Posted on 01/29/2004 2:39:34 PM PST by Cowgirl
History of Evolution Part One
BRIEF HISTORY OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY
Where did this idea come from? Source: The Evolution Cruncher
First a little background:
Introduction: Stellar evolution is based on the concept that nothing can explode and produce all the stars and worlds. Life evolution is founded on the twin theories of spontaneous generation and Lamarckism (the inheritance of acquired characteristics);--yet, although they remain the basis of biological evolution, both were debunked by scientists over a century ago.
Science is the study of the natural world. We are thankful for the many dedicated scientists who are hard at work, improving life for us. But we will learn that their discoveries have provided no worthwhile evidence supporting evolutionary theory.
Premises are important. They are the concepts by which scientific facts are interpreted. For over a century, efforts have been made to explain scientific discoveries by a mid-19th century theory, known as "evolution." It has formed the foundation for many theories. Yet none of them are founded on scientific facts! They are the concepts by which scientific facts are interpreted.
Here are the two premises on which the various theories of evolution are based:
1 - This is the evolutionary formula for making a universe:
Nothing + nothing = two elements + time = 92 natural elements + time = all physical laws and a completely structured universe of galaxies, systems, stars, planets, and moons orbiting in perfect balance and order.
2 - This is the evolutionary formula for making life:
Dirt + water + time = living creatures.
Evolutionists theorize that the above two formulas can enable everything about us to make itself--with the exception of man-made things, such as automobiles or buildings. Complicated things, such as wooden boxes with nails in them, require thought, intelligence, and careful workmanship. But everything else about us in nature, such as hummingbirds and the human eye, is declared to be the result of accidental mishaps, random confusion, and time. You will not even need raw materials to begin with. They make themselves too.
How did all this nonsense get started? We will begin with a brief overview of the modern history of evolutionary theory.
But let us not forget that, though it may be nonsensical, evolutionary theory has greatly affected--and damaged--mankind in the 20th century. Will we continue to let this happen, now that we are in the 21st century? The social and moral impact that evolutionary concepts have had on the modern world has been terrific.
Morality and ethical standards
Morality and ethical standards have been greatly reduced. Children and youth are taught in school that they are an advanced level of animals; there are no moral principles. Since they are just animals, they should do whatever they want. Personal survival and success will come only by rivalry, strife, and stepping on others.
Here is a brief overview of some of the people and events in the history of modern evolutionary theory. But it is only a glimpse.
18th AND 19th CENTURY SCIENTISTS
Prior to the middle of the 1800s, scientists were researchers who firmly believed that all nature was made by a Master Designer. Those pioneers who laid the foundations of modern science were creationists. They were men of giant intellect who struggled against great odds in carrying on their work. They were hard-working researchers.
In contrast, the philosophers sat around, hardly stirring from their armchairs and theorized about everything while the scientists, ignoring them, kept at their work.
But a change came about in the 19th century, when the philosophers tried to gain control of scientific endeavor and suppress research and findings that would be unfavorable to their theories. Today’s evolutionists vigorously defend the unscientific theories they thought up over a century ago.
William Paley (1743-1805), in his 1802 classic, Natural Theology, summarized the viewpoint of the scientists. He argued that the kind of carefully designed structures we see in the living world point clearly to a Designer. If we see a watch, we know that it had a designer and maker; it would be foolish to imagine that it made itself. This is the "argument by design." All about us is the world of nature, and over our heads at night is a universe of stars. We can ignore or ridicule what is there or say it all made itself, but our scoffing does not change the reality of the situation. A leading atheistic scientist of our time, Fred Hoyle, wrote that, although it was not difficult to disprove Darwinism, what Paley had to say appeared likely to be unanswerable (Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space, 1981, p. 96).
It is a remarkable fact that the basis of evolutionary theory was destroyed by seven scientific research findings,--before Charles Darwin first published the theory.
Carl Linn (Carolus Linnaeus, 1707-1778) was a scientist who classified immense numbers of living organisms. An earnest creationist, he clearly saw that there were no halfway species. All plant and animal species were definite categories, separate from one another. Variation was possible within a kind, and there were many sub-species. But there were no crossovers from one kind to another (R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution, 1990, p. 276).
