Evolution Encyclopedia Vol. 3
Chapter 29 Appendix
HISTORY OF THE THEORY
PANSPERMIA
"Panspermia" is the only new concept introduced in this chapter that is not covered in greater detail in other chapters. Panspermia (also called "directed panspermia") is the teaching that life on earth originated from "life sperms," or spores, that arrived from outer space. Here are a few statements on the matter that will reveal (1) the fantastic notions involved in this theory and (2) the utter impossibility of it occurring:
* Francis Crick received the Nobel Prize for his discovery of the DNA molecule. In his 1981 book, Life Itself, he fills the first half of the book with reasons why life could not originate on our planet, and then he proceeds to suggest that it came from outer space on rockets!
"Crick.. proposed that life began somewhere else in the universe and evolved to a much higher technical level than is now present on earth. He next suggests these life forms are now sending rockets containing primitive life forms (perhaps bacteria or blue-green algae) throughout the universe, spreading the seeds of life hither and yon. Crick even describes the rocket's design and postulates the conditions necessary for successful re-entry into our atmosphere." —Richard Tkachuck, book review, in Origins, Vol. 10, no. 2, 1983, p. 91.
"In Life Itself, a noted coauthor of the Watson-Crick model for DNA structure embraces an origins view called "Directed Panspermia," in which it is assumed that life was originally sent to earth from outer space! According to Crick, life evolved from non-life on some other planet, starting with the spontaneous generation of bacteria and proceeding all the way to highly intelligent beings. These gifted individuals (about whom Crick says surprisingly little in the book) then sent our own bacterial ancestors here on an unmanned space craft.
"This means that Crick believes life has evolved twice—once from molecules to intelligent people somewhere else, and then again from bacteria to man on earth! He also holds that all this took place in about 9 billion years following a Big Bang." —George F. Howe, book review, in Creation Research Society Quarterly, December 1983, p. 190.
Since the Big Bang supposedly occurred 10 billion years ago (others say 15 billion), the rocket with the bacteria, is supposed to have arrived here 6 billion years ago. It is wonderful how scientific an idea appears when you date it! But let us add a few more time spans: This rocket, traveling at a speed of 18,000 mph, would take 5 months to travel to the sun, and 115,000 years to reach the nearest star. How long would living creatures survive on such a trip? Their food, water, and air would be exhausted long before they reached their destination. The rocket ship would become a crematorium.
* Fred Hoyle, the originator of the steady state universe theory (which he later abandoned), and after spending several years writing science fiction books, wrote a book with *N. Chandra Wickramasinghe in 1979, called Lifecloud: the Origin of Life in the Universe. In the book they first list solid evidence why it would be impossible for life to begin here on earth, and then they present their theory that life originated in living creatures feeding, breeding, and multiplying—in comets, which managed to arrive here! Science fiction writers make good evolutionary theorists. In fact, you can hardly tell the two apart when you pick up their books.
"Recently, he [Hoyle] has come up with a theory on the origin of life which says that life on earth was seeded by colliding comets. . In a book review of Hoyle and Wickramasinghe's book, Lifecloud: the Origin of the Universe, Colin Pillinger accuses the authors of selecting their evidence and elevating speculation to fact. Fred Whipple states what is likely the consensus of opinion on Hoyle's theory:
"'I am charmed but not impressed by the picture of life forms developing in 'warm little ponds', protected in their icy igloos from the cruel cold and near vacuum of open space, and falling to primitive Earth at speeds exceeding eleven kilometers per second.' [Fred L. Whipple, "Origin of the Solar System" (Review of Hoyle's work), in Nature 278(577:819).] " —Michael J. Oard, book review, in Creation Research Society Quarterly, June 1982, p. 89.
