MOTION #91: THIS HOUSE BELIEVES
THAT EVOLUTION HAS DISPROVED CREATIONISM
Evolution is the
process by which species change and adapt over time. Darwin’s theory of
evolution by natural selection explains the origin and diversity of species in
terms of ‘survival of the fittest’: characteristics that are beneficial to
survival within a given environment are more likely to be passed on to the next
generation. Life arose through random mutations over millions of years filtered
by natural selection. Evolution is widely accepted by the scientific community
as a fact and as a complete explanation, requiring no supernatural element.
Young Earth Creationism is the belief that God directly created the world,
including animal and human life, in six days within the last 10,000 years. It
is held by some Christians on the basis of a literal reading of Genesis, and
also by some Muslims. Creationists claim support for this belief both from
religious scriptures and from science. Other Christian views include Old Earth
Creationism (God created the world millions of years ago, before creating
animals and humans later), and Theistic Evolution (God used or directed
evolution to bring about human life).
Pros
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Cons
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The fossil evidence. Fossils allow us a glimpse into the development of life on Earth.
Fossils show a development from earlier, less complex forms of life, through
to newer, more complex forms of life, with characteristics developed from
earlier organisms. This progression is strong evidence for evolution. Since
fossilization is a rare event, there are some gaps in the fossil record, but
all the available evidence is consistent with, and fully explained by,
evolution.
There are many examples of transitional fossils,
including of our own ancestors, showing how humans evolved from apelike
creatures. For example, scientists discovered the skeleton of Ardipithecus
ramidus, nicknamed “Ardi”. Ardi is the oldest fossil of a human ancestor, and
the last common ancestor of humans and modern apes. Ardi shows a mixture of
advanced characteristics and primitive traits.
If fossils had been laid down by a catastrophe such as
the Genesis flood, as Creationists argue, then complex and simple lifeforms
should be mixed together, with no clear order or progression. But the fossil
record shows a clear progression in complexity.
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There is an absence
of transitional fossils. The evidence for ‘missing links’ between different
species is itself missing. Fossils are jumbled up, rather than ordered from simple
to complex.
Supposed
transitional species will often be wildly extrapolated from small fragments
to fit with evolutionary theory. Supposed human ancestors are either extinct
apes, actual human beings, or accidental mix-ups of human and ape bones. There
are no clear anatomical markers separating homo erectus and homo sapiens, for
example.
The fossil record is better explained by a global
catastrophic flood, as described in the story of Noah in Genesis. The massive
geological upheaval which would take place in such an event would leave the
remains of millions of dead animals and plants in layers across the world,
which is exactly what we find.
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The Age of the Earth. Evidence from many different disciplines shows that the Earth is very
old, allowing enough time for life as it exists today to evolve and
contradicting a Creationist belief in a young earth.
For example, most of the stars in the sky are thousands
and millions of lightyears away, which means that light took thousands and
millions of years to reach us.
Similarly, there are many geographic features that took
thousands or millions of years to form. For example, ice cores such as those
from Vostok, Antartica, give evidence of changes in climate going back
400,000 years, far older than the 6,000 or so calculated from a literal
reading of Genesis.
All the evidence points this way, from archaeology,
geology, physics, astronomy and more. There are many different indicators
that all point to an old age of the Earth.
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Secular scientists
extrapolate the age of the earth backwards from examining current natural
processes, but they assume that they have always taken place at the same
speed and for the same reasons, but this is not necessarily the case.
There are a number
of possible solutions to the distant starlight problem: God could have
created the light in transit; the speed of light may have been much greater
in the past; Einstein’s theory of general relativity indicates that time is
relative, and so a few thousand years on Earth could be millions elsewhere in
the universe.
The volcanic eruption at Mount St Helens, Washington
State in 1980 shows how catastrophic events can very quickly lay down
geological formations that appear to have formed slowly. The Genesis flood
would account for the rapid formation of geographical features that
evolutionists interpret as old.
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Falsifiability. Evolutionary theory is open to change and is in principle falsifiable:
if enough evidence was found, scientists would change their views. Scientists
make their reputations by making new discoveries, so if evolution could be
disproved, someone would have done it, but it is still standing after over
150 years of research since Darwin, showing how strong it is.
Although Creationism is falsifiable scientifically,
with plenty of evidence to disprove it, it is non-falsifiable on its own
terms. Any scientific evidence against it can be explained away by
Creationists by saying ‘God did it’ – for example, by claiming dinosaur
fossils were put there to test people’s faith. Science is able to change in
light of new evidence, unlike Creationism, which is a matter of dogma.
Even if evolutionary theory cannot yet explain every
detail, this does not give any support to Creationism. If something cannot
yet be explained by science, it does not mean that God did it; it means we
need to investigate further to find a better scientific explanation.
Creationism discourages scientific investigation and encourages blind faith.
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Creationism makes
empirical claims, such as that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old. The
use of scientific arguments against these claims shows that Creationism is in
fact falsifiable.
Scientific
Creationism is a relatively new discipline which only really started in the
20th century. It has not had the same time or resources put into developing
it as has evolutionary science, because of broader cultural prejudices and
philosophical assumptions against it.
Recent Creationist
research has focused not on reacting to evolutionary theory, but building its
own research and models working from Biblical presuppositions. Many earlier
Creationist theories, models and arguments have been modified or abandoned,
showing that Creationism is able to adapt in light of new research.
Creationism is actually more open-minded than
evolutionary theory, because evolutionary scientists exclude the possibility
of the supernatural on principle, not because of lack of evidence.
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Most scientists are not Christians and do not accept
the Bible as God’s word: in 1996, only 40% of US scientists believed in GodMany
Christians interpret the Creation account symbolically and have done so since
long before Darwin. For example, in the 5th century, the theologian Augustine
argued that the account in Genesis was not a literal, chronological account.
