The following scientists do not hold to biblical creationism, but criticize major aspects of Darwinian evolution and propose that Intelligence must be behind the universe. Many of these have been persecuted by the Darwinian establishment for daring to challenge its dogmas.
“A growing number of respectable scientists are defecting from the evolutionist camp ... moreover, for the most part these ‘experts’ have abandoned Darwinism, not on the basis of religious faith or biblical persuasions, but on strictly scientific grounds, and in some instances, regretfully” (Wolfgang Smith, cited from Ian Taylor, Origins Answer Book, p. 107).
“Darwin's strongest critics were scientists ....’ Even
today, many critics of Darwinism are not religious fundamentalists, and a
growing number of critics are credentialed scientists” (Jonathan Wells,
“The Problem of Evidence,” Forbes, Feb. 5, 2009).
FRANCIS CRICK
In his 1981 book Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature he wrote:“An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going” (p. 88).Crick rejected Darwinism by concluding that there is no scientific evidence of a “primordial soup” in which life could have risen.
He also stated that the beginning of the fossil record does not show evolution. Instead, it witnesses the sudden appearance of complex creatures. Tomas Lindahl from the Francis Crick Institute has won the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Read more here.
DAVID STOVE
He
claimed to be “of no religion” and rejected Darwin’s teaching on the evolution of man. In his book ( below ) "Darwinian
Fairytales: Selfish Genes, Errors of Heredity, and Other Fables of
Evolution", Stove showed that Darwin’s principle of natural selection,
which is a foundational part of his theory, is not applicable to human
society.
He
called Darwinism “a mere festering mass of errors” and “ridiculous
slanders on our species.” In his review of the book, Martin Gardner
says, “Whatever your opinion of ‘Intelligent Design,’ you’ll find
Stove’s criticism of what he calls ‘Darwinism’ difficult to stop
reading. Stove’s blistering attack on Richard Dawkins’ ‘selfish genes’
and ‘memes’ is unparalleled and unrelenting. A discussion of spiders who
mimic bird droppings is alone worth the price of the book.”
Consider the following sharp refutation of the Darwinian survival of the fittest doctrine:
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| Book Review |
“Huxley
should not have needed Darwinism to tell him--since any intelligent
child of about eight could have told him--that in a ‘continual free
fight of each other against all’ there would soon be no children, no
women, and hence, no men. In other words, that the human race could not
possibly exist now, unless cooperation had always been stronger than
competition, both between women and their children, and between men and
the children and women whom they protect and provide for” (p. 9).
Stove had no patience for doctrinaire Darwinists, as the following quote illustrates:
“Such
cases, I need hardly say, never bother armor-plated neo-Darwinians. But
then no cases, possible or even actual, ever do bother them. ... In
neo-Darwinism’s house there are many mansions: so many, indeed, that if a
certain awkward fact will not fit into one mansion, there is sure to be
another one into which it will fit to admiration” (p. 39).
Dr STEPHEN T BLUME - The recovered evolutionist
Dr. Blume is a dentist who graduated from the University of Southern California. The courses he took at USC were more than enough to provide him with a master’s degree in biological sciences.
"Since I graduated from dental school in 1967, I had been a firm believer in Darwinian evolution. I thought anyone who did not was naive. It seemed like such a logical way that we humans, and all other species had arrived on earth. I have always been fascinated with the subject, and study and think about it often. I was so comfortable with evolution as the only logical explanation for how we got here. I was in awe of the genius of Charles Darwin. When visiting my son who was studying medicine at Chicago Medical School in 2004, I visited the Field Museum and saw Sue, their T. Rex fossil. What a great experience. But a puzzle came to mind. Why didn’t T Rex’s arms (or any other part of T Rex) evolve in the three to four million years that it roamed the earth?"
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Sparked by his visit to the Field museum, Dr. Blume began a research project on evolution, made videos and uploaded them to YouTube with the goal of opening people’s minds and getting them to think on a different plane than the one they were handed in school. Through all of his research, his blog, his videos, thousands of discussions with evolution supporters, including biologists with PhDs and master’s degrees, and many leading YouTube evolution gurus, his book Evo-illusion was born.
This is the opening statement at his blog: The theme of this blog involves a discussion about the scientific validity of evolution. This blog has nothing to do with any kind of religious arguments, so if you are looking for that kind of discussion, this is not the place for you. Here I take a critical and objective look at evolution.
This book's Italian title, Dimenticare Darwin, means "Forget Darwin," and its prologue bears the title "Evolution is dead!" The author, Dr. Giuseppe Sermonti, is a respected Italian biologist who boldly shatters the myth that all critics of Darwinian evolution are American religious fundamentalists.
This delightful little book is loaded with scientific facts that aren't taught in standard biology classes, but it is also full of history and poetry. Why is a Fly Not a Horse? does not have all the answers, but it asks many of the right questions-in a style that is both entertaining and inspiring.
Giuseppe Sermonti is retired Professor of Genetics at the University of Perugia. He discovered genetic recombination in antibiotic-producing
Penicillium and Streptomyces and was Vice President at the XIV International Congress of Genetics (Moscow, 1980). Sermonti is Chief Editor of Rivista di Biologia/Biology Forum, one of the oldest still-published biology journals in the world, and he has published seven other books, including Dopo Darwin (After Darwin), with R. Fondi (1980-1984).
ANTHONY FLEW
Antony Flew (1923-2010) was a British philosopher and a famous atheist who converted to “Deism” in 2004. In 2004 he published There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind.
“It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design” (Dr. Antony Flew, “Atheist Becomes Theist,” interview with Former Atheist Antony Flew by Gary Habermas, Philosophia Christi, Winter 2005).
WOLFGANG SMITH (b. 1930)
Wolfgang Smith (b. 1930) has a Ph.D. in mathematics from Columbia University. He researched the problem of atmospheric reentry for Bell Laboratories. He has been a mathematics professor at MIT, UCLA, and Oregon State University.
“The point, however, is that the doctrine of evolution has swept the world, not on the strength of its scientific merits, but precisely in its capacity as a Gnostic myth. It affirms, in effect, that living beings created themselves, which is, in essence, a metaphysical claim. ... Thus, in the final analysis, evolutionism is in truth a metaphysical doctrine decked out in scientific garb” (Teilhardism and the New Religion, p. 24).
FREEMAN DYSON
Freeman Dyson (b. 1923) is a renowned theoretical physicist and mathematician, famous for work in nuclear engineering and solid-state physics. He is the recipient of the Heineman Prize (1965), the Wolf Prize (1981), the Templeton Prize (2000), and the Pomeranchuk Prize (2003). He worked on the Orion Project, which studied the possibility of space-flight using nuclear pulse propulsion, and led the design team for TRIGA, a small, safe nuclear reactor that produces isotopes and medical and research use.
“The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming” (Freeman Dyson, Disturbing the Universe, 1979, p. 250).“As we look out into the universe and identify the many accidents of physics and astronomy that have worked together for our benefit, it almost seems as if the universe must in some sense have known that we are coming” (Freeman Dyson, “Energy in the Universe,” Scientific American, 1971, p. 59).
DAVID BERLINSKI
In The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Scientific Pretensions, Berlinski exposes the weakness of Darwinism and reproves the dogmatism and censorship of the Darwinian establishment. One reviewer says:
“This book is so well written that superlatives seem inadequate. Berlinski begins by stating that he is not religious and has no particular religious axe to grind. He is a mathematician and scientist. Yet he skewers science in general, and Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, and Harris in particular with well-reasoned argument, simple yet cogent analysis, and more humor than I would have thought possible for this subject. Berlinksi makes it clear that he in no way means to disparage or belittle Science. He is only trying to show how Science has been twisted by The Four Horsemen in an attempt to prove an anti-religious point of view, and how that twisting promises so much and delivers so little.”
