SCIENTIFICAND RELIGIOUS ASPECTS

                                                    OFTHE ORIGINS DEBATE[1]

 

                                                              RobertC. Newman[2]

 

 

How did it all begin?  Since 1800 science and technology havelearned much.  The answer oftenadvertised today as "scien­tific" may be called the "BlindWatchmak­er" solution:[3]  all has arisen by purely naturalprocesses; there is no guiding mind behind the universe; the only purposes (atleast in this part of the universe) are human purposes; the tradi­tion­alreligions are wishful thinking or harmful delusions. 

 

This view has had a profound effect notonly in science, but in literature, art, and music Cand consequently in education, the media, politics, and finally history.  Most of our modern problems have beenaggravated by the spread of belief in a Blind-Watchmaker universe.

 

The Rise of Evolution

 

This worldview owes much of its influenceto Charles Darwin, who provided scientific respectability for the idea that Godis not necessary to explain how things came to be.  Darwin did not invent this idea, and his belief in its truthonly grew on him gradually.[4] 

 

But Darwin was able to show that thediversity of living things in various places on earth today Cchimpanzees in Africa, llamas in South America, kangaroos in Austra­lia,and especially the very limited variety of life on remote ocean islands Cdoes not fit the common idea that God created the same sorts of animalseverywhere on earth.[5]  And the progression of living things inthe fossil record C no life in the earliest strata, simplelife higher up, becoming more and more like modern kinds as one looks at morerecent layers C seemed to conflict with the idea thatGod created all types of life at one time.[6]

 

In the generation before Darwin, geolo­gistshad found a rock record pointing to long ages of life on earth, opening up aperspective much more exten­sive than the few thou­sand years mostthought the Bible al­lowed.[7]

 

Darwin's distinctive proposal, however,was an analogy familiar to most of his readers C selective breeding.[8]  Just as farmers can produce greatdiversity among their plants and animals by choosing some features for furtherdevelopment, so C Darwin argued Cnature did something similar.  Ineach genera­tion of living things, small variations were accidentally pro­duced.  But nature, having no mind or will toselect these according to any plan, effectively favored those variations whichproduced more survi­vors. Darwin labelled his model "natural selec­tion," indistinction from the breeders' "artifi­cial selec­tion"; morepopularly, it came to be known as "survival of the fittest."  The mind­lessness of this processin the Darwinian view has been captured by Richard Dawkins' recent phrase"the Blind Watchmak­er."[9]

 

Darwin's proposal was quickly accepted inscientific circles despite considerable opposition.  Within a genera­tion, most biologists accepted some formof evolution, though many would not credit natural selec­tion with all thechanges.  From biology,evolutionary ideas spread into other academic fields.  By the beginning of this century the idea was becomingpopular that religion, too, could be ex­plained by evolutionary process­es.  Even the Old Testa­ment came to beviewed by many as evolving from primitive ideas and folk­tales inge­niouslycombined by editors, but now discovered and dissected by the patient detectivework of literary scholars.  Thisapproach is now widely advocated in New Testament circles also.[10]

 

Reactions in Christendom

 

Religious responses to Darwin have beenquite diverse, ranging from atheism to fundamentalism. 

Atheism. Atheism did not get its start with evolution.  The French Revolu­tion had its share of atheists; therewere some among the ancient Greeks, Indians and Chinese; and the Bibleindicates that even in David's time some thought there was no God.[11] Nevertheless, the impact of Darwinfor atheism on Chris­tendom was immense.  Radical social­ists lionized Darwin, so great was theirappreci­a­tion for the help evolution provided in giving scientificcredi­bility to athe­ism.[12]  And many others found in evolution area­son for abandon­ing Christian­ity.  The Blind-Watchmaker version of evolu­tion has been apowerful recruiter for atheism and agnosti­cism.

 

Theological Liberalism. The major Protes­tant departure from orthodox Christian­ity ispartly due to evolu­tion, as the theory grew to domi­nate secularculture and was inte­grated into various forms of theolog­ical liberal­ism.[13]  The truth of Scrip­ture wasrejected while Chris­tian­ity was reinter­preted in variousways.  These ideas spread in themainline denomina­tions from seminary and college to pulpit and pew,producing results ranging from atheism with its Blind-Watchmaker evolu­tionto milder forms of liber­alism holding theistic evolu­tion.[14]  Similar phe­nome­na oc­curredin Roman Ca­thol­i­cism and, to a lesser extent, Eastern Ortho­doxy.[15]

 

Within evangelical Christendom, where (bydefini­tion) the Bible is accepted as a real revelation from God, reactionshave been somewhat different.[16] 

 

Theistic Evolution. A small minority of evangelicals (but typically many of those withscientific train­ing) have felt that the biological and geological evidencefor evolu­tion is over­whelming. These have adopted some form of theistic evolution, in which God workedprovidentially through natural laws and long ages to produce the diversity ofliving things we see today.  Beingevangelicals, the inspiration of Scripture is retained, though not always itsinerrancy. 

 

Some of these have taken Genesis chap­terstwo and three to be para­bles, denying there was a literal Adam and Eve andclaim­ing a whole population of apes gradually evolved into humans.  In this view, sin is a natural resultof developing moral machin­ery and our making bad choices.  We might call this variety"No-Adam theistic evolution."[17] 

 

Others take Genesis 2 and 3 moreliterally, believing that God remod­elled a particular ape-man to becomeAdam by putting a soul within him, and made Eve from his side.  This pair turned away from God asnarrated in Scrip­ture.  Wemight call this view "Adam theistic evolu­tion."[18]  Both of these views can be foundoutside evangeli­calism also.

 

Old-Earth Creation. A larger minority of evangelicals have felt that geological andastronomical evidence for an old earth and universe is overwhelming (andconsistent with biblical teaching), but that there are serious scien­tificproblems for any type of so-called macro-evolution Cthe natural development of all living things from one or a few simplelife-forms.  These evan­gelicalshave a variety of ways of interpreting the Genesis account:  some see a gap between Gen 1:1 and 1:2,[19]others see gaps between each of the Genesis days,[20]and still others have the days lasting for ages.[21]  Typi­cal­ly old-earthcreationists see God inter­ven­ing miraculously to create the universe,life, each basic kind of living things (including mankind), and possi­blyat other points if providen­tial guidance of natural processes would beunable to produce the desired results.

 

Young-Earth Creation. The majority of evangeli­cals, appar­ently, have felt that theGenesis account, simply interpreted, points to a creation only a few thousandyears ago, in the space of six literal days.[22]  The date of creation has been variouslyestimated, from six thousand to ten thou­sand years ago, with some suggestingeven older values.[23]  The amount of variation that is thoughtto have occurred since creation also varies.  Some hold that all species were created at the begin­ning;others that only the basic kinds were created, and that all the varieties of cats(say) C lions, pumas, housecats Chave developed since creation or even since the Flood.[24] 

 

Needless to say, young-earth creationistshave viewed much of modern science with great suspicion, some even claimingthat science began to go wrong with Copernicus when the earth was removed fromthe center of the universe.[25]  A number of young-earth creationistshave developed various forms of cre­ation-science, most claiming that thegeologic strata can be explained by Noah's flood,[26]some that quantum physics and rela­tiv­ity theory are wrong,[27]and one at least that the whole uni­verse is only a few light-years indiameter, billions of times smaller than scientists think.[28]

 

In less than two centuries a profoundchange has occurred in the relations between science and evangelical Christian­ity.  Early in the 19th century, mostorthodox Chris­tians viewed science as on their side and atheists asprofoundly anti-scien­tific (though atheists would have objected stronglyto this).  Today, many evangelicalssee science and atheism as on the same side against Christianity, and atheistswould heartily agree.

