Six False Assumptions Concerning Evolution – Part 1

By: Dr. John Ankerberg, Dr. John Weldon; ©2004

What one concludes about human origins is crucial for deciding a whole range of other issues. In light of that, the authors explore three of the false assumptions that are often brought into the discussion: That evolution is a proven fact of science; that scientists are always objective; and that evolution is compatible with belief in God.

Contents 

Six False Assumptions Concerning Evolution — Part One

Most modern scientists are in general agreement that evolutionary theory is an established fact of science and cannot logically be questioned as a view of origins. However, what one concludes about human origins is one of the most crucial points for deciding a whole range of other issues, whether positively or negatively—from the nature of man and the purpose of life to the relevance of morality and religion to the future of humanity. Is man only the end product of the impersonal forces of matter, time and chance with all this implies—or the purposeful cre­ation of a good and loving God with all this implies? Given the tremendous influence of evolu­tionary theory in the last 100 years, the answer has already been given to most people.

In the history of mankind, few theories have had the impact that evolution has. The famous evolutionary Zoologist Ernst Mayr of Harvard University observed in 1972 that evolution was coming to be regarded as “perhaps the most fundamental of all intellectual revolutions in the history of mankind.”^[1]

The definitive modern biography by James Moore, Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolu­tionist, points out that Darwin, “More than any modern thinker—even Freud or Marx… has transformed the way we see ourselves on the planet.”^[2]

Wendell R. Bird is a prominent Atlanta attorney and Yale Law School graduate who argued the major creationist case on the issue of creation/evolution before the U.S. Supreme Court. In his impressive criticism of evolutionary theory, The Origin of Species Revisited: The Theories of Evolution and of Abrupt Appearance, he observes of The Origin of Species, “That single volume has had a massive influence not only on the sciences, which increasingly are built on evolution­ary assumptions, but on the humanities, theology, and government.”^[3]

In his Mankind Evolving, eminent geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky points out that the publication of Darwin’s book in 1859, “marked a turning point in the intellectual history of man­kind…” and “ushered in a new understanding of man and his place in the universe.”^[4] He reflects that even a hundred years after Darwin “…the idea of evolution is becoming an integral part of man’s image of himself. The idea has percolated to much wider circles than biologists or even scientists; understood or misunderstood, it is a part of mass culture.”^[5]

Molecular biologist Michael Denton also points out the dramatic influence of this dominant theory, even in disciplines outside the natural sciences:

The twentieth century would be incomprehensible without the Darwinian revolution. The social and political currents which have swept the world in the past eighty years would have been impossible without its intellectual sanction…. The influence of evolutionary theory on fields far removed from biology is one of the most spectacular examples in history of how a highly speculative idea for which there is no really hard scientific evidence can come to fashion the thinking of a whole society and dominate the outlook of an age.

Today it is perhaps the Darwinian view of nature more than any other that is responsible for the agnostic and skeptical outlook of the twentieth century…. [It is] a theory that literally changed the world….^[6]

But if evolution has permeated practically the entire fabric of contemporary culture and provides the basis for modern man’s world view and thus his subsequent actions, who can argue that this theory is unimportant? Indeed, it is how an individual views his origin, his ultimate beginning that, to a great extent, conditions his world view, the decisions he makes, and even his general lifestyle. As the philosopher Francis Schaeffer once noted, people usually live more consistently with their own presuppositions than even they themselves may realize.^[7]

One only need examine the twentieth century and take note of the impact of evolutionary materialism to see that, “Evolutionary theory does indeed dominate modern thought in virtually every field—every discipline of study, every level of education, and every area of practice.”^[8]

However, if it turns out that evolution is wrong, then everything it has impacted may have been affected in a prejudicial or even harmful way. Since we have discussed this topic else­where, we will not elaborate on it here.^[9] What we will do is show why none of the harmful, in­deed, often tragic consequences of this theory were ever necessary in the first place.

In the material that follows, we will offer some of the reasons why evolution is widely ac­cepted, why we believe evolutionary theory is wrong and why we believe it should no longer be accepted by thinking people, at least by those who do not allow their personal materialistic philosophies to color their interpretations of scientific data. Below we offer six false assumptions relating to belief in evolution.^[10]

False Assumption 1:
Scientists accept evolution because it is a proven fact of science that cannot logically be denied.

