Last Updated on : |
|||
|
|||
Evolution, Science, And The Bible
H.W. Hathaway |
|||
chapter 2 A BRIEF REVIEW OF EVOLUTION |
|||
EVOLUTION NOT A NEW THEORY -- DARWIN'S UNCERTAINTY -- NO TRANSITIONAL LINKS -- STERILITY OF HYBRIDS -- No TRANSMUTATION OF SPECIES -- SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE OPPOSED TO THE THEORY -- EVOLUTION A "SCIENTIFIC MISTAKE"
"Produce your cause: bring forth your strong reasons."
If we now review the general teaching of the evolutionists we shall see that their need to establish a "missing link" is an imperative one. Such a review will further expose the baselessness of their whole superstructure. There was once a time when only one explanation of man's origin was extant: it was contained in the Bible record in such passages as these:
PLATO'S REBUKE This proved a much too easy explanation for the learned's acceptance, and so we have very early records of men's alternative theories whereby they sought to establish a "more rational explanation of natural phenomena." Thus, as far back as the fifth century before Christ, we have Plato writing to reprove the contemporary Greek philosophers for their "Darwinism," in these words:
This is not quite correct; man was made "A little lower than the angels" (Ps. 8:2), but is near enough for our present purpose. Plato's rebuke could, with equal appropriateness, be addressed to the modern philosophers -- men like Haeckel, for instance -- who define their evolutionary beliefs as "The non-miraculous origin and progress of the Universe." How painfully manifest, however, is the inability of the evolutionists to demonstrate their theory. Take, for instance, their great text book, "The Origin of Species," by Charles Darwin. Uncertainty is stamped on every page by the monotonously recurring phrases of doubt. These are a fair sample: "Probably" -- "may infer" -- "might" -- "may perhaps" -- "I can form no decided opinion" -- "I am doubtfully inclined to believe" -- "I have assumed" -- "hence we may suppose" -- "It also necessary to assume" -- "We may suppose"-- "If however we suppose" and so on ad nauseum. What a howl of glee would go up if the evolutionist could find only a few such expressions of uncertainty in the Bible. But he cannot because they do not exist. Instead, we find:
Now a further typical selection of extracts dealing with Darwin's main theme will show you the reason for this "may well suppose" mentality:
The origin of most of our domestic animals will probably FOR EVER REMAIN VAGUE (Chapter 1).
So much then for Darwin's own confessions of his wobbly foundations. Now to return to Haeckel's "Non-miraculous origin and progress of the universe." This is a professed belief that life started itself, as phenomenon which is termed "spontaneous generation." Life started (they say) in a single living cell of jelly (protoplasm), and from this simple organic form it gradually grew into more complex forms of life. It was thus that a graduated and ascending scale of life commenced which, through the successive stages of the fish, reptile, and animal, ended at last in man. That is the theory; but the facts are against it: numberless facts, overwhelming facts, whose cumulative effect should give a quietus for ever to this ingenious guess. NO TRANSMUTATION OF SPECIES Professor T. H. Huxley, speaking of separate living species, says:
If this is so and the theory of the gradual evolution of the animal creation were true, then we should find, between the lower and the higher forms of life, MANY TRANSITIONAL STAGES. Not a missing link, but MANY LINKS. Now science has no knowledge of any such living transitional links, by which we mean any creature which is part way between one species and another and still in course of development: for instance, an animal which was once a camel but has lost its humps and developed a long neck, but has not yet changed its markings or grown long legs by which, one day, he will become a complete giraffe. Such an imaginary creature is not known to exist, and this being so, we are forced to the conclusion that whatever might have happened in the past, evolution has now ceased to operate. That is a perfectly logical deduction, but it is one with which, we believe, the evolutionist cannot agree without stultifying his theory. Nevertheless, we believe that his stubborn attitude cannot be consistently maintained. Not only must evolution have completely stopped, but it must have been inactive for a very long time. A long period would be necessary in order for millions of creatures in all stages of transitional development to turn gradually into --well, what they were going to turn into -- say, a camel into a giraffe; yet now we have no "half" or "part-way" animals such as we have