 

In this paper, we suggest this assessmentis badly mistaken, partly because of errors by both scientists and theolo­gians.  In the following sections let us lookfirst at scien­tific problems for the Blind-Watchmak­er form ofevolution, problems on which all varieties of evangel­icals should be ableto agree.  If these problems reallyexist, this information needs to be widely disseminated, because it underminesthe claims of secu­larists to be realists, and raise serious questionsabout where secularism is taking society C questions which are also being raisedfrom other quarters as people consider what has been happening to our culturein recent years.[29]

 

Second, let us look at problems shared byboth Blind-Watch­maker and theistic forms of evolution, problems on whichboth young-earth and old-earth creationists should be able to agree.  If these problems were widelyrecognized, they could perhaps help theological liberals see the weakness oftheir own position, and decrease the losses that continue to occur amongevangelicals, where doubts raised about biblical reliability still draw manyyoung students into various forms of theolog­ical liberalism.

 

Third we will look at some problemsfacing young-earth creationism, problems on which nearly all geologists andastrono­mers agree.  Theseproblems constitute an enor­mous stumbling block to Christian faith forthose trained in the sciences, keeping many such people from seriously consid­eringthe claims of Christ and the Bible.

 

Lastly, we will suggest that an old-earthcreation alterna­tive has substantial advantages over other views onorigins, even though it is not without its own problems.

 

Problems for "Blind-Watchmaker"Evolution

 

Origin of life. Darwin himself wrote little on the question of how life might haveoriginated.  He did speculate thatperhaps the necessary organic material could have self-assembled in a warm pondsomewhere.[30] 

 

Another century of biochemistry has notgone much beyond this, except to call for a whole ocean of organic"soup" formed by ultraviolet radiation and an atmosphere withoutoxygen.  Even then, a number ofwarm ponds would have been neces­sary (each with different chemi­calenvironments and shielded from the sun) to concentrate the soup and form thevarious amino acids, sugars and nucleic acids needed. These would later have tobe carefully mixed in the right sequences, propor­tions, concen­trationsand acidities to give the desired re­sult.[31]

 

The problem is that even the simplestlife is not simple. The more we study the origin of life, the more complex lifeseems to be.  Carl Sagan calculatedthat the sim­plest form of bacteria has an information content equiva­lentto one hundred million pages of the Encyclopaedia Britanni­ca.[32]  For a Blind Watchmaker to buildsomething of this sort purely by chance is like a tornado assem­bl­ingan airplane from a junk yard![33]

 

Knowing this, evolutionists havespeculated that the first life was far simpler than anything existing today Csimple enough to have come together by chance.  Such primeval life must then have evolved into the morecomplex life detect­able in the fossil record, meanwhile eating up alltraces of its ancestry.[34]  But at­tempts to estimate thecomplexity of the simplest possible life-forms using computer simulations ofself-reproducing automa­tons do not not suggest that these would haveformed by chance in a universe that is only some billions of years old and aslarge as ours is.[35]

 

Yet imprints in rock strata have beenfound that look like fossils of simple algaes.  Some of these appear to be older than three billion years,almost as soon as the earth would have cooled off enough to support life![36]  This leaves little time for life tohave developed on earth, so some have speculated that life was seeded on theearth from outside.[37]  In a Blind-Watch­maker scenario,God is not avail­able for this task, which must be left to spores driftingthrough space or their descendants sending spaceships.  Obviously this does not solve theproblem of how that life got started elsewhere, for which the universe does notappear to have the probabilistic resources.[38]

 

The Darwinian Mechanism. Leaving aside this question, the main scientific attraction of Darwin'sproposal was his concept of natural selection working upon existing varietyamong living things to produce better and better organisms.  This can be pictured in such a way thatit appears to be obviously true, and several early readers of Origin ofSpecies marvelled thatno one had noticed it before. 

 

Clearly, much variety exists among livingplants and animals C color, shape, wing-length, etc.  In a particular environment, some ofthese varia­tions are more likely to survive or prosper than others, andthose with the favored variations will eventual­ly come to dominate thepopulation.  Thus Darwin (and hisfollow­ers) felt that it was inevitable that any group of plants or animalswould improve in its ability to function in a given environment or becomeextinct.  And since life in thefossil record was once much simpler than now, all this complexity must havedevel­oped naturally by the random formation of new varieties and thenatural selection among these varieties of those best suited to survive.  How could such a simple model bewrong?  And if not, what do we needGod for?

 

The analogy to breeding might well befaulty, however.  It is not obviousthat purposeless selection is analogous to pur­poseful; thatnon-intelligent selection is analogous to intelli­gent; nor that the formercan produce limitless develop­ment just because the latter produceslimited!  And the experi­enceof plant and animal breeders has consistently shown that there are limitswithin which a plant or animal can be changed.  Dogs have been bred over the centu­ries which are assmall as cats or as large as ponies, but not as small as mice or as large asele­phants.  But perhaps thisis just a problem that the dog popula­tion does not contain the rightmutations.  Perhaps if we hadthousands or millions of years instead of hundreds, or if we artificiallyinduced more muta­tions, this could be over­come.  Perhaps.  But scientists have now worked for most of this centurybreeding bacteria and fruit flies, both of which have far shorter repro­ductiontimes and thus many more generations in just a few years.  They have also greatly increased thespeed of mutation by expos­ing their speci­mens to radiation.  Yet even so, they have found notendency for these organisms to keep changing indefi­nitely in a givendirec­tion, but rather barriers beyond which change does not occur.  There seem to be fixed limits beyondwhich the specimens cannot function.[39]

 

The same seems to be true in the fossilrecord.  Although Darwinian theorywould predict the gradual accumulation of small changes as the source of alllarge differences among living things, it has been known since before Darwin'stime that the major life-forms appear in the fossil record suddenly, withoutsmooth transitions from previous forms. Darwin (and most evolu­tionists) have explained this as due to gapsin the fossil record rather than lack of actual transitions.[40]  But as our knowl­edge of the fossilrecord has improved, these gaps have shown no tendency to go away.[41]  Sudden appearance of new forms is char­ac­teristicof the fossil record. 

 

In the 1930s, a new version of evolutionwas developed (a synthe­sis with genetics, called the "newsynthesis" or "Neo-Darwinism") in which all important changestook place in small isolated groups of a given organism.[42]  Since these would be less likely toshow up in the fossil record, this was supposed to account for sudden appear­ances.  In the 1970s, another model wasproposed (called "punctu­ated equilibria") to account for thefact that species of living things typically show little evidence of changeover their history, not only showing up suddenly in the fossil record, butremaining about the same until the present or whenever they became extinct.[43]  Although this latter model fits the fossilrecord better than the old Darwinism or the New Synthesis, it is hard to fitwith genetic models of how evolu­tion should work![44]  These features in the fossil record Csud­den appear­ance and stability (or stasis) Care not what one would expect from mutation and natural selec­tion.

