cphil_evolve2
THE PROBLEM OF EVOLUTION
CONTINUED
by Ray Shelton
III. EVALUATION
When Charles Darwin first published his theory of the origin of the species by natural selection, his idea was that continual slight variations by individuals of a species would confer differing degrees of advantage or disadvantage in the struggle for existence. Those with significant advantages would be favored by natural selection and thus would be able to survive longer to be able to transmit those characteristics by inheritance to their descendants. Thus gradually, completely new and higher species would emerge.
Later it was found that variations were subject to the rigid Mendelian laws of inheritance, meaning that nothing novel would survive, but only characteristics already latent in the genetic system. Modern molecular biology, with its penetrating understanding of the remarkable genetic code implanted in the DNA system, has further confirmed that normal variations operate within the range specified by DNA for the particular type of organism, so that no really novel characteristics, producing higher degrees of order or complexity, can appear. Variation is horizontal, not vertical. That is, variations occur within the species, not outside to form new species.
Unfortunately, it is this sort of normal variation that is commonly presented as evidence of present day evolution. The classic example is the peppered moth of England, “evolving” from the dominant lighter coloration to a dominant darker coloration, as the tree trunks grew darker from the polutants of the industrial revolution. But this is not evolution in the true sense at all, but only a variation within the species. Natural selection is a conservative force, operating to keep kinds from becoming extinct when the environment changes. In other words, the phenomena of variation and natural selection, instead of explaining evolution in the way that Darwin thought it did, is a marvelous example of the creationist’s principle of conservation in operation. That is, since the Creator had a purpose for each kind of organism created, He instituted a system which would not only assure its genetic integrity, but also enable it to survive in nature. The genetic system would be such as to maintain its identity as a special kind while, at the same time, allowing it adjust its characteristics (within limits) to changes of the environment. Otherwise, slight changes in habitat, food supply, etc., might cause its extinction.
Natural selection thus cannot produce any real novelties. It is essentially a passive thing, a sort of filter, through which passes only those variants which fit the environment. Those that do not fit are stopped and discarded by the filtering process. It can only act on variants that come to it via the genetic potentialities already implicit in the DNA structure; it cannot generate anything new itself. The reshuffling, or recombination, of characteristics already implicitly present in the germ cell certainly does not generate anything really new in an evolutionary sense. It is merely another name for variations. Nevertheless, the evolutionists regard this phenomena of recombination as a very important and essential aspect of evolution.
But if variations, or recombination, could really produce something new, truly novel, for natural selection to act upon, the novelty would almost certainly be quickly eliminated. A new structural or organic feature that would confer a real advantage in the struggle for existence, like a wing or an eye, would be useless or even harmful until it was fully developed. There would be no reason at all for natural selection to favor any incipient feature.
Natural selection, acting upon the variational potential designed into the genetic code for each organism, is thus a powerful device for permitting horizontal variation, to enable it to adapt to its environment and thus survive. But it is useless in generating vertical variation, leading to the development to higher, more complex kinds of organisms. In fact, it acts to prevent such vertical variation, since incipient novelties would be useless at best until fully developed and functional. In most cases, such novelties would be definitely harmful. It is significant that evolutionist have never yet been able to document, either in the living world or the fossil world, an incipient organ or structure leading to a future useful feature. [1]
Since it is obvious that neither ordinary variations, nor recombinations of existing characteristics, can account for “upward” evolution, some exordinary mechanism must be found for this purpose. In the modern synthetic theory of evolution, called neo-Darwinism, the mechanism that has been universally adopted for this purpose is mutations. A mutation is assumed to be real structural change in a gene, of such a character that something novel is produced, not merely a reworking of something already there. In some way the linkages in a segment of the DNA molecule are changed, so that “different” information is conveyed via the genetic code in the formation of the structure of the descendant. Thus the phenomena of mutation is considered to be the most important component in the theory of evolution. The evolution theory must postulate some mechanism to produce the required “upward” progress in complexity. Mutation is supposedly such a mechanism.
Evolution assumes that mutations are random, not directed. That is, there is no control mechanism to make the mutations produce the characteristics that are needed for evolution. Evolution assumes that the operation of natural processes operates under the impetus of the innate properties of matter and the laws of nature and that there is no external supernatural agent who plans and directs these processes. That is, evolution assumes all these process arise by chance and naturalism. Thus the universe is self-contained and self-evolving by random actions of its components. Natural selection must take what happens.
The frequency of the majority of mutations in higher organisms are between one in ten thousand and one in a million per gene per generation. Applying the simple principles of mathematical probability, it can be shown that that probabilities of mutations occurring are such that it is practically impossible that a living system would ever be formed by chance. [2]
Assume a “sea” of freely available components, each uniquely capable of performing a specific useful function. What is the probability that two or more of them can come together by chance to form an integrated functioning organism? As long as the number of components in the organism are small, the chances association in this way is a reasonable possibility. For example, consider two components, A and B. If they happen to link up to form AB, that is, the combined system that will work, but the combined system BA will not work. Thus there is one chance out of two that these two components will combine to form a functioning system. That is, there is a probability of 1/2 of “success.” Now if there are three components, A, B, and C, there are six possible ways of them linking up: ABC, ACB, BAC, BCA, CAB, and CBA. Since it is assumed that only one of these will work, there is a probability of 1/6 of success. That is, the number of combinations is calculated by multiplying each factor in the series together. Thus,
Number of combinations for 2 components = 1 × 2 = 2.
Number of combinations for 3 components = 1 × 2 × 3 = 6.
Number of combinations for 4 components = 1 × 2 × 3 × 4 = 24.
