Tape 1 - Evolution vs. Creation Seminar

Park Meadows Church

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Our Father, we thank you that there are times when we can come aside and study the biblical revelation of man's origin and destiny, and be known as a proof that there is a person who lives in us who can give us a controllability between that point of origin and that destiny.

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We thank you that that person we have come to know is God in Jesus Christ, and that he lives in our life, giving meaning and purpose and direction.

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We thank you for these men who have dedicated themselves to this cause, and for a church who is willing to extend itself financially and physically and spiritually to make possible this conference.

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We pray, Heavenly Father, that it will be under the absolute control of the Holy Spirit, and that God would use it to accomplish the purpose that would glorify him.

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May it be nothing else. May it not in the minds of the people simply be something that is incidental, or outside the area of the gospel revelation, but may it all work out for the furtherance of the gospel, for the edification of the believer, and for a challenge to the intellectual mind to consider

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Jesus Christ, because we ask it in his name and for his sake.

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Amen. Now, Brother Barry Wood will come and take charge of the meeting.

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Thank you, Pastor. I just want to take the opportunity to explain something of the format of what we're going to be doing this morning, and something of the relevance of what we're doing.

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Everywhere I've been around our city on television interviews and just on the campus, I've had people say, well, is this relevant, is this important?

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We even had some professors who just didn't feel like that it really was relevant to the

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Christian cause. I've had some people say, well, what we ought to do is go out and preach the gospel, as though this were just an old, dead issue.

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And yet I think what these men will share with us today is that I think you'll find out that doctrine is important, because without doctrine we do not even have the relevancy of God, and the person of God, and the person of Christ.

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And we feel like that the evolutionary position is anti -God, it's anti -Bible, it's anti -Christ, and I don't apologize for saying so.

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And what we want to do is to ask Christians to understand something of the biblical position and what the

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Bible does teach, and that certainly it does not teach evolution, and that creationism is sound scientific fact, and that you can be an intelligent

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Christian and believe it, and be a relevant Christian. So what we want to do is to let these two men come today, who are doing this all across America.

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Dr. Gish flew in from Manitoba, Canada, where he had been in a debate there. Dr. Morris and Gish together have been in New Orleans, where they have been in a debate there.

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Just recently they were in Knoxville, Tennessee, in a debate there.

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And so they've been doing this. And God's given them a very prolific ministry. Dr.

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Henry Morris, Dr. Duane Gish, are directors of the Institute for Creation Research in San Diego, California, and these men teach at Christian Heritage College and also lecture around the country.

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There are many, many books available. We have a number of books that they sent us that are available on the book table at the back or in the bookstores downstairs as we go to eat.

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You may go down there and browse through the bookstore to see these books or to purchase them.

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Now, some of you are going to ask me about tapes. We are taping everything that's done in this conference and in the debate.

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They will be reproduced through our tape library, either for lending purposes, for you to check out, listen to in return, or to purchase.

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And all of our tapes sell for $2 .50 to the local church members, they're $3 .00

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to the public at large, and either way it's a steal. So if you want to purchase these tapes, you just turn in a request, and we will take care of that.

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Either give the request to myself, to Skinny Boy down here, Kent Turner, this tall blonde -haired boy who runs our tape ministry, to Ray Woodard or myself, and if you'll just request the tapes that you want on these conferences, we'll produce them for you and see that you get them.

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It'll take us a week or so to get these done. Probably by the end of next week, we're going to have both the tape and the debate ready to go.

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That's not what I wanted to say, the conference and the debate ready to go, so those tapes will be available. If you want to tape them here like some of you are doing, that's fine, or if you want to get them from us, that'll be just as acceptable.

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Now what we're going to do this morning, Dr. Henry Morris is going to come first and he's going to take evolution and creation as the two different alternatives as explanations of origin.

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He'll deal with that in the first hour's lecture. We will take a five -minute break when

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Dr. Morris is through, sort of a drink break or do whatever you do during those five minutes.

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And then we'll come back immediately and Dr. Gish will take another 55 minutes and share with us on the second subject.

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He's going to deal with the fossil record at 11 o 'clock, on the fossil record at 11 o 'clock.

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And then we'll take a break for lunch, and if you've made reservations with us, about a hundred of you have, we'll eat downstairs for 75 cents if you've made a reservation.

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If not, I suggest you go to the Coliseum and eat pancakes for a dollar. But at any rate, you'll be back and we'll start again about 1 o 'clock or shortly thereafter.

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I think we can probably start at 1 instead of 1 .15. And at 1 o 'clock we'll continue, and I just don't think you're going to want to miss this afternoon's conference, because that's where all the big goodies are.

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Because coming back this afternoon at 1, Dr. Gish is going to begin and he's going to lecture on human origins, and that will take care of the caveman and all that, how that all fits in.

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I know we're all interested in that. And he'll deal with human origins at 1 o 'clock, and then at 2 o 'clock,

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Dr. Morris is going to deal with Earth age and the arguments for a young Earth, as opposed to 3 billion years, something like anywhere from 4 to 6, 6 to 10 thousand years, and that's quite a difference.

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So we're going to hear from Dr. Morris at 2 o 'clock on that subject. Then, it'll be open to questions, as long as we want to ask them,

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I think these men will stay here and answer them until they drop. But I'm going to ask that throughout the lectures you take your notes.

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If something is said that you did not understand, something that you want clarification on, make a note of that then.

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And so these men can move on uninterrupted, and then as we come back at 2 o 'clock, 3 o 'clock, excuse me, we will then have the time for questions.

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And I think that probably is the best way to handle that. All right, I'm going to ask first of all that Dr. Henry Morris will come and begin to deal with evolution and creation.

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Thank you very much, Barry. Dr. Weber, we certainly thank you for the gracious hospitality, the invitation to be here this weekend, this fine church.

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We're also grateful for each one of you who has come and are going to participate in this seminar this afternoon.

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We hope it will be profitable and interesting for you. We're looking forward to a good day together. Now for this first session, let me just first give a few words of introductory explanation.

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Is that better?

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On the book table, we do have some free literature. We'd invite you to pick up some sample copies of our newsletter if you're interested in keeping up with the news on creationism.

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Also a complete book list. We have some of our books here on the book table. We have many others, and if you'd like the complete list in the

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ICR brochure, you'll have those. I might mention just one of the books in particular. That is this book,

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Scientific Creationism, which is intended to be kind of a textbook for such meetings as this. This is available both in a general edition and a public school edition.

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The general edition has both scientific and biblical material. The public school edition is limited strictly to scientific material.

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We're trying to get that adopted in public schools for use by teachers in balancing the treatment of origins in their classes.

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Now when we're dealing with the subject of origins, as Barry said, many people feel that this is kind of irrelevant.

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It's much more important what we're doing now and where we're going than where we came from. And many Christian people suggest that this is not central to the proclamation of the gospel.

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It's controversial and sort of peripheral. And they wonder why it's really important to decide how we arrived here.

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And of course the dominant viewpoint in the intellectual world, the scientific world, the educational world, is evolution.

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And many Christian people feel because of that we have to some way reinterpret the Bible to fit that.

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We're not going to be dealing primarily with the biblical aspects of the subject this weekend. One reason for that is because so many people, particularly in the schools and in the science areas, tend to say, well, creation is a religious issue.

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Scientifically, evolution is a fact. And therefore you can't teach creation in the schools, for example, because that's religion.

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Evolution is science and we have to limit our teaching to science in the public schools. Well, we believe that's a false view of the matter.

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We're going to try to show that evolution is not scientific, it's just as religious as creation.

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As a matter of fact, creation fits the facts of science better than evolution. So that if one is to be taught, then the other should be.

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We're not interested in anti -evolution laws or anything of that sort at all, but rather that all of us, young people especially, have access to both concepts, and the evidence is foreign against each, and then they can make their own minds.

