No question related to science and the Bible has generated more controversy
and even outright animosity between creationists and atheists than the question
of evolution and the related question of the origin of man. Atheists have staked
out the claim that evolution is on such a solid foundation that it is no longer
a theory, but rather a fact. They are absolutely opposed to any creation theory
being taught in public schools. On the opposite side sit the creationists who
insist adamantly that creation is a scientific theory which should be given at
least equal treatment in public schools along with evolution. Their goal, usually
unstated, is to remove evolution from the curriculum and replace it with the
young earth theory.[1] Out of fairness, it should be pointed out that not all
who would call themselves creationists have such a radical agenda, but this
opinion certainly represents the view of many.

?One example of this ongoing battle is the famous Scopes ?monkey? trial in Tennessee
in 1925 which for the first time indirectly allowed evolution to be taught in
schools in that state. As another example, the U.S. Supreme Court reached a
decision in 1968 in the case Epperson v. Arkansas which struck down an Arkansas
law forbidding the teaching of ?the theory or doctrine that mankind ascended
or descended from a lower order of animals.? In these cases as well as in the
well known ?Scopes II? trial in California, politicians, creationists, scientists
and religious leaders have fought for control of? the secondary school curriculum
related to the origin of man. Ronald Reagan, being the ever-astute politician
that he was, injected the debate between his religious right allies and the ?liberal?
evolutionists in the 1980 presidential campaign with his statement that evolution
?is a theory, a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged
in the world of science and is not yet believed in the scientific community to be
as infallible as it once was believed.? It is true that evolution is just a
theory, but hidden behind his statement is the attempt of creationists to argue
that the creationist theory of origins is on an equal or more solid footing than
evolution.

In the first part of this section, the theory of evolution will be defined.
Next, the evidence in support of this theory will be briefly discussed. Following
that, a possible alternative view for understanding the origin of species will
be presented along with a discussion of how all this relates to the contents of the
Bible.

The discussion of evolution has been left to a separate and later chapter of
the book for two reasons. First, although evolution and its relationship to
the Bible is a very interesting subject, it seems that the debate over evolution
is not central to the themes of this book?the existence of God and the inspiration
of the Bible. As to the existence of God, it has already been shown beyond a
reasonable doubt that both the universe and life were created. Whether God created
one life form at some distant point in the past and let it ?evolve? from there
according to the wisdom of his natural laws, or whether God created all the
life forms visible today only a few thousand years ago?either way, God created
life!

?The fact is that the theory of evolution explains, not how life came to be,
but rather how the original form or forms of life have changed over time. The
existence of life is a miracle, plain and simple. How much created life has
changed through evolution is to be discovered through studying fossil and genetic evidence.

?As to how evolution relates to the inspiration of the Bible, evolution is not
exactly one of its major themes. Outside of the first chapter in Genesis the
origin of species is not discussed. The relationship between Genesis one and
evolution will be dealt with presently, but in view of the overwhelming evidence
in support of the inspiration of the Bible, some of it presented in this book,
it seems unwise to base our belief or lack of belief in the Bible solely on
a debatable interpretation of one passage.

Second, although I am a trained scientist, my personal expertise is in physics
and chemistry, not biology (as mentioned before, my Ph.D. is? in chemical physics).
The origin of the universe is a question of physics primarily, while the origin
of life is a question of chemistry primarily. Evolution is a question primarily
of biology. Having never taken a course in genetics or evolutionary biology,
I would be considered a layperson in these areas. Although I have studied the
question of evolution carefully, the fact that I am not an expert should be considered
when reading the following.

Life was created by God. As stated above, the theory of evolution provides one
model to explain how the original life form or forms have changed since their
creation to produce the myriad of life forms that exist on the earth today.
In the words of Charles Darwin:

It is mere rubbish thinking at present of the origin of life. One might as well
think of the origin of matter.

?

The origin of the first life-forms, whether they be one-celled or very advanced?whether
there were many original forms or one, the evolutionist will have a difficult
time ultimately deciding, because evolution is not a theory of origins. Rather,
evolution is a theory of changes. Apparently at one point in his career, Darwin, the
originator of the theory of evolution seemed to be unsure himself about how
the original species came to be.

The theory of evolution, with all the implications required for the atheist
to be able to accept it might be simply stated as follows:

The original one-celled life form, through mutation and subsequent genetic variation,
under the influence of natural selection has produced all the life forms which
now exist or have ever existed on the earth.

?

