Nurturing Naturalism

Creation and evolution, between them, exhaust the possible explanations for the origin of living things. Organisms either appeared on the earth fully developed or they did not. If they did not, they must have developed from preexisting species by some process of modification. If they did appear in a fully developed state, they must indeed have been created by some omnipotent intelligence, for no natural process could possibly form inanimate molecules into an elephant or a redwood tree in one step.1

Far from the musings of a “biased creationist” such as myself, this is the conclusion of the well-known evolutionary biologist Douglas Futuyma. And here he clearly communicates the outer range of possibilities available for thinking people in regard to the question of origins.

In over 30 years of study and speaking about the topic, I’d agree with Futuyma on that point for sure, as I’ve never had anyone articulate a credible third option toward the question of how the variety of life on our planet (both past and present) could have come about either.

And for those who’ve feebly tried to counter with the hybridizing idea of God using evolution to “create,” (sometimes called theistic evolution) this attempted synchronization adds nothing significant to the argument.

In the beginning, it’s either supernatural creation or naturalistic evolution that ultimately explains our existence.

Because whether God kicked everything off by creating the first fully functionally developed life-form and then naturalistic processes took over from there (perhaps tinkered with occasionally supernaturally) or whether nonliving chemicals just randomly came together to form the first living thing by chance (i.e., chemical evolution) and then life evolved from there, Futuyma’s conclusion stands. In the beginning, it’s either supernatural creation or naturalistic evolution that ultimately explains our existence.

Undermining Biblical Authority

In Parts 1–3, we began revealing how Western culture—once rooted in the belief in God and the truth of the Bible—has had its moorings torn away by replacing the clear history laid out in Scripture (particularly the book of Genesis) with a different narrative, the story of evolution. And as these two narratives are in complete contradiction to one another, biblical authority has been severely compromised.

The overwhelming preponderance of the teaching of the modern Darwinian story of evolution through the state-run school systems, museums, and media in Western culture has reinforced belief in this supposed naturalistic history to the point where even many Christians have adopted it, often in a failed attempt to remain intellectually credible in the eyes of the world.

However, far from helping people gain confidence in scriptural authority, all this has done is signal to the world that the Bible is not authoritative in any true sense of the word. As committed atheist Professor Richard Dawkins put it: “It seems to me an odd proposition that we should adhere to some parts of the Bible story but not to others . . . Why bother with the Bible at all if we have the ability to pick and choose from it, what is right and what is wrong?”2

Pre-Darwinian Evolutionists

We also saw that the commonly told story of Charles Darwin somehow being the first to discover and articulate the story of evolution almost singlehandedly is simply revisionist history. Many scholars from ancient cultures, and even Charles’ own grandfather (Erasmus Darwin), had postulated, formulated, and published various evolutionary hypotheses long before Charles Darwin was ever born.

As Grant Allen (one of Darwin’s earliest biographers) wrote in 1892, “Long before Charles Darwin published his epoch-making work, conjecture and speculation were rife in England as to the origin of species and the evolution of organic life.”3

Now some might say that, yes, even though others had dallied with evolutionary ideas throughout history, Charles Darwin’s greatest contribution was the fact that he was the first to propose a unique and specific mechanism as its supposed driving force—natural selection.

In fact, this trope is commonly trotted out to this day in peer-reviewed publications both in print and all over the internet. One example comes from the National Academy of Sciences in the book In the Light of Evolution: Volume III: Two Centuries of Darwin, where the description reads: “In the chapters of this book, leading evolutionary biologists and science historians reflect on and commemorate the Darwinian Revolution.”4

In chapter 13, titled “Darwin and the Scientific Method,” the (now deceased) evolutionary biologist and philosopher Francisco Ayala states,

Darwin occupies an exalted place in the history of Western thought, deservedly receiving credit for the theory of evolution. . . . More important yet is that he discovered natural selection, the process that accounts for the adaptations of organisms and their complexity and diversification.5

Now, as he himself was the former president and chairman of the board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the promotion for the book states that science historians collaborated on this project, you would think Ayala would have known better because his statement is highly inaccurate.

