| PRIVILEGING
EVOLUTION THEORY IN SCHOOLS
Evolution
is seen as the only scientific
explanation of how life began and
developed on earth. Creation, by
contrast, is regarded as only a
religious belief and therefore as
unscientific. The theory of
evolution, allegedly supported by
much scientific evidence and
containing very few questions still
in dispute, is represented as
complete truth. It must (so the
argument goes) be universally
accepted and therefore it alone
deserves a place in science
textbooks as the explanation for the
origin of life. Creation, if it is
to have a place at all in school
curricula, belongs with religious
education.
Before
discussing this further, it will be
useful to define our terms. By ‘creation
theory’ is meant something like
this: the Creator, by an act of will
which occurred outside of the
cosmos, directly willed into being
the first plant and animal species,
separately and independently of each
other. Any subsequent changes or
mutations were accomplished only
within the species boundaries. No
essential modifications or evolution
(such as of more complicated species
from simpler ones) occurred after
that. In the past the earth was at
least once flooded extensively.
Geological investigations show
clearly that this extensive flooding
led to the destruction and
extinction of a large number of
living creatures.
According
to the modern ‘evolution theory’,
all life evolved from one simple
primitive cell, which came out of
dead, lifeless matter by chance,
then hit upon a method of
replication and adaptation which
(again by random trial and error
over vast periods of time) led to
the many varieties of living species
each fitted for competitive survival
in its particular niche in the
environment. The whole process of
evolution took several hundred
million years. Large geological
events are explained as natural
phenomena occurring in specific
periods of time and without a
world-wide destruction of the earth
by flood.
The
first creation of man was not
observed by man; it is an
unrepeatable historical event,
unsuited to ‘testing by experiment’,
the standard procedure in modern
science. Further, creation cannot be
disproved: it is impossible to
devise or conduct an experiment that
could falsify the claim put forward
by the creation theory. It is for
that reason unacceptable as a
scientific theory. That does not
mean it is false; nor does it mean
it is true. However, it is clear
that the creation theory shows good
co-relations with the results of
fossil investigation. To some
extent, it can be tested in the same
way as other historical claims are
matched and tested with
appropriately corroborative
historical documents.
Evolution
theory likewise does not fulfill all
the criteria which would justify
calling it a scientific theory. The
great modifications of evolution
were never observed; the claims of
the theory fall outside of
experimental and scientific methods.
Nobody has ever observed or could
ever observe how a fish became a
frog or a monkey became a human; no
human witnessed or could ever
witness the origin of the cosmos or
of life.
A
well-known bit of evidence often
used to argue fore evolution theory
is the case of the moth Biston
betularia. The moths of this species
found in England before the
industrial revolution were
predominantly white. The effects of
industrial pollution blackened rocks
and tree-bark. The number of white
moths in the population, now fatally
exposed to their predators, fell
drastically, while the number of
black moths rose. Today in the
industrialized regions of England,
95% of the moths are black: they had
better camouflage and therefore a
higher survival rate, eventually
dominating the population. Thus, the
environment ‘selected’ or
favored the black over the white
variety.
While
this case clearly illustrates
adaptive evolution within a species,
it equally clearly does not
illustrate evolution from one
species to another. The latter kind
of change or ‘macro-evolution’
is never observable. As a famous
supporter of evolution, Dobzhansky,
put it - evolution can never be
repeated or reversed (no life-form
ever evolves back to what it
allegedly had once been); the time
periods reckoned for major changes
to occur exceed by far the life-span
of mankind as a whole; it is
impossible to test the theory
scientifically and therefore it
cannot be presented to
anti-evolutionists in a way that
would force them to change their
position.
Some
evolutionist scientists are
objective and honest enough to
accept that evolution theory is no
more scientific than the creation
theory. For example, providing a
short list of the theory’s
weaknesses, Harris pointed out that
creationists demand from the
evolutionists an explanation of (a)
how random mutations led to
adaptations, (b) why natural
selection acts only for the benefit
of some species, (c) why natural
selection allowed the survival of
organs which are obviously not used.
We now understand, Harris maintains,
that neither theory is rational,
that both depend on axioms.
In
the Preface of the 1971 edition of
Charles Darwin’s The Origin of
Species, Mathews, pointing out that
the evolution of the animals has
never been demonstrated, asks: Is
biology now a science or a belief
system?
It
does not follow from the fact that
neither theory is ‘scientific’
according to the strict criteria,
that either is necessarily wrong.
However, since evolution theory
claims that evolution occurred
according to natural laws, these
laws must be valid at the present
time (as in the past), and the
theory may not contradict those
laws. But the evolutionists insist
that the non-demonstrability of
evolution, its central weakness as a
scientific theory, must be accepted
as a consequence of the enormous
slowness of evolutionary processes.
They further insist that creation
theory should be removed from
scientific textbooks, it should not
be investigated scientifically, and
certainly not presented as an
alternative to evolution. But their
argument that creation theory cannot
be scientifically tested applies
equally to evolution theory.
Similarly, their objection that
creation theory promotes religion
and belief in supernatural agency,
applies equally to evolution theory
which promotes atheism as a belief
system and accords to random ‘natural’
processes the role of supernatural
agency. If it is wrong or improper
to teach the former, it must be
wrong or improper to teach the
latter also.
In
practice, evolution theory has
become an unofficial state-supported
religion sponsored directly by its
exclusive place on all curricula; a
dogma that binds students of biology
to the closed horizons of evolution
theory in schools, colleges and
universities. However, more and more
scientists are finding the courage
to assert that grave inconsistencies
between evolutionary theory and
scientific laws or experimental
results exist. Also, many scientists
are arguing that the creation model
is free from such inconsistencies
and offers a better explanation of
the established facts about the
origin of living organisms. Even
some followers of evolutionary
theory are admitting to being
dissatisfied with it and to seeking
a ‘better’ theory that fits and
explains the known facts in a
properly scientific way.
The
essential claim of modern
evolutionary theory is that the
processes of evolution resulted from
natural selection of the
coincidental mutational
modifications in the genetic code.
This selection was realized in
relation to modifications of the
environment. Natural selection is an
agent, acting through coincidences
and working in mutated genes. But
that does not explain (as it was
once thought and hoped it would)
very much at all. There is a fatal
circularity, a fatal
self-validation, in the theory of
selection. Which living creatures
survived? Answer: those that adapted
to the changes in their environment.
Which living creatures adapted?
Answer: those that survived. There
is no explanatory effectiveness in
this kind of reasoning.
It
is impossible to explain, why some
species only live until they produce
the next generation. We only know
that because they were created in
that way. Scientists who support the
creation model believe that natural
selection leads to species extending
modifications towards
ever-increasing complexity. Natural
selection has the merely negative
function of eventually removing from
the environment species that have
failed to realize their potential to
adapt.
According
to modern evolutionary theory, all
processes of change are initiated by
mutations. Mutations are random,
heritable modifications in the
chromosomes or genes, which are
complete functioning elements.
Whatever happens randomly can
nevertheless be calculated according
to known and established
mathematical principles. Therefore,
it should be possible to calculate
and predict the numbers of mutations
necessary to effect a change in the
organism. In short, if we really
believe that evolution resulted
through coincidence, then the time
period needed for the transformation
of a protozoon to a human can be
worked out. One group of
mathematicians who support the
evolution theory did compute the
time needed. The results of their
calculations were that it would take
one billion times longer than the
five billion years that the world
has existed. In sum, it is
impossible for evolution to have
happened by chance. Why then do we
allow that impossibility to be
taught in schools and presented in
textbooks as if it were truth? It is
impossible to justify. |
