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What

DARWINDidn’t Know

�

FAZALE RANA

HUGH ROSS

“It’s not what you know you don’t know that’s the problem; it’s what you don’t know that you don’t know.”

When Charles Darwin proposed his theory of biological evolution, there was a lot of biology he didn’t know. Some of what he didn’t know, he recognized. But much hadn’t yet been discovered or even thought about.

During the 150 years since then, scientific research has yielded important understanding about life’s origin, history, and characteristics. These advances provide the framework for modern biology. They also raise questions about the validity of evolution. If Charles Darwin had known then what we know now, would he have posed the now-familiar theory? It’s hard to say. But discovering what Darwin didn’t know has been enough to cause a significant number of scientists around the world, representing a range of scientific disciplines, to question—and to chal-lenge—key aspects of evolutionary models.

The Origin of Life

According to an evolutionary perspective, the first stage in life’s history was when life arose from nonliving matter (abiogenesis). Darwin didn’t address this issue in his seminal work, On the Origin of Species. However, in a letter to his friend Joseph Hooker in 1871, Darwin speculated that the first spark of life may have taken place in a “warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc., present, that a proteine [sic] compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes.”

Still, it took until the 1920s for Russian biochemist Alexander I. Oparin and British geneticist J. B. S. Haldane working independently to assemble a scientific hypothesis for abiogenesis. Describing detailed pathways from inorganic systems on primordial Earth to the first living entities, the Oparin-Haldane hypothesis postulated an atmosphere without oxygen. Instead, reducing gases—hydrogen, ammonia, methane, and water vapor—were thought to dominate. Energy discharges within this gas mix formed simple organic (prebiotic) molecules that accumulated in Earth’s oceans to brew the primordial soup, where, presumably, chemical reactions then led stepwise to life’s first forms.

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A sage once said,

challenged the prebiotic soup concept, noting that even if it existed, the concentration of organic building blocks in it would have been too small to be meaningful for prebiotic evolution.

Life could not have arisen from a primordial soup that did not exist.

First Life Appears Early, Suddenly, and Complex

Two key expectations for life’s start have been the long time-scale required for nonlife to produce life and the relative simplicity of life’s first forms. Researchers have traditionally maintained that a percolation time of hundreds of millions of years (or maybe even a billion) would be neces-sary for abiogenesis. They also theorize that the first life to emerge would be extremely simple, evolving toward complexity over time.

Scientists recently uncovered unequivocal evidence that as soon as Earth became even remotely capable of sustaining life, life appeared. The oldest rock formations discovered to date measure about 3.9 billion years old. Several chemical markers left by the first living entities in these rocks indicate that life was present about 3.8 billion years ago.

It’s unlikely that Earth continuously sustained life for the first 600 million years or so. Astronomers now have evidence that just prior to 3.8 billion years ago, Jupiter and Saturn were migrating outward from the Sun due to interactions with a dense belt of asteroids and comets. Saturn moved away faster than Jupiter until, at some point, their orbits achieved an unusual pattern. For every single orbit of Saturn, Jupiter made exactly two. This resonance severely disrupted the asteroid and comet belt.

Millions of asteroids and comets began bombarding the inner solar system. Earth experienced more than 17,000 collisions with giant impac-tors that vaporized the planet’s oceans and melted its entire rock surface and subsurface. Any potential life would have been obliterated. Then, as soon as Earth recovered, life appeared.

A leading authority on early life, J. William Schopf states in his book, The Cradle of Life, that “no one had foreseen that the beginnings of life occurred so astonishingly early.”

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In the 1950s Stanley Miller provided what many considered the first experimental verification of this hypothesis. By passing an electrical dis-charge through a reducing gas mixture Miller produced several amino acids and other organics. His success launched the origin-of-life research program and became standard textbook fare.

These now famous spark-discharge experiments initiated a series of simi-lar experiments by others that seemingly produced ongoing support for Oparin’s and Haldane’s ideas. Delighted with Miller’s accomplishment, many scientists predicted the origin-of-life problem would soon be solved. But several recent discoveries have diminished that confidence.

