Letters to the Editor
Reader: evolution has no answers
The fall 2007 Endeavors contains an intriguing article by Colie Hoffman, “Darwin’s Dissenters,” about the history of “antievolution” as seen in the eyes of political scientist Michael Lienesch. The article is well-written, and if it is an accurate reflection of Dr. Lienesch’s book, In the Beginning, both writers deserve thanks for not calling the creationists vile names as many evolutionists do. Hoffman does, however, seem to think that all creationists are fundamentalists and expresses some amazement that there are still people who do not accept the theory of evolution.
Perhaps the book includes many aspects of the debate that the article did not include. I have not read the book, so I would like to comment on some of Hoffman’s statements and add several of the important unmentioned facts in the continuing debate.
Hoffman relates one of the primary reasons for the debate — the youth of the 1920s giving attention to science and “losing their faith.” A quote by Lienesch gives the main reason for the “loss of faith.” “Increasingly at the time lots of churches were controlled by modernists,” (my emphasis). Modernism is a polite term for unbelief or heresy. Even in the post-modern time in which we live many of the old mainline churches are dying as believers by the thousands are leaving to avoid bombardment from these unbelieving preachers. This has given rise both to the megachurches and the myriads of tiny gospel-preaching churches and house-churches where creationism remains alive and well. The modernists and post-modernists have sought to belittle God and the Bible in any way they can. Therefore they began to push the theory of evolution as one way to do this. This is not anti-religion but anti-God and anti-Bible. It is “science” that has assumed the status of religion. The theory of Darwinian evolution, having also been aided by liberal modernists to the realm of science, has become the battleground on which to oppose God and the Bible.
Clearly then the present debate did not begin with “antievolutionism.” Before the 1860s virtually everyone in the Western world believed that God was the creator of everything. The evolutionists began the debate as “anticreationists.”
The Hoffman article, however, does not note from where most of the support for the evolutionary theory of our origins has always come. Animosity toward God as creator has supplied the soil in which the theory has grown. Hardly any of its support has come from scientists. This may surprise some who have been told over and over that evolution is scientific. The greatest arguments for evolution have come from atheists and the religion of atheism. Karl Marx came within an eyelash of dedicating his major work Das Kapital to Charles Darwin. There is little doubt that if he had written the book a year or so later Darwin would have been “honored” by Marx in this way. Still today the most vocal proponents of evolution are atheists.
Creationism has no corner on character and integrity. However, evolutionism has within its ranks most of the really despicable people of the last century and a half. Adolf Hitler found in evolution the grounds he sought to rid the world of Jews, much as Iran’s Ahmadinejad has promised recently. Hitler theorized that if we are all really accidents of nature then it was his obligation to help natural selection by getting rid of the most unwanted people. Jews were at the top of his list of undesirables. He, Mao, Stalin, and the other genocidal maniacs of the twentieth century have therefore embraced the theory of evolution as a windfall — relieving them of all moral responsibility for their actions. Lenin’s god became “history” or “fate.” In 1917 he spoke of not being “forgiven by history” if he did not seize power over Russia and then the world when “fate” put the opportunity in his hands.
Hoffman ended her article about Lienesch’s book with this quote from Lienesch: “The truth is, evolution is a theory — a powerful and repeatedly proven theory — but for some people, theories are not enough.” The simple reason this theory is unacceptable to so many is that it is not science and has never been “proven.” It lacks any truly scientific facts that would not just as easily apply to creationism. There has never yet been found any evidence anywhere on Earth of a link between the human species and an animal species. The history of the theory is filled with hoaxes, and there are many people looking for even one “missing link,” but one has never been found. The truth is that if evolution is a scientific fact, missing links would be unearthed everywhere.
Observations by real scientists reveal both a remarkable complexity and a wonderful order and precision in living things. The very chance of such things happening by accident is almost beyond comprehension.
If Charles Darwin had known of DNA, genes, and chromosomes he would have never considered the theory that bears his name. He was an honest man unaware of the Pandora’s box he was opening.
Consider one remarkable scientist who did a lot of work in the 1920s: George Washington Carver. The only book he would allow in his laboratories was the Bible. Upon hearing this, the New York Times on November 21, 1924 had this heading for its article about him: “MEN OF SCIENCE NEVER TALK THAT WAY.” His response was, “I understand that there are scientists to whom the world is merely the result of chemical forces or material electrons. I don not belong to this class.” Working with his creator alone, Carver discovered more than two hundred different uses for the peanut, making him one of the most productive scientists who ever lived.
My own background is of believing what my teachers and the texts said for many years. When I tried to find proof or even hard facts to support what I had been told, I could not do so. And no one has ever presented any proof to me even though millions say that it exists.
It is a wonder that with all we know scientifically speaking, that this theory can be called either “scientific” or “proven.” But so far we have been talking about bodies and physical, temporal things. As a physician I am dedicated to helping people keep healthy bodies. However, my interest extends beyond bodies and physical things alone, even as wonderful as these things are. We are all eternal creatures, and this consideration shows the total inadequacy of evolutionary theory. When a friend dies and we attend his or her wake we are honoring the “dearly departed,” not the body in the casket or the ashes in the urn. The house in which that person lived is clearly seen as quite unimportant compared to the spirit that persists through all eternity.
Should intelligent people cling to a theory that has no answers to the real questions of life? I think not.
—Marion Griffin
UNC AB 1957, UNC MD 1962
Asheboro, NC