 

Attempts have been made to model mutationand natural selection by means of computer simulations.[45]  For example, a few letters of thealphabet or a given sentence are subjected to random changes, eitherreplacements or additions of other let­ters.  Those results which spell English words or make sense inEnglish are retained as survivors; the rest are viewed as becom­ingextinct.  Here, too, the resultsare not favorable to the idea that Dar­win's mechanism will explain thediversity of present-day life. Instead, muta­tion tends to destroy meaning in the informa­tionsystems which serve as models for living things rather than creating newmeanings for natural selection to work on.[46]

 

Design in Inanimate Nature. A third problem for the Blind-Watchmaker model of evolution arises fromthe apparent evidence of design outside biology, which has become more obvi­ousin recent years.[47]  Physicists have noted that the fourbasic forc­es known to exist in nature are delicately balanced so that lifecan exist.  If the value of thevarious constants that mark the strength of these forces were ever so slightlydifferent than they are, life would not exist anywhere in our universe.  If gravity were slightly stronger orweaker, the universe would never have formed stars or planets. If the strongnuclear force were slightly stronger, there would be no hydrogen in the uni­verse;if slightly weaker, nothing but hydrogen. Comparable problems arise if the values of the elec­tro­magneticforce and the weak interaction were different.[48]

 

The usual Blind-Watchmaker reaction tothese problems is to deny that any sort of design or Designer is involvedhere.  It is admitted that if these(and many other) constants were not just right, there would be no life in theuniverse.  But if there were nolife in the universe, we wouldn't be here to observe the universe!  So any universe with observers musthave such apparent design even if there is no Designer. This response is true,but only in the same sense that if your mother and father had never met, youwouldn't be here, either!  It is noexplanation in the scientific sense of providing an adequate cause for thephenomena observed. 

 

In brief, the Blind-Watchmaker version ofevolution suffers from the problem of explaining the rise of organization:  the inanimate universe looks much moreorderly than one would ante­cedently expect; and the organized complexityand diversity of living things look more like life is the result of a Designerthan that it happened by chance, even chance working within the constraints ofnatural selection.[49]

 

Problems for Theistic Evolution

 

Let us turn to theistic evolution.  But rather than begin­ning with itsproblems, let us note some of its advantages. 

 

Advantages over B-W Evolution. Theistic forms of evolution solve a huge problem facing Blind-Watchmakerevolution.  In a theistic model,there is a Mind behind the universe, designing just the form of physical lawsnecessary to support life, so that a near-infinity of universes are notnecessary in order to hit on one that has the right stuff.  The Designer also can guide the courseof physical events which actually take place in this universe so that life canarise and diversify on a scale and within time-periods that would be impossiblein a universe without mind.  Thisdifference between Blind-Watchmaker evolution and theistic evolution is likethat between the time necessary for a typist to type "Now is the time forall good men to come to the aid of their party" and waiting for achimpanzee to do the same![50]  Theistic evolution thus solves themajor prob­lem that besets mindless universes in producing the kind of lifethat actually exists in our own universe.

 

Shared problems with B-W Evolution. But theistic evolution has its own problems, and not all of these relateto interpreting Genesis.  As wementioned under Blind-Watchmaker evolu­tion, the fossil record ischaracterized by gaps between all the major biological types.  It is as though each of the major kindsof plants and animals appeared on earth suddenly, rather than slowly developingfrom the organisms that were there al­ready.  This is not what one would expect if God were working onlyby guiding natural process­es to produce the diversity of living things.

 

But perhaps God worked by producing quicktransitions in the relevant plant or animal for each of these gaps.  If we postulate that God introducedjust the right (say) 75 mutations in a reptile so that its children would bebirds,[51]we could easily negotiate any chasm in the fossil record.  Such a model would be theistic allright, but would it be evolution? Jesus might easily have changed water into wine by introducing a mere 75"mutations" in the water molecules, but this would be as much of amiracle as if he had annihilated some of the water molecules and created therelevant molecules for wine in their place.  Such a model is better labelled a form of old-earthcreationism rather than theistic evolution.

 

Of course, when we speak of these newplants or animals appearing "suddenly" in the fossil record, weshould not think the record is detailed enough to show that one day there wereno birds and the next day there were. The transition time might be many thousands of years.  But the lack of transitional fossils isstill a serious problem for the idea that the change was merely a guidedsequence of natural events, not to mention the problem have having all theintermediates be functional.  Toget (say) 75 mutations together in a population that is minuscule compared withthe whole reptile population, and to do this again and again for each of themajor gaps in the biological classification scheme, is divine intervention ofsuch a sort as makes Peter's finding the coin in the fish's mouth seem trivial!  No wonder Blind-Watchmakerevolutionists consider theistic evolution a disguised form of creationism![52]

 

In addition to this, the"shape" or "pattern" of the fossil record is wrong for boththeistic and Blind-Watchmaker evolution. Accord­ing to both, evolution has proceeded by small changesgradually producing big effects. In this sort of scheme, an organism ought first to diversify intovarious varieties, which then diverge into species, then into the higherbiological subdivisions (gen­era, families, orders, classes and phyla),producing an expanding "cone" of diverse life.  In fact, virtual­ly all the phylaappear suddenly at the Cambrian "explosion," and all future diversityoccurs within these basic body plans that showed up at that time.[53]

 

Problems for Bible-believing theisticevolutionists.  Theis­tic evolu­tionists who donot accept Scripture don't bother trying to harmonize with it.  (But neither do they have any warrantfor calling upon its author­ity for knowledge about God and life.)  But those theistic evolu­tionistswho do accept Scripture as reliable revela­tion from the Creator must alsodeal with problems the Bible raises for their view. 

 

For no-Adam theistic evolu­tion­ists,we must ask, "Are Genesis chapters 2-3 really only para­bles?"  How do we know this?  The author tells us nothing that wouldindicate this.  What contextualclues indicate that this is the case? If our clues come from science rather than Scripture, what are theseclues and how do they show us that it is theistic evolution rather thanold-earth creation that is correct? How do we learn from either Scripture or science that there never was ahistoric Adam?  If there never wassuch an Adam, then the fall of humanity must have taken place in a ratherdifferent way than pictured in the Genesis account.  If this account is strongly parabolic, why not the accountsregarding God's solution to human sin? Maybe the materials about Jesus aren't historical either.[54]  You see the implications of this lineof thinking.  We should examine ourreasons for going this way very carefully before we set out.

 

For Adam theistic evolutionists, we ask,"Was Adam really a re­modelled ape-man?"  If so, why didn't the Genesis accountmake this clearer?  Surely, itwould have been easy to say that Adam was made from another animal, even if thefirst readers had no specific word for an ape.  Why does the author of Genesis 2 say that when God breathedinto the nostrils of the first man, he became a living being? Though the phrase is sometimes used to speak of the human soul, in thecontext of Genesis 1-2 it is used for non-human sea life and land life,including the animals named by Adam.[55]  So according to Genesis 2, it wasn'tuntil God breathed upon Adam that he became a living (or breath­ing) being,not the sort of description that suggests Adam was previously a living ape.

