The bad "creationism" of the 19th century unfortunately gave an excuse for the idea of evolution

Here is a letter by Wallace to the British Quarterly about controversy being raised over Darwin's theory. What interested me in particular was his remark in the first paragraph that shows that the standard "creationist" understanding of the day was very far from a Biblical understanding.  They asserted that God created AGAIN AND AGAIN, though the Bible is clear that God RESTED after creating all things.

The 'British Quarterly' and Darwin (S107: 1865)

   [[p. 77]] Allow me to call the attention of your readers to a very gross attempt, in the last number of the British Quarterly Review, to mislead the unscientific public. At p. 143, in an article on the 'Supernatural,' after disposing of Hume, Strauss, Baden Powell, and such small fry, in a few lines each, the reviewer claims physical science as his ally, and calls into the witness-box 'the geologist' (one of a type now happily almost extinct), who, he says, will tell us that again and again the special interference of a Creator has been required, and who finally 'will tell you that this same "development" or "origin of species by natural selection" is an unblushing intruder into the domain of science, unlicensed and unrecognized.'

Darwin commented on this wrong creationist thinking in his Origin of Species, which I mention in a post about Darwin a while back.  This is unbiblical and it needed to be criticized and overthrown, for which we could even thank Darwin since it forced Christians back to the Bible.  Darwin of course didn't criticize it as unbiblical, nor does Wallace here, but that is what was wrong with it. 

If the creationists had been true to the Bible it might have been possible to prevent the theory of evolution from ever happening!

It is certainly true that the forces of evil are going to treat Christianity as inferior anyway, but in this case it's pretty clear that such unbiblical approaches to science did give them an excuse. I don't know if the liberalizing influences had simply undermined Biblical doctrine to such an extent or what.

It's sad to read the rest of that letter Wallace wrote because he just goes on and on about the stupidity of another witness they were able to muster for the "creationist" side:

This, however, is not strong enough. The model 'geologist' is sent down, and a new witness is specially called in a note, which is so 'unblushing' that I give it entire.

'Let us hear a word on the subject of development from one who has won scientific laurels by a life of study and thought:--"All the great living and recently deceased masters of physical science reject it. Does it appeal to anatomy and physiology? Cuvier, Owen, and Carpenter cry out against it. Does it evoke the aid of chemistry? Berzelius, Turner, and Liebig see its shallowness. Does it call on zoology for aid? Agassiz and Ehrenberg can refute its claims. Does it search the archives of geology for support? Sedgwick, Miller, Lyell and D'Orbigny can show how certainly it will fail. Or, finally, does it appeal to botany? Hooker and Lindley, Torrey and Gray, know that it will certainly glean nothing to sustain it in that flowery field. The fact is that it is only here and there a second-rate naturalist will sympathize at all with such dreamy views." (Dr. E. Hitchcock, in "Bibliotheca Sacra," vol. xi. p. 789.) We do not think anything in this extract unwarranted, even though Mr. Darwin has added his name to the roll of non-theistic theorists; for though he is distinguished as a naturalist in the department of [[p. 78]] observation, his book exhibits philosophic abilities of the lowest order. Nothing can be more significant than his entire abandonment of geology; nothing more foolish than the supposition that some strata are so lost that no trace of them can be found; and nothing more unscientific than to help his theory to take its absurd shape out of the barely possible but utterly unknown.'

Either the writer of this article knew that at least four of the persons here mentioned--Carpenter, Lyell, J. Hooker, and A. Gray--so far from rejecting or crying out against 'development' and 'the origin of species by natural selection' are its strongest supporters, or he did not know it. He is, therefore, either imposing a deliberate and wilful misstatement on the public, or he is incredibly ignorant of the subject he is writing upon. Again, when he talks of Darwin's 'entire abandonment of geology,' does he know that almost all the great modern geologists are converts to his views? and when he stigmatizes Darwin's work as 'foolish' and 'absurd,' does he know that John Stuart Mill has adduced it as one of the most wonderful examples of logical reasoning extant?

It is hardly worth while to break such a fly upon the wheel, but it is well to make known as widely as possible to what weak subterfuges those who attempt to stem the flood of modern thought with the worn-out theological mop are at last driven.

At the very least can it be said that the abandonment of an aggressive BIBLICAL creationist argument, along with abandonment of scholarship in general by Christians, gave license to this sort of attack?

