104 Sermon Illustrations on Evolution

104 illustrations Page 2 of 3

Evolution in Christian preaching often contrasts naturalistic explanations of life's origins with the biblical account of creation, challenging the idea that complexity arises from chance (Romans 1:20). Illustrations frequently use images of fossils, probability, and the intricacy of the human mind to highlight perceived gaps and the need for divine design (Psalm 139:14). The subject calls for reflection on faith versus scientific theories about life's development.

Icons of Evolution

Job 40

In the early twentieth century -- during the Scopes Trial, for instance -- evolution was the new theory challenging settled opinions about divine creation. Now, however, said Bill Rice on National Public Radio, it's evolution that "is being questioned." Darwinian evolution has become the established view -- and those who want to consider alternatives to Darwinism have become the innovative thinkers challenging the status quo.

Nowhere is this stunning role reversal better portrayed than in the new documentary, "Icons of Evolution." "Icons" tells the story of Roger DeHart, a high school biology teacher in Washington state who wanted to tell his students about evidence that casts doubt on aspects of Darwinian evolution. The evidence that DeHart hoped to discuss wasn't fringe stuff. It was the material already published in scientific literature. For example, biology textbooks have long featured drawings of animal embryos, purporting to show similarity. This was widely taken as proof that the species in question shared a common evolutionary ancestor.

But the drawings are seriously inaccurate, omitting many details and falsely suggesting similarities among embryos. Stephen Gould, the noted Harvard paleontologist, called the drawings "scientific fraud," and he said that we should "be ashamed and astonished by the century of [their] mindless recycling" in textbooks.

It sounds like something students ought to know about, yet, when DeHart wanted to bring Gould's article about the fraudulent drawings into his classroom, the school administration forbade him from doing so. He wasn't even allowed to discuss Gould's article or say anything questioning the drawings in the school district's officially mandated textbook.

But the censorship didn't stop there. DeHart wanted to tell his students about the "Cambrian Explosion," the sudden appearance of the major groups of animals about 550 million years ago. The Cambrian Explosion has long been a puzzle for Darwinian evolution. Again DeHart was forbidden to bring in any supplementary materials offering an alternative explanation. It didn't matter that the issue is part of ongoing scientific debate. DeHart's students weren't allowed to see or hear anything challenging textbook orthodoxy.

All this, and more, is retold by the participants themselves in the documentary "Icons of Evolution." You'll hear from Chinese paleontologists who worked with the Cambrian Explosion fossils and believe that Darwinian evolution fails to explain the data. You'll hear from Roger DeHart himself about his experiences and also from his school's administrators, telling why they wouldn't let him depart from the established curriculum.

It's an amazing, even shocking, story -- shocking, that is, because most people assume that science ought to be a search for the truth about the natural world. While we may be cynical about advertising, or politics, or the media, science is still supposed to be above it all, pursuing what is really true.

The "Icons" documentary will shake you up. Science teaching today has become indoctrination, but the good news is we can still do something about it.

For more information:

"Icons of Evolution: Dismantling the Myths," VHS video, Focus on the Family/Coldwater Media, 2002.

Jonathan Wells, ICONS OF EVOLUTION: SCIENCE OR MYTH? (Regnery, 2002).

PBS is airing its series, "Evolution," again in May and June. Learn more here: . You can read a critique of the "Evolution" series here: .

Robert Siegel and Bill Rice, NPR report on "Ohio Intelligent Design Forum," 12 March 2002.

Stephen Jay Gould, "Abscheulich! Atrocious!" NATURAL HISTORY, March 2000, 42-49.

Carol Kaesuk Yoon, "Stephen Jay Gould, Biologist and Theorist on Evolution, Dies at 60," THE NEW YORK TIMES, 20 May 2002.

Fred Heeren, "A Little Fish Challenges a Giant of Science," BOSTON GLOBE, 30 May 2000.

Learn more about intelligent design theory and evolutionary theory at the Discovery Institute's Website: .

The Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Center (IDEA) fosters conversation about intelligent design among students, educators, and other interested parties.

_________________________

An Evolutionist Meets the Maker

Job 38

Harvard's Stephen Jay Gould has died. His career was devoted to bedeviling creationists. Now he's one himself, though surely not a happy one.

It is a great shame that Professor Gould has gone out into eternity unprepared to meet his maker. Imagine the blessing that would have flowed his and our way had he thrown himself on the mercies of Christ and embraced God's Word, the Bible. Instead of reading, "It is hubris to argue that (man) is special," we would have enjoyed the Christian brotherhood of a man pleased to proclaim that man is created in the image of God.

The obituaries call him "the Carl Sagan of biology" and "paleontology's public intellectual." University of Chicago paleontologist David Jablonski eulogized, "It's hard to think of another scientist who was as visible, articulate or skilled at helping the public see the world view of an evolutionist." Jablonski's colleague Jerry Coyne put it simply, "He was the best publicist we had."

Turns out evolutionary theory needs all the publicists it can get these days. It's a smoking, wheezing, backfiring jalopy that scientists are increasingly embarrassed to drive around town. They're using yards of duct tape to hold the contraption together. Indeed, Gould himself used a bunch of it in the form a theoretical adjustment he called "punctuated equilibrium." Lacking evidence of gradual transition, he introduced the notion of occasional "fast forward" evolution to get us over the embarrassing spots.

Michael Behe's book, Darwin's Black Box, has shown that evolution just won't wash at the microbiological level. You can no more produce blood-clotting mechanisms by incremental gain than you could a mousetrap. Neither the base, the hammer, the spring, the catch, or the holding bar will nail a mouse. You can't get there in bits and pieces. It's a package deal ("irreducible complexity"), and evolution can't deliver that package.

Behe is joined by William Dembski, who argues that signs of intelligent design are overwhelming and make a mockery of chance. Patterns which would have the SETI folks (radio astronomers involved in the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) turning back flips are routinely dismissed by evolutionists. Many of his Baylor colleagues have snubbed him for his anti-evolutionary zeal, but his influence grows.

And then there's Phillip Johnson, the Berkeley law professor who dared to observe that the emperor, evolutionary theory, had no clothes. He's the one who publicized the delicious quote from the January 9, 1997, New York Review of Books, one uttered by Gould's Harvard colleague, Richard Lewontin. It bears repeating and repeating:

"We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of

some of its constructs, ... in spite of the tolerance of the

scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because

we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is

not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel

us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but,

on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to

material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set

of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how

counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated.

Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a

Divine Foot in the door."

Indeed.

In the popular mind, scientists are distinguished for their objectivity, and certainly there is more evidentiary accountability in physics than in astrology, in biology than palmistry. But scientists are quite human, and career interests, pride, loyalty, irreligion, inertia, and contempt can color and even determine their work. Thomas Kuhn's landmark book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, has opened the door wide to considering these influences.

Kuhn argues that scientists are loath to give up on their pet theories, even when "anomalies" (un-lawlike phenomena) come to their attention. They just get a bigger hammer and try make things all fit together. After all, they've made their names promoting and developing these ideas. Generations of students have gone out from their tutelage and are now passing along the same teachings. From learned journals to talk shows to international conferences to countless hours in the lab, study, or field, they've identified themselves with one way of thinking. And it's almost impossible for them to simply say, "Never mind."

How do things change when old theories break down and new ones take their place? Well, forgive the bluntness, but the key old guys have to die. Kuhn quotes physicist Max Planck in this connection: "...a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." It happened when Darwinism came in. It's happening as Darwinism goes out.

Which brings us again to Stephen Jay Gould. I see his passing as another nail in the coffin for evolution. For ideas are not free floating clouds that hover over succeeding generations. Rather, their life depends upon the hospitality and enthusiastic presentation of individuals. (A word to the church.) And as those hosts and presenters die off as individuals, the vitality of the idea is accordingly diminished.

As evolution's vitality wanes, the rhetoric of evolutionists escalates -- heat to compensate for the lack of light. Whether at Chicago's Field Museum or in the pages of National Geographic, they're doing their best to beautify evolution and denigrate its critics. But it's a cut flower.

Of course, atheists, agnostics, and such will always have their naturalistic theories. They have no choice. But we can enjoy their transition from swagger to anxiety as the theory takes its blows, another of which was landed this past week with the death of Stephen Jay Gould.

Science and Star Power: Stephen Jay Gould

Job 40

In 300 consecutive columns in NATURAL HISTORY magazine, Harvard professor Stephen Jay Gould pondered questions like whether the zebra is black with white stripes or white with black stripes, and why .400 hitters have become extinct. From diverse starting points, he always arrived at the same conclusion: Everything that exists evolved by natural processes. Nature created itself.

His column title, "This View of Life," came from the closing sentence of Darwin's ORIGIN OF SPECIES: "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; ... from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." In essence, "This view of life" was his "life verse."

Gould recognized that the fossil record has major gaps. But instead of letting that observation persuade him to abandon evolution, he modified the theory. He explained the lack of transitional fossils by postulating what he called "punctuated equilibrium." The ordinary state of nature is a steady equilibrium, but, he speculated, this was "punctuated" by creative spurts too rapid to leave fossil evidence -- an interesting attempt to cover one of Darwin's flaws.

In Gould's view of life, even human intelligence must have originated naturally. He once told PBS, "The main reason for considering intelligence accidental is pretty clear. It's only evolved in one species after four and one-half billion years of the history of the Earth, which is about half the Earth's potential history if the sun's due to explode in five billion years or so." That makes it an open-and-shut case: A random process did it. The idea that a Supreme Being may have gifted homo sapiens with His extraordinary intellect is rejected out-of-hand.

When the oncologist told him he was terminal, Gould told readers he would not take refuge in religion. He opined that acknowledging God's existence between the lines of nature was "raw hope all gussied up as science."

What made Stephen Jay Gould so popular with the media? Partly a flair for picturesque expression -- what one analyst called "beautifully written speculations based on data which don't support the speculation as well as they might ... a triumph of form over content."

But my friend Phillip Johnson thinks the primary reason for Gould's popularity was his worldview. Referring to the ideological "high priests" who decree what is and is not acceptable in the scientific and educational establishments and media, Johnson commented, "Whatever his merits, Gould is a popularizer. He never made a scientific discovery and eventually abandoned his [own] research. But from the adulation [he received], you would think he ranked with Darwin, Einstein, and Newton. Why? Because the first priority of the mandarins is to finish removing God from reality."

Gould's last two books hit the bookstores earlier this year. Like his earlier output, they contain interesting information and colorful analogies. But if your friends read them, explain to them that his naturalism and his Marxism seasoned everything he wrote as he relentlessly promoted what he called "this view of life" -- even when, as with the gaps in the fossil record, the facts got in the way.

For further information:

Phillip E. Johnson, DARWIN ON TRIAL (InterVarsity Press, 1993).

BreakPoint commentary no. 020314, "What Would Darwin Say?"

BreakPoint commentary no. 02050, "Big Mysteries, Tiny Organisms."

The "Icons of Evolution" video focuses on the incorrect assumptions and data used by Darwin and the scientific facts that refute them.

Visit the Origins website for more information on evolution, intelligent design, and related issues:

Carol Kaesuk Yoon, "Stephen Jay Gould, Biologist and Theorist of Evolution, Dies at 60," NEW YORK TIMES, 21 May 2002.

Charles Osgood, "The Osgood File" feature about Gould (three sections down), WCBS news radio, 21 May 2002.

John Wilson, "Death of an Evolutionist," BOOKS & CULTURE, 28 May 2002.

David Berlinksi, "Stephen Jay Gould, 1942-2002: In Memoriam," Discovery Institute, 29 May 2002.

_________________________

A New Kind of Science?: Stephen Wolfram's Challenge To Natural Selection

Job 38

After earning a Ph.D. from Caltech at age 20, Stephen Wolfram founded the corporation that produces MATHEMATICA, the world's leading technical mathematics software.

For nearly ten years, Wolfram has -- by his own description -- been "an almost complete recluse." Wolfram became a recluse because he wanted to spend time thinking about a problem that science had failed completely to explain: the origin of complexity -- the vastly intricate systems, especially in biology, which so excite our curiosity.

Now Wolfram thinks he's found the answer to this puzzle, and he's published it in an encyclopedic book, A NEW KIND OF SCIENCE. Almost overnight, A NEW KIND OF SCIENCE shot to the top and stayed at the top of the Amazon.com rankings.

Wolfram is convinced that it's only a matter of time before the rest of the scientific community grasps that the puzzle of complexity requires an entirely new approach. And this is especially the case, Wolfram argues, in biology.

Ask nearly any evolutionary biologist what assembled the human eye, or the three billion base pairs of DNA in our genome, and that biologist will answer, "Natural selection, of course."

But Wolfram is not entirely persuaded by this answer. "No clear understanding has ever emerged," he writes, "of just why such processes should in the end actually lead to much complexity at all." After twenty years of studying the problem, Wolfram no longer views natural selection as a wonder-working process. "I have increasingly come to believe," he argues, "that in fact its power is remarkably limited."

Does this mean that Wolfram accepts the theory of intelligent design? No -- not yet anyway. Although he writes, "Just how complexity arises was never really resolved" by Darwinian evolution, and "I have come to have some sympathy for the creationists," Wolfram thinks all the complexity in nature will arise naturally from simple rules. He illustrates this by "cellular automata," pattern-generating systems that churn out complexity from a handful of rules. Because cellular automata can make complex patterns, Wolfram thinks he's solved the complexity puzzle.

But other scientists are skeptical. Scientist and inventor Ray Kurzweil, for example, points out that we aren't interested in complexity simply as complexity. The exact pattern of jellybeans in a bag of candy is exceedingly complex, but no one really cares to explain it. We do want to explain what design theorist Bill Dembski calls "the specified complex patterns" -- the patterns that do things.

On that score, Kurzweil argues, Wolfram's cellular automata fall short. "They do not evolve," he says, into "insects, or humans, or Chopin preludes, or anything else that we might consider of a higher order of complexity." Wolfram's cellular automata, Kurzweil concludes, "are not capable of solving interesting problems." To do that, Dembski and other design theorists argue, intelligence is absolutely necessary.

The book, A NEW KIND OF SCIENCE, starts with an important problem: Science has not explained the origin of biological complexity. Wolfram's solution may fall short, but at least this brilliant man acknowledges the immensity of the puzzle. And in time, he may join others in seeing that intelligent design means an intelligent Designer.

Additional reading and resources:

Stephen Wolfram, A NEW KIND OF SCIENCE (Champaign, IL: Wolfram Media, 2002).

William Dembski, SIGNS OF INTELLIGENCE: UNDERSTANDING INTELLIGENT DESIGN (Brazos Press, 2001).

Raymond Kurzweil's review of A NEW KIND OF SCIENCE, available at:

"Is this man bigger than Newton and Darwin?" TELEGRAPH (UK), 15 May 2002.

_________________________

No Difference Between A Child and An Ape

Lawyer Steven Wise, promoting his book "Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for Animal Rights," told an audience at a Washington, D.C., bookstore in June: "I don't see a difference between a chimpanzee and my 4 1/2-year-old son (based on the fact that 98.7 percent of their respective DNA is the same)."

'Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics': Supernatural Selection

The following is an excerpt from a book review appearing in the New York Times. The writer says the "intelligent design" school of "Neo-creationists" (people who argue for a form of creation that allows for some evolution and an old earth) fail to prove their case. One key reason for this is discussed in this quote. The error of the quote is the age old problem of denying sin and its effects, for one, and the arrogance of assuming man knows that "junk DNA" exists.

*****************

If nature were fashioned by a hands-on Divine Artificer, it ought to exhibit a certain elegance and efficiency. Then what of all the imperfections we see in the biological world? Why are organisms burdened with maladaptive features like the webbed feet of the frigate bird, which does not need them for paddling? Why is our genome littered with nonfunctional junk DNA? Why have 99.99 percent of the species that have ever existed gone extinct -- including the poor dinosaurs, created only to be wiped out by an errant asteroid? As Gould remarks, "Odd arrangements and funny solutions are the proof of evolution -- paths that a sensible God would never tread but that a natural process, constrained by history, follows perforce."

'Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics': Supernatural Selection

By JIM HOLT

April 14, 2002

New York Times Book Review

Wholesale Returns of Conjecture

"In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. Therefore ... in the Old Silurian Period the Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred thousand miles long ... seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long. ... There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact."

-- Mark Twain

The Moth Myth: Nothing Natural About This Selection

Job 40

The New York Times has finally admitted something that I wrote about three years ago. Alleged evidence that the peppered moth has evolved has been hyped and even fabricated.

A recent article entitled "Staple of Evolutionary Teaching May Not Be Textbook Case" began as follows: "A leading example of evolution given in biology textbooks has come unglued ... The case is that of the peppered moth, which [according to textbooks] over ... a few decades has changed its wing color from pale-peppered to black and back to peppered again in parallel with the rise and fall of industrial pollution." As tree-trunk coloration changed, the story went on, darker moths and lighter moths gained and lost camouflage, and hungry birds changed their dietary habits.

As the Times reported, "This account became an instant hit with Darwinian advocates ... For generations of biologists reared on the peppered moth story as perfect proof of Darwin's theory, it came as a shock to learn of certain problems the textbooks ignored."

The moths in the famous photo were dead -- what the Times calls, "ex-moths, ... firmly glued or pinned to their perches" on the trunks of trees. That's because the live peppered moth hardly ever rests on tree trunks. It hides under twigs in the high canopy of trees. The color of the tree trunks made no difference at all to the moths. Yet the moth myth reigned undisturbed since the 1950s, following publication by Oxford University professor Dr. Bernard Kettlewell.

How have experts reacted to learning that the peppered moth photos were a hoax? University of Chicago evolutionary biologist Dr. Jerry A. Coyne was shocked -- comparing it to determining at age six "that it was my father and not Santa who brought the presents on Christmas Eve."

Some claim the photos were honest mistakes and misinterpretations, not a deliberate deception. But Dr. Theodore Sargent of the University of Massachusetts said the experiments placed moths "in an unnatural position, and birds quickly learned they were being served a free lunch in the woods." The artificial situation did not demonstrate natural selection.

Kettlewell is deceased and, therefore, not available for comment, but his son David told author Judith Hooper that Kettlewell's supervisor pushed and cajoled his students to produce the results he wanted. No one else has reproduced Kettlewell's results.

The article quotes Dr. Jonathan Wells, author of the book Icons of Evolution, as saying, "Part of my gripe with evolutionary biologists is that they make their case sound so much stronger than it really is, and I would prefer to see a good deal more agnosticism" -- a willingness to admit we're not nearly as sure about macroevolution as many people claim to be.

In February of last year BreakPoint featured Icons of Evolution in which Dr. Wells analyzed peppered moths and other dubious arguments that evolutionists still use.

The New York Times reports renewed research that hopes to resurrect the moths' credibility. The story concludes with the wish that "the moth men's continuing efforts may one day get it ready for evolutionary prime time again." Well, we'll see. Only this time it will require them to do more than glue dead moths on tree trunks.

Toumai: Keeping A Healthy Skepticism About Theories of Human Evolution

Job 40

Did paleontology just fill in a gap in the human family tree? That's what you'd think from reading the headlines this month. "A fossil unearthed in Africa pushes back human origins," reported The New York Times on page one.

But, as is often the case with scientific discoveries relating to the theory of evolution, you've got to read more than just the headlines. The details point to a much less triumphalistic picture.

The new fossils, unearthed by a French team in Chad, included a nearly complete skull, which has been dubbed "Toumai." Dated at between six and seven million years old, Toumai has been given the formal scientific name Sahelanthropus, after the harsh Sahel Desert where the fossil was found. Sahelanthropus has been classified as an entirely new genus of primate -- something scientists do only when those fossils have features that don't fit into any existing group.

That's where the Toumai puzzle begins. Paleontology is an interpretative science. Fragmentary fossil remains don't announce what species they are or their lineage. Paleontologists have to figure that out, if they can. Since nearly all fossil groups are extinct, there's plenty of room for disagreement about the correct interpretation.

And that's exactly what happened with Toumai. No sooner was the discovery announced than another French paleontologist, Dr. Brigitte Senut of the National History Museum in Paris, said that she doubted any link to humans. The features of the skull that the Toumai team had interpreted "hominid," Senut claimed, would be better explained if the skull actually came from an extinct species of gorilla. Toumai had a short face and small canine teeth, and Senut thinks that these are the characteristics "of the skull of a female gorilla," not a human ancestor.

On hearing of Senut's dissenting interpretation, the Toumai team called a news conference to denounce her view. Such strong disagreements mark the history of paleoanthropology. It's an enterprise where leading researchers have had long-running feuds with each other, and where conflicting scenarios for human evolution come and go with remarkable frequency.

Why the conflict? Well, think of the fossils themselves as bricks -- the building materials for a scientific theory. These bricks are, however, too few in number and, in most cases, poorly preserved. Nevertheless, evolutionary paleoanthropologists want to make a building out of them, the story of human evolution. So they patch the bricks together with a lot of mortar of their own making.

With Toumai, for instance, anthropologist Bernard Wood of George Washington University said that the discovery may show many other fossil hominids are not human ancestors at all. Wood locates Toumai in evolutionary history by ripping out the theoretical mortar others have used in the past and adding some of his own.

What's a thoughtful onlooker to conclude? That the fossils are real, but their interpretation is very much up for grabs. The theories of relationships between extinct groups have short lives. Keep that in mind next time you read the science headlines, or your neighbor tells you scientists have found the "missing link" -- not so. It's pure conjecture, nothing more.

The Cambrian Explosion: Unraveling A Mystery

Job 38

It's probably the first thing we notice about animals as we're growing up. Snails don't look like starfish. And starfish don't look like beetles. It's pretty obvious, really.

Biologists have a name for the basic architectural differences between animals: they're called "body plans." The origin of body plans was a mystery to Charles Darwin, and it's still an enigma for evolutionists today. But newer ideas, like intelligent design, offer exciting new approaches to this old problem.

A recent article in the Boston Globe reported on a meeting in China where the origin of body plans was discussed at length. The paleontologists at the event reported that fossil representatives of nearly all body plans -- or phyla -- appear suddenly, without obvious predecessors in the geological record.

This is the so-called "Cambrian Explosion" of animal life -- biology's "Big Bang." Paleontologists define the Cambrian Explosion as the geologically sudden appearance of the major groups of animals, about 530 million years ago. While fossils earlier than the Cambrian Explosion have been found, none is clearly an ancestor of the body plans that appear in the Cambrian era.

Darwin knew about the Cambrian Explosion, even if he didn't call it that. In his book, Origin of Species, Darwin said he could "give no satisfactory answer" as to why so many different groups appear without ancestors in the geological record. Cambrian fossils are complex creatures, with eyes, limbs, digestive and circulatory systems, and other complicated features that evolution would have to build in a step-by-step manner. But the steps are missing.

A Chinese biologist at the meeting said that no theory of evolution "can explain these kinds of phenomena." And the Chinese Communist newspaper, Guang Ming Daily, observed, "evolution is facing an extremely harsh challenge."

Well, if evolution can't do it, what sort of system would be capable of building incredibly complex systems?

Certainly not natural selection. As a process, natural selection preserves only those variations of immediate value to a species. The many stages leading to creatures like trilobites have no selective value and are invisible to natural selection.

The process of development by which snails and starfish -- and you and I, too, for that matter -- were created during reproduction passes through many stages that could not survive on their own. These stages are essential to construct our complex features. Sensory organs and limbs are made up of millions of specialized cells, and natural selection can only act after they've been formed.

And for evolution to build complex animals with millions of specialized cells it would need a complete set of directions, but that's something natural selection cannot do. As a blind process, it can't look into the future and see where to go.

Only our Intelligent Designer knows where he's going. And that's why the experts in China and elsewhere have been stumped. Well, we can pray that one day Darwin's legions will see the truth and honor the Creator who designed it all. And in the meantime, you can use this information to set your neighbors and your kids' biology teachers straight.

_________________________

Pre-biotic Soup?: the Case For Faith (4)

Job 38

In his new book, The Case for Faith, journalist Lee Strobel says he struggled to find answers to questions he thought blocked belief in God -- including scientific teachings that ruled out the God who created the heavens and the earth.

Strobel had always accepted Darwin's evolutionary theories. But the more he investigated Darwinism's claims, he writes, the more he questioned "whether the sweeping conclusions of Darwinists are really justified by the hard scientific facts."

For instance, Darwin's theory does not answer the fundamental question of how life began in the first place. Darwin presupposes that non-living chemicals could develop themselves into living matter, given the right amount of time and circumstances. Nobel Prize-winner Harold Urey agreed. He suggested that earth's primitive atmosphere -- composed of ammonia, methane, and hydrogen -- favored the emergence of organic compounds.

But in the 1980s, NASA scientists proved "that the primitive earth never had any ammonia, methane, or hydrogen," Strobel discovered. Instead, NASA found it was composed of water, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen. And as one scientist put it, "you absolutely cannot get the same experimental results with that mixture."

Scientists have proposed many other theories for how life originated -- everything from random chance to special delivery by aliens. Some have "used computer models to try to show how chemical reactions might have occurred," Strobel writes, "but these scenarios only work if the computer is programmed to eliminate some of the insurmountable obstacles that chemicals would have actually faced in the real world."

Many scientists now admit that research on origins of life has reached a dead end. A dead end, that is, only if one rejects Intelligent Design theory.

To evaluate the plausibility of Intelligent Design, Strobel went to Dr. Walter Bradley, former director of the Polymer Technology Center at Texas A&M University. Bradley is an expert on origin-of-life theories.

Bradley pointed out that for many years, scientists have used arguments based on analogies to things we understand to formulate new hypotheses in emerging areas of science. For example, he says, "If the only time we see written information -- whether it's a painting on a cave wall or a novel from Amazon.com -- is when there's an intelligence behind it," it makes sense to assume that this would be true of nature, as well.

Bradley reminded Strobel that "what is encoded on the DNA inside of every cell of every living creature is purely and simply written information." DNA's four- letter chemical alphabet combines to form words, sentences, and paragraphs. These comprise all the instructions the cell needs to guide its functioning.

"When we see written language, we can infer, based on our experience, that it has an intelligent cause," Bradley explains. "And we can legitimately use analogical reasoning to conclude that the ... information sequences in DNA also had an intelligent cause."

Secular scientists reject Intelligent Design theory, Bradley believes, not for scientific reasons, but philosophical ones: They simply don't want to believe in God.

I hope you'll read Lee Strobel's book, The Case for Faith. You'll learn why Darwin's theory is as dead as he is. And you'll learn how strongly scientific evidence backs up the words of Genesis: "In the beginning, God."

For further reference:

Strobel, Lee. The Case for Faith. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000.

_____________________

Should We Have Perfect Bodies?: What Intelligent Design Really Says

It's a humbling experience we've all had on the way to the morning shower -- looking at our bodies in the mirror. Even the physically fit can spot areas for improvement. And some of us, of course, don't need a mirror to tell us what needs fixing!

We're not perfect creatures. But do our imperfections prove that we're evolved by natural selection, and not created by an intelligent designer? Well, a recent article in the magazine Scientific American makes that very claim.

Entitled "If Humans Were Built to Last," the article by S. Jay Olshansky, Bruce Carnes, and Robert Butler argues that the human body reflects the mindless process of natural selection, and not purposeful design. Olshansky and colleagues write that many of our physical shortcomings exist because natural selection causes us to survive "just long enough to reproduce." Once we've passed on our genes, they say, our bodies start to fall apart.

If we had been intelligently designed, they argue, we should last much longer. And we wouldn't choke on food, suffer detached retinas, or a host of other ailments.

