DARWIN
GOT IT WRONG
A STUDY IN THE FAILINGS OF SPECIAL EVOLUTION
Lesson
Text:
Genesis 1:1-5
INTRODUCTION
Today we find that Darwin’s theory of
evolution, used to explain the existence of life on earth, is the single most
influential teaching in Western Culture. However, the neat and tidy picture so
frequently encountered in media offerings, in high school and even university
textbooks is very misleading. The popular image of Darwinian evolution as a
self-evident fact is in fact riddled with insurmountable difficulties.
The lesson that follows is largely taken
from material developed in a collection of essays published in Phillip E.
Johnson’s book, Objections Sustained. This book, along with three others by
Johnson: Darwin
on Trial, Reason in the Balance, and Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds,
are among the most devastating refutations of Darwin’s theory ever presented.
BACKGROUND
(I Corinthians 1:20)
1. Special
Evolution is a theory that has two essential camps, that of Charles Darwin and
that of Thomas H. Huxley.
a. Darwin
proposed Natural Selection as the essential mechanism to explain Special
Evolution.
b. Huxley
had no real regard for Natural Selection as the necessary mechanism of Special
Evolution, he appealed to it only to loosen the power of the clergy.
c. Today,
the fundamentalists (strict Darwinists), and the pluralists (who admit the
inadequacies of Natural Selection), are at war.
d. They
try, though sometimes unsuccessfully, to keep their wranglings behind closed
doors, lest the dreaded Creationists seize an advantage.
2. There
is, therefore, a common ground maintained publicly to bar the door against
Creation.
UNDERSTANDING DARWINISM
(II Peter 3:3-6)
1. The
essence of Darwinism can be summed up in how proponents define key terms.
2. Both
fundamentalists and pluralists ultimately hold to these definitions so the
“Divine foot” will not get inside the door.
3. The
key terminology can be defined as follows:
a. General
Evolution: Small changes within a certain type of animal through
selective breeding (varieties of cats) and natural selection (bill variations
in birds when introduced to different environments) —everyone accepts such
changes.
b. Special
Evolution: That the small changes seen in General Evolution can,
given enough time, account for all life on earth. Natural processes within a
closed system—chance with no design present. Based on imagination, however, not
evidence.
c. Creationism:
Practiced by those who reject science for a Premodern worldview (a Gallop Poll
in 1991 showed 87% of Americans believed in some form of Creationism).
d. Science:
Everything is explained naturalistically—no possibility of God as a Designer.
And yet, the eminent evolutionist, Niles Eldredge, admitted, “We
paleontologists have said that the history of life supports [the story of
gradual adaptive change], all the while knowing it does not.”
e. Evolutionary
Paradigm: All the sciences work on the basis of Darwinistic
assumptions. This, despite serious flaws, will not be abandoned unless another,
more suitable naturalistic paradigm is found—though never one involving God.
Additionally, “We don’t Know” is also an unacceptable answer for science.
Publicly, the paradigm will be passed off as a fact of science, though science
cannot prove it.
f. Religion:
Against reason and facts while science is of fact and reason. Religion is of
faith, like believing 2+2=5, it’s OK as long as you don’t start trying to say
it is true.
g. Truth:
A changing concept, science being the ever-current closest approximation.
h. Theistic
Evolution: Theistic naturalism (Special Evolution) is
self-contradictory.
4. So
what is Darwinism?
a. As
a theory limited to variations within a particular kind of life—it is
empirical.
b. As
a theory to explain all biological life—only imagined from naturalistic
assumptions.
c. Or
as Charles Hodge said in 1874, “It is atheism.”
EXTINCTION—TROUBLE IN THE EVOLUTIONARY CAMP
(Genesis 6:13-17)
1. Extinction
is a vital element in Natural Selection.
2. Yet,
catastrophe is the theory now generally accepted by Darwinists to account for
the overwhelming majority of extinctions.
a. The
KT extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago due to the impact of a meteor
or comet is now widely accepted by evolutionists.
b. David
Raup, a leading paleontologist and a strong believer in the theory of
catastrophe, has written in book, Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck?, to
demonstrate how this is problematic to Darwinism.
c. As
Philip Johnson comments, “A natural selection that only creates and never
destroys is a logical impossibility, because it wouldn’t be doing any
selecting.”
d. Darwin
said it was “inevitable” that superior forms would “exterminate” unimproved
forms of life.
3. There
is no evidence for classic Darwinian extinctions in the fossil record and the
Catastrophe Theory effectively removes a necessary plank in Darwinism—what is
left?
IMAGINATIVE STORIES, BUT REALLY BAD SCIENCE
(Psalm 14:1)
1. The
pluralists have devised stories of “punctuated equilibrium” with “hopeful
monsters” as a means of rescuing classic Darwinism from the dilemma of having
no evidence in the fossil record supporting its main tenet—Natural Selection.
a. Large
changes from parent to child—reptile giving birth to a bird.
b. Even
the major modern proponent of the theory, Stephen J. Gould, has had to pull
back in the face of a total absence of evidence (also no evidence for slow
change).
2. Another
attempt to rescue beleaguered Darwinism comes from Richard Dawkins in his book,
The Blind
Watchmaker.
a. Dawkins
admits that there are seemingly unsolvable problems to answer.
b. The
most complicated theory in physics, for instance, is much simpler than the
nature of a single cell.
c. Each
nucleus of the many trillions of cells in the human body has a database larger
than the information in 30 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
d. Dawkins
explains how such a fact can be overcome without the need for a Designer—how
mere chance can account not only for a cell nucleus but for all the trillions
of cells working in harmony in a human body.
e. He
likens Natural Selection to a mountain climber scaling a peek one small step at
a time. Given enough time, no mountain is too steep to climb.
f. However,
Michael Behe in his book, Darwin’s Black Box, has sent Dawkins’
“staircase up the mountain” crashing at his feet.
g. Behe
has demonstrated that a living cell has “irreducible complexity,” meaning that
each component of the cell cannot exist alone and the cell cannot function
without each component.
h. There
is no way that Darwinian evolutionists can overcome this roadblock—not even one
has even tried to put forth a detailed explanation!
i. George
Williams, another prominent Darwinist, has posed a similar huge problem facing
evolutionary thought. A cell is both matter and information. The process used
to explain the evolution of matter does not touch the problem of explaining the
development of information. The logic that explains a book’s physical
attributes does not, for instance, explain the information in the book. Darwin
is foiled again!
j. Other
attempts by Dawkins to devise computer graphics showing how a squirrel-like
animal could change into a bat by jumping from tree to tree have been called by
the eminent Darwinist, John Maynard Murphy, “fact-free science.” Other
evolutionists have embarrassingly called them “Just-So stories.”
k. Not
only Dawkins’ stories, but many time-honored evolutionary explanations are
being questioned by Darwinists. Increasingly, public declarations from
evolutionists are being toned down—the facts simply are not there.
CONCLUSION
(Ecclesiastes 12:13)
Darwin did get it wrong! Unfortunately, the
internal problems encountered by those opting for naturalistic explanations of
life have largely been kept behind closed doors. The media, like Darwinists,
are driven by a fanatical desire to keep the foot of God from getting in the
door of scientific inquiry. Design is testable scientifically, but unscientific
assertions will not allow such testing on a broad scale. Those of us who
believe in Creation need to take the offensive. We can deliver the goods, the
Darwinists are left holding the bag.
Edwin
2/11/01
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