GRADUAL EVOLUTION BY THE WAY OF RANDOM MUTATIONS AND NATURAL SELECTION: A HIGHLY DUBIOUS CONCEPT AND DARWIN KNEW IT

People who believe in evolution made Darwin into their hero, the flag bearer of a new Age of Reason, a symbol for man’s liberation from the chains of religious belief. In reality, he was a medical school drop-out unable to tell which bird was what. He eventually graduated from Cambridge with a degree in theology, and he was planning to become a priest.

As revealed in the book, why he liked to read, Darwin was not exactly an analytic mind. Prior to the theory of evolution, he came up with a couple of other failed “scientific” theories, and he believed the Bible was the supreme authority on everything under the sun. An amateur biologist and not a great friend of other sciences, he had well-substantiated doubts, one would have to say, about his theory of evolution, which, by the way, was not actually his. He never parted with them and the reason why he published On the Origin of Species, 23 years after his return from the voyage on the Beagle, was that Thomas Huxley insisted on that. Huxley intended to use the theory of evolution as a scientific argument against religion. As the existing documents show, however, while based on the evidence Darwin had doubts his theory stood the test of reason, Huxley was actually sure that was not the case.

So what is the argument in favor of embracing Darwinism offered by modern evolutionary scientists like former Oxford biology professor Richard Dawkins? In The Blind Watchmaker he writes that “My argument will be that Darwinism is the only known theory that is in principle capable of explaining certain aspects of life. If I am right it means that, even if there were no actual evidence in favour of Darwinian theory (there is, of course) we should still be justified in preferring it over all rival theories.” Really?

He is certainly not right and there are so many things wrong, as in false, with what he says that one does not know where to begin taking his explanation apart. First, a theory that is “in principle” capable of explaining certain things is definitely not a fact and definitely not actually capable of explaining things. As it will be demonstrated in the book, the theory of evolution does not explain a thing and we would be interested to hear Dawkins describing in a coherent manner one aspect of nature that is explained by the way of Darwinian evolution, something that is yet to happen.

Evolutionists assumes things occurred over long periods of time in a certain way while the evidence is a matter associated with our blind acceptance of the fictional world of gradual accidental mutations imagined by Darwin and presented by Richard Dawkins as fact. And how about a biologist who used to be a college professor stating that even if we did not have evidence supporting Darwinism, we should  consider it superior to other “rival theories” anyway? How would you like to have this gentleman teaching science to your children after paying a hefty tuition fee?

Two things about that, for now: beginning with 2012 South Korea, one of the most technologically advanced Asian countries no longer requires the teaching of evolution in schools, a decision taken purely on scientific grounds. And, yes, we actually do have genuine scientific “rival theories” about the origin of life and everything else on our planet. They call it the 'string theory,' and it was produced under the auspicious guidance of quantum physics.  

Excerpts from “A Time to Change – On the Necessary Return to a Rational Understanding of the Nature of Man and the Universe.”

“To a certain extent, Darwinian evolutionism is not much different from religious creationism. It only claims it is. The core idea advanced in the theory of evolution, the allegation that some species have evolved along the time into different ones by the way of acquiring additional parts is based on an infinite of missing links, as in missing evidence, and on blind belief in the miracles of natural selection.” – A Time of Change

Chapter 7.

In the Preface to his book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Australian molecular biologist Michael Denton writes that “While most evolutionary biologists who have written recently about evolution concede that the problems are serious, nearly all take an ultimately conservative stand, believing that they can be explained away by making only minor adjustments to the Darwinian framework.” Conservative stand, however, is a euphemism for state of denial.

Indeed, not every single anthropologist and molecular biologist on the planet is endorsing the claim that evolution is a solid and verifiable scientific fact, and no one knows exactly how many dissenters are actually out there and who is in majority. What we do know is that only a few among the scientists are speaking out today in support of evolution.

They tell our children in schools that when it comes to Darwin’s theory all scientists are on the same page, and that is utterly false. During his 2006 testimony before the Education Committee of the Michigan House of Representative in support of a much needed reevaluation of the standards used in schools to teach not just evolution but science in general, Ralph B. Seekly, Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Minnesota, stated that, “In the case of the theory of evolution, it is often taught as if there is no disagreement about the theory, or that any disagreement was due to ideology, not science.” What he meant was that not all the scientists who refused to embrace belief in random mutations being able to produce complex life forms were creationists, as proponents of the theory of evolution would want us to believe. Even those who are, they use science, not religion, to make their case against evolution.

