Evolution is a tautology. Remember a tautology is a statement that is definitional and not explanatory, but it is often cited as an explanation. In other words, tautologies are definitions masquerading as arguments. An example of a tautology would be, "Either God exists or He doesn't." This statement is necessarily true, but it is useless and uninteresting. Another example would be, "a bachelor is an unmarried male." Yep, but again useless and philosophically void.
Here is the tautology of evolution: The confident evolutionist says, "Only the best creatures survive." And I ask, "What makes them the best?" And he says, "Because they survive." Or put plainly: "The evolved creatures are the ones that survive and the reason they are the most evolved is that they survive."
Of course it is plain when stated this way that evolution as a theory has virtually nothing to do with this tautological evolution. Evolution as a process would not be interested in ensuring that the "best" or "most evolved" would survive. Of course this has to do with what we mean by the "best" creatures. And surely this is the center of my point--namely, that evolution merely definitionally associates "best" with "survivor." But then the theory of evolution seems to indicate that living creatures began with a simple common ancestor and "developed" into the spectacular variety of living things we now encounter, among which are creatures that are more intelligent, altruistic, and in that sense "better" than their distant ancestors. In other words, evolution as a theory suggests that things are progressing through the ages by the refining power of natural selection. But is this so, other than merely definitionally? (in other words, because they tell us it is happening)
If evolution as a theory is true then it would not ensure "refinement" in the least. It would only ensure value-neutral change, genetic drift. One could not watch the change occur and then say after the fact that it was an improvement, because that would imply that evolution is a perfecting process and would beg the whole question.
In other words, evolution, at least as it has been explained by evolutionists, ensures only that random changes in an environment meet random changes in organisms, and when by happy accident the creature has the traits to survive in that environment, then it passes its genes to the next generation. That is it! It seems to me obvious that this kind of process would not "care" about producing something better over time. In fact over time this planet will become uninhabitable to humans, leaving only bacteria to survive. At that point, would it be reasonable to suggest that bacteria would be the "most evolved" creatures? Is it reasonable to suggest it now, since bacteria can survive myriad environments and we are less adaptive. Or consider this another way. Perhaps there are aliens in the universe whose intelligence exceeds ours at least as much as ours exceeds that of bacteria. Are they the most evolved, even if in colonizing our planet they should be destroyed by a simple virus?
And now we turn to the matter of evolutionary science and how a Christian can respond to it. First, let's establish a few key terms, as we are want to do in this class:
1. Evolution: Organisms develop in complexity over time, descending from a common, albeit simple, ancestor.
2. Natural selection: Only organisms suited to the environment survive to pass their genetics to the next generation. This is perhaps a more accurate definition of evolution itself, given the explanations most generally offered.
3. Theistic evolution: God is the creative causal agent behind the evolutionary process, perhaps in a merely Deistic or detached manner.
4. Punctuated equilibrium: The view of Stephen J. Gould that genetic changes in organisms happen so rapidly that the intermediary forms have little time to leave a fossil deposit.
5. Big bang cosmology: There is a residual echo of the big bang (traceable expansion, slowing), which demonstrates an absolute beginning to the universe.
6. Law of biogenesis: Creatures produce after their own kind. Chickens produce chickens and humans produce humans.
7. Second Law of Thermodynamics: Heat loss and loss of order occur in a closed system. Also referred to as entropy.
8. Irreducible complexity: Some organs/organisms do not appear to have any conceivable need of perfecting. In other words, some things in nature do not appear to be able to go through a developmental or emergent process. All the necessary parts need to be in place simultaneously (such as the bacterial flagellum, the eye, etc), which implies that the information system that coded for the creation of these systems (DNA) had to be in place prior to assembly as well.
9. Mutations: Mistakes in genetic duplication. These create changes in the way an organism functions. This is said to be the mechanism of evolutionary development. Generally this would require a slow process of genetic differentiation to create new systems, thus creating significant innovative changes (sea mammal to land mammal, etc.).
