Niles Eldredge's statements are used to "make a forceful fascinating case for the continuous teaching of evolution" in our public schools. # 1 However, he is the "scientist" who cites the authority of a reader survey in Glamour magazine to establish the point that creationist thinking has been gaining ground in America I am not discrediting Glamour magazine, but I am sure that the Gallup poll uses a much more scientific approach to polling than does Glamour, but then Glamour makes no pretense of being scientific - evolutionists do.

Scientists should not rely upon reader surveys in Glamour Magazine or circular reasoning to establish their points, but evolutionists have been known to do both. Eldredge maintains that the accusation that his geologist colleagues use or have used circular reasoning is "serious ... and ... of course, false." # 2 His denial though needs to be evaluated in light of David M. Raup's admission that "(t)he charge that the construction of the geologic scale involves circularity has a certain amount of validity." # 3 (If you will recall, David Raup is Chairman of the Geophysical Sciences Department of the University of Chicago.)

It also needs to be evaluated in light of admissions by other evolutionists who concede the obvious. In 1956 R.H. Rastall, writing for Encyclopedia Britannica observed that "... from a strictly philosophical standpoint geologists are ... arguing in a circle." # 4 Twenty years later J. E. O'Rourke not only reaffirmed the point that "... circularity is inherent in the derivation of time scales," but added that "... geologist(s) (have) ... never bothered to think of a good reply (to the charge of circularity) feeling that explanations are not worth the trouble as long as the work brings results." (parenthesis added) # 5 In other words, even though the circular reasoning processes which evolutionists have relied upon leaves much to be desired from the intellectual standpoint, they never felt compelled to justify their position because to many gullible people were willing to accept what they said on face value.

Concerning the whole issue of age, you might well ask, "How did evolutionists get the dates of fossils?" Their answer was, "From the position which fossils occupy in the rock in which they are found; oldest on the bottom - youngest on top." That seems to make sense. However, now if you inquired as to how they got the dates for the rocks themselves, you might be told, "By observing what fossils are found in them." You see, evolutionists know that the fossils found in Cambrian rock formations must be hundreds of millions of years old. Therefore, the rocks in which they are found must also be of the same age. "Hold it," you exclaim, "that's not scientific!" Maybe not, but it worked for them for over a hundred years until they latched on to radio isotope dating techniques.

Isotope dating is critical to the theory of evolution because it comes up with dates which seem to help the evolutionists overcome the horrendous mathematical improbabilities presented by their theory. Notice that I said "seems to help" them. In reality, even the dates which isotope dating comes up with are not far enough back in time to bring the theory of evolution into the realm of mathematical possibilities. At first evolutionists thought carbon fourteen dating would give them the hundreds of millions of years they needed. It did not, so it was discarded as unreliable for anything more than a few thousand years old. # 6

Isotope dating is based upon man's ability to accurately measure the rate of decomposition of a material from one form into another. The rock itself cannot be dated, only the material which is found in it. IF we know how much of the original (parent) material was in the rock when the rock was formed, and IF we know how much of the subsequent (daughter) material was also in the rock when the rock was formed, and IF we assume the rate of decay from parent into daughter has been constant for the last billion or so yearsand finally, IF we assume that nothing has acted upon either the parent or daughter material in such a way so as to alter the amount of either material present during this entire billion year period, THEN‚ we can measure the amount of the parent material still in the rock, the amount of daughter material still in the rock, apply the rate of decay, and thereby estimate the age of the rock. Phew, that's a lot of assumptions.

Since it is impossible to test the assumption that the rate of decay determined today has been the same for several billion years, all I can say is that it takes a great deal of "faith" to believe it. However, several points need to be considered before the other assumptions can be accepted. In isotope dating two separate materials are involved in the dating process: the parent and the daughter. Various elements found in common ground water have been found to dissolve virtually every one of the parent elements and the subsequent daughter elements into which they decompose. What's more, this dissolving process can be faster in the parent than it is in the daughter and vice versa. Needless to say, this could, and would drastically effect the age derived from any dating process which must assume that both the parent and daughter elements have never been affected by any other agent during their supposed 4 billion year history. Since many, if not all of these elements could have been exposed to such agents during the Genesis flood, I do not feel that I can accept either the assumption that no agent ever effected these elements, or that we can accurately know the original amount of either the parent or daughter element present in the rock when the rock was formed.

