Evolution Encyclopedia Vol. 3
Chapter 29 HISTORY OF THE
EVOLUTIONARY THEORY
Part 1
"When the theory of evolution was first thought of as an explanation of the family resemblances of plants and animals, it was only a reasonable guess. But by the time it was developed in its present form by the English biologist, Darwin, in 1859, it was no longer just a guess. It was a scientific law proved by many lines of evidence." *Irvin Adler, How Life Began (1957), p. 18.
"[Darwin could] summon up enough general, vague and conjectural reasons to account for this fact, and if these were not taken seriously, he could come up with a different, but equally general, vague and conjectural set of reasons." *Gertrude Himmelfarb, Darwin and Darwinian Revolution (1968), p. 319.
"Ultimately the Darwinian theory of evolution is no more nor less than the great cosmogenic myth of the twentieth century . . the origin of life and of new beings on earth is still largely as enigmatic as when Darwin set sail on the Beagle." *Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1986), p. 358.
"It has been estimated that no fewer than 800 phrases in the subjunctive mood (such as `Let us assume,' or `We may well suppose,' etc) are to be found between the covers of Darwin's Origin of Species alone." L. Merson Davies, The Bible and Modern Science (1953), p. 7 [British scientist].
"I can envision observations and experiments that would disprove any evolutionary theory I know." *Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory" Discover 2(5):34-37 (1981).
How did evolutionary theory arise? Where did it come from? We could easily fill a book this size with information in answer to these question. Since there are many other good sources which do just that, we will here focus on certain special men of the 18th through 20th centuries, who led out in initiating, defending or repudiating evolutionary concepts. Certain important events and books will also be noted.
INTRODUCTION Here are some formulas: The formula for making a universe: nothing + nothing = two elements + time = 92 elements + time = all physical laws and a completely structured universe of galaxies, systems, stars, planets, and moons orbiting In perfect balance and order.
The formula for making life: dirt + water + time = living structures.
The above two formulas can enable inanimate objects to make themselves; the exception would be "man-made" things, such as automobiles or buildings. Such things as wooden boxes with nails in them require thought, intelligence, and careful workmanship. But everything else about us in nature, such as hummingbirds and the human eye, is made by accidental mishaps, random confusion, and time. You will not even need materials to begin with.
How did all this nonsense get started? Here is a brief overview of the modern history of evolutionary theory:
1 - BEFORE THE 20TH CENTURY
MEN WHO LAID THE FOUNDATIONS The basis of modern science was laid by careful researchers, a majority of whom believed in the creationist view of the origin of the universe, our planet, and life. These men were brilliant, yet they believed in creation not evolution.
Someone will reply, "Well, we have brilliant men today who are discovering many things." Let me say that it is not difficult for intelligent men to go to universities with large libraries and lots of teachers, obtain doctorates, be hired by firms or educational institutions, enter multimillion-dollar laboratories endowed with private and government grants, and be given an abundance of time to make new discoveries.
But, in earlier years, It took brilliant men to pioneer the discoveries that we today use as stepping stones. They frequently had little in the way of equipment, time, or money, but they had powerful minds and depth of comprehension.
Such men were the leaders in science; we today are the followers. We are talking about such men as Newton, Agassiz, and Kelvin. And those men were generally creationists.
"Was the eye contrived without skill in optics, and the ear without knowledge of sounds?" Sir Isaac Newton, Optics, (1952 ed.), pp. 389-370 Newton was the father of modern science and the pioneer in optics].
"The theory of the transmutation of species is a scientific mistake, untrue in its facts, unscientific in its method, and mischievous in its tendency." J.L.R. Agassiz, in Methods of Study in Natural History [Agassiz was a Harvard professor and the pioneer in the study of glacial geology.
"Overwhelmingly strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie around us . . The atheistic idea is so nonsensical that I cannot put it into words." Lord Kelvin, Victorian Institutes, No. 124, p. 267 [Kelvin was the pioneer in the study of thermodynamics].
PIONEERS OF MODERN SCIENCE Here are the men who made the fundamental discoveries and inventions that our modern world is based upon:
Louis Agassiz (1807-1873): glacial geology, ichthyology
Charles Babbage (1792-1871): actuarial tables, calculating machine, computer science
Lord Francis Bacon (1561-1626): scientific method
Robert Boyle (1627-1691): chemistry, gas dynamics
Sir David Brewster (1781-1868): optical mineralogy, kaleidoscope
Georges Cuvier (1769-1832): comparative anatomy, vertebrate paleontology
Sir Humphrey Davy (1778-1829): thermokenetics
Jean Henri Fabre (1823-1915): entomology of living insects
Michael Faraday (1791-1867): electric generator, electro-magnetics, field theory
Sir John A. Fleming (1849-1945): electronics, thermic valve
Joseph Henry (1797-1878): electric motor, galvanometer
Sir William Herschel (1738-1822): galactic astronomy, double stars
James Joule (1818-1889): reversible thermodynamics
Lord William Kelvin (1824-1907): absolute temperature scale, energetics, thermodynamics, transatlantic cable
Johannes Kepler (1571-1630): celestial mechanics, ephemeris tables, physical astronomy
Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778): classification system, systematic biology
Joseph Lister (1827-1912): antiseptic surgery
Matthew Maury (1806-1873): hydrography, oceanography,
James C. Maxwell (1831-1879): electrical dynamics. statistical thermodynamics
Gregor Mandel (1822-1884): genetics
Samuel F.B. Morse (1791-1872): telegraph
Isaac Newton (1642-1727): calculus, dynamics, law of gravity, reflecting telescope,
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662): hydrostatics, barometer
Louis Pasteur (1822-1895): bacteriology, biogenesis law, pasteurization, vaccination and immunization
Sir William Ramsey (1852-1916): inert gases, isotopic chemistry
John Ray (1627-1705) natural history
Lord John Rayleigh (1842-1919): dimensional analysis, model analysis
Bernhard Riemann (1826-1866): non-Euclidean geometry
Sir James Simpson (1811-1870): chloroform, gynecology
Nicolaus Steno (1638-1686): stratigraphy
Sir George Stockes (1819-1903): fluid mechanics
Leonardo de Vinci (1452-1519): hydraulics
Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902): pathology
John Woodward (1665-1728): paleontology
LINNAEUS For example, Carl Linn (Carolus Linnaeus; 1707-1778) did that which others had tried and been unable to do. He classified immense numbers of plants and animals in relation to their similarities to one another. But amid all this work, he was a solid creationist. In view of all the evidence about species before him, and he was the founder of the science of taxonomy (plant and animal classification) it was clear to him that plants and animals were in definite subdivisions that had not arisen from one another.
"We reckon as many species as issued in pairs from the hand of the Creator." Linnaeus, quoted in *Henry F. Osborn, From the Greeks to Darwin, (1929) p. 187.
Linnaeus recognized that variation was possible within a species, but was not always sure where one species left off and another began. Some of his "species" were actually sub-species. His Systems Naturae was first published in 1835.
PALEY William Paley (1743-1805) was a thinker of the 18th century who, in his 1802 classic, Natural Theology, argued that the kind of design that we see in the living world points clearly to a Designer. A design, he said, requires a designer. He was, of course, right.
"In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there.. [I could answer] it had lain there for ever . . But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground. . I should hardly think of [the same answer because] when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive . . that its several parts are framed to point out the hour of the day.. The inference, we think, is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker; that there must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer . . who formed it for the purpose.. and designed its use." William Paley, Natural Theology (1802).
