Distinguishing Between Science and Materialism

Distinguishing Between Science and Materialism

The information we have considered throughout this book has shown us that the theory of evolution has no scientific basis, and that, on the contrary, evolutionist claims conflict with scientific facts. In other words, the force that keeps evolution alive is not science. Evolution may be maintained by some "scientists," but behind it there is another influence at work.

This other influence is materialist philosophy. The theory of evolution is simply materialist philosophy applied to nature, and those who support that philosophy do so despite the scientific evidence.

This relationship between materialism and the theory of evolution is accepted by "authorities" on these concepts. For example, the discovery of Darwin was described by Leon Trotsky as "the highest triumph of the dialectic in the whole field of organic matter."388

The evolutionary biologist Douglas Futuyma writes, "Together with Marx's materialist theory of history and society…. Darwin hewed the final planks of the platform of mechanism and materialism."389 And the evolutionary paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould says, "Darwin applied a consistent philosophy of materialism to his interpretation of nature."390

Karl Marx

Materialist philosophy is one of the oldest beliefs in the world, and assumes the absolute and exclusive existence of matter as its basic principle. According to this view, matter has always existed, and everything that exists consists of matter. This makes belief in a Creator impossible, of course, because if matter has always existed, and if everything consists of matter, then there can be no supramaterial Creator who created it.

So the question becomes one of whether the materialist point of view is correct. One method of testing whether a philosophy is true or false is to investigate the claims it makes about science by using scientific methods. For instance, a philosopher in the tenth century could have claimed that there was a divine tree on the surface of the moon and that all living things actually grew on the branches of this huge tree like fruit, and then fell off onto the earth. Some people might have found this philosophy attractive and believed in it. But in the twentyfirst century, at a time when man has managed to walk on the moon, it is no longer possible to seriously hold such a belief. Whether such a tree exists there or not can be determined by scientific methods, that is, by observation and experiment.

We can therefore investigate by means of scientific methods the materialist claim that matter has existed for all eternity and that this matter can organize itself without a supramaterial Creator and cause life to begin. When we do this, we see that materialism has already collapsed, because the idea that matter has existed since the beginning of time has been overthrown by the Big Bang theory which shows that the universe was created from nothingness. The claim that matter organized itself and created life is the claim that we call the theory of evolution-which this book has been examining-and which has been shown to have collapsed.

However, if someone is determined to believe in materialism and puts his devotion to materialist philosophy before everything else, then he will act differently. If he is a materialist first and a scientist second, he will not abandon materialism when he sees that evolution is disproved by science. On the contrary, he will attempt to uphold and defend materialism by trying to support evolution, no matter what. This is exactly the predicament that evolutionists defending the theory of evolution find themselves in today.

Interestingly enough, they also confess this fact from time to time. A well-known geneticist and outspoken evolutionist, Richard C. Lewontin from Harvard University, confesses that he is "a materialist first and a scientist second" in these words:

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us 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, so we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.391

The term "a priori" that Lewontin uses here is quite important. This philosophical term refers to a presupposition not based on any experimental knowledge. A thought is "a priori" when you consider it to be correct and accept it as so even if there is no information available to confirm it. As the evolutionist Lewontin frankly states, materialism is an "a priori" commitment for evolutionists, who then try to adapt science to this preconception. Since materialism definitely necessitates denying the existence of a Creator, they embrace the only alternative they have to hand, which is the theory of evolution. It does not matter to such scientists that evolution has been belied by scientific facts, because they have accepted it "a priori" as true.

This prejudiced behavior leads evolutionists to a belief that "unconscious matter composed itself," which is contrary not only to science, but also to reason. The concept of "the self-organization of matter," which we examined in an earlier chapter, is an expression of this.

Evolutionist propaganda, which we constantly come across in the Western media and in well-known and "esteemed" science magazines, is the outcome of this ideological necessity. Since evolution is considered to be indispensable, it has been turned into a sacred cow by the circles that set the standards of science.

Some scientists find themselves in a position where they are forced to defend this far-fetched theory, or at least avoid uttering any word against it, in order to maintain their reputations. Academics in Western countries have to have articles published in certain scientific journals in order to attain and hold onto their professorships. All of the journals dealing with biology are under the control of evolutionists, and they do not allow any anti-evolutionist article to appear in them. Biologists, therefore, have to conduct their research under the domination of this theory. They, too, are part of the established order, which regards evolution as an ideological necessity, which is why they blindly defend all the "impossible coincidences" we have been examining in this book.

The Definition of the "Scientific Cause"

The German biologist Hoimar von Ditfurth, a prominent evolutionist, is a good example of this bigoted materialist understanding. After Ditfurth cites an example of the extremely complex composition of life, this is what he says concerning the question of whether it could have emerged by chance or not:

Is such a harmony that emerged only out of coincidences possible in reality? This is the basic question of the whole of biological evolution. ...Critically speaking, we can say that somebody who accepts the modern science of nature has no other alternative than to say "yes," because he aims to explain natural phenomena by means that are understandable and tries to derive them from the laws of nature without reverting to supernatural interference.392

Yes, as Ditfurth states, the materialist scientific approach adopts as its basic principle explaining life by denying "supernatural interference," i.e., creation. Once this principle is adopted, even the most impossible scenarios are easily accepted. It is possible to find examples of this dogmatic mentality in almost all evolutionist literature. Professor Ali Demirsoy, the well-known advocate of evolutionary theory in Turkey, is just one of many. As we have already pointed out, according to Demirsoy, the probability of the coincidental formation of cytochrome-C, an essential protein for life, is "as unlikely as the possibility of a monkey writing the history of humanity on a typewriter without making any mistakes."393

There is no doubt that to accept such a possibility is actually to reject the basic principles of reason and common sense. Even one single correctly formed letter written on a page makes it certain that it was written by a person. When one sees a book of world history, it becomes even more certain that the book has been written by an author. No logical person would agree that the letters in such a huge book could have been put together "by chance."

