Evolution/Creation Free Course

The conflict between creation and evolution has escalated to a very high level in the last two decades. Almost every person has heard something on this topic without actively trying to do so. It is no longer surprising to see an article on evolution/creation in publications which have no relation to these topics.

Many Christians who never gave any attention to these subjects now find themselves in a very perplexing situation. They believe in creation but, when questioned by an enquirer or a skeptic, they don’t know what to say. Some of them even go to the extant of believing that creation is a spiritual belief while evolution is science. In the light of Logic  this is a false classification.

Logic is that branch of learning which deals with the evaluation of truth. It is the foundation on which all scientific research rests. In the light of logic, both creation as well as evolution are beliefs. Neither of them comes under the normal investigations of science. In normal investigations the object of research is available in a laboratory for observation. Experiments are performed repeatedly, and multiple observations are taken. The event under scrutiny is repeated many times. In contrast to this, neither evolution, nor creation  can be seen in a laboratory, nor can they be repeated for observation. Therefore it is wrong to think that one is a religious belief while the other is a scientific theory. Both creation as well as evolution are beliefs, and one’s choice between these two is basically a matter of faith. However, to an analytically inclined mind, there is a definite scientific method to validate one’s faith. Thanks to scientific "modeling", one does not have to remain in dark about the validity of one’s choice about the origins.

The physical sciences can deal only with repeatable phenomena. Further, the physical object under investigation should be "visible" in its totality either to human eyes, or to testing equipment. However, there are many physical objects of interest which are not visible to the eyes or to scientific equipment. For example,  atoms are real physical entities, but they cannot be seen in their entirety by any equipment in the world.  Different tests and different instruments can reveal small portions  or certain behaviors of the atom, but none can give us a comprehensive whole. It is something like the story of the elephant and the blind men.

Of the blind men who went to see the elephant, none was able to see the whole animal, and the perception of each person was limited to the make-up of the part he touched. Now either they could argue against each other, or else they could accept their limitation and construct a better picture of the elephant by comparing and combining the individual observations. They could then check the elephant again to see whether it tallies with the mental picture or "model" which they have constructed. Refinements can be made  through successive observations and modifications of the model till they arrived at a reliable conclusion about the elephant. This is exactly what the scientists do in the case of physical objects which cannot be seen directly or completely. They take observations, and put  them together to obtain a model. Predictions are obtained from this model and  these are then checked. On the basis of these observations the model is refined again. This process goes through  several cycles. The original model, crude and approximate, gradually becomes more sophisticated and closer to the reality.

Some times the object under study might be so complex that several competing models might arise. Depending on their background and preferences scientists try to refine and defend the model of their preference. These  models are constantly compared with the actual object under study. In this process some of the inferior models die out. Gradually the best model triumphs. Of course the best model has to satisfy several conditions : it must have the fewest number of assumptions, it must be able to come up with the greatest number of predictions, it must able to accommodate maximum number of observations obtained from the object under consideration and it must not conflict with any fact of science.

The process of modeling can be applied not only to visualize and study physical objects like atoms, but also to study physical phenomena. Since both Creation as well as Evolution are physical phenomena, it is possible to study them with the help of scientific models. Precisely this has been done by several Creationists around the world in the past few decades. A brief and  simplified account is given below :

According to the Evolution Model, the Universe is self-existing and eternal. All order in it has come about by the blind action of matter upon itself. The blind combination of  chemicals gradually gave rise to the first living cell. This life then evolved and  went through about seven distinct stages to give rise to the unbelievable variety that we see today. Since all change was  gradual, an infinite number of intermediate life forms were produced. The eye had to develop from scratch taking as much as several million years. The same is the case with the heart, the brain, the liver, the wings, and anything that you can see in living organisms.

According to the Creation Model, this Universe and all life in it was created a finite time ago, after which it was allowed to run the course on which we find it today. This model predicts that since life was created by a direct act of God, no intermediate links will be found. All living organisms have  great capacity for change, but this change takes place only within their "basic kind". No amount of variation is going to change one basic kind into another. According to this model, man is essentially very distinct from animals even though he has many things in common with them.

When these two models are tested, it turns out that the Creation model is closer in every way to what is observed in the physical world. Physics and astronomy have shown very clearly that the Universe is not eternal, and that it had a definite beginning. When this universe is left to itself, the result is disorder, not order. Blind chance only destroys order, not the other way as demanded by evolution. In fact the Creation model turns out to be compatible with physics, astronomy, chemistry, information sciences  and  even the actual observations in biology. The scientific  facts in these sciences never conflict with the Creation model. On the other hand, the demands put forward by the Evolution model stand  in direct opposition to most of the facts observed by the scientists.  The Second Law  of Thermodynamics is a good example.

As a consequence of this Law, when matter is left to itself, order always goes into disorder. The opposite of this, disorder to order, is possible only when three conditions are met : there should be a plan to convert disorder into order, there should be a mechanism to implement this plan, and then there should be the right kind of energy to power this mechanism. Of course whenever there  is a plan, one cannot disregard the necessity of a Planner. All of this fits well with the Creation model, but not with the Evolution model.

The greatest problem with the Evolution model is the  absence of intermediate fossils. We have already  mentioned that according to the Evolution model, countless intermediate organisms have to be found scattered all over the world. Even though scientists have discovered billions of fossils from the past, not even one of them has turned out to be an undisputed link between two kinds of organisms. If reptiles have evolved into birds, there must be millions of intermediate fossils with features part reptilian, and part avian. If monkey-like creatures have evolved over millions of years into human beings, there ought to be hundreds of thousands of intermediate fossils.  If any "basic kind"  of organism has changed to another kind in the past  there ought to be fossil remains to demonstr
ate that. However, all these predictions that one gets from the Evolution model are negated by the realities of Biological research.

No model should ever contradict any established fact of science, and if it does so then it has to be modified or abandoned. The Evolution model contradicts many fundamental laws and facts of science, the chief of which is the Second Law Of Thermodynamics. This is a very fundamental law of science, and any model that contradicts this law contradicts fundamental observations of science. The Creation model, on the other hand, does not violate any established law of science. Further, it predicts many of the Conservation Laws and it is fully compatible with the laws of Thermodynamics.

The subject of Creation and Evolution models is vast in scope, and it is not possible to give an exhaustive description in a small article like this. But what has been said above is sufficient to demonstrate that the concept of Creation can be tested scientifically as rigorously as the concept of evolution can be tested. Both of these ideas fall into the same category of scientific investigation : investigating the past with the help of modeling. When this is done, the Creation model turns out to be superior in all respects : all evidences favor it, it does not contradict any fact of science, its predictions are more

accurate, and it is fully compatible with the laws of the Physical Sciences.  So an honest enquirer has to conclude that the all the available evidence goes in favor of the  Creation model, and that almost everything goes against the evolution model. Thus the Creation model is more accurate of the two and it is wiser to accept  the Creation model in comparison to the Evolution model.

FOR FURTHER READING :

For the technically minded reader, the best exposition is found in the books Scientific Creationism and What Is Creation Science, both published by the Institute For Creation Research.

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