THE DARWIN PAPERS
VOLUME 1 NUMBER II
EDWARD
BLYTH
AND NATURAL SELECTION(1)
From
The Nebulous Hypothesis:
A
Study of the Philosophical and
Historical Implications of Darwinian Theory
© 1996
by James M. Foard
Editor and
Publisher James M. Foard.
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Find out all about Mark
Isaaks' incredible story of the evolution of the Bombardier Beetle, straight from TalkOrigins below |
One forgotten chapter in
history,
neglected by most of Darwin's biographers, concerns a
gentleman by the name of Edward Blyth. Blyth was a chemist in South London, 
a
year younger than Darwin, but unlike Charles Darwin, Edward Blyth had not been
born into wealth. His father died when he was ten, leaving his widowed mother to
raise four children. She managed to send her eldest son, Edward, to school where
he excelled in chemistry and natural history, spending his every spare moment at
the British Museum.
His sister said of him, "Never was any youth more industrious; up at three or four in the morning, reading, making notes, sketching bones, coloring maps, stuffing birds by the hundred, collecting butterflies, and beetles-teaching himself German sufficiently to translate it readily, singing always merrily at intervals."(2)
Blyth spoke often at scientific meetings in London in the same circles that Darwin frequented, expounding theories quite similar to Darwin's own later writings. From 1835 through 1837 he published some articles dealing with the subject of natural selection in The British Magazine of Natural History, and it is evident that Darwin recieved copies of this magazine while in Peru in 1835 during his voyage on the Beagle. (3)
Loren Eisely has shown in Darwin and the Mysterious Mr. X. that not only was it obvious that Darwin had been quite familiar with Blyth's writings but that Darwin was to use many of Blyth's ideas years later on when writing his Origin, yet he had given Blyth little or no acknowledgment. (For more on Eisely, see note) (4)
Eisely makes
mention of the fact that all of Darwin's major ideas-the struggle for survival,
variation, and natural selection- were fully expressed in
Blyth's first paper of 1835, yet Darwin was strangely reluctant to give Blyth
any credit at all for this (5)
Here is an
example of Blyth's description of natural selection, which, as opposed to
Darwin's (and other evolutionist's writings), describes it as a process whereby
the original created type of a species has the best chance of surviving
among brute animals: " There
has been, strangely enough, a difference of opinion among naturalists, as to
whether these seasonal changes of colour were intended by Providence as an
adaptation to change of temperature10, or as a
means of preserving the various species from the observation of their foes, by
adapting their hues to the colour of the surface; against which latter opinion
it has been plausibly enough argued, that "nature provides for the preyer as
well as for the prey." The fact is, they answer both purposes; and
they are among those striking instances of design, which so clearly
and forcibly attest the existence of an omniscient great First Cause.
Experiment demonstrates the soundness of the first opinion; and sufficient
proof can be adduced to show that the other is also sound. Some arctic species
are white, which have no enemy to fear, as the polar bear, the gyrfalcon, the
arctic eagle-owl, the snowy owl, and even the stoat; and therefore, in these,
the whiteness can only be to preserve the temperature of their bodies [VI.
79.]; but when we perceive that the colour of nocturnal animals, and of those
defenceless species whose habits lead them to be much exposed, especially to
enemies from above, are invariably of the same colour with their
respective natural haunts, we can only presume that this is because they
should not appear too conspicuous to their enemies.". Blyth,
Magazine of Natural History, 1835 Francis
Hitching mentioned that Eiseley had chronicled quite substantial portions of
Darwin's writings
Large parts of Darwin's personal notes during this
period in 1835 reflected his familiarity with Blyth's writings, yet for some
mysterious reason fifty pages of Darwin's notebook from this time are missing,
with the cryptic reference "All useful pages cut out," (6) added by Darwin in 1856.
This does
not prove that Darwin purposely hid reference to Blyth's writings. You
can draw your own conclusions.
Darwin's own copy of Magazine of Natural History in 1837 showed that he made use of Blyth's paper of that year, the same year when he first claimed to have come up with the idea of natural selection on his own,(7)wherein Blyth had written essentially the same basic doctrine that Darwin took credit for.(8)
Eiseley wrote, "At that moment, probably in 1837, the Origin was born."
William Wells
had actually written of natural selection in 1813 (as had many others, however
it was Blyth's writing that Darwin clearly was impressed by during his voyage,
and it was Blyth who saw natural selection in a creationist context)
but Darwin claimed that he was unfamiliar with Well's writings at the time of
the original publication of The Origin of Species.
Later on,
after being brought to task by certain individuals for taking credit for an idea
that was not his own, Darwin gave Wells credit for the idea; however Wells
originated nothing novel either: as noted, the basic concept of natural
selection had been around since ancient Greek time. (Although it
is a bit like pulling teeth, evolutionists are finally having to admit that
there was really nothing original in what Darwin wrote, however they still
insist that he somehow proved evolution. Very few of them can actually
cite evidence for this. For more on this century old fable, see Chapter Four
of The Darwin Papers)
The significant difference between the writings of Charles Darwin and Edward Blyth was that Blyth was an ardent creationist; (other evolutionists had written of natural selection before Blyth, it's really a pretty simple concept and was nothing new when Darwin wrote about it either, as can be seen from this website), the uniqueness of Blyth's writing was that he saw natural selection within a creationist perspective, not from a purely naturalistic one, and his papers simply flowed with his sense of awe and reverence for the God of creation who had so wonderously and wisely made all of His creatures. Blyth showed that natural selection actually worked better within a creationist framework. Thus, with this major pillar destroyed, the theory of evolution didn't have a leg to stand on, except for the ongoing propaganda campaign conducted by those such as Roland that lends the momentum to continure the charade.
Francis Hitching, an evolutionist, wrote: "Darwin took everything Blyth had said and used it to support an opposite conclusion"(10) i.e. the denial of the miraculous and of special creation. Darwin changed natural selection around to mean evolutionary descent of all beings from a common ancestor, which was never Blyth's original contention at all.
Janet Browne wrote of Darwin: "There was a sliver of ice inside enabling him to make the most of all the advantages he possessed and the circumstances in which he found himself." (Janet Browne is a noted historian. According to one critic of this chapter she must have loathed Darwin, or is it only creationists that loathe him when they speak critically of him? (11) Alfred Russel Wallace was a college of Darwin's who, prior to Darwin's presentation of his paper before a group of scientists shortly before the publication of the Origin, had written a nearly identical paper on evolution, at least in substance. After Darwin read Wallace's paper he hurriedly published his own and read his paper first. Years later, Wallace refused to go to Darwin's funural)
Samuel Butler
was a contemporary of Darwin and was the grandson of Darwin's old headmaster at
Shrewsbury. He had been a former admirer of him until he read the work of
earlier evolutionists like Lamarck and Buffon, then he launched an attack on
Darwin's early claim to having originated his
theories on his own, first in a book titled Evolution Old and New
published in May of 1879, then in a letter to the Athenaeum on the 31st of
January, 1880. Later he renewed the attack in another book titled Unconcious
Memory, in which he documented Darwin's "borrowing" much of his work from
others. (There are legitimate axes to grind, and Butler definitely had one.
Blyth was relatively unknown, died in obscurity and poverty, and his theories
were from an entirely different outlook, creationism, not evolution, thus Butler
had no ax to grind with Blyth).
World famous geneticist and anthropologist C.D. Darlington, an evolutionist (I have put his credentials here because his qualifications definitely carry weight, and should counter the tired evolutionist argument that no serious scientists question Darwin), although he doesn't come right out and say it, still comes about as close as one could get to accusing Darwin of plagiarism without actually spelling it out. He said that Darwin "was able to put across his ideas not so much because of his scientific integrity, but because of his opportunism, his equivocation and his lack of historical sense. Though his admirers will not like to believe it, he accomplished his revolution by personal weakness and strategic talent more than by scientific virtue" (Did Darlington, a noted evolutionist, have "an ax to grind" with Darwin? Apparently so, and a legitimate one.) (16)
Blyth was eventually appointed as the curator of the Museum of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, in India, where he lived for many years on a meager stipend. His personal life was marred with tragedy. In 1854 he married a Mrs. Hodges, a young widow visiting relatives in India, whom he had known previously in England when she had been single. She was to die within the space of three years after their wedding.
Arthur Grote, Blyth's friend and collegue, wrote "In December 1857, Blyth had the misfortune to lose his wife. His short married life had been of the happiest, and the blow fell heavily on him. His letters to his sister for the early months of 1858 are painful to read. The shock proved too much for him, and brought on a serious attack of illness . . .(17)
A few years after the death of Blyth's wife, when Darwin was famous and wealthy from the publication of his Origin and from his family inheritance while Blyth was living in obscurity and poverty, Darwin casually mentioned Blyth's situation in a letter to his friend Lyell in 1860: "I have had a letter from poor Blyth of Calcutta, who is much disappointed at hearing Lord Canning will not grant any money . . ." and then he made this remarkable admission ". . . Blyth says (and he is in many respects a very good judge) that his ideas on species are quite revolutionary.. ."(18)
Blyth never fully recovered from the loss of his wife. He remained in poor health for the rest of his days. Blyth was incapable of any harsh feelings, even towards Darwin, with whom he corresponded. He was remembered by his contemporaries as having a prodigious memory, and his friend Grote wrote eloquently of him in a eulogy: "The warmth and freshness of his feelings which first inspired him with the love of nature clung to him through his chequered life, and kept him on good terms with the world, which punished him . . . Few men who have written so much have left in their writings so little that is bitter. No man that I have ever known was so free as he was from the spirit of intolerance; and the absence of this is a marked feature in all his controversial papers. All too that he knew was at the service of everybody . . ." (19)
Loren Eisely
wrote: "But let
the world not forget that Edward Blyth, a man of poverty and bad fortune, 
shaped a
key that dropped half-used from his hands when he set forth hastily on his own
ill-fated voyage. That key, which was picked up and reforged by a far greater
and more cunning hand, was no less than natural selection."(20)
When Blyth
died in London on December 27, 1873, found among his papers was a fragment of an
old manuscript that he had once been preparing, titled "On the Origination of
Species". (21)
Natural
selection is the main
process that Darwin said accounted for his theory of evolution to work. As
can be seen from Darwin's own writing, the presence of transitional forms
providing proof for his theory are extremely rare, practically
non-existant, because the law of natural selection would tend to exterminate
them. That was Darwin's reason why those bothersome
missing links weren't found to support his theory This should
come as no surprise from a man whose favorite pastime during his college years
was shooting birds at random, and who went on a bloody spree clubbing birds to
death during his voyage on the Beagle He further
wrote in his Origin: "As natural selection acts solely by the preservation of
profitable modifications, each new form will tend in a fully-stocked country to
take the place of, and finally exterminate, its own less improved parent-form
and other less favoured forms with which it comes into competition.
Thus
extinction and natural selection go hand in hand." (Origin, Chapter
Vl, On the Absences or Rarity of Transitional Varieties, pp.80, Benton
Edition, 1952). Thus we have
Darwin's sentence on the baby harp seals, the blue whale, African rhino and
the mountain gorilla: they will all get beaten into extinction during the course of
"further modification and improvement."
How did Darwin say that this process of natural selection takes
place? Let all of those who are concerned with protecting endangered species and
animal rights pay attention to this, straight from the pen of Charles Darwin,
where he expounds on his idea of the process by which natural selection takes
place:
" I
endeavoured, also, to show that intermediate varieties, from existing in lesser
numbers than the forms which they connect, will generally be beaten out
and exterminated during the course of further modification and
improvement." (Origin, Chapter
Ten: On the Imperfection of the Geologic Record: On the absence of
intermediate varieties at the present day) (22)
(The Darwin Papers;
Chapter's 4 - 6), and this was his sentence on other forms of life that aren't
fit enough to compete with other species in his struggle for survival; they get
wiped out, and Darwin considered this an "improvement."
(See Chapter 1).
We find Darwin's outlook on his role as a naturalist and what he thought of the delicate balance of nature when he wrote in 1856, upon beginning his Origin: "What a book a devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low and horridly cruel works of nature." (25)
In contrast to
Darwin's gray, dreary,
brutal vision of the natural world (read the four
previous quotes above) we find Edward Blyth's observations of the
cooperation of many species inhabiting a similar ecosystem. A comparison of
Darwin's and Blythe's writings will show that Blyth did not see natural
selection as having the capacity to originate any species, it could only
preserve and protect the integrity of already existing species, thus Blyth was
correctly in line with what modern
scholarship has to say about it.
Natural selection is merely a
sorting process. It is like a shaker tray on a treadmill in a
food processing plant that sorts out various peanuts by size and lets the
smaller ones drop through the holes while the larger ones are passed on for
consumption. The shaker tray did not create the peanuts, which
were grown from other peanuts, it merely selected and separated the peanuts by
size.
According to Darwin though, and his coterie of evolutionist followers, you could take certain peanuts that have novel features, such as a larger peanut, and plant it, and then select the largest peanut from that bunch and plant that, and eventually have a really, really big peanut with more survival value, say a 50 lb. peanut, or a 500 lb. peanut. Or you could grow a smarter, faster peanut, or a peanut that might start to sprout wings, or a peanut that might decide to return to the sea like they claim whales did, or it could develop some other ingenious feature that would help it survive, until finally you would have an entirely new species that wouldn't be a peanut at all. After all, that is how they claim we all arrived here from some type of primitive bacteria. This is all nonsense of course, we have bred animals to certain sizes, along with plants, and there have always been certain limits to the amount of variation that can be produced through selective breeding.
