And They Call It Science!
Good News Magazine
October-November 1982
Volume: VOL. XXIX, NO. 9
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And They Call It Science!
Sidney M Hegvold  

Doesn't every educated person accept evolution as fact? Are you embarrassed because you don't?

   Some 30 years ago I attended a get-together at the apartment of the young woman who was later to become my wife. The party was for faculty members at the university where she and I taught.
   Such get-togethers provided for interesting and stimulating evenings, I remember, because of the scintillating discussions we would all get into. Sometimes our discussions turned into rather heated debates, since the group represented a wide diversity of disciplines at the university.
   On this particular evening we were discussing a prospective faculty member for the biology department. This man was supposed to teach microbiology.
   "How can he teach microbiology? He doesn't even believe in evolution!" asked one woman, a teacher on the music faculty.
   "Why," I asked, "does one have to believe the theory of evolution as a prerequisite for teaching microbiology? Evolution is no more than a theory, you know — and a stupid theory at that." I taught physics and chemistry.
   "Well, believing in evolution is not a prerequisite," the lady replied, "but how he can teach microbiology and not believe in evolution I can't understand. And what do you mean, anyway, about evolution being a stupid theory?"
   And there we were — off again.
   The point is this: It seems that, in this world, those who are considered to be educated automatically accept evolution as fact. It is considered ignorant or backwoodsy to simply believe what God, in His Word, says about how life came to be on this earth.
   If you are a true Christian, you accept what God's Word says about creation. Are you embarrassed with your own belief that evolution is an erroneous — even ridiculous — theory dreamed up by men bent on excluding God from their personal lives?

Mr. Armstrong's study

   Early in his study to prove whether God existed, Pastor General Herbert W. Armstrong realized that he would have to, in addition to studying the Bible, do an in-depth study of evolution.
   What he found was that the theory of evolution was diametrically opposed to what the Bible said. The two could in no way be harmonized (contrary to what some today would like to believe). Mr. Armstrong made no apology for what he finally proved.
   Note that Mr. Armstrong did not study the findings of the popular writers on evolution. He studied the writings of the acknowledged authorities on the subject — those who originated the idea.
   If the trunk of the tree fell, all the rest of the tree would fall with it.
   Mr. Armstrong found that even these recognized authorities on evolution often strongly criticized the theory — in fact, they themselves, in many cases, actually refuted it. Yet they still accepted the theory! Educated? Not really, Mr. Armstrong concluded. Could we conclude differently?

How evolution spreads its message

   When I was an undergraduate student, 1 was required to study physical geology as part of the physics curriculum I was taking. I found the subject both interesting and profitable. On the other hand, historical geology was a recommended elective. I read over the text they were using for historical geology and was amazed — it was complete fiction being taught as science. I have called this latter course "hysterical geology" ever since.
   Blending science and fiction is a most effective method of proclaiming the message of evolution.
   Evolution can be defined as a natural history of the cosmos, including organic beings, expressed in physical terms as a mechanical process. This process, theoretically, applies to everything — the entire universe. Evolution teaches that complex life forms evolved from simpler life forms, and assumes that at some point in history life came from the nonliving.
   During the past few decades, explosive new "discoveries" in astronomy have opened vistas in which the investigators' creative imaginations can run rampant. I put "discoveries" in quotes because the actual discoveries are most often nothing more than some insignificant specks of light found on astronomers' photographs of space. The "spectacular, explosive discoveries" are really theoretical evaluations made by the astronomers as they attempt to explain what the specks mean.
   These discoveries are presented to the public in awesome media blitzes — books, magazines, television and movie productions — that make little attempt to separate fact from fiction. Audiences mesmerized by the productions are left to assume that what they have been presented with is fact. And so evolution is most effectively taught.

