Why Some Biologists Think Darwin Was Wrong
I can see him now, sitting in my office with his jaw hanging down. The look of horror on his face was matched by the tone of his voice.
“ You dont mean to say you actually dont believe in evolution?” He was a fellow scientist from a British university, come to discuss the research I was doing. We got on famously for a few hours. And then he happened to mention evolution, and I told him what I thought about it.
He could not have been more shocked if I had said I did not believe in the Law of Gravity. When I added that plenty of biologists as well qualified as himself (he had a doctorate in a biological science) shared my views, he just would not believe me. We parted good friends, but I think he still considers me a trifle mad.
The trouble was that he was an Expert-Worshipper. We saw in Chapter 13 that experts are usually right about facts, but very frequently wrong in their opinions. And unfortunately they have got the public just where they want it-accepting the experts opinions as if they were unquestionable.
(If you cannot recall to mind the evidence produced in Chapter 13, it would be a good idea to read it again, now. It forms a very necessary introduction to this chapter and the next one.)
I gave him four reasons why I, as a scientist, regard the theory of evolution as one of the most unlikely theories I know.
(1) Several eminent biologists have shot holes through it.
(~) Other eminent biologists have admitted that they only hold it for philosophical reasons, not because the biological evidence is sound.
(3) There is not just one version of the theory of evolution, but a hundred and one. Many gaps have to be filled in by guesswork, and the guesses change from biologist to biologist and from day to day.
(4) There are a number of serious objections to the theory, that no biologist has yet answered.
I shall expand each of these four reasons below, but only briefly. There are plenty of specialist books on the subject where the evidence is set out in more detail.1~2
Before launching out on these reasons, one thing needs to be made clear. The word “evolution” means different things to different people. People use the word in engineering, for instance.
You can see a collection of aeroplanes, from the earliest to the most modern, in the aviation section of the Smithsonian Museum at Washington. This collection is said to illustrate the “evolution” of the modern aircraft. But nobody supposes that each successive generation of aircraft gave birth to the next.
As we saw in the previous chapter, there is evidence that life has been on the earth for millions of years. The simpler forms of life came first, the more complicated later. In some natural history museums you can see fossils of these ancient animals lined up, from the earliest to the latest.
Some people use the word “evolution” to describe the mere existence of these fossils. If that is how you use the word, well and good. I shall not use it that way myself, because I think it is misleading. Personally, I prefer to speak of the “progressive creation” of both the aircraft and the fossil animals. But the most scientific expression is “progressive appearance”, because it is completely neutral.
I shall use the word “evolution” in one way only: to mean “evolution by natural processes alone”. In other words, to describe the belief that God played no active part in the development of life on this earth. This is the way biologists commonly use the word. This is the way it is used by the writers whose words I shall quote.
All the quotations that follow are from scientific books and journals. None of them was written with any religious purpose in mind, so far as I have been able to tell.
If you have a biologist friend who is hooked on evolution, persuade him to go to France for a year. He will come back a changed man. French biology has for many years been in a turmoil over evolution.
A few years ago an American scientific journal reviewed the scene in France.
“ This year saw the controversy rapidly growing, until recently it culminated in the title, Should We Burn Darwin? spread over two pages of the magazine Science et Vie.
“The article, by the science writer Aimé Michel, was based on the authors interviews with such specialists as Mrs. Andrée Tetry, professor at the famous Ecole des Hautes Etudes and a world authority on problems of evolution, Professor Réné Chauvin and other noted French biologists ...
“Aimé Michels conclusion is significant: the classical theory of evolution in its strict sense belongs to the past. Even if they do not publicly take a definite stand, almost all French specialists hold today strong mental reservations as to the validity of natural selection.”3
In 1960 an evolutionist upset his fellow evolutionists. His “crime” was that of being too honest. He published a book4 mildly pointing out that many of the arguments on which evolution was based were unsound. He did not reject evolution out of hand. He merely declared that it was “not a proved fact”. He said, in effect, “For pitys sake lets hurry up and find some decent arguments to base it on.”
But the most impressive testimony of all has come from one of the worlds most distinguished biologists. The late Dr. W. R. Thompson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society-the greatest scientific honour in the British Commonwealth. He held the important post of Director of the Commonwealth Institute of Biological Control.
Because of his high standing, he was invited to write the introduction to a new edition of Darwins Origin of Species which was published in 1956. If you would like an authoritative statement of where the theory of evolution stood then, you should read Dr. Thompsons introduction for yourself. It will probably amaze you.
