Question:
If I was straddling the fence on the evolution/creation debate, what sort of evidence would sway me either way
bc_munkee
2006-06-18 13:05:59 UTC
If I was straddling the fence on the evolution/creation debate, what sort of evidence would sway me either way
27 answers:
?
2006-06-18 13:09:02 UTC
Don't look at me, Dearheart....I'm still trying to figure out how long God's day is.
Rev Mel
2006-06-18 20:14:18 UTC
Listen, I was a creationist until I took a class on evolution. Now I know you can follow the idea that God created the universe and it took MORE than 7 days. (Anyway, how do we know just how long a day is in God's eyes.)



This is my biggest evidence:

The earth was hit by 6 big impacts. Each of those impacts led to the evolution of earth on some level.

That means that there are 7 times in earth history (relatively evenly spaced) We are in the 7th.



One more thing. If you follow the order of creation, with the exception of a few animals being in a different part of the evolution idea it syncs up.



It is OK to believe both. After all, if God created the earth in 7 human days that shows how great He is that He could do all that in just 7 days. If God took 7 billion/million years to create everything that shows how great He is because it took that long but he knew exactly what he wanted his finished product to be.
2006-06-18 20:13:16 UTC
As there is no clear evidence either way (one is extrapolation or interpolation of 'known' behaviour and the other is purely 'faith' in a text) you can only have an opinion based on your belief system.



I personally have no problem with the theory of evolution and the 'big bang' as it is the only one that seems to have anything other than a rather blind faith unsupported by anything other than faith itself.



For those that will post that how could evolution and the big bang have come about from nothing then I would answer ... where did God come from (saying it always existed is as much a cop out as matter has always existed).



I wouldn't consider sitting on the fence to be a bad position ... enjoy the view :-)



Peace out
zquax
2006-06-18 20:30:18 UTC
I don't see why it has to be either or. If God can do anything, why couldn't he have created living things through the process of evolution? Even my super-religious mom can't explain away evolution. She just believes that God caused things to evolve. There is just so much evidence of evolution (fossils, similar body structures of creatures in simialr enviroments, the birds on the galopogos islands that are the same type of bird except for a few specialized traits different on each island to help them survive better on that particualr island, etc.) The bible says that God created everything, but it doesn't say specifically that he didn't do it by means of evolution. It does say that he created everything in 7 days, but God is eternal, so a day to him could be millions of years. There's no reason why you couldn't accept evolution (which there is a lot of evidence for) as well as accepting God (who probably doesn't care as much about whether you believe in the myhtology of the bible as much as he cares that you are a good person).
PuterPrsn
2006-06-18 20:09:29 UTC
Why do you think the two are mutually exclusive? You can believe in both without any problems.



For example, evolutionists think that every living thing came from a single life source that began in the primordial soup of the new earth. They can't tell you how that life began. It was God.



Somewhere down the evolutionary path, one branch split off and the first humans came to be. How did that particular evolutionary path develop? God.



See, it's pretty easy to see both things at work - God put evolution in motion and it's still going on.
wlkonwtr1014
2006-06-18 20:20:53 UTC
According to the Biblical account of creation, the Earth is thousands, not billions of years old. The age of the Earth is important, because in order for evolution to occur, millions of years are needed. If the Earth is only 7-10 thousand years old as Creationists claim, then evolution cannot be true. This is why this is a major topic in the evolution vs. creation debate.The following dating methods are argued as evidence of a young Earth.



Accumulation of helium in the earth's atmosphere. Helium-4 is created by radioactive decay and is constantly added to the atmosphere. Helium is not light enough to escape the Earth's gravity (unlike hydrogen), and it will therefore accumulate into large quantities over time. The current level of helium in the atmosphere would accumulate in 200,000 years or less. So if this is true, the Earth must be young.



Decay of the Earth's magnetic field. Over the time that measurements have been recorded, the dipole component of the earth's magnetic field has decreased. Assuming the earth's initial magnetic field has been decreasing ever since its creation would lead to the conclusion that the Earth is young. Assuming a half-life of 1400 years based on 130 years' worth of data, the earth's magnetic field would have been impossibly high, even as few as 8,000 years ago. Therefore, based on this dating method, the Earth must be younger than that.



Accumulation of metals in the oceans. This dating method is based on the amount of metals currently present in the oceans and the amount of metals carried by rivers into the oceans each year. Assuming the amount of metals carried into the oceans by rivers has been constant since the creation of the Earth, this method indicates that the Earth is young. These estimates vary widely depending on what metal is considered. However, all metals yield an age for the Earth of much less than one billion years, using this method.



