Is there God? 4f) Science] Creationism and science

Theistic creationism scientific evidences

So, last time we have dissected evolution theory, and we have seen how shaky the evolution theory is. However, simply doubting the evolution theory doesn’t mean that the scripture claim of God and of creation is proven. Thus, this time we will try to put the claim of creation to the test.

I have to begin this article by warning the readers that we need to be very cautious here on how we should approach the issue. I cannot stress enough importance of really understanding that what we are ultimately trying to understand here is none other than God, the true God. To determine the existence of God while at the same time attempting to judge God or further placing God under our limited ratio is not only an inconsistent logic, it is also a blasphemy. While God, refers to a being which nothing greater can be conceived (greater = more perfect), often, our attempt to determine the existence of God ends up making ourselves to be above God. We could unconsciously assume that we are greater than God. And when this happen, no matter what facts we found, it will be harder for us to accept God, because we have started the journey with the wrong footing.

In a theistic worldview, the source of highest authority that defines reality would neither be our experience, nor our feeling, nor our logic. A reality with God in it would imply that the author of any objective truth is God Himself. Reality is objectively defined by God. The objective narrative of history is owned by God. And since God is our creator, this would imply that there is a huge gap between us and God whom we seek to understand. For us, creatures, to know God is like a program trying to know its programmer, or like music score trying to understand its composer, or like a car trying to understand its engineer. While the creator understands his creation to the fullest extent, a creation, on its own, has little or no understanding of its creator. 

And so, how can we know God? For a creation to know God, the Creator needs to reveal Himself to His creation, explaining in a way that can be understood by us, the creation. Yes, the first logical way to know God is through the Word of God. We can know God through His own testimony about Himself. This method is when God reveals Himself via communication to His creation (special revelation). It’s like when a father testifies to his own children that he is their father and explains to them what sort of person he is. Fortunately, it is not the only way for us to know God. There is a second way. And the second way to know God is through His creation (general revelation). This is like how through graphology we can figure out the writer’s personality through his hand writing or how we could tell so much about a composer from his music. 

Psalm 19:1-4 
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 
Day after day they pour forth speech; Night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words; No sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”

Just like what is written in the psalm above, I am going to show some evidence for God’s glory that is observable through His creation. For the purpose of our discussion, I will show especially the evidence in relation to the event of creation.



 
First evidence: evidence of a beginning

The first evidence of creation event is the fact that there is a beginning. Although in the past atheists and sceptics insisted on the presupposition of an eternal universe, this assumption is no longer accepted to be true. Nowadays, scientists in general believe the idea that our universe has a beginning. This concept of universe having a beginning is not something that only creationist scientists held. Nowadays, even the atheist and the agnostic scientists, through scientific studies have come to the same conclusion. What does it mean when scientists say that the universe has a beginning? Not only that scientists conclude that matter did begin to exist some time ago in history, they have also found that space has a beginning of its existence. Moreover, scientific study also concludes that even “time” was not eternal - there is such thing as the beginning of time.  

For a while, there was a rebuttal from few scientists trying to defend the idea of eternal universe by proposing the idea of a recurring big bang, where the universe began to explode, followed by decay, and then looping to the next cycle of universe explosion. However, this theory was quickly dismissed by Professor Stephen Hawking when he explained about the beginning of time. What was there before time begins to exist? Nothing. There cannot be a recurrence of the beginning. A beginning implies that this universe is finite, not eternal.

There are various reasons and methods that lead to this scientific finding. Some might incorporate the beginning of the universe with the big bang theory. Others come to the conclusion as the reverse implication from the theory of expanding universe while others may come from the idea of big freeze and other various reasons. In summary, scientific findings at the moment only manage to establish that there is a beginning though it cannot be certain yet on how it actually begins. 

This means, in the last four centuries, science has only proven what the Bible has claimed more than 4000 years ago. Prior to human ratio achievement, the Holy Scripture has proposed the idea of a beginning, even a beginning of this universe from nothingness (ex nihilo).

Genesis 1:1
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Hebrew 11:3
“By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”

This makes a lot of sense for creationists because God the creator would have known the complete truth about His creation, and would be able to tell mankind, knowledge that is supra-rational. The term supra-rational is different from the term irrational. Supra rational refers to the things that may be incomprehensible by human ratio but is true and thus, is not contradicting with the whole truth. This first evidence shows that it is possible to have faith in a theistic worldview without contradicting to any truths, including the well-established scientific truth.

Now, let us think for a while, which one is more acceptable as an explanation:

In my opinion, out of the options available, it is way more reasonable to accept the eternal personal God as the reason for a beginning. 



Second evidence: contradictions, mysteries, and unlikely probability that is only explainable by God.

Revelation 4:11
“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power,
for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”

The second evidence for creation is because it makes perfect sense. Atheists have long since attempted many theories to replace the only possible truth: that there is God, and He created the universe. However, up to today all these theories are highly not probable and sometimes full of contradictions in themselves. 

Atheists and sceptics were hoping that as scientists understand more of the universe, they could get rid of God. They assume that God does not really exist, and the Gods that religions believe in are merely the “God of the gaps”. They expect that one day science will explain everything, and there will be no more area that requires God explanation. Contradicting to this expectation, however, as scientists understand more of this universe, the more they are overwhelmed by the complexity and fine-tuning of the universe we live in. Not only the complexities that are microscopic in nature, but also the complexities and fine tuning that appears in huge objects such as planets and our solar systems. 

On this occasion, I will briefly describe why our universe, when explained in naturalistic atheistic worldview results in unconvincing scientific theories that are highly improbable and sometimes contradicting to their other theories. Now if we observe our vast universe, we understand that there are so many stars, so many planets, so many asteroids and we just happen to live on this planet that we call earth. Perhaps we haven’t realized, but we actually live in a rare galaxy, a rare location and a rare planet, that is just perfect for us to live in. 

