SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
"The evolutionary
establishment fears creation science because evolution itself crumbles when
challenged by evidence. In the 1970s and 1980s, hundreds of public debates were
arranged between evolutionary scientists and creation scientists. The latter
scored resounding victories, with the result that, today, few evolutionists will
debate. Isaac Asimov, Stephen Jay Gould, and the late Carl Sagan, while highly
critical of creationism, all declined to debate."—James Perloff,
Tornado in a Junkyard (1999), p. 241.
"It was because Darwinian
theory broke man’s link with God and set him adrift in a cosmos without
purpose or end that its impact was so fundamental. No other intellectual
revolution in modern times . . so profoundly affected the way men viewed
themselves and their place in the universe."—*Michael Denton,
Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985), p. 67 [Australian molecular biologist].
"Unfortunately, in the field
of evolution most explanations are not good. As a matter of fact, they hardly
qualify as explanations at all; they are suggestions, hunches, pipe dreams,
hardly worthy of being called hypotheses."—*Norman Macbeth, Darwin
Retried (1971), p. 147.
"No one has ever found an
organism that is known not to have parents, or a parent. This is the strongest
evidence on behalf of evolution."—*Tom Bethell, "Agnostic
Evolutionists," Harper’s, February 1985, p. 61.
"As by this theory,
innumerable transitional forms must have existed. Why do we not find them
embedded in the crust of the earth? Why is not all nature in confusion instead
of being, as we see them, well-defined species?"—*Charles Darwin
(1866), quoted in H. Enoch, Evolution or Creation, p. 139.
"Scientists have no proof that
life was not the result of an act of creation."—*Robert Jastrow, The
Enchanted Loom: Mind in the Universe (1981), p. 19 [a leading astronomer].
"Evolution became in a sense a
scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted it and many are
prepared to bend their observations to fit in with it."—*H. Lipson,
"A Physicist Looks at Evolution," Physics Bulletin 31 (1980), p. 138.
Scientists Speak about Evolution
Top-flight
scientists have something to tell you about evolution. Such statements will
never be found in the popular magazines, alongside gorgeous paintings of ape-man
and Big Bangs and solemn pronouncements about millions of years for this rock
and that fish. Instead they are generally reserved only for professional books
and journals.
Most
scientists are working in very narrow fields; they do not see the overall
picture, and assume, even though their field does not prove evolution, that
perhaps other areas of science probably vindicate it. They are well-meaning men.
The biologists and geneticists know their facts, and research does not prove
evolution, but assume that geology does. The geologists know their field does
not prove evolution, but hope that the biologists and geneticists have proven
it. Those who do know the facts, fear to disclose them to the general public,
lest they be fired. But they do write articles in their own professional
journals and books, condemning evolutionary theory.
Included
below are a number of admissions by leading evolutionists of earlier decades,
such as *Charles Darwin, *Austin Clark, or *Fred Hoyle. The truth is that
evolutionists cannot make scientific facts fit the theory.
An asterisk (
* ) by a name indicates that person is NOT known to be a creationist. Of over
4,000 quotations in the set of books this site is based on, only 164
statements are by creationists.
"The
Darwinian theory of descent has not a single fact to confirm it in the realm of
nature. It is not the result of scientific research, but purely the product of
imagination."—*Dr. Fleischman [Erlangen zoologist].
"It is
almost invariably assumed that animals with bodies composed of a single cell
represent the primitive animals from which all others derived. They are commonly
supposed to have preceded all other animal types in their appearance. There is
not the slightest basis for this assumption."—*Austin Clark, The New
Evolution (1930), pp. 235-236.
"The
hypothesis that life has developed from inorganic matter is, at present, still
an article of faith."—*J.W.N. Sullivan, The Limitations of Science
(1933), p. 95.
"Where
are we when presented with the mystery of life? We find ourselves facing a
granite wall which we have not even chipped . . We know virtually nothing of
growth, nothing of life."—*W. Kaempffert, "The Greatest Mystery of
All: The Secret of Life," New York Times.
"'The
theory of evolution is totally inadequate to explain the origin and
manifestation of the inorganic world.' "—Sir John Ambrose Fleming,
F.R.S., quoted in H. Enoch, Evolution or Creation (1966), p. 91 [discoverer of
the thermionic valve].
"I
think, however, that we must go further than this and admit that the only
acceptable explanation is creation. I know that this is anathema to physicists,
as indeed it is to me, but we must not reject a theory that we do not like if
the experimental evidence supports it."—*H. Lipson, "A Physicist
Looks at Evolution," Physics Bulletin, 31 (1980), p. 138.
"I am
not satisfied that Darwin proved his point or that his influence in scientific
and public thinking has been beneficial . . the success of Darwinism was
accomplished by a decline in scientific integrity."—*W.R. Thompson,
Introduction to *Charles Darwin's, Origin of the Species [Canadian scientist].
"One of
the determining forces of scientism was a fantastic accidental imagination which
could explain every irregularity in the solar system without explanation, leap
the gaps in the atomic series without evidence [a gap required by the Big Bang
theory], postulate the discovery of fossils which have never been discovered,
and prophesy the success of breeding experiments which have never succeeded. Of
this kind of science it might truly be said that it was `knowledge falsely so
called.' "—*David C.C. Watson, The Great Brain Robbery (1976).
"The
hold of the evolutionary paradigm [theoretical system] is so powerful that an
idea which is more like a principle of medieval astrology than a serious
twentieth century scientific theory has become a reality for evolutionary
biologists."—*Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985), p.
306 [Australian molecular biologist].
"The
particular truth is simply that we have no reliable evidence as to the
evolutionary sequence . . One can find qualified professional arguments for any
group being the descendant of almost any other."—J. Bonner, "Book
Review," American Scientist, 49:1961, p. 240.
"It was
because Darwinian theory broke man's link with God and set him adrift in a
cosmos without purpose or end that its impact was so fundamental. No other
intellectual revolution in modern times . . so profoundly affected the way men
viewed themselves and their place in the universe."—*Michael Denton,
Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985), p. 67 [Australian molecular biologist].
"I had
motives for not wanting the world to have meaning, consequently assumed it had
none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this
assumption . . The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not
concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics; he is also concerned
to prove there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to
do . . For myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of
meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we
desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic
system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the
morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom."—*Aldous Huxley,
"Confessions of a Professed Atheist," Report: Perspective on the News,
Vol. 3, June 1966, p. 19 [grandson of evolutionist Thomas Huxley, Darwin's
closest friend and promoter, and brother of evolutionist Julian Huxley. Aldous
Huxley was one of the most influential liberal writers of the 20th century].
"Evolutionism
is a fairy tale for grown-ups. This theory has helped nothing in the progress of
science. It is useless."—*Bounoure, Le Monde Et La Vie (October 1963)
[Director of Research at the National center of Scientific Research in France].
"As by
this theory, innumerable transitional forms must have existed. Why do we not
find them embedded in the crust of the earth? Why is not all nature in confusion
[of halfway species] instead of being, as we see them, well-defined
species?"—*Charles Darwin, quoted in H. Enoch, Evolution or Creation
(1966), p. 139.
"`Creation,'
in the ordinary sense of the word, is perfectly conceivable. I find no
difficulty in conceiving that, at some former period, this universe was not in
existence; and that it made its appearance in six days . . in consequence of the
volition of some pre-existing Being."—*Thomas Huxley, quoted in *Leonard
Huxley, Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, Vol. II (1903), p. 429.
"The
theory of evolution suffers from grave defects, which are more and more apparent
as time advances. It can no longer square with practical scientific
knowledge."—*Albert Fleishmann, Zoologist.
"I argue
that the `theory of evolution' does not take predictions, so far as ecology is
concerned, but is instead a logical formula which can be used only to classify
empiricisms [theories] and to show the relationships which such a classification
implies . . these theories are actually tautologies and, as such, cannot make
empirically testable predictions. They are not scientific theories at
all."—*R.H. Peters, "Tautology in Evolution and Ecology,"
American Naturalist (1976), Vol. 110, No. 1, p. 1 [emphasis his].
"Scientists
have no proof that life was not the result of an act of
creation."—*Robert Jastrow, The Enchanted Loom: Mind in the Universe
(1981), p. 19.
"In
fact, evolution became in a sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists
have accepted it and many are prepared to `bend' their observations to fit in
with it."—*H. Lipson, "A Physicist Looks at Evolution," Physics
Bulletin, 31 (1980), p. 138.
"When
Darwin presented a paper [with Alfred Wallace] to the Linnean Society in 1858, a
Professor Haugton of Dublin remarked, `All that was new was false, and what was
true was old.' This, we think, will be the final verdict on the matter, the
epitaph on Darwinism."—*Fred Hoyle and N. Chandra Wickramasinghe,
Evolution from Space (1981), p. 159.
"Creation
and evolution, between them, exhaust the possible explanations for the origin of
living things. Organisms either appeared on the earth fully developed or they
did not. If they did not, they must have developed from pre-existing species by
some process of modification. If they did appear in a fully developed state,
they must have been created by some omnipotent intelligence."—*D.J.
Futuyma, Science on Trial (1983), p. 197.
"With
the failure of these many efforts, science was left in the somewhat embarrassing
position of having to postulate theories of living origins which it could not
demonstrate. After having chided the theologian for his reliance on myth and
miracle, science found itself in the unenviable position of having to create a
mythology of its own: namely, the assumption that what, after long effort, could
not be proved to take place today had, in truth, taken place in the primeval
past."—*Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey, (1957), p. 199.
"The
over-riding supremacy of the myth has created a widespread illusion that the
theory of evolution was all but proved one hundred years ago and that all
subsequent biological research—paleontological, zoological, and in the newer
branches of genetics and molecular biology—has provided ever-increasing
evidence for Darwinian ideas."—*Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in
Crisis (1985), p. 327.
"The
irony is devastating. The main purpose of Darwinism was to drive every last
trace of an incredible God from biology. But the theory replaces God with an
even more incredible deity—omnipotent chance."—*T. Rosazak, Unfinished
Animal (1975), pp. 101-102.
"Today
our duty is to destroy the myth of evolution, considered as a simple, understood
and explained phenomenon which keeps rapidly unfolding before us. Biologists
must be encouraged to think about the weaknesses and extrapolations that the
theoreticians put forward or lay down as established truths. The deceit is
sometimes unconscious, but not always, since some people, owing to their
sectarianism, purposely overlook reality and refuse to acknowledge the
inadequacies and falsity of their beliefs."—*Pierre-Paul de Grasse,
Evolution of Living Organisms (1977), p. 8.
"The
evolution theory can by no means be regarded as an innocuous natural philosophy,
but that it is a serious obstruction to biological research. It obstructs—as
has been repeatedly shown—the attainment of consistent results, even from
uniform experimental material. For everything must ultimately be forced to fit
this theory. An exact biology cannot, therefore, be built up."—*H.
Neilsson, Synthetische Artbuilding, 1954, p. 11.
"It is
therefore of immediate concern to both biologists and layman that Darwinism is
under attack. The theory of life that undermined nineteenth-century religion has
virtually become a religion itself and, in its turn, is being threatened by
fresh ideas. The attacks are certainly not limited to those of the creationists
and religious fundamentalists who deny Darwinism for political and moral reason.
The main thrust of the criticism comes from within science itself. The doubts
about Darwinism represent a political revolt from within rather than a siege
from without."—*B. Leith, The Descent of Darwin: A Handbook of Doubts
about Darwinism (1982), p. 11.
"My
attempts to demonstrate evolution by an experiment carried on for more than 40
years have completely failed. At least I should hardly be accused of having
started from any preconceived anti-evolutionary standpoint."—*H. Nilsson,
Synthetic Speciation (1953), p. 31.
"Just as
pre-Darwinian biology was carried out by people whose faith was in the Creator
and His plan, post-Darwinian biology is being carried out by people whose faith
is in, almost, the deity of Darwin. They've seen their task as to elaborate his
theory and to fill the gaps in it, to fill the trunk and twigs of the tree. But
it seems to me that the theoretical framework has very little impact on the
actual progress of the work in biological research. In a way some aspects of
Darwinism and of neo-Darwinism seem to me to have held back the progress of
science."—Colin Patterson, The Listener [senior paleontologist at the
British Museum of Natural History, London].
"Throughout
the past century there has always existed a significant minority of first-rate
biologists who have never been able to bring themselves to accept the validity
of Darwinian claims. In fact, the number of biologists who have expressed some
degree of disillusionment is practically endless."—*Michael Denton,
Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1986), p. 327.
"I
personally hold the evolutionary position, but yet lament the fact that the
majority of our Ph.D. graduates are frightfully ignorant of many of the serious
problems of the evolution theory. These problems will not be solved unless we
bring them to the attention of students. Most students assume evolution is
proved, the missing link is found, and all we have left is a few rough edges to
smooth out. Actually, quite the contrary is true; and many recent discoveries .
. have forced us to re-evaluate our basic assumptions."—*Director of a
large graduate program in biology, quoted in Creation: The Cutting Edge (1982),
p. 26.
"The
creation account in Genesis and the theory of evolution could not be reconciled.
One must be right and the other wrong. The story of the fossils agreed with the
account of Genesis. In the oldest rocks we did not find a series of fossils
covering the gradual changes from the most primitive creatures to developed
forms, but rather in the oldest rocks developed species suddenly appeared.
Between every species there was a complete absence of intermediate
fossils."—*D.B. Gower, "Scientist Rejects Evolution," Kentish
Times, England, December 11, 1975, p. 4 [biochemist].
