13th letter on 5-2-18

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Emma Nora Barlow (née Darwin) (22 December 1885 – December 1989) was the granddaughter of the British naturalist Charles Darwin, who edited and published previously unseen examples of her grandfather’s work. Nora, as she was known, was the daughter of the civil engineer Horace Darwin and his wife Emma Farrer, daughter of Thomas Farrer, 1st Baron Farrer. She married Alan Barlow, son of the Royal Physician Sir Thomas Barlow.  She published an unexpurgated version of The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, which had previously had personal and religious material removed by his son, Francis. She also edited several collections of letters and notes, including correspondence between Darwin and John Stevens Henslow, his mentor.

Steven Pinker pictured above

Ernst Mayr (1904 – 2005) pictured above

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Charles Darwin (1809-1882) pictured above

Francis Darwin (1848-1925) pictured above

Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984)

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May 2, 2018

Horace Barlow, England CB39AX, United Kingdom

Dear Dr. Barlow,

I noticed that during the 1940’s  you graduated from Harvard Medical School. I was wondering if you ever had the opportunity to visit personally with the  Harvard professor Ernst Mayr? Dr. Mayr’s teaching career there I believe spanned over 60 years. In 1994 and 1995 I had the opportunity to correspond with  Dr. Ernst Mayr of Harvard. He stated in his letter of 10-3-94, “Owing to your ideological commitments, it is only natural that you cannot accept the cogency of the scientific evidence. However, to a person such as myself without such commitments, the story of the gradual evolution of life as reconstructed by chemists and molecular biologists is totally convincing.”

I responded with three points. First, Scientific Naturalism is atheistic by definition. Second, many great scientists of the past were Christians, and that did not disqualify their observations and discoveries. Third, the fact that evolution is true does not rule out God’s existence (Harvard’s own Owen Gingerich and many others hold to a Creator and evolution). The second point is the one that I dealt with the most in my response to Dr. Mayr. It is true that some may discount the fact that so many of the scientists of the past were creationists. In fact, I am reading the new book by psychologist Steven Pinker entitled Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. On page 18 Pinker asserts, “Organisms are replete with improbable configurations of flesh like eyes, ears, hearts and stomachs which cry out for an explanation. Before Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace provided one in 1859, it was reasonable to think that they were the product of a divine designer….Darwin and Wallace made the designer unnecessary.”

There were previous theories like evolution around but scientists never bought into them for good reason in my view. Furthermore, Darwin himself pointed out the huge gap in the fossil record and sadly for evolutionists this gap still remains even in 2018! In your letter of November 22, 2017 you asserted, “He {Darwin} clearly did not lose his sense of the VALUE of TRUTH, and of the importance of FOREVER SEARCHING it out.” Like you, Dr. Barlow, I value truth and think it is important to search through the evidence. That is the reason that I did take time to provide Professor Mayr some evidence to consider concerning the accuracy of the Bible. In my letter to Professor Mayr I noted, “I had enclosed chapters One and Two from the book NONE OF THESE DISEASES by the medical doctor S.I. McMillen. It is quite amazing to read about the medical knowledge God gave the Hebrews over 3000 years ago!” (I have enclosed a portion of that book for you to consider.)

I started off this letter by quoting Mayr’s accusation against me that I couldn’t accept evolution because of my  “ideological commitments.” I demonstrated in an earlier letter that I have crossed the political and religious lines when I thought the evidence demonstrated the need to confront the over 30 religious right leaders who had been guilty of not researching the quotes of the American Founding Fathers before using them. I teamed with the atheist John George and you can google this result by searching the terms “Everette Hatcher Founders Quotes.”

Not only that but I have read many books by those who taken the works of your great grandfather and discussed them further. I think of Richard Dawkins’ books: The God Delusion, An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist, and Brief Candle in the Dark: My Life in Science, and Daniel Dennett’s book Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, and I also enjoyed listening to the audiobook ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES by Charles Darwin as read by Richard Dawkins on You Tube. However, let me take a different approach instead of defending myself. I read recently that your mother “published an unexpurgated version of The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, which had previously had personal and religious material removed by his son, Francis.” I must say that I have enjoyed reading that version and I wanted to say some portions of it followed by observations from Francis Schaeffer.

Quoting from Charles Darwin’s Autobiography. The passages which here follow are extracts, somewhat abbreviated, from a part of the Autobiography, written in 1876, in which my father gives the history of his religious views:—

“During these two years* (ft note *October 1836 to January 1839.) I was led to think much about ([page] 58) religion. Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several of the officers (though themselves orthodox) for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality.

