Can Scientists be Wrong about Evolution?

People cotton to the notion that scientists in their nice lab coats are purveyors of truth — especially when there is a consensus involved. They're right because they're scientists, you know. Not necessarily. Scientists have been wrong on things through the ages (see "Can all those scientists be wrong?" and a fun list of "Top 10 Most Famous Scientific Theories [That Turned out to be Wrong]" for some interesting examples). Also, just because there's a consensus does not guarantee accuracy. Don't forget that.

Credit: Modified from Freeimages / Kenn Kiser

Evolution is a big thing, and the public as well as most secular scientists accept it as a "fact". There are folks who present scientists as having a unified front regarding evolution, but there are some who risk ridicule and resist peer pressure in disputing it. Darwinists have a great deal of pressure to perform (gotta get that grant money), so we get a passel of sloppy science and speculations presented as scientific truth. The main problem is that they are starting from their biases and presuppositions. That means they are interpreting evidence through their Darwin spectacles, which distort their vision.

If ‘science’ and ‘all those scientists’ have shown evolution to be valid, how can anyone claim otherwise? Much of the resistance we meet in the creation science ministry is vaguely based upon this sort of notion.

It is fairly easy to point out that we cannot directly observe or repeat the past, and so the normal scientific method, by which we now understand so much of how the present world operates, cannot be applied here. Nevertheless, many find it hard to cope with the idea that the acceptance and development of the whole framework of evolutionary thought has a great deal to do with individual biases and beliefs of scientists themselves. The popular idea is that scientists are like emotionless robots who have buried their personal prejudices in the cause of an unbiased search for truth. Perhaps the virginal white of lab coats somehow contributes to this image!

Even those who admit that, as individuals, scientists have prejudices and strongly held beliefs, often maintain that, nevertheless, the progress of scientific thinking and knowledge as a whole operates with purity and precision. The ‘rough edges’ of each scientist’s personal preferences and biases become polished off when ideas, like stones in a tumbler, clash and contact each other in the scientific arena.

To finish reading the article, click on "Can they all be wrong?".