Answers in Genesis

Carl Kerby

Wow! We had a great series of very informative presentations at church today. Carl Kerby from Answers in Genesis came and gave three talks. As a scientist (I have a BS in Biology with a Chemistry minor) and a former educator (I also have a BS in secondary education), I really appreciate it when believing scientists effectively show how the Bible and the evidence found in the world around us are NOT at odds with one another.

Much of what Carl covered, I had already studied, years ago. As a young believer entering college I wanted to know what I believed regarding evolution, and how to defend it--more to my own mind than to others; I was basically trying to innoculate myself from being brainwashed by the secular scientists I knew I would encounter. (There are also some wonderful Christian professors at secular colleges, I was pleased to discover.) As a result of this self-study, I was more acutely aware of the things in Biology that didn't fit the evolution model. Sometimes the professor would even point out these problematic areas. I remember the day my Biology prof admitted that we don't know (YET--he would emphasize) how proteins evolved.

See, the protein that reads the DNA is itself coded for by the DNA. So, the protein could not be there first since its code is contained in the DNA that it decodes. What? Never heard that? Yeah, they don't exactly teach you that in High School Biology, but evolution is still proposed as an all-but-completely-proven theory.

Basically, proteins would have to decode themselves before they could exist. So, without the protein there first, DNA would never be read and the protein would never be made. Likewise, the DNA couldn't have been there first since DNA is made and maintained by the proteins of the cell. Some theories about abiogenesis suggest that RNA probably evolved first and then DNA. But this does not solve the problem. RNA still has to be decoded by very specific proteins that are themselves coded for by the information contained in the RNA.

To sum all this up, both DNA and/or RNA and the fully formed decoding protein system would have to be present at the same time in order for the system as a whole to work. It's kind of a 'Chicken or Egg' question.

Here's a link to the article I cannibalized for the above explanation:

http://www.detectingdesign.com/abiogenesis.html

Anywho, I got a good refresher today. Carl didn't touch on the above example (probably didn't want to see eyes glazing over), but he did bring a lot of old ideas back to my mind. Ideas that were probably fresh to some of the others in attendance. He and I also had a brief conversation afterwards, when I mentioned the discovery of dinosaur soft tissue not long ago. (He said he did use that example in another of his talks.)

But for me the best thing about each of his presentations was that, time and again, he emphasized that we need to be grounded in God's word and realize that it is fact, not a bunch of fables. That it is supported by the evidence, not refuted. It all mainly has to do with the worldview you carry to the evidence when you begin to interpret it.

Go to their website; there is a ton of free material there. Get educated. And don't think it doesn't matter whether God simply created in six literal days or whether he set the wheels in motion and let evolution take over. It does matter. Either the Bible is true, or not. If we can't trust it to give us an accurate account in the first few pages, we will eventually reject it, compomise it, or exchange it for a doctrine that allows us to tell God what He really meant.

http://http//www.answersingenesis.org/