SOMETHING TO CHEW ON!!
The following is by Duane Gish, Ph.D.
I. The Universe and the Solar System Were Suddenly Created.
The First Law of Thermodynamics states that the total quantity of matter and energy in the universe is constant. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that matter and energy always tend to change from complex and ordered states to disordered states. Therefore the universe could not have created itself, but could not have existed forever, or it would have run down long ago. Thus the universe, including matter and energy, apparently must have been created. The "big-bang" theory of the origin of the universe contradicts much physical evidence and seemingly can only be accepted by faith.{1} This was also the case with the past cosmogonies theories of evolutionists that have been discarded, such as Hoyle’s steady-state theory. The universe has "obvious manifestations of an ordered, structured plan or design." Similarly, the electron is materially inconceivable and yet it is so perfectly known through its effects," yet a "strange rationale makes some physicists accept the inconceivable electrons as real while refusing to accept the reality of a Designer." "The inconceivability of some ultimate issue (which will always lie outside scientific resolution) should not be allowed to rule out any theory that explains the interrelationship of observed data and is useful for prediction," in the words of Dr. Wernher von Braun, the renowned late physicist in the NASA space program.
II. Life Was Suddenly Created.
Life appears abruptly and in complex forms in the fossil record,{2} and gaps appear systematically in the fossil record between various living kinds.{3} These facts indicate that basic kinds of plants and animals were created. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that things tend to go from order to disorder (entropy tends to increase) unless added energy is directed by a conversion mechanism (such as photosynthesis), whether a system is open or closed. Thus simple molecules and complex protein, DNA, and RNA molecules seemingly could not have evolved spontaneously and naturalistically into a living cell;{4} such cells apparently were created. The laboratory experiments related to theories on the origin of life have not even remotely approached the synthesis of life from nonlife, and the extremely limited results have depended on laboratory conditions that are artificially imposed and extremely improbable.{5} The extreme improbability of these conditions and the relatively insignificant results apparently show that life did not emerge by the process that evolutionists postulate.
III. All Present Living Kinds of Animals and Plants Have Remained Fixed Since Creation, Other than Extinctions, and Genetic Variation in Originally Created Kinds Has Only Occurred within Narrow Limits.
Systematic gaps occur between kinds in the fossil record.{6} None of the intermediate fossils that would be expected on the basis of the evolution model have been found between single celled organisms and invertebrates, between invertebrates and vertebrates, between fish and amphibians, between amphibians and reptiles, between reptiles and birds or mammals, or between "lower" mammals and primates.{7} While evolutionists might assume that these intermediate forms existed at one time, none of the hundreds of millions of fossils found so far provide the missing links. The few suggested links such as Archoeopteryx and the horse series have been rendered questionable by more detailed data. Fossils and living organisms are readily subjected to the same criteria of classification. Thus present kinds of animals and plants apparently were created, as shown by the systematic fossil gaps and by the similarity of fossil forms to living forms. A kind may be defined as a generally interfertile group of organisms that possesses variant genes for a common set of traits but that does not interbreed with other groups of organisms under normal circumstances. Any evolutionary change between kinds (necessary for the emergence of complex from simple organisms) would require addition of entirely new traits to the common set and enormous expansion of the gene pool over time, and could not occur from mere ecologically adaptive variations of a given trait set (which the creation model recognizes).
IV. Mutation and Natural Selection Are Insufficient To Have Brought About Any Emergence of Present Living Kinds from a Simple Primordial Organism.
