Creation Goes to College

How is it received on campus? Always courteously, sometimes enthusiastically. But when it is pitted against evolution, can it pass the examination?

“IF MONOPOLY is inordinately wrong in industry, I ask rather pointedly, isn’t monopoly inordinately wrong in education?” That is the question propounded by Professor John Moore of Michigan State University. He further states: “I feel that it is high time now that the taxpayers be assured that their young people hear a fair presentation of both sides of the issue.” The issue he refers to is, Did life come about by means of evolution or creation? Moore taught evolution to his science classes for years. Then a friend challenged him to prove it. He couldn’t. “I realized I was only teaching what I had been taught,” he said. “The reason so many people believe evolution is because so many people are taught evolution only.” For the past five years Dr. Moore has included creation along with evolution in his science classes.

Some of his colleagues on the faculty at Michigan State are not happy with this and raise questions about separation of Church and State. However, in considering creation, the main reference that need be made to the Bible is the first chapter of Genesis. It does not touch on sectarian creeds or forms of worship. It does not propagandize for any particular religion. Moreover, the Bible is quoted in literature classes, is referred to when certain religions play a role in history, and comparative-religion classes consider religious teachings and Biblical quotations. None of this is considered a violation of separation of Church and State. Hence, teaching creation should not be so considered.

Discussions of creation and evolution are science-oriented. This is shown by this quotation from January/​February 1978 issue of the campus newsletter Students for Origins Research:

“The format of the debate usually centers around a resolution such as ‘The theory of special creation is superior to the theory of evolution as an explanation for scientific evidence related to origins,’ with the scientists debating either affirmative or negative. Most debates have included discussion of thermodynamics, probability, the fossil record, radioactive and young age dating methods, mutations, natural selection, plant and animal breeding, homology and embryology.”

This same newsletter reported that last year 5,000 people attended such a debate at the University of Minnesota. Some 2,000 were at similar debates last year at Colorado State University and again at Texas University. Over 1,000 attended debates at each of the following: University of Maryland, Ohio State University, San Diego State College, University of California at Los Angeles and Santa Barbara and Chico State College. Other campuses doing this include University of Oregon, University of California at Berkeley, University of Kansas and Georgia State University.

Format Used by Jehovah’s Witnesses

Frequently Jehovah’s Witnesses visit high schools and colleges to discuss creation. When they do they do not use debates as the format. The very structure of debates makes it difficult for people to change their view without losing face. It is a contest to see which side can win. Emotions rise, strong words are used, dogmatism takes over and calm, logical reasoning cannot function. Often both sides leave as they came​—each side convinced that it is right.

Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that a different format is more beneficial and comes closer to this Biblical counsel: “The Lord’s servant must not be a man of strife: he must be kind to all, ready and able to teach: he must be tolerant and have the ability gently to correct those who oppose his message. For God may give them a different outlook, and they may come to know the truth.” (2 Tim. 2:24, 25, The New Testament in Modern English, J. B. Phillips) So Jehovah’s Witnesses usually present their views in a talk, then open the meeting to questions. Many times this discussion period lasts longer than the lecture.

“Wisdom is proved right by its results,” Jesus said. (Matt. 11:19, The New English Bible) The results Jehovah’s Witnesses have had with this method prove its worth. One lecture-question session was arranged by a student at Brooklyn College. He discussed with his geology professor, who was also head of the science department, some points about creation that he had learned from the Witnesses. The professor decided that his students should hear these points, and he invited the Witnesses to speak. Two came, one of them a biology teacher and author of a college biology textbook. Both spoke, then answered questions, and the 200 present seemed satisfied that evolution was only an unproved theory. Most of the questions were on the Bible. The student who arranged for the meeting is now a full-time minister of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Two girls, students at a Florida university, discussed evolution. One was a Witness and her talk about creation brought this reply from the other girl: “What you say about a better world sounds good, but I have to believe in the theory scientists and professors believe in. After all, they are knowledgeable in this field. I can’t believe that you people know more than they do. I have to go along with them.” Both then attended one of the lecture-question sessions by one of the Witnesses, and afterward the doubter exclaimed: “I never knew that the evolutionists only have an unproved theory that is riddled with so many unanswered questions!”

“Why Don’t They Teach These Things in Class?”

Again in Florida, a teacher and her husband, a professor, along with a student friend, attended one of these sessions. Afterward the student said: “This has been an eye-opener! Why don’t they teach these things in class?” A few months later the student and the teacher were baptized as Witnesses, and her husband, the professor, was studying the Bible regularly with the Witnesses.

At a Catholic university in Maryland, the head of the biology department read the book Did Man Get Here by Evolution or by Creation?, distributed by Jehovah’s Witnesses. He was so impressed that he requested that a Witness address his students on creation. Forty students attended, plus three professors and their wives and several nuns. At the conclusion of the question session, several students requested home Bible studies, as did two of the nuns; and the professor who first asked for the meeting wanted to know how he could order a supply of Did Man Get Here by Evolution or by Creation? From now on, he said, their biology course would include points on creation along with evolution.

