Creation in a basket
by Tom Wagner
I believe that most of the scientists living in Charles Darwin’s time would
have rejected his mechanistic theory of evolution had they had a modern grasp of
the supreme complexity of the chemistry of life.
For the evolutionary scenario to catch on, it had to become ingrained in the thinking
of men while bioscience was relatively young. In fact, even if Darwin didn’t
care for the concept of a Divine Creator, he may have abandoned his ideas about
evolution had he known about the genetic code or sophisticated biochemistry.
To illustrate my point, imagine Darwin has been transported forward to our time.
We’ll ask him some questions and speak with him about current discoveries
in biology.
‘Mr Darwin, is there anything in this picture of a basket of flowers that
shows evidence of design—evidence of having been organized or constructed
by an intelligent source? … The basket you say? Obviously something with
intelligence designed and made the basket. I agree. Certainly random natural processes
could never produce something as complex and unlikely as a woven basket.
‘However, Mr Darwin, I believe there is a problem with your reasoning, related
to some knowledge that you currently do not have.
‘Allow me to explain. According to Carl Sagan, one of today’s best-known
scientists, "The information content of a simple cell has
been established as around one trillion bits, comparable to about 100 million
pages of the Encyclopaedia Britannica" [emphasis mine].
‘What Sagan is talking about here is the information contained within the
genetic code (DNA) of a microscopic Escherichia coli bacterium that lives
in our intestines.
‘So, you say the basket was clearly designed but the plant in the
basket wasn’t? That idea seems illogical because, I’m sure you will
agree, a flowering plant is far more complex than a bacterium—and the bacterium
has within it genetic data equivalent to 100 million pages of Encyclopaedia Britannica!
‘Yet the flowers have a vastly greater amount of information inherent in their
construction than the basket, right? So how is it that huge amounts of information,
in the flowers, can come about by chance, yet a much smaller amount
of information for the design of the basket, can’t?’
Ardent evolutionists don’t see evidence of purposeful, intelligent design
in living things, whereas they do in items that are obviously man-made. Take a very
life-like artificial plant as another example. An evolutionist would inspect it
for slight imperfections, then on finding them would declare, ‘Yep,
it’s man-made all right. But it looks so real, it must have taken great skill
and intelligence to make that one.’
Then if he saw the live plant after which the mock one was modelled he’d say
something like, ‘That one’s real. It’s too perfect
to be a fake. It must have come about by chance.’ Does this
mean that any time something is complex beyond man’s capacity to create, that
it must have come about by random processes?
Doesn’t it seem irrational to study a ‘natural’ thing, wonderfully
made, and conclude that no creator had anything to do with its existence, but when
studying something man-made with obvious imperfections, to conclude that it shows
evidence of craftsmanship?
We might ask, ‘who or what deserves the credit for the incomprehensible complexity
and awesome beauty found in the living world around us? Evolution, time and chance—or
special creation which involves plan and purpose as well as an expression of the
attributes of a personal living God?’
The answer is in the Word of the Creator Himself:
‘For the invisible things of him from the creation of
the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his
eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse’
(emphasis mine) (Romans 1:20).
Just as the work of an artist can be recognized by its style, so the work of our
invisible God can be identified. We all need to learn to see and appreciate His
style in the design of the ‘things that have been made’.
But, at the same time, we must understand that the creation is only a partial revelation
of the attributes of God.
A complete revelation can only be known through a personal relationship
with the author of the Bible, the Creator Himself—Jesus the Christ, the invisible
God revealed in a physical form.
Tom Wagner, is a science teacher in Indiana,
USA. He is a keen photographer, whose articles and photographs appear frequently
in Creation magazine. Return to top.
Reference
The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, 1986, Vol.22, p. 987.
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