Webster defines science as: The state of knowing or a department of systematized knowledge as an object of study.
This page deals with the Science of Origins, which addresses the question: how did everything that we can and cannot see come into existence?
The problem is compounded by the fact that there are no eyewitnesses to the event. Therefore, those who wish to proceed in their study of origins are forced to deal with whatever evidence they may find combined with the laws of physics, biology and probability to arrive at their conclusions (or theories). Because none of these events can be replicated, the Scientific Method demands that any and all of the conclusions are to be considered Theories and not Laws. All theories of origin are grouped into one of two schools of thought:
Evolution is the major theory which occupies the first catagory while Creationism is the major theory which occupies the second.
Because so many teachers and professors have become fanatical in their presentation of evolution as the only viable answer for the question of origins and have knowingly violated the scientific method, purposely misleading their students to accept theory as fact, we have assembled the following list to assist students in their quest for truth.
65 Facts Every Student Should Know About Evolution
1. The universe is the result of fortuitous and random accidents, or
2. The universe is the result of intelligent action.
1. If not creation, then what?
Scientists call it the first law of thermodynamics. Isaac Asimov says "this law is considered the most powerful and most fundamental generalization about the universe that scientists have ever been able to make."1 What is this law that lies at the base of all modern science? It is the fact that while you can convert matter to energy (like heat that results from a burning log), you can not create energy or matter out of nothing. So, since we know that our universe is made up of matter and energy, we have to face the reality that it had to come from somewhere. Despite the incredible advances of modern science, the fact remains that not one of our scientific theories can even begin to explain where the energy and matter came from in the first place. Creation is the only plausible theory that anyone has been able to offer.
1 Asimov, Isaac, "In the Game of Energy and Thermodynamics You Can't Even Break Even," Journal of the Smithsonian Institute (June, 1970), p. 6.
2. There had to be a beginning.
For centuries scientists argued that the universe was infinite and eternal. If so, many claimed, there was no beginning and hence nothing for a creator to do. But, we now know that the amount of usable energy in the universe is decreasing. And, scientists agree, if the universe is running down, it cannot be eternal, or infinite. It will have an end just as it had to have had a beginning. Scientists know this principle as the second law of thermodynamics. It is fascinating to know that science's two most foundational discoveries argue for creation, not against it!
"...If your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics, I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation."
3. A beginning requires a beginner.
It wasn't until the early part of the twentieth century that Newton's model of an infinite and eternal universe was finally scrapped. The final clincher was Albert Einstein's discovery of the general theory of relativity. Einstein's mathematical theory seemed to prove that everything in the universe is moving away from everything else, suggesting that someone or something must have set it in motion in the first place. Although Einstein didn't like it (he was an atheist), his own discovery forced him to admit that the universe had to have a beginning. And, if there is a beginning, must there not be a beginner?
4. Einstein, Hubble and the expanding universe.
When Einstein's general theory of relativity was published in 1917, it was only a concept and no one knew how to test it. But, in that same year, the world's largest telescope was finally ready to be used for observations. Twelve years later in 1929, astronomer Edwin Hubble (after whom today's Hubble Telescope is named) was able to prove that Einstein's theory was indeed correct. What the telescope showed was that all the other galaxies in the universe were indeed moving away from us. It was from these observations that the Big Bang theory was eventually born. Scientists knew that, according to the law of inertia, these galaxies had to have been set in this kind of motion by some external force. And since the galaxies were moving in a manner similar to the results of a bomb explosion, the theory was born that the universe came into being as a result of a Big Bang. One thing was for sure; the universe had a beginning.
5. What came before the Big Bang?
The idea of a big bang does make sense. Many different observational techniques confirm that every galaxy that we can see, is indeed moving away from every other. If all the galaxies are now moving away from each other, there must have been a time in which they were all closer together. In fact, according to Einstein's mathematical calculations and new scientific discoveries, everything that makes up the universe was at one time so compacted that it did not take up any space whatsoever! While this may be difficult to even begin to imagine, the theory suggests that it eventually exploded, shooting the universe out just as a bomb would. According to this widely accepted theory, the expansion of the universe that we are witnessing today is simply the result of that explosion.
However, Stephen Hawking, one of the world's leading authorities on the cosmos, admits that this theory does not even try to answer the question of where we, and the rest of the universe came from in the first place.
6. Isn't this theory backwards?
The Big Bang theory has become one of the most popular theories for the formation of the universe. There are flaws with the theory, however. For one, destruction and chaos are the results of an explosion, not systematic order. A building contractor, for example, would not put all of his materials in a big pile along with a few sticks of dynamite, ignite the dynamite, and then expect the result to be a perfectly constructed office building. But this is what the Big Bang theory is essentially suggesting, that the ordered life we see today was the result of an explosion.
7. Who laid down the law?
Some have argued that the order of the universe was created by the laws of gravity. Essentially, this proposal suggests that the force of gravity pulls and holds together, in a delicate balance, all of the stars, planets, asteroids, galaxies etc. So what these scientists are claiming then, is that what started out as chaos was brought into line by the law of gravity. The creationist would have to ask where this law of gravity, and other natural laws, came from in the first place. Are these scientists suggesting that natural laws have some kind of mystical powers in themselves? And why would there be orderly laws in a universe which just moments before randomly appeared out of chaos?