 

Theistic evolution thus faces someserious problems both scientifically and biblically.

 

Problems for Young-Earth Creation

 

The major problems facing the view thatGod created every­thing just a few thousand years ago are largelyscientific.  They can be grouped intwo categories:  evidence that theearth and universe are much older than this, and problems facing the flood ofNoah as an adequate explanation for the geologic strata.

 

Evidence for an old earth. The first of these, and one of the easiest to understand, is the

evidence from astronomy that nearly allthe visible universe is millions to billions of light-years away from us, andtherefore the time necessary for light to reach us from the most distant partsof the universe is billions of years rather than thousands.  If (1) these objects really are at thedistances they appear to be; if (2) light really does travel at 186,000 milesper second; and if (3) the light rays really left the objects they image, thenthe uni­verse (at least) is billions of years old. Young-earth creation­istshave attacked each of these assumptions, but their arguments in each case looklike special pleading rather than trying to follow the evidence where itleads.  For in­stance, if weattempt to cram all the stars, galaxies, and quasars into a volume of a fewthou­sand light-years, we wind up with little, dinky stars that cannot holdthem­selves together or burn.[56]  If we argue that the speed of light haschanged drasti­cally since creation, we find that all the people and air onearth would have floated away from the planet even as recently as the times ofthe early patri­archs.[57]  If we argue that God cre­at­edmost of the light in the universe already nearly here, and that it never reallyleft the objects it pictures, we involve God in the creation of an enor­mousamount of fictitious history.[58]                   

 

The actual number of fossils in theearth's geologic strata is also much too large to suggest a young earth.  If we assume that most of these werelaid down in a year by the flood, we wind up with a situation in whichorganisms must have lived in piles many feet deep early in earth's history![59]

 

The most common method scientists use todate ancient rocks and fossils depends on the fact that some atom­icelements are unstable and tend to break up by ejecting pieces of theirnuclei.  These radioactive decayevents are not individual­ly predict­able, but statistically are veryregular, with one half of the mass of a given element decaying to its daughterproduct within an experimentally known time we call the half-life.  Elements with very short half-lives(thousands or millions of years) are not found in nature except under circum­stanceswhere they appear to be the product of the decay of some heavier, longer-livedele­ment.  Ages for rocks foundthis way are (with the typical problems and exceptions found in all experimen­talwork) regularly consistent with a geologic history of the earth mea­suredin billions rather than thousands of years.[60]

 

Likewise, we find buried in the earth orexposed at its surface large masses of igneous rock which show themselves miner­allyto have once been in a molten state. The time neces­sary for the larger of such masses to cool to their presenttemperatures is much longer than a few thousand years.[61]

 

Very strong evidence for an old earth isfound in the corre­lation of several measurements which give indepen­dent,cumulative witness to the age of various geological forma­tions.  For in­stance, geologists nowbelieve the earth's crust is com­posed of a number of "thin"plates which move around on top of the mantle, producing volcanoes andearthquakes.  These plates aremoving at about one inch per year, and therefore would have moved only a fractionof a mile if the earth is just a few thousand years old, but some thousands ofmiles for an old earth.  The shapesof various continents and details of their rock formations show us that thesecontinents were once together and have now moved thousands of miles apart.  Young earth creationists thus have tosuppose that these conti­nents were once moving miles per year to coverthese distances, even though direct measure­ments by satel­lites todaygive the one-inch result.  Andradioac­tive decay ages in the igneous rock laid down where these platesare coming apart also fits the inch per year speed.  So does the increasing depth of sediment found as one movesaway from these rifts.  And so doesthe direction and strength of magnetism left in the hardened igneous rocks soproduced.  The Scriptural ruleregarding the testimony of multi­ple witnesses should make Chris­tiansvery cautious about dismiss­ing this evidence.[62]

 

More could be said.[63]  But in a quick sketch this shouldsuffice to show that there really are serious problems with the claim that theearth is only a few thousand years old and that biased, anti-Christianscientists are just twisting the data to make the earth look older.

 

Inadequacy of flood geology. Flood geology is the name commonly given to the theory that nearly allthe geologic strata were laid down in the one-year flood of Noah's time ratherthan over a period of millions or billions of years as most geologistsclaim. 

 

If the earth really is young, there isthe enormous problem of explaining why the earth is covered with miles of rockwhich give every appearance of being hardened from once-soft sedi­ments.  Where did all this sediment comefrom?  Did God create it in place,with all its fossils, just to mislead those who wouldn't believe His Word?  Most Christians who have anyfamiliarity with geology are uneasy with the idea that animal bones, fossilclamshells and petrified wood never were living things.  Flood geology is an attempt to explainthese phenomena more naturally within a young-earth perspective.  All these fossils really were livingthings, but they died and were deposited in the sediments caused by Noah'sflood.

 

Although flood geology often looksimpressive to those untrained in geology, a large amount of embarrassing datais available to show that it will not do what it promises Cprovide a natural explanation for the earth's rock layers.

 

For one thing, small but significantparts of these layers are made up of types of rock which are laid down by windin desert areas rather than by water under the sea.  It is hard to see how these types of formations could haveoccurred in the midst of a worldwide flood covering all the high hills, asflood geolo­gists believe. Particularly when such strata are not just found in the topmost layer ofrock, where one might suppose some desert conditions as the waters receded, butalso buried under even thousands of feet of strata that according to floodgeology were laid on top no more than a few days later!  The same could be said of river-typestrata found throughout the geologic column.[64]

 

The presence of fine layering in certainstrata is another problem.  Thereare a number of places in the world where there are thousands or even millionsof layers consisting of pairs (or triplets) of different types of rock, usuallyalternating clay-sand layers, or layers of different types of salts. These areeasily ex­plained in traditional geology as annual deposits in bodies ofwater, the clay-sand types as summer/winter deposits in temperate lakes and thesalt types in tropical bays where seawa­ter almost completely evaporated eachsummer before new water washed in. But in flood geology, we have only one year to form such struc­tures,even ignoring what are often thousands of feet of sediment both above and belowsuch strata.  In such a case, onemust postulate carefully coordinated waves bringing in fine silt from onedirection and sand from another and depositing it at the rate of one layer everyfew seconds over many square miles for a year![65]

 

Such layers are not just plain,featureless grains of salt, silt or sand, either.  In the tropical cases, one finds bird­nests, eggshells,feces and tracks that indicate the area was inhabited by seabirds while theaccumulation was going on, a pretty neat trick when the area was under hundredsof feet of water!  In the clay-sandcases, one layer will usually have much more pollen and vegetable matter thanthe other, as we would expect for seasonal deposits on the bottom of a lakethat freezes over in winter, but not in a huge flood in which tidal waves areenvisioned as sloshing around great masses of sediment.