DNA and RNA comparisons

By comparing differences in the molecular sequences of DNA and RNA molecules, biochemists try to classify species by their degree of similarity at the molecular level. The validity of these calculations is controversial. For example, all frog species look similar, "but their molecules differ as much as those of mammals, a group which contains such fantastically diverse forms as the whale, the bat, and the kangaroo."(Johnson, 1991). Humans and apes do have similarities at the molecular level. However, similarities do not prove a common ancestry.



Cytochrome c.

Another molecular comparison that is made uses cytochrome c., a protein. Looking at cytochrome c. however shows that there is little difference in the percentage of divergence between bacteria and many other organisms, including seame plants, silkworms, and humans.



Mitochondrial DNA

Mitochondrial DNA has been analyzed in the study of human descent. One analysis showed that all contemporary humans were descendants of a woman who lived in Africa less than 200,000 years ago. If this is true, than all the hominid fossils found in Africa that are older than 200,000 years old could not be in the line of descent leading to modern humans. Is the molecular evidence conclusive in proving evolution? The answer has to be "No".
dandaman
2006-06-18 20:11:39 UTC
-how could there be male and female by chance and the mechanism by which they reproduce?

-now here's the evolution-killer: if two species are different and reproduce their offspring is sterile..ie. a horse and a zebra (zorse) and a donkey and a horse (mule)..so how could they evolve into new species if their genetic makeup is so different? Also the mutations that would cause this so called "evolution" mostly do not survive the next generation unless by certain circumstances...why isn't sickle-cell anemia an evolved part of humans too?

-how could an explosion (the big bang) create order?

that's why it's always good to know both sides of an issue so you can argue ur side better
yellow99balloons
2006-06-18 20:18:04 UTC
If Darwin is right, I should see other creatures evolving to be humans too, since we're the best survivors. I've yet to see a real walking man with tail.



If the theory of evolution is right, evolution is a constant motion, not by batches. Then we should be seeing concrete proofs of animals evolving in different stages.



If the theory of evolution is right, men do not need to invent aeroplanes. We just need to start growing wings. Why does it stay stagnant at the homo sapien stage?
bloomquist324
2006-06-18 20:16:13 UTC
I was raised in a staunch Catholic religion, and I have now lived without going to church, or having any religious faith for about 20 years. I have read the bible from cover to cover, and I have read science journals forever. I still can not say which is correct. Even science admits to having errors and fault, and the Bible, requires a certain amount of faith, so either way, there is no absolute. I have a come to the conclusion that there is room for both. Things have evolved, you can see that even your lifetime. But it all falls back to one thing, something had to create the original cell of life that all things evolved from.
Dragonladygold
2006-06-18 20:12:38 UTC
I think you should ask yourself, "Was Darwin's hypothesis valid?" Everybody thinks in terms of the Theory of Evolution. That theory was based on the hypothesis that survival justifies barbarism. This is totally Anti-Christ. The rest of the debate will continue until Evolution is replaced by another Theory. And Christians will debate that Theory for centuries to follow.
Stochastic
2006-06-18 21:09:20 UTC
There is no conflict between science and reiligion, even though many people try to make them conflict. Both can be true. People need to understand that it is certainly possible that God used evolution as a tool to create man and all the species on the planet.
Hums2oldies
2006-06-18 20:16:00 UTC
Why do people think that God can only create using the Kaa-zot! method? I believe in God and I also believe in the fossil record. The Bible is God's word on the man/God relationship and man/man relationships. It was never intended to be the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics for creation. The Bible tells the "who" and "why" of creation. Other than "by God's will" it does not attempt to explain "how". The all powerful God I believe in can create by any method He chooses - including evolutionary .
2006-06-18 20:10:20 UTC
Read, watch and listen. There are many books/programmes and museums dedicated to gaining a greater understanding of how we got here and how we progressed from the earliest forms of life. There is but one, very old book that has been translated by various humans each with their own agenda, to back up the creationist side
2006-06-18 20:09:38 UTC
All the Christians will say read the Bible. I believe in evolution and want you to think for yourself. I want you to go and expiriment with genetics and the fossil record and carbon dating.



My believe in evolution does not require you to believe as I do. But my believe system can be proven with expiriments. So after looking at the results of those expiriments, you can choose to ignore the results on your own.
juliette
2006-06-18 20:21:49 UTC
Scriptures do not rule out evolution. Evolution does not rule out creation. Even in the oldest days when men kept remembrance of things they noticed on the earth only by word of mouth and no written language... people saw evidence of the dinosaurs. I know that wooly mammoths are mentioned in scriptures. Just because scriptures say the world was created six thousand years ago..does not necessarily mean literally to us alive now, six thousand years ago. After Moses wrote that.. consider..that itself was more than six thousand years ago.. and what he wrote.. was knowledge men had collected over millenia themselves and passed down by mouth as six thousand years.for perhaps many thousands and thousands of years after they collected the knowledge of six thousand years ago..and so on and so on. That knowledge was not written down until well after men had discovered they could use written language.. It is wise to consider how men collected data and disseminated it over millenia, rather than to assume that six thousand years as we know it now.means the same as it did well over ten thousand years ago then.
blueowlboy
2006-06-18 20:09:45 UTC
That evolution (speciation) has been observed to occur in a lab under scientific conditions and creationism has not.
love_2b_curious
2006-06-18 20:09:28 UTC
Just simply reading the Bible!

