Evolution Impossible (31 page)

A longtime friend, Joy Butler, who was serving as a hospital chaplain in Sydney, related another amazing account to me. Joy and her husband had been working in Harare, Zimbabwe, for a number of years. On the day before they left to return to Australia in April 1993, Jo, a friend of Joy’s, called to tell her of a remarkable incident that had just happened to a friend of hers.

Jo’s friend had arrived home in her car with her five-year-old daughter. The lady stepped out of her car to open the front gate while leaving the engine of the car running. An African man who had been hiding behind the front hedge jumped into the driver’s seat and drove off with the lady’s daughter still in the back seat. The mother screamed and shouted in her driveway and caught the attention of another African man who saw what had happened, and who then set off in his car to give chase.

The distraught mother continued to scream, and an Indian man driving by stopped his car. He invited the mother to come with him to the police station. The poor mother was hesitant about this, but when the man explained that he was a minister of religion and she saw a Bible on the front seat of his car, she agreed to accept his help. The man then prayed and asked God to let the car break down so that the pursuers could catch up. These sorts of “carjackings” were quite common in the city of Harare at that time, and often the stolen cars were driven across the border to a neighboring country where they were sold.

The mother and the Indian man then set off in his car to give chase after the thief. They had not traveled far when they came to the woman’s car stopped on the road. The little girl was safe and the African man was holding the thief.

The little girl told her mother and the Indian man that she was pleading with the thief to take her back to Mummy when she saw an angel appear on the front of the car as it was being driven along. The girl said the angel pushed what appeared to be a long, shining sword down into the hood and the car stopped.

When the car was examined later it was found that the clutch had failed, yet the car was not known to have a clutch problem. While some readers may be skeptical about this story, I believe that a child’s testimony in these circumstances is likely to be highly accurate. Why would a five-year-old have to make up a story about an angel? Why wouldn’t she simply say the car just stopped as cars do when they break down?

The Old and New Testaments of the Bible record many accounts of angels intervening in the lives of people. In particular, the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, which is written as a factual historical account of the early Christian church, refers to several interventions by angels. The book is very accurate in both its geographical detail and historical detail of that period in the first century, suggesting that the accounts of angels were just as real. Similar accounts have been reported in modern times, such as the reported intervention of angels at Mons in Belgium during the First World War.

In August 1914, during the First World War, the British people were called to a national day of prayer because the future of the Allied forces looked bleak. Following this, a number of remarkable incidents occurred that held back the German forces long enough to allow the British army to withdraw to comparative safety. One such incident occurred at Mons in Belgium during a battle between the German and Allied armies on August 23 and 24, 1914. The British army, greatly outnumbered by German forces, found itself under heavy attack and suffering severe losses. Since there were practically no reserve forces, serious defeat looked inevitable, and the
Times
correspondent prematurely telegraphed unnecessarily alarming news that the British army had been “annihilated at Mons.” However, the next day news came that the disaster had been averted by a miraculous turn of events, involving angels. Both senior British officers and German prisoners reported collaborated accounts of the intervention of angels in the retreat from Mons.
²²

The world we live in is chaotic. In our daily lives, driving to work, at our jobs, and with our families, we are continually making little choices that all affect the outcomes for the day. When the lady in Joy’s story arrived home, she made the decision to leave the keys in the car instead of locking it. The thief had made the decision to hide in that particular yard at that time, and the unpredictable combination of these actions led to the potentially tragic situation. An extra minute in the shower can affect the time we arrive at an intersection relevant to an intoxicated out-of-control driver coming the other way. A few seconds’ delay can mean the difference between life and death, as was illustrated by Dr. Spear’s experience. The film
Sliding Doors
portrayed this very point. Split-second decisions or timings can change our future forever. So how can it be possible to know the future by some scientific calculation? It is impossible!

However, people do experience revelations of the future that are accurate, and these experiences are as real as magnetism or the force of gravity. Yet such phenomena have no explanation in terms of the mechanical model that underpins science. In other words, science cannot explain everything we observe. It cannot explain the supernatural experiences, particularly revelations of the future, such as those discussed in this chapter. Furthermore, science cannot really explain how we came to be here. It has no satisfactory explanation for the origin of the universe; it has no explanation in terms of proven models for how life came to exist; it has no explanation for how the laws of physics and chemistry could come to be; it has no explanation for how the massive amount of purposeful information encoded in DNA could arise; and it has no explanation for the experience of consciousness. As Sir John Eccles, the 1963 Nobel Laureate in physiology, remarked in his speech at the dinner for the Parapsychology Convention held in Utrecht in 1976:

The most paranormal thing in all is how I can move my finger when I so will it. The mind is the problem to explain in any parapsychological investigation.
²³

However, the existence of a supernatural intelligence, a Creator God unconstrained by space and time, does provide a meaningful explanation for our existence. Of course, there are many scientists who believe that “God” cannot be used as an explanation of our universe. They are entitled to their view, but it is based on a faith that ignores the abundant evidence that an intervening God is a very real participant in our existence.

1
. Fred Hoyle, “The Universe: Past and Present Reflections,”
Engineering and Science,
vol. 45, no. 2 (November 1981): p. 8–12.

2
. Herbert Butterfield,
Christianity and History
(London: Fontana Books, 1958), p. 143.

3
. M.E.L. Mallowan, “Babylon,”
Encyclopedia Britannica
(Chicago, IL: Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., 1967), Vol. 2, p. 949–951.

4
. D..J. Wiseman, “Belshazzar,”
Encyclopedia Britannica,
Vol. 3, p. 458.

5
. Ibid.

6
. Cyropaedia, Book vii, 5, 10, 13, 15, 16, 26–30.

7
. See details of another vision of the future that Daniel recorded in Daniel 8:7, 20–21.

