Tape 4 - Evolution vs. Creation Seminar

Park Meadows Church

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So we're going to ask, first of all, that Dr. Ray Harris come and present the first affirmative. And then he will be followed by Dr.

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Henry Morris with the first negative. And then Dr. Baker will come and give the second affirmative.

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Then Dr. Gish will come and give the second negative. These men will be allowed 30 minutes each in a presentation.

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That will take two hours. We'll take a brief break after an hour, not for you, but for the TV cameras and for the tape recorders, okay?

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And any time you have to take a break, you do what nature tells you to do, okay? And just go ahead, but we're going to move right along.

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And then after each man has had a 30 -minute presentation of their position, then they will come back and each man will be allowed a 10 -minute rebuttal.

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And then after the rebuttal, and they've done this, this ought to run somewhere around two and a half hours. And then for those who want to ask questions, we'll have a structured question and answer period after those who want to leave have been allowed to do so.

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And the question and answer period will be on a structured line, and I'll say a word about that at that time. All right, we're going to begin. This is

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Dr. Ray Harris, the geology department here at Texas Tech, to come and give the first affirmative position on evolution as an explanation of origins.

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All right, Dr. Harris, if you will, please. Good afternoon.

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My name is Ray Harris. You'll notice that it's spelled in the feminine manner, R -A -E, just in case women lib really makes it.

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I'd like to thank you for any attention that you might give my comments this afternoon. As usual in most arguments, much of the difficulty is due to each side using identical terms with different meanings.

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Today is no exception. For example, I use the word evolution to mean the slow, orderly, directional change with time in any system.

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I do not use the word evolution as an explanation for why many systems, including the organic world, has evolved.

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My first major publication was entitled The Evolution of the Beartooth Mountains.

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The area has a very long history of many separate events becoming what it is today over a long period of time.

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Here is a popular textbook entitled Evolution of the

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Earth. In both of cases, the subject matter is the history of the earth with abundant evidence to show it took a long time to become what it is today.

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My point is this. An explanation for how and why an event took place is a completely different question from did it or did it not take place.

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Neither I, nor anyone else at this time, can explain how gravity forces are transmitted, but mass does fall and apples do also.

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Both Dr. Morris and Dr. Gish claim in their publications that the world is very, very young, a few thousand years, perhaps six.

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Therefore, they say evolution could not have occurred. In addition, they state and write that the bulk of the earth's sedimentary rocks were deposited within a short period of time following a great flood, perhaps within a single year.

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It will be my sole effort this afternoon to show that the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the thesis that the earth is extremely old and that the sedimentary record cannot represent anything else other than millions upon millions of historical events.

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Each one preceded by and followed by other events, such as deposition of sands and chemical and biological precipitates interwoven with repeated volcanic outbreaks.

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The stacking order of this tremendous sedimentary and volcanic pile is well established through the simple premise of superposition.

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If a river, a lake, an ocean, a wind, a glacier, a volcano deposits a layer on the surface of the earth, whatever it is deposited upon must already be there and thus must be older.

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It is not possible to repaint a house without the second coat being on top of the first coat.

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It is possible for portions of the first coat of paint to be chipped off, and thus the second coat locally is directly on the bare wood.

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But this merely means that part of the record is missing, but it cannot be out of order.

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Another analogy might be a bound book. Pages can be ripped out, and the story can certainly be incomplete, but page 100 will never appear before page 50.

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Consider the case of an automobile you find on a car lot. The fenders are bent and folded. The hood is torn so that you can see the edge of the metal.

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The car has 14 partial paint jobs. The last paint job was to patch up a dent in the door, and the paint is on bare metal because the earlier paint had been sanded off.

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You look at the odometer. It reads 6 ,000 miles. You conclude it must really mean 106 ,000 or even 206 ,000, and it has turned over or been turned back.

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But no, the salesman says, look at those tires, hardly any wear. All that paint was put on in the factory to protect the metal.

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This car was damaged in a rain and wind storm last night. This car is a cream puff.

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How many of you would buy that story? How many of you would buy that car? The Earth's surface has so much paint, seven hundred layers on it, no short -term astronomical event can be acceptable as a reasonable explanation for the record of event upon event, change upon change, possible upon possible.

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If the world is very, very old, gradual change is required. If the Earth is very, very old, special creation is not possible.

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The case for evolution rests first and last on the fact that the Earth is very old. Its great age is verified by the record of stratigraphic succession.

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In some instances, the sedimentary layers were deposited at rates equaling the very fastest rates we now measure.

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A hurricane may push water ahead of itself, drive over a barrier bar, fill a recital balloon with 20 feet of sand, and this can be done almost overnight.

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Of course, the next such storm might not come for 50 years, and the lagoon is quite large in area.

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Nevertheless, the results can be quite impressive in that even fair -sized trees can be buried still standing.

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The geologic record contains many of these examples, and they are always very well written up because they are striking and not typical.

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Have here a picture on the cover page of the geologic professional magazine, Geotimes, a 20 -foot tree buried in very coarse sands, indicating apparently the outbreak over a levee during an old, old flood.

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Perhaps among the biggest single -river floods ever occurred on the Columbia River in eastern

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Washington, when large glaciers blocked the river's path from lakes on the same size scale as our present

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Great Lakes. This water was released almost instantly when the ice band broke. The result was a tremendous erosion across a lot of fields of eastern

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Washington, and unusually large boulders were deposited miles downstream. They are, however, recognized for what they are, a river flood, not a world flood.

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On the other hand, environments exist today, and have in the past, in which sedimentation is measured in a few millimeters or less per year.

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In the middle of present -day Lake Michigan, in the middle of deep ocean basins, in the early tertiary Green River basin of Wyoming, where our valuable oil shales are now our deposit.

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Of course, typical rates fall between these examples and are measured and studied in every way by thousands of qualified investigators, because that is their training and because that is their job.

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Furthermore, regardless of averages or typical rates of sedimentation, the fact remains that no place on the land's surface has been one of continual uninterrupted deposition.

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Most of the land area, most of the time, is a site of erosion, and the many former layers are being removed rather than being added to.

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Thus, when totaling the sedimentary column to estimate time requirements, we must add in these negative figures for the thousands of feet of record that has been removed.

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This tremendous, orderly pile of sedimentary rocks, with the older sediments always having been deposited first, contains thousands of different kinds of features, both chemical and physical, which indicate time sequence and environmental change at that place on the

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Earth's surface at that relative time. This is a sizable book.

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The entire book is devoted to nothing but the recognition of these features in layered rocks, which indicate original top and bottom and indicate original environment.

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This book was written by a professor at MIT, certainly a qualified man.

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In Yellowstone Park, there is a single cliff face with the following layered sequence repeated 17 times.

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Volcanic ash, a soil developed by weathering of the ash, a forest with trees up to three feet in diameter growing in this soil, and this forest subsequently buried by ash falls.

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This single exposure represents a minimum time required to grow 17 brand new forests, plus each one being destroyed.

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This same story with lava flows exposed long enough to rot or to weather and form three and four foot soil zones in place, not transported in.

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This same story exists and is repeated in Oregon, in India, in Hawaii, in Colorado, and elsewhere around the world many times throughout the geologic record.

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Dr. Gershon's book refers to the vast Columbia River lava flow as an example that such an accumulation could not occur except by special cancellation of natural law.

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I quote his book, Neither has the uniformitarian concept been sufficient to explain the

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Columbian Plateau in northwest United States, a lava bed several thousand feet thick and 200 ,000 square miles, covering 200 ,000 square miles.

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My point is this, there is not a lava flow several thousand feet thick, covering 200 ,000 square miles.

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There are instead thousands of separate lava flows, one on top of the other, with soils, with trees, with fossils, with stream -cut valleys, with lake beds in between these lavas.

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In Pennsylvania, there are, in a single area beside Greater Lubbock, 21 separate beds of coal, which rest one upon another, with sands and marine limestones in between.

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This cyclic pile consists of units, each showing the following repeated history.

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River sands depositing on a flood plain. Growth of an extensive swamp with nearly pure carbon accumulating to thicknesses of a few feet.

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The roots of the vegetation extend into the underlying units and have leached them of their soluble minerals, leaving a sterile underclay.