Miller’s Experiment Didn’t Matter

Few textbooks acknowledge that today most origin-of-life researchers consider Miller’s experiment irrelevant. Strong evidence revealing a primordial atmosphere composed of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water has changed the scientific consensus. This gas mixture does not yield organic compounds in laboratory prebiotic simulation experiments—a devastating blow to the evolutionary scenario.

In the May 2, 2003 issue of Science, Jeffrey Bada and Antonio Lazcano, Miller’s long-time collaborators, acknowledged the change in perspective even as they commemorated the 50th anniversary of that famous experi-ment. While explaining its historical interest, these researchers com-mented, “Contemporary geoscientists tend to doubt that the primitive atmosphere had the highly reducing composition used by Miller in 1953.”

No Soup for You

Equally problematic is the lack of evidence for a prebiotic soup. If life arose from a chemical stew, then Earth’s oldest rocks should bear that soup’s chemical residue. Yet, according to origin-of-life researcher Noam Lahav in his book Biogenesis,

So far, no geochemical evidence for the existence of a prebiotic soup has been published. Indeed, a number of scientists have

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plex, but they also display an extraordinary degree of order undergirded by an elegant, sophisticated logic.

Biochemists additionally have discovered that the salient characteristics of living systems are identical to features immediately recognizable as the product of human designers. This close match logically compels the conclusion that life’s most fundamental processes and structures stem from the work of an intelligent Agent.

Molecular Motors and Machines

Many of the proteins that operate in the cell function as molecular-level “devices.” Remarkably, several bear a striking resemblance to man-made machines replete with drive shafts, cam shafts, turbines, clamps, lever arms, bushings, stators, and rotors.

Even nontheists agree that life’s chemical systems appear designed. The late Francis Crick, who shared the Nobel Prize for discovering the struc-ture of DNA, cautioned in his autobiography, What Mad Pursuit, that “biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved.” By all appearances, life’s chemistry looks like the product of a Creator.

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What’s more, these first life-forms, though single-celled bacteria, were metabolically and biochemically complex. Elsewhere in Cradle of Life, Schopf details the problem complex early life creates for naturalistic origin-of-life explanations:

[I] would prefer a simpler evolutionary story, one that told us these oldest fossil organisms were capable only of primitive ways of living and that advanced metabolic lifestyles evolved much later. But the evidence seems strong, and what one might “pre-fer” shouldn’t matter.

While early, sudden, and complex life makes little sense from an evolu-tionary perspective, a creation explanation seems reasonable. If God introduced first life on Earth, it would appear instantaneously and abundantly in a complex form.

Life in a Tiny Package

Darwin embraced the protoplasmic theory—the idea that the cell con-sisted of only a wall surrounding a nucleus and a homogeneous, jelly-like protoplasm. This understanding made early evolutionary explanations of abiogenesis plausible. Biologists and chemists easily envisioned chem-ical routes that could produce the single ingredient believed to form the cell’s interior substance.

By the end of the 19th century, however, as the new field of biochem-istry developed, this concept waned. With the discovery of enzymes capable of catalyzing a large collection of chemical reactions in the cell’s protoplasm, scientists clearly recognized the cell as a complex heteroge-neous system.

Biochemical Complexity and Organization

Over the last century, advances in biochemistry have continued to affirm the complexity of life at a molecular level. Even the simplest bacterium requires close to 2,000 different proteins in its “protoplasm” to exist as a living entity. Not only are the cell’s chemical systems irreducibly com-

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The Bacterial Flagellum. The proteins of the bacterial flagellum form a literal rotary motor.

Digging Up Fossils

Convinced that the fossil record was incomplete and poorly studied, Darwin expected gradual evolutionary transformations and missing transitional forms to be uncovered over time as paleontologists continued collecting and analyzing evidence. And, indeed paleontologists have found a treasure trove of fossils that document a rich history of life on Earth. Paleontologists point to these fossils as key pieces of evidence in support of biological evolution. The fossil record verifies that past life was different from life today, and simple life preceded complex. For many scientists, these general features indicate that life must have evolved.

Despite all discoveries, however, the overall features of the fossil record still look the same today as in Darwin’s time. When new biological groups appear, they show up explosively, then undergo little change. Explosive innovation occurred when life first appeared, when the first complex cells originated, and when animal body plans arose.

