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<p> Origin of Species 150th Anniversary Edition Charles Darwin Alachua, Florida 32615 The Special Introduction by Ray Comfort Bridge-Logos Alachua, FL 32615 USA The Origin of Species: 150th Anniversary Edition by Charles Darwin Copyright ©2009 by Bridge-Logos All rights reserved. Under International Copyright Law, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means— electronic, mechanical, photographic (photocopy), recording, or otherwise— without written permission from the Publisher. Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2009931773 International Standard Book Number 978-0-88270-919-2 “A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.” — Charles Darwin, Introduction to Origin of Species (1859) “Teachers and students should have the academic freedom to discuss both the strengths and weaknesses of evolution as a scientific theory.” — 84% of college graduates agree (2009 Zogby International survey of likely voters) “Education, you know, means broadening, advancing, and if you limit a teacher to only one side of anything the whole country will eventually have only one thought, be one individual. I believe in teaching every aspect of every problem or theory.” — John T. Scopes (1925, at a banquet in NY prior to the “Scopes Monkey Trial”) “As we know, there is a great divergence of opinion among biologists … because the evidence is unsatisfactory and does not permit any certain conclusion. It is therefore right and proper to draw the attention of the non-scientific public to the disagreements about evolution. But some recent remarks of evolutionists show that they think this unreasonable. This situation, where scientific men rally to the defense of a doctrine they are unable to define scientifically, much less demonstrate with scientific rigor, attempting to maintain its credit with the public by the suppression of criticism and the elimination of difficulties, is abnormal and unwise in science.” — Prof. W. R. Thompson, F.R.S., Introduction to Origin of Species (1956) CONTENTS SPECIAL INTRODUCTION IntroductIon cHAPtEr I VARIATION UNDER DOMESTICATION cHAPtEr II VARIATION UNDER NATURE cHAPtEr III STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE cHAPtEr IV NATURAL SELECTION cHAPtEr V LAWS OF VARIATION cHAPtEr VI DIFFICULTIES ON THEORY cHAPtEr VII INSTINCT cHAPtEr VIII HYBRIDISM cHAPtEr IX ON THE IMPERFECTION OF THE GEOLOGICAL RECORD cHAPtEr X ON THE GEOLOGICAL SUCCESSION OF ORGANIC BEINGS cHAPtEr XI GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION cHAPtEr XII GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION—continued cHAPtEr XIII MUTUAL AFFINITIES OF ORGANIC BEINGS: MORPHOLOGY: EMBRYOLOGY: RUDIMENTARY ORGANS cHAPtEr XIV RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION Special Introduction The History of Charles Darwin ChArLES roBErT DArwIN was born on February 12, 1809, in Shrewsbury, England. he was the fifth of six children born into a wealthy, professional family. his father and grandfather were both doctors, and his mother was the daughter of Josiah wedgwood, of pottery fame. when he was eight years old, his mother died. his father sent him to an Anglican boarding school until he was age sixteen, but young Charles showed less interest in studying than in hunting, natural history, and scientific experimentation. In 1825, he enrolled at Edinburgh University. Darwin’s father expected him to go into medicine, and although he entered Edinburgh University to pursue a medical degree, he found he couldn’t stand the sight of blood and left after two years. he then transferred to Cambridge (Christ’s College) to study for the ministry. As a clergyman, he would have the free time to follow his real intellectual love: natural history. Darwin was a passionate student of nature, and while in school he amassed a considerable beetle collection as well as other specimens. After befriending botany professor rev. John Stevens henslow, his interest in zoology and geography grew. At age twenty-two, Darwin was presented with an opportunity that would change his life. henslow recommended him for a position on a British Navy survey vessel, the HMS Beagle, which was about to sail on a two-year coastal survey expedition to South America. her captain was anxious to have a naturalist and gentleman companion on board, and Charles readily agreed. Origin of Species The voyage ended up lasting nearly five years, during which time Darwin was able to explore extensively in South America and numerous islands in the Pacific ocean, including the Galapagos Islands. on returning to England in 1836, Darwin set to work examining and disseminating the extensive collection of specimens he acquired during the voyage. he quickly established a reputation as an accomplished naturalist on the London scene. In 1839 he married his cousin, Emma wedgwood. That same year he published his journal of the voyage of the Beagle, which brought him immediate celebrity among London’s intellectuals. In 1842 he and Emma moved to Down house in Kent. It was there that she bore ten children and she and Charles spent the rest of their lives. A young Charles Darwin Introduction During his great adventure as the Beagle’s naturalist, Darwin had studied certain aspects of the morphology and biogeography of the many species of plants and animals that he had observed. he eventually concluded that species exhibited varying degrees of similarity because they were to varying degrees related. It appears that by 1838 his concept of descent with modification by the mechanism of natural selection was largely formed. Although Darwin is the most familiar name associated with evolution, he was only persuaded to publish his work when he learned that another young naturalist, Alfred russell wallace, was developing ideas about the evolution of species similar to his own. In 1858, at the urging of friends, he prepared a brief paper which was read before the royal Society along with the paper wallace had written. The following year he published On the Origin of Species, which he considered an abstract of a larger future work. During the remainder of his life Charles Darwin continued his research, publishing three additional books on explicitly evolutionary topics, and other books on topics including climbing plants, insect-orchid mutualisms, and earthworms. At the age of seventy-three, Charles Darwin died at Down house on April 19, 1882, with his wife, Emma, by his side. Emma Darwin Charles Darwin and his son William Origin of Species Timeline of Darwin’s life 1809: February 12 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, Charles robert Darwin is born. 1817: Charles Darwin’s mother Susannah (née wedgwood) dies when he was eight years of age. 1825–1827: Darwin’s father takes him from Shrewsbury Grammar School because of his poor progress and sends him to Edinburgh University. he says to him, “You care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat-catching and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family.” 1827–1831: Charles enrolls at Christ’s College, Cambridge University and studies theology to prepare for life as a country parson. he is introduced to beetle collecting, and spends much time with the professor of botany. 1831–1836: he makes natural history collections as he travels around South America as on board the ship hMS Beagle as their Naturalist. 1835–1836: Darwin first considers the evolution of species while studying the variations among Galapagos mockingbirds. he notes: “If there is the slightest foundation for these remarks the zoology of Archipelagoes will be well worth examining, for such facts would undermine the stability of species.” 