By Dr Steve Kumar
Possibly no other question has intrigued man more than the question of man’s origin: “How did life begin on earth?” The theory of evolution attempts to explain this, and enjoys remarkable popularity. In most schools and universities around the world, the theory of evolution is taught–not as a theory–but as a fact.
Scientist and philosopher Sir Julian Huxley proclaimed, “Darwin’s theory is no longer theory, but fact. No serious Scientist would deny that evolution has occurred, just as he would not deny that the earth goes round the sun.” Now to qualify as science, the theory should be provable by the scientific method–yet by the very standards scientists themselves choose to set, the theory of evolution does not qualify. Huxley’s statement indicates how emotional many scientists arc about the theory.
Today, among the high priests of biology, a quiet revolution is occurring–something not widely reported in the press. As Dr. Pierre Grasse, one of the world’s noted biologists, says: “Not withstanding the success they have had among certain biologists, philosophers, and sociologists, the explanatory doctrines of biological evolution do not stand up to objective in-depth criticism. They prove to be in conflict with reality or unable to solve the problem involved.”
We will now examine our major areas of the theory and discuss some of the problems involved.
PROBABILITY
Darwin’s theory relied heavily on the notion of probability. He was convinced that given enough time, small changes accumulating over time could account for the change of one species of animal to another. In fact, he staked his reputation on the theory that these chance changes, without an overall purpose or goal, were responsible for the formation of all the highly complex plants and animals. Thus, Darwin was basically saying that it was all a matter of probability.
Statistically speaking, it is true that there is always a chance of something happening, just like there is a chance of tossing a coin 10,000,000,000,000 times, and getting tails every time. However, the real question is not whether it is possible, but whether or not it is probable that it occurred.
Whilst Darwin claimed that, given enough time, it was possible that evolution happened, the famous astronomer Sir Frederic Hoylc said that there was not enough time for the chance evolution of the thousands of genes essential for life in animals. He said, “The probability that chance occurrence of random mutation could accidentally create the complex relationships experienced in genes could be likened to the probability that a tornado sweeping through a junkyard would create a 747 Jumbo Jet.”
In other words, there is no chance of it happening. But The evolutionists respond that there is plenty of time for evolution to occur–around five billion years. No one would disagree that five billion years is a very long time, but is it long enough to account for the chance evolution of all the highly complex forms of life? The mathematicians answer with a decided “No!” For decades they have studied this problem, and each time they end up throwing their hands up in disbelief–they say that the probability of life occurring by chance evolution is virtually zero!
The cells that make up our body are staggeringly complex machines–each one contains myriads of different chemicals all working together perfectly. Mathematicians have calculated that the chance of this occurring through evolution is one chance in 10 with 78,000 zeros after it. To this type of evidence, the evolutionist just replies, “Give it enough time and it will happen.” But Alvert Szent Giorgyi, a Nobel Prise biochemist says that he just cannot accept this. He says “Random shuffling or bricks will never build a cathedral or a Greek temple, however long the time.” In other words, time is irrelevant; some things just cannot happen–no matter how long you have.
BIOGENESIS
In the 1950s scientists reported they were successful in creating organic material from chemicals. They placed the important chemicals together, such as water, methane, ammonia, hydrogen, carbon, etc, and sparked them with electricity. This produced amino acids and other organic compounds, which arc the basic building blocks of life. “Aha!” said the evolutionists, “Here is proof that life was generated from non-life by chance.” Great comfort was taken in finally knowing where life began. But, if only the scientists had a bit of healthy skepticism, they would have realized that this experiment in no way explains life’s origin.
While it is true that the scientists did create some compounds it is not necessarily true that the conditions in the test-tube were exactly the same as it was on the earth at its beginning, and the compounds are exactly the ones that are vital for life.
Although these experiments seemed so convincing, careful examination has now shown they are absolutely of no value in explaining life’s origin. Scientists tell us that life cannot form where there is oxygen in the air. Why? Because oxygen oxidizes, or breaks things down. Just as oxygen and water causes iron to form rust, it also causes the amino acids and other organic compounds to decompose. Therefore, life must have formed where there was no oxygen.
But, there is now an insurmountable problem: oxygen makes up part of the sky called the ozone layer which shield us from the life-destroying radiation from the sun. Thus, there is a dilemma–the presence of oxygen would destroy the building-blocks of life, but its absence means that the sun’s radiation would destroy any life.
