Evolutionists
often insist that evolution is a proved fact of science, providing
the very framework of scientific interpretation, especially in the
biological sciences. This, of course, is nothing but wishful
thinking. Evolution is not even a scientific hypothesis, since there
is no conceivable way in which it can be tested.
THE
RELIGIOUS ESSENCE OF EVOLUTIONISM
Many leading
evolutionists have recognized the essentially religious character of
evolutionism. Even though they themselves believe evolution to be
true, they acknowledge the fact that they believe it. Science,
however, is not supposed to be something one believes. Science
is knowledge that which can be demonstrated and observed and
repeated. Evolution cannot be proved, or even tested, it can
only be believed.
For example, two leading evolutionary
biologists have described modern neo-Darwinism as "part of an
evolutionary dogma accepted by most of us as part of our
training."[1] A prominent British biologist, a Fellow of
the Royal Society, in the Introduction to the 1971 edition of
Darwin's Origin of Species, said that "belief in the theory of
evolution" was "exactly parallel to belief in special
creation," with evolution merely "a satisfactory faith on
which to base our interpretation of nature."[2] G.W.
Harper calls it a "metaphysical belief."[3]
Ernst
Mayr, the outstanding Harvard evolutionary biologist, calls evolution
"man's world view today."[4] Sir Julian Huxley,
probably the outstanding evolutionist of the twentieth century saw
"evolution as a universal and all-pervading process"[5]
and, in fact, nothing less than "the
whole of reality."[6]
A leading evolutionary geneticist of the present day, writing an
obituary for Theodosius Dobzhansky, who himself was probably the
nation's leading evolutionist at the time of his death in 1975, says
that Dobzhansky's view of evolution followed that of the notorious
Jesuit priest, de Chardin:
The place of biological evolution
in human thought was, according to Dobzhansky, best expressed in a
passage that he often quoted from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin:
'(Evolution) is a general postulate to which all theories, all
hypotheses, all systems must henceforward bow and which they must
satisfy in order to be thinkable and true. Evolution is a light
which illuminates all facts, a trajectory which all lines of thought
must follow.'[7]
The British physicist, H.S. Lipson, has
reached the following conclusion: In fact, evolution became in a
sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists have
accepted it and many are prepared to "bend" their
observations to fit in with it.[8]
The man whom Dobzhansky
called "France's leading zoologist," although himself an
evolutionist, said that scientists should "destroy the myth of
evolution" as a simple phenomenon which is "unfolding
before us."[9] Dr. Colin Patterson, Senior Paleontologist at the
British Museum of Natural History, by any accounting one of the
world's top evolutionists today, has recently called evolution
"positively anti-knowledge," saying that "all my life
I had been duped into taking evolutionism as revealed truth."[10]
In another address he called evolution "story
telling."[11]
Charles Darwin himself called evolution
"this grand view of life." Now such grandiloquent terms as
these are not scientific terms! One does not call the law of gravity,
for example, "a satisfactory faith," nor speak of the laws
of thermodynamics as "dogma." Evolution is, indeed, a grand
world view, but it is not science. Its very comprehensiveness makes
it impossible even to test scientifically. As Ehrlich and Birch have
said: "Every conceivable observation can be fitted into it. --No
one can think of ways in which to test it."[12]
RELIGIONS
BASED ON EVOLUTION
In view of the fundamentally religious
nature of evolution, it is not surprising to find that most world
religions are themselves based on evolution. It is certainly
unfitting for educators to object to teaching scientific creationism
in public schools on the ground that it supports Biblical
Christianity when the existing pervasive teaching of evolution is
supporting a host of other religions and philosophies.
The
concept of evolution did not originate with Charles Darwin. It has
been the essential ingredient of all pagan religions and philosophies
from time immemorial (e.g., atomism, pantheism, stoicism, gnosticism
and all other humanistic and polytheistic systems). All beliefs which
assume the ultimacy of the space/time/matter universe, presupposing
that the universe has existed from eternity, are fundamentally
evolutionary systems. The cosmos, with its innate laws and forces, is
the only ultimate reality. Depending on the sophistication of the
system, the forces of the universe may be personified as gods and
goddesses who organized the eternal chaotic cosmos into its present
form (as in ancient Babylonian and Egyptian religions), or else may
themselves be invested with organizing capabilities (as in modern
scientific evolutionism). In all such cases, these are merely
different varieties of the fundamental evolutionist world view, the
essential feature of which is the denial that there is one true God
and Creator of all things.