Well, this argument for naturalistic evolution dates back well before Darwin. The eighteenth-century philosopher David Hume, for one, argued that the miseries of human existence are best explained by "blind nature," not design. But this misrepresents what intelligent design really says. It also overlooks the powerful insights of the Christian worldview.

First, intelligent design does not say that any currently existing organism, including human beings, should be perfect. Every designed system in our present universe is subject to physical laws, and involves trade-offs with a wide range of functional requirements.

Consider, for example, your throat. The esophagus (the passage to the stomach) and the trachea (the passage to the lungs) come together at the top of the throat. When you swallow, a structure called the epiglottis closes to cover your trachea. You can feel this if you put your finger on your Adam's apple and swallow.

Sometimes, when people take excessively large bites of food, or if they're inebriated, the epiglottis may not close properly, and they choke.

Now, Olshansky and company argue that if our throats had been intelligently designed, this wouldn't happen. They suggest that a better design would have placed the trachea higher, near the nasal passage. .... Maybe, but maybe not.

You see, it would be impossible to speak if air only passed through your nostrils, not your mouth. Catching a cold could be a life-threatening illness, because congestion would block the only pathway for oxygen. And if you needed more air -- running to catch the bus, for example -- sorry, opening your mouth for extra oxygen won't help.

Yes, humans occasionally choke. But there is absolutely no evidence that another system would work better. It's easy to speculate about what an intelligent designer would have done, but there's a world of difference between speculation and science.

The Christian worldview tells us not to expect perfection. While God created the world, it's also fallen -- a world with illness and pain, waiting to be redeemed by God's new creation.

So remember that the next time you look in the bathroom mirror. If your current model is due to expire, don't worry about it: There's an incomparably better one coming!

_____________________

For further reference:

Hume, David. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, [1776] 1980.

Olshansky, S. Jay, Bruce A. Carnes, and Robert N. Butler. "If Humans Were Built to Last." Scientific American, March 2001, pp. 50-55.

_____________________

Did Darwin Convert On His Deathbed?

The question of whether Charles Darwin accepted Christianity and rejected evolution is an emotional and intense one. To many Christians, Darwin is a villain who articulated a godless creation. To others, he is a brilliant hero who led the way to an enlightened view of where we came from. There are researchers and authors who have worked hard to prove and disprove any notion that he converted to Christianity and TruthOrFiction.com's conclusion is that when all is said and done, there is not enough good evidence that the story is true. We stop short of declaring it fiction, but regard it as not sufficiently proven. The report about Darwin's change of heart comes from one person, Lady Hope, an energetic Nineteenth Century Christian, while many members of Darwin's family denied it and there is nothing from Darwin's friends, colleagues, his own statements or writings to substantiate it. If Darwin did experience something so dramatic as a conversion to Jesus Christ and a complete revision of the theory of evolution that characterized his life and work, there isn't a shred of evidence of it outside of the claims of Lady Hope.

The book THE DARWIN LEGEND by James Moore is one of the most recent and cautious analyses about the Darwin conversion story. For many years, detractors claimed that Lady Hope either didn't exist or never visited Darwin. Moore demonstrates that she did indeed exist and may very well have visited him. He also concludes, however, that her account of what happened is not reliable.

A response to Moore's book is TRUE SCIENCE AGREES WITH THE BIBLE by Malcolm Bowden. His attention to detail is valuable reading, but in trying to argue that the conversion story may be true, he has to do a lot of speculating about what Lady Hope, Darwin, or Darwin's family might have been thinking.

[Added by Holwick:] J. W. C. Fegan, an evangelist who ran a ministry in Darwin's town, and who worked closely with Darwin and was esteemed by the scientist, wrote in 1925 that he "had been appealed to over and over again as to the probability of this story, and have had no hesitation in pronouncing it to be fabrication on the part of poor Lady Hope." Charles Darwin, said Fegan, "was an honorable, courteous, benevolent gentleman; but you may be sure that Sir Francis Darwin is right in saying that his father died as he had lived — an agnostic" [Wikipedia.org, "J.W.C. Fegan;" the quote can be found in Moore's book].

For more information:

THE SURVIVAL OF CHARLES DARWIN, by Ronald W. Clark (Wiedenfeld & Nicholson, 1985)

THE DARWIN LEGEND, by James Moore (Baker Books, 1994)

DID CHARLES DARWIN BECOME A CHRISTIAN?, Wilbert Rusch and John Klotz, (Norcross, 1988)

TRUE SCIENCE AGREES WITH THE BIBLE, Malcolm Bowden, Sovereign Publications, 1998

Dinosaur To Bird: Or, Theory Before Evidence

Job 40

Once again, a fossil has made the headlines. The New York Times even put the story on Page One, above the fold. Why all the excitement? Well, the fossil, a so-called "feathered dinosaur" found in northeastern China, appeared to provide strong support for the theory that birds evolved from dinosaurs.

Well, how about a short exercise in critical thinking? Let's apply some skeptical analysis to the scientists' claims, to see what we can learn about separating fact from theory.

First, unlike the last feathered-dinosaur "discovery" -- which turned out to be a hoax, embarrassing the National Geographic Society -- this fossil appears genuine. About the size of a duck, the fossil belongs to a group of dinosaurs called dromaeosaurs. What's remarkable about this new fossil is its downy covering -- including some structures that appear to resemble feathers.

Well those are the facts, but there's one more rather important piece of data you may not have seen in the Times. It was found in geological formations in China dated to 125-130 million years ago. Now, why is that important?

Well, according to the standard dating of paleontologists, the earliest-known bird, Archaeopteryx, is actually much older than that: almost 20 million years older, in fact. But if dromaeosaurs were more primitive than the creature long thought to be the first bird, how can they show up 15 to 20 million years later in the fossil record? How could one bird live earlier than its grandmother?

Here's where theory trumps evidence. The evolutionary biologists who advocate the dinosaur-to-bird story say that the geological time sequence doesn't matter. Paleontologist Henry Gee, for instance, admits that "it seems odd, even outrageous, to claim that birds such as Archaeopteryx descended from dromeaosaurs." The fossil is wrong, in other words. But, so what? Gee shrugs off the problem.

He says that "stratigraphic order" -- namely, the geological sequence in which fossils appear -- "is no barrier to any possible hypothesis of relationship." Dino-to-bird advocates like Gee start with the assumption that birds evolved from non-birds. So the only question is, What group of non-birds looks most like birds?

Dromeaosaurs are the leading candidates, despite the fact that they occur too late in the fossil record. If evolutionary theory tells you to look for someone to play the role of grandma, it doesn't seem to matter if she turns up millions of generations later than her grandchildren. And you see, that's precisely the problem.

Skeptic ought to ask, What's really behind this dino- to-bird theory? If scientists can just step over an issue like stratigraphic order, we have to wonder what other difficulties are being shoved aside. And there are many such difficulties.

A vocal minority of evolutionary biologists completely reject the dino-to-bird theory, because they find it implausible that ground-dwelling creatures like dromaeosaurs could ever evolve the behaviors and structures needed for flight.

So what's the moral in all this? We need to dig into the details whenever we hear claims about "proof" of naturalistic evolution. Science can be an important tool, but science also needs skeptics to keep it honest. And so does the New York Times.

__________________

For further reference:

Gee, Henry. In Search of Deep Time: Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life. New York: The Free Press, 1999; pp. 182-183.

Padian, Kevin and Luis M. Chiappe. "The Origin and Early Evolution of Birds." Biological Reviews 73 (1998):1-42.

Sues, Hans-Dieter. "Ruffling Feathers." Nature 410 (2001):1036-1037.

_____________________

No sign of life on meteorite

Yukon: No sign of life on meteorite

WHITEHORSE - To scientists' disappointment, a meteorite that fell on Tagish Lake in B.C. last year has been found to contain none of the organic ingredients believed necessary to have initiated life on Earth. Fragments of the meteorite sprinkled on the lake barely possess the amino acids necessary for life. Many scientists believe simple life arose on Earth more than four billion years ago after meteorites crashed through the atmosphere, carrying amino acids and other biochemical compounds from outer space.

Scientists: 'Iceman' mystery solved

7/26/2001

Scientists: 'Iceman' mystery solved

ROME (AP) - It wasn't a fall that killed him, or the cold, scientists say. The Iceman, a Bronze Age hunter whose 5,300-year-old frozen body was discovered in the Alps, was shot through the chest with an arrow and likely died in agony.

The discovery of an arrowhead embedded in the Iceman's body, scientists said Wednesday, resolves the mystery of how he died _ an open question ever since his well-preserved corpse was discovered a decade ago.

"This changes everything. Now research on the Iceman starts over," Alex Susanna, director of the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, which houses the mummy, said Wednesday.

The flint arrowhead, less than inch long, was found in the Iceman's left shoulder last week with a technique called computerized tomography, which uses X-rays to produce a multidimensional image.

The arrow's path as it ripped through the Iceman's body can be traced on the bones _ starting at the tiny puncture of the entry wound in the skin of his left chest, said radiologist Paul Gostner.

The arrow tore through nerves and major blood vessels, paralyzing the left arm and shattering the shoulder blade, said researcher Eduard Egarter Vigl. It ended up about 3 inches under the shoulder near his left lung, Gostner said.

The Iceman probably lived a few hours at most after he was shot.

There were signs of heavy internal bleeding in what must have been an extremely painful death, said Egarter Vigl. The angle of the wound indicates he was shot from below.

X-ray tests conducted seven years ago by a different team showed something in the area, but scientists at the time were unable to identify it as an arrowhead.

"All the things that have been published over the past seven or eight years _ that he died because of broken ribs, that he died under the snow, or that he was exhausted and laid down and fell asleep and froze to death _ are wrong," said Susanna, the museum director.

"Maybe there was a combat, maybe he was in a battle. There is a whole series of new implications. The story needs to be rewritten."

Scientists hope to use this new information to reconstruct the last hours of the Iceman's life and his role in ancient society. The Iceman was between 45 and 50 years old when he died, which was very old for that era.

The mummy was discovered by two German mountaineers in a glacier in the Tyrollean Alps on the Italian-Austrian border in 1991. His superbly preserved corpse is kept in a refrigerated viewing chamber at the museum, which is in northern Italy near the Austrian border.

The museum was built to house him and the array of weapons and tools found by his side, including a copper ax, bow and flint-tipped arrows. In September, Bolzano will host an international conference on the Iceman.

On the Net:

http://www.iceman.it

Students and Intellectual Freedom: Challenges To Naturalistic Evolution

This year, the State Board of Education in Ohio is considering new science education standards. Recently, controversy erupted because the state board is listening to citizens who want students to be free to evaluate evolutionary theory critically -- and to consider alternatives to naturalism in science.

I want to recommend two new books that should help Ohioans in this debate -- not to mention the rest of us. The first is DARWIN'S GOD by Cornelius Hunter. Hunter exposes one of the most interesting, but least understood aspects of the evolution debate: Beginning with Darwin himself, evolutionary biologists have leaned heavily on theology in their thinking about the world.

Hunter shows how Darwin's major work, ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, is loaded from start to finish with "Why would God have done it that way?" questions -- what Hunter calls "negative theology." Darwin wondered why a wise designer would have used the same bone pattern in the forelimbs of mice and whales, or why people sometimes choked on food. In effect, Darwin asked whether these designs were the best that the Creator could do. And these sorts of questions live on today, whenever the subject of evolution is taught.

But students can't properly answer these questions without being given the freedom to challenge Darwin's theology -- that is, his view of God. As Hunter points out in DARWIN'S GOD, "negative theology was a consistent theme for Darwin, and it remains popular with today's evolutionists." If evolutionary biologists can say what God wouldn't have done, then why can't students challenge their conclusions by employing different theological assumptions? It's only fair. Darwin's view of the designer shouldn't be the only one available. If the ORIGIN OF SPECIES, the founding document of evolutionary biology, already presupposes theology, students shouldn't be prevented from joining the conversation -- which brings me to a second book.

In NO FREE LUNCH, William Dembski discusses the science of intelligent design. The firestorm in Ohio wouldn't have flared up so fiercely if citizens hadn't also asked for the freedom to introduce into the classroom ideas like intelligent design. Science, after all, moves on from discarded theories to better theories. If evolutionary theory can't explain the origin of biological complexity -- as many scientists now conclude -- then we should consider alternatives. Intelligent design is, from my point of view, a very worthy alternative.

Drawing on discoveries in molecular biology and mathematics, Dembski shows how the complex design of organisms requires an intelligent cause. Attempts to get such design from blind natural causes only move the problem; they don't solve it. The most reasonable response to complex designs in nature is not to debate what God would or wouldn't have done, but to see design as evidence of the Intelligent Designer.

Should students in Ohio hear about these ideas? Of course. Our schools today are faced with a choice: Keep the antiquated system we have of science education bound in by naturalistic philosophy, or science education that pursues intellectual freedom and truth. The decision ought to be simple. Let's hope there is the courage to make it.

For further reading:

Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey, DEVELOPING A CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW OF SCIENCE AND EVOLUTION (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1999).

Cornelius G. Hunter, DARWIN'S GOD: EVOLUTION AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL (Brazos Press, 2001).

William A. Dembski, NO FREE LUNCH: WHY SPECIFIED COMPLEXITY CANNOT BE PURCHASED WITHOUT INTELLIGENCE (Rowman & Littlefield, December 2001).

William A. Dembski and James Kushiner, SIGNS OF INTELLIGENCE: UNDERSTANDING INTELLIGENT DESIGN (Brazos Press, 2001).

Learn more about the Ohio State Board of Education Science Standards here

Leo Shane III, "Support for creationism resurfaces: some politicians push for intelligent design," THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER, 4 February 2002.

Charles Darwin's ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY MEANS OF NATURAL SELECTION, OR THE PRESERVATION OF FAVOURED RACES IN THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE can be read here

_________________________

Taming Secular Lions: Rebuilding the Culture

Let me tell you about a BreakPoint listener who sneaked Christian thinking past the secular lions and lived to tell about it. It's one of the stories that, frankly, keeps me committed to doing these BreakPoint broadcasts.

A Michigan teacher named Carl wrote to tell me that he especially enjoyed BreakPoint commentaries on evolution. Carl wrote: "I teach high school history, and [BreakPoint] ... has helped me become bolder and stand up for what I believe."

For example, many of his kids accept Darwin's teachings about natural selection and the survival of the fittest. So recently Carl had his students read excerpts from Thomas Malthus, an eighteenth-century English cleric who believed that population growth would outstrip food production and bring about mass starvation. Carl says his class was outraged that a Christian minister could be so heartless as to want to allow the world's poor to die.

Then Carl had them read Charles Darwin's autobiography. Lo and behold, the major premise for Darwin's survival of the fittest philosophy came from his reading of Malthus.

"The kids were amazed," Carl writes. "The philosophy they had adopted -- evolution -- is based on concepts the kids are outraged about." It made them think about Darwin in a very different light.

Christians are using BreakPoint to tame secular lions the college campus, as well. One of them is a young woman named Renee.

When Renee arrived at college, she was bombarded with anti-Christian sentiment. Friends attacked her faith claiming that belief in the Bible was illogical and irrational. Renee, a fairly new Christian, did not know how to respond. So she tried to avoid these kinds of conversations.

Then a Christian friend told her about BreakPoint. Renee began listening to the program. She quickly learned about some of the scientific support for God's truth and the logical reasons for her faith. Best of all she learned how to convey those truths to her friends in ways they could understand and respect. Today, Renee no longer shies away from spiritual conversations: She loves to challenge her friends on their secular views.

It thrills me to hear stories like these because this is the vision of BreakPoint -- to be able to reach and equip Christians to stand up for truth in today's culture, a culture in which Judeo-Christian values are so often mocked. When Christians try to speak up for these values, we're maligned as ignorant, intolerant, or bigoted. So many Christians have concluded that the "culture war" is over -- and that the Christians have lost.

But giving up on the culture is a betrayal of our biblical mandate because it denies God's sovereignty over all of life. Christians must never stop trying to help their neighbors understand why God's revelation is the source of all truth, a comprehensive framework to understand all reality.

That's the goal of BreakPoint: To help Christians effectively evangelize a post-Christian culture. And that's why I'm so delighted when I hear stories like these about how listeners use BreakPoint. People like Carl and Renee, who take the Christian worldview right into the lion's den -- and fearlessly defend it.

If you do this or you know people who do, let me hear from you. It's a real encouragement.

Biblical Age of the Earth

Mark 10:6

BIBLICAL AGE OF THE EARTH

=========================

INTRODUCTION:

Believe Bible "literally"? Unreasonable Question.

Cf. William Jennings Bryan's answer to Clarence Darrow's question about belief in literal Genesis. Bryan said some was literal and some was figurative; the context must determine.

Age of earth a pivotal, crucial point. ("Makes no difference" ???)

Earnst Mayr, Harvard, "The revolution began when it became obvious that the earth was very ancient rather than having been created only 6,000 years ago. This finding was the snowball that started the whole avalanche.", THE NATURE OF THE DARWINIAN REVOLUTION, p.3 Lawrence Badash, Professor of History of Science, U. of CA, S.B., "As the sun's first ray's of thermonuclear light blazed across the galaxy 4.5 billion years ago, the primal earth emerged from a spinning, turbulent cloud of gas, dust and planetoids that surrounded the new star…On these figures for the age of the earth rest all of geology and evolution." Scientific American, Aug., 1989, p.90

BELIEVE BOTH BIBLE AND EVOLUTION?

American beliefs about origins; Gallup poll, Nov.1991.

• 47% Recent Creation (39% of college students).

• 40% Theistic Evolution. Gould: "great majority of deeply religious

people".

• 9% Atheistic Evolution. Taught exclusively (propaganda) in classroom.

Many try to mythologize Genesis while claiming faith in N.T. Don't like Genesis? You'll hate NT. Genesis repeatedly quoted.

• 165 passages in Genesis are either quoted or referenced in N.T.

• Over 100 quotations or direct references to 1st 11 chapters.

• Every one of the first 11 chapters alluded to in the N. T.

• 63 of the more than 200 allusions are to the first 3 chs.

• 14 are to the flood chapters (68).

• Every one of the N.T. authors refers to the 1st 11 chs.

• 25 references to Genesis were from Christ Himself.

• 6 different occasions Jesus quoted or referred to first 11 chs.

Basically a compromise, convinced science proved evolution.

1. A theistic (not a scientific) question; "Would God of Bible do it that way? Fossil record, billions of dead things; unimaginable pain, suffering. Wouldn't all wise God know better. Couldn't all powerful God do better?

2. Looks like atheistic evolution; yet, are told, "Honors God; shows grandeur and beauty of God's wisdom.". Truly honors God to accept His testimony about origins.

When learn to explain away apparently plain statements to accommodate what already "know", unending consequences. Examples: Marriage, homosexuality, salvation, heaven, hell.

SCRIPTURAL EONS? WHERE?

Found no where in scripture. If eons are allowed by scripture, great amounts of time must be placed in the text. Where?

Only three possibilities. Before, during or after creation week. All three have been desperately tried.

If impossible in all three places, is excluded by scripture.

BEFORE THE CREATION WEEK?

CALLED: THE GAP THEORY; RUIN AND RECONSTRUCTION; RUINATION/RE-CREATION; PRE-ADAMIC CATACLYSM; RESTITUTION; ETC.

1. Popularized by Harry Rimmer, THE SCOFFIELD BIBLE, Robert Milligan THE SCHEME OF REDEMPTION, Arthur Custance WITHOUT FORM AND VOID.

2. Proof texts: Isa.14:12-14; 45:18; Jer.4:23-26; Ezek.28:12-17

3. Claim "was" should be translated "became" in Gen.l:1.

1. No known translation says "became."

2. Poll of 20 leading Hebrew scholars regarding "gap" between 1:1 & 1:2.

Responded unanimously, "NO". MODERN SCIENCE AND CHRISTIAN FAITH p. 49

3. Hebrew scholar W. C. Watts: "In Genesis 1:2a the verb is perfect.

It indicates a fixed and completed state. In other words, original

matter was in a state of chaos when created: it came into being that

way." A SURVEY OF OLD TESTAMENT PREACHING p. 16.

4. A COMMENTARY ON GENESIS, Harold Stigers: "The cataclysmic theory (also

called the restitution theory) respecting v. 2 can have no place in a

proper translation. The construction of 'became void,' etc., i8 not

justified by Hebrew syntax. When the verb 'to be' (hayah) is to be

constructed as 'became,' the addition of the prepositional lamedh is

required with the following word to provide this meaning, and this

preposition is absent here." p. 49.

4. False distinction between "created" (bara) & "made" (asah). Gen.1:1 "created". The rest was "made", Ex.20:11.

• Words used interchangeably, Gen.1:26, 27; Gen. 5:1-2. "ASHA"; " Labor, to work about anything ...to make... to create, as heaven, earth ..." GESENIUS p.657 "BARA"; 'To cut, to carve out, to form by cutting, to create... of heaven and earth... " GESENIUS p. 138

• Gen.1:21, 25, "created fishes....made animals".

SCRIPTURAL REFUTATION

1. Ex.20:11; Earth and everything in it in 6 days, therefore neither earth nor anything in it prior to those 6 days.

2. 1 Cor.15:45, 47; "FIRST MAN". Excludes pre-Adamic race.

3. 1 Cor. 15:21; Rom.5:12; Sin and death from Adam. If gap theory is true, Paul is a liar.

DURING THE CREATION WEEK?

CALLED: THE DAY-AGE THEORY:

Popularized by Wilbur M. Smith, THEREFORE STAND; Davis A. Young CREATION AND THE FLOOD; Jack Wood Sears of Harding; John Clayton

MEANING OF WORD "DAY" (10 COMPELLING REASONS WHY WE KNOW).

1. Can be figurative. CONTEXTUAL INDICATIONS determine. Ex.

1. "YOM" preceded by a numeral (100+ times in OT) in nonprophetic

passages, is a day.

2. "YOM"; occurring in the plural (yamin) in a nonprophetic passage, is

a day.

3. "YOM"; with "evening & morning" (100+times in OT). in a nonprophetic

passage, is a day.

2. "Days" of creation include all three contextual indications!

3. Gen.1:5; "day" (yom) is precisely defined when first used.

4. Gen.1:8-31; "day" (yom) is defined for each of creation days (same before the sun as after the sun).

5. Gen.1:14; "days" used in contrast to "years". Cf. Stop sign.

6. Ex.20:9-11; Comparison w/Sabbath day defines.

7. Objective linguistic scholars; Cf. Prof. James Barr, Oxford. EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE, W. R. Nicoll, Editor, Vol.1, p45: "IF THE WORD 'DAY' IN THIS CHAPTER DOES NOT MEAN THE PERIOD OF 24 HOURS, THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE IS HOPELESS."

8. Science of botany proves "day" is day: Implies millions of yrs. of darkness followed by millions of yrs. of light. Plant life impossible. Fruit trees before sun?

9. Science of zoology proves "day" is day: Many plants, animals, insects in symbiotic relationship. Stephen J.Gould, Harvard, "MANY SPECIES ARE FERTILIZED BY INSECTS IN A MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL ARRANGEMENT THAT SUPPLIES FOOD TO THE INSECTS WHILE TRANSPORTING POLLEN FROM FLOWER TO FLOWER. SO INTRICATE...ARE THE FEATURES OF BOTH FLOWER AND INSECT IN MANY CASES SPECIAL COLORS AND ODORS TO ATTRACT THE INSECTS, EXQUISITELY FASHIONED MOUTHPARTS TO EXTRACT THE NECTAR...," NATURAL HISTORY, 2/1994

10. Day Age Theory is not harmonious With geological ages; Fruit trees on the 3rd day while fish not until the 5th day.

ANSWERS 8-10 REFUTE LAME VARIATION, NONCONSECUTIVE DAY THEORY.

WHILE GENESIS 1&2 DO NOT TELL US THE AGE OF EARTH, WE ARE TOLD THE EARTH'S AGE RELATIVE TO CREATION OF MAN; 5 DAYS OLDER.

AFTER CREATION WEEK?

MOST ANTHROPOLOGISTS BELIEVE MAN IS FAR REMOVED FROM BEGINNING.

1. If age of earth is 24 hours, man has been here for less than minute.

2. If age of earth is arm span, man is swipe of fingernail file.

IMPLICATIONS ARE OBVIOUS.

1. Stephen J. Gould, "WE CANNOT BEAR THE CENTRAL IMPLICATION OF THIS BRAVE NEW WORLD. IF HUMANITY AROSE JUST YESTERDAY AS A SMALL TWIG ON ONE BRANCH OF A FLOURISHING TREE, THEN LIFE MAY NOT, IN ANY GENUINE SENSE, EXIST FOR, OR BECAUSE OF US. PERHAPS WE ARE ONLY AN AFTERTHOUGHT, A KIND OF COSMIC ACCIDENT, JUST ONE BAUBLE ON THE CHRISTMAS TREE OF EVOLUTION.", WONDERFUL LIFE, 1989, p.44.

2. Mark Twain, "IF THE EIFFEL TOWER WERE NOW REPRESENTING THE WORLD'S AGE, THE SKIN OF PAINT ON THE PINNACLE KNOB AT ITS SUMMIT WOULD REPRESENT MAN'S SHARE OF THAT AGE AND ANYBODY WOULD PERCEIVE THAT THE SKIN WAS WHAT THE TOWER WAS BUILT FOR. I RECKON THEY WOULD, I DUNNO."

INSPIRATION AFFIRMS MAN WAS HERE FROM THE BEGINNING.

1. Mk.10:6; "from beginning of creation".

• "Beginning" defined by Cremer. "ABSOLUTE, DENOTING THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD AND OF ITS HISTORY, THE BEGINNING OF CREATION,...." ; p. 113.

• "Beginning" defined by Thayer. "1. BEGINNING, ORIGIN: A. USED ABSOLUTELY, OF THE BEGINNING OF ALL THINGS: EN ARCH JN.1:1 SQ. (GEN.1:1);...MK.10:6;..." ; p.76

2. Rom.1:20; "seen ..understood" since CREATION OF WORLD.

3. Luke 11:49-51; "from FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD....Adam''

SCRIPTURAL GAPS IN GENEALOGIES?

1. In derived, secondary genealogies; poetic license allowed.

2. Arthur C. Custance (a long-ager) acknowledges: "WE ARE TOLD AGAIN AND AGAIN THAT SOME OF THESE GENEALOGIES CONTAIN GAPS: BUT WHAT IS NEVER POINTED OUT BY THOSE WHO LAY THE EMPHASIS ON GAPS, IS THAT THEY ONLY KNOW OF THE EXISTENCE OF THESE GAPS BECAUSE THE BIBLE ELSEWHERE FILLS THEM IN. HOW OTHERWISE COULD ONE KNOW OF THEM? BUT IF THEY ARE FILLED IN, THEY ARE NOT GAPS AT ALL! THUS IN THE FINAL ANALYSIS THE ARGUMENT IS COMPLETELY WITHOUT FOUNDATION." GENEALOGIES OF THE BIBLE, p.3.

3. Only question from Abraham to Adam (20 generations). Jude 14 eliminates first 7. Leaves only 13 (12 spaces). Billions in 12 spaces? Scale, 50 miles to inch. Gapeologies!!

4. Gaps WOULD NOT AFFECT CHRONOLOGY of Gen. 5&11. Cf. Gen.5:6-7; Immaterial if Enosh was son or great, great grandson; Was born when Seth was 205 (LXX). Truth?

5. Father's age when "decedent" was born is recorded from Adam to Joseph. Info. is meaningless, useless, unless chronology intended. Otherwise information is irrelevant.

