Trust me, we do.
I've actually been reading around this subject a lot lately. The Escapist Forums (of all places) linked me to this article. Now, I'm not going to do a point-by-point rebuttal (yet anyway) but I would like to address some of the more glaring lies and misunderstandings.
The Big Bang
Many scientist/evolutionists believe in a Big Bang Theory, which says all of the matter present in the universe today was once in a plasma ball of electrons, photons, positrons, and neutrinos (no explanation is given about how it got there). Scientists say that 15 billion years ago this huge cosmic ball exploded. Living-matter was somehow formed. This matter developed the ability to see, hear, and smell, and eventually grew arms and legs (although at first they were fins). And after millions of years of evolution here we are. Here we are, with our three-pound brain composed of twelve billion neurons, which make 120 trillion various connections [Gish, pg 4]. That is like saying a bomb exploded in a junkyard, and put together a running automobile.
Firstly, ALL of the scientific evidence (including, but not limited to, the Doppler shift measured between galaxies, cosmic background radiation, measured chemical abundances etc) points towards the Big Bang 'theory' being the best explanation that we can come up with to explain the creation of the observable universe. Give me ONE piece of evidence that it was God that created the universe. Hint - something that disproves the big bang or states a problem with it (there are a few) does not inherently prove creationism. I'm not asking for a list of failings in the big bang theory, that I could get from Wikipedia, I'm asking for evidence that it was God.
Secondly, no, no explanation is given of how the big bang 'got there' (by which we can assume the author means 'happened'). This is because when science can not explain something, it does not make something up. Asking what happened before the big bang (how it 'got there') is exactly analogous to asking what happened before God. Ether way, you have to assume that either something has always existed or that something was created out of nothing. Everything from
"living matter formed............" and onwards is to do with evolution and not the big bang, so we'll deal with that next.
Macro-evolution vs. Micro-evolution
Just what do I mean when I talk about evolution? There are two forms of evolution - Macro-evolution and Micro-evolution. Micro-evolution isn't what the creationists' object to, in fact they believe in it. It's Macro-evolution they don't believe in. Micro-evolution is a variation within a species. An example of Micro-evolution would be giraffes evolving from having short necks into giraffes having long necks. The giraffes with long necks are able to survive and reproduce because they can reach more food, but the giraffes with short necks die off. Macro-evolution, on the other hand, is one distinct species turning into another distinct species (e.g. reptiles turning into birds, fish into amphibians, or apes into men, etc...). In this book, when I refer to "evolution," I mean Macro-evolution.
No! There aren't! There is only evolution! If you insist on splitting it, then it follows that micro-evolution leads to macro-evolution. What happens when giraffes grow longer necks? Does this lead to a split in the population? Say the giraffes with longer necks can move to where the trees are taller. Great, but they leave the small ones behind. Over time, this geographical divide puts different pressures on the two populations, maybe they are hunted by different animals. One group has selective pressures put on it to be faster as it's hunted by a chasing predator and the other doesn't. Eventually, different pressures WILL result in speciation.
Giraffes are frankly a bad example. The standard example of speciation given to every schoolchild is the
Peppered Moth. Basically, there are two types, the lightly-coloured one and the dark-coloured one. Pollution during the industrial revolution turned everything black and sooty, causing the darker ones to better camouflaged and the lighter ones to stand out. Eventually the black one, which used to make up 2% of the population, became the dominant type, with over 95% of the species dark by 1895.
Now, I'm sure you'll tell me this is just 'micro-evolution' but follow this through to it's logical conclusion. What do you think would happen to the two populations over millions of years? Would they diverge further, maybe the lighter or darker moths moving to different trees? What about if lighter variant decided to be active during the day and the darker at night? Eventually, they'd diverge enough to be a separate species due to different pressures, random mutations and genetic drift.
Fact or Theory
Many people believe that evolution is a scientifically proven fact, and that creation is only a theory (not even a credible theory because it is only posed by a bunch of right wing Christian fanatics). This is simply not true. Evolution is not a proven fact, and certainly not a scientifically proven fact. The scientific approach for examining facts and determining truth is done in five steps. 1st) An observation is made. 2nd) A hypothesis is formed. 3rd) Data is gathered. 4th) The hypothesis is tested in light of the data, and 5th) if the hypothesis passes the test, it becomes a theory. However, new data is constantly being discovered and the hypothesis re-tested. This data either supports the theory or disproves it, but never proves the theory as a fact (for future data could be gathered which disproves it). If there is no way of testing or falsifying the hypothesis, the theory isn't accepted by the scientific community. George Galord Simpson, a notable scientist himself, has said, "It is inherent that statements which cannot be checked by observation are not really about anything, or at the very least they are not science." (Gish 1985: 12). Usually the event in question is repeated, and these five steps are used to determine its truthfulness. Events in history cannot be repeated, so they cannot be verified by the scientific method. This alone indicates that the theory of evolution, far from being a fact, is not even a valid scientific theory. The question that needs to be answered is: "Does the majority of evidence support creation, or evolution?" Hundreds of scientists and college professors have had to admit that they could be wrong about thinking that evolution is a fact [Sunderland, pg 8].