8. Scientists prove beginning!?
In 1992 there was great excitement over the findings of a team of astrophysicists who had been researching the latest discoveries of COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer), a sophisticated satellite in orbit around the Earth. Scientists had long claimed that if the Big Bang theory was correct, then there would have to be "ripples" or temperature variations in the background radiation of the universe. Astrophysicists claimed that COBE found these long-lost ripples. Now the Big Bang theory is still a theory of course, but the findings are of tremendous importance to Biblical creationists since they confirm once again that the universe had a beginning. Indeed, even many non-theistic astronomers had to draw some theistic conclusions about the discoveries. Stephen Hawking, a mathematics professor at Cambridge University and one of the most brilliant men in the world, claimed, "It is the discovery of the century, if not all time."1 Michael Turner of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago noted, "The significance of this cannot be overstated. They have found the Holy Grail of cosmology."2 George Smoot, project leader for COBE noted, "What we have found is evidence for the birth of the universe."3 The main point is, if the universe had a beginning, it must have a beginner.
1 Nigel Hawkes, "Hunt On For Dark Secret of Universe," London Times, April 25, 1992, p. 1.
"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story of the Big Bang ends like a bad dream. For the past three hundred years, scientists have scaled the mountain of ignorance and as they pull themselves over the final rock, they are greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."
9. Why does the universe have some warmer spots?
Through the laws of physics we know that heat always flows from hot bodies to cold bodies until they reach a state of balance. If the universe had always been here, then the heat in the universe would be evenly dispersed throughout. But it is not. So, the universe has been here for a period of time less than the redistribution of heat would have taken.
10. Scientists at wits end.
Scientists have no idea how the universe began. Indeed, in 1995, the world of cosmology was thrown into chaos when Tod Lauer and Marc Postman of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore produced research that didn't fit with any of the common theories on how the universe functions. An article in Time magazine stated that the two young astronomers spent a year trying to debunk their own findings because they knew they would create such a brouhaha. From their research they concluded that a few thousand galaxies, including our own, are not expanding in the same orderly fashion as the rest of the universe. Time observed, "Astronomers have come up with one theory-busting discovery after another...Nobody can say what the turmoil means -- whether the intellectual edifice of modern cosmology is tottering on the edge of collapse or merely feeling growing pains as it works out a few kinks. "If you ask me,' says astrophysicist Michael Turner of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago, 'either we're close to a breakthrough, or we're at our wits' end.'"1 The Time article also went on to point out other "bewildering discoveries...in a barrage of bafflements."
1 Time, cover story, by Michael D. Lemonick and J. Madeleine Nash, March 6, 1995, p. 37.
11. An act of faith.
According to the so-called scientific view, the Universe was created by an incredible series of the most unlikely events that can possibly be imagined. There is no data to support this view, other than a desire to avoid the obvious conclusion, that there must have been a 'creator'. We know from the second law of thermodynamics that any system, left on its own, will break down and decay, not build itself up and become greater and more complex. However, if this is true, then how did the universe manage to do exactly the opposite? This is another question that science has no answer for. In other words, the whole idea of a Big Bang and a naturally-created universe requires that very thing that scientists accuse Christians of ...faith.
12. Time is really the enemy of evolution!
One of the biggest points of contention between creationists and evolutionists is the issue of time. It is only with time that evolution supposedly becomes respectable. Something that is totally impossible is suddenly considered quite reasonable when you add a clause suggesting that it happened over billions of years. As Evolutionist George Wald noted, "Time is in fact the hero of the plot...given so much time the 'impossible' becomes possible, the possible probable and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait: time itself performs miracles."1 However, the laws of science suggest a problem with this idea. Those laws tell us very clearly that with time things degrade. They do not become better. A tree dies and decomposes into the soil, not the other way around. Scientifically speaking then, time is the enemy of evolution, not its friend.
1 Wald, George, "The Origin of Life", Physics and Chemistry of life, 19S5, v
13. How old is the universe?
How do scientists actually go about calculating the age of the universe? For this, two pieces of information are needed: how far away galaxies are already and how fast they're moving apart. The ratio between these figures will supposedly tell us how long the cosmos has been expanding. This is known as the "Hubble Constant". But can astronomers actually come up with an accurate estimate of the age of our universe?
According to David Branch, an astrophysicist at the University of Oklahoma, there are two big problems with this method: "What's the right distance, and what's the right speed?"1 Time magazine noted that "Since accurate distances can be measured only nearby, while useful galaxies are found only deep in space, astronomers do the best they can to bridge the gap. They use the close galaxies to estimate distances to the faraway ones. But the method is inexact, which is why they haven't been able to agree on what the age actually is."2 For instance, using data collected by the Hubble Space Telescope, a research team headed by Wendy Freedman at The Carnegie Observatories suggested that the universe was 8 to 12 billion years old. On the other hand, data collected from the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope, which was carried into orbit with the endeavor space shuttle, suggested the universe is 14 billion years old. Astronomer Edwin Hubble had calculated it to be 15 to 20 billion years old. Depending on who you ask, astronomers will tell you that the universe is anywhere from 8 to 20 billion years old.