 

Not only do we have these features in therock record, but we also have many examples which show that the lower layers ofsediment had hardened into rock before the upper layers were added, not thesort of thing one would expect if everything was done in a one-year flood.  There are potholes with vertical sides,something that would never form in loose sediment, but quite common in riverbottoms where hard pebbles grind holes in softer (but solid) rock.  There are seashells that have beenplaned off by erosion, indicating that their lower parts were held firmly bysolid rock while the upper parts were eroding, rather than sitting in loosesediment where they would merely have washed away.[66]

 

This, too, is not a complete list of thetroubles faced by flood geology;[67]but it is enough to show that we cannot expect to help unbelieving geologistscome to Christ by glibly repeating such speculation as though it were theteaching of the Bible.

 

 

The Old-Earth Creation Alternative

 

We turn now to a third evangelicalalternative for handling the biblical and scientific data relating toorigins.  Though not withoutproblems of its own, I believe something of this sort has far more promise thaneither theistic evolution or young-earth creation for reconciling the data.

 

Advantages. The major advantage of some sort of old-earth creation is that it takesboth the text of the Bible and the "text" of nature seriously, thatis, as inerrant and relatively straight-forward.  This is in contrast to theistic evolution, which tends tosee the account of the creation of mankind in Genesis 2 as parabolic(fictitious history), and in contrast to young-earth creation which tends tosee light from distant astronomical objects as telling us what they would havebeen doing if they had existed so long ago, also fictitious history.

 

The Bible provides us with warrant to seeboth Scripture and nature as God's revelation.  Theologians speak of nature as God's "generalrevelation" and of Scripture as his "special revela­tion,"basing their views on Psalm 19 ("The heavens declare the glory ofGod...") and Romans 1:20 and context (God's divine nature clearly seenthrough what has been made).  Bothrevela­tions are inerrant in the sense that God cannot lie.  This does not mean that fallible humaninterpreters cannot draw wrong conclusions from either, nor that at any pointin history we will know enough to be able to harmonize them correctly in allmat­ters.  It does mean thatharmonization is ultimately the right strategy, allowing for the range ofspeech figures which the Bible can be shown to use elsewhere, and for the factthat humans (including theologians and scientists) often jump to conclu­sionson the basis of inadequate data.

 

Problems. Any model which opts for harmonization is going to look like compromiseand needless complication to purists on either side who take their data"straight" and think their opponents are ignorant or wicked.  Harmonization, in fact, does typical­lyproduce more complicated models than those con­structed to be the simplestpossible fitting only Scripture or only nature.  We should not be surprised at this.  The same thing happens in biblicalinterpretation when we attempt to harmonize parallel passages, or in sciencewhen we try to recon­cile data from two differ­ent disci­plines.  The Gospel accounts of the birth ofJesus, for instance, each contain significant material not mentioned in theother.  Both Matthew and Luke haveJesus born of a Virgin in Bethlehem, but Matthew recounts the visit of the Magiand the flight to Egypt, whereas Luke narrates the dedication at the temple andthe return to Nazareth.  Liberaltheologians delight to point out the "contra­dictions" here, butall are easily harmonized as long as one does not require that either accountbe read in the simplest way possible.[68]

 

Another problem young-earth creationistsespecially have with old-earth models is that such models have death before thefall of Adam and Eve.  Not humandeath, but plant and animal death, as the fossil record is certainly a recordof dead plants and animals. "This cannot be," they say, "for it was in Adam thatdeath entered the world."  Thepassage usually cited, however, Rom 5:12-21, only specifically speaks of deathcoming upon mankind.  It is notobvious that Paul intends us to under­stand that plants and animalsoriginally had eternal life.  Thismay not be the traditional understanding of the matter, but tradition has notalways been right, either.

 

Conclusions

 

Priorities among evangelicals. It would be great if Chris­tians could come to an agreement onorigins (particularly if it were the way God actually did it), thus presentinga united front to the world we are trying to reach.  But given the diver­sity of opinion among evangeli­calson how to relate the biblical and scientific data, it is unlikely this willhappen.  Certain­ly, thehistory of Christianity in solving disagree­ments over bap­tism,worship, church government, future things, pacifism, Bible versions, andtongues does not provide much encourage­ment here.  I fear that this disagree­ment,like those, will be with us until the Lord returns.

 

Even so, it is desirable that we keep oureyes on the chief business for which Christ established his church: to makedisci­ples for Jesus and to teach them obedience to His commands.

We need to handle the origins question,like these others, in such a way as to attract people to the Gospel rather thanrepel­ling them.  Butunbelievers can be repelled not only by divisions between Christians, but alsoby the belief that Christianity is merely wishful thinking and notintellectually honest.

 

In this regard, we need to do what we canto end the control mili­tant secularists have over the agenda regardingpublic discus­sion of origins. To hear most media presentations, one would think that allBible-believers are snake-han­dlers, and that only some sort ofBlind-Watchmaker evolution can be serious­ly considered science.  We need to become suffi­cientlyfamiliar with the evidence and questions at issue that we can at least recom­mendscientifically sound materi­als to those in our circles of influence.  For example, we need to help others seethat science already has tools by which to recognize the presence of mind, andis not therefore at a total loss to detect the activity of God in nature.[69]

 

Those Christians who are convinced thatthe Bible teaches a young earth will want to defend this in serving theLord.  Those of us who areconvinced that this is not how God created, and that young-earth creationism isa formidable stum­bling block to many in coming to Christ, will want peopleto realize that this is not the only Christian alternative.  All of us should recog­nize that wemay be wrong in our views of origins and our inter­pretations of nature andScripture, and we should be open to evaluate both our own arguments and thoseof others.  We must not let ourpresuppositions so control us that we are not open to the actual evidenceregarding origins.

 

One of Satan's best tactics in opposingthe truth is confu­sion.  Wemust not let him get away with this by shifting back and forth on meanings of"evolution" and getting Christians to spend most of their effortsattacking each other.  Christianscould agree on countering the Blind Watchmaker approach, and we ought to devotea considerable fraction of our efforts in this direction, for the sake ofbelievers and unbelievers alike.[70]

 

 

References:

 


[1]. A shortenedversion of a paper presented at the National Conference of the Christian LegalSociety, October 16, 1993.

[2]. Director,Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute (PO Box 423, Hatfield, PA 19440);Professor of New Testament, Bibli­cal Theological Seminary (200 N. MainSt., Hatfield, PA 19440).

[3]. Richard Dawkins, TheBlind Watchmaker (New York: Norton, 1986).  This usage has been popularized by Phillip E. Johnson,  espe­cial­ly in his paper"The Religion of the Blind Watchmak­er," Perspec­tives onScience and Christian Faith 45 (March, 1993): 46-48.  Dawkins agrees that biological organisms are very complexand appear to be designed, but argues that this apparent design is an illusionproduced by the mindless Darwinin­ian mechanism.

[4]. Darwin's movementinto agnosticism is sketched in David Herbert, Darwin's ReligiousViews:  From Creationist to Evolu­tionist (London, Ontario:Hersil Publications, 1990); see also Francis Darwin, ed., The Autobiographyof Charles Darwin and Selected Letters (1892; reprint New York: Dover, 1958), ch. 3,"Religion"; Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin:  The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist (New York: WarnerBooks, 1992).

[5]. Charles Darwin, TheOrigin of Species (1859; 6th ed., 1872; reprint New York: Collier, 1937),chs. 12-13.