Although most people won't do it, those I know that have, don't seem to remain ignorant very much longer for some reason?
2006-06-18 20:08:02 UTC
My personal opinion is that God created every form of life he wanted to through evolution.
digilook
2006-06-18 20:11:10 UTC
I don't know about you, I Know there is a God. With a lot of people it seems to be "whichever way the wind blows" the hardest. Peace and Love
?
2006-06-18 20:07:42 UTC
1 John 2:22

Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is the anti christ that denieth the Father and the Son
Hatikvah
2006-06-18 20:16:16 UTC
Don't worry your pretty little head about it. Get out there and do something to make THIS world a better place for all humanity!
js8incher
2006-06-18 20:10:24 UTC
how about the fact that human beings have evolved since the 1800s is that proof enough?
eye.surg
2006-06-18 20:07:30 UTC
fossil history of the various types of early man
crash
2006-06-18 20:21:11 UTC
Faith...as it is the substance of things hoped for the EVIDENCE of things not seen.
2006-06-18 20:07:47 UTC
look in the mirror. what do you see? Did this this happen by chance?
Kenny ♣
2006-06-18 20:18:05 UTC
Turtles, man, it's all about the turtles.
hutson
2006-06-23 00:31:30 UTC
Science itself refutes Darwinism. Science is disproving evolution more every day. There is less evidence for evolution today than there was when Charles Darwin first came up with the theory (hypothesis). There are a lot of scientists that don't believe in evolution, and more are changing their beliefs all the time.

With all the evidence against it I really don't see how any open minded intelligent human being could believe in evolution. With the lack of proof for evolution it takes more faith to believe in evolution than it does to believe in creation and intelligent design. There is a lot more evidence for intelligent design than there is for evolution.



* It is true that during the 20th century, many scientists accepted Evolutionism, in part or in whole. As secular science writer Richard Milton recently observed:



"An important factor in bringing about the universal dominance and acceptance of Darwinian evolution has been that virtually every eminent professional scientist appointed to posts in the life sciences in the last 40 or 50 years, in the English-speaking world, has been a convinced Darwinist. These men, as well as occupying powerful and important academic teaching positions, were also prolific and important writers whose influence has been widespread in forming the consensus."



These names include such men as Gavin de Beer, Julian Huxley, J.B.S. Haldane, C.H. Waddington, Ernst Mayr, Theodosius Dobzhansky and George Simpson.

Despite strong pressure to accept evolutionism, many intelligent and experienced scientists either openly or secretly dismiss Evolution as highly unlikely or impossible. In the 1980s, researcher and lecturer David Watson noted an increasing trend that continues today, disturbing those who want evolutionism to be perceived as the accepted scientific consensus:





"A tidal wave of new books threaten to shatter that confidence, titles like Darwin Retried (1971), Macbeth; The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong (1982), Hitching; The Great Evolution Mystery (1983), Taylor; The Bone Peddlers: Selling Evolution (1984), Fix; Darwin Was Wrong - A Study in Probabilities (1984), Cohen; Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth (1987), Lovtrup; and Adam and Evolution (1984), Pitman. Not one of these books was written from a Christian-apologetic point of view: they are concerned only with scientific truth - as was Sir Ernst Chain when he called evolution 'a fairy tale'."



As Science Digest reported:



"Scientists who utterly reject Evolution may be one of our fastest-growing controversial minorities. Many of the scientists supporting this position hold impressive credentials in science."



One example is the late Dr. Arthur E. Wilder-Smith, an honored scientist with an amazing three earned doctorates. He held many distinguished positions. A former Evolutionist, Dr. Wilder-Smith debated various leading scientists on the subject throughout the world. In his opinion, the Evolution model did not fit as well with the established facts of science as did the Creation model of intelligent design.

"The Evolutionary model says that it is not necessary to assume the existence of anything, besides matter and energy, to produce life. That proposition is unscientific. We know perfectly well that if you leave matter to itself, it does not organize itself - in spite of all the efforts in recent years to prove that it does."

Secular researcher Richard Milton summarized the current world situation: "Darwinism has never had much appeal for science outside of the English-speaking world, and has never appealed much to the American public (although popular with the U.S. scientific establishment in the past). However, its ascendancy in science, in both Britain and America, has been waning for several decades as its grip has weakened in successive areas: geology; paleontology; embryology; comparative anatomy. Now even geneticists are beginning to have doubts. It is only in mainstream molecular biology and zoology that Darwinism retains serious enthusiastic supporters. As growing numbers of scientists begin to drift away from neo-Darwinist ideas, the revision of Darwinism at the public level is long overdue, and is a process that I believe has already started."



