Famous Scientist Dies and Knows the Truth Too Late

A few months ago, I wrote a blog about Dr. Lynn Margulis, wife of renowned atheist and astronomer Carl Sagan, and her disdain of natural selection and mutation as mechanisms driving evolution. Margulis favors her own idea of endosymbiotic theory or symbiogenesis to explain how evolution occurs. In a nutshell she believes that evolution occurs by leaps resulting from mergers between different organisms.

A week ago, Dr. Margulis died at the age of 73. She was still very active in research and had recently claimed that she had discovered a new organism in a place called Puffer’s Pond, which is near the University of Massachusetts–Amherst where she was a professor for many years. In her lifetime Margulis was granted many honors including the National Medal of Science in 1999, membership in many prestigious scientific academies, and numerous scientific publications.

Dr. Margulis was also known as a proponent of the Gaia hypothesis that Wikipedia states “proposes that all organisms and their inorganic surroundings on Earth are closely integrated to form a single and self-regulating complex system, maintaining the conditions for life on the planet.”1 Margulis wrote the following:

The Gaia hypothesis is a biological idea, but it’s not human-centered. Those who want Gaia to be an Earth goddess for a cuddly, furry human environment find no solace in it. . . . Yes, Gaia will take care of itself; yes, environmental excesses will be ameliorated, but it’s likely that such restoration of the environment will occur in a world devoid of people.

Gaia is a tough [expletive]—a system that has worked for over three billion years without people. This planet’s surface and its atmosphere and environment will continue to evolve long after people and prejudice are gone.2

The focus for Margulis when it came to earth was not people. Humans appear to be inconsequential to Margulis—and even a source of problems for the earth. She saw earth as a planet as the most important thing. Contrast that with Jesus’ focus when He came to earth and said, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). Christ’s focus on earth was people and their salvation—not the salvation of the planet itself.

From what we can ascertain, Margulis had no belief in the God of the Bible and did not trust Christ as her Savior. Sadly she now knows the truth but it is too late to save her from an eternity in hell. I remember talking to skeptic and atheist Dr. Michael Shermer several years ago when he interviewed me at the Creation Museum. We got on the topic of heaven and hell, and he was joking about going to hell, so I very seriously told him, “Eternity lasts a long time, so you better make sure you have the right answer.”

The one thing you can’t do after you die is make a decision to receive Christ as Savior. Please make the decision to receive Him today and if you already know Him be sure to share the gospel with an unsaved family member or friend soon. Check out our new book Begin to "begin" talking with people about Jesus, Genesis, and the Bible.

Keep fighting the good fight of the faith!