Darwinism, Evolution, and the Devolution of the Scientific Method

Prompt any member of the SLIMC with a challenge to Darwinism and the predictable response will be SNRTACBT that evolution is not true. Prompt any Fellow among TTRSTF with a similar challenge, and the predictable response will be STNSEACPB that the scientific theory of evolution is in any way in question.

Darwin’s unproven hypothesis, today, rules science, in America, and everywhere. Here is a brief definition of Darwinism showing a short, simple explanation of Darwin's hypothesis, and the observations upon which he based them. I think you will agree that the observations themselves were, to say the least, shaky.

And, the observations are as far as it ever went; there is nothing else other than the observations supporting this so called "scientific theory," which in true scientific terms cannot be considered anything other than a hypothesis. Yet these observations, alone, form the foundation of Darwinism.

The question at hand, and what Darwinism and it's various sub-theories claim to answer, revolves around the dual question, what is life, and where did all the diversity of life come from.

Before Darwin, Linnaeus developed the field of taxonomy classifying life forms. He broke them into "families" based on physical similarities, and arranged them into a hierarchy, consisting of domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species and organism. Linnaeus unhesitatingly put human beings among the primates. But Darwin went considerably farther, indicating actual hereditary relationship, and that humans and other primates "evolved" from a common ancestor, one day to be found in the fossil record. Note that this was hypothesized by Darwin, not observed.

And it has yet to be observed, by anyone; but it has been overwhelmingly accepted by the so-called "scientific" community. This treatment seeks to find out why. I put forward no other theory; I have none to put forward. My only questions involve the scientific method and its application to these various hypotheses under-girding Darwinism.

Darwin's theory insists that, GESGEAEOT, an entirely new species "evolved" into being through natural selection. A new species is defined as one that can continue reproducing itself but can no longer interbreed reproductively with the parent species from which it evolved. That's what makes it a new species. That's Darwinism.

Such an event has never been observed, by Darwin, or by anyone. Well, let me qualify that: maybe in one instance among plants, but never among animals.

Rare plant hybrids, such as orchids, coming into existence only with the careful design, plan and control of man, have been created which can breed with each other, but not with the parent plants, which, I think, makes them a new hybrid species. Two points: First, none of these came about by natural selection, but by design of man; and second, the new hybrids have less genetic material than before, not more, making further "evolution" less possible. (It gets increasingly difficult to breed new varieties from hybrids, the more hybrid they become, until it is impossible to breed any new species from a hybrid at all.)

New hybrid plant species developed by man are exceptionally delicate greenhouse plants, in need of constant care and attention. Their blossoms may indeed be very beautiful, but, leave them alone for any length of time at all and - poof - instant extinction of the new species.

So what we're describing here is devolution, not evolution. Fruit flies are great to experiment with, because such wild variation is possible, and the life span is short. But even if you get a new variation, say, with day-glow orange eyes and chartreuse legs, and (suppose) it can reproduce but not interbreed any more with the parent fruit flies, it will have lost genetic material, not gained any. It will be increasingly difficult to get further variation out of it. You can't, for instance, breed a fruit fly the size of a humming bird, because that would be far beyond the genetic limits within the genetic code of fruit flies. There is a genetic limit within every species that sooner or later must be reckoned with; but that's not what Darwinism says. Darwinism indicates that infinite variation should not only be possible, but absolutely must actually exist. That's Darwinism.

Yet the fossil record and current observation shows that natural selection, which obviously occurs strictly within species, is quite conservative. Possible future variations are reduced, not increased. Natural selection within species always tends toward conserving the characteristics of the original species; any new species that comes out of this situation will have devolved, not evolved; they will have less genetic material to work with for variation among future generations, not more.

Darwinism predicts GESGEAEOT, minute changes, always for the better, always from the more simple to the more complex. But the incredibly rich fossil record quite predominantly shows stasis, or the absence of change in species over millions of years, even in all of those cases involving particularly long lived species, even over hundreds of millions of years.

(Before we go much further, let me state here that whenever I'm talking about any time frame over, say, 70,000 years, I'm taking the word of TTRSTF who state and record the time period; what they base it on, I don't know, but I do know that radiocarbon dating is quite limited to measuring dates less than 70,000 years old. So, like everyone else, I'm kind of shooting in the dark here; when they tell me how many millions of years ago was the Cambrian Explosion, I have to take them at their word. Anything that old is long past its own half-life and is radiologically dead.)

Darwinism tells us that fortuitous mutation, for the better (which we will address a little later,) is supposed to be the GESGEAEOT, is the mechanism in which new species are supposed to be brought about by the grand statistical plan of the Blind Watchmaker. Yet if we look at mutations that occur roughly once or slightly more per hundred thousand chances, we see that in almost all cases they cause some dysfunction or disability, retrogression as opposed to progression, devolution instead of evolution. Nature appears to be conservative.

