A Christian Perspective On The Origin Of Life: Part II
In my second installment we will be continuing our examination of the origin of life and the information we receive from the fossil record. Now as I said in my last installment, there are similarities in the findings of both evolutionists and the creationists. Note that I didn’t include intelligent design-ists. While they are embarking on a noble cause, they are not standing up and saying that they are declaring for God as the Creator of all we see and know. Even Richard Dawkins has hypothesized that it could have been alien life forms who dropped off a self replicating seed cell which then evolved into the many life forms we see today. This is a form of intelligent design is it not! But what it does is leave God in any form out of the mix.
I believe that God exists and that He created all things.
The Evolutionist believes that all things exist by a mere random occurrences.
The evolutionist will hypothesize (guess) and use words like may have, could have; possibly might have.happened.
The Christian declares with absolute certainty that God spoke and the universe and all live appeared exactly as He had planned.
The Creationist and the Evolutionist both approach the existence of all things with presuppositions which can be noted in a simple chart.
Creation
God Exists
Predetermined Order
Time Not Important
Catastrophic Events
Evolution
God Does Not Exist/Chaos
Internal Self Order
Time Important
Slow Gradual Change
These presuppositions are reflective of the differing worldviews with each making their particular truth-claims as such.
Consider just for a moment the Badlands National Park in South Dakota. This place is known as the richest fossil beds of the Oligocene epoch. Now the Evolutionist who studies these fossil beds concludes that over 12 million years of ‘mammalian’ evolution took place. He approaches these fossil sites with the presupposition in mind that evolution is a fact and his findings reflect this mindset. And in his mind the evidence is declares that all the different fossilized forms reveal a gradual process of change which took millions upon millions of years.
The Creationist comes to this very same fossil bed, sees the very same fossils and reaches the conclusion that this massive bed of fossils could only be caused by a world-wide flood, like the one recorded in the book of Genesis.
Let me give you another little chart that clarifies the starting point for each worldview
Creationist Worldview
Based on the Biblical Record
Creator/Outside Intelligence
Absolutes
Accountability to God
Evolutionist Worldview
Based on man’s word
Unknown Internal Process
Relativism
Accountability to man
Now as was pointed out so eloquently by several people from the first installment, Science is a systematic process by which we, through the process of
- Observation
- Fact
- Hypothesis
- Theory and
- Law
by which we examine the world around us and, based upon observation, classifications, and descriptions, lead to experimental investigation and theoretical explanations. Both deductive (A form of reasoning in which conclusions are formulated about particulars from general or universal premises) and inductive (reasoning from detailed facts to general principles) reasoning are used in a true scientific process.
Now true science must have integrity, dependability, reliability and be trustworthy. If evidence is tampered with or if conclusions have been falsified to support ones own personal opinions then, what you have is a personal philosophical statement that reflects what you want others to believe regardless of the evidence. This is true from both sides of the aisle. For the Creationist to make claims without supporting conclusive evidence is sheer lunacy. Such people are what give Christianity a bad name in the world. But this also goes for the Evolutionist. He or she must provide conclusive evidence to support their truth-claims or we are in the same place.
And those who hear the evidential claims from both sides must listen with a critical ear and not be too open-minded. You know what they say of those who are too open minded: your brains will fall out!
So where do we start from a scientific point of view to provide evidence for the Christian/Biblical view of the origin of life? Well let us use the same laws of science which are the foundation of all scientific ventures. These Laws have been demonstrated to be reliable, regardless of time or place and have enabled researchers to make accurate predictions from a given set of conditions. Almost every scientific law can be expressed by means of a mathematical formula.
Enumerated below are a list of these laws.
- Newton’s Laws of motion (three laws for all motion)
- Universal Gravitation (two bodies attracting each other)
- Boyle’s Law (gas pressure and volume relationship)
- Charles’ Law (gas temperature and volume relationship)
- Ideal Gas Law (gas temperature, volume and pressure)
- Coulomb’s Law (Charges, distances between two objects
- Hooke’s Law (Spring action and force)
- Kepler’s Law (laws of planetary orbits)
- Snell’s Law (Refraction law of light)
- Ohm’s Law (Electrical law of volts, amps and resistance)
- The Laws of Thermodynamics (universal laws of energy and matter)
These Laws are observable having been tested in the laboratory through observation and all of the other tools available to us. I would like for us to take a look at the Law of Thermodynamics in particular as it is quite fascinating when applied to the biblical account of Creation. The first Law of Thermodynamics: The Law of Conservation of matter and energy states “the amount of energy and matter remain constant. Matter and energy may change from one form to another but will always be conserved. Matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed.”
