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Chapter Five
LIFE'S DAWN
Science is the investigation, observation, and identification of what is observed, and then experimental replication of that observation to either support or refute that theory. This is considered operational, or hard science which is testable. A typical example would be gravity. Gravity is observed and identified. A theory is proposed that suggests that there is a law in place that states that what goes up must come down. To validate this theory it needs to be tested. Repeated experiments are done. If these experiments regularly produce the same results then that theory has been shown to be correct. After consistent results, the theory can now be more definitively classified as scientific truth and no longer a theory.
Science is about experimentation and observation, more so for the "hard" sciences than those considered the "soft" sciences which tend to be more difficult in applying the rigors of scientific methods.
A theory refers to an opinion, speculation, or assumption that has been offered. Within science, it would be a proposed explanation or formalized expression of the manner of interactions within nature. This is then observed, tested, and verified to either be valid or not valid based on these observations and tests.
Evolution is called a theory and not fact for a reason. Evolution is an assumption that has been offered to explain our existence. However, It remains a theory because science cannot prove evolution to be true.
Now it was significant to go over this for the following reasons. As we look at the two proposed explanations of how life began, whether it is evolution or intelligent design, we find that neither was observed by man nor can be presently observed. And, neither can they be verified through repeated experimental testing. Don't let anyone kid you into thinking we have been able to replicate life from non-life, although attempts continue.
This being the case, when it comes to the theory of the origins of life, we have two belief systems. Intelligent design, also known as creationism and evolution. Both begin with this belief system as the premise for their investigation. Both apply the criteria of science, utilizing the same available information and facts that have thus far been uncovered. Although there has been an aggressive attempt by evolutionists to frame this as science (evolution) versus religion (intelligent design) in order to try to invalidate intelligent design as real science and bolster evolution as true science, the fact remains that evolution is called a theory for a reason. Even though great efforts have been made to provide the necessary evidence, testing, and observation, evolution remains a theory and not a scientific fact.
This is why over and over we hear phrases like the following:
"This suggests that bla, bla, bla ...."
"Quite possibly this is a result of bla, bla, bla... "
"Perhaps early man bla, bla, bla...."
"It is thought that the universe might have bla, bla, bla...."
"Early life may have bla, bla, bla...."
"It is believed that some fish bla, bla, bla..."
These are examples of words or phrases used to express thoughts, assumptions, and ideas of, oftentimes, very sincere men and women. Phrases of uncertainty and postulation, of possibility, suggestion, and speculation. Listen more intently next time.
Let's take a look at evolution and some of the factual information that may help in our quest to find an answer.
The concept of evolution was not a new idea brought about by Darwin. One can find traces of this concept as far back as the Babylonian Empire. Evolution refers to the assumption that life from early single-cell life forms evolved over long periods of time to eventually produce man.
Sub-definitions in evolution are referred to as "microevolution", or minor changes laterally within a species such as a change in color or size, and "macroevolution" refers to upward changes of higher complexity from one species into a new species.
There is no question that microevolution does take place, allowing for a given species to adapt to changes to the conditions of their surroundings. However, the change of a species into a totally different one as macroevolution suggests is the main thrust of the evolutionary theory in explaining how the various life forms came into being.
Although Charles Darwin's theory suggested that all life on earth was the result of natural processes or natural selection, this theory has actually been rejected as the mechanism for change but is still being taught and promoted. And after over 130 years, not one of Darwin's scientific theories has been proven, nor can be proven.
One of the major components of evolution is the evolutionary tree. We all have seen them in school textbooks, science books, and other materials discussing the origins of life. The chart below is an example of one of the charts used to illustrate life evolving from a single life form. Just think of the chances of that happening:
They are impressive charts to be sure. Some in color, others specific to one category of species. Some old and some new. All of them have one thing in common.... they are a fabrication.
Let's hear what Darwin himself said was his expectations and belief with regard to the evolutionary tree:
"The number of intermediate and transitional links, between all living and extinct species, must have been inconceivably great. But assuredly, if this theory be true, such have lived upon the earth." Charles Darwin, Origin of Species (1872)
Intermediate fossils refer to those fossils that reveal the transition of creatures changing from one species into another completely different species as is illustrated above.
