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The Face That Demonstrates The Farce of Evolution

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In the chapter on "Chance," Hanegraaff quotes a well-known passage in _Origin of Species_ in which Darwin admits to shuddering every time he contemplates the eye. He omits, or is ignorant of, the following paragraph, in which Darwin argues that the various intermediate grades of eye which exist in nature, from a simple eye spot to the most complex box camera eye, show that a complex eye can develop from a very simple one by small steps. This seems pretty typical of Hanegraaff's method, with arguments that sound good if you don't know what he's leaving out -- whether he's giving facts, or quotes, out of context. Of course, his discussion of chance includes no discussion -- not even a bad one -- of natural selection. Nor does it include any recognition that the origin of life and the subsequent evolution of life are separate problems. Indeed, this confusion among the origin of the universe, the origin of life, and the evolution of life once it existed, are a central feature of the book's "Empirical Science" chapter, and well as the one on "Chance." Hanegraaff evidently does not think his subject -- or his readers -- worthy of clear and careful thought.

A chapter on "Fossil Follies" misrepresents _Archaeopteryx_, ignores the vast array of mammal-like reptiles, and cannot even be bothered to consider the renowned (or notorious) horse series. It regurgitates earlier creationist misunderstandings of Punctuated Equilibrium without bothering to find out the differenced between Eldridge and Gould's theory and Goldberg's saltational notions. It does not note, of course, that any evolutionist would tell you that the fossil record has never, in any case, been the main support of evolutionary theories. Instead, the "nested hierarchy" (the way organisms fit neatly into groups which fit into larger groups, which fit into still larger groups), the use of similar designs for dissimilar ends (e.g. the greater similarity between the bones of bat wings and whale flippers than between bat and bird wings) and dissimilar designs for similar ends (e.g. bat wings and bird wings, or the primate thumb and the panda's thumb), and biogeography are the main pillars of the theory.

In the chapter on "Ape-man Frauds," Hanegraaff discusses Peking man and Java man, and is either unaware, or thinks the reader should be, that both are now classified as _Homo erectus_. He finds ample space to discuss Piltdown man, not used as evidence for human evolution for decades, and Nebraska man, which was show not to be a hominid five years after its discovery and was never used as evidence for human evolution, but finds no space to mention a single African fossil. Australopithecines like Lucy? Habilenes? The Turkana boy? Hanegraaff seems too busy with 80-year-old confusions about pig teeth to worry about fossil finds in the last 50 years.

Much of the book's material is devoted to showing the bad moral effects of evolutionary theory. Again, quotes out of context are a major factor (Hanegraaff quotes several unfortunate -- but very typical of his time -- passages from Darwin on race, but ignores well-known quotes from Darwin showing his abhorrence of slavery). Hanegraaff argues that consistently following Darwin leads to racism and slavery, while consistently following the Bible leads to the abolition of both -- but it is the Bible, not the _Origin_, that contains many passages authorizing slavery) and racism. On the basis of Hanegraaff's mere assertion, we are to accept that every evil done in Darwin's name (including those which Hanegraaff merely says were done in Darwin's name) were the true and inevitable consequences of Darwinism, but every evil done in the Bible's name was a perversion or misinterpretation of the Bible. Nothing that could be confused with argument is presented to support either assertion.

A chapter of "Recapitulation" is dedicated to a hypothesis of no importance to Darwin himself and rejected by all modern Darwinists. Because recapitulationism -- the idea that an organism, in the course of its development, retraces its entire evolutionary history -- was important to many racists who accepted evolution, Hanegraaff gives it much attention despite its unimportance to the actual theory. Here, as in much of the book, the fallacies of guilt by association and argument from bad consequences form the backbone of his case; a valid argument is nowhere in sight.

A chapter on "Empirical Science" argues against a theory in biology by noting that it cannot explain the origin of the universe. It also shows that Hanegraaff knows less about entropy than one would need to learn to pass a freshman chemistry class -- or perhaps, since on this subject he is aware of arguments against his position, he is merely feigning such ignorance. Many natural processes, not involving life, increase order if energy can enter a system and waste heat leave it -- if Oparin's famous experiment assembling biochemicals from simple inorganic chemicals proved nothing else, it proved this. The argument, "entropy prevents increases in complexity," is simply and utterly false.

