|
Evolution/Creation An Introduction to the Worldview Struggle by Charles E. McCoy (9/13/2005) I grew up in a good home, always being taught and believing that God existed and the universe had a moral order by which we would all be held accountable. My Dad was an entomologist (the study of insects) and a good man who spoke truth as he understood it and lived with personal integrity. I became a “theistic-evolutionist” by default, but my thinking processes were stimulated in my earlier years of college as I studied evolutionary science classes - biology, zoology, physical anthropology, etc. - and I acquired a few nagging questions along the way. By the end of my second year of college, my discomfort with the physical sciences (for reasons I will explain later) gave way to my greater interest in history and social studies, which is what I went on to major in. As I finished my first bachelor’s degree in Secondary Education, I was challenged to consider the Bible and the first issue was what to do with the first eleven chapters of Genesis. Thus began my interest in evolution and creation, for I knew that it was finally time to pursue the questions that had begun nagging me in those college science classes. Here are a few of the questions that continue to bother me.
(1) Did life really arise from chemical and physical events only? If that is a truly "scientific" explanation, then shouldn't there be "evidence" for it (someone actually observing it happening in nature or reproducing such an event in a laboratory)?
(2) If the diversity of life arose by evolution, why are “common ancestors” almost always hypothetical characters and where is the fossil evidence for the numerous intermediates that must have existed between major groups of lifeforms, if such a grand transformation scenario truly happened? If this is a truly "scientific" explanation, then shouldn't the recognized experts be able to point us to solid evidence that makes this irrefutable (the leading paleontologists of the 20th century - George Gaylord Simpson & Stephen Jay Gould - admitted that there is no fossil evidence that any major group of lifeforms arose from any other)?
(3) If "mutation and natural selection" is really a valid explanation for the diversity of lifeforms, then why did evolutionists wind up split on an issue so basic to the issue as gradualism (slowly accumulated minor genetic changes) versus punctuated equilibrium (rapid mega-mutations/saltation)? One option (gradualism) is logically appealing, but very short on crucial fossil evidence that such ever happened, while the other (mega-mutation) is so unlikely on the basis of how genetic systems function that evolutionists are divided because they need a "mechanism" for turning chemicals into people and neither option is very convincing on its own merits.
(4) Why did all of these alleged “intermediates” become extinct, when they should all have been “more fit/better adapted” than the “more primitive” forms from which they arose, yet are still around? Not only did the intermediates not "out-compete" those they were better adapted than, they didn't leave much fossil evidence that they even existed.
(5) If ape to man evolutionary progress in mental ability is to be traced by increasing braincase size, then why was Neanderthal’s braincase larger than modern man’s? Neanderthal braincases averaged 200 cc's larger than modern man, yet they were initially portrayed as stupid, sub-humans. The logic of this argument fails when it argues for evolutionary progress on the basis of increasing braincase size, but then does not consistently explain our lesser braincase size.
(6) Why was "objectivity, observation & evidence" ignored in the retooling of Geology around the philosophical principle of uniformitarianism, in spite of the obvious and well-known evidences of catastrophism?
(7) Is it really true that all educated/intelligent/reasonable people believe in evolution and that everyone who rejects or even questions anything about evolution is uneducated / stupid / irrational? That is a pretty powerful propaganda ploy and logical fallacy (paint your view as the "only sensible course" and all who disagree as ignorant dolts), but it betrays the non-scientific nature of the dogmatic evolutionary agenda.
After 30 years of studying and following the evolution & creation controversy, I have concluded that this is much more than a question of science/religion - it is a struggle between two separate “worldviews,” paradigms, or philosophical imagined mental pictures about reality. I also came to see that there was also a fair amount of logical fallacies, devices of persuasion, propaganda, bad evidence, and heavy-handed power-politics being employed in this area. It is my conclusion that you cannot fully understand the creation/evolution controversy until you look at it from the “worldview” perspective - the flow of ideas over the centuries, the assumptions and philosophical systems involved, and examine the basic positions and how they handle evidence and tell their story in crucial areas. I. A Worldview Controversy Everyone has a worldview (a mental “big picture” of reality that is composed of foundational assumptions and partial evidence to support it). We all try to understand the scattered and partial “facts/evidence” in the context of some big story/paradigm/worldview. The importance of worldviews and basic assumptions cannot be over-emphasized, for they govern the flow of events in both our personal lives and the direction of a civilization. "There is a flow to history and culture. This flow is rooted in what people think, because what people think determines how they will act” (Francis Schaeffer) Three Major Questions Philosophy (Grk., literally “love of wisdom”) is, in some ways, similar to religion - both are attempts to understand the universe and our place in it, distinguish wisdom from folly, and find the best path to “the good life.” In formulating “philosophical” stories about reality, humans are seeking to answer three basic questions:
(1) where did we come from? (Origins) (2) why are we here? (Purpose) (3) where are we headed? (Destiny)
Interrelated - What you believe about “origins” affects how you will answer the other two questions. What we believe about our purpose and future destiny is rooted in what we believe about where we came from. If you teach kids that God exists and created the universe, established moral boundaries, and will hold us accountable, but offers pardon and hope in Jesus, that will tend to have an impact on how they think and act as they grow up (reason for hope, inescapable accountability, fixed moral boundaries, etc.). The evidence suggests that this tends to produce a higher sense of moral accountability and hope, as well as better physical and mental health. Throughout history, many intellectuals (including some major Enlightenment skeptics) have concluded that human society functions better when people believe in God’s existence and final judgment/rewards/penalty. On the other hand, if you teach kids that they are the accidental product of natural processes acting upon eternal matter, they came from slime, are just evolved animals, and have nothing ahead of them but death, then what kind of an impact would you expect that to have on their approach to life? This viewpoint tends to create the beliefs that there are no fixed boundaries, no final accountability, that life is a self-centered “survival of the fittest” struggle, and results in hopelessness and moral chaos.
Eternal Foundations - It was not far into my investigation that I realized that everyone begins their thinking with something “eternal.” I have heard criticisms of Christianity/Bible because it assumes an uncaused “eternal God” at the beginning of everything. I suppose that such critics think their “cause-effect” argument (“but where did God come from?”) is a real show-stopper, but if you press them they will admit that they assume and begin their reasoning with eternal matter and natural processes. But it would be very proper to equally press them - “where did the matter/natural processes come from?” Their answer will be - they are eternal. The discussion honestly begins with two separate sets of assumptions about something eternal from which all else follows. If I had to reason (and we all do) from something eternal to explain the existing universe, I would prefer to begin with God, for intelligent power is a much easier starting place to explain reality (especially order, life, intelligence, etc.) than eternal, inanimate stuff! Atheists do not want God in the picture, but they are forced to exercise a tremendous amount of faith and imagination in building their story upon eternal matter, chance, and time!
How people think determines how they act and the way people act affects not only themselves, but society in general. What we believe is important!!! While not a test of ultimate truthfulness, both Creation and Evolution should be subjected to a pragmatic “impact” test concerning its effect on individuals and society.
Occasionally, you will encounter an evolutionary spokesman who will admit that “worldview shift” is exactly what this is all about, . . .the Darwinian revolution was not merely the replacement of one scientific theory by another, as had been the scientific revolutions in the physical sciences, but rather the replacement of a worldview, in which the supernatural was accepted as a normal and relevant explanatory principle, by a new world view in which there is no room for supernatural forces.[1] As you will see, the desire to remove the supernatural from the picture is a major element in the evolutionary program and this betrays a strong philosophical agenda hidden under the claim that “empirical science” is all that evolutionists are doing. Jeffrey Dahmer, the cannibalistic Wisconsin mass-murderer, understood the worldview element of this controversy very well towards the end of his life, ‘If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then—then what’s the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges? That’s how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we, when we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing…’[2] II. Understanding “Science” The definition/conception of “science” has shifted and there is a bit of equivocation[3] going on here. One of the things that troubled me early was the disconnect that seemed to exist between the traditional conception of science and the philosophically-loaded definition that evolutionists use to control the discussion. Modern Western “science” arose in Protestant Europe, with men and women who believed in the existence of God and wanted an objective way of learning more about “how” His universe functioned. God was welcome in the overall discussion and the objective Baconian Induction model (Scientific Method) was pursued, from which real discoveries were made about many elements of the natural world. However, following the French Enlightenment, there was a deliberate shift in scientific methodology that was rooted in naturalistic philosophy. The assumption that only the natural realm was real (philosophical naturalism) gradually shifted “science” from a study of natural processes only toward an agenda of trying to explain the universe as though nature/natural processes are all there is. In effect, over the last several centuries, European intellectuals embraced the philosophical naturalism (belief that nature/natural processes is all there is) of the French Enlightenment and caused “science” to be viewed as an approach to studying the natural universe “as though God was not involved” (methodological naturalism) - philosophical naturalism led to methodological naturalism, which fosters more philosophical naturalism in those who study science. Or you could say it this way: men who did not believe God existed defined “science” in such a way that nature was to be studied as though God was not involved, which in turn caused more people to believe that God is not involved and does not exist. This is the process which has led to the large secular element in modern western civilization.
