IN CHRISTIAN DEFENSE
Argument against Evolution
| |||||
Introduction | Argument against Atheism | Argument against Evolution | Argument against other religions | Argument against Mormonism | Argument against Jehovah's Witness | Argument against Catholicism | The Bible | What I Believe | Words of Encouragement
| |||||
There are two choices for the creation of the universe: God or the Big Bang. That which created the universe must be greater in size and duration than the universe it has brought into existence, otherwise we have the "creator" bringing into existence something greater than or equal to itself. The Big Bang might be greater than the universe in size but not in duration, since it simply happened and instantly the universe came into being. To produce an explosion of energy ("bang"), there must be a stimulant present. An explosion cannot occur all by itself, it needs a stimulant to produce a reaction which causes the explosion. This stimulant could then cause the "creator" (Big Bang) to happen, and then the "creator" could create the universe. If a stimulant caused the Big Bang, then the Big Bang could not be the "creator", since it was created. The stimulant could not be the "creator" since there must be something for it to stimulate. Evolutionists suppose that before the Big Bang there was nothing. If there is nothing for the stimulant to stimulate then there can be no explosion, no Big Bang. Thus we are only left with one option: God is the Creator of the universe. The best explanation that evolutionists have for the creation of Earth is that another star crashed into the sun, and matter was torn loose from the sun and formed the planets. The sun shows no sign of any such collision, and this theory leaves unexplained many of the mysteries of the energies and movements of the sun and the planets. If the planets came from pieces of the sun, wouldn't they be miniature stars? If this theory is true, then where did water come from? Water cannot come from burning gas. If this theory is true, then where did the sun come from? Did it create itself? There is absolutely nothing known to man that created itself. Why then should the universe be any different? All evolutionists must admit that at least the first living things sprang from nonliving substances by spontaneous generation if their belief is correct. This admission is scientifically devastating and makes the philosophy of evolution much harder to believe than the Biblical record of Creation. Although evolutionists state that life resulted from non-life, matter resulted from nothing, and humans resulted from animals, each of these is an impossibility of science and the natural world. Darwin said that the method of natural selection, or the "survival of the fittest", was the means by which one species slowly evolved into a new species. Those animals which are better able to survive because of color or some other characteristic unquestionably stand less chance of becoming extinct. But natural selection is not the same as evolution. Natural selection produces no new characteristics. Neither does it explain how new life forms come about or how one kind of organism can change into another kind or how an organism can develop new organs. Natural selection only produces a fitter animal, not a new one. The Theory of Evolution states that all plant and animal life evolved over long periods of time from simple to more complicated forms through mutation and adaptation. Biologists can show experimentally that some organisms escape predators by trying to be inconspicuous and blend into their environment and that other organisms imitate the coloration of species distasteful to predators. These tested cases are only a handful, however, and many supposed cases of adaptation are simply assumed. Mimicry, a form of adaptation, is a physical or behavioral resemblance of one species to another to benefit itself or, in effect, sometimes both species. Mimicry occurs among a great many different forms of plants and animals, including orchids and insects, songbirds and hawks, and lizards and noxious beetles. Mimicry never shows that one species can become another, it merely states that certain species mimic others. No cases of mimicry have been found where one species developed new organs or became another species. Another form of adaptation is camouflage, concealment by blending in with the surroundings. The Arctic Fox is one of the many animals whose coat changes color according to the seasons. Its coat is brown in the summer and white in the winter; this provides it with protection from its predators and concealment from its prey. But no matter what color the Arctic Fox's coat is, it is still an Arctic Fox. It doesn't develop any new organs and it doesn't change into another species of animal. Some so-called adaptations of certain species are not logical. For example, why would a Blue Jay adapt its feathers to be blue? Its blue feathers do not blend in with its surroundings, and do not protect it from predators. Why wouldn't it adapt its feathers to be green in order to blend in with the leaves and conceal itself from predators? Mutation is "the event consisting of a change