Warmup 12/7/15 Summarize the key points from the theory of evolution last week Objective Tonight’s Homework To investigate some of the holes in evolutionary theory Finish the activity assigned at the end of class

Problems with the Theory of Evolution We’ve spent the last week looking at how the theory of evolution works. While this theory has some good parts and overall seems to work and make sense, it has a couple very big problems. We’re going to tackle these problems as a class. If you believe in evolution, I want you to honestly look at these problems and think about them. Are they real problems? If you don’t believe in evolution, remember and use these problems to challenge those who do.

Problems with the Theory of Evolution Evolution of specific-purpose structures Imagine you have something like a dinosaur. According to the theory of evolution, some of these creatures slowly evolved wings until they were able to fly. Where’s the problem here?

Problems with the Theory of Evolution Evolution says that this wing must have developed slowly. This means at one point, the dinosaur-thing would have only had a sort of stunted half-wing that was useless for flying. Survival of the fittest tells us the only changes that help a creature survive get kept. So what good is a half-stunted wing? Why wouldn’t this just die out? Even more so, how does the half-wing know it’s going to become something useful eventually? Shouldn’t we see tons of creatures with useless ‘wings’? (penguins’ wings help with swimming)

Problems with the Theory of Evolution Evolutionists answer this by saying that the half wing helped with mating rituals, so animals kept the useless ‘wing’ to attract mates. Eventually, the wing randomly worked for something else and they could fly! Note that there is no evidence to support this idea. This is biased science. They’re inventing details to help support their idea. Good science should just look at the facts and come up with ideas that fit what we see only.

Problems with the Theory of Evolution The Pre-Cambrian explosion We’ve all heard about how a meteor killed the dinosaurs, but according to fossils, life has appeared and died out like that tons of times. After one of these times, 90% of all life on Earth supposedly died out. However, in just a few million years, we see tons of new kinds of life evolve. This is called the Pre- Cambrian explosion. What’s the problem here?

Problems with the Theory of Evolution The theory of evolution tells us that mutations happen slowly over very long periods of time. (tens of millions of years or more.) “A few million years” is not nearly long enough for all the life forms we see to appear.

Problems with the Theory of Evolution The theory of evolution tells us that mutations happen slowly over very long periods of time. (tens of millions of years or more.) “A few million years” is not nearly long enough for all the life forms we see to appear. How do evolutionists explain this? They have 2 ways: 1) The fossil record is wrong. They claim we’re finding new fossils that show this was more spread out than we thought. 2) There must have been a ton of radiation that all happened at once and this caused all the evolution. (Really, all tons of radiation would do is kill)

Problems with the Theory of Evolution Loss of information Most creatures (and their parts) are very complex. How did they get so complex? Evolution tells us that everything started as bacteria and evolved into more complex organisms through tons of mutations and natural selection over time. What’s the problem here?

Problems with the Theory of Evolution Natural selection tells us that if we have a bunch of creatures, only the strong and best will survive. Evolution has supposedly cut out traits from this species. We could imagine that if time passes, the only creatures left will all be pretty much the same, because all the weaker ones died. Our creatures will be strong but alike. Overall, we’ve cut out information. This creature isn’t getting more complex and isn’t gaining any new traits. It’s stuck! Evolutionists would say, “well, after it mutates, it gets new traits and abilities.”

Problems with the Theory of Evolution We can show problems with this, too! There are many examples of cases where mutation has changed a creature in some little way. Usually, this kills the creature, but not always. Evolutionists have said for a long time that these changes (like a bacteria resisting to a drug) are proof of evolution. However, in about 99% of cases, these mutations remove information. (ex. A bacteria becomes resistant because it loses a protein coat that the drug attacked.) This is the bacteria that survives from survival of the fittest, so overall, the bacteria species gets simpler, not more complex!

Problems with the Theory of Evolution Timeframes for Competing Processes This brings us to a deeper problem. Natural selection and survival of the fittest try to make creatures more similar and less complex (although stronger). This happens relatively QUICKLY. We’ve seen it happen. Mutation tries to make creatures more diverse. Even if it adds information, this happens relatively SLOWLY. So which of these 2 things wins out? The process that makes things more the same, not the one that increases diversity. At best, this would cause one species to just turn into another, not spread out into lots of different kinds.