It was Blyth who articulated and developed natural selection within a creationist context and who showed that the original kind within a species had a much better chance of survival than the more exotic varieties did (this is an overall generalisation; through variation and migration certain breeds began to inhabit different locales that were more favorable for them, such as polar bears in the arctic, but as noted with the peanut, variety has it's limits), and it is Blyth from whom Darwin took his major ideas from and then turned them around to deny the special, miraculous creation of species by God. We find from Blyth's writings that he was also an early ecologist and conservationist, evidently concerned for the welfare of our ecosystem and man's role in preserving it. He expressed these sentiments well over one hundred years before the birth of the modern ecology movement when he wrote of ". . . the system which the existence of one species is necessary to that of another, and which binds each race to it's locality; where the presence of each is alike necessary to preserve the equilibrium of organic being around." (26)
Also in stark
contrast to Darwin's view of the "clumsy,
wasteful, blundering, low . . . works of nature", Blyth
wrote: "How beautifully do we thus perceive, as in a thousand other
instances the balance of nature preserved" (27) and then he
left us with this stern admonition: "In his vanity
(man) is apt to imagine that all were made for him . . . yet how ardently does
he labor to exterminate every portion of that creation . . ." (28)
There were four important distinctions that we should look at between Darwin's writings and Edward Blyth's.
Blyth also touched on the subject of comparative anatomy of creatures with outwardly similar morphology (ex. Men and apes): "I must venture, however, to differ from the majority of them [evolutionary minded naturalists] in opposing the prevalent notion, that the extreme modifications of diverse types blend and inosculate by direct affinity [common evolutionary descent]; contending however closely these may apparently resemble, the most similar modifications of diverse types are not, in a physiological sense, more nearly related to each other than are the more characteristic examples of the same." (31) He wrote in another section: ". . . every species is esentially distinct and separate from every other species; otherwise it would not be a species but a variety. The most similar species, therefore, are only allied to each other in consequence of the resemblence of their general organization." (32)
Thus, men and
apes simply resemble each other, that does not in itself prove any type of
common descent.
As far as
certain DNA similarities, humans have more in common genetically with chickens
than we do with rats, a mammal to whom we are supposedly more related to in
evolutionary terms. (Humans are genetically more similar to chickens than
rats; Wageningen International
Studies Paper; Whisp'r Archive, Issue 31 - 26.10.2000 Page 05) Some
marsupials are remarkably similar to certain Eutheriatic (non-pouched) mammals,
in fact they resemble some Eutheriatic mammals more than other Eutheriatic
mammals resemble each other, however their method of weaning their young clearly
sets them apart as another order of living beings entirely. He wrote in
another treatise: "The same awful
(awesome) Being who first awakened man into existence in common with the meanest
atom, who appointed his destiny upon earth to be so diverse from that of his
other creatures, who endowed him alone to reflect upon his Makers goodness and
power . . ." (35) These are
some of the very important differences between Blyth's majestic vision of God's
beautiful creation and of man's role to play in it contrasted with Darwin's
evolutionary theories of some furtive creature struggling to survive by
eliminating his competitors as they ascend out of primordial slime. Let us see whether Darwin's
ideas of chance evolution or Blyth's ideas of an intelligent designer make more
sense in light of some observations of nature. Darwin did The pig
shark, so named
because it has a nose and mouth section remarkably resembling a pigs, does
something quite unique among any creature of the animal Kingdom, there is no
evidence of anything like it at all in any other animal, fossilized or modern.
It's eggs are shaped like perfectly formed auger-like screws, precision fitted
as though from a tool-makers machine shop, and then it drills these egg capsules
into rock crevices, where the embryo develops safe and secure from predators for
the space of a year! Nothing like
it exists at all in any other species of shark, there is no evidence of
evolution having produced this marvel, it speaks for design from a creative
intelligence, not blind chance and random chemicals mixing together. (37)
In a
comparative study of the hearts of the four types of living reptiles; lizards,
snakes, turtles, and crocodiles,
we find that there are major structural differences between them all, with no
indication of any type of an intermediate form ever existing, in fact, an
intermediate form between a crocodile's heart and that of any other reptile
would undoubtedly spell instant death to the creature. In lizards,
snakes, and turtles we have the right atrium and the left atrium situated next
to each other, on the same side of the heart, to the left of the two aorta,
while the pulmonary artery is on the right side of the heart. The crocod Among the
three remaining types of reptiles, a lizards heart has both aortas and both
atria connected to the left
ventricle, while in a turtles heart only the right aorta and the two atria are
connected the left ventricle, the left aorta is connected to the right
ventricle. In a snakes heart only the left atrium opens into the left ventricle,
both of the aortas and the right atrium open into the right ventricle. None of
these creatures could have survived unless their hearts were perfectly formed as
they are from the beginning of their existence, an intermediate form would spell
instant doom for an animal, and yet none of these reptiles have hearts that are
alike in the slightest. The amphibian
has a heart unlike that of any reptilian heart. Instead of a four chambered
heart like that found in reptiles, with an amphibian's heart there are only two
atria that pass into a single ventricle, and a fish only has one atrium and one
ventricle connected to the gills. There is definitely a progression in
complexity from the heart of the fish to the reptile, but there is nothing like
an intermediate stage to be found, an intermediate stage would be fatal for any
creature. A heart must be completely functional and fully developed for the
creature to survive. An
evolutionist by the name of Lenny Flank has disputed this and attempted to claim
that there are transitional forms for the hearts of the four types of reptiles.
He brought up the pachyrhachis, a fossilised snake, and a fossil amphibian
called Acanthostega as some sort of proof for transitional forms. Unfortunately
for Flank, it is doubtful that they would provide information on any
transitional forms of reptilian hearts since we do not have any remains at all
of the hearts of these two extinct species. Furthermore, even if we did, their
hearts would in all probability be the same as the hearts of modern snakes and
amphibian salamanders; after all the pachyrhachis was simply a snake with unique
claspers probably used in mating, and the Acanthostega was a salamander, no
more, no less. Flank also
has a website up devoted to Ichthyostega,
a supposed transitional species in the fossil record bridging the gap between
marine creatures and land animals. He stated "The creationists are fond of
stating that there are 'no transitionals in the fossil record'. One of the best
fossil transitionals, however, is that of Icthyostega, which combines the traits
of both fishes and amphibians, and represents the transition between aquatic and
terrestrial vertebrate life.". There are
some serious problems with Flank's Ichthyostega though, the first being that he
has had the name of the creature misspelled on his web page heading for at
least eight years (circa 1995-2003). Although there are two acceptable ways to
spell Ichthyostega (Icthyostega) in English, Flank has either spelled
it purposely in Spanish, in which case he might have spelled it that way in
the rest of his document, which he has not, or else he misspelled it and never
noticed it. The second
problem with Flank's argument is that Kathleen
Hunt of talk.origins has said that Ichthyostega, along with Flank's
Acanthostega were probably never in the ancestral lineage of later land animals,
thus they had no place in the supposed evolutionary transition from marine
creatures to land animals at all. Aside from these two minor problems Flank's
page makes interesting reading. I've always been a science fiction fan since my
youth. (For more detailed information on fish-amphibian-reptilian evolution see
The
Creature from the Black Lagoon) There are quite
a few different methods of
reproduction in the fish world. Some fish mate by coupling with their partners,
there are some fish species where the females simply lay their eggs in a certain
region while the male swims by and squirts his sperm over the eggs. In some
species the male fish have no external sexual organ, in other species the male
fish have two, with the female having two corresponding areas on her body for
the male to conjoin with, however the seahorse is perhaps the most remarkable
innovator in the field of reproduction.
While male seahorses have no external male sexual organ, the females
do, and it corresponds in the mating process in the same manner that a
male organ does on other species, except that instead of ejecting sperm, she
ejects eggs into the male seahorses sperm pouch, which serves as a womb
where the male seahorse carries and nurses the fertilised eggs, much as a female
of other species does with her young. The eggs attatch themselves to the walls
inside of the pouch through which they receive oxygen and nutrients.
The seahorse is also the only known fish that mates for life, or until
the death of one of the partners. When both partners meet each other after a
brief separation, their colors brighten, they engage in greetings, they nuzzle
each other, and then they link tails and swim together from one blade of
seagrass to another in a beautiful dance. The sea-dragon, similar to the
seahorse, engages in the same method of reproduction, except that instead of
having a pouch the male sea-dragon carries the eggs under his tail.
Ants
and aphids get along wonderfully. In fact it
might even be safe to say that the aphid is the ants best friend. Ants raise
aphids, much as we raise cattle and sheep, herding them and tending to their
needs, defending them from predators, even mulching and tending the plant that
the aphids live on and providing for their young. Remember“The Wind in the Willows”? How about “The
House at Pooh Corner”? In these
enchanting stories from our youth we read of Toad and Frog and other of natures’
denizens commingling happily together in animal society as they faced the trials
and triumphs of everyday life. Pure fantasy? Consider
Alpheas, the snapping shrimp and his six-inch long friend with an almost longer
Latin name, Cryptocentrus
coeruleopunctatus, the goby fish. Alphy and Goby are friends, in
fact they are room-mates together, safely tucked away in a snug little burrow
that Alphy digs in the sand with his claws. Sometimes Goby takes Alphy for a
walk, or Alphy takes Goby for a swim, take your pick. Anyway, when they leave
their little burrow and wander around the ocean floor foraging for food, as
Alphy skuttles along he stays in physical contact with Goby, who swims just
above him, with one of his antenna, which acts as a sort of “leash”. This works
out very well, since Alphy is very nearly blind and cannot detect the presence
of predators. Not to worry though. Darwin even wrote
of the
previously mentioned process of aphid and ant symbiosis in his Origin, of
course not from his own research but from the work of Pierre Huber. He had no
good answers as to how this came about through evolutionary means either.
Elsewhere in his
Origin he makes mention of the slave making ants, where he again refers
to the work of Huber, who found that there is a species of ant that depends
entirely on its slaves, to the extent that "without their help, the species
would become extinct within a single year." How such a condition could
gradually develop through random, natural selection and evolution is unanswered,
and Darwin doesn't even attempt to answer it either. He wrote, "By what steps
the instinct of F. sanguines originated I will not pretend to
conjecture." Further on in the Origin, Darwin wrote of some bees that do
not have the pollen collecting ability to save up food for their young, so they
lay their young in the nests of other bees who raise them. Again, he had no idea
how this came about through his theory. There are many
wonders in nature that speak
for intelligent design, not blind, random, haphazard evolutionary processes. The
Iracundus signifer, a species of scorpion fish known as the decoy fish, manages
to accomplish a feat that is quite remarkable. When food in the form of a
smaller fish swims nearby, it lays quite still on the seafloor, even slowing its
breathing down and altering its pigment to merge in with the surrounding
seascape. This in itself may not seem altogether too remarkable, except that it
engages an additional member of its body with an added trick to entice the fish
near. It raises its
dorsal fin. What make
this particular trick so unique is that its dorsal fin resembles an even smaller
fish, even having a black spot between the second and third membranes of the fin
that resembles an eye, while a notch between the first and second membranes of
the fin resembles a mouth. Thus while it lays quite still on the ocean bottom,
blending in with its surroundings, its dorsal fin becomes quite conspicuous,
even mimmicking the movements of a fish, and attracting predators, which show up
thinking to enjoy a snack, but instead they wind up being swallowed by the decoy
fish, making his sudden appearance. Could mindless evolution produce this?
(38) Ever had a
problem with stomach gas? In mastering the phenomena of flatulence, none can
match that remarkable insect, the bombardier beetle. The German chemist
Schildknecht studied the amazing defense system of this noxious insect, which
makes use of two extremely dangerous gasses that the beetle conjures up within
his abdomen, hydroquinine and hydrogen peroxide. This explosive mixture of
chemicals would blow the beetle to bits were it not for an added chemical that
prevents the reaction from occuring. Whenever an
enemy in the form of a larger insect or animal shows up to feast on the little
critter, he turns his hind quarters towards the predator, squirts both of these
chemicals from within a chamber in his hinquarters, discharging a small
explosion when the predator is ready to gulp him down. Evolutionary
theory would postulate that thousands upon thousands of intermediate forms led
up to this novel invention over millions of years, However, even if we assume
that the beetle somehow managed to evolve these chemicals at the same time they
would still be useless for thousands of generations. As Huse (39) (a
creationist scientist) points out, "But what would be the motivation for such a
disastrous, trial and error, piecemeal evolution? Everything in evolution is
supposed to be beneficial and have a logical purpose, or else it would never
develop. But such a process does not make any sense, and to propose that the
entire defense system evolved all at once is simply impossible." Mark Isaak, a writer for the
evolutionist website talk.origins, disagrees with this and has made the odd
assertion that former Berkeley biochemist Dr. Duane Gish (a celebrated
creationist scientist) is mistaken in his view that the bombardier beetle is a
good example of intelligent design in nature. (See Talk.Origins, Bombardier Beetles and the Argument of Design, by Mark
Isaak) "Gish is
wrong," Isaak claims, "a step by step evolution of the bombardier beetle is
really not that hard to imagine." Isaak then proceeds to take us on his fifteen
step process that he claims might have produced the bombardier beetles amazing
system of defense. He pieces together various facts concerning arthropods and
beetles from a variety of sources, but he injects them with the usual
evolutionist logical errors and assumptions in his interpretation of these
facts. Let us
investigate what Isaak wrote to see where truth leaves off and bias
begins.
