Chapter 3 Doubts about Darwinism Case for Creator
Thousands of atheists gather in DC for reason rally
Alice Ann Bailey (June 16, 1880 December 15, 1949) No Need for God Laid the foundation of the New Age Movement. She was allegedly visited by a spirit, that she thought was Jesus Christ but introduced himself as Djwal Khuhl Tibetan spirit. Four Pillars of New Age Movement 1. Evolution 2. Reincarnation 3. Astrology 4. Meditation
Alice Ann Bailey (June 16, 1880 December 15, 1949) World s Ten Commandments Ten Point Plan to destroy Christianity 1. Take God and prayer out of the educational system 2. Reduce parental authority over the children 3. Destroy the Judeo-Christian family structure or the traditional Christian family structure 4. If sex is free, then make abortion legal and make it legal 5. Make divorce easy and legal, free people from the concept of marriage for life 6. Make homosexuality an alternative lifestyle 7. Debase art, make it run mad 8. Use media to promote and change mindset 9. Create an interfaith movement 10. Get governments to make all these laws and get the church to endorse these changes
Evolution to Explain the Origin of Life Aggressive activism to take God out of everything. Four Icons of Evolution 1. Miller s Experiment 2. Darwin s Tree of Life 3. Haeckel s Embryos 4. The Archaeopteryx Missing Link
Jonathan Wells, PhD, PhD Yale - PhD in religious studies UC Berkley - PhD in molecular and cell biology with focus on vertebrate embryology and evolution
Icon #1 Miller s Experiment conducted in 1952 Stanley Miller shot electricity through what he thought to be the primitive earth atmosphere [water (H 2 O), methane (CH 4 ), ammonia (NH 3 ), and hydrogen (H 2 )] to make organic compounds including amino acids. Purpose: attempts to prove abiogenesis which is a natural process of life arising from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. Amino acids: the basic building blocks of proteins and proteins are the basic building blocks of life. Implications: life could be created naturalistically (no need for the Creator)
Icon #1 Miller s Experiment Problems Miller s Unlikely Atmosphere: current Scientific consensus is that the primitive Earth atmosphere was most likely NOT that of Miller s Experiment, but likely consisted of carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), water (H2O), nitrogen (N2), and hydrogen. Experiment in Likely Atmosphere: same experiment done with carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), water (H2O), nitrogen (N2), and hydrogen produces highly toxic organic molecules of formaldehyde (CH2O) and cyanide (CN). Implications: Miller s Experiment does not support abiogenesis, but school textbooks still teach Miller s Experiment teaching abiogenesis as scientific fact furthering the cause of evolution.
Speaking of Amino Acids Preserved dinosaur T-Rex soft tissue (68 million years old) Dinosaur Soft Tissue: In 2004, Mary Schweitzer, a molecular paleontologist at North Carolina State University confirmed preservation of blood and soft tissue from a femur leg bone of a 68 million years old T-Rex. Implications: Can soft tissue be preserved for 68 million years? Maybe Dinosaurs extinction was not in the millions of years.
Icon #2 Darwin s Tree of Life On the Origin of Species (1859) Darwin s Tree of Life alleges that organisms slowly (over billions of years) changed to become new species. Darwin believed that eventual advancement of science and archaeology would vindicate/prove his theory. Purpose: attempts to prove that every species (branches on the trees) was descended from one common ancestor (the trunk). Implications: all living things came about naturalistically via evolution (natural selection). This would mean that fruit flies, apes, and humans share a common ancestor. If true, the human existence is no more meaningful than a fruit fly.
Icon #2 Darwin s Tree of Life Problems Fossil Records: Fossil records does NOT corroborate Darwin s theory that organisms slowly (over billions of years) changed to become new species. More than a century of fossil discoveries did not prove but disapproved Darwin s theory. Cambrian Explosion (supposed period of 540 million years ago): Biological Big Bang where complex organisms including most of the major groups alive today, such as mollusks, trilobites, other arthropods, brachiopods, echinoderms, corals, sponges, and chordates (our ancestors) suddenly appeared in the fossil record, supposedly where only jellyfish had existed before. Implications: What happened to slow gradual changes over billions of years? Where are the fossil records of gradual changes of simple organisms to complex organisms? Some claim that pre-cambrian fossils were too tiny or soft to be preserved but there are microfossils of bacteria in rocks dating back more than three billion years.
Icon #3 Haeckel s Embryos drawing from 1874 Textbook II. Peter H Raven & George B Johnson, Biology (6th ed, McGraw Hill, 2002), p. 1229: Haeckel s Embryos sketched the embryos of a fish, salamander, tortoise, chicken, hog, calf, rabbit, and human being side-by-side at three stages of development. Purpose: attempts to show that the striking similarities between early embryos is by far the strongest single class of facts in favor of his theory that all organisms share a universal ancestor. Implications: Haeckel s theory tries to support Darwin s theory that every species (branches on the trees) was descended from one common ancestor (the trunk). Many school textbooks still portrays Haeckel s Embryos as science.
Icon #3 Haeckel s Embryos Problems Faked Drawings: Haeckel s colleagues exposed the drawings in 1860s. They showed that Haeckel doctored the drawings to make them look more similar than they really are. Cherry Picked: Haeckel cherry-picked his examples with only embryos that supported his theory (e.g. he picked salamander to represent amphibians rather than frog because frog embryo is very different). Lied: Haeckel lied that his embryos were early-stage embryos but some were mid-stage embryos. Haeckel deliberately omitted the early stages of some embryos because they looked far too different. Implications: Homologies (similarities of structures like bat s wing, a porpoise s flipper, a horse s leg, and a human s hand) does not necessarily support common descent.
Icon #4 Archaeopteryx Missing Link found in 1860 near Solnhofen, Germany Archaeopteryx is alleged to be the half-reptile half-bird fossil record Purpose: attempts to show the missing link between reptiles and birds. Implications: if Archaeopteryx is the missing link between reptiles and birds, it would support Darwin s theory that every species (branches on the trees) was descended from one common ancestor (the trunk).
Icon #4 Archaeopteryx Missing Link Problems Just a Bird: Larry Martin of the University of Kansas, said in 1985 that the archaeopteryx is not an ancestor of birds, but a member of extinct birds (birds are very different from reptiles such as breeding system, bone structure, lungs, their distribution of weight and muscles). Fossil Hoax: In 1999, National Geographic hailed a fossil named Archaeoraptor as the missing link between terrestrial dinosaurs and birds that could actually fly. In 2002, National Geographic wrote another articles stating, The Archaeoraptor fossil was introduced in 1999 and hailed as the missing evolutionary link between carnivorous dinosaurs and modern birds. It was fairly quickly exposed as bogus, a composite containing the head and body of a primitive bird and the tail and hind limbs of a dromaeosaur dinosaur, glued together by a Chinese farmer.
What Scientific Evidences Support Evolution? I think therefore, I m Atheist Is Evolution Science or Faith?