Doug Batchelor - Evolution, Creation and Logic

TOPICS: Evolution theory, Creationism

I’m going to be talking with you about the subject of creation, evolution, and logic. And the reason for that title is because you can't be secure in life if you don't know something about three things: where you've come from, what you're doing here, and where you're going. These are foundational truths. And so, understanding this subject means everything. And what concerns me is I’m coming from the outside into Christianity - I grew up believing there was no God, being taught and very secure in believing evolution, being an atheist, if not at least, an agnostic and I probably went back and forth between the two, to a position where now I believe firmly in divine creation – In a recent creation - I’ll give you reasons for that - and it changed my life. It gave purpose to my life. So we need a starting point - and Isaiah 1:18 - the Lord invites us to use our heads, "'Come now, let us reason together,' says the Lord."

I believe that there are good reasons in geology, biology, archaeology, paleontology that all support creation. And I'd like to look at some of these things with you. I believe in intelligent design. Intelligent design says that wherever you see some sophisticated design, there must be an intelligence behind it. Keep in mind, back in the days when evolution was born, we had very humble scientific instruments. We didn't have the laboratories we have today. Microscopes - when they would look at a cell they saw what we would call a single cell. They could not take the hyper-powerful super electron microscopes that we have now, and look at a cell and see all the incredible complexity in that cell. Where once we saw what you see when you look at an egg - you see a shell - the cell wall - and you see the contents inside - the white - and then you see the yolk - the nucleus - and that's what they saw when they used to look at eggs - at cells - just very simple things.

Now we know, with our microscopes, there are worlds - there are cities that are moving and swimming inside a single cell. There are machines, there are transportation systems, there are communications systems, there are chemical systems - all within one cell of life. We know that the DNA - the reproductive system that it has inside a single cell that triggers when it should split and reproduce itself is extremely sophisticated. One scientist put it this way: picture New York City at rush hour - I’m serious - think about New York City at rush hour. I've been there. I grew up there. You've got more happening under New York City at rush hour than you have happening in all of Sacramento during the day. I mean, it's very busy. You've got not only the subways going, you've got the plumbing that goes underneath the city, and you've got the fresh systems, and the sewage systems, the electrical systems and the - the fiber optics. And all of that's just going on underground and then look at all that's going on above ground, with elevators going up and down, and traffic going horizontally, and the lights and the people and the swarms. And - one - a scientist said one single cell of life has more happening inside than New York City at rush hour.

Now what are the chances that lightning could strike a puddle four billion years ago - pick your date, it doesn't matter - and produce spontaneous cells of life? If it is that simple, why can't we reproduce that scientifically? Why would we teach, as fact, something we cannot demonstrate scientifically? Isn't that unscientific? If we say, 'Oh this happened. This we know.' Alright, show me. For example, this was back during the time of Louis Pasteur, they would take a lump of meat and they - or a carcass - and they would set it down somewhere and in a few days they would see worms and things springing out of the carcass and they said, 'See, we watch life form all the time. See how these worms came out of that carcass from nowhere? New life is constantly forming.' And Pasteur looked at that and he said, 'No, you're not noticing the flies that are landing on it laying eggs. He then took the same meat or something, and he put it in a vacuum environment and there was nothing. And they realized that here's a law: all life in the world comes from life.

We cannot find a single example anywhere in the observable world where life comes from non-life. We are unable, with all of our sophisticated laboratories and equipment, to produce life from non-life. They say it happened all over the world spontaneously, without any intelligence, but it takes intelligence to have inter-working systems and organization and life. Then you have - nature is full of what you would call symbiotic relationships where different plants and animals and creatures cannot survive without the help of coexisting, in some way, with others. They depend on each other. There are plants that - and trees - that just will not survive and pollinate, without bees. There are plants that cannot survive without - and there's a certain flower that cannot pollinate without one particular moth that's got a very long proboscis that it uses and gets down and it goes just to those flowers. Just that flower needs just that moth in order to survive and there's no scenario that you can create, through history, that would create an example for why that would be necessary. You've got the - there are birds and animals that coexist and they protect and watch out for each other. You go in the ocean and you've got everything from the sea anemone that lives with the clown fish and it stings everything but the clown fish and the clown fish protects and cleans the anemone and they just always seem to have had this relationship. Little birds that ride on the backs of the rhinos and pick off their ticks.