in genetic structure". It is generally destructive to an organism. For example, people with three copies of the 21st chromosome are born with Down syndrome. Mutants are usually weaker than normal organisms, they are usually unable to reproduce, and they usually live shorter lives than normal organisms. An albino alligator, for example, is a mutation of a normal alligator. It usually doesn't live as long as a normal alligator for two reasons. One, it is born with very light colored skin and it easily spotted by predators and eaten, thus it usually never reaches adulthood. Two, because of its very light colored skin it is seen by its prey and its prey escapes, thus it will starve to death. As a organism evolves it is supposed to improve, but most mutation is a hindrance rather than an improvement. Geneticists began breeding the fruit fly soon after the turn of the century, and since 1910 when the first mutation was reported, some 3,000 mutations have been identified. All of the mutations are harmful or harmless; none of them produce a more successful fruit fly. Hermaphroditism, a type of mutation, is the presence in one individual, plant or animal, of both male and female gonads or organs of sex cell production. Most organisms that have this mutation cannot fertilize themselves. Flatworms, however, have a complete set of male and female gonads in each segment and regularly fertilize themselves. This might be considered a helpful mutation for some animals, but higher animals that have this mutation are usually sterile, and, when fertile, do not produce both fertile eggs and fertile sperm. Humans who have this mutation show functional disturbance of the endocrine glands, especially of the pituitary or adrenal glands, and do not possess two sets of functioning sex organs. Hermaphroditism never produces new sex organs, or any other kind of new organs, that are unknown to the species. Other mutations are helpful. One example is the wingless beetle on the island of Madeira. For a beetle living on a windy island, wings can be a definite disadvantage, because creatures in flight are more likely to be blown into the sea. Mutations producing the loss of flight could be helpful. The sightless cave fish would be similar. Eyes are quite vulnerable to injury, and a creature that lives in pitch dark would benefit from mutations that would replace the eye with scar-like tissue, reducing that vulnerability. While these mutations produce a drastic and beneficial change, it is important to notice that they always involve loss of information and never gain. One never observes the reverse occurring, namely wings or eyes being produced on creatures which never had the information to produce them. Recombination involves shuffling the genes and is the reason that children resemble their parents very closely but are not exactly like either one. Genes, the genetic units of heredity, are merely reshuffled from one generation to another, but new genes are never formed. Gregor Mendel showed that while traits might be hidden for a generation they were not usually lost, and when new traits appeared it was because their genetic factors had been there all along. Recombination makes it possible for there to be limited variation within the created kinds, but it is limited because virtually all of the variations are produced by a reshuffling of the genes that are already there. While Darwin saw the finches on the Galapagos islands as an example of evolution, we can now recognize them merely as the result of recombination within a single created kind. The pioneer finches brought with them enough genetic variability to be sorted out into the varieties we see today. Another example is the domestic dog. Recombination has produced the many different varieties of domestic dogs found in the world today. Evolutionists believe that over long periods of time, through mutation and adaptation, one species can evolve into another. Why do evolutionists think that time can make a difference? It has been thousands of years since the Egyptians domesticated cats and those animals haven't changed at all. Crocodiles have existed since the time of the dinosaurs, yet they haven't changed at all in millions of years. In Fairy Tales someone kisses a frog and in two seconds it becomes a prince. In Evolution someone kisses a frog and in two million years it becomes a prince. Both are unrealistic. Whether it's two seconds or two million years, a frog will never become a prince. If all organisms evolved from a one-celled organism, then why do one-celled organisms still exist? Why did some one-celled organisms evolve and not others? If all birds evolved from a common flying ancestor, then why do some birds fly and others don't? If they evolved differently then why is everything else the same between them? (They all have feathers, beaks, feet, etc.) Are flying birds more evolved than non-flying birds? Are non-flying birds continually evolving and will they fly someday? Why did everything stop evolving? Why aren't organisms becoming more complex? Is it because they have reached their evolutionary peak? A snail is not a very fast, powerful, intelligent, or complex animal. It is