The Fingerprints of God

Chapter Three

In their quest to find evidence of self-starting evolutionary life, scientists have found fingerprints all over the universe—the fingerprints of God. Fine-tuned laws govern the universe and solar system all for the purpose of permitting life to flourish on the Earth. Earth is a habitable home for man because of intelligent design. 

Parameters for Life on Earth

Scientists actually identified over 188 parameters within our solar system and 38 parameters elsewhere in the universe. Each of these parameters is so exacting that they could not happen by chance. For example:

If the strong nuclear force were decreased as little as two percent, multi-proton nuclei would not hold together. Hydrogen would be the only element in the universe because the hydrogen atom has only one proton and no neutrons in its nucleus.

If the strong nuclear force were increased as little as two percent, protons and neutrons would attach to many other protons and neutrons. There would be no hydrogen—only other heavy elements. Life chemistry cannot exist without hydrogen, yet it needs more elements than hydrogen.

If the gravitational force were decreased, stars would be so cool that nuclear fusion, the burning mechanism in the core of stars, would not ignite.

If the gravitational force were increased, stars would be too hot and burn up quickly and unevenly.

If the mass density—the approximately hundred billion trillion stars of the universe—was decreased, the universe would contain only hydrogen and helium.

If the mass density of the universe was increased, the universe would contain only elements heavier than iron. The carbon, oxygen and nitrogen necessary for life are only possible in a vast universe with billions of stars.

If the electromagnetic force were increased or decreased, there would be insufficient molecular bonding. Unless the number of electrons is equivalent to the number of protons to an accuracy of one part in 1040 or better, electromagnetism in the universe would have so overcome gravitational forces that galaxies, stars and planets could never have come into existence. One part in 1040 has been illustrated as follows:

Cover the entire North American continent with dimes stacked up to the moon (230,000 miles). Make a million other piles of dimes of equal size. Paint one dime red and hide it in the billion piles. The odds that a blindfolded person would pick the red dime are one in 1040. This is only one of the delicately balanced parameters that is necessary to allow life on the planet earth.(1)

Additional Parameters for Life on Earth 

Earth’s location in the universe is unique. Nearly all the galaxies of the right age, size and type for supporting life reside in globular clusters (spherical systems with over 100,000 stars). Although they contain millions of stars, the stars are too metal-poor to have inner planets as large as Earth and they contain giant stars too hot to sustain life and too close to one another for planetary orbits. 

Instead of residing in a globular cluster, the Milky Way is in a sparsely populated section of the universe with no gravitational tugs from neighboring galaxies. This inactivity has been a major factor in stabilizing our galaxy and the orbit of our Sun and has minimized Earth’s exposure to radiation. 

Earth’s position in our galaxy is a “window seat” view of the universe. If our solar system were any closer to the center of the Milky Way, Earth would encounter deadly X-rays and collide with thousands of comets and asteroids. Densely packed neighboring stars would pull Earth’s orbit out of its life sustaining zone. If located farther from the center of our galaxy, our solar system would contain fewer than sufficient heavy elements for the formation of a life-supporting planet.

Our solar system is isolated safely between two spiral arms of the Milky Way.(2) Inside the spiral arms, the star densities are high enough to disrupt the orbits of planets like Earth. Super giant stars residing inside the spiral arms would expose Earth-like planets to radiation intense enough to damage the planet’s atmospheric layers. The spiral arms are loaded with gas and dust, which would block our view of everything. But Earth’s position between the spiral arms permits us to see other parts of our galaxy and several hundred billion other galaxies in the universe. Earth sits safely on a “window seat” that provides a clear view of the universe.

The Sun’s orbital position protects planet Earth. Our Sun deviates little from its circular orbit around the center of the Milky Way or from the plane of our galaxy’s disk.(3) The other stars in our galaxy exhibit large deviations from their orbital paths in up and down, back and forth, and side to side random motions. The Sun’s slight orbital deviations of just 13.4 kilometers per second keep our solar system from getting too close to the spiral arms(4-5) and protect us from the deadly radiation from our galaxy’s nucleus and cataclysmic deaths of nearby stars. Our Sun appears to be an average star. However, to be capable of having a planet suited to life as we know it, scientists currently believe that the sun could be no more than 17% smaller or 10% larger. 

Earth occupies a uniquely favored orbital and planetary position. Earth’s planetary orbit is stable, not disrupted by giant neighboring planets. If Earth were only a half of a percent closer to the sun, we would experience a run-away greenhouse effect. If as little as four percent closer to the Sun, oceans never would have condensed and Earth’s climate would have moved toward the inhospitable hothouse of Venus. If it were only one percent farther from the Sun, Earth would become a frozen ice planet like Mars and the outer planets, and atmospheric greenhouse gases would become denser. Lungs could not function under higher air pressures than those found at Earth’s surface.(6) Earth is just the right distance from the Sun for complex life and ensures that water remains liquid near the surface, not vaporizing or freezing into ice—yet far enough away to avoid tidal lock.

The Moon affects the survival of life on Earth in three ways: Lunar tides, stabilizing the tilt of Earth’s axis, and slowing down Earth’s rate of rotation.(7) The Moon’s gravitational pull on Earth regulates ocean tides, causing the sea waters to be cleansed and their nutrients replenished. 

The size and distance of the moon are just right to stabilize Earth’s axis tilt at an angle of 23.5 degrees and keeps the axis from wandering between the gravitational pulls of the Sun and Jupiter.(8) Earth’s tilt angle is a critical factor in maintaining mild climates and regulating the amount of sunlight on the polar and equatorial regions. The planet Mercury, whose axis angle is nearly perpendicular and who is the closest planet to the Sun, has an extremely hot surface at the horizon and extremely frozen surfaces at the poles. In contrast, the planet Uranus has a 90-degree tilt with one pole exposed to the sunlight for half a year, while the other pole remains in darkness.

The Moon is nearly a third the size of Earth. All the other planets in the solar system have moons which are trivial in weight compared to their mother planet. Not so for the Earth. Our Earth-Moon system has very strongly influenced the magnetic field of the Earth making it one hundred times larger than it should be. This magnetism wraps the Earth in an invisible shield that deflects many of the life-threatening particles streaming from the Sun.

Jupiter shields Earth’s life. Jupiter is ten times the size of Earth and 318 times more massive. Jupiter has maintained a stable orbit around the Sun, balancing gravitationally with the other planets. If Jupiter’s orbit were not stable, gravitational disturbances would spin the planets out of the solar system, escaping the gravitational hold of the Sun. A life-bearing planet ejected into space would have no heat source for warmth and no sunlight energy for photosynthesis.

If Jupiter were farther from Earth or less massive than it is, Earth would be so blasted by asteroid and comet collisions that life could not survive. Like a sentinel, Jupiter purges stray bodies from our solar system. If Jupiter were any closer to Earth or more massive than it is, Jupiter’s gravity would pull Earth outside the zone of habitability and stability.

The Remarkable Planet Earth. Earth’s atmosphere is the right temperature, composition and pressure for plant and animal life. The atmosphere has the right amount of oxygen for photosynthesis, and just enough carbon dioxide and other gases to preserve life.

