But, a witness says, he said it was too late for him. We’ve all had rammed down our throats past the vomiting point that Theodosius Dobzhansky was a religious Darwinist. That’s a way tenured Darwinians enforce dhimmitude among those who feel the need. His actual view:
“Dobzhansky was a religious man, although he apparently rejected fundamental beliefs of traditional religion, such as the existence of a personal God and of life beyond physical death. His religiosity was grounded on the conviction that there is meaning in the universe. He saw that meaning in the fact that evolution has produced the stupendous diversity of the living world and has progressed from primitive forms of life to mankind. Dobzhansky held that, in man, biological evolution has transcended itself into the realm of self-awareness and culture. He believed that somehow mankind would eventually evolve into higher levels of harmony and creativity. He was a metaphysical optimist.” (Ayala, F.J. & Fitch, W.M., “Genetics and the origin of species: An introduction,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, Vol. 94, July 1997, pp.7691-7697, p.7693).
So Dobzhansky was not a “religious man” in the way most people in the Western world would understand, Thank you, Christian Darwinists and Darwin in the schools lobby. You may now both sit down. We get the picture.
But that’s not the whole story. Dobzhansky taught in Brazil. In 2009, Dra. Nair Elias dos Santos Ebling offered at Pos-Darwinista some information, for consideration, many of us may not have heard before. This is a translation of part of a March 5, 2009 post:
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I was in my senior year of college. My inclination had always been Genetics, and I was the head of the Department of Cytology and Genetics.
The professor in charge of the department was doing research with Drosophila – these little fruit flies – and I worked with him. He had studied the writings of Dr. Theodosius Dobzhansky in the United States. Later Dr. Dobzhansky came to Brazil and I had the opportunity to talk to him.
The expectation of the visit of this great scientist was very great for all the students of the area of Biology, because his books and scientific works were very quoted and contributed to form our worldview.
I myself was at the height of my existential crisis. As a Seventh-day Adventist, I was a creationist. However, the University, all structured in the theory of evolution was compromising the foundations of my beliefs. Therefore, having the opportunity to personally meet the ‘pope’ of evolutionism in genetics was both exciting and frightening.
On the day of his arrival, I was invited to have lunch with him. I was very scared, but he was a nice old man and spoke Portuguese very well. Suddenly, my first surprise: they offered him pineapple juice and asked him if he wanted it natural or with mint. In a tone of voice that everyone could hear, he replied,
“I always prefer the fruit with the taste the Creator put in them!”
Everyone laughed, but I looked closely to see if he spoke with some irony or if he meant it. On other occasions he also made similar references to the ‘Creator’, and hen the others laughed he was somewhat surprised.
Finally, on a walk we did to hunt Drosophila flies on the banks of a river where we were doing scientific research, I had the opportunity to have a long conversation with him. This conversation would mark me for life and would make me stand firm in creationism.
We stopped for lunch at a typical restaurant by the side of the river. It served a variety of fruits, vegetables and vegetables. Dobzhansky began to serve himself. Then, I came near. He gently offered to serve me while saying,
“The Creator was not at all stingy with the variety!”
I seized the opportunity to ask him what he meant when he referred to the ‘Creator.’ He placed his finger in front of his lips in a sign of ‘silence’ and asked me if I would like to walk. I answered affirmatively and he made an invitation:
After lunch we’ll go on a walk then.”
I quickly finished my lunch and he did the same.
The trail we walked on featured a wide variety of wildflowers. He ripped off one of them and asked what I saw through the flower. I told him that I could see many things through it: beyond external harmony, I could recognize the inner structure; I could look at it through the microscope and see much more, etc. But I told him that he could certainly see much more than I did.
Here is where he asked me the crucial question:
“Do you really believe that all this may have been the result of chance?” To which I replied:
“No, I do not believe that; but, teacher, through your articles and books you have managed to leave me confused.”
He kept showing me various things about nature and talking about them, discrediting chance and time as responsible for everything.
My surprise at all this was great, and I began to ask him a series of questions: ‘What do you seek? Where are you going? You, who have made generations of young people believe in evolution and chance as the agents of everything through millions of years, are now saying the opposite? ‘
“You’re a creationist,” he told me, “go on being one”. Do not change for what I have said or written.
“But, professor,” I continued, “what will you do with all the influence you have had and you will continue to have?”
Here he closed the subject with an impressive statement:
“You do not need to walk the way I followed. You’re too young. You´re still a creationist. I’ve already gone too far and do not have time to go back. ”
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The following seems to have been contributed by the editor:
(According to Dr. Nair Ebling, this dialogue took place in 1966)
Fiat justitia ruat coelum now for Dr. Ebling, therefore referring to the most famous primary source of Dobzhansky, we read:
“Only a creative but blind process could produce … the tremendous biological success that is the human species … However, organic diversity becomes reasonable and understandable if the Creator created the living world not by whim, but by evolution driven by natural selection. It is wrong to regard creation and evolution as mutually exclusive alternatives. I am a creationist and evolutionist. Evolution is God’s or Nature’s method of creation. Creation is not an event that happened in 4004 BC; is a process that began some 10 billion years ago and is still continuing …. ”
I emphasize here the existential confusion of Dobzhansky. In this famous text he infers purpose and direction by calling the evolution as God’s “method” or nature, but shortly afterwards states that the process could only be a “blind” process.
Dobzhansky was a creationist I confess yes, but a creationist who understood to be the Creation realized in the world only through evolution. Its universal mantra of “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution” can also be translated as “nothing in Creation is explained except in the light of evolution.”
Fiat justitia ruat coelum for Dr. Ebling: her version can now be understood to have actually occurred, and its detractors, especially the Gang of boys and girls of Darwin, will no longer be able to say that this is an “urban legend” of creationists
Fiat justitia ruat coelum for Dobzhansky because in 1966 he said in private conversation where his subjectivity surfaced in the confession of being a “creationist”, of having gone too far, and of not having time to go back as an evolutionist, however, in 1973 Dobzhansky told an academic audience what kind of “creationist” he was: an evolutionist theist.
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In short, being a Darwinist wrecks one’s relationship with reality.
See also: Francisco Ayala on Dobzhansky.