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.
Maranatha! Ministries
Maranatha! Net International
Canada
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