“The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron. . . .The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life.” -Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist
Truth is defined by fact. Yet fact cannot explain Truth. As shown in the quote above, we have facts in our possession that are based upon observable, repeatable events. The size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron are facts. They can be tested and measured and then tested and measured again, revealing the same data both times. The numbers do not change. But what do the numbers imply? How can they be so?
For hundreds of years, man has marveled at the wonder of life. Where did it come from? How did it get here? What is the purpose for being here? These three principle questions have driven man over the centuries to ask questions, collect information, construct hypotheses, choose a hypothesis, and then live his life accordingly. After examining himself inside and out and finding no direct answers, man looked elsewhere to explain these three questions. This pursuit for truth and knowledge of life’s origin and destiny inevitably leads one to consider his surroundings. Where and how did it all come into being? What is it made of? Why and how does it change? The answers to these questions could possibly give insight to the same questions about man. As seen by the quote above, there is plenty of data to be collected and analyzed. From the smallest components of atoms to the largest of planets, information can be gathered. But what is this information revealing?
Could the universe and all that is in it have been adjusted by something to make life possible, or does the universe just happen to be the way we have found it? Has something tinkered with the universe having the distinct purpose of bringing about life, or has life just risen from a very long series of random events?
Archeologists have been unearthing city after city for centuries and have discovered numerous diverse peoples, cultures, and philosophies. One prominent fact that stands out amongst all the different civilizations throughout the archeological record is that there has never been unearthed an atheistic culture. At the heart of every tribe, tongue, and people lies a faith in some higher power. Whether this faith is rooted in the hearts of each individual or not is irrelevant. Inside every mass organization of people is included the belief in some power greater than themselves. So, the search for beginnings has a root in religion.
There have been many sacred books written over the centuries that try to explain who or what this higher power is, as well as how man can reach it. For some reason, man seems to have a need to be in some sort of connection or union with this higher power. The overwhelming title given to this higher power, which will also be used in this paper, is God. Every philosophy about God has varied from culture to culture, but the important fact is that people believe one exists. The answers to the questions of who or what God is and how the individual can be in union with God will not be answered in this paper, yet faith in God is the cause of this paper. As mentioned above, books have been written by people throughout the centuries for the purpose of giving man direction and purpose in life. These books have come to be known as sacred and holy to the people who read them and apply their principles and beliefs to their lives. Such books or collection of writings are the Koran, Tao Te Ching, Dharma, and Vedas. However, the most commonly quoted and revered is the Bible. The number of manuscripts of the Bible far outweighs any other book on record. This record would even include writings of philosophers and teachers such as Plato and Homer. The Bible was also the first book to be printed on the printing press and has been the most repeatedly printed book ever since.
Some people find it easy to believe everything written in these sacred books. Others say it is a great strain to believe any book in which almost every page contains supernatural elements. It would be hard to prove that the laws of physics have ever been suspended, but yet these books propose that this has happened on numerous occasions and still does today. If one has never observed this suspension of the laws of physics, called a miracle, it would be quite a task to believe that any miracle ever happened in the past. Yet, here we are, living proof that somehow, sometime in the past, everything must have come out of nothing – and there is just no natural way for such a thing to occur. And it turns out that physicists are saying that the universe has been very precisely “fine-tuned” to make life possible. This can put a person in a bit of a dilemma. It is hard to believe in miracles having never observed one, yet the whole universe is apparently an indescribably enormous miracle. This, then, is the basis for the controversy surrounding the current condition we find ourselves in today. Has the universe, and specifically the Earth, been created and tuned by God, or has it evolved into its current condition through a random series of events? So, how does the skeptic resolve such a dilemma and is it even resolvable?
