5) There
is no evidence for creationism
I'm
sure you've heard, on many occasions, evolutionists say, “There
is no evidence for creationism.” First, I think it's
hilarious that they routinely use the word “creationism”
incorrectly. Words ending in “ism” describe world views or
philosophies – like “atheism.” “Creationism” is the belief
that God created the universe miraculously. Obviously, there are
people who believe this – me being one – so “creationism” is
real. Attention all evolutionists: what you mean to say is, “There
is no evidence for a miraculous creation.” You're
welcome. However, even to say, “there is
no evidence for creation,” while grammatically correct,
is still a lie. Let me explain why,
I
read an analogy once that really nailed this point. People used to
believe the sun moved around the earth, a belief called,
geocentricism. Obviously we can't feel the earth moving and we can
see the sun moving across the sky so the theory of geocentricism
seemed to explain the evidence very well. There were a few things,
though, like the retrograde motion of planets, that geocentricism
didn't explain so we kept searching for answers. Over time, we began
to see that the earth orbits the sun, a theory called
heliocentricism. This new theory seems to be a better explanation of
our observations, including the apparent motion of planets. Yet in
all this time, though our theory may have changed, the evidence
is still the same. We still can't feel the earth moving and the sun
still appears to travel across the sky.
You
see, there is only one universe. There is only one fossil record,
only one geological column, only one earth, etc. These things
are the “evidence.” The evidence isn't for any theory.
Evidence merely exists and we develop theories in attempts to explain
why things are the way they are. So the evidence “for” evolution
is the same evidence “for” creation.
A
good theory should explain all the evidence but there are still some
things one theory or the other doesn't seem to explain well. That's
why we keep studying – not to find evidence for our theories but to
find a better explanation for the evidence. The evidence itself
doesn't care about our theories.
6) 99.9%
of all the species that have ever lived are extinct
On
ChristianCentury.org,
we see one Christian struggling with this question:
I've
heard this statistic quoted so many times that I assumed there must
be some truth to it. It's a lie. What makes it an especially
grievous lie is that this Christian believed it and felt compelled to
engage in mental gymnastics to explain why a “good” God would
create everything through such a wasteful, slow, and cruel process
like evolution.
Wikipedia
estimates there have been 5 billion species. Scientists have
identified only around 1.2 million living species. Some people
speculate there may be another 10 million species still undiscovered.
Maybe there are, it doesn't make much of a difference. There are
also around 500,000 species that are known only from fossils. Again,
maybe there are more but it's surely only a few million more. That
totals only 1.7 million of species known to exist and maybe 10-15
million not discovered.
If
we have identified only 1.7 million species, where is the evidence
for the other alleged 4.99 billion species? There are no fossils at
all for more than 99% of the species evolutionists claim have
existed. None!! The statistic is entirely invented.
How
did they get such a high estimate? It all has to do with their
assumptions – primarily their assumptions about the age of the
earth. It works sort of like this: if life began 1 billion years ago,
and if the average species only appears during 5 million years in the
geological record, then all species have been replaced around 200
times. If there are 10,000,000 identified species (an inflated number
to begin with), that means there must have been 2 billion total
species that have lived! Get it?
Their
vastly inflated estimate of the number of species is merely the
consequence of assuming an ancient earth which virtually demands
countless generations to fill all those millinea. If the earth is
young, then most of the species that ever lived are still alive!
What we actually observe, aka – the evidence, is better explained
by a recent, miraculous creation. The 99.9% estimate of extinct
species is a lie.
I do not think this is so difficult a concept to grasp: "evidence for X" means evidence that is predicted or explained by X but unexplained by, perhaps even predicted not to exist by, Y.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt there can be a host of facts compatible with both explanations, or even predicted by both explanations; if so, none of these facts are "evidence for X" when we are comparing X with Y (though it may be evidence for "either X or Y" when we compare both of them to Z, etc.)
