I feel that an apology is due to those who have joined in the fray over evolution that my posts earlier this month have caused. I refer to those noble and thought-provoking souls who commenting on my posts. I must confess that I seldom have time to respond to such posts in a timely fashion, preferring prudentially to concentrate on my writing and editing duties rather than getting sucked into the bottomless hole of cyber space. I feel, however, that some response to these contributors and comments is necessary, albeit somewhat belatedly.
Let me make it clear that my rejection of dogmatic Darwinism does not mean that I reject the possibility of some form of genetic evolution. Indeed I accept as a self-evident fact that such “evolution” occurs, up to a point, within species. Let me make it equally clear that the notion of evolutionary descent from primitive lifeforms to Man is not something that I reject per se. As a matter of faith or reason, the possibility that we are ultimately descended from a rock is not a threat to my faith, though it’s a challenge to my reason. God could have designed the process of Creation in such a way that everything evolved from the initial energy supplied by His Hand entering the Cosmos in the form of the Big Bang. To reiterate as forcefully as possible: my faith is not challenged by this sort of evolution. On the contrary, it is my reason that is challenged and perhaps even affronted. Even if, as faithful Christians, we can accept the notion of evolution in good faith, I believe that as philosophical realists in the tradition of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas, we have a duty to be healthily and rationally skeptical about all scientific claims until they are proven definitively.
As for a healthy skepticism with regard to the claims of evolution, let’s not forget the missing links. Let’s not forget that Science has been trying to make the “accident” of evolution happen for over a century without success. It has worked with countless generations of fruit flies, trying to make evolution work, i.e. playing at God by interfering in the “accidental” processes of nature in order to prove the theory of “accidental” evolution. This is, of course, a delightful paradox: Darwinian evolutionists have been practising intelligent design, i.e. interfering as outside agents into natural processes, in order to disprove the notion of intelligent design! And yet what is the result of all of these countless experiments by numberless scientists to make evolution work (evolution by design)? The result is a complete failure to turn fruit flies into anything but fruit flies. All of the genetic tampering with this primitive species has made mutants, to be sure, but they are mutant fruit flies. We have very large fruit flies; we have blind fruit flies; four legged fruit flies; fruit flies that can’t fly; and, for all I now, fruit flies that are allergic to fruit. But the one thing they all have in common is the fact that they are still fruit flies.
Isn’t this curious? And, so my microbiologist friends inform me, what is true of fruit flies is true of even more basic life forms, such as bacteria. It seems that the best efforts of evolutionist microbiologists have failed to turn basic elements, such as e-coli, into different types of bacteria. If science cannot make evolution work from one species to the other, even when applying its own intelligent design to the most basic life forms, is it really outrageously unscientific to request an element of skepticism about evolution across countless different species, beginning with inanimate specks of dust (rock) and ending with Man?
I will finish by reiterating that evolution is not a threat to my faith but a challenge to my reason. If science makes its breakthrough and can show us the missing links between one species and another, demonstrating how a fruit fly has become a different species of fly, i.e. a fly that can no longer mate successfully with fruit flies (which will presumably mean that science will have to “evolve” two of the new species simultaneously and hope that they are not of the same gender!); if science achieves this goal, I will accept that God may have used this method to bring about His Creation. My faith will not be threatened or violated by such a discovery. In the meantime, and in the absence of such evidence, my reason demands that I retain a healthy skepticism.
A past evolution cannot be denied. It is only the means by which it took place that remains in question. The Darwinian model has no credibility whatsoever and should have been abandoned the day Darwin’s Origin of Species appeared. Actually it was by Adam Sedgwick Darwin’s Geology tutor. Darwinism persists for one reason only. It is the only explanation acceptable to the congenital atheist mindset. Apparently there is nothing that can be done either to or for those who support the most failed hypothesis in the history of science. They are immune to reason and destined to become embarrassing footnotes in the histiory of evolutionary science.
Furthermore, it is our contention that all of evolution was “planned” by an unknown number of “programmers” and that the Plan is now complete with the contemporory living world which, like all the epochs that preceeded it will probably also become extinct. I refer to my website for this alternative to Darwinian mysticism.
jadavison.wordpress.com
A charmingly fruity post, Joseph.
The evolutionists’ attempt at intelligent design lacked the necessary element of Intelligence, perhaps the missing link among the experimenters.
More seriously:
One has to wonder why such brain-power is directed solely at DIS-proving Something. Might it not be more fruitfully (excuse me) directed?
