A Whale of a Tale: How Nothing Created Everything

We are all familiar with the Christian creation story. A 312-page book I read recently by Dr. Stephen T. Blume tells the secular creation story. He did such a good job that I summarized it in this newspaper column as follows:

“In the beginning, for some unknown reasons, a primeval "cosmic egg" somehow appeared out of nowhere and exploded. This event is called the “initial singularity” creating an expanding universe in what is called the Big Bang. After many millions of years, water and some molecules formed life in Earth which, due to toxins that caused mutations, evolved into bacteria. Bacteria, due to toxins that caused more mutations, evolved into bigger, more complex cells called eukaryotes. After more millions of years, and more mutations, some bacteria eventually evolved into the 900 thousand different kinds of known insects. In the ocean, due to toxins that caused even more mutations, after more millions of years, the eukaryotes evolved into fish.”

“Millions of years later, also due to toxins that caused more mutations, some fish grew legs, and after more millions of years, later evolved legs and lungs  and walked out of the water. After more millions of years, the fish that walked out of the water evolved into amphibians that, after more millions of years, toxins that caused millions of additional mutations that evolved some fish into theropod dinosaurs. After more millions of years, toxins that caused mutations caused some of these dinosaurs to evolve feathers and these dinosaurs evolved to leap out of trees. After more millions of years and more mutations, they learned how to fly and eventually evolved into the 10,000 bird species existing today.”

“Due to mutations, some other amphibians evolved into reptiles that evolved fur and, due to exposure to mutagenic toxins, became small four-legged, wolf-like animals called mammals. On land, due to mutations, some mammals, after millions of years, evolved into primates, and, after more mutations, some primates evolved into humans.

Some of the four-legged, wolf-like animals, due to exposure to toxins causing mutations, eventually got rid of their legs and fur. After more millions of years and millions of additional mutations, some of these mammals evolved to go back into the ocean to become the largest animals that ever existed on Earth called whales. According to evolution, life in the sea evolved into an estimated three to 100 million or more species. All of this took place over billions of years due to the accumulation of damage to their genes called mutations. However, only those mutations deemed “useful” in this blind, random process were selected by natural selection.”

This story is so astonishing and astounding that most non-evolutionists find it impossible to believe. The author of the story, Dr. Stephen T. Blume, says he has never communicated with even one evolutionist who questions the basic story that he presented above. It is accepted on blind faith despite the evidence against it.

In contrast, evolutionists aggressively defend their belief to the extent that they will go to court to ensure it is taught in the schools as fact and evidence against it is aggressively censored. Over 200 court cases have ruled that this story will be taught as fact in the public schools, and evidence against it will not be allowed, even if it was published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. If creation by an intelligent creator is ruled out, the only other possibility is evolutionism, which is creation by a non-intelligent creator.

Problems with this scenario

The basis of evolution is that mutations provide genetic variety selected by ‘natural selection’. The major problem is the vast majority of mutations are near-neutral or deleterious. The  cancer research I did when in medical school was on mutations because mutations cause cancer and over 5,000 other diseases, including all inherited diseases. Exposure to mutagens, such as gamma radiation, x-rays, cosmic rays, ultraviolet radiation, and all radioactive substances such as radon gas and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons produced from burning, cause mutations. Mistakes occur at a rate of about 1 per every 100,000 nucleotides. In humans, with our three billion nucleotide pairs in each diploid cell, that equals about 60,000 mistakes every time a cell divides!

Cells are designed with highly sophisticated means of fixing most, but not all, of these mistakes. Some of the mistakes are corrected immediately during replication through a process known as proofreading. Some are corrected after replication in a process called mismatch repair, resulting in fewer than one out of every 1,000 chemically induced lesions becoming permanent mutations. Realizing the problems with evolutionism, Darwin disciples are forced to add millions of years to their timeline. This is why their age-of-the-Earth estimates have progressively grown from thousands to billions of years over the last two centuries.