1 Time, March 6, 1995 op. cit., p. 40.
14. Rocks from space.
Most scientists today agree that the best estimate of the age of the Earth is somewhere around 4.6 billion years. How did they manage to come up with this figure? Well, they used a technique Called radioisotope dating, which is based on precise measurements of the ratio of the various radioactive isotopes found in a rock. We'll examine radioisotope dating more in the next several points to make it clearer, but first let's look at the rock that scientists examined and tested in order to come up with their estimate. The rock they chose was a meteorite. Meteorites of course, are thought to be pieces of another planet that has broken up some time in the past. The assumption that scientists are making of course, is that these meteorites are the same age as the Earth! So, even if these rocks are found to be in the vicinity of 4.6 billion years old, does it really tell us anything about the age of the Earth? After all, these rocks aren't even from here.
15. Fred Flinstone was safe.
We've all seen falling stars. These are meteors that are steadily falling toward the Earth and burning up in our atmosphere. Those that don't burn up in this way, crash to Earth as meteorites. Curiously, we only tend such rocks in the very top levels of the Earth's surface. If the Earth's sediments were deposited over hundreds of millions of years, as evolutionists believe, we should find meteorites throughout the various levels of sediment on the Earth's surface. But, we don't.
16. Unreliable evidence?
Sometimes radioisotope dating produces different results in repeated experiments on the same sample. This was the case for the Allende meteorite. For the most part, when there is a case of conflicting age estimates, it is determined that the rock sample must have been contaminated in some way, and the results from the tests are simply thrown out. Of course, paleontologists do their best to pre-screen samples for contamination. But by throwing out samples after this pre-screening, they are admitting that it is possible for contamination to have occurred without being visibly detected. But how do we know that the results which are kept are indeed accurate? And, perhaps more importantly, how do we know they weren't kept simply because they lined up with what the paleontologist thought they should be?
17. Plus or minus a few billion years.
Tests were conducted on rocks formed from the lava flow of the Hualalai Volcano in Hawaii that erupted between 1800 and 1801. A variety of radioisotope dating methods were used with each test producing different ages for the same samples. The age estimates ranged from 140 million to 2.96 billion years. The same was found for Salt Lake Crater on Oahu. One test result dated a rock at 400,000 years. Others produced results ranging from 2.6 million to 3.3 billion. So radioisotope dating has been found to give ages which are not only incorrect, but which don't even agree with each other...in fact, they're not even close!
18. This dating method is all wet!
Studies have also been conducted on rocks formed from lava flows under the ocean to see if water pressure made any difference in dating results. Samples from the Mt. Kilauea lava flow were taken from a depth of 4,680 meters. The eruption occurred about 200 years ago. The test results, using the radioisotope method of potassium to argon, dated the rock at 21, plus or minus 8, million years. Samples taken from 3,420 meters dated it at 12, plus or minus 2, million years.
19. Proof inconclusive.
You may be thinking that although there are some problems with this dating method, it still seems to suggest an Earth that is very old, not young as viewed by literal Biblical creationists. But the fact of the matter is, of all the dating methods available, only a few give ages of millions or billions of years, namely those using radioisotope techniques.
20. Houston, we have a "tiny mystery".
Another evidence for the Young-Earth hypothesis is found in the mystery of polonium-218. You see, some elements, like uranium-238, are known as "parent" materials. The elements that parent materials break down into through decay are known as "daughter" materials and the age of a rock is determined by the markings left behind by these daughter materials. Polonium is one of these daughter materials. The markings left behind in a rock from each element as they break down are known as pleochroic halos. Each element produces its own unique halo -- -leaving its "signature" in the rock. Now, because Polonium is a daughter, there must be a source, or parent. For example, when uranium or thorium decay, one of the elements they break down into along the way is polonium. So a polonium pleochroic halo would appear as a circle where the polonium was, even though the polonium itself is now gone. If there is a pleochroic halo for polonium in a rock, there should also be a pleochroic halo for its source, or parent. However, polonium-218 has been found in granite samples without any evidence of a polonium parent.
Polonium-218 has a half-life of 3.05 minutes, but for simplicity, let's call it 3 minutes even. So if you have a kilo of Polonium-218, after three minutes have passed you will have half a kilo, in an another three minutes you will have a quarter of a kilo, and so on. It continues like this for about 10 half-lives, or thirty minutes. Let's say thirty half-lives have gone by, or about one and one half hours. For the polonium-218 pleochroic halo to have been set in the granite, which is a metamorphic rock that was once molten, without any trace of a parent, seems to suggest that it was the original element in those base rocks. And for the polonium-218 halo to have been left behind in the granite, means the granite would have to have cooled down in less than ninety minutes. The rock, while still in a molten state, would have destroyed any traces of the polonium-218 halo. So it appears the Earth could have been created solid, with the element of polonium-218 in it, in an extremely short period of time. While this theory is not without its critics, evolutionists have come to admit it is a "tiny mystery".
21. Where's the stuff?
Not only are there no bones to demonstrate the existence of the vast number of people that evolution requires (see "No Bones About It"), but their "stuff" is missing too. Where are their tools, cooking implements, homes, weapons etc? A population of this size would certainly have left an almost unbelievable number of artifacts behind when they died.
22. The seeds of intelligence.
It is hard to imagine people, just as intelligent as we are today, living for tens, or even hundreds of thousands of years, without ever discovering that the plants they were eating grew from seeds. And yet, the archaeological record clearly shows that man has been planting his own food for less than 10,000 years! Clearly this suggests that man hasn't been around for as long as evolutionists believe (and require).