6. Christianity, UNIQUELY, is founded on historical accuracy. Chronology is backbone of history. Accuracy is demanded.

SEPTUAGINT (QUOTED BY CHRIST), BASED ON MANUSCRIPT 350 YRS [BC?], OLDER THAN MASSORETIC TEXT, ELIMINATES APPARENT DISCREPANCIES.

1. Creation would be at 5315 B.C. according to Septuagint.

2. Age of earth (in 1994) would be, 7,309 years.

CONCLUSION:

1. All 3 efforts to place great ages in text of Genesis fail. Each of "possibilities" are impossible. Great ages are Unscriptural.

2. Jesus expressed His confidence in Scripture, Jn.10:34.

3. Serious mistake to discredit words of Moses, Jn.5:46.

Great age views beginning as not directly associated with us. As push back beginning we escape implications of immediate past. If beginning is way off in distant past, then end is easier to view as distant future. Sharp edge of accountability is blunted.

__________________

Dates, Deluge and Dinosaurs

Job 40:15

Devilution: Evolution's Erosion of Human Society

================================================

Dates, Deluge and Dinosaurs

Genesis 1:1-2:2

This message will attempt to answer the three questions most often asked by evolutionists to creations:

1. The Age of the Earth.

2. A Global Flood.

3. The Existence of Dinosaurs.

I. Dates. (The Age Of The Earth)

Note: Evolutionists believe in a very old earth. (3-4 billion years).

Creationists believe in a very young earth. (6-10 thousand years).

Two Theories Attempting to Reconcile Creation-Evolution Dates

1. The day-age theory. (Gen. 1; days represent long ages.)

2. The gap theory. (An age gap exists between Gen. 1:1 and 1:2)

Two Primary Witnesses to a Young Earth

1. The witness of scripture.

2. The witness of the physical universe.

1. Human population.

2. The loss of mass of our sun.

3. The spinning of the expanding galaxies.

4. The cooling of the planets.

5. The expanding rings around Saturn.

6. The expanding distance of the moon from the earth.

7. The depth of cosmic dust on the surface of the moon.

8. The weakening magnetic field of the earth.

9. The slowing rotation of the earth.

10. The expansion of the Sahara desert.

11. The extreme pressure of underground oil reserves.

12. The sediment deposits of the Mississippi River.

13. The oldest living tree in the world is 4,000 years old.

14. The Great Barrier Reef is 4,300 years old.

15. The movement of Niagara Falls from erosion.

16. The increase in ocean salts.

17. The growth of stalactites.

18. The erosion rate of the continents.

19. The gravitational field of the sun and stars.

20. The presence of short-term comets.

21. Radiation halos in Colorado coal.

I. Dates

1. Evolutionists believe in a very old earth. (3-4 billion years old)

2. Most creationists believe in a very young earth. (6,000-10,000 years)

II. Deluge (Gen. 7:11-24)

1. The Bible clearly describes a global flood, not merely a local flood.

2. There is strong historical evidence supporting the flood.

___________________

Evidence from 33 Ancient Cultures:

• 33 of 33 have a flood tradition.

• 31 of 33 have a common tradition that the flood was globally destructive.

• 32 of 33 say man was somehow divinely saved in the flood.

• 30 of 33 say there was some kind of special provision for the animals.

• 25 of 33 describe an ark or boat landing on top of a mountain.

• 29 of 33 describe a bird being sent from the boat to find land.

• 30 of 33 describe a colored arch as a symbol of divine favor.

• 31 of 33 say the first thing the people did when they landed on dry

ground was to worship God.

_______________

3. There is strong geological evidence supporting the flood.

4. There is much fossil evidence supporting the flood.

5. Prior to the flood, many believe the world was surrounded with a

vapor canopy.

III. Dinosaurs

1. Dinosaurs lived along with man.

2. The Bible describes dinosaur-like creatures. (Job 40:15-41:34)

Critique of Some of the Creationist Arguments

A critique of some of the creationist arguments of Dr. Hovind by evolutionist Dave E. Matson.

__________________________

Dr. Hovind (A): If the universe is not billions of years old, then we need not bother with the other arguments supporting evolution.

A. The presently accepted history of evolution on Earth would be in trouble if the universe were not billions of years old. Significant evolution, however, can occur in as little as 10 million years. Thus, even if complex life were created on Earth a mere 10 million years ago that would not, in itself, rule out significant biological evolution!

Just the other day Jeffrey Bada and Stanley Miller, both highly respected scientists, presented a new theory of the origin of life to the scientific community. It answers many of the problems plaguing earlier models. Regarding how long it might take for life to evolve, Stanley Miller had this to say:

“We have been adding up the time it might take for life to develop,” Miller said. “The whole process could take place in 10 million years or less.” (LOS ANGELES TIMES, February 21, 1994, A1,A16)

Forget about evolution requiring billions and billions of years to evolve life! It is now believed that life may have evolved a number of times on the early Earth, only to be wiped out by gigantic asteroid impacts.

Dr. Hovind (B): Modern textbooks, in effect, tell us that FROGS+TIME = PRINCE.

B. Wrong! FROGS + TIME does not equal people! Historically speaking, certain early amphibians gave rise to all of the higher life forms today, including man. Frogs are a modern day branch tip on the evolutionary tree, not a section of a limb.

Secondly, if the clock were rewound, humanity would not likely evolve again. Primitive life forms + time MAY equal something complex if the environment is right and if chance factors work for the best.

Dr. Hovind (C): How could many of the marvelous structures evolve by chance?

C. Things don't evolve by chance alone! Natural selection, the key to evolution, is not a random chance process. The environment applies very specific pressures. In that way, Mother Nature selects for certain characteristics. In a desert, for example, certain strategies for plant survival are favored while others are selected against. Since major environments often last a long time, their effect on evolving life is not random. In the desert, plants with better and better adaptations for reproducing despite the heat and lack of water have the edge.

Mutations may be thought of as random, but mutations are not the same thing as evolution. They merely enrich the gene pool whose diversity natural selection acts upon.

General (D): Evolution is merely a theory.

D. Evolution (descent of life with modification) is a fact of life! That is to say, it may be deduced from the facts with near certainty. The fact of evolution is debated in the scientific community about as often as the roundness of the Earth! Both issues have been settled scientifically long ago. If you don't believe me, scan the world's leading scientific journals, such as Nature or Science, and tell me how many articles in the last 24 issues challenge the fact of evolution. Legitimate scientific disagreement is not over descent with modification, but rather over how best to explain descent with modification. Such explanations constitute the theories of evolution. It is there we find the legitimate scientific debate which creationists are so fond of quoting, often out of context.

In the United States the chief opposition to the fact of evolution comes from a noisy, minority religious crusade cloaked in scientific jargon, whose ultimate goal is to enforce the teaching of fundamentalist doctrine in our schools.

Dr. Hovind (E): Evolution is a religion, not part of science.

E. Evolution does not postulate a creator. It offers no guide to moral living. It has neither a temple of worship nor a priesthood. It contains no sacred dogma. Dr. Hovind, how in the world do you turn it into a religion?

“Scientific creationism” has been proven in a court of law to be nothing more than a thinly veiled religion. U.S. District Court Judge William R. Overton in 1982 ruled unconstitutional an Arkansas law which tried to sneak Genesis into the schools under the guise of science. Let me quote Ronald Ecker to sum up a few of Judge Overton's points.

In finding for the plaintiffs, Overton, drawing heavily from the experts' courtroom testimony, gave no quarter to the creationist defense. “Evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology,” he wrote, and any student deprived of instruction “as to the prevailing scientific thought” on such topics as the age of the earth, geology, and relationships among living things “will be deprived of a significant part of science education.” Science, Overton said, is defined as that which is “accepted by the scientific community”; science is “what scientists do,” and “creation science” as defined in Act 590 “is simply not science.” ... The creationists' two-model approach is “a contrived dualism which has no scientific factual basis or legitimate educational purpose.” (ECKER, 1990, pp.137-138)

Evolution meets all the criteria of a good science; scientific creationism fails as science. In the U. S. Supreme Court case of Edwards V. Aguillard a remarkable friend-of-court brief was submitted by 72 Nobel laureates, seventeen state academies of science, and seven other scientific organizations which exposed “scientific creationism” as a fraud. I know of no other document of belief supported by so many Nobel prizewinners!

Let's compare real science to “scientific” creationism.

1. Real scientists, as did Darwin, usually spend some time pointing out the possible weaknesses they see in their theories. Creationists usually minimize or ignore the weaknesses in their theories unless the cat is out of the bag.

2. Real scientists publish scientific literature, which can be very unorthodox, in refereed journals. Creationists, apparently having nothing much to say to the scientific community, write for the layman. They have found it necessary to publish their ideas in special “creationist journals” because none of the hundreds of legitimate scientific journals find their work acceptable.

3. Real scientists are quick to criticize their colleagues if they suspect an error. (Remember the cold fusion flap?) Creationists have a fortress mentality, and they are quick to circle their wagons. To admit error is considered bad form among creationists, and most of them must literally be smoked out before admitting any errors whatsoever.

4. Real scientists are quick to test promising ideas (however unorthodox) and those which don't pan out quickly disappear from the literature. Creationist arguments having serious errors, including arguments based solely on obsolete data, circulate indefinitely in the creationist literature.

5. Real scientists are often involved in meaningful laboratory and field work. Creationists spend most of their time combing through books and technical journals for quotes with which to snipe at evolution. When they're not doing that they can usually be found out on the stump drumming up support among the uneducated public.

6. Real scientists base their theories on the available evidence. Creationists take their science straight from the Bible. Many creationist leaders have publically stated, often in print, that any evidence at variance with the Bible should be rejected out of hand.

7. No self-respecting scientist would ever think of signing an oath of allegiance to Darwinism as a condition for employment. Many creationist societies actually require a “loyalty oath” which is tantamount to an admission that their minds are closed!

8. Real scientists gather facts for the purpose of testing their ideas. Creationists gather facts to prop up their preconceived ideas.

9. All good scientists admit that they might be wrong, at least in principle, that absolute certainty is not part of science. Except for trivial details, creationists cannot conceive of the possibility that they are in error as that would take down their concept of biblical inerrancy.

10. Not one of the great universities, where real science is done and advanced, takes creationism seriously. Those few “universities” where creationism is featured have either failed to get full accreditation or have done so only through the pulling of political strings. What discoveries have they made? Name their Nobel laureates!

11. Scientists build upon numerous findings accumulated over the years, and only then are great revolutionary breakthroughs achieved. Creationists fancy that they are in the process of overthrowing biology, geology, astronomy, anthropology, linguistics, paleontology, archaeology, oceanography, cosmology, physics, and numerous other branches of science. Some creationists (the flat-earth societies) would add the “grease-ball” theory of round-earth geography to that list.

Dr. Hovind (F): Let's imagine we are exploring an old gold mine. Suppose we find a Casio Databank watch half buried in the mud and, upon closer inspection, still keeping good time. Perhaps the watch is a 1000 years old. No, this particular entrance to the mine was dug 150 years ago. Maybe, then, it is 150 years old. No, the model was marketed only 12 years ago. Could it have been there 10 years? No, the batteries are only good for 5 years.

We might not be able to pin down the precise age of that watch, but each of the above arguments establishes a maximum age. Any estimates giving an older age than 5 years may be ignored as irrelevant. If we found a 30-year-old shoe near the watch that would not override our 5 year maximum estimate. The minimum date takes precedence.

The same logic can be applied to finding the age of the Earth. If several factors limit the age of the Earth to within the last few thousand years, the Earth cannot be older than that! Even if a few indicators seem to show a greater age for the Earth, it only takes ONE proof of a young Earth to prove the Earth is young. Below is a list of arguments that limit the age of the universe and Earth to within the last few thousand years.

F. If you were trying to date some mountain range, then the uranium-lead age of a certain layer of rock which made up part of that mountain would yield, at most, a maximum age in accordance to the above analogy. Thus, if we found another layer of rock in that mountain which, by the potassium-argon method, yielded half the previous age, then the younger age would stand.

The watch analogy is wrong because creationists are trying to date the entire Earth, not some fixture on it! They are trying to date the mine, not the watch! Each of the figures, then, would give a minimum date. The largest reliable figure would take precedence. Therefore, we need only one good argument yielding an old age for the Earth!

Dr. Hovind (G): Each of these evidences of a young Earth is described in great detail in the books referred to at the end of each line.

G. The book's authors read like a Who's Who in the creationist world! I guess it takes a creationist to explain these things, because I sure don't know any reputable scientists who would accept these young-Earth arguments! By now you should have some inkling as to why respectable scientists reject such claims.

Dr. Hovind (H): Those who believe the earth is billions of years old will typically try to discredit one of the above arguments and then mistakenly think that they have successfully proven the entire list wrong.

H. I certainly don't know of anyone who would do that!

Dr. Hovind (I): The burden of proof is on the evolutionists if they expect all taxpayers to fund the teaching of their religion in the school system.

I. The topics of evolution (descent of life with modification) and the old age of the Earth are not scientific controversies! If you look at the last 50 issues of any of the world's leading scientific journals, such as Nature or Science, you will not find any debates in progress about the fact of evolution or the old age of the Earth! You might find a debate over the explanation of those facts, or of specific dates or rates, but never over the facts themselves. If you look into our best universities, you will not find any scientific debates in progress on those subjects. Standard reference works, such as the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, treat them as facts. They are regarded as fact by knowledgeable people who are not fettered with extreme religious prejudice.

We taxpayers owe it to our children to expose them to the best that science offers. Of course, philosophical speculation should be clearly labeled as such. On that point I would agree with Dr. Hovind. Jumping from the facts of evolution to a non-theistic universe is not a proper conclusion of science. Science does not speculate on the supernatural.

The fact that some religious groups aren't living in the real world should not be allowed to dumb down our public schools. If you want to believe that the Earth is 6000 years old that's your business. If you make it your religion and teach it to your children, that's your error and their injury. If you make it your crusade to force it into the science classroom, that's your Waterloo!

Try to understand. Suppose that flat-Earth creationism became very popular and books appeared defending the flat-Earth hypothesis. Such parents, of course, would be very unhappy to find that the public schools were teaching that the Earth is round. Some of those parents would move their children into private schools which teach flat-Earth theory. Others would campaign against the “brainwashing” their children were getting in the public schools. Perhaps they would demand equal time for flat-Earth views. How would you handle that potato?

It would be irresponsible, of course, to include the flat-Earth view in our geography classes. Time spent on discussing the evidence for a flat-Earth is time robbed from serious learning. As it is, there are many things that should be covered in a geography class that get left out for lack of time. Nor would we want to leave the impressionable student with the idea that the flat-Earth hypothesis is a serious scientific alternative.

I think you will agree with me that the teaching of the round-Earth hypothesis should not depend on popularity polls. I think that you would also agree that the flat-Earth hypothesis should not be injected into the geography classroom under the premises that it would be fair to present all sides of the issue. The point, of course, is that the flat-Earth hypothesis is not a valid “side” of geography. We, as taxpayers, would expect our public schools to teach serious geography so as to best prepare our kids for the future. Such a decision, of course, will make the flat-Earth folks very unhappy, and they might even vote you out of office, but there is no other responsible choice.

Glorious Are the Works of the Lord: Studying the Heavens

Romans 3:23

Warren Rubel Lecture in Christianity and Higher Learning, by Bruce J. Hrivnak, delivered to the faculty and students of Christ College, Valparaiso University.

INTRODUCTION

It is an honor and a pleasure to be here with you this evening. It was with mixed emotions that I agreed to speak on the topic of "Christianity and Higher Learning." In addition to the honor of the invitation, I felt daunted by the task, for I have never given such a lecture. I also felt humbled by the selection (do they really want me!) and excited by the opportunity that it would enforce upon me to reflect further on this topic which I consider to be central to my work here at Valparaiso University. I am glad to be here.

The Psalmist writes, "The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech, night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out to the ends of the world" (Ps 19:1-4a).(1)

However, one might think it to be just the opposite, that those who spend the most time studying the heavens and nature appear least inclined to be religious. There is a perception that a person who is a scientist lives according to logic, data, and a detached objectivity, and that in contrast a person who is religious lives by faith, feelings, and a personal subjectivity. Facts versus faith. This idea of science and religion as two divergent approaches to life in this world is pretty pervasive. I find that people are often surprised to find out that I am both a scientist and a Christian.

Science has answered so many questions about our world and with more time, it may seem that it will answer almost all. In the past, things that mankind attributed to God we now attribute to gravity, germs, plate tectonics, etc. Science, due to its technological prowess and benefits, has risen in prestige. As science has increased our knowledge, it appears that God has been pushed to the edges or completely out of the picture.

How has the Christian church responded? It has responded in a variety of ways but often defensively. In an effort to uphold the supernatural teachings of the Bible, including miracles, the incarnation of God in Jesus, his virgin birth, and the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the church has often responded by emphasizing the importance of faith and by being suspicious of science. Scientists are often cast as atheists with a hidden agenda to disrupt belief in God and turn young people from the faith of their fathers and mothers. While this contrast may not be the experience of all, it is still a common strain. Controversy over the teaching of biological evolution and "creation science," and evidence regarding the "big bang" beginning for the cosmos appear from time to time in the popular news. At least in the area of origins there seems to be a "warfare" between science and religion. Before examining this more, let me tell you some things about my own particular background, and then go on to interweave my reflections on science and the Christian faith with my own life story.

MY BEGINNINGS AS A CHRISTIAN AND SCIENTIST

My development as a Christian and as a scientist initially followed two separate paths.

I grew up attending church regularly, learning Bible stories and God’s commandments. I thought of God as distant. I remember a vivid sense of God as a judge with a balance scale. I was basically a good kid, and would feel on some days that my good actions and thoughts outweighed the bad; however, that was not always the case, and who knew what tomorrow might bring. What if on the judgement day the scales were tipped against me? I had a clear sense of God’s righteous law.

My coming to understand and embrace the gospel, God’s good news, was strongly influenced by my mother. I remember as a boy in elementary school that she began reading the Bible regularly, attended Christian meetings, and took my brother and me with her to a small chapel on Sunday evenings. I could see some changes occurring in my mother’s life. It appeared that she was able to show love beyond the call of duty in the midst of some challenging situations. This I attributed to God’s work in her life.

What I heard at this time also made sense. I learned several things that the Bible teaches. First that no one is good enough to please God. We all fall short. The Bible says that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," and that "the wages of sin is death" (Rom. 3:23, 6:23). Then, that God provided the solution. He sent His son who was righteous. Furthermore, that through faith in Jesus we are saved, on the basis of his righteous life and his substitutionary death. "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor. 5:21). Finally that we can have assurance of this salvation. "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life" (1 Jn 5:13). What would earlier have seemed like arrogant presumption I now saw as a gracious gift.

This was good news to me! It meant that there was a way for me to be right with God, in spite of the fact that I personally could not live up to his standards or even my own. It was as I was beginning junior high school that I made a faith commitment to God, trusting in what Jesus did to atone for my sins before a holy and loving God. I came to see God as my heavenly Father who personally cared for me. Not only did this remove fear of judgement and lead to trust in God, but it gave me a growing sense of purpose for my life. I also saw God working in my life to help me begin to be less self-centered and more loving, although these are areas in which I continue to need growth.

In the meantime, I found that I was good in math and was interested in science. I was a serious student and loved to read. My parents, both immigrants from Czechoslovakia, worked hard and had a very strong desire that their children graduate from college. The manned space program was just getting started at this time. A career as an astronaut was appealing, but the need for glasses and motion sickness on carnival rides clearly disqualified me! Nevertheless, space had an appeal for me as it did for many others, and my high school yearbook lists my career goal as "physicist."

Looking back, I see what a private Christian life I lived in high school and on into college. I had a discipline of Bible reading and praying, and desired to do what was right. However, I did not have Christian friendships and did not get involved in Christian activities outside of attending church on Sunday. My faith was a private compartment in my life.

During my junior high school and high school days, my family joined a growing Baptist church that I would classify as evangelical and somewhat fundamentalist. From this church background, I came to several impressions as I went away to college. One was that young people who were committed Christians went to Bible college in order to go on the mission field or to become a pastor, a "full-time" Christian worker. (I did not feel that committed and probably wasn't at that time.) Another was that in going to a major secular university one would be very open to attacks on one’s faith and to the ridicule of atheistic professors, and that not "losing the faith" would be a real challenge. (I think that there is some truth to that, and in fact I saw some evidence of that in my first-year philosophy class.)

I also sensed that in the church there existed both a suspicion of science and a high regard for science. A deep suspicion of science because it ignored God and often came to conclusions seemingly contrary to the Bible, particularly epitomized by the theory of evolution of man from lower life forms. On the other hand, the prestige of science was valued. If some scientific discovery seemed to be harmonious with the Bible (or rather let me say with an interpretation of the Bible), it was noted in a bulletin insert or a sermon illustration as being consistent with or even "confirming" the Bible. I heard that new satellites had shown that the Earth was not perfectly round and had "four corners," as had been stated in Isaiah 11:12 which speaks of God gathering dispersed Israel from the "four corners of the earth." The fact that science had not yet found the bottom of the ocean was highlighted when Micah 7:19 was read, "You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea." I found such references to science distracting (I didn’t think that the forgiveness of my sins depended upon the bottom of the ocean remaining beyond discovery) and sometimes distressing. I wondered how I would be regarded as a scientist in the church.

I don’t want to imply that this was the background of every young person growing up in a conservative church in the 1960’s with an interest in science. On the other hand, I don’t think that this was simply my perception or only the way things were in my church. There clearly was a deep-rooted suspicion of science and the universities in many conservative churches, and in some cases this may have been well-founded. This can lead one to wonder if it had always been the case that the church and science were in opposition.

CHRISTIANITY AND SCIENCE: A LOOK AT THE HISTORIC BACKGROUND

How did we arrive at the situation of opposition or even warfare between science and religion?

It may be surprising to some to learn that many of the founders of modern science were deeply religious men and committed Christians. Names of these include Johannes Kepler (who determined the shape of the orbits that the planets follow around the sun), Galileo (who first turned the newly invented telescope towards the heavens to study them), Isaac Newton (the brilliant physicist who among other things formulated the basic laws of motion and gravity), Michael Faraday (the great experimenter in electricity), and James Clerk Maxwell (who formulated the laws relating electricity and magnetism). Listen to the following words: "I give you thanks, Creator and God, that you have given me this joy in thy creation, and I rejoice in the works of your hands. See I have now completed the work to which I was called. In it I have used all the talents you have lent to my spirit." This was written by Kepler in one of his notebooks.(2)

Modern science and the scientific method of systematic inquiry arose in Western Europe. Some historians say that it was Christianity that provided a foundation for modern science with its belief in one God with a definite character, which meant that the universe was an orderly and knowable place. (3) From the Bible one can derive a worldview that nature is both real (not an illusion) and has value since it was created by God and thus is worthy of study. The Creation is good, the material world is not evil. As an outcome of the Protestant Reformation and its doctrine of the "priesthood of all believers," the teaching arose that not just religious but all lawful secular vocations can be callings from God.(3) A majority of the initial members of the Royal Society of London, one of the first scientific societies, were Puritans,(4) who saw the study of nature as a way of glorifying God. I list the names above not to imply that we should believe what they believed because they were important people or scientific heroes, but rather to show that scientific study and Christian faith were quite compatible and even mutually encouraging.

Even the situation with Galileo, which is often cast as a proto-typical case of the church opposing science, turns out to be more complicated than that upon further inquiry. Apparently Galileo had many enemies among those at the universities who staunchly supported the Aristotelian views he attacked. Also Galileo’s personality seemed to antagonize others and in controversy his attacks were biting. Envy of his rising status may also have been involved. The point to be made is that the trial and condemnation of Galileo made by the Catholic church was more complex than simply the case of the church seeking to maintain its authority and so restraining scientific inquiry.(5)

With this background, why is the situation so different today? Several factors appear to have been at work during the 18th and 19th centuries. These include rationalism, anti-traditionalism, the "God of the gaps" view of God which invokes God to explain the gaps in our knowledge, the efforts in some circles to remove the supernatural from the Bible, Darwinian evolution and the ensuing controversies, and an increasingly naturalistic viewpoint. All of these appear to have been factors and have been written about.(6) Apparently some, among whom was Thomas Huxley at the end of the 19th century, consciously wanted to overthrow the cultural dominance of Christianity, to replace a "Christian worldview with scientific materialism."(3) The warfare image was initially spread primarily by opponents of Christianity such as Andrew D. White, the president of Cornell, who wrote A HISTORY OF THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE WITH THEOLOGY (1896) that helped to lead to the popular impression of a past and lasting opposition. However, as we have seen, such opposition was not the case.

In the second quarter of the 20th century, as conservative Christians saw themselves as a minority within or as separatists from many of the major church denominations, a fortress mentality seems to have set in. Modernism and liberalism in theology and naturalism in science seemed to be carrying the day. A tightly defined circle of orthodoxy was established, one which often included a commitment to a literal interpretation of the Bible. The public fallout of the Scopes trial (1925) concerning the teaching of evolution in public schools further put conservative Christians on the defensive. Committed to the belief that true science, which dealt with facts, was not in contradiction to the Bible, they concluded that scientific ideas which seemed to contradict the Bible must be false or biased science.7 This led to a retreat from the scientific laboratories and in many cases from engagement in the world and instead led to Bible colleges and the study of the Bible and practical skills. In some cases, anti-intellectualism arose, if not in principle, at least in practice. Of course, this exacerbated the problem, for this resulted in fewer Christians in science and fewer Christian role models for students.6

I realize that this is not true of all traditions, but as I look back, this is my broad-stroke interpretation of the background out of which I went off to college.

MY TIME IN COLLEGE AND SOME CHANGING VIEWS

I majored in Physics as an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, and kept busy with studies and running on the track team. I continued in my life as a private Christian, reading the Bible and attending a local church for an hour on Sunday, but with very little Christian engagement beyond that. Each semester in college, I'd plan to get more involved with Penn’s InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF), believing group Bible study and Christian fellowship were good things to do. However, I actually participated little because it was not a high priority among the several things competing for my time.

During my last semester as an undergraduate, however, several things happened to cause some changes. I attended a large Christian conference over Christmas break at the University of Illinois, sponsored by IVCF. I was encouraged and challenged to see a basketball arena filled with 16,000 fellow college students who were serious about living a Christian life. Over spring break I went to a smaller Christian student conference featuring Francis Schaeffer, a Christian apologist who encouraged Christians to engage the world. I realized that I tended to confine my faith internally and did not have confidence that it fit with the real world. Reading the works of Schaeffer, such as THE GOD WHO IS THERE,(8) gave me confidence to face the world as a Christian with the sense that all truth was God's truth: a Christian worldview would really fit with the real world that God made, and in fact was the only one that would. One can get the idea, with all of the various philosophies that have arisen in the world, that Christianity had been tried and found wanting and that these others fit better with the real world. But I came to see that these different worldviews developed from the presuppositions and choices that people made as to how they would respond to life in this fallen world. The idea that the teachings of the Bible and a Christian worldview actually made sense of the world was exciting and liberating for me. Related to this, that same spring, I felt particularly challenged to trust God more in all of my life. Inwardly I had a personal, private faith that God cared for me. Way out there, I believed that God had created the stars, but my life and faith was compartmentalized. In terms of my day-to-day life, how I spent my time and set priorities, I felt that I was struggling on my own. I sensed that I was leading a basically self-centered life, filtering things through the grid of what they would do for me. I didn’t feel good about this; this was not the way that I wanted to live the rest of my life. I wanted to live as an integrated, whole person. I remember sitting down on a street curb, reflecting on this and the illogical nature of believing that God was involved in the big picture of the universe out there, but feeling that I could not trust him for how I should live my life down here. At that time I remember making a specific commitment to begin seeking God’s involvement in every area of my life.

