October 1928
T h e
K i n g ' s
B u s i n e s s
588
The Biological Failure of Evolution B y D udley J oseph W h itney
evidence can shed much light upon the situation, and show that there is no such strong evidence favoring evolution. First they assume that there has been this long chain of geologic ages lasting the greater part of a billion years. I believe the evidence overwhelmingly favors the deluge theory as against the geologic age theory. It has been destroyed by the analysis of geologic time. Even if there were such ages, they would be so limited in duration that the only possible conclusion regarding the plants and ani mals would be that there was a long series of creations, as Agassiz believed several decades ago. The Evolutionists assume that there was a gradual chain of species from non-vertebrates up to horses, bats, whales and men. In every part o f the chain, links are miss ing by the score. They have hunted vainly for the missing link between man and ape. Even after they reach the ape, I would challenge them in the whole line o f their alleged human ancestry to point out one fossil, not man, which could reasonably be assumed ¡to be a probable ances tor o f man. I would for example, ask them to point out some invertebrate fossil which presumably was the ances tor o f the vertebrates ; one fish which was probably the ancestor of the amphibians; one reptile which was pre sumably the ancestor of monotremes; one monotreme which was presumably the ancestor of the marsupials, one marsupial which was presumably the ancestor of the placentals; one generalized placental which was presum ably the ancestor of both horses, men and whales. They cannot point out one fossil in the whole list. They can, it is true, work out an assumed chain of horses, and an assumed' chain o f elephants, but I can do as well as that in the ancestry of man by picking out existing primates. I can get á lemur from Madagascar,, a tailed monkey from India or South America, a gibbon from the East Indies, a gorilla from equatorial Africa, an aborigine from Australia, and a nordic from Sweden, and it will make a beautiful chain of species, one above another like steps in a ladder. The trouble is; lemurs, monkeys, apes and men are all separate and have been since history began. There is no sign whatever of any non-fish ancestry for the fishes. Then it is assumed th^t amphibians evolved from fishes in the alleged Devonian period, yet if we take the most amphibian-like fish of that sediment and the most fish-like amphibian, they are in essentials no more alike than aré certain fishes and certain amphibians which now exist. There were reptiles almost innumerable in the ancient earth, and a great variety of mammals, yet the fossils are either entirely reptile, or entirely mammal. A better chain of* Species froth monotreme to highly evolved pla cental mammal can be made from existing species than from ancient fossils. When mammals appear in the fos sil record, they appear suddenly. The great reptiles.dis appear and the mammals are present without indication of their assumed ancestral reptile species. If one is going to take that fossil record and the series of geological ages, the evidence would demand that he believe that new spe cies were actually created when the need for them arose, not that they were evolved—-one from another.
HE biological side of the evolution problem has been the one most discussed, although as a mat ter of fact it is of immeasurably less importance than the historical side, that is, than the investi gation of the geological history of the earth and the course of human history. In the very beginning it can be seen that the theory of evolution is based upon a very unscientific presumption, and that the doctrine of creation is based upon a scientific theory. Nature operates upon the principle that like pro duces like; that is, clover plants produce clover plants, rabbits produce rabbits, and monkeys produce monkeys. There is, it is very surely true, great difference between clover plants, and there are many kinds of rabbits and many species of monkeys. “ Like father, like child,” still permits appreciable differences between father and child and still more differences between very different relatives, all of which came from the original parent stock, yet clovers produce nothing but clovers,^ rabbits produce nothing but rabbits, and monkeys produce nothing but monkeys. The original clovers, rabbits and monkeys, on this well-recognized biological principle, may have been much different from modern clovers, rabbits and monkeys, but, considering the principle governing inheritance, they would be either clover plants,'or rabbits, or monkey^, and the only way they could get into being would , be by descending from a different; kind o f organism, so that like would produce unlike; 'or by creation. Evolution would have the original rabbit descended from some generalized rodent which was neither rabbit, nor rat, nor squirrel, but the ancestor of all three and of all other rodents. It would have this original rodent descended from some original placental mammal who was also the ancestor of monkeys, bats, whales, horses, and all common beasts. It would have this descended from a marsupial; that from a long chain of reptile ancestors, which were derived from fishes by the way of the amphib ians, and so on back to original protoplasm. This would require changes innumerable. It would require more than mere change; it would require eyes to spring into being in animals none of whose ancestors ever had eyes; it would require fins to change to legs and legs to change to wings, scales to change to feathers, and so on ad infinitum. Such changes violate the funda mental principles of heredity, and evolution, therefore, by requiring such changes, violates these fundamental prin ciples of biological science. The average man knows that nature acts this way, so, aside altogether from religion or' a belief in the Bible, common sense makes him a creationist. The scientists, with their eyes updn 'theory and misled by some striking suggestions in favor of evo lution, have adopted a belief in the name of science that is flatly contradicted by science. W h at E vidence D o T hey H a v e ? It must be granted that they are entirely unjustified in going contrary to this basic principle that like produces like, unless they have evidence that is overwhelmingly strong in their favor. A hurried review o f such supposed
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