The Grand, Magical Thinking of Evolutionary Theory

I just don’t get it. If I watch a nature show on the BBC or Nature or some such network and see amazing videos of amazing creatures (For this, I thank the videographers and the networks, sincerely.), I sicken of hearing, over and over, ad nauseum, how Nature or Evolution provided this and that creature with the tools to survive or mate or do whatever the creature is doing. Now, if one were to ask a person how this is done, he or she would say, “It happens over time, millions and millions of years.” That’s it. That’s the answer. We dreamily imagine foggy time and grand, magical nature, and, there it is.

Case closed.

Now go away, you science-denying Neanderthal.

Recently, I had a discussion about evolution with an agnostic evolutionist. Nice guy. He had the same answer to my questions about how creatures evolved that I wrote above. So, I asked, “Do you realize how much that sounds like magical thinking to me?” He quickly answered, “Do you realize how much of what you believe sounds like magical thinking to me?”

I responded, “Looks like we’re both magical thinkers.”

Yes. I am a Christian, and I will go ahead and admit that to an atheist or agnostic, when I say that the sovereign Lord God created all things, it sounds like magical thinking to them. What I wish such a person would confess in return is that their “scientific” answers sound like magical thinking as well. I wish they would acknowledge that they don’t have the answers to how the fantastic creation we see around us every day came into being instead of stating it as fact.

Let’s start with what is called the Big Bang. This is a puzzle for which they simply have no answer. “Ex nihilo nihil fit.” “Out of nothing, nothing comes.” It is true, isn’t it? But here we are, with time and gravity and mass and electromagnetism and quarks and neutrinos and dark energy and dark matter and nuclear fusion and Goldilocks Earth and all living things.

Living things. This is the next one they simply cannot answer. Oh, they answer, readily enough. The Primordial Pool. Time plus chance. We go to foggy, magical dreamworld. Some organic materials globbed together and, um, lightning struck, and, um, well, something happened. The Spark of Life.

Three major problems here. What they say “just happened” has never been duplicated in a laboratory. All these wonderfully intelligent scientists—I’m not being sarcastic—they really are wonderfully intelligent—with all the technology available, cannot create life from adding electricity to a murky, globby pool. What astounds me is that they think that even though they cannot do it with intelligent, creative minds and tech, that it just happened without an intelligent, creative mind.

The second major problem is that, in order for a creature to pass down its characteristics to the next generation, genetics must be in play. But how do genes evolve? If a glob in a murky pool struck by just the right amount of electricity from lightning (A bit of a stretch if you think about it. Perhaps you’ve noticed that creatures struck by lightning are always affected negatively.), sparked to life, how would it pass on its “life”? Genetics would have to evolve within that very first “creature.” How on earth would that happen?

The third ginormous problem is genetic mutations which evolutionists maintain lead to positive evolutionary changes. If we close our eyes and go to dreamy, magical-thinking world, we can somehow believe that, given millions and millions of years, there was one mutation that was positive which lead to another mutation which was positive and so on. But how does a wing evolve? A bump on some creature? How does that increase the creature’s ability to survive? How does an eye evolve? From some light sensitive spot? How does it connect to the brain? We could ask such questions about the evolution of bioluminescence—well, shall we add just about everything else? How about ants that cut grass, use it to cultivate algae, and then eat that algae? Large brains, those ants. How about bats and sea creatures that use echolocation? Monarch butterflies that have both a sun compass and a magnetic compass? We’ll just skip how a caterpillar dissolves in a cocoon and comes out a completely different creature with long, spindly legs, antennae, and wings.

Concrete answers, please. Please just start at the murky pool—I’ll give you a pass on ex nihilo nihil fit—and tell me what happened. I know. You have a theory. Just stop talking as if it were a fact.

Murky pool. Go.

Think I haven’t been nice? Well, the Lord is less so:

“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity; there is none who does good” (Psalm 53:1). ¹

 

¹All Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

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