just described. In addition to evolution having been long inoperative, it must also have ceased to function by stages. As each animal reached its species stage (in our illustration a fully evolved giraffe), then it must have stopped and not commenced growing into, say, a bear. There would be other animals with further to go than our camel-giraffe. Perhaps an elephant was turning whale, and had only one fin towards it; and so on as your fancy may take you. So different animals would cease to evolve at different times, and at the right time, namely when they became a distinct species. This, of course, makes it even more difficult for the evolutionist to explain. So we ask the evolutionist, Why did "inexorable, unalterable nature" thus decide that when each animal had attained to a change, so evolution should progressively stop -- or did someone stop it, and if so, who? If you deny, as we feel you must, that evolution ever stopped, then we must press our question: WHERE ARE THE MILLIONS OF TRANSITIONAL FORMS OF LIFE? Life in the air, life in the water, life under and on the earth? Where are the whales with legs, the horses with horns, and all the rest of the semi-changed animals? Darwin himself admits that they should exist in great numbers. He says:
Now Huxley, as we saw, gives us a conservative estimate of 500,000 living species. If we allow 100 graduated changes in the transmutation of one animal to another say, a camel to a giraffe -- then there should be no less than 50,000,000 (i.e., 100 x 500,000) transitional species, which are neither one thing or the other, walking about the earth. As this is a purely theoretical phantasy, we are fully justified in saying, at the very least, that evolution must have ceased to operate. Yes, at the least we could say that, but we feel that the other facts will justify us denying evolution altogether. For we are now going to inquire into the existence of the fossil remains of these intermediate links. We ask the evolutionist: Do you find a hundred fossil remains in the course of a change, for every one that you find of a distinct species? That is, are fossil remains of genuine men, apes, and horses, a hundred times as rare as fossil half men, half-apes, half-horses? They should be, should they not, even only allowing a hundred transmutations from camel to giraffe? "WE SHALL NEVER KNOW" There is no shortage of fossils as such, for Mr. Dewar gives the number of discovered fossils as 100,000. ("A Challenge to Evolutionists," page 27); but how many of these fossils show evidence of the process of change? Is the earth teeming with them? Rather is it not a fact a significant, damaging, devastating fact-that every fossil found in a sufficient state of preservation to establish its identity is ALWAYS, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, A FULLY DEVELOPED AND DISTINCT SPECIES? On the other hand, the kinds that he would like to find and which, on a conservative estimate, are a hundred times as numerous, have DISAPPEARED AS COMPLETELY AS IF THEY HAD EVAPORATED. What more telling evidence can we offer the reader here than the damaging, yes, and fatal admissions of Charles Darwin? He writes:
How does the evolutionist explain all this? Well, as no man can explain the inexplicable, he just does not explain it. He just cannot explain it, and so he treats it with levity. He banters the awkward questions away like Dr. Frisch:
This is almost invariably the manner of the evolutionist's answer when he is pressed hard enough. This is what you will be well advised to do when you contact him -- press him hard: do not be put off: insist on an answer: a reasonable, logical, convincing answer. You will find it interesting to watch him wriggle. Dr. Frisch speaks for himself and his like only when he says, "We shall never know." But he does not speak for the intelligent Bible lover. Such a one knows the answers to many otherwise enigmatical questions -- questions which could never have been answered by the efforts of unaided men: not even men with cap and gown and imposing letters after their names! What is all this apparent learning and greatness? Surely it is only relative greatness in contrast to mediocre contemporaries. Viewed from the divine angle, all human kind are very insignificant and puny compared with him who accounts "all nations as the small dust of the balance" not enough to turn the scales, but just a little settled dust. "Where is glorying?" asks Paul; and answers, "it is excluded." The consequential and ponderous studies of these learned men always reminds us of some lines we saw many years ago about THE CHEESEMITES The cheesemites asked how the cheese got there, There is not a lot of difference in the human "cheesemites" who, donning