EVOLUTION IS RELIGION, NOT SCIENCE
Institute for Creation Research
Dr. Henry M. Morris, Ph.D.
. Evolutionists often insist that evolution is a proved fact
of science, providing the very framework of scientific
interpretation, especially in the biological sciences. This of
course, is nothing but wishful thinking. Evolution is not even a
scientific hypothesis, since there is no conceivable way in which
it can be tested.
THE RELIGIOUS ESSENCE OF EVOLUTIONISM
. As a matter of fact, many leading evolutionists have
recognized the essentially "religious" character of evolutionism.
Even though they themselves believe evolution to be true, they
acknowledge the fact that they believe it! "Science", however, is
not supposed to be something one "believes". Science is knowledge
- that which can be demonstrated and observed and `repeated.
Evolution cannot be proved, or even tested; it can only be
believed. For example, two leading evolutionary biologists have
described modern neo-Darwinism as "part of an evolutionary dogma
accepted by most of us as part of our training". A prominent
British biologist, a Fellow of the Royal Society, in the
Introduction to the 1971 edition of Darwin's Origin of Species
said that "belief in the theory of evolution" was "exactly
parallel to belief in special creation", with evolution merely "a
satisfactory faith on which to base our interpretation of
nature". G.W. Harper calls it a "metaphysical belief". Ernst
Mayr, the outstanding Harvard evolutionary biologist, calls
evolution "man's world view today". Sir Julian Huxley, probably
the outstanding evolutionist of the twentieth century saw
"evolution as a universal and all-pervading process and, in fact,
nothing less than "the whole of reality". A leading evolutionary
geneticist of the present day, writing an obituary for Theodosius
Dobzhansky, who himself was probably the nation's leading
evolutionist at the time of his death in 1975, says that
Dobzhansky's view of evolution followed that of the notorious
Jesuit priest, de Chardin. The place of biological evolution in
human thought was, according to Dobzhansky, best expressed in a
passage that he often quoted from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin:
'(Evolution) is a general postulate to which all theories, all
hypotheses, all systems must henceforward bow and which they must
satisfy in order to be thinkable and true. Evolution is a light
which illuminates all facts, a trajectory which all lines of
thought must follow.' The British physicist, H.S. Lipson, has
reached the following conclusion. In fact, evolution became in a
sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted
it and many are prepared to 'bend' their observations to fit in
with it. The man whom Dobzhansky called "France's leading
zoologist", although himself an evolutionist, said that
scientists should "destroy the myth of evolution" as a simple
phenomenon which is "unfolding before us". Dr. Colin Patterson,
Senior Paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History,
by any accounting one of the world's top evolutionists today, has
recently called evolution "positively anti-knowledge", saying
that "all my life I had been duped into taking evolutionism as
revealed truth". In another address he called evolution "story
telling". All of the above-cited authorities are (or were) among
the world's foremost authorities on evolutionism. Note again the
terms which they use in describing evolution.
. Evolutionary dogma
. A scientific religion
. A satisfactory faith
. The myth of evolution
. Man's world view
. Anti-knowledge
. All-pervading process
. Revealed truth
. The whole of reality
. An illuminating light
. Metaphysical belief
. Story-telling
. Charles Darwin himself called evolution "this grand view of
life". Now such grandiloquent terms as these are not scientific
terms! One does not call the law of gravity, for example, "a
satisfactory faith." Evolutions' very comprehensiveness makes it
impossible even to test scientifically. As Ehrlich and Birch have
said: "Every conceivable observation can be fitted into it. No
one can think of ways in which to test it.
RELIGIONS BASED ON EVOLUTION
. In view of the fundamentally religious nature of evolution,
it is not surprising to find that most of the world religions are
themselves based on evolution. It is certainly unfitting for
educators to object to teaching scientific creationism in public
schools on the ground that it supports Biblical Christianity when
the existing pervasive teaching of evolution is supporting a host
of other religions and philosophies. The concept of evolution did
not originate with Charles Darwin. It has been the essential
ingredient of all pagan religions and philosophies from time
immemorial (e.g., atomism, pantheism, stoicism, gnosticism and
all other humanistic and polytheistic systems). All beliefs which
assume the ultimacy of the space/time/matter universe,
presupposing that the universe has existed from eternity, are
fundamentally evolutionary systems. The cosmos, with its innate
laws and forces, is the only ultimate reality. Depending on the
sophistication of the system, the forces of the universe may be
personified as gods and goddesses who organized the eternal
chaotic cosmos into its present form (as in ancient Babylonian
and Egyptian religions), or else may themselves be invested with
organizing capabilities (as in modern scientific evolutionism).
