The ID Report

National Geographic on why people don't believe Darwinism

Regular readers may recall that I am reviewing the November 2004 cover story in National Geographic , "Was Darwin Wrong?". NGs tend to hang around a long time in school systems, so a handy source of corrective information may prove useful. Later, I will put all the information on the By Design or by Chance? as well. Meanwhile, you can find it at the end of each blog, starting with "National Geographic Cheerleads for Darwin but Drops the Baton."

Moving right along, on page 4, we are informed that "Evolution by natural selection, the central concept of the life's work of Charles Darwin, is a theory." So, we are told, is relativity, the sun-centred solar system, continental drift, and so forth. They are all theories. And the clear implication is: Shame on you if you do not accord Darwin's theory the same amount of credibility that you give to the fact that the Earth orbits the sun.

Indeed, we are informed that the overwhelming majority of Americans, regardless of whether we could classify them as religious fundamentalists, reject Darwin's theory (45 percent are creationists and 37 percent are theistic evolutionists, according to Gallup figures cited by the magazine). Only 12 percent believe that "humans evolved from other life-forms without any involvement of a god" [which is what Darwin believed]. The magazine blames these low numbers on creationists who interfere with the teaching of science and on Americans' ignorance about science.

Nonsense. The reasons that so few people believe in Darwin's theory are:

1. It is incredible. We are asked to believe that a pondful of amoebas turned into the French academy (in George Bernard Shaw's famous phrase) with no design or guidance whatsoever. Now, that could be true. After all, some incredible things are true. But the fact that it is incredible makes it a tough sell that requires a lot of credible evidence.

2. It is unlikely. If there really is a God, He almost certainly does affect life on Earth. So we should expect to see at least some evidence of design, and most people say they in fact do.

3. Many facts in nature do not accord particularly well with Darwin's theory. Among the ones discussed in earlier weblogs are the Big Bang, the fine tuning of the universe, the relative rarity of planets like Earth, and the awesome complexity of life forms. The general drift of these findings clearly suggests a designed universe with the creation of intelligent life forms as the goal.

I tend to be suspicious when informed that the reason the vast majority of ordinary people disbelieve in a theory promoted by Top People is merely that the people don't know any better. Almost always, the people do know better. I never realized how much trouble Darwin's theory was in until I started to examine some of the well-written but shallow explanations of why we should believe it.