Even if Genesis was inspired by God, it could not have been intended to be a
literal, scientific account, because it would have made no sense to the
people of the time. It must be interpreted according to its original genre
and purpose.
When the Bible says death entered the world through
Adam, it could refer exclusively to humans rather than the animal kingdom as
a whole. Alternatively, it may refer to spiritual death, which is separation
from God, rather than physical death, the separation of soul from body.
Science proceeds by reason, evidence and observation,
not by arguments from religious authority. If science contradicts the Bible,
we should accept the findings of science, which is based on reason and
evidence, rather than the Bible, which is based on faith.
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The Bible says God
created the world. The Bible is God’s
Word, inspired and infallible, and it reveals that the world was created by
him in 6 days within recent history (Genesis 1-2). God says it, so we should
accept what he reveals as truth.
If the Bible is true
at all, it cannot just be ‘symbolically’ true about spiritual matters, but
must be true in matters of fact and science as well. You cannot divide
meaning from facts. Theologically, the Bible teaches that death entered the
world through Adam’s sin (Romans 5:12), which contradicts evolution because
death is necessary for natural selection.
There is no neutral interpretation of the evidence.
Evolutionists interpret the scientific evidence in light of the
presupposition that there is no God, while Creationists interpret it on the
presupposition there is a God. Christians who accept evolution have bought
into secular assumptions that are inconsistent with their faith and what the
Bible teaches.
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Theists and atheists alike use ‘methodological
naturalism’ when doing science, because scientific method depends on
understanding and explaining the natural world in natural terms. It does not
assume that God does not exist. Many Christians do not believe that the
evidence supports Creationism despite believing in God, and instead believe
that God is the one who sustains and upholds the natural order as understood
by science.
Uniformitarianism is a necessary assumption for
understanding the world. If the laws of nature changed on a whim, so that
science worked one way on Tuesday and another on Wednesday, we would not be
able to make observations and predictions that worked. But all our
observations indicate that the world does operate consistently. The success
of science in providing accurate models and explanations of the world shows
that its presuppositions are correct.
Science cannot prove or disprove the existence of God,
since that is a metaphysical question outside the scope of science. But
science can show that evolution explains the origins of life, and there is no
need to invoke a God of the Gaps to explain it. The supernatural is outside
the scope of scientific enquiry, and therefore a matter of faith.
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Naturalistic
assumptions. Evolutionary science rules out
the possibility of God on principle, rather than on the basis of evidence. On
an unbiased assessment, without the presupposition of naturalism, Creationism
offers a better interpretation of the evidence. But most scientists refuse to
allow the possibility of God creating the world, blinding them to the facts.
Secular science is
committed to only looking for natural explanations (methodological
naturalism), but this only makes sense if you already know that nothing
supernatural exists (ontological naturalism). If God intervenes in the
natural world, then this can be investigated empirically and scientifically.
Evolutionists assume that “the present is the key to
the past”, otherwise known as uniformitarianism. They are attempting to
reconstruct the past after the event from fragmentary evidence. But God was
there in the beginning and so can tell us what actually happened. We should
believe God’s revelation, not human speculation.
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Evolution is not just a matter of chance. Mutations can
add, change or remove genetic information. Natural selection acts as a
feedback mechanism to filter those mutations to pass on useful changes in
organisms to adapt them to their environment.
Beneficial mutations have been observed. For example,
gene duplication is a common mechanism for introducing new information. When
a long stretch of DNA is copied, then mutations often occur in one or both of
the copies. This is the likely origin of some proteins.
The argument from irreducible complexity is an argument
from ignorance: if we cannot currently explain how a complex system arose
naturally, it must have been God who created it. But the development of
supposedly ‘irreducibly complex’ systems can be explained: different parts in
biological systems often have multiple and changing useful functions, and
apparently irreducibly complex systems arise when these interlock in new
ways.
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Chance cannot
produce complexity. Evolution depends
on chance mutations in genes producing changes that make it more complex and
introduce survival benefits. Mutations do not increase the complexity of
organisms, but damages them: for example, cancer. Mutants might gain new
powers in comic books, but not in real life.
Mutations may have
beneficial side-effects, but do not add new information. For example,
sickle-cell anemia increases resistance to malaria. However, it does this
because the normal functioning of the blood cells is impaired, not by
evolving into something more complex, which is necessary for evolution to
take place.
Many biological systems are irreducibly complex: you
need all the parts to work, or they will not work at all, like a mousetrap.
They cannot have arisen by step-by-step changes.
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Evolution has nothing to do with morality. Science
simply describes what is, not what ought to be. Social Darwinism and eugenics
are misapplications of science. We have evolved the capacity for higher
reasoning, and so we can develop ethical and moral systems to suit us, rather
than following the principle of ‘survival of the fittest’.
Social studies indicate that secularised societies in
which evolutionary science is widely accepted enjoy lower rates of societal
dysfunction, whereas the USA, which is much more religious and
anti-evolution, has worse social health.
Morality may have an evolutionary basis. People who
look after their relatives, those who share many of their genes, are
maximising the likelihood those genes will be passed on. Altruism benefits
the survival of the group as a whole.
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Evolution undermines
meaning and morality. Evolution gives no
basis for morality or human dignity. If we evolved from animals rather than
being uniquely created in the image of God, then humanity should be accorded
no more status than an animal, plant or amoeba. Acceptance of evolution leads
to Social Darwinism and eugenics.
If we are only the product of time plus chance plus
impersonal forces, there is no objective standard of right and wrong, only
what benefits the survival of our genes or not. For example, rape may have an
adaptive benefit in enabling the passing on of genes of the rapist. An
evolutionary worldview has no rational basis for condemning such an action.
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