"From
the almost total absence of fossil evidence relative to the origin of the phyla,
it follows that any explanation of the mechanism in the creative evolution of
the fundamental structural plans is heavily burdened with hypothesis. This
should appear as an epigraph to every book on evolution. The lack of direct
evidence leads to the formulation of pure conjecture as to the genesis of the
phyla; we do not even have a basis to determine the extent to which these
opinions are correct."—*Pierre-Paul de Grasse, Evolution of Living
Organisms (1977), p. 31.
"We
still do not know the mechanics of evolution in spite of the over-confident
claims in some quarters, nor are we likely to make further progress in this by
the classical methods of paleontology or biology; and we shall certainly not
advance matters by jumping up and down shrilling, `Darwin is god and I,
So-and-so, am his prophet.'" —*Errol
White, Proceedings of the Linnean Society, London, 177:8 (1966).
"I feel
that the effect of hypotheses of common ancestry in systematics has not been
merely boring, not just a lack of knowledge; I think it has been positively
anti-knowledge . . Well, what about evolution? It certainly has the function of
knowledge, but does it convey any? Well, we are back to the question I have been
putting to people, `Is there one thing you can tell me about?' The absence of
answers seems to suggest that it is true, evolution does not convey any
knowledge."—*Colin Patterson, Director AMNH, Address at the American
Museum of Natural History (November 5, 1981).
"What is
it [evolution] based upon? Upon nothing whatever but faith, upon belief in the
reality of the unseen—belief in the fossils that cannot be produced, belief in
the embryological experiments that refuse to come off. It is faith unjustified
by works."—*Arthur N. Field.
There are
scientists all over the world who know that evolutionary theory is bankrupt.
Such men as *Charles Darwin, *Thomas and *Julian Huxley, and *Steven Jay Gould
have admitted it. But you will not find these statements in the popular press.
Such admissions are only made to fellow professionals.
An asterisk ( * )
by a name indicates that person is not known to be a creationist.
"Paleontologists
[fossil experts] have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin's argument. We fancy
ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our
favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad
that we almost never see the very process we profess to study."—*Steven
Jay Gould, The Panda's Thumb (1982), pp. 181-182 [Harvard professor and the
leading evolutionary spokesman of the latter half of the twentieth century].
"The problem
of the origin of species has not advanced in the last 150 years. One hundred and
fifty years have already passed during which it has been said that the evolution
of the species is a fact but, without giving real proofs of it and without even
a principle of explaining it. During the last one hundred and fifty years of
research that has been carried out along this line [in order to prove the
theory], there has been no discovery of anything. It is simply a repetition in
different ways of what Darwin said in 1859. This lack of results is unforgivable
in a day when molecular biology has really opened the veil covering the mystery
of reproduction and heredity . .
"Finally,
there is only one attitude which is possible as I have just shown: It consists
in affirming that intelligence comes before life. Many people will say this is
not science, it is philosophy. The only thing I am interested in is fact, and
this conclusion comes out of an analysis and observation of the facts."—*G.
Salet, Hasard et Certitude: Le Transformisme devant la Biologie Actuelle (1973),
p. 331.
"The
theories of evolution, with which our studious youth have been deceived,
constitute actually a dogma that all the world continues to teach; but each, in
his specialty, the zoologist or the botanist, ascertains that none of the
explanations furnished is adequate . . It results from this summary, that the
theory of evolution is impossible."—*P. Lemoine, "Introduction:
De L' Evolution?" Encyclopedie Francaise, Vol. 5 (1937), p. 6.
"Darwinism
is a creed not only with scientists committed to document the all-purpose role
of natural selection. It is a creed with masses of people who have at best a
vague notion of the mechanism of evolution as proposed by Darwin, let alone as
further complicated by his successors. Clearly, the appeal cannot be that of a
scientific truth but of a philosophical belief which is not difficult to
identify. Darwinism is a belief in the meaninglessness of existence."—*R.
Kirk, "The Rediscovery of Creation," in National Review, (May 27,
1983), p. 641.
"I have
always been slightly suspicious of the theory of evolution because of its
ability to account for any property of living beings (the long neck of the
giraffe, for example). I have therefore tried to see whether biological
discoveries over the last thirty years or so fit in with Darwin's theory. I do
not think that they do. To my mind, the theory does not stand up at all."—*H.
Lipson, "A Physicist Looks at Evolution," Physic Bulletin, 31 (1980),
p. 138.
"Evolution
is baseless and quite incredible."—*John Ambrose Fleming, President,
British Association for Advancement of Science, in "The Unleashing of
Evolutionary Thought."
"Unfortunately,
in the field of evolution most explanations are not good. As a matter of fact,
they hardly qualify as explanations at all; they are suggestions, hunches, pipe
dreams, hardly worthy of being called hypotheses."—*Norman Macbeth,
Darwin Retried (1971), p. 147.
"It is not
the duty of science to defend the theory of evolution, and stick by it to the
bitter end—no matter which illogical and unsupported conclusions it offers. On
the contrary, it is expected that scientists recognize the patently obvious
impossibility of Darwin's pronouncements and predictions . . Let's cut the
umbilical cord that tied us down to Darwin for such a long time. It is choking
us and holding us back."—I.L. Cohen, Darwin Was Wrong: A Study in
Probabilities (1985).
"This
general tendency to eliminate, by means of unverifiable speculations, the limits
of the categories Nature presents to us, is the inheritance of biology from The
Origin of Species. To establish the continuity required by theory,
historical arguments are invoked, even though historical evidence is lacking.
Thus are engendered those fragile towers of hypothesis based on hypothesis,
where fact and fiction intermingle in an inextricable confusion."—*W.R.
Thompson, "Introduction," to Everyman's Library issue of *Charles
Darwin's, Origin of Species (1956 edition).
"
`Scientists who go about teaching that evolution is a fact of life are great con
men, and the story they are telling may be the greatest hoax ever. In explaining
evolution we do not have one iota of fact.' A tangled mishmash of guessing games
and figure juggling [Tahmisian called it]."—*The Fresno Bee, August
20, 1959, p. 1-B [quoting T.N. Tahmisian, physiologist for the Atomic Energy
Commission].
" `The
theory [of evolution] is a scientific mistake.' "—*Louis Agassiz,
quoted in H. Enoch, Evolution or Creation, (1966), p. 139. [Agassiz was a
Harvard University professor and the pioneer in glaciation.]
"[In
Darwin's writings] possibilities were assumed to add up to probability, and
probabilities then were promoted to certitudes."—*Agassiz, op. cit.,
p. 335.
"The origin
of all diversity among living beings remains a mystery as totally unexplained as
if the book of Mr. Darwin had never been written, for no theory unsupported by
fact, however plausible it may appear, can be admitted in science."—L.
Agassiz on the Origin of Species, American Journal of Science, 30 (1860), p.
154. [Darwin's book was published in 1859.]
"[Darwin
could] summon up enough general, vague and conjectural reasons to account for
this fact, and if these were not taken seriously, he could come up with a
different, but equally general, vague and conjectural set of reasons."—*Gertrude
Himmelfarb, Darwin and Darwinian Revolution (1968), p. 319.
"Ultimately
the Darwinian theory of evolution is no more nor less than the great cosmogenic
myth of the twentieth century . . the origin of life and of new beings on earth
is still largely as enigmatic as when Darwin set sail on the [ship] Beagle."—*Michael
Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1986), p. 358.
"It has been
estimated that no fewer than 800 phrases in the subjunctive mood (such as `Let
us assume,' or `We may well suppose,' etc.) are to be found between
the covers of Darwin's Origin of Species alone."—L. Merson
Davies [British scientist], Modern Science (1953), p. 7.
"I can
envision observations and experiments that would disprove any evolutionary
theory I know."—*Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and
Theory," Discover 2(5):34-37 (1981).
"Unfortunately
for Darwin's future reputation, his life was spent on the problem of evolution
which is deductive by nature . . It is absurd to expect that many facts will not
always be irreconcilable with any theory of evolution and, today, every one of
his theories is contradicted by facts."—*P.T. Mora, The Dogma of
Evolution, p. 194.
"Darwinism
is a creed not only with scientists committed to document the all-purpose role
of natural selection. It is a creed with masses of people who have, at best, a
vague notion of the mechanism of evolution as proposed by Darwin, let alone as
further complicated by his successors."—*S. Jaki, Cosmos and Creator
(1982).
"In essence,
we contend that neo-Darwinism is a theory of differential survival and not one
of origin . .
"We are
certainly not arguing here that differential survival of whole organisms does
not occur. This must inevitably happen [i.e. some species become extinct]. The
question that we must ask is, does this represent the controlling dynamic of
organic evolution? Cannot a similar argument be equally well-constructed to
`explain' any frequency distribution? For example, consider rocks which vary in
hardness and also persist through time. Clearly the harder rocks are better
`adapted' to survive harsh climatic conditions. As Lewontin points out, a
similar story can be told about political parties, rumors, jokes, stars, and
discarded soft drink containers."—*A.J. Hughes and *D. Lambert,
"Functionalism, Structuralism, `Ways of Seeing,' " Journal of
Theoretical Biology, 787 (1984), pp. 796-797.
"Biologists
have indeed built their advances in evolutionary theory on the Darwinian
foundation, not realizing that the foundation is about to topple because of
Darwin's three mistakes.
"George
Bernard Shaw wisecracked once that Darwin had the luck to please everybody who
had an axe to grind. Well, I also have an axe to grind, but I am not pleased. We
have suffered through two world wars and are threatened by an Armageddon. We
have had enough of the Darwinian fallacy."—*Kenneth Hsu,
"Reply," Geology, 15 (1987), p. 177.
"Therefore,
a grotesque account of a period some thousands of years ago is taken seriously
though it be built by piling special assumptions on special assumptions, ad
hoc hypothesis [invented for a purpose] on ad hoc hypothesis, and
tearing apart the fabric of science whenever it appears convenient. The result
is a fantasia which is neither history nor science."—*James Conant
[chemist and former president, Harvard University], quoted in Origins Research,
Vol. 5, No. 2, 1982, p. 2.
"It is
inherent in any definition of science that statements that cannot be checked by
observation are not really saying anything—or at least they are not
science." —*George G. Simpson, "The Nonprevalence of
Humanoids," in Science, 143 (1964) p. 770.
"In
accepting evolution as fact, how many biologists pause to reflect that science
is built upon theories that have been proved by experiment to be correct or
remember that the theory of animal evolution has never been thus approved."—*L.H.
Matthews, "Introduction," Origin of Species, Charles Darwin (1971
edition).
"Present-day
ultra-Darwinism, which is so sure of itself, impresses incompletely informed
biologists, misleads them, and inspires fallacious interpretations . .
"Through use
and abuse of hidden postulates, of bold, often ill-founded extrapolations, a
pseudoscience has been created. It is taking root in the very heart of biology
and is leading astray many biochemists and biologists, who sincerely believe
that the accuracy of fundamental concepts has been demonstrated, which is not
the case."—*Pierre P. de Grasse, The Evolution of Living Organisms
(1977), p. 202.
"The
over-riding supremacy of the myth [of evolution] has created a widespread
illusion that the theory of evolution was all but proved one hundred years ago
and that all subsequent biological research—paleontological, zoological and in
the newer branches of genetics and molecular biology—has provided
ever-increasing evidence for Darwinian ideas. Nothing could be further from the
truth.
[In a letter to
Asa Gray, a Harvard professor of biology, Darwin wrote:] "I am quite
conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true
science."—*Charles Darwin, quoted in *N.C. Gillespie, Charles Darwin
and the Problem of Creation (1979), p. 2 [University of Chicago book].
"The fact is
that the evidence was so patchy one hundred years ago that even Darwin himself
had increasing doubts as to the validity of his views, and the only aspect of
his theory which has received any support over the past century is where it
applies to microevolutionary phenomena. His general theory, that all life on
earth had originated and evolved by a gradual successive accumulation of
fortuitous mutations, is still, as it was in Darwin's time, a highly speculative
hypothesis entirely without direct factual support and very far from that
self-evident axiom some of its more aggressive advocates would have us
believe."—*Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1986), p.
77.
Scientific facts
which annihilate evolutionary theory
BRIEF HISTORY OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY
INTRODUCTION
Introduction:
Stellar evolution is based on the concept that nothing can explode and produce
all the stars and worlds. Life evolution is founded on the twin theories of spontaneous
generation and Lamarckism (the inheritance of acquired
characteristics);—yet, although they remain the basis of biological evolution,
both were debunked by scientists over a century ago.
Science is the study of the natural
world. We are thankful for the many dedicated scientists who are hard at work,
improving life for us. But we will learn, in this book, that their discoveries
have provided no worthwhile evidence supporting evolutionary theory.
Premises
are important. These are the concepts by which scientific facts are interpreted.
For over a century, efforts have been made to explain scientific discoveries by
a mid-19th century theory, known as "evolution." It has formed the
foundation for many other theories, which also are not founded on scientific
facts!
Restating them again, here are the two premises on which the various
theories of evolution are based:
1 - This is the evolutionary formula for making a universe:
Nothing + nothing = two elements + time = 92 natural elements + time =
all physical laws and a completely structured universe of galaxies, systems,
stars, planets, and moons orbiting in perfect balance and order.
2 - This is the evolutionary formula for making life:
Dirt + water + time = living creatures.
Evolutionists theorize that the above two formulas can enable everything
about us to make itself—with the exception of man-made things, such as
automobiles or buildings. Complicated things, such as wooden boxes with nails in
them, require thought, intelligence, and careful workmanship. But everything
else about us in nature (such as hummingbirds and the human eye) is declared to
be the result of accidental mishaps, random confusion, and time. You will not
even need raw materials to begin with. They make themselves too.
How
did all this nonsense get started? We will begin this site with a brief
overview of the modern history of evolutionary theory.
