FACTS OPPOSING EVOLUTION OF SPECIES.
A theory to be proven must meet the facts and account for them. The theory in question fails lamentably in this. There are countless facts not only unaccounted for but diametrically opposed to it and antagonizing it. We cite some of these:
1. Degeneration in nature. Nature shows a constant tendency downward. Prof. E. D. Cope, an eminent evolutionist, writes: "The retrogradation in nature is as well or nearly as well established as evolution." The wild varieties of plants and animals are far inferior to the cultivated kinds. The older species are far superior to the present. The saber-toothed tiger is far superior to the present animal. So also is the Mammoth as compared with the elephant. Plants show degeneration in colors. The order of superiority is from yellow, the lowest, to white, pink, red, purple and blue, the highest. When they drop from blue to yellow, it is degeneration. Some now having green flowers once had colored blossoms. Progress is not seen to be upward in the flowers. So also parasitism is degeneration both in plants and animals. The course of nature is not, as it has not been, constant development upward. The scripture statement "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain," describes accurately the condition of nature (Ro. 8:22.)
2. Continued unchanged species for ages. The crustacea, for example in Lake Tanganyika, Africa, remain as the receding ocean left them ages ago.
3. Species instead of increasing in number have decreased. There were 500 species of trilobites. They have all disappeared. There were 900 species of ammonites; all are gone. Of the 450 species of nautilus, only three remain. Indeed whole families have become obliterated. All this is antagonistic to Evolution.
4. Species continue the same under the most diverse environments. Environment is claimed as a cause of the changes demanded by Evolution. But the same species exist in the most diverse regions, e. g., mosquitoes, whales and oaks.
5. Adaptation of one species to another. Darwin says that a single case of the adaptation of one species to another would be fatal to his theory. Yet he himself gives the data for hundreds of such adaptations. He adduces the fact that a hundred head of red clover produced 2,700 seeds. A similar number protected from insects produced none. The fertilization of plants by insects is well known. The Smyrna fig is said to owe its value to its fertilization by the piercing of an insect. Some of these insects have been introduced into California for that purpose. There is an orchid which can be fertilized only by an insect falling into a cup of liquid which the flower has, and escaping through a side opening in which it touches the pollen.
Dr. Andrew Wilson writes: The colors of flowers—nay, even the little splashes of a hue or tint seen on a petal—are intended to attract insects that they may carry off the fertilizing dust, or pollen, to other flowers. It is to this end also that your flowers are many of them sweet-scented. The perfume is another kind of invitation to the insect world. The honey they secrete forms a third attraction—the most practical of all.
6. Complex adjustments of nature. Evolution in vain attempts to account for the wonderful complex adjustments we see in nature, such as the mimicry of animals and plants; the walking stick so closely resembles a twig that it deceives the closest observer. The withered leaf butterfly, with spots and wrinkles, is exactly like the thing it imitates. This is true also of the leaf butterfly and of another which exactly resembles a bird's dropping. Evolution cannot account for the ventriloquism of insects, such as the cricket and tree toad; the battery of the electric eel; the beauty of insects and fish and shells and birds and flowers, especially the harmony of their colors. Edible insects are plainly colored, the poisonous kinds highly colored. Some butterflies have "scare-heads" on their wings, exactly resembling an owl's head, and other insects have similar frightful appearances which they thrust out when attacked. All this tells of design and interest and often has the appearance of humor in the creation of these numerous creatures.
7. The mathematical adjustments of nature are as exact as the multiplication table. Illustrations of this are the accuracy of the orbits of the heavenly bodies and the law of gravitation. The growth of the cell proceeds on geometrical progression in the division of parts into 2, 4, 8, 16, etc. The climbing plants form their coils with mathematical accuracy and proportion. The proportions in which chemicals will mix is mathematically fixed.
Prof. Tyndall thus calls our attention to crystallization: "By permitting alum to crystallize in this slow way we obtain these perfect octahedrons; by allowing carbonate of lime to crystallize, nature produces these beautiful rhomboids; when silica crystallizes we have formed the hexagonal prisms capped at the end by pyramids; by allowing saltpeter to crystallize, we have these prismatic masses, and when carbon crystallizes we have the diamond." (Fragments of Science, p. 357.) "Looking at it mentally we see the molecules [of sulphate of soda] like disciplined squadrons under a governing eye, arranging themselves into battalions, gathering around distinct centers and forming themselves into distinct solid masses, which after a time assume the visible shape of the crystal now held in my hand. Here then is an architect at work, who makes no chips nor din, and who is now building the particles into crystals similar in shape to these beautiful masses we see upon the table." (Belfast Address.)
8. The structure of living things shows the true principles of architecture. A Mr. McLaughlin, a noted Scotch mathematician, tried by mathematical calculation to ascertain the shape of a building which would contain the most room with least material and yet embody the greatest architectural strength in its retaining walls. After many laborious calculations, he found after he had arrived at a conclusion that the honey bee had long before given the same plan of structure in its cell. The human skull is a true dome, and the spinal column a true pillar. The ribs of the ship are copied from the fish, the yacht from the duck, and its deep fin from the fish.[2]
Evolution pretends to account for every one of these facts by chance changes, extending through countless ages as has already been shown in its amazing account of the origin of legs, eyes, backbones and other members. Surely this is an appeal to credulity! The faith of the Christian is sometimes taxed but what shall we say of the faith of the evolutionist? Which is more credible, the simple account of miraculous creation or this long, involved and absolutely unseen and unknown process?
9. The age of the earth. Prof. George Frederick Wright, the geologist, tells us that geologic time is not one-hundredth part as long as it was supposed to be fifty years ago, and the popular writers who glibly talk of the antiquity of man are behind the times and ignorant of the new light which as a flood has come from geology.[3]
Summing up the case, Prof. Francis M. Balfour tells us: "All these facts that fall under our observation contradict the crude ideas of those so-called naturalists, who state that one species can be transmitted into another in the course of generations." So also Sir David Brewster declares: "We have absolute proof of the immutability of species, whether we search for it in historic or geologic times."
Dr. Etheridge, the famous English authority on fossils, says: "Nine-tenths of the talk of evolutionists is sheer nonsense, not founded on observation and wholly unsupported by fact. Men adopt a theory and then strain their facts to support it. I read all their books, but they make no impression on my belief in the stability of species. Some men are ready to regard you as a fool if you do not go with them in all their vagaries, but this museum is full of proofs of the utter falsity of their views."