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Home › Resources › Publications › New Reasons To Believe e-Zine › New Reasons To Believe Mini-Magazine: 2009, Vol. 01, No. 01
New Reasons To Believe Mini-Magazine: 2009, Vol. 01, No. 01Linking Science and Faith
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| Darwin’s Doubt Can naturalistically evolved human minds be trusted to yield true beliefs about reality? Even Darwin had his misgivings. By Kenneth Richard Samples |
Tetrapod Transitions: Evidence for Design Several fossil discoveries initially created a stir as transitional intermediates in fish-to-amphibian evolution. What has analysis shown? By Fazale (Fuz) R. Rana |
| Where to Look for Earth’s First Life Recent studies indicate material deposited on the Moon via meteors may help solve origin-of-life debates. By Hugh Ross |
Galaxy Clusters Confirm Dark Energy New measurements of galaxy distributions provide evidence of the universe’s mysterious and fine-tuned-for-life dark energy. By Jeff Zweerink |
| Oxygen Prepares Earth for Advanced Life Introduction of life-essential oxygen in Earth’s history took place in vital, carefully designed steps. By Jeff Zweerink |
Metabolism: A Cascade of Design Nature’s tiny metabolic pathways demonstrate optimization in cells that highlight evidence for design. By Fazale (Fuz) R. Rana |
| Navigating Verbal Minefields Understanding terms like evolution and creation is no easy task, but the payoff in learning and in effective conversation is worth the effort. By Joe Aguirre |
Exploring the Extent of the Flood: Part One Controversy among Bible believers often starts with this pivotal event. What does an integrative view of various texts show? By Hugh Ross |
| God as Source of Knowledge Order in the universe, the laws of logic, and science—can an evolutionist account for them apart from a biblical worldview? By Krista Bontrager |
DARWIN’S DOUBT:
Can Naturalistically Evolved Human Minds Be Trusted To Give True Beliefs About Reality?
by Kenneth Richard Samples
Was Charles Darwin a confident evolutionist?
It may be surprising to learn that the father of modern evolutionary theory (1809–1882) had doubts about his proposed explanation for the diversity of life. Reflective by nature, Darwin worried about the philosophical implications of his biological theory. One concern was whether man’s cognitive, or, belief-producing faculties, which he believed had evolved from the lower animals, could be trusted to produce reliable, true beliefs about reality itself. Here’s how Darwin expressed his epistemological (relating to knowing) reservations concerning the purely naturalistic process of evolution:
“With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?”1
Several thinkers have argued that the worldview of naturalism (nature as the sole reality) involves a fundamental state of epistemological incoherence or is self-defeating in nature.2 Additionally, consistent with Darwin’s original uneasiness, a growing contingent of theists thinks it is irrational to believe in evolutionary naturalism in particular. Why? Because it fails to provide a viable pathway to ensure that humans develop reliable, true beliefs about reality.3 And the deliverances of science depend upon humans having reliable and true beliefs about the natural world.
Three Strikes Against Evolutionary Naturalism?
The idea that atheistic, evolutionary naturalism can reliably account for man’s rational faculties and explain how human beings can discover truth faces three potential defeaters.4
- Naturalism Postulates a Nonrational Source for Man’s Rationality.
If a person accepts the evolutionary naturalistic worldview then he must also accept that the ultimate source of people’s reasoning faculties was not itself rational (endowed with reason), personal (self-aware, intelligent), or teleological (purposive) in nature. Rather, the source was a nonrational, impersonal, purposeless process consisting of a combination of genetic mutations, variation, and environmental factors (natural selection). Naturalism therefore postulates that a combination of random chance and blind impersonal natural processes (physical and chemical in nature) produced humanity’s rational faculties.
However, presuming that a nonrational, chance origin explains human intelligence raises legitimate questions about whether human reason can be trusted. According to the presumptions of science, an effect requires an adequate and sufficient cause, and indeed that effect cannot be greater than the cause. But in the case of evolution, the effect of human intelligence is magnitudes (or, exponentially) greater than its supposed cause. The naturalist appears to have adopted a potentially self-defeating posture: He is assuming a trustworthy reasoning process only to conclude that his reasoning is ultimately untrustworthy. - Evolution Promotes a Species’ Survivability, Not Its True Beliefs.
Evolution by natural selection is said to have taken billions of years to produce intellectual and sensory capacities in people. But that process operated solely in light of survival value and reproductive advantage. In other words, evolution functioned only to enhance a particular organism’s adaptation to its environment—thus promoting that species’ continued existence. What a particular species believes about its environment is nonessential to the process.
