Download Origins: List of Evidences

Website: Studying the Word of God
Authors: Brian K. McPherson and Scott McPherson
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Origins: List of Evidences
Introduction to the Table
In the center column is a list of evidences grouped into categories in the following order:
1) The Origin of the Universe, 2) The Laws, Parameters, Ratios, and Processes of the
Universe, 3) Time for Evolution 1 – Age of the Universe: The Evidence from
Astrophysics, 4) Mechanisms for the Formation of the Universe, 5) Time for Evolution 2
– Age of the Earth: The Historical Record and Other Evidences from Humankind, 6)
Time for Evolution 3 – Age of the Earth: The Evidence from Geology, 7) Time for
Evolution 4 – Biological Evidence, 8) The Evidence Concerning the Evolutionary Origin
of Life, 9) The Mechanisms of Biological Evolution, and 10) The Evidence Concerning
the Biological Evolution of Species.
Italicized, non-underlined phrases or sentences designate the start of one of these seven
categories. Bold, underlined phrases, followed by a descriptive paragraph indicate
individual pieces of evidence that are not sub-components of a larger, family of evidence.
For example, “Redshift / The Distant Travel of Starlight.” In contrast, underlined
phrases that are NOT bolded but are followed by a descriptive paragraph indicate pieces
of pieces of evidence that are subcomponents of a larger family of evidence. For
example, “Carbon-14” is a sub-point under the family “Absolute Dating.” In other
words, all underlined phrases are pieces of evidence and whether or not individual pieces
of evidences are bolded depends on whether or not they are being placed under a larger
super-category or family of evidence.
The narrow column to the left of the center column is marked “CRE” for “Creation
Theory.” And the narrow column to the right of the center column is marked “EVO” for
“Evolution Theory.” These columns to the left and right of the center column are
intended to keep a running tab for how each piece of evidence favors or disfavors either
theory.
Throughout the chart “Y,” “N,” or “0” will be placed in these columns on the left and
right. “Y” = “Yes,” designating that a particular piece of evidence favors, helps, supports,
affirms, or proves a theory. “N” = “No,” designating that a particular piece of evidence
disfavors, hurts, undermines, negates, or disproves a theory. The “0” indicates that a
particular piece of evidence favors neither theory over the other, neither helping nor
hurting either theory. Some lines describing larger families have general implications for
the theories apart from the specific sub-points listed beneath them. Other lines describing
larger families of evidence are left blank in either column because the only indications
from the evidence stem from their sub-points, listed below them. When a blank space
appears next to a piece of evidence, (such as “Absolute Dating”) the designations, “Y,”
“N,” or “0” will be placed individually next to each sub-point in that family of evidence.
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From time to time, there will also be explanatory “NOTES” in the central column to
provide context or references for the evidences that follow.
Introductory Notes
NOTE 1: Maximum Ages, Not Minimum Ages – The pieces of evidence listed below
establish maximum limits on the age of the earth, not minimum limits. In other words, the
limits state that the earth cannot be older than a certain age because of certain physical
processes and the rates of those processes. Furthermore, this is uniquely applicable to
uniformitarianism, because only uniformitarianism states as its foundational principle that
these rates cannot change. Consequently, within uniformitarianism, it is not possible to
slow down the rates in order to allow for more time. However, in catastrophism, the earth
could be much lower than these maximum limits because catastrophism’s central
ideology is that the present condition of the earth occurred rapidly due to major geologic
events, during which many processes that otherwise occur slowly, are rapidly sped up. In
other words, the limitations are strictly the result of uniform rates in processes.
Consequently, these limits do not state that the earth has to be at least the age identified in
the limit, only that it can be no older than that age if the processes occur uniformly and at
uniform rates.
In addition, this is the only way to reconcile different age limits. If, for example, one
maximum limit dictates that the earth is no older than 100 million years, and another limit
dictates that the earth is no older than 10 million years, both limits cannot represent the
actual age of the earth. Moreover, the age at the higher limit violates the lower limit. But,
if the earth is dated to the younger date and is, for illustration, assigned an age of 9
million years, then it conforms to both limits, being less than the maximum of 100
million years set by the higher limit and less than the maximum of 10 million years set by
the lower limit. Consequently, it is the lowest of the maximum age limits that define the
true age limit. Higher age limits simply rule out hundreds of millions or billions of years
needed for evolution due to the fact that any age above any maximum age limit violates
that limit. Conversely, if an age is under all the maximum age limits, it is acceptable,
even if it is far below the lowest limit. Such an age is acceptable no matter how low it is,
simply because it does not exceed any of the maximum limits for age.
The only criterion that would rule out a low age is if the processes had to occur at
uniform rate. But the principle of uniform rates is itself disproved by the variety of
maximum limits set by various processes, which in turn rule out the time needed by other
processes to produce essential features of the earth at their current rates. (Footnote: 2)
NOTE 2: Simple Observation and Deduction is Inherently More Reliable –
Throughout the examination of dating methods, it was repeatedly noted that relative
dating is regarded as “inherently more precise” and reliable than absolute dating because
relative dating relies solely on direct observation and simple, straightforward, logical
deductions as opposed to absolute dating, which relies on computations that are so highly
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complicated and assumption-laden that it requires expensive, advanced computers to
perform the calculations.
“Dating, General considerations, Determination of sequence – It is also important to
note that relative ages are inherently more precise, since two or more units deposited
minutes or years apart would have identical absolute ages but precisely defined relative
ages. While absolute ages require expensive, complex analytical equipment, relative
ages can be deduced from simple visual observations…The principles for relative
age dating described above require no special equipment and can be applied by
anyone on a local or regional scale. They are based on visual observations and simple
logical deductions and rely on a correlation and integration of data that occurs in
fragmentary form at many outcrop locations…Absolute dating, Principles of isotopic
dating – Because of the expensive equipment necessary and the combination of
geologic, chemical, and laboratory skills required, geochronology is usually carried
out by teams of experts.” – Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
By such standards any evidentiary process that is based on direct observation and simple,
straightforward, logical deductions is likewise going to be more precise and reliable than
absolute dating. Once again, this constitutes an obstacle that is particularly problematic
for the evolutionary principle of uniformitarianism, because uniformitarianism is not
going to be able to avoid the logical deductions, which contradict evolution theory,
simply by altering the rates at which processes occur. Consequently, these processes
require either the abandonment of evolutionary theory itself, because there is not enough
time, or the abandonment of uniformitarianism, which is the very principle that provides
the amount of time needed for evolution in the first place.
TABLE OF EVIDENCES
CRE
Evidence
EVO
The Origin of the Universe
Did the universe have a beginning? There are only 2
answers to this question. Either, the universe had no
beginning but is itself eternal and has always existed. Or,
the universe had a beginning and is not itself eternal.
Y
The Second Law Of Thermodynamics: The second law
of thermodynamics clearly disproves the notion of an
eternal universe or the notion that matter and energy are
eternal. The second law of thermodynamics describes the
phenomenon of entropy. Entropy is the loss of available
energy as disorder increases in a system.
N
3
"Food Web, III ENERGY FLOW - The process whereby
energy loses its capacity to do work is called entropy." "Food Web," Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. ©
1993-1998 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
The second law of thermodynamics states that, in a closed
(or isolated) system, entropy always increases.
"Hawking, Stephen William - For instance, the second
law of thermodynamics states that entropy, or disorder,
must increase with time." - "Hawking, Stephen William,"
Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998
Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
"Entropy - The idea of entropy is the basis of the second
law of thermodynamics. According to this law, the
direction of spontaneous change in isolated systems is
toward maximum disorder...Taken together, all processes
occurring now will result in a universe of greater
disorder. Because the entropy of the universe is always
increasing, a state of greater entropy must be one that
occurs later in time. For this reason, entropy has been
called 'time's arrow.'" - Worldbook, Contributor: Melvyn C.
Usselman, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Chemistry,
University of Western Ontario.
"Thermodynamics, IV SECOND LAW OF
THERMODYNAMICS - The second law of
thermodynamics gives a precise definition of a property
called entropy. Entropy can be thought of as a measure
of how close a system is to equilibrium; it can also be
thought of as a measure of the disorder in the system.
The law states that the entropy-that is, the disorder-of an
isolated system can never decrease. Thus, when an
isolated system achieves a configuration of maximum
entropy, it can no longer undergo change: It has
reached equilibrium. Nature, then, seems to "prefer"
disorder or chaos." - "Thermodynamics," Microsoft®
Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998 Microsoft
Corporation. All rights reserved.
When a system reaches this state of maximum entropy, it is
said to have reached equilibrium and the temperature
becomes uniform. This state is called heat death. And at this
time no work or change can occur.
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"Heat, Heat/Learning about heat, Thermodynamics According to the second law, all spontaneous (natural)
events act to increase the entropy within a system. Until a
system reaches its maximum entropy, it can do useful
work. But as a system does work, its entropy increases
until the system can no longer perform work." Worldbook, Contributor: Ared Cezairliyan, Ph.D., Former
Research Physicist, National Institute of Standards and
Technology.
"Physics, IV NEWTON AND MECHANICS, E
Thermodynamics, 3 The Second Law of
Thermodynamics - From the second law, it follows that in
an isolated system (one that has no interactions with the
surroundings) internal portions at different temperatures
will always adjust to a single uniform temperature and
thus produce equilibrium...The entropy of an isolated
system, and of the universe as a whole, can only
increase, and when equilibrium is eventually reached,
no more internal change of any form is possible. Applied
to the universe as a whole, this principle suggests that
eventually all temperature in space becomes uniform,
resulting in the so-called heat death of the universe." "Physics," Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. © 19931998 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
"Physics, The scope of physics, The study of heat,
thermodynamics, and statistical mechanics, Second law
- Another formulation of the second law is that the
entropy of an isolated system never decreases with
time...Statistical mechanics - From a microscopic point of
view the laws of thermodynamics imply that, whereas the
total quantity of energy of any isolated system is constant,
what might be called the quality of this energy is degraded
as the system moves inexorably, through the operation of
the laws of chance, to states of increasing disorder until it
finally reaches the state of maximum disorder
(maximum entropy), in which all parts of the system are
at the same temperature, and none of the state's energy
may be usefully employed. When applied to the universe
as a whole, considered as an isolated system, this
ultimate chaotic condition has been called the 'heat
death.'" - Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
In modern scientific terms, the universe is a closed system.
All that exists is a closed system. And consequently, given
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enough time, a state of maximum entropy will occur in
which there is no available energy in the universe. If the
universe were eternal, this state of maximum entropy, in
which there was no available energy, no work being done,
and no change occurring, would have been reached a long
time ago. Since the universe still has available energy and
work and change still take place, it cannot be eternally old.
To suggest or believe that the universe, or that matter and
energy, are eternally old is to contradict the known
scientific laws of thermodynamics. And that is simply not
an option for a rational or an empirical atheist.
This leaves only the option that the universe is not itself
eternal but had a beginning.
Conclusions from the Second Law of Thermodynamics do
not point in favor or against either the creationist or the
evolutionist model, although the implied need for a cause
for the universe will be an important factor in the
considerations that follow.
Y
First Law of Thermodynamics: The first law of
thermodynamics states that, as a matter of physical and
natural law, energy and matter cannot be either created or
destroyed.
N
"Thermodynamics, Classical thermodynamics, The first
law of thermodynamics - The first law of thermodynamics
is often called the law of the conservation of energy
(actually mass-energy) because it says, in effect, that,
when a system undergoes a process, the sum of all the
energy transferred across the system boundary-either as
heat or as work-is equal to the net change in the energy of
the system." - Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe
Edition
"Thermodynamics, III FIRST LAW OF
THERMODYNAMICS - The first law, then, is a law of
energy conservation. It states that, because energy
cannot be created or destroyed-setting aside the later
ramifications of the equivalence of mass and energy (see
Nuclear Energy)-the amount of heat transferred into a
system plus the amount of work done on the system must
result in a corresponding increase of internal energy in the
system." - "Thermodynamics," Microsoft® Encarta®
Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998 Microsoft Corporation. All
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rights reserved.
"Heat, Heat/Learning about heat, Thermodynamics The first law of thermodynamics is the law of
conservation of energy. It states that energy is never
created or destroyed." - Worldbook, Contributor: Ared
Cezairliyan, Ph.D., Former Research Physicist, National
Institute of Standards and Technology.
Both the evolution Big Bang model and creation model
assert that the universe was not eternal but had a beginning.
Therefore, both theories contradict the First Law of
Thermodynamics concerning the unique event that is the
beginning of the universe. Evolutionists regard the
beginning of the universe as a miraculous, momentary
suspension of natural and physical laws.
" [The big bang] represents the instantaneous
suspension of physical laws, the sudden abrupt flash of
lawlessness that allowed something to come out of
nothing. It represents a true miracle." - The Edge of
Infinity, Paul Davies, physicist and evolutionist (Cited on
"Astronomy and the Bible," Mike Riddle, Copyright
Northwester Creation Network, nwcreation.net)
"Quantum theory…holds that a vacuum…is subject to
quantum uncertainties. This means that things can
materialize out of the vacuum, although they tend to vanish
back into it quickly….Theoretically, anything-a dog, a
house, a planet-can pop into a existence by means of this
quantum quirk, which physicist call a vacuum fluctuation.
Probability, however, dictates that pairs of subatomic
particles…are by far the most likely creations and that they
will last extremely briefly….The spontaneous, persistent
creation of something even as large as a molecule is
profoundly unlikely. Nevertheless, in 1973, an assistant
professor at Columbia University named Edward Tryon
suggested that the entire universe might have come into
existence this way….The whole universe may be, to use
[MIT physicist Alan] Guth's phrase, 'a free lunch.'" Brad Lemley, "Guth's Grand Guess," Discover (April
2002), p. 100 (Cited in The Case for a Creator, by Lee
Strobel, Copyright 2004 by Lee Strobel, Zondervan, p. 100)
Given that the origin of the universe constitutes a
momentary suspension of natural and physical laws, the
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next question is what caused the universe and this
suspension of natural and physical laws? The first answer to
this question that is often advanced by the evolutionary
model is that there is no preceding cause. There was
nothing before the universe. The universe came into being
out of nothing, not even space or time.
"17.6 The Origin of the Universe - If the universe is
expanding, then it must have once been much smaller. If
you could run the life of the universe in reverse, like a
film, you would see the universe contracting until it
disappeared in a flash of light, leaving nothing. In the
realm of the universe, nothing really means nothing. Not
only matter and energy would disappear, but also space
and time. However, physicists theorize that from this
state of nothingness the universe began in a gigantic
explosion about 16.5 billion years ago. This theory of the
origin of the universe is called the Big Bang theory." HBJ General Science, 1989, p. 362 (Cited on "Seminar Part
1: The Age of the Earth," Dr. Kent E. Hovind, Creation
Science Evangelism, Pensacola, FL, www.drdino.com,
Windows Media Video, 27 minutes, 15 seconds)
"The universe burst into something from absolutely
nothing-zero, nada. And as it got bigger, it became filled
with even more stuff that came from absolutely
nowhere. How is that possible? Ask Alan Guth. His theory
of inflation helps explain everything." - Where Did
Everything Come From? Discover, April 2002 (Cited on
"Seminar Part 1: The Age of the Earth," Dr. Kent E.
Hovind, Creation Science Evangelism, Pensacola, FL,
www.drdino.com, Windows Media Video, 28 minutes, 05
seconds)
"…the observable universe could have evolved from an
infinitesimal region. It's then tempting to go one step
further and speculate that the entire universe evolved
from literally nothing." - Alan Guth & R. Steinhorsh,
Scientific American, May 1984, p. 128 (Cited on "Seminar
Part 1: The Age of the Earth," Dr. Kent E. Hovind, Creation
Science Evangelism, Pensacola, FL, www.drdino.com,
Windows Media Video, 28 minutes, 30 seconds)
"…the most reasonable belief is that we came from
nothing, by nothing, and for nothing." - William Lane
Craig and Quentin Smith, Theism, Atheism and the Big
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Bang Cosmology (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1993), 135
(Cited in The Case for a Creator, by Lee Strobel, Copyright
2004 by Lee Strobel, Zondervan, p. 99)
However, the idea that items could pop suddenly into
existence from nothing and without a cause is regarded as
philosophically and logically absurd, even by skeptics as
famous as philosopher David Hume.
"I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that
anything might arise without a cause." - David Hume,
The Letters of David Hume, Two Volumes, J.Y.T. Greig,
editor (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), 1:187, quoted in:
William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, 93 (Cited in The
Case for a Creator, by Lee Strobel, Copyright 2004 by Lee
Strobel, Zondervan, p. 101)
The idea of items popping into existence is not only
philosophically invalid on logical grounds, but, the fact that
items do not simply pop into existence out of nothing is
attested to by an overwhelming amount of empirical
experience as well. Dr. William Lane Craig explains this as
well during his interview in Lee Strobel's The Case for a
Creator.
"Well, we certainly have empirical evidence for the truth
of this premise. This is a principle that is constantly
confirmed and never falsified. We never see things
coming into being uncaused out of nothing. Nobody
worries that while he's away at work, say, a horse might
pop into being, uncaused, out of nothing, in his living
room, and be there defiling the carpet. We don't worry
about those kinds of things, because they never happen."
- The Case for a Creator, by Lee Strobel, Copyright 2004
by Lee Strobel, Zondervan, p. 99
The empirical proof from everyday experience is only
further substantiated when we consider the giant leap that
exists between the universe popping into existence out of
nothing and a horse popping into existence in a living room.
The horse popping into existence out of nothing in the
middle of an existing living room comprised of already
existing particles of air, germs, furniture, etc. and which are
governed by existing natural and physical laws such as
gravity. At least the horse is a new addition to an existing
reality. But the universe pops out of literally nothing.
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Unlike the horse, there is no existing environment or
physical laws from which or into which it springs.
Commenting along these lines, a few paragraphs earlier, Dr.
Craig states the following.
"When I first began to defend the kalam argument…I
anticipated that its first premise-that whatever begins to
exist has a cause-would be accepted by virtually
everyone…It seems metaphysically necessary that
anything which begins to exist has to have a cause that
brings it into being. Things don't just pop into existence,
uncaused, out of nothing…this first premise is
intuitively obvious once you clearly grasp the concept of
absolute nothingness. You see, the idea that things can
come into being uncaused out of nothing is worse than
magic. At least when a magician pulls a rabbit out of a
hat, there's the magician and the hat!...But in atheism,
the universe just pops into being out of nothing, with
absolutely no explanation at all." - The Case for a Creator,
by Lee Strobel, Copyright 2004 by Lee Strobel, Zondervan,
p.98-99
And not only is the idea of an item popping into existence
uncaused out of nothing logically impossible and contrary
to all human experience and intuition, but it also violates
the fundamental law of cause and effect that forms the basis
of most modern scientific inquiry.
