The 10 Things You Should Know About the Creation vs. Evolution Debate (4 page)

In view of this, some evolutionists actually define natural
selection as "the process by which in every generation individuals of lower fitness are removed from the population."' Simply
put, natural selection involves a "process of elimination.""

An example sometimes cited to illustrate natural selection
is the insulating coat of the polar bear. We are told that at some
point during the polar bear's evolution, a thick insulating coat
developed in response to the cold environment, and this "advantage" was passed on to future offspring by positive mutations,
while polar bears less adapted to the environment were weeded
out (they did not survive).10

This understanding of evolution is based entirely on naturalism, the idea that all phenomena in the world can be explained
in terms of natural causes and laws. Naturalism effectively takes
God out of the picture. As one evolutionist put it, "once we
accept the theory of evolution by natural selection, the traditional idea of God really does go out of the window."" A modern
science textbook pointedly states that "living creatures on earth
are a direct product of the earth. There is every reason to believe
that living things owe their origin entirely to certain physical
and chemical properties of the ancient earth." The textbook goes
on to assert that "nothing supernatural appeared to be
involved-only time and natural physical and chemical laws
operating within the peculiarly suitable environment. " 12 This
naturalistic outlook is the foundational philosophy of evolution. (I address naturalism in detail in the next chapter and natural selection in chapter 6.)

Evolutionary theory accepts at least five basic assumptions.
As you consider these assumptions, I suggest that you pay special
attention to their speculative nature (that is, the assumptions
have no genuine scientific proof behind them):

1. Nonliving things gave rise to living things. Somehow, in
some way, "spontaneous generation" occurred at some point in
the unimaginably distant past, and all of a sudden, life emerged.
After this initial life emerged from nonlife, some 1.7 million
highly complex species eventually evolved. 13

2. Simple life forms evolved into increasingly complex lifeforms. For example, the protozoa (single-celled, microscopic
organisms) gave rise to the metazoa (multicellular animals with
organs), the invertebrates (lacking a backbone) gave rise to the
vertebrates (having a backbone), within the vertebrates the fish gave rise to amphibia, the amphibia gave rise to reptiles, reptiles
gave rise to birds and mammals, and so on.

3. All of this was the product of chance. No deity was
involved. No supernatural providence was involved. Human
beings and all life-forms on planet earth are essentially a cosmic
accident that took place purely by natural causes.

4. All this took place over aeons and aeons of time. Billions
of years were necessary for simple life-forms to evolve into complex life-forms. Evolutionists argue that "the effect of numerous instances of selection leads to a species being modified over
time."" Indeed, "Given enough time, there could be a series of
many small steps linking a monkey ancestor to a human descendant.""

Most evolutionists believe that our solar system emerged
around five billion years ago, and that simple life-forms emerged
on planet earth from nonliving chemicals perhaps four billion
years ago. Since this time, increasingly complex life-forms have
evolved. Man finally came on the scene perhaps one or two
million years ago.

5. Existing physical processes-including those related to geology, biology, and astronomy-have been acting in a consistent
fashion for billions of years essentially as we see them acting in
the present. In other words, the geological, biological, and astronomical processes that we now observe in our present universe
operated identically in the past at the same strength and intensity. A paleobiology professor simplifies this by saying,
"because natural processes operating today have always operated, we can use them as a guide in understanding events
throughout all geological time. "'6 Therefore, the best way to
understand the past is to simply observe what is happening in
the present. This is a viewpoint known as uniformitarianism."

Based on uniformitarianism, evolutionists calculate that the
earth must be very old. They argue that because fossils seem to form rarely today, the billions of fossils that have been discovered worldwide must have taken millions of years to form. 18
Likewise, the sedimentary layers of rock are so thick (thousands
of feet) that they must have taken immeasurable time to develop
by ordinary processes of deposition." As one evolutionist put
it, "If the same rate of change had operated in the past as [is]
observed in the present, it must have taken hundreds of millions
of years to produce such huge thicknesses of rock and such
depths of erosion."20 Such argumentation seems persuasiveand among those persuaded by such arguments are old-earth
creationists."

However, young-earth creationists counter with a persuasive scenario which says that in the past, the sudden worldwide
flood that came upon the earth in Noah's time upset normal
geological processes on an absolutely catastrophic scale, causing mass extinction, fossilization, and layer upon layer of sedimentary rock at an unprecedented rapid rate around the world.
They suggest that estimates of the earth's old age "assume that
rates of sedimentation and radioactive decay have remained
constant, assumptions that are impossible to verify empirically."22
In short, they argue that what may appear to have taken millions
of years may in reality have taken a much shorter time.

Certainly modern geologists are fully aware that such things
as volcanoes and earthquakes can affect normal geological
processes, prohibiting a perfect constancy in uniformitarianism.;
But young-earth creationists believe the worldwide flood was
absolutely catastrophic, and the effect on normal geological
processes was immeasurable-much worse than any local
phenomenon that has been observed in modern times. Only a
worldwide catastrophic flood, they believe, can account for the
sheer magnitude of geological upsets (massive volcanoes) and
the vastness of mass fossil graves around the world, even atop
high mountains. In this view, then, things in the past took place
at enormously different rates and intensities from anything seen at present. This view obviously goes against the uniformitarianism accepted by evolutionists.

