Evolutionism vs. Creation

Why the -ism?

The –ism indicates a “belief”

Why the -ism?

• By the end of this unit, I hope to show you,

- There is no logical basis for believing in Evolution

- That Evolution is nothing more than a belief

- Many people are deceived, because they want to be

- Evolutionary Theory is unscientific

- How to defend Creation, as the rational Truth that it is

 18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,  19because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.

 20For 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.

 21For even though they knew God, they did not [c]honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

 22Professing to be wise, they became fools,  23and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an

image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.

Why do people want to be deceived? SIN

The History and Philosophy of Evolutionism

Here’s something you won’t learn even in College

• Is it really Darwin’s theory? • Is Darwin really the hero and god

that scientist want him to be?

Ecclesiastes 1:8-10 8 All things are wearisome,        more than one can say.        The eye never has enough of seeing,        nor the ear its fill of hearing.

 9 What has been will be again,        what has been done will be done again;        there is nothing new under the sun.

 10 Is there anything of which one can say,        "Look! This is something new"?        It was here already, long ago;        it was here before our time.

What does God’s Word say?

• So, we can reason that Evolution, or that train of thought has come before… lets see

Why Greeks? Because most other cultures already had some form of animism, or nature spirit, creation stories

There are over 10 early civilizations that account of a Global flood… hmm◦ And dragon legends

Naturalism – The belief that all things came from natural causes, you, me, the trees, the universe. No super-natural intervention

We will start with the Greeks

Thales ~600bc Water was the cause of all things Earth was a like a vast disk with water on all

sides. We come from the water

Early Naturalism

Anaximander ~570 bc Heat and cold gave rise to water Water gave rise to earth, air, and fire Earth condensed from water to mud All animals came from water, to walk on dry

land, casting off fish skins

Early Naturalism

Democritus ~400bc First thorough materialist There is nothing but atoms and space Everything happens through cause and

effect

Earlier Naturalism

Aristotle 384-322bc Schemes of classifications for animal life All life linked to common ancestor His dogmatic ideas dominated philosophy

and science until the middle ages

Earlier Naturalists

Galileo is the first to use evidence by experimentation

Which Galileo proved the heavens were not perfect (nor does the bible say that they are)

Disproved a faulty theology

Galileo Challenges Aristotle

Protestant priest Andreas Osiander, who welcomed contradictions to Dogmatic Roman Catholicism views of creation.

I.e. the heavens are perfect He writes the forward to Of the Heavenly

Bodies for Galileo, and the Scientific Method is born…

Galileo Challenges Aristotle

Ingrained Ideas, or Paradigms, that are accepted without criticism

Don’t step outside the Box! I’ll make you pay if you step outside the Box My precious, my precious box

Dogmaticism?

EvolutionGeocentric Model

“shrinkingTomato“

Alfred WagnerContinental drift

God

“The origin of life is also a stubborn problem, with no solution in sight…”

Franklin M. Harold, Professor Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Colorado State U

The Way of The Cell, 2001, p.235

“The simplest living cell could not have arisen by chance”

Johnjoe McFadden(Professor of Molecular Biology and Quantum Physics), Quantum Evolution, 2000. p85

Evolution is a Paradigm

“the extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils.”

Stephen J. Gould, “Evolutions’ Erratic Pace,” Natural History 86:5 (May 1977), p. 14.

Evolution is a Paradigm

“My excuse for this lengthy and amateur digression into history is that I have been trying to show how I think geology got into the hands of the theoreticians who were conditioned by the social and political history of their day more than by observations in the field.”

“In other words, we have allowed ourselves to be brain-washed into avoiding any interpretation of the past that involves extreme and what might be termed ‘catastrophic’ processes.”

  Derek Ager, The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record (London: Macmillan,

1981), pp. 46-47.

Evolution as a Paradigm

What’s missing?

What was it originally?

What’s missing? answers

A B

C D

Nothing is missing!

It was drawn that way.It was drawn that way.

Atheists on Neo-Darwinianism Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common

sense is the key to understanding the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a priori commitment, a commitment to materialism.” ”It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation… “and a set of concepts that produce material explanations no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine foot in the door.”