As these things were coming together in my life, I graduated with a degree in Physics. I had applied to several graduate schools in Astronomy, and in God’s providence I stayed in Philadelphia and entered the Astronomy Department at the University of Pennsylvania. This turned out to be an exciting and challenging chapter in my life. I became an active part of a small church that had just been started by some recent seminary graduates who desired to minister to students and present a Christian witness to the campus community. Several of us were graduate students in the physical sciences and the pastor was a physics major as an undergraduate. I had found kindred souls. Lucy and I met and were married there. I consciously determined to set some priorities for my time and to not let my studies be the focus of my whole life as they had been as an undergraduate. It was a time of digging into the Bible and theology as a group and of seeking to consciously live in Christian community.

MY RESEARCH: STUDYING THE STARS

Along with my graduate studies I also did some teaching at Penn in their summer school and at nearby LaSalle College. I enjoyed teaching and seemed to do well at it. However, my thesis research was going slowly. At that time I could see myself enjoying a career as a college teacher. Success and enthusiasm in research came more slowly but have come to be an integral part of my professional life.

My early research as a graduate student and in the years immediately after that focussed on the basic properties of stars. These can be determined most accurately when they have a companion star. By studying the orbital and light variations of such binary stars, one can deduce the mass, size, and luminosity of each.

Stars, however, also change or evolve with time due to changes in their internal structures. Stars like the sun will expand and eventually become large red giant stars. Such stars can have the diameter of a hundred suns. After a period of stability, the star will again expand and begin to lose its outer layers. These then drift away, producing a huge shell of gas around the star and leaving in the center a hot core. This is called a planetary nebula, which, however, is a misnomer, since it is not related to planets. The gas shell eventually dissipates into space and the core cools to become a white dwarf. This is the cycle that we think stars like the sun go through.

The particular research I have been engaged in is studying the transition from the red giant, the large red star, to the planetary nebula, when one sees the glowing shell of gas around the hot core. What goes on in between? It turns out it’s a stage that’s been hard to study partly because it takes place rapidly, astronomically speaking, over a few thousand years, and partly because the star is often obscured by the gas and dust it is losing. The opportunity to study them arose in 1983 with the IRAS satellite. It orbited the earth with a telescope sensitive to infrared emission, and by surveying the entire sky, it found a quarter of a million sources. Infrared emission is given off by objects that are warm, not hot like stars such as the sun. This is what one would expect for stars surrounded by gas and dust, which would absorb the light from the star and then warm up and shine in the infrared.

When the IRAS data became available, I was at the University of Calgary in a postdoctoral position. It was fortunate timing that during the year before coming to Valparaiso, I had the opportunity to begin interacting with Dr. Sun Kwok, who had just joined the faculty at Calgary and who was already recognized as an expert in the study of planetary nebulae. We began collaborating on some research during that last year and have continued doing so for 17 years. The satellite data showed where in the sky these infrared sources were located. Using some of the largest telescopes in the world, located in Hawaii, we had the opportunity to look for these objects and to see whether the star in the center was visible. In many cases the star was completely obscured, but in some cases we could actually see the central star. We were quite excited when we found the first case of a bright star that corresponded to the infrared source. When we took the spectrum of it we saw indeed it was a red supergiant. Thus we had begun to find some of these transitional objects. We continued finding additional ones, a few dozen in total.

At the same time, my colleagues at the University of Calgary began looking at some spectral data from the IRAS satellite. A large peak at 21 microns in the infrared spectrum indicated some new molecular feature that had not previously been studied or recognized here on the earth, arising from the gas and dust around the star. This was exciting and in a way got us going on a bit of a detective story. We initially found four such objects and later a dozen, and all the ones that showed the signature of this new chemistry in space were stars in the transitional phase between red giant and planetary nebula. Something in that stage or that environment caused this molecule to form. We found that a common trait in all the objects with the 21 micron emission feature was that they possess an unusually large abundance of carbon. After some more recent satellite data and a lot of work in laboratories, the source of this emission peak has likely been identified as titanium carbide around the star. However, that may not be the end of the story as there have more recently been some other suggested identifications. It has been exciting to participate in the discovery of some new molecules in space. This identification of titanium carbide could set limits on how titanium is formed in stars and so it gets us into the subject of nucleosynthesis and the formation of elements.

We are also interested in studying how the gas was ejected from the star. The red giant stars are spherical in shape, yet planetary nebula gas shells have a variety of shapes. Using the telescopes again in Hawaii we were able to take pictures of these objects, but they were just too small to see details of the shapes of the gas shells. However, that changed when we had the opportunity to use the Hubble Space Telescope. In Figure 1 are shown Hubble pictures taken of two objects from our study. From ground-based telescopes in Hawaii we had been able to determine that each of them appeared not as a single point of light but as two blobs. With the Hubble much more detail is seen. They each appear to have bipolar lobes, with light scattered from the lobes toward us and with a dark lane across the middle. In addition we see some faint circular arcs. (Note that these are false color pictures, with the colors used to bring out enhancements in the bright regions.) In Figure 2 are displayed two more objects that we observed with the Hubble which again show a bipolar structure, but in this case one of them appears to be tilted toward us. We are finding that many of these transitional objects have a bipolar structure, so a theoretical model had been constructed assuming there must be a torus or donut-shaped region of dust around the central star which prohibits the light and gas from expanding in those directions. Thus the gas expands in opposite directions through the hole in the torus and scatters the light towards us producing such bipolar shapes. In one of our most recent Hubble images (Figure 3) we are able, for the first time, to directly see this obscuring torus. In two additional cases we have been able to discover surrounding circular arcs. These arcs are seen by light reflected from the gas. The presence of both circular arcs and bipolar lobes in the same objects suggests that the gas was initially ejected from the star in a spherical process, producing the circular arcs, and then later changed to produce gas moving off in opposite directions. We are presently investigating why this would occur.(9)

I am also carrying out some research with students using the modest but modern facilities of the Valparaiso University Observatory to study how the brighter of these stars vary in light due to pulsation. This can tell us something about the internal structure of the stars.

This is only one small taste of what we have been learning about the cosmos. The stars that I have been studying are all found in our Milky Way Galaxy. As we move beyond our own galaxy, we find a universe consisting of galaxies each containing billions of stars. One of the special projects done with the Hubble Space Telescope was to focus the cameras for ten days on one region of the sky, taking hundreds of photographs that were then superimposed on one another to build up an image of the faint light. Each one of the objects in the resulting picture (Figure 4) is a galaxy, except for a few nearby foreground stars. There are 1,500 galaxies in the image. Now, just to put it in perspective, this picture has the angular size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length. This region was picked because it seemed to be an empty region in space. If we assume that it is typical of the whole universe, that implies that there are a total of 50 billion galaxies, each containing billion stars. Truly this is an awesome and beautiful universe!

MY LIFE AS A CHRISTIAN AND A SCIENTIST

This glorious universe was created by God, and I consider it a privilege to be able to study it and teach others about it. One can ask what difference it makes to me as an astronomer that I have a Christian faith. Has it affected the kind of work I do or how I carry it out?

Has my faith affected my choice of research topics? No, not significantly. The Earth is the Lord’s and the heavens are his handiwork; thus they are all appropriate areas of study. (In principle, being a Christian could certainly affect the subject of one’s scholarly research &emdash; certain experiments on humans or animals would be inappropriate, and some areas have more immediate benefit or usefulness than others.) But I have basically carried out my research in areas of interest and opportunity. Perhaps I have been less enthusiastic than some in the search for extraterrestrial life. This is partly because I believe that life did not arise by random chance and partly because I don’t believe that the existence of extraterrestrial live is such an ultimate question. The question of whether we are alone in the universe has been answered by God.

Has my faith affected the way I carry out my scholarly work? Yes, I believe that it has. I have benefited recently from reading Mark Schwehn’s book EXILES FROM EDEN(11) (and wish that I had read it earlier). I appreciated his illustration of several spiritual virtues that can influence the way one goes about his/her scholarly work. Here are some of these that elicited personal responses.

HUMILITY: being humble before other scholars and working to try to understand what they are saying. A more senior scholar can either take time for younger colleagues in his field and even learn from them, or he can simply dismiss their differing views out of laziness, busyness, or as a response to feeling threatened.

SELF-DENIAL: not putting myself first. I have certain ideas, theories that I favor. It is not hard to promote these if I look primarily at supportive data and stress how it fits with my hypothesis, or if I look primarily at the weaknesses of competing theories, without acknowledging and dealing adequately with their strengths. It takes more effort to charitably and sincerely deal with the competing ideas of a colleague than to minimize or simply ignore them. Yet we can be tempted to do this, if not for self-promotion, at least as a response to the pressure of time and the desire to complete a project as soon as possible and have it published. In fact, after reading this section of Mark Schwehn’s book, I felt that I had to go back and do some more work on a paper I was preparing, to see that I was fair to another viewpoint. I want to ‘"do unto others as [I] would have them do unto [me]" (Matt. 7:12).

One can also consider HONESTY AND INTEGRITY. Honesty is, of course, expected in reporting data and experimental results. It is an implicit assumption in scientific research. Being honest and presenting realistic expectations also comes into play in writing grant proposals.(12) Do I really expect to carry out all of the great research that I propose within the specified time period? I find that I struggle constantly with setting unrealistic expectations of what I will get done and then so often feeling the pressure of being behind schedule.

It is easy to get caught up in self-promotion and even to exaggerate the importance of a scholarly project. We hear it said "If you don’t promote your work, who will?" "If others don’t know about the good work that you’re doing, then you are less likely to get your research proposals approved and funded. And this affects not only you, but also support for your students and even the presentation of the university in a more favorable light." So there is a balance here. I find that I need to be self-conscious about this so that I am fair and don’t get caught up in self-promotion. I also believe that it is important that I do GOOD WORK. My summer research students each year hear me stress the importance of working diligently and carefully and doing the job right, and if we later find that we have not done this, then going back and carefully correcting our work. For me, this follows because it is the Lord whom I serve and his handiwork that I am describing. This means working whole-heartedly and carefully.

As a teacher, my faith motivates me to deal with students as whole people, who feel the ups and downs of life in a fallen world. I set high standards for them, because I want them to learn about the cosmos and also to learn to think carefully and critically. God made a very interesting world and he gave us the ability to inquire into it. I particularly encourage students to work at integrating their learning with their religious beliefs. In the astronomy survey course, the question of origins comes up as we discuss the history of the earth and cosmology. Almost all Valparaiso University students have some religious beliefs and most come from a background of Christianity. As an assignment near the end of the semester in Astronomy 101, I present the students with three basic approaches on how the biblical language on origins can be understood. Please realize that this is oversimplified, but I think that it is representative. One is a literal approach, which considers the biblical discussion of origins and especially Genesis chapters 1 and 2 as being literal. This is the approach taken by "young-earth creationists," who interpret the six creation days in Genesis as consecutive 24-hour days and conclude that the Earth is young, a few thousand years old. On the other side is the figurative interpretation, in which the different genres of writing found in the bible are noted and the creation account in Genesis is interpreted figuratively. A third approach is to see a harmony between the creation accounts in the Bible and the findings of science.(13)

All three views start with the basic idea that God is the creator. The figurative view avoids conflict with science by assuming that the Bible does not make scientific statements. The literal view believes that the Bible does make scientific statements and that the scientific evidence for billions of year ages for the Earth and stars and the evidence for evolution in the cosmos is simply wrong. The harmony view advocates a correspondence between the description and the order of creation in the Bible and the modern scientific picture. In this view, for example, God’s initial creation of light corresponds to the big bang. My goal is not to persuade students to one particular view, but to have them read and discuss the various views in order to see how others approach these questions. I desire for them to begin to integrate rather than to compartmentalize their faith and learning. Some of them are doing this. I am glad to be at a place like Valparaiso where encouraging such examination and integration is not seen as out of place but rather encouraged.

In two particular areas, I confess, I feel like I walk a bit of a tightrope regarding my work as a scientist and my Christian commitment.

I have encountered many devoted Christians who believe that the Bible teaches that God made the sun and stars just like they are within six 24-hour days not long ago. They have been taught to believe that is what the Bible teaches and that any other view is unbiblical and simply an accommodation to modern science. This view can even be made a test of Christian orthodoxy. I have usually avoided being controversial on this issue. I have been content to talk one-on-one with people to express my opinion that the evidence of nature does not support the view that the Earth and the cosmos are only thousands of years old; rather they appear to be billions of years old and shows evidence of change by processes in nature. Of course, that in itself does not settle the issue, for I do not wish to imply that the scientific viewpoint should simply decide it. But I think that we need to take seriously the evidence in nature as being part of God’s general revelation to mankind. Since it has the same author, the general revelation we see in nature should be consistent with the special revelation that we find in the Bible. How then do we deal with apparent differences between them? Perhaps the arguments about whether the sun moves around the earth or vice versa are instructive here. I have basically adopted the principle summarized by the Princeton theologian Charles Hodge, "if [the ordinary] sense brings the Mosaic account into conflict with facts, and another sense would avoid such conflict, then it is obligatory on us to adopt the other."(14) Thus I look for an alternate interpretation of the biblical text that would fit with the data of astronomy or archeology or history without doing violence to the context or the overall biblical thrust on the topic.

Those of us with a strong view of God’s providence in human affairs should not have difficulty in accepting His providence in cosmic affairs. I think that one can understand the days of creation as being representative of God’s creative activity, with the order perhaps indicating not the order of creation (which would imply that plant life was created on day three and the sun on day four), but the order of how it would have appeared to an observer on earth (had one been present). I am pleased that my own denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America, has recently adopted a statement which, while affirming the historicity of the early chapters of Genesis, has also affirmed that ministers my have divergent views on the length of the creation days. I am reminded of a quote on this subject J. H Pratt from the end of the 19th century which is as follows: "The Book of Nature and the Word of God emanate from the same infallible Author, and therefore cannot be at variance. But man is a fallible interpreter, and by mistaking one or both of these Divine Records he forces them too often into unnatural conflict."(15)

While I do not believe that this is a central issue of Christian doctrine which should divide believers, nevertheless, I feel that I should be more aggressive at times and not let uncritical thinking in this area go unchallenged. There is an issue of truth and the integrity of God’s creation involved. In fact, the "young-earth" view may set an unnecessary hurdle in the way of scientists and other educated people coming to faith in Christ and trust in the reliability of the scriptures. As an aside, I have been pleased to recently met several younger Christian astronomers who are just getting started in their careers. At their initiative, several of us have been getting together at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society and encouraging one another in our callings. A healthy exchange of e-mail circulates among us on various issues. I am delighted to see this.

The other area where I feel that I walk a tightrope is that of time and priorities. Wanting to do my work well as a teacher and scholar requires a lot of time. Here at Valparaiso University, we place a high commitment on teaching and mentoring our students well. Given the time that takes, it is then difficult to maintain an active scholarly research program on a national or international level. I struggle with issues of time and balance here. Not balance between teaching and scholarship, but between academic work and the rest of my life. Being an astronomer is my vocation, not my life. In the larger picture I am called to not only be a scholar-teacher, but also a husband, father, churchman, and neighbor. I am to do all of these things in the context of serving God, by his grace, and as one who is accountable to him. As my brother has reminded me on more than one occasion, on our deathbeds it is unlikely that we will regret that we had not spent more time at our work. I very much appreciate the patience of my wife and children and Lucy’s gentle nudges when things get too out of balance with my work.

I thank you for your patience in hearing me describe the path that I have taken to and in my vocation as an astronomer, and also how my Christian commitment has impacted this. As I mentioned earlier, I carry out this work with a sense that it is a privilege and a responsibility. It is a privilege to study the heavens as God’s handiwork and their development by processes that God has created. It is a privilege to tell others of the awesomeness of the creation: professional colleagues though papers and conferences, students in the classroom, and the community at the public nights at the observatory. I also consider it a responsibility to serve God with the abilities that he has given me and to love and serve him with my heart and soul and strength and mind. This calling has been exciting and fulfilling, and the reflection that the preparation for this lecture entailed has been helpful in self-consciously refreshing my vision. The Westminster Shorter Catechism, question 1, asks in 17th century English, "What is the chief end of man?" The answer is, "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever." That answer continues to sound good to me today.

___________________

REFERENCES

1. References from the scripture are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version, copyright by the International Bible Society.

2. Quoted by Nancy R. Pearcy and Charles B. Thaxton, in The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy, 1994 (Wheaton,IL: Crossway Books), p 23.

3. Pearcy, Nancy R., and Thaxton, Charles B., 1994, in The Soul of Science: Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books), pp. 17-42.

4. Stated by Kenneth L. Pike in With Heart and Mind: A Personal Synthesis of Scholarship and Devotion, 1970 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans), pp. 26-27.

5. Hummel, Charles E., 1986, in The Galileo Connection: Resolving Conflicts between Science & the Bible (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press), pp. 80-125.

6. Marsden, George M., 1991, in Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans) pp. 122-152.

7. Marsden, George M., 1980, in Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism 1870-1925 (New York: Oxford), pp. 212-121.

8. Schaeffer, Francis A., 1968, the God who is there (Chicago: Inter-Varsity Press).

9. For a popular account of this research, see S. Kwok, 1998, Sky & Telescope, 96, (Oct.) pp. 30-35. For more technical accounts, I refer the reader to the following articles: Kwok, S. et al. 1998, Astrophys. J., 501, L117-L121; Su, K. Y. L., et al. 1998, Astrophys. J., 508, 744-751; Hrivnak, B. J., et al. 1999, Astrophys. J., 524, 849-856; Volk, K., et al. 1999, Astrophys. J., 516, L99-L102.

10. Image from the Space Telescope Science Institute/NASA.

11. Schwehn, Mark R. 1993, Exiles from Eden: Religion and the Academic Vocation in America (New York: Oxford).

12. I was stimulated to think about this after reading Walter R. Hearn, Being a Christian in Science, 1995, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press), p. 43.

13. Examples of these views are as follows: literal - The Biblical Basis for Modern Science by Henry M. Morris, 1984, (Grand Rapids: Baker); concordant or harmony - The Fingerprint of God by Hugh Ross, 1991 (Orange, CA: Promise Publishing), Genesis One & the Origin of the Earth, by Robert C. Newman & Herman J. Eckelmann, Jr., 1977 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press); figurative - The Fourth Day: What the Bible and the Heavens are telling us about the Creation by Howard J. Van Till, 1986 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans).

14. Hodge, Charles A., 1872, Systematic Theology, Part I (New York: Scribner), p. 571, quoted by Robert C. Newman and Herman J. Eckelmann Jr. in Genesis One & the Origin of the Earth, 1997 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press), p. 134.

15. Pratt, J. H. 1872, in Science and Scripture Not at Variance, quoted in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, published by the American Scientific Affiliation, a national organization of scientists who are Christians.

Some additional books on Christianity and science not referenced above that I have found to be helpful and interesting over the years include the following: The Christian View of Science and Scripture, Bernard Ramm, 1954 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans); Christianity & the Age of the Earth, Davis A. Young, 1982, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan); The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, Mark A. Noll, 1994 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans).

The Creation Date Controversy

Psalms 90:4

A strange phenomenon you may have observed in recent years is the willingness, even eagerness, of our academic colleagues to affirm recent creation (creation of the universe, earth, and life in the last few thousand years) as the Biblical teaching on origins. On this issue they seem to concur wholeheartedly with a sizable and vocal segment of the evangelical community, but there's no cause for rejoicing here. The reasons for this concurrence are diametrically opposite.

Some academics find in young-earth creationism a ready excuse to disregard "archaic notions" about the authenticity and authority of the Bible as a revealer of truth concerning God and man. If scientific absurdity shows up on the very first page, there's no need to give serious attention to whatever other "myths" may follow. Any attempt to demonstrate that the Bible teaches a different view, an old-earth view that is scientifically credible and aligns perfectly with even the latest data, is immediately and often vehemently dismissed as propagandistic.

Other academics support the six-day story for its poetic beauty. They insist that scientific fact and religious faith have nothing to do with each other, that they can and must exist separately, the one as a matter of mind, the other as a matter of heart or intuition, and never the twain should be asked to meet. These folks, too, react strongly against any attempt to reconcile the accepted scientific record with the words of Scripture.

For years a Biblically and scientifically plausible old-earth interpretation of creation events has met with no less vitriolic opposition in evangelical circles, though that response is beginning to change. Some pastors and parishioners have come to recognize the "when" of creation as a peripheral issue in their relationship to Christ. They can reexamine the arguments used to support the young-earth position and acknowledge a strong case for an old-earth interpretation. But there are still many others who uphold the young-earth position as the front-line defense against modern (and postmodern) assaults on the Christian faith.

ENTRENCHED BELIEFS

Reasons for this emotion-charged entrenchment are discussed in CREATION AND TIME, a book written by Hugh; we will attempt to summarize them here. The source of resistance in all groups of young-earth proponents, however, seems the same: fear. In the anti-Christian academics we see the fear of having to take the Gospel into careful consideration. That's just too risky for those terrified by the prospect of peer ridicule and rejection, terrified to face the losses that might accompany a change to Christian values and morals through a relationship with Christ.

The fact v. faith separatists harbor some of the same fears, but especially the fear of "literal" interpretation and APPLICATION of Biblical truths. Abuses of "literalness" may trample grace and truth under foot, but so does the utter lack of it. And yet subjectivity feels much more comfortable - and it's certainly more accommodating to modern cultures.

In the Christians who remain adamantly committed to the young-earth view exists a deep-seated fear that someday, somewhere, somehow scientists will discover some fact that clearly and irrefutably contradicts a scriptural statement. And then where will we be? If we trust science, we'll lose our faith in that moment. But if Biblical truth stands above all else, above the so-called facts discovered through the work and thoughts of fallen men, our faith will remain intact. (That's how the reasoning goes.) Science, then, is entirely suspect and may be judged as hopelessly flawed.

Sadly, with the slamming down of that gavel, the Christian community walks away from some of the most powerful faith-building tools available since the founding of the church. All the great cosmological discoveries of the twentieth century fly in the face of materialist notions about the infinite, random universe. On the contrary, they support the fact of a finite beginning caused by and guided by a divine, personal, caring designer, who exists before and beyond the universe. We yearn to see those tools put to use (see, for example, our books THE FINGERPRINT OF GOD and THE CREATOR AND THE COSMOS), for we have found them effective, dramatically so.

But how can we open the door to dialogue? How can we appeal this unwarranted judgment? Willingness to understand and address specific fears is an important step, often a first step, in the long but worthwhile process.

With the first two groups described above, compassion, trust, and sharing of personal histories will be essential to exposing and breaking through emotional and spiritual barriers. Experiences will vary from individual to individual, but the anti-Christian's fears are usually rooted in painful encounters with Christian (sometimes in name only) people. Defensive or pat responses to these wounding encounters will only heighten the barriers; so we must proceed with utmost care, consideration and prayer, not to mention humility.

These qualities are important in discussions with the third group, as well. In the case of these individuals, we can anticipate some of the most troubling barriers they face by reflecting on what they've probably been taught about the "dangers" of old-earth creationist views, and we can start by addressing those specific issues. The five fears we encounter most often are these:

FEAR #1

OLD-EARTH CREATIONISM = EVOLUTIONISM

Relief of such a fear can come through demonstrating that a several-billion-year-old universe and a few-billion-year-old earth are hopelessly too young to accommodate the strictly natural process assembly of even the simplest possible life forms. The difference between 104 years and 1010 years appears trivial compared to the approximately 10100,000,000,000 years non-theistic interpretations of life require. And that's not just the conclusion of Bible-believing Christians. It's the central point of several widely known, academically respected books by nonChristian researchers in a variety of relevant fields (e.g., Robert Shapiro's ORIGINS: A SKEPTIC'S GUIDE TO THE CREATION OF LIFE ON EARTH, Michael Denton's EVOLUTION: A THEORY IN CRISIS, and Hubert Yockey's INFORMATION THEORY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY).

Beyond the origin of life, a comparison of speciation vs. extinction rates before and after the first human beings may help expose the limits of natural processes to explain the observed changes in life on Earth. The speciation rate before humans slightly (but significantly over the millenia) exceeded the extinction rate. Since humans came on the scene, however, the extinction rate has remained fairly constant (about one species per year discounting the effects of human abuse), but the speciation rate has dropped to virtually zero. What could account for this dramatic change? The best explanation, given the provable limitations on natural selection and mutations, is a divine Speciator intervened through all the years recorded in the fossils and then ceased to intervene once He created the first humans. (Does that story sound familiar?)

FEAR #2

OLD-EARTH CREATIONISM = A DENIAL OF LITERAL ADAM AND EVE

While it is true that some old-earth creationists deny the historicity of a literal Adam and Eve or identify Adam and Eve with an ancient australopithicene couple, many (if not most) old-earthers accept the factuality of a recently and specially created Adam and Eve. While the scientific record establishes the existence of bipedal primates as far back as three million years, it does not establish that these bipedal creatures were humans (that is, spiritual beings) and it suggests that they did become extinct.

Genesis states that God created only one species with body, soul, and spirit. Anthropological evidence for spiritual expression dates back only 8,000-24,000 years. (Primates' and other mammals' burial practices serve only as evidence for soul.) The anthropological dates are consistent with the best Biblical dates for Adam and Eve, specifically 6,000-60,000 years ago.

FEAR #3

OLD-EARTH CREATIONISM = DISTORTION OF DOCTRINE OF SALVATION

What is vital to the Christian doctrine is to know WHO created and perhaps something about HOW He created, but not WHEN He created. This ranking is reflected in the structure of Genesis One. The text clearly identifies the who and some of the how of creation, but it says little about the when, other than to indicate what came after what. Some young-earth creationists express concern that if God took billions of years to create, He must be less than all-powerful. But the logic of this supposition does not hold. If a four-minute miler chooses to walk along a garden path, his speed (or lack of it) in no way reflects limitations on his capability.

FEAR #4

OLD-EARTH CREATIONISM = DENIAL OF BIBLICAL INERRANCY

Rather than denying Biblical inerrancy, most old-earth creationists appeal for uncompromising consistency in interpretation of Scripture. Paying due respect to the entire canon requires consideration of all relevant texts when interpreting a particular verse or passage. In the case of creation's time frame, integrative analysis strongly supports, and in no way contradicts, an old-earth interpretation of Genesis One.

At the second summit of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy, the issue of the age of the universe and earth appeared on the agenda. Three papers were presented, and long deliberations followed. The conclusion of all the theologians and Old Testament scholars present was that inerrancy requires belief in creation but not in 24-hour creation days.

FEAR #5

OLD-EARTH CREATIONISM = ELEVATION OF SCIENCE ABOVE THE BIBLE

CREATION AND TIME (Navpress, 1994), Dr. Hugh Ross's most recent book, addresses the creation date controversy from historical, scientific, theological and evangelical perspectives. R.C. Sproul, president of Ligonier Ministries, writes, "With gentleness, compassion, and scintillating logic, CREATION AND TIME shines the light of revelation on the too-dark dispute between those who would banish God and those who would banish reason from their thinking."

The problem lies in confusing "science" with the facts of nature. Science is man's attempt to discover and interpret the facts of nature. Errors and contradictions are possible in science, as well as in theology, since human reasoning and interpreting is involved. But no possibility for error or contradiction exists in either the facts of nature or the words of the Bible. Both are perfect, for both came from God, the source of all truth, in whose character is no deceit or capriciousness.

