Does Evolution Discredit the Bible?
 Doug
Rudy leads an adult home group with his wife, Debbie, and has been
a home group leader at Xenos for over 20 years. Doug earned a bachelor's
degree in English Education from The Ohio State University. He is
a software developer and professional musician. |
by Doug Rudy
Teaching t07088
Watch | Download
Introduction
This week, we're going to look at an area that has for the past hundred
years or so posed one of the strongest reasons against taking the claims
of Christianity seriously, namely the notion that the scientific data
supporting the theory of evolution discredits the Bible, with its claim
that biological life was the result of the intervention of a creator.
This touches a widespread misconception, which is that it is basically
irrational to take the claims of the Bible seriously--you would have to
believe things you know really aren't true. This is especially true in
the area of the evolution/creation debate.
Sample quotes that express this view:
"It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet someone who claims
not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane
(or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)..." Richard Dawkins,
The Blind Watchmaker
"Evolutionary biology is intertwined with other sciences...if
evolutionary biology is to be dismissed, then the fundamental principles
of other sciences will have to be excised...If we let the Creationists
have their way, we may as well go whole hog. Let us reintroduce the
flat-earth theory, the chemistry of the four elements, and mediaeval
astrology." Philip Kitcher (source required)
This is an important objection to Christianity
We can't just say that its not important that biblical statements harmonize
with science--that biblical statements are "spiritual" truth
and therefore don't have to harmonize with science.
For one thing, why should we ever trust the Bible in areas we can't
verify if we were to demonstrate that it is inaccurate in the areas
we can verify?
More importantly, the Bible itself won't allow us to take that way
out. By its own criteria, it claims to be accurate revelation from God,
revelation given in such a way that we can objectively verify that it
is genuine. Therefore, we should not expect to find contradictions between
well-documented scientific facts and clear statements from the Bible.
Romans 1:20 is a good example. Not only is it claiming that we should
not find a contradiction between science and the Bible, but even more:
as we examine the physical universe, we should discover unmistakable
evidence that it is the product of great intelligence, power, and personality.
Before looking at the evidence, we need some definitions...
Definitions
Evolutionary theory can be divided into two very different sets of claims,
often called micro-evolution and macro-evolution.
Micro-evolution is scientifically verified, and does not contradict the
Bible
Micro-evolution consists of these two claims
Natural selection acts on a variation within a population to preserve
the most fit
By this mechanism, a population can change over time to become better
adapted to its environment
This theory has been tested and scientifically validated; natural selection
works. Living things possess systems that generate variation from one
generation to the next, and therefore populations are able to become
better adapted to their environments over time through micro-evolutionary
change. This was important insight on Darwin's part, and in this sense
one can say that evolution is, as we so often hear, a fact.
If there is a herd of zebras that is frequently chased by lions, and
there is some variation in their speed, then on average the lions will
catch the slower ones, and the average speed of the herd will improve
over time.
And there is no conflict between the notion of micro-evolutionary change
and the Bible. The biblical claim is that God created life, at least
some of the major groups directly, throughout a series of ages of time,
and that he has done so in such a way that we can tell that is what
happened.
Neither is there a quarrel between the biblical view and standard geology;
this is important because in the media, when you hear of "creation",
it is almost always presented as a particular "young-earth"
interpretation in which the days of creation are 24-hour days, and therefore
the earth is at most 15,000 or so years old. What is almost never mentioned
is that for centuries, based on internal and linguistic factors alone,
scholars have interpreted the days of creation as long ages of time,
including such scholars as Augustine and Thomas Acquinas, along with
some important Jewish commentators as well.
So there is no conflict between the biblical notion of creation and
the well-established scientific theory of micro-evolution, or between
the Bible, properly interpreted, and standard geology.
Macro-evolution is a very different set of claims
It consists of these two claims:
Life arose in some simple form by random, natural processes
All living things descended from that first life and were produced by random, natural processes (genetic mutation preserved by natural selection)
One of the key differences between micro- and macro- evolution is that macro-evolution makes an explicit claim about the source of new variation, whereas micro-evolution does not. Another key difference is that micro-evolution is not concerned with the origin of life in the first, or the origin of major new features.
Between macro-evolution and the biblical view there may be a genuine conflict, and there are also scientific challenges to macro-evolution.
