On the Origin of Species

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Jack Berlin
Science
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 
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>