Concern over “definitions.” Defining “science” so that only naturalistic answers are allowed is a good tactic for controlling the discussion, but prematurely limits “reality” in such a way that God appears to have no purpose, as well as no existence and this goes well beyond the proper limits of science and logic. Debaters know that definitions are important - whoever gets to control the definitions used for crucial terms has an advantage in the discussion. What is “evolution”? Well, this is a very pertinent question, because part of the evolutionary approach has been to promote a large-scale general transformation scenario with evidence of small-scale variation. Many arguments have been won by the use of a device of persuasion called equivocation, in which you use one word in more than one sense, in the same context, in order to deceive. Equivocation occurs when evolutionists assert that “evolution is a fact,” but when asked what they mean by “evolution” they waffle a bit and give a variety of answers. Sometimes we are told that “evolution” just means “change” or change over time. That is hard to argue against. Sometimes, “evolution” is said to mean “descent with modification” - ok, but how much modification are we talking about? Are we talking limited “variation” within basic types of lifeforms or massive variation to the point of transformation - chemicals turning into people? Again, minor variations within basic types are hard to argue with. But the real goal of evolutionists that embrace philosophical materialism and naturalism (only matter and natural processes are real) is to get everyone to believe in “evolution” in the sense of inanimate chemicals accidentally forming the first “primitive” lifeform and then gradually (by mutation and natural selection) turning into all of the various lifeforms that have ever existed (i.e. transformation). Creationists are convinced that two major uses of the term “evolution” must be distinguished - micro-evolution (minor variation within types) and macro-evolution (the grand transformation scenario that, given enough time, natural processes alone turned chemicals into chemists). Most of the evidence and validity for “evolution” is associated with variation, while most of the controversy is associated with transformation. Most evolutionists tend to assume that biological variation is limitless - thus, minor variation, if it goes on long enough, could gradually turn single-celled life into plants, fish, snakes, birds, armadillos, elephants, whales, and people. Accordingly, evidence of "evolution" (variation), such as fruit flies becoming immune to DDT or bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics, is touted to be evidence for "Evolution" (transformation), although no structural change occurred in either case (and structural transformation is the debated issue!). The “evolution” controversy, in my understanding, centers on issues that conflict with clear Biblical information (and the evidence) - (1) the time issue (age of the universe and earth), (2) the origin of life (from previous Divine life or accidental spontaneous generation from non-living matter), and (3) where did the major groups of lifeforms came from (separate abrupt appearance or gradual emergence from earlier forms). The Traditional View of Science I initially learned (in public schools and at home) the traditional Baconian Induction/Scientific Method conception of “science.” Francis Bacon (1561-1626) is often credited with initially developing this approach, in which philosophical stances are laid aside and individual pieces of hard evidence are collected and analyzed first, by which you then reason towards the best explanation for the evidence. Philosophically, this is called “induction,” as opposed to “deduction,” where you begin with a position/conclusion and then approach evidence so as to either prove or disprove the position. This traditional "method" by which modern western science claims to operate is often presented in a simple five-point outline.
1. Recognition & definition of a "problem" (usually in the form of evidence for which there is no satisfactory explanation) 2. Gather information/data (collect everything available about the situation) 3. Create a hypothesis (i.e., an educated guess) to explain the problem 4. Test the hypothesis by means of repeated experiments under controlled conditions 5. If the tests confirm the hypothesis, then frame a "theory" as the tentative explanation for the phenomena (always open to revision with new data in the future)
The biology text my father was using when I entered college discussed the traditional method and claimed that this was the only way to do science. Anything to which the scientific method can be applied, now or in the future, is or will be science; anything to which the method cannot be applied is not science. . . . Science commits you to nothing more, and to nothing less, than adherence to the scientific method.[4] This approach doesn’t rule God out of the picture of reality, recognizes the limits of science, and most Christians are quite supportive of the traditional conception of “science” as an open-minded evidence-based study of “what is really there” and “how things work?” Such an approach is best-suited and limited to the repeatable and observable realities of nature, acknowledging that unobserved one-time events in the past (such as the origin of the universe and life) are outside of the realm of true science and science should, thus, remain silent on unobservable and non-testable issues such as origins, God’s existence, and whether or not God played a role in the origin of the universe and life, All science begins with observation, the first step of the scientific method. At once this delimits the scientific domain; something that cannot be observed cannot be investigated by science. . . . it is necessary, furthermore, that an observation be repeatable, actually or potentially. . . One time events on earth are outside science. . . . That is also a major reason why one-time, unrepeatable events normally cannot be science.[5] The point is that the concept of God is outside the domain of science, and science cannot legitimately say anything about Him. He cannot be tested by science, because its method is inapplicable.[6] “Science” redefined as Naturalism If Weisz had proceeded to just follow evidence and avoid non-scientific issues (God, unobserved one-time events in the distant past like the “origin of life”), then I might not be here now. However, as I sat in my father’s biology class and read the textbook, it bothered me that Weisz waved the traditional approach “banner” but then proceeded to use the first 30 pages to advance a philosophical perspective in which “correct science” requires the assumption that God has not been involved in the natural order, origin of life, etc. The following comments did not seem consistent with Weisz’ earlier discussion of the boundaries of science, refraining from discussions involving God/supernatural. Vitalism is the doctrine of the supernatural . . . Whatever value a vitalistic philosophy might have elsewhere, it cannot have value in science. . . .Any other vitalistic conception is similarly untestable by experiment and is therefore unusable as a scientific philosophy of nature. A philosophy which is usable in science is that of mechanism. In the mechanistic view, the prime mover of the universe is a set of natural laws, i.e. the laws of physics and chemistry. . . life too must be a result of physical and chemical events only. . . Clearly, these differences between vitalism and mechanism point up a conceptual conflict between religion and science. . . . the vitalist must admit that any direct influence of God over the universe must have ceased once His natural laws were in operation. . . . correct science does demand that supernatural concepts be kept out of natural events. . . . However much a vitalist he might be in his unscientific thinking, man in his scientific thinking must be a mechanist. If he is not, he ceases to be scientific.[7] . . . life too must be a result of physical and chemical events only.[8] There is every reason to believe that living things owe their origin entirely to certain physical and chemical properties of the ancient earth. Nothing supernatural appeared to be involved – only time and natural and physical laws operating within the peculiarly suitable earthly environment. . . . once the earth had originated in its ancient form, with particular chemical and physical properties, it was then virtually inevitable that life would later originate on it also.[9] Why must we assume that all of God’s direct involvement in the universe ended once natural laws were in operation (thus ruling out all “miracles”)? Why must “correct science” exclude any mention or conclusions involving God - what is a scientist supposed to do if the evidence points toward intelligent design/order and not toward materialism and naturalism as the best answer? After saying that science cannot speak about unobserved one-time events in the past or say anything about God, Weisz didn’t seem to have any problem declaring that God had nothing to do with the origin of life! What is going on here is not science, but very clever philosophical card-stacking - arranging things so that your philosophical position is bound to appear as the only possible answer. The assertion that one must hold that God ceased to be directly involved once natural laws were in operation is logical nonsense (or a ploy to promote naturalism as the only route), for there is no logical reason why a Creator of natural processes cannot intervene into His own natural order in the same way a scientist manipulates and tinkers with an experiment! Weisz’ philosophical agenda really begins to show when he equates “correct science” with anti-supernaturalism and asserts that all cosmic, geological, and biological events were/are purely “natural” events. He can’t know such things on the basis of traditional science and is really using a logical fallacy called “begging the question” (assuming an unproven conclusion in your premise) in which his philosophical naturalism assumes that nature is all there is and then asserts this as a fact to encourage students to embrace his evolutionary beliefs. For philosophical materialists and naturalists, even an occasional divine intervention is philosophically incompatible with the “nature-only” approach, so it must be “ruled out” to begin with for their system of thought (uniform natural causes) to work. It appears to me that evolutionists control the discussion with a number of effective powerful maneuvers.