"Causality, III MODERN DIRECTIONS - Along with
the method of empiricism as the source of all knowledge
goes a definition of cause that is widely accepted today.
The cause of any event is a preceding event without
which the event in question would not have occurred.
This is a mechanistic view of causality popular in
scientific circles. All the previous events would constitute
the complete cause." - "Causality," Microsoft® Encarta®
Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998 Microsoft Corporation. All
rights reserved.
If the law of cause and effect is rejected from being the
norm in the realm of science, then science would lose the
ability to test by means of experiment, to confirm any
theory by observation or experiment, and ultimately to
"know" or establish anything at all. Given the logical,
empirical, and even scientific necessity for the law of cause
and effect, it is impossible to assert that the universe came
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into being out of nothing without a preceding cause while
remaining reasonable and scientific at the same time. This
leaves only the possibility that the universe did not pop into
existence out of nothing, but rather, it resulted from a
preceding cause. And this, in turn, leads to the question of
what indications we have about that cause itself.
As stated and supported above, evolutionary theory regards
the beginning of the universe as a miraculous, momentary
suspension of natural and physical laws. However, because
it rejects any supernatural entities and by definition must
account for all events and phenomenon in terms of natural
and physical laws, the evolution model is inherently
incapable of explaining the momentary suspension of this
preeminent natural and physical law. Since all events and
phenomenon must be accounted for in terms of natural and
physical laws, how can evolution account for the
suspension of those very laws? Consequently, the
momentary suspension of such a preeminent natural law
demonstrates the flaw in any model that relies solely on
natural and physical laws, such as the evolutionary model.
On the other hand, the very fact that the universe could only
come into being by the suspension of such a preeminent
natural and physical law as the First Law of
Thermodynamics, demonstrates the existence of causes that
transcend, supersede, and overcome or overturn even the
most prominent and well-established natural and physical
laws. Consequently, the momentary suspension of such the
First Law of Thermodynamics points to a transcendent,
supernatural entity or force of some kind. The necessity for
a transcendent supernatural entity or force to exist, heavily
points in the direction of a creationist conclusion. The only
remaining step toward indicating a personal creator, as
deduced in creationism, is the question of whether or not
the transcendent, supernatural cause could be an impersonal
force. On this question, there are 2 primary demonstrations
pointing toward the conclusion that the supernatural cause
is personal rather than an impersonal force.
The first is philosophical. It is essential to understand that
in both the contemporary evolutionary model and creation
model, time itself began. For the evolution model, time
begins at the Big Bang. (For the creation model, time
begins when the eternal First Cause, the Creator, begins to
create.)
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"Space-time - in physical science, single concept that
recognizes the union of space and time, posited by Albert
Einstein in the theories of relativity (1905, 1916)." Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
"Cosmos, Relativistic cosmologies, Friedmann-Lemaître
models - The geometry of space in Friedmann's closed
models is similar to that of Einstein's original model;
however, there is a curvature to time as well as one to
space…there is a beginning and end to time in
Friedmann's version of a closed universe when material
expands from or is recompressed to infinite densities.
These instants are called the instants of the "big bang"
and the "big squeeze," respectively." - Encyclopaedia
Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
"Cosmos, Relativistic cosmologies, The Einstein-de
Sitter universe - In 1932 Einstein and de Sitter
proposed…The spatial geometry of the Einstein-de Sitter
universe is Euclidean (infinite total volume), but spacetime is not globally flat (i.e., not exactly the space-time of
special relativity). Time again commences with a big
bang and the galaxies recede forever, but the recession rate
(Hubble's "constant") asymptotically coasts to zero as time
advances to infinity." - Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004
Deluxe Edition
"Hawking, Stephen William - During the late 1960s
Hawking proved that if the general theory of relativity is
correct, then a singularity must also have occurred at the
big bang. The big bang is the explosion that marked the
beginning of the universe and the birth of space-time
itself." - "Hawking, Stephen William," Microsoft®
Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998 Microsoft
Corporation. All rights reserved.
Given that even in the contemporary Big Bang model, time
itself begins at the Big Bang, the question of why the
supernatural cause caused the universe to occur a finite time
ago becomes relevant to the question of whether or not that
supernatural cause is personal. In his book, The Case for a
Creator, Lee Strobel poses these questions to Dr. William
Lane Craig, who explains the logical necessity that the
supernatural cause is personal.
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"Finally, let me give you an analogy that will help explain
a third reason for why the first cause is personal. Water
freezes at zero degrees Centigrade. If the temperature
were below zero degrees from eternity past, then any
water that was around would be frozen from eternity
past. It would be impossible for water to just begin to
freeze a finite time ago. In other words, once the sufficient
conditions were met-that is, the temperature was low
enough-then the consequence would be that water would
automatically freeze. So if the universe were just a
mechanical consequence that would occur whenever
sufficient conditions were met, and the sufficient
conditions were met eternally, then it would exist from
eternity past. The effect would be co-eternal with the
cause. How do you explain, then, the origin of a finite
universe from a timeless cause? I can only think of one
explanation: that the cause of the universe is a personal
agent who has freedom of will. He can create a new effect
without any antecedent determining conditions. He could
decide to say, 'Let there be light,' and the universe would
spring into existence. I've never seen a good response to
this argument on the part of any atheist." - The Case for a
Creator, by Lee Strobel, Copyright 2004 by Lee Strobel,
Zondervan, p. 111
Lee Strobel goes on to cite British physicist Edmund
Whittaker to further articulate this line of argument.
"Putting the issue a bit simpler, British physicist Edmund
Whittaker made a similar observation in his book The
Beginning and End of the World. He said, 'There is no
ground for supposing that matter and energy existed
before and was suddenly galvanized into action. For
what could distinguish that moment from all other
moments in eternity? It is simpler to postulate creation ex
nihillo-Divine will constituting Nature from nothingness.'" The Case for a Creator, by Lee Strobel, Copyright 2004 by
Lee Strobel, Zondervan, p. 111
In simple terms, there is simply no reason and no ability
within an impersonal cause to not produce the universe for
some duration of time and then to produce the universe at a
certain point. The impersonal or mechanistic nature of the
force would cause the universe to automatically come into
existence any time when the force is present. And whatever
the ultimate cause that brings about the universe might be,
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so long as it is impersonal, it must be mechanistic in this
fashion. Consequently, if the universe was caused by an
impersonal force, then the universe should be eternally old.
It should be as old as the force that caused it, since the force
would cause the universe at all times when the force itself
exists.
The fact that this proof for the personal nature of the
supernatural cause is a philosophical proof should not be
taken to indicate that it is "weaker" or "biased" simply
because it is philosophical. There is no way to test this
scientifically because it cannot be observed or repeated
experimentally. On this question, all that mankind has in
terms of reasoning through this conclusion is the
philosophical constraints, the sheer logic, of the dilemma of
explaining the fact that the universe does exist.
Starting from sheer reasoning is not the only proof,
however. In addition to this philosophical, or strictly
logical, deduction that the supernatural cause must be
personal, not an impersonal force, there is another kind of
evidence. This second kind of evidence entails direct
experience of that personal cause by certain persons, the
proofs experienced by them, their eyewitness testimony to
others, and any proofs they offer to those they inform,
which could either be natural proofs from the world around
them or special proofs in the form of miracles, which
demonstrate the mandate of a supernatural, personal cause.
This second form of proof combines not only the kind of
empirically testable claims but also the kind of eye witness
testimony that suffices in legal proceedings as well as
everyday life.
Conclusions from the First Law of Thermodynamics point
in favor of a personal, supernatural cause for the universe,
and therefore to the creationist model.
The Laws, Parameters, Ratios, and Processes of the
Universe
Y
The Anthropic Principle: The fact that the laws,
parameters, ratios, and processes of the universe are
balanced on settings that specifically function to allow for
the existence of higher, intelligent forms of life strongly if
not inherently implies not only purpose at work in the
supernatural cause that caused the universe, but also the
N
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personal nature of the first cause due to the apparent
particular regard for the intelligent beings that would
populate the universe.
There are thousands of parameters and ratios of universal
laws and processes (including physics, chemistry, etc.) that
if adjusted even slightly would make life, particularly
human life, impossible. A few examples regarding the earth
itself include the following. If the earth were 5 percent
closer to the sun, the oceans would boil off. If the earth
were 1 percent farther away from the sun, the oceans would
freeze. If the earth's surface gravity were slightly more,
there would be too much atmosphere and if it were slightly
less, there wouldn't be an atmosphere. Additional examples
include the thickness of the crust, the earth's rotation period
and speed, and the gravitational interaction with the moon.
The fact that these parameters and ratios could have any
value but instead, in all cases, contain a value that is
favorable for human life, indicates that the universe is finetuned for humankind. (Footnote: 4)
Physicist and Nobel Laureate Arno Penzias stated in 1992,
"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 right conditions
required to permit life. And one that has an underlying (one
might say 'supernatural') plan." Astronomist George
Greenstein stated in his book The Symbiotic Universe, "As
we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises
that some supernatural 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?..." [George Greenstein, The Symbiotic
Universe (New York: William Morrow, 1988) pg. 27.]
(Footnote: 4)
Way back in the late 1950's, Hoyle talked about the precise
process by which carbon and oxygen are produced in a
certain ratio inside stars. If you tinker with the resonance
states of carbon, you won't get the materials you need for
building life. Incidentally, recent studies in by the physicist
Heinze Oberhummer and his colleagues show that just a
one-percent change in the strong nuclear force would have a
thirty- to a thousand-fold impact on the production of
oxygen and carbon in stars. Since stars provide the carbon
and oxygen needed for life on planets, if you throw off that
15
balance, conditions in the universe would be much less
optimal for the existence of life. p. 131 (Footnote: 5)
There are more than thirty separate physical or
cosmological parameters that require precise calibration in
order to produce a life-sustaining universe. p. 132 (Stephen
C. Meyer, "Evidence for Design in Physics and Biology" in
Michael J. Behe, William A Dembski, and Stephen C.
Meyers, editors, Science and Evidence for Design in the
Universe (San Francisco: Ignatius, 200), 60. (Footnote: 5)
Nobel-winning physicist Steven Weinberg, an avowed
atheist, has expressed amazement at the way the
cosmological constant-the energy density of empty space-is
"remarkably well adjusted in our favor." The constant,
which is part of Einstein's equation for General Relativity,
could have had any value, positive or negative, "but from
first principles on would guess that this constant should be
very large," Wienberg said. Fortunately, he added, it isn't:
"If large and positive, the cosmological constant would act
as a repulsive force that increases with distance, a force that
would prevent matter from clumping together in the early
universe, the process that was the first step in forming
galaxies and stars and planets and people. If large and
negative, the cosmological constant would act as an
attractive force increasing with distance, a force that would
almost immediately reverse the expansion of the universe
and cause it to recollapse." Either way, life loses-big time.
But astonishingly, that's not what has happened. "In fact,"
Weinberg said, "astronomical observations show that the
cosmological constant is quite small, very much smaller
than would have been guessed from first principles." p. 133
(Footnote: 5)
And Collins wasn't through. "There are other examples of
fine-tuning," he said. "For instance, there's the difference in
mass between neutrons and protons. Increase the mass of
the neutron by about one part in seven hundred and nuclear
fusion in stars would stop. There would be no energy
source for life. And if the electromagnetic force were
slightly stronger or weaker, life in the universe would be
impossible. Or consider the strong nuclear force. Imagine
decreasing it by fifty percent, which is tiny-one part in ten
thousand billion billion billion billion, compared to the total
range of force strengths…Since like charges repel, the
strong nuclear force would be too weak to prevent the
16
repulsive force between the positively charges protons in
atoms nuclei from tearing apart all atoms except hydrogen,"
he said." And regardless of what they may show on Star
Trek, you can't have intelligent forms built from hydrogen.
It simply doesn't have enough stable complexity." p. 134135 (Footnote: 5)
Few concepts stretch the mind as much as the fine-tuning of
the universe. For example, Oxford physicist Roger Penrose
said one parameter, the "original phase-space volume,"
required fine-tuning to an accuracy of one part in ten billion
multiplied by itself one hundred and twenty three times.
Penrose remarked that it would be impossible to even write
down that number in full, since it would require more
zeroes than the number of elementary particles in the entire
universe! This shows, he said, "the precision needed to set
the universe on its course." p. 135 (Footnote: 5)
"Earth's location, its size, its composition, its structure, its
atmosphere, its temperature, its internal dynamics, and its
many intricate cycles that are essential to life-the carbon
cycle, the oxygen cycle, the nitrogen cycle, the
phosphorous cycle, the calcium cycle, and so on-testify to
the degree to which our planet is exquisitely and
precariously balanced." p. 157 (Footnote: 5)
"We've found that our location in the universe, in our
galaxy, in our solar system, as well as such things as the
size and rotation of the Earth, the mass of the moon and sun
and so forth-a whole range of factors-conspire together in
an amazing way to make Earth a habitable planet,"
Gonzalez said. p. 164 (Footnote: 5)
Time for Evolution 1 - Age of the Universe: The Evidence
from Astrophysics
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Redshift / The Distant Travel of Starlight: The age of the
universe is calculated by the expansion of the universe,
which in turn is calculated by the observation of the shifting
of light wavelengths toward the red end of the
electromagnetic spectrum. However, the redshifts are
strictly quantized, occurring in concentric circles regularlyspaced around the Milky Way Galaxy. This inherently
indicates that the Milky Way Galaxy and the earth are near
the center of the Universe (with expansion occurring
outward from this central region), and thereby the earth and
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the Milky Way Galaxy are in a gravity well. When the
universe was at earlier stages of expansion, the effect of this
gravity well upon time itself would have caused time to
pass slowly on the earth and quickly at the distant stars,
providing time for light from those stars to reach the earth
even while only 6 days passed on earth.
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The Winding-Up Dilemma: The farther out from the
center, the slower that spiral galaxies rotate, and
conversely, the nearer to the center, the faster the galaxy
rotates. These different rotation speeds would rip apart the
distinct spiral arms of the spiral galaxies, causing it to
wind-up like a watch spring. Within a few hundred million
years maximum, there would be no more spiral arm
galaxies, only blurred discs. (Footnote: 1)
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"Galaxy, Evolution of spiral galaxies - Astronomers do
not understand clearly how galactic spirals evolved and
why they still exist. The mystery arises when one
considers how a spiral galaxy rotates. The galaxy spins
much like the cream on the surface of a cup of coffee. The
inner part of the galaxy rotates somewhat like a solid wheel,
and the arms trail behind. Suppose a spiral arm rotated
around the center of its galaxy in about 250 million
years-as in the Milky Way. After a few rotations, taking
perhaps 2 billion years, the arms would "wind up,"
producing a fairly continuous mass of stars. But almost
all spiral galaxies are much older than 2 billion years." Worldbook, Contributor: Kenneth Brecher, Ph.D., Professor
of Astronomy and Physics, Boston University.
"Galaxies wind themselves up too fast - The stars of our
own galaxy, the Milky Way, rotate about the galactic center
with different speeds, the inner ones rotating faster than the
outer ones. The observed rotation speeds are so fast that if
our galaxy were more than a few hundred million years old,
it would be a featureless disc of stars instead of its present
spiral shape. Yet our galaxy is supposed to be at least 10
billion years old. Evolutionists call this 'the winding-up
dilemma', which they have known about for fifty years.
They have devised many theories to try to explain it, each
one failing after a brief period of popularity. The same
'winding-up' dilemma also applies to other galaxies. For the
last few decades the favored attempt to resolve the dilemma
has been a complex theory called 'density waves'. The
theory has conceptual problems, has to be arbitrarily and
18
very finely tuned, and lately has been called into serious
question by the Hubble Space Telescope's discovery of very
detailed spiral structure in the central hub of the 'Whirlpool'
galaxy, M51." (Footnote: 2)
Supernovas / Supernova Remnants (SNR's): Supernovas
are exploding stars, which produce an expanding cloud of
of gas and debris as a result of their explosion.
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SNR Size: By observing the average rate of expansion and
assuming a uniformitarian rate, it can be determined how
long it would take for the gas to expand to any particular
diameter. After 300 years, the expansion cloud would be 23
light years in diameter. After 120,000 years, the expansion
cloud would be 350 light years in diameter. With current
technology, it is possible to detect SNR's that have been
expanding for up to 6 million years, which would reach an
expansion of 1,500 light years in diameter. After that,
they've expanded too much and are too diluted for our
current technology to detect them. In the parts of our galaxy
that can be seen, there are no large supernova remnants.
None are bigger than about 7,000 years worth of expansion.
(Footnote: 1)
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SNR Quantity: On average, there are about 4 supernovas
per century. In just the part of the galaxy that is visible from
earth, assuming a uniformitarian rate, there should be
7,291 in just 1 million years, let alone the billions of years
that the evolutionary theory asserts for the age of the
universe. In 7,000 years, there should be 125 visible. The
actual number visible today is 200, which is much closer to
a universe that is only thousands of years old. (Footnote: 1)
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Stars explode once in a while. This is called a nova or a
supernova. It happens about once every 30 years as a rough
average. When they look at the sky, they find less than 300
supernova rings. There should be several hundred million if
the universe were billions of years old. Assuming a
uniformitarian rate of 1 every 30 years, the universe would
be less than 9,000 years old (1 per 30 years, 300 x 30 years
= 9,000). (ICR, September 1998) (Footnote: 3)
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Cooling Off of Planets: Some of the planets are cooling
off. If they were billions of years old, they would have
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finished cooling off a long time ago. The fact that they are
still cooling off indicates that they were formed recently
enough to still being in the cooling off stage. (Footnote: 3)
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Saturn's Rings: Saturn's rings are slowly moving away
from the planet. If Saturn and its rings were billions of
years old, the rings would not be in their current position or
condition.
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Ganymede's Magnetic Field: Jupiter's moon Ganymede
has a strong magnetic field, indicating a hot, liquid core. If
Ganymede was billions of years old, it should have cooled
to the point of being solid a long time ago. (Footnote: 3)
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The Earth's magnetic field is decaying too fast: The total
energy stored in the Earth's magnetic field has steadily
decreased by a factor of 2.7 over the past 1000 years.