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As it is now, evolution is dominant and creation is sort of excluded. So we're going to be dealing primarily with the scientific aspects of this subject today.

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That doesn't mean, of course, that we don't believe that the biblical aspects are important. Dr. Gish and I, and all associated with our creationist movement, do believe the

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Bible to be the Word of God, and we believe it's true. As a matter of fact, one reason we're so confident we can approach this subject strictly scientifically, rather than biblically, is because we know, we have faith or confidence that when all the scientific facts are in and rightly sorted out, that they will be found to teach exactly what the

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Bible has been teaching all along. So we have confidence that the biblical record is true, and therefore we can approach the study of science, apart from the biblical record, in confidence that it finally will be in full harmony.

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And of course the Bible does teach creation, no question about it. If you look closely and if you follow a consistent pattern of exegesis, the

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Bible will not support evolution. It says, for example, ten times in the first chapter of the book of Genesis, after its kind.

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So whatever the kind was or is, may not be exactly our species, but whatever it is, organisms were to reproduce after their kinds and not after some other kind.

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So there are limits to variation within the kind. That's what the Bible teaches. Also teaches, and I might just mention this one passage of scripture which seems to me to settle the question as far as the biblical teaching is concerned.

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In the Ten Commandments, God gave these commandments to his people, and it says that he, as a matter of fact, wrote these words with his own finger on a table of stones, so that this is uniquely divinely inscripturated as well as inspired, according to the record.

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And there in the Ten Commandments, in the fourth one of the commandments, he said, Remember this Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you do all your work and so on.

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The seventh day you don't do any work. And then the reason for that, he says, in verse 11 of Exodus 24, In six days the

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Lord made heaven and earth and the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day.

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Now these days of God's week are the same as the days of man's week, because they're in the same words, the same structure, the same sentence arrangement and so on.

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And he's telling us that the reason for man's week is God's week. And they're the same thing. In six days he made everything, heaven and earth and the sea and all that in them is.

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Now we can reject that statement if we wish, but we can't believe the Bible and reject that statement, seems to me, because that's very plainly what the teaching of the

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Bible is. Well, but we're not going to discuss that part of it today. We just mentioned that in passing to point out that this is the biblical teaching, creation.

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We believe recent, special creation. Now, as far as the scientific aspects are concerned, many people have tried to find some means of accommodating the

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Bible to the evolutionary point of view. But really that won't work. Now we don't have time really to discuss that.

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This is dealt with in some of our books. But for example, to use the day -age approach, that the days of creation were long ages corresponding to the ages of geology, will not work because even though we might legitimately be able to translate the word day by age or something equivalent, wouldn't help because there are still many contradictions between the order of events in creation and the order of evolution in geology.

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We have a list of at least 25 such contradictions. There's no correlation at all. Just in a general superficial way there may appear to be kind of a correlation, but when one goes to the details, they don't agree at all.

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And so stretching the days of creation into ages won't help in harmonizing with the evolutionary system at all.

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And some suggest that maybe you can work this out by putting the geological ages in a gap between the first two verses of Genesis, but that won't work scientifically either because that postulates a great worldwide cataclysm at the end of the geological ages, which let the earth without form and void, as described in Genesis 1 -2.

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But any cataclysm that would do that, in other words, blow all the mountains into the ocean, leaving the earth covered with water, and blow billions of tons of debris up into the sky, blotting out the light of the sun, any cataclysm that do that would be such a devastating atomic explosion or volcanic eruption worldwide, as to just literally disintegrate the crust of the earth, and that's where the sedimentary rocks are which contain the fossils which identify the geological ages, as we'll discuss a bit this afternoon.

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So we can't retain the geological age system and the evolutionary system, which is essentially synonymous with it, by postulating a worldwide cataclysm which would destroy the evidence for the geological ages.

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So that won't work scientifically any more than biblically, and we are kind of limited, if we're going to be consistent in our biblical interpretation and application, to the concept of special creation in recent times.

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Now many people say, well that's utterly impossible scientifically. Well we believe that people have discarded the

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Bible too quickly on this, but as a matter of fact the real facts of science will support this concept better than they will the evolutionary concept.

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We're going to try to show that today, in an introductory way at least, and not suggesting that we have all the answers, because obviously any theory of origins deals with all types of data, and it's really a cosmogony and cosmology and deals with everything, and so there are many questions that need to be settled, but we do believe that the creation concept explains more facts of science with fewer problems than does the evolutionary approach, and therefore at least it ought to be taught on a competitive, equal basis.

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Now having discussed the biblical aspect very briefly, I want to go on to the scientific aspects, and most of the rest of the day will be devoted to this.

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Now many people have the idea that evolution has been proved scientifically. In fact I might quote a statement from Julian Huxley, probably the world's leading evolutionist, or certainly one of them, who in his keynote address at the

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Darwinian Centennial Convocation in 1959 at the University of Chicago, said among other things, the first point to make about Darwin's theory is it's no longer a theory but a fact.

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No serious scientist would deny the fact that evolution has occurred, just as he wouldn't deny the fact that the earth goes around the sun, and so it's a proved fact of science in the viewpoint of men like Huxley and many others.

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This is essentially the way it's taught in the schools today, and as mentioned, because of that many religious people have felt that we have to accept it and adapt our theology to it, and so many people think we can go the route of theistic evolution.

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As a matter of fact I thought that while I was a theistic evolutionist all through college, and many people believe that way so I can understand some of that.

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But there are other theories that have come to be, that we can accept and adapt, but I think that's the way it is, and I think that's the way it should be, and I think that's the way it should be, and I think that's the way it should be.

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From the sphere of rational discussion, Darwin pointed out that no supernatural designer was needed since natural selection can account for any known form of life.

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There's no room for a supernatural agency in its evolution. We can dismiss entirely all idea of a supernatural overriding mind being responsible for the evolutionary process.

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What he said. Now not every evolutionist would agree with him, but most of the leaders of evolutionary thought and philosophy do, and of course that's the idea.

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If evolution can account for everything, it's a cosmogony, a cosmology which accounts for all things.

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He says in another place, the whole of reality is evolution. One single process of self -transformation, then why bring an unnecessary hypothesis like God into the picture?

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That's the attitude. It's irrational to do that when you can explain everything without God. So he says, this is not even rational discussion to talk about God.

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Now if that's a legitimate approach, and this is the approach which is dominant in the school, then of course

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I think we ought to realize that we're dealing not simply with science, because science cannot really answer the question of origins.

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You see science, the word science means knowledge, what we know, and the essence of the scientific method is observation, things that we can see taking place.

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We can set up an experiment and see how it works. That's the essence of science. We formulate a hypothesis, we set up an experiment, we test the hypothesis, and so on.

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That's the scientific method. Well you cannot do this with origins. There's no way we can study, for example, the origin of the solar system experimentally, or the origin of man.

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You can't repeat these things in the laboratory to see how they work, and the essence of the scientific method involves experimental repetition and confirmation, and we can't do that with origins.

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That's true with creation as well as with evolution, of course. In fact many times evolutionists reject our proposal to teach creation on that very basis.

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They say, well creation is not scientific. You can't study it. You can't put it in the laboratory.

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You can't see it operating, so it's not science. That's quite true if creation really did take place, and that's at least a possibility certainly.

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If you don't reject God altogether, at least it's possible that God might create. So it's at least a possibility, but we can't study it in the laboratory because if it did take place, it took place in the past, and isn't taking place now, and therefore we can't see it taking place now.

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But the same problem applies to evolution, exactly the same way. If evolution is true, it operates so very slowly that it takes a million years to produce real significant evolutionary changes from one kind into a higher kind, and nobody can study an experiment for a million years, and so you can't study that either.

