What is Creationism?

In order to be able to compare evolution and creationism, the definition of the creationism that I will be discussing must first be established.  A simple definition of creationism is that a supernatural force created the universe and everything in it, but there are many types of creationism (Scott, 2009, p. 57-75). According to Scott (2009), day-age, theistic, and intelligent design are a few types of creationism (p. 63- 75).  I will first establish the theological flaws in certain types of creationism and in my next post I will compare the view of creationism that I find most accurate to the model of evolution. 

Day-age creationists believe that the days that are mentioned in Genesis are not 24-hour periods of time and therefore could have been long periods of time (Scott, 2009, p. 68).  The reason that some people believe that the days mentioned in the Bible may not be 24-hour periods is because of the way the original Hebrew can be interpreted.  “Yom” and “yamin” can be translated as day and days respectively or they can also be translated as “a long period of time” (Morris, 1974, p. 224).  When yom is mentioned in the Bible, it has to be considered in context.  In Genesis 1:4-5, it states, “And God called the light Day and the darkness he called Night and the evening and the morning were the first day.”  This defines the term “yom” to a more narrow time frame.  It includes a morning and an evening and it also is the first day.  The word “first” seems to point to a defined period of time instead of just a very long time, as yom can also be interpreted (Morris, 1974, p. 224).

According to Morris (1974) and according to my own personal opinion, this theory also does not follow concepts that most Christians, I included, believe about God (p. 219).  God is omnipotent. Therefore, he has the power to create the world in an instant.  Why would he need or want to stretch out the creation of the universe or of life for eons of time when it could have been done in an instant?  When God speaks something, it happens immediately (Ezekiel 12:25 KJV); therefore, when God said that certain things were being made in Genesis 1, those things happened immediately, not over thousands of years.

Theistic creationists believe that God works through the laws of nature.  They believe that after God created the world, He no longer intervenes and only lets the natural laws govern Earth (Scott, 2009, p. 70).  This theory also had theological flaws.  This theory (like day-age creationism) is contradictory to His omnipotence because God did not create humans through change over time, as this theory states, but created them in an instant.  Also, the Big Bang Theory, which is believed to be true by theistic creationists, does not fit with the story of creation that is illustrated in Genesis.  God created the earth on the first day (Genesis 1:1-5) and he created the solar system and everything in it on the fourth day (Genesis 1:14-19).  This is opposite of what the Big Bang Theory states.

The last type of creationism that I am going to discuss is intelligent design.  Intelligent design creationists believe that God’s existence can be proved by examining God’s works, an idea that was originally coined by William Paley in 1802 (Scott, 2009, p. 70).  Intelligent design creationists believe in natural selection and some of the basic principles of microevolution, but deny that mutations gave rise to new species (Scott, 2009, p. 70).  The idea that mutations and other properties of natural law lead to new species is much too complicated to have happened on its own.

I believe in intelligent design.  The information above is my own theological way of deciphering through the theories based on my beliefs.  On Monday I will assess the validity of the theory of intelligent design in a scientific point of view and I will also compare intelligent design to evolution.

References:

 Morris, H. M. (1974). Scientific creationism. Master Books.

Scott, E. C. (2009). Evolution vs. creationism, an introduction. (2nd ed.). Westport, Conneticut: Greenwood Pub Group.

What is evolution?

We have been discussing the past discoveries and ideas that try to explain how life came into existence.  It is now important to discuss what exactly the model of evolution says today with all the current knowledge that we have in science.

According to Eugene C. Scott (2009), “The broad definition of evolution is a cumulative change through time” (p. 26).  Evolution claims that galaxies, planets, and forms of life are different now than they were in the past (Scott, 2009, p. 24).  Scott (2009) says that “cosmologists conclude that the universe as we know it today originated from a dense mass, known as the Big Bang Theory” (p. 24).  The Earth that we know today formed from matter that was rotating around the sun coming together and that comets and meteors smashed into the Earth until around 3.8 billion years ago (Scott, 2009, p. 24).