Number of combinations for 5 components = 1 × 2 × 3 × 4 × 5 = 120.
Number of combinations for n components = 1 × 2 × 3 × … × n = n!.
The last expression uses shorthand way of expressing such products with the mathematical notation known as the “factorial” of the number n of the components or factors, written as “n!”. For example, 1 × 2 × 3 × 4 = 4! (“four factorial”) or 24.
The “factorials” become exceedingly large as the number of components increase. That is,
6! = 720
7! = 5,040
8! = 40,320
9! = 362,880
10! = 3,628,800
100! ≅ 10158
200! ≅ 10375
1,000,000! ≅ 103,000,000, etc.
In the following table there is listed the number of possible combinations for arranging an extremely simple (from 1 to 10 parts) component systems. It also gives the corresponding probabilities for generating such systems. (The “E” stands for “exponent” so that 2.76E-07 = 2.76 × 10-7 = 0.000000276). [3]
| Number of Components | Number of Possible Combinations | Probability of Given Sequence |
|---|---|---|
| n | n! | 1/n! |
| 1 | 1 | 1.00E+00 |
| 2 | 2 | 5.00E-01 |
| 3 | 6 | 1.67E-01 |
| 4 | 24 | 4.17E-02 |
| 5 | 120 | 8.33E-03 |
| 6 | 720 | 1.39E-03 |
| 7 | 5,040 | 1.98E-04 |
| 8 | 40,320 | 2.48E-05 |
| 9 | 362,880 | 2.76E-06 |
| 10 | 3,628,800 | 2.76E-07 |
Now consider, as an example, an organism composed of only 100 integrated parts. Remember that each of these parts must fulfill an unique function in the organism and there is only one way in which these 100 part can be combined to function effectively. Since there are 10158 different ways in which 100 parts can link up, the probability of a successful chance linkage is one out of 10158, or 1/10158 (Note that 10158 is equal to a number written as “one” followed by 158 “zeros”. This is a number too large to comprehend properly.)
Now there are only approximately 1080 electrons in the universe. Assuming that this number represents the number of particles available to serve as potential components in our 100-part organism, this means that 1078 such groups of 100 parts each could be formed at any one time (1080/102 = 1078). To be sure to get the one that works, however, there must be 10158 such groups formed. It is, therefore, very unlikely that one of the 1078 actual groups would be the one needed. So in the event none of the first trial groups work, assume that they unlink, mix around, and then try again. Then let them all try again, and again, and keep on trying, as long as possible.
But time is limited. The universe is said by astronomers to be less than 30 billion years old. And in 30 billion years, there is 1018 seconds. Now let us assume that each of the above cycles of linking, unlinking, and reshuffling, occupies only a billonth part of a second, so that one billion (109) trials can be made each second. Thus the maximum number of trial combinations that could be made in all the universe in 30 billion years, under such absurdly generous conditions, is 1078 × 109 × 1018, or 10105 combinations. However, there need to be 10158 such combinations to be certain of getting the one which will work.
Finally, then, the chance that one of these 10105 possible combinations will be the correct one is one chance in 10158/10105 or one in 1053. This is an almost an infinitesimally small number, actually one chance out of a hundred million billion billion billion billion billion. Simply stated, the chance that a system composed of 100 integrated parts could developed by chance is for all practical purposes, non-existent; and that is no chance at all.
But an organism composed of 100 parts is impossibly simple. Research sponsored in part by NASA (for the purpose of enabling astronauts to recognize even the most rudimentary forms of life on other planets) has shown that the simplest type of protein molecule that could be said to be “living” is composed of a chain of least 400 linked amino acid, and each amino acid is a specific combination of four or five basic chemical elements in a unique assembage of protons, electrons, and neutrons. The chance formation of this simplest replicating protein molecule can be computed and it is 1 in 10450. And this protein molecule is simple compared to the more complex structure or organ such as the cerebral cortex of the human brain which contain over 10,000,000,000 cells each of which is carefully arranged according to specific design, and each of which is fantastically complex in itself. What must be the probability of the formation of an organ with so many parts? Mathematicans generally consider any event with a probability of less than one chance in 1050 as having a zero probability, that is, impossible. This means that as the number of system component parts increases, the probability of generating the correct arrangement rapidly goes to zero, that is, it becomes impossible.
Thus it is inconceivable (to anyone but a doctrinare evolutionist) that a living system could ever be formed by chance. If the Creator is excluded from the problem, there is no other way that at least the first living system could have been formed.
The basic theory of evolution must predict that such mutations would be primarily beneficial, generating a “vertical” change upward to higher degrees of orders and complexity. But the net effect of the mutations is harmful, not beneficial, to the supposed progress of evolution, which is made transparently clear by the zeal with which evolutionists (environmentalist) for decades have been trying to get mutation-producing radiations removed from the environment. If the evolutionist really believed that mutations were beneficial, then they should favor all measures that would increase the rate of mutations and facilitate further evolution. Instead, for decades they have opposed nuclear testing and the use of nuclear power for the very reason of preventing mutations. [4]
In the organic realm, there are many similarities between different kinds of plants and animals, and evolutionist have intrepreted these as evidence of common ancestry. The creationist, on the other hand, interpret the same similarities as evidence of a common plan and design by the Creator. The evolutionist has to assume that such characteristics have developed by chance mutations and natural selection. The creationist explains them as structures designed by the Creator for special purposes, so that when similar purposes were involved, then similar structures were created. It would seem that this issue could be dismiss as an impasse, since similarities are expected in both evolution and creation.
