EVOLUTION IS RELIGION, NOT SCIENCE Institute for Creation Research Dr. Henry M. Morris, Ph

EVOLUTION IS RELIGION, NOT SCIENCE

Institute for Creation Research Dr. Henry M. Morris, Ph.D.

Evolutionists often insist that evolution is a proved fact of
science, providing the very framework of scientific
interpretation, especially in the biological sciences. This of
course, is nothing but wishful thinking.  Evolution is not even a
scientific hypothesis, since there is no conceivable way in which
it can be tested.

THE RELIGIOUS ESSENCE OF EVOLUTIONISM

As a matter of fact, many leading evolutionists have recognized
the essentially "religious" character of evolutionism. Even
though they themselves believe evolution to be true, they
acknowledge the fact that they believe it! "Science", however, is
not supposed to be something one "believes". Science is knowledge
- that which can be demonstrated and observed and repeated.
Evolution cannot be proved, or even tested; it can only be
believed.  For example, two leading evolutionary biologists have
described modern neo-Darwinism as "part of an evolutionary dogma
accepted by most of us as part of our training". A prominent
British biologist, a Fellow of the Royal Society, in the
Introduction to the 1971 edition of Darwin's Origin of Species
said that "belief in the theory of evolution" was "exactly
parallel to belief in special creation", with evolution merely "a
satisfactory faith on which to base our interpretation of
nature".  G.W.  Harper calls it a "metaphysical belief". Ernst
Mayr, the outstanding Harvard evolutionary biologist, calls
evolution "man's world view today".  Sir Julian Huxley, probably
the outstanding evolutionist of the twentieth century saw
"evolution as a universal and all-pervading process and, in fact,
nothing less than "the whole of reality". A leading evolutionary
geneticist of the present day, writing an obituary for Theodosius
Dobzhansky, who himself was probably the nation's leading
evolutionist at the time of his death in 1975, says that
Dobzhansky's view of evolution followed that of the notorious
Jesuit priest, de Chardin.  The place of biological evolution in
human thought was, according to Dobzhansky, best expressed in a
passage that he often quoted from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: 
'(Evolution) is a general postulate to which all theories, all
hypotheses, all systems must henceforward bow and which they must
satisfy in order to be thinkable and true. Evolution is a light
which illuminates all facts, a trajectory which all lines of
thought must follow.' The British physicist, H.S. Lipson, has
reached the following conclusion.  In fact, evolution became in a
sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted
it and many are prepared to 'bend' their observations to fit in
with it. The man whom Dobzhansky called "France's leading
zoologist", although himself an evolutionist, said that
scientists should "destroy the myth of evolution" as a simple
phenomenon which is "unfolding before us". Dr. Colin Patterson,
Senior Paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History,
by any accounting one of the world's top evolutionists today, has
recently called evolution "positively anti-knowledge", saying
that "all my life I had been duped into taking evolutionism as
revealed truth". In another address he called evolution "story
telling".  All of the above-cited authorities are (or were) among
the world's foremost authorities on evolutionism. Note again the
terms which they use in describing evolution.  Evolutionary
dogma, A scientific religion, A satisfactory faith, The myth of
evolution, Man's world view, Anti-knowledge, All-pervading
process, Revealed truth, The whole of reality, An illuminating
light, Metaphysical belief, Story-telling. Charles Darwin himself
called evolution "this grand view of life".  Now such
grandiloquent terms as these are not scientific terms! One does
not call the law of gravity, for example, "a satisfactory faith",
nor speak of the view, but it is not science. Its very
comprehensiveness makes it impossible even to test
scientifically. As Ehrlich and Birch have said:  "Every
conceivable observation can be fitted into it. No one can think
of ways in which to test it.