There exist many popular misunderstandings concerning the nature of science. Philosopher of science Dr. J. P. Moreland discusses some of these misconceptions and observes that even “scientists today, in contrast to their counterparts in earlier generations, are often ill equipped to define science, since such a project is philosophical in nature.”^[11] In fact, Moreland cites several standard definitions of science given in such texts as College Physics, Biological Science, Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, as well as judge William R. Overton’s definition of science in the decision against creationism in the famous creation science trial in Little Rock, Arkansas, December 1981. He observes that none of these definitions of science is adequate.^[12]

It is not our purpose here to discuss the problems involved in the definition of science.^[13] We do need to know that the interaction of science and philosophy is a complex one and that there is no universally accepted clear-cut definition of what science is. We are on safer ground if we define science in a general way, noting its methodology, i.e., the scientific method. For our purposes, the Oxford American Dictionary (1982) definition of science is adequate:

A branch of study which is considered either with a connected body of demonstrated truths or with observed facts systematically classified and more or less colligated and brought under general laws, and which includes trustworthy methods for the discovery of new truth within its own domain. (Emphasis added)

Scientific work involves things like observation, formulating a hypothesis, experimental testing to repeat observations, predictability, control, etc.:

One applies the scientific method by first of all observing and recording certain natural phe­nomena. He then formulates a generalization (scientific hypothesis) based upon his observa­tions. In turn, this generalization allows him to make predictions. He then tests his hypothesis by conducting experiments to determine if the predicted result will obtain. If his predictions prove true, then he will consider his hypothesis verified. Through continual confirmation of the predic­tions [e.g., by himself and other parties] the hypothesis will become a theory, and the theory, with time and tests, will graduate to the status of a [scientific] law.^[14]

The scientific method may be diagramed as follows:

What the above definition of science and description of the scientific method will indicate is that, while scientists who study nature utilize the scientific method, evolutionary theory itself is not ultimately scientific because evolution has few, if any, “demonstrated truths” or “observed facts.” Microevolution or strictly limited change within species can be demonstrated but this has nothing to do with evolution as commonly understood. After citing evolutionists who confess that evolution is not scientifically provable, Dr. Randy L. Wysong observes,

…evolution is not a formulation of the true scientific method. They [these scientists] realize [that, in effect] evolution means the initial formation of unknown organisms from unknown chemicals produced in an atmosphere or ocean of unknown composition under unknown conditions, which organisms have then climbed an unknown evolutionary ladder by an unknown process leaving unknown evidence.^[15]

In other words, to the extent that the findings of science hinge upon demonstrated truths and observed facts, evolutionary theory has little to do with the findings of science. Evolution is more properly considered a naturalistic philosophy or world view that seeks to explain the origin of life materialistically. As the late A. E. Wilder-Smith, who held three earned doctorates in science, observed,

As Kerkut has shown [in his The Implications of Evolution], Neodarwinian thought teaches seven main postulates. Not one of these seven theses can be proved or even tested experimentally. If they are not supported by experimental evidence, the whole theory can scarcely be considered to be a scientific one. If the seven main postulates of Neodarwinism are experimentally untestable, then Neodarwinism must be considered to be a philosophy rather than a science, for science is concerned solely with experi­mentally testable evidence.^[16]

Dr. Willem J. Ouweneel, Research Associate in Developmental Genetics, Ultrech, Nether­lands, with the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, points out in his article “The Sci­entific Character of the Evolution Doctrine,” “It is becoming increasingly apparent that evolution­ism is not even a good scientific theory.”^[17] He documents why evolution should not be consid­ered a scientific fact, theory, hypothesis, or postulate. For example, concerning the latter, evolu­tionary theory is not properly designated a scientific postulate because this must: (a) be in accordance with the principal laws of mathematics and natural science; (b) not be more compli­cated than necessary for the explanation of observed phenomena; (c) give rise to conclusions which can be controlled by further experimental observations and testing; (d) conform to the general data of science; (e) alternate hypotheses must be shown to be wrong or less accept­able; and (f) finally, the reliability of a scientific conception is inversely proportional to the num­ber of unproven postulates on which it is founded. Evolution fails all three criteria for categoriza­tion as a scientific postulate.

This is why Dr. Ouweneel concludes that evolution is actually a materialistic postulate rather than a credible scientific theory.^[18] But one would never know this from reading the scientific literature, literature which constantly assures the world that evolution is a scientific fact.

The principal reason evolution “must” be a scientific fact is because of the materialistic bias that pervades the scientific world—a bias which, in the end, is really unnecessary and in ways even harmful to the cause of science.^[19]

Regardless, evolution continues to be set forth as an established fact by the scientific com­munity. Pierre-Paul Grasse, the renowned French Zoologist and past president of the French Academy of Sciences, states in his Evolution of Living Organisms: “Zoologists and botanists are nearly unanimous in considering evolution as a fact and not a hypothesis. I agree with this position and base it primarily on documents provided by paleontology, i.e., the [fossil] history of the living world.”^[20] Theodosius Dobzhansky, who, according to another leading evolutionist, Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard, is “the greatest evolutionist of our century,”^[21] asserts in his award-winning text, Mankind Evolving, “the proofs of evolution are now a matter of elementary biology…. In Lamark’s and Darwin’s times evolution was a hypothesis; in our day it is proven.”^[22] World famous scientist George Gaylord Simpson, distinguished professor of vertebrate paleon­tology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard emphasizes in The Meaning of Evolu­tion, “Ample proof has been repeatedly presented and is available to anyone who really wants to know the truth….In the present study the factual truth of organic evolution is taken as estab­lished…”^[23]

