Appendix 3 : Questions about Atheistic Evolution

 

 

The purpose of this page is simply to pose some common sense questions about a theory that has been so forced into our society that it is taught in schools as fact and anyone who dares to think otherwise is called a “knuckle-dragging creationist.” But, as has become very obvious, this is science motivated by atheism, so we'll look more widely than purely evolution.

 

I want to be completely upfront about my reticence over writing this page. I am not a scientist and although I think I have read fairly widely, this is not an area where I really feel confident to question. However, I DO have what I believe are legitimate common sense questions and they are clearly legitimate because even Darwin himself was wrestling with some of them.

 

I have to thank Richard, because without him, I might have pottered on through life, giving little thought to these issues, but he has made me clarify them by listening to lots of voices, not just the atheistic lobby.

 

 

1. How can scientists speak of things that cannot be proven as ‘facts'?

 

I have a common sense starting problem question here about evolution. As we'll see elsewhere, no one has ever witnessed evolution between species, so how can it be spoken of as ‘fact'. It is a theory not a fact, so why treat it like that?

 

To understand what goes on, please do also read Appendix 7 on the difference between so-called science and philosophical assumptions. At the end of Appendix 4 you'll also come across some quotes that suggest an answer to this question, and it doesn't show evolutionists up in a good scientific light!

 

 

2. How do scientists get away with contradictory beliefs?

 

For instance, going right back to the beginning of everything, the first law of thermodynamics implies that matter cannot just pop into existence or create itself. “Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed.” Therefore if the universe had a beginning – and the Big Bang theory implies it does – then something external to the universe must have caused it. Yet we find Richard and other atheistic scientists making what I have called (and taken from the Existentialists) a ‘giant leap of faith' by denying this law – simply because it suits their atheistic beliefs. See the quotes of Appendix 4.

 

 

3. Why do we take atheistic scientist's theorising seriously?

 

To escape the conclusion above, atheistic scientists come up with some most spectacularly bizarre theories. Stephen Hawking proposed that the early universe existed in “imaginary time” which is really fantasy language. When it comes to the anthropic principle that Richard writes about – the ideas about the physical nature of the universe being exactly what is needed to support life – Richard and others come up with this idea of an infinite number of universes where the odds suggest there must be at least one that has the right constituents for life. Why should they? The idea of ‘odds' is absurd when you really think about it. It makes numbers so big that our poor minds surrender and say, well, yes, I suppose it is possible. Yes, it's possible that we all came from Vulcans but there are probably only a few individuals in mental institutions who would really believe that! Odds don't make the naturally impossible become possible. Think about this one!

 

 

4. Why do we tolerate the worship of numbers?

 

One of the primary planks for evolution is an infinitely long period of time. Even evolutionists accept that the odds on evolution working as suggested, incredible chance after incredible chance, are staggeringly big, and so the way to overcome that is just speak about millions and millions of years of existence. The trouble is that this has been said so many times that we have conned ourselves into believing something that is NOT logically so. It takes more to believe in purely accidental evolution over millions upon millions of years, than it does to believe in guided development.

 

 

5. Why did something survive?

 

Survival of the fittest is another key plank of evolutionary theory. Richard tries to make it seem almost mechanical, almost natural, how it HAD to happen, but the point is that it didn't HAVE to happen, it happened by chance. Yes, in tiny ways within species there have been changes observed but a valid question is how did they survive because my quotes tell me that often survival is either only temporary or it only goes to set limits and never goes beyond a set point of change, which is always very small. Why didn't they die along the way; chance could have wiped them out, but didn't. Perhaps I'm not explaining this very well, but no one ever seems to think about the ‘negative elements' in existence. Today we speak about viruses wiping out people. Throughout all these millions of years of development, why do we assume such a benign ‘climate' that doesn't wipe out whatever developing cells there were? It was either a ‘staggering odds fluke' that each and every development survived (and we're then into the problem of believing in odds that we wouldn't accept anywhere else in the world), or there was almost a benign protective force working that guarded each stage. That is just as likely as any of Richard's theorising!

 

 

6. Where are the Fossils?

 

I'm sure there will be fossil experts who will come up with equally fanciful theories to explain their problems, but the biggest one for evolution is that there is not a seamless flow of fossils which the theory of evolution demands. If evolution is just as has been postulated by Darwin and many since him, then there MUST have been a seamless flow of creatures. To explain the gaps between species by saying, “Well we haven't found them yet, but we will,” or “Well, the gaps are the ones that were destroyed” is first an enormous leap of faith and second unimaginative. For the ‘destroyed' excuse, if any species was to develop into another species, I would suggest that it would have to be considerably more than just one survivor or one mutant to have brought about a successful flow from one presently known species to another, and even if some were destroyed we would expect some to have survived in the fossil record. Sorry, I'm struggling to have faith in the fossil record, but it takes too much ‘turning off my brain' effort.

 

 

7. Evolutionary Problems

 

There are some decidedly difficult ideas to overcome. It was Francis Schaeffer who posed the question, what happens when a fish develops lungs? Does it develop into the next stage? No, it drowns!

 

I have an even bigger problem: the sexual reproductive system. Supposing we work our way back through the so-called imaginary and unclear evolutionary tree, it seems that evolutionists still struggle with fundamental issues, such as why is sexual reproduction more common than asexual reproduction, even though it is more difficult and more complex? What was the significant evolutionary advantage? How, when or where did two creatures diverge so that one had a womb and the other didn't, and one produced an egg and the other sperm? I get the impression that in the evolutionary world there is a basic dishonesty in refusing the face up to the shear basic impossibilities of this happening by natural selection or mutation.

 

When the school of Intelligent Design speak about ‘irreducible complexity' I find they make a far more persuasive case than the atheistic evolutionists. I struggle with the idea that the incredibly complex human eye could have developed bit by bit. The eye is indeed no use at all unless all its parts are fully formed and working together. Richard tries working from a light sensitive spot, but even such an idea is irreducibly complex, the result of staggeringly complex chemical reactions. Someone has said that the most advanced, automated modern factory, with its computers and robots all co-ordinated on a precisely timed schedule, is less complex than the inner workings of a single cell. The more scientists investigate DNA, the life of cells etc. the more implausible the idea that this all came about by chance. Listen to the arguments about the signs of design, and chance seems what I believe it is here, impossible.

 

 

To conclude

 

This page is not meant to convince, only to cause questions. I would be quite happy with evolution that is directed by God. I believe He could have done it like that if He wanted. My only problem with settling for this, is that I have questions which all of the evolutionist's twistings and turnings don't satisfy, and when I listen to people in the know (see Appendix 4) they raise even bigger questions over this whole area of evolution that atheists have foisted on the scientific and educational community. I believe we've been conned, and as I've read The God Delusion, that has only confirmed this belief.