Tag: John Sanford

Happy Question Evolution Day!

Today, February 12th, is Darwin’s birthday and also Question Evolution Day.

The kind of evolution being questioned is biological evolution, not the alleged evolution of solar systems or galaxies, although I don’t think that kind of evolution is possible either. The universe is winding down through entropy. It is not evolving into something more complicated than what we see around us.

Biological evolution is also not the differentiation of a specific kind of animal into new breeds or sub-species. That comes about routinely with either artificial or natural selection. However, no new kind of animal can be formed by this selection process alone.

Biological evolution is a way to go from something simple to something complicated without involving the free will of any agent such as God. The whole point of biological evolution is to do away with God as an explanation.

Since God is not involved, evolution will need some mechanism by which change can take place making a transition from slime mold to ourselves plausible. The current mechanism offered is random mutations. Given mutations over long periods of time DNA is supposedly changed so slime mold can turn into a chicken or maybe a dinosaur and the dinosaur can turn into an ape and the ape can become a human being.

However, it has become apparent that mutations aren’t enough to make that happen.

The reason mutations won’t work is because they are generally deleterious. Rarely do they benefit the species undergoing them. That is why our bodies try to correct them, but they do not always succeed. We pass on some of these mistakes to our children who pass them on to their children with additional mutations. A mutational load builds up generation after generation.

This increasing mutational load is what John Sanford calls genetic entropy. Natural selection cannot stop it. The end result of genetic entropy is not some superior creature, but mutational meltdown. That’s when a species is no longer able to reproduce. It goes extinct.

So, unless there is some mechanism for biological evolution to occur besides mutations to supplement natural selection, biological evolution is not possible. Genetic entropy prevents it.

That’s why I celebrate Question Evolution Day.

Admittedly the extinction part is depressing. However, God said that He not only created a very good world with us in it, but in response to the fall of Adam and Eve, He offered us His Son whose sacrifice almost two thousand years ago would allow for a new heaven and a new earth. Given genetic entropy, we are going to need it.

Lake Michigan in the Snow
Lake Michigan in the Snow

Sunday Walk 73 – Contested Bones

The evolutionary view claims that some transition from animal to man occurred over millions of years. There are four general objections to this view: (1) the small amount of fossil evidence allegedly confirming the transition is contested even by evolutionists, (2) radioactive dating of the age of those fossils exaggerates the amount of time between fossil layers, (3) genetic evidence shows we have less in common with animals than previously suspected, and (4) genetic entropy shows that random mutations filtered through natural selection, the supposed mechanism of evolution, leads to extinction, not evolution.

The following video is a presentation by Christopher Rupe, co-author with John Sanford of Contested Bones discussing the contested fossils.

Chris Rupe, New Book Shows That Fossil Record Supports Biblical View Of Human Origins

The other author, John Sanford, added genetic entropy as evidence showing that there could have been no evolutionary path from animal to man through random mutations. Genetically we are too different from animals. Furthermore, random mutations are deleterious. What they lead to is mutational meltdown which precedes extinction.

Only from a Christian perspective is there any hope out of this mutational meltdown scenario for life on earth. We look forward to the second coming of Jesus, the new heaven, the new earth and our resurrection bodies.

John Sanford, Down – Not Up

After rereading this I wondered: Aren’t we already “animals”, even if evolution is false? To make sure I have a biblical worldview let me check what Genesis 1 says about creation order.

There I read that we were a separate created kind made in the image of God and specifically made as male and female on day six. We (adam אָדָם) have the same Creator as animals (behemah בְּהֵמָה) and we were made to live on the same earth where plants are food for both animals and us. This accounts for the similarities we have with them, but we are not animals anymore than we are birds or fish.

Weekly Bible Reading: Matthew and Mark
Commentaries: 
David Pawson, Matthew, Part 2, Mark, Part 3, Unlocking the Bible
Bible Project, Matthew and Mark
Weekly Torah Readings
28 Tevet, 5782, Va’eira: Parashat Exodus 6:2-9:35

Ryerson Conservation Area
Ryerson Conservation Area

Sunday Walk 64 – The Universe Has A Center

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

Genesis 1:14, King James Bible 1769

John Sanford and Christopher Rupe provide evidence that our galaxy is near the center of the universe in a paper at LogosRA. They write, “Astronomical data shows that the universe displays a striking pattern in its arrangement. Not only that, the universe may have a central position and it appears that our galaxy is at or very near it—far from what we would expect from a random, cosmic accident.“

Here is a summary of the evidence offered for that view.

  • Redshift Data
    Regardless of whether we are in an expanding universe or not the galaxies furthest away from us have a stronger red shift. This is evidence that we are near the center of the universe. Edwin Hubble who discovered this redshift phenomena realized this. However, he found it philosophically intolerable, but not disprovable. Sanford and Rupe remark, “the cosmic redshift phenomenon clearly revolves around our own location, and this when taken at face value indicates we are near the center.“
  • Galactic Shells
    In 1977 William Tifft discovered that the galaxies were patterned on their redshifts forming concentric spherical shells around our galaxy at the center.
  • Uniformity of the Cosmic Microwave Background
    From all directions we see a uniformity in the cosmic background radiation. Were we not at the center we would not expect to see this uniformity.
  • Symmetry of the Cosmic Microwave Background
    In 2001 the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe found evidence for a cosmic north-south pole and equator centered around our galaxy.
  • Spatial Distribution of Galaxies
    As Sanford and Rupe put it, “galaxies appear to be organized into gigantic web-like structures, and these structures form concentric rings around our own special position“.