Oxygen is the most abundant element in the whole Earth (45% by weight and 85% by volume). But in the atmosphere, it is a highly reactive gas that would exist only at trace levels in the atmosphere of a terrestrial planet devoid of life.(9) 

Earth’s three ozone layers are perfectly balanced. In the mesosphere (outer layer), the right amount of ozone is needed to regulate life-essential chemical reactions and chemical circulation. In the stratosphere (middle layer), too little ozone would allow too much ultraviolet radiation to get through to Earth’s surface, resulting in the death of many plant and animal specie. Too much ozone would diminish the amount of UV radiation reaching Earth’s surface, disturbing nutrient production for plants and vitamin production for animals. In the troposphere (nearest layer), a minimum ozone level is needed to cleanse the atmosphere of natural pollutants. Too much ozone in the troposphere would disrupt animal respiration.(10)

Conclusion: The miraculous parameters for life on earth are fine-tuned into the laws that govern not only our solar system, but also the universe. Not long ago astrophysicist Carl Sagan estimated there were millions of planets in our galaxy capable of sustaining life. But the 188 parameters for life on Earth renders Sagan’s estimates sheer speculation. Thus, Professor Ben Zuckerman, an evolutionist at UCLA, countered that Earth is unique in our entire galaxy.(11)

Peter Ward, Professor of Geological Sciences at University of Washington, and Donald Brownlee, Professor of Astronomy at University of Washington and chief scientist of NASA’s Stardust mission, in their highly acclaimed book Rare Earth have concluded that animal life on Earth is rare in the universe. “Almost all environments in the universe are terrible for life. It’s only Garden of Eden places like Earth where it can exist.”(12) In fact, Earth might well be the only place animal life does exist.

In 1974, Brandon Carter, the British mathematician, coined the term “anthropic principle.” The anthropic principle says that the universe appears “designed” for the sake of human life. All cosmology is pointing in this direction. (13)

The Seven Days of Creation -

How Long Are They?

Chapter Four

The amazing drama of creation unfolds in the first chapter of Genesis. Inevitably, the mind focuses on the miraculous works of God during the six progressive days of creation. Then on the seventh day God rests. How long is each day? The Hebrew word yom here translated “day” has become a point of controversy. In Scripture yom is used to denote both a 24-hour day as well as a longer period of time. 

For example, Israel’s forty years in the wilderness is called “the day [yom] of temptation in the wilderness. . .forty years long was I grieved with this generation” (Psalm 95:8-10). 

The Apostle Peter said, “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8).

Evolutionists propose fabulous lengths of time for the evolution of fowl, fish and man. On the other hand, does the Bible necessarily evidence each creative day as a 24-hour solar day?

A Historic Overview

Insisting that the “24-hour day,” “the young earth” and the “young universe” concept is the badge of Fundamentalists and Evangelicals actually signals a marked departure from the Fundamentalism of the early 1900s. First published in 1909, the Scofield Reference Bible remains a standard work among Fundamentalists and Evangelicals today. 

Referring to “the heaven and earth” in Genesis 1:1, this edition of Scofield commented, “The first creative act refers to the dateless past, and gives scope for all the geologic ages.”(1) Here the reference to “ages” is significant. After noting that the word “day” used in Scripture to denote either a 24-hour period of time or a longer period of time, Scofield observed: 

The use of “evening” and “morning” may be held to limit “day” to the solar day; but the frequent parabolic use of natural phenomena may warrant the conclusion that each creative “day” was a period of time marked off by a beginning and ending.(2)

The noted Evangelical scholar, Bernard Ramm, documented this departure in the 1930s and 1940s from the original Fundamentalist position of “epoch days of creation” along with the “old earth and old universe” concepts. He observed that some Fundamentalist periodicals began to feature articles by George McCready Price, a Seventh Day Adventist, on his theories of flood geology.(3) 

By 1961 a rash of books began to be published attacking evolution. Finally, the Christian community was answering evolutionists with some counter-arguments on a logical, scientific level! However, in a zeal to uphold the Biblical view of creation, Fundamentalists embraced Price’s flood geology as a basis for the young-universe, young-earth, 24-hour-creative-day posture. 

Without going into a complete critique of flood geology, such a study does not automatically prove a young universe or 24-hour creative days. This consolidated view led to the formation of Creation Research Society in 1963. Its Board of Directors included Fundamentalist/ Creation Advocate luminaries like Henry M. Morris and W. E. Lammert along with Frank L. Marsh, longtime Seventh Day Adventist advocate of the triad belief of a young universe, a young earth and 24-hour creative days.(4)

By 1980 most U.S. Fundamentalist and Evangelical churches forgot their roots of understanding Genesis One as reflected in the Scofield Reference Bible (which still stands prominently on their reference shelves). Instead, they embraced the young-universe, young-earth, 24-hour-creative-day combination championed by the Seventh Day Adventists since the 1920s. (This reference to a departure from fundamentalism to the Seventh Day Adventist concept is in no way to downgrade the credibility of Seventh Day Adventists as Christians. However, Adventists hardly represent "historic fundamentalism.") 

A growing number of Evangelicals, however, are taking a dimmer view of this Adventist linkage as reflected in a paper presented by Ronald L. Numbers at the Evangelical Engagement with Science, a conference held at Wheaton College, March 30 through April 1, 1995. Numbers, a former Seventh Day Adventist and the William Coleman Professor of the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Wisconsin, observed:

. . . their [Adventists’] marginal views, inspired by the visions of an Adventism prophetess, now defined the very essence of creationism.(5) [Many of the teachings of the Adventist originated in the vision of Mrs. Ellen G. White.]

The current popular 24-hour creative day is in reality a fairly recent vintage. Even Henry M. Morris, its chief exponent, spoke of the epoch days of creation as a “venerable” concept. Indeed, the earliest known Christian writings on the time frame of creation date back to the so-called early church fathers of the second century. Justin Martyr (A.D. 100-166) and Irenaeus (A.D. 130-200) believed the creation days were epoch days.(6)

But before this time and more importantly, Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul taught the creation epoch days (as will be discussed later).

Objection Overruled

Since the phrase, “and the evening and the morning,” is used to denote the conclusion of the first six creation days, some say this is a perfect description of literal 24-hour days. Not so. The phrase, “evening and morning,” like yom, can denote a longer period of time. The “2300 days” vision of Daniel 8 is a case in point. Daniel was given a vision that includes a period of 2300 days. Then Daniel was told by Gabriel (Daniel 8:26), “. . .and the vision of the evening and the morning which was told is true.” 

Unfortunately some translations render the text, “evenings and mornings” of vs. 26 in the plural. This is not accurate. The Hebrew manuscript in Daniel 8:26 reads exactly as the singular case in Genesis One, “the evening and the morning,” as noted in standard evangelical works.(7)

The Scriptures elsewhere use the same Hebrew word “evening” in relation to a day (yom) of long duration. Zechariah speaks of “the day of the Lord” and the following verses describe the events of that day (Zechariah 14:1). The following vss. 6,7, state that day (yom) is “not clear or dark,” but “at evening time it shall be light.” Evidently, this is referring to the Millennial Day (1,000 years) of Christ’s Kingdom. By the end of that 1,000-year day, full knowledge of the Lord (“light”) would prevail. But some apply “evening” to the “great tribulation.” Either way, this day is a period of time, but not a 24-hour day's evening, though the “day” has an “evening.” Therefore, the fact that the creation days have an “evening” does not prove that they are necessarily 24-hour days.

