In an age
in which many here in the
I was recently able
to spend some
time in the field with one of those scientists, the Australian
geologist John
MacKay. Although John now fervently defends the truth of Scripture,
that was
not always the case. For those of you who may not be familiar with John
MacKay,
let me say he did not begin his life as a creationist. When he was
growing up,
his family attended neither church nor Sunday school. At that time, the
public
schools in
John always loved
science and
found study easy and particularly enjoyed evolution as it was obvious
to him by
mid high school that if man was just an animal then John MacKay could
do what
he liked. Towards the end of his high school years one of his advanced
science
texts – a first-year university biology text contained a chapter that
attempted
to prove that there was no God, while asserting that what the Bible
says is
myth and fable. However, instead of discouraging John from reading the
Bible,
those comments made him curious. As the result he began to read the
Bible, and
over the next few years compared the Biblical record with what he was
actually
seeing in the rocks and living creatures. It became obvious to him that
the facts
show creatures do produce their own kind just as Genesis says God made
them to
do. The facts agreed with the Bible, not
Now I realize that many Christians,
who have been intimidated by dogmatic claims of evolution, are curious
as to
what John MacKay saw that convinced him that the Bible is right, and
evolution
is wrong. I will attempt to answer that question, but to avoid putting
words in
John’s mouth, let me summarize in my own words what you might discover
if you
came from a background similar to John’s, and began to read the Bible
for the
first time.
Opening the Bible to the first
chapter of Genesis, you would find that
the words, “Let the waters under heaven be gathered together unto one
place,
and let the dry land appear,” tell us
that the rocks came into existence under water (Genesis 1:9). Since all
of the
continents rest on granite, and granite can only form in the presence
of water, that statement better agrees with
the facts than the
claim that the earth began as a molten mass. Furthermore, such a rapid
movement
of water from the land should have produced massive sedimentary
deposits that
do not contain fossils, or show any evidence of exposure to air over
long
periods of time, and that is exactly what we find. [See John’s DVD, “Genesis
Geology.]
The Bible also says that living things
(both plants
and animals) reproduce after their own “kind”. That clearly contradicts
what
evolutionists are teaching. However, those statements are scientific
statements, because they can be tested to determine if they are true or
false.
Therefore, a scientific approach to those statements would be to
evaluate them
in the light of available data, not to dismiss them without a hearing.
If you would then take the
scientific approach, and compare the Bible’s
claim that all living things reproduce after their “kind” with the
actual
findings of science (as opposed to evolutionary assertions) it would be
obvious
that what the Bible says is exactly what we see in nature. Not only has
evolution (defined as one kind of animal changing into another) never
been
observed, there is no real evidence that it has ever happened. [The word translated “kind”
in our English Bible is translated “genus” in the Latin Bible.]
Now I know that evolutionists
claim to have proof of evolution.
However, when we examine those claims, all they have really proved is
that
organisms do have a limited capacity for change, change which amounts
to
nothing more than variation within a kind. That is the sort of change
evident
in the differences between various breeds of dogs, or cows etc.
Although all
dogs are still dogs, and all cows are still cows, the evolutionists
then make
an assumption that is not supported by any fact at all. They assume
that if
small changes can take place in a short period of time, large changes
can take
place in a longer period of time. There is no proof that that is true.
It has
never been observed! It is nothing more than wild conjecture!
Furthermore, it
contradicts the evidence.
For one thing, changes brought about
by selective breeding never produce something new, something that was
not
previously present in the DNA. On the contrary, selective breeding
simply
brings recessive characteristics to the fore by breeding out unwanted
characteristics. And, because selective breeding breeds out unwanted
characteristics it achieves change through a loss of genetic
information.
Furthermore, the struggle to
survive can never produce something new,
because whatever survives the struggle has to be there before the
struggle
takes place. For example, prickly pear cactus grows wild in
If you look at the fossil
record to see if it supports evolution, you
find that it proves just the opposite. Over forty percent of the
fossilized
life forms are not extinct. In the rocks we find fossilized frogs,
dragonflies,
jellyfish, lizards, leopards, plants, rhinos, fish etc. And the reason
we can
recognize them when we find them in the rocks is because they have not
changed.
Apart from a few minor differences, they are virtually identical to the
ones
alive today. That fact alone proves that they are not evolving. [See John’s DVD, “The World of
Living Fossils”.]
Reading a bit further in the book of
Genesis, you would find that it describes a worldwide flood. Now every
geologist knows that sedimentary rocks, rocks that were laid down by
water,
cover much of the world. Moreover, it is common knowledge that most of
those
rocks contain fossils. That all agrees with what the Bible says about a
worldwide flood. Furthermore, such a flood would have laid down those
layers in
a relatively short period of time. However, the evolutionists generally
ridicule anyone who believes the Biblical account, and dogmatically
assert that
all those rock layers were laid down slowly over millions of years.
Therefore,
here again, we need to look at the facts.
If you actually examine the rocks, you
find abundant evidence that they were laid down quickly, not slowly
over
millions of years. For one thing, many of the plants preserved in the
rocks
still have their leaves intact. That could never have happened if they
were
buried slowly for the leaves would have withered and fallen off, and
the plants
would have rotted. Furthermore, the leaves had to be buried deep enough
to make
it impossible for the worms to reach them. We also find fossil fish
buried in
the act of swallowing another fish, animals buried in the act of giving
birth,
and jellyfish buried before they could decompose (which takes only a
day).