And contradicting not only its own ethic, but even its raison d’etre, why the knee-jerk destruction (a virtual killing) of brilliant scientists who make the fatal mistake of–even off-handedly–suggesting that Darwinian evolution might not be “the whole story”. (See Ben Stein’s film, Expelled. Everyone should see it. Future generations may point to this film as the explication of the moment when Science started to become science.)
This position generated controversy? I thought it was rather clear from the original post that this is what you meant. I was also under the impression that it was an entirely ordinary opinion for thoughtful Catholics. It seems I missed something.
I thank Joseph Pearce for allowing this evolutionist to present his alternative to atheist inspired Darwinism. I repeat our contention –
“A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable.”
Dena Hunt
Darwinism has no credibility whatsoever and never did have. Is survives for one reason only. It assumes that evolution had an exogenous, tangible cause, identified by its cornerstone – natural selection. Natural selection is very real and continues today to do what it always did which is to PREVENT evolutionary change. All of evolution was driven (past tense) by internal information just as the development of the individual from the egg is also driven entirely by internal information. That is our conviction which remains in concert with every aspect of the fossil record and the experimental laboratory none of which supports the incremental gradualism which is the hallmark of the Darwinian proposition.
A planned organic evolution which is now complete is the only conceivable hypothesis once natural selection is properly understood. The Darwinians have been chasing a phantom for a century and a half. They are hamstrung by a congenital, incurable atheism which renders them immune to reason and reality.
Leo Berg properly recognized the nature of both ontogeny, the development of the individual and phylogeny, the history of life as revealed by the fossil record.
“Neither in the one nor in the other is there room for chance.”
Nomogenesis, page 134
“Evolution is in a great measure an unfolding of pre-existing rudiments.”
page 406
“The struggle for existence and natural selection ARE NOT progressive agencies, but being, on the contrary, conservative, maintain the standard.” page 406 (my emphasis in caps)
That is our position and it will remain so until proven to be without merit.
jadavison.wordpress.com
Our thesis DEMANDS one or more creators. My personal preference is for a minimum of two, one benevolent, the other malevolent. Actually that is already provided by the Judeo-Christian ethic with Lucifer as a fallen angel. Such an assumption makes the world much more understandable for me but can’t be established experimentally.
The important point is the absurdity of the Darwinian model which has no scientific credibility whatsoever.
Atheist Darwinism has invaded every aspect of our culture with devastating influences on our youth due largely to the “community organizing” talents of Paul Zachary Myers and Clinton Richard Dawkins both of whom have abandoned science to attack our most cherished institutions as they attempt to establish a godless society. They are potent enemies of Western Civilization. History has demonstrataed that when Civilizations abandon their God or Gods they are already in irreversible decline.
jadavison.wordpress.com
Hey, thanks for finally responding Joseph Pearce! It was a good thought provoking piece, and again I am glad to see that you responded to the comments on this site! It is far too frequent for people to post something, then never respond to the comments others make about said post. Im glad you are not one of them!
To Titus: Actually I think he explained his position better in this post (at least to me) than in previous ones.
To John A. Davison: Your comments are very interesting, but I have some questions. What do you mean by saying that [all of evolution was “planned” by an unknown number of “programmers”]?
Who or what are these “programmers”?
You rightly call it “atheist inspired Darwinism.” Is your alternative theory therefore, shall we say, “theist” friendly, or rather a theory that leaves open, or does not discount the possibility of a creator?
John Davison
Thanks so much for your comments directed to me, which seem to make a good deal of sense. As I mentioned in another place, our minds seem to work in certain (possibly pre-formed) patterns that determine both our understanding and expression. While all of these patterns are intelligible among “sane” people, not everyone troubles to speak to modes of understanding different from their own. Highly technical or scientific rhetoric is not often expressed in “laymen’s” terms.
It is sad–maybe tragic–to think of Darwinians as
“hamstrung by a congenital, incurable atheism which renders them immune to reason and reality,” but the behavioral evidence does suggest a rigidity that extreme.
it’s ironic that they should abandon modern empirical reasoning–to which they declare allegiance–in favor of medieval deductive reasoning–which they so strongly abhor.
Perhaps it’s that refusal to mature (evolve?) that will render them extinct. Perhaps it already has; otherwise, this conversation could not have happened.
I just read the newer responses/comments and I have to say they are good.
To Dena Hunt: It IS sad to think of Darwinians as “hamstrung by a congenital, incurable atheism which renders them immune to reason and reality” but that seems to be all to true, at least for many of them.
To John A. Davison: Thanks for the direct response, you answered my questions.
