Original View - the alternative teens' paper

Birds of Paradise (top left) have beautiful plumage. Did they need this to attract a mate? The most common birds in the world are house sparrows, rock pigeons and European starlings — and they are all fairly plain. So the idea that beauty was essential for survival doesn’t make sense. Many butterflies are beautiful, too, and many fish have dazzling and exotic colouring. Charles Darwin (lower left) recognised that beauty was a challenge to his theory. He wrote, “I willingly admit that a great number of male animals, as well as most gorgeous birds, some fishes, reptiles and mammals, and a host of magnificently coloured butterflies, have been rendered beautiful for beauty’s sake.” He believed that “sexual selection” was the answer —but is it? (see below)

Professor Burgess points out that the colour pattern is equal to 400 dots-per-inch — comparable to modern printing technology! Each feather has 100 barbs in the ‘eye’ region, with around 100,000 barbules in the pattern itself. Remarkably, as the tail feathers grow, the eye pattern remains perfect. The complex information to create and preserve the eye pattern in the tail is coded in the peacock’s DNA. An added problem for evolution is to explain where this information came from. Mutations (genetic mistakes) don’t add new information, and natural selection can only select what is already there. In a letter to a friend, Charles Darwin admitted that the sight of a peacock’s tail made him sick! We agree with Professor Burgess when he says that beauty is no accident, but that it reveals the wisdom of God.
1. Hallmarks of Design, Day One Publications, 2008, Chapter 5. (Available from our webshop).

TAKE a look at the two arches on the right. The one at the top is simply functional; it does its job. The one in the lower picture, however, has been carved and decorated to make it look attractive. These carvings are not necessary for the arch to do its job. They were added by a designer who wanted to make it look nice. This is added beauty. The font in the headline above is another example. A plain font would have spelt the words just as well. There are many examples of added beauty in the natural world. One example is the tail of a peacock (below left). Evolutionists claim that this is the result of sexual selection, and that the males with the most beautiful tails survived because peahens were more attracted to them. However, if this is true, why is it that birds like crows, which are very plain, have survived just as well? In fact, there are more crows than peacocks in the world! The peacock’s tail would actually be a hindrance, since it would make the bird stand out, and being so large, make it harder to escape from predators. Design expert Professor Stuart Burgess writes, “Since evolution requires every step change to have a selective advantage, it is very difficult for evolution to explain how the eye pattern could evolve.”1

There is a lot of beauty in the world which evolution can’t explain. But there is ugliness, too, and this is a real problem for many people. Despite the strong evidence for the existence of a Creator, the presence of evil and suffering in nature makes many ask how such a Creator can be good. Charles Darwin was troubled about this. In 1860 he wrote to a friend, Asa Gray, confessing that he found it difficult to believe in a “benificient and omnipotent God”, because “there seems to me too much misery in the world.” He found it easier to believe that cruel instincts had evolved. Lions are magnificent animals, but there is nothing beautiful about a lion killing and eating another animal. The human body is wonderfully designed, but there is nothing beautiful about cancer, or other diseases that can ravage our bodies. So do we reject belief in a Creator altogether, or is God some kind of sadist? Actually there is a third option which makes sense of everything. At the beginning of the Bible we read that God created everything that exists, then “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” (Genesis 1: 31). The Bible then goes on to explain why it is not “very good” now. The first humans rebelled against God, ruining the original harmony, and spoiling everything. The New Testament explains that the whole cosmos is “groaning” and waiting to be liberated from this decay. (see Romans 8: 20-22). It also explains that God sent Jesus Christ to begin building a new, restored creation through His death and resurrection. This new creation begins with people (who caused the trouble in the first place). “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” (2 Corinthians 5: 17). Darwin rejected the Biblical view of creation and missed the wonder of a relationship with God. Don’t make the same mistake!

THERE are many beautiful things in the natural world, which can’t be explained by evolution through natural selection. Most puzzling from an evolutionary point of view is hidden beauty. Why are micro-organisms that live in water (top right), and can’t be seen without a microscope, so beautiful? They don’t need to be in order to survive. Many of the sea creatures that inhabit coral reefs (below right) are amazingly beautiful, and divers are dazzled and awestruck by them. Why would they evolve such brilliant colours? Many sea shells (below right) have beautiful colours and intricate patterns. Why? They are not necessary for survival.
It is much more logical to believe that they were designed by an intelligent Creator with an eye for beauty. In his famous book The Origin of Species Charles Darwin wrote about the beauty of micro-organisms: “Few objects are more beautiful than the minute cases of the Diatomaceae; were these created that they might be examined and admired under the higher powers of the microscope?” We believe the answer is “Yes!”