GSI Articles:
Creation vs Evolution
Q & A Dialog
© Sid Galloway BS, M.Div.
Just an old sheepdog of the Good Shepherd
Genesis 1:1
Communicating conclusions from 100's of PhD scholars
Supporting the authority of His Word
& the consistency of His character
Human Rights? Slavery? - Animal Rights? Cruelty?
What about God's right to command compassion for all of His creatures?
- The evolutionist's critiques of creationists are underlined and in red font below.
- Then
Sid's responses are in italics after each critique:
“Like many others on this forum, you too do not understand even the basics of evolution. Here is why:”
“1) Evolution says nothing for the origin of the universe”
* Sid’s response:
Your willingness to dialog and examine the evidence together is commendable, since so few people are willing today to think issues through. This initial statement that “evolution says nothing for the origin of the universe” is only partially accurate. It’s true that biological evolutionists often do not address the origin of stuff (space, time, matter, and energy – the Universe). However, cosmological evolutionists definitely do speak about the origin of the Universe, proposing various versions of the big bang – steady state, etc. The reason that most biological evolutionists do not address the origin of matter, energy, etc, is that Darwin’s theory and that of neo-Darwinism is based upon the “natural selection” process that involves living organisms. Therefore, biologists generally stick to discussing only the evolution (micro/horizontal and macro/vertical) of unicellular and multicellular organisms. However, all evolutionists in order to present a comprehensive model of the evolution of life must ultimately deal with the origin of “stuff” from nothing and then with the origin of a living cell with its DNA from non-living chemicals. The claim of stuff from nothing is mathematically untenable since 0 + 0 = 0 and so Nobody + Nothing could not have produced everything. Secondarily, the scientific “law” of Biogenesis states that life can only arise from previous life, never from non-life by spontaneous generation. All biologists accept this law for everything known in biology, except for the first living cell. This is blind faith, not a logical inference from the actual biological evidence. Miller and Urey’s experiments were a failure – involving not only intelligent designers (Miller and Urey), but they could only produce left and right handed amino acids that in a natural environment would have cancelled each other out. Keep in mind, it requires the wonderfully complex DNA coded information to build a cell, and yet a cell with its intricately complex city of nano-machines is necessary to build a DNA molecule of coded information. Therefore neither could have arisen before the other. They both logically must have come into existence simultaneously at some point in history. There is no known chemical or biological mechanism to make this happen. This is why so many scientists are becoming Intelligent Design Theorists every year, rejecting the underlying hypotheses of macro(vertical) evolution.
* Use the associated search boxes for scores of technical articles on this issue at:
www.answersingenesis.org
www.creation.com
www.icr.org
“2) The modern theory of evolution is not the same as Darwin's theory of evolution - a lot has happened in the last 150 years.”
* Sid’s response:
This is correct, yet unwittingly misleading. Neo-Darwinism is now a fragmented field ranging from gradualism to punctuated equilibrium. By the way, adaptation of populations through natural selection (just as artificial selection through breeding) was then and is now a process fully accepted by scientists who are creationists and theists. Darwin did not have the privilege of knowing about genes, mutations, etc, therefore he merely hypothesized that natural selection somehow over time could not only quantitatively change organism’s beak size or hair color, but could change them gradually into qualitatively new kinds of organisms. This was a reasonable assumption in his time period. However, after decades (150 years) of genetics research, no mechanism, not even mutations, has been found that can add the new genetic information to a genome that would be necessary in order for “survival of the fittest” to naturally select it. In fact, Dr. John Sanford of Cornell University (inventor of the Gene Gun) in his book, GENETIC ENTROPY, and Dr. Lee Spetner of Johns Hopkins University in his book, NOT BY CHANCE, along with hundreds of other respected geneticists have shown that no known mutation has ever been found to functionally create new genetic information that could ever cumulatively produce new “kinds” of genera, families, orders, classes, phyla, kingdoms. This is even the case with bacteria populations that become resistant to antibiotics. Mutations in the cell wall cause a loss of information and thus a loss of functional ability to transport materials across the wall/membrane, in other words less able than normal bacteria. This helps the mutant bacteria only in a temporary way by preventing the absorption of the antibiotic, but also hinders the absorption of needed nutrients. Therefore these pathogens only survive well in the hospital environment where antibiotics kill off the normal (non-mutant bacteria) that compete with the mutants. These mutated bacteria are not able to compete with normal bacteria in normal environments (that is, in human bodies that are no longer pumped full of antibiotics).
* Use the associated search boxes for scores of technical articles on this issue at:www.answersingenesis.org
www.creation.com
www.icr.org
“3) Adaptation (or microevolution) is the foundation of macroevolution. These are the SAME processes but on different scales - microevolution are changes on the species level, while macroevolution are changes above the level of species. While this might lead you to believe that microevolution can occur without macroevolution as a consequence, this is untrue. The very definition of species in itself is vague and should not be used as a division point (how do you define species?)”