But, your response also opened up a new one: You talk of your preference for a at least two creators, one benevolent the other malevolent, and then go on to say that it was already provided by the Judeo-Christian tradition. How is it that you interpret that, I mean not only with your theory (why one good the other bad), but also you rationale that two creators works with the Christian tradition?
Why I could be wrong, I think that the Judeo-Christian tradition provides for only one, all mighty, all knowing Creator, not several lesser creators. I may have misinterpreted your comments, but to me that sounds more like Manecheism, Albigensianism, gnosticism (all heresies), or even the ancient Persian religion Zoroastrianism than it does Christianity. But again maybe you mean it differently than I interpreted it. I would like to know your thoughts on this issue.
Also, has your theory ever taken route anywhere yet, it sounds plausible enough. I mean does it have a “following” yet?
Thank you Dena Hunt.
As you can imagine, we are not very popular with the atheist Darwinians. They have always been in a state of denial. They are incompetent even to imagine a planned universe. They are doomed to intellectual disgrace and oblivious to its certainty. That is the only way to deal with them. They are hopeless, feckless automatons, victims of their “prescribed” fates to be losers. We are convinced with Einstein that –
“Everything is determined… by forces over which we have no control”
Christ said much the same thing –
“Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”
We many critics of the atheist inspired Darwinian mindset have always been ignored, from Mivart in Darwin’s own day right up the present. I see it as a war for the future of Western Civilization, a war we believers in a purposeful world are definitely losing.
Two of our most dangerous enemies are Paul Zachary Myers and Clinton Richard Dawkins, both of whom who have abandoned science to dedicate their considerable “community organizing” talents to the cause of Universal Atheism.
I will continue to expose them as the enemy for as long as I am able.
All are welcome to participate in my website. I ask only that my users display their real names.
jadavison.wordpress.com
John,
This is just a by-the-way response to your comment (“My personal preference is for a minimum of two [designers], one benevolent, the other malevolent. Actually that is already provided by the Judeo-Christian ethic with Lucifer as a fallen angel. Such an assumption makes the world much more understandable for me…. “)
Neither Judaism nor Christianity casts Lucifer in any creative role. Lucifer/Satan has no creative power, either benevolent or malevolent. Only God is the Creator. Satan can only destroy what is already created. To the extent that we are created in God’s image, we are capable of “creativity” (unlike other species).
That is why, as God is the author of life, Satan is the author of death, or destruction of life. You can think of it this way: God creates pure clear water; Satan throws ink in it, or mud, or poison. Satan cannot create the water.
Actually, none of the angels, fallen or unfallen, can create; they are only messengers, emissaries, of the Creator–or the destroyer.
Judeo-Christianity, unlike pagan religions, has no god of evil. There is only one God. (It should be remembered that creator=god.)
We several critics of the Darwinian proposition have always been ignored from Mivart in Darwin’s own day right up to the present. It is as if we never existed. I have done my best to summarize this history in my book : “Unpublished Evolution Papers of John A. Davison” (Lulu publishers). To date it has sold 4 copies as far as I can determine. That gives a fair appraisal of the extent to which atheist Darwinism continues to dominate evolutionary science and society generally. God or gods are no longer allowed to exist, especially in the English speaking world. Little has changed in a century and a half.
jadavison.wordpress.com
Dena Hunt
Thank you for the lesson in Judeo-Christian theology. While I am Christian in spirit, and a late convert to Catholicism, my science has led me to postulate at least two Gods, two Creators, two entities, neither of which is personal. I find this mandatory in order to understand the natural world in which I find myself. I understand why this is unacceptable to many but I would be a hypocrite to present myself in any other light. I hope that you can find it in your heart to forgive me for my perceived failures. I have also questioned Free Will.
I ask only one question.
What kind of God found it necessary to produce Charles Robert Darwin and the tens of thousands of his followers all of whom still have but one goal in mind – to remove every vestige of the Judeo-Christian God from Western Civilization, a venture which they have carried out with notable success especially today led by such “community organizers” as Barack Hussein Obama, Clinton Richard Dawkins and Paul Zachary Myers?
“The main source of the present-day conflict between the spheres of religion and science lies in the concept of a personal God.”
Albert Einstein
Recent Convert
I am definitely a heretic and in earlier times would probably have been burned at the stake after trial before a Catholic Inquisition. The Roman Church has since become more tolerant of dissent and more enlightened concerning the reality of a past organic evolution, much more so than some of their Protestant offshoots.
As for a tangible following, I number them with one hand but will not divulge their identities. That is something only they can do.
“The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.”