But there is also differences to be accounted for. For example, cats and dogs are somewhat similar, but they have many difference also. The creationist says that similar structures on both were created with for similar functions for both, and that the difference structures were for their different functions. But the evolutionist, on the other hand, encounters a real problem. If the cat and dog evolved from a common ancestor in the same environment by the same process, how did they get to be different? It would seem that there ought to be an integrated series, a continuum, of animals between cats and dogs, so that one could never tell where “cats” stop and “dogs” begin.
The theory of evolution requires such a “continuity” of organisms but there is no evidence that it exists now or existed in the past. And instead of a continuum of organisms, there are distinct types and they are separated by gaps between them. To explain the gaps, numerous secondary assumptions have been introduced into the theory of evolution. The creationist does not have to introduce any such secondary assumptions to explain the data. On the contrary, it predicts the data. That is, it predicts an array of distinct kinds of organisms, separated by gaps, with both similarities and differences. In view of the foregoing facts, it is not strange that evolutionists constantly place such a strong emphasis on similarities as evidence of evolution. They cannot explain the differences so to cover the inadequacy of the evolution theory, they put the strong emphasis on the similarities, since it supports their claim of common ancestory of all species. But the creationist can better explain the similarities and can predict the differences. [5]
The basic creed of historical geology ever since the days of Hutton and Lyell in the early nineteenth century has been uniformitarianism, which is summarized in the motto, “The present is the key to past.” But this motto does not state the heart of uniformitarianism; that is, that processes in the past operate at essentially the same rate that they do today. The “uniform” refers to this “same rate.” Thus uniformitarianism is more accurately defined as the theory that all observable system, both living and nonliving, past or present, can be explained as to their origin and development in terms of the natural law that all processes operate at modern rates. As applied to geology, this means that all the earth’s mountains, rivers, huge stratigraphic deposits — in short, all the features of the earth’s crust and surface — are explainable as the result of slow rates of the processes of sedimentation, erosion, contraction, radioactivity, and other actions of natural processes all working over almost infinitely long periods of time. It was assumed to be “unscientific” to refer to unnatural events such as creation or the Flood to explain any of these natural phenomena.
The idea of slow processes and infinite ages was universally held among pagan cultures of antiquity. Aristotle held that the speed of all bodies, such the sun and stars, are uniform or constant and all bodies move at an uniform speed to their natural places. These views were accepted by Christian theologians and philosophers of the Middle Ages. But with the Reformation and with the reading of the Bible that followed the invention of the printing press, with the religious revivals associated with the Protestantism, and, later, the Great Awakening, the discovery of fossil bearing rock strata were explained in terms of Biblical Flood that they had been deposited during the Noahic Flood. The dominant theory of the new science of geology was a Flood geology. That concept was expounted in the writings of Steno, the “father of stratigraphy,” Woodward, the “father of paleontology.” and other great geologist of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
But the old pagan ideas were revived in a modern garb, especially by Sir Charles Lyell (the “father of uniformitarianism”), then by Charles Darwin, who based his theory of evolution upon the Lyellian uniformitarian geology. By the end of the nineteenth century, nearly the entire modern intellectual world had reverted to the ancient pagan view of uniform slow processes and of infinite age of the world in the form of evolutionary uniformitarianism. The ancient pagan view of time as vast cycles of periodic destruction and regeneration was abandoned, and was replace with a linear concept of progress, development and advancement called evolution.
Historical geology based on uniformitarianism purports to explain all of the earth’s geologic formations in terms of the essentually uniform operation of processes of nature that are now occurring and can be studied at the present time. This is the basic philosophy behind the rejection of the earlier catastrophism in geologic interpretation, it being argued that it is unreasonable to postulate geologic phenomena outside the range of present experience to explain the strata. Thus it was believed that present-day geomorphic processes (including erosion, deposition, volcanism, diastrophism, etc.) acting essentially in the same manner and at the same rate as at present, for long enough of time, is sufficient to account for all of the earth’s physiographic features when properly studied and correlated. This is the philosophy that has dominated the development of historical geology. It is a claim that it is possible to understand geologic formations in terms of slow processes acting over long periods of time. This means that uniformitarianism is be assumed, not proved. Catastrophism has not been disproved or refuted; it has simply been denied in favor of uniformitarianism.
But uniformitarianism is inadequate to explain most of the earth’s geologic formations, as a candid examination of the facts will show. For example, a great part of earth’s surface rocks are igneous in origin, in many different forms, and are often of tremendous extents, sometimes on the surface, sometimes intruded between sedimentary rocks, sometimes forming the base of a sedimentary series. The great continental shields of the world, notably the Canadian Shield in this continent, are mainly of granite and other igneous rocks. These phenomena are common around the world and account for a substantial percentage of the earth’s surface rock, in addition to the intrusive rocks found in every part of the geological column and igneous masses underlying the sedimentaries.
The only modern process that is pertinent to these phenomena is that of volcanism. But in its present character, volcanism can not possibly have produced these great igneous formations. There are perhaps 500 active volcanoes in the world, and possibly three times that number of extinct volcanoes. But nothing seen by man in the present era can compare with whatever was the phenomena that produced the formation of these tremendous structures. The principle of uniformitarianism breaks down completely at this important point of accounting for this phenomena. Some catastrophic action would be sufficient.