This is born out by observation of nuclear incidents, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki aftermaths, and decades of laboratory experiments; no new species has ever been produced by mutation; mutant examples always contain the same or less of the genetic material from the parents, never more. And purposely cross-bred mutants are similar, but sterile.

The mule is a good example. The product of a horse and an ass, one of which has 72 Chromosomes and the other 74, the resultant mule winds up with an odd number, 73, which makes it quite impossible for it to reproduce itself. Like the mule, the leopon, another cross-bred animal made not by any Blind Watchmaker but by the careful, specific plan of man, a cross between a lion and a leopard, cannot reproduce itself. Even at that, we must remember that both parent animals were still felines, just as the horse and the ass were both equines, and that even this limited, infertile progress would not have ever been made if one of them had been a canine, or if they had not been brought together by the plan of a superior being.

There is a definite limitation on procreative ability that exists within and between species. When we try to unite an ovum of species A with a sperm of species B, even when A and B are closely similar species, we find that it is quite impossible for the sperm to penetrate the ovum. Even when the sperm is surgically implanted into the ovum, it simply dies, and cell division (pregnancy) does not occur. The parent male and female animals must have the same chromosomes and the same blood, and that occurs only within the same species. I don't care what any show biz or TV scientist tells you, chimps and men are not of the same species and they cannot be interbred.

Generation after generation of candidates for master or doctorate degrees have eagerly gone out into the field in search of paleontology’s Holy Grail, which is, a missing link; any missing link; any transitory species at all. Some go to old digs, some to relatively new ones, some to entirely new areas; all find fossils. Tons and tons of them. A very few gain celebrity by finding some new as yet undocumented species, or a much better example of a rare variety than has yet been found. But none find any examples at all of any of the many millions upon millions of transitory species that Darwinism says, indeed insists, must exist. Transitory species, according to Darwin, are supposed to vastly outnumber "successful" species, but we've yet to see even one of them.

And so generation after generation of paleontology student field trippers goes home in abject failure, often after years of hard work. They all find exactly and precisely the same thing: stasis, stasis, stasis; the species do not change. Same old fossil after same old fossil after same old fossil; piles and piles of them. Many of these students don't even publish their results because they see their results as a failure; they were supposed to find the predicted transitory species. Universally (at least publicly) they fail to see their work as any disproof of Darwinism. They were given a conclusion and instructed to go out and provide evidence for it, and so, they failed. The conclusion came first, not last; whatever objectivity they had on entry to the university was systematically trained out of them, by their professors, to make them into more of Darwinism's dogmatists.

Today's scientists are not objective enough or smart enough or brave enough to pronounce their overwhelming findings, so carefully and meticulously gathered, to be evidence against Darwinism's doctrines of evolutionary gradualism. Gathering evidence first, objectively examining it, and then forming a theory based upon it has become a thing of the past. Modern science does not, in its majority, consider lack of evidence to be evidence; they do not recognize the complete lack of evidence for their pet theory to constitute real evidence against it.

Darwin said that "natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up that which is good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life." This is Darwinism's foundational dogma, called pan-selectionism. It absolutely requires a greater number of transitory species than successful species, and no transitory species, for anything, have ever been found. It describes a mechanism that cannot be demonstrated, even under the most controlled conditions with tiny life forms with many new generations born in a very short span of time. That's the problem.

And, that was the problem from the very beginning; all of Darwin's contemporaries were completely familiar at that time with the abundant, even overwhelming evidence of stasis in the fossil record. Even Huxley, Darwin's Bulldog, had to reject the notion of gradualism. Nevertheless, Darwinism (and Materialism) were reinforced and defended by accusing detractors of being unduly influenced by their religious beliefs. Huxley's famous "what's your alternative theory?" carried the day against all "scientific" opposition, because being both a scientist and a theist was ever increasingly seen as being in conflict.

More recently Darwinism has divided into two camps; the original one still proclaiming the GESGEAEOT development of new species, and the newer camp proclaiming the PEWAG theory, espousing sudden, mass mutations happening at your basic, fundamental, very special geological moments. See? The voices from these two camps are sometimes quite shrill, as they point the finger of heresy at each other, and even practice name calling. The Punctuated Equilibrium school (Punk Eek to students) refers to the older and more orthodox Darwinian Gradualist school as "Darwinian Fundamentalists." Sound familiar?

At issue here is the complete lack of evolutionary evidence and the scientific response to that obvious lack.

Even after a century and a half, there is no fossil evidence for evolution, and an evolutionary mechanism cannot be shown or demonstrated. Up to this point, most of Darwinism's disciples preferred to lower their voices, at least in public, and assume the position of Huxley, Darwin's Bulldog, which meant to continue advocating Darwinism while being cool to Darwin's explanation for the mechanism for it, and to cover up by periodically yelling "what's your alternative theory?" at any opposition that raised its head out of the ever increasingly materialistic, scientific foxhole.

