"There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns
of conjecture out of such a trifling
investment of fact."¹
Mark Twain

After fifty years of marriage, Uncle Arch and Aunt Vera, delighted in entertaining dinner guests with good-natured debates.  No subject escaped scrutiny.  Bemused guests took it all in, turning heads back and forth, following the action like fans at a tennis match.

Uncle Arch typically pronounced his perception to be absolute "fact."  Aunt Vera patiently countered with a condescending smile.  Neither contestant budged an inch. The discussion would eventually fade away when one would shrug, "Just because you say it, doesn't make it a fact!"

Discussion over!

Rarely did the two minds meet in concert, each partner too intellectually proud to confess error.

A news weekly staff writer, recently opined that evolution is now "...a fundamental fact of biology...Scientists have confirmed virtually all of Darwin's postulates,"² Not exactly an objective assessment from a rocket scientist in the tradition of a Wernher von Braun. Rather, another knee-jerk nod to the mathematically impossible.

If wise old Uncle Arch and Aunt Vera were around, they would have objected in unison, eyes snapping while declaring with an all-knowing grin, "Just because you say it, doesn't make it so!"

Big problem here!

Proponents of life by accidental design perceive unauthenticated conjecture as "fact."  Persuasive evidence exists to the contrary. Congenital defects render evolutionism an implausible imposter.

Evolutionists have yet to "put up" corroborating evidence overcoming three core obstacles essential to the theory's viability: (1) the origin of the first living cell and the source of its DNA information; (2) the paucity of alleged transitional life forms in both the fossil record as well as within the last four millenniums of living history; and (3) viable examples of evolution-in-action other than a genome's inherent ability to adapt.

First Life
Suggesting precisely orbiting spheres of original matter originated from an explosion in space doesn't correlate with observable explosions on earth that shatter and destroy, producing only disorder.  Nor can evolutionism explain the post-Big Bang origin of first life on earth.  Even Darwin ducked the issue, admitting "... Science as yet throws no light on the far higher problem of the essence or origin of life."³

At the top of evolutionist George A. Kerkut's 1965 list of evolution's seven nonprovable assumptions  "...is that non-living things gave rise to living material."⁴ Sir Fred Hoyle, another British evolutionist, scoffed at the concept of a genetic code emerging from some primordial organic soup by chance, branding it "nonsense of a high order."⁵  Sir Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the DNA molecule's shape, acknowledged that in the view of "An honest man...the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle..."⁶

Nothing has changed since those eye-opening reality checks. Speculation that some primordial soup mixed with doses of heat, cold, water, and lightening somehow delivered genetic information creating a living cell proves nothing other than superstitious imaginings. No significant breakthroughs have rescued Darwin's wishful thinking so as to warrant labeling his views as a "fundamental fact of biology."

Missing Transitionals
The fossil remains of millions of life forms have been recovered from sedimentary rock. Multi-millions of theoretical transitional links, essential to Darwin's dream, continue missing.  The paucity of those sought-after intermediates troubled Darwin.   He admitted that if his theory were true, the record should abound with fossils in transit from one life kind to something new and different.

"Numberless intermediate varieties...must assuredly have existed...The number of intermediate and transitional links between all living and extinct species must have been inconceivably great...Geological research...does not yield the infinitely many fine gradations between past and present species required on the theory...Why do we not find beneath this system great piles of strata stored with the remains of the progenitors of the Cambrian fossils?..."⁷

Why indeed?  The most obvious explanation is that they don't exist!

Extinct species proliferate!  But even arguably intermediate fossils prove scarce.   Never mind that similarly shaped bone fragments exists.  But dead bones don't necessarily confirm genetic relationship.  Look-alike fossil bone shards from extinct life forms, don't, by themselves, demonstrate transition linkage. To the contrary, the fossil record overflows with a fascinating mix of extinct species and life forms displaying a remarkable resemblance to their hardy descendants living in today's world - something called stasis!

