Creation and Evolution

Since the 19th century, biologists have questioned the origin of life, asking the question “How did life first begin?” To answer that question, they have come up with two contradicting yet plausible theories, Creation and Evolution. The theory of Creation states that an intelligent being designed each organism. On the other hand, the theory of Evolution states that some form of stimuli sparked one of the earliest forms of life and that every single organism living today evolved from it. Starting with the evidence and the criticism for the theory of Evolution, this paper will provide the main arguments and criticism for both theories and explain why Creation is the true explanation for the origin of the world.
One argument used to support the idea of Evolution that some form of stimuli sparked one of the earliest forms of life is “The Miller-Urey experiment.” In this experiment, which was performed in the 1950s, an American graduate student Stanly Miller, and his PhD. Advisor, Harold Urey succeeded in producing some of the chemical building blocks of life by sending an electric spark through a mixture of gases they thought simulated the Earth’s primitive Atmosphere (Wells 11). They postulated a strongly reducing gas, or gas that lacks oxygen. This is reasonable because people thought that the Earth was made out of interstellar gas (13), which is primarily made out of hydrogen, not oxygen. Anyways, seeing that lightning could produce the basic building blocks of life, evolutionists claimed that this is how life first originated!
In addition to the statement above, whether oxygen was prevalent or not prevalent back then is crucial to understanding the result of this experiment because a living cell could not have emerged from a place abundant of oxygen. This is because the same oxygen that is obligatory for respiration is often fatal to organic synthesis (12), which is the process by which the first organism has been created (if it ever was). Therefore, if oxygen existed at the site where life emerged, there would have been an explosion instead of a creation! However, because Stanley and Miller postulated an oxygen-lacking atmosphere, which was reasonable as discussed earlier, their experiment is widely used as evidence for evolution.
Another argument used to support the idea of Evolution that living things evolved from a primordial organism is natural selection. This idea, proposed by Charles Darwin, simply states that only the organisms best adapted to their environment tend to survive and pass genetic characteristics to their offspring (Williams). It also states that these genetic characteristics affect the organism’s fitness (Williams).
For example, Charles Darwin observed thirteen species of finches in the Galapagos Islands (Wells 159). They were very similar to each other, except that their beaks were different in shape and that they lived in different environments, which provided them with various types of food sources. After careful recordings and observations, he concluded that all thirteen finches had a common ancestor and that their beaks were modified (162), in a way that made them suitable to the environment they were in, over time. For example, the beak of the large ground finch, Geospiza magnirostris, is suited to cracking the seeds that compose the bird’s diet (Feldkamp 286). Another type of finch, the woodpecker finch Camarynchus pallidus has a beak that is specialized for capturing insects (286).
Logically, if natural selection takes place for ages, populations will eventually differ. And as the hour hand of a clock spins around, there is eventually going to be a lot of change in the fitness of an organism (Williams). Thus, many people reason that evolution did occur and that it is still occurring through natural selection.
Another widely used piece of evidence for supporting Evolution is that apes and humans have the same ancestry. Inevitably, there are evidences that suggest this idea. For example, Thomas Henry Huxley, the author of “Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature,” compared the skeletons of apes and humans, and found out that they have similar bone structures (Wells 214). Having observed that, he concluded that the only way for them to have similar bone structures is through evolution; for evolution is thought to result in similar organisms, which would have similar bone structures. Thus he concluded that humans and apes have the same ancestry.
A British paleontologist named Charles Dawson also provided evidence by discovering some pieces of human skull with an ape-like lower jaw with two teeth, now known as the Piltdown Skull because it was found in Piltdown, Britain (217). Many people concluded that this is the missing link between humans and apes. With these remarkable findings, evolutionists claim that humans and apes have evolved from a common ancestor and thus, they concluded that evolution does/in fact occur.
Albeit evidences for Evolution may seem tenable against criticism as of now, evolutionists are actually posed with arguments that if true, would prove evolution wrong. “The Miller-Urey experiment” will be discussed firstly. This experiment was actually a failure because it as discovered that Miller’s postulation about the primitive atmosphere was wrong! As discussed earlier, Miller’s postulation was that it lacked oxygen. However, people now acknowledge that it actually consisted quite a bit of oxygen. According to Princeton University geochemist Heinrich Holland and Carnegie Institution geophysicist Philip Abelson, the earth’s primitive atmosphere was not derived from interstellar gas clouds, but from gases released by the Earth’s own volcanoes, which also release various substances including water vapor. (14-15).
These water vapors would then produce oxygen through a process called photodissociation. In this process, water vapor in the upper atmosphere contact with the ultraviolet rays from the space (15, 17). When contacted, water vapor is separated into hydrogen and oxygen. Because hydrogen is too light, it leaves the atmosphere to space. However, oxygen remains (15, 17). Thus, if Holland and Abelson’s assumption is correct, there must have been at least some amount of oxygen in the primitive atmosphere. Hence, there could not have been the building blocks of life forming.
Another criticism for the experiment is biogenesis, which states “all living things come from other living things.” (Feldkamp 261) For instance, pick up a soccer ball. Then kick it, punch it, worship it, talk to it, and wash it. Leaving it on the ground for few hundred years would also be a good idea. Now, are there any living creatures crawling out of the ball? If there are, it should be a worm from the ground that climbed up the ball. As such, any stimulus to a non living thing can not produce a living thing! Burning it with fire may result in ashes, which would be a chemical reaction. This occurs in both non living things and in living things. Thus, it is possible to conclude that the result of the experiment is merely a chemical reaction.
