Considering Darwinism

Ever since Charles Darwin first published his book The Origin of Species (Gramercy, 1995) back in 1859, many have seen Christianity on the ropes in a fight with science. Over the years, the media and movies (such as Inherit the Wind) often portray religious people as dumb, ignorant, and resistant to the facts, while they show science as the playground for the intelligent and the open-minded. But much has changed over the past century. Today, because of the discoveries since Darwin first published his theory, one can get a much better perspective on whether Christianity is compatible with science or whether it’s a worldview that’s great for the pews, but irrelevant for the labs and classrooms.

But before doing so, it’s critical to understand the tight relationship between Darwinism and contemporary science.

Noting the difference between Darwinism and science

Watch any science documentary on TV or flip through a science textbook and the odds are quite high that you see the Darwinian theory of evolution treated as an ironclad scientific fact, stated without any qualifications. Indeed, contemporary science and Darwinism have become so closely tied together in some people’s minds that they seem inseparable. However, the validity of this marriage depends on one’s definition of science.

Ever since the infamous Scopes trial over a hundred years ago, people have seen Christianity as science’s enemy. However, that statement would surprise some of the most renowned early scientists in history, such as Galileo. The early scientists based their scientific method entirely on the assumption of an ordered universe that God created and maintains. They saw science as

Investigation through experiments that could be watched and controlled

Unbiased conclusions based on the results

In this context, rather than being an enemy, Christianity is very much in synch with the scientific process.

However, the definition of science is entirely different to much of the modern scientific community. Science has become synonymous with naturalism, the belief that the physical universe exists without any God or spiritual realm. The logical conclusion is that because nature is all that’s real, it’s the only thing that people can have scientific knowledge of. As a result, science must assume that nature is a closed system and can’t have any outside influences or dependencies. The very idea of God existing or having a role in nature isn’t even a subject of debate, because naturalists consider God outside the focus of science.

In the process, however, the door gets closed on God before any debate of the facts: Because contemporary science doesn’t allow for the existence of God, then matters regarding any such being are automatically considered subjective belief, regardless of any scientific facts that provide evidence for a Creator of the world.

Consider the problem with this situation through an illustration. Suppose you want to enter a race in which the first person to get his or her motorized vehicle from New York to California wins a million dollars. But when you show up with your jet airplane, you’re disqualified because the judges insist that your form of transportation is invalid, in spite of the fact that rules don’t stipulate on the type of vehicle allowed. Your jet airplane may, in fact, be a perfectly valid motorized form of transportation and may get there days ahead of the competition, but that’s a mute point. The judge’s arbitrary interpretation of what transportation means has eliminated you from getting off the ground. In the same way, when words such as science are defined on Darwinian terms, scientific conclusions are already decided upon, regardless of what the evidence might show.

Darwinian evolution is a belief held so strongly today in the scientific community because it’s become the foundation on which science itself is built. Rejecting evolution has become synonymous with rejecting science itself. To abandon evolution, in spite of its problems, is unthinkable to many, because there’d be nothing to replace it – God isn’t an option, and ignorance isn’t possible, either. Therefore, Darwinian evolution must be protected. In a 1999 op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, Professor Phillip Johnson, one of the most articulate creationist thinkers, quoted a Chinese palaeontologist who said, “In China, we can criticize Darwin, but not the government. In America, you can criticize the government, but not Darwin.”

Because Christians distinguish between Darwinism and science and because Christianity is indeed compatible with science, I spend the next two sections honing in on Darwinism, showing you how Christianity addresses the idea of evolution.

Survey says

If you watch nature programs on TV, you may think that everyone believes in evolution, because the scientific theory is so often treated as plain fact. But according to a Gallup Poll (1991), approximately 91 percent of Americans believe in some form of Creation, while just 9 percent of all Americans believe in pure Darwinian evolution.

Distinguishing between two theories of evolution

The foundation of modern science is built on evolution. Yet, evolution is one of those vague words that mean different ideas to different people. It actually has two meanings:

Microevolution is the theory that organisms can adapt to changes in their surroundings and develop a limited amount of diversity based on their environment. Variation within a species is possible – such as a bird’s beak getting larger or a moth’s wings changing color – but it’s limited in scope. Microevolution has a solid scientific basis, and no one disputes its occurrence in nature. It’s entirely consistent with Christianity, and Christians consider it an example of the ingenious way that God created highly adaptable organisms.

Macroevolution is another ballgame altogether. Also called Darwinian evolution, this theory takes the proven idea of limited change over time and attempts to explain all questions concerning the origins of life in the same manner: Simple organisms branched out over billions of years to create complex organisms like you see inhabiting the world today.

Macroevolution is driven by natural selection, a survival-of-the-fittest process that has no mind or purpose; organisms that adapt to their environment survive, and those that don’t adapt become extinct. Natural selection causes such features as wings and eyes to develop over extended periods of time as a way for organisms to better adapt to their environments. Staunch evolutionist Richard Dawkins memorably called this evolutionary process “the blind watchmaker.” (See Chapter 2 for the opposing Christian view of God as a “seeing watchmaker.”) macroevolution, as an impersonal, purposeless process, is incompatible with the personal God of Christianity.