Let us consider our earth and our solar system that allow advance organism to live. Our earth is positioned at the right distance from the sun. Our earth is also positioned at the right distance from other stars as well as other planets such as Venus, Mars and Jupiter. Our earth just happens to be in this rare position to enable us to stay in its course revolving around the Sun in a stable manner. We are not too close to any massive objects to get sucked in by the gravitational force, but also not too far away from the Sun to simply get drifted away in this seemingly endless universe. 

Furthermore, we also need to consider how the Sun, which is the closest star that the earth is revolving around, is somewhat a stable active star. Our Sun is a type of star that has a slow burning rate, not the type to burn out in a matter of mere hundreds of years. It is also a kind of star that does not have too many explosions but instead simply a star that relatively emits constant stable heat. This stability allows us, inhabitants of planet earth to receive just the right amount of heat (not too much, not too little) at the right seasons for us to grow and develop. 

Our earth also has just the right size for the natural gravity law for us to live in. I wonder whether we could say that it is a mere coincidence that the universal gravity constant and the size of our planet is just right to allow us to have the right earth-gravity of approximately 9.8 ms-2. This gravity that we have on earth is not too strong to crush us, but also not too weak that it let us or other gases and particles to escape the earth. 

The earth has amazingly “perfect” compositions that allow us to drink, breathe and grow. We need plenty of oxygen to breathe but we don’t want too much oxygen on earth or else earth will become flammable. Our earth has plenty of water strangely enough for the third planet closest to the sun. Our earth also has the right composition and thickness of ozone to actually reflect and filter out the dangerous asteroids as well as radioactive waves. While at the same time, the ozone also keeps the “good stuff” on earth and stops them from leaving the earth.

It is quite amazing as well if we realize how the size and distance of the Earth, the Sun and the Moon as well as the course of earth revolving around the Sun and the course of the moon revolving around the Earth allow us to enjoy the rare phenomenal beauty of solar eclipse. The distance from Earth to Moon is about 1:400 compared to the distance from Earth to the Sun. While at the same time the size of the Moon is also about 1:400 when compared to the size of the Sun. Isn’t this an incredible “coincidence”?

I won’t bore you with too much information. However the bottom line is this: the probability of us to actually exist through mere unguided accident is very slim. In the past, scientists said the chance of all this things to happen the way they are, by chance was around 1 x 10-40, then it quickly shrunk to 1 x 10-120, then 1x10-130, then recently it has gone smaller again to 1x10-161. What has actually happened is that the more scientists understand the mystery of the universe, the more they realize how small it is the probability of having all these to happen by chance. So, don’t hold your breath expecting that this probability figure is going to increase anytime soon, perhaps it never will.

By the way, 1 x 10-161 means that the probability of our existence through unguided chance is only:
1 in 10,000,000, 000,000,000, 000,000,000, 000,000,000, 000,000,000, 000,000,000, 000,000,000, 000,000,000, 000,000,000, 000,000,000, 000,000,000, 000,000,000, 000,000,000, 000,000,000, 000,000,000, 000,000,000, 000,000,000, 000,000,000.

Further to this, there are also contradictions that exist between the theories and the realities of our universe. In this occasion, I will mention two samples of contradictions in regards to our earth. Firstly, scientists are having difficulties explaining how the earth, as the third planet closest to the sun, can have so much water. And so, for the moment, they agree on a ‘miraculous’ theory hypothesizing that billions of years ago, after the earth was formed, it got stricken by a watery asteroid (… really?). 

Another contradiction actually comes from the expanding universe theory. The expanding universe is observable, according to the scientists. For example the distance between the earth and the moon are increasing at a rate about 4 cm per year. So they believe that the universe is actually expanding like an explosion caused by the big bang. What many scientists didn’t realize initially is that with the rate 4 cm per year, it would imply that 1.5 billion of years ago the moon would have touched the earth. This figure of 1.5 billions of years ago definitely does not fit with the old earth timeline that is proposed by evolutionists (see the previous article regarding evolution: Earth age is 4 billion+). To get around that, some scientists propose another miraculous theory that the moon was not there in the beginning, but has just flown into the earth gravitational field some time ago.

This second evidence aims to persuade us that it is more reasonable for us to believe that all this order and harmony that we have cannot be a simple product of chaos + chance. It is logical and reasonable to accept that these complexities that we have in all layers (from grand cosmology up to micro physics) are results of design. It is not irrational for theistic scientists to believe that this universe must have been created and designed by God, the infinite creative creator.

If you are interested to know further about cosmology, watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FetjUAvXFk8


I will stop here and share just two scientific evidences that support creationism. I would not dig down too deep on this matter for now, because I’m quite convinced that regardless of all the evidence given above, hardly any sceptics or unbelievers would accept the creation event and the existence of God. And no matter how many scientific evidences given, it will not make much difference.

Given the same facts, the theists and the atheists would interpret them totally differently. Even though, we live in the same universe, some of us could seem to see this as work of creation, while others only see this as big chunks of matter and energy to learn. Even though the atheists could never prove that God does not exist, they will keep on trying to come up with theories that they hope to replace the “God” explanation. 

At least there are four major areas that scientists cannot explain. First, is how from nothing, it became something (matter, energy, natural law, etc). Second is how from non-living matter came out life. Third is how from mere living organisms such as bacteria, plants and animals, we now have humans with sense of morality, ratio and beauty. lastly is how a fragile planet, even more fragile creature survives till today (for God believer, we believe that God preserves us, while for atheist the answer will be "a miraculous luck". There have been attempts to explain these things. Unfortunately, it never stands against the test of time. One theory is proven wrong, only to be replaced with another short-lived theory. For many of the atheists, it is better for them to propose hundreds of wrong theories rather than to simply accept the possibility that God might actually exist.