Another reviewer says:
“Any book by David Berlinski is bound to be fun. He is simply one of the most erudite writers in popular science and mathematics today. Those who particularly like seeing sacred cows treated with a hint of sarcasm and irreverence will enjoy his writing on almost any subject, but this book, attacking the "new atheism" as it does, is especially delightful if for no other reason than for how pompous writers like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchins are in their approach to this subject. In brief, Berlinski's argument boils down to three main points: there is nothing in science proper that undermines religion (a point that used to be widely recognized and even extolled by writers like SJ Gould), most of the new atheists badly misunderstand even the most rudimentary arguments of theology and are not logically consistent, and finally that much of science has become rather dogmatic, like a new religion.:”
Following are some quotes:
“Within the English-speaking world, Darwin’s theory of evolution remains the only scientific theory to be widely championed by the scientific community and widely disbelieved by everyone else. No matter the effort made by biologists, the thing continues to elicit the same reaction it has always elicited: You’ve got to be kidding, right?” (Berlinski, p. 186).
“Suspicions about Darwin’s theory arise for two reasons. The first: the theory makes little sense. The second: it is supported by little evidence” (David Berlinski, The Devil’s Delusion, p. 187).
“This is the conclusion suggested by more than six thousand years of artificial selection, the practice of barnyard and backyard alike. Nothing can induce a chicken to lay a square egg or to persuade a pig to develop wheels mounted on ball bearings. It would be a violation, as chickens and pigs are prompt to observe and often with indignation, of their essential nature. If species have an essential nature that beyond limits cannot change, then random variations and natural selection cannot change them. We must look elsewhere for an account that does justice to their nature or to the facts” (David Berlinski, The Devil’s Delusion, p. 189).
“Computer simulations of Darwinian evolution fail when they are honest and succeed only when they are not” (Berlinski, The Devil’s Delusion, p. 190).
The Deniable Darwin and Other Essays (2010) features 32 essays spanning 15 years, including his award winning essays “What Brings a World into Being?” and “On the Origins of Mind” (Best American Science Writing 2002, 2005). Berlinski states in the title essay:
“The facts in favor of evolution are often held to be incontrovertible; prominent biologists shake their heads at the obduracy of those who would dispute them. Those facts, however, have been rather less forthcoming than evolutionary biologists might have hoped. If life progressed by an accumulation of small changes, as they say it has, the fossil record should reflect its flow, the dead stacked up in barely separated strata. But for well over 150 years, the dead have been remarkably diffident about confirming Darwin’s theory. Their bones lie suspended in the sands of time-theromorphs and therapsids and things that must have gibbered and then squeaked; but there are gaps in the graveyard, places where there should be intermediate forms but where there is nothing whatsoever instead ...
“The structures of life are complex, and complex structures get made in this, the purely human world, only by a process of deliberate design. An act of intelligence is required to bring even a thimble into being; why should the artifacts of life be different?
PIERRE-PAUL GRASSÉ
Pierre-Paul
Grassé (1895-1985) was a distinguished French zoologist, editor of the
influential 28-volume Traite de zoologie, ex-president of the French
Academy of Sciences; Thomas Dobzhansky, in his book Evolution, said,
“Grassé’s knowledge of the living world is encyclopedic.” Grassé was an
evolutionist but he debunked Darwinian evolution as contrary to the
facts of nature.“Today our duty is to destroy the myth of evolution,
considered as a simple, understood, and explained phenomenon which keeps
rapidly unfolding before us. Biologists must be encouraged to think
about the weaknesses and extrapolations that theoreticians put forward
or lay down as established truths. The deceit is sometimes unconscious,
but not always, since some people, owing to their sectarianism,
purposely overlook reality and refuse to acknowledge the inadequacies
and falsity of their beliefs” (Evolution of Living Organisms, 1977, p.
8).
“Our ignorance is so great that we dare not even assign with
any accuracy an ancestral stock to the phyla Protozoa, Arthopoda,
Mollusca and Vertebrata. ... From the almost total absence of fossil
evidence relative to the origins of the phyla, it follows that an
explanation of the mechanism in the creative evolution of the
fundamental plans is heavily burdened with hypothesis. This should
appear as an epigraph to every book on evolution” (pp. 17, 31).
JERRY FODOR
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| Read more about Jeffy Fodor |
Publishers Weekly says:“The authors of this scattershot treatise believe in evolution, but think that the Darwinian model of adaptationism—that random genetic mutations, filtered by natural selection, produce traits that enhance fitness for a particular biological niche—is fatally flawed.
Philosopher Fodor and molecular-biologist-turned-cognitive-scientist Piattelli-Palmarini, at the University of Arizona, launch a three-pronged attack (which drew fire when Fodor presented their ideas in the London Review of Books in 2007). ... Their most persuasive, and engaging, criticism is that evolutionary theory is just tautological truisms and historical narratives of how creatures came to be.”
A Booklist review by Ray Olson says:“Remaining staunchly atheist all the while, philosopher Fodor and cognitive scientist Piattelli-Palmarini challenge Darwinism more effectively than the entire creationist/intelligent-design movement has.
Natural selection as the
driver of speciation has become decreasingly explanatory as research
continues to appreciate the complexity of internal and external
processes impinging on development. For one thing, inherent physical
limitations of developing organisms nullify blind selection; adapt as
they may, pigs will never grow wings. Conceptually, natural selection is
faulty because it necessarily implies intentionality (selection is made
by something), never mind that how something with adaptive effect is
chosen is utterly elusive logically. There is a great deal more to Fodor
and Piattelli-Palmarini’s arguments, which ordinary general readers
won’t be able to articulate afterward but will gratefully refer
others—and themselves—to again and again. Many may find this the
hardest, absolutely essential reading they’ve ever done.” Click here to read about the book.
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WOLF-EKKEHARD LÖNNIG
“Meet
Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, a brilliant scientist who worked at the
Max-Planck Institute until his retirement. Though he has written four
books on the subject of evolution, he has infuriated evolutionists
everywhere by daring to challenge Neo-Darwinism on scientific grounds.
He told the Diplomacy Post in March 2014: ‘A scientific hypothesis
should be potentially falsifiable.... However,’ he added, ‘the idea of
slow evolution by 'infinitesimally small inherited variations' etc. has
been falsified by the findings of palaeontology... as well [as]
genetics. Yet its adherents principally reject any scientific proof
against Neo-Darwinism,’ he said, ‘so that, in fact, their theory has
become a non-falsifiable worldview, to which people stick in spite of
all contrary evidence.’
Scientists continue to support evolution despite
the evidence that actually falsified evolution because ‘without
Darwinism, philosophic materialism has lost its battle against an
intelligent origin of the world.’ But Wolf had more to say. ‘According
to Neo-Darwinism, all important problems of the origin of species are,
at least in principle, solved. Further questions on the validity of
evolutionary theory are thus basically superfluous. However, such a
dogmatic attitude stops further investigations and hinders fruitful
research in science.’ Though Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig has stopped short of
giving recognition to God as the Intelligent Designer, we applaud his
work for showing that evolution doesn't even deserve to be called
scientific” (CreationMoments.com, Mar. 25, 2015).
I. L. COHEN
Cohen is a mathematician and researcher, a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, and an officer of the Archaeological Institute of America.
“Micro mutations do occur, but the theory that these alone can account for evolutionary change is either falsified or else it is an unfalsifiable, hence metaphysical, theory. I suppose that nobody will deny that it is a great misfortune if an entire branch of science becomes addicted to a false theory. But this is what happened in biology ... I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science” (cited in Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth, 1987, p. 422).
