Examine the Evidence

IF YOU were on trial in a court of law, would it be fair if only your opponent was allowed to present evidence? No, you would surely want the court to hear your side of the matter.

For many years, only evolution’s side has been heard in colleges, high schools, even grade schools, and in nearly all scientific literature published throughout most of the world. But now there is a rising demand to hear the other side.

The Reasonable Choice

Reasonable persons agree that the only fair method is to examine the evidence on both sides, both for and against a disputed theory. That is how one arrives at the truth.

Many scientists now admit that this is what should be done with the evolution theory. This was even noted in the foreword of a special edition of Darwin’s famous book Origin of Species. The magazine The American Biology Teacher offered this comment about it:

“W. H. Thompson, who was selected to write the foreword to a centennial edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species had this to say: ‘As we know, there is a great divergence of opinion among biologists, not only about the causes of evolution but even about the actual process.

“‘This divergence exists because the evidence is unsatisfactory and does not permit any certain conclusion. It is therefore right and proper to draw the attention of the non-scientific public to the disagreements about evolution.’”

The biology publication goes on to note another observation by Thompson, a highly respected scientist. He said:

“But some recent remarks of evolutionists show that they think this unreasonable. This situation, where [scientific] men rally to the defense of a doctrine they are unable to define scientifically, much less demonstrate with scientific rigor, attempting to maintain its credit with the public by the suppression of criticism and the elimination of difficulties, is abnormal and undesirable in science.”

The continued attempt to suppress criticism has become unacceptable to more persons. This can be seen by the requests being made in recent times by many scientists, educators and parents that opposing views be given equal treatment in schools. Their feeling is typified by a comment offered in the Washington, D.C., Evening Star and Daily News, in an article by W. Willoughby:

“The Bible and a large segment of competent scientists indicate to me that it all happened one way [creation]; my children, for whom I pay tax money to the state of Virginia to have educated in the best possible way, are being taught that it happened another way [evolution]. . . .

“If there is any place in the world where there should be fair play, it should be in the scientific world. Yet the [series of biology books commonly used in schools] deliberately excludes the argument for design in the origin of the universe . . .

“What I want, then, is that a well-balanced, non-cynical presentation be given in the classrooms, on the origin of man, based on the best scholarship and research each side can present.”

“Intellectually Dishonest”

Such requests have usually met with intense opposition from many evolutionists who fight against any other idea appearing in school textbooks. But, as physicist L. Dolphin wrote to the San Francisco Chronicle: “It is intellectually dishonest to fail to answer some of these problem areas in textbooks, and to exclude other scientifically based models on the grounds that they are merely fundamentalistic religious beliefs.”

Truly it is “intellectually dishonest” not to want any opposing views heard on such a disputed matter. It has to make reasonable persons ask, Why?

Reasonable persons also consider it unworthy of serious scholarship to try to stamp out criticism of evolution by dictatorial methods, by intimidation, or by attitudes such as that of prominent American scientist Isaac Asimov, who said that questioning the theory of evolution is like “attacking the theory of gravity.” He added: “It’s a fact, not speculation.”

But gravity can be demonstrated, tested, and proved in the laboratory and elsewhere. Evolution cannot, which is why so many are challenging it. No one is challenging the idea of gravity.

Trying to insult the intelligence of critics of evolution to silence them is especially “intellectually dishonest” when many evolutionists themselves admit that the theory has not been proved. In fact, Asimov himself admitted that much of evolution is built up, in his words, “from judicious guessing”!

The reality of the situation is aptly described by New Scientist when it reviewed a book supporting evolution. It said that the book “inevitably . . . often has the ‘woolliness’ to be found in recent books on the evolution of man. We frankly do not know how or why man evolved. . . . Yet if such a [book] restricted itself to the facts it would be slim indeed.”

No, it will no longer do to try to browbeat or insult persons who challenge evolution, or to imply that they are intellectually deficient. To get to the heart of the matter, we have to put the “guessing” aside and honestly analyze the facts that are available.

What happens when we do examine the facts, without the “guessing”? Does the evidence support the evolution of life from inanimate chemicals up to an apelike beast and finally to modern man? Or does it support the Bible’s view that God created man, and other kinds of life, directly? Is evolution, as one scientist says, “a fact”? Or is it, as another says, “the greatest fairy tale ever to masquerade under the name of science”?