Why? Besides many others believing in evolution prior to him, there are several documented cases proving others before Charles Darwin were quite aware of the process of natural selection as well, what it could do and what its limits were.

Natural Selection Was First Articulated by a Biblical Creationist

One such example of someone clearly articulating the concept of natural selection in print, well before Darwin, comes from (surprising to some) the biblical creationist Edward Blyth.

Blyth published his ideas in The Magazine of Natural History (in 1835 and 1837) well over 20 years before Origin of Species was produced. Also, Darwin was aware of these magazines and, according to some sources, owned copies of them with his own handwritten notes in the margins.6

Another person who fully described natural selection prior to Darwin was the Scotsman Patrick Matthew, who published the book On Naval Timber and Arboriculture even a few years before Blyth in 1831—in which he actually used phrases such as “the continual selection of the strongest” and “the natural process of selection.”7

He made these statements in reference to species change because of his extensive experience with all the fruit in his orchards being slightly different. Again, he did so a full 28 years prior to Darwin’s Origin of Species.

Indeed, in his very thorough work on the subject Darwin’s Century: Evolution and the Men Who Discovered It, Professor Loren Eiseley (a historian of science) notes that “Darwin was forced to admit that Matthew had anticipated both himself and Wallace.”8

Now, the fellow Eiseley is referring to here, Wallace, is Alfred Wallace. Wallace had also articulated a concept of evolution via natural selection to Charles Darwin himself, who then rushed to get a coauthored version of their work published so that Charles’ own work would not be eclipsed by Wallace beating him to the punch so to speak.

As a Natural History Museum’s article on Wallace puts it,

One day in 1858 . . . Wallace had a realisation. He came to understand how species evolved—they changed because the fittest individuals survived and reproduced, passing their advantageous characteristics on to their offspring. Wallace immediately wrote to someone he knew was interested in the subject, Charles Darwin. Darwin had been working on the very same theory for 20 years, but was yet to publish. He sought the advice of his friends, who determined that the ideas of both men would be presented at a meeting of the Linnean Society. Darwin’s masterpiece, The Origin of Species, came out the following year. From that time on, Darwin overshadowed Wallace and it has usually been his name alone associated with the theory of evolution by natural selection.9

Wallace himself comments on how Matthew had clearly been the first to fully articulate the ability of species to change via natural selection in his own biography, commenting on one of Charles Darwin’s admissions regarding Matthew.

“To my mind your quotation from Mr. Patrick Matthew are the most remarkable things in your whole book, because he appears to have completely anticipated the main ideas of the Origin of Species.”10

Author James Marchant also confirms this in his book examining Wallace’s Letters and Reminiscences where he quotes Wallace as saying, “He [Matthew] gives most clearly but very briefly . . . our view of Natural Selection. It is a most complete case of anticipation.”11

As none of these changes could develop rapidly, such a process would require vast periods of time to have occurred for the concept to be viable.

Now here I would remind you of something Douglas Futuyma brought up in his quote at the beginning of this article, the idea that if organisms (such as elephants and redwood trees) were not supernaturally created, then they must have developed incrementally and been modified from previous incarnations. As none of these changes could develop rapidly, such a process would require vast periods of time to have occurred for the concept to be viable.

Interestingly, the historian Eiseley notes that Matthew must have realized this as well and points out that he may have already been exposed to the big picture of naturalistic “Darwinism of the old school” and prejudiced from its original source while conducting his studies, which likely influenced his conclusions greatly.

One other interesting observation can be made: in some of Matthew’s phrases, such as the familiar “millions of ages,” and in his emphasis upon “volitions and sensations” one can perceive the ghost of Erasmus Darwin.12

Darwin’s Grandfather Was an Evolutionist

And here we go full circle. Erasmus Darwin influenced and nudged his culture to imagine a different way to explain the world—through a process of gradual change over deep time—in rejection of the revealed Word of God and the creation account in Genesis.

This eventually leads to his grandson Charles furthering these ideas and defining a supposed mechanism (natural selection) that could supposedly “evolve” creatures given enough time.

