Six False Assumptions Concerning Evolution – Part 2

By: Dr. John Ankerberg, Dr. John Weldon; ©2004

Does the fossil record offer genuine scientific evidence that evolution is true? Can matter alone (without God) explain the origin of life and the complexity of the universe? Is scientific creationism only a religion, with no scientific merit?

Contents

Six False Assumptions Concerning Evolution — Part TWO

False Assumption 4:
The fossil record offers genuine scientific evidence that evolution is true.

What about all the alleged evidences for evolution? It is generally admitted that the fossil record contains the most cogent evidence for the evolutionary hypothesis. So, if we discover this evidence to be non-existent, then perhaps the other alleged evidences don’t exist either. (In fact, they don’t.^[1])

Regardless, the fossil record is continually heralded as “proof” of evolution and conceded to offer the only or primary scientific evidence that evolution has really occurred. As the eminent French biologist and zoologist Pierre Grasse correctly points out:

Zoologists and botanists are nearly unanimous in considering evolution as a fact and not a hypothesis. I agree with this position and base it primarily on documents provided by paleontology, i.e., the [fossil] history of the living world….

Naturalists must remember that the process of evolution is revealed only through fossil forms. A knowledge of paleontology is, therefore, a prerequisite; only paleontology can provide them with the evidence of evolution and reveal its course or mechanisms. Neither the examination of present beings, nor imagination, nor theories can serve as a substitute for paleontological documents. If they ignore them, biologists, the philosophers of nature, indulge in numerous commentaries and can only come up with hypotheses. This is why we constantly have recourse to paleontology, the only true science of evolution…. The true course of evolution is and can only be revealed by paleontology.^[2]

Thomas Huxley also realized the importance of this issue when he wrote, “If it could be shown that this fact [gaps between widely distinct groups] had always existed, the fact would be fatal to the doctrine of evolution.”^[3]

The problem here is how evolutionary theory can ever be demonstrated when it necessarily postulates immense periods of time. It can’t. Here, eminent biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky criticizes creationists for asking evolutionists to do the impossible, i.e., provide real evidence for the occurrence of evolution. But to our way of thinking, he only points out why the theory of evolution should not be accepted as a proven scientific fact, as no scientist has ever lived long enough to observe the evolution of major life forms.

These evolutionary happenings are unique, unrepeatable, and irreversible. It is as impossible to turn a land vertebrate into a fish as it is to effect the reverse transformation. The applicability of the experimental method to the study of such unique historical processes is severely restricted before all else by the time intervals involved, which far exceed the lifetime of any human experimenter. And yet, it is just such impossibility that is demanded by anti-evolutionists when they ask for “proofs” of evolution which they would magnanimously accept as satisfactory.^[4]

To the contrary, if scientists cannot observe evolution as ever having taken place, how can they categorically state evolution is a fact of science? They attempt to do so by pointing to the fossil record. They believe it provides the critical evidence for evolution by preserving the record of the past that demonstrates gradual evolutionary change has occurred between the lower and higher life forms.

But even Darwin was concerned here. In thinking the geologic record incomplete, Darwin himself confessed the following:

…[Since] innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them imbedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth? [and] Why is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this perhaps is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory.^[5]

Again, Darwin asked, “…why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms?” And, “…the number of intermediate and transitional links, between all living and extinct species must have been incon­ceivably great.”^[6]

But one hundred and forty years later, it has become clear that the fossil record does not confirm Darwin’s hope that future research would fill in the unexpected and extensive gaps in the fossil record. Noted paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard points out, “The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no support for gradual change, …All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions be­tween major groups are characteristically abrupt.”^[7]

With an estimated 250 million or 1/4 billion catalogued fossils of some 250,000 fossil species, the problem does certainly not appear to be one of an imperfect record. Many scientists have conceded that the fossil data are sufficiently complete to provide an accurate portrait of the geologic record.^[8] University of Chicago professor of geology David Raup also points out the following:

Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil records has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn’t changed much. The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin’s time….^[9]

Again, the truth is that the fossil record is composed entirely of gaps, not evidence of evolu­tionary transitions. There isn’t even a single proven evolutionary transition that exists anywhere in the fossil record. Evolutionary scientists themselves agree that the fossil record is comprised almost entirely of gaps. How, then can it logically offer scientific evidence of evolution? Prior to Dr. Gould’s time, Dr. George Gaylord Simpson was one of the world’s best-known evolutionists. He was professor of vertebrate paleontology, also at Harvard University, until his retirement. In his book, The Major Features of Evolution, he admitted, “…it remains true, as every paleontolo­gist knows, that most new species, genera, and families and that nearly all new categories above the level of families appear in the record suddenly and are not led up to by known, gradual, completely continuous transitional sequences.^[10]

