CreationStudies Institute
Originally published on Creation Studies Institute
The headlines began in July, but the research was initially published online June 10, 2010. One might be tempted to ask, “Why the delay?” What could possibly have held up the announcement? After all, this is a proclamation of enormous significance?
Bible believing creationists know the answer to this ancient riddle. We always have. God created the birds on the 5th day of the creation week.
Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.” So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” So the evening and the morning were the fifth day, Gen. 1:20-23.
Could it be that the news world has taken over a month to digest the implications of this research? Perhaps they considered this discovery relatively unimportant. More likely it was due to the fact that this research verifies what most people intuitively suspect is true, e.g. that God created life fully mature, in a fully developed state from the beginning. He did not create Adam and Eve as neonates, neither did He initially created birds in their embryonic state.
So what was the reason that the paper entitled “Structural Control of Crystal Nuclei by an Eggshell Protein” (Freeman, Harding, Quigley, & Rodger, 2010) was not heralded by some of the more prestigious press organizations, e.g. Reuters or the Associated Press (AP)? Such coverage by these A-status news wire organizations would have insured worldwide coverage of this research discovery.
Without AP or Reuters, there would be no headline treatment by the major newspapers and no prime time exposure on the major TV networks. The reason could have something to do with the implications of the research not being particularly supportive of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Still, it did make headlines in Vanity Fair, MSNBC, CNN and a couple of other cable and print news venues. Julie Weiner quoted the lead researcher in her column for Vanity Fair.
Although Freeman noted that many had previously expected the egg to be the winner in the battle for primacy, he was not disappointed in his fowl-favoring findings. “Understanding how chickens make egg shells is fascinating in itself, but can also give clues towards designing new materials and processes,” he said. “We would hope such new processes would include a mechanism for unraveling another chicken-centric mystery of the universe, namely, its motivations for crossing the road” (Weiner 2010).
So why was Dr. Freeman surprised by his findings? To understand this we must look at Darwin’s theory. It is postulated by Darwin and his devotees that over eons of time natural selection and the ever-illusive beneficial mutation could somehow combine forces to produce incremental changes that will be able to transform molecules into men.
When the fossil evidence indicated that this was incorrect, neo-Darwinists like the late professor of paleontology at Harvard, Stephen Jay Gould, and his fellow evolutionist, Niles Eldridge, came up the Theory of Punctuated Equilibrium. This theory postulated that radical changes, e.g. macroevolution, takes place in a relatively short time, perhaps 50,000 years. Within the overall hundreds of millions-to-billions of years of evolutionary time that is postulated by Darwinian Theory, this would be considered by geological standards as occurring almost instantaneously.
This brings us to the theory proposed by German-born American geneticist Richard Benedict Goldschmidt (1878-1958). Dr. Goldschmidt was the first to integrate genetics, development, and evolution (Hall, 2001). He pioneered the understanding of reaction norms, genetic assimilation, dynamical genetics, sex determination, and heterochrony (Dietrich 2003). Where Professor Goldschmidt ran afoul of his contemporaries was his controversial theory concerning Darwinian Evolution which he labeled the Hopeful Monster Theory (Gould, 1997). Goldschmidt was convinced that small gradual changes could not bridge the hypothetical divide between microevolution and macroevolution. He postulated that these changes took place instantaneously and was promptly mocked and lambasted by his peers.
The Name Game: the Semantics of Neo-Darwinism
There is a name game being played today. It has more to do with taking patently absurd hypotheses, e.g. that inorganic rocks can produce living organisms, and changing the name to make these notions sound more scientific. Here are some of the names games you might be familiar with.
- Spontaneous Generation (thoroughly discredited) = Abiogenesis
- E.T. created life or “In the beginning Yoda…” = Directed Panspermia
- The Hopeful Monster Theory (a reptile lays an egg, out comes a mammal) = Saltationism
Now we see how someone can make the patently ridiculous appear to be truly scientific. That is, if you just change the name into something more technical sounding, something with a bit more scientific pizzazz. Although evolutionary scientists will deny this with their dying breath, Goldschmidt’s Hopeful Monster Theory was the inspiration for the Theory of Punctuated Equilibrium. Gould and Eldredge may have split a few hairs with regard to whether or not a fish laid an egg and out popped an amphibian instantly, or over several generations, but no matter how you slice it Punctuated Equilibrium is the Hopeful Monster Theory with 50,000 years factored into the recipe.
We should not be surprised when science discovers that the Bible is accurate or that their evolutionary predictions fall far short of reality. Nothing that true science has to offer will ever contradict the Word of God. The Creator who spoke the universe into existence in six 24-hour days has no difficulty making certain that His Word is always 100% accurate 100% of the time.
As for science so-called, e.g. the Theory of Evolution, they will constantly promote their godless and materialistic worldview. They will do this regardless of what the real facts indicate. If you desire to discover the true history of the origins of life on planet Earth, study the Bible. You will comprehend the answer to your question on the very first page as you read, “In the beginning God…” Gen. 1:1.
Pastor Steve Rowitt, Th.M., Ph.D. (c)
Chief Technical Advisor
Creation Studies Institute
