 |
 |
Dripping Springs Weekly Bulletins
He Was Willing to Lie!
I want to tell you a true story. It’s about a German biologist, Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919). It’s a story of a man who believed in Darwin’s Evolution so much that he was willing to falsify evidence to “prove” it.
His study in the field of embryology led him to believe that a human embryo developing in the mother’s womb proceeds through each of the primary evolutionary stages. In other words, watching a developing child in the womb, someone can see evolution take place before his or her very eyes. He coined the phrase, “ONTOGENY RECAPITULATES PHYLOGENY” to describe it. Ontogeny is the “development of the individual,” while Phylogeny is the “development of the group.” Therefore, seeing the development of an individual embryo would reveal all the evolutionary history of that entire group. It sounded good (and Haeckel believed it), but the evidence was not there. That’s where he got into a lot of trouble.
His downfall came when he tried to find proof that the embryo went through those evolutionary stages, including the “marine” stage, which implied the presence of gill slits. He just knew the proof was there, but when it was not, he just faked it.
The technology so familiar to us today was not available to Haeckel in 1868, so he prepared a woodcut, then had the printer print it, one above the other, three times in a column. Haeckel made one set of woodcuts and used that one set for every group! Yes, you read it right – he faked it. He lied about it in his book, Natural History of Creation.
Was Haeckel merely dishonest? Who can say whether his intentions were sincere. Are scientists as a group dishonest? Of course not, but just as Haeckel, it is easy to be so “sure” of something that you become blind to the facts. That can happen to creationists as well as those who accept Darwin’s “natural selection.”
It has been said that Darwin considered embryology to be the most important piece of evidence for his theories of origins. If that is so, his most important piece is gone.
It is also significant that scientists know that Haeckel faked his “facts.” His own colleagues accused him of scientific fraud in a court of his peers, and he was disgraced.
We are currently reading about some similar “frauds” in stem-cell research and other scientific experiments. And, if you can believe it, Haeckel’s drawings are still found in some Biology textbooks. This is true even though biologists publicly admit that his works were spurious.
His contemporary, Ludwig Rutimeyer, stated forcefully that Haeckel used “cheating tricks in order to fit data to the theory.”
George Gaylord Simpson, so associated with Evolution that he was dubbed “Mr. Evolution,” wrote:
“…belief in recapitulation became so widespread that it is still found in some writings about evolution and biology. You should know, therefore, that it does not really occur.” (Life: An Introduction to Biology, pp. 352-353)
On that same page, Simpson said:
“It is now firmly established that Ontogeny does not recapitulate Phylogeny.”
We are aware that discovering the fraud of Haeckel does not remove Darwin from the scene, for many who are aware of it continue to be ardent advocates of Evolution.
Our purpose in bringing these facts to your attention is not to place a cloud upon science and the very important task that academic discipline accomplishes for mankind. Our purpose is to remind us that we must be honest with ourselves as well as with others. We must not accept a point of view just because it appears to be embraced by a large number of people. Even intelligent people can be and occasionally are misled in their conclusions.
Those who reject Darwin do not do so because of Haeckel alone. We are made aware that there may be other mistakes made and that the evidence must be valid and unimpeachable. Our reasons for rejecting Darwin’s theory include:
- The General Theory (Macroevolution: change from one species to another) contradicts the Bible. Darwin and the Bible will never be in agreement.
- There is no viable, established mechanism by which the changes integral to Evolution took place.
- The evidence for Evolution is crumbling. Even when we can persuade Evolutionists to discuss their “evidence,” we find that it is woefully lacking. It’s not in embryology. It’s not in the fossil record or in vestigial organs. Though these served as “evidence” in the past, they repeatedly have been discredited.
- Even advocates of Evolution state the mathematical improbability of such broad changes taking place randomly.
- The complexity of the human body, including DNA and the organs within the body, indicate design, not coincidence.
Religion is certainly not immune to the possibility of fraud. Rational thinking is a must in every area of worthwhile discussion.
|
|
|
|
“Evolution is unproved and unprovable. It is accepted because the only alternative is Creation, and that is unthinkable.”
Evolutionist Sir Arthur Keith
“No one has ever produced a species by the mechanisms of Natural Selection. No one has ever gotten near it.”
Colin Patterson,
British Museum of Natural Science
“I have little hesitation in saying that a sickly pall now hangs over the big bang theory.”
|
|
|
|
|
Elephant in the Living Room
Dr. John Morris is affiliated with the Institute for Creation Research in El Cajon, California. He produces a column each month in a publication called Back To Genesis.
In the October issue, there appeared a fascinating piece regarding the startling admission of a molecular biologist who was interviewed earlier this year by a journalist in Virginia. I would like to pass along the gist of this piece because many of our readers likely are unacquainted with this valuable little paper, and because the incident is so telling.
The interviewer and the experimental biologist were discussing the matter of the incredible volume of complicated information that is packed into the human genetic code. The newsman asked the researcher if he believed the astounding array of information in the DNA code — which the scientist had compared to a document “larger than four complete sets of Encyclopedia Britannica,” — could have “evolved” by chance.
The scientist replied:
“... [N]obody I know in my profession believes it evolved. It was engineered by ‘genius beyond genius,’ and such information could not have been written any other way. The paper and ink did not write the book! Knowing what we know, it is ridiculous to think otherwise.”
The biologist was then asked if he had stated that conclusion in public. He replied that he had not. It simply was not feasible, he said, as a working scientist, to reveal a view of that nature. He admitted that he could not deny the evidence for “design,” but that it would be professional suicide to deny that the genetic process had evolved. He confessed that if he openly expressed his true feelings, he’d soon “be out of a job, or relegated to the outer fringes where [he] couldn’t earn a decent living.”
The biologist then compared his plight to the old quip about the “elephant in the living room.” He said that “creation design” is “like an elephant in the living room. It moves around, takes up an enormous amount of space, loudly trumpets, bumps into us, knocks things over, eats a ton of hay, and smells like an elephant. And yet we have to swear it isn’t there!” (emp. added).
Is that not pathetic? Even sad? The gentleman knows that the genetic code of the “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psa. 139:14) human being could not have designed itself. Hence, it must have proceeded from a Mind characterized by “genius beyond genius.” And yet he is so intimidated by his science peers, he is so fearful for his reputation, and he is so afraid of losing his income, that he refuses to acknowledge his Creator in a candid and public way.
There are so many of this caliber. They might as well hang a sign around their neck with these words, “Integrity for sale.”
And all of them are not “in the world.” There are those in the church — elders, preachers, and others — who know the truth on various issues, but they are afraid, for various reasons, to teach it. That is not, I would surmise, a good feeling with which to retire each night.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
