The second thing we need to keep in mind when we thing about these things is that while science is a friend, evolution is not just science, it is a philosophy. Evolution is the dominant creation story in our culture and is one of the most successful scientific theories ever taught[1]. The scientific case for evolution is considered closed and assumed as fact. If you dare to contradict or deny it, you are called a fool or fanatic, thanks to the powerful indoctrination of the “intellectual elite”[2] in the media, government, and education systems.
What we need to understand is that evolutionary theory is as much philosophy as it is science, a philosophy that is founded on certain basic assumptions. These assumptions are primary in shaping the interpretation of the scientific data. If you start with long-age evolutionary assumptions and look at the scientific data, you are going to draw long-age evolutionary conclusions.[3] If you start with biblical assumptions and look at the scientific data, what kind of conclusions will you draw?
The number one assumption of evolution is that there is no God. We got here without God and don’t need God. God is a creation of man.Phillip Johnson, who wrote a great book called Darwin on Trial said in an article in Christianity Today: “The contemporary academic world takes for granted a philosophy called scientific naturalism. According to this philosophy, nature is “all there is,” which is to say the cosmos is a closed system of material causes and effects that can never be influenced by anything outside nature – like God – for instance.”[4]
So what happens when you believe this? What happens when you are a scientist and believe this? It means that no matter what the scientific evidence says, the answer cannot be God or the Bible…it has to be something else!
In my research this week I stumbled across an article by Ann Gibbons that illustrates this bias and also speaks to the issue of scientific and biblical timelines. Ann Gibbons is a correspondent for Science magazine, where she has specialized in writing about evolution and is the author of The First Human: The Race to Discover Our Earliest Ancestors.
In a recent article she tells an interesting story. In 1991, the Russian authorities exhumed a Siberian grave that was thought to contain the skeletons of the last Russian tsar, Nicholas II, and his family. They had been shot by firing squad in 1918 during the Communist revolution. but two bodies were missing from the grave, so no one could be absolutely certain of identity of remains.So in 1992 they did DNA testing.What they found in that DNA test “raised another puzzle that first troubled forensics experts and is now worrying evolutionists.” The mitochondrial DNA from the Nicholas II didn't quite match that of his living relatives. Forensic experts thought that most people carry only one type of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), but the tsar had two. His relatives had only one, so this fueled controversy over the authenticity of skeletons.
So to identify the body they decided to dig up the remains of his brother Georgij, Grand Duke of Russia. Tthey knew who he was, and where he was buried, so if the DNA matched the body thought to be the tsar, the mystery would be solved. So George was exhumed, and it was found that he had also inherited the same two sequences of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from their mother.
So hurray for history. We now know for certain where the bones of Nicholas are. But why is this a big deal to people like Ann Gibbons and other evolutionary scientists? Because they have used mitochondrial DNA to propose a date for the appearance of the first human by comparing human mitochondrial DNA to chimpanzee. This dating is based on how fast this DNA mutates or changes. Mitochondrial DNA was thought to mutate very slowly, so researchers calculated that the first woman, "mitochondrial Eve", (as they call her, tongue in cheek) lived 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.
But what the case of Nicholas II showed was that mtDNA mutates much faster than expected. Ann Gibbons concludes: “Using the new clock, [Eve] would be a mere 6000 years old.” In the very next sentence she says “No one thinks that's the case…”[5]
When does the Genesis account indicate that Eve was created? About 6000 years ago.
What most of us don’t understand and science refuses to admit is how slim the evidence for evolution really is. We keep hearing about the ‘missing link’. A more accurate summary would be they have a few links, but they are missing the chain!
The more research is done, instead of solving the problems, the more layers and layers of complexity are uncovered that create more and more complex problems that in turn demand more and more complex answers. But if you start with certain assumptions, you will draw certain conclusions – despite the scientific data!
[1] Strobel, p.124
[2] Johnson, p.22
[3] William and Hartnett, p.165-167
[4] Phillip E. Johnson; Shouting Heresy in the Tempole of Darwin, Christianity Today, October 24, 1994, p.22-26
[5] Calibrating the Mitochondrial Clock; Ann Gibbons accessed July 17, 2007,
http://0-www.sciencemag.org.library.vu.edu.au/cgi/content/full/279/5347/28
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