Also, whether the organism’s convictions about reality are indeed true is highly questionable. In some cases reliably true beliefs might contribute to survivability, but in others the truth of the beliefs would be irrelevant. For as the distinguished scientist Francis Crick stated, “Our highly developed brains, after all, were not evolved under the pressure of discovering scientific truth, but only to enable us to be clever enough to survive and leave descendents.”5
Evolutionary naturalism appears to lead to an inevitable insecurity concerning the truth of one’s beliefs. This has led Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga to conclude,“
Evolution and naturalism are not merely uneasy bedfellows; they are more like belligerent combatants. One can’t rationally accept both evolution and naturalism… Naturalism, or evolutionary naturalism, seems to lead to a deep and pervasive skepticism. It leads to the conclusion that our cognitive or belief-producing faculties—memory, perception, logical insight, etc.—are unreliable and cannot be trusted to produce a preponderance of true beliefs over false.”6 - False Beliefs Illustrate Evolutionary Naturalism’s Epistemological Unreliability.
Some naturalistic scientists and philosophers today have served to heighten Darwin’s original doubt by suggesting that man’s inherent religious impulse is itself driven by evolution. In other words, beliefs in God, objective morality, and life after death are evolutionarily generated beliefs that must have served some survival purpose in the distant past. Preeminent scientist and popular science writer Lawrence Krauss notes:
Religious belief that the universe is the handiwork of an all-powerful being is not subject to refutation. This sort of reliance on faith may itself have an evolutionary basis. There has been talk of a “god gene”: the idea of an early advantage in the struggle for survival for those endowed with a belief in a hidden patrimony that gives order, purpose and meaning to the universe we experience.7
Celebrated atheist Richard Dawkins has gone further, arguing that belief in God is a mental delusion caused by a malfunction in the evolutionary process of the human brain. He dismisses all religious beliefs as simply the result of a defective “mental virus.”
Attributing man’s false religious convictions (from the naturalist perspective) to the evolutionary process, however, only adds suspicion to Darwin’s original doubt. If evolution is responsible for humankind’s virtually universal religious impulse, which from a naturalistic point of view is patently false (and even pernicious according to Dawkins), then human history shows that false beliefs about reality have promoted human survivability more than true beliefs.
But again, if evolutionary naturalism can cause a person to believe that which is false (such as religiously oriented beliefs) in order to promote survivability, then what confidence can evolutionists muster that their convictions are reliable, true beliefs? And if evolution cannot guarantee true beliefs in a person’s mind, then how does one know that belief in evolutionary naturalism itself is a true belief about the world?
A Viable Christian Theistic Alternative
Alternatively the Christian theistic worldview teaches that a perfectly rational being, God, is the ground and source of reason. Therefore such conceptual realities as logic, mathematics, knowledge, and truth flow from a supremely intelligent divine mind and characterize his universe. And because God made human beings in his image with rational faculties and sensory organs that generally function properly, humans are able to discover the world’s basic intelligible and empirical order. The omniscient and wise Creator “networked” the intelligibility of the world with the mind of man. Darwin’s doubt substantiated this notion.
Set against a precarious evolutionary naturalism, God’s objective existence is the fixed ontological (based upon being) reference point that makes authentic knowledge of the world possible.
References:
1. Charles Darwin to W. Graham, July 3, 1881, in The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, ed. Francis Darwin (1897; repr., Boston: Elibron, 2005), 1:285.
2. Some of these thinkers include: C. S. Lewis, Miracles: A Preliminary Study (New York: Macmillan, 1978), chapters 1–4; Richard Taylor, Metaphysics, 4th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1992), 110–12; Victor Reppert, C. S. Lewis’s Dangerous Idea: A Philosophical Defense of Lewis’s Argument from Reason (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003).
3. See Alvin Plantinga, Warrant and Proper Function (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), chapters 11–12.
4. My newest book develops these criticisms in more detail, see Kenneth Richard Samples, “Naturalism: A Secular Worldview Challenge,” in A World of Difference (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 201–18.
5. Francis Crick, The Astonishing Hypothesis (New York: Touchstone, 1994), 262.
6. Alvin Plantinga, “Evolution vs. Naturalism: Why They are Like Oil and Water,” Books & Culture, July/August 2008, http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2008/004/11.37.html.
7. Lawrence M. Krauss, “Science and Religion Share Fascination in Things Unseen,” New York Times, November 8, 2005, http://genesis1.asu.edu/~krauss/08essay.html.
Tetrapod Transitions: Evidence for Design
by Fazale (Fuz) R. Rana, Ph.D.