Evolutionary theories explaining this rapid decrease, as well
as how the Earth could have maintained its magnetic field
for billions of years, are very complex and inadequate. A
much better creationist theory exists. It is straightforward,
based on sound physics, and explains many features of the
field: its creation, rapid reversals during the Genesis flood,
surface intensity decreases and increases until the time of
Christ, and a steady decay since then. This theory matches
paleomagnetic, historic, and present data. The main result is
that the field's total energy (not surface intensity) has
always decayed at least as fast as now. At that rate the field
could not be more than 10,000 years old. (Footnote: 2)
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The earth is like a big magnet…In the last 150 years, the
earth has lost 6 percent of its magnetic strength. In the past,
the earth's magnetic field used to be stronger. Assuming a
uniformitarian rate, if the earth were more than 25,000
years old, the heat from the stronger magnetic field would
have destroyed life on earth. (Footnote: 3)
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Earth's Spin: The earth spins at about 1,000 miles per hour
at the equator but this spin is slowing down. The earth's
spin slows down enough that every once in a while the
clocks have to be adjusted to fit. This happened on New
Year's Eve of 1991. "But regular clocks use days as a
measure, which are growing longer by a thousandth of a
second or more daily as Earth's rotation slows." ("Giving
1990 one last tick before ushering in 1991," Pensacola
News Journal, 12/6/1990). It happened again in 1992.
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"Earth's Rotation is slowing down. To compensate for this
lagging motion, June will be one second longer than
normal. This 'Leap Second' announced by the International
Earth Rotation Service in February, will keep calendar time
in close alignment with international time" ("Time to Kill,"
Astronomy Magazine, June 1992, p. 24). In fact, this
happened from 1973-1983, in 1986, in 1988, from 1990-94,
and in 1996. In the past, the earth was spinning faster. At
this current rate of slowdown and assuming a
uniformitarian rate, the difference in speed would be
minimal 6,000 years ago. But at this rate, the earth could
not be billions of years old. At these rates, just a few billion
years ago and the change from day to night would have
been extremely rapid. Centripetal force would have been
enormous at these speeds. Furthermore, it is the spin of the
earth that causes the Coriolis effect, and at this rate of spin,
the Coriolis effect would have caused the winds to be 5,000
miles per hour. (Footnote: 3)
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The Recession of the Moon: The earth and the moon are
masses that are exerting gravitational forces on each other.
This causes the moon to accelerate in its orbit so that slowly
spirals away from the earth. Consequently, the moon is
receding from the earth at a rate of 4 centimeters or just
under 2 inches per year. [1 centimeter = 0.3937 inches x 4
centimeters = 1.5748 inches.] The moon is currently
250,000 miles from the earth. But at this rate [assuming a
uniformitarian rate], 1,000 years ago, the moon was 125
feet closer to the earth. [At a rate of 1.5 inches per year x
1,000 years = 1,500 inches / 12 inches = 125 feet, or 1.5748
inches x 1,000 / 12 = 131 feet.] 1 million years ago, the
moon was about 28.4 miles closer. [1.5 inches per year x
1,000,000 = 1,500,000 inches / 12 inches = 125,000 feet /
5,280 feet = 23.67 miles, or 1.5748 x 1,000,000 / 12 / 5,280
= 24.85 miles.] At 10 million years, the moon is 284 miles
closer [248.5 miles]. At 100 million years, the moon is
2,840 miles closer [2,485 miles]. At 1 billion years ago, the
moon was 28,400 miles closer [24,850 miles]. At this
distance, there would be a major disrupting impact on the
tides, increasing their height dramatically, which would
affect all life on earth detrimentally. However, because of
the increase of gravity as distance decreases, the recession
is not linear. Instead, the closer the moon gets, the more
gravitational pull there is between the earth and the moon,
and the faster is closes the distance. Consequently, with the
increasing gravity factored in, at 1.4 billion years ago, the
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moon would actually be in contact with the earth.
(Footnote: 7)
The tidal and gravitational interaction of the earth and the
moon causes the earth's rotation on its axis to slow down.
According to Newton's Inverse Square Law of Gravitation,
this effect would increase the closer that the earth and the
moon get to one another. This provides a maximum of 1.7
billion years for the moon to reach its current distance, and
that is starting with the moon touching the surface of the
earth. However, the Roche Limit dictates that the moon
could not start out any closer than 8,000 miles from earth
without being destroyed by the earth's gravity. Furthermore,
if the moon were 4.6 billion years old, as evolution teaches,
it should be much farther out. (Footnote: 1)
The moon orbits the earth. As it goes around the earth, it
slowly moves away from the earth by a few inches a year.
In the past, it was closer. Since the moon causes the tides,
the closer that it gets, the higher the tides get. The Inverse
Square Law states that the force of attraction between two
objects is inversely proportional to the square of the
distance between them, which means that if the moon were
1/3 its current distance from the earth, it would have 9 times
its current gravitational pull on the earth. At this rate and
assuming a uniformitarian rate of recession, about 1.2
billion years ago the moon would have been orbiting just
above the surface of the earth, which means that the earth
and the moon cannot be 4.6 billion years old. (Footnote: 3)
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The Age of the Sun: The sun produces energy as it
undergoes thermonuclear fusion. As this process occurs, the
core of the sun, as is the case for stars in general, should
grow brighter with age. And the brighter stars get, the hotter
they get as well. According to star-aging models, the sun, at
its current brightness and being about 4.6 billion years old,
is about halfway through its 10 billion year life.
Consequently, this means that over the first 4.6 billion years
of its existence, the sun has brightened about 40 percent. In
other words, its current brightness is 40 percent greater than
its original brightness. The average temperature on earth is
(15 degrees Celsius) 59 degrees Fahrenheit. According to
evolutionary theory, life on earth originated about 3.5
billion years ago. At 3.5 billion years ago, the sun would be
about 25 percent less bright than it is today. The 25 percent
increase in brightness from then to now results in a 32
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degree Fahrenheit increase in temperature on earth. This
means that assuming a uniformitarian rate for star
brightness and temperature, the average temperature on
earth was 32 degrees cooler 3.5 billion years ago, which
puts it at 27 degrees Fahrenheit. Consequently, 3.5 billion
years ago, the average temperature on earth would have
been 5 degrees below freezing at the time that life was
originating, a process which required heat according to the
evolutionary model. (Footnote: 7)
"The Primeval Biosphere - A picture of the young Earth
near the end of the bombardment period would show a
cloudy atmosphere, dozens of times thicker than our own
(Figure 11). Such an atmosphere would protect the ground
and prevent it from cooling rapidly in an era when the
young Sun was about 30 percent less bright than it is
now." - "An Argument for the Cometary Origin of the
Biosphere," Armand H. Delsemme, American Scientist,
Volume 89, 2004
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The Life Expectancy of Short-Period Comets: Shortperiods comets have a life expectancy of less than 10,000
years. This is caused because they lose mass every time
they get close to the sun. To last 4.6 billion years,
[assuming a uniformitarian rate] their initial mass would
have to be larger than the sun itself. Consequently, the
presence of such comets today requires either that the earth
is less than 10,000 years old or that there is a "source of
replenishment" for these comets. This replenishment source
is called the Oort Cloud, which is a spherical region that is
said to reside beyond Pluto about 1 light year from the sun
and contain billions of comets, but which has not been
detected by any observable or empirical means.
Furthermore, the presence of this quantity of comets would
cause them to bump into each other and annihilate each
other so that they could not have lasted billions of years
until this time to replenish comets today. Likewise, the
related Kuiper Belt, which is a nearer and smaller relative
of the Oort Cloud, is now known to have only about 7
percent of the material it was originally thought to have.
Consequently, the sources for replenishment are undetected
and, even if they did exist, would not work even on
theoretical grounds. (Footnote: 1)
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"Comets disintegrate too quickly - According to
evolutionary theory, comets are supposed to be the same
23
age as the solar system, about 5 billion years. Yet each time
a comet orbits close to the sun, it loses so much of its
material that it could not survive much longer than about
100,000 years. Many comets have typical ages of 10,000
years. Evolutionists explain this discrepancy by assuming
that (a) comets come from an unobserved spherical 'Oort
cloud' well beyond the orbit of Pluto, (b) improbable
gravitational interactions with infrequently passing stars
often knock comets into the solar system, and (c) other
improbable interactions with planets slow down the
incoming comets often enough to account for the hundreds
of comets observed. So far, none of these assumptions has
been substantiated either by observations or realistic
calculations. Lately, there has been much talk of the 'Kuiper
Belt', a disc of supposed comet sources lying in the plane of
the solar system just outside the orbit of Pluto. Even if some
bodies of ice exist in that location, they would not really
solve the evolutionists' problem, since according to
evolutionary theory the Kuiper Belt would quickly become
exhausted if there were no Oort cloud to supply it."
(Footnote: 2)
Comets are always losing material, which causes the tail as
the material blows off. At the rate that they lose material,
comets last only about 10,000 years each. The fact that
there are still comets indicates that the earth is less than
10,000 years old. The solution proposed by evolution
theorists concerning this point is that there is a spherical
cloud, known as the Oort Cloud, at the far edge of the solar
system, 50,000 astronomical units from the sun and this
cloud is comprised of small bodies. Comet are said to be
such bodies that have been gravitationally propelled into
our solar system from this reservoir. An astronomical unit is
the average distance between the sun and the earth, which is
93 million miles. Pluto is 39 astronomical units away and it
is incredibly difficult to see without a very powerful
telescope. Consequently, it is impossible to see any object,
such as the Oort Cloud's comets, that are 50,000
astronomical units away. No one has ever seen the Oort
cloud. It is hard to see a comet 1 astronomical unit from
earth. Oort never saw the Oort cloud. "Oort proposed a
cloud of comets surrounding the solar system based on
mathematical errors." (Raymond Littleton, "The Nonexistence of the Oort Cometary Shell," Astrophysics and
Space Science, Vol. 31, December 1914, pp. 385-401.
(Footnote: 3)
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Comets: Comets are divided into 2 groups, long period
comets and short period comets. Short period comets are
those comets that circle around the sun every 200 years or
less. Long period comets are those that circle around the
sun every 200 years or more. Every time they circle the sun,
they lose some of their mass. At their current rate of mass
loss, they should have burned up and disintegrated a long
time ago and none would exist today if the solar system
were 4.6 billion years old. Evolutionary theory answers this
by stating that the long period comets are replaced by
material from the Oort Cloud, which is out a great distance
past Pluto. The Kuiper belt, which is around Neptune, is
supposed to supply the short term comets. However, the
Oort cloud has never been observed. There is no evidence
that it exists. And after the collisions that formed the bodies
of the solar system there would not have been enough mass
or material left to form the Oort cloud. Kuiper belt objects
(KBO) have been observed. The comets that orbit the sun
are about 10 kilometers in diameter at the largest size. The
objects in the Kuiper belt are at a minimum of 100
kilometers in diameter and range all the way up to 500
kilometers. Consequently, the objects in the Kuiper belt are
far too large to be identified with any of the comets that
orbit the sun. Furthermore, there are simply not enough
objects in the Kuiper belt to have supplied short period
comets for the age of the solar system. It would require at
least 100 times more objects in order to supply enough
short period comets to last the age of the solar system.
(Footnote: 7)
"The existence of the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud of
comets has not been verified. Perhaps there is an
alternative. The presence of comets may be evidence that
the solar system is not as old as is often assumed." - Don De
Young, Ph. D. Physics, Astronomy and the Bible, 2000, p.
49-50 (Footnote: 7)
"The region simply doesn't possess anywhere near enough
material for them to accumulate over the age of the solar
system." - S. Alan Stern, Sky and Telescope, "The 2nd
Zone: Exploring the Kuiper Belt," pp. 30-26 (Footnote: 7)
"Though the Oort cloud has yet to be observed, the theory
accounts so well for the distribution of comets' orbits that
most astronomers today accept its existence." - Timothy
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Ferris, The Whole Shebang: A State-of-the-Universe Report,
1997, p. 123
"Many scientific papers are written each year about the
Oort Cloud, its properties, its origin, its evolution. Yet there
is not a shred of direct observational evidence for its
existence." - Carl Sagan, Comets, 1985, p. 207 (Footnote: 7)
"Since it cannot be detected, the Oort cloud is not a
scientific concept. This is not bad science, but non-science
masquerading as science. The existence of comets is good
evidence that the solar system is only a few thousand years
old…" - Danny Faulkner, Ph. D. Astronomy, Technical
Journal, "More Problems for the Oort Comet Cloud," 2001,
p. 25 (Footnote: 7)
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The Poynting-Robertson Effect: In our own solar system,
there is an influence of solar radiation and solar radiation
and solar wind affecting micro-meteoric material in the
solar system that is believed to have been around since the
formation of the universe 4.6 billion years ago. Solar
radiation and solar wind push on the smaller particles,
accelerating them, increasing their velocity, and effectively
pushing them out of the solar system in a much smaller
amount of time than the current evolutionary age of the
universe. On the larger particles, solar radiation and solar
wind exhibit a drag effect, slowing down their orbital speed
so that they cannot maintain orbit and they spiral into the
sun and burn up. These two factors are so efficient that
[assuming a uniformitarian rate] they should have removed
all the micro-meteoric material out up to a diameter of 2
inches within 2 billion years from inside of Jupiter's solar
orbit. The presence of such material today indicates that
these processes have not been going on for over or
anywhere near 2 billion years. In fact, the fine material that
still resides close to the sun today should have been blown
away in just thousands of years. Furthermore, the Milky
Way Galaxy and other observed galaxies have a lot of dust
in them, and the solar wind of all the combined stars in the
galaxy should have blown the dust out of those galaxies in a
much shorter timescale than the 10-20 billion-year
evolutionary age of the universe. (Footnote: 1)
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Micro-meteoric Material on the Moon's Surface: As the
earth and the moon revolve around the sun, they pick up
micro-meteoric material. It was expected that, after 4.6
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billion years, it would cover the moon 60 feet deep if tightly
compacted and about 180 feet deep if loosely compacted.
However, the dust on the moon is deep enough for
astronauts (such as Neil Armstrong) to scrape through to
solid rock with their boots. The lack of accumulation of
meteoric dust suggests that the moon has not been in
existence collecting such dust for billions or even millions
of years. (Footnote: 1)
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Erosion on the Moon: With no atmosphere and no ozone
the moon is subject to the full strength of cosmic and solar
radiation, which "break down even hard, basalt-type rocks"
at a rate of about 4 ten- thousandths of an inch per year. In
one million years [assuming a uniformitarian rate], there
would be about 33 feet of radiation erosion. Large boulders
would be reduced to dust in much less than a million years.
This would be 33,000 feet of erosion after a billion years.
This alone would cause an enormous smoothing out and
lowering of mountains and hills on the moon, which is not
what is observed today. Furthermore, "rocks actually flow"
under the constant force of gravity, although it is much
slower than water. With even a fraction of the known
viscosity or rate-of-flow index for the rocks that are on the
moon, there should be no mountains or craters on the moon
if it were billions of years old, let alone the sharp edges
seen on some of the craters, which should have smoothed
out after just a hundred thousand years but have not. The
lack of erosion indicates that the moon is only thousands of
years old. Furthermore, the presence of so many craters on
the moon, which have not significantly worn down by
erosion, provides evidence for a major cataclysmic asteroid
or meteorite phenomenon on the earth within the last few
thousand years, which would in turn potentially substantiate
the involvement of a major impact in causing the breaking
open of the earth's crust into plates, the shooting forth of the
"fountains of the deep," and the subsequent global flood.
(Footnote: 1)
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Meteorites on the Earth: While erosion on earth would
remove craters, such as are seen on the moon, with billions
of years of meteorites bombarding earth, we should have
more meteorites themselves. For example, estimates of
Antarctica alone assert that it has received 18,000
meteorites per year. Over billions of years that equates to
trillions of meteorites. This is worsened by the fact that
there are fossils in the sedimentary rock layers that are
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supposed to be from this same time. The lack of meteorites
indicates that the earth has not been around for billions of
years for meteorites to build up on earth. (Footnote: 1)
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Stellar Evolution: Evolution asserts that red stars slowly
evolve over billions of years into white dwarf stars. Red
stars do change into white stars, but the evidence indicates
that this takes less than two thousand years to happen. All
the ancient astronomers describe Sirius as a red star
including Egyptian hieroglyphs from 2,000 B.C., Cicero in
50 B.C., Seneca (4 B.C.-65 A.D.) described it as "redder
than Mars," and Ptolemy listed it as one of the six red stars
in 150 A.D. But today Sirius is a white dwarf star.
(Footnote: 3)
N
"Sirius - also called Alpha Canis Majoris , or Dog Star
brightest star in the night sky, with apparent visual
magnitude -1.5. It is a binary star in the constellation
Canis Major. The bright component of the binary is a
blue-white star 23 times as luminous as the Sun and
somewhat larger and considerably hotter than the Sun." Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
"Star, Star formation and evolution, End states of stars,
White dwarfs - All stars seem to evolve through the redgiant phase to their ultimate state along a straightforward
path. In most instances, especially among low-mass stars,
the distended outer envelope of the star simply drifts off
into space, while the core settles down as a white dwarf.
Here, the star (really the core) evolves on the horizontal
branch to bluer colours and lower luminosities…The
Sun is destined to perish as a white dwarf. But, before
that happens, it will evolve into a red giant, engulfing
Mercury and Venus in the process…The first white dwarf
to be recognized was the companion to Sirius. It was
originally detected by its gravitational attraction on the
larger, brighter star and only later observed visually as a
faint object (now called Sirius B), about 10,000 times
fainter than Sirius (now called Sirius A) or 500 times
fainter than the Sun. Its mass is slightly less than that of
the Sun, and its size a little less than that of the Earth." Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
Mechanisms for the Formation of the Universe
Y
Dark Matter and Dark Energy: In order to explain the
N
28
current action of gravity in the universe and to
mathematically balance, the modern cosmological models
for the Big Bang require the invention of dark matter and
dark energy, which have never been detected. It is believed
that they are invisible because by nature they emit no
electromagnetic radiation, which is the spectrum that allows
us to detect anything from radio waves to infrared rays to
visible light to ultraviolet rays, X-rays, and gamma rays.
About 23 percent of the universe is thought to be dark
matter and 73 percent is thought to be dark energy. Only the
remaining 4 percent is comprised of normal matter and
energy, of matter and energy that are detectable.
Furthermore, not only are dark matter and energy
undetectable, but their properties are also unknown.
Consequently, the evolutionary Big Bang model is still
without any observed, empirical data explaining how the
universe exists in its current state, including how gravity
acts on a large scale leading to either the contraction or
continued expansion of the universe. (Detailed information
about these factors are presented in the preceding sections
of this article series.)
Y
Top-Down vs. Bottom-up Formation of Large-Scale
Structure: In the evolutionary Big Bang cosmology, there
is still no explanation for how the structure of the universe
formed in terms of superclusters, clusters, galaxies, and
stars, etc. Gravity is the mechanism most favored by current
models for how and why theses structures originated.
