Posted on 11/11/2004 3:44:08 AM PST by Lindykim
Has Darwin Become Dogma?
500 years ago science revolted against theological dogma as the source of all knowledge. Today it is science that is trying to assume the mantle of the sole arbiter of truth. On magazine covers such as this month's National Geographic and in legal battles across the country, the scientific community has become absolute in its belief that evolution will answer all of the questions regarding our beginnings. They have become so dogmatic that anyone who questions this belief is considered a heretic who should be ridiculed into silence.
November 11, 2004
Dear Concerned Citizen, by Dr. Benjamin Wiker
Nearly a century and a half has passed since the publication of Charles Darwins Origin of Species. Evolution has been taught as an undeniable fact in high school textbooks for well over a half century. Why all of the sudden do we find the cover of the November 2004 issue of National Geographic emblazoned with the question, "Was Darwin Wrong?" It's that like asking "Was Copernicus Wrong?"
So, what's up? When we turn to the first page of the article, we find the same question again, this time written across the gray feathered breast of a domestically bred Jacobin pigeon, the outlandish plumage of which reminds one of the costumes of the late Liberace. Flip to the next page and we find our answer, a resounding 'NO' printed in a font a third of the page high. But if the answer is such a large and definitive NO, why would the venerable National Geographic entertain (even rhetorically) the apparently foolish question 'Was Darwin wrong?"
If you read the article, you'll wonder what all the shouting is about. The author David Quammen paints a calm picture of an established science unburdened by serious criticism. The only critics, so we are told, are 'fundamentalist Christians','ultraorthodox Jews', and 'Islamic creationists', all of whom view evolution as a threat to their scientifically uninformed theology. Obviously, they aren't the ones ruffling National Geographics feathers.
Who else arouses the great NO? As it turns out, 'Other' people too, not just scriptural literalists, remain unpersuaded about evolution. According to a Gallup poll, no less than 45 percent of responding U.S. adults agreed that God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.
"Why are there so many antievolutionists?' they ask impatiently. Why indeed? Unfortunately, you won't find the real answer in the article, which merely offers a fluff and flash, unambiguous public relations presentation of evolution.
The real answer is this. To the question 'Was Darwin Wrong?' the proper answer is not a clamorous 'NO' but a well-informed 'Yes and No'. While there are merits to his theory, there are also serious problems, serious scientific problems.
Listen to these words: 'despite the power of molecular genetics to reveal the hereditary essences of organisms, the large-scale aspects of evolution remain unexplained, including the origin of species. So Darwin's assumption that the tree of life is a consequence of the gradual accumulation of small hereditary differences appears to be without significant support." Are these the words of a 'fundamentalist Christian', 'ultraorthodox Jew', or an 'Islamic creationist'? No, they are the words of Dr. Brian Goodwin, professor of biology, one of a growing number of scientists who find that the powers of natural selection are woefully insufficient to perform the amazing feats promised in the title of Darwins great work of producing new species.
But that was the great promise of Darwin. Small variations among individuals are 'selected' by nature because they make the individual more 'fit' to survive. Those more 'fit' characteristics are passed on to the offspring. Add enough little changes up over time, and the species becomes gradually transformed. Given enough time, evolution will have produced an entirely new species.
So it was that Darwin assumed that little changes in character and appearance (microevolution) would eventually yield, through natural selection, enormous changes (macroevolution). From a single living cell, given millions upon millions upon millions of years, the entire diversity of all living things could be produced.
That was the grand promise of Darwins theory. And Darwin wasn't wrong about microevolution. But the case for macroevolution is far from closed. In fact, biologist Mae-Wan Ho and mathematician Peter Saunders contend that, "All the signs are that evolution theory is in crisis, and that a change is on the way." Darwins theory is in crisis, they argue, because it has failed to explain the one thing that made its promise so grand; how new species arise.
I quote the words of Brian Goodwin, Mae-Wan Ho, and Peter Saunders because they represent the growing number of scientific dissenters from orthodox Darwinism (or more accurately, neo-Darwinism). National Geographic makes no mention of them. That would make the quick and confident 'No' into a rather sheepish "well, sort of".