This claim is either true or it is not. It will either hold up to scientific
criticism and the evidence or it will not. The claim will be investigated, along
with its relationship to the Bible.

?

EVIDENCE FOR EVOLUTION

?

First consider the evidence in support of the evolutionary theory. There are
two principal bodies of evidence which can be used in support of the theory
of evolution. They are:

?

1.? Genetics????????????????????????????

?

2.? The fossil record

?

This is an oversimplification, but sufficient for a starting point. Contrary
to popular belief, genetics supply the strongest evidence in support of evolution.
Those who would seek to ?disprove? evolution typically attack the evidence from
the fossil record rather than that from genetics. The goal here is not to attack
or even to disprove evolution. However, any attempt to do either should discuss
the genetic evidence in support of evolution.

The basic idea of genetics is that each generation of a species inherits its
traits from its parent or parents through the DNA molecules contained in its
chromosomes. When biologists analyze the DNA in mammals, for example, they find
that all mammals have similar DNA, providing strong support for the idea that the
different species of mammals are all genetically related, and therefore perhaps
all evolved from some original ?mammal.?

?The logical implication of evolution is that species which are closely related
by descent should have similar DNA. Th
is law, although perhaps not perfectly
adhered to, generally proves true. For example, The DNA in chimpanzees has about
a 99% similarity to that of humans. Logically (at least according to the logic
of evolution), crocodiles should have DNA less similar to that of humans than
chimpanzees to humans. On the other hand, ostriches should have more similarity
in their DNA to hummingbirds than to lobsters. When the DNA evidence is examined,
although there might be some interesting surprises, the general implications
of evolution for genetics prove true.

?To those who are emotionally tied in to the idea that Adam and Eve were created
(the author would count himself among them) this sort of information may incite
a reaction. Facts are facts however, and the fact is that studies of the DNA
in plants and animals, at least on the surface, is consistent with the theory of
organic evolution.

The second chief type of evidence called upon to support the evolutionary theory
is from the fossil record. It is interesting that although the science of genetics
was developed by Gregor Mendel in 1865, at about the same date as the original
edition of Darwin?s Origin of Species, his theory of genetics was not generally
given serious consideration until the early twentieth century. Therefore, Darwin
did not use the evidence from genetics to support his theory at all. He primarily
referred to the evidence from the fossil record as well as the apparent adaptation
of living species to their environment. To quote Darwin:

The great principle of evolution stands up clear and firm, when these groups
of facts are considered in connection with others, such as the mutual affinities
of the members of the same group, their geographical distribution in past and
present times, and their geological succession. It is incredible that all these
facts should speak falsely. He who is not content to look, like a savage, at
the phenomena of nature as disconnected, cannot any longer believe that man
is the work of a separate act of creation.[2] (emphasis added)

?

By ?geological succession,? Darwin means from fossil evidence. Darwin is claiming
here, and evolutionists have followed his lead, that when one looks at the fossil
evidence, one will find a gradual change from more ancient species to more modern
ones. This is illustrated by the familiar evolutionary family tree which will
show for example, mammals and birds evolving from reptiles, which in turn evolved
from amphibians, which evolved from fish and so forth back to the most ancient
single-cell ancestors.

Creationists have certainly cried foul at this point: but not just creationists.
Legitimate science has often and consistently called into question this claim,
asking for evidence of missing links and certain hard-to-imagine in-between
evolutionary forms. A statement of the famous orator William Jennings Bryan given
at the Scopes trial, although perhaps a bit overstated, would represent this
view:

Today there is not a scientist in all the world who can trace one single species
to any other, and yet they call us ignoramuses and bigots because we do not
throw away our Bible and accept it is proved that out of two or three million
species not a one is traceable to another. And they say that evolution is a fact
when they cannot prove that one species came from another, and if there is such
a thing, all species must have come, commencing as they say, commencing in that
one lonely cell down there in the bottom of the ocean that just evolved and
evolved until it got to be a man. And they cannot find a single species that
came from another, and yet they demand that we allow them to teach this stuff
to our children, that they may come home with their imaginary family tree and scoff
at their mother?s and father?s Bible.

?

The question of succession of species and the related question of missing links
is a difficult one, but the evolutionist would defend their position as follows.
Yes, it is true that the succession of separate species cannot be demonstrated
in the laboratory, and yes it is true that significant ?gaps? in the fossil record exist.
Nevertheless, with the passage of time and as the body of evidence increases,
new data consistently tends to fill in the gaps and to support the general claims
of evolution. If the theory of evolution were without any validity, then one
might assume that as evidence is collected it would tend to make the theory
less and less believable. The converse is true. With increasing data, the theory
of evolution has in general become more plausible, not less.