Carl Sagan is a distinguished Cornell University astronomer and Pulitzer Prize winning au­thor. He is perhaps best known as the host and co-writer of the Cosmos television series seen in 60 countries by approximately 3 percent of all people on earth; the hard cover edition of Cosmos was on the New York Times best-seller list for 70 weeks and may be the best-selling science book in the English language in the 20th century. In this book, Sagan simply states, “Evolution is a fact, not a theory.”^[24]

The eminent anthropologist Konrad Lorenz observed in Intellectual Digest, “It is not a theory, but an irrefutable historical fact, that the living world—since its origin—has evolved from ‘below’ to ‘above.’”^[25] Rene Dubos, one of the country’s leading ecologists, stated in American Scientist, “Most enlightened persons now accept as a fact that everything in the cosmos—from heavenly bodies to human beings—has developed and continues to develop through evolutionary processes.”^[26] Noted geneticist Richard Goldschmidt of the University of California once stated in American Scientist, “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.”^[27]

Another prominent evolutionist, Sir Julian Huxley, claimed in his famous keynote address at the Darwin Centennial held in 1959 at the University of Chicago, “The first point to make about Darwin’s theory is that it is no longer a theory, but a fact. No serious scientists would deny the fact that evolution has occurred, just as he would not deny the fact that the earth goes around the sun.”^[28]

On the other hand, creationists and other non-evolutionary scientists argue that evolution cannot logically be considered factual apart from any real evidence:

All the hard data in the life sciences show that evolution is not occurring today, all the real data in the earth sciences show it did not occur in the past, and all the genuine data in the physical sciences show it is not possible at all. Nevertheless, evolution is almost universally accepted as a fact in all the natural sciences.^[29]

Consider the comments of the late Canadian scholar, Arthur C. Custance (Ph.D. Anthropol­ogy), author of the seminal ten-volume The Doorway Papers. He was a member of the Cana­dian Physiological Society, a fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute and a member of the New York Academy of Sciences. In Evolution: An Irrational Faith he observes,

…Virtually all the fundamentals of the orthodox evolutionary faith have shown themselves to be either of extremely doubtful validity or simply contrary to fact…. So basic are these erroneous [evolutionary] assumptions that the whole theory is now largely maintained in spite of rather than because of the evidence…. As a consequence, for the great majority of students and for that large ill-defined group, “the public,” it has ceased to be a subject of debate. Because it is both incapable of proof and yet may not be questioned, it is virtually untouched by data which challenge it in any way. It has become in the strictest sense irrational…. Information or concepts which challenge the theory are almost never given a fair hearing….^[30]

In fact, in the opinion of this erudite scholar,

Evolutionary philosophy has indeed become a state of mind, one might almost say a kind of mental prison rather than a scientific attitude…. To equate one particular interpretation of the data with the data itself is evidence of mental confusion…. The theory of evolution…is detrimental to ordinary intelligence and warps judgment.^[31]

He concludes,

In short, the premises of evolutionary theory are about as invalid as they could possibly be…. If evolutionary theory was strictly scientific, it should have been abandoned long ago. But because it is more philosophy than science, it is not susceptible to the self-correcting mechanisms that govern all other branches of scientific enquiry.^[32]

Why scientists can be wrong

The history of science reveals many instances where the majority of scientists have been convinced as to a particular theory and yet been wrong. Further, when it comes to the discus­sion of the creation/evolution issue, many scientists today simply seem to be closed minded. Why? Because modern science is committed to the ideology of evolution and any time a philo­sophical commitment to a particular ideology exists, there will probably be a reluctance to con­sider alternate viewpoints. Yet consider again the comments of Dr. A. E. Wilder-Smith, the deliverer of the Huxley Memorial Lecture at the Oxford Union, Oxford University, February 14, 1986:

May not a future generation well ask how any scientist, in full possession of his intellectual faculties and with adequate knowledge of information theory, could ever execute the feat of cognitive acrobatics necessary to sincerely believe that a (supremely complex) machine system of information, storage and retrieval, servicing millions of cells, diagnosing defects and then repairing them in a teleonomic Von Newman machine manner, arose in randomness—the antipole of information?^[33]

In other words, “How could any scientist in possession of the modern facts we now have logically continue to exercise faith in naturalistic evolution?” As molecular biologist Michael Denton observes of the created order of living things, “To common sense it does indeed appear absurd to propose that chance could have thrown together devices of such complexity and ingenuity that they appear to represent the very epitome of perfection.”^[34]

Nevertheless, there are many reasons explaining why scientists who accept evolution can be wrong. Among them we mention four.