The “Creative Day”— How Long? 

Internal evidence in Chapters One and Two of Genesis provides conclusive proof that the seven creative days are not each 24 hours. The Hebrew word yom, used exclusively in Genesis to denote “day,” should be understood to signify an epoch of time.

Proof #1

After Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 describes the creation of the heavens and the earth, including the account of the seven creative days (yom), the very next verse (Genesis 2:4) summarizes the entire work of the preceding verses: 

“These are the generations [Hebrew, “history”] of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day [yom] that the Lord made the heavens and earth.” 

The whole period of creation is designated in this verse as “the day”! Therefore, “day” must be defined contextually and cannot at all be assumed to be a period of twenty-four hours.

Proof #2

In Genesis 1:14-19 not until the fourth day is the Sun and Moon “made” (Hebrew, “appointed”) to rule the day and the night. The Sun would “rule” the Earth because time on Earth could be calculated by one rotation around the Sun. Before the fourth day, Earth’s atmosphere was too dense to permit the penetration of sunlight. So if the 24-hour day did not come into existence until after the third creative day, it is logical to conclude that none of the preceding creation days were twenty-four hours long.

Proof #3

God created the fish, sea life and fowls of the air on the fifth day (Genesis 1:20-22). In addition, vs. 21 reveals that on that same fifth day the living creatures of the waters “brought forth abundantly after their kind and every winged fowl after his kind.” God did not create myriads of each Genesis kind of water life in order to fill the sea nor myriads of fowl to fill the earth. Rather, on the fifth day God created an appropriate number of Genesis kind species and then commanded that through the natural process of reproduction the waters would teem with sea life and that the fowls would multiply throughout the earth. 

Is it possible for fish in one 24-hour day to reproduce successive generations in order to fill the sea? Of necessity the fifth day was a period of time. The narration further emphasizes how the commission to “be fruitful and multiply” was all part of what was accomplished on the fifth day (vss. 22, 23).

Proof #4

The time required for the sixth creative day is critical to consider. First, God created all the land animals. Then towards the end of the sixth day, the crowning feature of his creative work was Adam and Eve. While the first chapter of Genesis only briefly narrates the creation of Adam and Eve, the second chapter (2:7-9, 15-23) elaborates on the events that occurred between Adam’s creation and Eve’s. 

First, God planted a garden in Eden, then Adam after receiving instructions from God worked in the caring of the garden. There was extensive communication pertaining to things Adam could and could not do. Adam was then instructed to name all of the birds and all of the living creatures. With this extensive responsibility in caring for all the plants and naming all the animals, Adam had time to experience loneliness in his heart because “there was not found an help meet for him.” 

All these events took place in the latter part of the sixth creative day. How long could this activity have reasonably taken? Just a few hours or days, weeks or months? Of necessity, the events of the sixth day required more than twenty-four hours.

Proof #5

How long is the seventh day? God finished His creative work at the beginning of the seventh day and rested (Genesis 2:1-3). But the Genesis account is clear that the seventh day did not end. In the first six creation days, the Lord conclusively ended each day with the phrase, “the evening and the morning was the day.” 

However, the seventh day description in Genesis 2:2-3 does not conclude with the phrase, “the evening and the morning were the seventh day.” Nor does this account indicate in any other way that the seventh day ended. On the contrary, Hebrews 3:7-4:8 contains an elaborate study to demonstrate that the seventh creative day has not yet ended. 

The Apostle Paul first quoted Psalms (95:7-11) to prove that Israel failed to enter into God’s seventh day of rest during the time of Moses, Joshua and David: “Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked me, as in the day of trial in the wilderness. . .as I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest” (Hebrews 3:7,8,11, NAS).

Paul’s logic followed in Hebrews 4:4,5, “For He [God] spake in a certain place of the seventh day [Genesis 2:2] and God rested on the seventh day from all his works; and again in this place [Psalms 95:11] they shall not enter my rest.” Verses 7 and 8 spell out that this failure occurred under Moses, Joshua and David. In other words, Israel failed to enter into God’s seventh day of rest. Therefore, the seventh day on which God rested extended to Moses’ time and beyond that to Joshua’s time and even beyond that to David’s time:

Again, he [God] limiteth [Greek, “marks out the limits of”] a certain day [the seventh day] saying in David [Psalms 95:7,8], To day, after so long a time [since Moses’ time]; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. For if Joshua had given them rest, then he [God] would not afterward have spoken of another day (Hebrews 4:7,8 NAS).

Here Paul reasoned that by God’s own definition, the seventh day on which God rested extended to the “to day” of David’s time.

Now back to Paul’s logic in Hebrews 3:6-13: Since Israel failed, Christians are admonished, “But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest we fail to enter into God’s rest [of the seventh day].” The whole Christian Age is also included in the “To day” time frame of the seventh day of God's rest! 

And that is precisely why Paul said, “There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His [God’s] rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His” (Hebrews 4:9,10 NAS). The word “Sabbath” is definitely in the Greek text and refers to the seventh creative day in which God rested. 

By faith Christians can now enter into this seventh day of Sabbath rest with God. Just as God rested from His works of creation (although God’s work of governing the universe continued), Christians cease from their own works and rest in the finished work of Christ.

Therefore, the seventh day is an epoch extending from just after the creation of man and includes the time of the Christian Age. If the seventh day is an epoch extending thousands (not millions) of years, the other creation days must be epochs as well.

Just how long is the epoch-long seventh day?

God’s Rest

When our first parents disobeyed and were cast out of their perfect Edenic paradise into the “thorns and thistles” of the unfinished Earth (Genesis 3:17-19), God ceased from His works of creation and rested. But God’s works of creation were not completed. He was not finished with man. He was not finished with the Earth. 

The Scriptures teach that God did not create the Earth in vain, “God himself that formed the Earth. . .he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited” (Isaiah 45:18). The Earth was created to be filled with people praising their God (Psalms 98:4-6). They would enjoy perfect health (Isaiah 35:5,6). The whole Earth—their Edenic home—was to “blossom as a rose” (Isaiah 35:1). 

Man was perfect and rejoicing in his beautiful home in Eden, but everything changed when sin entered. So when would these completed works of creation be accomplished? When would the earth be finished and perfect? When would man be finished, perfect?

As might be anticipated, Christ would accomplish this work at his second advent. All the holy prophets pointed toward this time. It would be a time of restoration to the perfection of man in the Garden of Eden and all the wonderful potential he possessed at that time. Thus Apostle Peter said, “He shall send Jesus Christ. . .whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution [restoration] of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:20,21).

God’s rest on the seventh creative day or age was a rest of confidence in the finished work of Christ. God has complete confidence in the ability of Christ to restore to the willing descendants of Adam everything that was lost when Adam disobeyed in Eden.