To better define the controversy being examined here, it should be explained that there are only two viable models of origins, creation or evolution. Either the Earth is eternal, self-existent, and self-contained, or it is not. If it is, then evolution is the true explanation of its various components. If it is not, then it must have been created by a Creator. These are the only two possibilities - simply stated, either it happened by accident (evolution) or it didn’t (creation). There may be many evolutionary sub models and various creationist sub models, but there can be only two basic models-creation or evolution. (Morris, H.M., & Parker, G.E. 1987). The intent of this paper will be to define these two basic models in broad, general terms, and then to compare their effectiveness in explaining what is observed in nature. Since it is not possible to repeat history, it is not possible to prove which model is true in the ultimate scientific sense of direct observation. That means that it will always be possible to modify either model to make it fit any set of data, merely by expanding it to accommodate every special case that arises. However, that model which, in its general form, does the best job of explaining the data, without having to be so modified and particularized, is the best model, and probably the true model.
The creation-evolution controversy has been raging for nearly a century. To those who seek intellectual contentment the issue is timeless. Likewise, origins, which the evolution–creation controversy is all about, has universal appeal. Origins is sexless, not circumscribed by political boundaries, raceless, and of interest to all ages (Wysong, 1976).
The resolution of this controversy is vital to the formulation of a life-philosophy and, consequently, affects life itself. But, interestingly, there is probably no subject of greater interest or impact that wallows in so much public ignorance. True, dogmatic assertions are made by proponents of each side, but the topic of origins is rarely treated rationally. Teachers are increasingly becoming afraid even to mention the topic, for fear of retaliation by parents taking opposing views. On the other hand, most parents are incapable of competently dealing with the question of origins and simply assume one side or the other, guessing that someone, somewhere, has the necessary supporting proofs all worked out. Thus, in the end, the controversy is not resolved, but dismissed, ignored, forgotten, avoided—it is dissolved. (Wysong, 1976)
As Wysong so ably stated, this controversy pervades all areas of living. It reaches from our pulpits to our classrooms. So, what exactly are the positions of the creation-evolution controversy and why are they so?
First, a little history as to previous attempts to provide age dates for the Earth. Several ingenious approaches were devised to arrive at a date for the origin of the Earth. Some were more scholarly than others, but all displayed insight and deserve credit for good approaches to the problem of dating the Earth. For most of the early history of man, this question was in the hands of theologians and the dates ranged from a few thousand years to infinity. The Greeks’, for example, rejected the notion of finite time entirely, in favor of cyclic time in which the universe is continually regenerated in an indefinite succession of cycles. This concept is still held by certain astronomers today. Bishop Usher, using the Bible, calculated back through the genealogies listed therein and arrived at a date of 4004 B.C. This tactic will be explored more later. Benoit de Maillet, a French diplomat, proposed that the decline of sea level could be measured and mapped which would allow a date to be calculated for when the first mountains arose out of the sea. He was one of the first to propose that the Earth could be billions of years old. In 1862, Lord Kelvin published his first calculation of the age of the Earth based upon the time required for the planet to cool to its present state from a white-hot molten globe. His calculations revealed an age of about 98 million years. Edmund Halley proposed a means of age dating using the chemistry of the oceans. He observed that all lakes that receive runoff from rivers but lack outflow contain salt in varying amounts. The concentration of salt in the waters of these lakes must increase, he said, because salt, picked up by the rivers in their passage over the Earth, is continuously added but not removed. If the same principle applies to the oceans than an age of approximately 89.2 million years is derived. Sediment accumulation was first proposed around the turn of the century. This timescale was a method based solely in geology and involved estimating the time required for the sedimentary rocks of the Earth to accumulate. Through this process, the geologic time scale that is widely used today was created. Originally, a date of 95 million years was applied using this technique. The discovery of radioactivity, isotopes, and the nature of the atom around the turn of the century not only revolutionized physics but proved the theoretical basis for radiometric dating and had a profound effect upon concepts of geological time as well. But it wasn’t until the 1950’s before all the pieces for accurate isotope dating were in place (Dalrymple, 1991). This list can actually be divided into two groups. The first group would include Bishop Usher and his chronology using genealogies from the Bible. The other group includes everyone else. Let’s explore this first group a little more in depth because it is the centerpiece for the creation side of the controversy.