The Myth of Evolution

The Myth of Evolution- The Emperor’s New Clothes

Today I’m going to talk about something a bit different and that is this myth that is evolution.

 We all know the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes?

“It’s a short tale written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, about two weavers who promise an emperor a new suit of clothes that they say is invisible to those who are unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent – while in reality, they make no clothes at all, making everyone believe the clothes are invisible to  only them. When the emperor parades before his subjects in his new "clothes", no one dares to say that they do not see any suit of clothes on him for fear that they will be seen as stupid. Finally, a child cries out, "But he isn't wearing anything at all!" 

Its amusing but I see this too often in life

“In 1961, CIA and military leaders wanted to use Cuban exiles to overthrow Fidel Castro. After meeting with his top advisors, Kennedy approved a covert invasion. Advance press reports alerted Castro to the threat. Over 1,400 invaders at the Bay of Pigs were vastly outnumbered. Lacking air support, necessary ammunition and an escape route, nearly 1,200 surrendered. Others died. Because Kennedy was such a powerful voice Kennedy’s top advisors at the meetings were unwilling to challenge bad ideas because they were overawed by the Kennedy presence- now called “Group Think”

Exactly the same thing is happening with many issues in the Bible and today I want to look at particularly Genesis 1:1-2  (NIV)

 

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

The very first words of the Bible are under attack, it is made out to be just a story, an illustration, not real, something for simple minded folk to believe -even a myth.  From there where does it end- is it all just a story …for some it is. I mean how can you believe this in today’s modern scientific era?? Surely evolution is how life began? Is this not now scientific fact? The common belief is that man evolved from a lower species. Even many clergy now believe this to be fact!

 Nothing can be further from the truth.

In Revelation it is written Rev1:8

 8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

Ie the beginning and the end- destroy the beginning – and you don’t have an end!

Now statistically about 95% of people see evolution as a fact and this includes some of the most highly qualified people in the world. But I have a couple of degrees myself including, Chemistry, biochemistry, statistics, Pharmacology and others so I consider myself quite qualified to speak about this, in fact I probably have more formal years of training than most. 

Isn’t evolution a fact? If you believe that you are in good company, the US National Academy of Sciences says yes it’s a fact. The Australian Academy of Science agrees. But it certainly is not

Darwin Theorised there was a long gradual divergence from a common ancestor, with the differences becoming bigger and bigger until we see the major differences we see now.  So the pattern is one of a branching tree.

He believed that natural selection would result in favourable changes. No sudden or great modifications occurred, but time and natural selection resulted in the different species we have today. 

For example he studied different beetles some of which had wings and some not, on the windward side of an island. He suggested that this was natural selection and over thousands of years the beetles had evolved to have no wings!  Consequently he suggested that the origin of life was based on random mutation

But in every case,  a beetle is a beetle- some people have red hair, some people no hair!! But in all these cases  of gene expression or gene deletion no new genetic information is added and for evolution to occur you need new genetic information to be added!

Darwin also knew and acknowledged there were big gaps in the fossil records. In fact fossil records do not support his theory because they appear  so suddenly . This sudden appearance of fossils occurred in the Cambrian period. The Cambrian period occurred about 540Mil yrs. ago- now called the Cambrian explosion. It’s like the biological big bang of life – they all suddenly appeared!  For instance say you played rugby and the whole of time was the length of the football pitch – say 100m. The first fossils of microscopic single cell organisms are found at the one try-line, now you walk to the other side of the pitch. You pass the 25m line, then the half way line, then the next 25m line. When you get to the other 10m line (i.e. 90 m away) suddenly there is an  explosion of fossils- the Cambrian period, and the major animal groups appear. So Darwin's tree and the effects of time are not substantiated

I felt there had to be some fossils that support Darwin's theory  that life forms evolve. There is one fossil, it is called Archeopteryx  and lived about 150mil years ago which is claimed to be part bird part reptile/dinosaur. But recent studies show that this is not true,  It is a bird with modern day feathers and had the bone structure of a bird- so again nothing stacks up.

I want to be careful about one thing. While many scientists may want to disprove God’s word, I don’t want to use science to prove God’s word either. We are too fallible and too inadequate to understand the mystery and depth of God.

Ephesians 2:8-9  (NIV)

8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

It is by faith we are saved to eternity - not science.

Hebrews 11:1-2  (NIV)

11 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for.

But I want delve into the science a little deeper.

So let’s just think- how do we get change in life forms- we have to change the genetic structure, the information hub. There are 3 different ways we can do this

“MOST SCIENTISTS DO NOT BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION” TO MOST SCIENTISTS DO BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION” (ie delete the word “Not”)

This can be used by plant breeders to. If you use chemicals to knock out starch granule protein-1 (SGP-1) in grains you cause less branching of starch and a lower glycemic index.

In a documentary presented by Oxford Prof Richard Dawkins “The Genius of Charles Darwin” it was said that Nairobi women that were resistant to HIV “was an unstoppable force of natural selection “but again this was in fact a loss of genetic information as a result of mutation of CCR5gene and a deletion of 32 base pairs which resulted in a non-functioning receptor. These deletions/mutations are generally harmful in the majority of cases and this CCR5 mutation caries an increased risk of severe liver diseases well

Bottom line gene deletion cannot result in evolution to a more complex species

 

You know one time in my life I ran a Pharmaceutical laboratory, we had a microbiology sub department and we kept a variety of bacteria we would have seen an equivalent of millions of generation years of potential evolution! E coli have a doubling time of lot less than<24hrs. Surprise, surprise, we have never seen an E Coli becoming or being anything other than an E coli, it did not become a new species it did not become gram positive- nothing absolutely nothing! Laboratories have watched E Coli for a long long time and you would think in more than 50 mil generation years something would happen? 50 mil years equivalent and NO sign of evolution!!

