Does Evolution Kill God?

“Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”¹ This quote from famed atheist Richard Dawkins tells us everything we need to know about the evolution debate. If evolution is true, the skeptic argues, then God is no longer necessary to explain the complexity of life.

Skeptics will even admit that life, in all its complex forms, looks like it was designed. Dawkins elsewhere wrote, “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.”²Francis Crick, codiscoverer of DNA, also cautioned, “Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather, evolved.”³

According to the evolutionists, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and waddles like a duck, it must be a llama. That is, despite apparent evidence that suggests life was designed, we’re told to suppress those instincts. Instead, we’re to believe that all the different life forms are the result of blind natural forces. No matter how different humans, trees, and crickets appear to be, they all descend from a common ancestor. End of discussion.

To quote the famous college football analyst Lee Corso, “not so fast my friend.” I believe we have good reason to question Darwinism’s legitimacy. Let me give you five reasons why.

THE FOSSIL RECORD

According to Darwinism, all different life forms trace their lineage back to a single ancestor. The picture Darwin gave for this process was a tree — the first living cell as the trunk and all the subsequent life forms as branches.

With this picture in mind, one would expect to find millions upon millions of transitional forms in the fossil record. Yet no such fossil record exists.

Interestingly, Darwin knew the fossil record contradicted his theory. In The Origin of Species, he acknowledges that the existing geological record was “the most obvious and gravest objection, which can be urged against my theory.” He goes on to ask, “Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain.”⁴

Instead of a fossil record that supports Darwin’s Tree of Life, geologists have discovered something that looks something more like a lawn. That is, almost all the different phyla that exist today suddenly burst on the geological scene in the blink of an eye with no trace of prior transitional fossils. This phenomena, known as the Cambrian Explosion contradicts Darwin’s theory of slow gradual evolution. Not only is there no evidence of transitional evolution prior to Cambrian Explosion, new phyla stopped appearing in the fossil record after the explosion with very few exceptions. In sum, the fossil record contradicts Darwinism.

THE NEED FOR MUTATIONS

Darwinian evolution claims all the different life forms are the result of natural selection acting on random mutations. For evolution to work, mutations must occur in the genes to bring about change in the species. Given enough generations of genetic mutations, species transition gradually into different species over the course of millions of years. Additionally, nature always selects the fittest species which means these mutations must have positive effects on the species to push them to the top of the survival chain. There’s a big problem, however, with this theory.

Mutations are, for the most part, harmful to species. That is, they typically lead to serious deformities or death. For example, the most popular test subject for mutating genetics is the fruit fly. Biologists have mutated the genes in these flies which have resulted in flies that have four wings instead of two. The catch, however, is that these wings hurt, rather than help the fly.

Commenting on the fruit fly experiment, Jonathan Wells quipped, “All of the evidence points to one conclusion: no matter what we do to a fruit fly embryo, there are only three possible outcomes — a normal fruit fly, a defective fruit fly, or a dead fruit fly. Not even a horsefly, much less a horse.”⁵

In order for Darwinian evolution to be true, positive mutations must occur. But that’s contrary to science. Science — observable, repeatable observations — says that mutations hurt the species instead of helping them.

COMPLEXITY OF THE CELL

In The Origin of Species, Darwin declared, “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.”⁶

Darwin taught that natural selection takes no giant leaps, but rather takes small, gradual variations. Therefore, complex organs must evolve in a step-by-step process over the course of millions of years. Darwin’s challenge was simple. Demonstrate that certain structures could not have evolved gradually, and you disprove his theory.

Michael Behe took up the challenge. In his groundbreaking book, Darwin’s Black Box, Behe argues that several systems are irreducibly complex. He defines irreducible complexity as “a single system that is necessarily composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, and where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.”⁷In other words, these systems can’t evolve piece-by-piece — they depend on all their pieces from the get go.

Behe gives several examples, but his most famous is the bacterial flagellum. The best way to describe the flagellum is an outboard motor on a boat. Its whip-like propeller spins at 10,000 rpm and can change directions on a quarter turn going 10,000 rpm in the opposite direction. In total, about thirty different protein parts make up the bacterial flagellum, and each part is necessary for functionality. Take away one part, and you don’t get a less efficient system, you get a non-functioning system. Thus it could not have evolved piece-by-piece.

In Darwin’s defense, the cell looked like a glob of Jello under the microscope in his day. He had no idea that inside the cell was a factory which causes engineers to marvel. Harvard biologist Howard Berg calls the flagellum “the most efficient machine in the universe. It’s way beyond anything we can make, especially when you consider its size.” It’s about 1/20,000 of an inch.

ENCODED INFORMATION

Crick and Watson discovered DNA in 1953. Roughly six feet of information coiled inside each of our body’s trillions of cells, DNA provides genetic information necessary to make each person who they are. “Ever since the 1950s and 1960s,” says Stephen Meyer, “biologists have recognized that the cell’s critical functions are usually performed by proteins, and proteins are the product of assembly instructions stored in DNA.”⁸In short, DNA contains programmed information.

Human experience tells us that information is attributable to intelligent minds. Words in a book or code in a computer can only come from purposeful intelligent beings. They don’t occur by random chance.

Well, DNA is a lot like code. Instead of a twenty-six letter alphabet, or two number binary code, DNA is a four letter digital code. Bill Gates even tells us, “DNA is like a software program, only much more complex than anything we’ve ever devised.” If it’s ridiculous to think chance created computer programs, it’s even more ridiculous to think that chance caused DNA  — especially when you consider how much information is in DNA.

According to Richard Dawkins, there’s a thousand Brittanica Encyclopedia volume’s worth of information inside a single cell.⁹Since God isn’t an option for him, he thinks the information occurred by chance. But this contradicts what we know about the cause of information. Minds cause information.

THE ORIGIN OF LIFE

Despite all the difficulties I’ve mentioned above, the biggest problem for the atheist is the origin of life. After all, Darwin’s theory only deals with life after it already sprung into existence. But given naturalism, how could life emerge like this?

Harvard chemist George Whitesides admits, “Most chemists believe, as do I, that life emerged spontaneously from mixtures of molecules in the prebiotic Earth. How? I have no idea.”¹⁰

During Darwin’s day, biologists believed the cell was a simple structure that could easily arise by natural forces. Now that we know the complexity of the cell — DNA and bacterial flagellum included — it’s absurd to think cells appeared by chance. Francis Crick even acknowledges, “An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.”¹¹

Crick, an atheist himself, is right. It would take a miracle to cause life.

DOES EVOLUTION KILL GOD?

The evidence should cause us to pump the brakes on evolution. Moreover, when you combine the Cambrian Explosion with the problem of mutations, complexities of the cell, DNA, and the dilemma around the origin of life, God seems pretty safe.

1. Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, 6.
2. Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, 1.
3. Francis Crick, What Made Pursuit, 138.
4. Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, 280.
5. Jonathan Wells, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, 36.
6. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 189.
7. Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box, 353.
8. Stephen Meyer, “The Evidence of Biological Information” in The Case for a Creator, 223.
9. Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, 116.
10. George Whitesides, Revolutions in Chemistry in Chemical and Engineering News, vol. 85, no. 13, March 26, 2007, 12-17.
11. Francis Crick, Life Itself, 88.