Article For The Month Of August, 2010
Evolution or Creation? Does our perspective on the Theory of Evolution change the way we live?
Many scientists believe that the earth evolved over a period of 4.5 billion years. This is common science textbook teaching in high school. Much has been written and researched on this topic. It is not the intention of this article to provide readers with an exhaustive research paper on the subject. However, the intent is to provide concise compelling information on the subject of creation versus evolution. We will accomplish this by analyzing the following topics: apemen- fraud, fiction and fantasies, “uniformatarianism”, the earth’s decreasing magnetic field, the problem with radio carbon dating, and the dinosaur subject.
The first topic we will look at is the concept of sedimentary “uniformatarianism”. This is the idea that that there are various layers of sediment that accumulated over millions and billions of years (some scientists decided to give them special names indicating the period in which they were formed over billions of years). In each of these layers, certain fossilization is indicative to the time period in which the layers were laid down. For example, certain forms of supposed “early” life would be at the deepest layers.
However, the problem that evolutionary science has with this idea is that many of these supposed more ancient life forms have now been discovered to be above more recent layers of sediment, and in some cases, mixed in with these supposedly more recent life forms. Some say it is because the lower rock layers must have faulted and shifted up over these more recent fossils. The problem is, there is no faulting abrasions that indicate there has ever been this type of shift. Instead it looks like the all these life forms were around at the same time and that they were all suddenly fossilized (fossilization must occur quickly or else decomposition takes place and no bones remain).
This fossilization often shows a mixture of various life forms that one wouldn’t expect to see together, like a dog skeleton with many shellfish fossils, for instance, which would be consistent with the concept of a massive deluge… That of Noah’s flood, for example. In fact, many secular scientists now admit there must have been massive flooding on the earth. This is the only way to describe what we are seeing. Nevertheless, they will not concede that it was one giant flood, they state it was several “floods”.
Radio carbon dating is another problem for evolutionary science. This is perhaps the most common method of dating fossils that scientists use. I will quote directly from Dr. Josh McDowell:
Carbon 14 is produced in the upper atmosphere when an atom of nitrogen 14 is struck by a cosmic ray. This changes the nitrogen to carbon 14. The carbon 14 then disperses throughout the atmosphere and is absorbed by the plants by photosynthesis. When an animal eats a plant, part of the carbon 14 is then incorporated into its body. A carnivorous animal eating that animal also gets carbon 14 into its body. This process continues, so the theory goes, until every living creature is radioactive to exactly the same degrees.
When a plant or animal dies it quits assimilating carbon 14 into its body. As time passes, the carbon 14 decays back to nitrogen 14. This means that the older the organic material is the less carbon 14 it will have. Thus one can date the object if certain conditions are met.Usually the assumption is made that the level of atmospheric carbon 14 has been constant over the last 20 to 30,000 years. But in order for this assumption to be true, the level of atmospheric nitrogen and the rate of cosmic ray bombardment also must have been constant over 30,000 years. The last assumption seems rather bold since the first measurements of the cosmic ray flux began in early part of the twentieth century…
The final assumption is that the rate of radioactive decay of carbon 14 dating does not change. The interesting thing about the rate of carbon 14 decay is that it can be changed in the laboratory. John Lynde Anderson set up an experiment in which he altered the electric charge on a plate containing carbon 14… The rate of decay was radically altered by applying different electrical potentials to the carbon 14. The implications of this are far-reaching. For example, every time an electrical storm passed over an object in the ground, it could alter the rate of decay of the carbon 14. The electrical charge in the clouds and on the earth at such times would produce the same effect as Anderson produced in the laboratory.
So much for the theoretical considerations. There is no better way to illustrate the problems in carbon 14 than to show some examples. Yale University dated an antler three different times and got three different ages- 5,340 years, 9,310 years, and 10,320 years. The University of Michigan dated two specimens from the same stratigraphic positions (which means they should date the same) as being 1,430 and 2,040 years old (Mcdowell, J. 1981. Reasons Skeptics should consider Christianity. Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers).
Another consideration is that the earth’s magnetic field is decreasing. The earth’s magnetic field has been measured since the mid 1800s. Since that time it has shown a steady and consistent pattern of decrease to this day. If conditions were the same prior to the time of first measuring this, and we can assume that they were quite similar, at least within the last several thousand years, we can determine that there is no way that the earth could be older than 10,000 years. In fact, it is more likely that it is around 6,000 years old, just as the Bible teaches when we analyze genealogies and time frames from the book of Genesis. The earth’s magnetic field would simply have been too strong to support life, based on the consistent increments of change we have measured in the past two hundred years.