I think so, and I also think this same abandonment of Biblical creationism and general ignorance of the scientific context are all too apparent these days as well. In fact you may get called all sorts of names by Christians for simply trying to keep up with these things at all.  

The weakness and irrelevance of creationism today is demonstrated all too clearly at the debate forum, EvC, or Evolution versus Creationism, where the "creationists" are a sad and sorry lot of misinformed people, and many of them argue from wildly unbiblical positions.  Very few hold to the Biblical Young Earth position (earth around 6000 years old), hardly two of them agree with each other about anything at all, and the few who do seem to be truly biblical creationists who also know their science get into such technical areas of discussion the average Christian couldn't possibly follow their arguments anyway.  I know I can't. 

Some information about Alfred Russel Wallace

This is a page of links to writings by and about Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwin's counterpart and competitor in the search for a theory to justify the idea of evolution.  The following are from a page called "Texts of Some of Wallace's writings" from the right-hand list at the above link.  There are no separate URLs to the separate pages [well, there are if you know how to find them and I did finally, but don't know if I'll get them posted here.]

There are some fascinating titles that ought to be very revealing of the mentality of the 19th century.   Wallace is a spiritualist for one thing, as many were in that century, since God had been abandoned, so you'll find the occasional article referring to seances and that sort of thing.  And the incredible number of writings on various species he studied around the world shows him to be a consummate naturalist. 

I may not yet have found the main writing that shows his thinking along the same lines as Darwin but the first one I quote from below is obviously in that direction:

On the Law Which Has Regulated the Introduction of New Species (S20: 1855
This law agrees with, explains and illustrates all the facts connected with the following branches of the subject:--1st. The system of natural affinities. 2nd. The distribution of animals and plants in space. 3rd. The same in time, including all the phænomena of representative groups, and those which Professor Forbes supposed to manifest polarity. 4th. The phænomena of rudimentary organs. We will briefly endeavour to show its bearing upon each of these.  

If the law above enunciated be true, it follows that the natural series of affinities will also represent the order in which the several species came into existence, each one having had for its immediate antitype a closely allied species existing at the time of its origin. It is evidently possible that two or three distinct species may have had a common antitype, and that each of these may again have become the antitypes from which other closely allied species were created. The effect of this would be, that so long as each species has had but one new species formed on its model, the line of affinities will be simple, and may be represented by placing the several species in direct succession in a straight line. But if two or more species have been independently formed on the plan of a common antitype, then the series of affinities will be compound, and can only be represented by a forked or many-branched line.


Now, all attempts at a Natural classification and arrangement of organic beings show, that both [[p. 187]] these plans have obtained in creation. Sometimes the series of affinities can be well represented for a space by a direct progression from species to species or from group to group, but it is generally found impossible so to continue. There constantly occur two or more modifications of an organ or modifications of two distinct organs, leading us on to two distinct series of species, which at length differ so much from each other as to form distinct genera or families.

These are the parallel series or representative groups of naturalists, and they often occur in different countries, or are found fossil in different formations. They are said to have an analogy to each other when they are so far removed from their common antitype as to differ in many important points of structure, while they still preserve a family resemblance.

We thus see how difficult it is to determine in every case whether a given relation is an analogy or an affinity, for it is evident that as we go back along the parallel or divergent series, towards the common antitype, the analogy which existed between the two groups becomes an affinity. We are also made aware of the difficulty of arriving at a true classification, even in a small and perfect group;--in the actual state of nature it is almost impossible, the species being so numerous and the modifications of form and structure so varied, arising probably from the immense number of species which have served as antitypes for the existing species, and thus produced a complicated branching of the lines of affinity, as intricate as the twigs of a gnarled oak or the vascular system of the human body.

Again, if we consider that we have only fragments of this vast system, the stem and main branches being represented by extinct species of which we have no knowledge, while a vast mass of limbs and boughs and minute twigs and scattered leaves is what we have to place in order, and determine the true position each originally occupied with regard to the others, the whole difficulty of the true Natural System of classification becomes apparent to us.