“Science” as materialism & naturalism - One of these tactics has been to gradually redefine “science” so that it comes to be equated with materialism and naturalism,[10] which then dictates that some kind of “evolutionary progress” scenario just has to be the only possible answer. I believe that it is this philosophical hijacking of “science” so that “evolution” is the only possible answer that has caused the increase in tension and controversy. Some examples of this tactic, In any event, creation is an unacceptable explanation to science. It requires the invoking of a force outside of nature to account for natural events, thus violating one of the fundamental ground rules of science. Humankind uses science to explain and better understand their experiences by establishing relationships between and among naturalistic phenomena. That is, science attempts to explain nature, or the materialistic world, in terms of itself. When creation is invoked, it implies something outside of nature ‑ a supreme being‑as the cause of the origin of life. Thus it is not a scientific explanation.[11] Because they (Creationists) depend on supernatural intervention, not natural law, they are also unscientific.[12] Scientists and particularly the professional students of evolution are often accused of a bias toward mechanism or materialism, even though believers in vitalism and in finalism are not lacking among them. Such bias as may exist is inherent in the method of science. The most successful scientific investigation has generally involved treating phenomena as if they were purely materialistic or naturalistic, rejecting any metaphysical or transcendental hypothesis as long as a natural hypothesis seems possible. The method works.[13] What troubled me most about these comments was that the primary philosophical issues - does God exist and intervene? is nature all there is? - have never been settled! Instead, philosophical materialists and naturalists gained control of western science and education and began asserting their assumptions as established truth. One of the key tools of propaganda is to state your position loud and often - if you can control the microphones and printing presses so as to silence the alternatives, you will soon capture the minds of most people no matter how unreasonable your position. However, is it not a bit arrogant and presumptuous to claim that you aren’t saying anything about God, but then try to force everyone to function as though God does not exist or intervene in the natural order? If, in fact, God does exist and intervenes in the natural order, then dogmatic naturalism and the assumption that uniform natural processes are the only shapers of reality becomes a false and misleading approach to understanding nature, truth, and reality. In such a climate, even natural catastrophes interfere with making predictions based on uniform natural processes, so they also were eliminated in geology. The central role of philosophical naturalism in creating this problem with science and Christianity has been noted by C. S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, and Philip Johnson.[14]
Do some of these guys (who promote a materialistic/naturalistic "evolution-only" definition of science) know that their approach is a bit contrived and philosophically “heavy-handed”? Sure they do. Science, fundamentally, is a game. It is a game with one overriding and defining rule: Rule No. 1: Let us see how far and to what extent we can explain the behavior of the physical and material universe in terms of purely physical and material causes, without invoking the supernatural.[15] “Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic”[16] Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.[17] Once the naturalistic approach became the ruling orthodoxy as the only way to “scientifically” understand the natural universe, it wasn’t long before bold proclamations of naturalistic philosophy begin to appear. Because the public is not trained to distinguish scientific from philosophical statements, evolutionists have been able to mix science and philosophy and, thus, promote their personal philosophical beliefs as though they were scientific truth. Carl Sagan went way beyond the traditional boundaries of science and knowledge when he boldly proclaimed his materialistic philosophy as his theme statement for his Cosmos book and video series, The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.[18] Accordingly, because of the philosophical bias that exists in favor of materialism and naturalism, it is not uncommon to find evolutionists promoting their agenda with words intentionally added to infer that God had no part in the process. Consider the official “position statement” (1995) of the National Association of Biology Teachers, The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable, and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification . . . evolutionary theory, indeed all of science, is necessarily silent on religion and neither refutes nor supports the existence of a deity or deities.[19] The words “unsupervised” and “impersonal” were included for one reason - to imply that God had nothing to do with the diversity of life that exists. The disclaimer appears to be respecting the traditional boundaries of “science,” but is actually asserting that “existence” is now the only element left to God that science is not commenting on. In other words, “we are not saying that God doesn’t exist, just that God didn’t have anything to do with how life developed on planet earth!” Theistic evolutionists should note that such statements are aimed at discrediting their position also.
Disguise the controversy as “Science vs. Religion” - A second tactic is to align terminology so that you portray the controversy in terms of good versus evil, with evolution aligned with “science / reason / evidence / education” while any form of creationism, intelligent Design, or questions/doubts/opposition to Darwinism is associated with “religion / non-reason / blind faith / ignorance / fundamentalism.” Religion is portrayed as non-rational, mystical, personal, private, fanatical superstition, and willfully ignorant of the “evidence.” Many comments have been arrogant and intentionally insulting, There is no rival hypothesis except the outworn and completely refuted idea of special creation, now retained only by the ignorant, the dogmatic, and the prejudiced.[20] It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).[21] Evolution of the animal and plant world is considered by all those entitled to judgment to be a fact for which no further proof is needed.[22] ...the fact of evolution could be denied only by an abandonment of reason.[23] We owe it to (Darwin) that the world was brought to believe in evolution. . . Here is a theory that released thinking men from the spell of superstition, one of the most overpowering that has ever enslaved mankind. . . . We owe to the Origin of Species the overthrow of the myth of Creation. . .[24] That is the big difference between science and religion. Science exists because of the evidence, whereas religion exists upon faith-and, in the case of religious fundamentalism and creationism, in spite of the evidence.[25] Once non-evolutionists are portrayed as ignorant religious zealots, then religion is equated with the Inquisition and persecution, with the claim that religious persecution will follow and all science and research will be stopped if any form of creationism/Intelligent Design is even allowed into the discussion. Given that modern western science arose in a Protestant Christian environment, which sought to better understand the processes of God's universe by objective investigation, this charge is absurd. Perhaps it might be more to the point to investigate to what degree evolutionists have “persecuted heretics” since they have been in control of public education for the last 50 years. III. The Historical Flow of Ideas Something has changed in how we understand “science” in western civilization. It is generally known that modern western science arose in Protestant Europe through people[26] who believed the universe was the orderly creation of a rational and consistent God, thus it could be studied and consistent patterns and process could be discerned - a rational approach to better understand how God’s creation operated. Until 1700, western civilization functioned upon the Judeo-Christian worldview. What happened that made God so unwelcome in the discussion in our time? To understand this, we need to delve back into history and follow the flow of events and ideas over a number of centuries.
The Ancient World (before 600 B.C.) was, overwhelmingly, slanted towards supernatural views of origins. Most of the stories from ancient Mesopotamian civilizations follow a similar format - initial supernatural creation, people lived longer lives, rebellion and evil brought on a great flood. This was also true in ancient Greece, where Homer’s “gods of Olympus” were generally embraced down to 600 B.C.
Greco-Roman Paganism (600 B.C. - 313 A.D.). On the island of Ionia, around 600 B.C., we find the first recorded example of materialistic naturalism - philosophers skeptical of Homer’s gods asserting that only the material/natural realm exists and gradually “self-developed” by its own inherent powers and processes acting over long periods of time by “trial & error.” Anaximander (b. 610 B.C.) believed the universe began as undifferentiated mass, with life originating in the sea and then evolving through adaptations to new environments. While he believed that humans had evolved from some animal form, he was troubled by the lengthy period of childhood dependency in humans. Empedocles (5th century B.C.) held that "love" brings independently-formed body parts together. Nature makes many trials and experiments and, when the combination works, it survives and perpetuates its kind. He also believed in the transmigration of souls and warned people to stay away from beans.[27] Except for some details, modern evolutionary theory is not much different from the philosophical speculations of Anaximander and Empedocles. Plato and Aristotle had their doubts about this materialistic/naturalistic scenario, but it did spread to other Greek skeptics and was adopted by many worldly Romans later on.
