
Archive-name: talk-origins/creation/part3
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 The talk.origins FAQ (Creation) Homepage

[39] Are fossils that appear to be simpler forms of humans evidence of
evolution?
[A] No. If humans are directly descended from animals then these fossils
may indicate stages that are close to the path of common descent, although
different forms that do not appear to be direct ancestors of humans
indicate a degree of adaptation to different environments by random
mutations sorted by natural selection. This is consistent with progressive
creation by modification. If the first humans were created by the
modification of an upright bipedal species of animal, we are still a
deliberately created design.

The existence of species that walked upright on two legs and were similar
in appearance to humans would also have served a useful function for the
coming humans, since God already had the design of humans in mind and was
preparing the earth for us. Other species existing before humans may have
had a tendency to attack human sized individuals, and the fights between
cave apes and potential predators would have produced natural selection
among then existing species for instinctive behaviour that favoured
aversion to upright bipeds. Fossil evidence of tooth marks in bones shows
that early upright biped species such as _Australopithecus afarensis_ were
preyed on by tigers or similar "big cat" predators. Cave dwelling apes
that used simple tools and weapons, particularly the more robust forms
that had larger bones and presumably stronger muscles that humans, would
have been useful for early humans in this regard by killing a proportion
of these predators so that alleles that produced aversion behaviour
towards upright bipeds became more common in the predator population. The
cave apes may have established an ecological niche for Adam and Eve and
their descendants.

[40] Who was Adam?
[A] Adam was _Homo sapiens sapiens_, and the first of our modern species.
The similarity of our DNA with that of chimpanzees suggests common
ancestry and therefore that that God formed Adam by modifying an existing
pre-human species, yet God changed Adam significantly from his pre-human
ancestors. Adam was the first individual of the Homo genus to have a soul
and this gave him and his descendants a sense of self that changed the
nature of thinking so that abstract thought and the use of abstract
concepts in language became possible.

There is a major change in the fossil and archaeological evidence called
the Upper Paleolithic Revolution that is dated around 50 000 to 35 000
Years bp., it shows the simultaneous appearance of a number of novel
objects in the archaeological record - evidence of the appearance of
modern human culture. These new objects include sophisticated stone tools
that required a high degree of skill to produce, the use of bone and
antler as raw materials for toolmaking, tool kits comprising a large
number (more than 100) of different items that included implements for
fashioning rough clothing, beads and pendants for adornment and cave
paintings. Humans then began changing at a much more rapid pace,
significant changes were appearing in thousands of years rather than in
hundreds of thousands of years as had previously been the case.
Agriculture first appears after this change.

It is suggested by this writer that God modified the DNA of an archaic
Homo sapiens zygote to form Adam and then Eve, and that this event
immediately preceded the Upper Paleolithic Revolution. This implies either
that the biblical record is inaccurate by a factor of 6 to 8 as a result
of errors in the duplication of the oldest manuscripts or that the dating
of the Upper Paleolithic Revolution is incorrect. The rapid pace of
cultural change that follows the Upper Paleolithic Revolution is
consistent with the appearance of a new species with a new mode of
thinking that arose when God gave Adam a soul.

Humans have a special place in God's creation and we are a different kind
to the archaic Homo species that lived before the creation of Adam.
Although the existence of a soul may not be part of our molecular biology
it is an integral part of our psychology and this mind within a mind of
Homo sapiens sapiens makes us think very differently to our presumed
ancestors.

The bible describes the creation of  Adam in this way:

".. the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being."
[Genesis 2:7]

This could refer to progressive creation by modification beginning with
the creation of an ancestral organism from inorganic materials, and the
giving of a soul to Adam. The word "life" in the bible is frequently used
to mean eternal life.

[41] Can the sophistication of humans be explained by evolution?
[A] No. Human culture has progressed in around 12 000 years from the
making of stone tools to the launch of spacecraft to explore the solar
system. This is a fleeting moment of geological time and natural selection
could not have produced the required increase in brain complexity since
microelectronic circuit design and astrophysics require thinking skills
considerably more advanced than those used by simple hunter gatherers or
the members of the first small agricultural communities. The time frame is
too short for evolution to have produced the required increase in brain
complexity.

Evolution cannot explain the origin of complex characteristics that
represent unused potential since mutations and natural selection cannot
increase the functional adaptation of combinations of genes that are not
used. We were created in God's image.

[42] What about Noah's ark?
[A] Noah's ark was a miracle and miracles need not follow physical laws or
scientific principals. We are not expected to understand how they
happened.