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Now, of course, in the laboratory we can study the small variations, mutations, shifting of colorations in insect species and things of this kind, but these small changes fit either concept equally well.

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In fact, we, as we'll show, think they fit the creation model better than the evolution model. But what we cannot study in the laboratory is the vertical change of one degree of order into a higher degree of order, one kind into a higher kind over the geological ages.

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We can't study that experimentally because it takes too long, and therefore it's outside the scope of science, and that's the essence of evolution.

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Now, these small changes, nobody argues about those. If that's what evolution is, shifting of color in the peppered moth, for example, or mutations on a fruit fly, for example, or something like that, if that's what evolution is, then all of us are evolutionists because these are things we see taking place, but they can be explained, we think, better in the concept of creation than evolution.

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Now, let me give a statement or quotation from two of our modern -day leading evolutionists,

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Dr. Paul Ehrlich, Stanford, and Dr. Elsie Birch at Sydney. Ehrlich is a very well -known ecologist and evolutionary biologist, one of the leaders.

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And he's certainly an evolutionist, but on the other hand, he sees this problem from the magazine Nature. Let me quote.

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He says, "...our theory of evolution has become one which cannot be refuted by any possible observations.

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Every conceivable observation can be fitted into it." Now, at first you might think, well, that makes it a pretty good theory, doesn't it?

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If everything fits it. No, that's exactly what makes it a bad theory, because it cannot be tested. If everything can be made to fit it, then there's no way of determining whether it's true or not.

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No way of testing it. You see, the creationists can say the same thing. Every conceivable observation can be explained by creation.

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So there's no way of testing that either, scientifically. Now, he goes on to say, "...it is therefore outside of empirical science, though not necessarily false.

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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.

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They have become part of an evolutionary dogma accepted by most of us as part of our training."

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Now, he's an evolutionist, but he does recognize that evolution is a dogma. Now, that's a religious term.

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You have to believe it. By faith, you cannot test it. And that's okay. One can believe what he wants to believe, but he ought to recognize that he is believing, he is not proving.

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And the same thing applies to creation. Let me also quote from the latest edition of Darwin's Origin of Species. This was published in 1971, and you understand, of course, that Darwin does not revise his book anymore.

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But a new edition does come out every once in a while with a new foreword written by a current leader in the field that sort of put

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Darwin's book in the current perspective. And that's what this is, published 1971 in London, foreword written by L.

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Harrison Matthews, an evolutionist, fellow of the Royal Society. And he also sees his problem. He says this, 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?

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

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

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And then note this, he says, 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.

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So you believe in one or the other, and special creation is on the same level as evolution. You cannot prove or disprove.

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You decide which you want to believe. Well, then if that's the case, you see, we cannot repeat history, so we can't go back and see what happened.

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It would be real nice if we could set up an experiment, some kind of an experiment, which we could run and make the measurements, and then on the basis of that experiment decide whether evolution or creation were true.

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But there's no way you can do that. You can't repeat history. And these are historical questions.

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Well, that being the case, is there any way that we can really discuss it scientifically? Is it simply a matter of blind faith?

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Either way, no. We can discuss them scientifically, because they do deal with scientific data and with the world in which we live.

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And I think a way to do it is to define the two models, evolution model, creation model. Now, a model is simply a framework within which we try to explain things.

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So you could call it a framework, if you wish, or a system. But at any rate, two models, creation model, evolution model, define them in their simplest terms, use these models as means for predicting data that we would expect to find out there in the real world, and for correlating those data that we do find, and see which one fits the data, predicts the data, correlates the data more effectively than the other.

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Now, we can always make any conceivable observation fit either model. Understand that.

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But we define the models in the simplest terms, and then we predict data, then we go see what's there, and if it doesn't fit the prediction, it's always possible to bring in a secondary modification of the model to make it fit.

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You can do that with either one. So you can make it fit anything. But the model which would fit the facts more directly with a smaller number of additions and secondary assumptions and modifications would be, at least probably, the more likely model to be correct.

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And we believe that when you do that, the creation model will always fit the facts more directly with a smaller number of secondary modifications to make it fit than will the evolution model.

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Therefore, we think it's a better scientific model. Even though we acknowledge that we can't ultimately prove it, any more than the evolutionist can ultimately prove his model.

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But the creation model does fit the facts that we do have available up to date any way that it does.

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Now, with that in mind, I want to define the models. And I think to do that, I'll, so that you'll get the picture, put it on the screen.

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So maybe have the lights out a little bit. And the first slide. Now, here's the evolution model defined.

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And I'm going to define it based on Julian Huxley's definition. Huxley is certainly qualified to define evolution.

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And he defines it this way. He says, 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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Let's see, I presume by turning the lights out, or down anyway. 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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Now, if you note there, he's talking about not just change, but a directional change in the direction of higher organization, greater variety, higher organization, irreversible change.

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And furthermore, he's talking about a self -contained universe. There's no supernatural agent outside controlling the process.

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It's all natural. He says it's a process of self -transformation. The universe is transforming itself into higher levels.

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And the total picture, of course, is billions of years of evolutionary change going all the way from random particles some way back here billions of years ago, through the various evolutionary changes, molecules formed, stars formed, and so on.

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Then living chemicals formed from non -living chemicals. Life beginning and simple forms of life evolving into complex forms of life.

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And finally, man, several million years ago. And here we have this tremendous increase in complexity brought about by these natural processes, which are still operating because it's all within a self -contained universe, which is continuous, going all the way from particles up to people.

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Now, so we can define the evolutionary model in very simple terms this way. It specifies that we can explain the origin and history of the world in terms of a continuing naturalistic origin.

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No external supernatural intervention. And furthermore, the net effect has to be increase in complexity, although it can go up and down maybe.

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Yet the net effect has to be an increase in organization because that's what has happened if evolution is true, all the way from particles up to people.

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And at least most people would recognize that people are more complex than particles. Now, furthermore, since the history of life and of the universe of man and so on is to be explained in terms of the same natural processes which operate now, this is the concept of uniformitarianism, uniform operation of natural laws and processes.

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So earth history would be dominated by uniformitarianism. And if we're going to explain the origin and history of the earth in terms of present natural processes, say the structure of the earth in terms of processes of sedimentation, erosion, radioactive decay, earth movements, and so on, obviously these will take millions of years to explain the sedimentary crust as we have it.

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So uniformitarianism, as Dr. Dunbar says, of Yale demands an immensity of time.

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So the evolutionary model does necessarily presuppose a large amount of time. Now, in contrast to that, the creation model, may

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I have the next slide, please. In contrast to that, the creation model says that there must have been a period of special creation in the past in which processes were operating, creative processes which are no longer continuing in the present, completed in the past, supernatural in essence because they're not the present natural processes.

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This presupposes the existence of a creator who created things. Now, that doesn't mean that there can't be changes in the present world, but it does mean that the basic categories of nature must have been brought into existence by special creation, the basic laws of nature, the basic structure of the universe, and the basic types of plants and animals, basic kinds, and especially man brought into existence by special creation so that man was created as man directly, not through a long chain of evolutionary ancestors of the hominid or hominoid type.

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Now, that's the creation model. And furthermore, the creation model says that if there are any significant changes in complexity, they will not be towards higher complexity, but towards lower complexity.

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Now, I would recognize that there would be horizontal changes. No two individuals are alike. We have a lot of variety in the world.

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And furthermore, you can have different species, different varieties, subspecies, and so on within the kind.

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You can have all the different varieties of dogs, for example, from the same ancestral dog and all the different tribes and nations of people from the same ancestral people or man and woman and so on.

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You can have variations of a horizontal nature within the kind, but we will not have variations of a vertical nature from one degree of complexity to a higher degree of complexity, as evolution supposes.

