Scientism Infects Darwinian Debates

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Scientism Infects Darwinian Debates

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In a Vancouver Sun newspaper, reporter Douglas Todd takes issue with how evolution is taught in our educational facilities. He cites two major obstacles to a “richer” discussion on evolution—these being “religious literalism, which leads to Creationism,” and “Scientism.” Scientism is defined as “the belief that the sciences have no boundaries and will, in the end, be able to explain everything in the universe.” Scientism holds that, “If something can't be ‘proved’ through scientific method, or observable and measurable evidence, then [Scientism’s proponents] say it’s irrelevant.”

The scientific community is now debating more than one theory of evolution—indeed, up to a dozen are being discussed. Noted scientist Gerald L. Schroeder, an MIT-trained scientist in both physics and biology, strongly disagrees with the widely accepted theories of evolution. He has had his work published in Time, Newsweek, Scientific American and major newspapers around the world. In his book, The Hidden Face Of God, Schroeder shows that he is neutral on evolution—he is neither anti-evolution nor pro-creation. His position is “pro look-at-the-data-and-see-what-they-teach.” He makes some powerful observations about evolutionary theories.

On the big bang:

“The big bang produced, from nothing, a universe composed of photons, energy-packed radiations, unimaginably hot and compressed beyond description, a soup of energy, nearly homogeneous throughout. (What produced the big bang remains a question.)”

On the human being:

“The human body acts as a finely tuned machine, a magnificent metropolis in which, as its inhabitants, each of the 75 trillion cells, composed of 1027 atoms, moves in symbiotic precision. Seldom are two cells simultaneously performing the same act, yet their individual contributions combine smoothly to form life.

“Ten to the twenty-seventh power—a one followed by 27 zeroes, a thousand million, million, million, million atoms—are organized by a single act when a protozoan-like sperm cell adds its message of genetic material into a receptive egg cell. Combined, these two minuscule cells contain all the information needed to produce the entire body at each stage of its growth, from fetus to adult.”

On the cell:

“The cell is simply jam-packed, a beehive of activity. Components are stuffed tighter than the circuits of a computer board, and everything is in motion. Each cell in your body, at this second and every second, is forming two thousand proteins. Every second, in every cell!

“A protein is a string of several hundred amino acids, and an amino acid is a molecule having twenty or so atoms. Every cell in your body is selecting, right now, approximately 500,000 amino acids. Consisting of some ten million atoms, organizing them into pre-selected strings, joining them together, checking to be certain each string is folded into specific shapes, and then shipping each protein off to a site, some inside, some outside the cell, sites, that (somehow) have signaled a need for these specific proteins. Every second. Every cell. Your body is a living wonder! The entrance to a living cell is marked by passage through a membrane functioning to keep the bad stuff out, while letting the good stuff in, and expelling what needs to be expelled, waste products and manufactured goods. But who or what decides what comes in and what goes out?

“Where did these cells get their smarts? Since when do carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, sulfur, phosphorus—the primary building blocks of biology—have ideas of their own, or any ideas at all?”

On sexual reproduction:

“With sexual reproduction, rather than a single cell acting as the originator of the progeny, a pair of cells unites to produce a daughter cell that is similar, but not identical to either of the parent cells. To accomplish this, the new cell has a mix of the genes taken from each parent. Each parent cell has a full complement of genetic material, called DNA.

“For sex to work, and for the progeny to share contributions from both sides of the bond, each of the parents must be willing to relinquish half of his or her DNA, in technical terms changing from diploid to haploid. In standard mitotic fashion, each parent cell produces spindle fibers that, with their wonder of synchronous motion, reach out from opposing walls of the cell, attach to each of the pairs of duplicated DNA chromosomes, and pull the pairs apart, separating the chromosome sister pairs into two sets of twenty-three pairs. Just what taught the cells to invent and train these fantastically clever fibers remains to be discovered. It’s hard to keep in mind that it’s all just molecules, no brain-power directs these events. The number of possible combinations housed within the human genome, run into the multiples of trillions. With this vast potential for variety, it is not surprising that no two humans are identical.”

Fearfully and wonderfully made

From these four examples given in Gerald Schroeder’s book, true science demands that intelligent human beings acknowledge that myriad laws are in motion; that incredible complexity of inter-dependent programming and function are in operation—the many cell components of each are programmed to give signal and direction to other cell components to carry out their part in the life-cycle. Such complexity of design of absolute inter-dependency, of sustained law to enable such functions, absolutely demand supreme intelligence and power to bring life about.

Small wonder, then, that King David was inspired to write a Psalm to God about “your heavens; the work of your fingers, the moon and stars which you have ordained” (Psalm 8:3).

Speaking of being human, David wrote in Psalm 139:14-15, “I will praise you; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are your works; and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.”

When we consider the unassailable evidence that true science demands, “Scientism,” in claiming that anything that cannot be demonstrated through observable and measurable evidence is irrelevant, demonstrates itself as nothing more than junk science—a science that chooses not to observe and measure the true and clear scientific evidence shown in Gerald Schroeder’s book, as well what is presented in many other true science publications.

Further reading:

For more interesting information request or download our free booklet Creation or Evolution: Does It Really Matter What You Believe?