A) A false belief can be accepted by mistakenly assuming there are no legitimate scientific theories to replace it.

Dr. Wilder-Smith observes that when the modern scientific establishment adheres to evolu­tionary belief, it is “certainly not because experimental evidence encourages the establishment to do so.”^[35] He explains that a commitment to materialism is the problem. Thus,

There exists at present no other purely scientific alternative which postulates a purely scientific materialistic basis for biogenesis and biology. To repeat, there is at present no purely scientific alternative to Darwin. Creationism, being religious, is of little use to the materialistic thought of today. It is simply an irrelevant subject worthy only of ridicule…. Scientists whose upbringing and education are Darwinian and therefore naturalistic, have for this reason no real alternative to Darwinism. Here we have perhaps one of the main reasons for the victory of Darwinism even today, even though the accumulating evidence of science is steadily against the theory.^[36]

But what if there is a legitimate scientific option to evolution which is not materialistic? For example, as we will discuss later, Yale Law School graduate Wendell R. Bird fully documents that the theory of “abrupt appearance” is entirely scientific—and also that such a theory was capable of being advanced scientifically by scientists of an earlier era. Further, he shows that creation itself is not necessarily religious; it too can be fully scientific.^[37]

B) A false theory can be accepted because scientific facts can be misinterpreted or unnaturally forced to fit a dominant theory.

The facts of the natural world are in the possession of every scientist, creationist or evolution­ist. The issue in debate is the interpretation of those facts. Yet scientific facts may not only seem to fit a false theory, but scientific facts themselves may become irrelevant because of the intrin­sic appeal of a particular paradigm whose own preservation becomes paramount:

Yet no matter how convincing such disproofs [of evolution] might appear, no matter how contradictory and unreal much of the Darwinian framework might now seem to anyone not committed to its defense, as philosophers of science like Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend have pointed out, it is impossible to falsify theories by reference to the facts or indeed by any sort of rational or empirical argument. The history of science amply testifies to what Kuhn has termed “the priority of the paradigm” and provides many fascinating examples of the extraordinary lengths to which members of the scientific community will go to defend a theory just as long as it holds sufficient intrinsic appeal.^[38]

For example, the geocentric theory of the sun orbiting the earth dominated science for sev­eral hundred years. Although a heliocentric alternative was considered as early as the Greek astronomers, the geocentric theory was, by the late middle ages, “a self-evident truth, the one and only sacred and unalterable picture of cosmological reality.”^[39] But, as with all false theories, there were innumerable facts which got in the way. The response of scientists was to invent “explanations” to account for the irregularities. As more and more explanations were required to deal with more and more problems presented by undeniable facts, by the early 16th century the entire Ptolemaic system had become “a monstrosity” of fantastically involved explanations and counter-explanations.^[40] Nevertheless, “so ingrained was the idea that the earth was the center of the universe that hardly anyone, even those astronomers who were well aware of the growing unreality of the whole system, ever bothered to consider an alternative theory.”^[41]

The 18th century concept of phlogiston is also instructive. The theory of phlogiston “assumed that all combustible bodies, including metals, contained a common material, phlogiston, which escaped on combustion but could be readily transferred from one body to another.”^[42] Scientific experiments with zinc and phosphorus appeared to prove the phlogiston theory.^[43] The concept was fully accepted for a hundred years and debated for another hundred years before it was finally disproven. But in fact, “The theory was a total misrepresentation of reality. Phlogiston did not even exist, and yet its existence was firmly believed and the theory adhered to rigidly for nearly 100 years throughout the 18th century.”^[44]

As was true for the geocentric theory, awkward facts were cunningly assimilated, explained away or ignored. It was the false theory itself which determined how science dealt with facts. The facts themselves had to bow to the truth of phlogiston. Thus, as time progressed and more discoveries were made which made it increasingly difficult to believe in phlogiston, the theory was not rejected but “was modified by the insertion of more and more unwarranted and ad hoc assumptions about the nature of phlogiston.”^[45]

In his Origins of Modern Science, Professor H. Butterfield observes how the phlogiston theory actually led to scientists being intellectually incapacitated to deal with the evidence:

…the last two decades of the 18th century give one of the most spectacular proofs in history of the fact that able men who had the truth under their very noses, and possessed all the ingredients for the solution of the problem—the very men who had actually made the strategic discoveries—were incapacitated by the phlogiston theory from realizing the implications of their own work.^[46]

In a similar fashion Denton comments,

It is not hard to find inversions of common sense in modern evolutionary thought which are strikingly reminiscent of the mental gymnastics of the phlogiston chemists or the medieval astronomers…. The Darwinist, instead of questioning the orthodox framework as common sense would seem to dictate, attempts of justifying his position by ad hoc proposals,…which to the skeptic are self-apparent rationalizations to neutralize what is, on the face of it, hostile evidence.^[47]

Thus, the great many intractable scientific problems with modern evolutionary belief do not constitute a disproof of Darwinian claims but rather situations which require adjustment to the belief in order that the belief be preserved at all costs.

