Reading secular publications
like Time reminds me something
retired USMC Lt. Col. Oliver North said, “Every morning I get up and read two
things, the Washington Post and the Bible, just so I can know what both sides are
up to.”
The article about Nye starts
with this: “Bill Nye The Science Guy
follows Undeniable, his defense of evolution,
with his new book, Unstoppable, a
call to action on climate change.” The
first thing that grabbed my attention was the seeming misapplication of the titles. I thought “denier” was a moniker reserved for
climate change non-believers, not those who might believe that, “In the
beginning, God…” Moreover, if evolution
has to be defended, how exactly is it undeniable?
Perhaps
the explanation to Nye’s evangelism for the theory of evolution is best
understood in light of a piece about Paul Karl Feyerabend, a German
renowned for his work on the Philosophy of Science.
According to Feyerabend, new theories
came to be accepted not because of their accord with scientific method, but
because their supporters made use of any trick – rational, rhetorical or ribald
– in order to advance their cause. Without
a fixed ideology, or the introduction of religious tendencies, the only
approach which does not inhibit progress (using whichever definition one sees
fit) is "anything goes": "'anything goes' is not a 'principle' I
hold... but the terrified exclamation of a rationalist who takes a closer look
at history."
The
second thing in the interview that disturbed my Spidey-senses was Nye’s response
to this question: “How do you make the average person understand science?” Nye:
“You have to have learning objectives – things you want to get
across. You want to make a point: Humans and dinosaurs did not live
concurrently. If you get the adjacent
carbon dating of volcanic soil, that’s cool.
But what I want you to get is that ancient dinosaurs and humans did not
live at the same time. The rest is
gravy.”
I
get that Nye has an ideology he wants to get across. What through me for a loop was the need to dogmatically
convince his intended target that, “Humans and dinosaurs did not live
concurrently.” Whether they did, or
didn’t, has no bearing on whether or not Nye evolved from a monkey.
Nye’s
book defending the “undeniable” gives an interesting summation of the unique
position he contends human’s hold on the hierarchy of evolutionary development. Nye says, “We are all so much alike, because
we are all human. But it goes deeper
than that. Every species you’ll
encounter on Earth is, near as we can tell, chemically the same inside. We are all descended from a common
ancestor. We are shaped by the same
forces and factors that influence every other living thing, and yet we emerged
as something unique. Among the estimated
16 million species on Earth, we alone have the ability to comprehend the
process that brought us here.”
It is perhaps the height of haughtiness
that Nye thinks he’s smarter than all the other animals. I’m not sure how Nye can know with scientific
certainty that we alone are the only species with, “the ability to comprehend
the process that brought us here.” The
oldest book of the Bible (Job
12:7-10) has this to say about animals and their knowledge of the
process, “But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in
the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it
will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the
hand of the Lord has done this? In his
hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.”
I do agree with Mr. Nye on one
point, we do have “the ability to comprehend the process that brought us
here.” I simply disagree with Mr. Nye on
what that process is.
I’m quite content to be as
smart as the sheep mentioned in Psalm
103, “Know that the
Lord, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we
ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.”
What Nye really needs is to know the Good Shepherd.
This column appeared in the 6 JAN 2016 Upson Beacon.
Thank you, Colonel, for using your frequent flyer miles so profitably. Lt. Col. Oliver's quote is spot on. There are definitely two sides to the issue of origins. Perhaps Bill Nye would be benefited by reading what some of his own esteemed evolutionary colleagues have stated about the ingrained bias of the evolutionist's world view that forbids an objective conclusion based upon observable evidence (which is what science is supposed to embrace). The theory of (macro)evolution has no ability to explain causality from non-intelligent sources (e.g., coded information in DNA molecules with complex instructions for the biosynthesis of proteins). Here, for example, is a quote from Professor Richard Lewontin, a geneticist (and self-proclaimed Marxist), who is certainly one of the world’s leaders in evolutionary biology. He wrote this very revealing comment that illustrates the implicit philosophical bias against Genesis creation... regardless of whether or not the facts support it:
ReplyDelete‘Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.
(Richard Lewontin, Billions and billions of demons (review of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan, 1997), The New York Review, p. 31, 9 January 1997.)
Since Bill Nye will neither be corrected by the evidence that is deliberately designed in creation to deprive him of an excuse (Romans 1:20), nor pay heed to the animals that know better than him about the origin of life (Job 12:7-10), nor be inclined to agree with the God-given intuition that we have not made ourselves (Psalm 100:3), nor even recognize the admission of his honest colleague (Professor Lewontin, equipped with far more credentials them him in the field of biology), there must be some explanation that continues to blind him to the clear truth which God has made so obvious regarding our Creator.
There is. The cause of this kind of deliberate blindness is explained in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 as follows: "But if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world [Satan] hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them."
Nevertheless, when bias is not a factor, we can hear the voice of reason from our forefathers who so lucidly stated "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights."
How does one lose sight of the "self-evident" truth of our Creator? It's easy. Simply adopt a world view that suppresses the truth (Romans 1:18), and the great deceiver will offer a supermarket of choices that contradict reality and will blind the minds of those so inclined.
Thank God that the Author of all true science still opens the eyes of the blind with His gracious offer: "If ye continue in My Word, then are ye My disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:31-32).