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Evolutionary Naturalism and Atheism just won't go together

Richard Dawkins once claimed that Darwin made it possible for a person to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. We hold not only that Atheism and Evolution are both wrong, but that they are also incompatible with each other.

The theory goes like this. I believe God made me and, along with Rene Descartes, that he isn't generally trying to deceive me, what with him being good and all. Consequently, it is logical for me to accept that the body and brain he gave me to allow me to function and reason might actually be up to the job. I can trust my conclusions, because they are the result of a trustworthy machine, designed to produce trustworthy conclusions, including my conclusions about a trustworthy God and the trustworthy brain he gave me. This is a consistent worldview, and so could be right.

Darwin on the other hand gets a bit stuck. He believes his body and brain to be the result of natural selection - time, chance, and fortuitous mutation. He has the brain and reasoning he has, not because it enables him to get to know his Creator, but because it gives him a slim survival advantage over other things that don't have quite the same arrangement, and for as long as it takes for something else to come along that has a different arrangement better suited to the prevailing conditions. So it is not immediately clear why an evolutionist would trust any of his conclusions about God or evolution - after all, they're just the product of selective advantage that's mostly about eating and breeding, and not about the nature of the universe and any creator at all, and in any case is just waiting to be bettered. This is a self-defeating worldview. If you believe it, you automatically have no good reason to.

Or, as Darwin himself put it- "With me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" 

And that of course, would include any convictions about evolution in the mind of any man who has let Darwin make a monkey out of them...

Evolution as Bad Science

The short version of "10 reasons I think evolution is bad science" now follows, with a longer version for  anyone who wants to stick around long enough to give the ideas a shot.

1. Because the universe exists, didn't need to, and had to be started by someone. 

2. Because the universe is so hospitable to life, against all the odds, that it looks suspiciously like someone made it that way. I wonder who?

3. Because DNA cannot happen by chance.

4. Because DNA can only stay safe within a cell, but you have to already have a cell to make a cell.

5. Because evolution doesn't just require a living cell to pop out of nowhere, but also that it must be able to reproduce itself. This is another impossible thing.

6. Because existence isn't just about chemicals combining- it requires the existence of a genetic language system - or to put it another way, it needs the existence of information.

7. Because Male and Female need to be around at the same time - they can't evolve separately, yet there is no reason for them to evolve together.

8. Because there has never been a mutation that increased the information content of a cell.

9. Because the cell, the body and the whole world displays interdependence - yet evolution only deals with individuals, and dependent things cannot wait for evolution to catch up.

10. Because "living fossils" either expose dating methods as nonsense or show that evolution doesn't happen.

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11. Because the missing links are still missing and the fossil record is a problem for evolution.

Remember - if any one of these points is valid, then the whole theory of evolution collapses - and what will you replace it with?

Evolution

Currently, the most popular versions of the theory of evolution claim that all living creatures are descended from a common ancestor. This is supposed to have occurred over the last 3 billion years on earth, from an unknown beginning. Somehow, chemicals are supposed to have accidentally got together in order to form something that could reproduce, and reproduction continued, guided only by the relative ability of the thing that was reproducing to survive in its environment. Random mutations are supposed to have happened with some of this "something" (to call it a creature would be to go too far, when we are not even aware of whether it had a cell wall), until they happily developed improvements that made them better able to survive against the original forms. This is supposed to have continued to happen over billions of years, with different creatures emerging remarkably adapted to their surroundings, and improving and adding new functions all the time, until we get to the unparalleled complexity of you, me and the world around us. 