He drew the following conclusions:
(1) That the general public should be warned to take the theory of evolution with a large grain of salt, because it is still a long, long way from being proved.
(2) That respectable scientific theories are based on solid facts, but the theory of evolution is based on a weird hotchpotch of facts and guesswork.
(3) Biologists are even guilty of deceiving the general public, by deliberately suppressing the true facts about the theory of evolution.
Here are some of Dr. Thompsons actual statements. (The italics are mine.)
“Evolution, if it has occurred, can in a rather loose sense be called a historical process; and therefore to show that it has occurred historical evidence is required. History in the strict sense is dependent on human testimony. Since this is not available with respect to the development of the world of life we must be satisfied with something less satisfactory.
“It does appear to me, in the first place, that Darwin in the Origin was not able to produce palaeontological evidence sufficient to prove his views, but that the evidence he did produce was adverse to them; and I may note that the position is not notably different today. The modern Darwinian palaeontologists are obliged, just like their predecessors and like Darwin, to water down the facts with subsidiary hypotheses which, however plausible, are in the nature of things unverifiable.
“ The advent of the evolutionary idea, due mainly to the Origin, very greatly stimulated biological research. But it appears to me that owing precisely to the nature of the stimulus, a great deal of this work was directed into unprofitable channels or devoted to the pursuit of will-o-the-wisps. I am not the only biologist of this opinion.
“ A long-enduring and regrettable effect of the success of the Origin was the addiction of biologists to unverifiable speculation.
“ As we know, there is a great divergence of opinion among biologists, not only about the causes of evolution but even about the actual process. This divergence exists because the evidence is unsatisfactory and does not permit any certain conclusions. It is therefore right and proper to draw the attention of the non-scientific public to the disagreements about evolution. But some recent remarks of evolutionists show that they think this unreasonable. This situation, where scientific men rally to the defence of a doctrine they are unable to define scientifically, much less demonstrate with scientific rigour, attempting to maintain its credit with the public by the suppression of criticism and the elimination of difficulties, is abnormal and undesirable in science.
“ Thus are engendered those fragile towers of hypotheses based on hypotheses, where fact and fiction mingle in an inextricable con-fusion. That these constructions correspond to a natural appetite there can be no doubt. It is certain also that in the Origin Darwin established what may be called the classical method of satisfying this appetite. We are beginning to realise now that the method is unsound and the satisfaction illusory. But to understand our own thinking, to see what fallacies we must eradicate in order to establish general biology on a scientific basis, we can still return with profit to the source-book which is The Origin of Species.”5
Did you ever read anything like it? It is doubtful whether anything to match it has occurred in the recent history of science. Here is a world authority setting Out to expose the sorry state of his own branch of science, and to warn the general public that the wool is being pulled over peoples eyes.
Now compare this with the words that follow. They were written only a few years earlier by another famous man, H. G. Wells.
(2) Biologists Who Walk by Faith, not Fact
“One thing is certain. Not one fact has ever emerged, in a stupendous accumulation of facts, to throw a shadow of doubt upon what is still called the “Theory” of organic evolution.
No rational mind can question the invincible nature of the
evolutionary case.”6
Well, well. As Hamlets mother would have said, the gentleman doth protest too much, me thinks. H. G. Wells was a qualified scientist and a respected historian. He was far too intelligent and well-read a man not to know the truth about evolution. Why should he overstate his case in that blustering fashion?
There is one obvious explanation. Look at it this way. Throughout this book I have tried to be fair. Where a particular argument against the Bible is childish, I have said so. Where an objection is weighty I have admitted it, and said it needs careful examination. Occasionally I have admitted that, as yet, a certain problem cannot be solved.
Suppose that, instead of doing this, I had used Mr. Wells tactics. Suppose I had used his very words in defence of my own case, like this:
“Not one fact has ever emerged, in a stupendous accumulation of facts, to throw a shadow of doubt upon the Bible. No rational mind can question the invincible nature of the Bible-believers case.”
Whatever would you have thought of me? You would have said to yourself, “Poor fellow. His religious fervour has got the better of him. His judgement as a scientist has all gone to pot.” And you would have been right.
Isnt it obvious that this criticism applies to Mr. Wells, who actually did use this language? He was well known for his strong views as an atheist. Evidently his religious fervour or irreligious fervour or whatever you call the fervour of an atheist-must have affected his attitude to evolution.