I address uniformitarianism and the fossil record in chapter
4. Now, however, I must shift attention to the critically important distinction between microevolution and macroevolution.

A distinction must be made between microevolution and
macroevolution, for much modern confusion on evolutionism
is rooted in a confusion of these categories. Simply put, microevolution refers to changes that occur within the same species, while
macroevolution refers to the transition or evolution of one species
into another.24 Macroevolution "consists of changes within a
population leading to a completely new species with genetic
information that did not exist in any of the parents."25

Creationists and evolutionists agree that microevolution has
taken place. Creationists believe all the different races of human
beings descended from a single common human ancestor
(Adam) .2' Likewise, all kinds of dogs have "microevolved" from
the original dog species created by God.Z' In no case, however,
have scientists ever observed macroevolution.21 I argue later in
the book that the genetic pool of DNA in each species sets
parameters beyond which the species simply cannot evolve (that
is, dogs can take on new characteristics, but they cannot evolve
into cats, for dog DNA always remains dog DNA, just as cat
DNA always remains cat DNA).

Scripture indicates that God created the initial "kinds" of
animals, and then reproduction took place, generation by generation, "according to its kind" (Genesis 1:21,24). This type of
evolution is "micro" in the sense that small changes have taken
place in the DNA of specific species to bring about minor
changes in that species. So, for example, human DNA allows
humans to have different eye colors, different hair colors, different heights, dark skin or light skin, a bulky frame or a scrawny frame, a thin body or a fat body, and so forth. The possibility
for all kinds of variations such as these are encoded into the
DNA of the human species."

All of this contrasts with macroevolution, which, as noted
previously, refers to large-scale transitions of one species into
another through the process of natural selection." Evolutionists believe that only the best-fit members of each species survive
and transmit their genetic characteristics in increasing
numbers to succeeding generations, while those less adapted are
weeded out." Through this "survival of the fittest" mechanism,
species can allegedly evolve or transform into entirely new
species. Simple life-forms can allegedly evolve or transform into
more complex life-forms.

This is where the confusion often emerges in the theory of
evolution. While microevolution is an observable fact, evolutionists have in the past tended to speak of evolution as a single
unitary process (merging micro- and macroevolution into one
category) such that proof for microevolution is viewed as proof
for macroevolution. This conclusion is entirely unwarranted.'2 The
extrapolation from microevolution to macroevolution is an idea
rejected even by many nontheistic biologists."

An illustration of this folly involves the well-known evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould, who wrote an article entitled
"Evolution as Fact and Theory" in Discovery Magazine. In the
article he emphatically stated that scientists now have "observational evidence of evolution in action." However, the examples
he cites are actually examples of microevolution in action, not
macroevolution.34 Some evolutionists try to claim that macroevolution is microevolution over a very long time (like billions
of years), 35 but such a claim flies in the face of everything scientists have observed in the world of nature.

What scientific observation clearly reveals is that variations
do occur within species (within fixed limits), but one species
does not transition into an entirely new species. So, to cite my previous example, variations have occurred within the "dog
kind," but we never witness the dog evolving into another
species. Variations have occurred within the "cat kind," but we
never witness the cat evolving into another species. Arguing for
the validity of macroevolution based on the observation of
microevolution is unscientific.

Christian scholars Norman Geisler and Joseph Holden provide this helpful chart to summarize key differences between
microevolution and macroevolution36:

Charles Darwin was certainly aware that his theory of evolution had some problems. In fact, his book On the Origin of
Species, which is full of all kinds of observational data, catalogues
key problems with his theory, admitting he simply cannot answer
some questions but also suggesting possible solutions to some
of the problems.37

For example, Darwin admitted that if his theory were true,
intermediate fossils should show transitions of one species into
another (macroevolution). At the time he wrote his book, no
such intermediates had been discovered. Darwin suggested,
however, that the fossil record was sketchy and incomplete, and
he expressed hope that one day intermediates would be discovered. He also suggested that the geological conditions under which a new species might emerge in a given area were such
that fossilization was not likely to occur, and therefore the fossil
records may contain less evidence of intermediates .31

This answer served to convince many of Darwin's contemporaries of the validity of evolution. But since his day, massive
numbers (billions) of fossil discoveries have proved beyond any
shadow of a doubt that no true intermediate forms exist in the
fossil records. (I address this in detail in chapter 4.)

Despite the problems many have pointed out regarding evolutionary theory (I focus attention on these problems in subsequent
chapters), the theory persists and will seemingly not go away.
In fact, evolution now seems to permeate our culture far beyond
mere biological processes. Today evolutionary theory has been
applied to virtually every area of life, including the social sciences,
humanities, economics, business, and politics. Evolutionist Julian
Huxley said that following Darwin's discovery,

the concept of evolution was soon extended into other
than biological fields. Inorganic subjects such as the lifehistories of stars and the formation of the chemical
elements on the one hand, and on the other hand
subjects like linguistics, social anthropology, and
comparative law and religion, began to be studied from
an evolutionary angle, until today we are enabled to see
evolution as a universal and all-pervading process .31