Perhaps this explains why Dr. Austin Clark, once curator of paleontology at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., wrote in 1928, “Thus so far as concerns the major groups of animals, the creationists seem to have the better of the argument.”^[11] But this remains true today. In his Biology, Zoology and Genetics, Thompson agrees when he writes, “Rather than support­ing evolution, the breaks in the known fossil record support the creation of major groups with the possibility of some limited variation within each group.”^[12]

In “The Nature of the Fossil” record, Ager also points out what every informed scientist knows, that “if we examine the fossil record in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we find—over and over again—not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one group at the expense of another.”^[13]

Simpson thinks that the fossil record is almost complete for the larger terrestrial forms of North America and yet “The regular absence of transitional forms is an almost universal phe­nomenon” among all orders of all classes of animals and analogous categories of plants.^[14]

If so, it is not surprising to hear Professor E. J. H. Corner of the Botany Department of Cam­bridge University say that, although he believes there is evidence for evolution in other fields,

…but I still think that, to the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favor of special creation…. Can you imagine how an orchid, a duck weed, and a palm have come from the same ancestry, and have we any evidence for this assumption? The evolutionist must be prepared with an answer, but I think that most would break down before an inquisition.^[15]

Indeed, if in the words of several evolutionary scientists, the fossil record “fails to contain a single example of a significant transition,”^[16] then we are correct in concluding that paleontologi­cal histories of the plants and animals simply do not exist. Ichthyologist Dr. Donn Rosen, curator of fish at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, noted that evolution has been “unable to provide scientific data about the origin, diversity and similarity of the two million species that inhabit the earth and the estimated eight million others that once thrived.”^[17]

This complaint has thus been registered for almost every species of plants, animals, insects, birds, fish, etc., known to man.^[18]

For example, the authority Johansen observes, “Modern gorillas, orangutans, and chimpan­zees spring out of nowhere, as it were. They are here today; they have no yesterday.”^[19] Con­cerning the evolution of reptiles, University of California paleontologist R. A. Stirton points out, “There is no direct proof from the fossil record….”^[20] Boston University biologist Paul B. Weiss comments, “The first and most important steps of animal evolution remain even more obscure than those of plant evolution.”^[21]

Dr. Pierre-P. Grasse is considered an outstanding scientist of France and the dean of French zoologists. In his, Evolution of Living Organisms, he declares, “We are in the dark concerning the origin of insects.”^[22]

The authority on lungfishes, E. White, reflects, “Whatever ideas authorities may have on the subject, the lungfish, like every other major group of fish that I know, have their origins firmly based on nothing.”^[23]

Colin Patterson is the senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History in Lon­don and author of the museum’s general text on evolution. Yet he wrote in a letter to Luther D. Sunderland, April 10, 1979, “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…. I will lay it on the line—there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.”^[24]

As Robert Barnes, in his book Invertebrate Beginnings, has confessed: “The fossil record tells us almost nothing about the evolutionary origin of phyla and classes. Intermediate forms are non­existent, undiscovered, or not recognized.”^[25] Thus, Earl L. Core, then chairman of the Department of Biology at West Virginia University, comments, “We do not actually know the phylogenetic history of any group of plants and animals, since it lies in the indecipherable past.”^[26]

In Principles of Paleontology, Dr. David Raup, who was previously the curator of geology at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, and is now professor of geology at the Univer­sity of Chicago, has also noted the following concerning the mysterious origins of higher plant and animal forms, “Unfortunately, the origins of most higher categories are shrouded in mystery: commonly new higher categories appear abruptly in the fossil record without evidence of transi­tional forms.”^[27]

Dr. Steven M. Stanley is professor of paleobiology at Johns Hopkins University. He was a recipient of the Schuchert award of the Paleontological Society and has also been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. He openly admits, “The known fossil record fails to document a single example of phyletic [gradual] evolution accomplishing a major morphologic transition and hence offers no evidence that the gradualistic model can be valid.”^[28]

Thus, the remark of Stephen J. Gould on Darwin’s dilemma remains valid, “New species almost always appeared suddenly in the fossil record with no intermediate links to ancestors in older rocks of the same region.”^[29] Dr. Gould even concedes the lack of fossil evidence is the “trade secret” of paleontology,

The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils…. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth…. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and “fully formed.”^[30]

Interested readers may wonder if evolutionary scientists have developed any new theories to explain the embarrassing lack of transitional forms in the fossil record.

Perhaps it was a statement by Darwin concerning the abrupt appearance of many higher plant and animal forms which has recently sparked a new evolutionary theory. For example, Darwin observed: “Nothing is more extraordinary in the history of the Vegetable Kingdom, as it seems to me, than the apparently very sudden or abrupt development of the higher plants.”^[31] Again, he felt this absence of plant and animal transitions was “the gravest objection” that could be raised against his theory.^[32] So what new evolutionary theory has been created to fit the lack of transitional evidence in the fossil record and to explain the “abrupt appearance” of living things that no one can deny the fossil record does display?