To conclude this brief exposition on the data in support of evolution (remember
that there are significant questions to be asked of the evolutionary theory
as well, some of which will be presented presently), the fact is that the chief
predictions of the evolutionary theory are more or less consistent with known
fact. As data continues to come in, rather than providing more reason to doubt
evolution, it tends to support it. Notice the word tends is used here, because
it will be shown that there is a significant body of evidence which calls into question
many of the assumptions of the evolutionary theory.

?

ANOTHER MODEL

?

Having given evolutionary theory a fair hearing, it would be appropriate to
consider another viewpoint. The theory of evolution has itself evolved to deal
with some difficult questions. The first of these is the question of the mode
of evolution. How do new species come about? How does a species with 46 chromosomes
evolve from a different species with 34 chromosomes? The concept of natural
selection assumes genetic variety in a population and ?natural selection? of
the traits most suited to the specific environment. The question is where does this
variety come from?

?Geneticists would mention genetic mutations as the source of variations in
the gene pool. Mutations do indeed occur, but the vast majority of them are
not at all beneficial. The probability of a single mutation being beneficial
has been estimated as low as one in a million. Since mutations are virtually
always harmful, the skeptic would claim that they cannot possibly help species
to ?evolve? to higher species. This is a good point. It is relatively easy to
imagine the world population of mosquitoes, presumably in the trillions, having
enough numbers to evolve through mutation around a particular environmental
difficulty. It is more difficult to imagine a particular species of whales,
numbering in only the thousands using mutation to survive an environmental change.

Evolutionists, of course, have come up with attempts to explain how this process
occurs. The fact is, however, that the means by which genetic diversity occurs
and its relationship to natural selection is still very much in doubt. Evolutionary
theory has proven to be very flexible. Historically it has been adapted in response
to whatever criticisms have been raised. Nevertheless, a convincing model to
explain the origin of genetic diversity is still lacking.

This brings out one significant point about the theory of evolution. It is by
its very nature impossible to prove or to disprove evolution. The theory uses
data from the distant past to explain events of the distant past. Despite the
confident claims of evolutionists that evolution is ?proved,? in the end it can
never be proven. For example, it is simply impossible to ?prove? that birds
evolved
from dinosaurs, as has been claimed more and more strongly lately. (By
the way, most ornithologists hotly contest the claim that birds evolved from dinosaurs,
despite what was shown in the movie Jurassic Park). The process, if it occurred,
certainly cannot be repeated in the laboratory, so the normal method scientists
use to verify a scientific theory is not available.

On the other hand, evolution can never be disproved scientifically either. Because
it is a theory primarily about the past, the proponents of evolution theory
need only adapt the theory to fit as well as possible the available data from
the past. It is worth remembering that a great number of evolutionists are committed
to the theory at least in part because they have assumed, before even beginning
the investigation, that every phenomenon in the natural world has a natural,
rather than a supernatural explanation.? Despite the confident claims of creationists
and others that evolution has been disproved, this goal will probably prove
elusive.

To summarize again the case for evolution, there exists data from genetics,
from the fossil record, from embryology, from population distributions and so
forth, all of which seem to support, at least in its broad outline the evolution
model. The question is whether there is any other model consistent with the
scientific evidence.

Before moving on to other models for the origin of species, consider the question
referred to above which evolutionists have struggled to answer. This question
arises when one looks at the fossil record. Evolutionary theory would predict
a slow and gradual change of species over many millions of years. That certainly is
what Darwin had in mind. Evolutionists have been unable to predict the rate
of change from their models. Instead, they seek to create a model consistent
with the data. This is the reverse of the normal process of science.

?When one looks at the actual fossil record, one finds information dramatically
in contradiction to what would seem to be the logical implications of the evolutionary
theory of a slow and fairly gradual change of species. In fact, the fossil record
shows evidence of extremely rapid change on a geological time scale. When the
fossil record is examined, species seem to make great leaps of change or even
to appear seemingly out of nowhere in virtually zero time geologically, followed
by long periods with very little change.

?Upon a careful examination, the fossil record does show some long periods of
relatively small and gradual change, consistent with the broad idea of the evolutionary
theory. However, at certain times in the past, events have occurred after which
as much as ninety percent of all species have disappeared, followed by dramatically
new species seeming to appear almost as if out of nowhere.