Stephen J. Gould, recognized as the father of the PEWAG theory of evolution, proposed that transitory species never existed, because, as the record clearly shows, the species do not change for long periods of time, and then they "branch apart" in what he calls special "geological moments." What's the mechanism for change? WDN. At least Gould had the guts to put forward another wild assed theory, which is more than can be said for his contemporaries. So, now we have two wild assed theories, and still no mechanism, and still no fossil record.

Look at the period known as the Cambrian Explosion. Absolutely blank fossil record for millions of years, followed by sudden appearances of thousands of entirely new and absolutely unique species, followed by millions of years of typical fossil stasis (no change in the species,) followed by millions of years of blank fossil record.

There was nothing in the record for multiple mass mutations to mass mutate from.

We're talking about a period here in which whole new phyla and very large numbers of unique new species unrelated to anything before or after suddenly appear, live their millions of years unchanged, and disappear, in open defiance of both Darwinism theories, and yet the overall theory stands, on nothing other than consensus. I have to hand it to the all of TTRSTF - they really know how to stick to their story.

So, according to them, the two possibilities for evolutionary specie development are the artifact theory and the fast-transition theory. The artifact theory says that the required transitory species did exist, but somehow went poof and were lost and not preserved in the fossil record. All of them. The fast-transition theory (punk eek) says that transitory species never existed at all, at least as transitory species, because they mutated so much and so suddenly, you see. Neither hypothesis is based upon real science. Both absolutely insist, in the complete absence of any empirical evidence whatsoever, that Darwinism (evolution) must be true.

How do they explain the clear fossil record of the Cambrian Explosion? The fundamentalist GESGEAEOT Darwinism school makes the screwy attempt to shoe-horn the new and unique Cambrian life forms into pre-existing phyla, despite radical dissimilarities, and despite the huge blank gap in the preceding record. "We just haven't found them yet." Right. This weak response, I thought, was the whole reason for the birth of the newer PEWAG Darwinism school. But, what does punk eek say about the preceding blank gap ahead of the Cambrian Explosion? "Well, uh, - ahem - the, ah, phyla and species from which the Cambrian Explosion fossils suddenly mass-evolved are really there, it's just that - well, we haven't found them yet." See?

Modernist science, that is to say, scientism, today, does not in its majority consider lack of evidence to be evidence; they do not recognize the complete lack of evidence for their pet theory to constitute evidence against it. Early Darwinism allowed and encouraged a description of a completely closed natural system in which there were only natural, material causes and effects, a system totally divorced from God or from anything super-natural. It offered, eventually, after enough time is past and enough knowledge gained, completely natural explanations for everything.

Darwinism and Darwinian evolution became the strongest argument for atheism. This became its real strength, as science moved more and more into pure materialism. The value of the foundation of atheism outweighs the value of the scientific method. Atheism, by which materialism is strengthened, is really what Darwinism is about.

Most of science jumped on it; at least the youngest and most impressionable scientists at the time; now the Darwinism viewpoint appears to have come to predominate in virtually all fields of science. Many biologists today will say that, if Darwinism is false, then nothing in biology makes sense. (Which brings to mind Luther's similar comment on the Eucharist: If the doctrine of the Eucharistic Presence is false, then, nothing in Christianity makes sense.) Regarding biology, that may be true. If it is true then that truth is not the fault of those who questioned Darwinism from the beginning, nor is it the fault of those who question it today; it is solely the fault of generations of TTRSTF who lack scientific objectivity and integrity, and who have been taught and who have taught others to blindly adopt an attractive theory which has no supporting empirical evidence at all.

Darwinism is accepted and pushed as dogma by modern science because the high priests and devotees simply cannot accept and will not allow any other alternative. They either are not smart enough or imaginative enough or honest enough, or perhaps brave enough, to entertain any other possibilities or combinations of possibilities. Where they once sought truth they now fear and suppress it. When any evidence against the theory is produced, they theory is modified to account for it; the constantly evolving theory can explain anything, survive anything. The complete lack of any pre or post transitory forms in an example period (Cambrian Explosion) that Darwin's theory said should have produced huge numbers of great variations of them are STILL explained away by the statement that they really exist, but they just haven't been found yet. Although punk eek cannot itself find pre-transitory species not only in the Cambrian Explosion era, but ever, does not shake the faith of the punk eek devotees in the least. Darwinism appears to produce more faithful devotees than Christianity does.

These "scientists" cannot be taken seriously. If they were real scientists it would be possible to get them to consider the possibility that Darwinism is false; but it is not. They will not consider such a thing, despite their complete inability to provide any empirical evidence whatsoever for Darwinism. But all they can do is bluster and point to their fellows and to the huge "general consensus" and "generally accepted opinions" and agreement of the "overwhelming majority" among all of TTRSTF. That's it. That's all there is.

That's all they have to show for all their research. This is, again, nothing but opinion and conjecture surrounded by consensus. There is nothing scientific about Darwinism, and Darwinists are not scientists. They wouldn't know an experiment if one came up and bit them on the butt. All they ever look at and point to involves micro-evolution, strictly within some species. Everything they have to say about macro-evolution, meaning between species, is nothing more than guesswork, and pure, unadulterated, established dogma out of Darwinism.