And so, I am convinced that there are deeper issues that cannot be answered even by any number of evidences. Therefore, I would like to address those issues first on my next post, before we continue any further in our journey. 

Is there God? 4e) Science] Evolution theory versus science?

How does Evolution theory fit with science?

Evolution, creation, theistic evolution - statistics
When I first explore for evidences of evolution, it is quite interesting to see the bold statement that evolutionists often make in regards to the number of people who believe in evolution. One of the self-claiming support towards evolution suggested that evolution is “accepted by most biologist, apart from the delusional theist scientist”. For a minute there, this statement sounds like a declaration that cause readers to think that evolution has so many supporters. The evolutionists often use that carefully framed statement to make the oppositions feel small. One thing that we might forget is that the “theists” are actually the majority of world population.

In terms of statistics, 90% of Muslims rejects evolution, 60% of Christian rejects evolution while 38% of others believes God’s creation though still consider evolution as part of the plan. And so, where does this takes us in terms of overall statistics of evolutionist population?  Gallup’s statistic shows that materialistic evolutionist population never exceeds 17%.

However, let’s not throw away evolution based on population statistics alone. Statistic alone is not what defines truth. Something true does not require a lot of people’s acknowledgement to make it true. There are two things that catch my interest in regards to evolution theory. The first interesting thing about evolution theory is its ability to survive in the last 160 years even under slow general public reception. The second interesting thing is that even as a mere hypothesis, it possesses the ability to shake the mature existing theistic belief at that time to create a new compromised worldview such as theistic evolution.

Evolution evidence
So what makes the evolution theory so convincing and persuasive? Could it be possibly true after all?  Since the nature of evolution’s evidence is evidence for a hypothesis, I did a bit of research on what the proper scientific methodology approach should be. Scientific methodology directs that hypotheses be tested in controlled conditions which can be reproduced by others. The scientific community's pursuit of experimental control and reproducibility diminishes the effects of cognitive biases. For example, pre-existing beliefs can alter the interpretation of results, as in confirmation bias; this is a heuristic that leads a person with a particular belief to see things as reinforcing their belief, even if another observer might disagree. Let us see whether evolution theory is simply a hypothesis seeking confirmation bias? Or can it be proven to be objectively true?

Evolution typically provides scientific evidences based on fossils, variation, adaptation, mutation, speciation and similarities of DNA, attributes and structure. To put it into simple words, since there are fossils, scientists assume that there are creatures that live billions of years ago. Variation, adaptation, mutation, and speciation suggest that creatures could actually have slightly altered traits and attributes that are different from their parents caused by a set of hereditable variations in DNA or the environment they live in. Similarities that we can see between different species wrap it up together to suggest that these creatures might share a common ancestor. These entire evidences when put together say something like: “Over billions of years, creatures get altered bit by bit. Thus from single universal ancestor, we got these varieties of species through a long process of evolution.”  

The Galapagos finches (also known as Darwin’s finches) are one of the earliest examples of variation, adaptation, and speciation that support the possibility of evolution among creatures. These finches, although possess many similarities, have distinctive variations of beak size and shape that are highly adapted to different food sources.

As more and more fossils are found, evolutionists have more selection of creatures for them to make a narrative of. These fossil findings are another evolution’s evidence that can be used to show how various species came into existence. The more fossils they find the more creature variation pool to choose from. Say for example, if in the past, to explain whale evolution, scientists can only show an evolution model with huge leaps, nowadays they can show such evolution in a smoother manner. 

For evolutionists all of these things are counted as evidence. For these reasons evolutionists insist that evolution theory is true. They even believe that evolution theory is more appropriate to be considered as a fact already instead of mere theory. Unfortunately, as for the rest of the world (non-evolutionists) these things are seen as wobbly conclusion, a confirmation bias, or even a logical fallacy. From the same “evidence”, we could come into entirely different conclusions. Non-evolutionist scientists as well as scientists prior to Darwin could accept fossil findings, variation, adaptation, mutation, speciation and similarities between species but without accepting evolution. 

For example, the fossils being found could simply show that there is a possibility that there are other animals that live in the past that possess different bone structure to what we have today. It could also imply that God created a mature universe, instead of starting everything from infancy. Stephen J Gould, a Harvard University geologist, in an article called “Evolutions Erratic Pace” published in 'Natural History Vol. 5' May 1977 concludes that the well-known evolution tree, found in almost all school biology textbooks, that draws on supposed 'evidence' from the fossil record is in reality made up by 'inference' not evidence. In other words, because there is no fossil evidence, they have just guesses, or to be more precise, made it up! He commented, “The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of palaeontology” (palaeontology = scientific study of prehistoric life).

As for the variation, it shows that each creature was made unique – not mass produced goods. The speciation, adaptation, and mutation show that creatures have God-given innate adaptive traits that allow them to survive different environment. And for the similarities between creatures, just like comparing any two items, you will find some similarities and some differences. Sometimes you find more similarities, sometimes you find more differences. The similarities could be caused by coincidence (Your teeth look like corn), common ancestor (e.g. between family members), common designer (e.g. painting), common inspiration (e.g. Mario bros mushroom), or even common creator (e.g. Vivaldi’s music). 

Scientific objections against evolution theory
On top of that, there are layers of scientific objections that non evolutionists tend to argue. Firstly, there are logical contradictions between the appeal to consider evolution theory as a fact and the fact that evolution theory is still changing. As many of you will experience, it is quite difficult to get the exact theory of evolution. The evolution theory that most evolutionists believe today is no longer the same as the evolution theory proposed 160 years ago by Charles Darwin. In fact, even up to this day, scientists are still studying the various aspects of evolution theory. 

