I think the fundamental issue of this controversy has become mired in stereotypes and stubbornness on both sides. “Creationists” and “Evolutionists” have reached a stalemate where no one can convince the other side to even consider their position.
If I point out some weaknesses in the Theory of Evolution, the atheists will simply attack inconsistencies they see in what is considered the “Biblical” position.
To make a fresh start, I am going to separate out religion, and I am going to address the evidence to be considered in a different light. I reduce the controversy to a single question: did the universe develop along an intelligent design, or did it come to pass in random chaos? We don’t have to deal with questions of belief about the designer; that can be left to individual pursuits of conscience or faith.
Anyone who thinks that Evolution is the scientific answer to existence, rather than acknowledging that there may be an alternative answer, should be willing to consider evidence I present in a scientific manner, free from prejudice or preconception.
First, let me refer to what we CAN observe, as any good scientist should when considering a hypothesis. If I start with the theory that all the world that we can see was created by intelligent design, then what is the evidence to support that theory?
Biology is a science. In classifying life, you start with 2 Kingdoms, Animal and Plant. Then we go to a phylum, a class, an order, a genus, a family, and a species. There are clear distinctions between every one of these categories, and there are over a million and a half species. If you study any one of these creatures or plants, you discover that each one has thousands of unique characteristics that make it a wonder to consider. Every single species can be studied and marveled at their functionality. Someone told me a lot of detail about spiders, for example. He explained that there are six different formulas of fluid, and every spider instinctively knows which formula to use for each purpose, and how much to use, and how to move eight legs at a time, and to create ethereal web designs. How could all of those separate processes have evolved simultaneously? If they did not, none of it would work. Each individual creature and plant on this earth has a complicated set of requirements in a perfect balance in order for them to survive.
All of this order is evidence of intelligent design.
Now, let’s consider the Theory of Evolution. The only demonstrable issue is that within a species, there can be different genetic developments that determine which characteristics will help the species survive. This is called survival of the fittest, and it can be proved. However, no one has ever witnessed even one species evolving into another species, much less cross the barriers of family, genus, order. class, phylum, or kingdom. The theory requires that you believe something that has never been seen to happen in recorded history. Believing in this requires more faith than believing in the theory of intelligent design.
Those who defend evolution insist that all of these changes did happen, but they just took billions of years. The idea is that if you allow enough time anything can happen. That is a hopeful attitude, but scientifically it cannot be considered a sound theory. Mathematically, you have to consider the odds of even one species changing by mutation all the subtle changes that distinguish it and becoming another species to be astronomical, but to calculate the odds of all the species all having evolved in this random manner is too miniscule a chance to seriously be contemplated. The theory that these changes in species happened by genetic mutations is contradictory to the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics. It also ignores the fact that genetic mutations are most often unable to reproduce. The fact that there are Laws, like Gravity, that keep order in the universe, are evidence of intelligent design, not random chaos.
What people who defend evolution claim as evidence are fossils that they picture as “missing links”, so show that there were intermediate species to bridge the gaps. For one thing, fossil evidence is by nature speculative. It cannot be tested by experimentation and observation. It is simply a fictional account of what may have happened, which cannot be proved or disproved, and so both sides just either believe it or do not. Evolutionary fiction can be very compelling and poetic, and it appeals to some people to be plausible, if not provable. When I attended college, we learned what was then fashionably called “Haeckel’s Law”, that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. What this means is that ontogeny, which is the development of the human embryo, is supposed to show us the stages of evolution, as a baby develops from a single cell to a human being. We are expected to see the “fish” shapes, and various other shapes, as representing different phyla and classes. The fact that this is nothing more than a fantasy of metaphors did finally sober scientists enough to degrade the title to “Haeckel’s Theorem”. Even if we think a baby looks like a fish at some point, the embryo could not at that point be removed and live as a true fish. It is just a fantasy.
Those who disparage “creationism” attack the Bible as a source because they claim that the earth is provably older than the Bible seems to indicate. If this attack on literalism gives the evolutionist some encouragement in their beliefs, it still does not make their theory any more provable or mathematically or scientifically likely. The evolutionist chooses to believe by a leap of faith, just as the creationist does. If anything, there is more evidence supporting that the universe and all its matter and creatures are part of an intelligent design.
Picture originally found here