Niles Eldredge and Stephen J. Gould tentatively proposed the following theory to account for the record as it exists. They suggest that the major gaps should be viewed as real phenomena of nature, an inevitable result of the mechanism of evolution itself. They see evolution taking place in major creative episodes, occurring at different times and places, interspaced with long periods of stability. They call their theory “punctuated equilibria,” also known as evolutionary saltationism. In part, this theory returns us to geneticist Richard Goldschmidt’s “hopeful mon­sters” theory, which in Stanley’s words, “engender[s] such visions as the first bird hatching from a reptile egg.”^[33]

Gould explains how this idea works in The Panda’s Thumb, although elsewhere he acknowl­edges that he and Eldredge do not hold to the exclusive validity of this concept. Nevertheless, they feel their theory is not inconsistent with the Darwinian model and that it helps to explain the gaps in the fossil record—which they believe does adequately express evolutionary history: “Thus, the fossil record is a faithful rendering of what evolutionary theory predicts, not a pitiful vestige of a once bountiful tale. Eldredge and I refer to this scheme as the model of punctuated equilibria. Lineages change little during most of their history, but events of rapid speciation occasionally punctuate this tranquility.”^[34] Realize that, in part, Gould’s concept is an admission that Darwin’s theory of gradual evolution is not correct. Gould’s theory of “punctuated equilibria,” which assumes the higher categories of plants and animals “suddenly” appeared “fully” formed in the fossil record, is, perhaps in a fashion, not much different from those who believe God created life forms instantaneously.

The fossil evidence is so poor that even the accomplished Swedish botanist and geneticist, Nils Heribert-Nilsson made the following confession and offered an amazing alternate theory. After 40 years of attempting to find evidence for the theory of evolution, he concluded that the task was impossible and that the theory was even “a serious obstruction to biological research.” In his 1200 page magnum opus, Synthetic Speciation, he declared the theory “ought to be entirely abandoned,” in part because it “obstructs—as has been repeatedly shown—the attain­ment of consistent results, even from uniform experimental material. For everything must ulti­mately be forced to fit this speculative theory. An exact biology cannot, therefore, be built up.”^[35]

After noting “A close inspection discovers an empirical impossibility to be inherent in the idea of evolution,”^[36] he went even farther than Gould, stating his conviction that geologic periods having incredible spurts of biogeneration produced billions of biosyntheses simultaneously. Gametes and other necessary cells and biocatalytic substances literally appeared spontane­ously and led immediately to their fully formed end product such as orchids, elephants and eagles! Listen to his own explanations of why he made such a daring conclusion. It was be­cause the empirical evidence forced him to it:

As I have pointed out, there is no discussion among biologists today whether an evolution has taken place or not. The discussion concerns the how, the causation of evolution. No definite answer has been given to this question.

It then becomes necessary to ask: Has there really been an evolution? Are the proofs of its occurrence tenable?

After a detailed and comprehensive review of the facts we have been forced to give the answer: No! Neither a recent nor a palaeohistorical evolution can be empirically demonstrated.

If this is the case, all discussions and problems concerning the causation of an evolution lose all interest. Lamarckism or mutationism, monophyletic or polyphyletic, continuity or discontinuity—the roads of the evolution are not problems any more. It is rather futile to discuss the digestion or the brain functions of a ghost.

When we have arrived at this standpoint, the evolutionist has the obvious right to ask: What has caused the fundamental differentiation in the world of organisms, the immeasurable variation among animals and plants? That it exists is a fact: you owe us an explanation!

We turn to empirical facts to obtain the answer. They tell us that during the geological history of the earth gigantic revolutions have occurred which at the same time mean tabula rasa catastrophes for a whole world of organisms but also the origin of a completely new one. The new one is structurally completely different from the old one. There are no other transitions than hypothetical ones. This origination of biota, which from a geological point of view is sudden as a flaring up I have called emication.

During palaeobiological times whole new worlds of biota have been repeatedly synthesized.

I will be asked: Do you seriously want to make such a statement? Do you not see that the consequences of such a theory are more than daring, that they would be nearly insane? Do you really mean to say that an orchid or an elephant should have been instantaneously created out of non-living material?

Yes, I do.^[37]

Here we see an illustration of what was discussed earlier. Rather than abandon a bad theory entirely, even more absurd theories are proposed so as to maintain one’s materialistic ideology. Regardless, another scientist who supports Gould’s new theory of evolution is Steven M. Stanley, who wrote the following in the preface of his book The New Evolutionary Timetable: Fossils, Genes, and the Origin of Species, “The [fossil] record now reveals that species typically survive for a hundred thousand generations, or even a million or more, without evolving very much. We seem forced to conclude that most evolution takes place rapidly, when species come into being by the evolutionary divergence of small populations from parent species. After their origins, most species undergo little evolution before becoming extinct.”^[38]

But what do other scientists think about replacing Darwin’s theory of “gradualism” with Stephen J. Gould’s “punctuated equilibria”? In essence, not much. For example, Ernest Mayr says the “hopeful monsters” theory “is equivalent to believing in miracles.”^[39] And he’s correct.