Paley's book was very popular and reprinted almost annually for 60 years, but then that great wave of evolutionary atheism began to roll in, and Paley and the "Master Designer" he spoke of, became objects of ridicule to 19th and 20th century evolutionists. You will frequently come across references to Paley's name in literature on the creation-evolution controversy. *Hoyle and *Wlckramasinghe, experts in problems associated with evolutionary claims, make this comment:
"The speculations of The Origin of Species turned out to be wrong, as we have seen in this chapter. It is ironic that the scientific facts throw Darwin out, but leave William Paley, a figure of fun to the scientific world for more than a century, still in the tournament with a chance of being the ultimate winner." *Fred Hoyle and *Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space (1981), P. 96.
Yes, there were brilliant men back in those early days, but gradually a new breed of "scientists" sought leading roles in the scientific community. These were men who made few discoveries, but instead obtained their laurels by inventing astounding claims.
BUFFON *Comte de Buffon (1707-1788) once said that there were only six great men in all history and he was the sixth. Born into a wealthy home, he was able to obtain a lucrative position as director of the Jardin du Roi (Royal Garden) in Paris. Since he was not able to improve on the work of Linnaeus-or even do as well, he spent his time ridiculing the classifications of Linnaeus. Although he did not use the word "evolution," it is said that he laid the foundation for modern evolution in systematic botany and zoology. He was the first to theorize that, on a broad scale, spades originated from one another.
Much to the delight of the shallow sophisticates in Paris, he also theorized that 75,000 years ago, the earth had somehow been torn as a chunk out of the sun. Then the moon tore out of the earth and flew up into the sky and began circling it. Such vacuous statements brought him still greater admiration. Exactly 100 years later in 1879, *George Darwin, son of *Charles Darwin, took that statement and again urged it on the scientific community.
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LAMARCK- *Buffon died a year before the French Revolution began. In 1793, *Jean Baptiste Lamarck (17441829) was appointed head of the same Jardin du Roi. He was moderately successful as a scientist, while his personal life was a disaster (with a mistress, several wives, and a legacy of poverty to his children). Lamarck was heavily influenced by his teacher, Buffon, and like him had a rich imagination. Lamarck's primary contribution to science was the error of "Inheritance of acquired characteristics." This is the idea that if you lose your leg in an accident, your son will be born with only one leg. At first ignored, his theory later became known as "Lamarckism" and for a time became the bedrock of evolutionary theory. In 1809 he published Philosophie zoologique, showing Lamarckism to be the basis for evolutionary development. In his book, he explained that the giraffe obtained its long neck by stretching it up to reach the higher branches, and birds that lived in water grew webbed feet. He also denied any past catastrophe (i.e., the Flood), and urged the theory of "uniformitarianism."
Most evolutionists today are ashamed of the fact that the theory of uniformitarianism comes from Lamarck. (They are also ashamed of the fact that, in later years, *Charles Darwin renounced "natural selection" and embraced "Lamarckism" as the means by which biological evolution occurred.)
(For more on Lamarckism, see chapter 13, Natural Selection; for more on uniformitarianism, see chapter 17, Fossils and Strata.)
Eventually Lamarckism was scoffed at, but it had its part in paving the way for Darwin's errors.
Is Lamarckism correct? It sounds good, but it is an error. In 1891, August Weismann (18341914), a well-known German biologist of that time, disproved it. More on this shortly when we discuss Weismann.
Cuvier-In contrast with the shallowness of Buffon, Linnaeus and Cuvier were brilliant researchers. Both were creationists, instead of imaginative theorists. Cuvier was a French Protestant at a time when it was dangerous to be one.
Founder, and comparative anatomy and paleontology director of Jardin des Plantes in Paris, Cuvier became the world's leading expert at identifying fossils from a single bone. In a large book he published in 1812 (Recherches Sur les ossement, etc.), he taught creationism, and satisfactorily explained the fossil record to be the result of the Genesis Flood. (However, he did include earlier catastrophes in his theory. Nordenskiold in 1928 corrected the error common in many textbooks that Cuvier is said to have taught that God recreated the world after each catastrophe. Cuvier never taught that.) As a result of years of careful analysis of thousands of fossils, he believed that species did not change into one another. Cuvier's views dominated French science for the remainder of the 19th century.
Now we will turn our attention from the continent of Europe to Britain.
ERASMUS DARWIN *Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) was *Charles Darwin's grandfather. In 1794 Erasmus published a book (Zoonomia) in which he outlined a theory of evolution which anticipated Lamarck's ideas and even the theory of natural selection. His book was popular among liberal thinkers, but did not otherwise have a wide influence. If it were not for the importance of his grandson (whom he heavily influenced although they never met), we would not even mention him here.
HUTTON *James Hutton (1726-1797) was a Scotch geologist who urged uniformitarianism, declaring there never had been any catastrophes earlier in history. In his book, Theory of the Earth published in 1795, He said that the bent and twisted rock strata containing fossil remains, could best be explained as merely the result of calm, peaceful years, many millions of them. He said the answer was uniformitarianism: "the present is the key to the past." This sounded pretty good, since few people back then knew much about the past.
CHAMBERS *Robert Chambers (18021883), a Scot, wrote one of the very first popular evolution books in all of Britain. The intriguing part of this is that he obtained his ideas from spirits! Chambers was a spiritualist! Fifteen years before *Darwin's Origin of the Species was published, Chambers published Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation in 1844. His point was that all species had gradually developed according to natural laws, without the help of a Creator. The book was very popular, but no one knew who wrote it, for Chambers authored it under the name "Mr. Vestiges."
Vestiges of Creation profoundly influenced some younger men who were later to lead out in the evolutionary cause with *Darwin. This included *Alfred Russel Wallace, co-founder of the evolutionary theory that Darwin published. *Wallace was also deeply Involved in spiritism at the time he formulated the theory in his Ternate Paper, which Darwin stole and printed under his own name. (More on this later.)
(In chapter 3, Origin of the Solar System, we learned that *Swedenborg, originator in 1734 of the nebular hypothesis (the theory accepted by nearly all modern evolutionists that loose gas in outer space swirled into planets and stars), said he obtained the idea while in a séance!)
LYELL *Charles Lyell (1797-1875) was, with *Charles Darwin, the most Influential evolutionist of the 19th century) They both had no scientific training, but did have lifelong inherited wealth so they could spend their full time promoting evolutionary concepts.
Drawing his inspiration from Hutton, Lyell carried the idea even farther. He inherited wealth, but because he had poor eyesight and a speech impediment, he spent his time as an amateur scientist and writer. Although lacking any scientific background, in 1826 at the age of 29 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. It is said that he had three qualities of interest to the Society: wealth, excellent writing ability, and an interest in evolutionary geology. His beliefs stemmed from reading Lamarck and Hutton's books.
He traveled extensively over Europe and the British Isles, searching for evidence to support Hutton's theories. The slow formation of beaches fit in well, but he also found contorted and upturned rocks. These he applied his imagination to, developing tortured theories to explain the tortured rocks. Whenever there was a problem, Lyell resolved it by saying it was due to the "imperfection of the geologic record."
Lyell recognized that the theologians in England would fiercely oppose him if he stepped too far, so he theorized that the Genesis Flood was only a local flood in the Near East. This satisfied the clerics.
Uniformitarianism ("all things continue as they were from the beginning") was the basis of Lyell's speculations. He published his 3 volume book, Principles of Geology, in 18301833, and it became the basis of modern geologic theory.
"In this founding document of modern geology, Lyell had argued: (1) that the geologic past can best be understood in terms of natural processes we can actually observe today, such as rivers depositing layers of silt, wind and water eroding landscapes, glaciers advancing or retreating (actualism); (2) that change is slow and steady (gradualism), rather than quick and sudden; (3) that natural laws are constant and eternal, operating at about the same intensity in the past as they do today." *R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 287.