Another major geologic phenomena, encountered all over the world, is the evidence of tremendous crustal movements that must have happened in the past. Great thicknesses of rock have apparently been uplifted thousands of feet; strata have buckled, folded, sometimes been thrusted laterally or completely overturned on a gigantic scale. The great Rocky Mountain chain, especially as developed in the Southern Rockies, is essentially a series of great folds. In the eastern part of this country, the Appalachian system of mountains is believed to be the uplifted and eroded remnant of a great geosynclinal trough, in which a thickness of some 40,000 feet of sedimentary rocks was deposited. These mountains reveal a very involved assortment of gigantic faults, folds, and thrusts. Similar phenomena are found in nearly every region of the world. The crust of the earth seems to have been distorted, fractured, elevated, depressed, and controted in almost every conceivable way at some time or times in the past. This is further attested by great areas of metamorphism, in which the original sedimentary or crystalline rocks have been completely changed in form as a result of the gigantic stresses acting in the crust. Schistosity or the resemblance to schist (a medium or coarse grained metamorphic rocks composed of laminated, often flaky, parallel layers of micaceous minerals) in crystalline rocks is also attributed to these causes.
Nor are these phenomena, which are familar to everyone, limited to land surfaces. It was once supposed that the deep oceans had remained dark, lifeless, and unchanged, except for the finest rain of sediment, since the world began; but now new knowledge has dispelled this view. Across the ocean floor geophysicists have traced great factures, scarps and rifts, and have found scattered volcanic peaks and ranges, and have charted canyons cut by slumps and flows of mud on the continental margins. Most, if not all, of these diatrophic features of the earth’s crust are believed to be associated with orogeny, that is, “mountain building.” It is here that the principle of uniformity appears to be most inadequate. All attempted explanations of orogeny have unreconciled difficulties, none of which is yet generally accepted. The only modern force of possibly similar character is the earthquake. These sometimes are of terrific intensity, but they obviously do not provide an explanation for orogeny or any other diastropic phenomena. In fact, earthquakes are believed to be merely the result of slippage along fault planes or planes of weakness already formed.
The principle of uniformitarianism fails completely at this important point of accounting for this phenomena. The mountain-making processes, with all their associated phenomena, the faults, folds, rifts, thrusts, etc., have been active in the geological recent past, but they are not active now, at least not measurably so. Yet the processes associated with mountain-building, and their results, are considered by all geophysicists and geomorphologists to be absolutely basic to interpreting earth history. Here, then, is another extremely important gap in the range of applicability of the so-called law of uniformity, whereby present processes are supposed to suffice to explain all geological phenomena.
There are many present-day glaciers and two great ice-caps, in Greenland and Antarctica; but there is nothing occuring in the present that is at all comparable to the great ice sheets of the past, which have supposedly molded so much of the earth’s present surface geology. Some 4,000,000 square miles of North America, 2,000,000 square miles or more of Europe, and an as yet little known but possibly comparable area in Siberia is glaciated. In addition, many lesser areas are covered by local ice caps. Thousands of valley glaciers existed in the mountains where today there are either no glaciers or only small ones, etc. The geologists seem to be in agreement that the Pleistocene epoch consisted of four glacial ages separated by interglacial ages of probably far greater duration than the glacial ages. Here the principle of uniformity is once again incapable to explain.
The underlying cause of glaciation is unknown; there are many “explanations” that have been advanced to account for the wide spread glaciation. If they could be explained readily by the principle of uniformity in terms of present processes, then it should easily be possible to point at those present processes and show how the continental glaciers were formed, explaining them thereby. Again it is obvious that the dogma of uniformity has thus far completely failed to account for this additional very important aspect of accepted geology.
Sediments compose the majority of the earth’s crust. Sedimentary rock is laid in strata by water bearing soil and minerals. According the uniformitarian geology, these layers were depositied for ages at the same small rate as today. In an article on stratigraphy (the science that studies sediments), Stuart E. Nevins gives several reasons why the sedimentary rock could not have been laid down the leisurely manner that sediments are now being formed.
First, several types of sedimentary rock are formed only by violently rushing and turbulent water. Second, some kinds of sediment are not being formed presently, which contradicts an axiom of uniformitarianism. Many coal deposits could not have been formed by a gradual sedimentation in a swamp (a popular uniformitarian theory); the top-turvy orientation of trees and other fossils in them reflect a violent formation.
Finally, these semimentary layers seems to follow a global patterns. This is not yet a firm conclusion but preliminary work seems to support it. If it is true, the sedimentation is global as well as catastrophic. [6] Under certain flooding conditions, sediments may be laid down at a significantly higher rates than the average global rate. But the picture presented in the sedimentary rocks seems to indicate a widespread – even global – sedimentation that took place more or less simultaneously. This violates uniformitarianism which permits only local deviations from the global mean rate of sedimentation (which is taken as constant with time).
As we have just seen, the major present geologic agencies — erosion, deposition, volcanism, glaciation, diastrophism, sedimentation, etc.– do not suffice to explain on uniformist principles the rock formations of the earth’s crust. Each of them must, at some time in the past, have acted on a scale and with an intensity far greater than manifested in the present, if the geologic phenomena is to be explained thereby. These can not be explained in terms of present, normal processes as the uniformity theory attempts to do.
But the main buttress of the uniformity theory, together with its evolutionary implications, is the supposed fact that the strata everywhere exhibit the same order, thus permitting the development of a worldwide system of identification and correlation. Paleontologists maintain that the strata can be divided into a series of identifiable units corresponding to definite geologic ages and these units are always in the same order and thus testify to their chronologic equivalence. This is the standard system of geologic ages, as is found in any textbook on historical geology.
The “geologic time scale” was worked out by Lyell and others. This time scale is supposed to represent the “standard geologic column,” the vertical cross section of sedimentary and fossils now found in the earth’s crust. It is built around four great assumed ages called “eras,” named in ascending order: Proterozoic (“first life”), Paleozoic (“old life”), Mesozoic (“middle life”), and Cenozoic (“recent life”), that are divided into twelve “periods,” named Precambrian, Cambrian, Ordovician, Siluran, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassac, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Tertiary, Quaternary, with those in turn being subdivided into “epochs.” Most of the divisions called “periods” are designated by place names where the the characteristic rocks were found. Two features of the geologic column must be noted here.
