I believe in Creationism. Why? Because upon analysis, it proves to be the most logical and reasonable position.
Apparently, that strikes many people as threatening and strange. They don’t understand how that can be. A global analyst and investment strategist believes in such malarkey? Can a blinkered person such as that make logical decisions and function in the fast-paced world of money?
You may be surprised at my answer.
I am a man of little faith. I simply do not have enough faith to believe any of the alternate arguments on such matters as the origin of life and the universe. I thrive on analysis, evidence and probability.
Some people (and big financial institutions that I will not name) are so unsettled by this “out of the closet” personal perspective that they refuse to do business with an investment management company that I founded.
Just how can I support my position? I will provide proofs. You can choose to consider them. But before I do, a bit of warning would only be fair. What I have discovered as a result of many discussions and debates over the years on this general topic is this: Facts don’t necessarily matter. What I am telling you is that people will deliberately choose to ignore evidence. People will invariably choose to believe what they want to believe. The facts can hang. For various reasons, they will doggedly cling to their a priori views on such issues as Evolutionism, the Big Bang Theory, and a myriad of subsidiary theories.
I recall discussions with people who I consider quite intelligent and for which I had (and continue to have) high respect. They had no valid counter arguments to the facts and probabilities that I laid out before them. Yet, they turned away…perhaps threatened and afraid of the implications that their world view was false. Even such intelligent people — puzzled as they were — deliberately chose to accept on faith the unexplainable and the impossibilities that apply to evolutionary theories. They, in effect, confirmed their religion.
The fact is that any world view or cosmological thesis requires an element of faith. Whether an atheist, agnostic, or believer in a higher power, or someone practicing a new age variant, a measure of faith will be needed. But how much? That’s the key question. Just what facts, proofs and disproofs can be marshaled in support of the reasonableness of a chosen “faith”?
Everyone is free to make their choices and to search out a satisfactory rationale. Please continue to do so as you continue to read this article. However, it is also true that the vast majority of people have never really examined what they believe and why. They have never tested their views against science and reasonable logic. Many choose to simply accept what they have been told and will believe the views and values of the collective zeitgeist of the times.
Such perspectives are not well-advised…certainly not in financial markets, I can tell you. To simply refuse to consider facts or to test one’s views is unwise. Any student of human behavior or an accomplished investment strategist will have only a cautious regard for the correctness of any consensus view. As is well documented, the popular perspectives of the majority or the pulls of crowd psychology will provide no more safety than a crowded strip of flypaper. Consensus views have been legendarily wrong and foolish as the behaviors and beliefs of crowds are rarely logical or sophisticated. It is amazing what crowds will believe!
(If you are interested in reading accounts of crazy financial manias and insane beliefs of crowds, I recommend the following two books. First, a classic written by Charles MacKay in 1841: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Also, Manias, Panics and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises by Charles P. Kindleberger.)
In contrast, people who have the mental discipline to remain unfazed by the seemingly metaphysical pull of a delusional crowd and to remain calculated, clear-headed and unintimidated are the ones who do best in financial markets. Everyone else risks becoming a casualty should they hold the “wrong” majority view. The same is true in almost any other field – everywhere one will encounter the psychological pressure to concede to the consensus or popular view.
I have been a global investment analyst/executive working in “Wall Street” environs now well into the fourth decade. At the outset, I seemed to be progressing well. I completed a B.Sc. and a graduate degree in less than 4 years. I was the 2nd youngest in my MBA class; youngest Vice President at a major national investment brokerage firm; youngest partner in a powerful and influential investment bank; Director of Research for a major Wall Street firm at the tender age of 33, etc. I may have been stupid, but I hid it well.
In 1986 I was even named a top global analyst by Euromoney Magazine (my specialty at the time was industrial sectors). At a later date, I was a top-ranked portfolio strategist. During all this time in my profession, I practiced systematic, probabilistic, deductive, empirical and Aristotelian (logic) analysis. I liked to be a thinker. All that still applies…I hope. But how could that be? All that time I was a Creationist. Therefore, isn’t something awry?
Here I will throw down the gauntlet. To this day, I have yet to encounter anyone who could conclusively prove evolution as a fact, or for that matter, disprove Creationism. Not one. I offer an open invitation and will challenge anyone. I would even go so far as to defy anyone to prove Evolutionism to be a reasonable “theory.” The evidence clearly reveals it to be the most “primitive” of religions based on the allegations of “science” itself.
By necessity, in a short article series as this, I can only deal with a few main points. My main objectives are to urge the consideration of the “reasonability” of what is believed and to challenge people to think and consider the evidence for what they believe.
In the past, I have received a lot of correspondence offering only vehement and emotional opinions…threats and slurs. Some of them were cowardly as they didn’t have the courage to identify themselves. I expect this article series will attract many heated responses. But please note: I truly am a man of little faith. I will be looking for verifiable information, facts and sources, not unsubstantiated opinions. May the facts fall where they may.
The Proofs and Theories
Evolution remains a theory. That is a fact as you will see. Yet, disingenuously and dishonestly, many people (including those who consider themselves scientists) speak as if it is fact. No, evolution is a theory. In fact, as the evidence shows, it is a desperate theory as it does not rest on scientific facts. Many questions remain open that the evolutionists cannot answer — virtually millions upon millions of inconsistencies and impossibilities that have not found explanation or resolution. Evolutionists can only offer speculative theories and imaginings that have no evidential support. So, to say that Evolutionism is a scientific theory is even to disparage the legitimate historical discipline of science.
