Page 132 - Apologetics Student Textbook (3 Credits)

Study Section 18: Questions about the Bible and Science

18.1 Connect

In the middle 1800’s a man in America named Charles Darwin wrote down ideas about how
all life came into being WITHOUT GOD in his book, “Origin of Species.” Actually, many of his
ideas were his grandfather’s theories. It was his way of explaining the world without having
to admit that a Creator made it. By removing God from the equation, he also was able to
remove man’s accountability to God. He coined the term, “survival of the fittest.” From it,
we understand that it is a “dog eat dog” society, and self-centered mankind has to look out
for himself. His ideas had a tremendous effect on the thinking in the fields of biology, paleontology,
astronomy, chemistry, and philosophy.

We have learned that ideas have consequences. Darwin’s theories have lead the modern society down
the path of denying God of His creation. Let’s see how dangerous his ideas are….

18.2 Objectives

1. The student should be able to explain what evolutionists believe and refute these beliefs.

2. The student should use the creation to refute Darwin’s false ideas.

3. The student should be able to show the evolutionists that design demands a Designer.

18.3 Science has pretty much proved evolution to be true. Aren’t the Bible and Science in
conflict?

To determine if evolution is true, we first must understand what evolutionary science believes
about how the world came to be.

The word evolution (sometimes called Darwinism) has a variety of definitions, from simply
“change” to “the natural process by which all life derived from a single ancestor,” and is
referred to alternately as “hypothesis,” “theory,” “law,” and “fact.” Because of its imprecise
nature, the term is often used ambiguously to imply that the processes we can
observe in the present (e.g., natural selection) “prove” that the processes we
cannot observe in the past must have happened as well (e.g., the change of
dinosaurs into birds). In fact, the term evolution can also be used to denote the
philosophy of naturalism, which depends upon unobserved events in the past
(including in astronomy, chemistry, and geology).

In scientific terms, evolution generally means the change in genetic material
between generations, which is also referred to as “descent with modification.” These changes are
attributed to mutations, gene flow and drift, and natural selection, which are examples of observational
science and can be shown to occur. However, the other aspect of evolution is the belief that all animals
descended from one original ancestor. Evolutionists sometimes claim this “fact” is established in the
fossil record, homology (similar structures), and genetic evidence. However, any evidence involving

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