http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=9&article=1148
Darwin in Light of 150 Years of Error
If the latter part of 2009 is anything like its beginning, this year
will go down in secular history as the year of Charles Darwin. The
scientific establishment is rallying virtually its entire arsenal of
resources to celebrate the life and writings of Charles Darwin.
Scientific American’s
January cover story is titled: “The Evolution of Evolution: How
Darwin’s Theory Survives, Thrives, and Reshapes the World.” In his
editor’s note that introduces the issue, John Rennie wrote: “Today, 200
years after his birth and 150 years after
Origin of Species,
Darwin’s legacy is a larger, richer, more diverse set of theories than
he could have imagined” (300[1]:6). Contributing writers to
NewScientistpenned
an article titled “The Years of Thinking Dangerously” in which they
polled scientific heavy-hitters, such as Paul Davies, Daniel Dennett,
Matt Ridley, Steven Pinker, and Michael Ruse, to decide who deserves
2009’s “anniversary crown”—Charles Darwin or Galileo. The article
stated: “In the end, our panel concluded (with two abstentions) that
Darwin has done more to change our view of ourselves. For our rigorous
peer reviews,
2009 is Darwin’s year!” (“The Years...,”
200[2687/2688]:70-71, emp. added). The official Darwin Day Web site
informs viewers that 128 events are currently scheduled in 21 different
countries to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Darwin on February 12,
2009
(“Darwin Day Celebration”). The site gives a description of many of
these events, and includes a countdown of the days, hours, and seconds
until the big day. (Incidentally, the debate between Dan Barker and Kyle
Butt on the campus of the University of South Carolina in Columbia is
listed among these events; see “Darwin Day Event Listing.”) In addition,
the British Museum of Natural History has organized its “Darwin”
exhibit, hailed as “the biggest ever exhibition about Charles Darwin. It
celebrates Darwin’s ideas and their impact for his 200
th birthday in 2009” (“Darwin: Big Idea, Big Exhibition”).
An exhaustive list of all such activities would take hundreds of pages.
Needless to say, Darwin and his theory will be in the global spotlight
this year. This being the case, it is a good time to analyze Darwin and
his ideas. Is it true that Darwin left a legacy worthy to be celebrated?
Or is it the case that Darwin’s ideas were not only wrong, but also
harmful in that they have provided the basis for racism, devaluing human
life, and erroneous scientific study? In truth, when Darwin’s
contribution to society is critically considered, the publishing of
The Origin of Species is an event that should be marked, not as worthy of celebration, but as an event that will live in infamy. This issue of
Reason & Revelation will highlight several of the most glaring deficiencies of Darwin’s theory.
DARWIN’S THEORY IS USELESS
The late Theodosius Dobzhansky remains well-known for a particularly
catchy article title that he penned in the 1970s. In fact, the title of
his article contains an idea that is accepted and maintained by a large
portion of the modern scientific community—“Nothing in Biology Makes Any
Sense Except in the Light of Evolution” (1973). This idea—that without a
“proper” understanding of evolution one cannot understand, much less
contribute to, biological studies—has taken a firm hold of many
professors and science teaching professionals. Professor Michael Dini of
the Department of Biological Sciences at Texas Tech University stated:
“The central, unifying principle of biology is the theory of evolution,
which includes both micro- and macro-evolution, and which extends to ALL
species. Someone who ignores the most important theory in biology
cannot expect to properly practice in a field that is now so heavily
based on biology” (n.d., emp. in orig.).
Is it true that a proper understanding of evolution is a prerequisite
for any person who wishes “to properly practice” in some field of
biology? The eminent evolutionist and outspoken Darwinist, Richard
Dawkins, offered some interesting thoughts along these lines. In a
discussion of one particular group of scientists, Dawkins stated:
They have decided, perhaps rightly, that they can do
taxonomy better if they forget about evolution, and especially if they
never use the concept of the ancestor in thinking about taxonomy. In the
same way, a student of, say, nerve cells, might decide that he is not
aided by thinking about evolution. The nerve specialist agrees that his
nerve cells are the products of evolution, but he does not need to use this fact in his research. He needs to know a lot about physics and chemistry, but he believes that Darwinism is irrelevant to his day-to-day research on nerve impulses. That is a defensible position.... A physicist certainly doesn’t need Darwinism in order to do physics (1996, p. 283, emp. added).