A few years ago The American Biology Teacher, the journal of the National Association of Biology Teachers, ran an article by a creationist who debated the subject at colleges. In a later issue, January 1971, the “Letters to the Editor” section printed rebuttal letters from biologists. One by Harvard Professor Ernst Mayr opened with the well-worn pitch: “I do not know of a single well-informed person who questions the factuality of evolution.” In the second paragraph he asserted that every well-informed biologist shared the view that evolution “is considered by all those entitled to judgment to be a fact for which no further proof is needed.” But farther along he inconsistently said: “It is virtually never possible in science to prove anything.” However, the fact is that many truths in science have been proved by both observation and experiment. It would have been more appropriate for the professor to say: ‘It is virtually never possible in evolution to prove anything.’ Mayr’s closing words on evolution echoed his opening assertion, “. . . it is accepted by every well-informed biologist.”

Along with Mayr’s letter, this footnote appeared:

“Teachers who wish to become more familiar with creationists’ arguments should read Did Man Get Here by Evolution or Creation? [sic], published in 1967 by Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society and available locally from Jehovah’s Witnesses. This 192-page book includes an extensive bibliography.​—The Editor.”

Creation Passes Its Exams

Creation says that life originally came from Jehovah God. He created many different family kinds, and each of these brought forth offspring “according to its kind.” Life comes only from life. Within the family kind there is variation, but viable changes are limited to the family circle. (Genesis, chap. one) Evolution claims that life came into existence by chance, then by chance changed into new kinds, all the way from amoebas to men.

As far as we know, life comes only from life. As far as we know, organisms reproduce after their kind, no variations going beyond the family kind. These are facts observed and also confirmed by experiments. The spontaneous generation of life has not been observed; nor has it been accomplished by experiments. One kind has not been observed changing into another kind; nor can it be made to happen in experiments. Evolution cannot be verified by the scientific method. Not even by the intervention of human intelligence can life be created or changed into a different kind.

Many fossils within the family kinds have been found, but none showing the millions of changes that would have had to take place to turn one kind into another. Faith alone supports the evolutionist’s belief in spontaneous generation of life. Also required: faith in fossils that he has never found and faith in mutations that he has never seen.

Evolution is a philosophy, but it masquerades as a science. It puts faith in “chance” as creator of the millions of complicated, purposeful designs in living things. It calls to mind certain ones of ancient times who set aside Jehovah and became “those setting in order a table for the god of Good Luck and those filling up mixed wine for the god of Destiny.”​—Isa. 65:11.

There is a glaring inconsistency in the thinking of evolutionary scientists. It is in the area of design and order. For example, proposals have been made to beam radio signals to some of the nearer stars in the hope of communicating with a distant civilization assumed to inhabit a hypothetical planet there. If these signals show a pattern instead of being just a random mixture, it would indicate an intelligent source. Let Dr. Carl Sagan of Cornell University explain this:

“It is easy to create an interstellar radio message which can be recognized as emanating unambiguously from intelligent beings. A modulated signal (‘beep,’ ‘beep-beep,’ . . . ) comprising the numbers 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, for example, consists exclusively of the first 12 prime numbers​—that is, numbers that can be divided only by 1, or by themselves. A signal of this kind, based on a simple mathematical concept, could only have a biological origin. . . . But by far the most promising method is to send pictures.”​—Smithsonian magazine, May 1978, pp. 43, 44.

One suggested picture to send would show a man, woman, child, the solar system and several atoms​—all accomplished by sending a series of dots and dashes, each one called a “bit” of information, and requiring 1,271 bits in all. An even more complicated picture has already been sent to star cluster M13, in 1974.

Now, the point is this: if 1,271 bits of information in a certain sequence suggested order and design and “unambiguously” proved an intelligent source, what about the some ten thousand million bits of information encoded in the chromosomes of every living cell?

The DNA in a fertilized human egg cell contains, not just a thousand or so bits to convey a simple, crude black and white picture, but billions upon billions of bits of information that determine the growth of a three-dimensional, full color, flesh and blood, live human! And the egg cell does not have to wait for some scientist to figure out what all the genetic symbols represent and organize the information to draw up plans for the baby. No geneticist knows enough to have the foggiest notion of how to start. Yet, the tiny egg cell proceeds to do the whole job without any outside supervision!

Now, what do scientists think of this genetic code that repeats itself trillions of times in every one of the cells of the growing human creature? They say that it just happened. Then they say that a radio signal from outer space, containing a mere few hundred bits of information, would be sensational and would prove that it came from an intelligent source​—that it could never happen by chance! But they refuse to admit that the millionfold stronger proof from the inner space of the genetic code bespeaks a supremely intelligent Composer of the information. Now what do you think? That the comparatively few simple bits of information in a radio signal prove an intelligent source but that the awesome complexity of purposeful design in living organisms just happens? How foolish to think so!​—Ps. 14:1.

Creation fits the known facts of science. Genesis, chapter one, lists eleven events or conditions of Jehovah’s creative work. Science recognizes the events as stages in the development of the earth and of life on it, and also acknowledges the correctness of the order of the listing in Genesis. What are the chances of the Bible writer guessing this? One in 39,916,800! Does not this argue that man has already received communication from outer space? Has not Jehovah already communicated with men by inspiring certain ones to write the Bible?

When creation goes to college, it passes its examinations. Evolution can pass only if it is the teacher’s pet.

[Picture on page 8]

EVOLUTIONISTS SAY:

Radio signals of a few hundred “bits” of information that produce this design could come only from an intelligent source

They also say that the billions of “bits” of information in DNA that produce a man require no intelligence, just happen by chance