Pat Boone on Evolution

This article was brought to my attention this morning. The article is written by singer/entertainer Pat Boone. Boone is a devout conservative Christian, a talented singer and father of Debbie Boone among others. What basis does he have to write about the supposed pitfalls of biological evolution? Zip, but in America knowledge of a subject is no barrier for an entertainer wanting to voice his views. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against anyone having an open forum, but a news agency might reasonably demand that a science writer have some knowledge about the article he/she is writing about. Not so for Newsmax! Let's look at some of the regurgitated gems trotted out by Mr. Boone:

But there's some absurd nonsense, not especially funny, being taught our school kids every day, in almost every school in America.

Darwin's theory of evolution.

Really Pat? What research led you to this brilliant conclusion? Was it some new scientific research? Some insights gained after reading the literature, doing some experiments and developing a deep understanding of evolutionary biology? Was it a conversation with one of the pre-eminent evolutionary biologists of our time? No, Pat tells us:

In one of his many excellent and substantive mailings, D. James Kennedy drew my attention to Tom DeRosa, who grew up Catholic in Brooklyn and spent his high school years at a Catholic seminary.

He was voted "Best Seminarian" in 1964, but one year later, instead of taking vows to enter the priesthood, he became an atheist.

His encounter with Darwin in college led to that decision. "There was a point where I became so rebellious that I yelled out ‘No God!' I remember saying ‘I'm free, I'm liberated,'" DeRosa recalled. "I can do what I want to do; man is in charge! It was pure, exhilarating rebellion!"

That rebellion soured after a while, and after 13 years as a respected public school science teacher, he experienced a spiritual awakening that completely changed his perception of existence — and science.

He's now founder and president of the Creation Studies Institute and author of "Evidence for Creation: Intelligent Answers for Open Minds."

Yes, this conclusion was reached after talking to religious leader D. James Kennedy who has no shortage of nonsensical rants about evolution. Open minds? Apparently Tom De Rosa is a real scientist. How do we know this? Because Pat tells us so:

Far from it; he became a real scientist, an honest seeker after truth who could look at facts without a predisposed belief and actually see the obvious all around us.

As a real scientist, he looked again at what he'd gullibly accepted in college. And, examining the prevalent claim that life "evolved" from molecule to man by a series of biological baby steps, tiny mutations over millions of years, he realized there is no historical evidence for that claim.

He writes, "Millions upon millions of fossils have been collected to date, but there is no evidence of transition fossils; that is, fossils of organisms in an intermediate stage of development between steps on the evolutionary ladder."

Just how honest a seeker was he? Well, his website tells us that he discovered that evolution was wrong when....

However, in 1978, he accepted Jesus Christ as Lord of his life. Soon after, he studied the area of Creation at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church and has come to the conclusion that a lack of knowledge of the biblical account of creation is greatly responsible for many barriers that keep people from Christ.

Hmm, the conclusion came before the evidence. Like all good creationists, our 'real scientist' DeRosa came to his conclusion from looking at the data through cross-blinded glasses.

Pat Boone goes on a nonsensical tirade borrowed from various creationist tracts and shows that he is not interested in the truth, but merely acting as a celebrity mouthpiece for young earth creationism. You can read the entire article here (note that he promises this is just the beginning). Here are just a few of the wise lessons Pat gives us about evolution:

If all life on this planet were actually in a process of "evolution," would every species evolve in lock step, regardless of different environments? Or wouldn't there be all the intermediate steps still in evidence, at various places around the globe?
Wouldn't there be plenty of evolving apes, tending toward homo sapiens, in the jungles and rain forests, possibly developing verbal skills and capable of elementary math and reasoning?

Does this really require an answer? These are classicly stupid anti-evolutionary statements that have been shown to be wrong over and over and over. It seems that not only does Boone not know evolution, he does not know that apes do have communication skills and are capable of reasoning. No, he buys into the old canard "If we evolved from apes, why are there still apes around".

Boone does conclude with a statement that rings very true, but not for the reason he is implying:

This decades-long scavenger hunt, in which intelligent and educated seekers keep digging up artifacts to "prove" an un-provable and patently unscientific concept, is very much like the potato chip lady on the "Tonight Show": You see what you want to see. Whether it's there or not.

Boone wants to create a strawman of evolution so that he sees want he wants to see. I'll give you a hint Pat, the stuff you are seeing regarding evolution are simply false teachings. I suspect Pat Boone simply accepted what was being fed to him. He did not bother to fact check---after all these ARE Christian people. If I was able to ask Boone one question it would be the following: Do you think it is a good idea for followers of Christ to engage in false teaching? I suppose that if it leads people to the flock, lies and misrepresentation are just fine.

Cheers

Joe Meert