“Darwin’s Leap of Faith” by John Ankerberg and John Weldon, says it exposes the false religion of Evolution. This 350 page book makes the claim that evolution is more faith than fact, more religion than rigor, more improbable than probable, more impossible than possible. It examines statements and claims by many, many scientist evolutionists, and includes evaluations by creation scientists. In particular it highlights the impossibilities of chance events leading to a coherent universe, to a planet earth, to life from non-life, to leaps of improvement/development, even when acted upon by natural selection, and even when given millions of times more time than 10 billion years in which for these things to happen. Thus, they are by definition, miraculous events, requiring faith in the theory. While it may be legitimate to have faith in a creator God, and a designer God, it is not legitimate for materialistic evolutionists to support their theory with nothing more than great faith in statistically impossible events and processes. Scientifically, something more is required. At any rate, the book was an interesting read.
The fossil record? The DNA record? They all support the evolutionary theory.
The differentiation of a species is not a “statistically impossible event”. This is all very well established science with a huge body of supporting data to substantiate it.
Scientist would be the first to acknowledge that what they have on these subjects is no more than an educated guesses.
So if anyone wants to insert God in these places very few (Apart from logic) would quibble with that.
Hi John,
I haven’t read the book you’re referring to, but there are three questions I would ask about it.
- You say it quotes “evolutionists.” Are the quotations accurate and representative of the context from which they were taken, or are they just examples of out-of-context quote mining? Can you give some examples for us to check out?
- Does the book show that the theory of evolution is incorrect or does it merely show that it is incomplete as an explanation for the origins of biological diversity? Demonstrating that there are things that evolution can’t explain merely shows that the theory is incomplete; however, it does not show that it is incorrect.
- Does it make any claims about the age of the earth? If so, do these claims respect the basic rules and principles of mathematics and measurement?
In other words, does it demonstrate a satisfactory commitment to honesty, factual accuracy and quality control?
Inserting God into evolution does not remove Faith. I think the point was that one does not need Faith with empiricism. Just like we do not need Faith in gravity. Technically we do not need Faith in God. Humans thrive without religion.
Some of us take God at God’s Word by faith. Just like we have faith the laws of physics will not fail us. Not because physical laws are preserved by physical understanding. Physical laws are preserved because of and by God.
Good questions, jammy. The quotations are accurate, but are out of context, obviously, since they highlight what evolutionists have said that highlights the impossibility of evolution, while at the same time the evolutionists still believe in evolution. Yet the book also notes this point in most cases. It is not that the evolutionists have denied evolution, but that they maintain evolution in spite of recognizing the miraculous nature of evolution, and its virtual impossibility in terms of mathematical statistical probability.
The quotes do not prove that evolution is incorrect, only that some evolutionists have acknowledged its improbability. This is particularly so for the origin of the universe, the origin of earth, and the origin of life, and the orderliness and coherence of the universe, galaxies, etc. There are too many things in this book for me to only give one or two examples, because it is not just one or two things that lead the thinking in this book, but rather the overwhelming pile of stuff together , that makes one wonder.
This book believes, or the authors believe that abrupt appearance is a more logical, scientific, and factual approach to understanding the evidence, than slow gradual changes over eons of time. I think they are committed to honesty and accuracy. But they are not original scientists, rather they compile, summarize, highlight, and analyze the thinking of PhD scientists, both evolutionists and creationists in terms of how the evidence is perceived and interpreted. So they rely on the scientists themselves for quality control. 1998 is twenty years ago when the book was published, but I still think that they make numerous valid points, much of which has to do with the psychology of evolution, faith systems, etc. And they admit that there are problems with abrupt appearance creation as well, but not as much as with slow gradual evolution.
To be honest Tim I don’t have faith. Faith in God that let’s one of it’s own creations trash His Total Creation, is mad. That is not God. Would you let your children trash your house. Fornucating up to 9 billion of us on the planet. Killing of all wildlife: the very food He gave to provide for us?
LOL. “Let them?” Good luck trying to stop them. It is the nature of children to make messes. They need to be taught to be constructive instead of destructive and to establish order instead of create chaos.
I do not have faith in humanity, myself, nor my children.
Christy makes a good point. We do not teach, train, or educate our offspring to be violent, destructive, abusive to others. They learn by example. In fact what parents and those in authority DO is what they learn. Not some words or ideas we give them. Blaming God, is sidestepping what is the parents responsibility to do. Some say God created the universe to function quite well on it’s own. Why would the lack of God, or even the heavihandiness of God commanding wicked humans to be destroyed be cause of an excuse to deny our own personal responsibility? You realize your own responsibility quite readily and the need for others to do the same.