Amazingly
though, after all is said and done, we find out that Isaak was making the whole thing
up! He is simply storytelling and he admits as
much. In fact, according to Isaak, it could have happened any one of a
number of ways, take your choice! "The scenario
above is hypothetical; the actual evolution of the bombardier beetles probably
did not happen exactly like that." In fact, he actually admits that "nature is not constrained by any persons lack of
imagination." Thus
Isaak actually hasn't got the foggiest notion of how the
bombardier beetle developed his marvelous defensive mechanism, and yet after
spinning this fantasy he uses
this as evidence for evolution! Well, if your
going to make up your own stories out of whole cloth and then use that as proof,
I suppose not! Anything could be possible with this type of logic.The
entire story told above is 90% fantasy, cleverly
woven together with a few observations of natural phenomena thrown in to lend it
the look of scientific respectability! "Their features, behaviors, and distribution nicely fit the kinds
of patterns that evolution
creates."? Isaak has
created this scenario; he made it all up and then neatly called it
evolution, but there was never any evidence of an evolutionary sequence for the
creation of the Bombardier Beetle in the first place! Isaak is simply assuming
God out of the picture and then giving evolution the deific power of
creation itself, despite his duplicitous attempt later in his FAQ to ameliorate
those who want to believe in evolution but keep God in the
picture. He then
states: "Nobody has yet found anything about any bombardier beetle which is
incompatible with evolution." He goes on: "Note that all of the steps above are
small or can easily be broken down into smaller steps. The bombardier beetles'
mechanism can come about solely by accumulated microevolution. Furthermore, all
of the steps are probably advantageous, so they would be selected." Of
course all of the steps would be advantageous; after all, it all came
out of his own mind, like a child's bedtime story!! He never saw any of
this happening, he never had any fossil evidence for it either! In real life if
this were happening through chance mutation all of the steps would
not probably be advantagous, the laws of probability would spell doom
for Isaak's fantasy; natural selection would be sorting through millions of
mistakes to pick out the right ones; it would simply not happen. And Isaak
doesn't have "four billion years" of earth's history, because in his scheme this
only happened within a tiny, little time slot within that history. Again,
probability does not give him enough time for the "right" chance mutations to
occur within this time slot. In fact, even if he did have four billion
years, counting the time when the earth was a hot, molten mass (couldn't happen)
he would still not have enough time in a chance scenario for the chemicals and
cells to show up. Isaak calls
this evolution. I think that a better word for it (without intelligent design
involved, that is) might be Alakazam, or Bippidy Boppidy Boo! Isaak sums up
his little story with "This does not mean, of course, that we know everything
about the evolution of bombardier beetles; far from it." He goes on:
"But the gaps in our knowledge should not be interpreted as meaningful in
themselves. Some people are apparently uncomfortable with the idea of
uncertainty, so uncomfortable that they try to turn the unknown into the
unknowable" This is
exactly what Isaak has done with his fantastic story of the Beetles
evolution; he has culled the entire thing out of the Twilight Zone.
And these Uncle Remus
"Just So" stories are used by evolutionists to string together their scenarios
of "how the leopard got his spots" to regale their audiences, while they heap
scorn on creationists who would dare to presume that some of these marvels of
nature show evidence of design!
say that his
theory would be totally discredited if a trait could be shown not to have arisen
by gradual evolutionary processes: "If it could
be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have
been formed by numerous, successive,
slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." (36)
ile's heart, on
the other hand, is not anything like this at all. His right atrium and left
atrium are on opposite sides of the heart: the right atrium is placed where the
pulmonary artery is in the other reptiles, while the pulmonary artery and two
aorta are situated in between the two atria. 
It is similar to having four distinct types of internal combustion
engines: a V-6 gasoline engine; a single piston motorcycle engine; an in-line
diesel engine; and a rotary engine. Although all of these engines use similar
chemical, electrical, and mechanical principles in their operation, they all
have quite distinct designs for a particular, unique purpose. None of these
engines "evolved" into the other engines, each one would have to be perfectly
functional, with the correct specifications, timing, and design features from
the start for them to operate.
Indeed, this problem of the evolution of the reptiles' heart
is such an unsolvable conundrum that I have decided to call it Flank's
Dilemma, in honor of Lenny Flank, a self professed expert on reptilian
anatomy.
After the eggs have gone through the progressive stages of embryonic
development within the pouch, the male gives birth to a hoard of tiny,
squiggling seahorses, even going through labor pains during delivery. In other
respects, male seahorses exhibit male characteristics, even challenging other
seahorses for the females attention in pre-nuptial rituals.
There is no known evolutionary explanation for the development of the
seahorse’s unique method of copulation, nothing like it is found in any other
species of animal, no hint of “gradual development”of chance favorable
modifications.
What do the ants get
in return? Honeydew, a tasty delicacy made of plant sap that the aphid ingests
and then secretes for the ant to lap up. Recent study has shown that the ants do
not need this snack to survive, but that they cultivate it for pleasure!
One study has shown that some aphids will not secrete this chemical normally
without the ants encouragement, even when stimulated to do so.
Some ants
are ranchers, other ants like to farm. The Acromyrmex
octospinosus, leaf cutter
ants of Paraguay, grow fungus to feed upon, often harvesting it in huge
plantations, even mulching the soil with dead organic matter and using
caterpillar waste as manure. They have hanging gardens of the fungus within
widened chambers inside of their nests, and obtain all of their dietary
nutrition from it. Could such a remarkable condition have come about through
blind evolutionary chance?
When danger approaches, Goby signals
Alphy with a wriggle of his body and a swish of his fins, and Alphy then dashes
back into the safety and security of their burrow, followed closely by Goby.
This is how Goby earns his rent, by assuming the role of “guard fish” for the
nearsighted Alphy.
Pretty neat arrangement. Instead of “survival of the
fittest” it would seem that “survival of the friendliest” would be a more apt
description for this set of affairs. How could evolution account for this?
When Darwin observed the well
developed hierarchy in ant society, he wrote, "The castes, moreover, do not
commonly graduate into each other, but are perfectly well defined: being as
distinct from each other as are any two species of the same genus, or
rather as any two genera of the same family." In other words, he could cite no
evidence of gradual modification from one species changing into
another. So he could provide no evidence for the evolution of ants.
Even then evolutionary scientists toyed with the "hopeful monster"
theory because of the missing transitional forms, which seemed as likely an
explanation, in fact infinitely better, than natural selection, and
the fossil record bears this out as well, as we shall see., Darwin lamely agrees
in the conclusion of his section in the Origin on Objections To My
Theory: "To admit all this is, as it seems to me, to enter into the realms
of miracle, and to leave those of Science."
No wonder Professor J.P.
Lehman of France wrote: “Darwinism in its ancient and classical form has
broken down.'" [i]
According to
Darwin, a morphological (physical) or behavioral trait has to confer some
specific advantage for survival to have any value to be passed on to it’s
offspring, but this brings up the question of neutral characteristics.
Some plants have leaves that are bi-polar, they sprout out on opposites sides of
the stem at the same height, while others in the very same ecosystem have leaves
that alternate at different levels on each side, yet both varieties of plants co-exist
equally well, neither genetic trait would seem to confer any specific survival
advantage. Some traits would seem positively deadly to their owners, yet they
are passed on from generation to generation. It would seem that birds that can
camouflage themselves from predators would have a selective advantage to others
that are conspicuous, yet the female peacock is attracted to the male with
the largest, brightest plumage, looking as if he's calling the nearest fox
over for dinner.
In his second work, The Descent of Man Darwin
noted this same fact in his section on Insects,where he stated that a
characteristic unfavorable for survival seemed to be the dominant trait:
"From the several foregoing facts it is
impossible to admit that the brilliant colours of butterflies, and of some few
moths, have commonly been acquired for the sake of protection. We have seen that
their colours and elegant patterns are arranged and exhibited as if for
display. Hence I am led to believe
that the females prefer or are most excited by the more brilliant males . . . "
thus we see that what should be a trait for natural selection to single out and
remove from a species according to Darwin’s thesis, by his own admission does
not happen in nature.
Despite the fact that Darwin was never able to
come up with any plausible solution as to the origin of any species, he was
absolutely enthralled with the concept of extinction. He wrote: “Hence rare
species will be less quickly modified or improved within any given period; they
will consequently by beaten in the race for life by the modified and
improved descendants of the commoner species.” Another selection, among
many, illustrates his favorite principle of survival of the fittest: “From these
several considerations I think it inevitably follows that as new species in the
course of time are formed through natural selection, others will become rarer
and rarer, and finally extinct. The forms which stand in closest competition
with those undergoing modification and improvement will naturally suffer most.
And we have seen in the chapter on the Struggle for existence that it is the
most closely-allied forms,-varieties of the same species, and species of the
same genus or of related genera,- which, from having nearly the same structure,
constitution, and habits, generally come into the severest competition with each
other; consequently, each new variety or species, during the progress of its
formation, will generally press hardest on its nearest kindred, and tend to
exterminate them.” (Origin, pp.52, Benton Pub., 1952)
It
would seem to me, perhaps to any reasonable thinking person, that
extinction is just the opposite of the origin of a species.
We frequently watch media programs that tell us all about the great extinctions
that have taken place throughout ancient history, (although it is more
reasonable to relate all or the majority of these extinctions to one actual
event, or to a closely related series of events such as a universal tectonic
upheaval and flood which were not separated by millions of years in time, they
were all world-wide in scope and similar in pattern), thus a documentary on the
extinction of the dinosaurs is somehow meant to provide explicit proof that
evolution somehow occurred, never mind the fact that the extinction of the
dinosaurs throws absolutely no light on their origin.
Amazing
Story of the
Evolution
of the
Bombardier
Beetle in 15 Steps
or
THE TALE OF HOW
THE
BOMBARDIER BEETLE GOT HIS SCENT
This is a
genuine Darwin Evolutionary Tale made up by
talk.origins
Hurry
Hurry! Step right up ladies and gentlemen to the talk.origins
travelling sideshow! You will see sites that will enthrall you, you will
listen to stories that will astound you, you will witness daring feats of
verbal sophistry that will bend the very laws of nature and will
leave you speechless (step aside kid, your crowding me, no we don't have
any transitional fossils), and it's all here for your viewing, and all
that you need is your computer screen and an internet connection.
And
now, for our first attraction, the fantastic, the incredible, the
world famous, one-and-only story of HOW THE BOMBARDIER BEETLE GOT HIS
SCENT!(This
story is based on the actual observations of Mark Isaak. Well, he really
didn't observe any of this, and admitted that he made it all up,
however it has been referred to by many evolutionists at talk.origins as
genuine evidence that evolution has occurred)
i)
First of all, Isaak notes that certain epidermal cells produce quinones
for tanning the cuticle. True enough, although Isaak skips over how these
quinones developed through evolutionary processes, or how evolution
produced these complex chemicals in the right place for the correct
function, this is merely assumed. He goes on from here to a highly
speculative journey of assumptions, mixing facts with storytelling; ii) He
then notes that some of the excess quinones are used as protection by
various arthropods such as beetles and millipedes. Still true, but no
evidence on how they evolved. Now we get into the really interesting
stuff, and it all just happened, without any intelligent design:
iii)
then invaginations (folds in the epidermis) conveniently develop at just
the right place on the body to hold more quinones; iv) then muscles
re-arrange themselves so they can help the invaginations dispell quinones;
v) two invaginations turn into reservoirs while the others disappear; vi)
some predators have "evolved" defenses against quinones so brand new
chemicals appear for the beetles defense, one of which is hydroquinone;
vii) next more cells develop to produce more hydroquinone; channels neatly
develop between the cells allowing the hydroquinone to reach the
reservoir; viii) the channels become ducts
"specialised for transporting the chemicals!", then "secretory
cells withdraw from the surface, ultimately becoming a
separate organ" !! (all by
chance evolution - no room for design in Isaak's universe). Although
certain beetles do have this feature, the question is not whether they
exist, but how this amazing specialised organ came to be
by blind evolutionary processes, and Isaak does plenty of assuming for the
readers benefit; ix) then, without any design, mind you,
muscles (again) adapt to close off the
reservoir and prevent chemicals from leaking when not in use; x) next hydrogen peroxide mixes with
hydroquinones, the reaction producing a mixture of quinones and
hydroquinones for defense; xi) Then, Isaak reasons that since
catalases exist in most cells, and peroxidases are common in plants and
animals, "Cells secreting a small amount of catalases and
peroxides appear along the output passage of the reservoir"(!) outside
of the valve, thus ensuring more quinones in secretions used for defense,
with these chemicals conveniently concentrated in just the right location
(of which Isaak totally fails to explain why this should happen), xii)
more catalases and peroxidases are produced, with a warmer, more volatile
reaction, xiii) the walls of the output passage become strong enough to
withstand the heat and pressure generated by the reaction; xiv) More
peroxidases and catalases are produced and the walls of the output
passage"shape into a reaction chamber";
xv) and finally, remarkably, the apex of the abdomen of the beetle
lengthens and becomes pliant so that the beetle can aim the discharge in
different
directions!
And all of these marvelous innovations, Isaak would have
you believe, came about by chance, blind, evolutionary processes! No room
for design here.
"The scenario does show, however, that the evolution of a complex
structure is far from impossible."
Isaak
actually has the hubris to state, based on this fantasy: "Do bombardier beetles
look designed? Yes; they look like they were designed by evolution ["designed by
evolution", by definition a mindless process, not designed by an intelligent
God. Were Isaak to admit that an Intelligence was involved in a hands on manner
his whole case would be destroyed]. Their features, behaviors, and distribution
nicely fit the kinds of patterns that evolution creates."
Isaak then has the hubris to conclude "No
improbable events are needed". Of course not, we wouldn't need anything out of
the ordinary, except a supercomputer and advanced chemistry laboratory to
develop the information necessary for the right chemical sequences for the
quinones and new cells popping up out of nowhere to be at exactly the right
spot at the exact right time when they are needed.
Actually we
know nothing about the evolution of the Bombardier Beetle.
Then in a
remarkable display of the pot calling the kettle black, Isaak accuses the
creationists of hubris!
"There has
never been any evidence that bombardier beetles could not have evolved, but just
because they couldn't explain exactly how the beetles evolved, lots of people
jumped to the conclusion that an explanation was impossible. In fact, their
conclusion says a lot more about themselves than about the beetles. To make such
a conclusion based only on a lack of knowledge is a kind of
arrogance."
Isaak is nothing if not cunning in his presentations, much like his predecessor Darwin. Thus when creationists have pointed out the utter absurdity of all of the above events happening as he has described them by blind chance, or for that matter any evolutionist event ever happening at all, he accuses the creationists of misrepresenting evolution, or at least of misrepresenting the evolutionists definition of evolution.
He says that
they (the creationists) are wrong in stating that evolution, according to
the evolutionists, is supposed to proceed by mere chance. Yet Isaak himself,
after making that accusation, barely half a paragraph later states that chance
is the main ingredient in forming new genetic
material, again, according to the evolutionists: "Chance,
in the form of mutations, provides genetic variation, which is the raw material
that natural selection has to work with. From there, natural selection sorts out
certain variations."