If linkage is virtually missing from the rocks, what about living nature?  If Darwin's thought was on the money, nature should abound with examples of life kinds in transit.  But where are they? Where in nature's living world can Darwinian thought be authenticated? Is evolutionism a fait accompli?   Has evolution not been taking place during the last four millenniums of recorded history?

As with the record in the rocks, the living world seems bereft of evolutionism in action - no half-formed eye, partial ear, or appendages in transit from fin-to-limb-to-wing.  Nada!

Intra-Genomic Adaptations
Confronted with evidentiary shortfall, apologists for Darwinian thought cite evidence of the real to prove the unreal.⁸

The prolific variety of finches, orchids, and dog breeds derive from the information built into the DNA of their respective genomes.  Intra-Genomic Adaptation (IGA) assures dazzling diversity in every basic plant and animal form but has nothing to do with radical transitions to new and different life forms envisioned by Darwinism.

The key is genetic information!  More specifically, the lack of new information essential to power the kind of radical modification demanded by evolutionism.  Without new information, finches, orchids, and dog breeds adapt but lack the genes to lead to a new and different animal kind.   Notice: dogs remain dogs; orchids, orchids, and finches, finches.

Dazzling diversity, for sure!  Up-the-down staircase to entirely new and different families, orders, and classes topped with a giant leap to a different phylum?  Never!

The intra-genomic change is just that: it never reverses direction leading up the taxonomic tree of life.  Just as an exceptional athlete able to clear the bar of a seven-foot high jump can never leap the moon, the marvelously diverse dog breeds parading in the Westminster Kennel Club Show lack the genetic wherewithal to parent cats.

Spinmiesters may mislabel the variety potential of dog genes as "evolution" but this in no way represents what Darwin had in mind.  Intelligent breeders can play with dog genes, orchid genes, or finch genes in order to produce unique colors, sizes, and shapes. However impressive the result, this exercise in genetic design is not evolution.

Stretching semantics doesn't alter scientific reality. Adaptation using the information present within a genome from the beginning, never equates evolutionism:  Intra-Genomic Adaptation is real, assuring diversity and survival.  One of evolutionism's ugly secrets is the persistent allegation that IGA reality corroborates Darwin's dream.

Darwin fretted that the fabric of his philosophy contained "flaw[s] and holes."   He was right!  Enough to fill pages of erudite books.  First among many, a trio of evolutionism's darkest secrets lurk in the mists of public misunderstanding.

The theory still can't account for the accidental origin of the first ever living cell and the source of its genetic information; the millions of alleged transitional links that continue missing; and the slight-of-hand legerdemain that relies on the very real adaptation capability inherent in a genome as "proof" of evolution's never was.

Evolutionism doesn't equate "fact" when confronted with the unresolved issues of first life, missing transitionals and the claim that the diversity from Intra-Genomic Adaptations proves Darwinian conjecture. Investigation of the numerous "flaws and holes" in the philosophy sensed by Darwin himself, suggest the creation/evolution debate is rooted in irreconcilable world views.

Warring Worldviews
The natural world exists either by accident or else it vividly displays an Intelligent Design created by a Master Designer.  Despite attempts to bridge the philosophical gap, disparate views don't reconcile. 

Either the Creator God exists or the universe is an unplanned accident without purpose or meaningful future.  The 180^ο divide involves more than an exercise in intellectual gymnastics.  It permeates the meaning of life and death for every human.

Career scientists power through mists of the unknown to achieve pinnacles of creativity.  Giant minds pursue and discover.  But research that functions within self-imposed limits ignoring the Author of science, risks missing the big picture.  Concepts of time without beginning or end and space without boundaries, baffle the very elect when confined inside the box of solo naturalism.

Evolutionism's essence envisions life without intelligent design, a jungle menagerie of random chance forces haphazardly competing for survival, capped off by a forever death.  Humans are sentenced to a non-existent, tomorrow.

Centenarian Ernst Mayr died in 2005.  Sixty-year-old Stephen Jay Gould passed away two years previously.  They both left marks as brilliantly articulate advocates of a science crafted by human thought and a universe without a Creator.  If correct, their future is past tense, bleak with the prognosis of eternal death.