Scopes Monkey Trial & Formal Education

The controversy between creationism and evolution points out perhaps more clearly than any other single issue the deep bias and close-minded bigotry of modern American liberalism and academia in general, and Darwinism in particular. Liberals don’t even care to discuss it, believing that it’s been settled once and for all, and anyone who would question it today obviously didn’t go to the same schools that they went to.

The 1920s Scopes Monkey Trial settled it for them; over the decades it has changed from a court case to a legend, with movies and books describing the case, which the historical record shows was quite complex, as a very simple open and shut case. In point of fact the case for the “fact” of evolution was not settled, or even discussed much. The trial became a media circus due to the colorful attorneys William Jennings Bryan, for the prosecution, and Clarence Darrow, for the defense. Bryan was a self-described “non-literalist” Christian, meaning that he held that the six days of creation described in Genesis did not necessarily represent six modern days, or any other precise amount of time, clocks and calendars not as yet having been invented. Self-descriptions aside, he was a Fundamentalist with a quite literal interpretation of most Scripture. Bryan allowed himself to be maneuvered into taking the stand as an “expert” witness, and grilled, not on Darwinism, not on evolution, but on the Bible, and was humiliated in an absolutely devastating cross examination. The test case trial ended, however, in conviction and a $100 fine; evolution had lost. Bet you didn’t know that.

On appeal a higher court threw out the $100 fine, but still held the anti-evolution teaching law to be constitutional. But due to media coverage including popular presentation to the public by sarcastic journalist H. L. Mencken and then later by Broadway and Hollywood renditions, this trial was an absolute triumph for Darwinism.

Two points: 1) evolution was not discussed as the main point of the trial, religion was; and 2) Bryan was no theologian; he was a lawyer, and not an appropriate spokesman or expert witness to represent the Bible on the witness stand against the likes of Clarence Darrow.

Bryan may have been an able attorney and a capable politician, and in some respects, perhaps, brilliant; but when it came to Christian theology, apologetics and sound Bible scholarship, he was not exactly any great Jesuit scholar.

And he wasn’t half the lawyer Darrow was or he wouldn’t have allowed himself to be tricked into personally defending the Bible, from the stand, instead of prosecuting a misdemeanor, which is what he was supposed to be doing.

In point of fact, the case itself was a test case, with a volunteer teacher, who probably had never even taught evolution, to go on trial; nevertheless, the media created legend involves a bunch of loony tune religious fanatics invading a classroom to persecute a poor, decent, inoffensive science teacher, who is rescued by a the truly heroic efforts of a world renowned anti-superstition attorney.

Rent the Spencer Tracy movie Inherit The Wind some night for this viewpoint. But correct science is not determined in the American courts, or on any other stage.

Darwinism has another group at least as biased as the Darwinist scientists previously discussed: the people who publish the obviously pre-censored and fraudulent textbooks and teach the classes American children attend; indeed they are as far removed from the school environment as they are from science. You can pick up any textbook in any American public school and find progressive pictures depicting the “record” of evolution of various living creatures, including man, for which there is not and never was any fossil evidence. Some of them represent skulls, some of them represent artistic renderings of what the creatures looked like, but only some of those at the extreme ends of the progressions exist in the fossil record; none of the intermediate skulls or creatures in the pictures ever existed.

These “intermediates” between species are pure inventions of the textbook authors. It must be quite easy to draw a picture of an imaginary or theoretical skull; again and again we see that paper will stand still for anything.

But then when we turn to the actual scientists, as we've already seen, we are in for an even worse surprise. The fossil record of man looks a lot different to me today than it did when I was in school, but then I don’t read many textbooks these days, and so I don’t often encounter publisher’s pre-censorship and author’s fraud on such a grand scale. It seems that perfect examples of Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals are represented among us in the living human population today; and Piltdown man was, of course, a carefully orchestrated and carefully preserved, forty year long massive hoax, with a cast of thousands of willing participants.

Two years of biometric testing in England of the Australopithecines (found by Mary and Louis Leakey in Olduvai Gorge in Tanganyika (now Tanzania)) resulted in the pronouncement that the “evidence” that these creatures ever walked upright was flimsy at best, and that they more likely moved about in a manner similar to other sub-human primates. The Leakeys were dreaming. Which means that the current certain record of fossil evidence shows that all representative fossil examples for modern man and all of his pre transitory forms consists of the bones of modern man, and, well, modern man; and the length of time that he’s been here shrinks back from millions of years to possibly 200,000 years, and probably quite a bit less.

But Darwin’s second book was called The Decent of Man, not The Decent of Races or Breeds of Man. So it would appear that all of the textbooks and all of the museum exhibits and all of the informative signs at the zoo and all of the TV nature documentaries have been, at best, glossing over the evidence, and at worst, lying to the masses. Exactly as though they had another agenda, low moral standards, and the belief that the ends justify the means; and even if they didn’t, it is exactly as if they did. Darwinism is, predominantly, fraudulent.