Samuel Johnson
John A Davison
It’s sad that you have lost faith in a personal God, but I should note that there have always been other scientists throughout history up into the present day, that do believe in a personal God. You quoted Einstein, but I think its safe to say that he was wrong in that assumption . The question of whether God is personal or impersonal, is not a scientific one, but a philosophical/theological question. In either case, I hope that one day you may return to that belief in a personal God. Perhaps you should look more into philosophy or theology to answer that question of yours, rather than your science.
With that said, I must clear up a common misconception. The Catholic Church did not burn every heretic at the stake. One needs look no further than earlier church history, where the orthodox vigorously debated with heretics. Yes there were times at which heresies were fought against through the use of violence (like against the cathars), but there were many times where violence were not used (for example St Dominic fought against said Cathars by studying their heresy so that he may fight against it with words, he trained his followers to do so as well. Much of the “burning” of heretics was situational. Like when, for example, the church would feel herself threatened, or war would be declared on the church (for example, the cathars had become a widespread threat to Christianity, and angry Germans stormed through Rome slaughtering everything in its path to get at killing the Pope, this was after Martin Luther’s thesis, when the German princes would use this and more to rile up the German people in an effort to have them renounce the Catholic Church). The first goal of the church would have always been to have the heretic renounce his heresy, not throw him into the fire, so to speak. Im not saying the burning of heretics did not exist, but that it was not always the case.
Also, you said, “The Roman Church has since become more tolerant of dissent and more enlightened concerning the reality of a past organic evolution, much more so than some of their Protestant offshoots.” Well this is because of the literalistic interpretation of scripture (especially the Genesis account) of many protestant groups. The Catholic Church never shook at Darwin’s theory the same way they did. The Church was never in the habit of interpreting Genesis literally, circa the Church Fathers. Augustine, writing back in the third century A.D. about this kind of thing.
It was encouraging to find a venue that permitted us to hold forth. The “us” to whom I refer are the several distinguished predecessors on whose science my own securely rests, only one of whom, Pierre Grasse, even mentioned God. The stranglehold which atheist inspired Darwinism still holds on an already weakened society should alarm every thinking citizen. I regard it as our mortal enemy.
Thomas Henry Huxley, “Darwin’s Bulldog” but never a Darwinian himself, had this to say –
“Of all the senseless babble I have had the occasion to read, the demonstrations of these philosophers who undertake to tell us all about the nature of God would be the worst, if they were not surpassed by the still greater absurdities of the philosophers who try to prove that there is no God.”
Henrietta A. Huxley, Aphorisms and Reflections From the Works of Thomas Henry Huxley, page 3 (1911)
Huxley coined the word “agnostic” to describe his own position, one I, with Einstein, accept as well.
Dear John,
You quoted Johnson, “The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.” Please let me offer my applause. Anyone who pursues Truth pursues God. (“I am the truth, the way, and the life.”)
You said, “I hope that you can find it in your heart to forgive me for my perceived failures. I have also questioned Free Will.” There is no “failure” to forgive. Free Will is so mysterious. I’ve spent hours meditating on it, and still I come up with the same thing: it’s love. But it’s love in the sense of vulnerability–like a child. Which most of us choose not to remember. Which we don’t think of as “God-like”. (It’s love from a child, from someone who longs to be loved back. An understanding of this may be limited to those who have the experience of love denied, hoped for, desired, needed desperately–and not —-)
Free will: It’s no good my saying to anyone, “I WILL (demand) that you love me” when what I really want is that you love me REGARDLESS OF MY WILL Our Lord has never asked us anything but this, not really; everything else comes from it: DO YOU LOVE ME? It’s what he asked of Peter after the Resurrection. It’s what he asks each of us. It has nothing to do with “belief” (which really has to do with whatever state our scientific or intellectual knowledge happens to be at the time–ANY time–throughout history.) No. It has nothing to do with intellectual assent, nothing to do with anything else at all: Do you love me?
There have always been scientific truths (though I notice that they change a lot); there always will be scientific truths. But saying that those truths are the only–ONLY–reality is like staking one’s destiny on today’s news. It will change tomorrow. You have to remember: The geocentric universe was NOT an “invention” of the Church. No. It was “scientific” truth that the Church accepted. The Church has always accepted scientific truth. It always will. Nothing that science discovers can change anything really important, only small things, the prevailing theory of the moment. Like “the sun darkened at the hour of Christ’s death.” One then disbelieves in God because he has learned how an eclipse happens? What does a modern explanation of an eclipse–valuable though it is–really change? Does it disprove the divinity of Christ? If it does, you have your god. And nothing else makes any difference.
But I wish you well on your journey. Thank you for responding to my comments.