Evolution: An Investigation and a CritiqueGraebner, Theodore
Religion
Evolution: An Investigation and a Critique
Graebner, Theodore
Evolution; Religion and science
Now, as a matter of fact, we cannot prove that a single species has
changed. These are the words of Darwin himself, quoted from _"Life and
Letters,"_ Vol. III, p. 25: "There are two or three million of species
on earth, sufficient field, one might think, for observation. But it
must be said to-day that in spite of all the efforts of trained
observers, not one change of a species into another is on record." Dr.
N. S. Shaler, Professor of Geology in Harvard, asserts that "it has not
been proved that a single species has been established solely or even
mainly by the operation of Natural Selection." Professor Fleischmann, of
Erlangen, has gone so far as to say that "the Darwinian theory of
descent has, in the realms of nature, not a single fact to confirm it."
Dr. Ethridge of the British Museum says: "In all this great museum there
is not a particle of evidence of transmutation of species. Nine-tenths
of the talk of evolutionists is sheer nonsense, not founded on
observation and wholly unsupported by facts." Prof. Owen declares that
"no instance of change of one species into another has ever been
recorded by man." Dr. Martin, Sanitaetsrat, of Germany, who has
conducted some highly technical experiments in the blood reactions of
various animals and man, on which he bases his conclusions, says: "Since
Darwin we have been accustomed to consider the concept 'species' as
something insecure and unstable. The whole organic world must be thought
of as fluid if the evolution theory is to find room for action. It
required, indeed, all the great investigator's keenness to fence his
theory against the difficulty which the lack of transitional forms
occasioned, and against the fact that the rise of a new species has
never been observed, much more against the fact that all processes in
artificial breeding have not sufficed to fix permanently the changes
which have been attained. We admire the clever structure of the theory,
but there is no doubt that the obstinacy with which the organism clings
to its species-characteristics is the point on which it is mortal. One
is, [tr. note: sic] in fact, as much justified in speaking of a struggle
to retain these characteristics as to speak of a struggle for existence."
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