cap and gown, solemnly deliberate on things too high for them, while scorning the revelation which God has so graciously condescended to give them. And so they continue their cumbersome inquiries and speculations; and "NOT ONE OF THEM THINKS OF THE COW." How true are the Scriptures which declare that God takes the wise in their own craftiness: that He knows the thoughts of the wise that they are vain: and declares that the world by wisdom knew not God, but God hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. To such "babes" all the learned pomposities, by which the wise seek to impress an unthinking public, are childish and ridiculous in the extreme. As we have before intimated, we could well leave them to their will-o'-the wisp theories, but for the fact that they seek to discredit God's precious word. That they do so seek to discredit it we shall show in a later chapter. Turning now from the fancies to the facts, we find that every species of life is self-contained, enclosed and constrained within WELL DEFINED LIMITS. A movement or variation may take place within those limits, but BEYOND THEM IT CAN NEVER GO. This fact is in complete accord with the requirements of a specific creation by God. This fact is embodied in the oft repeated description in Genesis that each creature was made "After its kind." So, until this day, the various species have remained "AFTER THEIR KIND" and NO CHANGE OR TRANSMUTATION OF ONE SPECIES TO ANOTHER HAS EVER OCCURRED. It is true that crab apples can be artificially coaxed into orange pippins. It is also true that Rock Pigeons can, with fostering care, be made to produce Pouter pigeons. But apples are apples still-crab or dessert; pigeons are pigeons still -- Rock or Pouter. And they can only be induced to move within circumscribed and impassable limits. AN IMPASSABLE BARRIER A horse and an ass can be successfully crossed and will produce a mule. This may at first look promising for evolution, for here surely is a new species. But wait a moment, and we shall see that it is AN ARGUMENT -- and a very strong one -- AGAINST EVOLUTION. A mule is a hybrid, and HYBRIDS ARE STERILE; so that the MULE CAN HAVE NO OFFSPRING. Its "inherited characteristics," which according to evolution should be handed down to its off spring, never get outside itself; they die with the mule. THUS THE BARRIER IS REACHED AND CANNOT BE PASSED. Man by manipulation can produce a slight variation, but only within fixed limits, and even then THE VARIATION CANNOT BE PERPETUATED and improved in the way that is vital to the survival of this indefensible theory. If there is one single fact that could of itself discredit evolution, we have it in the STERILITY OF HYBRIDS. It is a fact --an undisputed fact even by evolutionists -- which of itself is FATAL TO THE THEORY. Nature under these circumstances always steps in with the inhibition "Thus far and no farther," because God created all creatures "after their kind." So, then, we can confidently affirm that A CHANGE OF SPECIES NEVER HAS AND NEVER CAN OCCUR. Even Darwin has to witness against himself when he declares:
Also Professor T. E. Huxley, Darwin's ardent supporter, makes similar admissions on this subject of hybrids. He writes:
ADMISSION OF THE SCIENTISTS Thus, from worm to monkey, we find the gap filled with various forms of life, but all a separate creation. They are each a distinct form of life, but each a separate creation. They are distinct forms of life with no links between them and their neighbours. All are "after their kind," enclosed within invisible walls that cannot be passed. They each partake of the flesh and blood peculiar to their own make-up, as says Paul:
To this there is NO EXCEPTION ON RECORD: there is no "transmutation" of species --no, not even with man's enterprising assistance. What could be more explicit than this admission occurring in Professor Huxley's "Darwiniana," page 88:
And this from the writings of Darwin's great disciple, Prof. T. H. Huxley! What more could an anti-evolutionist ask? Listen to Dr. Etheridge, curator of the Natural History Museum, that at present houses Mr. Pithecanthropus:
It would appear incredible that the theory of evolution could survive such exposures, but the waywardness of man has assured its perennial popularity -- at least, until Christ is back in the earth again and causes men to exclaim in enlightened and painful surprise:
for we believe that this "SCIENCE FALSELY SO CALLED" will not be the least among the many lies which will be exposed to the discomfiture of the world's learned charlatans. Returning to Darwin. He further declares:
What an admission! What a confirmation of the position of the believers in Divine creation! Here is the great apostle of evolution at the height of his popular triumph ASSAILED BY DOUBTS, and graciously exonerating from blame any who refuse to believe his ill-supported doctrines. Listen well to his words and mark his modest misgivings, ye SELF-CONFIDENT DISCIPLES of his -- ye of more slender mentality who would fain follow a great leader --ye who with a modicum of his knowledge, but a multiplication of his self -- assurance, would hold up evolution as a proven science -- ye who would poison young minds in the schools, and alienate their affections from their creator in the days of their youth -- ye whose whole mental outlook is warped and stunted until, to appropriate the words of Solomon, ye are "Wiser in . . . conceit than seven men that can render a reason." (Prov. 26, 16.) "REASON"-YOU HAVE NONE: as witness the testimony of your betters. Ponder your ways ere it be too late. Remember, God will not for ever be mocked and flouted in his own domain by the creatures of his hand. THE EVOLUTIONIST'S NIGHTMARE We turn now from the animal creation to man. Here we find a great gap, at least in his outward appearance and intelligence, between, say, an Australian aborigine and a European professor. But we find that these two extremes are bridged by many intermediate specimens of mankind who are all essentially men, and only men, with no fundamental differences either intellectual or physical. The diversity is of the kind we have already noticed in uncultivated apples or pigeons. When he is civilised and educated, man becomes -- outwardly at least -- refined and ennobled. But without these outside influences, man becomes degraded, uncouth, and barbarous -- just like the crab apples in fact, but still and always he remains man. There is yet another gap, by far the biggest of them all. This gap is the evolutionist's nightmare. It is the gap that exists between the highest forms of animal life and the lowest form of human life. Again we cannot do better than to quote the great advocate of evolution himself:
This difference he later calls a "break" and again he makes a confession fatal to his theory when he writes of:
Yes, a great break indeed. A gap, a gulf, a great and yawning chasm between whose distant points there stretches a vast and tenantless void which SHOULD BE TEEMING WITH INTERMEDIATE FORMS OF LIFE of super-animals and sub men: living and fossil specimens, in all stages of transitional development -- BUT THERE ARE NONE. This fact was ruefully deplored by Darwin who declared:
This admission is doubly damaging in view of the fact that, although links are conspicuous by their absence, these same strata yield a RICH HARVEST OF DISTINCT SPECIES. How very singular, is it not? Let us now establish that fact, by a telling quotation from Professor Wasmann. He is reported to have said:
Here we suggest should be a wonderful opportunity for evolution to vindicate itself. "A PEDIGREE VERY RICH IN SPECIES" is the very thing they have been looking for in vain. All that has, so far, rewarded their labours, is a few miserable bones. But to the evolutionists' discomfiture, Professor Wasmann continues:
TESTIMONY OF THE ADVOCATES Of course, there is a good reason why the eagerly looked for fossils have no existence in reality, and that reason is -- EVOLUTION IS A DELUSION. If it were not, the biologists would have something better to show for their learned labours and diligent delvings than a few paltry bone fragments, as I am sure these quotations abundantly testify. The magnitude of the evolutionists' failure can surely be gauged by the poverty of their reconstructed "finds." Poor lonely Pithecanthropus erectus! If we could but momentarily endow you with a faint spark of intelligence, we verily believe that your ferocious mien would quickly change to shame-faced self-consciousness when you realised that you were only the CREATION OF WAYWARD MAN'S IMAGINATION. Thus we feel sure you would reproach these men who seem to know no shame. Now we will quote the words of another witness who surely must command respectful attention -- Professor Virchow, of Berlin, described as "the foremost physician on the globe," for thirty years President of the Berlin Anthropological Society, and AT ONE TIME AN ADVOCATE OF EVOLUTION. He says:
"OPPOSITE DIRECTION." We only know of one opposite direction; it is that which an earlier writer we quoted said was "SPECIAL CREATION" as evolution's "ONLY ALTERNATIVE." Professor Virchow, at a convention of anthropologists in Vienna, further declared:
