Darwinist presentations: Arrogant or humble?

On WORLD Radio’s The World and Everything in It today I discuss our magazine’s Aug. 22 cover story, “A tale of two museums.” That article shows how the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., is arrogantly Darwinist but the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York, which also accepts evolution, mostly does so with humility.

For example, the AMNH has placards telling what we know about dinosaurs, but noting, “All these ideas are controversial, because they are based on scientists’ interpretations of fossil bones that are often incomplete, or that have become distorted over millions of years. We may never have all the evidence needed to support these ideas.”

The AMNH embraces science, which is based on experimentation and observation. Regarding the horns on some dinosaurs, the AMNH notes that some paleontologists think they were used to break off large pieces of vegetation, “but since no specimens of horned dinosaurs have been found that preserve the stomach contents, we can’t test this hypothesis.”

A typical sign at a dinosaur exhibit announces, “Fossils of Barosaurus don’t tell us what color the animal was, what noises it made, or many other details about how it behaved. We can’t even be certain whether Barosaurus could really rear up on its hind legs to feed in the tops of trees or defend its young.”

When creationists talk about evolution, we should always emphasize our agreement with the scientific method that emphasizes testing and experimentation. We should distinguish between science, which we support, and scientism, an ideology. The religion of Darwinism is a set of beliefs about pre-history, when there was no one to observe and record. Taking speculation as fact is not true to the scientific method.

We should also counter claims that—to quote from a Smithsonian exhibit—“Evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology. There is no scientific controversy about whether evolution occurred or whether it explains the history of life on earth.” There is huge controversy, of course: Most Americans don’t believe what Darwinists claim. But the Smithsonian statement is also untrue in a practical sense. Even Darwinists will admit, when pushed, that we can understand perfectly well the structure of DNA or the skeletal structure of a horse without any knowledge of Darwinism.

This doesn’t mean Darwinism is useless. It pulls together, for secular scientists, lots of different facts, and places them in a semi-satisfying story that can compete with the biblical account of how God created everything and made man in His own image. The AMNH still buys into the Darwinist tale, but I appreciate its admission that scientists are not know-it-alls.

If you have the opportunity, please read our cover story, visit a natural history museum in your area, and then send me a note (molasky@wng.org) about how it presents Darwinism: in arrogance or with humility. And please send along photos of museum signs and placards.