evolution:

fact or fable?

Richard Johnston
ISBN # 3-03730-111-2

By Richard Johnston

Copyright © 2002, Aurora Production AG, Switzerland

All Rights Reserved. Printed in Thailand

Visit our Web site at: [Link]

II
 CONTENTS

Introduction ......................................................... v
The Two Sides of the Debate ................................ 1
Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace—
Popularizers of the Theory of Evolution ........ 4
Scientific Laws that Evolution Defies ..................... 7
Is the Earth Old or Young? .................................. 11
Chemical Processes ...................................... 11
Earth’s Magnetic Field ................................... 14
Rates of Erosion ............................................ 17
Other Processes ............................................ 18
Radiometric Dating ............................................ 19
The Geologic Column and Index Fossils.............. 25
More on Fossils.................................................. 29
Macroevolution vs. Microevolution ...................... 35
Dazzling Design in Miniature ......................... 38
Cheating with Chance.................................... 40
Mutants ............................................................. 43
How Old Is Humanity? ................................... 45
Irreducibility....................................................... 47
“Human Ancestors” ........................................... 51
III
Is Creation a Credible Alternative?....................... 59
What Saith Genesis?........................................... 61
Day One ........................................................ 61
Day Two ........................................................ 62
Day Three ..................................................... 63
Day Four ....................................................... 64
How long has the moon been receding?......... 69
Day Five ........................................................ 70
Day Six.......................................................... 71
Theistic Evolution ............................................... 75
The Gap Theory (also called the Ruin and
Reconstruction Theory)............................. 76
The Day-Age Theory ...................................... 79
The Flood .......................................................... 81

What’s the Conclusion of the Whole Matter?........ 87

IV
V evolution: fact or fable?

introduction

W
hen Charles Darwin and his adherents
popularized the theory of evolution in the
late 1800s, rationalist and humanist scien-
tists and philosophers proclaimed that the death knell
had sounded for religion, and for the God of Creation
in particular. Now, over 100 years later, both God and
faith in the biblical account of Creation are alive and
well. In fact, although the theory of evolution has long
been taught as fact in most schools and universities
with the Bible’s account and other opposing views
being given little or no voice, a growing number of
respected scientists are joining the “creationist” camp.
Many questions about how this or that happened
remain unanswerable by means of scientific investi-
gation, but more and more evidence is being uncov-
ered that indicates the universe and all that is in it
was the work of an intelligent designer, not chance.
Evolutionists are fond of stating, “Evolution is a fact.”
But a fact is incontrovertible, meaning it is certain,
undeniable, and not open to question. The truth is
that the theory of evolution is not as factual and con-
vincing as its proponents pretend.
V
 “Creation science”—the scientific study of the
creation of the universe by an intelligent designer—
covers a wide range of scientific disciplines: physics,
botany, biology and molecular biology, anthropology,
biochemistry, astrophysics, and more. It would take
far more than these few pages to thoroughly examine
all the arguments of the evolution versus Creation
debate. Instead, this booklet deals with only a few of
the most oft-repeated claims for and against the two
theories.

VI
1 evolution: fact or fable?

the two sides

of the debate

C
reation science contends that an intelligent
designer was at work in the creation of the
universe and life. A sizeable number on this
side of the debate—perhaps even the majority—
believe the Bible’s account of Creation—that is, that
the universe was created over a span of six days about
6,000 years ago. (The age of the earth according to the
Bible can be roughly calculated by adding the number
of years Adam and his descendants lived, as listed in
Genesis chapters 5 and 11 and other biblical passages,
up to the laying of the foundation of the temple in
Jerusalem by King Solomon in 967/966 B.C., a date
most historians agree on, give or take a few years.1)
Further to this, biblical creationists also accept the
Bible’s account that a worldwide flood around 1,600
years after Creation cataclysmically altered the origi-
nal Creation and that all humans and animals now
inhabiting the earth are direct descendants of the
occupants of Noah’s Ark.

{
1
Edwin R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings (Grand Rapids:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1951, rev. 1965) is regarded by many
historians as the definitive work when determining biblical dates such as this.

1
2 evolution: fact or fable?
The most popular atheistic theory as to the origin
of the universe is the big bang theory. This theory goes
through constant revision as new data is injected into
the equation, but in essence it states that the universe
began from a furiously spinning, infinitesimally small
but immensely dense dot. The dot exploded in“the big
bang” that threw out matter that expanded into all the
astral bodies that inhabit the universe, which is still
expanding.
Speculation is rampant as to when this occurred,
but 20–40 billion years ago is the median time frame
given. At some stage billions of years ago the earth,
as it was then formed, was subjected to continuous
rain for billions of years. This dissolved rock into the
ocean, making what is commonly referred to as the
primordial soup.
Due to some chance introduction of an energy force
of some kind, life in the form of simple cells sprang
forth from the various inanimate chemicals present in
this “soup.” This life developed and became increas-
ingly complex in nature, and through the intervening
billions of years since that time has given rise to the
vast diversity of life that abounds on this planet.
Creation scientists look at the cosmos and see the
unmistakable hand of a designer at work. Evolutionists
observe the same cosmos and view everything that is
in it as the result of random chance.
It is important to understand that contrary to
claims by evolutionists, belief in the biblical account of
Creation is not diametrically opposed to true science.
The proponents of evolution often try to cast believ-
ers in Creation as scientifically ignorant and unen-
lightened. Don’t let yourself be put in that position.
the two sides of the debate 3

Creationists can believe as firmly in science as anyone

else. In fact, many scientists are creationists.
True science is based on what is known as the
“scientific method,” by which knowledge is advanced
by formulating a question, collecting data about it
through observation and experiment, and testing a
hypothetical answer. Only after such experimentation
has proven a scientific theory to be true by produc-
ing observable and repeatable results does the theory
move into the realm of scientific fact.
Because neither the big bang/evolution theory nor
the belief in the Creation being wrought by God can
be observed or repeated under observable experimen-
tal conditions, both are belief systems that remain
within the realm of faith. It comes down to what—and
who—you choose to believe.
Others try to sit on the fence. Many believe in the
God of the Bible, but contend that the Creation was
the result of evolutionary processes. These are the
proponents of theistic evolution. A later chapter takes
a closer look at the theistic evolutionist’s attempts
to synthesize the polar opposites of the Bible and
evolutionary theory, but in short this middle ground
requires twice as much faith as the two other belief
systems because it requires faith in both.
4 evolution: fact or fable?

Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel

Wallace—Popularizers of the
Theory of Evolution1

Charles Darwin and his history-changing book On the

Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, subtitled
“The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for
Life,” published in 1859, are known around the world.
As a young man, Charles Darwin was always interested
in nature, but since his father saw no future in being a
naturalist, he was sent to the University of Edinburgh to
study medicine.
At 16, he left Edinburgh without a degree and
enrolled in Christ College at Cambridge University to
become a clergyman, since most naturalists of the day
were clergyman. He received his B.A. degree in theology
in 1831 and was recommended by the Reverend John
Henslow, Professor of Botany, to Captain Robert Fitzroy
of the HMS Beagle to participate in a surveying voyage
around the world.
Darwin was 22 years old when they sailed from
England in December 1831 with the primary mission of
charting sections of the South American coastline. While
the crew charted the coastline, Darwin observed the
distinctive nature of South America and was puzzled by
the geographic distribution of species. At the Galapagos
Islands, Darwin came across several types of finches
that, although very similar, had apparent adaptations to
their particular environments. By the time they had sailed
from the Galapagos, Darwin had read Charles Lyell’s
Principles of Geology, and began to doubt the Church’s

{ 1
From the Creation Science Web site: [Link]
the two sides of the debate 5

position that the earth was only a few thousand years old.
Later Darwin would theorize that these new forms were
the result of the accumulation of adaptations to a dif-
ferent environment (Campbell 1990: 428–429). By the
1840s, Darwin had worked out the major features of the
theory of natural selection as a mechanism for evolution
but did not publish it immediately. Incidentally, Darwin
spent most of his adult life in a semi-invalid condition
whose cause, either organic or psychological, to this day
remains unclear, but he did nevertheless write exten-
sively and pursued his research.
The idea of natural selection as a source of new
species was later to be co-discovered by Alfred Russel
Wallace (1823–1913). Wallace, unlike Lyell and Darwin,
was raised in poverty and had no formal higher educa-
tion at all, learning his knowledge of biology by extensive
field experience in the Amazon and East Indies. At 21,
Wallace was introduced to spiritualism and would later
become a leader in the spiritism movement and write
on the subject. Wallace wrote a two-part article on the
subject and later the definitive textbook, Miracles and
Modern Spiritualism in 1876 (Morris 1989: 171).
In 1855 Wallace published a paper on the origin
of species, which made Lyell and Darwin realize how
close Wallace was to Darwin’s research. While Darwin
was procrastinating on the publication of Origin, Wallace
made a very curious contribution to science while in the
Malayan jungles:
“I was then (February 1858) living at Ternate in the
Muluccas [part of modern-day Indonesia], and was suffer-
ing from a rather severe attack of intermittent fever, which
prostrated me every day during the cold and succeeding
hot fits. During one of these fits, while again considering
the problem of the origin of species, something led me to
6 evolution: fact or fable?

think of Malthus’s “Essay on Population.” (Morris 1989:

172, quoting Wallace, The Wonderful Century.) …
“Then it suddenly flashed upon me that this self-
acting process would necessarily improve the race,
because in every generation the inferior would inevitably
be killed off and the superior would remain—that is, the
fittest would survive. Then at once I seemed to see the
whole effect of this.
“The whole method of species modification became
clear to me, and in the two hours of my fit, I had thought
out the main points of the theory. That same evening I
sketched out the draft of a paper; and in the two suc-
ceeding evenings I wrote it out, and sent it by the next
post to Mr. Darwin” (op cit, p. 173).
At that point, Darwin was persuaded by his friends
Lyell and Hooker to stop work on the “big book” and
quickly publish an abstract, a shorter version, instead.
Lyell and Hooker then presented Darwin’s 1844 sketch
and Wallace’s 1858 paper to the Linnean Society on July
1, 1858. Darwin’s “abstract” of 490 pages was published
in 1859 as On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection and the rest is history (Taylor 1991: 130–131).
Had it not been for Wallace acting as a stimulus, Darwin
may not have written Origins and the course of history
could have remained unchanged. Morris summarizes
this best:
“Herein was a marvelous thing! A theory that Darwin
had been developing for twenty years, in the midst
of a world center of science and with the help and
encouragement of many scientific friends, was sud-
denly revealed in full to a self-educated spiritist, halfway
around the world, alone on a tropical island in the throes
of a two-hour malarial fit. This is not the usual route to
scientific discovery” (Morris 1989: 173).
7 evolution: fact or fable?

scientific laws that

evolution defies

B
efore going further, it is important to understand
a few basic laws of physics. When something is a
law of science, it means that it is an unchanging
principle of nature. It is a scientifically observable phe-
nomenon that has been subjected to extensive measure-
ments and experimentation and has repeatedly proved
to be invariable throughout the known universe (e.g.,
the law of gravity and the laws of motion).
One of the laws of physics is termed the Second
Law of Thermodynamics. Physicist Lord Kelvin, the
man who first defined this law, stated it in technical
terms as follows: “There is no natural process the only
result of which is to cool a heat reservoir and do exter-
nal work.”
In more understandable terms, this law observes the
fact that the usable energy in the universe is diminish-
ing. Ultimately, there would be no available energy left.
Stemming from this fact we find that the most probable
state for any natural system is one of disorder. All natu-
ral systems degenerate when left to themselves.1

{ 1
Lord Kelvin, as quoted in A.W. Smith and J.N. Cooper, Elements of Physics, 8th
edition, New York, New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing (1972), p. 241.
7
8 evolution: fact or fable?