* Sid’s response:
It is true that “species” is a very inaccurate and arbitrary categorization, originally coined to mean an exclusive group that alone is able to interbreed. It is now known that many separate species and even separate genera can interbreed and produce viable, fertile offspring (look up Zorse, Zonkey, Wolphin, Comma – Camel x Llama). However, the above claim about micro vs. macro evolution is inaccurate, though often repeated in many textbooks. Genetically, macroevolution is a term claiming that there has been a process with a mechanism to vertically change organisms into qualitatively new organisms over time from an original prokaryotic bacterium to the wonderfully information rich genomes that exist all over the earth. In contrast, microevolution is merely horizontal selection, which is the sorting, and/or loss of existing genes and gene linkages. This is the same as breeding (artificially selecting) dogs. No new genetic information is generated. In fact, each breed’s gene pool has less alleles (alternative forms of genes) than the parent pairs. A population of poodles could never alone be bred back to a wolf-like ancestor. They have lost the alleles for thick under fur, etc. Furthermore, you could breed any group of dogs forever and you would only get dogs, never a qualitatively new kind of creature. This is because, as mentioned previously, there is no mechanism to generate new genetic information vertically. Mutations are copying errors that cause a net loss of information. Note that all known dog mutations are always destructive as well (Dalmatian deafness, etc). This is a downward, devolving of the genome, not an upward vertical evolution. This degradation of all genomes is well demonstrated in Dr. Sanford’s book, GENETIC ENTROPY. Mutation meltdown is a very real and serious problem for all organisms’ populations, especially humans.
“4) Contrary to what your Christian propaganda may have told you, evolution of life beyond the level of species HAS indeed been observed multiple times under both controlled laboratory conditions and in nature.”
* Sid’s response:
First of all, remember that above it has been agreed that the definition of “species” is a very fluid and imprecise categorization. Secondly, there is no known example of a qualitatively new “kind” of organism being created by selection (natural or artificial), and not even by induced mutations experimentally as with the fruit fly or bacterial colonies. After decades of experiments and countless generations of induced mutation, the bacterial colonies are still bacteria and the fruit flies are still fruit flies – though the flies are very messed up, grossly dysfunctional mutants. Instead of upward evolution, downward devolution, dysfunction, dis-ease, and death are the reality seen by real, objective, observational, and experimental science.
“5) Changes that occur in evolution are never permanent - all traits are subject to continued change.”
* Sid’s response:
This is true and a fact that all knowledgeable creationists have taught long before, during, and after Darwin. Variation and adaptation were taught by non-evolutionary scientists long before Darwin. And today, one of the most accurate models for the continued change and branching that results from adaptation (selection) of existing genes is “baraminology”, a field developed by scientists who rejected macroevolution and further refined as time has progressed by men such as Dr. Kurt Wise, who received his PhD from Harvard under one of the most famous evolutionist, Dr. Stephen J. Gould. Dr. Wise however is a biblical creationist.
“6) There is ample evidence linking species together - its called genetics”
* Sid’s response:
Yes the genetic code is almost universal. Until recently, it was thought that the genetic code was fully universal to all organisms, but recent findings have revealed some fascinating exceptions to the rule. Use the search boxes at CMI, AiG, or ICR for scores of related articles. Nevertheless, it is both agreed and obvious that virtually all organisms have a similar DNA language (A, T, C, G) with a similar process for information storage, replication, error correction, transcription, translation, expression, etc. However, the assumption that this proves a common ancestor through evolution is not the only logical inference, nor is it even the best logical inference. Since everything known in science demonstrates that information always arises from intelligence and not by chance, then the most logical assumption for genetic similarity is a common Designer, who used a common blueprint for effectiveness and efficiency. Just as all trucks have a similar form and function along with a similar blueprint due to intelligent design for a similar purpose, living organisms are similar from their microscopic genetic programming to their macroscopic gross anatomy seen in homologous structures.
“7) for the ten billionth I've had to reiterate this - please read about the differences between scientific law and theory.”
* Sid’s response:
The term “hypothesis” comes from the Greek. It is a compound word from “hypo” and “thesis”, which literally means “underlying belief”. More applicably in the use of science, a hypothesis is a testable prediction. A theory is a hypothesis that has been tested many times and not yet found to be false, meaning - not yet falsified (see Dr. Karl Popper, considered by many to be one of the foremost philosophers of science). A scientific law is a theory that has withstood many years of testing and still has not yet been falsified. Dr. Popper and others have pointed out that neither a hypothesis, theory, or law can be “proven”, since there is always the possibility that some unknown variables have not been considered or controlled and would one day falsify the original assumption. However, it is also generally accepted that it only takes one false test to falsify any scientific hypothesis, theory, or law. In light of this fact, macro (vertical) evolution does not even warrant the status of “theory”. Instead it is at best an unsubstantiated hypothesis, or at worst a falsified proposition (belief), especially now after the findings of modern genetics and mutations described above.
I hope this has been helpful. Please forgive any disjointed thoughts, since I wanted to get a quick reply back to you and to your friend. If your friend would like to get together for coffee and dialog, I’m always eager. I’ll buy the coffee J.
