Big Bang and Macro-Evolution
The Croods.
Ice Age. Ice Age 2: The Meltdown. Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.
The Flight of the Butterflies.
Even A Land Before Time (if you’re older than 30).
What’s similar about all these movies? They are all aimed at children. And they all assume without batting an eyelash that the world spontaneously came into existence billions of years ago and that humans, along with all species, evolved from primordial sludge.
This is the air we breathe. But how many of us really know the ins-and-outs of evolutionary theory? Natural selection? The super-heated singularity at the supposed start of the universe 13.8 billion years ago? Multiverse theory? Genetic mutations?
Many Christians will never be experts in these complex fields, but it is important for all of us to know something about these central ideas so that we can interact with them biblically, wisely, and winsomely. For many of us, Darwin and the Big Bang are like a dark and scary building that we’d much prefer to drive right by, for fear of finding out what’s inside. But for the sake of our witness, and for the sake of our children and youth, we must enter that dark building and take a look around. For when we do, we find out it’s a house made of straw.
Exploring Naturalism with ROC Youth
Our student ministry is studying the building blocks of the Christian worldview this semester. They’ll be discussing all kinds of important topics:
- What is a worldview?
- Why do we trust the Bible?
- What is identity?
- Where do I find meaning in my life?
- Where does morality come from?
- Where is this all going?
One of the key topics is Naturalism. This past week, Pastor Lanier led this discussion with students (after throwing his arm out during dodge ball). We felt it would be beneficial to share what was discussed, as an opportunity for the entire church to engage with the same material alongside our students. The audio can be found here.
What follows is a brief overview of Naturalism, which Lanier describes as “the worldview of the measuring tape” (listen to the audio to find out why!). Then three areas by which we should critique it are offered: moral, epistemological, and scientific. In future discussions within the student ministry, a more explicitly biblical critique will, of course, be offered. But it’s also important to show that, even on its own terms, naturalism (and the theories that go along with it) undermines itself. Indeed, there’s a bit of a revolution going on even within the mainstream scientific academy that is calling for an overthrow of the Neo-Darwinian paradigm.
Due to space constraints, only the bare minimum of detail is provided, but a list of resources is provided at the end if you’d like to find out more.
Getting Oriented
- Worldview: Secular naturalism – all existence consists of material entities that can be studied empirically (collisions of atoms subject to immutable natural laws)
- Cosmology (origins): Big bang theory – all observable matter in the universe came from one infinitely dense/hot singularity that expanded ~13.8 billion years ago
- Teleology (purpose): Modern (neo-darwinian) synthesis – all life forms emerged through natural selection operating on genetic variation/mutations (macroevolution)
Moral Critique
- Grounds for discerning right from wrong – no basis for shared norms for “this is evil”
- Grounds for self-sacrifice, altruism, dignity – no evolutionary benefit (survival bias)
- Grounds for universals and truth propositions – without humans, 2+2 would still be 4
Epistemological Critique
- Complexity of human consciousness, language, mind, will, personality – no naturalistic explanation for how these can reduce to brute matter (and why only humans have them)
- Complexity of genetic factors of the human brain – relationship of genes to cognitive function is not 1:1, thus presenting numerous problems for darwinian natural selection
- Breakdown of the inductive principle – scientific method requires repeatable observation; assumes things always work the same; cannot work for origin of universe
- Grounds for trusting the truth-forming power of our minds – if all existence is random collisions of atoms, we have no reason to trust human observation as the source of truth
Scientific Critique
- Origin of the Universe
- Lack of explanation for how the original singularity came into existence
- “Multiverse” theory fails to explain why no other universes have left a trace
- Big bang theory at odds with the second law of thermodynamics (entropy)
- Fine-tuning of the universe (Planck constant, c, k, G, electromagnetic constants)
- Origin of Life
- Creating life from non-life has not been reproduced, even intentionally
- Lipid structures (for cell membranes) and amino acids do not form spontaneously
- State of early atmosphere would not support formation of nucleotides for RNA
- As of yet still no explanation for how “primordial soup” generated life
- Genetic Mutations and Natural Selection
- Mutations are nearly always destructive, not constructive (almost by definition)
- No empirical evidence of creation of new species, only small changes within
- Large populations would overwhelm any advantageous mutation (genetic drift)
- Multiple genes needed for even cell-level advanced function (e.g., flagella) yield astronomical odds … compounded by numbers needed for selection to work
- Ongoing challenges posed by physical functions that are irreducibly complex
- Fossil Record and Geology
- Cambrian explosion and the flawed assumptions of “punctuated equilibrium”
- Nearly total absence of transitional forms within, and esp. between, species
- Lack of “genetic tree of life” despite enormous efforts (and getting worse)
- Lack of complete and coherent geologic column
- Unraveling of evidence for vestigial organs (e.g., appendix now seen as functional)
- Complexity of water-inhabiting mammals with long gestational cycles (i.e. insufficient time for whales to evolve from land-dwelling mammals)
- Geographic dispersion of species that lack explanation (e.g., platyrrhini monkeys)
- Recent supporting evidence for the explanatory power of flood/catastrophism
Concluding Reflections
- Calling Christians “anti-science” is a red herring that masks the problems of naturalism
- Numerous mainstream scientists and atheists are now questioning the paradigm
- You will not be taught these issues in school or by the media, so you need to educate yourself
- Discussion questions
- Where do you struggle the most with these issues? How have you handled it?
- Where do you need to grow in your ability to engage on these topics?
- Where can you turn when you have doubts?
- How should you approach others who are having doubts?
Resources
There’s a whole lot of good stuff out there on this topic. Some of it is rather heady (but hey…it’s science!). Yet it’s important to wade into this topic. There’s a clear movement to challenge the paradigm, and not just from within creationist/Christian camps.
- The Top Ten Problems with Chemical and Biological Evolution (Casey Luskin)
- Does Evolutionary Biology Need a Rethink? (Nature, October 2014)
- Picking Holes in the Concept of Natural Selection (BioScience, 2014)
- Mind & Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False (by atheist Thomas Nagel, 2012)
- A Reductio of Naturalism (James Anderson, 2016)
- Time and Information in Evolution (BioComplexity, 2012, questioning whether current models of evolution would work even with an earth as old as currently postulated)
- The Scientists Who Want to Overhaul Evolution (The Atlantic, 2016)
- Darwin Devolves: The New Science about DNA that Challenges Evolution (Michael Behe, 2019)
- Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (Michael Behe, 2006)
- A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism (an ongoing list of mainstream scientists who question Naturalism)
- The Universe Could Be 2 Billion Years Younger Than Previously Estimated, According to New Calculation (Time, 2019)
Are we missing any good resources? Send them to us and we’ll add them.
