THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION:
A MATERIALISTIC LIABILITY
The information we have considered throughout
this book has shown us that the theory of evolution has no scientific
basis, and that, on the contrary, evolutionist claims conflict
with scientific facts. In other words, the force that keeps evolution
alive is not science. The theory of evolution is maintained by
some "scientists", but behind it there is another influence
at work.
This other influence is materialist philosophy.
Materialist philosophy is one of the oldest beliefs in the world,
and assumes the existence of matter as its basic principle. According
to this view, matter has always existed, and everything that exists
consists of matter. This makes belief in a Creator impossible, of
course, because if matter has always existed, and if everything
consists of matter, then there can be no suprematerial Creator who
created it. Materialism has therefore long been hostile to religious
beliefs of every kind that have faith in God.
So the question becomes one of whether the materialist point of
view is correct. One method of testing whether a philosophy is true
or false is to investigate the claims it makes about science by
using scientific methods. For instance, a philosopher in the 10th
century could have claimed that there was a divine tree on the surface
of the moon and that all living things actually grew on the branches
of this huge tree like fruit, and then fell off onto the earth.
Some people might have found this philosophy attractive and believed
in it. But in the 20th century, at a time when man has managed to
walk on the moon, it is no longer possible to seriously hold such
a belief. Whether such a tree exists there or not can be determined
by scientific methods, that is, by observation and experiment.
We can therefore investigate by means of scientific methods the
materialist claim: that matter has existed for all eternity and
that this matter can organise itself without a supramaterial Creator
and cause life to begin. When we do this, we see that materialism
has already collapsed, because the idea that matter has existed
since beginning of time has been overthrown
by the Big Bang theory which shows that the universe was created
from nothingness. The claim that matter organised itself
and created life is the claim that we call "the theory of evolution"
-which this book has been examining-and which has been shown to
have collapsed.
However, if someone is determined to believe in materialism and
puts his devotion to materialist philosophy before everything else,
then he will act differently. If he is a materialist first and a
scientist second, he will not abandon materialism when he sees that
evolution is disproved by science. On the contrary, he will attempt
to uphold and defend materialism by trying to support evolution,
no matter what. This is exactly the predicament that evolutionists
defending the theory of evolution find themselves in today.
Interestingly enough, they also confess this fact from time to
time. A well-known geneticist and outspoken evolutionist, Richard
C. Lewontin from Harvard University, confesses that he is "a materialist
first and a scientist second" in these words:
It is not that the methods and institutions
of science somehow compel us accept a material explanation of the
phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our
a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of
investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations,
no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the
uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is
absolute, so we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.179
The term "a priori" that Lewontin uses here is quite important.
This philosophical term refers to a presupposition not based on
any experimental knowledge. A thought is "a priori" when you consider
it to be correct and accept it as so even if there is no information
available to confirm it. As the evolutionist Lewontin frankly states,
materialism is an "a priori" commitment for evolutionists, who then
try to adapt science to this preconception. Since materialism definitely
necessitates denying the existence of a Creator, they embrace the
only alternative they have in hand, which is the theory of evolution.
It does not matter to such scientists that evolution has been belied
by scientific facts, because they have accepted it "a priori" as
true.
This prejudiced behaviour leads evolutionists to a belief that
"unconscious matter composed itself", which is contrary not only
to science, but also to reason. Professor of chemistry from New
York University and a DNA expert Robert Shapiro, as we have quoted
before, explains this belief of evolutionists and the materialist
dogma lying at its base as follows:
Another evolutionary principle is therefore
needed to take us across the gap from mixtures of simple natural
chemicals to the first effective replicator. This principle has
not yet been described in detail or demonstrated, but it is anticipated,
and given names such as chemical evolution and
self-organization of matter. The existence of the principle is taken
for granted in the philosophy of dialectical materialism,
as applied to the origin of life by Alexander Oparin.180
Evolutionist propaganda, which we constantly come across in the
Western media and in well-known and "esteemed" science magazines,
is the outcome of this ideological necessity. Since evolution is
considered to be indispensable, it has been turned into a sacred
cow by the circles that set the standards of science.
Some scientists find themselves in a position
where they are forced to defend this far-fetched theory, or at least
avoid uttering any word against it, in order to maintain their reputations.
Academics in the Western countries have to have articles
published in certain scientific journals to attain and hold onto
their professorships. All of the journals dealing with biology are
under the control of evolutionists, and they do not allow any anti-evolutionist
article to appear in them. Biologists, therefore, have to conduct
their research under the domination of this theory. They, too, are
part of the established order, which regards evolution as an ideological
necessity, which is why they blindly defend all the "impossible
coincidences" we have been examining in this book.
Materialist Confessions
The German biologist Hoimar von Ditfurth, a prominent evolutionist,
is a good example of this bigoted materialist understanding. After
Ditfurth cites an example of the extremely complex composition of
life, this is what he says concerning the question of whether it
could have emerged by chance or not:
Is such a harmony that emerged only out of coincidences
possible in reality? This is the basic question of the whole of
biological evolution. Answering this question as "Yes, it is possible"
is something like verifying faith in the modern science of nature.
