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An Outdated View: The Theory of Evolution
Jean B. Lamarck: Science brought his theory down.
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The idea that life is the product of an uncontrolled, purposeless
process of coincidence is a 19th century myth. Looking at the matter from
the primitive level of the science of the period, evolutionists assumed
that life was very "simple".
 There
are more than a million species living on the earth. How did these creatures
with entirely distinct features and perfect designs come into being? Anyone
who uses his reason would understand that life is the work of a perfect
and supreme creation.
However, the theory of evolution denies this explicit truth.
It holds that all species on earth evolved from one another through a
process based on random occurrences.
The first person to seriously take up the issue of evolution
– an idea which originated in Ancient Greece – was the French biologist
Jean Baptiste Lamarck. Lamarck's theory, which he postulated in the early
19th century, maintained that "living things transferred the traits
they acquired during their lifetime to subsequent generations." In
Lamarck's view, for instance, giraffes had evolved from antelope-like
animals who extended their necks further and further as they tried to
reach higher branches for food. The advent of the science of genetics,
however, refuted Lamarck's theory once and for all.
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DARWIN'S DIFFICULTIES
Charles Darwin, an amateur naturalist, advanced his theory in
his book, The Origin of Species, published in 1859. He confessed
to many points which defied explanation in the chapter "Difficulties
On Theory", and hoped that these problems would be solved in the
future. This hope, however, came to nothing.
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THE PROBLEM OF THE
FOSSIL RECORD
When Darwin put forward his theory, palaeontologists opposed him
the most. They knew that the "intermediary transitional forms" which
Darwin imagined to have existed, never existed in reality. Darwin
was hoping that this problem would be overcome by new fossil findings.
Palaeontology, on the contrary, invalidated Darwin's theory more
and more each day. |
The second important name to defend the theory after Lamarck
was a British amateur naturalist, Charles Darwin. In his book The Origin
of Species, published in 1856, he claimed that all species descended from
a common ancestor through coincidences. According to Darwin, for instance,
whales evolved from bears that tried to hunt in the sea.1
Darwin did not base his claim on any concrete
evidence or finding. He just made some observations and produced
some ideas. He carried out most of his observations on board a ship
called the H.M.S. Beagle that had set sail from Britain. |
Darwin had serious doubts as he put forward his assertions.
He was not so confident of his theory. He confessed to there being many
points which he was unable to explain in the chapter titled "Difficulties
On Theory". Darwin had hoped that these problems would be solved
in the future with the progress of science, and made some projections.
20th century science, however, disproved Darwin's claims one by one. The
common point of Lamarck's and Darwin's theories was that both rested on
a primitive understanding of science. The absence of various domains of
science such as biochemistry and microbiology at the time led evolutionists
to think that living things had a simple structure that could form by
chance. Since the laws of genetics were not known, it was supposed that
creatures could simply evolve into new species.
The progress of science overthrew all of these myths and
revealed that living things are the work of a superior creation.
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