Fact, Fable, and Darwin, Part 2

When The Origin of Species was published it aroused immense interest, but initially it did not provoke antagonism on religious grounds. Although many criticized Darwin's lack of evidence, none raised religious objections. Instead, the initial response from theologians was favorable. The distinguished Harvard botanist Asa Gray hailed Darwin for having solved the most difficult problem confronting the Design argument – the many imperfections and failures revealed in the fossil record.

Acknowledging that Darwin himself "rejects the idea of design," Gray congratulated him for "bringing out the neatest illustrations of it." Gray interpreted Darwin's work as showing that God has created a few original forms and then let evolution proceed within the framework of divine laws.

When religious antagonism finally came, it was in response to aggressive claims, like Huxley's, that Newton and Darwin together had evicted God from the cosmos. For the heirs of the Enlightenment, evolution seemed finally to supply the weapon needed to destroy religion. As Richard Dawkins confided, "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist."

Atheism was central to the agenda of the Darwinians. Darwin himself once wrote that he could not understand how anyone could even wish that Christianity were true, noting that the doctrine of damnation was itself damnable. Huxley expressed his hostility toward religion often and clearly, writing in 1859: "My screed was meant as a protest against Theology & Parsondom ... both of which are in my mind the natural & irreconcilable enemies of Science. Few see it, but I believe we are on the Eve of a new Reformation and if I have a wish to live 30 years, it is to see the foot of Science on the necks of her Enemies."

According to Oxford historian J. R. Lucas, Huxley was "remarkably resistant to the idea that there were clergymen who accepted evolution, even when actually faced with them." Quite simply, there could be no compromises with faith.

Writing at the same time as Huxley, the leading Darwinian in Germany, Ernst Haeckel, drew this picture:

On one side spiritual freedom and truth, reason and culture, evolution and progress stand under the bright banner of science; on the other side, under the black flag of hierarchy, stand spiritual slavery and falsehood, irrationality and barbarism, superstition and retrogression.... Evolution is the heavy artillery in the struggle for truth. Whole ranks of...sophistries fall together under the chain shot of this ... artillery, and the proud and mighty structure of the Roman hierarchy, that powerful stronghold of infallible dogmatism, falls like a house of cards.

These were not the natterings of radical circles and peripheral publications. The author of the huge review of The Origin in the Times of London was none other than Thomas Huxley. He built his lectures on evolution into a popular touring stage show wherein he challenged various potential religious opponents by name. Is it surprising that religious people, scientists as well as clerics, began to respond in the face of unrelenting challenges like these issued in the name of evolution? It was not as if they merely were asked to accept that life had evolved; many theologians had long taken that for granted. What the Darwinians demanded was that religionists agree to the untrue and unscientific claim that Darwin had proved that God played no role in the process.

Among those drawn to respond was the Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, who is widely said to have made an ass of himself in a debate with Huxley during the 1860 meeting of the British Association at Oxford. The relevant account of this confrontation reported: "I was happy enough to be present on the memorable occasion at Oxford when Mr. Huxley bearded Bishop Wilberforce. The bishop arose and in a light scoffing tone, florid and fluent, he assured us that there was nothing in the idea of evolution. Then turning to his antagonist with a smiling insolence, he begged to know, was it through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed descent from a monkey? On this Mr. Huxley ... arose ... and spoke these tremendous words. He was not ashamed to have a monkey for an ancestor; but he would be ashamed to be connected with a man who used his great gifts to obscure the truth. No one doubted his meaning and the effect was tremendous."

This marvelous anecdote has appeared in every distinguished biography of Darwin and of Huxley, as well as in every popular history of the theory of evolution. In his celebrated Apes, Angels and Victorians, William Irvine used this tale to disparage the bishop's snobbery. In his prize-winning study, James Brix went much farther, describing Wilberforce as "naive and pompous," a man whose "faulty opinions" were those of a "fundamentalist creationist" and who provided Huxley with the opportunity to give evolution "its first major victory over dogmatism and duplicity." Every writer tells how the audience gave Huxley an ovation.

Trouble is, it never happened. The quotation above was the only such report of this story and it appeared in an article titled "A Grandmother's Tales" that was written by a non-scholar in a popular magazine 38 years after the alleged encounter. No other account of these meetings – and there were many written at the time – made any mention of remarks concerning Huxley's monkey ancestors, or claimed that he made a fool of the bishop. To the contrary, many thought the bishop had the better of it, and even many of the committed Darwinians thought it at most a draw.