The second Law of Thermodynamics declares that matter and energy have a universal tendency to go to disorder, a process known as entropy. Apply that to the universe and we conclude that it is running down in every form. (Even the evolutionary scientists are declaring that our sun will go dark eventually…of course they say it will happen in the far future.) Organization, if left alone becomes disorganization. (You can observe this in the natural realm…say an office or a classroom…the boss or the teacher leaves for a moment and the employees or the students degenerate into chaos.) Therefore energy must be added to the system to increase order and lower entropy.
The Evolutionist would state that this energy is self produced and is self sustaining while the Christian would hold to the Biblical declaration that God created all things and holds all things together by the word of His power.
From the Biblical account we also understand that this planet we occupy is only temporary. It was created for God’s purposes of life and redemption. On the appointed day God who spoke this world into existence will speak it out. Even now this world groans under the weight of sin which is a form of entropy, disorder. But I digress…
Consider the vastness of the Universe itself. The Evolutionist assumes natural causes to explain the existence of the stars, the sun, the earth etc. He does this by indulging in speculation…without empirical data to support his theory. Such data has never been observed which is probably why all the experiments in order to ‘discover’ the ‘god’ particle. This would indeed explain away the existence of God and replace Him with an it, interestingly an impersonal, force by which all things came into being. A replacement god so to speak! Now consider the closest star to our solar system; Alpha Centauri. It is 4.3 light years away. The Milky Way Galaxy is composed of hundreds of billions of stars. It is estimated that the Milky Way at its widest point is 120,000 light years wide. This is massive on a scale that is literally immeasurable by human artifice. Did this just happen? Is the Universe a result of random chance and circumstance? The Christian says no.
The Evolutionist says yes but without scientific data to back up their truth claims. We hear of things like dark matter and dark energy which in truth occupies some 95 percent of the universe. Indeed only 5 percent of the Universe is observable and can be accounted for. The rest is merely speculative exercise because without empirical data these men and women are engaging in mere speculation rather than true science to make their case.
The Christian takes his direction from the Bible and the evidence therein as well as that of the observable to declare what is. Because of this I will be taking time to produce evidence for the trustworthiness of the Bible as a rule of reliable truth. And we will also look a bit more at the evidenceor lack there of for the Big Bang Theory.
God bless you!
Mike
Voice from the Wilderness 
Mike,
Apologies for the length of this post, but there is a lot of ignorance, misconception and downright buffoonary to tackle.
“Now as I said in my last installment, there are similarities in the findings of both evolutionists and the creationists”
And yet you showed conclusively that you don’t have the slightest idea what evolution even *is*, let alone how it takes place, a charge which you have consistently swept under the carpet. The ‘similarities’ you claim are at such a high level of abstraction as to be meaningless.
“Even Richard Dawkins has hypothesized that it could have been alien life forms who dropped off a self replicating seed cell which then evolved into the many life forms we see today. This is a form of intelligent design is it not! ”
Not really, since he made the point in order to conclude that even if this happened (and this was speculation rather than hypothesis) then the aliens would still have had to evolve in the first place.
“The Evolutionist believes that all things exist by a mere random occurrences.”
Once again, you are mis-stating (surely deliberately, since you have been corrected so many times in the past by people who know much more about evolution than you do) how evolution works. What I suspect you mean is that evolutionists do not claim any *purpose* behind evolution, nor in the directions it happens to go. This is in no way similar to randomness. And again, the theory of evolution and theories of the origin of the universe and of life are not logically connected or dependent on each other.
You *know* that the theories are not connected so your statement seems disingenuous at best.
“The evolutionist will hypothesize (guess) and use words like may have, could have; possibly might have.happened.”