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth.” (New King James version, 1985) This is where the creation side of the controversy all begins. It is found in the first verse of the first book of the Bible. It assumes that there is a God and that this God created the universe and all that is in it. He did this with the express purpose of creating life, especially man. This quote from the Bible is what makes the quote by Stephen Hawking at the beginning of this paper so provocative. It appears as though the universe and especially the Earth has been fine-tuned by God so that it can support life. This would make sense given there is a God who created the Earth for this purpose. Since God created the Earth, what does He have to say about how He did it? Actually, not a whole lot. For an event as big as creation, the Bible does not record a whole lot of the details. A sequential list of six creation events in the first chapter of Genesis, a few verses in Job, some verses in the Psalms, and some in Isaiah are the only places that record the actual event of the creation of the universe and Earth. This would seem kind of odd from man’s perspective, considering the monumental task it would be to even organize the universe after it’s creation. Perhaps the creation of the universe and Earth is not God’s greatest work. But that is a discussion for another paper. The point is that the Bible does not record as much detail as one would like in regards to the creation of the Earth. The only source of information that would reveal a time scale is the genealogies recorded in the Bible. There are numerous lists of generations of families recorded which can be extrapolated back in time to give an age showing when man was created. The sequential list of creation events in the first chapter of Genesis is recorded in days. There is one creation event per day. The creation of man occurs on the sixth and last day. So, the argument goes that if you can calculate back through the genealogies and arrive at a date for the creation of man, then you can add six days to that to arrive at the creation of the Earth.
Bishop Usher has his name attached to being the first person to develop a date using this means. Using events recorded in the Hebrew text of the Pentateuch, the Septuagint, and an Ethiopic text, his calculations arrived at a date of October 22, 4004 B.C. This would put the age of the Earth at 6005 years old today. Many Christians wanting to take the Bible as literal as possible have constrained the age of the Earth to within 6 to 10 thousand years. Creationists feel that any challenge to this date is a contradiction to the Bible, which is the Word of God. It would be blasphemous to not take God at His word and try to describe the creation event without God. If the Earth owes its existence to a creator, a supernatural force, then the Earth is the result of His will and purposes. Understanding these purposes would be the only way to understand life’s varied questions and problems. So, since the God of the Bible created the Earth, then His purpose and will for mankind as outlined in the Bible must also apply. Apart from any spiritual responses the creationist view requires, the creationist would say that logic alone demands a cause for every effect. It doesn’t have to be rocket science. This is common sense, and no one has ever observed an exception. Even Julie Andrews sings about it: “Nothing comes from nothing; nothing ever could.”
That every effect must have a cause is a self-evident truth, not only for those who have been trained in logic, but for thinking people everywhere. The creationist would say that no big bang theory or oscillating universe theory or static universe theory has gotten around the need for an ultimate cause (Heeren, 1998). A series of causes cannot be infinite. There must have been a first cause, which itself is uncaused. This is what the creationist side revolves around. Not only that the Earth came into being a certain way, but that God created it, and He did so with a purpose. That purpose was to support life.
As the Bible is not a scientific book, the actual process of the creation of the Earth is not recorded. The general events such as the creation of the sun, moon, and stars on a particular day, the plants on another day, the beasts of the Earth on another is recorded, but not the details of how it was done. The defining of the details of how the Earth could have been created in a matter of days is left up to scientists who subscribe to this ideology. They must observe the Earth, collect and analyze data, and create hypotheses just like anyone else. But their conclusions must fit within boundaries as outlined in the Bible. Organizations such as the Institute for Creation Research, or ICR, have dedicated themselves to explaining not necessarily how the Earth could be created in a matter of days, but how the present condition of the Earth has changed from its original created form. They try not to determine the process of how God created the Earth, but how the Earth could look and function the way it does while still fitting the creation model outlined in the Bible.