The Christian era (313-1648 A.D.) - As Christianity came to control Europe, Greek materialism declined in popularity (400-1650 A.D.), but the door was opened for its return as the earlier Greek thinkers were rediscovered by the Scholastics (ca. 900-1200 A.D.), who were Roman Catholic scholars trying to blend Greek philosophy (especially Aristotle) with Catholic teaching. From Plato and Aristotle came the notions of the earth fixed at the center of the universe and the Great Chain of being “fixed species” biology. Later on, Galileo and Darwin would oppose these notions in the European Catholic worldview, but few realize that they were opposing notions from earlier Greek philosophers and not Biblical teaching! Next, pre-Christian Greco-Roman culture in general was glorified in the Italian and French Renaissance (1200-1600). With the growing awareness of corruption in the Catholic hierarchy and increasing access to the Bible, the 1400’s saw several expressions of the Reformation spirit (Wycliffe, Huss, Savonarola) and this eventually burst forth in the Great Reformation (1520-1648 - Luther, Zwingli, Calvin).
The Post-Reformation Era (1648-1800) saw two specific things develop. After the Catholic-Protestant fighting stopped with the Peace of Westphalia (1648), each of the national “reform” movements set about forming their respective “state church,” with the government of their area. A main concern was denominational rivalry and suspicion of other groups. The nasty interaction of Catholics and Protestants, followed by continuing hatred and suspicion, led a growing number of skeptics to seek another worldview. Scholasticism and the Renaissance had already provided awareness of an alternative - pre-Christian Greco-Roman materialism/naturalism. A growing group of French intellectuals/skeptics shifted to materialism and naturalism and this influential movement came to be known as the French Enlightenment.
The French Enlightenment (1689-1789) is a key piece of information in understanding the problem we face today - all knowledge in the public sector being bound to an “evolutionary progress” paradigm.[28] This dogmatic “evolutionary progress” scenario arose from the French Enlightenment’s three foundational assumptions.[29] Consider what each of these mean, for the increasingly secularized modern Western world is educated and built upon these presuppositions. (1) Nature only or only the natural realm and its processes are real. The obvious implication of this proposition is that the supernatural realm does not exist and, if this notion is embraced then God, angels, demons, Satan, miracles, etc. are excluded from “reality.” If there is no supernatural realm, then there is no personal Creator to communicate/reveal, intervene (miracle), reveal fixed moral boundaries, or hold humans accountable later on. This proposition, if accepted as true, leads to the rejection of the Judeo-Christian worldview (Hebrews 11:6) as a valid approach to reality. This proposition endorses materialism/naturalism as the starting point. Essentially, Carl Sagan's theme statement (quoted earlier) for his Cosmos book/video series was nothing more than a reworded version of this assumption. (2) Progress - this adds an optimistic view to the assumption that matter and natural processes are the extent of reality. These first two concepts, when embraced, already dictate an “evolutionary progress” scenario. Given enough time, natural processes alone will inherently move matter towards higher states of order, from simple/primitive states toward complex/advanced states. This notion was well-established in European thought before the principles of thermodynamics were understood - the evidence that natural processes tend toward increasing disorder is a very unwelcome idea for evolutionists and tends to be ignored or downplayed. “Inherent natural Progress” asserts that things are inherently “getting better” and “organizing” into higher states of order - the negative effects of sin and Edenic curse are eliminated from “reality.” (3) Human reason is the only path to knowledge - this proposition also had a loaded intent, to rule out the possibility that the Bible (or "revelation") was a credible source of information. What these guys meant by "reason" was not objectivity or logic per se, but "reasoning" upon the first two assumptions (nature only & progress) that nature is the extent of reality and, thus, there is no supernatural realm from which God could exist and reveal anything. Accordingly, "reason" demanded that divine revelation be ruled out as a source of truth and the Bible was accused of being nothing more than a humanly-fabricated collection of myths, legends, and historical falsehoods concocted by corrupt Jewish priests and then the Church so as to control the ignorant masses. These are the foundational assumptions that guide the public sector of Western civilization today and form the basis of the anti-Christian/anti-Bible mentality that we are struggling against. Our adversary is smart and knows that there is a flow to what happens, rooted in what people think - so he has been involved in retooling Western thought to presuppositions that make God seem unreal and irrational.
The Modern era (1800-1963) was the period in which the Enlightenment’s basic propositions were employed by a growing number of European intellectuals to retool all knowledge away from the Judeo-Christian/Biblical worldview towards an “evolutionary progress” scenario. For the philosophical children of the French Enlightenment, slow naturalistic development from simple/primitive/early origins toward complex/ advanced/ later states (with God nowhere in the picture) became the new “orthodox” paradigm for explaining everything. Thus, in the 18th and 19th centuries, we find Enlightenment-minded European intellectuals developing “evolutionary progress” explanations for various areas of knowledge: (a) Hutton and Lyell’s uniformitarian geology, (b) Hegel and Karl Marx re-wrote history, (c) Wallace, Blythe, and Darwin produced naturalistic gradual development stories for biology, (d) the German “Higher Critics” remodeled the story of Biblical history and how the Bible was formed along evolutionary progress line, (e) Freud’s psychology, and (f) stellar evolution theories. Every field of knowledge was re-written according to the paradigm of gradual evolutionary progress. By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous. Together with Marx's materialistic theory of history and society and Freud's attribution of human behavior to influences over which we have little control, Darwin's theory of evolution was a crucial plank in the platform of mechanism and materialism - of much of science, in short - that has since been the stage of most Western thought.[30] My conclusion is that modern evolution is not really “good science” as much as it is a rebirth of ancient Greek materialism/naturalism. Looking at how this notion has developed in Western thinking over the last 400 years, I believe that evolutionists have embraced an old Greek nature myth and then gone searching for evidence to support it. Having established their scenario as the only “scientific” story allowed (the dominant “orthodox” paradigm), they now seek to control education and the media and have added the Supreme Court as their protectors by making this appear to be a “separation of church and state” issue. The “Paradigm Shift” in Western science has been acknowledge by evolutionists, Empiricism began as an effort to learn more about God and became a way of understanding our world without God.[31] How foundational was the Enlightenment project to modern evolutionary dogmatism and opposition to God being allowed into the discussion in modern Western civilization? It was openly admitted in connection with the National Center for Science Education’s opposition to Intelligent Design (“I.D.”) during the 2005 Kansas curriculum hearings, Opponents, led by the Oakland, Calif.-based National Center for Science Education, regard I.D. as an assault on a basic principle of the Enlightenment, that science must explain nature through natural causes. "Intelligent design is predicated on a supernatural creator," says Vic Walczak, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, which is challenging Dover's introduction of the concept into biology classes. "That's not science, it's religion."[32] IV. Contending for the Faith The creation/evolution conflict should not come as major surprise to us. Jude (vs. 3) spoke of “contending for the faith” as though a struggle should be expected. Paul said that our primary battle was not with flesh and blood, but with powerful spiritual forces working through the structures of society (Eph. 6:10-19) and centered on ideas, speculations, thoughts raised up against the knowledge of God . For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, (2Cor. 10:3-5) Peter seemed to be describing the very situation we face today - Christ’s coming ridiculed and the creation and flood stories rejected in favor of the belief that nature has just rolled along on its own for a long time and that God does not intervene and judge mankind, Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation." For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. (2Peter 3:3-6) Thus, this worldview/philosophical/paradigm struggle over Creation vs. materialism/naturalism is exactly the kind of “spiritual warfare” that Paul expected would continue throughout the age. Why this Conflict is unavoidable and won’t go away This conflict won’t go away because it revolves around foundational elements that both worldviews hold sacred and cannot surrender without surrendering their entire position. For evolutionists who embrace the philosophy (or “faith”) of materialistic naturalism, their foundational commitment is to the idea that matter is the ultimate reality and natural processes alone govern its forms and history, thus they are convinced that the supernatural is unreal and must be kept out of their naturalistic “big story” at all costs! Evolutionists know that eliminating the supernatural (especially the Bible and its God) from the discussion is the first step in selling the evolutionary story. Walter Cronkite’s “Ape-Man” (A&E 1994) series, episode 4 began with a clear assertion that “evolution is true” and the Biblical story is “fiction”. (video clip) For Christians, God as Creator of the universe and life is a basic premise and is foundational for our understanding of nature (Genesis 1:1; Exodus 20:11; Philippians 1:15-17; Revelation 4:11). Thus, the existence and involvement of God in the universe are essential and foundational concepts (Hebrews 11:6) and any attempt to explain the universe and life without God is a denial of the foundation of our faith. Why do our young people go off to State Universities and lose their faith? Simple, (1) they are barraged with a monolithic “evolutionary” worldview in which nature is everything and God is excluded, and (2) they are surrounded with a morality-neutral social setting in which satisfying fleshly urges is glorified. Most are unprepared for such an assault. Four Major Positions Biblical Creationism - Following Biblical information as a guide, this view begins with the belief that an eternal Creator God exists. The Bible suggests a young universe/earth; fairly simultaneous and separate abrupt origin of the first representatives of major “kinds” or groups of lifeforms (phyla?) that could then reproduce and adapt/vary within these major kind boundaries (biological variation within limits), lifeforms in a larger size (Nephilim), and a later major year-long flood event that caused mass extinction of lifeforms and massive geological changes.
