Several weeks ago, Brady Phelps leveled his charge that many college students have a “disdain for science ? here at SDSU, too.” When questioned on the matter of objective evidence to support his case, he punted.

In that column (the April 1st Collegian issue), Phelps defined his argument in the context of Darwinian evolution being the only acceptable starting point for scientific pursuits. His approach to science is guided by an atheist-materialist worldview, and he is commendably open about his atheist faith – declaring in past columns that, compared with the alternatives, he is “very content to be an atheist.”

Phelps had a golden opportunity to present objective support for his charge against students in his most recent rejoinder (the April 22nd Collegian issue) and to present a positive case for his embrace of Darwinian evolution (or some variation thereof). He presented neither. Instead of despairing over the alleged “disdain for science,” he could have enlightened students on some of the finer points of evolution and perhaps softened that “disdain.”

Several of the “evolution heavyweights” of the world have been more willing to shed additional light on this important issue in their public discourses.

One of the leading evolutionists of our time, Niles Eldridge, has observed, “We paleontologists have said that the history of life supports [the story of gradual adaptive change], all the while knowing that it does not.”

Roger Lewin, co-author of several books with renowned anthropologist Richard E. Leakey, has affirmed, “The theory that we can date the birth of a new species by charting the steady accumulation of mutations over evolutionary time is in serious trouble.”

The famous Harvard evolutionist, Stephen J. Gould, concluded that Darwinian synthesis “as a general proposition is effectively dead, despite its persistence as textbook orthodoxy.”

Eldridge and Gould supported the “saltation” hypothesis for evolution – that new species appeared out of nowhere from sudden, drastic genetic change. Legendary Darwinian evolutionist Richard Dawkins, however, calls saltation “rubbish.”

Richard Dawkins, revered as the atheist godfather of Darwinian evolution, when interviewed about the finer points of evolution, explained that the primal event in the origin of life was the “first self-replicating molecule.”

[Right, and how did that happen?] – “I’ve told you, we don’t know.”

[So you have no idea how it started?] – “No, no. Nor has anyone.”

SDSU students should hardly be chastened for reserving judgment on the atheist-materialist faith in random, purposeless mutations purportedly underlying the transmutation of species – especially in light of Phelps’s reluctance to build a positive case for it himself.

C.S. Lewis further questioned the problem of sentience within the realm of this “faith:”

“If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on biochemistry, and biochemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees.”

Brady Phelps recently certified that, “Today, many students arrive at college with a disdain for science ? here at SDSU too.” Validations were evidently not thought necessary in this claim – perhaps because Phelps views the issue as a self-evident truth.

His mistaken perceptions may be a simple matter of SDSU students expecting more out of science, in the way of supportable assumptions, than Phelps requires of own critiques. And, the fact that the April 1 edition of The Collegian was chosen to make his charge may hint at a Freudian admission surfacing in the process.

The criticisms in his letter were plainly leveled against students who do not necessarily restrict themselves to an atheist-materialist world-view for science. Those students have some well-credentialed company, however. Phelps’ warning against compatibly between God and science happen to substantiate Max Planck, also, of harboring a similar ‘disdain for science.’

Max Planck (1858-1947), Nobel Prize Laureate for Quantum Theory, understood that “Science brings man nearer to God. In fact, science and religion are fighting in a joint battle in an incessant never-relaxing crusade against skepticism and against dogmatism, against disbelief and against superstition ?” Indeed, many of the greatest advances in the history of science, with some of the greatest benefits for mankind, have come at the hand of those who advanced various fields of science from a Christian foundation:

Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) – Germ theory of disease, vaccines, pasteurization.

Sir Alexander Fleming (1881-1955)

- Penicillin.

Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) – Gravitation, Laws of motion, calculus.

Robert Boyle (1627-91) – Boyle’s Law, Chemistry.

Michael Faraday (1791-1867) – Electromagnetism.

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) –

Celestial mechanics, logarithms.

Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543) – Astronomy.

Lord Kelvin (1824-1907) – Thermodynamics, Elasticity and material strength.

Bernhard Riemann (1826-66) – non-Euclidian geometry.

Finally, Phelps summarized that atheist-materialist science, built upon the foundation of Darwinism, “is liberating from deception.” While his claim is inspiring, there may be somewhat less there than meets the eye.

It has become universally known that Ernst Haeckel’s embryonic drawings in support of biogenetic law and Darwinian evolution had been deliberately falsified by Haeckel himself. His biogenetic law had been confidently accepted by science as a ‘self-evident truth,’ and his famous drawings were legendary in biology texts world-wide. It has since been noted (American Scientist, May/June 1988), “Surely [Haeckel's] biogenetic law is as dead as a doornail?”

Haeckel later divulged: “After this compromising confession of ‘forgery’ I should be obliged to consider myself condemned and annihilated if I had not the consolation of seeing side by side with me in the prisoner’s dock hundreds of fellow culprits, among them many of the most trusted observers and most esteemed biologists.”

Similar issues of falsification have surfaced with regard to several other Darwinian idols such as Piltdown Man, Java Man and Nebraska Man.

If Phelps’ unequivocal faith in the atheist-materialist approach to science is not enthusiastically shared by “many SDSU students,” it may simply signify that they have not yet been drawn up to the higher states of “liberation” that Phelps demands of them.

And, if “many SDSU students” continue to approach science from a Christian foundation, history has positively demonstrated that they may yet accomplish great things in the advancement of science – and for the betterment of mankind.