That said, since genuine science and a rational interpretation of the known facts are strongly suggesting Darwinian gradual evolution is not possible in nature, creationists find it somehow inevitable to conclude the world is the work of a supernatural creator-god. As Seekly was revealing, though, many of those who reject the theory of evolution for being an unscientific proposition and for coming in conflict with both logic and the scientific method of research are secular scholars who happen to entertain a different opinion on this specific subject matter. They also have the evidence to back up their views with.

As far as we can tell, the initial show of support for the theory by the very few who were behind Darwin and Huxley may have been rooted into their honest desire to find a rational explanation for the origin of life. They really wanted to once and forever debunk a religious dogma they knew it was founded on falsehood and irrational. The conclusions Darwin reached, however, were mere assumptions and obvious misinterpretations of known facts. If Darwin’s allegation that random gradual evolution and natural selection can explain the origin of life was solidly based on reason and fact, we would not have the pronounced split on its validity we have today even among evolutionary scientists. Indeed, contrary to our perception regarding this issue, there are actually quite a few versions of evolutionary theory vehiculated among the evolutionists to begin with, and Darwin’s is only one of them. The public is made to believe though that this is a battle waged exclusively by Darwinists and creationists, and that is simply false.

That professors holding a degree in biology and who taught evolution for their entire life deny the existence of the split is a reminder of the fact that a master in science does not automatically imply character and honesty. The intolerance and the disrespect shown by those associated with the cult of Darwin to anyone who is critical of the theory of evolution, the obtuse position taken by organizations like National Center for Science Education, an organization that falsely states on its website that all scientists agree evolution is fact and that it is a mistake to debate over its validity is not much different from the dishonest propaganda we were served for centuries now with by religious institutions seeking to promote their own absurd dogmas as fact. To a certain extent, Darwinian evolutionism is not much different from religious creationism. It only claims it is. The core idea advanced in the theory of evolution, the allegation that species have evolved along the time into different ones by the way of acquiring additional parts is based actually on an infinite of missing links, as in missing evidence, and on blind belief in the miracles of natural selection.

Evolutionists claim lizards turned gradually into birds yet no one has ever observed that happening or has any proof it did. A fact that forces us to reject their claims, the famous fossil known as Archaeopteryx, a theropod dinosaur that lived 150 million years ago represents evidence birds too were distinct species that appeared on Earth simultaneously with and independent of other species of dinosaurs. Darwin was constantly finding evidence his theory was not a correct interpretation of the known facts, and yet today’s neo-Darwinists make it look like he never doubted himself. In Chapter X (Wilson edition) of On the Origin of Species, the On the Geological Succession of Organic Beings subchapter, he admits that the criticism of his theory proffered by other scientists “is probably valid.” To give only one example of such significant criticism, he was unable to produce physical evidence for what would have been an “intermediate between living species or groups,” and he was perfectly aware of that. Our day’s evolutionists, on the other hand, falsely claim they do have those intermediate species, and they deceptively present distinct species that went extinct without ever evolving into anything else as transitional species. In reality, they have no proof the transition happened or ever will.

                

The theory of evolution is nothing but a chain of miracles not for a moment supported by the evidence. Gradualism is not a rational inference based on genuine, credible evidence. Any “inference” in Darwinism is actually a huge leap of faith, and Darwin himself admitted to that. In a letter sent in 1857 to Asa Gray, two years before Thomas Huxley coached him into submitting his twenty-three year old manuscript with a publisher, he writes that, “I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science.” (Darwin’s June 18, 1857 letter to Asa Gray, The Correspondence of Charles Darwin. Cambridge University Press, 1989) He was absolutely correct about that.

Darwin’s theory was neither revolutionary nor sound. In fact, as we are going to see, in 1844 Richard Chambers proposed a theory on the origin of life that was received with much more enthusiasm by the public than Darwin’s, and which is being revisited today by a number of scientists. Darwin had serious doubts about his conclusions because based on the scientific evidence and on the interpretation of that evidence provided by his contemporaries, he kind of knew his theory of evolution did not make much sense.

It was now 1859, more than twenty years after Darwin put his thoughts on paper and he still did not want to publish On the Origin of Species. He would eventually do it, but he was never convinced he could prove his gradualism was a fact. Indeed, as one reads his book, it is hard at times to tell if he makes there an argument in favor of the theory he is proposing or if he offers an unexpected rebuttal of what he only believed but was not so sure it was true. He writes in the Introduction to On the Origin of Species that, “I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived.” He was on to something, one must say. Once again, he only published his work because individuals with an agenda insisted he should, and not because of his personal convictions.