According to Dawkins, it is very possible for a person to engage in
productive cell research (an extremely important branch of biology)
without using evolutionary ideas in any of his procedures. In fact,
evolution could defensibly be “irrelevant to his day-to-day research.”
Please notice, however, that Dawkins makes sure to include the idea that
the researcher believes that the cells are the “products of evolution.”
But let us take Dawkins’ thoughts a step further. Could it be that the
researcher would not have to believe that the cells are the product of
evolution? Would that belief affect his “day-to-day research”? Dawkins
must answer, “No.” Then, according to Dawkins’ line of thinking, a
person who does
not believe in evolution could be just as (or more) successful in the biological sciences than one who
does believe in evolution.
It should not be surprising, then, to hear statements like the one made
by Thomas Geelan. Geelan is a teacher of advanced placement biology in
Buffalo, New York. His course is titled, “An Interdisciplinary Course in
Evolution.” In the abstract that describes the class, the first line
states: “Evolution is the central organizing theme in all biology, yet
few biology courses
are taught that way” (n.d., emp. added). In the introduction to the
class, a similar statement is made: “Evolution is the central organizing
theme in all biology, but it is ironic
that most biology curricula are pitifully deficient in their treatment of it” (emp. added).
What is the primary reason for this deficiency in “most” biology
courses? The answer simply is that evolution is of no practical value in
day-to-day research. In fact, evolution can be considered an
irrelevant
idea that has no bearing on the outcome of any scientific experiment.
The cell researcher does not need it. The physicist does not need it.
The taxonomist not only does not need it, but it gets in his way so much
that he is better off if he does not consider it. In truth, not only is
evolution a false idea, it is light years away from being the central
tenet of biology. It is a counterproductive, anti-knowledge theory that,
at the least, is useless, and is often destructive. Dobzhansky’s title
would be better worded, “Nothing in Biology Makes Any Sense in Light of
Evolution.”
DARWIN FAILED TO RECOGNIZE THE LIMITS OF CHANGE
Charles Darwin did not always believe in evolution. In fact, at one
time he believed in God as the Creator. He wrote in his autobiography:
“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” (1958, p. 85, parenthetical item in orig.).
But as he grew older, he changed his view and began to think that
natural forces created the world. He described his “deconversion”: “Thus
disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete.
The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since
doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct” (p.
87). Sadly, one of the reasons for his change in thinking came from a
misunderstanding of the Bible.
In Darwin’s day, the Church of England misunderstood the biblical
account of Creation. The book of Genesis says that animals multiply
“according to their kind” (Genesis 1:21). However, the Church of England
confused the biblical word “kind” with the word “species.” The Church
of England taught that God had created every separate species in the
world. This idea was called the “fixity of species.” The problem with
this view was that it simply is not true; they had misunderstood the
Bible (Garner, 2009).
Darwin’s Finches
When Charles Darwin visited the Galapagos Islands, he discovered
something that greatly interested him. He found several different
species of finches which were unique to the islands. The basic
differences between these species was the size and shape of their beaks.
Some of the
finches had short thick beaks, used to crack open seeds, while others
had long, thin beaks that could be used to catch insects or drink nectar
from flowers. As he studied the birds, he came to the conclusion that
the finches were very similar and must have been related. In fact,
Darwin believed that the species had originally diverged from a single
species of birds. He guessed that long before he had arrived on the
islands, a storm must have blown this flock of birds to the Galapagos
Islands. To give a very simplified version of Darwin’s hypothesis, he
thought the birds with long beaks stayed together and ate insects, while
the birds with short, stout beaks were able to survive in different
places on the islands where they could find seeds. Eventually, due to
drought, climate change, and environmental pressures, each group became
its own species through the process of natural selection. Darwin also
thought that if nature could change one species of finch into several
different species, then it could change an amoeba into a man. Here
Darwin made a major mistake in his thinking. He did not realize that
small changes have limits.
In recent years, two researchers have become well-known for their trips
to the Galapagos Islands to study Darwin’s ideas about the Galapagos
finches. In the July 14 issue of
Science, Peter and Rosemary
Grant presented a paper titled “Evolution of Character Displacement in
Darwin’s Finches.” The thesis of the article is that one particular
species of finch (
Geospiza fortis) “evolved” a slightly smaller beak due to the arrival of a larger-beaked finch (
G. magnirostris) competing for larger seeds of the
Tribulus cistoides plant during a severe drought (Grant and Grant, 2006).