But let us not forget that, though
it may be nonsensical, evolutionary theory has greatly affected—and
damaged—mankind in the 20th century. Will we continue to let this happen, now
that we are in the 21st century? The social and moral impact that evolutionary
concepts have had on the modern world has been terrific.
Morality and ethical standards have been greatly reduced. Children and
youth are taught in school that they are an advanced level of animals; there are
no moral principles. Since they are just animals, they should do whatever they
want. Personal survival and success will come only by rivalry, strife, and
stepping on others.
Here is a brief overview of some of the people and events in the history
of modern evolutionary theory. But it is only a glimpse. Much more will be found
as you read farther in this site. And it is all fascinating reading!
1- 18th AND 19th CENTURY
SCIENTISTS
Prior to the middle of the 1800s, scientists were researchers who firmly
believed that all nature was made by a Master Designer. Those pioneers who laid
the foundations of modern science were creationists. They were men of giant
intellect who struggled against great odds in carrying on their work. They were
hard-working researchers.
In contrast, the philosophers sat around, hardly stirring from their
armchairs and theorized about everything while the scientists, ignoring them,
kept at their work.
But a change came about in the 19th century, when the philosophers tried
to gain control of scientific endeavor and suppress research and findings that
would be unfavorable to their theories. Today’s evolutionists vigorously
defend the unscientific theories they thought up over a century ago.
William Paley
(1743-1805), in his 1802 classic, Natural Theology, summarized the
viewpoint of the scientists.
He argued that the kind of
carefully designed structures we see in the living world point clearly to a
Designer. If we see a watch, we know that it had a designer and maker; it would
be foolish to imagine that it made itself. This is the "argument by
design." All about us is the world of nature, and over our heads at
night is a universe of stars. We can ignore or ridicule what is there or say it
all made itself, but our scoffing does not change the reality of the situation.
A leading atheistic scientist of our time, *Fred Hoyle, wrote that, although it
was not difficult to disprove Darwinism, what Paley had to say appeared likely
to be unanswerable (*Fred Hoyle and *Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from
Space, 1981, p. 96).
It is a remarkable fact that the
basis of evolutionary theory was destroyed by seven scientific research
findings,—before *Charles Darwin first published the theory.
Carl Linn (Carolus Linnaeus,
1707-1778) was a scientist who classified immense numbers of living organisms.
An earnest creationist, he clearly saw that there were no halfway species. All
plant and animal species were definite categories, separate from one another.
Variation was possible within a species, and there were many sub-species. But
there were no cross-overs from one species to another (*R. Milner,
Encyclopedia of Evolution, 1990, p. 276).
First Law of Thermodynamics
(1847). Heinrich von Helmholtz stated the law of conservation of energy:
The sum total of all matter will always remain the same. This law refutes
several aspects of evolutionary theory. *Isaac Asimov calls it "the most
fundamental generalization about the universe that scientists have ever been
able to make" (*Isaac Asimov, "In the Game of Energy and
Thermodynamics You Can’t Even Break Even," Journal of Smithsonian
Institute, June 1970, p. 6).
Second Law of Thermodynamics
(1850). R.J.E. Clausius stated the law of entropy: All systems will
tend toward the most mathematically probable state, and eventually become
totally random and disorganized (*Harold Blum, Time’s Arrow and Evolution,
1968, p. 201). In other words, everything runs down, wears out, and goes to
pieces (*R.R. Kindsay, "Physics: to What Extent is it
Deterministic," American Scientist 56, 1968, p. 100). This law totally
eliminates the basic evolutionary theory that simple evolves into complex.
*Einstein said the two laws were the most enduring laws he knew of (*Jeremy
Rifkin, Entropy: A New World View, 1980, p. 6).
Guadeloupe Woman Found
(1812). This is a well-authenticated discovery which has been in the British
Museum for over a century. A fully modern human skeleton was found in the French
Caribbean island of Guadeloupe inside an immense slab of limestone, dated by
modern geologists at 28 million years old. (More examples could be cited.) Human
beings, just like those living today (but sometimes larger), have been found in
very deep levels of strata.
Gregor Mendel
(1822-1884) was a creationist who lived and worked near Brunn (now Brno),
Czechoslovakia. He was a science and math teacher. Unlike the theorists, Mendel
was a true scientist. He bred garden peas and studied the results of crossing
various varieties. Beginning his work in 1856, he concluded it within eight
years. In 1865, he reported his research in the Journal of the Brunn Society
for the Study of Natural Science. The journal was distributed to 120
libraries in Europe, England, and America. Yet his research was totally ignored
by the scientific community until it was rediscovered in 1900 (*R.A. Fisher,
"Has Mendel’s Work Been Rediscovered?" Annals of Science, Vol. 1,
No. 2, 1936). His experiments clearly showed that one species could not
transmute into another one. A genetic barrier existed that could not be bridged.
Mendel’s work laid the basis for modern genetics, and his discoveries
effectively destroyed the basis for species evolution (*Michael Pitman,
Adam and Evolution, 1984, pp. 63-64).
Louis Pasteur
(1822-1895) was another genuine scientist. In the process of studying
fermentation, he performed his famous 1861 experiment, in which he disproved the
theory of spontaneous generation. Life cannot arise from non-living materials.
This experiment was very important; for, up to that time, a majority of
scientists believed in spontaneous generation. (They thought that if a pile of
old clothes were left in a corner, it would breed mice! The proof was that, upon
later returning to the clothes, mice would frequently be found there.) Pasteur
concluded from his experiment that only God could create living creatures. But
modern evolutionary theory continues to be based on that out-dated theory
disproved by Pasteur: spontaneous generation (life arises from non-life). Why?
Because it is the only basis on which evolution could occur. As *Adams
notes, "With spontaneous generation discredited [by Pasteur], biologists
were left with no theory of the origin of life at all" (*J. Edison
Adams, Plants: An Introduction to Modern Biology, 1967, p. 585).
August Friedrich Leopold
Weismann (1834-1914) was a
German biologist who disproved *Lamarck’s notion of "the inheritance of
acquired characteristics." He is primarily remembered as the scientist who
cut off the tails of 901 young white mice in 19 successive generations, yet each
new generation was born with a full-length tail. The final generation, he
reported, had tails as long as those originally measured on the first. Weismann
also carried out other experiments that buttressed his refutation of Lamarckism.
His discoveries, along with the fact that circumcision of Jewish males for 4,000
years had not affected the foreskin, doomed the theory (*Jean Rostand, Orion
Book of Evolution, 1960, p. 64). Yet Lamarckism continues today as the
disguised basis of evolutionary biology. For example, evolutionists still teach
that giraffes kept
stretching their necks to reach
higher branches, so their necks became longer! In a later book, *Darwin
abandoned natural selection as unworkable, and returned to Lamarckism as the
cause of the never-observed change from one species to another (*Randall
Hedtke, The Secret of the Sixth Edition, 1984).
Here is a brief, partial
overview of what true scientists were accomplishing in the 18th and 19th
centuries. All of them were Creationists:
Louis Agassiz
(1807-1873): glacial geology, ichthyology.
Charles Babbage
(1792-1871): actuarial tables, calculating machine, foundations of computer
science.
Francis Bacon
(1561-1626): scientific method of research.
Robert Boyle
(1627-1691): chemistry, gas dynamics.
Sir David
Brewster
(1781-1868): optical mineralogy, kaleidoscope.
Georges Cuvier
(1769-1832): comparative anatomy, vertebrate paleontology.
Sir Humphry
Davy
(1778-1829): thermokinetics.
Jean Henri
Fabre
(1823-1915): entomology of living insects.
Michael Faraday
(1791-1867): electric generator, electro-magnetics, field theory.
Sir John A.
Fleming
(1849-1945): electronics, thermic valve.
Joseph Henry
(1797-1878): electric motor, galvanometer.
Sir William
Herschel
(1738-1822): galactic astronomy, double stars.
James Joule
(1818-1889): reversible thermodynamics.
Lord William
Kelvin
(1824-1907): absolute temperature scale, energetics, thermodynamics,
transatlantic cable.
Johannes Kepler
(1571-1630): celestial mechanics, ephemeris tables, physical astronomy.
Carolus
Linnaeus
(1707-1778): classification system, systematic biology.
Joseph Lister
(1827-1912): antiseptic surgery.
Matthew Maury
(1806-1873): hydrography, oceanography.
James C.
Maxwell
(1831-1879): electrical dynamics, statistical thermodynamics.
Gregor Mendel
(1822-1884): genetics.
Samuel F.B.
Morse
(1791-1872): telegraph.
Isaac Newton
(1642-1727): calculus, dynamics, law of gravity, reflecting telescopes.
Blaise Pascal
(1623-1662): hydrostatics, barometer.
Louise Pasteur
(1822-1895): bacteriology, biogenesis law, pasteurization, vaccination, and
immunization.
Sir William
Ramsey
(1852-1916): inert gases, isotropic chemistry.
John Ray
(1827-1705): natural history, classification of plants and animals.
John Rayleigh
(1842-1919): dimensional analysis, model analysis.
Bernhard
Riemann
(1826-1866): non-Euclidean geometry.
Sir James
Simpson
(1811-1870): chloroform, gynecology.
Sir George
Stokes
(1819-1903): fluid mechanics.
Rudolph Virchow
(1821-1902): pathology.
2 - 18th AND 19th CENTURY
EVOLUTIONISTS
And now we will view the
armchair philosophers. Hardly one of them ever set foot in field research or
entered the door of a science laboratory, yet they founded the modern theory of
evolution:
*Emmanuel Swedenborg
(1688-1772) was a do-nothing expert. In his 1734 book, Principia, he
theorized that a rapidly rotating nebula formed itself into our solar system of
sun and planets. He claimed that he obtained the idea from spirits during a séance.
It is significant that the nebular hypothesis theory originated from such a
source.
*Comte de Buffon (1707-1788)
was a dissolute philosopher who, unable to improve on the work of Linnaeus,
spent his time criticizing him. He theorized that species originated from one
another and that a chunk was torn out of the sun, which became our planet. As
with the other philosophers, he presented no evidence in support of his
theories.
*Jean-Baptist Lamarck
(1744-1829) made a name for himself by theorizing. He accomplished little else
of significance. He laid the foundation of modern evolutionary theory, with his
concept of "inheritance of acquired characteristics," which was later
given the name Lamarckism. In 1809, he published a book, Philosophie
zoologique, in which he declared that the giraffe got its long neck by
stretching it up to reach the higher branches, and birds that lived in water
grew webbed feet. According to that, if you pull hard on your feet, you will
gradually increase their length; and, if you decide in your mind to do so, you
can grow hair on your bald head, and your offspring will never be bald. This is
science?
*Lamarck’s other erroneous
contribution to evolution was the theory of uniformitarianism. This is
the conjecture that all earlier ages on earth were exactly as they are today,
calm and peaceful with no worldwide Flood or other great catastrophes.
*Robert Chambers (1802-1883)
was a spiritualist who regularly communicated with spirits. As a result of his
contacts, he wrote the first popular evolution book in all of Britain. Called Vestiges
of Creation (1844), it was printed 15 years before *Charles Darwin’s book,
Origin of the Species.
*Charles Lyell (1797-1875).
Like *Charles Darwin, Lyell inherited great wealth and was able to spend his
time theorizing. Lyell published his Principles of Geology in 1830-1833,
and it became the basis for the modern theory of sedimentary strata,—even
though 20th-century discoveries in radiodating, radiocarbon dating, missing
strata, and overthrusts (older strata on top of more recent strata) have
nullified the theory.
In order to prove his theory, Lyell
was quite willing to misstate the facts. He learned that Niagara Falls had
eroded a seven-mile [11 km] channel from Queenston, Ontario, and that it was
eroding at about 3 feet [1 m] a year. So Lyell conveniently changed that to one
foot [.3 m] a year, which meant that the falls had been flowing for 35,000
years! But Lyell had not told the truth. Three-foot erosion a year, at its
present rate of flow, would only take us back 7000 to 9000 years,—and it would
be expected that, just after the Flood, the flow would, for a time, have greatly
increased the erosion rate. Lyell was a close friend of Darwin, and urged him to
write his book, Origin of the Species.
*Alfred Russell Wallace
(1823-1913) is considered to be the man who developed the theory which *Darwin
published. *Wallace was deeply involved in spiritism at the time he formulated
the theory in his Ternate Paper, which *Darwin, with the help of two
friends (*Charles Lyell and *Joseph Hooker), pirated and published under his own
name. *Darwin, a wealthy man, thus obtained the royalties which belonged to
Wallace, a poverty-ridden theorist. In 1980, *Arnold C. Brackman, in his book, A
Delicate Arrangement, established that Darwin plagiarized Wallace’s
material. It was arranged that a paper by Darwin would be read to the Royal
Society, in London, while Wallace’s was held back until later. Priorities for
the ideas thus having been taken care of, Darwin set to work to prepare his
book.
In 1875, Wallace came out openly
for spiritism and Marxism, another stepchild of Darwinism. This was Wallace’s
theory: Species have changed in the past, by which one species descended from
another in a manner that we cannot prove today. That is exactly what modern
evolution teaches. Yet it has no more evidence supporting the theory than
Wallace had in 1858 when he devised the theory while in a fever.
In February 1858, while in a
delirious fever on the island of Ternate in the Molaccas, Wallace conceived
the idea, "survival of the fittest," as being the method by
which species change. But the concept proves nothing. The fittest; which one
is that? It is the one that survived longest. Which one survives longest?
The fittest. This is reasoning in a circle. The phrase says nothing about
the evolutionary process, much less proving it.