Oddly, this view is perhaps best at describing itself. The idea of evolution from a human ancestor has a long history, and uncertain beginnings. It certainly wasn't Charles Darwin's idea, and not even the idea of his eminent grandad, Erasmus Darwin, as it stretches back to ancient greek myths. Evolution has changed over the years, although not accidentally, but guided by human purpose, to fit the social environment in which it has come to reside, and the versions of evolution (for there are many) have survived according to their ability to exploit and thrive in their environment. Consequently, as in nature life thrives all over the planet, evolution as an idea has secured dominance particularly in the Western World, and as in nature there are grey squirrels just waiting to displace red squirrels from their habitat, so there are different varieties of evolutionary theory just waiting to step into any gap left by a previous version that has become discredited. In a real sense, in evolutionary theory the theory itself  is the only thing that has been seen to change, and every change has been the purposeful decision of an "intelligent" being, rather than the random actions of death and chance. Evolution's only possible example actually denies its driving force, for it depends on Design from outside the system. Ironically, believers in Evolution need the God of the Bible for their theory every bit as much as creationists do. But as the bar on the right shows, God isn't available to evolutionists.

Why am I talking about science in an article that is opposed to evolution? Well, actually, there is plenty of scientific evidence that casts doubt on the idea that every living creature in the world is descended from a common ancestor by a system depending on chance, mutation and the 'survival of the fittest'. Much of this evidence can be accessed via the UK Directory or Resources sections of this site.

However, it can take a bit of dedication, familiarity with science, and a reasonable amount of time and effort just to understand the debate, and that could seem like a bit too much effort, particularly with creation being dismissed on a regular basis as a 'fringe' view that is close to madness. So here I'm giving my current Top Ten among the many reasons why Evolution doesn't work, in the hope that you might be inclined to take your research further.

As one patron saint of Evolutionists (Carl Sagan) said, "If you want to make an apple pie from scratch you must first of all create the universe", so we'll start at the beginning.

1. Why is there anything at all? 

Of course, the Big Bang is all the rage nowadays. You can hardly move in cosmological circles without someone claiming to have heard the echo of this first blast of everything into existence, despite the fact that no-one can quite make the maths work, and so we have the "horizon problem", and "lumpiness" and a bunch of other things that make it all a little bit suspicious when we are used to being told that scientists have got it all sussed. Forty years ago it was not so. Scientists then tended to believe that everything had always been and, while this view had its problems, they would tick off creationists for even suggesting the world had a beginning. In fact, the term "Big Bang" was invented by eminent British scientist Fred Hoyle as a way of mocking the idea that the universe popped into existence, so forgive us for being slightly smug, when they finally came around to at least a bit of our way of thinking. 

But why is it there? When you get to the beginning, what caused things to begin? Those who believe in creation at least can claim a Prime Mover in the form of God. People may not like the answer, but it is at least an answer, and not an obviously stupid one. Those who believe in a Big Bang simply don't have an answer, or even any basis for evaluating an idea. And it's difficult for evolution to happen if there is nothing there for it to happen to. So evolution cannot explain how we came to be. But supposing we accept that we are all here, what then...

2. The Anthropic Cosmological Principle

Why is the universe a nice place to live? Before you can have life, you need somewhere for life to do all the living in, and for the universe, this means that the "laws of Physics" need to be set up in such a way that allows life to exist. And they are - hence we are all here. But many Physicists are puzzled, because there is no reason that the "laws of Physics" have to be the way they are - in fact, many of them seem balanced on a knife edge. A little more one way or the other and there would be no life at all anywhere, just one big dead universe. In fact there are so many variables where our universe is "just right" for it to be too suspicious, and so Physicists have tended to lump into two camps. One camp says, "OK, we hold our hands up. It's just all too neat. Someone must have made it that way - accidents like this just don't happen. Looks like we're going to have to admit there is a God." The other camp says, "OK, this universe is set up for life in a way that looks like a miracle, but if we imagine an infinite number of universes, the vast majority of which have different laws and consequently no life in them then, by the law of averages, a life-bearing universe had to happen eventually." There is, by the way, absolutely no evidence for believing there is or ever has been any other universe than the one we are in, but an infinity of other universes is invented by people who know the only other option is God. This violates one of the basic rules of science and philosophy - Ockham's Razor - don't multiply entities in order to get round difficulties (Or in plain english,  - don't just make stuff up)

