I Appreciate Honesty by Evolutionists
Posted by: forthrightmag <forthrightmag@...>
http://www.forthright.net
Going straight to the Cross
Evidence? Not behind this cell ...
I Appreciate Honesty by Evolutionists
by Barry Newton
In preparing for yet another multimedia seminar on
evolution, I stumbled upon a book in the San Jose
public library which amazed me. The following six
quotes are from Franklin Harold’s The Way of the
Cell, published by Oxford University Press in
2001, and they illustrate the actual bankruptcy
behind what so many assume has been proven. While
he is an ardent evolutionist, I appreciate
Franklin’s candor and brute honesty about the
paucity of scientific evidence to support their
evolutionary tale about the origin of life and the
assumed prebiotic soup from which it sprang.
“Life arose here on earth from inanimate matter,
by some kind of evolutionary process, about four
billion years ago. This is not a statement of
demonstrable fact, but an assumption almost
universally shared by specialists as well as
scientists in general. It is not supported by any
direct evidence.” p. 236.
“It is important to acknowledge the degree to
which this field of inquiry is founded on surmise.
The reasons for the general consensus are, first,
the lack of a more palatable alternative; and
second, that absent the presumption of a
terrestrial and natural genesis there would be no
basis for scientific inquiry into the origin of
life.” p. 237.
“It bears repeating that we know very little for
certain, and that it is seldom possible to
formulate hypotheses that can be falsified by
experiment; the opinions of scholars are,
therefore, colored by personal beliefs about what
should have happened, and even by what is meant by
life.” p. 239.
“A historical theory must account for historical
events, and in truth there is not (and perhaps
cannot be) convincing evidence that there was ever
a rich broth of organic substances, or that it
played the role assigned to it by the theory.” p.
244.
“Creation myths lie at the heart of all human
cultures, and science is no exception; until we
know where we came from, we do not know who we
are. The origin of life is also a stubborn
problem, with no solution in sight … Biology
textbooks often include a chapter on how life may
have arisen from non-life, and while responsible
authors do not fail to underscore the difficulties
and uncertainties, readers still come away with
the impression that the answer is almost within
their grasp.” pp. 235-236.
“What is life? How we answer that question must
eventually impinge on the practice of medicine and
law, influence what we teach our children, nudge
the direction of economics and public policy, and
color our attitude to man, God, and all ultimate
concerns.” p. 253.
While I object to his implication that the
biblical story of creation is just another myth, I
am grateful that he acknowledges the
evolutionist's story of origins is myth. In view
of the cascading significance of what we believe
about our origin, it is tragic that so many people
have falsely concluded that the weight of
scientific evidence backs the evolutionist's tale
about how life began. Accordingly, they are led to
the erroneous conclusion that the story of a
prebiotic soup is actual history. Unfortunately,
this unwarranted belief has shaped values which in
turn have influenced behavior. Tragic indeed.