However, it is very interesting to see that the evolutionist scientist Professor Ali Demirsoy accepts this sort of irrational proposition:

In essence, the probability of the formation of a cytochrome-C sequence is as likely as zero. That is, if life requires a certain sequence, it can be said that this has a probability likely to be realized once in the whole universe. Otherwise some metaphysical powers beyond our definition must have acted in its formation. To accept the latter is not appropriate for the scientific cause. We thus have to look into the first hypothesis.394

Demirsoy writes that he prefers the impossible, in order not to have to accept supernatural forces-in other words, the existence of a Creator. However, the aim of science is not to avoid accepting the existence of supernatural forces. Science can get nowhere with such an aim. It should simply observe nature, free of all prejudices, and draw conclusions from these observations. If these results indicate that there is planning by a supernatural intelligence, then science must accept the fact.

Under close examination, what they call the "scientific cause" is actually the materialist dogma that only matter exists and that all of nature can be explained by material processes. This is not a "scientific cause," or anything like it; it is just materialist philosophy. This philosophy hides behind such superficial words as "scientific cause" and obliges scientists to accept quite unscientific conclusions. Not surprisingly, when Demirsoy cites another subject-the origins of the mitochondria in the cell-he openly accepts chance as an explanation, even though it is "quite contrary to scientific thought":

The heart of the problem is how the mitochondria have acquired this feature, because attaining this feature by chance even by one individual, requires extreme probabilities that are incomprehensible... The enzymes providing respiration and functioning as a catalyst in each step in a different form make up the core of the mechanism. A cell has to contain this enzyme sequence completely, otherwise it is meaningless. Here, despite being contrary to biological thought, in order to avoid a more dogmatic explanation or speculation, we have to accept, though reluctantly, that all the respiration enzymes completely existed in the cell before the cell first came in contact with oxygen.395

The conclusion to be drawn from such pronouncements is that evolution is not a theory arrived at through scientific investigation. On the contrary, the form and substance of this theory were dictated by the requirements of materialistic philosophy. It then turned into a belief or dogma in spite of concrete scientific facts. Again, we can clearly see from evolutionist literature that all of this effort has a "purpose"-and that purpose requires maintaining, at no matter what cost, that living things were not created.

Coming to Terms with the Shocks

As we recently stressed, materialism is the belief that categorically rejects the existence of the nonmaterial (or the "supernatural"). Science, on the other hand, is under no obligation to accept such a dogma. The duty of science is to observe nature and produce results. If these reveal that nature was created, science has to accept the fact.

And science does reveal the fact that living things were created. This is something demonstrated by scientific discoveries, which we may call "design." When we examine the fantastically complex structures in living things, we see that they possess such extraordinary design features that they can never be accounted for by natural processes and coincidences. Every instance of design is evidence for an intelligence; therefore, we must conclude that life, too, was designed by an intelligence. Since this intelligence is not present in matter, it must belong to a nonmaterial wisdom-a superior wisdom, an infinite power, that rules all of nature… In short, life and all living things were created. This is not a dogmatic belief like materialism, but the result of scientific observation and experiment.

We see that this conclusion comes as a terrible shock for scientists who are used to believing in materialism, and that materialism is a science. See how this shock is described by Michael Behe, one of the most important scientists to stand against the theory of evolution in the world today:

The resulting realization that life was designed by an intelligence is a shock to us in the twentieth century who have gotten used to thinking of life as the result of simple natural laws. But other centuries have had their shocks, and there is no reason to suppose that we should escape them.396

Mankind has been freed from such dogmas as that the world is flat, or that it is the center of the universe. And it is now being freed from the materialist and evolutionist dogma that life came about by itself.

The duty that befalls a true scientist in this respect, is to do away with materialist dogma and evaluate the origin of life and living things with the honesty and objectivity befitting a real scientist. A real scientist must come to terms with the "shock," and not tie himself to outdated nineteenth-century dogmas and defend impossible scenarios.

388 Alan Woods, Ted Grant. "Marxism and Darwinism," Reason in Revolt: Marxism and Modern Science, London, 1993
389 Douglas Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology, 2. b., MA: Sinauer, Sunderland, 1986, p. 4. (emphasis added)
390 Alan Woods, Ted Grant, "Marxism and Darwinism," Reason in Revolt: Marxism and Modern Science, London, 1993. (emphasis added)
391 Richard Lewontin, "The Demon-Haunted World," The New York Review of Books, January 9, 1997, p. 28. (emphasis added)
392 Hoimar Von Dithfurth, Im Anfang War Der Wasserstoff (Secret Night of the Dinosaurs), vol. 2, p. 64. (emphasis added)
393 Prof. Dr. Ali Demirsoy, Kalitim ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Meteksan Publishing Co., Ankara, 1984, p. 61. (emphasis added)
394 Ali Demirsoy, Kalitim ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Meteksan Publishing Co., Ankara, 1984, p. 61. (emphasis added)
395 Ali Demirsoy, Kalitim ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Meteksan Publishing Co., Ankara, 1984, p. 94-95. (emphasis added)
396 Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box, The Free Press, New York, 1996, pp. 252-53.