The flaws in Darwin’s theory
[visible in the light of Darwin’s own letters and writings.]

Preface: If unto a judge, a deponent states that his mind is in a muddled and confused state, his statement raises questions and suspicion in the mind of the judge about the trustworthiness of his depositions. If the deponent further states that he himself does not fully believe in what he has stated or deposed. Then his statements have a little or no value. Furthermore, if the petitioner openly admits that his statements are influenced by someone else and that he still has doubts in what he is stating then all his affirmations are gravely doubtful too. If it is felt that he is stating things with a definite prejudice his statements are to that extent considered as vitiated or malafide and untrustworthy. It would appear strange to readers that these elements which de-value a person’s statement totally are found in abundance in Darwin’s writings. The present article quotes Darwin against himself--it gives excerpts from his letter and writings which stand testimony against Darwin and greatly discredit his theory.

About 140 years have passed since Charles Darwin’s book the ‘Origin of species’ was first published. The book was thought to be the major book of the nineteenth century. It was so much in demand that copies of this book, ‘The origin of species’ published in 1859, were sold out on its very first day of publication. Since that time, millions of copies of it have been sold and many scientists and scholars have written articles or books for or against Darwin’s theory of biological evolution. Some, admiring him, have even said that, in the history of biology, Darwin is more important than even Copernicus, Newton, or Einstein have been in their respective fields. People thought that it was the work of a genius and was irrefutable. H.G. Wells, the famous historian who wrote ‘Outline of World history’, and who was well-known as a science-fiction writer, wrote: "… no rational mind can question the invincible nature of evolution." Another writer, David J. Merrell, wrote 'that anyone who considered with an open mind, the evidence for evolution, could scarcely remain convinced that evolution had taken place.'

In answer to H. G. Wells’ admiring assertion, Douglas Dewar wrote the book titled ‘more difficulties of the Evolution theory’. In fact, there were many critical reviews of Darwin’s "origin of species" in Darwin’s own life-time, and since then, many books have been written from the points of view of geology, history, biology, dating-techniques, etc. to refute Darwin’s theory.

There is also a touch of humour about the event. It is said that when the wife of the Bishop of Worcester first heard about Darwin’s theory, she said: "Descended from the apes! My dear, let us hope that it is not true, but if it is, let us pray it will not become generally known." But now this theory has influenced many branches of learning and is now very well-known but during the last fifty years, there have been hundred of books and thousands of articles by competent and well-qualified scientists of all the branches of knowledge, who have given very forceful arguments and direct or indirect evidence that goes against Darwin’s assumptions and theory.

What did Darwin himself think about his theory?
( A peep into Darwin’s mind )

Very few, if ever, attempts have been made to peep into the mind of Darwin as it was during, before or after he wrote this book. It should be of interest to us to know what Darwin himself thought about the theory propounded by him. Was he convinced by his own formulations and theorisations? Did he write this book out of prejudice and as a reaction against some creed, cult, belief or did he write this objectively and without any bias as a true scientist?

Above, we have quoted from the writings of H.G. Wells, David J. Merrell and C.W. Young--who have used words and phrases like ‘rational mind’, ‘open mind’, ‘unprejudiced’, etc; they used these phrases to assert that anyone with an open, unprejudiced and rational mind would be convinced of Darwin’s theory of biological evolution, but one should first see whether Darwin himself was unprejudiced in arriving at his conclusions and whether he himself had an open mind to listen to arguments against his theory.

It would have been worthwhile to have a psycho-analytical study of Darwin’s mind for if a person writes something out of prejudice, it is ‘vitiated’; It cannot be called ‘objective’. If one has more preconceived notions or ideological bias against some prevalent theory, one cannot ‘fairly’ explore other alternatives and arrive at right conclusions. If one is in a ‘muddled’ or confused state of mind, one cannot bring his mind to bear properly on the evidence before him. If one closes one’s mind to certain arguments or alternatives that can vitally affect his view of the data before him, one cannot formulate a correct theory. And, there is documentary evidence that shows that Darwin’s own mind about his theory was not convinced, and on the question of the existence of God, his intellect was muddled, and on the question of ‘spontaneous origin of life’, his thoughts were biased. Many letters of Darwin bear witness to these facts. We will quote excerpts from some of these letters to show how Darwin’s mind worked during those years. We will also show at the end how his theory harmed the growth and development of some of his own higher mental faculties.