There is more to the book than this -- as even a couple of mainly favorable reviews have noted, the author has trouble staying on topic. But overall the book is very bad, derivitive, illogical, and either unscrupulous or incompetent in its arguments. As an appendix to the book, the author warns creationists against relying on bad arguments; this is the best advice in the book, and if the author had taken it, he wouldn't have written the chapters preceding this appendix.

I bought this book not because I seriously entertained the possibility that evolution didn't happen. I settled that years ago when I took the time to understand the issues at hand. One thing creationists fail to understand is that if you are trying to explain something, call it X, you either come up with a plausible mechanism or explanation of X, or you simply say I don't understand. If a machine breaks down, we either find the problem and fix it or we say we don't know and replace it.

I was frankly very dissapointed with the book. Not only is it shallow and trite in the treatment of evolution - it isn't even defined in the text - but it revels in taking quotations out of context.

One example of a quotation taken out of context is the one by Monod that chance is the sole source of order in evolution. If he bothered to read the passage in context, he would have understood that Monod was simply making the observation that evolution depends upon mutations to occur in a statistically unpredictable non-directed way which is in turn sorted out by natural selection. For the life of me, I cannot understand how creationists think that evolutionists are so stupid to think that evolution occurs by chance like monkeys typing away and producing sonnets. It ought to be mounted on the rooftops - NATURAL SELECTION IS NOT CHANCE. Natural selection is the cumulative effect of small gradual changes built up usually over long periods of time. The so-called impossibility of producing long complicated strings like the haemoglobin molecule from DNA changes in a short time has been proven false, as is claimed in the book (and using statistics from Behe's book). This has been demonstrated in the lab such as selected RNA strains time and time again. Refer to good examples in "Selection - the Mechanism of Evolution" by biologist Graham Bell.

Another quotation famously by now out of context is the one by Colin Patterson. Patterson was pointing out that transitional forms are not found at the specific level - the level of species but have been found between major groups - e.g., Reptiles and Mammals.This is true for at least two reasons. First, it is difficult to define a species in paleontology because all you have to go by with different forms is the bones. Second, statistically it is more likely that large wide ranging species will be fossilized - therefore, transitions will generally only be found between one set of large wide ranging species to another later large wide ranging species and as such there is room for plently of change to occur in between. There isn't sufficient appreciation of how poor the fossil record really is and how remarkable the transitions are given this fact. Almost none of the species alive today are found in fossils. A minor point on the Archaeopteryx - it is a transitional form because it shares features common to either reptiles or birds but not both, and it is irrelevant to this that the latest one has a bony sternum - there are still plenty of purely reptilian features to the skeleton - see any competent paleontology text.

I could go on and on with the mistakes and misunderstandings in the book without dealing with all the inflammatory rhetoric in the book. For example, Hanegraaff says that enthropy does not work on living things without the mysterious property of teleonomy. What does he mean? In plants, photosynthesis happens as a well known yet still to be fully understood chemical process in the cloroplasts. Basically sunlight is used to transform carbon dioxide into basic sugars with oxygen as a byproduct. Complex but nothing mysterious.

Every argument almost with out exception put forth by creationists and anti-evolutionists have been based on misunderstandings and taking scientific statements out of context. I'm sorry to say but this book will make no impact on rational curious seekers of the truth. Actually, I feel sorry for people like Mr. Hanegraff who populate their world with such flat and impoverished views. I challenge him to not be threatened by the grandeur of evolution.

I have read two other works by Hank Hanegraaff, 'Christainity in Crisis' and 'Counterfeit Revival', both were excellent. However, this book does not live up to the author's potential. In the books mentioned previously he was carefull to throughly document his statements, but he does not do so in this book. Instead, he jumps onto the very popular bandwagon of Creationism without knowing anything of science. This one fact causes the book to be ladden with assumptions that are never throughly researched or documented, which leaves much of the book giving opinion, but no strong evidence for the case of creation. Unfortunately, I was disappointed that in writing this book he choose to leave his objective mind at home.

From the size of the bibliography, you would think this should be a scholarly, well researched book. But Hank Hanegraaff (HH) makes it clear that as Christian evangelist he's out to discredit evolution because it is unbiblical. He wants to give the reader easily memorized answers to defend the One True Faith. This is just the sort of subjective, sensational book that would result from that approach.