Denton succinctly explains the problems faced by this approach:

While [Niles] Eldredge and [Stephen Jay] Gould’s model is a perfectly reasonable explanation of the gaps between species (and, in my view, correct), it is doubtful if it can be extended to explain the larger systematic gaps. The gaps which separate species: dog/fox, rat/mouse, etc., are utterly trivial compared with, say, that between a primitive terrestrial mammal and a whale or a primitive terrestrial reptile and an Ichthyosaur; and even these relatively major discontinuities are trivial alongside those which divide major phyla such as molluscs and arthropods. Such major discontinuities simply could not, unless we are to believe in miracles, have been crossed in geologically short periods of time through one or two transitional species occupying restricted geographical areas.

Surely, such transitions must have involved long lineages including many collateral lines of hundreds or probably thousands of transitional species…. To suggest that the hundreds, thousands or possibly even millions of transitional species which must have existed in the interval between vastly dissimilar types were all unsuccessful species occupying isolated areas and having very small population numbers is verging on the incredible!^[40]

In other words, if evolution is to be considered a true scientific fact, it must be able to explain the origin of developed life forms by recourse to proven methods of evolutionary change. Can it do so? It would seem that most scientists who have examined this subject critically are honest enough to say no, even though they continue to believe in evolution. The problems of natural selection, mutation and newer theories attempting to explain how evolution occurs are, put simply, too expansive to be resolved by current knowledge.^[41] Indeed, some scientists have confessed there is little hope that any conceivable breakthrough in this area will ever be forth­coming.^[42]

But if it has now been suggested that certain theories relative to evolution require a belief in miracles, is this also true for evolutionary belief generally?

False Assumption 5:
Matter alone can explain the origin of life and the complexity of the universe. (Therefore, there is no need to postulate belief in a Creator God.)

The idea that everything has come from nothing is a bit hard to swallow, even for many scientists. Reflecting Darwin’s own concerns, leading evolutionists such as Ernst Mayr have conceded that the idea that systems such as the eye, feather or instinct could evolve and be improved by random mutations, represents “a considerable strain on one’s credulity.”^[43] Darwin himself confessed, “I remember well when the thought of the eye made me cold all over…[Now] The sight of a feather in a Peacock’s tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick.”^[44] Dr. Denton also refers to the idea that evolution could occur by purely random processes—and yet produce the complexity of living organisms about us—as “simply an affront to reason.”^[45]

As modern science increasingly uncovers the indescribable complexity of the living world and simultaneously fails to explain the nature of abiogenesis (that life can originate from non-life), the miraculous nature of all theories of origins seem to be made more apparent. As we will see, in many ways, the term miracle is no longer properly restricted to only creationist ideology. Nobel prize winning biochemist Dr. Francis Crick commented, “An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life ap­pears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.”^[46]

Hoyle’s research partner, Chandra Wickramasinghe, also noted, “Contrary to the popular notion that only creationism relies on the supernatural, evolutionism must as well, since the probabilities of random formation of life are so tiny as to require a ‘miracle’ for spontaneous generation tantamount to a theological argument.”^[47] Let’s briefly look deeper into this idea that belief in evolution is essentially belief in miracles.

Mark Eastman, M.D. and Chuck Missler point out that when you boil down all the materialistic arguments for the origin of the universe, there are really just two alternatives: 1) that matter is infinitely old; or 2) that matter appeared out of nothing at a finite point in the past. They point out, “There is no third option.”

These authors proceed to cite evidence to show that matter cannot be eternal, including evidence from physics, such as proton decay and evidence from the first and second laws of thermodynamics which “provide some of the strongest evidence for a finite universe.”^[48]

Everyone agrees that matter does exist, so we have to explain its existence somehow. If matter cannot be infinitely old—and the scientific evidence is so strong at this point as to make this conclusion inevitable—then our only option is that matter appeared in the universe out of nothing at a finite point in the past.

What is perhaps even more amazing is that we have accepted an infinitely implausible sce­nario for the origin of the universe over against an infinitely more probable one—creation by an infinite God.

In the creation/evolution debate, what must be recognized is that whether you begin with a materialistic or a divine origin for the universe, both are miracles. As Eastman and Missler state:

The creationist’s model begins with an infinitely intelligent, omnipotent, transcendent Creator who used intelligent design, expertise or know-how to create everything from the sub-atomic particles to giant redwood trees. Was it a miracle? Absolutely!