Randolph Schmid, an
Associated Press author who reviewed the
Grants’ article, opened his summary of their findings with these words:
“Finches on the Galapagos Islands that inspired Charles Darwin to
develop the concept of evolution are now helping confirm it—by evolving”
(2006). Notice the subtle maneuver Schmid made in his introduction: he
commingled two distinct definitions of evolution into his statement,
falsely equating the two. The generally accepted definition for the
concept of evolution proposed by Darwin is “huge genetic changes turning
one kind of animal into another,” often called Darwinism. But the
“evolving” accomplished by the finches on the Galapagos Islands was
simply “small changes within the same kind of organism.” Unfortunately,
evolutionists often use this type of sleight-of -hand tactic.
Schmid interviewed Robert Fleischer, a scientist who works with the
Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, who stated that the
Grants merely had documented an instance of “microevolution” (small
changes within the same kind of organism). Yet, the titles of the
articles by both Schmid and the Grants misleadingly imply that Darwinian
evolution has been proven by the finch research—and Schmid goes so far
as to assert this bold claim in his introductory paragraph.
What do the finches really prove? They prove that finches stay finches,
and the only documented kind of “evolution” is that of small changes
within the same kind of organism. The Grants have been studying the
finches for 33 years, and this change in beak size, which amounted to
about .6 millimeters in beak length and .8 millimeters in beak depth
(“Study: Darwin’s...,” 2006), was “the strongest evolutionary change
seen in the 33 years of the study” (Grant and Grant, 2006). Even more
ironic is the fact that this “evolutionary” change to a smaller beak
that allegedly helped the finches to survive might not be so helpful
after all. In the same article for
Science, the Grants alluded
to research done in 1977 when a drought struck the same island and
killed many of the finches. The Grants noted: “Most finches died that
year, and mortality was heaviest among those with
small beaks” (2006, emp. added). Thus, if
G. fortis keeps “evolving” a smaller beak size, a major drought in the future could easily spell the bird’s demise.
Scientific observation has never produced a single shred of evidence
that proves even the possibility of “huge genetic changes turning one
kind of animal into another.” In fact, all the observable evidence
proves that every living organism multiplies “according to its kind”
exactly as stated in Genesis 1:24, small changes in beak size, body
weight, or skin color notwithstanding.
The Fruit Fly
According to the prevailing theory of evolution, beneficial mutations
acted upon by natural selection provide the driving force behind
nature’s production of new creatures. Of course, since mechanisms that
reproduce genetic information in organisms are remarkably efficient,
genetic modification by mutations are extremely rare. What is more, the
overwhelming majority of mutations are so detrimental to the welfare of
the mutant organism, the mutant dies or becomes a victim of predation
before it has the ability to pass on its genes, and thus nature
eliminates the mutation from the gene pool. Allegedly, in the rarest of
cases, a “good” mutation that confers an advantage on an organism slips
into the gene pool. Since this “beneficial” mutation aids the organism’s
survival and reproductive ability, more offspring are produced that
have the mutation. Supposedly, myriad millions of these types of
mutations have accrued, by which single-celled bacteria have evolved,
over billions of years, into humans. When asked why we do not see this
process taking place before our eyes, we are told that it simply happens
too slowly, is too gradual, and cannot be tested or witnessed in a
single human generation, or even in hundreds of years.
What if, however, the process could be expedited? What if we could find
some way to introduce exaggerated numbers of mutations into an
organism’s gene pool? Could we select the “beneficial” mutations and
produce our own, humanly initiated, evolving creatures? If evolution was
actually true, and we could find an organism that could be genetically
manipulated satisfactorily, then we should be able to “reproduce”
evolution in a lab.
Enter
Drosophila melanogaster, also known as the common fruit fly.
Drosophila
maintains several characteristics that make it the perfect specimen for
laboratory mutation experiments. First, the female fly is extremely
fertile. She can potentially lay 100 eggs a day, up to 2,000 eggs in her
life (Reeve and Black, 2001, p. 157). Second,
Drosophila grows
from an egg to an adult in 10-12 days, thus producing up to 30
generations per year (p. 157). Due to these and other ideal traits, the
fruit fly has been one of, if not the, most often used organisms in
genetic mutation experiments since 1901. Reeve and Black noted: “The
exploitation that made
Drosophila the most important organism
for genetical research was its selection by the embryologist Thomas Hunt
Morgan for his studies of mutation...” (p. 157).