First Law of Thermodynamics (1847). Heinrich von Helmholtz stated the law of conservation of energy: The sum total of all matter will always remain the same. This law refutes several aspects of evolutionary theory. Isaac Asimov calls it "the most fundamental generalization about the universe that scientists have ever been able to make" (quoted in Isaac Asimov, "In the Game of Energy and Thermodynamics You Can’t Even Break Even," Journal of Smithsonian Institute, June 1970, p. 6).
Second Law of Thermodynamics (1850). R.J.E. Clausius stated the law of entropy:: All systems will tend toward the most mathematically probable state, and eventually become totally random and disorganized (Harold Blum, Time’s Arrow and Evolution, 1968, p. 201). In other words, everything runs down, wears out, and goes to pieces (R.R. Kindsay, "Physics: to What Extent is it Deterministic," American Scientist 56, 1968, p. 100). This law totally eliminates the basic evolutionary theory that simple evolves into complex. Einstein said the two laws were the most enduring laws he knew of (Jeremy Rifkin, Entropy: A New World View, 1980, p. 6).
Guadeloupe Woman Found (1812). This is a well-authenticated discovery which has been in the British Museum for over a century. A fully human skeleton was found in the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe inside an immense slab of limestone, dated by modern geologists at 28 million years old. (More examples could be cited.) Human beings, just like those living today (but sometimes larger) have been found in very deep levels of strata.
Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) was a creationist who lived and worked near Brunn (now Brno), Czechoslovakia. He was a science and math teacher. Unlike the theorists, Mendel was a true scientist. He bred garden peas and studied the results of crossing various varieties. Beginning his work in 1856, he concluded it within eight years. In 1865, he reported his research in the Journal of the Brunn Society for the Study of Natural Science. The journal was distributed to 120 libraries in Europe, England, and America. Yet his research was totally ignored by the scientific community until it was rediscovered in 1900 (R.A. Fisher, "Has Mendel’s Work Been Rediscovered?" Annals of Science, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1936). His experiments clearly showed that one species could not transmute into another one. A genetic barrier existed that could not be bridged. Mendel’s work laid the basis for modern genetics, and his discoveries effectively destroyed the basis for species evolution (Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution, 1984, pp. 63-64).
Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) was another genuine scientist. In the process of studying fermentation, he performed his famous 1861 experiment, in which he disproved the theory of spontaneous generation. Life cannot arise from non-living materials. This experiment was very important; for, up to that time, a majority of scientists believed in spontaneous generation. (They thought that if a pile of old clothes were left in a corner, it would breed mice! The proof was that, upon later returning to the clothes, mice would frequently be found there.) Pasteur concluded from his experiment that only God could create living creatures. But modern evolutionary theory continues to be based on the out-dated theory disproved by Pasteur: spontaneous generation (life arises from non-life). Why? Because it is the only real basis on which evolution could occur. As Adams notes, "With spontaneous generation discredited [by Pasteur], biologists were left with no theory of the origin of life at all" (J. Edison Adams, Plants: An Introduction to Modern Biology, 1967, p. 585).
August Friedrich Leopold Weismann (1834-1914) was a German biologist who disproved Lamarck’s notion of "the inheritance of acquired characteristics." He is primarily remembered as the scientist who cut off the tails of 901 young white mice in 19 successive generations, yet each new generation was born with a full-length tail. The final generation, he reported, had tails as long as those originally measured on the first. Weismann also carried out other experiments that buttressed his refutation of Lamarckism. His discoveries, along with the fact that circumcision of Jewish males for 4,000 years had not affected the foreskin, doomed the theory (Jean Rostand, Orion Book of Evolution, 1960, p. 64). Yet Lamarckism continues today as the disguised basis of evolutionary biology. For example, evolutionists still teach that giraffes kept stretching their necks to reach higher branches, so their necks became longer! In a later book, Darwin abandoned natural selection, as unworkable, and returned to Lamarckism as the cause of the never-observed change from one species to another (Randall Hedtke, The Secret of the Sixth Edition, 1984).