23. Fossils support young earth.
The very fact that fossils exist at all seems to lend support to the idea of a young Earth. This is because, when an animal dies in the wild, its body is devoured by scavengers and disappears within days or weeks. It becomes a fossil only in those cases where it is covered over by sediment very, very quickly. This suggests than any rock strata that contain fossils, must have been laid down very quickly.
24. Venus de Mile High.
Venus is much closer to the sun than the Earth is and so the surface temperature on that planet hovers somewhere close to 1000º F. Had the planets existed for billions of years, then Venus' crust would have heated into a soft 'tar'. (Remember even hard elements like lead and zinc melt well below 1000 degrees). Yet, when we look at Venus today we see many very tall mountains. In fact, one such mountain, called Maat Mons is even taller than our own Mount Everest! If Venus had been there for billions of years, then the crust of the planet would simply be too soft to support such mountains and they would long ago have simply "oozed" into a big puddle.
25. Star light, star bright.
There are stars within our galaxy that are burning up much faster than our own sun. These stars are called "0" stars, and they are using up their fuel hundreds of times faster than the sun. The implication of this finding is that these stars must be rather young on an evolutionary scale -- -- otherwise they would have burned themselves out by now. Or, if they were once large enough to support such a rate of disintegration, we should then be seeing the resulting characteristics like high rotation speeds and huge magnetic fields. But such telltale signs do not exist.
26. Evolution finds magnetic field 'unattractive'.
The Earth's magnetic field also provides support for the idea of a young Earth. A strong magnetic field is crucial for life as we know it. It forms a protective covering around the Earth, blocking it from harmful cosmic radiation that continuously bombards the Earth. Observations made of the Earth's magnetic field over the last century and a half have shown that it is measurably decreasing in intensity. Since 1829 it has been measured that the strength of the magnetic field has decreased by about 7%. It has been calculated that the half-life of the magnetic field is about 1,400 years, meaning it decays to half its strength every fourteen hundred years. If it gets too weak life will not be possible. If the Earth was as old as evolutionists claim, the magnetic field would be non-existent by now.
27. A 20,000 year limit on life.
Let's look at the Earth's magnetic field backward in time. We know that according to half-life calculations, the magnetic field must have been twice as strong as it is now about 1,400 years ago. If we went back in time then, say 100,000 years, that field would have been unbelievably strong, and life would simply not have been possible. In fact, it has been calculated by Dr. Thomas Barnes, former Dean of the Institute for Creation Research and Graduate School, and Emeritus Profess of Physics at the University of Texas in El Paso, that at any time beyond 20,000 years ago life, as we know it, would have been impossible on Earth.
28. An Airtight Argument.
Another young Earth argument centers on the presence of helium in the Earth's atmosphere. Helium is an extremely light gas. In fact, only hydrogen is lighter. By comparing the percentage of helium in the atmosphere to the total volume of the atmosphere, scientists are able to calculate the total number of helium atoms that must he present there. Since helium is produced below the Earth's surface, and escapes from there into the atmosphere -- scientists should be able to use the rate of that escape to calculate the age of the atmosphere itself. Dr. Larry Vardiman, Chairman of the Physics Department at the Institute for Creation Research has done extensive work on this and has produced an "airtight" argument.1 He calculated that the amount of helium in the atmosphere would have accumulated in no more than two million years. Now, while young-Earth creationists may not like this old date, it is still younger than the widely accepted age of the universe and the Earth in the scientific community. We should also note that these calculations were based on the assumption that the rate of accumulation of helium in the atmosphere has never changed. And it also assumes that when the Earth was formed there were no helium atoms present in the atmosphere to begin with. But if the Earth were designed to sustain life by a Creator, it is likely He would have had helium present in the atmosphere right from the start. This would obviously bring the time needed for the present accumulation down.
1 Vardiman, Larry, The Age of the Earth 's Atmosphere, Institute for Creation Research, 1990.
29. Another Helium Mystery.
The release of helium into the atmosphere has been measured at thirteen million helium atoms per square inch per second. There is still a vast amount of helium below the Earth's crust. Because helium is so lightweight there is no rock that is able to block its escape into the atmosphere. Now, radioactive decay in rocks does replenish some of the helium below the surface, but not enough to account for the amount there. If the process of helium escaping into the atmosphere had been going on for billions of years, there should be a lot more helium in the atmosphere than there is and a lot less below the Earth's surface. So not only does the small amount of helium in the atmosphere support a young-Earth view, so does the vast amount of helium still sitting below the Earth's crust.
30. Take Evolution with A Grain of Salt.
Evolutionists believe that life began in a salty ocean around 3 to 4 billion years ago. Supporters of the young-Earth view, however, point out the fact that if the Earth is as old as evolutionists say it is, then the oceans should be a lot saltier than they are today. Studies have been conducted by Dr. Steve Austin and Russell Humphreys1 on the rate at which sodium is deposited into and taken out of the oceans. Austin and Humphreys determined that the Earth could not be older than 62 million years, much younger than evolutionists claim. Now, while young-Earth creationists may not like this age, it must be remembered that Austin and Humphreys used the most extreme conditions for input and the least extreme conditions for output to be more than fair to the evolutionist view point. Regardless, it was determined that the amount of salt going into the oceans is greater than the amount going out. So, even if the oceans came into existence with no salt in them, they should now be much saltier than they actually are.
1 Austin, Steven A. and Humphreys, Russell D.; "The Sea's Missing Salt: A Dilemma for Evolutionists," Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Creationism, Vol. 2, 1991; pp. 17-33.
