Ten Lies Evolutionists Tell: Part 1

Several years ago, I wrote a post called, Five Lies Evolutionists Tell. I still reference it from time to time but since then, I've added a few more lies to the list. I thought it might be a good idea to put all the various lies together in a short series called, Ten Lies Evolutionists Tell. I'll include 2-3 in every post. Keep in mind that, when I say, “lies,” I mean things that are demonstrably untrue, not merely that I disagree with them.

As usual, I'm going to avoid calling this a “Top 10” list because I'm not convinced these are truly the most spoken lies, though I'm certain they rank highly. You've probably heard a couple of these yourself. I was also a little torn as to which 10 to include because there are others. Perhaps when I'm done with these ten, I'll write a short conclusion and include some of the honorable mentions.

Let's get started. Here, in no particular order, are ten lies routinely told by evolutionists.

1) A single fossil found out of order could disprove evolution

Richard Dawkins once wrote, “Evolution could so easily be disproved if just a single fossil turned up in the wrong date order. Evolution has passed this test with flying colours.” Here's a little exercise: Google the phrase, “fossil redraws evolution” and see how many hits you find. Seriously. Do it! The simple fact of the matter is that scientists routinely find fossils in places that force them to reconsider where and when something evolved. They never chuck their theory because of it. Instead, they publish headlines like, “Fossil Shows Ants Evolved Much Earlier Than Thought.”

In spite of Dawkin's claim, other evolutionists admit that even grossly out of order fossils wouldn't disprove evolution. Look at this quote from Wiki:

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins said that the discovery of fossil mammals in Precambrian rocks would "completely blow evolution out of the water." Philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith doubted that a single set of anachronistic fossils, however, even rabbits in the Precambrian, would disprove the theory of evolution outright. The first question raised by the assertion of such a discovery would be whether the alleged "Precambrian rabbits" really were fossilized rabbits. Alternative interpretations might include incorrect identification of the "fossils", incorrect dating of the rocks, and a hoax such as the Piltdown Man was shown to be. Even if the "Precambrian rabbits" turned out to be genuine, they would not instantly refute the theory of evolution, because that theory is a large package of ideas.

Do you see what I mean? Even a rabbit found in the Precambrian wouldn't disprove evolution. Dawkins is merely posturing in order to make evolution seem like a robust theory that is tested every time a new fossil is found. He doesn't really believe it. That makes his quote a lie.

2) Human and chimp DNA are 98% similar

From the American Museum of Natural History website, we find this lie: The chimpanzee and another ape, the bonobo, are humans' closest living relatives. These three species look alike in many ways, both in body and behavior. But for a clear understanding of how closely they are related, scientists compare their DNA, an essential molecule that's the instruction manual for building each species. Humans and chimps share a surprising 98.8 percent of their DNA.... Human and chimp DNA is so similar because the two species are so closely related. Humans, chimps and bonobos descended from a single ancestor species that lived six or seven million years ago.

Since I was in high school more than 30 years ago, I've heard that human and chimp DNA is 98% similar. Actually, I've heard estimates ranging from 95-99% but it's always cited in a way to give the impression that the similarity is “proof” of our relatedness to chimps. Since DNA is something we can study in the present, I'd always assumed the similarity was there. It was only a few years ago that I learned this amazing similarity was a lie.

The first thing you have to consider is that chimp DNA is 8-10% longer than human DNA. Here is a quote from Anthropology: The Human Challenge:

Moreover, the genetic comparison is misleading because it ignores qualitative differences among genomes. Genetic evolution involves much more than simply replacing one base with another. Thus, even among such close relatives as human and chimpanzee, we find that the chimp’s genome is estimated to be about 10 percent larger than the human’s.... [T]he tips of each chimpanzee chromosome contain a DNA sequence that is not present in humans.

I'm not a math whiz or anything but even I know that if one sentence contained 90 letters and another sentence contained only 99 letters, there is no way the two sentences are 98% similar! Just knowing that chimp DNA is longer than human DNA already proves the “98% similar” claim is false.

In what manner do scientists compare DNA and claim they are 98% similar? You could say there's a little monkey business going on. According to Nature Magazine, “BLASTZ was used to align non-repetitive chimpanzee regions against repeat-masked human sequence. BLAT was subsequently used to align the more repetitive regions. The combined alignments were chained and only best reciprocal alignments were retained for further analysis.” It sounds a little technical but, in simpler terms, the highly touted similarity in human/chimp DNA is essentially achieved by comparing only the most similar parts of the DNA and ignoring everything else!  When scientists do a letter by letter comparison of the entire genomes, the similarity in more like 70-80%. 

Let me just conclude by saying that, if a 98% similarity is evidence that we're related to chimps, what does only a 70-80% similarity mean?

Part 2
Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

If God made everything, who made God?

Critics are often frustrated when Christians ask them, “Where did everything come from?” They're frustrated because they really have no convincing answer. Many critics will attempt to turn the tables and ask the Christian, “Well, if everything has to come from something then where did God come from?” They ask this question intending to create the impression that Christians have a similar dilemma as atheists – namely, how can something exist without being created? They feel if Christians can believe God exists without a cause, then why can't atheists believe the universe exists without a cause?