The only reasonable looking fossil progression seems to involve horses, particularly their hooves; but even these fossils appear to represent only micro-evolution creating different kinds of horses. Again, where’s the speciation? Archaeopteryx, the crown jewel of the theory, was supposed to be the link between reptiles and birds, having mostly reptilian features, but also feathers. Now it seems that, not only are any pre and post transitory species for archaeopteryx still glaringly missing after all these years, but the fossil record even shows that birds existed before archaeopteryx did, which means, at least, that archaeopteryx is not the sole ancestor of all modern birds.

The theory specifically states the “fact” of constant gradual improving change over time; yet the open pinhole eye of the nautilus, with its retina that practically cried out for the dramatic improvement in sight that would be made by the addition of a simple lens, did not even evolve a rudimentary lens over the hundreds of millions of years during which it existed.

These “new” facts and questions are not widely known today; they are not discussed today; they are not taught today; they are not in any textbooks; they appear to be purposely excluded everywhere. Indeed, scientists and educators who are not atheists are discredited for their scientific work or teaching, not based upon what they produce or what they teach, but based solely upon the fact that they are not atheist, as all good scientists and teachers today are expected to be; it is the new scientific orthodoxy. Secularism is just as intolerant as Christianity is tolerant.

The most vocal spokesmen for Darwinism insist not only that no other theory of life processes be taught, but that students may not even be taught or told that there is any controversy at all among scientists regarding the acceptance and truth and “evidence” of Darwinism. Or the lack of it. Teachers and many scientists have been fired for teaching any alternative to Darwinism, or for publicly speaking about or publishing any counter-Darwinism evidence; real science goes on only underground, because it so shakes the atheist faith system.

New scientists have Darwinism drummed into their heads as dogma, to the point that they accept it in spite of what they see with their own eyes. For example, most biologists today will look at a chimpanzee and a man, see the quite obvious and gross differences, and yet tell you with a straight face that, “where it counts,” meaning genetically, the chimp and the man are 99% the same. If we take them literally at their word, then we should be conversing with, doing business with and inter-marrying with chimps, because, “where it counts” we are essentially the same. Genes, which we haven’t begun to fully understand yet, are supposed to rate higher in our estimation than do our eyes and our common sense. The genetic codes of the chimp and the man are, in some ways, closer than those of the chimp and any other primate, or creature of any kind; therefore, say the theorists, we are nearly kissing cousins with chimps. The much greater similarities between chimps and other apes as compared to that of chimps and human beings does not even cause them to consider any possible invalidity of current interpretations of their genetic “evidence.” They know what the genes say, and the genes don’t lie; the genes are where it counts. See?

Darwinism notes well that, in similar embryonic ages and stages, the embryos of fish, tortoises, rabbits, cows, salamanders and men are all quite similar; in fact, almost indistinguishable, to the naked eye, or to the untrained naked eye, or at least to mine, and that’s true enough. This is promoted as evidence that all of them descended, GESGEAEOT, from a common set of ancestors, that they are all related, and that gradual Darwinism must be correct. An interesting observation and a fascinating theory, but, again, an easily testable one, which Darwinism and Darwinists have failed to test, and with good reason. We must work to remember what they have told us about the adult stages of animals, such as the gorilla and the man, who are so clearly different: where it counts, they are essentially the same. That is what we are told; that is what we are to believe. But if we go to where it counts, to the molecular level, or to the sub-molecular level, to the genes, and lower, into the chromosomes, and lower, into the DNA, and lower, to the mysterious code within DNA, we see that, no, where it really counts, they are not the same. None of them are.

From the sperm and egg to the embryo to the adult life form, the code did not change and is quite unique among all life forms. None of them that start out being cows and end up being men. Every single bit of unique information needed for a completely determinate and unique individual human or cow or whatever exists from the very beginning and remains for life. Other similarities, whether observed “where it counts” in genes or in similarities at any stage of life, “prove” nothing but that they are animals. Which is supposed to be some great “discovery” or something. But when we give it just a little thought, once again we find ourselves standing in the middle of So What Central wondering how we wound up back at this boring place again. The starting point winds up being the destination with Darwinism at the wheel.

Everyone recognizes that we are primates, that we are mammals, that we are vertebrates and so forth; all of this was widely recognized long before Darwin ever published his theory. But the DNA denies any distant parental relationships between species. Other similarities are irrelevant. I can’t tell the difference between, for instance, mustard and celery seeds, or a lot of other tiny seeds. Therefore I do not open all the seed packages that arrive at our house in the spring and dump the seeds into a common container from which to plant my garden. The code does not change; if I intend a certain part of my garden to grow celery, then I had better be certain that the seeds that I plant there are exclusively celery seeds. I can tell the mature plants apart, and, for me, that’s where it counts. It’s important for me to not mix up my seeds for the same reason that it’s important for others to not mix up their embryos; they are similar, but celery seeds do not grow into mustard bushes and salamanders do not grow into cows.

