26.1.06

Bad Day for Darwin

According to a survey reported by the BBC:

More than half the British population does not accept the theory of evolution.

And 44% said they would like creation to be taught as an alternative in the classroom.


It's curious is it not, when part of the argument for Evolution is: "No one seriously doubts it to be true." It seems this Emperor's New Clothes effect is wearing off at last. I wonder how much longer we will still be force fed it as an "unquestionable fact" in every natural history program the BBC and others produce?

11 comments:

Marcos said...

Here in the states some people won't let the theory of evolution go even though a couple of high ranking Darwin followers recently have stated "this life cannot be an accident".

I'm not a mistake.I didn't "just happen". A wonderful God(the only God), knitted us together in our mother's womb, Breathed life into our lungs gave us a soul, a plan a purpose and a reason to live.

The be bang theory is just a lot of noise.

Marcos

Anonymous said...

I actually agree with the big bang theory... God said, 'Let there be life'... there was a big bang... and there was. Not quite scriptural I know but a nice twist on the BB theory!

Marcos said...

Nice one Kev! You are right from that perspective it is true-

God said it and BANG it happened.
:)Amen

Marcos

Anonymous said...

Recently scientists managed to recreate the sound of the Big Bang, apparently it has certain frequencies associated with it which still reverberate today. This wouldn't surprise Job:

"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding...When the morning stars sang together And all the sons of God shouted for joy?" (Job 38:4,7)

Before we tar all scientists with the same brush (especially as Chris and I are both scientists by training!) - it does seem that physicists tend towards a belief in God whilst biologists lean the other way.

Chris Hamer-Hodges said...

Matthew, I like that bit about the stars singing. I reminds me of something that occurred to me when I was reading a book on super-string theory [non-scientists eyes will be glazing over right about now, but bear with me this is good]

String theory bridges the previously unbreachable gap between the quantum universe at the very smallest scale, and the general theory of relativity at the other extreme. It manages this by postulating that the building blocks of the universe, the elementary particles, are not little dots of matter as previously thought, but more like loops of vibrating "string", each with a different frequency or "note".

Although the theory is far from proven, it has a great elegance and would certainly reflect the fact that the universe was spoken into existence, and that it all joins together like an orchestra of worship created for the praise of the Creator.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Chris. Just this morning I was reading Psalm 29, which repeats the phrase 'the voice of the LORD' all the way through. In all the other 'voices' that are screaming for our attention and faith the clear, unhurried voice of God still reverberates. It is is the same voice that spoke the creation into being.

Ricky Carvel said...

I'm quite surprised that such a high percentage of those polled want to have 'Intelligent Design' or creationism taught in school science lessons.

The problem I have with this (as a believer in a creator, and a scientist!) is that ID is not actual science. It is pseudo-science, a scientific-sounding theory based on a number of untestable assumptions and a leap of logic.

The most scientific part of ID is the concept of 'irriducible complexity', but sadly this generally ignores the evidence of certain creatures and plants that do have less complex genetics.

Chris Hamer-Hodges said...

I'm no fan of pseudo-science either, but Darwinism falls into this category just as much (if not more so) than ID.

Personally, I think it is a mistake to try to argue creation (or indeed any other miraculous act of God) from the basis of science. [That's not to say I object to scientifically picking holes in Darwinian theory — any scientific theory must hold its ground scientifically] It is a legacy of the "Enlightenment", to assume that all knowledge must be obtainable through reason alone. But the most important "facts" in life do not come by reason, but by revelation and faith.

Ricky Carvel said...

Chris,
I'd actually dispute your comment that Darwinism is more pseudo-science than ID.

OK, we can't go back in time and observe fish evolving into amphibians, evolving into reptiles, evolving into mammals, etc. but there are aspects of evolutionary theory which can be demonstrated to work in the laboratory with, for example, bacteria adapting to their surroundings, 'super-bugs' becoming resistant to anti-biotics, and so on.

Some would argue (as Kent Hovind of DrDino.com does) that this is only 'micro-evolution' (i.e. one species adapting), not 'macro-evolution' (i.e. one species evolving into a different, distinct, species), but the Darwinian principles were established considering macro-evolution and were later found to work on the micro scale too.

Darwinism (for lack of a better term) works and is used to practical effect in, for example, medical drug development.

As far as I know, no aspect of intelligent design or creationism has been demonstrated in the lab and there have (as yet) been no practical applications of 'creation science'.

And my experience of God suggests to me that he didn't actually just speak the universe into existence, fully formed (despite what Genesis says). All of us who are Christians will know that God invests time and effort into our spiritual development - its not a instantaneous transformation into perfection when we become a Christian, but the start (or possibly the middle) of a process which sees small changes here and there over the years.

I imagine that God will deal with his creation in this way too - not a sudden "bang" and then everything is in its final state, but a process whereby something is transformed into something better and more interesting over many thousands (millions? billions?) of years.

Chris Hamer-Hodges said...

Ricky, it's a false assumption to say that because "Evolution" works in the petri dish, it must hold that the Darwinian notion on the Origin of the Species is correct.

What happens to an E-coli organism is base-pair variation in its DNA sequence during asexual reproduction. This is a long, long way off true Darwinian evolution. For all its mutations, the amount of genetic information - the length and structure of the DNA remains constant. It is just the base-pair sequence that has changed.

It is interesting that you raise this point though, because E-coli is a strong case AGAINST Darwinian evolution. E-coli replicate every twenty minutes. This means for one human generation (~30 years) approximately 1 million generations of E-coli have passed. So 100 years, represents the equivalent of 100 million years of human evolution for the E-coli. Yet we know that the E-coli we have today are the same as they were at the time of Pasteur - they have not become any new species - they are still E-coli.

Yet at the same time the Darwinists would have us believe that humans evolved from primitive mammals in just 65 million years since the time of the dinosaurs!

Anonymous said...

Very interesting. I suppose based on that there are implications for irreducable complexity:
Eventually we will work out all the possible variations for each species of virus, which may allow universal vacines to be created, or at least one vacine for each possible virus. Perhaps set theory could be used.