SPECTRUM, vol. 10, no. 1 (May 1979), pages 2-11

Biblical Creationism After a Century of Scientific Investigation

Spectrum magazine, vol. 10, no. 1 (May 1979), pages 2-11.

By Ross O. Barnes

Ross Barnes is research associate professor in marine science at the Walla Walla College Marine Station, Anacortes, Wash. His doctorate in earth sciences is from the University of California, San Diego. An illustrated and expanded version of this paper was presented at a Walla Walla College faculty colloquium May 1975.

During the middle of the last century, as the Seventh-day Adventist Church was developing its emphasis on the creatorship of God, scientists and philosophers were developing the theory of evolution. They merged the evolutionary theories current in philosophical thought since the eighteenth century with a concrete, seemingly plausible, scientific causal mechanism and a naturalistic atheism. The theory of evolution challenged the ancient doctrine that a divine being created the universe. This new threat stimulated Christian apologists to define more clearly the consequences of a belief in God as creator. This effort is commonly called Biblical creationism.

Not surprisingly, the development of creationism has proceeded in several directions, each reflecting different understandings of the Bible. Seventh-day Adventists are among those Christians who have been most comfortable with a literal creationism that treats the Genesis story as a framework account of an actual historical process, though couched in the language and thought of the ancient world. In this paper, I will review the present status of the apologetic aspects of literal creationism after a century of scientific investigation. I will necessarily make reference to the first nine chapters of Genesis, not simply to the creation stories, since we can investigate the record of creation only through the veil of events that shaped and remolded the surface of the earth during the Biblical Flood.

When evaluating competing theories, it is standard practice to focus on those issues where the theories lend to differing predictions or expectations, and to examine which theory conforms best to presently available observations. Many observations fit equally well or poorly into competing explanatory theories; consideration of such data is of little use in choosing the superior theory even though it forms a necessary part of the complete explication of the theory. For example, the observation that most of the sedimentary rock strata were laid down in or by the action of water has been commonly cited as a major confirmation of the Genesis flood. However, the predominance of water-laid strata is not a corroboration of any one theory as such, but an obvious condition that any adequate theory must explain. It is a mere consequence of our existence on a planet [3] where water is the major agent of erosion and deposition.

I will examine three basic areas that are crucial to evaluating the plausibility of literal creationism after a century of scientific research. These areas are (1) the nature of the process responsible for the present and past distribution of life forms on the earth, (2) the nature of the process responsible for creating the earth’s present surface features—seas, sediments, mountains, etc., and (3) the length of time involved in the above two processes. These three areas have been the focal points of controversy between literal creationists and secular scientists. The general positions of their opposing models in these three areas are contrasted in the accompanying box.

Literal Creationist Model
I. Life. All living and fossil life forms can be grouped into natural categories that correspond with the created kinds described in Genesis 1. Variable in time and space, adaptation or even the development of genetic incompatibility may occur within these groups. However, the groups maintain their distinctiveness from one another in time and space, due probably to inherent biological, biochemical and physiological factors.
II. Geological record. The historical clues left in the earth provide evidence of a major cataclysm in the earth’s past that completely changed the earth’s surface—the causal agents being an overwhelming flood, violent volcanism, rapid crustal deformation, etc.
III. Time. The available historical clues should indicate that the appearance and history of life and the deposition of the rock strata that enclose their fossil remains are relatively recent events, on the order of thousands of years.
Standard Secular Model
I. Life. All life forms, past and present, originated, at most, from a few relatively simple types through a process of gradual differentiation and development. The fossil record of life provides a history of this process showing how the various floral and faunal groups developed through successive gradual stages. Although certain intermediate types may not be presently living, they once existed and a significant number should be found as fossils at least in those groups of flora and fauna well represented by fossil forms.
II. Geological Record. The sedimentary strata reveal a series of floral and faunal communities that lived on the earth over a period of time. Each successive community was built on the sediment that buried the earlier community.
III. Time. The historical clues concerning duration of these events suggest that the history of life on earth and the creation of the earth’s present crustal features required a very long time period, on the order of millions/billions of years.

Now I shall briefly examine some critical evidence that bears directly on the divergences of these two models.

Scientists have shown that biological systems from the ecological to the molecular level depend on a delicate balance from complex structures, mechanisms and interrelationships. Evolutionary biologists have found it difficult, and in many cases impossible, to satisfactorily explain the evolutionary development of many of these complex and delicate systems.1

It is difficult, for example, to conceive of the development of new or functionally different organs or structural features by slow gradual stages due to selective advantage. [4] Several illustrations commonly cited include feathers, eyes, divergent biochemical systems and the evolution of metamorphosing developmental sequences.

Another problem concerns the common selective disadvantage of significantly large mutations. Most mutations that structurally or functionally modify an organism in ways potentially useful to the evolutionary hypothesis have widespread systematic effects that ultimately endanger an organism’s survival. This is in direct contrast to what the evolutionary hypothesis requires.

