Below is the online edition of In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood,
by Dr. Walt Brown. Copyright © Center for Scientific Creation. All rights reserved.
Click here to order the hardbound 8th edition (2008) and other materials.
What Questions Could I Ask Evolutionists?
Here are categories of questions that you could ask. The page numbers below will show why evolutionists avoid these questions. If you find evolutionists who feel they or others can answer them, then ask one more question: “Why won’t evolutionists enter a strictly scientific debate on the creation-evolution issue?” For details on two debate offers, see pages 588-589.
1. Where has macroevolution ever been observed? [See page 7.] What is the mechanism for getting new complexity, such as new vital organs? [See pages 7–9.] If any of the thousands of vital organs evolved, how could the organism have lived before getting the vital organ? (Without a vital organ, the organism is dead—by definition.) If a reptile’s leg evolved into a bird’s wing, as evolutionists claim, wouldn’t the leg become a bad leg long before it became a good wing? How could metamorphosis evolve? [See page 18.]
2. Living things are incredibly complex, so how could chance or natural processes produce organs as complex as the eye, ear, or brain of even a tiny bird? [See "Complex Molecules and Organs" on page 9. Also see pages 15–27.]
3. Motors do not work until each radically different component is completely developed, in its precise place, and a compatible energy source is available. So how could a bacterial motor evolve? [See page 24.]
4. If macroevolution happened, where are the billions of transitional fossils that should be there? Billions! Not a handful of questionable transitions. Why don’t we see a smooth continuum among all living creatures, or in the fossil record, or both? [See page 12.]
5. Textbooks show an evolutionary tree, but where is its trunk and where are its branches? For example, what are the evolutionary ancestors of the insects? [See page 13.]
6. If it takes intelligence to make an arrowhead, why doesn’t it take vastly more intelligence to create a human? Do you really believe that hydrogen will turn into people if you wait long enough?
Figure 249: Unbelievable. This quotation by the late cosmologist Edward Robert Harrison and cartoon by Professor George Mulfinger sums up the belief of most evolutionists. They think that a big bang, 13.8-billion years ago, brought the universe into existence and initially produced hydrogen, the simplest chemical element; hydrogen then evolved into other chemical elements—and eventually people.
7. How could the first living cell begin? That is a greater miracle than for bacteria to evolve into man. How could that first cell reproduce? [See page 15.] Speaking of reproduction, how could sexual reproduction evolve? [See page 21.] Before life appeared, did the atmosphere have oxygen or did it not have oxygen? Whichever choice you make creates a terrible problem for evolution. Both must come into existence at about the same time—in other words, by creation. [See page 15.]
8. Can you describe any natural process that creates information? What evidence is there that information, such as that in DNA, could ever assemble itself? What about the 4,000 books’ worth of coded information that are in a tiny part of each of your 100 trillion cells? If astronomers received an intelligent signal from some distant galaxy, most people would conclude that it came from an intelligent source. Why then doesn’t the vast information sequence in the DNA molecule of just a bacterium also imply an intelligent source? [See pages 11 and 16.]
9. Which came first, DNA or the proteins needed by DNA, which can only be produced by DNA? [See page 17.]
10. How could immune systems evolve? [See page 22.]
11. Since 2,00 genes are indispensable for human life, how did each gene evolve before all 2,000 genes were in place and functioning? Obviously all were created simultaneously.[See page 16.]
12. If the solar system evolved, why do three planets spin backwards? Why do at least 30 moons revolve backwards? [See page 29.]
13. Can you name one reasonable hypothesis for the Moon’s origin—any hypothesis that is consistent with all the data? Why isn’t the public told the scientific reasons for rejecting all the evolutionary theories for the Moon’s origin? What about the almost 200 other moons in the solar system? [See page 31.]
14. Why is Saturn’s cold moon, Enceladus, still ejecting hot water into space if it is millions of years old? [See page Figure 190 on page 353.]
15. Where did matter, space, time, energy, or even the laws of physics come from? [See page 33.] What about water? [See page 30.]
16. The gravity of a black hole is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape it. How then did all matter in the universe escape the singularity of the big bang—an infinitesimal point? [See pages 447–461.]
17. How were the heavy elements from iron to uranium made? Physicists recognize that fusion in stars—even exploding stars—cannot produce these heavy elements. [See Endnote 33 on page 141.] How could stars evolve? [See pages 33–36.]
18. What are dark matter and dark energy? [See page 34.]
19. Why are dormant, but living, bacteria found inside rocks that you say are hundreds of millions of years old and in meteorites that you say are billions of years old? Clean-room techniques and great care were used to rule out contamination. [See page 39.] The DNA in those bacteria also rules out contamination. [See Endnote 104 on page 379.]