This evolving science of evolution theory does not only produce problems such as various versions of evolution path (take a second look at the whale pictures from before - they are all different), but also results in having parts of the evolution hypothesis that are inconsistent with the initial Darwinian hypothesis. 
For example, Charles Darwin himself recognized that the fossil record did not contain anything like the myriad of transitional species expected in his theory as quoted from Darwin’s own book:

“The number of intermediate varieties which have formerly existed must be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain. And this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be argued against the theory of evolution”

He suggested that the rarity of transitional species was because of the poor fossil record - that it preserved at the very most only a few percentages of the species that lived in the past. Basically, this view expects that a vast number of species must have formed in the past to arrive at the smaller variety of species we see today. For some strange reason, despite the fact that the number of species known through the fossil record is less than 5% of the number of known living species, evolutionists’ attitude is already at the level of “Woohooo!! We got so much evidence” 

Another implication of evolution theory still being studied is that there are some portions of the old evolution theory that have become obsolete and have now been forsaken. For example, the evolution theory suggested an evolution path where scientist assumed that there is a trend towards increasing complexity in living organisms. More recent organisms, such as mammals, appear to be much more complex than older organisms, such as bacteria. This part of evolution theory, called “progress theory” has now become obsolete. Perhaps this is to deal with the fact that “progressive” evolution theory cannot stand its ground against the theory of irreducible complexity that appears in some creatures. Thus, they require some steps in evolution that actually step back or sideways, instead of constant growing forward towards stronger being. This is very concerning since initially the evolution theory is closely related to the survival of the fittest – which should suggest getting more complex and stronger inclination as the norm.

Another layer of objections against evolution theory is in regard to its incompleteness as a theory. There are many gaps in the details of evolution theory. I will only share four objections that non evolutionist scientist have against the evolution theory. There are plenty more scientific objections against evolution that we could find in magazines, google or wiki :)

First objection example, evolutionist can never clearly explain the miracle that happened to generate the first living organism. It is not easy to explain how a non-living objects, such as a chair or oxygen or water, could give birth to a living creature, like a bird or even a bacteria. The issue of the origin of life is not merely an issue of probability that require all the miraculous break through against all the unlikely odds. For amino acids and nucleotides to have formed in a primordial 'soup' the atmosphere would have to be void of oxygen, like in experimental labs, because oxygen would 'corrode' these essential building blocks for life. However if there were no oxygen there would be no ozone layer and the ultra violet radiation from the sun would have destroyed the amino acids and nucleotides. Michael Denton, an agnostic biochemist, in his book, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis' comments: “What we have is sort of catch 22 situation. If we have oxygen we have no organic compounds, the building blocks of life. But if we don't we have none either.” This is not an emotional argument against Evolution theory, but a scientific one.

Second objection example, there is the issue of contradiction between extreme complexity, incompetency of rational mind and the success of blind chance. Evolution theory suggests that things of which scientist cant synthesize or comprehend and very hard to imitate or recreate can possibly, on the other hand, happens by chance. For example, DNA - Whilst the best scientists with the best minds have been unable to produce 'by random chance' any nucleotides (biological molecules that form the building blocks of nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) and serve to carry packets of energy within the cell ). Why do they assume that it can happen through unguided natural accident? Even if this could be done (creating nucleotides), the problem that would have to be faced is that DNA and RNA are made up entirely of right handed nucleotides. If random chance could in some way construct a complex nucleotide chain, how is it possible that these randomly selected nucleotides would all be right handed?

Even if proteins and nucleotides could form by random chance, a potentially even bigger problem exists: information. You need intelligence to produce information. For example, a book consists of ink and pages. Even if the ink fell onto the pages and arranged itself by random chance into letters and words, it is still meaningless. Why? Because the only reason that we can read it, is because we know what the letter means. Each letter has a shape, which is meaningless unless there is a pre-agreed meaning for the shape. Now if someone were to write you a poem it would just look like scribble unless they had explained to you what the letters meant. How could evolutionists explain this intelligence that comes prior to the organism’s capability to think?

To top that complexity, DNA possesses error correcting mechanism as well as redundant backup gene. What does this mean? Although the error correction mechanisms are still not completely understood, scientist are still so amazed (and puzzled) in regards to how they achieve such remarkable accuracy. As simply put by one science writer, he explained, "Intelligent typesetters would remove the last few letters when they spot an error," and this is how the new research suggests the RNA polymerase machine corrects errors as well. The redundant backup gene is a case where biochemical function is redundantly encoded by two or more genes. In these cases, mutations (or defects) in one of these genes will have a smaller effect on the fitness of the organism than expected from the genes’ function. The main source of genetic redundancy was thought to be found in the process of gene duplication which generates multiplicity in gene copy number. However, recent studies have now confirmed that cooperating networks of unrelated genes contribute significantly more to robustness than gene copy number.

Just to conclude this issue with DNA, for our information, DNA is able to store an estimate of 4 x 375,000,000 = 1.5 G bytes of data. Amazingly, with all this hi-tech features, a base pair of DNA size is typically 0.34 Nano meters. For something that is so microscopic, how did it become so hi-tech? Let us judge for our self, can it be really caused by chance and natural selection? Former atheist scientist, Anthony Flew, in front of these enormous complexities has to submit to the reality of existence of an intelligent designer, a creator, that is God. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1e4FUhfHiU)

Thirdly, there is an unexplainable reason for evolution towards weak intermediate state. One of the backbones of evolution theory is the notion of survival of the fittest, only the strong ones survive etc.  However when you actually stop to consider the implications, this is one of the strongest rebuttals to evolution theory possible. “Take for example a reptile evolving into a bird. In order for this change to take place, the reptile’s front legs must slowly become wings with feathers. As this supposed change takes place, the reptile reached a point where its front legs were not really legs impeding its ability to run away from predators, but they were not yet wings as well so it couldn't fly either. Nor could it hunt very successfully as its claws would by now have given way to its prototype wing structure. What has happened is that it had become less fit and less able to defend itself hence it would not survive. This same problem exists with every proposed transitional form; rather than becoming stronger, it would actually become less able and weaker as it hit the intermediate stage where it was neither one thing nor another.”