Since the early 1900s, multiplied millions of fruit fly generations
have been bred in laboratories across the globe. Scientists performing
these experiments have introduced fruit flies to various levels of
radiation and countless other factors designed to produce mutations.
Sherwin noted that over 3,000 different mutations have been documented
in the fruit fly gene pool (n.d.). These mutations have caused such
physical characteristics as eyeless flies, flies with different colored
eyes, flies with legs growing from their heads, extra pairs of wings,
various colored bodies, wingless flies, flies with unusually large
wings, flies with useless wings, flies with twisted wings, etc. The list
could go on for hundreds of pages.
So extensive have fruit fly experiments been, that the massive numbers
of generations produced, and the mutations created, would be the
equivalent of millions of years of supposed evolutionary time.
Furthermore, intelligent scientists have acted as the “selecting agent,”
thus speeding up the accumulation of “beneficial” mutations. If
evolution by genetic mutation and natural selection really can occur, we
should discover that the fruit fly has mutated into several new kinds
of animals that branch out from their “flyhood” into other types of
organisms. We should see creatures that are part fly and part something
else.
What do we see? Fruit flies. That is
all we see. After
a hundred years of experimentation, thousands of lab-induced mutations
in multiplied millions of flies, and intelligent, purposeful selection
acting on those mutations, the world’s most brilliant minds have not
been able to produce any creatures other than
Drosophila. Concerning the fruit fly stasis, the late evolutionist Pierre Grassé stated: “The fruitfly (
Drosophila melanogaster),
the favorite pet insect of the geneticists, whose geographical,
biotopical, urban, and rural genotypes are now known inside out, seems
not to have changed since the remotest times (as quoted in Sherwin,
n.d.). Norman Macbeth highlighted the late evolutionist Richard
Goldschmidt’s thoughts about the fruit fly: “After observing mutations
in fruit flies for many years, Goldschmidt fell into despair. The
changes, he lamented, were so hopelessly micro that if a thousand
mutations were combined in one specimen, there would still be no new
species” (1971, p. 33). The bottom line of all experiments ever done on
fruit flies is that they
stay fruit flies.
The results of such experimentation “fly” in the face of evolution, but
they are exactly what one would expect to find if the biblical story of Creation is true.
Darwin’s finches, fruit flies, and all other living organisms in the
material world have been producing after their own kind since the
beginning of creation. Since Darwin refused to recognize that small
changes within a kind cannot be used to extrapolate unlimited changes
into many different kinds of animals, his theory cannot be maintained in
the face of what true science teaches us about the biology of living
organisms.
THE FOSSILS HAVE ALWAYS SAID “NO” TO DARWIN
In the May 6, 2002 edition of
Newsweek, Fred Guterl wrote a
brief article titled “Evolution: Birds Do It” (139[18]:11). The gist of
the article centered on the aforementioned Peter and Rosemary Grant, “a
married team of biologists from Princeton, [who] have worked for three
decades
to fill in Darwin’s blanks” (emp. added).
The major problem with Mr. Guterl’s article, and many people’s
understanding of Darwinian evolution, hinges on the fact that he
apparently was not aware of the true “blanks” that need to be filled in
with regard to Darwin’s theory. In the opening paragraph of the article
he wrote: “Charles Darwin described how the daily struggle for food and
sex ultimately determines the future of a species, be it dinosaur, bird
or human.
He had plenty of fossil evidence to back him up, but he never actually observed natural selection taking place” (emp. added).
In sharp contrast to this statement, the tenth chapter of
The Origin of Species is
titled “On the Imperfection of the Geological Record.” In it, Darwin
argued that, due to the process of natural selection, “so must the
number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed, be truly
enormous” (1860, p. 234). However, he went on to admit: “Geology
assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and
this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be
argued against this theory. The explanation lies, I believe, in the
extreme imperfection of the geological record” (p. 234).