HH recaps common, discredited creationist arguments from his creationist sources. Face's best value is as a classic collection of the egregious tactics used by creationists. It is a negative tutorial on critical thinking and scholarship. Ad hominems, red herrings, straw men are represented. HH uses out of context quotations of authorities, even evolutionists, intended to mislead the audience into thinking they agree with the author. He quotes irresponsible statements from scientists as if they were authoritative. Unsupported assertions oversimplifications and bold misstatements are the centerpieces. Out of date, discredited science is used either to bolster the author's arguments or as a straw man to ridicule. He omits relevant facts. He employs the "after this, therefore because of this" fallacy to blame every social ill and idea he finds troubling on evolutionism.

He asserts that how you view your origins determines how live your life. Are we to believe that all the millions of people who accept evolution lead despicable lives?

HH expends much ink in support of "evolutionism is racist." He tries hard to sell the logical fallacy: some evolutionists are racists, therefore evolution is a racist ideology.

Evolution, like many other ideas has been abused by people who wish to oppress others. Christianity is among those ideas so abused. Even the founder of HH's version of Christianity, Martin Luther is infamous for his vitriolic anti-semitism, and anti-peasant diatribes. HH invokes special pleading to argue that Christian abusers are different as they were disobeying Jesus. Clearly the scientific study of historic events is not inherently racist.

This is not to agree that Darwin was quite the racist that the author says he is. Many of the ideas considered in The Descent of Man are appalling in light of modern knowledge, and have been discarded by science, such as the idea that the races could be different species. Others are held to be true today, such as the idea that differences between races are small and overwhelmed by individual variation. Right or wrong, Darwin was struggling to honestly evaluate the alternatives.

In any case the theory of evolution does not stand or fall on the personal attributes of Charles Darwin, but on the validity of the current hypotheses and evidence. HH's arguments to that end fail as well. It is obvious that in writing this book HH has consulted few if any primary scientific sources. Space will allow me to cite only a few of the abuses.

HH says that Pithecanthropus (now Homo) Erectus is a fiction based on a single skullcap a few teeth and a femur. and that the Selenka expedition and Keith's 1911 paper on it is the definitive word on the subject. Many more Erectus have been and continue to be found over a wide geographical range and are dated from half a million to over 1.5 million years old. They are certainly important human relatives if not our direct ancestors.

He employs the ridiculous creationist tale that the damaged skulls of Peking Man ("pure fantasy") fossils found at one site prove that they were actually monkeys whose brains were eaten by ancient Chinese gourmets. Anyone comparing Peking Man (a variety of Homo Erectus) to a monkey can see the difference This whole 'monkey' business is probably an exploitation of a mistranslation from French of the word for 'simian' in a 1930 paper by Teilhard de Chardin. Some creationists still argue that the holes in the skulls show that the creatures were being hunted by modern humans, but this is weak.

HH also tells us that the fossil record fails to support evolutionary theory - there are no intermediates. The truth is we have intermediates at every hierarchical level of the fossil record. Good species transitions are rare, but there are around two dozen solid examples of gradual transitions in various mammals from the Pleistocene (the last ice age). At a higher level we have a series of genera showing the transition from reptiles to mammals, in correct chronological and phenotypical order over a long period.

HH trots out the old, discredited creationist thermodynamic arguments. He will not accept that local reductions of entropy are not a violation of the second law, and in fact do occur. The sun's energy increases the entropy of the universe while driving weather on earth and causing the formation of ice, a local reduction in entropy. Evolution is no more in violation of the second law of thermodynamics than is any other process of life (or refrigerators).

HH misapplies information theory to evolution: "random deviations in genetic material will not increase genetic information." However natural selection operating on these deviations does increase genetic information on how to grow a fit organism. An intelligent designer is not required - just a process able to favor a more useful gene.

HH's effort to paint punctuated equilibrium as little more than the hopeful monster theory (instantaneous change) is contradicted by his quote from Gish, who almost explains it right as intermittent, accelerated gradualism, even if he doesn't believe it.

There is a chapter devoted to recapitulation. If you want to understand the issue of recapitulation beyond HH's all or nothing arguments, I recommend the book by Gould which HH cites: "Ontogeny and Phylogeny".

