The Evolution of the Theory of Evolution

The Theory of Evolution is effectively a changing jigsaw puzzle piece. Think of the point at which you have all the surrounding pieces in an area of a jigsaw and you're looking for piece with the correct number of protruding arms and recesses to fit into the gap created by the surrounding pieces. 150 years ago mankind had the evidence of advanced life forms - all they had to do was open their eyes and look around at nature - and these constituted a limited number of surrounding pieces. The challenge was how to explain how they got there. What jigsaw piece would fit into the puzzle and connect it all together? The intelligent view was that there had to be an explanation for these advanced life forms. After all they couldn't have just appeared by magic! And yet that is actually the Christian explanation. A creative God created creatures that exhibited all the hallmarks of having been designed. 

Charles Darwin's proposition of "Survival of the Fittest" offered a starting point. The proposition was that certain members of a particular type of creature could have beneficial characteristics that would favour their survival. These characteristics would be passed onto their progeny and gradually would become the normal characteristics of that type of creature. This would explain the survival of the "best of breed" - be they the fastest, the fiercest, the cleverest, or whatever positive characteristic enhanced their survival chances. 

This was quite reasonable and logical but then came the "leap of faith" in proposing that this would enable one type of creature to change into another. Apes walked intermittently on two legs, so they could gradually change into ape-men and then become fully human. Throw enough time into the equation and you can have continuous development from a smaller group of simple life forms into the larger numbers of advanced ones. This was the Theory of Evolution and it seemed to be able to fit into the overall scheme of things quite conveniently. It offered a solution to the origins of life, based upon the observed evidence at that time, that excluded the supernatural ingredient of a creator God.

The Theory postulated an evolutionary tree where the branches were distinct types of creatures and the trunk contained the intermediate stages. These intermediate stages were those forms necessary to cover the progression from ape to man, or from aquatic life to land-based life forms. At the base of the tree were the simplest life forms and below them the basic proteins from which life arose. In the 19th century there were fossil records to link part of the branch to the main trunk but there were no fossils of intermediate stages. At that time the scientists expected that the fossils would be found.

A century later and the pattern of the surrounding jigsaw pieces has been found to be more complex than was ever thought in Darwin's era. Exploration, research into nature, and advances in scientific methods have revealed the life forms to be almost unimaginably complex. Those life forms categorized as simple, now prove to be complex. As merely one example, we have the bombardier beetle that can mix two chemicals inside its body to produce an explosion.  In order to identify the chemicals you need intelligence. In order to produce them, hold them and mix them safely, you need a well designed bodily factory with a logical compartments structure. Evolution cannot explain how this can be. Chemical factories do not come about by accident.

Furthermore, the expected discovery of fossils of intermediate forms failed to materialize. Plenty of fossils have been added to the relatively sparse record of the 19th century, but none of them are of creatures in an intermediate stage of development. To explain the absence of intermediate form fossils, the scientific establishment then postulated 'punctuated evolution'. Short periods of rapid evolutionary development. There would be insufficient time for fossils to form. We have an answer but not one that has evidence to back it up. Given the lack of evidence, evolution becomes a belief. Not a law. Not proven fact. A theory, but one that is no longer fitting the facts.

Creationism vs Evolution

One of the most important books that I consider to have crossed my path is 'The Genesis Flood' by Morris and Whitcombe. It was published in 1959, the year of my birth. For many years bible believing Christians have said that the world was created and then destroyed by a catastrophic, global flood as recorded in the book of Genesis. In 'The Genesis Flood', the authors looked at the geological and fossil evidence to see if it supported such a view. And it does.

The general view of the scientific community was firmly against 'catastrophism' - but the theory of evolution was now having to be "patched up" in order to cope with new findings and new discoveries. Evolution was based upon slow, gradual change. Punctuated evolution was conceived to explain a lack of expected evidence. Then something was needed to explain the sudden disappearance of the dinosaurs. Ironically the scientists propose...a catastrophe. Not a flood but a meteor striking the Earth. And so more and more 'workarounds' are put in place to shore up a theory in crisis.

So why is the theory of evolution still taught as fact? The answer can be found in a verse from the bible - Romans ch1v28 - "...they did not like to retain God in their knowledge." Evolution has been put forward as the scientific alternative to biblical creation. Generations of establishment scientists have invested their lives and more importantly their reputations in it. It's like the fairy tale of the emperor who was hoodwinked into buying a set of invisible clothes. He walked around naked but no-one dared state the obvious (that the emperor was naked) because of the implication (the emperor was a vain fool and had been tricked). In the same way atheistic scientists are loathe to discuss the flaws in the theory of evolution because of the key, unthinkable implication - that maybe there is a God and we were created.

For detailed information on this subject visit 
        http://www.answersingenesis.org

Richard Dawkins - an evolutionary evangelical

I feel it appropriate to mention Richard Dawkins as he is one of the most well known exponents in the UK of the Theory of Evolution. Possibly someone searching the internet for information on him may stumble across this web page. I include him as an example of how the Theory of Evolution has now become a bitter enemy of - and I don't like this word - Religion. So far as the atheistic scientific community is concerned, Christianity is part of a whole bag of religions that can be equated to superstition, that should be abandoned, and are an anachronism in our modern, enlightened era. 

I'd like to quote Richard Dawkins comments in an issue of the 'Independant' newspaper which commemorated the first anniversary of the tragedy that took place on September 11th in New York. I won't quote the piece in full but neither will I quote it out of context. These are the phrases that reveal something of this man's thoughts on "religion".

"I felt a savage anger, and an instant bonding with America...it was under attack from a pre-medieval barbarism"
"My first thought was 'Religion strikes again'...it's possible for political fanaticism alone to drive people to suicide attacks, but it's hard. Religion makes it easy because, to the deluded perpetrators, it isn't suicide at all."
"My solidarity with America took a battering as the Bush tendency muscled in, the nauseating 'God bless America' became the unofficial national anthem."
"The main way I have changed is in my attitude to religion. I used to think that religion was harmless nonsense, entitle to at least some respect. I'd now drop the 'harmless'. And the last vestige of respect."

Why does Richard Dawkins despise religion? It's because religion is opposed to the Theory of Evolution.

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e-mail : mcadam@cfn.org.uk