The Learning Curve/The Learning Curve (Weird Science, 1996).iso/religion/impact/impact-107a.txt

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 No. 107        "Vital Articles on Science/Creation"             May 1982
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 Evolution is Religions, Not Science
 by Henry M. Morris, Ph.D.

 Copyright (c) 1982 by I.C.R.
 All Rights Reserved
 ________________________________________________________________________

 Evolution Is Religion, Not Science
 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."[1]  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."[2]  G.W. Harper calls it a "metaphysical
 belief."[3]

 Ernst Mayr, the outstanding Harvard evolutionary biologist, calls
 evolution "man's world view today."[4]  Sir Julian Huxley, probably
 the  outstanding evolutionist of the twentieth century saw "evolution
 as a  universal and all-pervading process"[5] and, in fact, nothing
 less than "the  whole of reality."[6]  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.'[7]

 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.[8]

 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."[9]
 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."[10]  In another address he called evolution "story telling."[11]

 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,"
 nor speak of the laws of thermodynamics as "dogma."  Evolution is,
 indeed, a grand world view, but it is _not_ science.  Its 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."[12]

 RELIGIONS BASED ON EVOLUTION

 In view of the fundamentally religious nature of evolution, it is
 not  surprising to find that most 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 and Biblical Christianity.
 The liberal  varieties of 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 questioning 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 that attacking
 evolution was 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.[13]

 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.[14]

 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 were incorporated as an alternative to evolution in
 school curricula.  It would on the other hand, prove a detriment to the
 pervasive religion of atheistic humanism which now controls our schools.

 REFERENCES

 1.  Ehrlich, Paul and L.C. Birch. _Nature_, Apr. 22, 1967, p. 352.

 2.  Matthews, L. Harrison. "Introduction" to _Origin of Species_. London,
 J.M. Dent and Sons, 1971, p. X.

 3.  Harper, G. W. "Alternatives to Evolutionism." _School Science
 Review_ 51, Sep. 1979, p. 16.

 4.  Mayr, Ernst. "Evolution." _Scientific American_ 239, Sep. 1978, p.
 47.

 5.  Huxley, Julian. "Evolution and Genetics." Ch. 8 in _What is
 Science?_.  Edited by J.R. Newman. New York, Simon and Schuster,
 1955, p. 272.

 6.  Ibid, p. 278.

 7.  Ayala, Francisco. "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light
 of Evolution: Theodosius Dobzhansky, 1900-1975." _Journal of
 Heredity_  68, No. 3, 1977, p. 3.

 8.  Lipson, H.S. "A Physicist Looks at Evolution." _Physics Bulletin_
 31, n.d., 1980.

 9.  Grasse, Pierre P. _Evolution of Living Organisms_. New York, Academic
 Press, 1977, p. 8.

 10. Patterson, Colin. "Evolution and Creationism." Transcript of Speech
 at American Museum of Natural History, Nov. 5, 1981, p. 2.

 11. Patterson, Colin. "Cladistics." Interview on BBC Telecast, Peter
 Franz, Interviewer, Mar. 4, 1982.

 12. Ehrlich and Holm, op cit.

 13. Harper, G.W. op cit., p. 26.

 14. "Six Decades of Science Highlights." _Science News_ 121, Mar. 13,
 1982, p. 192.
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 and "Tenets of Biblical Creationism."
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