“... it is not the duty of science to defend the theory of evolution, and stick by it to the bitter end -- no matter what illogical and unsupported conclusions it offers. ... if in the process of impartial scientific logic, they find that creation by outside superintelligence is the solution to our quandary, then let’s cut the umbilical cord that tied us down to Darwin for such a long time. It is choking us and holding us back” (Darwin Was Wrong: A Study in Probabilities, 1984, pp. 214, 215).
“… every single concept advanced by the theory of evolution (and amended thereafter) is imaginary and it is not supported by the scientifically established facts of microbiology, fossils, and mathematical probability concepts. Darwin was wrong” (Darwin Was Wrong, p. 209).
“The theory of evolution may be the worst mistake made in science” (Darwin Was Wrong, p. 210).
In its original form science simply meant “knowledge.” It is helpful to distinguish between operational science and origin science, and compare how each one seeks to discover truth. Operational science uses observable, repeatable experiments to try to discover truth. Origin science relies on relics from the past and historical records to try to discover truth.
PAUL DAVIES
Paul Davies (b. 1946) has a Ph.D. in physics from the University College London and did post-doctoral studies under Fred Hoyle at the University of Cambridge. His research has focused on cosmology, theoretical physics, quantum field theory, and astrobiology. He has taught at the University of Cambridge and the University of Adelaide and currently is a professor at Arizona State University. He is the recipient of the Templeton Prize (1995), Kelvin Medal (2001), and the Faraday Prize (2002).He doesn’t believe in biblical creation, but he does believe that life is too complicated and perfectly arranged to have happened by chance.
“There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all. ... It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature’s numbers to make the Universe. ... The impression of design is overwhelming” (Davies, The Cosmic Blueprint: New Discoveries in Nature's Creative Ability To Order the Universe, 1988, p. 203).“Had this exceedingly delicate tuning of values been even slightly upset, the subsequent structure of the universe would have been totally different. ... Extraordinary physical coincidences and apparently accidental cooperation ... offer compelling evidence that something is 'going on.' ... A hidden principle seems to be at work” (Davies, The Accidental Universe, pp. 90, 110)
MICHAEL DENTON
Michael Denton (b. 1943) has a Ph.D. in biochemistry from King’s College London. He is Senior Research Fellow in molecular biology at the University of Otago, New Zealand. In Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Denton argued that natural selection and mutations cannot explain life. “It is the sheer universality of perfection, the fact that everywhere we look, to whatever depth we look, we find an elegance and ingenuity of an absolutely transcending quality, which so mitigates against the idea of chance. Alongside the level of ingenuity and complexity exhibited by the molecular machinery of life, even our most advanced artifacts appear clumsy. ... It would be an illusion to think that what we are aware of at present is any more than a fraction of the full extent of biological design. In practically every field of fundamental biological research ever-increasing levels of design and complexity are being revealed at an ever-accelerating rate” (Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, 1986, p. 32).“Although the tiniest bacterial cells are incredibly small ... each is in effect a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world" (Evolution: A Theory in Crisis).
“The complexity of the simplest known type of cell is so great that it is impossible to accept that such an object could have been thrown together suddenly by some kind of freakish, vastly improbable, event. Such an occurrence would be indistinguishable from a miracle” (Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, p. 264).It is alleged by evolutionary propagandists that Denton changed his views after the publication of Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, yet the fact is that he has always been an evolutionist and anti-creationist, but he still believes that Darwinianism is faulty and that an unidentified intelligence guided the process of evolution.In a 1995 interview, Denton made the following statement:“I think the current Darwinian picture is insufficient. I don’t think it gives a credible and comprehensive explanation of how the pattern of life on earth emerged. ... The theory of evolution permeates much of our thinking now in the Western world. I think there are problems with the current Darwinian world, and they should be discussed. ... My fundamental problem with the theory is that there are so many highly complicated organs, systems and structures, from the nature of the lung of a bird, to the eye of the rock lobster, for which I cannot conceive of how these things have come about in terms of a gradual accumulation of random changes. It strikes me as being a flagrant denial of common sense to swallow that all these things were built up by accumulative small random changes.
This is simply a nonsensical claim, especially for the great majority of cases, where nobody can think of any credible explanation of how it came about. And this is a very profound question which everybody skirts, everybody brushes over, everybody tries to sweep under the carpet” (An interview with Michael Denton, Access Research Network, Vol. 15. No. 2, 1995; the interview was produced in conjunction with the University of California and was the first in a series of interviews with noted scientists and educators entitled Focus on Darwinism). Answers in Genesis contacted Dr. Denton in 1999 and he assured them that the quotes from the 1995 interview represented his current view (“Blown Away by Design,” Creation, September 1999).His 2002 book Nature’s Destiny continues to argue for intelligent design. The subtitle is “How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe.” The following quote should leave no doubt about this:“All the evidence available in the biological sciences supports the core proposition of traditional natural theology--that the cosmos is a specially designed whole with life and mankind as its fundamental goal and purpose, a whole in which all facets of reality, from the size of galaxies to the thermal capacity of water, have their meaning and explanation in this central fact” (p. 389).
RICHARD GOLDSCHMIDT
Richard Goldschmidt (1878-1958), Ph.D. in zoology, was a pioneer geneticist. He described the nervous system of the nematode and the sex determination of the gypsy moth and experimented for decades with mutations in moths and fruit flies.
Through his research, Goldschidt came to the conclusion that Darwinian evolution by natural selection and the accumulation of gene mutations is unable to account for the origin of species. He wrote:"In the best-known organisms, like Drosophila, innumerable mutants are known. If we were able to combine a thousand or more of such mutants in a single individual, this still would have no resemblance whatsoever to any type known as a [new] species in nature” ("Evolution, As Viewed by One Geneticist, "American Scientist, January 1952, p. 94).In his 1940 book The Material Basis of Evolution, he wrote:“This statement of the problem already indicates that I cannot agree with the viewpoint of the textbooks that the problem of evolution has been solved as far as the genetic basis is concerned. ... At this point in our discussion I may challenge the adherents of the strictly Darwinian view, which we are discussing here, to try to explain the evolution of the following features by accumulation and selection of small mutants: hair in mammals, feathers in birds, segmentation of arthropods and vertebrates, the translation of the gill arches in phylogeny including the aortic arches, muscles, nerves, etc.; further, teeth, shells of mollusks, ectoskeletons, compound eyes, blood circulation, alternation of generations, statocysts, ambulacral system of echinoderms, pedicellaria of the same, enidocysts, poison apparatus of snakes, whalebone, and finally, primary chemical differences like hemoglobin vs. hemocyanin, etc. Corresponding examples from plants could be given” (pp. 6, 7).Refusing to give up on evolution, Goldschmidt invented “the hopeful monster” theory, hypothesizing that evolution takes place in giant leaps that are invisible in the fossil record and non-reproducible in the mutation laboratory.
But even though Goldschmidt never gave up on evolution, he was counted a traitor and a heretic by the evolutionary establishment because he questioned Darwinism publicly.FRED HOYLE Fred Hoyle (1915-2001) was the director of the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge University. He was the recipient of the Royal Medal (1974), the Klumpke-Roberts Award (1977), the Crafoord Prize (1997), among others. He was snubbed for the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1983 when his co-worker was awarded while his original contribution was overlooked. Hoyle rejected Darwinism but believed in evolution driven by alien intelligence.
