Evolutionary Martian Madness!

Movie Review—Mission to Mars

by Ken Ham on August 4, 2000

Even though it was classified as “futuristic science-fiction,” I would call it “evolutionary madness.”

I don’t often watch in-flight movies when I fly across America or travel overseas (after all, there’s not much worth watching anyway these days!), but I had heard that the recent movie Mission To Mars had evolutionary themes, so I couldn’t resist the opportunity to view it on a recent flight to San Francisco.

Even though it was classified as “futuristic science-fiction,” I would call it “evolutionary madness.” This movie represents the position to which a number of evolutionists have already moved, and where I believe many others will go as time passes.

This film indoctrinates viewers in evolutionary dogma (like Jurassic Park and Lost World, it offers a mix of current beliefs about evolution and fictional ideas to influence people’s thinking), and gave the supposed ultimate answer as to from where life on Earth came.

One of the basic questions that “molecules-to-man” evolutionists cannot answer concerning life’s origins is where the information/code systems (e.g., DNA, RNA, etc.)—the basic building blocks of life—originated. See also Q&A: Origin of Life.

Creationists like Dr. Werner Gitt in his book In the Beginning Was Information have clearly illustrated that evolutionists cannot point to even one example where scientists have ever seen matter, by itself, generate information and code systems. Actually, those who believe in Darwinian evolution have to believe that matter generated information millions of times over millions of years.

Evolutionists can argue over all sorts of technical details about life, but they can’t answer this information problem, one of the most basic and vital of all questions concerning life’s origin. Creationists have written many articles challenging evolutionists on this issue, showing clearly that the only plausible answer is “In the Beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). (For examples of such articles, please see Q&A: Information Theory.) One of the film’s astronauts summarized a prevalent teaching in evolutionary circles that sadly most people seem to think is fact—that human and chimp DNA are only 3% different. AiG has already addressed this misleading information in Creation magazine. (See Human/chimp DNA similarity: Evidence for evolutionary relationship?)

When the astronauts reach Mars, they find a sculpted face, just like the one many of us have seen in certain publications over the years, where it is reported that people have claimed there was a face visible on the surface of Mars. AiG refuted this claim years ago in a Creation magazine.

This movie comes in the wake of the enormous publicity of the so-called “Mars Rock” received in 1998. The secular media resounded with the message that life may exist on Mars. Some evolutionary scientists were speculating that life may have come to Earth from Mars and that we are Martians. (One of the actors in the movie made a similar statement—earthlings were really Martians). AiG wrote a number of articles about this supposed Martian meteorite exposing it as emotional speculation (See God and the Extraterrestrials and Ape-Men and Spacemen). Since that time, most of the scientific community has rejected the claim that this rock had any indications at all of life from Mars.

As the movie’s astronauts move inside the face, they find the ultimate answer as to how life arose on Earth: a highly advanced civilization that colonized Mars had seeded Earth with DNA—the information system needed for life. According to the movie, this then answered the question evolutionists have had problems with (and creationists have long pointed out)—i.e., the explosion of life on Earth.

Of course this idea of panspermia (that life was seeded on Earth by aliens) has been around for some time, but is now gaining popularity because evolutionists are realizing they can’t account for the information systems that build life by just natural processes from matter.

The humorous aspect of this is that by having aliens seed life on Earth, evolutionists haven’t solved any problems at all—they’ve just moved the same problems many miles away in space!

It always amuses me that so many people would rather believe the story that some alien from a UFO has the answer to life’s origin, but they won’t believe that an infinite intelligence (the Creator God of the Bible) provided the information systems for life, and revealed what He did in written form (the Bible) so we would all know and understand who we are and from where we came.

The scriptwriters of Mission to Mars may have been “tongue in cheek,” but there was a serious underlying evolutionary message nonetheless.

I suspect we will see more movies and publications that reflect a similar storyline as told in this movie, as the god of this world desperately tries to blind people’s eyes to the fact that God’s Word is true from the beginning (Psalm 119:160).

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