Recently I talked to a man with a fantastic amount of faith. Not one shade of doubt crept into his animated description of man's origin and destiny. He was an evolutionist I met on an airplane. With incredible confidence he bridged the eons of prehistoric time to explain the existence of modern plant and animal life. His detailed description of human ascent from a tiny one-celled monad was so vivid and convincing that one could almost believe he had seen the microscopic amoeba turn into a man.
What is this evolution doctrine which inspires so much faith in its disciples? How has it turned great scientists into dogmatic opponents of any other viewpoint? Many evolutionary scientists have united their professional influence to forbid any classroom instruction contrary to their own views. Does the theory of evolution merit this kind of fanatic support which would silence all opposing ideas? When religious people take such a position, they are called bigots, but scientists seem to escape that charge. In February 1977 almost 200 of the nation's academic community sent letters to school boards across the U.S. urging that no alternate ideas on origins be permitted in the classrooms.
This indicates that the evolutionists are feeling the threat of a rising revolt against the stereotyped, contradictory versions of their theory. Many students are looking for honest answers to their questions about the origin and purpose of life. For the first time the stale traditions of evolution are having to go on the defensive. But let's take a look at what they have to defend. Then you will understand why these evolutionary scientists are people of such extraordinary faith, and why they are so fearful of facing competition at the school level.
How does the evolutionist explain the existence of that first one-celled animal from which all life forms supposedly evolved? For many years the medieval idea of spontaneous generation was the accepted explanation. According to Webster, spontaneous generation is "the generation of living from nonliving matter ... (it is taken) from a belief, now abandoned, that organisms found in putrid organic matter arose spontaneously from it."
Simply stated, this means that under the proper conditions of temperature, time, place, etc., decaying matter simply turns into organic life. This simplistic idea dominated scientific thinking until 1846 when Louis Pasteur completely shattered the theory by his experiments. He exposed the whole concept as utter foolishness. Under controlled laboratory conditions, in a vacuum, no organic life ever emerged from decaying nonliving matter. Reluctantly it was abandoned as a valid scientific issue. Today no reputable scientist tries to defend it on a demonstrable basis. That is why Webster said it was "now abandoned." It never has been and never can be demonstrated in the test tube. No present process is observed that could support the idea of spontaneous generation. Obviously if spontaneous generation actually did take place in the distant past to produce the first spark of life, it must be assumed that the laws which govern life had to be completely different from what they are now. But wait a minute! This won't work either, because the whole evolutionary theory rests upon the assumption that conditions on the earth have remained uniform throughout the ages.
Do you begin to see the dilemma of the evolutionist in explaining that first amoeba, or monad, or whatever formed the first cell of life? If it sprang up spontaneously from no previous life, it contradicts a basic law of nature which forms the foundation of the entire theory. Yet without believing in spontaneous generation, the evolutionist would have to acknowledge other than natural forces at work, in other words, God. How do they get around this dilemma?
Dr. George Wald, Nobel Prize Winner of Harvard University, states it as cryptically and honestly as an evolutionist can: "One has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet here we are, as a result, I believe, of spontaneous generation." Scientific American, August 1954.
That statement by Dr. Wald demonstrates a much greater faith than a religious creationist can muster. Notice that the great evolutionary scientist says it could not have happened. It was impossible. Yet he believes it did happen. What can we say to that kind of faith? At least the creationist believes that God was able to speak life into existence. His is not a blind faith in something that he concedes to be impossible.
So here we are face to face with the first contradiction of evolution with a basic law of science. In order to sustain his humanistic explanation of the origin of life he must accept the exploded, unscientific theory of spontaneous generation. And the big question is this: Why is he so violently opposed to the spontaneous generation spoken of in the Bible? A miracle of creation is required in either case. Either God did it by divine fiat, or blind unintelligent nature produced Wald's impossible act. Let any reasonable mind contemplate the alternatives for a moment. Doesn't it take more faith to believe that chance could produce life easier than infinite intelligence could produce it?
Why did Dr. Wald say that it was impossible for life to result from spontaneous generation? That was not an easy concession for a confirmed evolutionist to make. His exhaustive search for a scientific explanation ended in failure, as it has for all other evolutionary scientists, and he had the courage to admit it. But he also had an incredible faith to believe in it even though it was a scientific impossibility. A Christian who confessed to such a faith would be labeled as naive and gullible. What a difference the cloak of higher education makes upon our easily impressed minds! How much simpler and sweeter the faith which accepts the inspired account, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Genesis 1:1.