A hypothesis is not a guess. It is a carefully formulated question posed in terms of the evidence that would be needed to support and refute it. Hypotheses are usually based on careful observation and analysis. But you’re quite correct that hypotheses don’t deal in certainties. That’s rather the point.
I’m afraid I don’t really understand your list of presuppositions. What you list on the side of evolution are conclusions, not presuppositions and the ‘God does not exist/Chaos’ one isn’t even a conclusion. But even if your list were correct and evolutionists and creationists simply have a different worldview, *so what?* It wouldn’t answer the only important point in all of this, which is that there is evidence for evolution – tons of it, oodles of it – and yet none at all for creation. No amount of defining your way toward saying that it’s all a matter of interpretation is going to change that.
“[The evolutionist] approaches these fossil sites with the presupposition in mind that evolution is a fact and his findings reflect this mindset. […] The Creationist comes to this very same fossil bed, sees the very same fossils and reaches the conclusion that this massive bed of fossils could only be caused by a world-wide flood, like the one recorded in the book of Genesis.”
The creationist may very well reach that conclusion, but he would be wrong. How do we know he is wrong? Not because of differing world views and one world view being more correct than the other. It’s because there is overwhelming evidence that the world is old. You *know* it comes down to the evidence and arguing about worldviews and interpretation is pure sophistry. There are many, many different sources of evidence which independently show, in different ways, that the world is old. To conclude that it is young is to deliberately ignore all this evidence. There is no evidence that a flood caused the fossil beds and in fact no coherent theory as to how that could have happened. So this takes deliberate *manufacture* of false evidence. *That* is the difference in the world views: not presuppositions, but intellectual honesty. It’s the difference between people who honestly examine the evidence and go where it directs them and people who try to ineffectually shoehorn it into the constraints of a bronze-age book.
“For the Creationist to make claims without supporting conclusive evidence is sheer lunacy. […] But this also goes for the Evolutionist. He or she must provide conclusive evidence to support their truth-claims or we are in the same place.”
On this we agree. And yet we still have not seen one iota of evidence from creationists, who nevertheless continue in their absurd charade.
“Almost every scientific law can be expressed by means of a mathematical formula.”
You don’t say? Do you think this might have something to do with the fact that they describe relationships between properties? Joking aside, from what you’ve written so far, it’s clear that you don’t really understand how science works or what a scientific law is. A law doesn’t have any special status in science; it’s a theory just like everything else. We tend to eventually start calling something a law if it expresses a reasonably simple relationship between two or more properties and is more or less universal. In other words, it is sloppily-applied convention for simple equations that are very well supported by evidence and usefully and often applied in practice. They not considered more true than theories, just because we call them laws.
“I would like for us to take a look at the Law of Thermodynamics in particular as it is quite fascinating when applied to the biblical account of Creation.”
Oh and just how did we all *know* you were going to harp on about thermodynamics? Is it because we have heard this same tired argument a hundred times before? Did it even occur to you to do a quick search for whether anyone has refuted the argument? If so, you’d have found that it has been torn to pieces again and again.
“Therefore energy must be added to the system to increase order and lower entropy. ”
Exactly right. The Earth, however, is not a closed system. It receives energy all the time, mostly from the sun. In the universe as a whole, on average, entropy is increasing, but there is nothing in the 2nd law of thermodynamics that says entropy cannot increase locally with the application of energy. That would be a truly preposterous position: just think about it. If the 2nd law made evolution impossible just think about what else it would make impossible.
“The Evolutionist would state that this energy is self produced and is self sustaining ”
No, we would say it comes mostly from the sun. How do we know this? Because we can observe photosynthesis happening, not because we just decide to believe it or because it’s written in a book.
“The Evolutionist assumes natural causes to explain the existence of the stars, the sun, the earth etc. He does this by indulging in speculation…without empirical data to support his theory. Such data has never been observed”
This is simply not the case. At one end of the spectrum we have people doing experiments to understand how small things work and how matter behaves at high energy and so on. At the other end we have people observing the composition and formation of stars and galaxies. There is a vast wealth of empirical knowledge in between. To say that there is no evidence at all about the formation of stars is either breathtakingly ignorant or deliberately dishonest.