Biological Big Bangs

Prior to 575 million years ago, microbes were the overwhelming domi-nate life-forms on Earth. Before 580 million years ago, the oceans were too salty, too full of sulfides, too oxygen poor, and too deficient in molybdenum for more complex life to be possible. Several “snowball” events that took place between 600 and 800 million years ago, episodes when ice extended down to just a few degrees from the equator, added to the problems.

Two explosive events marked the addition of complex multicellular ani-mal life. The first, known as the Avalon explosion, occurred 575 million years ago. In this event Ediacaran life- forms arose suddenly. These includ-ed a variety of sponges and jellyfish and other enigmatic life- forms. All the anatomical designs for the Ediacara were fully present at that time. After about 32 million years, though, the Ediacara experienced a serious decline, the reasons for which scientists are still investigating.

Following the Ediacaran extinction (543 million years ago) a second, much more dramatic event, the Cambrian explosion, occurred. In a

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The Genetic Code

Many in the scientific community suppress the intuition of divine design, insistent that natural evolutionary processes are the only pos-sible (or allowable) explanation for life and its intricate composition. However, because common experience teaches that information and codes always emanate from a mind, new discoveries about the informa-tion systems in the cell and the genetic code challenge Darwin’s theory. At the same time, they provide compelling evidence for the work of an intelligent supernatural Agent.

Recent findings indicate that optimally fine-tuned rules, necessary to give meaning to the information stored in DNA, are actually built into the genetic code. The cell’s machinery uses these rules to make proteins that also harbor information. Given the time scale for the origin of life, natu-ral selection would have had to “evaluate” roughly 1055 codes per second to arrive at the genetic code. On this basis alone, evidence argues against an evolutionary origin. There simply wasn’t enough time for natural processes to stumble upon the genetic code.

Life’s History

The fossil record as known in Darwin’s day offered scant support for evolution, and he knew it. In On the Origin of Species, Darwin devoted a chapter to the theory’s “difficulties,” highlighting two features he con-sidered most troubling: the abrupt appearances of biological groups the first time they occur in the fossil record, and the absence of transitional forms.

Darwin lamented,

There is another and allied difficulty, which is much more seri-ous. I allude to the manner in which species belonging to several of the main divisions of the animal kingdom suddenly appear in the lowest known fossiliferous rocks. . . . To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system, I can give no satisfactory answer.

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feathered dinosaurs into birds, and the transition of so-called “fishapods” from lobe-finned fish to tetrapods, the first land-dwelling vertebrates.

In all three instances, it looks as if paleontologists have uncovered a con-vincing series of transitional intermediates that document progressive change. At first glance, these fossils seem to provide just what Darwin was looking for, support for a strictly naturalistic explanation of life’s history.

However, closer examination reveals problems with each of these evolu-tionary accounts. For the fishapod and whale series; the transition from water to land and land to water, respectively, happened rapidly—in 10 million years or less. This short timeframe is counterintuitive considering the extensive anatomical and physiological changes that would have been necessary for an aquatic animal to adapt to life on land or vice versa.

Another challenge to the evolutionary account is the co-occurrence of many fishapod and whale intermediates in the fossil record. Instead of appearing in a sequential fashion, these creatures appear to have coexisted and overlapped. In other words, the patterns observed in the fossil record don’t describe a linear evolutionary change over time.

The transitional fossils also seem out of order. In the case of fishapods, more primitive forms show up in the fossil record after more advanced forms. The same is true for the feathered dinosaurs, touted as transitional intermediates, supposedly linking theropod dinosaurs and birds. Feathered dinosaurs existed well after the first true bird (Archaeopteryx) appeared around 150 million years ago. This problem, dubbed the temporal para-dox by paleontologists studying bird origins, makes little sense in an evolutionary framework.

Body size also poses a problem for evolutionary accounts, particularly for whales. Conservation biologists have repeatedly noted that animals with larger body sizes are much more likely to spiral toward extinction when confronted with environmental, predatory, and/or competitive pressures. According to field biologist’s observations, the large creatures often touted as the best examples of the evolutionary process were much less likely to have evolved than to have gone extinct.