In spite of the fact that most evolutionists leave the impression that isotope dating is fool proof, some of them have been willing to admit that everything is not quite as settled as they would have us believe. Frederic B. Jueneman has acknowledged that "(t)here has been in recent years the horrible realization that radiodecay rates are not as constant as previously thought, nor are they immune to environmental influences." # 7

Furthermore, by definition, Darwinian evolution assumes that all things started out at age zero and then got older. If an evolutionist had been invited to the wedding at Cana, he would have been able to prove to his own satisfaction that the wine served at the end of the wedding banquet was the oldest because it had a finer bouquet and more body than the wine served earlier. (see John 2:1-11) You see, even though as Robert Jastrow informed us, true scientists have discovered that the world had a beginning under conditions in which the known laws of physics to not apply, evolutionistic scientists must of necessity deny the existence of a creator God using forces supposedly no longer at work today. As such, there is no possibility that the evolutionist could accept the 'story' that one of the wedding guests had anything to do with the 'creation' of this fine beverage, even if His name was Jesus. After all, the evolutionist could tell by his five senses that this wine was more than just a few minutes old. Therein lies the problem.

Any evolutionist would feel duty bound to find a purely naturalistic explanation for this wine's existence. In the natural realm, wine comes from fermented grape juice. Needless to say, for good wine this process takes a minimum of several months. Therefore, since the evolutionist is compelled by his beliefs to deny God, he would ignore the fact that the jugs in question had been filled with water only moments before the wine appeared. But then that is exactly what evolutionists have been doing since Darwin first proposed his theory. They conveniently overlook facts which they themselves have observed, when those facts interfere with their naturalistic explanations. The evolutionist's prejudice against God is stronger then their desire to find the truth. In short, the problem is not their search for naturalistic explanations which account for the phenomena we observe in the physical world. That after all is what science does. The problem is that evolutionists insist upon naturalistic explanations for all occurrences, even when those explanations cause them to ignore either the observable facts, or the very laws of science which serve as the basis for all scientific inquiry.

An intellectually honest, truth seeking scientist will acknowledge all the facts with which he is faced. When no naturalistic explanation can be postulated which both accounts for these facts and complies with the known laws of nature, he will admit that the occurrence he is investigating cannot be adequately explained by modern science. The occurrence being studied may in fact be supernatural in origin. If it was, than no naturalistic explanation would be correct, no matter how well thought through it was. The theory of evolution losses on both counts. First of all it is incorrect, and secondly, it is not very well thought through.

The evolutionist's absolute prejudice against any supernatural occurrence causes them no end of difficulties. For example, they deny the possibility that any star could have been created with its path of light to earth already established. They assume that since some particular star is a million light years away and we can see it now, then that star must have been in existence for a million light years, otherwise we couldn't see its light. Let me emphasize again that there is no empirical evidence to support such a conclusion. As noted by astrogeophysicist, Dr. John A. Eddy, a solar astronomer at the High Altitude Observatory at Boulder, CO, "There is no evidence based solely on solar observation that the sun is 4.5 - 5 x 10 to the 9^th years old." As an evolutionist he admits that all he can do is "... suspect that the sun is 4.5 billion, years old." (emphasis added) # 8 However, this insistence upon the antiquity of the universe, which the evolutionists have calculated by means of their naturalistic reasoning methods, works against them just as it did in the area of geologic uniformitarianism.

If evolutionists combine this concept of the age of the universe with the projected life expectancy of the sun, they are faced with a real problem. According to astronomers, the universe is expanding. That is to say, the distance between each individual star is actually increasing. However, should this process continue at its present rate for a period of time equal to only one fifth of the estimated remaining life expectancy of our sun, the night sky would be void of stars when you looked up. Why? The distance between each star would have become so great that we would be unable to see them. The Big Dipper would disappear along with Orion the Hunter and all the other constellations. This of course puts the evolutionist in direct conflict with the Scripture which tells us that God created the stars in order to give us light at night. (Gen. 1:17)

Now, while evolutionists could care less about the Bible, they apparently don't like the idea of a dark night sky either. As such, they have made a slight alteration in their uniformitarianism thinking. Some of them will now tell you that obviously the universe must have gone through several periods of both expansion and contraction. In one instance the evolutionist rejects Biblical creation because it requires a miracle and in the next instance he offers up an idea, such as the expansion and contraction of the entire universe, and then expects us to believe that his idea is natural !

