Darwin believed that natural selection was the most important factor in the development of his theory. Many of the top teachers of evolution today are helplessly at odds on the question of how vital it is. Sir Julian Huxley believes in it, as this statement indicates: "So far as we know... natural selection... is the only effective agency of evolution." [Evolution in Action, p.36]
He is desputed on this by another one of the heavyweights in the field, Dr. Ernest Mayr: "Natural selection is no longer regarded as an all-or-none process but rather as a purely statistical concept." [Animal Species, p.7]
These opposite views are rejected by G.G. Simpson, who is regarded as the leading interpreter of the theory today. He said, "Search for the cause of evolution has been abandoned. It is now clear that evolution has no single cause." [The Geography of Evolution, p.17]
By the way, when you read about the great unity and agreement which exists among scientists regarding evolution, don't believe a word of it. Each one is busily experimenting with new speculative possibilities as to how the changes took place and then abandoning them as they appear more and more ridiculous. The one thing they do agree on is that there was no divine fiat creation as described in the Bible.
But come back a moment to the matter of natural selection. What is the evidence that it can actually reproduce all the changes involved in the transition from amoeba to man? Is there scientific proof that it can even make one small change? When it comes right down to answering those questions the spokesmen for evolution do some of the fanciest footwork in semantics you ever saw and make some of the most amazing admissions. Even though Simpson supports natural selection as a factor, he recognizes the paucity of evidence in these words: "... It might be argued that the theory is quite unsubstantiated and has status only as a speculation." [Major Features, pp. 118-119]
But listen to Huxley's circular reasoning on it. He says: "On the basis of our present knowledge, natural selection is bound to produce genetic adaptations: and genetic adaptations are thus presumptive evidence for the efficiency of natural selection." [Evolution in Action, p. 48]
Did you follow that gem of logic? His proof for natural selection is adaptation or change in the organism, but the change is produced by natural selection. (The same faulty kind of logic where people say "The Bible says there's a God; God wrote the Bible.") In other words: A = B; therefore B = A. His proof proves nothing. Were the changes produced by natural selection or did he invent natural selection to explain the changes? It is just as likely that the changes produced the natural selection theory. The ludicrous thing is that the changes from species to species have never been verified. As we have shown already there is not one shred of fossil evidence or living evidence that any species has ever changed into another. So Huxley's proof for natural selection are changes which never happened and the changes which never happened are offered as proof for natural selection. Surely this is the most vacuous logic to be found in a science textbook.
But let us continue with Sir Julian's explanation of the reliability of this natural selection process: "To sum up, natural selection converts randomness into direction, and blind chance into apparent purpose. It operates with the aid of time to produce improvements in the machinery of living, and in the process generates results of a more than astronomical improbability which could have been achieved in no other way." [Evolution in Action, pp. 54-55]
Don't miss the force of that last sentence. The evolutionary changes wrought by natural selection are "astronomically improbable," but because our friend Huxley sees no other way for it to be done, he believes in the astronomically improbable.
Since Sir Julian doesn't believe in a divine creation, he has to invent a miracle working process to explain the existence of these complex creatures, who obviously got here somehow. To illustrate the omnipotence of his "natural selection" god, Huxley computed the odds against such a process. The computations were done on the likelihood of every favorable evolutionary factor being able to produce a horse. Now keep in mind that this is all a chance development through the operation of nature, time, mutation, and natural selection. In his book Evolution in Action, Huxley gave the odds this way: "The figure 1 with three million naughts after it: and that would take three large volumes of about 500 pages each, just to print! ... no one would bet on anything so improbable happening; and yet it has happened." [p. 46] This is 1 : 10 ^ 3,000,000.
These odds would tend to show evolutionists believe in the impossible. Since this figure of compound probability is effectively zero, how can a scientific mind, in the absence of any demonstratable evidence, be so dogmatic in defending such a theory? Why did Huxley employ a mathematical formula to illustrate the impossibility of his theory working? Perhaps he used the figures to accent his personal testimony. Just as born-again Christians seek occassions to bear their personal testimony of faith in Christ, Huxley demolishes the scientific possibilities of his theory in order to magnify the personal faith aspect of his personal testimony for the god evolution.
Marshall and Sandra Hall in their book, The Truth -- God or Evolution? share their reaction to Huxley's absurd faith in the chance production of a horse. It will provide a fitting climax of proof that evolution indeed flunked the science test.
"And, let us remind you who find such odds ridiculous (even if you are reassured by Mr. Huxley), that this figure was calculated for the evolution of a horse! How many more volumes of zeroes would be required by Mr. Huxley to produce a human being? And then you would have just one horse and one human being, and, unless the mathematician wants to add in the probability for the evolution of all the plants and animals that are necessary to support a horse and a man, you would have a sterile world where neither could have survived any stage of its supposed evolution! What have we now -- the figure 1 followed by a thousand volumes of zeroes? Then add another thousand volumes of zeroes for the improbability of the earth having all the necessary properties of life built into it. Add another thousand volumes for the improbability of the sun, and our orbit, and our daily rotation, and the moon, and the stars. Add other thousands for the evolution of all the thoughts that man can have, all the objective and subjective reality that ebbs and flows in us like part of the pulsebeat of an inscrutable cosmos!
"Add them all in and you long ago stopped talking about rational thought, much less scientific evidence. Yet, Simpson, Huxley, Dobzhansky, Mayr, and dozens of others continue to tell us that is the way it had to be! They have retreated from all the points which ever lent any semblance of credibility to the evolutionary theory. Now they busy themselves with esoteric mathematical formulations based upon population genetics, random drift, isolation, and other ploys which have a probability of accounting for life on earth of minus zero! They clutter our libraries, and press on the minds of people everywhere an animated waxen image of a theory that has been dead for over a decade.
"Evolution has no claim whatsoever to being a science. "It is time all this nonsense ceased. It is time to bury the corpse. It is time to shift the books to the humorous fiction section of the libraries." [pp. 39-40]
This folly reassures that one has no cause to be embarrassed for creationist faith. Millions have been intimidated by the high-sounding technical language of educated evolutionists, many of whom are vitriolic in their attacks on special creation. What we do need is more information on exposing the loopholes in the evolutionary theory; its base is so riddled with unscientific inconsistencies, often concealed under the gobbledegook of scientific jargon.
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