The Story of Creation as Told By Theology and By ScienceAckland, T. S. (Thomas Suter)
Religion
The Story of Creation as Told By Theology and By Science
Ackland, T. S. (Thomas Suter)
Bible and science; Creation; Religion and science
3. The theory does not account for any changes which are not
immediately beneficial. [Footnote: In the "Origin of Species" (Ed.
1872) Mr. Darwin makes an admission which is virtually a giving-up
of his whole theory. He says, "In many other cases modifications
are probably the direct result of the laws of variation or of
growth, independently of any good having been thus gained; but
even such structures have often, as we may feel assured, been
subsequently taken advantage of," pp. 165, 166. Here, then, we
have a preparation for future circumstances, which surely implies
design.] If any rudimentary advance is made in the organism, if,
for instance, the rudiments of a new bone, or joint, or organ of
sense are developed, the nascent organ must, according to the
hypothesis of minute changes, be useless in the first instance.
Hence it would confer no advantage in the struggle of life; there
would be no tendency towards its preservation and growth. This
becomes a very important consideration, when certain important
differences in animal structure and habits are to be accounted
for. How, for instance, could the mammary glands be developed in
oviparous creatures? Mr. Darwin regards them as originating in
cutaneous glands, developed in the pouch of the marsupials. But
his grounds for this statement are very meagre. To a great extent
they rest on what an American Naturalist "believes he has seen;"
and besides, the ornithorhyncus, which has no pouch, and which is
lower in the scale of life than the marsupials, by Mr. Darwin's
own admission (O. S., p. 190), possesses the glands. Mr. Mivart's
question (Darwin, O. S., p. 189) is a very pertinent one.
Another point which this view fails to explain, is the
determination of the line of development in particular directions
at different periods. At one time it is most marked in fishes, at
another in reptiles, at another in mammals. How is this to be
accounted for?
4. The experience of cattle-breeders does not warrant the
assumption that the principle of natural selection has more than a
limited operation. No case has as yet been brought forward in
which varieties have been produced which were not capable of
interbreeding. Apart from their experience there is not a particle
of evidence in favour of the assertion that races which cannot be
made to breed together can be descended from a common stock. The
unlimited application of this principle is therefore a pure
assumption.
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