Evolution...Superfluous to Practical Science

“Most [biologists] can conduct their work quite happily without particular reference to evolutionary ideas. ‘Evolution’ would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superfluous one.” - Wilkins, evolutionary biologist (as quoted in ICR's article "Obama Pushes for Expansion of Science and Technology" by Randy J. Guliuzza)

In a recent address at the National Academy of Sciences' annual meeting, President Barack Obama expressed his desire to focus scientific research on improving peoples' daily lives, "for the purpose of providing 'the fuel of interest to the fire of genius in the discovery...of new and useful things.'"

Interestingly, as this article points out, Obama refrained from mentioning any of these ideas in the context of their perceived "evolutionary" significance. This makes sense when you consider that there are essentially two spheres of scientific research today.

The one which we hear the most about, and which we (meaning likeminded Creationists) are most critical of, is what we might call "conjectural science." A scientist discovers a fossil, and evaluates it according to his (unproven) evolutionary presuppositions. This kind of "conjecture" drives the priorities of mainstream scientific research today. But the question remains: on a strictly practical level, just how necessary is evolutionary theory to science?

"A great chasm exists between the real, testable, and experimental science behind developing 'prosthetics so advanced that you could play the piano again' and the scientific basis for looking at the fossilized bones of a wolf-like creature and contriving a “just so” story of how it “emerged” into a whale." (Guliuzza)

The second category is what we might label "testable and experimental science" as explained in the quote above.

Just for clarification, here is what I am NOT saying. I'm not arguing that a scientist's assumptions about the world have little or no influence on his research. A person's worldview always finds practical outworking in the things he does and says.

The point I'm trying to make is simply this. Evolution is not science - it is an ideology within which "science" is practiced. In fact, honest research reveals the exact opposite of evolution, as we're told in Romans 1:20:

"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse."

Obama claims that in his administration, "the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over." This sounds nice, but it's only more rhetoric - the president's real scientific agenda is revealed in what he does and not what he says. Consider his recent decision to fund embryonic stem-cell research...

If Newton or Galileo or Watts were alive today, I wonder what they would think of scientists who have to work overtime to make the "facts" fit their theory. As I recall these men did just the opposite.