However, there are 2 alternate theories for exactly how
gravity accomplishes this. The first is called the "top-down"
theory (which is associated with "warm" dark matter) and
the second is called the "bottom-up" theory (which is
associated with "cold" dark matter.) It is important to keep
in mind here that the detection and properties of dark matter
remain unknown, so the designation of "cold" vs. "warm"
dark matter, which is so central to either alternative here, is
entirely invented. In "top-down" theories, gravity causes the
largest structures condense first, such as superclusters and
clusters, then galaxies form in these clusters, and finally
stars condense within the galaxies. In "bottom-up" theories,
galaxies or smaller form first, then move and collect into
larger structures like clusters and superclusters. "Topdown" theories tend to provide a better, but still flawed,
explanation for the spatial distribution of these structures
throughout the universe, but they fail to produce celestial
objects with the proper mass to fit observed data and they
N
29
place the formation of these structures at a time that is too
recent to the present to fit observed data. In direct contrast,
"bottom-up" theories fit with the proper, observable mass of
celestial objects, but they fail to explain the largest
structures and their distribution throughout the universe.
Simulations employing alternate theories, such as "biased
galaxy formation," show that "no amount of biasing can
reproduce both the large-scale spatial structure and the
magnitude of the observed large-scale streaming mothions"
("Cosmos," Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe
Edition). Consequently, explaining the formation of the
large-scale distribution and structure of the universe
requires a combination of the "top-down" and "bottom-up"
theories, in which there is an equal mixture of warm and
cold dark matter. However, such a mixture is considered to
lack supportive evidence and to be too ideal or too
artificially constructed to match naturalistic mechanisms.
The current status is that the Big Bang cosmology still, to
this day, cannot explain the formation of the structure and
distribution of the universe. Given that the Big Bang theory
cannot describe the actual "explosion" itself, nor can it
describe how the universe reached its present structural
distribution after the "explosion," nor can it avoid relying
on 90 percent ratios of undetected matter and energy with
unknown properties, this leaves the question of exactly
what the Big Bang theory does describe or explain
successfully.
"Cosmos, Unorthodox theories of clustering and galaxy
formation - Given the somewhat unsatisfactory state of
affairs with gravitational theories for the origin of largescale structure in the universe, some cosmologists have
abandoned the orthodox approach altogether and have
sought alternative mechanisms…In summary, it can be
seen that mechanisms alternative to the growth of small
initial fluctuations by self-gravitation all have their own
difficulties. Most astronomers hope some dramatic new
observation or new idea may yet save the gravitational
instability approach, whose strongest appeal has always
been the intuitive notion that the force that dominates the
astronomical universe, gravity, will automatically promote
the growth of irregularities. But, until a complete
demonstration is provided, the lack of a simple
convincing picture of how galaxies form and cluster will
remain one of the prime failings of the otherwise
spectacularly successful hot big bang theory." -
30
Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
"Cosmology, III MODERN COSMOLOGY, A The Big
Bang Theory - Current methods of particle physics allow
the universe to be traced back to earlier than one second
after the big bang explosion initiated the expansion of the
universe. Cosmologists believe that they can model the
universe back to 1 x [10 to the -43rd power] seconds
after the big bang; before that point, they would need a
theory that merges the theory of gravity and the theory of
general relativity to explain the behavior of the universe.
Scientists do not actually study the big bang itself, but
infer its existence from the universe's expansion." "Cosmology," Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. ©
1993-1998 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
0
Formation of Stars: Like the formation of the large-scale
structures of the universe, there is still no working
explanation in evolutionary Big Bang cosmology for the
formation of stars, the predominant and perhaps most basic
celestial object. Consequently, the Big Bang cosmology
doesn't explain or describe what caused the "bang," the
bang itself, how the bang led to the current large-scale
structure and distribution of the universe, or the formation
of anything from galaxies to stars. There is still no working
evolutionary model for the existence of these things.
0
"Many aspects of the evolution of galaxies cannot yet be
determined with any certainty." - Joseph Silk, (Professor
of Astronomy at the University of Oxford), The Big Bang,
2001, p. 195 (Cited on "Astronomy and the Bible," Mike
Riddle, Copyright Northwester Creation Network,
nwcreation.net)
"Galaxies must have condensed out of the gases expanding
from the big bang…Details of the formation of galaxies
are still highly uncertain, as is their subsequent
evolution." - The Facts on File Dictionary of Astronomy,
1994, p. 172 (Cited on "Astronomy and the Bible," Mike
Riddle, Copyright Northwester Creation Network,
nwcreation.net)
"The complete birth of a star has never been observed.
The principles of physics demand some special conditions
for star formation and also for a long time period. A cloud
of hydrogen gas must be compressed to a sufficiently
31
small size so that gravity dominates. In space, however,
almost every gas cloud is light-years in size, hundreds of
times greater than the critical size needed for a stable
star. As a result, outward gas pressures cause these
clouds to spread out farther, not contract." - Don De
Young, Ph. D. in Physics, Astronomy and the Bible, 2000,
p. 84 (Cited on "Astronomy and the Bible," Mike Riddle,
Copyright Northwester Creation Network, nwcreation.net)
"Precisely how a section of an interstellar cloud
collapses gravitationally into a star…is still a
challenging theoretical problem…Astronomers have yet
to see an interstellar cloud in the actual process of
collapse." - Fred Whipple, The Mystery of Comets,
(Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institute Press, 1985), pp.
211, 213 (Cited on "Astronomy and the Bible," Mike
Riddle, Copyright Northwester Creation Network,
nwcreation.net)
"To many astronomers, it seems reasonable that stars could
form from these clouds of gas. Most astronomers believe
that the clouds gradually contract under their own
weight to form stars. This process has never been
observed, but if it did occur, it would take many human life
times. It is known that clouds do not spontaneously
collapse to form stars. The clouds possess considerable
mass, but they are so large that their gravity is very
feeble. Any decrease in size would be met by an increase
in gas pressure that would cause a cloud to re-expand." Danny Faulkner, Ph. D. Astronomy (Cited on "Astronomy
and the Bible," Mike Riddle, Copyright Northwester
Creation Network, nwcreation.net)
"There is general belief that stars are forming by
gravitational collapse; in spite of vigorous efforts no one
has yet found any observational indication of
confirmation. Thus the 'generally accepted' theory of
stellar formation may be one of a hundred unsupported
dogmas which constitute a large part of present-day
astrophysics." - Hannes Alfven (Nobel prize winner),
Gustaf Arrhenius, "Evolution of the Solar System," NASA,
1976, p. 480 (Cited on "Astronomy and the Bible," Mike
Riddle, Copyright Northwester Creation Network,
nwcreation.net)
"Despite numerous efforts, we have yet to directly
32
observe the process of stellar formation…The origin of
stars represents one of the fundamental unsolved
problems of contemporary astrophysics." - Charles Lada
and Frank Shu (both astronomers), "The Formation of
Sunlike Stars," Science, 1990, p. 572 (Cited on "Astronomy
and the Bible," Mike Riddle, Copyright Northwester
Creation Network, nwcreation.net)
"Stars are formed by the gravitational collapse of cool,
dense gas and dust clouds…There are problems,
however, in initiating the collapse of a gas cloud. It
resists collapse because of firstly its internal motions
and the heating effects of nearby stars, secondly, the
centripetal support due to rotation, and thirdly, the
magnetic field pressure." - Facts on File Dictionary of
Astronomy, 1994, p. 434 (Cited on "Astronomy and the
Bible," Mike Riddle, Copyright Northwester Creation
Network, nwcreation.net)
"The truth is that we don't understand star formation at
a fundamental level." - Marcus Chown, "Let there be
Light," New Scientist, Feb. 7, 1998 (Cited on "Astronomy
and the Bible," Mike Riddle, Copyright Northwester
Creation Network, nwcreation.net)
Y
The Formation of the Solar System: The evolutionary Big
Bang model also lacks a working explanation for the
formation of the solar system. The current theory is the
nebular hypothesis, now combined but originally put
forward separately by philosopher Immanuel Kant and
French astronomer and mathematician Pierre Simon de
Laplace. This theory holds that the solar system formed
from the collapse of a nebular dust and gas cloud.
N
"Solar system, Origin of the solar system, Early
cosmogonic models - Because the theory of Laplace
incorporated Kant's idea of planets coalescing from
dispersed material, these two approaches for planet
formation are often combined in a single model called the
Kant-Laplace nebular hypothesis. During this period, the
apparent regularity of motions in the solar system was
contradicted by the discovery of asteroids with highly
eccentric orbits and satellites with retrograde orbits.
Another problem with the nebular hypothesis was the
fact that, while the Sun contains 99.9 percent of the
mass of the solar system, the planets (principally the
33
outer planets) carry more than 99 percent of the
system's angular momentum. To conform to this theory,
either the Sun would have to be rotating more rapidly
or the planets would have to be revolving around it
more slowly. In the early decades of the 20th century,
several scientists independently decided that these
deficiencies of the nebular hypothesis were so great that
it was no longer tenable…Planets must somehow be
created in the process that forms the stars themselves. This
awareness prompted scientists to reconsider certain
basic processes that resembled some of the earlier
notions of Kant and Laplace." - Encyclopaedia Britannica
2004 Deluxe Edition
The primary problem is the discrepancy that solar system
formations have with the law known as the Conservation of
Angular Momentum. In fact, there are 2 problems this
theory has concerning the Conservation of Angular
Momentum. The first is described in the quote above. In
short, the spinning of this cloud as it coalesced should result
in particular distributions of the rotation speed, mass, and
angular momentum of the sun vs. that of the planets.
However, the distributions required if the solar system
formed from angular momentum at the collapse of a
nebular cloud are violated by the actual observed data
concerning the sun and planets today.
"This [Angular Momentum] would have caused the sun
to spin very rapidly. Actually, our sun spins very slowly,
while the planets move very rapidly around the sun. In
fact, although the sun has over 99 percent of the mass of
the solar system, it has only 2 percent of the angular
momentum. This pattern is directly opposite to the
pattern predicted for the nebular hypothesis." - Dr. H.
Reeves, The Origin of the Solar System, in The Origin of
the Solar System, Dermott, S.F. Ed. John Wiley and Sons,
New York, p. 9, 1978 (Footnote 3)
The second problem posed by angular momentum is the
unusual orbits and reverse spins of at least 2 planets and 8
of the 91 moons in the solar system. According to the law
of the Conservation of Angular Momentum, all objects that
spin off as part of the same original, spinning object should
be spinning the same direction. The fact that this is not the
case provides evidence that the solar system, did not form
by the coalescing of gas and dust as a process of angular
34
momentum.
There is a law in physics called the Conservation of
Angular Momentum. The Big Bang would have been a
frictionless environment since it asserts that all the matter
was began in one condensed, infinitesimally small spot, and
consequently there would have been nothing for the
components of the Big Bang to run into as friction. If a
spinning object breaks apart in such a frictionless
environment, all the parts that fly off will spin the same
direction as the original object because the outside of those
components is rotating faster than the inside of them.
However, at least 2 planets and 8 moons in our solar system
spin backwards. Furthermore, there are other problems
concerning the mass and rotation speed of the sun vs. that
of the planets, which contradict the law of the Conservation
of Angular Momentum. In addition, beyond our solar
system, there are also entire galaxies that spin backwards.
(Footnote 3)
Uranus, Venus, and possibly Pluto are spinning
backwards. Likewise, "8 of the 91 moons rotate
backwards. Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune have moons
orbiting in both directions." (Astronomical Almanac for the
year 1989 (Wash., D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office,
1985), p. E85) And some galaxies also spin backwards.
(Footnote 3)
As indicated in the closing lines of the Encyclopedia
Britannica quote above, these problems led to the demise of
this theory but the lack of a sufficient replacement led to its
revival. Additional problems include whether or not the
rings from which the planets would coalesce would be
stable enough. This problem contributed to the original
demise of this theory. However, this problem appears not to
have been addressed in revived versions.
"Solar System, VI THEORIES OF ORIGIN - Early
attempts to explain the origin of this system include the
nebular hypothesis of the German philosopher
Immanuel Kant and the French astronomer and
mathematician Pierre Simon de Laplace, according to
which a cloud of gas broke into rings that condensed to
form planets. Doubts about the stability of such rings
led some scientists to consider various catastrophic
hypotheses, such as a close encounter of the sun with
35
another star. Such encounters are extremely rare, and the
hot, tidally disrupted gases would dissipate rather than
condense to form planets." - "Solar System," Microsoft®
Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998 Microsoft
Corporation. All rights reserved.
A further problem surrounds the question of whether or not
the collapse of the nebular cloud was caused by its own
gravity. Such a collapse caused by the cloud's own internal
gravity is unworkable for the reasons described under the
discussion of "Stellar Formation" above. Consequently, an
alternate reason for collapse has been suggested and that
alternate involves the possibility that supernova explosions
might have occurred near enough, which could have
triggered the collapse of the nebular cloud.
"Solar System, VI THEORIES OF ORIGIN - Current
theories connect the formation of the solar system with the
formation of the sun itself, about 4.7 billion years ago. The
fragmentation and gravitational collapse of an
interstellar cloud of gas and dust, triggered perhaps by
nearby supernova explosions, may have led to the
formation of a primordial solar nebula (see Nova and
Supernova)." - "Solar System," Microsoft® Encarta®
Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998 Microsoft Corporation. All
rights reserved.
"Solar System, Formation of our solar system - Many
scientists believe that our solar system formed from a
giant, rotating cloud of gas and dust known as the solar
nebula. According to this theory, the solar nebula began
to collapse because of its own gravity. Some
astronomers speculate that a nearby supernova
(exploding star) triggered the collapse." - Worldbook,
Contributor: Jay M. Pasachoff, Ph.D., Field Memorial
Professor of Astronomy and Director, Hopkins Observatory
of Williams College.
Consequently, problems for the formation of the solar
system through naturalistic processes remain. The problems
include the impossibility of nebular gas collapsing
gravitationally to form a star, the speculative nature of a
hypothetical nearby supernova triggering the collapse, the
instability of the rings from which planets would condense,
the contradicting distribution of mass and angular
momentum between the planets and the sun, the reverse and
36
unusual rotations of certain planets and moons, the
nonconforming orbits of certain asteroids. On this note, the
last quote below conveys the status of current evolutionary
theories on the formation of the universe. Currently, there is
no successful evolutionary explanation for the formation of
the solar system.
"The ultimate origin of the solar system's angular
momentum remains obscure." - Well-known solar system
Evolutionist scientist, Dr. Stuart Ross Taylor, Solar System
Evolution: A New Perspective, Cambridge University
Press, p. 53, 1992. (Footnote 3)
Y
The Formation of the Moon: There is still no working
theory on how the moon formed either, including is regular
orbit with its perfectly corresponding rotation about its axis.
Original theories were coaccretion, fission, and capture.
Coaccretion suggested that the earth and moon both formed
from the same cloud of dust and gas, but this theory failed
to account for the "large angular momentum of the present
system." Fission asserted that the early earth was fluid-like
and rotating so rapidly that it expelled a portion of that fluid
material, which later cooled into the moon, but no
combination of properties for that early earth allowed for
this scenario to actually occur. The capture hypothesis
states that the moon formed somewhere else and was
captured by the earth's gravity, but this theory was
ultimately rejected because actually capturing a passing
moon and bringing it into orbit was considered too
improbable and delicate for naturalist explanations. The
current theory is that the moon was caused by a massive
impact, when the earth was struck by a body 2 or 3 times
the size of mars, which would make that object roughly the
size of the earth itself. The impact is said to have blasted
portions of both the earth and the striking object into orbit
and from there the material from both coalesced into the
moon. The major problem with this theory is that it would
require the earth to melt throughout as a result of the impact
in order to erase the crater but earth's geochemistry
contradicts such a melting. Ultimately, the evolutionary Big
Bang model lacks a working model for the origin of the
moon as well. (More details on this are included in the
preceding sections of this article series.)
N
Time for Evolution 2 - Age of the Earth: The Historical
Record and Other Evidences from Humankind
37
Y
Records of Flood: Human history overwhelming records a
worldwide flood. Even if it is assumed that the religions
originated and developed as part of the evolution of human
psychology and culture, and the divine causation of the
flood is rejected as a mere primitive explanation, there is
simply no scientific or objective grounds to reject the
occurrence of the event itself, particularly given that science
accepts all other natural events reported by ancient
societies, such as earthquakes, volcanoes, eclipses, and
storms, despite the attributing of those events to divine
causes. Consequently, the occurrence of a worldwide flood
would render the fossil evidence, geologic formations of the
earth, and stratification of rock layers as recent events
resulting from this massive cataclysm. Although only a few
summary quotes are included below, the accounts of a flood
span across the globe from Hawaii, North, Central, and
South America, China, Greece, Asia Minor, Armenia,
Mesopotamia and Sumeria, which altogether rule out the
notion that the flood was local or limited to a single,
geographic region only. A much more extensive list of
quotes about the global record of a worldwide flood are
included in the preceding portions of this article series.
N
"Today there are 270 surviving flood legends…in many
cultures that have never heard of the Bible." "Dinosaurs and the Bible," Dr. Kent E. Hovind, Creation
Science Evangelism, Pensacola, FL, www.drdino.com,
Windows Media Video, 14 minutes, 40 seconds
"Religious myths - The tale of man's creation and moral
decline forms part of the myth of the Four Ages (see
below Myths of the ages of the world). His subsequent
destruction by flood and regeneration from stones is
partly based on folktale." - Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004
Deluxe Edition
"Creation Stories - When the gods decide to destroy
their human creations, they do so by sending a flood (see
Ancient Middle Eastern Religions; Deluge)." - "Creation
Stories," Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. © 19931998 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
"Nature worship, Elements and forces of nature, Water,
Water as primal matter - Myths of a great flood (the
Deluge) are widespread over Eurasia and America. This
38
flood, which destroys with a few exceptions a
disobedient original population, is an expiation by the
water, after which a new type of world is created." Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
"Deluge - A number of ancient nations had folklore that
predated the Bible and also made reference to the great
flood. An example is the Gilgamesh Epic, an ancient
Babylonian story dating from 2000BC and written on 12
cuneiform tablets. It concerns a ruler (Gilgamesh) who,
after losing his dearest friend to a mysterious death, seeks
out a wise man (Utnapishtim) who is a survivor of the
great flood and knows the secret of immortality.
Accounts such as this have intrigued biblical scholars
because they lend further credence to the later biblical
version. Although a number of these scholars have
concluded that the biblical narrative is derived from the
Babylonian story, it is possible that each was taken from
a common earlier source, now lost. Events similar to
those described in the biblical story occur also in Greek
mythology (see Deucalion). Among other peoples whose
folklore and legends contain accounts of a devastating
deluge are those of southern Asia, the aborigines of
North, Central, and South America, and the natives of
Polynesia. The Chinese and Japanese have stories of
floods, but these do not, as a rule, destroy the entire earth.
