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BASIC CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS: DEFENDING THE CHRISTIAN FAITH
Part V: Answering RECENT Charges By Evolutionists Against Our Faith
(1 Peter 3:15)
  1. Introduction
    1. The National Academy of Sciences published in 1998 a book entitled, Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science to show school teachers how to REFUTE the CREATIONIST view to students.
    2. Since the creation view is foundational to the Christian faith, we use J. Sarfati's (Ph.D.) book, Refuting Evolution (1999) that critiques the NAS book's instruction. We thus ready ourselves to heed 1 Peter 3:15 :
  2. Answering RECENT Charges By Evolutionists Against Our Faith, 1 Peter 3:15.
    1. The NAS book seeks to present evolution as scientific and the creationist view as pure religion, Ibid., Sarfati, p. 15. However, the book recommends many books by openly atheistic authors, and on page 129 says: "Statements about creation . . . should not be regarded as reasonable alter natives to scientific explanations . . . " This biased statement unscientifically implies holding to creationism is irrational!
    2. The NAS book attempts to illustrate evolution in action today using antibiotic and pesticide resistance where new strains of life appear immune to man's past methods of destruction, Ibid., NAS, p. 16-17 as cited in Sarfati, Ibid., p. 39ff. However, all these strains show is a decrease in the genetic code by selective breeding where the life forms may be immune to a specific danger, but long-term are genetically inferior. Creationists explain selective breeding from the "kinds" in Genesis 1 to produce additional albeit inferior strains of a "kind" (i.e., the Boxer and Poodle from a genetically superior ancestral "dog".)
    3. The NAS book says there are many transitional forms between the species to explain evolution, and gives just a few examples, Ibid., Sarfati, p. 51. It emphasizes the Archaeopteryx, an alleged transitional fossil between the birds and reptiles. However, as Sarfati shows (p. 58-59) renowned bird expert, Alan Feduccia of the Univ. of North Carolina states, "'Paleontologists have tried to turn Archaeopteryx into an earth-bound, feathered dinosaur. But it's not. It is a bird, a perching bird. And no amount of 'paleobabble' is going to change that.'" (Cited in V. Morrell, "Archaeopteryx: Early Bird Catches a Can of Worms," Science, 259 (5096):764-65, February 5, 1993) The NAS book also states: " . . . in many cases, such as between primitive fish and amphibians, amphibians and reptiles, reptiles and mammals, and reptiles and birds, there are excellent transitional fossils." (Ibid., Sarfati, p. 53) However, it provides n o evidence for this, and Sarfati quotes S. J. Gould, a renowned evolutionist and Marxist who wrote: "'The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution.'" (Cited from Gould, Evolution Now: A Century After Darwin, 1982, p. 140) The NAS is unconscionably deceptive on this issue of transitional forms!
    4. The NAS book (p. 18) provides the whale as an example of a life form that evolved from a land mammal, Ibid., Sarfati, p. 69. However, Sarfati shows the land mammal involved would have had to rid itself of a pelvis to be a whale, and that would be impossible: a shrinking pelvis could not support hind legs needed for walking and the reproductive orifice wou ld crush, making the transition impossible, Ibid., p. 71.
    5. Though the NAS book (p. 57, 62, 83) teaches humans did not evolve from apes, it asserts apes and humans alike evolved from single cell organisms by way of ape-like transitional forms (as cited in Sarfati, p. 79). However, Sarfati (p. 81-82) cites finds from both DNA studies and X-ray analyses of the semicircular canals of alleged "ape-man" creatures, causing scientists to assign all known specimens either to the modern homo sapien or the apes! There are no proven intermediary "ape-man" specimens here!
    6. The NAS book (p. 1) suggests the embryonic stages of various life forms look similar, an observation that may cause a student to believe that this argues for a common ancestry, the old embryonic recapitulation theory. However, Sarfati (p. 85) shows this theory was built on fraudulent drawings by Ernst Haeckel in the 1800s, and that no informed evolutionist today holds to this theory! The NAS utterly misleads here!
    7. The NAS book (p. 19) implies modern man evolved from a population that began in Africa 150,000 years ago through an "Eve" that replaced all other humanoid forms according to DNA studies of human Mitochondria. However, recent studies shows human mitochondrial DNA mutates far faster than previously thought, implying man began between 6,000 and 6,500 years ago. (Sarfati, p. 88-89 who cites T. J. Parsons et al., "A High Observed Substitution Rate in the Human Mitochondrial DNA Control Region," Nature Genetics, 15:363-368, 1997; L. Loewe and S. Scherer, "Mitochondrial Eve: The Plot Thickens," Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 12(11):422-423, 1997; A Gibbons, "Calibrating the Mitochondrial Clock," Science, 279(5347):28-29, 1998) Additionally, Sarfati cites evidence from studies on the male Y-chromosome that indicate all people descended from a single man, and this data also argues for a recent date for a "Y-chromosome Adam," Ibid., p. 88-89 which cites R.L. Dorit, Hiroshi Akashi, and W. Gilbert, "Absence of Polymorphism at the Z FY Locus on the Human Y-Chromosome," Science, 268(5214):1183-85, May 26, 1995; perspective in the same issue by S. Paabo, "The Y-Chromosome and the Origin of All of Us (Men)," p. 1141-1142.
