I recently received the April 1990 issue of The Forerunner. I was appalled with two articles. First, the quote concerning Charles Darwin recanting his position in the belief of the Theory of Evolution is a total fabrication as has been proven many times. Second, Dr. Gange’s article was rambling and almost incoherent. There are over 200 solid geochronometers which indicate that the earth is young, most indicating an age of less than 10,000 years. Why didn’t he write on polonium halos, fallacies of radio-metric dating techniques, or implications of the First, Second and Third Laws of Thermodynamics?
I was educated as an evolutionist but became a creation scientist over 15 years ago. It is difficult for me to understand your printing of the article on Darwin without checking on whether it was true or not and now you have helped to perpetuate a lie. In addition, with so many strong scientific creationist writers available, why put such a weak article, basically a theistic evolutionary one, in your paper?
Grady McMurty
Winter Park, Florida
Editor’s response: Ruth Nourse, the author of a manuscript describing the politics behind the adoption of the theory of evolution in America’s academic curriculum, has done extensive research on the life of Charles Darwin. According to Miss Nourse, the story of “Darwin’s Final Recantation” has been widely published as a true incident.
Miss Nourse has found an instance in Darwin’s journals which indicates that he had a profound interest in the spread of the gospel in the world. On his expedition to the Galapagos from the HMS Beagle, Darwin wrote, “The march of improvement, consequent on the introduction of Christianity throughout the South Sea, probably stands by itself in the records of history.”
Darwin’s later writings indicate that he had no inner motivation to publish his Origin of Species, but did so reluctantly under the urging of Charles Lyell and Sir Joseph Hooker. The main point behind this article was that Darwinism has been taken as Truth by many who are unaware of the political motivations of the people who first accepted and promoted these ideas.
(The Forerunner will furnish a copy of this portion of Miss Nourse’s manuscript to anyone who would like to study our sources.)
Dr. Robert Gange’s article “The Fingerprints of God: The Origin of the Universe” was taken from the transcript of a lecture given at Princeton University. Any perceived incoherence in the article is the fault of the editor and not Dr. Gange.
Dr. Gange, a research scientist, asserted in his lecture that although the earth could be understood to be young, the universe may be understood to be billions of years old. Gange speculates that due to the elasticity of time, explained by Einstein’s theory of relativity, nucleus pronometers and other dating methods would detect billions of years passing very quickly during the first moments of the creation of the universe (otherwise known as the “Big Bang” by some scientists).
Dr. Gange would not describe himself as a “theistic evolutionist.” To the contrary, in the June issue of The Forerunner, Dr. Gange’s article on “The Origin of Man” appeared. This article refutes hominid evolution by giving a detailed explanation of the fossil evidence which has been misused by anthropologists to support evolutionary hypotheses on the origin of man.