NO MONOPOLY OF SCHOLARSHIP We suggest that these are very revealing utterances, coming, as they do, from scientific witnesses of such international repute. If they were assertions of irresponsible anti-evolutionists, whose zeal was outrunning their discretion, they might be lightly dismissed. But they are THE SAYINGS OF RESPONSIBLE MEN. They are not even the witness of the prisoner's enemies, but the sober testimonies of his would-be friends. It would be well to bear this in mind when we hear science-dabblers airily affirming that "all educated persons today accept evolution." If any such chance to read this, we would commend to their notice the statement of Professor Luther T. Townsend, who is reported to have said:
We can now pass on and listen to another professional witness, Dr. Traaus, the palaeontologist who "devoted a long life to the study of fossil animals," who was reported to have said:
In spite of these facts already reviewed, and of some more yet to come, the evolutionist continues desperately to defend his phantasy, and "reconstruct" chimerical ape men from bones of questionable origin. No wonder that outspoken Professor Rutemeyer accused them of "PLAYING FALSE WITH THE PUBLIC AND WITH NATURAL SCIENCES." No wonder, also, that a reformed professor is said to have remorsefully described his past writings as "THE GREAT CRIME OF MY YOUTH which will take me THE REST OF MY TIME TO EXPIATE" (Max Wundt). And yet men still allow this shameful deception to stand in the way of believing the soul satisfying and dignified explanation of the Bible:
How simple, yet profound. How complete and how scientific it is in contrast to this "science falsely so called" we shall see before we conclude our argument. BEWILDERED MOTHS Some who have been captivated by evolution and become its zealous advocates, live long enough to repudiate it as an indefensible error. Dazzled at first, like bewildered moths allured to the candle flame, they have lived through the night and found the sun again. It is narrated of one such, Professor Drummond, author of "Ascent of Man" (Evolutionary ascent), that he was taken to his bed with an illness that proved fatal. At that time, we are told, he summoned his great friend Sir William Dawson, who came and found him a man disillusioned and filled with remorse for his foolish lapse. Drummond, turning to his friend, said:
Grand words, are they not? Wise sentiments reminiscent of the case of Solomon, King of Israel. He, too, left his God for a season, not for evolution, but to try all that the world could offer him. He had unique opportunities to indulge his taste, and he used them. But he found every thing to be "VANITY AND VEXATION OF SPIRIT." He, too, disillusioned in pursuit of the tinsel, humbly sought again the once-forsaken gold. He, too, at the end of a life ripe with bitter experience, could say:
Ecclesiastes makes sobering and instructive reading, and we commend this much neglected book to your attention. TRUE SCIENCE VERSUS PHILOSOPHY Now, dear reader, remember this: the inadequate reasons for evolution which caused Professor Drummond to renounce it have not subsequently been improved upon, but rather the reverse, as we have already shown. Remember this also, that the word of the living God which caused Solomon's repentant return to Him has never been altered during the centuries of its existence. Far from discrediting its teaching, time has only served to strengthen its position; whilst discovery has but served to attest its truth. Evolution is essentially a theory of mutability; the Bible is the immutable witness to the immutability of God, the creator of the heavens and earth--God
No shadow -- for "God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all." But of this, more later. Now when true science speaks -- true science, which is classified knowledge, in contra-distinction to evolution, which is merely a philosophy -- it is to oppose the fatuous absurdity of the evolution theory. Thus we have the great Virchow reported as saying:
Or again we have Professor Wasmann:
Or again, we could quote Professor Fleischmann, another erstwhile supporter of Darwin -- whose testimony will, of course, be the stronger in consequence:
And yet, in spite of these and similar testimonies, this fantastic theory is still put forward as a serious rival to the Bible, which these "scientific" gentlemen accuse of being "unscientific." Yes! evolution is the rival in the field: the only rival in the explanation of man's origin. Surely anyone with an eye to the ludicrous must laugh outright at such impudent presumption. However, we hope that the candid reader will find that field in the sole possession of its rightful occupant before we have completed our task; and we cannot do better than sum up the conclusions of this chapter by the words of Professor Agassiz, with whose judgment we heartily concur:
|
|||
|
All Books/Booklets, Editorials, and Articles are FREE and can be downloaded without permission. |
|