This is why Jesus identified himself as the “Lord of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:28), not the seventh day of our week, but the seventh day of God’s week of creation. As Lord of God’s seventh creative day, Christ’s responsibility is to perform, “the works which the Father has given me to finish” (John 5:36).

Was the entrance of sin an unplanned miscalculation on God’s part? Not at all. Before God even created Adam, God knew that Adam would sin and plunge his descendants into sin and death. Redemption by the blood of Jesus was “foreordained before the foundation of the world” (I Peter 1:19,20). When Adam sinned, God ceased His creative works resting in full confidence in Christ’s ability to first redeem humankind (I Corinthians 15:22) and then to offer to all the restoration of all things lost in Adam (Luke 19:10).

So if Christ died almost 2,000 years ago, why are man and his earthly home still in sin and not restored and perfect? The time between the redemption and the time of restoration is devoted to the call and preparation of a “little flock” of faithful followers of Christ who will share with Christ in his 1,000-year Kingdom restoration project (Acts 15:14-17; Revelation 20:6; 22:17). Now is not the time for the conversion and restoration of the world of mankind (Mark 4:11,12).

One of the most important works which God has given Christ to complete is the raising of the dead:

For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; and hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice and come forth; and they that have done good [the little flock] to a resurrection of life [to live and reign with him 1,000 years]; and they that have done evil [all the remaining of the race] to a resurrection of judgment [krisis, Greek for “trial”] (John 5:26-29).

By the end of the 1,000 years, all will have been given a full and fair opportunity to attain perfect life in a worldwide Edenic paradise. Those who fail under these ideal conditions will be destroyed (Jeremiah 31:29,30; Isaiah 35; Acts 3:19-23). Then the seventh creation day will reach its climactic conclusion: “There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

From Bible chronology it can be determined that the seventh creative day is 7,000 years in duration and culminating with the 1,000 years of restoration.

Although some might prefer the assumption that each creative day is of varying lengths covering aeons of time, it seems logical to conclude that the creation week consists of 7 days that are all uniform in length. There are independent scriptural lines of reasoning that indicate the creation week would total 49,000 years—ample time for God’s miraculous yet complex creation work. Whether or not all agree with this estimate of the total length of the creative week, it is Scripturally certain that each creative “day” was longer than twenty-four hours. 

What about the Earth itself? Since the earth was in existence but “without form and void,” before the creation week began—the age of the Earth, or for that matter, the universe, would not be included in the creative week. Therefore, the Earth is doubtless much older! Without attempting to compromise with evolutionists’ wild speculations of the aeons of time required for the “evolution of man,” the Bible presents a reasonable length of time for a progressive creative week climaxed by the creation of man. Not a week of one-hundred sixty-eight hours! The Genesis account is sublimely reasonable.

Age of the Universe

Observations of the universe’s most distant reaches by the Hubble space telescope suggest that the age of the universe is over 13 billion years. Independently, radio telescope measurements are consistent with a universe age near 14.6 billion years. 

A third line of independent observations—efforts to explain the order in the subatomic world and the observed ratio of matter to light in the universe—have led other scientists to conclude that the age of the universe is 14.6 billion years. Whatever one’s evaluation of estimates, they are beyond the scope of the Genesis record.

Darwinian Evolution —

Fact or Theory?

Chapter Five

The exponents of Darwin’s evolution have long declared this theory a scientific fact. But by its own rules, science requires empirical proof—that is, observation. After over 140 years of research, what empirical proof have Darwinists compiled? The following discussion applies the litmus test of science itself against the various speculations evolutionists have pursued for explaining the evolutionary process.

Natural Selection Vs. Artificial Selection

“Natural selection” proposes species are constantly replacing species in a process called “descent with modification.” Natural selection is the mechanism responsible for all the varieties of plants and animals. The guiding force — “survival of the fittest” — is blindly deciding which species survive.

What Darwin identified as “variation” is today explained as achieved by mutations. “Mutations are randomly occurring changes which are nearly always harmful when they produce effects in the organism large enough to be visible, but which may occasionally slightly improve the organism’s ability to survive and reproduce.”(1) But did Darwin explain his theory of evolution by natural selection? The noted Darwinist, Douglas Futuyma, explained:

When Darwin wrote The Origin of Species, he could offer no good cases of natural selection because no one had looked for them. He drew instead an analogy with the artificial selection that animal and plant breeders use to improve domesticated varieties of animals and plants. By breeding only from the woolliest sheep, the most fertile chickens, and so on, breeders have been spectacularly successful in altering almost every imaginable characteristic of our domesticated animals and plants to the point where most of them differ from their wild ancestors far more than related species differ from them. (2)

Do all evolutionists cite artificial selection as a proof of what “natural selection” is supposed to achieve? The eminent French zoologist Pierre Grasse, an evolutionist but a strong anti-Darwinist, concluded that the results of artificial selection provide powerful testimony against Darwin’s theory:

In spite of the intense pressure generated by artificial selection (eliminating any parent not answering the criteria of choice) over whole millennia, no new species are born. A comparative study of sera, hemoglobin, blood proteins, interfertility, etc., proves that the strains remain within the same specific definition. This is not a matter of opinion or subjective classification, but a measurable reality. The fact is that selection gives tangible form to and gathers together all the varieties a genome is capable of producing, but does not constitute an innovative evolutionary process. (3)

In other words, the reason that dogs do not become as big as elephants, much less change into elephants, is not that we have not been breeding them long enough. Dogs do not have the genetic capacity for that degree of change, and they stop getting bigger when the genetic limit is reached. Cries of “not enough time” to produce new species should be muted by exhaustive research with the fruit fly. Since the life span of the fruit fly is so short, it represents mutation observation over thousands of generations in a short period of time. The fact that scientists have been able to breed fruit flies into every possible genotype only proves that fruit flies can be caused to change through artificial selection, but not natural selection. 

If artificial selection proves anything, it proves that an intelligent manipulation of genetics is sometimes able to produce a woollier sheep, a better tomato, and a different looking fruit fly. In any case, the end result of all these genetic experiments is that a fruit fly is still a fruit fly—not a new species. This does not make a case for beneficial mutations being the engine behind natural selection.

Natural Selection and Tautology

Tautology is a way of saying the same thing twice. The noted law professor turned prosecutor of Darwinism, Phillip E. Johnson, zeroed in on the tautology fallacy of Darwinism as reflected in the following:

The famous philosopher of science Karl Popper at one time wrote that Darwinism is not really a scientific theory because natural selection is an all-purpose explanation which can account for anything, and which, therefore, explains nothing. Popper backed away from this position after he was besieged by indignant Darwinist protests, but he had plenty of justification for taking it. As he wrote in his own defense, “some of the greatest contemporary Darwinists themselves formulate the theory in such a way that it amounts to the tautology that those organisms that leave most offspring leave most offspring,” citing Fisher, Haldane, Simpson, “and others.” (4)

One of the “others” referred to was Waddington, whose explanation Johnson said should be preserved for posterity: 

Darwin’s major contribution was, of course, the suggestion that evolution can be explained by the natural selection of random variations. Natural selection, which was at first considered as though it were a hypothesis that was in need of experimental or observational confirmation, turns out on closer inspection to be a tautology, a statement of an inevitable but previously unrecognized relation. It states that the fittest individuals in a population (defined as those which leave most offspring) will leave the most offspring. This fact in no way reduces the magnitude of Darwin’s achievement; only after it was clearly formulated, could biologists realize the enormous power of the principle as a weapon of explanation. (5)

Johnson observed that this statement of Waddington’s was not just an offhand statement:

That was not an offhand statement, but a considered judgment published in a paper presented at the great convocation at the University of Chicago in 1959 celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species. Apparently, none of the distinguished authorities present told Waddington that a tautology does not explain anything. When I want to know how a fish can become a man, I am not enlightened by being told that the organisms that leave the most offspring are the ones that leave the most offspring. 