Lack of empirical evidence puts dogmatic Darwinism on the offensive because Darwinism cannot successfully, or at least intelligently, defend gradual evolutionary theory. But dogmatic Darwinism will only publicly attack the easy targets and the obvious weak points in the anti-Darwinism ranks. The creation “scientists,” the fundamentalists and scriptural literalists who ignore or renounce solid empirical evidence, which, solely within species, exists, surely enough. Darwinism's offensive line will look for the believer who merely stands on his Bible and refuses to consider any other viewpoint; but the Darwinists do not see or cannot accept or will not admit that they are doing precisely the same thing. Secularism is far more biased and intolerant of other views than Christian fundamentalism ever dreamed of being, and it attacks far more than it defends, because its position is, in reality, indefensible. Darwinism very carefully selects the creationist victim and then destroys his arguments, and, viola, another victory for Darwinism. Sometimes it is subtle, sometimes not; sometimes it is specific, sometimes general; but Darwinism is always on the attack.

One TV crockumentary type show recently appeared to be objectively examining the history related to the Bible, but in a few places they let their secular bias be known. After referencing much of the enormous mountain of historical and archaeological evidence supporting so much of the Bible, the host then launched into a refutation of the entire Bible because he, and we suppose others, found no evidence of Moses and the nation of Israel wandering in the desert for forty years. So, if this guy couldn’t find any thousands of years old footprints and maybe a worn-out sandal clearly visible somewhere in the vast shifting sands of the desert, then we all should scrap the Bible. Well, it made sense to him, apparently even in the face of all the solid evidence confirming all the rest of the historical facts of the Bible. This kind of thing can be expected from those who cannot provide evidence for their position; they must then attack alternative theories, or their bases, in order to make their own foundationless theories more plausible. That’s modern science, and modern sociology. (I openly admit that I’m doing the same thing here; what’s good sauce for the goose is good sauce for the gander. But there is a difference in that I stand fully prepared to defend Holy Scripture, historically or otherwise.)

The problem seems to be directly related to the natural formation of an hypothesis, and the scientific method used to prove or disprove it. The hypothesis in question, Darwinism, asks, and seeks to answer, excellent questions; what are all of those unique marsupials doing exclusively in Australia, and how could they come to be there if they didn’t all have common ancestry? Terrific questions that cry out for answers. Testable answers. But they remain without legitimate answers based upon any empirical evidence, even though we all know, because Darwinism tells us, that they evolved, GESGEAEOT, from some as yet unfound common ancestors after Australia was somehow separated from Asia and cut of from other land life forms. But, exactly, how did we come to know it? The absence of an empirically testable alternative theory does not constitute proof of the original theory of Darwinism.

The evolutionists of Darwinism are precisely like creationists in that they cannot provide any empirical evidence of the means by which it theoretically occurs. Because modern scientists faithfully believe that the universe consists entirely of a closed system of material causes and effects, they also faithfully believe that science must eventually be able to provide naturalistic explanations for everything observed. Neither of these premises is empirically testable. Yet, if they did not faithfully believe both of them, they could not possibly have ever formed the hypothesis of common ancestors for all of life, and of life itself just going “poof” and appearing in the first place. So the hypothesis and both of its foundational beliefs are not empirically testable, and are based upon faith alone. Darwinism is a faith based belief system.

In the unshakable viewpoint of the vocal scientific majority, the naturalistic evolution is the only viable explanation for life, and the very existence of life “proves” that explanation. this is a tautology, or a way of saying the same thing twice. An objective empiricist requires conclusions to be supported by experiment and observation and will discard any doctrine, no matter how cherished, that does not fit the clear evidence. There are only two possible dogmas acceptable to evolutionists today, and they are GESGEAEOT, Darwinian gradualism, and, PEWAG. Neither is backed by the fossil record. Both require the existence of transitional species, yet neither can show any empirical evidence at all of any transitional species. Obviously, evolutionists cannot be truthfully described as objective empiricists; if they could be so described, then it would be possible today to engage them in a discussion on whether naturalistic evolution is true. But that is not possible, because it is their unshakable belief that naturalistic evolution is true, and they will not entertain any other possibility. None of their dogma or conjecture belongs in any science laboratory or classroom.

The second law of thermodynamics, or the law of entropy, tells us that it is quite impossible to construct an engine to operate in a repeatable, continuous cycle which does nothing other than take energy from a source and perform an equivalent amount of work. Some energy is always lost. Another way to state the same law is that the natural direction of heat flow is from a high temperature reservoir to a lower temperature reservoir, regardless of the total heat content of either reservoir. Which is to say that heat dissipates. This is natural. What this means in the practical world is that things, left alone, break down; complex things become simple; in nature, it is never the other way around. All bodies of complex structure gradually deteriorate into simpler forms.

