Taking these charges in reverse order, years ago I became intrigued with evolution because I noticed some empirical problems. Evolutionists say their theory is a fact, but I noticed some scientific evidence that did not support the theory very well. Was I missing something? There seemed to be a disconnect. What did evolutionists know that I did not know?

I decided to have a closer look, and collect all of the evidences and arguments for evolution. My goal was not to find problems with evolution; my goal was to find support for evolution. I did not want to make the case against evolution, I wanted to make the case for evolution. I was not willfully suppressing supporting evidence, as Downard suggests.

I was however, taking an approach which evolutionists do not often take. I was not assuming evolution to be true in the first place. I was not giving evolution the benefit of the doubt. I had no reason to believe evolution was false, but I did want to know why it should be taken as true. In short, I was taking a theory-neutral approach.

My search for supporting evidences took me through a wide range of literature including popular works, reference materials, textbooks and the scientific journals. As I read through this literature I assumed that I would soon find the goods. I was searching for those arguments, evidences and data that make evolution the obvious conclusion. Was I successful? Are those arguments, evidences and data there? Well, yes and no.

From an empirical science point of view evolution is problematic. There are, in fact, several significant problems with evolution. But from a religious point of view evolution can be said to be a fact. Evolutionists argue that God would never have created this world, and so evolution must be true.

In other words, evolution entails religious premises. At its core, evolution incorporates and relies on theological claims. For many people these claims seem to be quite self evident and hardly in need of any justification or defense. Would God design and create the mosquito? [2] Of course not. For evolutionists, this is hardly an heroic claim. Isn't this merely common sense? After all, we all know what God would and wouldn't do. And so it is understandable that evolutionists fail to appreciate the fact that their theory hinges on religious beliefs. They view evolution's religious claims as obviously true.

Evolutionary thinking entails and relies on religious claims, and those claims long predate Darwin. In the decades and centuries leading up to 1859, natural theologians and other thinkers in the church applied a variety of religious premises to the scientific data. And the growing conclusion was that naturalistic explanations are required because the doctrine of creation, for one reason or another, was failing. This was the core of Darwin's long argument. Origin was full of theological pronouncements, but Darwin was hardly the first to use such reasoning in science.

Not surprisingly, evolution today relies every bit as much on these theological arguments for naturalism. So the problem with evolution is not that it is illogical or deceptive; the problem is that it is a religious theory. As such it is not amenable to scientific criticism. It is part of a centuries old tradition that constrains science to a theological straightjacket. No amount of scientific evidence can convince evolutionists that there are problems with their idea. Rather than following the data, evolution is driven by non scientific premises.

This is rationalism. Empiricism tries to minimize the influence of such premises, but rationalism hinges on them. From an empirical point of view, evolution is not a good scientific theory. In fact, the preponderance of scientific evidence shows evolution to be unlikely. But from the rationalist point of view, evolution is a fact.

The geographic distribution of species, or biogeography, is yet another example of empirical evidence that evolutionists interpret according to their theological premises. From an empirical perspective, the data are all over the map, so to speak. And for all the various observations there is a battery of just-so stories to explain what we observe.

When similar designs are found in different locations around the world, then perhaps this discontinuity was caused by a partial extinction within a previously larger range. On the other hand, perhaps the discontinuity was caused by a dispersal event. When new world monkeys were found to be similar to their old world cousins, it was hypothesized that African monkeys crossed the ocean on rafts. Or again, lizards somehow floated across thousands of miles of ocean from the Americas to islands in the Pacific. Are the fauna similar between two different continents? Then that is because those continents were once joined, but have since drifted apart. What if the fauna are different between the continents? Then that is because those continents must have drifted apart farther back in time.

The stories are at times, as evolutionist Ernst Mayr once put it, "indeed almost unbelievable." Of course this does not mean they must be wrong, but this is hardly strong evidence for macro evolution. Twenty five years ago evolutionist Douglas Futuyma wrote that "The molelike and wolflike animals of Australia are marsupials, clearly related to each other, because only marsupial ancestors had reached Australia." [3] Once again, forcing the evidence into the evolution paradigm failed as a few years later placental fossil species were discovered in Australia.

Alec Panchen agreed that building an argument for evolution from biogeography is not easy, and when he tried it was religion that supplied the key premise. "It is improbable," explained Panchen, "that the distribution of organisms can be explained by the separate creation of species [because] ecological adaptation in any environment is demonstrably imperfect." [4] This sort of theological reasoning is standard within evolution and it leads to the conclusion that evolution must be a fact.

