Milo

Humans are very different from animals, especially in the ability to use language and logic. Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science points out a number of contrasts between humans and apes on page 83. But Teaching about Evolution forcefully indoctrinates readers with the idea that humans have descended from a simple cell via ape-like ancestors. The arguments used involve alleged apemen and DNA similarities. This chapter analyzes the fossil record, and also discusses the large difference in genetic information content between apes and humans.

Fossil apemen

The best-known fossil apemen are the extinct australopithecines (the name means ‘southern ape’). Teaching about Evolution on page 20 illustrates a series of five skulls: Australopithecus afarensis (‘Lucy’), A. africanus, early Homo, H. erectus, and H. sapiens(modern man). However, many evolutionists disagree with this picture. For example, Donald Johanson, the discoverer of ‘Lucy,’ places A. africanus on a side-branch not leading to man. Anatomist Charles Oxnard performed a detailed analysis of different bones of A. africanus and concluded that it did not walk upright in the human manner and was more distinct from both humans and chimpanzees than these are from each other. More recently, Oxnard made the following comments about the australopithecines, including ‘Lucy’: 

It is now recognized widely that the australopithecines are not structurally closely similar to humans, that they must have been living at least in part in arboreal [tree] environments, and that many of the later specimens were contemporaneous [living at the same time] or almost so with the earlier members of the genus Homo.

Oxnard, an evolutionist, is one of several experts who do not believe that any of the australopithecines were on the human line. 

Humans have always been humans

Marvin Lubenow, in his book Bones of Contention, also shows that the various alleged apemen do not form a smooth sequence in evolutionary ‘ages,’ but overlap considerably. He also points out that the various finds are either varieties of true humans (e.g. Neandertals, Homo erectus) or non-humans like the australopithecines, which probably includes the so-called Homo habilis. There are several lines of evidence to support this: 

• Mitochondrial DNA analysis of a Neandertal skeleton found that the sequence differed from modern humans in 22 to 36 places, while the differences among modern humans are from 1 to 24 places. Despite some statistically invalid claims that this makes the Neandertals a separate species, the differences are within the range of modern humans. Also, DNA is quickly broken down by water and oxygen, so under favorable conditions, DNA might last tens of thousands of years at the most. This raises serious questions about the 100,000-year ‘age’ that some scientists have assigned to this skeleton.
• X-ray analysis of the semicircular canals of a number of apemen skulls showed that the Homo erectus canals were like those of modern humans, meaning they walked upright. But those of the A. africanus and A. robustus were like those of great apes. This shows they did not walk upright like humans, but were probably mainly tree-dwelling. ‘Homo habilis’ turned out to be even less ‘bi-pedal’ than the australopithecines.

Human and ape similarities?

Teaching about Evolution emphasizes physical and especially DNA similarities between human and other living organisms, and this is alleged to be evidence for evolution. However, again this is not a direct finding, but an interpretation of the data. 

A common designer is another interpretation that makes sense of the same data. An architect commonly uses the same building material for different buildings, and a carmaker commonly uses the same parts in different cars. So we shouldn’t be surprised if a Designer for life used the same biochemistry and structures in many different creatures. Conversely, if all living organisms were totally different, this might look like there were many designers instead of one. 

Another good thing about the common biochemistry is that we can gain nourishment from other living things. Our digestive systems can break down food into its building blocks, which are then used either as fuel or for our own building blocks. 

Since DNA contains the coding for structures and biochemical molecules, we should expect the most similar creatures to have the most similar DNA. Apes and humans are both mammals, with similar shapes, so have similar DNA. We should expect humans to have more DNA similarities with another mammal like a pig than with a reptile like a rattlesnake. And this is so. Humans are very different from yeast but they have some biochemistry in common, so we should expect human and yeast DNA to be only slightly similar. 