That which is perfect cannot be inferior or superior to anything else that is perfect. Truth will always be harmonious and consistent with truth. No book of the Bible is more true or less true than any other book. Nor is any book more true or less true than the facts of the natural realm, which also emanated from God. When apparent contradiction arises, it's time for further study into both Scripture and nature.

BIBLICAL EVIDENCES

Given that most young-earth creationists have been taught to discount science, a beginning dialogue about the plausibility of the old-earth view will go further if it focuses on Biblical rather than scientific evidences in support of long creation periods and an ancient earth. CREATION AND TIME lists (and more fully develops) the following Biblical arguments for interpreting the Genesis One creation days as long epochs rather than as a span of 144 hours:

1. God's perspective on time is far different from humans' (Psalm 90:4).

2. The Hebrew words YOM, 'EREB, and BOQER (day, evening, morning) have flexible usage and do not refer solely to the whole or parts of 24-hour days. Neither do numbered days refer strictly to 24-hour periods.

3. Chronologies are meant to be time-discernible. In other words, verification for the spelled-out sequence of events will be discoverable and clear. (If all God's acts of creation were squeezed into that 144-hour period, there's no way future investigation could attest to what happened before or after what.)

4. The "evening and morning" sentences contain unusual syntax.

5. The seventh day continues through Old and New Testament times and on into the future.

6. The events between Adam's creation and Eve's seem to require far more than 24 hours.

7. In Genesis 2:4 the word for "day," YOM, refers to the entire creation week, demonstrating its flexible usage.

8. The Bible writers used mountains and the foundations of the earth as metaphors for God's eternality.

9. The mountains, hills, and heavens are described as "ancient," "age-old," and "of long ago" in numerous Biblical passages.

10. God is truthful and desires to reveal truth, both in the creation and in the written Word. He does not trick or deceive.

11. The Bible affirms that the creation reveals God's existence, His handiwork, His power, and His divine nature.

12. The Bible affirms that the Word of God includes not only the words of the Bible but also His words written on the heavens and the earth.

13. Several Bible writers attest to the vastness of the universe, which in turn reflects age.

14. The work week for man (168 hours) and the work week for the land (7 years) both may be viewed as analogues to God's creation week.

15. The Bible does not deny the physical death of plants and animals before Adam's fall. "Death through sin" refers to spiritual death.

16. Plant and animal death, and thus bloodshed, before Adam's sin does not alter the doctrine of atonement.

17. The creation has been subject to decay since its inception, and that decay process is a strategic part of physical life and God's creative plan.

18. An eighth day is coming. God's rest (cessation) from creating will someday end, and He will create again.

19. God is no less than Almighty for taking more than 144 hours to create.

20. Every people group will be represented in the host of the redeemed, including some physical scientists.

When presented with these Biblical arguments and evidences, some young-earth creationists respond by suggesting that only someone with a modern, science-trained perspective would ever see them as such. If that's the case, however, we would expect the early church fathers to be unanimous in affirming the young-earth, 24-hour-day interpretation. And that is not what we find. In fact, few of the early church fathers took a dogmatic view on either the time or timespan of creation events. Most saw these as a wonderful mystery yet to be unfolded. Young-earth creationism really arose after the King James translation of the Bible and a sequence of clashes between the theological and scientific communities that followed.

If and when a person becomes willing to examine the scientific evidences for an old universe and earth, the fun can really begin. A long and exciting list awaits. (CREATION AND TIME presents a sizable chunk of that list.)

But what we recommend is to begin with a simple, irrefutable piece of evidence, such as the vast size of the universe, which, as mentioned above, reliably indicates age. The most distant objects in the universe are about a hundred billion trillion miles away. With light traveling at 186,000 miles per second, light takes about 15 billion years to reach Earth from these distant objects. And since we do see them, and since our distance measurements have been tested and affirmed, and since we can prove the constancy of the velocity of light and that the light actually emanated from the distant objects and not from some intervening point, those objects must really be that old.

Beyond simply rejecting such scientific evidences for a vast and ancient universe and an old earth, young-earth creationists have gone on to assemble approximately eighty "scientific" evidences for a creation date of roughly 10,000 years. If you have tried these on your science-trained colleagues, you have no doubt discovered (perhaps with painful embarrassment) that all these "evidences" are based on misunderstanding and error.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Please be encouraged yourself and encourage others, as 1 Thessalonians 5:21a says, to "test" what is taught both on campus and in church. As a professor, you are accustomed to having students and others test their ideas on you, and if it is known that you are a Christian, those ideas probably include views on origins and time scales. If every Christian professor were equipped and willing to discuss such issues, the damage caused on many campuses by the misconstrued "Christian" view of creation could begin to undergo repair.

Sadly, it is in our churches that the fires of the creation controversy are fanned most vigorously. Controlling the flames will require college and university professors to take a more vocal role than they may be accustomed to or comfortable with. Most Christian professors we know, especially science professors, prefer to avoid science-and-faith issues in their fellowship groups, partly to keep from stirring up hornets' nests, partly to keep from sounding know-it-all, and partly to be true to their quiet, cautious personalities. But the stakes are too high and the number of scholars in evangelical churches too low for even a few to remain on the sidelines. Look for opportunities to form teams in communicating with pastors and lay people.

_________________

Dr. Hugh Ross earned his Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Toronto and researched galaxies and quasars at the California Institute of Technology. He is president of Reasons To Believe, an organization founded to develop new tools for demonstrating the factual basis for belief in God and the Bible. Ross speaks regularly throughout the U.S. and around the world; has written three books; published numerous articles in professional and popular publications; and appears frequently on radio and television programs. He and his wife, Kathy, live in Southern California and have two sons. Kathy edits the Reasons To Believe newsletter Facts and Faith.

EDITOR'S NOTE

Reasons to Believe can be reached at P.O. Box 5978, Pasadena, CA 91117 or by phone at (818) 335-1480. It maintains a hotline for fielding questions on science, faith, and the Bible and providese free subscriptions to its newsletter FACTS & FAITH.

Skepticism's Prospects For Unseating Intelligent Design

Job 38

(Talk delivered at CSICOP's Fourth World Skeptics Conference in Burbank, California, on 21 June 2002, during a Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal [CSICOP] discussion titled "Evolution and Intelligent Design." The participants included ID proponents William Dembski and Paul Nelson as well as evolutionists Wesley Elsberry and Kenneth Miller. Massimo Pigliucci moderated the discussion.)

This conference focuses on skepticism's prospects over the next twenty-five years. I want in this talk specifically to address skepticism's prospects for unseating intelligent design in that time. Though as a proponent of intelligent design I'm no doubt biased, I believe that over the next twenty-five years intelligent design will provide skepticism with its biggest challenge yet. I want in this talk to sketch why I think that.

A few years ago, skeptic Michael Shermer wrote a book titled WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE WEIRD THINGS. Most of the weird things Shermer discusses in that book are definitely on the fringes, like holocaust denial, alien encounters, and witch crazes - hardly the sort of stuff that's going to make it into the public school science curriculum. Intelligent design by contrast is becoming thoroughly mainstream and threatening to do just that.

Gallup poll after Gallup poll confirms that about 90 percent of the U.S. population believes that some sort of design is behind the world. Ohio is currently the epicenter of the evolution-intelligent design controversy. Recent polls conducted by the CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER found that 59 percent of Ohioans want both evolution and intelligent design taught in their public schools. Another 8 percent want only intelligent design taught. And another 15 percent do not want the teaching of intelligent design mandated, but do want to allow evidence against evolution to be presented in public schools. You do the arithmetic.

Perhaps the most telling finding of this poll is how Ohioans view the consequences for their state of having intelligent design taught in their public schools. According to the CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER (June 9), "About three of every four respondents said including intelligent design in the curriculum would have either a positive effect or no effect on the state's reputation or its ability to attract new business." One could hardly imagine the same response if the question were whether to teach astrology, witchcraft, or flat-earth geology. Intelligent design has already become mainstream with the public at large.

Even so, the mainstreaming of intelligent design doesn't cut any ice with skeptics. Skeptics know all about logical and informal fallacies, and the ARGUMENTUM AD POPULUM heads the list. Skepticism purports to keep a gullible public honest. Accordingly, just because intelligent design is acceptable to most Americans doesn't mean that it deserves acceptance (witness America's fascination with horoscopes). All the same, there's reason to think that the usual skeptical assaults are not going to prosper against intelligent design.

One of skepticism's patron saints, H. L. Mencken, remarked, "For every problem, there is a neat, simple solution, and it is always wrong." Yet in writing about Darwin's theory, Stephen Jay Gould remarked, "No great theory ever boasted such a simple structure." Intelligent design claims that Mencken's insight applies to evolutionary biology, overturning not just mechanistic accounts of evolution but skepticism itself.

Skepticism, to be true to its principles, must be willing to turn the light of scrutiny on anything. And yet that is precisely what it cannot afford to do in the controversy over evolution and intelligent design. The problem with skepticism is that it is not a pure skepticism. Rather, it is a selective skepticism that desires a neat and sanitized world which science can in principle fully characterize in terms of unbroken natural laws.

Indeed, why have a skeptical organization with a name like CSICOP? The "COP" in CSICOP is not accidental. CSICOP is in the business of policing claims about the paranormal. The paranormal, by being other than normal, threatens the tidy world bestowed by skepticism's materialistic conception of science.

No other conception of science will do for skepticism. The normal is what is describable by a materialistic science. The paranormal is what's not. Given the skeptic's faith that everything is ultimately normal, any claims about the paranormal must ultimately be bogus. And since intelligent design claims that an intelligence not ultimately reducible to material mechanisms might be responsible for the world and various things we find in the world (not least ourselves), it too is guilty of transgressing the normal and must be relegated to the paranormal.

There is an irony here. The skeptic's world, in which intelligence is not fundamental and the world is not designed, is a rational world because it proceeds by unbroken natural law - cause precedes effect with inviolable regularity. In short, everything proceeds "normally." On the other hand, the design theorist's world, in which intelligence is fundamental and the world is designed, is not a rational world because intelligence can do things that are unexpected. In short, it is a world in which some things proceed "paranormally."

To allow an unevolved intelligence a place in the world is, according to skepticism, to send the world into a tailspin. It is to exchange unbroken natural law for caprice and thereby destroy science. And yet it is only by means of our intelligence that science is possible and that we understand the world. Thus, for the skeptic, the world is intelligible only if it starts off without intelligence and then evolves intelligence. If it starts out with intelligence and evolves intelligence because of a prior intelligence, then the world becomes unintelligible.

The logic here is flawed, but once in its grip, there is no way to escape its momentum. That is why evolution is a nonnegotiable for skepticism. For instance, on two occasions I offered to join the editorial advisory board of Michael Shermer's SKEPTIC MAGAZINE to be its resident skeptic regarding evolution. Though Michael and I are quite friendly, he never took me up on my offer. Indeed, he can't afford to. To do so is to allow that an intelligence outside the world might have influence in the world. That would destroy the world's autonomy and render effectively impossible the global rejection of the paranormal that skepticism requires.

Skepticism therefore faces a curious tension. On the one hand, to maintain credibility it must be willing to shine the light of scrutiny everywhere, and thus in principle even on evolution. On the other hand, to be the scourge with which to destroy superstition and whip a gullible public into line, it must commit itself to a materialistic conception of science and thus cannot afford to question evolution. Intelligent design exploits this tension and thereby turns the tables on skepticism.

Skepticism's love affair with evolution predates Darwin. In fact, it is easily traceable to the atomist and mechanical philosophers of antiquity like Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius. Evolution throughout the ages has taught that all aspects of nature, biological complexity included, result from material mechanisms. Within contemporary biology, these include principally the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection and random variation, but also include other mechanisms (symbiosis, gene transfer, genetic drift, the action of regulatory genes in development, self-organizational processes, etc.). These mechanisms are just that: mindless material mechanisms that do what they do irrespective of intelligence. To be sure, mechanisms can be programmed by an intelligence. But any such intelligent programming of evolutionary mechanisms is not properly part of evolutionary theory.

Intelligent design, by contrast, teaches that biological complexity is not exclusively the result of material mechanisms but also requires intelligence, where the intelligence in question is not reducible to such mechanisms. The central issue, therefore, is not the relatedness of all organisms, or what typically is called common descent. Indeed, intelligent design is perfectly compatible with common descent. Rather, the central issue is how biological complexity emerged and whether intelligence played a pivotal role in its emergence.

Suppose, therefore, for the sake of argument that intelligence - one irreducible to material mechanisms - actually did play a decisive role in the emergence of life's complexity and diversity. How could we know it? This question is a special case of a more general question, namely: If an intelligence were involved in the occurrence of some event or the formation of some object, and if we had no direct evidence of such an intelligence's activity, how could we know that an intelligence was involved at all? This last question arises in numerous contexts, including archeology, SETI, and data falsification in science.

I want here to focus on data falsification because it will help point up the legitimacy of the techniques for design detection on which intelligent design depends. On May 23 of this year, the NEW YORK TIMES reported on the work of "J. Hendrik Schön, 31, a Bell Labs physicist in Murray Hill, N.J., who has produced an extraordinary body of work in the last two and a half years, including seven articles each in SCIENCE and NATURE, two of the most prestigious journals."

Schön's career is on the line. Why? According to the NEW YORK TIMES, Schön published "graphs that were nearly identical even though they appeared in different scientific papers and represented data from different devices. In some graphs, even the tiny squiggles that should arise from purely random fluctuations matched exactly." As a consequence, Bell Labs appointed an independent panel to determine whether Schön "improperly manipulat[ed] data in research papers published in prestigious scientific journals."

The theoretical issues raised in this case of putative data falsification are precisely those that my own work on design detection seeks to address. The match between the two graphs in Schön's articles constitutes an independently given pattern or specification. Moreover, the random fluctuations in the graphs are highly improbable. What's more, the randomness here is well understood. As a consequence, no unknown mechanism is being sought for how the graphs from independent experiments on independent devices could have exhibited the same pattern of random fluctuations. At issue is the question of data manipulation and design, and we resolve it by identifying what I define as "specified improbability" or, as it's also called, "specified complexity."

Regardless of whether specified complexity constitutes, as I claim, a sufficient condition for detecting design, it certainly constitutes a necessary condition. Essential to intelligent design is the ability to detect design in cases where the evidence is circumstantial and thus where we lack direct evidence of a designing intelligence. In the case of Schön's graphs, under the relevant chance hypotheses characterizing the random fluctuations in question, the match between graphs had better be highly improbable (if the graphs were merely two-bar histograms with only a few possible gradations in height, then a match between the graphs would be reasonably probable and no one would ever have questioned Schön's integrity). Improbability, however, isn't enough. The random fluctuations of each graph taken individually are indeed highly improbable. But it's the match between the graphs that raises suspicions. That match renders one graph a specification for the other so that in the presence of improbability a design inference is warranted.

By itself, detecting design by means of specified complexity does not implicate any particular intelligence. Specified complexity could show that the data in Schön's papers were improperly manipulated. It could not, however, show that Schön was the actual culprit (though as first author on these papers he, like the captain on a proverbial sinking ship, would be in deep trouble). To identify the actual intelligence would require a more thorough causal analysis (an analysis that in the Schön case is being conducted by Bell Labs' independent panel). [Holwick - in effect, he was found guilty and was fired from Bell Labs.]

I want now to bring this discussion back to the main question of this paper, namely, the prospects for skepticism to unseat intelligent design. To answer this question, let's first consider what intelligent design has going for it:

1. A METHOD FOR DESIGN DETECTION. There's much discussion about the validity of specified complexity as a method for design detection, but judging by the response it has elicited over the last four years, this method is not going away. Some scholars (like Wesley Elsberry here) think it merely codifies an argument from ignorance. Others (like Paul Davies) think that it's onto something important. The point is that there are major players who are not intelligent design proponents who disagree. Such disagreement indicates that there are issues of real intellectual merit to be decided and that we're not dealing with a crank theory (at least not one that's obviously so).

2.IRREDUCIBLY COMPLEX BIOCHEMICAL SYSTEMS. These are systems like the bacterial flagellum. They exhibit specified complexity. Moreover, the biological community does not have a clue how they emerged by material mechanisms. The great promise of Darwinian and other naturalistic accounts of evolution was precisely to show how known material mechanisms operating in known ways could produce all of biological complexity. That promise is now increasingly recognized as unfulfilled (and perhaps unfulfillable). Franklin Harold, not a design proponent, in his most recent book for Oxford University Press, THE WAY OF THE CELL, states, "There are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations." Intelligent design contends that our ignorance here comprises not minor gaps in our knowledge of biological systems that promise readily to submit to tried-and-true mechanistic models, but rather indicates vast conceptual lacunae that are bridgeable only by radical ideas like design.

3. CHALLENGE TO THE STATUS QUO. Let's face it, in educated circles Darwinism and other mechanistic accounts of evolution are utterly status quo. That has advantages and disadvantages for proponents like yourselves. On the one hand, it means that the full resources of the scientific and educational establishment are behind you, and you can use them to squelch dissent. On the other hand, and especially to the extent that you are heavy-handed in enforcing materialist orthodoxy, it means that you are in danger of alienating the younger generation, which thrives on rebellion against the status quo. Intelligent design appeals to the rebelliousness of youth.

4. THE DISCONNECT BETWEEN HIGH AND MASS CULTURE. It's the educated elite that love evolution and the materialist science it helps to underwrite. On the other hand, the masses are by and large convinced of intelligent design. What's more, the masses ultimately hold the purse strings for the educated elite (in the form of state education, research funding, scholarships, etc.). This disconnect can be exploited. The advantage that biological evolution has had thus far is providing a theoretical framework, however empirically inadequate, to account for the emergence of biological complexity. The disadvantage facing the intelligent-design-supporting masses is that they've had to rely almost exclusively on pretheoretic design intuitions. Intelligent design offers to replace those pretheoretic intuitions with a rigorous design-theoretic framework that underwrites those intuitions.

5. AN EMERGING RESEARCH COMMUNITY. Intelligent design is attracting bright young scholars who are totally committed to developing intelligent design as a research program. We're still thin on the ground, but the signs I see are very promising indeed. It's not enough merely to detect design. Once it's detected, it must be shown how design leads to biological insights that could not have been obtained by taking a purely materialist outlook. I'm beginning to see glimmers of a thriving design-theoretic research program.

What's a skeptic to do against this onslaught, especially when there's a whole political dimension to the debate in which a public tired of being bullied by an intellectual elite find in intelligent design a tool for liberation? Let me suggest the following action points:

1. CONFLATE INTELLIGENT DESIGN WITH CREATIONISM. I'm not sure how much longer this tactic will work because the public and press are now catching on to the difference, but as long as there's mileage to be obtained, go for it. Emphasize science as a great force for enlightenment and contrast it sharply with fanatical religious fundamentalism. Then stress that intelligent design is essentially a religious and political movement. Generously use the "C-word" to confuse intelligent design with creationism, and then be sure to liken creationism to astrology, belief in a flat earth, and holocaust denial.

2. ARGUE FOR THE SUPERFLUITY OF DESIGN. This action point is also getting increasingly difficult to implement simply on the basis of empirical evidence, but by artificially defining science as an enterprise limited solely to material mechanisms, one conveniently eliminates design from scientific discussion. Thus any gap in our knowledge of how material mechanisms brought about some biological system does not reflect an absence of material mechanisms in nature to produce the system or a requirement for design to account for the system, but only a gap in our knowledge readily filled by carrying on as we have been carrying on.

3. PLAY THE SUBOPTIMALITY CARD. For most people the designer is a benevolent, wise God. This allows for the exploitation of cognitive dissonance by pointing to cases of apparent incompetent or wicked design in nature. I believe intelligent design has good answers to this objection, but the problem of evil is wonderfully adept at clouding intellects. This is one place where skepticism does well exploiting emotional responses.

4. ACHIEVE A SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGH. Provide detailed testable models of how irreducibly complex biochemical systems like the bacterial flagellum could have emerged by material mechanisms. I don't give this much hope, but if you could pull this off, intelligent design would have a lot of backpedaling to do.

5. PAINT A MORE APPEALING WORLD PICTURE. Skepticism is at heart an austere enterprise. It works by negation. It makes a profession of shooting things down. This doesn't set well with a public that delights in novel possibilities. In his PENSÉES, Blaise Pascal wrote, "People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive." Pascal was not talking about people merely believing what they want to believe, as in wish fulfillment. Rather, he was talking about people being swept away by attractive ideas that capture their heart and imagination. Poll after poll indicates that for most people evolution does not provide a compelling vision of life and the world. Providing such a vision is in my view skepticism's overriding task if it is to unseat intelligent design. Good luck.

______________

William A. Dembski is a member of the Wilberforce Board of Reference, associate research professor in the conceptual foundations of science at Baylor University, and a senior fellow with Discovery Institute's CENTER FOR THE RENEWAL OF SCIENCE AND CULTURE in Seattle. His books include THE DESIGN INFERENCE: ELIMINATING CHANCE THROUGH SMALL PROBABILITIES (Cambridge University Press, 1998) and NO FREE LUNCH: WHY SPECIFIED COMPLEXITY CANNOT BE PURCHASED WITHOUT INTELLIGENCE (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001). (After clicking on the link, scroll down the page to find the book.)

Water, Water Everywhere: Signs of Life In the Cosmos?

Job 40

Astronomers are excited -- again! This time it's Italian researchers who think they may have found signs of water in space. Even more exciting for them, this is reportedly the first such sign detected from an "extrasolar planet," a planet outside our solar system.

Cristiano Cosmovici, team leader of the Institute for Cosmic and Planetary Sciences in Rome, reported the research at a scientific conference in Austria. His presentation was reported in an issue of NEW SCIENTIST last month.

Why would water on another planet excite the experts? Dr. Hugh Jones of Liverpool John Moores University answers, "Water's at the top of the shopping list of ingredients for life." Water is an indispensable ingredient for life as we know it, and evolutionary theorists believe it could evolve into life if it combines with the right other substances under the right conditions.

Some astronomers have motivations far beyond scientific curiosity. For example, the late Carl Sagan said that if life exists only on Earth, people may continue to consider it a unique creation of God. But if, as he fervently hoped, living organisms are discovered elsewhere in the universe, it would, from his point of view, prove that life was a natural phenomenon, produced by natural processes with no need for a supernatural creator. That worldview motivated Sagan to spend much of his life on the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence -- and propagating his message in fictional form through the novel and film CONTACT.

How sure are scientists that this signal from an extrasolar planet indicates that water is really present there? NEW SCIENTIST magazine says that Cosmovici has merely discovered "telltale microwaves that might come from water ... " and that his discovery needs to be confirmed by other researchers. It adds that "these particular planets are unlikely to host life" because "these [are] gas giants [that] presumably have no solid or liquid surface ... and at least some of them are far too hot to give life a chance."

If we do discover water elsewhere in space, how close is the mere presence of water to life -- even bacterial life? Several years ago, NASA thought it had discovered indications of possible water on Mars. A reporter put this question to biochemist Dr. Michael Behe: "Some journalists," he said, "keep commenting that if there is liquid water, there probably are primitive life forms. They automatically assume that the two go together ... [I]s that pushing it?"

Professor Behe answered, "It's more than pushing it. It's saying if we find iron on Mars, we should be looking for an automobile, because automobiles contain iron. There's water in every origin-of-life experiment that's ever been done on Earth since Stanley Miller did his experiment [in the 1950s which proved bogus]. And yet nobody has the foggiest idea of how we could get from simple chemicals, with or without water, to that first cell ... [T]hat's just another example of the [it-must-have-happened-that-way] thinking ... that we find in the textbooks. But that's just poor science."

If we discover that water exists in space, that's only item one on the shopping list of ingredients in the recipe of life. Just as a Rolls Royce is not mere iron ore, the molecules of life have a formula much more complex than mere H2O.

Telltale Rocks

Research conducted by scientists from Denmark and Australia has uncovered new evidence for the metabolic complexity of early life on Earth.1 This team studying 3.5-billion-year-old rocks from northwestern Australia recovered sulfide deposits that represent the activity of ancient sulfate-reducing microorganisms. The sulfide deposits’ association with organic carbon residue further supports their biological origin, meaning that complex sulfate-reducing pathways existed. In the words of the researchers, “Sulphate reduction is a complex metabolic process requiring advanced membrane-bound transport enzymes, proton motive force generation by ATPase and other charge separation proteins, and the genetic regulation of protein synthesis through DNA and RNA.”2

Geological conditions indicate that at the time of sulfide formation the temperatures were moderate. This means that the sulfate-reducing bacteria were not thermophiles — microbes that live under high temperature conditions — rather they were mesophiles — microbes that require moderate temperatures. This finding runs counter to the expectations of one of the most popular evolutionary origin-of-life models. According to this model, mesophilic sulfate-reducing microbes should be latecomers with thermophilic sulfate-reducing organisms appearing at the base of the evolutionary tree.

This and other new evidences for the complexity of early life on Earth represent some of the most exciting origin-of-life discoveries around.3

REFERENCES:

1. Yanan Shen, Roger Buick, and Donald E. Canfield, “Isotopic Evidence for Microbial Sulphate Reduction in the Early Archaean Era,” NATURE 410 (2001), 77-81.

2. Shen, Buick, and Canfield, 77-81.

3. For information on three additional discoveries that evince early and complex life forms on Earth, see Fazale R. Rana, “Early Life Remains Complex,” FACTS FOR FAITH 7 (Q3 2001), in press.

Dogma For the Diaper Crowd: Teaching Kids About Origins

Not long ago, a friend of mine picked up a picture book for her young son about the well-known Berenstain Bears. In this book, the Bear family invites young readers on a nature walk. After a few pages, they are struck by a startling slogan, sprawled across the page: Nature is “all that IS, or WAS, or EVER WILL BE.”

Where did this strange credo come from?

The words are borrowed from the late science popularizer Carl Sagan, host of the famous PBS show “Cosmos.” Sagan’s trademark phrase was: “The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.” Sagan was echoing the classic Christian liturgy- “Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be.” Sagan was offering nothing less than a religion of naturalism-where nature takes the place of God as the ultimate and eternal reality.

What Sagan did for adults, the Berenstain Bears are doing for youngsters-introducing them to the religion of naturalism. Yet, ironically, the most recent scientific discoveries actually contradict naturalism.

Take the big bang theory. For centuries, the scientific evidence seemed to suggest that matter was eternal-without beginning or end. Then, just thirty years ago, several lines of evidence came together indicating that matter is not eternal after all–that the physical universe exploded into existence at a definite point in time. And if the universe popped into existence, then something-or Someone–outside the universe must have brought it into existence. Science itself points to a transcendent Creator.

Even more striking, science is turning up evidence that the universe was designed for a purpose. Take the position of Earth: If it were even slightly closer to the sun, all water would be scorched away and life would be impossible. On the other hand, if the Earth were only slightly farther away from the sun, all water would freeze and there would be nothing but barren deserts.

Or consider the force of gravity. If it were only slightly stronger, the universe would have collapsed back in on itself shortly after the big bang. If gravity were only slightly weaker, the universe would have expanded far too quickly for stars and galaxies to form.

Why is the force of gravity just right for our universe to form? No one knows. There’s no physical cause to explain it. Is it just coincidence? Or was the universe designed this way for a purpose?

Cosmologists are discovering that the slightest tinkering with the values of the fundamental forces of physics would have resulted in a universe where life was impossible. It looks more and more like the best explanation for the exquisitely balanced structure of the universe is that someone intended it to be that way.

