Opening Argument for Creation
- Fred Williams, 2/14/2000

Our debate really boils down to just two possibilities: either life is the result of natural or chance processes (evolution), or it is the result of a supernatural process (creation). I will first outline what I find to be overwhelming evidence for creation, then begin rebutting Buddika=s opening argument and the alleged evidence for evolution, and close with a challenge to Budikka regarding several problems that are devastating to evolution.

Perhaps the greatest evidence for creation is the creation itself. The sheer complexity of every living organism cries out design. A single cell is far more complex than anything man has ever designed. Each cell contains a code, or DNA, which contains information roughly the equivalent of 4000 large books¹. It would require about 10,000 human cells to cover the head of a pin, and each human being is composed of more than 75,000,000,000,000 interacting cells²! In addition, components within the cell have a symmetrical bias. Amino acids are all left-handed, nucleotides are all right-handed. Yet when synthesized outside the body or found in nonliving matter, they are mixed in equal proportions. There are many other symmetric relationships such as this that gives unmistakable evidence of a Designer.

All of this in the backdrop of a universe that is remarkably fine-tuned to allow life on earth. The earth=s distance from the sun, its nearly circular orbit, its axis tilt, its mass, spin rate, and radius are precisely what they need to be to sustain life. The moon is at an ideal distance to produce tides. Jupiter=s distance and mass is absolutely essential to maintain earth=s orbit and to prevent comets and asteroids from smashing into earth. Carbon dioxide and oxygen/nitrogen ratios are where they need to be. The charge and masses of fundamental particles have remarkably tight tolerances; any small change renders life impossible. These are just a few of many examples of finely tuned parameters that allow life on our planet.

When we look at a mountainside, we reasonably attribute its contours to natural, random processes. But when we look at Mount Rushmore, we immediately recognize design. If we were unaware of this mountain and happened across it, we would be completely certain that wind and erosion did not bring about the president=s faces on the mountainside, but instead was carved out by a designer or designers.

Evolutionists often try to argue that evidence for creation is not scientific. They do this by claiming that anything that falls outside of nature is not testable and therefore not in the realm of science. Yet we can scientifically determine with reasonable certainty that Mount Rushmore is not the result of random chance. We see highly specific patterns. It is complex patterns from space that the SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is looking for. If they detect a complex signal not attributable to chance or a natural process, then they will reasonably deduce the signal comes from an intelligent source. When we sift for clues in a fire, if we find some pattern not attributable to random chance, we reasonably attribute the fire to an intelligent source (arson) and not to accident. We arrive at these conclusions scientifically. Yet when it comes to origins, evolutionists refuse to apply this kind of scientific examination. This demonstrates that evolution does not have its roots in scientific inquiry but instead in a philosophical world-view with a dogmatic commitment to naturalism. To adhere to sound scientific practices such as signal deciphering and arson investigation, while ignoring this same practice regarding origins, is simply anti-science.

Information requires an information giver. No one has ever been able to demonstrate how complex information can come about by natural processes. Since the cells of organisms contain massive amounts of complex information, it reasonably follows that the organism was created from a vastly superior intelligent source. One of the tenets of NeoDarwinism is random mutation. Yet randomness without fail destroys information. The second tenet of NeoDarwinism, natural selection, cannot bring about new information since it is a blind process without any target in mind. Evolutionist Richard Dawkin=s infamous simulation AMethinks it is Like a Weasel@ in his book The Blind WatchMaker only created information when a target was selected by an information giver! The odds of success of the simulation was 100%. Information is the reduction of uncertainty³. There was 100% certainty a result would be obtained, meaning no information was generated.

The Fossil Record shows sudden appearance of fully formed organisms, followed by stasis. It does not show gradual change as the Darwinists predicted. There are plenty of evolutionists who acknowledge this, and those that do usually support punctuated equilibrium (species are typically in stasis, and are allegedly punctuated by occasional bursts of rapid evolution). One leading punctuationist wrote: AThe observation that species are amazingly conservative and static entities throughout long periods of time has all the qualities of the emperors= new clothes: everyone knew it but preferred to ignore it. Paleontologists, faced with a recalcitrant record obstinately refusing to yield Darwin=s predicted pattern, simply looked the other way@⁴.