In the part called Summary of the chapter Difficulties on Theory Darwin acknowledges the numerous objections raised by other scientists over his reasoning and admits that, “Many of them are grave.” He makes an effort to address them but since the evidence contradicts his assumptions, every time he ventures into explaining away those objections he becomes incoherent and nothing of what he says makes sense. While his today’s supporters gratuitously praise the alleged transparency of his work, precisely because Darwin was struggling to fit the evidence into his theory, logic would end up suffering terrible injury and the text of the Origin is not an easy prose to follow as his argument is constantly at odds with reason and common sense.

In his 2009 book The End of Darwinism, Eugene D. Windchy writes that “Although eloquent at times, Darwin, weather by chance or design, did have a muddled, ambiguous way of writing about his theory.” He quotes an ecologist by the name of Garrett Hardin, a supporter of Darwin and a believer in evolution who described Darwin writings as being “by turn clear, obscure, explicit, cryptic, suggestive.” Unlike in the case of a work of fiction, though, when it comes to science, obscure and cryptic is never a good thing. Windchy declines though to quote Thomas Huxley’s opinion on Darwin’s style, his main supporter and otherwise known as Darwin’s bulldog. His grounds for that were that it “would involve an ethnic slur.”

Aside from the many English archaisms that make the reading of the book an even more challenging experience at times, Darwin’s work is lacking in both scientific and semantic coherence. He often tries to express ideas he seems to think they are grand and worth sharing with the public. However, because he works with false premises and an erroneous understanding of the evidence, he is not exactly able to make the case for any of them, and the evidence is actually proving the opposite of what he claims it does. As a result, those many grave objections he was referring to remain as valid at the end of the paragraph as they were when he started to explain them away.

To give one significant example, in the same chapter he writes that, “We are quite ignorant of the causes producing slight and unimportant variations.” That makes one skeptical of his ability to explain the causes producing the major mutations. According to his theory, those “slight and unimportant variations” he admits he is ignorant of is what supposedly leads to the important, major mutations, and subsequently to the alleged transmutation of one species into a new one. As it turns out, though, Darwin was totally in the dark about how a species would evolve biologically speaking into a new one, but he claimed they all did anyway. He hoped one day someone will be able to figure that out, and that is yet to happen. Indeed, Darwin only assumed evolution occurred. According to the scientific method of research, though, assumptions are not facts and they certainly are not credible scientific conclusions.

In the same On the Geological Succession of Organic Beings subchapter of Chapter X, Darwin describes the concept of natural selection as being

grounded on the belief that each new variety, and ultimately each new species, is produced and maintained by having some advantage over those with which it comes into competition; and the consequent extinction of less-favoured forms almost inevitably follows.

As we can see, he actually admits that the main fixture of his theory of evolution, the very idea that natural selection is able to produce new species is not a fact but a conclusion “grounded on … belief.” Despite their proclamations of definite factuality and their continuous refuge within a terminology no one except them, perhaps, can understand, later generations of Darwinian evolutionists were never able to address that problem. More than that, a few pages farther down, Darwin gives us additional reasons to conclude his theory is nothing but unverifiable belief. He now states that, “New species are formed by new varieties arising, which have some advantage over older forms.”

While it is certainly true variations of the same concept, species similar to others do exist on our planet, the fact that some of the more advanced species look similar to the less complex ones is no proof of evolution by the way of gradually adding parts to existing species. This amazing diversity is actually unexplainable by the way of millions of years of gradual evolution and, as we are about see, certain species that have allegedly appeared in more recent times are not necessarily superior to or more complex than older life forms.

One little detail everyone supporting the theory of evolution seems to be always unfazed by despite the fact that it represents a major dilemma their theory cannot explain is the question of how the original species have appeared on Earth. An absolute fact, they do not know the origins of life to begin with. Darwin simply proclaims that new varieties were somehow “arising,” and the neo-Darwinists were left with the difficult task of coming up with a credible scientific explanation for how that happened. To this day, though, they have no idea how the first amoeba came into existence or how it turned into a fish. Nevertheless, they claim in front of their trusting audiences they have lots of evidence when they actually cannot produce the record of a single credible case of real evolution.

By the time one finishes reading On the Origin of Species, it becomes obvious that, though an intriguing theory, Darwin has completely failed to make the case for gradual evolution through natural selection. Many chose to believe it is the other way around. When it comes to the miracle worker called “natural selection,” for example, he is actually not so sure it was the player in the evolutionary process he originally thought it was. “I am convinced,” he writes, “that Natural Selection has been the main, but not exclusive means of modification.” This statement is practically another acknowledgement of the fact that his conclusion was actually an assumption unsupported by facts, a weak hypothesis at the best. Sure enough, even die-hard evolutionists have abandoned today support for the idea that natural selection had a significant role in the birth of new species.