(1) Fossils can give only relative dates, without regard to absolute time intervals in years. Ancient rock systems in which fossils are lacking or at least sparse can only be grouped together, on this basis, at the bottom of the column.
(2) The column is made up exclusively of sedimentary rocks; igneous rocks can be included in this system only on the basis of their position in relation to sedimentary strata.
At first geologist thought that the rocks below the Cambrian, in which no fossils were found, represented the original crust of the earth formed by cooling of molten earth and were thus in a sense igneous. This turned out to be wrong. Much of Precambrian is undifferentiated, and intense search for fossils has yielded substantial evidence only for some algae and a few wormlike creatures, but it is now clear that geologic change took place in those ancient times as well as more recently, the only difference being the absence or paucity of living forms. The earlist records of geological history are difficult to read, but evidence has been established of sediments, seas, and vast mountain ranges, all long since leveled and largely covered over. The study of geology throws no direct light on the nature of the “original crust.” The evolutionist doubt whether there were ever such a thing, as James Hutton said, “we find no sign of a beginning.” [7]
| Era | Period | Dominant Life | Years Ago (million of years) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cenozoic | Quaternary Tertiary | Man Mammals Flowering Plants | 1 |
| Mesozoic | Cretaceous Jurassic Triassac | Reptiles (Dinosaurs) | 65 |
| Palezoic | Permian Carboniferous Devonian Silurian Ordovician Cambrian | Fish Invertebrates | 270 |
| Proterozoic | Precambrian | Fossils rare | 600 |
Primitive one-celled organisms are supposed to have evolved in the Precambrian and all the animal phyla in the Cambrian, including even the vertebrates. The Mesozoic Era was the age of the great reptiles, with birds and mammals proliferating in the Tertiary period. Man was supposed to have evolved in the Pleistocene epoch of the Quaternary period, or possibly in the Pliocene epoch of the later Tertiary. Other details can be found in any standard textbook of geology, biology, or evolution.
All these “geological ages” were worked out in considerable detail before the discovery of radioactivity, so it is incorrect for people to say that they were determined by radiometric methods. In fact, much of the system was worked out before many fossils were discovered. It was simply assumed that hierarchies of animal life would move from simple to complex, from amoeba to man, and that this series would always be the same. Consequently, the data of comparative morphology (as formalized in the Linnean classification system) and of comparative embryology (especially as expressed in the Haeckael’s now-discredited “recapitulation theory”) were used to determine the sequence in which the fossil series should be placed, even before such series were ever found in the rocks. Thus the geologic column, or “time-scale” is essentially an artifical construct based mainly on the assumption that the relative complexities of animal morphologies and the assumed evolutionary recapitulation in the growth of embryos should be mirrored in the fossil remains of organisms representing the advancing geologic ages in earth’s natural history. Largely, this system was developed by “progressive creationists” such as Georges Cuvier and others (Cuvier was a leader in both comparative anatomy and palentology), who were not evolutionist but believed in long ages and an ascending hierarchy of creation acts by God.
But this system constructed in such a strange and arbitrary way contains many anomalies and contradictions. One would gather from a typical textbook that the geologic column is found in complete and proper order everywhere in the world. The fact is that it exists nowhere in the real world, except on the pages of textbooks. The standard column would be at least one hundred miles in thickness, whereas the actual local columns found are on average a mile thick. Nowhere in the world is the complete column found; only a few of the twelve periods are usually found at any given location, and there are many places where none of the periods are found, with the crystalline “basement rocks” practically at the surface.
In addition, there is no correlation of rock characteristics as such with the “age” of the rocks. Any rock type (sandstone, shale, etc.) can be found in any age. Minerals of all types, metals of all types, coal and oil, structures of all types, and all degrees of looseness or consolidation can be found in any geologic age.
How, then, is the age of the rock determined? The geologic age of the rocks is determined primarily by fossils that it contains, on the basis of the fossil sequences that had been assigned to the different ages by Cuver, Lyell, and their followers well over two centuries ago. This is circular reasoning and it is subtle but once assumed generates a powerful argument for evolution. The fact of evolution (that is, the assume progress from simple to complex) is assumed in building up the geological series; rocks containing simpler fossils are assumed to older and rocks containing more complex and specialized forms are called younger. Then, the paleontological sequences so constructed are taken as proof of evolution. Thus the main evidence for evolution (the fossil record) is based on the assumption of evolution implicit in the dating of the rocks by fossils in the record. They assume what is to be proved.
In addition to the fact that the whole system is based on circular reasoning, it also contains many anomalities and contradictions. At various specific locations around the world, local geologic columns can be found containing just about any combination of formations representing any number of periods in any chronological order. Many locations exhibit “young” formations resting conformably (that is, with the strata above parallel to those below) on “old” formations, with intermediate “ages” missing. Often such missing ages are not at all evident, with the younger resting in perfect conformity on the older with no evidence of an interruption in the disposition process. Such cases are called disconformities or diastems or even deceptive conformities. In such cases, the only evidence that the ages are missing is that their “index fossils” are missing; otherwise, the beds would appear to have been deposited in quick succession, their strata all parallel and continuous.