10. Spontaneous generation: The view that life on earth came from the constituent chemicals of which the earth is made. It is said that non-living chemicals "came to life" or "self-assembled" as a result of a random interaction of these chemicals with an external energy source (such as lightening).
In confronting the matter of evolution, the Christian must face his most significant evidentiary challenge--namely, the age of the earth. Of course this is a significant problem because the Scriptures seem to indicate a rather young earth (6 - 15 thousand years).
What evidence is there of age? The two primary sources of this information come from the rocks (geological evidence) and from stars (cosmological evidence).
Radiometric dating is the process of discerning the age of rocks from the half-life of various elements within them. Christians are fond of claiming that radiometric dating is unreliable, and since I am no scientist, it occurs to me that I would not have the authority to counter or confirm this claim. For the sake of argument, let us assume that radiometric dating is roughly accurate. If it is, then surely the earth cannot be as young as Genesis indicates. It would have to be much older, on the order of 4-5 billion years.
Carbon dating looks at the half-life of carbon in a sample to find its approximate age. I'm told that it works only to about 50,000 years since that is the longest possible age signature carbon can leave.
Perhaps the strongest evidence for the age of the earth is the cosmological evidence. We know that the closest star to the earth is our sun, which is roughly 93 million miles away from us. That means that the light from our sun left 8 minutes ago. We are looking at a developing photograph that was taken 8 minutes ago. If that weren't amazing enough, consider that many of the stars we see in the night sky ceased to exist many millions of years ago, since the light traveling from those stars left millions of years ago. When we finally see the supernova of those stars, it is a time delay of several million years. Surely this indicates a very old universe indeed!
These evidentiary points cannot be brushed aside. They require some reasonable response from Christians. Now I highlight a few Christian responses to the age problem:
1. Theistic Evolution: Some Christians have adopted a compromise position between creation and evolution known as Theistic Evolution. The basic idea is that the universe is old and that God has chosen to use the slow process of evolution to create. God is the creative force behind phenomena that are as yet unexplained by evolutionary science, such as the origin of life from non-living chemicals, the wealth of necessary beneficial mutations and order from disorder.
One problem with TE is that it must turn the early Genesis account into an allegory (a symbolic story, or poem) of creation. One wonders where the allegory ends? One wonders whether Adam and Eve were real people?
Another problem with TE is that God is seen to use a method of creation that seems unworthy of Him. Why would God use such a slow and even imperfect process to bring about the emergence of man? Surely the Genesis account indicates that God, who is perfect, creates a world that is perfect, or at least harmonious, and then it deteriorates from that state into the imperfect state we see now. Evolution would seem to suggest the exact opposite paradigm.
And finally, TE would also involve the messy struggle for survival as its method of "creation." The Genesis account seems to indicate that death is a result of the fall and not that it is a tool of creation.
Having said all of this, perhaps there are ways of facing such challenges and offering a plausible Theistic Evolutionary model. Certainly many intelligent Christians have adopted it as their answer to the age question.
2. The Day Age Theory: This would be the interpretive framework for Genesis supplied by the Theistic Evolutionist or the model of Hugh Ross and his compatriots. It is said that the days of Genesis represent epochs of time. The word"yom" in Hebrew can have such a meaning, and as such it perhaps refers to an era or epoch. A strong counter to this is the Exodus 20 reference, in which the plural for "yom" is used, as in "In six days (yamim) God created the heavens and the earth..." Any time the plural "yamim" is used in Scripture, meaning "days," it refers to a succession of literal 24 hour days. This would seem to be a problem for the Day Age Theorist. Nevertheless, such an objection may reasonably be faced, thus giving the Day Age Theory stronger footing.
3. The Gap Theory: An unusual theory, to say the least. It is built on the notion that a gap of perhaps billions of years exists between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth... and the earth was formless and void..." The contention is that God created the world, then rendered it formless and void as the result of His judgment on a pre-Adamic race. The earth was in this formless and void condition for billions of years, after which God begins a recreation. This is not a widely held theory due to the fact that it reads far too much into the phrase "formless and void."