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The sea advanced and buried this swamp under a layer of chemically precipitated limestone.

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Finally, new rivers deposit new sand, building a delta out into the sea, and a second swamp begins.

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These cyclothems are repeated 21 times in a small area entirely open for view.

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Furthermore, to the east and to the west, drilling operations and coal mining show these beds to be underlain by and to be overlain by similar and additional coal beds.

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In our nearby Permian Basin, sedimentary layers are formed by chemical, mechanical, and biological activity.

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A huge organic reef, El Capitan, composed of reef -building organisms which grew on the dead bodies of earlier animals.

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Brachiopods, sponges, algae, bryozoan. Just as today, present -day oysters grow on top of earlier oysters.

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These shells are attached to the underlying shells and were not loose. Therefore, they could not have been washed in.

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They could not have grown at the same time. One animal must live, must grow, must die before the next.

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You can see this 2 ,000 feet plus every time you go to El Paso. This huge organic reef and its associated rocks rest on top of the coal beds

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I discussed earlier, and are under the volcanic flows to the north of Clodcroft, which are of the same approximate age as the

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Yellowstone Park buried forests. Following the period of time during which the

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Permian Reef grew, the warm inland sea, which was its environment, had its connection with the open ocean restricted.

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Evaporation soon exceeded inflow, and the sea turned saltier, killing the reef -building organisms, and subsequently burying the basin under a couple thousand feet of salt.

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The lower salts are the more insoluble gypsum, and the upper or later salts are the highly soluble potash salts, which are so economically valuable located just west of Hobson, Mexico.

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How long would it take to evaporate seawater in such colossal amounts so as to precipitate out all of this salt?

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At temperatures in the range of Death Valley today, it would take on the order of a quarter of a million years.

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Higher temperatures would have killed off all life in nearby areas outside the salt basin, but it did not kill off these animals, and therefore it was not hotter.

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Triassic salt basin sediments in New Jersey represent only a part of the

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Triassic period of time. These sediments are up to 20 ,000 feet thick. What is more, the lower beds were deposited, tilted, and then buried by younger beds.

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These younger beds were also tilted before the yet younger beds were deposited, and so on for the entire sequence.

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The tilting must have been post -deposition for each layer, for if it were not, the depositing streams would have had to flow uphill.

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The iron and the sedimentary minerals have been oxidized, and the layers are red, as those at Palo Verde Canyon.

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The down -dropping and tilting of this basin is thus directly connected with the speed of deposition of sediments.

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You cannot here have a sudden 20 ,000 foot fault and the subsequent slow sedimentation, nor can you have a slowly moving fault zone with fantastically fast sedimentation.

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To further nail down the length of time required, many of the bedding lanes have easily recognized land -dwelling dinosaur footprints by the hundreds.

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In addition, surface upon surface is covered with rain prints. Thus, they were not covered by water or a great flood.

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They are red beds, each layer deposited in contact with the oxidizing environment.

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Each example I have given you represents but a portion of the sedimentary record in their respective geologic periods, and I have taken examples from all four out of 11 rock systems that have been deposited on the

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Earth since life became abundant. I have not even mentioned Pergamon rocks, which contain a record of surface events four or five times as long as those

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I have discussed. This vast and well -documented time and history requires gradual change in both the physical and biological world.

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The world has changed. It has evolved. The biological world has changed.

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It has evolved. I understand that Dr. Gish refers to this record as a theory and calls it the

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Fishtogish Theory, but I kind of like the way to ray. Scientifically, however, it does stand out as the way to today.

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A simple correction is now required. The order of the geologic record or standard column is not based upon the fossil record.

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Let me repeat that. The geologic time sequence is not based on the fossil record no matter how many times it is said to be so.

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I do not understand how geologists could state more plainly the fact that relative age of all rock layers is based on superposition.

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Nevertheless, others often say the age of any layer is based on the fossils. I quote

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Dr. Morse. The rock layers themselves are dated as to their relative antiquity by the fossils they contain.

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He continues. Rocks containing simple fossils are thus assumed to be old, and those with complex fossils are young.

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I quote Dr. Gish's book. This arrangement of various types of fossiliferous deposits in a supposed time sequence is known as the geologic column.

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Its arrangement is based on the assumption of evolution. Thus, invertebrates are assumed to have been evolved first, followed by fish, amphibia, reptiles, and mammals in that order.

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The geologic column has been arranged accordingly, unquote. These statements are not correct.

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They are not now correct, and they have never been correct. Here is a geologist writing in the 1800s, the famous Sir Archibald Geeky.

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According to the order of superposition, the fossils found in any deposit must be older than those in the deposit above and younger than those in that below.

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This order, however, must be first accurately determined by a study of the actual stratigraphy of the formations.

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He goes on. For any geologic purpose, and indeed for all purposes of comparison between the faunas and floras of different periods, it is absolutely essential, first of all, to have the order of superposition of the strata rigorously determined.

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Unless this is done, the most fatal mistakes may be made in paleontological chronology.

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It certainly is true. He continues. The order of superposition, having been determined in a great series of stratified formations, it is found that the fossils on the bottom are not quite the same as those at the top of the series.

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As we trace formations upward, we discover that species after species of the lower platforms disappear until perhaps not one of them is found.

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With the succession of these older species, others make their entrance. These, in turn, are found to die out and to be replaced by newer forms.

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Just in case you think we modern geologists have forgotten the lessons of our ancestors, here is a modern 1968 text,

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Down to Earth, Kerry Cronise, Crumbine. Dr. Cronise is chancellor at Rice University.

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Dr. Morris is alma mater. They write, The geologist has sometimes been accused of a gigantic hocus -pocus in this matter of correlation.

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The critic says that the earth scientist determines the age of a fossil and then has the audacity to turn around and give the age of the rock by making a pronouncement as to the age of the fossil.

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But, as a matter of fact, all fossil sequences used in correlation were discovered, not conjured up.

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Hence, in the first place, the age of all fossil assemblages has been determined on the basis of the strata in which they occur.

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Unquote. The standard geologic column is based on the overriding law of superposition.

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The systems are found in an indisputable sequence, one on top of another. Nothing would make a young or an old geologist more famous instantly than to find rocks of Ordovician age deposited on top of sediments in which fossils of birds, or reptiles, or amphibians, or mammals were discovered.

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I, or any other geologist, would have great fame and maybe even a salary increase if we were to discover fossils of mammals under the coal beds, fossils of reptiles under the

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Silurian limestone, bones of elephants and dinosaurs together, or fossil fruit trees, apples, in the

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Cambrian. Having found literally millions and millions of fossils, the standard general sequence found in any freshman text has never been violated.

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The evolutionists, Dr. Baker, says that gaps in the fossil record exist because animal types are not always preserved, that fossils are not always found, that rapid evolution can only take place in small populations.

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Hence, there are few individuals involved and small chance for preservation. The creationists,

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Dr. Morris and Dr. Gish, say that this is a cop -out, that the fossil record is complete.

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It should show these missing links if they ever existed. However, if the fossil record is so complete, as insisted upon, why are not birds found in the

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Ordovician rock with fish? Why are not apples and pear trees found with Pennsylvania ferns?

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Why are not whales found in the older rocks along with the trilobites?

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Why no fossils of mammals except in the uppermost rock layers? The basic flaw in Dr.

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Morris and Gish's argument is that if one assumes the Earth is 6 ,000 years old, the

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Earth's enormous history is compressed so tightly that nothing makes any sense. For example, if I were to insist that the

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European history was less than one day old, perhaps 23 hours, instead of more than 2 ,000 years, which would be the same ratio as 6 ,000 years is to the geologic age of the

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Earth, with a 23 -hour

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European history, it would seem possible that De Gaulle and Charlemagne conspired to rule the world.

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It would seem reasonable that the English language was thought up by a single man, Shakespeare, rather than having roots in German and French.

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The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania would leave no record and thus would not have existed.

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The vandals who sacked Rome in 455 would come and go so fast they would seem like the avenging angels of the

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Lord. And finally, on a 23 -hour day or 23 -hour history, if Napoleon had just taken

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Hitler's advice, he never would have invaded Russia in the winter. Fossils are not merely the remains of dead animals and plants.

