BRAINWASHED
by Duane T. Gish, Ph.D.
Duane T. Gish, Ph.D. (Biochemistry, University of California,
Berkeley) is Associate Director of the Institute of Creation Research and
Professor of Natural Science and Apologetics at Christian Heritage
College, San Diego, California. He spent 18 years in biochemical and
biomedical research with the Upjohn Company and at Cornell University and
Berkeley. There are over 450 scientists with a master's or doctor's
degree in some field of natural science are now voting members of the
Creation Research Society.
The following lecture was given at the University of California at
Davis and has been greatly condensed for the sake of space.
As a scientist, I believe we must examine all the evidence and facts
before we can come to any conclusion on any given subject. I'm asking
only one thing of this audience... that you examine the facts thoroughly
and without prejudice.
The refusal by science teachers to consider creation as a possible
explanation for the origin of all things, is unwarranted and undesirable.
The student is being indoctrinated without being given a complete
presentation of the evidence.
This situation could be remedied by taking a closer look at both
creation and evolution.
First, let's examine the claims of each. The EVOLUTIONIST states
that all life gradually evolved from a single cell, which had evolved
from dead matter.
CREATIONISTS believe that life and our existence came by the acts of
a Creator.
The evidence that the EVOLUTIONIST needs to establish his claims, is
fossils showing a gradual step-by-step development of lower animal life
into more and more complex forms.
And this should be evident by the presence in the fossil record of
many transitional forms.
The evidence needed to support CREATION, is fossils showing complex
life appearing suddenly... with no fossil evidence of lower animals
developing into new and complex forms of life.
Now, lets look at the actual fossil evidence. The earliest fossils
to be found are in the Cambrian rock strata. And the billions of fossils
found there are all of highly complex forms of life with no evidence of
these complex forms gradually developing from a simple form of life.
According to evolutionists it would have required 1.5 billion years
for these animals to have evolved. Not a single, indisputable
multicellular fossil has been found anywhere in the world in a rock
supposedly older that Cambrian rocks. Billions of highly complex
animals... trilobites, brachiopods, corals, worms, jellyfish, etc... just
suddenly appear, with no signs of gradual development from lower forms.
Also, throughout the remainder of the fossil record there is a
remarkable absences of the many transitional forms demanded by the theory
of evolution.
There are hundreds of thousands of missing links between
invertebrates and vertebrates. The sea squirt is presumed to be the
ancestry of the vertebrate.
According to evolutionists it would have taken 100 million years for
fish to have evolved from an invertebrate. But there is absolutely no
fossil evidence showing that this took place.
Again, the evolutionists claims that it took perhaps 50 million
years for a fish to evolve into an amphibian. But again, there are no
transitional forms. For example... not a single fossil with part fins...
part feet has ever been found.
And this is true between every major plant and animal kind. All
higher categories of living things, such as complex invertebrates,
fishes, amphibians, reptiles, flying reptiles, birds, bats, primates and
man, appear abruptly.
Let me quote some comments by LEADING EVOLUTIONISTS.
Charles Darwin admitted that:
"As by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have
existed, who do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in
the crust of the earth? The number of intermediate kinds,
between all living and extinct species, must have been
inconceivably great."
Prof. George Gaylord Simpson of Harvard University has said:
"Gaps among known orders, classes and phyla are systematic and
almost always large."
Prof. E.J.H. Corner of Cambridge University has stated:
"I still think, to the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants
is in favor of special creation."
There is no evidence of even one species changing into another. As
the late Prof. R. Goldschmidt of the University of California observed:
"It is good to keep in mind... that nobody has ever succeeded in
producing even one new species by the accumulation of
micromutations."
If evolution is true, why don't we see living stages of evolution
today? Shouldn't new organs and new structure still be appearing today?
Surely if evolutionary processes had truly existed in the past they would
still be operating today.
The fossil of the bird (Archaeopteryx) is claimed by some to be a
link between birds and reptiles. But there was a world of difference
between reptiles and Archaeopteryx. It had wings, feathers... and it
flew! The fact that it had claws on its wings does not prove that it had
a reptilian ancestry. There are two birds living today that possess
claws!
All paleontologists (those who study fossils) now acknowledge that
Archaeopteryx was a true bird.
The alleged horse series was created more out of imagination than
from fossil evidence. The fossils for this series are not found in the
proper time sequence as indicated by the evolutionists, and the major
types appear abruptly, without transitions.
And there is an interesting discrepancy in the skeletal development
of this series.
Eohippus had 18 pairs of Ribs.
Orohippus had only 15 pairs.
Then Pliohippus jumped to 19.
Equus Scotti is back to 18.
Darwin cited the giraffe as an outstanding example of natural
selection. Supposedly, as a result of extended droughts, the supply of
green leaves could be obtained only at the tops of the trees, and
therefore the shorter necked giraffe died off. And the giraffes which
grew longer necks survived.
However, there is no evidence whatever in the fossil record or
elsewhere that giraffes with short necks have ever existed. And what
would have happened to young giraffes with relatively short necks?
