References:
(1) Many people have been taught evolution as an UNQUESTIONABLE FACT while being UNAWARE of the numerous historical errors, frauds, exaggerations, and premature conclusions that have appeared in its defense.
(2) Remember
Science is performed by fallible people.
A PREDETERMINED BIAS can influence scientific conclusions.
Incorrect ideas sometimes remain in textbooks for decades.
Scientific consensus does not guarantee the truth.
(3) Darwin acknowledged that there were “a crowd of difficulties” with his theory and stated, “Some of them are SO SERIOUS that to this day I can HARDLY REFLECT on them without being in some degree STAGGERED; but, to the best of my judgment, the greater number are ONLY APPARENT, and those that ARE REAL are not, I think, FATAL to the theory.”
(4) Notice one thing about Darwin’s response at the end of the above quotation: Objections to his theory are not fatal. He offers no evidence for that claim. That relegates his response to just an OPINION. Here is basic fact in my mind: Opinions DO NOT SOLVE scientific problems.
(5) The consequences for man — of Darwins’ theory — were clear. Man was no longer at the center of the living world. The human was not a created Being made in the image of God. Neither was the human the product of a Divine Plan — evolution does NOT have a plan.
(6) E. J. Larson, author of the 2002 book The Theory of Evolution: A History of Controversy writes on p. 58 “that Darwin did what he could to document his view that natural selection was a PLAUSIBLE MECHANISM — not necessarily the BEST mechanism, but at least a plausible one, because he needed at least SOME MECHANISM that was better than Lamarck’s theory, in order to have people buy into his theory of evolution. His mechanism was natural selection.”
(7) Of course, artificial selection no more PROVES evolution than the fact that humans have built computers proves that a computer can evolve solely by natural means without intelligence.
(8) Most surprisingly, Darwin RETREATED BACK to the DISCREDITED theory of evolution due to Lamarck, which postulated that biological characteristics acquired during one’s lifetime could be passed onto one’s offspring.
(9) B. Houston, author of the 2012 book Natural God: Deism in the Age of Intelligent Design, wrote that for Darwin, even the term “evolve” itself evolved. In the first edition of Origin of the Species published in 1859, [Darwin] uses only forms of the word “descent” rather than “evolution.” Not until the sixth edition, published in 1872, does Darwin use the word evolution (found on p. 124 of Natural God).
(10) Cambridge University professor Peter Vorzimmer wrote in an article entitled “Charles Darwin and blending inheritance” in Isis vol. 54, 1963, p. 371 that “the evolutionary writings of Charles Darwin. . . . in the latter part of his life, when CONTRASTED with the Origin of Species in 1859, indicate a considerable CHANGE in his evolutionary thought over the intervening years . . . . the overall CHANGE effected appears GREAT and the resultant view nearly ANTITHETICAL to that of the first edition of the Origin, . . . . [and] such a RADICAL CHANGE could not be looked upon merely as a MODIFICATION of an earlier view, but as an ADOPTION of a DISTINCTLY new one.”
(11) In the introduction to a 1971 edition of Darwin’s book, the biologist L. Harrison Matthews observes, “The fact of evolution is the BACKBONE of biology, and biology is thus in a PECULIAR POSITION of being a science founded on an UNPROVED THEORY — is it then a SCIENCE or a FAITH? Belief in the theory of evolution is thus EXACTLY PARALLEL to belief in SPECIAL CREATION — both are CONCEPTS which believers know to be true but neither, up to the present, had been able to prove.”
(12) Michael Behe is the American microbiologist who introduced the concept of irreducible complexity in his book Darwin’s Black Box. He argues that some biological systems, like the eye, are IRREDUCIBLY COMPLEX — that is, they consist of multiple interacting parts, ALL OF WHICH ARE NECESSARY for the system’s PRESENT FUNCTION. According to Behe, such systems could not have arisen through the GRADUAL ACCUMULATION of small, beneficial mutations envisioned by Darwinian evolution because the system would not function until ALL THE PARTS were present. For example, all parts of a mouse trap must be present for it to work as a mouse trap. If even one part is missing, it will not work.
(13) I would say there is no conceivable way to account naturally for their development. Therefore, there must be an INTELLIGENT DESIGNER.
This is episode 285.
