The Faith of Evolution

Last Tuesday evening Bill Nye and Ken Ham debated for three hours about Creation and Evolution. I was glad to see that over three million people tuned into the debate. That shows how much interest there is in this subject. I wondered how many people actually watched the whole debate. Like many of these debates, a great number of significant statements are made, but most of them are not really examined carefully.

Bill Nye tried to claim that the creation point of view is anti-science and will do great harm to the progress of science and technology. Ken Ham pointed out that there are many creation scientists and inventors. He also pointed out that in the past it was creation scientists such as Johannes Kepler who said "Science is thinking God's thoughts after Him." Kepler once thought of becoming a theologian, but then concluded: "I now see how God is by my endeavors, also glorified in astronomy, for 'the heavens declare the glory of God.'"

Ken Ham stressed the Biblical teaching of a young earth by appealing to the Bible. Bill Nye provided several observations indicating a much older earth (ice cores, ancient trees, etc.). Ken Ham responded with a slide that showed there are over a hundred different observations about the age of the earth. Most of them contradict each other. I wish Ken would have shown a few specific examples such as galaxies winding up too fast or the decay of earth's magnetic field.

It wasn't until late in the program that the problem of complexity was really discussed. As far as I am concerned this is what lies at the heart of this whole debate. The universe is infinitely complex. The more complexity we discover the more we realize there is to discover. Both creationists and evolutionists can agree on this. The disagreement comes when we ask, "How did it get here?" Creationists argue that it had to be created. Evolutionists insist that complexity can and does emerge by a random process of change. Does that really happen? Do things become complex by themselves without intelligence?

Evolution has tried to explain the origin of life without God's involvement. Instead of the Creator, evolutionists believe in a mindless, random process of improving changes. They happen so slowly they can't be observed.  The probability of this happening to the extent that this could have created the universe as we know it is beyond all comprehension. But, as evolutionists will tell you, given enough time and enough universes, anything can happen.  Evolutionists see this as a marvellous mystery. But at what point does it become their faith?