The atheist’s [i.e., materialistic] model begins with an even more impressive miracle— the appearance of all matter in the universe from nothing, by no one, and for no reason. A supernatural event. A miracle! However, the atheist does not believe in the outside or transcendent “First Cause” we call God. Therefore, the atheist has no “natural explanation” nor “supernatural explanation” for the origin of space-time and matter. Consequently the atheistic scenario on the origin of the universe leaves us hanging in a totally dissatisfying position. He begins his model for the universe with a supernatural event. This supernatural event, however, is accomplished without a supernatural agent to perform it.^[49]

Many religions, especially Eastern religions, believe in the idea of an infinite universe. Unfor­tunately, this has serious implications for their doctrine of God. If the universe is infinite, then by definition there can be nothing else. As a result, even God becomes imminent within the uni­verse, an occupant of it rather than an infinite, transcendent being beyond it. “Therefore, God could not dwell in eternity. He could not exist before time and space began. And because God is confined to the universe, He is subject to its laws. Therefore, God becomes either a product of the universe or the universe itself.”^[50]

It’s beyond the scope of these articles to discuss the problems of a solely imminent, pantheis­tic God; however, they are anything but small as seen, e.g., in the religious, social and cultural consequences in those nations who espouse pantheism.

Nevertheless, books such as Robert Jastrow’s God and the Astronomers, Henry Margenau and Roy Varghese, eds., Cosmos, Bios, and Theos (LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1992) and many others are proof that even materialistic scientists are now being forced to consider God and religious ideas concerning the origin of the universe.

This is exactly what Romans 1 teaches—that the creation itself provides evidence that is clearly seen and understood concerning God’s existence:

The evidence for a finite, decaying, and finely-tuned universe has led many to conclude that there must be a Mind behind it all. Remarkably, many of these men are professed atheists who have been forced by the weight of 20th-century discoveries in astronomy and physics to concede the existence of an intelligent Designer behind the creation of the universe.^[51]

For example, Paul Davies was once a leader for the atheistic, materialistic world view but now asserts of the universe,

[There] is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all…. It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature’s numbers to make the Universe…. The impression of design is overwhelming.^[52]

Astronomer George Greenstein observed,

As we survey all the evidence, the thought instantly arises that some supernatural agency—or rather, Agency—must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?^[53]

Theoretical physicist Tony Rothman acknowledges,

When confronted with the order and beauty of the universe and the strange coincidences of nature, it’s very tempting to take the leap of faith from science into religion. I am sure many physicists want to. I only wish they would admit it.^[54]

In 1992, physicist and Nobel Laureate Arno Penzias noted,

Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say “supernatural”) plan.^[55]

Statements like this could be multiplied many times over. They prove beyond a doubt that the doing of the best science by some of the most brilliant scientific minds leads us back, not to dead matter, but to a living God. At the very least, we may accept the following statement with­out qualification:

In the case of the origin of the universe and life on earth, as we have seen, there are only two possible explanations—chance or design. In each case a balanced examination of twentieth-century scientific evidence has led a number of world authorities to conclude that appealing to chance is akin to faith in supernatural miracles! In effect, to believe that the universe “just happened,” the skeptic must place as much faith in arbitrary and purposeless laws of physics and chance chemistry as the Christian does in the God of the Bible.^[56]

But it is not the case that the materialist and the theist are actually exerting equal amounts of faith. To the contrary, the materialist’s faith is far greater. Let’s examine some of the evidence for this.

The esteemed Carl Sagan and other prominent scientists have estimated the chance of man evolving at roughly 1 chance in 10^{2,000,000,000}.^[57] This is a figure with two billion zeros after it. Ac­cording to what is termed Borel’s single law of chance, this is no chance at all. Indeed, this number is so infinitely small it is not even conceivable. So, for argument’s sake, let’s take an infinitely more favorable view toward the chance that evolution might occur. What if the chances are only 1 in 10¹⁰⁰⁰ the figure that a prestigious symposium of evolutionary scientists used com­puters to arrive at? But even this figure involved only a mechanism necessary to abiogenesis and not the evolution of actual primitive life. Regardless, this figure is also infinitely above Borel’s single law of chance—beyond which, put simply, events never occur (1 chance in 10⁵⁰).^[58]

Thus, in Algorithms and the Neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution Marcel P. Schutzenberger of the University of Paris, France, calculated the probability of evolution based on mutation and natural selection. With many other noted scientists, he also concluded that it was “not conceiv­able” because the probability of a chance process accomplishing this is zero:

…there is no chance (<10¹⁰⁰⁰) to see this mechanism appear spontaneously and, if it did, even less for it to remain…. Thus, to conclude, we believe there is a considerable gap in the neo-Darwinian Theory of evolution, and we believe this gap to be of such a nature that it cannot be bridged within the current conception of biology.^[59]

Evolutionary scientists have called just 1 chance in 10¹⁵ “a virtual impossibility.”^[60] So, how can they believe in something that has infinitely less than 1 chance in 10¹⁰⁰⁰? After all, how small is one chance in 10¹⁰⁰⁰? It is very small—1 chance in 10¹² is only one chance in a trillion.

