Darwinism and Contemporary Thought

Does contemporary scientific thought in the physical and biological sciences tend to substantiate the Darwinian postulates? Or do the discoveries of the last one hundred years actually weaken the case for organic evolution and the spontaneous origins of life? Several factors call for a severe modification of the Darwinian system and compel a return to creationism as an increasingly valid scientific stance.

Principles Necessary To Validate Darwinism

In scientific circles it is well known that, in a closed system, entropy tends to increase with the passage of time. This is merely another way of saying that a clock (or the universe) tends to run down and that entropy is a measure of the amount of unavailable energy in the system, a measure of how far the clock has run down. In a wider but equally valid sense, entropy is a measure of the order (or disorder) of the molecules in a system, for, as a system runs down, it becomes more chaotic or disordered. This, too, is only to say that complicated molecules (highly organized ones) have an innate tendency to break down to simpler, more stable, less energetic ones.

In some cases it looks as if this general law of thermodynamics is not respected, as when, for example, finely ordered crystals separate out of an apparently unordered liquid phase. It appears here as if order has arisen spontaneously out of chaos. This apparent spontaneous increase of order would run counter to the universal laws of thermodynamics, if it were true. But actually it is not. A true spontaneous increase in order (= decrease in entropy) out of previous chaos has not really occurred. What has happened is that previously hidden order in the molecules in solution has manifested itself in crystallization.

The formulation of these thermodynamic laws is the result of scientific observation over the past hundred years on earth and in the whole known cosmos. They are universal; this is the way things go, universally. But these things do not happen only in physics and physical chemistry; they happen in us, too. Each one of us has arisen from an incredibly small sperm and a somewhat larger ovum. Although early investigators thought they saw a tiny homunculus in the sperm, out of which a real man grew, in reality the sperm and the ovum appear to be much less “ordered,” less “energetic,” than we adults are. The sperm and ovum have no legs, arms, brain, liver, kidney. Thus it looks as if our personal development from what might be considered relatively “simple” sperms and ova, to our complex adult form, with eyes, nose, head, legs, and so on, would represent a “spontaneous” increase in order (= decrease in entropy) as we become differentiated. And indeed, in one way it is, in that we do organize billions of molecules at the expense of metabolic energy, which were before unorganized to this extent, into one human body.

But in reality all this increase in order is “secondary,” since it is master-minded by an incredible “primary order” previously hidden, but nonetheless very much present, on the genes and chromosomes in the sperm and ovum. In the grown adult we see manifest or “expanded” what was previously hidden in a few microns of gene material. In the adult a “decompression” or order, previously highly compressed on the gene, has taken place. Thus, this adult order in us has not “arisen” just spontaneously; it was already there, but in compressed form, in the fertilized ovum right from the start.

If order did arise, even in the growing adult, really “spontaneously,” then scientists would get worried about the validity of the laws of thermodynamics, which have always been observed to hold universally until now. We know now that, in accordance with these laws, even such apparent “vagaries” as the color of eyes and the type of temperament are not really vagaries; they are firmly fixed chemically and are ordered right in the germ cells.

Darwin, when he formulated his theories of the origin of life one hundred years ago, had no knowledge of either the laws of thermodynamics (they were just being worked out by Clausius, Clapeyron, and Kelvin at that time), or the laws of heredity (Mendel’s laws were unknown to him, though published in Darwin’s lifetime). Darwin in his day could therefore assume with impunity that order did arise spontaneously from chaos, that life did arise spontaneously. Today, in the light of scientific discovery, we can no longer do this.

Two Premises Of Modern Biology

Modern biology starts from rather opposite premises to those mentioned above. From the Communists in the East to Dr. George Gaylord Simpson, Sir Julian Huxley, and Dr. Harlow Shapley in the West, most biologists believe in one of two explanations of the origin of life.