If you’re a parent or teacher, make sure you read your children’s books-and that you can help them answer the challenge of naturalism. Nature is NOT all there is or was or ever will be. Science itself is turning up evidence that the universe had a beginning, and that came from the hand of God for a purpose.

Making A Difference

Acts 17:26

I love the story of the fellow that walked into a bookstore, approached the lady manager and asked if she could tell him where the book, “Man, the Superior Sex,” was located. She smilingly said, “Yes, it’s upstairs in the Science Fiction Department.”

As soon as all of us clearly understand that there is no superior sex, that there is no superior race, we will have laid the foundation for building winning relationships with all people everywhere. To begin with, the five people who have had the most impact on my life were all women. Think what I would have missed out on had I been sexist! Three Native Americans had a huge impact on my life — one on my sales career, one on my speaking career, and yet another on my spiritual walk. An elderly black lady who spent the weekend in our home on July 4, 1972, is the reason I am a Christian today. My closest friend for the last 35 years is a Jew. My beautiful daughter-in-law is from Campeche, Mexico. Our Director of Training and International Operations is from India. I shudder to think what I would have missed out on had I been racist!

According to the Department of Labor, 46% of all the people who voluntarily leave their jobs do so because they do not feel respected and appreciated. Reality says that we treat people like we see them, and if you have a tendency to look down on someone, or if you internally feel that you are better than another in any way, don’t think for one moment that the other person does not know that. As a result, these are the ones who voluntarily leave their jobs.

In our tight labor market, when good help is difficult to come by, to lose a valuable employee for this reason is not only morally reprehensible but it is also financially quite expensive. To replace that individual requires advertising, interviewing, testing and then bringing that new employee up to speed-when it all could have been avoided simply by having the right attitude and respect towards his or her predecessor.

There is a new book out entitled “One Blood.” It’s a fascinating book. The authors report that it has been validated through DNA that Eve really is the mother of us all, so that individual you’re working with-regardless of his or her color, ethnic origin or background-is truly a “blood brother.” This is confirmed in the Scriptures. Acts 17:26 (NKJ) says this: “And he has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined at their pre-appointed times the boundaries of their dwellings.” Neither the original King James Version, nor the New King James Version, uses the word “race” in reference to the differences in people in the entire Bible.

All of this to say that I truly hope in the days, weeks and months ahead we will put behind us Darwin’s incredible theory of evolution in which he described the “survival of the fittest,” clearly indicating that he was racist. Many scholars today believe that our ongoing racial problems have escalated because of this erroneous belief. Personally, as I’ve already indicated, my life and the lives of my family have all been enriched by virtue of the fact that we are all one blood, and we treat each other accordingly.

Dna Junk Or God's Design?: Unraveling the Human Genome

It wasn’t the sort of talk that makes biologists comfortable. “We are learning the language in which God created life,” said President Clinton two weeks ago as he announced completion of the map of the human genome — the 3.1 billion units of genetic information stored in our chromosomes.

The President’s words were right on, but to scientists they had a surprising ring. As polls of scientists indicate, the majority of biologists these days think natural selection — not God — created the information in the human genome, over billions of years of evolution.

But as Phillip Johnson argues in his new book, THE WEDGE OF TRUTH, biologists need to approach the origin of genetic information with new eyes. Because, behind the news about completion of the genome map are many other mysteries. For example, are the undirected forces of natural selection (acting on random variation) really able to explain how strange and irregular genetic information arises? And how could a blind evolutionary process write the vast encyclopedia of biological data that we carry around in our cells?

What gives Johnson’s questions such urgency is the genome map itself. Although biologists have finished sequencing the genes, determining the order of the individual letters in the genetic text, they don’t understand most of it. “It’s written in a foreign language,” says geneticist Gerald Rubin, adding, “It’s a very complicated problem.”

Why? Think of it this way. Suppose you found a stone slab covered with strange marks. Some seem to be words in an unknown language, while others are simply random scratchings or gibberish. Well, this is how modern evolutionary biologists view the information in our genome.

In their view, the “gibberish” is simply “junk DNA” — functionless, meaningless scraps and left-overs, which we have inherited from our animal ancestors.

And as they see it, only two forces could explain the origin of our genome: natural laws and blind chance, which come together in the process of natural selection. So if there’s gibberish, you just dismiss it. After all, the author was a blind natural process whose only goal was survival.

But this is a cop-out. What if natural law and chance are incapable of creating such complex information? Even the most ardent Darwinian biologists agree that our genome, despite its vast poorly understood regions, contains tens of thousands of fantastically intricate meaningful sequences. As Johnson argues, “meaningful information-bearing sequences require some THIRD FORCE that works against both repetitive order on the one hand and chaotic chance on the other.” And that, he says, would be a designing mind: The mind of God.

And if God, not a blind natural process, designed the human DNA, then don’t we have good reasons to think that the so-called “junk DNA,” so puzzling to biologists, may have important functions as well — like leading to medical breakthroughs?

In fact, the view that our genome is not just junk, but an intricate language we have yet to understand, holds vast promise — something Darwinian evolution can never offer.

Instant Evolution

Recently we read an article in a science magazine entitled “Instant Evolution.” The article told of a new species of miniature kangaroo that has developed on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. It has been named the Kalihi rock wallaby.

A pair of Australian wallabies escaped from a zoo in Hawaii in 1916. Since that time (just about 70 years) the descendants of that first pair have produced a population of several hundred members. But they don't look like their Australian ancestors, and therein lies a mystery that has somewhat baffled the zoologists studying these cute little fellows.

In less than 60 generations these small marsupials (pouched mammals) have managed to produce a type of wallaby that is smaller, lighter in color, and - most remarkable of all - has a different biochemical make-up, allowing it to eat plants in Hawaii that would have been inedible to its Australian forefathers. In human terms, it would be like producing a completely different type of people somewhere on earth in less than 1500 years - people who not only look different but are able to live in an environment that is radically different from that of their forefathers.

Given the length of time that most evolutionists believe it takes to do what these little wallabies did in such a short time, James Laxell, the zoologist who described them as a new species, said, “To evolve into an entirely new species in only sixty generations ... that's pretty spectacular.” Is this spectacular to those of us who believe that all of the creatures in the world have diversified to what they are today in only about 6,000 years?

__________

For more on the Kalihi Rock Wallaby visit: http://www.royle.abel.co.uk/slwap/animals/rockwall.htm

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2002/Jun/15/ln/ln24a.html

God Versus Darwin: What Darwinism Really Means

Why can’t those creationists just be reasonable?

The speaker was Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education, in a debate with Phillip Johnson, author of a book debunking Darwin. I have friends who believe God created life, Scott went on, “people of deep faith,” yet they accept Darwinism as the mechanism God used. Why are creationists still holding out?

That’s a fair question. Many Christians do accept both the Bible and Darwinism. What’s wrong with that?

To answer that question, we need to look closely at what Darwin really said. Even in Darwin’s own day, many Christians tried to combine his theory with the idea of divine purpose and design. For example, the botanist Asa Gray tried to find a divine plan in natural selection.

But Darwin protested that this was not what he meant at all. If God was behind evolution, he argued, then each variation in living things would be predetermined by His purpose. But in that case, there would be no need for natural selection.

Darwin’s motives were ultimately religious.

After all, the whole point of natural selection is to demonstrate how limbs and organs that appear to be designed might actually result from random changes. The theory is that natural selection sifts through those random changes and preserves those that happen to be beneficial.

But if the changes were not random–if God preselected only beneficial changes in the first place–then obviously you would not need any sifting. In Darwin’s own words, if God ensured that “the right variations occurred, and no others, natural selection would be superfluous” — unnecessary, redundant.

Christians need to understand that the two central elements of Darwin’s theory — random changes and the blind sifting of natural selection — were both proposed expressly to get rid of design and purpose in biology. In the words of historian Jacques Barzun, “The sum total of accidents of life acting upon the sum total of the accidents of variation provided a completely mechanistic and material system” to account for adaptations in living things.

What this means is that Darwinism is not merely a biological theory. Instead, it smuggles in a philosophy of naturalism that is implacably opposed to any idea of purpose or design.

In The Soul of Science, Nancy Pearcey and Charles Thaxton show that science is always driven by philosophical and religious motivations. Throughout history many biologists, from Ray to Linnaeus to Cuvier, were Christians. They studied the finely engineered structures in living things–eyes and ears, fins and feathers — in order to reveal the wisdom of the Creator.

But Darwin’s motivations were equally religious: He wanted to get rid of the Creator. He took direct aim at the idea of design and purpose, hoping to replace it with a completely naturalistic mechanism.

When Darwinists urge Christians to “just be reasonable,” they’re papering over the radically opposed religious motivations behind scientific theories. You and I ought to tear the paper off; we ought to demand that Darwinists be honest about the naturalistic philosophy implicit in their theory. You can use this special “BreakPoint” series in your Bible studies and discussion groups to be better informed.

The evolution controversy reveals just how much science is driven by deep religious commitments.

“Don’t rely too much on labels… for too often they are fables.”

– Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Questions to Ponder

What or who am I blindly labeling?

What can I do today to examine those labels, to see if they are accurate or useful?

The Trial of the Century?: Scoping Out the Scopes Trial

What was the most important trial of the twentieth century? The O.J. Simpson trial? The Paula Jones case? These were two of the candidates proposed when NBC’s “Today Show” surveyed law professors on the subject last year.

But for University of Missouri professor Doug Linder, the most important trial of the last hundred years was neither of these, but rather a contest that happened 75 years ago today in Dayton, Tennessee — the case known as the “Scopes Monkey Trial.”

That trial, which began on July 10, 1925, had ramifications that continue to this day.

In March 1925, the state of Tennessee passed a law forbidding schools “to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.” Before long, a 24-year-old science teacher was accused of violating the new law.

John Scopes’s crime might have gone unnoticed but for a New Yorker with a chip on his shoulder. One scholar has said, “Without 31-year-old George Rappalyea there never would have been a Scopes trial.” Rappalyea came South on a geological expedition, looking for coal. When it was discovered at Dayton, he became manager of the Cumberland Coal and Iron Company.

The chip on Rappalyea’s shoulder was due to his distaste for religion. His feelings only intensified after he attended the funeral of an eight-year-old who had been crushed between two coal cars. At the burial, the minister said, “This here boy, ‘cause his pappy and mammy didn’t get him baptized, is now a- writhin’ in the flames of hell.” Well, the country preacher could have used a lesson or two on common sense — as well as theology — but those words tragically were enough to launch George Rappalyea’s crusade.

After hearing about the new state law, Rappalyea convinced the American Civil Liberties Union to finance a court case, and he persuaded high-school teacher John Scopes to get himself arrested for violating the law.

If you follow this week’s media accounts of what happened that summer, you might get the impression that the Scopes trial was about a group of noble seekers of truth confronting the bigotry of Bible- believing Christians. Not so. There were clearly other motives at work.

Besides wanting to embarrass Christians, Rappalyea was also looking for a way to boost the economy of Dayton, and apparently the idea worked. At one point, a DALLAS NEWS cartoonist portrayed Dayton as an organ-grinder, with his organ labeled “Scopes Case,” and a monkey catching cupfuls of coins and publicity. The caption said, “Playing It for All It’s Worth.”

The defense lawyer, Clarence Darrow, was a well-known agnostic who took every opportunity to ridicule the Bible. He saw this trial as a platform for his views, and even though he lost the case, he aroused doubts that remain to this day.

Over the next few days, the ACLU, People for the American Way, and others will exploit this 75th anniversary of the Scopes Trial to once again spin a secular view of the events and further discredit Christians.

Maybe We're All Martians: the Search For Life 'Out There'

The late Carl Sagan wrote in his book COSMOS, “Many years ago, so the story goes, a celebrated newspaper publisher sent a telegram to a noted astronomer: 'Wire collect five hundred words on whether there is life on Mars.’ The astronomer dutifully replied: Nobody knows, Nobody knows, Nobody knows ... “ 250 times.

But some people's desire to know is so intense that NASA and its British counterpart have spent nearly a billion dollars to find out. Rover 1 landed on the red planet last week, just nine days after the British landed Rover 2 on Christmas Day.

Why such extraordinary effort and expense to look for life on Mars? Well, scientists, of course, are always eager to explore the unknown, but there's another reason you might not hear much about. Evolutionary theorists have never been able to demonstrate that non-living substances evolved into the first living cell here on Earth. Some speculate that biochemical evolution took place here, but the evidence eroded away. So the theory goes: Let's look at Mars; maybe there they experienced the same thing, and we can find the fossil record. In fact, one NASA website says, “Mars may be a fossil graveyard, recording the chemical conditions that fostered life on Earth, where the record of ... life's first moment is likely to have been eradicated forever.”

Then there's another possibility. Some evolutionists speculate that Earth hasn't existed long enough for natural processes to produce the first living cell here. So life must have come from elsewhere. Project chief engineer Gentry Lee says, “Maybe life evolved first on Mars and was knocked off the surface and carried to the Earth. Maybe we're all Martians.”

The primary clue they're looking for, of course, is water that could indicate past or present life. But, of course, ingredients are not enough. As Carl Sagan himself acknowledged, “The essence of life is not so much the atoms and simple molecules that make us up as the way in which they are put together.” And that's where the evolutionary theory is in trouble.

Consider this analogy: Rover 1 required impressive engineering to travel 300 million miles at speeds of up to 12,000 miles per hour and to land within a few yards of its target gently enough not to damage the equipment onboard — it is extraordinary. Scientists and engineers designed, assembled, and tweaked thousands of components so that they could function together flawlessly. By analogy, would anyone imagine that all of that happened by random chance? No.

Finding life or evidence of it on other planets is essential to the evolutionist's case. Carl Sagan once said that if there's life on only one planet, it could be a miracle; if there's life on two, it proves that life is a natural evolutionary process, and atheists can sleep soundly. That is the motivation that drives this search for life on Mars and fascinates us with Little Green Men.

So as the images and data come in from the Rovers, and as they are interpreted breathlessly by NASA engineers on TV, be aware that there's another agenda that some folks have here. It's not just a fascinating space exploration. It's making a case for how life began without a Creator.

FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:

• “Is there anything out there?” The Times (London), 3 January 2004. (Subscription required.)

• Robert Roy Britt, “Earth vs. Mars: The Two Planets Weigh In,” Space.com, 19 August 2003.

• Visit the NASA information page on Mars.

• Visit PBS's NOVA page about exploration on Mars.

• Paul Katcher and Jeffrey Kluger, “Getting to Know Mars,” Time, 7 January 2004.

• Anne Applebaum, “Mission to Nowhere,” Washington Post, 7 January 2004, A21.

• Carl Sagan, Cosmos (Random House, 1980). (See the “Blues for a Red Planet” chapter.)

• Norman L. Geisler, Cosmos: Carl Sagan's Religion (Quest Publications, 1983).

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 040108, “The Cosmic Drama: Does It Include E.T.?“

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 021003, “Water, Water Everywhere: Signs of Life in the Cosmos?“ (Archived commentary; free registration required.)

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 010109, “SETI and the Search for Design: Is There Intelligence Out There?“ (Archived commentary; free registration required.)

• Hugh Ross, Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men (NavPress, 2002).

• Ravi Zacharias, Can Man Live without God? (Word Books, 1994).

__________

Unconvinced Intellectuals: Putting Darwin On the Witness Stand

Job 40

Most people have heard of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. At the trial, Scopes's defense attorney, Clarence Darrow, placed the prosecuting attorney, William Jennings Bryan, on the witness stand. Darrow was a well-known agnostic and Darwinist. To make evolution look good and the Bible look bad, Darrow wanted to question Bryan regarding his views on the Bible.

Bryan agreed, but only if he could question Darrow about evolution. The court ordered that Bryan take the stand first before asking Darrow questions. Yet though Bryan answered Darrow's questions, he never got to cross-examine his rival. Why not?

Scopes had pled not guilty — that's why there was a trial. But unexpectedly at the conclusion of his examination of Bryan, Darrow changed Scopes's plea to guilty. That closed the case and made it impossible for Bryan to call Darrow to the stand for questioning.

And so in the Scopes trial, scientists managed to present their case for evolution without any challenge. In fact, the Scopes trial is a metaphor for the whole debate over evolutionary theory. It has continually evaded critical scrutiny and proper cross-examination. But no longer. Scientists and scholars in the intelligent design movement are mounting a concerted effort to force Darwinists to open up and discuss the weaknesses of evolutionary theory.

In this regard, Dr. William Dembski has edited a fascinating new book titled Uncommon Dissent. This book features fourteen essays by intellectuals who find Darwinism unconvincing. Their dissent is “uncommon” because the majority of intellectuals in the West have completely bought into Darwinian evolution. But with books like this, we can expect to see that majority erode, and quickly.

Contributors to this book include some of the “usual suspects” in the intelligent design movement, like Dembski, Phillip Johnson, and Michael Behe. But there are also some new names. Frank Tipler, a physicist well known for his work on the anthropic principle, exposes how peer review in scientific journals actually stifles originality: Darwinists review Darwinists and never have to answer the challenges of intelligent design.

Another new name is Edward Sisson, an attorney who used to direct avant-garde theater. His chapter sheds some much needed light on the Scopes trial. For example, did you know that the very textbook from which Scopes taught advocated eugenics and promoted racism? Indeed, it divided humanity into five races and ranked them in terms of superiority, concluding with “the highest type of all, the Caucasians, represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America.” This is the book Darwinists insist Scopes had a right to teach?

Perhaps the most interesting chapter is the last by David Berlinski, a mathematician. In addition to his essay, we find Berlinski mixing it up with Darwinists who were criticizing his essay. Letters by Darwinists, like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Eugenie Scott, are all there along with Berlinski's responses. I'll let you read the exchange and decide for yourself who got the better of it. Suffice it to say, after reading this chapter, and better yet this book, you'll realize that Darwinism is in for a grilling like none it has experienced before. And it's about time.

FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:

• William A. Dembski, ed., Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing (ISI Books, 2004).

• See BreakPoint's resource page on intelligent design: http://www.pfm.org/BPTemplate.cfm?Section=Issues_and_Research_Pages&Template=/TaggedPage/TaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TPLID=81&ContentID=12086

• See Chuck Colson's Ten Questions about Origins, a helpful tool for students.

• The videos “Unlocking the Mystery of Life“ and “Icons of Evolution“ are great tools to help your child understand the controversy over evolution and intelligent design.

________

Inheriting A Myth: the Need For Monkey Business

The historical parallels between KITZMILLER V. DOVER, the intelligent design case now being tried in Pennsylvania, and the “Scopes Monkey Trial” aren't lost on the judge hearing the case: John Jones. Jones told the Philadelphia Inquirer last weekend that he “became a judge with the hope of having an opportunity to rule in matters of great importance.” That's why he looked forward to hearing this case.

People who have tried cases before Jones characterized him as being “meticulously prepared,” and given the attention surrounding the case, Kitzmiller is no exception. But there's one bit of preparation from which Jones should have abstained. He told the Inquirer that, as part of his preparation, he planned on re-watching the 1960 movie INHERIT THE WIND, a fictionalized account of the Scopes trial.

While Jones admitted that he didn't know, as he put it, if seeing the film “would be helpful to the decision I have to make,” he thought it “would help put things in historical context.” Well, I have written the judge, telling him that just is not so.

When I say that INHERIT THE WIND is a fictionalized account, I'm not just referring to a few name changes and a bit of dramatic license. I mean the kind of changes that stand the original story on its head and leave viewers with a completely erroneous sense of what happened in Dayton, Tennessee, in 1925.

In the film, John Scopes is a principled and heroic biology teacher doing battle against the forces of ignorance and intolerance. The locals are depicted as little short of peasants with torches and pitchforks who yell, “Devil!” when Scopes's defense attorney, based on the famous Clarence Darrow, arrives in town. Led by a minister (of course), they drag Scopes out of the classroom and put him on trial.

Meanwhile, the prosecutor, based on William Jennings Bryan, is a dour fanatic whose religious beliefs do not withstand scrutiny.

The problem is that none of this is true. The Tennessee law, while on the books, had never been enforced. John Scopes never taught biology; he was the football coach recruited by the ACLU as a “test case.” And far from being dragged out of the classroom, after his conviction, which was overturned, he paid a $100 fine and went to play tennis.

The real William Jennings Bryan, a former presidential candidate, was once called “the closest thing to socialism the American mind could tolerate.” Bryan's main concerns about Darwinism had to do with its social, not its theological, implications. And unlike the movie, where he collapses under cross-examination, in real life Bryan gave as good as he got.

Now, these distortions wouldn't matter except that the average American's views of the Scopes trial are almost entirely the product of INHERIT THE WIND. That's why I wrote Judge Jones, informing him about the film's inaccuracies.

If he or you want to “put things in historical context,” a much better place to look is the excellent new book by Marvin Olasky and John Perry titled Monkey Business: The True Story of the Scopes Trial. The book debunks the Scopes myth created by H. L. Mencken and other reporters and replaces it with the hard facts of the case.

And this is something that I recommend you do to educate your neighbors. After all, the issues in the Pennsylvania case are difficult enough without confusing movies for real life.

________

Philosopher: Science and Religion Are Compatible

Science and religion should not be incompatible, in Alvin Plantinga’s view, but they often are at odds because science falsely demands a purely naturalistic universe.

Platinga, a renowned Christian philosopher, author and professor at the University of Notre Dame, was keynote speaker for Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s annual Norton Lectures Oct. 23-25, 2007, in Louisville, Kentucky.

Evolutionary biologists such as Richard Dawkins, an atheist and author of the book “The God Delusion,” use faulty arguments to show the biological theory of evolution is incompatible with theism, Plantinga said. From there, scientists in the mold of Dawkins reject the possibility of Christianity and its supernatural worldview.

“Dawkins utterly fails to show that the facts of evolution reveal a universe without design,” Plantinga said. “Another source of the continuing debate [between religion and science] is the mistaken claim on the part of such writers as Dawkins that the scientific theory implies that the living world and human beings in particular have not been designed and created by God.”

Plantinga said there is much harmony between Christian belief and science on the issue of God’s divine action in the world. The traditional Christian definition of divine action is any work of God in addition to creation and the conservation of the world, such as miracles, answers to prayer and the Holy Spirit working in the hearts of people, he said.

While many secular philosophers, scientists and theologians argue that such divine action is contrary to the laws of science, Plantinga said the apparent conflicts are superficial.

Some opponents of special divine action, such as theologians Rudolf Bultmann and Langdon Gilkey, have argued that Newtonian laws of nature leave no room for divine action beyond creation and conservation. Bultmann (1884-1976) and Gilkey (1919-2004) were liberal Protestant theologians who rejected a supernatural worldview.

Newton’s ideas about laws of nature, however, do not preclude special divine action, for Newton himself only applied the ideas to a closed system, Plantinga asserted.

“Newton thought God regularly and constantly intervened in the world,” he said. “Newton’s idea was really this, that his laws applied only in a closed or isolated system. Systems in which there is no causal activity from the outside. There is nothing here to prevent God from changing the velocity or direction of a particle, or from creating ex nihilo (out of nothing) a full-grown horse. There is nothing in Newtonian mechanics or classical science to declare that the material universe is indeed a closed system.”

With the development of quantum mechanics, which has largely superseded Newtonian mechanics in the field of science, there is even more obvious agreement between science and special divine action, Plantinga said.

“Quantum mechanics argues that laws exist that are probabilistic, but not deterministic,” he said. “Given a certain system, quantum mechanics assigns probabilities to the possible outcomes in different situations. Miracles are clearly not incompatible with this approach to science.”

Despite this obvious harmony between science and special divine action, many contemporary philosophers, theologians and scientists -- such as Philip Clayton and Arthur Peacocke -- still reject the idea of special divine action. However, Plantinga said they have no coherent basis for their objection, as quantum mechanics easily allows for special divine action.

Holding to both naturalism and evolution at the same time is self-refuting, Plantinga argued. Naturalism denies the existence of the supernatural and asserts that all events can be explained by purely natural causes.

Naturalism and evolution “are often thought to fit together very nicely,” he said. However, “There really is a religion-science conflict. But it’s not between Christian beliefs and science. Rather it’s between naturalism and science.”

According to naturalistic evolution, the human abilities to think and reason evolved to promote survival and not to produce true beliefs, Plantinga said. Therefore, if a person assumes naturalistic evolution to be true, it doesn’t make sense to assume that human reasoning produces true beliefs, he said.

So if naturalistic evolution is true, it doesn’t make sense to place any trust in any human reasoning -- including the reasoning that leads to naturalistic evolution, he said.

“The traditional theist, on the other hand, has no corresponding reason for doubting that it is a purpose of our cognitive systems to produce true beliefs,” Plantinga said.

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #20913]

Putting God Out of A Jo?: the Case For a Creator

Job 38

In 1966, Lee Strobel was a 16-year-old who liked science. He liked it because it fit in with his logical way of looking at the world. He liked it for another reason, as well: Science — the way he was taught it — allowed him to dismiss God from his life.

In his new book, THE CASE FOR A CREATOR, Strobel describes the link between what he was taught in biology class and the breakdown of his religious faith. Sad to say, Strobel's biology teacher was aided and abetted by his church. In Sunday school, Strobel writes, “my 'why' questions weren't always welcomed.” Instead of answering them, his teachers told him to memorize another Bible verse.

Meanwhile, Strobel's trust in science “had been shaped by growing up in post-Sputnik America, where science and technology had been exalted as holding the keys to the survival of our country.” That trust became rock-solid when Strobel encountered the images of evolution.

The most powerful image involved the Stanley Miller experiment. In 1953, Miller, a graduate student at the University of Chicago, attempted to artificially create the building blocks of life. Miller reproduced what he believed was the atmosphere of the primitive earth. He then shot electric sparks through it to simulate lightning. The result? Amino acids.

Strobel says that when he learned of this experiment, “My mind flashed to the logical implication: If the origin of life can be explained solely through natural processes, then God was out of a job! After all, there was no need for a deity if living organisms could emerge by themselves out of the primordial soup and then develop ... into more and more complex creatures.”

Strobel was delighted to put God out of a job, because no God meant he could behave exactly as he wanted. And that's how things remained for quite a few years. And then, one day, an unexpected witness led Strobel to reconsider the possibility that God might exist, after all: Strobel's wife Leslie announced that she had become a Christian. Strobel was horrified. He could not understand how a rational person could believe such nonsense.

But over the next few months, Strobel began to notice a change in Leslie's values and character. He was determined to investigate this change — and go wherever the answers took him. His two-year research into the claims of Christianity led him to a powerful faith in Christ.

Strobel's story is a warning of why Christians need to teach their kids how to apply worldview thinking to every aspect of their lives. We can start by telling them that much of the so-called evidence for evolution is fraudulent or has been proven false, like the Miller experiment that so influenced Strobel. Strobel discovered all of this when he began searching for answers.

His latest book, THE CASE FOR A CREATOR, explains how new findings in physics, astronomy, and biochemistry support the notion that God created the heavens and the earth. I'll be talking about this book over the next few days on BreakPoint.

I hope you'll keep reading, because if we don't give our kids answers to their questions, somebody else will — somebody who may be intent on putting God out of a job.

FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:

• Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator (Zondervan, 2004). Visit the book's website.

• On September 26, CCN is broadcasting a special event on The Case for a Creator. Find out how your church can air the broadcast.

• Ryan Huxley, “Case for a Creator,” a review, IDEA Center.

• Trevor Stokes, “Intelligent design study appears,” The Scientist, 3 September 2004.