The second law of
thermodynamics means that
everything deteriorates and does
not get more complex as required
for evolution to occur.

Famed scientist, science fiction writer, and evolu-

tionary proponent Isaac Asimov put it this way:

Another way of stating the second law then is, “The

universe is constantly getting more disorderly.” Viewed
that way we can see the second law all about us. We
have to work hard to straighten a room, but left to itself
it becomes a mess again very quickly and very easily.
Even if we never enter it, it becomes dusty and musty.
How difficult to maintain houses, and machinery, and
our own bodies in perfect working order; how easy to let
them deteriorate. In fact, all we have to do is nothing,
and everything deteriorates, collapses, breaks down,
wears out, all by itself—and that is what the second law
is all about.1

But the crux of evolutionary theory is that things

are gaining in complexity, simple life forms giving
rise to more sophisticated ones; disorder giving rise

{ 1
Isaac Asimov, “In the Game of Energy and Thermodynamics You Can’t Even Break
Even,” Smithsonian Institution Journal (June 1970), p. 6 (emphasis added).
scientific laws that evolution defies 9

to order. This flies in the face of the second law of

thermodynamics. On this point alone the theory of
evolution would have to be disallowed.
Evolutionists counter this argument by claiming
that an energy source can reverse the second law. For
example, an outside energy force such as a house-
keeper can tidy a disorderly room. They point to the
sun as the outside source of energy, and say over bil-
lions of years the sun’s energy would be like the busy
housekeeper. Simple observation, however, would
show that energy from the sun alone is not capable of
creating life from something with no life, or complex-
ity from simplicity.
Consider the sun shining on two seedlings: the one
alive, the other dead. When equal amounts of water
and nutrients are added to both, the live plant flour-
ishes but the dead one decays. Energy from the sun
is not enough to give rise to life. And as for the dead
plant, it rots and disintegrates in accordance with the
second law of thermodynamics.
Another scientific law that is defied by the big
bang theory is the law of the conservation of angular
momentum. This law states that if an object is spin-
ning and part of that object detaches and flies off, the
part that flies off will spin in the same direction as the
object it detached from.
As previously stated, the big bang theory holds
that a very small, very dense point in space was spin-
ning very fast when it exploded and shot out all the
planets, stars, and other astral bodies that comprise
the universe.
10 evolution: fact or fable?

The law of the conservation of

angular momentum disproves the
big bang theory.

It is true that the planets are observed to be spin-

ning. But, according to the law of the conservation of
angular momentum, if all the planets spun off from
the same original object, then they would all be spin-
ning in the same direction. Even an examination of
our own solar system shows that at least two planets,
Venus and Uranus and possibly also Pluto, spin in the
opposite direction than the rest of the planets do. This
evidence alone disproves the big bang theory.
11 evolution: fact or fable?

is the earth old

or young?

A
n obvious difference in the arguments for evo-
lution and creation has to do with the age of
the earth. Evolutionists believe that it must be
many billions of years old, while biblical creationists
contend that it is only around 6,000 years old. What
does the evidence reveal?

Chemical Processes
There are a few scientific ways to roughly calculate
the age of the earth. Continuous, measurable chemi-
cal processes provide one way. If the rate of the pro-
cess and current amount of the product can be deter-
mined, then it is possible to put a time on when the
process started. The most obvious flaw in this method
of reckoning is that the resultant product might not
all be due to the single process being measured. What
it does show us, though, is that the beginning date of
the process can be no earlier than the date deduced.
Here’s an example:
Most of us are familiar with the element helium. It
is the very light gas used to inflate party balloons and
make them float. Blimps are also filled with helium.
11
12 evolution: fact or fable?
Helium results from radioactive decay and it forms a
very small percentage of our atmosphere—only about
0.0005% (compared to nitrogen’s 78% and oxygen’s
20%). However, that 0.0005% adds up to a consider-
able amount—about 3.7 billion metric tons. Helium is
escaping into the atmosphere from the earth’s surface,
due to the process of radioactive decay, at the rate of 67
grams per second. Even if there had been no helium in
the atmosphere at the beginning, which is an unlikely
situation, at the rate of 67 grams per second it would
take only a few million years to reach the amount of
3.7 billion metric tons, not the 20–40 billion years that
evolutionists claim to be the age of the earth.

The amount of helium in the
atmosphere shows the earth
could not be old enough for
evolution to occur.

The question arises, though, could the helium

being generated escape the earth’s atmosphere into
space? The short answer is that a small fraction of the
number of helium atoms, perhaps up to about 2% of
the total, could be traveling fast enough to escape into
space, but that is not enough to significantly alter the
time calculations.
If God created the atmosphere with a signifi-
cant amount of helium, then it is within the realm
is the earth old or young? 13

of believability that the earth is only in the range of

thousands of years old.
Just as helium is escaping into the atmosphere,
so are salts being washed off the land and into the
oceans by rain and other processes. Common salt
is the chemical compound sodium chloride. The
amount of sodium (in this form and others) being
washed into the world’s oceans is estimated at around
450 million metric tons annually. About 120 million
metric tons leave the sea every year by various means.
This leaves a net intake or buildup of sodium in the
oceans of about 330 million metric tons yearly. The
amount of sodium in the oceans is estimated at about
14,700,000,000,000,000 metric tons. At the current
rate of intake, if there were no sodium in the oceans
at the time of their origins, the earth could not be any
older than about 45 million years old. It is understood
that rates could fluctuate, but given the most generous
rates of intake and outflow, it could not be older than
62 million years. These are absolute maximum dates,
not the actual dates.1
It is inconceivable therefore that the oceans of the
earth, the “primordial soup” of evolution, could be 20
billion years old.

{
1
For more information, see S.A. Austin and D.R. Humphreys, “The sea’s missing salt:
a dilemma for evolutionists,” Proceedings of the Second International Conference on
Creationism, Vol. II, pp. 17–33, 1990.
14 evolution: fact or fable?

The amount of common salt in

the ocean points to the earth
being young.

Now 62 million years is a long time, but this is going

by the supposition that not one gram of salt was in the
ocean at the beginning. When God created the earth, it
is most likely that He created the ocean water with salt
included. There is also the matter of the Flood—a cata-
clysmic event that is documented in not only the Bible’s
account of Noah and the Ark, but in the written and oral
traditions of a number of civilizations—that would have
resulted in massive erosion and therefore a massive
increase in the sodium content of the ocean. Although
the sodium content of the ocean cannot prove that the
earth was created only 6,000 years ago, it can prove that
it is not billions of years old, as required in the theory of
evolution.

Earth’s Magnetic Field

Another phenomenon that points to a young earth
is its magnetic field. In the ’70s, Dr. Thomas Barnes, a
physics professor, analyzed data from 1835 through to
1965 and concluded that the field is decaying, that it
is getting weaker, at 5% per century.1 Later investiga-

{
1
K.L. McDonald and R.H. Gunst, “An analysis of the earth’s magnetic field from 1835
to 1965,” ESSA Technical Report, IER 46-IES 1, U.S. Government Printing Office,
Washington, 1967.
is the earth old or young? 15

tion showed that the field was 40% stronger in 1000

A.D. than it is today. Professor Barnes postulated the
“free-decay theory,” which proposes that a decaying
electric current in the earth’s metallic core is the cause.
Assuming a constant decay of intensity, the current
could not have been decaying for more than 10,000
years, or else its original strength would have been
large enough to melt the earth. The conclusion from
this is that the earth could not be older than 10,000
years.
Evolutionists postulate that some sort of a self-
generating dynamo causes the liquid in the core to
circulate, generating the magnetic field, rather than an
electrical current circulating in a motionless liquid core
as postulated by Barnes. Evolutionist scientists have
been trying to construct a dynamo model or theory for
the past 40 years that would take into account the data
available, but so far have failed to come up with one
that satisfies the criteria.

The weakening magnetic field of

the earth is evidence of a young
earth.

However, creationist physicist Dr. Russell

Humphreys,† [following page] looking at data derived from
archeomagnetism and paleomagnetism, proposed that
the free-decay theory needed to be revised because it
16 evolution: fact or fable?
was shown that the decay of the magnetic field hadn’t
been constant over time. Wild fluctuations, and in
fact complete reversals, in the earth’s magnetic field
occurred during the period approximating the time
of Noah’s Flood. He proposed the dynamic-decay
theory to accommodate this new data. When all this
is taken into account, it shortens the age of the earth
to within the range of 6,000 years. The rate of decay
in the earth’s magnetic field is now constant, so it is
believed that the dynamic, or fluctuating rate of decay,
occurred earlier in the earth’s history. Even if some of
the decay happening today is still dynamic, which is
unlikely, the age of the earth at a maximum would be
around 100,000 years. That is still far too short a time
for the processes attributed to evolutionary theory to
have taken place. The dynamic-decay modification
to the free-decay theory remains the best model for
accommodating the data currently available.1

{
†
(previous page) Russell Humphreys, Ph.D. Physics (ICR) has a B.S. in Physics
from Duke University and a Ph.D. in Physics from Louisiana State University. Dr.
Humphreys then worked six years for the High Voltage Laboratory of General Electric.
While there, he received a U.S. patent and one of Industrial Research Magazine’s IR-
100 awards. He has worked for Sandia National Laboratories since 1979 in nuclear
physics, geophysics, pulsed power research, theoretical atomic and nuclear physics,
and the Particle Beam Fusion Project. He was co-inventor of special laser-triggered
“Rimfire” high-voltage switches. Dr. Humphreys has received another U.S. patent
and two awards from Sandia, including an award for excellence for contributions to
light ion-fusion target theory.