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If vertical changes take place, they will be towards lower degrees of complexity. And the reason for saying that is that the creation concept involves created entities in the beginning, which were perfect for their purpose in the mind of the creator who made them.

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And he created everything with its own structure for its own purpose. It was perfect.

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And since you cannot improve perfection, if any external change comes in, as it were, to force a vertical change, it will be towards imperfection.

31:31

And that means downhill instead of uphill. So there would be a net decrease in complexity in the creation model.

31:38

And furthermore, the creation model would suggest that earth history has been dominated not by naturalistic uniformitarian processes, but by catastrophism or cataclysm, not only a period of special constructive process, creative process, but one or more periods of special destructive process in which processes were operating at intensities far beyond what they normally operate in the present world.

32:01

Now, that doesn't mean, of course, that the creation model does not allow for uniformitarian processes within normal framework of history, or that the evolution model does not allow for occasional catastrophes in the overall uniformitarian framework of history.

32:15

Both have a certain measure of both in them. But we're just saying that the evolutionary model must be dominated by uniformitarianism.

32:23

The creation model, in terms of earth history, dominated by catastrophism. That's not maybe as important a definition, a part of the definition as the other two.

32:33

But we will see this afternoon that it does have an important role in the interpretation of earth history. Now, on the next slide, we'll compare the two again so that you see the contrast.

32:41

Each is quite different from the other. And therefore, they ought to lend themselves to comparative evaluation so that we can decide which one fits the facts more directly, make predictions from these two models, and go out and see what's there in the real world.

32:54

And when you do that, we believe that the creation model will fit. Let's just take as an example of the sort of thing that we mean when we say we can compare the two models in terms of their ability to fit the data that are there in the real world.

33:06

Let's take the array of organisms as a test case, the classification system, plants and animals, species, genera, families, and so on.

33:16

Now, if we can put ourselves in the position of two people, an evolutionist and a creationist, who approach the world for the first time and they don't know what they're going to find, they just make predictions on the basis of their two models, it would seem that the basic prediction of the evolution model would be that since all organisms have come by this natural process increasing in complexity from a common ancestor, say a one -celled organism way back there somewhere, and that in turn from non -living chemicals somewhere even further back, they've all come by this evolutionary natural process from a common ancestor to give the present great complexity and variety of the organic world.

33:53

Therefore, come from a common ancestor by the same process in the same world, there ought to be therefore a continuum of organisms, an evolutionary flux of all sorts.

34:03

In other words, instead of having cats and dogs, for example, we ought to have cats, 90 percent cats, 10 percent dogs, 80 percent, 20 percent, and so on.

34:12

There ought to be a continuum of organisms instead of distinct kinds with gaps between the kinds. Now, that isn't what we find, of course, and the evolutionists say, well, we can explain that.

34:24

That's true, we can, but that isn't the basic prediction of the model because if we did find that, you see, if we did find in the world a continuum of organisms, you couldn't tell where one stopped and another began.

34:35

Obviously, they'd all be related and this would be a very obvious evidence supporting the evolution model.

34:41

That would be the best evidence you could get to show that all organisms are interrelated by evolutionary descent if there was a continuum of organisms.

34:48

So that would be the basic prediction of the model as defined in simplest terms. Now, the evolutionists can come in and say, yes, but we can explain because, you see, in the original population, a certain group got isolated, small population inbreeding developed rapidly, developed distinct characteristics in a different environment than the other population.

35:06

So one went one way, one another, and there was a gap then finally between them. Yeah, that's true. Maybe that's exactly what happened.

35:13

You can explain it that way, but you do have to explain it, you see. You don't predict it, whereas the creation model, on the other hand, does predict that there would be gaps between the kinds.

35:23

The creationists would say the creator made basic kinds with structures corresponding to the functions that he intended for them.

35:31

Each has its own purpose with its own functions, therefore its own structure. He would predict, of course, that there would be similarities between different kinds because they live in the same world and to some extent the same environment.

35:42

So, for example, the fact that, oh, say, fish have eyes and men have eyes doesn't mean that they both came from the same evolutionary ancestor, it just means they both had to see, that's all, and the creator would make eyes for both of them.

35:56

You can explain these similarities either by evolution from a common ancestor or by creation by a common designer, either way.

36:04

But now, in addition, the creationists would say, well, although there are many similarities, there are also going to be differences because each kind has its own purpose and therefore its own structure.

36:11

The fish is going to have gills and the man is going to have lungs because one lives in the water and one lives in the air. So there would be an array of similarities and differences.

36:21

Now, the evolutionist has to explain the differences, but the creationist predicts the differences.

36:27

And so it's a more direct model, you see. It fits the facts more directly. By a secondary modification of the basic model, the evolutionist can explain the classification system, different kinds and gaps between the kinds.

36:39

The creationist doesn't have to explain them because he predicted them on the basis of his model. It's a direct prediction. Now, the creationist says that there are going to be variations within the kind.

36:49

And the reason he says that is that the creator had a purpose for each kind. And having a purpose, he intends to accomplish the purpose.

36:56

And so he's going to build into that kind the ability to survive, at least to a considerable degree, so that if the environment does change in time, instead of the organism becoming extinct, it'll be able to adjust to the new environment and will survive.

37:15

So within the genetic system of each kind would be a tremendously widespread potential of differences, the development differential potential of differences, so that they could adjust.

37:29

But all of this might be quite wide and all kinds of different individual characteristics might be developed, different varieties, maybe even species within the kind.

37:37

It could never become a different kind because the creator had a purpose for each kind.

37:43

And so these small horizontal changes are predicted directly by the creation model as a conservative mechanism designed to conserve the kind in nature when the environment changes.

37:54

When the environment changes so drastically, maybe finally it'd get beyond the limits of adjustment and might become extinct.

38:00

That's one of these vertical changes we're talking about that comes in from an external cause, and that would be downhill.

38:05

Extinction is downhill, not uphill. We can explain the extinction of the dinosaurs, maybe, you see, but it's very difficult to explain the evolution of the dinosaurs.

38:15

Well, anyway, going back to the cat and dog, I have another slide.

38:21

Let me see this next slide, please. Oh, this is just a tabulation of predictions. I won't go through these.

38:26

We don't have time. But different ways that you can test the two models. We maintain that every sort of test that you can bring in terms of the world of astronomy or biochemistry or geology or biology or whatever, always the creation model fits the facts more directly than the evolution model.

38:42

This tabulation is in the textbook that I mentioned if you want to study it. Let me have the next one, please.

38:50

Now, this is a newspaper photograph, and it doesn't reproduce too well here on the screen, but you can get the idea.

38:55

I think this is apparently a reputation of what

39:01

I've just said. I've said that there were differences between cats and dogs, and one couldn't evolve into another, or one couldn't hybridize with another because they're genetically different.

39:11

But here's a dat, which is a hybrid between a dog and a cat. And of course, when this was first published in the newspaper several years ago on the front page, a lot of people came and reminded me, a lot of my evolutionary friends came and reminded me,

39:26

I'd been teaching that such a thing as this wasn't possible, and here it had been done. Dogs and cats must have been related after all.

39:34

But the problem was that they didn't see about three days later, way back in the inside of the paper, a little about a half -inch column, wasn't on the front page this time, about a half -inch article, in which the man who had published this picture admitted it was a hoax.

39:47

No such thing as this at all. Cats and dogs don't hybridize. They are distinct. They don't have a common evolutionary ancestor as far as the evidence goes.

39:58

Now, you would think that if they had the same ancestor, you'd see these did evolve if they evolved from a common ancestor not too long ago in geological time.

40:08

And furthermore, they evolved in the same environment because they live in the same environment and have the same kind of food and so on, essentially.

40:14

So how would they ever get to be different? They at least ought to have an intermediate group of animals between cats and dogs, either in the present world or in the fossil world, but you never find anything between a cat and a dog, or between any other basic kinds.

