As we approach the birthday of Charles Darwin on February 12, I want to begin a short series of articles examining the theory of evolution and its rapidly diminishing evidence base. I have written a very detailed book on this topic, called “No More Monkey Business: Evolution in Crisis”. The frustrating thing, however, is that the people most likely to read the book are those who are already in agreement with its content, while those who are already deeply committed to the evolutionary viewpoint are most unlikely to want to read it. Indeed, in my regular discussions with atheists in online forums, their commitment to the theory of evolution often results in an intransigent unwillingness to consider reading any significant material which might contradict their beliefs.
This series of brief articles is written in the hope that those who may not be willing to read a whole book of 90,000 words, might at least be willing to read a short post or two. The major limitation of these articles, however, is that their brevity means that I can only outline the major arguments, with no space available to discuss the specific evidence. If you want to examine the detailed scientific evidence that underlies these arguments, my book ,“No More Monkey Business: Evolution in Crisis”, is available FOR FREE as an eBook, for the duration of this series – for the whole month of February 2023. You can download it from this link: https://BookHip.com/RQHATGZ
In this first instalment in this brief series, I want to outline some of the wrong assumptions about the theory of evolution that are commonly made by people who have not taken the time to research the issues.
COMMON WRONG ASSUMPTIONS
(1) The assumption that the theory of evolution has somehow disproved the existence of God. This is a commonly held erroneous view among many people. But, of course, the theory of evolution has nothing to say about the existence or otherwise of a creator God. It simply describes a theoretical means whereby biological life might have gradually and incrementally developed on earth. If evolution is true, it could simply be the means by which God chose to create biological life. Importantly for a discussion of God’s possible existence, the theory of evolution starts with a pre-existing earth and a pre-existing universe. The theory does not account for the origin of the universe and does not offer any answers to the ultimate question of cosmological cause. The theory of evolution has nothing of significance to contribute to a discussion of God’s possible existence.
(2) The assumption that the theory of evolution has been ‘proved’ beyond all doubt. Not only does this naïve view misunderstand the nature of scientific theories (which remain perpetually subject to modification or even abandonment in response to additional evidence), but it also indicates an ignorance of the vast and growing body of scientific evidence that now contradicts the theory. Not only has the body of contradictory evidence grown exponentially over the last century, but almost all the evidence originally used to support the theory has now been discredited. The theory of evolution, as it now stands, hangs by the most tenuous of supporting threads. The current evidence against it far outweighs any supposed evidence that supports it.
(3) The assumption that those who oppose evolutionary theory are religious fundamentalists, in the same category as those who believe in a flat earth. There is a common perception that anyone who disbelieves in evolution does so from an uninformed and largely religious viewpoint: that they are ignorant of the ‘indisputable’ science behind the theory and reject the theory simply because it does not conform to their narrow-minded religious views. This may be true in some cases (there are certainly religious fundamentalists who oppose evolutionary theory on these uninformed, simplistic grounds) but this does not typify the majority of those who oppose the theory. The most serious arguments against the theory of evolution are scientific, rather than religious, and they are proposed by people of significant learning. This brings us to the fourth wrong assumption.
(4) The assumption that the heart of the conflict is the clash between religion and science. Not so. The nexus of the current debate about the theory of evolution is essentially scientific. It is a clash between science and science, or more specifically, between presuppositional science (in the case of those who continue to support the theory) and evidence-based science (in the case of those who now reject it). I realise that this is a contentious statement, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that as the contra-indicative evidence against evolution continues to grow and the tenuous evidence that was once used to support the theory is increasingly discredited, those who continue to support evolutionary theory do so from a presuppositional basis rather than an evidential one. They cling to the theory because of their unwavering allegiance to the unprovable and unscientific presupposition that the metaphysical realm does not exist and that biological life has a purely natural cause. The inherent atheism that underlies this viewpoint is illustrated by Richard Dawkins’ comment, in his book, “The Blind Watchmaker” (Penguin, London, 1991, p.6): “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.” It is this underlying desire to prop up an atheistic worldview and deny any possibility of a creator God that leads some scientists to cling to the theory of evolution with a level of vehemence that is not justified by its crumbling evidence base.