In all such cases, these are merely different varieties of the
fundamental evolutionist world view, the essential feature of
which is the denial that there is one true God and Creator of all
things. In this perspective, it becomes obvious that most of the
great world religions - Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Hinduism,
Animism, etc. are based on evolution. Creationism is the basis of
only such systems as Orthodox Judaism, Islam, Catholicism and
Protestantism, as well as most modern pseudo-Christian cults, are
all based on evolution. All of this points up the absurdity of
banning creationist teaching from the schools on the basis that
it is religious. The schools are already saturated with the
teaching of religion in the guise of evolutionary "science". In
the modern school of course, this teaching mostly takes the form
of secular humanism, which its own proponents claim to be a "non-
theistic religion". It should also be recalled that such
philosophies as communism, fascism, socialism, nazism, and
anarchism have been claimed by their founders and promoters to be
based on what they regard as scientific evolutionism. If creation
is excluded from the schools because it is compatible with
Christian "fundamentalism", should not evolution also be banned
since it is the basis of communism and nazism?
THE SCIENTIFIC IRRELEVANCE OF EVOLUTION
. Some people have deplored the of evolution on the ground
that this is attacking science itself. In a recent debate, the
evolutionist whom the writer debated did not attempt to give any
scientific evidences for evolution, electing instead to spend his
time defending such scientific concepts as atomic theory,
relativity, gravity, quantum theory and science in general,
stating tantamount to attacking science! The fact is, however,
that the elimination of evolutionary interpretations from science
would hardly be noticed at all, in terms of real scientific
understanding and accomplishment. G.W. Harper comments on this
subject as follows: It is frequently claimed that Darwinism is
central to modern biology. On the contrary, if all references to
Darwinism suddenly disappeared, biology would remain
substantially unchanged. It would merely have lost a little
color. Grandiose doctrines in science are like some occupants of
high office; they sound very important but have in fact been
promoted to a position of ineffectuality. The scientific
irrelevance of evolutionism has been strikingly (but, no doubt,
inadvertently) illustrated in a recent issue of Science News.
This widely read and highly regarded weekly scientific journal
was commemorating its sixtieth anniversary, and this included a
listing of what it called the "scientific highlights" of the past
sixty years. Of the sixty important scientific discoveries and
accomplishments which were chosen, only six could be regarded as
related in any way to evolutionist thought. These six were as
follows:
(1.) 1927. Discovery that radiation increases mutation rates in fruit flies.
(2.) 1943. Demonstration that nucleic acids carry genetic information.
(3.) 1948. Enunciation of the "big bang" cosmology.
(4.) 1953. Discovery of the "double helix" structure of DNA.
(5.) 1961. First step taken in cracking the genetic code.
(6.) 1973. Development of procedures for producing recombinant DNA
molecules.
. Four of these six "highlights" are related to the structure
and function of DNA. Even though evolutionists have supposed that
these concepts somehow correlate with evolution, the fact is that
the remarkable DNA molecule provides strong evidence of original
creation (since it is far too complex to have arisen by chance)
and of conservation of that creation (since the genetic code acts
to guarantee reproduction of the same kind, not evolution of new
kinds). One of the two other highlights showed how to increase
mutations but, since all known true mutations are harmful, this
contributed nothing whatever to the understanding of evolution.
One (the "big bang" concept) was indeed an evolutionary idea but
it is still an idea which has never been proved and today is
increasingly being recognized as incompatible with basic physical
laws. Consequently, it is fair to conclude that no truly
significant accomplishment of modern science either depends on
evolution or supports evolution! There would certainly be no
detriment to real scientific learning if creation in school
curricula. It would on the other hand, prove a detriment to the
pervasive religion of atheistic humanism which now controls our
schools.
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