40:27

And this is hard for the evolutionary model to explain in terms of its assumptions and definitions. It's not hard for the creation model to explain because the creation model directly predicts this sort of thing.

40:38

Now, we often ask the evolutionists, you say that evolution is a proved fact of science. How come we don't see any evidence of it?

40:44

Science is supposed to be observation. What we can see. Why don't we see it? Well, he says, we do see these changes taking place.

40:51

We see the mutations on the fruit fly. We see mutations on the bacteria and so on. And evolution is taking place.

40:58

We see this. Yes, but remember, these small horizontal variations are exactly what the creation model predicts too, so they don't test between the two models.

41:06

In fact, they have a better explanation in terms of the creation model. But by faith, he believes that these small variations, if they extended over millions of years, would become the big changes, which would lead to higher kinds.

41:17

Well, all right, if that's the case, then we ought to be able somewhere to see evidence of that happens.

41:22

We don't see it in the present world. We never see one kind evolving into a different kind in the present world.

41:30

Well, I know sometimes you read about things like that, like this debt, or sometimes you read about the big changes like frogs turning into princes, things of that sort.

41:40

But you don't read anything like that in the book of science. In the real world of science, nobody ever sees one kind become a different kind.

41:47

Oh, we see the peppered moth shifting its coloration from dominantly light to dominantly dark when the atmosphere changed, the environment changed, the tree trunks got dark in the

41:56

Industrial Revolution. But that's a horizontal change. And I just might read Dr. Matthews' comment on that in this foreword to Darwin's species.

42:05

Since this peppered moth is considered to be one of the main examples, one of the best examples of evolution in action today,

42:12

Dr. Matthews, however, comments the peppered moth experiments beautifully demonstrate natural selection or survival of the fittest in action.

42:20

But they don't show evolution in progress, for however the population may alter in their content of light, intermediate, or dark forms, all the moths remain from beginning to end best in bacularia.

42:30

It hasn't, the moth hasn't become a butterfly, hasn't even become a different species of moth. It's still the same species.

42:35

These are just varieties, and all of this was built into the genetic system in the first place to enable the moth to adjust to the different environment.

42:41

Now it's beginning to adjust back to the light color again because they've cleaned up the atmosphere. Maybe you saw a recent article of this effect in Scientific American about a month or two ago.

42:49

So this is not an evolutionary change, this is simply variation within the created kind as far as the creation model is concerned, fits the facts perfectly well.

42:57

Well, but where do we go to see big changes? Well, they say you go to the fossils for that because after all you have to have millions of years for that kind of change, and we only have the record of the millions of years preserved for us in the fossils, in the sedimentary rocks of the earth's crust.

43:12

Well, that's the key test of the historicity of the evolution model, no doubt. And Dr.

43:18

Gess is going to be dealing with that next hour, and he will show I think quite conclusively that there is not the slightest evidence of evolution preserved for us in the records of the fossils.

43:29

The same kinds exist, same kinds of kinds, some kinds of becoming extinct like dinosaurs, and the same kinds of gaps between the kinds with no intermediate transitional incipient evolutionary forms between the kinds.

43:42

Just as in the present world there are kinds and varieties within the kinds and gaps between the kinds, the same thing is found in the fossils.

43:48

Now he'll, I won't discuss that because he's going to document that quite thoroughly next hour. But there's no evidence, you see, either of evolution in intermediate forms in the present world or in the world of the past.

43:59

We ask the evolutionists, how come these gaps are there in the fossil record with no transitional forms? Nowadays what they usually say is that, well, evolution, when it took place in the past, took place sort of explosively in spurts.

44:11

There was a time when a population got isolated in a small group and they evolved rapidly. Maybe there were increased mutation rates due to periods of increased cosmic rays hitting the earth, maybe a supernova in space or something.

44:22

Increased cosmic rays, therefore increased mutations, accelerated evolution, consequently weren't many intermediate forms to preserve as fossils.

44:30

Well, maybe that's what happened. You can't go back and see and test that because it's history, not science.

44:38

But it does seem like what they're doing is not using evidence but lack of evidence in support of evolution because the transitional form in science is supposed to be what you can see.

44:50

Now you begin to wonder whether evolution is possible at all. And I just have time barely to introduce this very important test of the two models.

44:56

We're going to discuss it tomorrow morning more in detail at the youth meeting here at the church. That is the subject of the basic laws of nature.

45:03

If there, I think we can turn and take the slides off now and turn the lights back on. In terms of the basic laws of nature, what is possible and what is impossible?

45:13

Well, if evolution is true, there must be some kind of a basic law which makes things go from simple to complex because that's what has happened over the ages, if it's true.

45:22

All the way from particles to people, a tremendous increase in complexity and organization and order. So there must be some basic law to make that happen, some basic principle in nature.

45:31

And since it is a universal principle, we ought to be able to see it operating as we make our measurements of natural processes.

45:36

We ought to be able to see this kind of a force operating to make things go upward from simple to complex. The creationist says, no, you won't see that because there's no such thing as that in nature.

45:46

If there is any vertical change, we both see these horizontal changes, understand? But if there is any vertical change, it's going to go downhill, not uphill.

45:54

What's the fact? Well, in the real world, there is a basic change specified in complexity known as the second law of thermodynamics or the law of increasing entropy.

46:07

And this can be expressed in many different ways. It can be expressed in terms of sophisticated mathematical equations applied to chemical and physical systems.

46:14

It also can be expressed in terms of probabilistic functions, specifying degrees of order and disorder.

46:20

It can be expressed in terms of information content of systems, programmed information, various ways of doing it, all more or less equivalent to each other.

46:29

But the significant thing is that this is a law of science, if there is such a thing. And it does say that there's a principle in nature which tends to push things downhill, tends to make the energy for further work become unavailable, tends to make order go to disorder, tends to make the information content of a system become garbled and not transmit itself fully and completely and exactly.

46:52

Always there seems to be this pressure to go downhill. Now, that's common to our experience. That's why things get old and wear out, run down.

46:59

Why, if you just let things go, if you let your room go, for example, it goes toward disorder.

47:05

If you let your automobile go, it goes towards rust. If you let yourself go, if you just let yourself go, you go down.

47:12

And you don't just automatically get better. To improve and to grow, why, you've got to get a hold of yourself.

47:21

You've got to put energy in. You've got to work and study. Same thing applies to any kind of a physical system. If it's going to go uphill, you've got to put something in from outside, something very directed and specific to make it grow.

47:31

Otherwise, it won't. Now, this is a universal law known as the second law of thermodynamics. Let me quote from Isaac Asimov, who is the most prolific science writer of our generation.

47:42

Asimov is a biochemist and a humanist. He's not a creationist by any means. He says, as far as we know, all changes are in the direction of increasing entropy, of increasing disorder, of increasing randomness, of running down.

47:58

All changes, he says, go in that direction. Now, he's not a creationist.

48:05

I read from Harold Blum, who's also an evolutionist, biochemist, Princeton. He says, a major consequence of the second law of thermodynamics is that all real processes go toward a condition of greater probability.

48:17

The probability function generally used in thermodynamics is entropy. The word entropy just means turning inward.

48:24

It's a Greek word. And the idea is it's a measure of disorder. If a system turns in on itself to get the energy to keep going, it's going to just finally run down and become disordered.

48:33

That's the idea. The orderliness is associated with low entropy, randomness with high entropy.

48:40

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

48:50

Now, this is a law of science. And note Blum and Asimov both say all real processes obey this law.

48:57

Huxley said all the whole of reality is evolution, a law which leads toward higher organization.

49:02

Now, here we have a universal law which says that changes go upward, another universal law which says changes go downward.