Darwin most certainly did
not have “plenty of fossil
evidence to back him up.” He hoped that future geological research would
fill in those blanks, due to the fact that fossil evidence was the
primary proof needed to verify his theory. Unfortunately for Darwin and
his theory, that evidence has been much less forthcoming than he had
hoped. In fact, if Mr. Guterl had checked his own publication’s archives
before he printed his misleading article, he would have discovered that
in the November 3, 1980 issue of
Newsweek, Jerry Adler went on record as stating: “Evidence from fossils now points
overwhelmingly away from the classical Darwinism which most Americans learned in high school:
that new species evolve out of existing ones by the gradual
accumulation of small changes, each of which helps the organism survive
and compete in the environment” (96[18]:95, emp. added). Nothing in this
regard has changed in the more than two decades since Mr. Adler made
his admission.
The cover of the March 1-7, 2008 issue of
NewScientist
pictures an illustrator’s attempt at drawing a half fish/half reptilian
creature. Above the illustration is the title: “Amazing Missing Links:
Creatures that Reveal the Real Power of Evolution.” Allegedly,
evolutionists “have abundant evidence for how all the major groups of
animals are related, much of it in the form of excellent transitional
fossils” (Prothero, 2008, 197[2645]:35). After making half a page of
introductory comments, the author, Donald Prothero, listed several
alleged transitional fossils, which supposedly “are conclusive proof
that evolution has occurred, and is still occurring” (p. 41). Included
in this list were a variety of animals—from velvet worms to dinosaurs,
and giraffes to manatees. Readers, however, have to go no further than
Prothero’s introduction to see the inaccuracy of his assertions.
Prothero introduced his list of “transitional forms” that supposedly
prove evolution with two examples to which science dealt a crushing blow
long ago. Prothero wrote: “Darwin’s 1859 prediction that transitional
forms would be found was quickly confirmed. In 1861 the first specimen
of
Archaeopteryx—a classic transitional form between dinosaurs and birds—was discovered, and in the 1870s
the iconic sequence of fossil horses was documented”
(p. 35, emp. added). Of the alleged “numerous fossils and fossil
sequences showing evolutionary change,” Prothero chose to begin his
article with
Archaeopteryx and the “sequence of horse fossils,” both of which are supposedly “documented” proof of evolution. In truth,
Archaeopteryx and the horse family tree are light years away from confirming evolution.
Regarding horse evolution, the fossil record simply does not bear out what
NewScientist
writer Prothero claimed. In fact, due to the glaring lack of fossil
evidence linking the various horse “family members” together, even
prominent evolutionists have abandoned the “horse evolution” argument.
Prothero claimed that as far back as “the 1870s the iconic sequence of
fossil horses was documented” (p. 35). Since that time, however,
evolutionists such as Dr. George Gaylord Simpson have admitted, “The
uniform, continuous transformation of
Hyracotherium into
Equus, so dear to the hearts of generations of textbook writers,
never happened in nature” (Simpson, 1953, p. 125, emp. added). In a 2000 article that appeared in the journal
Natural History, Dr. Stephen Jay Gould soundly criticized science textbooks’ use of
misinformation surrounding the evolution of horses. He wrote:
Once ensconced in textbooks, misinformation becomes
cocooned and effectively permanent, because, as stated above, textbooks
copy from previous texts. (I have written two essays on this lamentable
practice: one on the amusingly perennial description of the
eohippus, or “dawn horse,” as the size of a fox terrier, even though
most authors, including yours truly, have no idea of the dimensions or
appearance of this breed...) [2000, 109[2]:45, emp. added].
In light of such statements by renowned evolutionists, one wonders how
Prothero can be so confident that the evolution of horses was documented
by fossils as far back as the 1870s. Is Prothero’s article just another
example of how “misinformation becomes cocooned and effectively
permanent” in many evolutionary writings?
And what about
Archaeopteryx? Is it a “confirmed” transitional form, as Prothero asserted? Simply because
Archaeopteryx has
teeth in its beak and claws on its wings, does not prove that it was
the transitional form between reptiles and birds. Consider that some
modern birds
have claws on their wings, and yet no one thinks of them as being
missing links. The African bird known as touraco has claws on its wings,
as does the hoatzin of South America when it is young. Both of these
birds use their fully functional claws to grasp branches and climb
trees. If you have ever seen an ostrich close up, you might have noticed
that it, too, has claws on each wing and can use them if attacked.
Obviously, simply because a bird in the fossil record is discovered with
claws on its wings does not mean that it is a transitional fossil.