Like all evidences, the biogeographical data are subjected to a theological evaluation by the evolutionist. As Mayr concluded, "For a creationist there is no rational explanation for distributional irregularities ..." [5] Likewise for Michael Ruse, God cannot be reconciled with the facts of biogeography so we must turn to evolution. He wrote that "given an all-wise God, just why is it that different forms appear in similar climates, whereas the same forms appear in different climates? It is all pointless without evolution." [6]

According to an evolutionary textbook, if God had created the species then they should be distributed uniformly about the globe. The text states: "Had all species been created in the places where they now exist, then Amphibian and terrestrial mammals should be as frequent on oceanic islands as on comparable continental areas. Certainly, terrestrial mammals should have been created on these islands as frequently as were bats." [7]

Douglas Futuyma explains that there are "peculiar regularities to the ways in which animals and plants were distributed throughout the world that could only be viewed as capricious if they were the handiwork of a Creator." [8] Likewise Tim Berra explains that "if special creation were really how things came to be, there would be no reason for species on volcanic islands to resemble the inhabitants of the nearest land mass." [9]

This is the evolution – a genre rich in religious pronouncement. See if you can count the number of theological claims in this Darwin quote which includes his interpretation of some biogeographical evidence:

Shall we then allow that the distinct species of rhinoceros which separately inhabit Java and Sumatra and the neighbouring mainland of Malacca were created, male and female, out of the inorganic materials of these countries? Without any adequate cause, as far as our reason serves, shall we say that they were merely, from living near each other, created very like each other … ? Shall we say that without any apparent cause they were created on the same generic type with the ancient wooly rhinoceros of Siberia and of the other species which formerly inhabited the same main division of the world; that they were created less and less —closely related, but still with interbranching affinities, with all the other living and extinct Mammalia; that without any apparent adequate cause their short necks should contain the same number of vertebrae with the giraffe; that their thick legs should be built on the same plan with those of the antelope, of the mouse, of the monkey, of the wing of the bat, and of the fin of the porpoise; … that in the jaws of each when dissected young there should exist small teeth which never come to the surface? That in possessing these useless abortive teeth, and in other characters, these three rhinoceroses in their embryonic state should much more closely resemble other mammalia than they do when mature. And lastly, that in a still earlier period of life, their arteries should run and branch as in a fish, to carry blood to gills, which do not exist … I repeat, shall we then say that a pair, or a gravid female, of each of these three species of rhinoceros, were separately created with deceptive appearances of true relationship, with the stamp of inutility of some parts, and of conversion in other parts, out of the inorganic elements of Java, Sumatra and Malacca? Or have they descended, like our domestic races, from the same parent stock? For my own part I could no more admit the former proposition than I could admit that the planets move in their courses, and that a stone falls to the ground, not through the intervention on the secondary and appointed law of gravity, but from the direct volition of the Creator. [10]

Darwin had no idea how species of rhinoceros could have evolved, but he knew they must have. Darwin's God would not have created this world so evolution must be true, somehow. Similarly, Downard thinks he has found a failure in the design approach, regarding the biogeographical evidence: "If a designer has virtual freedom to create whatever can function, why is it that only certain forms actually were created?" This centuries-old religious mandate for evolutionary thinking is as strong today as ever. Downard is convinced he has found a dagger, and approvingly quotes Futuyma to drive the point home:

One of the most remarkable revelations of comparative anatomy, in fact, is how seldom truly novel structures are found. We can imagine cherubs and flying horses with wings sprouting from their shoulders; but the wings of vertebrates are always modifications of the front legs. As Darwin's colleague Milne Edwards expressed it, "Nature is prodigal in variety, but niggard in innovation." Take any major group of animals, and the poverty of imagination that must be ascribed to a Creator becomes evident.

For rationalists like Darwin, Futuyma and Downard, evolution must be true. Evolution is a religious interpretation of nature which is immune to empirical science. Biological marvels must have arisen on their own, no matter that science cannot figure out how this possibly could have occurred. The story may be absurd, but it must be true. Religion, this time in the form of evolution, once again threatens science.

On the other hand, rather than indulging in religious speculation, the design approach analyzes how nature works. It provides an avenue in science for analyzing the designs of the natural world, without force-fitting them into a creation myth. It's more than a sack of hammers.

1. http://www.talkreason.org/articles/coulter2.cfm

2. Kenneth R. Miller, Finding Darwin’s God (New York: Cliff Street Books, 1999) 102.

3. Douglas J. Futuyma, Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution (New York: Pantheon Books, 1982) 51.

4. Cornelius G. Hunter, Darwin's God: Evolution and the Problem of Evil (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2001) 109.

5. Ernst Mayr, What Evolution Is (New York: Basic Books, 2001) 34.

6. Michael Ruse, Darwinism Defended (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1982) 40.

7. Edward O. Dodson and Peter Dodson, Evolution: Process and Product (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1976) 29.

8. Futuyma, p. 50.

9. Tim Berra, Evolution and the Myth of Creationism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990) 30.

10. Hunter, 109.