Partial list of Creationist scientists

(past and present)



600+ voting scientists of the Creation Research Society (voting membership requires at least an earned master's degree in a recognized area of science).



150 Ph.D. scientists and 300 other scientists with masters degrees in science or engineering are members of the Korea Association of Creation Research. The President of KACR is the distinguished scientist and Professor Young-Gil Kim of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. Ph.D. in Materials Science, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute / highly distinguished / inventor of various important high-tech alloys.



(Note: The following list is very incomplete. Inclusion of any person on this list is in no way an endorsement, nor does it necessarily indicate anything about their religious beliefs.)



Gerald E. Aardsma (physicist and radiocarbon dating)



Louis Agassiz (helped develop the study of glacial geology and of ichthyology)



Alexander Arndt (analytical chemist, etc.) [more info]



Steven A. Austin (geologist and coal formation expert) [more info]



Charles Babbage (helped develop science of computers / developed actuarial tables and the calculating machine)



Francis Bacon (developed the Scientific Method)



Thomas G. Barnes (physicist) [more info]



Robert Boyle (helped develop sciences of chemistry and gas dynamics)



Wernher von Braun (pioneer of rocketry and space exploration)



David Brewster (helped develop science of optical mineralogy)



Arthur V. Chadwick (geologist) [more info]



Melvin Alonzo Cook (physical chemist, Nobel Prize nominee) [more info]



Georges Cuvier (helped develop sciences of comparative anatomy and vertebrate paleontology)



Humphry Davy (helped develop science of thermokinetics)



Donald B. DeYoung (physicist, specializing in solid-state, nuclear science and astronomy) [more info]



Henri Fabre (helped develop science of insect entomology)



Michael Faraday (helped develop science of electromagnetics / developed the Field Theory / invented the electric generator)



Danny R. Faulkner (astronomer) [more info]



Ambrose Fleming (helped develop science of electronics / invented thermionic valve)



Robert V. Gentry (physicist and chemist) [more info]



Duane T. Gish (biochemist) [more info]



John Grebe (chemist) [more info]



Joseph Henry (invented the electric motor and the galvanometer / discovered self-induction)



William Herschel (helped develop science of galactic astronomy / discovered double stars / developed the Global Star Catalog)



George F. Howe (botanist) [more info]



D. Russell Humphreys (award-winning physicist) [more info]



James P. Joule (developed reversible thermodynamics)



Johann Kepler (helped develop science of physical astronomy / developed the Ephemeris Tables)



John W. Klotz (geneticist and biologist) [more info]



Leonid Korochkin (geneticist) [more info]



Lane P. Lester (geneticist and biologist) [more info]



Carolus Linnaeus (helped develop sciences of taxonomy and systematic biology / developed the Classification System)



Joseph Lister (helped develop science of antiseptic surgery)



Frank L. Marsh (biologist) [more info]



Matthew Maury (helped develop science of oceanography/hydrography)



James Clerk Maxwell (helped develop the science of electrodynamics)



Gregor Mendel (founded the modern science of genetics)



Samuel F. B. Morse (invented the telegraph)



Isaac Newton (helped develop science of dynamics and the discipline of calculus / father of the Law of Gravity / invented the reflecting telescope)



Gary E. Parker (biologist and paleontologist) [more info]



Blaise Pascal (helped develop science of hydrostatics / invented the barometer)



Louis Pasteur (helped develop science of bacteriology / discovered the Law of Biogenesis / invented fermentation control / developed vaccinations and immunizations)



William Ramsay (helped develop the science of isotopic chemistry / discovered inert gases)



John Ray (helped develop science of biology and natural science)



Lord Rayleigh (helped develop science of dimensional analysis)



Bernhard Riemann (helped develop non-Euclidean geometry)



James Simpson (helped develop the field of gynecology / developed the use of chloroform)



Nicholas Steno (helped develop the science of stratigraphy)



George Stokes (helped develop science of fluid mechanics)



Charles B. Thaxton (chemist) [more info]



William Thompson (Lord Kelvin) (helped develop sciences of thermodynamics and energetics / invented the Absolute Temperature Scale / developed the Trans-Atlantic Cable)



Larry Vardiman (astrophysicist and geophysicist) [more info]



Leonardo da Vinci (helped develop science of hydraulics)



Rudolf Virchow (helped develop science of pathology)



A.J. (Monty) White (chemist) [more info]



A.E. Wilder-Smith (chemist and pharmacology expert) [more info]



John Woodward (helped develop the science of paleontology)



A more thorough list of current (and past) Creationist scientists is not provided for two reasons: (1) A complete list would be extremely lengthy, and (2) Some scientists would rather not have their name made public due to justified fear of job discrimination and persecution in today's atmosphere of limited academic freedom in Evolutionist-controlled institutions.