Let’s take a look at the idea that mankind has evolved from primordial sludge, by chance, over billions of years from a lower evolutionary form into modern man… This is the most ridiculous thing imaginable. It requires more faith than anything else we could possible conceive of. How do complex organisms come into being from nothing, firstly? This is simply impossible and flies in the face of rationality. Furthermore, Charles Darwin’s “Black Boxes”(the transitionary fossils he said would bear out his theory someday) do not exist. The DNA of a monkey is that of a monkey and the DNA of a human is that of a human. There are no missing links. The “apeman theory” is one of frauds, fiction, and fantasy…
There have been one or two fossils discovered which are claimed by some to be perfect “missing links”. It should further be noted that we’re talking about one or two fossils and not large numbers of remains representing one or two species. And even these one or two fossils did not have any kind of argument towards being credible missing links. One of the most notable examples of the monkey ancestry theory is that of the Java man. The original evidence on which Java man became accepted as an ape-man amounted to nothing more than one leg bone, three teeth and part of a skull. The leg bone appeared human, while the skull resembled that of an ape. However, these two fossils were found 45 feet apart at a level in the rock, which also contained true human skulls. This latter fact was suppressed for many years.
Dubois, the man who discovered these fossils, announced at the end of his life that they were not the remains of an ape-man at all, but rather that the skull belonged to a giant gibbon (a type of monkey). The evolutionist world refused to accept what he said and “Java Man” was incorporated into school textbooks. “Peking Man” and the “Piltdown Man” are two more examples of the same types of things that are an embarrassment to the theory of evolution. Incidently, it is this part of the theory of evolution that is the nemesis behind racism and white supremacist groups. The claim is that dark skinned people are less evolved and they try to draw parallels in appearances to “chimps”. We can see, however, that an evolutionary construct could draw this type of conclusion.
The dinosaur issue is the last one to be discussed. It is interesting to note, firstly, that the term “dinosaur” did not originate prior to the mid 1800s. If you would have looked up the term dinosaur in the dictionary prior to that time you would not have found such a word. Instead the definition for the word “dinosaur” used to be a “dragon”. Believe it or not, before the mid 1800s the “dragon” was a dictionary term, stating: “some still exist”. The theory of evolution has attempted to place these creatures in a time frame that corresponds to evolutionary thought and which casts aspersions on the Bible account. The Bible clearly mentions dinosaurs, or “dragons” in several places as having lived at the same time as people (Job 40:15-24, and Job 41:1-21). It is interesting to note that as the Lord speaks to Job in the second of these Scripture references, in particular, that the “Leviathan” breathes “fire” from its nostrils. Have you ever wondered why there are so many accounts in ancient folklore of fire-breathing dragons? These creatures have actually been seen and hunted in remote parts of Africa up until the last ten years.
Dinosaurs are actually reptiles similar to contemporary lizards that we see today, which have become much smaller. Some of their genetic ancestors still existed up until the last hundred years and some still likely exist to this day. The reason why “dinosaurs” have become smaller is because the dynamics involved in the atmosphere prior to the earth’s flooding.
Prior to the flood the earth did not have rain. There was a canopy of ice around the earth around 6,000 year ago. The Bible explains that God released this canopy in the form of heavy rainfall during Noah’s flood. There was also water released from within the earth, the Bible explains. Before this time, the canopy of ice around the earth made for a different atmospheric pressure.
The atmospheric pressure was immense during the time prior to the flood. Plants grew bigger, animals grew bigger, and some people apparently grew bigger (there have been fossils found that show some ancient peoples were as tall as ten feet). This may account for what Genesis says in chapter 6: “there were giants on the earth in those days”… The atmospheric pressure would have been like that of a hypoberic oxygen chamber that is used for medicinal purposes in some hospitals. This may also account for why the Bible states that people lived to be 900 years old during early portions of the Old Testament.
Dinosaurs, whose genetic makeup was such that they continued to grow very large even after the flood, were eventually hunted to extinction, just as many other animals have been made extinct over the years… There can be little doubt that dinosaurs were also on Noah’s arc.
Why has all this information been kept away from the public for so many years? It is because of slow and systematic brainwashing: “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming (the second coming of Christ)? For since the fathers fell asleep (have died), all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished…” (2Peter 3:3-6).
The last part of this verse tells us that the world will not end with a flood, but instead it provides the following ominous statement: “But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men” (2Peter 3:7). The Bible tells us that our world will be destroyed by fire in the future and that there will be a time of judgment.
Taking the preceding subject matter together as a whole, one particularly pointed verse from the New Testament jumps out at us: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ; make no provisions to fulfil the lusts of the flesh” (Romans 13:14)… Many individuals say this type of “preaching” is for old-fashioned, unenlightened fools. However, having now reviewed the theory of evolution in an objective manner, it may not be so foolish to beleive what the Bible says, especially in light of the strong manuscript evidence, archeological evidence and the predictive prophecies that have come to pass. Until next time, this is Chris Jordan of Jordan’s Journal hoping you have a great day!