What Darwin stated should be true. There should be an inconceivable amount of intermediate and transitional links for this evolutionary theory to be true. He anticipated it, he expected it, and he hoped that there would be. However, after 149 years and counting of digging, researching, and scouring the earth with literally millions of fossils discovered and studied, and tens of thousands of them identified, the number of these transitional links that have been discovered has come to a total of.. well, zero!
Why is this important?
Consider the following. No one knows the exact number and breakdown but it is safely estimated that there are at least 8 million known species of plant and animal life. And, there are at least over one million described insects around the world.
A Frinch
I have always wondered about one thing, maybe you have too. Why have we not seen the evolutionary process still at work? Or, if we are in the midst of a standstill, why we don't see some things stuck between transitions?
Like a frinch? Half frog and half finch? Or a snat? Half snake and half cat? In fact, conspicuously missing in the macro-evolutionary discussion is the inclusion of insects and plant life. We are asked to believe that all life started from simple cells that constantly evolved, producing all that we know, and yet, there are no transitory examples that leap from one to the other. Of plants to insects and so on. No rosebug. No mosquitopecker. No antchilla. No mossmites.
Sound ridiculous? Exactly!!!
Now with these numbers in mind, there would have had to be an unbelievable amount of macro-evolution taking place. And, for an abundance of evidence demonstrating this fact. And this does not take into consideration another important factor in the calculus. That being the sexes.
The Sexes
For every evolved species where the other sex is required, there would need to be evolving at the same time, near the same place, the opposite sex. So this presents a number far larger, and another evolutionary problem.
In addressing the sexes and evolution, it would have had to be unbelievably convenient that by happenstance in the evolution of the two sexes of the same species that at the same time, at the same location, the functioning of those sexes worked perfectly right out of the box the very first time. The amazingly complex and completely different reproductive systems of the male would have had to completely and independently evolve at each stage at about the same time and place as those of the female. Just a slight incompleteness in only one of the two would make both reproductive systems useless and natural selection, as evolution espouses, would oppose their survival. And the intuitive drive to mate would also have to have developed simultaneously for each sex. Now that takes a lot of faith! Where does that intuitive, procreative drive come from?
So, you almost have to wonder what are the chances of evolution producing both sexes at the same time, millions of times, at the same time? Say one in ten? One in a thousand? One in a million? How about never!
And the transitional species? What would seem to be the logical answer as to why nothing has been discovered?
What do you think it may be? The most reasonable answer is that they don't exist. And if none exist, then transitions did not take place. And if transitions did not take place then evolution did not occur. Thus, the evolutionary charts that we see are representations of something that evidence has thus far shown to have never happened. They represent the fanciful thoughts of wishful thinking. Man's elaborate attempt to make nothing look like something that it is not.
Evolutionary scientists understand the threat that these missing transitional links represent to this belief system and so without fail, and on a regular, if not monthly basis, release news of some type of find or discovery that "maybe", "quite possibly be", or "most likely is" a transitional find of substantial importance. Look for it in the coming weeks. It will invariably be on your streaming news of choice. This is done to continue the impression of this being a reinforced scientific fact.
Now there is a simple explanation for the non-existence of these mutated transitions. We touched on it briefly in our short discussion on peas. That is the "Law of Genetics".
Mendel, our Franciscan monk and the recognized Father of Genetics demonstrated one thing, a pea is a pea. Due to its genetic code, a pea will always be a pea. This also applies to all living things. They reproduce after their own kind. This is called an "objective truth" that is true for all people, in all places, at all times. It can be demonstrated and replicated with the same results.
A code is a set of rules or programs for converting information from one useful form into another. Those working in writing software understand this very well. Codes communicate useful information. And codes are only produced by intelligence and not by any natural process or by chance. They represent an intelligent design. Please think this through. An evolutionist is committed to the thought of randomness and chance with regard to the construction of DNA strands that make up the genetic code. They have no other choice. The only other means by which this can happen is by intelligent design. Someone with the intellect and knowledge to purposefully construct such coded information.
Now, useful information does not just happen. We understand that a programmer wrote the code for Microsoft Windows that gives it the required look, information and commands to work and function. How is it then that something even more complex, such as what we find in nature, is relegated to happenstance? Remember the millions of living species? Does it sound reasonable to you that each of those millions or so different genetic codes needed to produce those living species was produced out of chaos and random chance? Man, in a controlled laboratory environment, cannot create even one on purpose?
