The young earth creationism of Ken Ham is a confusing, muddled mess of illogic and purposeful deception in regards to the Bible, Church History, and Science…and that’s on a good day! There is so much misinformation, faulty assumptions, and outright ignorance in the Answers in Genesis “gospel,” one hardly knows where to begin to start trying to clean up such a mess. It is sort of like walking into a house from the show Hoarders—the task of just getting some semblance of order, let alone actual getting the infernal place actually clean, is just unbearably daunting. But you’ve got to start somewhere: start making piles, start hauling absolute junk to the curb, and start with one small goal of getting at least a corner of the house clean. Hopefully, this blog will be able to clean out that corner.
Let me turn your attention to a short video on the AIG website to demonstrate how they purposely mislead people.
https://answersingenesis.org/evolution/
First Off…
The video begins with the following: “You hear this one a lot: science has proven evolution, therefore evolution is true. Since evolution is true and Christians don’t believe it, then Christians don’t believe science and they aren’t rational people.”
Notice how the video starts with a statement that “Christians don’t believe evolution,” and thereby frames the evolution issue in terms of “Christianity OR Evolution” (with evolution = atheism). Well, that’s not true. What the video is doing is turning a scientific question into a religious conflict. First, evolution is not atheism—it is a scientific theory regarding the natural world, and not a philosophical statement regarding the existence or non-existence of God. You would never know that, though, if all you did was get information from the AIG website. And that is a really big key in this whole “debate”—for if you believe AIG and think that “evolution” is ultimately an “anti-God philosophy,” then you’ll never be able to even see things clearly enough to assess the accurately.
Secondly, it is simply not true that “Christians don’t believe evolution.” There are thousands, perhaps millions, of Christians who think the theory of evolution is a valid scientific theory. I purposely do not use the word “believe,” because we are not talking about religious faith here—we are talking about whether or not a scientific theory is convincing. But again, AIG consistently frames the “debate” as a religious conflict in order for you to be scared of even looking into what evolution actually is.
Can We Not Observe Evolutionary Change?
The video then agrees that “evolution in terms of things change” is indisputable, and that no rational Christian disputes that—on that point, the video is correct. But then it proceeds to take the viewer down a deceptive road in which is mischaracterizes evolution completely.
The video claims that the theory of evolution (i.e. “molecules to man”) isn’t even scientific. How can it claim that? By using Ken Ham’s famous shell game that divides “science” into two categories: “observational science” (the kind of science you can test and observe), and “historical science” (the kind of “science” that is “beliefs about the past that cannot be tested”). Never mind the fact that if “historical science” is “belief that cannot be tested,” then it’s not science, let’s see if the video’s claim that evolution is not observable is true.
…it isn’t.
Now, it’s true that human beings who live a mere 80-90 years cannot live long enough to observe the changes in species evolution claims, yet we can observe that change in the genome. Over the past twenty years, Francis Collins, an Evangelical Christian, headed up what is probably the most significant scientific breakthrough in modern times: the mapping of the entire genome. By doing so, we have learned an immense amount of how life on earth has evolved, and can actually observe the genetic variations that have come about through time. Observing the genome is like having a veritable video documentary of the past.
Incidentally, Ken Ham makes a most jaw-dropping claim about the human genome project in his book, The Lie. He says, “The results of the Human Genome Project are an example of observational science confirming the Bible’s history” (60). What makes this extraordinary is that that is precisely what it doesn’t claim! Ham routinely savages Francis Collins and his BioLogos organization for promoting “Theistic Evolution” (i.e. the idea that God uses evolution to bring about His creation). He calls Collins a “compromised Christian” because of this.
So why would Collins be convinced that evolutionary theory is true? Because his work in the Human Genome Project proves it is true! He concludes that based on the genome, it is just entirely impossible that the 7 billion people who live on the earth today could have all descended from a single couple a mere 6,000 years ago. And yet somehow, Ham holds up the findings of the Human Genome Project as “proof” of young earth creationism, all the while accusing the man who spear-headed the project as a “compromised Christian”! That is simply astounding.
But back to the claim at hand…
We now know on a genetic level just how life has evolved and undergone variation. We know that the only chromosomal difference between human beings and chimpanzees is found in “human chromosome #2.” Chimpanzees have 24 sets of chromosomes; humans have 23. If at some point in the past modern human and chimpanzees shared a common ancestor, we should be able to locate in the genome the point at which the branching occurred—and we have: human chromosome #2 is essentially two chromosomes that have been fused together. 22 sets of human chromosomes are identical to that of a chimpanzee—the only difference is that human chromosome #2 is a combination of the remaining two chromosomes of chimpanzees.
In addition, we can just take the fossil record as another example of being able to observe change over time. Everywhere, and I mean everywhere, in the world, when scientists dig down into the earth, they find at the lowest layers of rock and sediment fossilized remains of the most basic creatures. The closer to the surface they go, the more complex life forms appear. And so, for example, all human remains are found at the top layer of the earth, whereas those dinosaurs that spark our imaginations in movies like Jurassic Park, are all found in sedimentary layers much, much lower than where human remains are found. Never at any time has a brontosaurus bone been found in the same sedimentary layer as a human bone—never.