hard to believe that this organism has reached its evolutionary peak, yet it has not continued to evolve. What about the ostrich? It is a bird with large wings and many feathers, yet it cannot fly. If it has reached its evolutionary peak wouldn't it have the ability to fly? Evolution teaches that man is the pinnacle of evolutionary perfection. Physically, man is less equipped for survival than several animals. Man is weaker than animals such as the lion, tiger, bear, elephant, or rhinoceros. Man's skin is more fragile than a crocodile's scales, a turtle's shell, or a rhinoceros' hide. Man doesn't have horns, claws, or sharp teeth to defend itself from predators. Intellectually, however, man is the most equipped for survival. Man is the only living thing able to use large numbers of plants and animals for his own benefit, he has been able to adapt himself to virtually any climate, he is the only living creature that can make and use tools, and he has the ability to reason. At the same time man is the only living thing that slaughters millions of his own kind in war. Racism, hate, prejudice, and murder are only some of the things that destroy human society. Man has also destroyed many natural habitats and damaged many ecological systems. Man has killed so many animals that certain species have become extinct. If man has reached his evolutionary peak then why does he generally harm his environment? Man is definitely a wonderful creature, but he has not reached perfection. If he has not reached perfection then how can he be at his evolutionary peak? If he has not reached his evolutionary peak then why hasn't he continued to evolve? Evolutionists state that Neanderthal man had a somewhat larger brain than modern man. When a being evolves it is supposed to improve, but going from a larger brain to a smaller one is not improvement. Did man reach his evolutionary peak and then go in reverse? Man has been able to create new species of animals by mating two different species of animals. For example, a mule is produced by crossing a horse with a donkey. But the only way to obtain a mule is to force a horse and donkey to mate, because they will not mate with each other in the wild. They will only mate with their own species, donkeys with donkeys and horses with horses. Another important aspect about the mule is that it is sterile, it cannot reproduce. No new species can be formed because a mule cannot pass on its genes. The creation of the mule is not an improvement, but rather a failure. It is not stronger or smarter than its ancestors, and it is unable to reproduce. This shows that even when humans try to "help" the process of evolution, or "help" the transformation of one species into another, it still doesn't work. At one time, evolutionists included in the human family tree a stage of development known as Nebraska man. This stage, based upon the discovery of a single tooth, has since been discarded because the tooth in now known to have come from an extinct pig. Another human ancestor that has been discarded, Piltdown man, was reconstructed from a skull and some teeth found in an English gravel pit. It was later discovered to be a fraud, perhaps the work of an amateur fossil hunter named Charles Dawson. Dawson apparently placed the skull of a modern man and the teeth of an ape together where they would be discovered. To make his work appear authentic, Dawson filed down the teeth to make them appear more human, and he stained both skull and teeth with a chemical to give them the appearance of great age. Eugene Dubois discovered bones of what he assumed to be a prehistoric human being on the island of Java. He claimed the bones of Java man were 500,000 years old. Dubois also discovered, in the same layer, a completely human skull - a fact he kept secret for 30 years. Obviously, if Java man had been buried in the same rock layer with modern man, he could not be man's ancestor. Dubois eventually dismissed his discovery as being nothing more than a mixture of human and gibbon bones. Peking man was another mix-up of human and ape bones. They were found together because the humans were eating the brains of the ape. Louis Leakey discovered Ramapithecus, a handful of teeth and jaw fragments, and put them together incorrectly to resemble a human jaw. In 1978, more bones were discovered, and Ramapithecus was just an orangutan. Leakey also discovered "Skull 1470" which is definitely more human-like and yet older than Homoerectus and Australopithecines. Perhaps this proves that man is older than his ancestors. Leakey also discovered the very old Australopithecines. Leakey thought it walked upright, but investigation by many others concluded that it did not, it swung from trees and is a type of extinct ape. The first skeleton of Neanderthal man that was discovered was stooped in posture and bowed-legged, with a somewhat apelike skull. Other Neanderthal remains have been discovered in a number of other countries, but they do not show the same stooped posture as the first skeleton. It is now believed that most Neanderthals stood just as erect as we stand. It seems that the first one discovered happened to be that of an old man suffering