EVOLUTION AND ITS ROLE -

EVOLUTION AND ITS ROLE - PART 2 of 2

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July 28, 1998 (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, fbns@wayoflife.org) - The following is Part 2 of the "Evolution and Its Role," excerpted from the important book, Occult Invasion: The Subtle Seduction of the World and Church, copyright 1998, by Dave Hunt, Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, Oregon 97402; used by permission of the author (order from The Berean Call, P.O. Box 7019, Bend, OR 97708. $11 + $2 S/H) --

A CLEAR MATHEMATICAL IMPOSSIBILITY

A single cell, the smallest living unit, according to Nobelist Lynus Pauling, is "more complicated than New York City." "The 'simplest' self-sufficient cell has the capacity to produce thousands of different proteins and other molecules, at different times and under variable conditions. Synthesis, degradation, energy generation, replication, maintenance of cell architecture, mobility; regulation, repair, communication-all of these functions take place in virtually every cell, and each function itself requires the interaction of numerous parts ... ." [Behe, Black Box, pp. 46-47.] If any part of this incredibly complex biochemical machinery is not functioning properly the cell will die. Behe provides just one example:

"A single flaw in the cell's labyrinthine protein-transport pathway is fatal. Unless the entire system were immediately in place, our ancestors would have [died].... Attempts at a gradual evolution of the protein transport system are a recipe for extinction....

"At some point this complex machine had to come into existence, and it could not have done so in step~by-step fashion... as Darwinian evolution would have it." [Ibid., pp. 114-115.]

The cell doesn't merely "give the appearance of being designed," it could only be designed! Dawkins admits that every cell, either of a plant or animal, contains in its nucleus "a digitally coded database larger, in information content, than all 30 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica put together." [Dawkins, Watchmaker, p. 18.] Try to imagine the odds of chance creating a 30-volume encyclopedia! Even if that impossibility somehow occurred, only one cell would have been produced, and there are trillions of cells in the human body, and thousands of different kinds, each working in unbelievably complex relationships with the others!

The mathematical odds against life beginning and developing by chance (even with unlimited time) are so astronomical as to render it logically impossible. Consider some examples. The combinations of just the 26 letters in the alphabet in blocks of 26 is expressed mathematically as 26!, which simply means 26 times 25 times 24 times 23 times 22 times 21 times 20... on down to 2 Thus there are more than 400,O0O,000,000,000,000,000,000 combinations of 26 letters taken together. Yet instead of a mere 26, there could be as many as 3000 proteins strung together in a particular sequence within one cell. Chance could never put them all together in the right order! Furthermore, each protein is itself a long chain of up to 3000 chemically joined amino acid residues folded into precise structures. Try to imagine the odds of having these meticulous sequences happen by chance!

If everything isn't in perfect order it won't work. Thus it would be impossible to "evolve" toward the right combination. The perfect structure must be there to begin with, which could only happen by design. Forget superficial similarities and fossils; evolution can't even get started at the biochemical and cellular level. As Michael Behe reminds us:

"The cumulative [evidence] shows with piercing clarity that life is based on machines-machines made of molecules... [which are] enormously complex.... The complexity of life's foundation has paralyzed science's attempt to account for it.... [Behe, Black Box, pp. 4-5.]

"Faced with such complexity beneath even simple phenomena, Darwinian theory falls silent." [Ibid., p. 97.]

Sir Fred Hoyle calculated that the odds of producing just the basic enzymes of life by chance are 1 in 1 with 40,000 zeros after it. In comparison, the odds of randomly plucking a particular electron out of the universe are 1 in 1 with 80 zeros after it. Make another universe out of every electron, and the odds of plucking a particular electron out of all those universes by chance are 1 in 1 with 160 zeros after it. Hoyle comments:

"This situation [mathematical impossibility] is well known to geneticists and yet nobody seems to blow the whistle decisively on the theory....

"Most scientists still cling to Darwinism because of its grip on the educational system.... You either have to believe the concepts, or ... be branded a heretic." [From an interview by AP correspondent George W. Cornell, quoted from Times-Advocate, Escondido, CA, December 10, 1982, pp. A10-11.]

OBVIOUSLY DESIGNED BY GOD

The obvious impossibility reveals evolution for the fraud it is. Chance could not even produce the basic enzymes. But enzymes serve astonishingly complex functions, a fact which adds further astronomical odds to the already impossible.

Consider the clotting of blood, in which enzymes play a vital role. Imagine the billions of animals that would have died before this incredible process was perfected by chance! In his 1996 book, Darwin's Black Box, Behe writes:

"Blood clotting is a very complex, intricately woven system... of interdependent protein parts. The absence of, or significant defects in, any one of a number of the components causes the system to fail: blood does not clot at the proper time or at the proper place.