Evolutionists, on the other hand, have observed their surroundings and want to know how it got here and what it is made of. Due to increases in technology, the last century has seen a surge in the amount of information collected about the Earth. This vast amount of information can then be analyzed and the numbers crunched to provide a history of the Earth and a probable date of origin. The average person today assumes the measurement of time is accepted as a matter of fact. Yet in science, the demand for accurate and reliable time-keeping is known to be very difficult to determine. The scientist needs a chronometer that contains some sort of mechanism that operates at a known or predictable rate. This mechanism must be linked to a recording system of some kind, and the events recorded must have no effect on the rate of action of the mechanism. The recording system must also be selective so that other events which may occur in the time interval are either not recorded or do not alter the record from the initial event. (York, D., & Farquhar, R.M., 1972)
This is the beauty of radioactivity. Since 1905, when Rutherford first suggested that the transformation rates of radioactive nuclides might be used to determine the ages of rocks and minerals, nearly every naturally occurring radioisotope has been investigated for its possible use in geological age measurement. As a result, radioactivity has provided the mechanism for making the most accurate estimates of the ages of geological events. The late 1940s and early 1950s saw an enormous burst of activity that clearly established the feasibility and great promise of radiometric age dating. Several things happened once radioactivity was finally understood. Most of the naturally occurring isotopes would be identified and their abundances determined, the half-lives of the long-lived radioactive nuclides would be reasonably well known, and instruments that had the necessary sensitivity for accurate measurements would be available. This opened the door for dating methods using radioactive isotopes. Some of these methods use K-Ar, Rb-Sr, and U, Th-Pb isotope ratios. The years since then have seen significant improvements in experimental method and even more remarkable progress in interpretation of radiometric age data.
The figure above demonstrates the basic principle of radioactive decay. The original radioactive “parent” isotope breaks down at a known rate to produce a stable “daughter” isotope. Fig. 1 shows the three most important processes of decay. This known rate of decay has been termed the “half-life” of the radioactive isotope. The half-life is unique to each radiometric age dating technique. If we know that the decay of a radioactive parent ultimately will result in the production of one or more stable nuclides, then we can use the half-life to calculate backwards to find the origin of the rock. Most of the geologic dating methods are based on the relationship between the remaining radioactive parent nuclide and the stable daughter nuclide that has been produced. It is not necessary to know the initial number of parent nuclides in the system, but only the number of the parent and daughter nuclides present in the system today. What must be assumed is that there was none of the daughter nuclide originally in the system and that there has been no influx of either parent or daughter nuclides since the origin of the system. The constancy of decay, however, is the backbone of all radioactive dating techniques. Dalrymple (1991) says, “unless there has been some undiscovered change in the fundamental nature of matter and energy since the universe formed, the presumption of constancy for radioactive decay is, for all practical purposes, eminently reasonable.” Although there are exceptions, the hypothesis of a constant decay rate is generally true.
And so we have the basis for the 4.6 billion years that the evolution side of the controversy asserts. The observable Earth today demonstrates the properties briefly explained above and the technique of radiometric age dating has proven to be quite reliable and accurate.
So, how does one decide which side of the controversy is right? Robert Jastrow, an astronomer with no religious motivation, quipped, “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.” Possibly both sides of the controversy have a bit of the truth. There is a ton of information crucial to each side’s argument that the other side fails to consider. Details such as Noah’s flood is not even considered by the evolutionists, and the creationists force themselves to ignore the data that nature is presenting to stay within the bounds of an account written in a literary, not scientific style. The old adage, “Can’t we all just work together?” comes to mind here. The truth contained in the Bible combined with the evidence demonstrated in nature can easily be homogeneously mixed into a uniform model for the origin of the Earth. But this takes an open mind and possibly the need to admit to the belief in an error. Reworking our conclusions on the matter of origins may be traumatic. Nonetheless, realizing the far-reaching influence our position on origins has on our lives, we are compelled to follow through with an honest and open-minded decision.
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The Creation-Evolution
Controversy
Brett Butcher
June 5, 2001