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Fossils are direct and provable evidence of the environment in which they lived. Today, you do not find alligators in Colorado nor mountain goats in Florida.

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You do not find hippopotami in Arizona nor road runners in the Congo. You do not find whales in Kansas nor antelope in the ocean.

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So it is with the fossil record. Marine invertebrates indicate former marine conditions.

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Horses indicate grassy plains. Coal indicates great swamps.

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Oil indicates abundant marine life. Because the fossil assemblage at any one point on the

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Earth's surface changes with time, it is apparent that many different environments— desert, ocean, swamp, valley fill, beaches, lakes, volcanoes, back to the oceans, sand dunes— have progressively replaced each other at any one place.

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This requires time, time, and more time. Remember, if a creationist says that the world is very young, 6 ,000 years, he is, in fact, cutting his available time to less than 1 ,500 because man -made structures, the great pyramids, and even earlier mud efforts have stood on the

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Earth's present surface since 2 ,500 B .C. 1 ,500 years, a time equal to that since the fall of the

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Roman Empire, is an unacceptable and unreasonably short time to produce the rocks of the geologic column, the records of the events they contain, and the biological world.

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Finally, the question is really, would a creator of beautifully working natural laws of momentum, of time, of gravity, of biological reproduction, laws of thermodynamics, would he deliberately violate all of these laws to produce a false history for the

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Earth? Then would he make me logical and make the world illogical so that he could laugh at my efforts?

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Of course not. Christians don't have such a God, and I don't have such a

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God. Thank you. Thank you,

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Dr. Harris, for that well -prepared presentation. And now Dr. Henry Morris will come. Dr. Henry Morris is going to take the negative to that position, and we will give him 30 minutes as well.

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And Dr. Morris, you come at this time. Let's give him a welcome, please. Thank you very much, and we would like to commend

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Dr. Harris on this very splendid presentation of the evidence for an old Earth and for a uniformitarian system of geological interpretation.

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Before discussing the topic at hand, let me just also thank the university here and the BSU for making this meeting possible, as well as our two distinguished opponents for participating with us on this discussion.

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And I must say this, we're not so much interested in winning debates as we are in winning a hearing for creationism.

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Now, whichever one is right, that is, whichever concept of origins is right, we do recognize it is true that for a long time only one has been taught in the schools.

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And we believe that both ought to be taught, and we're concerned to get at least a recognition that there is a case to be made for an alternative point of view, the creation concept or the creation model of origins.

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And I might mention also one or two things that we're not debating today. One is that we're not concerned with the religious or the philosophical or the sociological applications or implications of the subject of origins.

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Not that these are not important, they are important, and that's one reason why so many people are concerned about it. But today we're concerned with the scientific evidence, and whether or not we can explain the scientific evidence in terms of either model and which one perhaps is the better model.

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Also, we're not debating the subject of small changes. All of us, of course, see the different varieties of dogs, and we agree that they came from the same ancestral dog.

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We see populations of moths changing coloration. We see fruit flies that develop mutations, and so on.

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These horizontal changes are radiations or adaptations to environment within limits. All of us accept this, and we're not concerned about these sorts of changes because these fit either concept.

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The creationist explains such small changes as variations within the created kind, permitted, in fact, designed by the creator for the purpose of conserving the kind, enabling the kinds to adapt to changing environments.

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But what we don't see is evidence that one kind ever becomes a different kind. And this is what we're concerned about today, the extrapolation as the evolutionists would apply to these small changes over millions of years to suggest that these small changes become big changes, and one kind evolves into a higher kind.

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This is what we don't see, and this is what we argue. This is the concern of the creationists, that this type of evolution, the total evolutionary picture, not be taught as fact, but rather as a concept in comparison with the creation model.

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Now, also, I might say that we recognize the importance of the question of geologic time, but we're not debating that primarily today.

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The creation model in its basic formulation just simply says that there was a period of special creation.

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It doesn't necessarily say when. Now, with that in mind, let me define evolution in the sense that we're addressing the question today, and I'm going to use a number of references from authorities in the various fields and admitting that all these men are evolutionists and perhaps would not agree with our interpretation of their references, but at least we believe that their references speak facts that are relevant to the subject, and the term evolution, of course, does have a very flexible meaning, and we're not concerned with the idea that changes take place.

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We know they do. As a matter of fact, one of the books that was mentioned, Evolution of the Earth by Doughton Batten, we, in fact, at our school, use that as one of the textbooks in our course in geology.

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We recognize that changes take place, but not the sort of changes that lead to higher complexity and higher structure, higher organization by natural processes.

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In that sense, let me quote now from Dr. David Kitts, professor of paleontology, geology at the University of Oklahoma.

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Dr. Kitts, by the way, was one that participated with us in a previous debate on occasion about a year or so ago, and he says in a recent article in the magazine

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Evolution, he says evolution, at least in the sense that Darwin speaks of it, cannot be detected within the lifetime of a single observer.

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Now, therefore, we do not really see evolution taking place. This is the real question we're addressing today.

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Is evolution an adequate scientific explanation for the tremendous complexity of the cosmos, including the living world?

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We don't see that kind of evolution, at least in the present order of things.

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If evolution does take place, on that scale, it does require millions of years, and we can't study and experiment for a million years, and therefore, it's not accessible to the scientific method.

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The type of evolution, though, we're talking about is defined by Theodosius Dobzhansky in this way.

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Dr. Dobzhansky is one of the leading evolutionists in the country, I think all would agree, written many, many books and papers on this subject, and he defines evolution this way.

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He says, Evolution is a process which has produced life from non -life, which has brought forth man from an animal, which may conceivably continue doing remarkable things in the future.

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In giving rise to man, the evolutionary process has apparently, for the first and only time in the history of the cosmos, become conscious of itself.

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Evolution comprises all the stages of the development of the universe, the cosmic, biological, human, cultural developments, all of them.

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Attempts to restrict the concept of evolution to biology are gratuitous. Life is a product of the evolution of inorganic nature, and man is a product of the evolution of life.

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Now, you can call this the fish -to -gifts theory, or the way -to -ray, or the horse -to -mars, or whatever, or the particles -to -people theory, but this is what we're talking about.

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The concept is that billions of years ago, the universe was in the form of random matter, particles bobbing about.

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Somehow these evolved into atoms and molecules and galaxies and stars and planets, and on this planet, the chemicals three billion years ago in the primeval ocean became replicating chemicals, and life began, and then the first simple forms of life became complex forms.

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Gradually, they evolved into man several million years ago. Tremendous increase in complexity over the geological ages.

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This is the concept of evolution to which creationists object, and which we feel does not satisfy the scientific data.

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We believe that really to satisfy the actual facts of science, one must postulate that these basic entities in complex systems must have been specially created by processes which are not operating in the present world.

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The words of Julian Huxley, one of the leading evolutionists of the world for the past generation, probably more responsible maybe than any other one man for the modern viewpoint of evolution known as neo -Darwinism,

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Huxley said, evolution, in the extended sense, can be defined as a directional and essentially irreversible process occurring in time, which in its course gives rise to an increase of variety and an increasingly high level of organization in its products.

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Our present knowledge, he says, indeed forces us to the view that the whole of reality is evolution, a single process of self -transformation.

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The idea is that the universe is a closed system and is transforming itself into higher and higher levels of organization over vast amounts of time.

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The whole of reality is evolution. Now, evolution has not been proved to be a fact of science as defined in this way.

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And I suppose if one really pressed the point, everyone would agree to that, but the thing that concerns many people is that in effect it is taught or at least implied as a proved fact of science in practically all the schools of our country today.

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We believe that creation provides a satisfactory alternative explanation of the scientific data. Now, why do some people take the position, for example, by Dr.

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D. M. S. Watson in England, a leading British biologist, when he says this, the theory of evolution is a theory which is universally accepted not because it can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative to special creation is clearly incredible.

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Now, it may be incredible to Professor Watson, but not to a good many other people. As a matter of fact, not to a good many other scientists.

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Perhaps not everyone knows this, but there are literally thousands of scientists today with postgraduate degrees in science who have rejected evolution and have returned to belief in special creation.

