Biblical Creation vs. Evolution

[Maryjane]

I was thinking on this subject today...I was watching a commercial with a caveman who was sitting in a psychiatrist office and as I looked at this cave man...there is no doubt in my mind that we were not evolved to begin to look like anything but the perfection God created as we are created in HIS IMAGE...I feel there is no reason to argue with anyone who believes in evolution. We are to believe who we are in Christ...(how we all need to take seriously who we are in Christ) we are to believe every word God has given to us from the beginning to the end...Lest we fall Man is like man and until they find the Lord...they walk in darkness never knowing who they are because they have not met their creator...So many who pay thousands to seek psychiatrist to try and figure out who they are and glued to self help books after self help book..never picking up the only book that is given to put a life together that is given to man by man's creator...the only one who knows man is the creator of man...

[Soldier4Christ]

Amen, sister. That is why we don't allow arguing here on this forum but rather give information in accordance to God's word. Public schools today do just the opposite. There are many that are being led away from God because of this, the reason why we see our children and our churches being confused and falling away from a life with Him. It is very important to teach the truth.

[Soldier4Christ]

Created for a Purpose
by Frank Sherwin, M.A.

Many in the Church see the origins question as something peripheral, an unimportant side issue. But ideas have consequences, and clearly macroevolution has spawned a number of practices which can devastate individual lives and society in general.

One of the fruits of evolutionary teaching, is the unscriptural and unscientific idea that man is a highly evolved animal, having slowly evolved from lower forms of life over vast eons of time. Tragically, this is the only model the public hears. So, while the secular community warns of “creationist know-nothings,” it would be well to see what the alternative, evolutionism, offers.

    “. . . we should come to terms with the idea that we belong to a highly specialized group of bony fishes.”
    -J. G. Maisey of the American Museum of Natural History, 1996

    “In the past ten years we have come to realize humans are more like worms than we ever imagined.”
    Bruce Alberts, National Academy of Sciences, 1998

A very real problem in society today is suicide of young people in distressingly high numbers. It is clear that when they are taught statements like the above, and that they “. . . share a common heritage with earthworms” (Biology: Visualizing Life, 1994), ideas of a meaningful life quickly fade. Despair sets in as they ask if there is no greater purpose to life? The evolutionary worldview answers in the negative. “Evolution is random and undirected . . . without either plan or purpose . . .” (Biology, Prentice Hall, 1992). These last two quotes come from taxpayer-purchased high school textbooks. Liberal syndicated columnist Barbara Reynolds said it best when she wrote: “One philosophy preaches happenstance with mayhem as a conclusion; the other, divine order. One suggests the survival of the fittest; the other, a commitment to serve the weakest and sickest among us” (August 31, 1993).

All people need to be told of the value they have in God’s eyes and that He has a plan and purpose for their life. Such is the wonderful message of the Gospel, and the message of creation.

[Soldier4Christ]

Life on Mars?
by Frank Sherwin, M.A.

False or unsubstantiated rumors, once established, achieve a life of their own. One example is that life has been found on Mars.

Those who support the idea of Martian life do so mainly because of the Mars meteorite mania of August 1996. It was then that the world was stunned to hear that primitive life may have existed on the Red Planet. A meteorite (ALH 84001), thought to have originated on Mars and plucked from an Antarctic ice field in 1984, allegedly had possible signs of fossil bacteria. But the claim was bogus, recognized by many as a NASA ploy to drum up more interest in space research, which would shore up their sagging budget. A wealth of scientific articles have appeared since then refuting every claim made by NASA. Unfortunately, the news hasn’t been passed on to the many who believed the original claim.

But even if they were signs of life, does this prove life on Mars? Consider the following recent quotes:

“Bacteria can infiltrate Antarctic rocks and become fossilized there. Even if researchers find an indisputable genuine fossil bacterium in ALH 84001, it may be hard to prove that it lived on Mars rather than on Earth.” (Sky & Telescope, April, 1999, pp. 56–57.)