Richard Lewontin, “Billions & Billion s of Demons,” The New York Review of Books (9 Jan. 1997), p.31

Atheists on Neo-Darwinism

“fact” that rotting meat bred maggots and flies

Inert material was able to generate life(hmm)

Most Christian Scientists skeptics + Augustine, Gregory

No evidence to contradict till Louis Pasteur

Example: Spontaneous Generation

Ernst Haeckel, evolutionist propagandist, attacked Pasteur’s evidence

“if accepted, it left him with no option but to believe in a Creator.” ~ Haeckel

Haeckel's propagandas lead to Nihilism, which lead to the murder of Jews, homosexuals, mentally challenged, gypsies, and “degenerates”

You attack my Box you DIE

Ah, Haeckel gave us this… discredited

Used to say human embryo's had gill slits

Pharyngeal Pouches – Thymus gland- Parathyroids- Facial bone- Inner ear

Yoke sac- First blood cells

formed here- Baby has

different blood type

Tail- 3 muscles attach

here- Spinal cord needs

to end somewhere

European Philosophy vs. Christianity Laws Governing the universe – Sustained by

a God who is ultimately rational and all powerful

Pagan events – events occurred at the whim of a god or gods

Miracles – God, temporarily amends natural laws, without altering the general working of the law

Dark Ages

Rise of scientific era, delayed because of a form of Christianity with faulty theology

Burnings, Inquisitions, witchcraft and other superstitious beliefs promoted fear and control of thought

Protestant reformation More secular trains of thought – Thomas

Aquinas “Escape from Reason”

Dark Ages

Thomas Aquinas Pulled philosophy away from any concept of

God “nature” should be given more emphasis You can know God, without His help… Lead to Kant, then Rousseau, then Hegel Hegel – lead to favored races –History Hegel “from basic logic to thesis and

antithesis

Slippery Slope

Thesis is an intellectual proposition. Antithesis is simply the negation of the

thesis Synthesis solves the conflict between the

thesis and antithesis by reconciling their common truths, and forming a new proposition

Basically, you can make anything fit, regardless of logic

Slippery Slope

Problem with new “natural” philosophy Leads to horrific and grotesque results Solution Life is “authenticated” by what you do (works based salvation) Live and let live, who am I to judge, truth is

relative, whatever feels good, that means it’s good

Slippery Slope

18th century, it’s baaaackkk Linnaeus 1707-78 : Creationist Created the classification system for

animals and plants Original unit was “kinds” from the Genesis

account Evolutionists take it further to support

species changing –

Where did Evolutionism Go?

Evolutionists use species change, as proof of evolution. That is 2 different meanings used in the same sentence

Evolution – we all have a common ancestor Evolution – change There is no evidence that suggests change

above the “species” level

Kinds

Buffon 1707-88 First person to “naturally” study nature Suggested an evolutionary process First person to indicate geologic strata

evidence

Ever learning, never coming to the knowledge of the truth(2Tim3:7)

Lamark 1744-1829 Materialist Believed that fluids in animals, willed them

to change Ex. Giraffe, longer neck to get more food,

offspring will have longer neck

Ever learning, never coming to the knowledge of the truth(2Tim3:7)

Universe – initial explosion(big bang?) Transformation of animals linked to

◦ sex drive and selection◦ Hunger◦ Security

All done naturally, no need for God

Darwin’s GrandDad Erasmus 1731-02

“Favorable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavorable ones would be destroyed”

But wrote against this idea in the human race

Wrote about limitations in breeding Human race would never get to a perfected

state, but kept in check by misery and vice(sin)

Robert Malthus 1766-34

A naturalist who served aboard research ship called “The Beagle” in 1831

Observed bird and animal species in Galapagos

Made observations about species characteristics

Published “On the Origin of Species” Formulated theory of evolution by

natural selection

Darwin The model of the perfect scientists…

Can at best be seen as a person who protected “his theory” at all costs, and made sweeping generalizations based on unobserved data.