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Many of them, like myself, were evolutionists at one time. But we have become convinced that there is no real evidence that supports the evolutionary concept, and at least the creationist alternative ought to be represented and made available with the evidence laid out on the table for all to see.

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Now, we ought to recognize that the question of proof is impossible to satisfy for both evolution and creation.

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Many people, when we propose that creation be taught in the schools, say, well, you can't do that because that's not scientific.

35:59

You can't test creation. It's not science. Therefore, it ought not to be in the schools. And that's true. We recognize that one cannot prove creation.

36:07

One cannot disprove creation. If creation is true, it took place in the past, in a period of creation, it isn't taking place now, and therefore isn't accessible to the scientific method, and we recognize that.

36:18

But the same thing exactly applies to evolution in the way in which we have defined it. One cannot test evolution either because if evolution is true, as Dr.

36:27

Kitt says, one cannot see evolution within the lifetime of a single observer, so it's not accessible to the scientific method. Science means knowledge.

36:34

The essence of the scientific method is observation and experimentation and repetition of experiments, and we cannot study scientifically the origin of man or the origin of the universe.

36:43

In the laboratory we can't repeat these things, they're history. However they occurred, they're in the past and they cannot be repeated and therefore cannot be observed in the present, so they're outside the scope of the scientific method.

36:54

We cannot prove or disprove either one. Now some leading evolutionists do recognize this problem.

37:01

Let me refer to a statement by Dr. Karl Popper, one of the leading philosophers of science. This was in an article in the

37:07

Proceedings of the Federation of American Society for Experimental Biology a number of years back. He says agreement between theory and observation should count for nothing unless the theory is a testable theory, unless the agreement is the result of attempts to test the theory.

37:22

But testing the theory means trying to find its weak spots, means trying to refute it, and a theory is testable if it's refutable.

37:29

But there's a difficulty with Darwinism, he says. It's far from clear what we could do to consider a possible refutation of the theory of natural selection.

37:38

You see, natural selection can explain anything, so there's no way of testing it. We can explain the long neck of the giraffe or the short neck of the hippopotamus by natural selection.

37:46

We can explain the bright coloration of the bird of paradise. We can explain the dull coloration of the peppered moth by natural selection.

37:52

You can explain everything and therefore you can really explain nothing by natural selection but it becomes tautologous and irrefutable, as Dr.

38:00

Popper says. A little more recent paper by Dr. Paul Ehrlich, leading evolutionary ecologist.

38:06

Dr. L .C. Birch and the magazine Nature recognize this problem too. They say our theory of evolution has become one which cannot be refuted by any possible observations.

38:15

Every conceivable observation can be fitted into it. And at first one would think, well that makes it a good theory.

38:21

Everything fits it. No, that's what makes it a bad theory. Everything fits it so you can't test it.

38:26

It's thus that they go on to say outside of empirical science. Though not necessarily false.

38:32

No one can think of ways in which to test it. Ideas either without basis or based on a few laboratory experiments carried out in extremely simplified systems have attained currency far beyond their validity.

38:44

They've become part of an evolutionary dogma accepted by most of us as part of our training. Now the word dogma is not a scientific word.

38:53

And they recognize that this is outside of science. One either believes or doesn't believe. Now if we could say the same things you see exactly about special creation, every conceivable observation can be fitted into it.

39:05

In either case, we can make everything fit. So therefore we can't test the theory to see which is correct.

39:10

It would be wonderful if we could set up some kind of an experiment on which both evolutionists and creationists would agree as an experiment to determine which is true and run the test, make the measurements.

39:22

But you can't conceive of an experiment like that. Because if creation is true, you can't repeat it. If evolution is true, it goes too slow.

39:28

So you can't test it. So you can't determine for sure scientifically. But that doesn't mean we can't discuss both concepts scientifically and that's what we ought to do.

39:36

But we should do that in the context of scientific models or systems or frameworks, recognizing that we can't prove or disprove ultimately either, but we can use them as models to see which fits the facts more directly with the smallest number of problems and secondary modifications required to make them fit the models.

39:56

One other quotation to this effect from the latest edition to Darwin's Origin of Species, Dr. L.

40:01

Harrison Matthews published in 1971 wrote this forward and he said in accepting evolution as a fact, how many biologists have paused to reflect that science is built upon theories that have been proved by experiment to be correct.

40:13

Or remember that the theory of animal evolution has never been thus proved. The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology.

40:20

Biology is thus in a peculiar position of being a science founded on an unproved theory. Is it then a science or a faith?

40:26

Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief in special creation. Both are concepts which believers know to be true but neither up to the present has been capable of proof.

40:36

Now this is the foreword to Darwin's book, the latest edition by a prominent British evolutionist, not a creationist, but he does see the problem and he recognizes that evolution and creation are parallel, both are beliefs.

40:48

Now the term belief is also not a scientific term. Belief, dogma, these are not scientific terms and we recognize that ultimately these concepts do have philosophical connotations.

40:59

But now we look at the two models, the evolution model, in the words of Huxley, is one which explains the origin and development of all things in terms of self -contained processes leading to higher organization, irreversible directional process leading to higher organization and variety.

41:17

The creation model, on the other hand, says that you can never explain the world that way. You must postulate a period of special creation in the past in which the basic entities of nature, the basic laws, the basic categories, the basic kinds of plants and animals, and especially man, were brought into existence by special creative processes no longer operating in nature and therefore not accessible to direct observation, that the process which is now operating in nature rather than being fundamentally creative is rather conservative, conserving and maintaining the structures which were created in the beginning.

41:50

Now these are two different models and they ought to be capable of being compared on an objective, non -emotional, scientific basis.

41:57

This is what we think ought to be done. And of course there are many different ways in which they could be compared and we don't have time to get into more than just a very brief introduction to any of them today.

42:09

But one or two very important ways in which they can be compared, since we can't see evolution or creation taking place today, therefore the question becomes, first of all, what took place in the past?

42:20

Is there evidence of evolution in the past or is the evidence of past history better interpreted in terms of creation? And secondly, is it possible for evolution to exist?

42:28

Now I want to address that question very briefly. If the evolutionary model is correct, there must be some kind of a principle or process operating in nature which makes things go from simple to complex, from one level of order to a higher level of order because that's what has happened if evolution is true, all the way from particles up to people.

42:47

Tremendous increase in complexity. So if it's true, there must be some principle operating to do that. The other test,

42:54

Dr. Gish will deal with, the test of history, the fossil record. Now, the creation model, on the other hand, says that in nature there will be no process which makes things go from one level of complexity to a higher level because the creation model says that the creator created the world in the beginning, created them perfect for their purpose, and so they're not going to get better.

43:16

They may change in the direction of getting worse. If some extraneous principle comes in to force a vertical change, as it were, they may go downhill but not uphill.

43:26

Now, understand the horizontal changes, the shifting and colorations and things of this sort fit either model.

43:31

We're not talking about that, but rather changes in complexity from one level of order to a different level of order.

43:37

There must be some principle if evolution is true that makes things go upward towards higher levels. The creation model says there's rather a principle that makes things go downward towards lower levels.

43:46

Now, which is true? In other words, when we use these models as models of predicting what we expect to find in the real world in terms of a basic law, what do we find?

43:53

The fact is we find a basic law in nature known as the law of increasing entropy or the second law of thermodynamics.

44:00

It can be expressed in different ways, but the concept is that there is something in nature which operates in such a way that the energy in a system tends to become unavailable for further work or the structure of a system tends to go towards a lower degree of order or the information or the program in a system tends to become garbled.

44:21

There are different ways of expressing this and they're all essentially equivalent, but in every case the idea is that the entropy or the disorder or the turning inwardness or the randomness or the probability tends to increase.

44:32

Things tend to go downhill. That's why things get old and wear out, run down, disintegrate and die. That's the second law.

44:38

And this has been tested. It's not a belief. This is a law of science if there is such a thing.

44:44

The second law has been tested on all kinds of systems. It's always been found to be true with no exception ever found.

44:50

Let me quote from a couple of authorities to document that. Isaac Asimov, biochemist, very prolific writer and a very competent scientist, although certainly not a creationist.

45:00

But he does say this, as far as we know, all changes are in the direction of increasing entropy, of increasing disorder, of increasing randomness, of running down.

