencies in, the theory of evolution, yet choose to cling to their evolutionary beliefs nonetheless. Here are some of the recognized scientific problems with this theory:
[1] The theory cannot be proved by true scientific method because no one was there when it happened. Nor can it be reduplicated in scientific experiments. Conclusions based on the supposed results of the evolutionary process are subjective deductions made by fallible humans who already presupposed that the theory was true.
[2] Changes currently observed are changes within species, not changes from one species to another. They are mutations, which involve loss of genetic information, not the addition of information. As such they are the opposite of supposed evolution. No transition from one species to another has ever been observed.
[3] The theory of evolution fails to explain the source of the massive amounts of coded information packed into DNA. Information necessitates an intelligent source of information; it cannot just happen; it cannot somehow come out of either a ‘big bang’ or a mud pool. It has to come from intelligence.
In addition, Wermer Gitt states: ‘No natural process which resulted in information forming automatically in matter, has ever been observed. Neither is this possible in the most spectacular or costly experiments.’ [Did God use Evolution? p103]
[4] The theory of evolution does not explain the incredible complexity of even the least significant organisms. All living things, even inanimate natural things, display indescribable, intricate design of both appearance and function. We would never credit that even simple objects made by humans could have evolved by the process of time plus chance, yet in nature we see things far more complex, far more intricate, so complex that human designers cannot reproduce them, and are tempted to believe the evolutionists’ theory that these incredible designs are the result of chance combinations of molecules. The mathematical law of probability renders the theory of evolution the height of absurdity, exposing the sheer impossibility that the degree of complexity consistently occurring in nature could be the result of chance.
[5] The so-called ape-men which turn up every so often and are hailed by the media to be the ‘missing link’ turn out to be either (1) true apes, (2) true humans, or (3) deliberate frauds. The media seems to keep quiet about that, leaving us only with their reports of the supposed proof of evolution.
[6] Despite the fact that the theory of evolution has been dominating science for well over a century, and scientists have been intent on proving it, not one genuine fossil of any intermediate, in-the-process-of-change, creature has been found. Given the supposed millions of years in which these intermediate creatures supposedly lived it is reasonable to assume that they would have left fossils, but all known fossils are those of distinct known species.
[7] In addition to this, fossils believed by evolutionists to be of extinct creatures living millions of years ago are identical to living specimens.
[8] There are objective facts in the natural world that challenge the long ages/old earth presuppositions of the theory of evolution. Among these we could include:
The degree of salinity of the oceans.
The rate of decay of the earth’s magnetism.
Polystrate fossils (fossils extending through many layers of rocks).
Massive fossil graveyards.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics.
The observed rapid formation of certain rocks previously thought to take millions of years to form.
The discovery of unfossilised dinosaur bones with red blood cells and haemoglobin.
Observed rapid fossilisation.
The amount of helium in the earth’s atmosphere and in rocks.
[Note: 101 evidences for a young earth can be found here: http://creation.com/age-of-the-earth ]
Biologist Michael Denton, who makes no claim to be a Christian or a creationist, wrote in the preface to his book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis:
‘The idea [of evolution] has come to touch every aspect of modern thought; and no other theory in recent times has done more to mould the way we view ourselves and our relationship to the world around us. The acceptance of the idea one hundred years ago initiated an intellectual revolution more significant and far reaching than even the Copernican and Newtonian revolutions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
‘The triumph of evolution meant the end of the traditional belief in the world as a purposeful created order – the so-called teleological outlook which had been predominant in the western world for two millennia. According to Darwin, all the design, order and complexity of life and the eerie purposefulness of living systems were the result of a simple blind random process – natural selection. Before Darwin, men had believed a providential intelligence had imposed its mysterious design upon nature, but now chance ruled supreme. God’s will was replaced by the capriciousness of a roulette wheel. The break with the past was complete.’ p15.
Denton also comments:
‘The Origin was revolutionary and shocking to Victorians [i.e. Victorian England] because nineteenth-century England was steeped in biblical fundamentalism and creationist biology. The thesis Darwin had developed implied an end to the traditional and deeply held teleological and anthropocentric view of nature. Instead of being the pinnacle and end of creation, humanity was to be viewed as a cosmic accident, a produce of random process no more significant than any one of the myriads of other species on earth.
