

EVOLUTION IS RELIGION, NOT SCIENCE 

Institute for Creation Research 
 Dr. Henry M. Morris, Ph.D.

Evolutionists often insist that evolution is a proved fact of science, 
providing the very framework of scientific interpretation, especially in the 
biological sciences.  This of course, is nothing but wishful thinking.  
Evolution is not even a scientific hypothesis, since there is no conceivable 
way in which it can be tested. 

THE RELIGIOUS ESSENCE OF EVOLUTIONISM
 :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

As a matter of fact, many leading evolutionists have recognized the essentially 
"religious" character of evolutionism.  Even though they themselves believe 
evolution to be true, they acknowledge the fact that they believe it!  
"Science", however, is not supposed to be something one "believes".  Science 
is knowledge - that which can be demonstrated and observed and repeated. 
Evolution cannot be proved, or even tested; it can only be believed.  

For example, two leading evolutionary biologists have described modern neo-
Darwinism as "part of an evolutionary dogma accepted by most of us as part of 
our training".  A prominent British biologist, a Fellow of the Royal Society, 
in the Introduction to the 1971 edition of Darwin's Origin of Species said 
that "belief in the theory of evolution" was "exactly parallel to belief in 
special creation", with evolution merely "a satisfactory faith on which to 
base our interpretation of nature".  

G.W. Harper calls it a "metaphysical belief".  Ernst Mayr, the outstanding 
Harvard evolutionary biologist, calls evolution "man's world view today".  Sir 
Julian Huxley, probably the outstanding evolutionist of the twentieth century 
saw "evolution as a universal and all-pervading process and, in fact, nothing 
less than "the whole of reality".  

A leading evolutionary geneticist of the present day, writing an obituary for 
Theodosius Dobzhansky, who himself was probably the nation's leading 
evolutionist at the time of his death in 1975, says that Dobzhansky's view of 
evolution followed that of the notorious Jesuit priest, de Chardin.  The place 
of biological evolution in human thought was, according to Dobzhansky, best 
expressed in a passage that he often quoted from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: 
'(Evolution) is a general postulate to which all theories, all hypotheses, all 
systems must henceforward bow and which they must satisfy in order to be 
thinkable and true. Evolution is a light which illuminates all facts, a 
trajectory which all lines of thought must follow.'  

The British physicist, H.S. Lipson, has reached the following conclusion.  In 
fact, evolution became in a sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists 
have accepted it and many are prepared to 'bend' their observations to fit in 
with it.  The man whom Dobzhansky called "France's leading zoologist", 
although himself an evolutionist, said that scientists should "destroy the 
myth of evolution" as a simple phenomenon which is "unfolding before us". 

Dr. Colin Patterson, Senior Paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural 
History, by any accounting one of the world's top evolutionists today, has 
recently called evolution "positively anti-knowledge", saying that "all my 
life I had been duped into taking evolutionism as revealed truth".  In another 
address he called evolution "story telling".  All of the above-cited 
authorities are (or were) among the world's foremost authorities on 
evolutionism.  

Note again the terms which they use in describing evolution:

 Evolutionary dogma
 A scientific religion
 A satisfactory faith 
 The myth of evolution 
 Man's world view  
 Anti-knowledge  
 All-pervading process 
 Revealed truth 
 The whole of reality 
 An illuminating light 
 Metaphysical belief 
 Story-telling 

Charles Darwin himself called evolution "this grand view of life". Now such 
grandiloquent terms as these are not scientific terms! One does not call the 
law of gravity, for example, "a satisfactory faith", nor speak of the view, 
but it is not science.  Its very comprehensiveness makes it impossible even to 
test scientifically. As Ehrlich and Birch have said: "EVERY CONCEIVABLE 
OBSERVATION CAN BE FITTED INTO IT.  NO ONE CAN THINK OF WAYS IN WHICH TO TEST 
IT." 

RELIGIONS BASED ON EVOLUTION
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In view of the fundamentally religious nature of evolution, it is not 
surprising to find that most of the world religions are themselves based on 
evolution.  It is certainly unfitting for educators to object to teaching 
scientific creationism in public schools on the ground that it supports 
Biblical Christianity when the exisiting pervasive teaching of evolution is 
supporting a host of other religions and philosophies.  