45:09

All changes. Harold Blum, Princeton scientist, also evolutionist.

45:17

He says, a major consequence of the second law of thermodynamics is that all real processes go toward a condition of greater probability.

45:24

The probability function generally used in thermodynamics is entropy. Orderliness is associated with low entropy, randomness with high entropy.

45:31

The second law of thermodynamics says that left to itself, any isolated system will go toward greater randomness, which means, or toward greater entropy, which means greater probability, greater randomness, and greater likelihood.

45:42

Now, he's talking about all real processes. Huxley said the whole of reality is evolution going towards higher levels of organization.

45:50

Blum says all real processes go toward lower levels. Now, if the English language means anything, they can't both be true because both of them are stated in terms of universal laws, universal concepts.

46:01

The whole of reality. Evolution. All real processes toward randomness. Now, how can they both be true?

46:08

What you see, the difference is that the second law has been proved to be true. Evolution is only a model which cannot be tested any more than creation can be tested.

46:17

Now, there is a principle, therefore, operating in nature which tends to make things go from order to disorder, from one degree of complexity to a lower degree of complexity.

46:27

Now, it does seem that there's a problem here with evolution. The evolutionary model does not predict such a thing.

46:34

It predicts something in the opposite direction. The creation model does not predict a law corresponding to the second law of thermodynamics.

46:42

And, therefore, the prediction of the creation model is explicitly confirmed by the basic law of nature, the law of decay and disintegration, the law of entropy.

46:51

Now, we recognize, of course, that there are certain systems which seem, for a while, to go uphill. That is, for example, a seed may grow up into a tree.

47:00

It looks like the order is increasing with time. Or you can take a pile of bricks and girders, and with time those may grow up into a building.

47:10

Or, again, the order is increasing with time. There are certain things like that that you do see. But that's the exception.

47:16

The normal direction is downward. You let any system go, it goes down. Now, Isaac Asimov, or Blum, rather, mentioned any isolated system.

47:26

And, of course, the laws of thermodynamics are defined in terms of isolated systems. But the fact is, there's no such thing in the real world as an isolated system.

47:35

That's something we draw on a blackboard, a circle. We say, here's a closed system. But in the real world, every system is open, so we have to look at it more closely than just to say, these only apply to closed systems.

47:49

Now, usually, when we pose this problem to the evolutionists, the apparent conflict between evolution and entropy, he says, well, that's not relevant because the

47:57

Earth is an open system and the second law applies only to closed systems. The Earth is an open system and it's open to the energy of the sun, and there's plenty of energy coming in from the sun to support the evolutionary process.

48:07

Even though the sun may finally burn out, for millions, billions of years, there's enough energy coming in to support it on the scale of the

48:13

Earth, and so therefore, there's no problem. Well, to say that there might be an answer to the problem is not to give the answer to the problem.

48:22

And the problem is much more complex than just to say that the Earth is an open system. Now, if that were all that were required, open system and available energy, in order to produce an increase in order in a system, then you see, that would be a good way of because all we'd have to do is let the sun bathe the construction site where the bricks and girders are, and eventually, they would grow up into a building because that's an open system, and it's open to the energy of the sun.

48:51

But of course, no matter how long you wait, Huxley used to say that you let monkeys peck away at typewriter keys long enough, and eventually, they'd peck out the works of Shakespeare.

49:01

Anything can happen if you wait long enough, is the sort of idea. Time works miracles, George Wall says. Well, if you let

49:09

Maybe the idea is that as you wait a hundred years or a thousand years or a billion years, these bricks would become a building.

49:15

By random processes, no, no such thing. As time goes on, those bricks won't become a building, those bricks will become dust by the second law.

49:22

Now, you've got to have more than an open system and available energy, and so that isn't sufficient. Now, there is a problem, you see.

49:30

The earth is an open system, and there is energy coming in, but how is that energy from the sun converted into evolution, into an upward growth of the biosphere over geologic time, a tremendous increase in complexity in the space -time frame, which is our universe, from particles to people, or even if you just want to limit it from amoeba to man, or something like that.

49:51

At any rate, a tremendous increase in complexity and order and organization with time. Now, what is there that takes the sun's energy and does that?

50:00

You've got to have more than just the energy there, in an open system. Now, in every system that we can study scientifically, in order to have a growth in complexity, you've got to have something more.

50:10

You've got to have at least some kind of a program built into that system to tell it how to grow.

50:16

You've got to have a blueprint to direct the building's growth. You've got to have some kind of an information program in the living cell,

50:22

DNA molecule with a marvelous complex information program built into it to tell it how to grow.

50:28

Else, if it just grows without direction, it grows into a heterogeneous blob, if it grows at all. As a matter of fact, the sun's energy tends to break down order, not build it up, unless you have certain very special conditions.

50:39

You must have some kind of a code or a program in order to produce growth. Now, what code or program produces the growth of the evolutionary biosphere in space and time?

50:52

Nobody has demonstrated one yet. In addition to that, you must also have a mechanism, or a motor, or a converter, to convert the energy from the raw energy as it would be in the sun to the specific work required to build up the evolutionary biosphere.

51:06

In the case of the seed, you have such a mechanism. You have the marvelous mechanism of photosynthesis, which we don't understand too well, but it does take the sun's energy and convert it into the specific work of building up the plant structure.

51:20

Nobody understands it, but there it is, and it certainly didn't just spring into existence by random chance out of nothing.

51:26

And if it weren't there, no matter how much energy you had bathing that seed, you would never get it growing up into a plant.

51:32

And the same thing is true in every other kind of a growth process we know about. The building requires specific energy converters in the form of equipment and workmen and so on to take the sun's energy and convert it into the energy required to build the structure of the building.

51:46

Now, what is the mechanism that takes the raw energy from the sun over geologic ages and builds up the complexity of the biosphere?

51:53

What is the marvelous energy converter which converts the population of worms into a population of people over 500 million years?

52:03

And nobody knows. You can't say random mutation and natural selection. You can't classify a mutation, which is the ordinary explanation for evolution, because mutation is not a code.

52:10

It's a random thing. You can't classify a mutation. You take what comes as a random process. It represents a sudden change in a highly complex structure of the genetic system.

52:18

And as all experience shows, any random change in a highly ordered system results in a decrease of the order of the system. That's why mutations are harmful.

52:24

That is, the ones that are really documented as mutations in a random situation. And natural selection is certainly not an energy converter.

52:32

It's sort of a sieve that waits for mutations to come along to weed them out. And so it doesn't convert any energy.

52:38

It doesn't direct any increasing order. A mutation doesn't produce increasing order. If anything, it produces decreasing order because it's a random change.

52:46

So we have no mechanism, no code to generate increasing complexity and to utilize the sun's energy to produce evolution, so far as anybody has demonstrated yet.

52:56

Now, you have to have these things to have growth in complexity, so far as we can see in the real world. Neither mutation nor natural selection is either a code or a mechanism, and does seem to work.

53:15

Both be both, and you've got to have both to get any growth. Now, it may be someday that some brilliant evolutionary investigator will be able to come up with some kind of an explanation to explain this, to show how that evolution is possible, even against the second law of thermodynamics.

53:34

Nobody's done this yet or even close to it, but even if they ever do, and we don't think they can, but even if they do, it still won't be as good as the creation model because all we will have is a secondary modification of the basic evolution model which would never predict such a thing as the second law.

53:50

It predicts growth in the other direction, growing upward. Evolution model could never predict the second law, and therefore, although it might be able to explain it by some kind of a secondary modification of the basic model, it still isn't as good as the creation model because the creation model explicitly predicts that there would be a universal law in nature of decay.

54:09

It fits the facts directly, explicitly, exactly. Now, therefore, no matter how many billions of years we might have, there's no evidence, you see, that there can be evolution from one degree of order to a higher degree of order.

54:25

Nobody has ever measured any such thing in the natural world on a random basis. Tried to program this on computers.

54:32

Computers jam. You cannot generate a higher order on from a lower order by a random process, as far as any scientific documentation goes.

54:40

And zero change per year multiplied by 10 billion years is still zero change.

54:47

You can't get evolution just by imposing billions of years of time if there's a law that says it doesn't take place at all.

