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Creation 31(2):6
March 2009

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The Creation Answers Book

by Dr Don Batten

The 2009 Darwin celebrations

Editorial

by Tas Walker

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Have you heard of the massive celebrations in progress around the world to promote the life and achievements of Charles Darwin?

Nature launched a special issue featuring his life, his science and his legacy.¹ The Natural History Museum in London, UK, dedicated a website promoting a national program of events celebrating his scientific ideas.² Museums, universities and science organizations are networking globally to promote Darwin through exhibitions, lectures and conferences. Events are planned in dozens of countries including the USA, United Kingdom, Australia, China, South Korea, Portugal, Germany, Egypt and Hong Kong.

Stanford University, California, will jet 90 pilgrims along the route of Darwin’s Beagle voyage. Even art exhibitions and music festivals are featuring paintings, sculpture and orchestral works praising Darwin and evolution.³

How odd. Why is the whole world caught up this year in such euphoria over Darwin?

Why haven’t the achievements of other great scientists ever captured the global imagination—scientists like Sir Isaac Newton, Louis Pasteur, James Maxwell, Albert Einstein or Gregor Mendel?

Because Darwin 2009 is not about science. Look at who’s cheering.

The International Humanists Union honour Darwin because evolution, in their words, ‘made creator deities redundant’.⁴ Note, evolution made the Creator redundant.

Sir Julian Huxley gloated, ‘Darwinism removed the whole idea of God as the creator of organisms from the sphere of rational discussion.’⁵ Underline, Darwin removed God.

Atheist extraordinaire, Richard Dawkins said, ‘ … Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.’⁶ Observe, Darwin justifies atheism.

So it is not about science. It’s a global campaign against God. Darwin and science are just tools.

In fact, modern scientific discoveries increasingly point to the design of the Creator—like the amazing catapult photographed in the humble bunchberry flower (p. 32^*) and the unbelievable neuro-motor-mechanical control in our own finger tips (p. 31^*). Design is not an argument from ignorance but is based on observation—as experience with the ‘simple’ light bulb demonstrates (p. 36^*).

Natural selection, hailed as Darwin’s greatest discovery, is incapable of producing new designs and features—it just tinkers with what is already there (p. 52^*).

And evolution does not have enough time. Geologist Ariel Roth shows how the strata point to past global catastrophe (p. 46^*), wiping out the millions of years needed for evolution to work.

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Atheistic ideas are much promoted these days, but this is not the first time in history that atheism has become popular. After the Revolution in France in the late 1700s, the atheistic chiefs of the Commune of Paris sought to remove every remnant of religion from government; they soon found themselves engulfed in a Reign of Terror.

That’s not surprising. Law Professor, Augusto Zimmerman, says atheistic ideas have consequences for society (p. 15^*). ‘Without God’s law, anything goes. There is no protection against tyranny and social oppression.’

Darwinian evolution, more than any other idea, has caused people to reject God and the Bible (p. 12^*), which is why we encourage Christians to rethink making Darwin a hero.

In this year of Darwin, we need resources to uphold the truth against evolution. Creation magazine does just that. May this new issue strengthen and encourage you. Don’t forget to share it with others. Little by little, one by one, people’s minds need to be opened to the truth—that God created.

Related articles

• A Who’s Who of evolutionists
• Jesus fish/Darwin fish
• Street preacher says creation ‘is the issue’
• With no apology!
• Atheist with a Mission: Critique of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
• Atheism Questions and Answers

References

1. Darwin 200, <nature.com/news/specials/darwin>, November 2008. Return to text.
2. Darwin 200, <www.darwin200.org>, December 2008. Return to text.
3. Nature 456(7220):322–323, 20 November 2008, <nature.com/nature/journal/v456/n7220/full/456322a.html>. Return to text.
4. Celebrate Darwin Day! <iheu.org/node/995>, 1 February 2004. Return to text.
5. Tax, S. and Callender, C. (Eds.), Evolution after Darwin, Issues in Evolution (volume III), The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, USA, p. 45, 1960. Return to text.
6. Dawkins, R., The Blind Watchmaker, Penguin Books, London, England, p. 6, 1991. Return to text.

^*The page numbers refer to articles in this issue of Creation magazine. You will be able to access these articles on the web in March 2010. In the meantime you can view the articles by subscribing to the magazine.

(Available in Spanish.)

It has been said that “Information is power”. When it comes to creation information we’d have to agree. Keep the ‘powerful’ evidence for God being Creator coming.