Many atheists claim that evolution is a proven scientific fact. If you disagree, they usually laugh, and go on to say things like:
“You’re one of those Bible thumpers aren’t you? You believe Noah and the arc too, right?”
But what if I told you that evolution was such a bad theory, that if an 8th grader presented it for his final project, he would get expelled from school for how irrational it was?
Well, that’s true, and I’m going to show you why in the next few posts. Today, we’re going to talk about how we can’t even get evolution to start if we wanted to.
Recent Posts from the Devolved Series
What We’ll Cover
The Math Problem
The Problem of Chirality
The Real Issue
Life from Non-Life
Assuming that the Big Bang happened (which we know from this post and this post that it didn’t), the first step on our evolutionary journey is what’s called abiogenesis.
“the original evolution of life of living organisms from inorganic or inanimate substances”
Basically, how did life generate from non-life?
How did life appear randomly from no life at all? That’s a massive jump, especially in the chance universe that our secular friends live in.
Well, Christians don’t have to lift a finger to refute this. Evolutionists' own colleagues don’t even buy it.
The Math Problem
We’re not just talking about Christians beating evolutionists over the head with their Bibles, but secular mathematicians who have serious issues with the theory of evolution.
A number of Mathematicians in 1967 published their academic papers under the title Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution.1
These mathematicians are applying probability to the theory of evolution. Given a true random force (God is not behind it), there isn’t nearly enough time, even billions of years, for this to have happened.
Here’s a quote from Eden Murray from one of the published books:
“It is our contention, that if the word “random” is given a serious and crucial interpretation, from a probabilistic point of view, the randomness postulate is highly implausible, and that an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await the discovery and elucidation of new natural laws...”
That’s devastating. Eden is saying, if we’re truly going to say that evolution came from random chance, we need to wait for new natural laws.
How Many Zeros?
Going further, here is what Michael Denton points out in his book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis2
To get one cell by chance would require at least 100 functional proteins to appear simultaneously in one place.
The independent probability of any particular protein appearing is going to be hardly more than 10^-20.
So…it’s a 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 chance that one protein appears out of nowhere. But to get one cell, we need 100 of those proteins to appear, simultaneously, all in the same place.
If you gamble at Las Vegas and somebody offers you a probability of 1 in 10, those are bad odds. What about 1 in a 100? Well those are exceptionally bad odds.
Let’s go even deeper, what about 1 in a 1,000? Surely you’d be mad to even touch that game.
Denton pointed out that the maximum combined probability would be 1-in-10^2,000. 2,000 zeros.
To show you how bad that is, I wrote it out below
1 in 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 chance
And what would that achieve? One cell.
“But Joe, if we DO get 1 cell, then evolution is complete right?
Not at all, this is just for evolution to start.
The Problem of Chirality
Aside from our mathematician friends, there are many origin of life studies that aim to show life could have formed by itself, and without a creator.
To do that, you need proteins, and to make proteins you need amino acids. The problem is, when you make amino acids in a laboratory, you run into the issue of chirality.
Basically, amino acids can appear in left-handed, and right-handed forms. These are named based on the shape they make.3
The problem?
If life spontaneously generated from a warm pond somewhere, it would be made from the amino acids in a non-living environment.
But for life to form, amino acids are exclusively left-handed form. Yet, in a laboratory setting, making amino acids generates a mixture of left & right-handed forms. This does not support life.
Now some researchers try to construct a “filtering” system that separates the left from the right-handed amino acids. That way, they can have an exclusive collection of left-handed amino acids to create life from.
Well, when these filtering systems separate the amino acids, some of the left-handed amino acids will spontaneously change into the right-handed form.
“In other words? You cannot generate life from non-life.”
-The evidence
An Obsolete View
So, life coming from non-life isn’t looking too good. But this isn’t a new problem. In fact, abiogenesis is so unsupported, it’s classified as an obsolete view in many technical journals today.
From The McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms
“the obsolete concept that plant and animal life arise from nonliving organic matter,”
From the Oxford Dictionary of Science
“The development of living organisms from non-living matter, as in the supposed origin of life on Earth, or in the concept of spontaneous generation which was once held to account for the origin of life but which modern understanding of evolutionary processes has rendered outdated”
The Real Issue
So if abiogenesis is mathematically improbable, has no observable evidence of happening in nature, and isn’t even considered a credible theory among evolutionists’ own colleagues…
Then why is the theory of evolution still kicking around? If we can’t even get evolution started, then why hold to it? Doesn’t this just remove the possibility of evolution entirely?
The reason evolution is still a reigning dogma of the secular community is because people want evolution to be true.
If evolution is true, you and I…we can do whatever we want. Who cares? Aren’t we all just broccoli anyway?
When you reject God, you are left with absurdity. Things get so bad, that you become broccoli.
Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
1 Cor 1:20See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition…
Col 2:8
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools
Romans 1:21–22
We’re Not Done
So the theory of evolution rests on the idea that life came from non-life. But as we’ve seen today, in the realm of mathematics and chemistry, this is an astronomical leap of faith.
But that’s not the only problem with evolution. Next week, we’re going to talk about the fossil record.
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