Evolution—Impossible to Embarrass Its Believers
Proverbs 19:3 and 21:30, “The foolishness of man perverteth his way: and his heart fretteth against the LORD. ... There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the LORD.”
By Henry Morris, Ph.D.
"And He spake a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch?" (Luke 6:39).
Creationists have often pointed out that evolution
is unscientific because it can never be proved by science to be true.
It is not happening at present and without a time machine, they can never be
sure that it happened in the past.
Regardless of how much an organism looks like it had been intelligently designed, evolutionists (without even sounding embarrassed) will insist that natural selection has the power to make it look like it was designed, even though it wasn't. Furthermore, no matter what fossil they find out of its accepted place in the evolutionary "record," the evolutionists can "explain" how it got there.
The recent discovery of the intact flesh of a Tyrannosaurus rex with its "blood vessels—still flexible and elastic after 68 million years—and apparently intact cells"1 is a case in point. It would seem impossible for such soft structures to be preserved intact even for 6800 years, but evolutionists accept it on faith.
Similarly, Silurian fossil ostracodes supposedly 425 million years old have been found recently in England virtually identical to their modern-day counterparts and containing "a jaw-dropping amount of detail,"2 but this discovery does not faze evolutionists. They still believe it was buried 425 million years ago!
On another front, one would think that geophysicists would be embarrassed by their repeated failure to find the so-called Mohorovocic Discontinuity (except by inference from seismic waves) at the boundary between the earth's "crust" and "mantle." Since the supposed evolutionary history of the earth is theoretically related to this "Moho," scientists have been trying to confirm its existence, along with the assumed nature of the mantle, by drilling deep holes in the crust. This has been going on since the early sixties without success, the latest such attempt having failed earlier this year.
The Bible long ago prophesied that it was not possible that the "heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath" (Jeremiah 31:37). Nevertheless: "Undaunted, oceanographers are ready to try again."3
On the heavenly front, the same unembarrassed evolutionary cosmologists will evidently continue trying to "explain" the evolutionary history of the cosmos. Theories abound, and change frequently, the rising favorite being "string theory," involving multiple dimensions of space and even multiple universes of space/time. However, as one evolutionary astrophysicist admits: ". . . the universe unveiled by the hellishly complex mathematics of super-string theory is not even remotely close to what string theorists anticipated."4
Another cosmologist insists, however, that "string theory possesses a virtue for which many physicists are willing to accept these seeming absurdities: It can reconcile quantum mechanics and Einstein's theory of gravity."5 But then he admits that "the theory itself continues to grow more complicated and mysterious."6
Its main virtue is that it can explain the cosmos without God. As Gardner insists, ". . . the fundamental credo of science is that deep mysteries like these will someday, if only in the distant future, succumb to rational explanation."7
And what about human evolution? A recent statistical study of the genetics of human populations revealed,
the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) for a randomly mating population would have lived in the very recent past. . . . In particular, the MRCA of all present-day humans lived just a few thousand years ago in these models.8
The writer avoids mentioning the "Adam and Eve" explanation, of course. Nevertheless, he also notes that: "And a few thousand years before that, . . . the ancestors of everyone on the earth today were exactly the same."9
One would think that analyses such as this, made by evolutionists on the real data of genetics and human populations would be embarrassing to evolutionists who commonly postulate an approximately million-year history of human existence on earth. But even if there were people living all during the past million years, how come they all kept the same genetic makeup until just a few thousand years ago? The Biblical record would seem at least relevant to the discussion!
Then there are the recent research findings by
ICR scientists and others working on the RATE project that have
uncovered many new evidences that the earth is young, including the
ubiquitous presence of radiocarbon in coal beds and even in diamonds. For
years, of course, creationists have been pointing out that no real evolution
has taken place during the several thousand years of human history and also
that there are no legitimate series of transitional forms in the fossil beds
of the past, plus the negative effects of mutations and the testimony of the
laws of thermodynamics—all of which seem to make any macroevolution
extremely unlikely, if not impossible.
Yet evolutionists continue to control the scientific and education establishments, insisting that total evolution is a scientific fact and creation is religion, so only evolution can be allowed to be taught in public schools and colleges. They gloat over the alleged fact that "an unprecedented 14 percent of Americans tell pollsters that they are atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, or simply disinterested in religion."10 Even if this figure is assumed to be correct, it still leaves 86% of the population who believe in God.
And they express surprise that so many people have somehow come to believe in creation despite all the brainwashing in schools. The editor-in-chief of the premier magazine Science, recently moaned in a lead editorial that:
Alternatives to the teaching of biological evolution are now being debated in no fewer than 40 states. Worse, evolution is not the only science under such challenge. In several school districts, geology materials are being rewritten because their dates for Earth's age are inconsistent with scripture (too old).11
A few evolutionists do seem to have at least a glimpse of why we object to their insistence that evolution be considered a scientifically proven fact. The following commentary on evolutionary science was in a recent issue of Geotimes.
Evolutionists have "Physics Envy." They tell the public that the science behind evolution is the same science that sent people to the moon and cures diseases. It's not.
The science behind evolution is not empirical, but forensic. Because evolution took place in history, its scientific investigations are after the fact—no testing, no observations, no repeatability, no falsification, nothing at all like physics. . . . I think this is what the public discerns—that evolution is just a bunch of just-so stories disguised as legitimate science.12
Another evolutionist makes an interesting admission. He says: "Contrary to their public image, scientists are normal, flawed human beings."13 They are as capable of prejudice, covetousness, pride, deceitfulness, etc., as anyone.
