EVOLUTIONISM

The Evolution Theory

 As taught in our public schools today, the Organic Theory of Evolution accounts for the origin of mankind as follows:

 “Life on this planet originated several billion years ago, when electrical disturbances caused reactions to occur in the chemicals of the primeval ocean, and these reactions produced amino acids, and these amino acids organized themselves into living cells. As time went on, more chemical reactions caused the descen dants of these one-celled organisms to mutate and develop into a variety of types of multi-celled plants and animals.

 “The process continued, and as each new variety of organism appeared, natural selection would result in its being either better or less suited to the environment, and therefore it would either flourish or disappear. In the long run, then, species of plants and animals better and better suited to their respective environments appeared and developed.

 “Man is the highest product of this development. He is immediately descended from the same ancestors as the apes; more remotely, from the same ancestors as all mammals. He is himself still developing; that process is stalled by our present lifestyle, but biologically it is inevitable.”

—The Bible Friend

“It Appears That,” Etc.

 The theory of the evolution of man is based on suppositions and inferences. As an example, the first chapter of Charles Darwin’s book The Descent of Man contains within a few pages, 20 expressions of uncertainty, such as “seemed,” “it appears,” “take for granted,” “may,” and “implies.” The concluding chapter of 14 pages has more than 50 such expressions. Within 30 years after publication the book was changed in 87 places.

—Elizabeth A. Schroeter

Darwin’s Reversed Significance

 In 1859 appeared Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species. It has been called the most significant book of the nineteenth century. If so, it was not because it set forth the theory of organic evolution—this had been done before. Its importance was in Darwin’s explanation of the “how” of organic evolution—natural selection. Evolution has survived into the middle of the twentieth century, but Darwin’s explanation of it has been largely rejected by modern evolutionists. In other words, the feature of the Origin of Species most significant in 1859 (natural selection) seems to be least significant in 1980s while the feature least significant in 1800s (organic evolution) seems to be most significant in the present.

Getting Up To 4 Billion

 Some feel that great antiquity of men is necessary to produce the present population of over 4 billion. This apparently is not the case.

 If the flood did occur 4,300 years ago (and it was probably much earlier), and if only the people in the ark survived on the whole earth, there would still be sufficient time to produce the present population. Even if each two people produced, on the average, only 2.6 children in their lifetime the population of the earth would then double each one hundred years.

 Doubling the population each one hundred years for 4,300 years would produce a population of 10,000,000,000,000. This is 3,000 times our present population. No, the population of the earth alone does not require a great antiquity of men.

Story Of Three Monkeys

 Have you read the humorous story of the three monkeys discussing the theory of evolution? Sitting in a tree, one says to the others, “Listen, you two. There’s rumor going around that can’t be true—that man descended from our noble race. Why, the very idea is a dire disgrace!” Then, listing things monkeys don’t do, he continued, “You’ll never see a monkey build a fence around a coconut tree and then let all the coconuts go to waste, forbidding all others a taste. Here’s another thing a monkey won’t do: go out at night and get on a stew, or use a gun or a knife to take another monkey’s life. Yes, man descended—that ornery cuss. But brothers, he didn’t descend from us!”

—Ray O. Jones

It’s Also A Fact

 It’s a fact … that the unearthed remains of plants and animals, called fossils, are often found in a graduating scale of complexity, with the simpler organisms being deepest in the rock strata. This fact has been used by evolutionists as evidence of the slow development and great changes in life over long ages of time.

 It’s also a fact … that fossils of all major branches of the animal kingdom have been found in the Cambrian system of rocks, reputedly the second-oldest. This shouldn’t have happened, if organic evolution is true, and the evolutionists admit it is a problem.

—Power

Creation: The Easier View

 The British Broadcasting Company once carried a symposium on the Origin of Life. All the speakers took the view that life had in some way arisen spontaneously from non-living matter at a remote epoch in time. But in his summation, Dr. J. D. Bernal, who was in the chair, and who is well-known for his materialistic views, made a striking statement. “It would be much easier,” he said, “to discuss how life didn’t originate than how it did.”

—Robert E. D. Clark[1]

Literal Interpretation of Gen. 1

 The “recent creation” view of Genesis 1, we think, has the strongest merits. It has the following foundational observations:

 (1) Heaven and earth were created in six literal days. There is no interval between Gen. 1:1 and 1:2.

 (2) The earth was created “empty and void” in the sense that no life and no outstanding features, such as hills, valleys, were visible.

 (3) Satan’s fall occurred after the creation of Adam and Eve. Gen. 1:31; Rom. 5:12.

 (4) Fossils came into existence at the time of Noah’s Flood. Gen. 6–9 recorded an universal catastrophe.

 (5) Earth is probably not older than 10,000 years. Rocks and earth-materials were created “of age.” Man and animals were not millions of years in origin but of relatively similar years.

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