Some evolutionists have even gone so far as to use this same reasoning process to explain away the problem presented by the current level of the ocean's salanity (noted earlier). It has been postulated, that given the present rate at which salt is being added to the oceans and their present level of salinity, they could not possibility be more than a fews hundred thousand years old. Since the evolutionists know that the world is at least 4 billion years old, they have come up with an explanation for the present level of the ocean's salinity. Since necessity is the mother of invention,, the theory of salt cycles was developed. What must have happened according to this theory, is that the oceans have gone through several periods whereby salt has alternately been added to and subtracted from the oceans. By some unknown process, salt passed from the oceans back into the continental rock structure - and then back into the oceans. Needless to say, it is maintained that this happened in such a way so that this highly corrosive, readily soluble, migratory compound did not adversely effect the elements which are used for isotope dating from which evolutionists derived the huge numbers which created the necessity for the salt cycle theory in the first place!!! Such reasoning reminds me of a children's nursery rhyme we all know quite well, "Here we go round the mulberry bush." I find it interesting that such theories can be taken seriously by anyone who in one breath denies the existence of a God who has worked in the past using processes supposedly no longer observable today, and then 'exhale' a hypothesis which tells us that that is exactly what his 'science' is doing.

Creationists who accept the Biblical account of the great flood are considered religious zealots in spite of the vast quantity of geologic evidence which exists to support this event. # 9 While even though no evidence exists to support their notions, evolutionists who propose totally untestable hypothesis' which require an expanding and contracting universe and oceanic salt cycles are considered scientific.

There is still one other hypothesis that evolutionists have proposed which requires more faith than Noah's Ark ever did. Evolutionists have conceded that the fossil record supports the fact that at least 90% of all species of animals, including dinosaurs, suffered from mass extinction. # 10 In fact many evolutionists now believe that there were as many as 12 mass extinctions. with 5 of them being global in scope. # 11 Since they refuse to accept the idea that the geologic layers which contain the evidence for those extinctions were virtually all laid down as the result of the Biblical great flood, evolutionists must of necessity invent separate causes for the fossils which appear in each of the several distinct layers. How do evolutionists account for the largest of these episodes of mass extinction? By combining the best elements of science fiction with all the power of a disaster movie, the 'science' which first proposed salt cycles now unveils "The Giant Asteroid."

This hypothesis, first presented by Luis and Walter Alverez, goes something like this. A giant asteroid struck the earth, sending a huge cloud of dust and gas into the air. This cloud was so thick that it literally blocked out the sun throughout the entire world for several months. Without adequate sunlight, photosynthesis stopped, thereby killing all the plants. Those dinosaurs which ate the plants died as a result of the loss of their food source. Along with them, the meat eating dinosaurs who consumed the plant eating ones also disappeared. When the dust settled and sunlight returned, new plants sprang up from the seeds in the soil. Any dinosaurs which had somehow managed to survive this process were themselves killed off by the ice age which followed on the heels of the sun blocking dust cloud which, in addition to killing off the plants, cooled the earth's surface.

Since no crater can be found anywhere on or below the earth's land surface which points to an impact of this magnitude, it has been conveniently assumed that this asteroid must have landed in the ocean. But this by no means solves the evolutionist's problems. According to Edward Anders, a cosmochemist at the University of Chicago, "Even if it hit in the ocean, the impact would have created a crater 300 kilometers across..." # 12 Why so large? Simple, as even Alvarez admits, in order for an asteroid to have done that much damage, it must have been at least 10 kilometers (6 miles) across. # 13 What's more, it would have had to travel through space at 60 times the speed of sound, and then hit the earth with 10,000 times more power then any of the world's nuclear weapons. # 14

At the time this book was first published (1993), the biggest crater which can be found anywhere on or under the earth is only 32 kilometers across. As admitted by most scientists though, this is no where near large enough to account for even one single episode of mass extinction. # 15 Evolutionists who would not accept the Genesis flood as the explanation for the mass extinction they themselves have observed, are now faced with a most interesting paradox. They had no trouble finding the fossils of 6 inch long trilobites who were supposedly killed by Alvarez's asteroid, but they could'nt seem to find the 180 mile wide crater such an impact must have created. Since 1993 proponents of the giant asteroid theory claim that they have found evidence for a crater hundreds of feet beneath the Gulf of Mexico. Even IF such a crater did exist, (and its existence is questioned by many scientists), the asteroid theory fails to account for the fact that many species including "…birds, most mammals, crocodiles, lizards and snakes, turtles, and amphibians sailed right through the catastrophe." # 16

Furthermore, this far fetched hypothesis totally fails to explain how dinosaurs and vegetation became buried under hundreds, or even thousands of feet of sedimentary rock, thereby enabling these materials to become fossilized. (Remember, things which die and then lie on the surface, or are buried under only a few inches of dust decompose, they do not become fossils.) Unless of course proponents of this theory hold to the position that this meteor impact created a worldwide flood, in which case they should be reminded that the Genesis account of the flood contains more verifiable data than does their 'it came from outer space' theory.