"Animals with bloodclotting cascades have roughly... 30,000 gene pieces. TPA [Tissue Plasminogen Activator] has four different types of domains.... The odds of getting those four domains together is 30,000 to the fourth power.... The same problem of ultra-slim odds would trouble the appearance of prothrombin... fibrinogen... plasminogen, proaccelerin, [etc., each essential to the clotting process].... The universe doesn't have time to wait....

"The odds of getting TPA and its activator together [is so small as] not to be expected to happen even if the universe's ten-billion year life were compressed into a single second and relived every second for ten billion years. [Even] worse... Darwin's mechanism of natural selection would actually hinder the formation of irreducibly complex systems such as the clotting cascade...." [Behe, Black Box, pp. 78, 93-97.]

There are thousands of intricate systems in the body, each of which is incredibly complex. Consider the immune system:

"The internal defense system of vertebrates is dizzyingly complicated.... The first problem... is how to recognize an invader. Bacterial cells have to be distinguished from blood cells; viruses have to be distinguished from connective tissue.

"There are billions of different kinds of antibodies....

"The scientific literature has no answers to the question of the origin of the immune system.... How the body acquires tolerance to its own tissues is still obscure, but whatever the mechanism, we know one thing: a system of self-toleration had to be present from the start of the immune system....

"Whichever way we turn, a gradualistic account of the immune system is blocked by multiple interwoven requirements.... The complexity of the system dooms all Darwinian explanations to frustration.... No one at Harvard University, no one at the National Institutes of Health, no member of the National Academy of Sciences, no Nobel prize winner-no one at all can give a detailed account of how the cilium, or vision, or blood clotting, or any complex biochemical process might have developed in a Darwinian fashion." [Ibid., pp. 120,122, 136, 139, 187.]

"DARWIN'S BLACK BOX"

Behe's book provides example after example of the inconceivable complexity of life at its most basic chemical/cellular level and points out that this "black box," like the inner workings of a computer, cannot even be inferred, much less understood, from the outer visible structure. This inner complexity was completely unknown to Darwin and only discovered recently with the advent of the electron microscope. Behe offers multiple examples to prove that the way life is put together at the molecular level demolishes Darwin's theory because it cannot possibly account for the indisputably intricate design of "irreducibly complex" systems. Such systems could not have evolved because, without all parts present and functioning in the right relationship to one another, the system fulfills no function and life cannot be sustained:

"What we see [in the cell] is this incredible complexity that no one ever imagined... [and] that calls for a conclusion of design....

"Biochemistry has, in fact, revealed a molecular world that stoutly resists [Darwinian] explanation.... Darwin never imagined the exquisitely profound complexity that exists even at the most basic levels of life. [Bole, "Biochemistry," pp. 6-7; Behe, Black Box, p. 173.]

"The typical cell contains about two thousand [mitochondrion compartments].... Each of the little compartments contains machinery necessary to capture the energy of foodstuffs and store it in a chemically stable, yet readily available, form.... The system uses a flow of acid to power its machines, which shuttles electrons among a half-dozen carriers, requiring an exquisitely delicate interaction between many components.... The cell controls how much and what kinds of chemicals it makes; when it loses control, it dies....

"Life on earth at its most fundamental level, in its most critical components, is the product of intelligent activity. The conclusion of intelligent design flows naturally from the data itself-not from sacred books or sectarian beliefs..." [Ibid., pp. 188-93.]

Darwin himself said, "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."45 This is precisely what we find at the biochemical, cellular level, a level of life about which Darwin knew nothing. Behe asks, "What type of biological system could not be formed by 'numerous, successive, slight modifications'?" He answers conclusively: "Well, for starters, a system that is irreducibly complex," as explained above, Behe's discussion of DNA provides several further examples:

"DNA, the most famous of nucleic acids, is made up of four kinds of nucleotides: A, C, G, and T. The first building block, A, can be in several forms, designated AMP, ADP, or ATP. The form that is first synthesized in the cell is .... . It is comprised of... ten carbons, eleven hydrogens, seven oxygens, four nitrogens, and one phosphorus....

"The formation of biological molecules... requires specific, highly sophisticated molecular robots.... To make .... . we also need very high-tech equipment: the enzymes... In the absence of the enzymes, AMP is simply not made.... AMP is required for life on earth: it is used to make DNA and RNA, as well as a number of other critical molecules....

"The problem for Darwinian evolution is this: AMP is required for life. Either it immediately has a way to produce or obtain, or the cell is dead....

