Fundamentalist View
Fundamentalist View
1. by the acts of a creator
2. creation of basic plan and animal types with
characteristics complete in first representative
3. variation and speciation limited within each
kind
4. creation took place in 6 days
The Creation of Adam - Michaelangelo (from the ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel)
Two biggest weaknesses of evolutionary theory:
1. no adequate explanation for the origin of life
from dead chemicals
- presence of oxygen in atmosphere
poses a problem, if oxygen was present there would be no sugars, amino
acids, purines, etc.
- and if you consider ozone which protects
the earth from ultraviolet rays, you need oxygen. Without this layer
life would be broken down and soon eliminated.
- need a suitable ocean for the building blocks
of life--must overcome diluting effect, and how do you prevent certain
molecules from reacting with one another and destroying one another (ex.
amino acids and sugars react and destroy one another)
- DNA, RNA, and proteins then must assemble
themselves into working biological systems and then they must self maintain
and replicate, how is this possible without guidance??
- evolution which constitutes an increase
in complexity competes with the second law of thermodynamics, that all
things tend towards decay
2. the fossil record (the only representation of
whether evolution actually occurred in the past) lacks any transitional
forms, and all types appear fully formed when first present.
Weakness in Middle ground:
1. the 24 hour period must be taken literally becase:
a. phrase
used in the Bible, "there was evening and then there was day," day has
one period of
light and one of darkness
b. some
of the creation events are not in the expected order if long periods of
time are involved
- plants are created on day 3, sund was created on day 4, and animals needed
for pollination
are created on day 5
c. Bible
says that death entered the world with the fall of man, implying that there
was no
evolutionary animal death before the appearance of man on Earth.
Why the creationists believe the Earth is approximately
10,000 years old.
1. When the most favorable parameters (for evolutionists)
are used (no initial salt content and minimum amount of salt entry per
year), a value of only 76 million years is obtained.
2. more reasonable parameters can date the Earth
substantially lower than radiometric dating:
-build up
of salt in the ocean-- 76,000,000 years
-build up
of sediment in ocean-- 15 million years
- build up
of helium in atmosphere-- 1.8 million years
-decay of
short period comets-- 10,000 years
-influx of
radiocarbon to Earth-- 10,000 years
Flood evidences dating the flood to 5000 years ago:
1. the earth's features (mountains, canyons, etc.)
require some type of catastrophic explanantion.
2. sedimentary rock covers substantial portions
of North America and other continents.
3. Earth contains many great fossil bed, none of
which appear to be forming today, fossils require rapid burial to be preserved.
4. geologic column was not formed in a gradual
manner, but rapidly
a. only
15-20% of the Earth's land surface has even 3 (of the 10) geologic periods
appearing in the
correct consecutive
order
b. animal
mobility considerations are sufficient to produce the tendencies seen in
the column
c. volcanic
explosion at Mt. St. Helens produced similar strigraphic features (to those
found at the
"grand canyon") in only day and hours
5. carbon-14 dating results provide a date for
the flood of around 5000 years ago.
6. origin of civiliation is agreed to be in the
Middle East where Noah's Ark landed
7. the oldest written materials date back to 5-6
thousand years ago
8. the oldest known living things, Brislecone pine
trees in California date to about 5000 years ago
9. study of the build up of populations make it
clear that humans have existed for only a few thousand years
10. an analysis of 30,000 radiocarbon dating results
published in the radiocarbodn journal shows an unmistakable spike in death
of living things about 5000 years ago.
Radiometric Dating Flaws
1. decay constant is probably constant so this
is ok.
2. assume that there has been no loss or addition
of the parent of daughter component throughout its history (not likely
in an open system)
3. what was the parent/daughter ratio when the
object being tested was created??
--there have been many cited cases when the obtained data
was very different from the expected date based on the position of the
rock in the geologic column
Some important things to think about:
1. Hoyle, a famous astronomer, found that the probability
of life forming by chance in 5 billion years is as likely as a tornado
sweeping through a junkyard and assembling a Boeing 747
2. How could an animal intermediate between one
kind and another survive (and why would it be selected to?)
3. Why would evolution produce two sexes, many
times over? Asexual reproduction would seem more likely and efficient.
4. Evolution provides no explanation for why our
inner sense of moral values should even exist.