Evolutionists’ atheistic presumption and motivation
A good example of atheistic presumption and motivation is Darwin’s staunchest advocate, T. H. Huxley (1825-1895), a biologist and comparative anatomist, who was known as “Darwin’s bulldog.” His glorification of Darwin’s discovery is informative about his personal bias.
“. . . after 1850 . . . I had long done with the Pentateuchal cosmogony, which had been impressed upon my childish understanding as Divine truth, with all the authority of parents and instructors, and from which it had cost me many a struggle to get free. But my mind was unbiased in respect of any doctrine which presented itself, as it professed to be based on purely philosophical and scientific reasoning.
“The ‘Origin’ provided us with the working hypothesis we sought. Moreover, it did the immense service of freeing us for ever from the dilemma–refuse to accept the creation hypothesis, and what have you to propose that can be accepted by any cautious reasoner…”
Huxley was in rebellion against God and the Bible. He was raised by strict Sabbatarian parents, who tried to forcibly combine Old Testament Law with Christianity. Their views were prominent at one time among Scottish and English Protestants. Such parties were distinguished by a peculiar practice in regard to the observance of the Sabbath day of rest. The term, Sabbatarian is applied to those rigorists who apparently confounded the Christian Sunday with the Jewish Sabbath and would not permit many ordinary and innocent occupations on Sunday. Huxley’s rebellion would certainly be understandable in view of his personal experience, but his reaction to bizarre religious practices misled him to deny the Creator God.
A contemporary and successor to Huxley was Scottish anatomist and anthropologist Sir Arthur Keith (1866-1955), who was a leading figure in the study of human fossils. Keith was early enamored of the discovery of Piltdown Man, which consisted of fragments of a skull and jawbone unearthed by one Charles Dawson in gravel pits near Piltdown, England in 1912. The Latin name Eoanthropus dawsoni (“Dawson’s dawn-man,” after the collector Charles Dawson) was given to the specimen. Piltdown Man was mentioned in written affidavits filed by science experts provided by the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) on behalf of the teaching of evolution in the famous Scopes monkey trials. For the next few decades Piltdown man was shining evidence of evolution, and Keith was pleased to commemorate the discovery in 1938 with the dedication of a monolith at the site.
“So long as man is interested in his long past history, in the vicissitudes which our early forerunners passed through, and the varying fare which overtook them, the name of Charles Dawson (eoanthropus dawsonii) is certain of remembrance. We do well to link his name to this picturesque corner of Sussex–the scene of his discovery. I have now the honour of unveiling this monolith dedicated to his memory.”
Fifteen years later, in his 80’s, Keith’s honour suffered a blow when Piltdown Man was exposed as a deliberate hoax—the lower jaw bone of an orangutan combined with the skull of a modern man, possibly perpetrated by none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who had no sympathy for evolutionists.
The mindset of Keith illustrates the danger that strong presumptions can play in not objectively scrutinizing the evidence. Keith is widely quoted as voicing the opinion that,
Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable.
Once again we may appeal to Louis Pasteur for insight on this phenomenon, who said, “The greatest aberration of the mind consists in believing a thing because it is desirable.”
If Keith were a rare or unusual example of evolutionary bias, it would not be fair to smear the whole field by mentioning him. But, in fact, he is fairly representative of evolutionists’ world view.
A contemporary and successor to Keith was Nobel laureate (physiology and medicine), Professor George Wald (1906-1997), who was Professor of Biology at Harvard University and known for his research on retinal pigments of the eye. In an article in Scientific American August 1954, pp. 44-53, entitled “The Origin of Life,” Wald opined on the subject, clearly revealing a bias similar to his predecessors, Huxley and Keith. What follows is a synopsis of his faith as presented in his own words in that publication. He begins with a succinct but complete summary of the question concerning the origin of life.
“There are only two possible explanations as to how life arose. Spontaneous generation arising to evolution or a supernatural creative act of God…. There is no other possibility. Spontaneous generation was scientifically disproved 120 years ago by Louis Pasteur and others,[1] but that just leaves us with only one other possibility . . . that life came as a supernatural act of creation by God, but I can’t accept that philosophy because I don’t want to believe in God.[2] Therefore I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible,[3] spontaneous generation leading to evolution.”
“The reasonable view was to believe in spontaneous generation; the only alternative, to believe in a single, primary act of supernatural creation. There is no third position. For this reason many scientists a century ago chose to regard the belief in spontaneous generation as a philosophical necessity. It is a symptom of the philosophical poverty of our time that this necessity is no longer appreciated. Most modern biologists, having reviewed with satisfaction the downfall of the spontaneous generation hypothesis, yet unwilling to accept the alternative belief in special creation, are left with nothing.”[4]
“One has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible.[4] Yet here we are as a result, I believe, of spontaneous generation.”
