CAPITOL IDEAS: Passionate About Evolution
Bethell, Tom
VOLUTION STIRS UP GREAT PASSIONS, as I 1_11 have found over the years. Something those might only lgyea it tpeople er na alternatives, vexcited.es I h A basic is at stake, so it's not...
...That philosophy is materialism, sometimes called naturalism...
...So he tried putting a simple question to various groups...
...If we are going to admit a creator, let us allow that he creates...
...Their argument is based more on philosophy than on science, it turns out...
...What did they evolve from...
...On the contrary, "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 uninitiated...
...Some do prefer a "political" middle ground, but it's hardly worth bothering with...
...It ought not to be taught in high school.— (Followed by laughter...
...The alternative "is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured," Lewontin wrote...
...The point was made explicitly by Richard Lewontin, a professor of genetics at Harvard (now emeritus...
...That's a 19th-century idea, based on nothing that science has to offer...
...For decades, the Vatican has been intimidated in this way...
...You can see how s e this are m h believe...
...Only with a definition so weak as to be meaningless can it be said to be a fact...
...Darwinism disallows any such intervention...
...It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world," he wrote...
...The normal answer is that Science and Religion are in conflict...
...First of all it must be said that there is no conflict between science and religion...
...As far as I know it has not been reprinted...
...It's sad that the Vatican succumbed (at least in part) just at the time when some scientists are conceding the weakness of the evolutionist case...
...Then we can throw out Darwin altogether...
...h Design, or Chance...
...The tape and related comments may be obtained from Access Research Network [arn.org...
...The most remarkable admission of the weak physical case for evolution was made by a prominent British paleontologist, Colin Patterson...
...Some Darwinians hold on to Christian morality, but only out of habit, he argues...
...Why keep a redundant cause on the cosmic payroll...
...Evolutionists who teach at the college level mostly know that the case for evolution is weak...
...So they invented this fantastic philosophy of materialism...
...9, 1997, for Lewontin's article...
...Obviously, this obliges us to accept evolution as a matter of logical necessity...
...That's for people who "cling" to some outmoded belief system...
...John Paul II said a few years ago that evolution is "more than a theory...
...So it's not as though there is a "missing link" (between humans and "apes") in the chain of evidence...
...And this is where the vehemence comes in...
...Were we created by an Intelligent Designer— God...
...It also allows evolutionists to intone: "Evolution is a fact...
...And that's why its defenders are so passionate...
...This exposition of the materialist worldview and its underlying motive was most unusual...
...It's more accurate to say that there are no links...
...They are subjected to endless propaganda, and they fear the accusation that they oppose science out of prejudice...
...What does the creator actually do...
...Their reliance on this subterfuge tells you how feeble the evidence for evolution really is...
...But "change" is so weak a category (applying to all living things) that the definition fits whatever happens...
...Some of our most ardent intellectuals simply despise the idea that they are subordinate to a Creator who cannot be controlled, who tolerates evil, and to whom they must submit...
...The oldest bat fossils have echo-location or "radar" built in...
...It's the same with cats, dogs, and everything else...
...Something those might only lgyea it tpeople er na alternatives, vexcited.es I h A basic is at stake, so it's not surprising...
...Why is this...
...He wrote a whole book about the Prophesies of Daniel...
...Isaac Newton would have been surprised to hear of a conflict between science and religion...
...ADMITTEDLY, PATTERSON (who died a few years ago) had strict ideas about what we can "know" about evolution...
...Furthermore, "that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door...
...That was quite a shock, to learn that one can be so misled for so long...
...Science lends only very weak support to evolution...
...Evolutionists define it as "biological change over time...
...But it's self-defeating...
...According to this belief system, nothing exists except for whirling atoms, and only material causes can be admitted as valid explanations in science...
...But I think the real problem is far deeper...
...Miracles have to be disallowed...
...At one point Patterson said: "For over twenty years I had thought that I was working on evolution in some way...
...Wiker is the author of Moral Darwinism, an excellent recent book (2002) that explores this and related issues...
...It was recorded...
...Since the mechanism of natural selection was designed by Darwin to eliminate the need for a designer, to retain a deity seems to be entirely superfluous," writes Benjamin Wiker, a lecturer in theology and science at Franciscan University in Ohio...
...Science is for those who fearlessly seek the truth...
...We are here, so how else did we get here, given the materialist assumptions...
...That is what most people don't know and are not told in the classroom...
...The problem is that most don't know how weak the case for evolution is...
...So they rebel...
...Why must the Divine Foot be excluded...
...I know of no evidence that indubitably shows it to be true...
...But if the deity does nothing, why bother to posit his existence...
...If he intervenes, nudging bits and pieces of matter together to create a functioning whole, then we no longer have a blind, mechanical process...
...It posits a creator who uses Darwinian methods to generate the life we see...
...Take bats...
...See New York Review ofBooks, Jan...
...There's a lot of good material on that site...
...One morning I woke up and it struck me that I had been working on this stuff for twenty years, and there was not one thing I knew about it...
...He was good at science (we've heard that) and interested in religion...
...The passions aroused by evolution are understandable, but unexpectedly the defenders of the theory are often more fanatical than their opponents...
...Their disbelief is based more on disapproval of God than on scientific evidence that He is superfluous...
...So it does come back to a choice between chance and design...
...Science is a method of knowing, based on observation of the physical world...
...But evolution is inferred, not observed...
...I tried that question on the geology staff in the Field Museum of Natural History, and the only answer I got was silence...
...Religion...
...It all happened in the past, and the fossils never disclose ancestor-descendant relationships, he said...
...No one knows...
...Scientists have a "prior commitment" to materialism, he wrote...
...It follows that all church-going Darwinians are illogical...
...perhaps engage in "wishful thinking" about an afterlife...
...Tom Bethell is a senior editor of The American Spectator...
...Maybe none at all...
...There is some logic to that...
...It could be said that Lewontin let the cat out of the bag, much as Patterson did in his museum speech...
...They should choose: Darwin or God...
...But the argument is really about something else...
...I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology Seminar in tile University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, and all I got there was silence for a long time, and then eventually one person said, 'Yes, I do know one thing...
...In 1981, he addressed a learned audience of curators and specialists at the American Museum of Natural History in New York—the systematics discussion group...
...Others see the true moral implications of Darwinism and act accordingly...
...The question is: Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing that you think is true...
...They refuse to serve...
...Or did atoms and mol- ecules whirl themselves of their own accord into conscious life...
...And condescension ensues...
...It's human pride masquerading as science...
Vol. 37 • April 2004 • No. 3