What do you believe? To begin, how many options are there in answering the questions of the origins of life on earth? Basically, there are only two systematic approaches (not counting various hybrids, for the moment). These are Naturalism and Creationism. If there were any additional options, I would consider them. I have proposed a third option — Comealongism. This is the escapist’s option, choosing to avoid any serious contemplation and hoping that another explanatory alternative will come along some day. Which of the two former cosmological views requires the least amount of faith? Which can be disproven by scientific observation? Which one requires a lack of reasonableness?
The Record of Science Versus God
I often hear that science and religion are incompatible. This is not true for a number of reasons and certainly not for the Judeo-Christian faiths. In the first place, this claim is ludicrous simply because of the fact that most of the founders of modern science were Christians. (This includes Pascal, Boyle, Newton, Bernoulli, Mendel, Pasteur…the list is long. Please review this article on Wikipedia for a more complete list.)
These were people who believed in the creation account in the Bible as it seemed obvious and sensible to them. They possessed a Biblical worldview. To them, their discoveries and inventions did not invalidate either the Bible or the existence of a Creator. These only served to magnify their reverence for God. Many of them took a deep interest in theology.
The tired debate that has been fought over the past two centuries, staging the Bible as if it would be in opposition to science, is entirely miscast. Yes, there have been many misguided people, theologians and religious institutions who took positions against natural science (for example that the earth was round and that it revolved around the sun) out of ignorance or outright mendacity.
Nevertheless, there is not one statement in the Bible that misaligns with the physical sciences, apart from miracles. After all, that is the definition of a true miracle…something occurring that cannot be explained in the three-dimensional realm. The difference to be noted here between Evolutionism and Creationism is that it is only the latter that provides full disclosure on the roles of miracles and supernaturalism. Evolutionists require millions upon millions of miracles — not only individually or sequentially, but simultaneously and repeatedly — to make their theories work.
Then, how has science come to argue against a Deity? To answer this, we first must define what we mean by science. It goes without saying that it covers a wide arena of inquiry. Some of it is more of an observational type. It studies natural processes or things and documents them as they are. Other science is applied science. It builds on that which is observed and may find other applications for the natural laws and phenomena that it discovers. Then, some of science concerns itself with explaining the “whys” and “wherefores” of what is observed. Here it ventures into the field of theory.
A hypothesis may align with what is observed and can sometimes be successfully used to deduce other outcomes or to find new applications. However a hypothesis or a theory is not the same as fact. This is the accepted foundation of scientific process. Theory is not fact. Integrity and intellectual honesty require that disclaimers are made, especially so when involving speculative or philosophical views.
A very different pursuit under the name of “science” is the exploration of things and processes of the distant past — back to the beginnings of the universe and the origins of all things. Here, observations cannot be made in real time. Scientist were not around thousands (or as it may be claimed) millions of years ago when things supposedly began. Questions relating to how all things began needed to be theorized should one wish to test a naturalistic approach. Such questions as how the universe came about and how life came to earth are the subjects of this branch of study. No harm there. However, somewhere along the line this field of research was uniquely co-opted by a religion…a metaphysical pseudoscience.
What is the difference between real science and pseudoscience? Science depends on evidence and testing. Says Phillip Johnson, “Scientific methodology exists wherever theories are subjected to rigorous empirical testing, and it is absent wherever the practice is to protect a theory rather than to test it.”i
Interestingly, pseudoscience didn’t co-opt other fields of study to the same extent…i.e. study of arts, literature or language. That said, those studying the origins of language can have the same tendency to ignore evidence just because it doesn’t fit their a priori theory. For instance, the entire objective of a book written by Guy Deutscherii on the origins of languages was to try to explain why the evidence didn’t line up with the theory of evolution. The problem was that evidence showed that the first languages to appear in the historical record were sophisticated and complex (far more so than English). The evolutionist was expecting language to evolve from simple forms to the more sophisticated. The evidence was exactly opposite, therefore requiring his tortured and contorted explanations. Karl Popper’s observation is apropos: “The wrong view of science betrays itself in the craving to be right.”iii
A priori biases as described, as well as the incredibly speculative musings (to the point of ludicrousness) by so-called scientists recklessly supporting evolutionism, argue that science should have separated itself from this field of inquiry long ago. Why? As mentioned, it is a pseudoscience and because fanatic evolutionists give real science a black eye. Desperately clinging to their religion, they shamefully steal reputational legitimacy and credibility from “real science.” Today, the meaning of the word “science” has been completely changed. It is no longer the science (in the historical sense) of its founders. The word today means “anything ex-God.”
Science is important and useful. The benefits to mankind of its understandings and inventions are beyond measure. That said, it must also be recognized that such science has never been able to step outside the bounds of the physical or the observable (i.e. outside the Creation). It cannot be used to prove the non-existence of God nor to explain anything that could be outside of Creation. This would be impossible.
Notes:
i. Phillip Johnson, (1991), Darwin on Trial, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, pg. 148.
ii. Guy Deutscher (2005), The Unfolding of Language, Henry Holt and Company, New York.
iii. Karl Popper (1934), The Logic of Scientific Discovery, pg. 281.