We shall thus find ourselves obliged to reject all those systems of classification which arrange species or groups in circles, as well as those which fix a definite number for the divisions of each group. The latter class have been very generally rejected by naturalists, as contrary to nature, notwithstanding the ability with which they have been advocated; but the circular system of affinities seems to have obtained a deeper hold, many eminent naturalists having to some extent adopted it. We have, however, never been able to find a case in which the circle has been closed by a direct and close affinity. In most cases a palpable analogy has been substituted, in others the affinity is very obscure or altogether doubtful. The complicated branching of the lines of affinities in extensive groups must also afford great [[p. 188]] facilities for giving a show of probability to any such purely artificial arrangements. Their death-blow was given by the admirable paper of the lamented Mr. Strickland, published in the 'Annals of Natural History,' in which he so clearly showed the true synthetical method of discovering the Natural System.

If we now consider the geographical distribution of animals and plants upon the earth, we shall find all the facts beautifully in accordance with, and readily explained by, the present hypothesis. A country having species, genera, and whole families peculiar to it, will be the necessary result of its having been isolated for a long period, sufficient for many series of species to have been created on the type of pre-existing ones, which, as well as many of the earlier-formed species, have become extinct, and thus made the groups appear isolated. If in any case the antitype had an extensive range, two or more groups of species might have been formed, each varying from it in a different manner, and thus producing several representative or analogous groups. The Sylviadæ of Europe and the Sylvicolidæ of North America, the Heliconidæ of South America and the Euplœas of the East, the group of Trogons inhabiting Asia, and that peculiar to South America, are examples that may be accounted for in this manner.

Such phænomena as are exhibited by the Galapagos Islands, which contain little groups of plants and animals peculiar to themselves, but most nearly allied to those of South America, have not hitherto received any, even a conjectural explanation. The Galapagos are a volcanic group of high antiquity, and have probably never been more closely connected with the continent than they are at present. They must have been first peopled, like other newly-formed islands, by the action of winds and currents, and at a period sufficiently remote to have had the original species die out, and the modified prototypes only remain. In the same way we can account for the separate islands having each their peculiar species, either on the supposition that the same original emigration peopled the whole of the islands with the same species from which differently modified prototypes were created, or that the islands were successively peopled from each other, but that new species have been created in each on the plan of the pre-existing ones. St. Helena is a similar case of a very ancient island having obtained an entirely peculiar, though limited, flora. On the other hand, no example is known of an island which can be proved geologically to be of very recent origin (late in the Tertiary, for instance), and yet possesses generic or family groups, or even many species peculiar to itself.

When a range of mountains has attained a great elevation, and has so remained during a long geological period, the species [[p. 189]] of the two sides at and near their bases will be often very different, representative species of some genera occurring, and even whole genera being peculiar to one side only, as is remarkably seen in the case of the Andes and Rocky Mountains. A similar phænomenon occurs when an island has been separated from a continent at a very early period. The shallow sea between the Peninsula of Malacca, Java, Sumatra and Borneo was probably a continent or large island at an early epoch, and may have become submerged as the volcanic ranges of Java and Sumatra were elevated. The organic results we see in the very considerable number of species of animals common to some or all of these countries, while at the same time a number of closely allied representative species exist peculiar to each, showing that a considerable period has elapsed since their separation. The facts of geographical distribution and of geology may thus mutually explain each other in doubtful cases, should the principles here advocated be clearly established.

Another interesting title:

Comments on the Effect of Contact Between the Higher and Lower Races of Man (S87: 1864)

Again, DarwinISM is a great evil way beyond anything we can attribute to Darwin himself personally

Finally I've calmed down about being accused of supporting Darwinism because I tried to correct a misimpression about what he wrote.  Nothing has otherwise changed, I've merely calmed down, put it in the Lord's hands -- read some in George D. Watson's Tribulation Worketh, good for dealing with this sort of thing, also sang some lines from Be Still My Soul, also good for it.  I still believe as I did and I'm apparently still regarded as an evil supporter of Darwinism same as I was.  If I think about it too much it could get to me again, so I won't say more.  I'll just read some more Watson if it gets too hard to deal with.

There's still more to say on this subject.  In a nutshell, DarwinISM has had a horrifically evil influence in this world, and I've remarked on this many times, but that doesn't mean that Darwin himself intended any of those effects, and he most certainly didn't. 

It is well documented, though probably not as well known as it should be, that the murderous racist philosophies of Hitler and others such as Margaret Sanger, took their inspiration from Darwin's Theory of Evolution.  Believers in evolution try to deny that, but Christians at least ought to be well informed of it.