31. Our Shrinking Sun.
Over the past 150 years, astronomers have made careful, regular measurements of the sun's diameter and have shown that our sun is shrinking at a rate of about 5 feet per hour. Extending the implications of these observations we can only conclude that had the sun existed several million years ago, it would have been so much bigger than it is today that its heat would have made life on Earth impossible. This flies in the face of evolutionary theory which suggests that a million years ago all the life we see today was already here. In fact, a million years is not that long ago by evolutionary standards, with the process believed to have begun hundreds of millions or even billions of years ago!
32. Enjoy the View, while you can!
The rings that wrap around Saturn are being rapidly bombarded by meteoroids. Some calculations estimate that such pulverization would destroy the rings completely in about 10,000 years. Since the rings are still there, the implication is that the rings around Saturn are quite a bit younger than evolutionists believe.
33. Houston, How far did you say it was to the Moon?
The rotation of the Earth is slowing down. This is caused by the 'friction' of the tides and it has been observed since the 1700's. We know from physics that this means that the Moon is slowly moving away from us. But, even if the Moon began orbiting right at the Earth's surface, it would still be much further away from us than it is if this process indeed started some 4.6 billion years ago.
34. Why Don't You Just Cool Down?
Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune each give off twice as much heat as the sun provides. Since it is not believed that these planets build up heat through nuclear fusion, radioactive decay or gravitational contraction, the only other conceivable explanation is that these planets have not existed long enough to cool off.
35. Finding the Dirt on Evolutionary Theory.
Every time it rains, or the winds pick up, more of the continents are eroded away, and the soil is washed out to sea. In fact, studies have shown that close to 25 billion tons of sediment are removed from dry land and deposited in the ocean every year. At that rate, it would take less than 20 million years to completely erode the continents so that no dry land remained above sea level. If we accept evolution as the explanation for life on Earth, then certainly we have to wonder why there is still dry land if the evolutionary process has been going on, on dry land, for hundreds of millions of years. At the same time, after hundreds of millions of years one would expect to find several miles of sediment on the ocean floors around the world. In reality, we see only hundreds of feet of sediment, again suggesting a much younger world than evolutionists would have us believe.
36. That Sinking Feeling.
When men were preparing to land on the Moon for the first time, there was concern about the dust that they would find there. NASA initiated project "Fire In The Hole" which had to deal with the variables involved related to the consistancy of the "moon dust". If the dust had the consistancy of gravel, there would be no problem. However, if the dust was very fine and, based on the universal assumption that the earth and moon came into existance at the same time, and the earth was billions of years old, experts feared that the astronauts might simply sink into as much as a mile of dust on the surface of the Moon! This of course, did not happen and scientists were forced to face the fact that the Moon could only be 10,000 to 20,000 years old when they found only a very thin layer of dust.
37. Would you believe Mount Rushmore was an Accident?
Imagine walking through the forest and coming across a tree with the words "Fred loves Wilma" carved into the trunk. Would you assume that those words had formed there by accident? Of course not. What about Mount Rushmore? Do you think anyone who sees it for the first time thinks that those faces simply appeared through erosion and other natural processes? You see, one thing we seem to have a pretty good sense about in every day life is determining what was man-made and what was a natural occurrence. In other words, our experience tells us quite readily what nature is capable of producing and what requires the intervention of an intelligent designer. At the same time however, we see evolutionists looking at some of the most astonishing designs imaginable, and suggesting that they are all just happy accidents.
38. Careful Design or Wonderful Accident?
Perhaps the best, and most striking evidence for the existence of a designer is the complexity of the design itself. Take for example the co-dependent relationship between the Pronuba moth and the Yucca plant, both of which naturally reside in the desert. The Yucca plant's very existence is dependent upon the Pronuba moth, whose eggs hatch in the desert sand at the base of the plant. Interestingly, this only happens on certain nights of the year, when the flowers of the Yucca plant are in bloom. You see, the moth, which is also dependent on the Yucca plant for its very life, takes pollen from one of the plant's flowers, and then flies to a different Yucca plant to lay its eggs. When it arrives at the other plant, the moth first pushes the pollen that it has collected from the first plant, into a flower on the second plant. That plant will then grow and prosper, fertilizing the moth eggs in the sand at its base. Her task complete, the Pronuba moth dies that same night. When the eggs hatch, the caterpillars will build cocoons at the base of the plant, and wait their turn to repeat this incredible cycle of survival. Equally amazing is the fact that there are several varieties of Yucca plant, and each one is pollinated by its own species of moth. How could all these varieties of the moth and Yucca plant have randomly come into coordinated existence, and then randomly evolved in perfect coordination just to give each other life?
39. Evidence of Design.
Obviously one of the most important elements in the discussion of a Creator, is the beginning of life itself. So, let's now step back in time to the very first appearance of primitive life in the universe. Not surprisingly, the creation of life was a complex process, requiring countless combinations of the elements of the universe to come together in a very precise way. For example, atoms of varying degrees of size must form. But before this can happen, there needs to be a precise balance of various other constants in the physical world, such as gravity, nuclear forces, the proper expansion rate of the universe, and the proper ratio of electrons and protons, to name just a few. In many of the myriad of variables in this complex equation, a change as small as one tenth of one percent could make life impossible. Such precision seems to suggest that there was great care taken in making the universe a place capable of supporting life. Indeed, many scientists today now admit that the universe seems to have been specially crafted for life.