Unifying Biological Patterns indicate a sole Designer. There are many underlying biological universals that run through all of life, such as the genetic code, DNA and RNA, amino acids, etc. Find something based on a different type of genetic code. You can't. Or maybe try to find a species based on silicon and not carbon. You can't. If you did, then this could be an argument for either evolution or multiple designers. Naturalistic origins cannot even begin to explain this unifying pattern. A single Designer is the only realistic explanation.

Convergence⁵ has all the ear-markings of design. It utterly frustrates naturalistic explanations, and wreaks havoc on evolutionist attempts to establish phylogenies (lines of decent). Convergence is abundant in nature⁶. It is unlikely that all these convergencies happened upon the same solution along independent lines of decent. For example, evolutionists say that the incredibly complex eye evolved in separate species at least 40 separate times!⁷ This alone truly strains credibility of any naturalistic explanation!

Symbiotic Relationships - The many mutual dependencies between organisms, such as the cleaner fish and shark depicted on my web site, also provides a compelling argument for design. Naturalistic explanations of this phenomenon require fanciful, non-scientific stories.


Problems with the Theory of Evolution - Rebuttal to Budikka=s opening argument

Evolution often takes multiple definitions, so let me define it as the molecules-to-man, Neo-Darwinian theory of common decent via random mutation and natural selection that leads to large scale change, such as the evolution of new organs. Evolutionists very often try to sell small-scale change such as species variation, which they call micro-evolution, as evolution. Since everybody agrees that small scale change occurs, they can create the illusion that large scale evolution occurs by calling the small scale change evolution!

Buddika wasted not time in making the usual evolutionist allegations: ACreationism is the art of combining the world's most diverse collection of fallacious reasoning, dishonesty, misquotation, smoke, and mirrors.@

Its ironic that Buddika immediately resorts to this in the beginning of his post, since his very opening argument is laced with misquotes and Asmoke & mirrors@! First consider that he quotes Dr. Chandra Wickramasinghe as a Acommitted creationist@! This is not true! Dr. Wickramasinghe in fact fact is adamantly opposed to creation! (Dr. Wickramasinghe does reject neo-Darwinian evolution, recognizing the sheer impossibility of a protein forming by chance. But instead of embracing the idea of a Creator, he supports the idea that life came from space, aka panspermia. All he has done is push the problem to another time and place. He is like many others who refuse to acknowledge their accountability to a Creator. This a priori philosophical world-view shows that their views regarding origins are religious and not scientific. See www.panspermia.com)

Next Budikka twists the words of the creationists he quotes to make it appear these creationists do not think there is evidence for creation. What the creationists are saying is that there is no testable scientific evidence, ie empirical evidence for creation. Of course there isn=t, since the creation event occurred thousands of years ago and it is not something that can be reproduced in the lab! What Budikka isn=t telling you is that these same creation scientists also state that evolution is not testable and is therefore not empirical science.

Though both creation and evolution are outside the realm of empirical science, we can still treat them as scientific models that we can examine to determine which one best fits the evidence. I can quote evolutionst scientists who support the fact that SETI is scientific (the search for intelligent life from outer space). In this case they support the notion that searching for an intelligent source is scientific. So when evolutionists claim that it is not scientific to apply this same practice to looking for an Intelligent Source for life, they are clearly applying a double-standard.

Budikka=s next course of action is to attack creationists. I have been debating creation/evolution for about 3 years now, and unfortunately this is a very common tactic among evolutionists. If you cannot attack the evidence, then attack the messenger! He cites several URLs to Talk.Origins, a dogmatic web site that is rabidly anti-creation (another very common tactic is to refer to Talk.Origins as if it is the end-all harborer of unerring truth). Well, I am here to debate the evidence and not the character of those Budikka chooses to attack. He can debate this somewhere else. Obviously some mistakes such as quoting out of context will happen, I=ve sure made my share. But most of the evolutionists attempts to dig up dirt end up as frivolous claims that only serve to divert attention from the evidence.

Next Budikka invokes argument from authority when he states that most scientists believe in evolution. But a majority is never a criteria to establish something as truth. Most scientists contemporary to Galileo opposed his ideas of a heliocentric system. It is also an undeniable truth that most of these scientists have a pre-established worldview based in materialism and humanism. A well known evolutionist geneticist, Dr. Richard Lewontin, once wrote a very revealing comment:

AWe take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment to materialismYwe cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.@ ⁸

Finally, Budikka states: AVirtually none of the creationists have degrees in any biological or paleontological science@ . This is not true. In fact, of the literally thousands of scientists who support creation, the largest group consists of scientists with advanced degrees in biology. Some are listed here, and yet more here. Also note that virtually all of the great scientists of the past were creationists, including Newton, Kepler, Pasteur, Lord Kelvin, Pascal, Boyle, Maxwell, etc, all revolutionary pioneers in their respective fields. (For even more on this subject, see Dr Ed Holroyd=s superb article, Scientists for Creation).

