The Revolution Against Evolution
I recently spent a large amount of time with a couple of atheists and just had a wonderful time picking their brain and trying to see life from their perspective (if you are unaware, I am a Christian of the unapologetically brazen sort… but love hearing about many other world religions and mindsets) and found myself curious about the ‘facts’ around evolution as it stands today. I don’t want to be one of those ignoramuses that bellows out through the halls of social media, “BUT EVOLUTION… IS STILL A THEORY.” And yet, I was curious as to the progress on the research front for ACTUAL evolution. What hard data was out there that we have discovered? I mean, after all, we have discovered gravitational waves, and the God Particle. What progress have we discovered around the entire evolutionary data-set front?
So I started digging in and researching and early on ran into a guy named Michael Fischer and just had a long, and interesting conversation with him about his site, newgeology.us, and the enormously detailed discourses and data he presents there about the failures and weaknesses of the theory of evolution.
THinc. – “You mentioned in our previous correspondence that a light bulb went off at the age of 22 for you. Can you tell us more about that? What happened? How? Why?”
Michael – “In the revolution against evolution, I feel the less said about me the better. But credit Henry Morris, founder of the Institute for Creation Research, for his rational counter-argument to Evolution theory in his book Scientific Creationism as my first guru. A fellow Christian showed me his copy of the book. Until then, I had no idea there was a science-based alternative, although I had recognized how difficult it was to make a step-by-step mental construct using natural forces to produce the biological world. Realizing the presence of a designer was liberating, in the sense of moving from two dimensions to three in my understanding.”
THinc. – “Can you fairly quickly summarize for us (those of us who haven’t read your enormously long post about evolution anyway) what it is that you believe and the overall framework for it all and why?”
Michael – “What has become clear by 2016 is that complexity in biology is off the charts. If you compare our comprehension of the biosphere to a “Wheel of Fortune” puzzle, once the first few letters start appearing, we begin thinking of the possibilities. Evolution theory was like that 157 years ago for what little was known about biology. Now that the puzzle is much more filled out, it is obvious that the first theory was wrong. Observation and experimentation have found that natural forces cannot and do not invent novelty in biology, let alone dynamic networks. The intelligence and power necessary to do so are truly supernatural and almost beyond comprehension. The fact that the biosphere exists is therefore also proof that such a supernatural intelligence and creative power exists. This conclusion is the thesis of Intelligent Design theory which, despite what its critics charge, goes no further than that in identifying the source.”
THinc. – “I am currently in the middle of a conversation with an author of a book called, “Counting to God”… and he makes similar arguments. He recalls doing the mental math necessary to calculate the possibilities of life just in the realm of Amino Acids maybe? and came to the conclusion that the odds of this life thing spontaneously occurring is off the charts. It’s an interesting discussion that I will post about soon enough. But you make a good point… the odds really are daunting.
“I attended Wheaton College, which is a conservative Christian university, and even there we had fairly sizable arguments about long earth and short earth theories of creation… even in the Christian circles that agree in creationism there are disagreements about the details. What are your thoughts about these disagreements and arguments within the Intelligent Design community?”
Michael – “I began the Debunking Evolution blog because at the time I felt the internet was lacking a broad, scientific case against Evolution theory at the popular level and without religious commentary. My main interest is actually geology at the global scale, which is why I launched my website www.newgeology.us in 2003. The geological timescale, which is a foundation of Plate Tectonics theory as well as Evolution theory, is an obstacle to my Shock Dynamics geology theory. So in recent years I have been working to publicize lab reports of significant Carbon-14 in unpetrified dinosaur bones – www.newgeology.us/
“In the Young Earth vs Old Earth Creationist standoff I prefer Gorman Gray’s point of view: old universe/young biosphere https://
Taylor – “Can you tell me about the one datapoint, or the one fact that you flip out at a moments notice as your go to easy proof against evolution?”
Michael – “It is tough to pick out the best point to make against Evolution theory; there are lots of killer facts. The idea of evolution dwells in the imagination, so arguing about it can be like trying to pin down a cloud. People have different levels of knowledge and believe for many different reasons, which is why the opening lines of my blog define the difference between micro- and macro-evolution. If someone realizes that the problem with Evolution theory is not about minor variation but is about big differences, then there is a chance they will not dismiss you as a moron who is denial of the obvious. The origin of the biosphere by natural forces alone must begin with a chemical origin of life, although the attention of evolutionary biologists is on later stages. If one is looking for a single fun fact, it can be said without the slightest ambiguity or reservation that the chemical origin of life has been demonstrated to be physically impossible. With all that is known about biochemistry, there is no conceivable path to circumvent fundamental obstacles, all of which are well understood. Everything has been tried, yet the search continues; a tribute to blind faith.”
THinc. – “That is a good point. It is widely heralded that evolution is the sane argument, the logical choice, the idea that requires only scientific fact to prove it. And yet, at the very least, evolution is just as faith based a concept as creationism. To believe these odds… to believe these things spontaneously erupted out of nothing is quite a leap of faith really. Speaking of which, if you were able to speak to atheists that believe in evolution – and had a platform to tell them one thing (whether it’s about evolution – or anything) what would you say?”
Michael – “My posts are for people who are uncertain, who are checking out different ideas, not for atheists. We humans build our vision of reality from our life experiences, and science is only a small part. If I were to challenge an atheist, I would say “find the seat of consciousness. What is it in you?” Science fiction routinely assumes that consciousness and self-awareness emerge from an electronic or organic machine’s ability to compute and interact with its environment. Research in artificial intelligence started with the hope, if not the expectation, that that assumption would be realized. But as robot mimicry of people has become more sophisticated, the elusiveness of self-awareness has emerged instead. Consciousness, like macro-evolution, is unreachable by chemistry and machines.”
THinc. – “Yeah, that is good. A machine that mimics self awareness is something completely different from a person that is self aware. It could be that you might one day create the perfect replica, but that still doesn’t mean self awareness is truly there. What is the seed inside all of us, that light of intelligence that has a choice to consider God or not consider him? Maybe all the lottery machines come up cherries and life is created, but where is the seat of consciousness coming from?
“You’ve been widely pilloried on the web for your site, and your viewpoint espousing a young earth creationist view… why continue? Why even bother?”
Michael – “Why bother to post what I have learned? Other people might find it useful, as I found Henry Morris’ book useful. Some have sent me “thank you” messages, saying it has helped them. I read messages from critics to see if there is a new angle I should look into. After discarding the vitriol, so far there has been nothing new, just the same old propaganda. And frankly, that is encouraging.”
THinc. – “Well, I for one have been encouraged by your posts and your insights. It has really been a pleasure to discuss devolution I mean evolution with you Michael. I’ll be sure to keep a watchful eye out on your blog for the new latest and greatest evidences that you find. It’s been a lot of fun talking with you good sir.