Does randomness make sense to you?
What do you think the possibility might be that evolution could produce a flat sheet of paper 8 x 11, with 3 holes on one side, from the natural fibers of the earth? Then pull together some blue color dye from some plant fluid or something, create 33 straight lines on that page, produce black ink, and somehow get that on the page to spell out on those blue lines the words to the Gettysburg Address? How much time would be needed do you think? Do you say this is an absurd, preposterous example? Why? Paper is not nearly as complicated as a living cell, let alone the complexity of the human body. Making holes is not as tough as creating a functional ear canal. Getting color shouldn't be as hard as determining the color of the eyes or hair. And to spell out the words in the Gettysburg Address is nowhere near the complexity of the coded information laid out within each DNA strand. Shouldn't evolution be able to produce that easier than living matter?
You would say that it is obvious that the paper was made by a machine for it is too precise. And the machine was itself made by someone with enough intelligence to conceive of how it could be done. One can look at the paper and know that it was created. The lines are too straight, the paper too thin and the measurements too exact. Anyone can look and see that it was designed to look as it does.
Tell me, when did we stop seeing ourselves the same way? Do you consider yourself the product of random chance? The result of some natural fluke? If you do, why? What is the convincing factor for you?
We sometimes don't realize how complex life is. Back in the day (Darwin's to be exact) the single cell was considered about as complex as a golf ball. That was until the invention of the electron microscope revealed a microscopic world much more complex than imagined.
In the human body, there are approximately 30 trillion cells. Each human cell contains 46 chromosomes. These chromosomes consist of coiled DNA strands. If we uncoiled those strands and put them end-to-end, the strand would be about 7 feet long, and yet it would be too thin for the eye to see. If we were to take each seven-foot strand coiled up in all 30 trillion cells in the human body and then connect them to make one long strand, it would reach the moon and back conservatively over 1,000 times. If we were to take just one of those seven-foot strands of DNA and convert the highly condensed, coded information found on that strand into printed form, it would fill not just one book, but 4,000 volumes. If we were to convert all of the highly condensed, coded information found within all 30 trillion cells of the human body into books, those books would fill the Grand Canyon 40 times.
We have, within each of us a tremendous amount of information housed within the cells that make up our body. This information determines how tall we will be, the color of our eyes, how many toes, and how many ears. How we will grow and when we will stop.
This information makes our immune, nervous, reproductive, and digestive systems work. Millions of messages are being transmitted every second controlling and coordinating our motor skills and muscles. Coded information that is intertwining and relational, working in conjunction and in harmony. These cells, filled with coded information, are taking care of things that we don't even notice as we go about our daily business. The construction of the human body really is a walking miracle of creation.
If we were to consider the human brain, how do you even reasonably begin to explain its abilities through evolution? Things such as memory and recall, emotions, logic, rationalization, mathematical calculations, creativity, ingenuity, humor, languages, and imagination? Boatloads of time and chance cannot account for such complexity. Nor can we explain the origins, in any clinical, scientific means, of how man possesses the means to hate, be jealous, envy others, covet, have rage, lie, fall in love, to lust, and so on. Where does this come from? Please don't respond with naturalism.
The most sophisticated supercomputers we have are not even able to accomplish what the brain in each person is capable of.
Which seems more plausible, evolution's random chance or an intelligent, purposeful design?
There have been many attempts to show mankind as having evolved from lesser species but all of them were found to not be true, or worse, as hoaxes. Consider the following:
Piltdown Man - This was found to be a deliberate hoax. An ape jaw was attached to a human skull and stained to look old.
Java Man - The discoverer later admitted to artificially constructing this find with a human thighbone and the skull of a gibbon monkey. And so concluded another scientific hoax.
Peking Man - Tools and human bones were found near the apes whose brains they were eating (monkey brains are still eaten in China.)
Nebraska Man - An entire person and family was envisioned from a single tooth. Later it was found to have come from a pig.
Lucy - This much-heralded find, was eventually and quietly reclassified as an extinct ape.
Ramapithecus - a jaw and teeth were thought to be that of an early ape/man but were found instead to be that of an orangutan.