Events in history can in fact be repeated. Evolution can be seen in almost every species throughout the entire fossil record. It's literally happening all the time throughout history. I'm hesitant to say it's been repeated millions of times because that implies it's a series of events rather than a continual process, but you can see it's effects millions of times. Very repeatable. Also, can we clear up this 'theories aren't fact' business. A scientific theory is basically a fact, especially one as well-proven as evolution. Unlike the religious, science is willing to consider the possibility that it's wrong, and that's why
everything is 'just a theory'.
The Earth: How Did it Happen
The evolutionist theory says that the earth is billions of years old and we are the product of evolution, but the creationist theory says, "In the beginning God created...." The Bible says that this creation happened in 6 days. It is impossible for both of these theories to be true, so evidence refuting one must support the other and vice versa [Morris, Many pg 9]. As we shall see in a moment, there is a lot of evidence refuting evolution, and supporting creation.
Underlining mine. Nope. That's like saying "those lights in the sky couldn't have been helicopters, so they have to be alien spaceships!". Well yeah, except they could have been planes, comets, ball lightening, searchlights on a cloud, anything. It's absurd and extremely arrogant to think that the only 2 things your puny human mind can come up with are the only two possible outcomes. Would you accept that the massive body of evidence for evolution refutes creationism?
There is a lot in the next few bits of the article that deal with the archeology, geology and the like. Whilst I'm sure experts in those fields could argue a pretty mean case as to why the article is wrong, I am not an expert in those fields, nor am I even casually familiar as I am with biology so I shan't comment if I don't know the facts.
Miscellaneous Things Supporting Creation
There is a lot of evidence supporting creation. According to the theory of natural selection which the evolutionists cling to, everything that evolves must have a purpose or it would not have evolved in the first place (random chance produces a characteristic, but survival of the fittest ensures its existence). Thus, they can't explain the hidden beauty that many life forms exhibit, like the inside of a sea shell.
No, we just see that beauty as being accidental. Sunsets are beautiful, but the fact that the light works in such a way isn't purposeful.
Supposedly life evolved from non-living matter, to living matter, to one-celled creatures, to fish, to amphibians, to reptiles, and finally to mammals; so evolutionists can't explain the origin of whales or dolphins (mammals that live in the sea).
For once, Yes. Yes as in '
Yes we can'.
If the earth rotated at a 1/10 slower speed, the days would be so hot that all life would be burned to a crisp. If the earth's crust was any thicker, it would absorb more oxygen, and leave only carbon dioxide, thus preventing life. If the earth had only a two degree higher average temperature, all the glaciers would melt, thus submerging the globe. Hurricanes are created when very cold air meets very hot air; so if the earth wasn't tilted on its axis, it would be so cold at the poles and so hot in the center that hurricanes would rip across the globe preventing life of any kind. The probability of life just coming into existence has been calculated at (using generous figures) one chance in ten to the 280th power [Morris Scientific pg 63].
Right. So? It's pretty lucky that life can form here. That's precisely why you wrote this argument on Earth and not on Mars. That's the equivalent of someone who was born on Christmas Island trying to argue that his birth there was a miracle. Just because only 0.00002% of the world's population is from there doesn't mean it's impossible to be from there. You may be lucky, special even, a fluke, an anomaly, but it does happen.
If we evolved from a one-celled creature, why or how did some of us evolve into the male sex and some into the female sex? If evolution were true, there would be such a blending together of life-forms you couldn't tell the dogs from the cats due to all the cogs and dats running around.
That's not even half-true. Sexual reproduction (males and females) supports the evolutionary theory, by giving a species a wider range of possible 'combinations' to choose from, essentially increasing the chances of that species surviving by varying it's members. The same goes for your 'dogs and cats' argument. Different species SUPPORT evolution, as they have all evolved separately to fill a niche and they can't interbreed.
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