by James J. S. Johnson, J.D., Th.D.*, icr.org
“It doesn’t really matter, in the real world, what you believe about creation or evolution,” the college student glibly challenged me. “Whether the evolutionists are right or whether Genesis is right makes no practical difference in how science works or in how people live their lives.” With a grin and a wave of his hand, the sophomore dismissed the real-world relevance of biblical creation as if it were no more practical than evolutionary myths.
Was he correct? Is the Genesis record of God’s creation (and its post-Fall groaning condition, the global Flood, etc.) really that irrelevant to how science works and how people live?
No. There are many practical proofs that refute his reckless conclusion.1,2 Here is just one: True science is habitually handicapped (and at times even sabotaged) by evolutionary thinking because false foundations are scientific stumbling blocks. Real scientific progress, in ways that apply to daily life, has been both hindered and harmed by evolutionary thinking.
The delay in studying soft tissue (such as blood, collagen, and DNA fragments) in dinosaur fossils is due to the evolutionary assumption that dinosaurs went extinct so many millions of years ago that their bones could not possibly contain soft tissue today.
Scientists’ reluctance to investigate carbon-14 in diamonds and dinosaur bones is also due to evolutionary thinking; if their assumptions were correct, there should be no carbon-14 in any of these specimens. But, of course, scientists have found carbon-14 in both places.
Evolutionary myths impact our daily lives—even influencing the foods we eat. Brian Thomas has exposed how Darwin’s smug defender, Thomas Huxley, recklessly applied evolutionary thinking to the population dynamics of North Atlantic codfish during Darwin’s own lifetime, with disastrous results.3 Huxley used his political post at the British Royal Commission to advance Darwinian dogma. One result was that British fishermen were approved to essentially fish without restraint because he proclaimed only the less-fit-to-survive cod would be caught and the resilient remainder would “continue to evolve” into more-fit codfish!
Huxley was wrong about fish survival because he was wrong about where fish came from. What masqueraded as “science” was actually Darwinian philosophy, and it matched neither ecosystem and population dynamics, nor codfish design limitations.3
Even though Huxley’s erroneous ideas clashed with the realities of the Atlantic Ocean, the British government acted on his advice. The North Atlantic cod population became—and remains—pillaged, populationally speaking, due to wanton overfishing. Huxley’s imagined magic of “natural selection” did not protect them, with bad results for codfish, fishermen, and future generations of cod consumers.4
In this example, evolutionary thinking clearly handicapped the food supply—that’s practical, not just academic.
The same is true for the so-called “vestigial organs” like tonsils and appendices that evolution-trusting surgeons removed as evolutionary leftovers from patients who could have benefited from their immune system-enhancing services.2 Having a healthy immune system is practical, not just academic.
Also, dark-skinned people have been mistreated, and sometimes even killed, because racist evolutionists promulgated the doctrine that dark-skinned humans were evolutionary inferiors. Nazi ethnic policies relied heavily on evolutionary “science.”5
It’s not just academic—Genesis-based science is practical.
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References
1.What Genesis teaches impacts marriage, family, population growth, human life’s value, food, law, punishment for criminals, languages, agriculturally relevant seasons, human interaction with animals, etc. See Lisle, J. 2013. Genesis Is Relevant to Christian Doctrines. In Creation Basics & Beyond: An In-Depth Look at Science, Origins, and Evolution. Dallas, TX: Institute for Creation Research, 19-27.
2.Johnson, J. J. S. 2012. Tonsils, Forensic Science, and the Recent Fabrication Rule. Acts & Facts. 41 (6): 8-9.
3.Thomas, B. 2009. Huxley Error Led to Cod Calamity. Acts & Facts. 38 (8):17.
4.Limited consumption of prey by predators aids population success for both predator and prey. See Deuteronomy 22:6-7.
5.Humber, P. G. 1987. The Ascent of Racism. Acts & Facts. 16 (2). See also Bergman, J. 2012. Hitler and the Nazi Darwinian Worldview. Kitchener, Ontario: Joshua Press.
* Dr. Johnson is Associate Professor of Apologetics and Chief Academic Officer at the Institute for Creation Research.
Cite this article: James S. Johnson, J.D., Th.D. 2014. Genesis Science Is Practical, Not Just Academic. Acts & Facts. 43 (3).