Professor Kenneth Walker is another popular author who plugged evolution in his books. Fortunately he was not so starry-eyed about it as Wells. He frankly admitted why he and others accepted Darwins theory:
“ Darwins theory of evolution is retained because scientists have found nothing more satisfactory to put in its place. A mechanical explanation of the procession of life on this planet is required and no such explanation, other than that offered by Darwin, is forthcoming. This being so, there is no alternative to that of retaining Darwinism with all its weahnesses.”7 (The italics are mine.)
He spoke for many other evolutionists besides himself. A “mechanical explanation”-that is, one that leaves God out of account-was “required”. By hook or by crook some explanation acceptable to an atheist had to be found. Darwins explanation was a poor one, but it had to fill the gap. It was the best of a bad lot.
Another evolutionist has told some interesting tales in a recent magazine article:
“ Not long ago a professor wrote an article questioning a former teacher, in the mildest possible terms, about the authenticity of a certain find-and ended a friendship of thirty years. On another occasion an eminent anthropologist arose to speak at a meeting given in his honour, and began reminiscing about the early days of his career when his ideas concerning human evolution had been ignored. But he managed to complete only a few sentences of his talk. Then, overcome by the recollection of years of frustration, he lowered his head and burst into tears. Investigators have stalked out of meetings, indulged in personal vituperation (in technical journals, as well as privately), argued over priorities, accused colleagues of stealing their ideas.
“Such behaviour may be somewhat less common than it once was, and it is by no means unknown in other areas of science, but its incidence has been strikingly high among pre-historians. The reason for this occupational ailment is obscure, but it may have something to do with the shortage of solid evidence.”8 (The italics are mine.)
(3) The Way they Change their Views
Take a good look at the picture facing page 216. It may be the last of its kind you will see.
You have seen pictures like it before, of course. They appear in school text books and childrens encyclopaedias, as well as in more sophisticated volumes.
Those things lolloping around in the water like a group of Loch Ness Monsters are called “brontosaurs”. There is no doubt that creatures like this existed. There are plenty of brontosaur fossils, some of them practically complete.
The imaginary part of the picture is not the animals, but the water. In 1971 a paper was published in a top-level scientific journal, “proving” that brontosaurs didnt like swimming after all.9 The old ideas were “convincingly demolished” commented the editor. Brontosaurs werent long-necked hippopotamuses as was previously thought, but just prehistoric giraffes, so to speak.
One of the really great problems for evolutionists is how life began.
Once upon a time there was a young planet, steaming hot and lifeless.
It cooled down a bit. Then, presto! life appeared, says the evolutionist.
But how?
One snag is that “dead” matter is composed of very small molecules. Somehow or other, before life could even think of appearing on the stage, thousands of small molecules had to gang up together and form one big molecule. How did they manage it?
For some time experimental scientists were baffled. Their attempts in the laboratory to conduct shotgun marriages between small molecules were frustrated. Then came a breakthrough. They found that small molecules were quite happy to hold hands with each other under one condition: there must be no oxygen around. But one fifth of the air we breathe consists of oxygen. Wouldnt that put paid to any chance of molecules joining up?
In 1965 two scientists, L. V. Berkner and L. C. Marshall, came up with a brilliant solution. They “proved” that the amount of oxygen in the air has been steadily increasing; in the far-off days when life appeared, there was practically no oxygen present at all. Evolutionists were jubilant, and showered Berkner and Marshall with praise.
Their joy was somewhat premature. In 1970 R. T. Brinkman of the California Institute of Technology spoilt everything. He had re-examined the Berkner and Marshall theory, and found that they had got their sums wrong. There was thousands of times more oxygen in the air when life appeared than Berker and Marshall had thought.
In an article describing the impact of Brinkmans work, a scientist concluded: “Brinkmans result precludes biological evolution as presently understood.”10
In simple English that means, “The theory of evolution, as we now understand it, wont work.” Yet hardly an evolutionist turned a hair. Presumably they are so used to that sort of thing happening that it does not worry them any more.
It is a pity that the layman is unable to follow the controversies in the biological journals. If he could, he would realise that the foundations of evolution are as firm as quicksands in a hurricane.
Fortunately, we are not entirely dependent on the technical press. Evolutionists often Write books for the general public. You only need to read a few of these with an open mind to realise the true situation.
A popular book of this kind is The Naked Ape, by Dr. Desmond Morris.11 It is his attempt to explain in simple language what evolutionists believe about man.
In one chapter he poses the question in the books title: why are we naked? Why dont we have hairy bodies, like our supposed ancestors?
He outlines six theories which evolutionists have used to explain this.
