99 and still fighting God
‘Darwin’s disciple’ speaks out
by Michael Matthews
8 December 2003
Ernst Mayr, once called ‘the world’s greatest living evolutionary biologist,’
has lost little of his fire. A revealing interview with The Scientist,
simply titled ‘Ernst Mayr, Darwin’s Disciple,’ shows how spry
he continues to be at age 99.1 His comments
are instructive for Christians concerned about the battle for biblical authority.
Darwin, the most influential modern man
Mayr, a brilliant scientist who can read eight languages and has received numerous
awards for his work, considers Darwin his ‘hero.’ He told the
interviewer why he esteems Darwin so highly: ‘He had the greatest impact on
the thinking of modern man.’
Mayr is close to the mark. During an earlier speech at Stockholm, upon receiving
the prestigious Crafoord Prize, Mayr put Darwin’s influence in perspective:
‘Great minds shape the thinking of successive historical periods. Luther and
Calvin inspired the Reformation; Locke, Leibniz, Voltaire and Rousseau, the Enlightenment.
Modern thought is most dependent on the influence of Charles Darwin.’2
Atheists are religious, too
And how has Darwin shaped modern thought? Though The Scientist does
not mention it, Mayr is an atheist (see A Who’s
Who of evolutionists). During the interview, Mayr admits something
that his fellow atheistic biologists are not usually so candid about:
‘All of the atheists I know are highly religious; it just doesn’t mean
believing in the Bible or God. Religion is the basic belief system of the
person. Mankind wants the answers to all unanswerable questions.’
In Mayr’s view, Darwin has supplied atheists with an alternative worldview
that allows them to answer the great questions of life. As he wrote in his
recent book, What Evolution Is (Basic Books, New York, 2001), Mayr has
found an alternative to the worldview based on Genesis: ‘We still treasure
these [creation] stories as part of our cultural heritage, but we turn to science
when we want to learn the real truth about the history of the world’ (p. 5).
In his interview, Mayr’s words betray his zealotry against God. He lets
slip how much he loathes Christians who build their understanding of world history
on God’s Word. Asked whether ‘science’ today is still affected
by ‘nonscientific beliefs,’ he snipped, ‘Eighty percent of the
South still rejects evolution.’
In other words, Mayr thinks the Bible Belt in the southern United States—where
Darwin is still unpopular—is the last great holdout of anti-science ignoramuses.
Like Darwin (see Darwin’s real message: have
you missed it?), Mayr is on a mission against God’s Word and Christians
who dare to believe it.
Mistakes are common, but evolution never in doubt
There’s a lesson here, for Christians.
The debate is clearly not about a dispassionate evaluation of the facts.
Atheists—and everyone else who advocates a history that stretches for millions
of years—are committed to a view of history that is contrary to the Bible.
Their zeal has a religious component, even fervor.
There’s another lesson for Christians. Those who hold this preconceived
bias won’t admit that they’re driven by philosophical assumptions.
Sure, they recognize that Christians start with assumptions: God is true and His
written record (including a recent creation and worldwide Flood) is perfect.
But they won’t admit their own assumptions: God does not exist and everything
we see today occurred by natural processes over millions of years. (For a
discussion of religious/philosophical bias among men like Mayr, see
Dare to question the materialist high priests.)
No new ‘facts’ will convince the confirmed believer in this false history.
Mayr admits that he’s made lots of mistakes over the years and his work is
filled with speculation. Asked, ‘Were you ever wrong?’ he answers,
‘On many things. A good scientist goes beyond the data he has. …
In 1950, I published a paper on the evolution of man. On some things, I was
not right, but … you can propose these ideas and stimulate thinking.’
What’s the solution?
The life of Ernst Mayr should give Christians pause about their strategy for reaching
the culture and converting the lost. Here is a brilliant scientist and a keen
intellect, who has kept up with the latest scientific research for the past eight
decades, but in all that time he has not wavered in his zeal for evolution.
The problem is not his ignorance of the facts. This is a spiritual
battle.
While it is vitally important that Christians answer the attacks on God’s
Word and show how science is consistent with the Bible (1
Peter 3:15), we also must expose the foundational problem: man’s corrupt
heart. Like Paul’s generation, modern man can see God’s eternal
power and godhead in His creation, but they ‘became vain in their imaginations,
and their foolish heart was darkened’ (Romans
1:21; see Creation: ‘Where’s the proof?’).
Sinful man willfully refuses to be accountable to His Creator.
If you believe in God’s Word, beginning with the very first verse, you have
an exciting challenge before you. The challenge is both more difficult and
simpler than you might imagine. More difficult, because it is impossible for
‘the natural man’ to receive spiritual truth (1
Corinthians 2:14). Simpler, because it is a spiritual battle, and
the Lord is greater than our spiritual enemy, the devil (1
John 4:4).
It’s our job to give out the truth, to be armed and equipped so that we can
‘give an answer’ (1 Peter 3:15), gently and respectfully. But
it is the Lord who changes hearts as we follow that command, using the best available
materials and arguments (2
Cor. 10:5).
References and notes
- Bahls, C., The Scientist 17(22):17, <www.the-scientist.com/yr2003/nov/feature1_031117.html>
17 November 2003. Return to text.
- Mayr, E., Darwin’s influence on modern thought, Botany online,
<www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/e36_2/darwin_influence.htm>, based on
a 23 September 1999 lecture on receiving the Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish
Academy of Science. Return to text.
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