The War on Darwinism

Charles Darwin once said that "A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question." Unfortunately, such balance is not so prevalant in today's atheistic culture of learning.

On April 9, 1989, the prominant neodarwinist, Richard Dawkins, expressed his heartfelt antipathy to the New York Times:

"It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)."

Why such a dramatic shift in the attitude between Darwin and his modern-day disciples?

What forces drive their zealotry when neodarwinism is called into question?

Some suggest that "fundamentalism" and "religion" are responsible for the ignorance of scientific facts. Yet, few examples of "fundamentalism" exceed Mr. Dawkins' self-pious creed.

While Communist China allows scientists to question many elements that the neodarwinists have propagated over the years, it is not unusual for a biology teacher to face consequenses for expressing skepticism in regards to evolutionary biology here in America.

Take Roger DeHart, for example. DeHart was a beloved biology teacher from Burlington, Oregon, who provided his students an open forum to discuss concepts of neodarwinism openly and critically. He was eventually banned from teaching within the district ever again.

His crime?

Supplying outside materials, allowing students to debate intelligent design, and presenting ample evidence that was unfavorable to the claims of Darwinian evolution. More alarming, he never even mentioned the word "God."

Meanwhile, back in China, Jun-Yuan Chen, an internationally respected paleontologist, has made discoveries that have rocked the scientific establishment.

From an article in The Boston Globe, May 30, 2000:

According to Chen, the conventional forces of evolution can't account for the speed, the breadth, and onetime nature of "the Cambrian explosion," a geologic moment more than 500 million years ago when virtually all the major animal groups first appear in the fossil record.

Rather than Charles Darwin's familiar notion of survival of the fittest, Chen said he believes scientists should focus on the possibility that a unique harmony between forms of life allowed complex organisms to emerge. If all we have to depend upon is chance and competition, the conventional forces of evolution, Chen said, "then complex, highly evolved life, such as the human, has no reason to appear."

Later in the same article arrives an astounding merge: members of China's Communist Party and creationists, who share a skepticism for Darwinian evolutionary biology.

"Evolution is facing an extremely harsh challenge," declared the Communist Party's Guang Ming Daily last December in describing the fossils in southern China. "In the beginning, Darwinian evolution was a scientific theory. . . . In fact, evolution eventually changed into a religion." Taunts from the Communist Party wouldn't carry much sting, however, if some Western scientists weren't also concerned about weaknesses in so-called neo-Darwinism, the dominant view of evolution over the last 50 years.

"NeoDarwinism is dead," said Eric Davidson, a geneticist and textbook writer at the California Institute of Technology. He joined a recent gathering of 60 scientists from around the world near Chengjiang, where Chen had found his first impressions of Haikouella five years ago.

Could it be that the Communist Party in China is more open-minded and intellectually honest than the neodarwinists in America, who claim a tax-funded monopoly in our schools and college campuses?

Is it so far-fetched to point out that no random genetic mutations have successfully proven any viability to neodarwinist claims since the theory of evolution emerged?

Neodarwinists proudly point to fruit flies as evidence for genetic mutations, because they have grown an extra pair of wings in many of their experiments. One problem: the flies are actually degenerating in their capabilities, rather than improving, condescending the survival of the fittest. It is now harder for the flies to fly off the ground. To make matters worse, they cannot survive outside of the lab.

The most evidence we have of any genetic mutations are crippled and dead organisms that have emerged as a result of lab experiments.

In spite of the iron fist that the neodarwinists may have over our schools, a recent Zogby poll has indicated that most Americans are not in alignment with their agenda.

According to the poll, 71% of Americans agree that "Biology teachers should teach Darwin's Theory of Evolution, but also the scientific evidence against it," while only 15% agreed that "Biology teachers should teach only Darwin's theory and the scientific evidence that supports it."

This counter-cultural surge is also advocated by scientists who represent a small minority within the scientific community, but a large percentage of America that argues in favor of more objective education.

In an advertisement that appeared in the prestigious New York Review of Books, over 100 scientists, including scholars from Yale, Princeton, MIT, and the Smithsonian signed on to this statement:

"We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."