3. The Origin of Life - Even if you've got a universe where life is possible, before natural selection can get going, you need to have something to select. In other words, you need life to be in place before it can evolve into something else. Evolution, properly defined, cannot say anything about the origin of life, only about its development. So evolution can say nothing about creation - it just pushes the problem of "how did everything get started" back in time. But this is a formidable problem, because evolution as a theory was up and running way before anyone understood anything about how life was made up, and how difficult it was to start. The simplest forms of life have several hundred genes, each of which needs the pre-existence of DNA, RNA and the whole cell structure before it can exist at all. The DNA needs to be made up of the right proteins, but you need DNA in order to make proteins! The proteins need to be assembled out of amino acids, but it turns out you need the cell to be in place to stitch all the amino acids together, and the really bad news is that there are two mirror-image versions of each amino acid - right handed and left handed, but life only uses the left-handed ones, and if your chain combines with a right-handed amino acid then it will destroy the whole thing. And amino acids aren't exactly common - you'll wait a long time to get the right circumstances for even a few of them to occur, (in fact, we've never observed this - we had to get scientists to set up experiments to make it happen) and then you get half left-handed and half-right handed, and this is fatal to your chances of getting life. And then you have to get not just a few together, but the 20-or-so that make up life, in the right combinations to make up a letter on the DNA code, and that has to link up with the right other letters and separate RNA, and somehow fall into a double-helix (like a pair of helter-skelters, mating) that is (this time) right handed, (left-handed double helix's need not apply). And still you don't have a cell. 

4. Everyone needs their own cell. Bad news about not having a cell - you need one. You and I depend on oxygen in order to live. But, oh dear, oxygen is a highly reactive chemical and will rip our DNA and RNA to shreds if they come into contact with it, which tends to happen, what with all the air and water everywhere, which is one reason why DNA has to hide behind a cell wall, so that any oxygen is only dealt with in a controlled and safe environment. But cell walls don't just happen - they are constructed... by cells. So you need to have a cell, before you can have DNA - but you need DNA before you can have a cell. Consequently, you don't start off with dead chemicals, wait a bit, and then get life.  

5. One is the loneliest number - Congratulations, you've managed to get a cell, some DNA - perhaps it can sustain itself on a diet of rocks. Still not enough for life, I'm afraid, because life requires reproduction. Managing to survive for a while is no good - your cell needs to be a tiny machine that is not only able to function, but is able to make copies of itself. Mankind, with all our assembled intelligence and effort has, as yet, been unable to make any kind of machine that makes more of itself, and yet we are expected to believe it happened by chance. The closest we can get is computer programs that copy themselves, but these are designed, and live in computer worlds that are in turn designed and regulated by people. They don't exist in the real world, and don't happen by chance. Evolution depends on someone being able to invent a way for life to kick-start by chance, but no-one can. Life cannot kick start by chance - scientists today only tinker with existing life, despite having expensive educations, top-quality equipment, a pre-existing plan to follow (in the form of existing life), and the ability to remove anything that might otherwise get in the way, modern scientists cannot even create life from scratch themselves, and yet many of them expect us to believe it happened by accident.

6) Let's talk... Which is itself a problem. Not us talking, you understand, but the whole concept of language and, indeed, understanding. This is one of the biggest problems for evolution, because our DNA doesn't just have to miraculously form letters that curl up in the right way to form a code. The DNA, which doesn't occur naturally, is the easy part of the problem. The real problem is the code. DNA means nothing, unless the language for understanding DNA is in place. Think about it - you're doing it now - recognising each collection of dots as a letter, each collection of letters as a word, and each collection of words as a sentence, intended to convey meaning. You need the language to be in place and the apparatus to be in place to understand it (you know, eyes, brain, half-decent education) before it can truly mean anything to you. DNA is like this, but more complicated. It depends on the pre-existence of information and the whole language of genetics. This does not appear by chance, nor can it, for it exists on a different level from matter, and can only come from an information source - or as John's Gospel puts it, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

