Episode Transcript
Welcome to Faith and Science. I'm Dr. John Ashton.
A couple of weeks ago, I went to a church programme, and when I was in the hall, I noticed they had a display of different types of free literature that could be taken by people. And one of the little brochures was called, 15 Questions for Evolutionists. And so that immediately caught my attention. I thought, oh, this looks interesting. And turned out it was a little brochure put out by Creation Ministries International. And of course you can see them go to their website, www.creation.com.
But I thought they raised some really interesting points that really summarised some serious issues for people who hold to the theory of evolution as explaining the origin of life. So I thought, I'm just going to go through these.
One of the first questions that they came up with was, well, how did life originate? And they quote Professor Paul Davies, an evolutionist who has written, "Nobody knows how a mixture of lifeless chemicals spontaneously organized themselves into the first living cell".
They also have a quote from Andrew Knoll, who was a professor of biology at Harvard. And apparently he wrote, "we don't really know how life originated on this planet". And of course, that's fit what I read in the literature as well.
There's really no really plausible scientific explanation for the origin of light. The article goes on to say, a minimal cell needs several hundred proteins. And even if every atom in the universe were an experiment with all the correct amino acids present for every possible molecular vibration, in the supposed reevolutionary age of the universe, not even one average size functional protein would form.
So how did life with hundreds of proteins originate? Just by chemistry without intelligent design. So it's quite fascinating there. And one of the things, of course, with, as I talk about, a lot of these proteins and a lot of these molecules, they have to have a particular orientation.
So chemical structures, often we write them as a formula, but the molecules themselves have physical structures. And I think I've mentioned in previous programmes, some can occur in right handed forms and some in left handed, like you can't put your right hand in the left handed glove. It just won't fit, won't work.
But yet, basically, they're the same shape, but one is the mirror image of the other. And this is a major problem for evolution, because we know when chemical reactions occur, we get a mixture of both the right and left handed forms of these sort of molecules, whereas you require enzymatic and particular chemical, the synthesis, to occur in a particular chemical environment that allows only the one particular form to form, because right and left handed forms, really, one form can often be quite destructive or even toxic in living systems. And so it needs a preexisting living type system or complex arrangement of chemicals to produce these molecules.
So again, these are major problems there. Another question they ask is, how did the DNA, this is a question for evolutionists. How did the DNA code originate? And they point out that the code is a sophisticated language system with letters and words, where the meaning of the words is unrelated to the chemical properties of the letters, just as the information on this page that they have written is not a product of the chemical properties of the ink.
Or if you're watching on a computer screen, pixels on a screen. So what other coding system has existed without an intelligent designer? How did the DNA coding system arise without it being created? And if you want to read more about that, just go to creation.com/code. It's quite revealing there the evidence that the DNA code must have been designed.
The third point that they bring out is how could mutations create the huge volumes of information in the DNA of living things? And again, I've talked about this previously on a number of occasions. But they write, mutations are accidental, copying mistakes. So the DNA letters are exchanged or deleted, or added, or whole genes are duplicated, or you can get chromosome inversions, et cetera.
And they ask, how could such errors create 3 billion letters of DNA information to change a microbe into a microbiologist? In other words, how could random mistakes produce a code with 300 billion letters in it? Roundabout that works, that create does. And they go on to say there is information for how to make proteins, but also for controlling their use. Much like a cookbook contains the ingredients as well as the instructions on how and when to use them.
And so saying all this information is in the code, and it truly is amazing. One. And they also point out that in the code, the code has to give both the ingredients and the instructions, because one without the other is useless.
They go on to say that mutations are known for their destructive effects, also, including over 1000 human diseases such as haemophilia. Rarely are they ever helpful. But even then, they are going in the wrong direction, usually.
And so again, more information on this they have on their website, creation.com/train is another link, creation.com/meta-information.
The fourth question they raise is, why is natural selection taught as if it explains the origin and diversity of life? And this is certainly a question that I've puzzled over. They stress the importance of natural selection. Everything but natural selection doesn't create new information.
