BIBLE WISDOM MINISTRIES |
EEVOLUTION THEORY |
Doubting Darwin
The Real Debate
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For an eight-year-old boy, it was a startling comment: "Mama," he
said, "sometimes I wonder what we're here for."
Does life have a purpose? Is there meaning to existence? These are
among the most significant questions human beings face over their
lifetime-questions that often drive us to God for answers.
But today many scientists urge us to turn to science instead. Science
is not just about forecasting the weather or mapping our genes, we're
told. It's also the basis for an entire worldview -- a naturalistic
worldview that tells us there is no ultimate purpose or meaning to life.
Biology professor William Provine is an evangelist for the
naturalistic worldview. Provine travels to college campuses giving a
lecture entitled "The Unfinished Darwinian Revolution." His message is
that Darwinism is not just about biology, it also entails a philosophy of
life: Darwinism implies that the appearance of life on the earth can be
explained by natural causes alone -- that the history of the universe is a
product of random events and impersonal natural laws.
In a word, Darwinism entails the philosophy of naturalism. The upshot
is that there is no God and therefore no ultimate purpose in life. As
Provine puts it, evolution operates by mindless, mechanistic principles:
It is "a totally purposeless, uncaring process."
But if you ask about the evidence for the Darwinist worldview, it is
surprisingly meager. For example, in a New York Times article, Jonathan
Weiner claims he saw evolution in progress in the Galapagos Islands, home
of Darwin's famous finches. Weiner observed that the finches' beaks grew
larger in dry seasons, when the seeds they eat are tough and hard; but
after a rainy season, when tiny seeds became available once more, the
finches' beaks grew smaller again.
I witnessed evolution in action, Weiner writes.
But what he really witnessed was the exact opposite of evolution. As
Phillip Johnson explains in his new book "Reason in the Balance," a change
in beak size is a minor adaptation that allows the finches to adapt and
survive: In other words, it allows them to stay finches. It does not prove
that they're capable of evolving into a different species of bird; and it
certainly does not prove that finches evolved from some other organism in
the first place.
Darwinism is not even good science.
When Darwinists claim that evolution is an observed fact, invariably
they're referring to minor adaptations like the finch beaks. And on this
flimsy basis they urge us to abandon belief in a Creator and take a leap
of faith to a grand metaphysical story called naturalism. They insist that
we accept a grim vision of a universe with no ultimate meaning or purpose.
If Darwinism were true scientifically, then we'd all have to accept
its dark implications. But Darwinism is not even good science. You and I
need to fight the hold it has on our culture, not only in the science
classroom but in every area of life.
Otherwise our children may come to believe their own lives are
nothing but a cosmic accident.
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