(Mark Isaak:http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html)
Granted,
Isaak claims that natural selection plays a part in sorting out
variations supposedly produced by chance, but he has to admit that natural
selection itself cannot create anything new. Natural selection is not a factor
in originating anything, as will be more fully shown in the next chapter, The
Origin of Evolution.
Thus, even by Isaak's own words, chance alone,
through mutations, produces all of the new material by which evolution is
supposed to proceed with. And yet chance, or random natural selection cannot
account for the complexity that we find in living systems.
Later on in his FAQ Isaak throws a bone to those who want to believe in evolution and creation, i.e. theistic evolution, that it was "God's method" for creating species. You just have to believe that somewhere way, way back there in time, in the beginning of the whole process, God kick started the whole thing but then left it alone.
But Isaak
argues against any purpose in evolution. Thus we would have a God who created
everything but then Who had no purpose in creating anything, just like
throwing some paint onto a canvass. SPLOT! It all happened by chance. No
purpose, no design, an almighty intelligent Being just tossed a bunch of stuff
out into a universe He created and let fly. Then again, if you want to believe
that evolution was God's method, do you mean to say that you believe that God
created evolution? Is His hand involved in the details of evolution
itself?
If so, if purpose is involved, then chance and natural selection
have no role to play in it, and it is no longer
evolution.
In the second FAQ, Isaak also makes the claim that talk.origins has produced observed evidence of speciation, as well as transitional fossils providing proof that evolution has occured. I would refer the reader to Chapter Six of The Darwin Papers, where both of these ludicrous claims are dealt with.
Isaak is generally so far out of the ballpark with his illustrations and arguments that it should embarass talk.origins to still keep him posted at their site, were it not for the fact that his material is actually representative of most of the arguments used by the rest of the evolutionists there as well.
Fred Williams
has mathematically demonstrated the impossibility of chance mutations' role
in creating a new species, a new organ, a new anything, thus putting the nail in
the coffin of Isaak's arguments.
http://www.evolutionfairytale.com/articles_debates/mutation_rate.htm.
Now according to Isaak,
you have some organism going about its daily business when
suddenly ZAP! A
stray cosmic ray, or a mistake in cell reproduction produces a beneficial
mutation. Isaak states that "chance ensures that such beneficial mutations will
be inevitable". But mutations are mistakes! By their very nature, and by Isaak's
definition they are not the product of any intelligent design. They are
accidents! And a cell is amazingly complicated, more complicated than the
largest computer ever built.
A cell has more structured,
detailed information than a library of 1,000 books with each book having
500 pages. A single mutation to any of this, to one word in one page of this
immense library could be, and in most cases is, deadly.
Isaak has
tried to give natural selection some grand role in sorting out these wonderful
beneficial mutations that chance has supposedly produced. As noted,
natural selection is only a sorting process, it contributes nothing towards
a new genome. Isaak makes plenty of assumptions, such as "When the environment
changes, or when organisms move to a different environment, different variations
are selected, leading eventually to different species."
This is an
unqualified statement, backed up by no science, no data whatsoever. He has used
the typical Darwinian technique of extrapolation, using variations within a
species kind, and suggesting that these variations can go on and on until you
have an entirely different "kind" of organism.
By Isaak's reasoning, you could take a hammer to your computer and eventually come up with a better computer, or an improved hard drive. Or you could drive an automobile over a cliff and come up with a newer model.
Essentially, there are three possibilities that can occur when a mutation happens: The mutation can be beneficial (rarely if ever seen in nature); the mutation can be neutral; or the mutation can be harmful (by far the most common effect of mutation, by some estimates this comprises 99.9 % of all mutations, caused by damage from nuclear radiation, overexposure to the sun, toxic chemical effects on the cells, etc).
Thus the chance for a single mutation occuring that would be beneficial are less than 50/50, less than that of tossing a coin. At best, out of the three possibilities listed above it only has a 33% chance of being beneficial. Actually it really has much less of a chance than that, because the beneficial mutation would have to be of a particular type for a particular genome in a particular organism in a particular environment to improve the organisms' genetic code and improve the survival value. In other words, out of the billions of possibilities that could occur, it would have to be a very specific mutation. It would be like hitting the lottery, only a lottery that is composed of billions of possibilities.
Now, here's the problem. For each of the steps listed above by Isaak, there would have to be numerous biochemical substeps; smaller, extremely intricate chemical changes in the genetic code for the main steps to happen. And each time you take a further step the odds against the right genetic mutation occuring after that get smaller and smaller. In Isaak's case the mathematical odds against it are zero, even given hundreds of millions of years for this to have happened, and he does not have that much time either.
Mutations do not occur at a fast enough rate to produce beneficial changes. Remember, the odds are that over time you would have just as many bad mutations as good ones, causing a reversal to any of the steps listed above, along with the numerous unmentioned biochemical substeps. In fact, you would have more, because a "good" mutation has to be a specific mutation out of numberless possibilities most of which would be fatal, to have any benefit. It would be like a blind man hiking through the continent of North America in search of a particular key laying somewhere on the ground, and upon finding that key, out of hundreds of thousands of doors finding the right door to insert the key in. In fact, according to Isaak, it is even worse, because without intelligent design the blind man would not be "searching" for the key, he would just be wandering around and "happen" upon it, and then after picking it up he would just "happen" to fit it into the right slot in the right door. And if he picked up the wrong key, or inserted it into the wrong door, it would spell instant doom. Thus you would eventually, sooner rather than later, have a deadly mutation that would throw the whole thing out of whack and destroy the species.
Thus over time the negative mutations would swamp the beneficial ones, causing an extinction event, not a speciation event, because it only takes one negative mutation to cause the whole thing to stop; not only to halt it temporarily, but to end it forever, to destroy the species entire. Even given a 50/50 chance, there would have to be so many benefical mutations occuring in a row, without any negative ones, that it would be like tossing a coin and coming up heads 100,000 times in a row! And this would never happen in nature. This is a mathematical impossibility, even with natural selection saving the beneficial ones.
And given more time, the scene only gets worse, since the probability of negative mutations occuring are actually greater than positive mutations and would increase over time, this would mean that the scenario described above by Isaak would happen only in your dreams.
Isaak also
makes the same simplistic assumptions regarding the origin of life that he made
with the Bombardier Beetle: "Nor is abiogenesis (the origin of the first life)
due purely to chance. Atoms and molecules arrange themselves not purely
randomly, but according to their chemical properties."
So far what he has
said is true, however he uses this to launch an entirely false premise, unproven
in the natural world, and in fact, statistically impossible. "In the case of
carbon atoms especially, this means complex molecules
are sure to form spontaneously, and these complex molecules can
influence each other to create even more complex molecules. Once a molecule
forms that is approximately self-replicating, natural selection will guide the
formation of ever more efficient replicators."
This is a
leap of faith of incredible proportions. It is also false. NONE of this has
ever been observed in nature, it is entirely based on Isaak's own evolutionary
belief system, not on any hard science at all [even Rebek's artificially
produced replicating molecule in a laboratory setting was created in
conditions that would never be found in nature, where the presence of water,
which is necessary for any life to flourish, would destroy the reaction, and the
gap between what Rebek produced and the smallest genetic code for the simplest
organism, Mycoplasma genitalium is of such gigantic proportions
that it would be impossible to bridge naturally].
Jonathan Sarfati has
noted: "Chemicals obey the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and
do not arrange themselves into self-sustaining metabolic pathways. Living
cells have molecular machinery to channel the chemistry in the right direction
and amounts." http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/3974.asp
Thus you need
to have the living cell FIRST in order to produce a sufficiency of these complex
carbon based molecules necessary to sustain life.
After making his
argument for abiogenesis, Isaak then issues this incredible disclaimer:
"One should also note that the theory of evolution doesn't depend on how the
first life began. The truth or falsity of any theory of abiogenesis wouldn't
affect evolution in the least."
If that were the case, then why did Isaak make such a plea for abiogenesis in the first place? And why do so many other evolutionists at talk.origins and other evolutionist dens spend so much time trying to prove it as well? If abiogenesis is so unimportant to the theory of evolution, then let's just agree that God miraculously created the first cell. Isaak should have no problem with that if it is such an inconsequential item for his theory.
What Isaak has said is simply not true. The truth is that abiogenesis is fundamental to the evolutionists viewpoint, for if you are to accept that something as complex as a single cell could never have been produced by blind chance, thus that a Creator had to have been involved in it's origin, then the Creator could very easily have created all of the other species of life after it as well, and that is why evolutionists have been working tirelessly for over a century, without any success, to prove that abiogenesis is possible, even after Pasteur's experiment in the nineteenth century disproved it, and in spite of the mathematical and chemical statistical odds that show it could never have happened.
For some
genuine scientific data showing the utter impossibility of abiogenesis ever
happening, these
articles will through more light on the issue. To further
bolster his argument for evolution, Isaak smoothly assures us "For example,
Darwin explained how, under his theory, a few photosensitive cells might evolve
gradually into eyes." In point of
fact, Darwin did anything but explain
how a few photosensitive cells evolved into eyes. The key word here is
might, and even
here, in his speculative ramblings, Darwin came nowhere near to explaining in
any detail the intricate biochemical steps as to how such a complex and
wonderful organ developed. He simply indulged in a wandering and often obtuse
game of speculation as to how it might have occured. Darwin had
to admit that the eye developing by natural selection through random
evolutionary processes was well-nigh to impossible: "To suppose that the
eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different
distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of
spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been
formed by natural selection, seems. I freely confess, absurd in the highest
degree", yet
in a
remarkable display of cunning, Darwin still attempted to use this
admission of the failure of his theory as a springboard to justify it
nonetheless! (Darwin, Origin
of Species,
Chapter VI:
Organs of Extreme Perfection) One might
think, as I did at an earlier point in my study of Darwin, that here at last we
find him in a rare moment of honesty, but alas, such is not the case. Darwin was
still incapable of a frank admission of the deficiency of his theory; and he
went on to defend his hypothesis with an attempt to compare the lack of evidence
for the evolution of the eye with the incredible argument that since the sun
only appears to revolve around the earth, but in fact it is the earth
that revolves around the sun, then this somehow would show that what only "seems
. . . absurd in the highest degree", the evolution of the eye by natural
selection, actually has some degree of credibility. Isaak then
indulges in a meandering, pseudo-philosophical abstract, stating in brief that
things are not really what they seem, until at last, fortunately for the reader,
he cuts short his attempt at profundity with this little evolutionist nugget:
"Finally, remember that the general arguments used here apply to a lot more than
bombardier beetles. Creationists have argued for an appearance of design in
everything from bacteria cilia to butterfly metamorphosis. Those arguments all
share the same fallacies; they are all based on a combination of ignorance
combined with a concept of design that is indistinguishable from evolution. If a
kind of design incompatible with evolution were found in biology, nobody would
be more excited than the professional biologists. As yet we haven't found such a
design." To which I can only
respond: "Finally, remember that the concept for design in creation has
tremendous importance for the way we view ourselves, our place in the universe,
and our destiny. Evolutionists have long argued for the lack of design from the
bombardier beetle to the wonderful patterns on the wings of butterflies. Their
arguments all have certain logical errors in common; they all spring from a
mixture of ignorance and a concept of evolution that is virtually identical with
design. Evolutionists have willfully refused to recognise the amazing hand of
the Creator from the evidence that stares them in the face in a thousand daily
wonders of creation. They have hardened their hearts against the plainly
revealed truth, as the Bible predicted men would do in the last days, thus
heaping up for themselves a just recompense to reap in due
season. One of the showcases that
evolutionists bring out for an example of their theory is the peppered moth of
England. The peppered moth was primarily of the white variety for many years,
and this is because it blended in with the light colored bark on the trees, thus
keeping it safe from predators. When the
industrial revolution took place in England, the soot from the factories covered
the bark on the trees, turning the appearance of them dark. After this, most of
the white moths were eaten by predators and the dark form became predominant.
This was called by evolutionists "industrial melanism," and is paraded in
science books as proof that evolution has occurred. In fact, there was merely a
shifting around in the proportion of dark to white moths in the existing
population, but there was nothing new added, the moth never changed into
anything other than a peppered moth, it didn't turn into a different species.
The dark colored peppered moths had already existed within the population,
natural selection did not produce anything original. This kind of
genetic variation within species is even mentioned in the Bible, where Jacob
tended the cattle for his uncle Laban and bred cattle of different colors, so
this is nothing new. This merely shows the goodness of the Creator in giving
species the ability to vary within their own kind to meet different conditions.
"Industrial melanism" is another one of those really neat words, like
"punctuated equilibrium" and "parallel evolution" that those clever
evolutionists are always thinking up. Amazing. Way back in the Old Testament
Jacob was using "Industrial Melanism" and he never even knew it! We have read
Darwin’s perversion of the original Biblical mandate: "Be
fruitfull, multiply, and subdue the earth" in his chilling conclusion to
Chapter Eight of his Origin, where he spoke of his " one general law
leading to the advancement of all organic beings , -namely, multiply, vary, let
the strongest live and the weakest die" which he
applied to the different races of mankind as well in his Descent of Man
[see Chapter 12 of The Darwin Papers]. How different
are the words of
the Prince of Peace, who
said: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the
earth". So far: Charles Darwin has been heralded
as the man who brought to us the theory of evolution. The main ingredient in
his theory was natural selection. Despite the grand tributes of
praise to Charles Darwin by evolutionists for his great
contribution to the realm of science with his "discovery" of natural
selection, Charles Darwin did not originate the idea, and he
borrowed much of the concept from a creationist scientist, Edward Blyth.
And was
Charles Darwin the first Darwin to come up with the theory of
evolution, or was there somebody else in his family tree who thought of
it years before Charles Darwin ever wrote of it? Who was this other Darwin whose
name was synonymous with the theory of evolution years before Charles Darwin was
even born? 1. From The
Nebulous Hypothesis: A Study in The Philosophical and Historical Implications of
Darwinian Theory © 1996 by James M. Foard, White City, Or. 2. A
memoir of the late Edward Blyth, Arthur Grote, Journal of the Asiatic Society of
Bengal, Part ll, Vol. 43, xiv, (August 1875), reprinted as Charles Darwin,
Edward Blyth, and the Theory of Natural Selection, by Loren Eiseley, published
in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 103, No.1,
February 1959, pp. 94-114. 3. Loren Eiseley, Darwin and the Mysterious X., E.P.