A car or a bicycle or a boat, left alone and untouched for a long enough period of time, will deteriorate and become inoperable. We too will eventually become dust, or, perhaps, fossils. Darwinism, of course, flies in the face of this rule as we see the theory espousing ever increasing complexity up the evolutionary chain, always from the more simple to the more complex, never the other way round.

First, one-celled animals, then many-celled (skipping, by the way, two-celled, and four-celled, or any other definite small number of cells and making the quantum leap from one celled to many celled creatures like us - there is no such thing as a two-celled or a three-celled or a four-celled animal;) first, nothing but a-sexual simple cell division, then sexuality, and so forth. (It is also interesting to try to contemplate exactly how extremely complex and inter-dependent systems such as male and female sex organs might have “evolved” out of a-sexual cell-division, exactly simultaneously and in perfect parallel synchronization with each other. What, exactly, was a male sex organ one second before it was fully functional, and, before it was fully functional, what caused it to be “selected”?)

If we consider the complex code contained in the DNA chain in a simple one-celled animal, we could be dealing with some rather incredible complexity; however, when we compare it to the code contained in a DNA chain from a human being, the mind boggles. Arranged in a sort of spiral-staircase design, sub-microscopic in size, each “stair” in the chain contains over 5,000,000,000 genetic codes, roughly equivalent to the number of letters contained in a thousand complete sets of encyclopedias. And there are lots of stairs. “Our” complete sub-microscopic DNA strand stretches out to something like 150 centimeters long, with smitherillions of those code-containing stairs. But it gets even more complex.

The human body contains approximately 60,000,000,000,000 cells of extremely varied special characteristics. Every day, about 1,2000,000,000,000 of them are reproduced automatically, and the old ones eliminated. Every 120 days or so our blood, muscles and the protein in all of our brain cells undergo a complete renewal; but we still manage to remember stuff, and keep functioning as before. This kind of increasing complexity, which is supposed to have begun with and gradually evolved from one cell, or one living molecule of some kind, flies in the face of entropy. This is “where it counts,” at the DNA level. This is what tells us that every single human being who was ever born, is now alive, and who ever will be born, has the same set of ancient parents who started the species. The same thing may be said of horses, and of alligators, and of dragonflies. The dogmatists of Darwinism will tell us that those species-starting parent-sets were among link-species, examples of whom have not been found yet; but they all will be.

Any minute now. Along with the long, long train of successful similar species that are absolutely required if we evolved into what we are now. And along with all of the many necessary “failure” links that weren’t so perfect as to survive and become species.

The writings of the best and the brightest in Darwinism are literally loaded with descriptions of the appearance of intricate design or planning involved in the biological structures they examine, from the simplest to the most complex; but these descriptions are always closely followed by refutation of the existence of any real plan. Sometimes their descriptions of the elaborate but “false” designs are quite eloquent; they use terms such as The Blind Watchmaker, for instance, to describe “natural” effects of evolution, which may, in their eyes, be seen to do a better job than any conscious planner could possibly do. Of course. By self-made definition, modern science may not consider any alternatives to Darwinism at all, which means that the modern scientific viewpoint and approach is, by definition, subjective rather than objective.

None of this is real science. We need to realize the nature of the people pushing this stuff. Darwinism is nothing more than a philosophy or belief system, and the Darwinists are merely expressing opinion, conjecture and consensus; nothing more and nothing less.

So what's a Catholic to do?

Darwinism is false; literal interpretation of Genesis seems unlikely in the extreme; so what are we to believe?

Don't worry about it. It's not nearly as important to Catholicism as it is to Darwinism. The worldly evidence shows that a literal interpretation of Genesis did not occur; so, whoopity-doo-dah. I think we all pretty much knew that to begin with.

Obviously, Genesis was written a whole bunch of centuries after the events it described. It took some time for the story to be passed on by rote memory to generations who had higher developed language, and, eventually, written language, so it could be written in the first place. So, although it was inspired by God, the exact, precise memory of it wasn't exactly on the tip of the tongue (or pen) of the inspired author. I think it's fairly safe to say that the book of Genesis was not written on the eighth day by Adam. And if it was written by an inspired author "as dictated" by God, as some fundamentalists believe, than the Lord dictated it in the words He chose for His own good reasons.

Catholics interpret the creation story in Genesis in a spiritual rather than literal sense. We can read it allegorically and gain a more profound understanding of the significance of the events. We can read it as a moral lesson, and we can read it in an anagogical sense, leading us toward our true ultimate destination.

Here's the important thing to take out of the Creation story in Genesis. God is the First Cause of all causes. God wanted man to love God. The only way that man could really, actually love God was to be free to decide to love God, since love is, at it's most elemental form, a free will decision. Without free will, love is meaningless. Through the use of his free will, given by God, man chose to do something to displease God - that is how evil came into the world and how man became "fallen" from the original "good" state at his creation. This is original sin. God respects our free will, since He gave it to us, and He does not interfere with it. We remain free to love Him, reject Him, or do whatever we please; that is the true nature of free will.

