THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, April 11, 1996 TAG: 9604110005
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
J. Emmett Duffy (letter, March 26) writes that creationism is religion and not science and decries the fact that its proponents would block the teaching of ``evolution by natural selection.''
Evolution by natural selection, a synonym for Darwinian evolution, is likewise not science but religion - the religion, the god we must worship if you are to believe its disciples. So says Philip E. Johnson (among many other secular writers of substantial intellectual repute) in his book Darwin on Trial.
Scientific inquiry is or ought to be a disciplined effort to find answers to the questions that human curiosity provokes. Science is not truth but the search for truth. Scientists ought never to consider their conclusions as the final word on any subject but only capable of being tested in the empirical world.
In large part, the work of scientists is their continuing attempt to prove themselves wrong. Tested by this premise, Darwinism fails as science. Famed philosopher of science Karl Popper indicts Darwinian evolution as ``the wrong view of science which betrays itself in the craving to be right.''
America's foremost apologist for evolutionary biology, Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard, in his book The Panda's Thumb, in a moment of candor, states his belief that Darwin's theory of natural selection came not from the observation of scientific data. Darwin, he said, intrigued by the laissez-faire economic philosophy of 18th-century economist Adam Smith, made a ``creative transfer to biology of Adam Smith's basic argument for a rational economy.''
Adam Smith's theory of economics has not been universally accepted by economists. But, incredibly, that theory, appropriated by Darwin to explain his theory of evolution without benefit of substantiation by scientific observation, has been swallowed hook, line and sinker by scientists who ought to know better.
Darwinist scientists believe that the cosmos is a closed system of material causes and effects, and they believe that science must be able to provide a naturalistic explanation for the wonders of biology that appear to have been designed for a purpose. Neither of these foundational beliefs is empirically testable.
The theory of evolution by natural selection is not based upon a fair assessment of scientific evidence. It is merely another kind of fundamentalism.
LEROY T. CANOLES JR.
Norfolk, April 2, 1996 by CNB