{
1
“The Earth’s Magnetic Field Is Young” by Russell Humphreys, Ph.D. in Impact, No.
242, issued by the Institute for Creation Research.
is the earth old or young? 17

Rates of Erosion
Rivers dump tons of sediment into the world’s
oceans every day. Sedimentologists have researched
many of the world’s rivers and calculated how fast the
land is disappearing. The average height reduction for
all the continents of the world is about 60 millimeters
(2.4 inches) per 1,000 years. This equals some 24 mil-
lion metric tons of sediment per year going into the
oceans. If the earth were even only one billion years
old, a height of 60 kilometers of continent would have
eroded. The earth’s highest mountain, Mount Everest,
is only 8.85 kilometers high. Obviously the conti-
nents of the world have never been on average over
seven times as high as Mount Everest, because that
sediment would have had to have gone somewhere.
That somewhere is the oceans, which means that the
oceans would have had to have initially been corre-
spondingly deeper, and we would today see the ocean
floor miles thick in sediment—which is not the case.
Also, at this rate of erosion, North America should
have been leveled in 10 million years. The Yellow River
in China could flatten a plateau as high as Everest in
10 million years.1 Therefore, the earth could not pos-
sibly be billions of years old as required by the theory
of evolution, or not just the mountains, but every
landmass, would have been eroded away and be now
covered by the ocean.

{ 1
Walker, T., “Eroding ages,” Creation Ex Nilho 22(2):18–21, 2000.
18 evolution: fact or fable?

If the earth were as old as
evolution demands, all land
would have eroded into the ocean
by now.

Other Processes
Fossil formation, the transformation of wood to
coal, and petrifaction (the transformation of matter
into stone), are processes that were believed to have
taken millions and perhaps billions of years. However,
they have since been shown to occur quite quickly.
A petrified bowler hat sits in a mining museum in
New Zealand.1 The Petrified Forest National Park in
Arizona is claimed by evolutionists to be older than
225 million years. It is obvious that bowler hats were
not around then. In fact, we know the bowler hat was
petrified only a little over a hundred years ago. So if
this and other items in the same catastrophe can be
petrified only recently, why does the Petrified Forest
have to be dated as over 225 million years old?

{
1
A bowler hat was buried in the volcanic eruption of Te Wairoa village (North Island,
New Zealand) on June 10, 1886. It was discovered 20 years later, and was found to
have turned to stone. A leg of ham had also been petrified after being buried in the
same catastrophe. Creation Ex Nihilo, Vol. 8, No. 3, p. 10, 1986
19 evolution: fact or fable?

radiometric dating

R
adiometric dating is a method that scientists
use to measure the age of things. The most
widely known form of radiometric dating is
that based on carbon-14. It works like this. Carbon-12
is the most common form of carbon, and carbon-14 is
what is called an isotope of it. (An isotope is a variation
of the normal atom of an element, in that it has more
or less neutrons than the standard atom.) Carbon-12
has six protons and six neutrons at its nucleus, and
is therefore said to have an atomic weight of 12. The
component of an atom that determines its character is
the number of electrons in orbit around its nucleus. In
carbon’s case there are six.
In the high atmosphere, the sun’s rays knock out
neutrons from the nuclei of atoms. These neutrons in
turn bump into other atoms in the lower atmosphere.
Nitrogen makes up about 78% of the atmosphere, so
nitrogen atoms are prime targets for being bumped. A
nitrogen atom has seven protons and seven neutrons
in its nucleus, along with seven electrons spinning
around the nucleus. The stray neutrons collide into
an ordinary nitrogen-14 at lower altitudes, disloging
19
20 evolution: fact or fable?
one of the atom’s protons and therefore converting it
into carbon-14. Because carbon-14 is an unstable iso-
tope, it will in time radioactively decay back to normal
nitrogen. This decay rate of carbon-14 back to nitro-
gen-14 is measurable.
The standard measurement in radioactive decay is
called a half-life. This is how long it would take a cer-
tain amount of a substance to decay to half its weight
(a gram to half a gram, for instance). The half-life of
carbon-14 is 5,730 years (plus or minus 40 years). To
measure the age of things, scientists make the suppo-
sition that the ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-14 in the
atmosphere has remained constant over time.
Carbon-12 and carbon-14 are both absorbed
by living things such as animals and plants, in the
form of carbon dioxide. Once the living thing dies,
no more carbon is absorbed. The carbon-14 content
of the dead animal or plant then immediately starts
to radioactively decay back to nitrogen, and escapes
as a gas. The carbon-12, on the other hand, does not
decay. Thus, if the amount of carbon-14 in relation to
the amount of carbon-12 in a sample from a carcass
can be measured, it should be able to give a fairly good
estimate as to when the living thing died.
That all sounds good in theory, but the problem lies
in the original supposition that the ratio of carbon-
12 to carbon-14 in the atmosphere has remained
constant. This has not been the case. Remember that
carbon-14 does not come from carbon-12, but rather
from nitrogen in the atmosphere. With the advent of
the Industrial Revolution and the burning of fossil
fuels, much more carbon-12 has been injected into
the atmosphere with no corresponding increased
 1.

2.

5.

3.

4.

[1] High in the atmosphere, cosmic rays cause some atoms to fly apart.
[2] Displaced neutrons collide into nitrogen atoms, causing these atoms to
become the unstable radioactive isotope carbon-14 [3].
[4–5] Through time, the unstable isotope carbon-14 radioactively decays to
nitrogen-14 again.
Upper atmostphere
conversion of 14N to 14C
14
C in
carbon
dioxide
taken up
by plants

14
C absorbed by animals
as they eat plants or other
animals

14
N
After death:
Loss of 14C by decay and no
replacement from eating.

14
C is absorbed by living things but lost after death.
radiometric dating 23

levels of nitrogen turning into carbon-14. Although

above-ground nuclear tests have discharged some
more carbon-14 into the atmosphere, this has not
compensated for the difference.
Also, it has been discovered that plants discrimi-
nate against carbon dioxide containing carbon-14
atoms, so that the absorption rate is lower than for
normal carbon-12. Additionally, the rate of carbon-
14 formation in the atmosphere has fluctuated due
to Earth’s weakening magnetic field. And finally, the
Flood would have made a huge difference in that
a vast quantity of carbon, in the form of plant and
animal life, was pulled out of the biosphere and buried
under the sediment deposited as the waters receded.
The net effect of all these conditions is that ancient
specimens will test much older than they are.
Furthermore, the limit of carbon-14 dating is set at
around 50,000 years, as after that time there would be
no detectable amount of carbon-14 left in a sample.

Ratio of 14C to 12C decreasing with time

moment of death old older “infinite” age

14
C 14
C 14
14
C not
C measureable

12 12 12 12
C C C C
24 evolution: fact or fable?
So with regard to dating fossils that are supposedly
millions of years old, carbon-14 dating is useless.
Other forms of radiometric dating are even more
subject to error.
25 evolution: fact or fable?

the geologic column

and index fossils

M
ost of us are familiar with the geologic
column from high school textbooks. In
short, the geologic column divides the sup-
posed history of Earth into five eras, each of which
has its appointed age. (The Cenozoic Era runs from
25 thousand to 70 million years ago, the Mesozoic Era
from 70 million to 200 million years ago, the Paleozoic
Era from 200 to 600 million years ago, the Proterozoic
Era from 600 million to 1 billion years ago, and the
Archeozoic Era from 1 billion to 1.8 billion years ago.)
Certain fossils, called index fossils, are linked to
layers of sedimentary rock that are assigned to each
of the three most “recent” eras. (The other two eras
are assigned no fossils.) These most recent three
eras (Cenozoic, Mesozoic and Paleozoic) are each
subdivided into 12 periods, and each period has its
appointed age according to the index fossils it con-
tains. According to this system, the fossils of simpler
life forms are found in the lower (older) rock strata,
and more complex ones in higher (more recent) strata.
Ages are assigned to rock specimens according to the
index fossils that are found in them.
25
26 evolution: fact or fable?

A simplified geologic column according to evolutionary theory.

the geologic column and index fossils 27

This all sounds good in theory, but in actuality the

only place that the geologic column is ever found is
in textbooks. It is not a reality in the field.1 In other
words, you can’t take a drill, bore down into the
earth, and from the core samples retrieved see the
geologic column of fossils and rocks stacked up one
upon another. Evolutionist scientists admit this, but
the fact that students are taught the geologic column
shows the bias that secular, humanist education takes.
Students are given the impression that these rock
layers can be found neatly placed one on top of the
other, with these convenient index fossils present to
indicate the age of the rock. This is patently false.
The science of fossils is called paleontology, and
the science of rocks and minerals is called geology.
Geologists date rocks according to the fossils found
in them. Paleontologists date fossils according to the
rocks they are found in. The one scientific discipline
relies on the other to arrive at its dating of samples,
and neither one of them relies on any other evidence.
This is obviously circular and bogus reasoning.
Things have become even more suspect since one
of the creatures used as index fossils—graptolites, said
to have lived 410 million years ago—have been found
alive today in the South Pacific! And there is also the
mysterious fossil of the trilobite, said to have lived
500–600 million years ago, found inside a fossilized
sandal print.2 How could a person wearing sandals,

{ 1
John Woodmorappe, “The Geologic Column: Does It Exist?” Creation Ex Nihilo
Technical Journal 13(2):77–82, 1999.

{
2
Found by William Meister of Kearns, Utah, June 1, 1968. Dr. H. H. Doelling of Utah’s
Geological Survey verified it was not a fake. Photo published in Mysteries of the
Unexplained, The Reader’s Digest Association, New York/Montreal, pp.37–38, 1985.
28 evolution: fact or fable?
when evolutionists claim that human beings have
been around for less than 10,000 years, have stepped
on a 500 million-year-old creature?

You can see the trilobite circled

near the front of the sandal print.

There is also the anomaly of polystrate fossils.

These are objects such as fossilized trees that pass
through two or more layers or strata of rock that sup-
posedly vary in age by millions of years. Certainly the
tree did not stand around for millions of years while
the rock formed around it.
29 evolution: fact or fable?

more on fossils

M
ost people are under the impression that all
fossils are extremely old, and that the very
fact that fossils exist is proof of evolution.
Neither of these commonly held beliefs are true.
Fossils are the remains of once-living organisms
that have been turned into stone. Normally, when
living things like animals or plants die, they decay and
eventually disintegrate. But in some cases organisms
were caught in a catastrophe like a flood and quickly
buried in sediment, and then extreme pressure com-
pacted that sediment into rock. The carcass of the
plant or creature is therefore in an airless environ-
ment where decay does not occur. Instead, it absorbs
chemicals from the sediment it is encased in until the
sediment and the carcass take on the same rocklike
qualities. In general, for an organism to be preserved,
two conditions must be met: 1) rapid burial to retard
decomposition and prevent the ravaging of scaven-
gers; and 2) possession of hard parts, such as bones,
capable of being fossilized. Many fossils have been
found, with more being found all the time.

29
30 evolution: fact or fable?

