Evolution is a scientific fact...
Quick Answer:
I'm assuming we're talking about molecules to man evolution. the kind that is supposed to explain how life and the universe began. There are lots of scientists who are trying to find evidence of our origins, but it is impossible to prove, with observational science. No one saw it happen and no one can reproduce it. No scientist has ever come close to creating life from non-life. As well, no scientist has come close to actually reproducing how the universe began. All we can do is look for evidence that points to either creation or evolution. The good news is that every time we look at the observable scientific evidence, it points to creation every single time.
Explanation:
When it comes to creation, this is a pretty common objection. People have been convinced that scientists have proven that evolution is how life began. Unfortunately, there is no way to prove this is true. For all the experiments, fossils finds, the theories, and five-dollar words, there is no scientific experiment that can prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, how our universe and we, as a people, came to be.
Operational vs Historical
The bottom line is, you weren’t there when life began. No one knows if the first self-replicating cell failed its way forward into all human life, or if some creator breathed life into us and gave us this universe as a playground. You simply weren't there and can't know for certain. The truth is, no one does! All scientists can do, when it comes to origins, is run experiments to gather evidence that will make a case for their theories.
As a consequence, many people have used this as a basis for differentiating between historical and operational science. Think of historical science as one of those crime scene investigation shows. You know, one of those shows, where they’re trying to figure out who killed the dead guy and how it happened? In most cases, no one was there to witness the crime. This prompts the investigators to run every test and think through every possibility, in order to figure it out. This would be an example of historical science.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. What about all the science we do to get medicine and space rockets? Well, that’s not historical science. It’s what we call operational science, and it is marked by experiments where you can observe the results and reproduce them. This is the same kind of science that gets us the new technology for our phones and laptops, the medicine we need when we’re sick, and technology for our space programs. We use this kind of science every day to make our lives better.
So, we can use an operational experiment to test a theory on how we got here, but since we weren't there, we cannot prove it.
Lining up the Evidence
So, if we can’t prove evolutionary origins, why do scientists keep saying that science tells them they are right? Well, it ultimately comes down to our worldview.
Both creationist and evolutionists observe the same facts, but they can walk away coming to two very different conclusions. Why? It’s because of their worldview. Everybody has a worldview. In other words, how do you view the world? A creationist looks at the evidence, of origins, from the perspective of there being a creator. An evolutionist looks at the same evidence, from the perspective of billions of years and evolution. The question is, how does worldview affect the way evolutionists do science. I believe Richard Lewontin explains it best. He is an evolutionist, geneticist, mathematician, and was a professor at Harvard University at the time he wrote the below.
“Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” [Emphasis in original.]A
Let me summarize what he just said. Richard admitted that, although some of the evolutionary answers are weird and crazy, they have to be accepted, because God can never be the answer in their worldview. He is explaining that they get evolutionary answers because they have created the test, from the very beginning, to only provide evolutionary answers.
As creationists, we have a different perspective. We start with the bible, the word of God. The Bible has more evidence for it's validity than any other religious book. When you compare manuscript evidence, archeological evidence, and prophetic evidence, no other book comes close. As a matter of fact, if you have questions on the validity of the bible, you can visit www.alwaysbeready.com. Charlie Campbell is the founder of this ministry and has spent a huge portion of his life studying, analyzing, and writing on topics related to the validity of the bible and the christian faith. His website is a great resource for information and questions.
So, Christians have a biblical worldview they are starting with. This means, they view evidence and facts from the perspective of what God tells us in His word. This means, of course, that their answers will likely line up with creation. So, if you are trying to decide which is correct, creation or evolution, you have to see which one the observable evidence lines up best with. The good news is, when you look at the observable evidence, it points to creation, every single time.
The Answers Evolution Can’t Provide
While looking at the origin of life and the universe, the creationist knows there will be limitations. In other words, if there was a supernatural, intelligent designer, we should find things that cannot be explained naturally. Of course, this is exactly what we find. Let me give you some examples.
Left-Handed Amino Acids
Amino acids have two basic forms. For our purposes, we will call them right-handed and left-handed, because they are mirror images of each other. Here’s the problem. The amino acids in your body are almost entirely left-handed. It turns out that when it comes to life…all but one of the amino acids is ALWAYS left-handed. In fact, when you die and your body decays, your amino acids start to change from the left-handed to the right-handed form. Here’s something cool. By looking at the number of right vs left-handed amino acids in your body, scientists can tell, approximately, how long someone has been dead.
