SCIENTISTS SPEAK ABOUT NATURAL SELECTION

Competent scientists wish to tell you the truth about so-called "natural selection," as a mechanism for changing one plant or animal species into another. This is science vs. evolution—a Creation-Evolution Encyclopedia, brought to you by Creation Science Facts.

This material is excerpted from the book, NATURAL SELECTION.
An asterisk ( * ) by a name indicates that person is not known to be a creationist. Of over 4,000 quotations in the books this Encyclopedia is based on, only 164 statements are by creationists. You will have a better understanding of the following statements by scientists if you will also read the web page, Natural Selection.

Many evolutionists believe that natural selection is the only way that cross-species changes (which is what evolution is) could possibly occur.

"So far as we know . . natural selection . . is the only effective agency of evolution."—*Sir Julian Huxley, Evolution in Action, p. 36.

But scientists heartily disagree. They tell us that so-called "natural selection" could not possibly produce evolutionary changes.

"So, at present, we are left with neo-Darwinian theory: that evolution has occurred, and has been directed mainly by natural selection, with random contributions from genetic drift, and perhaps the occasional hopeful monster. In this form, the theory is not scientific by Poper's standards."—*Colin Patterson, Evolution (1978), p. 149 [Director, British Museum of Natural History].

"It is therefore of immediate concern to both biologist and lawman that Darwinism is under attack. The theory of life that undermined nineteenth-century religion has virtually become a religion itself and in its turn is being threatened by fresh ideas. The attacks are certainly not limited to those of the creationists and religious fundamentalists who deny Darwinism for political and moral reasons. The main thrust of the criticism comes from within science itself. The doubts about Darwinism represent a political revolt from within rather than a siege from without."—*B. Leith, The Decent of Darwin: A Handbook of Doubts about Darwinism (1982), p. 11.

"Darwin made a mistake sufficiently serious to undermine his theory. And that mistake has only recently been recognized as such . . One organism may indeed be `fitter' than another . . This, of course, is not something which helps create the organism, . . It is clear, I think that there was something very, very wrong with such an idea. As I see it the conclusion is pretty staggering: Darwin's thoery, I believe, is on the verge of collapse."—*Tom Bethell, "Darwin's Mistake," Harper, February 1976, pp. 72, 75.

Even *Charles Darwin could not conceive how his "natural selection" theory could produce the wonders we find in nature.

"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."—*Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (1909 Harvard Classics edition), p. 190.

"Consider the eye `with all its inimitable contrivances,' as *Darwin called them, which can admit different amounts of light, focus at a different distance, and correct spherical and chromatic aberration. Consider the retina, consisting of 150 million correctly made and positioned specialized cells. These are the rods [to view black and white] and the cones [to view color]. Consider the nature of the light-sensitive retinal. Combined with a protein (opsin), the retinal becomes a chemical switch. Triggered by light, this switch can generate a nerve impulse . . Each switch-containing rod and cone is correctly wired to the brain so that the electrical storm (an estimated 1000 million impulses per second) is continuously monitored and translated, by a step which is a total mystery, into a mental picture."—Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution (1984), p. 215.

*Darwin, himself, later repudiated natural selection and returned to the discredited theory of Lamarkianism.

"I admit . . that in the earlier editions of my Origin of Species I probably attributed too much to the action of natural descent of the survival of the fittest."—*Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, Vol. 1 (1871 1st ed.), p. 152.

Natural selection is based on total randomness of process. Yet the structure and functions of plants and animals had to be the result of very intelligent planning.

"How could the existence of a distinct species be justified by a theory [evolution] that proclaimed ceaseless change as the most fundamental fact of nature?"—*Stephen Gould, in Natural History, August-September, 1979.

