Evolution's Five Fundamental Assumptions--Are They Scientific or Philosophical? Part Four

Assumption Four, Part one:  Complex Life Evolved from an Ancestral Single-Celled Organism*

During the last few decades, research in microbiology, biochemistry, and related fields has provided an incredible amount of new insight into the function of the cell. Scientists engaged in intelligent design (ID) studies have demonstrated that this new data is powerful evidence for creation by design—and largely inexplicable in a materialistic evolutionary model.  In this and the next two blog articles, I’ll summarize the three ID evidences that I believe are the most significant: (1) the inability random mutations to fuel naturalistic evolution, (2) the “irreducible complexity” of a cell, and (3) information science—the inability of material properties to create information.

Mutations and Natural Section

The total absence of concrete evidence demonstrating how a single-celled organism could have emerged from non-living matter, that is, chemical evolution (assumption three), is only part of the problem facing the evolutionary model of origins. In order to launch biological evolution, these tiny life forms would then have to evolve into increasingly complex, multi-celled organisms, eventually resulting in all the multiple millions of plants and animals that inhabit the earth.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume that by some extraordinary means a single-celled organism did accidentally self-assembled and emerged from non-living chemicals and was able to replicate itself. The question is would naturalistic evolution, via natural selection, seamlessly follow? Could mindless, accidental, random process ultimately account for all subsequent life on earth? Can evolution demonstrate scientifically that this occurred—or is it yet another philosophical statement about evolution? There are several scientific reasons why this scenario would have been impossible.

Harmful Mutations

The driving force behind naturalistic evolution (in theory) is natural selection working through beneficial genetic mutations. Evolutionists assert that this is the mechanism by which one species evolves into an entirely different species, as well as into entirely different kinds of animals (e.g. amphibians into reptiles, reptiles into mammals, etc.). Simplified, the idea goes something like this.

DNA molecules carry hereditary information. When a random mutation in the DNA occurs, the new genetic material gives a particular creature survival advantages over others of the same species. This gives it a better chance to propagate and pass this new trait on to its offspring, providing them the same survival advantages. Eventually, after millions of years, thousands of other beneficial mutations, and countless generations, an entirely new, genetically distinct species of animal emerges. Thus, evolution teaches that accidental mutations plus long time spans plus natural selection (“survival of the fittest”) results in the continual emergence of new species of plants and animals—and the extinction of their predecessors.

What’s wrong with the naturalistic scenario? Many things, but two in particular. First, in practically every know case, mutations are not beneficial to an organism but harmful, usually killing it. A deformity lessens the survival potential of an animal—it does not strengthen it. And even if there are “good” mutations, the tremendous number of bad mutations would overwhelm the fewer number of good mutations. What one would expect to see, if mutations were passed along to future generations, is a tendency for a species to degenerate and eventually become extinct, not evolve upward to new or better species.

 For example, for many decades scientists have artificially manipulated the genes of fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) in order to produce a new species of fly. It never happened. All that resulted were birth defects: grossly deformed fruit flies with extra wings (which prevented flying), missing organs, sterility, and so on. What researchers didn’t get was a genetically new species of fly. After hundreds of generations, fruit flies were still just (weird) fruit flies. There has never been an observable or laboratory case of mutations creating a new species.

Not enough time

The second flaw in the mutation theory is that the time needed for a primitive animal to evolve into a higher animal through random mutational changes doesn’t exist. Before big bang cosmology demonstrated that the universe is finite, evolutionists could argue that an infinite universe provided all the time needed for random process to produce new kinds of animals from ancestral species. This argument is no longer tenable. Modern “super computers” have been able to simulate the trial-and-error process of natural selection through random processes. The outcome showed that the probability of evolution by chance is essentially zero—regardless of the time scale.  Astrophysicist Hugh Ross provides the necessary figures to illustrate this:

The problems of primordial soups are big, but bigger yet is the infeasibility of generating, without supernatural input, an enormous increase in complexity . . . . Years ago, molecular biophysicist Harold Morowitz calculated . . .that if one were to take the simplest living cell and break every chemical bond within it, the odds that the cell would reassemble under ideal natural conditions (the best possible chemical environment) would be one chance in 10^{100,000,000,000}. Most of us cannot even begin to picture a speck of chance so remote. With odds as remote as 1 in 10^{100,000,000,000} the time scale issue becomes completely irrelevant. What does it matter if the Earth has been around for ten seconds, ten thousand years, or ten billion years? The size of the universe is of no consequence either. If all the matter in the visible universe were converted into building blocks of life, and if assembly of these building blocks were attempted once a microsecond for the entire age of the universe, then instead of the odds being 1 in 10^{100,000,000,000} they would be 1 in 10^{99,999,999,916} . 

 (The Creator and the Cosmos, 139-140).  