Here is a brief, partial overview of what true scientists were accomplishing in the 18th and 19th centuries. All of them were Creationists:
Louis Agassiz (1807-1873): glacial geology, ichthyology. Charles Babbage (1792-1871): actuarial tables, calculating machine, foundations of computer science. Francis Bacon (1561-1626): scientific method of research. Robert Boyle (1627-1691): chemistry, gas dynamics. Sir David Brewster (1781-1868): optical mineralogy, kaleidoscope. Georges Cuvier (1769-1832): comparative anatomy, vertebrate paleontology. Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829): thermokinetics. Jean Henri Fabre (1823-1915): entomology of living insects. Michael Faraday (1791-1867): electric generator, electro-magnetics, field theory. Sir John A. Fleming (1849-1945): electronics, thermic valve. Joseph Henry (1797-1878): electric motor, galvanometer. Sir William Herschel (1738-1822): galactic astronomy, double stars. James Joule (1818-1889): reversible thermodynamics. Lord William Kelvin (1824-1907): absolute temperature scale, energetics, thermodynamics, transatlantic cable. Johannes Kepler (1571-1630): celestial mechanics, ephemeris tables, physical astronomy. Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778): classification system, systematic biology. Joseph Lister (1827-1912): antiseptic surgery. Matthew Maury (1806-1873): hydrography, oceanography. James C. Maxwell (1831-1879): electrical dynamics, statistical thermodynamics. Gregor Mendel (1822-1884): genetics. Samuel F.B. Morse (1791-1872): telegraph. Isaac Newton (1642-1727): calculus, dynamics, law of gravity, reflecting telescopes. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662): hydrostatics, barometer. Louise Pasteur (1822-1895): bacteriology, biogenesis law, pasteurization, vaccination, and immunization. Sir William Ramsey (1852-1916): inert gases, isotropic chemistry. John Ray (1827-1705): natural history, classification of plants and animals. John Rayleigh (1842-1919): dimensional analysis, model analysis. Bernhard Riemann (1826-1866): non-Euclidean geometry. Sir James Simpson (1811-1870): chloroform, gynecology. Sir George Stockes (1819-1903): fluid mechanics. Rudolph Virchow (1821-1902): pathology.
18th AND 19th CENTURY EVOLUTIONISTS
And now we will view the armchair philosophers. Hardly one of them ever set foot in field research or entered the door of a science laboratory, yet they founded the modern theory of evolution:
Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) was a do-nothing expert. In his 1734 book, Principia, he theorized that a rapidly rotating nebula formed itself into our solar system of sun and planets. He claimed that he obtained the idea from spirits during a séance. It is significant that the nebular hypothesis theory originated from such a source.
Comte de Buffon (1707-1788) was a dissolute philosopher who, unable to improve on the work of Linnaeus, spent his time criticizing him. He theorized that species originated from one another and that a chunk was torn out of the sun, which became our planet. As with the other philosophers, he presented no evidence in support of his theories.
Jean-Baptist Lamarck (1744-1829) made a name for himself by theorizing. He accomplished little else of significance. He laid the foundation of modern evolutionary theory, with his concept of "inheritance of acquired characteristics," which was later given the name Lamarckism. In 1809, he published a book, Philosophie zoologique, in which he declared that the giraffe got its long neck by stretching it up to reach the higher branches, and birds that lived in water grew webbed feet. If you pull hard on your feet, you can increase their length; and, if you decide in your mind to do so, you can grow hair on your bald head, and your offspring will never be bald. This is science?
Lamarck’s other erroneous contribution to evolution was the theory of uniformitarianism. This is the conjecture that all earlier ages on earth were exactly as they are today, calm and peaceful with no worldwide Flood or other great catastrophes.
Robert Chambers (1802-1883) was a spiritualist who regularly communicated with spirits. As a result of his contacts, he wrote the first popular evolution book in all of Britain. Vestiges of Creation (1844), was printed 15 years before Charles Darwin’s book, Origin of the Species.
Charles Lyell (1797-1875). Like Charles Darwin, Lyell inherited great wealth and was able to spend his time theorizing. Lyell published his Principles of Geology in 1830-1833, and it became the basis for the modern theory of sedimentary strata,--even though 20th-century discoveries in radiodating, radiocarbon dating, missing strata, and overthrusts (older strata on top of more recent strata) have nullified the theory.
In order to prove his theory, Lyell was quite willing to misstate the facts. He learned that Niagara Falls had eroded a seven-mile [11 km] channel from Queenston, Ontario, and that it was eroding at about 3 feet [1 m] a year. So Lyell conveniently changed that to one foot [.3 m] a year, which meant that the falls had been flowing for 35,000 years! But Lyell had not told the truth. Three-foot erosion a year, at its present rate of flow, would only take us back 7000 to 9000 years,--and it would be expected that, just after the Flood, the flow would, for a time, have greatly increased the erosion rate. Lyell was a close friend of Darwin, and urged him to write his book, Origin of the Species.