Hoyle came to the conclusion that Darwinian evolution could not be true, because the universe is too complicated and orderly and the Darwinian theories aren’t supported by the evidence.“If one proceeds directly and straightforwardly in this matter, without being deflected by a fear of incurring the wrath of scientific opinion, one arrives at the conclusion that BIOMATERIALS WITH THEIR AMAZING MEASURE OR ORDER MUST BE THE OUTCOME OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN. No other possibility I have been able to think of” (“Evolution from Space,” Omni Lecture, Royal Institution, London, January 12, 1982).
“A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question” (Fred Hoyle, “The Universe: Past and Present Reflections,” Engineering and Science, November 1981).
“The fossil record is highly imperfect from a Darwinian point of view, not because of the inadequacies of geologists, but because the slow evolutionary connections required by the theory did not happen. Although paleontologists have recognized this truth for a century or more, they have not been able, in spite of their status as the acknowledged experts in the field, to make much of an impression on consensus opinion. ... Darwinian evolution is most unlikely to get even one polypeptide right, let alone the thousands on which living cells depend for their survival. This situation is well-known to geneticists and yet nobody seems prepared to blow the whistle decisively on the theory” (Hoyle and Wickramasinghem, Evolution from Space, 1981, pp. 147, 148).
“... we hit a difficulty that knocked the stuffing out of us. No matter how large the environment one considers, the life cannot have had a random beginning. Troops of monkeys thundering away at random on typewriters could not produce the works of Shakespeare ... The same is true for living material. As our ideas developed, a monstrous spectre kept beckoning. Just as the brain of Shakespeare was necessary to produce the famous plays, so prior information was necessary to produce a living cell” (Evolution from Space, p. 148).
“It is understandable that the biologists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries did not appreciate the extreme chemical complexity of living systems. Without doing serious violence to the evidence it was then possible to think in terms of processes leading to the origin of life that were not much more subtle than those which take place naturally in the Earth’s crust, as for instance the geochemical processes which led to the formation of metallic ores. ... This was the situation in 1924 at the time of the work of A.I. Oparin, work that was widely acclaimed as putting the final nail in the coffin of the older religions. All of life (and death) could be seen, it was claimed, to spring from natural causes. With the development of microbiology in the second half of the twentieth century it became overwhelmingly clear that the truth is quite otherwise. Biochemical systems are exceedingly complex, so much so that the chance of their being formed through random shufflings of simple organic molecules is exceedingly minute, to a point indeed WHERE IT IS INSENSIBLY DIFFERENT FROM ZERO” (Evolution from Space, p. 3).
“Anyone with even a noodling acquaintance with the Rubik cube will concede the near impossibility of a solution being obtained by a blind person moving the cube faces at random. Now imagine 10 to the fiftieth power blind persons (standing shoulder to shoulder, these would more than fill our entire planetary system) each with a scrambled Rubik cube and try to conceive of the chance of them all simultaneously arriving at the solved form. You then have the chance of arriving by random shuffling (random variation) of just one of the many biopolymers on which life depends. The notion that not only the biopolymers but the operating program of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial soup here on Earth is evidence of nonsense of a high order. Life must plainly be a cosmic phenomenon” (Hoyle, “The Big Bang in Astronomy,” New Scientist, November 19, 1981, p. 527).For these views, Hoyle was persecuted and ridiculed by the Darwinian establishment and is still treated as a nutcase. His intelligent design statistics, showing that the possibility of life evolving from nothing is comparable to a tornado sweeping through a junkyard and assembling a Boeing 747, has even labeled “Hoyle’s Fallacy.” The Wikipedia article on “Hoyle’s Fallacy” claims that Hoyle failed to “grasp how powerful a force natural selection can be.” Indeed, it must be exceedingly powerful to create everything out of nothing.
ROBERT JASTROW
“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries” (God and the Astronomers, 1978, p. 116).
VERA KISTIAKOWSKY
Vera Kistiakowsky (b. 1928) has a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California. She was a professor at MIT’s Laboratory for Nuclear Science until her retirement in 1994. She is the daughter of renowned physicist George Kistiakowsky (d. 1982), who worked on the Manhattan Project and developed a trigger for the first hydrogen bomb.
“The exquisite order displayed by our scientific understanding of the physical world calls for the divine” (Vera Kistiakowsky, cited by H. Margenau and R. A. Varghese, Cosmos, Bios, and Theos, 1992, p. 52).
SØREN LØVTRUP
Søren Løvtrup is a Swedish biologist. He authored Epigenetics: A Treatise on Theoretical Biology (1974) and The Phylogeny of Vertebrata (1977). Løvtrup is an evolutionist but he does not believe that natural selection and mutations can explain life. He presented his refutation of Darwinianism in his 1987 book Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth.
“I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science” (Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth, 1987).
“... the reasons for rejecting Darwin's proposal were many, but first of all that many innovations cannot possibly come into existence through accumulation of many small steps, and even if they can, natural selection cannot accomplish it, because incipient and intermediate stages are not advantageous” (Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth, p. 275).
NORMAN MACBETH
Macbeth (J.D., Harvard Law School), published Darwin Retried: An Appeal to Reason (1971) after making the study of Darwinism his avocation for many years. He attended private monthly meetings of experts at the American Museum of Natural History, where evolutionists freely acknowledged the problems of evolution (http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ435.html). Macbeth says that “any fool can see that evolution died years ago.”
One reviewer described the book as follows:
“He does not appeal to any religious authority to contradict Darwinism, nor does he reject the idea of evolution in toto. Rather, he finds the evidence and arguments for Darwinism to be deeply flawed. Questions are begged, evidence is fudged, and extrapolations are unwarranted. This is a thoughtful and fair critique well worth reading. Let me end with a quote from the author: ‘Any profession [he has biology in mind] that does not supply its own criticism and iconoclasm will discover that someone else will do the job, and usually in a way it does not like.’”
Macbeth also published Darwinism: A Time for Funerals (1982), which is a booklet of interviews about the weakness of the Darwinian theory.
Macbeth exposes the censorship of anti-Darwinian thought in the evolutionary establishment. In A Time for Funerals, he gives the example of a department head in an “Ivy League College” cutting out an article containing a critical analysis of Selection Theory from a book in the college library. After admitting responsibility, the professor said: “Well, of course, I don’t believe in censorship in any form, but I just couldn’t bear the thought of my students reading that article.”
RICHARD MILTON
Richard Milton (b. 1943) is a science journalist and design engineer and a member of Mensa, the high-IQ organization. He has been a member of the Geologists’ Association for over 30 years. He is not a creationist and in fact claims to have no religious faith, believing rather in the evolution of life by some process over millions of years.
He has debunked Darwinian evolution, though, in the strongest terms. In Shattering the Myths of Darwinism (1992), Milton claims that the evidence supporting the Darwinian theory of evolution is mythical. He calls the British Museum of Natural History “a kind of headquarters for Darwinism” and says that he has “been unable to see with my own eyes the decisive evidence for the general theory of evolution” (p. 3).
He calls Darwinism “the urban myth” with many faces and says there is “the myth of radiometric dating; the myth of uniformitarian geology; the myth of gradualist fossil record; the myth of beneficial mutations, the myth of natural selection; the myth that evolution is blind; the myth of the beak of the finch; the myth of the biogenetic law; the myth of vestigial organs; the myth of homology; the myth of the ‘missing link’” (p. 272).
He charges Darwinism with promoting speculation and faulty data.
“I am seriously concerned, on purely rational grounds, that generations of school and university teachers have been led to accept speculation as scientific theory and faulty data as scientific fact; that this process has accumulated a mountainous catalog of mingled fact and fiction that can no longer be contained by the sparsely elegant theory; and that it is high time that the theory was taken out of its ornate Victorian glass cabinet and examined with a fresh and skeptical eye” (p. 4).
