Evolution - A Faith Commitment



Though they'll never admit it, most evolutionists adhere to evolution as followers in any other religion adhere to their faith.

 

In what was intended to be the first article I posted on this site - What is Rational Faith, Part 1 ¹ - I mentioned that those who believe in the godless theory of Evolution (which includes most atheists and materialistic scientists)  - adhere to it as one adheres to and follows a religious faith. In other words it has taken on the significance of religion in their lives. Most evolutionists would deny this, as would atheists who think that because they define their atheism as a lack of faith/belief in God, they therefore think  themselves immune to the common banalities (as they might describe it) of being a follower of a faith. Yet when you look at the impact of evolution on their lives, and how it changes their thoughts and behaviors, one can only conclude that for those who thoroughly understand the theory, it has taken the place of God in their lives².

Now you'll note I've qualified the statement by the phrase "those who thoroughly understand the theory."  I do so to distinguish the true adherents from those who follow it without thinking because it's the "in" thing to do; it's the majority belief, and they don't want to be out of the main stream or worse - appear ignorant, or as John C. Lennox puts it, they

"...don't wish to appear scientifically illiterate..."³

Such people who know little about evolution apart from the fact that it supposedly tells us where we came from and it's what scientists believe, should read articles like Reclaiming The Intellectual and Moral High Ground - which will inform them both on claims made regarding evolution - and why they're incorrect. If they still believe in evolution, then they appear to have a faith commitment as do other adherents to the Evolutionary faith.

So now that we understand about whom I'm speaking the question becomes how can I defend such a claim? Simply - by the fact that those believe in evolution exhibit the same signs and behaviors as those who follow any other religious faith.  As the saying goes, if it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, a quacks like a duck - it's probably a duck. There are a number of such tell tale signs, let me just give you a few off the top of my head:

1. Marked by a set of doctrines which involve exclusive Truth claims

2. The doctrines are not subject to change regardless of what evidence is presented

3. Many adherents evangelize the truth claims of the doctrine

4. Many adherents are offended by the mere mention that their cherished faith may not be true.

I don't have time to discuss each of these, so I'll focus on the one that is of particular interest to us because the adherents of evolution claim that it's science. According to both the Scientific Method, and particularly Karl Popper (a scientist and philosopher) for a theory to be science, it must be refutable. In his own words:

A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.⁴

Thus if you truly want to claim something is science, there must be some conceivable test that would prove the theory is not true. If no such test is even  conceivable, then the event or theory is non-scientific. This is clearly the case for evolution. They won't tell you that, but if you follow evolutionists for any amount of time you'll note that there is nothing that will, in their opinion, ever refute the theory of evolution. The final proof: for evidence that doesn't fit, they'll make up another story about why the evidence really does fit, and why evolution is still true.

In the interest of space, let me give you just two examples.
 

1. Out of  Order Fossils
Bill Nye, in the Ham vs Nye debate on the topic "Is Creation a Viable Model of Origins In Today's Modern Scientific Era" challenged Ken Ham to cite a single instance of an out of order fossil - clearly believing Ham couldn't - because that would invalidate Evolution. Yet a number such fossils exist. Check out this article:

Are there out-of-sequence fossils that are problematic for evolution?

Cleary this hasn't changed Bill Nye's opinion, and I dare say it hasn't changed the minds of the many evangelists of evolution.

2. The Cambrian Explosion
Evolution states that everything evolved from simple single cells creatures, gradually evolving up to the most complex life forms. So if you found that creatures all of sudden appeared, with no evolution involved before their appearance as complex creatures, that would invalidate the theory. That is precisely what you have with the Cambrian Explosion, yet this still does not change the mind of a committed Evolutionist.

Celebrated Paleontologist Jay Gould noted: "Nothing Distressed Darwin more than the Cambrian Explosion."⁵ That is because of the problem indicated above. Darwin himself acknowledged the problem saying:

"If my theory be true, it is indisputable that before the lowest Cambrian stratum was deposited, long periods elapsed, and during these periods of time, the world swarmed with living creatures. To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earlier periods prior to the Cambrian, I can give no satisfactory answer."⁶

In other words, evidence of simple pre-Cambrian creatures should exist; it doesn't and Darwin hasn't a clue why not. Clear evidence, but his faith commitment won't let him draw the proper conclusion. The standard answer for evolution's supporters has been that the creatures did exist, but we just can't find the evidence of them in the fossil record. That answer no longer flies, because now scientists have found the tiniest (microscopic embryos) of the most fragile animals (soft sponges) contained in the fossil record in the fossil beds of Chengjiang, China.  And they too are of highly complex animals, not the simple animals predicted by Darwinian evolution.

The significance of this find can not be overstated. As philosopher of science Stephen Meyer puts it:

If these lower strata can preserve an embryo, If they can preserve a soft microscopic embryo, then why couldn't they have preserved a larger ancestral forms that supposedly evolved into the Cambrian  animals? In other words, if you can preserve something as fragile as an embryo, why couldn't you in the same strata of rock preserve the immediate ancestor of a hard-shelled trilobite?⁷
 

The point: if such claimed pre-cursors to the complex Cambrian animals existed, in the same manner that scientists have found microscopic, soft sponge embryos; likewise they should have found the theorized hard-shelled precursors.  They have not. The precursors simply aren't there. Not because it was impossible for them to have been preserved. We have not found them because they are simply not there.

But this makes no difference to the evolutionist. Why? Because their commitment to evolution is not based on science. It's based on faith. Just like the fact that there is evil in the world does not break the faith of Christians who believe that there is a holy, just God who loves us and will judge such evil; neither does the inconvenient truths of out of sequence fossils and complex animals with no ancestors deter the evolutionist from the belief that evolution is true. Both are faith commitments. Never mind the evidence of the Cambrian and out of sequence fossils invalidates the theory of evolution, while the resurrection of Jesus Christ validates the Christian religion. As evolutionists will tell you, evolution is more than a theory. Indeed it is, it's a firm faith commitment. And evolutionists who deny it are fooling only themselves; anyone else who looks objectively at the evidence can see evolution doesn't have a leg - or a pre-Cambrian fossil - to stand on.

Duane Caldwell | posted 5/11/2014

2 Theologians will tell you that anything that takes the place of God in your life is an idol, and that is true, but I'm not focusing on the moral or theological implications here, I'm merely making the diagnosis at this point.

3 Lennox, John C. Seven Days that Divide the World Grand Rapids,MI: Zondervan, 2011 p. 31
Lennox speaks of why Christians might not want to take a "base-level literalistic" approach to interpretation, but the point about now wanting to appear "scientifically illiterate" is the same.

4 Popper, Karl referenced from "Science as Falsification"
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.html

5, 6, 7  Darwin's Dilemma, DVD Documentary, Illustra Media, 2009

Above: Trilobite fossil from Chengjiang, China
Source: The Fossilmall