My column on the “Limits of Evolution,” in which I wrote of the enormous gap that exists between apes and humans, has brought forth a number of very interesting comments from readers. One pro-evolutionist wrote: “In the last 42 years, we have in fact learned that the neural architecture associated with language acquisition, is shared with other primates. This illuminates the larger error of thought made by Blumenfeld, that the significant comparison is a perceived ‘gap’ between modern humans and other primates. This gap is just as large between our selves and our Mesolithic ancestors as it is between them and other apes.”
First, it is obvious that we humans share many facets of our anatomy with other primates. But primates cannot write history, they cannot plan careers, and they cannot build jumbo jets. They may have “the neural architecture associated with language acquisition,” but all attempts to teach chimps to speak have been pitifully unsuccessful.
But in my mind, what makes the theory of evolution untenable is that it cannot explain how human beings and other species are programmed to go through various stages of life projected into the future over a long period of existence. When a human infant is born, he or she is programmed to go through the anatomical stages of childhood, then the anatomical changes of adolescence, then into sophisticated adulthood, balding middle age, and finally old age, with its predictable infirmities.
How can blind, accidental evolution create a program that shapes a life from beginning to end over a period of almost 100 years? How can such an accidental process create a schedule of development hidden within the genetic structure of every different human being?
Hallmark cards are based on the reality that we are all subject to a schedule of change and development given us by a Creator. Accidental evolution cannot predict the future, let alone make it happen.
Every creature of every species is programmed to live a life scheduled in advance by some higher power. No one would contend that computer programs are self-created. Why would anyone believe that the incredibly complex programming that goes into the life of every existing creature is self-created? To what purpose?
Another pro-evolutionist writes: “Dismissing Science in favor of old beliefs is not new at all but old and repulsive. If there were not photos of the earth being round, I’m sure you fundamentalists would still be asserting that it is flat.”
The great scientists of the past were not atheists. They were believers and saw no contradiction between their belief in a higher power and their scientific pursuits. Studying God’s world is indeed a noble pursuit. It helps us better understand the nature of the Creator and the nature of what He created. How can we not be awed by such an extravagantly beautiful creation as a peacock’s tail? Can an accident create a program that produces over and over again these incredibly colorful designs with movable, shimmering feathers?
It is impossible to fully appreciate the natural world with its beauties and wonders without being cognizant that it is all the result of an awesome creative designer. However, one reader took a “moderate, in-between” position. He wrote: “Obviously, if we can see a star that is a million light years away, the star is at least a million years old, or the light from it would not have reached us yet. To acknowledge that science proves a timetable other than that deduced from the Bible does not make one either an atheist or an evolutionist, merely an intelligent individual who concedes that God neither has revealed (nor needs to reveal) a thoroughly scientific explanation for everything. The Bible tells us the what and why, honest scientists and God’s Church explain the rest.”
If one believes in the infallibility of God’s word, the Bible, then one must believe that God only revealed to us what he believed we needed to know, and that we could with our intelligence and science figure out the rest in the years ahead. The ancient Israelites were not in a position to understand or know what only future science would reveal. And we must remember that when God created Adam, he commanded him to become a lexicographer and a scientist. Thus we read in Genesis 2:19: “And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.” And so God made Adam an inventor of names and an observer of the natural world, a scientist.
Thus science has always been a human pursuit from the very beginning. God did not put any limits on what man could learn by observing the natural world. But God did put moral limits on what man could do with his growing knowledge. Those moral limits were spelled out in the Ten Commandments and elsewhere in the Bible. Without those moral limits, we become barbarians. Atheist evolutionists don’t believe in biblical moral limits. And that is why the debate between atheist evolutionists and those of us who believe in creation is crucial to the future of our civilization.
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Dr. Samuel L. Blumenfeld is the author of nine books on education including NEA: Trojan Horse in American Education, The Whole Language/OBE Fraud, and The Victims of Dick & Jane and Other Essays. Of NEA: Trojan Horse in American Education, former U.S. Senator Steve Symms of Idaho said: “Every so often a book is written that can change the thinking of a nation. This book is one of them.” Mr. Blumenfeld’s columns have appeared in such diverse publications as Reason, The New American, The Chalcedon Report, Insight, Education Digest, Vital Speeches, WorldNetDaily, and others.
