The Theory of Evolution

by Dennis L. Cuddy, Ph.D

May 17, 2011

First posted at NewsWithViews

 

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        Why did evolutionists make a religion out of something (theory of evolution) requiring such “faith” to accept when the scientific evidence was weighted against it?

        One reason was, and for some still is, a consummate desire to have naturalism replace supernaturalism.  [Or simply to undermine and discredit Christianity]

Part 1

The public has been told for many years that evolution is a scientific fact. NASA even issued a report, “Earth System Science: A Program for Global Change,” which repeatedly presents this view. For example, on page 14 is included the assertion that some 3.5 billion years ago, primitive living cells evolved the process of photosynthesis and transformed the earth’s atmosphere into one dominated by free oxygen. The problem with this type of pronouncement is that even evolutionists Harry Clemmey and Nick Badham have acknowledged in Geology (March 1982) that there was oxygen in the pre-Cambrian atmosphere, which would have made it impossible for amino acids, life’s basic elements, to bind together!

Evolution is supposed to have begun by chance, but the statistical odds against one protein molecule forming by chance would be 100160 to one against that happening. Moreover, Cambridge University’s Sir Fred Hoyle (originator of the Steady-State Theory of the Universe) has remarked:

“The notion that not only biopolymers but the operation programme of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on earth is evidently nonsense of a high order.

Dr. Paul LeMoine, who was an editor of L’Encyclopedie Francais, has concluded that “evolution is a fairy tale for adults.”

There is simply no evidence that simple forms of life developed from dead matter, or that complex forms of life developed from simple forms. The problem that evolutionists face in this regard is one of “required immediate functionality of specialized organs” (a term I coined several decades ago). They propose that land plants simply evolved from marine plants, for example, ignoring the fact that land plants immediately need a vascular system not needed by aquatic plants. And if life evolved from the simple (e.g., a frog) to the complex (e.g., humans), why do frogs have more genetic material than humans?

The scientific fact of the matter is that evolution violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which says natural processes always tend toward disorder, and the simple will never produce the more complex.

Another problem evolutionists face is that the fossil record does not provide us with transitional forms of life, which must be evidenced if life has evolved slowly supposedly over tens of millions of years (Darwinian evolution). The Smithsonian Institution has displayed a characterization of Archaeopteryx, which evolutionists have claimed is the transition from reptile to bird (but which actually has been proven to be clearly a warm-blooded bird with perfect feathers).

This bothered the late Luther Sunderland, author of Darwin’s Enigma, who gave me a copy of a letter he had received from evolutionist Colin Patterson, Curator of the British Museum of Natural History (which has perhaps the greatest collection of fossils in the world), who admitted there is no scientific evidence of transitional life forms.

In Algeny, Jeremy Rifkin noted that in a November 5, 1981 speech before a group of experts on evolutionary theory at the American Museum of Natural History, Patterson revealed:

“Last year I had a sudden realization. For over twenty years I had thought I was working on evolution in some way. One morning I woke up and something had happened in the night; and it struck me that I had been working on this stuff for twenty years and there was not one thing I knew about it.

"That’s quite a shock, to learn that one can be so misled so long…. So for the last few weeks I’ve tried putting a simple question to various people and groups of people…. Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing, any one thing that is true?... All I got… was silence…"

The absence of answers seems to suggest that… evolution does not convey any knowledge, or, if so, I haven’t yet heard it…. I think many people in this room would acknowledge that during the last few years, if you had thought about it at all, you have experienced a shift from evolution as knowledge to evolution as faith. I know that it’s true of me and I think it is true of a good many of you here…. Evolution not only conveys no knowledge but seems somehow to convey anti-knowledge.

Part 2

Besides former Senior Paleontologist at the British Museum Colin Patterson (in a letter which I have), another individual questioning Darwinian evolution because of the lack of transitional life forms was Harvard University professor Stephen Jay Gould. In “Is A New and General Theory of Evolution Emerging?” (Paleobiology, January 1980), Gould stated:

“'The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution.'

"In The Panda’s Thumb (1980) by Gould, he also stated: '…Can we invent a reasonable sequence of intermediate forms—that is, viable, functioning organisms—between ancestors and descendants in major structural transitions? I submit, although it may only reflect my lack of imagination, that the answer is no.'”

