William A. Williams:
14. CHANCE OR DESIGN?
Evolution is the old heathen doctrine of chance. It professes to eliminate design and a personal active Creator. The theory of natural selection allows no design, no intelligence, no interference, no control, by the Creator. He does not interfere even by means of law. M. M. Metcalf, of Oberlin, O., (shades of Chas. G. Finney!), a prominent evolutionist, says, “The last stand was made by those who claim that supernatural agency intervenes in nature in such a way as to modify the natural order of events. When Darwin came to dislodge them from this, their last intrenchment, there was a fight.” Yes! the fight will last while any one tries to substitute chance for the control of Almighty God.
The universe teems with countless evidences of intelligent design of the highest order, whether it is found in the starry heavens, or in the law and order of the atoms hiding from the most powerful microscope. All things came by chance or by design. They say there is no design. We wonder that the hand that wrote the lie was not palsied. It would be, if the same Creator that filled every muscle, nerve, bone, and tissue of the sacrilegious hand, with numberless proofs of design, were not a long-suffering and merciful God.
Prof. Vernon Kellogg says: “Darwinism may be defined as a certain rational causo-mechanical (hence non-teleologic) explanation of the origin of species.” Translated into plain English, this euphemistic expression means that Darwinism excludes all design and control by a Creator. Chance pure and simple. All species originated by chance, without interference by a supreme Being. This senseless doctrine of chance has been condemned by man in every age.
We can only note a few of the evidences of design, found in bewildering numbers in every part of God’s great creation.
The Human Body. Can evolutionists imagine how the human body could be crammed fuller of the clearest proofs of the most intelligent design, indicating a mind of the highest order? Many of the most remarkable inventions of man were suggested by the wonderful contrivances found in the human body. Yet they say this marvelous piece of ingenuity did not come from the hand of the Creator but was developed by blind chance or “natural laws,” without a trace of intelligent design by the Creator, or by man or beast. The human body can no more be a product of chance or causo-mechanical evolution than a Hoe printing press, or Milton’s Paradise Lost.
On high medical authority, we are told that there are in the human body 600 muscles, 1000 miles of blood vessels, and 550 arteries important enough to name. The skin, spread out, would cover 16 square feet. It has 1,500,000 sweat glands which spread out on one surface, would occupy over 10,000 sq. ft., and would cover 5 city lots, 20 x 100 ft. The lungs are composed of 700,000,000 cells of honey comb, all of which we use in breathing,–equal to a flat surface of 2,000 square feet, which would cover a city lot. In 70 years, the heart beats 2,500,000,000 times, and lifts 500,000 tons of blood. The nervous system, controlled by the brain has 3,000,000,000,000 nerve cells, 9,200,000,000 of which are in the cortex or covering of the brain alone. In the blood are 30,000,000 white corpuscles, and 180,000,000,000,000 red ones. Almost 3 pints of saliva are swallowed every day, and the stomach generates daily from 5 to 10 quarts of gastric juice, which digests food and destroys germs. Two gallons daily! It is easy also to believe that the “very hairs of our heads are numbered,”–about 250,000.
Yet many an upstart, with thousands of the most marvelous contrivances in his own body, is ready to shout that there is no God and no design, or that there has been no interference since creation, and that our bodies have reached the dizzy heights of perfection, without intelligence, purpose or design. Absurd in the highest degree! “We are fearfully and wonderfully made.”
The Eye. Darwin says, “To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I frankly confess absurd in the highest degree.” (Italics ours). After admitting that it “seems absurd in the highest degree,” he proceeds, as if it were certainly true. Darwin has been admired for his candor, but not for his consistency. After admitting that an objection is insuperable, he goes on as if it had little or no weight. And many of his followers take the same unscientific attitude. They try to establish their theory in spite of overwhelming arguments.
“Reason tells me,” he says, “that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye, to one complex and perfect, can be shown to exist, such gradation being useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case” (certainly?), “if further,” he continues, “the eye varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case” (most modern evolutionists say certainly not the case; what, if variations are unfavorable?); “And if such variations should be useful, (what if not useful?) to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable to the imagination (Italics ours) should not be considered as subversive of the theory”!! Darwin undertakes a task far too great for his mighty genius. “Believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed” is many moral leagues from proving that it was so formed. We must have stronger proof than sufficient to lead us to believe that such an eye could possibly be so formed. All proof is exhausted in the struggle to prove the possibility of the formation of so marvelous an eye, to say nothing of the probability, much less the certainty required by science. We hold evolutionists to the necessity of proving that the eye was certainly so formed. We demand it. Otherwise, we shall certainly “consider it subversive of the theory.” And if acquired by one species, how could it benefit another species? But we must contest the claim that the wonderful eye of man and animals could have been formed by evolution. Darwin’s whole theory aims to account for all creation, with its super-abundant evidences of design, by natural selection, which works without design and without intelligence. The theory is founded upon the monstrous assumption that unintelligent animals and plants, can, by aimless effort arrive at such perfection as the organs of the human body, exceeding anything in mechanical contrivance, invented to date by the genius of man. Indeed, that wonderful invention of the telescope is but a poor imitation of the eye, and does not begin to equal it in marvelous design. Who would say that the telescope might have been constructed by chance, or the fortuitous concurrence of atoms, or by natural selection, or any other attempted method of blotting out the great intelligent Designer of the universe? It not only “seems absurd in the highest degree,” but certainly is, and is fatal to the theory.
