Illogical Geology, the Weakest Point in the Evolution Theory

by George McCready Price

3. The marked degeneration in passing from the fossil world to the modern one.

4. The fact that the human race, to say nothing of a vast number of living species of plants and animals, has participated in some of the greatest of the geological changes—we really know not how to limit the number or character of these changes.

Surely a true spirit of scientific investigation would now begin to inquire, How did these changes take place? Discarding the use of stronger language, it is at least utterly unscientific to begin somewhere at the vanishing point of a past eternity and formulate our pretty theories as to how this deposit was made, and how that was laid down, and the exact order in which they all occurred; while these "recent" deposits, in which our race and the plants and animals living about us are acknowledged to be concerned, are left over till the last, and we then find that they admit of absolutely no explanation. We ourselves, to say nothing of thousands of living species of plants and animals, have participated in some of the very greatest of the geological changes—we know not how many or how great. These things must be first explained. Has anything happened to our world that will explain them? Are there known forces and changes now in operation which, granting time enough, will amply and sufficiently explain these facts, as simply one in kind with those of the present day?

To this last question we must admit that our historic experience, prolonged over several thousand years, utters a thundering NO! Volcanoes are every now and then breaking forth; but volcanoes and mountain ranges have nothing in common with one another as to structure and origin. No one claims that a single mountain flexure is now being formed or has been formed within the historic period. There are indeed "creeps" in the rocks in certain places, but these are not such as to contribute to the height of the mountains in which they occur, but rather the reverse. Sudden changes of level within small areas have occurred, but neither in extent nor in kind do they furnish any key as to past changes of level; while the so-called "secular" changes are so microscopic in extent and so doubtful in character that they are utterly unworthy of consideration in view of the stupendous problems which we are trying to explain. The well-known work of Eduard Suess is a standing protest that such geological chances are not now in progress; for, in speaking of how the land and ocean have exchanged places in the past, Zittel represents him as teaching that their "cause of origin until now has not yet been discovered."[94]

Or, to quote the expressive words of Suess himself, with which he concludes his discussion of this very subject:

"As Rama looks across the ocean of the universe, and sees its surface blend in the distant horizon with the dipping sky, and as he considers if indeed a path might be built far out into the almost immeasurable space, so we gaze over the ocean of the ages, but no sign of a shore shows itself to our view." (Id. p. 294.)

As for climate, I never heard any one suggest that cosmic changes of climate are now known to be going on, much less that sudden changes of the kind indicated by the North Siberian "mummies" are in the habit of occurring. In fact, we must all own that the mountains, the relative position of land and water, as well as the climate of our globe, are each and all now in a state of stable equilibrium, and have been in this state since the dawn of history or of scientific observation.

Accordingly I ask, How much time is needed to account for the facts before us on the basis of Uniformity? In common honesty will a short eternity itself satisfy the stern problem before us? I cannot see that it holds out the slightest promise of solving it; while, on the other hand, I am sure that, in dealing with the past of Man's existence (theories of evolution and all other theories of origins whatever cast aside), we are not at liberty to make unreasonable demands of time. The evidence of history and archaeology is all against it.

From the latter sciences it can be shown that at their very dawn we have, over all the continents, a group of civilizations seldom equalled since save in very modern times, and all so undeniably related to one another and of such a character that they prove a previous state of civilization in some locality together, before these scattered fragments of our race were dispersed abroad. We can track these various peoples all back to some region in Southwestern Asia, though the exact locality for this source of inherited civilization has never yet been found, and it is now almost certain that it is somehow lost in the geological changes which have intervened. For when we cross the well marked boundary line between history and geology, we have still to deal with men who apparently were not savages, men who with tremendous disadvantages could carve and draw and paint as no savages have ever done, and who had evidently domesticated the horse and other animals. But as to time, history gives no countenance to long time, i.e., what geologists would call long. Good authentic history extends back a few score centuries, archaeology may promise us a few more. As for millions of years, of even a few hundred thousands, the thing seems too absurd for discussion, unless we forsake inductive methods, and assume some form of evolution a priori.

Hence it ought to be evident that no amount of learned trifling with time will solve our problem without supposing some strange event to have happened our world and our race, long ago, and before the dawn of history. I see no possible way for scientific reasoning to avoid this conclusion. Ignoring for the present the Chaldean Deluge tablets, and what Rawlinson calls the "consentient belief" in a world-catastrophe "among members of all the great races into which ethnologists have divided mankind," which like their civilization has the earmarks of being an inheritance from some common source before their dispersion, we may note that most geologists now admit the certainty of some sort of catastrophe since man was upon the earth. I might mention Quatrefages and Dupont, Boyd Dawkins, Howorth, Prestwich, Wright and Sir William Dawson, with many others. Even Eduard Suess teaches a somewhat similar local catastrophe, though like the others only as a reluctant concession to the insistent demands of Chaldean history and archaeological tradition. But all of these affairs are mere makeshifts in view of the tremendous demands of the purely geological evidence, and all alike (save perhaps those of Wright and Howorth) labor under the strange inconsistency of supposing that such an event could occur without leaving abundant and indelible marks upon the rocks of our globe. While in view of the evidence given through the previous pages, I insist that the purely geological evidence of a world catastrophe is immeasurably stronger than that of archaeology, that in fact the whole geological phenomena constitute a cumulative argument of this nature.