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That's the thing about science, and I think it's what worries a lot people of faith - there are no hard-and-fast absolutes in science. Religious faith is the polar opposite, by necessity.

There are some absolutes in science. What surprises me, though, is how quickly, otherwise reasonable, people start making preposterous claims to support their not-so-scientific ideas. Miller experiment is a great example. I just checked a recent release of a freshman bio book. It has a description of Miller experiment without mentioning that no one seriously believes that the results of this experiment offer any kind of feasible creation-of-life model. To make it even worse, the book goes on to point out that there are (unarguable, in my opinion) similarities between construction of a whale fin and a human hand. Based on this, they conclude that there is no God. Somewhere, between a fact (anatomical similarity) and a conclusion (there is no God) is a leap of logic that I simply could not penetrate.

To make it even worse, the book goes on to point out that there are (unarguable, in my opinion) similarities between construction of a whale fin and a human hand. Based on this, they conclude that there is no God.

I'll bet you can't produce a quote from any textbook that makes this argument.

I just checked a recent release of a freshman bio book. ... they conclude that there is no God

Pretend I'm from Missouri - show me.

Its called religious scientism. "An exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science..." (Merriam-Webster 1099).

Carl Sagan attributed the same spiritual qualities of intelligence and purpose [of God] to matter [and energy]. Of course this isn't science, but scientism, a religious faith unsupported by evidence. It is often mistaken for science when authoritatively proclaimed by scientists. "If we must worship a power greater than ourselves," says Carl Sagan, "does it not make sense to revere the Sun and Stars?" A native bowing before a stone...a witch worshiping nature...and a university professor worshipping the atom (or time)...offer obvious similarities. There is one significant difference, the native and the witch remain true to the relgious aspects of their faith, something that Sagan's scientism denies.

The Supreme Court declared in 1961 that "Among religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existance of God are Buddahism, Taoism, Secular Humanism, and others" In 1983, the Virginia U.S. District Court said, "The First Amendment was never intended to insulate our public institutions from any mention of God, the Bible, or religion. When such insulation occurs, another religion, such as secular humanism, is effectively established" (Gabler, Mel and Norma. What are They Teaching Our Children? Illinois 1987).

For this reason I posit that evolution is, for the most part, a humanistic type of religion. Evolutionists can not and do not know that it is true; it is somethey choose to believe.

When most people think of "religion", they visualize clergy, temples, churches, rituals, etc. However, what people do not realize is that a religion is simply the "belief in or reverence for a supernatural power recognized as the creator and governor of the universe (Heritage 1044). That is all any philosophy needs in order to be religious in nature. It is very reasonable to assert then that, to humanists, evolution is their "religion" and the passing of enormous amounts of time is their omnipotent "creator".

A Wayne State University geology textbook earnestly admits, "In human terms, the inconceivable length of time [of a 4.6 billion year old univers] might as well be eternity of the Norwegian folktale" (Geology, An Introduction to Physical Geology, 2nd Ed. Univ of Wash., Seattle, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1999; Chernicoff, Stanley, p208).

Chandra Wickramasinghe, a world-famous British astronomer, testified in an Arkansas trial, "Contrary to the popular notion that only creationism relies on the supernatural, evolution must as well, since the probabilities of random formation of life are so tiny [they] require a "miracle"...tantamount to a [religious belief]" (Gabler 137). Dr. D.M.S. Watson, said in the journal Nature, "The theory of evolution itself [is] a theory universally accepted not because it can be proved by logically coherent evidence but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible" (Watson 233). Dr. W. Scott Morrow, professor of biochemisty at Wofford College, South Carolina, and an evolutionist, conludes that the primary reason most scientists believe in evolution is because "they wanted to believe in it, they looked at the evidence and saw it one way, and didn't consider alternatives" (Gabler 141).

Wolfgang Smith was quite candid about the truth of evolution:

"We are told dogmatically that evolution is an established fact; but we are never told who has established it, and by what means. We are told that the doctrine is founded upon evidence...but we are left entirely in the dark on the crucial question wherein, precicely, this evidence consists." (Teilhardism and the New Religion - Rockford, Ill. 1988)

The science journal Nature had no problem admitting in 1967, "Our theory of evolution has become...one which cannot be refuted by any possible observations. Every conceivable observation can be fitted into it. It is thus 'outside of empirical science' but not necissarily false. No one can think of ways in which to test it. There is an evolutionary dogma accepted by most of us as part of our training."

The universe is a closed system. So where did the matter and energy come from for the supposed Big Bang that begat the evolutionary miracle? The law of cause and effect indentifies the universe as the effect and demands to know the cause. Evolutionists might counter, "Where did God come from?, demonstrating that the issue is really on of diametrically opposed worldviews - naturalism and supernaturalism - and are belief systems. Neither can be scientifically proven; one must simply believe. The difference being however, that the law of cause and effect requires an explanation from the eveolution model. The intelligent design model doesn't have to explain it - because it predicts it. I'd posit to say that it takes more faith to believe that the universe "just happened" than believing an all-powerfull, all-knowing, self-existent, eternal intelligence created it.

