Complexities of Life Overwhelm Chance

The National Academy of Science has recently issued a report urging that only evolution, and not creation, be taught in science courses. The claim is that creationist views are purely religious, are not supported by modern science and do not belong in a science classroom. I wish to state my considered opinion that creationist views have strong scientific validity and that evolution, particularly viewed from the biochemical perspective, is far from convincing. After such an inflammatory statement, I should give my credentials. I am a tenured associate professor of physics at the University of Nebraska at Omaha where I have taught physics and chemistry since 1990. I have studied the physical sciences at Willamette University, the University of Texas at Austin, Oregon State University, and Northwestern University. My Ph.D. is in inorganic chemistry from Oregon State. My special expertise is in Xray crystallography and materials research. I was also trained as a nuclear engineer during a stint as a submarine officer in the 1980s.

I should first define the meaning of "evolution" as it is used in science. Evolution has two meanings. One refers to the process by which the genetic characteristics of a population varies because of stresses placed upon that population. This may be called microevolution, the classic example of which is the peppered moth in England. Peppered moths exist in both light and dark colored varieties. It has been shown that during past periods of heavy industrial pollution when trees were covered with dark soot, the dark colored variety predominated because of the ability to hide from predators. Today, with improved pollution controls, the lighter colored variety predominates.

There are many other examples of microevolution, and, as far as I know, no one refutes them. Macroevolution, or transpacific evolution, on the other hand, is the extrapolation of microevolution to include the changing of an isolated population of one species into a completely different species, the development of new organs and bodily structures and even the origin of life itself. It is with macroevolution that controversies erupt. Evolutionists believe that changes in living organisms occur gradually and progressively in a chain of unbroken steps over a long period of time. There are no "quantum leaps," in other words. Moreover, this progressive process includes the formation of molecular assemblies that have the basic characteristics of life, which are self organization, self reproduction and the ability to extract energy from the surroundings; and this life came from nonliving molecular entities.

I want to particularly examine this last assertion because it is indicative of the debate as a whole and is evolution's weakest link. I begin by asserting (hopefully without dissent) that the molecular content of the most humble bacterium is incredibly complex. For example, the E. cold cell includes one DNA molecule, 1,000 different RNA molecules, 3,000 different proteins, 50 different carbohydrates, and 40 different lipids. The complexity of this "simple" one-celled entity is beyond anything human ingenuity has yet been able to devise.

The 6100/60 Power Macintosh upon which I type this would never be mistaken for an object designed by the chance action of wind or water, and yet it cannot assemble itself; it cannot reproduce itself; it cannot extract energy from its surroundings (unless I plug it in and pray that OPPD stays up). Why then is there the assumption that a vastly more complex entity is the result of cosmic chance? I am a scientist. Science is the positing of hypotheses to explain observable phenomena and the use of experimentation to support or refute the hypotheses. In this narrow sense, any explanation of life's origins or transpacific evolution falls outside the purview of science since these are historical events. We cannot test how these things happen, but we can test whether they are possible. Again, when considering life's origins, we can examine the most complex nonliving molecular assemblies and the most simple living entities and see if we can get from one to the other. The answer is that we can't. The evolutionists have tried and are reduced to using such weasel words such as "possibly this happened" or "maybe that happened" because nobody has come close to making it happen. Between the most complex nonliving molecular assemblies and life is a chasm of breadth beyond description. It is a nontrivial matter to create life.

We can also look at the other claims of evolution besides the admittedly difficult problem of explaining life's origins. For instance, did bats appear suddenly in the fossil record or is there physical evidence that bats slowly changed from one species into their present form? How did the avian lung change into its present form and maintain function? How complex must the eye be in order to function, and how could the required adaptations occur simultaneously?

The answers to these questions are all detrimental to the evolutionary theory. These are legitimate questions, and they and others like them need to be asked of anyone who insists on a materialist explanation of what we see around us. And they should be asked in the classroom. For myself, I do not find it inconsistent with science to appeal to a supernatural force or a "creator" when all natural forces are inadequate to explain the facts at hand.

Francis Crick, codiscoverer of the DNA structure, said, "An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost c miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to be satisfied to get it going." Remove the word "almost" from that quote, and you have my position. Is it then outrageous to believe in a miracle maker when confronted with a miracle?