Human Life Must Have Had An Intelligent Cause

The third area of evolution is biological evolution, the origin of higher life forms from lower life forms. Technically defined, it is the assertion that random mutations occur and natural selection continually acts on the surviving mutation, leading to improvements and changes in species over time. However, it will be shown that complex life such as animal and human life requires an intelligent cause. Since the theory of biological evolution is a slippery one, the arguments against it can be remembered with the acronym SLIP.

S—Status? Still Unproven

The Scientific Method Requires Observation

Science is founded on the scientific method which involves systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses. Many are under the impression that macroevolution has been proven by this method, that is, by direct observation and experimentation—but it has not. Macroevolution still remains an unproven theory.

Observing Changes Within A Kind Is Not Proof

One of the top strengths of the Darwinian model is adaptation and proponents point to this as the empirical evidence which satisfies the hypothesis. Popular textbooks discuss the beak shapes of the finches in the Galapagos Islands or the peppered moths in England, insect populations becoming resistant to DDT, or germs becoming resistant to antibiotics.

However, these are all examples of microevolution (changes within a type); macroevolution (the origin of new types of organisms), on the other hand, has never been observed. The macroevolution hypothesis is based on the inference is that these minor changes can be extrapolated over many generations to macroevolution. One evolutionist admitted many of his peers find this transference untenable:

A long-standing issue in evolutionary biology is whether the processes observable in extant populations and species (microevolution) are sufficient to account for the larger-scale changes evident over longer periods of life's history (macroevolution). Outsiders to this rich literature may be surprised that there is no consensus on this issue, and that strong viewpoints are held at both ends of the spectrum, with many undecided.

More damning was the 1980‘s Science article which summarized the conclusion of 150 of the world‘s leading evolutionary theorists who gathered together that year to decide whether microevolution can produce macroevolution:

A wide spectrum of researchers—ranging from geologists and paleontologists, through ecologists and population geneticists, to embryologists and molecular biologists—gathered at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History under the simple conference title: Macroevolution. Their task was to consider the mechanisms that underlie the origin of species and the evolutionary relationship between species. … The central question of the Chicago conference was whether the mechanisms underlying microevolution can be extrapolated to explain the phenomena of macroevolution. At the risk of doing violence to the positions of some of the people at the meeting, the answer can be given as a clear, No.

Observing Similarity Is Not Proof

Another recognized strength of Darwinian evolution is similarity across species. An evolutionary tree is a way for evolutionary biologists to illustrate the evolutionary path between every living species. Species are placed on the tree based on similarities to other species, creating directional change (the various branches on the tree).

However, the ability to categorize based on a directional path is not proof that macroevolution has occurred. An absurd illustration may help. It‘s possible to take all airplanes from the dawn of flight all the way up to modern stealth aircraft and place them in an evolutionary tree. But the ability to categorize by similarity does not prove a naturalistic evolution of the airplane. Likewise, one could classify a directional path from a small teaspoon, to a pan, and to a pot. But it‘s equally absurd to suggest teaspoons evolved into pots through some natural means. On the contrary, each was created independently through an intelligent cause. Observing similarity does not prove evolution.

L—Lack of Fossil Evidence

The lack of evidence in the fossil record is a critical blow to biological evolution.

No Sign of Macroevolution in the Fossil Record

Charles Darwin said in Origin of the Species,

Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain, and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory.

To say that there is lack of evidence for macroevolution in the fossil record is an understatement. Noted atheist and paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould admitted:

We do not see slow evolutionary change in the fossil record… change seems to be abrupt because the intermediate steps are missing. The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils.

After admitting that the fossil record ―seems to show so little of evolution directly,‖ that it ―was never ‗seen‘ in the rocks,‖ how those professing gradualism ―almost never see the very process we profess to study,‖ 46 Gould went on to say,

Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless. [Further,] in any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors: it appears all at once and fully formed.

It is unclear how one can get a more damning confession from one of the world‘s most beloved atheistic science writers.

