p. 9 | FALSE SCIENCE by L. A. P.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 9, 1901

FALSE SCIENCE.

By L. A. P.

It is at the risk of being dubbed narrow-minded and unintelligent that a man in these latter days rejects certain findings of modern science relative to astronomy, geology, and evolution, and holds the Bible as his basis of belief. Some of the teachings to which we refer are mentioned in the following sentences from a paper entitled “The Century of Science,” contributed to the Congregationalist by Prof. A. E. Dolbear, of Tufts College. We quote:—

“Now we have it as near demonstration as possible that what we call the nebular theory gives us an account of the past history of the earth, the sun and moon, and they are, therefore, millions of years old, the sun is a huge magnetic bubble, and will cease to be serviceable as a source of heat to us in about ten millions of years.”

“The order of the rocks and their fossil contents help to complete the astronomic history of the earth—once too hot to permit life upon it, and at first only the simplest microscopic forms, these becoming more complex in structure and function until now, species and genera developing and then becoming extinct, the whole taking millions on millions of years.”

“The doctrine of descent, with modifications, and the survival of the fittest—what is called Darwinism—has won its way, including its applicability to mankind. It has no opposers save among such as have no knowledge of natural history, but its acceptance overthrows all that was thought to be true as to the history of living things held by the wisest and best men before this century. It is a nineteenth-century product—not an extension of older knowledge, but practically new science. Even the missing link between man and lower animals has been found, and that controversy is over. The anthropologists, the geologists, and the historians now agree that man has lived on the earth tens of thousands of years.”

It is plain to any one that this teaching is not at all in harmony with that of the Bible. It is wholly subversive of the Biblical records, and can only destroy faith in them if it is accepted. And the serious feature of the situation is that these doctrines of modern science, which we can call only by their right name—false—are commonly taught by the text-books of our schools and colleges, with the result,—millions of the rising generations are disbelievers in the validity of the Bible as the Word of God. These scientific fallacies have thus become powerful and direct foes to faith in the only salvation that saves from sin and its consequences.

Professor Dolbear mistakes when he asserts that there are no opposers to the theories advanced “save among such as have no knowledge of natural history.” We do not, and neither will any candid believer in the Scriptures as God’s revelation to man, disregard the facts discoverable by the microscope and the telescope and the labors of investigators in any branch of knowledge. But theories are not facts. A knowledge of natural history, or of astronomy, or of geology, by no means implies what so many would have it, namely, acceptance of the various theories deduced from the bare facts revealed.

Here is where the Bible becomes what it is intended to be,—the universal guide to correct conclusions. Accept the scriptural record of man’s history, of the temptation and fall, and the flood, and the facts brought to light by a study of rocks and earth and what is found therein, and the study of plants and animals, and there is no difficulty with the genesis of things. The discoveries serve—and this is one of their important purposes—to confirm the truthfulness of the record. Yes, professor, there are those who oppose the theories advanced in the quotations, who prize highly, and have an intense interest in, the facts of astronomy, and of geology, and of natural history. The so-called “missing” link does not prove evolution; if it reveals aught, it is that there is order and masterly design in creation, in harmony with the record of Genesis. And yet even believed facts must be weighed in their relation to the effects of sin upon the earth and upon the whole living creation.

Added to the inculcation of these pernicious doctrines by popular educational methods is the tremendous influence exerted in the same direction by a large portion of the pulpits. A recent editorial, by a minister, in one of the leading weeklies, makes the statement, “If the preacher assumes, in an argument or appeal, that the stories in Genesis of the creation of the world and of man, of the temptation and fall, and of the Deluge, give us historical events, then ‘the intelligent and scholarly portion of his congregation’ lose their respect for the pulpit.” Commenting on this in the New York Observer, Henry E. Dosker, D.D., very truly says: “As regards the demands of the critics that we relegate those portions of Genesis mentioned to the mythical rather than to the historical domain, is the author so sure that the preacher thereby saves himself? On the one hand, the authority of God, as expressed in revelation; on the other, that of men, who demand that we shall accept their so-called scientific findings, but who are hopelessly at variance among themselves, and who agree only in the negation of the traditional faith of the church.”

But of every class of teachers and promoters of these erroneous doctrines, classed by the apostle Peter as “scoffers,” the Word takes cognizance. Its prediction is that they shall be heard in the “last days,” and it adds, “For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water; whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished; but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” Why is the willing ignorance manifested?—O, because the “same Word” speaks of a day of judgment and a day of fire awaiting the present cosmos! A denial of the “Word” in one record denies it in the other also.

And it is denied, as the theories of this portion of present-day science show. This reveals the core of the evil. The world is being deceived; present conditions are not interpreted as they are in their solemn reality, and millions are looking to a future as unreal as the mirage of the desert. The day of God is coming upon such as unsuspected as the thief in the night. Shall not a mighty note of warning be sounded? L. A. P.