Darwin was biased against the concept of God as creator. It is not known to many who believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution that Darwin was initally, a believer in Christianity and had gone to Cambridge in 1829, with the intention to become a clergyman. When he went on board the ‘Beagle’ for research, even then he was an orthodox Christian. Darwin himself has said: "during these two years (Oct. 1836-Jan. 1839), I was led to think much about religion. Whilst on board ‘The Beagle’, I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several of the officers for quoting the Bible as an unquestionable authority on some points of morality. The question, then is: why did he turn an agnostic (or atheist) from an orthodox Christian believer? From Darwin’s letter it is clear that, gradually, unbelief crept in because the story of creation, as given in the old testament, seemed to Darwin to be incredible. Says Darwin himself: "…I had gradually come by this time, ie. 1839, to see that the Old Testament was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindus. The question then continually rose before my mind and would not be banished--is it credible that if God were now to make a revelation to the Hindus, he would permit it to be connected with the belief in Vishnu, Shiva, etc. as Christianity is connected with the old testament? This appeared to me utterly incredible."

It is clear from the above that the way the creation has been explained in the Old Testament or in Hindu scriptures, and the manner God had been explained as the creator, or Vishnu and Shankar had been explained as Sustainer and Destroyer respectively, was what did not appeal to Darwin's rational sense. And to this extent, Darwin seems to have been correct. He seems to have applied his mind properly to the orthodox theories about God’s acts of creation, etc. and reached the conclusion that living beings could not have been created in the fashion as stated in those scriptures. But it will be seen that, subsequently, his disbelief in God’s act of creation gave him a sort of bias or prejudice in his work of scientific research.

Why did Darwin begin to disbelieve the existence of God? In those days, one of the proofs to substantiate God’s existence was what was then known as ‘The argument from design’. This argument states that there is design in flowers, plants, stars, men, animals, etc and someone having supreme intelligence must have made these all, and the designer and creator is God. The word "Creator" or the phrase ‘act of creation’ in relation to God was misconstrued. It was thought that, as a potter fashions pots out of clay, God creates flora and fauna out of matter. This idea was repugnant to many, including Darwin. Darwin has himself stated this in many of his letters. Darwin wrote to Charles Lyell, the world-famous Geologist, on August 21, 1861 "Will you honestly tell me (and I shall be really much obliged) whether you believe that the shape of my nose was ordained and ‘guided by an intelligent cause?’

Again to Dr. Asa Gray, he wrote in july, 1860: "one word more on’ designed laws’ and ‘un-designed results’. I see a bird, which I want for food; I take my gun and kill it: I do this designedly. An innocent man stands under a tree and is killed by a flash of lightning. Do you believe (and I should really like to hear) that God designedly killed this man? Most person do believe this: I can’t and don’t. If you believe so, do you believe that when a swallow snaps up a gnat, then God designed that particular swallow should snap that particular gnat at that particular instant? I believe that the man and the gnat are in the same predicament. If the death of neither man nor gnat are designed, I see no reason to believe that their first birth or production should be necessarily designed".

There is another aspect of God’s design. In those days, religious-minded people believed (and many still today believe) that all, whatever happens, has been predetermined or pre-designed by God. They say that whatever happens, happens as per God’s will. Even the leaves of a tree move as God wills. Darwin’s first objection was against the Christian belief that God designed and created mountains, rivers, stars, living beings and all. To express his ridicule, he asked all and sundry to answer whether his nasal profile was designed by the Almighty. In the second argument his stand is that if the world was designed by God and every event that occurred, took place according to the will of God, then it meant that God had designed or preordained that a particular bird should eat a particular gant at a particular place and at a particular moment. This was too much for Darwin to believe.

Now so far as the above goes, Darwin does not seem to be at fault. He has thought well over the belief then prevalent about (i) God’s Act of creation (ii) about having been designed and (iii) the events having been pre-ordained by Him and these did not appeal to his intellect. It is in fact, a serious shortcoming of the major religions of the world today, that they did not (and do not) give a rational and logical explanation of God’s Acts and instead bring in the element of miracles. So, in a sense, the old religions, because of some fallacious beliefs, did disservice to their own cause (however unknowingly) and, therefore, they and none else is to blame, if at all blame is to be apportioned.

