Deceptions of Science

Curt Sewell is the author of God at Ground Zero

CREATION BITS No 26.
Deceptions of Science

The word “evolution” basically means “change, over a period of time.” But in practice there are two much more specific meanings, which science uses in a way that is very deceptive.

1) Microevolution is the well-known process used by animal breeders and horticulturalists to develop desired traits in new breeds. These people use intelligent selection to choose only those specimens having desired characteristics for breeding new generations.

Microevolution also sometimes occurs in nature, but usually in a slower time frame. In this case, natural selection (sometimes called “survival of the fittest”) occurs. Normal genetic variations furnish the raw material for change. This is the way, for example, that the original “dog kind” proliferated into the present-day wolves, coyotes, some foxes, and all the domestic dogs. This is shown by their ability to interbreed.

However, both of these examples actually show a loss of information, or a reduction in genetic complexity, never an increase which might allow development into a more complex higher form of life. These each result in a more specialized subspecies. Breeders always have found there is a definite limit to their work — they can’t make a new kind of creature.

2) Macroevolution is the method proposed by Darwin and most modern evolutionists, and is said to have resulted in the so-called “molecules-to-man evolution.” They believe that mutations, accidental changes in the molecular structure in the nuclei of cells, operated on by natural selection, has resulted in the natural development of all the types of creatures we see today. They believe this by faith in naturalism. However, there is absolutely no proof that this has ever occurred, and much indication that it has not. Mutations are almost always damaging — why else would we be cautioned to avoid radiation or other mutation-causing things?

So why do I speak of deception?

There are three main areas where the scientific establishment promotes their belief system, with some twisting of the facts :

1) They blur the distinction between Microevolution and Macroevolution. They conveniently omit those two prefixes, and simply refer to “evolution.” Often the same sentence may contain that word, used once in one sense and once in the other. Unless the hearers are already expert, they don’t know which meaning is implied. And there is a huge difference.

The sneaky part is this — we all know that microevolution (like horticulturalists and animal breeders use) is a real process of nature. So it’s common practice for them to say “Oh we see evolution being proved all the time, and there are millions of transitional fossils.” They’re referring to microevolution there (slight changes in size and shape of finch bills, color of feathers, etc). But in the next breath, they say “This is one way we know that all the animals have evolved down through millions of years.” But these are two completely different things.

2) Textbooks in a number of cases print things that have been obsolete for years, and were actually never true. For example, the so-called series of fossils showing evolution of the horse is not a series, some of them are definitely not horses, and many scientists agree this is not a good example. See Creation Bits #24.

Possibly the most flagrant example of deception is the set of pictures, reproduced in many biology texts, that presume to show that embryos of many different animals all look similar. These are used to demonstrate “embryology recapitulates phylogeny,” or that the human fetus goes through stages similar to the creatures he supposedly evolved from. One that’s often used is to say it has “gill slits,” which is not true. These pictures were deliberately faked by Dr. Ernst Haeckel over 100 years ago. But his pictures are still used.

3) Critics of Darwinism also object to the deceptive claims made by many textbooks. These are based on atheistic ideology more than on known facts. For example, Prentice Hall’s “Biology” tells students “it is important to keep this concept in mind: Evolution is random and undirected.” That means there’s no room for any sort of supernatural power (God) to have anything to do with our origin or development. God doesn’t operate by chance or by random means. This eliminates any sort of theistic evolution.

According to Addison-Wesley’s Biology Concepts and Connections, “Chance has affected the evolutionary process in the generation of genetic diversity through mutation. Chance has also played a role at every major milestone in the history of life.” Again, that doesn’t leave room for God.

Two Examples of Fossil Deception

In recent decades, we’ve heard a lot of hoopla about “birds evolved from dinosaurs,” and also “whales evolved from some kind of land mammal.” There have been frantic searches for transitional fossils, and much publicity about the significance of some very questionable bones. Why do evolutionists insist these must be true transitionals?

This is a good example of forcing a square peg into a round hole — that is, trying to make some evidence fit into their preconceived viewpoint. Most evolutionists operate from a strong conviction that all animals have evolved, slowly, through many stages, beginning with pond scum or bacteria. They believe there must have been some ancestral path for all modern animals. For them, it’s incredible that birds may have been created initially to be bird-like — they must have evolved from some non-bird. The question is “Which one?” Most animal candidates can be eliminated for a number of reasons. But some dinosaurs were shaped a little like birds, so they must be the best ancestral candidates.

Most Bible-believing non-scientists think this is ridiculous — how could they possibly believe that dinosaurs turned into birds? Or that some primitive wolf or cow turned into a whale? We need to realize that, to fulfill their atheistic worldview, they must believe something like this. They’re simply following their deeply-held faith — they’re doing what comes naturally. So it’s vitally important for us to be aware of what they’re teaching our kids — they’re brain-washing them into an atheistic religion.

The only possible explanation, other than macroevolution, is creation by some supernatural power — God. To many scientists, and to all of the leaders in evolutionary theory, that is simply not a possibility — it’s a gross violation of their fundamental outlook, or worldview. They’re simply following the path of the modern scientific method.

The Religion of Science

We’ve discussed the religious aspects of Darwinism, or Evolutionary Science, in Creation Bits #25 and #2, but let’s recall a few aspects here. The self-proclaimed Marxist and world-renowned evolutionary geneticist Professor Richard Lewontin wrote in the New York Review, Jan.9, 1997:

“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have an a priori commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door.”

That statement, from one of the most admired evolutionary scientists anywhere, should clinch my arguments above. Bottom line — 1) Neither evolution nor creation is truly scientific, because neither can be proven or demonstrated. 2) Both creation and evolution are actually religious, because they’re each based on faith, and affect our outlook on life. One faith is theistic, one is atheistic.