Book Review: 'Battle for the Beginning'October 2002
One of the greatest ongoing frustrations for scientists and/or science teachers/professors is the seemingly endless supply of people wanting to challenge us with evidence supporting a "Biblical alternative" to theories concerning origins - matters such as the age of the universe and Darwin's theory of Evolution. Those of us who are Christians are placed in an especially thorny position when somebody wants to insist on equal time in science classes for such views. While I feel my colleagues generally do well getting to know the basic technical arguments, they are not as well equipped to understand the passion of these people. I have recently read a book that explains this part of the debate very well Battle For The Beginning, by John MacArthur. MacArthur's point of view is summarized on page 18 What I found most striking about this book is not the content but the tone. The writing has an air of desperation, of a minority frantically trying to turn the tide against enemies on the outside (e.g. Darwin) and within (theologians or scientists who profess Christianity, but deny that the earth is only a few thousand years old). In fact, any intellectually honest person reading this book would have to conclude that they must read some of the opposing literature before passing judgement. That is good general advice anyway, but in this case so much of the introduction to the subject matter is spent lamenting that many of the best educated Christians have turned away from a "young earth" interpretation... it begs the reader to examine why this is so. Unless one has already accepted MacArthur's views, that necessarily means reading the opposing views. My suggestion is that a person begins with the Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation (also see the topics section at the American Scientific Affiliation On-Line Resources on Faith / Science Issues). Here you will find writings by conservative Christians who are also scientists - generally writing about matters where their faith meets their area of expertise. If you are inclined to continue, an aboundance of possibilities exist for branching out from there. The important aspect here is the dilemma that MacArthur (and similar authors/preachers) place Christians in. We are told that "old earth" and "evolution" are incompatible with our faith to the point that they will destroy it. Hence the word "battle" in the title. Understand that a parent or student who confronts a teacher about the age of the universe is likely, in their mind, standing up for the integrity of the Bible and for the basis of everthing they hold dear. This is not about gaps in the fossil record, the accuracy of radiocarbon dating, the amount of dust on the moon, the amount of Helium in the atmosphere, etc. If person really cared about these technical issues they would not have stopped their reading on the subject with some young earth creationist writing. We must start by understanding that this is an issue of the heart and the tech stuff is a lifeline they have been thrown. There is much that MacArthur has to say that I agree with. I'm particularly glad we have writers who will challenge the hypocrisy of quoting the Bible where we agree with it and dismissing it lightly where we disagree with it. However, we are at odds on the main subject matter of this book. I'm not going to attempt to argue MacArthur's theology here - this is a Physics site after all. Besides, though I have thought through my opinions on this matter extensively I do not consider it fair to talk authoritatively on matters where I am not an authority. While MacArthur makes a similar claim - that his objective is to explain theology and leave the science to scientists (by which he means the Creation Research Institute) - he cannot resist the temptation to insert scientific arguments. For the balance of this review I will examine some claims which impact on subjects I can address: page 81We have an expresion in Canada - eh? This quote
illustrates a couple of aspects of the science in this book:
page 84Talking about zero point energy:Again I see 2 problems:
If I could explain everything about the operation of a Model T, does that mean nobody invented it? Conversely, if I knew nothing about the operation of the Model T, does that prove Henry Ford invented it? Perhaps Henry Ford existed, but he only invented those parts which I cannot explain. As silly as all this sounds, this is how many people argue when it comes to the state of scientific knowledge and the question of whether God exists. Another example of this fallacy can be found on page 112: page 143,144The above quote is in a discussion of a cow's
multistomach digestive
system. Reading the above quote one might think the Bible is a textbook
presenting some of the content of a Biology course. In fact, Leviticus 11 offers no description
of what it means by chewing the cud, but it lists the rabbit as one of the animals
which chews the cud. If indeed "this is what scripture speaks of when it designates the cow..." then
does a rabbit have the same digestive system? I expect scripture has no detailed technical blueprint
for what corresponds to chewing the cud. Statements like this amount to reading matter into the
Biblical text. Other examples can be found on:
Read through Genesis 3 and I Peter 3
- the idea that the serpent approached Eve when she was alone because she was an easier target to trick...
