December 18, 2005
Darwinism on Defense
By Pat
Buchanan
Among the
most influential men of the 20th century were a pair of 19th century
scholars: Charles Darwin and Karl Marx.
Recent years
have not been kind to either. Marxism-Leninism, the ideology that
welded together and drove the Soviet empire, has been discredited
by the horrors it produced and the colossal failure of Marxist
theory when put into practice.
Comes now
Darwin's turn. In his 1859 "The Origin of Species" and
other works, Darwin posited his thesis that man is not the work
of any Creator, but a being that evolved from lower forms of life
out of the primordial ooze.
In his "Politically
Correct Guide to Science," Tom Bethell, who Tom Wolfe calls
"one of our most brilliant essayists," has, in 36 pages,
gathered and briefly described a few of the difficulties that
Darwinists are facing in defending their dogmas against skeptics.
For generations,
scientists have searched for the "missing link" between
ape and man. But not only is that link still missing, no links
between species have been found. As Bethell writes, bats are the
only mammals to have mastered powered flight. But even the earliest
bats found in the fossil record have complex wings and built-in
sonar. Where are the "half-bats" with no sonar or unworkable
wings?
Their absence
does not prove -- but does suggest -- that they do not exist.
Is it not time, after 150 years, that the Darwinists started to
deliver and ceased to be taken on faith?
In the Galapagos
Islands, which Darwin visited in HMS Beagle in 1835, his later
disciples discovered, after a drought, that the beaks of finches
expanded 5 percent to help them crack the dried and hardened seeds
-- i.e., Darwinian adaptation. But when the rains returned, researchers
found the beaks returned to normal size.
No one denies
"micro-evolution" -- i.e., species adapting to their
environment. It is macro-evolution that is in trouble.
The Darwinian
thesis of "survival of the fittest" turns out to be
nothing but a tautology. How do we know existing species were
the fittest? Because they survived. Why did they survive? Because
they were the fittest.
While clever,
this tells us zip about why we have tigers. It is less a scientific
theory than a notion masquerading as a fact.
For those
seeking the source of Darwin's "discovery," there is
an interesting coincidence. Darwin and his collaborator Alfred
Russel Wallace both read Thomas Malthus' famous "An Essay
on the Principle of Population." Malthus theorized that since
the production of food grew by small annual increments, while
population was almost doubling with each generation, the struggle
for food would lead to conflicts and wars in which only the strongest
would survive.
Bethell
is not alone in suggesting Darwin smuggled Malthus' mid-Victorian
political economy into biology. As Bertrand Russell observed,
Darwin's theory is "essentially an extension to the animal
and vegetable world of laissez-faire economics."
Marx's ideas
also seem to have a Malthusian root. Marx predicted that the great
wealth spawned by capitalism would be accumulated by fewer and
fewer capitalists. And as it was, the constant expansion and immiseration
of the proletariat would lead to a workers' revolution in which
the expropriators would be expropriated. This was catnip for anti-capitalists.
But American
capitalism proved Marx dead wrong. While U.S. capitalism did indeed
create plutocrats, the years 1865 to 1914 saw historic gains in
the incomes and well-being of workers. By World War I, to the
rage of Lenin, even Marxists theoreticians were saying the old
boy's theories needed some serious revision.
There are
other questions Darwinists need to answer. If believing that Christ
raised people from the dead is a matter of faith -- and it is
-- is not the Darwinist claim that nature created life out of
non-life a matter of faith? If it is science, why can't scientists
replicate it in microcosm in a laboratory?
If scientists
know life came from matter and matter from non-matter, why don't
they show us how this was done, instead of asserting it was done,
and calling us names for not taking their claims on faith?
Clearly,
a continued belief in the absolute truth of Darwinist evolution
is but an act of faith that fulfills a psychological need of folks
who have rejected God. That picture on the wall of the science
class of apes on four legs, then apes on two legs, then homo erectus
walking upright is as much an expression of faith as the picture
of Adam and Eve and the serpent in the Garden of Eden.
Hence, if
religion cannot prove its claim and Darwinists can't prove their
claims, we must fall back upon reason, which some of us believe
is God's gift to mankind.
And when
you consider the clocklike precision of the planets in their orbits
about the sun and the extraordinary complexity of the human eye,
does that seem to you like the result of random selection or the
product of intelligent design?
Prediction:
Like the Marxists, the Darwinists are going to wind up as a cult
in which few believe this side of Berkeley and Harvard Square.
Pray for
them this Christmas season, and enjoy yourself with a reading
of Bethell's fine and funny little book.
Copyright
2005 Creators Syndicate