In reality, what these evolutionists have done is base their entire hypothesis upon the fact that the level of iridium found on the earth is higher in some geologic layers than in others. Now, while this is indeed true, it should be pointed out that the highest concentrations of this element are not located on the floors of any ocean, where this asteroid supposedly hit, but in South Africa, Brazil, and Tasmania. Also, according to an article in the Journal of Geological Education, "…most dinosaurian genera and higher taxa were long extinct before the formation of the latest Masstrichtian deposits of Montana, which preserves the only reasonably complete and well studied record of the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundry on land." # 17 While the foregoing quote may appear overly technical, I have used it for a very specific reason. You see, it was in the Cretaceous-Tertiary layers that the Alvarez's found the unusually high levels of iridium they used as justification for their asteriod theory. Yet, even Journal of Geologic Education, which is decidedly not creationist in its perspective, viewed the giant asteroid explanation about "as dead as the Cretaceous…" layer because most of the dinosaurs were already gone by the time this iridium rich layer of rock had been laid down. # 18 However, the foregoing fact is merely one more piece of information which modern evolutionists have forgotten to mention.

Furthermore, to argue that only the impact of a giant asteroid could account for these higher levels is ridiculous. It would make as much sense for me to say that the higher levels of nickel found in some areas of the earth resulted from a collision with the moon simply because the surface of the moon contains a higher level of nickel than is normally found on earth. After all, there is as much geologic evidence to support my notion as there is for Alverez's giant asteroid story. However, I acknowledge that my hypothesis is not scientific; whereas, the evolutionists, by including the asteroid idea as part of their theory, insist that Alverez's notion be treated as scientific. Unfortunately, since 1993 this hypothesis has found its way into virtually every school textbook in America. Not because it has proven to be correct, but simply because it appears to solve the evolutionist's dilemma. Which is, "Why did the dinosaurs disappear all at once.?" I will ask you the same question the editors of the Journal of Geologic Education asked, "are these ad hoc explanations biologically plausible?"

The evolutionists have again offered up a totally untestable hypothesis as part of their science, and in the process have again violated the first rule of true science. Knowingly or unknowingly they have also again called God a liar. If in fact an asteroid-induced 'Nuclear winter' did occur which lasted several years, then God has not only lied to us, but He even lied to Himself. You see, Gen. 8:21-22 tells us that after the flood, God "...said in His heart ... as long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease." (emphasis added) This of course does not mean that there will not be local disasters like flooding, drought, or even darkened skies following some volcanic eruption, but God has specifically promised that these will not be world wide.

There are numerous other problems presented by the theory of evolution and its fundamental premise that the lower progresses into the higher, but lack of space prevents me from going into them. The highlights I have presented thus far are however sufficient to point out three things. First, evolution is in direct irreconcilable conflict with the Bible. Neither the Bible nor pure evolutionistic thought allows you to take merely a portion of each and forget the rest. Second, by definition, total evolutionistic thought denies the existence of a creator God. Third, neither the account of the origin of life as found in Genesis, or that postulated by any form of evolutionary theory, is scientific. Both are the account of the creation of the world and man - one from the viewpoint of the Judaeo/Christian religion, and the other from the viewpoint of the religion called Secular Humanism.

From the outset of this study I have made it clear what I believe. I accept creation as a fact. Even if we momentarily set aside all the physical evidence which clearly points to this event, I have the Bible to substantiate my position. Evolutionists accept evolution as a fact and as you can see from what we have discussed so far, they have nothing more than controverted reasoning, misleading statements, faulty assumptions, and outright hoaxes to prove what they believe.

Before continuing any further, please allow me to clear up a misconception which is shared by many people. There is a vast difference between scientific creationism and the Genesis account of creation. The Genesis account of creation describes not only the origin of all things, but tells us who the originator was. Since no one except God was around at the time, no thought process which depends upon human observation and reasoning could explain this event. As such, any discussion concerning the 'origin' of the species is in fact totally beyond the limits of scientific inquiry. As Robert Jastrow so aptly noted, the world had a beginning under conditions in which the known laws of physics are not valid. Origins are in fact supernatural.

