Creationism is a religious dogma about the creation of the world based on the Bible. This movement is often described as an offshoot of science, and articles are passed off as scientific and peer-reviewed. However, creationism does not meet the criteria of the scientific method of knowledge – basing conclusions on facts rather than faith. A scientist can only hypothesize about some new entity if there is sufficient reason to do so that cannot be explained by the existing theory and not because of religious faith. Nevertheless, creationists are not bothered by their lack of a scientific method. In this paper, I would like to review one such article. Although it has its share of factual information, most of its arguments do not stand up to criticism. The article “The image of God” by Genesis File seeks to disprove Darwin’s theory of evolution and prove that life on earth was created by external intelligence (2021). The author’s main arguments against evolution are the growth of molecular chaos and the scarcity of transitional forms in the annals of fossils, which supposedly contradict Darwin’s theory of evolution. In my article I will examine these arguments in sequence and highlight their main point. Then, I will use evidence-based science to refute these contentions. In conclusion, I will summarize all the deficiencies in the evidence and make recommendations on how to improve them.
The first flaw in the article’s argument is that throughout the entire existence of the species homo sapiens, not a single mutation into other species has been observed. This argument cannot be accepted as valid because it manipulates the facts. The fact is that this argument is cited as proof that an organism cannot change its form and evolve into other species on its own. It argues in favor of the fact that early organisms could not evolve from natives into amphibians and then into mammalian creatures (Genesis File, 2021). However, the author of the article does not consider that at the time of life of the first organisms, the conditions on our planet were dramatically different from those of today. Floods, droughts, and ice ages occurred. To survive, organisms had to go through massive changes. Nor should we forget that these changes took place over millions of years. However, the article’s author argues that since none of them evolved further over the last few hundred thousand years of modern homo sapiens existence, the whole theory of evolution is flawed (Genesis File, 2021). Changes in the species occurred and are still happening, just quite slowly. For example, primitive humans had a different physique; they had a more powerful, broader, and shorter chest than modern humans (Jantsch, 2019). These changes were due to the optimization of the respiratory system, which gave humans the ability to run long distances and other types of endurance. Another argument to refute the article argues that our species has been around for a relatively short time relative to those that have undergone more striking evolution. This means that we may not yet have achieved a notable change due to lack of time and may well be transformed into another form in the course of unceasing evolution.
The second flaw in the article’s argument is that primitive organisms could never have evolved into humans. The paper justifies this by saying that a cell contains a specific genetic code and can only be subject to small adaptive changes (Genesis File, 2021). Thus, the author argues that a unicellular organism cannot evolve into a multicellular organism. Furthermore, a unicellular organism cannot develop into a multicellular organism on its own. According to the author, for more striking evolution, the intervention of an intelligent being is necessary. The example of human birth can refute this argument. Man, a complex multicellular organism with consciousness, is born from the fusion of two unicellular organisms, the male sperm and the female testicle (Jantsch, 2019). This is an irrefutable experimental fact. As one can see, the process of human birth from unicellular microorganisms exists in nature and in no way needs divine intervention. Thus, a multicellular organism can emerge from a single-celled organism. Furthermore, when a new human being is born, evolution repeats the entire path from unicellulars to humans. Development is essentially chemically the same as the birth of a human being; the process is just greatly extended in time. This is precisely how it happened – from unicellular emerged multicellular. Another example can also illustrate this. Speciation due to acts of natural selection takes place today in a completely natural way without the slightest divine intervention. Sometimes even despite human intervention – for example, many species of pathogenic bacteria are regularly poisoned with antibiotics. Many bacteria die, but new antibiotic-resistant bacteria emerge because of the pressure of natural selection, and not even hundreds of years have passed.
Another flaw in the article’s argument is the citation of the lack of transitional forms in the annals of the fossil record as a fact in favor of the absence of evolution. Creationists believe that development has always proceeded simultaneously and assumed many transitional forms must have been (Genesis File, 2021). If there were no transitional forms, there was no evolution. To refute this argument is worth highlighting how evolution proceeded. The evolutionary transition from one species to another occurs only when natural selection is under pressure. The factor causing the stress of natural selection is not constant, so evolutionary transitions are also discontinuous (Jantsch, 2019). As an example, consider the transition between fish and amphibians. As long as fish lived in the water and had enough food to survive there, there was no pressure of natural selection to bring them onto land in search of food. However, this selection pressure arose from the depletion of food and increased competition in the water on the one hand and the abundance of food and lack of competition on land on the other (Dror, 2020).
Those fish with slightly larger fins could occasionally feed near the ground and lay eggs there. Therefore, after one generation, the descendants of this population in these conditions had slightly longer fins. In the next generation, there were even longer fins. So, every year in the coastal fish population, fish with larger and larger fins survive and reproduce. After another few hundred years, they developed some semblance of paws. As a result, it turns out that the evolutionary transition is very fast by geological standards – only a few generations, not millions of years. Consequently, evolution took place by such rapid leaps caused by the variable pressure of natural selection, which varied depending on natural conditions – differences in resources and the level of competition in flora and fauna. This explains the scarcity of transitional forms in the fossil record.
In conclusion, while many creationist articles are considered scientific, they contain many flaws in their reasoning. The main weaknesses were manipulating facts, dismissing a critical treatment of arguments, and the lack of a theoretical basis. Consequently, the author erroneously argued that the species homo sapiens is incapable of evolution and that a single-celled organism cannot transform into a multicellular organism on its own. To improve the argument, I advise the author to read scientific articles presenting an alternative view. This will help make the ideas more comprehensive and align with current scientific evidence.