54:55

And that seems to be the case as far as the actual documented evidence in the real world of physics and chemistry and engineering and real science is concerned.

55:04

Now, there's a We grant that in the last analysis, we cannot prove scientifically that evolution doesn't take place or can't take place because we can't repeat history.

55:16

But we do insist that there's no evidence that it does take place. And therefore, at least the creation model ought to be considered on a competitive basis.

55:25

This sort of information ought to be laid out and discussed in the class and in the textbooks and so on.

55:31

And that's what we're concerned about. We would like to see no anti -evolution law. We're not concerned about that at all. But rather, now, the present situation of an anti -creation law ought to be remedied and both concepts, both models ought to be presented.

55:43

Thank you. The fish to Gish.

55:53

The way to Ray. The horse to Morris. I really like the blob to Bob.

56:02

That really... Of course, some of my students might not think that was much of an evolutionary step, but...

56:13

I really like the Ten years ago, when

56:24

I was a graduate student at the University of Arizona, attending graduate school, trying to convince the professors there that I deserved a

56:31

Ph .D., Conlittle Drift was a theory that was laughed at, was poked fun at, and was generally discredited.

56:42

In fact, whenever somebody talked about Conlittle Drift, they always made some big joke. Well, why do

56:48

I bring that up? Because today, the Conlittle Drift theory probably receives more support than the more geologists as the best explanation for the current distribution of the continents of the world than any other theory.

57:02

The point is that scientists are not married to any one theory. The point is that scientists are indeed seekers of the truth.

57:11

What we are looking for as scientists is a way to explain what we observe in nature.

57:18

Now, I have heard some talking, talking with students and so forth, that they're going to the evolutionists to keep creation theory, et cetera, out of textbooks, et cetera.

57:32

I would like to answer that by saying that I don't think there's a conspiracy.

57:37

I teach a course at Tech called the Biological Status of Man. Obviously, I messed up.

57:43

I should have named it the Biological Status of Humans. I can't get many girls to take that course for some reason or the other.

57:51

But when I teach this course, I teach it always welcome a creationist to come and to defend his views because I think it's important that these young people make up their mind and they have their own set of ideas.

58:04

The point is that I don't believe there's a conspiracy. What I believe is that there are many biologists, there are many geologists, et cetera, in the world today who are studying the facts, and these people have interpreted the facts as best being explained by evolutionary theory.

58:20

One of the reasons that there are so many conscious people who contradictory statements in the literature, and there are literally hundreds and hundreds of books written on the theory of evolution.

58:29

One reason there are so many contradictory statements is because scientists continually question what they see and they think out loud, so to speak.

58:39

One good example of this might be that I am thoroughly convinced that the earth is not, that the sun does not revolve around the earth.

58:49

Now, I really can't prove that, but I'm convinced that it is. I'm convinced that the I'm convinced that the But when

58:54

I get up in the morning, it sure does look to me like the sun is rising. What is actually happening is the earth is turning.

59:01

Well, when I say that, you could say, well, he sure is doubting his belief. Well, perhaps evolutionists doubt their belief along the way, and I contend this is probably a very healthy condition.

59:12

It allows them to continually re -evaluate their whole ideas concerning evolution.

59:19

Throughout man's history, there has continually been a great deal of a usage of God to explain the unknown.

59:27

Back when man obviously didn't understand electricity, obviously didn't understand lightning and so forth, he considered lightning and so forth to be

59:35

God's wrath and so forth. Today, we just consider it a bad storm. Perhaps if I object, my major objection to the creationist theory is that it does, it uses something supernatural to explain something that I believe can be explained in a physical way.

59:56

Now then, I believe evolution is a fact, and I want to explain to you why

01:00:01

I believe that evolution is a fact. There are four major ideas in expressing what evolution is.

01:00:09

If these four ideas are true, then it is very logical that evolution occurs. These four ideas, three of which

01:00:16

Darwin gets credit for, the fourth of which has been added in neo -Darwinianism. Okay, the first of these, and there is no particular order to these, but the first of these is that more young are produced than can survive.

01:00:29

This is true of every species that exists on the face of the earth today. In fact, if you take the housefly, you look at the reproductive potential of a pair of houseflies, if they started on January 1 under ideal conditions, started producing baby houseflies and their babies continued to produce baby houseflies at ideal conditions, at the end of one year you would have enough houseflies to be about a mile thick and enough to cover the entire face of the earth.

01:00:55

It is true that humans can produce more young than can possibly survive, hence our current crisis with human population.

01:01:03

This is true of all species. It is testable scientifically. You may test this idea, point one.

01:01:10

Point two is that there is variation within a group of animals.

01:01:16

For instance, if you were to look at anyone within this room, you could identify that person very easily.

01:01:22

You can tell him from someone else because he or she looks differently. You can identify that person biochemically.

01:01:29

You can identify that person possibly by just looking at a strand of hair from their body and so forth.

01:01:35

There is variation within the population of houseflies. It's true with mice. It's true with all organisms.

01:01:41

A farmer certainly can recognize all the cattle in his field if he pays much attention to what's going on. That is the second point that I wish to make, is that there is variation within the population, within a group, within a species.

01:01:55

The third idea that I wish to say supports the theory of evolution or is basic to the theory of evolution, is that these differences are genetic.

01:02:08

Now, there are environmental differences. We know what they are. For instance, you can go out into the sun, and if you stay out of the sun, you don't tan.

01:02:15

You aren't as darkly tanned as you are if you're out in the sunshine. However, there are genetic differences.

01:02:21

We notice that, gee, you sure do look like your mother. We notice that farmers, when they go out to breed their cattle, they don't choose the scrawniest little bull out in the field.

01:02:33

We can say, well, I'll sell the big fat ones and use this little one for breeding. What they do is they choose the one that has characteristics that are most like those that he wishes to have in his herd.

01:02:42

It's genetic. The farmer chooses the corn plant, so what they're reaching out to plant seeds from, they're most like the corn crop that he wishes to grow.

01:02:48

It's genetic. The fourth of these ideas is that out of this combination, remember, there are too many born, more than can survive.

01:02:55

They are different from each other, and these things are carried genetically.

01:03:02

They're hereditable. And the fourth point is that the ones that are best adapted survive.

01:03:09

Okay. If those four points are true, evolution is a fact. Because evolution is a fact.

01:03:15

Because what will happen is if you introduce within a system, if you introduce continually, let's say a hundred animals are born, and out of that hundred each year, 50 survive to reproduce.

01:03:24

What you end up with is you end up continually selecting the 50 that are most fit, and you continually weed out certain genetic variation and select for other genetic variation.

01:03:36

So evolution has occurred along these lines. Now then, even if we talk about very short periods of time, and I do not agree at all that we cannot see evolution occurring, and I am shocked that evolutionists keep saying that.

01:03:50

But I'll discuss why I believe that. First place is let's look at, let's take dogs, for instance.

01:03:57

It's pretty well documented that dogs that probably did not start from more than two strains of wild dogs that which man domesticated and started selecting for dogs that had the characteristics that he best liked.

01:04:08

Some people liked to have dogs that helped them take care of the sheep, so they selected dogs that tended to herd the sheep.

01:04:14

Best of all, other people liked dogs that looked like poodles, I guess, and they continued to select and breed. Now this is not natural selection.

01:04:21

What I'm talking about is called by the biologists artificial selection. But what it is, is it's a continual refinement of a genetic system.

01:04:32

And Dr. Morris said that we had no documentation that a system could improve.

01:04:38

Well, certainly the hopes of the food hopes of the world today hinge on the improvement of certain agricultural rices and wheats and other grains that we are selecting from these, from the genetic variation.

01:04:56

We are improving those systems. Now I realize that they make a distinction between what is called horizontal evolution.

01:05:04

That is, we start out with something and we make minor changes in it. And I suppose they would counter and say that the changes that we see in the dogs are minor changes.

01:05:12

We still have dogs. The changes we see in the wheat are minor changes. It's still a wheat. Although there are some new agricultural products that are so changed from their ancestor that they will not hybridize or will not cross back with the ancestral product.

01:05:28

In essence, they've created a new species. But this too, I suppose, fits within under their cans.