Evolution - Better named “macro-evolution” (large scale transformation from chemicals to people), this view could also be labeled in philosophical terms as materialistic naturalism. The full and consistent philosophical system begins with a belief in self-existing eternal matter that eventually made the accidental jump from inanimate to animate (non-life to life) and then gradually developed into its extinct and present living forms by natural processes only. Human ancestry is alleged to go back through an ape-like common ancestor, to something like a tree-shrew, then a reptile, amphibian, fish, and back to an original single-celled lifeform. I call this the "Enlightenment view of human history" and it looks something like this,
While they would prefer to talk about mutation and natural selection, you could still accurately portray this as a philosophical scenario in which, given enough time, natural processes alone turned chemicals into people. The human species descended from a long line of animal forebears all the way back to one-celled animals.[33]
Theistic Evolution - this is a compromise position, in which the entire evolution story is accepted as fact/truth, but God is still retained in the background as the one who put it into motion. “Evolution” was God’s “method” of creating all life.
Intelligent Design - the gradual re-definition of “science” to promote materialistic and naturalistic philosophy has not just annoyed Biblical Creationists. There is also now a growing movement of intellectuals that recognize and reject the materialistic and naturalistic philosophical agenda underlying mainline evolutionary thought and advocate a recognition of the evidences of intelligent design in the universe. ID advocates do not dogmatically identify the “Designer,” but they do want to open the door for science to consider that some things might look designed because they were designed. One of its leading spokesmen, William Dembski, has defined “Intelligent Design” (ID) as, the science that studies signs of intelligence and identifies its fundamental claim as there are natural systems that cannot be adequately explained in terms of undirected natural forces and that exhibit features which in any other circumstances we would attribute to intelligence.[34] As more and more people become aware of the philosophical agenda at work in evolutionary circles, the weaknesses of the evolutionary story, and the intimidation and monopolistic practices of evolutionists, I expect both Intelligent Design and Biblical Creationist movements to continue to grow and evolutionary bluster and suppression tactics to increase. Honesty About the Positions Perhaps we should identify three separate elements in this discussion. First of all, there is Biblical creationism, which begins with faith in what the Bible says and then approaches the evidence accordingly. If you want, you could call this creation science. Second, there is evolution, which begins with faith in Enlightenment presuppositions, the writings of Darwin, and what many books and college professors say and then approaches the evidence accordingly. You could call this evolution science. Both of these views are examples of deductive philosophy - beginning with a scenario and then working to prove or disprove it with evidence and logic. As long as you know and admit what you are doing, there is nothing wrong with adopting a paradigm and then seeing how well it explains the evidence - evolutionists have been doing it for decades, Science, fundamentally, is a game. It is a game with one overriding and defining rule: Rule No. 1: Let us see how far and to what extent we can explain the behavior of the physical and material universe in terms of purely physical and material causes, without invoking the supernatural.[35] Finally, there is another approach, which begins with no preconceptions and rules out no possible answers ahead of time. It collects and evaluates all available evidence and then forms and evaluates conclusions that accord with evidence and testing. This approach is “traditional Western Science” and it is a good way to learn things. It does NOT begin with any particular philosophical agenda assumed to be true (or targeted for exclusion from the discussion) and is concerned with discovering truth about how nature functions. It is honest about problems and weaknesses in any theory and is truly open to adjusting conclusions as evidence warrants, because it is focused on discovering truth from observation and evidence rather than paradigm protection. Much of the current controversy would end if science education in the United Stated would return to this approach. Hard Questions The Bible has been subjected to very harsh criticism over the last couple of centuries by skeptics and critics determined to remove it from serious consideration in Western civilization. However, the critics should not be exempted from critical evaluation. There is no reason why evolution should be exempted from critical analysis and tough questions, unless "truth" has ceased to be the real goal of our "science."
Is evolution empirical science or a “faith system”? Rather than portray the controversy in terms of two philosophical systems trying to explain and understand the universe and the available hard evidence for what happened in the past, we see an idealistic misrepresentation of how sides operate. The judge said creationist methods in the realm of science differed from those of other scientists. "The creationists' methods do not take data, weigh it against the opposing scientific data and thereafter reach ... conclusions. Instead, they take the literal wording of the book of Genesis and attempt to find scientific support for it," he said.[36] Biblical Creationism does take Genesis seriously and then deductively see if evidence supports that story. However, evolutionists generally fail to admit (many of them also fail to recognize) that they function by the same method - they embrace a philosophical scenario by faith and then go looking for evidence to prove it. In fact, a few evolutionists have admitted that a good deal of “faith” has been involved and that evolution functions as a secular religion, Despite their growing faith in the evolution of man, they had so little fossil evidence to go on that their theories were of necessity largely speculative. Darwin, in fact, wrote his epochal The Descent of Man without a single sub-human fossil as evidence to support his theory.[37] The theory of evolution forms a satisfactory faith on which to base our interpretation of nature.[38] That brings us to Michael Ruse, a staunch evolutionist and a noted evolutionary philosopher of science. In the 1982-3 Arkansas Balanced Treatment case, Ruse was one of the witnesses who testified that "evolution is science," but "creationism is religion." However, speaking at a 1993 symposium, he stunned the audience a bit when he confessed that he had changed his mind somewhat since that trial and thought that it was time that evolutionists face the fact that evolution has also functioned like a religion, And certainly, there's no doubt about it, that in the past, and I think also in the present, for many evolutionists, evolution has functioned as something with elements which are, let us say, akin to being a secular religion.[39] With the passing of another decade since that comment, Ruse has moved even further in his view of the creation/evolution controversy. In a new book, published in 2005, Ruse declares that evolution is just as much a “religion/belief” system as Biblical creationism/Christianity, For this reason, I will tell a tale of evolution and religion that will hold surprises for all of today's controversialists. The full story is far more complex than any of us, including (especially) us evolutionists, have realized. The dispute, as we shall see, is more than merely a matter of right and wrong. At some deeper level, it involves commitments about the nature of reality and the status and obligations of humans in this reality. In particular, I argue that in both evolution and creation we have rival religious responses to a crisis of faith - rival stories of origins, rival judgments about the meaning of human life, rival sets of moral dictates, and above all what theologians call rival eschatologies - pictures of the future and of what lies ahead for humankind. But these rivals are blood relatives. And, paradoxically, the bitterness of the controversy can be traced in large part to the fact that this is a family feud. The two sides share a common set of questions and, in important respects, common solutions. With the things uncovered, I will offer what I hope are fertile and constructive suggestions for moving forward.