(5) The assumption that the overwhelming majority of scientists still support the theory of evolution. Again, this is not the case. A large and growing number of PhD scientists around the world have abandoned the theory or are at least expressing extreme scepticism about it, based solely on the mounting scientific evidence that contradicts it. Here are some examples of the growing tide of scientific dissent:
>>> The Discovery Institute has a sister website, dissentfromdarwin.org, which allows scientists to register their rejection of the theory of evolution, based purely on scientific evidence. Only genuine PhD scientists can become signatories to the website, and the list of signatories currently stands at over 1,000. These 1,000+ doctoral scientists represent only the tip of the iceberg of respected scientists who no longer believe in the theory. Many other scientists who have rejected Darwinian evolution are afraid to speak up because of the negative impact such an expressed viewpoint would have on their careers. For instance, biologist Douglas Axe, director of the Biologic Institute and a signatory to the “Dissent from Darwin” website, states: “Because no scientist can show how Darwin’s mechanism can produce the complexity of life, every scientist should be sceptical. The fact that most won’t admit to this exposes the unhealthy effect of peer pressure on scientific discourse.”
>>> In July 2008, as the scientific integrity of the theory of evolution continued to unravel, a conference of the world’s leading scientists was held in Altenberg, Austria. The purpose of the conference was to discuss the growing realisation that if natural selection (the slight variations within a species – which is an observable and undeniable process) cannot produce new species with completely new physical features (as the science of genetics now reveals), then Darwin’s theory is dead. The conference could not come up with a viable explanation of how natural selection could create new species. After the conference, Dr Jerry Fodor, of Rutgers University, is quoted as saying, “Basically I don’t think anybody knows how evolution works.”
>>> In 2002, in response to the mounting scientific evidence contradicting the theory of evolution, many of the world’s leading scientists began to call for a symposium to determine its ongoing validity. As a response, in that same year, an international organisation of scientists was formed, called CESHE (Cercle d’Etudes Scientifique et Historique), headquartered in France. After a period of intense scrutiny and rigorous evaluation of all the evidence, this was their conclusion: “The theory of evolution is not supported by science. Many scientists have accepted the theory because they assume it to be an established scientific fact. Those scientists who have investigated it, however, find that evolution is abelief, not a science.”[1]
>>> Even as far back as the 1980s, there was significant and growing dissent about the theory within the scientific community. In November 1980, at the Natural History Museum in Chicago, a large number of the world’s leading geneticists and other scientists held a seminar to consider the issue of whether the small changes within a species, sometimes referred to as “micro-evolution”, can lead to the big changes necessary for Darwinian evolution (“macro-evolution” – one species changing into a brand-new species, with new physical features). The findings of the conference were reported in the next issue of “Science” magazine, which stated: “The central question of the Chicago conference was whether the mechanisms underlying micro-evolution can be extrapolated to explain the supposed phenomena of macro-evolution. At the risk of doing violence to the opinions of some of the scientists at the meeting, the answer was a clear ‘No’.”[2]
(6) The assumption that science is infallible. There is a common tendency among the general populace to regard all scientific declarations as absolute, irrefutable facts. Once a declaration is identified as having come from “science” or “scientists”, it is immediately elevated to the status of incontestable truth. Often scientists themselves perpetuate this attitude. For instance, in the Introduction to Jerry A. Coyne’s “Why Science and Religion are Incompatible”, Neil DeGrasse-Tyson wrote: “The good thing about science is that it’s true, whether you believe it or not.” This is simply not correct. Facts are true, whether we believe them or not. Science, on the other hand, has an impressive track record of getting the facts wrong and having to retract previously published declarations. There is a long list of scientific “facts”, once declared authoritatively to the world, but which later had to be retracted. They include warnings about a coming ice age (published by reputable scientists throughout the 1970s and 80s), the changing narrative about the cause of extinction of the dinosaurs, various inaccurate cosmological pronouncements about the nature of the universe’s expansion and many more. In fact, a Google search for the term “when science got it wrong” will lead you to literally hundreds of examples of major scientific backflips – right up to the present day. When viewed through the lens of these many past mistakes, continuing scientific pronouncements by the establishment simply don’t warrant the level of unquestioning credibility granted to them by the general populace. The wise person takes the proven fallibility of science into consideration when examining the so-called evidence for evolution.
These, then, are the six most commonly held false assumptions about the theory of evolution and the extent and reliability of its support base. In some of the next instalments I will examine the atheistic militancy that underlies the ongoing aggressive promotion of evolutionary theory and summarise some of the mounting evidence that directly contradicts the theory.
[1] Cercle D’études Scientifique et Historique website, also quoted in “Evolution; Fact or Belief?”, Creation Science Foundation.
[2] Roger Lewin, “Science” Journal, Vol. 210(4472), 1980, pp.883-887