"No one has a clue how the AMP pathway developed... [and] no one has written about the obstacle posed by the need to regulate a cell's metabolic pathway immediately at its inception.... AMP is not the only metabolic dilemma for Darwin. The biosynthesis of the larger amino acids, lipids, vitamins, heme, and more run into the same problems, and there are difficulties beyond metabolism... mountains and chasms that block a Darwinian explanation of life." [Ibid., pp. 142-51, 159-61.]

AN EMBARRASSING SILENCE

Had Darwin known of the incredible basic structural complexity of life on the molecular and cellular level he probably would have had enough common sense not to propose his theory. Since the discovery of this "black box," evolutionists right up to the present have maintained a discreet silence on this subject. Behe points out that the prestigious Journal of Molecular Evolution, the highest authority in its field, has never "proposed a detailed model by which a complex biochemical system might have been produced in a gradual, step-by-step Darwinian fashion.... The very fact that none of these problems is even addressed... is a very strong indication that Darwinism is an inadequate framework for understanding the origin of complex biochemical systems." [Ibid., p. 176.]

Between 1984 and 1994 about 400 papers concerned with molecular evolution were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Yet not one "proposed [any] detailed routes by which complex biochemical structures might have developed"-nor have any been offered in any other biochemistryjournals.49 It is at this basic level of life (the complexity of which was unknown to Darwin) that Darwinism must now be defended-but evolutionists have avoided the subject for the obvious reason that it cannot be done. In view of the fact that there has never been "a meeting, or a book, or a paper on details of the evolution of complex biochemical systems," Behe writes:

"'Publish or perish' is a proverb that academicians take seriously. If you do not publish your work for the rest of the community to evaluate, then you have no business in academia... if a theory claims to be able to explain some phenomenon but does not generate even an attempt at an explanation, then it should be banished.... In effect, the theory of Darwinian molecular evolution has not published, and so it should perish." [Ibid., pp. 185-86.]

Darwin relied upon similarities in outward appearances. He pointed to the great variety of eyes and assumed that they had somehow developed by "natural selection" over great time. Behe's comment is shattering:

"Now that the black box of vision has been opened, it is no longer enough... to consider only the anatomical structures of whole eyes, as Darwin did in the nineteenth century (and as popularizers of evolution continue to do today). Each of the anatomical steps and structures that Darwin thought were so simple actually involves staggeringly complicated biochemical processes....

"Anatomy is... irrelevant to the question of whether evolution could take place on the molecular level. So is the fossil record.... [It] has nothing to tell us about whether the interactions of 11-cis-retinal with rhodopsin, transducin, and phosphcdiesterase could have developed step-by-step....

"The scientific disciplines that were part of the evolutionary synthesis are all nomnolecular. Yet for the Darwinian theory of evolution to be true, it has to account for the molecular structure of life ... [and] it does not." [Ibid., pp. 22-25.]

THE BIBLE OR EVOLUTION?

Ignorant of the scientific refutation of evolution and of its contradiction of Scripture, Donald Devine, former director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, spoke out in support of his Pope: "Prehuman man apparently existed for millions of years.... This is not a refutation of the Bible but a confirmation of it-that it took God to breathe in a soul before man could be man." [Donald Devine, in Human Events, December 13, 1996, p. 19.] On the contrary, the theory of theistic evolution, involving as it does prehuman ancestors of man (New York's Cardinal O'Connor says Adam and Eve were lower animals), [Los Angeles Times, November 30, 1996, p. B13.] contradicts not only Genesis but the entire Bible.

Rather than God implanting a human soul in prehuman creatures that had evolved from ocean slime, Moses tells us that God formed Adam from "the dust of the ground" and then later God formed Eve from "one of his ribs" (Genesis 2:7,18-23). Prehuman ancestors cannot be reconciled with that account, an account which Jesus Himself confirmed (Matthew 19:4,5).

Christ refers to the Genesis account of man's creation and quotes directly from it, placing His stamp of approval on its authenticity. Paul, too, attested to the accuracy of the Genesis account when he declared that "Adam was first formed, then Eve" (1 Timothy 2:13,14; see also 1 Corinthians 15:22,45; Jude 14). Furthermore, Paul says that it was through Adam that sin entered into the world, and death by sin (Romans 5:12). If Adam and Eve descended from ancestors who had lived and died during thousands (or millions) of years of prehuman evolution until God finally humanized them, death would have been in effect before Adam sinned. Clearly, such a contradiction would be devastating to Christianity.

