Scientists and people across the world have been debating the beginning of the earth. Most scientists take the stance of evolution. Evolutionists believe that the earth was created with one “Big Bang” and that it has evolved over billions of years. Most believers in God take the stance of creation. Creationists believe that God created the earth in six days and that earth is somewhere between 6,000 and 12,000 years old. While textbooks and scientific lectures teach about evolution, the creation point of view is more accurate. This is not to say that the creation story is flawless. However, between the Biblical stories and evolutionary flaws, it provides a more accurate depiction of how the earth was created. Some of the most flawed evolutionary theories include carbon dating, Lucy the ape, macroevolution, and the Big Bang.
One of the most important tools used in determining the age of the earth is carbon dating. Carbon dating uses the isotope carbon-14 to date once-living things. It had also originally been used to date rocks as well. However, research has shown that it cannot be directly used to date rocks and often gives very inaccurate answers (Riddle 2007). Archaeologist Stuart Manning and his team studied variations of carbon-14 at different periods of time and found that the timelines are thrown off by as much as 20 years. Manning and his team predict this is due to the different climate conditions of the time periods (Gorey 2018). As previously stated, Biblical stories can often provide more context and an explanation for an evolutionary flaw. Answers in Genesis states that the Biblical Flood in Genesis could have played a major part in the amount of carbon throughout the earth. The Flood would have buried large amounts of carbon from living organisms, which would form fossil fuels. “The amount of fossil fuels indicates there must have been a vastly larger quantity of vegetation in existence before the Flood than exists today. This means that the biosphere just before the Flood might have had 500 times more carbon in living organisms than today” (Riddle 2007).
Another incredibly important asset in the evolution side of the debate is Lucy the ape. Lucy is believed to be a bridge between apes and humans. Lucy was believed to look like a primate but was bipedal and had many human-like characteristics and bone structures. She was also believed to be a female. Lucy was the first Australopithecus skeleton ever found (National Geographic Staff 2006). However, with all of these signs pointing to a major proof of evolution, it is in fact a major flaw. First of all, there have been many depictions and drawings of Lucy. However, only 40% of Lucy’s bones were found. These pictures cannot be perceived as entirely accurate, as most of the drawing is an assumption. As mentioned above, Lucy was believed to be bipedal. However, there is a lot of evidence against this theory. Lucy had a protruding facial structure (which would limit her vision if she was bipedal), long arms, and wrist bones that could lock. All of these bone structures are signs of tree-climbing and wrist-walking (Nugent 2016). Likewise, Lucy’s pelvis and the position of her iliac blade showed that she would have been better suited for tree life. These bones showed resemblance to those of a chimpanzee, not a human (Menton and Mitchell 2012). Also, Lucy was believed to be a female. This was assumed because she was very small and larger of her kind probably existed. However, scientists cannot be certain of her sex due to the lack of information on the Australopithecus. Finally, Lucy is believed to have died by falling from a great height. It can be assumed that Lucy was in a tree before falling to her death (Strickland 2016). All of these flaws in Lucy’s story can almost certainly prove that she was just a normal ape. However, Lucy is displayed in museums and taught in schools throughout the world. In the book of Genesis, God created humans and apes with distinct differences on different days. Lucy is nothing more than an “evolutionary interpretation”.
In addition to carbon dating and Lucy, macroevolution is a very useful belief and theory to evolutionists. However, like the other theories, it too has its flaws. Macroevolution can be defined as a “large-scale evolutionary change”. It deals with a total change of kind (L. Garrido, personal communication, February 4, 2020). Evolutionists will argue that monkey has changed to man over time, that Darwin’s finches changed kind, and that natural selection is the driving force for change of kind. The idea of monkey to man has clear flaws. For one, God created animals and humans on two separate days. Also, the “missing link” that was supposed to prove macroevolution, Lucy, has obvious problems that falsify the possibility of it being a relative of humans. Another incorrect, but commonly used “proof” for evolution, is Darwin’s finches. When Darwin went on his expeditions around the world, he noticed that similar finches had very different beak sizes. Evolutionists are quick to cite this as an argument in favor of macroevolution. However, that statement is false. Since macroevolution is a change of kind, that is not what Darwin’s research shows. It is a true statement that similar birds had different beak sizes, but this an example of microevolution. The birds did not change into another type of animal. Creationists have no problem with microevolution, as that can be seen in the world today. Dr. Jerry Coyne firmly believes, without proof, that macroevolution is occurring today. However, it is happening so slowly, that no one can observe these changes. “The real reason why nobody has ever seen it is that it hasn’t happened! Genetic information doesn’t just magically appear” (Jones 2009). Dr. Henry M. Morris writes that if macroevolution were a real process, then there would be many “transitional forms” of species that could be observed today. No, truly new species or change of kind has ever been produced (Morris n.d.). Since macroevolution is incorrect, then the evolutionist perspective of natural selection is incorrect. Natural selection can be simply defined as “nature chooses the fittest species and they have offspring”. In nature, organisms that can adapt best to the environment will be the ones that reproduce. The “un-fit” species will die off. These adaptations signal microevolution, which is small changes within a species. These species are adapting and changing to their environment. They are not completely changing kind to survive. These examples show the problems with macroevolution (L. Garrido, personal communication, February 4, 2020).
The final evolutionary theory with major flaws in the Big Bang theory. Scientists believe that there was nothing until there was “an appearance of space in the universe”. It was not an explosion such as the name suggests. It is believed to be the most accurate explanation of how the universe started (Chow 2011). This idea was popularized by scientist Edward Hubble in the 1920s. If this theory were to be true, then it would signify that the earth was around 13.8 billion years old. With the Big Bang, the universe rapidly expanded from the size of an atom to 100,000 light-years within a second. Even with all of these “proofs” and research have done, science still has no clear explanation as to why or how this all started. Another problem with the Big Bang is the idea of flatness. Space and time today are very flat. However, this would not be possible if the Big Bang actually occurred as it is believed to have happened. Any slight deviation in the flatness or curvature would cause space to expand in its curvature as well. However, this is not what is said to have happened. In the 13.8 billion years of the universe, this drastic change in curvature has apparently never happened (5 Major Problems with the Big Bang Theory 2016). As these theories and questions may never be answered, there is one simple explanation for such a complex question. In Genesis 1, it says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
Though creationists and evolutionists will probably never see eye to eye, the evidence against such important evolutionary theories majorly helps the case for creation. Once again, this is not to say the creation story is 100% accurate. The universe is extremely complex and outside of human understanding. However, an all-powerful and all-knowing God created this world exactly how he meant it to. In conclusion, the greatness of God cannot be understood, and our finite minds can not begin to fathom God’s miracles.