    8. The NAS book (p. 52 as cited in Sarfati, p. 91-92) promotes the "Big Bang" theory, the belief that the universe began as a dense clump of hot material and "banged" outward to form current stellar bodies. However, Sarfati (p. 93) shows how J. Rankin, in his Ph. D. thesis, mathematically proved the universe's present galaxies could not form from a "big bang," ["Protogalaxy Formation from Inhomogeneities in Cosmological Models," Ph.D. thesis, Adelaide University, May/June 1977]. Sarfati also quotes J. Trefil, professor of physics at Mason University, Virginia, who believes in the "Big Bang" but also admits he has problems with the existence of galaxies: "'The problem of explaining the existence of galaxies has proved to be one of the thorniest in cosmology . . . It's hard to convey the depth of the frustration that this simple fact induces among scientists.'" (cited from J. Trefil, The Dark Side of the Universe, 1988, p. 3 and 55)
    9. The NAS book (p. 52 as cited in Sarfati, p. 95) promotes the origin of our solar system from a "'nebular cloud'", but Sarfati (p. 96) shows how this theory counters the law of the conservation of angular momentum: this law means the sun with the bulk of the solar system's mass should be spinning much faster than what its planets go in revolving about it. This is illustrated when an ice skater's arms and legs are spread, he spins slowly, but when he moves them close to his body, he spins faster. However, though the sun has 9 9% of the solar system's mass, it contains only 2% of its angular momentum, arguing strongly that the planets did not spin out of the sun. In fact, Dr. Stuart Ross Taylor a renowned solar system scientist, admits: "'The ultimate origin of the solar system's angular momentum remains obscure.'" (Sarfati cites Tay lor, Solar System Evolution: A New Perspective (New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, '92), p. 53)
    10. The NAS book (p. 36-37) presents vast amounts of millions and billions of years of time to explain the change of particles into man by way of evolution, Ibid., Sarfati, p. 103. However, as Sarfati shows on page 105ff, the Mount St. He lens eruption event showed modern scientists that 25 feet of finely layered sediment could form in a single afternoon with a cataclysmic event like a volcanic eruption or a massive Genesis Flood, and NASA scientists have no problems suggesting massive flood s once formed the Mars landscape while having trouble admitting the same for earth (cf. R. A. Kerr, "Pathfinder Tells a Geologic Tale with One Starring Role," Science, 279(5348):175, January 9, 1998; O. Morton, "Flatlands," New Scientist, 159(2143):36-39, July 18, 1998. The NAS book upholds radiometric dating as accurate (p. 35) and Sarfati (p. 110-111) shows how these can dramatically err: he cites five andestite lava flows of New Zealand's Mt. Ngauruhoe in 1949, 1954 and 1975 that have been dated by the potassium-argon (K-Ar) method to range between 270,000 and 3,500,000 years! Sarfati gives evidence of a young earth by citing the rapid decay of the earth's magnetic field: at the rate of its deterioration, the earth could not be more than 10,000 years old at the oldest, cf. D . R. Humphreys, "Reversals of the Earth's Magnetic Field During the Genesis Flood," Proceedings of the First International Conference on Creationism, v. 2, p. 113-126; J. D. Sarfati, "The Earth's Magnetic Field: Evidence That the Earth Is Young," Creation, 20(2):15-19, March-May 1998.
    11. The NAS book frequently dismisses the idea of creation as "unscientific" and "religious" (Ibid., Sarfati, p. 117). However, evidence of design in the universe argues for a Cause that is very intelligent and beyond origins of pure chance. One of several illustrations used by Sarfati is the structure of the eye some of the extinct forms of the trilobite: these "comprised tubes that e ach pointed to a different spot on the horizon, and had special lenses that focused light from any distance. Some trilobites had a sophisticated lens design comprising a layer of calcite on top of a layer of chitin -- materials wi th precisely the right refractive indices -- and a wavy boundary between them of a precise mathematical shape. The Designer of these eyes is a Master Physicist, who applied what we know as the physical laws of Fermat's principle o f least time, Snell's law of refraction, Abbe's sine law and birefringent optics." (Sarfati cites for this information from K. Towe, "Trilobite Eyes: Calcified Lenses," Science, 179:1007-11, March 9, 1973; R. Levi-Setti, Trilobites: A Photographic Atlas (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1975); C. Stammers, "Trilobite Technology," Creation Ex Nihilo, 21(1):37, December 1998-February 1999)
Lesson: Using this information from J. Sarfati's book, we can obey 1 Peter 3:15 and give an answer in defense of our faith and of the creationist model of origins to the National Academy of Sciences book.