For a time, *Hoyle and *Wickramasinghe held to this comet origin of life-seeds. Their view was that, since it is impossible for life to form on earth—it must have formed in the tails of comets and gas clouds in the sky! The near absolute zero temperatures (hundreds of degrees below the "zero" on our thermometers) in hydrogen clouds might, it was theorized, provide better conditions for the formation of life than sand, seawater, and lightning bolts on earth.
"Very small quantities of microscopic bits of life may be formed, they feel—not enough to be detected at astronomical distances, but large in an absolute sense; and these may be formed not only in distant gas clouds but in comets of our own solar system. Life on Earth may therefore have originated when spores were carried to Earth by comet tails. (It is only fair to say that almost no one takes this speculation seriously.)" —*Isaac Asimov, Asimov's New Guide to Science (1984), p. 640.
Another theory of Hoyle's was developed two years later: life forms continually reach the earth directly from outer space. How do they get here? They ride light beams! As fast as one theory is shot down, another pops us. "Hoyle and *Wickramasinghe explained the light-beam theory in their 1981 book, Evolution from Space. Howe discusses their conjectures:
"Like their counterpart in life sciences, Dr. F.C. Crick of DNA fame, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe seriously suggest that packets of genetic material continually enter our atmosphere from outer space, riding the pressure of light between stars. These may be mere specks of genetic code-stuff (in their view), entire bacteria, or even insect eggs. Some source out there, they believe, is benevolently broadcasting these materials widely and is thus providing predesigned systems that any forms of life may need to adapt for whatever environmental niches they may be encountering on particular planets. Where successes occur, they envision whole new blocks of gene entering the cell and producing new functions on the order of the way a computer can be rapidly 'upgraded.' . .
"Like the Darwinism that Hoyle and Wickramasinghe's model is supposed to replace, cosmic evolution suffers at precisely the same points: lack of any adequate mechanism and absence of experimental supporting data. They are obviously unable to show the reader strong evidence of such genetic packages in astronomical debris entering our atmosphere. It seems this (and this alone) is the key evidence required to put this interesting origins model on some sort of scientific basis. . [After reading the book] I am led to conclude that their real evidence for the entry of microbes from space is approximately zero, despite all that they propose by way of supporting comment and background discussion." George F. Howe, book review, in Creation Research Society Quarterly, December 1982, pp. 192-193.
It all started with *Arrhenius, a chemist who in 1907 published a book on the subject.
"Toward the end of the nineteenth century some theorists went to the other extreme and made life eternal. The most popular theory was advanced by Svante Arrhenius (the chemist who had developed the concept of ionization). In 1907, he published a book entitled Worlds in the Making, picturing a universe in which life had always existed and migrated across space, continually colonizing new planets. Life traveled in the form of spores that escaped from the atmosphere of a planet by random movement and then were driven through space by the pressure of light from the sun." —*Issac Asimov, Asimov's New Guide to Science (1984), p. 638.
*Asimov then demolishes the fantastic theory in one bold stroke:
"At first blush, this theory looks attractive. . But Arrhenius's suggestion fell before the onslaught of ultraviolet light. In 1910, experimenters showed that ultraviolet light quickly kills bacterial spores; and in interplanetary space, the sun's ultraviolet light is intense—not to speak of other destructive radiations, such as cosmic rays, solar X rays, and zones of charged particles like the Van Allen belts around the earth. Conceivably, there may be spores somewhere that are resistant to radiation, but spores made of protein and nucleic acid, as we know them, could not make the grade." —*Ibid:
Asimov then goes on to explain that the longest that bacteria have been able to survive in the "harsh unfiltered sunlight" of outer space is 6 hours. So "life spores" hopping rides on "light beams" to distant planets—would survive less than one-fourth of a day in outer space.
At the heart of it, all these life-spores-from-outerspace theories are based on the impossibility of life forming by chance on earth. Men have recognized and accepted the fact, and then tried to bring the life from somewhere else. All they are doing is pushing the problem back a notch, but they are not solving it.