Furthermore, if scientists were to find clear, unmistakable fossilized bacteria in a meteorite (or soil) from Mars in the future, it doesn’t necessarily mean such bacteria evolved from non-life over millions of years. Applying uniformitarian assumptions, secular scientists conclude: “Just as the Mars meteorite . . . is thought to have been tainted by Earthly bacteria, samples from Mars, too, may not be what they seem . . . We think there’s about 7 million tons of earth soil sitting on Mars,” says Kenneth Nealson, a microbiologist with NASA. “You have to consider the possibility that if we find life on Mars, it could have come from Earth.” (Newsweek, September 21, 1998, p. 12.)

Christians should keep three things in mind regarding this whole issue:

   1. Life has never been found on the planet Mars. Doubts continue to grow regarding fossilized bacteria in the meteorite from Mars.
   2. If some day life were to be found on Mars, there would be good reason to believe it may have come from Earth, possibly having been blasted there by asteroid impact during the Flood of Noah’s day.
   3. Given the amazing complexity of life, wherever life is found, it had to have been created by an intelligent Designer.

[Soldier4Christ]

The Animals Came to Noah
by Frank Sherwin, M.A.

During devotions with my children the other night, my four-year-old son asked if I would read about Noah and the Flood since they had discussed this during a recent Vacation Bible School. I turned to the Genesis 7 paraphrase in his illustrated children’s Bible story book. To my surprise and concern, it said: “Then the animals had to be collected. Noah’s family had to work very hard.” But the Scriptures clearly and plainly tell the reader that Noah and his family didn’t have to “collect” any of the animals! Genesis 6:20 says: “Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind; two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.”

Then I got my daughter’s children’s Bible (a different version) and read, “We don’t know how Noah found all the different animals and birds. . . .” Again, Noah didn’t have to “find” the animals according to verse 20!

It’s no wonder many Christians don’t have a ready answer to those who mockingly portray Noah as some overworked hunter who had to painstakingly trap two of every kind of animal throughout the world. Let’s be especially careful when reading Christian books and Bibles for children to our little ones.

[Soldier4Christ]

Bad Science in Kansas Science Textbooks
by Frank Sherwin, M.A.

In regard to the Kansas school board decision and resulting massive disinformation campaign waged against those who question the dogma of macroevolution, it might be well to simply look at some of the clearly unscientific statements made by taxpayerpaid public school biology textbooks (some of which are used in Kansas).

When compared with the caecum of a horse, the caecum and appendix of humans is thought to be vestigial. (Oram, Biology, 1994, p. 311.)

The caecum is a blind pouch found as the first portion of the large intestine in most mammals. The trouble for neo-Darwinian theory is that some mammals have a caecum, but then, some don’t (e.g., some primates don’t). Why does the author compare the caecum of a horse to the appendix in people? Why not a chimpanzee and people? It is now known, according to evolutionists themselves, that the appendix in people is not a vestigial organ, but is in fact fully functional as part of our immune system.

The first nucleotides, amino acids, and sugars could have been formed during this period. There have been experimental results that support this hypothesis. (Schraer & Stoltz, Biology, 1995, p. 590.)

Amino acids, strung together in a precise sequence form nucleotides which are the “building blocks” of the molecule of life, DNA (genes are segments of DNA, which are composed of a series of nucleotides). While amino acids can be synthesized, nucleotides have never been made in origin of life experiments. Thus, there are no “experimental results that support this hypothesis”! Clearly, the textbook includes badscience.

If today’s species have come from more ancient forms, then we should be able to find remains of those species that no longer exist. Scientists have found such evidence in the form of fossils. (Towle, A., Modern Biology, 1993, p. 219.)

We certainly find remains of many species that no longer exist, but did basic categories arise through the alteration of previously existing ones? Scientists should hesitate to be so dogmatic. There might be a better explanation for the fossils, i.e., sudden creation of each basic category. Indeed, it was editor Montgomery Slatkin of American Scientist who said in 1994, “The fossil record has always been a problem.” Evolutionist A. G. Fisher said in 1998 in specific regard to fossils, “Both the origin of life and the origin of the major groups of animals remain unknown.”

