ICR:No. 194- EVOLUTION A HOUSE DIVIDED  by Henry M. Morris, Ph.D.*

   "If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand"
(Mark 3:25). Evolutionists ardently defend their house against
outsiders, but squabble vigorously with each other inside the house. In
this article we present a collage of recent quotes from evolutionists
attacking different aspects of their own basic theory. Lest we be
accused of out-of-context quoting, we emphasize that each person quoted
is a committed evolutionist, even though his remarks may make him sound
like a creationist.

   COSMIC EVOLUTION

   The standard evolutionary concept for the origin of the universe is
the Big Bang theory, but many eminent astronomers flatly reject it.
Both the 'Big Bang' model and the theoretical side of elementary
particle physics rely on numerous highly speculative assumptions. But
if there was no Big Bang, how and when did the universe begin?. . .
(Hannes) Alfven replies: "It is only a myth that attempts to say how
the universe came into being...."(2) One argument for the Big Bang is
the "red shift," but Halton Arp and other leading astronomers say "no."
(Arp) maintains that quasars, for example, whose large red shifts
suggest they are the most distant objects in the universe, are actually
no more distant than galaxies....(3)

   EVOLUTION OF LIFE FROM NON-LIFE

   It is commonly asserted that life evolved from non-living chemicals
by purely naturalistic processes. However, a leading scientist in this
field says:

   At present all discussions on principle theories and experiments in
the field either end in stalemate or in a confession of ignorance....
The problem is that the principal evolutionary processes from prebiotic
molecules to progenotes have not been proven by experimentation and
that the environmental conditions under which these processes occurred
are not known.(4)

   EVOLUTION OF SPECIES

   The standard Darwinian and neo-Darwinian theories of evolution argue
that new species are developed by natural selection of random
variations to fit changing environments. Many evolutionists today,
however, are rejecting Darwinism, even though they still cling to
evolution. One such scientist is Kenneth Hsu:

   The law of natural selection is not, I will maintain, science. It is
an ideology, and a wicked one, and it has as much interfered with our
ability to perceive the history of life with clarity as it has
interfered with our ability to see one another with tolerance.... The
law of the survival of the fittest may be, therefore, a tautology in
which fitness is defined by the fact of survival, not by independent
criteria that would form the basis for prediction.(5)

   EVOLUTION OF HUMAN LIFE

   Much ado has been made about the Laetoli fossil footprints in
Tanzania, dated at 3.5 million years ago, supposedly proving that the
australopithecine ancestors of man walked erect.

   But the first detailed study of the gaits and footprints of modern
people who walk barefooted indicated the Laetoli prints are much like
those of Homo sapiens and were probably not produced by Lucy's
relatives, reports Russell H. Tuttle of the University of Chicago.(6)

   It should be obvious that these footprints were made by true human
beings; the only reason for rejecting this fact is the assumed 3.5-
million-year age, a time long before man is supposed to have evolved.

   THE FOSSIL EVIDENCE

   The fossil record has traditionally been considered the best
evidence for evolution, but the utter absence of true transitional
forms continues to be an embarrassment.

   If we were to expect to find ancestors to or intermediates between
higher taxa, it would be in the rocks of late Precambrian to Ordovician
times, when the bulk of the world's higher animal taxa evolved. Yet
transitional alliances are unknown or unconfirmed for any of the phyla
or classes appearing then.(7)

   "We conclude that. . .neither of the contending theories of
evolutionary change at the species level, phyletic gradualism or
punctuated equilibrium, seem applicable to the origin of new body
plans.(8)

   EXTINCTION VERSUS SPECIATION

   Evolutionists seem unable to realize the anomaly in the slow rate of
speciation versus the high rate of species extinction.

   Today's rate (of extinction) can be estimated through various
analytical techniques to be a minimum of 1000, and possibly several
thousand species per year.... It normally takes tens of thousands of
years for a new terrestrial vertebrate or a new plant species to emerge
fully, and even species with rapid turnover rates, notably insects,
usually require centuries, if not millennia, to generate a new
species.(9)

   So far as ever observed, no new species are now being formed. It
seems that evolution, if there is such a thing, is going in the wrong
direction!

   UNIFORMITARIANISM

   Although the history of the earth and life has long been interpreted
by the uniformitarian maxim, "the present is the key to the past," more
and more geologists are returning to catastrophism.

   Our science is too encumbered with uniformitarian concepts that
project the modern Earth/Life system as the primary model for
interpretation of evolution and extinction patterns in ancient
ecosystems. Detailed paleoenvironmental data tell us that the past is
the key to the present, not vice versa.(10)

   One of the key evidences for great age is the uniformitarian
interpretation of "evaporites," but this very term is misleading.

