It is undeniable that early scientists believed in a creator god. It is also likely that some of them didn’t want to believe in a god but there was no other pausible explanation. Then Charles Darwin published his “Origin of Species” in 1859 and all of a sudden, the dissenters had a hypothesis that was possible, which they quickly renamed a ‘theory’ without satisfying the usual requirements to be a theory, taught in every basic science class. A theory must have observable, predictable, and reproducible results from experiments designed to test your hypothesis.
But Darwin made a convincing argument for what we call today microevolution, that genetic mutations over time produce changes in species that environmental pressures either favor or disfavor. This process, which he termed, natural selection, has subsequently been established in many lifeforms and isn’t disputed by creationists.
Where Darwin overextended his hypothesis was in his claim that genetic mutations would cause one family kind to produce offspring that would become another family kind. This is called macroevolution and without it, the hypothesis of evolution to explain the existence of all species falls flat. After 150 years of looking for fossil examples of macroevolution, none have been found. In scientific terms, when you can’t find evidence for a hypothesis after an exhaustive search, the hypothesis is usually abandoned. But not with evolution. Rational men who know the rules of science, still contend that we will yet find evidence for macroevolution because they desperately want to find it. It seems there is still a population of scientists today who would prefer not to believe in a deity even though a creator god remains the best hypothesis.
In the 1980s, when gene sequencing revealed similar segments of DNA existed in many lifeforms, evolutionary scientists thought they would finally find evidence that different kinds were historically related to each other because they had high percentages of matching, homologous DNA. But that isn’t what they found. I remember reading a book published in 1985 called ‘Evolution: A Theory in Crisis’ (Michael Denton; Adler & Adler, publishers) which revealed, for example, that all dogs have extensive homologous DNA, all cats have extensive homologous DNA, but dog and cat DNA is so different that no ancestoral relationship can be determined. This pattern held true for many species tested. So, in other words, DNA sequencing supported the idea of microevolution but not macroevolution. Denton reaffirmed these facts in his 2016 publication, “Evolution: Still a Theory in Crisis”. Today we know, again with dogs, that all types of dogs tested (over 650 of them) have a common ancestoral relationship with the wolf, supporting the hypothesis that microevolution of the wolf genome accounts for all types of dogs. In 1986, one year after Denton’s book first appeared, Richard Dawkins, the undisputed spokesman for evolutionary theory since the death of Carl Sagan in 1996, published “The Blind Watchman” which became a national bestseller. Apparently scientists aren’t the only ones who desperately want to disavow a god. In his book, Dawkins leaned heavily on radioisotope decay measurements, which claimed the earth was millions of years old.
Well, what about radioisotope decay? How long would it take, using microevolution, to produce 650 different types of dogs? Nobody really knows, but one thing is known, it would take even longer for macroevolution to occur. That leads to another topic, measuring time.
If we started measuring time right now, there are several methods we could use. We could count annual tree rings, trace planetary movement, or simply count days and nights. As we record our method, a concise history would be available for future generations. But how do we look at the past starting from now, remembering that our measurement must be observable in order to be scientific? Archeologists can date the strata of ancient cities from changes in pottery but ancient cities aren’t old enough to allow for macroevolution, so a much different method would be needed. Enter radioisotopic decay.
It turns out that some atoms are inherently unstable and over a period of time, they disintegrate into more stable daughter atoms with the release of high-energy particles. These particles can be counted over time and disintegration rates can be determined mathematically by extrapolation. Some of these decay rates are so slow that they can be applied to pre-history (prehistoric) times by assuming today’s observable rates haven’t changed since the earth was formed. This assumption can’t be validated but most scientists are comfortable with it. So what do these parent-daughter quantities tell us? Well, assuming the tested specimens haven’t been contaminated by other radioactive parent-daughter pairs, most of these methods say the earth is millions of years old. Allowing this second assumption, evolutionists begin to cheer. They still can’t prove macroevolution but at least they have enough time for it to occur. Or do they?
