I do a lot of reading and research for the articles I write. I have found the debate between creation and evolution to be perennial. Believers in scientific theories do not understand why believers of the Scriptures don’t get it. Christians seem to stubbornly embrace a belief that is in conflict with scientific fact. But the issue is not with scientific fact; the issue is with the theories that arise when there are no facts.
There are a number of subjects that could be addressed regarding evolution. Evolution can be subdivided into two categories, inorgnanic and organic. Organic evolution can be further divided into embryonics, comparative anatomy, beneficial germinal mutations, and more. Time and space will not permit a full consideration of each of these here. So I will address a significant matter, the origin of life.
Science is the gathering of data through observation of natural phenomena or experimentation in a controlled environment such as a laboratory. At its essence, science is observation. Observation reveals facts and speculation on those facts give rise to theories. There is a huge gap between facts and theories.
When it comes to the origin of life, that gap is about 3.5 billion years. Scientists theorize life began 3.5 billion years ago, but the whole scientific community is not in possession of a single observable fact about the beginning of life.
In a publication entitled Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences, Second Edition (1999), on page 7 we read, “Of course, even if a living cell were to be made in the laboratory, it would not prove nature followed the same pathway billions of years ago.” This is a stunningly honest admission by a body of highly respected scientists. They confess they do not know what happened regarding the origin of life that occurred in the unobserved distant past. There are scientific theories about how life began; there just aren’t any scientific facts about how life began.
Theories are speculations about what the facts mean, but theories are not facts. Paleontologists made several evolutionary speculations about the Coelacanth based on numerous fossil remains. But Christmas came early for creationists on December 22, 1938, when a native fisherman caught a supposedly extinct Coelacanth off the southwestern coast of Madagascar. Evolutionary theories about the Coelacanth collapsed faster than a house of cards hit by a leaf blower when that native fisherman hauled up a net full of facts.
Remember it was learned men, the scientists of their day, who gave us the flat earth theory, and when the church excommunicated Galileo it was because the church trusted the theory of another scientist, Ptolemy.
Before I discount the Genesis account in the first chapter that begins with the words, “In the beginning God created,” scientists will have to give me some facts. Beware of scientists bearing theories.
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