In the first edition of his book,
Darwin regarded "natural selection" and "survival of the
fittest" as different concepts. By the sixth edition of his Origin of
the Species, he thought they meant the same thing, but that "survival
of the fittest" was the more accurate. In a still later book (Descent of
Man, 1871), Darwin ultimately abandoned "natural selection" as a
hopeless mechanism and returned to Lamarckism. Even Darwin recognized the theory
was falling to pieces. The supporting evidence just was not there.
*Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
was born into wealth and able to have a life of ease. He took two years of
medical school at Edinburgh University, and then dropped out. It was the only
scientific training he ever received. Because he spent the time in bars with his
friends, he barely passed his courses. Darwin had no particular purpose in life,
and his father planned to get him into a nicely paid job as an Anglican
minister. Darwin did not object.
But an influential relative got him
a position as the unpaid "naturalist" on a ship planning to sail
around the world, the Beagle. The voyage lasted from December 1831 to
October 1836.
It is of interest that, after
engaging in spiritism, certain men in history have been seized with a deep
hatred of God and have then been guided to devise evil teachings, that have
destroyed large numbers of people, while others have engaged in warfare which
have annihilated millions. In connection with this, we think of such known
spiritists as *Sigmund Freud and *Adolf Hitler. It is not commonly known that
*Charles Darwin, while a naturalist aboard the Beagle, was initiated into
witchcraft in South America by nationals. During horseback travels into the
interior, he took part in their ceremonies and, as a result, something
happened to him. Upon his return to England, although his health was
strangely weakened, he spent the rest of his life working on theories to destroy
faith in the Creator.
After leaving South America, Darwin
was on the Galapagos Islands for a few days. While there, he saw some finches
which had blown in from South America and adapted to their environment,
producing several sub-species. He was certain that this showed cross-species
evolution (change into new species). But they were still finches. This theory
about the finches was the primary evidence of evolution he brought back with him
to England.
Darwin, never a scientist
and knowing nothing about the practicalities of genetics, then married his first
cousin, which resulted in all seven of his children having physical or mental
disorders. (One girl died after birth, another at 10. His oldest daughter had a
prolonged breakdown at 15. Three of his children became semi-invalids, and his
last son was born mentally retarded and died 19 months after birth.)
His book, Origin of the Species,
was first published in November 1859. The full title, On the Origin of the
Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in
the Struggle for Life, reveals the viciousness of the underlying concept;
this concept led directly to two of the worst wars in the history of mankind.
In his book, Darwin reasoned from
theory to facts, and provided little evidence for what he had to say. Modern
evolutionists are ashamed of the book, with its ridiculous arguments.
Darwin’s book had what some men
wanted: a clear out-in-the-open, current statement in favor of species change.
So, in spite of its laughable imperfections, they capitalized on it. Here is
what you will find in his book:
• Darwin would cite authorities
that he did not mention. He repeatedly said it was "only an abstract,"
and "a fuller edition" would come out later. But, although he wrote
other books, try as he may he never could find the proof for his theories. No
one since has found it either.
• When he did name an authority,
it was just an opinion from a letter. Phrases indicating the hypothetical nature
of his ideas were frequent: "It might have been," "Maybe,"
"probably," "it is conceivable that." A favorite of his was:
"Let us take an imaginary example."
• Darwin would suggest a
possibility, and later refer back to it as a fact: "As we have already
demonstrated previously." Elsewhere he would suggest a possible series of
events and then conclude by assuming that proved the point.
• He relied heavily on stories
instead of facts. Confusing examples would be given. He would use specious and
devious arguments, and spent much time suggesting possible explanations why the
facts he needed were not available.
Here is an example of his
reasoning: To explain the fossil trans-species gaps, Darwin suggested that species
must have been changing quickly in other parts of the world where men had not
yet examined the strata. Later these changed species traveled over to the
Western World, to be found in strata there as new species. So species were
changing on the other side of the world, and that was why species in the process
of change were not found on our side!
With thinking like this, who needs
science? But remember that Charles Darwin never had a day of schooling in the
sciences.
Here is Darwin’s explanation of
how one species changes into another: It is a variation of *Lamarck’s theory
of inheritance of acquired characteristics (*Nicholas Hutton III, Evidence of
Evolution, 1962, p. 138). Calling it pangenesis, Darwin said that an
organ affected by the environment would respond by giving off particles that he
called gemmules. These particles supposedly helped determine hereditary
characteristics. The environment would affect an organ; gemmules would drop
out of the organ; and the gemmules would travel to the reproductive organs,
where they would affect the cells (*W. Stansfield, Science of Evolution,
1977, p. 38). As mentioned earlier, scientists today are ashamed of
Darwin’s ideas.
In his book, Darwin taught that man
came from an ape, and that the stronger races would, within a century or two,
destroy the weaker ones. (Modern evolutionists claim that man and ape descended
from a common ancestor.)
After taking part in the witchcraft
ceremonies, not only was his mind affected but his body also. He developed a
chronic and incapacitating illness, and went to his death under a depression he
could not shake (Random House Encyclopedia, 1977, p. 768).
He frequently commented in private
letters that he recognized that there was no evidence for his theory, and that
it could destroy the morality of the human race. "Long before the reader
has arrived at this part of my work, a crowd of difficulties will have occurred
to him. Some of them are so serious that to this day I can hardly reflect on
them without in some degree becoming staggered" (*Charles Darwin, Origin
of the Species, 1860, p. 178; quoted from Harvard Classics, 1909 ed., Vol. 11).
"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I
may have not devoted myself to a phantasy" (*Charles Darwin, Life and
Letters, 1887, Vol. 2, p. 229).
*Thomas Huxley (1825-1895)
was the man *Darwin called "my bulldog." *Darwin was so frail in
health that he did not make public appearances, but remained secluded in the
mansion he inherited. After being personally converted by Darwin (on a visit to
Darwin’s home), Huxley championed the evolutionary cause with everything he
had. In the latter part of the 19th century, while *Haeckel labored earnestly on
the European continent, Huxley was Darwin’s primary advocate in England.
The *X
Club was a secret society in London which worked to further
evolutionary thought and suppress scientific opposition to it. It was powerful,
for all scientific papers considered by the Royal Society had to be first
approved by this small group of nine members. Chaired by *Huxley, its members
made contacts and powerfully affected British scientific associations
(*Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution, 1984, p. 64). " ‘But what do
they do?’ asked a curious journalist. ‘They run British science,’ a
professor replied, ‘and on the whole, they don’t do it badly’ "
(*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution, 1990, p. 467). In the 20th century,
U.S. government agencies, working closely with the *National Science Federation
and kindred organizations, have channeled funds for research to universities
willing to try to find evidence for evolution. Down to the present day, the
theorists are still trying to control the scientists.
The Oxford Debate
was held in June 1860 at Oxford University, only seven months after the
publication of *Darwin’s Origin of the Species. A special meeting of
the British Association for the Advancement of Science, it marked a major
turning point in England,—just as the 1925 Scopes Trial would be the turning
point in North America. Scientific facts had little to do with either event;
both were just battles between personalities. In both instances, evolutionists
won through ridicule. They dared not rely on scientific facts to support their
case, because they had none.
Samuel Wilberforce, Anglican bishop
of Oxford University, was scheduled to speak that evening in defense of
creationism. *Huxley had lectured on behalf of evolution in many English cities
and was not planning to attend that night. But *Chambers, a spiritualist adviser
to Huxley, was impressed to find and tell him he must attend.
Wilberforce delivered a vigorous
attack on evolution for half an hour before a packed audience of 700 people. His
presentation was outstanding, and the audience was apparently with him. But then
Wilberforce turned and rhetorically asked Huxley a humorous question, whether it was
through his grandfather or his grandmother that Huxley claimed descent from an
ape.
Huxley was extremely sharp-witted
and, at the bishop’s question, he clasped the knee of the person sitting next
to him, and said, "He is delivered into my hands!"
Huxley arose and worked the
audience up to a climax, and then declared that he would feel no shame in having
an ape as an ancestor, but would be ashamed of a brilliant man who plunged into
scientific questions of which he knew nothing (John W. Klotz, "Science
and Religion," in Studies in Creation, 1985, pp. 45-46).
At this, the entire room went wild,
some yelling one thing and others another. On a pretext so thin, the
evolutionists in England became a power which scientists feared to oppose. We
will learn that ridicule heaped on ridicule, through the public press,
accomplished the same results for American evolutionists in Dayton, Tennessee,
in 1925.
The Orgueil Meteorite
(1861) was one of many hoaxes perpetrated, to further the cause of evolution.
Someone inserted various dead microbes, and then covered it over with a surface
appearing like the meteorite. The objective was to show that life came from
outer space. But the hoax was later discovered (*Scientific American, January
1965, p. 52). A remarkable number of hoaxes have occurred since then. Men,
working desperately, have tried to provide scientific evidence that does not
exist. In the mid-1990s, a meteorite "from Mars" with "dead
organisms" on it was trumpeted in the press. But ignored were the
conclusions of competent scientists, that the "discovery" was highly
speculative.
*Sir Francis Galton
(1822-1911). Galton was *Charles Darwin’s cousin who amplified on one of the
theory’s logical conclusions. He declared that the "science" of
"eugenics" was the key to humanity’s problems: Put the weak, infirm,
and aged to sleep. *Adolf Hitler, an ardent evolutionist, used it successfully
in World War II (*Otto Scott, "Playing God," in Chalcedon
Report, No. 247, February 1986, p. 1).
*Wallace’s Break with *Darwin.
Darwin’s close friend, Russell Wallace, eventually separated from Darwin’s
position—a position he had given Darwin—when Wallace realized that
the human brain was far too advanced for evolutionary processes to have produced
it (Loren C. Eiseley, "Was Darwin Wrong about the Human Brain?"
Harpers Magazine, 211:66-70, 1955).
*Herbert Spencer
(1820-1903), along with certain other men (*Friedrich Nietzche, *Karl Marx,
*Sigmund Freud, *John Dewey, etc.), introduced evolutionary modes and morality
into social fields (sociology, psychology, education, warfare, economics, etc.)
with devastating effects on the 20th century. Spencer, also a spiritist, was the
one who initially invented the term, "evolution" (*R.
Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution, 1990, p. 159; cf. 424). Spencer
introduced sociology into Europe, clothing it in evolutionary terms. From there
it traveled to America. He urged that the unfit be eliminated, so society could
properly evolve (*Harry E. Barnes, Historical Sociology, 1948, p. 13). In
later years, even the leading evolutionists of the time, such as Huxley and
Darwin, became tired of the fact that Spencer could do nothing but theorize and
knew so little of real-life facts.
Archaeopteryx
(1861, 1877). These consisted of several fossils from a single limestone quarry
in Germany, each of which the quarry owner sold at a high price. One appeared to
possibly be a small dinosaur skeleton, complete with wings and feathers.
European museums paid high prices for them. (As we will learn below, in 1985
Archaeopteryx was shown to be a fake.)
*Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919),
a teacher at the University of Jena in Germany, was the most zealous advocate of
Darwinism on the continent in the 19th century. He drew a number of fraudulent
charts (first published in
1868) which purported to show that
human embryos were almost identical to those of other animals. Reputable
scientists repudiated them within a few years, for embryologists recognized the
deceit. (See chapter 16, Vestiges and Recapitulation on our website for
the charts.) *Darwin and *Haeckel had a strong influence on the rise of world
communism (*Daniel Gasman, Scientific Origins of National Socialism: Social
Darwinism in Ernst Haeckel and the German Monist League, 1971, p. xvi).
*Marsh’s Horse Series
(1870s). *Othniel C. Marsh claimed to have found 30 different kinds of horse
fossils in Wyoming and Nebraska. He reconstructed and arranged them in a
small-to-large evolutionary series, which was never in a straight line (*Encyclopedia
Britannica, 1976 ed., Vol. 7, p. 13). Although displayed in museums for a
time, the great majority of scientists later repudiated this "horse
series" (*Charles Deperet, Transformations of the Animal World, p. 105;
*G.A. Kerkut, Implications of Evolution, 1960, p. 149).
*Friedrich Nietzsche
(1844-1900). *Nietzsche was a remarkable example of a man who fully adopted
Darwinist principles. He wrote books declaring that the way to evolve was to
have wars and kill the weaker races, in order to produce a "super
race" (*T. Walter Wallbank and *Alastair M. Taylor, Civilization Past and
Present, Vol. 2, 1949 ed., p. 274). *Darwin, in Origin of the Species,
also said that this needed to happen. The writings of both men were read by
German militarists and led to World War I. *Hitler valued both Darwin’s and
Nietzche’s books. When Hitler killed 6 million Jews, he was only doing what
Darwin taught.
It is of interest, that a year
before he defended *John Scopes’ right to teach Darwinism at the Dayton
"Monkey Trial," *Clarence Darrow declared in court that the murderous
thinking of two young men was caused by their having learned *Nietzsche’s
vicious Darwinism in the public schools (*W. Brigan, ed., Classified
Speeches).
*Asa Gray was the first
leading theistic evolutionary advocate in America, at the time when Darwin was
writing his books. Gray, a Presbyterian, worked closely with *Charles W. Eliot,
president of Harvard, in promoting evolution as a "Christian
teaching," yet teaching long ages and the book of Genesis as a fable.
The Challenger
was a British ship dispatched to find evidence, on the ocean bottom, of
evolutionary change. During its 1872-1876 voyage, it carried on seafloor
dredging, but found no fossils developing on the bottom of the ocean. By this
time, it was obvious to evolutionists that no fossils were developing on either
land or sea, yet they kept quiet about the matter. Over the years, theories,
hoaxes, false claims, and ridicule favoring evolution were spread abroad; but
facts refuting it, when found, were kept hidden.