So the general pattern of similarities need not be explained by common-ancestry evolution. Furthermore, there are some puzzling anomalies for an evolutionary explanation—similarities between organisms that evolutionists don’t believe are closely related. For example, hemoglobin, the complex molecule that carries oxygen in blood and results in its red color, is found in vertebrates. But it is also found in someearthworms, starfish, crustaceans, mollusks, and even in some bacteria. The α-hemoglobin of crocodiles has more in common with that of chickens (17.5 percent) than that of vipers (5.6 percent), their fellow reptiles. An antigen receptor protein has the same unusual single chain structure in camels and nurse sharks, but this cannot be explained by a common ancestor of sharks and camels.

Similarities between human and ape DNA are often exaggerated. This figure was not derived from a direct comparison of the sequences. Rather, the original paper inferred 97 percent similarity between human and chimp DNA from a rather crude technique called DNA hybridization. In this technique, single strands of human DNA were combined with DNA from chimpanzees and other apes. However, there are other things beside similarity that affect the degree of hybridization. 

Actually, even if we grant that degree of hybridization entirely correlates with similarity, there are flaws. When proper statistics are applied to the data, they show that humans and chimps have only about 96 percent similarity. But we frequently hear larger figures bandied about—the alleged similarity grows in the telling! 

A point often overlooked is the vast differences between different kinds of creatures. Every creature has an encyclopedic information content, so even a small percentage difference means that a lot of information would be required to turn one kind into another. Since humans have an amount of information equivalent to a thousand 500-page books, a 4 percent difference amounts to 40 large books (again, even if we assume that the hybridization data really correlates to gene sequence similarity).

That is, random mutation plus natural selection is expected to generate the information equivalent of 12 million words arranged in a meaningful sequence. This is an impossibility even if we grant the 10 million years asserted by evolutionists. Population genetics calculations show that animals with human-like generation times of about 20 years could substitute no more than about 1,700 mutations in that time.

Embryo similarities?

Teaching about Evolution states on page 1: 

As organisms grow from fertilized egg cells into embryos, they pass through many similar developmental stages. 

Teaching about Evolution has no embryo drawings. However, many evolutionary books have drawings purportedly showing that embryos look very similar. They are based on the 1874 embryo diagrams by Ernst Haeckel, Darwin’s advocate in Germany, whose evolutionary ideas were instrumental in the later rise of Nazism. However, in 1997, a detailed study by Mike Richardson and his team, including actual photographs of a large number of different embryos, showed that embryos of different kinds are very distinct(see illustration below). 

Thus, the only way for Haeckel to have drawn them looking so similar was to have cheated. This study was widely publicized in science journals and the secular media, so a book published in 1998 has no excuse for being unaware that the idea of extensive embryonic similarities is outdated and based on fraud.

More recently, Richardson and his team confirmed in a letter to Science that they still believe in evolution, and that the marked dissimilarities are consistent with this. But this contradicts the usual textbook prediction from Darwinism that embryo development should go through similar stages as Haeckel’s faked drawings illustrate. If evolutionary theory predicts both similarities and differences, then it doesn’t really predict anything! On the basis of Richardson’s letter, evolutionists have claimed he really believes that Haeckel was ‘basically right.’ But Richardson confirmed in a later letter to Science: 

The core scientific issue remains unchanged: Haeckel’s drawings of 1874 are substantially fabricated. In support of this view, I note that his oldest ‘fish’ image is made up of bits and pieces from different animals—some of them mythical. It is not unreasonable to characterize this as ‘faking.’ … Sadly, it is the discredited 1874 drawings that are used in so many British and American biology textbooks today.’

A good account of Haeckel’s embryonic fraud was published in Creation magazine.

Mitochondrial Eve

Teaching about Evolution says on page 19:

According to recent evidence—based on the sequencing of DNA in a part of human cells known as mitochondria—it has been proposed that a small population of modern humans evolved in Africa about 150,000 years ago and spread throughout the world, replacing archaic populations of Homo Sapiens.

This evidence deals with comparing the DNA from mitochondria. This DNA is inherited only through the mother’s line. The similarities indicate that all people on earth are descended from a single human female. Even evolutionists have called her ‘Mitochondrial Eve.’ 

While this is consistent with the biblical account, we should note that it is not proof. Evolutionists contend that ‘Mitochondrial Eve’ was one of a number of women living. The mitochondrial line of the others would have died out if there were only males in any generation of descendants. 