He also would never name the other “means” that could have caused those alleged major modifications leading to the transformation of an old species into a new one. Same as Darwin more than 150 years ago, the 21st century evolutionists are still unable to explain and to replicate the hows of their adopted theory. More than that, new discoveries made in the field of molecular biology, biochemistry, genetics, anthropology, and quantum physics have thrown over the theory of evolution not just the shadow of indestructible doubt but a thick and heavy burial cloak.

The fossil record of the Cambrian “life explosion,” which Darwin knew about by probably studying the work of geologists like William Buckland (1784–1856), represents evidence his famous “tree of life,” a tree describing one lonely lower life form branching out over millions of years into more complex life forms is of the imaginary kind. When confronted with evidence indicating that similar life forms, as well as similar alleged changes occurred simultaneously all over the planet millions and millions of years ago and in places where the environmental conditions were far from being similar, Darwin’s reaction was a brief expression of interest regarding what two “admirable observers” of his time, famous French paleontologists and geologists Eduard de Verneuile and Adolphe d’Archiac had to say on this issue. In reference to the strange fact that there is synchronism and similitude in the way life forms are represented in the fossil record all over the world, Darwin quotes them saying that

it will appear certain that all these modifications of species, their extinction, and the introduction of new ones, cannot be owing to mere changes in marine currents or other causes more or less local and temporary, but depend on general laws which govern the whole animal kingdom. (On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin, page 656, Edward O. Wilson edition, From So Simple a Beginning, The Four Great Books of Charles Darwin)  

This pertinent observation made by the two Frenchmen suggested the existence of a pre-determined pattern in another dimension, those “general laws” that would cause similar life forms to materialized all over the Earth, a hypothesis proposed in 1844 by Richard Chambers in Vestiges of the Natural Order of Creation and embraced today by molecular biologist Michael Denton. Darwin, however, does not make much of what it is clearly a reasonable logical possibility and abandons his heroes’ trail in a hurry and without any explanation. Had he followed that direction, he would have certainly opened the door toward a more rational conclusion about the origin of species and everything else for that matter. Neither Darwin nor a majority among the scientists of his time were prepared though to take that path. 

The principle of “might is right” worked as well in those days as it did in the time of Socrates, and it continues to be as efficient today as it was thousands of years ago. Sure enough, there were other scientific theories about how life may have appeared on Earth. They were much more interesting than Darwin’s evolution and while they were proposed right before or at about the same time he published his book, for some reason Huxley chose gradual evolution even though he did not think it was a valid theory. Scientists who do not consider gradual evolution to be a valid explanation for the origin of life and for the existence of our species are considering today the possibility that those “general laws,” as well as the information necessary to build life forms from elementary particles is something encrypted into the matrix of the universe. This possibility received additional support from physicists saying that the universe is what it is because of a set of precisely quantified forces that are constantly active within our reality.

The essence of this hypothesis is that under the conditions existing at one time on Earth, a certain energy, nothing supernatural about it, something explainable actually by the way of quantum physics, shaped up matter into geological forms and later caused the vegetal and the animal kingdom to appear. It happened along successive stages of development that took less than the hundreds of millions of years suggested by evolutionists to complete and certainly much longer than six days some six thousand years ago as suggested in the Bible. As mentioned, this idea was already entertained by certain individuals at the time when Darwin returned from his voyage to the Galapagos Islands. He was obviously aware of it, since he quotes d’Archiac and de Verneuile on their “general laws” theory and since Chambers’ book was a huge success with the public, and yet he chooses to remain faithful to his “elegant” yet unrealistic assumptions about miraculous mutations adding parts to lizards to make them fly like birds. To make things worse for himself and for his theory, he actually admitted he could not explain those mutations. 

Despite of all the interest his theory has produced when Huxley put his weight behind it, and while On the Origin of Species was an instant best seller, throughout his life Darwin remained very skeptical about the validity of his theory. Regarding a matter discussed in the chapter called Variation Under Nature, he makes a remark that is emblematic of his constant hesitation to declare evolution by the way of gradual mutations a proven fact. In an attempt to brush aside those many annoying problems he otherwise could not pretend they did not exist, in reference to a certain controversial issue he was unable to address, something raising serious doubts about the credibility of his entire theory, he writes that, “The whole subject must, I think, remain vague.” It actually didn’t. With time, the whole matter of gradualism got actually worse.

(Last revised on 04.03.2013)

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