December 1924
T H E K I N G ’ S
B U S I N E S S
770
Vulnerable Points in the Evolution Theory By Professor Leander S. Keyser, D. D., Hamma Divinity School, Springfield, Ohio
It is always a joy to be able to give our King’s Business family the privilege of reading anything from the pen of Dr. Keyser, whose unanswerable logic and sound scholarship give him a distinguished place among the “ Defenders of the Faith.” This is the first of two articles (the second of which will appear in the January issue) showing some of the fallacies and absurdities of the evolutionary theory. B hjj T is notable that scientists are more and more giv- f|| ing up the traditional doctrine of the;; “ struggle for existence” and the “ survival of the fittest” as Ssfl an explanation of the progress they see in nature.
Explaining Morality and Religion The same fallacious method of reasoning is employed by the evolutionists in trying to (account for man’s moral and religious nature. They endeavor to explain it through herd instinct or the laws of sociology. But such explanations fail to explain. They are another case of putting the cart before the horse. How are you going to account for the herd instinct and the social propensity? If these are instincts, they must belong to man’s inherent constitution; they must be innate. Whence then did they come? What makes men herd together? It must be because they have an inherent proclivity for doing so. If something or some one, has endued them with that instinct, why may not that something or some one have endued them with the primitive instinct for morality and religion? So we may say that, if man is a moral and religious being by nature— that, is, by creation- then he would naturally be a social being; for both morality and religion demand that man should not live for himself alone, but also for others. For this very reason God said, in the beginning of human history: “ It is not good that the man should be alone.” Therefore He made woman, and then bade the pair to “ Be fruitful, and multiply, and re plenish the earth, and subdue it.” The simple Biblical expla nation affords an adequate account of man’s moral and reli gious nature, and at the same time of the social factor in his being. The hypothesis that gives an adequate explana tion of all the effects and phenomena is most likely to be the true one, and therefore the scientific one. Weakness of the Vestige Theory We call attention to a great little book, entitled “ Two Great Bible .Plans Paralleled,” by Dr. J. K. Miller, of Greeley,; Colorado. As a medical doctor, he has a technical knowledge of human anatomy and physiology. This is his telling way of dealing with the vestige theory: “ For exam ple, the nipples on the breasts of the malé— are they ves- tigeal? If not, why are they present? Did the male a few millions of years ago bear young, or did he simply serve as a wet nurse when his mate had a litter too numerous for her own breasts to accommodate?” Ttí this we would add that, if evolution is the dominant law in nature the nipples of males should have disappeared long ago, being of no use to them or to others. Should the question be asked why they are there by creation, our reply is: They prove once more the solidarity and organic unity of the human race, and that originally the first woman was taken from the genetic being of the first man. They are an outstanding and perduring vestige and proof of an original, divine creation. The Dogmatic Temper of the Evolutionist At this writing the news comes that the Committee on Education of the Lower House of the Georgia Legislature has unanimously reported a bill to withhold State support from any school or university in which evolution is taught as a scientific fact. This report throws the editor of the New York World into a fury. Speaking of the progress of opposition to evolution in the South, our editor says: (Continued on page 831)
The fact is, the more highly a species is developed in intel ligence and usefulness, the less fit it is to survive in the natural struggle for life. The Burbank plants must be constantly tended with tender care, or they will either per ish or revert to the original inferior types. Our domestic birds and animals could not survive in the wild. Even the finest fighting cock would soon be destroyed if it were turned out into the wilderness. So would the swiftest race horse. The unfittest to survive in nature’s raw domain are those creatures which have been nurtured with the tenderest care. Moreover,, the varieties which are the most carefully bred are much more subject to disease than are the wild creatures of the forest and jungle. For these reasons the evolutionists should be frank enough to abandon their theory of the struggle for exis tence. They are forced to hold that, if it is one of the chief factors in the evolutionary process, the animals that are fittest to survive are those that are the strongest, the most ferocious and bloodthirsty, such as the lion, the tiger, and the hyena. But we know that these are the very animals that man finds the least fit to survive, and therefore he wages a constant warfare upon them. Then he selects the more gentle and the! less fitted to survive in the raw state of nature, and domesticates; them. Now, the question is, How could natural evolution ever have produced and preserved these milder types if the dominant law of nature before man’s advent was the fierce struggle for existence? In the natural world the stronger would have quickly exterminated the weaker, if, indeed, the latter could have come into existence at all. No,— this reeking theory of the struggle for existence will not explain the various types of organisms in the vegetable and animal realms. From the start man was needed to keep in check the noxious and predacious types in order that civilization might exist. • Otherwise nature would have been self- destructive. Go to any utterly untamed region in Africa or South America, and see whether any of our domestic fowls and animals are living there. The Daw of Fixity of Type If evolution were the dominant law of nature, we ought not to find sharply defined species in either the vegetable or the animal worlds. There- should be only a merging and gradient system. Why not? Yet, instead of such a state of flux, we see species everywhere sharply defined, save in a few Very obscure instances. The question is, How could a system of fluidity have evolved into a fixity? Can any thing evolve into its precise opposite? Can flux evolve into stability? If evolution is the dominating law every where, as its purveyors maintain, how comes it that it has brought about persistency of species? The trouble with evolution is that it is based on the logical fallacy that you can get something out of nothing and a greater out of a lesser.
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