Undeniably, no scientist has ever been able to create ALL left-handed amino acids. We can synthesize, or make, amino acids, but we ALWAYS get a mix of left and right. Scientists can do it with sugars but not with amino acids. They always get a mix of left-handed and right-handed amino acids, which is the same as a decaying body. So, basically we can only make death. Even the famous Urey-Miller experiment, that evolutionists will tell you proved you could get life from the early earth atmosphere, got a mix of left and right-handed amino acids. So, while there are lots of issues with the validity of the test and results, it really doesn’t matter. They didn’t get all left-handed amino acids, so, in reality, they were nowhere close to creating life.
Information Comes from Intelligence
If you were walking along the beach and you saw the phrase “I love you” written in the sand, you would wonder who drew it, right? You wouldn't assume that the phrase formed slowly, over time due to the waves, constantly, washing up on the beach. That would just be silly. We all know that information comes from intelligence. Languages, especially, always come from intelligence.
Binary is one of the simplest, but most used languages in the world. It simply consists of nothing but 0s and 1s. It’s used mainly in computers, and depending on how many are strung together and what position each one is in, you tend to have different words, actions, colors, etc. However, it is completely created by intelligent beings…. humans. Do you realize that your DNA is a thousand times more complex, but still has all the requirements of being a language? How it is that binary is obviously from intelligence, but a language that is a thousand times more complex “randomly evolved”. Remember, it comes down to worldview. The evolutionists will never allow God to be the answer.
The Chicken or the Egg
While there are lots of other examples of questions that evolution can’t answer, I want to wrap this objection up with this dilemma. I'm sure you've heard the age old question, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" The idea is that without the egg you couldn’t get a chicken, but without a chicken how do you get an egg? Well, DNA has its very own "chicken and egg" problem.
It turns out that there are enzymes that are needed in order to create the DNA in each of your cells. Of course, you might have guessed already, the enzyme is coded for on the DNA itself. Therefore, you must have the enzyme to get the DNA, but need the DNA in order to get the enzyme. So, which came first, the DNA or the enzyme? No one can answer that question.
Conclusion
The bottom line is, “Evolution is a scientific fact" is absolutely untrue. The origins of life and the universe are one-off events that can't be observed or reproduced. In fact, you would still have to believe in miracles for evolution to have even began to produce life and our universe. So, you are stuck with a supernatural occurrence from nothingness, or from a supernatural intelligent designer. When you look at the observable evidence, it points to creation as the answer.
A - Richard Lewontin, Billions and billions of demons (review of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan, 1997), The New York Review, p. 31, 9 January 1997
I'm assuming we're talking about molecules to man evolution. the kind that is supposed to explain how life and the universe began. There are lots of scientists who are trying to find evidence of our origins, but it is impossible to prove, with observational science. No one saw it happen and no one can reproduce it. No scientist has ever come close to creating life from non-life. As well, no scientist has come close to actually reproducing how the universe began. All we can do is look for evidence that points to either creation or evolution. The good news is that every time we look at the observable scientific evidence, it points to creation every single time.
Explanation:
When it comes to creation, this is a pretty common objection. People have been convinced that scientists have proven that evolution is how life began. Unfortunately, there is no way to prove this is true. For all the experiments, fossils finds, the theories, and five-dollar words, there is no scientific experiment that can prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, how our universe and we, as a people, came to be.
Operational vs Historical
The bottom line is, you weren’t there when life began. No one knows if the first self-replicating cell failed its way forward into all human life, or if some creator breathed life into us and gave us this universe as a playground. You simply weren't there and can't know for certain. The truth is, no one does! All scientists can do, when it comes to origins, is run experiments to gather evidence that will make a case for their theories.
As a consequence, many people have used this as a basis for differentiating between historical and operational science. Think of historical science as one of those crime scene investigation shows. You know, one of those shows, where they’re trying to figure out who killed the dead guy and how it happened? In most cases, no one was there to witness the crime. This prompts the investigators to run every test and think through every possibility, in order to figure it out. This would be an example of historical science.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. What about all the science we do to get medicine and space rockets? Well, that’s not historical science. It’s what we call operational science, and it is marked by experiments where you can observe the results and reproduce them. This is the same kind of science that gets us the new technology for our phones and laptops, the medicine we need when we’re sick, and technology for our space programs. We use this kind of science every day to make our lives better.
So, we can use an operational experiment to test a theory on how we got here, but since we weren't there, we cannot prove it.
Lining up the Evidence
So, if we can’t prove evolutionary origins, why do scientists keep saying that science tells them they are right? Well, it ultimately comes down to our worldview.
Both creationist and evolutionists observe the same facts, but they can walk away coming to two very different conclusions. Why? It’s because of their worldview. Everybody has a worldview. In other words, how do you view the world? A creationist looks at the evidence, of origins, from the perspective of there being a creator. An evolutionist looks at the same evidence, from the perspective of billions of years and evolution. The question is, how does worldview affect the way evolutionists do science. I believe Richard Lewontin explains it best. He is an evolutionist, geneticist, mathematician, and was a professor at Harvard University at the time he wrote the below.
“Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” [Emphasis in original.]A
Let me summarize what he just said. Richard admitted that, although some of the evolutionary answers are weird and crazy, they have to be accepted, because God can never be the answer in their worldview. He is explaining that they get evolutionary answers because they have created the test, from the very beginning, to only provide evolutionary answers.
As creationists, we have a different perspective. We start with the bible, the word of God. The Bible has more evidence for it's validity than any other religious book. When you compare manuscript evidence, archeological evidence, and prophetic evidence, no other book comes close. As a matter of fact, if you have questions on the validity of the bible, you can visit www.alwaysbeready.com. Charlie Campbell is the founder of this ministry and has spent a huge portion of his life studying, analyzing, and writing on topics related to the validity of the bible and the christian faith. His website is a great resource for information and questions.
So, Christians have a biblical worldview they are starting with. This means, they view evidence and facts from the perspective of what God tells us in His word. This means, of course, that their answers will likely line up with creation. So, if you are trying to decide which is correct, creation or evolution, you have to see which one the observable evidence lines up best with. The good news is, when you look at the observable evidence, it points to creation, every single time.
The Answers Evolution Can’t Provide
While looking at the origin of life and the universe, the creationist knows there will be limitations. In other words, if there was a supernatural, intelligent designer, we should find things that cannot be explained naturally. Of course, this is exactly what we find. Let me give you some examples.
Left-Handed Amino Acids
Amino acids have two basic forms. For our purposes, we will call them right-handed and left-handed, because they are mirror images of each other. Here’s the problem. The amino acids in your body are almost entirely left-handed. It turns out that when it comes to life…all but one of the amino acids is ALWAYS left-handed. In fact, when you die and your body decays, your amino acids start to change from the left-handed to the right-handed form. Here’s something cool. By looking at the number of right vs left-handed amino acids in your body, scientists can tell, approximately, how long someone has been dead.
Undeniably, no scientist has ever been able to create ALL left-handed amino acids. We can synthesize, or make, amino acids, but we ALWAYS get a mix of left and right. Scientists can do it with sugars but not with amino acids. They always get a mix of left-handed and right-handed amino acids, which is the same as a decaying body. So, basically we can only make death. Even the famous Urey-Miller experiment, that evolutionists will tell you proved you could get life from the early earth atmosphere, got a mix of left and right-handed amino acids. So, while there are lots of issues with the validity of the test and results, it really doesn’t matter. They didn’t get all left-handed amino acids, so, in reality, they were nowhere close to creating life.
Information Comes from Intelligence
If you were walking along the beach and you saw the phrase “I love you” written in the sand, you would wonder who drew it, right? You wouldn't assume that the phrase formed slowly, over time due to the waves, constantly, washing up on the beach. That would just be silly. We all know that information comes from intelligence. Languages, especially, always come from intelligence.
Binary is one of the simplest, but most used languages in the world. It simply consists of nothing but 0s and 1s. It’s used mainly in computers, and depending on how many are strung together and what position each one is in, you tend to have different words, actions, colors, etc. However, it is completely created by intelligent beings…. humans. Do you realize that your DNA is a thousand times more complex, but still has all the requirements of being a language? How it is that binary is obviously from intelligence, but a language that is a thousand times more complex “randomly evolved”. Remember, it comes down to worldview. The evolutionists will never allow God to be the answer.
The Chicken or the Egg
While there are lots of other examples of questions that evolution can’t answer, I want to wrap this objection up with this dilemma. I'm sure you've heard the age old question, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" The idea is that without the egg you couldn’t get a chicken, but without a chicken how do you get an egg? Well, DNA has its very own "chicken and egg" problem.
It turns out that there are enzymes that are needed in order to create the DNA in each of your cells. Of course, you might have guessed already, the enzyme is coded for on the DNA itself. Therefore, you must have the enzyme to get the DNA, but need the DNA in order to get the enzyme. So, which came first, the DNA or the enzyme? No one can answer that question.
Conclusion
The bottom line is, “Evolution is a scientific fact" is absolutely untrue. The origins of life and the universe are one-off events that can't be observed or reproduced. In fact, you would still have to believe in miracles for evolution to have even began to produce life and our universe. So, you are stuck with a supernatural occurrence from nothingness, or from a supernatural intelligent designer. When you look at the observable evidence, it points to creation as the answer.
A - Richard Lewontin, Billions and billions of demons (review of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan, 1997), The New York Review, p. 31, 9 January 1997