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time window arguably narrower than 2- to-3-million years, somewhere between 50 and 80 percent of all animal phyla appeared. Few, if any, of these newly appearing creatures have any connection to the Ediacaran fauna. Instead of relatively simple organisms’ originating at the base of the Cambrian then evolving toward increased intricacy, complex ani-mals appeared early and suddenly.

Evolutionary biologists struggle to account for this explosive appearance. It flatly contradicts the idea that life transitioned from simple to complex in a gradual branching, tree-like fashion. Paleontologist Kevin Peterson said that “although the Cambrian explosion is of singular importance to our understanding of the history of life, it continues to defy explanation.”

In The Blind Watchmaker atheist Richard Dawkins admits the problem yet simply disregards it. “The Cambrian strata of rocks, vintage about 600 million years, are the oldest ones in which we find most of the major invertebrate groups. And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear.” If, however, a Creator orchestrated life’s history, explosive appearances are exactly what’s expected.

The Avalon and Cambrian explosions are not the only mass origination seen in the fossil record. Every major extinction event was soon followed by a mass origination event. Asteroid and comet strikes, nearby supernova, gamma-ray bursts, and the eruptions of super volcanoes precipitated the extermination of anywhere from 40 to 90 percent of all species on Earth. Remarkably, in all instances, as soon as the Earth’s conditions stabilized, new life-forms rapidly appeared with optimal ecological relationships.

“Transitional Forms”

Even Darwin questioned, if “by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?” Though transitional intermediates are still relatively rare in the fossil record, evolutionary biologists point to exceptional examples of “transitional forms” as proof that life evolves on its own. These forms are used to construct scenarios such as the transformation of a raccoon-like creature into a whale, the evolution of

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nuclear burning rate causes the Sun to shine more brightly. Over the past 3.5-to-3.0 billion years, the Sun’s luminosity has increased by about 15 percent.

The initial drop in the Sun’s brightness followed by the subsequent increase should have destroyed any chance for life’s survival on Earth. Life cannot tolerate even a 2 percent change in incident luminosity. A change of even 2 percent would lead to a runaway freeze-up or runaway evaporation of Earth’s water.

However, because certain life-forms were strategically introduced and previous life-forms strategically removed, these adjustments to life com-pensated perfectly for the changes occurring in the Sun (as well as in the Earth’s rotation rate, tidal interaction with the Moon, size and distribution of the continental landmasses, and levels of soluble metal compounds, oxygen, and radioactivity). Specifically, the life-forms that contributed greenhouse (heat-trapping) gases during the era of decreasing luminosity had to be removed. Then, in a series of precisely controlled and timed introductions and further removals, new and different kinds and quanti-ties of life came to replace it—life-forms that could remove greenhouse gases (via photosynthesis and regulation of land-mass erosion) to coun-terbalance the increasing solar luminosity. These apparent “interven-tions” help make sense of the fossil record—repeated mass extinction events followed almost immediately by mass speciation events.

This 3.8-billion-year creative process transformed Earth’s surface in a purposeful way. It turned a toxic (for advanced life) environment—one with deadly soluble metal compounds, too little oxygen, and inadequate soils—into a suitable habitat for humanity. At the same time, it preloaded Earth with rich resources (such as coal, oil, natural gas, limestone, gyp-sum, top soil, and concentrated insoluble metal ores) allowing humans to launch and sustain a global high-tech civilization.

Biological Convergence

Because evolutionary processes are blind and undirected, Darwin recog-nized that their very essence makes outcomes unpredictable and nonre-peatable. He noted in a later edition of On the Origin of Species,

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Faint Sun Paradox

Darwin and his contemporaries could not have imagined how discoveries about the history of star burning would impact our understanding life’s history. Even today, many biologists fail to appreciate how stellar evolu-tion helps explain the fossil record’s appearance.

Biologist Ken Miller believes it is a mistake to credit God for life’s history. In defense of Darwinism, Miller writes in his book Only a Theory that crediting God would imply “the designer is never satisfied—or perhaps can never get it quite right. . . . Our Designer doesn’t just design; he does it again and again—and his designs don’t last.”

The biblical creation accounts, however, offer a different perspective on life’s history. Referring to animals, Psalm 104:29-30 declares, “They die and return to the dust. When you [God] send your Spirit, they are cre-ated, and you renew the face of the earth.”

