Wednesday, October 31, 2007

There's more than meets the eye with evolution

The controversy over evolution, in society as a whole and schools in particular, is viewed by many as an obscure dispute generated in large part by religious fundamentalists who want creationism taught instead.

A closer examination of the issue reveals there's much more to it. And the implications of the theory of evolution are far greater than most people realize.

As former Berkeley law professor Phillip Johnson has pointed over the past 20 years or so, evolution, which is defined as the belief that the physical world is the result of purposeless, mindless, chance process, means there is no God; thus man and creation are not the result of design and a Creator. This definition, which is held by evolution's proponents in the scientific community, has co-opted or hijacked the entire scientific enterprise. It presumptively means only materialist/naturalism explanations are acceptable to all questions. The result? Man and all of creation are, by definition, the product of a mindless, purposeless, chance process. Theistic evolution advocated by some is merely an oxymoron. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection gave scientific legitimacy to scientific materialism/naturism, e.g. matter is all that exists; there is no God.

Dr. John West of the Discovery Institute has now come out with a book, "Darwin Day in America: how our politics and culture has been dehumanized in the name of science" in which he shows how the scientific materialism worldview promulgated under the guise of science and evolution has impacted nearly every area of our politics and culture. From science, sex education, and crime/punishment to ethics, poverty, business and life & death issues. It's truly an example of an idea having consequences far beyond the idea itself.

Fortunately, the theory of evolution, rooted in scientific materialism, is being discredited by the Intelligent Design movement which simply seeks to demonstrate that the theory of evolution doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny. The evidence doesn't support the theory. This is good news though the devastating consequences are and will continue to be felt for many years. This is why the battle over evolution in our schools and elsewhere is far more significant than most people realize.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The fact is, of course, that ID has absolutely no traction within the scientific community. It makes it's running politically and socially and by attempting to subvert education of science.
Really. what we have here is the age old conflict between superstition and science.
In the current situation ID is attempting to undermine the very basis of science - its naturalist methodology involving mapping of ideas against reality. But the undermining is going on in the social/political domain - not within science.

Anonymous said...

It's a well known fact the Discovery Institute has never discovered anything. They exist only to spread lies about science and scientists. Everyone knows the Designer is God, but the liars at the Discovery Institute refuse to admit this obvious fact because they are trying to disguise god-did-it to look like science. Whenever I see the words "Discovery Institute" I know the rest of the paragraph will be nothing but dishonest nonsense. John West and the other professional liars are only interested in the money they make from their gullible creationist customers.

Troy said...

Your definition of evolution is a convoluted as your understanding:

In biology, evolution is the change in the inherited traits of a population from one generation to the next. These traits are the expression of genes that are copied and passed on to offspring during reproduction. Mutations in these genes can produce new or altered traits, resulting in heritable differences between organisms. New traits can also come from transfer of genes between populations, as in migration, or between species, in horizontal gene transfer. Evolution occurs when these heritable differences become more common or rare in a population, either non-randomly through natural selection or randomly through genetic drift.

HELLO?