7)...about Sex... R.D. Laing once wrote "Life is a sexually transmitted disease, and the mortality rate is 100%." It takes two to tango, but evolution has us all descended from a single cell with no particular gender. So let's say that these cells do well, and there are billions of them, and an amazingly fortuitous bit of mutation (of which more later) gives one of these cells the property and machinery of being male (or female - you decide). What happens? Well, there it is, with all these extra stretches of DNA to mutate with, and all this extra apparatus to go wrong, and it can't do anything with them, because there's no one to impregnate (or be impregnated by). The cell, or its descendants (presuming it is still capable of asexual reproduction), have to survive, against competing 'normal' cells, that don't have the risks posed by the extra DNA, for the next one-in-how-many-million-years when another amazingly fortuitous event occurs that turns another cell into the opposite sex, in a way that makes them compatible, and with sufficient chances of them meeting up for it all to turn out alright in the end. Nope - didn't happen - listen instead to what God says in Genesis 1 v27, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."

8) ...and getting lucky. Now, back to that amazingly fortuitous bit of mutation. Evolution depends on mutations to DNA. Of course, it never used to - it was just mutations, which didn't sound so hard, until someone worked out that it involved DNA, and then it became more of a problem. The problem with mutations is that DNA is all about information, and we only ever encounter mutations that lose information, mutations that don't add anything new to the creature that wasn't already there. But for us to get from goo, through the zoo, to you, we need millions upon millions of favourable changes that add new information. The only favourable changes ever seen are when things stopped working which in some situations got organisms in particular situations into trouble, like when various diseases develop antibiotic resistance by losing the characteristic that the antibiotic latched on to. A favourable mutation which added new information has never been seen in all of recorded history. Not one, never mind a few million. Mutations tend instead to be destructive, adding together over the years to produce new weaknesses, as evidence of a genetic burden which gets worse with each generation, not better. Change in nature goes the wrong way for evolution. It is a destructive, rather than a creative force.

9) And Harry Hill, who has noted that the type of people who tend to be vegetarians, are the same bunch of people who tend to go on about saving the environment. "Well", says Harry, "perhaps there would be a bit more of the environment if you lot weren't going around eating all the plants." - I mean, how many burgers can you get out of the average cow? And how many beans do you have to kill to make a bean burger! - - All of which serves to introduce an important point - the interdependence of plants and animals. A little bit of basic biology will teach you that people and animals take oxygen from the atmosphere and produce carbon dioxide. Plants, on the other hand, tend to take the carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. Which all works out really well. But on the timescales favoured by evolutionary biology it presents a problem. Have either side around for too long on their own and eventually they'll use up the gas they need, and die. So you need both plants and animals and you need them to evolve at reasonably similar times - what a stroke of luck that they're both here at the same time! And it isn't just oxygen. Interdependence is a widely acknowledged feature of individuals and ecological systems. Evolution depends on bits being added randomly over millions of years, but if you depend on something, you can't just wait millions of years for it to happen. Interdependence is seen across the planet, in your own body, and even inside your cells. And it isn't just humans, but pretty much any function of any creature. A giraffe doesn't just slowly develop a long neck - it needs a system to regulate the blood pressure in its head and cope with the differences from when nosing through the tree-tops to bending down and sniffing the grass. No system, no giraffe. The Bombardier Beetle needs to manufacture two chemicals in the right quantities to mix and explode and to only bring them together at the right moment, and in a way which doesn't prejudice the Beetle itself, and so it carries around a heavy chamber to help it do all this. A beetle with a chamber and no chemicals is a slow soon-to-be-dead beetle. A beetle with all the right chemicals and no chamber is technically known as an explosion - and they don't have descendents. Evolution cannot produce the inter-dependence seen in nature. Want some more? - then Exercise your Wonder...