Saturated with the arrogant psyche of imperial empire, Darwin contributed an influential voice to the seduction of science.  Social Darwinism reared its ugly head.

"The western nations of Europe...immeasurably surpass their former savage progenitors and stand at the summit of civilization...Various races differ much from each other...the capacity of the lungs, the form and capacity of the skull...in their intellectual, faculties."⁹

"...Without the accumulation of capital the arts could not progress; and it is chiefly through their power that the civilized races have extended, and are now everywhere extending, their range, so as to take the place of the lower races."¹⁰  "At some future period, not very far distant, as measured by centuries, the civilised [civilized] races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races."¹¹

Looking down his nose at "bestial Fuegians,"¹² Darwin left no doubt as to what he meant.  Serious scientists refute this harsh appraisal. "...These superficial comments of a passing tourist in 1832 were entirely without foundation. They were completely demolished by the findings of two missionary priests, both highly qualified scientists...Darwin had no scientific qualifications at all."¹³ 

Charles' younger cousin, Francis Galton, driven by survival of the fittest rationale, introduced "eugenics" in 1883.  Galton's pseudo-science postured as "...improving the stock...to give the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable."¹⁴

George Bernard Shaw's blunt take on social conditions adds insight.  "Never in history...had there been such a determined, richly subsidized, politically organized attempt to persuade the human race that all progress, all prosperity, all salvation, individual and social, depend on an unrestrained conflict for food and money, on the suppression and elimination of the weak by the strong...in short, on ‘doing the other fellow down' with impunity."¹⁵

The surging currents of Darwin's racist opinions offered fertile soil for the terrors of war inundating Europe. Wars testify to a spiritual shortfall.  Arrogant pride and greed mobilize killer machines.  Evolutionism doesn't necessarily instigate war, but the theory's "survival of the fittest" mentality is seized upon as justification. 

Seven years after Darwin's Origin of Species, Germany's Otto von Bismarck invaded Austria. Oscar Peschel, supporter of the invasion, rationalized war as a function of evolutionism.  "Even we in Germany should view the most recent events as a lawful evolutionary process...With such magnificent events it is no longer a matter of right or blame, but rather it is a Darwinian struggle for existence, where the modern triumphs and the obsolete descends into the paleontological graves."¹⁶  

Shortly before the outbreak of the First World War, Wilhelm Shallmayer argued wars elevated the human race, because they resulted in the annihilation of ‘lower' races and that wars "...between races that are unequal - such as between Europeans and black Africans - are beneficial, especially if they lead to the extermination of the ‘lower' races."¹⁷

The German philosopher, Freidrich Nietzsche, ran with the superman mentality, impacting World War I's devastation and carving a path for Adolph Hitler's World War II reign of evil.  Seeds of hate were sown by Nietzsche long before the horrors of the Holocaust engulfed a continent.

The Science of Power, published the year World War I ended, warned of Germany's "superman" doctrine. "Within half a century the Origin of Species had become the Bible of the doctrine of the omnipotence of force...Nietzsche's teaching represented the interpretation of the popular Darwinism delivered with a fury and intensity of genius." Nietzsche "gave Germany the doctrine of Darwin's efficient animal in the voice of his superman...military textbooks in due time gave Germany the doctrine of the superman translated into the national policy of the super state aiming at world power."¹⁸     

"During the Holocaust, every institution established to uphold civilized values failed - the academy, the media, the judiciary, law enforcement, the churches, the government, and yes, the medical and scientific disciplines as well. So much for the virtues of civil society, and so much for the hallowed purity of science."¹⁹

Darwin, presumably a sensitive soul, would have abhorred the senseless slaughter unleashed by the Holocaust.  But patently racist advocacy blighted the social fabric, inadvertently providing the Nazi leader a philosophic hook upon which to hang demonically perverted aspirations.

War's devastation left a brutal footprint on the twentieth century.  Ten million deaths wiped out major parts of a European generation in World War I.  Another 60 million lives were snuffed out by WW II agonies.