 In the 1960’s at a mathematical symposium in Philadelphia, the probabilities of evolution occurring were shown to be impossible. The mathematicians were written off by the biologists because they did not understand evolution! In the 1990’s Prof Gitt of the German Institute of Physics came to the same conclusion!

You know we don’t need science to prove anything- just look around us!

Psalm 19:1-4  (NIV)

1 The heavens declare the glory of God;    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

2 Day after day they pour forth speech;    night after night they reveal knowledge.

3 They have no speech, they use no words;    no sound is heard from them.

4 Yet their voice[b] goes out into all the earth,    their words to the ends of the world.

In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.

I like that story where someone once said I can feel God’s presence here in Church, so I know He is real. And the other person mocked her and said “Feelings are just feelings that not real” So she said close your eyes, and once he had done that she took his hand and with her finger drew a line across his hand. Then she said to him- “Did you feel that” He said “of course I felt that” and she said “You couldn’t see anything but was a feeling, real or not!”

But let’s go right back to the beginning of time when life all began albeit as a single cellular entity. Keep in mind the formation of life can only be random at this stage! And looking at only the protein side of the life form (An essential part of life is proteins). Even a small bacteria like E Coli has about 4000 different protein types (it has about 2.4M different proteins), not to mention the 660 different types of nucleic acids (it has about 250K nucleic acid molecules). But just looking at proteins…. There are about 20 different amino acids (aa)  that make up these proteins. A typical protein can have 300 aa, Insulin has about 50. The chance of randomly forming a short molecule like insulin which has to have proteins in a specific order is about 1:10^65. This does not even take into account the l and d forms of the amino acids, or the chirality of chemicals. And because the human body only uses the levo aa….. then the odds change to 1 :10^80! Depending on the situation statistically 1:10^2 is highly significant. Keep in minds the stability of amino acids- insulin we keep in the fridge, lysine a single amino acid which people buy for cold sores has a shelf life of a few years! And we think we can form a single, useful and stable protein used in the body by chance?

Even if we could form these amino acids, through a big bang theory, in some biological soup, the minute there is oxygen they begin to oxidise very quickly and form alpha keto acids and a variety of other chemicals- they are not stable indefinitely!

What happens if we took a cell, we made a hole in one side and allowed all the contents to flow out and then waited for them to reform? It’s not going to happen is it? Perhaps that is oversimplification, but the point is the probability of forming a single cell is zero.

There are other arguments such as the “irreducibly complex” theory, which states that to produce an organ e.g. an eye, one would need to produce the whole eye plus connecting neurons to be effective, a part eye cannot be produced in evolution, it would have no function

We haven’t even started looking at the complexity of nucleic acids which is made up a set of specific bases, a D- sugar and Phosphates. The formation of RNA is even more unlikely than proteins. You need high energy phosphate bonds for linking, and these are unstable, the molecules are unstable. It’s a totally unstable system, that will only exist in the confines of a cell or controlled laboratory conditions. The evolutionists have even written this RNA theory off!

You see to believe in a creation means you have to believe in a Creator! And that requires  one makes a decision on whether you accept His ways or not, whether you follow the word of God or not, whether you worship Him or not.  It demands a response ,acceptance or rejection. And because people want to be in control His word is rejected. And you can reject it because He has given us a free will. Doesn’t this remind you of the Tower of Babel or the story of Sennacherib and the mockers and scoffers of the world

2 Kings 19:22-28  (ERV)  The Lord, the God of Israel, says this: You prayed to me about the message that came from King Sennacherib of Assyria. I have heard you.

21 “This is the Lord’s message against Sennacherib:

22 But who did you insult and make fun of?    Who did you speak against? You were against the Holy One of Israel.    You acted like you were better than he was!23 You sent your messengers to insult the Lord.    You said, “I came with my many chariots to the high mountains deep inside Lebanon.

I cut down the tallest cedar trees and the best fir trees of Lebanon.    I went to its highest mountains, its thickest forests.24 I dug wells, and drank water from new places.    I dried up the rivers of Egypt   and walked on the land there.”

25 That is what you said, but haven’t you heard what I said?

    I planned it long ago; from ancient times I planned it.    And now I have made it happen.

I let you tear down the strong cities    and change them into piles of rocks.26 The people in the cities had no power.    They were afraid and confused. They were about to be cut down    like grass and plants in the field. They were like grass growing on the housetops,     dying before it grows tall.

…………..

    I heard your proud insults. So I will put my hook in your nose    and my bit in your mouth.

Then I will turn you around    and lead you back the way you came.’”


Job 38:1-7  (NIV) The Lord Speaks

38 Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:2 “Who is this that obscures my plans    with words without knowledge?

3 Brace yourself like a man;    I will question you,

    and you shall answer me.4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?

    Tell me, if you understand.5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!

    Who stretched a measuring line across it?6 On what were its footings set,

    or who laid its cornerstone—7 while the morning stars sang together

    and all the angels[a] shouted for joy?

I am afraid in these last days we have become proud of what we have and know, lovers of ourselves and our focus on self-reliance has brought 2 Timothy 3 into reality, and we have lost the fear and authority of God

Maybe our response should be the same as Jobs

 Job 42:1-6  (NIV) 42 Then Job replied to the Lord:

2 “I know that you can do all things;    no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

3 You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’

    Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,     things too wonderful for me to know.

4 “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak;    I will question you,

    and you shall answer me.’ 5 My ears had heard of you

    but now my eyes have seen you.6 Therefore I despise myself

    and repent in dust and ashes.”