Lastly, there is also inconsistency between the proposed timeline of evolutionary history of life with the actual population that we have now. According to the evolutionary history of life timeline, approximately 2.5 million years ago, was the appearance of the genus Homo. And approximately, about 200 thousand years ago was the appearance of what we consider as anatomically modern human.

Using the assumption of forty-three years for an average human generation, the population growth over a million years would produce 23,256 consecutive generations. When we calculate the expected population by starting with one couple one million years ago and use the same assumptions of a forty-three-year generation and 2.5 children per family….The evolutionary theory of a million years of growth would produce trillions x trillions x trillions x trillions of people that should be alive today on our planet. This number shows a hug gap when compared to the reality of current world population – currently close to 7 trillion human. 

Overall, the evolution theory has, so far, failed to fulfil the requirement of proper science methodology for proving a hypothesis. “Scientific methodology directs that hypotheses be tested in controlled conditions which can be reproduced by others”. Mark Eastman, physician, former evolutionist on once said:

“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” is a phrase that tends to be associated with a particular movie genre called: science fiction. It is an unproven and unprovable theory - not only because it cannot be reproduced, but because it never happened.  In fact, such thing is more appropriate to simply be called fiction, as it has nothing to do with real science.

Survival of evolution Theory
At this stage, one might ask “why then then evolution theory is still in our biology text book?” and I will say “I don’t know, ask the minister of education…” - LOL :) To be more precise, I don’t know for sure however there are a couple of factors that sustain the evolution theory.

First reason for evolution to stay in biology text book is because its scope has widened over the years. And thus, scientists trying to reject the initial evolution theory are now confronted with the new wider scope of evolution theory that has been proven true even prior to 1850s. This is due to the inclusion of other previous proven evidence theories into the overall evolution theory. 

If we look back prior to evolution theory, prior to the publication of the book On the origin of species in 1859, variation, adaptation, speciation, taxonomy are theories already existed separate of evolution theory. When the evolution term was first coined, it was defined distinctly from mere adaptation. Adaptation refers to the process wherein certain groups or individuals change their ways in order to be better suited to their environment and habitat. This is change is needed so that they can survive and maintain normal functioning in their community. Evolution, though, takes a long time. It is a process in which the genetic structure and physical anatomy change in relation to the changes happening in the environment. It does not occur overnight, but invokes generations in order to turn out into the best being suitable.

However, since Darwin published the evolution theory, these words receive a new definition that revolves around evolution (e.g. … is an evolutionary process that …). For example, in 1906, an evolutionist Cook O. F. redefined speciation as part of evolution. Robert Greenleaf Leavitt in the journal Botanical Gazette in 1909 introduced the terminology of “micro evolution” – and thus small changes that occur in a small scale is now become an evolution, too. Yuri Filipchenko in 1927 also expanded evolution scope by putting variation as part of evolution. The term adaptation has also been made part of evolution in around 1960s in one of Theodosius Dobzhansky‘s book. Thus, evolution is now defined simply as any change in the inherited characteristics of biological populations over successive generations.

By including these evidential terminologies into the scope of evolution theory, evolutionists are able to survive by proving the existence of variation, adaptation, mutation, speciation and microevolution to support the bigger scale version of macro evolution. That is, scientists can say “I have lots of evidence for speciation, therefore the whole evolution theory must be true, including macro evolution”. As a result, current scientists have to be careful when they reject evolution, or else they will be considered uninformed. “Are you saying that the taxonomy is wrong?” “Are you saying that speciation never occurs?” and so on… Thus to argue evolution in the academic sense, scholars have to be clear and specific. For example, they could say “I disagree that human comes through a long process of evolution from fish” or “I disagree that evolution could cause a new classification in taxonomy”

The second reason is more likely caused by the nature of evolution theory that offers more than science, but also a worldview. Since evolution theory suggested human origins, it infiltrated not only the biology, but also the psychology, sociology, and many other fields of studies including arts. For example, in music, pianists tend to say that human’s hands are evolved from monkeys’ and their main function is to grab branches, therefore keep your hands round while playing the piano. Moreover, evolution theory has penetrated deeply in our society and has affected our daily conversations.  

The third reason is probably science rejection towards everything that cannot yet be understood by human ratio (e.g. love, philosophy, spirituality, etc). Since science requires everything to be observable, measurable, and reproducible, the alternative of evolution, which is creationism, doesn’t seem to fit to be taught in science class. Creationism is considered to be more proper to be  placed in religious study. Furthermore if we bring up, creationism in the biology text book, science will have to deal of a much bigger issue than it could handle, i.e. Which God?

How will evolution theory fare in the next decade? We can’t tell. However, for evolution theory to be promoted to the level of truth there is still a lot of work required for evolutionist. Having said this, on the next article, I plan to explore the evidence for theistic creationism worldview. That way, I could do justice for those who disagree with the theistic creationism worldview. 

Is there God? 4d) Science] presuppositions and assumptions

Comparing the Biblical worldview with evolution worldview

I will be comparing the two worldviews. In my attempt, I have tried to group the comparison into a number of sections. Unfortunately, even after doing so, to explain each worldview apparently I will need more than a few paragraphs each. For fairness sake, please send comments so that I could make the article more holistic in every section of comparison.

Before we go deeper into comparing other parts of the biblical account of creation and the theory of evolution, I would like to raise the most fundamental issue that may often is overlooked. 

Belief factor: presupposition and worldview assumption
The creation account proposed in the Holy Bible happened before mankind was created. This whole universe was created by God, the invisible and eternal creator. Thus, no man would have been there to witness it. As a creation, no man could come and see God unless God reveals Himself to His creation. And since the Bible itself is the revelation from God, it holds the ultimate authority for truth. The Bible reveals things about God the author, about creation, about our beginning and even about the end of this world. It reveals the objective reality to us. And it judges our thoughts, our actions, and even our worldview. 