"Life spore" theories try to solve the problem of how life originated. But they do not do this, for they only tell us that life originated somewhere else—and how did it originate there?
In addition, they accomplish nothing toward explaining how life evolved! The utterly complex, networking of the DNA code, the complications of protein, enzymes, and other structures and activities within each species—all unite in producing an impassible barrier in the path of trans-species changes.
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DARWIN'S FIVE YEARS ON THE BEAGLE
DARWIN'S EXPEDITIONS — AND ILLNESS
In this section two topics will be combined. Before it is concluded, you will understand why.
1 - DARWIN'S DISCOVERIES
It has been widely said that it was *Charles Darwin's 5-year journey on the Beagle that laid the foundation for his theory. Well, then, what is it that he discovered during those five years which provided that foundation? Let us, for a few minutes, journey with Darwin as he salted around the world.
Sailing from England on December 31, 1831 ("my real birthday!" said Darwin afterward), H.M.S. Beagle set sail for South America. Stopping at the Cape Verde Islands, on January 16, 1832, Darwin saw the town and, during the short time while the ship loaded supplies, quickly tramped around through some nearby hills. Charles Darwin was young and robust. Although the ship made him seasick, he was hardy and well able to tackle all kinds pack trips while on land.
At Tierra del Fuego, in December 1832 and January 1833, Darwin, 24 at the time, climbed a desolate mountain range called Mount Tarn. It was a grueling climb, yet there was nothing to see but rock and snow. While there, Darwin and the crew returned three Fuegans to their home, and he had a chance to view that desolate, wind-swept land of Tierra del Fuego. No evidence of evolution here.
The Beagle surveyed the coasts of Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina for nine months in 1832. After an excursion to Tierra del Fuego, another seven months were spent in 1833 doing the same thing. That was the reason the British government had sent the ship to sea: to chart the coasts of South America and other locations, in order to update the maps of the British Admiralty in London.
While the ship surveyed the South American coast, young Darwin spent much of his time ashore. On April 4, 1832, the Beagle arrived in Rio de Janeiro. For 10 weeks, while Fitz Roy on the Beagle upgraded British charts of the Brazilian coast, Darwin lived in a cottage on Botafogo Bay at Rio de Janeiro. While in that cottage, Darwin studied mud-dauber wasps which made clay cells for their larvae in corners of their verandas and then stuffed them "full of half-dead spiders and caterpillars." No evolution here. He also saw a fight between a wasp and a spider. Darwin later said that helped him understand "the struggle for survival." But no evolution there either. Darwin wrote about the frogs and "a pleasing chirp" of crickets he heard there at night. He also roamed about over the nearby countryside.
The Beagle left Rio for Montevideo in July 1832, and Darwin spent almost six months exploring ashore. The ship returned to Montevideo again in April 1833, and Darwin had more months ashore. But his diaries and notes provide no indication that he saw any evidence of evolution.
He also found some fossil bones while there. This excited him, but there was no evidence of evolution in anything he saw. From August 11-17, 1833, he took a horseback trip. He traveled hundreds of miles from the mouth of the Rio Negro north to Bahia, Blanca, and thence another 400 miles to Buenos Aires, sleeping under the stars, eating whatever game the gauchos could find. His diaries indicate he was a strong young man, and well able to take the trip.
September 27, 1833, found him in Buenos Aires, saddling up for another trip. He rode horseback 300 miles northwest over dangerous roads to Santa Fe, on an arm of the Parana River. Then he returned downriver to Buenos Aires by boat, arriving there on October 2.
From November 14 through the 28th, he made another round-trip horseback tour. He found some more fossil bones, and what he thought was the tooth of a horse. This excited him even more, since there had been no horses in Argentina till recent times. But, as before, there was here no evidence of evolution.
In January 1834, the ship headed south from Deseado and again went to Tierra del Fuego, on down to near the southern tip of South America, then up by the Falkland Islands, and over to the coast again. From April 18 to May 8, Darwin helped survey the Santa Cruz River by boat.