He begins by exposing the lack of absolute science supporting the evolutionary dating methods and the doctrine of geological uniformitarianism. He observes,
“... it was the imperative need for great antiquity that deposed catastrophism, rather than any new scientific discoveries or observations; it was a new way of looking at things, not a new piece of knowledge. ... Darwinists needed time, and lots of it: uniformitarians had the geological theory that demonstrated great antiquity. ... Thus an unusual academic interdependence sprang up between the two sciences that continues to this day. A geologist wishing to date a rock stratum would ask an evolutionist’s opinion on the fossils it contained. An evolutionist having difficulty dating a fossil species would turn to the geologist for help. Fossils were used to date rocks: rocks were used to date fossils” (p. 28).
Milton observes that “if even one hundredth part of the evidence presented in this book is correct, then it will be obvious to any thinking person that there is a huge question mark hanging over the central issues of the life science” (p. 273).
Milton has been attacked fiercely by Darwinists. In his review of Milton’s Shattering the Myths of Darwinism, Oxford University atheist Richard Dawkins devoted two-thirds of the review to attacking the publisher for daring to print a book criticizing Darwinism and the other third to assassinating Milton’s character. Dawkins said the book is “loony,” “stupid,” “drivel,” and referred to Milton as a “harmless fruitcake” who “needs psychiatric help” (Shattering the Myths, pp. ix, x).
Dawkins has tried to have Milton blacklisted so that his scientific writings cannot be published. He has lied about him, calling him a “secret creationist.” He was effective in having the Times Higher Educational Supplement stop publication of one of Milton’s articles.
Milton describes one group of Darwinist vigilantes who use the Internet to attack those they find guilty of promoting the heresy of intelligent design. They call themselves “howler monkeys.” Milton says, “The effects of the howler monkeys of the Internet are profoundly damaging to academic freedom of expression, whoever their current victim happens to be” (p. 270).
Because of the Darwinist gestapo led by the likes of Richard Dawkins, the field of biology has been likened to “working in Russia under Brehznev.” “Many biologists have one set of beliefs at work, their official beliefs, and another set, their real beliefs, which they can speak openly about only among friends” (Rupert Sheldrake, cited by Milton, p 274).
JOHN A. O’KEEFE
John O’Keefe (1916-2000) was a planetary scientist with NASA from 1958-95. He was a leader in the development of the lunar space program.
“We are, by astronomical standards, a pampered, cosseted, cherished group of creatures.. .. If the Universe had not been made with the most exacting precision we could never have come into existence. It is my view that these circumstances indicate the universe was created for man to live in” (John O’Keefe, cited by F. Heeren, Show Me God, 1995, p. 200).
ARNO PENZIAS
Arno Penzias (b. 1933) has a Ph.D. in physics from Columbia University. He worked for Bell Laboratories and won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1978 for the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation, which is used as evidence for the Big Bang.
“Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say ‘supernatural’) plan” (Penzias, The New York Times, Jan. 2, 1979).
MICHAEL PITMAN
Michael Pitman was a chemistry professor at Cambridge. In his book Adam and Evolution, he documents his critique of and rejection of Darwinian evolution. He says:
“I started as devil’s advocate for the creationist view and came, in principle, though not to any particular creed, to prefer it. ... the direction of the argument is clear -- there has been neither chemical evolution nor macro-evolution” (p. 254).
Pitman takes doctrinaire evolutionists to task for pretending that their theories are based on proven science.
“But I hope I have shown that apparently convincing arguments in support of a belief can often be seen to be either based on insufficient data or open to more than one interpretation; and that much of what passes for science is no more and no less emotional, illogical and idiosyncratic than many of the opposing arguments. Science, useful as it is, does not explain a host of things; nor is all that it does not explain false. ... A man’s gospel is his business: that he teaches evolution as holy writ in television series or in schools and colleges--with no alternatives properly considered--is a more serious matter” (Adam and Evolution, p. 254).
Pitman also condemns the evolutionary establishment for suppressing debate on this subject.
“Presenting one viewpoint exclusively is faulty teaching. Our descendants will marvel at the attempts of the neo-Darwinian lobby to suppress alternative inquiry, as we today marvel at the power of churchmen in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries” (Adam and Evolution, p. 255).
The book begins with an overview of Darwin’s teaching and of the neo-Darwinian theory developed in the 20th century, which added chemical evolution, mutations, and genetic relationships to Darwinian natural selection as mechanisms of evolution.
The book critiques the major evidences that are put forth as support for evolution: the fossil record, natural selection, the doctrine of species, homology, cladistics, genetic mutations.
For example, Pitman describes the fruit fly experiments and shows that they actually disprove evolution:
“Morgan, Goldschmidt, Muller and other geneticists have subjected generations of fruit flies to extreme conditions of heat, cold, light, dark and treatment by chemicals and radiation. All sorts of mutations, practically all trivial or positively deleterious, have been produced. Man-made evolution? Not really: few of the geneticists’ monsters could have survived outside the bottles they were bred in. In practice, mutants die, are sterile or tend to revert to the wild-type” (Adam and Evolution, p. 70).
Pitman brilliantly develops the argument from design:
“‘We do not believe in the theory of special creation because it is incredible.’ In this way Sir Arthur Keith, a distinguished anatomist of the 1930s, echoed the rationalist feeling. But life itself is incredible, starting with every cell of every organ of every organism that Sir Arthur investigated. ... there is no evidence that, left to itself with whatever start it had over man, chance could evolve machines for work like men do, even the soft biological machinery of life. The creationist stops haggling over terms and looks for the designer. Through any but blinkered eyes the biological world shows clear signs of planning and order. It is not the order that constitutes a crystal, but a more complex order--the kind revealed in a developing seed or a growing embryo--the kind that, in any other context, we would unhesitatingly think of in terms of ingenuity and deliberate design” (Adam and Evolution, pp. 26, 27).
Pitman examines the living cell and its machinery, the human eye, the bird, the flying insect, metamorphosis, the bat’s radar. For example, he asks how evolution could possibly explain metamorphosis:
“Within this dry shell the organs of the caterpillar are dissolved and reduced to pulp. Breathing tubes, muscles and nerves disappear as such; the creature seems to have died. But processes are in operation which remould that pulp into different, coordinating parts, and in due course the insect, which has not grown up or developed in any normal sense, re-emerges as a beautiful, adult butterfly. It is a kind of resurrection. Certainly it demonstrates the absurdity of invoking natural selection by successive mutation to explain such an obviously, yet subtly programmed, process. Why, on that basis, should the ancestral insect have survived the mutations that projected it into the chrysalid stage, from which it could not yet develop into an adult? Where was natural selection then? How could pre-programmed metamorphosis, in insect, amphibian or crustacean, ever have evolved by chance? Indeed, how could development have evolved piece-meal? The ball is in the evolutionist’s court, tangled in a net of inexplicability” (Adam and Evolution, p. 71).
HOLMES ROLSTON
Holmes Rolston (b. 1932) earned a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh. He is professor of philosophy at Colorado State University. He received the Templeton Prize in 2003.
“The physical world is--shades of Bishop Paley!--looking like a fine-tuned watch again, and this time many quantitative calculations support the argument. The forms that matter and energy take seem strangely suited to their destiny” (“Shaken Atheism: A Look at the Fine-Tuned University,” The Christian Century, Dec. 3, 1986).
ALAN SANDAGE
Allan Sandage (1926-2010) earned a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology. He was a graduate student assistant to Edwin Hubble, of Hubble Telescope fame. He has received the National Medal of Science (1970), the Crafoord Prize in astronomy (1991), among many other prestigious awards.