They also purposely avoid mentioning the growing Intelligent Design movement, a group of scientists, philosophers, and mathematicians who have very serious doubts about many other aspects of Darwins theory. One suspects reading between the lines that the real reason that National Geographic suddenly 'doth protest too much' against doubters of Darwinism, is that the Intelligent Design (ID) movement has done so much to bring the scientific and philosophical problems with evolutionary theory into the public spotlight. They cannot draw attention to the ID movement, however, or people might become more informed about the difficulties that beset Darwinism. So, we return to the question, 'Was Darwin Wrong?" National Geographic says "NO". But readers who aren't satisfied with such simple answers should read the following books.
Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis
Michael Behe, Darwins Black Box
Brian Goodwin, How the Leopard Changed Its Spots
John Angus Campbell and Stephen Meyer, Darwinism, Design, and Public Education
William Dembski, Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing
Mae-Wan Ho and Peter Saunders, Beyond Neo-Darwinism
Edward Larson, Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion
Benjamin Wiker, Moral Darwinism Scientific Difficulties with Darwinism
The origin of life: Darwin conjectured that all life was descended from a single, simple form. But where did the first living thing come from? In a now famous private letter to Joseph Hooker, Darwin offered a conjecture: if (and oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc., that a proteine [sic] compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes, then we could explain the origin of life as a lucky chemical reaction. Against this hope, origin of life researchers have fallen on hard times. While there were some initial victories in the laboratory, generating small amounts of pre-biological molecules, scientists are unable to generate anything more biologically interesting unless they artificially rig their experiments in ways that contradict the actual conditions of early Earth.
The problem is so acute that many origin of life scientists have given up, and are now turning their efforts to trying to discover ways that complex, life-seeding molecules may have been delivered from space. Alas, the problems facing such efforts are just as severe.
The fossil record: According to Darwin, evolution had to occur very slowly, through slight changes not by leaps and bounds. Unfortunately, the fossil record does not support such gradual transformation. Instead, species seem to appear quite suddenly, fully formed, stay the same for millions of years, and then just as suddenly disappear. The most significant problem for Darwinism is the Cambrian explosion, where quite suddenly, about 550,000,000 years ago, all the major phyla of the animal kingdom appear in the fossil record.
The Truth About Inherit the Wind "Of course, such a simple choice between bigotry and enlightenment is central to the contemporary liberal vision of which Inherit the Wind is a typical expression. But while it stands nominally for tolerance, latitude, and freedom of thought, the play is full of the self- righteous certainty that it deplores in the fundamentalist camp. Some critics have detected the play's sanctimonious tone-"bigotry in reverse," as Andrew Sarris called it-even while appreciating its dramatic quality and well-written leading roles. The play reveals a great deal about a mentality that demands open-mindedness and excoriates dogmatism, only to advance its own certainties more insistently-that promotes tolerance and intellectual integrity but stoops to vilifying the opposition, falsifying reality, and distorting history in the service of its agenda.
In fact, a more historically accurate dramatization of the Scopes Trial than Inherit the Wind might have been far richer and more interesting-and might also have given its audiences a genuine dramatic tragedy to watch. It would not have sent its audience home full of moral superiority and happy thoughts about the march of progress. The truth is not that Bryan was wrong about the dangers of the philosophical materialism that Darwinism presupposes but that he was right, not that he was a once great man disfigured by fear of the future but that he was one of the few to see where a future devoid of the transcendent would lead. The antievolutionist crusade to control what is taught in the schools may not have been the answer, and Bryan's own approach may have been too narrow. But the real tragedy lies in the losing fight that he and others like him waged against a modernity increasingly deprived of spiritual foundations." Carol Inannone First Things
The Debate Rages On Although nearly 100 years have passed since the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial, the debate rages on. In Grantsburg, Wisconsin a firestorm of critique was leveled against the school board this month for revising its science curriculum to include more than one model/theory of origin in the districts science curriculum. Current Wisconsin state law mandates that evolution be taught but the school board viewed the law as too restrictive.