The problem lies in the fact that a new trait doesn’t evolve in one generation. There must be a series of both related mutations and subsequent mutations that evolve simultaneously and are complementary to one another. For a mammal to evolve greater speed requires not only that it slowly, over countless generations, develop more powerful legs, but also that corresponding mutations in other areas of its body must also be taking place. To run faster, a more efficient heart, lungs, circulation system, and so on are needed.  And these changes are minuscule in terms of what it would take for, say, a land mammal to evolve into a whale (as evolutionists claim).

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Biologist Gary Parker explains that the chance of getting just three related mutations in a row is one in a billion trillion (10²¹). To illustrate the odds of this, he states that “the ocean isn’t big enough to hold enough bacteria to make it likely for you to find a bacterium with three simultaneous or sequential related mutations.” And if one tried to find four related mutations, now the “earth itself isn’t big enough to hold enough organism to make that very likely. . . . [and] four mutations doesn’t even make a start toward real evolution.” This is why, he concludes, “some evolutions have given up the classic idea of evolution, because it just plainly doesn’t work.” (What Is Creation Science? 63). 

Not only have some evolutionists given up on the classic idea of evolution, increasing numbers have come to be "more sympathetic to design." A great article on this is in the newest edition of the Christian Research Journal, "Are There Non-Religious Skeptics of Darwinian Evolution and Proponents of Intelligent Design?" by Casey Luskin. The article highlights several well-known "non-religious scientists and scholars who doubt modern Darwinian theory" (Vol. 36/ no. 02). This is a great resource.

Dan Story

www.danstory.net

*   This and the other blog articles in this series are copyrighted material and may not be reproduced electronically or in print. But feel free to link this blog to your own website, blog, or Facebook. I have also developed these arguments more fully in my book The Christian Combat Manual  (AMG Publishers), and my sources are documented there.

Evolution's Five Fundamental Assumptions--Are They Scientific or Philosophical? Part Three

Assumption Three:  Life Emerged from Non-Life *

Evolution’s third foundational assumption is the conjecture that the origin and subsequent evolution of all life on earth began with chemical evolution. Here’s how it supposedly played out. Somehow, around 3 ½ billion years ago—at least once and by pure chance—inorganic (non-living) chemicals in some kind of alleged “prebiotic soup” reacted with sunlight, or some other energy source, in such a way that a living, self-replicating, single-celled organism emerge (called abiogenesis). This inexplicable event initiated biological evolution, and from that point on the random, accidental, trial-and error process of natural selection created all the rest of the earth’s incredibly complex and diverse plant and animal life.

Is there demonstrable scientific evidence to support this naturalistic assumption? No there isn’t. It has never been observed in nature, done in a laboratory, and there is no known evolutionary pathway by which it could be accomplished. So, once again, we can conclude that this evolutionary assumption is not a scientific fact but a philosophical statement about science.  On the other hand, there are scientific evidences that disprove it.

No Evidence of a Prebiotic Soup

First, there is no known mechanism by which living organisms could have mysteriously emerged from some kind of primordial, non-living chemical soup. As said, it has never been observed in nature and—despite numerous attempts—produced in a laboratory. In fact according to biochemist Fazale Rana (and other researchers) there is no evidence that any kind of prebiotic soup ever existed; geological evidence is completely lacking. “Origin-of-life researchers,” explains Rana, “have failed to recover any geochemical remnants of prebiotic molecules—organic molecules produced by nonbiological processes.” Most origin-of-life researchers further agree that the presence of oxygen and other chemicals in the earth’s early atmosphere would have destroyed organic molecules before they could ever have evolved into living organism.

No Evolutionary Pathway

The lack of evidence for a prebiotic soup is not the most serious issue confronting the evolutionary model of the origins. Chemical “evolution” couldn’t have happened anyway. Why? Because evolution requires random mutations in DNA, and there would be no DNA to mutate in an inorganic (non-living) chemical soup!  Natural selection cannot operate unless there already exists living, self-replicating organisms. In other words, to use the term “evolution,” as in “chemical evolution,” is an oxymoron. Non-living chemicals, according to the principles of evolution, can’t evolve!  I like the way former Baylor University professor Walter Bradley put it: ”Until molecules are formed and arranged in a cell-like structure, there is no reproduction on which natural selection might work. . . .Claims by atheistic scientist that evolution/natural selection is ‘blind and undirected with no purpose’ are nothing more than philosophy masquerading as scientific fact.”

Not enough Time

A third crucial factor that would have prevented life from emerging from non-life is that the earth is not old enough for even the simplest organism to emerge out of some kind of alleged prebiotic soup—even if it did exist. Statistically, it’s impossible—even within conventional geological perimeters for the age of the earth. The late renowned British mathematician and astronomer, Sir Fred Hoyle, estimates the possibility of life emerging from non-life by random processes as 10^40,000. He provides an illustration to help make senses of such overwhelming odds. He likened it to the same possibility as a tornado “sweeping through a junkyard” and, when the debris settled, there sat an intact Boeing 747! Elsewhere he calculated the probability of life emerging from non-life by pure chance as equivalent 10⁵⁰  blind people all solving a Rubik’s Cube puzzle at the same time!