The important point is that the Darwinists have been tempted continually by the thought that their theory could be given the status of an a priori truth, or a logical inevitability; so that it could be known to be true without the need of empirical confirmation. Their susceptibility to this temptation is understandable. When the theory is stated as a hypothesis requiring empirical confirmation, the supporting evidence is not impressive. (6)

Thus, many of the scientific community hold natural selection as a philosophical necessity—some scientists demand a naturalistic explanation for everything. Since God or any other “vital force” that drives evolution is excluded by the National Academy of Sciences, evolutionists have to make do with what is left when the unacceptable has been excluded. Natural selection is the best of the remaining alternatives—probably the only alternative.

There are many other anomalies inherent in the idea of natural selection. Why haven’t many of the “lower-order” creatures with us today evolved into something on the same level as humans? Why do some animals risk their own safety to warn others of an approaching predator? Why is a female pea-hen attracted to a male peacock with “life-threatening” decorations? Explanations for these inconsistencies make it difficult to conceive of a way to test the claims empirically.

Mutations and Saltations

One of the concepts related to mutations that evolutionists try to avoid is the evidence of “saltations,” that is, sudden leaps by which a new type of organism appears in a single generation. Darwin himself thought that saltations were nothing less than miracles. T. H. Huxley warned Darwin of dismissing saltation too quickly. Huxley’s reason for this caution was the lack of fossil record supporting the gradualism Darwin proposed. 

Problems are created when evolutionists discard the concept of saltation. Why would wings or eyes continue to develop in a creature with no apparent functionality—unless the system evolved at once? The first step towards a new function—such as vision or ability to fly—would not necessarily provide any advantage unless the other parts required for the function appeared simultaneously.

A noted professor, Richard Goldschmidt, challenged the Darwinian concept of micro-mutations, holding that this concept “could account for no more than variations within the species boundary.”(7) He admitted that macro-mutation would usually produce harmful development, but thought it possible that occasionally a “hopeful monster” would emerge and develop a new species. But with what mate is the logical question.

The micro-macro question has been argued by two contemporary evolutionist giants, Dawkins and Gould. Richard Dawkins, the Dean of British Scientists, defended Darwin’s gradualism— micro-mutation. Stephen Jay Gould, the eminent paleontologist of Harvard, attempted to harmonize saltations with a form of macro-mutation. 

The bottom line is that there is no way to prove if either such mutations ever occurred. If after “massive” research, scientists were able to alter the genetic code of a fish to produce an amphibian, would that prove anything? No, this artificial manipulation proves nothing about random changes. This type of experimentation would only prove that these changes could be planned and executed by an intelligent scientist. But whether God as the Intelligent Creator would employ this method to achieve wonderful variety is another question.

Demonstrating that mutations can be beneficial poses a significant problem to the evolutionist. The mathematical calculations required to predict whether micro- or macro-mutations would be advantageous are staggering. Mathematician D.S. Ulam concluded that the amount of mutations needed to create an eye made it impossible. Evolutionists retorted by stating that the eye had evolved. Ernst Mayr responded, “Somehow or other by adjusting these [Ulam’s] figures, we will come out all right. We are comforted by the fact that evolution has occurred.”(8) This attitude in the scientific community of evolutionists reflects an incredible position. Notwithstanding the complete lack of empirical evidence, evolution is considered an a priori fact and law.

Lack of Fossil Evidence

The lack of fossil evidence is perhaps the greatest challenge to Darwinism. Darwin himself bemoaned the fact that we did not “everywhere see innumerable transitional forms.” He even admitted that the state of fossil evidence was “the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory.”(9)

After 140 years of evolutionists desperately looking for missing links, Gould offered “punctuated equilibrium” to deal with the embarrassing fact: “The fossil record today on the whole looks very much as it did in 1859.”(10) Gould summarized his concept as follows:

The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism:

1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking pretty much the same as they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless.

2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and “fully formed.” (11)

The essential point of Gould’s “punctuated equilibrium” is that the new species appear in peripheral groups, whereas the fossil record is available basically from the larger, main populations—that is why new species seem to appear suddenly:

Speciation (the formation of new species) occurs rapidly, and in small groups which are isolated on the periphery of the geographical area occupied by the ancestral species.... Because fossils are mostly derived from large, central populations, a new species would appear suddenly in the fossil record following its migration into the center of the ancestral range. (12)

In this small isolated population, Gould explained, selective pressures might cause favorable variations to spread more rapidly. In this manner, a new species would arise in the peripheral area without leaving fossil evidence. “Punctuated equilibrium” is a very interesting speculation. But how much more plausible to explain by the Genesis account what is already empirically self-evident from the fossil record! Well defined species were created in a logical sequence of complexity, each allowing genetically for variations within its own “kind.”

The single greatest challenge which the fossil record poses for Darwinism is the “Cambrian Explosion” which they date around 600 million years ago. Nearly all the animal phyla appear in the rocks of this Cambrian period without a trace of the evolutionary ancestors that Darwinism requires. As Richard Dawkins put it, “It is as though they were just planted there, without evolutionary history.” 

In fact, Darwin himself found no evidence of the existence of pre-Cambrian life and conceded in The Origin of Species, “The case at present must remain inexplicable, and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the view here entertained.” If his theory were true, Darwin wrote, the pre-Cambrian world must have “swarmed with living creatures.” But, as Dawkins observed, after over a hundred years of searching the fossil record, the pre-Cambrian world did not swarm with living creatures.

Missing links haunt evolutionists throughout the fossil record. Though there is evidence of micro-mutation within the Genesis kind, after 140 years of gene manipulation in the laboratory and intensive investigation of the fossil record, there is no evidence of micro- or macro-mutation bridging from one Genesis kind to another. Darwinians and neo-Darwinians are frantically advancing multiple theories to minimize this lack of empirical fossil evidence. 

Although they present a united front that evolution is a fact, they are in vast disarray when it comes to the how of proving that evolution is even a workable possibility. In the face-off between the two Darwinian giants, Dawkins and Gould, each claimed that his own mutation theory—voiding out any other—is the only way to explain missing links. The truth is Dawkins’ and Gould’s evaluations of each other’s mutation theories cancel out each other! 

Neither view can provide empirical evidence of bridging gaps in the fossil record. But the sudden appearances of new species in the fossil record—the “Cambrian Explosion”—is consistent with the Creation model. The fossil record is still testimony against Darwinian evolution.

