THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD & EVOLUTION THEORY

Picture of Scientific Experiments

adapted from an article by

C.E.A. Turner

M.A., Ph.D.

Used with the kind permission of the Creation Science Movement, 50 Brecon Avenue, Cosham, Portsmouth, England, P06 2AW.

Sir Julian Huxley, F.R.S. (Fellow of the Royal Society), the well-known biologist and evolutionist, defined science as “the whole of organised and tested knowledge.” The essence of science is the scientific method: the inductive process of discovering facts and then drawing (or inducing) sound conclusions from them. The test of the validity of a given theory is whether it is supported by and is in accordance with all relevant facts. The theory of evolution, therefore, should not be accepted merely on the basis of speculative possibilities; rather, it should first be assessed with reference to well-attested observations made by competent, impartial observers.

For conclusions to be scientifically sound, relevant facts must be both indisputable and sufficiently numerous to justify the deduction of general conclusions from them. Such conclusions may be formulated into a theory. Every relevant fact later brought to light should be in harmony with the theory. When a theory is found to fit every known fact and it can be used to predict behaviour, events, or additional discoveries, it may become elevated to the status of scientific law. But if new findings are at variance with the theory, the theory must be modified or discarded - the history of science is littered with abandon theories.

Therefore, if the theory of evolution is rightly to be regarded as scientifically sound and treated as if it were a law, it must: (1) be based on verified facts, (2) be in accordance with all biological knowledge, and (3) be capable of standing up to any test.

Speculation

The theory of evolution may be taken as asserting that all organisms have developed, or “evolved,” from simpler types by descent with modification, unaided by any directive force.

Arguing from the limited knowledge of his day, Charles Darwin speculated on the origin of species in the name of science. In doing so, he offered eager naturalists a substitute for the Creator. Sir Julian Huxley made this curious statement: “[W]e have the glorious paradox that this purposeless mechanism, after thousand million years of its blind and automatic operations, has finally generated purpose” (emphasis added). While admitting to a number of difficulties with his theory, especially the absence of a essential scientific evidence that intermediate forms once existed, Darwin assumed that evolution had in fact occurred. To this day, multitudes have followed his lead with a kind of religious zeal. What was at first speculation is now accepted by many as a law, as indisputable as gravity.

Contrary to all experience, we are asked to believe that the complex structure and functioning of man, as well as many thousands of plant and animal species, are the result of blind chance. Evolution, still nothing more than speculation, credits nature with the power to self-create and then improve upon its creations, a power that has not been and cannot be substantiated by the scientific method. This attribution has been fostered by a mass of literature containing statements of unwarranted imagination, often beautifully illustrated with persuasive pictures. In addition, television programs of high production quality repeatedly make unprovable assertions about creatures having evolved by adapting to environmental changes. Such descriptions give the impression that good science lies behind the narratives, yet the authors and script writers might well be asked: “How do you know ? Where is the proof?”

If there is no observational support for the theory of evolution, perhaps IT NEVER HAPPENED!

Negative Results

The physicist, the chemist, the engineer, and the physician can all check their theories with empirical experimentation. But the evolutionist can offer no empirical evidence for his contention. The biologist discovers that acquired characteristics, whether produced naturally or induced artificially, are in fact not transmitted to descendants. The cross-breeding of distinct species produces no new kinds of animals, just sterile crosses that cannot reproduce themselves. The production of mutants by the irradiation of fruit flies has been heralded by some as evidence for evolution. In truth, however, the resulting mutant fruit flies are just inferior for varieties of the same old species of fly.

Impermanence and deterioration are characteristic of mutants. Breeding experiments produced new varieties of flowers, birds, dogs, etc., but no new genetic information is generated, and certainly no new species ever evolve.

These negative results have caused some evolutionists to say that evolution has now ceased. But did it ever happen in the first place? And why should it cease if it is an inherent property of organisms - a natural, even if random, activity? Moreover, after the alleged passage of millions of years, there are still many “unevolved” species. Bees are found in amber and oysters lie entombed in limestone. The coelacanth was said to be an “intermediate,” a fish whose jointed fins were supposed to have transformed into legs before it became extinct. Yet, in 1938, a live specimen was caught off the coast of Madagascar, and more have been caught since - all fully fish.

The fact that evolution is not observed has been explained away using two basic approaches. Darwinians, using the uniformitarian model of evolution, say that the process is so SLOW that it takes millions of years to effect a small change. The proponents of the punctuated equilibria model, on the other hand, say that the chances occurs so FAST, intermediates do not have a chance to fossilize. But there is a third possibility: If there is no observational support for the theory of evolution, perhaps IT NEVER HAPPENED!

Fossil Evidence

Geology has been called upon to furnish evidence of gradual evolution, but opinions differ widely as to the order and age of geological strata. This is hardly surprising because fossil evidence consistently shows species fully formed when they appear in Cambrian strata, allegedly the oldest of fossil-bearing rocks; and Precambrian strata are virtually devoid of fossils. A comparison of scientific papers shows the confusion that results from adherence to evolutionary dogma. Investigations into the age of rocks and the fossils they contain have been plagued by circular reasoning: One evolutionist dates the fossils by their order in the strata, and another will date the strata by the fossils they contain!

Another scientifically unsound practice is the arbitrary arrangement of fossils into evolving series. The case of horse “evolution” illustrates this well. Scientists have argued about the order of its alleged ancestors. A dozen different pedigree arrangements have been suggested. Curiously, the early supposed ancestors of the horse are said to have lived in the U.S.A., but the last of its forbearers is deemed to have inhabited India, on the other side of the world. There are also unexplained variations in the number of ribs and number of toes of so-called intermediates.