I am not grasping the need to drag God into the mix. You cannot deny and blame God at the same time. If you are mad at God, then God has to exist in order to be the recipient of your disdain. If God does not exist, then is it rational to have such hatred? If God set up the universe to be it’s own internally self sufficient entity, where do we take issue? If God steps in and makes corrections, where do we take issue? Even if God allows suffering, you are correct, we should be better than God. Are we though?
So true. God can not stop us trashing the planet. We have to do it. We have to do it.
And we are not teaching our children are we because every generation is trashing the planet even more. We have to realize we are Sinners from the moment we started trashing the Garden of Eden.
Trashing the Garden was the Original Sin. We have been doing it ever since. We live midst an ecological disaster. Life is dying around us.
We are killing God’s creation
It is assumed that the fossil record support evolutionary theory. But what it really supports is the evidence of death of many species, mostly under quick burial and death due to drowning. Due to violent and unexpected catastrophes of excess and violent water, which resulted in rapid sedimentation, mudslides. The fossil record supports differentiation, which we also see in other cases, so that various animal species inhabit part of the earth but not all of it. Polar bears in the north, snakes in the tropics, etc. This is also differentiation due to climate. But at the same time, we see vegetation fossils and remnants in parts of the earth, that could never have grown there under present climate. A different type of differentiation. These things we see in the fossil records. What we do not see is the numerous transitionals or attempts at transitionals that statistically we would expect to see if the random mutations were really providing an opportunity for the natural selection that would be necessary to differentiate species. And this does not take into account that there is no reason why there could not be numerous more transitional living species who could survive as well as all the numerous species we have today, that have managed to survive. We have the Cheetah living in the same environment as the Lion, although they compete, and they have different attributes. We would expect this type of survival with many transitionals as well, if they ever existed. Data and observations have not provided these. And the fossil transitionals are mere guesswork, impossible even to evaluate fully without available DNA. Thus observationally never more than 50% accurate, and statistically much less than 1% likely to be transitionals, in spite of observations.
I would love to see the actual calculations that support your numbers. Or are you just making a rhetorical argument?
Disobeying God was the original sin. Trashing the garden? Man was kicked out of the garden. But the planet can handle a lot of trash. People cannot. Trash makes us sick, but the earth just recycles trash. And leaves, and dead trees, and dead animals, and manure. The earth cleans the water, recycles the air thru plants, creates coal and oil and natural gas.
It is true that life dies, just as it is true that death brings life. The death of one animal provides life for another, or fertilizes the plants. Nothing can die unless it first lives. The planet is a place for life, and not so easily changeable, even if man should die completely. But earth’s purpose is honored by the life of man, as no other known planet in the universe. And man’s life is honored by the hand of God which made it, and made the earth a suitable place for man in the image of God, and in the communion with God.
Elsewhere I have given some numbers for the statistics of life originally forming under gradual evolutionary principles, calculated by a number of evolutionary and creation scientists. The statistical improbabilities are staggering. My statement is not statiscal… and because I knew that, I used very, very generous numbers. 50% is quite high, but it is like flipping a coin… not a very good way to do science. Without DNA, one could put an animal or fossil into a species category, but could not verify any kind of transitional aspect, nor identify the degrees of separation. So my 50% is much too generous, but then, I am sometimes a generous guy. As far as the 1% number, while still generous, it is closer to likely, based on the possibilities for transitionals, considering the genetic changes required, and any one fossil being the transitional that actually was it. However, no one will ever be able to determine the true statistics, which would require the actual proof of the fossil being transitional, compared to the number of fossils for which transitionality is being argued. Actual proof which is impossible to obtain, would require an entire genetic history. Or actual observation of ancestors and progeny.
Just to clarify, when I say transitional fossil, I am not meaning the dead animal that made the fossil, but the species represented by the fossil.
My question was whether or not they accurately represented the context in which they were said. If they were out of context, then the answer to that question is no.
A lot has happened in the past twenty years. For starters, we’ve had the RATE project, in which the top YEC PhDs admitted that (a) they couldn’t get round the fact that hundreds of millions of years’ worth of nuclear decay at least has taken place since Creation, and (b) squeezing it all into less than six thousand years would have released enough heat to raise the Earth’s temperature to 22,000°C. Regardless of what you make of evolution, that’s game over for a young earth.
In other words, a guess.
And yet another guess.
When someone quotes numbers I want to see the calculations behind those numbers or it is just a rhetorical argument.
The argument has always been based on a species. The fossil is simply a representation of the species.
When evolutionists admit that a process is miraculous, it is swallowed glibly, but when God performs a miracle, it is not permitted. This double standard… ah, we often don’t see them when embedded in them.
What are you talking about?