Camel jaw fossil

HEAD

TAIL

FEATHERS

LEG ARM

High-tech scans of a fossil, Archaeoraptor, hailed as a “missing link” between birds and
dinosaurs, have shown the specimen is a fake constructed from at least two separate
specimens. Many paleontologists believed that with its mix of dinosaur and birdlike
features, Archaeoraptor had captured the moment in “evolution” when dinosaurs
were experimenting with flight. Later, it was discovered that the tail had come from
Microraptor, the smallest adult dinosaur yet discovered, and had been glued on to
increase the fossil’s commercial value.
more on fossils 31

The theory of evolution claims that simpler crea-

tures are evolving into more complex ones. If this were
true, one would naturally assume that there would be
a fossil record of transitional creatures that would
show one species gradually changing into another.
For instance, many evolutionists believe that birds
evolved from dinosaurs, therefore there has been
much competition between various paleontologists
to find fossils that show dinosaur-like creatures in
various stages of developing feathers. Although fos-
sils have been found that have supposedly shown
this transition, they have all either been proved to
be fakes or, on closer examination, do not show this
transition at all. In fact, not one transitional fossil that
is unmistakably genuine has been found. Every fossil
ever discovered has been determined to be that of a
distinct species of creature with no provable sign of
having evolved from a simpler life form.
Evolutionists like to point out that fossils of simpler
animals are usually found in strata lower than the more
complex ones. They claim that this shows that the sim-
pler animals were around for many millions of years
before the more complex ones came on the scene.
Although this is one way to look at it, there is another
equally logical way to explain this—the Flood.
In Genesis chapters 6 through 8, the Bible tells of
the world being inundated by a worldwide flood over
1,600 years after Creation, or about 2300 B.C.*

*This date is arrived at by the following process.

Genesis 11:10 says that Shem, Noah’s son, was 100 years
old two years after the Flood had finished. The following verses
32 evolution: fact or fable?
in this chapter link Shem to Abraham through nine genera-
tions. It gives the fathers’ ages when they had their first son.
Once it gets to Terah, Abraham’s father, it gives Terah’s age
when Abraham’s elder brother was born, not how old he was
when Abraham was born. But we can figure the missing num-
bers from Acts 7:3-4 and Genesis 11:32; 12:1-4, which state
that Abraham was 75 years old when God gave him the prom-
ise that He would make him the father of a great nation. And in
that same year, his father Terah was 205 years old. So Abraham
was born when Terah was 130 years of age. By adding up all
the ages listed in this chapter we come up with the figure of
352 years from the Flood to the birth of Abraham.
Galatians 3:17 says that Moses received the Law from God
430 years after He gave the promise to Abraham. This was the
same year the Israelites left Egypt in the Exodus to return to the
Promised Land.
1 Kings 6:1 says it was 480 years from the time of the
Exodus till the laying of the foundation of Solomon’s temple,
which date has been established as 967 B.C.
So now we work backwards as we add up the years.
Year of the laying of the foundation of Solomon’s Temple =
967 B.C.
Years from that to the Exodus = 480
Years from the Exodus to God’s promise to Abraham =
430
Years from the promise to Abraham’s birth = 75
Years from Abraham’s birth to the Flood = 352
Total years and therefore date of the Flood = 2304 B.C.
+/- 11 years
We have to qualify it as plus or minus 11 years because the
Bible for the most part gives us years, not the exact dates for
these events. They could have been early in the year or late in
the year, in which case we have to take into account that the
date could vary by as much as 11 years on either side.
more on fossils 33

This was a cataclysm of unparalleled ferocity.

Genesis 7:11 says that not only was there a torrential
rain for 40 days and 40 nights, but also “all the foun-
tains of the great deep were opened up,”indicating that
this rain was accompanied by worldwide volcanic and
seismic upheavals that make any recent earthquakes
and volcanic eruptions pale in comparison. The result
was the complete destruction of animal life except for
the occupants of Noah’s Ark, and any sea creatures
that managed to survive. The stratification (so appar-
ent in places like the Grand Canyon in North America)
resulted from the gradual settling of the previously
churned-up earth, rocks, and sediment.
Along with the rocks, the animals and plants depos-
ited are now found fossilized in the strata. Due to the
flood, simpler creatures would have been drowned first
as the waters began to rise, while more complex ones
would have struggled for survival longer and sought
out higher ground. This explains why the simpler life
forms were buried in the deepest strata.
A worldwide flood
of this magnitude
would also account
for the fossils being
formed in the first
place, the polystrate
fossil phenomenon,
why fossils of marine
animals can fre-
quently be found in
the mountains, and
the huge fossil grave-
yards that have been Trilobite fossil
34 evolution: fact or fable?
found around the world. Several in North America have
been carefully examined. In Agate Springs, Nebraska,
around 9,000 fossilized animals were found buried in
“alluvial deposits,”that is to say water-laid sedimentary
rock. The remains of rhinoceros, camels, giant wild boars,
birds, plants, trees, shellfish, and fish are intermingled in
great confusion. This obviously could not have happened
over thousands or millions of years.
The Cumberland Bone Cave in Maryland con-
tained the intermingled bones of wolverines, bears,
tapirs, groundhogs, rabbits, coyotes, beavers, musk-
rats, mastodons, elk, crocodiles, pumas, etc. The fos-
sils were covered and preserved by a flood deposit of
gravel and rocks.
Several miles north of Como Bluffs, Wyoming,
a dinosaur quarry was found which yielded 483
specimens weighing a total of 146,000 pounds. The
Cleveland Lloyd quarry in Utah has yielded over
12,000 bones of 70 different animals and 10 different
kinds of dinosaurs. At Dinosaur National Monument
near Vernal, Utah, 20 complete skeletons, as well as
bones and parts of skeletons representing nearly 300
individual dinosaurs, were extracted. There are similar
graveyards in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia, in Africa,
in the foothills of the Himalayas, in South America, in
Europe—in short, all over the world.
35 evolution: fact or fable?

macroevolution vs.
microevolution

D
oes biological evolution exist? The surprising
answer is yes! However, the type of evolution
that is evident is not the evolution that is so
commonly taught as fact today.
There are two categories of evolution: One is
called microevolution and the other macroevolu-
tion. Microevolution happens within species, when
small adaptations either take place to accommo-
date environment or are brought about by breeding.
Macroevolution is the idea that one species evolves
into another, the commonly understood theory of
evolution. This second type of evolution has never
been observed to occur.
An example of microevolution is seen in the many
different breeds of dogs. The range is expansive, from
the miniature chihuahua to the huge Saint Bernard,
with every imaginable size and shape in between.
However, one thing is certain: They are all dogs. There
is no instance where a dog has evolved into a cat or a
horse or any other species. The reason for this lies in
the internal DNA information of the dog.

35
36
Common Ancestry evolution: fact or fable?
macroevolution vs. microevolution 37

We are learning more about DNA and the informa-

tion stored in the genomes of species. Although there
is no biological process whereby more information
can be added, some of that information can be lost. For
macroevolution to work and one species to become
another, information has to be added, which as already
stated is impossible by any known biological means.
However, in microevolution information is actually
being lost. When an animal adapts to its environment,
the information on how to adapt was actually in the
animal’s DNA to start with. But in the process of this
adaptation it is losing information about how to revert
back to its original state.

Microevolution occurs but is the

direct opposite process described
by the theory of evolution.

This can be observed in dogs. All dogs at present

on the earth come from the same ancestral couple that
climbed down out of Noah’s Ark some 4,300 years
ago. Within those ancestors lay the information to
give rise to the multitudes of breeds today. However,
take any breed of dog—collie, basset hound, German
shepherd, and so on—and you will not be able to
revert back to the original by selective breeding to
what those two ancestors looked like. That is because
as dogs bred into the various breeds, they lost infor-
38 evolution: fact or fable?
mation vital to reversing the process. The original and
more complex information store has been simplified
by the discarding of some of that information each
time microevolution occurred.
Evolutionists claim that microevolution (adapta-
tions within species) is proof of macroevolution, but
this is untrue. In reality, the microevolutionary process
is just the opposite of the process that evolutionists
claim drives macroevolution.

Dazzling Design in Miniature1

Prof. Werner Gitt2

The cells of the human body can produce at least
100,000 different types of proteins, all with a unique
function. The information to make each of these com-
plicated molecular machines is stored on the well-known
molecule, DNA.
We think that we have done very well with human
technology, packing information very densely on to com-
puter hard drives, chips, and CD-ROM disks. However,
these all store information on the surface, whereas DNA
stores it in three dimensions. It is by far the densest infor-
mation storage mechanism known in the universe.

{
1
Excerpts from an article first published in: Creation Ex Nihilo 20(1):6,
December 1997–February 1998

{
2
Dr. Werner Gitt is an information scientist. He is a director and professor
at the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology (Physikalisch-
Technische Bundesanstalt, Braunschweig) and is the Head of the
Department of Information Technology. Dr. Gitt has written numerous
scientific papers in the fields of information science, mathematics, and
control engineering. He has also written several creationist books.
macroevolution vs. microevolution 39

Let’s look at the amount of information that could

be contained in a pinhead volume of DNA. If all this
information were written into paperback books, it would
make a pile of such books 500 times higher than from
here to the moon! The design of such an incredible
system of information storage indicates a vastly intel-
ligent Designer.
In addition, there is the information itself, which is
stored on DNA, and transmitted from generation to gen-
eration of living things. There are no laws of science that
support the idea that life, with all its information, could
have come from non-living chemicals. On the contrary,
we know from the laws of science, particularly in my own
area of expertise [information science, mathematics,
and control engineering], that messages (such as those
that we find in all living things) always point back to an
intelligent message sender. When we look at living things
in the light of DNA, Genesis Creation makes real sense
of the scientific evidence.

DNA
40 evolution: fact or fable?

Cheating with Chance1

Don Batten2
The argument from probability that life could not
form by natural processes but must have been created
is sometimes acknowledged by evolutionists as a strong
argument. The probability of the chance formation of a
hypothetical functional ‘simple’ cell, given all the ingredi-
ents, is acknowledged3 to be worse than 1 in 1057800. This
is a chance of 1 in a number with 57,800 zeros. It would
take 11 full pages of magazine type to print this number.
To try to put this in perspective, there are about 1080 (a
number with 80 zeros) electrons in the universe. Even
if every electron in our universe were another universe
the same size as ours, that would ‘only’ amount to 10160
electrons.
These numbers defy our ability to comprehend their
size. Fred Hoyle, British mathematician and astronomer,
has used analogies to try to convey the immensity of
the problem. For example, Hoyle said the probability of
the formation of just one of the many proteins on which
life depends is comparable to that of the solar system
packed full of blind people randomly shuffling Rubik’s

{ 1
Excerpts from Creation Ex Nihilo 17(2):14–15, March–May 1995

{
2
Dr. Donald James Batten is a creationist agricultural scientist from Australia.
He received a Ph.D degree from the University of Sydney, Department of
Agronomy and Horticultural Science. His specialty is in plant physiology. He
worked in the New South Wales state research facilities for 18 years before
becoming a private horticultural consultant while working also with the Creation
Science Foundation, Brisbane, Australia.