4. The Literalist Theory: It is still maintained by some "short age" creationists that God could have created the world in 6 literal 24 hour periods of time. They maintain that the matter of age is a matter of appearance--that is, God created the universe in a state of material maturity. It is said that God could have built a history into the rocks of the earth as well as a history into the Cosmos. The evidence for this is the maturity of the garden and the maturity of Adam and Eve. They were not created as fetuses, but as fully grown adults. In that sense, the chicken indeed came before the egg for the literalist.
The problem with the literalist theory is its relationship to the evidence for age and its explanations for the appearance of age. For example, in order for the universe to give an appearance of several billion years when it is only 6000 years old would require God in a sense deceiving us as to the light signature of distant stars. We see a light signature of stars 7 million light years away, and yet those stars presumably don't exist. It seems that such a theory would require that as we look at the night sky, the only stars that really exist are the the ones at or within the universal boundary of 6000 years, indicating that all the rest are "representations" of stars. And that would indicate that we are functioning within something like a giant "dome," as in the movie "The Truman Show."
Or it could be that the stars exist, but God accelerated the light to arrive on earth and then slowed the light again to the constant rate for light that we now know.
And consider the fossil question. This theory would indicate either that dinosaurs lived only 6000 years ago or that God deposited fossils of creatures that never really existed. But both strain the limits of credibility.
5. Schroeder's Theory (Quasar Theory): Perhaps not a widely known theory because it requires an ability to conceptualize Einstein's theory of relativity and its implications with respect to time. Perhaps the best thing to do here would be to link you to Schroeder's article on this: http://www.aish.com/ci/sam/48951136.html
In essence, this article indicates that the universe looks 15 billion years old from our vantage point in the expansion of the universe. Our relative position in the universe causes us to see the universe as that old, but if we were located at or near the point of the big bang, events would be radically accelerated and yet you wouldn't "feel" that they were. To get an idea of this, imagine for a moment teleporting to a distant galaxy on a planet where time didn't move as quickly. You are there, from the perspective of that planet, for 10 years and then you teleport back to earth only to learn that everyone you knew was now in their 80's. You aged ten years while they aged 60+ years. Einstein taught us that time does not function the same everywhere in the universe. In some places in the universe an orange could theoretically last for months. At the point of the big bang, events are rapidly accelerated, but if you were there you would not perceive this rapid change.
I personally like Schroeder's theory and think that it's merit lies in that if true it would demonstrate that the universe is both young and old at the same time. Looking forward from the point of the big bang would grant a short time frame, but looking back from our position in the expansion and slowing of the universe grants a long time frame.
So is it true that modern evolutionary science is at odds with Christian faith? Theistic Evolution, Short Age Creation and Schroeder's Theory offer plausible methods of resolving the age considerations within the creationist model. The real question is this: Is modern science at odds with modern science? In other words, is the evolutionary theory consistent with modern science? It seems the answer is a resounding no!
Now I would like to discuss a few problems with Naturalism:
1. The mind is the product of purposeless chance. We have discussed this already, so I won't labor the point. Suffice it to say that if our minds are the products of a purposeless process, there can be no objective reason to think that in using them we are doing something purposeful. But if there is no purpose to using the mind, then science surely is left without a motivational foundation. We can do it perhaps to cure boredom, but surely a party is more fun than the science lab.
2. All of human history is moving toward total annihilation. This is another point that has been raised, but it surely must be the case that if all of human history will become nothing more than a particularized junkyard of inert matter, then there can be no meaning in the things we are doing with our time now. In point of fact, if naturalism is true, then the universe is nothing but totally randomized shrapnel from a giant explosion. But if this is really true, then one might as well spend one's time finding pleasure in whatever will afford it rather than doing science.