The term “the god particle” is a whimsical name for a hypothesised particle that happens – if it exists – to be very hard to observe. Hence the need for enormous and complex machines to even make the attempt. *That* is why the unhelpful term ‘god’ is sometimes used (more by journalists than by physicists), not because of any attempt to ‘replace’ god.
“Now consider the closest star to our solar system; Alpha Centauri.” (left out the word system oooppps!)
A picky point, perhaps, but if you’re going to talk about something, it might be helpful to *know something about it*. Alpha Centauri is not a star, but a system of three stars with (if I remember correctly) two (A and B) orbiting their common centre of mass and a third much smaller one (Proxima), orbiting the pair at some distance. At its closest point, Proxima is only a little more than 4 light years from Earth. Now I suspect you could find that out in two minutes with a single Google search. You might even find that I’ve remembered the details incorrectly. But you didn’t bother and yet blithely trotted it out as authoritative knowledge. Are you starting to understand the real differences in ‘world view’ between creationists and scientists yet?
“Did this just happen? ”
Is your argument *really* that god must exist because the universe is big? And yet you are (falsely) accusing *scientists* of making statements without any evidence to back it up. Genuinely astonishing.
Scientists (I wish you’d stop using the term ‘evolutionist’ for everyone who doesn’t agree with you) do not say that the universe ‘just happened by chance’. What we say is that we don’t know much about how or why it started, but we’re working on it. It may indeed have been down to pure chance and there’s no reason at all to rule that possibility out. This lack (so far) of knowledge in no way implies the existence of god. For that, you still need actual positive evidence of god, not just a difficulty in explaining every single thing about the universe straight away.
“The rest is merely speculative exercise because without empirical data these men and women are engaging in mere speculation rather than true science to make their case. ”
It is not speculation, it is hypothesis. We know from observation that either we’ve misunderstood something fundamental about gravity, or dark matter exists. In fact, some evidence is starting to emerge for the existence of dark matter, but there’s still a long way to go. What do you suggest we do instead? Throw our hands in the air, stamp our feet and cry “oh, this problem’s too hard, we don’t know the answer yet. Let’s stop thinking and observing and dreaming up experiments and just say god did it!” Yes, I’m sure that is in fact precisely what you *do* want us to do. Instead, we noticed that the universe doesn’t work quite how we expected and we thought up ways that might explain this, which could in principal be tested. Then a bunch of others set about working out how those tests might be carried out. They may or may not eventually find masses of evidence for dark matter, but science is the process of *trying to understand*. It doesn’t claim to have all the answers right at the start.
But let’s briefly go back to your earlier statement:
“So where do we start from a scientific point of view to provide evidence for the Christian/Biblical view of the origin of life? Well let us use the same laws of science which are the foundation of all scientific ventures.”
Putting aside your apparently deliberate confusion of the word ‘law’ to mean both specific laws of science and the way science works, you have *clearly* not presented one jot of evidence. You keep on saying that you’ll get to that, but you never do. You ineptly try to find problems with scientific theories as though in some way that would automatically prove that god did it. You do this without even the slightest understanding of what you are talking about. You don’t know a thing about evolution (including what it even *is* let alone how it works), about physics, about geology or about how science itself is carried out either in the ideal or in practice. It doesn’t look as though you’ve even bothered to do a quick Google search on any of the theories you are attempting, laughably, to refute, never mind actually study them in any depth. This makes statements about ‘no evidence’ especially peeving. You literally have no idea whether evidence exists or not because you haven’t bothered to find out.
Please note that I’m not attacking you personally. I’m frustrated at your weaselish claims of possessing evidence that god exists then refusing ever to say what it is. I’m frustrated by your continued and wilful ignorance of the topics you claim to refute.
Apparently next time we’ll be thrilled by accounts of why the bible is true. And the parts you use as evidence will in no way be cherry picked, right? We’ll get the rough with the smooth, an honest examination of which bits of the bible match our observations of the world and which do not? We already know that Genesis, for example, simply does not match what we observe about the world. We know that there are *vast* numbers of direct contradictions in the bible, ranging from what Jesus said or did to where he was born and whether his mother was a virgin or not. How can a document like this be called reliable?
