Creating an argument, but in reverse

Many years ago I wrote for Quest Magazine. The lead story in the April 1982 issue was my piece on The Creation Debate. On the cover was a microscope, a pair of eyeglasses, and two books – the Holy Bible, and The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. To do the story, I interviewed the curator of Vertebrate Palaeontology at the Royal Ontario Museum, president of the Ontario chapter of Creation Science, university professors of geology, zoology and other disciplines, a high-school science teacher, a bureaucrat with the Ontario Ministry of Education, scientist David Suzuki, and a creationist with 100 Huntley Street.

I looked at that article the other day, and two quotes jumped out. One was from Suzuki. I had told him about an August 1980 Gallup Poll in the U.S. which said 40% of American adults believed in the literal interpretation of the Bible. Suzuki said, “I don’t believe it.” The other quote was from the creationist, and here’s what he said: “If you believe in evolution, then there was no man Adam, so you must deny the original sin, so you don’t need redemption and don’t need a redeemer, which denies Jesus as our Savior.”

He couldn’t buy into evolution because of his religious convictions. Was there any science at work here? No, because he started with a conclusion and fit his life to that. Which brings me to Gary Goodyear, the Cambridge, Ontario chiropractor who is Canada’s Minister of State for Science and Technology.

The first time a reporter asked Goodyear if he believed in evolution, he refused to answer on the grounds that he is a Christian. He said asking him about his religion was inappropriate. A few days later he was on TV, was asked the same question, said of course he believes in evolution, then gave a long-winded diatribe that didn’t make much sense.

Apparently, Canada’s Minister of State for Science and Technology is a creationist. Some people think there’s nothing wrong with that, but I’m not one of them. I don’t care what anyone believes, but a creationist sure as hell shouldn’t be Minister of State for Science and Technology. That would be like installing the last CEO of AIG as Minister of Finance, a beer-swilling potbelly as Minister of Sport, or a free-school advocate who disapproves of grades, tests, and curriculum as Minister of Education. But a creationist as Minister of Science? I could see George W. Bush making an appointment like that, but am surprised at Stephen Harper. It once again shows that Cabinet appointments in Canada have nothing to do with suitability for a portfolio, and everything to do with politics. Speaking of Bush, after being elected President, he was asked about evolution and said, “Well, the jury’s still out on that one.”

It is?

Twenty-seven years ago David Suzuki was wrong to so casually dismiss the results of that U.S. Gallup Poll. He was wrong because this ain’t no small group. From time to time I have spoken to those who fervently believe that the earth is a few thousand years old. Some of them have university degrees. They painstakingly build an argument that creationism deserves as much face time as the ‘theory’ of evolution, and say it should be taught in our schools. They are totally off base because creationism is about religion, and that’s all it’s about. It has nothing to do with science. Likewise, evolution has nothing to do with religion, and has only to do with science.

Exploring the origins of mankind is sensitive ground for some of those who claim to know God, but apparently, many Americans know Him. A recent Gallup Poll said only 39% of them believe in evolution, while another Gallup Poll said one-third of Americans believe the Bible to be literally true. (I’m surprised it wasn’t higher.) But then this also depends on who does the polling and who reports the results.

For example, the National Center for Science Education, which “defends the teaching of evolution in public schools,” said 58% of Canadians accept evolution, while 22% think God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years. On the other hand, a Canadian Press-Decima Research Poll said 34% of Canadians go for evolution, and 26% opt for God-made human beings of recent vintage. That still leaves a whopping 40% out of the picture, but was good enough for the Canadian Catholic News to report on it this way: ‘Poll shows Canadians divided on role God played in human creation.’

This was their spin on things. When one reports on polls, of course, it’s all about spin, and two groups particularly good with spin are politicians and creationists.

Those with unbridled faith in religion – whatever the religion – will never present a cogent argument on this subject. They can’t. They are too grounded in religious fervour and dogma to look at it intellectually. Just go back to that 100 Huntley creationist quote from my 1982 Quest Magazine story: “If you believe in evolution, then there was no man Adam, so you must deny the original sin, so you don’t need redemption and don’t need a redeemer, which denies Jesus as our Savior.”

Thus, evolution must be false since it goes against everything this man was taught at Sunday school. But I have news for him. Ever since Darwin’s 1859 revelation, there hasn’t been one shred of evidence, apart from religious belief, to support creationism. Likewise, in the past 150 years, the evidence supporting evolution is a slam dunk; if evolution isn’t a fact, then the earth might as well be flat, and the sun might as well revolve us.

Here is one final quote to mull over: ‘There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been breathed by the Creator into a few forms or one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed laws of gravity, from so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.’

Who said that? Why, Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species.