What About ―Intermediate Links?‖

Archaeopteryx was once thought to be a two-legged dinosaur. Once hailed as a "missing link" between birds and dinosaurs, it was discovered that it possessed fully formed flight feathers just like modern flying or gliding birds, and was simply reclassified. Then there is the ―Piltdown Bird‖ (1912) which was thought to be the missing links between apes and humans. It was later exposed forty-one years later to be fake (they combined an ancient human skull with the jaw of a modern orangutan). Archaeoraptor was hailed as ―the missing link between terrestrial dinosaurs and birds that could actually fly‖ and was later discovered to be a fabrication—they had glued a dinosaur tail to the body of a primitive bird. Bambiraptor (1993) was proclaimed as ―the most bird-like dinosaur yet discovered‖ but it was later discovered that ―hair-like projections and feathers were not found with the fossil, but [had] been added [there] based on theoretical considerations.‖ There are also the supposed ―missing link‖ discoveries between apes and man:

Neanderthal man, known to be fully human; Piltdown man, later discovered to have been due to a fraudulent combination of human skullcap with an ape's jaw; Java man, consisting of an ape skull and a human femur, found separated by many meters, and later disavowed by its discoverer; and Australopithicus africanus, the skull of an infant ape which typically bore a slight resemblance to a human child's skull. … Nebraska man, America's own ape-man… consisted of only one tooth, later discovered to be that of a pig.

Considering the field of paleontology is so riddled with fraud, it‘s a wonder scientists would hail any new discovery as a missing link! One would think that evolutionary scientists who claim to base a career on the scientific method would be a bit more careful and objective in their analysis of the evidence.

Where Do Living Fossils Fit?

There are species that don‘t seem to fit the Darwinian timescale at all. For example, the African coelacanth fish is believed to have started evolving 400 million years ago and went extinct 70 million years ago. It was believed this fish was an intermediary type between fish and amphibians and other tetrapods. However, 309 of these fish have been found alive since 1938! Furthermore, an analysis of its DNA shows it is similar to other types of fish, not land animals. Other examples of ―living fossils‖ include graptolites,

the tuatara (supposedly extinct since the Cretaceous Period until found still living in New Zealand), the Lepidocaris crustacean (only found as fossils in Devonian rocks), the Metasequoia conifer tree (thought extinct for the past 20 million years), the Neopilina mollusk (supposedly extinct for 280 million years), the lingula brachiopod ("extinct" since the Ordovician), and even the trilobite (chief index fossil of the even more ancient Cambrian Period).

I—Impossible to Achieve

Biological evolution is impossible to achieve naturalistically.

Self-Organization is Contrary to Second Law thermodynamics

The idea that complexity can increase over time by means of a purely natural process is contrary to the second law of thermodynamics. 55 Billions of years cannot produce complexity and order. Rather, time makes things more disordered.

Suppose you throw red, white, and blue confetti out of an airplane 1,000 feet above your house. What‘s the chance it‘s going to form the American flag on your front lawn? Very low. Why? Because natural laws will mix up or randomize the confetti. You say, ―Allow more time.‖ Okay, let‘s take the plane up to 10,000 feet to give natural laws more time to work on the confetti. Does this improve the probability that the flag will form on your lawn? No, more time actually makes the flag less likely because natural laws have longer to do what they do— disorder and randomize.

Three Types of Order in Nature

There are three types of order in nature

First, there is specified order. Quartz crystals fall in this category. The structure of crystals is specific, precise and ordered but simple and repetitive. An example of this pattern would be: ―ROCK ROCK ROCK ROCK.‖

Second, there is complex order. Random copolymers are molecules attached together in a random order to form a larger molecule. Unlike crystals, however, they are not simple but complex (composed of two or more parts) and not repetitive like the pattern ―PQUX RPBWT TE ZAX

Third, there is specified complexity. This type of pattern is more than something that is ordered—it has complex order with clear and specific functions. Examples of specified complexity include looking up in the sky on a hot summer‘s day and seeing the words ―DRINK COKE,‖ going to the breakfast table and seeing ―GOOD MORNING‖ spelled out with cereal letters, or finding a piece of wood washed ashore that has the words ―SEND HELP—I‘M STRANDED!‖ etched into its side.

Life has the third type of order; it is both specified and complex. Atheist, award winning British chemist and National Academy of Sciences member Leslie Orgel (1927-2007) said,

―Living organisms are distinguished by their specified complexity. Crystals … fail to qualify as living because they lack complexity; random mixtures of polymers fail to qualify because they lack specificity.||

Specified Complexity Requires an Intelligent Designer

This type of order, specified complexity, requires an intelligent designer.

First, many disciplines today look for specified complexity as a sign of intelligence. These include cryptography, random number generation, archaeology, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Interestingly enough, specified complexity played a key role in the movie popular 1985 movie Contact by Carl Sagan:

In that novel, radio astronomers discover a long sequence of prime numbers from outer space. Because the sequence is long, it is complex. Moreover, because the sequence is mathematically significant, it can be characterized independently of the physical processes that bring it about. As a consequence, it is also specified. Thus, when the radio astronomers in Contact observe specified complexity in this sequence of numbers, they have convincing evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence... Sagan based the SETI researchers‘ methods of design detection on actual scientific practice.