At this point, it would be important to take into account the factor that swayed Darwin from belief to disbelief. It was that Darwin had been taught by his Christian mentors that, since all the species had been created they were fixed: there occurred no changes in them. But Darwin, during his voyage on ‘The Beagle’, had observed evidence that some changes in the species did occur. On keenly observing the varieties of birds and other animals on the Galapagos islands, he changed his thinking about the fixity of species. This change led him to reject the Biblical story of creation and the argument of design. He thought that it was ridiculous to believe that God had designed everyone’s nose, especially when he had noticed how, within the same species, there were variation due to adaptation, etc. So, upto this point, his thinking seems to have been objective.

But he had now developed a slant or obliquity against religion in general and belief in God in particular. This was an unwarranted swing of his mind. If certain statements in a particular scripture are wrong, it would not mean that every statement in it is wrong. Or, if one concept of a religion is wrong, it should not imply that all religious thought and belief is totally wrong. But it seems that the mind of youthful Darwin was extremely swayed. This great fascination with the new observations, and shock against his old belief, influenced his thoughts in the extreme and gave them a wrong direction. For though there was evidence supporting some change in the species, there was no evidence to lead one to the conclusion that there had been evolution of one species from another. Such a change in species had only been hypothesized by Darwin out of bias or prejudice because, as he himself admits, he had no such evidence before him and he could not prove such an enormous change having taken place in the species. Darwin’s fault also lies in that, he did not try sincerely to search for answers to the question: "What is meant by creation" as an Act of God? How does God create? What does He create? Has the whole chain of world-events been taking place according to the design, pre-ordained by God or has been taking place as a sequence of cause and effect?…" He, instead, developed a prejudice against religion and belief in God in general. He began to believe that all religious-minded people are credulous and that their beliefs are irrational.

Darwin believed that man cannot be trusted for his grand decisions. We quote Darwin’s own words, from his autobiography, written in 1876: "Another source of conviction in the existence of God, connected with the reason, and not with the feelings, impresses me as having much more weight. This follows from the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man, with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into the future, as the result of blind chance. When thus reflecting, I feel compelled to look to a first cause, having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man, I deserve to be called a Theist. This conclusion was strong in my mind about the time, as far as a I can remember, when I wrote the ‘Origin of Species’, and it is since that time that it has, gradually, with many fluctuations, become weaker. But then arises the thought-- Can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been fully developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animals, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusion."

Contradictory statements: Does not the above show that, on the one hand, his intellect says that it is impossible that this wonderful universe is the result of blind chance and, on the other hand, he rejects this idea on the basis of his pre-conceived notion that man is a descendant of Ape? If Darwin thinks that it is impossible that this wonderful universe is the result of chance, then why, in the first place, does he conclude, against his own belief, that life (in the form of unicellular amoeba) appeared spontaneously and as a result of blind chance? Aren’t these two ideas self-contradictory? Why does he reject his belief in God? Evidently, it is because of prejudice. If he does not accept the theory of creation as given in the Old Testament or in old Hindu Scriptures, let him not-- but why should he reject totally all talk about God saying that man’s mind is as low as that of the lowest animals and therefore cannot be trusted to make grand conclusions’! Isn’t it throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Moreover, if man’s mind cannot make conclusions about God--how can it be trusted to make conclusions about the origin of species?

Again and again, Darwin compares man’s mind with that of a monkey. He says in one letter: "Nevertheless you have expressed my inward conviction, though far more vividly and clearly, than I could have done, that the universe is not the result of chance. But that, with me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy? Isn’t this inconsistent reasoning? If Darwin believed that man’s mind cannot be trusted to draw grand conclusions because man had descended from the lower animals, he should have distrusted man’s all grand conclusions. But we find that he rejects man’s conclusions about the existence of God and he accepts man’s descent from lower animals, especially (note this) when he believes that the universe, including amoeba or any other living being, could not have arisen by blind chance? Why does he reject the first and believe in the second? Isn't this either due to prejudice or closed mind or inconsistent and fallacious reasoning? One would like to ask, how did Darwin believe in the bestial origin of man if there was no element of chance on which his theory is build up? Again, why should one believe in Darwin’s sweeping conclusion about the origin and evolution of species if, as he himself says, man’s reasoning cannot be trusted? One is more justified to ask this particularly when Darwin himself says that he has his own doubt in his own theory and that his mind is muddled. We quote him:

In his letter to G. Bentham on may 22, 1863, ‘Darwin writes : In fact, the belief in natural selection must at present be grounded entirely on general considerations--when we descend to details, we cannot prove that one species has changed (in other words, we cannot prove that even a single species has changed): nor can we prove that that the supposed changes are beneficial, which is the ground work of the theory. Nor can we explain why some species have changed and others have not. Again, he wrote to J.D.Hooker on july 12, 1870: "My theology is a simple muddle; I cannot look at the universe as the result of blind chance, yet I can see no evidence of beneficient design, or of design of any kind, in the details."