What astronomers have learned recently about dramatic changes in the Sun’s luminosity (brightness) helps explain why the fossil record looks the way it does. It also shows how much foresight and planning went into the intermittent endings and introductions of Earth’s life-forms. While evolutionary models presume that the Sun has provided a stable temperature range on Earth throughout the past 3–4 billion years, astronomers now recognize that the Sun’s luminosity has varied by as much as 15 percent throughout life’s history.

In its formative stages the Sun was rapidly accumulating mass. Since a star’s brightness increases with the fourth power of its mass, the Sun became many times brighter during its time of formation.

During its first 1.0-to-1.5 billion years after its formation, the Sun shed between 20 and 30 percent of its accumulated mass. This mass loss caused the Sun to dim to less than half of its maximum brightness. Since that low point, the Sun’s luminosity has steadily increased as hydrogen fuses into helium in the Sun’s nuclear furnace located in its core. The added helium continues to increase the Sun’s core density. This increas-ing core density in turn increases the Sun’s core temperature. The higher core temperature augments the Sun’s nuclear burning rate. The higher

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frequently reapply successful strategies when faced with related prob-lems. It’s prudent and efficient for an inventor to reuse the same designs wherever possible.

The Origin of Humanity

While Darwin carefully avoided discussion of humanity’s start in On the Origin of Species, his book The Descent of Man offered a detailed account. He claimed that, like all species, humanity gradually evolved from earlier primates. “In a series of forms graduating insensibly from some ape-like creature to man as he now exists, it would be impossible to fix on any definite point when the term ‘man’ ought to be used.”

With that speculation, Darwin did the unthinkable; he interpreted humanity in a fully materialistic fashion. According to this view, not only humanity’s physical make-up, but also all that constitutes human nature emerged through natural selection. Lacking direct evidence, Darwin argued that humans must have evolved from an ape-like animal based on anatom-ical comparisons and embryological similarities among mammals.

By then, paleontologists had already discovered Cro-Magnon fossils dated 35,000 years old. These human remains, however, did little to support Darwin’s theory, nor did the first Neanderthal specimen dis-covered in 1856. Dating anywhere from 40,000 to 100,000 years in age, the Neander-thal fossil remains showed many similarities with human beings, yet Neanderthals possessed other distinct features. Scientists still lacked intermediate forms—fossils that could demonstrate the gradual transition from ape-like creatures into modern humans and thus corroborate Darwin’s idea.

The first so-called ape-human intermediate interpreted from the fossil record wasn’t discovered until 1890 on the Indonesian island of Java. This species (initially dubbed Pithecanthropus erectus) later became known as Homo erectus.

In 1924, anthropologist Raymond Dart uncovered a small skull described as having a blend of ape and human features that appeared to belong to humanity’s most primitive predecessor. This fossil, nicknamed the Taung

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It is incredible that the descendants of two organisms, which had originally differed in a marked manner, should ever afterwards converge so closely as to lead to a near approach to identity throughout their whole organisation. If this had occurred, we should meet with the same form, independently of genetic con-nection, recurring in widely separated geological formations; and the balance of evidence is opposed to any such an admission.

Given the vagaries of evolutionary mechanisms, Darwin couldn’t fathom how radically different organisms might evolve toward the same biolog-ical form. In other words, he didn’t think evolutionary processes could generate duplicate outcomes (convergence).

The late evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould shared the same sen-timent. Gould argued in his book Wonderful Life that chance governs biological evolution at its most fundamental level. Evolutionary pathways consist of an historical sequence of chance genetic changes operated on by natural selection, which also consists of chance components. As a consequence, if evolutionary events could be repeated, the outcome would be dramatically different every time. The inability of evolutionary processes to retrace the same path makes it highly unlikely that the same biological and biochemical designs would repeatedly appear throughout nature especially among unrelated organisms.

Support for Darwin’s and Gould’s ideas came in 2008 from Richard Lenski’s research group at Michigan State University. Their Long-Term Experimental Evolution Project showed that populations of the bacterium Escherichia coli do not repeatedly evolve toward the same outcome.