And the world is full of examples of strata occurring in the wrong evolutionary order, again often in perfect conformity. That is, great areas containing “old” fossils are found to rest perfectly naturally on rocks containing “young” fossils. Such inversions, on a small scale, can, of course, be produced by local folding and faulting. But often there is no physical evidence that vast beds extending over great areas came into their present positions by any other means than normal disposition. But evolutionists cannot admit that without drastically modifying or abandoning their theory of evolution. To advoid such actions, uniformitarian geologists invented such auxilary hypotheses as low-angle “thrust faults,” or “overthrusts.” According to this scenaro, great masses of rock have been severed from their original formations and so how lifted up and shoved over on top of adjacent areas, following which, surface erosion in subsequent ages removed the upper deposits, leaving only the older rocks lying on younger ones underneath.
If any such things happened like thrust faults or overthrusts, it must have involved an intense degree of catastrophism, quite inconsistent with the usual geological assumption of uniformitarianism. Ordinary gravity sliding would be impossible without complete disintegration of the rocks on one or both sides of the thrust fault. Floating by “geostatic” fluid pressure has been suggested, but it would be impossible to maintain such pressures long enough over vast areas to do that without the pressures being lost through cracks developing in the moving rocks. But scores of examples of this upside-down phenomenon exist all over the world. The famous “Lewis Overthrust” in Montana and Alberta, Canada, including all of the Glacier National Park, has fossils of the Paleozoic era overlying those of the Cretaceous. In Tennessee and Georgia a great “fault” running for hundreds of miles consists of Cambrian deposits resting quite normally upon Carboniferous. In fact, the whole Appalachian region consists of great thickness of Paleozoic rocks on top of much “younger” beds. In the Rockies, there are the extensive Bannock, Heart Mountain, and other low-angle thrust faults. Much of the Swiss Alpine region (even the famous Matterhorn) is in this upside-down condition. The same is true of Scotish highlands and the mountains of India. One of the “displacements” in China has been followed for more than 500 miles. A similar area of 85,000 square miles is known in Scandinavia. In every part of the world other examples has been found. The “geologic column,” as worked out in England, Paris, and New York, has not worked out so well in other parts of the world.
In addition, there are “living fossils,” that is, animals or plants supposedly extinct for many geological periods that suddenly turned up still living in the modern world. Many of the one-celled organisms of the Precambrian (including E-Coli bacteria, used in modern research) are still alive and well. And the opposite is true; all the animal phyla, including even the vertebrates, are now known to live in the most “ancient” period, the Cambrian. All kinds of anomalies are repeatedly encountered in the geological column. [8]
Stephen Jay Gould, a Columbia University geologist, has divided the Principle of Uniformity into two separate concepts: substantive uniformitarianism (uniformity of process rates or material conditions) and methodological uniformitarianism (invariance of natural laws). Originally uniformitarianism was proposed as substantive uniformitarianism to discredit the idea of violent upheavals or catastrophisms that was commonly held by the geologists before the middle of the nineteenth century. Today geologist, philosophers and historians are returning to this original idea. They are reintroducing some form of catastrophism, but excluding the Biblicalism and supernaturalism as was widely held in the early nineteenth century. To do this the second concept embodied in the Principle of Uniformity, methodological uniformitarianism, has had to be restated. Gould says,
“Uniformitarianism is a dual concept. Substantive uniformitarianism (a testable theory of geologic change postulating uniformity of rates or material conditions) is false and stifling to hypothesis formation. Methodological uniformitarianism (a procedural principle asserting spatial and temporal invariance of natural laws) belongs to the definition of science and is not unique to geology. Methodological uniformitarianism enabled Lyell to exclude the miraculous from geologic considerations; it innovation today is anachronistic since the question of divine intervention is no longer an issue in science.” [9]
A Standford geologist, M. King Hubbert, considered methodological uniformitarianism essential for interpreting geologic history. He regarded two assumptions as basic:
“1. We assume that natural laws are invariant with time.
2. We exclude hypotheses of the violation of natural laws by Divine Providence, or other forms of supernaturalism.” [10]
A statement of the uniformity of physical and chemical laws is indeed necessary for scientific investigation. Science depends upon the reproducibility of observation. But science cannot safely extrapolate to the past from present knowledge and require that natural laws have always operated as they do today. The denial of supernaturalism as an assumption is without basis. In fact, some startling self-contradictions with the laws of science arise from assuming strict methodological uniformitarnianism.
Two of the most basic and best proved laws of science are those of energy conservation and entropy increase. These two laws are commonly referred to as the first and second laws of thermodynamics. The first law of thermodynamics (energy conservation) states that although energy can be changed from one form to another, the total quantity of energy is conserved; that is, energy is neither presently being created nor destroyed. The second law of thermodynamics (entropy increases) affirms that any system left alone will become more random and disorganized. When the physicist, chemist, biologist or geologist studies any present process where energy is changing form, he believes with certainty that the quantity of energy before and after the event occurs is conserved, and that the quality of the energy after the completion of the event is more random, diversified and less able to do work. These laws apply in present systems ranging from sub-nuclear to astronomic dimensions. Both laws have been confirmed without exception in thousands of experiments. The extent of thermodynamics for biologic and geologic problems has been stated by a Princeton University biologist, Harold F. Blum; he writes,
“Chemical reaction is always associated with thermodynamic changes which determine the direction the reaction takes and how nearly it goes to completion. This is true whether the reaction goes on in a test tube, a geological formation, or in a living system; and must have been true in the infancy of our earth as well as today.” [11]
It is assumed that these laws hold throughout the universe and the present character of the universe can be described as quantitatively conservative and qualitatively decaying.