Lyell's emphasis, obviously, was small forces making slow, gradual changes over long periods of time. Yet a major catastrophe had occurred only 15 years earlier, when Mount Tambora near Java exploded in 1815. This tremendous explosion, larger even than that of Krakatoa in 1883, was mentioned by Lyell in his book, but explained away as a matter of little consequence, in spite of the fact that 10,000 dormant volcanoes exist all over the world.
"Charles Lyell was a lawyer by profession, and his book is one of the most brilliant briefs ever published by an advocate. . Lyell relied upon true bits of cunning to establish his uniformitarian views as the only true geology. First, he set up a straw man to demolish . . In fact, the catastrophists [people who believed there had been a Flood, or something equivalent to it] were much more empirically minded [more open to the facts] than Lyell.
"The geological record, he argued, is extremely imperfect and we must interpolate into it what we can reasonably infer but cannot see." *Stephen Gould, "Catastrophes and Steady-State Earth, "in Natural History, February 1975, pp. 18-17.
Lyell got some of his information from *William Smith (1769-1839). Nicknamed "Strata Smith" by the Britishers, he was a land surveyor who dug canals for a living. As he worked, he took notes of rock strata and fossils he dug through in England and Scotland. He told Lyell some of what he had found, and Lyell adapted it to fit into his theory. Everything--strata, lakes, oceans, canyons, glaciers--was said to be the result of slow, calm, natural processes extending over long ages of time.
"Much of Lyell's uniformitarianism, specifically his ideas on identity of ancient and modern causes, gradualism, and constancy of rates, has been explicitly refuted by the definitive modern sources, as well as by an overwhelming preponderance of evidence that, as substantive theories, his ideas on these matters were simply wrong." *James H. Shea, "Twelve Fallacies of Uniformitarianism," in Geotimes, September 1982, p. 458.
In October 1841, Lyell visited Niagara Falls in New York. Niagara Falls originally started just above the present village of Queenston, Ontario. Gradually a channel had eroded so that Niagara Falls is now seven miles from Queenston. When did the water begin falling over that escarpment? This would help date the Flood! From people in the area, Lyell learned that the falls were eroding about three feet a year. Lyell changed it to one foot a year, and did a simple math calculation. The result was that Niagara Falls has been flowing for 35,000 years!
But Lyell did not tell the truth. When he put this report in s later edition of his book, it turned many people toward evolutionary theory. We now know that four to five feet a year is the actual erosion rate of Niagara Falls. On this basis, if rain had always fallen as it does now (with no massive Flood in the past to more quickly erode it), the falls would only be 7-9,000 years old. Lyell's book, first published in 1830-33, became the standard work on geology for over a century. In 1848, Lyell was knighted and became "Sir Charles." The tile made his book even more influential.
At the time when Lyell wrote, the words "mutability," "transmutation," "development," and "progression" were being used by liberal thinkers as evolutionary terms. Lyell was careful to avoid all such words. On paper he carefully maintained the unchanging species, in order to keep peace with the religious leaders in England and Scotland. But, secretly, he urged *Charles Darwin to write his book. Next to the publication of his own book, Lyle's most influential activity was his friendship with Charles Darwin. He led out in getting Darwin to write a book that would fully proclaim the idea that species evolved from one another. He wanted Darwin to do that which he himself did not have the nerve to do: openly publish against creationism.
"Darwin and Wallace were Lyell's intellectual children. Both would have feigned to be what they were without the Principles of Geology to guide them." *Charles Lyell," in Scientific American, August 1959, p. 108.
" 'I always feel as if my books came out of Lyell's brain, and that I never acknowledged this sufficiently. . for I have always thought that the great merit of Principles (of Geology) was that it altered the whole tone of one's mind . .' At the time of Lyell's death Darwin said, 'I never forget that almost everything I have done in science I owe to the study of his great works.' " *Charles Darwin, in *Francis Darwin (ed.), More Letters of Charles Darwin (1903), Vol, 2, p. 115.
"At first Darwin was a disciple of Lyell, but in the end Lyell was a disciple of Darwin. But it took time, for as one of Darwin's biographers expressed, as a gentleman Lyell resented the idea of coming from a monkey or ape ancestry. [*Henshaw Ward, Charles Darwin (192, pp. 300, 304.) That is one problem that Darwin did not have. In the sixth chapter of his Descent of Man, he stated plainly several times not only that human beings came from monkeys but even which kind of monkeys he thought were ancestral to man!" Bolton Davidheiser, "Charles Darwin Centennial, " in Creation Research Society Quarterly, December 1975, p. 185.
WALLACE *Alfred Russel Wallace (18231913) is considered by a number of historians to have been the one who developed the theory that Charles Darwin published. *Darwin's friends, *Lyell and *Joseph Hooker, carefully worked out circumstances to enable *Darwin to pirate *Wallace's findings and publish them under his own name. Like *Lamarck, *Wallace came from poverty, had many difficulties in his life, and was rather quickly forgotten after he died. After doing surveying work for a time, at the age of 25, he went with a friend in 1848 to the South American jungles to collect rare insects for collectors in England. There was good money in this, for wealthy people liked to purchase biologic collections. After four years in the jungle, much of it spent alone, on the return trip the ship he was on caught fire and sanktaking with it his four-year collections. He then went to the Malayan jungles alone and spent eight years amassing more material. Arriving back in 1862 at the age of 39, he made a small fortune on the collections, but invested it unwisely and promptly lost it all.
Fearful that Wallace might reveal the "borrowing," when Wallace was 58 Charles Darwin intervened and obtained for him a small pension of 200 pounds a year. This helped relieve his poverty a little. The same year, Darwin spent 223 pounds just on meat for his own family, and 23 years earlier, Darwin had stolen Wallace's material and published it under his own name, obtaining the royalties that should have gone to Wallace. Lyell recognized that Wallace's material needed to go out under Darwin's name, since Darwin was socially accepted because of his wealth, even though neither one had gone to college. Wallace was poor and was known to be deeply involved in spiritism and séances. He had been initiated into the black arts by natives in the South American jungles. (Darwin had been introduced to spiritism during his five-year trip on the Beagle, but this involvement was not publicly known.) Wallace was also an advocate of phrenology and some other peculiar ideas.
In 1875, Wallace came out fully for spiritism, and, interestingly enough, also for another stepchild of evolutionary theory: Marxism. (More on Marxism as an outgrowth of Darwinism in chapter 33, Evolution and Society.)
In 1855, while in Sarawak, Malay, Wallace wrote a paper, On the Law which has Regulated the Introduction of New Species, in which he set forth the principle points of evolution, except for how the species change. He was not able to figure how this happened, which should come as no great surprise for no one since his time has ever really figured out how it could have happened either.
Wallace said that the species changed in some manner by which one species descended from another in a manner which we cannot prove today. THIS is exactly what modern evolution teaches.
In February 1858, while in a fever on the small island of Temate in the Molaccas, this man, guided by spirits, conceived the idea that the species changeover occurred by "the survival of the fittest." What Wallace did not recognize is that "survival of the fittest" proves nothing for evolution. Put eight dogs on a desert island with only a little food. Which dog will survive the longest? The fittest. Which one was that? The one that survived the longest. We have here circular reasoning. And that last dog; what about him? He was still a dog to his dying day; he did not change into a goat, or a cat, or a lion. The phrase, "survival of the fittest," says nothing about the evolutionary process, much less proving it.
In the first edition of his book, Darwin regarded "natural selection" and "survival of the fittest" as different ideas, but by his sixth edition in 1872, he decided they both meant the same thing, and he wrote that "survival of the fittest" was the "more accurate" of the two. Since then, biologist have for decades used the term "natural selection" instead, since the other phrase indicates savage living and is obviously circular in reasoning.