For a balanced, broad, readable history of the subject of evolution I recommend "Evolution : The History of an Idea" by Peter J. Bowler. For a study on the relationship between dinosaurs and birds read "The Mistaken Extinction" by Lowell Dingus and Timothy Rowe.

When I first read this book, I was a evolutionary creationist. I believed that the earth was created by an omnipotent God, yet that the six days described were either found in geological epochs spanning millions of years, or simply a metaphor for the evolution of human from ape-like creatures.

When I read this book, I was blown away. My whole world was turned upside down, and as I did more research into true creationism, I found that it wasn't simply a myth created by my church.

This book is a good starting point. It has wonderful points, is clear, and concise. I would recommend it, however, I would suggest that whoever reads it does more research also.

And lest anyone think that I simply blow from one side of the fence to the other--I do not. I took a semester class focussing on evolution in college and was ASTOUNDED at how correct this book was. My professor "accidentally" glossed over any "proof" of evolution ... and simply delved into what she claimed to be the truth, with no proof at all ...

Maybe she should read this book.

Quite possibly, a new low in creationist rhetoric. That something farcical is going on here is undeniable, but there is no reason to suppose that it is evolution. The author, Hank Hanegraaff, tells us that "As the Soviet Union collapsed before our very eyes, so, too, the propped-up corpse of evolution is ready for its final fall." This will come as a surprise to working scientists, and I suspect Hanegraaff and his acolytes are wise to celebrate evolution's downfall now, rather than waiting.

The book is an elaboration of a lecture of the same title which Hanegraaff has been touring for a decade or so. The word "face" in the title is an acrostic (Hanegraaff calls it an acronym), the letters of which are supposed to enable readers to remember four irrefutable arguments against evolution. There is no point in discussing these, as they are not so much irrefutable as interminable: in no way original -- they were threadbare when Hanegraaff adopted the quartet for his own -- they will be depressingly familiar to taxonomists of creationist polemic, who will have to be pardoned for thinking they were refuted, demolished, and generally laughed out of court decades ago. Even by creationist standards, the book is woefully out of date -- and incredibly trite.

What makes the book harder to take than one by some other creationist maven is not the scientific howlers, which are merely representative, but the presentation. Apparently lacking academic credentials -- certainly unburdened with scientific ones -- Hanegraaff has long sought to legitimate his mavenship by styling himself a "memory expert." His purpose, to use a well-worn Hanegraaffian phrase, is to make the timeless creationist arguments "inherently memorable." This theme is hammered on mercilessly throughout the book. In practice, he has only two devices for achieving this noble goal. One is "acronyms," by which he means words formed from the initial letters of his topics. The other is alliteration. He is most tickled when he manages to combine the two: thus, the A in FACE signifies "Ape-Men Fiction, Fraud, and Fantasy." But this is only the beginning. For the book, Hanegraaff has provided each of his central platitudes with a trio of alliterative sub-heads, in this case Pithecanthropus erectus, Piltdown Man, and Peking Man. And there is worse.

It is here that Hanegraaff plumbs new depths: that most, if not all, of our fossil ancestors and cousins are somehow fraudulent is a common enough creationist prevarication, but no other creationist has thought it would be more impressive enshrined in a silly word game. The spectacle is inherently pathetic; the real function of all this juvenile wordplay is to camouflage the author's lack of substance. Even for such a slim volume, surprisingly little information, good or bad, is on tap. But then the book is not primarily about evolution. It is really a showcase for specimens of Hanegraaffian erudition, both the alliterative and the acrostical. It would appear that God put Hanegraaff on this Earth so that we all might have inherent memorability, but the total effect is less than scholarly, and may even be considered farcical by the unregenerate.

Nor is it all that inherently memorable. In a slightly more intriguing bit of linguistic legerdemain, the author coins a word, "pseudosaur," and is enormously pleased with himself. The definition is a bit vague, but I suspect the word may be freely used to describe any fossil which scientists regard as an intermediate between groups, but of course isn't, so there! The most famous pseudosaur is, of course, Archaeopteryx, and calling it a pseudosaur is certainly more expedient than trying to explain why it has birdlike features, and reptilian features, and also lacks other features of modern birds.