We of ICR do not question science, but we do reject the strange idea of neo-Darwinism that is presented as fact in virtually all secular biology textbooks found in American public schools. Such unscientific indoctrination must change. The new freedom now allowed in Kansas provides for refreshing alternatives.

[Soldier4Christ]

Whale Tales
by Frank Sherwin, M.A.

In an article on whale evolution (Natural History 5/94) peppered with negative remarks toward creationists, Steven J. Gould of Harvard, perhaps one of the more strident anti-creationists today, stated:

    I am absolutely delighted to report that our usually recalcitrant fossil record has come through in exemplary fashion. During the past fifteen years, new discoveries in Africa and Pakistan have added greatly to our paleontological knowledge of the earliest history of whales.

But just five years later, Scientific American (January 1999) reported the discovery of fossilized ankle bones that has “left [whale] researchers even more puzzled than before.” The author of this article states that these bones (found in Pakistan!) “leave researchers wondering where whales came from.”

Compounding the problem is evidence taken from molecules (genetic analysis) that simply doesn’t line up with the fossil evidence (morphology). Evolutionist John Gatesy reports:

    The phylogenetic affinities of Cetacea have not been clearly resolved by either molecular or morphological characters. The rapidly growing molecular database should, in theory, complement anatomical evidence from the spectacular fossil discoveries of the past 15 years. Unfortunately, recent phylogenetic analyses show more conflict than compromise between molecules and morphology. “Molecular evidence for the phylogenetic affinities of Cetacea” The Emergence of Whales edited by J.G.M. (Thewissen Plenum Press, N.Y., 1998), p. 63.

Richard Monastersky of Science News (v. 156) agrees, saying “The war over whales pits the classical techniques of studying bones and flesh against the most modern methods of genetic analysis—two approaches that lead to different versions of the whale’s origin tale.”

While evolutionists struggle to spin their tales of how the whale could have come to be, the creationist can take comfort that all the evidence will continue to support the fact that the whale was designed as a unique creature during day five of creation, just as God told us in Genesis 1.

[Soldier4Christ]

The Gnarled Tree of Life
by Frank Sherwin, M.A.

Most everyone who has had high school biology is familiar with the infamous evolutionary “tree of life” in their biology text. There are many variations, but such a chart essentially shows a graphic molecules-to-man progression with dozens of branches spanning alleged “millions of years” of earth history.

The February 2000 edition of Scientific American has an article with the revealing title, “Uprooting the Tree of Life” by W.F. Doolittle. He states that:

    About ten years ago scientists finally worked out the basic outline of how modern life-forms evolved. Now parts of their tidy scheme are unraveling.

    To everyone’s surprise, discoveries made in the past few years have begun to cast serious doubt on some aspects of the tree, especially on the depiction of the relationships near the root.

Either Dr. Doolittle is unaware of the many thousands of creationists and evolutionists who are not surprised, or he prefers to ignore them. Regardless, such a discovery is not surprising, considering that science (what is really known to be true, mainly through observation) has always been at odds with macroevolution. Consider a recent review of the book, Horizontal Gene Transfer by Syvanen & Kado (1998):

    Some of the remaining chapters—particularly in the part of the book that discusses macroevolutionary trends (chapters 31–34)—are very speculative. (C.F. Delwiche, in BioScience, January 2000, p. 86.)

Of course, it has always been an unscientific stretch (or very speculative) to suggest that all living things on this planet, from tulips to tapirs, poppies to people, have, as their common ancestor, “a small cell with no nucleus.”

When asked for evidence of real, vertical evolution (also called macroevolution), evolutionists usually reply merely with well-worn and unsatisfying exceptions. These include the peppered moths, DDT-resistant insects, and the “new species” of finches on the Galapagos Islands. Creation scientists don’t dispute such minor variation (microevolution), of course, but such examples have nothing to do with real evolution. Evolutionists counter that over time, small “horizontal” changes lead to “vertical” or large changes. All one has to do, they say, is extrapolate from micro to macro.

