Anne and Paul Ehrlich ‘s article on evolutionary theory
(MOTHER NO. 88) sparked a good bit of controversy. So, to
air the other side of this question, we present the
following article.
by Duane T. Gish, Ph.D.
I was surprised by the polemical nature of the article
“Evolution and Ecoscience,” by Anne and Paul Ehrlich, which
appeared in the July/August issue of THE MOTHER EARTH
NEWS®. Furthermore, the article contains a number of
inaccuracies and badly distorts many of the issues involved
in the creation/evolution controversy.
The Ehrlichs state that “no knowledgeable biologist doubts
that evolution has occurred.” There are actually many
knowledgeable biologists, most of whom have been trained in
some of the world’s leading universities, who have become
convinced that evolutionary theory is scientifically
untenable and, moreover, that creation is a far more
credible explanation ….
While propagating the dogma of evolution in 1984, Paul
Ehrlich has apparently forgotten the statement that he
published in an article with L.C. Birch in Nature
in 1967 (volume 214, page 352): “Our theory of evolution
has become one . . . which cannot be refuted by any
possible observations. Every conceivable observation can be
fitted into it. It is thus `outside of empirical science’
but not necessarily false. No one can think of ways in
which to test it. Ideas, either without basis or based on a
few laboratory experiments carried out in extremely
simplified systems, have attained currency far beyond their
validity. They have become part of an evolutionary dogma
accepted by most of us as part of our training.” It is
obvious that a theory which is outside of empirical
science, which is incapable of being tested, and which has
become so plastic that no matter what the data may be,
every conceivable observation can be made to fit into it,
does not qualify as a scientific theory. Indeed, evolution
theory has become a dogma, the basic tenet of a
mechanistic, materialistic philosophy that dominates our
educational and scientific establishments.
The Ehrlichs state that “without evolutionary theory,
biology would be a meaningless hodgepodge of facts.” The
science of biology is actually a study of the
operation of living organisms-their biochemistry,
physiology, reproduction, development, and anatomy.
Evolutionary theory, on the other hand, is a collection of
notions about how living organisms came about in the first
place. Evolutionary theory is a theory about the
history of living organisms, not their
operation.
Pierre Grasse, the most distinguished of French zoologists,
an evolutionist whose knowledge of the living world is
encyclopedic, has stated that biology tells us nothing
about the origin of living things ….
The Ehrlichs state that “medicine has already suffered from
a widespread lack of appreciation of evolutionary
principles” and imply that the overuse of antibiotics was
due to ignorance of those principles. This is simply
nonsense. The vast majority of scientists and physicians
involved, indoctrinated in evolutionary theory, were well
aware of these principles and would have proceeded in
exactly the same manner with or without the theory. The
simple fact is that in any population of bacteria there is
considerable genetic variability. Long before these
bacteria were exposed to antibiotics, some of these
individuals possessed enzymes able to destroy certain
antibiotics-an ability purely coincidental to their normal
function in the metabolic activities of these bacteria.
When in the course of time man exposed these bacteria to
antibiotics, a few individuals in each population that
possessed those enzymes had the ability to destroy the
antibiotic and survive. They flourished and in some cases
have replaced the original susceptible populations.
Evolutionary theory had nothing to do with the discovery
and utilization of this knowledge ….
Evolutionary theory has actually seriously hindered medical
science. For many years the discovery of the true functions
of such medically important organs as the tonsils and
appendix and even of such vital glands as the pineal and
thyroid glands were neglected, since in earlier times these
organs were considered to be useless vestigial organs left
over from our evolutionary past.
The science of embryology was misdirected for many years
because of the now thoroughly discredited notion that an
embryo, during its development, recapitulates its
evolutionary history. Thus, embryologists wasted an
enormous amount of time attempting to use embryology to
work out evolutionary phylogenetic trees rather than
discovering why embryos develop the way they do. Russia,
where evolution is taught as part of a state-sanctioned
atheistic religion, has been the scene of some of the most
catastrophic ecological disasters in modern times
….
Ever since Darwin, evolutionists have searched in vain for
the countless transitional forms predicted on the basis of
evolution ary theory. Each basic type of plant or animal
appears in the fossil record abruptly, fully formed, just
as predicted on the basis of creation. The gaps are
systematic. Those who would hasten to point to “Lucy” as an
example of a transitional form between man and the apes
should be aware that formidable challenges to this claim
have already surfaced in anthropological circles, and also
should remember the tarnished history of this field with
its Piltdown man (a fraud), Nebraska man (based on a pig’s
tooth), and Neanderthal man (now up-graded to Homo
sapiens, whose so-called primitive features were due
to pathological conditions).
The science of thermodynamics makes clear that all observed
systems, from the molecular to the galactic, have a
universal natural tendency to go from order to disorder,
from complex to simple-exactly the opposite tendency
required for evolution. Thermodynamics makes clear that an
isolated system can never, of itself, become more complex
and highly organized, and yet evolutionists persist in
believing that the universe is an isolated system that
started in a state of primordial chaos and transformed
itself into the present incredibly complex universe.
The odds against a mechanistic evolutionary process
spontaneously originating life anywhere in the universeeven
in 20 billion years-are so overwhelming that many former
evolutionists, including Sir Fred Hoyle, have become
convinced that wherever life appears in the universe, it
had to be created.
Our students deserve a true education free from
indoctrination in any particular philosphy. They should
have the opportunity to hear all of the scientific evidence
related to origins, including that which supports creation
and that which supports evolution. We live in a
pluralistic, democratic society in which all citizens are
supposed to enjoy academic and religious freedoms.
Brainwashing students in evolutionary theory violates both
of these freedoms.
Duane T. Gish received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from
the University of California, Berkeley. After 18 years in
biochemical research at Cornell University Medical College,
the Virus Laboratory of the University of California,
Berkeley, and with The Upjohn Company, Dr. Gish in 1971
became the associate director of the Institute for Creation
Research in El Cajon, California.*
