COMMON SENSE AND SCIENCE – ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN

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Professor Stuart Burgess, the author of the article from which this abbreviated version was taken claims the debate over creation and evolution is far from settled, with design, complexity, the origin of life and the fossil record raising enduring questions about a Creator.

Professor Stuart Burgess, B.Sc. (Eng.), Ph.D., C.Eng., FIMechE, excels in mechanical engineering, both in man-made devices and God’s design in nature. He has held academic posts at Bristol University, Cambridge University and Liberty University in the USA. At Bristol University he was appointed Head of Department three times between 2004 and 2011. He has worked for the European Space Agency (ESA) and was the lead designer for the solar array on the world’s largest civilian earth-observation spacecraft (Envisat); these gear systems are used on all the ESA’s large earth-observation satellites. For years, he led the design and testing of the chain drive for the British Olympic Track Cycling Team who won a record six gold medals at the 2016 Rio Olympics and also ranked 1st in the 2021 (postponed due to Covid) and 2024 Olympic Games. He was invited to exhibit this work at the Royal Society (National Academy of Sciences) in the UK in 2017 where it received national publicity. He has published over 200 scientific papers on the science of design in engineering and nature.

A Royal Society lecture delivered by Steve Jones had an unusually blunt title – ‘Why creationism is wrong and evolution is right’. The purpose of the uncompromising title was, no doubt, to try to convince a sceptical public that evolution should be accepted as scientific truth.

A Mori poll for the BBC Horizon programme showed that only 48% of people in the UK believe the theory of evolution, and that 44% think that creationism should be taught in science classes.

But it is not just among the general public that you find a stubborn belief in a Creator. Many scientists and engineers who believe that there must be at least some involvement of a supernatural Creator to explain life on earth. Professor Stuart Burgess knows two biology professors who doubt many of the fundamental aspects of evolutionary theory, despite having to teach the theory to their students.

ORIGIN OF LIFE: Intelligent design arguably provides the only answer to one of the biggest questions of all – the origin of the very first living system. Despite intense efforts using sophisticated equipment, no one has been able to produce self-sustaining life from lifeless chemicals.

The result of the classic Miller experiment in 1953, which created some of the building blocks of life from ordinary chemicals, represents meagre progress. The fact that there has been no progress on this front during the last 50 years makes it very difficult to believe that life emerged by accident in the first place.

OVER DESIGN IN NATURE: Another compelling piece of evidence for intelligent design is the existence of over-design in nature. Evolutionary theory is based strictly on fitness for survival. However, many organisms have beauty and sophistication far beyond what is needed for them to survive.

Peacock display in sunlight, Sigiriya, Central province, Sri Lanka.

The brilliant peacock tail feathers, which produce their colours by optical interference, have a design of breath-taking precision. Yet their only function is to form an attractive display (and remember that most other birds get by without such optical displays!) The intricacy of peacock feathers, it is said, made Darwin feel sick when he looked at them.

FOSSIL EVIDENCE: Fossil evidence, like the recently publicised fish Tiktaalik roseae (supposedly a transition between fish and land animals), does little to convince for evolution. Such creatures were well designed for their particular environment – and the fact that they exhibit unusual combinations of features does not mean that they are necessarily ‘missing links’ between other kinds of creatures.

Only those already committed to a belief in evolution are forced to see them as evolutionary ‘links’ rather than well-designed creatures in their own right. Overall, the fossil record continues to provide more problems for evolution than support.

It is significant that many of the greatest scientists were enthusiastic believers in a Creator – including Isaac Newton, Lord Kelvin, James Clerk Maxwell and Michael Faraday. The last three of these scientists knew of the theory of evolution but believed in intelligent design and the biblical creation account. Anyone who believes in a Creator stands shoulder to shoulder with some of the greatest scientists in history.

The current fashion of ruling out any role for God in origins actually breaks a fundamental principle of science – namely, to be open-minded about ideas before there is concrete proof that they are wrong. No one has proved that God had no role in origins.

Because the origin of life is an unrepeatable event, it will never be possible to prove how life came into existence. Even if evolution were to be taught in schools for the next 100 years, the majority of people would probably still instinctively believe in a Creator.