I still believe that none of that derived from Darwin's own personal attitudes, only from his theory, whose deadly inhumane implications he hadn't foreseen.  He was a man who had rejected belief in God and set himself to pursue a scientific ambition that he knew was contrary to Christian teaching, which is actually a very common story in the times in which he lived, which was a time in which "science" was supplanting the Christian religion in England and in fact the west in general.  That alone is enough to account for his coming up with a theory that could be put to all kinds of destructive uses, and particularly because it contradicted the biblical view of God's creation of humanity, but this doesn't mean that he himself was personally inclined toward such uses. 

He was certainly aware that treating human beings as descended from animals was going to put him at odds with the Christian culture, but like most godless scientists he didn't envision anything destructive from that idea, he only anticipated that he would be ostracized for going against religion in the pursuit of what to his mind was scientific truth.  He expected resistance out of religious bigotry, which is the usual stance of science against religion. 

But that his ideas could justify racist murder?  I really don't think so.  He had the prevailing attitude:  Science is good, you see, it's truth, it's enlightenment, and the more of that the better for all of us.  Opponents are simply narrow-minded and tradition-bound opposers of the noble enterprise of discovering Truth.  Murder?  No. 

Anyway, The Origin of Species promoted no ideas that could be called racist, although the theory of natural selection does carry implications that a racist mentality could twist to their purposes  by applying it to human beings, and the idea of evolution does apply it to human beings, just not in The Origin of Species.  In the context of that book, which doesn't even mention human beings but deals only with animals -- finches, turtles, bats, horses, pigeons -- the subtitle "preservation of favored races" --another way of saying "natural selection" --refers to breeds of animals, and to get all indignant over the word "races" in that phrase is simply to demonstrate ignorance of how a naturalist would use terms in those days.  He COULD have used the word "breeds" because that is exactly what he meant by the word "races" -- would that get anyone worked up about racism in the theory?

Here is Webster's 1828 Dictionary (that's Noah Webster, a strong Christian) on  

RACE   

 [L. radix and radius having the same original. This word coincides in origin with rod, ray, radiate]

1. The lineage of a family, or continued series of descendants from a parent who is called the stock. A race is the series of descendants indefinitely. Thus all mankind are called the race of Adam; the Israelites are of the race of Abraham and Jacob. Thus we speak of a race of kings, the race of Clovis or Charlemagne; a race of nobles, Hence the long race of Alban fathers come.

2. A generation; a family of descendants. A race of youthful and unhandled colts.

3. A particular breed; as a race of mules; a race of horses; a race of sheep.

Yes, again, if the idea of race in the sense of breed is applied to human beings as if we are merely animals, which is of course what Darwin does when he gets to that subject in his next book, then it can become a basis for all kinds of racist thinking. 

And there are some more directly racist ideas in Darwin's next book The Descent of Man.  Since I haven't read that book I would only have supposed that there could be such implications because of the context of applying natural selection to human beings, but in fact he does express a racist view of the sort that must have been prevalent in his time:

Here is an online copy of Darwin's Descent of Man of 1871.  And the following is from Chapter Six of that book, On the Affinities and Geneaology of Man.

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated.

The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla." [Descent of Man, Chapter 6 ]

So here we do have racist ideas in connection with Darwin's theory.  The "Australian" is the aborigine of that continent, which he identifies as a "negro." 

But note how he is discussing this:   He is not presenting some new idea here but clearly referring to a concept that he assumes his readers would readily recognize and agree to.  The idea of "savage races," the idea of a big gap or difference between "civilised" man and other races he clearly regards as inferior, are being used as if they were well known, as no doubt they were.  There is clearly an idea of higher and lower, better and worse, implied here, but not as something Darwin himself invented.  He refers to the racial group "Caucasian" as superior to others, particularly the "negro," implying that all the usual categories of human races were clearly already established in the public mind of the time. 

Again, Darwin did not invent these.  He is referring to them as if they were accepted facts in his day.

The idea of evolution was itself also not new in Darwin's time, so the idea of human relatedness to the apes was not invented by him either. 