• John Wilson, “Unintelligent Debate,” Christianity Today, September 2004.

• See Chuck Colson's Ten Questions about Origins, a useful tool for the classroom.

• See the “Worldview for Parents” page, “More Than Coincidence“ (which includes links to other past “Worldview for Parents” pages on evolution and creation).

• See BreakPoint's Intelligent Design research page.

________

Hobbit Hominids and Biblical Truth

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there lived a village of warrior hobbits. No more than three feet tall or so, they dwelled in caves and hunted down dragons and pygmy elephants with stone weaponry.

I was forced to rub my eyes, shake my head, and check once again that I was reading the Associated Press, and not a supermarket tabloid. But there it was, originally announced in NATURE magazine and soon likewise plastered across the pages of newspapers and magazines around the world.

Archaeologists discovered the remains of these little people on the Indonesian island of Flores. They named them Homo floresiensis, but they were quickly nicknamed “Hobbits.” Scientists found remains of Komodo dragons and large rodents that had been cooked in cave fires. Scientists assure us that these little “hominids” died out about 13,000 years ago, and that they were descendents of Homo erectus, the alleged evolutionary ancestor of modern humans.

So how do Christians explain these bones in light of the Book of Genesis? Are not these remains one more blow to a biblical revelation that tells us all humanity descended from one man who was created from the dust, probably less than 10,000 years ago?

Well, no. As a matter of fact, these remains should remind Christians of just how incoherent much of contemporary science is when it comes to questions of human origins.

Scientists right now are debating how to fit the Flores Lilliputians into existing Darwinian schemes of an “out of Africa” evolution of Homo erectus into Homo sapiens. Given these findings, scientists must rewrite their version of the human story, again. This should remind us of how senseless it is to be intimidated by the “facts” of scientific “proof” against a biblical cosmology. Scientific investigations into origins, from abstract theories to dating mechanisms, are based on numerous naturalistic presuppositions and are constantly being revised and updated.

This should cause Christians to assert without embarrassment that the little people of Flores were human beings, descendants of Adam, bearing the image of God. They were smaller than us, but we have encountered pygmy groups before. We can also argue on the basis of biblical revelation that they probably lived much more recently than the archeologists tell us.

The overwhelming proof of weaponry and mastery of fire is also a bit embarrassing to some contemporary scientific theories. This just doesn't match up with what scientists believe is possible, given the brain size of the Hobbits. You can be sure, that if the incontrovertible remains of cooked Komodo dragons and weapons had not been found, scientists would have portrayed Homo floresiensis as a wandering savage. And now there is the question of how these little people actually got to this isolated island, leading some scientists to speculate that they may have even had watercraft.

This should bring back memories of contemporary science “debunking” the existence of biblical people groups and cities, only to find later archaeological proof of them. It should also cause us to rethink the reigning human story given to us by the scientific establishment. Many of us, including Christians, tend to think of primeval human history in terms of primitive savagery. And yet, Scripture presents us with a counter-story of a technologically advanced early human civilization -- able to develop agricultural innovations (Gen 4:2), great cities (Gen 4:17), and towering architectural achievements (Gen 11:4-6). Indeed, as we survey the remnants of earlier civilizations -- from Egyptian pyramids to Mayan temples -- perhaps we should ask ourselves if early human history was not far more advanced than the naturalists tell us is possible.

There are other factors at work. For hundreds of years local Indonesian legends have told of cave-dwelling little people on the islands, legends scientists ignored as ignorant superstition. Now they know that there is some basis in fact, even thought the scientists still want to date the Flores Hobbits in the too-distant past. Could it be that this demonstrates once again the chronological and technological snobbery of Western science? We assume reflexively that people in the distant past were senseless and that their memories and stories are all just so much nonsense.

But what if we're wrong? After all, people groups all over the world have “legends” of a global flood, legends scientists dismiss as superstition. Psychologists have joined the fray, arguing that flood “sagas” are part of a collective unconscious mythology or, in one theory, have their roots in the human childhood experience of bedwetting. But what if these stories are so universal precisely because the Flood actually happened? Moreover, what if other ancient “legends” have more veracity than scientists would have us believe?

This pile of little bones serves to remind us that all of us view the cosmos through a grid. Much of the scientific establishment views the evidence through the grid of a worldview that excludes from the beginning the possibility of the supernatural.

Christians, however, must view the cosmos through the grid of a biblical storyline that makes sense of both human dignity and cosmic tragedy. This means that Christians are able to account for phenomena that the grid of naturalism can never see. This means that Christians should never be embarrassed by what contemporary culture ridicules as remnants of an ancient superstitious “saga” of a primeval garden, a talking Serpent, a flaming sword.

But it also means that Christians should survey the world with awe and wonder at the mysterious creativity of a God who designed for us supernovas, waterfalls, electrons, dinosaurs, diamonds, and, yes, perhaps even a Hobbit or two.

________

Russell D. Moore is dean of the school of theology and senior vice president for academic administration at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

A Matter of Life and Death: From Darwin To Hitler

In all our contemporary conflicts over the teaching of evolution in schools, there's one question that nobody asks: To what does the embrace of Darwinism lead?

Historian Richard Weikart explores that topic in a book called From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany. Despite that provocative title, Weikart is no sensationalist. He's not out to prove that Hitler and the Nazi party were directly inspired by Charles Darwin's theories. But what Weikart does demonstrate, through exhaustive research, is that Darwin's ideas about the origin of species helped create a culture that devalued human life. And in that culture, Nazism was able to thrive.

Darwin wasn't the first person to claim that the strong and healthy have higher value than the weak and sick, or that some races are inferior to others. Those ideas, Weikart says, were around long before Darwin. What Darwin provided was a scientific foundation for these beliefs. Weikart writes, “Only in the late nineteenth and especially the early twentieth century did significant debate erupt over issues relating to the sanctity of human life. ... It was no mere coincidence that these contentious issues emerged at the same time that Darwinism was gaining an influence. Darwinism played an important role in this debate, for it altered many people's conceptions of the importance and value of human life, as well as the significance of death.” And it wasn't just the sanctity of life that came under attack. Darwinism also strengthened what Weikart calls “scientific racism,” the theory that some races were less fully evolved than others.

Because of Darwin's theories, leading scientists in the early part of the twentieth century felt emboldened to propose radical ideas about how the sick or members of other races should be treated. Even as we read them today, some of their statements still sound shocking in their willful ignorance. Several scientists, for example, compared the mentally ill to apes. Textbooks were written that allegedly demonstrated scientifically that Africans, Native Americans, and Australian aborigines were subhuman. The eugenics movement — advocated in America as well as Europe — was able to bring about the sterilization of thousands of supposedly “inferior” people.

In that environment, a young Adolf Hitler found fertile soil for his radical ideas for the “super race.” Weikart could not trace those ideas directly to Darwin, as we have little evidence of which authors Hitler read and admired. But in his days in Vienna and Munich, theories about racial inequality were everywhere. As Weikart says, “Eugenics and euthanasia ... were embraced by a diverse crowd of secular social reformers,” and their ideas filled the popular press. The few authors we do know that Hitler admired were steeped in that culture.

Those ideas are still with us today. Look at what happened to Terri Schiavo a week ago. It's a good time for us to remind people of the social consequences of Darwinism as Weikart so well documents. It's bad enough to teach flawed theories in a classroom, but it gets downright dangerous when we let such theories lead us to a diminished view of human life and dignity.

________

Redefining the Debate: Catholics and Evolution

Much of the late John Paul II's pontificate was spent clarifying what Catholicism did and, just as importantly, DIDN'T teach. These clarifications, especially in areas such as humanity, sexuality, and the sanctity of human life, often earned him the enmity of self-styled “progressives.”

There was one area, though, in which many of these same “progressives” hailed the late Pope: And that was evolution. His 1996 statement calling evolution “more than just a hypothesis” was seen as an acceptance of the compatibility of Darwinian evolution and Catholic faith. It turns out that John Paul II's critics were as wrong about this as they were about the rest of his teaching.

Someone who should know is Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the Archbishop of Vienna. Schönborn was chosen by John Paul II to be lead editor of the CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. He is also close to the current pope, Benedict XVI.

In early April, Schönborn spoke with then-Cardinal Ratzinger and told him that he “would like to have a more explicit statement” about the Church's position on evolution. Ratzinger encouraged Schönborn “to go on,” and the result was a piece that appeared July 7 in the NEW YORK TIMES.

From the start, Schönborn rejects the idea that the “neo-Darwinian dogma” — of “an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection” — is “somehow compatible with Christian faith.” While the Church leaves to “science many details about the history of life on earth,” it also “proclaims that by the light of reason the human intellect can readily and clearly discern purpose and design in the natural world ... “

He characterized attempts to deny or “explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology” as “ideology, not science” and “an abdication of human intelligence.”

Schönborn's piece quickly provoked a reaction. “Leading Cardinal Redefines Church's View on Evolution” was the NEW YORK TIMES headline a few days later. The headline should have read: “Catholics Mean It When They Recite the Nicene Creed on Sunday.”

After all, the Cardinal simply said that a Christian cannot consistently believe in God, the Creator of “all that is, seen and unseen,” while also believing that life is the result of “an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection.”

Note that I said “Christian” and not just “Catholic.” The incompatibility Schönborn described is just as true for Protestants as Catholics. What's more, the piece was the product of unprecedented cooperation between Cardinal Schönborn and the largely evangelical Discovery Institute. Discovery's vice-president, Mark Ryland, “urged” Cardinal Schönborn to write the piece, and it was placed with the help of Discovery's public relations firm.

In many respects, this effort is a vindication also of Chuck Colson's sometimes controversial labors in “Evangelicals and Catholics Together.” Instead of allowing our opponents to play us off one another, we affirm our shared beliefs. Intelligent design can no longer be dismissed as just an evangelical issue. It's a Christian one. Now that's a “redefinition” worth celebrating.

________

Dinosaurs and Digital Phones

Modern science generally operates in two broad categories: operational science and ongoing science. The first concerns our present observations and technological progress. The last fifty years have been relentless in bringing us quicker, smaller, and faster operational gadgetry. Computers, space shuttles, satellites, and mobile phones all fall into the category of operational science, where we increase our understanding of how to manipulate for our use certain material elements (such as silicon chips). However, ongoing science, which hypothesizes about the past, is very different. The two functions of science cannot be regarded in the same way.

As an example, we do not blast people into space based on a doubtful hypothesis that the rockets will work properly; rather, the technology is first rigorously tested and proven. But how the universe began, the origin of our space-time continuum, and how people came to be on Planet Earth is not testable in the same way.

Much of the popular confusion with regard to “science” lies in confusing these two areas of investigation and giving them the same weight. “My mobile phone works brilliantly,” we say, as does the e-mail and Palm Pilot (most of the time!). So when the BBC screens “Walking with Dinosaurs” and talks as though it is a known fact that the earth is billions of years old, during which time life spontaneously evolved from a primordial soup, we assume that these assertions must work equally well scientifically — but they do not! As these assumptions are so frequently heard, they appear authoritative. Add to that the deep voice of the narrator and the impressive computer graphics, and we are convinced. Yet the evidence for these claims is often weak and unclear.

Scientific knowledge has limits. The things we state with confidence because they are accepted today may not be so tomorrow. Science is essentially a tool for acquiring knowledge about realities. It seeks to investigate and describe as best it can what exists and arrive at objective facts based on observation.

All of our “science” proceeds from assumptions that seem plausible to us. Empirical science, therefore, has nothing absolute about it, and we would do well to remember that. The late philosopher Karl Popper has illustrated it well for us:

“The bold structure of its theories rises, as it were, above a

swamp. It is like a building erected on piles. The piles are

driven down from above, into the swamp, but not down to any

natural or given base; and when we cease our attempts to drive

our piles into deeper layers, it is not because we have reached

firm ground. We simply stop when we are satisfied that they are

firm enough to carry the structure, at least for the time being.”

(1)

Every theory in science requires basic assumptions that cannot be proved, and all investigation proceeds from these assumptions. These are metaphysical assumptions, and each of us nurtures them in one form or another. Thus we do not have to reject science in order to have beliefs. In fact, we must all believe certain things before we can speak of science: for example, the belief that the universe can be rationally understood and that our minds are giving us reliable knowledge.

Thus, even by analyzing nature we attribute to ourselves a kind of supernatural status. If we were merely a part of nature, could we really stand back from it to classify it? If we were merely “part of nature's tapestry,” we would not know it! Just as a dog does not ask why it is not a bear or a brick, we would not ask what it means to be human, what is right and wrong, where we are from and where we are going.

We would be as unquestioning as a lark that sings with the sunrise.

________

1. Karl R. Popper, cited by Professor Werner Gitt, DID GOD USE EVOLUTION? (Christliche, 1993), p. 10.

Joe Boot is executive director of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Canada.

________

Evolution and the Suppression of Truth

Isaiah 40:22

The strong reaction to President Bush’s recent remarks concerning his belief that intelligent design should be taught alongside the theory of evolution in public schools would lead one to believe that Bush had suggested replacing all science classes with classes on voodoo.

Barry Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, called the president’s remarks “irresponsible” and a demonstration of Bush's ignorance of science. Massachusetts Sen. Barney Franks told The Washington Post that the president’s comments prove that “a fundamentalist right has taken over the Republican Party.” Franks also quipped that Bush's remarks prove that one “can be totally impervious to the effects of Harvard and Yale education.” In short, liberals like Lynn and Franks intimate that nothing the Bible says is scientific and anyone who believes what the Bible says is stupid.

Did you know that hundreds of years before science discovered that the earth was round and suspended in space, the Bible declared these truths (Isaiah 40:22, Job 26:7)? Did you know that Matthew Maury, the first man to chart the currents of the sea, learned of the sea’s paths by reading Psalm 8:8? And are you aware of the fact that the healthy diet prescribed by your doctor today was prescribed by God in the Book of Leviticus over 3,000 years ago? Does the fact that these truths are taught in the Bible make them unscientific and the teaching of them in our public schools unconstitutional? Of course not, and any suggestion to the contrary is totally incongruous.

Why, one wonders, are so many today so determined to keep all evidence of the Bible’s validity out of the public school classroom? Is it, as they portend, to protect the purity of scholasticism? Or is it something most sinister, such as “suppressing the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18)? According to the Apostle Paul, men’s denial of a Creator behind creation is not only inexcusable (Romans 1:19-20) and idiotic (Romans 1:21-22), but indicative of “a reprobate mind” (Romans 1:23-32). Thus, contrary to popular opinion, it is not smarts but sin that is behind the expulsion of God from our public school classrooms.

For several decades diehard evolutionists have enjoyed the censorship of all their critics in America’s public education. Nothing but the Darwinian theory of evolution has been allowed into public school classrooms. All other explanations for the origin of life have been banned under the presumption of unconstitutionality -- as if our Constitution prohibits public schools from teaching anything but the cockamamie theory of evolution. Instead of questioning established assertions and seeking evidence to the contrary, which has always been the nature or true science, the science propagated in today’s public schools demands students’ blind allegiance to present and popular hypotheses. It does not teach students to be inquisitive but inflexible; it does not teach students how to think but what to think.

Due to recent and rapidly expanding discoveries in biology, physics, astronomy, botany, chemistry and other major disciplines, hundreds of scientists are leaving the evolutionists’ reservation. No longer able to adhere to an untenable theory with inexplicable gaffes and holes big enough to sail Darwin’s ship the Beagle through, these scientists are conceding the point that the only plausible explanation for an intricately designed universe is an intelligent Designer. It should be noted that many of these converts to intelligent design are not Christians or even religious; they are simply scientists who feel they can no longer deny and suppress the incontrovertible scientific evidence.

In a desperate attempt to protect their monopoly on public education and to discredit the growing chorus of dissenting voices among distinguished scientists, liberals are trying to frame the growing debate over evolution and intelligent design as a debate between enlightened intellectuals and unintelligent religious fanatics. By doing so, they hope to fool the public into believing that only the obtuse object to Darwin’s harebrained theory. For example, New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof recently bemoaned the fact that Americans are three times more likely to believe in the Virgin Birth of Christ (83 percent) than in evolution (28 percent). This, according to Kristof, is proof positive that America is becoming less intellectual. Echoing Kristof, Donald Kaul, retired columnist for the Des Moines Register, cites Americans’ belief in the Bible and disbelief in evolution as evidence of our nation’s “drift toward anti-intellectualism.”

According to liberals, if you believe in the Incarnation, that God became a man, you're stupid; but if you believe in evolution, that a monkey became a man, you're smart. According to liberals, if you believe that an intricately designed universe must have an intelligent Designer, you're stupid; but if you believe that an intricately designed universe has no intelligent Designer, you're smart. According to liberals, if you believe what the Bible says, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” you're stupid; but if you believe what evolution says, that everything, including you and me and a head of cabbage, came from the same single cell that floated up on a slimy beach eons and eons of years ago, you're smart. According to liberals, if you say there is no God, you're a genius; but according to the Bible, if you say “there is no God,” you're a “fool” (Psalms 14:1; 53:1).

It was the Apostle Paul who taught us that the wisdom of God is foolishness to the world and that the wisdom of the world is foolishness to God (1 Corinthians 1:18-25). Nowhere is this truth more evident today than in the ongoing debate over evolution and intelligent design.

________

Don Walton is founder of Time for Truth Ministries and a full-time evangelist and conference speaker. For more information visit www.timefortruth.org.

Cutting It: Engineering Human Evolution

In the 1998 film GATTACA, the hero, Vincent, says, “I'll never understand what possessed my mother to put her faith in God's hands, rather than her local geneticist.” GATTACA describes a not-at-all-distant future where biotechnology has rendered many undesirable human traits avoidable — genetic engineering — but at a very high social cost.

Today, life is on the verge of imitating art, and yet, we're still caught unawares.

Because his mother “put her faith in God's hands,” Vincent's options are limited, beginning with his name: His father, rather than name him “Anton” after himself, reserves the honor for his genetically enhanced — and, thus, superior — younger brother.

Vincent's almost super-human determination enables him to go where no “in-valid,” as his society calls the non-enhanced, is supposed to go. In GATTACA, we not only glimpse the power of the human spirit, but also the spiritual poverty of the promise of genetic perfection.

Only seven years after GATTACA was on the screen, as Joel Garreau tells us in his new book, Radical Evolution, we are at a “turn point of history,” where technology can alter our bodies, thus raising the gravest of questions: what it means to be human.

Garreau asks readers to look fifteen years into the future: Your daughter has graduated from college with honors and gotten into a top law school. At home during a break, she tells you about some of her genetically enhanced classmates: They have photographic memories; they're more creative than anyone she could ever imagine; they can go for days without sleep yet suffer no ill effects; and they're even better looking than everyone else. How can she compete?

Science fiction? No. Try soon-to-be science fact. Thanks to genetic, robotic, information, and nano technologies — collectively known by the acronym GRIN — mankind is poised for what some call “engineered evolution.”

Not only will the results of this “evolution” be unprecedented, but so will the speed at which it happens. “Pain vaccines,” “memory pills,” and “gene doping,” which may turn even the scrawniest kid into a Hercules, are being tested as I speak.

That leaves us with very little time to debate if and under what conditions this “evolution” ought to take place. Within our kids' lifetimes, parents may find themselves playing desperate games of “catch-up” with other, more affluent parents who are willing to do and spend whatever it takes to give their kids an edge over their competitors.

And then there's the question of those who could never afford such “edges.” Recent events on the Gulf Coast have reminded us the poor are, indeed, always with us. What will happen to our democracy when “in-valids” go from science-fiction to social reality?

This raises the mother of all ethical questions: What does it mean to be human in a world where the lines between “natural” and “artificial” and “man” and “machine” are blurred? If Garreau is right, we have very little time before the future gets here and fallen human nature sweeps moral concerns aside.

That's why Christians need to get on board. Now! If not, we will find ourselves in a future asking: Whatever possessed us to put our faith in geneticists and other technologists instead of the living God?

________

A Really Big Deal: Comparative DNA

Scientists announced that they had completed deciphering the chimpanzee genome. Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project, called the accomplishment a “really big deal.”

Decoding “3 billion building blocks of chimp DNA” is, by any reasonable measure, a “big deal.” But that's why it's so important to keep in mind what this news does and doesn't “prove.”

While the genome being deciphered may have belonged to the chimpanzee, the real subject of this research was man. As the NEW YORK TIMES put it, what is being sought is a definition of “what makes people human.”

The reason, of course, they say that is because chimps are considered to be the “closest living relative of humankind.” Depending on how you calculate it, chimpanzees and humans have as much as 98 percent of their DNA in common.

So, scientists hope to identify those genetic changes most responsible for the emergence of modern man, but not so fast: Two percent may not sound like a lot, but it represents at least 40 million differences between the chimp and human genomes. For scientists to find the key genes is like looking for a microscopic needle in a gigantic haystack.

Even before the researchers can draw any meaningful conclusions, however, some are rushing in to draw their own dramatic conclusions from the announcement — conclusions that are patently false.

The first of these is that the shared genetic material “proves” evolution and common ancestry. You've seen that in the press repeatedly, but it's simply not so.

Now it's true that you don't have to be a Darwinist to see the physical resemblances between chimpanzees and humans. Given that resemblance, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the species share a great deal of their genes. That, however, proves very little, since all life on Earth, from bacteria to humans, share at least 25 percent of their DNA. For instance, humans and nematode worms share 75 percent of their DNA, but it proves nothing about their common origin.

But for the believer in naturalism, this can ONLY be an indication of evolution and common ancestry. That's because he has ruled out any other possibility beforehand. This new data is simply used wrongly to support a prior philosophical commitment to materialism. The difficulty with that, however, is that it is just as plausible to infer that an intelligent designer, who made DNA the building block of life, didn't need to start from scratch when creating man. It's not a question of data, you see, but of the worldview that determines how we will use that data.

A second unwarranted conclusion is that since there are similarities between the chimp and human DNA, it proves that man is nothing more than, as a famous book put it, The Third Chimpanzee [the common chimpanzee and the Bonobo being the other two]. That argument overlooks not only the number of differences -- 40 million -- but also the difference a single gene can make. As the esteemed philosopher Alvin Plantinga has jested, it makes you proud of what we've done with our unique 2 percent.

So while the deciphering of the chimpanzee genome is “a really big deal,” it shouldn't obscure an even bigger deal: No matter how many genes we share, man is fearfully and wonderfully made — a unique work of the Creator.

________

Darwin's Dangerous Idea — No Middle Ground

Daniel C. Dennett is one of the world's most influential evolutionary scientists, and unlike many of his colleagues, Dennett doesn't run away from Darwinism's logical conclusions. Instead, he describes Darwin's theory of evolution as a “universal acid” that completely reshapes reality, destroying those truths previously held to be enduring and unchanging.

“Whenever Darwinism is the topic, the temperature rises, because more is at stake than just the empirical facts about how life on Earth evolved, or the correct logic of the theory that accounts for those facts,” Dennett asserts.

In a recent interview with Germany's DER SPIEGEL, Dennett dismissed the concept of Intelligent Design, arguing that all intelligent persons simply must accept Darwin's theory at face value. Nevertheless, Dennett does understand the logic of Intelligent Design. As he sees it, many persons reject evolution because it “goes right to the heart of the most troubling discovery in science of the last few hundred years.” This is “the idea that it takes a big fancy smart thing to make a lesser thing. I call that the trickle-down theory of creation. You'll never see a spear making a spear maker. You'll never see a horseshoe making a blacksmith. You'll never see a pot making a potter. It's always the other way around and this is so obvious that it just seems to stand to reason.”

Nevertheless, Dennett believes this reasoning to be profoundly wrong. Interestingly, he suggests that the idea of Intelligent Design, at least in its fundamental form, may be even older than the human species. He offers the suggestion that what he identifies as earlier species of hominids might have created objects and then “had a sense of being more wonderful than their artifacts.” Then, Dennett simply suggests that HOMO SAPIENS, capable of creating a seemingly endless array of objects, would assume that they, too, were the products of an intelligent creator.

Amazingly, Dennett, along with his colleague Richard Dawkins, uses the reality of complexity and apparent design to argue AGAINST a designer. In one sense, Dennett simply turns the idea of design on its head, arguing that greater design means, in effect, less proof of a designer. As Dennett claims, “not only can you get design from un-designed things, you can even get the evolution of designers from that un-design. You end up with authors and poets and artists and engineers and other designers of things, other creators -- very recent fruits of the tree of life. And it challenges people's sense that life has meaning.” Well, of course it does.

Dennett does believe that human beings are unique as a species. This special status is essentially a function of linguistics. Dennett, who serves as University Professor and Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University, as well as Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at the university, has devoted himself to the understanding of human consciousness and linguisticality.

The ability to use language, Dennett explains, means that human beings can learn, not only from their own experience, but from others, both living and dead. Thus, “human culture itself becomes a profound evolutionary force. That is what gives us an epistemological horizon which is far, far greater than that of any other species. We are the only species that knows who we are, that knows that we have evolved. Our songs, art, books and religious beliefs are all ultimately a product of evolutionary algorithms. Some find that thrilling, others depressing.”

Dennett's ideas are worth a close look. After all, he boldly accepts what so many other evolutionary scientists deny -- that Darwin's theory means the impossibility of any belief in God. While evolutionists such as the late Stephen J. Gould argued that evolution and religion could be considered as “non-overlapping magisterium,” thus allowing each to operate in separate spheres, Dennett explicitly rejects this argument. He directs specific criticism at evolutionist Michael Ruse, accusing him of “just trying to put the implications of Darwin's insights into soft focus and to reassure people that there is not as much conflict between the perspective of evolutionary biology and their traditional ways of thinking.”

When it comes to the human soul, Dennett insists that it must be no more than human consciousness operating as a part of our physical bodies. Dennett's physicalism means that he rejects any concept of the soul as independent of the chemical operations of the brain. As he told DER SPIEGEL, “The brain is no more wonder tissue than the lungs or the liver. It's just a tissue.”

Committed to a radical form of naturalistic materialism, Dennett understands belief in God to be nothing more than an artifact of the evolutionary process. The death of God, Dennett explains, “is a very clear consequence” of Darwinism.

On this point, we should at least be thankful that Dennett is more intellectually honest than many of his evolutionary colleagues. He allows that belief in God may be culturally acceptable, but only insofar as this God has nothing to do with our origins or our lives -- past, present or future.

“One has to understand that God's role has been diminished over the eons,” Dennett instructs. “First, we had God ... making Adam and making every creature with his hands, plucking the rib from Adam and making Eve from that rib. Then we trade that God in for the God who sets evolution in motion. And then you say you don't even need that God -- the lawgiver -- because if we take these ideas from cosmology seriously then there are other places and other laws and life evolves where it can. So now we no longer have God the lawfinder or God the lawgiver, but just God the master of ceremonies. When God is the master of ceremonies and doesn't actually play any role anymore in the universe, he's sort of diminished and no longer intervenes in any way.” Put simply, “the job description for God shrinks.”

In his 1995 book, DARWIN'S DANGEROUS IDEA, Dennett began by reciting a Sunday School song he had learned as a child. The song, “Tell Me Why,” asks why the stars shine, why the ivy twines, and why the sky's so blue. As the song assures, these things are so because God made them so. “This straightforward, sentimental declaration still brings a lump to my throat -- so sweet, so innocent, so reassuring a vision of life!” Dennett remembers. Nevertheless, he doesn't believe that it is true. “The sweet, simple vision of the song, taken literally, is one that most of us have outgrown, however fondly we may recall it. The kindly God who lovingly fashioned each and every one of us (all creatures great and small) and sprinkled the sky with shining stars for our delight -- THAT God is, like Santa Claus, a myth of childhood, not anything a sane, undeluded adult could literally believe in. THAT God must either be turned into a symbol for something less concrete or abandoned altogether.”

