Creation, Evolution, and the Historical Evidence
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Creation,Evolution, and the Historical Evidence DUANE T. GISH classifiedand more or less colligated by being broughtunder general laws, and which includes trustworthymethods for the discoveryof new truth withinits own domain"(emphasis added). Thus,for a theoryto qualifyas a scientifictheory, it mustbe supportedby eventsor processesthat can be observedto occur,and the theorymust be useful * Althoughthe views presentedin this article are not acceptable to the majorityof life scientists,the in predictingthe outcome of future natural phenom- ena or laboratoryexperiments. An additionallimita- editorial stafffeels that our membershipshould be Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/abt/article-pdf/35/3/132/30638/4444262.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 aware of the creationistposition as described by tion usually imposedis that the theorymust be Duane T. Gish. capable of falsification;that is, one mustbe able to conceivesome experiment the failure of which would disprovethe theory. It is on thebasis ofsuch criteria F OR A CLEAR UNDERSTANDING of the issuesto be dis- thatmost evolutionists insist that creation be refused cussedin thispaper, I mustbegin by definingevolu- considerationas a possibleexplanation for origins. tionand creation.When the term evolution is used it Creationhas not been witnessedby humanobserv- will referto the generaltheory of organicevolution, ers,it cannotbe testedscientifically, and as a theory or themolecules-to-man theory of evolution. Accord- it is nonfalsifiable. ing to this theoryall livingthings have arisen by The generaltheory of evolution (molecules-to-man naturalistic,mechanistic, evolutionary processes from theory)also failsto meetall threeof thesecriteria, a single living source,which itselfhad arisen by however.Dobzhansky (1958), while seeking to affirm similarprocesses from inanimate matter. These pro- the factualityof evolution,actually admits that it cesses are attributablesolely to propertiesinherent does notmeet the criteria of a scientifictheory, when in matterand are, therefore,still operativetoday. he says,"The occurrenceof the evolutionof life in Creationtheory postulates, on the otherhand, that the historyof the earthis establishedabout as well all basic animaland planttypes (the createdkinds) as eventsnot witnessed by humanobservers can be" werebrought into being by the acts of a preexisting (emphasisadded). Being by means of special processesthat are not Goldschmidt,who has insistedthat evolution is a operativetoday. The variationthat has occurred factfor which no furtherproof is needed,also re- since creationhas been restrictedwithin the limits veals its failureto meet the usual acceptedcriteria ofeach createdkind. fora scientifictheory. After outlining his postulated Evolutionistsadamantly insist that special creation systemic-mutation,or "hopeful monster," mechanism be excludedfrom any considerationas a possibleex- forevolution, Goldschmidt (1952, p. 94) states,"Such planationfor origins, because it does not qualifyas an assumptionis violentlyopposed by the majority a scientifictheory. The proponentsof evolution of geneticists,who claimthat the factsfound on the theoryat the same timewould view as unthinkable the considerationof evolutionas anythingless than pure science; and indeed most of theminsist that Duane T. Gish is associatedirector, Institute evolutionmust forCreation Research, and professorof nat- no longerbe thoughtof as a theory, ural science, Christian Heritage College, but mustbe consideredto be a fact. 2716 Madison Ave., San Diego, Calif. 92116. A 1949graduate, in chemistry,of the Univer- What Is Theory? sityof Californiaat Los Angeles,he received What Is Fact? his doctorate,in biochemistry,from the Uni- versity of California at Berkeley. During Whatcriteria must be metfor a theoryto be con- postdoctoralstudies at the Cornell Univer- sidered scientificin the usually accepted sense? sity Medical College he was a memberof Nobelist Vincent George GaylordSimpson (1964) has stated,"It is du Vigneaud's team that synthesizeda pituitaryhormone. inherentin any definitionof In 1956Gish went to the Virus Laboratoryof UC, Berkeley; sciencethat statements there he worked with Nobelist Wendell M. Stanley in the thatcannot be checkedby observationare notreally elucidationof the structureof the proteinof tobacco mosaic about anything . or at the very least, they are virus.From 1960to 1971he was engaged in pharmaceuticre- not science."A definitionof science in the Oxford search for the Upjohn Co., Kalamazoo, Mich.-a positionhe EnglishDictionary is "a branchof studywhich is relinquishedso as to give full time to the studyof creation- ism. Gish has publishedmany technicalpapers and has lec- concernedeither with a connectedbody of demon- tured widely. The presentpaper was presentedat the 1972 strated truthsor with observed facts systematically NABT convention. 