On the other hand, scientific creationism, by following established rules of procedure, observation, and experimentation, analyzes the physical evidence which is all around us today in an attempt to explain by what process things change and how both these processes, and the organisms they effect, interrelate with each other. When the facts revealed by this process of examination clearly point towards an act of creation, the creation scientist is willing to admit that in all likelihood, his investigation can go no further and still remain within the bounds of purely scientific inquiry.

The evolutionist however will either deny the very facts which his own investigation has uncovered, or he will misrepresent them. As such, he will continue moving backward in time until he has abandoned all pretext of scientific inquiry. At that point, he will have left the world of true science, and entered into the realm of science fiction - otherwise known as the 'twilight zone' - wherein dwells Goldschmidt's "hopeful monster", Alverez's "Giant Asteroid", and Crick's "intergalactic protein molecule."

While I have not touched upon all the scientific discoveries which clearly demonstrate a special creation, do not make the mistake of thinking that there aren't any. Up to this point in our discussion I have concentrated upon many of the shortcomings of the evolutionist's position. While this will continue to be my general thrust, I would like to highlight merely a few of these discoveries in order to alleviate any fears you may have that there are no truly scientific facts which substantiate the creationist's position. Again, let me reiterate that I am only going to highlight just a few of them. It would take several volumes to do justice to this topic alone, but that is not the intent of this book . Should you wish to delve deeper into the nature of these facts, I suggest that you check the bibliography which appears at the end of this volume.

For now though here is a brief summary of only 5 of those discoveries and the concepts which clearly point to a special creation.

1 PRINCIPLE OF UNIVERSAL CAUSATION

2) The first cause of endless time must be eternal.

3) The first cause of boundless energy must be omnipotent.

4) The first cause of infinite complexity must be omniscient.

5) The first cause of life must be living.

Therefore, the first cause of the universe must be infinite, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, and living, which is exactly the position taken by creationists.

2. FIRST LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS

However, since most evolutionists don't like either bad dreams or evangelical theologians they simply ignore the facts we have just examined. Rather than acknowledge their error, they willingly go back down the mountain of ignorance into the valley of the absurd. They have chosen instead to walk along the path of the preposterous where they are joined by their hiking companions, Piltdown Man and Nebraska Man.

1) Niles Eldredge - The Monkey Business: A Scientist Looks at Creationism, (New York: Washington Square Press, 1982), Back Cover

2) ibid p. 98

3) David M. Raup, "Geology and Creationism", The Bulletin of the Field Museum of Natural History Vol. 54, (March 1983) , p 21

4) Encyclopedia Britannica, 1956 ed, Vol 10, p. 168,.)

5) J. E. O'Rourke, "Pragmatism Versus Materialism in Stratigraphy", American Journal of Science Vol 276, (January 1976), pp.47 & 53

6) David C. C. Watson - The Great Brain Robbery (Chicago: Moody Press 1976), p. 120

7) Frederic B. Jueneman, FAIC "Secular Catastrophism", Industrial Research and Development Vol. 24 (June 1982), p. 21

8) R. G. Kazman, "Its About Time: 4.5 Billion Years", Geotimes Vol. 23, (Sept. 1978), p. 18

9) John C. Whitcomb - The World That Perished, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988) see also Whitcomb & Morris, The Genesis Flood, (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1962), p. 182

10) Niles Eldredge - Time Frames: Rethinking of Darwinian Evolution and the Theory of Punctuated Equillibria (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986), p. 106

11) Rick Gore, "Extinctions", National Geographic Vol. 175, (June 1968), p. 664

12) ibid p. 673

13) ibid p. 673

14) ibid p. 673; see also Scott Stuckey, "Mysteries of the Dinosaurs", Boy's Life (June 1989), p. 20

15) ibid p. 673

16) Kevin Padian, "New Discoveries about Dinosaurs: Separating the fact From the News", Journal of Geological Education, Vol. 36 (1988), p. 215

17) ibid p. 215

18) ibid p. 215

19) Henry M. Morris - The Biblical Basis For Mordern Science (Grnad Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1984) p. 37

20) Isaac Asimov, "In the Game of Energy and Thermodynamics, You Can't Even Break Even", Smithsonian Vol. 1 No. 5 (June 1970) , p. 6

21) ibid p. 10

22) Lesile Orgel, "Darwinism at the Very Beginning of Life" New Scientist, Vol. 94, (April 15, 1982), p. 151

23) Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, "Where Microbes Boldly Went", New Scientist Vol. 91, (1981), pp. 412-415

24) Robert Jastrow, "God and Astronomers", as reported in David Bender and Bruno Leons - Science and Religion: Opposing Viewpoints (St Paul ,MN: Green Haven Press, 1981), p. 50