The ubiquitous bumper sticker featuring a fish sprouting legs has symbolized a sometimes rancorous contemporary debate: Does evolution or creation better explain life’s history? Recent fossil finds have put literal and figurative legs on the controversy by challenging Charles Darwin’s paradigm-shifting theory.
When Darwin advanced his theory of evolution he knew the fossil record didn’t support his idea. In Origin of Species Darwin devoted a chapter to “difficulties” for his theory, with most of his focus on the fossil record. He was troubled by two of its features: the absence of transitional forms and the abrupt, first-time appearances of biological groups.
Given a Darwinian mechanism, which views evolution as proceeding in small, successive steps, the fossil record should display gradual transformations replete with corresponding intermediate forms. Yet Darwin acknowledged in Origin of Species that this wasn’t the case. He bemoaned, “But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?”
Darwin skirted this problem by arguing that the fossil record was incomplete and poorly studied. He expected that as paleontologists continued to collect fossils, eventually the missing transitional forms and gradual evolutionary transformations would be unearthed. Over the last 150 years, paleontologists have indeed uncovered a cache of fossils that reveal a rich history of life on Earth. Yet, precious few can be considered authentic transitional forms.
This near absence accounts in part for the excitement that’s been generated in the last few years by the discovery of a series of fossils that seem to document the evolutionary transition from lobe-finned fish to amphibians, the first animals on land. These “fishapods” possess characteristics that have been interpreted as varying mixtures of fish and amphibian features. Paleontologists regard Tiktaalik, the first of the proposed intermediates that made a splash when discovered, as the midway point between lobe-finned fish and amphibians.1
At first glance, Tiktaalik seemed to delineate a key evolutionary transition, thereby providing a strictly naturalistic explanation for the emergence of life on land. But recent discoveries of other “fish-amphibian intermediates” in Latvia raise questions about the evolutionary interpretation.
Paleontologists have analyzed the fairly complete remains of a creature called Ventastega.2 This animal lived about 365 million years ago and is thought to occupy a halfway point between Tiktaalik and amphibians. However, its skeletal features indicate that it’s out of sequence. Older fishapods actually exhibit more advanced features than those of Ventastega.
This same problem has recently been noted for another fishapod, Panderichthys.3 This creature existed about 385 million years ago and is considered to be much closer to a lobe-finned fish than an amphibian. Yet, it has digits at the end of its fins, whereas Tiktaalik, considered to be more advanced, doesn’t. Again, the fossils are out of sequence.
Another difficulty is the speed with which the transition from fish to amphibian appears to occur. According to the fossil record, the putative transition begins about 385 million years ago and finishes about 365 million years ago. Intuitively, this timescale seems too rapid considering the extent of the anatomical and physiological changes needed to transform an aquatic creature to one that lives on land.
Yet another concern for the evolutionary account is that the fishapods co-occur in the fossil record. Instead of appearing in a sequential fashion, the creatures evidently coexisted and overlapped. In other words, the pattern observed in the fossil record doesn’t describe a linear evolutionary change over time. The challenge for evolutionary biologists lies in letting the fossil record dictate the pattern rather than imposing a pattern on the data.
How does the existence of fishapods fit a creation interpretation of life’s history? For one, these animals were perfectly suited to live at the water’s edge. Also, the mosaic of fish and tetrapod characteristics possessed by the fishapods signifies design. Human designers frequently design objects and systems that blend properties and features of different systems.4 If humans create mosaics, why wouldn’t a Creator do the same?
These fascinating creatures, well-designed to exploit their environment, make sense from a creation perspective. Conversely, overlapping fishapods that appear in the “wrong” order in the fossil record indicate Darwin’s long-sought “innumerable transitional forms” still don’t exist.
References:
1. For a recent analysis of Tiktaalik see, Jason P. Downs et al., “The Cranial Endoskeleton of Tiktaalik roseae,” Nature 455 (2008): 925–929.
2. Per E. Ahlberg et al., “Ventastega curonica and the Origin of Tetrapod Morphology,” Nature 453 (2008): 1199–1204.
3. Catherine A. Boisvert, Elga Mark-Kurik, and Per E. Ahlberg, “The Pectoral Fin of Panderichthys and the Origin of Digits,” Nature (2008): advanced on-line, doi:10.1038.
4. One prosaic example of a mosaic is a “spork.” Some fast-food restaurants provide this eating utensil, which is a combination of a fork and a spoon.
Where to Look for Earth’s First Life
by Hugh Ross, Ph.D.