132 THE AMERICANBIOLOGY TEACHER, MARCH 1973 sub-specificlevel must apply also to the higher cate- ofevolution, Professor Rene Chauvin and othernoted gories. Incessant repetition of this unproved claim, French biologists,and on his thoroughstudy of some glossinglightly over the difficulties,and the assump- 600 pages of biological data collected,in collaboration tion of an arrogantattitude toward those who are not with Mrs. Tetry,by the late Michael Cuenot, a biolo- so easily swayed by fashions in science, are consid- gist of internationalfame. Aime Michel's conclusion ered to affordscientific proof of the doctrine. It is is significant:the classical theoryof evolution in its true thatnobody thus far has produced a new species strictsense belongs to the past. Even if they do not or genus, etc., by macromutation.It is equally true publicly take a definitestand, almost all French spe- thatnobody has produced even a species by the selec- cialists hold today strong mental reservations as to tion of micromutations"(emphasis added). Later in the validityof natural selection." the same paper (p. 97) he says, "Neither has anyone E. C. Olson (1960, p. 523), one of the speakers at witnessed the production of a new specimen of a the Darwinian Centennial Celebration at Chicago, higher taxonomic categoryby selection of micromu- made the following statement on that occasion: tants." Goldschmidt has thus affirmedthat, in the "There exists, as well, a generally silent group of molecules-to-man context, only the most trivial students engaged in biological pursuits who tend to change, or that at the subspecies level, has actually disagree with much of the current thoughtbut say ever been observed. and write littlebecause they are not particularlyin- Furthermore,the architects of the modern syn- terested,do not see that controversyover evolution Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/abt/article-pdf/35/3/132/30638/4444262.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 thetic theory of evolution have so skillfully con- is of any particular importance,or are so stronglyin structedtheir theorythat it is not capable of falsifi- disagreementthat it seems futile to undertake the cation. The theory is so plastic that it is capable of monumentaltask of controvertingthe immensebody explaining anything.This is the complaint of Olson of informationand theorythat exists in the formula- (1960, p. 530) and of several participants in the tion of modern thinking.It is, of course, difficultto Wistar Symposium on Mathematical Challenges to judge the size and compositionof this silent segment, the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution but there is no doubt that the numbers are not in- (Moorhead and Kaplan, 1967)-even includingErnst considerable." Mayr, a leading exponent of the theory.Eden (1967, Fothergill (1961) refers to what he calls "the p. 71), one of the mathematicians,puts it this way, paucity of evolutionarytheory as a whole." Ehrlich with referenceto falsifiability:"This cannot be done and Holm (1962) have stated their reservations in in evolution,taking it in its broad sense, and this is the followingway: "Finally, consider the thirdques- really all I meant when I called it tautologousin the tion posed earlier: 'What accounts for the observed firstplace. It can, indeed,explain anything.You may patterns in nature?' It has become fashionable to be ingenious or not in proposinga mechanismwhich regardmodern evolutionary theory as the only possi- looks plausible to human beings and mechanisms ble explanation of these patterns rather than just which are consistentwith other mechanisms which the best explanation that has been developed so far. you have discovered, but it is still an unfalsifiable It is conceivable, even likely, that what one might theory." facetiouslycall a non-Euclidean theoryof evolution lies over the horizon. Perpetuation of today's theory A Rising Tide of Criticism as dogma will not encourage progress toward more satisfactoryexplanations of observed phenomena." In addition to scientists who are creationists,a Sometirrmesthe attacks are openly critical. Such is growing number of other scientists have expressed Danson's letter that appeared recently in New Sci- doubts that modern evolution theory could explain entist.He states in part, "The Theory of Evolution is more than trivial change. Eden (1967, p. 109) is so no longer with us, because neo-Darwinism is now discouraged, after a thorough consideration of the acknowledged as being unable to explain anything modern theory from a probabilistic point of view, more than trivial changes and in default of some that he proclaims, "an adequate scientifictheory of other theorywe have none. despite