Second, the probability of such complex patterns arising in nature on its own is so minuscule that it is near mathematical impossibility. Atheist and astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle (1915– 2001) said,

Biochemical systems are exceedingly complex, so much so that the chance of their being formed through random shuffling of simple organic molecules is exceedingly minute, to a point indeed where it is insensibly different from zero. [So there must be] an intelligence, which designed the biochemicals and gave rise to the origin of carbonaceous life.

Third, the letter frequency in DNA is the same as human language. The word frequencies of all natural languages follow Zipf's Law. It was argued by Anastasios and Panagiotis Tsonis in 1996 that DNA does not follow this pattern. 63 However, both changed positions in 2002 based on further research. The new conclusion was that DNA does indeed follow Zipf‘s Law when the proper definition of a ―word‖ is used:

During the past few years… attempts have been made to search whether or not DNA obeys a law similar to Zipf‘s law for languages. The key issue in such attempts is what could possibly constitute a ―word‖ in DNA sequences… We focused our attention on genomes (rather than individual genes) and considered that a given genome is a language whose ―words‖ are the different domains, which are found in proteins. This is a much more realistic approach... These results indicate that all four genomes obey the law f ∝ r –a with a remarkably close to one, which is identical to Zipf‘s law for natural languages. We conclude that Zipf‘s law can be recovered in genomes if the appropriate definition of a ―word‖ is used.

The conclusion is that DNA has the same level of specified complexity as human language. But human language has an intelligent creator (humans). Therefore, DNA ―language‖ must also have an intelligent cause.

Fourth, the sheer amount of specified complexity is staggering. The DNA inside of every human cell contains five million pages of information. That‘s equivalent to 25,000 books of twohundred pages. Even a ―simple‖ one single-celled amoeba contains the equivalent of 1,000 copies of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Carl Sagan said this about the human brain:

The information content of the human brain expressed in bits is probably comparable to the total number of connections among the neurons—about a hundred trillion bits. If written out in English, say, that information would fill some twenty million volumes, as many as in the world‘s largest libraries. The equivalent of twenty million books is inside the heads of every one of us. The brain is a very big place in a very small space… The neurochemistry of the brain is astonishingly busy, the circuitry of a machine more wonderful than any devised by humans.

To grasp this, imagine being at Madison Square Garden for a basketball game. One would need to stack 1,000 books on every single one of the 20,000 seats in the stadium in order to fill it with the same amount of info as the human brain. The ceiling wouldn‘t be high enough!

How do evolutionists explain such specified complexity? Some theorize that complexity arose through natural law-like processes formed somewhere along the way of evolution. But, these processes have not been observed, let alone identified. In short, ―no convincing answer has been given to date‖ from the evolutionary community. 68 This is entirely unsatisfactory. But it gets worse.

Irreducible Complexity

An irreducibly complex system is a system containing two or more parts where, if any single part is removed, the system ceases to function. Mousetraps, car engines, and Rube Goldberg machines are good examples of irreducibly complex systems. Which part of a mousetrap can you remove and still have it work? The hammer that crushes the mouse? The spring that moves the hammer? The catch which lets the hammer go when the unsuspecting mouse nibbles on the cheese? The platform that holds everything in place? The answer is not any one piece can be removed and have it still function—it is irreducibly complex.

Life is Irreducibly Complex

Life not only has specified complexity as we have seen previously but it is also irreducibly complex. How is this damaging to Darwinian evolution? It nullifies the claim that life can arise gradually over time through random mutations. In a chapter entitled ―Difficulties of the Theory‖ in Origin of the Species, Charles Darwin 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. But I can find out no such case.

It turns out, all organs fit this description! All organs are made up of cells and tissue. The technology in Darwin‘s day prevented him from seeing the inner workings of the cell and its subcellular structure. But the electron microscope of the 20th century gave us this first look. What did we find? In the words of Michael Behe, biochemist and author of Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, we discovered that

Life is based on machines—machines made of molecules! Molecular machines haul cargo from one place in the cell to another along ―highways‖ made of other molecules, while still others act as cables, ropes, and pulleys to hold the cell in shape. Machines turn cellular switches on and off, sometimes killing the cell or causing it to grow. Solar-powered machines capture the energy of photons and store it in chemicals. Electrical machines allow current to flow through nerves. Manufacturing machines build other molecular machines, as well as themselves. Cells swim using machines, copy themselves with machinery, ingest food with machinery. In short, highly sophisticated molecular machines control every cellular process. Thus, the details of life are finely calibrated and the machinery of life enormously complex.

