Reviewed by: Barbara Bamberger Scott

“Creation presupposes an intelligent creator, and evolution postulates an unintelligent instrumentality guided by chance.”

Author Ebifegha has constructed a fresh, intelligent look at the long-standing debate between creationists, those who view life and its origins as the result of a God-directed event as described in the Book of Genesis, and evolutionists—those who maintain the proposition that life on earth began cell by cell, species by species, over millions of years. It is a conflict that came into being through the work of Charles Darwin, a researcher whose theories rocked the scientific world and became a creed for biologists, anthropologists, and investigators of cellular progression. Others, grounded in the Holy Bible’s account, rejected Darwin’s postulations. Thus began a divergence that continues to this day, although, as Ebifegha points out, Darwinism in its pure form has begun to show glaring weaknesses. One such weakness is the assertion, as yet unproven through scientific methodology, that all life began with a single cell (biogenesis). Moreover, Darwinism also implies that the first cell arose from nonlife (abiogenesis), a proposition that has never been scientifically demonstrated.

In contrast, creationism provides a simple explanation: God made a fully functioning universe in a few days. The author examines these two major viewpoints from a multitude of angles, including the earth’s possible age, fossils and the evidence they may offer, and the indication from DNA research that all peoples around the world are almost completely identical. In general, scientists (at least non-Christian ones) readily reject the creationist view while offering little conclusive study of certain critical factors, notably the development of mind and spirit, an essential aspect of human existence and interaction. Recent contributors with more inclusive viewpoints include Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini, speaking from realms of psychology and philosophy, and Michael Denton, a biochemist and a proponent of intelligent design that departs from Darwinism. Quotations from Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein are significant, both acknowledging their perception of God’s presence. Hawking expressed the wish that “philosophers, scientists and just ordinary people” should be able to discuss together “why…we and the universe exist.”

Ebifegha, with a degree in physics and a career in teaching science and math, is well qualified to propound the themes arrayed in this well-researched, thoughtful contribution to a still-controversial subject. He is able to clearly state science’s inherent strengths along with some flawed thinking that may prevail among its supporters. The contentions he presents in support of creationism are, in his view, necessary since many Darwinists have taken on the stance of lawyers for the defense of their position. In exploring a wide range of facts and theories, the author continuously and intelligently asserts that to trust much of what science has uncovered regarding the lengthy process of development of all-natural species does not and should not preclude the belief in a single creation event. As he states in his conclusion, “the creation-evolution unison” would offer a path to correctly understanding life’s origins. The hope that the author clearly expresses is that creationists and scientists can and may yet accept the relevant factors offered within both disciplines. Ebifegha’s role in making that hope a reality, as expertly demonstrated here, is to create a broader avenue for open discussion with the possibility of greater absorption and merging from both sides.

Reviewed by: Kirkus Reviews

Ebifegha takes the theory of evolution for a ride and finds it wanting and in need of some creative intelligence.

Ebifegha brings forth a number of arguments against Darwinism. There is the issue of macro-evolution—from bacteria to human, a transformation, as opposed to bacteria to bacteria, a micro-evolutionary modification—which requires such vast spans of time that it’s not scientifically testable, repeatable or falsifiable. The fossil record is incomplete; the lack of transitional stages is disturbing. There is the indisputably important immaterial realm—the mind in relation to the material brain, or the soul or spirit, and the relative qualities thereof between species—again which science, inextricably linked to materialism, has yet to satisfyingly address. Most damningly, evolutionary theory has not been able to nail down the mechanism of life’s origin, the moment of creation. And as creation precedes evolution, and evolution is thus subordinate, then evolutionary theory is built on a house of cards sustaining a particular, errant worldview. One needn’t be a dyed-in-the-wool Darwinist or macro-evolutionist or materialist to find problems here, and much of the rest of Ebifegha’s presentation seems sketched out at best. He speaks of disciplinary limitations—science vis-à-vis immateriality—but does it follow that science ought not investigate the material side even if the whole picture is compromised? He decries evolutionists as not working with “veridical facts”—what other kind are there?—when the realm is theory, not law, and he gives scant credence that theory provokes good experiments and unexpected insights, and that evolutionary theory has been important, say, in DNA sequencing and molecular genetics. As theories go, it has been fruitful and hardly to be abandoned because it has only theories about the creation if life. Ebifegha claims that another approach has already answered that question: intelligent design, wherein we find “the evidence of creation, including God’s written and verbal claim for having created the universe. One must accept a claim that has not been and cannot now be disputed.” As an approach to understanding immateriality, that is only one, and a rather limiting, course. Ebifegha is preaching to the converted; his creation/creationist stance leaves no room for debate.