1837: Darwin draws an evolutionary “tree” in his notebook below the words “I think.” 1838–1839: he develops his theory of “natural selection.” 1839: Charles marries Emma wedgwood. The couple move to London and have two children. Eventually having ten, although only seven survive to adulthood. he publishes The Journal of a Naturalist. 1840: he then publishes Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle. 1842: Charles writes his first essay on his evolutionary theory. he moves to Down house in Bromley, Kent, where he lives until his death. 1844: Charles pens an essay on evolution by natural selection. he tells his wife to have it published in the event of his death, saying, “I have just finished my sketch of my species theory. If, as I believe [...] my theory is true, and if it be accepted even by one competent judge, it will be a considerable step in science.” he writes to botanist Joseph hooker telling him Introduction about his evolutionary ideas, saying it is “like confessing a murder.” 1851: Darwin’s first daughter, Annie Elizabeth, dies at the age of ten, of suspected tuberculosis. 1854–1859: he continues to develop his theory through reading, consulting other naturalists, observation and experimentation in and around the countryside at Down house. 1856: he begins his work on On the Origin of Species. 1858: Darwin receives a letter from Alfred russel wallace. wallace is a young naturalist who has independently arrived at an almost identical theory of natural selection. 1858: Both Darwin and wallace have their theories presented to the Linnaean Society on July 1. 1859: Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species. 1871: Darwin’s The Descent of Man is published, applying his theories of evolution to human beings. 1882: Charles Darwin dies and is buried in westminster Abbey.1 Darwin’s Religious Belief Darwin’s work has helped fuel intense debates about religion and science, then and now, so it���s worthwhile to consider what his own religious beliefs were. Just as his theory has influenced people’s views about God, his view of God has helped to shape his theory. Many will be surprised to learn that, as a young boy, Charles Darwin attended church with his mother and received religious training at a Church of England boarding school. Darwin even attended Cambridge to study for the ministry, saying that he “did not then in the least doubt the strict and literal truth of every word in the Bible.” he wrote in his autobiography that he was at one point led by “the firm conviction of the existence of God, and of the immortality of the soul,” believing that “there is more in man than the mere breath of his body.” Darwin recalled that at the time of writing On the Origin of Species he was convinced of the existence of God as an intelligent First Cause and deserved to be called a theist. however, his views would begin to change while on board the Beagle and by the time he returned to England in 1836 he had come to view Origin of Species HMS Beagle by Conrad Martens God as a “revengeful tyrant.” what was it that changed his views? During the voyage he had ample opportunity to see the cruelties of slavery and wondered how God could allow such inhumanity to exist. he also could not accept that a kind God would allow men to live in such a wretched state as the natives of Tierra del Fuego. The issue of why God would allow such suffering in the world was an internal conflict that Darwin could not resolve. he recorded the thoughts he struggled with: A being so powerful and so full of knowledge as a God who could create the universe, is to our finite minds omnipotent and omniscient, and it revolts our understanding to suppose that his benevolence is not unbounded … This very old argument from the existence of suffering against the existence of an intelligent First Cause seems to me a strong one.2 The issue of suffering was one that Darwin faced personally, with the death of his beloved ten-year-old daughter, Annie, in 1851. This tragedy would deal a crushing blow to his religious beliefs, as Darwin deliberated about the Christian meaning of mortality and lost all faith in a beneficent God. he continued to give support to the local church and help with parish work, Introduction but on Sundays would go for a walk while his family attended church. Darwin therefore reasoned that death and suffering were integral to the operation of the world and had always existed. In a letter to American botanist Asa Gray in 1860, Darwin still acknowledged that God was the ultimate Lawgiver, but he could not see an omnipotent Deity in all the pain and suffering in the world. I had no intention to write atheistically, but I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world.… on the other hand, I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe, and especially the nature of man, and to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance.3 As he developed his theory of origins by purely natural means, he grew further from the biblical concept of a Creator and said of his religious views, “I am sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible as a divine revelation, and therefore not in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.”4 he came to think that the religious instinct had evolved with society and eventually concluded, “For myself, I do not believe that there ever has been any revelation. As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities.”5 while in his later years Darwin was not religious to any extent, he never entirely discounted the existence of a God but gradually became agnostic: In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an Atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. I think that generally (and more and more as I grow older), but not always, that an Agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind.6 Origin of Species Statue of Charles Darwin in the Natural History Museum, London. Introduction Despite Darwin’s rejection of Christianity, he was buried in a famous Christian church—westminster Abbey—close to Sir Isaac Newton. The DNA Code Darwin’s theory of evolution is not without its difficulties. Even 150 years later, scientists have yet to supply adequate answers to what critics claim—and Darwin himself admitted— are weaknesses of the theory. Following are some of the areas of continued controversy. The DNA that defines every aspect of our bodies is incredibly complex, but in simplest terms it can be described as a book composed of only four letters. To liken DNA to a book, however, is really a gross understatement. The amount of information in the 3 billion base pairs in the DNA in every human cell is equivalent to that in 1,000 books of encyclopedia size. It would take a person typing 60 words per minute, eight hours a day, around 50 years to type the human genome. And if all the DNA in your body’s 100 trillion cells was put end to end, it would reach to the sun (90 million miles away) and back over 600 times.7 Aside from the immense volume of information that your DNA contains, consider the likelihood of all the intricate, interrelated parts of this “book” coming together by sheer chance. Critics claim that would be comparable to believing that this publication happened by accident. Imagine that there was nothing. Then paper appeared, and ink fell from nowhere onto the flat sheets and shaped itself into perfectly formed letters of the English alphabet. Initially, the letters said something like this: “fgsn&k cn1clxc dumbh cckvkduh vstupidm ncncx.” As you can see, random letters rarely produce words that make sense. But in time, mindless chance formed them into the