Moreover, as all of the scholars present at Oxford knew, prior to the meeting, Bishop Wilberforce had penned a review of The Origin in which he fully acknowledged the principle of natural selection as the source of variations within species. He rejected Darwin's claims concerning the origin of species, however, and some of these criticisms were sufficiently compelling that Darwin immediately wrote his friend the botanist J. D. Hooker that the article "is uncommonly clever; it picks out with skill all the most conjectural parts, and brings forward well all the difficulties. It quizzes me quite splendidly." In a subsequent letter to geologist Charles Lyell, Darwin acknowledges that "the bishop makes a very telling case against me." Indeed, several of Wilberforce's comments caused Darwin to make modifications in a later revision of the book.

The tale of the foolish and narrow-minded bishop seems to have thrived as a revealing "truth" about the incompatibility of religion and science simply because many of its tellers wanted to believe that a bishop is wrong by nature. J. R. Lucas, who debunked the bishop myth, has suggested that the "most important reason why the legend grew" is, first, because academics generally "know nothing outside their own special subject" and therefore easily believe that outsiders are necessarily ignorant, and, second, because Huxley encouraged that conclusion. "The quarrel between religion and science was what Huxley wanted; and as Darwin's theory gained supporters, they took over his view of the incident."

Since then the Darwinian Crusade has tried to focus all attention on the most unqualified and most vulnerable opponents, and when no easy targets present themselves it has invented them. Huxley "made straw men of the 'creationists,'" as his biographer Desmond admitted. Even today it is a rare textbook or any popular treatment of evolution and religion that does not reduce "creationism" to the simplest caricatures.

This tradition remains so potent that whenever it is asked that evolution be presented as "only a theory," the requester is ridiculed as a buffoon. Even when the great philosopher of science Karl Popper suggested that the standard version of evolution even falls short of being a scientific theory, being instead an untestable tautology, he was subjected to public condemnations and much personal abuse.

Popper's tribulations illustrate an important basis for the victory of Darwinism: A successful appeal for a united front on the part of scientists to oppose religious opposition has had the consequence of silencing dissent within the scientific community. The eminent observer Everett Olson notes that there is "a generally silent group" of biological scientists "who tend to disagree with much of the current thought" about evolution, but who remain silent for fear of censure.

I believe that one day there will be a plausible theory of the origin of species. But, if and when that occurs, there will be nothing in any such theory that makes it impossible to propose that the principles involved were not part of God's great design any more than such a theory will demonstrate the existence of God. But, while we wait, why not lift the requirement that high school texts enshrine Darwin's failed attempt as an eternal truth?

A Brain Gone Wrong.
The Brain Believes What You Tell It
Part Four of a Ten Part Series
By Dr. W. Dean Belnap

“Man is that he might have joy” is not a platitude of some day, somewhere, some time. Joy is a “heart condition” that is manifested by the brain. It is the imprinting of vitality and fulfillment and mastery on the brain.

Imagine a life that does not give in to barriers, hassles and hurdles of everyday living. One filled with achievement, enrichment, self-fulfillment and satisfaction. One that can sustain light in a world that is “walking in darkness at noonday.” Mastering the mind is the key to that light. A brain that has been imprinted with negative thoughts, patterns and processes can be reconnected to the truth and future it has lost.

The human brain is capable of doing anything we would like it to do. But, we have to know how to use it and how to treat it. What we imprint determines what we see, feel, do and like. If we treat the brain carefully, giving it the right direction, it will do the right thing and work for us in the right way as God intended. But if we give our highly sophisticated brain the wrong directions, those imprints will develop negative programs that “dumb-down” our potential. For example, those who are addicted feel and think of nothing but feeding their need; those who have lived with violence and abuse see no other way to survive.

Negative imprints dominate our society. But, the brains of our youth are still works in progress. Not only are teens all legs one day and arms and ears the next, the regions of their brains are being developed as well. Their brains are at work learning how to balance the emotional center of the brain with the judgment of the prefrontal cortex. A majority of youth are imprinting their brains with negative programs of worldliness and its evils that are not reality. Yet wrong thinking programs their brains – and ours – year after year, word by word, until our scripts are etched – imprinted – with society’s ills as if they were what we came to do. So many of our youth are living out the “wrong” picture of themselves that has been created in their minds. Unfortunately, so are many of their parents.

The result is a disconnect from our eternal selves.

But negative programming can be erased – just like a disk in a computer – and replaced with positive programming that will stay with us and drive our thinking, our feelings and our actions. The Proverb, “As a man thinketh, so is he,” is absolutely true. Brain science today reaffirms that truth.

Work in Progress

The brain inside a teen is still a work in progress. Being put in place are the connections between neurons, the transmitters, that join not only emotional skills but also physical and mental abilities. Time was when society simply tried to pack a teen’s brain with facts and figures from the War of 1812 to the hypotenuse of a triangle to how to jump-start a car. And in the process of educating, the teen was “done.”