A few days after the fever subsided, Wallace wrote his Ternate paper, with the term "survival of the fittest." (Historians tell us, however, that Wallace obtained the phrase from *Herbert Spencer, who initially coined the phrase.
Here was the long-sought-for key. Wallace wrote that this was the mechanism by which evolution accomplished its work. Upon seeing the paper, Lyell immediately had a copy sent to Darwin. The date was June 1858. Darwin instantly set to work and wrote feverishly to get his book into shape. He put together scraps of this and scraps of that. He used a yardstick to make his measurements. The heap of odds and ends was published a year later under the title, On the Origin of Species. Even this title was taken from Wallace's Ternate paper, but Wallace's name was only referred to casually three times in the book. In 1980, *Arnold C. Brackman, in his book, A Delicate Arrangement, established that Darwin plagiarized Wallace's material.
Although Wallace stood with Darwin on the evolution of plants and animals, he differed on the evolution of man. Wallace's view was that "the unseen spirit world" had guided in the development of mankind.
CHARLES DARWIN Here are three statements that serve as a fitting introduction to this brief biography of *Charles Darwin:
"False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for everyone takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness. And when this is done, one path towards error is closed and the road to truth is often at the same time opened." *Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection. in Relation to Sex (2 vols.; 1871).
"With me the horrid doubt always arises, whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the minds of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" *Charles Darwin, Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (Francis Darwin, ed.; 1903).
"Long before the reader has arrived at this part of my work, a crowd of difficulties will have occurred to him. Some of them, are so serious that to this day I can hardly reflect on them without in some degree becoming staggered." *Charles Darwin, The Origin of the Species (1860; quoted from Harvard Classics 1908 edition; vol. 11) p. 178
*Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) was born into wealth, and was able to have a life of ease. In 1876 he wrote his autobiography, but it, as well as his correspondence, was heavily edited by his son, *Francis, at the urging of Charles' widow, Emma. It was not until 1958 when an unexpurgated edition was published by Darwin's grand-daughter, Lady Barlow, that it was discovered that Francis had removed 6,000 words. In addition, some key correspondence of Darwin's (for the years 1856-1859) had long been omitted, but in 1961 this was found in some old notebooks, among the private papers of Charles Lyell. All of this will be found in Brackman's book, A Delicate Arrangement.
As a young man, Charles helped his physician father for two years as an unpaid assistant, by mixing herbs and chemicals. He also learned some diagnosing methods. This was later to be the preparation for his lifework of trying to locate evolutionary processes.
Two years of medical school at Edinburgh University was enough for him. He did not like the profession. It was the only scientific training he ever received. His father decided to send the young man off to Cambridge prep school for theology training, so he could obtain a profitable income upon graduation. After three years he obtained a B.A. in 1831.
"After two years [at Edinburgh], when it was quite apparent that he was totally unsuited for medical life, he returned to Shrewsbury. His family now decided that he should study for the Church. Charles did not seem to object violently, so 1828 found him in Cambridge. His social life, however, seemed to take him away from religious study. He mixed with young men of whom his father certainly disapproved and he enjoyed wine, song and cards to the full. The outcome of these days was that insufficient study rewarded him with merely a BA pass degree." *International Wildlife Encyclopedia Vol. 20 (1970), p. 2700.
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Darwin's father still did not know what to do with him. Charles seemed to have no incentive in life. But just then, a friend of Charles at Cambridge (John Henslow) learned that the H.M.S. Beagle would be sailing in December on a five-year exploratory trip around the world. Through the influence of wealthy relatives, young Darwin was given the position of official scientist (at that time called "naturalist") for the ship. His unpaid task would be to collect rock and wildlife samples.
Some of his most memorable experiences concern the very short time that the ship stopped at the Galapagos Islands. There he saw the little finches, which in later years would be called "Darwin's finches." Thinking back on it all, he would later decide that they had evolved, and were all different species. Yet all were varieties of a single finch species (see chapters 13 and 15, Natural Selection and Species Evolution, for more on Darwin's finches.)
For additional information see the appendix topic, " 2 - Darwin's Expedition and Illness."
Upon arriving back in England, he spent two years writing an account of the journey. Charles was counseled to select a wife from "superior" stock, so he married his first cousin. This would agree with Lamarck's views, which Darwin thought highly of. But such close marriages can express mutant genes, resulting in physical and mental disorders in the offspring. And so it happened to Charles' own children. One girl died after birth, another at 10. His oldest daughter had a prolonged breakdown at 15. Three of his six sons became semi-invalids, and his last son was born mentally retarded and died 19 months after birth.
DARWIN'S BOOK in spite of the fact that his grandfather, *Erasmus Darwin, fathered two illegitimate daughters. Charles always admired him. Grandfather Darwin was the one who had written the two-volume Zoonomia, which made him well known in England at that time. Charles later had a German translation of Erasmus' book published. In Zoonomia, the kernel of evolution was clearly spelled out. Gradually Charles was to decide that expanding on the same idea in a book of his own might make him famous as well.
On January 11, 1844, Darwin revealed his plan to publish such a book in a personal letter to *Joseph Hooker, a lifelong friend.. But the years passed, and Darwin dawdled at the task. He was full of theories, but he could not find in nature the evidence he needed.
Learning of Alfred Wallace's ideas from the papers he had sent from Sarawak and Ternate, *Charles Lyell and *Joseph Hooker told *Charles Darwin in 1858 to drop his plan for a "big book" and get something into print quickly, utilizing *Wallace's ideas and those of *Asa Gray (both were safely out of the way, with Wallace in the Malayan jungle and Gray in America).
In what they described in personal correspondence as a "delicate arrangement," it was arranged that a paper by Darwin was read to the Royal Society, while Wallace's was held back until later. Priorities for the ideas thus having been taken care of, Darwin set to work to finish up his book.
Darwin's book, On the Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, came off the press on November 24,1859. The very title reveals the viciousness of the underlying concept; a concept which was to lead directly to two of the worst wars in the history of mankind (see chapter 33, Evolution and Society).
The word, "evolution," appears nowhere in the first edition; Darwin used it first in his Descent of Man (1971), and in the 6th edition of Origin (1872). However, "evolved" is the last word in all editions of Origin. "With a book as with a fine day," Darwin wrote to Huxley in 1863, "one likes to end with a glorious sunset," as he had tried to do with Origin's concluding paragraph. In it he portrays the "grandeur" of thinking we are all descended from worms.
"Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and earth, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the axed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved." *Charles Darwin, Origin of the Species (1959), last paragraph.
When it came off the press, Adam Sedgwick, one of the leading geologists of England, and the one who befriended young Darwin years before and introduced him to the subject, wrote this:
"I have read your book with more pain than pleasure. Parts I laughed at till my sides were sore; others I read with absolute sorrow, because I think them utterly false and grievously mischievous . . You have deserted the true method of induction and started off in machinery as wild as Bishop Wilkin's locomotive that was to sail with us to the Moon." Adam Sedgewick, Letter to *Charles Darwin, 1860.
Sedgewick recognized the problem: the book was heavy on theory and light on fact. "Induction" is reasoning from facts to theory. Charles instead decided to reason from theory to facts, without having found any.
In preparation for the book, Darwin read scientific papers, talked with people, reminisced about things he had seen while on the Beagle, and did some homemade experiments. And that is about it. He wrote letters asking such odd questions as "At what age do nestling pigeons have their tail feathers sufficiently developed to be counted?" and "Did you ever see a black greyhound (or any sub-breed) with tan feet and a tan coloured spot over inner corner of each eye? I want such a case, and such must [emphasis his] exist because theory tells me it ought."