from a form of arthritis. Neanderthal people were found to be 100% human. Another "missing link" in the supposed evolution of man, Cro-Magnon man, was discovered in southwest France. At the time, Cro-Magnons were supposed to be our most-recent human ancestors on the evolutionary family tree. Evolutionists now admit that the Cro-Magnons were 100% human; they were merely a tribe of people that often dwelled in caves and hunted bison. Evolutionists believe that the fact that the vertebrates all have many structures on the same plan proves that vertebrates all evolved from a common lower ancestor. Creationists believe that this fact merely indicates that God used the same pattern in making species of the same class. As it is written in the Bible, "God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good." (Genesis 1:25). The bodies of man and animals have a basic similarity in their overall design. Knowing that His creatures would all live under similar conditions, perform similar life functions, and feed upon similar foods, God made them with similar body systems. Creationists believe that sequence similarities in "related" species simply reflect God's choice to design similar species to function similarly, not only at the level of bones, muscles and organs, but also at the level of protein function--hence the amino acid sequence similarities. The similarities between species in anatomy and protein structure can be interpreted in two entirely different ways. The evolutionists say that the similarity between features of, for example, humans and apes reflects the fact that these features were inherited from a common ancestor; that is, the similar features of humans and apes are determined by modern copies of genes that once existed in species that was ancestral to both apes and humans. Creationists say that apes and humans were created independently but were designed with similar features so that they would function similarly. Genetic and molecular biologists can now measure the degree of similarity between most forms of life by examining the sequence of the components of a specific protein. Relationship is established by the number of changes required to convert a protein of one organism into the corresponding protein of another - the fewer changes, the closer the relationship. This comparison can also be made using genetic material. There is no evidence on the molecular level for evolution. Each of the many categories of organisms appear to be equally isolated. For example, by isolating one protein (Cytochrome C) from a snake and comparing it with 47 different life forms, it was shown that the rattlesnake was most similar to man, not to any other reptile (based on that one protein). By using comparative anatomy, the eye of an octopus is more similar in structure to the eyes of man than are the eyes of many species which are supposedly closer to man on the evolutionary "tree". Tear enzyme chemistry indicates that the chicken, not the ape, is man's closest relative. If evolution had occurred, these contradictions, and hundreds of similar ones, could not have been found. According to evolutionary philosophy, fossils of those organisms which first evolved are found in the lowest layers of rock; these rocks are said to be the earth's oldest rocks. The rocks said to be the youngest are found in the topmost layers of the crust; they contain fossils of organisms that are supposed to have more recently evolved and therefore resemble organisms alive today. Evolutionists call this order of rock layers the "geologic column". In many places the order of the rock layers is exactly reversed from what the geologic column proposes, and frequently "older" rocks sit atop "younger" rocks with no evidence that the layers have been disturbed. This shows that the geologic column is nothing more than an imaginary arrangement of rock layers. Evolutionists date the rock layers by checking to see what kind of fossils they contain, and they date the fossils by checking to see what age has been assigned to the rocks. This is circular reasoning, not scientific reasoning. Turning to the fossil record as proof of evolution, and proof of the antiquity of the earth, there are more problems. Evolution demands that its subscribers believe fossils were sediment encased over millions of years, but research shows the record is evidence of the rapid death and burial of animal and plant life. For example, many fossils show by the details of their soft, fleshy portions (such as jellyfish) that they were buried before they could decay. Many fossil animals show the contorted positions indicative of violent and rapid mass burial. Further, many fossils have been found that cut across two or more layers of sedimentary rock. Finally, most sediment is laid down by water. All of these facts are more in keeping with what would occur in a worldwide, catastrophic flood. Such a flood is described in the Bible. No "missing links" have been found among the fossils to bridge the gap between supposedly related organisms. Thus, the fossil record holds no evidence that fish evolved into amphibians, amphibians evolved into reptiles, or that reptiles evolved into birds