G. K. Chesterton points out the problem that this poses for evolution:

 “There is something slow and soothing and gradual about the word [evolution] and even about the idea. As a matter of fact, it is not…a very practical word or a very profitable idea. Nobody can imagine how nothing could turn into something. Nobody can get an inch nearer to it by explaining how something could turn into something else. It is really far more logical to start by saying ‘In the beginning God created heaven and Earth’ even if you only mean ‘In the beginning some unthinkable power began some unthinkable process’….But evolution really is mistaken for explanation. It has the fatal quality of leaving on many minds the impression that they do understand it and everything else; just as many of them live under a sort of illusion that they have read the Origin of Species.” Chesterton, G.K., The Everlasting Man (Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1993) p.24.

 

Despite the strong media and public education bias against creationism, it is neither illogical nor unreasonable.

 

It is not illogical to “invoke” a supernatural realm to explain the beginnings of life.

Science itself shows us that there is no “scientific” explanation for the beginning of the universe. To imply that creationism is bad logic (and that it is illogical to have anything other than “scientific” explanations for the origins of life) without admitting that the origin of the universe itself is “unscientific”, is selective reasoning.

 

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So, we have shown that we cannot show that the universe had a strictly physical cause. Is it still reasonable to insist that life on Earth occurred as a result of a chain of physical causation, that it happened “by itself”, without Outside influence (God)?

 

What’s the point? Isn’t the whole point of insisting that life on Earth happened by itself, to show that there is no proof of Outside influence or cause? If there is good reason to consider an Outside influence or cause for the beginning of the Universe, then logically, that Outside influence could step in any time it wanted to, to do whatever it wanted to do. And, being outside of the physical universe, its influence wouldn’t necessarily have to conform to the laws of the physical universe. On the other hand, it (He) could choose not to step in, whichever He pleased.

 

But, just out of curiosity, how good is the evidence for abiogenesis and macro-evolution?

 

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Evolution- The Basics

Darwin began with an idea that was somewhat logical: we have observed animals change to adapt to their environments, so perhaps animals can change and adapt to the point that they actually form new species. Who knows, perhaps ALL species originated that way.

 

On the face of it, this idea doesn’t seem unreasonable. However, Darwin himself knew some limitations to this idea:

 

1) It would have to be very gradual (you wouldn’t expect complex organs or animals to suddenly appear, you would expect to see first very simple living organisms, changing into slightly more complicated organisms, and so on, until you finally ended up with complex living organisms). The reason for this is that the odds against highly complex living things suddenly appearing by chance would be like the same person winning the lottery over and over again.

 

2) As the mutations occurred gradually, you would expect each incremental change to be somehow useful (not harmful) to the organism’s ability to survive, otherwise why would those organisms have a reproductive advantage (survival of the fittest) ?

 

3) Francis Crick, one of the co-discoverers of DNA, added one more necessary condition for evolution: each gradual change (mutation) must occur by chance. An organism’s DNA does not get information from its environment about what genetic changes it needs to make to help the organism better survive. All mutations must occur by chance (accident).

 

Evolution- The Problems

Darwin’s ideas don’t seem so unreasonable, but do they fit with what scientists actually found? Did we find evidence of gradual, incremental changes? Did we find a logical progression from the simplest life forms, to the most complex? For that matter, are the “simplest” life forms even simple?

 

No.

 

• The simplest cells that we know of are incredibly complex, posing the problem of how they could have arisen from nonliving substances in the first place.  
• Slight, incremental changes were not found, instead the fossil record points to complex forms appearing suddenly.  
• The mutations that have been observed are either harmful, or they provide only superficial benefit.  
• Finally, there is statistical problem of how just the right incremental changes that were needed, happened to occur by chance for all of the many, many leaps required to go from single celled organisms to humans. Additionally, the difficulty of even imagining how complex systems could have occurred incrementally, since for many of these systems all or many parts appear to be needed at the same time in order for the system to function at all (for example, the eye), and then the additional problem of showing how each incremental change provided a reproductive advantage.  

“Simple” Cells are, In Fact, Incredibly Complex

“At the time Darwin posed his theory, the complexity of the simplest cells wasn’t known, but Darwin himself realized that if it were very complex, his theory would fall apart.” Darwin’s Failed Predictions”. http://www.judgingpbs.com/dfp-slide5.html

 

“… the biological cell is not a “simple lump of protoplasm” as long believed but a microcosmic processor of information and synthesizer of proteins at supercomputer speeds…. In each of the some 300 trillion cells in every human body, the words of life churn almost flawlessly through our flesh and nervous system at a speed that utterly dwarfs the data rates of all the world’s supercomputers…. Interpreting a DNA program and translating it through a code into a physical molecule, the cells collectively function at almost a thousand times the processing speed of IBM’s new Blue Gene/L state of the art supercomputer.” Gilder, George. Evolution and Me. National Review. July 17, 2006.

 

In reference to the process of translating the DNA code into a physical molecule, biologists John Maynard Smith and Eors Szathmary described it as “…perhaps the most perplexing problem in evolutionary biology” because “the existing translational machinery is at the same time so complex, so universal and so essential that it is hard to see how it could have come into existence or how life could have existed without it.”

Smith, J. M. & Szathmary, Eors, The Major Transitions in Evolution (W.H. Freeman, New York, 1995), p. 81. In “Darwin’s Failed Predictions: The origin of Life Remains a Mystery”, http://www.judgingpbs.com/dfp-slide12.html 

 

 

Complex Forms Appeared Suddenly

^{Many of the following were found in “Darwin’s Failed Predictions: The Abrupt Appearance of Biological Forms”http://www.judgingpbs.com/dfp-slide13.html}

"Most of the animal phyla that are represented in the fossil record first appear, ‘fully formed,’ in the Cambrian some 550 million years ago...The fossil record is therefore of no help with respect to the origin and early diversification of the various animal phyla."

^{R.S. K. Barnes, P. Calow & P. J. W. Olive, The Invertebrates: A New Synthesis (Blackwell Sci. Publications, 3rd ed., 2001) pp9-10,}

 

Evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr noted: “Wherever we look at the living biota, whether at the level of the higher taxa or even at that of the species, discontinuities are overwhelmingly frequent. . . . The discontinuities are even more striking in the fossil record. New species usually appear in the fossil record suddenly, not connected with their ancestors by a series of intermediates.”

^{Mayr, Ernst, What Evolution Is (Basic Books, New York, 2001) p.189}

 

This discontinuity also occurs at the level of higher taxa:“Many species remain virtually unchanged for millions of years, then suddenly disappear to be replaced by a quite different, but related, form. Moreover, most major groups of animals appear abruptly in the fossil record, fully formed, and with no fossils yet discovered that form a transition from their parent group.”

C.P. Hickman, L. S. Roberts, & F. M. Hickman,Integrated Principles of Zoology (Times Mirror, Moseby College, 1988) p 866,