The Genesis Code (movie)
American Epic Entertainment, 2012
www.thegenesiscodemovie.com
138 minutes

The Genesis Code is yet another attempt to reconcile the creation narrative in Genesis with the latest scientific theories.  Most of these efforts are well-meaning in their intent, but ultimately it is the Bible that ends up being reinterpreted.

The supposed revolutionary discovery in this movie is that today’s scientific theories with their billions of years are in perfect agreement with the six days of Genesis, if only you understand that the six days are from God’s perspective and the billions of years are from man’s perspective.  A comment by the pastor in the movie suggests that it took this long for man to evolve to the point at which this could finally be understood – how ironic.

Overall the movie is well done, with romance, tragedy and suspense.  Unfortunately, the rather long sequence where the reconciliation of Genesis and science is explained is hard to follow unless you are already familiar with some modern scientific theories.  Basically, light is accepted as the ultimate measure of time, and it is explained how it can be affected by gravity, expansion of space, and velocity of the observer.  The “twins paradox” is used to show how the same event could be experienced by two observers in different lengths of time.

The “twins paradox” is the result of some aspects of the theory of relativity.  It says that a twin taking a trip near light speed would come back from the trip younger than the twin who had remained on earth, if we take the earth to be the frame of reference.  However, since everything is relative in the theory of relativity, if we take the traveling twin as the frame of reference, the twin on earth should be the younger one.  This exposes a serious problem for the theory, since one twin cannot be both younger and older after the same event.

The other major problem with reconciling modern theories with Genesis is the sequence of events.  In Genesis, the earth is present on day one and the sun, moon, and stars are not spoken into existence until day four.  In all modern scientific theories, the Big Bang occurs first, then the formation of the stars, and only afterwards are the planets formed.

Another out of sequence event is death.  The Bible states that death was a result of Original Sin, which affected the entire created order.  The millions/billions years of evolution involves death on a vast scale before man supposedly evolved.  There is no reasonable way to reconcile the sequence of events recorded in the Bible with any theory of evolution.

The truth of the Bible and the truth of science should not disagree, since they concern the one reality.  However, only the Bible has the guarantee of being true; natural science does not.  Furthermore, natural science can say nothing about the original creation since it was a supernatural event.  It can only apply to nature after the creation.

Many attempts have been made to reconcile Genesis with modern scientific theories.  Unfortunately, it is always Genesis that gets reinterpreted.  Natural scientists should accept that creation is an event which is beyond the natural order.  They should also understand that the Bible does not error when it speaks of thousands of years and not millions or billions.  When scientists finally accept the truth of the Bible where it concerns creation and time, then reason and faith will be reconciled.

Eric Bermingham
October, 2012

The Edge of Evolution – The Search for the Limits of Darwinism
Michael J. Behe
Free Press, 2007
321 pages

Michael Behe’s first book Darwin’s Black Box, published in 1996, saw the beginnings of the Intelligent Design movement.  After more than ten years of additional research, he decided to write a second book which solidifies the findings of his first – that the universe in general and living organisms in particular show unmistakable signs of design.  This book seeks to define the boundary between what can be achieved by undirected mutation and natural selection – Darwinian evolution – and what must necessarily have involved design by some intelligence.

Evolution has been allegorized by some as a sort of arms race where each side improves itself to counter the efforts of the other side.  What Behe shows is that the evolution which can actually be examined shows something more like trench warfare, with each side seeking the easiest possible method to stop the advance of the enemy; even if it means weakening itself.

The one case discussed throughout the book is malaria and the associated human reaction.  It provides an excellent example of evolution because malaria has been around for a very long time, it produces a huge number of organisms, and a number of drugs have been developed to counter its effect in humans.

Darwin admitted that his theory required that evolutionary changes in an organism must necessarily be small.  It is simply unreasonable to expect that an organism could spontaneously make a drastic, beneficial change in one step.  Behe shows that not only must the steps be small, they must have some advantage for the organism or the change will not be propagated.  Malarial drug resistance provides a good example of this.

Early anti-malaria drugs were effective for only a short time.  After several years, some form of malaria developed a resistance to them.  This form then became the dominant type.  Another drug, chloroquine, was effective for a longer period of time but malaria still manage to develop a resistance to it eventually.  Malaria has never been able to overcome sickle cell trait, however.  Persons with sickle cell trait are immune to malaria.  Unfortunately, they have other problems.

Behe describes the mechanism of malarial drug resistance in great detail.  One reason that it is such a good case study of the limits of evolution is that there have been so many malarial organisms produced – more than most other organisms combined!  One infected person may carry a trillion parasitic cells and about one billion people get infected every year.

It turns out that the early anti-malaria drugs were able to be defeated with just one small change to the malaria organism.  Resistance to the more effective drug chloroquine required two changes.  Apparently, resistance to sickle cell trait would require more than two simultaneous changes, and has never happened.  Assuming that changes in the cell happen similarly in all organisms, and calculating the odds based on the number of organisms, Behe estimates that no changes to the human genome of the complexity of chloroquine resistance in malaria have ever happened.  This puts severe limits on human evolution.

Taking it one step further, Behe estimates that no change which requires double the complexity of chloroquine resistance has ever happened at any time in any organism.  That is his upper limit on evolution.  Anything beyond that requires intelligent design.