The only concept of God that can survive the emergence of Darwinism is God as an intellectual concept who simply offers a mythopoetic means of appreciating grandeur and beauty.

Theism, the belief in a personal and self-existent God, must go the way of the Dodo bird, he argues. “A faith, like a species, must evolve or go extinct when the environment changes. It is not a gentle process in either case.... We preach freedom of religion, but only so far.” He continues: “It is nice to have grizzly bears and wolves living in the wild. They are no longer a menace; we can peacefully coexist, with a little wisdom. The same policy can be discerned in our political tolerance, in religious freedom. You are free to preserve or create any religious creed you wish, so long as it does not become a public menace.”

Well, we have been warned. Dennett clearly understands traditional Christianity to be just the kind of public menace he fears. Nevertheless, he is absolutely certain that he and his cherished theory of evolution will win -- and fairly soon. Darwin's theory of evolution will, he confidently asserts, come to occupy a “secure and untroubled place in the minds -- and hearts -- of every educated person on the globe.”

Dennett's excitement about Darwinism goes back to his childhood, when he and his friends would speculate about the existence and effect of a substance they called the “universal acid.” “Universal acid is a liquid so corrosive that it will eat through ANYTHING! The problem is: what do you keep it in? It dissolves glass bottles and stainless-steel canisters as readily as paper bags. What would happen if you somehow came upon or created a dollop of universal acid? Would the whole planet eventually be destroyed? What would it leave in its wake? After everything had been transformed by its encounter with universal acid, what would the world look like?”

As an adult, Dennett now seizes upon Darwinism as the very universal acid that had fascinated his imagination as a boy. This universal acid is not a liquid substance, but an intellectual idea.

“Little did I realize that in a few years I would encounter an idea -- Darwin's idea -- bearing an unmistakable likeness to universal acid: it eats through just about every traditional concept, and leaves in its wake a revolutionized world-view, with most of the old landmarks still recognizable, but transformed in fundamental ways.”

Transformed indeed. Dennett understands that every important idea and pattern of thought is instantly transformed if Darwinism is accepted as true. The evolutionary worldview of Darwinism, based in purely materialistic and naturalistic explanations of all phenomena, leaves no room for transcendent meaning, human dignity, morality, or hope. Human beings, along with the rest of the cosmos, are simply the accidental byproducts of vast cosmic forces.

Daniel C. Dennett understands all this, but exults in Darwin's “dangerous idea.” Indeed, he suggests that he would award Darwin “the gold medal for the best idea anybody ever had.” Remember Dennett the next time you hear the argument that evolution and Christianity are compatible. The basic incompatibility of Darwin's theory is the one facet of Dennett's thought we can truly appreciate. Now, if only his evolutionary colleagues would be equally candid.

Why Darwinism Survives

“What is it about even the slightest dissent from Darwin's theory of natural selection that drives liberal elites (and even some conservative elites) bonkers?” Adam Wolfson asks that question in “Survival of the Evolution Debate: Why Darwin Is Still a Lightning Rod,” an essay published in the January 16, 2006 edition of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

Wolfson now serves as consulting editor of COMMENTARY magazine and a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington. He formally served as editor of THE PUBLIC INTEREST, which was for many years one of America's premier intellectual journals.

In this essay, Wolfson wonders aloud why Darwin, together with his theory of evolution, still serves as such a lightning rod for controversy in American culture. In one sense, Wolfson seizes the opportunity to suggest that controversies over Darwinism are often, if not usually, easily traced to the fact that intellectual elites will accept no criticism of Darwinism whatsoever.

Looking back to the 1920s and the infamous (and usually misunderstood) Scopes trial, Wolfson acknowledges that the elites were offended “that anyone could believe the story of Genesis in a literal way.” Five decades later, the scientific establishment and the elites were driven to apoplexy by the emergence of “creation science,” often reaching the front pages of the nation's leading newspapers. The intellectual elites cannot abide such naysayers in their presence, so they attempt, as Wolfson helpfully explains, to marginalize, ridicule, dismiss, and send into exile anyone who refuses to swallow Darwinism hook, line, and sinker.

As Wolfson cleverly adapts H. L. Mencken, “Liberals are haunted by the specter that someone, somewhere harbors doubts about Darwin's theory.” Criticism of evolutionary theory is most commonly found among those who reject the overarching evolutionary worldview. Most often -- and most naturally -- this group would include conservative, Bible-believing Christians who understand the unavoidable collision between evolutionary theory and biblical authority. Beyond this, the huge worldview implications of the debate transform every point of the controversy into a debate of major significance.

In reality, the issue of evolution not only divides, generally speaking, liberals from conservatives in our current age of ideological conflict. Beyond this, the question of Darwinism divides even some conservatives, revealing a split between conservative Christians and those whose conservatism is more directly linked to social, economic, or political concerns. THE WEEKLY STANDARD has emerged as one of the flagship institutions of modern conservatism. Accordingly, Wolfson's essay is written in a rather detached mode, as Wolfson's main point appears to be that the elites are overreacting to the challenge of Intelligent Design, and thereby revealing their own intellectual insecurity and the inherent weaknesses in the theory of evolution.

Indeed, Wolfson asserts that, “in truth, most people nowadays do believe evolution's basics -- which is to say that species evolved -- and most people believe that natural selection explains part of the change of adaptation.” The debate, he asserts, “is over whether natural selection explains EVERYTHING.”

The “all or nothing” character of Darwin's theory is often glossed over (if not explicitly denied) by many proponents of evolution. Yet, as Wolfson acknowledges, Charles Darwin understood this dimension of his thought all too well. “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down,” Darwin wrote in ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES.

In effect, Darwin invited a challenge to his own understanding of evolutionary theory. In recent years, that challenge has been taken up by the proponents of Intelligent Design, whose central argument is that the complexity of the cosmos cannot possibly be explained by the blind and purely accidental process Darwin described. The concept of “irreducible complexity” counters Darwin's faith in natural selection with an assertion that such complexity would be mathematically impossible without the presence of intelligence and design guiding the process.

As Wolfson explains, the proponents of Intelligent Design rely on recent developments in physics and biochemistry and “argue that Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection cannot explain the existence of some complex biological systems.” Just in case any reader missed his point, Wolfson simplifies the argument with this simple summary: “That is to say, the emergence of these systems is neither mathematically nor biochemically plausible without some intelligent designer in the background.”

Still, Wolfson doesn't appear to buy the theory. He suggests that the proponents of Intelligent Design “are putting old wine into a new bottle.” Wolfson cites Thomas Aquinas and William Paley as advocates of a theory-from-design deeply rooted in the Christian tradition. “The basic point is that one can make a legitimate, rational inference from the orderliness and regularity of the cosmos to some sort of intelligent first mover. And it's important to point out that this inference was thought, up until recent times, to stand on its own merits, requiring no assistance from Divine Revelation.”

In essence, Wolfson sees the debate over Intelligent Design as an example of philosophical, rather than scientific, conflict. He also recognizes that the most well-known advocates of Intelligent Design argue that the theory should be taught as part of the science curriculum in the public schools. Wolfson clearly believes that the Intelligent Design theorists are on to something, and he acknowledges his own concerns about the viability of Darwinism as a worldview, but he accepts the argument of the dominant scientific community that Intelligent Design is simply not science.

He cites Princeton professor Robert P. George as another conservative intellectual who believes that Intelligent Design is more properly considered as philosophy rather than science. Like Wolfson, George believes that the theory of Intelligent Design has been useful in countering the hyperbolic arguments offered by evolutionary radicals such as Richard Dawkins and the late Stephen Jay Gould, along with Daniel Dennett. Accordingly, Dawkins, who once claimed that “if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane,” is dismissed as one who misuses Darwinism “as a battering-ram against religion.”

Yet, Wolfson argues that Intelligent Design simply has no adequate scientific model that would replace natural selection in a scientific context, and he cites George as a supporting authority on the question. He also cites Stephen Barr, a theoretical physicist at the Bartol Research Institute of the University of Delaware, as arguing that “some IDers have strayed beyond the confines of science rightly understood.” To these authorities Wolfson adds Leon Kass, the former chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics. As Wolfson argues, “Kass credits IDers for drawing attention to various difficulties in orthodox Darwinian theory, as well as for understanding the human stakes involved in such questions.” But Kass argues that the idea of a “Designer-God” is not warranted by the evidence. “There is simply no evidence in support of this proposition,” he claims.

As should be evident by now, Wolfson has attempted to write an essay that praises Intelligent Design as a means of humbling Darwinism but rejects claims that Intelligent Design can be a replacement for Darwin's theory of natural selection. He fears that Darwinism has become something of an untouchable subject among the elites. Furthermore: “What's unfortunate is that the ideology of Darwinism -- that is, the mistaken notion that Darwin defeated God -- not only reigns culturally supreme, but also apparently increasingly has the legal backing of the state.”

Beyond this, Wolfson laments the establishment of “orthodox Darwinism” as the dogma taught in the public schools. “This marks not so much enlightenment's progress as a narrowing of our intellectual horizons,” he suggests.

Missing from Wolfson's argument is any intellectual suggestion about how Darwin's theory is properly scientific while Intelligent Design is presumably not. Beyond this, even as Wolfson rightly criticizes the elites for their ideological insecurity in anxiously dismissing all challenges to evolution, he never explicitly points to a factor that would have strengthened his argument -- the fact that Darwinism is as much about a theory of life's meaning as about its origin. In other words, if Intelligent Design is criticized as philosophy without science, Darwinism is excused as science without philosophy. This is hardly the case.

Nevertheless, Adam Wolfson has demonstrated his intention to write a balanced and fair introduction to the controversy over Intelligent Design and evolution. For that, he deserves our appreciation. Furthermore, the fact that an essay of this character is found in the pages of THE WEEKLY STANDARD indicates that many conservatives, who would not be counted as conservative Christians, are open to a credible critique of Darwinism. In our present intellectual climate, that factor alone may serve to distinguish conservatism from liberalism and to reveal which system of thought is truly open-minded.

The Big Story

Revelation 21:6

In modern society it is often considered arrogant and intolerant to suggest that any individual or group knows the truth about the world. Yet as we see from moment to moment in life all around us, truth is inescapable. To reject any worldview is simply to counter it with your own, whatever that may be, or however undeveloped in your own mind. The question is simply, which account of the universe is true?

The atheistic evolutionist's and humanist's big story about the human condition is summarized by Oxford zoologist and atheist Richard Dawkins:

If the universe were just electrons and selfish genes,

meaningless tragedies... are exactly what we should expect,

along with equally meaningless good fortune. Such a universe

would be neither evil nor good in intention... In a universe of

blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are

going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you

won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice.(1)

The question is, how can we speak of “selfish” genes — which conveys a moral character trait — if there is no category of good and evil to make the concept meaningful? How can we refer to “justice” in a moral vacuum? Dawkins's statement assumes there are opposites; yet in the same breath he claims they do not exist; so does this statement mean anything? If we are just the interaction of “blind physical forces,” how our self-conscious minds could know this is a mystery!

However, despite all its problems (for example, how people could see the destruction of thousands of lives in the World Trade Center as neither good nor evil), this is the big story of a godless philosophy. Admittedly, if God does not exist, then neither do objective moral values. But we are conscious that objective moral values do exist; therefore we can be confident God does also.

The account of the universe and the human condition found in the Bible and in the teachings of Jesus is by design and purpose with a holy, loving God at the heart of it. When we consider the vastness of space, when we ponder how small we are in comparison, and how much space seems to be wasted, we can find it difficult to believe that we are anything special or significant at all. Why so much room if there is just us? Remarkably, physicists now tell us that the universe is just the right size to contain enough carbon for the existence of life. Any smaller and life could not prosper. If the universe were downsized at all, we would not be here. There is just enough carbon to allow you to read this article before you. Now consider whether you are special. We are an amazing part of God's unique purpose — so important that God made the universe just big enough so that you and I could exist to know him. This is where our big story begins.

The Christian message announces the kingdom of God and Christ's victory over sin and death, proclaiming that we can be right with God and have peace with Him. This message has been proclaimed for over two thousand years and will continue to be proclaimed until Christ returns again to take us home with him. On this day, he will restore all that was lost at the Fall, making a new heaven and a new earth where righteousness dwells. In that place, there will be no more sorrow, no more crying, and no more pain. The old way of things will be gone, and the deceiver will be no more. The paradise that was lost will finally be regained, but it will be even more glorious than the one before.

In the words of Christ our liberator, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning, and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son” (Revelation 21:6-7). It is an incredibly big story. But it is one just big enough to hold within its pages the reality of our own stories and the principles of life around us, with coherence, consistency, and truth.

________

1. Richard Dawkins, RIVER OUT OF EDEN: A DARWINIAN VIEW OF LIFE (Basic Books/Harper Collins, 1995), 132-133.

________

From SEARCHING FOR TRUTH by Joe Boot, © 2002. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.com. Joe Boot is executive director of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Canada.

Poll: Majority of Americans Don't Believe In Evolution

Once again, a nationwide poll shows that Americans are prone not to believe in evolution -- even if many academic leaders and media members do.

The CBS News poll, conducted April 6-9, 2006, asked two subgroups of adults different questions about man's origins. Although their answers varied depending on the question, in each instance they rejected secular evolution -- that is, the belief that God was not involved at all in the process:

• In the first subgroup, 53 percent of adults agreed that “God created human beings in their present form.” Twenty-three percent believed that “human beings evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years, but God guided the process,” and 17 percent believed that human beings evolved but “God did not directly guide” it. The subgroup included 468 adults.

• In the second subgroup, 44 percent agreed with the statement that “God created human beings in their present form within the last ten thousand years.” The rest of the question was identical to the one posed to the first subgroup. In this instance, 30 percent believed that God guided evolution, and 17 percent believed in secular evolution. This subgroup included 431 adults.

The debate over evolution has divided Americans since at least the late 1800s, and that divide deepened after the famous “Scopes Monkey Trial” in Tennessee in 1925. In fact, in 1925 the Southern Baptist Convention adopted its first statement of faith (the Baptist Faith & Message) in part in reaction to the controversy over evolution.

The media largely has assisted supporting a belief in evolution. An April 12 CNN.com headline about evolution said simply, “Fossil connects human evolution dots.” A New York Times headline the same day read, “New fossils add link to the chain of the evolution of humans.”

But despite the media's role and an education system that backs evolution, Americans aren't buying it. The CBS News poll mirrors other recent polls:

• A Gallup poll of 1,005 adults from September 2005 showed that 53 percent of adults believed “God created human beings in their present form exactly the way the Bible describes it.” Thirty-one percent believed humans “evolved over millions of years from other forms of life and God guided” the process, and 12 percent said humans “have evolved over millions of years from other forms of life, but God has no part.”

• A Harris poll of 1,000 adults in June 2005 found that 64 percent believed “human beings were created directly by God,” 22 percent said humans “evolved from earlier species” and 10 percent believed humans “are so complex that they required a powerful force or intelligent being to help create them.” In a separate question, only 38 percent said humans “developed from earlier species.”

Listening To the Transhumanists

Frustration with the human condition has led many mortals astray. Indeed, the primal temptation that came to Adam and Eve in the garden was, in essence, to escape their own creaturely finitude and grasp after knowledge that had been forbidden them. Thus, by eating the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve effectively redefined humanity, now “knowing the difference between good and evil.”

Efforts to transcend the natural limits of human life and experience are regular features of ancient mythologies and modern literature. Strangely enough, ideas and proposals once limited to the world of science fiction are now taken seriously in some scientific circles.

If you demand evidence for that assertion, just consider the “Human Enhancement Technologies and Human Rights” conference, held May 26-28, 2006, at the Stanford Law School.

Bioethicist Wesley J. Smith, Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute and Special Consultant for the Center for Bioethics and Culture, attended the sessions and has offered this summary analysis: “If you want to know what it feels like to wander into a Salvador Dali painting, try attending a conference of transhumanists.”

Smith offers a rather comprehensive report on the conference in “The Catman Cometh – Among the Transhumanists,” published in the June 26, 2006 edition of THE WEEKLY STANDARD. As he explains, “Transhumanism is a radical movement emanating from the universities that seeks to enhance human capacities via technology. The ultimate goal is a utopian world of 'post-humans,' such as human/robot hybrids and human consciousness downloaded into computers that will live for thousands of years.”

Consider some of the ideas that were floating around at the conference. Smith cites James Hughes, a professor of health policy at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, who argues that human beings must eradicate “human racism,” defined as the belief that humans should be accorded a special moral status just because they are human. Hughes is the author of CITIZEN CYBORG, a book that offers his vision of a transhumanist future. He argues that we must replace the notion of humanity with the concept of “personhood.” As Smith explains, “Under personhood theory, some humans would be excluded, but all self-aware entities – whether human, post-human, machine, chimera, or robot – would qualify for the rights, privileges, and protections of citizenship.”

Smith also reports that Nick Bostrom, cofounder of the World Transhumanists Association, is seeking to maintain some sense of “post-human dignity,” but he also denies that this dignity can be “based on substrata.” In other words, it should not matter whether a “being” is biological, or merely mechanical.

The conference also featured an ideological array including feminists like Annalee Newitz, who called for a transhumanist future in which female biology would be fixed, allowing women “better control over female evolution.” Women should not have to rely upon males for “genetic material” in the making of babies. Newitz, a contributing editor at WIRED magazine, also argues that men should be surgically altered so that they can become biological mothers.

As Newitz states in the conference brochure, “For thousands of years, women have been subjected to a genetic engineering program known as patriarchy – from an evolutionary perspective, patriarchy is a system in which men choose mates for women, and it has affected the culture and genetic make up of countless generations. Today many of us live in post-patriarchal societies with fairly advanced reproductive technology. Can we use this technology in the service of a feminist genetic engineering project? I argue that we can.”

Human enhancement is the goal of many, if not all, of the participants. At times, the notion of “enhancement” takes on twisted forms. Susan Stryker, identified as “an internationally recognized independent scholar and filmmaker whose historical research and theoretical writings have helped shape the field of transgender studies,” joined with Nikki Sullivan of Macquarie University in Australia to present a paper entitled “King's Body, Queen's Member: State Sovereignty, Transsexual Surgery, and Self-Demand Amputation.”

As the conference program summarized their session: “we demonstrate how a discourse of bodily integrity has been deployed both for and against transsexual surgery and self-demand amputation at various historical moments and in differing social contexts. Drawing on Hobbes' theory of sovereignty in LEVIATHAN, as well as Foucault's critique of centralized state authority, we argue that 'integrity' is not predicated on notions of natural, biologic, organic unity, but rather on the availability of the body as a source of biopower into the State's projects. We thus arrive at a radically antihumanist understanding of political struggles that structure the occupation of one's own embodied space, and which ultimately determine whether the body is available as a resource for subjective needs as well as state functions.”

Now you are a brave reader if you have attempted to unpack those last few sentences. Suffice it to say that Stryker and Sullivan are arguing that society treats human bodies as mere sources of “biopower” for the state's purposes. Using a radical cultural analysis, they then argue that persons ought to be able to demand radical surgery on their bodies, even to the point of amputating healthy limbs, so they can meet their own subjective needs and no longer serve as “biopower” for the state. Got it?

Aubrey De Grey, biogerontologist at the University of Cambridge sought to redefine the right to life. “Humanity has long demonstrated a paradoxical ambivalence concerning the extension of healthy human lifespan,” he said in his catalog statement. “Modest health extension has been universally sought, whereas extreme (even indefinite) health extension has been regarded as a snare and delusion -- a dream beyond all others at first blush, but actually something we are better off without.” Aubrey De Grey is not satisfied with that conclusion. Indeed, he calls for “curing aging” in order to expand the human lifespan without limit. He argues that humans “have a right to live as long as they wish to.” Thus, “Once we realize this, our determination to consign human aging to history will be second only to our shame that we took so long to break out of our collective trance.”

In other words, death is an evolutionary accident that should be eradicated by intentional intervention and biomedical advances. But, at least Aubrey De Grey was talking about humans. George Devorsky, on the other hand, argues that human beings must now biologically “uplift” non-human animals. As he explains, “As the potential for enhancement technologies migrates from the theoretical to the practical, a difficult and important decision will be imposed upon human civilization, namely the issue as to whether or not we are morally obligated to biologically enhance non-human animals and bring them along with us into advanced postbiological existence. There will be no middle road that we can take; humanity will either have to leave animals in their current state of nature or bring as many sentient creatures along into a posthuman future. A strong case can be made that life and civilizations on Earth have already been following this general tendency and that animal uplift will be a logical and reasonable developmental stage along this continuum of progress.”

So, even as the transhumanists want to transcend the limits of human existence, some also demand that the same “uplift” be extended to the animal kingdom as well. Why limit transhumanism to humans? Indeed, the other “beings” of concern at the conference were mechanical beings like robots. As Nick Bostram, a philosopher at Oxford University, argued, “we need to expand our concept of dignity to encompass posthuman dignity as well as human dignity. If human dignity is the grounding for human rights, this move directly leads us to consider the question of posthuman rights. I will address the issue of such rights in the context of the creation of artificial minds ... and discuss some tentative ethical principles for defining our rights and responsibilities relative to our hypothetical future machine progeny, and their rights and responsibilities relative to their creators.”

No kidding. These scientists, theorists, and philosophers, teaching at some of the most prestigious academic institutions in the world, were seriously considering granting recognition of human dignity to machines and robots. Even the language in the making of such proposals appears ludicrous on its face. What does it mean to speak of “hypothetical future machine progeny?” Beyond that, how can we speak of robots having “rights and responsibilities relative to their creators?” Once again, science fiction is treated as the coming reality. Is it?

As Wesley J. Smith argues, “We shouldn't take all this too seriously, of course. Transhumanism is mostly an intellectual game, a fantasy. The technological breakthroughs necessary to create a true post-humanity will almost surely never come.” So, should we worry?

“But this doesn't mean that transhumanism is benign – far from it,” Smith advises. “Dismissing the intrinsic value of human life is always dangerous, and presuming to determine which human traits are desirable and which not leads to very dark places.”

As Smith rightly reminds, a “new eugenics” has already arrived, with the abortion of the vast majority of babies diagnosed with Down's Syndrome and with the genetic screening of human embryos now urged upon us.

Furthermore, Smith notes that the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Commerce have called for spending billions of dollars pursuing the very technologies that the transhumanists envision. The National Institutes of Health granted $773,000 to Case Law School in order to determine the advisability of “ethically acceptable rules” concerning the use of genetic technologies for human enhancement.

The rise of the transhumanist movement is just one symptom of a primal sin that has affected humanity from Adam onward. Dissatisfied with the limits of our human condition, there is the natural impulse to exceed those limitations. Thus, entire industries have been developed, intended to offer the promise of a longer life, a better life, a different life, and the eclipse of human boundaries.

Yet human dignity rests upon a clear and unambiguous affirmation that we are, after all, creatures uniquely made in God's image. The very fact that we are creatures reminds us of the fact that our Creator has the right to define and to determine what it means to be human. The problem with transhumanism is not merely in the details, or even in the likelihood that many of these technologies will never see the light of day. Indeed, the real problem is that the very urge and desire to eclipse human limitations is an act of defiance grounded in profound ingratitude. At the core of transhumanism is a basic hatred of humanity. The true humanists are those who accept with gratitude the gift of true humanity.

Three Objections

It goes by many different names. Some call it naturalism or scientism; others refer to it as materialism or modernism. Some don’t refer to it at all, believing that it is the presupposition of any rational person.

IT is the basic belief that we can only know what we can empirically observe; that is, the only valid explanation for any phenomenon is that which can be scientifically proven. Carl Sagan famously summed up the naturalist worldview by saying, “The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be.” The naturalist rejects supernatural explanations. The problems with this worldview are myriad, yet in spite of these it has become the default framework of knowledge in secular society. The following are just three of the problems that undermine naturalism’s credibility as a worldview.

First and foremost, naturalism is self-refuting. The naturalist claims to reject the metaphysical while at the same time ignoring the fact that naturalism is itself a metaphysical framework. As many have pointed out, naturalism (or scientism) cannot be scientifically proven. It is an un-provable philosophical assumption that guides experimentation; it is not itself the result of experimentation. It is logically impossible to prove via natural means that the supernatural does not exist. Of course, anyone is free to start from naturalist presuppositions, but they should realize that this is no less of a faith commitment than starting from a theist’s point of view.

Second, as Paul Copan has pointed out, the naturalist is guilty of what is known in logic as the “self-excepting fallacy.” That is, he does not hold his own beliefs to the same standard he expects of others. He explains away the religious beliefs of others as the product of their DNA and experience, suggesting that they are therefore unfounded. But he does not consider his own reasoning abilities untrustworthy even though, according to his own worldview, they are the product of chance plus matter plus time. The naturalist sees no need to defend his presuppositions, though this is precisely what he expects of others.

Finally, John Lennox has pointed out a more subtle error of naturalism. The naturalist worldview fails to account for the difference between MECHANISM and AGENCY. If the naturalist can determine the mechanical cause behind a phenomenon, he believes his work is done. But he has not considered the question of agency, that is, whoever or whatever set the mechanism in motion. Isaac Newton (a theist) didn’t make this confusion. As Lennox points out, Newton recognized gravity (the mechanism), but he glorified God (the agent responsible). The belief that evolution is the mechanism by which this universe arrived at its current state does nothing to resolve the question of what agent set that mechanism in motion. Although many scientists recognize the limited explanatory power of science, proponents of scientISM treat the natural world as if it were an agent rather than a mechanism.

I am curious to know how Dr. Sagan would have responded had someone asked him to prove his statement that the Cosmos is all that is, was, or will be, for there is no way to prove naturalism by naturalistic methods. Is it not reasonable that those who preach naturalism consider just what a heaping helping of faith their creeds require?

________

Digestive System 57:01

by Dr. A.E. Wilder-Smith

Dr. A.E. Wilder-Smith explores the intricate meaning behind the digestive system as a reflection of divine design and purpose in life.

Evolution or Creation 1:17:44

by Dr. A.E. Wilder-Smith

Dr. A.E. Wilder-Smith argues for creation over evolution, emphasizing the evidence of God's existence through science and nature.

Evolution & Causation 1:01:15

by John Follette

The sermon emphasizes the importance of worship, the significance of God's creation, and the power of the blood of Jesus Christ to redeem and restore us to God.

Origin of Man in Relation to the Theory of Evolution 47:17

by John Murray

The sermon explores the relationship between the biblical account of creation and the theory of evolution, emphasizing the distinct roles of divine intervention and natural process

Transhumanism 1:12:20

by Keith Malcomson

Keith Malcomson warns that the rise of transhumanism, rooted in evolutionary ideology, signals the imminent fulfillment of biblical prophecy and the approaching end times.

Pilgrims Problems No. 10 Evolution 58:20

by Willie Mullan

Willie Mullan's sermon argues for a literal interpretation of creation in Genesis, emphasizing faith in Christ as the foundation of understanding the world and addressing human nee

Pilgrims Problems No. 11 Evolution 53:29

by Willie Mullan

The sermon contrasts evolution with biblical creation, emphasizing faith in God's finished work and the significance of resurrection in Christian belief.

These illustrations have been gathered from many sources over many years and are offered to preachers as a study aid. Each is credited wherever the source is known, and we have made every effort to respect the rights of authors and publishers.

If you hold the rights to anything here and would like it credited differently or removed, please write to us and we will act promptly.