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Creation 29(1):52–55, December 2006

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Surgeon with a mission:

to make the evolution myth extinct

Philip Bell and Tim Matthews interview Vija Sodera

Dr Vij Sodera is the author of the book, One Small Speck to Man,1 the result of fourteen years of research. Impressed with this, Philip Bell wrote a teaching review article for the Journal of Creation.2 More recently, Philip and Tim met Dr Sodera at his home on England’s south coast where, together with his wife Margaret (a qualified nurse), he runs a private Minor Surgery clinic.

Stillborn spider monkey
Vij is holding a 12-week-old spider monkey fetus which was stillborn. Evolution theory states that this monkey is our distant cousin and that we have a common ancestry with sea-squirts. In contrast, in his book, Vij shows that the fossil and biological evidence confirms that humans have always been humans and that we are not modified apes.

Vij Sodera was fascinated by biology from a young age. Born in India, he has lived in Britain since the age of four and has always enjoyed painting and drawing animals—a few of these are illustrations in his recent book.3 He first encountered evolutionary teaching in school and again during his human anatomy studies at medical school, but it made little scientific sense to him. Only later did Vij begin to address the issues that had always interested him.

‘The more stones I overturned in the biological realm, the more complicated I saw things to be. An organism, when you look at it under the microscope, is so horrendously complicated. I found more and more evidence that living organisms could not have arisen by chance—there was design in everything I looked at.

‘If you look at bird anatomy in detail, you find that there are data which show categorically that dinosaurs could not have evolved into birds. Recently, a fossilized bipedal dinosaur (Scipionyx) was re-analyzed under different frequencies of ultraviolet light so that various internal organs stood out—the colon, the liver, the trachea and the rectum. Since a bird has air sacs in its abdomen and its pectoral area,4 the organs in those areas are pushed forwards rather than sitting against the spine. However, the form of Scipionyx was typically reptilian—it had no air sacs and its internal organs were positioned adjacent to the spine. A careful look at the unique bird lung shows that a step-wise change from reptilian to bird lung is impossible.5 And the idea that via modifications of a few frayed scales, a dinosaur could take to the air is total nonsense. That fits in with Genesis where God made animals of different and separate kinds. Dinosaurs, whether they were small and bipedal or like the huge Brachiosaurus, were totally different animals from birds and other reptiles.’

Because he wanted to produce a book that dealt purely with the scientific evidence, Vij’s latest book does not contain overt references to the Bible. We asked him how he personally understood Genesis 1–11. ‘Where do we come from? The Bible says that God spoke everything into existence, and that makes perfect sense. Creation means there must be a Creator, and the Creator of the Bible wants to have a relationship with us and wants to be known to us. God says in His Word that He created the land animals and human beings on the sixth day. This is not blind faith because it fits in with what we observe scientifically. Our faith is built on a secure foundation of the Bible’s revelation, evidence and reasoning. Romans 1:20 says that you see the nature of God in His creation. It also says that ‘ever since the creation … His deity has been perceived’. Thus, human intellect had to be there right from the beginning.’

Emu
Here Dr Sodera is about to dissect a 30-year-old emu that died of natural causes. The lung anatomy of an emu is exactly the same as that of flying birds. The unique structure of the bird lung (which is completely different from amphibians, reptiles and mammals) shows that birds could not have evolved from dinosaurs.

Coming from a Hindu background, Vij’s early exposure to Christianity was through attending a church school. Much later, he attended church with his wife and started asking new questions. He says God spoke to Him through Luke chapter 3 one night: ‘Luke actually starts by defining the time-frame for when these events [surrounding Jesus’ life] were taking place. He categorically defines prominent people alive at that time (Tiberius, Pilate, etc.). Luke wasn’t describing fictional events but historical reality.’ Vij was particularly struck by the fact that Jesus was baptized in obedience to God’s plan: ‘Jesus Himself, God as Man, didn’t ask the question, “Why be baptized?” God the Father—the Creator—makes the rules and when you follow the rules, everything else in the whole universe falls into place. He says, if you trust in Jesus and repent of your sins, you will have eternal life.’

But what would Vij say to those who might retort that this is about faith, not science? ‘I would say that it is both logical and scientific to posit the hypothesis that God created the universe. In order to nullify that hypothesis, a scientist would then have to provide data or work out a thought experiment in order to criticize that thesis and pull it down. If, as we can show, we could not have evolved, then the scientist has to look to another cause to answer, “Well, where do we come from?”

‘There is no logical or scientific explanation other than a Cause which is outside the universe as we know it.6 Therefore it’s entirely logical and scientific to say that God created us. Then you have to define who God is, and the only valid candidate for the Creator is found in the Bible.’