1. The first hypothesis is that this earth was once devoid of life and that the elements in some primeval ocean over the course of millions of years began to organize themselves, to “wind themselves up” spontaneously, to become more energy-laden, to become simple amino acids, polypeptides, simple proteins, nucleotides, and finally living protoplasm. They believe that this happened without interference from without (i.e. the system was “closed”). In their eyes (and here the Communist scientists are one with our leading scientists in the West), there is absolutely no question of any supernatural agency’s having any part in this development. Once a living cell had arisen spontaneously, it divided and began competing with its own progeny for food, habitat, and so on. This competition in the struggle for existence allowed the “best” to survive and killed off, at the same time, organisms less adapted to their surroundings. Thus, according to this almost universally accepted scheme of thought, once life was present on the earth, the process of natural selection took care of “spontaneous” evolution to higher and better forms of life. Sir Gavin de Beer, my former zoology professor at Oxford (now at London), says that natural selection is simply a mechanism for achieving a high degree of improbability (Endeavour XVII [1958], No. 66). Thus man was, in this view, produced by spontaneous processes followed by natural selection, and thus will superman be produced inevitably in the course of time. One will not find a single university in the Communist world, or, for that matter, in Europe, that does not base its fundamental biology on these premises; and with the exception of certain denominational colleges and universities, this is true also in the United States. In the biological and natural sciences, it is practically impossible to obtain a Ph.D. anywhere in the world (with the exceptions noted) without subscribing to this scheme.

2. The second hypothesis assumes that the first germ of life did not originate on earth but extraterrestrially. It may have been brought here by a meteor or other accident. Once, however, it was here, natural selection took over and spontaneously produced man out of it. I cannot go into this postulate here, because it merely pushes back the problem of origins into outer space.

“Scientific” Dogmatism

Sir Julian Huxley, Dr. Harlow Shapley, Dr. George Gaylord Simpson, and their colleagues are all unanimous in maintaining that the concept of God has been elbowed out of scientific reckoning by these schemes of thought. Huxley (London) maintains, for example, that “Gods are peripheral phenomena produced by Evolution” (The Observer, July 17, 1960, p. 17). Again: “After Darwin it was no longer necessary to deduce the existence of divine purpose for the facts of biological adaptation” (Rationalist Annual, 1946, p. 87). Science (April 1, 1960) reported that in a lecture before the American Association for the Advancement of Science on “The World into Which Darwin Led Us,” Simpson (Harvard) stated that modern development in the biological sciences had made the religious superstitions (Christianity was obviously meant) so rampant in North America intellectually untenable. Everything we see had come about spontaneously, produced by the laws of the universe we know about.

Shapley (Harvard) is equally dogmatic on these matters: “There is no need for explaining the origin of life in terms of miraculous or the supernatural. Life occurs automatically wherever the conditions are right. It will not only emerge but persist and evolve” (Science News Letter, July 3, 1965, p. 10). One can only ask Dr. Shapley whether he can name even one instance where life has been observed occurring automatically, or even one instance where, having so emerged, it has been observed to persist and evolve to higher forms. A scientist should report on observed facts and not on his speculations as though they were observed facts. No scientist is taken in by this sort of speculation; but the public is knowingly deceived by it, not being in a position to distinguish scientific observations.

If what these famous men say is true, then creationists and believers in God are behind the times and are obscurantists. They must be third-rate intellectually and should not advertise their ignorance by protesting. I am convinced, however, that it is not the creationists who are obscurantists but the Darwinists themselves, who indeed seem not to base their statements and speculations on known scientific laws. My conviction is based on the following reasons.