The concept of evolution did not originate with Charles Darwin. It has been 
the essential ingredient of all pagan religions and philosophies from time 
immemorial (e.g., atomism, pantheism, stoicism, gnosticism and all other 
humanistic and polytheistic systems).  All beliefs which assume the ultimacy 
of the space/time/matter universe, presupposing that the universe has existed 
from eternity, are fundamentally evolutionary systems.  The cosmos, with its 
innate laws and forces, is the only ultimate reality.  Depending on the 
sophistication of the system, the forces of the universe may be personified as 
gods and goddesses who organized the eternal chaotic cosmos into its present 
form (as in ancient Babylonian and Egyptian religions), or else may themselves 
be invested with organizing capabilities (as in modern scientific 
evolutionism).  In all such cases, these are merely different varities of the 
fundamental evolutionist world view, the essential feature of which is the 
denial that there is one true God and Creator of all things.  

In this perspective, it becomes obvious that most of the great world religions 
- Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Hinduism, Animism, etc. are based on 
evolution.  Creationism is the basis of only such systems as Orthodox Judaism, 
Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism, as well as most modern pseudo-Christian 
cults.  All of this points up the absurdity of banning creationist teaching 
from the schools on the basis that it is religious.  

The schools are already saturated with the teaching of religion in the guise of 
evolutionary "science".  In the modern school of course, this teaching mostly 
takes the form of secular humanism, which its own proponents claim to be a 
"non-theistic religion". It should also be recalled that such philosophies as 
communism, fascism, socialism, nazism, and anarchism have been claimed by 
their founders and promoters to be based on what they reguard as scientific 
evolutionism.  If creation is excluded from the schools because it is 
compatible with Christian "fundamentalism", should not evolution also be 
banned since it is the basis of communism and nazism? 

THE SCIENTIFIC IRRELEVANCE OF EVOLUTION
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Some people have deplored the criticism of evolution on the ground that this is 
attacking science itself.  In a recent debate, the evolutionist whom the 
writer debated did not attempt to give any scientific evidences for evolution, 
electing instead to spend his time defending such scientific concepts as 
atomic theory, relativity, gravity, quantum theory and science in general, 
implying that attacking evolution is tantamount to attacking science!  The 
fact is, however, that the elimination of evolutionary interpretations fron 
science would hardly be noticed at all, in terms of real scientific 
understanding and accomplishment.  

G.W. Harper comments on this subject as follows: It is frequently claimed that 
Darwinism is central to modern biology.  On the contrary, if all references to 
Darwinism suddenly disappeared, biology would remain substantially unchanged.  
It would merely have lost a little color.  Grandiose doctrines in science are 
like some occupants of high office; they sound very important but have in fact 
been promoted to a posotion of ineffectuality.  

The scientific irrelevance of evolutionism has been strikingly (but, no doubt, 
inadvertently) illustrated in a recent issue of Science News.  Thes widely 
read and highly regarded weekly scientific journal was commemorating its 
sixtieth anniversary, and this included a listing of what it called the 
"scientific highlights" of the past sixty years.  Of the sixty important 
scientific discoveries and accomplishments which were chosen, only six could 
be regarded as related in any way to e volutionist thought.  

These six were as follows: (1.) 1927. Discovery that radiation increases 
mutation rates in fruit flies. (2.) 1943. Demonstration that nucleic acids 
carry genetic information. (3.) 1948. Enunciation of the "big bang" cosmology. 
(4.) 1953. Discovery of the "double helix" structure of DNA. (5.) 1961. First 
step taken in cracking the genetic code. (6.) 1973. Development of procedures 
for producing recombinant DNA molecules. 

Four of these six "highlights" are related to the structure and function of 
DNA.  Even though evolutionists have supposed that these concepts somehow 
correlate with evolution, the fact is that the remarkable DNA molecule 
provides strong evidence of original creation (since it is far too complex to 
have arisen by chance) and of conservation of that creation (since the genetic 
code acts to guarantee reproduction of the same kind, not evolution of new 
kinds).  

One of the two other highlights showed how to increase mutations but, since all 
known true mutations are harmful, this contributed mothing whatever to the 
understanding of evolution.  One (the "big bang" concept) was indeed an 
evolutionary idea but it is still an idea which has never been proved and 
today is increasingly being recognized as incompatible with basic physical 
laws.  Consequently, it is fair to conclude that no truly significant 
accomplishment of modern science either depends on evolution or supports 
evolution!  There would certainly be no detriment to real scientific learning 
if creation was included in school curicula. It would on the other hand, prove 
a detriment to the pervasive religion of atheistic humanism which now controls 
our schools. 