20. Do you know that most scientific dating techniques support a young earth, solar system, and universe? [See pages 37–43.] Are you aware of all the assumptions and contradictory evidence used by those who say the earth is billions of years old? [See pages 40–43, 462–467, and 387–441.]
21. Why do so many ancient cultures have flood legends? [See page 50.] How do you explain the seashells found atop every major mountain range on earth? [See page 50.]
22. Have you heard about the mitochondrial Eve and the genetic Adam? Scientists know that mitochondrial Eve was the common female ancestor of every living person, and she appears to have lived only about 6,000–7,000 years ago. [See pages 551–553.]
23. Careful researchers have found the following inside meteorites: living bacteria, salt crystals, limestone, water, sugars, terrestrial-like brines, and earthlike isotopic patterns. Doesn’t this suggest that earth was their source? [See page 357.]
24. What successful predictions have been made by the theory of evolution? [See “predictions of evolution” in the index. Haven’t they all failed?] Are you aware of the successful predictions made by the hydroplate theory? [See the 58 “predictions of the hydroplate theory” on page 475 and in the index.] The bolded entries have been recently confirmed. Pages 310 and 321 explain the predicted discoveries made by the Deep Impact and Stardust space missions to comets in 2005.]
25. Why are more than 400 large lakes in Antarctica not completely frozen? (One lake, Lake Vostok, is the sixth largest lake in the world and has the volume of Lake Michigan.) How could a lake even begin in Antarctica? Why would it stay unfrozen for so long? [See “Antarctic Lakes” on page 511.]
26. Why is a large lake, filled with liquid water one-mile under the surface of Mars? Where did the water come from, and why hasn’t it frozen? [See page 360.]
27. Can you explain the origin of the following 26 features of the earth and solar system? (Page numbers below refer to entire chapters devoted to that subject. Use the index of this book to locate other pages.)
- Mid-Oceanic Ridge
- Earth’s Major Components
- Magnetic Variations on the Ocean Floor
- Submarine Canyons
- Coal and Oil
- Methane Hydrates
- Ice Age
- Major Mountain Ranges
- Overthrusts
- Volcanoes and Lava
- Geothermal Heat
- Ore bodies (page 617)
- Metamorphic Rock
- Plateaus
- The Moho and Black Smokers
- Salt Domes
- Jigsaw Fit of the Continents
- Changing Axis Tilt
28. Tablemounts are flat-topped volcanic cones that lie 3,000–6,000 feet below sea level. How were their tops planed off? If sea level was lower by that amount, where did the water go? If the seafloor was higher by that amount, where did the rock below the floor go so the floor could subside? [See page 170.]
29. What produced the Ring of Fire around the Pacific, and why is that ocean so large? [See page 159.]
30. Why are whales fossilized high in the Andes, along side giant sloths? [See "A Whale of a Tale" on page 137.]
31. How can a continental size, crustal plate that is 30–60-miles thick dive into the mantle? What would initiate the dive? Why doesn’t friction or the blunt end of the plate prevent subduction? [See page 176.]
32. To form the Grand Canyon required the removal of almost 3,000 cubic miles of dirt. Where did all that dirt go? If the Colorado River carved the Grand Canyon as almost every book on the subject claims, the largest river delta in the world should be where the Colorado River enters the Gulf of California. Why is the actual delta so tiny? [See pages 217–250.]
33. The Americas have an approximate jigsaw fit with Europe and Africa. If these continents were once joined, what broke them apart, and how did they move to their present locations? [See pages 113–149.]
34. Where is earth’s radioactivity? What produces the parentless polonium halos? How can chondrules be explained? [See pages 387–441.]
35. Why do comets contain layers upon layers of well-rounded rocks typically 10 feet in diameter? [See Figure 181 on page 344.]
36. Explain the forces, energy, and mechanism that moves tectonic plates? Why do they generally move toward the western Pacific? Why do these plates sometimes move backward? Why do some earthquakes occur internal to tectonic plates? What produced most of the faults within the earth? How did the earth develop its inner and outer core? [See pages 620–623.] Why is earth’s magnetic field so large—2,000 times larger than the combined magnetic fields of planets Mercury, Venus, and Mars? Why do seismic waves pass through the inner core much faster when traveling parallel to the axis of the magnetic poles? How could earth’s magnetic field reverse? What causes geomagnetic jerks (GMJs)? Why does the earth rotate faster—or slower—with each GMJ? Why do GMJs occur about every 6 years? What produces the magma seen in volcanoes and flood basalts? [For the answers to all these questions, see pages 180181.]