order of meaningful words with spaces between them. Periods, commas, capitals, italics, quotes, paragraphs, margins, etc., also came into being in the correct placements. The sentences then grouped themselves to relate to each other, giving them coherence. Page numbers fell in sequence at the right places, and headers, footers, and footnotes appeared from nowhere on the pages, matching the portions of text to which they related. Origin of Species 0 The paper trimmed itself and bound itself into a book. The ink for the cover fell from different directions, being careful not to incorrectly mingle with the other colors, forming itself into the graphic of Charles Darwin and title. There are multiple copies of this publication, so it then developed the ability to replicate itself thousands of times over. Physical chemist Charles Thaxton writes: The DNA code is quite simple in its basic structure (although enormously complex in its functioning). By now most people are familiar with the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. It is like a long ladder, twisted into a spiral. Sugar and phosphate molecules form the sides of the ladder. Four bases make up its “rungs.” These are adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine. These bases act as the “letters” of a genetic alphabet. They combine in various sequences to form words, sentences, and paragraphs. These base sequences are all the instructions needed to guide the functioning of the cell. The DNA code is a genetic “language” that communicates information to the cell … The DNA molecule is exquisitely complex, and extremely precise: the “letters” must be in a very exact sequence. If they are out of order, it is like a typing error in a message. The instructions that it gives the cell are garbled. This is what a mutation is. … Since life is at its core a chemical code, the origin of life is the origin of a code. A code is a very special kind of order. It represents “specified complexity.”8 To ponder how DNA’s amazing structure could have come together by sheer accident is indeed amazing, and has even led some to consider the possibility of design. Based on his study of DNA, the director of the U.S. National human Genome research Institute concluded there must be a God. Francis Collins, the scientist who led the team that cracked the human genome, believes it provides a rational basis for a Creator: Introduction when you have for the first time in front of you this 3.1-billion-letter instruction book that conveys all kinds of information and all kinds of mystery about humankind, you can’t survey that going through page after page without a sense of awe. I can’t help but look at those pages and have a vague sense that this is giving me a glimpse of God’s mind.9 DNA is an incredibly detailed language, revealing vast amounts of information encoded in each and every living cell— design which could not have arisen by purely naturalistic means. In every other area of our world, we recognize that information requires intelligence and design requires a designer. with our present-day knowledge of DNA, this presents a formidable challenge to Darwinian evolution. DNA Similarities one typical proof cited for Darwinian evolution is that chimpanzees and humans have very similar DNA. In previous DNA studies, based on only portions of the chimp genome, scientists announced that humans and chimps were 98–99 percent identical, depending on what was counted. After completing the mapping of the chimp genome in 2005, scientists are hailing the result as “the most dramatic confirmation yet” that chimps and humans have common ancestry. Though the complete genomes have yet to be compared, several studies found similarities as low as 86 percent. To date, researchers believe that the genetic difference is 4 percent (though this is actually twice the amount that has been assumed for years).10 If once the genomes have been compared the difference is shown to be just 4 percent, with 3 billion base pairs of DNA in every cell, that represents 120,000,000 entries in the DNA code that are different. In our DNA instruction book, that’s equivalent to about 12 million words—a seemingly small percentage that has a tremendous impact.11 Some critics also question the scientific basis for assuming that similar DNA indicates a common ancestor. Just as a biplane and a jet share common features of wings, body, tires, engine, controls, etc., they argue, does not require that one must have Origin of Species evolved from the other naturally, without a maker. They argue it’s more reasonable to conclude that similar design indicates a common, intelligent designer. An architect typically uses similar building materials for numerous buildings, and a car manufacturer commonly uses the same parts in various models. So if creation had a common designer, we could expect to find a similar “blueprint” used in many different creatures. Since DNA is the coding for the way our bodies look and operate, some reason that creatures with similar features or body functions (eyes for vision, enzymes for digestion, etc.) would have similar coding for these things in their DNA. Because human cells have the same biochemical functions as many different animals and even plants, we share many of the same genes. The more functions we have in common, the more we find similar coding in the blueprints. So while evolution states that similar DNA is proof of common ancestry, opponents interpret the same evidence as proof of a common designer. The challenge is to prove scientifically which is true. To the question of whether sharing 96 percent of our genetic make-up with chimps makes us 96 percent chimp, evolutionist Charles Darwin’s study room. Introduction Steven Jones, a renowned British geneticist, humorously commented, “we also share about 50% of our DNA with bananas and that doesn’t make us half bananas …”12 Transitional Forms As evidence that Darwin’s theory is correct—that humans and chimps evolved from a common ancestor—we would expect to find something that is half monkey, half man. These intermediate stages where one species evolves into another species are called “transitional forms.” Because evolution is said to have occurred in the past, we have to look to paleontology, the science of the study of fossils, to find evidence on the history of life. well-known French paleontologist Pierre-Paul Grassé explains: Naturalists must remember that the process of evolution is revealed only through fossil forms … only paleontology can provide them with the evidence of evolution and reveal its course or mechanisms.13 we would expect to find that proof of the theory of evolution would be readily available in the fossil evidence. The fossil record should reveal millions of transitional forms, as life gradually evolved from one species to another. Darwin understood that evolutionary theory was dependent on these transitional forms. he wrote in On The Origin of Species: why, if species have descended from other species by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? why is not all nature in confusion, instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?...As by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the Earth?14 Darwin acknowledged that the absence of intermediates put his theory in doubt, but he attributed their lack to the scarcity of fossils at that time—and he had faith that they would eventually Origin of Species be found. however, nearly 150 years later, the situation has not improved much. After scientists have searched diligently for a century and a half for evidence, we now have over 100 million fossils catalogued in the world’s museums, covering 250,000 