"It is beyond doubt that the Darwin was right! Evolution created us – not God." exclaims the speaker. The packed lecture theatre nods in agreement. "Only ignorant people deny these scientific proofs!" as he concludes his full day presentation on Darwin's theory of evolution. You have just been shown evidence from anatomy, fossils, embryology, genetics, bioinformatics and biogeography. Supposedly, these proofs are enough to undermine any faith that a rational person had in a creator.
How would you react to this?
Most would simply accept what they are told and just follow the crowd. No one wants to be the odd one out. The idea that Darwin's theory is an unquestionable fact and that God doesn't exist because of the discovery of evolution are popular. You will find these ideas repeated on social media, documentaries, best selling science books and even some well known celebrities pushing this narrative. All people, religious or not, should agree that accepting something without critically analyzing it is blind following, and that is not a good thing.
By reading this article you will learn that there is a big difference between the public and academic understanding of the following three areas:
- Science leads to certainty
- Darwin's theory of Evolution is indisputable
- Darwin's theory of Evolution leads to Atheism
Popularly the statements above are true, however from a purely academic point of view these are false.
Claim 1: Science Leads to Certainty
Although there is a lot of philosophical discussion on what Science is, there is no clear agreement on a precise definition. Nonetheless a basic understanding is that scientists follow these steps:
- Identifying a problem
- Construct a hypothesis
- Testing the hypothesis by observation and experiment
- If the hypothesis fails, go back and amend the hypothesis or discard it and come up with a new hypothesis
- If it is successful, publish findings and get other scientists to test it (this is known as peer review)
- If the peer review is successful the hypothesis is elevated to the status of a theory
The end product of this scientific process is a theory, this is the highest level of certainty that science can achieve. A common misconception is that a scientific fact or law is weightier than a theory, but that simply is not the case.
Scientific theories, no matter how successful, can still change because there can always be a new observation that can go against the previous conclusion. Consider a scientist who is trying to figure out what colour swans are and they spend 20 years travelling across the world and document thousands of swans all of which are white. They therefore make the conclusion 'all swans are white'. One day they see a black swan. Their theory that all swans are white is therefore shown to be false. This Black Swan problem (formally known as the problem of induction) is well known within the philosophy of Science and it is the reason why philosophers accept that Science can not give us eternal truths.
"Science is revisable. Hence, to talk of scientific 'proof' is dangerous, because the term fosters the idea of conclusions that are graven in stone." — Philosophy of science
Another way it can be claimed that we know Science is giving us truth is because it works. Many philosophers have worked hard to point out that it does not logically follow that just because something works, it is true. The phlogiston theory is an apt example. Early chemists postulated the theory that within all combustible objects was a substance called phlogiston. The theory worked so well that in 1772 Dan Rutherford used it to explain the discovery of nitrogen. However, phlogiston was later found to be a false theory; phlogiston as a substance did not exist.
These are some of many examples to show that a theory can work and produce astonishing results, and yet later to be found to be false. History of Science is littered with false theories that were once thought to be true because of their predictive success. The lesson is obvious: just because something works, it does not mean it is true.
"Historically, there are many cases of theories that we now believe to be false but that were empirically quite successful." — History of science
Scientific U-turns do not care about who is sitting in the passenger seat. Even things which seemed obvious, undeniable and taken for granted can be overturned. Every aspect of science, and even the subtheories that make up the bigger theories in every field can revise their conclusions. The history of science has shown us this trend, so to speak of 'scientific facts' as immutable is not accurate.
The Key Point
The theory of evolution is a scientific theory. As we have discussed, scientific theories are not absolute truths; they are revisable and can change. This does not mean evolution is false, but it does mean that one cannot use it as an absolute basis to deny God's existence. Science is a wonderful tool for understanding the natural world, but it has limits. It cannot answer questions about why there is something rather than nothing, or why the universe has the precise conditions for life. These are questions that point beyond science — to a Creator.
Evolution, even if true, does not explain the origin of life or the origin of the universe. It only describes a mechanism for how species change over time. The fact that species adapt and change does not negate the need for a Creator who designed the universe, established its laws, and set the whole process in motion. A painter uses brushes and paint to create a masterpiece; knowing how the brushes work does not eliminate the painter.