August 4, 2005
Column #1,249
Scientific Evidence Against Darwinism
(First of a Two-Part Series)
President Bush was
asked if he felt the "intelligent design" theory of the origin of the
universe should be given equal treatment in public schools with Darwin's
theory of evolution. He replied, "I felt like both sides ought to be
properly taught."
Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission,
heartily endorsed the President's remarks: Evolution "is too often taught as
fact. If you're going to teach the Darwinian theory as evolution, teach it
as theory. And then teach another theory..."
The other side quickly responded. Susan Spath, of the National Center for
Science Education, huffed that teaching both sides "sounds like you're being
fair, but creationism is a sectarian religious viewpoint, and intelligent
design is a sectarian religious viewpoint. It's not fair to privilege one
religious viewpoint by calling it the other side of evolution."
Bruce Chapman, President of the Discovery Institute in Seattle, thinks the
debate should be framed differently. "The scientific establishment equates
intelligent design as creationism in disguise" that argues the world was
created in six, 24-hour days, no more than 10,000 years ago.
In 1981 Louisiana passed a law requiring that "evolution science" be
balanced with "creation science." The U.S. Supreme Court declared the law
unconstitutional in 1987 as an "establishment of religion" by a 7-2 vote on
the grounds that to advocate a supernatural being created mankind does
advocate a religious position.
Chapman says there is a better way to frame the argument: "the best
scientific evidence for and against Darwinism. The ACLU cannot argue against
that."
Many books present a scientific case against Darwinism, notably "Darwin on
Trial" by Phillip E. Johnson and "Icons of Evolution" by John Wells. But a
new bestseller, "The Case for a Creator," by journalist Lee Strobel is more
readable account.
He confesses that as a high school student, he studied four textbook images
making a case for Darwinism which were so compelling, he was "propelled
toward a life of atheism." However, each of these icons have been proven to
be in error or seriously flawed:
1. A photo of Stanley Miller's laboratory apparatus used in 1953 shows how
he supposedly produced the building blocks of life. He claimed to reproduce
the early atmosphere of the primitive earth, and shot electronic sparks
through it simulating lightening. He produced a red goo containing amino
acids, which implied that living organisms could emerge by themselves.
However, John Wells says scientists now believe Miller was wrong in thinking
the early atmosphere was hydrogen rich, "because it would have escaped into
space. Instead, the atmosphere probably consisted of carbon dioxide,
nitrogen and water vapor." If the Miller experiment is run with that
atmosphere, amino acids are not produced, but formaldehyde which kills
embryos. Formaldehyde is an embalming fluid, Wells told Strobel in an
interview.
2. Darwin's "Tree of Life" is an image he used to argue life started with
an ancient ancestor at the bottom, and blossomed upward into limbs, branches
and twigs, as life evolved with increasing diversity and complexity. Darwin
argued that millions of species of organisms evolved "slowly by accumulating
slight, successive, favorable variations" and that "no great of sudden
modifications were possible."
However, the fossil evidence proves Darwin wrong. For millions of years, the
only life on earth was jellyfish, sponges and worms. Then came the Cambrian
explosion 540 million years ago when suddenly insects, crabs, starfish, and
vertebrates appeared. "The Cambrian explosion has uprooted Darwin's Tree of
Life," Wells asserts.
3. Another evolution icon is a drawing by Ernst Haeckel of alleged embryos
of a fish, salamander, tortoise, chick, hog, calf, rabbit and human - all of
which appear strikingly similar. They support Darwin's theory that all
organisms share a universal ancestor.
But if actual photographs of the embryos are compared, there is a big
discrepancy. In fact, Wells argues that "the similarities in the early
stages were faked." Haeckel used the same woodcut to print embryos from
different classes, a fraud first exposed in the 1860s! Yet the drawings
still appear even in upper division textbooks on evolutionary biology.
4. Finally, a picture of the most famous fossil in the world, the
archaeopteryx, a creature that had the wings, features and wishbone of a
bird, but a lizard-like tail and claws on its wings that seemed to be a
missing link between reptiles and modern birds. Scientists now assert the
fossil is a member of a totally extinct group of birds.
More important, there should be innumerable transitional forms. Yet 150
years of fossil discoveries since Darwin have surfaced almost nothing.
High school students should read "The Case for a Creator" to get the other
side.
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