See our partial list of Creation-scientists with earned doctorates in science



Partial list of Creation-science organizations and addresses



Institute for Creation Research, P.O. Box 2667, El Cajon, California 92021, U.S.A. - www.icr.org



Creation Research Society, P.O. Box 969, Ashland, Ohio 44805-0969, U.S.A. E-mail: wolfrom@aol.com



Geoscience Research Institute, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, California 92350, U.S.A.



Access Research Network, P.O. Box 38069, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80937-8069, U.S.A.



Answers in Genesis, Australia (formerly Creation Science Foundation), P.O. Box 6302, Acacia Ridge DC, Queensland 4110, AUSTRALIA.



Answers in Genesis, P.O. Box 6330, Florence, Kentucky 41022-9937, U.S.A. - www.AnswersInGenesis.org



Creation Science Association, P.O. Box 821, Station A, Scarborough, Ontario M1K 5C8, CANADA.



Creation Magazine UK, Ltd., P.O. Box 770, Highworth, Wiltshire SN6 7TU, UNITED KINGDOM.



Korea Association for Creation Research, Olympian Building, Room 811, 196-7 Jamilbou-dorg, Songpua-Ku, Seoul, SOUTH KOREA.



Bible and Science of Japan, c/o Dr. Masami Usami, 1-4-41 Kamimito, Mito-Shi, Ibaraki-Ken 310, JAPAN.



Christian Center for Science and Apologetics, ul. Gogolia 33-8, Simferopol, 95011, Crimea, UKRAINE - http://west.crimea.com/~creation/





REFERENCES



Richard Milton, Shattering the Myths of Darwinism (Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press, 1992, 1997), p. 12.



David C.C. Watson, "Book Reviews," Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Terre Haute, Indiana: March 1989), p. 200 (emphasis added).]



Larry Hatfield, "Educators Against Darwin," Science Digest Special (Winter 1979), pp. 94-96.



Arthur Ernest Wilder-Smith: Chemist / Lecturer / Creationist / Ph.D. in physical organic chemistry at University of Reading, England (1941) / Dr.es.Sc. in pharmacological sciences from Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) in Zurich / D.Sc. in pharmacological sciences from University of Geneva (1964) / F.R.I.C. (Fellow of the Royal Institute of Chemistry) / Professorships held at numerous institutions including: University of Illinois Medical School Center (Visiting Full Professor of Pharmacology, 1959-61, received 3 "Golden apple" awards for the best course of lectures), University of Geneva School of Medicine, University of Bergen (Norway) School of Medicine, Hacettepe University (Ankara, Turkey) Medical School, etc. / Former Director of Research for a Swiss pharmaceutical company / Presented the 1986 Huxley Memorial Lecture at the invitation of the University of Oxford / Author or co-author of over 70 scientific publications and more than 30 books published in 17 languages / Dr. Wilder-Smith was also a NATO three-star general. He was featured in the motion picture series ORIGINS: How the World Came to Be.



Arthur E. Wilder-Smith in Willem J.J. Glashouwer and Paul S. Taylor, The Origin of the Universe (PO Box 200, Gilbert AZ 85299 USA: Eden Communications and Standard Media, 1983).



Richard Milton, Shattering the Myths of Darwinism (Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press, 1992, 1997), p. 277.



For Further Reading



Henry M. Morris, A History of Modern Creationism (Santee, California: Master Books, 1984) (surveys the origin and history of the Creation Research Society, the Institute for Creation Research, and various other Creationist organizations in the U.S. and overseas), and Men of Science - Men of God (Santee, California: Master Books, 1982), 128 pp. (includes biographies of 65 prominent "Bible-believing" scientists of the past).



Ann Lamont, 21 Great Scientists Who Believed the Bible" (Acacia Ridge, Australia: Answers in Genesis), pp. 9-12.



Paul A. Bartz, "Religious Bigots Expel Scientific Giants from Classroom!: Kepler, Pasteur and Maxwell Replaced with Darwin, Huxley," Bible-Science Newsletter, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Minneapolis: Bible-Science Association, March 1989), pp. 3, 14.

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-scientists.html



* Evolution isn't mathematically possible. The complexity of life points to Intelligent Design as revealed by such complex structures as:



* Cells and DNA

In Darwin's time, scientists thought cells were just blobs of protoplasm. Since that time the advance of science has uncovered ever more powerful evidence that what Christians believe is true on all levels, including the natural world. And that is becoming even clearer today as scientists learn more about what is inside the cell-and especially the structure of DNA.



According to cell biologist Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences, "The entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines."



Even the simplest cells are bristling with high-tech machinery. On the outside, their surfaces are studded with sensors, gates, pumps and identification markers.