Problems with the Theory of Evolution Concurrent evolution of connected parts Let’s look at the giraffe. Evolution tells us that the giraffe evolved a long neck due to mutations that made the long- necked creature better able to survive than the short-necked ones. Because of this, the long-necked giraffes outlived the short-necked ones and thus the giraffe got taller. What’s the problem here?

Problems with the Theory of Evolution If a giraffe had evolved just by getting a longer neck, it would have died. Why? Blood pressure. If a giraffe bent its head down, the pressure would be so great, its brain would literally explode. The giraffe has 3 things in place that stop it from dying: - A large heart: A giraffe’s heart weighs 24 lbs. It needs to be this large to pump blood all the way up the neck. - Blood valves: A giraffe’s neck has multiple valves that can stop blood from flowing too fast to the brain. - Expanding vessels: Inside a giraffe’s brain is a system called rete mirabile. This system is made of blood vessels that can expand and soak up extra blood.

Problems with the Theory of Evolution If the giraffe didn’t have all of these modifications, it would die the first time it lowered its head. How do evolutionists explain this? By claiming that all these changes evolved slowly over time exactly at the same time. While this isn’t impossible, it’s not a very good answer. Especially since no evolutionists give an explanation for how this happens. To make it worse, this was just one creature “evolving” just one time out of dozens it would need. Also, this sort of thing is in tons of creatures all around the world, not just one species!

Problems with the Theory of Evolution Origins of life We discussed this once before, but one of the problems even evolutionists have is that they have no good answer for how life started originally. They even admit and claim that this isn’t part of evolution. Now, creationists argue that the odds of this happening are like 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Evolutionists will claim that the odds are actually much better. But this isn’t the way to argue this.

Problems with the Theory of Evolution The better challenge to evolutionists would be this: If they have access to every kind of chemical and controlled lab conditions, why is it that no scientist has ever created life from non-life? Seriously, this has never happened. And if we can’t do it with all our technology, trying to do it on purpose, how can we reasonably expect this to have happened randomly on its own?

Problems with the Theory of Evolution Senescence (Death) If we look at most of the simple life on earth, we find a substantial number of species that are immortal. Seriously. They never seem to age. Why? Scientists have discovered that we get old, wrinkly, weak, and die because certain genes activate throughout your life. These simple creatures don’t have any genes for ageing. So if life evolved from simple to complex, we can assume that most early life was immortal.

Problems with the Theory of Evolution So here’s the problem. The idea is that new evolved genes will only be kept if they’re beneficial for a species. So at some point, creatures evolved a gene to make them start dying. But why? How on earth is dying a beneficial trait for a species to acquire? It isn’t. And that’s the problem. There’s no logical reason why creatures that were immortal at one point would evolve out of that and gain the definitely negative ability to die.

Hard Questions to Christians Remember the hard questions we looked at a week and a half ago? Let’s look at those again and see if we can come up with solid answers to those questions!

Hard Questions to Christians #1 Evolution says life evolved slowly over billions of years. The Bible says life was made just a couple thousand years ago. When we look at how old a lot of rocks are, scientists are finding they're all billions of years old! How do you explain that?!

Hard Questions to Christians #2 Look at the fossil record. It shows thousands of kinds of creatures that no longer exist! Plus, we can clearly see fossils of one creature slowly evolving into another creature? Surely there's no way to explain that except evolution!

Hard Questions to Christians #3 Look at a human skull and the skull of a monkey. They look super-similar. Also, if you look at the DNA, there's only a small difference between people and chimpanzees. It shows they obviously came from the same ancient creature. How do you explain that?

Hard Questions to Christians #4 If we look at creatures around us, we see them changing in little ways all the time. We can make new breeds of dog (which is like evolution on a small scale). Studies have shown bird beaks changing shape a little over time to adapt to their environment. If we can see evolution happening on a small scale, how can you say it's not real? We can see it!

Hard Questions to Christians #5 If Noah’s Flood was real, where’s the evidence? Also, while a lot of cultures have myths about a big flood, not all of them do (like Egypt). If there was a huge flood, shouldn’t EVERY culture have a story about it? And last, some stories (like the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh) have been shown to be OLDER than the Biblical account of the flood. Don’t you think it’s more likely that that was the original story and the people who wrote the Bible story just copied off that?

Exit Question Which of the below causes a problem for evolution? a) The origins of life b) Concurrent evolution of parts c) Loss of information d) Specific purpose structures e) All of the above f) None of the above