There’s a down side to earthquakes and mudslides far beyond what most people are aware of. Plate tectonics and erosion are responsible for destroying the fossilized remains of Earth’s first life. While chemical signatures confirm that life was abundant on Earth back to at least 3.8 billion years ago,1 these two forces seem to have wiped out fossils and fossil fragments older than 3.47 billion years—a significant loss.2
Naturalists argue that Earth’s first life was a single species, much simpler than anything seen in the fossil record, from which all life evolved. RTB’s creation model says Earth’s first life likely included multiple species, each about as complex as the simplest life we see today. This sharp contrast in predictions means that finding and analyzing pristine fossils of Earth’s first life could help settle one of the great creation-evolution controversies.
So, where can we find these fossils? Recent studies suggest a possible locale, one that’s reasonably accessible and likely to yield answers: the Moon.
American astronomers John Armstrong, Llyd Wells, and Guillermo Gonzalez determined that between 3.5 and 3.8 billion years ago, meteor bombardment of Earth blasted tons of material into space. The initial calculation (in 2002) indicated that 20,000 kg (about 22 tons) would have landed on each 100-square-km (roughly 38-square-mile) patch of the lunar surface.3 Because the Moon experiences no significant tectonics or erosion, any Earth-life fossils embedded in that material should remain relatively close to the surface.
Armstrong has now produced an enhanced calculation of the transfer of Earth material to the Moon.4 His more-detailed analysis shows that a hundred times more material would have been deposited than his team originally estimated. And, an independent team led by British earth scientist Ian Crawford verified that enough Earth material was delivered at sufficiently low velocity and sufficiently oblique (<45°) trajectories that the transported fossils suffered little or no structural damage.5
As scientists seeking to test our creation model, RTB scholars are especially eager to see the lunar surface reexplored. With appropriate instruments, researchers can and will, we anticipate, provide valuable evidence pointing to the biblical Creator.
References
1. Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross, Origins of Life (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2004), 63–79.
2. J. William Schopf, “The Oldest Known Records of Life: Early Archean Stromatolites, Microfossils, and Organic Matter,” in Early Life on Earth, Nobel Symposium No. 84, ed. Stefan Bengston (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994): 193–206; Yuichiro Ueno et al., “Early Archean (ca. 3.5 Ga) Microfossils and 13C-Depleted Carbonaceous Matter in the North Pole Area, Western Australia: Field Occurrence and Geochemistry,” in Geochemistry and the Origin of Life, ed. S. Nakashima et al., (Tokyo: Universal Academy Press, 2001): 203–36.
3. John C. Armstrong, Llyd E. Wells, and Guillermo Gonzalez, “Rummaging through Earth’s Attic for Remains of Ancient Life,” Icarus 160 (November 2002): 183–96.
4. John Armstrong, “Distribution of Impact Locations and Velocities of Earth Meteorites on the Moon,” Astrobiology 8 (April 1, 2008): 306.
5. Ian A. Crawford et al., “On the Survivability and Detectability of Terrestrial Meteorites on the Moon,” Astrobiology 8 (April 1, 2008): 242–52.
Galaxy Clusters Confirm Dark Energy
By Jeff Zweerink, Ph.D.
Growing up in the Midwest, I shoveled snow to earn spending money. The rate at which I cleared a sidewalk depended on two factors: how quickly I shoveled and how rapidly the snow fell. In fact, someone watching me shovel for a couple of minutes could evaluate the rate of snowfall based on how much snow covered the just-shoveled walkway. This picture––think galaxy cluster formation instead of snow accumulation––helps illustrate what astronomers have learned about the role of the mysterious, but highly fine-tuned dark energy in the universe.1
Given that we live in a big bang universe with a large component of dark matter, two processes affect how quickly galaxy clusters grow. Shortly after the big bang, the matter/energy of the universe was spread uniformly throughout space. The density of matter/energy dictates how strongly gravity causes it to clump together into stars, then galaxies, and ultimately clusters of galaxies. This density corresponds to how quickly I could shovel a walk.
In the late 1990s, astronomers studying distant supernovae found that the expansion of the universe appeared to accelerate around five billion years ago. The simplest explanation for this acceleration invokes a space-energy density (or dark energy), which causes space to expand even more rapidly as it grows. Consequently, it dilutes the mass/energy density of the universe and slows down the rate at which galaxies and clusters grow—similar to how additional snowfall impedes my progress in clearing snow from the sidewalk.
