by Bill Nugent
Article #26
Public Broadcasting System (PBS) televised an eight hour, seven part series called Evolution during the last week of September 2001. Since PBS is partially funded by tax dollars it has an obligation to present both sides of an issue. PBS did not adequately present the mountain of scientific evidence that contradicts the theory of evolution.
It is a shame that a balanced discussion of evolution was not presented because it certainly would have made interesting viewing. In an apparent protest to the series, 100 scientists recently signed a public statement rejecting the theory of evolution.
The PBS series also misrepresented the history of the debate over evolution. The series strongly implied that the only objections to evolution came from religious people. The fact of the matter is that right from the start, many scientists argued against evolution. In the late 1800s many scientists regarded as absurd the claim that the complexity of nature could come about accidentally by a random, unguided process.
By 1900, after decades of scientific inquiry and debate, evolution was increasingly seen as untenable by many in the scientific community. After 1900, as the new science of genetics gained sway, evolution became popular because genetic mutation was promoted as a mechanism for change in animal species.
As the science of genetics developed, however, it became obvious that virtually all genetic mutations were disadvantageous or neutral in effect. Furthermore it was discovered that genetic mutations almost never add new information to the DNA which would be necessary to give coding for new limbs or organs.
Genetic information consists of base pairs that must be properly sequenced in the DNA. Genetic mutations scramble existing DNA but generally don’t add to DNA. A mutational duplication error simply duplicates preexisting base pairs. No new information is added but just a duplication of old information.. If, in a bizarre hypothetical example, 10,000 new base pairs are added, they do no good unless they are properly sequenced. A random advantageous sequencing of 10,000 new base pairs would be so improbable as to statistically never happen. Even a transfer of DNA from one species to another is not a net addition of information to the total gene pool of all species because the transfer involves preexisting DNA.
Evolution lacks a viable mechanism and this fact taken together with the lack of transitional forms in the fossil record and the impossibility of single-celled life forming from nonliving chemicals has once again caused evolution to become a theory in crisis.
Sadly, since evolution is so entrenched in die-hard tenured faculty at universities, real debate about evolution is often suppressed. Evolution continues to be taught in biology textbooks in schools across the nation like an urban legend that bears the bitter fruit of godlessness. May God help us turn the tide.