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by Steve Risner

This is it – the last strawman donated to us from an unbeliever in a group I’m in on Facebook. You can read the rest of the series here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Those last four links were to specific strawman arguments this unbeliever alleged that creationists use and should avoid. For the most part, he’s right. All strawman arguments should be avoided, though the insinuation from this person is that creationists are the only people who have a problem using them. Of course, this isn’t true at all. Everyone uses them at some point. What is beautiful in his statement, though, is that while his specified strawman might be a good example of something to avoid, he always followed with an explanation. These explanations were wonderful treasure troves of misinformation or just wrong thinking. That is what I’ve primarily focused on for the most part. Today’s strawman is an excellent one to end this series with. It goes like this (as I quote this unbeliever):

Evolution does not explain how life began (Abiogenesis).

Fair enough. We’ll see in a moment how the two concepts—how life began and how it diversified—cannot really be truly separated. But his explanation wants to make that separation. He says, “True, but it doesn’t pretend to. Evolution is an explanation of how life developed after it began.”

He’s in good company with this statement. Many evolutionists (people who believe in universal common descent) will say this. This is especially true of those evolutionists who are atheists. It’s a defense mechanism. It is a way to distract from the fact that, judging from everything we know about life and chemistry and natural laws, life cannot arise from non-living chemistry. Every single time we’ve ever seen a living thing, we’ve known its origin—something else that was alive. And every time we’ve tried to prove otherwise, we’ve failed. This is not the first time I’ve written on this subject, but I believe what I share here today will develop what I have previously written. You can see that first post on abiogenesis here.

The evolutionists are desperate. They need to avoid this conversation at all costs because it makes them look foolish and, obviously, we can’t have that. So, they’ll hand wave and act like you’re some sort of twit because you want to discuss abiogenesis with an evolutionist. “Evolution has nothing to do with life’s origins.” Who else believes in abiogenesis but evolutionists? Probably not a lot of folks out there. The two are married and inseparably so. Sure, diversification is not the same thing as origination, but you can’t have diversification if you don’t have a starting point. But evolutionists will want to limit the scope of any conversation about their beliefs on origins to AFTER life began because all evidence—all of it—is heavily stacked against them when it comes to abiogenesis. It’s literally impossible when we’re talking about natural means.

Are the two things so connected? What is the glue we might stumble upon to hold them together? According to some evolutionists who are fairly well spoken on the topic of universal common descent, they are connected.

From G.A. Kerkut: “…there is the theory that all the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic form. This theory can be called the ‘General Theory of Evolution’ and the evidence that supports it is not sufficiently strong to allow us to consider it as anything more than a working hypothesis.”

To distinguish this from the Special Theory of Evolution, Kerkut says, “There is a theory which states that many living animals can be observed over the course of time to undergo changes so that new species are formed.” So we have “general” and “special” theories of evolution. The General Theory of Evolution begins with life coming from non-life. Every textbook on earth that mentions evolution (universal common descent from a single common ancestor) starts with abiogenesis. If the two ideas are not dependent on each other, someone should tell a lot of people who are in key positions to educate on the topic(s). Many prominent evolutionists seem to be in the dark here.

According to Britannica: “Abiogenesis proposes that the first life-forms generated were very simple and through a gradual process became increasingly complex.” Seems like they’re talking about life from non-life and then diversification, doesn’t it? How any person can expect to be trusted when they try to claim universal common descent is not intimately connected to abiogenesis is beyond me.

Evolutionists are slimy in this regard. They’ll need to avoid this topic and then claim it’s because the creationist is ignorant on what evolution is that they’re even bringing it up. Of course, this is nonsense. I, like many other creationists, understand all too well the interconnected nature of these two topics. Yes, again, they are not the same thing. One speaks of the evolution of non-living chemicals into simple living things while the other picks up the tale here and attempts to explain the evolution of these simpler organisms into more specialized creatures over eons of time. But they try to make it about your knowledge on the topic rather than their lack of support on the topic.

Why are these two ideas joined so strongly? Creation.com tells us there are three reasons in this article. I tend to agree with each of them, and I will summarize and paraphrase them below.

The first reason I’ve already implied above is that virtually every evolutionist believes in abiogenesis, and everyone who believes in abiogenesis is an evolutionist. The two are obviously intertwined remarkably well. This is especially true of atheists, but most theistic evolutionists start with abiogenesis as well. That’s too bad, but it’s true. Since most if not all evolutionists believe in abiogenesis, it’s a great point to discuss.

I’ve also alluded to the second reason above: abiogenesis is talked about so much by so many, especially in educational settings, when evolution is the primary topic that we can’t be expected to not see the two as related. Textbooks, television programs, and journals all reference abiogenesis at some point or another. This is most often when the topic is universal common descent. Why would that be if the two are not married?

The last reason Creation.com gives is also something I briefly mentioned above: prominent (and not so prominent) evolutionists have been caught repeatedly connecting the two in discussions. In some cases, they even refer to abiogenesis as evolution. That seems significant, doesn’t it? Dr. Eugenie Scott, who is a very vocal anti-creationist, has gone so far as to say that evolution isn’t just about living things. How’s that? I thought evolution was just about AFTER life sprang up from non-life and its diversification. I guess no one knows how this works.

Creation.com even quotes British biochemist J.B.S. Haldane as saying about the conditions necessary for abiogenesis (which is funny since we have no idea what conditions are required for this miracle to happen) that “a reducing atmosphere, one with no free oxygen, was a requirement for the evolution of life from non-living organic matter.” Weird, right, to use the word evolution there if they’re not connected? If these two topics are so vastly unconcerned with each other, why are they talked about in such an intimate fashion?

They finish this article with a great synopsis of what’s at stake here for the evolutionist and why they have to avoid talking about life’s origins: “In reality, the claim that abiogenesis is not part of evolution is often nothing more than a ploy to avoid having to deal with the issue. Life’s origin is an embarrassing problem for evolutionists, so it’s easier for them to banish the topic than to debate it. But if evolutionists can’t even get the process started, then surely their naturalistic narrative is in big trouble.”

I hope this further sheds light on why abiogenesis is a great point to push with people who have accepted on faith the humanist origins myth—a story where nature and her laws are the supreme rulers of all things. Don’t let them tell you the topic of abiogenesis is out of bounds when discussing evolution. It’s right on for a few reasons.

This concludes our series taken from an unbeliever who wanted to give us creationists some sage advice. I was happy he did. I pray you enjoyed it and were able to get useful information from it.

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