40. Words of Wisdom from the Scientific Community.
"The origin of life appears to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to be satisfied to get it going." 1
"It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us." 2
1 Sir Francis Crick, Scientific American (February, 1991)
41. A Delicate Balance.
There are many known factors that must be precisely met in order for life to exist here on Earth. Any slight variation, in any of these factors, would spell disaster. The rate of the Earth's rotation for example, is ideal. If it were to slow down to 10% of its present rate, then life as we know it could not exist. Plants would burn during the day, and then freeze during the night. If on the other hand the rotation were to speed up too much, winds would increase to unbelievable levels. In fact, Jupiter rotates on its axis once every 10 hours and the winds there are in excess of 1000 MPH! So again, we see great precision in the design of the Earth, and that is what allows it to support life. And when you see all of these evidences of design, you must logically expect there to be a designer.
42. The Glue That Binds Us All.
There is a powerful force within the universe, holding together all the atoms and making the various elements (Hydrogen, Helium, Oxygen, Iron etc.) possible. If however, this force was even 5% Weaker, then the only element that could exist on Earth would be Hydrogen and that would make life impossible. At the same time, if that same force were just 5% stronger, everything would clump together into giant molecules. Life would also be impossible under these conditions.
43. Where's the Link?
The classification of species, based on similarities, like those of the anatomy, is known as taxonomy. Taxonomy, through the years, has shown that species are divided into distinct classes, with no transitional sequences being apparent. Recently, the advent of molecular biology has added a whole new chapter to the field of taxonomy. It has been found, for example, that the blood chemical, hemoglobin, varies between species. Differences in protein can also be used to measure the differences between species. So we see that scientists are not only able to separate species on the basis of anatomy, but on the basis of molecular differences as well. Further, molecular biology, like anatomical biology, shows no evidence of intermediate species. In other words, molecular biologists have found no evidence to support the evolutionist's claim that fish evolved into amphibians, which evolved into reptiles, which evolved into mammals.
44. Survival of the Fittest?
When Darwin was first developing his theory, he was unable to come up with an answer to the key question of what caused a species to change (i.e. evolve) in the first place. After some effort, he came up with his theory of "survival of the fittest", suggesting that more individuals of each species were being produced than the environment could support. The theory suggests that members of the species that possessed slight advantages over the others would be more likely to survive and pass on their genetic makeup to their offspring. The giraffe's long neck for example evolved gradually over time, allowing the animals to reach higher and higher into the trees for food, especially during times of famine. Through the process of "natural selection", the giraffes with the longest necks were best equipped to survive and hence pass on their "long neck" genes to future generations. But how would accidental variations be preserved within a species? Darwin didn't know it at the time, but today biologists now possess a model of genetic inheritance that demonstrates how a genetic trait can be passed over several generations and influence an entire population. While this may appear to support the evolution argument, it really doesn't. You see, not all traits are passed on through genetics. The children of a father born with three fingers are no more likely than anyone else to he born with three fingers. At the same time, experiments in breeding domestic animals have proven that some species do indeed undergo some degree of change, but there is an outer limit to change. Just as with Darwin's finches, the cross between a Cocker Spaniel and a Poodle becomes a Cock-a-Poo. But it is still a dog, not a giraffe.
45. Where's the Advantage in This?
Evolution cannot explain how intermediary species survived between stages. For example, we are told that birds evolved from reptiles and that the scales common to reptiles evolved, over millions of years, into feathers. A bird's wing and feathers are, of course, designed with absolute perfection in order to make flight possible. The feathers have to be of a specific strength. They have to be capable of withstanding deformation. And there has to be exactly the right amount of feathers in order for flight to occur. Thinking about this scenario, it is very difficult to imagine the process continuing through natural selection as the reptile's scales become less useful to them (as they begin to look more like feathers) as the animal evolves into a bird with deformed wings that don't even function as such. There appears to be no "environmental advantage" at any stage in the process, and in fact, there seem to be considerable disadvantages!
46. Darwin, You Take My Breath Away!
As evolutionists argue that birds evolved from reptiles, there is another problem to consider -- - respiration. There are no other known vertebrate species on Earth that have a lung system similar to that found in birds. The question then, is how the intermediate species that must have existed between reptiles and birds managed to survive with a malfunctioning respiratory system that would surely result in immediate death to the creature. When you really sit down and think about it, many of the key premises upon which evolutionary theory is based seem utterly ridiculous.
47. The Jet and the Junkyard.
Not only did Darwin believe that natural selection was a method of survival, he also believed that evolutionary changes came about as random chance occurrences. Yet, if you were to pick up a pencil and ask someone where it originated, they would likely tell you that someone made it. It would be absolutely silly for them to suggest that it came about through a series of highly unlikely and random events in the universe. But that is the very argument presented by evolutionists. Sir Fred Hoyle is one of the world's leading astronomers and mathematicians. Although he is not a creationist, he did have this to say about evolution to an audience at the British Academy of Science: "Let's be scientifically honest. We all know that the probability of life arising to greater and greater complexity and organization by chance through evolution is the same probability as having a tornado tear through a junkyard and form out the other end a Boeing 747 jetliner!"1 In mathematical terms, he calculated the chances of life just happening by random chance to be one in 1040,000. That's a one with 40,000 zeroes following it! For perspective, consider the following examples.
