Science in Christian Perspective

Letter to the Editor

NO NATURAL FORMATION OF NEW SPECIES

From: JASA 18 (December 1966): 124-125.


Glad many of the men in ASA are not so far gone down the drain on this evolution nonesense as I thought. But not accepting the idea that "All the living forms in the world have been derived from a single form of life" still leaves lots of room for belief in evolution. Even our friend Darwin did not make the claim that everything came from only one ancestral form!

No I certainly do not believe that "over the course of time plants and animals have undergone changes leading to the formation of new species." I still have to read a single proof that such a thing ever occurred. In fact there is no proof that even one single mutation ever became completely incorporated in the whole population of a species or, for that matter, a race or variety of plant or animal, The melanic moth is so often given as a classic example but the last I read two years ago there were still 1% of the grey original type even near Birmingham. And now that less coal is being used in England's manufacturing areas, the soot is less and so the grey types are gradually increasing again.

Natural selection causes fluctuations but I have never read of a single experimental demonstration that it ever built up the % of a mutant form to 100%. And please do not quote the DDT resistant flies, for whole populations of flies are never changed to the resistant type for the simple reason they are not all exposed. And as soon as spraying is discontinued even the resistant pocket areas soon go back to the original low percentage of the resistant gene since its reproduction rate is lower . . . . . . .

So as regards any natural formation of new species the answer is a strong NO. Now whether after the Flood God saw fit to transform some to promote variety I know not. Maybe as in man when he miraculously caused people after the Tower of Babel to talk different languages, so also he might have caused designed translocations and DNA changes after the flood in other species also. Starting with the clear proof of the world wide nature of the flood we are in a position to see if such miraculous transformation might have occurred. As yet the evidence is incomplete. We need to know far more as to whether God caused translocations in human beings as part of His language confusion.

You see we operate on different scientific levels as creationists than do evolutionists.