This places the edge of evolution somewhere between classes and species of organisms.  Species are definitely explainable by evolution, classes are not.  Mammals, for example are a class.  A wolf is a species.  So evolution might get you a wolf from a dog-type creature, but it will not get you a mammal from an amphibian.

Behe begins to wax philosophical in the later chapters of his book.  He shows that not only does cellular construction display unmistakable marks of design, but many other natural features do also.  This includes the laws of nature, physical constants, the properties of elements, the location of earth in the solar system and in the galaxy, and the origin of life.  All of the natural sciences point to design in the universe.

Those accepting the biblical six-day creation will appreciate the fact the modern science supports the idea that living things were created according to their kinds.  However, Behe does not give them much other support.  He assumes longs ages, even though he shows that millions of years of evolution still do not change his conclusions.  He accepts common descent, even though another equally plausible idea is common design.  He accepts the Cambrian explosion, even though he would call it a finely tuned accident.  He even admits that proof of a designer is not necessarily proof of God (he apparently has not read Aquinas).

Overall, The Edge of Evolution is an excellent study of the limits of Darwinian evolution.  Behe’s description of the manifold examples of design in nature is also encouraging for believers.  This book could be a good starting point for a discussion of the limits of natural science.

Eric Bermingham
June, 2009

In the beginning was information
A Scientist Explains the Incredible Design in Nature
Dr. Werner Gitt
Master Books, 2005
264 pages

In the beginning was information was written by creationist scientist Dr. Werner Gitt to show that matter and energy alone are insufficient to explain nature; information is a critical component which implies an intellect or will on the part of the originator.  This refutes any naturalistic/materialistic origin of life or the universe.

Matter may carry information, but it cannot be the source.  We can see this by observing nature itself.  DNA is the most astounding carrier of information in nature.  Throughout the book Dr. Gitt formulates laws and theorems to support his ideas which are based mostly on observation of the natural world.

One necessary aspect of information is that is must be encodable so that can be used to pass the information from the sender to the recipient.  This requires intelligence and will on the part of the sender.  Since nature contains information, someone obviously put it there on purpose.  The complexity that we observe in nature is a witness to the awesome intelligence of God.

Dr. Gitt uses his theorems to analyze human language and concludes that it could not have had a natural origin.  He also analyzes different energy generation systems and shows that photosynthesis is an extremely efficient system that is still not completely understood by scientists.  Another interesting aspect of photosynthesis is that the mechanisms involved are very similar to respiration.  The two processes are finely tuned to each other and are in ecological equilibrium.  Plants and animals were designed for each other!

His analysis of DNA shows that it is optimized to be able to carry the maximum amount of information in the smallest package.  The processes operating in the human body in a 24-hour period involve more information than is contained in all the books in the entire world!

It has been argued that Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.  However, modern science has now made that impossible.  This book shows that nature contains an incredible amount of information that only could have been created by an intelligence far beyond our own.  Science has finally gotten around to discovering what St. Thomas Aquinas knew in the thirteenth century.

Eric Bermingham
February, 2012

Dire Dragons
First book in the Untold Secrets of Planet Earth series
Vance Nelson
Untold Secrets of Planet Earth Publishing Company, 2011
139 pages

Dire Dragons is the first book in a promised Untold Secrets of Planet Earth series of books which are intended to reveal information that you may not have been told otherwise.  The information is presented as supporting a literal interpretation of Genesis – creation in six days,  six thousand year ago.  The book is slick, glossy and short; which could make it attractive to people who would not generally read such a book.

The author, Vance Nelson, traveled all over the world to collect his evidence in person.  It includes depictions of animals which in our modern, secular culture would be described as “mythical.”  The carvings, figurines, tapestries, paintings, adornments and illustrations originate in ancient American, medieval European, and early African and Chinese cultures.

Most of these depictions are of animals that were called dragons in former times.  What the author found most interesting is that these works of art from bygones eras are strikingly similar to modern portrayals of dinosaurs, right down to the details of the skin.  Could it be that the dragons of former times are what we know as dinosaurs today?

It is only with the tools of modern paleontology and the finding of complete or nearly complete fossils that accurate representations of dinosaurs have been produced.  How is it that ancient cultures were able to depict animals which are so close to our modern dinosaur displays?  Up until the 1800’s only a few teeth and some scattered bones were all that had been found.

The only reasonable explanation is that the ancient depictions are from eye-witness sightings.  However, this contradicts what everyone has been taught; that dinosaurs died out millions of years before men existed.  Could it be that modern science is wrong?

The long-ages, evolutionary sequence of events is taught dogmatically in almost all schools.  Any contradictory evidence is viewed as anomalous.  Animals found alive today which were previously assumed to be long extinct are dismissed as “living fossils.”  But is the dogmatic acceptance of evolutionary theory preventing us from knowing the truth about dragons?

Steve Jobs (RIP) was quoted as saying, “Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.”  He may have been thinking about other dogmas when he said that, but it applies equally in this case.

Vance Nelson’s Dire Dragons is a captivating book which should have wide appeal, especially in our society which seems to have a fascination with dinosaurs and dragons.  I believe that is would be an excellent gift to get a person started questioning the dogmas of evolutionary science.

Eric Bermingham
October, 2011