Inside, cells are jam-packed with power plants, automated workshops and recycling units. Miniature monorails whisk materials from one location to another. No such system could arise in a blind, step-by-step Darwinian process.



The most advanced, automated modern factory, with its computers and robots all coordinated on a precisely timed schedule, is less complex than the inner workings of a single cell.



"A bacterium is far more complex than any inanimate system known to man. There is not a laboratory in the world which can compete with the biochemical activity of the smallest living organism. One cell is more complicated than the largest computer that man has ever made." - Sir James Gray, from Cambridge University



DNA is like a language in the heart of the cell, a molecular message, a set of instructions telling the cell how to construct proteins-much like the software needed to run a computer. Moreover, the amount of information DNA includes is staggering: A single cell of the human body contains three or four times more information as all 30 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica. As a result, the question of the origin of life must now be redefined as the question of the origin of biological information. Can information arise by natural forces alone? Or does it require an intelligent agent?



DNA is composed of ordinary chemicals (bases, sugars, phosphates that react according to ordinary laws. What makes DNA function as a message is not the chemicals themselves but rather their sequence, their pattern. The chemicals in DNA are grouped into molecules (called nucleotides) that act like letters in a message, and they must be in a particular order if the message is going to be intelligible. If the letters are scrambled, the result is nonsense. So the crucial question is whether the sequence of chemical "letters" arose by natural causes or whether it required an intelligent source. Is it the product of law or design?



Since DNA contains information, the case can be stated even more strongly in terms of information theory, a field of research that investigates the ways information is transmitted. The naturalistic scientist has only two possible ways to explain the origin of life-either chance or natural law. But information theory provides a powerful tool for discounting both of these explanations. Both chance and law lead to structures with low information content, whereas DNA has a very high information content."



The sequence of basis in DNA can not be explained by natural law because there are no chemical laws that make any sequence more likely than another. At the same time these sequences are so complicated that they can not be explained by chance.



"Based on probability factors any viable DNA strand having over 84 nucleotides cannot be the result of haphazard mutations. At that stage, the probabilities are 1 in 4.80 x 10. Such a number, if written out, would read:



480,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000.



"Mathematicians agree that any requisite number beyond 10 has, statistically, a zero probability of occurrence (and even that gives it the benefit of the doubt!). Any species known to us, including the smallest single-cell bacteria, have enormously larger number of nucleotides than 100 or 1000. In fact, single cell bacteria display about 3,000,000 nucleotides, aligned in a very specific sequence. This means that there is no mathematical probability whatever for any known species to have been the product of a random occurrence—random mutations (to use the evolutionist's favorite expression)."—I. L. Cohen, Darwin was Wrong, 1984, p. 205.



The study of DNA provides powerful new evidence that life is the product of intelligent design.



Today, holding on to the hope that some natural process will be found to explain DNA is supremely irrational. The elusive process that naturalists hope to find would have to be completely unprecedented, different in kind from any we currently know.



Although humans share about 97% of their DNA structure with some higher non-human animals, those last 3% are so vital that all of human civilization, religion, art, science, philosophy and, most importantly, their moral nature depends upon it.



It is the 3% that distinguishes the theistic view of man's origin from the non-theistic view, as well as from the various societal and cultural consequences distinguishing each belief. As John Quincy Adams warned long ago, without a belief in theistic origins [in that three percent difference] man will have no conscience. He will have no other law than that of the tiger and the shark."



ON ALL FRONTS, scientists are being forced to face up to the evidence for an intelligent cause. Ever since big bang theory was proposed, cosmologists have had to wrestle with the implications that the universe had an absolute beginning-and therefore a transcendent creator. The discovery of the information content in DNA is forcing biologists to recognize an intelligent cause for the origin of life. So, too, the fact of irreducible complexity is raising the question of design in living things.

http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/biology.htm



* The Fossil Record



Darwin believed that the fossil record would reveal thousands or millions of life forms which would demonstrate a gradual change from one kind to another (called transitional forms).



But the fossil record has been against the Darwinian theory from the very beginning. It's true that different kinds of organisms lived on the earth at different times. But what is not seen in the fossil record is the steady progressive change of one kind of thing into something completely different. Instead, if something new shows up in the rocks, it shows up all at once and fully formed, and then it stays the same.



If evolution means the steady progressive change of one kind of thing into something completely different, then the fossil record contradicts evolution.



Given the absence of transitional forms in the fossil record, evolutionists quietly acknowledge this is still a "research issue".



There is virtually nothing in the fossil record that can be used as evidence of a transitional life form When apparent examples of useful mutations are examined thoroughly, it becomes clear that no transitional creatures exist anywhere in the fossil record.