The eye is so wonderful in its powers, and delicate adjustments, that we stand amazed at the evidences of design, and at the wisdom of the Maker of the eye, far exceeding the highest inventive genius of man. To say that this is the result of “natural selection,” is absurd and ridiculous. Evolution eliminates design, mind, and an active and ever present God, and substitutes blind chance or natural selection, dubs it “science” and asks the world to believe it!
According to the evolution theory, the gain in the mechanism of the eye causes its possessors to survive, and others to die. Is that true? Are there not many species that survive, whose eyes are less perfect than the eye of man? Indeed, it is claimed that many animals have eyes superior to man. If so, why did man survive and become the dominant species, with eyes less perfect? The compound eyes of some species are superior in some respects, as every one knows, who has ever tried to slip up on a fly. A scientist says that fleas have such perfect vision that the darkness under the bed clothes is to them a glaring light.
Darwin makes a fatal admission, when he says, “To arrive, however, at a conclusion regarding the formation of the eye with all its marvelous yet not absolutely perfect characters, it is indispensable that the reason should conquer the imagination; But I have felt the difficulty far too keenly to be surprised at others hesitating to extend the principle of natural selection to so startling a length.” (Italics ours). No wonder the reason and judgment of mankind revolts against such a theory and that so many evolutionists themselves reject it.
Three or four per cent. of the population are color blind–“red-blind” –and are not able to distinguish the color of the green leaves from that of the red ripe cherries. Can it be possible that the eye becomes more perfect, because those who had less perfect eyes perished, and only those who could recognize colors survive until color blindness is finally eliminated? Is such a doctrine scientific? Is it more reasonable to believe it than to believe that an infinitely wise and powerful God created this organ of marvelous value and beauty? Of course, the ability to recognize color is only one of the many perfections of the eye.
Evolution is made so much more incredible, because it teaches that every permanent improvement in the eye is made at the expense of multitudes of individuals that perished because of the lack of the improvement. The defect perished only because all individuals afflicted with it perished. Is this true?
Location of organs. But if the evolutionist could convince the thoughtful student that the marvelous eye could have been so formed, by blind chance or natural selection, how could he account for the advantageous location of the eye and other organs? While we can not well name a fraction small enough to express the mathematical probability of the formation of the eye, the ear, and other organs of the body, we easily can compute the fraction of the probability of their location, though very small. In the passage quoted from Darwin, he begins with the simple eye, but does not say how the eye originated. Hon. William J. Bryan in his book, “In His Image,” p. 97, says, “But how does the evolutionist explain the eye, when he leaves God out? Here is the only guess that I have seen,–if you find any others, I shall be glad to know of them, as I am collecting the guesses of the evolutionists. The evolutionist guesses that there was a time when eyes were unknown–that is a necessary part of the hypothesis. And since the eye is a universal possession, among living things, the evolutionist guesses that it came into being,–not by design or act of God–I will give you the guess,–a piece of pigment, or as some say, a freckle, appeared upon the skin of an animal that had no eyes. This piece of pigment or freckle converged the rays of the sun upon that spot, and when the little animal felt the heat on that spot, it turned the spot to the sun to get more heat. This increased heat irritated the skin,–so the evolutionists guess–and a nerve came there and out of the nerve came the eye. Can you beat it? But this only accounts for one eye; there must have been another piece of pigment or freckle soon afterward, and just in the right place in order to give the animal two eyes.”