And I mean, I can just go through a - you've got, in your belly - I hate to tell you this, but you've got bacteria. But the good news is they're friendly bacteria - let's hope they are - and you need them to help you digest food. And if you take an antibiotic and it kills all the friendly bacteria, then you've got to eat something like yogurt, which shouldn't be eaten by anybody because it's called 'yogurt' and that's supposed to help give you friendly bacteria again. And there is so much complexity and inter-working systems in life, that to say this all happens spontaneously - it doesn't matter if you give it millions or billions of years, it becomes ludicrous.

Then you've got something called the law of entropy. This is the second law of thermodynamics and, basically, it says that nature tends from order to disorder in isolated systems. It's a law of life. Let's suppose that you've got a beautiful garden and it's - you've got all the rows are carefully weeded and everything is in order and you've got things stacked. You've got your corn, your, tomatoes, your melons, or your zucchini and it's all growing and it's nice. You've got some flowers just for good looks and - but you die and you don't tend the garden, you don't water the garden - what happens to the garden? It'll all break down to the common denominator of chaos. You've got a beautifully built house with a manicured yard and the owner dies and no one takes care of the house. What happens? Roof falls in - it will turn back, given enough time, to the elements of the earth. It just reduces to chaos again.

And so, in life, where you see order and design and structure, there has to be an outside intelligence and power that is introducing that order and design or it just defies the law - the second law - of thermodynamics.

Then you've got a flood of evidence that we're surrounded with around the world. The fossil record, around the world, says that there was a great flood. The theory was what caused this mass sudden extermination of the dinosaurs? They said, well, a virus somehow developed. Because it happens - you know, we don't know where AIDS comes from - some virus developed and just wiped them all out. Then - that didn't satisfy them - they said, 'No, there was a shortage of food. There was a famine. They all starved off.' And then they said the birth of some of the primitive mammal rodents began to eat all of their eggs and it killed them all off. And they had all these theories, but the problem was, the evidence - the fossils of the dinosaurs are in copious graveyards where they are covered with silt, which was once mud. They died in a cataclysm of water.

So finally, after one excavation after another all over the world, the evidence could not be denied, there was some global catastrophe of a flood. So they said - they didn't want to say there was a global flood so they say an asteroid struck the earth and caused a tsunami, which caused a flood, which - how many of you have heard that now? That's the going theory now. Well, isn't that what the Bible says? Not an asteroid, but there was a flood.

But they say an asteroid hit the world and it caused the flood and it wiped them all out because they're all covered with silt in these mass graveyards. Do you know if you go up on a Mount Everest expedition, at 20,000 feet you're going to find giant clams? That is a long way from the ocean, way up. And all over the world, we see evidence that things were radically changed and something cataclysmic happened to our world that was worse than an asteroid, it was the flood of Noah. It says the heavens split, water came out of the earth in great jets, continental drift, all these things changed, and the fossil record tells us exactly what the Bible says: that there was a major change about 4,000 years ago that totally disrupted the world. There's a flood of evidence that supports that.

Now, then - I want to explain: I do believe in evolution, but lest someone stop the tape right there, let me explain - I believe in what you call micro-evolution. We see examples of micro-evolution all around us. If you look at the person next to you, you will see examples of micro-evolution. micro-evolution is where the rabbits - the common hare that is living out in the desert - after a few generations, for some reason, God has designed their DNA, for survival reasons, they will develop brown fur, where they can melt into their environment. And you will have a hare - it is still a hare - and it will be up in the Arctic and it will have white fur so it can blend into its environment. You will see great diversity of species that have evolved within their species.

And on their picture here I put, as an example - exhibit A - of what we would call micro-evolution is look at the incredible variety of dogs. You've got little bitty Dachshunds - they've got dogs with no hair and then they've got dogs that are racers. And then they've got dogs that are just covered with wrinkles that can barely walk and they've got dogs that are - just got long hair and they can't even see the eyes. And they're every stripe and type - they've got big old floppy ears and inky dinky ears and pudgy faces and long noses and - in the original dogs - Noah did not take, on the ark, a Dachshund and a Maltese and a German Shepherd and a St. Bernard and a Beagle and a Lhaso Apso and all the other dogs. He didn't take - he took two dogs.