Alfred Russell Wallace (1823-1913) is considered to be the man who developed the theory which Darwin published. Wallace was deeply involved in spiritism at the time he formulated the theory in his Ternate Paper, which Darwin, with the help of two friends (Charles Lyell and Joseph Hooker), pirated and published under his own name. Darwin, a wealthy man, thus obtained the royalties which belonged to Wallace, a poverty-ridden theorist. In 1980, Arnold C. Brackman, in his book, A Delicate Arrangement, established that Darwin plagiarized Wallace’s material. It was arranged that a paper by Darwin would be read to the Royal Society, in London, while Wallace’s was held back until later. Priorities for the ideas thus having been taken care of, Darwin set to work to prepare his book.
In 1875, Wallace came out openly for spiritism and Marxism, another stepchild of Darwinism. This was Wallace’s theory: Species have changed in the past, by which one species descended from another in a manner that we cannot prove today. That is exactly what modern evolution teaches. Yet it has no more evidence supporting the theory than Wallace had in 1858 when he devised the theory while in a fever.
In February 1858, while in a delirious fever on the island of Ternate in the Molaccas, Wallace conceived the idea, "survival of the fittest," as being the method by which species change. But the concept proves nothing. The fittest; which one is that? It is the one that survived longest. Which one survives longest? The fittest. This is reasoning in a circle. The phrase says nothing about the evolutionary process, much less proving it.
In the first edition of his book, Darwin regarded "natural selection" and "survival of the fittest" as different concepts. By the sixth edition of his Origin of the Species, he thought they meant the same thing, but that "survival of the fittest" was the more accurate. In a still later book (Descent of Man, 1871), Darwin ultimately abandoned "natural selection" as a hopeless mechanism and returned to Lamarckism. Even Darwin recognized the theory was falling to pieces. The supporting evidence just was not there.
Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was born into wealth and able to have a life of ease. He took two years of medical school at Edinburgh University, and then dropped out. It was the only scientific training he ever received. Because he spent the time in the bars with his friends, he barely passed his courses. Darwin had no particular purpose in life, and his father planned to get him into a nicely paid job as an Anglican minister. Darwin did not object.
But an influential relative got him a position as unpaid "naturalist" on a ship planning to sail around the world, the Beagle. The voyage lasted from December 1831 to October 1836.
It is of interest that, after engaging in spiritism, certain men in history have been seized with a deep hatred of God and have then been guided to devise evil teachings, that have destroyed large numbers of people, while others have engaged in warfare which have annihilated millions. In connection with this, we think of such known spiritists as Sigmund Freud and Adolf Hitler. It is not commonly known that Charles Darwin, while a naturalist aboard the Beagle, was initiated into witchcraft in South America by nationals. During horseback travels into the interior, he took part in their ceremonies and, as a result, something happened to him. Upon his return to England, although his health was strangely weakened, he spent the rest of his life working on theories to destroy faith in the Creator.
After leaving South America, Darwin was on the Galapagos Islands for a few days. While there, he saw some finches, which had blown in from South America and adapted to their environment, producing several sub-species. He was certain that this showed cross-species evolution (change into new species). But they were still finches. This theory about the finches was the primary evidence of evolution he brought back with him to England.
Darwin, never a scientist and knowing nothing about the practicalities of genetics, then married his first cousin, which resulted in all seven of his children having physical or mental disorders. (One girl died after birth, another at 10. His oldest daughter had a prolonged breakdown at 15. Three of his six sons became semi-invalids, and his last son was born mentally retarded and died 19 months after birth.)
His book, Origin of the Species, was first published in November 1859. The full title, On the Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, reveals the viciousness of the underlying concept; this concept led directly to two of the worst wars in the history of mankind.
In his book, Darwin reasoned from theory to facts, and provided little evidence for what he had to say. Modern evolutionists are ashamed of the book, with its ridiculous arguments.
Darwin’s book had what some men wanted: a clear out-in-the-open, current statement in favor of species change. So, in spite of its laughable imperfections, they capitalized on it. Here is what you will find in his book:
Darwin would cite authorities that he did not mention. He repeatedly said it was "only an abstract," and "a fuller edition" would come out later. But, although he wrote other books, try as he may he never could find the proof for his theories. No one since has found it either.
