Creation biology’s main idea is derived from Genesis that states that life was created by God, in a finite number of “created kinds”, rather than through biological evolution from a common ancestor. Creation scientists consider that any observable speciation descends from these distinctly created kinds through inbreeding, deleterious mutations and other genetic mechanisms. Evolutionary biologists and creation scientists share similar views of microevolution. But creation scientists disagree that the process of macroevolution can explain common ancestry among organisms far beyond the level of common species. Creationists contend that there is no empirical evidence for new plant or animal species, and deny fossil evidence has ever been found documenting the process.
Popular arguments against evolution have changed since the publishing of Henry M. Morris’s first book on the subject, “Scientific Creationism” in October 1974, but some consistent themes remain:
– That missing links or gaps in the fossil record are proof against evolution
– That the increased complexity of organisms over time through evolution is not possible due to the law of increasing entropy
– That it is impossible that the mechanism of natural selection could account for common ancestry
– That evolutionary theory is untestable.
The origin of the human species is particularly hotly contested. The fossil remains of purported hominid ancestors are not considered by advocates of creation biology to be evidence for a speciation event involving Homo sapiens.
Biologists challenge creation scientists who claim the fossil evidence disproves evolution. Richard Dawkins has explained evolution as “a theory of gradual, incremental change over millions of years, which starts with something very simple and works up along slow, gradual gradients to greater complexity.” He described the existing fossil record as entirely consistent with that process. Biologists emphasize that transitional gaps between those fossils recovered are to be expected, that the existence of any such gaps cannot be invoked to disprove evolution, and that instead the fossil evidence that could be used to disprove the theory would be those fossils which are found and which are entirely inconsistent with what can be predicted or anticipated by the evolutionary model.