John Bonner, a biologist at Princeton, writes that traditional textbook discussions of ancestral descent are "a festering mass of unsupported assertions." In recent years, paleontologists have retreated from simple connect-the-dot scenarios linking earlier and later species. Instead of ladders, they now talk of bushes. What we see in the fossils, according to this view, are only the twigs, the final end-products of evolution, while the key transitional forms which would give a clue about the origin of major animal groups remain completely hidden.



The blank spots on evolutionary "tree" charts occur at just the points where, according to Darwin's theory, the crucial changes had to take place. The direct ancestors of all the major orders: primates, carnivores, and so forth are completely missing. There is no fossil evidence for a "grandparent" of the monkey, for example. "Modern gorillas, orangutans, and chimpanzees spring out of nowhere," writes paleontologist Donald Johansen. "They are here today; they have no yesterday." The same is true of giraffes, elephants, wolves, and all species; they all simply burst upon the scene de novo [anew], as it were.



So many questions arise in the study of fossils (paleontology) that even many evolutionary paleontologists put little stock in the fossil record. Basing one's belief in evolution on the shaky ground of paleontology can scarcely be considered scientific.



"We are about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million species but the situation hasn't changed much. The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time." - Dr. David M. Raup, Curator of Geology, Museum of Natural History, Chicago



The fossil record is often so sparse that there are numerous cases where groups survived for tens of millions of years without leaving a single fossil.



The lack of the hypothesized intermediates between one species and another is a significant criticism of Darwinism. If land animals truly came from sea creatures, there should be ample evidence of this, such as fossils of fish with their fins turning into legs. Darwin wrote in his Origin of Species that "innumerable transitional forms must have existed." The predicted large numbers of fossil intermediate forms have never been found.

http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/fossil.htm



* The Cambrian Explosion

Nearly all animal phyla made their first appearance in the fossil record at essentially the same time, an interval of some 5 million years (about 525 to 530 million years ago) called the "Cambrian Explosion.



Scientists have found that these early fossils exhibit more anatomical body designs than exist today, and that early animals, the trilobites, had eyes as fully developed as their counterparts today.



Many of the Cambrian fauna, still survive today, all looking much like they did over 500 million years ago. The prominent British evolutionist, Richard Dawkins, comments, "... We find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history.



Two places in the world that have an abundance of early (Cambrian) fossils; the Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies and the Chengjiang site in China.



In Stephen J. Gould's popular book, Wonderful Life, he points out that the Burgess Shale Cambrian fossils include "a range of disparity in anatomical design never again equaled, and not matched today by all the creatures in the world's oceans.



Further, these fossils contain some twenty to thirty kinds of arthropods*** that cannot be placed in any modern group. The modern arthropods, consisting of almost a million species, can all fit into four major groups. But "one quarry in British Columbia, representing the first explosion of multicellular life, reveals more than twenty additional arthropod designs." Today there are about 38 phyla in existence, but the Canadian, Chinese and other Cambrian sites reveal over fifty phyla.



There has been a decrease in diversity (probably due to global catastrophes). This is the reverse of what evolutionary theory predicts.



Besides diversity, the Burgess Shale shows exquisite detail, right down to "the last filament of a trilobite's gill," or the last meal in a worm's gut.



The Chengjiang site has even greater detail, and is earlier. According to Paul Chien, the chairman of the biology department at the University of San Francisco, said the preservation is such that internal organs, nerves, and even the water ducts of jellyfish are observable.



Researchers found striking similarities between the compound eyes of the Cambrian trilobites and those of modern insects. According to Riccardo Levi-Setti, "Trilobites could see in their immediate environment with amazingly sophisticated optical devices in the form of large composite eyes. ... The number of individual optical elements in the compound eye could vary from approximately one hundred to more than fifteen thousand in a single eye, a range not very different from that found in modern insects.



The conclusion is that the eye, a complex visual system, was fully formed and functional extremely early in the fossil record. Obviously, this is not predicted by evolutionary theory.



Until recently, the phylum of vertebrates had been considered a later arrival in evolutionary history. But not now! Even the vertebrate phylum now extends into the Cambrian period, especially with the recent discovery of two fossil fish in China.



The two new fossils from Chengjiang are the most convincing Early Cambrian vertebrates ever found. The insects and other land invertebrates are also a very important group, and these practically all seem to be living fossils.



These complex animals were present at the beginning of multicellular life and did not appear later as is predicted by evolutionary theory.



Evolution does not explain the abrupt appearance of complex forms of life early in the fossil record or these fossils' unequaled diversity. The implication of the Cambrian explosion of diverse, fully functional, and multicellular life is that evolutionary theory is falsified.



Life did not start out simple and evolve into more complex and diverse animals; it was complex and diverse right at the beginning. This contradiction between the fossil data and the predictions of evolutionary theory falsifies the theory.