If no dark energy existed in our universe, the mass/density of the universe would be smaller to account for the number of large clusters observed in the nearby universe. With such a low density, astronomers would not expect to find any large clusters in the early universe. However, a large dark energy component means that large galaxy clusters form more slowly and earlier in the universe’s history.
Measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation (left over from the creation event) and the distribution of galaxies provide additional evidence that dark energy exists and causes the universe to expand increasingly fast. Using the XMM-Newton X-ray telescope, a team of German astronomers found a cluster of galaxies whose light has taken almost eight billion years to reach Earth (which means the cluster existed 6 billion years after the creation of the universe). The massive size of the cluster, which shines 100 times brighter than other clusters at this distance, further buttresses dark energy theory.
Finding such a large cluster from so long ago provides strong evidence that dark energy exists and increasingly controls the expansion of the universe. While astronomers and physicists have no idea what the dark energy is, we’re not getting snowed when they say this feature must exhibit extraordinary fine-tuning in order for life in the universe to exist. Such fine-tuning seems a stretch for chance occurrence, but resonates with a purposeful creation model.
References:
1. G. Lamer et al., “2XMM J083026+524133: the Most X-ray Luminous Cluster at Redshift 1,” Astronomy & Astrophysics 487 (2008): L33–L36.
Oxygen Prepares Earth for Advanced Life
By Jeff Zweerink, Ph.D.
Scientists may be unusual in this way but a time- and energy-intensive home addition offers a great chance to think about evolution and creation. This past year I undertook a project to add some habitable space to my house. As I worked—being careful with the nails—I saw parallels between my planning and certain events that brought about Earth’s habitability. Specifically, do the significant influxes of oxygen in Earth’s history that are essential for large-bodied mammals reflect random events or purposeful design?
For the home project, the initial planning laid critical groundwork to ensure proper construction. I dug the footings and placed the sewer lines and support bolts before pouring the concrete foundation. Then I framed the walls and roof to make the interior water-tight. I am currently working on the plumbing and electrical before I can finish the interior and exterior walls. When done, my family will enjoy an extra bathroom, much-needed closet space and a new laundry room. Yet, the care and planning I invested in my small addition pales in comparison to Earth’s transformation from a formless, uninhabitable sphere to a diverse environment teeming with life.
The scientific and biblical descriptions of the early Earth both paint a desolate picture. There’s no structure or form like continents, and water covered the whole surface of the planet. It’s quite a contrast to today’s vast landmasses and oceans filled with an array of life. The account in Genesis 1 describes a purposeful, sequential transformation of the desolate early Earth until humanity ultimately arrives on the scene. A growing body of scientific evidence that identifies several of the crucial steps corroborates the biblical account.
One of those vital steps (the first of four) calls for the introduction of oxygen (called oxidation). Humans and all other large-bodied organisms require an abundance of oxygen in the atmosphere to live. Yet before three billion years ago, negligible free oxygen existed in the atmosphere. Roughly two-and-a-half billion years ago an oxidation event occurred. Photosynthetic organisms began producing sufficient oxygen such that it established a permanent presence in the atmosphere—although at only a few percent of present levels.
Not only did the oxygen concentration remain relatively constant for the next two billion years, but also single-celled life, rather than more-advanced multicellular life, dominated. Recently, a team of scientists identified one possible explanation for this long delay despite the initial rapid jump in atmospheric oxygen.1
Many of the more complex single-celled organisms and most of the multicellular organisms must transform the abundant nitrogen in the atmosphere into a more usable form—a process referred to as “nitrogen fixation.” In order to fix nitrogen efficiently, certain bacteria need sufficient quantities of the element molybdenum. Yet the researchers found that the oceans contained far less molybdenum compared to current values until roughly 600 million years ago when the first multicellular animals explosively appeared in the fossil record.
The main source of oceanic molybdenum originates from weathering of continental crust in the presence of abundant oxygen. Thus, it appears that during the two-billion-year period after the first oxidation event, both geological and biological processes were transforming Earth’s atmosphere and oceans from an oxygen-poor, molybdenum-poor condition to one with growing supplies of both elements.
Like pouring the concrete foundation before framing the walls, this transformation (a second step) prepared Earth for the rapid and widespread introduction of complex, multicellular animals during the Avalon and Cambrian explosions (approximately 570 and 540 million years ago). However, two critical steps remained.