{ 3
D.A. Bradbury, ‘Reply to Landau and Landau’ Creation/Evolution 13(2):
48–49, 1993.
macroevolution vs. microevolution 41

cubes all arriving at the solution at the same time1—and

this is the chance of getting only one of the 400 or more
proteins of the hypothetical minimum cell proposed by
the evolutionists (real world ‘simple’ bacteria have about
2,000 proteins and are incredibly complex). As Hoyle
points out, the program of the cell, encoded on the DNA,
is also needed. In other words, life could not form by
natural (random) processes.
Creationists do not argue that life is merely complex,
but that it is ordered in such a way as to defy a natural
explanation. The order in the proteins and DNA of living
things is independent of the properties of the chemicals
of which they consist—unlike an ice crystal, where the
structure results from the properties of the water mol-
ecule. The order in living things parallels that in printed
books where the information is not contained in the ink,
or even in the letters, but in the complex arrangement
of letters which make up words, words which make
up sentences, sentences which make up paragraphs,
paragraphs which make up chapters and chapters
which make up books. These components of written
language respectively parallel the nucleic acid bases,
codons, genes, operons, chromosomes and genomes
which make up the genetic programs of living cells.
The order in living things shows they are the product of
intelligence.

{ 1
F. Hoyle, ‘The big bang in astronomy’ New Scientist, 92(1280):527, 1981.
43 evolution: fact or fable?

mutants

E
volutionists believe that the steppingstones of
evolution are mutants. A mutant by definition
is a specimen that has mutated, so that a gene
or chromosome is different in the mutant than in its
parent(s). The belief is that beneficial changes have
occurred in mutants and then that has been passed
on to the mutant’s offspring.
The first barrier against mutations producing new
traits is the law of probability. Mutations (which are
actually errors in copying the genetic code) are rare—
estimated at one in ten million. However, the real
mathematical problem arises when you need a series
of related genetic mutations. Each additional series is
multiplied by the probability of one mutation. Four
related mutations has a probability of 10 to the 28th
power, which is virtually a probability of zero. A great
many more than four related beneficial mutations
would be needed to change one species into another.
On a mathematical basis, the probability of evolution
occurring by mutations within the gene pool is zero.

43
44 evolution: fact or fable?

Mutations are overwhelmingly

devastating and not beneficial as
evolution requires.

Furthermore, of the approximately 4,500 genetic

diseases in humans associated with genetic mutations,
not one of these genetic mutations has been shown
to have any beneficial effect. If even by chance one of
them did, the chance of the one surviving and flour-
ishing against the other 4,499 is negligible. It is cur-
rently estimated that the average apparently healthy
individual carries five to eight mutations capable of
causing serious disease if paired with other defective
genes. We have two copies of most genes, which act
as backups for each other. If one gene is defective, the
backup takes over, so that most mutations or defects
go unnoticed.
What this shows is that mutations are so over-
whelmingly negative that any positive evolutionary
advance through the process of mutation is for all
intents and purposes impossible. In fact, the opposite
is true. Given time, the human race would become so
prone to genetic illness because of mutations that it
would die out.1

{ 1
David A. Derrick, M.D, “The Blind Gunman” Vital Articles on Science/Creation,
February 1999
mutants 45

How Old Is Humanity?

By David Plaisted, Ph.D.1

New evidences suggest that the human race is very
young. The journal Science reported that the age of the
human race is roughly 1,000 to 10,000 generations.
Other information about mitochondrial DNA mutation
rates gives an even younger age than 1,000 generations.
Age estimates are obtained by observing differences
between the DNA of different individuals and calculating
the time of divergence using estimates of mutation rates.
Mitochondrial DNA is often used, since it is separate from
the bulk of DNA found in the cell nucleus. Mitochondrial
DNA has about 16,000 base pairs and mutates, appar-
ently, much faster than nuclear DNA. Human mito-
chondrial DNA has been completely mapped, so all the
coding regions are known, as well as the proteins or RNA
for which they code. Some areas of mitochondrial DNA
known as “control regions” do not code for anything.
A control region is a non-coding section that seems to
have some kind of regulatory function. Because varia-
tion among humans is greatest here, scientists think this
region mutates faster than any other region.
Mitochondrial DNA mutation rates in the control
region were measured directly by comparing mitochon-
drial DNA from siblings and from parents and their off-
spring. Mitochondrial DNA was found to mutate about 20
times faster than previously thought, at an approximate
rate of one mutation (substitution) every 33 generations.

{
1
Dr. David Plaisted is Professor of Computer Science at the University of
North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He has written numerous papers dealing with
mathematics and computer science.
46 evolution: fact or fable?

The control region studied has about 610 base pairs.

Humans typically differ from one another there by about
18 mutations. By simple mathematics, it follows that
the human race is about 300 generations old. If one
assumes a typical generation of about 20 years, this
gives an age of about 6,000 years.
This calculation is done as follows: Assuming all
human beings initially have identical mitochondrial DNA,
consider two randomly chosen human beings. After 33
generations, two such random humans will probably
differ by two mutations, since there will be two separate
lines of inheritance and statistically one mutation along
each line. After 66 generations, two randomly chosen
humans will differ by about four mutations. After 100
generations, they will differ by about six mutations. After
300 generations, they will differ by about 18 mutations,
the typically observed value in humans today.
47 evolution: fact or fable?

irreducibility

T
he theory of evolution postulates that small,
incremental, beneficial steps propel the evolu-
tionary process forward. It is much like a device
where one component of that device is modified at a
time, so as to improve the efficiency of the device in
some way, while at the same time allowing the device
to remain functioning without any other modifications.
Once the device has settled into the fact that it now has
an improved component, it then “sees” the benefit of
upgrading another one. The point is that it takes these
steps one at a time, sees how good that step is, and
then takes another step. The device must both continue
to function and improve its functionality.
But what if the upgrade requires more than one
improvement at a time? Evolutionary theory cannot
accommodate this. The improvement must be one
step at a time, and if a component doesn’t offer an
advantage to an organism (i.e., it doesn’t function), it
will be lost or discarded. Are there devices occurring
in nature that therefore cannot be explained by evolu-
tion? Indeed there are many, but it only takes one to
disprove the theory.
47
48 evolution: fact or fable?
We will choose one which everyone will be familiar
with—the amazing human knee joint. The knee joint
is unique in our bodies. It is quite unlike the ball and
socket joints of our hips or shoulders and the pivot
joint of our elbows. Although those are all marvels of
engineering, the knee is truly exceptional. It consists
of several elements, but the critical design parts are (a)
the two condyles of the femur bone that rotate in (b)
the matching concave grooves of the tibia, and (c and
d) the two cruciate ligaments (so called because they
cross over each other) that fit in the space between the
condyles.

Femur

Patella (normally in
center of knee)
Lateral Condyle

Posterior Cruciate Medial Collateral

Ligament Ligament
Anterior Cruciate
Ligament Patellar Tendon
(Ligament)
Lateral Collateral
Ligament
Human
knee
Tibia joint

If a structure is so complex that all of its parts must

initially be present in a suitably functioning manner,
it is said to be irreducibly complex. The knee joint is
irreducible; all four of these parts must be present for
the knee to work. (The knee has other parts, but these
four are essential to each other for them to function
irreducibility 49

in the way they do.) Any one, two, or three of them

on their own would not perform any useful function.
They are all unique to the knee.
Therefore it is impossible for the knee to evolve
from a simpler joint like the hip or the elbow, accord-
ing to the theory of evolution. How such a device
could have evolved in a gradual, step-by-step process
as required by classic Darwinian evolution is an insur-
mountable obstacle to evolutionists.1

{
1
Stuart Burgess, “Critical Characteristics and the Irreducible Knee Joint,” Creation
Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, Vol. 13, No. 2, 1999.
51 evolution: fact or fable?

“human ancestors”

M
ost people are familiar with the supposed
ape-men or hominids that evolutionists
tout as humankind’s immediate ancestors.
Let’s have a look at our supposedly long-departed
forebears and see if indeed we should be calling them
grandpa and grandma.
After a single tooth was discovered in Nebraska,
U.S.A., in 1924, it wasn’t long before an artist’s ren-
dition of a very brutish and ape-like Nebraska man,
along with a Nebraska woman and their domestic
animals and cave dwelling, were gracing the front
page of the London Illustrated News, among other
newspapers, magazines, and periodicals. It was
then with some considerable egg on their faces that
evolutionists had to downgrade Nebraska “man” to
Nebraska “pig” when it was discovered that the tooth
belonged to a type of pig still found in Paraguay. But
still we are entertained today with pictures and larger-
than-life mannequins of our supposed forebears in
nearly every textbook and museum of natural history.
The scientific discipline that studies fossils for
evidence of human evolution is call paleoanthro-
51
52 evolution: fact or fable?

Nebraska man
“human ancestors” 53

pology. The base assumption for men and women

in this branch of science is that man evolved from
an ape-like ancestor. This, in their minds, is beyond
doubt. Their mission in life is to find out from which
ape-like creature man evolved. With that mindset, any
evidence that would seem to contradict human evolu-
tion is either to be explained away, or if that proves to
be too difficult a task, ignored.
In the naming of fossils, the term pithecus (Greek for
ape) is applied to fossils with more ape-like character-
istics, and the term homo to those with more human
characteristics. So, for instance, Australopithecus
Afarensis was the name given to the famous fossil
nicknamed “Lucy” found in Ethiopia in 1974. The
technical name translates to “southern ape from the
Afar region of Africa.” Homo erectus is the name given
to early human fossils found in many places around
the world. Paleoanthropologists like to say that these
were an early form of humans, but the size and shape
of the fossils fit in the range of Homo sapiens, the
anthropological term for modern man.
Where does the truth lie, and what actually has
been discovered? Here is a list of fossil types that were
or are thought to be ancestral to man.