The question is, which does the evidence support? The macro-evolutionary
claim that life arose by chance and that all subsequent variation and
functionality has been produced by random mutations preserved by natural
selection, or the biblical claim?
The Evidence from Biochemistry
Macro-evolution requires that living things are simple to start; and
simple enough so that they are changeable, through gradual steps, from
a simple initial form into all forms in existence today.
As stated by evolutionists:
"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which
could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight
modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." Charles
Darwin, Origin of Species
"Evolution...must be gradual when it is being used to explain
the coming into existence of complicated, apparently designed objects,
like eyes. For if it is not gradual in these cases, it ceases to have
any explanatory power at all. Without gradualness in these cases, we
are back to miracle..." Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden
The basis for their claim: only intelligent design can directly produce
complexity
We can all tell that a dry streambed, though it looks a little like
a road, is a natural system, but a road going over a steel bridge is
a designed system. The steel bridge is designed because it is made up
of non-naturally occuring interdependent parts in non-naturally occuring
relationship to each other.
It isn't an issue of probability; no matter how long you wait, you
will not find the Golden Gate Bridge assembling by random processes.
So macro-evolution claims that at some underlying level living things
are simple enough that the first living thing could assemble naturally,
and that gradual, accidental genetic mutations can produce all the complexity
we see today.
To explain the eye, evolutionists posit a simple light-sensitive patch,
gradually transformed through more and more useful intermediate stages,
to eyes like ours.
Only recently can we answer the question of whether living things, at
the ground floor, are simple like this--and the answer is resoundingly
no.
Within the last few decades we can finally know how living things are
at the ground-floor; as Michael Behe puts it in the title of his excellent
book, Darwin's Black Box has finally been opened. And we find that at
the smallest possible level, living things are packed with complex machinery.
"To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular
biology, we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until is is
twenty kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough
to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would then see
would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design. On
the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like the
port holes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow a continual
stream of materials to flow in and out. If we were to enter one of these
openings we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and
bewildering complexity..." Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory
in Crisis
Examples of micro-biological machinery from Michael Behe's Darwin's
Black Box
Here's how the cell's machinery is made: from proteins.
You can think of them as built like beads strung on a string or letters
in a sentence, 20 different kinds of these smaller molecules. Each bead
is very small--just a couple dozen atoms.
The secret is that based on the sequence of the "letters",
the protein will fold into a precise 3D shape, and based on that shape,
the protein can then perform amazingly specific and precise tasks: stick
two other particular molecules together, or to grab a particular molecule
and snip it in the same place under just the right circumstances, or
to be the engine that moves along a rail (also built out of protein)
to transport things from one place to another within the cell, or to
join up with other proteins to form larger machines.
Since the sequence is everything, the cell must get it exactly right
every time, and it is able to because DNA stores the coded sequence
for the proteins; protein machinery is able to copy, then read the DNA,
assembling the new protein letter by letter according to the information
coded in the DNA.
An example of protein machinery: the rotary motor of the bacterial
flagellum
This is the only known rotary motor in all living things, and spins
the flagellum, a whip-like structure that, when spinning, propels the
cell through surrounding fluid. It has all the components of an electrical
motor, including bushings, rotor, and stator, and is apparently acid-driven.
Each component is made up of a specialized protein, or built by protein
assembly machines.
Another example of protein machinery: the first stage of blood clotting
Blood clotting is challenging; it needs to work well to be at all helpful,
but must not form clots in the wrong places, which would be fatal.
This first stage involves a page full of the names of specifically
tailored protein machinery for the triggering and regulatory systems,
all of which activates, at the final stage, a protein (thrombin) that
snips the caps covering the sticky ends of fibrin, so that the fibrin
begins to form the mesh that is the beginning of the blood clot. An
error in the construction of any number of these components of the cascade
can result in hemophilia.
We could go on with examples; it turns out to be true for area after
area that at the lowest possible layer the cell is irreducably complex,
including the so-called simple light-sensitive patch, which is said
to be the first stage of vision: it turns to consist of a sophisticated
system including a photon sensor and amplification system, and translation
system to convert the energy from the arrival of the photon into an
electric current that becomes the nerve impulse.
This kind of complexity at the ground floor poses huge problems with
both claims of macro-evolutionary theory.
Remember, Darwin said: "If it could be demonstrated that any complex
organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous,
successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."
