Illogical Geology, the Weakest Point in the Evolution Theory

Appendix 89

INTRODUCTION

A brief outline of the argument which I have used in the following pages will be in order here.

Darwinism, as a part, the chief part, of the general Evolution Theory, rests logically and historically on the succession of life idea as taught by geology. If there has actually been this succession of life on the globe, then some form of genetic connection between these successive types is the intuitive conclusion of every thinking mind. But if there is no positive evidence that certain types are essentially older than others, =if this succession of life is not an actual scientific fact=, then Darwinism or any other form of evolution has no more scientific value than the vagaries of the old Greeks--in short, from the standpoint of true inductive science it is a most gigantic hoax, historically scarce second to the Ptolemaic astronomy.

In Part One I have examined critically this succession of life theory. It is improper to speak of my argument as destructive, for there never was any real constructive argument to be thus destroyed. It is essentially =an exposure=, and I am willing to =give a thousand dollars= to any one who will, in the face of the facts here presented, show me how to prove that one kind of fossil is older than another.

In Part Two I have attempted to build up a true, safe induction in the candid, unprejudiced spirit of a coroner called upon to hold a post mortem. The abnormal character of most of the fossiliferous deposits, the sudden world-wide change of climate they record, the marked degeneration in all organic forms in passing from the older to the modern world, together with the great outstanding fact that human beings, with thousands of other living species of animals and plants have at this great world-crisis left their fossils in the rocks all over the world, prove beyond a possible doubt that our once magnificently stocked world met with a tremendous catastrophe some thousands of years ago, before the dawn of history. As for the =origin= of the living beings that existed before that event, we can only suppose a =direct creation=, since modern science knows nothing of the spontaneous generation of life, or of certain types of life having originated =before= other types, and thus being able to serve as =the source of origin= of other alleged succeeding types.

With the myth of a life succession dissipated once and for ever, the world stands face to face with creation as the direct act of the Infinite God.

CHAPTER I. The Abstract Idea

THE ABSTRACT IDEA

How many of us have ever tried to think out a statement of just how we would prove that there has been a succession of life on the globe in a particular order?

Herbert Spencer did and he did not seem to think the way in which it is usually attempted a very praiseworthy example of the methods to be pursued in natural science.

He starts out with Werner, of Neptunian fame, and shows that the latter's main idea of the rocks always succeeding one another over the whole globe like the coats of an onion was "untenable if analyzed," and "physically absurd," for among other things it is incomprehensible that these very different kinds of rocks could have been precipitated one after another by the same "chaotic menstrum."

But he then proceeds to show that the science is "still swayed by the crude hypotheses it set out with; so that even now, old doctrines that are abandoned as untenable in theory, continue in practice to mould the ideas of geologists, and to foster sundry beliefs that are logically indefensible."

Werner had taken for his data the way in which the rocks happened to occur in "a narrow district of Germany," and had at once jumped to the conclusion that they must always occur in this relative order over the entire globe. "Thus on a very incomplete acquaintance with a thousandth part of the earth's crust, he based a sweeping generalization applying to the whole of it."

Werner classified the rocks according to their mineral characters, but when the fossils were taken as the prime test of age, the "original nomenclature of periods and formations" kept alive the original idea of complete envelopes encircling the whole globe one outside each other like the coats of an onion. So that now, instead of Werner's successive ages of sandstone making or limestone making, and successive suites of these rocks, we have successive ages of various types of life, with successive systems or "groups of formations which everywhere succeed each other in a given order; and are severally everywhere of the same age. Though it may not be asserted that these successive systems are universal, yet it seems to be tacitly assumed that they are so.... Though, probably, no competent geologist would contend that the European classification of strata is applicable to the globe as a whole; yet most, if not all geologists, write as though it were so."

Spencer then goes on to show how dogmatic and unscientific it is to say that when the Carboniferous flora, for example, existed in some localities, this type of life and this only must have enveloped the world.

"Now this belief," he says, "that geologic 'systems' are universal, is quite as untenable as the other. It is just as absurd when considered a priori: and it is equally inconsistent with the facts," for all such systems of similar life-forms must in olden time have been of merely "local origin," just as they are now. In other words, we have no scientific knowledge of a time in the past when there were not zoological provinces and zones as there are to-day, one type of life existing in one locality, while another and totally different type existed somewhere else.

Then, after quoting from Lyell a strong protest against the old fancy that only certain types of sandstone and marls were made at certain epochs, he proceeds:

"Nevertheless, while in this and numerous passages of like implication, Sir C. Lyell protests against the bias here illustrated, he seems himself not completely free from it. Though he utterly rejects the old hypothesis that all over the earth the same continuous strata lie upon each other in regular order, like the coats of an onion, he still writes as though geologic 'systems' do thus succeed each other. A reader of his 'Manual' would certainly suppose him to believe, that the Primary epoch ended, and the Secondary epoch commenced, all over the world at the same time.... =Must we not say that though the onion-coat hypothesis is dead, its spirit is tractable, under a transcendental form, even in the conclusions of its antagonists.="

Spencer then examines at considerable length the kindred idea that the same or similar species "lived in all parts of the earth at the same time." "This theory," he says, "is scarcely more tenable than the other."

He then shows how in some localities there are now forming coral deposits, in some places chalk, and in others beds of Molluscs; while in still other places entirely different forms of life are existing. In fact, each zone or depth of the ocean has its particular type of life, just as successive altitudes do on the sides of a mountain; and it is a dogmatic and arbitrary assumption to say that such conditions have not existed in the past.

"On our own coasts, the marine remains found a few miles from shore, in banks where fish congregate, are different from those found close to the shore, where only littoral species flourish. A large proportion of aquatic creatures have structures that do not admit of fossilization; while of the rest, the great majority are destroyed, when dead, by the various kinds of scavengers that creep among the rocks and weeds. So that no one deposit near our shores can contain anything like a true representation of the fauna of the surrounding sea; much less of the co-existing faunas of other seas in the same latitude; and still less of the faunas of seas in distant latitudes. Were it not that the assertion seems needful, it would be almost absurd to say that the organic remains now being buried in the Dogger Bank can tell us next to nothing about the fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and corals that are now being buried in the Bay of Bengal."

This author evidently found it difficult to keep within the bounds of parliamentary language when speaking of the absurd and vicious reasoning at the very basis of the whole current geological theory; for, unlike the other physical sciences, the great leading ideas of geology are not generalisations framed from the whole series or group of observed facts, but are really abstract statements supposed to be reasonable in themselves, or at the most =very hasty conclusions based on wholly insufficient data=, like that of Werner in his "narrow district of Germany." Sir Henry Howorth has well expressed the urgent need that there is of a complete reconstruction of geological theory:

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