49:09

Now, if the English language means anything, it seems like they can't both be true, as universal laws at least. One goes up and the other goes down.

49:16

Each is the converse of the other. So how can they both be true? And yet they're both considered to be universal principles.

49:22

Now, the difference is, you see, the evolutionary concept is not a law of science.

49:28

It has not been proved. As we pointed out, it cannot even be tested. It's not a hypothesis. It can be subjected to test.

49:35

The second law of thermodynamics is a law of science. It has been tested on all kinds of systems, molecular systems, cosmic systems, everything.

49:44

No exception has ever been found if there is such a thing as a law of science. And if one wanted to be really picky, he could say, well, there's no such thing because you may always find an exception to it.

49:53

That's true. But to the extent that it's possible to prove anything to be a law of science, the second law as well as the first law of thermodynamics have been proved experimentally to be correct.

50:02

And it is opposite to the concept of evolution, which cannot even be tested. Now, which is better?

50:09

Well, now, the evolution says, now, wait a minute. We can explain this because, you see, the second law of thermodynamics applies only to an isolated system.

50:16

You may have caught that phrase in Blum's discussion. In other words, if the system is isolated, then it's going to run down.

50:22

But the Earth isn't an isolated system. It's an open system, open to the energy of the sun. And the sun's energy supplies plenty of energy to support the evolutionary process over geological ages, even though maybe the sun might burn out someday and then the evolutionary process would stop on the

50:37

Earth. Maybe it'll take place somewhere else. Well, that's true. All right, if you want to approach the thing philosophically, it is possible that if you have an open system and available energy, you can have for a little while a growth process, even though normally things tend to go towards decay.

50:57

But, you see, that doesn't really answer the question, because all it says is that there's a possible answer.

51:05

If the Earth is an open system, there's a possibility that the sun's energy may support evolution.

51:10

There's a possible answer, but it doesn't give the answer. The question is not whether there's enough energy coming in from the sun, but how does the sun's energy support evolution?

51:19

That's the question. Now, you see, that statement applies to every system in the world.

51:24

So that's not a specific answer. In fact, you might even call it a vacuous answer, because it applies to every system, not to a specific system.

51:33

It conveys no information. Every system in the real world is an open system. A closed, isolated system is only something you can draw on a blackboard.

51:41

You draw a circle, you define that as an isolated system. But in the real world, that doesn't exist. Every system is open to some degree or other, and it's open to the energy of the sun because the sun's energy supports all of Earth's processes, either directly or indirectly.

51:55

So every system is open to the energy of the sun. So that doesn't say anything. You've got to have more than that in order to have any kind of a system growing.

52:03

Now, there are some systems that grow. A good example would be, say, a seed growing up into a tree with lots of seeds.

52:10

It looks like it's going against the law of decay. It's going uphill. Yeah, that's true. You have an animal that grows up into a man.

52:17

I mean, an embryo that grows up into a man. Or to an animal, and so on.

52:24

So these seem like they're going against the second law. Or you have a pile of bricks growing up into a building. That's an increase of order.

52:30

But now if you look closely at all of these systems, you'll find that they're not just running by random natural processes.

52:42

In every case, there's a specific information program built into the system to direct it how to grow.

52:49

In the case of the building, you've got blueprints. In the case of the seed, you've also got a blueprint.

52:54

You've got the marvelous information program built into the living cell, especially in the DNA molecule, a marvelously complex information program.

53:02

Part of it's called the genetic code. And we have to have some kind of a code or a program or a template to direct the growth.

53:08

Or else if it grows at all, it'll just be a blob. It won't be an increase of order. Probably won't grow at all because under the sun's energy, that sun's energy tends to break down order, not build it up.

53:17

Unless it has some very specific mechanisms and programs structured within the thing to begin with in order to direct the growth.

53:27

And in addition to that, you've got to have some kind of a motor or converter. If you just have raw energy, raw energy breaks down, doesn't build up.

53:35

You've got to have something to take that energy and redirect it, convert it, store it, redirect it into the specific work needed to build up the complexity of the structure.

53:44

Or else it won't grow. In the case of the seed, you've got a mechanism of photosynthesis. Maybe others too, but that one takes the sun's energy and takes that energy and then uses also the energy and the chemicals in the soil and so on.

53:57

And somehow in a marvelous process, which we don't understand, directs the growth into the building up of the tissue and the cells and so on in the plant.

54:05

And the animal has mechanisms too. The building has the mechanisms of the equipment and the workmen and so on to convert the sun's energy into the specific work of building up the structure.

54:14

If all you had to have was an open system and available energy, then the building would build itself, you see.

54:20

That'd be a good economical way to build buildings. Just let the sun, it's an open system and there's plenty of energy from the sun.

54:26

And it may not be quite as rapid. It may take a hundred years or so by this random process to build a building.

54:33

But since all you have to have is an open system and available energy, why eventually it's going to grow. That's the evolutionary idea.

54:39

And if it works in the case of the first cell, for example, or the process of building up a population of worms into a population of people, it works that way.

54:48

Why wouldn't it work in this much more simple problem of building a building? Because a building is not nearly as complex as the simplest replicating

54:55

DNA system at all. If it works in one, it's sure to do in the other. But you see, as time goes on, the bricks are not going to become a building.

55:03

They're going to become dust. That's what the second law says. And that's what would happen to that first imaginary molecule out in that primeval soup too.

55:10

It'll go down, not up. Now, in order to have growth in complexity, one has to have not only an open system and available energy, but also a specific program to direct the growth and an energy converter to energize the growth or you don't get any growth.

55:27

Now the earth, the evolutionary process does not have either one, at least none that have been demonstrated yet.

55:33

Mutation is not a code. It's a random process. Natural selection doesn't convert any energy.

55:39

It's just a static sieve that lets mutations be weeded out when they're produced. But there's no code nor mechanism to take the sun's energy and direct it to grow and to increase complexity of the evolutionary biosphere in the space -time framework which constitutes our world.

55:58

Now, therefore, the second law of thermodynamics seems to preclude evolution on any significant scale, but maybe it's at least philosophically conceivable that someday the evolutions might be able to invent some kind of an explanation which will explain how evolution can take place from the sun's energy.

56:15

No explanation yet, but maybe someday they will be able to explain it. I don't think so, but philosophically possible, maybe you can imagine that some explanation will be invented to explain that.

56:28

But even if they ever do, it still won't be as good as the creation model. It's, again, a secondary modification of the basic evolutionary model.

56:36

You'd never, from the evolutionary model, predict such a law as a law of decay. You'd never predict that from the evolution model.

56:42

The creation model predicts the second law. It doesn't have to explain it. It predicts it. Now, you find that's true in all these different ways in which we can test the two, whether the living world, the fossil world, the laws of nature, or whatever other test you want to apply.

56:54

You'll find that the creation model will predict the facts directly. The evolution model can only be made to explain the facts by secondary modifications of the basic model.

57:05

Now, again, we'd say that we ought to keep in mind that you can never prove or disprove either one, ultimately, because we cannot repeat history and see what actually happened scientifically.

57:15

If we want to know for absolute sure what happened, the only way we can get that information is from someone who was there to see and record what happened.

57:23

That's what science is, observation, records, repetition. Well, if someone was there to tell us what happened, then we could know, but that's the only way we could be sure scientifically.

57:34

Now, that brings the subject of revelation. And, of course, Christians at least believe that the

57:41

Bible is that revelation, and it does give us the account of what really happened. And we're not discussing the

57:47

Bible so much today, but if you do look at the biblical model of creation, special creation, with a curse coming in to explain the law of decay and so on, with the great flood to explain the evidence of catastrophism, which we'll discuss later this afternoon, then you'll find that the actual biblical model of creation does also fit all the facts perfectly.

58:08

There is no reason to reject the simple, straightforward, literal, biblical record of what happened during the creation period.