Evolutionists believed they had clear proof against the biblical account, because ‘Mitochondrial Eve’ supposedly lived 200,000 years ago. However, recent evidence shows that mitochondrial DNA mutates far faster than previously thought.²⁴ If this new evidence is applied to ‘Mitochondrial Eve,’ it indicates that she would have lived only 6,000–6,500 years ago. Of course, this is perfectly consistent with the biblically indicated age of the ‘mother of all living’ (Gen. 3:20), but an enigma for evolution/long age beliefs. 

Interestingly, there is a parallel account with males: evidence from the Y-chromosome is consistent with all people being descended from a single man. The data is also consistent with a recent date for this ‘Y-chromosome Adam.’

Conclusion

Teaching about Evolution aims to indoctrinate students with the belief that they are evolved animals and ultimately are, in effect, nothing more than a chance re-arrangement of matter. A senior writer for Scientific American had this inspiring comment: 

Yes, we are all animals, descendants of a vast lineage of replicators sprung from primordial pond scum.

What this leads to is aptly shown by this dialog between two evolutionists. Lanier is a computer scientist; Dawkins is a professor at Oxford and an ardent Darwinist and atheist: 

Jaron Lanier: ‘There’s a large group of people who simply are uncomfortable with accepting evolution because it leads to what they perceive as a moral vacuum, in which their best impulses have no basis in nature.’ 

Richard Dawkins: ‘All I can say is, That’s just tough. We have to face up to the truth.’

The scriptural teaching on the origin of the universe is found in Genesis 1:1, which states that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Steven Hawking attempts to circumvent this truth (or, at the very least, render a Creator logically superfluous to the issue of the beginning of the universe). However, his ideas are not new, but are rather the latest versions of some classic attempts to explain getting something (i.e., the universe) out of nothing.

Hawking’s support for his work comes from the existence of the law of gravity. It is known to physicists that the energy associated with the gravitational force is negative, while the energy associated with most ordinary objects (baseballs, cars, etc.) is positive. It is possible for these positive and negative energies to cancel, resulting in zero net energy. Two situations with the same energy (or zero energy difference) are, in a physical sense, equally preferable. An example would be a soccer ball on the kitchen floor; the ball could sit by the refrigerator or the stove or the table without wanting to roll anywhere else. This is because each position on the kitchen floor which the soccer ball could occupy would have the same energy, so none of the positions is energetically preferable to the others.

Hawking envisions the origin of the universe in a similar way. Since it is possible to think of the creation of the universe as a “zero net energy process,” Hawking suggests that there is no need to explain how it could have been created. But this inference is based not on the physics, but on Hawking’s own philosophical presuppositions. In the example of a soccer ball on the kitchen floor, it is conceivable to imagine the soccer ball sitting anywhere on the floor without needing an explanation; however, it is quite another thing to say that the soccer ball and the kitchen floor came from nothing.

Hawking’s attempts to address this problem are not in any way new to philosophers; it is one of the oldest issues in Epicurean philosophy: “ex nihilo nihil fit” (literally, “nothing comes out of nothing”). Hawking’s ideas may establish that two physical situations (the universe existing versus not existing) are energetically equivalent, but it does nothing to address the issue of cause and effect. No explanation is needed as to why the soccer ball is sitting by the stove rather than by the refrigerator, but an explanation is needed if the ball moves from the stove to the refrigerator. In physics, a change never occurs without an explanation; in philosophical language, an effect never occurs without a cause.

Hawking’s ideas do nothing to address this; the issue of the universe’s origin is the same as it was before. It is not possible to get something from nothing. Only the idea of a Creator can adequately explain where the universe could have come from. Moreover, Hawking’s statement that science will always prevail over religion “because it works” reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the philosophy of science. Truth is not determined by “what works,” but by whether it conforms to the reality around us. When we say that a particular statement is “true,” we are saying that the content of that statement actually describes the way things are. This connection between a statement and the reality it describes is independent of a person and his mind. A statement may be true or false, irrespective of whether or not it appears to a particular person to describe the correct state of affairs. This is what we mean when we say that truth is objective; a statement’s “truth value” is a quality which it possesses independently of a person’s knowledge thereof.