Now assuming, what seems an utter impossibility, that the wonderful mechanism of the eye can be accounted for by chance or natural selection (another name for chance since design is excluded), how can we account for the location of the eyes, and, in fact, of all the other organs of the body? We can easily calculate the mathematical probability on the basis of natural selection. There are from 2500 to 3500 square inches of surface to the human body, a space easily 3000 times the space occupied by an eye. The eye, by the laws of probability, is just as likely to be located any where else, and has one chance out of 3000 to be located where it is. But out, of our abundant margin, we will concede the chance to be one out of 1000, and hence its mathematical probability is .001. For mathematical probability includes possibility and even improbability. The compound probability of two things happening together is ascertained by multiplying together their fractions of probability. Now the probability of the location of the second eye where it is, also is .001. And the compound probability of the location of both eyes where they are, is .001 x .001 or .000,001. In like manner, the probability of the location of each ear where it is, is .001, and of the two ears .000,001. The compound probability of the location of two eyes and two ears where they are, is .000001 x .000001 or .000,000,000,001. The two eyes and two ears have but one chance out of a trillion or a million million to be located where they are. The location of the mouth, the nose, and every organ of the body diminishes this probability a thousand fold. We are speaking mildly when we say that this calculation proves that the evolution of the body, by chance or natural selection, has not one chance in a million to be true. So ruthlessly does the pure and reliable science of mathematics shatter the theory of evolution, which so called scientists claim is as firmly established as the law of gravitation.
Concerning the wild guess of the development of the legs, we again quote from Mr. Bryan, “In His Image,” p. 98: “And according to the evolutionist, there was a time when animals had no legs, and so the legs came by accident. How? Well, the guess is that a little animal was wiggling along on its belly one day, when it discovered a wart–it just happened so,–and it was in the right place to be used to aid it in locomotion; so, it came to depend upon the wart, and use finally developed it into a leg. And then another wart, and another leg, at the proper time–by accident–and accidentally in the proper place. Is it not astonishing that any person, intelligent enough to teach school, would talk such tommyrot to students, and look serious while doing so?”
Some one has counted that Darwin has used phrases of doubt, like “We may well suppose,” 800 times in his two principal works. The whole theory is built up on guesses and suppositions. “Let us suppose” that each guess is 95 per cent certain, which is far higher than the average or any. The compound probability would equal .95 raised to the 800th power which would be .000,000,000,000,000,006,281 which means there are 6 chances out of a quintillion that evolution is true. Since not all of these 800 suppositions are dependent upon each other, we are willing to multiply this result by 10,000,000,000 which still shows that the theory has less than one chance in a million to be true. Darwin himself says, “The belief that an organ so perfect as the eye could have been formed by natural selection, is more than enough to STAGGER ANY ONE.” Yet he and his followers refuse to be “staggered,” and proceed to argue as if this unanswerable objection had little or no weight. Any hypothesis is weakened or damaged by every support that is an uncertain guess. Gravitation has no such support.
Mr. Alfred W. McCann, in his great volume “God or Gorilla,” shows that H. G. Wells, the novelist alias historian(?), in his “Outline of History,” uses 103 pages to show man’s descent from an ape-like ancestry, and employs 96 expressions of doubt or uncertainty, such as “probably,” “perhaps,” “possibly,” etc. He does not hesitate to endorse the wildest guesses of the evolutionists, and sits upon the top of this pyramid of doubt, and proclaims, ex cathedra, apparently without a blush, of our ancestors: “It was half-ape, half-monkey [elsewhere, he says the lemur was our ancestor]. It clambered about the trees and ran, and probably ran well, on its hind legs upon the ground. It was small brained by our present standards, but it had clever hands with which it handled fruit and beat nuts upon the rocks, and perhaps caught up sticks and stones to smite its fellows. IT WAS OUR ANCESTOR.”!!!
And he does not hesitate to give a picture of our ancestor drawn by an artist 500,000 years after its death. Yet this book so dangerous, so anti-christian, and so untruthful concerning the origin of man, is recommended by careless librarians, by scholars, and even by Christians. It will take a long time to erase from the mind of the youth, the false teachings of this book. It is one of the most cunningly devised plans ever attempted to teach infidelity and atheism in the name of history.
Plans for man prove design. All nature is crowded with evidence that God intended to create man. He made great preparation for his coming. He provided many things useful to man but to no other species. Veins of coal, almost innumerable–the canned sunshine of past ages–, are placed near the earth’s surface, accessible for man, when needed for his use. Of no value whatever to any other species, because they can not make or replenish a fire. A colored preacher did not miss the mark, when he said, “God stored his coal in his great big cellar for the use of man.” The man who fills his own cellar with provisions for the winter exhibits no more foresight or design.
The oil and gas were also evidently stored away in the earth for the use of man. It is worth nothing to animals. Over 41,000,000,000 gallons of oil were consumed in the U.S. in 1924.
All the other minerals likewise were stored in the earth for the use of man alone,–iron, copper, gold, silver, all the valuable minerals,–knowing that man would make use of them. The most precious and most useful minerals are of no value whatever to any species of animals. God foresaw the marvelous inventions of the present and the future, and provided the means ages ahead of time. The universe is crowded so full of design, that there is no room for chance or natural selection.