On the fourth day of creation God created lights in the firmament for signs. Sanford and Rupe suggest: The universe’s countless galaxies may be designed for no other purpose than to be seen by us in these last days – so that it might be clear to all humanity that “The heavens declare the Glory of God…” (Psalms 19:1)

Weekly Bible Reading:  Ezekiel (Audio), Daniel (Audio)
17 Cheshvan, 5782, Vayeira: Parashat Genesis 18:1-22:24; Haftarat 2 Kings 4:1-4:37
Commentaries: 
David Pawson, Ezekiel, Part 44, Daniel, Part 45, Unlocking the Bible
Bible Project, Ezekiel (34-48) and Daniel

Sunday Walk 61 – Adam and Eve

The genetic evidence strongly suggests that Y Chromosome Adam/Noah and Mitochondrial Eve were not just real people, they were the progenitors of us all.

Carter, R.W., S.S. Lee, and J.C. Sanford. An overview of the independent histories of the human Y-chromosome and the human mitochondrial chromosome. 2018. In Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism, ed. J.H. Whitmore, pp. 133–151. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Creation Science Fellowship.

After the Fall, Adam named his wife Eve. (Genesis 3:20) Today geneticists talk about Y Chromosome Adam and Mitochondrial Eve. The controversy is over estimates of how long ago they lived. If the estimates are over fifty thousand years ago, and you believed it, that would strongly show the Bible is wrong. If the estimates are under ten thousand years, and you believed it, that would confirm the biblical account.

The Bible also mentions a global flood with three couples, Noah’s sons and their wives (Genesis 6-8). This population bottleneck should appear in the genetic record as well and indeed one can find it. Nathaniel T. Jeanson and Ashley D. Holland in 2019 “confirm a 4,500-year history for human paternal ancestry”.

At about 25:00 in the video below John Sanford provided seven lines of genetic evidence supporting the idea of a literal Adam and Eve.

(1) Mitochondrial Eve
(2) Y-Chromosome Adam
(3) Population Bottleneck
(4) Designed Variants in Genome
(5) Babel Dispersion
(6) Ape-to-Man Refuted
(7) Genetic Entropy

John Sanford, Genetic Entropy, Evolution & the Bible

Does that make you look at yourself differently? Do you still think that you are evolved stardust? None of us are.

Additional information on Adam and Eve and other science topics can be found at LogosRA.

I will include the Parashat Torah readings and Haftarah selections from the rest of the Bible in this set of readings since yesterday the reading of the Torah began again in Genesis. I will be using the Chabad.org calendar to find the name of the reading and the Jewish Virtual Library for the verses involved.

Weekly Bible Reading:  Isaiah (Audio), Jeremiah (Audio)
26 Tishrei, 5782, Bereishit: Parashat Genesis 1:1-6:8; Haftarat Isaiah 42:5-43:11
Commentaries: 
David Pawson, Isaiah, Part 38, Jeremiah, Part 39, Unlocking the Bible
Bible Project, Isaiah (40-66) and Jeremiah

Sunday Walk 39 – Genetic Entropy

If one has a closed natural system where nothing can enter to support it from the outside, the system will run down. Any order will become disorder in a finite amount of time. Entropy is a measure of disorder.

In naturalistic or materialistic worldviews the universe we live in is supposed to be such a closed system. There is nothing outside it. Or, if there is, that supernatural stuff can’t break through the boundaries of the closed system to offer support.

In the Christian worldview not only is there an outside to the universe but that outside is powerful, willing and intelligent enough to both create the universe and make an ongoing difference to it. The material universe is not closed in this worldview although it could be hypothetically viewed as closed to study what would happen to it assuming the outside did not intervene.

For example, if we assumed nothing would stop erosion, weathering and traffic from the outside, we could ask how long the hypothetically closed system of the rock formations in the photo above would remain intact? No one doubts that there is intelligence outside this system of rock formations. Just by studying the system we are that intelligence outside it. After a study is made other people powerful and willing enough could use the findings to implement policies to preserve the formations. All of that study and preservation comes from outside this system of rock formations intervening to alter what would happen to it if those formations were left alone.

If we supposed that our universe were closed with no outside support, the main mystery would be how our universe came to be. With entropy we cannot claim that our universe had always been here to avoid addressing its origin. If our universe were infinitely old, it would have run down by now. Furthermore, any popping of ordered reality out of nothing or even out of less ordered stuff would require an explanation how that popping could increase orderliness without the assistance of some outside intelligence.

In the past it was believed that random mutations filtered through natural selection could serve as the mechanism allowing living organisms within a closed universe to evolve into ever more complex organisms without help from the outside. The change coming from random mutations would be mindlessly directed by natural selection to achieve this. R. A. Fisher even offered a mathematical proof that it would work.

However, with further study of mutation-selection the opposite is now known to happen. This perpetual motion mechanism is not what we thought it was. Even Fisher’s Theorem has been flipped by William F. Basener and John C. Sanford. The following podcast with John Sanford puts this in perspective.

James Tour & John Sanford, Genetic Entropy and Genome Degeneration

Rather than describing a means by which evolution could occur mutation-selection describes the mechanism behind genetic entropy. Without outside help, living species in a closed system not only do not evolve into super-species, they run down just like everything else does. At some point in their genome degeneration they go extinct.

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