58:14

So we commend this to you for your consideration and study. My time is up, and you're going to have a five -minute break now, and then,

58:22

Dr. Gish, you're going to talk about the fossil record. So let's just stretch a bit for five minutes. No more than that, though.

58:28

Be sure you get back in five minutes. All right.

58:35

Thank you very much, Barry. Certainly want to express my pleasure and the privilege

58:43

I feel for having this opportunity to be with you today and then to participate in this debate tomorrow.

58:53

I trust you'll all be there. And we suggest that you come early. They are expecting a capacity or an excessive capacity crowd tomorrow at the debate.

59:05

So hope you'll come early so you'll be able to get a seat. When I'm in a faraway area or new area away from San Diego, I always like to try to say something relevant about the area.

59:18

But I'm going to refrain from that today because I'm sure anything I would say about Texas would be inadequate.

59:27

And I might mention that I understand your football season at Tech wasn't 100 percent victorious, but you did have a very successful season,

59:42

I understand, because you dismantled the University of Texas. And anytime any football team can do that, it's a tremendously successful season.

59:52

Well, Dr. Morris, I think, has given a very fitting introduction to my lecture this morning.

59:59

I'm going to try to cover the essence of the fossil record from the microorganism stage on up through the more and more complex animals.

01:00:09

We'll get at least as far as the fish, perhaps a little further. And this afternoon, we'll get from fish to gitch.

01:00:16

I believe somewhere today we'll get all the way from the microorganisms to gitch before the day is over with.

01:00:27

Dr. Morris has made plain that we are speaking, we are addressing ourselves to this question of the general theory of evolution, the particles -to -people theory.

01:00:38

And we're not speaking about the minor variations and changes. Now, what I want to do this morning is to compare the predictions of each one of our models, the creation model on one hand and the evolution model on the other hand, the predictions based upon those models on what we would expect to find in the fossil record.

01:01:04

Now, this is an eminently good scientific method.

01:01:09

Construct a model based upon your theory or your suppositions or your theoretical construct.

01:01:19

Make predictions based upon that model or theory or hypothesis, and then investigate the real world to see if the predictions you have made on the basis of your model is what you find in the scientific data.

01:01:36

Now, this is what we are going to do today, and I hope to show that when this is done and when the actual scientific evidence is compared to the predictions of each model, we find that creation is much more successful in predicting the data that we actually find.

01:01:54

As a matter of fact, ladies and gentlemen, when all is said and done, there's simply no contest here.

01:02:00

Creation wins hands down. Now, there are arguments on each side, but the total weight of the evidence is so powerfully in favor of the creation model here, when we look at the fossil record, there's just simply no contest.

01:02:17

Well, what prediction now would we make based upon our creation evolution model? Let me say before I go ahead that much of what

01:02:25

I will be relating to you today, both this morning and this afternoon, is found in my little book,

01:02:31

Evolution of the Fossil, Say No. They are available, and if you'd like to obtain this material and the documentation, specific documentation where I'm presenting, why, please, you'll find it in this book.

01:02:44

All right, now, what prediction would we make based upon the creation evolution model? May we have that first slide, please?

01:02:50

And I guess we might as well dim the lights. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to address myself to the scientific question.

01:02:59

Principally today, so I'm going to present general models. Now, I'm doing this for specific reasons that I, because we are addressing ourselves particularly to the scientific evidence in this conference.

01:03:18

As Dr. Morris related, we do, we do accept the scriptural account of creation and the scriptures in their entirety.

01:03:27

But when you go to discriminate scientifically concerning these questions of creation, there are some aspects of the biblical model which are not subject to scientific tests.

01:03:40

For instance, scientifically, you could not discriminate between creation which involved only one family or thousands of families.

01:03:52

You could not discriminate scientifically between a creation that took place in six days or six seconds or 6 ,000 years or perhaps six million years.

01:04:02

Now, when you get back further in time on that, there are some ways of discriminating which Dr. Morris will discuss this afternoon.

01:04:09

We could not say, we could not discriminate scientifically between some of these aspects.

01:04:16

So, I'm going to present general models here this morning. The creation, general creation model and the general evolution model.

01:04:23

Furthermore, these are the models that we could introduce into the school. We could not introduce a specific biblical model into the school.

01:04:33

We would be charged with sectarianism or presenting a particular doctrinal view.

01:04:41

So, these are the models that we think certainly unquestionably not only can be legitimately put into the schools, but must be if we are going to have true separation of state, if we are going to have true science, if we are going to have real academic freedom.

01:04:59

Now, notice on the basis of the creation model, we would predict that the fossil record, the history of past life would show a sudden appearance of very complex forms of life with the absence of any evolutionary ancestors.

01:05:18

Abruptly, a great variety of highly complex living forms would appear as fossils.

01:05:29

And we would not be able to find evolutionary ancestors of these creatures. Furthermore, you'll notice that we would predict the sudden appearance of each one of the created kinds, and that they would be essentially complete from the beginning.

01:05:47

In other words, when we first see a bat, it would be a bat. The first bird would be a bird.

01:05:54

The first reptile would be a reptile. The first monkey would be a monkey, and the first man would be a man.

01:06:02

Furthermore, within the reptile kind, turtles would abruptly appear.

01:06:08

Snakes, lizards, the flying reptiles, and so forth and so on.

01:06:16

Each one of these kinds, within the major classes, we would expect to appear abruptly.

01:06:22

We would not expect to find transitional forms between these different kinds.

01:06:29

Now, we could not positively exclude something that might have resemblance to a transitional form, because all of these animals and plants that have been created have been created to live in the same world under essentially the same conditions.

01:06:46

And certain animals might share certain needs in common. Dr. Morris has pointed out, many animals have eyes because we all need to see.

01:06:57

That is, the animals that need to see have to have eyes. And there are certain modes of locomotion.

01:07:03

Four -footed animals. You know, you use good engineering principles in everyday life.

01:07:10

In our experience, we certainly expect God to use good engineering principles in his creation.

01:07:15

Good biological principles. And so, based upon these principles, we would expect some similarities.

01:07:23

Our biochemistry is certainly very similar to that of other creatures. Well, that's quite a sure way.

01:07:29

We'd expect this to be true. We're all eating the same food. We have the same metabolic needs of energy and foodstuffs.

01:07:38

And we need to break food down and build it back up into our own constituents. We'd expect these similarities to exist in the real world.

01:07:46

We would not ascribe them to an evolutionary process. But we would predict the absence of transitional forms would be systematic.

01:07:59

We would not expect the primary predictions of the creation model would predict the gaps in the fossil record between the different kinds, between the created kinds.

01:08:12

Now, there would be a variation within the kind, as Dr. Morris has mentioned. There are a great variety of dogs.

01:08:18

And the Chihuahua to the Great Dane, which man has derived from the original gene pool, genetic potential, which

01:08:27

God had created. But this variation is limited within the kind.

01:08:34

The dog kind may have been even broader than the Canis familiaris, or common household pet, because the dog, our dog, although he ordinarily does not do so, he can interbreed with the various species of coyotes within the genus

01:08:53

Canis. He will interbreed with Canis lupus, the wolf. He will interbreed with certain jackals, and so forth and so on.

01:08:59

This is possible, and it does happen. So it is quite possible that the dog kind, the original created dog kind, had a sufficient genetic potential or gene pool to allow this limited variation.

01:09:15

But there is no evidence that cats and dogs have come from common ancestors, or that they have arisen from some lower form.

01:09:22

This is what we believe the evidence does show. Certainly fits then the biblical data, or the predictions based upon the biblical record.

01:09:31

Now, let us compare that to predictions of the evolution model. If evolution is true, then the rocks, the oldest rocks, which bear the remains of living things, fossils, ought to have the fossils of the simplest forms of life capable of leaving a fossil record.