In his "scientific notebooks" we find comments like these: "Strong odour of negroes a point of real repugnance." "My father says, on authority of Mr. Wynne, the bitch's [female dog's] offspring is affected by previous marriages with impure breeds." "The cat had its tail cut off at Shrewsbury, and its kittens had all short tails."
This is science? Darwin was a scientist? Far from it. Darwin would ask people for their opinion on various matters, and write their answers down as scientific facts.
"All too often, however, the practical wisdom of these men [that Darwin listened to] is revealed to be the fruit of prejudice [rather] than of mature experience. And unfortunately Darwin could not distinguish between the two." *Gertrude Himmelfarb, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution (1959), p. 104.
"Because his theory of evolution depended on the inheritance of characters that could be selected by nature, he made some effort to study inheritance. He joined a pigeon fancier's club in order to get first-hand experience with crossing different varieties. In his book, Origin of the Species, he tells about some of the results he got from his experiments, but he never understood them." Henry Morris, et al., Science and Creation (1971), p. 38.
In his frenzied search for evidence of evolution, Darwin analyzed the color of pigeon feathers, talked to farmers, and chased after bugs. Here is a humorous incident from among his amateur ramblings:
"One day, on tearing off some old bark [from a tree], I saw two rare beetles, and seized one in each hand. Then I saw a third and new kind, which I could not bear to lose, so I popped the one which I held in my right hand into my mouth. Alas, it ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I was forced to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as was the third." *Charles Darwin, quoted in *Isaac Asimov (ed.), Isaac Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations, p. 81.
For the scientific book that was to revolutionize the modern world, Darwin used these scientific instruments: a yardstick that the rest of his household used; a simple microscope (compound microscopes bothered him); a seven-foot rod for measuring plants (made for him by the village carpenter); a scales of poor-quality for weighing; a chemical balance that he and his brother used in the shed when he was 16; a badly-graduated apothecary's glass; two micrometers that, after publication, he learned gave different readings from each other. It was also later learned that he converted from inches to millimeters by aid of a figure from an old book, which was inaccurate. Darwin was not a professional scientist, but an amateur, and one doing poorer quality work than most in his time.
When Darwin's book was taken by Lyell to the printer, John Murray, he read it and was doubtful of its scientific value and its sale value. Murray asked the editor of the highly-respected Quarterly Review for his opinion. The reply was that Darwin ought to write a book on pigeons and that would give him the fame he wanted.
At the same time, Darwin himself was fearful to see the book go into print, and told Murray that he wouldn't mind if it didn't. When the printer's proofs were sent to him, Darwin took the opportunity to rewrite whole sections.
In his first letter to Lyell after the book had gone to press, Darwin confided:
"For myself, also, I rejoice profoundly; for thinking of so many cases of men pursuing an illusion for years, and often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a phantasy." *Charles Darwin, Life and Letters, Vol. 2, p. 229 (1887).
Contrary to the statements of evolutionists that "it was completely sold out the first day," Darwin's book had very slow sales for both its first and second editions.
Darwin's Origin of the Species was something of a laughing stock among knowledgeable scientists, but it had what some of them wanted: a clear out-in-the-open, current statement in favor of species change. So in spite of its imperfections they tried to capitalize on it. But even today Darwin's book is an embarrassment to the scientific world. It is rare that you will find it in the bookstores.
Here is what you will find in this book
1- Darwin would cite authorities that he did not mention.
2 - Repeatedly he said that his book was "only an abstract" and that "a fuller edition" was soon to be published which would contain the scientific support lacking in this one. Although he later wrote other books, that "fuller edition" of Species, was never printed. The reason is simple enough: try as he might for the remainder of his life, he could find no such proof. No one since has found it either.
3 - Unnamed authorities were referred to in support of his positions, but we are never told who those authorities were.
4 - When he did name some eminent person, it was usually information from personal letters, or opinions passed on to him by third parties about what they thought so-and-so said.
5 - He almost never quoted a scientific publication, but instead just gave the expert's name.
6 - From time to time, he would mention that "for lack of space" he would not give the source of a point. Yet the book itself had over 200,000 words, and scientific sources would have added only a few pages.
7 - Phrases indicating the hypothetical nature of his Ideas were prominent: "It might have been,," "maybe," "may perhaps;" "but if this has occurred;" "probably;" "it is conceivable that." A favorite of his was "Let us take an imaginary example,"
8 - He would suggest a possibility, and later refer back to it as a fact with the words, "as we have already demonstrated previously." Elsewhere he would suggest a possible series of events, and then conclude by assuming that that proved the point.
9 - He relied heavily upon stories, instead of facts. Confusing examples would be cited, and the impression is given that he was trying to confuse the reader. Maybe he was too confused to know what he was doing.
10 - He would use specious and devious arguments. Much time would be spent suggesting possible explanations of why the facts he need were not available. This was a pattern especially used in trying to explain away the gaps in the fossil record.
Here an example of his reasoning: Darwin suggested that species must have been changing quickly in other parts of the world where men had not yet examined the strata. Later these changed species traveled over to the Western World, to be found in strata there as new species so species were changing on the other side of the world, and that was why species in the process of change were not found on our side!
With thinking like this, who needs science?
Strange notions were also to be found in Darwin's book. We have already mentioned some of them. Here are a couple more:
Darwin was unable to explain the origin of variations. The best he could come up with was a variation of Lamarck's theory of inheritance of acquired characteristics, which he called panpenesis. According to it, an organ affected by the environment would respond by giving off particles that he called gemmules. These particles supposedly helped determine hereditary characteristics. The environment would affect an organ, gemmules would drop out of the organ, and the gemmules would travel to the sex organs where they would affect the cells No, you will not find that idea in any scientific work today; scientists are ashamed of the fact that it comes from Darwin. They are ashamed of a lot that came from Darwin, and they are ashamed of the fact that, in the century of research from his time to our own, they have not come up with anything better.
"One of the most damaging omissions to a complete theory of evolution was the lack of knowledge at that time of the mechanism of heredity and the origin of variations through genetic mutation. To fill this void, Darwin proposed a `panpenesis theory,' according to which all parts of the body generate minute particles called 'gemmules,' which were carried by the blood. " *W. StansW, Science of Evolution (197, p. 38.
Would you like to know more about Charles Darwin's amazing book? Here are three good sources: (1)*'Norman McBeth, Darwin Retried (1974); (2)*Gertrude Himmelfarb, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution (1959); (3) *Arnold C. Brackman, A Delicate Arrangement (1980).
It is of interest that a careful scientist, *W.R. Thompson, wrote an introduction to the 1956 reissue of Darwin's Species Thompson's introduction was a scathing attack on Darwin's book.
"The success of Darwinism was accompanied by a decline in scientific integrity. This is already evident in the reckless statements of Haeckel and in the shifty, devious and histrionic argumentation of T.H. Huxley." *W.R Thompson, Introduction to Charles Darwin, Origin of the Species (1958 edition).
(More information on *Haeckel and *Huxley will be given later in this chapter.)
In 1971 another reissue of Species came out. For this one, the evolutionist, *L. Harrison Matthews wrote a new introduction. In it he stated that "much of Professor Thompson's criticism of Darwin's theory is unanswerable." Matthews then proceeds to add more damaging facts to the already damaged case.
"[Adequate] proof has never been produced, though a few not entirely convincing examples are claimed to have been founds [The peppered moth example is later mentioned.] The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an unproved theory, is it then a science or a faith? Belief in the theory is thus exactly parallel to the belief in special creation, both are concepts which believers know to be true but neither, up to the present, has been capable of proof." *L Harrison Matthews, Introduction to Charles Darwin, Origin of the Species (1971 edition).