If this is the best evidence of an evolutionary series that can be put forward out of thousands of animal species - as it seems to be from the offerings of a number of textbooks - what reliance can possibly be placed upon such a theory?

One evolutionist dates the fossils by their order in the strata, and another will date the strata by the fossils they contain!

If evolutionary links within a single kind, such as the horse, cannot be unambiguously delineated, evolutionary pathways among phyla strain the imagination. What is the link between cold-blooded, scaly reptiles and warm-blooded, feathered birds? Are bats the link between birds and mammals or is it the platypus? Is the whale a link between fish and mammals or not?

Unsound Evidence

Because of the fraudulent nature of the sketches used to advance and support the idea of embryonic recapitulation (the notion that embryonic development in mammals passes through the supposed evolutionary stages of the species; i.e., “ontogeny recapitulates phyogeny”), it has finally been dropped from the list of evidence for evolution - although some publishers and producers of television programs still like to include the fallacious and bizarre argument in their works. The only lesson to learn from our experience with this sorry idea is that scientists who believe passionately in a theory will even doctor evidence to support it. One might imagine they were defending a religious dogma!*

Alleged vestigial organs were once thought to prove that evolution theory was correct. There was a time when 180 organs in man were said to be vestigial, including many now known to have important functions, such as the adrenal and parathyroid glands. Today, one would hesitate to claim that any organ was a useless vestige of evolutionary development.

Descent of Man

For over 100 years, there has been a feverish hunt for the links that are missing in the evolution of man. A few pieces of ape-bone here, or of human skeleton there, are uncritically heralded as long sought-after proof of human evolution. In the attempt to sell the idea that man evolved, various apes and monkeys have been offered as man's supposed ancestors.

The Piltdown Man hoax fooled evolutionists for more than forty years. Prior to 1953, this human skull, fraudulently mated with an ape's jaw, had been hailed as indisputable and indispensable proof of human evolution. When the fake was exposed, evolutionary apologists pleaded that the skull had always been difficult to fit into the series of missing links anyway, adding that the series is actually better off without it. But what kind of science is this that is right both ways?

Other finds of so-called missing links have been almost as spectacular. Following the discovery of a single fossil tooth in Nebraska, Sir Grafton Elliot-Smith, F.R.S., wrote an article on it for the Illustrated London News in 1922. Drawings showed the male and female of this alleged sub-human species, Hesperopithicus, also known as Western Ape-Man, together with imagined contemporary flora and fauna. Five years later, a jawbone with the same kind of tooth was discovered nearby. It turned to have belonged to a extant pig! (Wetzel et al., Science, Vol. 189, No.4200 [Aug. 1, 1975], p.379) Java Man (Pithecanthropus erectus, another “link,” consisted of the skull vault of a giant gibbon and human thighbone found fifteen metres apart. Dubois, the discoverer, concealed for thirty years the fact that he had also unearthed skulls of true men on the same site.

There are still other instances of unscientific twisting of evidence to fit preconceived ideas. The Foxall Skull (U.K.) was conveniently lost; it did not support evolution theory. The Calaveras (U.S.A.), Castenadolo (Italy), and Olmo (Italy) men were dismissed as intrusive burials - despite evidence to the contrary - simply because they were found in strata “older” than their supposed ancestors.

In 1959, Mary Leakey - an anthropologist working in Tanzania - found some 400 fragments of a skull claimed to be from Australopithicus boisei (Zinjanthropus), an ancestor of man. Later, three entirely different portraits of this creature were produced by artists. The treatment of the find was more fiction than science. By confusing fact with fancy, violence is done to the inductive method and contempt is shown for scientific integrity.

A Philosophy, Not Science

The championing of evolution for other than scientific purposes has been evident over the years. Sir Julian Huxley openly stated: “Our policy should be clear - to insist that biological subjects should be treated whenever possible from the evolutionary angle - we biologists shall fail in our social duty if we do not manage to ensure that Evolution and the evolutionary outlook on human affairs and human destiny [as opposed to creation and the Christian outlook] become an important element in the mental equipment of our nation” (emphasis added).

[E]volution blocks genuine scientific progress.

Thus, the evolutionist, forsaking the scientific method, attacks religion and exposes society to the dangers of basing public order on an unproven, amoral, philosophical foundation.

Evolution theory has all of the earmarks of wishful thinking, even a religiously-motivated attempt to find a substitute Creator and Sustainer. The theory consists of little more than conjecture laid upon conjecture. It is a blend of fact and fiction. Consequently, the widespread acceptance of evolution blocks genuine scientific progress.

Conclusion

After more than a century of fieldwork and laboratory research, the theory of evolution still lacks true scientific proof for his claims. In fact, the findings of palaeontology, biochemistry, genetics, and other scientific disciplines are increasingly hostile to the idea of evolutionary origins. Professor W.R. Thompson wrote in his introduction to The Original of Species: “I am not satisfied that Darwin proved his point or that his influence in scientific and public thinking has been beneficial... the success of Darwinism was accomplished by a decline in scientific integrity.” The Swiss naturalist and contemporary of Darwin, Professor J.L.R. Agassiz, summed it all up when he wrote: “The theory of the transmutation of species is a scientific mistake, untrue in its facts, unscientific in its method, and mischievous in its tendency.”


* Another possible case of forgery involves the famous “transitional” reptile-bird, Archaeopteryx. Hoyle & Wickramasingha, Archaeopteryx: “The Primordial Bird, Swansea, UK: Christopher Davies, 1986; also Spetner, Hoyle et al, “Archaeopteryx: More Evidence for a Forgery,” The British Journal of Photography, Vol. 135 (January 7, 1988) pp. 14-17.

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