Again, this simply isn’t my conjecture here because Eiseley records that Darwin (in reference to the concepts outlined in his grandfather’s work Zoonomia) admitted that “it is probable that the hearing rather early in life such views maintained and praised may have favored my upholding them under a different form in my Origin of Species.”13

Darwin Didn’t Discover Evolution

So can you see how today’s gatekeepers of the past have painted and promoted a perfect picture of Charles Darwin’s “amazing discoveries,” which were in fact rather common knowledge and promoted among many of the more naturalistic or atheistic-minded scientific thinkers of his day?

Indeed, most modern-day depictions make it seem as if he were some kind of giant in the field of science, when in actuality, Charles was more or less riding on the coattails of many who’d gone before him, his grandfather included.

Case in point, before Darwin’s publication came a very popular work from an amateur scientist named Robert Chambers that greased the wheels in preparation for Charles’ evolutionary ideas to become more acceptable to the general public. Chambers published The Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation in 1844 but did so from the shadows, without attribution to himself.

This was likely because Chambers was also quite atheistic in his thinking and, like Erasmus before him, needed to contend with large swaths of Victorian England’s population with the propensity to reject ideas in contradiction to God and his Word and probably wanted to avoid any backlash.

However, Chambers certainly did not hold to a biblical worldview and rejected the historical account of the Genesis flood:

Robert Chambers (1802–71) was not a trained scientist but a philosophically minded journalist who had become convinced of the reality of both cosmic and organic evolution. . . . He believed in the world’s great age and rejected the notion that the entire surface of the planet had been under water.14

And once again we see how it was not primarily science, but rather a philosophy of naturalism that drove Chambers’ conclusions. However, he was able to communicate these ideas at a popular level quite effectively. As Eiseley puts it:

Condemned by critics as immoral and godless, it promptly took the public by storm. . . . While the critics fulminated, the public . . . read his book with eagerness and enthusiasm. . . . “The Vestiges of Creation” . . . was a national sensation; translated into golden verses by Tennyson, evolution became almost a national creed.”15

As influential as Chambers’ work was, he does not afford much mention in the official annals of promoting the story of evolution. However, he seemed to have accomplished what he wanted, as he said in his own words, “I have only opened a path that others may turn into a high road.”16

And indeed, he did. By the time Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species tumbled off the presses 15 years later, the ground of naturalism had been tilled and cultivated for years, with many atheistic-minded contributors having toiled over and prepared it for what was to come.

However, today’s guardians of the past continue to hold Darwin up as their one, true hero, with no less than the Journal BioScience publishing articles such as “Ten Myths about Charles Darwin,” attempting to discredit the true history regarding his “discovery” of natural selection in relation to the story of evolution.

There are many other Darwin myths, but most have been long discredited. One is the idea that evolution was “in the air” at the time, and if Darwin had not thought of it when he did, someone else soon would have. Although the idea of evolution, in the sense of transmutation of species, was broached by Buffon, and was openly advocated by Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, as well as by the anonymous author of Vestiges of Creation ([1844] 1994), no one had proposed a plausible mechanism by which such change could occur.17

If not for Alfred Wallace announcing his idea of natural selection to Darwin himself, Charles likely would have continued to delay publishing Origin of Species.

As you can see, this is a complete distortion of the facts. Evolutionary ideas certainly were “in the air” and had already been published. The most egregious omission in the former quote is that if not for Alfred Wallace announcing his idea of natural selection to Darwin himself, Charles likely would have continued to delay publishing Origin of Species. So who exactly is promoting myths about Darwin here?

However, the most ironic thing of all is that natural selection (touted as the specific mechanism by which evolution operates and that Charles is supposed to have singularly “proposed”)—whether examined through the perspective lens of a creationist or an evolutionist—has never been a singularly viable mechanism for the story of evolution! And this has been admitted to by evolution-believing scientists both past and present.

Join us for Part 5 where we will drill further into why natural selection fails scientifically as a mechanism for Darwinism and explore in more detail some of the men that promoted this story of evolution and their reasons for doing so.