You don’t need to tell a 3 year old the difference between the Cat and a Dog Kind

Clearly as you look at everything in the world, it clearly shows and Intelligent Designer

Choices – deliberate, intention, volition Darwin: Needed to find a substitute God Getting rid of a designer, turns everything

into meaninglessness

Natural Selection

Is it a process? A Law? A Force? Cause? An Agent? The ability to adapt, is it external or internal? Internal heritable traits Selection – is external Nature cannot select, anything! Nature is a

concept… Traits enable them to fit into the environments

Natural Selection or “selection”

On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life

~ this is the full title, no one talks about

“I have taken much pains as I could to avoid any errors in the facts and calculations which have been produced in the course of the work. Should any of them nevertheless turn out to be false, the reader will see that they will not materially affect the general scope of reasoning” (24)

He is putting his theory above the facts which may contradict it

“…the misleading impression Darwin created of the genealogy of his theory. This too was a mask. Darwin almost certainly read Malthus not ‘for amusement’… but in the course of perusing the subject for which his M and N notebooks had been opened”(60p191)

“In October, 1838… I happened to read for amusement ‘Malthus on Population’… it at once struck me that under these circumstances favorable variations would have been preserved, and unfavorable ones destroyed… Here the I had at last got a theory by which to work; but I was so anxious to avoid prejudice, that I determined not for some time to write even the briefest sketch of it.”(2p83)

Charles Lyell 1797-1875 Lawyer, therefore good arguer, amateur

Geologist “could afford to travel basically” Theory of Uniformitarianism Everything in the past happened over slow

gradual processes, and is continuing uniformly today in the same way

How Geology Paved the way

He quickly accepted the theory, because it granted the long periods of time evolution needed.

Darwin wrote in his diary “everything betrays marks of extreme

violence” Even after eye witnessing an earthquake in

chili and being impressed at the amount of change

Darwin quick to accept

Mendelian Genetics Proved the limitation of variability in a

species, no new information Theories were ignored for 30 years! Why Rescuing device! Mutations, now became the driving factor

behind evolution Natural selection – differential reproduction

An example of Opposition

“The typical mutation is fairly mild. It usually has no effect but shows up as a decrease in viable fertility.” James Crow, Chairman of Genetics U. of Wisconsin Medical School, 1997

Kimura’s Mutation Curve

In China, we cannot question the government, but we can question Darwin

In America, you can question the government, but you cannot question Darwin

America China

Micro should be called micro-adaptations Scientific fact – look at the differences

between all of us Can show millions of examples Dog’s still produce Dog’s Kinds bring forth after their own kind 10 times in Genesis “after their kind” Genesis 1:21

Micro - Evolution

Produce the same Kind of plant or animal DNA Code Barrier is at the Kind Result from the sorting or loss of genetic

information Adaptations can only produce weaker and

weaker gene pools Gene Depletion

Micro-adaptations

Increasing new & beneficial Genetic information◦ No known way for nature to do this

Micro-adaptations

Neo-darwinianism Darwin's finches: Finches with many micro-

adaptations: Finches bringing about other Finches

3 false assumptions Mutations create new & beneficial genetic

data Natural selection lets the mutant take over

the population

Bait and Switch

Long ages – millions of years Mutations are caused by the sorting or loss

of pre-existing genetic data Gene Depletion

New-Darwinism

Limitation of Innate heritable traits in animals

All weaker gene pools are removed If not, we would all die out!

God’s Quality Assurance Program

In Textbooks Mutations +natural selection= neo-Darwinism evolution

DNA Code Barrier+ Gene Depletion+Natural SelectionZero Macro-Evoluiotion

Testable Repeatable Observable Is Evolution any of these? Remember my

quotes? It is none of these! It is a Historical Question Science cannot know the past

Operational Science

Evolution needs to be put into the field of Forensic Science

Evidence: Direct evidence – always ambiguous Reliable eyewitness testimony Usually it is conflicting or absent Indirect circumstantial evidence Still ambiguous

Forensic Science

Many sensational statements are made by evolutionists; only later to discover that they have to eat their words

Magic and Magic Words “Gave rise to” “pressure” “in favor” “power behind”

Science Fiction

As a Christian, how do I deal with these crazy assumptive headlines

Well, wait a bit, then another article will come out telling everybody that they were wrong

Lets look at our handout

Sensational Headlines