Robin Leboe, "[r]evolution" (2005)

[r]evolution
> <font>Posted by Admin on 1 kwietnia 2005 (PST)
> <em><span class="articlebriefdescription1">Darwin doom hits the culture, it's about time.<span>

By Robin Leboe

WIRED MAGAZINE COVER: The Plot to Kill Evolution – Creationism 2.0

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC COVER: Was Darwin Wrong?

> &ldquo;If you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I&rsquo;d rather not consider that).&rdquo; &ndash; Darwinist author Richard Dawkins<sup>1<sup>

Natural Selection

If the recent coverage in the popular press is any indication, the Darwinian stranglehold on the biological sciences and the classroom may be going the way of the Dodo.

In 1859, Charles Darwin’s classic ‘Origin of Species’ rocked the world by providing an intellectually palatable alternative to the creation of life on Earth. The idea of Natural Selection took the academic world by storm and many converted to materialism, a worldview where the physical universe is all that there is and the miraculous is relegated to polite conversation over coffee and squares in the church basement. Eminent evolutionist Richard Dawkins effuses “Although atheism might have been logically tenable before Charles Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.” ²

From the Sputnik (1959) era onward, an aggressive campaign promoting Darwinism paved the way for Darwinian evolution to be taught in every level of the school system across North America . For more than a few of the Darwinist elite it was more than a battle to replace any religiously influenced theories of origins in the classroom, it was a drive to establish a new modernist religion, one that would “serve the needs of the coming era”³.

In the freedom of today’s academic world one is free to disagree with the Darwin ’s theory on any level – at one’s own peril. Dissenting scientists, educators and journalists are typically subjected to discrimination, harassment, censure and even litigation for failing to tow the party line. Even evolutionary icon Stephen J. Gould incurred their wrath when he went public with the embarrassing lack of evidence for transitional forms in the existing fossil record, what he dubbed “the trade secret of paleontology.”⁴

After enjoying decades of near-absolute authority in the biological sciences, large cracks are appearing in the Darwinian edifice. Behind the unified front that is carefully presented to the media, scientists can find little to agree upon when it comes to evolution.⁵ And despite passionate efforts to shore up the opinion that Darwin ’s theory is undisputed fact the public simply aren’t buying it. Polls consistently show that over 80% of the general population rejects the strictly material notions promoted by a relatively small group of committed Darwinists. And if that weren’t bad enough…

Darwin has come under attack for lacking a key element that forms a crucial part of any scientific theory: falsification. If a theory cannot be disproved then it is not science. Can Darwin ’s theory be proven false? In The Origin of Species Darwin states: “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely breakdown.” It would seem there is little possibility that anyone, given any amount of time, could possibly demonstrate that a “…complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications.”

Survival of the Fittest

Biology has had little incentive to challenge Darwin internally due to the lack of an alternative theory to replace it. Thankfully, this situation is changing thanks to Intelligent Design.

Welcome to the world of the irreducibly complex. A new group of scientists, dubbed the Intelligent Design movement or ID, is mounting scientifically credible challenges to Darwin – and creating a lot of controversy. The ID claim is that certain structures and systems in the biological world defy explanation using the blind, purposeless meanderings of natural selection.

In 1996, microbiologist Michael Behe joined the ranks of the fledgling ID movement after penning his ground breaking book ‘ Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution’ ’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution’. In it, he details how microbiology has revealed systems that exhibit the ear marks of irreducible complexity. In his examples he details complicated structures that are rendered useless with out an irreducible core set of components. All of these interactive parts would have had to arise simultaneously. Darwinism itself rules out the possibility however since this would be an exception to the painfully slow, gradual development required by natural selection.