When he did name an authority, it was just an opinion from a letter. Phrases indicating the hypothetical nature of his ideas were frequent: "It might have been," "Maybe," "probably," "it is conceivable that." A favorite of his was: "Let us take an imaginary example."
Darwin would suggest a possibility, and later refer back to it as a fact: "As we have already demonstrated previously." Elsewhere he would suggest a possible series of events and then conclude by assuming that proved the point.
He relied heavily on stories instead of facts. Confusing examples would be given. He would use specious and devious arguments, and spent much time suggesting possible explanations why the facts he needed were not available.
Here is an example of his reasoning: To explain the fossil trans-species gaps, Darwin suggested that species must have been changing quickly in other parts of the world where men had not yet examined the strata. Later these changed species traveled over to the Western World, to be found in strata there as new species. So species were changing on the other side of the world, and that was why species in the process of change were not found on our side! To explain the fossil trans-species gaps, Darwin suggested that species must have been changing quickly in other parts of the world where men had not yet examined the strata. Later these changed species traveled over to the Western World, to be found in strata there as new species. So species were changing on the other side of the world, and that was why species in the process of change were not found on our side!
With thinking like this, who needs science? But remember that Charles Darwin never had a day of schooling in the sciences.
Here is Darwin’s explanation of how one species changes into another: It is a variation of Lamarck’s theory of inheritance of acquired characteristics (Nicholas Hutton III, Evidence of Evolution, 1962, p. 138). Calling it pangenesis, Darwin said that an organ affected by the environment would respond by giving off particles that he called gemmules. These particles supposedly helped determine hereditary characteristics. The environment would affect an organ; gemmules would drop out of the organ; and the gemmules would travel to the reproductive organs, where they would affect the cells (W. Stansfield, Science of Evolution, 1977, p. 38). As mentioned earlier, scientists today are ashamed of Darwin’s ideas.
In his book, Darwin taught that man came from an ape, and that the stronger races would, within a century or two, destroy the weaker ones. (Modern evolutionists claim that man and ape descended from a common ancestor.)
After taking part in the witchcraft ceremonies, not only was his mind affected but his body also. He developed a chronic and incapacitating illness, and went to his death under a depression he could not shake (Random House Encyclopedia, 1977, p. 768).
He frequently commented in private letters that he recognized that there was no evidence for his theory, and that it could destroy the morality of the human race. "Long before the reader has arrived at this part of my work, a crowd of difficulties will have occurred to him. Some of them are so serious that to this day I can hardly reflect on them without in some degree becoming staggered" (Charles Darwin, Origin of the Species, 1860, p. 178; quoted from Harvard Classics, 1909 ed., Vol. 11). "Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a phantasy" (Charles Darwin, Life and Letters, 1887, Vol. 2, p. 229).
Thomas Huxley (1825-1895) was the man Darwin called "my bulldog." Darwin was so frail in health that he did not make public appearances, but remained secluded in the mansion he inherited. After being personally converted by Darwin (on a visit to Darwin’s home), Huxley championed the evolutionary cause with everything he had. In the latter part of the 19th century, while Haeckel labored earnestly on the European continent, Huxley was Darwin’s primary advocate in England.
The X Club was a secret society in London which worked to further evolutionary thought and suppress scientific opposition to it. It was powerful, for all scientific papers considered by the Royal Society were first approved by this small group of nine members. Chaired by Huxley, its members made contacts and powerfully affected British scientific associations (Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution, 1984, p. 64). " ‘But what do they do?’ asked a curious journalist. ‘They run British science,’ a professor replied, ‘and on the whole, they don’t do it badly’ " (R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution, 1990, p. 467). In the 20th century, U.S. government agencies, working closely with the National Science Federation and kindred organizations, have channeled funds for research to universities willing to try to find evidence for evolution. Down to the present day, the theorists are still trying to control the scientists.
The Oxford Debate was held in June 1860 at Oxford University, only seven months after the publication of Darwin’s Origin of the Species. A special meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, it marked a major turning point in England,--just as the 1925 Scopes Trial would be the turning point in North America. Scientific facts had little to do with either event; both were just battles between personalities. In both instances, evolutionists won through ridicule. They dared not rely on scientific facts to support their case, because they had none.