*Karl Marx (1818-1883) is
closely linked with Darwinism. That which *Darwin did to biology, Marx with the
help of others did to society. All the worst political philosophies of the 20th
century emerged from the dark cave of Darwinism. Marx was thrilled when he read Origin
of the Species and he immediately wrote Darwin and asked to dedicate his own
major work, Das Kapital, to him. Darwin, in his reply, thanked him but
said it would be best not to do so.
In 1866, Marx wrote to *Frederick
Engels, that Origin of the Species contained the basis in natural history
for their political and economic system for an atheist world. Engels, the
co-founder of world communism with Marx and *Lenin, wrote to Karl Marx in 1859:
"Darwin, whom I am just now reading, is splendid" (*C. Zirkle,
Evolution, Marxian Biology, and the Social Scene, 1959, p. 85). In 1861,
Marx wrote to Engels: "Darwin’s book is very important and serves me as a
basis in natural selection for the class struggle in history" (*op.
cit., p. 86). At
Marx’s funeral, Engles said that,
as Darwin had discovered the law of organic evolution in natural history, so
Marx had discovered the law of evolution in human history (*Otto Ruhle, Karl
Marx, 1948, p. 366).
As Darwin emphasized competitive
survival as the key to advancement, so communism focused on the value of labor rather
than the laborer. Like Darwin, Marx thought he had discovered the law of
development. He saw history in stages, as the Darwinists saw geological strata
and successive forms of life.
*William Grant Sumner
(1840-1910) applied evolutionary principles to political economics at Yale
University. He taught many of America’s future business and industrial leaders
that strong business should succeed and the weak perish, and that to help the
unfit was to injure the fit and accomplish nothing for society (*R. Milner,
Encyclopedia of Evolution, 1990, pp. 59, 446, 72). Millionaires were, in his
thinking, the "fittest." Modern laissez-faire capitalism was
the result (*Gilman M. Ostrander, The Evolutionary Outlook: 1875-1900, 1971,
p. 5).
*William James (1842-1910)
was another evolutionist who influenced American thinking. His view of
psychology placed the study of human behavior on an animalistic evolutionary
basis.
Tidal Hypothesis Theory
(1890). *George Darwin, son of *Charles Darwin, wanted to come up with something
original, so he invented the theory that four million years ago the moon was
pressed nearly against the earth, which revolved every five hours.—Then one
day, a heavy tide occurred in the oceans, which lifted it out to its present
location! Later proponents of George’s theory decided that the Pacific
Basin is the hole the moon left behind, when those large ocean waves pushed it
out into space.
3 - 1898 TO 1949
Bumpus’ Sparrows
(1898). Herman Bumpus was a zoologist at Brown University. During the
winter of 1898, by accident he carried out one of the only field experiments in
natural selection. One cold morning, finding 136 stunned house sparrows on the
ground, he tried to nurse them back to health. Of the total, 72 revived and 64
died. He weighed and carefully measured all of them, and found that those
closest to the average survived best. This frequently quoted research study is
another evidence that the animal or plant closest to the original species is the
most hardy. Sub-species variations will not be as hardy, and evolution entirely
across species (if the DNA code would permit it) would therefore be too weakened
to survive (*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution, 1990, p. 61).
*Hugo deVries (1848-1935)
was a Dutch botanist and one of the three men who, in 1900, rediscovered
Mendel’s paper on the law of heredity.
One day while working with
primroses, deVries thought he had discovered a new species. This made headlines.
He actually had found a new variety (sub-species) of the primrose, but deVries
conjectured that perhaps his "new species" had suddenly sprung into
existence as a "mutation." He theorized that new species "saltated"
(leaped), that is, continually spring into existence. His idea is called the
saltation theory.
This was a new idea; and, during
the first half of the 20th century, many evolutionary biologists, finding
absolutely no evidence supporting "natural selection," switched from
natural selection ("Darwinism") to mutations
("neo-Darwinism") as the mechanism by which the theorized
cross-species changes occurred.
Later in this book, we will
discover that mutations cannot produce evolution either, for they are always
harmful. In addition, decades of experimentation have revealed they never
produce new species.
In order to prove the mutation
theory, deVries and other researchers immediately began experimentation on fruit
flies; and it has continued ever since—but totally without success in
producing new species.
Ironically, deVries’ saltation
theory was based on an observational error. In 1914 *Edward Jeffries discovered
that deVries’ primrose was just a new variety, not a new species.
Decades later, it was discovered
that most plant varieties are produced by variations in gene factors, rarely by
mutations. Those caused by gene variations may be strong (although not as strong
as the average original), but those varieties produced by mutations are always
weak and have a poor survival rate. See chapter 10, Mutations, for much,
much more on the mutation problem.
*Walter S. Sutton and *T.
Boveri (1902) independently discovered chromosomes and the linkage of
genetic characters. This was only two years after Mendel’s research was
rediscovered. Scientists were continually learning new facts about the fixity of
the species.
*Thomas Hunt Morgan
(1886-1945) was an American biologist who developed the theory of the gene. He
found that the genetic determinants were present in a definite linear order in
the chromosomes and could be somewhat "mapped." He was the first to
work intensively with the fruit fly, Drosophila (*Michael Pitman, Adam and
Evolution, 1984, p. 70). But research with fruit flies, and other creatures,
has proved a total failure in showing mutations to be a mechanism for
cross-species change (*Richard B. Goldschmidt, "Evolution, as Viewed by
One Geneticist," American Scientist, January 1952, p. 94).
*H.J. Muller (1990-1967).
Upon learning of the 1927 discovery that X-rays, gamma rays, and various
chemicals could induce an extremely rapid increase of mutations in the
chromosomes of test animals and plants, Muller pioneered in using X-rays to
greatly increase the mutation rate in fruit flies. But all he and the other
researchers found was that mutations were always harmful (*H.J. Muller, Time,
November 11, 1946, p. 38; *E.J. Gardner, Principles of Genetics, 1964, p. 192;
*Theodosius Dobzhansky, Genetics and the Origin of the Species, 1951, p.
73).
*Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was
deeply indebted to the evolutionary training he received in Germany as a young
man. He fully accepted it, as well as *Haeckel’s recapitulation theory. Freud
began his Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1916) with Haeckel’s
premise: "Each individual somehow recapitulates in an abbreviated form the
entire development of the human race" (*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of
Evolution, 1990, p. 177).
Freud’s "Oedipus
complex" was based on a theory of "primal horde" he developed
about a "mental complex" that caveman families had long ago. His
theories of anxiety complexes, and "oral" and "anal" stages,
etc., were based on his belief that our ancestors were savage.
*H.G. Wells (1866-1946),
the science fiction pioneer based his imaginative writings on evolutionary
teachings. He had received a science training under Professor *Thomas H.
Huxley, *Darwin’s chief defender.
*Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
(1859-1930), like a variety of
other evolutionist leaders before and after, was an avid spiritist. Many of his
mystery stories were based on evolutionary themes.
*George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
was so deeply involved in
evolutionary theory, that he openly declared that he wrote his plays to teach
various aspects of the theory (*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution, 1990,
p. 461).
Piltdown Man (1912). In 1912, parts
of a jaw and skull were found in England and dubbed "Piltdown Man."
News of it created a sensation. The report of a dentist, in 1916, who said
someone had filed down the teeth was ignored. As we will learn below, in 1953
the fact that it was a total hoax was uncovered. This, like all the later
evidences that our ancestors were part ape, has been questioned or
repudiated by reputable scientists.
World War I (1917-1918). Darwinism
basically taught that there is no moral code, our ancestors were savage, and
civilization only progressed by violence against others. It therefore led to
extreme nationalism, racism, and warfare through Nazism and Fascism. Evolution
was declared to involve "natural selection"; and, in the struggle to
survive, the fittest will win out at the expense of their rivals. *Frederich
von Bernhard, a German military officer, wrote a book in 1909 extolling
evolution and appealing to Germany to start another war. *Heinrich von
Treitsche, a Prussian militarist, loudly called for war by Germany in order to
fulfill its "evolutionary destiny" (*Heinrich G. von Treitsche,
Politics, Vol. 1, pp. 66-67). Their teachings were fully adopted by the German
government, and it only waited for a pretext to start the war (*R. Milner,
Encyclopedia of Evolution, 1990, p. 59).
Communist Darwinism. *Marx and
*Engels’ acceptance of evolutionary theory made *Darwin’s theory the
"scientific" basis of all later communist ideologies (*Robert M.
Young, "The Darwin Debate," in Marxism Today, Vol. 26, April 1982, p.
21). Communist teaching
declared that evolutionary change, which taught class struggle, came by
revolution and violent uprisings. Communist dogma declares that Lamarckism
(inheritance of acquired characteristics) is the mechanism by which this is
done. Mendelian genetics was officially outlawed in Russia in 1948, since it was
recognized as disproving evolution. Communist theorists also settled on
"synthetic speciation" instead of natural selection or mutations as
the mechanism for species change (*L.B. Halstead, "Museum of
Errors," in Nature, November 20, 1980, p. 208). This concept is identical
to the sudden change theory of *Goldschmidt and *Gould, which we will mention
later.
*John Dewey (1859-1952) was
another influential thought leader. A vigorous Darwinist, Dewey founded and
led out in the "progressive education movement" which so greatly
affected U.S. educational history. But it was nothing more than careful animal
training (*Samuel L. Blumenfeld, NEA: Trojan Horse in American Education,
1984, p. 43). The purpose was to indoctrinate the youth into evolution,
humanism, and collectivism. In 1933, Dewey became a charter member of the
American Humanist Association and its first president. Its basic statement of
beliefs, published that year as the Humanist Manifesto, became the unofficial
framework of teaching in most school textbooks. The evolutionists recognized
that they must gain control of all public education (*Sir Julian Huxley,
quoted in *Sol Tax and *Charles Callender, eds., Evolution after Darwin, 3
vols., 1960). Historically, American education was based on morals and
standards; but Dewey declared that, in order to be "progressive,"
education must leave "the past" and "evolve upward" to new,
modern concepts.
The Scopes Trial (July 10 to
July 21, 1925) was a powerful
aid to the cause of evolution, yet scientific discoveries were not involved.
That was fortunate, since, except for a single tooth (later disproved), and a
few other frauds, the evolutionists had nothing worthwhile to present (*The
World’s Most Famous Court Trial: A Complete Stenographic Report, 1925).
The ACLU (*American Civil
Liberties Union) had been
searching for someone they could use to test the Butler Act, which forbade the
teaching of evolution in the public schools in Tennessee. *John Scopes (24 at
the time) volunteered for the job. He later privately admitted that he had never
actually taught evolution in class, so the case was based on a fraud; he spent
the time teaching them football maneuvers (*John Scopes, Center of the Storm,
1967, p. 60). But no matter, the ACLU wanted to so humiliate the State of
Tennessee, that no other state would ever dare oppose the evolutionists. The
entire trial, widely reported as the "Tennessee Monkey Trial," was
presented to the public as something of a comic opera. (A trained ape was even
sent in, to walk around on a chain in the streets of Dayton.) But the objective
was deadly serious, and they succeeded very well. Although the verdict was
against Scopes, America’s politicians learned the lesson: Do not oppose the
evolutionists.
The Scopes trial, the first
event nationally broadcast over the radio, was a major victory for evolutionists
throughout the world. Ridicule, side issues, misinformation, and false
statements were used to win the battle.
SCOPES TRIAL—Evolutionists turned the Dayton trial into ridiculous circus in order to frighten later State governments into banning creationism from their school curicula.
Part
B
BRIEF
HISTORY OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY
Nebraska Man
Debunked (1928).
In 1922 a single molar tooth was found and named Hesperopithecus, or
"Nebraska Man." An artist was told to make an "apeman"
picture based on the tooth, which went around the world. Nebraska Man was a key
evidence at the Scopes trial in July 1925 (The evolutionists had little else to
offer!). *Grafton Smith, one of those involved in publicizing Nebraska Man was
knighted for his efforts in making known this fabulous find. When
paleontologists returned to the site in 1928, they found the rest of the
skeleton,—and discovered the tooth belonged to "an extinct pig"! (*R.
Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution, 1990, p. 322). In 1972, living specimens
of the same pig were found in Paraguay.
George
McCready Price (1870-1963)
had a master’s level degree, but not in science. Yet he was the staunchest
opponent of evolution in the first half of the 20th century. He produced 38
books and numerous articles to various journals. Price was the first person to
carefully research into the accumulated findings of geologists, and he
discovered that they had no evidence supporting their claims about strata and
fossils. Since his time, the situation has not changed
(*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution, 1990, p. 194).
Along with
mutations, the study of fossils and strata ranks as the leading potential
evidences supporting evolutionary claims. But no transitional species have been
found. Ancient
species (aside from the extinct ones) were like those today, except larger, and
strata are generally missing and at times switched—with "younger"
strata below "older." Because there is no fossil/strata evidence
supporting evolution, the museums display dinosaurs and other extinct animals as
proof that evolution has occurred. But extinction is not an evidence of
evolution. Much more on this in chapter 12, Fossils and Strata.
*Oliver Wendel
Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935), powerfully affected the U.S. Supreme Court in both
viewpoint and legal precedents. He was forceful in his positions and a leading
justice for 30 years. The prevalent view since his time is that law is a product
of evolution and should continually evolve in accord with social policy. But
this, of course, keeps taking America further and further from the U.S.
Constitution.*Vladimir (Nikolai) Lenin (1870-1924) and *Josef Stalin
(1879-1953). Lenin was an ardent evolutionist who, in 1918, violently overthrew
the Russian government and founded the Soviet Union.
According to
*Yaroslavsky, a close friend of his, at an early age, while attending a
Christian Orthodox school, Stalin began to read *Darwin and became an atheist (*E.