Darwin failed to realize that body characteristics in offspring are
determined and programmed by DNA factors of the Genes or the Genetic
material of the parents, and not by the stretching of the neck or any
other bodily exercise.
The cover of the journal, Science, December 9, 1966, shows a
photograph of a bat fossil that is alleged to be over 50 million years
old. This is said to be the oldest fossil bat, but it is the same as a
modern bat! Why isn't there any evidence of change after 50 million
years?
It might be will now to look at the "evidence" which anthropologists
have assembled, in an attempt to reconstruct the evolution of man.
Some consider Ramapithecus to have been hominid (a man-like ape),
and this judgement has been made solely on the basis of a few fragments
of the jaw. That's all the fossil fragments they have.
Dr. Jolley has recently reported that a species of baboon in
Ethiopia has the same dental and jaw characteristics as Ramapithecus.
These characteristics are therefore not those of man! Other
anthropologists have agreed that Ramapitecus was simply an ape.
The first find of Australopithecines was by Dart in 1924. He
pointed out many ape-like features of the skull, but he believed the
teeth to be manlike. Its brain was only about 1/3 as large as that of
modern man. It was only about 4 feet tall.
Recently, Richard Leakey, the son of Dr. Leakey. published evidence
that indicated that the Australopithecines were long-armed, short-legged
knucklewalkers, similar to living African apes. These creatures were
nothing but apes!
In China, during the 1920's, fragments of skulls, jaws, and teeth,
were found in a limestone cliff near Peking. However, during World War
II all the original bones were lost.
All of these creatures had been killed and eaten, and the skulls
preserved as trophies. Some prominent anthropologists believe that
hunter was true Man. Peking "man" must then have been simply a giant
ape.
Java Man is put together on the evidence of a femur (large leg
bone), a skull cap, and three molar teeth. These parts were found within
a 50 foot range, in a space of one year. Dr. Dubois, its discoverer,
concealed for 30 years the fact that he found human skulls near his Java
Man, and at the same level. So man was already there when this creature
was alive. The femur was probably from a human, and the skull cap was
probably that of a giant ape. Before his death, and after he had
convinced most of the early skeptics, Dubois changed his mind and decided
that Java Man was probably a giant gibbon and not a man-like at all.
Neanderthal Man has a skeletal structure of modern man. His cranial
capacity exceeded that of modern man. It was claimed that he lived as
long as about 100,000 years ago, but all anthropologists now believe that
he was just as human as you and I.
Complete skeletons of the Cro-Magnons have been found. Their
cranial capacity was greater that modern man's. If he were alive today,
and if he were to walk down the street in a business suit, he would go
completely unnoticed.
Two of the most embarrassing so-called missing links for
evolutionists, are the NEBRASKA MAN and the PILTDOWN MAN.
At the famous Scopes evolution trail in Dayton, Tennessee, the
NEBRASKA MAN evidence was presented by the leading scientific authorities
of that day as proof of evolution. They scoffed and laughed at William
Jennings Bryan, when he protested the scanty evidence.
The evidence was that of a tooth that was supposed to have come from
a prehistoric man who supposedly lived one million years ago. However,
years later, when more fossils were unearthed, it was discovered that
Nebraska Man was only a pig. I think this is a case where a pig made a
monkey out of an evolutionist!
In 1912 Charles Dawson brought forth the PILTDOWN MAN. A piece of
skull was the evidence acclaimed by experts as that of an ape-man who was
about a half million years old.
But in 1953 the hoax was exposed. The jawbone turned out to be that
of a modern ape. The teeth had been filed down, and the bones were
artificially colored to deceive the public. The ease with which this
fraud fooled the world's greatest authorities illustrated the powerful
influence of preconceived ideas among evolutionists.
But in the August 1973 issues of Reader's Digest there was a report
about two phenomenal discoveries which were recently made in Africa.
These discoveries have shaken the anthropological world, because they
challenge the validity of long cherished theories concerning the origin
of man. One was the finding of a human skull, dated by evolutionists to
be about 2.8 million years old. Most text books state that the first man
did not evolve until around one million years ago. Yet the bones found
are said to be even more modern that those of Pithecanthropus, our
presumed man-like ancestor. Obviously these presumed ancestors cannot be
man's true ancestors, for who ever heard of parents being younger that
their children?
The second was the finding of skeletons of sophisticated humans who
are reputed to have lived 100,000 years ago. They had developed the art
of mining, were able to keep records, count, and had also developed
sophisticated tools. But according to the evolutionists this type of
sophisticated humans was not supposed to have appeared on the scene until
65,000 years later.
I personally heard Richard Leaky, the discoverer of the 2.8 million
year old man, speak in San Diego. In commenting on these two discoveries
Mr. Leaky stated, "What we have discovered simply wipes out everything we
have taught about human evolution, and I have nothing to offer in its
place."
Let us now consider the beginnings of life itself.
By chance, nothingness developed into substance. That evolved into
a very highly complex organization... without a designer. Darwinists
assume that life, or the primitive cell, arose by pure chance. For
example, by chance some amino acids were formed. Then from these the
necessary protein was formed.
The first problem is that the rate of destruction of even relatively
simple chemical compounds, such as amino acids, by ultraviolet light or
electrical discharges far exceeds their rate of formation. No
significant quantity would thus ever be produced.