RELIGIONS BASED ON EVOLUTION

In view of the fundamentally religious nature of evolution, it is 
not surprising to find that most of the world religions are 
themselves based on evolution. It is certainly unfitting for 
educators to object to teaching scientific creationism in public 
schools on the ground that it supports Biblical Christianity,when 
the exisiting pervasive teaching of evolution is supporting a 
host of other religions and philosophies.  The concept of 
evolution did not originate with Charles Darwin. It has been the 
essential ingredient of all pagan religions and philosophies from 
time immemorial (e.g., atomism, pantheism, stoicism, gnosticism 
and all other humanistic and polytheistic systems). All beliefs 
which assume the ultimacy of the space/time/matter universe, 
presupposing that the universe has existed from eternity, are 
fundamentally evolutionary systems. The cosmos, with its innate 
laws and forces, is the only ultimate reality. Depending on the 
sophistication of the system, the forces of the universe may be 
personified as gods and goddesses who organized the eternal 
chaotic cosmos into its present form (as in ancient Babylonian 
and Egyptian religions), or else may themselves be invested with 
organizing capabilities (as in modern scientific evolutionism). 
In all such cases, these are merely different varities of the 
fundamental evolutionist world view, the essential feature of 
which is the denial that there is one true God and Creator of all 
things.  In this perspective, it becomes obvious that most of the 
great world religions - Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Hinduism, 
Animism, etc.  are based on evolution. Creationism is the basis 
of only such systems as Orthodox Judaism, Islam, Catholicism and 
Protestantism. Most modern pseudo-Christian cults are based on 
evolution.  All of this points up the absurdity of banning 
creationist teaching from the schools on the basis that it is 
religious. The schools are already saturated with the teaching of 
religion in the guise of evolutionary "science". In the modern 
school of course, this teaching mostly takes the form of secular 
humanism, which its own proponents claim to be a "non-theistic 
religion". It should also be recalled that such philosophies as 
communism, fascism, socialism, nazism, and anarchism have been 
claimed by their founders and promoters to be based on what they 
reguard as scientific evolutionism. If creation is excluded from 
the schools because it is compatible with Christian 
"fundamentalism", should not evolution also be banned since it is 
the basis of communism and nazism? 

THE SCIENTIFIC IRRELEVANCE OF EVOLUTION 

Some people have deplored the questioning of evolution on the
ground that this is attacking science itself. In a recent debate,
the evolutionist whom the writer debated did not attempt to give
any scientific evidences for evolution, electing instead to spend
his time defending such scientific concepts as atomic theory,
relativity, gravity, quantum theory and science in general,
stating that attacking evolution was tantamount to attacking
science! The fact is, however, that the elimination of
evolutionary interpretations fron science would hardly be noticed
at all, in terms of real scientific understanding and
accomplishment. G.W.  Harper comments on this subject as follows:
It is frequently claimed that Darwinism is central  to modern
biology. On the contrary, if all references to Darwinism suddenly
disappeared, biology would remain substantially unchanged. It
would merely have lost a little color. Grandiose doctrines in
science are like some occupants of high office; they sound very
important but have in fact been promoted to a posotion of
ineffectuality.  The scientific irrelevance of evolutionism has
been strikingly (but, no doubt, inadvertently) illustrated in a
recent issue of Science News.  Thes widely read and highly
regarded weekly scientific journal was commemorating its sixtieth
anniversary, and this included a listing of what it called the
"scientific highlights" of the past sixty years.  Of the sixty
important scientific discoveries and accomplishments which were
chosen, only six could be regarded as related in any way to
evolutionist thought. These six were as follows:  (1.) 1927.
Discovery that radiation increases mutation rates in fruit flies.
(2.) 1943. Demonstration that nucleic acids carry genetic
information.  (3.) 1948. Enunciation of the "big bang" cosmology.
(4.) 1953. Discovery of the "double helix" structure of DNA. 
(5.) 1961.  First step taken in cracking the genetic code.  (6.)
1973. Development of procedures for producing recombinant DNA
molecules.  Four of these six "highlights" are related to the
structure and function of DNA. Even though evolutionists have
supposed that these concepts somehow correlate with evolution,
the fact is that the remarkable DNA molecule provides strong
evidence of original creation (since it is far too complex to
have arisen by chance) and of conservation of that creation
(since the genetic code acts to guarantee reproduction of the
same kind, not evolution of new kinds). One of the two other
highlights showed how to increase mutations but, since all known
true mutations are harmful, this contributed nothing whatever to
the understanding of evolution. One (the "big bang" concept) was
indeed an evolutionary idea but it is still an idea which has
never been proved and today is increasingly being recognized as
incompatible with basic physical laws.

Consequently, it is fair to conclude that no truly significant
accomplishment of modern science either depends on evolution or
supports evolution! There would certainly be no detriment to real
scientific learning of creation in school curricula. It would on
the other hand, prove a detriment to the pervasive religion of
atheistic humanism which now controls our schools.