To the next step. In the last chapter we have claimed that the creation of the luminaries symbolize the beginning of a new cycle – a cycle introducing consciousness and leading to self-consciousness, to human beings. How is that happening? It is fascinating to perceive that in the biblical account of creation the appearance of the different animals follows exactly the same steps, the same pathway as the one used by modern day paleontology. Exactly, like modern theories based on Darwin’s theory of evolution, the Torah speaks of a development from primitive to more complex forms. But here the similarity ends, since the underlying philosophy of the Biblical account is totally different from the one propounded by Darwin.
Darwinism or the theory of the evolution of the species by natural selection has become a belief system; one could almost say one of the canonical pseudo-religious dogmas of our time. However, more and more scientists consider this thesis as a dogma without any basis in facts. A dogma with a political background: to justify the most aggressive form of early capitalism and the superiority of the white race. A dogma based on myths.i
Contrary to Darwinism, the Torah does not speak about a gradual change from one species to another but about an abrupt appearance of each specific species. You don’t need to be a “creationist” to hold this opinion; for the paleontological findings have shown unambiguously that there have never been any “missing links” between the species. There don’t exist any proofs that a fish ever turned into a reptile or a bird into a mammal; the so-called “missing links” are only missing, because they never existed. Paleontology has clearly shown us that every species came into being in “its” proper time.ii The same way, the Torah puts it.
Another myth seems to be the so-called “natural selection”. Again, there doesn’t exist any proof for this process. Can natural selection, for example, explain why human beings, one single species, have got totally different blood groups? The development of complex parts of the body raises an almost bigger problem. How could it be possible that a body part, even though not fully functioning yet, was so advantageous that natural selection supported its continued existence? As put by Prof. Gould from Harvard University “What’s the use of half a jaw or half a wing?” How did photosynthesis, a very complex chemical process, develop? Without photosynthesis, there wouldn’t exist any plant or animal. It only works, if all of its components are available; that’s why it cannot have originated by a series of random, successive modifications. It appeared (or was created) the same way it exists up till now. That’s also the case in the complex procedures in the human body we begin to understand right now step by step.
What about feathers, eyes, ears? Did all of these highly specialized and complex body parts develop by chance? Only by random mutations?
The new magical formula: mutations. For the last years, scientists have conducted a whole series of breeding experiments using drosophila. They created all kinds of mutations of this fly, caused it to have eyes of different colors, a leg which grows out of the head or even a different thorax. But all these changes are but modifications of existing attributes. They never succeeded in creating a new organ, neither did they change the fly into a new species which resembled a bee or a butterfly. It always stayed a fruit fly.iii
Natural selection by mutation may explain adaptation, but not origin of the species. And since when are mutations advantageous or helpful for survival? Usually, the opposite is true.
We thought that the discussion about evolution has long ago come to an end, but it seems that we were wrong. The origin of the species is nowadays as unclear as it was at the times of Darwin. In 1998, Hayward has collected 447 books dealing with the discussion between theorists of evolution and those dealing with evolution.iv
If it turns out that what we considered as truth is nothing but a conglomeration of pseudo-religious myths, a belief system rather than a scientific fact, we have to start rethinking. Could it be that what we consider today as a religious myth provides a better explanation for our evolution?
i Eichelbeck, R., Das Darwin-Komplott, Riemann Verlag, München 1999 (German)
ii Wesson, R., Beyond Natural selection, Cambridge (MA), 1993
iii Leith, B., The Descent of Darwin, London 1982
iv Hayward, J. L., The Creation/Evolution Controversy. An Annotated Bibliography, The scarecrow Press, 1998