Then, in May, the ship headed south—and through the Straits of Magellan.
On June 11, 1834, the Beagle entered the Pacific. The end of July found the ship 1,200 miles northward at Valparaiso, where it remained until winter was past. While there young Darwin walked around town and into some nearby jungles. He found no evidence of evolution.
In November, the ship returned south, and spent the next three months charting the coast of Chiloe Island and the many islands of the Chonos Archipelago. Darwin was deeply impressed with the glaciers he saw. Enormous chunks of ice would break off, with a sound "like the broadside of a man-of-war," sending great waves outward in all directions.
In February 1835, at Valdivia on the coast of Chile, Darwin felt an earthquake. More excitement! He had experienced far more than most natives of England twice his age, yet none of it provided any indication of evolution.
Later arriving at Conception, 200 miles further north, he witnessed violent effects of that same earthquake. On a nearby island, Captain Fitz Roy found mussel-shell beds that had risen ten feet above sea level. The earthquake had caused the island to rise somewhat. This was really exciting news for young Darwin, and he carefully wrote about it in his diaries. But, again, it was no evidence of evolution.
March 1835 found Darwin in Santiago, and he was glad to be off the rolling ship for a time. Arranging for another pack trip,' he crossed the Andes from Santiago, Chile, to Mendoza in Argentina byway of Portillo Pass. He then returned by Uspallata. This pack trip lasted from March 18 to April 10. It is no simple thing to go across the Andes, but the young man experienced no physical difficulty doing it. Two Chilean guides and 10 mules took them across the continent and back in 24 days. They ate and slept in the open fields throughout the trip. In the Andes he found fossil seashells at 14,000 foot elevation, and petrified coastal trees high on the Argentine side of the Andes. Both were evidences of extreme mountain uplift at some time in the past, but once again, it provided no evidence of evolution.
Back at the coast, Darwin met the Beagle on April 23, in order to transfer some of his fossil shells and petrified tree pieces to the ship. Then he hurriedly returned to shore, thankful for more time away from the ship and the seasickness it brought.
Arranging for another pack trip, he journeyed northward from Valparaiso to Copiapo on April 27. Darwin thoroughly enjoyed the rugged life of the pack trip and camping out in the open along the way. A little more than half-way up the coast, he took a jaunt off to the east to a silver mine at the base of Mount Arqueros. Darwin saw the miners climbing up nearly-vertical ladders with loads on their shoulders that often weighed 200 pounds or more. On June 22, he again met the ship, but nowhere on the trip had he found evidence of evolution. If he had, it would have appeared in his notebooks and his later book about the voyage.
In July, 1835, he again boarded the Beagle, and the ship went north to Callao, the port of Lima, where they remained six weeks. Young Darwin had planned for another expedition, but a revolution was in progress, so he stayed on the ship most of the time. Then the ship weighed anchor and set sail out into the broad Pacific.
Darwin had time to think about all he had seen, and he wrote many comments about it in his diaries. But none of it amounts to evidence of evolution.
Then, about 600 miles west of Ecuador, they arrived in the Galapagos and spent five weeks there. The Captain charted the islands while young Darwin walked all over several of them. There were many odd creatures on the islands, but no evidence of evolution.
He also saw those finch sub-species, collected a few, and wrote them up in his notes. It was not until he arrived back in England that a friend (John Gould) suggested they might be evidence of evolution! So here at last was the evidence! But, not so; as we discussed in chapter 13 (Natural Selection), those finches were all variations of one species, just as the honeycreepers of Hawaii are all subspecies. What Darwin did not realize was the limiting wall imposed by the DNA coding. All the variations he witnessed had been originally included in that code. Only by changing the code could species be changed, and that could not be done. The Galapagos Islands had been there a long time, yet those finches remained finches; none of them had changed into something else.