Homology in Embryology

Some evolutionists attempt to establish their theory by pointing out certain similarities embryos share that belong to different species. Since evolution is considered a fact, biological relationships are assumed to signify evolutionary relationships. Homology and embryology have been put forward as proof of the “fact of evolution.”

In 1866 Ernst Haeckel formulated what came to be know as the “Biogenetic Law” or “Haeckel’s Law,” which simply stated means, an embryo will recapitulate (summarize) the evolutionary stages of a life form during the embryo’s development. To Darwin, Haeckel’s Law established the fact of evolution. Therefore, Darwin based his research in the fields of natural selection, the fossil record, the vertebrate sequence, pre-biological evolution, etc., on the a priori assumption evolution was a fact because of this “Law.” This a priori “logic” has been the basic flaw of evolutionists ever since.

For centuries philosophers have noted the relationships between different animals and always attributed these similarities—not as inheritance from common ancestors—but to a sort of blueprint called the “Archetype,” which existed only in some metaphysical realm such as the mind of the Divine Creator. 

Darwin’s theory of “descent with modification” offered a naturalistic alternative to the idea of the Archetype. Darwin described his theory, “The characters which naturalists consider as showing true affinity between any two or more species, are those which have inherited from a common parent, and insofar, all true classification is genealogical.”(13)

Neither laboratory science nor the fossil record has been able to provide empirical evidence for the theory of “descent with modification.” However, the “fact of evolution” seems to stand unscathed regardless of the lack in the validity of its records and proposed mechanisms. Stephen Jay Gould made a false analogy regarding the “fact of evolution”:

Facts are the world’s data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away while scientists debate rival theories for explaining them. Einstein’s theory of gravitation replaced Newton’s, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air pending the outcome. And human beings evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin’s proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be identified. (14)

Is this comparison fair? Johnson ably refuted Gould’s reasoning:

The analogy is spurious. We observe directly that apples fall when dropped, but we do not observe a common ancestor for modern apes and humans. What we do observe is that apes and humans are physically and biochemically more like each other than they are like rabbits, snakes, or trees. The ape-like common ancestor is a hypothesis in a theory, which purports to explain how these greater and lesser similarities came about. The theory is plausible, especially to a philosophical materialist, but it may nonetheless be false. (15)

Without empirical evidence in the laboratory or fossil records, Darwin and his loyal legion seized upon homology in embryology to prove the “fact” of evolution. The argument from embryology is based primarily upon the ideas of Haeckel’s biogenetic law. In erudite descriptive form, this law means “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.” Or, in other words, an “individual” will summarize his evolutionary history by passing through similar evolutionary stages during his embryological development.

So it has been popularly believed that man has a gill stage, a hair stage, tail stage, protozoan stage, worm stage, etc. Embryo similarities are an evidence all are taught to believe even in elementary biology courses. Surprising as it may seem, however, this evidence has been rejected by practically all competent biologists.

Notwithstanding his “fact-of-evolution” posture, Gould had to disassociate himself from Haeckel’s Law—the only law of science that seemed to give credence that evolution was, indeed, a fact. Gould remarked:

. . .the New York public schools taught him Haeckel’s doctrine, that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, fifty years ago it had been abandoned by science. . .behind closed doors many scientists will admit to thinking that “there really is something to it after all.” (16)

Haeckel’s Law has been replaced by Von Baer’s Law which “asserts that resemblances among embryos reflect levels of biological classification, so that all vertebrates, for example, look very similar in early development but become increasingly dissimilar as they approach their adult forms.” Unfortunately, the embryos do not start out similarly, but only converge to a similar embryo in the middle of development only to diverge again to develop into fish, birds and mammals.

Thus, while all vertebrates pass through an embryonic stage in which there is a resemblance, actually they develop to this stage very differently. When the egg is fertilized, each Genesis kind follows its own plan of embryonic development. Fish, amphibians, birds and mammals each follows their own pattern. Only by ignoring these early stages of development can Darwin’s theory harmonize with the facts of embryology. Yet it was the early stages that were crucial to Darwin’s claim. 

The latter stages of embryo development are also out of sync with Darwinian expectations. For instance, limb development is an instructive example. The embryonic development of limb bones reveals patterns of division, branching and cartilage production which differ from Genesis kind to Genesis kind without conforming to predictions based on the theory of common descent.

The “fact of embryology” is that all vertebrate embryos follow different patterns of development, then midway through the process converge into similar appearances—and again diverge until they finally through diverse processes develop similar bone structure in their limbs. Can embryology be harmonized with either a Creator’s “archetype” or Darwin’s “descent with modification”? That embryology alone cannot be used to prove either is fact. However, the scale tips more in support of creation, as Johnson observed:

If embryology is our best guide to genealogy, as Darwin thought, our guide seems to be telling us that vertebrates have multiple origins and did not inherit their similarities from a common ancestor. (17)

Vertebrate Sequence

Imposing vertebrate exhibits in museums show neat progressive evolutionary sequences of vertebrate development from the simple to the complex. The evolutionist smugly says, “There you have it—proof positive that evolution is a fact!” Marsh’s fossil pedigree of the horse displayed at Yale University convinced Thomas H. Huxley himself of the “irrefutable truth” of evolution. There it was—the evolution of the horse beginning with Eohippus (the so-called “Dawn Horse”) which was the size of a fox terrier, possessing several toes with the display climaxing with Equus, the tall, majestic modern-day horse. 

Darwin had planned to make the trip to see Marsh’s collection, but health did not permit. As P. I. Lull lamented, “He died without having seen such a culminating proof of his theory of evolution.”

But there is less than meets the eye on these impressively neat simple-to-complex, small-to-large displays of vertebrate sequences! This “less than meets the eye” was quite evident in an interview with Gareth Nelson, of the American Museum of Natural History. When asked about the question of vertebrate sequence, Nelson said, “We’ve got to have some ancestors. We’ll pick those. Why? Because we know they have to be there, and these are the best candidates. That’s by and large the way it has worked. I am not exaggerating.”(18)

Again, this is not empirical proof. It is the same persistent flaw of the evolutionist—the a priori assumption. If evolution is assumed as fact, then the vertebrate sequence has to be rigged to prove evolution. The sequence from small several-toed ancestors to large one-toed horses is nowhere to be found in the fossil record. Furthermore, many contradictions to this presumed order are conspicuous. For example, two modern-type horses, Equus nevadensis and Equus occidentalis, have been found in the same geological stratum as Eohippus. This fossil record verifies modern-day-type horses were grazing side by side with their so-called ancestor.

An evolutionist of note, G. G. Simpson, asserted that the development of the horse is not by “orthogenesis”—in a straight line. Simpson’s vertebrate sequence of the horse is vastly different from Marsh’s at Yale. (Simpson was from Harvard.) Simpson declared, “This is not a sequence involving lower and higher zones, but evolution in a single, changing zone.”(19) Regarding the gradual reduction from several toes to a single toe or hoof, Simpson said that it is “flatly fictitious.”(20) 

Horses vary today from “Gumbo,” an 18-inch tall American Miniature Yearling Stallion (which is even smaller in Argentina)—to the seven-foot high 3,200-pound Clydesdales. Another contradiction to the presumed order of evolving horses is that some present-day Shire horses have more than one toe per foot.(21) Similarly, antelopes vary from the 12-inch Suni to the 6-foot, 2,000-pound Eland.