Still another problem concerns the limits to adaptive change. All well-documented evidence concerning the changes organisms undergo in response to both natural artificial selective pressures only shows the ability of a population to adapt to a changing environment. Selective breeding experiment have also demonstrated that limits exist beyond which adaptive change does not occur. 2 All well-documented or accepted examples of natural adaptive radiation of species—for instance, the occurrences on isolated islands (Galapagos finches, Hawaijan honeycreepers) -involve no more basic variation of the original parent stock than has been achieved through the efforts of human breeders on such domesticated animals as dogs.3

Thus, biology has been unable to demonstrate the probable mechanism or even plausibility of evolution between major groups (macroevolution).

Since, however, evolution is a historical process, its success as an explanation for the origin of life forms stands or falls on its confirmation or refutation from the actual historical record of life. If macroevolution has occurred, its general progression should be relatively easy to outline, for the preserved record of life (fossils), however fragmentary and limited, provides a wealth of information about many major floras and faunas. We find, however, that the task of tracing supposed macroevolutionary lineages has progressed not at all in the past 100 years. There seem to be no good clues to the evolutionary relationships of the major groups (phyla) of the animal and plant kingdoms. A similar situation generally exists for the major subdivisions of these phyla. No commonly accepted or even reasonably probable scheme of macroevolution has been worked out. New major types of flora or fauna frequently appear at some point in the stratigraphic succession with no apparent relationship to forms previously present.

In recognition of this situation, a number of modern paleotologists are discarding those evolutionary "family" trees that have been familiar pictorial devices of paleotological literature.4

Even Charles Darwin realized that his theory lacked support from the fossil record; he appealed to modern examples of microevolution.5 Since then, biological studies have done little to resolve the problem that the intractable fossil record has posed for evolutionists. If one ignores the philosophical and antitheistic factors that make the macroevolutionary theory attractive to some scientists, it is hard to explain the continued dominance among scientists of a theory that has provided so little concrete assistance in explaining the observed history of life.

On the other hand, the fossil record provides little support for literal creationism, except as negative evidence—the lack of expected support for the evolutionary model. Literal creationists have not readily grasped this situation. If the fossil record is largely a result of the Flood, then the buried remains represent a cross-section of life as it existed just prior to the Flood. The noncontinuity of fossil life forms has no positive significance for literal creationism since one does not expect a continuity of forms to exist on the earth at any one instant in time. [5]

During the formative years of the earth sciences in the 1800s, there was no reliable method of establishing the absolute age of a geological event. Geologists concentrated on determining the relative age or order of rock formation from simple physical relationships and by a procedure known as biostratigraphic correlation. An example of a physical relationship is the intuitive "Law of Super-position" which says that a sedimentary rock formation lying on top of another formation was deposited after the underlying formation unless there is contrary evidence.

Because physical relationships are of little or no use in correlating rocks from widely separated areas, biostratigraphic correlation became the predominant method of assigning relative ages or formation times to sedimentary rock strata. This technique uses "index or guide" fossils (limited to specific intervals of strata) to classify the sedimentary rocks into a relative time sequence.

There is a common misconception in creationist circles that biostratigraphic correlation derives its validity from the evolutionary theory. In fact, the technique originated in the early 1800s about 50 years before Darwin published his Origin of Species. William Smith, an English civil engineer, observed that the successive rock layers in the part of England known to him contained distinctly different fossil types.

Biostratigraphic correlation is conceptually and operationally similar to the archaeologists’ use of artifacts, particularly pottery, in assigning archaeological strata to various time periods. Index fossils are chosen on an empirical basis (does the system work and is it internally and externally consistent?).

Literal creationist apologists spearheaded in the 1900s by George McCready Price, attempted to discredit biostratigraphic correlation by emphasizing the circularity of the reasoning employed, the lack of an external standard of comparison and (incorrectly) the dependence on evolution for its validity. In emphasizing the definite limitations of the technique, they overlooked the system of checks and balances (internal and external) designed to make the system self-correcting with time. Most active Adventist creationists have come to recognize that there exists a definite worldwide order to the rock strata and that the observations originally made by William Smith are essentially correct (see discussion below on ecological zonation).

With the discovery of radioactive decay and its inherently stable rate under normal environmental conditions, physicists and geologists recognized the possibility, at least in theory, of measuring the absolute age of geological events and providing an independent standard against which the old relative correlation methods could be compared.

Several recent publications have reviewed radiometric dating methods from a creationist perspective and concluded that the methods yield apparently reliable and consistent ages when utilized properly.6 If we assume that decay rates are invariant, these ages range into the millions and billions of years. What events in the history of rocks and their mineral substance do these ages date? Can the ages be related to the deposition time of fossiliferous strata?

Fossils themselves are rarely dated and minerals from the enclosing sedimentary strata are rarely suitable for age determinations. Some way must be found to relate radio metric ages of minerals and rocks, quite often of a molten or high temperature origin (igneous and volcanic rocks) to the age of deposition of the fossiliferous strata.

