A Growing Challenge
WHY has evolution been making the news lately? For one reason, because of the nature of the scientific challenge growing against it.
It is not that just a few uninformed ‘religious fanatics’ are rejecting the idea. Evolution now is being challenged by many qualified persons who are very well informed. Scientists, educators and competent people in other fields are speaking out against it.
Also, in recent scientific literature a number of evolutionists themselves have conducted a steady drumbeat of criticism against the current theory. What they are saying is very revealing.
What Scientists Are Saying
In the book Man, Time, and Fossils evolutionist R. Moore stated: “Since 1950 the scientific evidence has pointed inescapably to one conclusion: man did not evolve in either the time or the way that Darwin and the modern evolutionists thought most probable.”
Other evolutionists agreed. In 1971 a professor of genetics from the University of California, G. L. Stebbins, an evolutionist, reflected their general attitude when he said: “Every account of human evolution written before 1950 is already or will soon be obsolete.”
Thus, by 1972 newer explanations of man’s origin had developed among evolutionists. They had abandoned many of their past ideas, and were confident that the new explanations were “fact.” But these newer ideas had barely become accepted when they too came into question. One aspect received an especially rude jolt because of evidence that came to light in late 1972.
Note a few of the many news items that appeared in November of that year: “A large section of the story of human evolution will need revision after the disclosures yesterday.” (London Times) “Existing theories of the evolution of man have been thrown into disarray.” (The Guardian, England) “The accepted theory of human evolution could easily be upset because it is based on only a few ancient skulls.” (New York Daily News) And the London Daily Mail declared that the latest evidence “could cause the biggest upset in science since Darwin said man had descended from the apes.”
Yet, all such statements resulted from only one line of evidence discovered late in 1972. There are other lines of evidence that are even more significant. Together, these have caused a growing number of people in science to question the explanations evolutionists give.
The magazine The American Biology Teacher said: “Various well known scientists express their views ranging from educated caution, to question, and on to direct opposition to the theory.” The English magazine New Scientist stated: “It is proving particularly difficult to understand the evolution of man . . . We know too little of the timing or mechanisms of evolution, nor is there enough evidence from fossil material to take our theorising out of the realms of fantasy.”
The British medical journal On Call reported: “Evolution cannot be supported by evidence available to the student of basic biology . . . and since high ranking scientists have been known to reject it, the widespread custom of presenting it as a fact is indefensible.” And Professor John Moore, Michigan State University scientist, said: “The typical evolutionary explanation doesn’t make sense in view of today’s knowledge.”
What Other Investigators Say
After studying the evidence, some people in other fields are making similar comments. Historian Arnold Toynbee says: “I do not think that the Darwinian theory of evolution has given a positive account of an alternative way in which the universe may have been brought into existence.”
Harvard-trained lawyer Norman Macbeth, after years of careful and impartial investigation, wrote of his findings in the book Darwin Retried (1971). The book’s publishers commented: “It suggests that a fresh start is in order and, in the present state of affairs, no theory at all may be preferable to the existing one.”
Macbeth found the evidence for evolution so flimsy that he declared, after reading a typical book by a leading evolutionist: “If I had to oppose that man in court I could get his case thrown out.” On the other hand, after reading an issue of Awake! magazine on the subject of evolution, he found it to be soundly based, scientifically accurate. As a result, he warned evolutionists not to persist in saying that those who disbelieve the evolution theory are “ignorant of scientific evidence.” Macbeth, who is not a creationist, also observed:
“In examining the single parts of classical Darwinism, I concluded that they were all sadly decayed. . . . Since decayed parts will never make a sound whole, the total theory must also be decayed . . .
“I also have no objection to explanations, if they are good explanations. Unfortunately, in the field of evolution most explanations are not good. As a matter of fact, they hardly qualify as explanations at all; they are suggestions, hunches, pipe dreams, hardly worthy of being called hypotheses. . . .
“This is not mere quibbling. The profession has worked itself into an embarrassing position when Sir Julian Huxley tells the television audience: ‘The first point to make about Darwin’s theory is that it is no longer a theory, but a fact,’ while at almost the same time Professor Mayr, addressing himself to serious students, says: ‘The basic theory is in many instances hardly more than a postulate.’
“Such an enormous discrepancy between two leaders . . . is bad for the standing of the profession. The public may rightly feel that it has been paltered with.”
A dictionary defines “palter” as to “deal crookedly.” And this is exactly what more and more persons have come to feel about the explanations given for evolution.
[Picture on page 5]
Theory of evolution is strongly disputed
The Seattle Times, November 21, 1971
Was Darwin wrong after all?
The Washington Daily News, December 27, 1971
Scientists Say God, Not Evolution, Created Man
The Express, Easton, Pa., May 3, 1973