Francis Schaeffer commented:

So you find that as a younger man he did accept the Bible. As an older man he has given up revelation but he is not satisfied with his own answers. He is caught in the tension that modern man is caught in. He is a prefiguration  of the modern man and he himself contributed to. Then Darwin goes on and tells us why he gave up the Bible.

Darwin’s words:

I suppose it was the novelty of the argument that amused them. But I had gradually come by this time, i.e. 1836 to 1836, to see that the Old Testament was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos. The question then continually rose before my mind and would not be banished,—is it credible that if God were now to make a revelation to the Hindoos, he would permit it to be connected with the belief in Vishnu, Siva, &c., as Christianity is connected with the Old Testament? This appeared to me utterly incredible.

Francis Schaeffer notes:

Darwin is saying that he gave up the New Testament because it was connected to the Old Testament. He gave up the Old Testament because it conflicted with his own theory. Did he have a real answer himself and the answer is no. At the end of his life we see that he is dehumanized by his position and on the other side we see that he never comes to the place of intellectual satisfaction for himself that his answers were sufficient…It doesn’t mean he  is at ease as a man because he has ruled these things out. Darwin is a man in tension. Does  the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system explain the wonder of the universe and secondly the mannishness of man? He himself feels caught on these two great hooks of the real world. In others I would say, “DARWIN your presuppositions don’t even satisfy you…Darwin went to his death unsatisfied and yet  he was forced to give up his own presuppositions but he never gave them up. It seems to me you have the old man Darwin perspiring in his tension that you can only think of Paul’s conclusion in Romans 1, that when men deliberately turn away from the truth that is there, the external universe and the mannishness of man, God gives them up to an unsound mind. If there even was anybody that ever demonstrated this it was Darwin himself  at the end of his life. It is a position that Darwin holds with implicit faith. You must understand what the term IMPLICIT FAITH  means. In the old Roman Catholic Church when someone who became a Roman Catholic they had to promise implicit faith. That meant that you not only had to believe everything that Roman Catholic Church taught then but also everything it would teach in the future. It seems to me this is the kind of faith that these people have in the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system and they have accepted it no matter what it leads them into. 

I closed my letter to Dr. Mayr with these words:

My relatives live 3 miles from Spring Hill, Tennessee. When the new General Motors plant opened there I got to go see it. What if I had said, “The assembly line created a beautiful Saturn automobile!” Hopefully, some would have corrected me by responding, “The assembly line did not create the automobile. It was first designed by the General Motors engineers in Detroit.” ASSUMING EVOLUTION IS TRUE, IT WOULD STILL ONLY BE THE MECHANISM. DOES EVOLUTION ACCOUNT FOR THE DESIGNER?

The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted. If you need more evidence then go to You Tube and watch the short videos  “Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical Flow of History & Truth (1),“(3 min, 5 sec) and “Dr. Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical Flow of Truth & History (part 2),” (10 min, 40 seconds).

In my last letter I invited you to Easter Services at Loughton Baptist Church, Bradwell Road, Loughton, Milton Keynes MK5 8AJ, where my relative Craig Sayle is pastor. Craig told me, “He may not be able to make it to us, but if he is interested in talking more I will be glad to go see him. My phone number for him would be 07860784252.”

Thanks again for your time. I hope you have enjoyed these discussions of your great grandfather’s works as much as I have. Again let me repeat what a honor it has been to correspond with you, and  I will be writing you again in 30 days on June 2nd.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, 13900 cottontail lane, Alexander, AR 72002, United States

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Below is a short summery by Vic Vadney of those pages I sent to Professor Mayr back in 1994:

MEDICINE

I do not want anyone to think that the Bible is like a recent medical textbook. The purpose of the Bible is far from that. However, I invite you, the reader, to explore some passages in the Bible that hopefully will surprise and fascinate you about the possibility of there being Scientific Foreknowledge in the Bible.