Scientists have learned that the Doushantuo formation in the Yangtze Gorges area of South China contains abundant fossils that formed between 635 and 551 million years ago—the time period just prior to the Cambrian explosion. Analysis of carbon isotopes throughout the formation revealed that two additional oxidation events occurred during the period when the fossils were deposited.2
These events raised the oxygen content of the atmosphere above 60 percent of present levels and also fully oxygenated the oceans. In particular, the researchers noted that the first additional pulse of oxygen (or third step) resulted in a rise in microscopic organisms, while the second (fourth step) coincided with a dramatic increase in large, complex algae. In each case, the number of species present in the fossil formations doubled. Furthermore, in the 15 million years following the second pulse (geologically, a short time), complex macroscopic life-forms, dubbed Ediacaran organisms, increased dramatically worldwide.
As I work on my addition, there are certain steps that show dramatic changes in a short period of time. Other steps, while equally important, take much longer and exhibit little discernible change. Nevertheless, each step reflects purpose, care, and design as I seek to provide a better home for my family.
Similarly, the oxidation events and rapid appearance of new organisms and the much slower increase of the ocean’s molybdenum content show remarkable parallels to my project. While difficult to reconcile with evolutionary chance, they certainly seem consistent with the idea of a caring Designer who works through geological and biological processes to carefully prepare a suitable habitat for humanity.
References:
1. C. Scott et al., “Tracing the Stepwise Oxygenation of the Proterozoic Ocean,” Nature 452 (March 27, 2008): 456–59.
2. Kathleen A. McFadden et al., “Pulsed Oxidation and Biological Evolution in the Ediacaran Doushantuo Formation,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 105 (March 4, 2008): 3197–202.
Metabolism: A Cascade of Design
by Fazale (Fuz) R. Rana, Ph.D.
Charles Darwin’s view of the cell differed greatly from the picture we have today. Darwin held to the protoplasmic theory— the idea that the cell consists only of a wall surrounding a nucleus and a homogeneous, jelly-like protoplasm. Biologists at the time could readily envision chemical routes that could produce the single ingredient believed to form this jelly, making evolutionary explanations for life’s origin plausible.
By the end of the 19th century with the rise of biochemistry, however, the protoplasmic view of the cell waned. Scientists clearly recognized that the protoplasm was a complex, heterogeneous system. But it’s not merely that the cell’s biochemical systems are complex; new research attests that they also appear to be optimally designed.1
Many proteins take part in the metabolic processes in the cell’s protoplasm. Metabolism refers to the myriad, life-essential chemical reactions that occur in organisms. Metabolic activity makes it possible for organisms to extract energy from the environment and make life’s component parts. These processes allow organisms to grow, reproduce, maintain biological structures, and respond to changes in the environment.
Metabolic processes within the cell’s interior are organized into pathways consisting of a series of chemical reactions that transform a starting compound into a final product via a series of small, stepwise chemical changes. Each step in a metabolic route is mediated by a protein (called an enzyme) that assists in the chemical transformation.
Metabolic pathways can be linear, branched, or circular. The chemical components that are part of a particular metabolic sequence sometimes take part in other metabolic pathways. These shared compounds cause metabolic pathways to be networked together.
Like all networks, metabolic pathways are susceptible to failure cascades. These breakdowns result from defects in the enzymes that catalyze the individual steps of the pathway. Because the pathways are reticulated (interconnected), an error resulting from the failure of even a single enzyme will cascade through the network. This problem is similar to the widespread power outages that occur when a single line of a power transmission network becomes overloaded.
A team of biological and chemical engineers wanted to understand just how robust metabolic pathways are. To gain this insight, the researchers compared how far the errors cascade in pathways found in a variety of single-celled organisms with errors in randomly generated metabolic pathways. They learned that when defects occur in the cell’s metabolic pathways, they cascade much shorter distances than when errors occur in random metabolic routes. Thus, it appears that metabolic pathways in nature are highly optimized and unusually robust, demonstrating that metabolic networks in the protoplasm are not haphazardly arranged but highly organized.
This organization evinces the work of a Creator. The researchers note that “In man-made systems, this balance [robustness] may be the culmination of human intervention.”2 If so for human networks, then is it reasonable to think that nature’s networks reflect the product of undirected evolutionary mechanisms, or of creation? I wonder what Darwin would have thought?
References:
1. Ashley G. Smart, Luis A. N. Amaral, and Julio M. Ottino, “Cascading Failure and Robustness in Metabolic Networks,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 105 (2008): 13223–28.
2. Ibid.
Average Joe’s Corner
Navigating Verbal Minefields
by Joe Aguirre
Are you an evolutionist or a creationist? It’s a simple enough question, but the answer may not be so easy. Like many words, factors like history and context come into play. As a historical example, if you asked someone anytime before 1859 if he were a creationist, he might say, “No, I’m a traducianist.” Huh? Well, for much of church history until the time of Darwin the origin of the soul (of which creationism and traducianism expressed different views) was a hot topic, just like the origin of everything is today.
