q Science requires a paradigm or organizing set of principles and Darwinism has fulfilled this function for more than a century. It is the grand organizing theoretical principle for biology -- a statement that does not imply that it is true. .
q Once established as orthodox, a paradigm usually is not discarded until it is can be replaced with a new and better paradigm which is acceptable to the scientific community. Disconfirming evidence can always be classified as "unsolved problems," and the situation remains satisfactory for researchers because even an inadequate paradigm can generate an agenda for research. .
q To be acceptable a paradigm must conform to the philosophical tenets of scientific materialism. For example, the hypothesis that biological complexity is the product of some preexisting creative intelligence or vital force is not acceptable to scientific materialists. They do not fairly consider this hypothesis and then reject it as contrary to the evidence; rather they disregard it as inherently ineligible for consideration. .
q Given the above premises, something very much like Darwinism simply must be accepted as a matter of logical deduction, regardless of the state of the evidence. Random mutation and natural selection must be credited with shaping biological complexity, because nothing else could have been available to do the job. Hence even those evolutionary biologists who are most frank in acknowledging that Darwinism is in trouble frequently end up saying in the next sentence that no reputable biologist seriously doubts the importance of (creative) natural selection in evolution. Because the escape from Darwinism seems to lead nowhere, Darwinism for scientific materialists is inescapable. .
q What makes this situation particularly misleading is a confusion (at times convenient for Darwinists) about how the category "science" relates to the category "truth.