C) A false belief can be accepted because scientists assume the belief to be true only because of broad general support among scientists.

In the case of evolution, no one questions the basic idea because everyone accepts the basic idea:

The fact that every journal, academic debate and popular discussion assumes the truth of Darwinian theory tends to reinforce its credibility enormously. This is bound to be so because, as sociologists of knowledge are at pains to point out, it is by conversation in the broadest sense of the word that our views and conceptions of reality are maintained and therefore the plausibility of any theory or world view is largely dependent upon the social support it receives rather than its empirical content or rational consistency. Thus all the pervasive affirmation of the validity of Darwinian theory has had the inevitable effect of raising its status to an impregnable axiom which could not even conceivably be wrong.^[48]

Hence the constant refrain that evolution is a “undisputed scientific fact.” As Richard Dawkins asserts in The Selfish Gene: “The theory is about as much in doubt as the earth goes around the sun.”^[49] Once the scientific community elevates a theory, in this case evolution, to a self-evident truth, defending it becomes irrelevant and there is “no longer any point in having to establish its validity by reference to empirical facts.^[50] Further, all disagreement with the current view becomes irrational by definition. As P. Feyerabend argues in his article “Problems of Em­piricism” in Beyond the Edge of Certainty: “The myth is therefore of no objective relevance, it continues to exist solely as the result of the effort of the community of believers and of their leaders, be these now priests or Nobel Prize winners. Its ‘success’ is entirely manmade.”^[51]

D) A false belief can be accepted by scientists because they prefer its philosophical implications.

For example, there are many materialistic scientists who are also atheists and therefore more than happy to accept the atheistic implications of naturalistic evolution. Here, as we indicate below, the very purpose of evolution is to explain things without recourse to God. Again, scien­tists are only men, and if the unregenerate bent of the human heart underscores the attempt to escape God, then naturalistic evolution is certainly an appealing idea. If there is no God, there are no necessary moral standards and one may happily discover justification for any conceiv­able belief or lifestyle.

Many modern scientists have pointed out with seeming satisfaction that, given evolution, there is no need to consider God. This tends to make one suspect that some of these scientists may have ulterior motives for wanting evolution to be true.^[52] For example, in his Heredity, Race and Society, Theodosius Dobzhansky observes, “Most people, however, greeted the scientific proof of this view [i.e., evolution] as a great liberation from spiritual bondage, and saw in it the promise of a better future.”^[53] As noted novelist Aldous Huxley, grandson of “Darwin’s bulldog,” Thomas Henry Huxley, once confessed in his Ends and Means:

I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption…. Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know.

And

The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics; he is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do, or why his friends should not seize political power and govern in the way they find most advantageous to themselves…. For myself, as, no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation.^[54]

Huxley proceeds to identify this liberation as being political, economic and sexual and, no doubt, like many other modern materialists, found evolutionary belief quite satisfying.

False Assumption 2:
Scientists are always objective when they do their research and publicly express their belief in evolution.

To the contrary, scientists are people, and people are not often objective and neutral. Scien­tists, of course, work harder at being objective because of the limits and goals of the scientific disciplines, but this doesn’t mean personal preferences or ideologies never get in the way of their research. Unfortunately, the scientific community has its share of ambition, suppression of truth, prejudice, plagiarism, manipulation of data, etc. This is illustrated by Tel Aviv Medical School’s Professor of Urology Alexander Kohn in his False Prophets: Fraud and Error in Sci­ence and Medicine (1986), by Broad and Wade’s Betrayers of the Truth: Fraud and Deceit in the Halls of Science (1982), and other books and articles.