The mathematical probability that random mutation and natural selection ultimately produced complex living kinds from a simpler kind is infinitesimally small even after many billions of years.{8} Thus mutation and natural selection apparently could not have brought about evolution of present living kinds from a simple first organism. Mutations are always harmful or at least nearly always harmful in an organism's natural environment.{9} Thus the mutation process apparently could not have provided the postulated millions of beneficial mutations required for progressive evolution in the supposed five billion years from the origin of the earth until now, and in fact would have produced an overwhelming genetic load over hundreds of millions of years that would have caused degeneration and extinction. Natural selection is a tautologous concept (circular reasoning), because it simply requires the fittest organisms to leave the most offspring and at the same time it identifies the fittest organisms as those that leave the most offspring. Thus natural selection seemingly does not provide a testable explanation of how mutations would produce more fit organisms.{10}
V. Man and Apes Have a Separate Ancestry.
Although highly imaginative "transitional forms" between man and ape-like creatures have been constructed by evolutionists based on very fragmentary evidence, the fossil record actually documents the separate origin of primates in general,{11} monkeys,{12} apes,{13} and men. In fact, Lord Zuckerman (not a creationist) states that there are no "fossil traces" of a transformation from an ape-like creature to man.{14} The fossils of Neanderthal Man were once considered to represent a primitive sub-human (Homo neanderthalensis), but these "primitive" features are now known to have resulted from nutritional deficiencies and pathological conditions; he is now classified as fully human.{15} Ramapithecus was once considered to be partially man-like, but is now known to be fully ape-like.{16} Australopithecus, in the view of some leading evolutionists, was not intermediate between ape and man and did not walk upright.{17} The strong bias of many evolutionists in seeking a link between apes and man is shown by the near-universal acceptance of two "missing links" that were later proved to be a fraud in the case of Piltdown Man (Eoanthropus) and a pig's tooth in the case of Nebraska Man (Hesperopithecus).{18}
VI. The Earth's Geologic Features Were Fashioned Largely by Rapid, Catastrophic Processes that Affected the Earth on a Global and Regional Scale (Catastrophism).
Catastrophic events have characterized the earth's history. Huge floods, massive asteroid collisions, large volcanic eruptions, devastating landslides, and intense earthquakes have left their marks on the earth. Catastrophic events appear to explain the formation of mountain ranges, deposition of thick sequences of sedimentary rocks with fossils, initiation of the glacial age, and extinction of dinosaurs and other animals. Catastrophism (catastrophic changes), rather than uniformitarianism (gradual changes), appears to be the best interpretation of a major portion of the earth's geology. Geologic data reflect catastrophic flooding. Evidences of rapid catastrophic water deposition include fossilized tree trunks that penetrate numerous sedimentary layers (such as at Joggins, Nova Scotia), widespread pebble and boulder layers (such as the Shinarump Conglomerate of the southwestern United States), fossilized logs in a single layer covering extensive areas (such as Petrified Forest National Park), and whole closed clams that were buried alive in mass graveyards in extensive sedimentary layers (such as at Glen Rose, Texas). Uniform processes such as normal river sedimentation, small volcanoes, slow erosion, and small earthquakes appear insufficient to explain large portions of the geologic record. Even the conventional uniformitarian geologists are beginning to yield to evidences of rapid and catastrophic processes.{19}
References
1. Slusher, Harold S., The Origin of the Universe, San Diego: Institute for Creation Research (ICR), 1978.
2. E.g., Kay, Marshall & Colbert, Edwin H, Stratigraphy and Life History, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1965, p, 102;
Simpson, George G., The Major Features of Evolution, New York: Columbia University Press, 1953, p 360: [Paleontologists recognize] that most new species, genera and families, and that nearly all categories above the level of families, appear in the record suddenly and are not led up to by known, gradual, completely continuous transitional sequences.
3. Note 6 infra.
4. E.g., Smith, Charles J. "Problems with Entropy in Biology," Biosystems, V.7, 1975, pp 259, 264. "The earth, moon, and sun constitute an essentialy closed thermodynamic system..." Simpson, George G., "Uniformitariarisrn," in Hecht, Max A. & Steeres, William C., eds., Essays in Evolution and Genetics, New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1970, p. 43.
5. Gish, Duane T., Speculations and Experiments Related to the Origin of Life (A Critique), San Diego: ICR, 1972,
6. E.g., Simpson, George G., "The History of Life," in Tax, Sol, ed. Evolution after Darwin: The Evolution of Life, Chicago:Univ. of Chicago Press, 1960 pp. 117, 149:
Gaps among known orders, classes, and phyla are systematic and almost always large.