It doesn't create new life. It just eliminates codes. Natural selection reduces the diversity of genetic information available.
And it's crazy how this is being taught as if it's evidence for evolution. But this is the impression that I get that's out there in our secular education system. And I point this out in this article.
I say this is especially puzzling since creationist biologists also accept natural selection and did so before Darwin. By definition, it is a selective process, selecting from already existing information. So it is not a creative process.
It might explain the survival of the fittest, why certain genes benefit creatures in certain environments, but not the arrival of the fittest. In other words, where the genes and the creatures came from in the first place, the death of individuals not adapted to environment and the survival of those that are suited does not explain the origin of the traits that make an organism adapted to the environment. For example, how to mine a beacon back and forth. Variations in finch beaks. Explain the origin of beaks or finches. Again, this is an important point that they bring out.
Again, if you want to read more on that on their website, it's creation.com/ defining-terms. Another one that they raise another point.
And I think these are really, really good points. How did new biochemical pathways originate? And again, when I look at the complexity of biochemistry and the size of the textbooks on basic biochemistry, particularly related to human diseases or mammal biochemistry, they're huge. And all these chemical processes that perform amazing functions that now label our body to live, to repair itself, to grow, to be able to reproduce, and so forth, they're amazingly complex, and they involve multiple stage systems that all work together for a long time.
And all these systems are encoded for in the DNA. And it's just amazed me that the students taught. We all evolved.
This is the complex biochemistry. You're going to have to learn this now. As if random mutations could produce this amazing biochemistry.
And it's all slightly different in all the different animals and plants and all this sort of thing, it has the same pattern, but it's all slightly different. So enormous amount of mutations would be required. And to produce these net alone, they've got to be successful.
And we know they're random. And so the possibility, as it was mentioned quite early on in their first point, the probability of getting one of these systems right is so enormous, it's just not going to happen, let alone the trillions, possibly even trillions of trillions of systems that there are. So how did they originate? And they point out, new pathways and nanomachines require multiple protein enzyme components to work how did accidental changes mutations to existing DNA create even one of the components, let alone ten or 20 or 30 at the same time to create a new useful functional biochemistry pathway and nanomachines needed to make the goo to u evolution possible? For example, how did a 32 component rotary motor like ATP synthase, which produces the energy currency ATP for all of life? Or Kenison, a postman delivering parcels inside cells, originate? And this is delivering pieces of code in the cells.
Evolutionary biochemist Franklin Harold wrote, we must concede that there are presently no detailed darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations. And just google creation.com/motor for more info on that.
Another argument that is raised, and they point out, is living things look like they were designed. So how did revolutionists know that they were not designed? It's pretty obvious. It's like Richard Dawkins wrote, biology is the study of complicated things that have the appearance of having been designed with a purpose.
Well, I mean, how does he know that they only have appearance? It's just a personal opinion. Francis Crick, the co discoverer of the double helix structure of DNA, wrote, biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved. Okay, so they're really forcing the issue.
They got to force the issue. That's so obvious. It was designed.
So again, this is so artificial, isn't it? The problem for evolutionists is that living things show too much design. Who objects when an archaeologist says that a pottery points to human design? Yet if someone attributes the design of living systems to a designer, that is not acceptable. Why should science be restricted to naturalistic causes rather than logical causes? It makes so much sense, doesn't it, that living systems are so much evidence of a supreme intelligence God.
And then they ask, point number seven, how did multicellular life originate? How did cells adapt to individual survival? Learn to cooperate and specialise, such as nerve and muscle and blood cells, including undergoing self sacrificing programme cell death to create complex plants and animals. That's a really good article. Can look it up on creation.com/multicellularity. Another one, of course, is how did sexual reproduction originate? Asexual reproduction gives up twice as much reproductive success or fitness for the same resources as sexual reproduction. So how could the latter ever gain enough advantage to be selected? And how could mere physics and chemistry invent the complementary apparatuses needed at the same time for sexual reproduction? Non intelligent processes cannot plan for future coordination of male and female organs.