However, once we begin to try to decide whether a particular statement is true or false (as happens in both science and religion), the only way we know how to proceed is to try to test the statement to “see if it works.” As an example, suppose we want to decide whether the statement, “All cats are brown” is true. We can begin our investigation by gathering cats together and inspecting each of them to see if any do not conform to the statement in question, thereby rendering it false. We only need to find one gray cat to know that the original statement is false: not all cats are brown.

But what if every cat we were able to find was, in fact, brown? Clearly, the world does contain felines of many other varieties and colours. In this case, even though the statement “works” (from our investigation, all cats do appear to be brown), it is clearly false. Thus, the issue of whether science or religion “works” is completely irrelevant to the issue of truth in each of these disciplines. While truth can be discovered by noting what works, simply because a statement appears to work does not in fact imply that it is true.

To summarize, Hawking’s reasoning fails on philosophical grounds. Hawking attempts to substitute God with a particular physical law (gravity). However, Hawking fails to address the key issue at hand – that is, the origin of physical law in the first place. Where did the law of gravity come from and how does nothing produce something? A physical law is not nothing. Moreover, Hawking’s conception of a plethora of ensemble universes to escape the conclusion of fine-tuning is philosophically unsound, metaphysically motivated, and less parsimonious than the theistic interpretation.

Why does humanity seek to eliminate God from having had any role in the creation of the Universe? It’s very simple. Humanity hates God and does not want to be subject to God’s law, or held accountable for our actions. As Paul writes in Romans 1, “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.”

The ontological argument is an argument based not on observation of the world (like the cosmological and teleological arguments) but rather from reason alone. Specifically, the ontological argument reasons from the study of being (ontology). The first and most popular form goes back to St. Anselm in the 11th century A.D. He begins with stating that the concept of God is “a being than which no greater can be conceived.” Since existence is possible, and to exist is greater than to not exist, then God must exist (if God did not exist, then a greater being could be conceived, but that is self defeating—you can’t have something greater than that which no greater can be conceived!). Therefore, God must exist. Descartes did much the same thing only starting from the idea of a perfect being.

Atheist extraordinaire Bertrand Russell said that it is much easier to say that the ontological argument is no good than it is to say exactly what is wrong with it! However, ontological arguments are not terribly popular in most Christian circles these days. First, they seem to beg the question as to what God is like. Second, subjective appeal is low for non-believers as these arguments tend to lack hard objective support. Third, it is difficult to simply state that something must exist by definition. Without good philosophical support for why a thing must exist, simply defining something into existence is not good philosophy (like stating that unicorns are magical, single-horned horses that exist). These problems notwithstanding, several prominent philosophers today continue to work on this more unusual form of theological argument.

The word teleology comes from telos which means “purpose” or “goal.” The idea is that it takes a “purposer” to have purpose, and so where we see things obviously intended for a purpose, something had to have caused it for a reason. In other words, design implies a designer. We instinctively do this all the time. The difference between the Grand Canyon and Mount Rushmore is obvious—one is designed, one is not. The Grand Canyon was clearly formed by non-rational, natural processes, whereas Mount Rushmore was clearly created by an intelligent being—a designer. When we are walking down the beach and see a watch we do not assume that time and random chance produced it from blowing sand. Why? Because it has the clear marks of design—it has a purpose, it conveys information, it is specifically complex, etc. In no scientific field is design considered to be spontaneous; it always implies a designer, and the greater the design, the greater the designer. Thus, taking the assumptions of science, the universe would require a designer beyond itself (i.e. supernatural).

The teleological argument applies this criteria to the whole universe. If designs imply a designer, and the universe shows marks of design, then the universe was created. Clearly, every life form in earth’s history has been highly complex. A single strand of DNA equates to one volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica. The human brain is approximately 10 billion gigabytes in capacity. Besides living things here on earth, the whole universe seems designed for life. Literally hundreds of conditions are required for life on earth—everything from the mass density of the universe down to earthquake activity must be fine-tuned in order for life to survive. The random chance of all these things occurring is literally beyond imagination. The odds are many orders of magnitude higher than the number of atomic particles in the whole universe! With this much design, it is difficult to believe that we just got lucky. In fact, top atheist philosopher Antony Flew’s recent conversion to theism was based largely on this argument.