   In referring to "evaporite". . .the term begs the question as it
implies desiccation. For clarity, geology needs a new term; namely
"precipitite," rock created by precipitation. Hence rocks of the
evaporitic facies could be. . .precipitites, deposited by precipitation
from a supersaturated solution.(11)

   Precipitation is, of course, a much more rapid process than
evaporation.

   SOCIAL HARMFULNESS OF EVOLUTION

   Evolutionists strongly complain when creationists point out the
historically evil influence of evolutionism. Many evolutionists,
however, do recognize this fact.

   . . .we were victims of a cruel social ideology that assumes that
competition among individuals, classes, nations or races is the natural
condition of life, and that it is also natural for the superior to
dispossess the inferior. For the last century and more this ideology
has been thought to be a natural law of science, the mechanism of
evolution which was formulated most powerfully by Charles Darwin in
1859....(12)

   (Robert Proctor) shows how the major German societies of physical
anthropologists collaborated with the SS program of race hygiene,
helping to make racial policy.... Eugene Fischer, the most
distinguished of German physical anthropologists, regarded by many as
the founder of human genetics, was particularly helpful in these
efforts.... But surely American physical anthropologists spoke out
clearly against the Nazi perversion of their science? They did not.(13)

   SCIENTIFIC BIGOTRY

   Creationists are not the only ones who find it difficult to get a
hearing from the scientific establishment. Even evolutionists who do
not conform to the majority viewpoint in evolutionary dogma at a given
time encounter this same bigotry, through the so-called "peer review"
process. One of the most distinguished modern astronomers is Nobel
prize winner Hannes Alfven, who espouses an alternative cosmology to
the Big Bang. Here is his testimony (even Nobel laureates must defer to
the scientific establishment!):

   . . .it has given me a serious disadvantage. When I describe the
phenomena according to this formalism, most referees do not understand
what I say and turn down my papers.(14)

   But the argument "all knowledgeable people agree that. . ." (with
the tacit addition that by not agreeing you demonstrate that you are a
crank) is not a valid argument in science. If scientific issues always
were decided by Gallup polls and not by scientific arguments, science
will very soon be petrified forever.(15)

   For reasons of space, these quotes have been somewhat abbreviated,
but they do represent quite fairly (if incompletely) the opinions of
the respective authors. It is obvious that evolutionists argue
vigorously among themselves, even though they present a solid front
when arguing against creationists. Just possibly, the combination of
outside attack by creationists with the in-fighting among evolutionists
will eventually cause the collapse of the straw house of evolution
itself. After all, no one has ever seen real evolution in action, and
no one knows how it works, so its foundation is very weak. One day it
will be said: ". . .the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it
fell: and great was the fall of it" (Matthew 7:27).

   Dr. Morris is President of the Institute for Creation Research.

   REFERENCES

   1. R.L. Oldershaw, "The Continuing Case for a Hierarchical
Cosmology," Astrophysics and Space (v. 92, 1983), p. 354. 2. E.J.
Lerner, "The Big Bang Never Happened," Discover (v. 9, June 1983), p.
78. Swedish astronomer Alfven, who has a Nobel Prize in Physics,
maintains the universe has always been essentially the same. 3. John
Horgan, "Big-Bang Bashers," Scientific American (v. 257, September
1987), p. 22. 4. Dose, Prof. Dr. Klaus, "The Origin of Life; More
Questions than Answers," Interdisciplinary Science Reviews (v. 13, no.
4, 1988), p. 348. Dose is Director, Institute for Biochemistry,
Gutenberg University, West Germany. 5. Kenneth J. Hsu, "Is Darwinism
Science?" Earthwatch (March 1989), p. 17. Hsu is Earth Science Head at
the Swiss Institute of Earth Sciences. 6. Bruce Bower, "A Walk Back
through Evolution," Science News (v. 135, April 22, 1989), p. 251. 7.
J.W. Valentine and D.H. Erwin, "The Fossil Record," in Development as
an Euolutionary Process (Lias, 1987), p. 84. 8. Ibid, p. 96. Valentine
is a geologist at U.C. Santa Barbara, Erwin at Michigan State. 9.
Norman Myers, "Extinction Rates Past and Present," Bioscience (v. 39,
January 1989), p. 39. 10. Eric Kauffman, "The Uniformitarian
Albatross," Palaios (v. 2, no. 6, 1987), p. 531. 11. Robert S. Dietz
and Mitchell Woodhouse, "Mediterranean Theory May Be All Wet," Geotimes
(v. 33, May 1988), p. 4. 12. Kenneth J. Hsu, op cit, p. 15. 13. Matt
Cartmill, "Misdeeds in Anthropology," Review of Bones, Bodies,
Behavior: Essays on Physical Anthropology (Wisconsin University Press,
1988). Science (v. 244, May 19, 1989), p. 858. 14. Hannes Alfven,
"Memoirs of a Dissident Scientist," American Scientist (v. 76, May June
1988), p. 250. Ibid, p. 251.