Well, the cell turns out to be riddled with structures so complex they
could not have been formed gradually, and also cannot be modified gradually,
through a series of functional intermediate stages, to radically different
structures.
This is true even on the level of building and modifying individual
proteins
"the impossibility of gradual functional transformation is virtually
self-evident in the case of proteins...[to make small changes] in isolation
would be bound to disrupt all the complex intramolecular bonds throughout
the molecule, destabilizing the whole system and rendering it useless...proteins
are indeed like sentences, and are only capable of undergoing limited
degrees of functional change through a succession of individual amino
acid replacements." Michael Denton Evolution, A Theory in Crisis
This comes close, as Denton goes on to point out, to a formal disproof
of Neo-Darwinism. The source of new information, according to macro-evolution,
is mutation. But to produce a protein that does a different kind of
job from an existing one, mutation needs to gradually move, changing
a "letter" or so at a time, across a series of functional
intermediate stages--in fact, each intermediate should be better adapted
than the last. But in general this is not possible--the intermediates
are non-functional!
This is true of all complex systems...even the individual protein is
a highly complex system. The amount of gradual change you can make to
a complex system before breaking it is precisely limited; past a certain
point the whole system must be redesigned at once, something that only
an intelligent mind can do, not random mutations.
The same is also true of the subsystems built from proteins at the
cellular level
"We can conclude that the biochemical systems discussed in Chapter
3 through 6 were designed by an intelligent agent. We can be as confident
of our conclusion for these cases as we are of the conclusion that a
mousetrap was designed, or that Mt. Rushmore or an Elvis poster were
designed. There is no question of degree for those systems, such as
for the man in the moon or the shape of Italy." Michael Behe, Darwin's
Black Box
Ground-floor complexity poses the biggest problem to macro-evolution
with the question of how the first cell could arise by chance
"It is not just such questions relating to the particular kind
of life that we are familiar with. There seems also to be a more fundamental
difficulty. Any conceivable kind of organism would have to contain messages
of some sort and equipment for reading and reprinting the messages:
any conceivable organism would thus seem to have to be packed with machinery
and as such need miracle (or something) for the first of its kind to
have appeared." A. G. Cairns-Smith, Seven Clues to the Origin
of Life
"The simplest bacterium is so damn complicated from the point
of view of a chemist that it is almost impossible to imagine how it
happened". Scientific American 2/91, "In the Beginning",
Harold P. Klein of Santa Clara University, chairman of a National Academy
of Sciences committee that recently reviewed origin-of-life research.
The conclusion of his committee, after reviewing all the research currently
being done on the origin of life: much more research is required.
So the black box is opened; it is clear now that at the micro-molecular
level living systems are astoundingly complex, exhibiting the kind of
complexity that is the result of an intelligent designer.
"The simplicity that was once expected to be the foundation of life
has proven to be a phantom; instead, systems of horrendous, irreducible
complexity inhabit the cell. The resulting realization that life was designed
by an intelligence is a shock to us in the 20th century who have gotten
used to thinking of life as the result of simple natural laws. But other
centuries have had their shocks, and there is no reason to suppose that
we should escape them." Michael Behe Darwin's Black Box
The Evidence from the Fossil Record
One of the other areas of evidence regarding macro-evolution that is
important is the fossil record.
Macro-evolution makes specific claims about what the fossil record should
show:
"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
This is logical; for this reason, and because most paleontologists
agree that the fossil record gives us a fairly accurate picture of the
history of the major groups of living things, we should see:
Gradual transition from simplest possible life to complex forms
No systematic gaps between higher-order groups
The fossil record contradicts these claims
It is now clear, especially with the information that has now been
more readily available to the public since debates about this issue
in the 1980s, that the fossil record has two characteristics that flatly
contradict the predictions from macro-evolution:
Major groups appear suddenly, fully-formed
They show no directional change while in the record
As Niles Eldridge, the co-founder of the theory of punctuated equilibrium
said, "No wonder paleontologists have shied away from evolution
for so long. It never seems to happen...evolution cannot forever be
going on somewhere else."
An example of a missing transition: the Cambrian Explosion
Here we move, some 600 million years before present, from single-celled
organisms to highly complex organisms including seaweeds, sponges, crustaceans,
jointed worms, trilobites, and some other things that we don't have
classifications for today, without any fossil evidence of the existence
of intermediate forms!