7. E.g., Kitts, David S., "Paleontology and Evolutionary Theory," Evolution V. 28 1974, pp.458, 467:
Evolution requires intermediate forms betvveen species and paleontology does not provide them. For examples of the lack of transitional fossils, Ommaney, F. D. The Fishes, New York: Time Life, Inc., 1964, p 60 (invertebrates to vertebrates); Romer, Alfred S., Vertebrate Paleontology, Chicago Univ. of Chicago Press, 31 ed., 1966, p.36 (vertebrate fish to amphibians) Swinton, W.E., Biology and Comparative Physiology of Birds, Marshall, A.J., ed., New York Academic Press, V.1, 1960, p.1 (reptiles to birds); Simpson, George G., Tempo and Mode in Evolution, New York: Columbia Univ., Press. 1944, p.l05 (reptiles to mammals); Simons, E.L., Annals N.Y. Acad. Science, V.167, 1969, p.319 (mammals to primates).
8. E.g., Eden, Murray. "Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theory," in Moorhead, Paul S. & Kaplan, Martin M., eds., Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, Philadelphia: Wistar Inst. Press, 1967, p,109:
It is our contention that if 'random' is given a serious and crucial interpretation from a probabilisticpoint of view, the randomness postulate is highly implausible and that an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await the discovery and elucidation of new natural laws...
9. E.g., Martin, C.P., "A Non-Geneticist looks at Evolution," American Scientist, V. 41, 1954, p. 100
10. E.g., Popper, Karl, Objective Knowledge, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1975 p. 242
11. E.g., Kelso, A.J., Physical Anthropology, 2nd ed., Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott, 1974. p 142
12. E.g., Ibid., pp.150,151
13. E.g., Simons, E.L., Annals N.Y. Acad. Science. V.102, 1962, p.293, Simons, E.L., "The Early Relatives of Man," Scientfic American, V.211, July 1964 p 50
14. E.g., Zuckerman, Sir Solly, Beyond the Ivory Tower, New York, Taplinger Pub. Co., 1970, p.64.
15. E.q., Ivanhoe, Francis, "Was Virchow Right about Neandert[h]al?", Nature V. 227, 1970, p. 577
16. E.g., Zuckerman, pp. 75-94; Eckhardt, Robert B., "Population Genetics and Human Origins", Scientific American, V.226, 1972, pp.94,101.
17. E.g., Oxnard, Charles E., "Human Fossils: New Views of Old Bones," American Biology Teacher, V.41, 1979, p.264.
18. E.g., Straus, William L., "The Great Piltdown Hoax," Science, V.119, 1954, p.265 (Piltdown Man); Gregory, William K., "Hesperopithecus Apparently Not an Ape Nor a Man," Science, V.66,1927, p. 579 (Nebraska Man).
19. E.g., Bhattacharyya, A., Sarkar, S. & Chanda, S.K., "Storm Deposits in the Late Proterozoic Lower Bhander Sandstone of ... India," Journal of Sedimentary Petrology. V.50,1980, p. 1327:
Until recently, noncatastrophic uniformitarianism had dominated sedimentologic thought reflecting that sediment formation and dispersal owe their genesis chiefly to the operation of day-to-day geologic events. As a result, catastrophic events, e.g.. storms, earthquakes, etc., have been denied their rightful place in ancient and recent sedimentary records. Of late, however, there has been a welcome rejuvenation of [the] concept of catastrophism in geologic thought.
J. Harlan Bretz recently stated, on receiving the Penrose Medal (the highest geology award in America), "Perhaps, I can be credited with reviving and demystifying legendary Catastrophism and challenging a too rigorous Uniformitarianism." Geological Society of America, "GSA Medals and Awards," GSA News & Information, V. 2, 1980, p.40.
