Blog

by Steve Risner

The discussion has been on evolution and if creationists really understand it or not. Very often, supporters of evolution (theistic and atheistic alike, unfortunately) will accuse unbelievers (those who do not believe in evolution) of not understanding it. Now, I'm not sure how much hubris is required for such erroneous and baseless statements, but it must be large. As stated numerous times, there are a very large number of highly qualified scientists who reject the theory of evolution outright. Many of them have PhDs or EdDs in biology. Some have taught evolution at the college level and no longer will do so based on their belief that it is incorrect. Dr. Gary Parker comes to mind. I've read some of his books. Regardless, claiming it's because of a lack of knowledge that someone will reject Darwinian evolution is wrong in many (but not all) cases.

Some have said that evolution is “just a theory” and therefore isn't necessarily correct. While this is true—that theories are an explanation of a series of facts—this is not a good argument concerning why evolution from a single or last common ancestor is not true. A theory is, in the simplest of terms, an explanation of the facts. It's not used properly in today's common vernacular: “I have a theory” is what a person will say if they've got an idea about something but don't necessarily have much data to support it. The University of California, Berkeley, defines a theory as “a broad, natural explanation for a wide range of phenomena. Theories are concise, coherent, systematic, predictive, and broadly applicable, often integrating and generalizing many hypotheses.” Notice how they sneak the word “natural” in there. That's because they want to make sure creationist ideas are excluded before they are even considered. This is common and has stunted scientific progress, in my opinion. Many if not most scientific journals run by deep time proponents will rarely if ever publish papers that are supportive of creationist ideas. If they are published, the journals will frequently print criticisms of the paper without giving the original author an opportunity to respond. The belief by many is that the scientific peer-review process is unbiased and highly honorable when, in reality, it is anything but. The bias is astounding and the hypocrisy is profound. That's not really my topic for today though. I want to talk about the theory of evolution and thoughts concerning those words.

One evolutionist told me that theories are superior to facts in science. He said that theories explain facts, so they're of greater importance. Now, I found that to be a terrible statement. The data is not as important as the explanation of the data? The thing is, the data is what it is. The numbers or observations are just that. However, 10 different people can explain the data 10 very different ways. And while theories change over time, the facts don't. Sure, the facts can have a greater understanding over time, but, for the most part, facts are facts. We may be able to add to the facts as more is revealed about them, I get that. But the mass of O2 is the mass of O2. That E=mc² is how it is. That the sun is about 93 million miles away from earth is a fact. Acceleration due to gravity on earth is 9.8 m/s². These things are facts.

More closely related to the primary topic—universal common descent—are facts like all organisms found in the fossil record show up abruptly and without more primitive ancestors. The eye of the octopus and the eye of the human are nearly identical but they do not share a recent common ancestor (according to the theory of evolution). DNA can store all of the world's data—all of it—in a teaspoon size amount. An once of DNA holds about 450 thousand billion (that's 450 with 12 zeros behind it) gigabytes of information. Mutations occur. Mutations, as we discussed recently, are mostly neutral (they are not seen or have no effect) but can very often be damaging. Nearly if not every instance of a mutation changing a function of an organism is degenerative—a loss of specificity. These are all facts. It's the way things are. But the interpretation of these facts can change literally daily. How so many hang their hat on something that is so liquid and placid is beyond me.

One reason evolution should really not be considered a scientific theory, strictly, is that it has literally no observational or experimental value. We can't see it happen and can't do experiments to see it happen. That's just the way it is. It is quite literally impossible to test alleged evolutionary events of the past. You can't do it, period. We can see natural selection working on a population, but this only works on what is already there—there is no addition of genetic information or even addition of variety. The stuff that selection works on is present BEFORE it works on it. And most of the data collected to affirm universal common descent can equally be accredited to other ideas—primarily creation theory. Evidence must be interpreted and creation does just fine with the facts. There is no ignoring of facts. There is not denying facts. Creation explains them differently and that is all.

Evolution, in reality and in keeping with strict definitions, is not a theory of science. It is a religious belief that masquerades as a scientific explanation of our origins. But science cannot tell us about one time past events that no one was around for and no one knows the conditions of. There is literally no way for this to be a scientific idea. It's religious and nothing more. If that's wrong, prove it. If it's not wrong, stop trying to argue over scientific stuff. It's not about science and never has been, although creation can keep up just fine with the scientific jargon and data.

The Word tells us that God created the heavens and earth in 6 days and that He created life on a couple of those days. It also shares with us about when this happened. There is no honest way around that. If you are a follower of Christ, you cannot hold to a deep time model and believe the Bible. The two are mutually exclusive and reinterpreting the Bible or rewriting history only proves the point that Christianity and evolution do not work at all together. Stating otherwise exposes a deep conflict of the heart that you truly don't trust God or His Word. Please stop.

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