Dutton, New York, 1979, pp. 52-53. 4. (ibid, pp. 53-70; 80-83.) Eiseley is an
evolutionist. 5. (ibid, pp. 88) Dr. Henderson of Brooklyn College
investigated this matter at the Cambridge University Library, from which Eiseley
obtained some of his information, though Henderson's findings have yet to be
published. Darwin's own copy of The Mazazine of Natural History of 1837 has
notes taken on Blyth's paper in Darwin's own handwriting. 7.In Darwin's original introduction to his Origin, he gave
absolutely no hint that his ideas were borrowed from others. He wrote: "When on
board the H. M. S. Beagle as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in
the distribution of the organic beings inhabiting South America, and in the
geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent.
These facts, as will be seen in the latter chapters of this volume, seemed to
throw some light on the origin of species- that mystery of mysteries, as it has
been called by one of our greatest philosophers. On my return home, it occurred
to me, in 1837, that something might perhaps be made out on this question by
patiently accumulation and reflecting on all sorts of facts which could possibly
have any bearing on it." 8. Eiseley, pp. 79-80. The oft repeated story of Darwin's
inspiration with the theory of evolution while visiting the Galapagos Islands
and observing the varieties of finches is nothing more than that, a story,
another stretch of historical imagination wound around the legend of Charles
Darwin. In truth, he gave short shrift to the finches in his journal, and it was
only after his return to England (and after he had read Blyth's writings) that
he recalled the finches and then wrote of them. The do not take up an impressive
amount of space in his Origin. 9. Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe, pp. 199,
Mentor Books, July 1983, Tickner and Fields Publishers. 10. Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe, pp. 199. 11. Janet Browne, Charles Darwin, pp. xiii of the
Introduction. 12. Webster's Third New International Dictionary, A.
Merriam Webster, Reg. U.S. Pat. Office, Philip babcock Bove, Ph.D., Editor in
Chief, G.C. Merriam Co., Publishers, Springfield, Mass., U.S.A. 1976.
13. see equivocate, Miriam Webster's Third Int'l
Dictionary, 1976, 1:To use equivocal language especially with intent to deceive,
2:Speak evasively: be willfully misleading, especially with double meanings.
Synonym: See lie. Equivocation 3:A fallacy in logical reasoning (14) 14. Webster's Third New International Dictionary, A.
Merriam Webster, Reg. U.S. Pat. Office, Philip babcock Bove, Ph.D., Editor in
Chief, G.C. Merriam Co., Publishers, Springfield, Mass., U.S.A. 1976.(15) 15. Webster's Third New International Dictionary, A.
Merriam Webster, Reg. U.S. Pat. Office, Philip babcock Bove, Ph.D., Editor in
Chief, G.C. Merriam Co., Publishers, Springfield, Mass., U.S.A. 1976.
16. Darlington, C.D., Loc. Cit., pp.66. 17. From a Eulogy Grote wrote several years after Blyth's
death, found in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, pt. 2, 43: xiv,
1875, 169-183. 18. Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, edited by Francis
Darwin, London, 1888, Volume 2, pp. 315-316. 20. Eiseley, Darwin and the Mysterious Mr. X., pp. 79-80.
21. Grote, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, pt. 2,
43: xiv, 1875, 169-183. 22. Darwin,
Origin, Chapter 10, On the Absence of Intermediate Varieties at the
Present Day 25. Letter from Charles Darwin to Joseph Hooker, 13 July,
1856, Darwin Archives, Cambridge University. 26. Edward Blyth, Seasonal and other Changes in Birds,
Magazine of Natural History, Vol.9,39.9, 1837. Darwin did make a few
obscure, passing references to Blyth in his Descent of Man, but he came nowhere
near to giving Blyth the place and the credit he deserved. There is documentation that when Darwin was traveling
though South America he took part in one of the pagan rites and was initiated
into the dark secrets of their native religion, and it is possibly at this time
when the final possession actually took place. By that time Darwin was so
steeped in his rebellion against God that he probably had no idea that he even
was possessed, just as many modern day infidels have no idea who their true
master really is. Darwin was uniquely prepared and perhaps even "chosen" for his
task in life after at least three generations in his family tree of dedicated
infidels and assorted rogues, although his choosing was not by our
Lord. In the early spring of 1973 I lived in a house near
Berkeley California with Martin Durst and two other young college students.
Martin Durst was an english teacher at a local community college who later
changed his name to Mose Durst and became the president of the Unification
Church of America, founded by Mr. Moon of Korea. Durst was a fairly mild
mannered man who seemed to be thirsting for attention as well as recognition in
the academic and political world and he seemed to have found the attention he so
desperately craved with the "Moonies". During that same weekend we listened to tapes of Arthur
Ford, who was a mediumistic psychic who spoke with his spirit guide named
Fletcher concerning Sun Myung Moon. Moon knew Arthur Ford and relied on his
psychic readings to verify his claim to messiahship. Contacting mediums is
strictly forbidden in the Bible, thus this attempt to gain legitimacy from
unholy sources in the part of Mr. Moon and his church demonstrates the occultic
and antichrist nature of him and his organization. This then is the orthodox faith. This is the faith of the early church. This
is the defining creed by which we may know that we are following the genuine
Christ, the true Jesus, and not some false, made up Jesus based on the delusions
of Joseph Smith or Swedenborg or Mr. Moon. This is the cutting edge for all
genuine Christian faith. "Christian symbolism in the Passover
occurs early in the Seder (the Passover dinner). Three matzahs are put
together (representing the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). The middle matzah is
broken, wrapped in a white cloth, and hidden, representing the death and
burial of Jesus. The matzah itself is designed to represent Jesus, since it is
striped and pierced, which was prophesized by Isaiah, David, and
Zechariah [But he was pierced through for our transgressions, he was bruised
for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and by his
stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5) For dogs have surrounded me; A band of
evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet. (Psalms
22:16) "And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of
Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on
Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an
only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him, like the bitter weeping over a
first-born. (Zechariah 12:10)] . "For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son, that
whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life". That
kind of love is the kind of love that sent Jesus to the cross: "Greater love has
no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends".
Using this type of
fantastic logic, one could go on to claim that the existence of werewolves only
"seems . . .absurd to the highest degree", since one only has to look at the
apparent revolution of the sun around the earth, when in fact it is the earth
that revolves around the sun, for absolute proof that werewolves exist! To take
an obvious fact of science, and the entire science of celestial mechanics and
planetary motion that goes with it, and apply that as evidence for some
simplistic, infantile fairy tale supposedly explaining how the eye "evolved" is
an affront to the entire realm of valid scientific enquiry, yet these specious
arguments are commonly adopted by evolutionists, from Darwin's time up to
today.
But does natural selection really explain anything about evolution? And
is evolution really such a recent idea, or is it merely the reiteration of an
ancient pagan ideology thousands of years old?
We will attempt to find the answer to this when we read
about the mysterious Origin of Evolutionary Theory in the
next issue of The Darwin Papers.
It should also be noted that variety within a
species does not constitute evidence of evolution of one species changing into
another, all of the various types of finches were still finches, and there was
no evidence proposed by Darwin of where finches came from either, except from
previous finches.
Extrapolating variation within a species to hint that a
bird might change into something other than a bird has no foundation in actual
evidence, as we shall see in the later chapters of this work. Biblical
creationism takes into context variation, thus all of the races of men, with
different hair color, skin color, etc. come from an originally created couple.
This variation within a species, however, does not constitute evolution, it is
merely the existing genetic potential within a created gene pool. With all of
the possible variations within humankind, we carry no genes for feathers, or
claws, or flippers. Species remain distinct.
Darwin also
made an oblique acknowledgement to the existence of God in his Descent of
Man, though it must be remembered that in the original temptation of man,
the serpent, when tempting Eve, did not disavow God's existence (Yea is there a
God?), but he did question God's authority, His integrity, His character and His
truthfulness, "Yea hath God said?" He succeeded in casting doubt and aspersion
on God's Word. While I am not trying to intimate by any means that Darwin was
the devil himself, he was definitely, in the classical sense, the devil's
advocate.
In The Descent of Man, when Darwin attempts to analyze
man's religious feeling, and he theorizes that religion was a purely natural,
evolutionary development of survival instincts instead of a revelation given to
man from an all-powerful and loving God, one is struck by the uncanny feeling
that this was written from the perspective of somebody on the outside looking
in at human religious sentiment, as though Darwin himself was entirely
immune to any genuine religious impulse of his own. Again, the similarity
between Darwin and another infernal character in one of C.S. Lewis's books,
The Screwtape Letters, is striking. Darwin definitely seemed to be a
prototypical prefigurement of the end-time "false prophet", the founder of a new
socio-religious outlook on human existence, a fallen son of the church formerly
studying for priestly orders who apostacised from the faith (actually, like the
original son of perdition it is doubtful that he had any genuine faith in the
beginning). Desmond and Moore report that when Darwin began studying for
religious orders "He was headed for the Church but unconcerned about his soul."
Although Darwin's remark on his role as "the devil's chaplain" was
obviously not meant to have been taken literally, it does perhaps give an
indication for the inspiration of much of his work. In describing one episode
from his college years when he and some of his companions rode out at dark after
curfew to see a fire burning in the distance, Darwin noted that they "rode like
incarnate devils." (Complete Correspondence of Charles Darwin, Edited by
Burkhart, and Autobiography of Charles Darwin)
In this and in subsequent
chapters where we investigate some of Darwin's writings, to describe him as
crafty, or sly, or as the old English version of the Bible would state it-
"subtle"- would almost be an understatement. He was incredibly shrewd in his
ability to put something across to so many people as the scientific explanation
for the origin of species when he had no evidence at all to back it up. Darwin
was not necessarily the anti-christ, or the final false prophet mentioned
in the Bible, but he was definitely an anti-christ, or else a false
prophet, of which we are told there will be many preceding Christ's second
coming, spinning a web of falsehoods into an entire worldview which is
anti-Biblical and to which his followers cling to with a religious
zeal.
Darwin was also acquainted while in college with the first "Devil's
Chaplain", the signature attached to the reverend Robert Taylor, a former cleric
who abandoned the Christian faith and set up headquarters for his "Infidel Club"
near Cambridge in 1830 above a printing shop that Darwin frequented. Taylor
served prison time, along with his infamous companion Carlile for blasphemy,
which must have been extroardinarily serious, since in that era in England
clergymen were getting by with saying practically anything they wanted with
little government inteference. In two blasphemous Sunday sermons on "The Devil"
delivered in the "Rotunda," an old delapidated building near the Thames restored
for Taylor's "congregation," of atheists and free-thinkers, Taylor proclaimed
"God and the devil . . .to be one and the self same being." (Desmond and Moore,
pp. 84) Taylor, still dressed as a cleric and openly denouncing Christianity
among the populace at Cambridge, strode around the campus like some avenging
angel intent on overturning the Christian work going on there.
While not
wishing to speculate unduly on Darwin's inner man, still, his abnormal obsession
with hunting, his acts of cruelty toward animals, his lack of a normal emotional
response to his mothers' death, his shunning of social life and unexplained
state of continual convalescence during the final forty years of his life, are
all classic indications of possible diabolic influence.
What other
explanation could be given for the great international esteem given to him and
his work, his being declared such a great scientist who "proved" evolution, when
in fact neither of these premises is even close to being true? When observing
the enormous influence of his book on the cultural and scientific community
during the century after his death, and the actual paultry evidence that he
offered in it for his theory, it is a bit puzzling. His work was definitely
inspired, possibly even guided along by some mysterious and dark infernal hand.
When Darwin finished the final proof of his Origin of Species in 1859 he
began to vomit and wrote to a friend : ""I have been very bad lately; having had
an awful 'crisis' one leg swelled like elephantiasis - eyes almost closed up -
covered with a rash and fiery boils: but they tell me it will surely do me much
good. . . . it was like living in Hell."(Life and Letters of Charles Darwin,
1859, sourced from Creation World View Ministries, http://www.creationworldview.org/Articles/Article%2030.htm)
There is another possible contributing factor for the cause of
his frequent bad health and retreat from public life, which is, that in light of
the dubious relationship between Darwin's paternal grandfather and grandmother,
there could have been a role reversal situation between Darwin and his wife,
wherein Darwin was the patient and his wife the caregiver, in fact we find that
Bowlby and Desmond and Moore indicate that this was truly the case, the perfect
nurse had found the perfect patient. As far as what the nature of his illness
might have been, again we can only speculate, however, in light of his family
history, the symptoms are suspiciously indicative of a recurrence of that
unhappy malady that afflicted his grandmother and uncle, but until more of the
curtain of history is lifted on this mysterious individual, we shall have to
withhold any definitive statement on the issue.
I don't doubt his dedication to his
cause, but I wonder what it was that drove him into the organization in the
first place. The question of our motivation is critically important in our
relationship to God and our approach to Him; among the Lord's disciples it is
what separated a Judas from a John. A true lover of God will love Him for who He
is, regardless of what their circumstances are in life or how it may benefit
them socially or financially.
Durst always seemed to me to be seeking
God in order to validate himself. His story of being brought up in a Jewish
family in Brooklyn New York is poignant and touching. But from there it quickly
becomes obvious that he began to have aspirations that may have clouded what
could have led him to finding the real Jewish Messiah, Jesus. Durst envisioned
himself in this grand epochal quest for truth, and he imagined that he had found
it in the Unification Church. In his autobiography
he wrote "I was tough and strong inside. Nothing could stop me. I had been
waiting all my life to be used for some high purpose, and now I had found that
purpose".
In a move indicative of delusions of grandeur he changed his name
to Mose because he identified himself with Moses of the Bible.The only
qualification that Durst seemed to lack for this would be the pre-requisite
emptying of himself, of his ambition, of his own attainments that might stand in
the way of the paramount virtue necessary for any true spiritual growth,
humility. St. Bernard said "It is possible to be saved without virginity. It is
not possible to be saved without humility."