Homo sapiens neanderthalensis (Neandertal man):

Neandertal reconstructions were stooped and very
much like an ape-man. It is now admitted that the sup-
posedly stooped posture was due to disease and that
Neandertal is in reality just a variation of humankind.
Neandertals inhabited regions of the earth that were
snow and ice covered during the Ice Age (yes, it seems
there was one, though it did not last millions of years)
 54

Evolutionary visions of Ancestral man

Australopithecus Homo erectus Homo habilis Ramapithecus Homo sapiens Eoanthropus

neanderthalensis (Piltdown man)
(Neandertal man)
evolution: fact or fable?
“human ancestors” 55

and so suffered from dietary deficiency on top of living

in extremely harsh conditions. It is believed that the
disease rickets—which is caused by a deficiency in
vitamin D that makes the bones soft and prone to bend-
ing and structural change—on top of severe arthritis,
caused the malformation in the many Neandertal skel-
etons that have been found around the world
Ramapithecus: Once widely regarded as the ancestor of
humans, it is now understood to be an extinct type of
orangutan (an ape found in Southeast Asia).
Eoanthropus (Piltdown man): This was a hoax based
on a human skullcap and an orangutan’s jaw. For
40 years it was widely publicized as the missing link.
Because some evolutionists are so anxious to find proof
of their theories, hoaxes such as this and others are
often latched upon and accepted without proper critical
investigation.
Hesperopithecus (Nebraska man): The model for
Nebraska man was based on a single tooth of a type of
pig now living only in Paraguay.
Australopithecus: Various species of these have at times
been proclaimed as human ancestors. Australopithecus
africanus was at one time promoted as the missing link,
though it is no longer considered by evolutionists to be
on the line from apes to humans. It is very ape-like, and
many scientists now accept that it is simply an extinct
type of ape. Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy) is still put
forth as a viable ancestor. However, detailed studies of
the inner ear, skulls, and bones have suggested that
Lucy and her kind were not on the way to becoming
human. They may have walked more upright than most
apes, but not in the human manner. Australopithecus
afarensis is very similar to the pygmy chimpanzee. In
fact, research has shown that the australopithecines are
56 evolution: fact or fable?
more different from modern African apes and humans
than the latter two are from each other. They are not an
intermediate form, but are unique.
Homo habilis: There is a growing consensus amongst
most paleoanthropologists that this category actually
includes bits and pieces of various other types, such as
Australopithecus and Homo erectus. It is therefore an
“invalid taxon.” (A taxon is a category of organisms in
the science of taxonomy.) In other words, Homo habilis
never existed as such.
Homo erectus: Many remains of this type have been
found around the world. Pithecanthropus (Java man)
and Sinanthropus (Peking man) both fall into this cat-
egory. Homo erectus specimens are smaller than the
average human today, with an appropriately smaller
head and cranial cavity where the brain fits. However,
the brain size is within the range of modern humans.
Studies of the middle ear have shown that Homo erectus
was just like us. Remains have been found in the same
strata and in close proximity to ordinary Homo sapiens
(modern man), suggesting that they lived together.
Studies have shown that brain size fluctuations within
Homo sapiens seem to have no correlation to intellectu-
ality, so Homo erectus would not have been the dumb,
brute caveman that has been implied in the past.

Statistical analysis conducted by evolutionist sci-

entists Wood and Collard on six critical features of six
various australopith and homonid specimens claimed
to be transitional from “early ancestors” to Homo sapi-
ens came up with only one specimen that could be
exhibiting one single intermediate feature. The fea-
tures studied were body size, body shape, locomotion,
jaws and teeth, development, and brain size. The one
“human ancestors” 57

feature that could have been interpreted as an inter-

mediate feature was the brain size of a Homo erectus
specimen. But as already mentioned, other studies
have shown that this variation fits within the brain-
size range of Homo sapiens.1
Typical science textbooks show a progression from
an apelike knuckle-walking primate, through forms
that are progressively larger, more bipedal, and more
intelligent, culminating in modern humans. The scien-
tific evidence shows no such thing. In the final analy-
sis there is no irrefutable fossil evidence that shows
man is the product of evolution. The missing links are
still missing because they simply do not exist.

{ 1
Wood, B. and Collard, M., The human genus, Science 284(5411):65–71, 1999.
59 evolution: fact or fable?

is creation a credible
alternative?

A
lthough every area of evolution theory hasn’t
been examined in the preceding chapters,
enough holes have been poked in the theory
that a fair and unbiased reader would have to admit
it is flawed in enough ways to render it debunked or
at the least seriously questionable. It has very little
actual scientific evidence to back it up and much to
contradict it. If it hadn’t become such a darling of
many in the scientific community, it would have long
ago faded from popularity.
But what about the alternatives? Can the Bible’s
account of Creation stand up to scientific scrutiny?
There are some seemingly fantastic stories in the
Bible’s account of the beginning in the book of
Genesis, such as a six-day Creation, a single human
couple from which all are descended, and a worldwide
flood that destroyed every living thing except the eight
inhabitants of Noah’s Ark (Noah and his wife, along
with his three sons and their three wives), to name just
a few. Not to mention the fact that the Bible implies
that not just the earth but the whole universe is only
about 6,000 years old. To be fair, these claims need to
59
60 evolution: fact or fable?
undergo an examination just as rigid as the one given
to the claims of evolutionists.
61 evolution: fact or fable?

what saith genesis?

Let’s start at the beginning, as related in the first

two chapters of Genesis.

Day One
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness
was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved
upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be
light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it
was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called
Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day
(Genesis 1:1–5 KJV).

God’s Checklist for Day One

the planet Earth

light

separate light from darkness

Earth was created as a watery, formless planet, sus-

pended in the darkness and void of space—no sun,
no moon, no stars, no other planets, nothing. This, of
61
62 evolution: fact or fable?
course, runs entirely contrary to the Big Bang theory
in which Earth and the rest of the universe spun out
of an infinitesimally small dot of immensely dense
matter, but there is no solid scientific evidence to dis-
prove the Bible’s claim that Earth was made first.
The next thing God created was physical light.
Evolutionists are quick to ask how there could have
been light before there was the sun, which according
to the Bible was not created until the fourth day. This
detail is not covered in the Bible’s very brief account of
Creation, but clearly this light emanated from a source
other than the sun. It is also clear that the light came
from a single direction and that Earth was already
rotating, because there was a “morning and evening”;
at any given time, half of the planet was facing away
from the light.

Day Two
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst
of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters
which were under the firmament from the waters which
were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called
the firmament heaven. And the evening and the morning
were the second day (Genesis 1:6–8 KJV).

God’s Checklist for Day Two

atmosphere

water

divide the waters
what saith genesis? 63

When the waters were “divided” by the firma-

ment (the sky), some remained on the surface of the
planet and some went into the atmospheric heavens.
It is conjectured that this atmospheric water encased
Earth at this stage in a water canopy.

Day Three
And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be
gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land
appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land earth;
and the gathering together of the waters called He seas:
and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth
bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree
yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon
the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass,
and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding
fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw
that it was good. And the evening and the morning were
the third day (Genesis 1:9–13 KJV).

God’s Checklist for Day Three

dry land and seas

a system to water the entire land surface
involving springs or mist, or both

vegetation, seed-bearing plants, trees that
bear fruit

The water on the surface of the earth was gathered

into one place. This would seem to imply that there
was only one ocean on the earth and by inference only
one continent. Then all the various types of vegetation
64 evolution: fact or fable?
were created. They were created as mature plants and
trees, each one already bearing seed and fruit.

Day Four
And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of
the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them
be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And
let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give
light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two
great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser
light to rule the night: He made the stars also. And God
set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon
the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and
to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that
it was good. And the evening and the morning were the
fourth day (Genesis 1:14–19 KJV).

God’s Checklist for Day Four

Earth’s sun

Earth’s moon

the rest of the universe

Time for the rest of the universe! The sun, the moon,
and the rest of the stars and planets were created. But
the question now must be asked: If the universe was
created thousands and not millions of years ago, how
can some stars be millions of light years away and we
see their light now? In fact, it even seems from the
Genesis account that the light from those stars was
seen on Earth the very day they were created.
There are some simple possible answers. One is if
God can create those distant stars, then it is not really
what saith genesis? 65

any more difficult for Him to create them with their

light en route to Earth, so that it arrived on the same
day they were created. A second is that He could have
created the light so that it seemed to be coming from
millions of light years away but in reality was not. That
would mean, though, that we are watching things in
the night sky that never happened. For example, we
can observe distant supernovas exploding and the
resultant light that reaches earth contains all sorts
of detailed information in it, such as the speed of the
expansion, what isotopes are involved, even some-
times a reflected light echo from nearby gas. In this
scenario such events would have never actually taken
place, which doesn’t really seem to fit with God’s
nature. Furthermore, these ideas seem to be found
wanting when put to rigorous scientific examination.
Another proposal that is more philosophical
in nature is that like any inventor, God had been
envisioning all of His Creation in His mind before He
got down to making it. All of these things such as the
stars and starlight could have been maturing concepts
in the mind of God before being turned from ideas to
reality, therefore they developed at the speed at which
God thinks. No one knows how fast God thinks, and
since He is not bound to the realm of time, the term
“speed” cannot be applied to His thoughts. A fully
matured universe could have been created just as He
apparently created the animal and plant life on Earth
in a mature state.
However, there are science-based answers as well.
The scientific term for the study of the origin and
structure of the universe is cosmology, and Christian
scientists have developed some interesting models
66 evolution: fact or fable?
that seem to explain how the universe can be hun-
dreds of millions or even billions of light years in size,
yet still have been created only about 6,000 years ago.
Although models such as these may not be how God
did it, what they do show is that there are scientific
grounds that God could have done it in these ways.
Therefore they show that a six-day Creation is scien-
tifically viable.
One model is described by Dr. Robert Humphreys
in his book Starlight and Time.1 It is based on Einstein’s
theories of general relativity.
Humphreys makes two general assumptions: 1)
that the universe has a boundary and therefore a
center, and 2) that our solar system and therefore our
planet is somewhere near the center. The assump-
tion that the universe has an end or boundary is valid
because everything else that we observe in the physi-
cal realm has boundaries. That Earth is near the center
of the universe seems to be borne out by astronomical
observation.
Dr. Humphreys’s model is then built on these two
observations: 1) that the speed at which something
travels is the distance traveled divided by the time it
took to travel it, and 2) that gravity distorts time (as put
forward by Einstein in his general theory of relativity).
The stronger the gravitational pull, the slower time is
perceived to be. Likewise, the weaker the gravitational
pull, the faster time is perceived to be.

{
1
Humphreys, D. R., Starlight and Time (Green Forest, Arkansas: Master Books, 1994)
137 pp.
what saith genesis? 67

Einstein’s Theory of General
Relativity can support a one-
day creation of the rest of the
universe.