?The most famous of these dramatic die-offs and new species creations is called
the Cambrian catastrophe or the Cambrian explosion, depending on whether one
wants to refer to the species die-off or the new species creation. To quote
from an article entitled The Big Bang of Animal Evolution:[3]

Nevertheless, compared with the context of the 3.5 billion years of all biological
history and the roughly 570 million years since the start of the Cambrian, the
phyla do seem to have appeared suddenly and simultaneously. For that reason,
some paleontologists refer to the Cambrian ?explosion?…This evidence seems to confirm
that there was a spectacular evolutionary radiation in the early Cambrian….Cambrian
explosion was characterized by the sudden and roughly simultaneous appearance
of many diverse animal forms almost 600 million years ago (emphasis added).

?

There it is. Although slow and gradual change does seem to occur when the fossil
record is viewed (for example, the famous series of horse fossils appears to
illustrate this), the evidence shows that the most significant ?changes? in
life forms on the earth have occurred in a series of sudden and simultaneous
events. As noted in the article quoted above, all the animal phyla with hard
parts arose during this Cambrian explosion. In the subsequent 570 million years,
no new hard body part patterns have appeared. This Cambrian event is not unique,
although it is the most striking example. Another die-off and subsequent dramatic
and sudden species appearance occurred in the Permian period, 230 million years
ago. In this event, as much as 96 percent of all species disappeared and many
new species suddenly appeared. It should be noted that this is not an idea from
paleontologists on the fringe of the field. This is a thoroughly documented
finding of which all evolutionists are well aware.

Of course, evolutionists attempt to explain the data. To quote the above-mentioned
article:[4]

Evolutionary biologists are still trying to determine why no new body plans
have appeared during the past half a billion years….One idea worth entertaining
is that evolution occurs more slowly today than it did when the earth was young….I
have argued that at least part of the answer may depend on the evolution of
commitment to a developmental program….In response to natural selection pressures,
developmental programs may evolve to restrict the degree of change in successful
body plans. We can only speculate about what genetic mechanisms might permanently
set development…

?

This is an article by a main-line evolutionist. The proposal is astounding!
The rate of evolution is said to be variable. Evolution may have a ?commitment
to a developmental program.? The author should be given leeway in using familiar
terminology to describe an unfamiliar occurrence, but this is surprising language
for an evolutionist to use to say the least. If there is a development plan,
it would certainly seem reasonable to assume that there is a planner at the
head of development!? That planner, of course, is God.

It can be predicted that evolutionists will devise a model, however speculative,
to explain the facts. The question is, does the atheistic model of the origin
of the species serve as the best model to explain the data? In the final analysis
it does not.

Life was created. As stated before, the only question is whether God created
one original life form or many. The evidence above speaks strongly for the idea
that God has created many different life forms at different times. The evidence
points to various divergent species appearing ?suddenly and simultaneously?
at different points in the past. Here the hand of God can be seen. The picture
created by scientific evidence is consistent with the creation of different
species at different times, followed by a slow and gradual evolution of these
species from that point.

?Although this model is consistent with the fossil evidence, it could be predicted
that it will not find its way into biology textbooks any time soon. This is
partly because of the atheistic/naturalistic bias of the textbook writers. The
non-believer assumes that a miraculous event cannot happen, therefore they will
not give serious attention to this model, no matter how compellingly the evidence
supports it. To tell the truth, even a scientist who is open to this idea might
struggle to put it into their science text because a creation event is something
science does not know how to deal with. Even a scientist who believes in multiple
strands of creation followed by evolution might mention it in class, but not
include i
t in their textbooks, as that idea would not strictly be ?science.?

The evidence from the fossil record pointing to simultaneous massive destructions
and creations of species is not the only area that has caused even many committed
evolutionists to take a good hard look at their models.

?For example, the theory of evolution requires very gradual changes of species
over time. This is true because the only known natural means of creating genetic
diversity is through mutation. As mentioned before, it has been estimated that
somewhere around a million mutations are required before even one would occur which
might prove eventually beneficial. However, in order for one species to ?evolve?
into another, many thousands of such beneficial mutations would have to occur.
It was stated above that apes are approximately 99% similar in genetic material
to humans. What was not mentioned is that there are about one billion pieces
of genetic information contained in that material. Using that number, even a
change of one percent in genetic information would require ten million beneficial
or at least non-harmful mutations. How long would this take to happen?? How
many generations would be required, and how many simultaneous changes can happen
at once?? For the atheistic theory of evolution to be supported, these questions must
be answered.

