Paul S. L. Johnson's Creation

While my mother knows that I am an atheist, my father does not, for reasons previously discussed. While I was visiting earlier this year, he handed me the second volume in Epiphany Studies in the Scriptures written by Paul S. L. Johnson. The topic of the book is "Creation" where he attempts to give a scientific look at the process and result of creation. My father knows I have a keen interest in science and have become increasingly knowledgeable in various subjects. As such, he gave it to me to read, not only to interest me but also so that I will let him know how the science standards up to the times.

I think I will use this opportunity to disclose my support of evolutionary theory to him. The beginning of the last chapter, "Evolution: Not the Creative Method," goes:

We will devote the last chapter of our book to a consideration of evolution, which is falsely, we believe, held by an ever decreasing number of scientists to be the method of creation.

My father has told me on a number of occasions that scientists have "flocked away" from evolution and the big bang. I now know where he learned that.

The discussion begins by breaking evolution down in the five "various schools of evolution": (paraphrased)

1. "atheistic materialistic evolutionists": the universe, plants, and animals produced themselves by a series of transmutations.
2. "spontaneous-generation evolutionsts": God created matter and its forces, and then the animals and plants developed themselves from the matter.
3. "Darwinian evolutionists": God creater matter, its forces, and the first few lifeforms. They "developed themselves" from there.
4. The same as above, except they believe man isn't a result of evolution. Rather, evolution created everything and then God created man.
5. God created everything, beginning with a "kind" of every plant and animal, and then those kinds deteriorated into the many species.

I decided to begin my discussion on this chapter. The first five pages attempt to show that evolution is impossible because, had man existed for even 100,000 years, assuming a constant population growth of .5% would result in 4.66 billion billion people alive today. This is my first exposure with creationist math. Where did the .5% come from? Apparently out of his ass, as the population growth between 1000 and 1800 is under 1.5%. He apparently calculated it by the difference of the population now and that immediately after the Flood.

Therefore, I think his argument more disproves the Bible than it does evolution. The argument was genuinely baffling.