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but attempts to authenticate the bible must be done in relation to things we already know. So, for example, you’d need to point to archaeological evidence that something described in the bible took place. You do understand, don’t you, that even if you manage to show that some of the places and possibly events that took place in the bible are authentic, this in no way constitutes evidence for the existence of god? I once read a novel that was set in an area I know well. All the major landmarks are described, as are some of the local legends and even real people. It was a ghost story, but the fact it was based in a real location didn’t convince me to believe in ghosts.
“there is nothing in the 2nd law of thermodynamics that says entropy cannot increase locally with the application of energy.”
I meant ‘decrease’ of course.
Here is a Synopsis of Darwinian Evolution as I understand it.
1. Perpetual Change: All species are in a continual state of change.
2. Common Descent: All species have descended from a common ancestor through branched lineages.
3. Multiplication of Species: New species are created via the transformation of existing species.
4. Gradualism: Large differences in characteristics between species represent the culmination of many small incremental (gradual) changes occurring continuously over long periods of time. Note: Punctuated Equilibrium (Niles Eldredge and Stephen J. Gould:1972) provides a contrasting model to gradualism and proposes that changes in species are discontinuous and periodic rather than continuous. In other words, evolution is concentrated in relatively brief events followed by long periods of relative stasis.
5. Natural Selection:
a. There is genetic variation within a population.
b. This genetic variation is inheritable.
c. Individuals with advantageous adaptations will produce more offspring.
6. Gradualism: The evolution of hominoids (humans, apes and related species) and hominids (direct ancestors to humans; Australopithecus, homo) provides an excellent example of Darwin’s concept of gradualism. The first hominid fossils date back approximately 4 million years. The first modern hominids (genus homo) occur in the fossil record approximately 2 million years ago with the appearance of homo erectus. (a.k.a. Homo ergaster)
Although gaps still exist in the fossil record these hominid remains which have been discovered, illustrate well the concept of gradual change over time leading to the development of new species.
Latsot has done well enough at dealing with the waffle and equivocation, so I’ll limit myself to pointing out that there is not one whit of evidence in this post, either.
Can we skip the next X posts of this meaningless verbiage and get straight to the meat? Thanks.
“Here is a Synopsis of Darwinian Evolution as I understand it. ”
Those are certainly some statements about evolution, yes. Not demonstration of understanding, especially since you cut and paste the whole thing from
http://www.evolutioneducation.org/Hominoid%20Skull%20Comparison%20Exercise%20Answers.DOC
without citation.
Not very honest.
Still, let’s overlook that for the time being. Perhaps you could explain why you posted it. Were you trying to prove that you really do know something about evolution after all? If so, that is a fairly epic fail on various levels.
However, since you seem to be in an answering mood, why not answer the dozens of other questions waiting for you? Why not start with Wintermute’s one: “Can we skip the next X posts of this meaningless verbiage and get straight to the meat?”
This is a reply to wintermute which I gave after dealing with some hoaxes in the fossil record and then going down a list provided by him. This is the list.
Sahelanthropus tchadensis
Orrorin tugenensis
Ardipithecus ramidus
Australopithecus anamensis
Australopithecus afarensis
Kenyanthropus platyops
Australopithecus africanus
Australopithecus garhi
Australopithecus aethiopicus
Australopithecus robustus
Australopithecus boisei
Homo habilis
Homo georgicus
Homo erectus
Homo ergaster
Homo antecessor
Homo heidelbergensis
Homo neanderthalensis
Homo floresiensis
Let me begin by replying to your statement of me being a world class expert: I profess expertise in nothing. I do possess knowledge in various subjects even as you do. But I also profess that I, even as you, have much to learn.
Now I went down the list of names you gave and yes I did read the summaries from wikapedia which as you say is the current consensus from the scientific community. Doesn’t that mean that this is where science stands now? (You don’t think the wikapedia guys are under cover creationists do you?) The information was quite facinating. You see, I am not saying that there are no fossils. It is beyond dispute that thre are fossils which have been studied intensively by learned men. Many of these scientists have come to conclusions via their evolutionary presuppositions/conclusions. Others have come to diffferent conclusions.