Curiously, flood legends do not occur among the ancient
inhabitants of the Nile Valley and are not common
anywhere else in Africa or in Europe." - "Deluge,"
Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998
Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Y
Human Population Growth: If homo erectus thrived
around 1 million years ago as evolutionary theory asserts,
there would be 10 to the power of 8,600 people on the
planet today (a 10 with 8,600 zeros behind it). Conversely,
with an average growth rate of just one half of one percent,
the current population of 6-7 billion people lies perfectly
along a natural population curve that would result from just
2 humans about 4,500 years ago. (Footnote: 1)
N
'Last weekend the world's population topped 6 billion.' (Star
Tribune, Minneapolis, Minn., July 24, 1999) The whole
world's population would fit inside Jacksonville, Florida
twice. Jacksonville has 25 billion square feet. In 1985, there
were about 5 billion people on earth. There were about 1
39
billion people around the year 1800. During Jesus' first
advent, there was about 1/4 billion (250 million) people on
earth. From the population growth curve, it appears that the
entire current population on earth started about 4,400 years
ago. Conversely, evolution asserts that man has been on
earth for 3 million years. With 3 million years of human
reproduction, the population would have grown to the point
where there would be 150,000 people per square inch.
(Footnote: 3)
Y
Not enough stone age skeletons: Evolutionary
anthropologists say that the stone age lasted for at least
100,000 years, during which time the world population of
Neanderthal and Cro-magnon men was roughly constant,
between 1 and 10 million. All that time they were burying
their dead with artifacts. By this scenario, they would have
buried at least 4 billion bodies. If the evolutionary time
scale is correct, buried bones should be able to last for
much longer than 100,000 years, so many of the supposed 4
billion stone age skeletons should still be around (and
certainly the buried artifacts). Yet only a few thousand have
been found. This implies that the stone age was much
shorter than evolutionists think, a few hundred years in
many areas. (Footnote: 2)
N
Y
Recorded History: The written record of human history
only goes back several thousands of years. If evolution
were true, it should go back tens of thousands or hundreds
of thousands of years. (Footnote: 1)
N
"History is too short - According to evolutionists, stone
age man existed for 100,000 years before beginning to
make written records about 4000 to 5000 years ago.
Prehistoric man built megalithic monuments, made
beautiful cave paintings, and kept records of lunar phases.
Why would he wait a thousand centuries before using the
same skills to record history? The Biblical time scale is
much more likely." (Footnote: 2)
The Chinese calendar says that it is just past the year 4700,
which could have started with Noah or Shem's birth rather
than the flood itself. The Hebrew calendar indicates that we
are just past the year 5763. Historical records only go back
5-6 thousand years. (Footnote: 3)
Y
Agriculture is too recent: The usual evolutionary picture
N
40
has men existing as hunters and gatherers for 100,000 years
during the stone age before discovering agriculture less than
10,000 years ago.23 Yet the archaeological evidence shows
that stone age men were as intelligent as we are. It is very
improbable that none of the 4 billion people mentioned in
item 10 should discover that plants grow from seeds. It is
more likely that men were without agriculture less than a
few hundred years after the flood, if at all. (Footnote: 2)
Y
The Age of Languages: The oldest languages in the world
are less than 6,000 years old. (Footnote: 3)
N
Time for Evolution 3 - Age of the Earth: The Evidence from
Geology
Absolute Dating: As discussed in depth in the preceding
articles, absolute dating methods are unreliable due to the
circular interdependence with relative dating and the
internal assumptions, unknowns, and complications for
each individual absolute dating method. As a whole,
absolute dating methods prove nothing about the age of the
earth. Apart from these general considerations, more
particular implications from absolute dating are considered
individually below.
Y
Carbon-14 Saturation (and Ratios): The earth has not yet
reached equilibrium or full saturation of carbon-14, which it
would have if the earth were 4-5 billion years old. This
indicates either that the earth is too young to have reached
equilibrium or that there was a major catastrophe sufficient
to remove a large portion of carbon-14 from earth's
ecosystem. The fact that a majority of earth's carbondioxide resides in sedimentary rock layers (rocks that are
laid down by water), in fossil fuels (which are buried under
such rock layers), and the earth's cool oceans, strong
indicates that the large-scale removal of carbon-14 from the
ecosystem was connected to a global or near-global flood.
The burial of such large amounts of carbon in sedimentary
rock layers and dissolution in the oceans would drastically
alter the normal carbon to carbon-14 ratios necessary for
absolute dating. Taking that ratio change into account
would adjust all radiocarbon dates to well-within the
creationist time scale.
N
41
Y
The Presence of Carbon-14: "Every sample of coal, oil,
wood, or bone that's been tested for carbon-14 content, even
if retrieved from supposedly millions-of-years-old rocks,
always contains carbon-14. Its half life is only 5730 years.
In about 10 half lives you have virtually no detectable trace.
Nobody said you could detect it after 100,000 years even
counting individual carbon-14 atoms. Yet, it's there in very
measurable amounts. Why? Because it was buried by the
flood just thousands of years ago and there hasn't been
enough time for it to decay into oblivion." - "Scientific
Evidences for a Young Earth," Thomas Kindall, Seattle
Creation Conference 2004, Copyright Northwest Creation
Network, nwcreation.net, 49 minutes, 05 seconds
(Footnote: 1)
N
Y
Radiogenic Helium: Radiogenic helium is a major
byproduct of radioactive decay. Radiogenic helium is
trapped in deep, hot rocks. The quantitative data shows that
radiogenic helium in these rocks "had to have been
produced in massive amounts about 6,000 years ago (plus
or minus 2,000 years)" and the diffusion or leakage rate
shows that the amount that has leaked out is only as much
as would have leaked out in that same timeframe of 6,000
years (plus or minus 2,000). If it was produced over billions
of years, it would have leaked out of the rocks and into the
atmosphere. But it is not present in the atmosphere, which
demonstrates that radiogenic helium has not been produced
over billions of years and, by direct extension, that
radioactive decay has not been occurring for billions of
years. (Footnote: 1)
N
All naturally-occurring families of radioactive elements
generate helium as they decay. If such decay took place for
billions of years, as alleged by evolutionists, much helium
should have found its way into the Earth's atmosphere. The
rate of loss of helium from the atmosphere into space is
calculable and small. Taking that loss into account, the
atmosphere today has only 0.05% of the amount of helium
it would have accumulated in 5 billion years. This means
the atmosphere is much younger than the alleged
evolutionary age. A study published in The Journal of
Geophysical Research shows that helium produced by
radioactive decay in deep, hot rocks has not had time to
escape. Though the rocks are supposed to be over one
billion years old, their large helium retention suggests an
42
age of only thousands of years." (Footnote: 2)
Y
Relative Dating Methods / Fossil Record and the
Geologic Column: Provides only order, not actual ages,
dates, rates, or intervals for rock layer formation or fossil
burial. However, the existence of fossils in the rock layers
requires rapid burial, which means that the rock layers had
to be laid down quickly, rather than gradually. Such rocks
are predominantly laid down by water. Most fossils are also
formed in watery environments also, including that many
marine fossils and marine sedimentary rock are found on
mountain tops and inland, away from oceans, rivers, or
lakes, indicating that these locations were once under water.
All of these factors indicate a massive global or near-global
flood, corroborating the historical record from cultures all
over the world. Apart from these general considerations,
more particular implications from fossil formation and the
stratification of rock and coal layers are considered
individually below.
N
Y
Dinosaur Fossils with Soft Tissue: Fossilized Dinosaur
bones with soft tissue have been found and accepted by the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Discover
Magazine, and the journal Science. Although the rule is
now necessarily being reconsidered in order to allow
evolutions theoretical long ages to continue, it was
previously considered a matter of fact that soft tissue could
not be preserved more than "at the most a few tens of
thousands of years." This discovery indicates, therefore,
that the dinosaur is not 65 million years old, but most likely
less than 10 thousand years old. This information collapses
not only the distance between dinosaurs and man on the
evolutionary geologic time scale, but also the entire
geologic column itself, which formerly placed these two
species over 60 million years apart. If what was thought to
be 60 million years apart in the geologic record (humans
and dinosaurs) are really contemporaries living side by side,
then all the millions of year intervals collapse. It is further
proof that the fossil record and the sedimentary rock strata
containing them were laid down in rapid order, not over
millions of years.
N
"Mary Schweitzer, a research at North Carolina State
University, was examining a fracture bone from a 68million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex under a microscope.
43
There, in place of the usual dry vista, she beheld something
gooey and miraculous: soft tissue, still stretchy, full of
forms that resembled bone cells and blood vessels.
Paleontology was cracked wide open." - "Brave New
World, Letter from Discover," Discover, April 2006, p. 35
"Two years ago, Schweitzer gazed through a microscope in
her laboratory at North Carolina State University and saw
lifelike tissue that had no business inhabiting a fossilized
dinosaur skeleton: fibrous matrix, stretchy like a wet scab
on human skin; what appeared to be supple bone cells, their
three-dimensional shapes intact; and translucent blood
vessels that looked as if they could have come straight from
an ostrich at the zoo. By all the rules of paleontology, such
traces of life should have long since drained from the
bones. It's a matter of faith among scientists that soft tissue
can survive at the most for a few tens of thousand of years,
not the 65 million since T. rexwalked the Hell Creek
Formation in Montana." - Barry Yeoman, "Schweitzer's
Dangerous Discovery," Discover, April 2006, p. 37
"At the same time, the contents of those T. rex bones have
also electrified some creationists, who interpret
Schweitzer's findings as evidence that Earth is not nearly as
old as scientists claim. 'I invite the reader to step back and
contemplate the obvious,' wrote Calre Wieland on the
Answers in Genesis Web site last year. 'This discovery
gives immensely powerful support to the proposition that
dinosaur fossils are not millions of years old at all, but were
mostly fossilized under catastrophic conditions a few
thousand years ago at most." - Barry Yeoman,
"Schweitzer's Dangerous Discovery," Discover, April 2006,
p. 37
"Schweitzer published her findings in reverse order - the
soft tissue first, then the medullary bone - in the journal
Science last year." - Barry Yeoman, "Schweitzer's
Dangerous Discovery," Discover, April 2006, p. 40
"All the data supported the conclusion that the T. rex fossil
contained fragments of hemoglobin molecules. 'The most
likely source of these proteins is the once-living cells of the
dinosaur,' she wrote in a 1997 paper. That article, published
in Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences,
sparked a small flurry of headlines." - Barry Yeoman,
"Schweitzer's Dangerous Discovery," Discover, April 2006,
44
p. 38
Y
Many strata are too tightly bent: In many mountainous
areas, strata thousands of feet thick are bent and folded into
hairpin shapes. The conventional geologic time scale says
these formations were deeply buried and solidified for
hundreds of millions of years before they were bent. Yet the
folding occurred without cracking, with radii so small that
the entire formation had to be still wet and un-solidified
when the bending occurred. This implies that the folding
occurred less than thousands of years after deposition.
(Footnote: 2)
N
Y
Injected sandstone shortens geologic 'ages': Strong geologic
evidence exists that the Cambrian Sawatch sandstoneformed an alleged 500 million years ago-of the Ute Pass
fault west of Colorado Springs was still unsolidified when it
was extruded up to the surface during the uplift of the
Rocky Mountains, allegedly 70 million years ago. It is very
unlikely that the sandstone would not solidify during the
supposed 430 million years it was underground. Instead, it
is likely that the two geologic events were less than
hundreds of years apart, thus greatly shortening the
geologic time scale. (Footnote: 2)
N
Y
Rapid Geologic Feature Formation: The Little Grand
Canyon of the Toutle River is about one-fortieth the scale
of the Grand Canyon and it has some of the same geologic
formations as the Grand Canyon, but it was formed in one
day as a part of the Mount St. Helens catastrophe. The
Palouse Falls Gorge in the state of Washington were
formed in weeks during the Mazoola flood. The Rapidly
rock strata on visible on the canyon walls of the North Fork
of the Toutle River formed rapidly in one day as a result of
the Mount St. Helens eruption as a result of the pyroclastic
and mud flows. During earthquakes, there is a process
called liquefaction. Liquefaction occurs when there is an
earthquake in an area with underground water and the water
swells up to the surface turning the ground to quicksand.
When the water settles back down after the earthquake, it
sorts out the ground materials into thin stratified layers very
rapidly. Most geologists today agree that the majority of
earth's land surfaces were laid down by turbidites, which
N
45
are underwater landslides, which have been observed laying
down 100,000 square miles of sediment in a matter of
hours. This also is remarkably consistent with a global
flood, corroborating the historical record from cultures all
over the world. (Footnote: 7)
Y
Fossil radioactivity shortens geologic 'ages' to a few years:
Radiohalos are rings of color formed around microscopic
bits of radioactive minerals in rock crystals. They are fossil
evidence of radioactive decay. 'Squashed' Polonium-210
radiohalos indicate that Jurassic, Triassic, and Eocene
formations in the Colorado plateau were deposited within
months of one another, not hundreds of millions of years
apart as required by the conventional time scale. 'Orphan'
Polonium-218 radiohalos, having no evidence of their
mother elements, imply either instant creation or drastic
changes in radioactivity decay rates. (Footnote: 2)
N
Y
Fossil Distribution: Seashells are found on top of nearly
every mountain range on earth. Whale fossils were found
two-thirds of the way up the Andes Mountains.
Consequently, the mountains were at some point under
water, which all parties agree to. And, there is also evidence
of very rapid mountain uplifting. (Footnote: 8)
N
All over earth, there are fossil graveyards where there are
thousands of creatures all buried and fossilized together.
Thousands of creatures fossilized together means that all of
those creatures were rapidly buried at the same time. The
fact that these are all over the planet is consistent with a
global flood, corroborating the historical record from
cultures all over the world. (Footnote: 8)
Y
Polystrate Fossils: All over the world, petrified trees are
found standing up penetrating and connecting stratified
rock layers. (Footnote: 3)
N
Polystrate fossils and coal: Coal beds all around the world
contain polystrate fossils. Polystrate means "many strata"
and this term refers to tree fossils, which penetrate multiple
layers of rock, or coal, strata. If the coal, or the rock layers,
took thousands or millions of years to form, then the trees
wouldn't be there. The trees would have rotted before they
46
could have been fossilized. The presence of polystrate
fossils, along with even normal fossils, which by definition
also have to be rapidly buried, demonstrates that both coal
layers and rock layers were laid down rapidly, not over long
ages. Furthermore, the polystrate trees do not have root
structures and this indicates that they did not grow in their
current location in the coal or rock strata. Instead, like the
trees of the log mat, which formed in Spirit Lake as a result
of Mount St. Helens, polystrate trees and coal beds formed
when the bark from the trees came off and sank to the
bottom, which in the case of Mount St. Helens has
produced an observable layer of peat in just 20 years, and
the trees float and sink vertically, being deposited in the
sediments at the floor of the body of water. With the right
heating conditions, in the next 40 to 50 years that peat at the
bottom of Spirit Lake could become a coal bed. And those
coal beds will have polystrate trees spanning their various
strata. Similarly, the trees that comprise the Yellowstone
Petrified Forest also do not have roots and this likewise
indicates that those petrified trees were transported there by
water and buried there in a similar manner as found in
Spirit Lake. Today, using simulated natural processes, coal
can be made in one week and oil can be made in less than
one week. (Footnote: 8)
Y
Recent Fossil Formation: It requires rapid fossilization in
order to avoid the organic material from decaying instead.
And, there are examples of fossilized hats, ham, clocks, and
boots, all formed within the decades, including bones
fossilized in the boots all in decades. (Footnote: 1)
N
0
Petrification: Petrification of wood occurs rapidly in
nature within a few years to a few decades simply by
penetration with mineral or silica-rich water under heat and
pressure. (Footnote: 1)
0
Petrification can happen quickly. In the 20 years since
Mount Saint Helen's erupted, blowing trees into nearby
Spirit Lake, many of those trees have begun to petrify.
Moreover, as they sink, many of those trees have begun to
be buried standing up in the sedimentary layers forming at
the bottom of the lake. A piece of petrified fire wood, a
petrified dog inside a tree, a petrified fish giving birth, a
petrified cowboy boot including the petrified leg bone in it,
all demonstrate rapid petrification. (Footnote: 3)
47
Simulating natural processes, wood can be turned into
petrified wood in one week and the process and ingredients
needed to do so can be found at the United States Patent
Office on the internet. (Footnote: 8)
0
Opal and Diamond Formation: "Gem-quality" opals can
be formed in months by chemistry and "gem-quality"
diamonds can be formed in hours by heat and pressure.
(Footnote: 1)
0
0
Rock Formation: Granites do not actually require millions
of years of cooling. Granitic plutons due to their inefficient
diffusion of heat were believed to require millions of years
to cool down. However, cracks and fissures, which form as
these rocks crystallized, were not taken into account in
these aging models. Such cracks and fissures increase the
surface area, allow steam to come out, and producing
evaporative and convective cooling as well as allowing rain
and snow to get in and boil out resulting in further
evaporative and convective cooling. With these factors
included, even the largest granitic plutons would not take
more than 3,000 years to cool. (Footnote: 1)
0
Y
Erosion of Continents: The continents are comprised of an
average of about 383 million, billion tons, but they erode at
an average global rate of 27 billion tons. At these present
rates and assuming a uniformitarian rate, the continents
would erode down to sea level in just 14-30 million years.
(Footnote: 1)
N
The continents are eroding including landslides, mudslides,
ground creep, mass wasting, exfoliation, and avalanches,
etc. At the current rate of erosion, the continents as they are
today will erode flat and be gone in 14 million years. Yet,
there are fossils dated by evolutionists to be 300 times older
than 14 million years, which are still found above sea level.
Fossils are only found in sedimentary rock, not newly
formed rocks resulting from volcanic activity. At the
current erosion rates, the fossil-bearing layers and the
fossils in them should have eroded into the oceans long
before mankind arrived to find them. (Footnote: 3)
Y
Fossils Despite Erosion: Despite the current erosion rates
of the continents, the surface-rocks, which would be the
first to erode in this fashion, still contain fossils.
N
48
Consequently, the fossil record should have been removed
if the earth was more than 14-30 million years old. The
presence of the fossil record indicates that the earth is not
that old, and conversely the fossil record itself must have
been formed more recently than 14-30 million years.
(Footnote: 1)
The significance of this problem becomes even more
apparent in light of the fact that the fossil-bearing portion of
the geologic column (if integrated into one location) would
be 76 miles high. The result is an erosion amount equal to
76 miles multiplied by the surface area of the earth. Yet
despite evolutionary theory's necessitating of such massive
amount of erosion, we still have fossils. (More information
about the height of the integrated fossil-bearing portion of
the geologic column can be found earlier in the "Focus on
Critical Evidence: Age and the Geologic Column" section
of this article series.)
