The Issue of Origins
    Most of us would like to believe that we bring a completely open and unbiased mind to the issue of origins. We prefer to think that we harbor no unprovable starting assumptions, and that we would not hesitate to abandon even our most fundamental beliefs about origins if the facts were to require it. There may be certain individuals and even certain fields of science where this blissful neutrality prevails but it is most unlikely when we deal with the question of our origins. Here the facts are too few and the philosophical stakes are too high. Whether one believes in creation or evolution the philosophical and religious implications are profound. Creation is the very foundational assumption of the Judeo-Christian religion and evolution is the foundational assumption of religions such as atheism, agnosticism and secular humanism. Creation implies that man is ultimately accountable to the Creator and evolution implies that man is ultimately accountable to no one save himself.

    It seems almost inevitable that beliefs about origins will tend to polarize people in two camps with each quite certain that the other is dead wrong. Everything seems to hinge on the existence of the Creator. If we assume there is a Creator, the origins of complex and highly integrated biological systems by intelligent design is completely reasonable and hardly incompatible with science. If, however, we assume there is no Creator, nothing conceivable in nature could be taken as evidence for design and origins by chance and the intrinsic properties of nature is the only alternative open to us no matter how lacking the evidence may be. The British biologist D. M. S. Watson said:

"If so, it will present a parallel to the theory of evolution itself, a theory universally accepted not because it can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible."    (D.M.S.Watson, "Adaptation," Nature, Vol. 123 (1929), p. 233.)

Each of us must decide for ourselves which is more incredible - evolution or special creation.