Since this subject seems to be coming up again in different threads, I thought I'd continue the discussion here.
The following excerpts are from a pamphlet on the Creation written by Dr. Harold G. Coffin.
The time has come for a fresh look at the evidence Charles Darwin used to support his evolutionary theory, along with the great mass of new scientific information. Those who have the courage to penetrate through the haze of assumptions which surrounds the question of the origin of life will discover that science presents substantial evidence that creation best explains the origin of life. Four considerations lead to this conclusion.
1. Life is unique.
2. Complex animals appeared suddenly.
3. Change in the past has been limited.
4. Change in the present is limited.
Anyone interested in truth must seriously consider these points. The challenge they present to the theory of evolution has led many intelligent and honest men of science now living to reevaluate their beliefs about the origin of life. (Coffin, Creation: The Evidence from Science, p. [1].)
Life Is Unique
Scientist Homer Jacobson reports in American Scientist, January, 1955, From the probability standpoint, the ordering of the present environment into a single amino acid molecule would be utterly improbable in all the time and space available for the origin of terrestrial life.
How much organic soup, the material some point to as the source of the first spark of life, would be needed for the chance production of a simple protein? Jacobson answers this question also: Only the very simplest of these proteins (salmine) could possibly arise, even if the earth were blanketed with a thickness of half a mile of amino acids for a billion years! And by no stretch of the imagination does it seem as though the present environment could give even one molecule of amino acid, let alone be able to order by accident this molecule into a protoplasmic array of self-reproducing, metabolizing parts fitting into an organism. [Homer Jacobson, Information, Reproduction and the Origin of Life, American Scientist, Jan. 1955, p. 125.]
Another scientist, impressed with the odds against the chance formation of proteins, has expressed his opinion as follows: The chance that these five elements [carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur] may come together to form the molecule, the quantity of matter that must be continually shaken up, and the length of time necessary to finish the task, can all be calculated. A Swiss mathematician, Charles Eugene Guye, has made the computation and finds that the odds against such an occurrence are 10160 to 1, or only one chance in 10160; that is, 10 multiplied by itself 160 times, a number far too large
to be expressed in words. The amount of matter to be shaken together to produce a single molecule of protein would be millions of times greater than that in the whole universe. For it to occur on the earth alone would require many, almost endless billions (10243) of years. [Frank Allen, The Origin of the Worldby Chance or Design? in John Clover Monsma, ed., The Evidence of God in an Expanding Universe, p. 23.] (Coffin, Creation, pp. [34].)
Complex Animals Appeared Suddenly
In 1910, Charles Walcott, while riding horseback across the Canadian Rockies, stumbled onto a most interesting find of sea fossils. This site has provided the most complete collection of Cambrian fossils known. Walcott found soft-bodied animals preserved in the very fine-grained mud. Many different worms, shrimp, and crablike creatures left impressions in the now hardened shale. The impressions include even some of the internal parts such as intestines and stomachs. The creatures are covered with bristles, spines, and appendages, including marvelous detail of the structures so characteristic of worms and
crustaceans.
By examining the visible hard parts of these fossils it is possible to learn much about these animals. Their eyes and feelers indicate that they had a good nervous system. Their gills show that they extracted oxygen from the water. For oxygen to have moved around their bodies they must have had blood systems.
Some of these animals grew by molting, like a grasshopper. This is a complicated process that biologists are still trying to understand. They had very intricate mouthparts to strain special kinds of foods out of the water. There was nothing simple or primitive about these creatures. They would compare well with any modern worms or crabs. Yet they are found in the oldest rocks that contain any significant number of fossils. Where are their ancestors? ...
What you have read so far is not new. This problem has been known at least since the time of Charles Darwin. If progressive evolution from simple to complex is correct, the ancestors to these full-blown living creatures in the Cambrian should be found;
but they have not been found. . . .
On the basis of the facts alone, on the basis of what is actually found in the earth, the theory of a sudden creative act in which the major forms of life were established fits
best. (Coffin, Creation, pp. [56].)
Basic Kinds of Animals Have Not Changed
Scientists who study fossils have discovered another interesting piece of information. Not only did complicated animals appear suddenly in the lower Cambrian rocks, but the basic forms of animals have not changed much since then. . . . To put it more plainly, this is the problem of the missing links. It is not a case of one missing link. It is not even a case
of many missing links. Evolutionists are confronted with the problem of whole sections of the chain of life missing....
