The 10 Things You Should Know About the Creation vs. Evolution Debate (15 page)

This is one of the worst cases of scientific fraud.
It's shocking to find that somebody one thought was
a great scientist was deliberately misleading. It makes
me angry.... What he [Haeckel] did was to take a
human embryo and copy it, pretending that the salamander and the pig and all the others looked the same
at the same stage of development. They don't.... These
are fakes.31

Haeckel's drawings constitute zero proof for evolution. Despite
the revelation of this fraud, however, Haeckel's bogus drawings
even today continue to appear in biology and evolution textbooks,
and they also surface during college and university zoology
lectures.32 Prominent evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould-who says that knowledgeable biologists abandoned this idea some fifty years
ago (Sagan should have known better)-says that textbook writers are not always experts in all disciplines and often have a
tendency to overly depend on previous textbooks. Misinformation has thus been passed on generation by generation since
the time of Haeckel. Gould thus laments that we should be "astonished and ashamed by the century of mindless recycling that has
led to the persistence of these drawings in a large number, if not
a majority, of modern textbooks."33 (One scholar counted 50
recent biology textbooks still using Haeckel's bogus drawings
uncritically.34)

Aside from this rank deception, allow me to emphasize that
the human embryo never develops gill slits like a fish. Indeed,
what evolutionists take to be gill slits has virtually nothing to
do with breathing, for the baby takes its oxygen directly from
the mother's blood via the umbilical cord.31 It therefore never
goes through a "fish stage." The markings on the human embryo
that are taken to be gill slits by evolutionists are actually "pharyngeal clefts" or pouches which eventually develop into the thymus
gland, parathyroid glands, and middle ear canals36in perfect
accord with the human DNA created by the Creator.

Such evolutionary stages in the embryo are genetically impossible. Indeed, at every stage of development, human DNA
ensures the embryo is human. Human DNA produces humans
(reproducing after its kind), fish DNA produces fish (reproducing after its kind), and reptile DNA produces reptiles (reproducing after its kind). Human DNA is not fish DNA, nor is
it reptile DNA. The DNA of each species has been programmed
by the Creator to reproduce only after its kind.

In this chapter we have seen that

• Similar anatomy does not prove that one animal
evolved from another. Rather, such similarity is due to
the fact that all animals come from the hand of the same
(divine) Designer, who gave creatures similar features
(eyes, noses, ears, lungs, and the like) so that they could
optimally live in a similar environment.

• The "vestigial organ" theory has been scientifically invalidated since the organs formerly categorized as vestigial
have been systematically discovered to have useful functions. In view of this, the theory should be excised from
college textbooks and popular encyclopedias and should
no longer be taught in zoology lectures.

• The recapitulation theory is scientifically invalidated and
based on bogus research, and should therefore be excised
from college textbooks and should no longer be taught
in zoology lectures.

Long before the Jodie Foster movie came out, I remember
reading the late Carl Sagan's book Contact. I was fascinated with
the idea that scientists affiliated with SETI (the Search for
ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) used powerful radio telescopes to
probe into deep space, listening for radio signals that might give
a hint of life out there.

SETI scientists listen for signals between 1000 and 3000
megahertz, where natural background static is at a minimum.
These scientists filter out certain radio emissions caused by physical processes so they can better detect faint signals from deep
space.

If there were intelligent extraterrestrials out there, what
would tip the scientists off that an intelligence was involved in
a particular radio signal? One such evidence would be a signal
that contained a series of prime numbers (numbers that are
divisible only by themselves and the number 1). Such a series
of numbers would be impossible to account for without an intelligent source. Of course, so far-despite many years of effort
and millions of dollars spent-SETI scientists have come up
empty. No prime numbers. No intelligent messages from space.

The point is that scientists and investigators refer to a "sign
of intelligence." Certain factors, when scientifically evaluated,
show beyond reasonable doubt the presence of an intelligence.

Today, various job professions and even whole industries seek
for clues of "intelligent design" and intentionality-that is, clues
that indicate that an intelligent being intentionally engaged in
a particular action and that it wasn't a chance occurrence.'
Consider, for example, a crime scene investigator (CSI). If such
an investigator comes upon a gruesome scene in which the
smashed remains of a human being are mixed with the stillsmoldering remains of a meteor, he would conclude this was a
chance event. He would dismiss any possibility of this unlucky
person being intentionally murdered by another person. However, if the investigator came upon a scene where a person had
bullet holes in him and his wallet was missing, he would see
clear signs of intentionality. He would know another person was
involved, and the police would immediately begin searching for
the culprit. The question that is always before the mind of a
crime scene investigator is, Was this person's demise by design
or by accident?

Certainly insurance companies are interested in whether a
person's death was by design or by accident. During the writing of this chapter, I saw a television report of a case involving
possible insurance fraud. A woman who had a large life insurance policy was dead, and the circumstances surrounding her
death were highly suspect. The question investigators seek an
answer for is, Did this lady die by accident, or was design
involved by the beneficiary of the life insurance policy?