“The important point is that since the origin of life belongs in the category of at least once phenomena, time is on its side. However improbable we regard this event, or any of the steps which it involves, given enough time it will almost certainly happen at-least-once. And for life as we know it, with its capacity for growth and reproduction, once may be enough.”[5]
“Time is in fact the hero of the plot. The time with which we have to deal is of the order of two billion years. What we regard as impossible on the basis of human experience is meaningless here. Given so much time, the “impossible” becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait: time itself performs the miracles.”[5]
“Wherever life is possible, given time, it should arise. It should then ramify into a wide array of forms, differing in detail from those we now observe (as did earlier organisms on the earth) yet including many which should look familiar to us — perhaps even men.
“We are not alone in the universe, and do not bear alone the whole burden of life and what comes of it. Life is a cosmic event — so far as we know the most complex state of organization that matter has achieve in our cosmos. It has come many times, in many places — places closed off from us by impenetrable distances, probably never to be crossed even with a signal.”
–Quotes from Wald, “The Origin of Life.” Scientific American. August 1954 pp. 46-53
Wald’s comments are illustrative of the general presuppositions and faith of evolutionists in general. The following conclusions referencing his quotes listed above.
[1] First, he holds his faith despite clear scientific evidence to the contrary.
[2] Second, his personal desires/emotions govern what he will accept as fact.
[3] Third, his choice of belief is not rational but emotional.
[4] Fourth, scientists who do not accept special creation are left with no meaningful philosophy of life, except belief in the impossible.
[5] Finally, “left with nothing,” Wald places his faith in his imagined inevitability of biological life “at least once” in the universe. But he needs a miracle worker for the inevitable miracle of “spontaneous generation.” And he finds his miracle worker in vast time–“time itself performs the miracles.” Wald irrationally chooses his god, and his god is time. But simple mathematical probability denies Wald this philosophical refuge, since billions of years have clearly been shown insufficient to produce evolution of even lower life forms by chance mutations acted upon by natural selection.
Clearly Wald’s faith in evolution, and spontaneous generation, is based on contradictory thoughts, but like many evolutionists, he impugns those who do not share his bias as being “philosophically impoverished.” But if being impoverished of such contradictory bias is a step toward a more objective assessment of the origin of life, then perhaps philosophical impoverishment is to be desired.
An internet search on Wald’s views of the origin of life reveals that other evolutionists reference his authority and adopt his fundamental bias. This is a familiar technique of evolutionary science to provide a proliferation of authority and consensus where there is absence of real experimental proof, and the only basis of the “science” is presumption and prejudice that Wald displays in this article in a popular “science” magazine, in which such editorial bias is common.
A contemporary of Wald was the very well-known Russian born American science writer Isaac Asimov (1920-1992). Asimov was a professor of biochemistry and a highly successful writer, best known for his works of science fiction and popular science. One of the most prolific writers of all time, Asimov wrote or edited more than 500 books and 9,000 letters and postcards. His Asimov’s quiz was a popular item in newspapers for years.
He received many awards during his life. The asteroid 5020 Asimov, the magazine Asimov’s Science Fiction, a Brooklyn, NY elementary school, and two different Isaac Asimov Awards are named in his honor.
Asimov was a long-time member and Vice President of Mensa International, a society for people with very high IQ’s, though he described some members of that organization as “brain-proud and aggressive about their IQs.” But he took more pleasure in being president of the American Humanist Association. His approach to the origin of life displays prejudice similar to other evolutionists, as he writes in the Association’s publication, Free Inquiry, Spring 1982, vol.2 no.2, p. 9:
“I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I’ve been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn’t have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I’m a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally I am an atheist. I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn’t that I don’t want to waste my time.”
Asimov’s emotional reaction is addressed in the Bible:
“The fool says in his heart, ‘No God!’” (Psalm 14:1 and Psalm 53:1)
Emotional reaction against God as Creator may have satisfied Asimov, but it cannot serve as a rational basis for the so-called “biological science” that evolutionists pursue. Yet repeatedly we find evolutionists justifying their “science” by personal statements of emotional prejudice which they blend deceptively with complex, lengthy and highly technical scientific sounding arguments that ordinary laymen cannot understand.
Thus the evolutionists’ dogma is dismissive of Creation and the God of the Bible, and this dogma has become the accepted educational standard through force of political and judicial activism by the secular science establishment in America.
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