Yaroslavsky, Landmarks in the Life of Stalin, 1940, pp. 8-9). Stalin was
head of the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1953. During those years, he was
responsible for the death of millions of Russians who refused to yield to his
slave-state tactics. The Soviet Union under Stalin was an outstanding example of
Darwinist principles extended to an entire nation.
*Austin H.
Clark (1880-1954), an ardent evolutionist, was on the staff of the
Smithsonian Institute from 1908 to 1950 and a member of several important
scientific organizations. A prominent scientist, he authored several books and
about 600 scientific articles. But, after years of honestly trying to deal with
the fact that there is no evidence of cross-species change, in 1930 he wrote an
astounding book, The New Evolution: Zoogenesis. In it, he cited fact
after fact, disproving the possibility that major types of plants and animals
could have evolved from one another. The book was breathtaking and could not be
answered by any evolutionist. His alternate proposal, zoogenesis, was
that every major type of plant and animal must have evolved—not from one
another—but directly from dirt and water! (*A.H. Clark, The New Evolution:
Zoogenesis, 1930, pp. 211, 100, 189, 196, 114). The evolutionary world was
stunned into silence, for he was an expert who knew all the reasons why
trans-species evolution was impossible.
*Richard
Goldschmidt (1878-1958). The same year that *Clark wrote his book (1930),
Goldschmidt gave up also. An earnest evolutionist, he had dedicated his life to
proving it by applying X-rays and chemicals to fruit flies at the University of
California, Berkeley, and producing large numbers of mutations in them. After 25
exhausting years, in which he had worked with more generations of fruit flies
than humans and their ape ancestors are conjectured to have lived on our planet,
Goldschmidt decided that he must figure out a different way that cross-species
evolution could occur. For the next ten years, as he continued his fruit fly
research, he gathered more evidence of the foolishness of evolutionary
theory;—and, in 1940, he wrote his book, The Material Basis of Evolution,
in which he exploded point after point in the ammunition box of the theory. He
literally tore it to pieces (*Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried, 1974, p. 152).
No evolutionist could answer him. Like them, he was a confirmed evolutionary
atheist, but he was honestly facing the facts. After soundly destroying their
theory, he announced his new concept: a megaevolution in which one life-form
suddenly emerged completely out of a different one! He called them "hopeful
monsters." One day a fish laid some eggs, and some of them turned into
a frog, a snake laid an egg, and a bird hatched from it! Goldschmidt asked for
even bigger miracles than A.H. Clark had proposed! (*Steven M. Stanley,
Macroevolution: Pattern and Process, 1979, p. 159).American Humanist Association (1933).
"Humanism" is the modern word for "atheism." As soon as it
was formed in 1933, the AHA began working closely with science federations, to
promote evolutionary theory, and with the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union),
to provoke legal action in the courts forcing Americans to accept their
evolutionary beliefs. Signatories included *Julian Huxley (*T.H. Huxley’s
grandson), *John Dewey, *Margaret Sanger, *H.J. Muller, *Benjamin Spock, *Erich
Froom, and *Carl Rogers (*American Humanist Association, promotional
literature).
*Trofim
Lysenko (1893-1976) rose to power in the 1930s in the USSR by convincing the
government that he could create a State Science that combined Darwinian
evolution theory in science, animal husbandry, and agriculture with Marxist
theory. With *Stalin’s hearty backing, Lysenko became responsible for the
death of thousands, including many of Russia’s best scientists. Lysenko banned
Mendelian genetics as a bourgeois heresy. He was ousted in 1965 when his
theories produced agricultural disaster for the nation. (He claimed to be able
to change winter wheat into spring wheat, through temperature change, and wheat
into rye in one generation.)
*Adolf Hitler
(1889-1945) was chancellor of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. He carefully
studied the writings of *Darwin and *Nietzsche. Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf,
was based on evolutionary theory (*Sir Arthur Keith, Evolution and Ethics,
1947, p. 28). The very title of the book ("My Struggle" [to
survive and overcome]) was copied from a Darwinian expression. Hitler believed
he was fulfilling evolutionary objectives by eliminating "undesirable
individuals and inferior races" in order to produce Germany’s
"Master Race" (*Larry Azar, Twentieth Century in Crisis, 1990, p.
180). (Notice that the "master race" people always select the race
they are in as the best one.)
*Benito
Mussolini (1883-1945), the Italian Fascist dictator, was also captivated by
*Darwin and *Nietzsche; and Neitzsche said he got his ideas from Darwin (*R.E.D.
Clark, Darwin: Before and After, 1948, p. 115). Mussolini believed that
violence is basic to social transformation (*Encyclopedia Britannica, 1962,
Vol. 16, p. 27).Coelacanth Discovered
(1938). It was once an "index fossil, used to date a
sedimentary strata. Evolutionists declared it as having been dead for 70 million
years. If their strata theory was correct, no living specimens could occur,
since no coelacanth fossils had been found in the millions of years of higher
strata. But then, on December 25, 1938, a trawler fishing off South Africa
brought up one that was 5 feet in length. More were found later. Many other
discoveries helped disprove the evolutionists’ fossil/strata theories. Even
living creatures like the trilobite have been found!
(*"Living
Fossil Resembles Long-extinct Trilobite," Science Digest, December
1957).Hiroshima (1945),
is an evolutionist’s paradise; for it is filled with people heavily
irradiated, which—according to evolutionary mutation theory—should be able
to produce children which are new, different, and a more exalted species. But
this has not happened. Only injury and death resulted from the August 6, 1945,
nuclear explosion. Mutations are always harmful and frequently lethal within a
generation or two (*Animal Species and Evolution, p. 170, *H.J. Muller, Time,
November 11, 1946, p. 38).First Mechanism Changeover
(1940s). *Darwin
originally wrote that random activity naturally selects itself into
improvements (a concept which any sensible person will say is totally
impossible). In a later book (Descent of Man, 1871), Darwin abandoned
"natural selection" as hopeless, and returned to Lamarckism (the
scientifically discredited inheritance of acquired characteristics; if you build
strong muscles, your son will inherit them). But evolutionists remained faithful
to Darwin’s original mechanism (natural selection) for decades. They were
called "Darwinists." But, by the 1940s, many were switching
over to mutations as the mechanism of cross-species change. Its advocates were
called "neo-Darwinists." The second changeover would come in
the 1980s.
Radiocarbon
dating (1946).
*Willard Libby and his associates discovered carbon-14 (C-14) as a method for
the dating of earlier organic materials. But later research revealed that its
inaccuracy increases in accordance with the actual age of the material (*C.A.
Reed, "Animal Domestication in the Prehistoric Near East," in Science,
130, 1959, p. 1630; University of California at Los Angeles, "On the
Accuracy of Radiocarbon Dates," in Geochronicle, 2, 1966 [Libby’s own
laboratory]).Big Bang Hypothesis
(1948)
Astronomers were totally buffaloed as to where matter and stars came from. In
desperation, *George Gamow and two associates dreamed up the astonishing concept
that an explosion of nothing produced hydrogen and helium, which then shot
outward, then turned and began circling and pushing itself into our present
highly organized stars and galactic systems. This far-fetched theory has
repeatedly been opposed by a number of scientists (*G. Burbidge, "Was
There Really a Big Bang?" in Nature 233, 1971, pp. 36, 39). By the
1980s, astronomers which continued opposing the theory began to be relieved of
their research time at major observatories ("Companion Galaxies Match
Quasar Redshifts: The Debate Goes On," Physics Today, 37:17, December
1984). In spite of clear evidence that the theory is unscientific and
unworkable, evolutionists refuse to abandon it.
Steady State
Universe Theory (1948). In 1948, *Fred Hoyle, working with *Hermann Bondi and
*Thomas Gold, proposed this theory as an alternative to the Big Bang. It
declared that matter is continually "blipping" into existence
throughout the universe (*Peter Pocock and *Pat Daniels, Galaxies, p. 114;
*Fred Hoyle, Frontiers of Astronomy, 1955, pp. 317-318). We will learn that
in 1965, the theory was abandoned. *Hoyle said it disagreed with several
scientific facts.
4 - 1949 - PRESENT
Chinese
Communism (1949-).
When the communists took control of China in 1949, the first new text introduced
into all the schools was neither Marxist nor Leninist, but Darwinian. Chinese
communist leaders eagerly grasped evolutionary theory as a basic foundation for
their ideology. The government established the Paleontological Institute in
Beijing, with a large staff of paleontologists.
*Sir Julian S.
Huxley (1887-1975). Grandson of *Darwin’s "bulldog" (*Thomas
Huxley), *Julian Huxley was the leading spokesman for evolution by natural
selection in the mid-20th century. Upon being named the first director-general
of UNESCO, he was able to make evolution the keystone of United Nations
scientific policy. He saw it as his opportunity to extend evolutionary thinking
to the nations of the world, and he made the most of it (*Julian Huxley,
UNESCO pamphlet).Piltdown Skull Debunked
(1953). This piece of skull and separate jaw was the only clear
evidence that man was descended from an apelike creature. In 1953, *Kenneth
Oakley (British Museum geologist), *Joseph Weiner (Oxford University
anthropologist), and *Le Gros Clark (anatomy professor at Oxford) managed to get
their hands on the Piltdown skull and jaw—and proved it a total forgery. The
newly developed fluorine test revealed the bones to be quite recent. Additional
research showed the bones had been stained with bichromate, to make them appear
aged. Drillings into the bone produced shavings instead of powder. The canine
tooth was found to have been filed and stained. Weiner published a book about
the Piltdown forgery in 1955 (*William L. Straus, Jr., "The Great
Piltdown Hoax," Science, February 26, 1954; *Robert Silverberg, Scientists
and Scoundrels: A Book of Hoaxes, 1965).Amino Acid Synthesis
(1953). When
*Stanley Miller produced a few amino acids from chemicals, amid a continuous
small sparking apparatus, newspaper headlines proclaimed: "Life has been
created!" But evolutionists hid the truth: The experiment had disproved the
possibility that evolution could occur.
The amino acids
were totally dead, and the experiment only proved that a synthetic production of
them would result in equal amounts of left- and right-handed amino acids. Since
only left-handed ones exist in animals, accidental production could never
produce a living creature (*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution, 1990, p.
274).Discovery of DNA (1953).
*Rosiland Franklin took some special photographs which were used in 1953 by
*Francis Crick and *James Watson (without giving her credit), to develop the
astounding helix model of the DNA molecule. DNA has crushed the hopes of
biological evolutionists, for it provides clear evidence that every species is
locked into its own coding pattern. It would be impossible for one species to
change into another, since the genes network together so closely. It is a
combination lock, and it is shut tight. Only sub-species variations can
occur (varieties in plants, and breeds in animals). This is done through gene
shuffling (*A.I. Oparin, Life: Its Nature, Origin and Development, 1961, p.
31; *Hubert P. Yockey, "A Calculation of Probability of Spontaneous
Biogenesis by Information Theory," Journal of Theoretical Biology, Vol. 67,
1977, p. 398).
The odds of
accidentally producing the correct DNA code in a species or changing it into
another viable species are mathematically impossible
(*J Leslie, "Cosmology, Probability, and the Need to
Explain Life," in Scientific American and Understanding, pp. 53, 64-65; *E.
Ambrose, Nature and Origin of the Biological World, 1982, p. 135).
Five Polls
about Evolution (1954). (1) The general public supports the teaching of creation
in public schools, not just evolution, by a massive majority of 86% to 8% (AP-NBC
News poll). (2) A national poll of attorneys agree (56% to 26%) and find
dual instruction constitutional (63% to 26%, American Bar
Association-commissioned poll). (3) A majority of university students at two
secular colleges also agree (80% at Ohio State, 56% at Oberlin, Fuerst,
Zimmerman). (4) Two-thirds of public school board members agree (67% to 25%,
American School Board Journal poll). (5) A substantial minority of public
school teacher favor creation over evolution (Austin Analytical Consulting
poll; source: W.R. Bird, Origin of Species Revisited, 1954, p.
8).Courville’s Research (1956).
After 15 years of careful research, Donovan A. Courville, a Loma Linda
University biochemist, published an important book, Exodus Problem and Its
Ramifications. Courville correlated ancient Egyptian and Bible events and
dates, providing us with one of the best ancient chronologies available. He
showed that Manetho’s king-list overlapped, resulting in a major reduction in
the duration of Egypt’s dynastic history and a placement of its first
double-ruler dynasty at around 2150 B.C. This study, along with others reviewed
in chapter 21, Archaeological Dating, shows that archaeological dating
does correlate closely with Bible history.
*Thompson’s
Attack on *Darwin (1956). W.R. Thompson, a leading evolutionary
scientist, was asked to write the Introduction to the 1956 reprint
edition of Darwin’s Origin of the Species. In it, Thompson scathingly
attacked Darwin’s theories on every essential point as worthless (*W.R.
Thompson, Introduction to Charles Darwin, Origin of the Species, 1956
edition).Children’s Books (1958).
While evolutionists secretly recognize that their theory is falling through the
floor, to the gullible public it is praised more and more as the scientifically
proven answer to the mystery of life and matter. In 1958, the Wonderful Egg
was published and immediately recommended by the *American Association for
the Advancement of Science as a worthwhile science guide for little
children. Two major NEA affiliates (the *American Council on Education and
the *Association for Childhood Education International) gave it their
highest recommendation. The book tells about a mother dinosaur who laid a
"wonderful egg" which hatched into a baby bird—"the first baby
bird in the whole world! And the baby bird grew up . . with feathers . . the
first beautiful bird that ever sang a song high in the tree tops . . of long,
long ago" (quoted in H. Morris and G. Parker, What is Creation Science?
p. 148).Geoscience Research Institute
(1958). This creationist organization, now located in Loma Linda,
California, was organized specifically to carry on research work, in the area of
creationism, and produce educational materials for scientists and science
teachers.