(1) Because we are able to keep cleaner, and hence healthier, with our smooth skins. So the dirty, parasite-infested ape-man with his nasty hairy coat died off, while the sleek clean true-man survived.
(2) Because Man no longer needed a fur coat when he mastered fire. It became more of a liability than an asset, so it gradually faded away.
(3) All animals are more or less hairless before they are born. For some unexplained reason, Man finally decided to stay in the before-birth condition all his life.
(4) Because the particular ape-man from which we are descended was an aquatic creature, That is to say, he spent most of his time in the water, like a seal. And who would dream of going swimming in a fur coat?
(5) Because his bare skin formed a convenient signalling device, thus giving him an advantage over his competitors.
(6) Because he was originally a meat-eater, who had to catch his dinner each day. The worlds climate grew warmer, and the hairy ape-man found his coat just too much for high-performance athletics. So, more often than not, the dinner got away. The poor old hairy one starved into extinction. But because the suitably attired true-man could run like lightning, he grew fat and prospered.
Dr. Morris helpfully explains which five of these theories are Wrong, and why the one he believes in is “right”.
You should read stuff like this occasionally. You will find it entertaining. And it will let you see how an evolutionists mind works.
But remember as you read to keep asking yourself the sixty-four thousand dollar question:
“ Is this science? Or science-fiction?”
It was pointed out in Chapter 12 that you expect to find some unsolved problems in every field of knowledge. There are some problems about the Bible that Bible-believers have not yet solved.
The trouble with the theory of evolution is that the problems are such big ones, and there are so many of them. An article in a recent issue of New Scientist began like this:
“ Though it is nearly a century since Darwin wrote his treatise On the Origin of Species, there are still a few weak points in the theory of evolution. Often evolution seems to have made huge jumps, leaving no traces of any intervening steps and no hint that anything but the complete system could have functioned at all.”12
This statement is very revealing. It shows the extent to which evolutionists have brain-washed themselves. Carefully compare the first and second sentences, and note the differences.
If “often” at the start of Sentence 2 is the right word (which it is) then “a few weak points” in Sentence 1 is a shocking understatement. There are a lot, not a few.
But that is not all. If “evolution has made huge jumps, leaving no traces of any intervening steps and no hint that anything but the complete system could have functioned at all” are these “weak points” or tremendous obstacles?
This is the sort of “weak point” that he was referring to. A mother whale has a most extraordinary nipple. She needs it because she feeds her babies under water. The nipple is designed to keep the sea-water out of the baby whales sucking mouth, while letting the mothers milk in.
Ask an engineer to design you a whales feeding bottle, to do the same job. He would say, “But that will cost you thousands. It would be terribly difficult to produce such a complex mechanism. And it would be sure not to work first time. We should have to go through a long programme of trials, to get it just right.”
Yet Mrs. Whales nipple had to work first time. Otherwise Junior would have got a mouthful of salt water instead of milk, and whales would soon have become extinct. A half-developed whale nipple would be worse than useless. If the whale nipple evolved it must have done so in one mighty leap-from nothing, to perfection, in one go.
But can anyone call such a great leap forward “evolution”? Wouldnt “creation” be a better name for it? The whole idea of evolution depends on progress by lots of small steps, each one small enough to occur by blind chance.
There are certainly hundreds, probably thousands, of equally complex organs that would have been of little or no use until fully formed. The little archer fish is able to shoot a jet of water several feet into the air, to bring down an insect for his supper. He is a crack shot. He should be, because he has a very special pair of eyes, quite unlike those of most fish.
Thus he possesses three things: (1) Those special eyes (2) His water pistol (3) The skill to use it. Until he had all three, the other two were no use to him. They must have come to him all three at once. How? Even now he has it, he does not really need this extraordinary equipment. He can survive perfectly well without it, by eating insects that happen to fall into the water. Yet evolution insists that the need for survival is the force behind all natural development!
Migrating birds find their way back to their old nests, thousands of miles away. How did they develop this extraordinary skill? Biologists dont even know how they do it, let alone how they could have evolved the ability to do it.
Zoologists would probably disagree, saying, “Yes, we do know how they do it. They steer by the stars.”
What do they mean, steer by the stars? No doubt that is part of the answer. But is it the whole story? Of course not. I should like to see a biologist find his way to one particular tree in a forest five thousand miles away, “steering by the stars”.
Another problem badly needing an answer is that of the time scale of evolution. Development rarely goes at the right speed to suit the theory. It either takes place far too rapidly (in these enormous jumps we have just looked at) or else it goes far too slowly.