"The facts of paleontology seem to support creation rather than evolution. All the major groups of invertebrates appear suddenly in the first fossiliferous strata. (Cambrian) of the earth with their distinct specializations, indicating that they were all created at almost the same time." - David Enock Associate Professor of Biology. BS Yeshiva College, MS Hunter College



Even George Gaylord Simpson, Harvard high priest of evolution had to admit, “In spite of the examples, it remains true (as every paleontologist knows) that most new species, genera and families appear in the record suddenly, and are not led up to by known, gradual, completely continuous transitional sequences.

http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/explosion.htm



* Scientific evidence that dinosaurs and humans really did coexist together are the numerous intermingled dinosaur and human tracks that have been found in the riverbed of the Paluxy River in Texas for more than fifty years. In addition, 3,000 dinosaur footprints with human footprints right alongside them were recently discovered in Turkmenistan.

http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/dinosaurs.htm



* Biological Evidence

Evolution - Fact or Faith?



"The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an unproved theory. Is it then a science or a faith? Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief in special creation. Both are concepts which believers know to be true but neither up to the present has been capable of proof."

L. Harrison Matthews FRS - Introduction to Darwin's Origin of Species - 1971 p.11



"It is incredible that most leading scientists dogmatically insist that the molecules-to-man evolution theory be taught as a fact to the exclusion of all other postulates. Evolution in this broad sense is unproven and unprovable and thus cannot be considered as fact. It is not subject to test by the ordinary methods of experimental science - observation and falsification. It does not, in a strict sense, even qualify as a scientific theory." Dr. D. Gish (biochemist) Evolution: The Fossils Still Say No! p.12-13 (1995)



Points to Ponder

Under the right conditions, enzymes have the ability to bring about a combining of otherwise reluctant ingredients and enzymes are able to do this at speeds which get the job done almost instantaneously. Without the thousands of different enzymes within every cell, life would just not be possible. Cells are unequalled masters of efficient chemistry, but for a cell to produce just one enzyme it requires the action of at least 50 different other enzymes. So enzymes are needed to produce enzymes. This fact places us on the horns of a dilemma, for "How did the first enzymes … ever come into being in the first place?" Lester J. McCann - Professor Emeritus in Biology, Quoted in Creation - July 1996 - p.10



This is your life!

A single cell in the human body contains 2 metres of DNA packed into a nucleus only 5 thousandths of a millimetre across. DNA has been described as the 'marvellous message molecule' for it is a vast library of coded commands. Its job is to store the genetic blueprint safely and pass it on unchanged from cell to cell and from generation to generation. The information travelling on the DNA from mother and father is the 'instruction manual' which enables the machinery in the fertilized egg to construct the new living organism from the raw materials. It determines whether the final product will be a hippo, a hamster, a hyena or a human.

If you attempted to store the information packed on DNA on to video tapes it has been calculated it would take a million million (a trillion) tapes!!!!

New Scientist - Nov. 26th, 1994 - p.17

There are estimated to be 75 trillion cells in the human body. If we were to unravel all the DNA and place it end to end it would stretch 90 billion miles (150 billion kilometres). That is the same as travelling from the earth to the sun 1000 times!!! If you attempted to cover this distance travelling at 100 mph non-stop it would take you an estimated 106,000 years!!!

The question therefore arises, 'Where did this code and information come from?', for information never arises spontaneously but originates from a mind. God is the Great Programmer and the amazing DNA molecule is just one of His masterpieces.

http://www.case-creation.org.uk/biolo1.html



* Scientific evidence casts serious doubts on the theory of evolution, for example:



* The Fossil Record (Updated 3 July, 2005)

http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/fossil.htm



* Living "Fossils"

http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/living.htm



* The Cambrian Explosion

http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/explosion.htm



* New T.Rex Discoveries (Updated 10 June, 2005)

http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/t-rex.htm



* "Missing Links"

http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/misslinks.htm



* Anthropic Principle

http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/anthropic.htm



* Irreducible complexity

http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/irreducible.htm



* Biological Evidence

http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/biology.htm



* The Moon

http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/moon.htm



* Earth's Fight Against Solar Attacks

http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/earthfight.htm



* Scientific arguments against evolution:

Science itself refutes Darwinism

http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/arguments.shtml



* The Origins of Darwinism

http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/origins.shtml



* Darwinism is Racist

http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/racist.shtml



* Evidence for Intelligent Design

http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/intelligent-design.shtml



* Creation Science

http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/creationscience.shtml



* Evidence For A Young Earth and Universe

http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/youngearth.shtml



* Age of man:

The Race of Man Is Younger Than Previously Thought

http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/ageofman.shtml



* Darwinism Is Strongly Rooted But Is Being Challenged

http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/summary.shtml



* References

http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/references.shtml



* Do real scientists believe in Creation?

Partial list of Creation Scientists

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-scientists.html



* http://www.drdino.com/


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
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