[43] Why should I believe the Christian version of creation rather than
the alternatives proposed by other religions?
[A] Around 700 BC the prophet Isaiah told the Jewish people of a coming
messiah who would be born of a virgin. Isaiah also described the things
this messiah would do on earth and explained in detail how he would suffer
for the healing of others. Other prophets including King David, the second
king of what later became the nation of Israel, also described this coming
heavenly king.

Around 30 AD a man named John began baptising people and telling them that
the kingdom of heaven was near, then John the Baptist was imprisoned. Soon
afterwards Jesus began his public ministry in Israel and John sent a
messenger to Jesus asking if he was the messiah who the prophets had said
was coming. Jesus replied:

"Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind
receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf
hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor."
[Luke 7:22]

Jesus was not saying that people should believe he was the messiah because
he said so. He was pointing out that he was doing the miracles Isaiah had
predicted several centuries earlier that the messiah would do.

Jesus later explained to his followers that he and God our creator are
one. He healed the sick, raised the dead and was raised from the dead.
God came down from heaven and lived among us in the person of Jesus.

[44] What are the moral consequences of advocating a belief in evolution?
[A] Evolution contradicts the bible because the bible states that God
created different kinds of plants and animals. The bible also describes
how to gain eternal life. If a supporter of evolution falsely claims that
the bible is wrong, and as a result another person disbelieves the bible
and loses their eternal life, then the actions of the evolution supporter
produce an outcome far worse than the killing of another human.

People wonder where life came from, and many people have been mislead to
believe that science has an explanation for the origin of life that has
been proved to be correct. This misleading of the public verges on
outright dishonesty when the unproved theory of evolution is presented
alongside other scientific explanations that are known with a high degree
of certainty to be true without distinguishing clearly between the two
types of explanations.

The followers of evolution have had 125 years to come up with a theory
that is a complete and valid explanation for the origin of living things
and they have failed to do so. The first living organism must have been
created by God.

Scientists have been claiming that the bible and, by implication,
Christianity is wrong and this is a false, misleading and harmful claim.
During the last century science has gained an exaggerated importance in
western philosophy and it is time for this harmful distortion to be
corrected.

Science is a guessing game with rules, it is a useful way of answering
some types of questions but it cannot answer moral questions because our
understanding of the nature of humans and of human behaviour is imperfect.
The answers that science can give are limited to the hypotheses that can
be posed and tested, if an area is insufficiently understood for the real
answers to questions to be guessed then science cannot give us
understanding of that area. Science is unable to provide definitive
answers to questions of right and wrong in human behaviour since science
has only a limited understanding of humans.

Moral relativism, the idea that right and wrong can be determined by
arbitrary decisions based on what is known of the possible consequences of
actions, is junk philosophy. Rather than giving an answer to moral
questions it invites people to pick their own answer that may or may not
be correct. This limited view of living derives from the limited
understanding that science gives us of life.

We once had a Christian culture that integrated philosophy with moral
values, this has been replaced in a large proportion of popular culture by
a science oriented philosophy and almost a moral vacuum.

This shift in philosophy from religion to science has had a very harmful
impact on our society. The loss of moral values from popular western
culture has resulted in major social problems caused by damaging
relationships including  family breakup, violence and the self destructive
behaviour that results from lost self esteem.

Christian moral values are the instructions for life given by the creator
of humans, if we disregard these instructions our lives will not work
properly and if our culture disregards these instructions then our culture
will develop serious social problems.

[45] Are there any unsolved problems in developing an understanding of the
Genesis account of creation that is also consistent with modern science ?
[A] Yes. The genealogy found in the book of Genesis traces the ancestry of
Abram from Adam, and Abram lived during the early part of history that is
recorded in ancient texts other than the bible. The biblical genealogy,
tracing the male line, gives the ages of the fathers at the birth of their
sons and simple calculations give a time span of a little over 2000 years
between the creation of Adam and the birth of Abram who lived about 2166
BC. The Genesis account indicates that Adam was created about 6000 years
ago.

Radioactive dating indicates that individuals that used fire and tools and
had skeletons very similar to those of modern humans were present on earth
more than 12000 years ago and the oldest human culture, that of the
Australian Aborigines, dates back about 30000 years based on radioactive
dating of charcoal from campfires. This seems to contradict the 4000 BC
date for the creation of Adam.

Radioactive dating of Carbon samples is based on the assumption that the
ratio of the isotopes Carbon 12 and Carbon 14 in the atmosphere has
remained relatively constant over time and it is possible that this
assumption may not be correct, however tree ring studies indicate that
radiocarbon dating gives an accuracy of better than plus or minus 20
percent over 4000 years or more. Radioactive Carbon dating is only useful
for samples younger than about 50 000 years, for older samples isotopes of
other radioactive elements are used.