[6]. Darwin, Originof Species, ch. 11.

[7]. Davis A. Young, Christianityand the Age of the Earth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982); Charles CoulstonGillispie, Genesis and Geology (New York: Harper and Row, 1959).

[8]. Darwin, Originof Species, ch. 1.

[9]. Dawkins, BlindWatchmaker.

[10]. Julius Wellhausen,Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel (1878; reprint NewYork:  Meridian, 1957); S. R.Driver, An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (1897; reprint NewYork:  Meridian, 1956).  Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover and theJesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (New York:Polebridge and Macmillan, 1993); note the comment on page 1 about Darwin andthe Scopes Trial.

[11]. G. A. Jones,"Atheism," The Encyclopedia of Religion (New York:Macmillan, 1987) 1:479-490; Psalm 14:1.

[12]. Desmond and Moore,Tormented Evolutionist, pp. 538-543, 601-602, 626-628, 643-645.

[13]. Adolf von Harnack,What is Christianity? (1900; reprint New York: Harper and Row, 1957); J.Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Grand Rapids:Eerdmans, 1923); William Hordern, A Layman's Guide to Protestant Theology, rev. ed. (NewYork: Macmil­lan, 1962).

[14]. Ernest Gordon, TheLeaven of the Sadducees (Wheaton, IL: Church League of America, 1976); C. GregSinger, A Theological Interpretation of American History (Philadelphia:Presbyterian and Reformed, 1964); Wilfred K. Cauthen, The Impact of AmericanReligious Liberalism (New York: Harper and Row, 1962).

[15]. Alec R. Vidler, TheModernist Movement in the Roman Church (Cambridge: University Press, 1934); Thomas M. Loome, LiberalCatholicism, Reform Catholicism, Modernism (Mainz: Matthias-GrŸnewald, 1979);see also the four articles on evolution and evolutionism in the New CatholicEncyclopedia (1967), 5:671-696; Nicolas Zernov, Eastern Christendom (London:Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1961), pp. 203-204; Sergius Bulgakov, The OrthodoxChurch (New York: Morehouse, c1935), p. 100; Athenagoras Kokkina­kis, AnInterorthodox Theological Debate (Leighton Buzzard, Beds., UK: Faith Press, 1973), pp.92-98.

[16]. See, e.g., thedifferent views espoused in Ronald Youngblood, ed., Genesis Debate 2nd ed. (GrandRapids: Baker, 1990); also the bibli­ogra­phy by Tom McIver, Anti-Evolution (Jefferson, NC:McFarland, 1988; reprint Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1992), though not all of theauthors listed here are evangelical.

[17]. My terminology;see, Richard H. Bube, "Biblical Evolu­tion­ism?" Journalof the American Scientific Affiliation 23 (1971): 140-144.  Howard Van Till's concept of "functionalintegrity" seems to imply this sort of human evolution; see his remarks inThe Fourth Day (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), ch. 12, pp. 249-271;"God and Evolution: An Exchange," First Things (June/July 1993):32-41; and the remarks of John Stek and Van Till in Por­traits of Cre­ation (Grand Rapids:Eerdmans, 1990), pp. 261, 272-277.

[18]. Also myterminology; e.g., David L. Dye, Faith and the Physical World (Grand Rapids:Eerdmans, 1966), 136-150; James M. Houston, "The Origin of Man," Journalof the American Scientific Affiliation 34 (1982): 1-5.

[19]. Arthur C.Custance, Without Form and Void (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974); J. Vernon McGee, Genesis:Volume I (Pasadena, CA: Through the Bible Books, 1980); John R. Schroeder, Answersfrom Genesis (Pasadena, CA: Ambassador College, 1973); A. G. Tilney, WithoutForm and Void (Hayling Isl., Hants., U.K.: Evolution Protest Movement, 1970); DonWardell, God Created (Winona Lake, IN: privately publ., 1984); notes onGenesis 1 in old Scofield Reference Bible (New York: Oxford, 1917), pp. 3-6.

[20]. See Dallas E.Cain, "Creation and Capron's Explanatory Inter­pretation (c 1902): ALiterature Search," IBRI Research Report 27 (1986) for asurvey of a number of authors advocating different varieties of this view;three recent examples are:  RobertJ. Dunzweiler, "A Proposed Creationist Alternative to Evolution­ism,"IBRI Research Report 12 (1983); Alan Hayward, Creation and Evolution: theFacts and the Falla­cies (London: Triangle/SPCK, 1985); Robert C. Newman andHerman J. Eckelmann, Jr. Genesis One and the Origin of the Earth (InterVarsity,1977; reprint Hat­field, PA: IBRI, 1989).

[21]. Irwin Ginsburgh, FirstMan, Then Adam!  A Scientific Inter­pretationof the Book of Genesis (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975); Hershel H. Hobbs,The Origin of All Things: Studies in Genesis (Waco, TX: Word, 1975); Russell W. Maatman, TheBible, Natural Science, and Evolution (Grand Rapids: Reformed Fellow­ship, 1970); Cora A.Reno, Evolution on Trial (Chicago: Moody, 1970); Francis A. Schaeffer, Genesisin Space and Time (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity, 1972); Davis A.Young, Creation and the Flood: An Alternative to Flood Geology and TheisticEvolution (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977).

[22]. According to JamesMoore, "The Creationist Cosmos of Protes­tant Fundamentalism" (inFundamentalisms and Society, ed. by Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby [Chicago:University of Chicago, 1993], p. 46), about one quarter of the U. S. populationbelieves in young-earth creation. According to Religion in America (1990), about 31% believe the Bibleis God's word and to be taken literally, about 55% believe it is without error(both on p. 50) and about 33% claim to be "born again" (p. 41).  It would thus appear that amongevangelicals, the young-earth position is dominant.

[23]. For various viewsin the young-earth camp regarding the age of the earth, see Ronald L. Numbers, TheCreationists (New York: Knopf, 1992): 6000-7000 yrs, Lammerts (pp. 224, 235);9-10,000 yrs, Morris (p. 235); c 13,000 yrs, Cook (p. 313); Byron Nelson heldto about 100,000 years in 1940, but by 1948 had suggested the earth might be asold as a million years (pp. 115-116). Seventh-Day Adventists have typically held to a young earth (or solarsystem) but sometimes allowed for an old universe (pp. 134-136, 203).

[24]. For various viewsamong young-earth creationists regarding the amount of change in living thingssince creation, see Num­bers, The Creationists: basic fixity ofspecies: Byron Nelson (p. 109), L. Allen Higley (p. 114), George M. Price (pp.114, 127, with some waffling, pp. 83-85); considerable development sincecreation or since Flood: Dudley J. Whitney (p. 109), Harold W. Clark (pp. 114,124), Frank L. Marsh (pp. 129-133), H. Douglas Dean (p. 235: God created only 7or 8 basic types), Henry M. Morris (p. 235).  Walter E. Lammerts (pp. 220, 235) holds to absolute fixityexcept that God rearranged some DNA after the Flood to adapt animals to newenvironments.