“I find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has to be some organizing principle. God to me is a mystery but is the explanation for the miracle of existence, why there is something instead of nothing” (Alan Sandage, cited by J. N. Willford, “Sizing up the Cosmos: An Astronomer’s Quest,” New York Times, March 12, 1991, p. B9).
“The world is too complicated in all its parts and interconnections to be due to chance alone. I am convinced that the existence of life with all its order in each of its organisms is simply too well put together. Each part of a living thing depends on all its other parts to function. How does each part know? How is each part specified at conception? The more one learns of biochemistry the more unbelievable it becomes unless there is some type of organizing principle--an architect” (“A Scientist Reflects on Religious Belief,” Truth, vol. 1, 1985, p. 54).
HENRY SCHAEFER
Henry Schaefer, III (b. 1944) has a Ph.D. in chemical physics from Stanford University. He is Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and director of the Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry at the University of Georgia. He is a Fellow of the Discovery Institute and a signer of A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism.
“The significance and joy in my science comes in those occasional moments of discovering something new and saying to myself, ‘So that’s how God did it.’ My goal is to understand a little corner of God's plan” (Henry Schaefer, cited by J. Sheler and J. Schrof, “The Creation,” U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 23, 1991).
ARTHUR SCHAWLOW
Arthur Schawlow (1921-1999) had a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Toronto. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1981 and was one of the creators of the laser. He was a professor at Stanford University from 1961-96:
“It seems to me that when confronted with the marvels of life and the universe, one must ask why and not just how. The only possible answers are religious. ... I find a need for God in the universe and in my own life” (Arthur Schawlow, cited by Henry Margenau and Roy Varghese, Cosmos, Bios, and Theos, 1992).
ROBERT SHAPIRO
Richard Shapiro, an atheist and an evolutionist, is Professor Emeritus and Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Chemistry at New York University. He has a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Harvard and postdoctoral training in DNA chemistry at Cambridge.
In Origins: A Skeptic’s Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth (1986), Shapiro argues that life is too complex to have evolved through any known evolutionary process. He criticizes the major origin of life icons used by evolutionists, such as the Miller Experiment and the RNA-first theory.
The Washington Monthly review says:
“To the skeptical eye of Shapiro, explanations that have been offered look more like mythology than like science. ... The debate, as Shapiro presents it, is rife with speculations presented too forcefully, with inconclusive data put forward as definitive evidence and with explanations that look very much like Creation myths.”
The New Yorker says:
“He shifts through the various hypotheses about the origin of life and demonstrates that most are scientifically implausible or are simply forms of creation myth, sometimes in the guise of science.”
Shapiro writes:
“The improbability involved in generating even one bacterium is so large that it reduces all considerations of time and space to nothingness. Given such odds, the time until the black holes evaporate and the space to the ends of the universe would make no difference at all. If we were to wait, we would truly be waiting for a miracle” (Origins: A Skeptic’s Guide).
In spite of 150 years of evidence that Darwinian evolution is not true and Shapiro’s acknowledgement that it has failed to be proven scientifically, he holds steadfastly to evolutionary and naturalistic explanations of life. In fact, he says that even if evolution is totally disproven, he will not look to religion for answers. He writes:
“Some future day may yet arrive when all reasonable chemical experiments run to discover a probable origin for life have failed unequivocally. Further, new geological evidence may indicate a sudden appearance of life on the earth. Finally, we may have explored the universe and found no trace of life, or process leading to life, elsewhere. In such a case, some scientists might choose to turn to religion for an answer. Others, however, myself included, would attempt to sort out the surviving less probable scientific explanations in the hope of selecting one that was still more likely than the remainder” (Origins: A Skeptic’s Guide).
This is not a scientific approach; it is willful blindness. There is no scientific reason whatsoever to rule out God from the universe. In fact, many top notch scientists have believed that the universe is evidence for God.
LEE SPETNER
Lee Spetner received a Ph.D. in physics from MIT in 1950. He worked with the Applied Physics Laboratory of the Johns Hopkins University from 1951-70. His book Not By Chance: Shattering the Modern Theory of Evolution was published in 1997.
“Despite the insistence of evolutionists that evolution is a fact, it is really no more than an improbable story. No one has ever shown that macroevolution can work. Most evolutionists assume that macroevolution is just a long sequence of microevolutionary events, but no one has ever shown it to be so” (“Lee Spetner/Edward Max Dialogue,” 2001, The True Origin Archive).
“But in all the reading I’ve done in the life-sciences literature, I’ve never found a mutation that added information. All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not to increase it. ... Information cannot be built up by mutations that lose it. A business can’t make money by losing it a little at a time. The neo-Darwinians would like us to believe that large evolutionary changes can result from a series of small events if there are enough of them. But if these events all lose information they can’t be the steps in the kind of evolution the NDT is supposed to explain, no matter how many mutations there are. Whoever thinks macroevolution can be made by mutations that lose information is like the merchant who lost a little money on every sale but thought he could make it up in volume. ... Not even one mutation has been observed that adds a little information to the genome. That surely shows that there are not the millions upon millions of potential mutations the theory demands. There may well not be any. The failure to observe even one mutation that adds information is more than just a failure to find support for the theory. It is evidence against the theory” (Not By Chance, 1997, pp. 131, 132, 159 160).
WILLIAM R. THOMPSON
William Thompson (1887-1972) was Entomologist and Director of the Commonwealth Institute of Biological Control, Ottawa, Canada
“... it does appear to me, in the first place, that Darwin in the Origin was not able to produce paleontological evidence sufficient to prove his views but that the evidence he did produce was adverse to them; and I may note that the position is not notably different today. The modern Darwinian paleontologists are obliged, just like their predecessors and like Darwin, to water down the facts with subsidiary hypotheses which, however plausible, are in the nature of things unverifiable” (Introduction to The Origin of Species 6th Edition, 1956, pp. xvii-xix).
“A long-enduring and regrettable effect of the success of the Origin was the addiction of biologists to unverifiable speculations. 'Explanations' of the origin of structures, instincts, and mental aptitudes of all kinds, in terms of Darwinian principles, marked with Darwinian possibility but hopelessly unverifiable poured out from every research centre” (Introduction to The Origin of Species 6th Edition, 1956, p. xxi).
“As we know, there is a great divergence of opinion among biologists, not only about the causes of evolution but even about the actual process. This divergence exists because the evidence is unsatisfactory and does not permit any certain conclusion. It is therefore right and proper to draw the attention of the non-scientific public to the disagreements about evolution. But some recent remarks of evolutionists show that they think this unreasonable. This situation, where scientific men rally to the defence of a doctrine they are unable to define scientifically, much less demonstrate with scientific rigour, attempting to maintain its credit with the public by the suppression of criticism and the elimination of difficulties, is abnormal and undesirable in science” (Introduction to The Origin of Species 6th Edition, 1956, p. xxii).
“To establish the continuity required by the theory, historical arguments are invoked even though historical evidence is lacking. Thus are engendered those fragile towers of hypotheses based on hypotheses, where fact and fiction intermingle in an inextricable confusion” (Introduction to The Origin of Species 6th Edition, 1956, p. xxiv).
CHARLES TOWNES
Charles Townes (b. 1915) has a Ph.D. in physics from the California Institute of Technology. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1964 and has been a professor at Columbia University, MIT, and the University of California, Berkeley.