For example, that many scientists have biases against scientific creationism can be seen through contemporary examples. When one of the greatest thinkers and scholars of modern times, Mortimer J. Adler of the University of Chicago, referred to evolution as a “popular myth,” the well-known materialist and critic, Martin Gardner, actually included him in his study of quacks and frauds in Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science.^[55] Philosopher and historian Dr. Rousas Rushdoony was entirely correct when he observed of evolution, “To question the myth or to request proof is to be pilloried as a modern heretic and fool.”^[56]

Consider the case of Dr. A. E. Wilder-Smith. Smith earned three doctorates in the field of science; his noteworthy academic career spanned over 40 years including the publication of over 100 scientific papers and over 40 books which have been published in 17 languages. Before discussing his own case, he illustrates with two others where eminent scientists have been silenced because they dared question evolutionary belief:

Over and above this, the situation is such today that any scientist expressing doubts about evolutionary theory is rapidly silenced. Sir Fred Hoyle, the famous astronomer, was well on his way to being nominated for the Nobel Prize. However, after the appearance of his books expressing mathematically based doubts as to Darwinism, he was rapidly eliminated. His books were negatively reviewed and no more was heard about his Nobel Prize. The case of the halo dating methods developed by Robert V. Gentry tell a similar story. Gentry gave good evidence that the earth’s age, when measured by the radiation halo method using polonium, might not be so great as had been thought when measured by more conventional methods. A postulate of this type would have robbed Darwinism of its main weapon, namely long time periods. Gentry lost his research grants and job at one sweep.

It is by such methods, often bordering on psychoterror, that the latter day phlogiston theory (Neodarwinism) still manages to imprint itself in pretty well all scientific publications today. I myself gave the Huxley Memorial Lecture at the Oxford Union, Oxford University, on February 14, 1986. My theses were well received even by my opponents in the debate following the lecture. But I have been to date unable to persuade any reputable scientific journal to publish the manuscript. The comment is uniformly that the text does not fit their scheme of publications.

I recently (December 1986) received an enquiry from the Radcliffe Science Library, Oxford, asking if I had ever really held the Huxley Memorial Lecture on February 14, 1986. No records of my having held the lecture as part of the Oxford Union debate could be found in any library nor was the substance of this debate ever officially recorded. No national newspapers, radio or TV station breathed a word about it. So total is the current censorship on any effective criticism of Neodarwinian science and on any genuine alternative.^[57]

Dr. Jerry Bergman and others have documented that there are thousands of cases of dis­crimination against creationists—of competent science teachers being fired merely because they taught a “two model approach” to origins; of highly qualified science professors being denied tenure because of their refusal to declare their faith in evolution; of students’ doctoral dissertations in science rejected simply because they supported creation; of students being expelled from class for challenging the idea that evolution is a fact, etc.^[58]

Prominent lawyer Wendell R. Bird, author of The Origin of Species Revisited observes that “most of higher education is dogmatic and irrationally committed to affirm evolution and to suppress creation science, not on the basis of the scientific evidence but in disregard of that evidence.”^[59] He correctly refers to the “intolerance,” “hysteria,” and “unfairness” of the evolution­ary establishment and to the

…intolerable denials of tenure, denials of promotion, denials of contract renewals, denials of earned degrees, denials of admission into graduate programs, and other discrimination against that minority that disagrees with the prevailing dogmatism and dares affirm creation science…. From my research for published articles in the Yale Law Journal and Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and from my legal work in First Amendment litigation, it is my professional judgment that the cases of discrimination reported [by Bergman]… are a very tiny fraction of the general pattern and practice of discrimination against creationists and creation science at both the college and university level and the secondary and elementary school level.^[60]

In doing research for his book, The Criterion, Dr. Bergman interviewed over 100 creationists who had at least a master’s degree in science, the majority with a Ph.D. degree—among them Nobel prize winners and those with multiple doctorates in science. “Nevertheless, all, without exception, reported that they had experienced some discrimination… some cases were tragic in the extent, blatancy and consequences of the discrimination.”^[61] For example, “over 12 percent of those interviewed stated that they had received death threats, highly emotional non-verbal feedback or irrational verbalizations against them” and “creationists have never won a single employment discrimination court case.” Further, “Many persons who were denied degrees or lost jobs were forced to move to another community and start over…. Many creationists publish under pseudonyms; others are extremely careful to hide their beliefs while earning their degree and come out of the closet only after they have the degree in hand or have earned tenure.”^[62]

One department supervisor stated, “You creationists are Stone Age Neanderthals, and if I had my way I would fire every one of you.”^[63] One creationist had a Ph.D. in biology from Harvard University. He had actively been seeking a teaching position for 12 years. One employer told him:

Frankly, I don’t like holy people, fundamentalists, especially Baptists, Church of Christ types, Pentecostals or other seventeenth century retrogressives. If we find out we hired one, especially if they start talking to the other research scientists about their beliefs, I terminate them within the month. Usually they leave without much of a protest. And I’ve never had one bring suit even though firing on religious grounds is illegal, and I know that it is.^[64]

Consider other illustrations of religious bigotry from the evolutionary establishment^[65]:

• Dr. Bergman states that several of his colleagues told him that if they discovered one of their students was a conservative Christian, they would fail him/her. One professor said, “I don’t think this kind of people should get degrees and I’m going to do what I can to stop them.” Bergman observes that “some professors are openly advocating failing creationists” and he cites examples.
• A professor of biology at a large state university was denied tenure admittedly because of his creationist views although he had more publications in scientific journals (well over 100) than any other member of his department, many of them in the most prestigious journals in his field. When the university that granted his Ph.D. in biology learned he was an active creationist, they assembled a committee to rescind his degree six years after it was issued!
• A Michigan science teacher was fired shortly after he donated several boxes of books on creationism to the school library. A “South Dakota Outstanding Teacher of the Year” recipient was also fired because he was teaching creationism in class.
• Dr. David A. Warriner received his B.S. in chemistry from Tulane University, his Ph.D. from Cornell University and was close to a second Ph.D. He was invited to join the Natural Science Department at Michigan State University as a creationist. After four years his depart­ment head suggested tenure but the dean of the department claimed he had “damaged the image of science” for the university and was dismissed. He has been unable to find a teach­ing position at any other university.
• A creationist working on his Ph.D. in zoology at a major university, with almost straight A’s, expressed serious reservations about evolution to his dissertation committee. He was required to take four more courses in evolutionary biology before they would permit him to graduate. After the courses were completed, his dissertation committee asked whether he now “believed in evolution.” When he replied he was “more firmly convinced of the validity of creationism than ever before,” the dissertation committee broke their agreement and refused to grant his degree.
• A researcher at a Cancer Research Center who had earned an excellent reputation for his six years’ work was forced to resign once his creationist views became known.
• Chandra Wickramasinghe of the University College in Cardiff, Wales and co-worker with Fred Hoyle, one of the world’s best known living astronomers, allegedly received death threats merely for speaking out in favor of a two-model teaching position.

Jim Melnick’s study in the Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom, May 1982, observed that “Significant creationist literature has been self-censored from nearly every major secular univer­sity library in America.”^[66]

The hypocrisy in all this seems evident enough. The evolutionary establishment demands free­dom of expression for itself but refuses this to its opposition. As Dr. Thomas Dwight of Harvard observed, “The tyranny in the matter of evolution is overwhelming to a degree of which the outsider has no idea.”^[67] In our colleges and universities today, the Christian faith can be ridiculed all day long, Marxism can be espoused, the Constitution criticized, marriage degraded, and homosexuality en­couraged—but the theory of evolution is somehow sacrosanct. Chicago University’s Professor Paul Shoray observed, “There is no cause so completely immune from criticism today as evolution.”^[68]

Even the head of the science department at an Ivy League university tore out an article in Systematic Zoology because it was critical of natural selection. When confronted he said, “Well of course I don’t believe in censorship in any form, but I just couldn’t bear the idea of my stu­dents reading that article.”^[69]

False Assumption 3:
Evolution is compatible with belief in God.

Mortimer J. Adler is one of the great modern thinkers. He is author of such interesting books as Ten Philosophical Mistakes, Truth in Religion and How to Think About God; Chairman for the Editors for the Encyclopedia Britannica and architect and Editor-in-Chief for the 54-volume The Great Books of the Western World library. This set contains the writings of the most influential and greatest intellects and thinkers in Western history—from Aristotle to Shakespeare.

In Volume 1 of The Great Ideas: A Syntopicon of Great Books of the Western World, Adler points out the crucial importance of the issue of God’s existence to the greatest thinkers of the Western World. With the exception of only certain mathematicians and physicists,

All the authors of the great books are represented…. In sheer quantity of references, as well as in variety, this is the largest chapter. The reason is obvious. More consequences for thought and action follow from the affirmation or denial of God than from answering any other basic question.^[70]

And here is where we see perhaps the greatest consequence of evolutionary theory—its denial of God and the unfortunate results that have flowed outward into society from this denial. We saw in false assumption number one that evolution was not a true scientific theory but a materialistic postulate that seeks to explain life naturalistically. In light of this, to think that evolu­tion has no theological or social consequences is naive. As leading evolutionist Sir Julian Huxley once noted, “Darwinism removed the whole idea of God as the Creator of organisms from the sphere of rational discussion.”^[71]

Dr. Colin Brown received his doctorate degree for research done in 19th century theology. Concerning the impact of evolution on Christianity, he confesses, “By far the most potent single factor to undermine popular belief in the existence of God in modern times is the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin.”^[72]

Religion authority Dr. Huston Smith observes,

One reason education undoes belief [in God] is its teaching of evolution; Darwin’s own drift from orthodoxy to agnosticism was symptomatic. Martin Lings is probably right in saying that “more cases of loss of religious faith are to be traced to the theory of evolution…than to anything else.”^[73]

