Scientists should be open to having cherished theories challenged and eventually overturned, but in reality scientists are fallible and naturally have their own individual biases, as we all do, and being truly objective is easier said than done. Once trained in certain ways, how many of us are loath to embrace new techniques? Once taught evolution as fact in school, how hard it is to see that one has been misled with false science. In reality, of course, truth tends not to be always welcome to the supposedly objective scientific mind. How often in history have gifted inventors had to struggle against entrenched peer opinion; validated only after years of suffering? Where theology was once regarded as the queen of sciences, some modern thinkers seem to regard physics as superior to theology.
The materialist belief system known as Naturalism, or Scientism, is promoted in pursuit of the goal of eliminating religion. But “religion” is a broad term, open to various definitions which can overlap. Every belief system requires faith by the adherent. Naturalism requires faith to believe there is no transcendent Creator God, and total faith in random chance-time and time again-against mind-boggling odds. (Are we not told that the evolution of eyes took place many times, separately, in different creatures? Think about the colossal odds against such possibility). No belief system can avoid offering an explanation for why things exist and why certain standards are either right or wrong. Regarding the lamentable murderous excesses of Social Darwinism, even zealous proponents of Naturalism are unavoidably drawn into discussion of human rights, and this leads on to discussion of what “rights” are and what is their ultimate source. Thus, consideration of the existence of conscience and of a possible moral source “beyond” human beings eventually become fair subject matter for reflection, even for advocates of Naturalism. Given the range and nature of issues regarded as faith-defining criteria, especially the appeal to Mother Nature in place of the Creator God, should not Naturalism itself be regarded as religious belief?
In our largely neo-pagan world, evolutionary propagandists generally get a dream run in the secular media. Several cable TV channels provide a steady diet of pro-evolution documentaries, and there seems to be endless newspaper and magazine articles writing up some new supposed discovery. A whole industry centered on evolution has arisen and career jobs are involved in fostering the myth of evolution. Turning this around requires a major paradigm shift. How many Christian schools have simply follow suit, instead of imparting the pros and cons of, say, typology versus transformism to students? Contrast this to the often-hostile attention and misrepresentation given to those who favour Creation.
The advent of the Intelligent Design movement has resulted in a superb set of arguments being presented, from within science itself, which profoundly challenge evolutionary beliefs of proponents of Naturalism. The strength of the ID writers is twofold:
the compelling arguments that Design is empirically detectable, of which Michael Behe’s concept of “Irreducible Complexity” is a superb example, and
the arguments against the zealots of Naturalism who insist that only science shall be addressed. Phillip Johnson has shown incisively that evolution beliefs are really philosophical beliefs, not to be swayed too much by actual scientific findings.