What a situation! We have here the book that is the basis of evolutionary theory, yet the book is little better than worthless as far as its scientific accuracy is concerned, even in the estimate of evolutionists! Yet this is the book that is supposed to be the bedrock and proof of evolutionary theory! And what has followed that book? a century of more confused theories, fallacious comments, reversed positions, clever hoaxes, ignorant statements, inaccurate "proofs," and scientific heresy.
Upon his death in April 1882, *Charles Darwin was, by parliamentary petition, placed in Westminster Abbey, where he lies near the tomb of Isaac Newton. *Charles Lyell was already there, and soon thereafter, his other evolutionary friend, *Joseph Hooker was buried in that place of highest honor in Britain.
It is well known that *Charles Darwin never had a day of schooling in the sciences, but the following reveals that Darwin was a self-taught expert at destroying faith in the Bible:
"Lyell is most firmly convinced that he has shaken the faith in the Deluge far more efficiently by never having said a word against the Bible, than it he had acted otherwise . . I have lately red Money's Life of Voltaire and he insists strongly that direct attacks on Christianity (even when written with the wonderful force and vigor of Voltaire) produce little permanent effect: real good seems only to follow the slow and silent side attacks." *Charles Darwin, Letters dated October 22 and 24, 1878, quoted in *Gertrude Himmelfarb, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution (1982), p. 387.
Some of the readers of this book will be members of a church. Are there men in your denomination who are using "slow and silent side attacks" to destroy your faith and your loved ones' faith in God and in the Bible?
Before concluding this section, it is of interest that certain men in history have deeply hated God, and then, engaging in spiritism, have been used of Satan to produce evil teachings that have destroyed large numbers of people, or engage in warfare that annihilated millions. In connection with this, we think of men like *Sigmund Freud and *Adolph Hitler. It is not commonly known that *Charles Darwin, while a naturalist aboard the Beagle, was initiated into witchcraft in South America by natives. He took part in their ceremonies and, as a result, something happened to him. It was after his return to England that he feverishly began researching and working with others in an effort to destroy faith in God. Satan not only entered his mind, but affected his body as well.
"Charles Darwin (1809-62), following his journey on HMS Beagle, developed a chronic and incapacitating illness, characterized by lassitude, palpitations, headaches, sleeplessness, and tremulousness. There has been much speculation concerning the underlying cause of these symptoms. Analysts have seen them as psychosomatic." *Random House Encyclopedia (1977), p. 768.
Another strange fact is that, in later years, Darwin would sadly remark that he could no longer appreciate beautiful music. He went to his death under a depression that he could not shake.
For additional information see the appendix topics " 2 - Darwin's Expeditions and Illness."
MENDEL Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) was a creationist who lived and worked near Brunn, Czechoslovakia (now Brno, Czechoslovakia). He was a science and math teacher. After reading about the confusion, errors, and misrepresentations of Darwin, it is refreshing to again view a scientist at work. Instead of trying to gain the limelight by spouting great theories, the true scientists are those who quietly work to learn truthful facts about nature, and by those facts improve life for us all. Mendel bred garden peas and studied the results of crossing various varieties. He began his work in 1856 and concluded it within eight years.
In 1865 he reported his research in the Journal of the Brunn Society for the Study of Natural Science. The journal was distributed to 120 libraries, including some in England and eleven in the United States. The ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1892, Vol. 12, p. 426) mentioned his article. Yet his research was totally ignored by the scientific community until someone finally made an issue of it in 1900. It was not that his studies were unnoticed; they just were not wanted. By the late 1800s, leaders in science were moving into the Darwinian orbit. This is an example of what was to follow for over a century. Scientific facts that did not fit into the evolutionary theory were frequently quietly set aside.
His experiments clearly showed that one species could not transmute into another one. A genetic barrier existed that could not be bridged.
Mendel's work laid the foundation for modern genetics. His discoveries effectively destroyed the basis for species evolution. From time to time, evolutionists peer at that wreckage, then hurry away to dream up new theories that might somehow put the pieces back together.
Mendel's work is of such monumental importance, that we provide several quotations here regarding his contribution:
"After seven year's work on the genetics of peas, he [Mendel] read his report to the Natural History Society of Brunn [Austria], his home town, in 1865. Modem scientists agree that his report gave definite results in an orderly manner, but the minutes of the meeting report that there were no comments. The minutes also report that a member of the Society mentioned a book written by a certain Englishman named Darwin six years before, and that is what they talked about. And that is what all Europe talked about for 35 years while Mendel's paper lay on a shelf. Now that paper has become the foundation of genetics." William J. Tinkle, "Genetics Favors Creation," in Creation Research Society Quarterly, December 1977, p. 155.
"As a result, the most keenly interested failed to realize that the answers to many of the unexplained problems which Darwin had raised were found in his [Mendel's] work on garden peas." *A.M. Winchester, Genetics: A Survey of the Principles of Heredity (1966), p. 33.
Genetics began with the work of Gregor Mendel, and the study of genetics was to become a basic factor in overthrowing evolutionary theory. Yet, oddly enough, *Darwin's peculiar theories have for over a century overshadowed Mendel's careful research.
For more on Mendel and his research, see an appendix section on chapter 10 (DNA and Protein).
PASTEUR Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) made major contributions in chemistry, medicine, and industry. From 1849 onward, he did most of his research. In the process of studying fermentation, he performed his famous 1861 experiment which disproved the theory of spontaneous generation. Life does not arise from non-living materials. This experiment was very important for, up to that time, a majority of scientists believed in spontaneous generation.
We discussed spontaneous generation in greater detail in chapter 9, Primitive Environment. Though evolutionists do not care to admit it, without spontaneous generation, it would be impossible for plants and animals ever to have originated apart from a definite act of Creation.
"With spontaneous generation discredited, biologists were left with no theory of the origin of life at all, and with what seemed like no possibility of propounding even a plausible hypothesis." *Groulach end V. Edson Adarns, Plants: An Introduction to Modem Biology (1967), p. 585.
THE ORGUEIL METEORITE The history of evolutionary advance is full of hoaxes. It is of interest that one of them occurred about the time that Pasteur disproved spontaneous generation. It was hoped that if life could not originate on earth through spontaneous generation, perhaps the public could be fooled into thinking that plant and animal life came from outer space!
"A fragment of a meteorite that fell in southwest France more than a century ago has proved on recent inspection to be ingeniously doctored with terrestrial organic material . .
"The hoaxer had apparently moistened the meteorite fragment until it was soft, inserted the various foreign bodies and then, using glue as a binder, faked a surface crust of the kind produced by atmospheric heating to replace the one destroyed by his manipulations. .
"The Orgueil fall had occurred only five weeks after Pasteur had delivered his stormy and widely reported defense of divine creation as the only possible initiator of life." *Scientific American, January 1965, p. 52.
As we turn the pages of the "advance" of evolutionary thought, we are continually confronted with frauds.
SPENCER *Herbert Spencer (1 820-1903), along with certain other men (*Friedrich Nietzche, *Karl Marx, *Sigmund Freud, *John Dewey, etc.) introduced evolutionary modes and morality into social fields (sociology, psychology, education, warfare, economics, etc.), with devastating results in the 20th century. (See chapters 33-34 for much more on this.)
Just as it was the spiritist, *Wallace, who devised the basic (but erroneous) evolutionary mechanism which *Darwin pilfered. So it was *Spencer, another spiritist, who initially came up with the name "evolution," and gave the term "survival of the fittest" to *Wallace and *Darwin.
"As with 'survival of the fittest,' it was the British philosopher Herbert Spencer who originated the term 'evolution.' " *R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 159 (cf. 424).