DARWIN'S TORTOISES
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With the aid of a good wind, 25 days from October 20 to November 15, 1835 took the Beagle from the Galapagos to Tahiti. Arriving at Matavai Bay, he looked at coral reefs, and journeyed inland with two Tahitian guides. Tramping along the Tia-aura (now Tauaura) Valley, they entered a rugged mountain gorge "far more magnificent than anything which I had ever before beheld." The trip took 2 days, and included some "very dangerous" rock-climbing and ledge-clinging. But a search of his diaries reveals no evidence of evolution in the coral reefs, mountain canyons, or steep cliffs. Eleven days of intense tourism for Darwin and it was time to leave.
Arriving at Kororareka (now Russell) in New Zealand's Bay of Islands on December 21, 1835, Darwin hiked through rough terrain, and saw how the Maoris lived.
Setting sail again, the ship lowered anchor in Sydney harbor 14 days later. Darwin hired a guide to take him to Bathurst, and off they went on a 12-day march. While in the out-back, Darwin did some kangaroo hunting at Wallerawang, but saw none of the wild dingos, although he looked for them. He marveled at the ability of the aborigines to track across country, and the way they could throw a spear at a tiny target 30 yards away and hit it. There was no doubt but that they were highly intelligent.
In January 1836, the Beagle sailed to Tasmania, where the inexhaustible Darwin climbed Mount Wellington through a tangle of trees and undergrowth. On February 17, they sailed to King George Sound in southwest Australia. It was a trip of 1,500 miles and Darwin was seasick much of the time. The ship happened to arrive in time to see a yearly festival by the aborigines.
Ahead of Darwin was the final leg of the long journey. He had months to recall the years already gone by. Across the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope, and into the Atlantic, to Ascension Island, and a little final charting of the coast of South America. Then up to Cape Verde Islands, and to Falmouth, England where Darwin left the ship for the last time on October 2, 1836.
But, although he spent the rest of his life dreaming up imaginative possibilities as to how evolution might have occurred, he never really had any solid facts to offer. Darwin should have learned the lessons his trip could have taught him. He had journeyed around the world without finding any evidence of evolution, and "evolution" is the change of one species into another.
2 - DARWIN'S ILLNESS
But there is more to it than that. Not only do we learn that Darwin found no evidence of evolution on his celebrated voyage; we also learn that he was remarkably robust and healthy during that time.
Why then did he later become an partial invalid? For most of the remainder of his life, Charles Darwin seemed to have a variety of physical symptoms, all the while cared for by his dutiful wife.
Medical professionals have puzzled over this for years, wondering why he became such a chronic invalid, when, during the voyage, he was so energetic. Then *Ralph Colp, Jr, a physican and psychiatrist, became interested in Darwin's case and, in 1959—and century after Darwin's book—began researching everything he could find on Darwin. For the next 18 years he exhaustively studied into the matter, and in 1977 published a book on his conclusions (To Be An Invalid: The Illness of Charles Darwin).
In some respects, Colp is one of the leading experts in "Darwinia" to be found anywhere. He has analyzed everything Darwin wrote, and everything written about him. It is maintained by some that he has a photographic memory on the essential content of that data. Combining his medical, psychiatric background with an in-depth understanding of Darwin's life, behavior, and symptoms, Colp wrote his book.
According to Colp, Darwin's weakness, nausea, inability to work, depression, insomnia and other symptoms were all part of a complex psychosomatic condition brought on by deep conflicts about his life work. As Colp sees it, Darwin's theorizing about evolution injured his health because he saw too many conflicts in his theories. Colp says that Darwin even experienced an "identity crisis" as a result of his emotional turmoil.
Colp decided that the physical problems started when Darwin began his theorizing, and worsened thereafter. Colp believes it was this guilt and ambivalence that kept Darwin for years from writing his book, until he did it to keep Wallace from obtaining prior credit for what Darwin had been working on.