Darwinian
Centennial Celebration (1959).
As the year 1959 approached, evolutionists saw it as a splendid opportunity to
ballyhoo the glories of evolutionary theory. As the 100th anniversary of
Darwin’s Origin of the Species approached, a flood of books and
articles appeared. The largest meeting was held at the University of Chicago,
where *Julian Huxley gave the keynote address, focusing his attention on a
triumphant, total repudiation of God.
The same year,
two major books attacking evolutionary theory in great detail were released:
The first was
*Gertrude Himmelfarb’s Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution. Holding a
doctorate from the University of Chicago, her book was a powerful exposé on the
havoc the theory has wrought on the modern world. The second in-depth book was
by *Jacques Barzun, history professor and dean of the Graduate Faculties at
Columbia University. His book, Darwin, Marx, Wagner, declared that
evolutionary theory was directly responsible for European wars from 1870 to
1945.
Biological
Sciences Curriculum (1959).
Another significant event that year was the establishment of a standardized Biological
Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) for public secondary schools. The stated
objective was the teaching of evolution, sex education, racial problems, and the
need for legalizing abortion (*A.B. Grobman, Biological Science: An Inquiry
into Life, p. xv). BSCS quickly received a $7 million grant from the
National Science Foundation, to develop this new series.Shortly afterward, a
second major textbook revision project, Man: A Course of Study, was given
$7 million by the National Science Foundation. It was filled with humanism and
morally objectionable interpretations of personal and social life.Revolt in
France (early 1960s). A large number of French biologists and taxonomists
(species classification experts) rebelled against the chains of the evolutionary
creed and declared that they would continue their research, but would no longer
try to prove evolution, which they considered an impossible theory. Taxonomists
who joined the revolt took the name "cladists" (*Z.
Litynski, "Should We Burn Darwin?" in Science Digest, Vol. 51, January
1961, p. 61).First Quasar Discovered
(1962).
Telescopes found a mysterious object, which was named 3C273, which had a
spectrum that was unintelligible. This peculiar object radiated most strongly in
the far blue and ultraviolet fringes of the visible spectrum. It was a total
mystery until February 1963, when *Jesse Schmidt recognized that the problem was
that it had a radical 16% shift toward the red. If the speed theory of
redshift, promoted by evolutionists, was correct,—that meant the object
was moving away from us at 16% of the speed of light—and was a massive 3
billion light-years from earth!As more—and apparently
"faster"—quasars were discovered, the situation kept worsening.
Ultimately, their existence debunked the evolutionist’s speed theory of
redshift. Yet the redshift and background radiation were the only two
"evidences" of an earlier Big Bang! For example, in 1977, a quasar
was found which, according to the redshift theory, was moving faster (eight
times faster) than the speed of light! Of course, scientists know it is
impossible for anything to travel faster than the speed of light (*George
Abell, Exploration of the Universe, 1973, p. 409; *Time-Life, Cosmic Mysteries,
1990, pp. 68-69; *Sky and Telescope 53, 1977, p. 1702).Creation Research Society
(1963). This
important creation research organization was founded by doctoral scientists,
with the express purpose of conducting research into creation-evolution topics
and publishing regular reports on them. Its reports have been of a high
scientific caliber.
Background
Radiation (1965).
Using a sensitive radio astronomy telescope, *A.A. Penzias and *R.W. Wilson
(researchers at Bell Laboratories), discovered low-energy microwave radiation
coming from outer space. Big Bang theorists immediately claimed that this proved
the Big Bang! They said it was the last part of the explosion. But further
research disclosed that it came from every direction instead of only one; that
it was the wrong temperature; and that it was too even. Even discoveries in the
1990s have failed to show that this radiation is "lumpy" enough (their
term) to have produced stars and planets.
Steady State
Universe Theory Abandoned (1965).
*Fred Hoyle abandoned the steady state theory entirely in a public announcement
at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. He
listed five scientific reasons why it was impossible (Nature, October 9,
1965, p. 113).The Switzerland Meeting
(1965). It was
not until the 1960s that the neo-Darwinists (those who had given up on natural
selection and believed that mutations were the mechanism of cross-species
change) began fighting with one another in earnest. At this meeting of
mathematicians and biologists, mathematical doubts were raised about the
possibility of evolution having occurred. At the end of several hours of heated
discussion, it was decided to hold another meeting the next year.
The Wistar
Institute Symposium (1966).
A milestone meeting was the four-day Wistar Institute Symposium, held in
Philadelphia in April 1966. A number of mathematicians, familiar with biological
problems, spoke—and clearly refuted neo-Darwinism in several ways. An
important factor was that large computers were by this time able to work out
immense calculations—showing that evolution could not possibly occur, even
over a period of billions of years, given the complexities of DNA, protein, the
cell, enzymes, and other factors.
We will cite
one example here: *Murray
Eden of MIT explained that life could not begin by "random selection."
He noted that, if randomness is removed, only "design" would
remain,—and that required purposive planning by an Intelligence. He showed
that it would be impossible for even a single ordered pair of genes to be
produced by DNA mutations in the bacteria, E. Coli (which has very little
DNA), with 5 billion years in which to produce it. Eden then showed the
mathematical impossibility of protein forming by chance. He also reported on his
extensive investigations into genetic data on hemoglobin (red blood cells).
Hemoglobin has two chains, called alpha and beta. A minimum of 120 mutations
would be required to convert alpha to beta. At least 34 of those changes require
changeovers in 2 or 3 nucleotides. Yet, Eden pointed out, if a single nucleotide
change occurs through mutation, the result ruins the blood and kills the
organism! For more on the Wistar Institute, read the following book: *Paul
Moorhead and *Martin Kaplan (eds.), Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian
Interpretation of Evolution, Wistar Institute Monograph No. 5.Antelope Springs
Tracks (1968).
Trilobites are small marine creatures that are now extinct. Evolutionists tell
us that trilobites are one of the most ancient creatures that have ever lived on
Planet Earth, and they lived millions of years before there were human beings.
*William J. Meister, Sr., a non-Christian evolutionist, made a hobby of
searching for trilobite fossils in the mountains of Utah. On June 1, 1968, he
found a human footprint and trilobites in the same rock, and the footprint was
stepping on some of the trilobites! The location was Antelope Springs, about 43
miles [69 km] northwest of Delta, Utah.
Then, breaking
off a large, two-inch thick piece of rock, he hit it on edge with a hammer, and
it fell open in his hands. To his great astonishment, he found on one side the
footprint of a human being, with trilobites right in the footprint itself! The
other half of the rock slab showed an almost perfect mold of a footprint and
fossils. Amazingly, the human was wearing a sandal! To make a longer story
short, the find was confirmed when scientists came and found more sandaled
footprints. Meister was so stunned that he became a Christian. This was Cambrian
strata, the lowest level of strata in the world; yet it had sandaled human
footprints! ("Discovery of Trilobite Fossils in Shod Footprint of Human
in ‘Trilobite Beds,’ a Cambrian Formation, Antelope, Springs, Utah," in
Why Not Creation? 1970, p. 190).The Alpbach Institute Symposium
(1969). A
follow-up meeting of scientists was held and given the title, "Beyond
Reductionism." But it only resulted in fruitless discussions by
scientists who had carefully researched the problems, with men who were
desperately trying to defend evolutionary theories, against an ever-growing
mountain of evidence to the contrary.
First Moon
Landing (1969).
By the 1950s, scientists were able to predict that, if the moon was billions of
years old, it would have a thick layer of dust many miles thick. This is due to
the fact, as *R.A. Lyttleton explained, the lunar surface is exposed to direct
sunlight and strong ultraviolet light and X-rays from the sun gradually
destroying the surface layers of exposed rock, reducing them to dust at the rate
of a few ten-thousandths of an inch per year. In 5 to 10 billion years, this
would produce 20-60 miles [32-97 km] of dust (*R.A. Lyttleton, quoted in R.
Wysong, Creation-Evolution Controversy, p. 175).
Because of this,
NASA first sent an unmanned lander, which made the discovery that there is very
little dust on the moon’s surface. In spite of that, Neil Armstrong feared
that he and Edwin Aldrin might suffocate when they landed. But because the moon
is young, they had no problem. Landing on July 20, 1969, they found not over 2
or three inches [5.08 or 7.62 cm] of dust on its surface. That is the amount one
would expect if the moon were about 6000-8000 years old.
In *Isaac
Asimov’s first published article (1958), he predicted that the first rocket to
land on the moon would sink ingloriously in the dust, and everyone inside would
perish (Article mentioned in *Isaac Asimov, Asimov on Science: A Thirty-Year
Retrospective, 1989, pp. xvi-xvii).Bone Inventory (1971).
A complete listing of all the Australopithecine finds, up to the end of 1971,
was printed in a new book. This included all the African bones of our
"half-ape, half-human ancestors" (*Time-Life, The Missing Link,
Vol. 2). Although over 1400 specimens are described, most are little more
than scraps of bone or isolated teeth. Not one complete skeleton of one
individual exists. When parts of bones are found, they, of course, can be moved
into various positions and be interpreted as belonging to different creatures
with very different skull and jaw shapes. To this day, there is no real evidence
of any genuine non-human ancestor of ours. Chapter 13 explains why reputable
scientists question or reject the various finds by anthropologists.
*Matthews
Attacks Darwinism (1971). By the latter part of the 20th century, even
though the ignorant public continued to be told that evolution was a triumphant,
proven success, it was difficult to find any scientist who would defend
Darwin’s theories before his peers. *L. Harrison Matthews, another
distinguished scientist, was asked to write a new introduction to Darwin’s Origin
of the Species, to replace *Thompson’s 1956 Introduction which
scathingly attacked Darwinism. In his Introduction, Matthews said that
Thompson’s attacks on Darwin were "unanswerable." Then Matthews
proceeded to add more damaging facts (*L. Harrison Matthews, Introduction to
Charles Darwin, Origin of the Species, 1971 edition). The evolutionary
theory must have run into hard times, when book publishers cannot find a
reputable scientist who is appreciative either of its basic teachings or its
founder.
Nice Symposium
(1972). By the
early 1970s, not only were biological evolutionists in turmoil, but cosmologists
(astronomical evolutionists) were also. The Nice Symposium met in April 1972, to
summarize what had been accomplished and list what was still unknown. The
unanswered questions included just about every aspect of evolution in outer
space! (See "Nice" in Index for a number of the questions.) How did
hydrogen clouds form themselves into stars? How did linear momentum from the
theorized Big Bang change itself into angular momentum—and begin circling. How
did the planets and moons form? The entire list is mind-boggling. After all
these years, the astronomers still do not have answers to any of the basic
evolutionary problems (Review of the Nice Symposium, in R.E. Kofahl and K.L.
Segraves, The Creation Explanation, pp. 141-143).Institute for Creation Research
(1972). Henry
Morris and associates founded the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) this
year. It has since become the leading anti-evolution organization in the world
and is located in El Cajon, California.
Return of the
Hopeful Monster (1972).
*Stephen Jay Gould, a highly respected paleontologist at Harvard; *Niles
Eldredge, the head paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History in
New York City; and *Steven M. Stanley, of Johns Hopkins University, have led out
in resuscitating *Richard Goldschmidt’s "hopeful monster"
theory—and demanding that the community of evolutionary scientists consider it
as the only possible mechanism for trans-species changeovers.It was first
revived in a cautious science paper presented by *Gould and *Eldredge in 1972 (Punctuated
Equilibria: An Alternative to Phyletic Gradualism, 1972), but it was not
until 1977 that an article by Gould brought it back to center stage
("Return of the Hopeful Monsters," in Natural History, June-July,
1977). The increasing despondency among evolutionists, over their inability
to use natural selection or mutations, to provide even the slightest evidence of
cross-species evolution, eventually led large numbers of scientists, in the
1980s, to switch over to this astoundingly ridiculous concept that millions of
beneficial mutations occur once every 50,000 years to two creatures, a male and
female who are living near each other—thus producing a new species pair!
Poll of
Citizens and Parents (1973).
A survey of 1346 homes found that 89% said creation should be taught in the
public schools. In a separate poll of 1995 homes, 84% said scientific evidence
for creation should be presented along with evolution ("A Comparison of
Students Studying . . Two Models," in Decade of Creation, 1981, pp.
55-56).Dudley’s Radiodating Research
(1975).
Radiodating of the sedimentary rocks, based on uranium, thorium, and other
chains, had become relied on heavily to provide the "millions of
years" dates. But a broad variety of research data repeatedly demonstrated
that these methods are extremely unreliable (much more on this in chapter 6, Inaccurate
Dating Methods). *H.C. Dudley, one of these researchers, found that using
pressure, temperature, electric and magnetic fields, stress in monomolecular
layers, etc., he could change the decay rates of 14 different radioisotopes. The
implications of this are astounding. The strata were laid down under great
pressure, and samples would vary widely to temperature and other changes. Such
discoveries, along with the fact that the dates never agree with one another,
greatly reduce the value of radiodating uranium, thorium, and other rocks (*H.C.
Dudley, "Radioactivity Re-Examined," in Chemical and Engineering News,
April 7, 1975, p. 2).
*Leakey’s
Footprints (1977). Throughout the 20th century, human footprints have been
found in supposedly ancient rock, sometimes with dinosaur prints. We will
mention only a couple examples in this chapter (see chapter 13, Ancient Man,
for more). In approximately 1977, *Mary Leaky found at Laetoli in Africa, 30
miles [48 km] south of Olduvai Gorge, human footprints which, by the strata they
are on, evolutionists date at nearly 4 million years in the past. Yet they are
identical to modern human footprints. These and other footprints disprove
evolutionary theories, especially those in which dinosaur prints are found with
human footprints. Dinosaurs are said to be dated from 65 million to 135 million
years ago; whereas man is said to have appeared far more recently (National
Geographic, April 1979; Science News, February 9, 1980).Plesiosaur Discovered
(1977).