THE ABSENCE OF CONTEMPORARY HARMFUL TREATMENTS

My own opinion is that there certainly appears to be statements in the Old Testament that clearly exceed the knowledge of that time. As a physician, I am amazed at the advanced health regulations given in the Mosaic Law, especially since Moses and the Israelites had just come out of Egypt. Now the time of the Exodus was about 1446 BC, and this was also the time when the Bible says God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and over 600 other laws. Contemporary practices from the great knowledge and wisdom of the Egyptians was clearly known by Moses (Act 7:22), which very likely included the famous medical treatments such as are found in the Papyrus Ebers, which is dated about 1552 BC. Dr. S. I. McMillen quotes a summary of some of the hundreds of remedies for diseases based on Massengill’s (1943) assessment:

These drugs include “lizards’ blood, swines’ teeth, putrid meat, stinking fat, moisture from pigs’ ears, milk goose grease, asses’ hoofs, animal fats from various sources, excreta from animals, including human beings, donkeys, antelopes, dogs, cats, and even flies.”1

It is clear that these treatments would not have been effective in eradicating illness, and in fact, the sewage treatments would have caused tetanus (including neonatal), wound infections, sepsis and death. Yet, this was the greatest medical wisdom in the world at that time. However, we find none of these things being commanded in the health regulations in the Law of Moses. Now this would have been a major departure, not only for Moses, but also for the Israelites. There must have been a substantial trust in God by Moses and the Israelites for them to have abandoned these harmful, though highly touted Egyptian medical practices as found in the Papyrus Ebers.

HYGIENE ISSUES

Instead we find in the Mosaic Law solid principles of public health that still apply today. For example, major policies include the following:

Isolating infected people (Lev 13:45-46).
Washing after handling a dead body (Num 19:11-19).
Burying excrement away from the camp (Deut 23:12-13).2

McMillen points out that the first policy was the only thing that stopped the Leprosy and the Black Death during the Dark Ages.3 The second policy was the only thing that stopped the obstetrical deaths in Vienna in the 1840’s.4 The third policy was absolutely needed to stop the epidemics of typhoid, cholera and dysentery.5

Even today these simple public health principles, if properly used, would stop the spread of killer infections in hospitals. Wash your hands under running water! How simple does it get! Yet, it is a constant battle to get physicians and nurses to wash their hands before treating the next patient. The same thing applies to everyone who has an infectious illness such as influenza or diarrhea. Wash your hands! At this time there is a considerable concern about the spread of H1N1 (swine influenza). Again, the recommendation is to “wash your hands!”

What is the point? Moses was 3500 years ahead of his time. Moses could not have known, based on his own education as a prince in Egypt, the simple and effective public heath principles that are revealed in the Mosaic Law. The only way he could have learned these principles 3500 years ahead of their time was by receiving revelation from the all-knowing God.

FOOD RESTRICTIONS

The medical marvels in the Law of Moses are not confined to hygiene issues. Food rules are impressive. For example, swine are notorious for carrying trichinosis because of what they eat (i.e., raw garbage and infected rodents), and this disease can easily be passed to humans eating inadequately cooked pork. Pork must be raised in a controlled environment and their meat cooked well-done in order to be safe for consumption. Of course, Moses didn’t know that, but God did and told the Israelites not to eat pork.

Another very interesting finding is that God commanded the Israelites through Moses not to eat fat (Lev 3:16-17). It was only just a few years ago that the cholesterol hypothesis was proven: High fat diets are not good for humans as these predispose people to higher rates of cholesterol plaques with all their complications such as heart attacks and strokes. How could Moses have known on his own 3500 years ago that fat should be excluded from the diet of his people? He didn’t learn that from his Egyptian education! Where did it come from? It came from God.

.CONCLUSION

Therefore, there seems to be compelling evidence that the Bible contains sound medical principles that clearly predate their more recent discovery by thousands of years. Dear friends, this is real Scientific Foreknowledge. It reveals the finger of God, the breath of God. He was there, and revealed these things to the ancients.

As an aside for my profession, I think it unfortunate for our patients that we as physicians and nurses and health care workers have been so slow to see the very basic principles of hygiene that were established so long ago. If we had, we wouldn’t be fighting a plague of infections like MRSA, multiply resistant enterococci, and multiply resistant flesh-eating bacteria, and multiply resistant EVERYTHING caused by poor hand washing and inadequate containment procedures. My colleagues, we have been slow to learn, slow to believe, and slow to respond. Our patients deserve better, and we all know it.

It was clear even to the ancients.

ENDNOTES:

McMillen, SI. None of These Diseases. Fleming H Revell Co, Old Tappan, NJ, ©1963, p 9.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_the_Bible
McMillen, ibid., p 11.
McMillen, ibid., p 13-15.
McMillen, ibid., p 13.

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