3. Another problem in evolutionary "science" is that assumptions are passed of as observational facts.
For example, spontaneous generation is passed off as fact when every scientific test employed to confirm it has actually reinforced the fact that the opposite is true--namely, that life exploding from its constituent chemicals is impossible. Life does not spontaneously generate from chemical parts. Nature herself is insistent on this point. This is no canon of religious dogmatism (stubborn belief). Observationally, we have seen only that life comes from pre-existing life. Even in Darwin's own work, it is plain that he conceived of evolution as taking over once there was a creature in place that had reproductive capabilities. Darwinism itself simply doesn't make sense unless there exists some common ancestor with the requisite encyclopedic genetics necessary to reproduce itself.
Another assumption of modern evolutionary theory is that mutations are sufficient to create biological innovations on their own. It should be understood that a mutation is actually a random mistake in genetic duplication. These mistakes are often then passed on through successive generations of genetic duplication. This causes a kind of corruption of genetic information, usually resulting in too much information here or too little information there. As a result, mutations are almost wholly destructive to living things, or at least cause a less than optimal functionality. For example, genetic disorders such as down's syndrome or sickle cell anemia cause those who have these disorders to live more difficult and often shorter lives. This process of mutative change over time is the only meaningful mechanism for evolutionary development, and yet it seems almost totally destructive.
Another question persists: How many constructive and coordinated mutative genetic steps must there be to cause the transition of a sea-mammal to a land-going mammal, for example? Would it have to be on the order of millions? Does this not strain the limits of credibility?
On the question of mutations, the case of fruit flies is instructive. The life cycle of fruit flies is very short, which allows scientists to tinker with their genetics through cross-breeding, in the hope of demonstrating how mutations can be a source of biological innovation. The equivalent of many human generations of genetic drift can be traced because of the short life cycle of fruit flies. And what has been the result of this study? Scientists have found that strangely there seems to be a kind of genetic barrier surrounding the species "fruit fly." Many exotic forms of fruit flies are produced in these studies, but what is curiously missing is any leap to biological structures that would be considered novel to fruit flies. The point is that there is only so much information available in the gene pool of the fruit fly. One cannot expect that a random reconfiguration of the raw parts of DNA will produce additional information, especially the kind and quality necessary for constructive and coordinated mutative steps forward in development.
The last glaring assumption of evolutionary science is the notion of naturalism itself. I have also discussed this elsewhere, but it bears repeating that there is no way to scientifically demonstrate the God does not exist. It is philosophical position. To say that "everything has a naturalistic explanation" is self-contradictory, for surely the statement that "everything has a naturalistic explanation" does not itself have a naturalistic explanation. It is philosophical, which means it is an interpretation of the facts and not a fact itself. But those principles by which we interpret facts are not facts themselves and are not even discerned from the facts. The problem of course is that the assumption of God's non-existence is passed off as though it is fact, which is absurd.
The Factual Problems with Naturalism:
4. Mutations: Observationally they are bad or neutral and not beneficial in a substantially creative or emergent sense. Fruit flies with four wings are cool looking and fun to produce through cross breeding, but they die even more quickly than other fruit flies. X-Men is a great movie, but it is after all just a movie!
5. Fossil Record: There are significant glaring gaps in the fossil record. And not only that, but abundant and multiple complex life forms all appear together in what is known as the Cambrian rock layer, and in other explosive events. There are no common ancestors in the fossil record for most of the animals that come into existence in these "explosions," which seems to indicate that multiple creatures of different genetic trajectories came into existence simultaneously.
Darwin himself noted that if his theory were to be vindicated, there would have to be multiple transitional forms scattered throughout the fossil record. We should see literally millions of transitional forms between sea-mammal and land-going mammal, much less the rest of the fossil record. And that is not what we find. Scientists claim that the reason for this is that the conditions required for laying down fossils are exceedingly rare. But apparently the problem is significant enough to prompt a new theory championed by Harvard biologist Stephen J. Gould. His theory suggests that the genetic changes that create new species happen much more abruptly than previously thought, so that perhaps setting down a fossil record would be compromised. Rapid coordinated changes happen and thus no record is left between groups. This theory is called "punctuated equilibrium" to suggest that the evolutionary periods are rapid, followed by long periods of evolutionary calm.
