A Critique of Evolutionism

“Here, then, is the fatal chasm in the materialistic scheme. Not only does it overlook the essential difference between inorganic and vital causes; it is guilty of the absurdity of ascribing to the blind, unintelligent forces of protoplasm, more thought, choice, and wisdom, than all the philosophers in the whole world will ever attain unto. When we rise to the crown of the series of living creatures in man, the absurdity culminates in the highest conceivable extravagance; for there we see a being not only displaying the highest thought about him, but also containing thought in him.

“Let us look, now, at the part of this structure contributed by Mr. Darwin. We object, first, that the favorite law of 'natural selection' involves in its very name, a sophistical idea. Selection is an attribute of free-agency, and implies intelligent choice. But the 'Nature”' of the evolutionist is unintelligent. She acts by haphazard. To apply the idea of selection to such fortuity is but a metaphor, not science. Dr. Darwin, perhaps, seeing this fatal objection, thankfully accepts from H. Spenser what he deems the more accurate phrase, 'survival of the fittest.” But we still have the same absurdity insinuated under a metaphor. Fitness also implies design! Fitness is an adjustment. That the physical interaction between the environment and organism should regularly result in this adjustment, while totally blind, is a supposition wild enough. But a multitude of cases might be found where the notion becomes impossible, because the fitness existing is not between the being and its ordinary environment, but between it and some other being which it rarely meets, or never meets once in its existence. …

“Paleontologists (to whom the evolutionists, of all men, are bound to adhere,) hold that the great masses of these fossils actually remain, many of them of almost incredible age. But they all represent established genera. Where are the fossils of the transitional and intermediate links, which ought to be a myriad times more numerous? Were evolutionism true, 'the world could not contain them.' Again: fossil natural history should present us with both sides of the history of the blind process of this natural selection, with the fossils of the degraded, the unfit, as well as with those of the developed species. How is it that Mr. Darwin only dwells upon the latter? Especially as the downhill slide of the history ought to be ten thousand times the fullest. But did the fossils present us with such a history, then how preposterous would it be to call the course of nature an 'evolution,' when nature's decadences would almost infinitely outnumber her advancements? The evolution theory is also inconsistent with the wide diffusion of some of the highest species of animals. Man is the highest and most complicated result of this supposed process. Now it is natural to suppose that the local conditions, or environment, necessary for evolving this most complicated result, would be more rarely found. But man is found more widely diffused over the globe, and multiplying his species under more diverse climates and condition, than any other animal. This is inconsistent with the result to be expected upon that scheme.”

R.L. Dabney, The Sensualistic Philosophy of the Nineteenth Century Considered, Chapter 9