One more thought. Let’s suppose that by some ingenious method science one day does create life in a laboratory. What would it really prove? Intelligent Design! Such an accomplishment would not be the result of accidental, random processes—but of specifically designed, carefully manipulated, judiciously controlled experimentation. The bottom line is that there is no scientific evidence that inorganic, non-living chemicals have ever evolved into organic life—or ever could.  This is additional powerful evidence of creation by a Designer—God.

Dan Story

www.danstory.net

 *  This and the other blogs in this series are copyrighted material and may not be reproduced electronically or in print. But feel free to link this blog to your own website, blog, or Facebook. I have also developed these arguments more fully in my book The Christian Combat Manual  (AMG Publishers), and my sources are documented there.

Evolution's Five Fundamental Assumptions--Are They Scientific or Philosophical? Part Two

Assumption Two:  Order Evolved from Disorder *

The second of evolution’s five foundational assumptions is that the matter and energy exploding from the big bang self-organized—by pure chance—into a precisely structured yet incredibly complex universe, which eventually birthed the earth. But can the theory be demonstrated scientifically—or, like the first assumption (“something came from nothing”), is it a philosophical statement about science? If the latter is true, we have yet another reason to reject naturalistic evolution and to consider the only other alternative—creation by intelligence with purpose (design).

There are two obstacles to the evolutionary paradigm that the order and design observable in the universe evolved out of chaos and disorder in the aftermath of the big bang. First is the fact that there are no know laws of physics that explain how this could have happened, which is why many secular astrophysicists and cosmologists opt for the “multi-universe” theory. (We saw in the previous blog article that there is absolutely no scientific evidence to support this theory). The second problem is the inability of the evolutionary scenario to explain what is called the Anthropic Principle.  

The Anthropic Principle points out that the entire universe was “fine-tuned” from the very beginning of its existence to support live on earth.  Depending on the researcher, there are several dozen fundamental constants, precise physical parameters, in place throughout the universe that are essential not only for the universe to exist, but for life to exist on earth. In particular, if the physics of the universe differed even minutely, life on earth would be impossible.  A few examples include:

1.    If the structure of the atom differed in terms of ratio of the masses of protons to electrons, molecules could not form.

2.    If the force of gravity slowed the expansion of the universe even slightly (1 part in 10⁶⁰), it would have been impossible for galaxies and our solar system to have formed.

3.    If the speed of light were slightly faster or slower, other constants in the universe would be altered, making any kind of life impossible.

4.    If the centrifugal force of planets rotating around the sun did not balance exactly with gravitational forces, the planets would not remain in orbit.

5.    If the sun were much larger or closer, water would boil away and the earth would be too hot to support life. If the sun was farther away or much smaller, the earth would be a frozen wasteland.

6.    If the chemical composition of the earth’s atmosphere were different, the atmosphere would be poisonous to virtually all life forms.

7.    If the sea-to-land mass ratio, depth of the oceans, and the earth’s cloud cover were different, the earth’s ability to store and release heat would change dramatically.

These are only a few of the many necessary constants in place throughout the universe and here on earth. If any of these parameters were absent or altered even slightly, the universe as we know it would not exist—nor, of course, life on earth. How did all these fundamental constants come to be in such perfect equilibrium? Secular cosmologists argue that the order, structure, and apparent design in the universe and here on earth are merely a cosmic accident, a product of pure chance.  But what is the chance of that happening accidentally? Oxford physicist Roger Penrose calculated the odds against “all these constants having just the right values are one followed by trillions and trillions more zeros than there are elementary particles in the universe.” In other words, the chance of all these constants accidentally being in place is—impossible.

The only other explanation for the existence of a universe perfectly fine-tuned for life on earth is an intelligent, intentional designer—creation. It appears infinitely more probably that the universe was designed from the beginning to sustain life—in particular, life on earth. It is irrational and statistically outrageous to assume that all of the fine-tuned factors that fashioned and maintains an orderly universe, and resulted in life on earth, just accidentally fell into place. If the cosmos were designed, there must be a Designer—God. This is exactly what the Bible reveals. Proverbs 3:19-20 and 8:22-30 clearly testify that the beauty and order of the earth was the product of intentional design by God’s eternal wisdom.  Moreover, Scripture further testifies that this Designer has reveal Himself through creation (Rom. 1:20). Thus, the Anthropic Principle has become one of the most compelling arguments for the existence of a personal creator God.

Dan Story

www.danstory.net

*  This and the other blogs in this series are copyrighted material and cannot be reproduced electronically or in print. But feel free to link this blog to your own website, blog, or Facebook. I have also developed these arguments more fully in my book The Christian Combat Manual (AMG Publishers), and my sources are documented there.