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June 14, 2003 From the beginning of Man’s recorded history we have been fascinated by science and religion. Both fields seek answers to fundamental questions of existence. It would seem that to the average American, both are rather mysterious. Or perhaps both are not well understood, so little serious thought is given to them. I went downstairs to the family room this morning to talk to my boys, who were watching a “Planet of The Apes” movie. I watched with them as the hero got into his vehicle and with a cloud of smoke and a gust of “exhaust” it moved up in the air. Certainly, had it depended on a rocket or jet propulsion engine to move upwards, the various beings standing around it would have been both burned and blown several yards away by the force. The smoke and wind had nothing to do with any actual form of propulsion such a craft may have used. We then watched it apparently sail through about half of the universe all the way to earth, easily exceeding the speed of light while our hero was buffeted a bit and pulled a few switches up and down. The problem was, this was supposedly a TIME MACHINE that was to traverse time, not space. Okay, so this was just a bad sci-fi flick. Yet bad science is accepted by the average layman not only in movies, but also in schools, television, radio, and magazines everywhere! Consider what science has disseminated to the general public for years; The Theory of Evolution as the source of life and the explanation for all the various forms thereof. There is no such theory, since a theory in the world of science is: “In science, an explanation for some phenomenon which is based on observation, experimentation, and reasoning. In popular use, a theory is often assumed to imply mere speculation, but in science, something is not called a theory until it has been confirmed over the course of many independent experiments. Theories are more certain than hypotheses, but less certain than laws.” Biotech Life Science Dictionary. Obviously, no one can go back to the time when life first appeared and observe how it came to be. No one can go back in time and confirm the exact nature of the environment at that time. Here is the definition for hypothesis from the same source: “ In science, an idea or proposition that is based on certain observations about the natural world. Hypotheses are subject to scientific evaluation.” Is Evolution subject to scientific evaluation? That depends on your semantics. Changes occurring within species have been observed and recorded and is a kind of evolution. Macroevolution, the process by which one kind of creature changes into another kind, has not been observed. Evolution as the explanation for the beginning of life cannot be a theory, merely a hypothesis or supposition. I could as easily suppose that rocks grew legs and would have an equal opportunity to prove my point. But of course, the average person thinks of Evolution as a fact rather than a theory. We are taught in the public schools to believe in it. We see charts of one-celled creatures turning into fish turning into amphibians turning into dinosaurs turning into mammals, then monkeys, then cavemen and finally, man! Every week CNN or Time Magazine or your local paper will have a story about a scientific discovery that includes evolutionary teaching as a factual part of the story. Evolution Defined Evolution as a doctrine stands on the following suppositions: 1) That the earth and universe are very ancient (13.7 billion years for the universe and 4.55 billion years for the earth). 2) That some undefined set of circumstances and environment made the formation of life possible. “In biological terms: a change in the genetic composition of a population over time.” Evolution as defined by the Life Science Dictionary. But the standard teaching of Evolution always includes suppositions about the origins of life itself. Evolution in its pure form does not allow for a Creator or any hint of the supernatural. It is a belief system grounded in the tenet that all processes are and have always been natural. The process of Evolution requires multiple millions of years to operate with the help of the magical “natural selection” using mutations to craft new species of life. One of the shining examples of the process was the example of the Peppered Moth. This native of Britain was almost always found in it’s typical form, a light colored moth that was hard to spot on the light-colored bark of the trees most often seen in it’s habitat. But around 1850, as an industrialized Britain became more and more sooty as a result of coal burning, the trees became darker and so did the moth. It’s dark, or carbonaria form became predominant. Evolutionists pointed to this and stated that the moth was evolving. In recent years, with gas burning and other methods producing the bulk of Britain’s energy, the soot has disappeared and the trees are light colored again. Now the moth is most often found in it’s light colored form again. Is this evolution, or is it variation built in to the species? One thing for certain, the moth did not evolve into a bird or a dragonfly or a fruit bat. It remains a Peppered Moth. There have been no instances recorded of any species evolving into any other in man’s history. Scientists of the 1800’s pointed to the various forms of dogs and other animals that had been produced by breeders, yet this has been proven genetically to be simple manipulation of an available gene pool already available within the species. The Intelligent Design Movement Back in the 1800’s Evolution seemed a viable idea to many with the amount of information they had about the nature of living things. We were not all that far removed from a scientific community that believed in “spontaneous generation” of vermin from rags. Charles Darwin’s compelling rhetoric won a host of followers and ushered in generations of scientists who rejected Creation and a Creator in favor of natural causes. But we have since learned so much about the nature of cells, DNA and developed Microbiologists and Biochemists who have looked upon the very building blocks of life. Cosmologists have carefully studied evidence available to them with great advances in telescopes of all kinds and space probes. We have learned how exact the bonding force that holds an atom together must be, how delicate and arrangement the positioning of the planets actually is and those who espouse the “Big Bang” as the beginning of the universe have “proven” that the Bang itself had to be done so precisely that it could not have happened by chance. Recent research has confirmed to a vast number of scientists that life had to have had an “Intelligent Design”. Benjamin Wilker, in a Crisis Magazine article dated 4/7/2003, states: “It may well be the most important intellectual movement to occur in the last 200 years, if not the last half-millennium. Its roots are in the sciences, but when it reaches full flower, it may branch into nearly every discipline, from theology, philosophy, and the social sciences to history and literature, and redefine almost every aspect of culture, from morality and law to the arts. It’s the Intelligent Design (ID) movement, and it’s reshaping the face of science. The revolution began in the latter half of the 20th century as a result of discoveries in the various sciences that seemed to point to an intelligent being as the cause of nature’s amazing intricacies. The aim of ID is included in its origin: the ever-deeper investigation of nature to uncover every aspect of its stunningly contrived complexity.” Creationism Once almost the universal belief among laymen and scientists alike, it began to be challenged seriously with the emergence of Darwinism about 200 years ago. Creationists believe that a Creator God created all Matter and all living things. Intelligent Design advocates are in the Creationist camp for the most part although many are unwilling to speculate on the nature of the Designer. Creationists believe in a scientific philosophy that accepts the supernatural as fact. You Be The Scientist The next column will reveal that the general public has been deliberately misled in order to propagate the “theory” of Evolution. The “facts” presented to the layman about the fossil record and anthropological evidence accumulated in the last two centuries have been manipulated or just plain fictionalized in order to fit the doctrine. Stay tuned for “There were no Neanderthals!” ------------ About the author Kimbal Ross Binder: Erstwhile gym-rat, former independent driven by disgust for the Democratic Party into the arms of the Republicans, current parent and expert at puns, jokes that make people groan and eating Debbie's cooking. Mr Binder lives out in the boondocks of NW Indiana. Email Kimbal Ross Binder: radar@eternalisp.com Comment on this column in the forum. ------------ |
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