Just how complex is a eukaryote cell? There are twenty parts and each part has its own distinct function. Mitochondria produce the cell‘s energy, the endoplasmic reticulum processes proteins, the Golgi apparatus acts as a way station for proteins being transported elsewhere, the lysosome disposes of the cell‘s garbage, secretory vesicles store cargo before it‘s sent out of the cell and the peroxisome helps metabolize fats. All of these pieces must be in place for life to work—like a mousetrap or a car engine, it is irreducibly complex. Evolution must not just explain how one of these parts evolved but how all twenty of these parts evolved—together!

Irreducibly complex systems like mousetraps, Rube Goldberg machines, and the intracellular transport system cannot evolve in a Darwinian fashion. You can‘t start with a platform, catch a few mice, add a spring, catch a few more mice, add a hammer, catch a few more mice, and so on: The whole system has to be put together at once or the mice get away. Similarly, you can‘t start with a signal sequence and have a protein go a little way towards the lysosome, add a signal receptor protein, go a little further, and so forth. It‘s all or nothing.

Second, irreducible complexity is beyond the cell. It is found in the components that provide ciliary motion (what allows cells to ―swim‖), propulsion by bacterial flagellum (a biological rotary propeller system), vesicular transport, blood clotting, vision, ―features of the immune system like clonal selection, antibody diversity, and the complement system,‖ 73 ―biosynthesis of the larger amino acids, lipids, vitamins, [and] heme.‖ These features could not have developed gradually because their components are all irreducibly complex.

Third, there is irreducible complexity at the system level. The human body is made up of ten major organ systems which must work together as one unit. There is the digestive system (throat, stomach, intestines, colon, gallbladder), skeletal system (bones, cartilage, ligaments, tendons), reproductive system (male: testes, scrotum, penis, prostate; female: ovaries, uterus, vagina), integumentary system (skin), muscular system, nervous system (brain, spinal cord, nerves), endocrine (hormonal) system (thyroid, sweat glands), excretory system (kidneys, liver), respiratory system (nose, throat, lungs, diaphram) and circulatory system (blood, vessels, heart). 75 Each system depends upon the other—they would all need to evolve together, simultaneously, for the body to function normally. Joseph A. Kuhn, MD, writes in the Baylor University Medical Center journal:

Such [evolutionary] changes would require far more than could be expected from random mutation and natural selection. Since these systems are irreducibly complex and individual mutations in one organ would not be beneficial for the organism, these random mutations in all aspects… would need to occur simultaneously. Therefore, the human body represents an irreducibly complex system on a cellular and an organ/system basis.

Fourth, there is irreducible complexity at the ecological level. Biologists Zuill and Standish said the nitrogen cycle, with its series of interconnected oxidation and reduction reactions, is evidence of irreducible interdependence in ecology. 77 In this cycle, humans and animals provide carbon dioxide to plants while plants provide oxygen to humans. Microbiologist Andrew Fabich points to honeybees as another example. 78 Plants require bees for pollination; bees require the food that plants provide. Other examples include the relationship between certain insects and bacteria, between vascular plants and fungi, and the four-part symbiotic relationship between leaf-cutting, fungus-farming ants, plants, and both macro and micro fungus. Fabich concluded

all living organisms interact with and change their environments and, yet, do not destroy their natural environment unless the ecosystem becomes imbalanced. Without any guiding force or intelligence, ecosystems have a tendency towards self-destruction and do not give themselves the opportunity to exist in the first place: they are doomed from the beginning. The only way for any ecosystem to exist is for the ecosystem to have existed and function in its entirety from its origin. Therefore, ecosystems cannot come into existence by Darwinian mechanisms because they are irreducibly complex.

Astrophysicist Hugh Ross underscores the challenge that irreducible complexity presents to the naturalist:

Naturalistic evolutionary models must explain how both or all the symbiotic partners emerged and developed simultaneously—and in proximity—with the specific morphological and biochemical features in place to permit the transfer of mutually beneficial—or absolutely essential—goods and services to the other(s). An even greater challenge may be to explain how symbiotic relationships became so ubiquitous in the biological realm.

P—Plausibility Problems

Even if one disagrees with the previous argument that macroevolution is impossible because of specified and irreducible complexity, at best, it is highly improbable.