01:05:35

The proof of vertical evolution, I think one then must go to something like the fossil record, and I'll discuss that later.

01:05:43

But the point is that I wish for you to consider those four points.

01:05:49

And I wish for you to consider, if they are true, I think you can logically visualize how change can occur through time.

01:05:55

Now, what the biologist says is as follows. Those four points will continually result in an improvement of a species or the adaptation of a species to its environment.

01:06:04

Given adequate time, biologists feel that these changes can explain all of the variation that we see in the dog.

01:06:13

within the animals within our world. One point

01:06:19

I would bring up is something that should be discussed. Is man an animal? Is there any scientific proof at all that man is anything different than an ape or than a pigeon or any of these other things as far as nutritional needs, as far as reproductive needs, as far as all of the things that he abides by?

01:06:42

Are there any differences? Does he have a think about? We were provided,

01:06:48

Dr. Harris and I were provided with a set of tapes of some previous debates by Dr.

01:06:55

Gish and Dr. Morris. I thought that was a very Christian thing to do because I really didn't know what to expect. And I appreciate these.

01:07:08

I would like to bring up the next subject concerning embryology. Now then, the reason

01:07:14

I bring up the tapes at this stage is because one of the people that they were discussing brought up embryology and Dr.

01:07:20

Gish took him to task and essentially implied that he was an antiquated biologist believing in what is called the biogenetic law.

01:07:28

And I would point out that the biogenetic law is not true and anyone who has graduated from or who has taken my freshman biology course knows it's not true or I hope they know it's not true.

01:07:43

But embryologically, the embryo of man looks remarkably different than like the embryos of other creatures.

01:07:50

For instance, those of a rabbit or those of a dog or those of a whale, for instance, or a monkey.

01:07:57

There is some folds here at the base of the neck as the embryo develops and these folds have blood vessels running through them and there are six blood vessels running through them, through six pairs, and they are almost identical in all mammals.

01:08:16

In fact, the embryos that we see in mammals is very near what we see the adult stage in some of the sharks.

01:08:24

We see this same pattern, this six pairs, in the early embryology of, say, the birds.

01:08:33

Now then, as this change occurs, as an embryo develops, some of these are lost, some are modified into other things.

01:08:41

And one of the major differences, say, between the birds and the mammals, for instance, the left side of the embryo, the one of the pairs, the left side, develops into the major unit that feeds the blood to the body.

01:08:55

In the birds, the right side develops. Now, in both cases, in the early embryo, both sides are there.

01:09:01

They degenerate. The question that I'm not saying the biogenetic law is true, I'm just saying that if God created man from scratch,

01:09:10

I would anticipate that probably with the original growth of this tissue and the growth of the blood vessels, there would then what one would find would be the left, a vessel growing to the left, and it growing and intensifying, maturing, until finally you had the system we find in man.

01:09:29

I would like to know, you know, why or how do the evolutionists explain these identical embryological patterns?

01:09:38

Now, the biologist explains them by saying that during the course of evolution, certain embryological, certain patterns of development, certain patterns of development have occurred that are very efficient in embryological growth.

01:09:52

It is an accepted fact biologically, or maybe it's not a fact, it's an idea, that evolution proceeds by modifying pre -existing structures.

01:10:06

This would fit well with the explanation of what we see in the development of the embryo of the bird and the mammal, and certainly and so forth.

01:10:17

What we see is a pattern that is modified. This is true in a lot of other aspects of embryology, and I don't want to go into these.

01:10:25

But to me, if I were going to believe in the creation, in the creation theory, then

01:10:30

I would want to know why these patterns were identical. I would also like to know if you were going to make a bat from scratch, how would you make a bat?

01:10:39

How would you make him look like? If you were going to make a bird from scratch, how would you make a bird from scratch? If you were going to make a rat from scratch, how would you make a rat from If you were going to start all of these things, if you were a benevolent creator, how would you do these things?

01:10:51

I think this is relevant to the comparison of the two theories. Now, the theory of evolution would say that what you start out with is a plan, and it's modified, and it's modified by minute changes, and it's modified into various adaptations to the environment.

01:11:07

Well, let me use the arm of all vertebrates for a moment and how it has been modified.

01:11:13

What we see in nature is the following. We see that there is one bone here, humerus, and then the radius and the ulna, and a series of other bones, and then five fingers.

01:11:27

And this is a plan that's fairly common throughout. You can go back even into the fish and catch this plan. Now, then, somehow or the other, if I were going to sit down and make these things from scratch,

01:11:40

I'm not sure that I would leave all these component parts in each time. But if you go, next time you're out at the kernels and you pick up a chicken wing, and you

01:11:47

Well, look at the chicken wing and notice that, in essence, what you have is a humerus and then a radius and an ulna, and you've got a little thumb sticking up there, and you've got a bunch of bones that stick in.

01:11:58

And this is a modification of that basic vertebrate plan. Next time you're looking at that, what was the name of that movie,

01:12:05

The Bat People on television? Well, next time you're watching The Bat People or next time you see a bat flying around the house, notice that what has happened in the bat is that you've got elongation of these fingers.

01:12:16

The thumb is still there on most bats. You've got elongation of these fingers, elongation of these digits. Again, you've gotten a modification of this thing.

01:12:24

Now, what about in something like the whale? Again, you have the same thing. You have a flipper on the front end of a whale that has the same bones in it.

01:12:32

Some of the digits have been lost, but you have the same bones in it that you have in the basic plan that has been used all throughout the vertebrates.

01:12:42

We think this, we interpret this, we evolutionary biologists interpret this as showing a similarity, a past relationship between these forms.

01:12:51

We also interpret animal distribution as supporting the theory of evolution. For instance, we think that most major evolutionary events, or a lot of major evolutionary events, occur on the larger land masses.

01:13:07

And what one would expect if we looked at the current distribution of land masses, etc., and we were going to say the evolutionary theory is correct, we would say, what can you anticipate on islands?

01:13:19

The evolutionists would say it would be quite difficult for animals to get to islands. In fact, the further you put an island away from the mainland, the more difficult it would be for animals to get there.

01:13:29

Now, if I read anything incorrectly, I'm sure you'll, into the creationist theory,

01:13:35

I'm sure that I'll be corrected. But I would anticipate that there would be no problem for a creator to put anything he wanted to on an island.

01:13:43

I don't see the problem there. What we see in island faunas is that they are generally faunas derived from limited invasions, and these faunas are generally more primitive than the mainland fauna.

01:13:59

For instance, Australia is an island. We know that from the fossil record that the marsupials are an older group than are what we call the eutherian mammals, the rats, the mice, the whales, and you and I.

01:14:12

Now, then, what we end up with is that Australia is a very rich marsupial fauna.

01:14:19

We do know from the fossil record that at one time South America had a very rich marsupial fauna.

01:14:24

If you go out to the Galapagos Islands, which are 600 miles or so off the coast of Ecuador, we find that there is a pretty good fauna there, but it appears that what's happened is birds like the finches have gotten there and have gotten on the islands and have speciated.

01:14:38

What you find are a complex variety of finches there, as well as some others. There are many, many television documentaries about the finches.

01:14:45

I'm sure you're quite familiar with them. I'd like to point out that in the fossil record, if there was a period of creation and it was over a short period of time, what we should find in the fossil record would be a very, very abrupt introduction of all of the organisms.

01:15:08

That's not what we find in the fossil record. The Precambrian rocks contain very, very simple forms of life.

01:15:15

The Cambrian rocks The Cambrian rocks contain more complex forms, but not nearly as complex as we find today.

01:15:23

Probably the best fossil record of all is the record of the horses. With the horses there, we can essentially go back and have a nearly as complete as one would ever predict the fossil record would be from the condylars, which is an extinct order of mammals, to the equisarchs, common everyday variety of garden horse.

01:15:50

Now the record is fairly complete, but several of the intermediate stages like Hierarchatherium, I'm not sure it's considered the first horse, but if we didn't have the horses

01:16:04

I'm sure that we would conclude that Hierarchatherium, for instance, was really a condylarth, it wasn't a horse, and so there's a fairly complete record there.

01:16:14

I would like to point out that this record clearly indicates an increase in complexity through time.