Similar skirmishes are being fought around the country. Ever since the Scopes Trial, the ACLU has been an active player, bringing lawsuits against any group who questions the Darwin dogma in school curriculum. After a group of parents in Cobb County Georgia complained about the exclusive presentation of evolution as the sole theory of origin in three biology textbooks in 2002, stickers were placed in the science texts intended to remind students to keep an open mind. Now the ACLU is representing another group of parents in a lawsuit against that school district claiming that the stickers promote the teaching of creationism and discriminate against particular religions.
The Dover Area School Board in Pennsylvania recently voted to include the theory of 'intelligent design' and other alternative theories to evolution in their science curriculum. Similar action was taken by the Ohio board of education this spring when they narrowly approved a similar plan. Critics charge it risks a return to teaching creationism.
To say that evolution has not answered all the scientific questions regarding our origins does not suggest you have to teach creationism in schools as a scientific theory. What should be taught is an honest assessment of what science does and does not know regarding our beginnings. The questions regarding our origins are too big for science alone to answer. People of faith should not allow themselves to be relegated to an anti-science position for questioning Darwin. Questioning the validity of theories is what science is supposed to do.
Benjamin Wiker Benjamin Wiker holds a Ph.D. in Theological Ethics from Vanderbilt University, and has taught at Marquette University, St. Mary's University (MN), and Thomas Aquinas College (CA). He is now a Lecturer in Theology and Science at Franciscan University of Steubenville (OH), and a full-time, free-lance writer. Dr. Wiker writes regularly for a variety of journals, including Catholic World Report, New Oxford Review, Crisis Magazine, and First Things, and is a regular columnist for the National Catholic Register. Dr. Wiker just released a new book called Architects of the Culture of Death (Ignatius). His first book, Moral Darwinism: How We Became Hedonists, was released in the spring of 2002 (InterVarsity Press). He is writing another book on Intelligent Design for InterVarsity Press called The Meaning-full Universe.
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It's also a great argument, unless there is a natural process that could reasonably have expected to have been at work building this "wall". Evolution is a perfectly good process that describes the existing evidence. It has been proven experimentally in may different ways, and I think God created it first as his tool for building life. However, I have no proof of that.
Trying to "prove God" with science through the "Intellegent Designer" argument is a dangerous idea. For some people, it will "disprove" God, wheras ignoring the science of Evolution is a far more prudent course for religious people. Your son or daughter is far less likely to reject your religion if you don't hand them the stumbling block of insisting that Genesis must be the basis for understanding natural science.
Of course you are right. The proper reaction to a conflict between the facts and a worldview is to modify the worldview. Your opponent responds by ducking the question, denying the problem and implying that you can't think. To where did that legendary mountain of evolutionary evidence flee?
Quite a bit, actually. It's called "laws of science" (in this case, the science of chemistry), and it is ALL ABOUT predictability. If you don't understand that fundamental point, then you are even more clueless about how science works than I thought.
BTW, I understand the predictability of "unintelligent chemicals and other materials" quite well (PhD Chemist).
snip....You should see the thread I read yesterday about the hollow earth. Snickering
Hollow earth, eh? That's amusing, but not nearly as funny as the evolutionists creation story. And of course they do have one, just as Christians do. After all, before there can be any 'evolution' taking place, there must first be a Place.
And here is their fairytale creation story:
Once upon a time, long, long ago, and far away in a galaxy.......no, couldn't have been a galaxy, they didn't exist yet.......hmmmm.....so what the heck was it?.......er, uh, we don't know........oh well.....moving on with our tale.....somehow or another {and of course we don't know how or why}, there already existed some unintelligent, nondirected, chemicals and other materials of unknown origin that lacked purpose and meaning, were wandering around in this 'whatever existed prior to the space that now exists', and Lo and Behold! A miraculous chance encounter occured between these purposeless, meaningless, unintelligent chemicals, etc. of unknown origin and Behold!!! The greatest miracle of all!!! For out of their union there arose not just the universe......suns, moons, planets, etc., but also the earth, and all lifeforms that exist upon it!!!! And somehow or another......we haven't figured this out yet........this chaos, meaninglessness, and unintelligence created intelligence, critical thinking skills, meaning, purpose, and most of all.......science!"