Y
Massive Erosion Patterns in Dry Environments: Aerial
photographs taken in the western United States reveal
massive erosion patters over wide areas in regions where it
hardly ever rains. Similarly, the Zagros Mountains in
southern Iraq consist of ripple-marks that are a mile apart,
likewise indicating a massive amount of water moving and
eroding quickly over these dry environments. Such erosion
patterns in these regions further demonstrates the
occurrence of a global flood, corroborating the historical
record from cultures all over the world. (Aerial photos of
the western United States and Zagros Mountains were
shown on screen during the presentation.) (Footnote: 3)
N
Y
Erosion of Sediments and Chemicals into the Ocean:
Evolutionary theory asserts that the oceans have been
present on earth for 3 billion years, which would also
include a water cycle. The water cycle includes that the
suns rays would cause evaporation of ocean water. Some of
the evaporated rain water would blow over the continents
and condense, precipitating and washing sediments and
chemicals off of the continents and into the oceans, just as it
does today. Consequently, with an ocean and the inherent
water cycle occurring for 3 billion years, the ocean should
have reached chemical saturation long ago but not a single
ocean is even close to saturation today or even so much as a
1 billion-year amount. The present salt-concentration of the
ocean, given current rates of deposit and removal through
N
49
natural processes on an annual basis [and assuming a
uniformitarian rate], would give an upper limit between 3262 million years. Those figures are based on the ocean
starting out completely pure. If it started, for example, with
a significant amount of salt already in solution, then those
ages become significantly lower. Furthermore, erosion
during the global flood would also drastically contribute to
salt-content in the ocean. Creationism can account for the
present sediment and chemical content of the oceans while
evolutionary theory cannot. In addition, there is an average
of 400 meters of sediment in the oceans eroded and
deposited from the continents. At present rates of deposit,
this amount would take a maximum of 12-13 million years.
And a global flood would deposit a large portion of that in a
very short time. If evolution and uniformitarianism were
true, at current rates the oceans should contain many
kilometers worth of sedimentation from the continents.
Consequently, if the water cycle were 3 billion years old,
then the oceans would be so rich in chemical concentration
and sediment that they would be "deader" than the dead sea
and uninhabitable for ocean life, not even algae. Even the
doubling in erosion rates that evolutionary theory attributes
to man would not be sufficient to resolve this missing
chemical and sediment. Man would have to increase
erosion rates by hundreds of times. Furthermore, the
evolutionary models of man's contribution to erosion does
not take into account the number of human industrialization
and construction practices that inhibit erosion, both on
purpose, such as flood-control damns, dikes, levies, and
inadvertently, such as paving roads and constructing
buildings. (Footnote: 1)
When it rains, 30 percent of the rain eventually goes back to
the ocean, transporting mineral salts with it. This causes the
oceans to get saltier over time. The current salt
concentration of the oceans is 3.6 percent salt. At the
current rates, a completely salt-free ocean could have
reached this present level of salt concentration in less than
5,000 years. Conversely, if the earth is billions or millions
of years old, the oceans should be vastly more salty than
they are today, for example, like the Great Salt Lake, the
Dead Sea, or the Salton Sea. (Footnote: 3)
"Not enough mud on the sea floor - Each year, water and
winds erode about 25 billion tons of dirt and rock from the
continents and deposit it in the ocean. This material
50
accumulates as loose sediment (i.e., mud) on the hard
basaltic (lava-formed) rock of the ocean floor. The average
depth of all the mud in the whole ocean, including the
continental shelves, is less than 400 meters. The main way
known to remove the mud from the ocean floor is by plate
tectonic subduction. In this process, the sea floor slides
slowly (a few cm/year) beneath the continents, taking some
sediment with it. According to secular scientific literature,
that process presently removes only 1 billion tons per year.
As far as anyone knows, the other 24 billion tons per year
simply accumulate. At that rate, erosion would deposit the
present amount of sediment in less than 12 million years.
Yet according to evolutionary theory, erosion and plate
subduction have been going on as long as the oceans have
existed, an alleged 3 billion years. If that were so, the rates
above imply that the oceans would be massively choked
with mud dozens of kilometers deep. An alternative
(creationist) explanation is that erosion from the waters of
the Genesis flood running off the continents deposited the
present amount of mud within a short time about 5000 years
ago." (Footnote: 2)
"Not enough sodium in the sea - Every year, rivers and
other sources dump over 450 million tons of sodium into
the ocean. Only 27% of this sodium manages to get back
out of the sea each year. As far as anyone knows, the
remainder simply accumulates in the ocean. If the sea had
no sodium to start with, it would have accumulated its
present amount in less than 42 million years at today's input
and output rates. This is much less than the evolutionary
age of the ocean, 3 billion years. The usual reply to this
discrepancy is that past sodium inputs must have been less
and outputs greater. However, calculations which are as
generous as possible to evolutionary scenarios still give a
maximum age of only 62 million years. Calculations for
many other sea water elements give much younger ages for
the ocean." (Footnote: 2)
0
Ice Layers: Ice layers are believed to be annual.
Consequently, the number of layers (or rings in ice cores)
are believed to give the age in years of the glacier or ice
core. However, during World War II, a squadron of P-38
Lightnings and two B-17 Flying Fortresses had to ditch and
abandon the aircraft in Greenland on the way to Britain for
the air war. After 48 years, salvagers went to recover the
plains believing there would only be 48 annual layers and,
0
51
therefore, not enough ice or snowfall to even cover the
aircraft. But instead, they found the aircraft were covered
and by more than 268 feet of ice with hundreds of such
layers. Consequently, the layers form much more often than
annually, indicating an age magnitudes younger. (Footnote:
1)
Rings in ice cores are said to be annual layers as summer
melts in summer and then refreezes to form clear ice. Then
in the winter the snow packs and it traps air bubbles to
make white ice. Ten thousand foot holes reveal 135,000
rings. Consequently, it is believed that each ring represents
1 year and the ice sheet spans 135,000 years. However, the
fact that these rings are not annual is demonstrated by the
Lost Squadron, a group of planes that were lost in
Greenland in 1942. Recently, in 1990, these planes have
been recovered. They were found at 263 feet below the
surface by ground-penetrating radar. In the 48 years since
the planes were ditched, not only had 263 feet of snow
fallen, but there were many hundreds of rings,
demonstrating that the rings were not formed annually but
simply as a result of alteration between warmer and colder
weather and additional snowfall. In fact, 263 feet in 48
years is 5.5 feet a year. Since the deepest ice holes ever
drilled are only 10,000 feet, at this rate of 5.5 feet per year,
that's only 1824 years, not 135,000 years. Even with deeper
layers being smashed by the weight of the layers above, the
additional 2,500 years between 1824 and 4,400 as the date
of the Flood is more than enough to account for 10,000 feet
of snow even with compacting. Consequently, the ice holes
and rings do not demonstrate any age greater than the time
of the Flood. (Footnote: 3)
0
Stalactites and Stalagmites: Previously, it was thought
that flow-stones such as stalactites and stalagmites required
100,000 years for every 1 cubic inch of flow-stone
formation. For example, using this rate, it was calculated
that Carlsbad Caverns were 260 million years old.
However, flow-stones under bridges, under the Lincoln
Memorial, and flow-stones formed in recent, man-made
mine tunnels demonstrate that stalactites and stalagmites
form rapidly in short periods of time. After only 40 years
since its construction, 11-foot tall support-pillars of
stalactites had grown in the basement from the plumbing of
the George Rogers Clarks Memorial on the banks of the
Wabash River in Vincennes, Indiana. A bat encased and
0
52
fossilized in a stalagmite at Carlsbad also indicates that the
flow-rate was rapid enough to cover the entire bat before it
decayed. Arizona Highways Magazine featured an article
titled, "Caving in to Reality," which interviewed an
evolutionist cave geologists named Mr. Trout, who said,
"What geologists used to believe was fact concerning dating
the cave, now is speculation." The article went on to say,
"Geologists don't know how long cave development takes
and while some believe that cave decorations
like…stalactites took years to form, Trout says that through
photo-monitoring, he has watched a stalactite grow several
inches in a matter of days." At such rates as indicated by
these examples, stalactites and stalagmites the size of
Carlsbad could grow in just hundreds or at the most
thousands of years. (Footnote: 1)
Stalactites and Stalagmites were once believed to require
1,000 years to grow 1 inch. The Lincoln Memorial was
built in 1922 and it has 50 inch stalactites growing
underneath it on its support structures. Before it had time to
rot, a bat was covered with flow-stone from a stalagmite,
which grow even slower than stalactites. A 55-year-old
artificially-cut mine cavern developed stalactites and
stalagmites that range from a few feet to well over a dozen
feet long. A parking structure built near the University of
Texas campus required a pan to be placed under beams in
the garage because stalagmites were forming on cars parked
beneath the stalactites hanging above them. The Tepee
Fountain in Wyoming was originally a fountain but is now
a large mineral structure. The tourist sign (depicted in a
photograph during the presentation) explains how it was
formed: "'Tepee Fountain' This structure, started in 1903,
was created by piping the hot mineral water through a
vertical pipe built into a rock pyramid. As the water exists
the top and flows over the structure, it cools and deposits
travertine, much the same as the Terraces are formed near
the Big Horn Spring within the park. The algae within the
water colors the deposits." 100 years later (since 1903), this
fountain is now a huge, rock-like structure, about 20 feet
high and about 20 feet in diameter. As indicated by the
tourist sign, there is a similar mineral structure (of about the
same size) on the Big Horn River in Thermopolis,
Wyoming. All of this indicates that stalactites and
stalagmites form quickly and give no indication of the age
of the earth. (Footnote: 3)
53
Y
The Oldest and Largest Desert: The Sahara Desert has a
prevailing wind pattern, which means that the wind almost
always blows the same direction. One effect of this is that
hot air coming off of the desert blows into the habitat on the
other side, killing the vegetation and sterilizing the soil,
resulting in the growth of the desert in the direction that the
wind is blowing. This process is called desertification.
Specifically, the Sahara desert is presently growing about 4
miles per year from this process. This rate has resulted in
scientists calculating that the Sahara is about 4,000 years
old. But, if the earth is millions of years old, by now this
process should have grown at least one of earth's existing
deserts into a much larger area than the Sahara. The fact
that the biggest desert in the world is less than 4,000 years
old indicates that the earth is less than 4,000 years old, or if
there was landscape and climate changing even such as the
global flood described in the Bible. This corroborates the
historical record from cultures all over the world.
N
Y
Oil Pressure: Oil is typically under 20,000 pounds of
pressure per square inch. The pressure on oil is greater than
the weight of the rock and ground above the oil pockets.
The rock can only hold that pressure for 10,000 years or
less. In other words, at this pressure, the oil pressure should
have cracked through the rock in less than 10,000 years.
N
Y
Rivers and Deltas: Major river systems lack the amount of
sediment deposit in their deltas that should be present if the
earth was as old as evolutionary theory asserts. For
example, at present rates, the current amount of sediment
deposited in the Mississippi River Delta would take at a
maximum of only 30,000 years. Under creationist theory,
the majority of that amount was deposited just after the
flood, as continents uplifted and during the ensuing ice age.
Consequently, the creationist model explains the current
amount of sediment for such river systems, but evolutionary
theory cannot explain the vast amounts of missing sediment
that should be present if the earth were as old as
evolutionary theory asserts. (Footnote: 1)
N
The Mississippi River deposits sediments at the rate of
80,000 tons per hour. This sediment is dumped by the river
at the Mississippi River delta at New Orleans. At this rate,
it is estimated that it took about 30,000 years for the current
amount of mud to accumulate. However, at this rate, if the
earth were millions of years old, enough mud should have
54
accumulated to fill the entire Gulf of Mexico. Concerning
the 30,000 year age, this is an upper limit. Considering the
existing evidence for a global flood, much of this sediment
would have been deposited very rapidly surrounding that
event. Furthermore, Chevron Oil Company, when drilling
for oil in the Mississippi River Canyon oil field, drilled
through a sixty-foot tree almost 14,000 feet below the
surface of the Gulf of Mexico. The fact that this tree was
buried standing upright, this deep and this far out in the
middle of the Gulf of Mexico indicates one of two
possibilities. Either, it indicates that at one time the amount
of water and sediment being transported by the Mississippi
River was so much greater than today's rates that it was
sufficient to transport trees out into the middle of the Gulf
and bury them upright, which indicates they became waterlogged and sank, and at a rate fast enough that the tree did
not decompose. Or, it indicates that the Gulf of Mexico was
not under water but that trees were growing there, and that
the entire area sank and filled with water and sediments at a
rate fast enough to bury the trees before they could
decompose. In addition, the very fact that there is oil buried
under the floor of the Gulf of Mexico indicates that there
was once a very rich quantity of biological organisms
buried and compressed there by all that sediment. Both of
these options further support the interpretation that a great
quantity of the sediments in the Gulf of Mexico were
deposited at rates much more rapid than the rates of today.
Consequently, this evidence also supports the idea of a
global flood, corroborating the historical record from
cultures all over the world. (Footnote: 3)
"Dr. Hovind, I am the pastor of the Circle Baptist Church in
Baker, LA. Recently you did a seminar…which one of my
young couples attended. They told you a story of an
experience I encountered while working in the oil field
where we drilled through a tree far over sixty feet almost
14,000 feet below the surface. I can tell you that it was in
block 457 of the Mississipi River Canyon field and we were
drilling for Chevron Oil Company. I was the on site unit
manager for a well logging and sampling service." - Dan
Gunter, [email protected] (725) 775-1550 (Footnote:
3)
Y
Niagara Falls Erosion: Niagra Falls erodes the rock ledge
underneath in a backward direction at the rate of 4.7 feet
per year until the 1930's when the waterway was
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55
reengineered and diverted for hydroelectric power. "Crest
lines showing recession of Horseshoe Falls since 1764. 865
feet in 185 years is approximately 4.7 feet per year"
(Niagra Falls Museum Guide). The gulley that lies ahead of
Niagra Falls is 7.5 miles long. This gulley was eroded by
the falls. At 4.7 feet a year, it would take 8,426 years to
erode 7 miles (which is 39,600 feet). In 1841, Charles Lyell
calculated that it would take 10,000 years for the falls to
erode the full length of this gulley and reach its present
location. Later, Charles Lyell recalculated this to 35,000
years. Considering the evidence for a global flood, much of
this erosion would have occurred very rapidly at first in the
time surrounding the flood. Conversely, if the earth were
billions of years old, or even millions of years old, the falls
should have eroded all the way back to Lake Erie by this
point in time. (Footnote: 3)
Time for Evolution 4 - Biological Evidence
Y
The Oldest Living Things: The oldest tree in the world is
a Bristlecone Pine that is 4,300 years old. Other sources cite
another tree that is 4,600 years old. One of these trees is the
oldest organism in the world. With that many years of age,
given the fact that trees sometimes produce 2 rings per year,
it is very likely that even the older of the 2 trees originated
just after the global flood. Conversely, if the earth is
billions of years old, there should be trees that are much
older than this. (Footnote: 3)
N
The oldest living things on earth, including trees, only date
back several thousand years, not tens of thousands of years.
This further indicates that the flood caused the world to
start over, thereby also corroborating the historical record
from cultures all over the world. (Footnote: 1)
Y
The World's Oldest and Largest Coral Reef: The largest
coral reef in the world is the Great Barrier Reef in
Australia. During World War II, some of the reef was
destroyed by ships, anchors, and bombs, etc. This prompted
studies to determine the rate at which the reef would grow
back. The growth was observed for 20 years. And this 20year study led to the conclusion that at its current rate of
growth, the reef was less than 4,200 years old. If the earth is
billions of years old, there should be a larger reef
somewhere. This age for the Great Barrier Reef
corroborates the historical record from cultures all over the
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world (Footnote: 3)
Y
Racemization: Amino acids come in either left-handed or
right-handed configurations. All amino acids used in living
things are left-handed, but after death, they spontaneously
shift to an equal amount so that half of them become righthanded. This process is known as racemization. Some of
the oldest fossils on earth are the bacteria and blue-green
algae found in the fig-tree chert, which are said to be 3
billion years old. ["Life, The origin of life, the antiquity
of life - Among the oldest known fossils are those found
in the Fig Tree chert from the Transvaal, dated at
3,100,000,000 years old. These organisms have been
identified as bacteria and blue-green algae." Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition.] Yet, the
evidence shows that no racemization occurred. (Footnote:
1)
N
Y
Rapid Freezing of Mammoths: Frozen mammoths require
extremely rapid freezing and therefore demonstrate that the
ice age was caused quickly, which in turn indicates a
catastrophic cause.
N
"Fossil, How fossils form - In Alaska and in Siberia, a
region in northern Asia, woolly mammoths thousands of
years old have been found frozen in the ground. Their
hair, skin, flesh, and internal organs have been
preserved as they were when the mammoths died." Contributor: Steven M. Stanley, Ph.D., Professor of Earth
and Planetary Sciences, Johns Hopkins University.
"Fossil, II PROCESSES OF FOSSILIZATION, E SoftTissue Preservation - The soft tissues of animals are
preserved only under extremely unusual conditions, and
the preserved tissue usually lasts for only a short period
of geological time. In the Siberian permafrost (earth that
remains frozen year-round), for example, entire
mammoths have been preserved in ice for thousands of
years. The remains of the mammoths' last meals have
sometimes been preserved in the stomachs, allowing
paleontologists to study the animals' diet." - "Fossil,"
Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998
Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
The Evidence Concerning the Evolutionary Origin of Life
57
Y
The Law of Biogenesis: The Law of Biogenesis was
specifically proved by Louis Pasteur, the father of
microbiology. This law states that living things, even the
simplest organisms, must come from other living things and
cannot arise from nonliving matter. Consequently, the
opposing theory of spontaneous generation, or abiogenesis,
was disproved. Evolutionary theory still holds that living
things can arise from non-living matter and tries to distance
itself from the decisively disproved theory of abiogenesis
on the basis that living things could arise from non-living
matter with more time. To heighten this contrast, modern
evolutionary theory emphasizes "quickness" as the central
point and downfall of abiogenesis, when in reality the
central point proved by Pasteur was simply that life could
not come from non-living matter at all regardless of speed.
Ultimately, the evolutionary model simply contradicts this
known law. In addition, the current lack of any coherent or
working theory within the evolutionary view for how life
originated through natural processes further proves the
insurmountable nature of this obstacle.