different species, which should be sufficient to give an accurate picture of our past. Since paleontology holds the key to our history, does it reveal the gradual progression from simple life forms to more complex? Did we find the millions of transitional forms that would be expected with evolution? Scientists believed they found one in 1999 with Archaeoraptor. The scientific community (including National Geographic) proclaimed that they had found the “missing link” between carnivorous dinosaurs and modern birds,15 though it was quickly exposed as a fraud. A Chinese farmer had glued together the head and body of a primitive bird and the tail and hind limbs of a dromaeosaur dinosaur. Storrs L. olson, curator of birds at the National Museum of Natural history at the Smithsonian Institution, stated that the feathered dinosaur that was pictured is “simply imaginary and has no place outside of science fiction.” he criticized the magazine for publicizing this forgery, saying, “National Geographic has reached an all-time low for engaging in sensationalistic, unsubstantiated, tabloid journalism,” and he added, “The idea of feathered dinosaurs … is now fast becoming one of the grander scientific hoaxes of our age.”16 Aside from “feathered dinosaurs,” many other supposed missing links have been debunked. For example, a Berkeley website claims that “there are numerous examples of transitional forms in the fossil record, providing an abundance of evidence for change over time.” The only example cited as proof is Pakicetus. The website, labeled “Understanding Evolution for Teachers,” describes Pakicetus as an early ancestor to modern whales. how can scientists tell this? According to the website, “Although pakicetids were land mammals, it is clear that they are related to whales and dolphins based on a number of specializations of the ear, relating to hearing.”17 In an accompanying illustration, paleontologist Phil Gingerich depicts a swimming creature with its forelimbs on the way to becoming flippers, claiming that it is “perfectly intermediate, a missing link between earlier land mammals and Introduction later, full-fledged whales.”18 Although the body he drew does look like a very convincing transitional form, his conclusion was based on only a few fragments of a skull. Not a single bone of the body had been found. once a more complete skeleton was discovered, it proved that Pakicetus looked nothing like the creature he imagined.19 The creatures that Gingerich was looking at were simply different animals with similar hearing ability, and his conclusion was merely unscientific speculation. Sadly, this happens all too frequently among evolutionary scientists in a field where spectacular finds are rewarded with great fame, funding, and prestige among their peers. Many alleged “missing links” are based on only a single fossil fragment and the wishful thinking of their discoverers. After acknowledging that “imaginations certainly took flight over Archaeoraptor,” a U.S. News & World Report writer added: Archaeoraptor is hardly the first “missing link” to snap under scrutiny. In 1912, fossil remains of an ancient hominid were found in England’s Piltdown quarries and quickly dubbed man’s apelike ancestor. It took decades to reveal the hoax.20 Piltdown was a deliberate fraud, as a paleontologist filed down teeth from an orangutan jaw and included it with pieces from a human skull, treated them with acid to make them appear old, and buried them in a gravel pit. As far as man’s supposed ancestry is concerned, the Piltdown Man fraud wasn’t an isolated incident. The famed Nebraska Man was derived from a single tooth, which was later found to be from an extinct pig. Java Man, found in the early 20th century, was nothing more than a piece of skull, a fragment of a thigh bone, and three molar teeth. The rest came from the deeply fertile imaginations of plaster of Paris workers. Java Man is now regarded as fully human. heidelberg Man came from a jawbone, a large chin section, and a few teeth. Most scientists reject the jawbone because it’s similar to that of modern man. And Neanderthal Man was exposed as being fully human, not ape. Not only was Origin of Species his stooped posture found to be caused by disease, but he also spoke and was artistic and religious. The Missing Link In May 2009, however, headlines boldly proclaimed that scientists had finally found the missing link between animals and man. one article stated: “Scientists have unveiled a 47- million-year-old fossilized skeleton of a monkey hailed as the missing link in human evolution. The search for a direct connection between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom has taken 200 years—but it was presented to the world today at a special news conference in New York.”21 researchers say this transitional species finally confirms Darwin’s theory of evolution, with some even suggesting that the “lemur monkey” dubbed Ida is the “eighth wonder of the world.” Sir David Attenborough said Darwin “would have been thrilled” to have seen the fossil, saying that it tells us who we are and where we came from. “This is the one that connects us directly with them [the rest of the mammals],” he added. “Now people can say ‘okay we are primates, show us the link.’ The link they would have said up to now is missing—well it’s no longer missing.”22 It’s true that Ida was an important find because of its 95 percent completeness, in sharp contrast to earlier fossil evidence. one of the world’s leading fossil experts, Professor Jorn hurum of Norway’s National history Museum, stated: It’s part of our evolution that’s been hidden so far, it’s been hidden because all the other specimens are so incomplete. They are so broken there’s almost nothing to study and now this wonderful fossil appears and it makes the story so much easier to tell, so it’s really a dream come true.23 But was Ida the missing link? Not according to Chris Beard, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural history. Beard told LiveScience that he disagreed with some of the outlandish claims researchers made, such as the suggestion that Ida represents a “missing link” between early primates and humans. “It’s not a missing link,” Beard said, “it’s Introduction not even a terribly close relative to monkeys, apes and humans, which is the point they’re trying to make.”24 “on the whole I think the evidence is less than convincing,” stated Chris Gilbert, a paleoanthropologist at Yale University. “I would definitely say that the consensus is not in favor of the hypothesis they’re proposing.”25 Paleontologist richard Kay of Duke University added, “This claim is buttressed with almost no evidence,” while noting that there is actually evidence against their hypothesis and that other important fossil primates could contradict their claims.26 Not only are missing links still missing, but the fossil record reveals that man arrived on the scene abruptly. In a PBS documentary, richard Leakey, the world’s foremost paleoanthropologist, admitted: If pressed about man’s ancestry, I would have to unequivocally say that all we have is a huge question mark. To date, there has been nothing found to truthfully purport as a transitional species to man, including Lucy … If further pressed, I would have to state that there is more evidence to suggest an abrupt arrival of man rather than a gradual process of evolving.27 (emphasis added) The fossil record reveals a similar abrupt arrival for horses, rendering the classic example of horse evolution inaccurate. Evolutionist Boyce rensberger addressed a symposium attended by 150 scientists at the Field Museum of Natural history in Chicago, which considered