[40] Is evolution objective, self-correcting science? In spite of the noble claims about science being open-minded, objective, and truth-seeking, scientists are still people who were taught by other humans and have a number of pressures working on them and agendas to pursue. Biologists often affirm that as members of the scientific community they positively welcome criticism. Nonsense. Like everyone else, biologists loathe criticism and arrange their lives so as to avoid it.[41] Myths are most effective and dangerous when they remain unrecognized for what they are. Many of us are happy in the complacent belief that myths are what primitive people believe in, but that we ourselves are completely free of them . . . but we do not usually realize that we ourselves share in the myth-making faculty with all men of all times and places, that each of us has his own store of myths which have been derived from the traditional stock of the society in which we live . . . many of them (scientists) are quite as deluded as most laymen are.[42] Is evolution a myth? The quality of a paradigm should be judged by its ability to account for ALL of the known valid evidence and its ability to handle new evidence without a major overhaul. When experts differ amongst themselves about minor issues, no problem. But when a single find throws the entire scenario into “start over” mode (especially when this occurs often), our "baloney detector" should be red-lined! After being told repeatedly that "evolution was a fact" and that scientists are just "fine-tuning” their theories, headlines like the following (from the 1990’s) make you wonder. The Truth About Dinosaurs - Surprise: Just about everything you believe is wrong[43] How Man Began: Fossil bones the dawn of humanity are rewriting the story of evolution[44] Scientists go from certain to shaken - more questions than answers on the universe[45] New observations have smashed the old view of our universe - What Now?[46] Discovery rocks human-origin theories[47] When your theory is well-grounded in evidence and at least “close” to being correct, then all of the new evidence found later on should “fit in” and require, at most, a slight revision. However, if your theory is primarily philosophy/guess/belief and pretty slim on evidence, then one new piece of evidence can really upset it and this continues to happen to evolutionary beliefs frequently. Another angle on such headlines would be to say that being skeptical of what was being taught by the experts on each of these fields prior to each of these new finds wasn't so "ignorant" after all - they are telling us that the explanation prior to the discovery of this new evidence (which "all enlightened people" were supposed to believe) was quite wrong! I have found numerous similar quotations stretching back into the 1980’s - 1960’s. Evolutionary Orthodoxy & Dogma In spite of the popular portrayal of scientists as noble and unbiased seekers of truth, university science departments, like most other areas of human thought, have their own established orthodoxies that all must subscribe to if they wish to be members of the club. . . . there have always been well-informed, respected scientists who have found Darwinism to be inadequate . . . if a poll were taken of the scientists in the world, the great majority would say they believed Darwinism to be true. But scientists, like everybody else, base most of their opinions on the word of other people. Of the great majority who accept Darwinism, most (though not all) do so based on authority. Also, and unfortunately, too often criticisms have been dismissed by the scientific community for fear of giving ammunition to creationists. It is ironic that in the name of protecting science, trenchant scientific criticism of natural selection has been brushed aside.[48] Enforcing Orthodoxy? - Secular university departments enforce “orthodox paradigms” as much as the Medieval Catholic Church did - subscribe to the current accepted view or you may not get your advanced degree, a teaching position, or published. One of the most astonishing characteristics of scientists is that some of them are plain, old-fashioned bigots. Their zeal has a fanatical, egocentric quality characterized by disdain and intolerance for anyone or any value not associated with a special area of intellectual activity.[49] There is a considerable amount of evidence that evolutionists are willing to convene “heresy trials” and remove the unfaithful from their “science church.” Consider the following comments by John Maddox and Daniel Dennett, as they sound like they would like to see an Inquisition against non-evolutionists and soon! . . . it may not be long before the practice of religion must be regarded as anti-science. . . ‘creation science,’ as its practitioners call it, deserves the fiercest counter-attack, especially now that so many of its practitioners have qualified as scientists and engineers, and so are all the more insidious because they know the language.[50] But hasn’t there been a tremendous rebirth of fundamentalist faith in all these creeds? Yes, unfortunately, there has been, and I think that there are no forces on this planet more dangerous to us all than the fanaticisms of fundamentalism . . . Safety demands that religions be put in cages, too - when absolutely necessary.[51] Jerry Bergman has collected and documented a number of cases of evolutionary persecution of those who question or object - competent and even outstanding secondary teachers fired for wanting to present a two-model approach, highly qualified college professors denied jobs or tenure for doubting Darwinism, graduate and post-graduate candidates (often with outstanding academic accomplishment) denied degrees. Some noted figures have incurred the oppressive weight of the evolutionary establishment by questioning (or just expressing doubts privately) some point of evolutionary orthodoxy - Immanuel Velikovsky, Sir Fred Hoyle, Dr. A. E. Wilder-Smith, Forrest Mims, Dean Kenyon, Robert V. Gentry, Rod LeVake, Mortimer J. Adler, Philip Bishop, Henry F. Schaefer, William Dembski, Richard Stermberg, Nancy Bryson, Caroline Crocker, Guillermo Gonzalez, etc. Some of these cases have even reached the national news. Creationists and Intelligent Design advocates are often criticized for not "publishing" in mainstream science journals, but this is not because they have nothing credible to say or have not tried. The evolutionary bias of editors (and pressure on them from the evolutionary community) causes them to refuse to print what is submitted for philosophical reasons and this is well-documented. It is nothing short of hypocritical for evolutionists to refuse to publish anything from a creationist/Intelligent Design perspective, but then accuse them of being non-scientific because they haven't published their work in major science journals.
I have come to better understand and appreciate the mentality of Medieval Catholicism as it sought to control the European worldview and suppress dissenting reformers from watching how staunch evolutionists currently seek to protect their story and hold on society in the same ways - control education, ridicule all who question or doubt as “ignorant/superstitious,” employ confident and arrogant bluster that they are the only ones who understand any of this and their story is the “only story” anyone should hear, etc. The cartoon below is, sadly, all too true,
Evolution has become an “oppressive orthodox Institution” - Entrenched "orthodox" systems of thought usually become repressive, because once they achieve cultural acceptance they no longer need to “prove” their position and can just state it as “fact.” Every "movement" that gains a dominant place in human society and becomes an "institution" tends to move away from its original principles and more concerned with "protecting" and perpetuating itself. Once any view is assumed to be “true,” it tends to be regarded by its adherents as "orthodoxy" and then any criticisms or doubt of it are relegated to the realm of ignorance, stubbornness, or “heresy.” Thus, questions and doubts are dealt with by arrogant dismissal, verbal intimidation/ridicule, and social/ political repression. Rather than admit weaknesses or problems, "orthodox institutions" tend to gloss over them and respond to critics by ignoring, ridiculing, or excommunicating them (i.e. heretics), regardless of their status or credentials - anyone who doubts is plainly "unfaithful." This is how medieval Catholicism responded to various reform efforts and, unfortunately and it is, increasingly how many Darwinists/evolutionists deal with criticism. In 1925, the Scopes Trial dealt with the issue of whether or not school children would be allowed to hear the evolutionary viewpoint along with the Biblical view. In 1962-3, a couple of court cases were initiated so that the Biblical view would be officially banned from public schools and evolution would became the only story they would be allowed to hear. So much for the evolutionists' alleged concern for open-mindedness and allowing students to consider alternatives views. Once in control of education, evolutionists have turned out to be every bit as closed-minded, dogmatic, and monopolistic as any of the “fundamentalists” they so openly despise. The much (and properly) maligned Catholic Inquisition did kill tens of thousands of people over several centuries. However, state-enforced atheism (espousing Darwinism) killed tens of millions of people in 20th century Russia and China alone for the same reasons - to enforce a way of thinking. The alleged threat of repression if Christians are in control doesn't seem to be nearly as dangerous as state-enforced secularism! While materialism, naturalism, and Darwinism have been foundational for Marxist-Leninist communism, a few years ago some Chinese scientists made an interesting charge against American Darwinists. Regarding Darwinism’s difficulty in explaining the sizeable amount and importance of the fossil evidence associated with the “Cambrian Explosion,” they asserted that Darwinism has turned into a religion in Western society, being so politically-charged that those aware of its difficulties are afraid to speak up.[52]