8
. Flavius Josephus,
The Antiquities of the Jews,
Book 11, ch. 8, in W. Whiston, editor,
The Complete Works of the Learned and Authentic Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus
(London: J.F. Tallis, undated), p. 237–238.

9
. Yvonne M. Lanhers, “Saint Joan,”
Encyclopedia Britannica,
Vol. 13, p. 3–7. See also F.W.H. Myers,
Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research,
Vol. V (1888–1889): p. 543–545; and J. Glass,
The Story of Fulfilled Prophecy
(London: Cassell, 1969), p. 72–75.

10
. Lanhers, “Saint Joan,”
Encyclopedia Britannica,
Vol. 13, p. 6.

11
. J. Taylor,
Science and the Supernatural
(London: Granada, 1980), p. 83. See also N. Bludell,
The Supernatural
(London: Promotional Reprint Co. Ltd., 1996), p. 91–96.

12
. Ian Stevenson, “Prediction of Disasters,”
Journal of the American Society of Psychical Research,
vol. 64 (1970): p. 187–210.

13
. Ian Stevenson, “Seven More Paranormal Experiences Associated with the Sinking of the Titanic,”
Journal of the American Society of Psychical Research,
vol. 59 (1965): p. 211–224.

14
. Robert L. Van de Castle,
Our Dreaming Mind
(New York: Ballantine Books, 1994), p. 10–11.

15
. Ibid., p. 35; see also P. Davies,
The Mind of God
(London: Simon and Schuster, 1992), p. 153–154.

16
. Ibid., p. 35.

17
. Ibid., p. 37–38.

18
. Ibid., p. 27–28.

19
. Ibid., p. 40, 42, 409.

20
. Ibid., p. 11.

21
. John F. Ashton,
The Seventh Millennium: The Evidence That We Can Know the Future
(Sydney, Australia: New Holland, 1998).

22
. H. Price,
Angels, True Stories of How They Touch Our Lives
(London: Macmillan, 1993), p. 92–97.

23
. J. Taylor,
Science and the Supernatural
(London: Granada, 1980), p. 181.

Chapter 14

Summary: Twelve Evidence-Based Reasons for Rejecting Evolution

In February 2010, the Israeli Education Ministry chief scientist Dr. Gavriel Avital sparked a furor among local university academics when the newspaper
Haaretz
reported him encouraging students to critically examine the evolutionary teaching imposed upon them. He was quoted as saying:

If textbooks state explicitly that human beings’ origins are to be found with monkeys, I would want students to pursue and grapple with other opinions. There are many people who don’t believe the evolutionary account is correct.

In an earlier interview, Dr. Avital had added fuel to the furor by expressing his view that

Another scientific field that is problematic is biology, or life and environmental sciences. When your doctrine is based on Darwin’s theory of evolution and its implications, you are standing on unreliable foundations.
¹

These statements had led to calls for Dr. Avital to be sacked, while other academics expressed outrage or dismay. One emeritus professor of earth sciences at Hebrew University stated, “Denying evolution is like denying science itself,” while another professor at Tel Aviv University said Dr. Avital’s statements are tantamount “to saying that space should be given in textbooks to the view that the earth is flat and the sun revolves around it. It is astonishing that the chief scientist of a government ministry can say such bizarre things.”
²

Indeed, with virtually all university and college biology textbooks stating that life on earth has evolved over the past 3.5 billion years from simple molecules to humans, and most school biology curricula devoting time to the teaching of the theory of evolution, why shouldn’t this Ministry of Education official be dismissed for encouraging students to question evolution? Why should a person with such views be tolerated in such an influential position and be able to comprehensively affect the education of future scientists in an advanced nation?

On the other hand, why would this highly educated chief scientist, appointed to such a responsible position in higher education by the government of one of the world’s nuclear powers, be encouraging students to look for alternatives to evolution? Why would he potentially put his career on the line by making such statements?

It has been the purpose of this book to present the evidence that forms the basis of the reasons why scientists like Dr. Avital reject evolution as an explanation of the origin of life. The data I have discussed is not exhaustive. There is much more evidence against evolution and long ages that could be mustered that is detailed on a number of Internet sites for easy access.
³

However, 12 substantial reasons for rejecting evolution gleaned from the evidence in the previous chapters could be summarized as follows:

1. Mutations do not produce new purposeful genetic information.
   
2. Evolution of a new species as a result of new genetic code arising has never been observed.
   
3. There is no known proven mechanism that can explain how new purposeful genetic information could arise, and statistically it is impossible.
   
4. There is no known proven mechanism that can explain all the steps for a living cell to form from nonliving molecules (abiogenesis), and statistically it is impossible.
   
5. Abiogenesis has never been observed and all experiments to initiate it have failed.
   
6. The fossil record is a record of extinction of fully formed animals and plants — not a record of the evolution of life forms.
   
7. There are no fossils of proven mutant evolutionary intermediate organisms, yet there should be millions and millions of fossils of such mutations. That is, we have no evidence of actual evolution in the fossil record.
   
8. Some of the oldest fossil-bearing rocks contain fully developed advanced animals such as trilobites, with no evidence of evolutionary ancestors.
   
9. Erosion rates for the continents are too fast for the continents and their fossil content to be old enough for supposed evolution to occur.
   
10. There are not enough ocean sediments or volcanic deposits for the continents to be old enough to allow for supposed evolution.
    
11. Radiometric dating results give old ages for recent rock, so we cannot accurately “know” the age of rocks. Also, the finding of carbon-14 in coal and diamonds means that these deposits must be less than 100,000 years old, indicating insufficient time for supposed evolution.
    
12. The rate of mutation of DNA currently observed suggests that DNA must be less than 100,000 years old, which is not enough time for supposed evolution.