If life originated on earth—neglecting for the moment the second scheme mentioned above (extraterrestrial origin of life) as not solving any problems—then the earth was at one time a “closed” system with respect to life (supernatural interference being by definition excluded). Experimental science has shown, pretty clearly, however, that, in such a closed system, higher order energetically and otherwise does not arise spontaneously out of molecules in random distribution (i.e., order does not arise spontaneously out of chaos). Billions (literally) of experiments, conscious or unconscious, have been carried out in the past one hundred years and unanimously support this observation about the arising of higher, more complicated and energetic molecules from simpler ones, such as would have been necessary to support the postulated first simple forms of life. Every can of sardines, for example, offers a favorable closed system for spontaneous generation of life. Proteins, carbohydrates, fats, water, salts, oxygen are all present and in proportions favorable to life—the sardines were once alive! Closed and left to themselves, billions of cans of sardines have shown the laws of thermodynamics to be perfectly obeyed—the sardine molecules, slowly but surely, decompose to simpler, more stable, and less energetic forms. Life has never in one single instance arisen. Pasteur proved this.

But how could one get life into such a can of sardines? Apart from injecting a germ of life into it (i.e., opening the closed system and inoculating the sardines with living bacteria, or eating them ourselves, so that dead sardine molecules get metabolized into our living ones), there is another possibility. Theoretically, it would seem possible soon to get a good team of biochemists to work on them, to combine the various nucleotides and so forth with one another as has been done with certain dead virus molecules, and to produce thereby a higher molecule type capable of bearing life—that is, instead of opening the system to “life” we open it to intelligent technique. This has not been done yet in the case of sardines, of course, but might be possible.

But what would be proved by this feat? Simply that something we call human intelligence, combined with advanced biochemical technique, is capable of “reacting” with dead matter, so as to reorder it and raise it to a state capable of bearing life processes. One could shake the constituent sardine molecules up in a test tube for an indefinite period of time (i.e., act without intelligent technique) if one wished to prove that order does not spontaneously arise out of chaos—and on theoretical grounds we may rest assured that it will not within statistically defined limits. But “open” matter and molecules to suitable “biochemical intelligence” (whatever that may be defined as being) and we know immediately what the answer may be: reduced entropy, higher order arising out of chaos, more energetic molecules, maybe even life from the dead.

Now Christians maintain just this, that Intelligence (which they call God) did “react,” according to laws now becoming known, with dead matter (molecules), and life from the dead resulted. The “system” was opened to intelligence. This upsets no thermodynamic apple cart. The system is “open” (to “outside” influence) here, whereas the Darwinist assumption that order in a system closed to “outside” influence resulted spontaneously, does conflict with known laws of nature. Which side is being obscurantist here?

A Few Objections

The Darwinist endeavors to escape this difficulty by postulating that there were conditions in nature at original biogenesis that we have not been able to reproduce in our laboratories yet. If one could repeat, they say, in the laboratory these conditions of yesteryear, then life would again “arise spontaneously.” Dr. Shapley, for example, states what amounts to just that. Is this possible?

Life today consists of exactly the same material elements as at biogenesis. The hydrogen, oxygen, sulphur, phosphorus, carbon atoms, and so on, must be exactly the same today as they were at the beginning, for if their physical or chemical properties had changed in the passage of time, then life could not have remained the same or been continuous. That is, the properties of carbon always must have been the properties of carbon today. One cannot even change oxygen for sulphur in the body or even carbon for silicon without endangering life. Even the exchange of deuterium (heavy hydrogen) for hydrogen has far-reaching consequences in some cases. So the physical and chemical properties of the elements making up the physical basis of life now must have been constant from the beginning. This means also that the conditions necessary for chemical reactions between the same elements and leading to life, must be the same now as at biogenesis. The conclusion we must obviously draw, then, is that life, if it is going to arise today, must do so under the same chemical and physical conditions as at biogenesis yesteryear. The life-bearing elements and their reaction properties are still the same.

The consequences of this for biogenesis are twofold:

1. The same laws of thermodynamics had to be followed at biogenesis as are followed now. These laws can easily be summed up in assuming that spontaneous order never occurs out of chaos in a closed system—that would collide with the laws of thermodynamics (which must be the same today as then) we know! This is a basic law governing the behavior of all elements as we know them.