According to Wikipedia the term creationism in its contemporary sense was not used until the late nineteenth century.1 And science historian Ronald Numbers notes that the evolution of the word—pardon the expression—was no overnight sensation.2 For decades, terms like “direct Creationism,” “special creationist,” “advocates of creation,” or “antievolutionist” were variously employed. Descriptors like “creation science” or “scientific creationism” came later still, leading to the simpler modern term “creationism,” which is anything but clear in describing what people believe.
Evolution is no easier to trace. You have micro and macro, theistic and deistic, divergent and convergent, Darwinian and naturalistic—even creationary evolution, just to name a few that come to mind in a massive vocabulary course.
What’s the point?
Words carry different meanings and they can be nuanced, but ultimately they mean something. As this layperson has learned the hard way (a frequent event), a poor response to “evolution is a proven fact,” is “no, evolution is just a theory.” What the opponent could have had in mind was a study of Galapagos finches showing different beak sizes in response to changes in the environment. The evolution was indeed a proven fact, but it was really microevolution (adaptation), which is a nonissue. The finches are still finches. The just-a-theory retort will get an eye-rolling response as the opponent concludes the creationist has no inkling of how science works.
A good way to start a conversation is to ask what people mean by the terms they use. The Golden Rule of Apologetics, as RTB theologian Kenneth Samples reminds us, stresses that we strive to understand a person’s position correctly before offering critique.3 Asking questions leads to clarification and learning. How much longer and more fruitful might discussions on pivotal issues become if opposing sides made understanding one another the primary goal? (Sounds like marriage.)
And a good way to get equipped for effective dialogue is to get a hold of Hugh Ross’s new book, More Than a Theory (available next month at reasons.org). He explains—in lay-friendly language—various positions on creation and evolution and how to test them.
Tools like this one can help prevent someone like me from making the following statement and looking like a monkey’s uncle: “If humans evolved from monkeys, why are monkeys still around?”
References:
1. Wikipedia, s.v. “history of creationism,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_creationism, accessed December 11, 2008.
2. Ronald L. Numbers, “Creating Creationism: Meanings and Usage Since the Age of Agassiz: Part One” in Facts & Faith, fourth quarter 1995, http://www.reasons.org/resources/faf/95q4faf/95q4asi.shtml, accessed December 11, 2008.
3. Kenneth Richard Samples, “The Golden Rule of Apologetics, Part 1 (of 7),” Today’s New Reason To Believe, http://www.reasons.org/tnrtb/category/philosophy/page/5/, accessed December 11, 2008.
Exploring the Extent of the Flood: Part One
by Hugh Ross, Ph.D.
In my years of speaking and writing on science-faith issues, I’ve discovered only one topic that stirs more heated debate than the age of the universe or the days of creation, and that’s the Flood of Noah’s lifetime. Often this event is called the Genesis Flood, and yet multiple biblical passages, in addition to the initial narrative (Genesis 6–9), shed light on what occurred and why.
At the extreme ends of the interpretive spectrum are these two positions: the global flood view and the local flood view. The global view says that the floodwaters covered the entire planet, destroyed every living thing, and generated all of Earth’s major geological features. The local flood view asserts that the event was a relatively minor one, affecting only a tiny fraction of the planet and of the human population. The RTB scholar team takes a view that differs from both of these, as will become clear in a series of three articles on the topic. Based on the meaning of the word universal, “encompassing all members of a category or group,” in this case “all humanity,” our position can best be described as the universal flood view.
As with virtually any biblical controversy, our best hope for progress toward resolution and, more importantly, toward drawing truth from the text, comes from examining all the relevant passages, Genesis to Revelation, and applying sound interpretive principles. One of those principles calls for careful consideration of context, both historical and textual. That’s where this series begins.
One of the key words in the Genesis passage is translated into English as “the earth.” What does that expression mean to English readers of the past few hundred years? For those with at least some education, it immediately conjures the image of planet Earth. We moderns think of our earthly habitat as a roughly spherical astronomical body. But that’s a relatively recent conception. The majority of people who have ever lived on “the earth” never knew it as a planet and never envisioned it as such.
The same is true of the Old—and New—Testament references to “the world.” Modern readers instantly think of the globe. Ancient readers (mostly hearers, because manuscripts and reading ability were limited) never even imagined a terrestrial ball. “Earth” or “world” to them meant “land” or implied people and societies.