Perhaps, the most important statement of Darwin, to be noted is that he himself did not believe in the assumption that life arose spontaneously from non-living or inorganic matter. He was simply but highly impressed by the principal of uniformity as stated by James Hutton and Sir Charles Lyell, as he has himself stated it, and this faith in uniformity led him to believe in spontaneous generation of living beings from inorganic matter. He thus wrote to D.Mackintosh on Feb 28, 1882. "Though no evidence worth anything has as yet, been advanced in favour of a living being, being developed from inorganic matter, yet I cannot avoid believing the possibility that this will be proved some day in accordance with the law of continuity."

Now it is very clear that Darwin, even as late as in 1882, about 24 years after his theory was published, admitted that ‘…no evidence worth anything has yet, in my opinion, been advanced in favour of a living being, being developed from inorganic matter…"and yet hoping (only hoping without any proof) that it will some day be proved, believed that the first living beings were born spontaneously, from inanimate matter! Is this, or should this be, the way of a scientist?

It is noteworthy that Darwin disregarded the views of all other great authorities and depended mainly on ‘grave doubts’ of only one person, Charles Lyell, even when geology and palaeontology gave opposing evidence and when he had no proof for his hypothesis that life arose spontaneously and by chance. Isn’t this Irrational? This attitude of his cannot be explained except on the basis of his prejudice. He was so over-impressed by Lyell that he disbelieved all others without sufficient reason. Darwin was so impressed by Lyell that he always spoke of him in superlative terms. For example, he said: "The science of Geology is enormously indebted to Lyell, more so, as I believe, than to any other man who ever lived." Again in his autobiography, Darwin has stated that Lyell’s manner of treating Geology was superior to any he had read even afterwards.

In a letter (Feb. 23,1875) to Lyell’s secretary, just after Lyell’s death, Darwin paid tribute to Lyell in these words: "I will never forget that almost everything which I have done in science I owe to the study of his great works." Darwin has admitted that it was because of influence of Lyell’s doctrine of uniformity and of other naturalistic ideas that he lost faith in creation and began to search for a naturalistic explanation of living creatures. All this leads one to the conclusion that because of the very heavy influence of Lyell, Darwin out of prejudice, tried to find a totally naturalistic explanation to the evolution of species and, in this attempt, he suppressed his inner voice.

The effect of neglect of the spiritual and emotional aspects. It seems that Darwin had conflict in his mind and he often killed the voice of his conscience and also of divine reason. He therefore, lost happiness, and his conscience became weaker and weaker and his sensitivities and emotions became dulled. On this account, he suffered greatly. He has himself written about it and we quote again: "I have said that in one respect my mind has changed during the last twenty years. Up to the age of thirty, or beyond it, poetry of many kinds, such as the works of Milton, Gray, Byron, Wordsworth, and Shelley gave me great pleasures and even as a school-boy, I took intense delight in Shakespeare, especially in the historical plays. I have also said that formerly pictures gave me considerable pleasure, and music very great delight. But now for many years, I cannot endure to read a line of poetry; I have tried to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. This curious and lamentable loss of the higher aesthetic tastes is all very strange. My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collection of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive. A man with a mind more highly organised or better constituted than mine, would not, I suppose, have thus suffered; the loss of these is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of nature."

From the above, it seems that the suppression of his religious convictions, and the presence in his mind of this constant thought, that man is descended from the lowest animals, led him to a feeling of guilt, even to frequent illness. But this is another part of the story. What is relevant in the present context is that, due to one-sided development of the brain and the atrophy of many finer qualities, Darwin could not have made right conclusions from the facts he collected. It is ironical that while Darwin himself confessed his doubts in his own theory, people later adopted his theory as a new religion. Darwin himself lamented about it, for during his life-time, people had already adopted him as their hero and had begun to think that there is no God or no Supreme Soul whereas Darwin himself, in the last days of his life, had begun to turn more and more towards God.---- Om shanti

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