I view Zachary Headings’ search for the compatibility between science and the Bible (“Two-Texts Idea Resolves Science-Faith Quandary,” Sept. 2) as a commendable enterprise, but he seems unaware of the assist Christians (and all theists) are getting from scientists who for more than 40 years have been challenging the status of evolutionary theory as science.
In 1985, Michael Denton’s Evolution: A Theory in Crisis outlined the lack of scientific data in support of the major axiom of evolutionary theory (a materialistic view of the origin of life, with step-by-step development beginning with an accidental electric charge to a primordial soup). He pointed out the wrong conclusions of evolution’s supporting assumptions, such as the role of mutations and natural selection. He argued that natural laws, the fine-tuning of our planet for the existence of life and the complexity of cells all point to an inescapable conclusion: Everything that exists was designed by a super-intelligent designer. Denton’s book was the impetus of the movement among scientists called Intelligent Design.
For me, the most critical data concern the role of mutations and natural selection. Evolutionary theory maintains that mutations can cause substantial changes over time leading to a progression to different or more powerful species. Research on mutations since the 1970s shows this to be false. Most mutations are negative; the few that are positive are so minor they would not advance the development of new species. Mutations do not provide the means for progression but only degradation. Read John Sanford’s Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome.
The data are mounting against evolutionary theory. Since it is utterly deficient in credible scientific evidence, why are biblical scholars so prone to say God could have used it as the creation process? Intelligent Design researchers point out that a multitude of entities had to come together at one moment to create a single cell.
Most of what I have learned on this subject can be found in books by researchers and writers who are part of the Discovery Institute (discovery.org). A new book by Stephen Meyer, The Return of the God Hypothesis: Compelling Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God, should be a most interesting summary of Intelligent Design’s conclusions.
George Janzen
Grand Rapids, Mich.,
and Venice, Fla.
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