Indeed, you go on to argue that the paucity of fossils of extinct species compared to observations of extant species is, indeed, evidence for young-earth creationism (I don't think old-earth creationists generally dispute that there are a vast number of extinct species). You don't really need the Answers in Genesis talking point about "we all have the same evidence; we just interpret it differently."
I would argue that YECs don't just interpret the evidence differently; they ignore and/or misrepresent huge swaths of it. For example, if the Earth is young and, e.g. T. rex co-existed with Coelophysis bauri and Equus caballus, then we ought to expect, e.g. extant marine "kinds" such as dolphins and baleen whales to be found in the same strata as marine "kinds" like the mososaurs, ichthyosaurs, and plesiosaurs. We should find modern crustacean "kinds" in the same strata as trilobites. The segregation of different groups of organisms in different layers of rock, the failure to find elephants and sauropods, or modern rodents alongside the Cretaceous Eomaia and other very early, basal mammals, makes no sense on YEC grounds and is not predicted by it.
This is part of the reason for the "99% extinction" assertion: there aren't that many known Mesozoic mammal or bird species, but the rocks that contain them contain no modern species, genera, or families. Something, presumably, was taking their place.
Note that virtually everyone assumes that there are more species in the world, right now, than have been identified and described. Researchers go into, e.g. the Amazon jungle, count every species in a particular tree, then go ten or a hundred miles away and do the same to another tree, and compare the list. This gives them a rough measure of "vicariance," the degree to which a species is replaced by a similar but distinct species in a different part of the same environment over various distances, and it implies that there are several times as many species (granted, we're talking mostly beetles and other small animals) as have been described.
It seems reasonable to infer that our sampling of the past is analogously incomplete, and to a much greater degree, since so very much less of the past has survived and been discovered (some fossil-bearing strata have been eroded away, others buried under miles of later sediments, and none strip-mined to extract every fossil).
Steven J,
ReplyDeleteI really don't have a problem with people saying, “this is evidence for evolution” or “this is evidence for creation,” in the sense that some evidence seems better explained by one theory over another. I thought I had said that already. I'm certain I've said it in previous posts. But the claim is that there is NO evidence for creationism (sic). There are trillions of fossils (when fossilization is normally a rare event), found in sedimentary rock (that is, laid down by water), found over the entire earth – including the tallest mountains. Fossils of terrestrial animals are ALWAYS found associated with marine fossils. These things are evidence for my theory. Conversely, your theory might explain why humans and chimps both have fingerprints but your theory doesn't explain well why koalas also have fingerprints so I could say koala fingerprints are evidence against your theory.
You've heard the saying, you are entitled to your own opinion but you're not entitled to your own facts. You may have a different explanation for the same evidence but you don't have exclusive rights to the evidence. Obviously, people who say this are engaging in rank hyperbole but they intend for their audience to believe it literally. To say there is NO evidence for creation is objectively a lie.
Regarding the number of species, you've made some of the same comments you've made before. I'm curious: if researchers find a blue beetle in one tree and a similar – but green – beetle in another tree a mile away, how they be sure they're different species? “Species” is notoriously hard to define and finding varieties of beetles in different places doesn't necessarily make them different species, does it? But I digress.
Getting back to the point, I agree there certainly are more species living than what has been discovered. I mentioned this in my post. How many more are there? 10 million more? Maybe. 100 million more? I doubt it. But do you see that the more species there are, the worse the lie becomes? 10 million is 1% of a billion. 100 million is 1% of 10 billion. What's the right number? We really don't know.
If we don't know how many living species there are and we don't know how many are extinct, on what grounds can anyone say with certainty, “99% of all species that have ever lived are extinct”? It's mere speculation. Worse, it's speculation grounded on the assumption your theory is correct making it close to being a circular argument. Evolutionists should just tell the truth: “If our theory is true, there would have been a lot of species.”
Thanks for your comments. God bless!!
RKBentley