01:09:49

Then, as we search out successively younger strata, we would expect to find a slow, gradual change of the simple forms of life into the more and more complex forms of life.

01:10:02

Because, you see, the evolutionary process supposedly is a very slow and gradual process.

01:10:08

The essence of evolution is slow change. The mutations that are supposed to have occurred and have given rise to evolution are believed to have caused only slight changes, micro mutations.

01:10:22

Anything more drastic than this, simply the animal could not survive. This sort of change would be eliminated.

01:10:30

So the changes that have contributed to evolution are very, very slight changes. It would require, obviously, a tremendous number of these slight changes to convert, say, a fish into an amphibian.

01:10:42

Whereby the fins of the fish slowly and gradually change into the feet and legs of the amphibians.

01:10:49

The fin of the fish slowly and gradually changing into the feet and legs of the amphibian. Innumerable transitional stages stretching out over 30 million years.

01:11:03

Well, quite obviously, there'd be a tremendous number of transitional forms in the fossil record. Now, fossilization is supposed to be a rare event.

01:11:12

Relatively speaking, based upon uniformitarianism. But, always a considerable population of these intermediates would be in existence.

01:11:22

As a matter of fact, the more successful animal, that's the one that's supposed to evolve. The animal is selected.

01:11:29

The animal that is selected is the one that reproduces in larger offsprings. He's reproductively more successful than his competitor.

01:11:38

That's the definition of evolution, of natural selection. So, there would be a considerable population of these individuals throughout this entire process.

01:11:46

We have billions of tuna and billions and billions and billions of herring in the sea today. So, there must have been a considerable population all the way through time for 30 million years.

01:11:56

So, we can see that the number of transitional forms that actually lived and died during all these millions of years would number in the hundreds of billions and in the trillions.

01:12:08

Now, all we have to do is find three or four or five of these creatures as fossils scattered through time and we can document evolution.

01:12:18

So, certainly the major predictions of evolution would be the presence in the fossil record of the transitional forms demanded by the theory.

01:12:28

Now, ladies and gentlemen, we see the contrast in between the predictions of the evolution model and the predictions of the creation model.

01:12:36

Now, we can test each model versus this known evidence. You can test the creation model just as well as you can test the evolution model.

01:12:46

It's just as valid scientific model as the evolution model. You're a real scientist. You have to be able to predict the evolution model.

01:12:51

So, if we could get this fossil record, we would have to be very careful in our observations, wouldn't we?

01:13:01

Objectively. It reminds me of a story I heard. Now, this is a true story, ladies and gentlemen. I didn't make this up. There was a

01:13:07

Dr. Carlson at the University of Chicago Medical School. He was a real stickler on the necessity of being a careful observer.

01:13:14

And he knew he had to train those medical students to be good observers if they're going to be good doctors. So, every year he'd give this hard -hitting lecture on the necessity of being a careful observer.

01:13:24

Then he'd provide an object lesson for his students. There on the podium, he'd have a beaker of a yellowish -looking fluid. And the professor would hold up the beaker and say,

01:13:33

Now, students, I want you to observe very carefully what I'm about to do. Then on the basis of your observations,

01:13:40

I want to see if you can identify the liquid in the beaker. Well, the professor would take the beaker and hold it up to the light, examine its color.

01:13:48

Then he'd smell this liquid. Then he'd stick his finger in the beaker and lick his finger off and pass it through the class.

01:13:56

Well, the students, once they got a whiff of this stuff, became very suspicious. But what are you going to do?

01:14:01

You're a medical student, first day, class. You're going to stick your finger in, lick it off, gag, and pass it on to the next student.

01:14:09

Well, after they'd been through the class, the professor would say, All right, students, what do you think's in the beaker? A few hands would go up. And so finally, one student would stand up.

01:14:16

He'd get kind of red in the face. He'd stammer a little bit. But he'd say, Professor, if you want to know my frank opinion,

01:14:23

I believe that beaker contains urine. And the professor would say, Yes, you are exactly correct.

01:14:30

But had you been even more observant, you'd notice that I stuck this finger in and licked that one off.

01:14:40

I don't know how many of you noticed that I did that, but that's what I did. And if you didn't notice it, you're in trouble.

01:14:46

Well, I'm sure the professor drove his point home in a very pronounced fashion. All right, now let's take a look at the fossil record.

01:14:55

Now, in doing so, if we're going to use an evolution model, we must make some assumptions here.

01:15:02

We must make the assumptions the evolutionists make. We must make the assumptions concerning the immensity of time.

01:15:08

You can't have evolution without billions of years. I mean, if we're just going to say the

01:15:13

Earth is young and that's the end of it, there's no use even arguing the evidence. Evolution is inconceivable.

01:15:19

Dr. Morris will present some of that evidence this afternoon, which militates for a young Earth, although we're all just brought up to believe the

01:15:26

Earth just got to be old. I mean, that's just obvious. But nevertheless, let's just assume that this

01:15:32

Earth is billions of years old. Let's give these geological ages hundreds of millions of years. And what

01:15:37

I want to point out, even when those assumptions are made, the data does not fit the theory. I do believe that this

01:15:45

Earth is young, but I don't care whether this Earth is 10 ,000 years old or 10 billion years old.

01:15:51

The evidence does not fit evolution. It does fit the predictions of creation.

01:15:56

All right. Now, bearing that in mind, then, the oldest rocks in which indisputable multicellular fossils have been found are those known as the

01:16:09

Cambrian rocks. Now, the Cambrian rocks are sedimentary rocks. The rocks composed of material that were eroded, transported, and deposited from water.

01:16:21

Then, due to cementing action or compaction, they eventually formed rocks.

01:16:29

It doesn't take very long, ladies and gentlemen, to form rocks if you have the right kind of a cementing agent there.

01:16:35

But they are sedimentary rocks. In these so -called, I should say, that the evolutionists, the evolutionary geologists assume that these sedimentary deposits were laid down beginning about 600 million years ago over a long stretch of time.

01:16:50

Well, in these Cambrian rocks, we find billions upon billions upon billions of very highly complex forms of life.

01:16:58

Next slide, please. Here in this slide, we get some idea of the kinds of animals found in Cambrian rocks.

01:17:05

Now, this gives us just a few of these. But we notice that we find the trilobites.

01:17:11

Trilobites are incredibly complex invertebrates. They're extinct.

01:17:17

But they're just as complex as any invertebrate form of life known. They have found fossils of trilobites so perfectly preserved in the rocks, they were able to study the structure of the eyes.

01:17:30

The lens of the eyes of the trilobite was composed of calcite. And they were able to section these eyes into thin sections and study them.

01:17:38

And they were utterly amazed. The trilobite had vision as perfect as you and I.

01:17:44

There was a perfect arrangement of these crystals in such a way there was no distortion.

01:17:50

The scientist said apparently the trilobite was aware of Abbey's sign law and Fermat's principle and a few other things.

01:17:56

He said it just as if those eyes had been designed by a physicist. Isn't it marvelous what evolution could do?

01:18:04

That was a statement. Well, yes, those eyes were designed by a physicist, the greatest physicist in the universe by God himself.

01:18:12

But ladies and gentlemen, there's evidence for design there. And yet they reject the designer.

01:18:19

The design is there, the evidence is there, clearly. But then the designer is rejected. Well, in addition to the trilobites, we find the swimming crustaceans.

01:18:28

These are sponges. They look like corals, but they're sponges. There's a variety of other very highly complex forms, the jellyfish, brachiopods, worms.

01:18:35

And recently, in the November 1974 issue of the Journal of Paleontology, there was a report that they had found cuttlefish in the very earliest

01:18:45

Cambrian rocks. Cuttlefish are not fish. They are invertebrates. But they...