Now, it is written in the scripture, without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him (Hebrew 11:6). The scripture also says that faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (Romans 10:17). And also there are clear contrasts between those who have faith by the word of God and those who don’t believe in God: “The fool says in his heart: There is no God. They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good” (Psalm 14:1).

Because of this Christianity is often perceived as a closed-loop belief-system. You can only believe Christianity if you believe the Christian God. And because you believe in God thus you have to believe the Holy bible. And the Bible itself convinces Christians to believe that the Christian God exists. Therefore, the relativists consider Christianity simply as a valid truth for Christians just as other beliefs are true for their believers. In this pluralistic world, Christianity often is seen as simply one of the reality that a person may choose to believe. And while trying to convince people of the subjectivity of religion, the atheists, with their materialistic and evolutionistic worldview, often introduce themselves as the one with objective and scientific approach. 

It is very interesting how easy we are blinded by the fact that the atheistic and evolutionistic worldview is also a closed loop belief system as well.  It’s amazing how easy we forgot how our science book needs to be corrected and updated every year, while each version claims to be telling the truth. The subjectivity of science and human ratio as the judge of all comes from an underlying assumption that there is no God to begin with. If there is a God, then human ratio is not the measure of truth. And because some people assume that there is no God, then they establish that science and human ratio is the judge of all things. And because they believe that science is the judge of all and because they cannot measure and prove God under science, they come to a conclusion of an atheistic worldview. 

Evolution theory does not only sit on this presupposition that there is no God; it further requires a second belief loop. The evolution theory proposed by Charles Darwin, suggests that the evolution happened way before the animals evolved to become human. And all this evolution happens in a matter of billions of years or so. As a result, there are two reasons why no man could be able to see evolution and a creation of a new species family with his own eye. Firstly, we cannot see evolution because many of them happen in pre-historic age. And secondly, we cannot see any macro evolution happening at the moment because it would happen really slowly. Before we notice any new birth of a new animal family, we would have died. 

So, if we cannot see any animal evolving into another animal, what is the foundation of evolution? Evolutionists claim that the fossils, genetics and other attributes’ similarities fit well with the theory of evolution. But here, in this claim itself, lies the belief loop that evolutionist often don’t realize. When we see similarities over things, is it scientifically logical to deduce evolution and/or common ancestor? What I mean is, if there is a red mushroom with white dots, and there is a photo of that mushroom, and there is a carving of that mushroom, and there is the similar mushroom from “Mario Bros” game, do we say that these mushroom evolves from one to another and they share the common ancestor? In normal situation, similarities can neither assume evolution nor common ancestor. For the evolutionists, however, these similarities are considered as strong “evidence” because they believe on the evolution presupposition in the first place. 

We have to be more cautious to such irresponsible deductive reasoning and logical fallacy that scientist often made. Example:



And so, we see here that both theistic worldview and atheistic worldview requires some degree of faith, belief, and presupposition. Can we get rid of our presupposition and claim to be totally objective? Unfortunately, it will not be that easy to be totally objective and assess things without any assumption.

In fact, in our day to day lives, more often than not, we have to live with our assumption and we believe that things are just the way they are. We probably never question whether our father is truly our father. Well, we could actually test the DNA and such, but we don’t. We just believe. We believe on what our father claims, and we believe the testimony of our mother as well as everybody around us. Even if we want to test our blood and DNA, we still have to assume that the nurses and doctors are not part of the conspiracy. (This somewhat reminds me of “The Truman Show” movie - ^^;). 

The truth is we can’t live at all if we need proof for everything. However as we grow, we also learn to discern truth from false claims. And so we learn about the concept of epistemology. For simple things, we learn to filter out information based on which claim has more truth-probability. For example, if after agreeing on $5 bets for every right guess, your friend throw away a dice 100 times, and guess the number correctly every time before the throw. We would learn that it is more plausible that your friend was probably cheating, rather than simply believing that it was just her luck that day.

For more complex cases, we also learn to judge the truth based on how holistic the claim is. When comparing between various claims, the more plausible truth should carry most holistic truth. What I mean is, even though we have different fields of study, such as biology, physics, geology, history, art, archaeology, theology and so many other –logy(s), the claim of truth from a field of study, if it’s really true, will not contradict with other truths even if its outside the field of study. I could dismiss quickly any scientific claim, if ever happens in the future, that claims, for example, that American continent had actually just risen from beneath the sea and become a continent 50 years ago. No matter how futuristic it sounds and no matter how advance the methods being used, it cannot be true since it contradicts with another claim that is more holistic, which is the truth from American history. 

And so on my next article, my plan is to compare next in the article will be the evidences that supports creation as well as evolution :)

Is there God? 4c) Science] about Evolution theory and Scripture claim

What do they say about the origin of man?

Putting the Bible against the theory of evolution need us to understand what both sides are saying before we can compare and make any conclusion. Thus this article should now simply describes both worldviews.

Evolution of Evolution theory

When we think of evolution, the first person we think of is Charles Darwin. But, Darwin did not start the idea of evolution. The conception that species may change overtime has appeared since the ancient Greeks, ancient Romans as well as ancient Chinese. But it became more obvious when the biological taxonomy was well accepted in the 17th century.  Darwin built up his theory based on his predecessors. The first fully formed theory of evolution was proposed by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck with his theory “transmutation of species” that was published in the book “Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation”. These previous theories however, did not receive well receptions and did not survive for long. Not only because they tend to be an incompleteness thesis. But also because these theories did not fit with the worldview where God exists. Lamarck’s evolution theories still consider the existence of God as the initial creator of the source creatures. He proposed that even though God created the creatures, these created species could then evolve into another species. Unfortunately, having God in a theory would make the theory subjects to the test of both science as well as the test of theology. And so far, all the previous evolution theory does not pass through on both tests. 

