The Other Side of Evolution: Its Effects and Fallacy — John Shaqi
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
The home of the primeval man, or ascending-ape, whichever it or he
was, is one of the difficult facts to settle. Haeckel locates it at
the bottom of the Indian ocean. He can thus defy disproof. Another
says it was in the tropics somewhere. This is also a safe assertion.
The difficulty is that the remains of the pre-historic man are found
in the northern regions, while the ancestor animal was a denizen of
the tropics. So another declares that the original home was in the
northern regions, to which a pair of wild animals of the ancestor
kind were driven by something or somebody, and their retreat cut
off, and so they were forced to the life in caves and adopted the
habits we find among cave dwellers.
But although our ancestor cannot be located we are told just who and
what he was. Thus Prof. Edward Clodd, an authoritative evolutionist,
tells us in his book, "The Making of a Man," as follows: "Whichever
among the arboreal creatures possessed any favorable variation,
however slight, of brain or sense organ, would secure an advantage
over less favored rivals in the struggle for food and mates
and elbow room. The qualities which gave them success would be
transmitted to their offspring. The distance in one generation would
be increased in the next; brain power conquering brute force and
skill outwitting strength. While some for awhile remained arboreal
in their habits, never moving easily on the ground, although making
some approach to upright motion, as seen in the shambling gait of
the manlike apes, others developed a way of walking on their hind
legs, which entirely set free the fore limbs as organs of handling
and throwing. Whatever were the conditions which permitted this, the
advantage which it gives is obvious. It was the making of a man."
(p. 126.)
It seems difficult, indeed unfair, to take this seriously. We must
assure the reader that the author of this description shows no
intention of humor either here or elsewhere in his work, or indeed
any consciousness of it. All is given in perfect sobriety. We must
therefore accept it as a profound scientific deliverance of the most
authoritative kind and deal with it accordingly, and believe that
walking on the hind legs and throwing things with the fore limbs was
"the making of a man." How easily men are made!
1. This argument rests on the theory of Natural Selection now
discarded by most evolutionists.
2. Apes have done all he here claims and far more. The chimpanzee
has been taught to sit at a table, to drink out of cups, to eat
with a knife and fork, to wipe his mouth with a napkin and use a
toothpick, but has got no further in the ways of good society, and
as to increase of cranial development, has obtained none save as the
effects of undue potations have produced an enlarged feeling.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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