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Darwin had the "notorious habit of jumping to
conclusions without adequate evidence" and "of stubbornly maintaining
his theories regardless of the valid arguments and evidence that could
be brought against them."26
Historian Jacques Barzun, Provost and Dean of the
Graduate Faculties at Columbia University, further observes that the
common view of Darwin as an intellectual and a lover of truth needs
qualification:
The phrase "Newton of biology" now appears as a very loose
description indeed. Darwin was not a thinker and he did not
originate the ideas that he used. He vacillated, added, retracted,
and confused his own traces. As soon as he crossed the dividing line
between the realm of events and the realm of theory, he became
"metaphysical" in the bad sense. His power of drawing out the
implications of his theories was at no time very remarkable, but
when it came to the moral order it disappeared altogether, as that
penetrating Evolutionist, Nietsche, observed with some disdain. 27
Darwin himself appeared to have serious doubts about
how distinctive his theory of evolution was; in at least 45 instances
between 1869 and the final edition of the Origin, Darwin
deleted the word "my" before the word "theory." As noted earlier,
Darwin hardly invented the idea of evolution; he merely systematized a
certain amount of data allegedly in favor of it.28
Regardless:
To the end of his life, the old warfare continued in Darwin’s
mind. Try as he would, he could not escape from God. Gradually his
emotional life atrophied under the strain of the battle. Religious
feeling disappeared and with it much else beside. Shakespeare was
"intolerably dull." He no longer took pleasure in pictures, in
poetry, or even in music. The beauty of nature no longer thrilled
him. The world became cold and dead. As we have already seen, even
his reasoning powers became distorted when he dwelt upon subjects
even remotely concerned with his conflict. Finally the time came for
Charles Darwin to die with the conflict still unresolved.29
In the end, Darwin had simply got a taste of his own
medicine. He had deprived the universe of meaning and paid the price.
As Leslie Paul observes in The Annihilation of Man (New York:
Harcourt-Brace, 1945, p. 154), "The final result of the application of
the theory of The Origin of Species to the whole material
universe is to deprive it completely of meaning." Cambridge scholar
John Burrow observes in his introduction to The Origin of Species:
"Nature, according to Darwin, was a product of blind chance and a
blind struggle, and man a lonely, intelligent mutation, scrambling
with the brutes for his sustenance. To some the sense of loss was
irrevocable; it was as if an umbilical cord had been cut, and men
found themselves part of ‘a cold passionless universe.’"30
What Darwin had wrought for modern man is, in the eyes of many, hardly
worth the meager scientific validation it has encountered.
Darwin’s Origin is today much less
convincing. As an illustration, we may cite the esteemed entomologist,
W. R. Thompson, who penned the introduction to the Origin of
Species for the "Every Man Library" No. 811 edition (1956).
Thompson reveals not only severe problems with Darwin’s basic thesis,
especially descent by natural selection, he also shows how the manner
in which Darwin argued appeared to give his theory more credibility
than it deserved.
But in a manner of this kind a great deal depends on the manner
in which the arguments are presented. Darwin considered that the
doctrine of the origin of living things by descent with
modification, even if well founded, would be unsatisfactory unless
the causes at work were correctly identified, so his theory of
modification by natural selection was, for him, of absolute major
importance. Since he had at the time the Origin was published
no body of experimental evidence to support his theory, he fell back
on speculative arguments. The argumentation used by evolutionists,
said de Quatrefages, makes the discussion of their ideas extremely
difficult. Personal convictions, simple possibilities, are presented
as if they were proofs, or at least valid arguments in favor of the
theory. As an example, de Quatrefages cites Darwin’s explanation of
the manner in which the tit mouse might become transformed into the
nutcracker, by the accumulation of small changes in structure and
instinct owing to the effect of natural selection; and then
proceeded to show that it is just as easy to transform the
nutcracker into the tit mouse. The demonstration can be modified
without difficulty to fit any conceivable case. It is without
scientific value, since it cannot be verified; but since the
imagination has free rein, it is easy to convey the
impression that a concrete example of real transmutation has
been given. This is the more appealing because of the extreme
fundamental simplicity of the Darwinian explanation. The reader may
be completely ignorant of biological processes yet he feels that he
really understands and in a sense dominates the machinery by which
the marvelous variety of living forms has been produced.
This was certainly a major reason for the success of the
Origin. Another is the elusive character of the Darwinian
argument…. The plausibility of the argument eliminates the need for
proof and its very nature gives it a kind of immunity to disproof.
Darwin did not show in the Origin that species had originated
by natural selection; he merely showed, on the basis of certain
facts and assumptions, how this might have happened, and as he had
convinced himself he was able to convince others. But the facts and
interpretations on which Darwin relied have now ceased to
convince.31
It is worthy to note that Dr. Thompson penned the
above words over 40 years ago. In subsequent years, recent
developments and discoveries throughout the sciences have made belief
in evolution more and more difficult. So much so that some scientists
have now abandoned the theory while others, although continuing to
exercise faith that evolution is true, concede that convincing
evidence for it may never be forthcoming.
In the end, Darwin also continued to exercise faith
in evolution because he had little choice. He found the theory an
emotional necessity and had convinced himself as to its plausibility,
despite innumerable problems.
Darwin may have succeeded in convincing himself
about evolution, but as we will see in our next article, it was
another story entirely for the scientific community.
NOTES:
26. W. R. Bird, The Origin of Species Revisited
(NY: Philosophical Library, 1989), Vol. 2, p. 129, citing Canon,
"The Basis of Darwin’s Achievement: A Revaluation", 5 Victorian
Studies 109 (1961).
27. Jacques Brazun, Darwin, Marx, Wagner:
Critique of a Heritage (Garden City, NY, Doubleday, Anchor
Books, 1958), pp. 84-85.
28. Bolton Davidheiser, Evolution and Christian
Faith (The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1969),
pp. 38-138.
29. Robert E. D. Clark, Darwin: Before and
After (Chicago: Moody Press, 1967), p. 93.
30. Charles Darwin (ed. J. W. Burrow), The
Origin of Species (Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1974), p. 43.
31. W. R. Thompson, "Introduction," The Origin
of Species (Everyone’s Library, No. 811, 1956. Published
separately by EPM, Britain with additional comments by Frank
Cousins), pp. 8-9.
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