Mission: Imperative!
Originally posted on Mission Imperative.org
Recently, a friend sent me a newspaper article with the following subtitle: “Frightened by the growing strength of creationists, F&M professor writes article in national magazine and tells colleagues to stand their ground.” What is it about the creation movement that would frighten geologist Dr. Donald Wise?
At one point in time, creation was the only idea taught in schools with regard to origins. Then, a carefully engineered court case in the 1920’s (known as the Scopes Monkey Trial) took place in which the defense used amazingly fraudulent “evidence” to support the claims of evolution. The result was that evolution was then given an equal standing with creation in the public school system.
I’m sure that creationists at that time were “frightened” too by what seemed to be the eroding of their belief in the Biblical God who created everything. As time went on, however, this new “equal relationship” was undermined, ironically, by the very same group who promoted it originally, the ACLU. Court decisions since then have served to silence the creation viewpoint ostensibly because it is supposedly “religious” in nature, as opposed to evolution, which is billed as being “scientific” in nature.
Since these events, creationists have seen their position, which is just as scientific, shut out from the free flow of ideas in the public school classrooms (hardly very democratic), even in view of the fact that their tax dollars help support the system, too.
As evidenced by a myriad of evolutionist scientists who rightfully admit that evolution is still very much only a theory, why is one religious belief, namely evolution (since it too has to be accepted by faith), taught as fact to the exclusion of the alternate view? Naturally, this smacks of totalitarianism, in which the masses are forced to believe, or at least be taught, one religion only. Yes, this is a frightening prospect.
Therefore, I find it amazing that this newspaper story, in referring to the article written by Dr. Wise, says: “It exhorts scientists to protect their disciplines—and the future of science and democracy itself”—as though the creation viewpoint is somehow a threat to science and democracy!
They then quote him as saying that the creationist model is “riddled with gaps and ludicrous interpretations.” Of course, many are the examples the creationists can show that indicate the exact same things about evolution. The evolutionists have grown used to being in the comfort seat, especially with the courts behind them, enforcing an “Evolution Only” policy.
Now, however, Dr. Wise is said to be frightened because the tables are now being turned. He fears that the creationists are somehow subverting science, democracy and/or law. He’s wrong about that, of course, but right about the tables being turned. But it’s not because of creationist tactics; it’s because the more accurately interpreted evidence in recent years supports the Biblical model more and more and casts doubt on the tenets of evolution, and
this appears to be a threat to Dr. Wise.
The response, by evolutionary scientists, has been varied and interesting. Some, like anatomist, S.A. Keith, tenaciously hold to their beliefs by saying:
“Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it because it is the only alternative to special creation, and that is unthinkable.”
Now there’s scientific objectivity for you!
Others are more intellectually honest. No less a noted scientist than Dr. Collin Patterson himself (senior paleontologist, British museum of Natural History, London) said during a speech at the American Museum of Natural History, New York:
One of the reasons I started taking this anti-evolutionary view was….it struck me that I had been working on this stuff (evolution) for twenty years and there was not one thing I knew about it. That’s quite a shock to learn that one can be misled so long…. I’ve tried putting a simple question to various people and groups of people. Question is: Can you tell me anything you know about evolution – any one thing – any one thing that is true? I tried that question on the geology staff at the field museum of Natural History and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology Seminar in the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, and all I got there was silence for a long time and eventually one person said, `I do know one thing – it ought not to be taught in high school’.
That, I would submit, is the key. Something so unscientific should not be taught in public schools. But then, neither should creation. (Anyway, imagine what teachers, who don’t believe in it, would do to it!) The use of scientific methods in the study of a theory does not mean that the theory itself is scientific. Neither creation nor evolution can be proven scientifically. This is why neither should be taught in the public classroom. After all, if we’re going to say that religion has no place in the public schools, that certainly should apply to the religious beliefs of evolution, too.
Dr. Wise has a good reason to be “frightened”, if that’s really an applicable term. The very foundations upon which evolution is based are crumbling. Like communism, its eventual collapse is unavoidable.
In the words of journalist and philosopher Malcolm Muggeridge, having arrived at the truth—at least about evolution—in one of his addresses at the University of Waterloo, Ontario said: “I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution…will be one of the great jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has.”
Great article! Clearly stating what both sides truly believe about evolution. And what Darwin knew from the start. As more science is learned and more discoveries are made, the Truth of God’s Genesis will be known to all people.