Evolutionists can't seem to comprehend why most Americans still believe in God, creation, and the Bible, despite having the "fact" of evolution dogmatically taught to them throughout their school years. The fact is that there is an abundance of objective evidence that the Bible really is the Word of God. It is not just a book of religion as they argue, but a book of factual history. Jesus Christ really did rise from the dead and Jesus Christ really did confirm the truth of the Biblical account of origins. Creationists do not believe in the Bible just because they are ignorant of science.
Peter says that "we have not followed
cunningly devised fables. . . . We have also a more sure word of prophecy;
whereunto ye do well that ye take heed . . ."
(II Peter 1:16,19). And the apostle Paul, prophesying of the humanists of
"the last days" said that they would be "Ever learning, and never
able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (II Timothy
3:1,7) because
"they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall
be turned unto fables" (II Timothy 4:4).
A creationist scientist justifiably might think of the Psalmist's caustic commentary on the ancient idol-making pantheistic evolutionists:
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not: . . . They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them (Psalm 115:4,5,8).
Endnotes
- Erik Stokstad, "Tyrannosaurus rex Soft Tissue Raises Tantalizing Prospects," Science (vol. 307, March 25, 2005), p. 1852.
- Erik Stokstad, "Gutsy Fossil Sets Record for Staying the Course," Science (vol. 302, December 5, 2003), p. 1645.
- Richard A. Kerr, "Pursued for 40 Years, the Moho Evades Ocean Drillers Once Again," Science (vol. 307, March 18, 2005), p. 1707.
- James N. Gardner, "Fundamental Cosmological Understanding Eludes Us," Skeptical Inquirer (vol. 28, July/August, 2004), p. 51.
- Adrian Cho, "String Theory Gets Real—Sort of," Science (vol. 306, November 26, 2004), p. 1461.
- Ibid., p. 1462.
- James N. Gardner, op. cit., p. 52.
- Douglas L. T. Rohde, Steve Olson, and Joseph T. Chang, "Modeling the Recent Common Ancestry of all Living Humans," Nature (vol. 431, September 30, 2004), p. 562.
- Ibid., p. 565.
- Promotional brochure published by the Council for Secular Humanism.
- Donald Kennedy, "Twilight for the Enlightenment?" Science (vol. 308, April 8, 2005), p. 165.
- John Chaikowsky, "Geology v. Physics," Geotimes (vol. 50, April 2005), p. 6.
- David Weatherall, "Conduct Unbecoming,"
American Scientist (vol. 93, January-February 2005), p. 73.
*Dr. Henry Morris is Founder and President
Emeritus of ICR.
The Origin Of The Universe Is Not A Fundamental Doctrine Of Christianity
By David J. Stewart | February 2014
There is a raging controversy between Christians who differ in their views
of creation. Basically there is the old earth view and the young earth view.
Those believers who adhere to the old earth view are sometimes called “Gap
Theorists.” The Gap Theory teaches that there's a time gap between Genesis
1:1 and 1:2. It's important to realize that this is NOT a fundamental
doctrine of Christianity. I've received some hate mail in the past from
angry people who despise the Gap Theory doctrine.
One man even alleged that Gap Theorists are not saved because they lack
faith in the Bible. That is simply not the case at all my friend. Since the
Bible does not give us a definitive concrete answer on this matter, we ought
not be too dogmatic and condemn each other for believing differently. No two
preachers agree on everything.
Paradise Or Heaven?
For example: Dr. Oliver B. Greene (1915-1976) taught that Jesus went to Hell (Hades) when He died upon the cross, and stayed there for 3-days, rescuing those spirits in paradise that previously could not enter Heaven because Christ hadn't been crucified yet. And then Jesus brought those Old Testament saints to Heaven when He ascended. In sharp contrast, Dr. John R. Rice (1895-1980) taught that Christ and the thief on the cross who believed on him went straight to Heaven when they died. Dr. Rice didn't believe in an Old Testament place called paradise.
Dr. Max D. Younce in his tremendous book, A BIBLICAL EXAMINATION OF HELL, explains the doctrine of Hades (which contains the place of paradise and also the place of torment). God used Pastor Younce to open my eyes to this often misunderstood subject on Hades. Basically, Hell (Hades) is compartmentalized into paradise and the place of torment. I never knew that Hades was compartmentalized and therefore had difficulty understanding the doctrine of a place called paradise for Old Testament saints. The Bible says that Elijah in the Old Testament was caught up into heaven in a whirlwind (2nd Kings 2:11). Dr. Rice uses this teaching as evidence that Old Testament saints went straight to Heaven and not to a place called paradise.
However, Luke 16:19-31 cannot be ignored. Abraham was on the other side in
paradise and the rich man was in the place of torment. There was a great
gulf between them. The Bible uses specific names here and Jesus id not say
it was a parable, so we MUST take it as a literal account. Abraham is a real
person. Lazarus is a literal person. Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses claim it
was only a parable because both of these false religions deny the existence
of a real Hell that burns with fire and brimstone.
Old Earth Or Young Earth?
I have just given you one theological example of dozens where great men of God do not agree. Albeit, every born-again preacher/Christian agrees on the Doctrine of Christ concerning the Virgin Birth, Deity of Christ, His sinless life, bodily resurrection, literal blood sacrifice, the Godhead (Trinity), et cetera.
Concerning the timing of creation, Dr. Henry Morris of the Creation Research Institute (CRI) teaches a young earth view. I personally believe that the earth is billions of years old. I do NOT believe in evolution, nor in theistic evolution (the doctrine that God created the universe and then it evolved over billions of years). I believe that God created the universe billions of years ago; but created mankind 6,000 years ago. The reason for my old earth views are numerous, mostly based in the Scriptures.
Pastor Curtis Hutson (1934-1995) of the Sword Of The Lord believed in an old earth view. Dr. Hutson has an excellent study on the subject under the titled...
