Evolutionary theory suggests that life evolved in a series of small steps spread out over a very long period of time. Take the eye as an example. The human eye is extraordinarily complex. How did we get it? Evolutionary theory points to other animals with less complex eyes, such as jellyfish which have just a few light sensitive cells or starfish which has a more sophisticated eye than the jellyfish, but still only a very crude type of lens. The argument then runs that over time the eye developed gradually, from simple light sensitive cells through to the marvel of the human eye.
In 1996 molecular biologist Michael Behe published a book which challenges this concept. Behe has no problem with the thought that the universe is billions of years old or that life branched out from a common ancestor. The problem he points out is that molecular biology shows us that even the crude eye of the jellyfish is not simple. When Darwin formed his theory and when Neo-Darwinism developed it, molecular biology didn’t exist. We had no idea what goes on at the most basic level of existence – that is inside the cell. Now we do, and according to Behe what we’ve discovered are amazingly complex and elaborate chemical processes.
Behe suggests that these processes are “irreducibly complex”. Think of a mousetrap. It has a number of parts – a wooden base, a U-shaped metal hammer which crushes the mouse, a spring to activate the hammer, a holding bar to hold the hammer down, and a sensitive catch which releases the bar at the time a mouse nibbles the cheese. Take away any of these parts and the mousetrap won’t work. You won’t have a less crude instrument for catching mice if you take away the spring. You won’t have a less crude instrument if you replace the base with a paper one. It simply won’t work. There is no way to have a step by step development that yields a mousetrap.
Behe suggests this is what it’s like at the level of the cell, the basic building block of life. Its processes are not only complex, but irreducibly complex. There is no way to explain the emergence of the cell using the idea of gradual development from the simple to the more complex. And as the cell is the basic building block of life this suggests that although Darwinian evolution may be able to explain the development of life once the cell has emerged, it is unable to explain how the cell came to exist in the first place.
In 1985 an ocean research ship was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. A biologist named Bruce was lowered over the side in a Deep Rover, a one person submarine. He’s sitting inside a clear acrylic sphere, with lights on the front and a small bank of controls built into the seat. We hold our breath as Deep Rover and Bruce head down into the ocean, watching the submarine turn from a solid metal, to a shimmering shape, then finally disappearing into the depths of the ocean. Bruce heads down 500 metres below the surface. The sea is now an inky black. Millions of tiny glowing creatures stream by, twinkling like fireflies. Then all of a sudden, out of the black, emerges an enormous, semitransparent creature 40 metres long. The creature has thousands of tentacles, dozens of stomachs. Within moments several others swim up, surrounding Bruce and Deep Rover.
You’re all waiting for me to tell you that they attacked the sub, that it returns to the surface with giant tentacle marks across it. But they don’t. This isn’t a Hollywood horror flick, this is real life. These creatures actually exist. There really is a marine biologist named Bruce Robinson who saw them in 1985.
Ask yourself, why do these giant jellyfish exist? They make absolutely no contribution to human well being. We didn’t even know they existed until the 1980’s. They are not a food source for us, they don’t provide medicines for us.
Now ask yourself why do the millions upon millions of as yet undiscovered species of life on earth exist. The Natural Museum of London estimates that there may be anywhere between 10 million and 100 million unknown species of life on the ocean seabeds alone! Why do they exist?
It seems to me they cry out that we humans need to get rid of our speciesism, our belief that God’s interest is in us alone, that God has made the world simply for us to enjoy and use. They tell us that God’s love and interest and pleasure extend to millions upon millions of forms of life on planet earth and wherever else life may exist in the universe.
This is exactly the point made by the writer of Psalm 104.. Verses 5-18 talk about the fact that God has made the world watery. That water is designed to make our fields fruitful so that we have food to eat. But God also ensures that the earth is productive for the wild donkey which lives in the humanly uninhabitable desert, for the wild goats which live high in the mountains. The earth is productive not only for us humans, but also for all the millions and millions of species of life that live on it.
Verses 19-23 talk of God creating the earth with cycles and rhythms. Spring, summer winter, autumn. Night and day. Then the Psalmist makes the interesting observation that while daytime is time for us to go out to work, night time is for the animals of the forest to hunt. It’s their God allotted space and time, and mentioned with the same type of importance and significance as out space and time.
In 1855 American Indian Chief Seattle is said to have written this letter, in response to a request from President Franklin Pierce to purchase land from Seattle’s tribe. It is highly unlikely Chief Seattle wrote it. Nevertheless its sentiments are highly moving. Here are some sections from it.
“There is no quiet place in the white man’s cities. No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring, or the rustle of an insects wings.