Once again, the fossil records are absent of any transitional forms of any development of man from some other creature, let alone an ape. Surely there would have been more than just a few transitory ape-men hanging around, but alas we are left with none. And if no records, then no transition. If no transition then no existence of evolutionary man. And if no evolutionary man, no evolution. Like Johnnie Cochran stated, "If it don't fit, you must acquit."
If there is no evidence or record of evolutionary man, then where did man come from? Evolutionists have no other answer.
In 1869, Earnst Haeckel looked to provide evidence for Darwin's theory by creating a series of drawings of the early developmental stages of embryonic life, including man. The attempt was to show how all embryonic life started out looking the same, thus attempting to demonstrate man showing many characteristics of his prior, evolutionary form. Although proven to be faked and convicted of fraud by the University of Jena, where he was employed, the drawings were not so readily disposed of. When I was in school in 1972, they were still being used in our curriculum almost 100 years after the fact. But why? Why do you think?
What is more remarkable than the hoax he created is Haeckel's comments when he confessed to what he did.
"A small percent of my embryonic drawings are forgeries; those namely, for which the observed material is so incomplete or insufficient as to fill in and reconstruct the missing links by hypothesis and comparative synthesis. I should feel utterly condemned.... were it not that hundreds of the best observers and biologists lie under the same charge." Records from the University of Jena trial in 1875. Dr. Edward Blick, Blick Engineering, Norman, OK.
What kind of science was this again?
Let's consider DNA a little further. DNA can only be produced with the help of at least 20 different types of proteins, but these proteins can only be produced at the direction of DNA. Since each one requires the other a reasonable and logical explanation for the origin of one must also explain the origins of the other. It seems that this entire manufacturing system came into existence simultaneously.
Yet how? Science has no real answer. Much like the pollinating plants and the bee. Each depends upon the other. Neither could have evolved apart from the other for long, so once again, we would need the bee and pollinating plant to have evolved at the same time in order to survive. What does the evolutionist offer as the answer to this? Take a guess.
What does reason tell you? Which seems more plausible, evolution's random chance or an intelligent, purposeful design?
Scientists have, for over 80 years of fruit-fly experiments, involving 3000 consecutive generations, concluded that there is absolutely no basis for believing that any natural or artificial process can cause an increase in complexity and viability. There has been no clear genetic improvement observed despite the many unnatural efforts to increase mutation rates. Even when attempting to forcefully change the DNA structure in flies, scientists still came up with... well, FLIES. Duh? Oh, there were ones with no wings, two sets of wings, mutations of all kinds, but alas, these flies were flies.
Breeding has become a big business. One thing breeders understand and are banking on for their financial well-being is that the outcome of their endeavors will produce a favorable and hopefully profitable product. For centuries, breeding has been accomplished, and yet never has a new species appeared by happenstance, as is suggested in the evolutionary model. Nor has natural selection produced new genes. It only selects among pre-existing ones. Any attempts to cross-breed different species have never produced a superior, more complex, or beneficially new one. Mutations have almost always resulted in something either inferior, often sterile, or D.O.A., confirming the boundaries of genetics. Breeding demonstrates micro-evolution within a species, never macro-evolution.
Which seems more plausible, evolution's random chance or an intelligent, purposeful design?
You can easily do some further research to discover other key issues with the evolutionary theory and dig deeper on this topic.
We have barely covered the complexity of the existing world around us that cannot be explained away by merely claiming evolution. In fact, no adequate or detailed explanation can be given as to how a single cell mutated and evolved into life beyond the microscope. And, no record can be found, nothing can or ever has been observed, or replicated. No transitions, no mutations.
Galileo's invention of the microscope revealed a whole new world that up until that time lay invisible to the naked eye. How many other worlds exist that we simply cannot see, or that have yet been discovered? How about a world invisible to man where God dwells?
For now, this is enough to see that science has not affirmed, nor can it affirm, that evolution is a fact and the means of life's existence. And, science has not the means, or the ability to disqualify the belief in intelligent design as represented in a creation model. A model that inspired the origins of the science field to begin with by men of faith. Nor is the confines of science capable of refuting the existence of God.
So, having found that the life sciences cannot provide the necessary proof to denounce creation and the existence of God, we may need to turn to the field of astronomical science. Maybe this field will yield the means to stop our journey forward. Let's go find out!