"IT'S A YOUNG WORLD AFTER ALL" ©1986 by Paul D. Ackerman    http://www.creationism.org/books/ackerman/

13 - Time: Evolution's   Friend or Foe?     For a thousand years in thy  sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in   the night.              Psalms 90:4

The argument of this book is that the universe is quite young. If the universe can be shown to be young, then evolution is ruled out, since all agree that the evolutionary process requires vast numbers of years. Time is often viewed as the great friend of evolution, supposedly performing all the miracles of creation that in the Bible are attributed to God. The famous Harvard professor George Wald has explained the evolutionists' view of the importance of time as follows:
 

The important point is that since the origin of life belongs in the category of at-least-once phenomena, time is on its side. However improbable we regard this event. . . given enough time it will almost certainly happen at least once. . . . Time is in fact the hero of the plot. . . . Given so much time, the "impossible" becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait; time itself performs miracles.1

Of Monkeys and Typewriters

A better-known form of the evolution-through-limitless-time argument is the monkey-and-typewriter illustration. Physicist William R. Bennett, Jr., has stated it this way: "Nearly everyone knows that if enough monkeys were allowed to pound away at typewriters for enough time, all the great works of literature would result."2

Something about this argument is intuitively persuasive.

Obviously, if the monkeys were to type long enough, one of them would inevitably type the word to, and with just a little more time surely no one would be surprised to find the word two. And if such circumstances produced to and two, then why not eventually four, eight, and finally a complete sentence, paragraph, and so on?

The question of whether or not time is actually on the side of evolution, as Wald and Bennett maintain, is an important one even if, as this book argues, there is very little of it to work with. The fact of the matter is that time is not a friend of evolution. It is evolution's enemy.

To put it simply, if a monkey is going to type a literary work, it will need to get the job done in a hurry. Time will work against the monkey's literary efforts as well as against any similar uphill evolutionary process in the real world. This fact is reflected in what scientists call the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that all real processes in the physical universe—when isolated and left to themselves—go irreversibly downhill toward increasing disorder and chaos.

In terms of the typewriting-monkey example, it means that along with the accumulating chance of producing something meaningful as time increases, there must also be a consideration of the more rapidly accumulating chance that the monkey, typewriter, or both will break down. Thus, the longer the monkey types, the greater the chance that its typewriter will break. If it would take a million years for the monkey to accidentally hammer out something as meaningful as a good poem or short story, there is no chance whatsoever that the typewriter would last that long—to mention nothing of the monkey or its paper supply! Evolution only works in the imaginations of evolutionist scholars like George Wald and William R. Bennett. In the real world, any system posited to produce ordered and meaningful outcomes will inevitably be subject to the processes of decay and disordering known to scientists as the law of entropy (Second Law of Thermodynamics). Time is no friend of evolution.

Time Rushes On

The flight of time's arrow is downward rather than upward, as evolutionists claim. Its passage tends to work against evolution instead of for it, and in this sense it is evolution's foe. But there is another sense in which time works against evolution, and realization of it flows from the same stream of scientific data that indicates a recent creation. The discoveries that point to a recent creation also indicate that deterioration processes are occurring at a rate that is unfathomable for any evolutionist. The same sort of evidence that indicates, for example, that the sun has not been burning for a million years into the past also indicates that it cannot continue to burn for a million years into the future. As we lose the distant recesses of the past, it seems we are also losing the distant future as well.

The explosion in scientific technology in space and earth exploration is enabling a degree of detailed and continuous data monitoring unheard of only a few years ago. On the basis of what we now know, creationists can predict that this continuous monitoring will begin showing more and more evidences of rapid decay. Many new clocks will turn up, and many present creationist clocks should prove verifiable by direct tests and measurements. If the thesis of this book is correct, the proper word to the wise is not only that "time is short" but also that "it is later than you think."

What If Scientists Disprove the Bible?

With all that has been shown, many Christians continue to worry about the possibility that someone is going to make a discovery that will disprove the Bible. Those who are troubled by such fears must begin to grasp an understanding of the limitations of science and what it can and cannot do. With the wisdom of hindsight provided by several hundred years of scientific endeavor, we can say with confidence that almost every day some non-believing scientist will come up with "evidence" that purportedly disproves the Bible. This has been going on for centuries.

But what has also become clear is that God is always raising up believing scholars and scientists to make new discoveries in support of the Bible as well as to figure out why the old "proofs" against its testimony were not really proofs after all. In the end one realizes that faith in God and his Word is not primarily an intellectual issue but a spiritual one.

Scientific arguments against the Bible come and go. Some are rather easily dismissed, while others hold sway for a good long while. Eventually, however, new evidence or new insight will reveal that the Bible stands as the ultimate truth. This book is simply an account of the latest chapter in the never-ending story of God's ability to defend his Holy Scriptures against the assaults of proud and arrogant unbelievers. And so it will ever be. "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever" (Isaiah 40:8).