Times and understanding have changed. Studies of the brain show that the brain through adolescence is maturing in fits and starts. Raw emotions surface only to be played back by judgment and empathy. The imbalance is the reflection of imprints not yet cohesive. In scientific terms, neurons or brain cells “firing” to dendrites of another brain cell. Moodiness and incoherent behavior are almost standard. That’s why a teen will pop into a car too crowded for seat belts or worse, being driven by someone who is high on drugs. The same teen will comfort a child and feel such emotion for a lost puppy.

In the past two decades, science has learned more about the human brain than was known throughout all prior history. What is clear today is that the brain is an incredibly complex physiological mechanism. The internal structure of the brain is uniquely human. The prefrontal cortex is the portion that differentiates us from the animal world. The limbic system and basal ganglia are centers that initiate emotions. The limbic system can either enhance the functions of the prefrontal cortex or act independently with the more primitive basal/ganglia that promote and sustain bad habits.

The prefrontal cortex is unique to mankind. It allows us to make judgements, to process all other brain funcitons and bring balance to our thinking. The limbic system and basal ganglia are centers that initiate emotions. The limbic system can either enhance the functions of the prefrontal cortex or act independently with the more primitive basal ganglia that promote negative habits.

Within the brain itself, a network of 200 billion neurons, each having a potential of 185,000 electrochemical switches called neuro-transmitters, turns part of us on and part of us off. The brain’s infinitely small chemical receiving centers respond to almost imperceptible electrochemical signals which deliver nearly immeasurable but highly potent chemical substances to our brain and to other organs which in turn control or affect everything we do.

Programmed by Thoughts

Through the joint effort of body, brain and mind we become the living results of our own thoughts. Every action we take, of any kind, is affected by prior programming – imprinting. A positive set of attitudes, beliefs and behaviors prompts an abundance of self-belief and the moral foundation for our life’s direction. The same is true for established patterns that follow the darker side of society. Hence, the prefrontal cortex is what scientists call the “executive” position of the brain. This area dictates the positive development of the person. In contrast, the more primitive and self-indulgent parts of the brain can take-over and dictate negative addictive behaviors where no freedom of choice is available.

Fortunately, there is always a programming vocabulary or “inner speech” that can be used to erase and replace the negative imprinting or programming with positive, productive new directions. That inner speech is a singular human endowment that can be activated or reactivated at any time.

Put simply, the brain believes what you tell it most. What you tell it about you – what you like, what you do, what you want, what you need – will create you as your brain sees it. It is what neuroscientists have defined as a “brain-soul” combination manifest by what might be called “inner speech.”

The location and function of inner speech – what we say to ourselves – is found in the prefrontal cortex of the brain. This exercise of free agency or choice, not found in animals, allows us to make moral and value judgments in one part of the prefrontal lobes of the brain and in another location prompts us to exercise our ability to carry on an inner speech or dialogue patter. That inner speech is the ingredient that binds all other elements in our process of self-fulfillment.

Sounds complicated. Not at all. In our next segment we will discuss the “conversations” of our inner speech and how we direct and redirect those communications.

But most evolutionists over-state the strength of evolution as a theory,

For example?

fail to honestly articulate their own assumptions,

To be fair, if any scientist was expected to do that any time they made a statement, every utterence would be a dissertation. The audience is expected to have at least a working knowledge of science, the kind that they should have if they were paying attention in high school.

attack the credentials of their opponents rather than the arguments,

Examples, please -- I have *never* seen this done, *except* in response to at attempted "argument from authority" from the creationist side. In a case like that, it is *appropriate* to respond by showing that the "authority" being touted by the creationists isn't nearly the "expert" they hold him out to be.

When creationists actually make an argument on its own merits, it is addressed that way. Unfortunately, all too often they instead quote-mine something, and fling out the quote with an attribution of "so-and-so, emeritus biologist at the respected blah-blah university", as if that should be the end of the matter and anyone who disagrees with the esteemed [whoever] need not be taken seriously.

In cases like that (which again, are far too common among creationist "arguments"), it *is* appropriate to point out that the "esteemed expert" actually has a degree in basket-weaving or whatever.

retreat to triumphalism when shallow critiques of their opponents get posted on websites etc.

Should we *not* point out that while the avalanche of anti-evolutionist literature (websites, books, pamphlets, tapes, etc.) may appear impressive through sheer size, the vast majority of it is of laughably inept quality? The plain truth needs to be said, and the Emperor is at best wearing only a few strands of clothing.

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