Life, the Universe and Everything

Quite a contrast.

A recently released book, Rare Earth, goes into detail explaining life on Earth and the chance of life on other planets. This is done by showing the many conditions necessary for life on Earth and explaining why it would be unreasonable to assume life is even possible elsewhere in the universe.

Tonight, TNT showed a movie, Contact, with a totally different outlook. The conclusion of the movie: life has been around for billions and billions of years. Humanity is just now progressing to a technological point where we can bring ourselves to the attention to the older civilizations in the galaxy. "If it is just us, it seems like an awful waste of space."

Also tonight, The Learning Channel explained their view of life elsewhere in the universe, using the Drake Equation: N = R* × fp × ne × fl × fi × fc × L (http://www.seti.org/science/drake-calc.html)

The developer of the equation estimates 246,000 civilizations in space with technology at least as developed as our own. Amazingly enough, every single component of the equation requires guesswork, since there is no evidence for any of it, so any conclusion can be supported-hypothetically anyway.

NASA's entire approach to space exploration is to find life elsewhere in the universe. It doesn't matter if it is a microbe as long as there is life. Such a finding would, in their view, validate a humanistic view. If you want to check on this, watch any show featuring a NASA scientist or visit their website.

Another website has a demonstration done by a college student showing how the proper combination of gases can be modified by an electric charge to produce amino acids, the building blocks of life. The reasoning goes: once amino acids are available, life is close behind.

The theory of evolution provides the basis for these humanistic views. With life arising by chance, life could arise elsewhere, finally evolving to a greater species with greater intelligence. Although Charles Darwin is credited with originating the theory, he actually borrowed it from others, including his dad. Darwin's main claim to fame were his two books, Voyage of the Beagle (really fascinating reading, great travelogue) and The Origin of Species, which became popular reading promoting evolution. (There is a story that Darwin returned to God before he died, but it arose from only one woman who may or may not have actually talked to him before he died. In either event, his family who was at his deathbed denied this report.)

A quote from Darwin's autobiography sheds some light on his religious outlook, "I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all of my friends, will be everlasting punished." It may also show the view of many atheistic people (Darwin described himself as an agnostic). In essence, they want their lives on earth to end with no consequences for their actions. For without God's judgment, there is no reason to live life within a framework of morality.

I'll mention just a few of the major evolution theory problems.

The geologic record is used to show the evolutionary progression of animals over time. However, the nice chart showing the different epochs in history along with the corresponding plants and animals is, itself, flawed. No place on earth contains every level. In fact, the levels are not even in the same order in different locations, and levels are even skipped. The age and placement of the levels was determined from the fossil record, whose age was determined from the levels. Very circular thinking.

Eyes cause major evolutionary chaos. Without the complete structure, they are useless. However, in the geologic record, eyes suddenly appear. There is no precedent for them. Darwin said the eye structure caused concern for which he had no answer.

Another major problem is with biogenesis, or the beginning of life, ie, once upon a time; a precise collection of amino acids got together and decided to come to life. A fact of science is that nothing living can arise by itself, but that's exactly what the evolutionary theory proposes.

In a discussion with an evolutionary proponent, if you keep asking, "Where did that come from?" At some point you get to the beginning of the universe. Then the evolutionist has no answer. The proponent has to say matter is eternal and has always been. However, matter can't spontaneously come into being.

I haven't even mentioned the French cave with fossils from many different epochs jumbled together, fossils showing up in the wrong level (known to evolutionists as "seepage"), bugs with compounds that explode when mixed together (a defensive device), or creatures with living flora and fauna inside their digestive tracts that help with digestion-including humans.

To know all these and still to be an evolution proponent takes a lot of faith. Faith that every law of thermodynamics, biology, and most other sciences was suspended at the precisely necessary point of time to allow a huge jump past what is known about that science.

How about theistic evolution? Evolution, but God did it. Otherwise known as a pick your verse belief. "And God said, 'Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.' And it was so." Genesis 1:24 seems to rule out theistic evolution, while also bringing up another point against evolution, namely, the lack of transition forms.

Searching for transition forms, including the "missing link" between human and ape-which really isn't missing, it's just non-existent, is as old as evolutionary theory and paleontology. It's still an unsuccessful search, although the link was "found" many times. One of the silliest concerns the Java "Man." An entire race of pre-humans whose existence turned out to be the result of a mistaken pig tooth. (I'm still amazed at the amount of information gleaned from the merest tidbit, psychically, I suppose,.)

In science, there are two types of reasoning: deductive, where the researcher decides on a conclusion, then gathers all available evidence that supports or disproves it, and inductive, where the researcher gathers evidence, then draws a conclusion from that evidence.

A major drawback with deductive reasoning occurs when the scientist, who should non-emotionally gather evidence, is so sure of his desired outcome that all evidence contrary to what he wants to believe is dismissed, thus preserving his prejudice. This appears to happen often to evolutionary scientists who have faith enough to believe "coincidence" has overruled natural laws enough times to produce our universe and everything in it from nothing.

A standard theorem states: In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, the simplest explanation is the right one. Evolutionists have to believe in an astronomical number of coincidences that defy every scientific law ever developed. As a Christian, I just have to believe in God.

Hmm, takes less faith to be a Christian than to believe in evolution.