Posted on 03/13/2003 9:21:15 AM PST by Remedy
And Job answered and said, No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you"
(Job 12:1-2).
There seems to be something about evolutionism that generates arrogance in many of its spokesmen. The concept is so wide-ranging that it purportedly can explain everything scientifically, from the origin of the cosmos to the origin of religion. Perhaps because it seems to eliminate the need for God, science itself becomes "god," and some evolutionists think they have become its official prophets and priests. One of their communicants, in fact, calls them its "shamans." He says,
We show deference to our leaders, pay respect to our elders and follow the dictates of our shamans; this being the Age of Science, it is scien-tism's shamans who command our veneration. . . . scientists [are] the premier mythmakers of our time.1
One of these great shamans, arguably the premier living evolutionist, is Professor Ernst Mayr of Harvard. He tells us that evolution can even answer the great "why?" questions of life. Many people of normal intelligence, including most scientists, have acknowledged that science can deal with questions beginning with "What?" and "Where," and "How," but not "Why?" The latter requires a theological answer, or at least philosophical. But not Shaman Mayr. He says:
There is not a single Why? question in biology that can be answered adequately without a consideration of evolution.2
After all, says Shermer, "cosmology and evolutionary theory ask the ultimate origin questions that have traditionally been the province of religion and theology" and evolutionism is "courageously proffering naturalistic answers that supplant supernaturalistic ones and . . . is providing spiritual sustenance. . . ."3
The investment of these leaders of the evolutionary faith with such pontifical authority, however, tends to generate in them an attitude of profound impatience with such heresies as creationism. Instead of opposing the creationists with scientific proofs of macroevolution, they resort to name-calling and ridicule. A professor at a Missouri university fulminates at the "lunatic literalism of the creationists,"4 especially "the weirdness produced by leaders such as Henry M. Morris."5
And even such an articulate and highly revered evolutionist as the late Stephen Jay Gould, in a voluminous book of 1433 pages published just before his death, referred angrily to "the scourge of creationism."6 He had refused many invitations to debate a qualified creationist scientist with the self-serving and misleading explanation that it would be a mistake to dignify creationism and its scientists in this way.
Dr. Massimo Pigliucci, who has lost a number of debates with Dr. Gish and other creationists, laments the fact that, "many Americans are still enchanted with dinosaurs such as John Morris and Duane Gish of the oxymoronically named Institute for Creation Research."7
Although Dr. Gould would never debate a creationist scientist, despite the inducement of large financial incentives to do so, he was quick to criticize them in print, calling them "fundamentalists who call themselves `creation scientists,' with their usual mixture of cynicism and ignorance."8 Gould often resorted, in fact, to the standard debate technique of name-calling and ad hominem arguments commonly used when one has no factual evidence to support his position.
In his gigantic magnum opus, Dr. Gould provides a valuable historical review of the development of evolutionary theory, including the many conflicts among the evolutionists themselves, but in his1433 pages neglected to provide a single proof of macroevolution. The same was true of the esteemed Ernst Mayr who, in his own recent textbook9 could cite no such proof. Yet he had the gall to make the pronouncement that "every knowing person agrees that man is descended from the apes."10
We ignorant creationists, since we theoretically know nothing about the subject, thus, according to Gould, have "always relied, as a primary strategy, upon the misquotation of scientific sources."11 We not only are ignorant, but also by him are assumed to be liars. Strange that, in his 1433 pages, not to mention his copious other writings, Dr. Gould failed to site a single example of such misquotations.
Creationists are fallible human beings, of course, and it is possible that a few mistakes could be discovered among the thousands of quotes we have used from the evolutionists, but they would certainly be rare exceptions, as well as unintentional. They certainly could not obviate the tremendous case that has been built up against evolution just from admissions of evolutionists.
It would be easy if space permitted to multiply examples of the evolutionists' use of ridicule and insulting names in lieu of scientific evidence. But another type of evolutionary arrogance consists of their repeatedly professed amazement that anyone of intelligence could ever disagree with them.
