The Other Side of Evolution: Its Effects and FallacyPatterson, Alexander
Religion
The Other Side of Evolution: Its Effects and Fallacy
Patterson, Alexander
Bible and science; Evolution
1. _Degeneration in nature._ Nature shows a constant tendency
downward. Prof. E. D. Cope, an eminent evolutionist, writes: "The
retrogradation in nature is as well or nearly as well established
as evolution." The wild varieties of plants and animals are far
inferior to the cultivated kinds. The older species are far
superior to the present. The saber-toothed tiger is far superior
to the present animal. So also is the Mammoth as compared with
the elephant. Plants show degeneration in colors. The order of
superiority is from yellow, the lowest, to white, pink, red, purple
and blue, the highest. When they drop from blue to yellow, it
is degeneration. Some now having green flowers once had colored
blossoms. Progress is not seen to be upward in the flowers. So also
parasitism is degeneration both in plants and animals. The course of
nature is not, as it has not been, constant development upward. The
scripture statement "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in
pain," describes accurately the condition of nature (_Ro._ 8:22.)
2. _Continued unchanged species for ages._ The crustacea, for
example in Lake Tanganyika, Africa, remain as the receding ocean
left them ages ago.
3. _Species instead of increasing in number have decreased._ There
were 500 species of trilobites. They have all disappeared. There
were 900 species of ammonites; all are gone. Of the 450 species
of nautilus, only three remain. Indeed whole families have become
obliterated. All this is antagonistic to Evolution.
4. _Species continue the same under the most diverse environments._
Environment is claimed as a cause of the changes demanded by
Evolution. But the same species exist in the most diverse regions,
e. g., mosquitoes, whales and oaks.
5. _Adaptation of one species to another._ Darwin says that a
single case of the adaptation of one species to another would be
fatal to his theory. Yet he himself gives the data for hundreds of
such adaptations. He adduces the fact that a hundred head of red
clover produced 2,700 seeds. A similar number protected from insects
produced none. The fertilization of plants by insects is well known.
The Smyrna fig is said to owe its value to its fertilization by the
piercing of an insect. Some of these insects have been introduced
into California for that purpose. There is an orchid which can be
fertilized only by an insect falling into a cup of liquid which the
flower has, and escaping through a side opening in which it touches
the pollen.
Dr. Andrew Wilson writes: The colors of flowers--nay, even the
little splashes of a hue or tint seen on a petal--are intended to
attract insects that they may carry off the fertilizing dust, or
pollen, to other flowers. It is to this end also that your flowers
are many of them sweet-scented. The perfume is another kind of
invitation to the insect world. The honey they secrete forms a third
attraction--the most practical of all.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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