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 The Theory of Evolution vs. Creation Science
Scientific
Discipline
What the Theory of Evolution Says What Evolutionists Say We Ought to See What We Actually Observe in Nature What Scientists Say Creationist Explanation
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The study of stars, planets, and other heavenly bodies, and their physical properties. The study of the earth's physical nature and properties. The study of fossils, the hardened remains of prehistoric animals and plants. The study of heredity and variation in related animals and plants. The study of chemical process occurring in living plants and animals. The use of numbers, symbols and equations to study quantities and their relationships.

What the Theory of Evolution Says

Darwin’s theory stated that evolution can change one type of organism into another.  He also thought the father’s contribution  “blended” with the mother’s, and that a trait which supports survival would become reproductively dominant over time.  Darwin did not have a clear understanding of the laws of inheritance of such traits, because they were discovered a few years earlier by an Austrian monk, Gregor Mendel.  In the 1900 geneticists incorporated Mendel’s four laws of inheritance into Darwin’s theory.  They called the new theory “ neo-Darwinism “ in which the individual units of inheritance were generation to generation.  For example, when Mendel crossed a pea plant having round seeds with one having wrinkled seeds, all the offspring in the first generation were round peas, not “blended.”  The wrinkled seed gene was present, suppressed by the dominant round-seed gene.  However, wrinkled peas appeared in one-quarter of the offspring in the second generation.  Blended traits do not exist.  Now we know that mutations cause chemicals changes to genes.

What Evolutionists Say We Ought to See

  If neo-Darwinism were true we would expect to see strong evidence of change from one species to another (for example, ape to man, or descent with modification from a common ancestor).  We should see the traits follow the genetic laws of Mendel and appear relatively stable from one generation to the next.  However, dominant genes do not become more dominant as had been hoped by those favoring Darwinian evolution.  Mendel’s laws of inheritance only explain microevolution, such as natural or domestic breeding of desirable changes or variations within plant and animal species. 

For macroevolution to occur we ought to see something which dramatically changes the genes, something like gene mutation, a proposed mechanism to provide an increase in species complexity.  We should see the effects of beneficial mutation and natural selection making significant changes in species.  While mutations can be increased by heat, chemicals and radiation, most mutations are harmful.  Most lead to structural impairment, genetic diseases and death. (The ratio of harmful to beneficial mutations is at least 10,000 to one.) 

What We Actually Observe in Nature 

We observe microevolution both in nature and through purposeful domestication within species.  We do not observe macroevolution.  Purposeful domestication (selective breeding) has been used to produce changes or desired variations within many species for more than 2000 years.  Examples include cats, dogs, beef and milk cattle, race and plow horses, roses, wheat and corn.  All have been changed through microevolution which follows Mendel’s law of inheritance, not the concept of blending traits envisioned by Darwin.  Scientists admit macroevolution cannot be observed under natural conditions. If it happened, it occurred in the distant past and would be too slow to observe now. 

However, in laboratory experiments, fruit flies have been altered to grow legs from there heads, one of many freakish major mutations possible.  These changes were produced by large doses of radiation to greatly increase the mutation rate and alter genes.  These changes neither created a new structure (just altering existed ones) nor changing the fly into a new kind of insect.  These flies may breed under laboratory conditions, but cannot survive in nature because of this harmful mutation. 

Davis writes, “Mutation does not introduce new levels of complexity, and it cannot be shown that it is a step in the right direction.  Most observed mutations are harmful, and there is no experimental evidence to show that a new animal organism or even a novel structural feature has ever been produced from the raw material produced by mutations.

 

What Scientist Say 

Some scientists promote evolution despite the lack of evidence.  Others point out the failure of evolution.  “There is no debate within the scientific community over whether evolution has occurred, and there is no evidence that evolution has not occurred,” writes the National Academy of Science of the U.S.  In 1995, the American National Association of Biology Teachers stated, “The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process of . . . descent with genetic modification that is affected by natural selection, chance . . . and changing environments.” 

Many secular scientists disagree.  Pierre-Paul Grasse of the French Academy of Sciences writes, “ No matter how numerous they may be, mutations do not produce any kind of evolution.”  Molecular biologist Michael Denton says, “The failure to validate the Darwinian model has implications which reach far beyond biology.”  Information theorist Hubert Yockey writes,” One must conclude that, contrary to the established and current wisdom, a scenario describing the genesis of life on earth by chance and natural causes which can be accepted on the basis of fact and not faith has not yet been written (Information Theory and Molecular Biology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge).  Ferguson says, “Scientists are particularly loath to relinquish the last form of prejudice . . . It must be true because anything else would be unthinkable.”  For example, Dawkins says, “ . . . the only alternative explanation of the sudden appearance of so many complex animal types in the Cambrian era is divine creation, and [we] both reject this alternative.  (The Blind Watchmaker, 1986, pp 229-230).

 

What Creationists Say

While accepting variations within species (microevolution, not Darwinian evolution), most creationists do not believe that new species have arisen through macroevolution and that honest scientific study proves this point.  All creationists recognize God as the Creator of the universe and humans, believing that in some special way He made us in His own image. (Genesis 1:26) Morris objects to the term microevolution to describe “horizontal variations” of plants and animals at the same level of complexity because microevolution may give the impression that with enough time, it could become macroevolution.  In their book, the Genesis flood, John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris show a diagram of how specially created “kind,” horse and dog for example, may have become diversified from their common ancestral pairs from the beginning to the present.  This has been called “creationist adaptation” (natural selection).  Behe says “On a small scale, microevolution, Darwin’s theory has triumphed…But it is at the level of macroevolution-of large jumps-that the theory evokes skepticism…Persuasive evidence to support that position has not been forthcoming.”  On mutations, Davis writes, “There is no evidence mutations create new structures.  They merely alter existing ones…Mutations are quite rare.  This is fortunate, for the vast majority are harmful, although some may be neutral.  Some creationists explain the rapid speciation of the past as the six days which God created, and the present lack of speciation, as the “seventh day” in which God rests.