QUESTIONS ABOUT EVOLUTION

In Darwin’s House of Cards, Tom Bethell has expressed his incredulity regarding the theory of evolution:

·       I have become ever more convinced that, although Darwinism has been promoted as science, its unstated role has been to prop up a philosophy—the philosophy of materialism—and atheism along with it.

Bethell’s claim is undeniable. Even many atheistic evolutionists have termed evolution a “God substitute,” even a “religion” as had Michael Ruse. Even among the elites of the evolutionary priesthood, there have been many rumblings of serious doubts, as Bethell relates:

·       In November 2016, the Royal Society in London, one of the world’s most eminent scientific societies, convened a group of scientists to discuss “calls for revision of the standard theory of evolution,” acknowledging that “the issues involved remain hotly contested.”

Bethell points out that materialistic evolution has found itself unable to plug the holes in its ship, and it’s ready to capsize. Not only does this question of the origin of life threaten this embattled theory, there remains the seldom mentioned question of the replication of life:

·       Bear in mind that natural selection can play no role at this stage, because it assumes the prior existence of self-reproducing entities. (Bethell)

We cannot invoke natural selection to explain self-replicating systems because the operation of natural selection relies upon the prior existence of self-replicating systems, without which the “fittest” genes cannot be passed on. Because of this dependence, natural selection cannot be expected to account for the existence DNA, the cell, or self-replicating systems.

Besides, natural selection seems to exclusively serve entropy to remove detrimental mutations, rather than as an inventor of better organs. (Interestingly, entropy might even provide a survival advantage in some circumstances).

Is there any evidence that natural selection has ever produced a new species? Not according to Bethell:

·       Without evidence, Darwin’s supporters today still accept that intergenerational differences accumulate, eventually transforming their phenotype, or bodily form. But such a transformation has never been observed. No species has ever been seen to evolve into another.

Darwin wasn’t able to present evidence that one species had ever evolved into another. However, according to Bethell, Darwin remained undaunted:

·       Paul Nelson, a philosopher of science with Discovery Institute, points out that when Darwin made his arguments, he saw no need for proof. He said, in effect: “Tell me why these minor changes should not add up, over time, to major differences.” Of course, asking why a particular thing should not happen evades the duty of a hypothesis to explain how it does happen. It was one of Darwin’s favorite rhetorical devices, and he used it repeatedly in The Origin.

According to Bethell, Darwin was aware that his theory faced many major obstacles:

·       Darwin also asked why, if species have descended from others by fine gradations, we don’t see “innumerable transitional forms.” Furthermore, why are species so “well defined”? Why is “all nature” not “in confusion?” These were good questions. He tried to answer them by saying that the same process that “improved” and transformed some varieties extinguished their predecessors: “Both the parent and all the transitional varieties will generally have been exterminated by the very process of formation and perfection of the new form.”

Are transitional forms “generally exterminated” so quickly as to leave no transitional forms? This wouldn’t seem so. Instead, we find that dogs are dogs, humans are humans, and chimps are chimps. Instead, if macro-evolution is a reality, we should be able to observe chimp-humans or at least ape-humans in our midst and the beginnings of post- or super-humans.

In light of these many challenges, we are left to wonder what still accounts for the present hegemony of this theory, if not threat and oppression.