problems facing the theory of evolution. he describes what the fossil evidence reveals for horses: The popularly told example of horse evolution, suggesting a gradual sequence of changes from four- toed, fox-sized creatures, living nearly 50 million years ago, to today’s much larger one-toed horse, has long been known to be wrong. Instead of gradual change, fossils of each intermediate species appear fully distinct, persist unchanged, and then become extinct. Transitional forms are unknown.28 (emphasis added) Origin of Species This is the case not just for horses but throughout the entire animal kingdom. rather than the millions of transitional forms that we would expect to find, all we have at best are a handful of disputable examples. harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould writes: The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils...All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt.29 (emphasis added) The Cambrian Explosion In fact, this fossil evidence presents another difficulty for evolutionary theory. As Darwin himself admitted: The abrupt manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appear in certain formations, has been urged by several paleontologists … as a fatal objection to the belief in the transmutation of species. If numerous species, belonging to the same genera or families, have really started into life at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of evolution through natural selection.30 During the period that paleontologists call the Cambrian Explosion, virtually all the major animal forms appeared suddenly without any trace of less complex ancestors. No new body plans have come into existence since then. The Cambrian Explosion is also known as “The Biological Big Bang,” because the majority of complex life forms showed up virtually overnight. If the entire period of life on Earth was a 24-hour day, the Cambrian period would be less than two minutes. Like the Big Bang that presumably began our universe, biologically speaking, nothing suddenly became everything. Introduction T. S. Kemp, curator of the zoological collections at the oxford University Museum of Natural history, is one of the world’s foremost experts on Cambrian fossils. In discussing the sudden appearance of new species, Kemp writes: with few exceptions, radically new kinds of organisms appear for the first time in the fossil record already fully evolved, with most of their characteristic features present … It is not at all what might have been expected.31 Nature clearly does not reveal the gradually changing picture that evolution requires. Instead, life forms are strictly separated into very distinct categories. Paleontologist robert Carroll, an evolutionist authority, admits this dilemma in his book Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution: Although an almost incomprehensible number of species inhabit Earth today, they do not form a continuous spectrum of barely distinguishable intermediates. Instead, nearly all species can be recognized as belonging to a relatively limited number of clearly distinct major groups, with very few illustrating intermediate structures or ways of life.32 So according to the evidence produced by paleontology— the only field that can provide proof of evolution—life did not evolve gradually over a long period from simple to complex forms. Instead, the fossils reveal that all the major animal groups appeared fully formed, all at one time. regarding the Cambrian fauna, prominent British evolutionist richard Dawkins made a similar observation: And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history. Needless to say, this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists . . . 33 Origin of Species 0 Dawkins, surmising why there may be a lack of any intermediates, attributes the “very important gaps” to what he sees as “imperfections in the fossil record.” The Evolutionary Process Darwin theorized that all living things evolved from simpler life forms through an undirected process of mutations and natural selection. If a mutation (a “copying error”) occurred in the genes, and it provided the creature some survival advantage, this benefit would be passed on to its offspring through the process of natural selection. Species do of course change over time by adaptation and natural selection, but some disagree that this indicates Darwinian evolution. For example, in looking at the variety available within dogs—from the tiny Chihuahua to the huge Great Dane—some would label this simply microevolution. Small-scale variations occur within a kind, though nothing new actually comes into being (“evolves”) in microevolution. while dogs can have incredible differences, all are still dogs. within the horse family are the donkey, zebra, draft horse, and the dwarf pony, yet all are horses. There are tremendous variations among humans—from Asian to African to Aboriginal to Caucasian— but all are within the same species, Homo sapiens. Darwin’s theory of evolution is instead based on the concept of macroevolution. This is the inference that the small changes seen in adaptation (these variations within species) accumulate and lead to large changes over long periods of time. In macroevolution, one kind of creature (such as a reptile) becomes another kind of creature (such as a bird), requiring the creation of entirely new features and body types. Evolution opponents argue that this would be a bit like observing a car going from 0 to 60 mph in 60 seconds, and inferring that it can therefore go 0 to 6,000 mph in 100 minutes—and become an airplane in the process. Admittedly, this puts a tremendous responsibility on mutations to accidentally create complex new body parts, and on natural selection to recognize the benefit these new parts will eventually convey and make sure the creatures with those new parts survive. As Stephen J. Gould explains: Introduction The essence of Darwinism lies in a single phrase: natural selection is the creative force of evolutionary change. No one denies that selection will play a negative role in eliminating the unfit. Darwinian theories require that it create the fit as well.34 Scientific advances since Darwin’s day have shed light on how mutations and natural selection work, though the findings were not always as expected. Mutations researchers have discovered that the variations we see in adaptation within a kind are always within limits set by the genetic code. Fifty years of genetic research on the fruit fly have convinced scientists that change is limited and confined to a defined population. Despite being bombarded with mutation agents for half a century, the mutant fruit flies continue to exist as fruit flies, leading geneticists to acknowledge that they will not evolve into something else. This confirms Gregor Mendel’s findings in the 1800s that there are natural limits to genetic change. Genetics professor Francisco Ayala is quoted as saying: “I am now convinced from what the paleontologists say that small changes do not accumulate.”35 In addition, the amount of change is not the only factor to consider. Experiments have shown that mutations can only modify or eliminate existing structures; they cannot create new ones. within a particular type of creature, hair can vary from curly to straight, legs can vary from heavy to thin, beaks from long to short, wings from dark to light, etc. But the creatures still have hair, legs, beaks, and wings—nothing new has been added. If you recall, in our DNA book, a mutation is a mistake—a “typing error.” In the genetic blueprint, the letters that define these features may occasionally be rearranged or lost through mutations, but