In his day, Darwin saw little evidence for convergence. Today such evi-dence abounds. Paleontologist Simon Conway Morris, in his book Life’s Solution, describes numerous examples of design convergence at the organismal level. In my book, The Cell’s Design, I (Fazale Rana) offer more than a hundred examples of convergence in biochemical systems. From an evolutionary standpoint, it may look as if evolution repeated itself time and time again. Yet all indications say that it could not.

Biological convergence potently challenges the validity of biological evo-lution. It also points to the work of a Creator. Designers and engineers

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Child, was formally classified as Australopithecus africanus. In the late 1950s Louis Leakey unearthed the first Homo habilis specimen in East Africa. Paleontologists considered this species (the first to use stone tools) to be the connection between the more primitive ape-like australo-pithecines and Homo erectus.

Then the floodgates opened. Paleontologists began unearthing numer-ous hominid fossils—a wide range of species—and their accompanying archeological remains (see “Who Were the Hominids?,” page 17). These discoveries occurred throughout East, Central, and South Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe—and they continue to come forth. Each new hominid appears to fill in the evolutionary tree and clarify the path-way that human evolution took over the last 6 million years.

Evolutionary Dead-ends

Some of the most recent advances related to hominid–human relation-ships raise questions about human evolution’s validity. In 1997 fragments of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA from a 40,000-to-100,000-year-old skeleton were found in West Germany. When scientists compared them with the corresponding fragments of human DNA, the researchers con-cluded that Neanderthals made no contribution to human genetics.

Since then paleoanthropologists have isolated this same sequence of mito-chondrial DNA from 15 other Neanderthals. Each gave the same result—Neanderthals and humans were not related.

Indirect genetic comparisons and differences in development now eliminate Homo erectus from human ancestry as well. The discover-ies of new fossils have forced evolutionary biologists to also eliminate Homo antecessor, “Lucy” (Australopitecus afarensis), and the Taung Child (Australopithecus africanus) from the human evolutionary lineage. New discoveries have likewise raised questions about the status of Homo habilis. The last few years have led evolutionary biologists to completely abandon the traditional view of human evolution presented in biology textbooks (see “Why Would God Create Hominids?”).

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W H O W E R E T H E H O M I N I D S ?

Found in the fossil record, the hominids appear to have been remark-able creatures that walked erect and possessed some limited level of intelligence and emotional capacity. Such traits allowed these ani-mals—like Neanderthals, , and “Lucy”—to employ crude tools and even adopt some measure of “culture,” much like baboons, gorillas, and chimpanzees. Still, there is no evidence to suggest the hominids were spiritual beings, made in God’s image. This status applies exclusively to human beings, .

The hominids may be thought of as animals like the great apes. As such—anatomical, physiological, biochemical, and genetic similarities with human beings are expected to varying degrees. But since the hominids were not made in God’s image, they are clearly distinct from humanity, particularly in their behavior, technology, culture, and cognitive capac-ity. These creatures simply existed for a time, then went extinct.

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biblical model) into an evolutionary framework. If humanity’s genesis happened as Scripture describes, genetic diversity patterns should be identical to those observed. Science supports the belief in a real Adam and Eve who gave rise to all humanity.

The Refusal to Abandon Evolution

In light of these problems (and a host of others) why would so many people, especially scientists, embrace biological evolution? Part of the reason has to do with the Christian approach to these matters. Often, Christians are quick to point out the problems. But merely explaining the difficulties isn’t enough and understandably puts evolution propo-nents on the defensive.

In The Triumph of Evolution: And the Failure of Creationism, paleontolo-gist Niles Eldredge points out that

creation scientists have not managed to come up with even a single intellectually compelling, scientifically testable statement about the natural world. . . .So, in the end, there is as little of substance in the scientific creationists’ treatment of the origin and diversification of life as there is in their treatment of cosmo-logical time.

He goes on to complain that creationists refuse to pose testable hypotheses or make predictions worthy of science. Instead they devote their efforts to “attacking orthodox science in the mistaken and utterly fallacious belief that in discrediting science, . . . they have thereby established the truth of their own position.”

To be taken seriously by the scientific and educational communities, Christians must present a positive case for creation and offer scientifically testable ideas. Many scientists and scholars from a variety of disciplines, particularly at Reasons To Believe, have been involved in developing a biblically based creation model. This effort offers a comprehensive explanation for the record of nature and makes predictions, allowing cre-ation theory to be compared with new discoveries and scientifically tested (see Hugh Ross’s book More Than A Theory for a general overview).