To the extent that the author attempts to argue at all, he tends to favor fallacies of relevancy. He is particularly fond of setting up straw men. Every letter of his fabulous FACE represents at least one straw man and sometimes several. Hanegraaff obviously has no interest in trying to understand what biologists, paleontologists, and physicists are actually saying. He indulges in several irrelevant (and risible) theses, among them that evolutionary theory is inherently racist, sexist, and somehow promotes abortion. Slavery and sexual freedom would appear to be other evils caused by evolutionary ideas. At least, if they aren't then it isn't clear why he brings them up. (The best picture in the book is of five husky guys at a gay pride rally doing a chorus line high-kick routine. This tells us -- what exactly? About evolution?) Finally, Hanegraaff loses it completely: there can't be that many legitimate books on popular science that end with an altar call.

Hanegraaff's explanation for the continued success of evolutionary theory (in the face of its impending demise) is, reduced to lowest terms, a blanket accusation of intellectual dishonesty on the part of the thousands of working scientists since Darwin. But this is nothing compared to his contempt for those Christians who have reconciled their faith with contemporary science, and consequently do not share his terror of science.

It could have been worse, I suppose. It could have been set to music. But then, there is an audio cassette version too. The book may be of marginal interest to those studying the pathology of belief, but it is inherently unworthy of serious refutation.

Hank Hanegraaff's approach to the creation-evolution controversy is excellent. It is very obvious that he has done his homework...and done it well. Instead of attacking evolutionists or characterizing them as evil, he looks at the facts. His acronym FACE (Fossil Fallacies, Ape Man Fiction, Frauds and Fantasy, Chance, and Empirical Science) makes it easy to recall the relevant points. He is thorough, while still keeping the issues at the "layman" level. For those interested in further study (on either side of the issue), he sites all sources.

Hanegraaff demonstrates a clear grasp of the issues and of the controversy around those issues. While many may still disagree with his views, he has proven himself once again to be an intellegent, well-studied author of integrity. I recommend reading this book with an open mind before dismissing creationism as a "crock"!

Hank Hanegraaff deserves an award for putting together an excellent and memorable addition to the many books which reveal the farcical nature of evolutionary theory. As I have followed the Creation/Evolution debate in-depth and have even written my own book on the subject, I think I am qualified to say that, although much of Hanks information is not new, his approach and style which aids people in memorizing the facts is. Although it is commonplace for evolutionists and other "believers" to ad hominem attack people who differ with them on the scientific evidence, Hank provides clear evidence from both evolutionist and creationist scientists that evolution is a theory in serious factual crisis (as the title of one evolutionist's book "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis" points out). It is easy for some with biased and ulterior motives to ad hominem attack Hank by saying he quotes authorities out of context or quotes "irresponsible" statements by scientists.

However, instead of merely making unsubstantiated assertions, I decided to actually CHECK the authorities Hank quoted. My findings? Out of 64 quoted authorities surveyed, 36 were secondary sources (evolutionists quoted in creationist material), and 28 were primary sources (actual evolutionists quoted in their material). From my own personal library, I was only able to check 23 of the 64 quotations. Out of the 23 quotes checked NOT ONE WAS OUT OF CONTEXT OR MISREPRESENTED IN ANY WAY. This includes 8 primary creationist sources, 10 primary evolutionist sources, and 5 secondary evolutionist sources. It was actually getting tiresome to keep checking the quotes, since every one was turning up 100% accurate in detail and contextual content. This is what factual evidence shows, and I challenge any HONEST person to go even further than I have and find anything different. And how exactly does one judge a statement by a non-creationist scientist as "irresponsible"? Simply because it may go against the grain of established evolutionary dogma? That seems like wishful thinking at best, and self-serving ideological bias at worst.

Once the "smoke and mirrors" of pro-evolutionary speculators using ad hoc rescues is dismissed, we find that Hank provides an excellent way to remember the fallacies of this science fiction pretending to be pure scientific knowledge. He employs the acronym FACE, which means Fossil Follies, Ape-Men Fiction, Frauds, and Fantasy, Chance, and Empirical science.

From the Fossil follies section, we learn that the fossil record is indeed "an embarrassment to evolutionists," so much so that new and innovative theories of punctuated equilibrium had to be invented to explain away the very real gaps in the record, gaps which should not be there according to Darwin's own theory (pp. 33, 42-44). Some have argued that there are "intermediates," and yet after so many millions of years of alleged evolutionary change, we only have about "two dozen" examples. That makes little sense, and the evidence from even some evolutionists shows that how one views a "transitional" form can be very subjective.