Although microevolution is a theory that evidence confirms, macroevolution is far more speculative. In fact, scientists have no more evidence today (and many argue less) to support macroevolution than Darwin did. To scientists who believe in a God as a designer and creator, the theory of evolution has never successfully answered the basic questions about how life first began or explained the mystery of the DNA code. They also point to recent discoveries as further evidence showing the need for a God as designer. For example, in Darwin’s day, scientists originally thought the cell was a simple structure, but advances in molecular biology over the past 30 years have shown how complex the cell is, making the likelihood of natural selection at the molecular level seemingly impossible. (See the “Irreducibly complex” sidebar in this chapter for more on cell complexity.)

Irreducibly complex

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.

-Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin believed that the cell is a relatively simple structure that could’ve evolved through natural selection. But as the quote above illustrates, Darwin himself saw holes in his theory should cells be proven to be too structurally complex to have evolved on their own. Due to technological advances over the past 30 years, scientists no longer have to speculate on the cell. They now have the ability to view and understand a cell’s composition in ways that were unheard of decades before.

With this newly discovered knowledge in tow, scientist Michael Behe writes in his book Darwin’s Black Box (Free Press, 1998) that it’s impossible for cells to have evolved through a gradual process, because they’re irreducibly complex. In other words, a core set of parts has to be present in a cell in order for it to function in the first place. To explain his post, Behe uses the example of an ordinary mouse trap. Behe argues that a mouse trap is irreducibly complex, because all its pieces have to be present and in working order for it to function. You can’t just put a piece of wood out in the attic and catch a mouse or two, then add a spring to snatch a second, and then assemble the hammer for even more. This incremental approach doesn’t work. Instead, all these pieces must be assembled together and functioning properly before the challenge of mouse catching can even begin. In the same way, cells and other living organisms are irreducibly complex, which seems incompatible with the survival-of-the-fittest theory and suggests strong evidence that cells were designed by God.

Moreover, the popular assumption is that the fossil record proves that simple creatures evolved to become complex ones. But, in reality, the fossil record doesn’t show the proof of any transitional forms of species that Darwinian evolution requires. Fossils consistently show up as sudden explosions of species with little changes taking place after that in the fossil record.

Ultimately, although Darwinian evolution is often held up as the logical conclusion of centuries of scientific research, it’s really a belief system that requires faith to believe in, just like Christianity. Darwinian evolution is the required way to explain the origins of the world if you have a naturalistic worldview. (See Chapter 14 for more on worldviews.)

Springing up life from nonliving matter

Darwinian evolution requires that living organisms evolved from nonliving matter. Yet research has shown that the chances of life coming from non-life are as likely as getting me to stop after just one plateful at a buffet. As a comparison, imagine a tornado sweeping through a junkyard and randomly assembling a perfectly formed 747 jet. The odds of this event occurring are ridiculously small, but the odds of a living organism evolving from nonliving elements are even more miniscule.

Think of the complexity of the modern 747 jet and the fact that everything must work together precisely or else you have a disaster on your hands. Yet as the history of aviation and space travel has shown, intelligent people have done their best, but accidents still occur and design flaws happen. But because of intelligence, humans can look at tragedies and intelligently deduce how to avoid them in the future. A mindless, purposeless creation process would have no such luxury, making the odds of sustained successes even lower.

Exploring Christian alternatives to Darwinian evolution

Christianity is perfectly compatible with an open-minded version of science that looks for facts without any bias or preconditions and accepts both supernatural and natural explanations, such as microevolution. (See the section, “Distinguishing between two theories of evolution,” earlier in this chapter for more on microevolution.) And though Darwinian evolution dominates the airwaves and classrooms, Christians offer several theories that explain the origins of life. The generic term that encompasses these beliefs is creationism, the theory that God created the world.

Young earth creationists believe that the world is relatively young – perhaps only 10,000 years old – and read the accounts of Genesis 1 and 2 literally, believing that God created it in a six-day period. They base much scientific attention on highlighting the inaccuracy of scientific dating that dates the earth to the millions of years. They also see many of the changes that have taken place on earth as the result of the Flood as recorded in the Book of Genesis, Chapter 6 through 8.

Another group of creationists, called progressive creationists, agree with their secular counterparts on the earth’s age, but believe that Creation took place over a longer period rather than six days. These people (mostly Christians) believe, for example, that God intervened in nature at various points in time, creating new species.

A new, highly respected group of creationists that has developed over the past decade is known as intelligent design (ID) theorists. This group of scientists and academics has steered away from supporting a particular theory on the earth’s age and has instead focused on proving that an intelligent designer must’ve created the world. Many design theorists are Christian but not all of them are.

Some Christians, on the other hand, have attempted to wave a white flag to the scientific community and try to accommodate Christianity with Darwinian evolution. The result is theistic evolution, which says basically that God created the world but used natural selection as the means by which he created it.

The biggest problem with the theistic evolution is that the term itself appears to be an oxymoron. As I explain throughout this chapter, Darwinian scientists have relentlessly asserted that natural selection is a mindless and purposeless process. Therefore, at most, God would seem to be an unneeded part of the process and could be disposed of without any change in what happens. It seems unlikely to believe that if God had a purpose for creating the world, he would’ve done so using a mindless, purposeless process that could’ve just as easily produced a completely different world with different creatures.

Considering the intricate details of the world

The anthropic principle is a recent scientific theory that says that the physical order and structure of the world is exactly what’s needed in order to successfully support life – from the structure of the solar system to the force of gravity, the composition of water, and the structure of atoms. For example, if the earth were slightly farther away from the sun, all water would freeze and the earth would be a huge popsicle. If the earth were slightly closer to the sun, then all water would evaporate and all life would become like those dancing California raisins. Many Christians use the anthropic principle to point back to the need for a Creator to design the precise physical order of the universe.