The Madness of Science Falsely So Called

“O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called, which some, professing, have erred concerning the faith . . .” (1 Timothy 6:20-21a)

In his 2005 book titled The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution, Richard Dawkins, the undisputed leader of the aggressive New Atheists, wrote: “The fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved literally out of nothing—is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice”.[1]

Dawkins has admitted what few secularists will; namely, that those who dogmatically defend the presuppositions of (so-called) modern science can be best described as being “mad”. Mark Twain, himself a legendary skeptic, offered this parody of Christian belief: “Faith is believing what you know isn’t true”. Twain’s definition is far more apropos of Dawkins and scientists like him than Bible-believing Christians. Why do I say this?

Consider what Dawkins believes to be the two foundational events on the path to explaining everything. First, that “the universe evolved literally out of nothing”, by which he means the origin of the universe in the primeval event of the Big Bang. That our universe must have had a beginning is inescapable, since according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics it would now be cold, dead, and lifeless if it were in fact eternal. However, in claiming that it originated “literally out of nothing” he is asserting that the process that brought it into existence violated the First Law of Thermodynamics. Although modern scientists will suffer no other event in all of history to be explained by a process that involves the creation or destruction of matter or energy, they accept it as the “best” explanation for the origin of the universe.

Second, that “life evolved out of nearly nothing”, by which he means the origin of life by the processes of random variation and natural selection most often attributed to Darwin. The problem is that Darwinian evolution, even if it were a valid mechanism in giving rise to new species, can only operate on life forms already capable of reproduction. Evolution cannot account for the origin of life itself. How did the first replicating life form begin? Though modern scientists are loathe to admit it, their answer is spontaneous generation in which life originated from non-life. Again, although modern scientists will suffer no other event in all of history to be explained by a process that violates their own empirically validated Law of Biogenesis, they accept it as the “best” explanation for the origin of life.

This is indeed “mad[ness]”! Such madness was foreseen in the Scriptures when Paul warned Timothy to avoid “science falsely so called” (1 Timothy 6:20). But such madness is what must be embraced by rebellious men who are philosophically committed to “chang[ing] the truth of God for a lie, and worship[ing] and serv[ing] the creat[ion] more than the Creator” (Romans 1:25). As evolutionary biologist and geneticist Richard Lewontin admitted, “We are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create … a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive … for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door”.[2]

Endnotes:

[1] Richard Dawkins, The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution (First Mariner Books, New York, NY, 2005) p. 613.

[2] Richard Lewontin, “Billions and Billions of Demons”, New York Review, January 9, 1997, p. 31.