Evolution Takes a Major Hit!

By Jeffrey Fall

Last winter, one of the most respected atheists and philosophers of our time raised the hackles of committed evolutionists. Eighty-one year old Antony Flew stunned “hard core” atheists by admitting that the genetic structure of all life, DNA, could hardly have evolved on its own.

In a Dec. 9, 2004 article of the Associated Press, it was stated: “At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe: ‘A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature,’ Flew said in a telephone interview from England.” 

Flew went on to state that recent investigation of DNA “has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved.” The article further reported: “The first hint of Flew’s turn was a letter to the August-September issue of Britain’s Philosophy Now magazine: ‘It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism’ he wrote.” 

Translation: The amazing complexity of DNA (in all life forms) makes it totally illogical that natural random chance could form the complex DNA of the very first living cell. Since it is claimed that natural selection chose life forms that were more effective at reproducing and surviving, it would be a total contradiction for the same natural processes to selectively have chosen clumps of chemicals that can’t reproduce themselves. Everyone knows that natural selection could not impact the non-living, such as rocks, chemicals, or computers. It would be similar in concept to the very first computer, as a non-living entity, coming into existence due to random chance over millions of years—without any intelligent planning!  

Obviously, Flew’s conversion to a belief in an intelligent being initiating life, doesn’t sit well with other atheists. Richard Carrier, a card-carrying atheist, in an article copyrighted by “Internet Infidels, Inc.” stated the following: “Flew is one of the most renowned atheists of the 20^th century… So if he has changed his mind to any degree, whatever you may think of his reasons, the event itself is certainly newsworthy.”   

After acknowledging Flew’s former stature as a “renowned atheist,” Carrier took a shot at Flew by stating: “Theists would do well to drop the example of Flew.” Apparently, evolutionary atheists losing one of their own, doesn’t sit well! 

The elder philosopher and former atheist, Antony Flew has summed up his honest intellectual approach in a letter to Philosophy Now magazine: “My own commitment then as a philosopher who was also a religious unbeliever was and remains that of Plato’s Socrates: ‘We must follow the argument wherever it leads.” 

Yes, indeed! We must follow the evidence wherever it leads—even to the rational conclusion that a very intelligent being is the Creator and Designer of life. To this we might say, “Take a bow, Mr. Flew!”