Samuel Wilberforce, Anglican bishop of Oxford University, was scheduled to speak that evening in defense of creationism. Huxley had lectured on behalf of evolution in many English cities and was not planning to attend that night. But Chambers, a spiritualist adviser to Huxley, was impressed to find and tell him he must attend.
Wilberforce delivered a vigorous attack on evolution for half an hour before a packed audience of 700 people. His presentation was outstanding, and the audience was apparently with him. But then Wilberforce turned and rhetorically asked Huxley a humorous question, whether it was through his grandfather or his grandmother that Huxley claimed descent from an ape.
Huxley was extremely sharp-witted and, at the bishop’s question, he clasped the knee of the person sitting next to him, and said, "He is delivered into my hands!"
Huxley arose and worked the audience up to a climax, and then declared that he would feel no shame in having an ape as an ancestor, but would be ashamed of a brilliant man who plunged into scientific questions of which he knew nothing (John W. Klotz, "Science and Religion," in Studies in Creation, 1985, pp. 45-46).
At this, the entire room went wild, some yelling one thing and others another. On a pretext so thin, the evolutionists in England became a power which scientists feared to oppose. We will learn that ridicule heaped on ridicule, through the public press, accomplished the same results for American evolutionists in Dayton, Tennessee, in 1925.
The Orgueil Meteorite (1861) was one of many hoaxes perpetrated, to further the cause of evolution. Someone inserted various dead microbes, and then covered it over with a surface appearing like the meteorite. The objective was to show that life came from outer space. But the hoax was later discovered (Scientific American, January 1965, p. 52). A remarkable number of hoaxes have occurred since then. Men, working desperately, tried to provide the scientific evidence that does not exist. In the mid-1990s, a meteorite "from Mars" with "dead organisms" on it was trumpeted in the press. But ignored were the conclusions of competent scientists, that both "discoveries" were highly speculative.
Sir Francis Galton (1865). Galton was Charles Darwin’s cousin, who amplified on one of the theory’s logical conclusions. He declared that the "science" of "eugenics" was the key to humanity’s problems: Put the weak, infirm, and aged to sleep. Adolf Hitler, an ardent evolutionist, used it successfully in World War II (Otto Scott, "Playing God," in Chalcedon Report, No. 247, February 1986, p. 1).
Wallace’s Break with Darwin. Darwin’s close friend, Russell Wallace, eventually separated from Darwin’s position--a position he had given Darwin--when Wallace realized that the human brain was far too advanced for evolutionary processes to have produced it (Loren C. Eiseley, "Was Darwin Wrong about the Human Brain?" Harpers Magazine, 211:66-70, 1955).
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), along with certain other men (Friedrich Nietzche, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, John Dewey, etc.) introduced evolutionary modes and morality into social fields (sociology, psychology, education, warfare, economics, etc.) with devastating effects on the 20th century. Spencer, also a spiritist, was the one who initially invented the term, "evolution" (R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution, 1990, p. 159; cf. 424). Spencer introduced sociology into Europe, clothing it in evolutionary terms. From there it traveled to America. He urged that the unfit be eliminated, so society could properly evolve (Harry E. Barnes, Historical Sociology, 1948, p. 13). In later years, even the leading evolutionists of the time, such as Huxley and Darwin, became tired of the fact that Spencer could do nothing but theorize and knew so little of real-life facts.
Archaeopteryx (1861, 1877). These consisted of several fossils from a single limestone quarry in Germany, each of which the quarry owner sold at a high price. One appeared to possibly be a small dinosaur skeleton, complete with wings and feathers. European museums paid high prices for them.
Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), a teacher at the University of Jena in Germany, was the most zealous advocate of Darwinism on the continent in the 19th century. He drew a number of fraudulent charts (first published in 1868) which purported to show that human embryos were almost identical to those of other animals. Reputable scientists repudiated them within a few years, for embryologists recognized the deceit. Darwin and Haeckel had a strong influence on the rise of world communism (Daniel Gasman, Scientific Origins of National Socialism: Social Darwinism in Ernst Haeckel and the German Monist League, 1971, p. xvi).
Marsh’s Horse Series (1870s). Othniel C. Marsh claimed to have found 30 different kinds of horse fossils in Wyoming and Nebraska. He reconstructed and arranged them in a small-to-large evolutionary series, which was never in a straight line (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1976 ed., Vol. 7, p. 13). Although displayed in museums for a time, the great majority of scientists later repudiated this "horse series" (Charles Deperet, Transformations of the Animal World, p. 105; G.A. Kerkut, Implications of Evolution, 1960, p. 149).
