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“Evidence from Biology”
Psalm 139:13,14
Biology, a word derived from two Greek words, bios ("life") and logos ("word") is "the study of life."
Some biology textbooks affirm that evolution is “random and undirected” and “without plan or
purpose” and that Darwin gave biology a “sound scientific basis by attributing the diversity of life to
natural causes rather than supernatural creation.”
Microevolution- evolutionary change within a species or small group of organisms. No one seriously
doubts microevolution.
Macroevolution- major evolutionary transition from one type of organism to another. This widely
accepted theory has numerous scientific challenges.
I. Irreducible Complexity.
Irreducible Complexity- the argument that certain biological systems cannot evolve by successive small
modifications from pre-existing functional systems through natural selection.
The single cell is an exquisitely designed molecular machine that led Bruce Alberts, President of
the National Academy of Sciences to remark, “We have always underestimated cells…The
entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking
assembly lines…”
Biochemist Michael Behe “The tiny acid-driven motor that powers bacterial flagellum- a
propeller-like device consists of 40 protein parts including a rotor, a stator, bushings and a
drive-shaft. The absence of any one of these parts would result in a complete loss of function.
That is, the motor is irreducibly complex-it is a single system composed of several wellmatched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of one of
the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.
Behe states “no irreducibly complex system that is missing a part, is by definition nonfunctional.
Darwin wrote “If it can be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not
possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would
absolutely breakdown.”
Biochemist and author Michael Behe stated “molecular evolution is not based on scientific
authority. There is no publication in the scientific literature that describes how molecular
evolution of any real, complex, biochemical system either did occur, or even might have
occurred….molecular evolution has never addressed the question of how complex structures
came to be. In effect, the theory of Darwinian molecular evolution has not published, and so it
should perish.”
James Shapiro, a biochemist at the University of Chicago, also admits that there are no detailed
Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system, only a
handful of wishful speculations.”
Stephen Jay Gould, an atheist and Harvard professor, “Classical science, with its preferences for
reduction to a few controlling factors of causality, was triumphantly successful for relatively
simple systems like planetary motion and the periodic table of the elements. But irreducibly
complex systems- that is most of the interesting phenomena of biology, human society and
history-cannot be so explained. We need new philosophies and models…”
Behe states that “To a person who does not feel obligated to restrict his search to unintelligent
causes, the straightforward conclusion is that many biological systems were designed. They
were designed not by chance or necessity; rather, they were planned.”
II. Information-bearing DNA.
Digital Information-bearing, information processing DNA is strong evidence of Intelligent
Design.
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, said that “DNA is like a computer program, but far, far more
advanced than any software we’ve ever created.”
We have an estimated 10 trillion cells in our bodies, each of which contains DNA. If you were to line up
all of the DNA packed into your body’s cells, it would stretch from the Earth to the Sun and back 100
times, according to the National Human Genome Research Institute.
Francis Crick, Nobel Prize winning co-discoverer of DNA “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 almost be a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have
been satisfied to get it going.”
III. The Fossil Record.
“Cambrian Explosion”- a term that refers to the appearance and rapid diversification of most major
living animal body plans (phyla) in the fossil record within a relatively short period in evolutionary
history.
“The number of intermediate varieties (should) be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological
formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such
graduated organic chain ; and this, perhaps is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be
urged against my theory.” – Charles Darwin
Paleontologist Allen Raup of the Field Museum of Natural History, which houses one of the largest fossil
collections in the world, said: “We are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil
record 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.”
Atheist Harvard professor Stephen Jay Gould said “The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil
record persists as the trade secret of paleontology.”
Niles Eldridge of the American Museum of Natural History says, “When we do see the introduction of
evolutionary novelty, it usually shows up with a big bang, and often with no firm evidence that the
fossils did not evolve elsewhere. Evolution cannot forever be going on somewhere else. Yet that’s how
the fossil record has struck many a forlorn paleontologist looking to learn something about evolution.”
Nobel Prize winning physicist Robert Laughlin of Stanford University, whose research into what
properties make life possible (and who is not an advocate of Intelligent Design) writes “Much of
the present day biological knowledge is ideological. A key symptom of ideological thinking is the
explanation that has no implications and cannot be tested. I call such logical dead ends
anitheories because they have exactly the opposite effect of real theories: they stop thinking
rather than stimulate it. Evolution by natural selection, for instance, which Darwin conceived as
a great theory has lately come to function as an antitheory called upon to cover up
embarrassing experimental shortcomings…- your protein defies the law of mass actionevolution did it! Your complicated mess of chemical reactions turns into a chicken- evolution!
The human brain works on logical principles even computers cannot emulate? Evolution did it!”