Human origins, competing explanations and the rule of logic
Where did we come from? It’s the most fascinating question. The correct answer will define human beings. Moreover, the implications are significant and that is why conversations on human origins often get highly emotional. I believe the answer is available. Logic is a tool that can inform the conversation and contribute towards discovering the truth.
In logic, the rule of non-contradiction is indisputable. When a dilemma is faced with two competing explanations that contradict one another then both cannot be correct, because they are contradicting one another. They could both be false, however.
Consider the view that human beings evolved from non-human ancestors by strictly naturalistic processes, or that God aided these evolutionary processes. This is contradicted by the view that human beings were divinely created by God, without any evolutionary process that produced human beings from non-human ancestors. So by the law of non-contradiction, logic teaches us that either there is such an evolutionary component to human origins or there is not.
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In Genesis, it says: “The LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature” (2:7). Naturalists read this strictly as myth. Some theologians accommodate an evolutionary interpretation while other theological perspectives do not. These views cannot all be correct. They may be false, but I don’t think so. Let me explain why.
Evolutionary theory, whether naturalistic or theistic, is predicated on gradualism. That is to say, non-human species evolved gradually by slight modifications into what we are today. The whole process was the work of Natural Selection, chance, and random mutations over millions of years, or some believe that at times God intervened. If this gradual process is correct, with or without God, we should observe a creative mechanism that demonstrates how apes transformed into male and female humans. Artistic expressions, drawings, and sketches are not evidence that supports evolutionary theory, because science does not rely upon artistic displays that imagine what happened.
If those drawings of an animal crawling and then walking and changing into Homo erectus (upright man) and finally Homo sapiens (modern man and woman) were true, then it necessitates that each species found the required reproductive mate. It’s also important to understand that Homo erectus and Homo sapiens are names applied by theorists as they developed the ideas of Darwinism, and not actual species of male and female. Such named species are theorized while assuming an appropriate female counterpart at every stage.
Male and female apes cannot mate with intermediate male and female apes/humans and fertilize an offspring, because each couple requires specific reproductive systems. Science reveals that it’s impossible for an ape and a human, or a partial ape and a partial human, to mate and fertilize an egg.
When the human female egg is fertilized by the human male sperm the zygote immediately contains specific, complex, and detailed genetic information. The color of hair and eyes, physical features, and the sex, are all determined by information that is immutable. The process can be manipulated by medical procedures but that requires forethought that is intentionally specific, and not a random occurrence.
Apes also mate and produce according to their own genetic information, with distinct hairy and physical features unlike human beings. If we were to rewind the film of the history of the world, what would be the replay of the scientific mechanism that transformed apes into humans by a mating process? On solely scientific bases, the film would reveal male apes reproducing with female apes, and human males reproducing with human females. Anything more requires imagination, art, and homological sketching.
The view of an evolutionary component doesn’t seem to distinguish what it wants to believe from what is actual. A few observations of micro change in the human species are noted and pretentiously extrapolated to accommodate a non-negotiable idea of humans descending from apes. This idea persists even though science has revealed that male and female apes are not programmed, nor ever have been, to be sexually active with male and female humans.
Now if God created humanity without a gradual evolutionary component that modified apes into humans, then accordingly we would expect modern science to make specific observations and confirmations. Particularly, we should observe species that can only reproduce within their own kind. Human male and female reproductive systems are complex, and without their distinct specificity a sperm could not fertilize an egg. Science also reveals that human male and female hormones are sexually attractive to one another, and not towards animals. Even so, apes are not wired with a sexual drive towards human beings.
Thus science observes and confirms that the DNA of animals and humans is programmed to reproduce within its own kind. Thus a gradual process could not have bucked the science by making slight modifications for apes or intermediate apes/humans to evolve with unique reproductive systems at each stage and eventually produce human beings. Likewise, the belief that God intervened in the process to provide necessary requirements is scientifically untenable. Sure, similarities in DNA between animals and humans are identified, but there is no scientific mechanism that substantiates an extrapolation that intermediate apes/humans mated and eventually produced human beings.
Again, science does not support a belief that in rewinding human history we would observe how Natural Selection marvelously assembled human reproduction from non-human reproduction, or that it was guided by God. So why do so many continue to believe it? A while back, a well-known American scientist lectured on evolutionary theory here at the University of Toronto. Afterwards, I asked him privately whether he believed that evolutionary theory is science or more of a cultural narrative? He replied quietly, “it’s more of a cultural thing.” “In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie” (Gal. 1:20).
Two foregoing explanations have competed within the law of non-contradiction. Observations and rationality reveal that the explanation that an evolutionary component modified apes into human beings is scientifically untenable. Thus it’s logical to conclude, that of the two explanations, an intelligent entity programmed humankind to produce on their own without descent from apes. I believe that entity is God.
This conclusion remains open to competing explanations. If a hypothesis is to challenge that “God created man,” logic and science will require an explanation other than an evolutionary gradualism that transforms male and female apes into male and female humans.
Marlon De Blasio is a cultural apologist, Christian writer and author of Discerning Culture. He lives in Toronto with his family. Follow him at MarlonDeBlasio@Twitter