It is a little known fact that if you test the very same specimen, say an igneous rock, by different parent-daughter isotopic pairs, you get widely varying answers for its age. Even worse, you find the existence of carbon-14 from fossils inside many of these rocks, which means they can’t be older than 90,000 years because after this time, no carbon-14 would be detected. I’m sure they can find a rock with no fossils in it but if they do, how can they know it was formed earlier than a similar rock with fossils in it? They can’t. So, measuring time by radioisotope decay rates requires a big assumption which can’t be validated, that some similar rocks are much older than others. When asked about this, most evolutionists dismiss the presence of carbon-14 by claiming their specimen was contaminated or they purposely don’t test for it, hoping that nobody will ask about carbon-14.
Of course, creationists can dismiss any age derived from radioisotope decay by declaring that a god who can create earthly wonders can do so with the feature of apparent age. This infuriates evolutionists, who often respond by calling creationists dim-witted fools. Isaac Asimov, for example, referred to creationists as cavemen. This might be the result of debate training, where you are taught to attack your opponent’s credibility if your factual argument is weak.
But being charitable, let’s say the earth is old enough to support the hypothesis of macroevolution, namely billions of years old. There is still one insurmountable, observable fact that destroys this hypothesis- irreducible complexity in many lifeforms.
By ‘irreducible complexity’ I mean there are living organisms that need multiple enzymes, co-factors, substrates, anatomical compartments and specialized environments to be present at the same time for them to be alive. We can observe these lifeforms today. In the hypothesis of evolution, each of these components would likely originate individually over eons, during which time, the organism would be biologically dead with no possibility for subsequent helpful mutations. So how can these creatures exist if they were created by evolution? Evolutionists propose ideas like ‘perturbation theory’ and ‘punctuated equilibrium’ to explain how the necessary mutations could all occur in a very short period of time but irreducible complexity requires all necessary mutations to occur at the same time, a statistical improbability. They say anything is possible, given enough time, pointing to a mathematical theorem in statistical probability which implies this is true. But math doesn’t always represent the real world as its use of imaginary numbers proves. And whenever the infinity symbol is put into an equation an assumption that time has no beginning and no end is made. In simple terms, math can fail to describe common situations in nature. For example, synergy can be observed in our muscles, the working together of two things to produce an effect greater than the sum of their individual effects. Math always says that one plus one equals two, not two plus something extra.
Lately, evolutionists have landed on comparative genomics to refute irreducible complexity, a technique which compares whole DNA molecules of one species to another. They claim that access to complete genomes of more species has allowed them to support the evolutionary hypothesis for macroevolution. Unfortunately, their complicated explanations can’t hide their reliance on personal interpretation of this new data and truth isn’t determined by what the majority of evolutionists agree on.
Alternatively, some evolutionists play a game with definitions, claiming that complex biological systems can develop by repurposing existing structures with different functions at a time when the last mutation in a functional wheel occurs. The odds of this happening in an undirected process are unimaginably small but what proud men have already accepted as truth can cause them to overrule or ignore this fact.
So evolutionists have no fossil examples of intermediate species and no good answers to the question of irreducible complexity and these facts, in large part, are the reasons many scientists today are advocating ‘intelligent design’ to explain creation. These scientists, whom evolutionists label as pseudo-scientists, are unwilling to say there is a creator god but they are also unwilling to claim that macroevolution is true. Their compromise position is that the world has observable evidence of intelligent design but they will say nothing more. Perhaps they are secretly hoping to discover benevolent, disinterested aliens via the SETI project, in lieu of a god who made them and holds them responsible for ignoring him. SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, has been going on since radio was invented in the early 1900s and has been funded by wealthy foundations and governments since the 1980s. But it has failed to detect any lifeforms beyond our world.
So we have no aliens and no fossils to explain the intelligent design we see in nature. And the scientific method isn’t being followed when investigating macroevolution. I hope you can see that proper application of the scientific method of testing a hypothesis by experiments with observable, predicable, and reproducible results defeats the hypothesis of macroevolution. After an exhaustive worldwide search for 150 years, there is still no evidence for macroevolution and there should be at least thousands of intermediate fossils between kinds.
But there is evidence, living proof, if you will, of organisms whose life processes are so complex that all their components must be present for them to survive. The Bible says that God made the stars, the world, and everything in it to prove He exists. And its account explains the observable facts much better than man’s complicated explanations to justify macroevolution. So is there a place for a creator in your life or must you cling to an unproven hypothesis and ignore nature’s complexity to believe in macroevolution?