When the matter is very large or the concentration

dense enough, the gravitational distortion can be so
immense that even light cannot escape. This is known
as a “black hole.” The equations of general relativity
show that at the invisible boundary surrounding such
a concentration of matter (called the “event horizon,”
the point at which light rays trying to escape the enor-
mous pull of gravity bend back on themselves), time
literally stands still.
If Earth is near the center of the universe, then
the effect of gravity is many times stronger here than
at the edges of the universe. There is also evidence
that the universe is expanding—something that the
Bible seems to support by verses such as Isaiah 42:5,
Jeremiah 10:12, and Zechariah 12:1, where it says that
God “spread” or “stretched out” the heavens.
If the universe is not much bigger than we can
observe, and if it was only 50 times smaller in the past
than it is now, then scientific deduction based on gen-
eral relativity means it had to expand out of a previous
state in which it was surrounded by an event horizon
(a condition known as a “white hole”—a black hole
68 evolution: fact or fable?
running in reverse, which is a possible situation
according to the equations of general relativity).
As matter passed out of this event horizon, the
horizon itself had to eventually shrink to nothing.
At one point, therefore, time on Earth, relative to a
point far away from it, would have stopped. A human
observer on Earth would not have felt any differently.
However, “billions of years” (in earth terms) would
have been available (in the frame of reference within
which it is traveling in deep space) for light to reach
Earth, for stars to age, etc., while less than one ordi-
nary day is passing on Earth. According to the Bible,
the creation of the sun, moon, and stars (with their
light visible on Earth) happened in the space of one
Earth day. This massive gravitational time dilation
(expansion or stretching) would seem to be a scientific
inevitability if a universe with boundaries expanded
significantly.
This cosmology is based upon mathematics and
physics (the theory of general relativity) that are uni-
versally accepted by cosmologists. It accepts—along
with virtually all physicists—that there has been
expansion of the universe in the past.
This may sound quite far out, but let’s remember
that God is the One who created all the laws upon
which true science is built, and that true science does
not contradict the existence of God or His role as
Creator of the universe. God was working on a physi-
cal plane when He created it all, so it would stand
to reason that there are scientific answers—some
of which are yet to be discovered or confirmed—to
explain how He did it.
what saith genesis? 69

How long has the moon

been receding?1

by Jonathan Sarfati2
Friction by the tides is slowing Earth’s rotation, so the
length of a day is increasing by 0.002 seconds per cen-
tury. This means that Earth is losing angular momentum.
The Law of Conservation of Angular Momentum says that
the angular momentum Earth loses must be gained by
the moon. Thus the moon is slowly receding from Earth
at about 4 cm (1½ inches) per year, and the rate would
have been greater in the past. The moon could never have
been closer than 18,400 km (11,500 miles), known as the
Roche Limit,3 because Earth’s tidal forces (the result of dif-
ferent gravitational forces on different parts of the moon)
would have shattered it. But even if the moon had started

{
1
Excerpt from “The Moon: The light that rules the night.” First published in
Creation 20(4): 36–39, September–November 1998.

{
2
Dr. Jonathan D. Sarfati was born in Ararat, Victoria, Australia in 1964. He
is a creationist physical chemist associated with AiG (Australia). He moved
to New Zealand as a child and later studied science at Victoria University
of Wellington. He obtained a [Link]. (Hons.) in Chemistry with two physics
papers substituted (nuclear and condensed matter physics). His Ph.D. in
Chemistry was awarded for a thesis entitled “A Spectroscopic Study of Some
Chalcogenide Ring and Cage Molecules.” He has co-authored papers in
mainstream scientific journals on high temperature superconductors and
selenium-containing ring and cage-shaped molecules.

{
3
The Roche Limit was first described by Edouard Roche in 1848. It is the
closest distance a body held together by self-gravity can come to a planet
without being pulled apart by the planet’s tidal (gravity) force. As a result,
large moons cannot survive inside the Roche Limit. On July 7, 1992, Comet
Shoemaker–Levy 9 broke apart into 21 pieces due to tidal forces when it
passed within Jupiter’s Roche Limit; on the subsequent pass, each of the
comet’s pieces collided with Jupiter.
70 evolution: fact or fable?

receding from being in contact with the earth (in other

words, was once touching the earth), it would have taken
only 1.37 billion years to reach its present distance.1 Note
well that this is the maximum possible age—far too young
for evolution (and much younger than the radiometric
“dates” assigned to moon rocks)—not the actual age.

{
1
Tidal forces are inversely proportional to the cube of the distance, so the
recession rate is inversely proportional to the sixth power of the distance.

Day Five
And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly
the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly
above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And
God created great whales, and every living creature that
moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after
their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God
saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be
fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and
let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the
morning were the fifth day (Genesis 1:20–23 KJV).

God’s Checklist for Day Five

water creatures

birds

The Hebrew word translated as “great whales” is

tanniyn, which can also be translated“land or sea mon-
sters.”The word translated “creature” is nephesh, which
is more properly translated “a breathing creature.” So
the marine mammals were created on this day and
probably the marine dinosaurs.
what saith genesis? 71

Day Six
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living crea-
ture after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast
of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made
the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their
kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his
kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let Us
make man in Our image, after Our likeness: and let them
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl
of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and
over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So
God created man in His own image, in the image of God
created He him; male and female created He them. And
God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful,
and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl
of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon
the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every
herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth,
and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding
seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the
earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that
creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given
every green herb for meat: and it was so. And God saw
every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very
good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day
(Genesis 1:24–31 KJV).…
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground,
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man
became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden
eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom He
had formed. … And the Lord God took the man, and put
72 evolution: fact or fable?
him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. …
And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should
be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out
of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field,
and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam
to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam
called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the
air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was
not found an help meet for him. And the Lord God caused
a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and He took
one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And
the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made
He a woman, and brought her unto the man (Genesis 2:
7–8,15,18–22 KJV).

God’s Checklist for Day Six

land animals

man

Garden of Eden

Adam name the animals

woman

This was a busy day, and although God can do a lot

in a day, what about Adam? How could he have been
created on this day, and then go about naming all the
animals, take a nap, and then wake up with a wife?
A close reading shows that Adam did not name all
the animals. It says he named all the cattle (livestock),
the birds of the air, and a select group of animals
referred to here as “the beasts of the field.” Earlier, in
Genesis 1:24–25, it says that on the sixth day the Lord
what saith genesis? 73

had created all the “beasts of the earth.”The “beasts of

the field” seem to be a subset of these. Adam was in
the Garden of Eden, but the animal creation was not
necessarily limited to that location. So perhaps the
beasts of the field were those “kind” who were located
in the Garden.
To name all those animals would nevertheless still
be a daunting task for anyone. The section of this book
on the Flood gets into the issue of how many “kinds”
of living creatures there were, but creation scientists
have estimated that Adam would not have had to
name more than 3,000 kinds of animals.
Take a minute and see how many animals you
can name. An experiment conducted on this point
by the author of this book showed that about forty
could be named in a minute. Now even if Adam
stumbled along at that poor rate, he would be able to
name 3,000 animals in about an hour and a quarter.
Granted, the names of animals were already known
in the aforementioned experiment, so it might not be
considered a fair comparison. But Adam’s brain was
the most perfect one (aside from perhaps Eve’s) that
any human has ever possessed, and he would have
probably been able to name the animals much faster.
Adam was as perfect a human as there ever was. He
had been freshly created, he was without sin, and able
to communicate with God directly. So if ever a man
was up to the job, it was Adam. Even at a moderate
rate of ten per minute, it would have taken Adam just
five hours to name them all.
74 evolution: fact or fable?

There was time for Adam to name

the animals in one day.

There is also another point to consider: The pur-

pose of this exercise of naming the animals was to
show Adam that no helper had yet been created for
him, so when Eve came on the scene Adam would
know that she was to be his companion, and would
appreciate her as such.
So Adam fell asleep and God took a rib out of his
side and created Eve. Some skeptics ask why, then,
don’t men have one less rib than women. This can
be answered with another question: Does a man
who has lost an arm have one-armed children?—Of
course not!
This brief look at Creation Week shows that the
Genesis account of Creation can stand up to scientific
scrutiny. Admittedly, some things are not clear and it
cannot be proven scientifically, but the huge differ-
ence between Creation theory and evolution is that
science cannot disprove the Genesis account, whereas
science can and has disproved evolution. Those who
deny Creation do so as a matter of choice, not because
it is unscientific.
75 evolution: fact or fable?

theistic evolution

N
ot everyone who believes in evolution is an
atheist. Some Christians reason that the book
of Genesis—said to have been authored by
Moses or compiled under his direction—was origi-
nally written for a primitive people. So instead of con-
fusing them with a lot of scientific explanations that
they wouldn’t understand, God kept it simple with
this charming little Creation fable. Let’s examine that
supposition in context.
Moses led the Hebrews in their exodus from the
bondage of Egypt. At the time of Moses, Egypt had
already been a flourishing civilization for centuries.
It built, among other things, the famous pyramids—
marvels of engineering that many structural engineers
claim could not be built with the same precision
today. The Egyptians were not ignorant, nor were the
Hebrews who had lived in Egypt for 400 years, much
of that time as a favored guest nation.
There was no reason for God to have handed
Moses and the Hebrews a line with regards to the
beginning of all things. If all of this had evolved over
billions of years, He could have said so. But He didn’t.
75
76 evolution: fact or fable?
And the reason He didn’t is because it didn’t happen
that way. God had His reasons for making the world,
and the main one was for it to be a proving ground for
humankind to prepare us to be His companions in the
infinitely better world He has made as our ultimate
home.
Nevertheless, ever since the theory of evolution
became popular, there have been attempts to harmon-
ize the biblical account of Creation with evolution—
what is known as “theistic evolution.” In short, theistic
evolution holds that God used the evolutionary pro-
cess to bring about creation. The two most common
theories of theistic evolution are the Gap Theory and
the Day-Age Theory.

The Gap Theory

(also called the Ruin and Reconstruction Theory)
This theory supposes that evolution occurred
during an enormous time gap between the first two
verses of the book of Genesis. This theory has eight
basic assumptions:

• God created Earth and life.

• Between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2, all that evo-

lution proposes took place.

• Fossils are the remains of animals and plants that

evolved millions of years ago and were preserved in
deposits left by local floods, sometimes millions of
years apart.
theistic evolution 77

• All of the fossilized animals evolved from non-living

matter by chance, just as evolution teaches—first
single cell plants, then invertebrate animals, verte-
brate fish, amphibians, reptiles, and finally mam-
mals.

• Mammals evolved into a race of man-like beings (a

pre-Adamite race).

• All of this ended when Lucifer (a.k.a. Satan, the

Devil) rebelled against God and was cast down to
the earth.

• The result of Satan’s fall was global cataclysm (flood

and explosion).

• This cataclysm left Earth as we find it in Genesis

1:2, without form and void with darkness on the face
of the deep.

From a Scriptural point of view, this theory is

totally without foundation. The proponents of the
Gap Theory have been so bowled over by the sup-
posed correctness of evolutionary theory that they
have tried to save God’s and the Bible’s reputations,
but they are doing God no favors.
Again, Genesis 1:1–5 states: “In the beginning God
created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was
without form, and void; and darkness was upon the
face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be
light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that
78 evolution: fact or fable?
it was good: and God divided the light from the dark-
ness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness
he called Night. And the evening and the morning
were the first day.”

The theistic evolution theories

are both scientifically and
Scripturally bogus.