none of this will account for the additions needed by macroevolution. remember, Darwin proposed that everything evolved from simple cells into complex life forms. So if a fish were to grow legs and lungs, or a reptile were to grow wings, that creature’s genetic information would have to Origin of Species increase to create the new body parts. This would be equivalent to a telegram giving rise to encyclopedias of meaningful, useful genetic sentences. Think how much more information there is in the human genome than in the bacterial genome. Now that science has uncovered the enormous storehouse of information contained within DNA, we have to consider where all that vastly complex, new information could have come from. Scientists have yet to find even a single mutation that increases genetic information. As physicist Lee Spetner puts it, “Information cannot be built up by mutations that lose it. A business can’t make money by losing it a little at a time.”36 Another surprising difficulty involves the common belief that organisms develop favorable mutations based on their environments. For example, it’s often thought that bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics, thus demonstrating that they evolve. But the website “Understanding Evolution” (produced by the University of California Museum of Paleontology and the National Center for Science Education) explains how mutations function: Mutations do not “try” to supply what the organism “needs.”… For example, exposure to harmful chemicals may increase the mutation rate, but will not cause more mutations that make the organism resistant to those chemicals. In this respect, mutations are random—whether a particular mutation happens or not is unrelated to how useful that mutation would be.37 To illustrate, they explain that where people have access to shampoos with chemicals that kill lice, there are a lot of lice that are resistant to those chemicals. So either: 1) resistant strains of lice were always there—and are just more frequent now because all the non-resistant lice died; or 2) exposure to lice shampoo actually caused mutations that provide resistance to the shampoo. Based on their scientific experiments, they conclude that “the first explanation is the right one and that directed mutations, the second possible explanation relying on non-random mutation, is not correct.”38 Introduction After numerous experiments, researchers have found that none unambiguously support directed mutation. In the case of bacteria, scientific experiments have demonstrated that “the penicillin-resistant bacteria were there in the population before they encountered penicillin. They did not evolve resistance in response to exposure to the antibiotic.” Therefore, mutations are not logical adaptations that make a creature better suited for its environment. They are completely random—the result of mindless, undirected chance. Even if a series of random mutations could happen to cause a lump of a wing to begin to form, how would each incremental change help the creature to survive? Natural selection enables the survival of creatures that develop some sort of beneficial trait. But until it becomes a fully formed wing, any stub would be more of a detriment than a benefit. Consider the following observations from noted evolutionary scientists: The reasons for rejecting Darwin’s proposal were many, but first of all that many innovations cannot possibly come into existence through accumulation of many small steps, and even if they can, natural selection cannot accomplish it, because incipient and intermediate stages are not advantageous.39 — Embryologist Soren Lovtrup But how do you get from nothing to such an elaborate something if evolution must proceed through a long sequence of intermediate stages, each favored by natural selection? You can’t fly with 2% of a wing. . . 40 —Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould Darwinism is claiming that all the adaptive structures in nature, all the organisms which have existed throughout history were generated by the accumulation of entirely undirected mutations. That is an entirely unsubstantiated belief for which there is not the slightest evidence whatsoever.41 —Molecular biologist Michael Denton Origin of Species Top: Charles Darwin as an ape published in The hornet, published in 1871. Below left: Charles Darwin as a monkey on the cover of La Petite Lune, published in the 1880s. Below right: Charles Darwin cartoon, published in 1871 in Vanity Fair. Introduction Contrary to what Darwin suspected, scientists today have discovered that mutations do not work as a mechanism to fuel the evolutionary process. They are random instead of purposeful, and they only modify or remove information, but never add it—an essential component of the theory. Any mutation that could create a “transitional form” would be far more likely to doom a creature than to help it up the evolutionary chain. This was confirmed by about 150 of the world’s leading evolutionary theorists who gathered at a Macroevolution Conference in Chicago to consider the question, “Are mutation and natural selection enough?” Evolutionist roger Lewin sums up the conclusion of the conference: The central question of the Chicago conference was whether the mechanisms underlying microevolution can be extrapolated to explain the phenomena of macroevolution. At the risk of doing violence to the positions of some of the people at the meeting, the answer can be given as a clear, No.42 Evolutionist Michael Denton, author of Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, puts the theory into perspective. Asked in an interview if Darwinian theory adequately explained what we see in nature, he very honestly admitted its weaknesses: The basic pattern it fails to explain is the apparent uniqueness and isolation of major types of organisms … It strikes me as being a flagrant denial of common sense to swallow that all these things were built up by accumulative small random changes. This is simply a nonsensical claim, especially for the great majority of cases, where nobody can think of any credible explanation of how it came about. And this is a very profound question which everybody skirts, everybody brushes over, everybody tries to sweep under the carpet. The fact is that the majority of these complex adaptations in nature cannot be adequately explained by a series of intermediate forms. And this is a fundamental problem. Common sense tells me there must be something wrong.43 Origin of Species The problem for scientists today is that mutations have not yet been shown to create any new features, or new creatures, which explains why transitional forms are still lacking. As an alternative to Darwin’s theory of gradualism, some scientists have proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium. This theory, championed by Stephen Gould and others, proposes that evolution happened in rapid spurts (guided by some unknown genetic mechanism) followed by long periods of stability. They suggest that species had to evolve quickly based on sudden changes in their environment, such as a flood or drought. There are difficulties with this theory as well. First, according to the website “Understanding Evolution,” which explains evolution to teachers, “Factors in the environment … are not generally thought to influence the direction of mutation.” It states that experiments showed mutations “did not occur because the organism was placed in a situation where the mutation would be useful.”44 Again, mutations have been found to be completely random and not based on the environment. So with no evidence to show that mutations could cause creatures to evolve