The curious thing about this new theory is that it seems to suggest that evolution is happening so rapidly that one won't find a fossil record. Of course, the argument has been that evolution is happening so slowly that we can't see it now either. So what that means is that it is invisible both to our observations now and in the fossil record historically, but we must trust that it is happening--after all, how else are we going to explain the facts of our experience?
6. Irreducible Complexity: Michael Behe, in his book, Dawrin's Black Box, discusses this idea. He illustrates by discussing the various parts of a mousetrap. To be functional, a mousetrap requires that all five parts function symbiotically. Another way of saying this is that each of the parts of the mousetrap were created anticipating the necessary relationships between the various parts. The whole is the reason for the parts, so to speak. But surely if we find things like this in nature, then we will be led to conclude that certain structures in nature cannot go through an unguided developmental process and that perhaps they were intentionally arranged in the ways that they are. A mousetrap missing even one of the essential five parts is wholly non-functional. It is questionable whether it can even be referred to as a mousetrap. Is this also true of the bacterial flagellum or the first cell or other irreducibly complex structures in nature? Behe says yes, and many scientists agree with him.
7. Time and Probabilities: Remember Dr. Stenger offered a "low-probability argument," essentially stating that low probability events happen all the time (people win the lottery, people are hit by lightening, etc.), so one should not rule out that naturalistic evolution has occurred since we see low probability events every day.
I suggested to you that this is a dreadful argument, for the following reasons:
One, it is a logical fallacy (called Affirming the Consequent).
If evolution occurred, the improbable is possible.
The improbable is possible.
Therefore, evolution occurred.
But clearly it is ridiculous to make the leap from some improbable events to all improbable events, or from one class of improbable events to the class of improbable events to which evolution belongs. To illustrate,
If dogs are typing Shakespeare on the moon right now, then the improbable is possible.
The improbable is possible.
Therefore, dogs are on the moon right now typing Shakespeare.
The other response to Stenger would be that of Aristotle. Aristotle notes that chance events do occur, but within ordered boundaries. If that is true, then chance occurrences do not in the least threaten the Christian position. We can simply state that God's ordered design includes parameters wide enough to allow for chance events. The lottery is instructive here. From the perspective of the designer of the game, it is assured that someone will win it. From the perspective of the players, the winner is wholly random. No thinking person would conclude that because a chance event took place within the game that the game itself is a chance event.
8. 2nd Law of Thermodynamics: Christians are fond of citing the second law against evolution, but to do so requires that we accurately address the arguments of our opponents. Scientists note that the second law does not preclude evolution on this planet because the second law only dictates that entropy will occur in a closed system. The earth is not a closed system. It is constantly irradiated by a primary energy source, our sun. The sun is the engine that drives evolution.
But is this response adequate? If entropy occurs in a closed system, we must ask if the universe is a closed system? It seems that most would either say yes, or would be led to conclude that we can make no other assumption given the evidence. As such, it seems clear that the second law is a serious obstacle to evolution on a universal scale. One could perhaps state that what we experience is global evolution amid universal devolution. The solar system is in decay. One day, perhaps many millions of years hence, it will unravel, the sun will explode or burn out its fuel, and nothing but diminished (less useful) matter will exist.
Another interesting thought is this: If the universe is devolving from some organized original state prior to the big bang, wouldn't that state be the most "evolved" state? Can we meaningfully think of the present state as more evolved than the big bang itself? Why arbitrarily conclude that living matter is more evolved than supremely organized non-living matter? What gives us that right--that is, what gives us the epistemological right to assess matter along a scale? No river can rise higher than it's source, and so the state just before the big bang is the most evolved state--that is, if evolutionary theory is to be consistent.
9. Law of Biogenesis: All our observations of nature indicate that creatures contain set parameters of genetic information that they invariably pass down to successive generations. And while mutations occur, they only manipulate this information and do not generate new and more complex information from it. That is where centuries of scientific observations have led us.
