Science
in Christian PerspectiveScience
in Christian Perspective
Letter to the Editor
Re: Review of The Creation: Facts,
Theories, and Faith
Theodore L. Handrich
From: JASA 7
(June 1955): 23.
Editor:
May I say a few words in reply to the uncomplimentary review of my book, "The Creation: Facts,
Theories, and Faith" in the March issue of your
"Journal" ?
Book reviews can be quite revealing, more so when viewed in juxtaposition than when viewed separately. In another review a Christian professor of biology of Ph.D. rank had criticized my book on the following ,grounds "Some of the statements regarding evolution do not properly present modern evolutionary thinking. On page 61 we are told that Darwinism is not as popular as it was in the days immediately following Darwin, and two statements from books published in 1927 and 1929 are quoted in substantiation. Actually a modified form of Darwinism is still the prevailing theory of evolution today."
In your review, now, a professor of anthropology at a different college comes along and writes: "Evolution, as in so many anti-evolutionary writings, is treated almost completely as Darwinianism unchanged. The author believes that 'The strongest proof against it is that acquired traits are not transmissable to one's offspring. . .' when evolutionists for over a generation have known this and have developed their theories accordingly."
The two professors obviously do not agree. If two men who both have that "formal background in the scientific disciplines related to the subject" can see the same thing so differently, it again emphasizes the truth which I attempted to stress in my book that man's scientific knowledge is uncertain, whereas God's truth is certain.
Both professors criticized me for quoting not only recent writers, but also men of the 20's and the 30's. Also this, if it is a foregone conclusion that all scientific opinions become obsolete in twenty or thirty years, should caution us not to lend to much credulity to any evolutionistic theories or other philosophical specula tions of today. In another ten years or so they will be discarded, anyway.
Some of the studies made by the A. S. A. are good. I liked the attempt of Russell Maatman to define " natural law" in the March issue. Such underlying concepts will help to keep the science of Christian men from becoming too much like secularistic science. If we remember that "This grand natural law that only God can know is the simple, all-embracing law of which man's generalized laws are but feeble prototypes," then we are not so apt to lay too much stress upon these feeble prototypes in building our world-view.