We can also gauge the size of 1 in 10¹⁰⁰⁰ (a figure with a thousand zeros) by considering the sample figure 10¹⁷¹. How large is this figure? First, consider that the number of atoms in the period at the end of this sentence is approximately 3,000 trillion. Now, in 10¹⁷¹ years an amoeba could actually transport all the atoms, one at a time, in six hundred thousand, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, universes, each universe the size of ours, from one end of the universe to the other (assuming a distance of 30 billion light years) going at the dismally slow traveling speed of 1 inch every 15 billion years.^[61] Yet this figure of one chance in 10¹⁷¹, quite literally, cannot even scratch the surface of one chance in 10¹⁰⁰⁰—the “chance” that a certain mechanism necessary to the beginning of life might supposedly evolve. Again, who can believe in something whose odds are 1 “chance” in 10¹⁰⁰⁰ to 1 “chance” in 10^{2,000,000,000} or even far beyond this? Yale Univer­sity physicist Harold Morowitz once calculated the odds of a single bacteria reassembling its components after being superheated to break down its chemicals into their basic building blocks at 1 chance in 10^100,000,000.^[62] In fact, the dimensions of the entire known universe can be packed full by 10⁵⁰ planets—but the odds of probability theory indicate that not on a single planet would evolution have ever occurred.^[63]

Who can rationally believe in something whose odds are one chance in 10¹⁰⁰⁰, let alone the much more plausible figure of one chance in 10^{100,000,000,000}? Please note that in exponential notation, every time we add a single number in the exponent we multiply the number itself by a factor of ten. Thus, one chance in 10¹⁷¹ is ten times smaller than one chance in 10¹⁷². One chance in 10¹⁷¹ is one million times smaller than one chance in 10¹⁷⁷. And one chance in 10¹⁸³ is one trillion times smaller than one chance in 10¹⁷¹. So where do you think we end up with odds like one chance in 10^{100,000,000,000}?

This kind of probability “progression into absurdity” is the very reason Borel devised his Single Law of Chance—to show that beyond a certain point some things will never happen. For example, what are the odds that elephants will ever evolve into helicopters? There are none, no matter how much time we allow for the event to occur.

So what kind of logic deduces that the infinitely more complex things in nature resulted from chance when all the facts and evidence we possess concerning every single man-made object in existence around the world says these much simpler objects had to result from intelligence, plan and design? If the “simple” objects demand intelligence, how do the infinitely more complex objects arise by chance?

So, isn’t it true scientists require a great deal of faith to believe in evolution? But should their faith be considered a rational faith or an irrational faith?

Again, there are really only two options concerning our existence: naturalism or supernatural­ism —and both require a belief in miracles. If miracles must be accepted either way, one would think that science would go with the theory having the most evidence in its support—scientific creationism.

Placed into a more practical setting, if a horse had only one chance in 10¹⁰⁰⁰ of placing first, how much money would a scientist bet on it? Would he bet even a dollar? If not, should anyone gamble his convictions about reality and personal destiny on the basis of one chance in 10¹⁰⁰⁰?

If, in ultimate terms, there are only two possible answers to the question of origins, then the disproving of one logically proves the other. If A or B are the only possible explanations of an event, and A is disproved, only B can be considered the cause. If the chances of evolution occurring are e.g., “one” in 10^{100,000,000,000}, then the chance of creation occurring would have to be its opposite—the odds being 99.9 (followed by one hundred billion more 9’s). Evolutionist George Wald of Harvard has stated that a 99.995% probability is “almost inevitable.”^[64] Then what of 99.999999999999999 (plus one hundred billion more 9’s)—the “chance” that creation has occurred?

Thus, it is not surprising to hear famous astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle concede that, the chance that higher life forms might have emerged through evolutionary processes is comparable with the chance that a “tornado sweeping through a junk yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the material therein.”^[65] As he ponders the magnificence of the world about him, even the outstand­ing French biochemist and Nobel Prize winner Jacques Monod admits in his Chance and Ne­cessity:

One may well find oneself beginning to doubt again whether all this could conceivably be the product of an enormous lottery presided over by natural selection, blindly picking the rare winners from among numbers drawn at utter random….[Nevertheless although] the miracle [of life] stands “explained”; it does not strike us as any less miraculous. As Francois Mauriac wrote, “What this professor says is far more incredible than what we poor Christians believe.”^[66]

Not surprisingly, some evolutionists are frank enough to admit that special creation actually is the better theory, either in whole or part.^[67] Unfortunately, it seems that most scientists assume evolution has been proven in other fields and that their field of specialty is the only one with difficulties. In fact, every field is fraught with difficulties and those who recognize this are more open to considering creation.

Writing in the Physics Bulletin for May 1980, H. S. Lipson at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology and a Fellow of the Royal Society confesses the following:

I have always been slightly suspicious of the theory of evolution because of its ability to account for any property of living beings (the long neck of the giraffe, for example). I have therefore tried to see whether biological discoveries over the last 30 years or so fit in with Darwin’s theory. I do not think that they do.

