Batten Don - Evolutions Achilles heels

Evolutions

Achilles Heels

Copyright 2014 by Creation Ministries International (US) Inc of PO Box 350, Powder Springs, Georgia, USA. 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.

ISBN: 978-1-921643-82-8

Cover, design and layout: Jessica Spykerman

Powder Springs, Georgia, USA

www.creationbookpublishers.com

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While it would be impossible to individually thank the many, many people who came together to make Evolutions Achilles Heels a reality, we must mention a select few. Carl Wieland spent hours brainstorming with me in the early stages of the project and without his help it would never have gotten off the ground. Gary Bates helped formulate the initial outline and was involved at all stages of production, and without his guidance the project would never have been finished. Scott Gillis helped with coordination, checking early drafts for readability, and was a general motivator during the duration of the project. Lita Cosner and SheNa Cain spent hours proofreading. Jessica Spykerman was in charge of the layout, and never seemed to complain about the many changes we asked her to perform. Jason Fuller donated his time and talent to design the main Achilles graphic on the cover. I would also like to thank the chapter authors for their willingness to participate in this joint project. My wife, always supportive, helped get me over many bumps in the road. Lastly, but most importantly, soli Deo gloria !

Robert Carter

Powder Springs, GA

May 2014

Dr Carl Wieland, M.B., B.S.

Dr Wieland serves as the Managing Director of Creation Ministries International (Australia) , a position he has held since 1987, when it was called Creation Science Foundation. He was the founding editor of Creation magazine (in 1978) that now has subscribers in well over 100 countries.

Carls formal qualifications are in medicine and surgery, and he is a past president of the Christian Medical Fellowship of South Australia. Full time with CMI since 1986, Carl is considered by many to be a pillar of the creationist community and a stalwart defender of the faith.

He is the author of several books, including Beyond the Shadows: making sense of personal tragedy and One Human Family . He has also penned many articles for Creation magazine, the Journal of Creation , and our website, creation.com .

Dr Wieland was chosen to write the introduction to this book for one simple reason: he has a tremendous experience in the field and a wide grasp of the various subjects we will cover. In essence, his position and experience allow him to write a summary and introduction to this very important work.

See creation.com/dr-carl-wieland

FOREWORD

Dr Carl Wieland, M.D.

In my more than 35 years of involvement in the origins controversy, there has never been anything quite like this book. Nine Ph.D. scientists, experts in various disciplines, each take on a separate area of evolutionary theory and belief. And never has it been more sorely needed. In our age, the materialist/naturalist dogma rides high, brazenly confident in its assertion that it has the authority of science on its side.

First, an explanation. The word evolution in this books title means much more than genetic change; more even than the origin of lifes diversity. The term will be used to encompass the whole grand-scale scenario that modern culture takes as foundational in its rejection of the Creator God of the Bible: that stars, planets, and galaxies supposedly came about when nothing somehow exploded; that lifeless chemicals, by largely mysterious processes, are supposed to have somehow formed the first living thing (a biological machine so complex as to be able to make copies of itself and to harness usable energy from the environment); and that from this fortuitous first life has come the entire array of species, both past and present. Microbes have supposedly become not just microbiologists, but mosquitoes and magnolias, mushrooms and meerkats, and all of this over billions of years of trial and errorrandom changes filtered by the unremarkable (and ultimately unguided) process of natural selection.

Rather than choosing to confront areas that might be regarded as soft targets, Evolutions Achilles Heels represents a well-argued frontal assault on what many would see as invincible strongholds for todays evolution-grounded, anti-theistic establishment thinkers. The eight arenas of intellectual combat, each with their own chapter and their own scientist/author, are:

1. Natural Selection

2. Genetics and DNA

3. The Origin of Life

4. The Fossil Record

5. The Geologic Record

6. Radiometric Dating

7. Cosmology and the Big Bang

8. Ethics and Morality

Achilles was a heroic figure in Greco-Roman lore who was seemingly invincible in battle. In one version of the myth, this invincibility was bestowed upon him as a baby, through being dipped in the river Styx by his mother. However, the area on the back of his heel where she had gripped the infant missed out on contact with the protective fluid. The resultant point of vulnerability would eventually prove fatal to Achilles by permitting the entry of a poisoned arrow. Even today, the powerful tendon running to the back of the heel is referred to (including by doctors if in everyday conversation) as the Achilles tendon.

Achilles heel has, therefore, become an obvious and powerful metaphor for an unsuspected but deadly flaw, especially where this is in the face of a seeming invincibility. It speaks of a vulnerability which, when discovered and exposed, proves fatal.

It is fitting, then, that these eight areas of knowledge and enquiry are more or less those which most people think display evolutions greatest strengths. It is these which supposedly provide the grounds for its illusion of seeming invincibility.

The illusion is particularly powerful, by the way, because of its inherent circularity. It is true that the way the data are interpreted and presented continually seems to reinforce this dominant paradigm of our culture. But this is largely because of an unspoken rule, one that is often unsuspected by even its staunchest adherents. This rule is that the data may only be understood and interpreted within the presuppositions of the paradigm itself. This includes the assumption of strict naturalism when it comes to origins. For example, a well-known evolutionist professor (actually an immunologist) at an American University wrote:

Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic.

Here, he is admitting that explanations outside nature are automatically ruled out; only natural causes are permitted. This, therefore, excludes a priori as impermissible anything that might lead to a conclusion on origins other than a world that made itself, with no divine assistance either needed or apparent.