In this perspective, it becomes
obvious that most world religions, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism,
Hinduism, Animism, etc. are based on evolution. Creationism is the
basis of only such systems as Orthodox Judaism, Islam and Biblical
Christianity. The liberal varieties of Judaism, Islam, Catholicism
and Protestantism, as well as most modern pseudo-Christian cults, are
all based on evolution.
All of this points up the absurdity of
banning creationist teaching from the schools on the basis that it is
religious. The schools are already saturated with the teaching of
religion in the guise of evolutionary "science." In the
modern school of course, this teaching mostly takes the form of
secular humanism, which its own proponents claim to be a
"non-theistic religion." It should also be recalled that
such philosophies as communism, fascism, socialism, Nazism, and
anarchism have been claimed by their founders and promoters to be
based on what they regard as scientific evolutionism. If creation is
excluded from the schools because it is compatible with Christian
"fundamentalism," should not evolution also be banned since
it is the basis of communism and Nazism?
Some people have
deplored the questioning of evolution on the ground that this is
attacking science itself. In a recent debate, the evolutionist
whom the writer debated did not attempt to give any scientific
evidences for evolution, electing instead to spend his time defending
such scientific concepts as atomic theory, relativity, gravity,
quantum theory and science in general, stating that attacking
evolution was tantamount to attacking science!
The fact is,
however, that the elimination of evolutionary interpretations from
science would hardly be noticed at all, in terms of real scientific
understanding and accomplishment. G.W. Harper comments on this
subject as follows: It is frequently claimed that Darwinism is
central to modern biology. On the contrary, if all references to
Darwinism suddenly disappeared, biology would remain substantially
unchanged. It would merely have lost a little color. Grandiose
doctrines in science are like some occupants of high office; they
sound very important but have in fact been promoted to a position of
ineffectuality.[13]
The scientific irrelevance of evolutionism
has been strikingly (but, no doubt, inadvertently) illustrated in a
recent issue of Science News. This widely read and highly regarded
weekly scientific journal was commemorating its sixtieth anniversary,
and this included a listing of what it called the "scientific
highlights" of the past sixty years.[14]
REFERENCES
1.
Ehrlich, Paul and L.C. Birch. _Nature_, Apr. 22, 1967, p. 352. 2.
Matthews, L. Harrison. "Introduction" to _Origin of
Species_. London, J.M. Dent and Sons, 1971, p. X. 3.
Harper, G. W. "Alternatives to Evolutionism." _School
Science Review_ 51, Sep. 1979, p. 16. Mayr, Ernst. "Evolution."
_Scientific American_ 239, Sep. 1978, p. 47. 5. Huxley,
Julian. "Evolution and Genetics." Ch. 8 in _What is
Science?_. Edited by J.R. Newman. New York, Simon and Schuster,
1955, p. 272. 6. Ibid, p. 278. 7. Ayala, Francisco.
"Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of
Evolution: Theodosius Dobzhansky, 1900-1975." _Journal of
Heredity_ 68, No. 3, 1977, p. 3. 8. Lipson, H.S. "A
Physicist Looks at Evolution." _Physics Bulletin_ 31, n.d.,
1980. 9. Grasse, Pierre P. _Evolution of Living Organisms_. New York,
Academic Press, 1977, p. 8. 10. Patterson, Colin. "Evolution
and Creationism." Transcript of Speech at American Museum of
Natural history, Nov. 5, 1981, p. 2. 11. Patterson, Colin.
"Cladistics." Interview on BBC Telecast, Peter Franz,
Interviewer, Mar. 4, 1982. 12. Ehrlich and Holm, op cit.
13.
Harper, G.W. op cit., p. 26. 14. "Six Decades of Science
Highlights." _Science News_ 121, Mar. 13, 1982, p. 192.