The first law of thermodynamics implies that nothing is now being “created” or destroyed. It therefore teaches quite conclusively that the universe did not create itself; there is nothing in the present structure of the universe described by natural law that could possibly account for its own origin. The second law of thermodynamics (the law of energy decay) states that every system left to its own devices always tends from order toward disorder, its energy tending to be transformed into lower levels of availability, finally reaching a level or state of complete ramdomness and unavailability for doing further work. When all the energy of the universe has been degraded to random heat energy, with random motion of molecules and uniform low level temperature, then the universe will have died a “heat death.” The fact that the universe is not yet dead is clear evidence that the universe is not infinitely old; it definitely must have had a beginning. Thus the second law of thermodynamics requires that the universe had a beginning. And the first law precludes it having begun itself. The only possible solution to this problem is that the universe was created by a Cause transcendent to itself.
This second law of thermodynamics contradicts methodological uniformitarianism. If the second law that describes the decay of present heat systems has always operated as today, the present universe should be completelly without any energy sources and should lack order. Yet things that are observed today are still energized and ordered. Therefore, we have to conclude that the second law of thermodynamics has not always operated. The methodological uniformitarianism which maintains the unchangeability of natural laws stands contradicted by one of the best proved laws of the sciences.
Another difficulty with methodological uniformitarianism concerns origins. The accepted evolutionary theories attempts to explain the origin and formation of the present cosmos by causes in effect today. Indeed, this concept forms the basis of the whole evolutionary system. But it is wishful thinking on the part of the methodological uniformitarian if he believes that the origin and development of the present cosmos can be explained by the present thermodynamic laws of conservation of energy and increasing disorder and decay. This fallacy has been pointed out by Henry M. Morris, the former hydraulic engineer at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, who writes,
“Consequently, it is fundamentally impossible for science to learn anything about origins. Science deals with present processes, and present processes are conservative, not creative. Thus, historical geology, professing to discover the history of the origin and evolution of the earth and its inhabitants through a scientific study and extrapolation of present processes, is a self-contradiction.” [12]
Both Jamees Hutton (1726-1797) and Charles Lyell (1797-1875) thought that the operation of present processes extended into the past of practically infinite geologic time. Hutton wrote,
“The result, therefore, of our present enquiry is that we find no vestige of a beginning — no prospect of an end.” [13]
This idea of the earth as essentially a perpetual motion machine was challenged by Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), who helped formulate the second law of thermodynamics. Kelvin pointed out that the second law showed that the earth dissipated energy and, therefore, could not be eternally old. Thermodynamics has presented an understanding of nature different from than that of the early uniformitarians.
It is claimed that certain clocking techniques, radioactive ones for instance, give us a knowledge of how old rocks are and, therefore, the age of the earth. Before examining some of specific dating techniques, let us review the conditions necessary for reading any time on any type of clock. In order to tell time or assign dates using any clock, mechanical, radiological, geological, etc., two things must be known.
(1) First, one must have a knowledge of the rate at which the clock runs.
(2) Second, one must know when the clock is started to operate, or, in other words, where to set it to zero.
Both these conditions must be met in order to tell time or to date an event. By way of illustration, suppose that we have an ordinary spring powered mechanical clock. Assume that the large hand is pointing at the numeral 6 and the small hand is pointing half-way between the numerals 2 and 3. Does this mean that the correct time is 2:30? Let us assume that the clock is accurately ticking minutes and seconds, but knowing its rate is accurate is not sufficient to tell what time it is. Something more is needed than just an accurate knowledge of the rate at which the clock runs. We must know a second condition: “Was the clock set to international standard time?”
In dating the earth’s rocks and fossils, it is claimed that the most accurate method is the radioactive technique. As in the other methods, two things must be known: its rate and a zero beginning time. Let us start with the determining of the rate. Radioactive dating is based on the fact that certain naturally occurring elements are radioactive, that is, the atoms of the element decompose into new elements and give off certain radiations and decay products in the process. Analysis of the radioactive decay has shown that the rate of the decay process follows an exponential law. This means that in a certain amount of time, one-half of any given amount will have decayed. This rate, called the half-life of the ratioactive element, is constant no matter the starting amount. For example, if the half-life of a certain ratioactive element is one month, and we start with, say, thirty-two pounds, at the end of one month sixteen pounds of the original element would remains. The sixteen pounds that decayed would be transformed into a new element. At the end of two months, only one-half of one-half, or eight pounds of the original element would be left. And at the end of three months, only four pounds would be left, etc. The time taken for a given sample of a radioactive element to decay to one-half of the original amount is called its half-life.
Known external physical and chemical conditions do not seem to greatly affect the half-life of any radioactive element. Half-lives are in effect the rate at which the radioactive clock runs and these present rates are known fairly high degree of certainty. Let us assume that the present rates have not changed since the world came into existence.
Now let us examine the other condition. To calibrate our radioactive clock, we must set our radioactive clock to zero. This is where some difficulties arise. In order to set our clock we must know the initial conditions. Without these, it impossible to tell how long the radioactive clock has been running. In other words, we must know when the radioactive clock was set to zero. There are at least two ways of telling how the passage of time using radioactive decay. One way would be by measuring the present amount of the radioactive element and comparing it with original amount when the decay process started, that is, at zero time. By knowing the rate of decay, the original amount, and amount present now, it should be possible to calculate the amount of time that has elapsed since the decay started.
The problem with this method is in knowing the starting amount. Suppose, for example, that we have an element with a half-life of a thousand years (that is, we know its decay rate). Suppose further, that the amount of the element present now is three pounds. If the original amount was six pounds, one-half the original amount would have decayed. Since the half-life is a thousand years, this would mean that a thousand years has elapsed since the decay started. If, on the other hand, if the original amount is assumed to be twelve pounds, instead of six, then two thousand years would have elapsed since the decay process started. After one thousand years, one-half of the original twelve pounds, or six pounds,would remain, and after an additional thousand years one-half of the six pounds, or three pounds (the present amount) would remain. Thus, the amount of time elapsed since the decay process began depends not only on the amount now present and the decay rate, but also on the assumed starting amount. That is, the original amount of the radioactive element must be known in order to set the radioactive clock to zero. If the original amount is only set by assumption, the “age” obtained will be only as accurate as that assumption. We just saw in our example, how two different assumptions about the starting amount yields two different ages.
