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Who was this man who introduced such a profound and influential theory as macroevolution? Charles Robert Darwin. I am currently reading his most famous book, "The Origin of Species". I'd like to share some of what I've learned with you now. The following are some highlights of what I have discovered in the book.
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Darwin believed in a Creator
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"To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should
have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual.
When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings
which lived long before the first bed of the Silurian system was deposited, they seem to become
ennobled."
-Origin of Species (458)
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Darwin on the fossil record...
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"Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links?
Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is
the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against my theory. The explanation
lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record."
-Origin of Species (292)
Darwin believed that the lack of intermediate links in the fossil record was one of the weakest
points in his theory. Instead of admitting that his theory was wrong, he blamed the "extreme
imperfection of the geological record". This set off a mad search of the record for these "missing
links". This mad search is still going on today as evolutionists are scouring China for the missing links. My thinking is this- if the dedicated geologists, that have been wholeheartedly and faithfully searching for hundreds of years spending millions of hours digging and examining fossils, have not yet turned up one conclusive "missing link" there isn't one. There have been many frauds and mistaken identities, but no proof. How then can evolution be taught as fact when its foundation is cracked? If Darwin lived today I'd argue that he would see the development of the fossil record and either refute his own theory or endorse punctuated equilibria, which literally means abrupt evolution. This theory basically suggests that spurts of mutations
occurred at once to jump life from one species to another. This would account for the rapid, yet stable appearances of fossils in the fossil record. Ironically, this is a backward step towards creation of species spontaneously by some strange natural phenomenon
(i.e. creation by intelligent design).
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"To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different
distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic
aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the
highest possible degree."
-Origin of Species (217)
Darwin attempts to justify this problem immediately following...
"Yet reason tells me, that if numerous graduations from a perfect and complex eye to one very
imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further,
the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if
any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of
life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural
selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real."
You'll notice that this statement only applies to the usefulness of eyes that are already functioning,
at least to some degree. Therefore, an evolutionist must explain how the first, primitive functioning
eye suddenly appeared. I don't believe Darwin addressed this. Keep in mind that since the eye is
present in nearly all creatures, the process of evolving an eye must have been relatively simple and
easily reproduced in all species. Do any of you know anyone or any animal that has mutated an
extra functioning eye? Hmmm, chance... I think not! The alternative to this is that the eye was
gradually brought into existence by mutations that brought no benefit to the creature, therefore
disallowing formation by natural selection. In a sense, what evolution demands you to believe is that the first primitive eye was a patch of light sensitive skin of appropriate size and in the appropriate position made of appropriate material with an appropriate system of nerves capable of sending received messages to the brain which had appropriate means to decipher these messages and interpret them correctly so as to help the animal survive and give it a decisive "natural advantage" over its predators, contemporaries, and prey, was a random blind luck mutation that had nothing to do with natural selection. Once the first eye like the one above would have mutated, then natural selection would take over. My conclusion? There was some sort of intelligent design behind the eye. I think that once one acknowledges that God is powerful and intelligent enough to create such a complicated design such as the most primitive eye, it is difficult to understand why He would need or want natural selection to do His job.
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