Criticism of Jehovah's Witnesses - Evolution

Evolution

A number of Watch Tower Society publications attempt to refute the theory of evolution in favor of divine creation. The Watch Tower society's views of evolution have met with criticism typical of objections to evolution. Critics have accused the Watch Tower Society of quoting scientists out of context, relying on straw-man arguments, confounding evolution and abiogenesis, and depending on unreliable sources in its polemic against evolutionary science.

The Society's 1985 publication, Life — How Did it Get Here? By Evolution or by Creation? is criticized for its dependency on Francis Hitching, who is cited thirteen times. The book presents Hitching — actually a TV writer and paranormalist with no scientific credentials — as an evolutionary scientist. Richard Dawkins also criticizes the book for implying that "chance" is the only alternative to deliberate design, stating, "he candidate solutions to the riddle of improbability are not, as falsely implied, design and chance. They are design and natural selection."

The Society dismisses Young Earth creationism (YEC) as "unscriptural and unbelievable", and states that Jehovah's Witnesses "are not creationists", based on the more specific definition of believers in a 'young' earth created in six literal days: The Society instead teaches a form of Day-Age creationism. According to a 1986 article in The Watchtower, "Jehovah's Witnesses reject the unreasonable theories of 'creationism' in favor of what the Bible really teaches about 'creation'." In light of this emphatic dismissal of YEC as unreasonable, it has drawn criticism that the Watch Tower Society's own publications have frequently relied on YEC sources for general anti-evolution arguments. Alan Feuerbacher accuses Watch Tower writers of quoting "cranks and YEC's ... because they are sometimes too ignorant to evaluate the authority of those they quote", or "because they can find no other authorities to quote." Feuerbacher lists more than twenty Young Earth Creationists that have been favorably referenced in Watchtower literature, including Robert V. Gentry, Frank Lewis Marsh, Henry Morris, Wallace Pratt, George McCready Price, and John C. Whitcomb.

One analysis commends the Society's 2010 brochures Was Life Created? and The Origin of Life — Five Questions Worth Asking for an improved bibliography and greater transparency in the use of sources, as compared to earlier Watchtower anti-evolution material. After 39 pages of discussion, the reviewer however concludes that both brochures are "philosophically naive, with no understanding of what science is, how it is done, or what types of questions it can answer. More egregiously, the authors and editors, whether out of malice or incompentence, misrepresent nearly all of their sources. Nuanced concepts are bludgeoned with unadulterated scientific ignorance."

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