Early Earth Enigmas (Part 7)

Alternative theories

The absence in the fossil record of transitional forms that would prove the Theory of Evolution has led many frustrated evolutionists to consider alternative theories for the development of life forms on Earth.

 

Theistic Evolution.

In the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, many Catholics and Protestants accepted Theistic Evolution, the belief that the process of biological evolution was divinely supervised. Theistic evolutionists believe that God created the first cell, then afterward allowed evolution to proceed, intervening only occasionally. He waited for primitive man to evolve into the first perfect human being before endowing him with a soul. The hybrid doctrine is a combination of divine creation and Darwinian evolution.

Botanist Asa Gray (d. 1888), one of Darwin's leading American disciples, embraced a variant of the concept. He argued that, only in special cases like those of human beings and complex organs such as the eye, did God carry out direct special creation.

Geologist Arnold Guyot, a staunch anti-Darwinist, advocated at least three interventions by the Creator: first, when He created matter; second, when He created life; and, third, when He created man.¹⁰²

 

Punctuated Equilibrium.

In an attempt to explain the absence of transitional forms, Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge, American Museum of Natural History curator, jointly proposed the theory of Punctuated Equilibrium in several articles in scientific publications (Mammals in Paleontology, 1972; Nature, 1993; Paleontology, 2007).^103,104,105 Newsweek magazine reported on March 29, 1982: “In 1972 Gould and Niles Eldredge collaborated on a paper intended… to resolve a professional embarrassment for paleontologists: their inability to find the fossils of transitional forms between species, the so-called ‘missing links’.” Their concept: “Instead of changing gradually as one generation shades into the next, evolution as Gould sees it, proceeds in discrete leaps. According to the theory of punctuated equilibrium there are no transitional forms between species, and thus no missing links!”¹⁰⁶ 

Gould and Eldredge speculate that speciation (the change from an old species to a new one) usually occurs in small, isolated, peripheral groups rather than in the main populations of species, making their fossilized remains harder to find. Fossils of the general population are usually found, which creates the impression of the unchanging nature or stasis of most species over millions of years.¹⁰⁷

Panspermia (spores from space).

Sir Fred Hoyle mused that “life could not have originated here on the Earth. Nor does it look as though biological evolution can be explained from within an earth-bound theory of life.”¹⁰⁸ Earlier, in 1908, Svante Arrhenius theorized that spores could have drifted to Earth from other star systems. These gave rise to the first living cells that later evolved into more complex organisms.¹⁰⁹

Nobel laureate Francis Crick similarly proposed that “life on earth may have sprung from tiny organisms from a distant planet, sent here by space ship as part of a deliberate act of seeding”¹¹⁰ Crick gave the old theory, known as “panspermia” (from Greek pan, “of all,” and sperma, “seed”), a new twist: “directed panspermia.” Some people find this plausible. J. Horgan wrote in the Scientific American (February 1992): “Given the weaknesses of all theories of terrestrial genesis (the origin of life on Earth), directed panspermia (the deliberate planting of life on Earth) should still be considered a serious possibility.”¹¹¹

Panspermia, though, fails to answer the question of life’s origin. It merely takes the problem of creation out to space. Just how life arose on a planet many light years away is not explained.

 

Progressive Creation

In the 1930s Russell L. Mixter, a Wheaton College graduate, formed the concept that God created the universe and the various forms of life on earth gradually, over millions and billions of years. Creation was accomplished in progressive steps -- hence the name of the doctrine:  Progressive Creationism. In 1954 theologian Bernard Ramm wrote The Christian View of Science and Scripture, popularizing the idea which no longer demanded a young Earth and the recent creation of man.¹¹²

Progressive Creationism is thus a form of Old Earth creationism, accepting geological and cosmological estimates for the age of the Earth and the universe, while teaching that the successive species of plants and animals in the fossil record were the products of divine creation, not Darwinian evolution. As earlier organisms died off and became extinct, God created new species to replace them.

Most of God’s replacements were typically improved models. Each time, the basic forms or "templates" of previously existing life are used -- with just a few minor adjustments. For instance, the DNA of a gorilla has been found to be 97.8% similar to a man’s; the chimpanzee’s DNA resembles that of a human being by 98.2%.

The leading proponents of Progressive Creationism are Reasons To Believe, organized by astronomer Hugh Ross, and Answers in Creation, another organization set up in 2003 to publish rebuttals to Young Earth Creationists’ scientific claims, which are regarded as pseudoscience.¹¹³

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¹⁰²Theistic Evolution, Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 2004

¹⁰³“Punctuated Equilibria: An Alternative to Phyletic Gradualism,” Mammals in Paleontology, 1972, pp. 82-115

¹⁰⁴“Punctuated Equilibrium Comes of Age,” Nature 366, 1993, pp. 223-227

¹⁰⁵“Punctuated Equilibria: The Tempo and Mode of Evolution Reconsidered,” Paleontology, 2007, pp. 115-151

¹⁰⁶Enigmas of Evolution,” Newsweek, March 29, 1982, p. 39

¹⁰⁷Evolution, Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 2004

¹⁰⁸Fred Hoyle, The Intelligent Universe, 1983, p. 242

¹⁰⁹Cited by Gary Stearman, “Rael, Inc., “Cloning for Life,” Prophecy in the News, February 2003, p. 11

¹¹⁰Francis Crick, “Life Itself – Its Origin and Nature,” Futura, 1982; quoted by Mark Eastman and Chuck Missler, The Creator Beyond Time and Space, 1996, p. 62

¹¹¹J. Horgan, “Profile: Francis H.C. Crick,” Scientific American, February 1992; quoted by Schroeder, op. cit., p. 90

¹¹²Old Earth Creationism, Wikipedia, Internet

¹¹³Progressive Creationism, Wikipedia, Internet

 

(Excerpted from Chapter 5, Early Earth Enigmas, THE DEEP THINGS OF GOD: A Primer on the Secrets of Heaven and Earth by M.M. Tauson, Amazon.com)