The Bible states that the
Biblical Moses was of all people on the face of the earth, the meekest one.
Humility was his defining quality. God was everything and he was merely an
instrument in God's hand. One singular aspect that I recall about the
Unification Church was the tremendous amount of ego stroking that went on in it.
You see, the members felt that they did not come to God because they needed
Him. They came to God because He needed them. God just couldn't
get along without them. They envisioned themselves as the cream of the crop, the
cultural and socially elite who were uniquely chosen because they were so
qualified. They were the very acme of the evolutionary process in God's
continually improving world.
It would have been an incredibly ignominious
blow to the pride of the leaders of that movement to have had to realise that
the only way that they would have to come to God was on the same basis as the
common drunk a few blocks down the street at the local Rescue Mission, that we
all are equals at the foot of the cross, and that their own accomplishments and
family "breeding" mean nothing compared to the sacrifice of Jesus. You see, God
does not need us, but He loves us, in spite of ourselves and our
sins, and He sent His Son to die for us to redeem us from our sin.
I
briefly met Sun Myung Moon during that time. This was before I had encountered
the real Messiah, Jesus Christ. Sun Myung Moon was not merely psychologically
deranged; he was filled with evil, in the true spiritual sense. He believed that
he was the second messiah, after Jesus. In Christianity grace is unmerited
favor. Our salvation is the result of God's mercy. To hear some of Moon's
speeches you would think that he was handing out favors to God. The people in
his organization had real spiritual power too, but it was not from God. Moon
believes he was meant to attain perfection and find a second Eve who will become
perfect and then establish a perfect family with perfected offspring, thus
reversing the fall of the human race. There are some serious problems with this.
For one thing, Moon has been married three times. Which of his three wives was
the perfected Eve? For another thing, his eldest son was a drug user, drunk,
adulterer and wife beater. How could he have been part of the perfect family?
Then there was the incident of the Black Heung Jin Moon. Moon's son Heung Jin
Moon was killed in a car accident. In 1987 Sun Myung Moon became convinced that
the spirit of his dead son had taken over the body of a Zimbabwean man and spoke
through him. Moon had never met the man, but he authorized this man to go around
the world with authority to discipline Unification members who had strayed from
the fold. This man beat up wayward members for their infractions, even "beating
up Bo Hi Pak-a man in his sixties-so badly that he was hospitalized for a week
in Georgetown Hospital." For more on the adultery, corruption, drug abuse and
wife beatings that went on within the family of Sun Myung Moon click here.
In light of the fact that Moon desired to be crowned King of America and
establish a family dynasty to rule the world, one can only imagine the monstrous
consequences of such an event ever happening if his family were ever to achieve
the political power that he craved.
Once during a retreat on their
land in Booneville California during that year I saw what I believed was (and
still believe to this day was) a demonic manifestation that came over one of the
leaders of his organization. She was a former psychology student who led weekend
seminars there. She had led her brother and two sisters into that organization a
few years previous.
We were all seated in the living room of a mobile
house trailer one morning and had been instructed to close our eyes for a minute
or two of silent meditation. For some reason I looked up before the minute was
over and saw her across the room. I beheld such an expression of diabolic hatred
and duplicity creep over her face that it could hardly have been called
human. It was not a smile, it was a grin; a grin of gloating triumph and hatred
and it was directed at me. Her eyes were filled with an inhuman look of cunning
and spite while she grinned at me. It was a grotesque charicature that took over
her face. She suddenly realized that she was exposed and quickly recovered
herself and re-assumed her pose of reflective meditation again before anyone
else could see her. I believe the Lord allowed me to see this to understand the
nature of the organization that I had been dealing with. From that moment on I
knew that the Unification Church was an unholy organization. I will never forget
that look on her face as long as I live, for it was not the face of a saint.
It was the face of a demon. And the name of that demon was pride.
We also had a question
and answer session when guests and family members would ask the woman in charge
of the weekend retreat about topics relating to religion and morals. She would
ponder the question for a moment or two and then supposedly obtain an answer
from the spirit world (demons) and reply. One of the questions concerned the
issue of abortion. This was in the year 1973, the beginning of the heyday of the
women's liberation movement, the year when Roe vs. Wade was passed. When she was
asked about abortion she responded that an unformed fetus in the womb was not
yet a fully developed human being and that abortion was perfectly legitimate.
The word of God says "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but test the spirits,
whether they be of God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world".
(1 John 4:1)
There was a great deal of
demonic activity going on in this organization. They studied the writings of an
18th century occultist and medium, Emannuel Swedenborg (who also had an
influence on Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism). Swedenborg spent much of his
life consorting with demons (he believed he was talking to angels, which he was,
but they were fallen angels), and denied the major doctrines of salvation by
grace, the Trinity, the literal second coming of Christ, along with discarding
the writings of St. Paul as uninspired. He wrote his own unholy interpretation
of Scripture, which he called "The True Christian Religion". He also claimed to
have seen the inhabitants of the moon, mars, venus and jupiter. He said that
some of these beings on other worlds were gigantic, others dwarflike, and
some similar to hunchbacks.
Swedenborg was guilty of the heresy of
Sabellianism, one of many heresies that appeared in the 3rd and 4th centuries
A.D. Named after Sabellius, who was excommunicated in 220 by Pope Callistus,
Sabellianism denied the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, claiming that Jesus
was the Father Himself who "manifested" Himself into the world in a physical
"mode". Swedenborg also over spiritualized every part of the Bible. This is an
ancient heresy dating back to Philo the Jew during the first century. Swedenborg
just couldn't take anything the Lord said at face value. Granted, our Lord did
use parables to illustrate some of His teachings, and there is symbolism in the
Bible, however to Swedenborg, such teachings as "Love your neighbor as yourself"
were too profound for the average person to understand. You had to read his own
occult interpretation of the Bible to really find out the secret teachings of
Jesus. It all had some hidden meaning. "Blessed are the meek" was really a
secret coded message to convey some higher truth that only Swedenborg had
deciphered. This was all lunacy, the pompous rantings of someone who was so full
of himself that he just couldn't bring himself to understand the simple and yet
sublime truths coming from the mouth of the Saviour. Even though the scribes and
pharisees with all of their pride and learning opposed the Lord and his
teachings, it is written that "the common people heard him gladly". The Word of
God says "Except you become as little children, and become converted, you can in
no way enter the Kingdom of heaven".
Moon has made some outrageous
statements over the years that should call into question his sanity.
Here
are just a few samples: "I know the established Christian theology. I know
the enemy, but the enemy doesn't know me. Thus the enemy has already lost the
war" (Sun Myung Moon, Today's World, November 1993, p. 14); "Abraham was
the father of faith, Moses was a man of faith, Jesus was the son of man, trying
to carry out his mission at the cost of his life. But they are, in a way,
failures." (Master Speaks, "Victory of Defeat"," translated by Won Pok Choi,
March 31, 1973, p.1); "Until our mission with the Christians is over, we must
quote the Bible and use it to explain the Divine Principle. After we receive the
inheritance of the Christian church, we will be free to teach without the
Bible." (Sun Myung Moon, Master Speaks, #7, p.1); "The whole world is in
my hand, I will conquer and subjugate the world." (Sun Myung Moon, Master
Speaks, May 17, 1973); "Am I foolish and insignificant or am I great? I gave
all individuals in the world cause to kneel down in front of me." (Sun Myung
Moon, Today's World, March 1995, p. 6)
These sayings, to anyone of even
nominal Christian faith, are blasphemy. To a non-religious person they would
appear to be the ravings of a maniac.
The question we have to ask
ourselves is, how do we know that we are talking to the right Jesus when we
pray? The Mormons believe that Jesus was the spirit brother of Lucifer.
Swedenborg believed that Jesus was a manifestation of the Father, but had no
distinct personality of his own. The Unification Church believes that Jesus was
a mere man who was born of the carnal union of Zacharias and Mary. So which is
it?
Well, if you want to take the modern "tolerant" approach then it
really doesn't matter. After all, as John Lennon sang, "Imagine there's no
heaven, imagine there's no hell". Go ahead and follow your own imagination if it
suites you, however in the real world, not Lennon's imaginary, drug induced
fantasy, there was a real man named Jesus who walked on the shores of Galilee.
In the real world we are all going to die someday and wind up in eternity. If
you wan't to pretend that it doesn't really matter what you believe, then go
ahead and take that chance.
In the real world, when an engineer builds a
bridge, he has to rely on real formulas, exact mathematic equations in order to
have a safe bridge so that people will not perish driving from one side of the
bridge to the other. If he uses the wrong type of material in building the
bridge, or makes the wrong calculations when estimating the amount of tension
and weight that the bridge is able to withstand, then it can cost the lives of
many people if it is unable to stand up to the constant traffic or the adverse
effects of the weather. So too in the spiritual life, if you have been handed
the wrong building materials, the wrong belief system, the wrong spiritual
"food", then it can cost you your life, your eternal life. This is a very
serious issue. In the spiritual world we need a bridge, but it must be the right
bridge, or else we will perish. Just as our Lord said "He who receives you
receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me; He who receives a
prophet receives a prophet's reward, and he who receives a righteous man will
receive a righteous man's reward", so too he who receives a false prophet will
receive a false prophet's reward, and he who follows an unrighteous man will
receive an unrighteous man's reward.
This brings us back to the question,
will the real Jesus please stand up? We really need to know. This is why the
early church had ecumenical councils, in order to determine the real Jesus from
the false christs that even then were being preached and followed in the world.
And in these councils holy men of God prayed, and sought the Lord, and searched
the Scriptures, and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit - "And the Comforter,
the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name. He will teach you all
things, and bring all things into remembrance that I have spoken unto you",
(John 14:26) - they wrote out confessions of faith, and it is these confessions
of faith that the Church has used down through the centuries to understand the
true, orthodox religion given to us from the fathers of the church. And in the
Apostles Creed, the earliest confession of faith among Christians, we read:
Later on, to refute the heresy of
gnosticism, this creed was expanded into the Nicene Creed, however nothing was
added to it that was not already common belief among the earliest apostles. The
Nicene creed reads
I believe in God the Father Almighty. And in Jesus Christ
his only Son our Lord, who was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary;
crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried; the third day he rose from the
dead; he ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father, from
thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit;
the holy Church; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the flesh. The
life everlasting.
I believe in one God, the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven
and earth, Creater of all that is seen and unseen. And in one Lord, Jesus
Christ, the only begotten son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God
from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one
essence with the Father. Through him all things were made. Who for us and for
our salvation came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became
incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was
crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third
day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to
judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. I believe in
the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father
[and the Son]. With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified. He
has spoken through the Prophets. I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic
Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. I look for the
resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.
AMEN.
Unificationists (I have to refer to them some
way, and don't want to unecessarily offend them by calling them "Moonies", which
they regard as a pejorative term) don't believe that Jesus was meant to die on
the cross. They believe that this was all some kind of horrible mistake.
There is a saying in Christianity: The New Testament is concealed in the
Old, and the Old Testament is revealed in the New. So let us look back into the
Old Testament. Let us see if there is any indication that the Messiah was meant
to die and shed His blood for our sins from the Holy Scriptures of the Hebrews.
Let us go back to the story of Adam and Eve (Incidently, there were more
than a few church fathers as well as clerics in the midieval church who believed
that the original sin might have been a sexual sin, so this is no novel
revelation coming exclusively from Moon. I don't know what the sin was outside
of the Bible. They disobeyed God by partaking of some forbidden fruit that was
pleasing to the eyes, good to taste and made one wise, perhaps wise in the ways
of the world, knowing good and evil). Immediately after Adam and Eve sinned,
they made themselves skins from fig leaves. Afterwards God made them animal
skins to wear. Notice that fig leave aprons were made by them. The animal
sacrifice for the skins came from God. This was His provision, the death of an
animal and the shedding of blood.
Next we come to Cain and Abel. Here we
have the very first mention of an offering to God, and the record of the first
murder in human history. Cain brought an offering from the ground to God,
however it was not accepted. Abel, on the other hand, brought a lamb to God as
an offering. Remember this, because Jesus was the lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. His death was prefigured throughout the entire Old Testament, it
was no last minute scramble by God to try and fix things when everything went
disasterously wrong. Abel's offering must have included the shedding of the
blood of a lamb, or lambs since it could have been more than one, as the
Scripture says that he also brought their fat to God. Notice the Scripture says
it was the first born of the flock. The New Testament refers to Jesus as the
first born from the dead.
Now, why was Cain's offering not accepted? For
one thing, his heart was not right when he offered it in the first place. He was
full of pride. How do we know that? We know that because he killed his brother
out of jealousy after God rejected his offering but accepted Abel's. He did
everything he did for his own glory, for his own self esteem. And the Scripture
said that his works were evil.
Cain must have been furious: "Here I went to
all this work, I grew my crops, (I got up at five every morning to pray, I
fasted; I even fasted for seven days once; I sold flowers out in the rain, it's
not fair!) I harvested them, I brought some of my fruit to the Lord, and now He
says it's not good enough! But my brother's offering is better
than mine! I hate him!".
I would submit that if Cain had really done
what he did to please God, for God's glory, then instead of being filled with
rage, he might have been hurt, and he might have searched his heart, and
wondered why God had not accepted his offering. He might have asked God what was
wrong. He might even have talked with his brother to ask where he went wrong. He
might have repented. But he did what he did for his own glory, from self love,
not out of love for God. That's why he was angry at his brother. His pride was
hurt. And the Scripture tells us that this was the cause of the first murder.
Let us go to a third example. The Passover. In the Passover we see the
clearest example of the salvation through the blood of the lamb, of Jesus. When
the death angel passed over Egypt, the Jews were instructed to take the blood of
a lamb and put it over the door posts of their houses to be spared. The blood of
a lamb. Now, it didn't matter that night how nice of a person you might have
been, how "loving" you were, what a good communicator you were, what a great
personality you had or how much education you had. If you didn't have the blood
of a lamb protecting you, then you were going to die. Only the lambs' blood
could protect you on the night of the first Passover. You were meant to eat the
flesh of the lamb that night. The Lord said "Except you eat the flesh of the Son
of man, and drink His blood, you have no life in you." Was God trying to give us
some kind of hint here, telling us something about how the Messiah would suffer
and die for our sins?
