Every student remembers learning about the ironclad fact of evolution in science classes throughout middle, and even high school. We’ve had these theories ingrained in our minds with the conception that science has proven the way of life. It’s materialistic and testable, and has been widespread since the 1860s, so why should evolution be questioned? Lee Strobel is the legal editor of the Chicago tribune and the bestselling author of The Case for a Creator. Once, a skeptical atheist, Strobel began his own spiritual investigation in 1974, when he was told to report on the John Scopes trial which inspired an interview with molecular biologist, Jonathan Wells, who stripped away everything Strobel thought he knew about evolution, focusing on a few images that Strobel had recalled the most. In The Case for a Creator, Lee Strobel explores the faults of the theory of evolution through his studies of the Stanley Miller experiment, Darwin’s Tree of Life, and finally Haeckel’s drawings of embryos.
Firstly, Strobel criticizes the “tubes, flasks, and electrodes of the Stanley Miller experiment” (20). This was a groundbreaking step towards the evolutionary theory when in 1953, Stanley Miller, a graduate student, reproduced the atmosphere of the early earth in his lab and then shot electric sparks through it. Miller managed to produce a gel containing amino acids, a building block of living organisms. This was pivotal—there was no need for a God if life could emerge out of this “primordial soup” and develop over millions of years. Sixty-five years later, and this experiment is still studied in many biology textbooks, although the significance of the experiment hinges on whether or not this environment was accurate. Stanley may have used a concoction consistent with what many scientists thought back then, but as it turns out, there is no longer evidence of a primitive methane-ammonia atmosphere. Still, scientists argue that if you create an accurate atmosphere, you still get organic molecules—organic molecules like formaldehyde and cyanide, toxic chemicals that fry proteins. To suggest that a realistic atmosphere is the first step in the origin of life is laughable. Now, if a scientist were able to produce amino acids from the atmosphere of the primitive earth, this is just the first step in an incredibly complex process of creating a living cell. “You would have to get the right number of the right kinds of amino acids to link up to create a protein molecule. [. . .] Then you’d need dozens of protein molecules, again in the right sequence to create a living cell. The odds against this are astonishing” (40). So, although this experiment has been proven to have virtually no scientific significance, why is it still featured in current textbooks? A young person reading a textbook wouldn’t question the nuances of Miller’s experiment or try to resolve the problem of how nonliving chemicals become living cells. Today’s attitude is that life must have developed this way because there’s no other materialistic explanation. And those who believe that there must be more to the creation story “can’t help but invoke the only word that seems to realistically account for it all: miracle” (44).
Next, Strobel shifts his focus to another image of evolution, Darwin’s “Tree of Life”. As one of the most recognizable icons of the theory of evolution, this was a sketch from Darwin’s The Origin of Species in which he depicted the development of life as a tree, starting with a common ancestor at the bottom and then branching off into more diverse, complex organisms. “Darwinism teaches that all life forms are ‘related through descent from some unknown prototype that lived in the remote past’” (21). This is what made it so compelling as it seemed to explain everything in natural history. However, although the Tree of Life is a good representation of Darwin’s theory, it is not supported by the physical evidence scientists have found in fossils. Even Darwin knew that the evidence did not support his theory and acknowledges that phyla appear suddenly on the fossil record, even if that’s not what he had predicted. Instead of a long history of gradual changes, the fossil record shows the opposite with the rapid appearance of phylum-level differences in what is called the Cambrian explosion. The Cambrian explosion, or the “Biological Big Bang,” is a period that began about five hundred and forty million years ago, in which appeared most of the major animal groupings that are still alive today. Not only does this sound awfully similar to Genesis of the Bible, but, the Cambrian explosion completely uprooted Darwin’s tree. Still, evolutionists today are using molecular evidence in an attempt to show there was a common ancestor before the Cambrian, but there have been no consistencies. In the end, “nobody can claim that Darwin’s tree is an accurate description of what the fossil record has produced, yet when [students] first [encounter] the drawing, . . . [they] walk away with the conclusion that it illustrated the success of his revolutionary ideas (49).” Textbooks still call this a fact, while scientists have argued that it is no more than a shaky hypothesis.
Lastly, Strobel explores Ernst Haeckel’s drawings of embryos. Found in virtually every evolution book, this German biologist’s sketches of embryos again depicted evidence that all life forms must have the same predecessor. He placed side by side drawings of eight embryonic animals at three stages of development. This showed that all vertebrates are strikingly similar in their first stages of life, yet later become drastically different. The embryos were virtually indistinguishable, thus this must prove our common descendance, right? Well, there were three problems with these drawings, the first being that the similarities in the early embryonic stages were faked. This is obvious once actual photographs are compared to what Haeckel had drawn. “Apparently in some cases Haeckel actually used the same woodcut to print embryos from different classes because he was so confident of his theory that he figured he didn’t have to draw them separately. In other cases he doctored the drawings to make them look more similar than they really are” (50). Even more, these cases were exposed in the late 1860s by Haeckel's colleagues, and yet they are still being used in upper-level biology textbooks. Evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould went as far to admit that this was “‘the academic equivalent of murder’” (51). Haeckel’s next problem is that he cherry-picked his samples. Firstly, he used four placental mammals and excluded two other kinds, and secondly, the other four classes he showed happened to be more similar than the ones he left out. So, he initially set up the representatives to fit his philosophy, and then went even further by faking the similarities. The last, and biggest issue is that what Haeckel had claimed to be the early stage of development is actually the midpoint of development. This is significant due to the “developmental hourglass” of embryology. This refers to “‘the shape of an hourglass, with its width representing the measure of difference. [. . .] Vertebrate embryos start out looking very different in the early cell division stages [. . . so] there’s no possible way you could mix them up.’” (52). As always, once the evidence does not fit, theory-savers and Darwinists claim that the theory is still true—so then where is the evidence?
Moreover, The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel uses the Stanley Miller experiment, Darwin’s Tree of Life, and Haeckel’s drawings of embryos in order to contradict the renowned theory of evolution. As a former atheist, Strobel claims that although his “road to atheism was paved by science. . . ironically, so was [his] later journey to God.” However, by dropping his prejudices and changing his attitude, Strobel experienced a life changing discovery that he is now sharing with the world. In the end, Strobel seeks to spread his mind-stretching discoveries that led him to think again about his purpose. Now, you can decide whether these answers and explanations stand up to scrutiny.