In the section on the Ape-Men and the fictions and frauds, Hank provides substantial evidence of the mishaps and mistakes science has made in an attempt to find and categorize the "missing" evolutionary link between homo sapiens and his supposed ancestors like Nebraska Man, Java Man, Piltdown Man, and Peking Man. All of these were either outright frauds, misinterpretations of data, or serious cover-ups with deception in mind. I would have liked to have seen information on Donald Johanson's "Lucy" and other australopithicines in this chapter since they are but more examples of scientists forcing evolutionary interpretations on the evidence; another example of what Hank seems to be pointing at.

In the third letter of the acronym FACE we find Hank explaining one of the pillars of evolutionary theory, which is time mixing with "Chance." Chance in evolutionary theory is not denied by any evolutionary advocate, except those who would seek to lower the role chance plays in evolution for obvious reasons. As Hank puts it, "Thus, chance implies the absence of both a design and a designer....Consider the absurdity of boldly asserting that an eye, egg, or the earth, each in its vast complexity, is merely a function of random chance" (pp. 61, 62). In Darwin's time, ignorance could cover the wild assumptions of time and chance, working with "natural selection" and mutations to create complex structures. But today, our knowledge precludes such assumptions (the reader is encouraged to read of the intricacies of how sight works in Hank's extensive notes). Chance, as the evidence from science in this book shows, cannot adequately explain the organized complexity of our world.

The last letter in Hank's acronym stands for Empirical science. This is where the rubber meets the road, and the true test of whether or not the theory of evolution is purely about verifiable scientific evidence. Hank points out, among other things, that creationists are often caricatured in popular culture and literature as "bigoted ignoramuses" while evolutionists are pictured as "benevolent intellectuals" (p. 77). However, Hank points out that many great pioneering scientists of the past were creationists, e.g., Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, Louis Pasteur, Gregor Mendel, and Johannes Kepler. Thus the caricature is proven to be just that. Hank points out other empirical scientific facts which militate against evolutionary theory, including knowledge from what we KNOW from cause and effect, energy conservation, entropy, and common sense reason. Finally, Hank revisits the debunked but still used recapitulation theory (the "R" added to FACE to get FARCE) and goes on to conclude with appendixes to help people argue more rationally, know the veracity of the Bible as a divine Book, understand the truthfulness of Christ's Resurrection, Annihilate abortion arguments, and see the moral ramifications of human cloning. Kudos to Hank for doing a great job and putting the FACTS out there that many simply will not FACE.

Hank just rehashes old stuff. Some of it's good, but he also resorts to some substandard items and tactics. Kind of embarrassing at times, plus he uses material from young-earth radical Henry Morris, well known for his deceptions. For good, intellectial studies of the topic, see the books by Behe, Denton, Phillip Johnson and Hugh Ross.

On page 19 of his book, Hank says, "Evolution's most significant consequence is that it undermines the very foundation of Christianity. If evolution is reflective for the laws of science, then Genesis must be reflective of the flaws of Scripture. And if the foundation of Christianity is flawed, the superstructure is destined to fall."

Here, Hank admits that scientific objections to evolution are beside the point. If evolution is true, then Christianity is dead. How, then, can Hank examine the scientific evidence with an ounce of objectivity?

On page 147, he protests ad hominem attacks that "attack people rather than argue principles. Ad hominem arguments are designed to distract attention from the real issue." I agree with that COMPLETELY, which makes his following statements discreditable:

"Evolution not only dispenses with God ... but is racist as well." (p. 24)

"In the evolutionary hierarchy, black [races] are placed at the bottom, yellows and reds somewhere in the middle, and whites on top." (p. 26)

Granted, Hanegraaff cites racist quotes from historical figures, including Charles Darwin and Thomas Huxley. But is Hank aware that creationists have written racist books, too? By his deduction, does that fact discredit creation science? Did he ever read where George McCready Price and Frank Lewis Marsh claimed that black skin resulted from original sin? Does Hank know that Henry Morris once defended the Bell Curve notion of racial differences in IQ being genetically determined?

Hank should heed Jesus' warning in Matthew 7:3-5 about pointing out the speck in his brothers' eyes while ignoring the plank in his own.