Part 3, Charles Darwin: the refutation

On November 24, 1859, Charles Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species: or the preservation of favored races by means of natural selection was released for the first time. All 1,250 original copies were sold on the first day.
The last paragraph of this book reads: “It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing in bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability, from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life and from use and disuse: a ratio of increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence for Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful has been, and are being evolved.” This is, in a few sentences, the entire plan of Darwin’s book.

In other words God created one or a few forms, sometime in ages past, and those forms could, of course, not all survive. So they struggled to stay alive, the best won the struggle for life, and had the best children, and their children fought, and the best of them survived, and had the best children. Thus, man came from some lower creature.

Since Darwin mentioned a Creator, let us ask the Creator what he says about this. Genesis 1:26-27: And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

If man evolved, then we must ask the question, when did he become made in the image of God? When he was a rat, a cat, or a horse? Or perhaps when he became a man. But then, how are we to know that we have arrived at the last stage of our evolution, are we still changing? Or is there danger that we might go back down, and I might have children that are rats?

A great deal of Darwin’s scientific problem lay in the fact that he did not understand DNA, the blueprint for life. This blueprint allows certain amounts of variations, such as a larger dog or smaller dog. A finch with a long beak or a finch with a short beak. However, when Darwin saw these he thought that the animals could become a different type of animal, and that was where he was wrong. Animals cannot get better, but they can mutate.

Harmful mutations are the only form of change DNA can go through, it is a loss of information. The most notable case I am aware of in human mutation is a tribe in Africa who has had to interbreed for so long that many have two toes, their teeth fall out suddenly, and they have many other difficulties.

Harmful mutations are why a camel might be born with only three legs, or one in the wrong place. However DNA cannot mutate to the extent that a camel becomes a blue whale. We do not know exactly where the limits are with every animal, but they are there.

In the end however, Charles Darwin’s problem was not scientific. Darwin had the problem of many, and the Scriptures speak of it in Romans 1:20-22: For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

 

Through His Strength We Will Conquer,

Andrew C. Abbott