Two familiar Old Testament passages narrate “worldwide” events other than the Flood: Genesis 41:56–42:6 and 1 Kings 10. The same Hebrew word, ’eres, translated as “the earth” in the Flood account, is translated as “the world” in these passages. So their meaning is essentially interchangeable.
In Genesis 41:57 we read, “[A]ll the countries came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe in all the world.” Genesis 42:5–6 clarifies that the famine had spread throughout the whole of the Egyptian Empire and the land of Canaan. “The world” in this context refers to a major region of human civilization rather than to the entire globe.
The writer of 1 Kings 10:24 declares that “The whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart.” Again, the succeeding verses clarify what “the whole world” encompassed. Rulers came from as far away as Sheba (modern Ethiopia) and all the lands of Arabia, probably not from Antarctica or Greenland.
Geographically restricted references to the world may be seen in the New Testament also. In Acts 2:5 Luke describes Jews living in Jerusalem as “devout men from every nation under heaven” (ESV). Most Bible interpreters would agree this passage does not necessarily include Mayans or Aztecs or Chinese. DNA tests confirm that no first-century Jews came from Mesoamerica or the Far East.
In Romans 1:8 Paul says of the Roman Christians, “Your faith is being reported all over the world.” In Colossians 1:6 he writes, “All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you.” Some translations of Luke mention Caesar Augustus’ decree to tax “the world.” For each of these passages the context indicates the writer’s reference to the Roman world, the extent of the Roman empire.
In all these and other Bible passages the words translated as “all the world,” “the whole world,” “every nation under heaven,” and “all over the world” refer to geographical or geopolitical regions somewhat less extensive than planet Earth’s entire surface. Therefore, one may reasonably conclude that references in Genesis 6–8 to “all the surface of the earth,” and “under the entire heavens” need not imply a globally extensive event.
Read about the extent of human sin and God’s judgment next issue.
Bible Bookend
God as the Source of Knowledge
By Krista Kay Bontrager
Does the Bible indicate where knowledge comes from? Since evolutionary processes can’t guarantee true beliefs (see Kenneth Samples’ article, p. 3) naturalism as a worldview faces insurmountable problems. For its part, the historic Judeo-Christian worldview asserts that God is the author of truth, logic, and the laws of nature. They are part of the “invisible furniture” of the universe, finding their source in the Creator’s very being. God’s existence is the precondition to knowledge itself.
Since humans are created in the image of God (Gen. 1:28–29), we are uniquely gifted to discover and utilize these universal ideas. The mind of God provides a framework for rational human thought (whether believer or nonbeliever). So when we use our minds, we are “thinking thy [God’s] thoughts after thee.”
The apostle John describes Jesus as “the true light that enlightens every man” (John 1:9). Therefore, historic Christianity grounds human knowledge in Jesus as the logos of God. Logos in New Testament Greek means “word, message, report…As the logos, God himself (John 1:1–2) in his divine glory assumes the flesh of humanity in historical time and space (1:14–15). Jesus, the logos, signifies the presence of God in the flesh.”
Christian philosopher Ronald Nash adds that “The Logos doctrine occupied a prominent place in the thought of several early Fathers of the church. On the basis of John 1:9, Justin Martyr argued that every apprehension of truth (whether by believer or unbeliever) is made possible because men are related to the Logos, the ground of truth.”
Ironically, when the naturalist attempts to use the laws of logic and science to disprove the existence of God, he must first borrow certain key components from the Christian worldview. The entire scientific method rests on the foundational belief that there is a certain orderliness that permeates the entire universe, “and that universality corresponds to what would be expected when looking through the lens of the Christian theistic worldview.”
Simply asserting the reality of the universality of natural laws doesn’t account for their existence. Neither does it explain why they are universally perceived if the human mind is simply the product of random chance evolving from an ape-like ancestor (Darwin’s concern). The biblically derived presuppositions of the Christian worldview, however, provide a solid and coherent framework for the regularity of nature, the rationality of the human mind, and the progress of scientific discovery.
References:
1. This quote is commonly attributed to Johannes Kepler, such as by Charles Hummel in The Galileo Connection (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity, 1986), 97.
2. William D. Mounce, Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 803.
3. Ronald H. Nash, The Word of God and the Mind of Man: The Crisis of Revealed Truth in Contemporary Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 1982), 67.
4. This idea is adapted from the transcendental argument for the existence of God, promoted by Christian philosopher Greg Bahnsen, as well as his mentor Cornelius Van Til.
5. Kenneth Richard Samples, Without a Doubt: Answering the 20 Toughest Faith Questions (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 192.