Simple physical and structural relationships can be used to determine the relative formation time of radiometrically dated rocks and nearby fossiliferous strata. For example, see the "Law of Superposition" above. Geochronologists search for locations where fossiliferous rocks of interest are closely bracketed structurally by radiometrically datable rocks. This physical correlation of radio metric dates with fossiliferous strata has generally validated the relative depositional sequence previously worked out by biostratigraphic and physical correlation, thus lending credence to the usefulness of both techniques. Figure 1 shows the system of rock classification with the generally accepted radiometric ages in the right-hand column. In fact, where geological conditions are favorable and extensive dating has been [6] done, the time schale can be much more detailed than Figure 1.7

The most common and potentially serious creationist criticism leveled at radiometric dating concerns the supposed inability to determine how much radiogenic daughter element was present at a particular time in a rock’s history and, therefore, how much is due to parent element decay since that time.8 The latter quantity is needed to calculate a radiometric age. The authors of such criticisms are unaware of; or ignore the fact, that whenever possible, the age-dating techniques are designed to answer this question from experimental data, not guesswork. I would suggest that technically capable and interested readers who have been confused on this matter familiarize themselves with the actual methods used by geochronologists. Several recent books that make good starting points are listed at the end of this paper.9 The author recently discussed these criticisms before a large audience of Adventist scientists and showed that they could not be substantiated by a careful examination of available literature.10

Dating techniques are available in which any real or presumed problems of "excess daughter element" are greatly reduced or eliminated. Although limited by appropriate occurrences, dating of minerals formed directly in fossiliferous sediments during or after deposition has correlated remarkably well with the age scale developed by more conventional dating of igneous and volcanic rock formations. 11 The recently developed fission track dating method has no inherent excess daughter problem. In fact, the most serious problem would lead to ages too low rather than too high. However, the agreement between these new dates and the previously developed time scale is again very good.12 Hobblit and Larson (1975) 13 provide a not untypical example of the agreement achieved in combining physical and biostratigraphic correlation with a variety of radiometric dating methods performed by a number of different persons.

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Notes and References

1. For reviews by Adventists, see Harold Coffin, Creation—Accident or Design? (Washington, D.C.: Review & Herald, 1969); Richard M.Ritland, A Search for Meaning in Nature (Mountain View: Pacific Press, 1970); Frank L. Marsh, Evolution, Creation and Science (Washington, D.C.: Review & Herald, 1941).

2. Surprisingly, few controlled studies concerning the ultimate variability of organisms are available, whether conducted from either an evolutionary or creationist viewpoint. Such experiments are difficult to "do right" and conclusions are only as valid or as general as the experimental work. One might cautiously cite K. Mather and H. J. Harrison, "The Manifold Effects of Selection," Heredity, 3(1949), 131-162. Another example is the result of long-term domestic breeding experiments, but here the suitability of the experiments to the questions asked is difficult to evaluate. Limits to variability has not been an aim per se of most of this work.

3. David Lack, Darwin’s Finches (New York: Harper, 1947); Dean Amadon, "The Hawaijan Honeycreepers (Aves, Drepaniidae)," Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural H istory, 95 (1950), 151-262.

4. For examples, see John L. Cisne, "Trilobites and [11] the Origin of Arthropods, Science, 186 (1974), 13-18; Bruce Runnegar and John Pojeta, Jr., "Molluscan Phylogeny: The Paleontological Viewpoint," Science, 186 (1974), 311-317.

5. Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (New York: Dutton, 1928), pp. 439-43.

6. Ross 0. Barnes, "Time and Earth’s History," SPECTRUM, 3 (Winter 1971), 29-47; R. H. Brown, "Geo and Cosmic Chronology Chronology," oral presentation at Andrews University Centennial Conference on Life, 1974; manuscript available from author.

7. For example, see William A. Berggren, et al., "Worldwide Correlation of Mesozoic M Anomalies and Its Implications: Discussion and Reply," Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, (1975), 267-269.

8. For example, see R. H. Brown, "Radiome and the Traditional Hebrew-Christian View of Time," Origins, 4 (1977), 68-75.

9. G. Brent Dalrymple and Marvin A. Lanphere, Potassium-Argon Dating (San Francisco, Freeman, 1969); Henry Faul, Ages of Rocks, Planets and Stars, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966); G. Faure, Principles of Isotope Geology (New York: Wiley, 1977); D. York and R. M. Farquar, The Earth’s Geochronology (New York: Pergamon Press, 1972).

10. Ross 0. Barnes, "An Evaluation of the Geological Basis of Radiometric Age Determinations," oral presentation at North American Division of Higher Education Convention, Andrews University, August 1976.

11. Dalrymple and Lanphere, p. 174.

12. R. L. Fleischer, P. B. Price and R. M. Walker, Nuclear Tracks in Solids: Principles and Applications (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), p. 167.

13. R. Hoblitt and E. Larson, "Paleomagnetic and Geochronologic Data Bearing on the Structural Evolution of the Northeastern Margin of the Front Range, Colorado," Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, 86 (1975), 237-242.