Evolution Theory Runs Aground
New Book Questions Darwinism;
Research points to major gaps
| Author: Jim Russell Subject: Anti-evolution Date: 3/1/1999 |
I have never been happy or even comfortable with the idea that my ancestors were gorillas. My imagination always created a more dignified, noble, perhaps even heroic lineage from which I might be descended.
Being a Christian, I have always favored the Genesis account of the beginning of life and the creation of man. “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our own image. … So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he create him; male and female he created them.’
Astonishing discoveries in the field of biochemistry during the last 40 years are shaking foundations in the scientific community and causing a very reluctant reconsideration of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Before the advent of electron microscopy, the human cell, of which there are trillions in each individual, was believed to be a quite simple organism.
With new technology, the miniscule world of the human cell and the study of the chemical processes within became, possible. Darwinism proceeded on the assumption that the cell was quite simple, mostly protoplasm and a nucleus. Electron microscopy has revealed the cell to be an amazingly complex living organism. Cells are not only complex but extremely diverse in design and function. Among their huge array of life- support duties: diagnosing bacterial invasion, defining remedy, and transporting antibodies.
In “Darwin’s Black Box,” author Michael J. Behe, Professor of Biochemistry at Lehigh University, scientifically challenges Darwinism on several fronts. He says: “Mathematicians over the years have complained that Darwinism’s numbers just do not add up.” In the accidental process of random selection the Earth is just not old enough to accommodate the astronomical number of mutations necessary to produce a human eye.
As one mathematician said, “There is a considerable gap in the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution, and we believe this gap to be of such a nature that it cannot be bridged with the current conception of biology.”
Another Darwinian hurdle presented by Professor Behe is the principle of irreducible complexity, which to a layman means that in an organ made up of several essential components, the absence of any single one, would render the organ useless since it could not perform its basic function:
This is a serious problem for random selection and accidental process since the mission requires organized assembly of components to produce a performance result.
Complex miniscule organisms such as the cell may prove to be the ultimate obstacle to the theory of evolution, leaving the credibility of random selection, accidental process and Darwinian theory among the most costly and historically expensive lessons learned. in the 20th century.
In a chapter titled “Intelligent Design,” Professor Behe writes: “In the face of the enormous complexity that modern biochemistry has uncovered in the cell, the scientific community is paralyzed. No one at Harvard University, no one at the National Institutes of Health, no member of the National Academy of Sciences, no Nobel prize winner – no one at all can give a detailed account of how the cilium, or vision, or blood clotting, or any complex biochemical process might have developed in a Darwinian fashion.
“But we are here. Plants and animals are here. The complex systems are here. All these things got here somehow: If not in a Darwinian fashion, then how?”
An irony of the 21st century may find scientific inquiry led bit by bit, step by step, through an evolutionary process of random selection and discovery exposing Darwinian theory as false.
Finally, confrontation with ultimate reality. Creation of life and human existence, the result of intelligent design! And beyond that, the unthinkable. God!
Jim Russell is president of The Amy Foundation of Lansing and author of the book “Awakening the Giant. This article was originally printed in the Lansing State Journal, Lansing, Michigan, February 25, 1999.