Science in Christian Perspective

Objections to van der Ziel

From: JASA 28 (September 1976): 144.

I must object strenuously to an article (Random Processes in Evolution, Dec. 1975, Vol. 27, No. 4) in the JASA that is representative of many in your 'scientific' publication.

Dr. van der Ziel should have followed through his statement  ... what we have learned about random processes in physics and engineering should be applicable to biology" to the logical conclusion that evolution (of non-living matter to living organisms) simply contradicts all known laws of nature. Unless he is privy to some laws that transcend the known laws of thermodynamics, spontaneous generation, etc., then he is hard put to find hardfacts to support his unreasonable conclusions, as the last section of his paper proves.

In the section entitled "The origins of life, of cells, and of muticellular forms" he asks, "How did life . . . originate?" He answers, "We don't know but there are some hard facts." And these are his hardfacts: (emphasis added)

(a) "There is sound evidence that electrical discharges would have produced living matter. These should have combined to protein structures. Could it have resulted in living matter? Apparently it did somehow. "
(b) ". . . Schroedinger proposed that left-handed structures of amino acid . . . must have come about . . . that all living .....structures must have descended from that first one.
(c) "If the primitive forms of life were much simpler then a large accumulation somehow must have taken place." etc., etc., ad nauseum.

Where are the references to the research that has been done according to the scientific method to support such 'facts'? It is simple dishonesty to present such speculation as 'hard facts'. I am no longer shocked to see this kind of jargon in secular 'scientific' literature which is daily fare in our schools and colleges, but it is unforgiveable in a Christian publication which purports to be Scientific.

I fully appreciate your many other articles on psychology, theology and other social issues, (which are not scientific in the strictest sense), but if you must publish similar articles as the one mentioned above, then please replace the word 'scientific' in your name to something more appropriate.

Berj M. Manoushagian
47 Erie St.
Woburn, Mass. 01801