10. Big Bang Cosmology: The residual echo of the big bang is evidence of an absolute beginning, get this, not merely of motion in the universe, but of matter, time and space itself. Now that we know the atomic structure of matter, it seems impossible to conceive of matter locked in complete inactivity. And if the matter of the big bang was excited into motion, how was it so excited? Could it have provided for its own atomic motion by itself if it was frozen motionless at the beginning?
But matter in motion cries out for a creator or an absolute beginning to motion because of the Kalam argument. If there was no beginning to this motion, then the past is an infinite series of movements, or events. But this is rationally absurd because if the past is infinite, then the present could not have arrived.
And consider the fossil question. This theory would indicate either that dinosaurs lived only 6000 years ago or that God deposited fossils of creatures that never really existed. But both strain the limits of credibility.
5. Schroeder's Theory (Quasar Theory): Perhaps not a widely known theory because it requires an ability to conceptualize Einstein's theory of relativity and its implications with respect to time. Perhaps the best thing to do here would be to link you to Schroeder's article on this: http://www.aish.com/ci/sam/48951136.html
In essence, this article indicates that the universe looks 15 billion years old from our vantage point in the expansion of the universe. Our relative position in the universe causes us to see the universe as that old, but if we were located at or near the point of the big bang, events would be radically accelerated and yet you wouldn't "feel" that they were. To get an idea of this, imagine for a moment teleporting to a distant galaxy on a planet where time didn't move as quickly. You are there, from the perspective of that planet, for 10 years and then you teleport back to earth only to learn that everyone you knew was now in their 80's. You aged ten years while they aged 60+ years. Einstein taught us that time does not function the same everywhere in the universe. In some places in the universe an orange could theoretically last for months. At the point of the big bang, events are rapidly accelerated, but if you were there you would not perceive this rapid change.
I personally like Schroeder's theory and think that it's merit lies in that if true it would demonstrate that the universe is both young and old at the same time. Looking forward from the point of the big bang would grant a short time frame, but looking back from our position in the expansion and slowing of the universe grants a long time frame.
So is it true that modern evolutionary science is at odds with Christian faith? Theistic Evolution, Short Age Creation and Schroeder's Theory offer plausible methods of resolving the age considerations within the creationist model. The real question is this: Is modern science at odds with modern science? In other words, is the evolutionary theory consistent with modern science? It seems the answer is a resounding no!
Now I would like to discuss a few problems with Naturalism:
1. The mind is the product of purposeless chance. We have discussed this already, so I won't labor the point. Suffice it to say that if our minds are the products of a purposeless process, there can be no objective reason to think that in using them we are doing something purposeful. But if there is no purpose to using the mind, then science surely is left without a motivational foundation. We can do it perhaps to cure boredom, but surely a party is more fun than the science lab.
2. All of human history is moving toward total annihilation. This is another point that has been raised, but it surely must be the case that if all of human history will become nothing more than a particularized junkyard of inert matter, then there can be no meaning in the things we are doing with our time now. In point of fact, if naturalism is true, then the universe is nothing but totally randomized shrapnel from a giant explosion. But if this is really true, then one might as well spend one's time finding pleasure in whatever will afford it rather than doing science.
3. Another problem in evolutionary "science" is that assumptions are passed of as observational facts.
For example, spontaneous generation is passed off as fact when every scientific test employed to confirm it has actually reinforced the fact that the opposite is true--namely, that life exploding from its constituent chemicals is impossible. Life does not spontaneously generate from chemical parts. Nature herself is insistent on this point. This is no canon of religious dogmatism (stubborn belief). Observationally, we have seen only that life comes from pre-existing life. Even in Darwin's own work, it is plain that he conceived of evolution as taking over once there was a creature in place that had reproductive capabilities. Darwinism itself simply doesn't make sense unless there exists some common ancestor with the requisite encyclopedic genetics necessary to reproduce itself.
