Humans: Created in God's likeness

“Original, Unborrowed, Underived”

“God created man in his own image… …male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:27 “God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear Him and do what is right.” “All men are created equal.”
Composer: George A. Young, 1903

The genealogy of every human family runs directly to God, the Father. As sons and daughters of God, we have been created in His own image. As all races are members of the Family of God, every human is entitled to inherit God’s “Everlasting Kingdom” with all its privileges, including forever life. Heirs to the kingdom are identified as those who choose to obey God’s commandments while remaining faithful to Jesus.

Based on the results of a series of computer models, it seems likely that our most recent common ancestor may have lived between 2,000 and 5,000 years ago…The point beyond which everyone alive today shares the same set of ancestors is somewhat harder to predict, but it most likely falls between 5,000 and 15,000 years ago, with a significantly more recent date for the point at which we share nearly the same set.1

In the case of a single human couple, the “random assortment of maternal and paternal sets of chromosomes at meiosis…means that each human parent carries 8,388,608 gamete possibilities…A married couple has the possibility of producing over 70 trillion different children by this process alone (8,388,608 x 8,388,608).” 2

Individuality is guaranteed. A brother and a sister may share eye color and facial shapes thanks to dominant genes but display radical differences in personality and other physical traits.

In the course of those 5,000 to 15,000 years, no descendent of that common ancestor couple has shown evidence of genetic deviation leading to a species other than Homo sapiens. In the case of a 25-year time span per generation, there could be from 200 to 600 generations without a hint of evolutionary transition to some new and different life form, despite exposure to corrupted genetic mutations.

 

Just as God created man “in His own image,”
He empowered humans with the ability to create
children with the genetic resemblance of their parents.

Homo sapiens from diverse global locations reflect distinctive traits derived from isolated gene pools characteristic of their geographic environment. Different shades of skin, eye color or physical build related to dominant genes may surface in a population but never result in a new species or transit up the taxonomic ladder to a new family, order or class.

DNA analysis can detect not only proximity of relationships of individuals but also can trace genealogical origins and the percentage of genetic material in any specific human genome.

A synthetic organic chemist confirms the simplest living cell cannot self-create from non-living matter—even in a billion-year time span. Spontaneous generation had nothing to do with the origin of first life. Humans walk the Planet as a result of intelligent design. The Genesis narrative credits Almighty God as the source of that intelligence.

Beyond the Bible’s clear, declaratory statement, rational reality, based on implicit evidence overwhelms. While an electronic powered computer is not remotely as complex as a human brain, its existence shouts evidence it is the product of intelligent design. Just as a computer cannot function without electrical power, all life exists as a component of an irreducibly complex ecosystem, created simultaneously and mutually co-dependent.

Without that accidental starting point assumed for self-created first life, evolution theory lacks the least shred of evidence demonstrating any living species having adapted or mutated genetically in order to move up that taxonomic ladder from the simple to the complex.

Adaptive change is incontrovertible—but subject to limits inherent in a species’ gene pool. Hybrids within a genome demonstrate versatility, but have no relation to Darwinian evolution. Inherent in the genetic code of each genome is the capacity to adjust to ensure survival. But without adding new genetic information, intra-genomic change does nothing to produce radically different kinds of organic life.

Darwin, unaware that cells had a nucleus or that DNA existed, hoped fossil discoveries would confirm evolution theory. Those millions of missing links continue missing while DNA continues doing what it has been doing unobtrusively—dictating design for thousands of years.

Propagators of the chance hypothesis resort to extrapolating change from within a genome as proof that an organism can modify its identity and make a “biologic transit stop” in route to some radically different body plan.

No matter how many times a pair of standard dice is tossed, the resulting number of dots will never exceed twelve. Even if repeated daily during a billion years of deep-time, the odds of throwing a number higher than a twelve-dot combo remain zero.

The public has endured repetitious media pronouncements and waded through biology textbooks citing population swings of gray and white peppered moths as evidence evolution is real. Despite the hype, peppered moths still come in multi-hued gray and white, never a completely new and different organism. Color swing modifications do nothing to corroborate Darwin’s prediction that “not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity.” 3

Genetic card decks may be reshuffled and genes may be lost or damaged, but without addition of new genetic information, a genome will not “evolve” into a new and different life format. Scientists have the skill to edit the genome by gene splicing and genetic transfers with predictable results but no amount of tinkering create a new and different life format.

Hundreds of generations of ubiquitous fruit flies, subjected to laboratory-induced mutations, may add or subtract wings and legs but continue producing fruit flies, stuck with their fruit fly pedigree.

Galapagos finches remain finches, never evolving into eagles, bears or whales. Bacteria may shuffle existing genes but never evolve into a life form other than bacteria. Fruit flies, finches, bacteria and moths may exhibit variations resulting from reshuffling or accessing genes present in their DNA information gene pools but descendant generations remain fruit flies, finches, bacteria and moths—ad infinitum.

BLOOD VESSELS OF A HAND
Nine months after conception, a fully functioning, human heart pumps blood at 72 beats per minute, breathing life into all body extremities through this complex system.