In later years, even the leading evolutionists of the time, such as *Huxley and *Darwin, became tired of the fact that *Spencer could do nothing but theorize, and knew so little about science or real-life facts.
HUXLEY *Thomas Huxley (1825-1895) was the man *Darwin called his "bulldog." Huxley thought that skepticism was the answer to all of mankind's problems. In the latter part of the 19th century, while Haeckel labored earnestly in the cause on the European continent, Huxley was Darwin's primary advocate in England.
"Up to that time, prevailing thought held that man was somehow 'outside' of nature, imbued with spiritual qualities setting him totally apart from apes and monkeys. A famous remark by a bishop's wife during that period says it all: 'Descended from the apes My dear, let us hope that it is not true, but if it is, let us pray that it will not become generally known.' It was only after Huxley took the plunge [by writing Man's Place in Nature (1863)] and made it 'generally known' that Darwin was willing to put out his own Descent of Man in 1871." *R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 291.
*Thomas Huxley had two famous grandsons, both of whom were well-known mid-20th century evolutionist writers: *Julian Huxley (a biologist) and his brother *Aldous Huxley (a novelist). Their admissions are frequently quoted in this series of books.
HAECKEL *Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) obtained degrees in both medicine and zoology, and taught in the University of Jena, Germany, for 44 years, from 1861 to 1909. He became the most zealous advocate of Darwinism on the continent during the 19th century. For additional biographical information on *Haeckel, see chapter 22 (Vestiges and Recapitulation).
Haeckel outlived many of the 19th-century evolutionary spokesmen, and early in the 20th, he founded the Monist League, in order to purify Germany. He said his nation was on the brink of social disaster unless it: "brought itself into harmony with the laws of biology" by ridding itself of inferior races. (More on this in chapter 33, Evolution and Society).
GRAY *Asa Gray did not figure prominently in the European development of evolutionary theory, although he contributed some speculations which, along with those of *Wallace, *Charles Darwin plagiarized. We mention Gray here because, at the time when Darwin was writing his books, Gray was the leading evolutionary promoter in America. A botany teacher at Harvard University, Gray spent his time lecturing and writing on behalf of the evolutionary cause.
Asa Gray also has the distinction of being the first leading theistic evolutionary advocate in America. Asa Gray was Presbyterian, and found that he could more easily inculcate his teachings in the minds of others by calling them "creationism." Yet, as do modern Protestant and Catholic theistic evolutionists, he taught as "Christian principles" the evolutionary basics: no Creation Week, long ages for earth's history, geological theories are more reliable than scientific facts or statements in Genesis, etc.
At that time Harvard University, under the leadership of *Charles W. Eliot as president, led out in proclaiming evolutionary theory to the intellectuals of the nation. Other American colleges soon followed in its wake.
THE X CLUB There was a special secret society in London which worked to further evolutionary thought, and suppress scientific opposition to it. It was powerful; all scientific papers considered by the Royal Society were first approved by this small group of nine members. Working through its members and their contacts, it also had a powerful influence over other leading British scientific associations.
"In London, Thomas Huxley's X Club, an influential group of nine men, who were notified of meetings by the delivery of an algebraic formula and who always dined immediately before meetings of the Royal Society, may have suppressed Mendel's work. The Club mustered a Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Treasurer and three successive Presidents of the Royal Society, six Presidents of the British Association (for the Advancement of Science), and several officers of the Geological, Linnaean and Ethological Societies.
"It is certain that the X Club, which was strongly evolutionist in character, not only influenced the appointments made for senior positions in the newly formed universities of the Victorian era but also, until its demise in the 1890s, practically controlled the business of the Royal Society, it never elected a tenth member: Busk, Fankland, Hirst, Hooker, Huxley, Lubbock, Herbert Spencer, Spotiswoode and Tyndall were its men." Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution (1984), p. 84.
"Their dinners were usually held directly before meetings of the Royal Society. 'But what do they do?' asked a curious journalist. `they run British science,' a professor replied, 'and on the whole, they don't do it badly.' " *R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 467.
THE OXFORD DEBATE In June 1860, only seven months after the publication of *Darwin's Origin of the Species, a special meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science was held at Oxford University. That meeting marked a major turning point in England, just as the 1925 Scopes Trial In the United States would be the turning point in North America. Scientific facts had little to do with either event; both were just battles between personalities, and finally won by evolution through ongoing ridicule afterward.
It was generally agreed that this new theory would be the major topic of discussion at the upcoming meeting. Two of the listed papers to be discussed were to be in defense of Darwinian theory.
Bishop Samuel Wilberforce was the Anglican bishop of Oxford University, an able mathematician, professor at Oxford, and a powerful public speaker. He decided he must be present to speak in opposition to evolution.
*Thomas Huxley, *Darwin's "bulldog," had tirelessly lectured in the cities of England in defense of Darwin's theories, and also attended. He had not planned to be there that day, but *Chambers, the spiritualist was impressed to find him and tell him he must attend.
At the Saturday, June 30,1860 session of the meeting, a major address was to be given on the effects of Darwin's views on Europe. It was expected that Wilberforce would speak, and the place was packed with more than 700 people. Then Wilberforce arose and for more than half an hour he vigorously attacked evolution. His presentation was outstanding and the audience was apparently with him. But then Wilberforce turned and rhetorically asked Huxley a humorous question; Huxley stood to his feet and made a play on words which brought so much laughter from those in attendance, that, oddly enough, the cause of evolution was afterward considered a foe not to be challenged.
"Then he turned to Huxley, who was sitting with him on the platform. It was at this point that he put his famous question, whether it was through his grandfather a his grandmother that Huxley chimed descent from an ape. At the bishop's question, Huxley is said to have clasped the knee of the individual next to him and whispered, 'The Lord has delivered him into my hands.' Working up to a climax, Huxley shouted that he would feel no shame in having an ape as an ancestor, but that he would be ashamed of a brilliant man who plunged into scientific questions of which he knew nothing
"No one present look down what was said. The only reports of this famous meeting have come from the later recollections of those who were presets." John W. Klotz, "Science and Religion, " in Studies in Creation (1985), pp. 45-48.
At Huxley's remark, the entire room went wild, with some yelling one thing and others something else. Admiral Fitzroy, the captain of the Beagle who had sailed with *Darwin for five years, stood up, waved a Bible aloft and shouted over the tumult that it, rather than the viper he had harbored on his ship, was the true and unimpeachable authority.
An in-depth analysis of that debate will be found in Richard Wrangham's article in the March 1980 issue of Creation Research Society Quarterly.
BEECHER *Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) was the leading liberal preacher in America in the 1870s. Extremely popular, he set himself to the objective of bringing together Christianity and evolutionary theory, without antagonizing worldly Christians. He said that, since it was inefficient for God to make all the species separately, He let them all evolve from bacteria and worms over millions of years.
Speaking from the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, New York, he was acclaimed "the most admired man in America after Abraham Lincoln." Then the man who said we are only animals was caught in adulterous relations, and the resulting sex scandal destroyed his career. The affair was with the wife of his best friend, Tifton, who then took him to court. During the civil suit, *Beecher vacillated, gave evasive and inconclusive testimony. The newspapers of America carried the story.
CHALLENGER DISCOVERS THE TRUTH ABOUT FOSSILS Another example of ignoring evidence contrary to evolution, similar to that accorded the Mendel article, occurred in 1872-1876 when the British ship HMS Challenger took part in a four-year scientific expedition of ocean-bottom dredgings to examine sediments and find fossil specimens, One of its discoveries was that no fossils were forming on the bottom of the ocean. No fossils are forming on land or in the sea, so how could uniformitarianism explain the gradual production of billions of fossils in thousands of feet of sedimentary strata throughout the world? Yet this discovery by Challenger was quietly set aside. Theories and hoaxes favoring evolutionary theory were proclaimed; facts refuting it were, when found, kept hidden.