As another example, consider the eye of the trilobite, a very primitive and
relatively simple species (by comparison to humans) which appeared right at
the Cambrian explosion. Some trilobites were blind, but some had an incredible
eye. Unlike the flexible lenses in the eyes of mammals the eye of the trilobite was
formed in its upper half of a very hard crystal of the mineral calcite. In this
part of the eye, a large number of separate mini-crystals were stacked together
in such a way that they produced a perfect focus at the back of the eye, where
apparently there were nerve receptors to receive the image. To make this even
more amazing, the lower part of the lens was composed of the hard organic material
called chitin, which also had a shape that could focus light at the same point
as the upper part. This amazing double lens had the property of eliminating
what physicists call spherical aberration.? Spherical aberration is a problem
which spherical lenses have in producing a focused image.? Even the human eye has
this problem, but not the wonderfully designed eye of the trilobite.? Its double
lens eliminates this problem.

The question to be asked is how many beneficial mutations had to occur for this
eye to form where there was no eye before? Surely it would involve thousands
of mutations. Remember, the genetic code had to be created which could produce
the calcite crystals in just the precisely correct shape, along with separate genetic
information which could make the chitin part of the lens. Not only that, but
unless the beneficial genetic mutations (hundreds or thousands of them) which
could produce the nerve cells to detect the light happened simultaneously, what
good would all these supposedly beneficial mutations be?

Remember that the trilobite appeared in the fossil record in virtually no time
on a geological scale with no obvious predecessor. It did not just have a new
eye, it had a very large number of other new features. Let the evolutionist
be completely honest with this question. How did this happen? Perhaps it is unfair
to ask for a complete explanation, but the idea of many thousands of coordinated
beneficial mutations (which would not even be beneficial unless they occurred
in parallel) begs an explanation of some sort. Again, according to the fossil
record, such changes must happen very rapidly. A noted evolutionist Gordan Rattray
Taylor said concerning this example:[5]

By what conceivable chance could the trilobite have accumulated the one material
in the universe?namely calcite?which had the required optical properties, and
then imposed on it the one type of curved surface which would achieve the required
result?…We are still reeling at the improbability of this.

?

Taylor was at one time the chief science adviser for the BBC. He was not a believer
in special creation at all, but rather an evolutionist. However, his studies
led him to believe that the Darwinian model simply cannot explain the evidence.
For the interested reader, Taylor lists many similar examples in his book.

It is interesting to note that Charles Darwin himself, in Origin of Species
said concerning the origin of the human eye:

?

To suppose that the origin of the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances
for adjusting the focus to different distances could have been formed by natural
selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.

?

He was quoted later in life as saying ?The eye gives me a cold shudder.? There
are an innumerable number of examples along these lines which can be mentioned.[6]
In fact, the lack of transitional forms in the fossil record between species
has prompted Stephen Jay Gould, one of the most respected evolutionists of our
day, to make the following statements.[7]

New fossils almost always appeared suddenly in the fossil record with no intermediate
links to ancestors in the older rocks of the same region (p. 12).

The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the
trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks
have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference,
however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils…We fancy ourselves as the
only true students of life?s history, yet to preserve our favored account of
evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see
the very process we profess to study? (p. 14).

?

Gould is definitely not a believer in creation, but he points out that the fossil
evidence is in dramatic contrast to the natural predictions of the evolutionary
model as it is normally used.

Another well-known scientist who has applied mathematics to study the theory
of evolution is Sir Fred Hoyle, a professed agnostic. Hoyle has attempted to
model the probability of beneficial mutations along with estimations of the
number of simultaneous beneficial mutations required for species to evolve from
one another. He concluded that:[8]

The general scientific world has been bambooozled into believing that evolution
has been proved. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

?

In the same book, he makes the bold statement regarding his study of mutations
and their relation to speciation, ?These conclusions dispose of Darwinism.?

?Another physicist, H. S. Lipson, performed similar calculations, which were
published in the Physics Bulletin.[9] He concluded that:

?We must go further than this and admit that the only acceptable alternative
is creation. I know that this is anathema to physicists, as indeed it is to
me, but we must not reject a theory that we do not like if the experimental
evidence supports it.

?

Lipson is not at all a creationist, but his willingness to make a statement
like this openly is admirable. He is simply stating that the level of improbability
for the evolution of species by today?s models forces him to at least admit
the possibility of special creation.

