THE TRANSITIONAL FORM DILEMMA The idea of evolution, which materialists ever since Ancient Greece have employed to account for the origin of life, entered the world of science in the 19th century with Charles Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species. Those who supported the materialist philosophy, which underwent an enormous rise during the 19th century, adopted the theory of evolution as an answer to the question of how life came into being, but did not question the theory’s scientific foundations. Scientific discoveries from the second half of the 20th century began preparing the collapse of the theory of evolution. Apart from making inferences from a number of biological observations, Darwin’s book did not offer any scientific proofs for his theory, leaving the question of evidence for later. In particular, he suggested that the fossils that he expected would support his theory would be discovered eventually. The theory of evolution, fervently embraced despite its scientific weakness by those who denied the fact of Creation, shortly came to dominate the scientific world. From scientific magazines to school textbooks, the theory of evolution was portrayed as scientifically proven and the only valid explanation of the origin of life. Scientists who pointed out the errors and illogicalities of the theory were either silenced by threats to their academic careers or else accused of being dogmatic or anti-scientific. The proponents of materialist ideologies imposed the theory of evolution on entire systems of education and popular culture for 150 years, despite possessing no evidence for it, and employing only methods of propaganda. From the second half of the 20th century onward, however, the privileged position that the theory of evolution had enjoyed among the scientific community became increasingly problematic. Observations and experiments in a wide range of scientific disciplines, from paleontology to biology and from anatomy to genetics, began to produce findings that argued against the theory. In the face of these new scientific findings, evolutionists suddenly found themselves and their theory on the defensive. By the beginning of the 21st century, the theory of evolution had become the subject of wide debates the world over. To a large extent, it had lost its former prestige and in many quarters was expected to collapse at any time soon. Between the lines, world-renowned scientific magazines such as Nature, New Scientist, Science and Scientific American began publishing frequent doubts about the theory of evolution.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 16:25:36 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015