A one in a million chance is one in 106
The distance around the Earth is 109 inches!
The visible universe is about 1028 inches in diameter!
1 As quoted in Carlson, Ron and Decker, Ed; Fast Facts on False Teachings; Harvest House Publishers; Eugene, OR; 1994; p. 55.
48. Evolution is Against the Law.
All observations, from the earliest beginnings of time right up to the present, have shown over and over again that life only comes from life. Period. So fundamental is this reality in fact that it is called the Law of Biogenesis, and it has never been violated under observation or experimentation. Clearly however, the theory of evolution would require the violation of this law in order to suggest that life somehow came into existence from purely non-living matter, by purely natural processes.
49. Soup's On!
Despite such enormous odds against the sudden appearance of life by completely random chance, evolutionists still argue for this point. They tell us that before life there was nothing but what they call a "prebiotic soup", basically a great big puddle of chemicals. This soup contained a mixture of organic and inorganic molecules, which somehow, just found itself in random possession of all the conditions necessary to create life -- which it supposedly did. From that accident, from that most unlikely of events, somehow everything on this planet evolved, including palm trees, Basset Hounds and Elvis Presley. This not only sounds absurd; it also violates the law of biogenesis, which tells us that life can only come from life. A number of years ago a molecular biologist named Harold Morowitz determined that if one were to break down a 'simple' cell according to its chemical bonds, the cell could not reform even under the most ideal natural conditions. In fact, he calculated the likelihood of reassembly to be one chance in 10100,000,000,000,000. A number of attempts have been made by scientists to create a "prebiotic soup" and apply all of the ideal conditions for life to develop. Of course, none of these experiments has been successful in creating life.
50. Where's The Beef?
You would think that evidence for the existence of the so-called prebiotic soup from which life first appeared would be critical to the theory of evolution. Surprisingly though, this theory exists with no such evidence. In fact, while it would seem feasible to expect that remnants from such prebiotic soup should have been trapped in rocks from those early days -- no such remnant has ever been found. Even rocks which are, according to geologists, close to 3,900 million years old show no traces of this prebiotic soup. Even so, its existence has become widely accepted as truth!
51. Too Much Oxygen Spoils the Broth.
Not only is there no empirical evidence for prebiotic soup, there are other problems with the concept in theory as well. It has been determined for example; that any organic substances formed in the early days of the Earth would have been quickly oxidized and destroyed in the presence of oxygen. Thus, these organic compounds would simply not have survived long enough to be able to accumulate into a prebiotic soup -- let alone long enough for life to 'spring into existence'.
52. A Hole In The Ozone Theory.
Some have suggested that Earth's early environment must not have contained any oxygen, meaning that the simple organic compounds could have avoided destruction by oxidization. Even if it were true that there was no oxygen at the time, that would mean that there would have been no ozone layer in the Earth's upper atmosphere as there is today. Without that protective layer of ozone, lethal radiation from the sun would have destroyed any organic compounds that may have existed.
53. A Leap in Logic.
Prior to the 1950s, evolutionists hoped that science would one day be able to provide signs of intermediate steps between non-living molecules and the simplest cell. In other words, scientists were hoping to show that life could have indeed come about spontaneously, from purely non-living matter. However, since the rise of molecular biology in the early 1950s it has been shown that there are no intermediate forms leading to the evolution of a simple cell from chemical synthesis. Life comes from life. Period. (See "Evolution is Against the Law"). Nor is there evidence for a primitive simple cell evolving into the complex cells we have today.
54. There is No Such Thing as a Simple Life Form.
Evolutionists tell us that we came from some type of simple cell like an amoebae. What do we know about the amoebae? It is a one-celled animal that can crawl towards food. If necessary it can produce a pseudopod, a false foot, to propel itself towards the food. When the foot is no longer needed it disappears. The amoebae has chromosomes, genes and DNA. Its method of reproduction is an extremely complicated and precise process. So, even the lowly amoebae, which at first may appear to be an unbelievably simple life organism, is upon closer examination found to be quite complex. Evolution cannot even begin to answer the question of how this seemingly simple cell developed without some intelligent planning and design behind it.
55. Try to Figure the Logic in this...
Doesn't it seem strange that brilliant men could spend their entire lives in a lab trying to create life just to show that NO INTELLIGENCE was necessary to form it in the first place? For hundreds of years brilliant men have been trying - and failing – to make even the simplest life, and yet those same men would have you believe that life began through nothing more than time and chance.
56. The First Step?
Evolutionists have some difficulty in answering questions about the amoebae's reproduction. The amoebae, when it reproduces, still reproduces its own kind. It does not produce another life form. Neither does it produce male or female. So, how, when and why did the amoebae evolve into different genders and even different, higher life forms?
56. Evolution and Mutation.
One thing that evolutionists have to admit is that mutations are the only source of new genetic information for natural selection to work on. Webster's dictionary defines a mutation as "a sudden departure from the parent type in one or more heritable characteristics, caused by a change in a gene or a chromosome." Dr. H.J. Muller, who won the Nobel Prize for his work on mutations, said "It is entirely in line with the accidental nature of mutations that extensive tests have agreed in showing the vast majority of them detrimental to the organism in its job of surviving and reproducing. Good ones are so rare we can consider them all bad." (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 11:331). It is important to remember, that in order for a mutation to be passed on to future generations, it must occur in the sperm or egg cells of the parent. The probability of getting even five mutations in the same cell is estimated to be 1 chance in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. If there was a population of 100 million organisms, with a reproductive cycle of 1 day, such an event would occur once every 274 billion years! Again, it requires more faith to believe in those odds, than it does to believe in a creator.