Following the Seder meal, the "buried"
matzah is "resurrected," which was foretold in the prophecies of David.
It was during a Passover seder that Jesus proclaimed that the meal
represented Himself and that He was instituting the New Covenant, which was
foretold by Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah ["Behold, days are coming," declares
the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with
the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in
the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My
covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them," declares the
LORD. "But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel
after those days," declares the LORD, "I will put My law within them, and on
their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My
people. (Jeremiah 31:31-33) "And I shall give them one heart, and shall put a
new spirit within them. And I shall take the heart of stone out of their flesh
and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My
ordinances, and do them. Then they will be My people, and I shall be their
God. (Ezekiel 11:19-20) "I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I
will also hold you by the hand and watch over you, And I will appoint you as a
covenant to the people, As a light to the nations, (Isaiah 42:6) ].
The
celebration of this covenant has become the ordinance of communion in the
Christian Church. At the end of the meal, Jesus took the unleavened bread,
broke it, and said that it represented His body. Then He took the cup of wine,
which would have been the third cup of the Seder - the cup of redemption. He
said that it was the new covenant in His blood "poured out for you." It is
through the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that we are
declared clean before God, allowing those of us who choose to accept the
pardon, to commune with Him - both now and forevermore through the eternal
life He offers." (The Heavens
Declare the Glory of God)
That was
the kind of love that God is talking about. The love that bought our salvation
cost the Son of God His life. He suffered beating, and scourging, and was spit
upon, and mocked, and hung on a cross and died for you and for me, and His death
was prefigured throughout the entire Old Testament, and I have only briefly
shown a few examples out of many that demonstrate this. Leviticus says: "For it
is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul". (Leviticus
17:11)
Jesus, the Son of God washed the feet of His disciples. Moon
struts around like a little banty rooster in a barnyard, living like a king
while his followers live in poverty to support him. Jesus pardoned the woman
taken in adultery. He offered living waters to the woman at the well who had
lived with six different men. Moon refers to American women as "prostitutes".
Members of Moon's own family beat their wives. The Bible says "Husbands, love
your wives, as Christ loved the church, and gave Himself for it."
I want
to offer a challenge and an invitation to members of the Unification church,
some of whom I knew many years ago. My challenge is this: Let go of your pride.
Admit that you have been following a false prophet and a false messiah for these
many years. This won't be easy, because of your all consuming sense of your own
importance, because of your pride in your education and your family heritage it
will be very difficult, but I hope that somehow I may be reaching you if you
read this.
It was not Jesus Christ who appeared to Sun Myung Moon. It
was not Jesus Christ who appeared to Swedenborg. It was a devil, probably satan
himself who appeared to them, claiming to be Christ.
St. Paul wrote
under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit:
Paul further gave this solemn warning:"But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his slyness, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. 4 For if he who comes should preach another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if you receive another spirit, which you have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, you might even be led along with him; 12 But what I do, I will also continue to do, that I may cut off the opportunity from those who desire an opportunity to be regarded just as we are in the things of which they boast. 13 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. 14 And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. 15 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works. (2 Cor: 3-4; 12-15)
It is obvious from Moon's life that his righteousness was a facade. And for those who follow him, when they wind up in eternity and realise their mistake it will be too late to do anything about it."But even if we, or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you than what we have [already] preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed." (Gal 1:8,9)
However God in his mercy even allows some pagan religions and cults to do good and to perform acts of charity so that perchance, through their good actions they might come to know the God of truth. (Acts 10)
There are some "infidel" websites on the internet where hoards of "former" Christians gather to deride the faith that they once professed. When these poor, foolish deluded souls follow some infidel leader who, like Judas has betrayed his Lord and had the devil literally enter into him and made shipwreck of his salvation and the salvation of others who have followed him, they are unaware of the infernal glee among the demonic throng when they post their angry invectives against God and His Word. Just as there is rejoicing in heaven at the repentance of one soul, so there is infernal laughter among the inhabitants of hell when those who oppose Him and His Christ (the real Christ, Jesus) rail and blaspheme against God.
It is interesting when a psychiatrist will sit in his chair
jotting down notes from a conversation with a man on the couch as he
describes his encounters with demonic agents. The psychiatrist will blandly
describe them as nothing more than neurotic, delusional fantasies. In
truth it is the psychiatrist who is suffering from delusions, while a demon is
whispering into his (spiritual) ear that there is no God, there are no
angels or demons, Darwin provided all the answers, the Bible is nothing more
than a book of fairy tales, heaven is a myth to comfort those who are weak of
heart, etc. while he takes down his notes, entirely unaware that the man on the
couch has a much more vivid and clear picture of reality than he does.
Were
the psychiatrist to even once admit to himself that any of this were in the
least bit true, he would have to fly at once to the foot of the cross for refuge
or else lose his mind in abject terror at the thought of the demonic host
surrounding him. And truly, if our spiritual eyes were open and we could see the
many evil spirits inhabiting this fallen world, and the daily battles going on
between good and evil in the spiritual realm, we would be terrified ourselves
except for those who have chosen to take refuge under the sheltering arms of
Christ, and been redeemed through His blood.
When we trust in the Lord and
obey His commandments, God Himself will come and dwell within us (John 14), and
Scripture says "Greater is He who is in me, than he who is in the world". God
watches over and protects those who are His own.
The Word of God gives us
this promise of protection:
He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, "He is my refuge and my fortress; my God, in Him I will trust" Surely He shall deliver you from the snares of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge. His truth shall be your shield and buckler.
You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday.
A thousand shall fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come nigh you. Only with your eyes shall you look and behold the reward of the wicked.
Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge, even the Most High, your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come nigh your dwelling place:
For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall lift you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. You shall tread upon the lion and the serpent you shall tread underfoot.
"Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him. I will set him on high, because he has known My name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him:
I will be with him in trouble;
I will deliver him and honor him.
With long life I will satisfy him,
And show him My salvation."
Psalm 91
When we trust in the Lord and in His Word and walk in obedience to Him, there is a spiritual "firewall", a hedge of protection that surrounds us keeping the evil spirits at bay. As Christians we don't have to be afraid of the devil. Treading the lion and serpent underfoot is a reference to our victory over the evil one and all his host, both visible and invisible, through Christ Jesus our Lord. We don't have to run and hide from the devil; he will run and hide from us. Scripture says "We are more than conquerors through Him that loved us." We have God abiding in us. The Word of God says that when we submit to God and resist the devil, then he will flee from us. We have authority over him as blood bought Christians and children of God. In Isaiah the Lord says: "No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue that rises against you in judgement you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of Me, says the Lord."
27. Edward Blyth, The Varieties of Animals, The Magazine of Natural History, Vol. 8, 1835, pp. 52-53.
28.Blyth, Seasonal and Other Changes in Birds, Note #1.
30. Edward Blyth, Varities of Animals, Magazine of Natural History, Vol.8, pp.40-53, 1835.
31. Blyth, Seasonal and other Changes in Birds.
33. Edward Blyth, On the Psychological Distinctions between Man and Animals, Magazine of Natural History, Vol. 1,1837.
35. Blyth, Note #1, Seasonal and other Changes in Birds.
36. (ibid), Origin, Chapter Six: Modes of Transition, pp.87.
37. National Geographic, August, 1981, pp.153.
38. How the Decoy Fish Catches Its Dinner, Robert J. Shallenberger Ph. D. and William J. Madden, National Geographic, pp. 224-226, August, 1974.
39. Scott M. Huse, The Collapse of Evolution, pp. 99-100, Baker Books, Grand Rapids Mich., 49516, 1993, Referencing also Berkeley biochemist Duane T. Gishe's book, Dinosaurs: Those Terrible Lizards, Creation-Life Publishers, San Diego, Ca., 1976, pp. 62.
[i]Lehman, J.P., The Proofs of Evolution, Gordon and Cremonesi, New York, 1977.
WATTS
HAPPENING? Roland Watts, an irate
evolutionist from a site called "No
Answers in Genesis" hosted by one John Stears, a disgruntled, retired
Australian bureaucrat, claims that Eiseley's charges have been discredited.
There is such a flood of propaganda and misinformation in the No Answers in
Genesis site, along with the misinformation in the links to
other sites promoting evolution there, that it would be too big a
task to sort out all of the errors and point to the logical and
factual fallacies they promote here.
Most of this has been done in Chapter
Four of this work, where the main errors in Darwinian thinking have been dealt
with, and in Chapter Five, where the paucity of the fossil record has been shown
to be far to weak for evolution to have occured.
If you investigate all
of the links in the No Answers in Genesis site you will find out that
they do not demonstrate any conclusive arguments or
evidence for evolution: It's all smoke and mirrors.
Even the Understanding Evolution link to the University of California at Berkeley,
where the geologic column and the fossil
record are presented as proof for evolution, does not present any real evidence from the fossil record
that shows evolution took place!
First of all, if the
geologic column were valid, it should be a world-wide phenomenon,
but it
isn't. There are only a smattering of spots in the entire world
where the layers are found in the "right" order; even the Grand Canyon has the
orders all out of place. We find lots of places where fossils of dinosaurs and
ancient fish are right near the surface, not buried under tons of layers of
newer strata (evolutionists explain this away by overthrusts, erosion, etc,
however they have to do this in the majority of cases, thus what should
be only an occasional anomaly actually becomes the norm in their explanations).
The ages of strata where fossil are found are assumed ages, the
layers in the column were developed nearly two centuries ago largely by
creationists who believed that there had been former periods of live on earth
separated by great disasters, and in each of these different ages diverse types
of extinct life forms existed. This was done long before any type of radioactive
dating was possible, so we really don't know how old the fossils are, even
today. These creationists incidently did not believe that the different layers
represented evolution, and they also did not believe that these former ages
represented millions of years.
They may have been right in their basic theory, however later on the evolutionists piggy-backed onto this scheme and modified it for their purposes, and it has become the mainstay of most evolutionary thinking.
As far as fossils being millions of years old, you can't use
radiometric dating for most sedimentary strata (even isotopic analyses is
fraught with difficulties and numerous "false" dates), and that is where
virtually all fossils of dinosaurs, ancient fish, and all other flora and fauna
of life are deposited. The insanity of it all becomes apparent when you realise
that the ages of the layers
are made up according to when evolutionists suppose these ancient
creatures lived, thus when you find a fossil of a dinosaur, then of
course, the strata it was found in had to be from the Mesozoic era, because
that is when they say dinosaurs lived!
Thus
the geologic column has to validate the ideas of the evolutionists, because the
rock strata are dated by the fossils found in them, and then the fossils in turn
are dated by the strata that they are found in! It's like a two headed coin
at a carnival side show. This method of dating borders on idiocy, and yet the
Berkeley site calls this "science".
The examples they have of whale evolution and the horse series have been demolished years ago as any kind of reputable proof for evolution, however the Berkeley site still uses these hackneyed old examples as so called evidence.
As far as the fanciful tale of whales, which is practically the evolutionist's last resort, this story of pigs, or horses or some other sort of quadruped (Darwin originally thought it was bears in his first edition of the Origin, but removed this in later editions after wild laughter from his critics) wandering around in the surf and gradually developing flippers, losing their hair and growing a thermodynamically conditioned outer skin for warmth and protection in the ocean, while losing their ears and developing a sonar echo location system by pure chance, with their breathing system being moved from the nose to the blowhole in the top of the head through blind evolutionary processes belongs more in the category of science fiction than science.
Most of the so-called transitional forms for whale evolution
amount to little more than mere artistically enhanced drawings of what really
amounts to a few scattered bones that they have dug up with dubious hypothetical
ancestry. Many people are led to believe that fossils imply millions of years of
age, but this is not true. Fossils form when the original bone is replaced by
minerals, usually under swift, hydraulic conditions and then rapidly buried
(aka, Noah's flood). We have found fossils from fence posts buried in the ground
that are only a couple of hundred years old, and fossils of other organic
material from flooded areas that are even younger.
Since there is no way to
carbon date the fossils in the whale series, it is pure conjecture as to
which of them might really be older in their farcical sequence, and there is a
tremendous jump from the scattered remnants of their last land species to the
first water species; it's all wild speculation, the sort of stuff that belongs
with UFO theories.
One might as well believe that surfers would
eventually grow blowholes and flippers. In fact, you could make a chart with
scattered bones from California surfers (Surferceticus, 100 mya), place them
next to some bones of large ancient otters (80mya - there's no
radioactive dating involved, the dates are all speculation in the
Berkeley site), then next add a few bones from some sea lions or a few
bones from a walrus, and then, to finish it off, add a skeleton of a
modern dolphin, and you would have a series just as scientific as the one
on whale evolution. (Why yes, of course. That makes perfectly good sense! Now,
according to my theory, if surfers stayed out in the ocean for millions of years
. . .)
These sites show the speculative nature of whale evolution: (1), (2), (3), while these sites (1), (2), (3) show the utter failure of the horse series in any evolutionary sequence.
The Berkeley site is not only bad science, it is mythology
paraded as science. Worse yet, they have as one of their evidences the link to
the farcical Transitional
Vertebrate Fossils FAQ by Kathleen Hunt at talk.origins,
arguably, along with the story of the bombardier beetle, fighting for first
prize in the clown
act of the entire evolutionist road show.
With all of the nice
artwork and graphics used on the Berkeley site, all that they have done is
simply state that evolution is a fact, that it has occurred, and insist that the
fossil record demonstrates this, but they show no true transitional forms
linking the major families of species, none throughout their entire site.
Essentially, Stears (and the evolutionists at Berkeley) has engaged in
"reference bluffing" and "elephant hurling" on his website, where he has
numerous links to supposed arguments for evolution, and yet none of the
links actually support his case; however the links give the
impression of sound background scholarship; and because of the shear
amount of them (elephant hurling) most people will not take the time to
actually follow them up and investigate their claims.