One writer laments that even after the pope reaffirmed the commitment of the Catholic Church to evolution in 1996,
40 percent of American Catholics in a 2001 Gallup poll said they believed that God created human life in the past 10,000 years. Indeed, fully 45 percent of all Americans subscribe to this creationist view.12
Two eminent authors of an important article in the journal, Evolution, assume that this simply indicates "a lack of . . . understanding of evolution by the general public" and then suggests that the cause of this ignorance may be "the way the media communicates evolution and anti-evolution."13
Perhaps these authors were writing this with tongue-in-cheek! It would seem they must know that practically all the media strongly promote evolution and that the "general public" has been taught only evolution in public schools and secular colleges all their lives. Evidently all this brainwashing somehow has failed.
But why would the public favor creation? Only a statistical minority of the "general public" attends church and Sunday school. Could it possibly be that evolution is so contrary to evidence and common sense that people intuitively know that evolution is wrong? And could it be that many of these have studied the evidences for themselves and thereby found that evolution is not really scientific after all?
Higher education doesn't seem to help much. Alters and Nelson have made a fairly extensive survey of this kind of study.
Research results show that there may be surprisingly little difference in performance between majors and nonmajor introductory biology students. For example, in an ecology and evolutionary biology pretest of 1200 students, biology majors scored only 6% higher than non-majors. When the same students were posttested on the first day of the following semester, the researchers concluded "that majors, who received a much more rigorous treatment of the material, came through the semester with the same degree of understanding as the non-majors!"14
This strange intransigence on the part of science students when subjected to evolutionary teachings, they think, must be caused by religion!
The more deeply ingrained the religious teachings, the more the evidence was viewed through lenses different from those of students without contradictory religious beliefs.15
Well, that does make sense. If evolutionists can just persuade students to be atheists, it should be easier to make them become evolutionists!
There will always be a problem, however, in convincing students who believe that scientific generalizations should at least be based on scientific facts.
Even more difficult will it always be to convince students who believe that the Biblical account of creation is the true account as revealed by the Creator Himself.
In the absence of either a divine "evolution revelation" or real scientific proof of macroevolution, it is hard to understand this pervasive attitude of intellectual superiority (even over thousands of fully credentialed creationist scientists) as anything but evolutionary arrogance.
1. Michael Shermer, "The Shaman of Scientism," Scientific American (June 2002), p. 35.
2. Ernst Mayr, What Evolution Is (New York: Basic Books, 2001), p. xiii.
3. Michael Shermer, op cit., p. 35.
4. Taner Edis, "Darwin in Mind," Skeptical Inquirer (vol. 25, no. 2, March/April 2001), p. 36.
5. Ibid., p. 35.
6. Stephen Jay Gould, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (Cambridge, Mass. Harvard University Press, 2002), p. 984.
7. Massimo Pigliucci, "Defending Evolution, as Strange as It May Seem," Evolution (vol. 56, no. 1, 2002), p. 206.
8. Stephen Jay Gould, op cit., p. 101, footnote.
9. Ernst Mayr, op cit.
10. Ernst Mayr, "Interview," Omni (March/April 1988), p. 46, emphasis supplied.
11. Gould, op cit., p. 986.
12. Roger Doyle, "Down with Evolution," Scientific American (vol. 286, March 2002), p. 30.
13. Brian J. Alters and Craig E. Nelson, "Perspective: Teaching Evolution in Higher Education," Evolution (vol. 56, October 2002), p. 1892. Dr. Alters was the lead author of Defending Evolution (Boston: Jones & Bartlett, 2001, 261 pp.), an anti-creationist book which was reviewed in the September 2001 issue of ICR's Acts & Facts. Dr. Nelson is a professor at the University of Indiana who has unsuccessfully debated for evolution several times.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid., p. 1898.
[This ping list is for the evolution -- not creationism -- side of evolution threads, and sometimes for other science topics. To be added (or dropped), let me know via freepmail.]
Well, gee! I wonder if anyone has looked into that claim?
Then I shall reveal a couple in just the opening paragrahs of this essay.
