A couple of centuries ago, the philosophy of uniformitarianism was gaining in popularity. According to this philosophy, the processes we see happening on earth today are presumed always to have occurred: “the present is the key to the past”.

From this philosophy, developed by Scottish amateur geologist, James Hutton, assumptions about the earth’s past are made – that is, assumptions based on a philosophy and not on scientific evidence.

For example, when a modern geologist sees a massive canyon with a tiny river running through it, he assumes that this tiny river carved out the canyon, and of course, that would have taken millions of years. This assumption is based on a particular philosophy which has become the predominant one and so the assumptions are taken as facts. They aren’t facts, they are assumptions, based on the philosophy that “the present is the key to the past”.

By believing in uniformitarianism, the scientist is presented with a big problem. He has to make the evidence fit the philosophy. So, a tiny river must have carved out the Grand Canyon; mountain ranges must have developed over millions of years by tiny, gradual movements of the earth’s crust.

Evolution Theory came along shortly afterwards. When scientists (natural philosophers) knew that evolution was a fact, they had to fit it into their philosophy of long ages and belief that “the present is the key to the past”

We all know that creatures evolve. A mutation in a bug can produce a resistance to insecticide. With billions of insects, one such mutation is possible; indeed can be expected. Natural selection means that most of the planet has life present, but this is due to fairly simple differences, for example, animals with longer fur survive in colder climates and wingless beetles survive on windy islands, where their now extinct winged predecessors were being blown out to sea. When a really big change occurs, such as a beetle loses its wings, it is still due to a very minor genetic change. The information that says “make wings” stopped working. All the information for wings is still in the beetle’s DNA, so that, if some time in the future these wingless beetles were seen to have sprouted wings, it is only because a mutation caused the gene to be switched on again. No amazing, very gradual, process has happened over millions of years to produce these complex wings. The information was there all along. Just like with the blind cavefish that can see again “after millions of years” when the gene pool is improved with blind cavefish from a separate population.

This is the vital information I wish to relay: that these scientists gave evolution abilities which it does not have. They had to in order to fit evolution into their philosophy. The mistakes were compounded. People were further separated from the truth. The layman became blinded by millions and billions of years and therefore believed that anything is possible given a vast amount of time.

It is, of course, theoretically possible, but so are lots of things, like drawing out all four aces from a thousand decks of cards consecutively. It’s never going to happen, though. The life we see around us is far too complex to have developed by random mutations and natural selection. The genetic information which builds complex structures has been there since the Creation. Mutations only enable creatures to evolve from their created state.

This is why we don’t see real evidence of transitional life forms. I discussed Archaeopteryx on Tom Harris’s blog earlier this month. Archaeopteryx is perhaps the best known alleged transitional fossil, even though it is a fully formed bird with wings, feathers and avian lungs.

The fossil record does not support the Theory of Evolution. It supports an ordered creation – one where relatively minor genetic changes enable animals and plants to adapt to various climates, terrains and diets.

To sum up:

Modern science is largely based on an assumption made by an amateur Scottish geologist. As natural philosophers started becoming known as “scientists” in the increasingly materialistic 19th Century, they had to incorporate evolution into their philosophy of long ages while simultaneously rejecting the Creator, or at the very least devaluing Him. This necessitated massively overestimating the capability of organisms to evolve. Tragically, this catalogue of errors is now considered to be the truth by most people: people who know little or nothing of where their beliefs come from, but will defend them anyway.