Day 14 – 52 Books in 52 Weeks

I finally finished Darwin’s The Origin of Species. It has been a tough read. I’ve attempted to keep an open mind, to see what he saw, to understand why he came to the conclusions that he did, yet he provides no concrete facts to back his work.

Chapters eleven and twelve tackle the topic of Geographical Distribution. He discusses why (or why not) different species appear in different areas of the planet. On page 349, he poses a question in order to prove his point that the “capacity of migrating across the sea is more distinctly limited in terrestrial mammals, than perhaps in any other organic beings…” Then he says, “But if the same species can be produced at two separate points, why do we not find a single mammal common to Europe and Australia or South America?” And a few lines later says, “The answer, as I believe, is, that mammals have not been able to migrate…”

One word for Mr. Darwin: humans.

What about rats?

Maybe bats?

Perhaps he doesn’t consider them mammals.

Skip ahead about thirty pages and he says, “…all the individuals both of the same and of allied species have descended from a single parent; and therefore have all proceeded from a common birthplace, notwithstanding that in the course of time they have come to inhabit distant points of the globe.”

I’m guessing he means all species except mammals.

Moving on to Chapter 13: Mutual Affinities of Organic Beings: Morphology: Embryology: Rudimentary Organs. I’ll give him an A- for his title. Sounds impressive. But, I have to give him an F on content.

Page 397, though he’s alluded to this throughout the writing, here he plainly states it: “The varieties, or incipient species, thus produced ultimately become converted, as I believe, into new and distinct species…” So, if I’ve been following him correctly, everything passes on attributes to its progeny, therefore changing or “converting” it, and thus creating a new species entirely. And, if you recall quotes I posted in earlier chapters, the new species, being more perfect than its parent, causes the parent species to be extinct.

If this were true, and if, as he believes, that everything on the planet is descended from the same primordial soup, wouldn’t we all end up as the same superior beings? It would be a planet filled with humans. There’d be no plants, no insects, no animals – only humans (or whatever Darwin believed was the more perfect species) because the “superior” humans would have stamped out everything else on the planet during their evolution.

His last chapter is a summary of his conclusions. Most of which I have quoted as I’ve gone along in this blog. I still found no answer to how, if we all came from the same amoeba, we ended up with billions of different life forms. From plankton to woodpeckers to wheat to humans. How could we, as I stated above, have “modified” so differently, if for the first billion years of the planet’s existence, were under the same conditions as everything else? Shouldn’t we have all evolved the same way?

And if we all were evolved from the same four or five progenitors (page 454) in the case of animals, or less in the case of plants… how again did we end up with so many millions of life forms? And the fact that there were only what, maybe ten “parents” for all of creation… out of the entirety of the “primordial soup” that we supposedly evolved from… well, it must have been more like a primordial drop of water, than an ocean or even a bowl of soup to only come up with ten amoebas that could evolve.

And what is the timeline for evolution? As I mentioned before, the horseshoe crab hasn’t changed in 445 million years. Darwin gives no timeline. Everything is variable. Has to be or his theory won’t work.

Personally, I think it takes more faith to believe in what Darwin is suggesting than it does to believe that God, in His infinite creativity, made all of these wonderful (and sometimes icky) plants and animals. I’d rather think of myself as someone special that God created than someone who is descended from some goo.

Anyway, I hope I’ve made some people think and question Darwin’s theory. I don’t have a science background, so I’m coming at this from a common sense point of view. I stated at the beginning that his views were against what I believed, and I have tried to be unbiased in that regard. But his lack of documented facts, combined with the sheer number of “ifs” and “suppose” and “perhaps” that are required to believe his theory just left me astounded that people take this as science.

Tomorrow’s blog should be more fun. I hope to get a good chunk of House by Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker read. You probably won’t see another post then until Monday or Tuesday since I’m headed out of town for a couple of days.

Happy reading!