Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences

Rating:
Summary: This is not a review...honestly
Review: Intellectual honesty. Preaching ones own religious dogma by quoting a handful of scientists out of context does not constitute a review of the book. Misquoting, quoting out of context and misinformation is one of the creationist tactics, as the previous review has so eloquently demonstrated. This book must be very near the mark to have provoked such a reaction.

Rating:
Summary: Is it fact or faith?
Review: One of the many things that needs to be addressed, is a common misconception among the public (see reviewer comments below), that creationists are blind, biased "Bible thumping" fanatics, whereas evolutionists are unbiased pillars of objectivity. Hopefully, one will be able to see by a few of the admissions from evolutionists' own literature, that nothing could be further from the truth.

Take, for instance, Professor Richard Lewontin, a geneticist (and self-proclaimed Marxist), who is a renowned champion of neo-Darwinism, and certainly one of the world's leaders in evolutionary biology. He recently wrote this very revealing comment. It illustrates the implicit philosophical bias against Genesis creation - regardless of whether or not the facts support it.

"We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, 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 counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door." -*Richard Lewontin, "Billions and billions of demons", The New York Review, January 9, 1997, page 31.

So here we have one of the world's leading evolutionists admitting what the general public was never told - that evolutionists have universally accepted a materialistic interpretation scheme as truth. All evidence stands or falls based upon it's fit with the dogma of evolution. Any data that does not fit within this hypothetical framework is discarded or explained away.

But let's not stop with Lewontin. Let's see what other prominent evolutionists have actually admitted. Is evolution truly fact, or faith?

"The more one studies paleontology, the more certain one becomes that evolution is based on faith alone . . exactly the same sort of faith which it is necessary to have when one encounters the great mysteries of religion."-*Louis Trenchard More, quoted in "Science and the Two-tailed Dinosaur", p. 33.

"Our theory of evolution has become . . one which cannot be refuted by any possible observations. Every conceivable observation can be fitted into it . . No one can think of ways in which to test it. Ideas either without basis or based on a few laboratory experiments carried out in extremely simplified systems, have attained currency far beyond their validity. They have become part of an evolutionary dogma accepted by most of us as part of our training."-*L.C. Birch and *P. Ehrlich, Nature, April 22, 1967.

"[The theory of evolution] forms a satisfactory faith on which to base our interpretation of nature."-*L. Harrison Matthews, "Introduction to Origin of Species," p. xxii (1977 edition).

"The facts must mold the theories, not the theories the facts . . I am most critical of my biologist friends in this matter. Try telling a biologist that, impartially judged among other accepted theories of science, such as the theory of relativity, it seems to you that the theory of natural selection has a very uncertain, hypothetical status, and watch his reaction. I'll bet you that he gets red in the face. This is `religion,' not `science,' with him."-*Burton, "The Human Side of the Physiologist: Prejudice and Poetry," Physiologist 2 (1957).

"It is therefore a matter of faith, on the part of the biologist, that biogenesis did occur and he can choose whatever method of biogenesis happens to suit him personally; the evidence of what did happen is not available."-*G.A. Kerkut, Implications of Evolution (1960), p. 150.

"If complex organisms ever did evolve from simpler ones, the process took place contrary to the laws of nature, and must have involved what may rightly be termed the miraculous."-*R.E.D. Clark, Victoria Institute (1943), p. 63.

"The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an improved theory-is it then a science or faith? Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief in special creation-both are concepts which believers know to be true but neither, up to the present, has been capable of proof."-*L.H. Matthews, "Introduction to Origin of the Species, by *Charles Darwin (1971 edition), pp. x, xi (1971 edition).

"In fact [subsequent to the publication of Darwin's book, Origin of Species], evolution became, in a sense, a scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted it and many are prepared to `bend' their observations to fit with it."-*H.S. Lipson, "A Physicist Looks at Evolution," Physics Bulletin, Vol. 31, p. 138 (1980).

"[Karl] Popper warns of a danger: `A theory, even a scientific theory, may become an intellectual fashion, a substitute for religion, an entrenched dogma.' This has certainly been true of evolutionary theory."-*Colin Patterson, Evolution (1977), p. 150.

"The irony is devastating. The main purpose of Darwinism was to drive every last trace of an incredible God from biology. But the theory replaces God with and even more incredible deity-omnipotent chance."-*T. Rosazak, Unfinished Animal (1975), pp. 101-102.

For those interested, I recommend checking out the AnswersInGenesis and ICR (Institute for Creation Research) websites for much more information.

Also, I recommend picking up a copy of "The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods" by John Woodmorappe, "In Six Days: Why 50 Ph.D. Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation" by John Ashton, "Bones of Contention" by Marvin Lubenow, "Darwin's Black Box" by Michael Behe", "The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict" by Josh McDowell, and "Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics" by Duane Gish.

Rating:
Summary: Great reference in fighting creationists
Review: This small book presents in simple language that even creationists may understand the facts of evolution and why creationism is poor religion and even worse science.