An article in Evolution (Hendry & Kinnison, December 1999) discusses measuring the rate of evolution. They admit that “speculation about what might happen if short-term evolutionary rates were sustained over longer time frames is akin to extrapolating a regression line far beyond the range of the data.” A good example of extrapolation leading to wrong conclusions would be a child’s growth rate. From birth to age 15, for example, junior might grow five feet, then by extrapolation he would be 10 feet tall by age 30! Is it any wonder these two researchers state that, “both extrapolation and interpolation have the potential to mislead.”

While evolutionists continue to puzzle over their tree of life, Christians are forever grateful to the Creator who died on a cruel tree to give us life!

[Soldier4Christ]

 The Continued Contraction of Evolutionary Time
by Frank Sherwin, M.A.

These are indeed exciting times to be a Bible-believing Christian! Recent secular scientific research has concluded drastically shorter time spans for geological and biological processes that traditionally had been “proven” to take “millions of years.” In some cases, time spans have been in total agreement with Biblical timeline. Take, for example, the time given for the dinosaur demise.

    Modern stratigraphic techniques, however, seem to indicate that [the dinosaurs] extinction was truly sudden; some feel that a time span of a year or less cannot be ruled out . . . this has led to a modern revival of catastrophism, at least where the dinosaurs are concerned. [My emphasis.]

Villee, Solomon, & Davis
Biology
Saunders College Publishing
1985, p. 1040.

Evolutionist Trevor Palmer states in the quote below that it is impossible to distinguish between extinctions happening at the same time and happening up to a halfmillion years apart.

    [William] Clemens still considered it impossible to say whether these extinctions [in Montana, New Mexico & Gubbio, Italy] has occurred “precisely at the same time or were discordant by as much as 10,000, 100,000, or 500,000 years.

Controversy: Catastrophism & Evolution
Kluwer Academic Publishers
1999, p. 161.

  The time of humans on earth has also been reduced by some.

    We are finding that humans have very, very shallow genetic roots which go back very recently to one ancestor . . .

Michael Hammer
University of Arizona
US News & WR , 12/4/95.

      . . . regardless of the cause, evolutionists are most concerned about the effect of a faster mutation rate. For example, researchers have calculated that “mitochondrial Eve” . . . the woman whose mtDNA was ancestral to that in all living people . . . lived 100,000 to 200,000 years ago in Africa. Using the new clock, she would be a mere 6000 years old. No one thinks that’s the case. . . .

  Ann Gibbons
“Calibrating the Mitochondrial Clock”
Science , v. 279, pp. 28,29
January 2, 1998.

[Soldier4Christ]

Animal Rights... And Wrongs
by Frank Sherwin, M.A.

The lines continue to blur between you and your dog with the philosophy of evolutionism proposing that they be erased altogether.

As man continues to be denigrated as “a virus infecting Earth” by some environmental groups, his pets and non-domestic creatures are enjoying a new-found esteem. This is thanks in part to bizarre activist groups such as In Defense of Animals (IDA) and “animal-rights” law courses being taught at institutions like the prestigious Rutgers School of Law. Indeed, the San Francisco IDA would like to see the word “guardian” used in reference to pets rather than “oppressive terms such as ‘owner’ or ‘master.’” One litigator and animal rights law professor went a step further calling for a granting of personhood to bonobos and chimpanzees! Philosopher Pete Singer maintains orangutans, gorillas, and chimps should have legal equality with man.

Another interesting story involves a legal organization representing prisoners. This “civil libertarian” group is currently engaged in a fight regarding the alleged harmful effects of chaining inmates together during work hours because it makes the convicts feel like animals. Why the fuss? Have not these malefactors and other members of society been constantly taught in public school that they are animals? We read in the taxpaper-funded 1994 textbook, Biology: Visualizing Life, that “you are an animal and share a common heritage with earthworms.” In 1998 Bruce Alberts, President of the National Academy of Sciences stated: “In the last 10 years we’ve come to realize humans are more like worms that we ever imagined.” How can being chained together with other people be any more demeaning than being told outright that we have worms as ancestors?