He further concedes,

In the last 30 years we have learned a great deal about life processes (still a minute part of what there is to know!) and it seems to me to be only fair to see how the theory of evolution accommodates the new evidence. This is what we should demand of a purely physical theory. To my mind, the theory does not stand up at all. I shall take only one example—breathing.

And he proceeds to show how one cannot account for breathing on evolutionary assump­tions. After further discussion, he asks, “How has living matter originated?” and concludes:

I think, however, that we must go further than this and admit that the only acceptable explanation is creation. I know that this is anathema to physicists, as indeed it is to me, but we must not reject a theory that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports it.^[68]

It is refreshing indeed to read such words.

In his Biology, Zoology, and Genetics: Evolution Model Versus Creation Model 2, Dr. A. Th­ompson observes (1983, 76), “Rather than supporting evolution, the breaks in the known fossil record support the creation of major groups with the possibility of some limited variation within each group.”^[69]

Dr. Austin Clark, the curator of paleontology at the Smithsonian Institution observed in the Quarterly Review of Biology: “Thus so far as concerns the major groups of animals, the cre­ationists seem to have the better of the argument.”^[70]

In the area of comparative biochemistry, Bird observes, “This comparative unrelatedness argument is an affirmative evidence for the theory of abrupt appearance, as not just Denton and Sermonti but Zihlman and Lowenstein acknowledge in reference to the comparative biochemis­try evidence, saying that ‘this constitutes a kind of “special creation” hypothesis.’”^[71] Even such eminent scientists as Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, his research partner, in discussing the “theory that life was assembled by an [higher] intelligence” state, “Indeed, such a theory is so obvious that one wonders why it is not widely accepted as being self evident. The reasons are psychological rather than scientific.”^[72]

Indeed they are.

False Assumption 6:
Scientific creationism is only a religion and has no scientific merit whatever.

When considering the issue of the nature of creationism it must be remembered that the real problem is not with a scientific formulation of the creation concept, but with materialism and its inherent limitations. These not only wrongly restrict creation solely to the religious sphere, they also tend to skewer the interpretation of scientific data. The bon mot that evolution is “1/10 bad science and 9/10 bad philosophy” has more truth to it than many scientists are willing to con­cede. For example, in Darwin and His Critics, philosophy professor David L. Hull of the Univer­sity of Wisconsin points out that evolutionary theory has been criticized philosophically from the beginning,

…the leading philosophers contemporary with Darwin, John Herschel, William Whewell, and John Stuart Mill, were equally adamant in their conviction that the Origin of Species was just one mass of conjecture. Darwin had proved nothing! From a philosophical point of view, evolutionary theory was sorely deficient. Even today, both Darwin’s original efforts and more recent reformulations are repeatedly found philosophically objectionable. Evolutionary theory seems capable of offending almost everyone.^[73]

The reason that evolutionary belief is deficient philosophically is because it attempts to ad­dress the issue of origins on the basis of an inadequate approach. The issue is argued exclu­sively at the level of naturalism, while it is forgotten that theology itself is a legitimate discipline of knowledge that should also be considered in the debate on origins. Why? Because ap­proaching the issue of origins only materialistically leaves too many major problems for explain­ing the data, data that everyone agrees is there. Thus, meaning or interpretation that is as­signed on the premise of materialism alone will be deficient because the data is incapable of organizing itself adequately solely on this basis. This is why many scientists are currently un­happy with the nature of the case for evolution.

What is needed is a more objective discussion of the issue of origins at the world-view level. This is really what is occurring in both creationist and evolutionist camps anyway, whether or not this is recognized.

The components of science itself—classification, theory, experiment, etc., reflect a framework of concepts which transcend scientific data. All attempts to explain or interpret data are to some degree impositions on the data. So are attempts to disprove or disallow alternate explanations. In other words, because the data of science does not automatically organize itself, interpretive structures which themselves transcend the data must be imposed upon it. Again, the question is whether or not a solely materialistic structure is adequate.

We think that an approach that attempts to look at the data without a bias against larger theological implications is more productive. And there is nothing unscientific about this. The world view of theism is just as adequate an explanatory framework for the scientific data as is the world view of naturalism. For example, the data from science (e.g., thermodynamics, as­tronomy) clearly indicate a point of origin for the universe. Thus, despite the dogma of eternal matter, “all the observable data” produced by astronomy indicate the universe was created at a point in time.^[74] The data from science also confirm a high degree of complexity throughout the history of life and such complexity requires explanations which not only include but also transverse natural processes alone. In addition, the data from science reveal an incredibly high degree of fine-tuning or balance within the structure of the universe at all levels. This also calls for an explanation that transcends natural processes and invokes the need for a supernatural Creator.

In other words, a compelling case from philosophy, logic and science itself suggests that natural laws alone are woefully insufficient to account for the existence of the universe and the complexity of life that inhabits it. This becomes especially true when we consider the distinctive character of man, such as his abstract reasoning powers, moral sensibility, complex personality, spiritual nature, etc. Humans are so far removed from the level of the animals that we simply cannot account for them on the basis of purely natural processes. (Cf., Mortimer Adler, The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes.)