The danger for the Christian is to do the same thing. Many Christians would ‘throw out the baby with the bath water; they would say, “I don’t believe there are any fossils.” I have not/would not/could not do that. What I have done is look at the summaries made by scientists, and also the visible evidence (two pieces of a face are not conclusive about anything except that something had a face) and especially the sculptureal renderings bacause these are declared to be artistic renditions of what ’such and such’ fossil really looked like. I don’t believe I used the term giant gibbon; I used Orangutan. And if we can look at these pictures and sculptures objectively we can see chimps, orangutans, baboons, gorillas albeit with humanized facial features.
How do we know that certain people had bigger muscles that others without seeing the muscles? Woudl we look at the skeletal structure? And does that mean that all bodybuilders have different types of skeletons than regular people? Everyone has a skeleton but though we have the same bones, there are different bone structures to each. I may be tall. You may be short. Some people possess a wide shoulder girdle which denotes wide shoulders. These are characteristics of body structure. Does that mean that all the ‘heidelburg man’ fossils found had wide shoulder girdles? which would denote wide shoulders? Using the bodybuilding analogy further, there was a bodybuilder in the 1960’s by the name of Larry Scott. He was the first Mr. Olympia, (top bodybuilding title) and was praised for his incredible deltoid development. His shoulders were very wide and massive. But he has a naturally narrow shoulder girdle and it took years of hard work to develop those wide shoulders. So skeletal structure isn’t always conclusive in identifying body type.
I’m sure that men wrote many papers concerning their belief that the world was flat. Indeed, as you well know, there is a ‘Flat Earth Society’ even today when we know different. It has been “debunked.” Now, using Professor Dawkins “flying spaghetti monster” analogy, if there were 1500 papers written about said monster, would that make it real? It obviously isn’t real to Professor Dawkins; he uses it to deride those who believe in God. The claim is made that Christians can’t prove the existence of God because they can’t show Him. They, to coin a phrase, are under “the god delusion.” We have an entire book, archeological and historical evidence plus accounts from eyewitnesses to back up our belief. But most conclusive of all, we Christians have had a personal, transformational encounter with God which solidifies our belief. (delusion)
Now you may say that there are hundreds of religions which have made similar claims of truth but in all of these religions, not one of the founders has claimed to be God and then given evidence to prove that He is indeed God. The pope is called God on earth and yet each pope has died and has not come back to life as Jesus did. Jim Jones declared he was God to his followers and then killed himself and all of his followers. He too, has stayed dead. Jesus Christ claimed to be God on several occasions to the point that the religious leaders of His day were ready to stone Him. (The Jewish people are meticulous geneologists who can prove documentarily that the men listed in the Bible are real living individuals.) Throughout His minstry on earth Jesus declared that He would die and come back to life. When He was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea after His crucifixion, Pontius Pilate, an actual historical man, an actual governor of Judea during the time of Christ, (provable by Roman documents) gave the religious leaders a Roman guard to watch the tomb. As you well know, the Roman Army was the most powerful, most devastating fighting machine in the world at that time. These men were under penalty of death to do their job. Any failure was punishable by death.
Well, they failed. Jesus rose from the grave and they went to the religious leaders for help. The religious leaders gave them money to spread a story that “the disciples of Jesus stole His body while we were sleeping.” Now I don’t know about you but when I’m sleeping, I don’t know what is going on around me. Then too, Jesus’ body was buried in the tomb of one of the religious leaders named Joseph of Arimathea. The location of the tomb is stated very clearly; the Garden of Gethsemene. This too was a known place to the religious leaders. If Jesus had not been risen why didn’t they just produce the body? Why did they bribe the Roman soldiers? When the disciples of Jesus started preaching the resurrection of Jesus, why didn’t they just say, “Nope, your wrong. Here’s the body of Jesus.” They didn’t because they couldn’t. This just a summary of the facts of Christianity which have more documentation than anything else in the world. And is this Jesus who created the world and all that is in it. And He didn’t make prototype man. He made man right the first time.
Mike