On one hand we see serious legal efforts to have people treat their animals virtually as equals, and grant chimps personhood, while on the other hand special interest groups are outraged because men are treated like animals. This quandary sounds similar to the child’s dilemma: you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

[Soldier4Christ]

Even If... Even With
by Frank Sherwin, M.A.

The “new wave” in evolutionary theory is molecular evolution—looking at the molecules of life such as DNA and then attempting to produce an evolutionary “tree of life.” But these results have been dismal, producing no real evolutionary evidence.

    Even if we can reconstruct the phylogenetic tree for living land plants with DNA sequences, it will tell us rather little about the steps in the evolution of the plants around us today. ! – Olmstead, Science 280(1998): 393

    Even with DNA sequence data, we have no direct access to the processes of evolution, so objective reconstruction of the vanished past can be achieved only by creative imagination. – Takahata, Annual Review of Ecology & Systematics, 1995

    Even with the appropriate genes, the molecular tree of life is difficult to interpret. – Erwin, Valentine& Jablonski, American Scientist 85(1997): 127

    Even with millions of research dollars and bright minds, no one has been able to produce compelling evidence for molecular evolution—because it didn’t happen!

[Soldier4Christ]

The Never-Ending Problems In Evolutionary Biology
by Frank Sherwin, M.A.

In 1995, a reviewer of the book, Darwinism Evolving: Systems Dynamics and the Genealogy of Natural Selection by Depew & Weber said, “. . . evolutionary biology remains a turbulent, dynamic area of biology and of science in general” (American Library Association, choice card #356-57, v. 33). Many unsolved problems in evolution thinking were listed, and the problems continue for scientific materialists. Consider the following “problematic” quotes:

    One of the most difficult problems in evolutionary paleontology [the study of fossils] has been the almost abrupt appearance of the major animal groups (A. G. Fisher, evolutionist, Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, 1998, fossil section.)

    The formation of species has long represented one of the most central, yet also one of the most elusive subjects in evolutionary biology (Palumbi, “Marine Speciation,” Annual Review of Ecology & Systematics, 1994, p. 548.)

    As Darwin noted in the Origin of the Species, the abrupt emergence of arthropods in the fossil record during the Cambrian presents a problem for evolutionary biology (Osorio, Bacon & Whitington, American Scientist, May/June 1997, p. 244.)

    How natural selection operates at the molecular level is a major problem in evolutionary biology (Yokoyama, “Color vision of the Coelacanth,” Journal of Heredity, May/June, 2000.)

    Genetic variability is an open problem within Darwin theory (David Berlinski, Commentary, September, 1996, p. 38.)

    Indeed, the fact that dioecy [female & male flowers are borne on separate plants] has evolved from hermaphroditism [both female & male reproductive organs on the same flower] repeatedly distinguishes it as a central problem in evolutionary biology (Tia-Lynn Ashman, “A prescription for gender study in the next century,” American Journal of Botany, January 2000, p. 147).

Thus we see formidable and fundamental problems of evolutionism. We suspect these “problems” of secular biologists derive from the fact that they are looking at the evidence from the wrong perspective. There is a better alternative, one which fits the evidence—that of sudden creation of each basic type at some unobserved event in the past. Today we see the separate groups, and variation within each group, but their origin was accomplished by some another process.

[Soldier4Christ]

Science vs. Macroevolution
by Frank Sherwin, M.A.

One finds many in the secular community constantly equating the word science with macroevolution, or large change. This has led to gross misunderstanding of those who are trying to fathom the origins issue. If macroevolution and science are used synonymously, then of course creation science would be “anti-science.”

Let’s address this issue by first defining our terms. Although many definitions have appeared, science can be described as what we really know to be true mainly through observation. The late G. G. Simpson of Harvard stated in Science magazine that “it is inherent in any definition of science that statements that cannot be checked by observation are not really about anything . . . or at the very least, they are not science.”

But the origins debate centers around macroevolution, and macroevolution has never been observed. One of the architects of neo-Darwinism agrees: “It is manifestly impossible to reproduce in the laboratory the evolution of man from the australopithecine, or of the modern horse from an Eohippus, or of a land vertebrate from a fishlike ancestor. These evolutionary happenings are unique, unrepeatable, and irreversible” (Theodosius Dobzhansky, American Scientist, December 1957).