BATHYBlUS HAECKELII
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THE MONERA Here is another example of not revealing the truth to the public. Did you ever hear of Bathybius haeckelii? This astounding microbe, dredged by the hundreds from the bottom of the sea by Challenger, proved evolution to be true! The Darwinists leaped for joy. They named the odd creature after the leading evolutionary promoter on the continent. Earlier, in 1866, *Haeckel had predicted that shapeless blobs of protoplasm ought to be found which had no nuclei, but instead reproduced only by fission. That same year he named the not-yet-found microbe the monera (The present writer suspects that Haeckel's friends had already found it in bay dredging, and he then gave his prediction that it would someday be found.)
Two years later, Huxley said the monera had been found in mud samples dredged up from the depths of the North Atlantic, and he proudly named the new creature in honor of Haeckel (Bathybius haeckelii; *Haeckel's deep life). The evolutionists were jubilant and published the news widely. A year later, *Thomson wrote:
"This mud was actually alive; it stuck together in lumps, as if there were white of egg mixed with it; and the gisiry mass proved, under the microscope, to be a living seroode. Professor Huxley regards this as a distinct creature, and calls it 'Bathybius. " *W Thomson, "On the Depths of the Sea," in Annals and Magazine of Natural History, (1889).4 series, 4, pp. 112-124.
Excitedly, the scientists of England sent out the Challenger to find more evidences of evolution.
Back in those days, living samples were dropped into jars of strong alcohol to preserve them for later study. This was also routinely done with the mud samples. Mud would be placed in a jar, some alcohol would be poured in as a preservative, and later the mud would be taken out and examined in the hope of finding tiny animal life.
In 1875 a chemist on the Challenger discovered that B. haeckelii was nothing more than a chemical precipitate of sulphate of lime (gypsum)! It formed when the seawater and mud was mixed with alcohol. But his discovery was carefully hidden from the public, although it was reported in the Quarterly Journal of the Microscopical Science and at the Royal Society the following year. A French scientist, A. deLapparent, in 1878 unveiled the deception for what it was, but his article was never translated into English until N.A. Rupke did it in 1971and exposed the fraud. Why were not the evolutionists honest enough to expose the matter during the previous 93 years? Evolution is a shrewd deception, and only repeated deceptions can maintain it.
"At the end of the year 1872, an expedition was sent out with HMS Challenger in order to make a series of soundings and dredgings in the three great ocean basins. In the early part of the cruise, attempts were made again and again to obtain B. Haeckelii; however, with no definite result. J. Murray, naturalist to the expedition, observed that a sample of deep-sea mud, when placed in alcohol, assumed the aspect of B. Haeckelii!
"Murray observed this phenomenon in such quantity that, it was really of the supposed organic nature, the presence of organic matter should be easy to detect. However, J.Y. Buchanan, chemist to the expedition, did not find satisfactory evidence of it. What had happened to the reputed B. Haeckelii? Buchanan concluded [in his report]:
"'There remained, then, but one conclusion, namely, that the body which Mr. Murray had observed was not an organic body at all; and on examining it and its mode of preparation, I determined it to be sulfate of lime, which had been eliminated from the sea-water, always present in the mud, as an amorphous precipitate on the addition of spirit of wine. The substance when analyzed consisted of sulphuric acid and lime; and when dissolved in water and the solution allowed to evaporate, it crystallized in the well-known form of gypsum, the crystals being all alike, and there being an amorphous matter amongst them.'
"In a letter to Huxley by Wyville Thomson, dated June, 1875, the tragic end of B. Haeckelii was made known." N.A. Rupke, "A Summary of the Monera Fallacy" in W.E. Lemmerts (ed.), Scientific Studies in Special Creation (1971), pp. 176-177.
WEISMANN *Lamarck's notion of "the inheritance of acquired characteristics" was ruined by the careful research of August Friedrich Leopold Weismann (1834-1914).
Weismann, a German biologist, cut off the tails of 901 white mice in 19 successive generations, and each new generation was born with a full-length tail. His final report stated that no reduction in tail length had occurred, and that the final generation had tails not one whit shorter than the first.
In 1883 he reported that the germ cells, which were eventually to produce sperm or ova, separated from the embryo at an early stage and remained relatively unspecialized. This was another evidence for his theory of "continuity of germ plasm." He decided that the germ cells had an independent existence from that of the rest of the body, and therefore all environmental effects would not influence the germ plasm. Of course, we now know that certain factors (such as nuclear radiation and X-rays) can affect the germ plasm, but, for the most part, Weismann was correct.
His discoveries, along with the fact that circumcision of Jewish males for 4,000 years had not affected the foreskin, doomed the theory of *Lamarck. Yet it was Lamarck's discredited theory that *Charles Darwin eventually returned to as the mechanism by which evolution occurred. These are startling facts, but you will never find them in books on evolution. Instead, you will come across statements like the following, indicating that evolutionary theory was clearly, solidly proven by 1859, and that established theory, in the form in which Darwin stated it, has remained the hallmark of science!
"By the time it [the theory of evolution] was developed in its present form by the English biologist, Darwin, in 1859, it was no longer a guess. It was a scientific law proved by many lines of evidence." *Irvin Adler, How Life Began (1957), p. 78.
2 - 1900 To 1950
DE VRIES *Hugo de Vries (184&1935) was a Dutch botanist, and one of the three men who, in 1900, rediscovered Mendel's law of heredity. One day while working with primrose, she discovered a new species! At least he thought he did. This made the headlines, and even more people joined the ranks of the evolutionists.
DeVries had found a new variety (sub-species) of the primrose, and thought he had found a "new species." He theorized that it had suddenly sprung into existence as a "mutation."
Could mutations be the answer? Perhaps THIS was the long-sought-for key to change from one species to another. You may recall that, in chapter 14 (Mutations), we learned that mutations cannot produce evolution for (1) they never produce new species, and (2) "99 percent of them" are harmful. (To be on the safe side, scientists say "99 percent," but, in reality, they have never found ONE mutant that was not harmful.)
But De Vries did not know all this and he was exultant. Here was a new species of flowering plant and the mutation that had caused it was beneficial and not harmful. He called the new plant a "mutant." He theorized that new species "saltated" are continually springing into being from time to time. So his idea is called the saltation theory. No thoughtful geneticist today believes this is now occurring; the facts are too obvious.
Immediately research began in various places with plants and fruit flies. In 1914 de Vries' theory was shot down by *Edward Jeffries, who discovered that de Vries' primrose was just a variety of primrose and not a new species (see "Mutation Myth," in Science-39, April 3, p. 488).
Decades later it was discovered that most plant varieties are produced by variations in gene factors and only rarely by mutations. Those caused by gene variations are equally strong; those caused by mutations are always weaker and do not survive as well out in the field.
As for the fruit flies, literally hundreds of thousands of generations of fruit flies have been produced and observed in scientific laboratories. (After being born, the fruit fly reaches maturity in only 12 days! After that, it reproduces constantly for months. And each of its offspring are ready to mate in another 12 days, producing still more generations.) This raising of fast-reproducing fruit flies by scientists has continued on, year after year, in ever-increasing numbers of laboratories throughout most of the 20th century. Actually, all those fruit fly generations would be equivalent to millions of years of human generations. Yet (1) the fruit flies never change into anything else; they always remain fruit flies. (2) Mutational changes induced in them by X-rays or chemicals are always harmful in some way.
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