Budikka=s next course of action is to criticize the Bible! I thought this was supposed to be a debate on creation/evolution! Again this is an incredibly common tactic by evolutionists. I will say they are very consistent! One must wonder why you never see them attacking Hindu scripture, Buddhism, the Muslim Koran (which he actually subtly defends), Mormonism, etc. Why is it these religious writings are never criticized? If they think the Bible is full of myths, why do they spend so much time and energy criticizing it? Why does it bother them so? I certainly don=t waste my time on UFO abduction or Elvis-is-alive web sites!

Again, this debate was established to debate origins, not the character of men or the validity of the Bible. So I won=t spend much time here, other than to say that Budikka=s allegations against the Bible are standard regulation and have been refuted all over the web. I have an introductory Bible Evidences site, and for more in-depth information would recommend ChristianAnswers.Net and Contradictions Refuted. Let me also add that Budikka cites from AThe Jesus Seminar, an organization of [liberal] Biblical scholars@. What he left out was the word I added! The Jesus Seminar is a rouge fringe of far left liberal Atheologians@ who do not even remotely reflect mainstream Bible scholarship. They have an obvious disdain of the God of the Bible, and they reject all the fundamental tenets of Christianity. See http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-t017.html

Budikka then uses a ploy right out of the standard evolution handbook, claiming that creation must be false because creationists do not publish articles in the major peer-reviewed science journals! Creation scientists have many published articles in the journals of their respective fields, provided the article does not deal with origins. Anybody familiar with the major science mags knows of their dogmatic protection of their sacred cow of evolution, and their snubbing of anti-evolutionists who try to challenge it. The major science mags represent a members-only club of evolutionists. So a creationist being heard in these mags is like expecting a pro-lifer to be allowed a voice at a NOW convention! Because of this censorship, creationists long ago gave up trying to publish creation-related material in these magazines, and instead publish in their own peer-reviewed journals, such as the CRS Quarterly, or the CREATION ex nihilo Technical Journal.

Budikka states: AScience is not religion. There is no mythology, no god, no ritual, no prayer, and nothing that must be taken on faith.@

Webster=s lists one definition of religion as Aa cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith@. This is exactly what belief in evolution is, since it takes incredible faith to believe that life came about by blindly guided random processes, such that given enough time scales can turn into feathers, or that fish can turn into men. The faith required to believe a single cell formed by chance is beyond comprehension, something Sir Fred Hoyle calls "nonsense of the highest order."⁹ Webster calls it Areligion@.

Budikka then attempts to bolster his claim that evolution is not faith by immediately redefining evolution to include observable changes! I warned of this tactic when I began my rebuttal of Budikka=s opening argument. The FAQ he cites defines it as Achange in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool@. This is a fact that creationists have never disputed. Of course allele (gene version) frequencies change! What creationists dispute is the illusion that there is no limit to this change such that new genes come about that lead to improved features and new organs. Note the author of the FAQ attacks traditional definitions from a science dictionary and standard dictionaries, because it vaporizes the mirage that allows him to claim evolution as Atrue@. Me thinks Budikka should rethink his allegation that creationists use smoke and mirrors, and to look in his own mirror.

Budikka states AEternity necessarily extends as far into the past as it does into the future, and this being so, how could this god have ever reached the time when he began to create this universe? It is impossible.@

An infinite God is the only possibility. There must be a first Cause, and the only logical possibility is that First Cause was always here and was not Himself created. Atheistic evolutionists are forced to postulate that something came from nothing, and that is a logical impossibility. It also defies the laws of thermodynamics.

Budikka: ACreationists insist that science prove and demonstrate every single step from the Big Bang to the present@

This is a blatant strawman. No creationist I know of Ainsists@ this.