Evolutionists take great satisfaction in discussing evolution within the horse specie. But what type of evolution is this? “Micro-evolution” at best—wonderful variation within a Genesis kind—the horse “kind.” The evolutionists’ forced extrapolation that the great diversity within the horse kind proves Darwinism evolution is not valid. By definition, Darwinism requires evolution from one Genesis kind to another Genesis kind. 

How can documentation of evolution of horses into horses, moths into moths, minulus into minulus, fruit flies into fruit flies, prove the evolution from amoeba to man? At every stage of the evolutionary tree, there are question marks demanding proof for common ancestry of all organism. (See diagram.)

Where Are the Transitions?

Fish to Amphibians. Some Darwinists propose that the rhipidistians, an extinct order of fish, as a possible “ancestral group.” The rhipidistians are thought to have skeletal features similar to early amphibians which have bones that look like they have the potential to evolve into legs. Not so! said evolutionist Barbara J. Stahl in her comprehensive textbook:

None of the known fish [sic] is thought to be directly ancestral to the earliest land vertebrates. Most of them lived after the first amphibians appeared, and those that came before show no evidence of developing the stout limbs and ribs that characterized the primitive tetrapods. (22)

The coelacanth, an ancient fish thought to be extinct in the same class as rhipidistians, was caught in the Indian Ocean. When dissected, its skeletal features and internal organs showed no signs of being preadapted for a land environment. There is still no evidence of any transition form of life between the fish and the amphibian classifications.

Amphibians to Reptiles. Transitional ancestors to the reptiles were required. Darwinists selected the so-called stem reptile, Seymouria. Embarrassment was readily imagined when this selected “ancestor” was dated by evolutionary methods as existing 20 million years after reptiles already appeared on the earth. Evolutionists do not present a valid case for any possible link between amphibians and reptiles.

Diagram of Three Genesis Kinds Chart (23)*

*Note: The above chart seems plausible.

Reptiles to Mammals. If reptiles, indeed, evolved into mammals, transitional ancestors for mammals would need to be established. Evolutionists chose the large order of therapsida, a mammal-like reptile. As a recognized expert in mammal-like reptiles, A. Hopson ventured a vertebrate sequence of therapsids to bridge from different orders and subgroups of reptiles ending his sequence with a mammal—the Morgamicodon. The only problem was that the Morgamicodon was substantially older than the therapsid that preceded it!(24) This attempt hardly qualifies as an ancestry hypothesis.

In any case, more than one transitional life form would be necessary to establish because of so much diversity among mammals. As Johnson observes: 

The mammal class includes such diverse groups as whales, porpoises, seals, polar bears, bats, cattle, monkeys, cats, pigs, and opossums. If mammals are a monophyletic group, then the Darwinian model requires that every one of the groups have descended from a single unidentified small land mammal. Huge numbers of intermediate species in the direct line of transition would have had to exist [for every diverse group of mammals], but the fossil record fails to record them. (25)

Reptiles to birds. In 1998 two fossils of feathered dinosaurs were discovered in China’s Liaoning province. The fossils were acclaimed as the “missing link” between reptiles and birds. However, the feathers found on the two species, Caudipteryx and Protoarchaeopteryx, were fully formed—a true “missing link” would reveal stages of development between scales and feathers. The dinosaur fossils are reportedly 120-145 million years old, however, the oldest known bird fossil is the allegedly 150-million -year-old Archaeopteryx, a dead end side branch of the ancient avian line of birds.(26) Thus, the fossil sequence contradicts the conclusion that the bird evolved from the dinosaur—the bird fossils are older than the dinosaur fossils. 

Apes to Humans. An anthropologist who believes in the evolution of humans from apes would select ancestors that would fit a neat sequence. Even if these sequences are only constructed from a tooth or jawbone. The late Solly Zuckerman (now Lord Zuckerman), one of Britain’s most influential scientists and leading primate experts, was an ardent evolutionist. Questioning the reliability of anthropology, he said that anthropology “is so astonishing that it is legitimate to ask whether much science is yet found in this field at all.”(27) Concerning the evolutionary sequence attempts between ape and humans, Zuckerman admitted, “depend. . .partly on guesswork, and partly on some preconceived conception of the course of hominid evolution.”(28)

If it is assumed in advance that ancestors of humans must have existed, there are only a few ambiguous examples of possible candidates for the transitional forms. These inconclusive examples represent what 140 years of frenzied research have produced. These sequences in the “evolutionary tree” are but scrawny branches when reason would demand numerous, even thick bushy transitional branches. 

In addition, the resolute claims of Darwinian evolution beg the question, Why does not the fossil record abound with numerous species possessing partially formed organs, such as, 20 percent feather, 80 percent scale, 75 percent wing, 25 percent leg, 60 percent foot, 40 percent fin, 12 percent flower or 88 percent spore? If evolution were a fact, then life today should still abound with these transitional organisms. Because evolutionists attempt to ignore this lack of empirical evidence in the fossil record, evolution remains just a theory without observable proof.

Prebiological Evolution

How did evolution allegedly begin in the first place? In a rather tentative letter, Charles Darwin in 1871 first proposed prebiological evolution as follows:

It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever have been present. But if (and oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, lights, heat, electricity, etc., present, that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed. (29)

Robert Shapiro observed in 1986 that Darwin's offhand speculation “is remarkably current today, which is a tribute either to his foresight or our lack of progress.”(30) A name for the theoretical model proposed by Alexander Oparin and J. B. S. Haldane in the 1920s caught journalistic imagination. The Oparin-Haldane Model became known as “prebiotic soup.” Ever since, it has become an element of scientific folklore presented to the public in books and museum exhibits as the known source of life. But, as Johnson observes, “There is no reason to believe that life has a tendency to emerge when the right chemicals are sloshing about in a soup.” (31)

The probabilities for life spontaneously exploding onto the scene are astronomically negative. The total probability of forming the proteins and DNA necessary and then transforming them into the first living entity—given astronomically large quantities of reagents and time—is 1/10,167,626. Just to write the ratio 1/10,167,626 would require 150 pages of solid zeros or about one-third of a mile string of zeros! (32)

Fred Hoyle, considered by many the dean of cosmology as well as former long-time atheist, makes a good analogy that brings the problem to understandable terms. The chances of life coming from a prebiotic soup, he says, have the same probability of occurring that a “tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.”(33)

After the highly overrated Mill-Urey “prebiotic soup” experiment in the 1950s, various diverse models of prebiological evolution have been attempted or theorized. Even computer design models, called “spontaneous self-organization,” have attempted to mimic the origin of life and its subsequent evolution. What have been the results of this tenacious research? The biological scientific community is not convinced. The respected periodical, Science, evaluated the computer models as follows:

Advocates of spontaneous organization are quick to admit that they aren’t basing their advocacy on empirical data and laboratory experiments, but on abstract mathematics and novel computer models. The biochemist G. F. Joyce commented: “They have a long way to go to persuade mainstream biologists of the relevance [of this work].” (34)