The horse is a case in point. This animal may be a fast runner, but it has been a dreadfully slow evolver. We have a splendid “family tree” of fossils for it. The sequence starts with a little fellow called Eohippus, who is supposed to have lived about fifty million years ago, and works through a series of intermediate sizes until we get the present-day horse.
But the worlds record for slow evolving is held by a fish called the coelacanth. Fossil remains indicate that this lived some two or three hundred million years ago. For many years scientists thought it had died out two million centuries ago. Then in 1939 a South African professor, J. L. B. Smith, discovered that specimens of this “extinct” species were still swimming happily around the Indian Ocean. Evidently with this fish evolution has stood still for two hundred million years.
As the director of Madagascars Institute of Scientific Research commented:
“ Throughout hundreds of millions of years the coelacanths have kept the same form and structure. Here is one of the great mysteries of evolution.”13 (The italics are mine.)
Now the length of time life is thought to have been on earth is in the region of a thousand million years. This cannot, of course, be anything other than the roughest of rough estimates. But lets assume that it, and the estimated ages of Eohippus and the coelacanth, are
correct.
Then what is the total length of time available for the first blob of jelly to have evolved into a man? Only five times as long as the coelacanth has been lounging around, doing nothing. Only twenty times as long as it took a small horse to evolve into a big horse. Obviously somebody has some explaining to do.
Of all the “big jumps” that evolution has failed to explain, one stands out above the rest: the gap that separates man from the animals.
Even that high priest of Evolution, Sir Julian Huxley, has admitted that this is so. He says:
“Only along one single line is progress and its future possibility being continued-the line of man. If man were wiped out it is in the highest degree improbable that the step to conceptual thought would again be taken even by his nearest kin. After 1,500 million years of evolution progress hangs on but a single thread. That thread is the human germ-plasm.”14 (The italics are mine.)
In other words, the appearance of man was a most unlikely event. It was so utterly improbable that it will almost certainly never happen again. The evolutionist has no idea how this highly improbable event occurred. Yet his prejudice compels him to dismiss out of hand the obvious explanation-that Divine Power might have caused it.
In particular, there are three things that form an unbridgeable gulf between man and the animals:
(a) The power of abstract thought
(b) Moral and religious sense
(c) Language
None of these can be explained by the evolutionary principle of “survival of the fittest”. The invention of philosophy, and logic, and higher mathematics (yes, and the theory of evolution) are the outcome of our ability to think abstractly. But they did not help our ancestors to survive.
Nor did the development of mans moral sense. Jesus said, “The meek shall inherit the earth.”15 This is true if we take into account the age to come. But it does not make evolutionary sense today. By and large, trying to live up to Christs high moral standards is a hindrance to survival. This is particularly true of primitive societies, where “might is right” still prevails.
Above all, evolutionists are completely baffled by mans ability to speak. On any sort of evolutionary theory, language should have started with, “Grrr, snarl”, and worked its way up. It should have become more and more complex as time went by.
But the evidence points the other way. Languages nearly always grow simpler with use.
English is a good example. It has three main parents: Latin, Anglo-Saxon, and Norman French. The earliest English we can understand is that of Chaucers time (about 6oo years ago). His English had a simpler grammatical structure than the parent languages. Since his day our language has become simpler still.
This tendency to grow simpler with time can be seen in many “developing” languages. Nevertheless there are thousands of different languages in the world today, many of them almost incredibly complex. How did they arise? Nobody can say.
Or, rather, nobody but Bible-believers can say. There is a perfectly reasonable explanation in the Bible. It fits the facts. Only prejudice prevents men from accepting it.
In the beginning, God created the first man with the power of speech. His children had only one language. Then God said:
“ Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one anothers speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth.”16
What is true of language applies also to the many forms of life on earth. The evolutionists have not really begun to explain how all these complex living things could have evolved on their own. Again and again they reach a point where the evidence calls for an admission: “There must have been some Creative Hand behind this.” And yet they remain unwilling to admit it, not because of the facts but because of their prejudices.
Fortunately there is no need for us to wear blinkers like them. It is necessary to accept the facts of science. It is not necessary to accept the opinions of certain scientists, not even when they are palmed off as so-called facts. Genesis 1 may have suffered a thousand attacks. But it has come through them all, unscathed.
As we saw in the previous chapter, Genesis 1 does not set out to tell us how God created the world and everything in it; or when He did it; or how long He took to do it. But this it does tell us, and this many a scientist believes:
“ And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after its kind, cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth after its kind. And it was so.”17