The point I am making is that, contrary to the video’s claims, we can observe that change has occurred in which life forms evolve. The only way you wouldn’t know that is if all you read is material from AIG. The evidence is obvious and clear—and AIG purposely doesn’t even let you know that the evidence is there.
“Fact #1” That Supposedly Disproves Evolution
The video then claims there are two basic facts that disprove evolution. The first fact is, “There is no known observable process by which new genetic information can be added to an organism’s genetic code.” It then claims that fact alone refutes evolution, because you can’t go from a fish to an amphibian without adding genetic information. “If living organisms cannot produce new genetic information, how can something gradually change into something of higher intelligence, form, or complexity?” The video then authoritatively says, “It can’t, plain and simple.”
That is simply not true. I’ll keep my explanation simple: sex. Any time a man and woman have sex and conceive a child, that child is a product, genetically, of that man and woman—but lo and behold, that child is genetically different than both parents. Yes, there are a host of genetic similarities (that’s why people joke with me that my son is my clone), but there are genetic variations and mutations that work in different combinations that produce an entirely unique life form, and entirely different person.
Now, let’s say I was 5’2” and my son’s mother was 6’8,” the gene that produced “tallness” in my son could be from me and not mutate at all, and my son will be short; or it could come from his mother, and my son could become tall. Now, let’s say he becomes tall—if in his future lineage, his descendants routinely marry other tall people, chances are they will produce tall offspring, quite unlike that one ancestor in their past (i.e. me) who was the size of an Umpa-Loompa. (For the record, I’m not 5’2”—I’m an average 5’10”).
The point is, in the very creation of life, a baby, there is genetic variation and mutation that leads to a wide variety of changes in future organisms. What the video is claiming is utterly false.
Now, someone might say, “What you’re saying Joel is one thing. I find it hard to believe that those changes can happen to such an extent that an ape-like ancestor could eventually develop into a modern human being—that is an entirely valid question. I wonder that too. But here’s the point: AIG (as seen in this video) doesn’t even let you ask that question because it denies the very fact that new genetic information can be produced in the first place. Simply put, they do not let you even adequately analyze the claims of evolution because they purposely misrepresent them.
“Fact #2” That Supposedly Disproves Evolution
But then there is “fact two,” that the video claims completely buries the theory of evolution: “Never has it been observed that life can come from non-life.” That statement is entirely true. Science cannot explain, and has never observed, how life comes from non-life. Here’s the thing though: that has nothing to do with evolutionary theory. Evolution does not even attempt to explain the origin of life itself—it is a scientific explanation of how life, once it comes into existence, brings about the wide varieties of species we see today.
Simply put, this fact (and yes, it is a fact) doesn’t disprove evolution because evolution doesn’t address the question of the origin of life in the first place. Remember, Darwin’s book was The Origin of Species, not The Origin of Life.
Conclusion
The video concludes by saying that evolution cannot account for life on earth, but the Bible can: God did it. He created everything according to “its kind,” which Ken Ham interprets as “each according to its own genetic information.”
Well, we’ve been able to see that the video’s claims are misleading and false. First, the theory of evolution simply is a scientific theory that explains how life changes and adapts to bring about the varieties of species we have today—and we have evidence of that: genetic studies and the genome project show how that happens. Second, evolution doesn’t even try to account for the origin of life on earth.
Now, the video is right: the Bible says God brought about life on earth. I agree with that. The Bible is speaking the truth. But it is not a matter of “evolution” OR “the Bible.” This is where AIG is so deceptive. The two are not antithetical. This is not a “religious conflict.” Simply put, you can (a) believe that God brings about life on earth and is the ultimate origin of all life, and (b) be convinced that evolutionary theory explains the process by which God brings about the various life forms and species within creation.
Let me re-iterate: I’m not trying to “prove” evolution. I’ll say it again: I’m not fully convinced of everything in evolutionary theory. Ultimately though, I don’t care—whether or not evolutionary theory is true, or to what extent it is true is entirely irrelevant to the inspiration of Scripture, the truthfulness of the Bible, and the reality of the resurrection of Christ. Investigate evolution and come to your own conclusions. But you should at least be allowed to understand what basically it is so you can, in fact, analyze its claims. You shouldn’t be misled by people like Ken Ham who don’t even let you give you an honest description of what it is.
The only way this even becomes a “conflict” is if (a) you assume that evolution is a sinister attempt to disprove God (it isn’t), and (b) that God inspired Moses to write Genesis 1-11 to address modern 21st Century scientific questions, and then teach that to an ancient people coming out of a pagan culture who simply weren’t concerned with modern scientific questions (He didn’t).
Now the reason why Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis bend over backward to misrepresent what science is and what the actual theory of evolution addresses is because they really believe God inspired Moses to write something that would address modern 21st Century scientific questions. And that is what concerns me more than anything: Ken Ham’s understanding of the Bible itself is entirely wrong. As a Bible scholar, I am concerned with making sure the Bible is interpreted and understood correctly—and it horrifies me to see what Ham is claiming about the Bible. That will be the topic of my next few posts on Ken Ham: his bizarre hermeneutic. Don’t know what that is? Check out my next post.
