Can a Christian Beleive in Evolution?

In a New York Times book review, evolutionist Richard Dawkins arrogantly asserted, “It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).”[1] In a later article Dawkins defended his words and further wrote that the “100 million U.S. citizens [who] believe that humans and dinosaurs were created within the same week as each other, less than ten thousand years ago… are contradicting—influentially and powerfully—vast fields of learning in which their own knowledge and reading is indistinguishable from zero.”[2] The irony of Dawkins’ statement is that he is the one who is woefully ignorant of the facts. First of all, most of these 100 million U.S. citizens that he cites actually do believe in evolution, but a form that does not violate the scientific method or contradict the Bible.

What do I mean by this? Can a person believe in both the Biblical account of God creating the world and in evolution? For years now the mantra of evolutionists has been that “evolution is a fact.” Anyone who opposed this belief was castigated as an ignorant, pseudo-scientific Bible thumper. However, there was never any attempt to explain that evolution must be understood on two levels. The first level is called microevolution, or variation within a biblical kind.  These small, horizontal changes within a Kind (such as the Dog Kind) can be measured and supported through scientific endeavors. These are the adaptations and changes that are documented through the use of the scientific method. On the other hand, macroevolution, which advocates the “vertical jumps” in the biological record, is still without verifiable scientific support. In other words, the links are still missing! Furthermore, Creationists and Intelligent Design proponents already accept the inferences from the data supporting microevolution. This is demonstrated by the small changes in Darwin’s Finches, the adaptive changes in the varieties of pigeons or dogs, the genetic range found in humans, as well as the tremendous variety of living things in the world today. In other words, Biblical Creationism accepts and supports microevolution![3] The problem is that macroevolutionists like to play the old “shell game.” They will tout the scientific evidence of microevolution and try to then use an “extrapolation” of that evidence as support for macroevolution. For example, a teacher may have his students look at the evidence for the changes in beak sizes of the finches living on the Galapagos Islands. He will then ask them to extrapolate backward in time and imagine the many changes that had taken place for the previous creature to evolve into becoming a bird. The first part of the exercise is scientific, but the second part is purely speculative, but they are taught to be part of the same sequence of change with just a difference in the amount of time involved. This is not only non-scientific, since the actual evidence only refers to the small horizontal microevolutionary changes within the finch family, but it borders on being deceptive. Students are led to believe things have happened when the evidence does not support the conclusion at all. We see a very clear example of this in the so-called evolution of man from an ape-like creature. Many people today believe that in some way man has evolved from previous primates, who themselves evolved from other tree-dwelling creatures, and yet the evidence does not support this conclusion at all!  When we look at the actual evidence of the most famous “ancestors” of man proposed since the time of Darwin we find that these so-called “missing links” are still missing, by the admission of the evolutionists themselves.[4] Indeed, the fossil remnants turn out to be either true men, misinterpreted animals, or combinations of human bones mixed with animal bones. Some, like the Piltdown man, were simply elaborate hoaxes.[5]

Moreover, the theory of macroevolution, or the belief in vertical changes of population groups to bring about new creatures over time, has actually been an impediment in the progress of science. It is ironic that the so-called “unifying force” in science has actually neither unified science nor brought about any practical results. You may be thinking that I am committing modern day “scientific anathema” for stating that macroevolution has no “practical value in the world of real science,”[6] but even Philip Skell in The Scientist stated “my own research with antibiotics received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution…. I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin’s theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: ‘No.’”[7] In fact, the scientific method that we use today was developed by Bible-believing Christians who accepted the inherent design in the world as their starting point. Men like Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Louis Pasteur, and even Galileo, started from the assumption that the consistent, rational laws of the scientific world came from the consistent, rational Designer who brought all these forces together in a way that not only showed magnificent design, but also a grand purpose. Upon reflection of our present evolution-monopolized science classes, the thing that saddens me the most is that as the Creator has been removed not only from the classroom, but also from the hearts of the students, there has been a growing sense of despair and purposelessness.

I am reminded of the maxim that “ideas have consequences and bad ideas have bad consequences.” I think we are entering a time where we are seeing the devastating results of macroevolutionary thinking on our society (abortion, euthanasia, nihilism, communism, atheism, materialism and liberal, anti-god theology), and we need to turn the tide before our society collapses. I still believe that the “truth will set us free,” and I believe that it is now time to allow true science into the classroom, or perhaps I should more correctly say a “true view” of science. Why should we settle for less?



[1] Richard Dawkins, New York Times, April 9, 1989, Sunday, Late City Final Edition Section 7; Page 34, Column 2; Book Review Desk

[2] Richard Dawkins, Free Inquiry Magazine, Volume 21, Number 3, summer 2001.

[3] This is the case when the parameters are set by natural biological limits and the definition of microevolution is compatible with the concept of Variation within a Biblical Kind. See Ray Bohlin and Lane Lester, The Natural Limits to Biological Change, Probe, 1989, and Scott Huse, The Collapse of Evolution, Baker Books, 1997.

[4] Marvin Lubenow, Bones of Contention: A Creationist Assessment of Human Fossils, Baker Books, 2004.

[5] Daniel Janosik, How to Think about Evolution and the Fossil Record of Man, CIU, 2001.

[6] Henry Morris, “The Struggles of Michael Ruse.” Back to Genesis, No. 206, February 2006, p. 2.

[7] Philip S. Skell, “Why Do We Invoke Darwin?” The Scientist (vol. 19, August 29, 2005). P. 10.

 

Click below for a published PDF version of this article:

201205_featurearticle