And again, it's so obvious. It's sort of staring us in the face really, that these systems had to have been designed. And of course you can read up more about that on creation.com/evosex evosex another one that they point out the 9th one was why are the expected countless millions of transitional fossils missing? And they point out that Darwin noted the problem and it still remains. The evolutionary family tree in textbooks is based on imagination, not fossil evidence. Famous Harvard palaeontologist and evolutionist Stephen J. Gould wrote, the extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as a trade secret of palaeontology and other evolutionary fossil experts also acknowledge the problem of the lack of transitional fossils. And again, just go to creation.com/P-A-T-T-Q-U-O-T-E pat quote patquote.
The 10th point they raise is a question for evolutionists and a challenge.
How do living fossils remained unchanged over supposedly hundreds of millions of know if evolution is supposed to have changed worms into people in the same time frame? Professor Gould wrote, the maintenance of stability within species must be considered as a major evolutionary problem. And there's a good article in creation.com/living_fossils.
Another one is point they raised. Point number eleven is how did blind chemistry create the mind, intelligence, meaning, altruism and morality if everything evolved and evolved just involving pure atoms and molecules and chemistry and so forth? And we supposedly invented God, as per evolutionary teaching, what purpose or meaning is there to human life? And they raise a question. Should students be learning that life is meaningless in science classes? I mean, it's an interesting point.
There's again another interesting article in creation.com/Chesterton C-H-E-S-T-E-R-T-O-N this is a fascinating problem for evolutionary theory, the origin of the mind, the origin of thought. Because when you think about our thoughts are non material and there's so much evidence for God connecting with our mind. I might come back with that just in a moment or two.
Number twelve was why is evolutionary story-telling tolerated? And they write in this pamphlet, evolutionists often use flexible storytelling to explain observations contrary to evolutionary theory. For example, Dr. Philip Skill wrote, Darwinian explanations for such things are often too supple. Natural selection makes humans self centred and aggressive, except when it makes them altruistic and peaceable. Or natural selection produces virile men who eagerly spread their seed, except when it prefers men who are faithful protectors and providers.
They go on to write, when an explanation is so supple that it can explain any behaviour, it's difficult to test it experimentally, much less use it as a catalyst for a scientific discovery. And so again, a lot of the so called evolutionary explanations really are just fabricated ideas, like I was just reading earlier, where the evolutionists claim, well, biological systems only appear to be design. Well, hang on. In science, how do we discover things? We make observations. Here we are, we're making the observation that it looks design, but we can't go there. We can't say it's design.
Why not? Because these people say, no, we don't want you to. Because it all points to God. And this is the thing.
The evidence powerfully points to God, powerfully points to a supreme creator. Another interesting one, point number 13 they raise is where are the scientific breakthroughs due to evolution? Dr. Marc Kirschner, the chair of the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School, stated, in fact, over the last hundred years, almost all of biology has proceeded independent of evolution except evolutionary biology itself.
Molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology have not taken evolution into account at all. In other words, the teaching of evolution hasn't underpinned these great discoveries. They've just been based on observation, and they fit the creation scenario just as well.
Dr. Philip Skell, the 'father of carbene chemistry', wrote, "It is our knowledge of how these organisms actually operate, not speculations about how they may have arisen millions of years ago. That is essential to doctors, veterinarians, farmers". evolution.
And that's an important fact. We want to know how these things operate today, not how they came to be here. That's the important part of science.
Evolutionary actually hinders medical discovery. Then why do schools and universities teach evolution so dogmatically, stealing time from experimental biology that so benefits humankind? And that's an interesting article there that some folk might be interested in looking up on creation.com/science#relevance so it's relevance.
And another one is to creation.com/evoquest evo Q-U-E-S-T. A lot of supporting information there.
