Those who keep in touch with the writings of atheists, agnostics, and the great majority of special creationistic biological scientists, are struck with an anomalous situation. With all their differences of opinion with respect to how organic evolution came about, and with all the failures from the standpoint of demonstrating their theory, these scientists are invariably unanimous in declaring that, nevertheless, evolution is a fact.
He who eagerly scans these various theories of origins of present-day forms, looking for evidences of a turning in the thought of the scientists toward the creation of organic life in seven literal days, is always disappointed and often perplexed. He is disappointed because not even wishful thinking can form a basis for hope of a change in this mighty current which continuously leads away from the statements of the Book of truth. He is perplexed because these apparently honest seekers after truth never consider a literal creation to be even a faint possibility. He who finds' himself in this perplexed condition needs but to recall that there is a mighty supernatural influence in the world today which continuously hinders and prevents men from arriving at truth unless they keep themselves yielded to the direction of the Author of all truth.
Until very recent years, those who patched up Darwin's theory of the origin of species by natural selection, and who now work under the self-evident or acknowledged title of neoDarwinians, have held the middle of the stage. Practically all the genetics textbooks of today are written by these men. Their thesis is :
"The process of mutation of the units of heredity, the genes, is the starting point for evolution, and the accumulation of gene mutations, the isolation and selection of new variants which afterward continue to repeat the same processes over again, account for all evolutionary diversifications."—"The Material Basis of Evolution," by Richard Goldschntidt, p. 6, Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, 1940.
But things are not going so well for the neoDarwinians today. In 1937 the Californian geneticist, Theodosius Dobzhansky, published a scholarly book based upon laboratory investigations, in which he alludes to the weakness of natural selection in evolution, and gives emphasis to the permanency of the basic biological unit known as the Linnean species.
These biological entities are defined by him as "that stage in evolutionary progress, at which the once actually or potentially interbreeding array or forms becomes segregated in two or more separate arrays which are physiologically incapable of interbreeding."—"Genetics and the Origin of Species," p. 312, Columbia University Press, New York City, 1937.
Although he emphasizes the dynamic nature of the species concept, and insists that a species is merely a stage in a process, not a static unit, yet he calls attention to the fact that the species has, through all these years, withstood all the changes in the nomenclature with an amazing tenacity. He insists that in most animal and plant groups the delimitation of species is subject to no dispute at all. Thus his work is of significance to us in emphasizing the fact of the presence on the earth today of groups of organisms within a kind which are incapable of crossbreeding. The mechanism by which it is assumed that evolution of one kind from another has occurred is theoretical. The living world furnishes no evidence that any such wide changes are possible.
In 1940 the English botanist J. C. Willis published a 207-page withering broadside ("The Course of Evolution," Cambridge University Press, London) against the possibility of natural selection's ever accomplishing evolutionary changes; that is, the changing of one kind of organism into another kind. His conclusions point to a process of definite single mutations originating within the organism, and lead him to suppose that evolution is not the result of chance selection, but rather of a law "not yet comprehended."
Near the close of 1940, a third volley against the neo-Darwinians was published. ("The Material Basis of Evolution" already cited.) It was written by the careful investigator, Richard Goldschmidt, of California, an original and independent thinker. Many readers of the Ministry have doubtless seen the Associated Press report of Nov. 19, 1940, on this book set forth under the caption "Zoologist Disputes Darwinian Findings." Practically all zoologists today agree that Darwin's explanation of evolution was inadequate. Goldschmidt directs his attack against the views of contemporary neo-Darwinians, the authors of the current genetics books. He demonstrates from nature that the micromutations, claimed by the neo-Darwinians to be responsible for evolution, are wholly incapable of ever accomplishing such wide changes. He carries the view of Dobzhansky concerning the distinctness of the Linnean species even farther, and states :
"Where species can be distinguished with certainty, they are different and separated by a gap, if not by an abyss. If, however, the distinction is a 'matter of taste,' evolutionary conclusions are also a matter of taste ; that is, worthless. Therefore, caution is advised in regard to conclusions based exclusively upon statements arrived at by means of a highly subjective technique."—Page 156.
In fact, Goldschmidt's demonstrations prove quite conclusively that the Linnean species is still a distinct entity. The first two hundred pages of his book, in which he adheres closely to actual conditions in nature, are a joy to the heart of the Fundamentalist who delights himself in positive evidence against evolutionary change. The element of suspense grips us as we continue to read, because we know Goldschmidt to be an evolutionist. And still the writer is all the while building a strong and high prison wall about himself through his demonstration of the impassible abyss between Linnean species. But beginning with page 184, and on to the end of his 436-page book, he amazingly constructs a pair of theoretical wings by which, in his own mind, he escapes from the formidable walls with which he has surrounded himself. This escape theory, which he admits is not based upon experimental genetics, as is the proof in the first 183 pages, is pulled togethez from "generalizations derived from general genetics together with such insight as can be derived from embryology, comparative anatomy, paleontology." —Page 156. In other words, it is merely his personal explanation of certain circumstantial evidence, and thus would fall into the same category against which he warns in the foregoing quotation.
In this new theory of origin of species, he comes forth boldly with the same idea that Dobzhansky (who, incidentally, asserts that Goldschmidt is a biologist with a pessimistic attitude) merely alluded to as a possibility. The essence of his theory is that pattern changes within the chromosomes (the hereditary agents of the cells) might produce a completely new system in one step. He believes that a series of such steps in turn could develop a new species, or, as he expresses it, a "hopeful monster." The new individual would be a "monster" because definitely different from its parents, and "hopeful" because it might be better equipped to survive in the struggle for existence. Actually, nature furnishes us with not so much as a single example which can be demonstrated to be such a hopeful monster. It is true of all so-called connecting links between the distinct "kinds" of Genesis, that their existence occurs only in minds employed in wishful thinking along the lines of a "highly subjective technique."
Thus we have three recent books written by biologists whose standing is above reproach in the eyes of their scientific colleagues. Yet these books point out damaging inconsistencies in the theory of organic evolution as generally held. While the Fundamentalist marvels at the desperate tenacity with which all these men hold to the supposed fact of evolution—even though nature continually demonstrates to them that such wide changes do not actually occur—still he is appreciative of these efforts from the standpoint of their furnishing him with possible explanations for the multitudinous present-day forms within the Genesis kinds. As regards the evolutionist in his search for the course of evolution, his careful study of thirty years comes crashing down about him in failure; but unnoticed by him is the marvelous harmony between his actual demonstrations and the record of the Book of truth which stated six thousand years ago that each organism "brought forth after his kind."
