Is the Scientific Evidence of Creation and Intelligent Design Congruent
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Is the ScientificChapter Evidence Two of Creation and IntelligentINTELLIGENT Design congruent DESIGN with Scripture? A scientific evaluation of the top questions in the Creation vs. Evolution debate. 1. Was there a “Big Bang” or was there a “Big god”? Today the known universe appears to contain about one hundred billion galaxies with approximately one hundred billion stars in each galaxy. It is believed that this “cosmos” extends across a diameter of 27.4 billion light years. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, also contains approximately one hundred billion stars and spans out approximately five hundred and eighty quadrillion miles. For centuries scientists believed that the universe itself was constant; the universe had no beginning or no end. But Einstein’s “Theory of Relativity” in 1920 challenged that long held idea indeed. In 1929, astronomer Edwin Hubble, from the Mt. Wilson observatory overlooking Los Angeles, confirmed Einstein’s theoretical predictions with emperical science. Hubble noticed that the entire universe was indeed moving away from us in all directions. Therefore if the universe was rapidly expanding, scientists concluded that if they could rewind cosmic history (like running a motion picture film backwards through a projector) the cosmos would be seen shrinking over time; going all the way back to a time of 15-20 billion years ago when the cosmos was a mere mathematical point in empty space. In April 2006, this naturalistic view was severely challenged when N.A.S.A.’s WMAP satellite, traveling with the best telescopic power in the world, concluded while gazing into the ever expanding cosmos, that at the very beginning (“Big Bang” or “Big God”) the universe expanded from this subatomic particle Billions of Light Years in the first trillionth of a second!i This, “inflation phase” of early cosmological birth defies every known law of physics. No wonder Dr. Robert Jastrow, Director of N.A.S.A.’s Goddard Institute said, “Now we know with absolutely certainty that supernatural forces were at work in the origin of the universe.”ii Many great researchers of modern science continue to verify that view. Dr. Robert Jastrow, after studying the most recent glimpses of the ever expanding cosmos, said, “Most remarkable of all is the fact that in science, as in the Bible, the world begins with an act of creation. Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a Biblical view of the origin of the world…. The astronomers are so 3 embarrassed by this that for the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance, and he is about to conquer the highest peak when he finds himself face to face with a group of theologians who have been there for centuries!”iii Dr. Arthur Compton, (Harvard Graduate and Nobel Prize winner in Physics) prophetically predicts this very recent viewpoint, “For myself, faith begins with a realization that a supreme intelligence brought the universe into being and created man. It is not difficult for me to have this faith, for it is incontrovertible that where there is a plan, there is intelligence- an orderly, unfolding universe testifies to the truth of the most majestic statement ever uttered- ‘in the beginning God’.”iv A vast chorus of dissenting scientists has recently cried out for scientific reason. Regarding the so called Big Bang, Dr. Andrei Linde (Stanford cosmo physicist) reported, “The Big Bang theory is scientifically brain dead……one may wonder what came before the Big Bang? If space and time did not exist, then how could everything appear from nothing?”v The Bible clearly expresses God’s informative viewpoint. “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools.” Romans 1:20-22 2. Did life “evolve” on planet earth billions of years ago? While most textbooks with obvious atheistic bias continue to propagate the long now abandoned theory that life somehow began arbitrarily on earth through a series of random chemical accidents, true empirical science supports Louis Pasteur’s findings of 150 years ago that this idea of “spontaneous generation” is utterly impossible. Dr. Edwin Conklin, professor of biology at Princeton University, illustrates the humorous impossibility of life originating from random chemical accidents claimed by atheists. The idea that the first speck of life supposedly originated in a supposed “prebiotic soup” on early Earth is absurd in the highest degree. “The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the unabridged dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing shop.”vi 4 Sir John Eccles, neuroscientist and Nobel Laureate in Medicine and Physiology, speaks to the credibility of life originating through Divine design and how it is the only viable viewpoint. “We come to exist through a divine act. It is the only view consistent with all the evidence.”vii Sir Fred Hoyle scoffs at the ridiculous atheistic notion when he says, “The notion that a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on earth is evidently nonsense of a high order.”viii “There was no primeval soup, neither on this planet nor on any other, and if the beginning of life were not random, life must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence.” Dr. Emil Borel, the architect of the Law of Probability, states that “anything beyond 1 in 1 times 10 with 50 zeros will never happen no matter how much time is allotted.” Genesis chapter 1 plainly states the obvious with clarity. “Then God said, ‘Let the earth sprout forth with vegetation’…and God said, ‘Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures and let the birds fly above the earth’…and God made the living creatures…and God said, ‘Let us make man in our image’…!” 3. Do mutations over time produce evolution of new species? In Genesis chapter 1, God makes it very clear that He created each different species uniquely and individually. Furthermore, He states thirteen times that each species reproduced “after its kind.” Indeed, in observable science today, throughout written history, and in the fossil record, all creatures reproduce the same species. While it is true that species can adapt gradually over time (horizontal micro-evolution), all species always adapt (as in kinds of dogs) to the same species. Any attempt to prove by science or by the fossil record that species evolve into higher forms has been repeatedly refuted. Dr. Pierre-Paul Grosse, former President of the French Academie des Science and the scientist who held the Chair of Evolution at the Sorbonne in Paris for twenty years says, “No matter how numerous they may be, mutations do not produce any kind of evolution. There is no law against day dreaming, but science must not indulge in it.”ix 5 Today, about one million different species of plants and animals have been identified. It is believed by scientists today that there are about , more species yet to be identified. utations do not produce evolution. ctually, the opposite is true. volutionist r. H.. ueller says, “The vast majority of mutations are detrimental to the species.”xi volutionist r. .. artin in “The merican cientist” said, “lmost all known mutations are unmistakably pathological.”xii What you find in science is micro-evolution, not macro-evolution. icro-evolution is horizontal change, better known as adaptation, such as peppered moths evolving into different colored peppered moths or arwin’s famous finches evolving into different types of finches. There isno species evolution or macro-evolution in the fossil record. ccording to r. olin atterson of the British useum of atural History, “o one has ever formed a species by mutations or natural selection. o one has ever even gotten close to it.”xiii ven harles arwin expresses serious doubts about his own theory. “To suppose that the eye with all of its inimitable contrivances for adjusting to focus to different distances for many different amounts of light and for the correction of the spherical and chromatic aberrations could have been formed by natural selection seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.”xiv 4. hat do all the “issing lins” tell us about evolution? arwin expresses other doubts about his theory that the brilliance of intelligent design could have been accomplished by blind chance. Darwin had a problem with the lack of missing links or transitional forms in the fossil record. He said in his book, The Origin of Species, that “The number of intermediate and transitional links between all living and extinct species must have been inconceivably great.”xv 6 The insurmountable problem Darwin faced in 1836 is the same insurmountable problem still faced today: the lack of missing links. In fact, Dr. Colin Patterson, Chief Paleontologist for the British Museum of Natural History and regarded as the most respected fossil scientist in the world, himself with a collection of over eight million fossils, in his book, Evolution didn’t feature one transition in the fossil record. When questioned by creationists, he responded in a personal letter that said, “If there were one transition in the fossil record for which I could have made a water tight argument, I would have included it in my book. But there is not one such transition in the fossil record for which we can master a water tight argument.”xvi “God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good.” Genesis 1:25 5.