57. Remember, it's the Theory of Evolution!
Critics of creationism claim that the Genesis account of creation can never be proven by science. This is true. But the same holds true for Darwin's theory of evolution. Many seem to have forgotten that evolution is only a theory, not a scientific fact. It is treated in textbooks, science journals, classrooms and TV documentaries as fact and this has led to its perceived credibility. But one thing is clear; the theory of evolution is filled with theoretical, logical, and scientific errors. Accepting this theory requires as much, if not more faith than accepting the creation account.
58. I Guess That's Why They're Called Missing Links.
The fossil record is often shown in textbooks as a tree trunk with branches growing out from it. While the fossil tree shows horizontal branches, which demonstrate the supposed mutation of species into other species, there is absolutely no empirical evidence to support the existence of such horizontal branches. In other words there is no evidence in the fossil record to support the existence of any intermediary species. These are known as missing links, and yet even though they are missing, they are the cornerstone of the entire theory of evolution.
59. Sorry Darwin, It's Time for a New Excuse.
The missing links in the fossil record were clearly a very big problem for Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution. But the only explanation he could come up with was that we have "extreme imperfection" in the fossil record. In Darwin's day only a small portion of fossil-bearing strata had been investigated and so he lived in the hope that further digging would undoubtedly unearth these missing links. Since 1860 however, virtually every fossil species that has been unearthed has shown that only near-relatives of existing species ever lived. In other cases, unique species were found, unlike any we have existing today. But never have any fossils been found that can be classified as ancestors or descendants of other species. Never have any of the missing links, pertinent to the theory of evolution, been discovered.
60. I Must Confess.
"...I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualize such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead the reader?....You say that I should at least "show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived." I will lay it on the line-there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument...It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favored by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test...."1
1 -- Dr. Colin Patterson, senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History, responding to a letter from a reader of his book, Evolution.
61. No Alternatives.
Something that the fossil record demonstrates clearly is that species appeared suddenly, with no sequential relatives. In other words, each species appears in the fossil record as if it was created then and there, with no link (or ancestor) to any older fossils. And many scientists, realizing this, are now saying that Darwin's theory that species evolved slowly over time must be incorrect. Even so, these same scientists have no idea how these species were able to evolve suddenly. Nor do they understand why. In an article dealing with this very issue, Time magazine noted, "Here scientists delicately slide across data-thin ice, suggesting scenarios that are based on intuition rather than solid evidence."1
1 Time; December 4, 1995; "When Life Exploded" by J. Madeleine Nash; p. 73.
62. Beating the Odds.
There are only a few species today that we can observe in real time, that seem to benefit from mutations. Viruses and bacteria are examples. But these creatures have populations in the quadrillions (one quadrillion is 1,000,000,000,000,000 in case you're wondering). According to theoretical calculations that were reached in the 1960s, the greater a population size, the greater the possibility it could survive mutational advancement. The reason is that far more of the mutations in a species are harmful than favorable. A population would have to be large enough to withstand the trials of destructive mutations until successful ones were reached, and clearly we don't see those kinds of populations in the vast majority of animal species.
63. What's New?
Darwin saw nature as a continuous evolutionary process following the principles of natural selection. If the theory of evolution is correct, then shouldn't we see evidence of new species evolving today? In fact, we should see new species constantly appearing at a rate greater than extinction. But we don't.
64. A Missing Link Found?
While there are missing links in the fossil record, some species have been found that supposedly support the theory of evolution. One example is the fossil discovery of a creature known as Archaeopteryx, a primitive bird that had some reptilian characteristics in its skeleton. But its wing was designed, as are other birds, properly equipped, as far as we can tell from its skeleton, for flight. Although it did have some reptilian features, this is not sufficient evidence for evolutionists to argue that the Archaeopteryx is indeed an intermediate step between reptiles and birds. One of the characteristics which led paleontologists to consider a link between reptiles and birds was the fact that the Archaeopteryx had teeth. But there are other examples of birds in the fossil record that had teeth and we also know that there are also reptiles that don't have teeth. Another characteristic present in the skeleton was claws on the wings. But ostriches have claws on their wings and they are classified as birds, not an intermediate between a reptile and a bird. Clearly, skeletal features alone are not enough to determine whether a species is part of a sequence that will ultimately lead to a brand new species. Clearly, if evolution were indeed true, then evolutionists wouldn't have to settle for such a poor example to demonstrate their theory.
65. What Came First, The Archaeopteryx or the Egg?
Interestingly, a fossil has been unearthed in Colorado of a bird, that scientists claim is older, or at least as old as Archaeopteryx (see "A Missing Link Found?"). So, we know that birds already existed at the time when the supposed ancestor of birds appeared.
Sir Arthur Eddington
2 International Herald Tribune, "US Scientists Find a 'Holy Grail': Ripples at the Edge of the Universe," April 24, 1992, p. l.
3 Ibid.
Robert Jastrow, Columbia University Professor and Founder of the Goddard Space Center.
2 Ibid.
And those taken from a depth of 1,400 meters were dated at zero. All of the samples were from the same lava flow.
2 Stephen Hawking, 'A Brief History of Time', p.127