“Intelligent design, as one sees it from a scientific point of view, seems to be quite real. This is a very special universe: it's remarkable that it came out just this way. If the laws of physics weren't just the way they are, we couldn't be here at all. The sun couldn't be there, the laws of gravity and nuclear laws and magnetic theory, quantum mechanics, and so on have to be just the way they are for us to be here. Some scientists argue that ‘well, there's an enormous number of universes and each one is a little different. This one just happened to turn out right.’ Well, that's a postulate, and it's a pretty fantastic postulate--it assumes there really are an enormous number of universes and that the laws could be different for each of them. The other possibility is that ours was planned, and that’s why it has come out so specially” (Charles Townes, “Explore as Much as We Can,” UCBerkeley News, June 17, 2005).
MICHAEL BEHE
Michael Behe, Ph.D. in biology from the
University of Pennsylvania, is a theistic evolutionist who does not
believe that Darwinian evolution can explain the origin of life. In
Darwin’s Black Box and Signature of the Cell, Behe presents the case
that at the micro level life is “irreducibly complex” and thus points to
“intelligent design.”
Behe delves into the amazing mysteries of
DNA and the other biological machinery of the living cell and refutes
naturalistic explanations for the origin of life. He deals with current
origin of life theories, including RNA first.
“It was once
expected that the basis of life would be exceedingly simple. That
expectation has been smashed. ... the elegance and complexity of
biological systems at the molecular level have paralyzed science’s
attempt to explain their origins. ... Many scientists have gamely
asserted that explanations are already in hand, or will be sooner or
later, but no support for such assertions can be found in the
professional science literature. ...
“Over the past four decades
modern biochemistry has uncovered the secrets of the cell. The progress
has been hard won. It has required tens of thousands of people to
dedicate the better parts of their lives to the tedious work of the
laboratory. ... The result of these cumulative efforts to investigate
the cell--to investigate life at the molecular level--is a loud, clear,
piercing cry of ‘design!’ The result is so unambiguous and so
significant that it must be ranked as one of the greatest achievements
in the history of science. ...
“This triumph of science should evoke
cries of ‘Eureka!’ from ten thousands of throats, should occasion much
hand-slapping and high-fiving, and perhaps even ben an excuse to take a
day off. But no bottles have been uncorked, no hands slapped. Instead, a
curious, embarrassed silence surrounds the stark complexity of the
cell. When the subject comes up in public, feet start to shuffle, and
breathing gets a bit labored. In private people are a bit more relaxed;
many explicitly admit the obvious but then stare at the ground, shake
their heads, and let it go at that” (Darwin’s Black Box, preface,
chapter 11).
Behe concludes that “just as biology had to be
reinterpreted after the complexity of microscopic life was discovered,
neo-Darwinism must be reconsidered in light of advances in
biochemistry.”
He documents the fact that “over the past 130
years Darwinism, although secularly entrenched, has met a steady stream
of dissent both from within the scientific community and from without
it.”
He makes this bold statement:
“Molecular evolution is
not based on scientific authority. There is no publication in the
scientific literature--in prestigious journals, specialty journals, or
books--that describes how molecular evolution of any real, complex,
biochemical system either did occur or even might have occurred.”
Behe
sites “a raft of evolutionary biologists [who] examining whole
organisms wonder just how Darwinism can account for their observations.”
For
example, he quotes Paleontologist Niles Eldredge: “No wonder
paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It never seems to
happen. ... Evolution cannot forever be going on somewhere else.”
He
quotes biologists Mae-Wan Ho and Peter Saunders: “... the success of
the [neo-Darwinian synthesis] are limited to the minutiae of evolution,
such as the adaptive change in coloration of moths; while it has
remarkably little to say on the questions which interest us most, such
as how there came to be moths in the first place.”
He quotes
biologist Jerry Coyne: “We conclude--unexpectedly--that there is little
evidence for the neo-Darwinian view: its theoretical foundations and the
experimental evidence supporting it are weak.”
He quotes
geneticist John Endler: “Although much is known about mutation, it is
still largely a ‘black box’ relative to evolution. Novel biochemical
functions seem to be rare in evolution, and the basis for their origin
is virtually unknown.”
He quotes Klaus Dose: “More than 30 years
of experimentation on the origin of life in the fields of chemical and
molecular evolution have led to a better perception of the immensity of
the problem of the origin of life on Earth rather than to its solution.
At present all discussions on principal theories and experiments in the
field either end in stalemate or in a confession of ignorance.”
Behe examines biology textbooks and how they deal with evolution and concludes:
“Many
students learn from their textbooks how to view the world through an
evolutionary lens. However, they do not learn how Darwinian evolution
might have produced any of the remarkably intricate biochemical systems
that those texts describe.”
Behe gives six reasons why he
believes that intelligent design is science: (1) The case for ID is
based on empirical evidence. (2) Advocates of ID use established
scientific methods. (3) ID is a testable theory. (4) The case for ID
exemplifies historical scientific reasoning. (5) ID addresses a specific
question in evolutionary biology (e.g., origin of life theories). (6)
ID is supported by peer-reviewed scientific literature. Behe is
not a biblical creationist. He believes that the earth is billions of
years old and accepts some form of evolutionary common descent.
“For
the record, I have no reason to doubt that the universe is the billions
of years old that physicists say it is. Further, I find the idea of
common descent (that all organisms share a common ancestor) fairly
convincing, and have no particular reason to doubt it. I greatly respect
the work of my colleagues who study the development and behavior of
organisms within an evolutionary framework, and I think that
evolutionary biologists have contributed enormously to our understanding
of the world” (Darwin’s Black Box, chapter 1, “Lilliputian Biology”).
In
spite of this deep sympathy and personal identity with evolutionary
thinking, Behe has been treated like a moron and an apostate by the
evolutionary establishment because he has had the audacity to suggest
that Darwinism can’t explain life itself.
IMMANUEL VELIKOVSKY (1895-1979)
Immanuel Velikovsky (1895-1979) had an M.D. from the University of Moscow. He was a founder of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
In 1950 Velikovsky published Worlds in Collision, providing evidence for his view that an event in earth history caused a global geological catastrophe. He theorized that this event was a near collision from the earth and other planets. Velikovsky was an evolutionist, but what he challenged was the uniformitarian view of geology that has dominated science since Darwin’s day.
He was treated shabbily by Darwinian Inquisition.
“What must be called the scientific establishment rose in arms, not only against the new Velikovsky theories but against the man himself. Efforts were made to block the dissemination of Dr. Velikovsky’s ideas, and even to punish supporters of his investigations. Universities, scientific societies, publishing houses, the popular press were approached and threatened; social pressures and professional sanctions were invoked to control public opinion. There can be little doubt that in a totalitarian society, not only would Dr. Velikovsky’s reputation have been at stake, but also his right to pursue his enquiry, and perhaps his personal safety. As it was, the ‘establishment’ succeeded in building a wall of unfavorable sentiment around him: to thousands of scholars the name Velikovsky bears the taint of fantasy, science-fiction and publicity” (Alfred De Grazia, The Velikovsky Affair, 1966).
In his second book, Earth in Upheaval, the persistent Velikovsky provided evidence for a worldwide catastrophe. These included the existence of beds of fossilized terrestrial animals thousands of feet deep, the young age and rapid building of the mountain chains, and the global sedimentary rock formations. Velikovsky was not a Bible believer, but not only did he debunk Darwinian uniformitarianism, he inadvertently provided evidence for a global Flood. No wonder he was excommunicated by the scientific community.
WERNHER VON BRAUN (1912-1977)
Wernher von Braun (1912-77), a German rocket scientist, was the leading force behind the American Apollo moon mission.