In addition to being used to demonstrate God’s existence, the teleological argument also exposes shortcomings in the theory of evolution. The Intelligent Design movement in science applies information theory to life systems and shows that chance cannot even begin to explain its complexity. In fact, even single-celled bacteria are so complex that without all of their parts working together at the same time they would have no survival potential. That means those parts could not have developed by chance. Darwin recognized that this might be a problem someday just by looking at the human eye. Little did he know that even single-celled creatures have too much complexity to explain without a creator.

The cosmological argument derives its title from observing the world around us (the cosmos). It begins with what is most obvious in reality: things exist. It is then argued that the cause of those things’ existence had to be a “God-type” thing. These types of arguments go all the way back to Plato and have been used by notable philosophers and theologians ever since. Besides being philosophically evident, science finally caught up with theologians in the 20th century when it was confirmed that the universe had to have had a beginning. So, today, the arguments are even powerful for non-philosophers. There are two basic forms of these arguments, and the easiest way to think of them might be what are called the “vertical” and the “horizontal” forms. These titles indicate the direction from which the causes come. In the vertical form, it is argued that every created thing is being caused right now (imagine a timeline with an arrow pointing up from the universe to God). The horizontal version shows that creation had to have a cause in the beginning (imagine that same timeline only with an arrow pointing backward to a beginning point in time).

The horizontal is a little easier to understand because it does not require much in the way of philosophy to grasp. The basic argument is that all things that have beginnings had to have causes. The universe had a beginning; therefore, the universe had a cause. That cause, being outside the whole universe, is God. Someone might say that some things are caused by other things, but this does not solve the problem. This is because those other things had to have causes, too, and this cannot go on forever. Why not? Let’s take a simple example: trees. All trees began to exist at some point (for they have not always existed). Each tree had its beginning in a seed (the “cause” of the tree). But every seed had its beginning (“cause”) in another tree. See where this is going? You can’t have an infinite series of tree-seed-tree-seed because no series is infinite—it cannot go on forever. All series are finite (limited) by definition. There is no such thing as an infinite number because even the number series is limited (although you can always add one more, you are always at a finite number). If there is an end, it is not infinite. All series have two endings actually—at the end and at the beginning (if you don’t see why this is true, try to imagine a one ended stick!). But if there were no first cause, the chain of causes never would have started. Therefore, there is, at the beginning at least, a first cause—one that had no beginning. This first cause is God.

The vertical form is a bit more difficult to understand, but it is more powerful because not only does it show that God had to cause the “chain of causes” in the beginning, He must still be causing things to exist right now. Once again, we begin by noting that things exist. Second, while we often tend to think of existence as a property that things sort of “own”—that once something is created, existence is just part of what it is—this is not the case. Consider a simple example of the triangle. We can define the nature of a triangle as “the plane figure formed by connecting three points not in a straight line by straight line segments.” Notice what is not part of this definition: existence.

This definition would hold true even if no triangles existed at all. Therefore, a triangle’s nature—what it is—does not guarantee that one exists (like unicorns—we know what they are, but that does not make them exist). Because it is not part of a triangle’s nature to exist, triangles must be made to exist by something else that already exists (such as I drawing one on a piece of paper). But it also does not exist simply because of what I am. So, I have to be given existence as well. This cannot go on forever (no infinite series, remember?). Therefore, something that does not need to be given existence must exist to give everything else existence. Now apply this example to everything in the universe. Does any of it exist on its own? No. So, not only did the universe have to have a first cause to get started; it needs something to give it existence right now. The only thing that would not have to be given existence is a thing that exists as its very nature. It is existence. This thing would always exist, have no cause, have no beginning, have no limit, be outside of time, be infinite . . . sound familiar? It should! It is God!