"A few years after returning to England from his five-year voyage of exploration, Charles Darwin became a semi-invalid who suffered daily for the rest of his life. Doctors were baffled; they could find neither cause nor cure.
"As a young man Darwin had uncommon strength and endurance. During the Beagle expedition, he endured rough seas, primitive conditions on overland treks and rode spirited horses with the roughest gauchos in Argentina. Whenever he encountered a mountain on his inland treks, he usually climbed it. Yet a few years later, he was afflicted with almost daily weakness, vomiting and chronic fatigue." —*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990). p. 113.
Various theories about Darwin's health problem have been devised, but none have been as thoroughly researched as Colp's. Indeed, there are oddities about Darwin that lend strong credence to Colp's ideas. You will recall statements by Darwin, quoted elsewhere in this set of books, that he did not like to think about the human eye, because it disturbed him, and the sight of a peacock's feather made him sick. Why would those thoughts and sights so deeply disturb him? Because he knew, deep down, that he was on the wrong track in his theories.
He also wept frequently over a letter his wife gave him early in their marriage.
"In 1839, Darwin married his first cousin Emma Wedgwood, whose traditional religious beliefs were opposed to his unorthodox inquiries into the origin of species. Soon after their marriage, she wrote him a letter, begging him to reconsider challenging the Bible's account of creation, lest they be separated for eternity in the hereafter. All his life he cherished her touching letter ('Many times have I kissed and cried over this’), (sic.) but remained committed to his scientific career." —*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 110.
Why would Darwin weep over that letter, if he did not believe what it said? He wept over it repeatedly—during his life, because it was telling him something he believed—yet emotionally did not want to accept. For the same reason it made him feel sick when he thought of evidences for Creation which were unanswerable, such as the complex structure of the eye, or the orderly pattern of a peacock's feather. Those evidences made him feel sick for he knew they were true.
Then there were those feelings of terror he would experience, as though he feared—and was awaiting—some terrible retribution for what he was doing to convince the Western World of an error without evidence—yet an error which was to hurt many others as it was going to hurt him.
"Darwin suffered from extreme anxieties as he developed his theories. Colp traces the beginning of Darwin's illness to his first work on evolutionary theory. From the first, his wife Emma worried whether his scientific investigations were going to cost him his soul.
"Darwin dreamt of being beheaded or hanged; he thought a belief that went so contrary to biblical authority was 'like confessing a murder.' " —*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 11a
Some have suggested that Darwin got Chiagas disease in South America, but the symptoms do not match. As Colp has clearly shown, Darwin's problem was caused by an intense conflict in his mind. The evidence clearly pointed him in one direction, but he obstinately chose to go in another.
*Darwin was not the only one with such a "health problem"; others experienced it also. For example, *Hugh Miller (1802-1859) started out as a Christian, but was talked into error by associates. He published several books on geology and the sedimentary strata, and in his last (Testimony of the Rocks) he publicly switched over to the "millions of years" theory. Except for partial silicosis, he had always been in good health.
"While writing Testimony, he suffered from horrible dreams and visions, awakening convinced he had wandered the streets all night. (At such times, he insisted on checking his clothing for mud stains, but none were found.) He often wrote all night and day, with a knife and gun at his side to repel imagined burglars a intruders. There were searing headaches; He thought his brain was burning out." —*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), pp. 305-308.
Miller shot himself three years before *Darwin published Origin.
"Young Darwin of the Beagle was quite different than the older semi-invalid philosopher of Down House, who was easily tired and had daily bouts of headaches, abdominal pain and vomiting. As a young man, he thought nothing of riding with the 'sinister' gauchos on the pampas, trekking 400 miles through wilderness, excavating fossils by hand with a geologist's hammer, and climbing unexplored mountains." —*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 449.
*Darwin's "contribution" to science was the theory that one species changes into another. Yet there was no excuse for that emphasis, since it was never verified by the evidence.