Cosmologists believe that the organic sources that served as the origin of life on earth came from the compounds that were in space (Scott, 2009, p. 24).  Scientists, in the past and recently, have been trying to recreate scenarios of what may have first formed the first life.  As stated before, Miller and Urey in 1952 made amino acids out of gases that were speculated to have been in the environment at the time that life originated (Meyer, 2009).  More recently, scientists have tried to create amino acids by exposure to ultrasonic waves in an aqueous, reductive environment (Soheila, Jean-Marc, & Micheline, 2010).

Peptide Nucleic Acid (gold)
entering DNA's major groove

Even if life was created from organic chemicals in the environment, the cell that was created would need to be able to replicate.  In order for this process, and many other processes, in the cell to occur, DNA would need to exist in the cell.  DNA is a molecule that is used to create RNA which in turn is used to create proteins (Scott, 2009, p. 26).  DNA is also important because it controls heredity, the passing of genetic information from one generation to another (Scott, 2009, p. 26).  Evolutionists are challenged with the question, “Which came first: DNA, RNA or PNA?” (Scott, 2009, p. 27).

Many believe that the answer to that question may be RNA (Sankaran, 2012, p. 741).  Others believe that DNA may have originated before RNA and PNA (Swadling, Coveney, & Christopher Greenwell, 2012).  Scientists also believe that PNA, peptide nucleic acid, and less complex nucleic acid, may have been the first to originate (Scott, 2009, p. 26).  The answer to the question of which nucleic acid came first (and many other topics revolving around how life came about from inorganic molecules) has not been answered by evolutionary scientists and yet they still claim that that life came from inorganic molecules. 

There is another branch of evolution, known as biological evolution that became popular with Charles Darwin’s proposals on the origin of life.  According to Scott (2009), “Evolutionary biologists are concerned both with the history of life-the tracing of life’s genealogy- and with the processes and mechanisms that produced the tree of life” (Scott, 2009, p. 28).  One of the main ideas of biological evolution is the idea of natural selection (Scott, 2009, p. 35).  This is a term that Darwin coined (Scott, 2009, p. 35).  Natural selection is the basically the idea that organisms with the better qualities for the environment that they live in will live longer and therefore produce more offspring and organisms (Scott, 2009, p. 35).  The organisms that do not have these qualities that suit the environment that it lives in will die and will most likely not reproduce and create offspring (Scott, 2009, p. 35).  Reproduction is important to genetics as this is the only way that DNA is passed on to future generations.

There is also another branch of evolution that discusses geology.  How old is Earth?  This is one of the central controversial issues in the topic of evolution and creation (Morris, 1974, p. 131).  James Ussher believed that the universe was created in 4004 B.C. due to the biblical chronology and this has led to many advocates of creationism to believe that this is the true age of the Earth (Abell, 1983, p.33).  According to Newell (1982), creationists think that the world is around 10,000 years old and geologists believe the world to be around 460,000 years old (pg. 109).  No matter what years we use, creationists generally think that the world is younger than geologists believe it to be.  Is the dating of rocks reliable?

According to Morris (1974), the dating of rocks is not very accurate.  The way that rocks are dated is through the use of fossils within the rocks through their record of evolution (Morris, 1974, p. 134-135).  Besides the fact that the dating is based on evolution, there are other flaws in this method of dating the rock of the earth.  These methods of dating are based on assumptions (as outlined in Morris, 1974, p. 137-170) that are not necessarily true.  One assumption is that the earth is a closed system, which it is not (Morris, 1974, p. 138-139).  Since this method of measure is based on so many assumptions, how then can we believe that it is accurate?

Now that a synopsis of the ideas of evolution has been presented, a synopsis of creationist beliefs can be presented in my next post.  In following posts, details about each type of science and why the creation scientists and the evolutionary scientist believe what they believe can be discussed and this can bring us to the conclusion of which science is more believable and why this is.

References:

Abell, G.O. (1983). The Ages of the Earth and the Universe. In L.R. Godfrey (Eds.), Scientists confront creationism (33-47). New York, New York: W.W. Norton 7 Company.

Meyer, S. (2009). The Evolution of a Mystery and Why It Matters. Signature in the cell [Kindle version]. HarperCollins Publishers.

 Morris, H. M. (1974). Scientific creationism. Master Books.