Another assumption of modern evolutionary theory is that mutations are sufficient to create biological innovations on their own. It should be understood that a mutation is actually a random mistake in genetic duplication. These mistakes are often then passed on through successive generations of genetic duplication. This causes a kind of corruption of genetic information, usually resulting in too much information here or too little information there. As a result, mutations are almost wholly destructive to living things, or at least cause a less than optimal functionality. For example, genetic disorders such as down's syndrome or sickle cell anemia cause those who have these disorders to live more difficult and often shorter lives. This process of mutative change over time is the only meaningful mechanism for evolutionary development, and yet it seems almost totally destructive.
Another question persists: How many constructive and coordinated mutative genetic steps must there be to cause the transition of a sea-mammal to a land-going mammal, for example? Would it have to be on the order of millions? Does this not strain the limits of credibility?
On the question of mutations, the case of fruit flies is instructive. The life cycle of fruit flies is very short, which allows scientists to tinker with their genetics through cross-breeding, in the hope of demonstrating how mutations can be a source of biological innovation. The equivalent of many human generations of genetic drift can be traced because of the short life cycle of fruit flies. And what has been the result of this study? Scientists have found that strangely there seems to be a kind of genetic barrier surrounding the species "fruit fly." Many exotic forms of fruit flies are produced in these studies, but what is curiously missing is any leap to biological structures that would be considered novel to fruit flies. The point is that there is only so much information available in the gene pool of the fruit fly. One cannot expect that a random reconfiguration of the raw parts of DNA will produce additional information, especially the kind and quality necessary for constructive and coordinated mutative steps forward in development.
The last glaring assumption of evolutionary science is the notion of naturalism itself. I have also discussed this elsewhere, but it bears repeating that there is no way to scientifically demonstrate the God does not exist. It is philosophical position. To say that "everything has a naturalistic explanation" is self-contradictory, for surely the statement that "everything has a naturalistic explanation" does not itself have a naturalistic explanation. It is philosophical, which means it is an interpretation of the facts and not a fact itself. But those principles by which we interpret facts are not facts themselves and are not even discerned from the facts. The problem of course is that the assumption of God's non-existence is passed off as though it is fact, which is absurd.
The Factual Problems with Naturalism:
4. Mutations: Observationally they are bad or neutral and not beneficial in a substantially creative or emergent sense. Fruit flies with four wings are cool looking and fun to produce through cross breeding, but they die even more quickly than other fruit flies. X-Men is a great movie, but it is after all just a movie!
5. Fossil Record: There are significant glaring gaps in the fossil record. And not only that, but abundant and multiple complex life forms all appear together in what is known as the Cambrian rock layer, and in other explosive events. There are no common ancestors in the fossil record for most of the animals that come into existence in these "explosions," which seems to indicate that multiple creatures of different genetic trajectories came into existence simultaneously.
Darwin himself noted that if his theory were to be vindicated, there would have to be multiple transitional forms scattered throughout the fossil record. We should see literally millions of transitional forms between sea-mammal and land-going mammal, much less the rest of the fossil record. And that is not what we find. Scientists claim that the reason for this is that the conditions required for laying down fossils are exceedingly rare. But apparently the problem is significant enough to prompt a new theory championed by Harvard biologist Stephen J. Gould. His theory suggests that the genetic changes that create new species happen much more abruptly than previously thought, so that perhaps setting down a fossil record would be compromised. Rapid coordinated changes happen and thus no record is left between groups. This theory is called "punctuated equilibrium" to suggest that the evolutionary periods are rapid, followed by long periods of evolutionary calm.
The curious thing about this new theory is that it seems to suggest that evolution is happening so rapidly that one won't find a fossil record. Of course, the argument has been that evolution is happening so slowly that we can't see it now either. So what that means is that it is invisible both to our observations now and in the fossil record historically, but we must trust that it is happening--after all, how else are we going to explain the facts of our experience?