That notwithstanding, I will point out that Dr. John Rankin in his Ph.D. dissertation showed mathematically that galaxies could not form from the Big Bang (Safarti, Jonathan. Refuting Evolution: A Response to the National Academy of Sciences "Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science." Brisbane 1999).

Evolution is not about science. The textbook, "Glenco Biology", 1994, instructs children, "You can better understand how the eyeball might have evolved if you imagine a series of changes during the evolution of the eye" They're supposed to teach science in science class, and that is not science.

"To suppose that the eye with all its unparralleled contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree" (Darwin, Charles. "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life" Chicago, Mentor, 1958). When do they begin to start teaching that?

Dr. Richard Dawkins, head of the Department of Zooology at Oxford University has stated, "the more statistically improbable a thing is, the less we can believe that it happened by blind chance. The obvious alternative to chance is an intelligent designer." However, that is anathema to humanistic secular scientism. They rather pin their secular humanistic religion of scientism on the following garbage:

"Scientists use the order of rock layers to decide how old the rock layers are. WHen scientists figure out how old the rock layers are, they can also figure out how long ago organisms lived. Sometimes scientists do just the opposite. If they know the time in history when a plant or an animal lived, that tells them how old the rock layer is" (Harcource Brace D59).

One teacher's edition science textbook instructs to tell children:

1) index fossils determine the age of rock layers
2) a fossils age is established by the age of the rock layers in which the fossil resides (SBGS - Discovery Works, Parsipanny; pg 262)

A geology textbook used at Wayne State University states:

"Knowing the spatial relationships between rock strata, then, helps geologists estimate the relative ages of the fossils contained in them - and vice versa ... Index fossils [enable] us to date the rocks in which they are found... Knowledge of a fossil organism's place in the geological record can help date a rock [layer] in which the fossil appears (Chernicoff 212-13)

In the Encylcopedia Brittanica, under the heading Geology, a university of London professor states, "It can not be denied that from a strictly philosophical standpoint, geologists are arguing in a circle. The succession of organisms has been determined by a study of their remains embedded in rocks, and the relative ages of the rocks are determined by the remains of the organisms that they contain (Rastall, R.H, "Geology." Encyclopedia Britannica. Vol 10, 1949)

Niles Eldridge, states: "Paleontologists can not operate this way. There is no way to simply look at a fossil and say how old it is unless you know the age of the rocks it comes from. And this poses something of a problem: if we date rocks by their fossils, how can we turn around and talk about patterns of evolutionary change through time in the fossil record? (Eldridge, Niles. Time Frames: The Rethinking of Darwinism, Evolution, and the Theory of Punctuated Equilibrium. New York 1985)

This is just some of the impecable intellectual honesty that is at the core the great fact of evolution. And when the dim witted knuckle dragging God worshippers object, they are met with shrieks of ridicule and laughter eg. Flat Earther, Luddite, or even worse: stupid.

G.W. Harper wrote in School Science Review, "For some time it has seemed to me that our current methods of teaching Darwinism are suspiciously similiar to indoctrination" (Harper, G.W. "Darwinism and Indoctrination." School Science Review: Dec 1977, vol 59. no. 207)

John Dunphy, in his prize-winning essay, "A Religion for a New Age" stated: "I am concinced that the battle for humankind's future must be waged and won in the public classroom by teachers who correctly...proselytize a new faith: A religion of humanity...utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to carry humanist values into wherever they teach... The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new- the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism... (The Humanist: 1983)

Dr. John Moore, from the University of California said, "If we do not resolve our problems with the creationists, we have only ourselves to blame. Let us remember, the greatest resource of all is available to us - the educational system of the nation" (Okland, Roger, Matrisciana, Caryl. The Evolution Conspiracy. Oregon 1991)

Former Nebraska senator Peter Hoaglund, on a 1983 radio show said "Creationists have no right to indoctrinate their children in their beliefs. We are preparing their children for the new millenium and life in a global one-world society, and those children will not fit in." Hoaglund is a humanist, and also member of the Nebraska Board of Education.

In 1973, at a seminar on childhood education attended by 2000 educators, Dr. Chester Pierce, a professor of education and psychiatry at Harvard University stated:

"Every child in America entering school at the age of five is mentally ill, because he comes to school with certain allegiences towards our founding fathers, toward our elected officials, towards his parents, toward a belief in a supernatural being, towrds the sovereignity of this nation as a separate entity. Its up to you teachers to make these sick children well by creating the international children of the future (Oakland 25).

"To be forced to believe only one conclusion - that everything in the universe happened by blind chance - would violate the very objectivity of science" - Dr. Wernher von Braun

But then, as I've attempted to point out, objectivity is not really the issue here is it? So now, let the arguementum ad hominem begin.

Based on this [the Miller experiment and homologies between whale and human forelimbs], they conclude that there is no God.

That's a very curious freshman bio text. Do you happen to recall the title?