Subject: Creationist sees science through 'Biblical glasses'

'Answers in Genesis' speaker Budy Davis says animals are specially designed to protect themselves (photo by Tina M. Gohr).

By Carli Allen For The News-Chronicle

Consider the formation of the Grand Canyon.

Would you say it was created with a lot of water over a short amount of time or with a little water over a long period of time?

Astrophysicist Jason Lisle posed that question with kids and adults gathered at Green Bay's Bethel Baptist Church on Saturday.

Evolutionists are thinking in terms of millions of years, said Lisle, so they believe the second question to be true. Creationists are thinking along the lines of a Biblical worldwide flood, which would make the first question true.

Both groups of people see the same evidence, but have different interpretations, Lisle explained.

"That's what we're going to see on any subject. You can take a look at the evidence through Biblical glasses or evolutionized glasses. I'm going to show you that if you look at it through Biblical glasses it makes a lot of sense."

Lisle is a speaker with a worldwide ministry called "Answers in Genesis." The organization started about 20 years ago in Australia, when people saw their churches struggling and often compromising their biblical integrity in the face of the ever-increasing attacks from those hostile to Christianity.

They realized that most Christians were not equipped to provide answers to a doubting world in a so-called age of science. In response, they began speaking on creation/evolution issues to help equip the church to answer the skeptics, and encouraging Christians to trust God's word.

As a scientist, Lisle uses his expertise to make try to defend the idea of creation. One of the simplest defenses he offered Saturday was what he described as information science, the idea that information always goes back to an intelligent source.

"There's no known law of nature that can cause information to originate by itself," said Lisle. "In the beginning, God created the DNA. That's what the Bible says."

And he went on to use genetics, which is how he says an organism changes with time, to argue the idea of evolution.

"If evolution is true," said Lisle, "then we're descended from microbes, like an amoeba, a single-cell organism. At some point, the information in our DNA had to increase. Evolution is about the increase of information."

Lisle said all processes in nature reduce information in DNA. He gave the example of having two dogs, one with long fur and one with short hair. The offspring of those dogs could have short fur, long fur, or medium fur.

"Now suppose there's an ice age. The dogs with the short fur will tend to be eliminated because they're not as insulated, and the dogs with the medium fur, likewise," explained Lisle. "The dogs best able to survive in the environment will be the dogs with the long fur."

Before long, said Lisle, the only dogs left would have long hair and their offspring also would have long hair.

"This is a great example of survival of the fittest or natural selection. It's not evolution because have we gained information?" asked Lisle. "Not at all. In fact, we've lost information. If there's a heat wave, are these dogs going to go back to having short hair? Not at all because they've lost the gene for short hair."

Evolutionists, said Lisle, might question this idea pointing out that a mutation, or a copying mistake with the DNA could cause a case like this, which he said is a valid point. In this case, DNA information doesn't die off, but isn't properly copied.

"Suppose you have two dogs with the information for long legs," said Lisle, "and there's a mutation that occurs and you end up with a dog that has short legs."

This isn't a case of evolution, the doctor argued. Though there are people who breed dogs with qualities such as these, a dog like that would likely not do as well in nature.

"Mutations don't help evolution," said Lisle. "They remove information just as natural selection does. It's the opposite of evolution. Information is being reduced."

This process, he explained, also couldn't change a dog into a cat.

"A cat has different information, you can't change the information by deleting it," he said.

While there are many other example out there as to why the idea of evolution doesn't work, Lisle said what's most important is the one found in Exodus 20:11, which says, "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them..."