"Preach the Word,

According to many of his modern followers, Darwin is the world's greatest scientist, and his theory is the cornerstone of modern biology - if not the whole of modern science.

What, exactly, is Darwin's theory? It is not just "evolution." Evolution can mean "change over time," which no sane person denies. Or it can mean life on Earth has a long history, documented by the fossil record. Yet the general outlines of the fossil record were established before "The Origin of Species" appeared in 1859. And biblical chronology did not play a major role in the 19th-century Darwinian controversies, because by 1859 most educated Christians had accepted geological evidence for an old Earth.

Darwin's theory is that all living things are descendants of a common ancestor, modified by unguided processes such as random variation and natural selection. Although nobody doubts that variation and selection can produce minor changes within existing species ("microevolution"), Darwin claimed that microevolution leads to the origin of new species, organs and body plans ("macroevolution").

Eighty years after "The Origin of Species," evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky acknowledged there was still no hard evidence connecting microevolution and macroevolution. Unfortunately, since only microevolution can be observed within a human lifetime, Mr. Dobzhansky wrote, "We are compelled at the present level of knowledge reluctantly to put a sign of equality between the mechanisms of macro- and microevolution, and proceeding on this assumption, to push our investigations as far ahead as this working hypothesis will permit."

This assumption is still an assumption. No one has ever observed the origin of a new species by variation and selection - much less the origin of new organs and body plans. Not even modern genetics has solved the problem. No matter what we do to the DNA of a fruit fly embryo, there are only three possible outcomes: a normal fruit fly, a defective fruit fly or a dead fruit fly. Although Darwin's modern followers claim there is "overwhelming evidence" for his theory, nothing could be further from the truth.

Nor is Darwin's theory the cornerstone of modern biology. Most of the basic disciplines in biology were founded before Darwin's birth - including anatomy, physiology, botany, zoology, microbiology, systematics, embryology and paleontology. During Darwin's lifetime, Gregor Mendel founded genetics and Louis Agassiz and Richard Owen pioneered comparative biology. But none of these scientists accepted Darwinism.

Actually, Darwinism has always been more philosophy than science. Darwin called "The Origin of Species" "one long argument," and it took the following form: The features of living things are "inexplicable on the theory of creation" but fully explicable as products of unguided natural forces. Darwin lacked sufficient evidence for the latter, however, so he ruled out the former by simply declaring that only natural explanations are "scientific."

[Some] atheists want to establish Darwin Day as a secular alternative to Christmas.

Unfortunately, once in power Darwinism (like Marxism) tolerates no dissent. As the 2008 movie "Expelled" documented, scientists and teachers who criticize Darwinism risk ostracism, character assassination and termination of their employment. School boards that encourage students to learn the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolutionary theory are besieged by militant atheists who do not want students to question Darwinism.

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Vatican teaching holds that Roman Catholicism and evolutionary theory are not necessarily at odds. The church under Benedict has been trying to stress that, along with its overall belief that there is no incompatibility between faith and reason.

Pope John Paul II articulated the church's position most clearly in a 1996 address to the Pontifical Academy for Sciences, saying the theory of evolution is "more than a hypothesis."


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Hmmmm? But what does the Bible say? It doesn't matter to the Vatican they've been ignoring the Bible for generations. Just because it's that 'book' with the whole "only-one-mediator-between-God-and-men" idea anyways. Read 1 Timothy 2:4-6; I John 1:5- 2:2

It isn't just the New York Times that ignores the facts when reporting about the debate over how to teach evolution. Not to be outdone by its competitor the Washington Post catches up [July 28, 2008] with an ill-informed opinion piece (Evolving Toward a Compromise) that yet again completely misreports what is going on in the upcoming review of Texas' state science standards.

A proposal before the Texas Board of Education calls for including the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution in the state's science curriculum. This initiative is understood by supporters and opponents to be a strategic effort to get around First Amendment restrictions on teaching religion in science class.

First, there is no such proposal. The Texas state science standards currently state:

The student uses critical thinking and scientific problem solving to make informed decisions. The student is expected to: (A) analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information;

As has already been pointed out, no one is considering a proposal to add "strengths and weaknesses" language. It's already in there, and has been since the late 1980s. It's the Darwinists who are trying to remove the language. Read More Here

DEMENTIA SUFFERERS MAY HAVE A "DUTY TO DIE" [Excerpts from the British newspaper the Telegraph. Link to full article provided at end.]

Elderly people suffering from dementia should consider ending their lives because they are a burden on the NHS and their families, according to the influential medical ethics expert Baroness Warnock.

The veteran Government adviser said pensioners in mental decline are "wasting people's lives" because of the care they require and should be allowed to opt for euthanasia even if they are not in pain.

She insisted there was "nothing wrong" with people being helped to die for the sake of their loved ones or society.

The 84-year-old added that she hoped people will soon be "licensed to put others down" if they are unable to look after themselves.

Her comments in a magazine interview have been condemned as "immoral" and "barbaric", but also sparked fears that they may find wider support because of her influence on ethical matters.

Lady Warnock, a former headmistress who went on to become Britain's leading moral philosopher, chaired a landmark Government committee in the 1980s that established the law on fertility treatment and embryo research.

A prominent supporter of euthanasia, she has previously suggested that pensioners who do not want to become a burden on their carers should be helped to die.

Last year the Mental Capacity Act came into effect that gives legal force to "living wills", so patients can appoint an "attorney" to tell doctors when their hospital food and water should be removed.

But in her latest interview, given to the Church of Scotland's magazine Life and Work, Lady Warnock goes further by claiming that dementia sufferers should consider ending their lives through euthanasia because of the strain they put on their families and public services. [Read more of the story here]

What a sad state-of-affairs from a supposedly moral and Christian society. The cries that roses up to God's ears from Sodom & Gomorrah...seem to be rising again through abortion and euthanasia. Do you see a direct result of evolution at work here? Because if man is nothing more than the descendent of some mangy animal we really are not much better than animals! Of course, we have a twisted society that is more impressed with protecting the environment and endangered species and ignores the value of human life. Pray, my friends, Pray!!

With the possible exception of a monotreme tooth assumed to be 62 million years old, the oldest known platypus fossil was dated 15 million years old. Now, a fossil from Australia reported in Science sets a new record: 112 million years old.

"It's really, really old for a monotreme," Timothy Rowe of the University of Texas (UT), Austin, told the audience at a meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology last month in Austin, Texas. How to fit this with the evolution of monotremes?

That would push back the fossil record of the platypus quite a bit; the next youngest fossil is Obdurodon dicksoni from 15-million-year-old rocks in Australia. It is also much older than current estimates from DNA of when platypuses and echidnas diverged from their most recent common ancestor. Molecular clocks put that date somewhere between 17 million and 80 million years ago. Rowe speculated that one reason for the underestimate may be that monotremes evolve at slower rates than other mammals do, an idea that fits with their lower diversity.


Was this platypus a transitional form? No. Was it evolving from a simpler animal into a complex creature with a duck bill, poison spur, electrical sensing organ, webbed feet, fur, and ability to lay eggs? No -- it was Darwin's nightmare popping up way, way back in the record, over 100 million years earlier (in their own dating scheme) than the next clear platypus fossil. Why not consider the obvious, that there was never any 113 million years between the two fossils?

[Excerpts from Creation Matters, Volume 12, Number 6, November / December 2007]