The Church, the Schools and Evolution Part 2

Concerning this theory Dr. A. Weber, University of Geneva, Switzerland, said in the "Scientific American Monthly" for February, 1921:

The critical comments of such men as O. Hertwig, Kiebel, and Vialleton, indeed, have practically torn to shreds the aforesaid fundamental biogenetic law. Its almost universal abandonment has left considerably at a loss those investigators who sought in the structures of organisms the key to their remote origins or to their relationships.

So it would seem that if this form of the theory is utterly dest.i.tute of proof, the whole biological foundation of the theory is gone.

It is perfectly in harmony with scientific testimony, therefore, that Professor Price says concerning this phase of the theory:

The science of twenty or thirty years ago was in high glee at the thought of having almost proved the theory of biological evolution. Today, for every careful, candid inquirer, these hopes are crushed; and with weary, reluctant sadness does modern biology now confess that the Church has probably been right all the time.

If these men have borne faithful testimony to the situation as it now exists in the biological realm, the only conclusion possible is that the borrowed portion of Darwin's theory has also utterly collapsed.

It is pa.s.sing strange, in view of these facts, that competent and scholarly men of science should still cling to a theory so utterly discredited by eminent scientists. Is it because they are determined to believe in evolution in spite of such evidence to the contrary, or is it because there is still left a foundation for the doctrine lying back of all this which has not yet been disturbed, even though "the biological clues have all run out," as Professor Price says they have?

The supposed evidence of geology, with its theories of uniformity and successive ages, forms precisely such a foundation.

=b.= We will consider, therefore, in the next place, the so-called proofs taken from the =geological= realm.

Dr. T. H. Morgan, who was quoted above as against the theory of the inheritance of acquired characters, rests his faith in the theory of evolution on a geological foundation. He says:

The direct evidence furnished by fossil remains is by all odds the strongest evidence we have in favor of organic evolution.

Has present-day science anything to say about this? In spite of the collapse of the supposed biological proofs, are there any tangible and scientifically established proofs in the geological realm?

Professor Price, who, as noted above, is a geologist, and therefore speaks according to first-hand knowledge, shows that fossil remains are deposited over many thousands of square miles in widely separated sections of the earth, not only in the opposite order from that required to prove the theory of evolution, but in a great variety of orders, demonstrating, as he says, that they cannot be arranged off into ages, but that they simply indicate different forms of life that existed side by side. He then exclaims:

=How much of the earth's crust would we have to find= in this upside down order of the fossils, before we would be convinced that there must be something hopelessly wrong with the theory of Successive Ages which drives otherwise competent observers to throw away their common sense and cling desperately to a fantastic theory in the very teeth of such facts?

Then he tells us that

the theory of Successive Ages, with the forms of life appearing on earth in a precise and invariable order, is dead for all coming time for every man who has had a chance to examine the evidence and has enough training in logic and scientific methods to know when a thing is really proved.

And he concludes that the work of strict inductive science has destroyed this "fantastic scheme" forever,

and thus =leaves the way open= to say that life must have originated by just such a literal creation as is recorded in the first chapters of the Bible.

If these statements have any meaning at all, they can mean only that the geological foundation for the theory of evolution has also collapsed.

=c.= It remains for us to listen to the testimony of a few more men of science concerning the =whole theory= of evolution in general.

Professor Virchow, the greatest German authority on physiology, and once a strong advocate of the theory, has said:

It is all nonsense. It cannot be proved by science that man descends from the ape or from any other animal. Since the announcement of the theory, all real scientific knowledge has proceeded in the opposite direction.

Professor Tyndall, in an article in the "Fortnightly Review," said:

There ought to be a clear distinction made between science in a state of hypothesis and science in a state of fact. And inasmuch as it is still in its hypothetical stage, the ban of exclusion ought to fall upon the theory of evolution. I agree with Virchow that the proofs of it are still wanting, that the failures have been lamentable, and that the doctrine has been utterly discredited.

Prof. L. S. Beal, physiologist and professor of anatomy in King's College, London, says:

The idea of any relation having been established between the non-living and the living by a gradual advance from lifeless matter to the lowest forms of life, and so onward to the higher and more complex, has not the slightest evidence from the facts of any section of living nature of which anything is known.

Professor Zoeckler, of the University of Greifswald, says:

The claim that the hypothesis of descent is scientifically secured must most decidedly be denied.

DeCyon, the Russian scientist, says:

Evolution is pure a.s.sumption.

Prof. George McCready Price says:

In almost every one of the separate sciences the arguments upon which the theory of evolution gained its popularity a generation or so ago are now known by the various specialists to have been blunders, or mistakes, or hasty conclusions of one kind or another.

And Sir J. William Dawson says:

"The evolution doctrine itself is one of the strangest phenomena of humanity." It is "a system dest.i.tute of any shadow of proof, and supported merely by vague a.n.a.logies and figures of speech, and by the arbitrary and artificial coherence of its parts." And he concludes that it is "surpa.s.singly strange" that such a theory should find adherents.

To this list might be added such names as those of Professor Henslow, former President of the British a.s.sociation; Prof. C. C. Everett, of Harvard; Dr. E. Dennert; Dr. Goette; Prof. Edward Hoppe, the "Hamburg Savant"; Professor Paulson, of Berlin; Professor Rutemeyer, of Basel; and Prof. Max Wundt, of Leipsic.

After all this contrary testimony on the part of such unquestioned authorities, we are forced to conclude not only that the testimony for evolution is far from unanimous, but also that the theory is altogether unproven, and that it is therefore utterly unscientific to teach it as a fact, especially when those who do so furnish us with no direct evidence whatever.

So long, therefore, as there is an unbridged gulf in the sub-organic realm between nothing and matter, in the organic realm between the non-living and the living, and in the super-organic realm between animals and man, the Church cannot be blamed for being scientific enough to refuse to accept such an unproven and discredited theory, at least until a few =facts= are forthcoming. Until then we must conclude that all the proofs the scientists can furnish rest altogether on inferences and a.s.sumptions.

When evolutionists can produce =matter= from nothing or increase =energy= by any natural means known to man, or bring forth the =living= from the non-living, or bring into existence even one new and distinct =species=, then they will be in a position to compel the Church to listen to proofs; but until then the Church is forced to reject evolution.

The most serious aspect of the controversy, however, lies in the second objection mentioned above.

=II. The Logic of Evolution Is Destructive.=

It is destructive of all the fundamental doctrines the Church was sent into the world to preach.

1. It destroys the doctrine of the =inspiration of the Bible=, by denying its inerrancy and infallible and final authority.

Over and again in the early verses of Genesis we are told that G.o.d created the various species to reproduce =after their kind=. But evolution says that this is not true, for as a matter of fact, the various species have continuously evolved from one to another all the way to man.

To a mind that is working normally, these two propositions are mutually exclusive. And so those who retain their intellectual integrity and consistency, and who therefore cannot accept two contradictory propositions at the same time, are compelled to =make a choice= between them.

Huxley saw this when he said:

The doctrine of evolution is directly antagonistic to that of creation. Evolution, if consistently accepted, makes it impossible to believe the Bible.

When Professor Schmucker; therefore, speaks of the creation story as

the poetical account of Genesis;

when Dr. S. B. Meeser, of Crozer Theological Seminary, describes the Scriptures as

the survivals of the fittest of those communion experiences which men, who have lived intensely in the moral interest, have had with G.o.d;