Scientists have wondered for decades whether an "extinct" dinosaur
would ever be found alive. Then, in April 1977, a Japanese fishing vessel caught
a 4000 pound [1814 kg], 10 meter [33 ft] creature in its nets off the east coast
of New Zealand. A qualified zoologist was on board and photographed and examined
it carefully and confirmed that, indeed, it was a plesiosaur, a
sea-dwelling dinosaur which supposedly had been dead for 100 million years! They
were so thrilled, that they published scientific papers on it and issued a
postage stamp! But, recognizing that the creature would disprove their
fossil/strata theory, Western scientists said it must have been a sea lion!
There was an almost total news blackout on this in the West, with the exception
of a few publications (*New York Times, July 24, 1977; Nature, July
28, 1977). For more information and pictures, turn to chapter 12,
Fossils and
Strata.Chinese Characters Explained
(1979). Chinese
is one of the most ancient written languages in existence. Each Chinese
character is a combination of several different words. C.H. Kang and Ethel R.
Nelson did extensive research into Chinese words and discovered the characters
contain the story of Creation, the Garden of Eden, the fall of Adam and Eve, and
the Flood story. For example, the word, "boat," is made up of two
words: vessel and eight (Genesis 7:7, 13:8:13). Tempter is devil, cover, and
tree (Genesis 3:1-6). In chapter 14, Effects of the Flood, will be found
several more examples, plus an illustration of what some of them look like (C.H.
Kang and Ethel R. Nelson, The Discovery of Genesis: How the Truths of Genesis
Were Found Hidden in the Chinese Language, 1979).Poll of University Students
(1979). A poll
of students at Bowling Green State University, Ohio, found a clear majority of
both undergraduate and graduate students taking biology classes favored the
teaching of both creation and evolution in the schools. Undergraduate students:
91%, graduate students: 71.8% (Jerry Bergman, "Attitude of University
Students toward the Teaching of Creation and Evolution in the Schools, Origins,
Vol. 6, 1979, pp. 64-66).Polystrate Mystery Solved
(1980). Upright
(polystrate) tree trunks, 10-30 ft [31-95 dm] in length, have often been found
in coal beds. Yet the coal beds were supposed to have been laid down over
millions of years. Why are vertical tree trunks in them? Just after the Mount
St. Helens explosion in May 1980, analysis of nearby Spirit Lake revealed many
vertical, floating tree trunks in it. During the Flood, such tree trunks could
easily have quickly been surrounded by sediments and buried (*Edward L. Hold,
"Upright Trunks of Neocalamites form the Upper Triassic," Journal of
Geology, 55:511-513, 1947; Steven A. Austin, "Mount St. Helens and
Catastrophism," in Impact, July 1986, pp. 1-3).Sunderland Interviews the
Experts (1980-1981).
Over a one-year period, and with their permission, Luther Sunderland
tape-recorded interviews with three of the most important paleontologists in the
world, who are in charge of at least 50 percent of the major fossil collections
on the planet, covering every basic fossil discovery in the past 150 years. He
found that not one of them could name a single missing link, a halfway species
between our regular species (L.D. Sunderland, Darwin’s Enigma, p. 89).
There are no transitional forms. For more on this, see , Fossils
and Strata.
Chicago
Evolution Conference (1980).
While the newspapers, popular magazines, and school textbooks emblazoned
evolutionary theory as being essentially proven scientifically in so many ways,
the evolutionary scientists were discouraged. They knew the truth. The
Switzerland, Wistar, and Alpbach meetings had clearly shown them theirs was a
losing cause. However, in yet another futile effort, in October 1980, 160 of the
world’s leading evolutionary scientists met again, this time at the University
of Chicago. In brief, it was a verbal explosion. Facts opposing evolution were
presented, and angry retorts and insults were hurled in return. The following
month, *Newsweek (November 3, 1980) reported that a large majority
of evolutionists at the conference agreed that the neo-Darwinian mechanism (of
mutations working with natural selection) could no longer be regarded as
scientifically valid or tenable. Neither the origin nor diversity of living
creatures could be explained by evolutionary theory (*Roger Lewin,
"Evolutionary Theory Under Fire," in Science, November 21, 1980; *G.R.
Taylor, Great Evolution Mystery, 1983, p. 55). Why is the public still told
that evolution is essentially proven and all the scientists believe it,—when
both statements are far from the truth?
New York City
Evolution Conference (1981).
The following year, another important meeting was held, this one at the American
Museum of Natural History in New York City. *Colin Patterson, senior
paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History, read a paper in which
he declared that evolution was "positively anti-knowledge" and added,
"All my life I had been duped into taking evolution as revealed
truth." Yet Patterson is in charge of millions of fossil samples, and he is
well-acquainted with the collection. Commenting on the crisis, another
scientist, *Michael Ruse, wrote that the increasing number of critics included
many with "the highest intellectual credentials" (*Michael Ruse,
"Darwin’s Theory: An Exercise in Science," in New Scientist, June
25, 1981, p. 828).Panspermia (1981).
Amid the cries of desperation and despair, arising from evolutionary scientists,
one of the most famous scientists of the 20th century, a Nobel Prize winner,
came up with a new theory. In 1981, *Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of the
structure of the DNA molecule, published a book, declaring that "directed
panspermia" was responsible for life on earth. According to this
theory, people from another planet sent a rocket down here, with living
creatures on it, in order to populate our planet! Crick admits that this does
not explain how nearly all our plant and animal species came into existence. Nor
does it explain the transportation problem. Centuries of travel through the cold
of outer space would be required. This theory is a desperate, gasping effort to
provide a solution to the question of how living creatures originated, a puzzle
which thousands of scientists in 150 years of diligent work have not been able
to solve. Very few intellectuals have accepted panspermia.
Cambridge
Evolution Conference (1984).
Desperate for a solution, at a 1984 seminar held at Cambridge University,
*Stephen Gould’s "hopeful monster" theory was discussed (the wild
idea that a lizard laid an egg, one day, and a bird hatched). *Karl Popper’s
theory of science was also discussed. Popper is the leading expert on the
philosophy of science. His position is that a theory must be testable.
Evolution, of course, does not meet the test. (See chapter 37, Philosophy of
History, on our website.)
Second
Mechanism Changeover (1980s).
The utterly unscientific "hopeless monster" theory, which *Richard
Goldschmidt’s proposed in the 1930s, totally astounded the evolutionary world.
Yet, as the years passed and a great mountain of evidence surfaced against both
natural selection and mutations as mechanisms of cross-species change, the
experts felt desperate. —There was nothing left but the theory of sudden,
miraculous "million mutation," beneficial changes once every 50,000
years, which *Gould, *Stanley, and their associates were increasingly urging.
Just as astronomers had, in desperation, accepted the ridiculous Big Bang
explosion theory 20 years before as the cause of a universe of orderly galactic
systems, so the biological evolutionists now went farther out on their own
evolutionary limb. Geneticists, biologists, and paleontologists recognized that
the evolution of one species out of another was impossible otherwise.
Evolutionists, feeling hopeless, returned to the hopeful monster.
Answers in
Genesis (1980s).
Ken Ham started Answers in Genesis, a creationist organization now located in
Florence, Kentucky. It has rapidly become a powerful voice in unveiling
evolutionary errors in meetings on college and university campuses and
elsewhere. For every one creationist organization now in operation, there ought
to be a hundred.
*Halton C. Arp
Eliminated (1983). A leading astronomer and president of the Astronomical
Society of the Pacific in the early 1980s, Arp carried on research for over 30
years, including extensive research time at Palomar and Mount Wilson
Observatories. He studied over 260 galaxies in more than 80 groups and tabulated
24 main galaxies and 38 discordant redshift companions, plus much more. All of
this refutes the speed theory of redshift which, along with background
radiation, was the crutch that evolutionists leaned on to defend the Big Bang (*Halton
Arp, Quasars, Redshifts and Controversies, 1987, p. 5, plus many scientific
articles). Threatened with disbarment from U.S. observatories, if he did not
stop tearing down one of the two Big Bang pillars, he refused. A few eminent
astronomers, including the renowned astrophysicist, *Geoffrey Burbidge, made
impassioned pleas for everyone to keep an open mind, but to no avail. In 1983,
Caltech’s telescope allocation committee decided that Arp’s line of research
was not worthy of support and he was to receive no more time for his work at the
telescopes of the Mount Wilson and Palomar observatories. Refusing to switch
over to politically acceptable studies, he left Caltech for a position at the
Max Planck Institute in Munich, where he continued to pursue his ideas.
Referring to his abrupt and ignoble ouster, Burbidge later wrote, ‘No
responsible scientist I know, including many astronomers who were strongly
opposed to Arp’s thesis, believes justice was served’ " (*Time-Life,
Cosmic Mysteries (1990), pp. 67-68).Orce Man Debunked
(1984).
Thrilling news! At last one of our half-ape ancestors had been found in the
Andalusia region of Spain. Certified as the "oldest man in Europe" by
a distinguished team of paleontologists, it made the headlines as invitations
were mailed to scientists throughout the continent to attend a meeting, where
they could deliver learned papers about the matter.But then scientists in Paris
discovered that it was a skull fragment of a four-month-old donkey.
Spanish
officials had to quickly mail 500 letters canceling the meeting ("Ass
Taken for Man," *London Daily Telegraph, May 14, 1984).Archaeopteryx
Debunked (1985). Although no cross-species (half of one species and half of
another) had ever been found, something close to it had been discovered. As
mentioned earlier, in 1861 a fossilized feather was found in the limestone
deposits in Solnhofen, Germany (near Eichstatt). It was considered valuable
since it reportedly came from the late Jurassic strata—and there were not
supposed to be any birds back then. Soon another fossil was offered for sale
(always from the owners of the same quarry). It was a bird with feathers, with
the head and neck missing. The British Museum paid a lot for it. So, in 1877,
another bird with feathers was offered for sale—and this one looked like it
might have the head of a small dinosaur!
In 1985, six
leading scientists, including *Fred Hoyle, examined the fossil—and found it to
be a hoax. For
details, see chapter 17, Evolutionary Showcase.
Arkansas
Creation Trial (1981).
In December 1981 at the Federal District Court in Little Rock, Arkansas, Judge
William Overton presided over a trial to decide whether the State of Arkansas
could place concepts about creation in public school textbooks. The courtroom of
200 was packed with reporters. The ACLU had over 50 lawyers and paralegals
working on the case. In contrast, the Arkansas Attorney General’s office could
only commit three of its attorneys to the case. One ACLU witness, *Francisco J.
Ayala, testified that the origin of living creatures from dirt and water, though
it occurred, was not part of evolution! That nicely took that evolutionary
puzzle out of the court trial. At any rate, on the basis of a variety of dodges
and misstatements by the plaintiffs, the judge ruled against Arkansas State. It
is a known fact that the ACLU has advised every state legislature, considering
enactment of a law permitting equal time for both views, that the ACLU will give
them another full-blown "monkey trial," as they did at Dayton,
Tennessee in 1925. The evolutionists never defend their position with scientific
facts, for they do not have any. Instead, they use ridicule and lawsuits (Norman
Geisler, The Creator and the Courtroom, 1982; Robert Gentry, Creation’s Tiny
Mystery, 1986).Radioactive Halos Disprove Molten Earth Theory
(1986). Robert
V. Gentry carried on research into radiohalos in granite for years, but was
discharged from Oak Ridge Research Laboratory in 1982 because he testified in
defense of Arkansas State at the above-mentioned trial. He then put his years of
research findings and professional articles into a book (Creation’s Tiny
Mystery, 1986). In brief, billions upon billions of polonium 218 radiohalos
are in granite, yet each halo was formed in less than 3 minutes. There is no way
the halos could get in there after the granite was formed, yet the granite had
to be solid when the halos formed. This means the granite was created solid
in less than three minutes! Since granite is the basement rock under every
continent, it would be impossible for the earth to once have been a molten mass
as conjectured by the evolutionists. Interestingly enough, granite can be
melted; but it will reform into rhyolite, never into granite. See , Origin
of the Earth, for a brief summary of data on this;
Poll of
Biology Teachers (1988).
A survey, conducted by the University of Texas, found that 30% of 400 high-
school biology teachers believe in Biblical creation and only 19% believe in
evolution (Waco Tribune-Herald, September 11, 1988).Chernobyl
(1990) is another evolutionist’s paradise. Since mutations are
today thought to be the leading mechanism for achieving evolutionary change for
the better, the intense radiation which the people received on April 27, 1990,
should have brought them great benefit because of all the mutations it induced.
They should be stronger, healthier, have improved organs, and produce children
which are higher forms of life. But this has not happened. Scientists know that
even Marie Curie and her daughter died as a result of working with radiation.
Mutations result in harm and death, never in evolutionary change (*Isaac
Asimov, Asimov’s New Guide to Science, 1984, pp. 691-692).
"I have often
thought how little I should like to have to prove organic evolution in a court
of law."—*Errol White, Proceedings of the Linnean Society, London
(1966) [an ichthyologist (expert on fish) in a 1988 address before a meeting of
the Linnean Society in London].
"I doubt if
there is any single individual within the scientific community who could cope
with the full range of [creationist] arguments without the help of an army of
consultants in special fields."—*David M. Raup, "Geology and
Creation," Bulletin of the Field Museum of Natural History, Vol. 54, March
1983, p. 18.