N
"Life only comes from life. This is a natural law because
there are no known exceptions to this." (Footnote: 8)
"Spontaneous generation - also called Abiogenesis, the
hypothetical process by which living organisms develop
from nonliving matter; also, the archaic theory that
utilizes this process to explain the origin of life…By the
18th century it had become obvious that higher organisms
could not be produced by nonliving material. The origin of
microorganisms such as bacteria, however, was not fully
determined until Pasteur proved in the 19th century
that microorganisms reproduce." - Encyclopaedia
Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
"Life, The origin of life - The theory of spontaneous
generation originated in ancient times and remained a
common belief for thousands of years. The theory
claimed that lower forms of life could arise from
nonliving matter…The French chemist Louis Pasteur
finally settled the controversy during the mid-1800's. He
demonstrated that even the minutest bacteria do not
arise spontaneously but always grow from other
bacteria. After Pasteur's experiments, most biologists
accepted the idea that all life comes from existing life." Contributor: Harold J. Morowitz, Ph.D., Robinson
58
Professor of Biology and Director of Krasnow Institute,
George Mason University.
"Life, The origin of life, Hypotheses of origins - Most of
the hypotheses of the origin of life will fall into one of four
categories: [1] The origin of life is a result of a supernatural
event; that is, one permanently beyond the descriptive
powers of physics and chemistry. [2] Life-particularly
simple forms-spontaneously and readily arises from
nonliving matter in short periods of time, today as in the
past. [3] Life is coeternal with matter and has no beginning;
life arrived on the Earth at the time of the origin of the earth
or shortly thereafter. [4] Life arose on the early Earth by a
series of progressive chemical reactions. Such reactions
may have been likely or may have required one or more
highly improbable chemical events…Hypothesis 2…was
the prevailing opinion for centuries…But the idea of
spontaneous generation died hard. Even though it was
proved that the larger animals always came from eggs,
there was still hope for the smaller ones, the
microorganisms. It seemed obvious that, because of their
ubiquity, these microscopic creatures must be generated
continually from inorganic matter…This was the
subject of a great controversy between the famous
French bacteriologists Louis Pasteur and F.A. Pouchet
in the 1850s, in which Pasteur triumphantly showed that
even the minutest creatures came from germs floating in
the air, but that they could be guarded against by suitable
filtration…Pasteur's work discouraged many scientists from
discussing the origin of life at all…Although Darwin
would not commit himself on the origin of life, others
subscribed to Hypothesis 4 more resolutely, notably the
famous British biologist T.H. Huxley in his Protoplasm,
the Physical Basis of Life (1869), and the British physicist
John Tyndall in his "Belfast Address" of 1874. Although
Huxley and Tyndall asserted that life could be generated
from inorganic chemicals, they had extremely vague
ideas about how this might be accomplished." Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
"Cell, The history of cell theory, Contribution of other
sciences - Thus it was that the studies of microbes by
Louis Pasteur, published in 1861, helped to establish the
principle of biogenesis, namely, that organisms arise
only by the reproduction of other organisms." Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
59
"Microbiology, Historical background, Spontaneous
generation versus biotic generation of life - In the early
half of the 1800s, Franz Schulze and Theodor Schwann
were major figures in the attempt to disprove theories of
abiogenesis until Louis Pasteur finally announced the
results of his conclusive experiments in 1864. In a series
of masterful experiments, Pasteur proved that only
preexisting microbes could give rise to other microbes
(biogenesis)." - Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe
Edition
"[PHOTO CAPTION] Louis Pasteur - Louis Pasteur made
important contributions to the field of organic chemistry
during the mid-1800s, developing various vaccines,
including one for rabies, and disproving the theory of
spontaneous generation. He is considered the founder of
the field of microbiology, working with the germ theory of
disease to establish and explain the causes for many
diseases. (Culver Pictures.)" - "Louis Pasteur," Microsoft®
Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998 Microsoft
Corporation. All rights reserved.
"Biogenesis - Biogenesis, is a term in biology that is
derived from two Greek words meaning life and birth.
According to the theory of biogenesis, living things
descend only from living things. They cannot develop
spontaneously from nonliving materials. Until
comparatively recent times, scientists believed that
certain forms of life arose spontaneously from nonliving
substances. By actual experimentation, the great French
scientist Louis Pasteur disproved this false theory of
spontaneous generation, also known as abiogenesis.
Today, however, scientists are examining the theory that
the first forms of life gradually came into being from
lifeless matter millions of years ago." - Contributor:
Lawrence C. Wit, Ph.D., Professor, Department of
Biological Sciences, Auburn University.
Y
Irreducible Complexity and the Chicken-and-Egg
Dilemma: There are several places where evolution faces a
chicken-and-egg dilemma. In other words, there is a list of
components that are all needed in order for life to originate
(or in order for a new type of animal to function and
survive). In observable organisms, you need all the other
parts in order for one part to function. Remove one part,
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and the entire process ceases to work. Thus, it is impossible
to answer the question of "which came first?" because all of
the parts would have to be present at the same time.
Concerning the origin of life, this chicken-and-egg dilemma
involves at least the DNA, RNA, enzymes, proteins, and the
cell membrane, without which the entire cell would not
function. Similar problems occur in terms of the individual
components of DNA and RNA, such as the nucleotide base
pairs. Concerning the likelihood that the present four bases
arose ready to work together to allow replication is to
"coincidental" given that "chemistry does not have this kind
of foresight."
"It seems very unlikely that protometabolism produced
just the four bases found in RNA, A, U, G and C, ready
by some remarkable coincidence to engage in pairing
and allow replication. Chemistry does not have this kind
of foresight." - The Beginnings of Life on Earth, Christian
de Duve, American Scientist, September-October 1995
The problem for evolutionary theory is that, given that all
parts in order for each part to function, the odds of getting
even two parts at the same time is considered so improbable
that it is either impossible or is so coincidental as to imply
"foresight." The problem with foresight is that it
necessitates teleology, which is "design."
"It is now generally agreed that if life arose spontaneously
by natural processes-a necessary assumption if we wish
to remain within the realm of science…An important rule
in this exercise is to reconstruct the earliest events in
life's history without assuming they proceeded with the
benefit of foresight. Every step must be accounted for in
terms of antecedent and concomitant events. Each must
stand on its own and cannot be viewed as a preparation
for things to come. Any hint of teleology must be
avoided." - The Beginnings of Life on Earth, Christian de
Duve, American Scientist, September-October 1995
This problem in which evolutionary theory cannot explain
the arrival and interrelationship between the basic
components of a cell without resorting to "design" remains
unsolved to this day. This is indicated by the summary
quotes below. Additional detail on this issue can be found
in the preceding sections of this article series. But
ultimately, intelligent direction is needed in order for the
61
essential components of a cell to arise and assemble
together at the same time.
"The Beginnings of Life on Earth, The RNA World Considerable debate in origin-of-life studies has
revolved around which of the fundamental
macromolecules came first-the original chicken-or-egg
question. The modern cell employs four major classes of
biological molecules-nucleic acids, proteins,
carbohydrates and fats. The debate over the earliest
biological molecules, however, has centered mainly on
the nucleic acids, DNA and RNA, and the proteins. At
one time or another, one of these molecular classes has
seemed a likely starting point, but which? To answer
that, we must look at the functions performed by each of
these in existing organisms…For a while, the only thing
RNA did not seem capable of doing was catalyzing
chemical reactions…The problem is not as simple as
might appear at first glance. Attempts at engineering-with considerably more foresight and technical support
than the prebiotic world could have enjoyed--an RNA
molecule capable of catalyzing RNA replication have
failed so far." - The Beginnings of Life on Earth, Christian
de Duve, American Scientist, September-October 1995
"When Miller analyzed the brew, he found that it
contained amino acids, the building blocks of protein.
The lightning had reorganized the molecules in the
atmosphere to produce organic compounds…Thus
emerged the picture that has dominated origin-of-life
scenarios. Some 4 billion years ago, lightning (or another
energy source, like ultraviolet light or heat) stimulated a
hydrogen-rich atmosphere to produce organic compounds,
which then rained down into the primitive ocean or other
suitable bodies of water such as lakes, rivers, or even a
warm little pond, as Charles Darwin once suggested. Once
there, these simple compounds, or monomers, combined
with one another to produce more complicated organics, or
polymers, which gradually grew even more complex
until they coalesced into the beginnings of selfreplicating RNA. With that came the RNA world and
ultimately the evolution into cells and the early bacterial
ancestors of life. The picture is powerful and appealing,
but not all origin-of-life researchers are convinced. Even
Miller throws up his hands at certain aspects of it. The
first step, making the monomers, that's easy. We understand
62
it pretty well. But then you have to make the first selfreplicating polymers. That's very easy, he says, the
sarcasm fairly dripping. Just like it's easy to make
money in the stock market--all you have to do is buy low
and sell high. He laughs. Nobody knows how it's done.
Some would say the statement applies as well to the first
easy step, the creation of simple organic compounds." How Did Life Start?, by Peter Radetsky, DISCOVER, Vol.
13 No. 11, November 1992, Biology & Medicine
Y
A Working Environment: Not only does the arrival of the
components of the first living cell have to be explained by
naturalistic causes in order for the evolutionary origin of
life to be true, but it is also necessary to identify the
environment in which the energy and the materials for the
origination of life occurred. So far to date, even though a
number of creative suggestions have been made, the
evolutionary model still has no working model for any
environment that would actually function to allow for the
origin of life. The presence of oxygen prevents the
origination of life, but the absence of oxygen allows
ultraviolet light, which also prevent the origination of life.
Ultraviolet light is necessary to supply energy but too much
ultraviolet energy prevents the origination of life.
Consequently, the origin of life could have occurred under
water, deep enough to provide some protection from
ultraviolet light, while still allowing enough ultraviolet light
to fuel the most primitive life forms, which would have
been photosynthetic. However, photosynthesis produces
free-oxygen, which also prevents the origination of life.
Life could have originated deeper in the oceans, perhaps
along deep-sea hydrothermal vents in which heat, not
sunlight, provided the energy necessary for life to originate.
But this process is thought to be an outright insufficient
source of energy. In addition, the high temperatures would
destroy any pre-biotic molecules and low temperatures
would further lack the required energy for life to originate.
Furthermore, in any watery environment, the water itself
will result in the breakdown of any pre-biotic molecules.
Moreover, given the size of the ocean or even other smaller
bodies of water compared to the size of the key molecules,
the likelihood is too small that any two important molecules
meeting up so that metabolic processes might begin.
Additional details on these persisting unresolved but central
issues to the evolutionary origin of life remain. And all of
them indicate that life could not originate by naturalistic
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processes in a natural environment but required intelligent
intervention. Conversely, the failed experiments in which
even human contrivance and technical capacity have proven
insufficient to produce life in a lab themselves continue to
demonstrate that the origin of life requires foresight and
capability of an intelligent agent beyond even the current
level of human contrivance and technical capacity.
Teleology, design, has proven to be an unavoidable
requirement so far for the origin of life.
Y
Falsifiability: The evolutionary model for the origin of life
falls under the disqualifying criteria of being un-testable
and un-falsifiable. This is admitted by evolutionary
scientists concerning both the deep-sea hydrothermal vent
model and the extraterrestrial models. The failure of
evolutionary theory to advance a testable, falsifiable model,
let alone a working one, demonstrates its failure as a
scientific prospect. Yet, despite the un-falsifiable nature of
their theory, the theory is believed and asserted as proven
scientific fact. However, as stated during our study when
examining the suggested environments for the evolutionary
origin of life, the failed experiments in which even human
contrivance and technical capacity have proven insufficient
to produce life in a lab themselves continue to demonstrate
that the origin of life requires foresight and capability of an
intelligent agent beyond even the current level of human
contrivance and technical capacity. Teleology, design, has
proven to be an unavoidable requirement so far for the
origin of life. More details on this aspect of evidence are
provided in the preceding sections of this article series.
N
"The Beginnings of Life on Earth, Origin and Evolution
of the RNA World - Attempts at engineering--with
considerably more foresight and technical support than
the prebiotic world could have enjoyed--an RNA
molecule capable of catalyzing RNA replication have
failed so far." - The Beginnings of Life on Earth, Christian
de Duve, American Scientist, September-October 1995
"Miller's discovery has sparked the birth of a new
chemical discipline, abiotic chemistry, which aims to
reproduce in the laboratory the chemical events that
initiated the emergence of life on earth some four billion
years ago. Besides amino acids and other organic acids,
experiments in abiotic chemistry have yielded sugars, as
well as purine and pyrimidine bases, some of which are
64
components of the nucleic acids DNA and RNA, and
other biologically significant substances, although often
under more contrived conditions and in lower yields
than one would expect for a prebiotic process." Christian de Duve, American Scientist, September-October
1995
The Mechanisms of Biological Evolution
0
Natural Selection: In order for organisms to change and
become more than they are and more than their ancestors,
they must acquire new traits and new genetic information to
engineer those traits. Both evolutionists and creationists
agree that natural selection occurs. However, natural
selection is a strictly subtractive process, which removes
existing traits that are disadvantageous concerning survival.
Natural selection cannot add or bring about new traits.
Therefore, because on its own natural selection does not
result in the arrival of new genes, new traits, or new types
or species of organisms, the occurrence of natural selection
does not favor one theory over another. Additional details
on this topic are available in the preceding sections of this
article series.
0
Y
Mutations: Mutations are the only naturalistic mechanism
with even theoretical potential to alter existing genetic
information and produce traits different from those that
already exist. They are the only naturalistic mechanism that
could cause an organism to become different from its
ancestors. However, there are several obstacles that prevent
mutations from successfully functioning to produce
evolution from an existing type of organism to a new type
or species. First, mutations of any kind are rare. Second,
mutations do not produce new genetic information. They
simply scramble and rearrange existing genetic information.
Consequently, the process of mutation is a process that
degrades the existing blue-print for life. Third, due to the
nature of mutation as a scrambling and degradation of the
existing genetic code, all mutations observed so far are
either neutral, providing no advantage for natural selection,
or negative, providing a disadvantages that the prevent
survival of the organism. Furthermore, many mutations are
not just harmful but outright lethal to the organism. Fourth,
for a mutation to contribute to the evolution of a new type
or species of organism, it would not only have to be
beneficial, but it would have to make it into the
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65
reproductive cells of the organism, that organism would
have to successfully reproduce, and a reproductive cell with
the mutation would have to be the one that fertilized to
form the next generation. This prospect is even more
improbable in organisms that utilize sexual, as opposed to
asexual, reproduction but it is also problematic in many
asexual organisms as well. Fifth, mutations are usually
recessive, which means that they will not manifest to create
an advantage but will be overridden by the existing,
dominant traits. Sixth, sometimes one mutation contradicts
or reverses another. The admission of evolutionary sources
on all these points, particularly concerning the lack of
beneficial mutations are available in more detail in the
preceding sections of this article series. Ultimately,
evolutionary theory is left without any mechanism to
produce new types or species of organisms.
Y
Incomplete Evolution and the Chicken-and-Egg
Dilemma: In addition, not only does this chicken and egg
dilemma exist on the basic cellular level, but it also exists
as a problem on the level of the unique structures that
distinguish one species from another. All organisms, from
single-celled bacteria to mammals have complex organs
required for the organism's survival. These organs are not
produced by one gene but by many genes. In order for the
organs to be present and functioning, all the genes for the
different components of that structure or organ would have
to be present. The likelihood of one mutation producing all
the genes necessary to form such a structure or organ is a
virtual impossibility. Partially formed new structures or
organs are going to either be useless or harmful or even
lethal because they are replacing existing, functioning
structures or organs. Non-functional sonar in bats and
dolphins won't aid them at all. (Footnote: 4) And a
partially-formed wing where a functioning leg used to be
will actually leave an organism severely crippled. This is
much more so the case with a fish whose respiratory system
can no longer function in water but requires air. In either
case, the arrival of partial or incomplete new structures and
organs will not result in evolution because it will not
survive natural selection. And ultimately, the prospect of
getting enough related genes to mutate to produce even part
of such a structure requires incredible coincidence and
foresight as to rule out any naturalistic theory. This
situation is even worsened given the fact that all the present
structures and organs in every living species on the planet
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would have to result in this fashion. Consequently, the
existence of complex, working structures and organs that
are essential to an organism's survival demonstrates the lack
of any mechanism, including mutation, to produce the
evolution of new structures or new types of organisms.
Conversely, while there is no naturalistic mechanism
capable of accounting for the arrival of the immense
quantity of highly-complex structures and organs present on
earth today, an intelligent designer would be account for the
foresight and capacity required to produce the genetic
information, the complete structures, and the complete
organs necessary for an organism to survive and thrive.
The Evidence Concerning the Biological Evolution of
Species
NOTES: Evolutionary sources list four or five lines of
evidence supporting the theory of evolution: 1) the fossil
record, 2) structural similarities, morphology, or
comparative anatomy, 3) geographic distribution or
biogeography, 4) embryology and vestigial organs, and 5)
molecular biology.
"Evolution, The evidence for evolution - [1] The fossil
record, [2] Structural similarities, [3] Embryonic
development and vestiges, [4] Biogeography, [5] Molecular
biology." - Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
"Evolution, Evidence of evolution - Evidence for
evolution comes from observations of sources that
document or indicate the occurrence of evolution. These
sources include [1] the fossil record, [2] the geographic
distribution of species, [3] embryology, vestigial organs,
and [4] comparative anatomy. Evidence for evolution also
comes from directly observing evolving populations and
from artificial selection." - Worldbook, Contributor: Alan
R. Templeton, Ph.D., Rebstock Professor of Biology,
Washington University.
"Chapter 14: Evolution - Evidence of Evolution: [1]
Evidence from Fossils, [2] Evidence from Structure, [3]
Evidence from Development, [4] Evidence from Molecular
Biology." - Heath Biology 1991 Table of Contents (Cited on
"Creation Seminar Part 4: What is in the Textbooks?" Dr.
Kent E. Hovind, Creation Science Evangelism, Pensacola,
FL, www.drdino.com, Windows Media Video, 9 minutes,
67
10 seconds - Photos of the Textbook cover and page were
shown on screen.)
Y
No Transitional Forms in the Fossil Record: The fossil
record contains no intermediate or transitional forms
between one type of organism and another. Instead, new
species either appear suddenly complete at strata
boundaries or they continue through many strata,
representing long periods of time, and exhibit little or no
morphological (form) change or variation. The lack of
intermediate, transitional forms in the fossil record was
known and admitted by Darwin as the biggest obstacle to
his theory. And the problem persists to this day forming the
basis for an internal debate among evolutionists
surrounding whether or not evolution is punctuated and "too
quick" to escape the fossil record or "slow and gradual" but
the fossil record is too much of a limited, sparse, and
discontinuous collection of snapshots to record any
transitions. Ultimately, the lack of transitional forms in the
fossil record means that the fossil record itself is a frozen,
geologic picture of individual species that do not transition
from one into another.