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). Nietzsche was a remarkable example of a man who fully adopted Darwinist principles. He wrote books declaring that the way to evolve was to have wars and kill the weaker races, in order to produce a "super race" (T. Walter Wallbank and Alastair M. Taylor, Civilization Past and Present, Vol. 2, 1949 ed., p. 274). Darwin, in Origin of the Species, also said that this needed to happen. The writings of both men were read by German militarists and led to World War I. Hitler valued both Darwin’s and Nietzche’s books. When Hitler killed 6 million Jews, he was only doing what Darwin taught.
It is of interest, that a year before he defended John Scopes’ right to teach Darwinism at the Dayton "Monkey Trial," Clarence Darrow declared in court that the murderous thinking of two young men was caused by their having learned Nietzsche’s vicious Darwinism in the public schools (W. Brigan, ed., Classified Speeches).
Asa Gray was the first leading theistic evolutionary advocate in America, at the time when Darwin was writing his books. Gray, a Presbyterian, worked closely with Charles W. Eliot, president of Harvard, in promoting evolution as a "Christian teaching," yet teaching long ages and the book of Genesis as a fable.
The Challenger was a British ship dispatched to find evidence, on the ocean bottom, of evolutionary change. During its 1872-1876 voyage, it carried on seafloor dredging, but found no fossils developing on the bottom of the ocean. By this time, it was obvious to evolutionists that no fossils were developing on either land or sea, yet they kept quiet about the matter. Over the years, theories, hoaxes, false claims, and ridicule favoring evolution were spread abroad; but facts refuting it, when found, were kept hidden.
Karl Marx (1818-1883) is closely linked with Darwinism. That which Darwin did to biology, Marx with the help of others did to society. All the worst political philosophies of the 20th century emerged from the dark cave of Darwinism. Marx was thrilled when he read Origin of the Species and he immediately wrote Darwin and asked to dedicate his own major work, Das Kapital, to him. Darwin, in his reply, thanked him but said it would be best not to do so.
In 1866, Marx wrote to Frederick Engels, that Origin of the Species contained the basis in natural history for their political and economic system for an atheist world. Engels, the co-founder of world communism with Marx and Lenin, wrote to Karl Marx in 1859: "Darwin, whom I am just now reading, is splendid" (C. Zirkle, Evolution, Marxian Biology, and the Social Scene, 1959, p. 85). In 1861, Marx wrote to Engels: "Darwin’s book is very important and serves me as a basis in natural selection for the class struggle in history" (op. cit., p. 86). At Marx’s funeral, Engles said that, as Darwin had discovered the law of organic evolution in natural history, so Marx had discovered the law of evolution in human history (Otto Ruhle, Karl Marx, 1948, p. 366).
As Darwin emphasized competitive survival as the key to advancement, so communism focused on the value of labor rather than the laborer. Like Darwin, Marx thought he had discovered the law of development. He saw history in stages, as the Darwinists saw geological strata and successive forms of life.
William Grant Sumner (1840-1910) applied evolutionary principles to political economics at Yale University. He taught many of America’s future business and industrial leaders that strong business should succeed and the weak perish, and that to help the unfit was to injure the fit and accomplish nothing for society (R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution, 1990, pp. 59, 446, 72). Millionaires were, in his thinking, the "fittest." Modern laissez-faire capitalism was the result (Gilman M. Ostrander, The Evolutionary Outlook: 1875-1900, 1971, p. 5).
William James (1842-1910) was another evolutionist who influenced American thinking. His view of psychology placed the study of human behavior on an animalistic evolutionary basis.
Tidal Hypothesis Theory (1890). George Darwin, son of Charles Darwin, wanted to come up with something original, so he invented the theory that four million years ago the moon was pressed nearly against the earth, which revolved every five hours.--Then one day, a heavy tide occurred in the oceans, which lifted it out to its present location! Later proponents of George’s theory decided that the Pacific Basin is the hole the moon left behind, when the large ocean waves pushed it out into space.
.
|
Responding to Hugh Ross' 'correction'
The dubious apologetics of Hugh Ross
What's wrong with the progressive creation view of Hugh Ross
And more specifically here(also from Answers in Genesis):
Maintaining Creationist Integrity, A response to Kent Hovind.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.