And look at all the variety of people in the world that we see today, how many people did they all come from? Adam and Eve and then, once again, from everybody that was on the boat - on the ark. And look at all the variety - I could go around the world today, you know, because I've traveled quite a bit. And I can go to the different islands of Polynesia and I can see the differences between the Fijians and the Samoans, and the people from New Guinea, and the Aborigines, and it says, because of the breeding and the genes, different traits become dominant. So I believe in micro-evolution.

But what you do not see is something that is half dog and half cat. You do not see crossing happening between the types. That doesn't happen. And the Bible says God made each one after their kind - we would say species. You'll have great diversity among the species, but the species do not cross. In the fossil record there is no evidence of the transitional forms between species. Horseshoe crabs are still Horseshoe crabs. And this is what they see in the fossil record as well.

So there are missing links. They're - the transitional forms between the different creatures are still missing. You know, you've seen the textbooks where they've got the, you know, the monkey walking on his knuckles. And then slowly he starts to walk a little more on his feet and he gets more and more erect until you've got Homo Erectus and the man is standing up and he's got the normal gait and they show all these things in the illustration of the books. But, you know, the creatures - the fossil evidence in the transition between the monkey and the man does not exist. You will have an expedition working in Africa - they are being funded by a university or some private supporter or some deep pocket - and they are digging, looking for evidence of human evolution. And if they don't produce something, their funding dries up. They are extremely motivated to find something. And so, when they find any kind of ancient Gorilla bone - Orangutan bone - they will get epoxy and an artist and they become very creative and they say, 'Well, you know, there's a little difference here in the skull shape. We think this was a transition.' And they start to patch it together, they call it what they want and they say, 'We found the missing link.' They haven't.

We have complete skeletons of dinosaurs within a certain species - many of the dinosaurs - complete skeletons. There is no complete skeleton - if man has been around for the millions of years that they tell us, then how come we can't find one complete skeleton? We just find these little pieces and a lot of imagination and they create it. It's just not there, friends. Well, some say, 'Well, because there's similarity among species - and there are certain similarities among species, that means that they all evolved from a common source.

Now I just put a picture up here on the screen. You've got a Corvette, you've got a Ford 350 truck, and you've got a Yamaha motorcycle. They all were made at different factories. Do they have certain things in common? Well, let's think about it. Do they all have, like, rubber tires? Or at least some derivative of that. Do they all have internal combustion systems? Unless one of them's electronic and that would be a shame. Do they all have electrical, like, lighting systems? Do they have an exhaust system? Got an intake system. They've got a lubrication system. They've got an acceleration - accelerator. Do they have braking systems? Why do they have all these in common? Obviously that pick-up truck was once a Corvette that came from the motorcycle that originated with a roller skate. No, the reason they share so many things in common is because they all operate in the same environment. They all operate under certain laws and so they share a lot of things in common. They're going to need the tail lights to say when they're braking. They're going to need the headlights so they can drive at night.

Why do you find similarities between people and monkeys and dogs and cats. There are certain things they have in common, no question about that, because they were made by the same God who said, 'I think I’ll make one with a little difference this way and, you know, I'd like to add this. This creature - I’ll make it different, but some similarities I like. I’m going to add that and this and make this.' And they all live in the same environment. We need systems to propel ourselves so we've all got legs or fins or wings. You know, it's amazing to me - flying fish?

God made fish that kept jumping out of the water so long that after millions of years they developed aerodynamic design? No, I’m being facetious, please. But the idea that there are fish that fly. There are - they don't really fly, they glide, they don't flap. But they glide a long way. I've seen them. There are squirrels that fly. Why do some fly and others don't? There are snakes in Indonesia that jump from trees and they can flatten their rib cage and glide. They've got frogs that will spread out their toes and fly. The idea that lizards could just keep running off cliffs and somehow, before they crashed on the bottom, develop something aerodynamic and hollow bones and feathers and pass that on to their offspring. You can give me billions of years and I just can't see any scenario where that would happen.