In 1859, Darwin published a book that was going to change the course of science history. Darwin’s evolution theory suggests that all living things shared a common ancestor. Therefore, ultimately, the origin of all the species we see on earth comes through evolution instead of from creation. Darwin’s famous book, titled “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection”, ignites big controversy upon creation, theism and miracles. Darwin theory runs away from the theological test by proposing that perhaps there is no God to begin with. Since Darwin theory evolution proposes not only the scientific hypothesis but also denies the existence of God altogether, his thesis becomes somewhat immune to theologian’s criticism. As a result, Darwin’s evolution theory gives a strong wind of support for naturalist and atheist since it provides another route to explain our existence without the need of a God. What Darwin offered through his theory is not only a scientific breakthrough, but also a worldview breakthrough.

Darwin’s goal was to show that life was not the result of divine intervention, but simply the work of blind naturalistic processes. Darwin claimed to have arrived at this truth by working strictly with the facts apart from any preconceived ideas, and this is exactly how most people today perceive Darwinism. The Nonconformists have argued that Darwinism is not deductive science, but an atheistic/materialistic worldview that Darwin superimposed on nature, where the facts were searched later for the facts to support his theory. A study that was done on Darwin’s writings, especially his posthumously published private notebooks and personal communication, reveals that Darwin was indeed an atheist and his theory of natural selection was formulated to replace a Creator with naturalistic processes.

In a nutshell, Darwin’s theory of evolution is based on some facts and some hypothesis. Below are some of the points that were suggested by Darwin’s evolution theory. 

1) Every species is fertile enough that if all offspring survived to reproduce the population would grow (fact).

2) Despite periodic fluctuations, populations remain roughly the same size (fact).

3) Resources such as food are limited and are relatively stable over time (fact).

4) Therefore, a struggle for survival ensues (hypothesis).

5) Individuals in a population vary significantly from one another (fact).

6) Much of this variation is inheritable (fact).

7) Individuals less suited to the environment are less likely to survive and less likely to reproduce; individuals more suited to the environment are more likely to survive and more likely to reproduce and leave their inheritable traits to future generations, which produces the process of natural selection (hypothesis).

8) This slowly effected process results in populations changing to adapt to their environments, and ultimately, these variations accumulate over time to form new species (hypothesis).

The hypothesis is that selection occurring by natural means, given time and the right environment, causes new species to arise. Science has somewhat confirmed each one of these points: biologists have found that life on Earth today acts as if evolution were true. They continue to make the hypothesis more and more detailed—turning it into a framework of ideas, or scientific theory—and theory continues to be fully compatible with evidence. Thus, Biologists today can carry out their profession securely within the theory of biological evolution. By some these theory have even been considered as fact.

It is very interesting that even in his book “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection”, Darwin manage to include a chapter that expresses his own doubts of the theory. On the chapter 6: Difficulties on Theory, Darwin, ask himself these hard questions (which are valid questions): 

“If species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?” Shouldn’t we see much more species, which shows the transitions between the old one and the new ones? If it takes millions of years for a fish to evolve to a frog, wouldn’t we have much more variations of species that show the transition between fish and frog?

“Is it possible that an animal having, for instance, the structure and habits of a bat, could have been formed by the modification of some animal with wholly different habits? Can we believe that natural selection could produce, on the one hand, organs of trifling importance, such as the tail of a giraffe, which serves as a fly-flapper, and, on the other hand, organs of such wonderful structure, as the eye, of which we hardly as yet fully understand the inimitable perfection?” while the plants may grow tentacle and mouth to improve their food processing processor, what caused it to develop eye(s). What guided these evolutions to create a need to “see”, or even to see in colour, more so facing forwards? 

“Can instincts be acquired and modified through natural selection? What shall we say to so marvellous an instinct as that which leads the bee to make cells, which have practically anticipated the discoveries of profound mathematicians?” while all the bees have the instinct to make a bee hive, did they evolve therefore their instinct got change along the way? Or did the instinct get changed and so they evolve to accommodate it? Both answers will still lead to further questions: “what caused it to change? Is it natural selection?”

“How can we account for species, when crossed, being sterile and producing sterile offspring, whereas, when varieties are crossed, their fertility is unimpaired?” if we all come from a single ancestor why is when we cross breed a Dalmatian with a Pit Bull, we will still get a dog with unimpaired fertility? Why is it then not possible to cross breed dog with a cat with reproduction capability?

“The foregoing remarks lead me to say a few words on the protest lately made by some naturalists, against the utilitarian doctrine that every detail of structure has been produced for the good of its possessor. They believe that very many structures have been created for beauty in the eyes of man, or for mere variety. This doctrine, if true, would be absolutely fatal to my theory. Yet I fully admit that many structures are of no direct use to their possessors” why do animals evolve into a fragile butterfly? Or why is that human baby is so fragile compared to other mammals? Why do human brain evolved (if ever) in a way that enable us to appreciate beauty? why do we only filter in waves around 20Hz- 20kHz into our ear and then interpret these waves into beautiful melody? - these range somehow enable us to hear the beautiful bird singing but at the sametime ignores whatever noise the bats are making. Why do human eyes when receiving certain wave frequency is then interpreted by the brain as all the beautiful colours as we see it? where does the concept of red, orange, yellow, purple and all the other colours comes from? 