Another thing to consider is the thousands [perhaps millions] of
fossil
tree trunks that extend vertically, often through multiple layers of
rock. When
you examine these fossil trees you will find that the roots have been
broken
off. They were uprooted by floodwaters that had to have covered
millions of
square miles. Then as the broken off roots began to absorb water, they
sank
bottom end first, and were buried in the sediment. Furthermore, we know
that
they had to be buried quickly, not slowly over millions of years,
because if
the rock layers were formed slowly, the trees would have rotted away
long
before they were covered.
That brings us to a big question. If
the layers of rock were formed quickly, what reason is there to believe
that
the world is millions of years old? The answer of course, is that there
is no
reason to believe the world is millions of years old. In fact, there is
no
reason to believe that the world is any older than the Bible says it
is!
At this point some of you are
undoubtedly asking yourself. What about radiometric dating methods?
Don’t they
prove the rocks are old? And, the answer to those questions is a
resounding NO!
They prove nothing of the sort. The public has simply been sold bill of
goods. All
of the dates that scientists come
up with when they use those methods rest on a number of assumptions. If
those
assumptions are wrong the dates are wrong. And, there is good evidence
that
those dates are wrong.
All of the radiometric dating methods
base their dates on the length of time that it takes one radioactive
element to
break down into a daughter element through radioactive decay. For
example: One
method attempts to date rocks by the length of time it takes uranium to
break
down into lead, another measures the breakdown of potassium to argon,
and a
third the breakdown of rubidium to strontium. However, all of the
methods in
use [and there are more than the three mentioned] assume that none of
the
daughter elements (lead, argon, strontium) were in the rock to begin
with. That
assumption is false! And, we know it is false because whenever more
than one
method is used to date the same rocks, the dates do not agree. In fact,
the dates
are so far apart, that they cannot possibly be accurate!
When the Diabase sill (which is at the
bottom of the
In truth, about one hundred and fifty
methods for dating the earth have been proposed. However, most of them
are
never mentioned because they give dates that are not compatible with
the dates
currently being set forth by evolutionists. Moreover, some of those
methods
yield dates that are in full accord with the Bible. For example: The
amount of
salt in the world’s oceans is increasing at a measurable rate. When
that rate
is used to date the earth, it tells us that if no salt was in the
oceans to
begin with, it would have taken sixty-thousand years for salt to reach
the
levels we see today. Of course, if there was salt in the oceans to
begin with,
the earth could be much younger. Likewise, when radioactive elements
decay they
produce helium as a by-product. Because the helium
atom is so
small it escapes from the rocks at a measurable rate. When that
rate is
used as a dating method, we find that the levels of helium in the rocks
(including
crystals) indicate an age of about six thousand years.
Furthermore, tests on different parts
of the same rock often yield different dates, and tests on rocks of
known age –
such as lava flows – often yield dates tens of thousands of times older
than
the known age of the rocks.
This brings us to carbon-14.
Carbon-14 is formed in the upper
atmosphere as cosmic radiation bombards nitrogen atoms. That carbon-14
then
quickly combines with oxygen to form carbon dioxide, which is utilized
by plants.
When those plants are eaten it ends up in animals and humans as it
moves up the
food chain.
However, since carbon-14 is
radioactive, it begins to decay as soon as
it is formed. Therefore, because the carbon dioxide that contains
carbon-14 is
only a small percentage of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,
attempts have
been made to date organic remains on the basis of how much carbon-14
remains in
them. Nevertheless, this dating method rests on a number of faulty
assumptions.
For example: For carbon-14
dating to be accurate, the concentrations of
carbon-14 and carbon-12 must have remained constant in the atmosphere.
However,
we know that they have not remained constant, because all of the carbon
contained in coal and oil was once in the atmosphere. Moreover, at the
time it
was in the atmosphere, the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 would have
been much
lower. Likewise, we know that the earth’s magnetic field was stronger
in the
past, and that would have made the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 even
lower.
Both of those changes would cause plants that grew in the past to date
much
older than they actually are.
Carbon-14 dating is only
accurate for dating things less than four
thousand years old, and even then there are problems. For example: A
living mollusk
was dated by carbon-14 at two thousand years old. Likewise, a forest
that was
buried by lava just two hundred years ago was dated by carbon-14 at
over twelve
hundred years old. Therefore, to quote Dr. Jean K. Lightner, “In the
end, the
view that the earth is somewhere around 6,000 years old is a very
reasonable
view.” [“Creation Matters”, May/June 2011.]
Men originally began to think that the rocks were old because they looked old, not because they had any valid evidence that they were old. Then, when Charles Darwin came up with his “theory” of evolution, he needed those long ages to make his “theory” credible. Because evolution has never been observed, he had to claim that it happens too slowly to be observed. So, on the basis of pure conjecture (not fact) Darwin and his followers decided how long evolution must have taken, and dated the rocks accordingly. You can call that science if you want to, but I call it fraud.
“Hasn’t God
made the wisdom of this world foolish?”