No one argues that the intricacies of man-made computers, TVs and airplanes created themselves, by accident, without input from an intelligent designer. And yet, the concept of an accidentally designed complex life form is an article of faith embraced by evolutionism's devotees.  

The worldview built on rational faith that nature offers compelling evidence of an Intelligent Power beyond human comprehension, stands in contrast to Darwinian thought.  This worldview inspires peace, the ability to forgive, and the motivation to enhance the lives of others.

Far from isolated abstraction, comprehensive study of science requires reaching out to its Author.  The Creator of all things built inorganic matter within the context of the universe's balanced order.  Complex information, existing from the git-go in the DNA molecule of the simplest living cell, could no more appear by accident than a roll of a standard pair-of-dice can produce a number higher than twelve. 

Rick Warren's The Purposeful Life suggests that human life is not going to make sense until we know and accept we were made by God.  This worldview brings hope, meaningful purpose, abundant living and an inner peace that "passes understanding."

1.  Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (Boston: J.R. Osgood, 1883), p. 156 as quoted by Brad Harrub, Reason and Revelation, May, 2001, 21(5):38.
2.  Brad Harrub and Bert Thompson, "Creationists Fight Back..." Reason & Revelation (Montgomery, Alabama: Apologetics Press, September, 2002) 22[9]:pp. 65-71; a critique of Thomas Hayden's, "The New Reality of Evolution," U.S. News and World Report (July 29, 2002) 133[4]:43, 44.
3.  Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, (Sixth Edition) (New York: Random House, Inc., 1993) p. 637.
4.  George A. Kerkut, The Implications of Evolution (London: Pergamon, 1960) p. 6, as cited by Harrub and Thompson, "Creationists Fight Back."
5.  Sir Fred Hoyle, "The Big Bang in Astronomy," New Scientist (November 19, 1981) 92:527, cited by Harrub and Thompson, "Creationists Fight Back."
6.  Sir Francis Crick, Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1981) p. 88), cited by Harrub and Thompson, "Creationists Fight Back."
7.  Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species) pp. 219, 220; Charles Darwin, (1881), from F. Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, vol. 3, 309; and Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, pp. 617, 618.
8.  Carl Zimmer, "Testing Darwin," Discover, February, 2005, pp. 29-35.  The author cites dog breeds, orchids and finches as examples of Darwinism in action.  The diversity potential within a single genome proves its inherent adaptability not Evolutionism.
9.  Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, vol. I, pp. 178 & 216.
10.  Darwin, Descent, vol. I, 169 
11.  Darwin, Descent,  vol. I, 201.
12.  Darwin, Origin, p. 468.
13.  Paul Kildare, "Monkey Business," Christian Order, vol. 23 (December 1982) p. 591 as cited by Henry M. Morris, Their Words Against Them (San Diego: Institute for Creation Research, 1997), p. 231.
14.  Ruth Hubbard and Elijah Wald, Exploding the Gene Myth (Boston: Beacon Press, 1997), p. 14; citing Francis Galton, Inquiries Into Human Faculty (London: Macmillan, 1883), pp. 24, 25.
15.  Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried, p. 57; citing George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah (Penguin paperback), p. 1921.
16.  Richard Weikart, From Darwin to Hitler (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) p. 166, quoting Oscar Peschel, "Ein Ruckblick auf die jüngste Vergangenheit," Das Ausland 39, 36 (September 1866): 874.
17.  Richard Weikart, From Darwin to Hitler (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) p. 177, citing Wilhelm Schallmayer, "Die Auslesewirkungen des Krieges,"Menschheitsziele 2 (1908): 381-5.  Reference to "lower" races represents Schallmayer's words.
18.  Adams, The Scopes Trial, pp. 336, 337; citing Benjamin Kidd, The Science of Power (1918), pp. 46, 47 and 67 as referenced by William Jennings Bryan in a draft summary intended for presentation at the 1925 Scopes Trial.
19.  Phillip Kennicott, "The Seduction of Science to Perfect and Imperfect Race," The Washington Post, April 22, 2004, C 1 & 5, quoting Sara J. Bloomfield.

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