Other fields that look for signs of intelligence or intentionality include archaeology (for example, the inscriptions on
the Rosetta Stone), cryptography (in which random signals are
distinguished from those that may carry encoded messages), and
copyright offices (who seek to determine whether someone
purposefully plagiarized a preexisting work). The reality is that in many cases, we can detect signs of intelligence by the effects
left behind.'

For example, I remember the first time I traveled through
South Dakota and saw the image of four presidents chiseled into
a granite cliff on a mountainside. The purposeful design in this
giant rock is unmistakable. No one seeing this sight would
conclude that wind or rain erosion caused it.' Such erosion might
have caused the Grand Canyon but not Mount Rushmore.
Intelligent artistry is obvious in this case.

Likewise, if you look up at the sky during the day and see
the words, "Free Concert in the Park Tonight," you can assume
that these words were not caused by random clouds but were
spelled out by a skywriter. Clearly, such words indicate intelligent design at work.

This leads me to the primary point I want to make. Just as
evidence shows crime scene investigators, archaeologists, cryptographers, copyright offices, and people who see words in the
sky that an intelligent being was involved, so the universe gives
us evidence of an intelligent being. In other words, the world
gives us clear evidence that an intelligent being intentionally
brought our universe into existence and that the universe was
not the result of random chance or a cosmic accident. Such
evidence serves as the primary focus of a field that has come to
be known as "intelligent design."

The relevance of this field is obvious. An intelligent Designer
is at the heart of creationism. Accidental development is at the
heart of evolutionism. Hence, as William Dembski says,
"Whence cometh the order of the world?" has become one of
the most important questions of our time.'

From a statistical perspective, most people in the United
States do not believe that the Darwinian mechanism of chance
variations and natural selection can account for the wide biological diversity of life on this planet. Despite the fact that evolutionary theory continues to be taught in school and continues to be a media favorite on news programs and in newspapers,
the majority of the public has simply not bought it. Many people
seem to intuitively know that an intelligent Designer is behind
our universe.' The only other option is to believe that somehow, life emerged from nonlife and eventually evolved into
complex life-forms (like humans)-an idea that stretches all
credulity.

Creationists Phillip Johnson and Hugh Ross speak of a God
who left His fingerprints all over the creation.' William Dembski
speaks of a God who has left His footprints throughout the
creation.7 Intelligent design theorists are finding evidence for
these fingerprints and footprints. To me, this is exciting. Whether
you are a young-earth creationist or an old-earth creationist, we
can all unite together in pointing to the evidence that God has
had His hands all over this creation and has left us plenty of
evidence attesting to this fact.

Perhaps the most oft-repeated design argument in Christian
history is that of William Paley (1743-1805), a proponent of
"natural theology." Paley suggested that if we should find a watch
in a field, the assumption would be that an intelligent designer
created that watch. His argument goes this way:

In crossing a heath [grassland or pasture], suppose
I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how
the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer,
that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain
there forever.... But suppose I had found a watch on
the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch
happened to be in that place.... The inference, we
think, is inevitable-the watch must have had a maker:
that there must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer [craftsman] or artificers, who
formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to
answer; who comprehended its construction, and
designed its use.'

Paley argued that just as we see evidence for an intelligent
designer in the making of a watch, we see evidence for an intelligent Designer in the universe. Science, during Paley's era, was
thus viewed as supportive of theism (belief in a personal CreatorGod). Because one could observe wonderful adaptations in the
world of nature (such as polar bears developing thicker coats
to survive the cold) as well as evidences for rationality, power,
and benevolence, one could infer the existence of a benevolent
and powerful Designer. One could, Paley thought, construct a
theology from the world of nature-"natural theology."9

Enter Charles Darwin. As soon as evolutionary theory
exploded on the scene through the publication of Darwin's On
the Origin of Species, Paley's design argument was promptly issued
out the back door. Darwin convincingly argued that all the
evidences for adaptation in the world of nature were actually
just examples of mechanical and purposeless natural selection,
based entirely on random variations. He saw no evidence for
a benevolent and powerful Designer behind it all, "no evidence
of beneficent design in the details."" Paley, of course, did not
have the scientific evidence for intelligent design that modern
design theorists have, so his natural theology was virtually overwhelmed by the tidal wave of Darwinism and its emphasis on
natural selection.

However, when Darwin came up with his theory on natural selection, he was acutely aware of its vulnerability. In his
book On the Origin of Species, he conceded that "if it could be
demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not
possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.""

The type of organ that would undo Darwin's theory is one
that is "irreducibly complex." According to Lehigh University
biochemist Michael Behe, an irreducibly complex system is "a
single system which is composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, and where
the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning."" In such a system, several components
interact with each other, and if any single component is missing from the system, it no longer operates correctly."

Behe suggests that a good example of an irreducibly complex
system is a common mechanical mousetrap.14 A mousetrap has
a number of components that are necessary to its functioning,
and if any component of the trap is missing, it no longer functions correctly." All its pieces have to be in place to actually catch
a mouse." If it's missing a spring, a hammer, or platform, for
example, it will not work. It is irreducibly complex. Likewise,
some bodily organs and parts-such as the human eye and a
bird's wing-involve a variety of interacting components ordered
in such a way that they accomplish a function beyond the individual components. They are irreducibly complex and give
evidence of intelligent design. 17