End of Story
Pretty darn funny, dont'cha think?
That's true (sometimes), but don't mistake the illustration for the substance. I could have easily used a whole city in place of a single wall. The point is that if you find something that could not have come about by natural processes and which is complex enough to indicate design, then you don't have to have external proof of the designer above and beyond the object itself. And if we can determine whether weathered works of stone are the product of intellegent design or random chance, we can apply the same kinds of determinations to life itself. That's the essence of the ID argument.
Evolution is a perfectly good process that describes the existing evidence.
That's where we disagree. Even many of the evolutionists on this forum will admit plainly that evolution has no real answer for how life originated in the first place, even if they argue Darwinism after abiogenesis.
Trying to "prove God" with science through the "Intellegent Designer" argument is a dangerous idea. For some people, it will "disprove" God, wheras ignoring the science of Evolution is a far more prudent course for religious people.
It's only a dangerous idea if a) God doesn't exist, in which case we need to know, or b) God didn't leave any signs of His existence, which as a matter of personal experience, I know isn't true.
See, the problem is that you're treating religion as something that just sits on the peripherary of your existence, and which doesn't have any real impact on you. For those of us who take it seriously, belief in God and a knowledge of His character and wishes is central to our whole worldview.
Don't take that as evidence that "religious" people are more biased than non-theists. For the non-theist (by which I mean athiests, agnostics, deists, and others who don't think that God exists or if He does, that He doesn't interact intimately with human beings), keeping God out of the central picture is every bit as important as keeping Him in is to the theist. If science were to prove that God existed and that He took an interest in life on earth, you would be forced to deal with Him.
Therefore, I could respond to your warning by simply turning it back on you: Trying to "disprove" God with science through the "Darwinist" argument is a dangerous idea. For some people, it will "prove" God, so ignoring the science of biological origins is a far more prudent course for non-religious people. Your son or daughter is far less likely to reject your paradigm if you don't hand them the stumbling block of insisting that Darwinist materialism must be the basis for understanding natural science.
As I've said before and will say again, this is not an argument of science vs. religion, as much as you'd like to phrase it that way. It's an argument of scientific theory vs. scientific theory, of evolution theory vs. design theory, and of philosophy vs. philosophy, of non-theism vs. theism.
Even if we grant for a moment that one cannot prove God's existence (which I do believe we can), neither can one disprove it by your standards, so there is nothing unscientific about considering the possibility that since materialism cannot explain by itself the origins of life, and since life is so complex and finely-tuned, as are the cosmic conditions that make life possible, that there was an intellegent being who designed it.
Or to put it this way: The simplest cell is far more complex and contains far more information than your posts, so what proof do I have that you exist, and that your posts aren't just the product of a virus that resulted "naturally" from random gliches in FR's servers?
You're right on, of course.
Post election greetings.
I am always curious about what mechanism might enable the spiritual to interact with the physical. And give that it might, what purposte there is in defining the spiritual as non-physical.
Anything with properties that can be observed, and which participates in observable phenomena is physical, whether you admit it or not.
No, just scientific fact.
Whatever is easier for you to swallow.
Nice job of turning all my points around backwards. But it doesn't make much sense that way.
Evolution isn't the effort to "disprove" God. It doesn't have anything to do with God (which is why it's stupid for religious people to even consider the issue), except that it does grate on some religious people who've been taught that God created the world in a specific way written in a few hundred words in Genesis. I've made the point many times that these few hundred words couldn't possibly be the whole story. There's plenty of room for God to use Evolution as his tool and believe Genesis as well.
Why is it a good idea for non-religious people to ignore science? Are you saying that science affirmatively proves God? I haven't read anything like that in the literature.
Your gobbledy gook about "Darwinist Materialism" is lost on me. I haven't read much in the scientific media about it. I really don't understand what you're talking about so why would that be some kind of stumbling block to my daughters understanding science?
I would have assumed it was because they itch.
good column bump
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