Another insuperable barrier is that these amino acids would have to
be arranged in an exact sequence to form a protein... just like the
letters in a sentence. Mere laws of chemistry and physics cannot do
that.
The probability of a protein of only 50 amino acids forming by
chance would be 1/10 to the 65th power, or in layman language-
100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000 to ONE!
Even the very simplest cell contains several thousand different
kinds of proteins, and many billions of each kind, plus all kinds of DNA,
RNA, and other highly complex molecules, along with many complex
structures, arranged in an incredibly complex system.
DNA and RNA are required to produce protein enzymes, but protein
enzymes are required to produce DNA and RNA. Which, then, came first?
Dr. N.W. Pirie of the Rothamstead Experimental Station at Harpenden,
England, rejects this whole concept of spontaneous biogenesis simply on
the well-founded fact that "complicated molecules such as proteins do
not, in our scientific experience, arise spontaneously, even by stages.
And all forms of life known today are dependent on protein."
Dr. John Moore spoke during the annual session of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science. He described the theory that
man evolved from "amoeba and seaslimes" as an "incredible religion," but
not "science."
Dr. John Moore stated:
"Chromosome variation in animals does not correspond to
predictions based on evolution theory. There is absolutely no
pattern of increase of chromosome number from less complex to
more complex, but this should take place if evolution were true.
Furthermore, hereditary material in the genes of chromosomes
shows great variation, frogs having more genetic material that do
humans, which contradicts the theory of evolution. Darwinism is
more illogical than biological."
Professor Henry M. Morris has shown that the theory of evolution
contradicts the universally accepted laws of thermodynamics.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that all things left to
themselves always tend to go from the complex to the simple, form the
organized to the disorganized. Evolution would require just the
opposite... the continually building up from the simplest to the more
complex forms.
I would now like for us to consider the complexity of the order and
design of our planet and universe. In researching the size of the earth
we discover that the mass and size of the earth are just right. If the
earth's diameter were 7,200 miles instead of 8,000, almost the whole
earth, due to a lessening of its atmospheric mantle, would be reduced to
a snow and ice waste.
If there were a variation of only 10 percent, either in the increase
or decrease of the size of our world, no life as we know it on earth
would be possible!
If the average temperature of the earth were raised but two or three
degrees you could bid goodbye to many of the big cities of the earth, for
the glaciers would melt, and that in turn would flood many of the big
cities. this would also inundate hundreds of thousands of square miles of
our most fertile lands.
The earth's axis, which now points toward the North Star, is tilted
just right - at the strange angle of 23 degrees from the perpendicular,
that is, in relation to the plane of its orbit. Because of this tilt the
sun appears to go north in the summer and south in the winter, giving us
four seasons in the temperate zone.
For the same reason, there is twice as much of the land area of the
earth that can be cultivated and inhabited as there would be if the sun
were always over the equator, with no change of seasons. Think what
would happen if the earth were tilted any other way than it is.
We live miraculously on this planet, protected from eight killer
rays from the sun, by a thin layer of ozone high up in our atmosphere.
If that little belt of ozone, approximately forty miles up and only
one eighth of an inch thick (if compressed), should suddenly drift into
space, all life on earth would perish.
The first miracle, in the light of what the rest of the universe is
like, is that there IS an ocean here! In the universe as a whole, liquid
water of any kind - sweet or salt - is an exotic rarity.
Contrary to common belief, the liquid state is exceptional in
nature; most matter in the universe seems to consist either of flaming
gases, as in the stars, or frozen solids drifting in the abyss of space.
The amazing accuracy and smoothness with which the Universe revolves
- as a flawless, perfect machine - can be seen in the perfection that
characterizes the journey of our earth around the sun. It takes the
earth 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes an 48 seconds to make its journey
around the sun. And in this circuit the earth has varied in only the
slightest degree. None but an infinite GOD could achieve such flawless,
continuous PERFECTION.
I believe as GOD states in the Bible (Romans 1:20) that nature and
creation itself reveals that there is a Creator. We know that for every
design there is a designer, and for every law there is a lawgiver. "In
the beginning God created" is still the most up-to-date statement on the
origin of the universe and all that it contains.
And now I would like to speak personally to you ... the reader of
this little book. God is revealed through His creation... but the
greatest revelation God has given to man, He gave through His only
begotten Son, Jesus Christ. The Old Testament part of the Bible informs
us that God made man in His own image and likeness, to be His sons. Man,
however rebelled against God. We have all determined to go our own way
and disregard our real Father. Jesus Christ revealed that God dearly
loves us, and that He sent Him to live among us briefly, and then to give
His life as a ransom (a sacrifice) for our sins.
We may now be reconciled to God... to eternal life with Him, by
accepting forgiveness of our sins through Jesus. That which is also
necessary is that we repent (turn) from our sinning and live to please
God. All who refuse to accept God's love and forgiveness will receive
terrible judgment.
I urge you to make your peace with God today. Then read the Bible
that you may grow in your new life. I suggest that you begin reading in
the book of Luke in the New Testament. God bless you!
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