Budikka: Athere is only one Theory of Evolution, which maintains the consistent position of an Earth approximately 4.5 billion years old@

This is simply not true. The Atheory of evolution@ has shown to be a grab bag of answers depending on the question or situation. A theory that explains everything explains nothing, which removes it as a scientific theory. Consider for example the warring evolutionary camps between gradualists and punctuationists. Also, the Atheory of evolution@ has not maintained a consistent age of 4.5 billion years. Seems like ever 20 years or so another couple million or billion get added on. Also, maintaining something does not make it true.

Budikka first attempts to label my representation as deceptive: AThis web site is an example of how creationists muddy the water, because it does not accurately describe wrasse activity. They primarily pick parasites from other fish, not "food from their mouths."

Budikka failed to do proper research. From Britannica: AThe larger fishes recognize the cleaner fish and will not devour it. They allow free passage into their cavernous mouths and gill chambers, in which the cleaner fish feeds upon leftovers and parasites. Each Labroides maintains a "cleaning station," which is visited regularly by larger fishes such as groupers, eels, jacks, and snappers.@¹⁰

Budikka then gives his just-so story: AAn evolutionary scenario for shark-wrasse interaction is simple: those sharks which allowed the cleaner fish to rid them of parasites were not plagued by infection. They remained healthier for longer, and reproduced more of their kind, who were similarly disposed to allow the wrasse to clean them. Now how hard was that?@

Stories are not science. Budikka=s story also failed to address how the cleaner fish=s bravery evolved. But I=m sure he can come up with another story. The point is, there are many, many other examples of symbiosis in nature. Are we to believe all the just-so stories that need to be cooked up for all these dependent relationships? What about the Nile crocodile that allows a certain type of bird (the Egyptian plover) to walk right in and clean its mouth? What about the inter-dependencies of honey bees? The Yucca plant and Yucca moth? The list goes on and on, just like the just -so stories will go on and on.

Budikka also enlightens us on why there are not many shark chomping incidents on humans - because we don=t taste very good! So I guess through the years sharks learned to recognize a human when he saw one and realized Ahey, there=s one that isn=t going to taste very well! Let=s move on to that caviar over there!@ This is refreshing to know next time I=m in the water with a shark! :)

Budikka then spends a good deal of time complaining about parasites. This is not germane to the problem symbiosis poses for evolution. Nevertheless, here are some links to creationist explanations of parasites and viruses.

Finally, I think it is important to expose a hypocrisy on Budikka=s part. He states AThey spend all their time trying to destroy@. Most of Budikka=s first post is laced with attacks against creationists and the Bible, and in his words Aa short-sighted , incompetent, or malicious god!@ This only serves the point that belief in evolution has its roots more in a dogmatic world view than in science.

Budikka continues his assault on the Creator, stating AHe had to kludge together a system in the giraffe of which a human engineer would be ashamed.@ First, since I am an engineer I can state that I am certainly not Aashamed@ of this circulatory design, and am in fact quite awed. I think Budikka would be hard-pressed to find any expert in giraffes who would agree with his assessment that the system is a shameful Akludge@. Instead, they would state that it is amazingly complex and quite effective at servings its purpose. Go here to read more about this Akludge@, and see if the scientists involved in this research are Aashamed@.

Budikka fails to address the point of the series, and mistakenly erects a strawman: AThis web site asks how evolution could generate an animal with such a disadvantage (as the giraffe is at when drinking), but this disadvantage is the same whether the animal evolved or was created.@

My web site asks no such thing. My web site asks how evolution can account for the valves in the giraffe=s neck that must be fully formed and in place before the giraffe could ever take a drink.

Budikka questions why such a creature would be created in the first place. Well, luckily Budikka was not a consultant in the design process, as we would have a very drab and boring creation of like-sized animals and like-sized trees! The Giraffe shows exquisite creativity, and its peculiarity serves to thwart any naturalistic explanation of its origin. The Creator is sending a message with the Giraffe - if you believe the Giraffe came about by blind, chance processes, you might as well believe in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy!

(BTW, after further research, I do agree with Budikka that Aelastic blood vessels@ is a more accurate depiction than Aspecial reservoir@, so I will make the appropriate change on my web site)

Budikka offers nothing new here, so I won=t spend much time on it. Budikka tells a story of a whale found in 1919 with Aa strange appendage near its tail, which turned out to be a leg, including a femur, a tibia, an ankle, and a foot.@ My first question would be ADid they also find pantyhose on the legs?@ :) This is the imagination it takes to get a wolf-like mammal to turn into a whale! Seriously, Budikka=s story has long been debunked. Also notice Budikka totally failed to address how the whale evolved from a vastly dissimilar ancestor, considering complex mechanisms such as its buoyancy system and sonar. All we get are tales of various fossils that evolutionists piece together of various mammals.

