Why Human Rights Are Unalienable
A recent book explores in detail
the meaning of the historic words
in the Declaration of Independence
Book Review:
Endowed by Our Creator: The Bible, Science, and the Battle for America’s Soul by Dr John West (Discovery Institute, 2026)
Reviewed by David Coppedge
On the eve of America’s 250th Birthday, Dr John West has sounded an urgent call to return to the profound words of the Declaration of Independence signed 250 years ago by a group of men who did not know at the time whether their bold Revolution would succeed.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed….
Yet here we live the day before the Semiquincentennial in July 2026, enjoying the liberties bequeathed to us by those revolutionaries, but concerned about a large, boisterous faction seeking to tear down those founding principles. Newt Gingrich wrote in praise of Dr West’s timely book,
John West has performed an important role for our 250th birthday as a country. He reminds us that the Founding Fathers meant that our rights come from our Creator. They understood the radicalism of rights coming from God and not secular authority. Our current crisis of culture and spirit will only be healed by the return to those Creator-endowed rights.
The “radicalism” of 1776 was far different from today’s radicalism. John Adams, Patrick Henry, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and the other heroes of the American Revolution were learned men. Unlike today’s rabble -rousers chanting ignorant slogans, waving signs and sometimes violently attacking our monuments to freedom, the Founding Fathers knew history from Biblical times to the Greeks and Romans up to their present servitude under the King of England. At a time when peasants endured hardship under monarchs who claimed a divine right to their totalitarian rule, these men, drawing on Enlightenment writers like Locke and Montesquieu, returned to foundational “self-evident” truths of Genesis that we are all created equal, and that our rights are endowed by our Creator.
John West, who is best known as a leader of the Intelligent Design movement as the Vice President of Discovery Institute, is also a Distinguished Scholar of American Government and Civic Engagement at Cornerstone University. Well versed in the history of materialism and Darwinian thought as it pertains to science, he is also a devout Christian who sees the warning signs of anti-American sentiments coming from the far left. Radicals of the left are now winning political offices and threatening to collapse the entire American dream of individual liberty and replace it with government tyranny in the form of socialism and communism – systems that have never worked, and always result in great suffering for the masses (except for a favored few, who aggrandize for themselves all political power).
Endowed by Our Creator begins with a careful analysis of the famous words from the Declaration quoted above. The book contains these chapters:
1. America’s Creed
2. We Hold These Truths
3. A Second American Revolution
4. The Triumph of Scientocracy
5. Back to the Future
6. Where Do We Go from Here?
In the opening two chapters, each phrase of the Declaration’s preamble is examined in detail from the perspective of 1776 thought. Dr West draws in vignettes of the Founding Fathers and the historical influences that guided their thinking.
In chapter 3, he explores the attitude that led up to the Civil War, when supporters of slavery denied that all men are created equal. But threats to America’s principles were not over.
In chapter 4, Dr West describes the rise of scientific materialism that began to profoundly influence scientists in the late 19th century. The “scientocracy” that resulted from the Darwinian Revolution in Europe and subsequently in America generated systems of thought even worse than slavery, such as the denial of human exceptionalism and the denial of a natural moral law. These views led to consequences much worse than the hundreds of thousands of deaths in the Civil War: the systematic democide of tens of millions across the world. Dr West is well versed in these historical consequences. His magnus opus, Darwin Day in America, chronicled the many pernicious effects of scientific materialism—not only in politics, but in art, architecture, education and culture in general.
In Chapter 5, Dr West lists many scientific advances that support human exceptionalism, moral absolutes, and the immaterial soul. Genetics, neuroscience, and all aspects of biology underscore the principles stated in the Declaration 250 years ago. How ironic that the very scientists and philosophers who equated science with materialism were wrong, and the Founding Fathers were right! This calls for a renewed effort to reverse the long detour away from America’s principles—back to the future—that will bring with it, once again, the blessings of liberty to us and to our posterity.
The message of this chapter is that the eclipse of reality that placed the Declaration of Independence in shadow is ending. Once again, science is pointing to a Creator who endowed us with life and liberty, affirming the wisdom of the Bible and America’s Founders. Science is again revealing how human beings are both equal and special, just as the Founders and the Bible professed. And the misuse of science during the COVID era is reawakening the resolve of many Americans to insiste on government by consent rather than government by unelected elites.
The door to a return to the principles of America’s Founding stands open. The question is whether we as a nation are willing to walk through it.
The book concludes with practical advice on what Americans can all do to hasten the return of values taught so eloquently in the Declaration of Independence. An appendix lists resources for digging deeper into these issues. Dr West supplied copious endnotes with sources and additional information on points made in the book, and a thorough index helps the reader visit particular topics again. The book has an attractive, professional look characteristic of all publications from the Discovery Institute. Except for minor matters of interpretation of some scientific questions related to cosmology and the age of the earth, this is a perfect book for the 250th Birthday of America. Let us all learn the reason for “celebrations filled with pomp and parade, shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of the continent to the other” as John Adams predicted would characterize the Fourth of July, never forgetting that, first of all, it should be a “day of deliverance with solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.”
See also: Portions of the book are available in articles at Science & Culture Today. Read “The Science of Darwin and Marx Provides No Support for ‘Unalienable Rights’ by Charles Thaxton and Stephen Meyer (3 July 2026). Here at CEH, read the article by Dr Sarah Buckland-Reynolds about American values from the perspective of a Jamaican, 1 July 2026.
David Coppedge, B.S. Education, B.S. Physics, founded Creation-Evolution Headlines in late 2000 as a way to share science news he was encountering at NASA. It has grown into a highly-trusted source of news and commentary critical of the pro-Darwin consensus, providing analysis of breaking news of interest to creationists and evolutionists, without the Darwin spin. He has authored over 7,000 entries at CEH since its inception.