Radioactive dating is done by comparing the amounts of particular
radioactive isotopes of elements in samples with the amounts of other
isotopes in the sample that are known to be the breakdown products of the
original radioactive atoms. Errors can occur when dating individual
samples as some of the original isotopes or their breakdown products may
have been lost. Radioactive dating is based on the assumptions that the
rate of radioactive decay has remained constant over time, that the
original samples contained only the radioactive isotopes and not a mixture
of the isotopes and their breakdown products, and that atoms of the
radioactive elements or their decay products have not been lost from a
sample other than as a result of radioactive decay. Although the former
two assumptions seem valid in the opinion of this writer, and the later
one may be valid in many cases, dates obtained by radioactive dating are
not known with absolute certainty.

An alternative explanation to errors in radioactive dating may be that
either the ages or the number of individuals in the genealogy in Genesis
may have been incorrectly copied during the history of the manuscript.
This part of the bible is much older than the rest and while we can be
confident that the manuscripts we have of the later parts of the bible
contain very few errors, this may not be true of the very oldest part of
the bible, the creation account. The repetition of the phrase "according
to their kind" in reference to the creation of plants and animals enables
us to be confident that this phrase accurately reflects the original
manuscript.

[46] Why is it important to develop an understanding of the Genesis
account of creation that is also consistent with modern science?
[A] The bible tells us how to live and how to relate to God, other issues
are only addressed in the context of explaining our relationships with
others and with our creator. In order to relate to God it is helpful for
us to understand who God is and so Genesis tells us that God is the
creator of the universe, the earth, different kinds of plants and animals,
and of humans.

The bible does not go into detail about the process of creation since this
is not the focus of Genesis. We are told that God created different kinds
of plants and animals and that on a later occasion he created humans. It
is relevant to relate this small amount of information we are given about
creation in the bible to our quest for a scientific understanding of
nature since those of us who consider the bible inspired by God believe
these answers to be statements of truth, and therefore things that are
known for certain.

Given this view of the bible we have a limited number of reference points
that are authoritative statements of truth and to gain a more detailed
view of the world we can fill in the gaps with logical deductions that are
the product of applying the scientific method to observations of nature
including experiments. If we want our understanding of nature to be close
to the truth then it must be consistent with the statements of truth
contained in the bible. If there is an apparent disagreement between
science and the bible then this appearance of disagreement can only result
from our imperfect understanding of the bible text, errors in translation
or in the copying of the original bible manuscripts or from errors in
observation or deduction when using the scientific method to understand
nature.

 The scientific method and the accumulated answers to questions that have
come from using it are an important part of modern culture, however the
question of how to live and how to relate to God is more important.


The Apostle Paul writes:

"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities, his
eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood
from what has been made, so that men are without excuse". [Romans 1.20]


References

All quotations from the bible are from the New International Version (NIV).

[#1] Miller, S. Formation of Organic Compounds On The Primitive Earth.
Reports On The International Symposium on The Origin Of Life On Earth,
Moscow 1957. The Publishing House of The Academy Of Sciences Of The USSR.

[#2] Joyce, J.F., Orgel, L.E., Prospects for Understanding the Origin of
the RNA World. In, The RNA World, 1993, Ed. Gesteland, R.F., Atkins, J.F.,
Cold Spring Harbour Press.

[#3] Ferris, J.P., Hill, A.R. Jr., Liu, R., & Orgel L.E., Synthesis of long
prebiotic oligomers on mineral surfaces. Nature Vol 381, p 59 - 61 (1996).

[#4] Crick, F., Introduction to "The RNA World", 1993, Ed. Gesteland,
R.F., Atkins, J.F., Cold Spring Harbour Press.


Notes


This FAQ is also available at http://www.zeta.org.au/~jeffcox/creation.html
It is posted to the talk.origins usenet newsgroup each month.


There is another talk.origins FAQ that answers questions on evolution from
a non creation point of view, it is also posted to the talk.origins
newsgroup and can be found at http://earth.ics.uci.edu:8080/


The author asserts ownership of the intellectual property of original
material contained herein. This document may be freely distributed,
archived, printed and copied, the document must either be reproduced in
it's entirety or be quoted from with acknowledgement of the source and
author. Posting a reply on usenet such as Re: talk.origins FAQ (Creation)
is an acceptable way of attributing a quote.


I think we can prove evolution wrong by working out the probability of
beneficial mutations and I would like to collaborate with some people who
are interested. Please email the writer if you have done some calculations
yourself, or if you know of such calculations that have been posted or
published.


Jeffrey Cox <jeffcox@zeta.org.au>

Version 1.7, October 7 1996.