Is there a way around this? Why could not life have formed under water, thus solving the problem of oxygen? There are two insurmountable problems with this line of reasoning as well. First, evolutionists say that lightning provided the energy to make the compounds. But lightning cannot penetrate water deeply, therefore life could not start under water. Second, if lightning could penetrate the water and start life, the water itself would destroy the life by breaking the compounds down.
Thus, the much heralded experiments that “created life in a test tube” turn out to be absolutely no use scientifically when trying to solve the origin of life. Because of this Dr. G.A. Kerkut states that “it is a matter of faith on the part of the biologist that life started this way.”
EMBRYOLOGY
Many or the classic arguments that have been used to support evolutionary theory are like malicious gossip–they are not true, but once in circulation they feed on themselves so that it is very difficult to challenge them. This is the cast with embryology, which is the study of the development of an embryo.
In 1866, Ernst Haeckel, a German biologist and philosopher, said that an embryo in its development passes through all the stages of its evolutionary ancestors. In other words, it exhibited parts of fish, reptiles, etc. This was an exciting theory and it was so popular that it is still in many textbooks today. However, Haeckel’s argument is a myth–there is not one prominent biologist in the world who is prepared to give it any credit whatsoever.
The evidence that evolutionists give is found in the gill slits of fish, which they say also appear in the human embryo at a certain time. They say this is proof That the embryo is passing through the fish stage on the way to becoming a mammal bird, or reptile. It is true that at a certain stage of development, there are a series of small grooves which look similar to the fish’s grooves (which later develop into its gills), but there the similarity ends. The fish gills open into the throat, but the human grooves form glands and parts of the ear. Other “examples” have been offered as evidence over the years, but each case has been completely discredited by leading embryologists.
Closely related to the embryo myth is another relating to the so-called “vestigal” or “remnant” organs. This says that humans have organs that are of absolutely no value and arc therefore the remains of organs once used in our evolutionary ancestors. Biologists listed 180 organs of the body that they thought were remnants from the past. Since then, experiments have demonstrated that each of these has an important function. For example, it is not uncommon to hear evolutionists say that the appendix is a remnant. However, it is now believed that the appendix performs an important function in fighting infection. It has been pointed out that man can function without an arm, an eye, a leg, or even a kidney, but this does not mean that they arc remnant organs.
NATURAL SELECTION
Essential to evolutionary theory is that each of the changes that occur by chance must be of benefit to the animal. In other words, every change that occurs must help the individual to survive. Because changes only happened gradually, millions of animals would therefore have had to run around with only partly formed bodies–an absurd idea. This fact really concerned Darwin, but he stuck to his guns, even though he was never able to give a satisfactory answer.
The eye is a good example of this problem of natural selection. It is a tremendously complex system that works together perfectly, and is unmatched by anything we can produce artificially. Gertrude Himnelfarb goes directly to the problem: “Since the eye is obviously no use at all except in its final, complete form, how could natural selection know the initial stages of change would ultimately be useful, when those same stages served no useful purpose whatsoever by themselves?” Darwin admitted: “To suppose that the eye, with all of its inimitable ability for adjusting the focus for different distances, for adjusting for different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic abberation, could have been formed by natural selection, it seems, I freely confess, to be absurd in the highest possible degree.”
But the important point is that this example of the eye is only one of thousands of other complex systems of the body that utterly defy the idea of gradual development in evolution. In fact, virtually every system that works in living things work as a whole–the individual parts that make it up are of no value to the body by themselves. And yet, evolution says that each necessary part is formed gradually over time, and waits around until the next precisely needed part is formed. Natural selection looks good on paper but when exposed to the complex real world, the simplicity which made it look good in the beginning turns out to be its undoing.
CONCLUSION
The evidence against the Darwinian Theory of Evolution is now so overwhelming, that it is amazing to realize that the theory is still faithfully adhered to, and vigorously defended within many sectors of science. Arthur Koesticr, one the distinguished science writers of the 20th century, wonders why the theory continues to linger on. He says that, “The scientific community would rather continue to believe a bad theory is better than no theory. Consequently, they arc unable or unwilling to realize that the castle they are defending lies in ruins.”
The alternative: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth . . . ” may sound unscientific or religious to the secular scientist; but in view of the naturalistic alternative presented in the theory of evolution and the great gaps in logic and fact, perhaps the rationality of special creation ought to be more humbly considered.