Darwinists and other atheists see the Genesis story as a ridiculous tale involving a couple of naked people conversing with a snake under a tree in a garden; literalist Christians take it extremely seriously as a precise record of a factual series of actual events.

The actual creation of stuff and the actual creation of living beings, the precise mechanics of how that happened, is of vitally more importance to Darwinists and other fundamentalists than it is to Catholics. I am more interested in the lessons it teaches and the beautiful wording and the Tradition it passes on than how He exactly did everything. I don't know about you, but I don't spend too much time trying to understand miracles. I don't spend a lot of time on the virgin birth, for example, or the Resurrection, or how in Baptism I am born again of water and spirit. I can submit and bow before mystery; Darwinists cannot.

Another difference is that I value truth very highly, and am called by my moral code, born of my Church, my culture and my nation, to seek it, profess it clearly, not distort it, not oppose it, and not conceal it. This other ethos, this ethos of Darwinism - it is foreign to us. Our most common ethos comes to us through centuries of Western Civilization, founded on Judao-Christian tradition and morality, further tempered by American history. This opposing ethos that so fears and distorts the truth, where did it come from? Let me try to put a name to it: it is the ethos born of the traditions and morals of BMDFP and the SLIMC. If you are a bit of a Catholic empiricist, or if you feel drawn to science, then rigorously apply the scientific method, do good critical thinking, remain objective, and do not be the least bit afraid of where your research will lead you. Pursue the truth with vigor. Truth will never hurt you.

Are there any real scientists left?

Real science refutes Darwinism.

Phillip E Johnson wrote a good book, effectively refuting Darwinism, titled "Darwin On Trial" published by Intervarsity Press. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Importantly, Johnson proposes no alternative theory to Darwinism.

What he does, very systematically and scientifically, is criticize Darwinism from the viewpoint of the scientific method. His arguments are absolutely devastating to Darwinism, and show it to be, in reality, an unscientific philosophy or belief system based solely upon opinion, conjecture and widespread consensus.

Michael J. Behe wrote another book, effectively refuting Darwinism, which I highly recommend, called Darwin's Black Box.

Unlike Johnson, Behe does propose an alternative theory, involving a "Designer" of the seemingly impossibly complex systems in existence today.

He comes close to providing proof of his position. I say close, because the tool he uses for his proof is the statistical tool of probability, and there is before us the simple fact that statistics "prove" nothing.

However, statistics do tell us a great deal about probability, which is used as an effective tool in just about all sciences. Behe concentrates on something he calls irreducibly complex systems; these are defined as working systems, from which if one single part is removed, the system will no longer perform its function or purpose. Examples: an eye; a wing; a hand; a microscopic flagellum; a cell membrane; and so forth. His best illustrations involve the molecular and sub-molecular levels, where you would think things would get more simple; they do not; they get more complex.

The book is quite readable, the math is easy, the examples quite interesting and the logic compelling. Things that you would think would be the least interesting turn out to be the most interesting. The "system" for instance by which our blood is able to coagulate and form a scab, beginning the process of healing. This is an irreducibly complex system, which of necessity had to come into being in a certain sequence; no other sequence would do. Darwinism indicates it must come into being gradually by chance mutations of something, over a very large number of chance occurrences.

Behe uses this system to show how life on Earth itself, and not only life, but the Earth itself, and not only the Earth, but the whole of Creation, the entire universe, has not been in existence long enough for this one irreducibly complex system to have gradually "evolved," according to the mathematical rules of probability.

It is the seeming total consensus among scientists today that the universe is between 10 and 15 billion years old; that is when the "Big Bang" is supposed to have happened. Even noting the truly significant difference between 10 and 15 billion years, the scientific community is certain, CERTAIN, that that range of years is accurate for the beginning of everything.

Yet, by the known rules of probability, all of TV scientist Sagan's "billions and billions" would not be enough if they were converted to trillions and trillions, or even quadrillions and quadrillions, they would still be way off, by many orders of magnitude, for how long it should take for even the simplest systems required for life to have gradually evolved in accordance with the model of Darwinism.

These books prove that, Darwinism notwithstanding, real science isn't dead yet.

Is "Intelligent Design" a scientific theory? It is not. It is a philosophical theory, and/or a hypothesis, the same as Darwin's theory. Neither has any solid empirical evidence to back them up and make them "scientific."

Still, today, any public challenge to Darwinism, in almost any arena, will call down the predictable responses of STNSEACPB, or, SNRTACBT that the proven scientific theory of Evolution of Species could be in question. Go back again to the brief definition of Darwinism page, and look at the abiogenesis sub-theory regarding the beginning of life, and what it is based upon. Then, look back to Scripture's Genesis, and contemplate the differences.

Some things are simply not given to human understanding, and God, and His ways, are among them. God is beyond human comprehension. God didn't have to plan or design, any more than He had to do anything at all that seems logical to us. All He had to do was to will something, or to breath a Word, and it simply came to be.

Go back and read the beginning of Genesis, and the beginning of John.

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