gradually over millions of years, what is the scientific basis for proposing that they could make very significant changes very rapidly? Second, because the theory of punctuated equilibrium was proposed as a way to explain the lack of fossil evidence, there is nothing in the fossil record that would lead us to believe this was the case. Proponents of this theory suggest that evolution occurred so quickly that there wasn’t time to leave any fossils as evidence. Evolution’s Difficult Questions Many people have not objectively examined evolutionary theory to consider specifically how creatures may have developed. For example, consider the following. Zoologists have recorded an amazing 20,000 species of fish. Each of these species has a two-chambered heart that pumps cold blood throughout its cold body. There are 6,000 species of reptiles. They also have cold blood, but theirs is a three-chambered heart (except for the crocodile, Introduction which has four). The 1,000 or so different amphibians (frogs, toads, and newts) have cold blood and a three-chambered heart. There are over 9,000 species of birds. From the massive Andean condor with its wingspan of 12 feet to the tiny hummingbird (whose heart beats 1,400 times a minute), each of those 9,000 species has a four-chambered heart (left and right atrium, left and right ventricle)—just like humans. of course, the 15,000 species of mammals also have a pumping, four-chambered heart, which faithfully pumps blood throughout a series of intricate blood vessels to the rest of the body. These are interesting thoughts to ponder: which do you think came first—the blood or the heart—and why? Did the heart in all these different species of fish, reptiles, birds, and mammals evolve before there were blood vessels throughout their bodies? when did the blood evolve? was it before or after the vessels evolved? If it was before, what was it that carried blood to the heart, if there were no vessels? Did the heart beat before the blood evolved? why was it beating if there was no blood to pump? If it wasn’t beating, why did it start when it had no awareness of blood? If the blood vessels evolved before there was blood, why did they evolve if there was no such thing as blood? And if the blood evolved before the heart evolved, what was it that caused it to circulate around the body? The marvelous human body (and the bodies of all the other creatures) consists of so many amazingly interdependent parts: a heart, lungs (to oxygenate the blood), kidneys (to filter wastes from the blood), blood vessels, arteries, blood, skin (to protect it all), etc. The intricate codependence of just the respiratory system and the circulatory system—not to mention all the other bodily systems—is difficult to explain. or, consider the human eye. Man has never developed a camera lens anywhere near the inconceivable intricacy of the human eye. The human eye is an amazing interrelated system of about forty individual subsystems, including the retina, pupil, iris, cornea, lens, and optic nerve. It has more to it than just the 137 million light-sensitive special cells that send messages to the unbelievably complex brain. About 130 million of these Origin of Species cells look like tiny rods, and they handle the black and white vision. The other 7 million are cone shaped and allow us to see in color. The retina cells receive light impressions, which are then translated into electric pulses and sent directly to the brain through the optic nerve. A special section of the brain called the visual cortex interprets the pulses as color, contrast, depth, etc., which then allows us to see “pictures” of our world. Incredibly, the eye, optic nerve, and visual cortex are totally separate and distinct subsystems. Yet together they capture, deliver, and interpret up to 1.5 million pulse messages per millisecond! Think about that for a moment. It would take dozens of computers programmed perfectly and operating together flawlessly to even get close to performing this task. The eye is an example of what is referred to as “irreducible complexity.” It would be statistically impossible for random processes, operating through gradual mechanisms of genetic mutations and natural selection, to be able to create forty separate subsystems when they provide no advantage to the whole until the very last state of development. Ask yourself how the lens, the retina, the optic nerve, and all the other parts in vertebrates that play a role in seeing not only appeared from nothing, but evolved into interrelated and working parts. Evolutionist robert Jastrow acknowledges that highly trained scientists could not have improved upon “blind chance”: The eye appears to have been designed; no designer of telescopes could have done better. how could this marvelous instrument have evolved by chance, through a succession of random events? Many people in Darwin’s day agreed with theologian william Pauley, who commented, “There cannot be a design without a designer.”45 Even Charles Darwin admitted the incredible complexity of the eye in On The Origin of Species: To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different Introduction distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.46 Darwin went on to say that he believed the eye could nonetheless have been formed by natural selection. At the time, though, scientists believed that the first simple creatures had rudimentary eyes, and that as creatures slowly evolved their eyes evolved along with them. however, that’s not what they have found. Surprisingly, some of the most complex eyes have been discovered in the “simplest” creatures. Darwin’s theory in the Punch almanac for 1882, published at the end of 1881. Origin of Species 0 riccardo Levi-Setti, professor emeritus of Physics at the University of Chicago, writes of the trilobite’s eye: This optical doublet is a device so typically associated with human invention that its discovery in trilobites comes as something of a shock. The realization that trilobites developed and used such devices half a billion years ago makes the shock even greater. And a final discovery—that the refracting interface between the two lens elements in a trilobite’s eye was designed in accordance with optical constructions worked out by Descartes and huygens in the mid-seventeenth century—borders on sheer science fiction … The design of the trilobite’s eye lens could well qualify for a patent disclosure.47 Admittedly, it’s difficult to imagine that the amazing, seeing eye could have evolved gradually purely by blind chance. Something as astonishingly complex as the eye gives every appearance of having been uniquely designed for each creature. Vestigial Organs—Leftovers Again? For many years, “vestigial organs” have been considered proof that man has evolved from more primitive forms. with no known purpose, these organs were assumed to have outlived their usefulness and to be “leftovers” from our less advanced ancestors. however, if an organ were no longer needed, it could at best be considered devolution. This is consistent with the Law of Entropy—that all things deteriorate over time. what evolution requires, however, is not the loss but the addition of information, where an organism increases in complexity. “Vestigial organs” therefore do not serve as evidence for evolution. In addition, it isn’t scientifically possible to prove that something has no use, because its use can always be discovered as more information becomes available. And that’s exactly what has happened. It was claimed at the Scopes trial that there were “no less than 180 vestigial structures in the human body, Introduction sufficient to make of a man a veritable