This all happened on the first day. The Hebrew

word yowm in the original text can mean: 1) from
sunrise to sunset; 2) a 24-hour period; 3) an indefinite
period of time defined by an associated term (e.g., “in
the day of battle” [Psalm 140:7]). But the context in
Genesis 1:5 makes it clear that either definition 1 or
definition 2 applies because it hems in the time period
by one evening and one morning. (The Jewish day
starts in the evening and ends the following evening,
so the term evening and morning is consistent with
Jewish usage.) And finally, whenever the word yowm
appears in the Bible qualified by a number, such as
“first” in this instance, it means a 24-hour period.
Also, when God had finished the Creation at the
end of the sixth day, Genesis 1:31 (KJV) states, “And
God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold,
it was very good. And the evening and the morning
were the sixth day.” Because everything He made at
this point was very good, this seems to place the fall
theistic evolution 79

of Satan and his angels after the Creation Week—not

before it, as claimed by the Gap Theory.
Evolutionists reject the Gap Theory outright
because any cataclysm (such as a worldwide nuclear
or volcanic explosion) that would leave Earth “with-
out form and void” and with “darkness on the face
of the deep” would effectively disintegrate Earth’s
crust and thus obliterate all evidence of any previ-
ous “geological ages,” which they claim is found in
sedimentary deposits with their fossils. Thus the Gap
Theory—which is supposed to accommodate the geo-
logical ages—requires a cataclysm that would destroy
all evidence for the geological ages.1
The Gap Theory satisfies neither the creationists
nor the evolutionists.

The Day-Age Theory

Proponents of this theory contend that the six days
of Genesis 1 were actually long periods of time—
ages—that correspond to the major periods of geo-
logical history, as defined by evolutionists. Day-Age
Theory proponents apply the third definition of yowm
(“an indefinite period of time”) to the days of Genesis
1, and support this with 2 Peter [Link] “One day is with
the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as
one day.” They also insist that too much activity took
place on the sixth day (Genesis chapter 2) to fit into a
single 24-hour day.

{
1
For more details on this subject, see “Why The Gap Theory Won’t Work,” by Henry M.
Morris, published by the Institute for Creation Research. [Link]
a/[Link]
80 evolution: fact or fable?
The passage 2 Peter 3:3–10 speaks of scoffers in the
last days who belittle biblical predictions of the second
coming of Christ. Verse 8 is not meant as a mathemati-
cal formula of 1 = 1000 or 1000 = 1, but rather to make
the point that the Lord is not limited by time, that He
can accomplish something in a day or in however long
He wants to. 2 Peter 3:8 has nothing whatsoever to do
with the length of the Creation Week. Genesis 1 needs
to be interpreted in context, not by a verse written
over 1,500 years later and taken out of context. Even
if it were possible to apply this verse literally to the
Creation Week, 6,000 years does not begin to accom-
modate the millions of years required by evolution.1
Again, the Day-Age Theory satisfies neither the
creationists nor the evolutionists.

God’s Checklist for Day Seven

Take a break

{
For more details on this subject, see “Theistic Evolution and the Day-Age Theory,”
by Richard Niessen, published by the Institute for Creation Research.
[Link]
81 evolution: fact or fable?

the flood

T
he next big issue with which evolutionists take
exception to is the Genesis account in chapters
6–9 of the worldwide flood, commonly called
Noah’s Flood. Did it cover the whole world? Is there
any evidence today that such a flood ever occurred?
How could all those animals fit in the Ark?
According to Genesis the Ark measured 300 x 50 x
30 cubits (Genesis 6:15), which is approximately 140
x 23 x 13.5 meters or 459 x 77 x 46 feet. The ratio of
length to width to height is [Link]. Tests on models of
the Ark made to exact specifications have shown that
it could survive capsizing by waves of up to 200 feet
high, and that even if it pitched to a near 90 degree
angle it could then right itself. Because it wasn’t
designed to go anywhere in particular, it needed no
propulsion or steering system; it just needed to be
seaworthy and provide accommodation for one year,
and the design was perfect for that.
The total volume of the Ark was 43,500 cubic
meters or about 1.5 million cubic feet—equal to that
of 522 standard American railroad livestock cars, each
of which can hold up to 240 sheep. That means the
81
82 evolution: fact or fable?
Ark could hold over 125,000 animals, if the average
size were that of a sheep.
The Bible says that Noah took two of every“kind”of
animal, bird and reptile, except when they were“clean”
animals he took seven. (There is some debate as to
whether it was seven pairs or just seven in total.)
So what is a “kind”? The best modern term for
this is “genus” (plural is “genera”). This is a broader
term than species. Animals within a species can mate
and produce fertile offspring, whereas those within a
genus can mate and produce offspring but they may
or may not be fertile. For example, zebras, donkeys,
and horses are all in the same genus, but if they inter-
breed, their offspring, such as mules, are infertile.
It is believed that each genus had an original
parent from which the variety of species in the genus
descended, through the process of microevolution. For
example, all domestic cattle descended from aurochs,
and the aurochs in turn may have descended from a
common bovine ancestor that they share with bison
and the many varieties of buffalo.
About 8,000 genera have been identified, includ-
ing extinct ones. That would mean that there would
have been about 16,000 animals, birds, and reptiles in
the Ark. (The larger number—seven or seven pair—of
clean animals would have had little bearing on this
total because the number of clean animals fitting the
criteria to be found in Deuteronomy chapter 14 would
be quite small.)
the flood 83

There was plenty of room for all

the animals on Noah’s Ark.

Noah did not need to take sea creatures or fish

because enough of these would survive even in the
tumultuous conditions of the Flood. He also wasn’t
instructed to take insects, but his huge floating
menagerie no doubt attracted copious quantities of
insects, even as unwanted guests. More probably
survived on floating vegetation. The Bible is clear
that except for the ones in the Ark, all creatures
that “breathed through their nostrils” perished in
the Flood. Neither insects nor fish breathe through
nostrils, so the implication is that some of these two
types of creatures survived.
There is also the question of the very large ani-
mals, such as the dinosaurs or even elephants. How
did they get in the Ark? There is no mention that
Noah took fully developed adult animals onto the
Ark. Most animal experts say that younger animals
are much easier to handle, so it would seem sen-
sible for Noah to take adolescent or even younger
animals. If this was the case, then only about 10% of
the animals would have been bigger than sheep. So
since the Ark could theoretically hold over 125,000
84 evolution: fact or fable?

animals the size of sheep and since as few as 16,000

creatures may have been on board, there was plenty
of room for them and for enough food to feed them
on the duration of their voyage—about 375 days.1
Genesis 7 describes the Flood as follows:
[On that] day were all the fountains of the great
deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty
nights. … And the flood was forty days upon the earth;
and the waters increased, and bare up the Ark, and it
was lift up above the earth. And the waters prevailed,
and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the
Ark went upon the face of the waters. And the waters
prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high
hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.
Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the
mountains were covered. … And the waters prevailed
upon the earth an hundred and fifty days. (Genesis
7:11–12,17–20,24 KJV.)
First, the fountains of the great deep were broken
up. Whether there were immense amounts of water
trapped below the earth’s surface that were released,
or if a huge upward motion of the ocean floor caused
much of the water in the ocean to spill onto the land,
we don’t know. A recently developed scientific model
called Catastrophic Plate Tectonics postulates that
intense and violent movement in the tectonic plates2
resulted in the worldwide disaster of the Flood.

1
For a thorough study on Noah’s Ark, see John Woodmorappe’s Noah’s Ark: A

{ Feasibility Study, Institute for Creation Research (1996).

2
tectonic plate: a segment of Earth’s crust that moves relative to other plates and is
characterized by volcanic and seismic activity around its edges
the flood 85

This model further postulates that global volcanic

activity also occurred, especially under the ocean. That
would have sent so much water into the atmosphere
that it could have realistically resulted in the 40-day
rain described in Genesis. Eventually all this move-
ment would have caused the high mountains to be
thrust up, the ocean floor to sink, and the waters that
had first covered the highest mountains of the pre-
Flood earth to recede and fill the new oceans created
by the shift.

That Noah’s Flood was worldwide

and occurred as Genesis states is
scientifically feasible.

If the surface features of our present Earth were

totally flattened, water would cover the globe to a
depth of 2.7 km (1.7 miles). Obviously this would
not have covered the high mountains that exist today,
such as Mount Everest. The Himalayas, along with
many other mountain ranges, show clear evidence of
having been pushed up after layers of fossil-bearing
sediments had been deposited, consistent with the
catastrophic plate tectonics theory in regards to the
Flood. It is conjectured that the seven continents we
have now formed at this time. Future research may
either prove or disprove this theory, but the cata-
86 evolution: fact or fable?
strophic plate tectonics model comes the closest yet in
accounting for all the evidence. 1
So was the Flood possible? Science says it could
have been.

{
1
Critical examinations of this theory can be found at [Link]
as/[Link] and [Link]
CatastrophicPlates1/[Link]
87 evolution: fact or fable?

what’s the conclusion of

the whole matter?

N
either Creation nor evolution can be con-
clusively proven by scientific methods. So
whether you choose to believe in Creation or
evolution, it takes faith. And for faith to be sustained
and grow, it must eventually be rewarded with some
evidence, however small. Here is where creationists,
and Christians in particular, are at a distinct advan-
tage. Evolutionists have their faith bolstered every
time a new discovery is made that seems to support
the theory of evolution, only to have their faith shaken
when that new “evidence” is proven scientifically
unsound. Creationists, on the other hand, have their
faith rewarded every day. “The heavens declare the
glory of God; and the firmament shows His handi-
work” (Psalm 19:1). From the synchronization of the
cosmos to the wonders of nature and the intricacies of
the DNA molecule, everything points to the hand of
an intelligent designer behind this universe of ours.
And that’s not all. Those who have made a per-
sonal direct connection with the Designer through
His Son, Jesus Christ, can come to know the Author
of the biblical account of Creation. Through His loving
87
88 evolution: fact or fable?
presence in our lives, through the answers we receive
to our prayers, and through the truth and freedom He
reveals to us through His Word, our faith is continually
rewarded and strengthened. Just as truly loving human
relationships engender faith and trust between the
parties, all that we receive from God helps us to trust
Him and take Him at His word. Because the other
things He tells us in the Bible ring true, we are able to
view the Genesis account of Creation from a position
of faith—not the faith of a gullible simpleton, but that
of a thinking, sensible person who bases his or her
decision on the character of a close and trusted Friend
who is the author of the account.
Would you like to know the Creator and Author
by accepting Jesus’ love into your heart as your Savior
and Friend? You can do so by saying a prayer like this:

Jesus, I want to know You personally, so I invite You

to come into my heart. Thank You for dying for me that
my sins may be forgiven and so I can have the free
gift of salvation. Thank You for creating this world and
giving me eternal life in the world to come. Help me to
learn more of You so that I can help others as You have
helped me. Amen!

The End
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