AGE OF THE EARTH IS SUCH A CRITICAL ISSUE

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Many Christians try to reconcile the biblical age with the secular ages because there is such a massive disparity between the two – six thousand years and billions of years.  Because it is has become such a controversial issue most Bible Colleges have retreated from dealing with the subject and yet it is such a critical issue to belief in God’s Word. This CMI video does an excellent job of showing how simply it can be shown that the evidence in the rock layers supports a massive catastrophic event in the past that totally changed the earth’s topography and buried millions of things quickly (many are relevantly intact) in rock layers all over the earth. Suddenly, the billions of years have vanished and so has evolution. The Bible describes such an event and most civilisations around the world have such an event (Flood story) recorded in their history. 

OTHER HELPFUL RESOURCES:  1. Refuting Compromise https://creation.com/s/10-2-575,   2. The Age of the Earth DVD https://creation.com/s/30-9-534  3. What the Bible and Science Say About the Age of the Earth https://creation.com/s/30-9-55

FURTHER PROOF FOR CREATION AND BIBLICAL INERRANCY

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Want to know why fossils are found where they are in the fossil record and how it fits within the creation paradigm? If you do then watch this short video. Palaeontologist, Dr Marcus Ross does a great job. It is just one of the excellent videos from Genesis is History. Make sure you check out the others. If you have not already watched it take a look at Incredible Design of the Human Genome with Dr Rob Carter, Marine Biologist. I posted it on this website at the end of March 2019.

EVIDENCE FOR NOAH’S FLOOD

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The Bible describes a global flood about 1600 years after creation. The most devastating catastrophe ever recorded would surely leave evidence, wouldn’t it? So what are consequences of Noah’s Flood? This video from Creation Ministries International does a great job of revealing that evidence. For me the evidence given on ancient history and when nations such as Greece, Germany, Ethiopia were first established was new.

NEW FILM “IS GENESIS HISTORY?” SAYS UNEQUIVOCAL YES!

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Dr. Del Tackett is part of an upcoming film titled “Is Genesis History?” and he’s hoping the documentary will give Christians the confidence they need to stand strong on the Word of God, particularly the creation account, without compromise.

“I’m hoping that people will look at the film and they would realise that they don’t have to accede to the accusation that if you hold to a position of [young earth], of a literal historical position in Genesis, then [you are] unscientific or stupid,” Tackett told The Christian Post during the premiere screening at The Creation Museum earlier this month.

“My hope is that those people that want to hold to biblical truth would walk away with the confidence that there is credible evidence and there are credible scientists, that they could be sure that what God has given us is true and can hold onto that.”

The documentary follows Tackett as he embarks on an eye-opening educational journey through evidence that supports historic claims from the book of Genesis, featuring commentary from renowned scientists and Bible scholars.

The film explores the questions and findings of the universe being created in six literal days, as well as whether or not humans evolved, the validity of a global flood, what happened to the dinosaurs and more.

“Here’s my position, and I think it’s one of the things that I’ve learned throughout the film: We are in an amazing time when the research is allowing us to see so much data that reinforces a Creator, that reinforces what He told us in the beginning,” Tackett said to Christian Post. “And I think it’s going to be increasingly difficult for the current paradigm to last much longer.”

“I would tell Christians, ‘If you are going to put your trust in Evolution and you’re going to say that God’s Word is now just an analogy, or it’s just some kind of simile, you’re twisting the Word of God because of a paradigm that is already really shaky.’ I would say, ‘You have that backwards. We start with the Word of God. We start with the record that God has given to us and stand on that, then begin to view the world around us. That’s when things will make sense.'”

The same is true when people try to make sense of evil, he noted. “If you come from a natural position, you won’t understand it. But if you come from it as it is described in the word of God, then it does make sense.”

“We live in a time where the current scientific paradigm is infiltrating a lot of the seminaries and a lot of the hierarchy in evangelical Christianity because people have been led to believe that science has settled this issue of deep time,” Tackett lamented.

If Christians are now feeling that they have to somehow rectify their faith for a scientific perspective, Tackett said then they are ripping out the foundation of everything that God has given to His creation.

“You lose the concept of a God that speaks life into existence, you lose the concept of male and female, you lose the concept of marriage, and the origin of sin and why there is evil. You lose the concept of a God that is holy, who judges sin and who will judge sin again,” he explained.

What the Bible scholar sees today is a generation caught in the current belief of creation without God.

“The world is still captive in the current paradigm. That paradigm, just as every paradigm in the past, really doesn’t allow any other questions,” Tackett pointed out.

What Tackett failed to say is that the theory of evolution has been the most successful ploy that Satan has concocted. It provides the excuse for fallen man to reject God, and despite the fact their is no mechanism (or evidence) to take you from “goo to you”, they won’t except the obvious – intelligent design because it requires a designer – GOD.