Though he didn’t believe in a literal Genesis account of creation, von Braun did believe that God created the world and that it did not arise by a purely naturalistic process. He argued that the design of the world implies and requires a Designer, and he considered it unscientific to rule out a Creator just because we can’t “test” him scientifically. Von Braun published an article entitled “My Faith: A Space-age Scientist Tells Why He Must Believe in God.” This appeared in the American Weekly, February 10, 1963, and was republished in many other newspapers.
“Through science man strives to learn more of the mysteries of creation. Through religion he seeks to know the creator. Neither operates independently. It is as difficult for me to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe as it is to comprehend a theologian who would deny the advances of science. ... As we learn more and more about nature, we become more deeply impressed and humbled by its orderliness and unerring perfection.”
In 1972, von Braun made the following statement in a letter to the California State Board of Education. This was written to encourage the inclusion of intelligent design theories into the public school classrooms. Because of Darwinism’s elitist mentality and fear of challenge, von Braun’s wise counsel was ignored.
“For me, the idea of a creation is not conceivable without evoking the necessity of design. One cannot be exposed to the law and order of the universe without concluding that there must be design and purpose behind it all. In the world round us, we can behold the obvious manifestations of an ordered, structured plan or design. We can see the will of the species to live and propagate. And we are humbled by the powerful forces at work on a galactic scale, and the purposeful orderliness of nature that endows a tiny and ungainly seed with the ability to develop into a beautiful flower. The better we understand the intricacies of the universe and all harbors, the more reason we have found to marvel at the inherent design upon which it is based. ...
While the admission of a design for the universe ultimately raises the question of a Designer (a subject outside of science), the scientific method does not allow us to exclude data which lead to the conclusion that the universe, life and man are based on design. To be forced to believe only one conclusion--that everything in the universe happened by chance--would violate the very objectivity of science itself. Certainly there are those who argue that the universe evolved out of a random process, but what random process could produce the brain of a man or the system or the human eye?
Some people say that science has been unable to prove the existence of a Designer. They admit that many of the miracles in the world around us are hard to understand, and they do not deny that the universe, as modern science sees it, is indeed a far more wondrous thing than the creation medieval man could perceive. But they still maintain that since science has provided us with so many answers the day will soon arrive when we will be able to understand even the creation of the fundamental laws of nature without a Divine intent. They challenge science to prove the existence of God. But must we really light a candle to see the sun?
Many men who are intelligent and of good faith say they cannot visualize a Designer. Well, can a physicist visualize an electron? The electron is materially inconceivable and yet it is so perfectly known through its effects that we use it to illuminate our cities, guide our airlines through the night skies and take the most accurate measurements. What strange rationale makes some physicists accept the inconceivable electrons as real while refusing to accept the reality of a Designer on the ground that they cannot conceive Him? I am afraid that, although they really do not understand the electron either, they are ready to accept it because they managed to produce a rather clumsy mechanical model of it borrowed from rather limited experience in other fields, but they would not know how to begin building a model of God.
I have discussed the aspect of a Designer at some length because it might be that the primary resistance to acknowledging the “Case for Design” as a viable scientific alternative to the current “Case for Chance” lies in the inconceivability, in some scientists’ minds, of a Designer. The inconceivability of some ultimate issue (which will always lie outside scientific resolution) should not be allowed to rule out any theory that explains the interrelationship of observed data and is useful for prediction.
We in NASA were often asked what the real reason was for the amazing string of successes we had with our Apollo flights to the Moon. I think the only honest answer we could give was that we tried to never overlook anything. It is in that same sense of scientific honesty that I endorse the presentation of alternative theories for the origin of the universe, life and man in the science classroom. It would be an error to overlook the possibility that the universe was planned rather than happened by chance (http://www.creationsafaris.com/wgcs_4vonbraun.htm).
In 1961, von Braun said,
“But I can’t help feeling at the same time that this space effort of ours is bigger even than a rivalry between the United States and Russia. The heavens beyond us are enormous beyond comprehension, and the further we penetrate them, the greater will be our human understanding of the great universal purpose, the Divine Will itself” (This Week Magazine, Jan. 1, 1961).
Thus, the world’s top rocket scientist who was the leading mind behind putting men on the moon was operating from and motivated by a perspective of theism rather than that of evolutionary atheism. It proved to be no discernible drag on his impressive scientific achievements.
Source : Way of Life Literature
A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is acquired through a scientific method and repeatedly tested and confirmed through observation and experimentation.
If no observation or experimentation can be made, it remains unproven. We are often told that “evolution is science.” But what is meant by “science” makes all the difference in understanding the origins debate.The theory of evolution will never become a law of science because it is wrought with HUGE errors.
Scientific Fact No. 1 - Birds Prove Natural Selection is Naturally Wrong
The body and soul of Darwin's Theory of Evolution was the idea that evolution was made possible through natural selection. This concept is based on the suggestion that those members of a species that are a little stronger, a little larger, or run a little faster will live longer to procreate offspring with these superior adaptations. Darwin's theory suggests that millions of generations later the changes will result in new species. These adaptations are called links or intermediates between the old species and the new.
The idea of natural selection may sound great, but it has many flaws . One of the best examples of evolution nonsense is the thought that a wingless bird began to evolve a wing. Why this would occur is not answered by evolutionists. A wing stub cannot make the bird more adaptable to his environment as it would be much too small for the bird to fly. So, why would a bird evolve wing stubs that are useless? This is backwards from the evolutionary theory of natural selection, which states that birds adapt and change in order to survive better in their environment. The bird with a half-size wing is placed at a disadvantage in its environment.
A bird with a useless wing is at a severe disadvantage. This is the opposite of natural selection. We are then led to believe that some birds got tired of carrying around a worthless half-size wing, so they grew fingers on the end to help climb trees. The wings became arms and wala ! a new species was developed!!
Birds aren't the only species that proves the theory of natural selection to be wrong. The problem can be found in all species in one way or another. Take fish for example. We are told by evolutionists that a fish wiggled out of the sea onto dry land and became a land creature. So let's examine this idea. OK, a fish wiggles out of the sea and onto the land, but he can't breathe air. Fish do stupid things at times. Whales keep swimming up onto the beach where they die. Do you think the whales are trying to expedite a multi-million generation plan to grow legs? That concept is stupid, but let's get back to the fish story.
The gills of the fish are made for extracting oxygen from water, not from air. He chokes and gasps before flipping back into the safety of the water. Why would he do such a stupid thing? This wiggling and choking continues for millions of generation until the fish chokes less and less. His gills evolve into lungs so he can breathe air on dry land, but now he is at risk of drowning in the water.
One day he simply stays out on the land and never goes back into the water. Now he is a lizard. This is called science ? I say its S T O O P I D !
Giant dinosaurs literally exploded onto the scene during the Triassic period. The fossil record (petrified bones found in the ground as at the Dinosaur National Park in Jensen, Utah, USA) shows no intermediate or transitional species. Where are the millions of years of fossils showing the transitional forms for dinosaurs? They do not not exist, because the dinosaurs did not evolve.
Books published by evolutionists have shown the giant Cetiosaurus dinosaur with the long neck extending upright eating from the treetops. They claimed natural selection was the reason Cetiosaurus had a long neck. This gave them an advantage in reaching fodder that other species could not reach. One day during the assembly of a skeleton for a museum display someone noticed the neck vertebrae were such that the neck could not be lifted higher than stretched horizontally in front of them. The natural selection theory was proven to be a big lie. The Cetiosaurus dinosaur was an undergrowth eater. The long neck actually placed the Cetiosaurus at a disadvantage in his environment, just the opposite from the natural theory of natural selection.
Evolutionists will now claim the animal evolved a long neck because he had the advantage of eating from bushes on the other side of the river. This is typical logic of an evolutionist.
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