John Ashton - In Six Days: Why Fifty Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation

First printing: January 2001
Fifteenth printing: April 2021

Copyright 2000 by John F. Ashton. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations in articles and reviews. For information write:

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ISBN: 978-0-89051-341-5

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Contents

Preface

At a university lecture several years ago, I heard a research scientist state that he did not believe that any scientist with a Ph.D. would advocate a literal interpretation of the six days of creation. His comment was quite similar to statements made over the years by world-renowned scientists like Stephen Jay Gould and Ernst Mayr, both of Harvard. In reply to the lecturers doubt about credentialed scientists agreeing with the Genesis account of origins, the meeting chairman offered the names of two well-known scientists who, he said, espoused belief in the biblical account. This incident stimulated me to research this book.

Why would educated scientists still believe in creation? Why wouldnt they prefer to believe in Darwinian evolution or even theistic evolution, where an all-powerful intelligence is seen as directing the evolutionary processes? Could scientists believe that life on earth is probably less than 10,000 years old? How would they deal with the evidence from the fossil record and the ages suggested by the radioactive dating of rocks as millions and billions of years old? The essays in this book raise issues which are hotly debated among scientists and educators and they offer a different perspective on our approach to scientific education.

During the past century, the biblical story of Genesis was relegated to the status of a religious myth and it was widely held that only those uneducated in science or scientific methods would seriously believe such a myth. However, my experience in organizing this book is that there are a growing number of highly educated critically thinking scientists who have serious doubts about evidence for Darwinian evolution and who have chosen to believe in the biblical version of creation.

In this book, 50 scientists explain their reasons for this choice. All the contributors have an earned doctorate from a state-recognized university in Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa, or Germany. They include university professors and researchers, geologists, zoologists, biologists, botanists, physicists, chemists, mathematicians, medical researchers, and engineers.

The articles in this book are not exhaustive. Space and publishing deadlines did not permit me to include contributions from many other scientists. The 50 scientists who contributed to this effort gave their personal response to the question, Why do you believe in a literal six-day biblical creation as the origin of life on earth? No other requirements were specified. No one was asked to write on a particular topic or from a particular perspective. However, I have arranged the final papers in two sections that allow for a developing discussion from two key perspectives. The first, Science and Origins, is a selection of articles that deals with the scientific critique of evolution as well as the scientific basis for creation. The second, Religion and Origins, presents a more philosophical approach to the question of evolution and creation. Having reviewed the discussions posed by these scientists, in the light of my own education and experience, I am convinced that a literal understanding of the Genesis account of creation is the most reasonable explanation out of all the current theories of how we came to be here.

John F. Ashton

science and origins

jeremy l. walter

Mechanical Engineering

Dr. Walter is head of the Engineering Analysis and Design Department within the Energy Science and Power Systems Division at the Applied Research Laboratory (ARL) at Pennsylvania State University. He holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering with highest distinction, an M.S. in mechanical engineering, and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, all from Pennsylvania State University. He was a 1975 recipient of a prestigious National Science Foundation Fellowship, funding graduate study at the institution of his choice. At ARL, Dr. Walter has been the leader for a number of undersea propulsion development projects for the U.S. Navy. His research involves multi-disciplinary development and testing of advanced air-independent engines and thermal power systems for various autonomous undersea vehicles.

They Cant Be Wrong, Can They?

In 1961, President John Kennedy set a national goal for the United States to land a man on the moon before the decade was over, and in the summer of 1969 Neil Armstrong made his famous giant leap for mankind onto the lunar soil. In the midst of severe social unrest, science and technology seemed to provide an island of stability to a nation caught in internal tension, an unpopular war in Vietnam, and the deep freeze of the Cold War. New and improved became the harbinger of what was expected in technology, and harnessing the secrets of nature for mans benefit was the engine to propel us into a hopeful future.

This milieu was the incubator for many careers in science and engineering, and so it was for that of the author. Public education introduced the sciences of the space program, but also proclaimed as fact the 4 billion-year age of the earth and that life had gradually evolved over millions of years from a single-cell organism, supposedly formed by chance in a primeval ocean. Students were compelled to accept the evolutionary model of earth history, as is the case for most people educated in this century. The ancient writings of Genesis were relegated as outdated and allegorical, and most Christian students reconciled an immature faith in God and the Bible with a casually contrived version of the day-age interpretation of the creation account. The days of Genesis were assumed to somehow represent the ages or stages of cosmic development that the scientists were now beginning to understand and describe more fully in our modern world.

For multitudes today, the story is the same. The implicit authority of the classroom combines with modern technological achievements to validate the scientific models of origins and the great antiquity of the universe. Genesis is viewed as myth, if not fairy tale, and our concept of truth is limited to the empirically derived and subjectively interpreted. But we need to ask the fundamental question mouthed by Pilate, What is truth? and determine the role that science plays in the overall development of truth.

The discussion in the following paragraphs takes a look at the nature of science, and how true science does not contradict Gods inscription on stone that in six days the L ord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them (Exod. 20:11).

What Is Science?

Many intelligent people are thoroughly convinced that science has proven the earth to be billions of years old. How can they be wrong? The misconception builds on a neglect of the basic nature of science and a natural desire for moral autonomy. Actually, the age of the earth can be neither proved nor disproved by science. Scientific evidence can be compiled to support one model of earth history as compared to another, but such work amounts to a feasibility study, not proof.