We are here because one odd group of fish had a peculiar fin anatomy
that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because comets
struck the earth and wiped out dinosaurs, thereby giving mammals a chance
not otherwise available (so thank your lucky stars in a literal sense);
because the earth never froze entirely during the ice age; because a
small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years
ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn
for a "higher" answer - but none exists. This explanation, though
superficially troubling, if not terrifying, is ultimately liberating
and exhilarating.
S.J. Gould
from David Friend and the editors of _Life_ magazine, "The Meaning of Life",
pg 33. Cited from "Can Man Live Without God" Ravi Zacharias, pg 31.
"It is already evident that all the objective phenomena of the history
of life can be explained by purely naturalistic, or in the proper
meaning of a much abused word, materialistic factors....Man is the
result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in
mind." G. G. Simpson "The Meaning of Evolution" (New Haven, Conn.
Yale University Press, 1967)
Cold and austere, proposing no explanation but imposing an ascetic
renunciation of all other spiritual fare, this idea was not of a kind
to allay anxiety, but aggravated it instead. By a single stroke it claimed
to sweep away the tradition of a hundred thousand years, which had
become one with human nature itself. It wrote an end to the ancient
animist covenant between man and nature, leaving nothing in place of that
precious bond but an anxious quest in a frozen universe of solitude.
With nothing to recommend it but a certain puritan arrogance, how could
such an idea win acceptance? It did not; it still has not. It has
however commanded recognition; but that is because, solely because, of its
prodigious power of performance....But there is this too; just as an initial
"choice" in the biological evolution of a species can be binding upon its
entire future, so the choice of scientific practice, an unconscious choice
in the beginning, has launched the evolution of culture on a one-way
path; onto a track which nineteenth century scientism saw leading infallibly
upward to an empyrean noon hour for mankind, whereas what we see opening
before us today is an abyss of darkness.
Jaques Monod
"Chance and Necessity" pg. 170
When Darwin deduced the theory of natural selection to explain the
adaptations in which he had previously seen the handiwork of God, he knew
that he was committing cultural murder. He understood immediately that
if natural selection explained adaptations, and evolution by descent were
true, then the argument from design was dead and all that went with it,
namely the existence of a personal god, free will, life after death,
immutable moral laws, and ultimate meaning in life. The immediate reactions
to Darwin's _On the Origin of Species_ exhibit, in addition to favorable
and admiring responses from a relatively few scientists, an understandable
fear and disgust that has never disappeared from Western culture.
William B. Provine "First Things" no. 6 (October 1990):23 cited from
"Evidence of Purpose" Continuum New York 1994 pg. 30
Cosmic teleology must be rejected by science....I do not think there is a
modern scientist left who still believes in it,"
Ernst Mayr, "Ideological Resistance" p. 131 cited from
"Evidence of Purpose" Continuum New York 1994 pg. 26
[Our descent] is a journey...of fear and wonder at an uncaring
universe and the prospect of death, of oneness with nature and
alienation from nature....Man's evolutionary journey has prepared him
to face life and the universe with acceptance in the face of meaning-
lessness and hope in the face of ignorance.
Steven D. Schafersman "Scientists Confront Creationists" pg. 243
Some shrink from the conclusion that the human species was not designed,
has no purpose, and is the product of mere mechanical mechanisms-but
this seems to be the message of evolution.
Douglas Futuyma "Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution", Pantheon,
1983, pp 12-13.
If you really accept evolution by natural selection, Provine says, you
soon find yourself face to face with a set of implications that under-
mine the fundamental assumptions of Western civilization:
o There are no gods or purposive forces in nature.
o There are no inherent moral or ethical laws to guide human society
o Human beings are complex machines that become ethical beings by way
of heredity and environmental influences, with environment playing
a somewhat smaller role than is commonly supposed.
o There is no free will in the traditional sense of being able to make
unpredictable choices.
o When we die, we die - finally and completely and forever.
from "The Faith of an Atheist" by George Liles, written about Cornell
Biology Prof. William Provine. (who, by the way, has participated on this
reflector) "MD" Magazine, March, 1994 pg. 60
"The hypothesis of spontaneous generation and the allied carbon-theory are
of great importance in deciding the long-standing conflict between the
teleological (dualistic) and the mechanical (monistic) interpretation of
phenomena. Since Darwin gave us the key to the monistic explanation of
organization in his theory of selection forty years ago, it has become
possible for us to trace the splendid variety of orderly tendendcies of
the organic world to mechanical, natural causes, just as we could formerly
in the inorganic world alone. Hence the supernatural and telic forces, to
which the scientist had had recourse, have been rendered superfluous.
Ernst Haeckel, "The Riddle of the Universe", pg 258, translated by Joseph McCabe
Prometheus Books, 1992, Originally published: New York : Harper & Brothers,
1900
(also, "...the whole of the inorganic sciences have become purely mechanical
and at the same time purely atheistic. pg 260)
Evolutionists don't always go out of their way to make this point, though.
Philip Johnson cites Will Provine in his latesy book _Reason in the Balance_
"Consider the following fantasy: The National Academy of Sciences publishes
a position paper on science and religion stating that modern science leads
directly to atheism. What would happen to their funding?" op. cit. pg 189.
-jpt
--John P. Turnbull (jpt@ccfadm.eeg.ccf.org)Cleveland Clinic FoundationDept. of Neurology, Section of Neurological Computing