The value of science is undeniable as a part of the larger picture explaining the world but it cannot explain the entirety of that picture. But theism—in terms of its ability to explain a much larger range of data, as well as the integration of data in other disciplines—actually offers a more coherent “big picture.” Thus, when creation is affirmed in the context of theism, it meets the criteria of good science: it is testable, unified and fruitful in a heuristic sense.

Thus, creation science cannot simply be dismissed, as it often is, as a religion in disguise, designed, e.g., to underhandedly put Genesis back into the school system. Although creation­ism is certainly a religious philosophy, it can also be a scientific doctrine, not just dogma. This is something attested to by many noted scientists and experts on the nature of the relationship between science and religion. For example, the volumes by Bird, Moreland (ed.), Geisler and Anderson and Morris and Parker are only some of those demonstrating that creationism can be scientific.^[75]

Dean H. Kenyon, Ph.D., professor of biology and coordinator of the general biology program at San Francisco State University wrote the foreword to the latter text. Dr. Kenyon is one of America’s leading non-evolutionary scientists and has the Ph.D. in biophysics from Stanford University.^[76] A former evolutionist and co-author of Biochemical Predestination, a standard work on the evolutionary origin of life, Kenyon now believes that the current situation where most consider creation science simply a religion in disguise “is regrettable and exhibits a degree of close-mindedness quite alien to the spirit of true scientific inquiry.”^[77] Kenyon is only one prominent scientist who has “extensively reviewed the scientific case for creation” and finds it legitimate.^[78]

For example, in presenting the scientific evidence for the theory termed “abrupt appearance” (which incorporates relevant data from paleontology, morphology, information content, probabil­ity, genetics, comparative discontinuity, etc.), Bird observes,

These lines of evidence are affirmative in the sense that if true, they support the theory of abrupt appearance. They are not negative in the sense of merely identifying weaknesses of evolution…. The theory of abrupt appearance is scientific. It consists of the empirical evidence and scientific interpretation that is the content of this chapter. The theory of abrupt appearance also satisfies the various definitions of science…. Its many testable and falsifiable claims are summarized in sections 10.3 (a) and 10.4 (a).^[79]

Dr. Wilder-Smith presents a scientific alternative to Neo-Darwinism in his A Basis for a New Biology and The Scientific Alternative to Neo-Darwinian Evolutionary Theory: Information Sources and Structures.^[80] The scientific case for creation is also ably marshaled by leading scientists in J. P. Moreland’s The Creation Hypothesis. For example, consider what one leading evolutionist said of this volume. Dr. Arthur N. Shapiro is with the Center for Population Biology at the University of California, Davis. Although an atheist writing in Creation/Evolution, a journal with certainly no love lost for creationists or creationism, he nevertheless closes his review in the following words:

I can see Science in the year 2000 running a major feature article on the spread of theistic science as a parallel scientific culture. I can see interviews with the leading figures in history and philosophy of science about how and why this happened. For the moment, the authors of The Creation Hypothesis are realistically defensive. They know their way of looking at the world will not be generally accepted and that they will be restricted for a while to their own journals. They also know that they will be under intense pressure to demonstrate respectability by weeding out crackpots, kooks and purveyors of young-earth snake oil. If they are successful, the day will come when the editorial board of Science will convene in emergency session to decide what to do about a paper which is of the highest quality and utterly unexceptionable, of great and broad interest, and which proceeds from the prior assumption of intelligent design. For a preview of that crisis, you should read this book. Of course, if you are smug enough to think “theistic science” is an oxymoron, you won’t.

He also noted,

In reasonably objective fashion the chapters…demonstrate how regularly we have prematurely proclaimed victory on each and every front. A certain humility on our part seems called for. At the least, we should be candid in admitting that if we consider material solutions to these problems inevitable, that is a matter of faith on our part. We can point with great pride to tremendous advances in the past, but we of all people should know the limitations of inductive generalization.^[81]

If scientific creationism is really religion masquerading as science, i.e., pseudo-science, and evolutionary theory alone is true science, which alone should be taught in science classes, why is it that literally thousands of first rate scientists worldwide have abandoned evolution as a scientific theory and become scientific creationists? For so many reputable scientists to accept creationism as legitimately scientific, means that evolutionists who claim it is only religion must be wrong.

Further, evolutionists have often claimed that no qualified scientist having academic Ph.D.’s from accredited institutions believes in creation. But those who argue in this manner are also wrong. Collectively, thousands of creationists have Ph.D.’s in all the sciences, some from the most prestigious universities in America and Europe. They have held honors, positions and appointments that are equal to the best of their evolutionary colleagues. There are also thou­sands of non-creationist scientists who reject evolutionary theory, some of whom have also admitted that creationism can be scientific.

Finally, if creationism is really only a religion, why do evolutionists consistently lose their scientific debates to creationists?^[82]

Perha