References:
(1) The first 5 tenets appeared in Darwin’s magnum opus “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection” in 1859. The subtitle of which is the “Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life.”
(2) One of the biggest weaknesses in Darwin’s original theory was that he lacked a correct mechanism for heredity. He did not know about genes or DNA.
(3) Darwin’s father, considering the 16-year-old a wastrel interested only in game shooting, sent him to study medicine at Edinburgh University in 1825. Later in life, Darwin gave the impression that he had LEARNED LITTLE during his two years at Edinburgh. In fact, it was a FORMATIVE EXPERIENCE. There was no better science education in a British university. He was taught to understand the chemistry of cooling of rocks on the primitive earth and how to classify plants by the modern “natural system.”
(4) The young Darwin LEARNED MUCH in Edinburgh’s rich intellectual environment but not MEDICINE: he loathed anatomy and (pre-chloroform) surgery sickened him. The university’s radical students exposed the teenager to the latest Continental sciences. But his father, realizing that the CHURCH was a better calling for an aimless naturalist, switched him to Christ’s College, Cambridge, in 1828.
(5) Sometime later Darwin jumped at the suggestion of a voyage to Tierra del Fuego, at the southern tip of South America aboard the HMS Beagle. On December 27, 1831, Charles Darwin left Devonport, England, aboard Her Majesty’s Ship Beagle. As Darwin set sail, he says he was a Bible-believing creationist. In his words recorded in The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, vol. 1. p. 45, he said, “I did not then in the least DOUBT the strict and literal TRUTH OF EVERY WORD in the Bible. . . .”
(6) On the last leg of the voyage Darwin finished his 770-page diary, wrapped up 1,750 pages of notes, drew up 12 catalogs of his 5,436 skins, bones, and carcasses — and yet he still was interested in scientific questions. He wondered, for example: Was each Galapagos mockingbird a naturally produced variety? Why did ground sloths become extinct? He sailed home with PROBLEMS ENOUGH TO LAST HIM A LIFETIME. When he landed in October 1836, his interest in being a vicar had faded, the gun had given way to the notebook, and the supreme theorizer — who would always move from small causes to big outcomes — had the courage to LOOK BEYOND the conventions of his own Victorian culture for NEW ANSWERS.
(7) With his voyage over and with a 400 pounds annual allowance from his father, Darwin now settled down among the urban gentry as a geologist. He was making adult decisions about his life and was looking beyond the present to his lifetime work.
(8) With a 1,000 pound Treasury grant, obtained through the Cambridge (https://www.britannica.com/place/Cambridge-England) network, he employed the best experts and published their descriptions of his specimens in his Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle (1838–43). Darwin’s star had risen, and he was now lionized in London.
(9) Darwin formulated his bold theory of evolution in private in 1837–39, after returning from the voyage around the world. But it was not until two decades later that he finally gave it full public expression in the 1859 book “On the Origin of Species,” a book that has deeply influenced modern Western society and thought.
(10) Michael Ruse also said that evolution is a RELIGION and that Richard Dawkins and his New Atheists friends’ “treatment of the religious viewpoint is PATHETIC to the point of non-being. Richard Dawkins in “The God Delusion” would FAIL any introductory philosophy or religion course. Proudly he criticizes that whereof he knows nothing.” [I think Dawkins may have failed any introductory logic course as well.]
(11) Allow me to answer questions commonly posed concerning evolution. Question 1: Is Darwin’s theory of evolution a fact? No, I think not. It has not been PROVEN and cannot be REPLICATED in a laboratory and some claims would have happened millions of years ago. It has gone through many changes over the years since 1859 to conform to the evidence, and many scientific issues still remain.
(12) Question 2: Is there any PROOF that evolution happened? That depends on what you mean by “evolution.” If you mean evolution is “change over time,” then you see it all the time. People are born, grow, age, and die.
(13) There are 4 common ways evolution is used: microevolution, macroevolution, Universal Common Descent, and Natural selection (or survival of the fittest.)
(14) I am unashamedly critiquing evolution and pointing out some of its flaws. The STRANGLEHOLD of evolution’s capture of public thought is PROFOUND, and is a BARRIER to the Gospel for millions of people. Once people understand the SCIENTIFIC WEAKNESSES of evolution and how it UNDERMINES the Gospel, it need not be as big a JUGGERNAUT it MASQUERADES as.
(15) Question 3: Is the Big Bang good news or bad news for Darwin’s theory of evolution? In my opinion, it’s BAD NEWS. Why? Darwin’s theory requires extremely long periods of time to produce the necessary changes in living forms. However, the Big Bang theory says there was a beginning of the universe now reckoned to be about 13.7 billion years ago. That does not provide enough time to support Darwin’s theory of evolution. According to most calculations, a universe of 100 billion years is NOT OLD ENOUGH for the development of a single cell.
The Big Bang theory is consistent with the biblical account of Genesis which affirms that God created the world ex nihilo, out of nothing. Some thinkers dislike the Big Bang theory because it appears to be like biblical creation.
This is episode 282.