Sankaran, N. (2012). How the discovery of ribozymes cast rna in the roles of both chicken and egg in origin-of-life theories.  Causality in the Biomedical and Social Sciences, 43(4), 741-830. doi: http://0-dx.doi.org.wncln.wncln.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2012.06.002

Scott, E. C. (2009). Evolution vs. creationism, an introduction. (2nd ed.). Westport, Conneticut: Greenwood Pub Group.

Soheila, S., Jean-Marc, L., & Micheline, D. (2010). Amino-acid synthesis in aqueous media under ultrasonic irradiation. Chemistry Of Natural Compounds,46(1), 75-78. doi:10.1007/s10600-010-9529-1

Swadling, J. B., Coveney, P. V., & Christopher Greenwell, H. H. (2012). Stability of free and mineral-protected nucleic acids: Implications for the RNA world. Geochimica Et Cosmochimica Acta, 83360-378. doi:10.1016/j.gca.2011.12.023

[Untitled photograph of the Earth]. (n.d.). Retrieved April 10, 2013, from 

                http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=57723

[Untitled photograph of PNP].  (n.d.). Retrieved April 10, 2013, from

                http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=triple-helix-designing-a-new-molecule

Brief History and Science and Theories of Evolution

There are many scientific discoveries and ideas that shape the models that are presented today that attempt to explain the origin of life.

In 1859, Darwin published On the Origin of Species where he first introduced his theory about natural selection¹.  Since one of the theories of the origin of life involves the concept of evolution and natural selection, this is a topic that is relevant to our discussion.  According to Meyer (2009), Darwin gave a "plausible means by which organisms could gradually produce new structures and greater complexity by a purely undirected material process".  The word undirected is important in this concept because it shows that Darwin's theory does not line up with the creation science model for the origin of life.  This topic will be discussed in greater detail at a later time.

The first theories about the origin of life came before scientists fully understood the cell, the smallest unit of life.  Many scientists during the 19^th century believed that life came from non-living sources.  Thomas Henry Huxely and Ernst Haeckel were the first to create a theory of how life came from chemicals¹.

Although Huxely and Haeckel were the first to create a theory, there was not yet data to support such a claim.  In 1952, the Miller-Urey experiment showed that amino acids could be made from a chamber with a gas mixture (methane, ammonia, water and hydrogen) and lightening(as outlined in the picture on the left)¹.  Amino acids are the monomers, or the “building blocks”, in proteins.  Proteins are a molecule that is essential to life. 

Left-handed and Right-handed
enantiomers of alanine

In recent times, the applicability of the Miller-Urey experiment to modern theories of the origin of life has been questioned³.  There is a lack of oxygen (a common element in the environment in this experiment³.  This was because the scientists realized that oxygen would destroy the organic compounds made, if any were made⁴.  Evolutionary scientists claim that there would have been a "reducing environment" (in which oxygen would not be present) at the time that life originated, but recent experiments have shown that there was most likely oxygen in the environment at that time³.  This reducing environment would not be stable.  Also, very few amino acids were actually produced in these experiments (less than 2%).  Furthermore, the amino acids that were produced in this experiment were racemic, a mixture of both right-handed and left-handed amino acids (as illustrated in the S, left-handed, and R, right-handed, alanine enantiomers in the picture on the left)⁴.  In proteins, mostly left-handed amino acids are present⁴.  Therefore, there were even fewer amino acids in this mixture that would have actually produced proteins.

When discussing possible origins of life, a discussion of DNA is also pertinent². As this is a very detailed and lengthy topic, this will be left for another blog entry.

References:

1. Meyer, S. (2009). The Evolution of a Mystery and Why It Matters. Signature in the cell [Kindle version]. HarperCollins Publishers.

2. Scott, E. C. (2009). Evolution vs. creationism, an introduction. (2nd ed.). Westport, Conneticut: Greenwood Pub Group.

3. Miller/Urey Experiment. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/Exobiology/miller.html

4. Peet, J. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.truthinscience.org.uk/tis2/index.php/component/content/article/51.html
Reference of Pictures:
[Untitled photograph of Miller-Urey experiment]. (n.d.). Retrieved April 1, 2013, from      
      http://www.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/Exobiology/miller.html
[Untitled photograph of enantiomers]. (n.d.). Retrieved April 1, 2013, from      
       http://opiophilia.blogspot.com/2012/12/chirality-primer.html