01:16:21

For instance, the brain of the horse becomes more complex as we get closer and closer to the modern horse.

01:16:31

There are a lot of other data that that I would like to bring out, but what we really are talking about today, we have already heard that a little bit of knowledge is dangerous, and I assure you that even though you're going to be dead after three hours of this, you're really going to get only a small sampling of the knowledge available.

01:16:50

But I would like to go back to my original thesis, and that is that I don't think biologists are out to to have any conspiracy or anything else.

01:16:57

I think that they have looked at the data and that I assure you if I could prove evolution was wrong, if there was any way that I could even start a movement to show it was incorrect,

01:17:13

I would because it'd make me famous, and I'd like that. But it just so happens that the data that I have from my own basic research and from the research that I read of others leads me to believe that it is accurate.

01:17:31

I'm certainly not married to the theory. I'm certainly not tied to it from a religious standpoint.

01:17:38

It does nothing from the standpoint of from religious standpoint. So that what

01:17:44

I want to point out is that it's difficult within a short period of time to present all of the all the basic data that support evolution.

01:17:56

There are just literally, you know, tons and tons of facts, and I assure you that scientists are going to be debating probably a hundred years the details of that fact, and there are going to be people that question that theory.

01:18:08

But I also think that it's rather clear that it's a nice functional theory. It's beautiful. It gives us a system to hang a lot of data on.

01:18:16

It explains a lot of things. It's used all the time. For instance, when we test medicines, we test them first on white rats.

01:18:24

Well, white rats and the phylogenetic tree and the evolutionary tree are not as close to humans as our other organisms.

01:18:32

So after we've tested our medical inventions and so forth on white rats or something like this, which are very cheap, then we we move over and start testing these things on higher primates.

01:18:46

And if they work on higher primates, then we start doing our testing on humans. The assumption being here that that there's been less time for our biochemical systems to diverge between the higher primates and us, this would be the biological interpretation.

01:19:03

And therefore, any data we could obtain as to the effects of these drugs on higher primates would be useful as to whether or not they would help us in treating mankind.

01:19:15

I would like to ask some questions of the creative model.

01:19:23

I would like, for instance, I've spent considerable time during the last two weeks, since I agreed to come to this debate, trying to think about what the creation model really would predict.

01:19:38

And it seems to me that if there were going to be a creation model, I would, you know, I would visualize, if it were a benevolent creator in his infinite wisdom, he would create a system that was essentially perfect.

01:19:50

I don't understand why there's variation in mankind if God made man.

01:19:57

For instance, if he made man in his own image, why did he make some men obviously less in his image than he made others?

01:20:04

I would also ask how that there is an explanation, what would be the explanation for the races of mankind, or if you don't want to call them races, call them anything you want to, but obviously we can identify certain groups from others.

01:20:25

For instance, it's easy to identify a group of people as having a certain set of characteristics.

01:20:31

If we started out from two people, then what is the source of all of this variation? Was it by the process that I've just described with the four major ideas, or did

01:20:41

God create additional people to develop this variation in the human race?

01:20:47

I don't know. These are just questions that come to my mind. Finally, I would say that we can certainly see evolution.

01:20:55

Again, I would point out we can see evolution in animals. For instance, where we spray DDT, whenever I remember as a little teeny -tad how they'd come by in the house down in southern

01:21:05

Arkansas and spray the house with DDT, and for a long time you wouldn't even see a fly around.

01:21:11

And today, if you walk into that same area, there are plenty of houseflies, and if you spray it with DDT, there still are plenty of houseflies.

01:21:18

What we have seen is the evolution of a resistant strain of houseflies. We see the same thing in resistance of diseases to antibiotics.

01:21:30

We see it in races of dogs, and we see the improvement in such horses as Secretariat through breeding programs.

01:21:37

And I think this supports the theory of evolution. Thank you. Let me just remind you of what is before us.

01:21:54

Dr. Duane Gish, biochemist, is going to come in just a moment, and I think he's going to show you some slides.

01:22:00

You can do that this time. That helped clarify something from the fossil record. And then after he is through, that's where the fireworks start.

01:22:09

These men are going to get to ask each other questions, they're going to get to refute each other in a rebuttal, and after Dr.

01:22:15

Gish comes, then Dr. Morris will return with the first negative, then Dr. Harris, then

01:22:21

Dr. Gish, and Dr. Baker. They'll have ten minutes to take what the other men have said and to answer that.

01:22:27

So let's give Dr. Duane Gish 30 minutes of our time and attention as we invite him to come and speak to us.

01:22:44

Dr. Harris, Dr. Baker, ladies and gentlemen, it's my great privilege to be here, and I am here in case you can't see me.

01:22:54

Perhaps you can at least hear me. My middle name happens to be Talbert, and my younger son said it should be

01:23:02

Shortbert. Dr. Harris says that if we can establish that this earth is billions of years old, and if we can reject the concept of a young earth, then we've established the fact of evolution, and we have rejected creation.

01:23:20

Well now, the age of the earth is a very important problem. Evolution demands an immensity of time. You've got to have billions of years at least to evolution to be plausible.

01:23:28

It's an important question, but I'm going to give Dr. Harris his billions of years. I'm going to assume that this earth is 5 billion years old.

01:23:37

Now if this process that Dr. Morris is talking about, this universal process of decay and disintegration and towards disorder, it doesn't make any difference how old the earth is.

01:23:47

It could be billions of years, billions of times billions of years old, and we're not going to get this upward increase in complexity.

01:23:55

As a matter of fact, a group of mathematicians who are evolutionists got to considering this problem of evolution based upon random mutational changes, and the assumed number of mutations that were required, and how many were favorable, how many were unfavorable, and so forth.

01:24:11

They considered all of this data, and they said, now if this is the way that evolution has occurred, or should have occurred, then it's absolutely impossible, because evolution would require billions of times longer than 5 billion years, billions of times longer.

01:24:28

So I'm just going to assume right now that this earth is billions of years old.

01:24:35

Dr. Baker has said, now if we assume these four points, that we have variation, and more animals are born that can survive, and so forth, these four points, that evolution is a fact.

01:24:44

I'm going to concede those four points. But now the question is not whether we get any change at all, but the question is whether we get this change from a primeval cell into man.

01:24:55

Are these conditions, do these conditions make it possible? No, it does not make it possible, we are convinced.

01:25:01

Certainly you cannot demonstrate that in the present world, so the only place we can go to establish the fact of evolution, or the creation model, is to the fossil record itself.

01:25:14

Now if evolution is true, we could make certain predictions based upon this evolutionary model, concerning what we ought to find in the fossil record.

01:25:23

Then on based, on the basis of creation, on the other hand, if creation is true, we could make certain predictions on what we'd expect the fossil record to show, what we'd expect to find in the fossils if creation is true.

01:25:38

And as you will see, we'd make very, very different types of predictions.

01:25:44

What I hope to demonstrate is the actual fossil record, the actual history of life, in the final analysis, the only evidence that we can bring to bear on whether evolution has taken place or not, that evidence is not what we predict on the basis of evolution, but on the other hand it is what we predict on the basis of creation.

01:26:06

Now may we have that first slide please, and we're going to take a look at our, at our prediction. Now if creation is true, we would predict that life would appear suddenly at a high level of complexity.

01:26:21

Suddenly we'd have a great diversity of highly complex forms of life without any evolutionary ancestors.

01:26:29

That would be one of the major predictions of creation. Furthermore, based upon our creation model, we would predict that the basically different kinds of plants and animals, what we would consider to be the created kinds, would appear abruptly in the fossil record without transitional form.

01:26:47

From the very start, a bat would be a bat, a bird would be a bird, a turtle would be a turtle, a cuttlefish would be a cuttlefish, a jellyfish would be a jellyfish.

01:26:57

From the very start, and we would not expect to find transitional forms, say between cats and dogs, sheeps and other animals, or horses and cows and apes and men.

01:27:08

We would not expect this, at least the primary prediction of creation, would be the absence of transitional forms between these basically different kinds of plants and animals.

01:27:20

Now that would be the major prediction based upon creation, and a sudden appearance of highly complex forms of life, no evolutionary ancestors, the abrupt appearance of basically different kinds without any transitional form.