2. Today we have already discovered at least some experimental conditions necessary for synthesis of life that the Darwinists say they are still looking for! For we have found that only if a “technical intelligence” (however we like to define this), be it in the form of a God or man, gets to work on synthesis (“forming”) of molecules can we expect a higher order capable of bearing life to arise out of chaos! That is, life results only if we “open” a dead previously “closed” system either to technical intelligence or to previously living matter. If that is true today, it must also have been true at biogenesis, for the properties and laws of matter must have remained unchanged since biogenesis. We conclude, then, that life can appear in a closed system only when we open it to outside influence.

The True Position Of Darwinists

This reduces the position of the Darwinists and Neo-Darwinists to the following: they are maintaining that dead matter and dead molecules are capable in themselves, under conditions now unknown, of behaving creatively, i.e., in the reverse sense to what is demanded by the known laws of thermodynamics. One may put it differently: they maintain that dead matter and molecules are capable of producing results we can only ascribe to “technical intelligence” or life. In our scientific and other experience, only “intelligence” or life orders. Now, in the eyes of the Darwinists, “dead nature” has itself become creative; dead nature has ordered simple molecules to more complex ones capable of bearing life. Dead nature, according to this scheme, has assumed the properties of “intelligence,” of life itself—which brings the problem of teleology among the Darwinists into a penetrating light. This reduces the Darwinist to ascribing creative properties to dead matter; that is, dead matter is quite simply a kind of creative god to them. But the laws of thermodynamics demand just that “dead nature” be not creative but subject to destruction. This is the true impasse between creationism and Darwinism.

Father Teilhard de Chardin, S. J., whose Darwinistic writings have swept Europe in the last decade, has recognized this impasse such as few Darwinists do and ascribes boldly to all matter the spark of Life. Primitive molecules, according to Teilhard, have an innate urge to psychic pressure build-ups, ending irresistibly in man or superman as the noosphere develops. But he postulates all this without a single reference to the laws of thermodynamics, which govern the behavior of all matter as we know it today.

Surely, since ordering of chaos obviously has occurred to produce life, it is more scientific to maintain that, in view of our thermodynamic experience, an outside “intelligence”—at present maybe unknown to us—has done this ordering originally. And where, in our experience, does intelligence ever reside, if not in a person, even though it may be here a Superperson?

Conclusion

It seems that in biological circles and in everyday life a catastrophic lapse of logic passes as sound currency and is constantly used against the creationist position. It is commonplace reasoning today to assume that, because the biochemists are reputedly on the way towards synthesizing life in the laboratory, therefore God is explained away. The achievement of synthetic life is being awaited with gloating as the final nail in God’s coffin. But is this reputable logic?

Every year I publish scientific articles on my synthetical experiments in leprosy and tuberculosis chemotherapy and report exact methods of synthesis and biological testing of the products. Assume now that a colleague reads my articles, finds the results interesting, and decides to repeat the work himself. After a year or so he finds all my methods exact (I hope!) and the biological activities of the synthetic products correct. He, in turn, reports his results in the scientific literature and in the conclusion summarizes that he has repeated my experiments and confirmed my results. Therefore, he announces that the Wilder Smith postulate is in reality a myth! That is, I do not exist, because he has repeated my work! How could one conceive such lack of logic?

But, when one thinks it over, this is the precise position of the Neo-Darwinists and their colleagues today. Man is on the way to rethinking God’s thoughts after him, repeating his “experiments,” maybe repeating his work in the synthesis in the laboratory of molecules capable of bearing life. Man has “read” God’s “publications” thoroughly in the study of the cosmos and nature and is now verifying and repeating to some small degree his creative thoughts. We are coming up with secondary “publications” on results he has already achieved. And the conclusion is drawn that therefore God does not exist and is a myth! The one who did the pioneering work is infinitely greater than the one who copies. The infinitely greater nature of this pioneer is illustrated by the supreme concentration of information on that masterpiece, the genetic material: the total properties of the human and other races for all generations down to today were present in the genes of the first pair. But perhaps the really supreme thought is that the Intelligence behind all this invites us to know and love him by making himself understandable to us in God incarnate.

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