Mitochondrial Eve and Y-Chromosomal Adam

Genetic diversity studies of people groups around the world that recon-struct early human history only increase Darwin’s problems. And, this research further substantiates the biblical account of humanity’s origin. Based on a large number of studies, scientific consensus confirms that humanity originated perhaps as much as 100,000 years ago in or near East Africa. Mitochondrial- and Y-chromosomal DNA markers trace that origin back to one man and one woman. In addition this research indi-cates that humanity rapidly migrated around the world from somewhere in or near the Middle East.

Referred to by biologists as the “Out-of-Africa,” or occasionally as the “Garden-of-Eden” hypothesis, this account of humanity’s origin appears to be simply an awkward attempt to force the data (which aligns with a

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W H Y W O U L D G O D C R E A T E H O M I N I D S ?

In Africa, where several types of hominids predated humanity, the extinc-tion rate for large mammals that coexisted with humans is only 14 percent. In North and South America and Australia, where hominids apparently did not exist before humans, the large-mammal extinction rate after humanity’s arrival stands at 73, 79, and 86 percent, respectively.

Many of the creatures humans depend on for food, clothing, and quality of life have been devastated by humans. If God had not created a variety of hominids prior to creating humanity, that impact would likely have been even more disastrous.

The fossil and archeological records reveal numerous hominids in such places as Africa and Asia that spanned seven million years. Over time, some of these species sequentially possessed slightly better hunting capability than earlier hominids. Increasing exposure to improved predation skills may have allowed birds and mammals to adapt step-by-step for the shock of a sinful, super predator—humankind.

Presenting the biblical account in the form of a testable model provides a powerful and exciting new approach. Such a scientific model not only demonstrates the truthfulness of the Bible but also can lead to scientific advance.

Not surprisingly, many recent discoveries validate the biblical description of the origin and history of life. Evidence from both the biological and physical sciences supports creation, and so does the fossil record. In sharp contrast, the most recent scientific data contradicts the predictions springing from Darwin’s ideas. If only he had known.

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ABOUT

REASONS TO BELIEVE

founded in 1986, Reasons To Believe (RTB) focuses on the relationship between the words of the Bible and the facts of nature. Whether in writing or in talks at universities, research labs, churches, and elsewhere, RTB scholars present reasons for confidence in the findings of science and in the authority of Scripture. These scientists and theologians demonstrate how God’s verbal revela-tion proves accurate and wholly consistent with the latest discoveries. Podcasts, webcasts, video clips, and articles, including Today’s New Reason to Believe, show how scientific advance supports the Christian faith. Each can be accessed at www.reasons.org. Event information is also listed. RTB’s science-faith hotline (626-335-5282) operates daily from 5 to 7P.M.

For information or to find out about available resources, call(800) 482 -7836 or visit www.reasons.org.

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A science-faith think tank

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

is the vice president of research and apologetics at Reasons To Believe. Research in biochemistry provided him with evidence that life must have a Creator. Acting on a personal challenge to read the Bible, he found scriptural evidence that convinced him of the Creator’s identity.

After graduating from West Virginia State College (WVSC) with a BS degree in chemis-try, Dr. Rana earned a PhD in chemistry with

an emphasis in biochemistry at Ohio University (OU). A presidential scholar, Dr. Rana was elected into two honor societies at WVSC and won the Donald Clippinger Research Award two different years at OU. He conducted postdoctoral work at the Universities of Virginia and Georgia. Before joining Reasons To Believe, he worked for seven years on product development for Procter & Gamble. Dr. Rana also holds an adjunct faculty position at Biola University, teaching in the Master of Science and Religion program in Christian Apologetics.

Several articles by Dr. Rana have been published in peer-reviewed sci-entific journals such as Biochemistry, Applied Spectroscopy, FEBS Letters, Journal of Microbiological Methods, and Journal of Chemical Education. Recently he published an article on cell membrane origins in Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres. He has delivered numerous presenta-tions at international scientific meetings. Dr. Rana also has one patent and co-wrote a chapter on antimicrobial peptides for Biological and Synthetic Membranes. In addition, he is author of The Cell’s Design and Creating Life in the Lab, and coauthor with Hugh Ross of Origins of Life and Who Was Adam?