and mammals. There are no transitional links and intermediate forms in either the fossil record or the modern world. Therefore, there is no actual evidence that evolution has occurred either in the past or the present. The earth is not as old as evolutionists claim it is. One way to prove this is by observing the celestial bodies. Interplanetary dust falls at a very slow rate, but to believe that the earth is 5 billion years old (as evolutionists believe), mathematically there was enough time for it to wash up millions upon millions of tons in the oceans. But by calculating the small amount we have by the rate it descends, brings the earth's age to approximately 7-10 thousand years. The moon has information of earth's age, as well as it's own. According to NASA, which accepted the 4.5-5 billion year theory, the astronauts who landed on the moon were expected to find 54 feet of interplanetary dust on it. However, upon landing for the first time, they found only an eighth of an inch to three inches of dust. This is enough for the earth to be approximately 8,000 years old. The earth's rotation is slowing down. Not enough to make a difference on earth, even over a few billion years, but it has other effects. Because the earth's rotation is slowing down, the moon is constantly moving away from the earth. When the year is over, the moon will be 2 inches farther than it was at the beginning. At this rate, two billion years ago the moon and earth would be touching. Because the distance they are at now, multiply the rate by 2 billion years, and they will be touching only 2 billion years ago. It can be looked at another way: at a decent distance, 5 billion years later, the moon would be out of sight right now. But only 7-10 thousand years ago, it would not make a very big difference (1,333.3 feet). The sun is shrinking about one tenth percent every century. That means that every hour the sun has burned off 5 feet of itself. There is no evidence that shows a change in the shrinkage, it appears to have been going on since the beginning of time. At this rate, twenty million years ago the sun would be touching the earth, and the earth would have burned up. If the earth had burned up, then obviously it wouldn't exist today. Thus the earth can never be twenty million years old or older. One hundred thousand years ago the sun would have been twice its present size. If this were true then the earth would have been very close to the sun because of the sun's strong gravitational pull, and if the earth was that close to the sun nothing could have survived because of the intense heat. Thus life could not have existed on Earth 100,000 years ago or more. By showing that the earth is approximately 10,000 years old, and not 5 billion years old, evolution has a significantly shorter time to take place. There is less time for fish to evolve into amphibians, amphibians to evolve into reptiles, and reptiles to evolve into birds and mammals. With less time evolution seems even more improbable. Scientists once believed that all dinosaurs had reptile-like skin, however, recent fossils have been found in Liaoning, China where certain dinosaurs had some type of feathers. Some dinosaurs might have had scales like reptiles and others had feathers, or all might have had feathers. Scientists don't know enough about the skin of dinosaurs to make any concrete conclusions. Some evolutionists believe that these feathers evolved from scales, but there is no evidence that shows that these feathers evolved from anything. It is most likely that these dinosaurs always had feathers. Evolutionists believe that dinosaurs evolved into birds. Some reasons why they believe this is because their skeletons have some similarities, they both laid eggs and, according to some paleontologists, traces of feathers are evident in some dinosaur fossils. These reasons do not provide enough evidence to prove that dinosaurs evolved into birds. Birds also share similarities with mammals, and lay eggs as do reptiles and amphibians, yet they are distinct. Today the only organisms that have feathers are birds, but birds are not only related because of feathers. All birds have beaks, wings, and feet. They are all warm-blooded, they all have the same general anatomy, none of them have sweat glands, and they all possess a four-chambered heart. The fact that certain dinosaurs had feathers doesn't mean that they evolved into birds, or that they were even closely related to birds. A rat has hair as does a man, but rats and humans are not closely related. As a being evolves it is supposed to improve, but the transformation of dinosaurs into birds is not improvement. The Velociraptor was said to be one of the smartest animals that ever lived, and it had the intelligence to hunt in packs. It was also one of the most agile and strongest dinosaurs on the planet, with razor-sharp claws on its forearms and a deadly toe claw. This dinosaur was a magnificent animal, so why would it evolve into a bird? No bird in the world is as strong or as smart as the Velociraptor was. Why would natural selection choose for a stronger, more powerful animal to evolve into a weaker, less powerful animal? | ||||