The second way in which the radioactive decay process can be used to estimate the passage of time is based on the accumulation of decay products. As the radioactive decay proceeds, decay products are accumulated. By measuring the amount of decay products and knowing from the half-lives values the rate at which they accumulate, it should be possible to tell how long the process has been going.
But a similar problem arises with this decay-products method as in the first method. In addition to knowing the rate of formation of the decay products and the present amount of them, it is also necessary to know the original amounts of them before the decay started. It is not sufficient to assume zero amount of original material. In most cases the decay products are just like the materials naturally present even when no radioactive decay has occurred. In other words, we are back to knowing the original conditions. And in the case of the age of the earth, it is obvious that no scientists made records of the initial condition. Estimates of the age of earth based on radioactive decay methods do not give ages independent of certain assumptions. And the “ages” obtained are only as accurate as the assumptions on which they are based. Wrong assumptions, wrong results.
One method of making assumptions to estimate the upper limit of the age of earth is based on the amount of accumlated decay products. All elements found in natural sources with atomic numbers greater than 83 (bismuth) are radioactive. The heavier elements decay and eventually become one of the stable isotopes of the element lead. During the radioactive decay, mass is lost in the form of alpha particles which are the nuclei of helium atoms. They eventually become helium atoms by the capture of electrons. Thus helium gas is the principle decay product of the heavier radioactive elements. This helium migrates upward through the rock and eventually escapes into the atmosphere. This helium gas in the atmosphere can be used to estimate the upper limit of the age of the earth. But the small amount of helium in the atmosphere has perplexed evolutionist for many years.
For example, the relative abundances of the elements thorium and helium would seem to indicate that the figure assumed by the evolutionist on the order of 1010 (ten billion) years for the age of earth is very much too great. If this figure was correct, then about one half-life would have elapsed for thorium 232 decay. The half-life of thorium 90Th232 is 1.39 × 1010 years. This means that the present amount of thorium on earth is one-half the original amount. In other words, the present amount is equal to the amount that has decayed. In decaying the thorium 232 eventually becomes a stable isotope of lead 209 while producing 6 helium atoms.
Hence, since on this assumption the present amount of thorium is equal to the amount which has decayed, the helium ought to be about six times as abundant as thorium, even assuming that no other element than thorium is radioactive (which is not the case) and assuming that no helium was present to start with (which is very unlikely considering the high relative abundance of helium in the universe). This is not the case as helium is quite rare on the earth. The proper amount of helium for ages assumed to be of the order of billion of years is simply not present either in the rocks or in the atmosphere, assuming that it to have escape from the rocks somehow. But it has been found that the amount of helium that ought to have been present as a decay product on old-earth assumptions was not there. The data taken at face value gives a very low age, so it was assumed that some of helium had escaped from the earth’s atmosphere. The rate of helium escape was not necessarily measured; it was merely presumed to escape in order to explain why the data was not as expected. Investigations of the rate of loss from minerals cast considerable doubt on this type of explanation.
Dr. Melvin A. Cook has made some calculations on the upper limits for the age of the earth based on helium, and arrived at a figure of 12,000 years. [14] This age provides an upper limit for the age of the earth and geologic time that is considerably different from the 4½ billion years of the uniformitarian geology.
ENDNOTES
[1] Henry M. Morris, ed., Scientific Creationism (General Edition)
Prepared by the technical staff and consultants of the Institute of Creation Research,
(San Diego, California: Creation-Life Publishers, 1974, 3rd ed., 1976.), pp. 51-54.
[3] Scott M. Huse, The Collapse of Evolution, 2nd ed.
(Grand Rapids, Michign: Baker Books, 1993, 5th printing, July 1996), p. 86.
[4] Henry M. Morris, op. cit., pp. 55-57.
[6] Stuart E. Nevins, “Stratigraphic Evidence of the Flood” in
Symposium on Creation III, ed. Donald W. Patten,
(Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany Fellowship, Inc., 1971), pp. 32-65.
[7] Francis T. Bonner and Melba Phillips,
Principles of Physical Science
(Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Welsey Publishing Company, Inc., 1957), pp. 616-617.
[8] Henry M. Morris, Science and the Bible
[Chicago: Moody Press, 1951, 1988), pp. 66-72.
[9] Stephen Jay Gould, “Is Uniformitarianism Necessary?”
American Journal of Science, Vol. 263, 1965, p. 223.
[10] M. King Hubbert, “Critique of the Principle of Unformity,”
Uniformity and Simplicity,
G.S.A. Special paper #89, 1967, p. 30.
[11] Harold F. Blum, Time’s Arrow and Evolution
(Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1951), p. 14.
[12] Henry M. Morris, “Science Versus Scientism in Historical Geology.”
A Symposium on Creation
(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1968), p. 25,
quoted in “A Scriptural Groundwork for Historial Geometry” by Stuart E. Nevins,
Donald W. Patten, ed., Symposium on Creation II
(Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany Fellowship, Inc., 1970), pp. 92-93.
[13] James Hutton, “Theory of the Earth, or an Investigation of the Laws Observable in
Composition, Dissolution and Restoration of Land Upon the Globe,”
Royal Society, Edinburg Trans., Vol. 1, 1788, p. 304.
[14] Melvin A. Cook, “Prehistory and Earth Models,”
(London: Max Parish, 1966), p. 14.