How to know the truth

   We know that the earth was originally created long before the events of the week recorded in Genesis 1 and 2.
   Mr. Armstrong recognized long ago that the Bible account shows that the earth came to the state of chaos depicted in Genesis 1:2 - that God did not create it that way. That state of chaos resulted from the rebellion of Lucifer and one third of the angels, who became Satan and his demons (Isa. 14:12- 14, Ezek. 28:12-15, Jude 6). How long that state of chaos existed before God performed the recreation described in Genesis, no one knows.
   Genesis 1:2 tells us the entire earth was covered with water just before the recreation about 6,000 years ago. During the recreation week God separated the land masses from the water, revealing the mountains and continents that existed until the days of Noah, at least.
   But what about the "scientific" studies "proving" that great geologic ages took place and lasted for billions of years before what has happened in just the past 6,000 years?
   In every instance scientists assume these long periods of time because they extrapolate from life forms now existing back to some simple, primitive form that they assume existed. What was that pristine form? No one knows. But scientists believe it would have taken multiple billions of years for that original form to develop into the diverse life forms we see today in the world around us.
   The scientists try to arrange the facts to fit their theories (and end up in confusion!) rather than reasoning from the facts.
   The apologists ask whether God would deceive us. Of course He wouldn't! But how would something that had never existed before appear when first created? Did God make the first trees with growth rings? Most likely. Why? Because God planned how trees should grow and look in the future, so He would have created mature trees in that form.
   Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Such questions are familiar. But only those who believe in evolution would have difficulty answering them. How the egg evolved is one of the big, unanswered questions of evolution. Creating mature forms, whether the created form is living or not, is certainly not deceptive on God's part.
   What does a fossil tell you? Only that that particular form of life lived sometime in the past. The fossil does not reveal just how long ago it lived.
   One can do no better than to quote Mr. Armstrong on this point: "Then such knowledge as: HOW the earth came; WHEN it came — how old it is; how old is human life upon it — the mystery of origins. These questions absorb the time, thought, research and thinking of scientists, philosophers, historians — yet they can come up only with GUESSES, THEORIES, HYPOTHESES — but NO PROOF — the definite KNOWLEDGE they could know ONLY by revelation" (The Missing Dimension In Sex. third edition, 1981, page 22).

But won't I appear uneducated?

   That all sounds backwoodsy and uneducated, don't you think? It just doesn't seem logical, somehow.
   Yet God even explains this problem: The carnal, natural mind cannot understand the things of God. God must reveal them to us through His Spirit (I Cor. 2:9-12).
   One of cosmology's modern concepts is that of the Big Bang Theory. According to this theory, all of the matter in the universe was initially compacted into a superatom that was billions of times smaller than an electron — many times smaller than anything any microscope could hope to reveal.
   You are holding a magazine in your hands. The matter this magazine is made up of would have been compacted into that superatom. Are you sitting in a chair? It also would have been part of that atom. Are you in a building? The building was in the superatom. You must be living in or near some village or city. It, too, was compacted into that superatom. Your state or country was also in that initial atom. The continents, the oceans — the entire earth — were in that superatom. The moon, the sun, all the stars in all the galaxies — every last bit of matter now in the universe was compacted into that superatom.
   And that superatom was billions of times smaller than an electron!
   Remember, now, this is a scientific theory.
   It's scientific because it was developed using Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. It's scientific because it relies on the theory of evolution. It's scientific because it rejects the possibility that anything exists beyond the physical — namely, God! (Read I Corinthians 2:9-12 again.)
   Now tell me that believing this scientific theory, like all of evolution's elements, doesn't take faith. Think: Does that really sound more educated than "In the beginning God... " (Gen. 1:1)?
   A well-known physicist who developed a theory about the origin of our solar system published his findings several years ago in a popular scientific journal. He concluded his article with this sentence: "Because in the beginning was the plasma."
   "In the beginning was the plasma," eh?
   I think, and I hope you think (without being ashamed of it), that the Bible account is much better in all respects. God's revealed truth is the authority for the truly educated: "In the beginning God... "

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Good News MagazineOctober-November 1982VOL. XXIX, NO. 9