‘As far as Christianity was concerned, the advent of the theory of evolution and the elimination of traditional theological thinking was catastrophic. The suggestion that life and man are the result of chance is incompatible with the biblical assertion of their being the direct result of intelligent creative activity. Despite the attempt by liberal theology to disguise the point, the fact is that no biblically derived religion can really be compromised with the fundamental assertion of Darwinian theory. Chance and design are antithetical concepts, and the decline in religious belief can probably be attributed more to the propagation and advocacy by the intellectual and scientific community of the Darwinian version of evolution that to any other single factor. …
‘It was because Darwinian theory broke man’s link with God and set him adrift in a cosmos without purpose or end that its impact was so fundamental…’ pp 66-67.
And on the inadequacy of the Darwinian theory he says: (emphasis added)
‘The raising of the status of Darwinian theory to a self-evident axiom has had the consequence that the very real problems and objections with which Darwin so painfully laboured in the Origin have become entirely invisible. Crucial problems such as the absence of connecting links or the difficulty of envisaging intermediate forms are virtually never discussed and the creation of even the most complex of adaptations is put down to natural selection without a ripple of doubt.
‘The overriding supremacy of the myth has created a widespread illusion that the theory of evolution was all but proved one hundred years ago and that all subsequent biological research – paleontological, zoological and in the newer branches of genetics and molecular biology – has provided ever-increasing evidence for Darwinian ideas. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that the evidence was so patchy one hundred years ago that even Darwin himself had increasing doubts as to the validity of his views, and the only aspect of his theory which has received any support over the past century is where it applies to microevolutionary phenomena. His general theory, that all life on earth had originated and evolved by a gradual successive accumulation of fortuitous mutations, is still, as it was in Darwin’s time, a highly speculative hypothesis entirely without direct factual support and very far from that self-evident axiom some of its more aggressive advocates would have us believe.’ p77.
In his concluding chapter Denton comments [emphasis added]:
‘Whatever view we wish to take of the current status of Darwinian theory, whatever the reasons might be for its undoubted appeal … there can be no doubt that after a century of intensive effort biologists have failed to validate it in any significant sense. The fact remains that nature has not been reduced to the continuum that the Darwinian model demands, nor has the credibility of chance as the creative agency of life been secured.
‘The failure to validate the Darwinian model has implications which reach far beyond biology…
The entire scientific ethos and philosophy of modern western man is based to a large extent upon the central claim of Darwinian theology that humanity was not born by the creative intentions of a deity but by a completely mindless trial and error selection of random molecular patterns. The cultural importance of evolution theory is therefore immeasurable, forming as it does the centrepiece, the crowning achievement, of the naturalistic view of the world, the final triumph of the secular thesis which since the end of the middle ages has displaced the old naïve cosmology of Genesis from the western mind…
‘The influence of evolutionary theory on fields far removed from biology is one of the most spectacular examples in history of how a highly speculative idea for which there is no really hard scientific evidence can come to fashion the thinking of a whole society and dominate the outlook of an age. Considering its historic significance and the social and moral transformation it caused in western thought, one might have hoped that Darwinian theory was capable of a complete, comprehensive and entirely plausible explanation for all biological phenomena from the origin of life on through all its diverse manifestations up to, and including, the intellect of man. That it is neither fully plausible, nor comprehensive, is deeply troubling. One might have expected that a theory of such cardinal importance, a theory that literally changed the world, would have been something more than metaphysics, something more than a myth.
‘Ultimately the Darwinian theory of evolution is no more nor less than the great cosmogenic myth of the twentieth century. …
‘The truth is that despite the prestige of evolutionary theory and the tremendous intellectual effort directed towards reducing living systems to the confines of Darwinian thought, nature refuses to be imprisoned.’ Pp 357,358.
Even though he does not write from a Christian perspective Denton’s book is honestly, deliberately and unapologetically anti-evolutionist. As a scientist he has looked at the evidence and found that it simply does not tie in with the Darwinian theory. He also astutely perceives the great impact that the evolutionary theory has had on the mindset, philosophy and morals of the western world.
Task: Read through the Denton quotes. Circle or underline his descriptions of the impact of evolutionary theory on the way western man understands himself and life. Discuss the implications of this from a Christian perspective.