G. G. Simpson, quite aware of this problem also, says, It is a feature of the known fossil record that most taxa appear abruptly. They are not, as a rule, led up to by a sequence of almost imperceptible changing forerunners such as Darwin believed should be usual in evolution. [The Evolution of Life, p. 149.]
Thus we see that not only is the sudden appearance of complete and intricate animals a problem for evolution, but the absence of change from one major type into another is equally serious. Again we can say that this is no new problem. Soon after collectors started accumulating fossils, it became obvious that fossils belong in the same major categories as do modern animals and plants. A number of scientists have commented in recent years about the lack of change and the absence of connecting links for specific kinds of animals....
Every high school student has seen pictures, perhaps in his own biology textbook, of a scantily clad and hairy Neanderthal man with low-slung neck, stooped shoulder, bowed legs, and bestial appearance. Such pictures grew out of the original description of Neanderthal man given by the Frenchman Boule in 19111913. [Marcellin Boule, Fossil Men.] The picture has passed unchanged from book to book, year to year, for nearly sixty years. But Boule based his description originally upon one skeleton whose bones have recently been shown to be badly deformed by a severe case of arthritis.
William Straus and A. J. E. Cave, the two scientists who discovered this situation, declared, There is thus no valid reason for the assumption that the posture of Neanderthal man of the fourth glacial period differed significantly from that of present-day men. . . . Notwithstanding, if he could be reincarnated and placed in a New York subwayprovided that he were bathed, shaved, and dressed in modern clothingit is doubtful whether he would attract any more attention than some of its other denizens. [William L. Straus, Jr., and A. J. E. Cave, Pathology and the Posture of Neanderthal Man, Quarterly Review of Biology, Dec. 1957, pp. 35859.] That was written some years ago. Neanderthal man might attract less attention today if he were not shaved! (Coffin, Creation, pp. [6, 10].)
Change in the Present Is Limited
On a television panel celebrating the centennial of Charles Darwins book Origin of Species, Sir Julian Huxley began his comments by saying, The first point to make about Darwins theory is that it is no longer a theory, but a fact. No serious scientist would deny the fact that evolution has occurred, just as he would not deny the fact that the earth goes around the sun. [Sol Tax and Charles Callender, eds., Issues in Evolution, p. 41.] This is a confusing statement that tells only part of the truth. First, the word evolution must be defined.
The word itself merely means change, and on the basis of this definition, evolution is a fact. However, most people understand evolution to mean progressive change in time from simplicity to complexity, from primitive to advanced. This definition of evolution is not based on fact. The study of inheritance has revealed principles and facts that can prove evolutionif we understand the word evolution to mean change. But the obvious minor changes occurring to living things today give no basis for concluding that limitless change has happened in the past....
Yes, new species of plants and animals are forming today. The almost endless intergradations of animals and plants in the world, the fantastic degeneration among parasites, and the adaptations of offense and defense, lead to the inevitable conclusion that change has occurred. However, the problem of major changes from one fundamental kind to another is still a most pressing unanswered question facing the evolutionist. Modern animals and plants can change, but the amount of change is limited. The laboratories of science have been unable to demonstrate change from one major kind to another, neither has such change happened in the past history of the earth if we take the fossil record at face value. (Coffin, Creation, pp. [13, 15].)
Conclusion
Constant exposure to one theory of origins, and only one, has convinced many that no alternative exists and that evolution must be the full and complete answer. How unfortunate that most of the millions who pass through the educational process have little opportunity to weigh the evidences on both sides!
Examinations of the fossils, stony records of the past, tell us that complicated living things suddenly (without warning, so to speak) began to exist on the earth. Furthermore, time has not modified them enough to change their basic relationships to each other. Modern living organisms tell us that change is a feature of life and time, but they also tell us that there are limits beyond which they do not pass naturally and beyond which man has been unable to force them. In consideration of past or present living things, man must never forget that he is dealing with life, a profoundly unique force which he has not been able to create and which he is trying desperately to understand.
Here are the facts; here are the evidences; here, then, are the sound reasons for believing life originated through a creative act. It is time that each individual has the opportunity to know the facts and to make an intelligent choice. (Coffin, Creation, p. [15].)
Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem.
(I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitude.)
Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem.
(I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitude.)
---although this is a short history in terms of the span of life on earth --- 55 million years or so.