Gerald F. Joyce observed in Nature that origin-of-life researchers have grown accustomed to a “lack of relevant experimental data.” (35) A chemist with stature in the field, Robert Shapiro, candidly revealed that “the problems of explaining the origin of life have often been underestimated as investigators have exaggerated the importance of minor successes. . .[He affirmed] the existence of a naturalistic solution as a matter of faith.” Robert Shapiro commented, “We have reached a situation where a theory has been accepted as a fact by some, and possible contrary evidence is shunted aside. This condition, of course, again describes mythology rather than science.” (36)

A leading figure in prebiological evolution, Director of the Institute for Biochemistry at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, Klause Dose commented: “At present all discussions on principal theories and experiments in the field either end in stalemate or in a confession of ignorance.” (37)

Prebiotic Soup

Darwinists admit that to date there has been no evidence to validate any geochemical remnants of prebiotic molecules. This admission undermines the whole theory of evolution. Instead, the evidence is that all the carbonaceous deposits recovered from the oldest rocks are, without exception, the by-product of biological activity (as opposed to chemical evolution). Fully consistent with the discovery of life’s by-products is the discovery of fossilized bacteria, cyanobacteria, about 3.5 billion years old, found in the oldest rocks yet discovered on Earth, dating around 3.9 billion years. (38,39)

Peter Ward, Professor of Geological Sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle, and Donald Brownlee, Professor of Astronomy at the University of Washington in Seattle and leader of the NASA Stardust mission, summarized:

...as we learn more about the nature of our planet's early environments, tranquil ponds or tide pools seem less and less likely to be plausible sites for the first life, or even to have existed at all on the surface of the early Earth. What Darwin could not appreciate in his time (nor could Haldane and Oparin, for that matter) was that the mechanisms leading to the accretion of Earth (and of other terrestrial planets) produced a world that, early in its history, was harsh and poisonous, a place very far removed from the idyllic tide pool or pond envisioned in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In fact, we now have a very different view of the nature of the early Earth’s atmosphere and chemistry. It is widely believed among planetary scientists that carbon dioxide, not ammonia and methane, dominated the earliest atmosphere and that the overall conditions may not have favored the widespread synthesis of organic molecules on Earth’s surface. (40)

Norman Pace, one of the great pioneering microbiologists, admitted:

It seems fairly clear now that the early earth was, in essence, a molten ball with an atmosphere of high-pressure steam, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and other products of volcanic emissions from the differentiating planet. It seems unlikely that any landmass would have reached above the waves (of a global ocean) to form the “tide pools” invoked by some theories for the origin of life. (41)

Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vents

The presence of microbes thriving in 400oC. hydrothermal ocean floor vents suggests to some biologists where life began. Laboratory experiments indicate prebiotic molecules can form under deep-sea vent conditions.(42) As researchers concede Earth’s early atmosphere could not support prebiotic molecule formation, the appeal to deep-sea vents as a source of prebiotic molecules becomes even more important.(43) 

However, for life to originate in this environment, ammonia must be present. Laboratory experiments at Penn State and SUNY-Stony Brook recently demonstrated the unlikelihood of ammonia formation under primitive hydrothermal vent conditions. Ammonia production occurs far too slowly in insufficient quantities to sustain prebiotic molecule formation.(44) 

Inadequate ammonia production eliminates another possible source of prebiotic molecules, making the origin-of-life problem more intractable for naturalists. Without a source of prebiotic molecules, naturalistic origin-of-life pathways are blocked by additional barriers.

Simplicity or Complexity of First Life?

Contrary to the evolutionary theory that life in its minimal form is simple, evidence indicates to the contrary: life in its minimal form is chemically complex. Theoretical and experimental work with the smallest known genome [the complete set of chromosomes necessary for reproduction], M. genitalium, indicates that life requires at least 250-350 gene products.(45-48)

Biophysicist Hubert Yockey has calculated the probability of forming a single gene product as one chance in 1075. Given this probability, Yockey calculated that if the hypothetical primordial soup contained about 10⁴⁴ amino acids, a hundred billion trillion years would yield a 95 percent chance for random formation of a functional protein only 110 amino acids in length (a single gene product).(49) If we assume that the universe is about 15 billion years old, less than one trillionth of the time has passed that would be needed to make even one of the 250-350 gene products necessary for minimal life, or one of the 1,500 gene products necessary for independent life.

Origin-of-life researchers must account not only for the simultaneous appearance of 250-350 gene products, but additionally for the remarkable internal organizational structure of bacteria at the protein level, both spatially and temporally. (50,51)

Not only does Darwinian evolution remain an unproven theory, but its advocates offer an incomplete, no-start theory. If there was no prebiological evolution to generate life in its simplest form, then life could not have evolved into ever-increasing complexity until it reached the current stature in man.

Is Evolution a Fact?

Scientific fact is only verifiable by the “scientific method,” which by definition means, “the systematic pursuit of knowledge. . .through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.”(52) The theory of evolution is disqualified by science’s own ground rules. What are the facts?

1.

Evolutionists continually use micro-evolution, changes within a Genesis kind, to prove evolution. But this approach is not the point at issue. Darwinism requires macro-evolution from one Genesis kind to another Genesis kind. This “slight-of-hand” reasoning does not constitute empirical proof.

2.

Darwinists invariably employ tautological reasoning or assume an a priori posture in claiming evolution to be factual. Neither type of reasoning provides empirical confirmation—and furthermore excludes the necessity of empirical testing. If macro-evolution is assumed to be a fact, rigging the fossil records, embryo misinterpretation or arbitrary vertebrate sequence are the inevitable consequences.

3.

Although Darwinists put up a united front to the public that evolution is a fact, some of the most damaging statements to this theory are advanced by Darwinists themselves. As they vie among themselves over personal theories, discrediting one another, they leave very little work for what?

Futile Speculations 

One hundred forty years of intensive research to verify evolution has been to no avail. So why do Darwinists still tenaciously cling to this theory? The British evolutionist, D.M.S. Watson, unwittingly provided the answer: 

The theory of evolution. . .is a theory universally accepted not because it can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible. (53)

As in Israel of old, those who cut down a tree, built an idol and then worshiped it, Darwinism prepared just such a handcrafted idol (Isaiah 2:8; 44:13-17; 46:5-7). At its altar 99 percent of America’s practicing scientists pay homage. Many are not Darwinist believers, but they dare not publicly profess otherwise, or they could be purged and shunned by America’s top universities. 

In the sacred temples of Darwinism, academic freedom is a farce. For example, the veteran writer Forrest M. Mimms was dismissed by the noted periodical, Scientific American, simply because he did not believe in Darwin’s evolution. . .never mind that he never mentioned this fact in his writings.

Great publishing houses like MacMillan, Doubleday and McGraw-Hill, do not dare publish anti-evolutionary works lest they rouse the ire of the scientific establishment. After all, they publish tens of thousands of scientific books annually for secondary and college level schools.

Self-deluded scientists cling desperately to the evolution theory, not because it is observable or verifiable, not because it is scientific, not because it is reasonable—but because they refuse to accept the only alternative, creation by God.

The Apostle Paul’s words (Romans 1:20-22) reverberate down the centuries of time to our enlightened century:

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools... (NAS)