Theory vs. Science

Week: 8
Book:  The Case for a Creator
Author:  Lee Strobel
Mission:  Identify antagonists
Antagonists:  Myths and Lies
     At the beginning of the book, Lee Strobel takes on four principal evolutionary arguments: 

The Tree of Life, Cambrian Explosion not included.

• The Stanley Miller Experiment--In 1953 Stanley Miller reproduced the earth's early atmosphere, shot "lightning" through it, and produced amino acids, the building block of life. 
• Darwin's "Tree of Life"--This summarizes Darwin's idea that life developed from one ancestor, the root, and resulted in many branches of species.  This change took place gradually over long periods of time. 
• Ernst Haeckel's embryo drawings:  Ernst Haeckel drew embryos of various vertebrates at three stages in their development to show the similarities in embryonic structure.

• 

  Archaeopteryx

  Archaeopteryx:  This half-bird and half-reptile fossil is the "missing link" between reptiles and birds.  

Antagonists exposed:

• The Stanley Miller Experiment:  The environment used was a hydrogen-rich mixture of methane, ammonia, and water vapor, which was scientifically correct at the time.  That was 1953.  Today, scientists believe that the environment contained very little hydrogen, which would have escaped into space.  Instead, it consisted of carbon dioxide, water vapor, and nitrogen.  If the experiment had used the correct gases, the result would not have been amino acids.  According to Jonathan Wells, Phd, Phd, who studied at both Berkeley and Yale, some textbooks misleadingly report that the result would be organic molecules, not mentioning that these molecules are formaldehyde and cyanide--embalming fluid.
• Darwin's "Tree of Life":  The key to this theory is slow development over time.  The fossil record has shown that this theory cannot be true, most noticeably in the case of the Cambrian explosion.  Before this geological time period, the fossils are "jellyfish, sponges, and worms" (p. 44)  At the beginning of the Cambrian, arthropods and chordates quickly appear, directly contradicting the tree.
• The Embryo Drawings: Haeckel deliberately chose embryos that appear similar.  For example, he represents amphibians with a salamander instead of a frog (frogs embryos appear much less similar), and his most circulated diagram depicts four placental mammals.  The most important dishonesty is the fact that what is labeled the "early" stage  of embryonic development is actually the midpoint.  At early stages of development, these embryos are actually less similar, which essentially takes away any support that they offer the theory of evolution.
• Archaeopteryx:   This fossil is a bird with modern feathers, not a half-bird, half-reptile creature.  In addition, Dr. Wells says, "Birds are different from reptiles in many important ways--their breeding system, their bone structure, their lungs, their distribution of weight and muscles.  It's a bird, that's clear."  More importantly, in an area of study known as cladistics, it is taught that birds evolved from reptiles.  In the fossil record, reptiles with bird-like bodies are found "millions of years after archaeopteryx...the missing link is still missing!"  Furthermore, the archaeopteryx isn't even an ancestor of modern birds--it's a member of an extinct species.  

Books Read:  10
Hours Read:  3
Total Time:  57