Theistic evolution's theory of prehuman creatures as man's ancestors contradicts Genesis, Christ's teaching, Paul's preaching, and the gospel. What the Roman Catholic Church and other proponents of theistic evolution apparently don't realize is quite clear to The American Atheist:

"But if death preceded man and was not a result of Adam's sin, then sin is fiction. If sin is fiction, then we have no need for a Savior..,. Evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason [for] Jesus' earthly life.... If Jesus was not the Redeemer who died for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing." [Richard Bozarth in The American Atheist, 1978, p. 19, as cited in The Christian News, November 11, 1996, p. 15.]

Evolution, that "most bloated of sacred cows,"55 has persuaded millions that the Bible isn't reliable and that the God of the Bible doesn't exist. As Berkeley law professor Phillip Johnson puts it, "The whole purpose of the Darwinian evolutionary story is to... show that you don't need a preexisting intelligence to do all the work of creation." [Russell Schoch, "The Evolution of a Creationist," in California Monthly, November 1991, p. 22.]

FACING THE TRUTH

Johnson shocked the academic world in 1991 with his book Darwin on Trial. Knowing that it is the unpardonable sin in academia to oppose evolution, Johnson courageously and with the precision of a trial lawyer demolished Darwinism by demonstrating that it would not stand up in court. Johnson indicted his fellow academicians with having "abandoned the truthful and accurate reporting to which science has traditionally been committed in their zeal to extirpate and dismiss religion from public life." [The Catholic World Report, December 1996, p. 50.]

If evolution were true, there would necessarily have been literally billions of intermediary stages filling the fossil record. Imagine the millions of tiny steps it must have taken over millions of years to develop lungs from gills, the stomach and digestive system, eyes, kidneys, the brain and nervous system throughout the body, the heart and bloodstream, sperm and ovum for mammals, the egg and its shell for birds and reptiles, etc. Yet not one of these "missing links" has been found!

And what about instinct? Evolution has no answer. Even if the bat's sophisticated radar system suddenly appeared by chance, who taught the first mutated bat to use it? How many millions of Arctic terns drowned before the first one, by chance, learned to navigate thousands of miles across the ocean? How many salmon lost their way in the ocean and never made it back to spawn b~ fore this uncanny instinct was developed? How many millions of spiders starved before the amazing mechanism for making webs suddenly chanced itself into existence-and who taught that unique mutated spider how to make a web? How many eggs of all manner of birds rotted before the instinct to hatch eggs developed, and how was it learned and passed on?

PURSUING A DELUSION

Jean Houston, who is both a psychologist and a theologian, presents us with a synthesis of psychology, occultism, and evolution in her workshops and writings. In some of her workshops she leads participants into an alleged awakening of ancient prehuman "memories" as a means of gaining insight into their personalities and working through "emotional blocks." Here is an excerpt from a reporter's account of one such session:

"'Remember when you were a fish,' Houston suggested. ... Nearly a thousand people... dropped to the floor and began moving their "fins" as if to propel themselves through water.

"'Notice your perception as you roll like a fish. How does your world look, feel, sound, smell, taste?'

"'Then you came up on land,' Houston recalled, taking us through the amphibian .......

"Then Houston suggested, 'Allow yourself to fully remember being a ......... Then some of you flew. Others climbed trees...'

"We became a zoo of sounds and movements made by early mammals, monkeys, and apes. Houston then called us to remember being 'the early human' who loses his/her protective furry covering 'and... evolves into modem human....' We had become a wriggling sea of bodies-nearly a thousand housewives, therapists, artists, social workers, clergy, educators, health professionals... [who] had crawled over and under each other, enjoying ourselves and re-learning what was deep within our memories." [Shepherd Bliss, "Jean Houston: Prophet of the Possible," in Whole Life Times, October/mid-November 1984, pp. 24-25.]

This "exercise in evolutionary memory," as Houston calls it, is patently nonsense. The fact is that no one has such "memories." Nor could such memories exist at some unconscious level (as in Jung's alleged "collective unconscious"), or even at the cellular level, as some argue, inasmuch as evolution is a myth that never occurred in real life. Then what is happening? Obviously, participants are talked into fantasizing in order to play along with the regressive therapy game.

It is amazing to see who is willing to participate in such folly. Houston chaired and organized a symposium for leading U.S. government policymakers entitled "The Possible Society: An Exploration of Practical Policy Alternatives for the Decade Ahead." She tells of guiding about 150 high-ranking officials for about three days. She had these officials on the floor, imagining internal journeys on a search for "the possible society" Such exercises, of course, can lead one into occult contact as surely as the shaman's journey to which it is clearly related.

Evolution, psychology; shamanism: The link is clear, but it is a belief in evolution which has led the downward spiral to today's renaissance of the occult. Man's much-vaunted claim to an evolving ascent to perfection has led instead to an inglorious return to pagan superstition.