Last Friday I discussed evolution, outlining a few reasons why I don’t consider wide-scale evolution to be a “fact.” This week, I’d like to continue in that vein.

First I must define evolution so I can communicate clearly. There are two main definitions of evolution. The first one concerns small changes taking place in organisms over time producing new characteristics, allowing them to survive and reproduce. This has been called micro-evolution. This type of evolution obviously happens.

The second type of evolution, macro-evolution, extrapolates the processes of micro-evolution to explain all of life, the so-called “molecules to man” hypothesis.

It is said to be a natural, physical, observable process that is blind and random. In principle, no creator is needed. Macro-evolution is what I am addressing today.

People call macro-evolution a fact. For it to be a fact, though, minimally two things must be established. First, there’s got to be life coming from non-life, called abiogenesis. Next, there has to be a change in that life form from simple forms to complex forms over time. The “kickoff” and the “rest of the game” is needed.

First, good evidence for abiogenesis in evolution is lacking. Evolutionists agree that abiogenesis happened, but they don’t know how it could have happened. They have a few neat ideas, but they are all seriously plagued with problems.

One problem is how to account for the informational code of DNA without intelligence. DNA is a language, and even if chemical experiments might be able to make small sequences of nucleotides to form small molecules of DNA, that doesn’t make them mean anything; it needs intelligent preprogramming. It is hard to account for this with a purely mindless, naturalistic beginning.

Also, the more that is found out about the cell, the more complicated things get. Harold Klien, chairman of one National Academy of Sciences committee, captures the frustration: “The simplest bacterium is so damn complicated from the point of view of a chemist that it is almost impossible to imagine how it happened.”

There is no plausible explanation for how it’s even possible for life to arise by evolutionary means.

So, scientifically speaking, if no one knows how it happened, then how can anyone be sure that it happened? Evolution is not really a “that,” it’s a “how,” a process. Any explanation without the “how” might be nice philosophy, but don’t call it a fact.

This is a big problem, for you have to have the opening kickoff for the game to even get going.

Secondly, macro-evolution happens in very small transitions, but in the fossil record there is a remarkable absence of these transitions. In fact, the record shows fossils appearing abruptly and fully formed, then dying out abruptly, followed by something else appearing fully formed.

Paleontologist Niles Eldridge states, “No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It never seems to happen. Assiduous collecting up cliff faces yield zigzags, minor oscillations, and the very occasional slight accumulation of change-over millions of years, at a rate too slow to account for all the prodigious change that has occurred in evolutionary history… it usually shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the fossils did not evolve elsewhere! Evolution cannot forever be going on somewhere else.”

There are some transitional forms that have been proposed, but there are problems with them, and if macro-evolution was a solid fact, you’d expect there to be thousands.

Also, how could, for example, a foreleg evolve into a wing? The intermediate stages of evolution would produce a half leg, half wing that would be useless for running or flying. This organism would be easily munched up by carnivores on the prowl.

These two pillars of macro-evolution are not side-issues, they are essential to the theory. Other evidence might be offered, such as micro-evolution being observable and quantifiable, (this is irrelevant. The question is if the change is unlimited or not), but this evidence cannot overcome the problem if either of the pillars are faulty.

Given this, then I am quite within my intellectual bounds to suspect that grand-scale evolution may lean on something less remarkable than rock-solid fact.

Rich Bordner can be reached at [email protected]. Come see Dr. Bob Diselvestro lecture on some scientific reasons for belief in God this Thursday at Campus Crusade for Christ’s weekly meeting in Independence Hall at 8 p.m..