By Ada Brownell
Excerpt from the book, Imagine the Future You
Paperback, e-book, or audible
Paperback, e-book, or audible
IMAGINE HOW YOU GOT HERE
Now, some Christians do believe in evolution—but with God
starting the process. But those who believe in God don’t believe the universe
or the magnificent human body happened by itself.
Most secular professors and teachers will not hesitate to
tell you what to believe and not believe about your origins, but even
scientists disagree.
One of the most interesting debates on evolution occurred in
October 1980, when 150 scientists met in Chicago and began openly bickering
among themselves, thundering forth conflicting theories.
Some scientists at this conference promulgated the “big bang” theory.[1]
This theory, obviously not the TV show, contends that instead of millions of
leisurely evolutionary years, the world began all at once, Bang!, in a
great galactic explosion of atoms and enzymes.
Darwin’s theory also came under attack from
scientists—because missing links are still missing after more than a century
since Darwin.
“Fossil hunters have not found the fossils needed to explain
the glaring differences between major species,” Associated Press newspaper
columnist Hugh A. Mulligan reported. “In the whole cycle of environmental
selection, with all the genes and embryos playing splitsville according to the
evolutionary plan, no six-legged vertebrate has yet walked forth upon the
earth.”
Science has provided few or none of the examples of one
major species shading gradually into another.
Fossil experts, not clergymen, are Darwin’s most formidable
opponents, according to Phillip E. Johnson, author of Darwin on Trial.[2]
Although Darwin’s theory revolved around survival of the fittest,
paleontologists often disagree with Darwin because appearance of an improved
form implies a disadvantage of its parent form. Many supposed parent forms
still survive, and the missing links just aren’t there, even though they’ve
been searched for since 1859, when Darwin wrote Origin of the Species.
“There always will be missing links if we think in terms of
link between all change,” a university anthropologist argued when I interviewed
him. He said changes in Darwin’s theory have occurred, the most recent the
theory of “punctuated equilibrium,” which he explained relates to the time
taken for one species to shade into another.
“A form which had been a small variant, might have great
rapid growth,” he said.
He used the doubling of chromosomes in some species as an
example of radical change in a short period.
On the other hand, he admitted such doubling could be caused
by the environment and also that most mutations are undesirable rather than
desirable.
He used a fruit fly as an example of a species with a short
life span where such changes in chromosomes could be observed. But he admitted
the insect still was a fruit fly.
“It is very difficult for an average scientist to test
evolution,” he said. “Our lives are too short and the research too specialized.
The theory is the result of collective effort.”
IMAGINE OUTDATED TEXTBOOKS
One psychology professor openly ridiculed Christians in one
of my university classes with more than seventy students. As the instructor
made sarcastic remarks about Christians in the news and preached his atheistic
ideas, I wondered why no one challenged him. One day I raised my hand.
“You said this
textbook will be outdated in ten years,” I began. “So what you are saying today
might not be true in ten years?”
The questions flowed.
“Can you prove evolution? Isn’t it true you accept it by
faith? Are you aware that many scientists have thrown out missing links because
they couldn’t find them? Did you know scientists are even putting forth the
idea that man might have fallen from outer space?
“How did creation turn out so perfectly without a Designer?
Why aren’t monkeys turning into humans now?”
He admitted that, yes, the textbooks and the theories and
knowledge in them would soon be outdated; that he didn’t have all the answers;
and, “Yes, we do accept some things by faith. But when something is universally
accepted, we treat it as fact.”
I should have asked, “Then because the God of creation and
the Resurrection of Jesus Christ are universally accepted, that should be
treated as fact?”
A few weeks later, I asked a science teacher if the first
and second laws of thermodynamics violated evolution. The teacher had opened
the class on the environment by stating everything would be based on evolution.
No more than thirty-five pages into the text, Living in the Environment, by G. Tyler
Miller Jr., the class was studying the law of energy degradation, also known as
the second law of thermodynamics. The law states that matter, if left to itself
and undergoing physical or chemical changes, will always change in the
direction of decreased order and decreased energy content. The entire
universe obeys this law, and this includes every chemical reaction.
In words plain and simple, the law means anything left to
itself will slowly fall apart. Every time you see an old barn with the roof
sagging and the walls falling in, you see demonstration of this law. Despite
galaxies thought to be expanding (are they expanding, or are we increasing our
knowledge?), scientists will tell you the entire universe is slowing down,
growing old, and, as the saying goes, is running out of steam.
The second energy law also tells us energy tends to flow or
change spontaneously from a compact and ordered form to a dispersed and random,
or disordered, form.
“No one has ever found a violation of this law,” Miller
states.[3]
When the teacher read that, I put up my hand. “Isn’t
evolution a violation of this law?”
In order for evolution to occur, many complex chemical
changes must take place, and they must all be in the direction of increased
order and energy to move from the simple to the complex.
The teacher paused a moment, cleared his throat, and said,
“Well, evolution is the only violation.”
The theory of evolution also violates the first law of
thermodynamics, which simply says energy (or matter) neither can be created nor
destroyed.
A story goes that God and Satan were having a discussion.
“I can do anything you can,” Satan said, stretching his puny
body so he looked taller.
God smiled. “OK. Make a man.”
Satan bent over and began scraping up dirt.
God grabbed his shoulder. “Use your own dirt.”
[1]
Charles Percival, Pueblo Chieftain,
Aug. 9, 1992, page 6B.
[2] Darwin on Trial (Downers Grove, Ill.:
InterVarsity Press, 1993), 45.
[3] G. Tyler Miller Jr., Living in the Environment (Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth Publishing Co.), 34–43.
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