This transition occurs on all the continents at the same time; even
in Darwin's time it was called the Cambrian Explosion. He was aware
of the problem it appeared to pose, but hoped that further fossil-hunting
would uncover the transitional forms. It is now generally conceded that
this transition really did occur somehow without leaving any trace in
fossils.
"One of the major unsolved problems of geology and evolution is
the occurrence of diversified, multicellular marine invertebrates in
Lower Cambrian rocks on all the continents and their abscence in rocks
of greater age". "...when we turn to examine the Precambrian
rocks for the forerunners of these Early Cambrian fossils, they are
nowhere to be found. Many thick sections of sedimentary rock are now
known to lie in unbroken succession below strata containing the eraliest
Cambrian fossils (some of them over 5000 feet thick). These sediments
apparently were suitable for the preservation of fossils because they
are often identical with overlying rocks which are fossiliferous, yet
no fossils are found in them." Axelrod (source required)
Steven Jay Gould points out in his book Wonderful Life (after
admitting that he will simply dodge the question of how such complexity
could form without leaving any trace) that the cambrian fossils contradict
the prediction from macro-evolution in another way as well: the so-called
cone of increasing diversity should actually be stood on its head. There
is more fundamental diversity in body plans right there at the beginning
than there is later. How to explain this by the theory of macro-evolution?
We find ourselves again confronted with clear evidence of a designer.
The same pattern holds true for the other major transitions, many of
them nearly as remarkable as this one of the Cambrian Explosion, including
the development of vertebrate fish, and the origin of flight four different
times, in insects, reptiles, birds, and mammals.
Some summarizing quotes from evolutionist paleontologists:
George Gaylord Simpson, long considered the dean of vertebrate paleontologists,
says "There is...a systematic deficiency in the record of the history
of life. It is thus possible to claim that such transitions are not
recorded because they did not exist, that the changes were not by transition
but by sudden leaps in evolution." Of course, there are no such
things as "leaps" in macro-evolution. Only by the operation
of intelligent design can you see a whole suite of new features appear
together at once. (source required)
Clark (A.H.) says "Since we have not the slightest evidence, either
among the living or the fossil animals, of any intergrading types following
the major groups, it is a fair supposition that there never have been
any such intergrading types." (source required)
Stephen Jay Gould, the co-founder of the theory of punctuated equilibrium
"The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record
persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees
that adorn our textbooks have data only at their tips and nodes of their
branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence
of fossils." One wonders exactly why the inference is reasonable!
Only the prior assumption of the naturalistic world-view would make
such an inference reasonable...but that is not science, it is religion.
(source required)
Conclusion
The objection has been addressed. Not only is the Bible not discredited
by the scientific data regarding evolution. The Bible's contention that
life was created and that we should be able to tell so is strongly supported
by the facts. Whereas there is plenty of factual support for the theory
of micro-evolution, in my view macro-evolution comes close to being falsified
by the nature of the evidence.
One might wonder why it is still preached so dogmatically. The Bible
has an explanation for that.
Romans 1:18-20 explains that there is a tendency in each of us to resist
the notion that we are created beings, even to the point of suppressing
any data that comes along that would suggest that we are. So its not
surprising that we find "trade secrets" in paleontology!
This verse also points out that God is angry about this kind of suppression
of the truth about himself. The reason is, if you read this passage
in its context, and as the rest of the Bible makes clear, it is this
tendency of ours to want to separate ourselves from God and strike out
on our own as our own gods that is the root of all the misery and evil
in the world.
The sad thing is that this is an irrational desire--its based on a
groundless suspicion about God and his intentions toward us. John 10:10
summarizes God's actual intentions toward us.
For those investigating Christianity, the evidence from design in nature
is one of the ways that God is trying to reveal himself to each one of
us. He's doing so in a way that leaves room for our freewill...we can
choose to suppress the evidence, or instead choose to respond with openness.
Why not make the decision right now to become open to the possibility
that God really is there? Why not continue on in this series and ask God
to show himself to you, acknowledging that you'll respond if he does?
For those who have made that decision, take time to enjoy the handiwork
of God in nature!
Suggested Reading
Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis
Michael Behe, Darwin's Black Box
Philip Johnson, Darwin on Trial
Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker
A. G. Cairns-Smith, Seven Clues to the Origin of Life
Scientific American, February 1991, "In the Beginning"
|
Buy
this series on 