So how does ID fit into the bigger picture? According to ID author and mathematician William Dembski, “Intelligent Design is not creationism and it is not naturalism. Nor is it a compromise or synthesis of these positions. It simply follows the empirical evidence of design wherever it leads. Intelligent Design is a third way.” ⁶

Darwinists have responded to ID with speculative challenges along several lines. One is known as the scaffolding objection. In it, they contend that complicated systems may be all that remains of more complicated structures. Only the essential components remain. Kind of like the scaffolding used to create Roman arches. The problem here is that scaffolding or no scaffolding the core is still irreducible and the functionality of the system can only arise after all the required components are in place. Another Darwinian objection posits that both the function and the form evolve; a sort of co-evolution. This approach would be, as Allan Orr, a biologist who is not a fan of intelligent design, suggests:

“We might think that some of the parts of an irreducibly complex system evolved step by step for some other purpose and were then recruited wholesale to a new function. But this is…unlikely. You may as well hope that half your car’s transmission will suddenly help out in the airbag department. Such things might happen very, very rarely, but they surely do not offer a general solution to irreducible complexity.” ⁷

Biology is not alone in its inference of design over chance. Scientists from all disciplines are coming to grips with the sheer improbability of life arising as a result of random forces on Earth or anywhere else. The fine tuning of the universe necessary for life to exist on earth alone is breath taking.

This emerging data has driven some to speculate that there are an infinite number of universes and that we are the ones lucky enough to win the prize. This type of thinking is clearly wishful thinking and not science.

Mass [media] Extinction

Are ‘tree of life’ diagrams and dramatic museum dioramas showing the plodding march of natural selection going the way of the dinosaur? Not any time soon. The science media has a well-worn Darwinian bias that continues to spout misinformation and paint dissenting voices like ID as nothing but fundamentalist creationists with a shave and a haircut.

In fact, Intelligent Design often finds itself caught in the crossfire between Darwinist’s and creationists. On one side, some Darwinist’s attack ID as repackaged creationism, while on the other, many creationists see ID as an emerging threat that is not to be trusted. Ironically, because it is the only completely testable theory and it has the real potential of being disproved, ID is the best candidate for growing into a legitimate, fully mature scientific theory.

A Tough Cell

While phrases like ‘irreducible complexity’ may not become part of the public vernacular any time soon, the battle between ID proponents and Darwinists has finally hit the culture. The Wired and National Geographic articles mentioned above are a good case in point. The bad news is that the public is the ongoing target of biased and distorted information.

So why should anybody care? Well for starters when a myopic viewpoint is used to interpret nearly all scientific data, science itself will suffer. The history of science is littered with periods of stagnation, courtesy of standing pet theories that had the right data and the wrong interpretation.

Also, contrary to the opinion of Dawkins et al, ‘we the public’ are not a pack of drooling idiots. There is something wrong about the sterile nature of hardcore materialism and the general population seems to sense this intuitively. People are tired of receiving scientific information strained, sanitized and smoothly blended with materialist religion by the Darwin faithful. It’s time to drop the propaganda shovel and get back to the quest for real understanding regardless of the outcome.

[Robin is currently producing the documentary film ‘Monkey Business: Darwin or Design?]

¹ [O’Leary, Denyse, By Design or by Chance?, Dawkins quoted from a review of Blueprints: Solving the Mystery of Evolution by Maitland A. Edey and Donald C. Johanson(Boston: Little Brown, 1989), New York Times(April 9, 1989).]

² [Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, 1986, p. 6]

³ “... the evolutionary vision is enabling us to discern, however incompletely, the lineaments of the new religion that we can be sure will arise to serve the needs of the coming era."

“In the evolutionary pattern of thought there is no longer either need or room for the supernatural. The earth was not created, it evolved. So did all the animals and plants. So did religion. (Evolution itself is) the new religion that arises to serve the needs of the coming era.”

[Huxley J.S., Issues in Evolution, i Tax S. (ed.), 1960, Evolution After Darwin: Issues in Evolution, vol. 3, University of Chicago Press: Chicago IL ]

⁴ [Gould, Stephen Jay, Evolutions erratic pace, in Natural History (May 1977), vol.136

⁵ "When discussing organic evolution the only point of agreement seems to be: "It happened." Thereafter, there is little consensus, which at first sight must seem rather odd." [Conway Morris, Simon [palaeontologist, Department of Earth Sciences, Cambridge University, UK ], "Evolution: Bringing Molecules into the Fold," Cell, Vol. 100, pp.1-11, January 7, 2000, p.11]

 ⁶ [O’Leary, Denyse, By Design or by Chance?, Dembski quoted from the preface to the Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions About Intelligent Design, William A. Dembski ( Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 2004)]

⁷ [Orr, Allen, Darwin vs. Intelligent Design (Again), Boston Review (December/January 1996-1997):29]