"When he [Darwin] first met Thomas Huxley, later to become his great friend and champion, Darwin was examining some of his specimens at a laboratory table in the British Museum. 'Isn't it striking,' young Huxley remarked, 'what dear boundaries there are between natural groups, with no transitional forms?' Glancing up from the tray of preserved specimens. Darwin quietly replied, 'Such is not altogether my view.' Huxley later recalled that 'the humorous smile which accompanied his gentle answer . . long haunted and puzzled me."' —*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 111.
Huxley should have fled on the spot from that strange smile, instead of becoming captivated by the spirit that dominated Darwin. The evidence was lacking, but Darwin promoted his theory anyway, convincing men like *Huxley, who would not otherwise have swung over to the evolutionary view.
After the voyage, *Darwin initially had *Charles Lyell, another wealthy amateur 'scientist,' partly on his side for animal evolution (although he never did win him over to human evolution). Shortly afterward, he won over *Joseph Hooker who since his youth idolized Darwin. Next came *Huxley who, like Hooker, had more respect for Darwin than concern over the paucity of evidence.
Then Darwin went after the most influential in England's scientific community.
"Initially plagued by doubts as he began writing the Origin of Species (1859), Darwin first `fixed in my mind three judges, on whose decision I determined mentally to abide'—the botanist Sir Joseph Hooker, the comparative anatomist Thomas Huxley and the geologist Charles Lyell. He would put aside his 'awful misgivings' if they could agree with his approach and conclusions. Lyell alone of the three was afraid to 'go the whole orang'; his years of fence-sitting greatly upset Darwin.
"Darwin mounted a personal campaign to convince about a dozen other top men in natural history of the truth of evolution. He even picked and targeted them and kept running lists of who was still 'unconverted.' If these colleagues could be won, he thought, 'my theory will be safe.' " —*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 358.
Yet Darwin, of them all, had known the other side very well. In his own youth, he had read William Paley's Natural Theology (1816), parts of which he knew by heart, and was attracted to the idea of studying God's designs in nature. What happened that made the difference?
It is known that, in South America, Darwin witnessed witch doctor seances. Some students of Darwin's life say that, at that time, devils obtained control of his mind. At any rate, Charles Darwin was the man who, almost single-handed, won over the leaders of British science to the new theory. Yet, all the while, he had those "awful misgivings," the terrors by night, and the weeping over that letter.
Darwin deliberately did what he did, and he was well aware of the consequences of his actions.
The great masses of men are in the lower lands, trusting in the words of others to guide and instruct them. They believe what they believe because of what they have been told. But there are others who have climbed the steeps and have surveyed knowledge from the mountaintops. When such men twist truth in order to serve their emotional desires, they lead many others astray. But they cannot blame another; they know for themselves the truth of the matter. Darwin was such a man, and the emotional conflict caused by his choice filled his life with misery. In contrast, Huxley and Hooker had no such conflicts, for they were assured by Darwin that he had firmly established evolutionary theory as the basis of all future science. Any doubts that arose, were swept away by the comforting assurance that their leader, Darwin, surely must have encountered them earlier and resolved them.
Huxley and Hooker had no psycho-physical problems, but Darwin, the one who, better than anyone else, knew the truth of the situation—the emptiness of the theory—lived a life plagued with guilt, compulsions, terrors, and fear about the future.
For more on the two topics in this section, see *Charles Darwin, Autobiography (1958 reprint); *Charles Darwin in, *Francis Darwin (ed.), Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887); *Charles Darwin, Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle (Vol 3 only (1836) [Vol. 1 was written by Capt. King, and Vol. 2 by Capt. Fitz Roy; parts of Vol. 3 were later reprinted in books with other titles]; *Charles Darwin, On the Origin of the Species, et al., (1st ed.,1859; 2nd ed.,1860; 3rd ed., 1861; 4th ed., 1866; 5th ed., 1869; 6th and last ed., 1872).
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