This reminds me of a funny story I once heard.

An astronaut was speaking to a group of elderly folks about his experiences, in particular about the first time he saw the earth from space. While he was speaking, a lady interrupted him and said, “Sir, I don't know what you're talking about. Everyone knows the earth sits on the back of a giant turtle.”

Not wanting to argue with the lady, the astronaut politely asked her, “Ma'am, what do you think that turtle is standing on?”

The lady didn't miss a beat, “Why, another turtle, of course.”

The astronaut saw he was going to have to press the issue a little. “Then what is that other turtle standing on?”

The lady shook her head and said, “Sir, I see what you're doing and it's not going to work. It's turtles all the way down!”

This is what is known as an infinite regress. It's a logical fallacy where a speaker projects a causal chain of events backward without any definite point that starts the chain. If someone created God, then it must have been by some bigger god. Then who created that god? It must be an even bigger god. Then that god must have been created too, by a still bigger god. There has to be a First Cause – an infinite God who was not created.

If something exists, it must either have always existed or it began to exist. If something began to exist – like the universe – then what caused it? You can't say it was caused by another created thing because that other thing would need a cause. There has to be an eternal Creator who started it all. An infinite God creating the universe is the only thing that makes any sense. Anything else is just turtles all the way down!

Five quick arguments for the existence of God

My blog is mostly apologetics – with a little politics and theology thrown in once in a while. I try to write in such a way that I cover my points pretty well, while still keeping my posts reasonably short. It occurred to me, though, that even two, typewritten pages can contain a lot of material and if people want to use some of my points in discussions with non-believers, they might need some quick bullet-points that are even shorter and easy to remember.

To that end, I thought of what might be the five simplest, yet still effective arguments Christians could use when talking with atheists. If you remember only these five points, you'll find they'll go a long way. I tried to think of a 5-letter acronym to help remember them but nothing came to mind. If anyone has a suggestion, comment me.

1) The existence of matter and space

There is a law in science called the conservation of matter. It basically says that matter can never be created nor destroyed. You can convert matter into energy, but the net amount of matter/energy in the universe remains constant. This begs the question: if matter is not being created, where did it all come from in the first place? Logically speaking, nothing can create itself so the universe must have been created by something outside of itself. There has to be a supernatural, eternal, First Cause. I call Him, God.

2) The origin of life

Once upon a time, people believed maggots sprang out of rotting meat through a process called, spontaneous generation. Through experimentation, though, all examples of spontaneous generation were shown to be false. In every case, another living organism was determined to be the origin. In the case of maggots, for example, it was flies lying eggs on the meat. Darwin, however, stilled believed that spontaneous generation could occur in single-celled animals. That's because he believed uni-celled creatures were “simple” blobs of goo – a fortunate arrangement of amino acids. We know now that even single-celled creatures are incredibly complex. In spite of all of our efforts, we've never been able to create a living thing nor seen one rise spontaneously in nature. The true origin of life is a bona fide miracle. God created life.

3) Absolute morality

Is it wrong to lie? Is it wrong to steal? Is it wrong to rape? We all know it is but why? Among animals, we can find numerous examples of deception, cunning, or forced mating. Why are these things wrong for humans but not animals? Some people think society decides for itself what is right and wrong. If that is true, then we could hardly condemn Nazi Germany for the holocaust since that is what they thought was best for them at the time. It just seems we instinctively know that some things are always wrong but again, why? Obviously the universe doesn't care what happens. Objective right and wrong can only exist if there is a moral code that transcends human opinion. If good and evil exist at all, it is only because God exists.

4) The historical fact of Jesus

Pick any person from the past and try to prove – scientifically – that he ever lived. You will soon find it's an impossible task. When we study historical figures, we look at historical evidence. What was written down about them? In the case of Jesus, we have the gospels and the letters of Paul. We have the extra-biblical writings of historians like Josephus, Tacitus, and Pliny the younger. We have eyewitness accounts of the miracles of Jesus and His promise of eternal life to those who believe in Him. We have eyewitness accounts of people who saw Him die and saw Him alive again. We have accounts of the empty tomb, the martyrdom of the apostles, and the explosion of the first century church. We have more evidence for the historical fact of Jesus than any other person of antiquity. Jesus lived, died, and rose again.