6. Irreducible Complexity: Michael Behe, in his book, Dawrin's Black Box, discusses this idea. He illustrates by discussing the various parts of a mousetrap. To be functional, a mousetrap requires that all five parts function symbiotically. Another way of saying this is that each of the parts of the mousetrap were created anticipating the necessary relationships between the various parts. The whole is the reason for the parts, so to speak. But surely if we find things like this in nature, then we will be led to conclude that certain structures in nature cannot go through an unguided developmental process and that perhaps they were intentionally arranged in the ways that they are. A mousetrap missing even one of the essential five parts is wholly non-functional. It is questionable whether it can even be referred to as a mousetrap. Is this also true of the bacterial flagellum or the first cell or other irreducibly complex structures in nature? Behe says yes, and many scientists agree with him.
7. Time and Probabilities: Remember Dr. Stenger offered a "low-probability argument," essentially stating that low probability events happen all the time (people win the lottery, people are hit by lightening, etc.), so one should not rule out that naturalistic evolution has occurred since we see low probability events every day.
I suggested to you that this is a dreadful argument, for the following reasons:
One, it is a logical fallacy (called Affirming the Consequent).
If evolution occurred, the improbable is possible.
The improbable is possible.
Therefore, evolution occurred.
But clearly it is ridiculous to make the leap from some improbable events to all improbable events, or from one class of improbable events to the class of improbable events to which evolution belongs. To illustrate,
If dogs are typing Shakespeare on the moon right now, then the improbable is possible.
The improbable is possible.
Therefore, dogs are on the moon right now typing Shakespeare.
The other response to Stenger would be that of Aristotle. Aristotle notes that chance events do occur, but within ordered boundaries. If that is true, then chance occurrences do not in the least threaten the Christian position. We can simply state that God's ordered design includes parameters wide enough to allow for chance events. The lottery is instructive here. From the perspective of the designer of the game, it is assured that someone will win it. From the perspective of the players, the winner is wholly random. No thinking person would conclude that because a chance event took place within the game that the game itself is a chance event.
8. 2nd Law of Thermodynamics: Christians are fond of citing the second law against evolution, but to do so requires that we accurately address the arguments of our opponents. Scientists note that the second law does not preclude evolution on this planet because the second law only dictates that entropy will occur in a closed system. The earth is not a closed system. It is constantly irradiated by a primary energy source, our sun. The sun is the engine that drives evolution.
But is this response adequate? If entropy occurs in a closed system, we must ask if the universe is a closed system? It seems that most would either say yes, or would be led to conclude that we can make no other assumption given the evidence. As such, it seems clear that the second law is a serious obstacle to evolution on a universal scale. One could perhaps state that what we experience is global evolution amid universal devolution. The solar system is in decay. One day, perhaps many millions of years hence, it will unravel, the sun will explode or burn out its fuel, and nothing but diminished (less useful) matter will exist.
Another interesting thought is this: If the universe is devolving from some organized original state prior to the big bang, wouldn't that state be the most "evolved" state? Can we meaningfully think of the present state as more evolved than the big bang itself? Why arbitrarily conclude that living matter is more evolved than supremely organized non-living matter? What gives us that right--that is, what gives us the epistemological right to assess matter along a scale? No river can rise higher than it's source, and so the state just before the big bang is the most evolved state--that is, if evolutionary theory is to be consistent.
9. Law of Biogenesis: All our observations of nature indicate that creatures contain set parameters of genetic information that they invariably pass down to successive generations. And while mutations occur, they only manipulate this information and do not generate new and more complex information from it. That is where centuries of scientific observations have led us.
10. Big Bang Cosmology: The residual echo of the big bang is evidence of an absolute beginning, get this, not merely of motion in the universe, but of matter, time and space itself. Now that we know the atomic structure of matter, it seems impossible to conceive of matter locked in complete inactivity. And if the matter of the big bang was excited into motion, how was it so excited? Could it have provided for its own atomic motion by itself if it was frozen motionless at the beginning?
But matter in motion cries out for a creator or an absolute beginning to motion because of the Kalam argument. If there was no beginning to this motion, then the past is an infinite series of movements, or events. But this is rationally absurd because if the past is infinite, then the present could not have arrived.
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