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Creation 12(4):48–49, September 1990

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Evolutionary rebel attacks Darwin

‘I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science.’

The author of the above quote, Søren Løvtrup, is himself an evolutionist, but one who believes that small changes such as the gradual accumulation of single ‘micro’ mutations could never have given rise to major evolutionary change. Lovtrup’s book, Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth, was rather sympathetically reviewed in New Scientist,1 considering that he is an extreme saltationist, that is, one who believes that evolution could have happened only by massive jumps in the form of large mutations, like Goldschmidt’s ‘hopeful monsters’. He even rejects the theories of most ‘punctuated equilibrists’ like Gould for not being ‘macro’ enough in their postulated mechanisms.

The reviewer of the book writes, ‘Evolutionary biology is currently beset by an almost bewildering array of diverse opinions.’ This contrasts with the impression gained by the general public that the mechanism of evolution (how it supposedly happened) has been well established. To a creationist looking on, the arguments of both sides make a lot of sense.

On the one hand, we have the extreme neo-Darwinists, like Richard Dawkins, who scoff at the idea of a massive accidental rearrangement of information (a macromutation) producing anything other than a hopeful monster. We would heartily agree. We also agree with them when they point out that such Cinderella transformations have never been observed.

At the other end of the spectrum, we would just mention some of the comments that Luvtrup makes about the neo-Darwinist position (that evolution has occurred by a gradual accumulation of small accidental changes (micromutations)). As described in the review, Luvtrup maintains that ‘the logical consequences of neo-darwinism require us to surrender our common sense’. We heartily agree with this also, as with the fact that ‘he claims that darwinism and neo-darwinism—as are the clothes in the Hans Christian Anderson [sic] tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes—are nakedly false.’

Critics of creationist writings often cry ‘unfair’ when one highlights a dispute among evolutionists such as this. They say that the argument is not over whether evolution occurred, but how. But that is precisely the point. The underlying belief that it must have happened somehow is shared by all sides. The fact that such a controversy is still raging (many decades after neo-Darwinism was first popularized) legitimately highlights the fact that no-one has yet put forward a scientifically sound mechanism of how all this change is supposed to have taken place. As creationists, we say that both sides are right where they point out that the other side can’t be right!

It also illustrates the tenacity of this origins myth of evolution as a fundamental, metaphysical belief system which controls the direction of scientific inquiry, not the other way around. As the review puts it (referring to neo-Darwinism, but the same is applicable to evolutionism per se) ‘Lovtrup makes a good case that the theory appears to be dictating the way we see the world.’

Most people, scientists or otherwise, will cling to the belief in a self-transforming universe (no matter what the ‘how’) because the alternative is supernatural creation by God. But that would mean accepting all sorts of other things about God which sinful mankind prefers to reject. So the emperors of both sides of this debate among evolutionists will go on parading the naked emptiness of their mutual theories before an unbelieving world which largely accepts uncritically all scientific pronouncements.

Reference

  1. New Scientist, 15 October 1988, p.66.