Dr. Rana travels around the country, speaking at churches, business firms, and university campuses on science-and-faith issues. He is also a frequent guest on radio and television.

Dr. Rana and his wife, Amy, live in Southern California with their three daughters.

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Dr. Fazale Rana

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

is founder and president of Reasons To Believe. As a boy, he studied the stars using a homemade telescope funded by the proceeds from collected pop bottles. As an astronomer, he relies on more advanced instru-ments to gaze into the depths of space and time—back to the earliest detectable moments of the cosmos.

With grants from the National Research Council of Canada, he earned a BS in physics

from the University of British Columbia and later an MS and a PhD in astronomy from the University of Toronto. For several years Dr. Ross continued his research on quasars and galaxies as a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology. During that time he began more than two decades of service on the pastoral staff at Sierra Madre Congregational Church.

In 1986, he founded science-faith organization Reasons To Believe (RTB) with the purpose of spreading the Christian Gospel by demon-strating that sound reason and scientific research consistently support confidence in the truth of the Bible. He and his colleagues at RTB keep tabs on the frontiers of research to share with scientists and nonscien-tists alike the thrilling news of what’s being discovered and how it con-nects with biblical theology.

Today, in addition to overseeing the operations of RTB and generating new science-faith resources, Dr. Ross speaks on university campuses and in a variety of venues around the world. His books include Beyond the Cosmos, The Fingerprint of God, The Creator and the Cosmos, The Genesis Question, A Matter of Days, Why the Universe Is the Way It Is, More Than a Theory, and Hidden Treasures in the Book of Job. He has also coau-thored Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men, Origins of Life, and Who Was Adam?

Dr. Ross lives in Southern California with his wife, Kathy, and their two sons.

Dr. Hugh Ross

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DISCOVER MORE

REASONS TO BELIEVE

For more information about Reasons To Believe or to order any of these resources, call (800) 482-7836 or visit our Web store at www.reasons.org.

Creating Life in the LabBy Fazale Rana

Representing the best of RTB’s efforts to anticipate scientific breakthroughs and explain their contribution to the case for Christian faith, biochemist Fuz Rana shows how recent advances in synthetic biology actually undermine the evolutionary expla-nation for the origin of life.

Who Was Adam?By Fazale Rana with Hugh Ross

Biochemist Fazale Rana and astronomer Hugh Ross discuss many scientific ad-vances and propose a new model for human origins, a scientific creation model. Can human evolution be declared a fact? Or does creation make more scientific sense? RTB’s biblically consistent model can be tested to answer the questions, with astounding results.

The Cell’s DesignBy Fazale Rana

Cutting-edge techniques have revealed startling features inside the cell that force only one reasonable conclusion—a super-natural Agent must be responsible for life. Molecular motors, information properties, chicken-and-egg systems, and quality-control checkpoints represent a few of more than a dozen remarkable indicators for design explained by biochemist Fazale Rana.

Origins of LifeBy Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross

Research evaporates the myth that scien-tific evidence supports naturalistic theo-ries. Rather, new discoveries corroborate the work of a transcendent Creator who formed and nurtured the solar system, Earth, and Earth’s first life-forms.

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If Darwin knew then what we know now, would he have advanced his theory

of biological evolution?

on the data available at that time. But understanding of life’s structure and history in the mid-19th century was vastly incomplete. Since then a scientific revolution has taken place. It’s not surprising that Darwin’s theory no longer represents a viable explanation of nature’s record.

In What Darwin Didn’t Know biochemist Fazale Rana and astronomer Hugh Ross bring us up to date with the latest discoveries. In nontechnical language, they help readers recognize the implications that come from relevant new data in both the life and physical sciences.

RA N A A N D RO S S AD D R E S S QU E S T I O N S LI K E:

� How did life originate?� Is life designed?

� What does the fossil record reveal about life’s history?� Why does the fossil record look the way it does?

� How did humanity originate?

Nobel laureate Richard Smalley described work by Rana and Ross as a cru-cial turning point in his thinking. Find out why in this new release from Reasons To Believe.

Darwin built his theory

INTEGRATING SCIENCE AND FAITH

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