The 14th one that they raise is why is evolution, a theory about history, taught as if it was the same as operational science? And again, there's been so much opposition to in christian schools, for example, teaching creation in science classes.
And yet why is evolution allowed to be taught? I mean, you cannot do, they point out, you cannot do experiments or even observe what happened in the past. And when asked if evolution had been observed, Richard Dawkins said, evolution has been observed. It just hasn't been observed while it is happening.
Dear me, yes, it's quite fascinating. We do observe changes, of course, evolutionary changes, but not the types that produce new types of organisms. That's the difference.
And this is where it becomes very confusing, too, the terminology that is used.
Evolution is a general term, and sure, we see things changing. We see things change as a result of loss of genetic code and mutations that damage cells and produce mutations that are creatures that are damaged and mostly less likely to survive.
What we don't see is the types of evolution that produces a new, successful body part. That's what we don't observe. And that's the crucial thing that underpins evolution, explaining the so called origin of diversity of life on earth.
But their 15th point is, "Why is a fundamentally religious idea taught in science classes?" And this really frustrates me, and it really frustrates me that education departments aren't recognising this, aren't doing anything about it, and it just shows me that science itself has become governed by politics, not by true, genuine scientific observation. In this point, they write, Dr. Michael Ruse, an evolutionist science philosopher, admitted, "Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning and it is true of evolution today". So that's what he wrote. If you can't teach religion in science classes, why is evolution taught? And you could also see creation.com/notscience.
Earlier on, we talked about how blind chemistry created the mind. And it was interesting.
Just recently, I watched a programme on the evacuation of all the troops at Dunkirk in the Second World War, Operation Dynamo. And it was interesting, as I was reading some of the literature on the Internet and reports about that was fascinating, that on May 20, 1940, I think, was the day before the evacuation was to commence, or about that time, the King of England went on air and asked people to pray to God for God's intervention, to make the evacuation success, and for them to repent. To repent and surrender to God.
And soon after that, according to the reports, there was a huge storm over the coast of France there that grounded the German fighter planes. And at the same time, this weather system moved in, that the English Channel became remarkably calm, and that enabled the successful evacuation of over 300,000 troops. The other factor was that Hitler and a number of his generals made very bad decisions, very bad military decisions.
They decide to delay the progression of their tanks, their armoured tanks. They made a number of really strategically wrong decisions. And so, again, in my view, this is a clear evidence of what we call a miracle and an answer to prayer, that it involved the mind, it involved the weather at that time, and the cloud system.
There was a cloud system that came out, too, that again, prevented the air force for several days seeing the troops on the ground, because otherwise they were all sitting on the beaches, they were just sitting ducks to be just mowed down by the machine guns in the planes. But it didn't happen. And there are a number of examples of this in history.
And wife and I read a devotional book in the morning. Many of these stories in the devotional books are answers to prayer that christians have experienced. And it's often through the mind, the mind being influenced, people's minds being influenced, and God setting up a providential system.
God is real and that's how we came to be here. God is real and we know we will die, but that's not God's plan. God's plan is for us to live eternally in a beautiful system and he's going to remake that system.
The earth in one day is going to be destroyed and God's going to remake the system. And God wants us to be here. And the Bible is an account of men being inspired and God speaking to men and giving this message that we have salvation through Jesus Christ, we have forgiveness from sin for all the evil that we've done in our lives through Jesus, and that enables us to inherit eternal life and after death, to be raised up by Jesus.
When God comes again in judgement and puts an end to all the horrible things on earth, it's going to happen. The Bible, predictions and prophecies, so many of them have come true and been fulfilled on time. So I really would encourage you to turn to your Bible and read it and come to know God the creator.
You've been listening to faith and science. If you want to relisten to these programmes, just google 3abnaustralia.org.au all one word and click on the listen button. And remember to share these links with your friends so that they too may inherit eternal life.
Have a great day. I'm Dr. John Ashton.
You. You've been listening to a production of 3ABN Australia radio.