What would be involved in the accidental development of a single living cell? The fact is that the most elementary form of life is more complicated than any man-made thing on earth. The entire complex of New York City is less complicated than the makeup of the simplest microscopic cell. It is more than ridiculous to talk about its chance production. Scientists themselves assure us that the structure of a single cell is unbelievably intricate. The chance for a proper combination of molecules into amino acids, and then into proteins with the properties of life is entirely unrealistic. The American Scientist magazine made this admission in January, 1955: "From the probability standpoint, the ordering of the present environment into a single amino acid molecule would be utterly improbable in all the time and space available for the origin of terrestrial life."
A Swiss mathematician, Charles Eugene Guye, actually computes the odds against such an occurrence at only one chance in 10^160. That means 10 multiplied by itself 160 times, a number too large even to articulate. Another scientist expressed it this way: "The amount of matter to be shaken together to produce a single molecule of protein would be millions of times greater than that in the whole universe. For it to occur on earth alone would require many, almost endless billions of years." The Evidence of God in an Expanding Universe, page 23.
How can we explain the naive insistence of evolutionists to believe something so extremely out of character for their scientific background? And how can we harmonize the normal broadminded tolerance of the educated, with the narrow bigotry exhibited by many evolutionary scientists in trying to suppress opposing points of view? The obvious explanation would seem to be rooted in the desperation of such evolutionists to retain their reputation as the sole dispensers of dogmatic truth. To acknowledge a superior wisdom would shatter the egocentric image which has been too long cultivated by the evolutionist community. They have repeated their assumptions for so long in support of their theories that they have started accepting them as facts. No one objects to their assuming whatever they want to assume, but to assume happenings that go contrary to all scientific evidence and still call it science is being dishonest.
Now let's look at a second basic evolutionary teaching which is contrary to scientific law. One of the most necessary parts of evolution which is supposed to provide the power for changing the amoeba into a man is mutation. This refers to abnormal changes in the organism which is assumed to be caused by chemical changes in the genes themselves. The genes are the hereditary factors within the chromosomes of each species. Every species has its own particular number of chromosomes which contain the genes. Within every human being are twenty-four chromosomes containing an estimated 100,000 genes, each one of which is able to affect in some way the size, color, texture, or quality of the individual. The assumption is that these genes, which provide the inherited characteristics we get from our ancestors, occasionally become affected by unusual pairing, chemical damage, or other influences, causing them to produce an unusual change in one of the offspring. This is referred to as a mutation.
Through gradual changes wrought in the various species through mutation it is assumed by the evolutionists that the amoeba turned into an invertebrate, which became an amphibian, then a reptile, a quadruped, an ape form, and finally a man. In other words, the species are not fixed in the eyes of the evolutionists. Families are forever drifting over into another higher form as time progresses. This means that all the fossil records of animal history should reveal an utter absence of precise family boundaries. Everything should be in the process of changing into something else, with literally hundreds of millions of half-developed fish trying to become amphibious, and reptiles halfway transformed into birds, and mammals looking like half-apes or man.
Now everybody knows that instead of finding those billions of confused family fossils, the scientists have found exactly the opposite. Not one single drifting, changing life-form has been located in all the years that fossils have been studied. Everything stays within the well-defined limits of its own basic kind, and absolutely refuses to cooperate with the demands of modern evolutionists. Most people would give up and change their theory when faced with such a crushing, deflating blow, but not the evolutionist! He still searches for that illusive missing link which could at least prove that he hasn't been 100% wrong.
But let's look at the vehicle which the evolutionists have depended upon to provide the possibility of the drastic changes required by their theory. Sir Julian Huxley, a principal spokesman for evolution said this: "Mutation provides the raw material of evolution." Again he said, "Mutation is the ultimate source of all ... heritable variation." Evolution in Action, page 38.
Professor Ernst Mayr, another leader of the evolutionists, made this statement: "Yet it must not be forgotten that mutation is the ultimate source of all genetic variation found in natural populations and the only raw material available for natural selection to work on." Animal Species and Evolution, page 170.
Please keep this in mind clearly: Evolutionists say that mutation is absolutely essential to provide the inexorable upgrading of species which changed the simple forms into more complex forms. But, the scientific fact is that mutation could never accomplish what evolution demands of it, for several reasons. As all scientists agree, mutations are very rare. Huxley guesses that only about one in a hundred thousand is a mutant. Secondly, when they do occur they are almost certain to be harmful or deadly to the organism. In other words, the vast majority of such mutations lead toward extinction instead of evolution; they make the organism worse instead of better. Huxley admits: "... the great majority of mutant genes are harmful in their effects on the organism." Ibid., page 39.
Other scientists, including Darwin himself, conceded that most mutants are recessive and degenerative; therefore, they would actually be eliminated by natural selection rather than effect any significant improvement in the organism.