walking museum of antiquities.”48 As science has advanced, the list has shrunk to virtually zero today. Scientists have discovered that each of these organs does indeed have a purpose; for example, the appendix is part of the human immune system, and the “tailbone” supports muscles that are necessary for daily bodily functions. Another Thought If you find it hard to believe that there was an Intelligent Designer, give this some thought. Man, with all his genius, can’t make a rock, a leaf, a flower, a living singing bird, a croaking frog, or even a grain of dead sand from nothing. we can recreate, but we can’t create anything material from nothing, living or dead. Not a thing. Did you realize that if we could simply make one blade of grass without using existing materials, we could solve the world’s hunger problem? If we could make a blade of grass, we could then create a lot more grass, feed the green material through a machine that does what the common cow does, and have pure white full cream milk, then smooth cream, delicious yogurt, tasty cheese, and smooth butter. But we can’t make even one blade of grass from nothing, let alone giving it the ability to reproduce after its own kind, as regular grass does. we have no idea where to begin when it comes to creating. If that’s true, how intellectually dishonest is it to say that this entire incredible creation in which we live, came into existence with no Intelligent Designer? Darwin’s “Unsavory” Views Aside from the scientific aspects of Darwin’s theory, there are also its social applications. Google “Social Darwinism.”49 what happens when you apply Darwin’s ideas to a society? what does that society begin to look like when Darwin’s ideas are applied to meaningful areas of life? Consider passages such as the following: At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout Origin of Species the world the savage races. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.50 while the above quote seems as nebulous as one of the prophesies of Nostradamus, close study reveals Darwin’s point. he is predicting that civilized races would replace savage races. The gap between savages and the civilized races would become wider, like the gap he saw between the white races and the ape. That means that there would no longer be a closeness, such as the one he saw between the negro and the gorilla. He was saying that blacks were closer to gorillas than the whites were. who could deny that this is a blatantly racist statement, particularly when contemporary society says that just saying or even putting the “n” word in print, is racism? Yet modern admirers of Darwin try and justify his racism by saying that he loved the negro, and that he spoke kindly of their intelligence. he wrote during his voyage on the Beagle, “I never saw anything more intelligent than the Negros, especially the Negro or Mulatto children.”51 After reading Life with a Black Regiment, Darwin wrote the author to thank him “heartily for the very great pleasure” which it gave him: “I always thought well of the negroes, from the little which I have seen of them; and I have been delighted to have my vague impressions confirmed, and their character and mental powers so ably discussed.”52 he despised proponents of slavery, referring to them as “the polished savages in England,”53 while saying of a black lieutenant that he’d never met anywhere “a more civil and obliging man.”54 Charles Darwin believed that the black race was closer to the gorilla than the white race, but he thought that they were friendly, well-behaved, and intelligent. his attitude was similar to that of a man who likes trained dogs. he thinks that they are friendly, well-behaved, and some are extremely intelligent. Introduction It’s interesting that a number of Atheists have agreed with me in my belief that Darwin was a racist. They said, “I feel no compelling need to justify Charles Darwin’s racism,” and, “And why do you assume that Darwin’s racism was shaped by his belief in evolution? The man lived at a time when blacks in many western nations were still owned as chattels, when creationist anthropologists freely speculated that the different races were separately created species (a view Darwin undertook to refute). The idea of races arranged on a ladder from ‘lowest’ to ‘highest’ (generally with one’s own subgroup on top) was a commonplace among creationists of his day.” And, “of course Darwin was racist, he lived in a society in which racism was the norm …” however, after much research, I do concede that you won’t find anything in Darwin’s writings that would indicate that he in any way felt blacks were to be treated as inferior or that his views of them were due to their skin color. he just thought that they were closer to gorillas than whites. Imagine if you said that on prime time TV. You would stir up a hornets’ nest. Then imagine trying to justify your belief by saying that you despise slavery and that you think black people are intelligent and friendly. You could also add that your convictions that they are closer to gorillas than whites has nothing to do with skin color. Evolutionary scientist, atheist, and author of Darwin: The Indelible Stamp: The Evolution of an Idea, got himself into very hot water back in 2007. According to the Associated Press: “The Independent newspaper put watson on its front page, against the words: ‘Africans are less intelligent than westerners, says DNA pioneer.’”55 The Sunday Times reported, “one of the world’s most respected scientists is embroiled in an extraordinary row after claiming that black people are less intelligent than white people. James watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in discovering the structure of DNA, has provoked outrage with his comments, made ahead of his arrival in Britain today.”56 Like Darwin, watson’s belief had nothing to do with skin color. he said that we should not discriminate on the basis of color, because “there are many people of color who are very talented, but don’t promote them when they haven’t succeeded at the lower level.” he just thought that white people are more Origin of Species intelligent than blacks. For that, he was labeled a blatant racist by many in contemporary society. An atheist wrote and said, “what do Darwin’s personal views on race have to do with our modern understanding of evolution? Nothing. Absolutely nothing, ray. Even a fool knows this.” Indeed, Darwin’s racism has nothing to do with the credibility of the theory of evolution. It should stand or fall on its own merits. however, the theory itself teaches that all men are not created equal. Darwinian evolution doesn’t say that human beings are made in the image of God and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. It rather states that they are mere animals, some closer to apes than others, and it therefore opens wide the door to racism. An article entitled “Americans still linking blacks to apes” on scienceblog.com, presented the findings of research done by psychologists at Stanford, Pennsylvania State University and the University of California-Berkeley. Co-author of the study, Jennifer Eberhardt, said, “It’s a legacy of our past that the endpoint of evolution is a white man … I don’t think it’s intentional, but when people learn about human evolution, they walk away with a notion that people of African descent are closer to apes than people of European descent.”57 I wonder where they get that notion from? There is no question that Darwin’s racism was directly tied to his theory of Evolution. This is clearly demonstrated in The Descent of Man, where he makes the case that man’s intellectual abilities were the byproduct of</p>