In 1993,
Science News reported that an odd fossil bird had been unearthed in Mongolia. It supposedly is millions of years younger than
Archaeopteryx and, interestingly, had teeth in its beak (Monasterky, 1993, 143:245). As with the claws on the wings of
Archaeopteryx,
evolutionists cannot prove that the presence of teeth make the animal
something more than a bird. What’s more, consider that while most
reptiles have teeth, turtles do not. And, some fish and amphibians have
teeth, while other fish and amphibians have no teeth. How can
evolutionists be so sure that
Archaeopteryx’s teeth make it a dinosaur-bird link? Such an assertion is based on
unprovable assumptions.
Archaeopteryx also had fully formed feathers, just like living birds. Fossils of
Archaeopteryx
leave no hint of the animal being a half-scaly/half-feathered creature.
It was not in some kind of in-between stage. Furthermore, “[e]xperts
don’t know what
Archaeopteryx’s closest [alleged—KB/EL]
dinosaur ancestor looked like—fossils haven’t yet been found” (“Fossil
Evidence,” 2007), i.e., evolutionists have been entirely unsuccessful in
finding the real alleged transitional forms between dinosaurs and
birds.
Finally, what makes the suggestion that
Archaeopteryx was the
missing link between reptiles and birds even more unbelievable is that
“[a]nother bird fossil found in the desert of west Texas in 1983,
Protoavis, is dated even earlier, 75 million years
before Archaeopteryx” (DeYoung, 2000, p. 37, emp. added). Although some paleontologists have questions about the fossil remains of
Protoavis
(birds, after all, were not supposed to be around with the “earliest
dinosaurs”), Dr. Chatterjee of Texas Tech University “has pointed out,
the skull of
Protoavis has 23 features that are fundamentally
bird-like, as are the forelimbs, the shoulders, and the hip girdle”
(Harrub and Thompson, 2001). In 1991,
Science magazine ran a story titled “Early Bird Threatens
Archaeopteryx’s Perch,” wherein Alan Anderson wrote: “His [Chaterjee’s—KB/EL]
reconstruction also shows a flexible neck, large brain, binocular
vision, and, crucially, portals running from the rear of the skull to
the eye socket—a feature seen in modern birds but not dinosaurs”
(253:35).
The fact is, the fossil record does not, in any way, demonstrate that
dinosaurs evolved into birds or that horses evolved from little,
dog-like creatures. Ironically, although Prothero, writing for
New Scientist, wrote that a “favourite lie” of
creationists is ‘there are no transitional fossils’” (2008, 197[2645]:35),
evolutionist Mark Ridley wrote an article for
the same journal 27 years earlier and confessed that “
no real evolutionist, whether gradualist or punctuationist,
uses the fossil record as evidence in favor of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation...” (1981, 90:832, emp. added).
EVOLUTION CANNOT ACCOUNT FOR THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
Darwin’s theory of evolution is false for a host of reasons, not the
least of which is the fact that it cannot account for the origin of
life. According to Darwin, the simple cell, which he honestly thought
was simple—contrary to modern cell biology—could have arisen from
non-living chemicals in a warm little chemical pond (Darwin, 1959,
2:202).
Every evolutionary scientist must recognize that the fundamental tenet
of organic evolution is the idea that life arose from non-living
material substances such as chemicals. This idea, often referred to as
spontaneous generation, certainly is testable. Ironically, however,
biological scientists have been testing this idea for centuries and have
discovered that life in this Universe
does not and
cannot
arise spontaneously from natural processes. This fact is well-known and
admitted even by evolutionary scientists. George Wald, the Harvard
professor who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine,
wrote in
Biological Sciences: “If life comes only from life, does this mean that there was always life on earth? It must, yet
we know that this cannot be so.
We know that the world was once without life—that life appeared later.
How? We think it was by spontaneous generation” (1963, p. 42, emp.
added). David Kirk noted: “By the end of the nineteenth century there
was general agreement that life cannot arise from the nonliving under
conditions that now exist upon our planet. The dictum ‘All life from
preexisting life’ became the dogma of modern biology, from which no
reasonable man could be expected to dissent” (1975, p. 7). Even the
eminent evolutionist George Gaylord Simpson and his colleagues observed
that “there is no serious doubt that
biogenesis is the rule, that life comes only from other life, that
a cell, the unit of life, is always and exclusively the product or
offspring of another cell” (1965, p. 144, emp. added). And marine
biologist Martin Moe stated:
A century of sensational discoveries in the biological sciences has taught us that life arises only from life, that the nucleus governs the cell through the molecular mechanisms of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and that the amount of DNA
and its structure determine not only the nature of the species but also
the characteristics of individuals (1981, p. 36, emp. added).
