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.

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.

William Dembski, Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing

Edward Larson, Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion

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.

I would argue that pain and emotions do not exist independently of the physical body which experiences them.

And I would argue that pain and emotions, though they may have their source in bodily troubles, are not experienced as such by the body, but by the mind.

But I imagine this cuts no ice with you, js1138, for the simple reason that you make no distinction between body and mind, seeing the latter as mere epiphenomenon of the former. But this strikes me as a grostesque reductionism. For the mind often (usually) works independently of organic processes taking place in the physical body, most of which we are typically unaware of in any case. To that extent, indeed the mind "had a life of its own." And we can freely direct it to the objects we wish to think about, without having to get the body's "permission" first, so to speak.

Sounds a bit urban-legendish to me

It's good that you don't believe everything that passes by. Apply that skepticism to the materialistic version of origins.

I did some checking and Voltaire's time-frame was 100 years till the demise of Christianity (not a couple of generations) which would have come to pass around 1880. His house was turned into a center for the distribution of bibles within 50 years of his death.

And I would argue that pain and emotions, though they may have their source in bodily troubles, are not experienced as such by the body, but by the mind.

At first glance this seems to be axiomatic. If a finger felt pain without the mind, a severed hand should react the same as an attached hand to an external pain stimulus like flame.

Great catch, betty boop and Dataman!

If I might add one other point - pain is relative. One person may shake off an event that immobilizes another. Likewise, one might feel pain without any physical cause at all - dread, loneliness, Kerry's loss, etc.

Perhaps, if you think theories about unobserved phenomena should be equal to theories about observed phenomena.

So we've actually observed the curvature of space-time? What kind of instrument do you use to see this? Which instrument is it that allows you to observe quarks? Which one allows you to observe electrons? There is a whole lot of indirect evidence for all of these things, but there is no direct observation of them whatsoever.

No, I take stances that show strength, determination, and conviction.

WHEN I'M RIGHT.

Sorry, look, you have the right to think what you want, I guess I'll leave it at that.

If you are an 'evolutionist' then that "hilarious story" is Your creation story.

I've debated many atheists, agnostics, and Christian Humanists. One thing I've discovered is that virtually None of them truly knows the true extent of their worldview......and certainly not the consequences of it. They know of the theories, and can discuss those, just as evolutionists in here can. But when the debate goes beyond the theories to the "first principle" {creation story}, almost every one I've debated reacted with shock and even derision......."I don't believe that....you must be crazy!!!". And my response to them is what it is to you: do some research. Connect the dots between the 'godless' theory of evolution to the "matter is all there is" creation story and its consequences...... understood very well by the likes of Nietzsche, Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, and that cabal.

...pain is relative. One person may shake off an event that immobilizes another. Likewise, one might feel pain without any physical cause at all - dread, loneliness, Kerry's loss, etc.

Excellent points, Alamo-Girl! And certainly true, based on obbseration and experience.

No matter how sophisticated and/or advanced the technology is, in the end it is as much a captive of mankinds' 'senses' as is man.
We can only know what our senses allow us to know. We are completely blind, deaf, and dumb to anything that exists beyond the outermost reaches of our senses.
There could be a dozen more primary colors in addition to the 3 we know, but we would be blind to them.

Mankinds science is good for some things, but we should never allow it to become the final authority, since it can only know what mans' senses allow it to know.

snip..."Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends. There are some things we don't want to know. Important things.

As I said in another response in this thread, science can only know what mankinds' 'senses' allow him to know. There are levels of sound which we believe exist by virtue of how animals react......but we can't hear them, and in the final analysis, we can only speculate/theorize that they exist. For all we know in our ignorance induced by our senses, another dimensional realm could be in co-existence with ours right now and we would never know it.

Don't worship science {man}.

So we've actually observed the curvature of space-time?

The discerning mind would not confuse mathematical theories with speculative ones.

snip....WHEN I"M RIGHT

In this one you are wrong. Do some reasearch on the "creation story" of the evolutionists and you'll discover not just its existence, but that I was poking fun at it by speaking of it sarcastically.

My teenage son just reminded me that phantom limb syndrome is proof positive that pain is in the mind.

A missing limb that itches or feels pain should, under normal circumstances, convince the reasonable person that those sensations occur in the mind.

A missing limb that itches or feels pain should, under normal circumstances, convince the reasonable person that those sensations occur in the mind.

You would think so, Dataman! Thanks for the great observation.

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