This article will explore how Darwin’s theory of evolution has changed science. Evolution enabled scientists to adopt the naturalistic axiom. The best way to understand the change is to study the writings of scientists before Darwin. This article will focus on one of the greatest minds in scientific history, Sir Isaac Newton.

Newton’s accomplishments are too numerous to list here. But suffice it to say that he did a lot more than observe an apple falling from a tree. He developed laws to describe gravity as well as the laws that govern all non-relativistic motion, and by the way, he also co-invented calculus. His scientific accomplishments are probably second only to Einstein.

Newton also had a habit of mixing theology and science. This practice would be totally unacceptable today. Science does not allow this today. But Newton lived in the 17th century. And in his day science did not rely on or even recognize the naturalistic axiom. Back then rather than assume that everything had a naturalistic explantion they had to prove it. As we will see, this is both good and bad.

two examples from Newton’s writtings:

Newton wrote in an unpublished manuscript referred to by its opening words De Gravitatione, that an “infinite and divine power” occupies all space and “extends to infinity in all directions.” [When]Descartes claimed that where there is no matter, there is no space; on the contrary, said Newton, where there is not matter spirit alone endows space with extension. To say that space does not exist where there is no matter, denies the presence of spirit, and hence the presence of God in the universe.

- p56 Cosmology by Edward Harrison, Cambridge, 2003.

In a letter Newton wrote to Bentley, Newton agrees that gravity does not cause the universe to collapse because matter has been precisely placed ( by an intelligent agent) in such a way that all gravitational forces cancel to zero.

You argue that every particle of matter in an infinite space has an infinite quantity of matter on all sides and by consequence an infinite attraction everyway and therefore must rest in equilibrio because all infinities are equal………….And much harder is it to believe that all particle in an infinite space should be so accurately poised one among another. For I reckon that it hard to make not one needle but an infinite number of them ( so many as there are infinite particle in an infinite space) stand accurately poised upon their points. Yet, I grant it possible at least by a divine power; and if they once so placed I agree with you that they would continue in that position without motion forever, unless put into motion by that same power……………..So then gravity may put the planets into motion but without the divine power it could never put them into such a circulating motion as they have about the sun; and therefore, for this as well as other reasons, I am compelled to ascribe the frame of the system to an intelligent agent.”

- second letter to Bentley, feb 25 1693.

In the above letter, Newton makes use of the design inference! Most interesting. Are we to infer that he was a lousy scientist? Should we rename the unit of gravity after somebody else and credit his laws of motion to my dogs? I think not.

This second quote illustrates why science needs the naturalistic axiom. Because Newton did not rely on the naturalistic axion, Newton was never able to explain why gravity does not cause the universe to collapse. Instead he believed that God placed all matter precisely where it needed to be so that all gravitational forces on large objects like the sun cancel to zero. This conclussion prevented him from futher scientific inquiry. Science needs the naturalistic axiom. It does not function well without it - because great scientists like Newton stop looking for answers.

Nevertheless, just because science needs this particular axiom, does not mean that it is true. It is just an assumption, and it is not even a self-evident assumption. This is the downside and it is a big one. If a designer exists, science can not find him. Newton could and did find evidence for design in his observations. Modern scientists are not allowed to do this. If they make use of the design inference, and they are professors at a secular university they will be fired.

Newton’s design inference turned out to be wrong because gravity does not really cancel at all points in space to zero as Netwon and Bentley assumed. Furthermore, Doppler red shifts have shown that the universe is not static but expanding at an incredible rate. The cosmic background radiation all but proves the idea that the universe started 10 to 20 billions years ago with an explosion that created both time and space. So does Newton’s erroneous inference suggest that all current design theories will eventually suffer the same fate? Not really. Newton made this inference very quickly. He did not search for other answers, but more importantly he did not allow other scientists time to explore the question. Thus, from the start, his inference was very weak especially since he had no empirical evidence to suggest that gravity cancels to zero everywhere. Today, when a case for design is made based on the improbable origin of life, we can rest assured that tens of thousands of scientists have pondered this question for over a century, and that further, the solution to this important puzzle becomes more mysterious with each scientific discovery and experiment. Thus, the design inferences being made today are much more resilent than Newton’s.

Science must continue to use the naturalistic axiom, and let other disciplines like intelligent design propose the alternatives. The purpose of intelligent design is not so much to prove that a designer exists (this will always require faith), but rather to show that some conclusions drawn by scientists today may not be correct because these conclusions (especially those that deal with the origin of life and the evolution of the first genes and proteins) rely heavily on an assumption that is not self-evident and is most likely false. By creating a system for checks and balances, intelligent design and science complement each other well.