In 2005, Dr. Robert Hazen, a well-respected origins-of-life researcher,
produced a college-level course titled “Origins of Life.” In that
course, he made several telling admissions. He stated: “First, this
course is unusual because at this point in time, there is much that we
don’t know about how life emerged on Earth” (p. 5). He further declared:
This course focuses exclusively on the scientific approach to the question of life’s origins. In this lecture series, I make an assumption
that life emerged from basic raw materials.... Even with this
scientific approach, there is a possibility that we’ll never know how
life originated.... If life is the result of an infinitely improbable
succession of chemical steps, then any scientific attempt to understand
life’s origin is doomed to failure (1:6, emp. added).
According, then, to every piece of experimental datum that has been
collected, life in this material Universe does not arise from non-living
chemicals. Thousands of experiments have been designed and executed,
each of which verify this fact (for more information see
Thompson, 1989). Biogenesis deals the crushing blow to Darwin’s theory.
EVOLUTION FALSLY IMPLIES THAT THERE IS NO MORAL STANDARD
In grappling with the moral implications of his theory, Charles Darwin
arrived at the only conclusion that can be inferred logically. He
stated: “A man who has no assured and ever present belief in the
existence of a personal God or of a future existence with retribution
and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only
to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones” (1958, p. 94, emp. added).
William Provine, a professor in the Department of Ecology and
Evolutionary Biology at the distinguished Cornell University, commented
on Darwin’s position on morals as they relate to evolution. Eleven years
ago, Provine delivered the keynote address at the second annual Darwin
Day on the campus of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. In an
abstract of that speech, on UT’s Darwin Day Web site, Provine’s
introductory comments are recorded in the following words: “Naturalistic
evolution has clear consequences
that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3)
no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent” (1998, emp. added).
Carefully notice the underlying effects of such assertions. If there is
no God, as Darwin admitted evolution implies, then humans are not bound
by any moral standard other than the instincts that each human desires
to follow. Thus, if one person considers it best to beat his children,
while another considers it best to lovingly nurture his children,
according to evolution, both would be acting in accord with their
evolutionary origins, and neither would be guilty of any real, moral
right or wrong. [NOTE: cf. two previous
Reason & Revelation articles document what happens when Darwin’s thoughts are practically applied to the human experience (see
Butt, 2008a,
Butt,
2008b).] Heinously immoral actions, such as infanticide, rape, murder,
sexual promiscuity, pedophilia, homosexuality, adultery, and abortion,
have all found justification in Darwin’s theory. Darwin’s theory implies
that humans can act like animals without any moral responsibility.
CONCLUSION
In the creation/evolution debate, 2009 promises to be an eventful year.
Darwin will be honored, adored, praised, and worshiped by his faithful
followers, in spite of the fact that his ideas were not only wrong, but
often detrimental to the moral fabric of human society. In this article,
we have provided only a few of the myriad evidences that disprove
evolution. We could multiply this material by 100 and still only scratch
the surface of all the lines of evidence that “kill” the theory of
evolution. As Darwin himself said years ago: “To kill an error is as
good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a
new truth or fact” (“The Quotable Darwin,” 2009).
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Most
people will read the title of this article and immediately think, “Of
course a person can do good.” After all, Jesus said, “A good (agathos)
man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things”
(Matthew 12:35). Paul instructed Christians to (simply) “do good to all”
(Galatians 6:10). He later reminded the disciples in Corinth that “we
must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may
receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done,
whether good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:10). And John wrote: “Beloved, do
not imitate what is evil, but what is good. He who does good is of God,
but he who does evil has not seen God” (3 John 11).
Hardly
a day goes by, it seems, that a story concerning homosexuality is not
in the news. Hollywood and the mainstream media have been pushing for
the acceptance of these God-condemned, unnatural, “shameful,” “vile
passions” for several years (Romans 1:26-27; cf. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11;
Genesis 19:1-11; see