I have reached our agreed limit, so I will wait until my next post to include a rebuttal to Budikka=s charges against my remaining 3 series. I would like to close with a couple challenges to Budikka.

Challenge #1: Invertebrate fossils constitute 95% of the entire fossil record. From these fossils we find a wide range of fully-formed, remarkably complex species such as the trilobite, jelly fish, clams, etc. Here=s the problem: These complex life forms appear in the fossil record, WITHOUT A SINGLE TRACE OF ANCESTORS! Since we have unearthed literally trillions of these fossils, we should have trillions upon trillions of ancestor examples in pre-Cambrian strata BUT WE FIND NONE! This alone should end the debate! No just-so story can justify this huge evolutionary calamity. Why do we find trillions of invertebrates, but no ancestors? There simply is no evidence whatsoever of evolution in the fossil record where it should be the most abundant. The fossils often used as transitional examples are mammalian, which make up less than 0.1% of the record! The reason is that these fossils more easily allow wild speculation and fantasy to rule the day, as shown by the many failed examples put forth from this group, such as Piltdown, Nebraska Man, Ramapethicus, the horse series, Mesonychid, etc. I would like to save Budikka time by suggesting he shouldn't bother citing Kathleen Hunt=s Talk.Origins FAQ (its is a virtual certainty this would have been his response), since she provides no examples in this category, as her fantasy list is mostly mammalian, from that 0.1% group. Also, please do not show us pictures of clams turning into clams.

Challenge #2: Several recent articles in Nature magazine brought to our attention the surprisingly high mutation rate among humans. Based on data from Crow=s article¹¹, a whopping 40 births per female are needed to get one offspring without a deleterious mutation!¹²   Realistically there are only three possibilities: 1) the data gathered is faulty (unlikely), 2) rates were drastically lower in the past (very unlikely), 3) the assumption of man/monkey common ancestry is wrong (the most reasonable answer).

Note that higher mutation rates are no problem for the YEC creation model (6-10K yr). On the other hand, if you lower the rate, then evolution slows to a virtual stall since the cost of bringing a hypothetical beneficial mutation to fixation greatly increases (aka Haldane=s Dilemma). Also, Crow=s attempt to invoke truncation selection is a just-so story with no evidence to support it, and in fact you will not find it in genetics text books. Again, stories are not science. Finally, Crow erects one heck of an illusion when he claims it helps explain the advantage of sex to evolution! This is nonsense, since sex slows evolution, causing many evolutionists to recognize sex as one of the great paradoxes of evolution! Creationists agree that sex slows the propagation of harmful mutations, but this makes it a conservation mechanism only!

In conclusion, I hope my opening argument in this debate demonstrates to the objective reader the overwhelming evidence for a Creator, and the amount of hand-waving an evolutionist must do to support an idea void of any real evidence. I await my opponent's response, particularly to the specific challenges above.

Budikka Post #2:  Rebuttal

Return to Debate Table of Contents

1 - Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden, New York: Random House, 1977, p. 25.

2 - Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, Cell/Introduction.

3 - See evolutionist Dr Tom Schnieder=s excellent primer here.

4 - Eldredge and Tattersall, The Myths of Human Evolution, 1982, p 45-46

5 - Convergence is used to describe a trait that cannot be attributed to common decent. Its very definition is anti-evolution. An example of convergence is the remarkable similarity between human and octopus eyes.

6 - Gould, The Panda=s Thumb, 1980, p 271

7 - E. Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, & Inheritance, 1982, p 611.

8 - Richard Lewontin, 'Billions and billions of demons', The New York Review, January 9, 1997, p. 31.

9 - See http://www.carm.org/evolution/evodds.htm

10 - Encyclopædia Britannica Online, Perciform, Interspecific relationships.

11 - J. Crow, AThe odds of losing at genetic roulette@, Nature 397, p 293 - 294.

12 - Given p = probability diploid genome is free of error, female needs to produce at least 2/p to pay this cost and maintain the population (one for her and one for her mate). Hence, the birth rate needed to produce one offspring without new deleterious mutation is B = 2e^U. Crow uses U = 3. This gives B = 40.

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