Darwin shared all this doubts to the readers in his book. But, Instead of using this doubts to destroy his own thesis, he used these questions to make an appeal “if you have trouble accepting my evolution theory, I understand, I find it hard to understand too. Even though this theory is so hard to believe, it is true.” As I was reading his book, I was hoping that he would eventually answer these questions that he made himself. Sadly, His explanation through all these questions is back to his own hypothesis that suggested that there is an evolution and that billions of years required for evolution. He is hoping that future scientist will fill the gap on his theory and is convinced that the remaining unsolvable gaps on his theory are results of species extinction during those billions of years. “On the theory of natural selection we can clearly understand the full meaning of that old canon in natural history, 'Natura non facit saltum.' This canon, if we look only to the present inhabitants of the world, is not strictly correct, but if we include all those of past times, it must by my theory be strictly true” 

Of course, since then, there have been a couple of variations arising from the original Darwinian evolution theory, however, at the core this theory simply suggests that all the animals and plants that we see today, including human, evolves from simple microorganism. Over billions of years this simple organism, something like a bacteria or some sort, evolves into plants, starfish, worms, or simple fish like creature. Gradually (after few billions years later), this fish like creature became a fish that we know now. After billions of years again, this fish slowly evolved and grow legs into amphibians. After millions of years, these Amphibians slowly evolved to reptiles, then to various kinds of dinosaurs. Some of these dinosaurs slowly grew some wings and became the birds’ ancestors, while others grow a bit of fur and become more like mammals of various kinds. Out of this various mammals, the ape like mammals slowly become smarter, and become human. 

Notice that this theory originally addresses how new species arise, not how life came to be in the first place. The question of the origin of life is not part of evolutionary theory. But since, the hidden agenda of this theory is to propose an alternative for the theistic worldview. Evolutionist have tried as hard as they could to also explain where the life comes from, where did the first simple microorganism comes from as well as where the whole universe come to exists in the attempt to make evolution a holistic worldview. 

 

Our existence according to the Holy Scripture

Now let us explore what the Bible says about this universe and our existence and compare the two later. According to the Holy Scripture, in the beginning there is God. God is eternal and has been there since eternity. The Westminster Shorter Catechism says: “"God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth”. God exist before all things and through Him all things were made. Without him nothing was made that has been made (Romans 11:36, John 1:3, Colossians 1:17). 

Let us understand, what this description of God actually means. By the above description, we should understand that God is not a limited being like you and me.  God does not have a beginning. In fact, He is not limited by time and space. God is the source/creator of all things, including time, space matter, universe, and even nature’s law. Now here is how the scripture describe how God created the universe. 

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created mankind in his own image,

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day."

According to the Scripture, God created the universe. God created the Sun, moon, stars, plants, animals, and mankind. God also sustains the creation until now. God design and set the nature’s law with all the constants thereof. God designed and created all the different species of animal and plants. God created mankind in a special way. He created man in His image, to be the pinnacle of all His creation. And thus Man is not a mere lump of meat and energy, but instead a created being with a purpose. Man is not equal to animals because man bears the image of God. However, Man is not God, he only bears His image. 

We need to understand that when God created all this things it does not need to be created from age zero or infant state. What I mean is that God are able to create man as man that are capable of reproduction, instead of a baby that will grow into a man. God is able to create chickens instead eggs. God is able to create a tree with fruits already hanging ready to be eaten. God is able to create Earth, Sun, Moon and all the objects as mature objects. Since the light had been created in the first day, it does not need to wait 8.3 minutes for the sun’s ray of light to reach earth. Similarly are the lights from the visible but far away stars; it does not necessarily need to wait for years after creation to reach earth.

God as a creator implies that the creation is designed instead of a product of chance. The believer would attribute God for the one who deserve the glory reflected by His grandeur complex-yet-precise creation. We can see the big things like the order and stability of this universe, the distance of the planet, the composition of the atmosphere, the water composition, the speed of earth’s rotation and revolution, the strength of gravity and the gravity constant that is somehow very precise allowing us to live on this earth. We can also observe the flagellum, the eye, the DNA, the unique behaviour of each creature, or even cell, sperm, or even simple the amazing mechanism of an apple tree that could take “junk” to make a delicious apple. No matter whether we look at the big things or the miniscule things, we will see highly complex creation that just works in harmony.

There are some logical implications to this creation worldview. Since God is the creator of all things, He should logically be the one that can objectively define what is good, what is true, what is just, what is sacred. It also implies that as a creation, we are created with purpose, meaning and value that is set by God. We are created in a relationship to him. It is a relationship between the creator and the creation. 

It is quite sad that there have been some Christians that have to compromise the account of creation because of the advancement of science. Even though there is no scientific truth that has yet to contradict with the Bible, there have been some who feel required to adjust the interpretation of the bible to accept the existence of fossils, far-far away stars and galaxies as true. There have been some doubtful Christians who tried to defend the Bible by compromising what the Bible truly said, and twisted in a way to fit with what other people say. Unfortunately, this behaviour end up creating confusion among the Christian community as well as other people who seek to understand the biblical perspective in regards to our origin. 

When people start to attempt for middle ground, such as theistic evolution (evolution that explains the process of creation), they end up creating fairy tales. For example, people would say that the 6 days of creation could actually means billions of years – isn’t God eternal and unbounded by time? People who held this view often reason based on “One day for God that could means thousands or millions of years for us.” The problem is if it truly happens in billions of years, would that supposed to mean that the sun sets and sun rise mentioned in the book of genesis happens over millions of years as well? Wouldn’t that kill all the plants and animals? Or would we then try to stretch the account of Genesis 1 further so that it really means something completely different than what is actually written? And this middle ground attempt will not be well received by those who held the atheistic and materialistic worldview as they don’t believe the existence of God in the first place.

The same God, who wrote the book of Genesis, is the same God that consistently refers to the creation as a six-day creation. God refers to the creation as a literal six-day creation when He talked about Sabbath. Even when God incarnated as man, He always refer to the creation as a literal historical event. I would like to explore this further but I guess this links have sufficiently explained this issue well (hope the links will always work): http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/did-jesus-say-he-created-in-six-days

Next, we shall look closer what is the implications of these two worldviews have in terms how it fits to our reality and how it doesn't...

as usual, in the meantime, send me comments. Thanks