Trade Secrets? - Evolutionists have their own “trade secrets” too - things that they know about their own fields, but tend to keep covered up because they know these things would not encourage people to buy their explanations if widely known. I grew up in a scientist’s home and know first-hand about the realities versus the idealized concepts the public is given about the objectivity of “science.” Stephen Jay Gould let one of these out about paleontology some years ago, The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils. . . . . Darwin's argument still persists as the favored escape of most paleontologists from the embarrassment of a record that seems to show so little of evolution. In exposing its cultural and methodological roots, I wish in no way to impugn the potential validity of gradualism (for all general views have similar roots). I wish only to point out that it was never seen in the rocks.[53] Gould also wrote that “science” is often not the “objective” and purely “truth-seeking” project that popular advertising suggests. Secondly, I am led to wonder why the old, discredited orthodoxy of gradual origin ever gained such strong and general assent. Why did it seem so reasonable? Certainly not because any direct evidence supported it. I am, as regular readers of this column know to the point of tedium, an advocate of the position that science is not an objective, truth-directed machine, but a quintessentially human activity, affected by human passions, hopes, and cultural biases. Cultural traditions of thought strongly influence scientific theories, often directing lines of speculation, especially (as in this case) when virtually no data exist to constrain both imagination and cultural prejudice. In my own work, I have been impressed by the powerful and pernicious influence that gradualism has exerted on paleontology via the old motto natura non facit saltum (nature does not make leaps). Gradualism, the idea that all change must be smooth, slow and steady, was never read from the rocks. It was primarily a prejudice of nineteenth-century liberalism facing a world in revolution. But it continues to color our supposedly objective reading of life's history.[54] Evolution and Bogus Proofs Good science works from valid evidence to arrive at sound conclusions about reality. But "orthodox philosophical/religious agendas" work to endorse their a priori positions - “evidence” is select/suppressed, interpreted, or manufactured so as to support what is already fervently believed. If key evidences used to establish major propositions are later found to be incomplete and/or misrepresented (card-stacking) or outright frauds, then logic (and honesty) would require that the conclusions drawn from those false proofs should be re-evaluated. Increasingly, Christians have become aware that many of the key arguments and evidences used to establish evolution as the dominant paradigm (1859-1963) were contrived to support a philosophical agenda. In modern Western civilization, evolution arose, largely, upon a French Enlightenment philosophical base and then was “supported” with a good deal of bogus, man-handled, or overstated “evidence.” The noted Stephen Jay Gould blasted Hutton and Lyell’s uniformitarian geology, which seemed to provide the essential foundations (immense time and uniform natural processes) for Darwin's biological trial & error story, as a false construct and bad science, useful only for its role in removing the Biblical flood idea from consideration (I will document two articles on this in the later section on geology). Lyell manhandled the evidence for the erosion of the Niagara River Falls by setting his own figure to fit his expectations and refusing to change it when actual observational evidence was offered.
The Kelvin-Zallinger chart (below) appeared in the
Time-Life book Early Man (1968) and it claimed to represent the current
understanding of where humans came from. However, from the small print on the
chart and surrounding text, I noticed that the chart contained numerous
characters that were not really believed to be human ancestors when this book
was published. Apparently, these admitted non-ancestors were included on the
chart for nothing more than making the visual impression that
These are but a sampling of “evidences” that were put forward to support the already zealously embraced and believed evolutionary scenario, but were later found to be misrepresentations or outright frauds. Sadly, both uniformitarian geology and Haeckel’s notion of embryonic recapitulation are still being used to promote evolution as “fact/truth.” Final thoughts The fact that people with the same science education/degrees differ on creation/evolution speaks volumes about the nature of this issue - there must be more to this than science/hard evidence vs. religion. Christians recognize and admit the “faith” element in their view, while evolutionists tend to not recognize the philosophy/paradigm/faith element in their view. My position is that higher education should be more of an open forum, where students are encouraged to think and evaluate evidence and ideas, not be indoctrinated in the dominate paradigm’s orthodoxy without criticisms and alternatives. I believe the best view will emerge when people are encouraged to seek “the truth” rather than embrace and defend some “orthodox” a priori philosophical position.
So, how do we approach this topic? There is nothing inherently evil about “science” - when pursued with true objectivity and the scientific method, much valid knowledge can be gained. Christians should not oppose traditional science, for it is a good inductive method for learning about what is really there in the natural order. However, we should oppose philosophical materialism and naturalism masquerading as “science” for it is a direct assault on our worldview and a corruption of objective science. There is a major difference between saying that “science (baconian induction/scientific method) is a good way to study the natural universe” as opposed to saying that “the natural world is the extent of reality and science (limited to naturalistic answers only) is the only path to knowledge.” The Enlightenment caused an unavoidable conflict between Christianity (the foundations of modern inductive science) and Naturalism (the philosophy behind evolutionism’s conception of science as a way of eliminating God from reality and public discussion). There is no reason for any student of the natural world to be arrogant, for true knowledge should produce humility as we become aware of how much we DON'T know!
Objectivity and Honesty - To judge how the evidence fits each explanatory story, you need to be familiar with the evidence and what each story is asserting. Thus, hours of study could be consumed in gaining a basic knowledge of cosmology (study of the cosmos/universe), geology (study of earth history and how geologic formations come about), biology (the origin, diversity, and processes of life), paleontology (study of past lifeforms in the rocks), history (the record of human life upon the planet), Bible history and archaeology, Biblical Criticism, etc.
Do not assume that the Bible’s critics are right - There is no reason to apologize for taking the Bible as your guide in thinking about these things, for it has stood the test of time and has much to commend it. To embrace the Bible as truth and then see how the evidence fits is no worse than what evolutionists do - most of them embrace (by faith) a materialistic-naturalistic transformation myth and then interpret evidence accordingly. Evolutionists should have to convince us with better evidence and logic to make their point, not maneuver their way into holding an educational monopoly and then enforce it with legal threats, ridicule, and suppression of valid criticisms and alternatives.