For a detailed expose' of the chicanery going on at No Answers in Genesis, this site would be a good starting point.
What Stears has done is a lot of nitpicking on creationist material where he has found a few minor inaccuracies or supposed errors on certain sites and blown them all out of proportion, as the Lord said, "straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel", but he has still presented no evidence for his theory, evolution, anywhere.
In contrast to No Answers In Genesis, and in contrast
to the University of California Berkeley site, this site at True Origins has a
wealth of genuine scientific research demonstrating the
impossibility that evolution has ever occurred, or that evolution could ever
even come close to producing a radically new species, and it shows, even
from a strictly scientific standpoint, that creationism makes abundantly better
sense for the origin of species than evolution does.
I can say one good
thing about No Answers in Genesis. It demonstrates in a very
powerful way that the evolutionist propaganda machine is up and running at full
speed, and that the militant adherants to the now defunct evolutionary theory
(it was defunct from the very first, even from Darwin's day, but with the advent
of the internet and the consequent break-up of the monopoly that evolutionists
have held on the minds of young people through their ensconced position in
academia, the truth is finally coming to light) march to the cadence of the
Darwinian drum in lock-step, fanatic zeal.
A more appropriate title for
his site would be No Answers in Evolution. Since the entire No Answers
in Genesis site amounts to a pile of steer manure anyway, my advice would be
to steer clear of Stears.
For those who do want to shovel around in
his site, evolutionists or creationists, after you roll your pant legs up and
put on your wading boots, I suggest you research all of the links in
the No Answers in Genesis site, study carefully all of their arguments,
and then use these logical
fallacy techniques to understand where they have departed from the facts,
and misrepresented opinions and half truths as the truth.
You can start
out by finding out which fallacy is used in the beginning quote
on this page. Is this quote by Charles Darwin fact, or is it opinion? Does he
offer any proof?
Evolutionists like to insist on the "fact" of evolution. Note the first
word: "Probably". This statement sums up Darwin's opinion of his theory. Does
probably mean certainly? "Well, evolution is probably
true". Why is it "probably true", if it is probably true?
Should we simply take Darwin's word on it? After looking at all the
evidence, is evolution still "probably true" or not? Could you conclude that
evolution is "probably false" if by Darwin's
own admission the evidence does not support his theory?
If this statement is not found to be grounded in fact then, if
we find no evidence to support the notion that evolution is "probably true", if
we indeed find evidence that completely contradicts what Darwin predicted must
exist for his theory to be true, then would the entire premise of evolution also
be wrong?
You might want to make it a group project. I would even suggest
a creationist web ring devoted to this. It could be a lot of fun. Someone
gifted with imagination might even want to create a creationist/evolutionist
board game, where the traps and lies of the evolutionists are exposed along the
way, until you finally get to "Home", where you arrive at the truth. Whoever
would find the most fallacies in evolutionist arguments would score the most
points and win.
Good luck and good hunting.
To return to Mr. Watts' critique, the source Roland refers us
to regarding Eiseley is Richard Milner, who makes that claim in his
Encyclopedia of Evolution: Humanity's Search for it's Origins, a
thoroughly evolutionist work with a minimum of any facts actually documenting
evolution.
Milner is a Senior Editor of Natural History magazine, a
major mouthpiece for anti-creationist, evolutionary thought. This
in itself does not discredit his research, although Milner is also a
vigorous opponent of the concept of intelligent design, which after all is
merely affirming that God had a hand somehow in the creation of
species, so of course Milner would be opposed to Blyth's ideas.
Milner
is also the author of "Charles Darwin: The Evolution of a Naturalist",
which is heavily promoted on various "Skeptic" websites critical of
Christianity, and is part of a series of books designed to promote evolution.
On the German Skeptic page where Milner's book is advertised
they describe Darwin, and Milner's book on Darwin: "Richard Milner
offers readers a dazzling new portrait of this extraordinary man's life and
work, from his early day in a small English market town, to his famous voyage on
the HMS Beagle, to his years of unrelenting effort in search of truth about the
evolution of life. Authoritative and capivatingly written, this book tells the
compelling story of a man whose ideas changed the way we think about ourselves -
and all living things."
This worn out yarn of Darwin as the great scientist is typical
and has been spun by evolutionists since 1860. There are a number of books
that have been published over the past few years that explode this myth. (See Chapter
One of The Darwin Papers for more pertinent information, as well as the
references) Essentially Milner and Roland are defending their icon, their
hero who supposedly disproved the creation story. This entire thing is not about
science, or even
about science versus religion which is a straw man, but about a philosophical
prejudice against the God of the Bible.
Much of Milner's work is merely
a rehashing of the same tired old garbage (I wish I had a better word to
describe it, but I don't. I can certainly think of a few worse ones) that we
read in Dennet's book, Darwin's Dangerous
Idea and Edward Larson's book, Evolution: The
Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory .
Eiseley is certainly not the only source to document Darwin's dependence on Blyth's writings. A history tutor and author in the U.K., Andrew J. Bradbury, has written an excellent online book on the dubious nature of Darwin's "discovery", plainly demonstrating the Blyth connection.
On Darwin and Blyth Bradbury wrote: "Blyth recognised that Darwin had been feeding from him, as from so many others, like some intellectual leech", however Blyth was too kind and of too magnanimous a spirit to take any serious steps of reprisal.(Roland is going to complain now that I called Milner and Larson's books garbage and called Bradbury's book excellent. While the evolutionist books may be well written, it is not the style I am commenting on, but the substance of the argument. I can't apologise for that. They have a bright facade, but it is merely a facade, and if one truly learns to read and think critically one can pierce through their specious reasonings.)
By all accounts Blyth seems to have been quite a remarkable fellow. Nobody had a bad thing to say about him. By contrast, Darwin seemed to have been a "Hail fellow, well met" character with a streak of larceny in him. But with Blyth, in every new piece of evidence I discovered about the man there was nothing that reflected badly on his character. Since I documented this, Roland accused me of spreading propaganda. I challenge Roland to show one bit of evidence to the contrary concerning Blyth before he makes such a scurrilous charge.
Compare the glowing, almost drooling description of Milner's book on Darwin above, along with the gushing descriptions of Darwin on the No Answers in Genesis Page and the fawning tributes of praise to him on other evolutionist sites with the actual man, with what his more current biographers have to say about him - Bowlby, Browne, Desmond and Moore, de Beer, all recorded in Chapter One of The Darwin Papers, along with Darlington near the beginning of this chapter, and Miller in Chapter Three (evolutionists all, so there can be no "creationist bias" creeping in to taint their thinking) - and then you tell me who the real propagandists are.
Blyth seems to have been a man of sterling character, while the greasy little details of Darwin's life are finally, slowly dripping out, and because I have documented this Roland claims that I am spreading propaganda, without showing the slightest bit of evidence to back up his claim.
Most of Roland's arguments seem rather petty and spurious; for instance I originally failed to make mention of the fact that Eiseley was an evolutionist - a small oversight which would actually help my argument so I have since included this information; - also anyone who disagrees with Darwin apparently has "an ax to grind".
Perhaps so, but if it is a legitimate ax, then what is the
problem with that?
Roland makes the typical evolutionist
accusations against creationists on his site. He roundly
condemns myself and other creationists who have the temerity to question
Darwin's theory and who would question the sacrosanct theory of
evolution.
Roland gets irate when I quote evolutionists because I must be quoting them out of context. He is also upset when I quote creationists because they must be biased. Sometimes you just can't win.
Flinging around wild charges such as Roland does ("Many creationists loathe Darwin", as if to disagree with Darwin is to loathe him; "Foard is guilty of omission" regarding the so-called investigation and dismission of Eiseley's claim; "Foard uses innuendo to support his claim" regarding Darwin's hiding his notes to conceal his debt to Blyth - that was the claim of Eiseley and Hitching, noted evolutionist scholars, if I am guilty it is of getting my information from them, so now, at least according to Roland, Eiseley and Hitching are also guilty of inuendo, and perhaps they also loathe Darwin; "Foard is a propagandist" etc. etc.) discredit his own arguments more than they discredit anything he is supposedly rebutting.
In Roland's case it is an ad hominem attack; using
propaganda to attack one's opponent.
(Adjective: ad hominem
ad 'howmi nem 1. Appealing to personal
considerations rather than fact or reason.)
Roland also concedes correctly that natural selection is an idea that goes back to the ancient Greeks, but then says that "It was Darwin and Wallace who demonstrated how the idea could be used to explain the origin of species and step outside of Biblical literalism."
I hate to have to be the one to break the news to Roland, but
the ancient Greeks were not Biblical literalists.
For that matter,
neither were most of the writers on evolution or natural selection before
Darwin.
Roland pads Darwin's resume' with the typical overstament of his accomplishment: "However, it was Darwin who did the hard work, collected the evidence and argued with it to demonstrate that the theory just could not be ignored. Until Darwin and Wallace came along, the ideas of the Greeks, Wells, Blyth, Lamark, Erasmas Darwin, Mathews, etc., were little more than curious or perhaps interesting ideas."
Evolution was little more than an interesting idea for
centuries, along with spontaneous generation, (the currently accepted
theory by evolutionists for the origin of life, called abiogenesis, disproved
over a century ago by Pasteur) it never gained any ground for centuries because
there was never any proof for it.
And now Darwin has been
built up as the great pioneer in proving evolution, and yet he never came up with any valid proof for it either. In
his entire Origin he has not submitted one single shred of evidence to support
his theory. In light of this, we have to ask ouselves, in all
seriousness, who are the real propagandists here?
Darwin has advanced numerous fantastic imaginary possibilities for the theory of evolution, but with no actual facts to back up his claims. In his entire Origin he does not give one single example of an evolutionary transitional form, either from fish to amphibian, amphibian to reptile, reptile to mammal, reptile to bird, or ape to man. He presents no evidence of insect evolution either and hardly touches on the subject of plant evolution. Indeed, he actually admitted that most of the available evidence, both in contemporary living species and in fossil form argued against evolution! (See Chapters 4 and 5 of The Darwin Papers)
And since Darwin's time evolutionists have still
failed to bring valid evidence for their theory (Evolutionists will
complain that some of the quotes on this link are dated. Well in that case, lets
throw out Darwin's Origin of Species, which is much older than any of
these quotes are. If your an evolutionist you probably don't have to pay any
attention to them anyway, since they all must be taken out of context. Point of
fact, a hostile witness, who admits what he doesn't want to have to admit is a
fact, is considered one of the best sources of evidence in legal jurisprudence).
Roland writes "In dealing with Wells, the naturalist whom Darwin did
later recognize as having been influential, Foard dismisses him as contributing
nothing original because "the basic concept of natural selection had been around
since ancient Greek time" (page 5). But Blyth was not an ancient Greek. So if
Blyth "thought" of the idea of natural selection, then why does Foard not
dismiss him equally? The answer is clear. Blyth was an "ardent creationist".
But that is precisely my point. There was nothing
original about what Wells or Darwin had written, the ancient Greek
philosophers were well versed in naturalistic evolution, the only reason to
mention Blyth is because Darwin did take the ideas of a creationist and
then turned them around to make them fit his evolutionary theory.
Far
from "dismissing" Wells, I merely point out that he was simply one person
in a long chain of evolutionary writers dating back to the ancient
Greeks. He certainly didn't originate the concept of natural selection or
evolution. If pointing this out is "dismissing" Wells, then we might just as
well dismiss Darwin too, and good riddance with him. In point of fact, this is
the main premise in Chapter Three; that the idea of evolution and natural
selection has been around for centuries. Darwin was by no means an original
thinker.
The origin of the evolutionary theory is not the result of some great breakthrough in technology or research. It is a mere philosophical presumption that has been around for over two millennia, lingering on the sidelines of true scientific thought, glibly accepted by those such as Roland because they were taught that it was a fact by their teachers in school and they never learned to think critically enough to question the dogma.
The reason that I don't use the ancient Greeks as direct references for
Darwin's ideas is because Darwin himself never mentioned them extensively, if at
all. (Darwin did not read or speak Greek, he was incapable of learning any
foreign or ancient languages, by his own admission, and he was also incapable of
learning higher mathematics. Blyth, on the other hand was a genuine scholar who
probably did read the ancient sources, but realised the inadequacy of
the purely evolutionary explanation for the origin of species enunciated
by the ancient Greek philosophers)
Given the dubious nature
of his intellectual studies, it is highly improbable that Darwin had extensive
acquaintance with the ancient sources of evolutionary thought, but they did
influence his more immediate predecessors, and that is whom he relied on heavily
for his ideas. Darwin makes numerous references in his Origin to other
contemporary and recent evolutionists to bolster up his theory, as well as in
his notes, but one can search in vain for even a scant reference to Aristotle,
Plato, Dioscordes, or any of the ancient classical sources. Darwin was an intellectual
lightweight with a remarkable way with words, nothing more (See de
Beer's opinion of Darwin's academic career in Chapter One, and de Beer's opinion is by no means unique, nor is
it written by some creationist who "loathes" Darwin; see Darlington below.).
Roland and his evolutionist colleagues don't actually want to know the real Charles Darwin, they are satisfied with the myth. Darwin has reached an almost cultic status among atheists, agnostics, assorted infidels and others who want to reject the God of the Bible. To have to come face to face with the man behind the myth would upset their world view, and that they will cling to as tenaciously as a junkyard dog will who will fight to protect a rusted out old car frame from intruders. After all is said and done, read Roland's site, read my entire book, and you decide who is spreading the propaganda: Fair and balanced.
By the way, there is one more little thing to be said about Mr. Watts posting on the No Answers in Genesis site. Even though he refers to The Darwin Papers in his little diatribe, he either hasn't got the guts or the decency to actually post a link or a referral to my site so that his readers can read for themselves what I have written; all that they can do is rely on his own spurious, foaming, petulant rhetoric for any information about my book.
The same thing can be said for Mr. Stears, the originator of the No Answers in Genesis site, where Mr. Watts' article is posted.