Yeah, there's similarities and then there's the dating dilemma. This is so important. I've only got a few moments to talk about it. The whole evolutionary scheme rises or falls on the dating. Since we cannot observe any spontaneous life happening, we cannot produce any spontaneous life happening anywhere in our world. In order for it to happen, the way that that's achieved is just say 'We've got millions of years. Millions of years have gone by.' But the dating methods they use - carbon-14 dating, radioisotope dating - they're all assuming that the environment is the same today as it was 6,000 years ago. And the Bible says it was radically different.

Let me read something to you called Compton's Encyclopedia . "N-14" - or carbon-14 - "interacts with cosmic rays. Scientists believe that cosmic rays have been bombarding the atmosphere ever since the earth was formed," - they're believing it's constant - "while the amount of nitrogen in the atmosphere has remained constant." - they're assuming that. They don't know - "consequently, C-14 or carbon-14 formation is thought to occur at a constant rate. Although the current ratio of C-14 to other carbon atoms in the atmosphere is known, scientists are not certain that this ratio has been constant. Errors in radio carbon dating can be caused by inaccurate radiation or particle counts, contamination of a sample with more modern carbon, and stray radiation striking the counter. Using relative dating methods, scientists are able to distinguish which events occurred, but they're not always able to establish exactly when they occurred.

You know how most of the dating - the ancient dating - is achieved? You've got to listen carefully. They find a fossil within a certain strata - at a certain depth in the earth - and they say, 'Because it was found at this depth, it must be this many thousands of years old.' Well, how do you know that that depth is that many millions or thousands of years old? 'Because of the fossils we found there. These are very ancient fossils and we found them at that depth. That depth must represent a very long time ago.' Well, how do you know that that depth is so ancient? 'Because of the fossils we found there? And how do you know those fossils are so old? 'Because of how deep we found them.'

That's what you call circular reasoning . It all depends on is the radiocarbon-14 dating accurate? They can only assume it's accurate based on what they test in the modern environment. You walk into a room, you see a candle burning and you shut the door and I say, 'How long was that candle burning?' You'll say, 'Well, let me measure how quickly I see it burn and that might give me some idea about how long the candle was burning.' But I say, 'No, wait a second. You don't know how tall it was when it started. Furthermore, you don't know if it's burning at the same rate now as it was before you walked in the room. When you walked in the room, you may have changed how much oxygen was in the room.' There's so many variables that make it very difficult for you to know with a certainty how quickly that candle has been burning.

That's the problem that they've got with the dating methods. If you want to know how old things are, to do real science - you know how good scientists would measure? They would develop their theory, then they would go back 65 million years and say, 'Sure enough, this is when it started.' We have no way to go back in time and test the theory of timing that far back. And so, it is nothing but a theory. You're mocked if you're telling people that it's still a theory. National Geographic came out with a magazine that says, 'Was Darwin Right?' Before they give any evidence, you open to the page of the article and it says - 'Was Darwin Wrong?' - and the article says, 'No, evolution is a fact.' They haven't even given any evidence. It's being taught as a fact, but when you really think about it, it's not logical, friends.

I believe that there are some things we can't explain. Do we have a problem explaining things about God? A little bit. 'Where did God come from?' 'I don't know.' But you ask evolutionists 'Where did things come from?' 'Well, world came from the sun when it exploded and it was sent - hurling our solar system out into space and' - 'Well, where did our sun come from?' 'Well, it came from a supernova out there in the universe when a star exploded.' 'Where'd that star come from?' 'Well, it came from gas particles that collided.' 'Where'd that come from?' 'Well, we...' - and eventually, you know what they're going to say? 'There's a mystery. We don't know where something came from.' Now they say, the big bang - get this - they say the big bang was all the matter in the universe was somehow compressed to something the size of the head of a pin. How many of you heard that one? It exploded. Where did the pinhead of material come from?

Either way, you're going to come to one of two choices. You can believe all the beauty and all the organization, and all the wonders and all the inter-working design, and all the symmetry and all the math, and the healing, and the symbiotic relationships in the world around us today all came from a pinhead that exploded. Or, or there's an intelligent God and we don't know where He came from because He is from everlasting to everlasting.