Macroevolution Requires Nine Conditions

Geneticist R.H. Byles said there are nine conditions, all of which must be met, for macroevolution to occur.
(1) Advantageous mutations reduce non-mutated population size. Therefore, they must occur in a neutral (non-hostile) environment otherwise the organism will not be retained in the population. Very few locations would meet this criterion.
(2) Since natural selection weeds out rather than preserves mutations in a gene pool, the mutation cannot make any structural change in the organism.
(3) The net effect of the mutation must be unidirectional yet ―most recurrent mutations have been observed to retain the potential for back mutation.‖
(4) There must be a high mutation rate, in the order of ―one in ten thousand and one in a million per gene per generation‖ in higher organisms. He adds that even this figure is small and would, ―would result in a very small change in a given gene pool, even given large numbers of generations. This has long been considered one of the major stumbling blocks to the [Probably Mutation Effect].‖
(5) The population must be large because small populations can be easily destroyed by a mutation. But the effects of the mutation of a large population are zero.
(6) Organisms with many genes add more complications. Like point two, mutations in these organisms must be also selectively neutral relative to the gene which mutates.
(7) There must be ―little or no hybridizing admixture,‖ or ―crossbreeding‖ with others of the same kind.
(8) ―The genetic structures involved must have high ‗penetrance‘‖ (must be highly susceptible to mutation).
(9) There must be ―high heritability‖ (its genetic information must be heritable), a condition which is ―almost never met for mutational phenotypes.‖ With so many requirements, one can conclude:

It appears that the probability of meeting any one of these conditions in nature is extremely low, if not nonexistent… the fifth and seventh conditions effectively cancel each other out, as do the third and eighth, and we are forced to the conclusion that it is impossible to meet all the conditions. Mutation cannot be the mechanism for macro-evolution.

All things considered—the unlikeliness that mutations can meet all nine required conditions for macroevolution, the impossibility of specified and irreducible complexity arising from natural processes, the lack of evidence for macroevolution in the fossil record—it‘s a strike for biological evolution.

Put All Three Together: A Plausibility Nightmare

The biggest plausibility problem for naturalistic evolution is that for it to be true, each of the three types of evolution would need to be true. Cosmic evolution (origin of matter from nonmatter), chemical evolution (origin of living matter from nonliving matter) and biological evolution (origin of more complex life from simpler life) would all have to be true cumulatively. But as we have seen, each pillar in the evolutionary hypothesis has fatal issues.

―Three Strikes, Evolution—You‘re Out!‖

In summary, cosmic evolution cannot be true because the universe (which must have a cause because it has a beginning) could not have caused itself, but must have a supernatural and intelligent cause (because it did not have to be). Chemical evolution goes against the work of Louis Pasteur, lacks historical evidence (there likely never was an early, primordial soup), and its proponents are ultimately are at a loss to explain it. Biological macroevolution remains unobserved, is impossible to accomplish because of irreducible complexity, and lacks empirical confirmation and geological evidence. Evolution seems to be a hypothesis that doesn‘t have a leg to stand on. Since there are really two options, an unintelligent, naturalistic evolutionary process or an intelligent cause, 85 the only adequate explanation for the origin of the universe, life and human life is a supernatural, intelligent cause.

The Analogy of the Canyon

Michael Behe, professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University, came up with a great analogy which may help explain why people continue to find the theory of evolution appealing. It was so helpful to me that I decided to summarize it here.

Imagine there is a deep four-foot ditch completely separating you and your neighbor. One day you find your neighbor in your yard and you ask how he got there. If he says, ―I jumped,‖ that seems like an acceptable answer. However, imagine the gap is now a 100 foot wide canyon. Suddenly ―I jumped‖ isn‘t acceptable! But suppose he begins to explain his arrival into your yard this way:

He did not come across in one jump. Rather, he says, in the canyon there were a number of buttes, no more than 10 feet apart from one another; he jumped from one narrowly spaced butte to another to reach your side. Glancing toward the canyon, you tell your neighbor that you see no buttes, just a wide chasm separating your yard from his. He agrees, but explains that it took him years and years to come over. During that time buttes occasionally arose in the chasm, and he progressed as they popped up. After he left a butte it usually eroded pretty quickly and crumbled back into the canyon.

This story teaches us three lessons. First, a ―jump‖ can be offered as an explanation for how a gap was bridged, but it‘s the gap‘s width that determines whether it was really plausible. Second, crossing a huge gap is made more plausible if it‘s turned into a series of smaller, consecutive jumps. Third, you can‘t argue with someone who says they used smaller stepping stones to bridge the gap if they also claim that those stones have since disappeared.

Taken from:

Proof Evolution Is False by Shawn Nelson

© 2014 by Shawn Nelson