One can clearly see that according to secular sources, macroevolution and true science have nothing to do with each other. Unfortunately, this misunderstanding continues to be propagated by those who should know better and they perpetuate it for their own secular agenda.

For example, staff writer John Tedesco of the San Antonio Express News reported (11/08/99) Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg as saying, “I personally feel that the teaching of modern science is corrosive to religious belief, and I’m all for that.”

John Maddox, the former editor of Nature magazine, observed, “. . . it may not be long before the practice of religion must be regarded as anti-science.” This is true, if by the word “science” Maddox means “macroevolution.” True Biblical worship has never meshed with the particle-to-people philosophy (macroevolution). Indeed, not long ago a creation scientist (and Nobel prize winner) stated, “Science is the glimpse of God’s purpose in nature. The very existence of the amazing world of the atom and radiation points to a purposeful creation, to the idea that there is a God and an intelligent purpose back of everything” (A. H. Compton [d. 1962]).

[Soldier4Christ]

Science Teachers See The Case For Creation!
by Frank Sherwin, M.A.

The December 1999 issue of Science Teacher ran an article entitled “Attitudes Toward Evolution” by two investigators, Weld & McNew, who “were surprised to unearth polar discord among preservice science teachers.” The researchers came to this startling conclusion:

    Teachers are nearly split over the existence of scientific evidence for creationism (48 percent agree or strongly agree that there is much scientific evidence for creationism), though most do not perceive creationism and evolution as equally viable scientific alternatives for explaining present life forms (p. 29).

Looking beyond the obvious bias against creation science (seen, for example, in their using the word “creationism” but not “evolutionism”), the authors report that virtually every other American science teacher polled, recognizes evidence for creation. Scripture teaches as much in Romans 1:19–20:

    Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.

The case for creation (and therefore against evolution) has always been clearly seen, as atheist Garret Hardin of UC, Santa Barbara indirectly said in his Scientific American book, Thirty-Nine Steps to Biology. Consider the revealing titles he gave to two major sections in this fascinating book: section 1, “Fearfully and Wonderfully Made”; and section 2, “Nature’s Challenges to Evolutionary Theory.” This is the point we at ICR constantly make; it’s not only Scripture that challenges the philosophy of neo-Darwinism, but the clear design in nature.

In the second half of the above Science Teacher quote, we see how the worldview of the teacher collides with this clear evidence for creation. In other words, the two authors are saying that although there is scientific support for creation, some teachers choose not to see this evidence in a viable, scientific light because it would conflict with evolutionism.

This exciting statistic could not have come at a better time, as many school boards throughout the nation take a second critical look at the strange “molecules-to-man” philosophy in public schools.

[nChrist]

Amen Pastor Roger And MaryJane,

I've also thought about this issue many times, and I think that you really said it all. I have been guilty about arguing evolution with folks in the past, and it was really a waste of time. So, they teach evolution in schools and don't allow the Bible. We do the reverse here, and many other Christian sites are doing the same thing.

For Christians, we should know that the devil has done his work and damage with the theory of evolution. It's simple and diabolical - evolution and the Holy Bible can't both be right, so the devil used so-called science to cause doubt in the Holy Bible. The devil captured untold millions of souls with this junk. It's ironic that it takes much more work and faith to believe the theory of evolution than GOD'S Account of Creation in Genesis.

The Holy Bible tells us that many will be deceived. This has already happened and is still happening. For Christians, we will keep telling the truth and not become discouraged when many reject it. After all, Christians have always faced obstacles of some kind in sharing the truth of GOD'S WORD, JESUS, and the CROSS.

It's easy to say "don't get discouraged" when people reject the GOOD NEWS, but I know this is much harder to do than say. We can rest on the Promise of GOD that HIS WORD will never return void. It will accomplish GOD'S Purpose and Will, but we might not ever know what that was. It must be sufficient for us to just keep praying, keep working, and trust GOD with the rest.

Love in Christ,
Tom