10) Living fossils. No, not members of the House of Lords, but those rather embarrassing little creatures that ain't when they should be. Now, as you and I both know, one of the key elements of the fossil Job Description is 'being dead'. Go, climb a mountain, find a rock, split it open with a hammer, find something that looks like a sea creature, and while you consider whether this is evidence of whether the world was once covered by a global flood, like it says in Genesis, also take time to notice that this creature is an ex-creature. It is no-more. It has shuffled off this mortal coil. It is dead. Yet everything from sharks to Gingko plants have been called "living fossils" - and why? - because they are still alive, yet we find fossils of the same types of creature in rocks that evolutionists claim are think-of-a-number hundred million years old. Which becomes a worry once you work out one of the main ways biologists and geologists date rocks. The biologists date the fossils from the sorts of rocks they find them in - they trust the geologists. The geologists date the rocks from the sort of fossils found in them - they trust the biologists. And this is one big circular argument, just waiting to be punctured - except that it already has been, by the "living fossils". You see, if the geologists are right, then the shark has been swimming around for 75 million years and hasn't changed a bit - your Gingko plant has lasted even longer, and the last century's chief candidate for "fish that walked", the allegedly 300-million-year-old Coelacanth, turned up in the Indian Ocean in the 1940's (oh and by the way, didn't have legs, but fins as it turned out, and didn't walk on to a beach, it's a deep sea fish - bad luck chaps! Guess again!). This is a problem for evolution - 300 million years, and nothing happened - not one little change - and yet the dinosaurs are supposed to have risen and fallen, followed by me and thee in that time. One biography of early long-age theorist James Hutton is entitled "The Man Who Found Time". Evolution needs to invent lots and lots of time in which things can happen - the more the better - just add time, and maybe people will believe that what is impossible will surely happen if you just wait long enough. But time isn't just a place where you can hide all the evidence you mysteriously haven't found yet - it is the enemy of evolution, allowing for more decay and a greater genetic burden. However long you've got, it still doesn't work. And as for the 300 million years? - Well, when Mount Saint Helens blew its top in 1980, one scamp by the name of Dr. Steve Austin waited for the lava to cool, took a sample and sent it off to the lab for dating. The lab said it formed 300 million years ago - it wasn't even 3 years old - it formed on camera in front of the entire world. Radiometric dating methods assume too much to be reliable.

11) And finally... Well, I have to stop somewhere, even if it's not at 10, although there's a lot more to talk about. think of it as getting 10% more for the same price. So let's finish with what eminent evolutionist Steven Jay Gould called the trade secret of paleontology. The key word in the term "missing link" is missing. If evolution were true we would see transitional forms in the fossil record, something on its way to being something else. But with all the furore and clamour for publicity, not a single one has ever been found. Bill Bryson's "Brief History of Everything" admits that all the bones that exist that are supposed to be ancestors of man would fit in a family car. And there are no transitional fossils between them, and no evidence that they really were anyone's grand-daddy. Charles Darwin openly worried about the lack of missing links in the fossil record. He thought it was an argument against his theory, but put the problem off till the future, hoping that generations of fossil-hunters would find one for him. But there's been nothing, nada, zilch. It just didn't happen.

Some folk make a career out of evolution. They give speeches and sell books knocking the idea that God made us, and make a living out of making a monkey out of you. The BBC and the Discovery Channel help them along with the approach that blind repetition will make people believe them, and sadly, for the most part, that is what happens. But it doesn't matter how many people believe it or how often they repeat it- if it didn't happen, it didn't happen.

Evolution's success as a theory is dependent on the fact that it meets a very specific demand - the demand for some reason to reject God, so that we can reject the requirements he places on us. People don't take heroin because it's good for them - they take it because they like how it makes them feel. It's the same with evolution - it will give you "the pleasures of sin for a season" - but ultimately it screws you up, and ignores the reality of a Creator who made us all, and who sent his Son to die for us, and to defeat death so that we can have forgiveness through him - if we're willing to accept him as our Lord.

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