Critically speaking, we can say that somebody who accepts the modern
science of nature has no other alternative than to say "yes", because
he aims to explain natural phenomena by means that are understandable
and tries to derive them from the laws of nature without reverting
to supernatural interference. However, at this point, explaining
everything by means of the laws of nature, that is, by coincidences,
is a sign that he has nowhere else to turn. Because what else could
he do other than believe in coincidences?181
|
DARWINISM AND MATERIALISM
The only reason that Darwin's theory is still
defended despite its obvious refutation by science is the
close link between that theory and materialism. Darwin applied
materialist philosophy to the natural sciences and the advocates
of this philosophy, Marxists being foremost among them,
go on defending Darwinism no matter what.
One of the most famous contemporary champions
of the theory of evolution, the biologist Douglas Futuyma,
wrote: "Together with Marx's materialistic theory of history…
Darwin's theory of evolution was a crucial plank in the
platform of mechanism and materialism." This is a very clear
admission of why the theory of evolution is really so important
to its defenders.1
Another famous evolutionist, the paleontologist
Stephen J. Gould said: "Darwin applied a consistent philosophy
of materialism to his interpretation of nature".2 Leon Trotsky,
one of the masterminds of the Russian Communist Revolution
along with Lenin, commented: "The discovery by Darwin was
the highest triumph of the dialectic in the whole field
of organic matter."3 However, science has shown that Darwinism
was not a victory for materialism but rather a sign of that
philosophy's overthrow.
1 Douglas Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology,
2nd ed., Sunderland, MA: Sinauer, 1986, p. 3
2 Alan Woods and Ted Grant, "Marxism and Darwinism", Reason
in Revolt: Marxism and Modern Science, London, 1993
3 Alan Woods and Ted Grant. "Marxism and Darwinism", London,
1993 |
|
Yes, as Ditfurth states, the materialist scientific
approach adopts as its basic principle explaining life by denying
"supernatural interference", i.e. creation. Once this principle
is adopted, even the most impossible scenarios are easily accepted.
It is possible to find examples of this dogmatic mentality in almost
all evolutionist literature. Professor Ali Demirsoy, the well-known
advocate of evolutionary theory in Turkey, is just one of many.
As we have already pointed out, according to Demirsoy: the probability
of the coincidental formation of cythochrome-C, an essential protein
for life, is "as unlikely as the possibility of a monkey writing
the history of humanity on a typewriter without making any mistakes".182
There is no doubt that to accept such a possibility is actually
to reject the basic principles of reason and common sense. Even
one single correctly formed letter written on a page makes it certain
that it was written by a person. When one sees a book of world history,
it becomes even more certain that the book has been written by an
author. No logical person would agree that the letters in such a
huge book could have been put together "by chance".
However, it is very interesting to see that the "evolutionist scientist"
Professor Ali Demirsoy accepts this sort of irrational proposition:
In essence, the probability of the formation
of a cytochrome-C sequence is as likely as zero. That is, if life
requires a certain sequence, it can be said that this has a probability
likely to be realised once in the whole universe. Otherwise some
metaphysical powers beyond our definition must have acted in its
formation. To accept the latter is not appropriate for the scientific
goal. We thus have to look into the first hypothesis.183
Demirsoy writes that he prefers the impossible, in order "not to
have to accept supernatural forces"-in other words, the existence
of a Creator. It is clear that this approach has no relation whatsoever
with science. Not surprisingly, when Demirsoy cites another subject-the
origins of the mitochondria in the cell-he openly accepts coincidence
as an explanation, even though it is "quite contrary to scientific
thought".
The heart of the problem is how the mitochondria
have acquired this feature, because attaining this feature by chance
even by one individual, requires extreme probabilities that are
incomprehensible... The enzymes providing respiration and functioning
as a catalyst in each step in a different form make up the core
of the mechanism. A cell has to contain this enzyme sequence completely,
otherwise it is meaningless. Here, despite being contrary to biological
thought, in order to avoid a more dogmatic explanation or speculation,
we have to accept, though reluctantly, that all the respiration
enzymes completely existed in the cell before the cell first came
in contact with oxygen.184
The conclusion to be drawn from such pronouncements is that evolution
is not a theory arrived at through scientific investigation. On
the contrary, the form and substance of this theory were dictated
by the requirements of materialistic philosophy. It then turned
into a belief or dogma in spite of concrete scientific facts.
Again, we can clearly see from evolutionist literature that all
of this effort has a "purpose"-and that purpose requires maintaining,
at no matter what cost, that living things were not created.
Evolutionists define this purpose as "scientific". However, what
they refer to is not science but materialist philosophy. Materialism
absolutely rejects the existence of anything "beyond" matter (or
of anything supernatural). Science itself is not obliged to accept
such a dogma. Science means exploring nature and deriving conclusions
from one's findings. If these findings lead to the conclusion that
nature is created, science has to accept it. That is the duty of
a true scientist; not defending impossible scenarios by clinging
to the outdated materialist dogmas of the 19th century.
  
179
Richard Lewontin, "The Demon-Haunted World", The New York Review
of Books, January 9, 1997, p. 28.
180 Robert Shapiro, Origins: A Sceptics Guide
to the Creation of Life on Earth. Summit Books, New York: 1986,
p. 207.
181 Hoimar Von Dithfurt, Im Anfang War Der Wasserstoff
(Secret Night of the Dinosaurs), Vol 2, p. 64.
182 Ali Demirsoy, Kalýtým ve Evrim (Inheritance
and Evolution), Ankara: Meteksan Publishing Co., 1984, p. 61.
183 Ibid, p. 61.
184 Ibid, p. 94. he
Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong, New York: Ticknor
and Fields 1982, p. 204.
|