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To understand what the theory of evolution has done to the scientific evidence of the development of life, consider the parable of the late arriving businessman.
The Parable of the Late Arriving Businessman
There was a rich businessman who had a very important job supporting the business actions of the company for which he worked. He was on vacation in a faraway country, and the time came for him to return to work. He went to the airport and got on a plane and flew back to the country where he worked, but he had a few more days of vacation left. So, he flew to a city where he visited his relatives. He bought a car, and he planned to drive to the city where he worked which was quite far from the city where he visited his relatives.
When the time came for him to return to work, he got in his car and drove for a few minutes, and then his car broke down. He called for a tow truck, and after a long time, the tow truck arrived and took his car to a shop. The shop was very busy, and they could not work on his car until the next day. On the next day, they found the problem with his car, but they had to get parts from a local dealer. On the next day, they fixed his car, and he was ready to go.
When he got in his car to start driving, the secretary called and asked if he would be coming to the meeting. The secretary reminded him that there was a meeting with the customer where the contract would be confirmed with the highest monetary value of any contract that his company had ever made. He told the secretary that he would be at the meeting.
He drove to a local private airport. He got on an ultrahigh power supersonic jet aircraft. The aircraft flew to his business office at many times the speed of sound. He was ejected from the aircraft. He deployed his parachute, and he landed in the parking lot of the office. He ran to the meeting room, and he arrived just in time. The contract was successfully confirmed, but he did not have enough time to review the details of the contract before it was confirmed.
The maintenance workers found the parashoot, and they called the security office. The security office staff checked the security camera records, and they saw the businessman landing with the parashoot and entering the office. The security office staff contacted the air traffic control office. The air traffic control office informed the security office that there was a supersonic flight over the office at about 1 minute before the businessman landed, but they were unable to determine the origin or destination of that flight. The security office manager asked the businessman to write a letter of explanation for how he got from his vacation location to the office.
The businessman reviewed the details of the contract and discovered that there were problems that needed to be resolved, but he did not have a plan for how to accomplish that. He appointed an office staff worker to write the letter about the vacation travel. He told the staff worker to exclude mentioning the aircraft because he did not want to explain why he did not review the contract. So, the staff worker did not mention aircraft at all. The letter explained that the businessman drove from the far away country to the shore of the ocean, and then he drove his car across the ocean to the shore of the next continent, and then he drove across the continent and finally arrived at the office.
In this parable, the location of the businessman is the level of development of the plants and animals that inhabited the earth. The first flight of the businessman is the creation of life from dead matter. The aircraft is the power of God. The car is evolution. The fact that a car cannot drive across the ocean is the fact that life cannot evolve from dead matter. The second flight is a missing link in the development of the advanced forms of life. The evidence shows that the development happened suddenly, but the theory of evolution requires that it happened slowly.
The security office staff are those who recognize the evidence of God’s power in His creation. The letter from the office staff worker is a message from those who deny the power of God. The businessman and his actions are a thread that holds the other parts together.
Search for the Missing Link
It is easy to understand that life cannot evolve from dead matter. It is not easy to search for evidence of the missing link.
Searching the internet for the subject of “missing link” is a troublesome search because the phrase has two meanings that are entirely opposite. On one hand, the original meaning of the missing link was the absence of evidence of a link that would be required to support the theory of evolution. On the other hand, a later meaning of the same phrase is the presence of evidence that was originally called a missing link. So, searching for “missing link” will mostly or entirely produce discussion about claims that the evidence of a link has been found between apes and man.
A little more successful search can be found by searching for “cambrian explosion missing link”. The search will produce records of discussion about a period known as the Cambrian explosion. The discussion will explain that the Cambrian explosion was a period of time when most of the advanced forms of animal life appeared for the first time, and it began about 540 million years ago, and it lasted for 20 million years or less which is a relatively short period of time in comparison to most other periods during which very few new forms of life appeared.
The defense of evolutionary theory openly acknowledges this evidence of the sudden appearance of the advanced forms of animal life. For the most part, the discussions focus on speculation about what could have caused the activity to start and what could have caused it to stop. The speculations are supported by evidence that may or may not support the conclusion, depending on how it is interpreted.
Following are a few web links that were found by searching for the subject of “cambrian explosion missing link”.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2003/03/01/234419/evolutions-missing-link/
https://biologos.org/common-questions/does-the-cambrian-explosion-pose-a-challenge-to-evolution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion
https://www.britannica.com/science/Cambrian-explosion
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-sparked-the-cambrian-explosion1/
Discussions about this topic do not include analysis of the rate of development of the new advanced forms of life vs the capability of evolution to cause such a development. They can’t do it because they can’t measure the capability. They also do not include a tolerance analysis (such as the following) which shows how much the limited accuracy of measuring the age of the fossil evidence can affect the appearance of the length of time during which the development occurred.
Tolerance Analysis
The tolerance of a number is the maximum possible difference between that number and the true value that it represents. In other words, it is the maximum possible inaccuracy. It is usually but not necessarily stated as a percentage. High tolerance is poor accuracy. Low tolerance is good accuracy.
According to the experts who teach evolution, the Cambrian explosion began about 540 million years ago, and it lasted for 20 million years or less. Note that 20 million years ÷ 540 million years = 3.8%. That is a small percentage, and if the 20 million years are less, then the percentage is even less. What if the measurements of the age of the fossils (that are about 540 million years old) have a tolerance of 5%? In other words, what if the inaccuracy is 5%?
In that case, converting the percentage into years produces 5% x 540 million years = 27 million years of tolerance. In that case, the 27 million years of tolerance (inaccuracy) can easily cancel out the 20 million years that are reported by the experts and are based upon the same evidence that has the tolerance, and so the evidence shows that the Cambrian explosion could have lasted 0 years, when most of the advanced forms of animal life suddenly appeared. Even if the tolerance were 3.8% rather than 5%, then it would still be just enough to have the same effect.
In other words, if the tolerance is 3.8% or more, then our view of the past is too blurred to tell if it lasted more than 0 years, when it happened 540 million years ago. This analysis shows how a small adjustment of numbers or analysis of numbers within the limits of accuracy can direct the meaning of the evidence toward proof of a missing link or toward a bump in the data that invites discussion about a difficult topic (the Cambrian explosion), and those who defend the theory of evolution are those who have converted raw data into the final published numbers of “scientific evidence” that favors their preferred conclusion.
What is the tolerance of the measurements of the evidence of the age of the fossils? Is it 3.8%, or is it less, or is it more? That is a technically reasonable question regarding the carbon 14 dating process, and it is not related to the question about whether the earth is a few thousand years old. Without this analysis, it would not be possible to show that 3.8% can have a significant effect upon the conclusions that may be drawn from the evidence.
Even if the tolerance were less than 3.8% (which would prove greater than 0 years), it still would not provide evidence for how development of the advanced forms of life with new systems of anatomy appeared much more quickly than what is measurable in this age or other past ages, and it does not provide evidence of how life can evolve from dead matter.
Grace and peace to you in the search for truth
From your brother in Christ, Ralph Griffin, September 16, 2023
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