British scientist John Randall points out, “There can be little doubt that the rise of Darwinism played an important part in undermining Victorian religious beliefs.”^[74]

J. W. Burrow concedes that perhaps more than any other work, Darwin’s book shook man’s belief in “the immediate providential superintendence of human affairs.”^[75]

Newman Watts, a London journalist, observed,

In compiling my book, Britain Without God, I had to read a great deal of anti-religious literature. Two things impressed me. One was the tremendous amount of this literature available, and the other was the fact that every attack on the Christian faith made today has, as its basis, the doctrine of evolution.^[76]

As a testimony to the religious impact of evolutionary thinking, consider the well thought out conclusions of the famous Humanist Manifesto II which were based squarely on naturalistic evolution:

Free thought, atheism, agnosticism, skepticism, deism, rationalism, ethical culture, and liberal religion all claim to be heir to the humanist tradition…. We find insufficient evidence for belief in the existence of a supernatural; it is either meaningless or irrelevant to the question of the survival and fulfillment of the human race. As nontheists, we begin with humans, not God, nature, not deity…. We can discover no divine purpose or providence for the human species…. No deity will save us; we must save ourselves…. Promises of immortal salvation or fear of eternal damnation are both illusory and harmful…. Rather, science affirms that the human species is an emergence from natural evolutionary forces…. There is no credible evidence that life survives the death of the body…. We affirm that moral values derive their source from human experience. Ethics is autonomous and situational, needing no theological or ideological sanction…. the right to birth control, abortion, and divorce should be recognized. The many varieties of sexual exploration should not in themselves be considered “evil.”^[77]

In light of the above, it should not surprise us to find a logical relationship between naturalistic evolution and philosophical/practical atheism; indeed, this is made evident throughout atheist literature.^[78] In The American Atheist Richard Bozarth argues as follows:

…Evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus’ earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble, you will find the sorry remains of the son of god…. If Jesus was not the redeemer… and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing….^[79]

The same individual observed earlier, “We need only insure that our schools teach only secular knowledge…. If we could achieve this, God would indeed be shortly due for a funeral service.”^[80]

The only problem is that without God, man is the one who dies, quite literally.

Many Christian people, including scientists who are Christians, believe that evolution and belief in God, even the God of the Bible, are entirely compatible. We disagree. Clearly, evolution has influenced the Bible through the many theories proposed in an attempt to harmonize the theory of evolution with biblical teaching. Attempts at accommodation fail because evolutionary belief and biblical teaching are only compatible at the expense of biblical authority. As The Encyclopedia of Philosophy points out, “It hardly needs saying that Darwinism is incompatible with any literal construction put on either the Old Testament or the New Testament.”^[83]

It is always a mistake to interpret Scripture in light of dubious theories, scientific or otherwise. Properly interpreted, Scripture will never conflict with any fact of science simply because God is its author. After all, God not only inspired Scripture, He made the creation itself.

Jesus Himself accepted divine creation (Mark 13:19); Adam, Eve and Abel (Matthew 19:4-5; Luke 11:50-51); and Noah’s Flood (Matthew 24:37-9; Luke 17:26-7). For Christians, at least His authority is supreme. The bottom line is this: if evolution is true, the Bible, literally interpreted, cannot be true and therefore cannot be considered reliable, let alone the Word of God. Con­versely, if the Bible is God’s Word, then it is evolution which cannot be true.

Yet, in spite of the harmful effects of evolutionary thinking as to personal belief in God, and the terrible effects in the modern era, it is new discoveries about the creation itself that are almost forcing modern scientists to reconsider God. Indeed, as a medical doctor and computer specialist points out,

For centuries scientific rationalists have maintained that believing in a Supreme Being or Creator God is akin to committing intellectual suicide. However, the twentieth century has sup­plied an abundance of scientific discoveries which point to a transcendent Creator who ordered and energized the universe. This evidence is so powerful that numerous prominent scientists have begun to speak openly about the existence of just such a Being. [Further,] In this twentieth-century age of skepticism it is indeed ironic to discover that more evidence has accumulated for the existence of a transcendent Creator in this century than any time in the last 1,900 years.^[84]

As one example, we may cite the text Cosmos, Bios, Theos, produced by sixty world-class scientists, including twenty-four Nobel prize winners. Co-editor and Yale University physicist Henry Margenau summarizes the logical conclusion for open-minded scientists as they face the incredible complexity and design of the universe they live in. Margenau reasons that there “is only one convincing answer” to explain the intricate complexity and laws of the universe— creation by an omniscient, omnipotent God.^[85]

	Materialistic View	Christian View
Ultimate Reality	Ultimate reality is impersonal matter. No God exists