[25]. Geerhardus Bouw, WithEvery Wind of Doctrine: Bib­lical, Histori­cal and Scien­tific Per­spec­tiveson Geo­centri­city (Cleve­land: Tychon­ian Soci­ety, 1984);Merrill A. Cohen, "Helio­cen­trism vs. Geo­centrism: Defi­anceor De­fense of the Gos­pel?" (Paper presented at the EasternRegional meet­ing of the Evan­gelical Theological Society, April 2,1993); R. G. Elmendorf, How to Scientifically Trap, Test and FalsifyEvolution (Bairdford, PA: Bible-Science Associ­a­tion of Western Pennsyl­va­nia,1978); Mar­shall and Sandra Hall, The Con­nection Between EvolutionTheo­ry and the Going Together of the True Church (Lak­eland,FL: P/R, 1977); James Hanson, A New Interest in Geocentri­city (Minneapo­lis:Bible-Science Associa­tion, 1979); Edward F. Hills, Space Age Science, 2nd ed. (DesMoines, IA: Creation Research Press, 1979); Walter van der Kamp, The Heartof the Matter (8611 Armstrong Ave., Burnaby, B.C., Canada, 1967).

 

[26]. George McCreadyPrice, The Fundamentals of Geology (Mt. View, CA: Pacific Press, 1913); Price, TheModern Flood Theory of Geology (New York: Revell, 1935); Alfred M. Rehwinkel, TheFlood(St. Louis: Concordia, 1951); John C. Whitcomb, Jr. and Henry M. Morris, TheGenesis Flood (Philadel­phia: Presbyterian and Re­formed, 1961).

[27]. Josemaria GonzalezBarredo, The Subquantum Ultramathematical Definition of Distance, Space andTime(Washington, DC: MIAS Press, 1984); Thomas G. Barnes, Physics of the Future (El Cajon, CA:Institute for Creation Research, 1983); Charles W. Lucas, Jr., Soli Deo Gloria (Temple Hills, MD:Church Computer Services, 1985). Not all who reject relativity or quantum mechanics are Bible-believers,however; see Petr Beckmann, Einstein Plus Two (Boulder, CO:Golem, 1987).

[28]. Harold Camping,"What is the Size of the Universe?" (Oakland, CA:  Family Radio, 1981).

[29]. E.g., Francis A.Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? (West­chester, IL: Crossway, 1983); Allan Bloom, TheClosing of the Ameri­can Mind (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987); Karl Minnin­ger,Whatever Became of Sin? (New York: Bantam, 1988); Herbert Schlossberg, Idolsfor Destruction (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1983); Charles M. Colson andJack Eckerd, Why America Doesn't Work (Dallas: Word, 1991).

[30]. Francis Darwin, Lifeand Letters of Charles Darwin (New York: Appelton, 1901), 2:202-203 note.

[31]. See the(intentionally) humorous remarks by evolutionist Robert Shapiro, Ori­gins:A Skeptics Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth (New York: Summit,1986); also Charles B. Thaxton, Walter L. Bradley and Roger L. Olsen, The Mysteryof Life's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories (New York:Philosophical Library, 1984; reprint Dallas, TX: Lewis & Stanley, 1993).

[32]. Carl Sagan,"Life," Encyclopaedia Britannica (1993), 22:966.  The whole article (pp. 964-981) gives anice survey of modern neo-Darwinian evolution, theorizing on the origin oflife, and prospects of finding life elsewhere in the universe, from aBlind-Watchmaker point of view.

[33]. "Hoyle onEvolution," Nature (12 Nov 1981): 105.

[34]. Sagan,"Life," pp. 965, 972, 973-974. See also Peter J. Bowler, Evolution: the History of an Idea (Berkeley, CA:Univer­sity of California Press, 1984), p. 302.

[35]. Robert C. Newman,"Self-Reproducing Automata and the Origin of Life," Perspectiveson Science and Christian Faith 40 (1988): 24-31; John Byl, "On Cellular Automataand the Origin of Life PSCF 41 (1989): 26-28; Robert C. Newman, "Automata andthe Origin of Life: Once Again," PSCF 42 (1990):113-114.

36. Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space, ch. 5, esp. pp.74-76; Kevin A. Maher and David J. Steven­son, "Impact Frus­trationof the Origin of Life," Nature 331 (1988): 612-614; Norman H. Sleep et al,"Annihilation of Ecosys­tems by Large Asteroid Impacts on the EarlyEarth," Nature 342 (1989): 139-142.

[37]. Hoyle andWickramasinghe, Evolution from Space; same authors, Lifecloud: TheOrigin of Life in the Universe (New York: Harper and Row, 1978); Francis Crick, LifeItself:  Its Origin and Nature (New York:  Simon and Schuster, 1981).

[38]. William A.Dembski, The Incompleteness of Scientific Natu­ralism (Evanston, IL:Apollos-Leonidas Institute, 1992); "On the Very Possibility of IntelligentDesign" (Paper presented at the International Conference on Science andBelief, Pascal Centre, Redeemer College, Ancaster, Ontario, 1992).

[39]. Wendell R. Bird, TheOrigin of Species Revisited: The Theo­ries of Evolution and of AbruptAppearance, 2 vols. (New York: Philosophical Library, 1986, 1989), 1:84-89,155-178.

[40]. Gaps in fossilrecord: Darwin, Origin of Species, ch. 10; George Gaylord Sim­pson, The MajorFeatures of Evolution (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1953), pp. 360: "Inspite of these examples [splitting and gradual divergence in a few genera,subfamilies and families], it remains true, as every paleontolo­gist knows,that most new species, genera, and families, and that nearly all new categoriesabove the level of families appear in the [fossil] record suddenly and are notled up to by known, gradual, completely continuous transitionalsequences."; Steven J. Gould, Natural History 86, no. 5 (1977):14: "The extreme rarity of transitional fossils in the fossil recordpersists as the trade secret of paleontology."; Steven M. Stanley, Macro­evolu­tion:Patterns and Process (San Francisco: Freeman, 1979), p. 82: "...de­spitethe detailed study of the Pleisto­cene mammals of Europe, not a singlevalid example is known of phyletic (gradual) transi­tion from one genus toanother."

[41]. David Raup,"Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology," Field Museum Bulletin 30, no. 1 (1979):25: "Well, here we are now, about 120 years after Darwin... ironically, wehave even fewer examples of evolutionary transi­tions than we had in Dar­win'stime.  By this I mean that some ofthe classic cases... have had to be discarded or modified." 

[42]. Bowler, Evolution, pp. 296-300;Julian S. Huxley, Evolution: the Modern Synthesis, new ed. (London:Chatto and Windus, 1963); Theodosius Dobzhansky, et al., Evolution (San Francisco:Freeman, 1977); George Gaylord Simpson, Tempo and Mode in Evolution (New York:Columbia University, 1944).

[43]. Bowler, Evolution, pp. 322-326; N.Eldridge and S. J. Gould, "Punctuated Equilibria: An Alternative toPhyletic Gradualism," in Models in Paleobiology, ed. T. J. M.Schopf (San Francisco: Freeman, Cooper and Co., 1972), pp. 82-115; David M.Raup and Steven M. Stanley, Principles of Paleontology, 2nd ed. (SanFrancisco: Freeman, 1978); Steven J. Gould and Sam Singer, A View of Life (Menlo Park, CA:Benjamin-Cummings, 1981).