5) The lack of evidence to the contrary

This is where the rubber meets the road. You see, atheists proudly boast that they've never seen compelling evidence for God. If you run down the above four reasons why there must be a God, they will merely shake their heads and say it's not enough evidence for God. Next, they accuse Christians of believing in a god-of-the-gaps and wherever we lack scientific understanding, Christians want to just say, God-did-it. I think they have a weak argument. How can they say God didn't do it unless they can provide strong evidence to the contrary? Let me show you how this applies to the above points:

• Point #1: Suppose I'm walking through the woods with a friend and we come across a crude log cabin. I might wonder who built it but my friend says, “No one built this. Look at all these sticks lying around here. I'm sure they just arranged themselves into the shape of a cabin – we just need to look for some natural mechanism.” Before I abandon the obvious conclusion that the cabin had a builder, my friend has to convince me that no one could build something. Furthermore, he has to convince me that his explanation is more likely than mine. You see? He has to provide evidence to the contrary of the most reasonable conclusion. I'm willing to listen but I don't think any story he could invent would convince me yet atheists believe that nothing created everything!
• Point #2: The origin of life poses a similar problem for atheists as the origin of matter. Atheists still cling to spontaneous generation only now they call it abiogenesis. Regardless, it's still the idea that life can arise from non-living matter. What compelling argument can the atheist make that would have me reject everything we've learned up till now and consider an idea that was discarded not long after blood-letting?
• Point #3: If atheists believe there are such things as good and bad, they need to show how they transcend human opinion. Atheists often ridicule the Bible, for example, saying that it endorses things like slavery. What makes the atheists' view of slavery more “right” than the societies who thought it was OK to own slaves? If they have no alternate, objective standard of morality, they need to stop using their personal opinions of right and wrong to criticize the Bible's standards.
• Point #4: Atheists often attack the Person of Jesus saying He was a myth or an embellishment. They say the Scriptures are of dubious origin and have been corrupted through centuries of translating and editing. So where is their evidence for these claims? Where are the uncorrupt autographs that I can compare with our modern Bibles to see the differences? How do they impeach the testimonies of people who claim to be eyewitnesses to the miracles of Jesus – including His resurrection? What am I to do with the Dead Sea Scrolls or the thousands of Greek and Latin manuscripts? It's fine that they choose to ignore the evidence but I would ask them what other historical figures have as much evidence and which of those with less evidence do atheists dismiss as myths?

There are compelling reasons to believe in God. Atheism, on the other hand, suffers from a glaring lack of evidence. I've never heard a sound argument for why atheism is true and correct. I only hear criticisms of Christian arguments.

Atheists can say they reject the evidence for God. They just can't say why.

Will “good” unbelievers go to hell?

I was watching YouTube the other day when a self-described agnostic asked Frank Turek this question:

I generally try to be a good person but I don't believe in the Christian God. Do you think I'm going to hell?

I've seen other stuff by Dr. Turek and he knows a thing or two about apologetics so I'm sure he's heard questions like this before. I don't know why, then, he seemed to dance around the subject for 5 minutes before saying, “If you don't bow your knee to a Creator and get the free gift of eternal salvation, God will not force into His presence against your will.” I'm not sure what the venue was but the crowd seemed sympathetic to Turek, judging by the polite applause that came at the end of the clip. Some of the unbelievers commenting on the video were a little less impressed with his answer.

I'm not going to bash Turek because we've all had those times where we are put on the spot and can't articulate our thoughts well. How many times have you, after some encounter, thought to yourself, “Oh, I wish I would have said....”? But having watched the video and taking time to reflect on the question, let me suggest how I might answer it.

The Bible commands us to speak the truth in love (Eph 4:15). If we love this girl, we will tell her yes, if she does not accept Jesus, she will go to hell. We say this not because we want her to go to hell or because we are judging her and her lifestyle. Instead, we tell her precisely because we don't want her to go to hell. We are telling her what the consequences of her decisions will be and it should be our goal to change her mind.

Stop and think for a moment – what is the point behind asking such a question? I'm asking rhetorically because it's obvious why: the girl is trying to make the Christian seem intolerant, narrow-minded, and mean. The question commits the logical fallacy of appealing to emotion. Whether or not it seems unfair that “good” people can go to hell does nothing to demonstrate that it's not true. The question attempts to provoke a sense of outrage toward the seeming unfairness that a loving God would allow someone who tried to be good to go to hell. To not answer the question directly might make an apologist appear to embarrassed by the “unfairness” to give the obvious answer. It's exactly the kind of response the critic wants.

What if, instead, a person were to ask, “If I jumped out of an airplane at 10,000 feet without a parachute, do you think I would die?” The answer is an immediate and urgent, “Yes! A fall from that height will certainly kill you. Please tell me you aren't seriously considering doing that!” We're not judging that person; we're describing reality. It wouldn't matter if the person sincerely believed he wouldn't die from such an act, we know he would and should do everything we can to stop him. Why are we any less convicted or urgent about their decision to reject God?

The girl started her question saying that she tries to be good. I would also ask her why she thinks it's important to be good? Since she is an agnostic and not an atheist, maybe she thinks there could be eternal consequences to doing bad. Notice that she said that she tries to be good; I would ask how well she's done. Does she think it's wrong to lie, for example. If so, then has she told lies? Certainly she has. Has she ever cursed at anyone? Has she ever stolen anything – even something little? If she fairly judged herself according to things she knows are wrong, she would see herself as a lying, thieving, murderer at heart. If there are eternal consequences to our actions, isn't she worried about all the bad things she knows she has done? Wouldn't it be great to know that she can have forgiveness for her sins?

The girl asked this question to try to argue. What an opportunity such a question is to share the gospel!