Examining Evolution – Part 2
By examining evolution we see that the theory of how life started is found at every level of society.
A House of Cards
It begins with toddlers being given little plastic toy dinosaurs and the toddlers as they are told “they lived millions of years ago” by their parents.When children enter elementary school their science classroom walls are plastered with posters of all the different stages of evolution, beginning with the primordial soup of Earth’s oceans.
Transitioning into high school, they are confronted with multiple presentations of evolution through classes such as history (beginning with ’the soup’), astronomy (how Earth was formed after the Big Bang), and in other sciences like chemistry and biology. Throughout this whole process, evolution is touted as scientific fact from beginning to end. Those facts are claimed to be beyond all debate so examining evolution is discouraged.
Once high school is complete, some people are further refined in the indoctrination of evolution by attending college and university. Any caught examining evolution or to question the scientific dogma is quashed, and those continuing in their challenge is mercilessly vilified.
This process is repeated with each new generation, and not only in our country but around the world. The presentation of the ‘facts’ of evolution (beginning with the Big Bang and subsequent primordial soup on Earth) is systemic and complete. It is quite the house of cards. Only a small number of people retain their ability to think differently than the status quo, examining evolution from beginning to end.
It Gets Even Worse
What about those people who have serious objections to evolution, those who have offered viable alternatives to the account we’re force-fed? How are those people and their evidence treated? It’s at that point where the ‘science’ becomes surreal and the true nature of those who promote evolution comes out. It’s not science after all, but a religion!
The bias against creationism is astonishing and it’s manifested in many ways. It’s astonishing because bias shows up in the assumptions of the people you would expect to be the most open-minded, the scientists themselves. They aren’t examining evolution any longer because they assume it to be true. Here are just a few of the many quotes made by those ‘in the know’ who purport to be objective about the world they study. Examine what they say and see for yourself if any prejudice against creationism is to be found.
Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravangant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstatiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It’s not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the unitiated. Moreover, that Materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.1
Darwinian theory is the creation myth of our culture. It’s the officially sponsored, government financed creation myth that the public is supposed to believe in, and that creates the evolutionary scientists as the priesthood… So we have the priesthood of naturalism, which has great cultural authority, and of course has to protect its mystery that gives it that authority—that’s why they’re so vicious towards critics.2
It is no more heretical to say the Universe displays purpose, as Hoyle has done, than to say that it is pointless, as Steven Weinberg has done. Both statements are metaphysical and outside science. Yet it seems that scientists are permitted by their own colleagues to say metaphysical things about lack of purpose and not the reverse. This suggests to me that science, in allowing this metaphysical notion, sees itself as religion and presumably as an atheistic religion (if you can have such a thing).3
One is forced to conclude that many scientists and technologists pay lip-service to Darwinian theory only because it supposedly excludes a creator.4
Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, as secular religion—a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit that in this one complaint—and Mr. Gish is but one of many to make it—the literalists are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.5
- 1. Lewontin, Richard C. [Professor of Zoology and Biology, Harvard University], Billions and billions of demons, Review of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, by Carl Sagan, New York Review, January 9, 1997.
- Phillip Johnson, On the PBS documentary, In the beginning: the creationist controversy, [May 1995]
- Shallis, Michael [Astrophysicist, Oxford University], In the eye of a storm, New Scientist, January 19, 1984, pp.42-43.
- Walker, Michael [Senior Lecturer of Anthropology, Sydney University], Quadrant, October 1982, p 44.
- Ruse, M. (2000). National Post. http://www.omniology.com/HowEvolutionBecameReligion.
This is Part Two of a multi-part series. Keep watch for the next installment!
A son and servant of the King.