In a recent Wall Street Journal column, Phillip Johnson (author of Darwin on Trial) tells a compelling story of a Chinese paleontologist. He lectures around the world saying that recent fossil finds in his country are inconsistent with the Darwinian theory of evolution. Major animal groups appear abruptly in the rocks over a relatively short period of time rather than evolving gradually as Darwin proposed. When this conclusion upsets American scientists he says: "In China we can criticize Darwin but not the government. In America, you can criticize the government but not Darwin."
Lately a school board has taken to criticizing Darwin and evolution. The reaction has been predictable. Evolutionists have been writing letters arguing that science doesn't have to threaten religion at all. But is that what they really believe?
Most of the prominent evolutionists of our day say such things in public, but say something very different when they feel it is safe to do so. Carl Sagan expressed contempt for anyone who did not believe that all species "arose by blind physical and chemical forces over eons." Richard Dawkins praises Darwin who "made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." Richard Lewontin writes that scientists must maintain a philosophic commitment to naturalism because "we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door." And Harvard paleontologist
Stephen Jay Gould will grudingly allow people of faith to express their opinions about morals, but only as long as they don't challenge the facts of science.
What is at stake is more than a scientific theory. Evolution provides the intellectual foundation for naturalism. The leading evolutionists really don't believe that God used evolution to create life. They believe that evolution proves that God does not exist.
I'm Kerby Anderson of Probe Ministries, and that's my opinion.