Modifications have been observed in 44,000 E. coli generations in the course of a twenty-year Michigan State University lab experiment launched in 1988. Limited initially to a glucose-only diet, descendant E. coli managed to adjust and to pull a molecule of citrate through their membrane and “thrive on it as their sole source of carbon.” 4

The day after news of the E. coli lab experiment was posted in June, 2008, one skeptical blogger chided, “Yeah, but it’s still a bacteria. Let me know when a bacteria [bacterium] evolves into a dog or a cat.4

Another doubter signed-in the following day, writing: “Are you aware of any long-running experiments like this where the initial bacterium has accumulated sufficient mutations that in the end it would be classified as a different type (genus or something higher) of bacterium from what it started out?4

Good question. Correct answer: it has never been observed!

Scientists have the skill to edit the genome by genetic transfers with predictable results but no amount of tinkering can create an entirely new and different life format up the taxonomic ladder to genus, family, order or class—much less a self-created living cell from non-living matter.

EARLY HUMAN EMBRYO ON THE END OF A NEEDLE
Invisible to the human eye, this embryo, loaded with DNA design instructions will produce a living human in less than a year. Every human on Planet Earth started this way, without a clue as to race, sex, skin or eye color. Soon there will be a brain, heart, lungs—all parts that make a human.

An earlier (2002) news journal report described evolution as a “fundamental fact of biology,” citing laboratory induced E. coli modifications as evidence. The report referenced laboratory findings of variations in twelve populations of E. coli bacteria that reproduced “every 3.5 hours or so.” After thousands of generations, once genetically identical populations had each “adapted in its own way to the conditions in its test-tube home.” 5

E. coli populations remain E. coli because of built-in genetic information enabling heroic feats of adjustment assuring survival. The laboratory findings underscore the conclusion E. coli propagate nothing but E. coli offspring.

This E. coli experiment exposes an inconvenient truth: Every organism carries pre-loaded, genetic reserves enabling it to modify in order to survive. The genome’s modification ability is certifiable fact but doesn’t begin to equate or to verify Darwinian evolution.

Thousands of generations into the experiment, those pesky, E. coli faithfully perpetuate their unique, E. coli persona, ad infinitum. Mutations may upset or damage the genome, but lack of new genetic information bars radical, evolution-style change. Forty-four thousand generations of E. coli didn’t do evolution’s bidding in twenty years.

Stasis intrudes, trumping evolution every time.

Do the odds improve after twenty thousand years? Or twenty million years? How about four-and-one-half billion years? Is deep time the magic elixir that overwhelms science and renders the impossible, possible?

The fact is, 44,000 descendant generations continue reproducing thousands more generations of unmistakable E. coli. Survival of modified E. coli represents the opposite of hocus-pocus transition to some entirely different organism deserving categorization in the realm of genus, family, order or class.

The ability of bacteria to shuffle genes to build descendants immune to antibiotics contributes nothing to Darwin’s grand scheme. Bacteria can mutate and multiply to their heart’s content, but they remain stuck in their bacteria mode. The same goes for descendant populations of insect pests building resistance to pesticides—hundreds of generations down the line the population remains the same, basic, insect pest population.

The reality of this form of observable change is scientifically on the money and encompasses “bacterial antibiotic resistance, insect pesticide resistance, industrial melanism [peppered moth], sickle-cell anemia, and increased fitness in irradiated populations of Drosophila.” 6

Thousands of years of living history fail to reveal persuasive evidence demonstrating evolution in action. Genetic exuberance thrives, activating the adjustments essential to the survivability of the genome’s unique identity. Every prototype life carries a staggering stash of genetic information, in place from the start. A genome carries the capacity to reach into its genetic reserves and switch its genes on or off to survive.

With transitional links still missing from fossil clues, living history offers no chance for evolution to find vindication. No matter how it’s sliced and diced, several thousand years of recent history don’t demonstrate evolution in action, neither gradually nor by giant leaps.

The kaleidoscope of life pulsates in synchronized, harmonious rhythms. Each genomic life kind displays capacity to adjust its size, shape, color, or chemical tolerance, expressing diversity while enhancing survivability. Still, without addition of new and different genetic information, transitional links leading to new and different life forms remain nothing more than the elusive dream of a 19th century philosopher/naturalist.

Molecule-to-man? Never!

  1. Douglas L. T. Rohde, “On the Common Ancestors of All Living Humans,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology, November 11, 2003, 27.
  2. Lane P. Lester and Raymond G. Bohlin, The Natural Limits to Biological Change (Dallas: Probe Books, 1989) 54.
  3. Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, 647.
  4. See Carl Zimmer, “A New Step in Evolution,” internet Seed Design Series, posted Jun 2, 2008.
  5. Thomas Hayden, “A Theory Evolves,” U.S. News & World Report, July 29, 2002, 42-44.
  6. Lane P. Lester & Raymond G. Bohlin, The Natural Limits to Biological Change (Probe Books,
    1989) 73.

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