[44]. J. Valentine andD. Erwin, "Interpreting Great Developmental Experiments: The FossilRecord," in Development as an Evolution­ary Process, ed. R. A. Raffand E. C. Raff (New York: Alan R. Liss, 1987), pp. 95-96.

[45]. Dawkins, BlindWatchmaker, discusses some computer programs which allegedly simulate evolution,but these are fraught with problems; see next note.

[46]. See Murray Eden,"Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientifc Theory," inPaul S. Moorhead and Martin M. Kaplan, eds., Mathematical Challenges to theNeo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution (1967; reprint New York: Alan R.Liss, 1985), p. 11; Robert C. Newman, "Computer Simulations ofEvolution" (Diskette of computer programs; Hatfield, PA: IBRI, 1990).

[47]. P. C. W. Davies, TheAccidental Universe (New York: Cam­bridge, 1982); John D. Barrow andFrank J. Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmo­logical Princi­ple (New York: Oxford,1986).

[48]. See detaileddiscussion in Hugh Ross, The Creator and the Cosmos:  How the Greatest Scientific Discoveriesof the Century Reveal God (Colorado Springs: Navpress, 1993).

[49]. Some bookssketching problems for Blind-Watchmaker evolution: Hayward, Creation andEvolution, part I, "The Genuine Scientific Objections to Darwinism";Percival Davis and Dean H. Kenyon, Of Pandas and People: The CentralQuestion of Biological Origins 2nd ed. (Dallas: Haughton, 1993); Howard J. Van Till,Davis A. Young, and Clarence Menninga, Science Held Hostage (Downers Grove,IL:  Inter-Varsity, 1988), partIII, "Science Held Hostage by Natural­ism"; Bird, The Originof Species Revisited.

[50]. Though no professionaltypist, I just typed the sentence mentioned in ten seconds.  To calculate the expectation time forthis task to be per­formed by a chimp, we will assume that the chimp istrained to type at 3 characters per second on a special monkey-proof type­writer(or word processor, if you wish). We will set the key­board to do all caps, so he/she will not need tohit the shift key simultaneously with the first letter to get started.  There are 67 characters in thesentence, counting spaces and the period at the end.  If we assume a simplified keyboard of all 26 letters of theEnglish alphabet, plus space and six punctuation marks (.,;:?!), we have 33distinct charac­ters on the keyboard, to which we will assign a key foreach.  The number of possible waysof typing 67 characters on this special typewriter will be 33 for each of the67 characters, or 33 times itself 67 times = 3367 = 5.5 x 10101.  This is a very large number!  Typing at the rate of 3 characters persecond, the chimp would be expected to have our desired sentence some­wherein his/her output in 5.5 x 10101/ 3 seconds = 5.9 x 1093years.  About 3 x 1083chimps could be ex­pected to do the job in the 20 billion year history ofthe universe, but physicists estimate that there are only about 1080elementary particles in the whole place.

[51]. This number, 75mutations, is surely much too small, perhaps by several orders ofmagnitude.  Ambrose [quoted inBird, Origin of Species Revisited, 1:88], says there may be 30-40 genes involved in asingle wing structure of the fruit fly.

[52]. E.g., William J.Benetta, ed., "Scientists Decry a Slick New Packaging ofCreationism," Science Teacher 54 (May 1987): 36-43.

[53]. See Arthur L.Battson, III, On the Origin of Stasis by Means of Natural Processes (Colorado Springs:Access Research Network, 1993), with extensive references, particularly the keypaper by Roger Lewin, "A Lopsided Look at Evolution," Science 241 (15 July 88):291-293.  The critical thinkingskills exercise in the latest edition of Price, Wiester and Hearn, TeachingScience in a Climate of Controversy (4th printing, revised [Ipswich, MA: AmericanScientific Affiliation, 1993], pp. 49ff) well illus­trates this problem.

[54]. Funk, Hoover andthe Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels, head strongly in this direction.

[55]. Gen 1:20, 21 (sealife); 1:24, 30 (land life); 2:7 (man); 2:19 (animals named by man); 9:4 (notto be eaten with their blood); 9:5 (such animals not to kill humans); 9:10(covenant re/ flood made with them, too).

[56]. Robert C. Newman,"The Evidence of Cosmology," in J. W. Montgomery, ed. Evidence forFaith:  Deciding the God Question (Dallas:Probe/Word, 1991), pp. 73-74; "Light Travel-time: Evidence for an OldUniverse," tract (Hat­field, PA: IBRI, 1993).

[57]. This is discussedin much greater detail in Robert C. Newman, "An Ancient Historical Test ofthe Setterfield-Norman Hypothe­sis," Creation Research SocietyQuarterly 28 (Sept 91): 77-78.

[58]. Newman, "TheEvidence of Cosmology," pp. 79-81; "Light Travel-Time."

[59]. Hayward, Creationand Evolution, pp. 125-126; Daniel E. Wonderly, Neglect of Geologic Data:Sedimentary Strata Compared with Young-Earth Creationist Writings (Hatfield, PA:IBRI, 1987), ch. 2.

[60]. Don L. Eicher, GeologicTime(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968); Edwin A. Olson, et al, "Geochronology,"in Encyclo­paedia Britannica (1993): 19:748-876.  Olson is an evangelical, Professor of Earth Science atWhitworth College, Spokane, WA.

[61]. Young, Creationand the Flood, pp. 177-185; Hayward, Creation and Evolution, p. 93.

[62]. Young, Creationand the Flood, pp. 198-210.

[63]. Hayward, Creationand Evolution; Newman and Eckelmann, Genesis One and the Origin of the Earth; Dan Wonderly, God'sTime-Records in Ancient Sediments: Evidence of Long Time Spans in Earth'sHistory (Flint, MI: Crystal Press, 1977; order from IBRI, POB 423, Hatfield,PA 19440); Wonderly, Neglect of Geolog­ic Data; Young, Creationand the Flood; Young, Christianity and the Age of the Earth.

[64]. See Wonderly, God'sTime-Records, fig. 26 (dune sands), pp. 194, 230-231; Wonderly, Neglect ofGeologic Data, chs. 1, 4; see also Young, Christianity and the Age of the Earth, index entriesunder "desert sedimentation" and "river sedimentation."

[65]. See Wonderly, God'sTime-Records, chs. 4-6; Wonderly, Neglect of Geologic Data, chs. 2-3;Hayward, Creation and Evolution, pp. 87-93.

[66]. Wonderly, God'sTime-Records, pp. 142-145; Wonderly, Neglect of Geologic Data, ch. 1, esp. fig.3.

[67]. Hayward, Creationand Evolution; Wonderly, God's Time-Records and Neglect of Geologic Data; Young, Creationand the Flood.

[68]. Robert C. Newman,"Synoptic Harmoniza­tion: Some Principles from History and from the Book of Acts," IBRIResearch Report 35 (1987).

[69]. See, e.g., Davisand Kenyon, Of Pandas and People.

[70]. My thanks to JohnWiester and Art Battson for helpful sugges­tions.