What Darwin did was try to put these already-accepted ideas on a scientific footing, to explain how one "species" could have "evolved" into another -- "scientifically."  That's what his whole theory is about.  He came up with the idea of natural selection as the necessary mechanism to explain this.   And he wasn't the only one:  Alfred Russel Wallace came up with the same idea at the same time.  And I thought this statement from a page on that site where the author tries to answer wrong ideas about Wallace was interesting:

Wallace did not coin the phrase "survival of the fittest"--Herbert Spencer did. It was Wallace, however, who suggested that Darwin use the phrase as a means of conveying the basic idea of natural selection to nonspecialist readers.

So "survival of the fittest" was not invented by either Darwin or Wallace but made use of because they thought it might get more difficult concepts across to nonscientists.  Unfortunately the term only succeeded in confusing the subject even more.

Back to the racist comment in Darwin's Descent of Man, one thing that is clear about the theory of evolution is that the idea of progress, of more "highly evolved" and less highly evolved races, of superior and inferior, better and worse, was clearly implicit in it, and this notion was reinforced by the idea of natural selection which implies that all "races" are in differing stages of evolution.  Though it is often denied now, it does encourage classifying different races as superior and inferior.  This was in Darwin's mind, as well as his readers' minds, and all those who already held to a belief in evolution and were ready wholeheartedly to embrace the theory that supposedly explained what they already thought anyway.

Today defenders of evolution often go out of their way to insist that as a scientific theory it does not imply progress, that the changes that take place biologically that supposedly lead to the formation of new species, occur only in relation to the neutral standard of what promotes survival and reproduction.  This idea is in Darwin's writing too, and yet we find him discussing human race in the above quote in clear terms of superior and inferior.

Evolutionists today try to erase the whole idea of race from their thinking on the basis of the theory's referring only to neutral changes, but you CAN'T erase this concept from the theory because the whole thing depends on an idea of biological changes forming new groups or races as the stepping stones of evolution itself.   I guess you can try to deny the idea of progress in a blind biological system, but you can't deny that the idea of progress was inherent in the original thinking about evolution.

However that is all to be finally sorted out, it ought to be clear from that quote that Darwin himself did give at least some cause for the racist doctrines that based themselves on his theory, did give cause to Hitler, did give cause to Sanger, although he himself might have deplored what they made of his remarks had he known about them. 

True, he doesn't deplore the possibility of the extermination of the "lesser" races, he treats it as a "scientific" inevitability that the higher will ultimately replace the lower.  Perhaps the real evil of such a theory is that it allows for such cold "neutral" or "objective" assessments of human beings.  This cold way of reckoning justifies abortion too:  It's not really a human being, or if it is, human beings are just animals anyway, or an unborn infant is less than human just because it's not yet fully formed, so it's not really murder,  and so on and so forth.  Hitler therefore wasn't committing murder, he was merely ridding the world of "vermin," a good and noble deed from that twisted perspective. 

It's interesting, as an aside, that in Darwin's frame of reference it was the "negro" who was lower -- a term which no doubt included all the "savage races" and primitive tribes that had been encountered by Europeans over the previous centuries as they extended their explorations to all parts of the world -- but Hitler didn't go after the black races (though Margaret Sanger did), Hitler set himself to rid the world of Jews, an obviously successful and civilized "race," which on Darwin's scheme should put them in the more highly evolved category, and Slavs, who are Caucasians and therefore also in the highly evolved category, according to Darwinian racialism which again was really the standard racism of his day.  Hitler obviously had his own "Darwinian" theory to serve his own purposes.  How much responsibility for THAT should be put at Darwin's doorstep?

I think Darwin was a pawn of the philosophical leaders of his day, men including Thomas Huxley for instance, who aggressively promoted his theory.  As far as his own beliefs go he was a typical representative of the "enlightened" thinkers of his time.  If it hadn't been his version of natural selection that became the justification for the evolutionism that was already accepted by the "enlightened" ones, it would have been Alfred Russel Wallace's, just another misguided godless scientist.  The 19th Century brought all the evils of the Enlightenment to a critical mass, the elimination of God for starters, followed by the works of Rationalism which in that intensified form could only express the fallenness of human nature to the horrific level of Nazism -- and it still isn't over, there's more and even worse evil to come unless we turn back to God.

So now I suppose I've only compounded my sins in the eyes of my Christian critics.  Back to reading George Watson, good for the soul.