Darwin's The Origin Variation of Species

If you were to write a book, would you purposefully pick a title that doesn't truly deal with the subject matter? It sounds ridiculous, but that's what Charles Darwin did.

by Mario Seiglie

This year, 2009, marks Charles Darwin's bicentennial birthday (he was born in 1809) and also the 150th anniversary of his renowned 1859 publication, On the Origin of Species. If you are in school or have taken biology classes, you have probably been bombarded with Darwin's theory of evolution and taught it as true.

The Origin of Species, as the title is often abbreviated, is listed among the most influential books ever written. "Next to the Bible," anthropologist Ashley Montagu claims, "no work has been quite as influential, in virtually every aspect of human thought, as The Origin of Species" (The Origin of Species, 1958, Mentor edition, quote on the back cover).

However, did this book really deal with the origin of species or only with the variation of species?

Candid admissions

It is shocking to find eminent evolutionists admitting that Darwin did not really address the issue of the origin of species. Let's read just a few of these startling admissions by noted scientists.

• "Darwin," notes the famous paleontologist Niles Eldredge, "never really did discuss the origin of species in his On Origin of Species" (Time Frames: The Rethinking of Darwinian Evolution and the Theory of Punctuated Equilibria, 1985, p. 33, emphasis added throughout).

• Writing in the prestigious scientific magazine Nature, Eörs Szathmáry admits: "The origin of species has long fascinated biologists. Although Darwin's major work bears it as a title, it does not provide a solution to the problem" ("When the Means Do Not Justify the Ends," June 24, 1999, online edition).

• "Darwin's book," writes biologist Chris Colby, "was titled The Origin of Species despite the fact that he did not really address this question; over one hundred and fifty years later, how species originate is still largely a mystery" (Introduction to Evolutionary Biology, 1996, online edition).

• Famous evolutionist Douglas Futuyma reveals, "One of the ironies of the history of biology is that Darwin did not really explain the origin of new species in The Origin of Species, because he didn't know how to define a species. The Origin was in fact concerned mostly with how a single species might change in time, not how one species might proliferate into many" (Science on Trial, 1983, p. 152).

• "So begins The Origin of Species," explain biologists Jerry Coyne and H. Allen Orr regarding the book, "whose title and first paragraph imply that Darwin will have much to say about speciation [the formation of species]. Yet his magnum opus remains largely silent on the 'mystery of mysteries,' and the little it does say about this mystery is seen by most modern evolutionists as muddled or wrong" (Speciation, 2004, p. 9).

• "As Professor Ernst Mayr of Harvard once remarked, 'the book called The Origin of Species is not really on that subject,'" notes author Gordon Taylor, "while his colleague Professor Simpson admits: 'Darwin failed to solve the problem indicated by the title of his work.' You may be surprised to hear that The Origin of Species remains just as much a mystery today, despite the efforts of thousands of biologists. The topic has been the main focus of attention andis beset by endless controversies" (The Great Evolution Mystery, 1983, p. 140).

What The Origin of Species is truly about

If Darwin's famous book didn't honestly deal with the origin of species, what was it really about?

It was about variation within species, or how adaptations in living things could arise. But of course, if he had more accurately titled his book On the Variation of Species, and limited himself to discussing the direct evidence available, it would hardly have received much notice from the scientific community or the public. It was only when he challenged the notion of a creator of living things and replaced it with a theory of living organisms developing without the need for a creator that he gained notoriety.

As professor of theological ethics Benjamin Wiker remarks, "That evolution must be godless to be scientific is the Darwin Myth, so profoundly misleading that it must be called a great lie, one that is unfortunately at the heart of his life and legacy" (The Darwin Myth, 2009, p. xi).

This was not a new idea. The Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius had declared that everything in the natural realm was explainable by natural means—and that to attribute any phenomena to supernatural intervention was superstitious.

Darwin's key assumption was that, primarily through variation and natural selection, all kinds of different creatures could naturally arise on their own. But what he actually discovered were only limited biological principles that govern microevolution (change within a kind, as described in Genesis, which is probably broader than what is currently called a species) and not those dealing with macroevolution (change from one kind to another).

Again, if Darwin had remained within the confines of the existing evidence, it would have revealed interesting biological data, but nothing earth-shattering. Yet what he did was to extrapolate the known evidence to pawn off a hugely unproven and speculative conclusion.

As Phillip Johnson, one of the fathers of the intelligent design movement, explains: "If relative minor variations . . . were all evolution were about, there would be no controversy, and even the strictest biblical fundamentalists would be evolutionists. Of course evolution is about a lot more than in-species variation. The important issue is whether dog breeding and finch-beak examples fairly illustrate the process that created animals in the first place" (Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds, 1997, p. 57).

Don't be fooled

Did Darwin know what he was doing when he misrepresented the title and contents of his book? We can judge him by his own words.

• He admitted to a fellow scientist, Asa Gray, about his book, "I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science" (N.C. Gillespie, Charles Darwin and the Problem of Creation, 1979, p. 2).

• Darwin once wrote to a friend that he prided himself as an expert in the "master art of wriggling" (Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. 2, p. 239).

• He confessed to some fellow scientists about his theory, "It is a mere rag of a hypothesis with as many flaws and holes as sound parts . . . but I can carry in it my fruit to market . . . a poor rag is better than nothing to carry one's fruit to market in." To another colleague he wrote, "I . . . have devoted my life to a fantasy" (Adrian Desmond and J. Moore, Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist, 1991, pp. 475-477).

The fruit he wanted to market was his theory of evolution, which included a direct attack on the prevailing notions of God, Christianity and the Bible. And a very poisonous fruit it has turned out to be.

Darwin may have been clever and deceptive, but the evidence for his theory has not truly held up. A Harvard paleontologist of Darwin's day who never accepted Darwinian evolution, Louis Agassiz, stated of Darwin's writings, "Possibilities were assumed to add up to probability, and probabilities then were promoted to certitudes" (quoted in H. Enoch, Evolution or Creation, 1966, p. 335).

Yet such a sham of a scientific theory now virtually goes unquestioned in public schools and universities. It has become like a sacred idol that can't even be criticized by the media or the schools without dire consequences. It has had an enormously negative impact, especially in Western culture. This ideology has fostered growth in atheism and even contributed to the barbaric wars under Hitler and Stalin. Of course, if people are taught that they are merely animals, we should not be surprised when they behave like animals.

"In Darwinism," explains Benjamin Wiker, "German intellectuals found scientific vindication that racial conflict, or more exactly, the subordination or elimination of inferior races, was the one needful task to save the world from evolutionary degradation, and even more, to advance humanity physically, morally, and intellectually. These were not ideas that German intellectuals twisted out of context from ill-conceived offshoots or aberrations. They came straight from Darwin himself" (The Darwin Myth, 2009, p. 154).

So don't be fooled by clever but deeply flawed arguments about the theory of evolution. Many might be celebrating Darwin's bicentennial and believe in the fatally flawed "molecules to man" theory, but you need not be deceived. Read Romans 1:18-32 to see what is now happening to our society because of those who refuse to acknowledge and honor God as our true Creator. For more information about Darwin's deception, read our free booklet Creation or Evolution: Does It Really Matter What You Believe? GN