Legal Caution - However, with the current legal situation in the public schools, Christian teachers and students may increasingly need to function like Christians have done in other times and locations where the faith is “illegal” and persecuted (the Roman Empire, Communist China & Russia, etc.). Here, each will need to gauge what they can say in their own situations. A simple comment such as “I would also like to discuss what I perceive to be scientific and logical weaknesses and persistent problems with this issue, but the law forbids this” should spark some curiosity. An inflection of the voice and facial expressions can also speak volumes that might create curiosity in students or other teachers. Allegedly "free speech / freedom of opinion / academic freedom" are still allowed in the United States - if not, there may be bigger issues than creation and evolution to focus on. The very fact that “science” questions (and anything that can be remotely associated with Christianity/Bible) are increasingly stifled in public schools by heavy-handed legal threats (from atheist groups, ACLU, etc.) raises some major concerns in my mind. Many of the hysterical reactions to "I.D." (Intelligent Design) by a number of the protectors of evolutionary orthodoxy suggest to me that some evolutionists may be feeling some desperation that their story isn’t solid enough to “sell itself” on its own merits. Since I am old enough to remember when such things were valued principles of American society, I am forced to ask "whatever happened to freedom of speech and academic freedom for teachers?" Where is the alleged openness of science to objections and criticisms? Why is evolution promoted as an orthodoxy that cannot be questioned or critiqued in public schools rather than a scientific theory that is open to discussion? Is the goal of public education to teach young folks “how” to think critically and evaluate alternatives or simply indoctrinate them in the prevailing secular “orthodoxy”? Having watched how this whole situation has developed for several decades, it is increasingly clear to me that we are seeing a modern version of entrenched orthodoxy trying to protect itself from criticism and reform and that is a tactic which usually backfires. When "scientists" begin to employ political power and ridicule, it is a pretty sure sign that something other than good "science" is being practiced. [1] Ernst Mayr, “Evolution and God” (Book Review), Nature 248 (March 22, 1974), p. 285 [2] Jeffrey Dahmer, in an interview with Stone Phillips, Dateline NBC, Nov. 29, 1994. [3] “equivocation” is a logical fallacy/device of persuasion in which a term is used in more than one sense in the same context for the purpose of deception. [4] Paul B. Weisz, Elements of Biology, 2nd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965), pp. 8-9. [5] Paul B. Weisz, Elements of Biology, 2nd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965), p. 4. [6] Paul B. Weisz, Elements of Biology, 2nd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965), p. 9. [7] Paul B. Weisz, Elements of Biology, 2nd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965), p. 10-11. [8] Paul B. Weisz, Elements of Biology, 2nd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965), p. 11. [10] “materialism” is the belief that physical matter is the ultimate reality, usually believed to be eternal and self-existing. “naturalism” is usually associated with materialism and is the belief that natural processes are the only cause for all of the forms found in nature. [11] A. J. Kelso & Wenda R. Trevathan, Physical Anthropology, 3rd Ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970), p. 143. [12] Tim M. Berra, Evolution and the Myth of Creationism (Stanford University Press, 1990), p. viii. [13] George Gaylord Simpson, The Meaning of Evolution: A Study of the History of Life and of Its Significance for Man (Yale University Press, 1949; revised 1967 – New York: Bantam Books paperback edition (1971), p. 115. [14] C.S. Lewis, Miracles (1947); Francis Schaeffer, How should We Then Live? (Fleming H. Revell, 1976), pp. 130-150; and Philip E. Johnson, Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law & Education. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1995. [15] Richard Dickerson, Journal of Molecular Evolution, 34 (1992), p. 277. [16] Scott C. Todd, “A View from Kansas on that Evolution Debate,” Nature, September 30, 1999, p. 423. [17] Richard C. Lewontin, "Billions and Billions of Demons," published in The New York Review of Books (January 9, 1997), a review of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (Random House), by Carl Sagan. [18] Carl Sagan, Cosmos (New York: Random House, 1980), p. 4. [19] The American Biology Teacher, 58, No. 1 (January 1996): 61-62. [20] Horatio Hocket Newman, Evolution, Genetics, and Eugenics (Chigago: University of Chicago Press, 1932), p. 51 (1939 printing). [21] Richard Dawkins, New York Times (April 9, 1989), sec. 7, p. 34. [22] Richard Goldschmidt, “Evolution, as Viewed by One Geneticist,” American Scientist, Vol. 40 (January 1952): 84. [23] Ruth More, Evolution, (New York: Time, Inc. 1962), p. 10. [24] C. D. Darlington, "The Origin of Darwinism," Scientific American, 200 (May 1959), pp. 60,66. [25] Tim M. Berra, Evolution and the Myth of Creationism (Stanford University Press, 1990), p. 130. [26] Roger Bacon (1214-1294), Copernicus (1475-1543), Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Galileo (1564-1642), Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), and Michael Faraday (1791-1867) [28] a “paradigm” is a set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline. It is similar to a worldview in that it provides an imagined “big picture” that gives meaning to data and our attempt to understand reality, but evidence should also be a means of testing the accuracy and validity of one’s paradigm. [29] Paul Edwards, ed., The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (New York: Macmillan, 1972), s.v. “Enlightenment,” by Crane Brinton, vols. 1-2:519-525 [30] Douglas Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology, 2nd Ed. (Sunderland, 1968), p. 3. [31] A. J. Kelso & Wenda R. Trevathan, Physical Anthropology, 3rd Ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970), p. 143. [32] Jerry Adler, "Doubting Darwin" from the February 7, 2005 issue of Newsweek, MSNBC Internet article [33] Arnold H. Buss, Personality: Evolutionary Heritage and Human Distinctiveness (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 1988), p. 1] Buss is a professor of Psychiatry at the University of Texas. [34] William A. Dembski, The Design Revolution (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004), pp. 21,27. [35] Richard Dickerson, Journal of Molecular Evolution, 34 (1992), p. 277. [36] Bill Simmons (AP), “Arkansas creationism law axed by judge” Huron (SD) Daily Plainsman (5 January 1982). [37] F. Clark Howell, Early Man, (New York: Time-Life Books, 1968), p. 21. [38] L. Harrison Matthews, "Introduction to Origin of Species" (London J.M. Dent, 1977), p. xii. [39] Transcript of Speech by Professor Michael Ruse, presented Saturday, February 13, 1993 at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at the symposium "The New Antievolutionism." [40] Michael Ruse, The Evolution-Creation Struggle (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005), p. 3. [41] David Berlinski, “The Deniable Darwin” Commentary Magazine (June 1996), Pages 19-29 [42] Ashley Montagu, Man's Most Dangerous Myth, The Fallacy of Race, (New York: Harper and Bros. Pub., 1952), introduction. [43] Cover of Time Magazine (April 26, 1993) [44] Cover of Time Magazine (March 14, 1994) [45] "Scientists go from certain to shaken: More questions than answers on the universe" Fort Myers, FL News Press (January 5, 1999). [46] Cover of the Scientific American (January 1999). [47] Front page, USA Today (Thursday, March 22, 2001) [48] Michael J. Behe, Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (New York: The Free Press, 1996), p. 30. [49] Phllip H. Abelson, "Bigotry in Science," Science, Vol. 144 (April 24, 1964), p. 373. [50] John Maddox, “Defending science against anti-science,” Nature, 368,185 [51] Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life (New York: Touchstone, 1995), p. 515. [52] The Boston Globe, May 30, 2000. p. E1 [53] Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution's Erratic Pace," Natural History, Vol. LXXXVI (May 1977), p. 14. [54] Stephen Jay Gould, "An Early Start," Natural History, Vol LXXXVII (February 1978), pp. 10-22. A Ministry of Severn Christian Church (Severn, Maryland) Unless otherwise noted, all material produced by Charles E. McCoy All Scripture citations/quotations from the New American Standard Bible To send a question to Chuck: chuck@severnchristian.org
|
With
only unguided natural forces at work, lots of time is needed for random
experimentation and this is why evolutionists are committed to an old universe
and earth and opposed to the Genesis 1-11 story. Philosophical naturalism
provides the foundation for this viewpoint and led to “science” being re-defined
in terms of methodological naturalism (rather than scientific method/objective
induction, “science” comes to be a dogmatic “naturalism only” system of
thinking). Rather than limit its investigation to things its method can study,
evolutionists want to limit knowledge and reality to what they can explain in
terms of natural processes. In effect, if you can’t explain it by natural
processes alone, it doesn’t exist or isn’t worth thinking about. No matter what
evidence does/does not show up, evolutionary progress is already assumed to be
the only possible answer!
Zoologist Earnst Haeckel produced falsified embryo drawings (right) in 1874 to support his
theory that embryos repeat their entire evolutionary history in the womb (human
embryos even pass through a "fish" stage and have gills). The
fraudulent nature of the drawings were recognized by another European
embryologist that same year and Haeckel himself admitted the fraud in a 1919
journal. However, the notion and drawings made it into American textbooks and,
sadly, this embryonic recapitulation myth and his bogus drawings still appear
in some biology textbooks to this day! Of course, “evolutionary science is
objective, self-correcting, welcomes criticism,” etc. blah, blah, blah.
In the early 1890’s, Eugene Dubois discovered (a year and 50 feet apart) an
ape-like skull cap and a pathological human femur in Sumatra that became “Java
Man” (left). A couple of years earlier, two modern human skulls were found in
the same geological formation some distance away, but this fact did not receive
nearly as much press coverage as the alleged “ape-man” fossils. As doubts and
criticism continued, Dubois withdrew the bones and would not allow anyone to see
them.
In 1912 some bones were found in a British gravel pit that became “Piltdown Man”
(right) and a major proof of human evolution for 40 years until it was realized
that Piltdown man’s skull was comprised of a human skull and orangutan’s jaw -
an elaborate intentional hoax that fooled the experts for years because it
appeared to be “evidence” for what was already fervently believed.
humans
had evolved from small ape-like ancestors. I have no problem with charts or
theories that are later invalidated by new information, but I am very troubled
when I see
contrived artwork and admitted non-evidence used to promote something as
"science" to the trusting
and gullible public.