One could easily quote many examples of organs which exist in nature which,
when examined carefully,
require such a mind-boggling number of simultaneous
beneficial mutations that evolutionists find themselves grasping for terms such
as ?positive evolutionary principle? or ?evolutionary plan? to describe them.

Considering this, and considering that the fossil record in places such as the
Cambrian explosion shows massive and sudden appearance of new species, seemingly
out of nowhere, the open minded person is forced to consider a radically different
model from the current Darwinian or neo-Darwinian evolutionary theories.

?The author would conclude that the most reasonable explanation of the fossil
record is that the Creator has produced a number of different species at different
times in the past. After creating these species, it would appear that God has
allowed them to ?evolve? gradually into the forms which may be observed today.?
A majority of scientists will obviously resist this model because it invokes
a supernatural event, but it seems to be the only model that can explain the
data.

This rather bold claim brings up a question. If one accepts this model it is
reasonable to ask why the Creator would spend hundreds of millions of years
creating life as we now see it. Does this mean he is not really so powerful?
Why did God not get the whole process of creation over within a short period
of time? Is he just slow? It would seem difficult to give a conclusive answer
to this question. All that can be said is that the evidence points to this explanation.
The scientists quoted above stated that they could only speculate about the genetic
mechanisms which might create these sudden species appearances. Similarly, one
can only speculate about why God chose to create the world over such a long
period of time, using a mixture of divine and natural processes.

If one allows for the intervention of God in the formation of species to explain
the evidence for rapid changes and sudden appearances of species, then what
about the more gradual types of evolution which are observable from the fossil
record?? This kind of change, sometimes called microevolution, is observable
by scientists.? The best-documented cases are the apparent evolution of bacteria
and viruses in response to environmental stresses such as the use of antibiotics.?
If extremely rapid changes and sudden appearances of species (macroevolution)
has a divine explanation, then it seems perfectly reasonable to conjecture that
God has a hand in every step of the process of evolution.? Perhaps there is
some process by which the divine being influences even the most minute but favorable
genetic change.? Admittedly, this is speculation, but the question seems to
be not so much whether or not God has intervened in the origin of species, but
rather how much and how often he intercedes.? What is being described here is sometimes
called ?theistic evolution.?? Does a proper reading of the Bible allow for theistic
evolution?? Is this the most reasonable (though admittedly by the strict definition
not scientific) explanation of how species change?? Let the reader decide.

Two conclusions, then, remain. First, life was created. Second, the scientific
evidence points to various divergent species being created at different times.
Apparently these species were created according to a ?developmental program.?
It would appear that they were created according to a common genetic pattern
as well. The building blocks of all species are essentially similar. Although
different created species have different DNA molecules, they all have much in
common in their genetic code because they were created according to a pattern.
Two of God?s creations with more in common in their outward form would seem
to have more in common genetically. This is in fact what happens to be seen
in the natural world.

This model is not inconsistent with the thinking of early evolutionists. Many
hesitated to speculate about the origins of life. At one time Darwin considered
the idea of a number of original species from which evolution occurred. An early
evolutionist when considering this question said:

If we begin, as it were, at the other end and trace things backwards from the
present, instead of forwards from the remote past, it cannot be denied that
Darwin?s investigations have made it exceedingly probable that the vast variety
of plants and animals have sprung from a much smaller number of original forms.[10]

?

Here the author, an evolutionist, saw an unspecified number of original forms.
It was only when later evolutionists attempted to come up with a theory which
was avowedly naturalistic?one which did not necessitate invoking a divine creator?that
this idea of multiple original forms came to fall out of favor. Given the most recent
fossil evidence, it is time to recall the multiple original form idea to the
evolution debate.

The believer who prefers to interpret the first chapter of Genesis literally
would object. This person would point out that the creation account describes
six days of creation, not hundreds of millions of years. A case has already
been made for not necessarily interpreting Genesis chapter one in its most literal
sense. However, the point is not how to interpret Genesis chapter one; the point
is to ask what model is consistent with the evidence. The model described above
fits that criterion. As stated before, God certainly could have created the earth
with an appearance of age, and perhaps he did. If he did, science would not
have much to say about it. All that has been done here is to present a model
consistent with the available data.

?But this brings the story back to Genesis chapter one as promised. The Genesis
account of creation involves different species being created at different times
(?days?). ?So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and
moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every
winged bird according to its kind? (Genesis 1:21). Given the evidence already
shown in this book, it is not surprising that the account in Genesis is consistent
with the model proposed above, which in turn is consistent with the best scientif