N
"Intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal
any such finely graduate organic chain; and this, perhaps,
is the most obvious and serious objection which can be
urged against the theory [of evolution]." - Charles
Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 323 (Cited on "A
Question of Origins," Roger Oakland, Eternal Productions,
Copyright 1998, www.creationscience.com, 43 minutes)
"Evolution, The process of evolution, Patterns and rates
of species evolution, Reconstruction of evolutionary
history, Gradual and punctuational evolution - New
species, characterized by small but discontinuous
morphological changes, typically appear at the
boundaries between strata, whereas the fossils within a
stratum exhibit little morphological variation. That is
not to say that the transition from one stratum to
another always involves sudden changes in morphology;
on the contrary, fossil forms often persist virtually
unchanged through several geologic strata, each
representing millions of years." - Encyclopaedia
Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
"Evolution, The process of evolution, Patterns and rates
68
of species evolution, Reconstruction of evolutionary
history, Gradual and punctuational evolution - Some
paleontologists have proposed that the discontinuities of
the fossil record are not artifacts created by gaps in the
record, but rather reflect the true nature of
morphological evolution, which happens in sudden
bursts associated with the formation of new species." Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
"Earth, geologic history of, Time scales - As was
explained earlier, at specific stratigraphic boundaries
certain types of fossils either appear or disappear or
both in some cases. Such biostratigraphic boundaries
separate larger or smaller units of time that are defined as
eons, eras, periods, epochs, and ages." - Encyclopaedia
Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
"Gould, Stephen Jay - He taught at Harvard University
from 1967. Gould (with Niles Eldredge of the American
Museum of Natural History) originated the "punctuated
equilibrium" theory of evolution, a theory based on the
fact that very few transitional forms are found in the
fossil record. Unlike the gradualist theory, which would
have species evolve gradually over long periods of time,
the punctuated equilibrium theory holds that the
evolution of a species consists of rapid changes in small,
relatively isolated populations, followed by long periods
of stability." - "Gould, Stephen Jay," Microsoft® Encarta®
Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998 Microsoft Corporation. All
rights reserved.
0
Similar Structures/Morphology/Comparative Anatomy:
Similarities in terms of structures or organs, does indeed
indicate these things came to each organism from a
common source. However, similarity on its own simply
does not indicate what the common source was, whether it
is a common ancestor or a common designer. The raw
evidence of similarity does not favor either a common
ancestor or a common designer over the other. Both
theories adequately explain and account for the similarities.
0
0
Embryology: The basis of this piece of evidence is the idea
that as embryos develop they pass through stages that
correspond to their evolutionary ancestors and only at the
end of their embryologic development do they take on the
distinct features of their species. As a corollary, embryos of
0
69
distinctly different species are very similar in structure early
on in their development and remain similar longer
depending on how closely related the species are. For
example, human and other higher mammal embryos would
remain similar longer into their development than a human
embryo and a bird embryo. However, the basic problem
with this line of argument is that it was disproved and
rejected by the scientific community long ago. This concept
is the work of Ernst Heinrich Haeckel, and it and some of
his other ideas are known to have been "mixtures
of…fallacious extrapolations." This is putting it politely. In
fact, concerning his work that embryos repeat their
evolutionary history, Haeckel was convicted of fraud by his
scientific peers. In reality the different embryos were vastly
distinct from one another at all stages.
"Haeckel, Ernst Heinrich - For example, according to
Haeckel, each animal retraces, during its embryological
development, the evolutionary steps that led to its place
in the natural order. Thus, a human fetus begins its
development as a single cell, just as life must have
begun. About eight days later the cell grows into a hollow
sphere (the blastula) that is similar in morphology to the
sponges. The embryo then invaginates to form a twolayered, cuplike structure (the gastrula) that is similar to
coelenterates such as jellyfish and the corals. The human
embryo next begins to elongate, and within 30 days it
has passed through stages with gills, a tail, and finlike
limbs typical of fish and amphibians. Soon the embryo
takes an obviously mammalian form, but only after two
months is it clearly seen to be a primate. In Haeckel's
words, 'Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny'-ontogeny
being embryonic development and phylogeny being
evolutionary development. Although a great deal of
truth can be found in this most famous of Haeckel's
conjectures, his attempts to reconstruct evolutionary
lineages on the basis of embryological development led
to phylogenies now known to be wholly inaccurate. His
other ideas were composed of similar mixtures of insight
and fallacious extrapolation." - "Haeckel, Ernst Heinrich,"
Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998
Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
The alleged gill-slits on the human embryo are nothing
but folds of skin, not gill-slits, and they eventually
develop into bones of the ear and glands and bones in
70
the throat, never having anything to do with breathing.
(Footnote: 8)
"Biogenesis - The term biogenesis has also been used in
reference to the biogenetic (or recapitulation) theory. This
theory, which was popular during the late 1800's, stated that
'ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.' This statement means
that during its ontogeny--that is, during its development
in the embryonic stage--each organism recapitulates
(repeats) various stages in its species' phylogeny
(evolutionary history). Scientists disproved this theory
in the early 1900's." - Worldbook, Contributor: Lawrence
C. Wit, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Biological
Sciences, Auburn University.
"Haeckel finally was convicted. At his own university
they held a trail. In 1874, he was convicted of fraud."
(Footnote: 9)
"A set of 19th century drawings that still appear in
reference books…are badly misdrawn, says an
embryologist in Britain. Although Haeckel confessed to
drawing from memory and was convicted of fraud at
the University of Jena, the drawings persist. 'That's the
real mystery,' says Richardson. (of St. George's Hospital
Medical School in London) New Scientist Sept. 6, 1997 p.
23 (Footnote: 9)
0
Vestigial Organs: In order for evolution to occur,
organisms have to develop new structures and organs that
were not present either in bodies or in the recessive genetic
information of their ancestors. The first problem with
vestigial organs and structures as proof for evolution is that
there are no real vestigial organs or structures. The common
examples are not really vestigial. Whale "pelvic" bones are
anchor points for muscles necessary for reproduction and
they still retain this vital function, proving these are not
vestigial bones. The human appendix is not functionless,
but instead functions as part of the human immune system.
The human tailbone may be short, but far from being an
unused, left-over remnant of a primate tail, it is a necessary
feature that serves as an anchor point for nine muscles that
are required for performing still-needed human body
functions. And even more importantly, the second problem
with vestigial organs and structures as proof for evolution is
that they are, by definition, examples of an organism
0
71
"losing" formerly useful items. They are not evidence for an
organism gaining new structures or traits that were not
present in its ancestors. Consequently, the concept of
vestigial organs and structures is not evidence for evolution.
0
Geographic Distribution: Geographic distribution, or
biodiversity as it is also called, addresses the fact that
different geographic areas are populated by varieties of
organisms, such as plants, animals, or insects. The variety
among similar organisms, such as the variety of finches on
the Galapagos Islands, or the variety of snails and
Drosophila vinegar flies in Hawaii are central to this
concept.
0
"Evolution, The evidence for evolution, Biogeography Darwin also saw a confirmation of evolution in the
geographic distribution of plants and animals, and later
knowledge has reinforced his observations. For example,
there are about 1,500 species of Drosophila vinegar flies
in the world; nearly one-third of them live in Hawaii
and nowhere else, although the total area of the
archipelago is less than one-twentieth the area of California.
There are also in Hawaii more than 1,000 species of
snails and other land mollusks that exist nowhere else.
This unusual diversity is easily explained by evolution.
The Hawaiian Islands are extremely isolated and have
had few colonizers; those species that arrived there
found many unoccupied ecological niches, or local
environments suited to sustain them and lacking
predators that would prevent them from multiplying. In
response, they rapidly diversified; this process of
diversifying in order to fill in ecological niches is called
adaptive radiation." - Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004
Deluxe Edition
"Geographic distribution of species, also known as
biogeography, provides important evidence for the theory
of evolution…The Galapagos Islands, for example, have
21 native species of land birds. Of these, 13 species are
finches-a much higher proportion of finches than exists
on any continent. The finches developed as different
species partially because they ate different foods. They
thus evolved specialized beaks and other adaptations for
their different eating habits. These finch species live only
on the Galapagos Islands. Therefore, the distribution of
species supports the idea that a limited number of
72
species came to the islands from the nearest mainland
and then evolved into new species." - Encyclopaedia
Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
The basic idea is that one homogeneous species of finches
or flies, for example, migrated to a particular region. The
region itself contains a variety of sub-environments each
with its own unique combination of things like food,
predators, temperature, and physical surroundings. As the
original species spread out into these variety of subenvironments in the region, the species itself split into subpopulations that also varied from one another according to
the different traits of each one's sub-environment.
However, the critical distinction that needs to be made
concerning this piece of evidence is that it involves what is
known as "micro-evolution," not macro-evolution. Both
creationists and evolutionists agree that organisms adapt to
their individual environments resulting in the expression of
variety among different members of the same group, such
as a variety of finches, flies, or snails. The question is
whether or not the variety is the result of the organism
developing new genes and new traits, not present in
previous generations, as a step on its way to becoming an
entirely new organism. Or, is the variety among the
individuals the result of the variety already present in the
genes of the organism? If the variety among the individuals
is simply the result of genetic variety already present in the
organisms, then the variety among individuals does not
constitute any proof or expression that organisms evolve
into new and different organisms. Instead, it only indicates
that the starting population of the organism has enough
genetic variety to accommodate environmental changes and
differences so that it can survive. In short, it's a question of
whether or not variety results from the arrival of new
genetic information in a few individuals that eventually
reproduce and pass them on to others or built-in genetic
diversity already present in the original population of the
species for survival purposes? And ultimately, on its own
the mere occurrence of such variety does not tell us which
of these two options is the cause, the arrival of new genetic
information or existing, built-in genetic variety.
Consequently, variety is not a proof for either evolution or
creationism's core concept of a designer who intelligently
and purposefully made organisms with high survivability.
More analysis of these issues is presented in the preceding
73
portions of this article series, particularly during the
description of the creationist theory.
Y
Molecular Biology: Molecular Biology refers to the study
of the "hereditary material and the workings of organisms at
the level of enzymes and other molecules" such as proteins.
It is a fact that all organisms, from bacteria to plants to
animals and man are remarkably similar on the level of
genetic components, amino acids, and metabolic pathways.
This is cited as evidence for evolution because it is believed
that a common ancestor is the only way to explain this
remarkable uniformity between all forms of life.
"Evolution, The evidence for evolution, Molecular
biology - The field of molecular biology has emerged
during the mid-20th century. This new discipline has
unveiled the nature of hereditary material and the
workings of organisms at the level of enzymes and other
molecules. Molecular biology provides the most detailed
and convincing evidence available for biological evolution.
It is now known that the hereditary material, DNA, and
the enzymes that govern all life processes hold
information about an organism's ancestry…molecular
evolution has shown all living organisms, from bacteria
to humans, to be related by descent from common
ancestors. A remarkable uniformity exists in the
molecular components of organisms-in the nature of the
components as well as in the ways in which they are
assembled and used. In all bacteria, plants, animals, and
humans, the DNA comprises a different sequence of the
same four component nucleotides, and all of the various
proteins are synthesized from different combinations
and sequences of the same 20 amino acids, although
several hundred other amino acids do exist. The genetic
"code" by which the information contained in the
nuclear DNA is passed on to proteins is everywhere the
same. Similar metabolic pathways are used by the most
diverse organisms to produce energy and to make up
the cell components. This unity reveals the genetic
continuity and common ancestry of all organisms. There
is no other rational way to account for their molecular
uniformity when numerous alternative structures are
equally likely. The genetic code may serve as an
example." - Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
Furthermore, it is believed that the degree of similarity on
74
the molecular level between to different organisms reveals
how closely related they are to one another.
"Evolution, The evidence for evolution, Molecular
biology - The evidence of evolution revealed by
molecular biology goes one step further. The degree of
similarity in the sequence of nucleotides or of amino
acids can be precisely quantified. For example, cytochrome
c (a protein molecule) of humans and chimpanzees
consists of the same 104 aminoacids in exactly the same
order; but differs from that of rhesus monkeys by one
amino acid, that of horses by 11 additional amino acids,
and that of tuna by 21 additional amino acids. The
degree of similarity reflects the recency of common
ancestry." - Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004 Deluxe Edition
There are 2 problems with citing molecular biology as
proof for evolution. First, arranging relationships between
one organism and another by means of molecular biology
produces contradicting results. The results not only
contradict each other but they contradict evolutionary
theory.
For example, arranging relationships and common ancestry
according to the simple molecular factor of chromosome
number, for example, results in an entirely different set of
relationships and ancestries between organisms than amino
acid sequence similarity does. Additionally, arranging
plants or animals according to a factor like chromosome
number actually produces a very nonsensical line of
ancestry. In terms of chromosome number, plant evolution
would flow from the mold penicillin (2) to tomatoes (12) to
peas (14) to lettuce (14) to corn (20) to the redwood tree
(22) to onions (32) to soybeans (40) to wheat (42) to an
amoeba (50) to potatoes (90) and then to the white ash tree
(138) and the fern (480). The relationships between animals
in terms of chromosome number are even more
problematic. The opossum mammal (22) would evolve into
the amphibian frog (26) to the reptile alligator (32) to the
cat mammal (38) to the bat mammal (44) to the human
primate (46) to the chimpanzee primate (48) to the amoeba
(50) to the dog mammal (78) and the bird chicken (78) and
then into the goldfish (94) and the carp (100). In addition,
using the molecular trait of chromosome number, certain
plants are more closely related to animals than they are to
other plants. For example, the tomato and the house fly both
75
have 12 chromosomes, making the house fly more closely
related to the tomato than to the fruit fly. Similarly, the
opossum, the kidney bean, and the redwood tree all have 22
chromosomes, making the opossum more closely related to
the red wood than to a cat and making the redwood more
closely related to the opossum than to a white ash tree.
Likewise, the onion and the alligator both have 22
chromosomes, making the onion more closely related to the
alligator than to the potato. And finally, chimpanzees and
tobacco both have 48 chromosomes, which means that
chimpanzees are more closely related to tobacco than to
human beings. (Footnote: 9)
In molecular biology, the sampling is only a small fragment
of the chromosome. Amino acid sequences of plants,
animals, and other organisms are arranged in order
according to how alike or how different they are. According
to these amino acid sequence relationships, man is only 11
percent different from a duck. (Footnote: 9)
These relationships are clearly not from simplest to most
complex, as evolutionary theory asserts, nor are more
similar plants closely related to one another, as evolutionary
theory also asserts. Consequently, the relationships on a
molecular level depend on the specific aspect of molecular
biology that is in view and different molecular factors
produce different relationships that each contradicts one
another. Ultimately, molecular relationships produce
contradictory results. The fact that microbiology does not
provide evidence pointing to evolution is admitted by
microbiologists.
"Even with DNA sequence data, we have no direct access
to the process of evolution, so objective reconstruction of
the vanished past can be achieved only by creative
imagination." - "A Genetic Perspective on the Origin &
History of Humans," N. Takahata, Annual Review of
Ecology & Systems, 1995 (Footnote: 9)
"I'm a professional evolutionary biologist in that I have
taught evolution and related courses here at Wayne in
genetics, statistics, ornithology, and a number of other
courses for 27 years…But it's important to note that my
approach to evolution has always been from a genetic
perspective. On a day to day basis my research students
and I sequence DNA as a way of getting information
76
about relatedness among species. And we use that
information to reconstruct evolutionary
history…Regardless of how many kinds there were, maybe
we could figure that out if we could determine what
distinguishes one kind from another in a genetic sense.
What is the barrier? When would we know that we've
crossed from one kind to another?...In order to begin to do
that sort of research, which actually I do…but first
before I could write a sensible proposal, you'd have to tell
me what a kind is so I could begin to figure out what it is
that I'm looking for that distinguishes them. There has to be
some aspect of your theory that leads to predictions…I
don't even know what species have the most
chromosomes, but it's certainly not related to phyla
genetic progression. I know of no evolutionary biologist
who makes that claim…because when we reconstruct
phylogenies, which show the order of evolutionary
progression and then we map chromosome numbers on
them, there's not a progression." (Evolutionary Biologist
and Geneticist, Dr. William Moore of Wayne State
University, Detroit, MI, Footnote: 10)
Second, this is simply a microscopic version of the
morphology issue. Similarity in genetics or other molecular
components, such as amino acids, does indeed indicate
these things came to each organism from a common source.
However, similarity on its own simply does not indicate
what the common source was, whether it is a common
ancestor or a common designer. One simple, speculative
reason for such molecular similarity concerning amino
acids, for example, is that amino acid similarity is essential
for the food chain to work. Consequently, molecular
similarity serves a functional purpose in the biosphere,
which in turn, could reflect intentional and thoughtful
design, not just common ancestry. Ultimately, even if there
were a clear, non-contradicting hierarchy of relationships
between all organisms based upon the degree of molecular
similarity or dissimilarity that would not prove a common
ancestor was the reason behind the similarity.
Table of Evidences Totals:
Creation Theory –
60 “Yes” = 61 evidences for
77
0 “No” = 0 evidences against
13 “0” = 12 evidences that neither for or against/equally compatible with both theories
Evolution Theory –
0 “Yes” = 0 evidences for
60 “No” = 61 evidences against
13 “0” = 12 evidences that neither for or against/equally compatible with both theories
Footnotes:
1 “Scientific Evidences for a Young Earth,” Thomas Kindall, Seattle Creation Conference
2004, Copyright Northwest Creation Network, nwcreation.net
2 “Evidence for a Young World,” Dr. Russell Humphreys, Creation Science Fellowship
of New Mexico, Inc., Answers in Genesis, AnswersInGenesis.org, Copyright 2006
3 “Seminar Part 1: The Age of the Earth,” Dr. Kent E. Hovind, Creation Science
Evangelism, Pensacola, FL, www.drdino.com, Windows Media Video
4 “A Question of Origins,” Roger Oakland, Eternal Productions, Copyright 1998,
www.creationscience.com
5 The Case for a Creator, by Lee Strobel, Copyright 2004 by Lee Strobel, Zondervan
6 “Implications of the Laws of Thermodynamics,” Thomas Kindall, Seattle Creation
Conference 2004, Copyright Northwest Creation Network, nwcreation.net
7 “Astronomy and the Bible,” Mike Riddle, Copyright Northwester Creation Network,
nwcreation.net
8 “Creation or Evolution: Does it Matter What We Believe?” Mike Riddle, Copyright
Northwester Creation Network, nwcreation.net
9 “Seminar Part 4: Lies in the Textbooks?,” Dr. Kent E. Hovind, Creation Science
Evangelism, Pensacola, FL, www.drdino.com, Windows Media Video
10 “The History of Life: Creation or Evolution?” Debate: Dr. Kent Hovind vs. Dr.
William Moore at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, Creation Science
Evangelism, Pensacola, FL, www.drdino.com, Windows Media Video
78