Darwin was not the last to be befuddled by the contradiction of evolution with the common human intuition that the precise structure of the world was strong evidence for a Creator. Ultimately, however, Darwin rejected his intuition, which he admitted was powerfully informed by William Paley’s publication in 1802 of Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity. In addition to T. H. Huxley, who frankly admitted his bias against a divine Creator, there have been many evolutionists since who have declared their bias against the Creator. Following are a few examples of this common human “scientific” bias, some humorous, others sadly irrational.
Sir Arthur Keith was a Scottish anatomist & anthropologist. A leading figure in the study of human fossils, he became President of the Royal Anthropological Institute. His most famous fossil, known for 40 years as Piltdown Man, was found in gravel deposits near Piltdown, England. On July 23, 1938, at Barkham Manor, Piltdown, Sir Arthur Keith unveiled a memorial to mark the site where Piltdown Man was discovered by Charles Dawson. Sir Arthur finished his speech saying: ‘”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.'”
The inscription on the memorial stone reads: Here in the old river gravel Mr Charles Dawson, FSA found the fossil skull of Piltdown Man, 1912-1913. The discovery was described by Mr Charles Dawson and Sir Arthur Smith Woodward in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society 1913-15. The nearby pub was renamed The Piltdown Man in honor of it.
Piltdown Man consisted of fragments of a skull and jawbone collected in 1912 from a gravel pit at Piltdown, a village near Uckfield, East Sussex. The fragments were thought by many experts of the day to be the fossilized remains of a hitherto unknown form of early human. The Latin name Eoanthropus dawsoni (“Dawson’s dawn-man”, after the collector Charles Dawson) was given to the specimen.
Sir Arthur Keith subscribed to this view for 40 years until Piltdown Man was exposed in 1953 as a forgery, consisting of a modified lower jawbone of an orangutan combined with the skull of a fully developed, modern man. Some historians of science have attempted to determine who perpetuated his hoax, and the author Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, has been put forth as a candidate. But others deny Doyle as the perpetrator and suggest Dawson himself may have planted the hoax. The truth is lost in history, but the whole affair shows how predisposed evolutionists are to deception when it accords with their presuppositions and bias.
Keith is said to have made this statement, though source documentation for it is not clear, “Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable.” Though it is questioned by some whether Keith actually made this statement, it certainly fits his bias. And we have other committed evolutionists who have said exactly the same thing in so many words. More on these men in subsequent posts.
An illuminating history of the Piltdown hoax may be found at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/08/10/sir-arthur-conan-doyle-cleared-of-piltdown-man-hoax/.
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