One of their communicants, in fact, calls them its "shamans." He says, We show deference to our leaders, pay respect to our elders and follow the dictates of our shamans; this being the Age of Science, it is scien-tism's shamans who command our veneration. . . . scientists [are] the premier mythmakers of our time.1
He is citing Michel Shermer, head to the Skeptic society and holding him up as speaking for all of science.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?colID=13&articleID=000AA74F-FF5F-1CDB-B4A8809EC588EEDF
Dr. Shermer is a psychologist by training, and while I would say he does a lot to promote good science, he seems VERY idealistic. In the cited article, he talks mostly about Stephen Hawking, and explicitly compares him to God. This is a claim that I suspect Hawking himself would take issue with. His article, as implied by Morris, is trying to establish science as a religion in its own right. I, for one, do NOT think that this is an accurate representation of the position of most scientists. He even quotes Dr. Hawking as saying "I do not answer 'God' questions." then procedes to claim, as Morris suggests, that science can and does answer all the questions that religions purport to. I would say the Dr. Hawking's approach is far more representative of most scientists, and Shermer is out on a limb. As such, quoting him as speaking for the scientific community is a terrible misrepresentation of that community.
Many people of normal intelligence, including most scientists, have acknowledged that science can deal with questions beginning with "What?" and "Where," and "How," but not "Why?" The latter requires a theological answer, or at least philosophical. But not Shaman Mayr. He says: There is not a single Why? question in biology that can be answered adequately without a consideration of evolution.2
I, for one, would fully agree with the first statement, but Moriss's quotation of Mayr is a semantic juggling act. Mayr is explicitly referring to questions in biology. Questions about why fetuses develop in the way they do, or why the human is so similar to that of apes. Morris is trying to say that he was talking about philosophical questions such as why are we here? Why do we suffer? This is a gross and obvious mischaracterization of what Mayr was trying to say, but it sounds good out of context and if you don't think too much about it, so Morris whips it right out there. He subsequently backs it up with our old friend Shermer, who again is talking about something completely different from Mayr.
The rest of the essay is an exercise in the same sort of flat declarations (no proof!) that we've heard a million times. He's basically whining about how noone in the scientific community takes him seriously without providing a shread of contradictory evidence himself.
This sort of irresponsible writing really irks me. If someone does not want to believe in evolution because their faith in God doesn't allow it, then fine. I can acutally respect that quite a bit. But I wish Morris and his ilk would quit trying to twist science around to suit their needs! He is guilty of precisely the same misquoting practices that he dismisses in the same essay!
Faith in God I can deeply respect even if I disagree. Intellectual hypocrisy just pisses me off!
Thank you for that valuable contribution. I will ponder the problem. It seems to me either a problem of perception or a problem of the will. On one hand, we noticed you woke up on the wrong side of the bed and were name-calling early in the morning (do you not work for a living?). On the other hand you may not completely understand that you are crabby. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Creation: God spoke. It happened. Which is more believable?
Instead of opposing the creationists with scientific proofs of macroevolution, they resort to name-calling and ridicule.
But another type of evolutionary arrogance consists of their repeatedly professed amazement that anyone of intelligence could ever disagree with them.
that the "general public" has been taught only evolution in public schools and secular colleges all their lives. Evidently all this brainwashing somehow has failed.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/transcripts/collins.html
ABERNETHY: What do you say to your fellow Christians who say, "Evolution is just a theory, and I can't put that together with my idea of a creator God"?
COLLINS: Well, evolution is a theory. It's a very compelling one. As somebody who studies DNA, the fact that we are 98.4 percent identical at the DNA level to a chimpanzee, it's pretty hard to ignore the fact that when I am studying a particular gene, I can go to the mouse and find it's the similar gene, and it's 90 percent the same. It's certainly compatible with the theory of evolution, although it will always be a theory that we cannot actually prove. I'm a theistic evolutionist. I take the view that God, in His wisdom, used evolution as His creative scheme. I don't see why that's such a bad idea. That's pretty amazingly creative on His part. And what is wrong with that as a way of putting together in a synthetic way the view of God who is interested in creating a group of individuals that He can have fellowship with -- us? Why is evolution not an appropriate way to get to that goal? I don't see a problem with that. The only problems that get put forward are by those who would interpret Genesis 1 in a very literal way. And that interpretation in many ways is a -- is a modern one. Saint Augustine in 400 AD, without any reasons to try to be an apologist to Charles Darwin, agreed that that was not a particularly appropriate way to interpret the words that are written in that first chapter of the Bible.
Yet, my brain--MY BRAIN--not one with reasonable intelligencia, my brain is more complex than the rest of the universe...how much more complex is yours 8-)???
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