Although the experiment produced some interesting results, they are invalid because the experiment failed to simulate the correct atmosphere. And even if the primitive atmosphere was actually oxygen lacking, the result of the experiment still does not hint to us how life originated. The reason this is still uncertain is because biochemists can mix all the building blocks of life and still not create an organism (Wells 24). It is true that it produced some building blocks of life, but scientists of today have proved that life cannot be formed by mixing building blocks of life. With these reasons, “The Miller-Urey experiment” was proven incorrect.
Secondly, the criticism for natural selection will be discussed. According to natural selection, complex organisms have evolved from simple organisms. Because this is a slow process, there should have been a time when an intermediate organism, neither completely complex nor completely simple, roamed the earth. This process is just like how an elevator works. If an elevator is at the sixth floor, it must have had a time when it passed the second, third, fourth, and the fifth floor. Thus, there must be fossils of those intermediate organisms. However, the problem is that archaeologists have never found such fossils (Kathleen! This suggests no other conclusion, but that natural selection does not bring about evolution!
To add on to that, natural selection is a tautologous concept, or in other words, it is circular reasoning. This is because it simply requires the fittest organisms to leave the most offspring and at the same time it identifies the fittest organisms as those that leave the most offspring (Duane IV). This is just like saying ‘You are ugly because I think you are ugly. I think you are ugly because you are ugly.’ As such, natural selection is circular reasoning. And it is something people must avoid when trying to prove something. Hence, it can not be used as evidence for evolution.
Thirdly, the criticism for the statement that apes and humans have the same ancestry will be discussed. This statement has been proven to be incorrect by Joseph Weiner, Kenneth Oakley, and Wilfred Le Gros Clark. After careful inspection, it was discovered that the Piltdown skull belongs to a modern human and that the jaw has been chemically treated to make it look like a fossil and that the teeth had been deliberately filed down to make them look human. With all due respect, Charles Dawson’s discovery has been declared as a forgery! Thus, the discovery can not be used as evidence for the statement, which leaves it without any evidence. Hence, the statement is still invalid and thus can not be used to support evolution.
Similar to the theory of Evolution, the theory of Creation also has both evidence and criticism. One substantial piece of evidence for creation is that there are no intermediate fossils (The Fossil…). Of the hundreds of millions of fossils, not a single one of them suggests the existence of an organism, such as a half-fish and a half-amphibian organism (Sonnichsen 3). And those that were once considered to be intermediate fossils were discovered as forgeries (Wells 123, 217).
The absence of intermediate fossils indicates that organisms did not evolve into other organisms. When you know that one of two side roads will lead you to your destination and that the one on the right leads to a garbage can, you automatically know that you should take the one on the left. It applies same for this controversy. If you know that organisms do not evolve into other organisms, then you also know that they must have been created.
The fossil records also provide people with another piece of evidence for creation. It is an absolute fact that life appears abruptly, that it appears in complex forms and that gaps appear systematically between various living kinds in the fossils (Duane II). This suggests that life was obviously created, not coming about through evolution.
Another evidence is manifest in the Earth’s magnetic field. “Scientific observations since 1829 have shown that the Earth’s magnetic field has been measurably decaying at an exponential rate. (Baugh), demonstrating its half-life to be approximately 1400 years.” In application, the Earth’s strength about 20,000 years ago would be similar to that of a magnet star. And under this condition, many of the atoms necessary for life processes could not form (Baugh). Thus, some intelligent being must have created organisms.
Even the famous British evolutionists paleontologist Derek V. Ager states, “The point emerges that if we examine the fossil records in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we find – over and over again – not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one group at the expense of another (The Fossil…).” Another evolutionist paleontologist Mark Czarnecki explains, “A major problem in providing the theory has been the fossil record; the imprints of vanished species preserved in the Earth’s geological formations. This record has never revealed traces of Darwin’s hypothetical intermediate variants – instead species appear and disappear abruptly, and this anomaly has fueled the creationist argument that each species was created by God (The Fossil…).” As such, the existence of an intelligent being is obligatory to understand the devoid of transitional fossils.
Along with evidence, creation faces some criticism. The one criticism that I have about creation is this: “All people acknowledge that non-living things do not perform any kinds of actions unless an outside force is exerted and that all religions that believe in some type of creator do not state that their creator is a non-living thing.” Thus, the intelligent being must have the six characteristics of life because he is also a living thing.
To pick on one specific religion, I have picked Christianity. The bible states that humans were created in the image of God. Thus, God must have had lungs. Therefore, in order for him to survive, there must have been oxygen around him. Also, he must have had to consume food. Thus, there must have been creatures which he consumed. But where did the oxygen and the creatures originate in the first place?
Following the theory of creation, there must be another intelligent being above God who created God, oxygen, and the creatures. And there would be another intelligent being that created the latter. Hence, there would be numerous intelligent beings. However, this fact contradicts the biblical belief that there is only on God. Thus, there is a discrepancy within the religion. Because it is hard to prove something using evidence with a discrepancy, creation logically does not seem to be a legitimate reason for this topic.
Despite its criticism, the theory of Creation seems to be the true explanation for the origin of organisms. This is because none of the evidence for evolution answers how life first originated. Thus, I am convinced that there existed some kind of an intelligent being and that he created organisms through a supernatural process which I am not able to apprehend, just like the fifteen dimensional world.