The fossils show only perfected kinds (e.g., turtles but no semi-turtles). Evolutionists argue that fish supposedly evolved into amphibians, but there are no fossils with part-fins and part-feet. The so-called “walking catfish” actually slithers and flops along on its belly. Failing to find any evidence of evolving new creatures, evolutionists fall back upon the “horse theories,” averring that the modern horse came from Eohippus. This is not demonstrable, however, because after Eohippus, which had 18 ribs, Orohippus had 15 ribs, then Pliohippus had 19 ribs and the modern horse has 18 ribs.

With the clear failure of evolution to demonstrate that the accumulation of micro mutations over long periods of time had produced many new kinds of creatures, some evolutionists next proposed the theory of “Punctuated Equilibria” (the old “hopeful monster theory”), which proclaimed that occasionally there were dramatic mutations which caused striking changes in creatures. This, however, was not supported by experiments with fruit flies, which were given doses of radiation speeding up their mutation rate by 15,000 percent and still did not turn into any other kind of creature.

While the fossil record does not show mutations changing fruit flies to bees, for example, it does show new creatures appearing suddenly and highly specialized (e.g., trilobytes, coral, starfish, etc.) in Cambrian rocks. The fossils show fully formed (though varying in size) dinosaurs and flying Pterosaurs, but no half-dinosaurs or half-Pterosaurs.

Concerning the fossil record and man, there have been a number of so-called “missing links” discovered during the past century; however, they (e.g., Piltdown Man) eventually have been shown to be hoaxes, non-human or human, but not a combination of non-human and human. Evolutionists used to point to “gill slits” and “tails” in preborn humans as proof of their theory, but we now know the “gills” are really visceral arches with blood vessels, and the “tail” is the coccyx with ligaments and muscles attached to it that control the anus.

Why did evolutionists make a religion out of something (theory of evolution) requiring such “faith” to accept when the scientific evidence was weighted against it?

One reason was, and for some still is, a consummate desire to have naturalism replace supernaturalism.

The second reason may be described as an elitist tendency, because as liberal Judge Braswell Dean has noted, the writings of Darwin were somewhat racist, with the full title of his famous 1859 volume being On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Another example of Darwin’s racism can be found in his The Descent of Man (1871), wherein he declared there would be a break “between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, than the Caucausian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.”

Today, the theory of evolution taught in our schools is considered by many as anti-Judeo-Christian (i.e., if man came from apes, then he can be treated like an ape relatively speaking, experimenting on or sterilizing him involuntarily, infanticide, euthanasia, etc.).

A great deal of scientific evidence against evolution may be found in Evolution: A Theory In Crisis by religious agnostic, molecular biologist Dr. Michael Denton. For example, he refers to

 “the difficulties associated with attempting to explain how a family of homologous proteins could have evolved at constant rates.”

 There is also an excellent series of videotapes titled “Incredible Creatures That Defy Evolution” by Dr. Jobe Martin, who has written:

“The European Green woodpecker’s tongue goes down the throat, out the back of the neck ‘…around the back of the skull beneath the skin, and over the top between the eyes, terminating usually just below the eye socket.’ In some woodpeckers the tongue exits the skull between the eyes and enters the beak through one of the nostrils! How would this evolve?”

And the 2008 film “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” with Ben Stein also contains some useful information.

While there is conclusive scientific evidence for the adaptation of species to their surroundings, there is a great lack of evidence that every living entity is the product of a slow evolutionary process from a single source (Darwinian evolution) as is now taught in most public schools. I would strongly recommend that if schools are going to continue to teach the theory of evolution, we should demand that they also teach the scientific evidence against evolution as well.


Source articles: Part 1: http://www.newswithviews.com/Cuddy/dennis206.htm

Part 2: http://www.newswithviews.com/Cuddy/dennis207.htm


© 2011 Dennis Cuddy

Dennis Laurence Cuddy, historian and political analyst, received a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (major in American History, minor in political science). Dr. Cuddy has taught at the university level, has been a political and economic risk analyst for an international consulting firm, and has been a Senior Associate with the U.S. Department of Education.

Cuddy has also testified before members of Congress on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice. Dr. Cuddy has authored or edited twenty books and booklets, and has written hundreds of articles appearing in newspapers around the nation, including The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and USA Today. He has been a guest on numerous radio talk shows in various parts of the country, such as ABC Radio in New York City, and he has also been a guest on the national television programs USA Today and CBS's Nightwatch.

For more information from Dr. Cuddy, just use our website search engine to "search" for his name. He has been a helpful and loyal friend for almost twenty years.


See also  What Darwin didn't know  |  Darwin's Black Box

and an interesting illustration of  Trusting "Science" by Faith

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