is simply not there. It is a detail he has inserted as if it was there. I Peter 3:7 follows
advice that a woman's beauty does not come from the outside, but from the quality of her spirit. MacArthur's
interpretation seems very unlikely in this context. I expect respecting your wife as the "weaker
vessel" is a warning against using your greater physical strength against your wife, not a warning that
she has a weaker character. The key section, however, is Genesis 3, and take a look at the
wording:
MacArthur spends much more time on Biology (chewing the cud, etc) than on Physics. The Biology sections do have a more obvious purpose than the discussion of light (above). By showing the complexity and interconnectedness of various biological systems MacArthur wants the reader to conclude that such could never occur by "random chance" - by which he means evolution. However, all that this line of argument presents is questions. How could a defense system evolve where a bug emits two reacting chemicals which must combine only at a point outside the bug's body, or else the bug would be killed by the fire generated? The question is perfectly valid and does give one some doubts about evolution. However, those doubts disappear when the question is answered - or if it is shown that one or more possible answers exist. Again, this book is really begging the reader to read the opposition. How could anybody consider an argument to be finished with a question? (note the irony of this question) Surely nobody is finished with this argument until they have consulted an evolution text which proposes an answer. page 181This is probably the argument I hear the most often, and it points to a fault in the way we often present the Second Law of Thermodynamics. There are two faults here, the meaning of entropy, and the misunderstanding that entropy always increases. Entropy is a very difficult physical quantity to understand. Entropy is a number, just like an object has a number value for weight, volume, temperature, total energy ... it has a number value for entropy. But what does the number mean? There is a sense in which it can be called disorder. This is not a definition of entropy - if anything it is a definition of a type of disorder. You cannot look at two things, decide which you think is more disordered, and from that know which has a higher entropy value. For example, does evolving the ability to walk erect violate the Second Law by decreasing entropy? At the very least a person making this claim needs to provide two numbers - the entropy of the primate walking on all fours, and the entropy of the primate walking erect. The fact that one is perceived as more ordered than the other means nothing with respect to the Second Law. The other misconception is that entropy decreasing violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The fact is that things around you increase and decrease in both entropy and structural order by obeying the Second Law. For example, when you make ice cubes you decrease the entropy of the water and you take randomly positioned H2O molecules and line them up in an ordered structure. Even without your freezer, nature is quite capable of increasing structural order and decreasing entropy by making ice or snow. This requires entropy to increase somewhere else, but that shows the dilemma for a young earth creationist. To object to evolution based on the entropy form of the Second Law they need to consider a "closed system". Think of this as a balloon large enough that no material or energy is gained or lost. A creature and one of its offspring is not even the same system, let alone a closed system. Define a system where nothing comes or goes, not material, not light, not heat... nothing. Then show that the total entropy of everything inside that system is decreased by the process of evolution. You cannot do this with the whole earth - even if you could add up all the entropy contributions, because the earth gains and loses material and energy. It especially gains energy from the sun and radiates energy into space as infrared light. page 59, 60Hugh Ross is a Christian astrophysicist and the author of many books concerning Physics and religion, including:
In the above quote he is stating what should be pretty obvious - if two things are true, they cannot contradict. So there is little meaning in declaring one truth to be superior to another. Why does MacArthur dislike this? Consider page 61 MacArthur feels that a scientist who re-examines their assumptions about Genesis 1-3 is getting it backwards. Scripture is perfect, science isn't. Any perception of contradiction indicates the science is wrong. So, no amount of scientific work can show Genesis 1-3 is wrong, rather Genesis 1-3 can show any amount of scientific work which contradicts it to be wrong. This may give the impression that MacArthur cannot be reached by any amount of reasoning, but remember the cow and the rabbit. Reading Leviticus 11 in the same fashion as MacArthur reads Genesis 1-3, one might expect to decide cows and rabbits have the same digestive system no matter what anybody who slices open both might say. But, I highly doubt he would come to that conclusion - rather he would point out that two truths cannot contradict each other, that the problem is in the interpretation of Leviticus 11 as a reference to specific biology processes. As he says above, Scripture must be interpreted correctly and this is the wrong interpretation. Contradicting elementary facts proves it is the wrong interpretation. He would be agreeing with Hugh Ross. The difference is that there isn't as much at stake in the digestive processes of a rabbit as there is in the origin of the human race. Where you have enough confidence in two contradictory "truths", you will re-examine the assumptions behind both. When/if you resolve the dilemma you may have shown one to be false or misunderstood, but both may still be true as well. For example, consider two well known facts: hot air rises (cold air sinks), and the higher up you go the colder the air is. Shouldn't the place hot air goes be warmer than the place it left which now has the cold air? From my perspective this is a classic dilemma of contradictory truths. My answer: "take a thermodynamics course". I'm not going to attempt a reasonable resolution in a few sentences here. Let the following claim suffice: both observations are true and the dilemma is valid, however, not everything has yet been included. When everything is included, the contradiction disappears. I don't think it is impossible for science to cause the John MacArthurs of this world to re-examine how they interpret some passages of scripture, however, it will obviously take longer on some subjects than on others. Return to DC Physics
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