Vij’s book, ‘One Small Speck to Man’, is subtitled ‘the evolution myth’ implying that evolution is a ‘just-so’ story and that evolutionists believe something that they cannot prove—and more importantly, something that is not supported by the evidence. To Vij, this is a crucial point:

family
Dr Sodera with his wife Margaret and their two daughters, Melanie and Lisa.

‘I wanted to produce a book that was full of scientific, logical arguments coupled with plenty of images to challenge the reader. True scientists should look at all the evidence—even the evidence they don’t like—and accept what it points to. Of course, if people choose to willfully reject God, then it doesn’t matter how much they know—there will be a fatal void in their thinking.

‘If you look at Cytochrome C for instance, an enzyme vital to all life forms, it has 38 amino acids in its sequence which are invariant, so those 38 amino acids must be essential for its function. Therefore, Cytochrome C cannot have arisen step-by-step.’7

We wondered how, as a Christian surgeon, he reacted to the common anti-Creator challenge: If the body is so marvellously designed, why are there many mistakes and things that go wrong?8

‘God made everything perfect in the first place, but as a result of the Fall, disease processes have developed in our bodies and in animal bodies. As a result of the disobedience of man, the whole universe was subject to a curse and decay, resulting in mutations and molecular derangements of all living things, as we see in a lot of human diseases.’

lizard

Yet Vij is vexed by the atheist professors who deny obvious design. He commented on Steve Jones, who recently went into a diatribe on BBC Radio (UK) about the allegedly inefficient design of the human eye, saying that its designer would be a ‘pretty rotten’ one9 and mentioned Richard Dawkins who has claimed that it would ‘take only about 10 minutes to exhaust the case for ID.’10 Vij said: ‘Regarding men who reject God, Romans 1:22 declares: “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” The debate on origins is not about evolution versus religion but about good science versus bad science.’11

We found the discussion both stimulating and encouraging. Here was a man who recognized that ‘the whole of science starts—and finishes—with a bias’ and was passionate about bringing all the evidence of science and medicine to light, weighing it sensibly and honestly. He had concluded from science, as well as Scripture, that human beings are unique among all life forms on the Earth. We found Dr Sodera to be a man who passionately tackles both his surgery and his science—along with all his other interests—with heart and mind in gear. Likewise with his Christian faith: ‘The Bible says in Isaiah 1:18, “Come now, let us reason together.” The God of the Bible doesn’t want us to be ignorant or dim-witted. God wants us to know Him from a position of knowledge, intelligence and wisdom. Human opinions are meaningless unless there is some absolute upon which to gauge the truth of the matter. God, in Ecclesiastes 12:13, says, “Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” Man’s position is to have a relationship with the God who is our loving Father, and to do things as He—our Creator—has designed them to be done.’

Posted on homepage: 28 January 2008

References and notes

  1. Sodera, V., One Small Speck to Man: the evolution myth, Vij Sodera Publications, West Sussex, UK, 2003. Return to Text.
  2. Bell, P., Debunking the molecules-to-man myth, Journal of Creation 19(3):45–50, 2005. Return to Text.
  3. See ref. 1, pages 64–65, 234–235, 416–417. Return to Text.
  4. This is commonly called the shoulder girdle. Return to Text.
  5. Blown away by design, Michael Denton and birds’ lungs, Creation 21(4):14–15, 1999; <creation.com/birdlung>. Return to Text.
  6. Sarfati, J., If God created the universe, then who created God? Journal of Creation 12(1):20–22, 1998; <creation.com/whomadegod>. Return to Text.
  7. Dr Sodera adds: ‘If Cytochrome C has been around for 3.5 billion years, then by now all the non-essential amino acids would have sustained substitutions in all organisms. Essentially, right at the outset, Cytochrome C would have to have had the 38 amino acids in the right places, properly separated along the protein chain, in order to make the specific shape of its active site.’ The active site is the part of the enzyme that is crucial to its function. Return to Text.
  8. See also chapter 6 of The Answers Book, Batten, D. et al., Creation Ministries International, Brisbane, Australia, pp. 91–100, 1999. Return to Text.
  9. This program was on BBC Radio 2, United Kingdom, 4 April 2006. Return to Text.
  10. Since 1995, Professor Dawkins has held the Simonyi Chair in the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, but uses his influence to foist his own brand of atheism onto the readers of his books. Return to Text.
  11. Dr Sodera added that in his opinion, ‘Evolution theory is wholly bad science. And for those who look up to Darwin as some sort of hero, his complete failure to address properly the myriad flaws in his ideas (which even in his time could have been easily identified) makes him, at best, a very poor scientist. In summary, anyone who has no doubt that chimpanzees are our distant cousins, or that fishes and worms share a common ancestry with humans, either has not studied the wealth of evidence to the contrary … or is living in a state of denial.’ Return to Text.