"In the case of artificial selection, man intelligently controls the breeding to produce an improved end result. Under natural conditions, *Darwin appealed to blind chance, which could have no innate intelligence, but there was a dilemma: The theory said that life began as a simple organism and evolved into more complex organisms, which implies an intelligent directing force, but he wanted at all costs to avoid any kind of inference to the supernatural."—Ian T. Taylor, In the Minds of Men (1984), p. 159.

"Out of 120,000 fertilized eggs of the green frog only two individuals survived. Are we to conclude that these two frogs out of 120,000 were selected by nature because they were the fittest ones; or rather . . that natural selection is nothing but blind mortality which selects nothing at all?"—*Science Digest, January 1961, pp. 61-63.

"Many variations are so trivial that they could not possibly aid an organism in its struggle for existence. The theory does not explain how the gradual accumulation of trivial variations could result in the appearance of some of the more complex structures found in higher organisms."—*Sayles B. Clark and *J. Albert Mould, Biology for Today (1964), p. 321.

"I could never accept this answer. Random shuttling of bricks will never build a castle or a Greek temple, however long the available time."—*A. Szent-Gyrogyi, The Evolutionary Paragon and Biological Stability, in Molecular Evolution: Prebiological and Biological, p. 111.

Conclusion.

"It might be argued that the theory [of Natural Selection] is quite unsubstantiated and has status only as a speculation."—*G. Simpson, The Major Features of Evolution (1953), pp. 118-119.

"Natural selection is irrelevant to, or negligible in context of, macroevolutionary change."—*A. Hoffman, "Paleobiology at the Crossroads: A Critique of Some Modern Paleogiological Research Programs," in Dimensions of Darwinism (1983), pp. 241, 262.

"Natural selection is differential reproduction, organism perpetuation. In order to have natural selection, you have to have self-reproduction or self-replication and at least two distinct self-replicating units or entities. Prebiological natural selection is a contradiction in terms."—*T. Dobzhansky, "Synthesis of Nucleosidase and Polynucleotide with Metaphosphate Esters," in The Origins of Prebiological Systems (1965), pp. 299, 310.

"In the strictly chemical system, molecules lack the property of self-reproduction—the activated molecule does not perpetuate itself by reproducing its kind, but rapidly returns to a normal level if it does not undergo reaction. Reproduction of stable patterns and stable variants of these patterns is essential for evolution by natural selection."—*Harold Blum, Time's Arrow and Evolution (1968), p. 157.

". . Nobody has ever succeeded in producing a new species, not to mention the higher categories, by selection of micromutations."—*Richard Goldschmidt, Theoretical Genetics.

"I venture to say that few who have made a special and practical study of evolution, and are well-acquainted with recent progress in that study, have much faith in Natural Selection."—*J.T. Cummings, British Scientist, Nature, March 3, 1923.

"The whole real guts of evolution—which is, how do you come to have horses and tigers, and things—is outside the mathematical theory."—*P.S. Moorehead, and *M.M. Kaplan, Eds., Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwin Interpretation of Evolution, The Wistar Institute Symposium Monograph No. 5 (1967), pp. 13-14.

"Natural selection per se does not work to create new species. The pattern of change in so many examples in the fossil record is far more a reflection of the origin and differential survival (selection extinction) of species than the inexorable accumulation of minute changes within species through the agency of natural selection."—*Niles Eldredge, in Natural History, Vol. 89, No. 7 (1980) [Curator of Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History, New York City].

"The theory of natural selection is not really an explanation of organic evolution at all—not even a bad one."—*S. Toulmin, "Science, Philosophy of," in Encyclopedia Britannica Vol. 16 (15th ed., 1974), p. 16 [quoting empiricist philosopher Carl Hempel].

"Although natural selection theory fails to explain the origin of evolutionary novelties, its greatest shortcomings in terms of evolutionary theory is that it fails to explain evolutionary diversity."—*D. Rosen, "Darwin's Demon," in Systematic Zoology 27 (1978), p. 372.

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Forward to the next topic in this series: THE MOTHS AND THE FINCHES: The two best examples of evolution.