Evolution – The History of Darwinian Evolution – Neo-Darwinism
Table of Contents
Overview – Darwinian Evolution
Until the 18th century, most of the Western world’s scientists accepted the Bible as fact and accepted its timeline for the age of the world. A few of these prominent scientists were; Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1726), Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), and Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), were among those who believed in the Bible.
It wasn’t until the time Darwin’s book ‘The Origin of Species’ came out, that a paradigm shift began to happen in academia that challenged the Biblical worldview on the origin of humanity. There were several instances that caused this scientific infraction during this time frame, such as various debates in the field of geology and the higher criticism of the Bible. However, most of the credit of this schism between scientific viewpoints (Biblical vs Naturalistic) is credited to the beliefs proposed by Darwin and his influencers, which eventually gave rise to the belief system known today as Darwinian Evolution.
In the last days scoffers will come, … they deliberately overlook the fact that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed, and the earth was formed out of water and by water, 6. through which the world of that time perished in the flood.
– 2 Peter 3.3-6
Timeline of Events
| 1700 | 1750 | 1800 | 1850 | 1900 |
| 1795 – James Hutton wrote ‘Theory of the Earth’ that made people doubt the Earth was 6000 years old. | 1830 – Charles Lyell wrote “Principles of Geology” that made people doubt the flood. | 1859 – Charles Darwin wrote “Origin of Species” and made people doubt that God created mankind. |
- 1795 – James Hutton wrote a book; Theory of the Earth – That propagated society’s doubts that the world was 6000 years old
- 1830 – Charles Lyell wrote a book; Principles of Geology – That propagated society’s doubts about Noah’s flood
- 1859 – Charles Darwin wrote a book; Origin of Species – That propagated society’s doubts about a Creator.
Origin of the Old Earth Theory
The belief in an Earth older than the Biblical account slowly replaced traditional views during the late 18th century. Geologists split between those who believed geology could be accounted for by a Noachian global flood and those claiming that a global flood did not account for the strata layers.
The following advocates began the groundwork for an old Earth belief system in the Western world:
- Comte de Buffon (1708 – 1788) French Scientist. Believed the Earth originated from a collision of a comet and the Sun and postulated the Earth had passed through seven epochs over 75,000 years. He was a deist or atheist (Gillispie 1970-1980, vol 2 pp. 577-578)
- Jean Eileene Guettard (1715 – 1786) French Geologist.
- Nicolas Desmarest (1725 – 1815) French Geologist.
- Giovanne Arduino (1714 – 1795) Italian Geologist. Gave one of the earliest geologic column classifications of: Primitive, Secondary, Tertiary.
- John Whitehurst – (1713 – 1788) English Geologist. Agreed in a global Noachian flood, but that the flood did not account for the geologic strata.
- Jean Lamarck (1744 – 1829) French Naturalist. He attempted to explain a comparison between living and fossil creatures by a process of gradual evolutionary inherited and acquired characteristics. He also believed in spontaneous generation. He swung between deist and atheist (Brooke, 1991, p.243)
- Pierre Laplace (1749 – 1827) French Astronomer who developed the Nebular hypothesis. He worked to eliminate design or purpose from science. He was an open Atheist (Brook, 1991, pp.238-240).
Origin of Uniformitarianism
After 1780 Geologists further split into factions of Neptunists and Vulcanists. Neptunists believed that rock formations were deposited by water, and Vulcanists that believed granites and basalts were produced by molten lava. These individuals laid the groundwork for a uniformitarian belief:
- Abraham Werner (1749-1817) – German Geologist and Neptunist. He wrote a short classification and description of the various rocks in 1786. Stated the hypothesis of the Earth being over one million years old, and further divided the rocks into 5 layers that were laid down by global oceans. He was a deist or Atheist (Hallam, 1992, p.23; Page 1969, p.257)
- James Hutton (1726 – 1797) Scottish Geologist, Vulcanist, and Uniformitarian. Wrote the book ‘Theory of the Earth’ in 1795, arguing the Earth’s primary geologic agent was fire. That sedimentary rock was the result of the world slowing eroding off the continents carried away by the rivers and oceans and gradually transformed into rock by the Earth’s internal heat and raised by convulsions to form land mass.
“The past history of our globe must be explained by what can be seen to be happening now…. No powers are to be employed that are not natural to the globe, no action to be admitted except those of which we know the principle” – James Hutton – Holmes, 1965, pp. 43-44
James Hutton’s view was seen as an early form of uniformitarianism. He described the information we gather in the geologic strata and believed it could be explained by the same process observed in present-day erosion and sedimentation. He believed that every process observed in modern times is the exact same process that has occurred all throughout the history of the Earth.
Charles Lyell – Principles of Geology
Charles Lyell (1797 – 1875) was a Scottish Geologist who graduated from Exeter College in Oxford with a MA in 1821. After graduation, he took up a profession in law. He eventually took up Geology as a full-time profession in 1827 and was elected joint secretary of the Geologic Society. At this time, he began to develop his propositions based on James Hutton’s uniformitarian beliefs, written in 1830-33. Charles Lyell stated his goal was to free the science from Moses, meaning he wanted to remove the connection of the Biblical accounts from history and science.
(Lyell speaking about himself as) “the spiritual savior of geology, freeing the sciences from the old dispensation of Moses” – Porter, 1976, p. 91
… the age will not stand my anti-Mosaical conclusions and at least that the subject will for a time become unpopular and awkward for the clergy, but I am not afraid. I shall out with the whole but in as conciliatory a manner as possible – Charles Lyell – Quoted in Brooke, 1979, p. 45
Principles of Geology – Geologic Column
The book ‘Principles of Geology’ (1833) that Charles Lyell produced was largely based on Hutton’s earlier belief in a uniformitarian explanation of the geologic strata, or layers. He used the Standard Geologic Column which had various forms that had been developed and theorized by his predecessors in the field of Geology. Lyell used the previously defined primary layers; Primitive, Secondary, and Tertiary by G. Arduino (1759) and A. Werners (1790) data to create his own Geologic Strata model based on uniformitarianism.
His work was based on two assumptions:
- Naturalism – Lyell’s work assumed naturalism or a materialistic worldview. That all events could or are explained by the physical universe and the laws thereof.
- Uniformitarianism – The Earth’s Strata was best explained by the modern phenomenon of slow processes happening over very long periods of time. His work rejected the idea of any Noachian flood because he did not believe any catastrophic event was responsible for any of the strata layers.
Many prominent critiques by Biblical geologists and scientists did challenge Lyell’s beliefs, most of whose arguments were never refuted (Mortenson, 2004), however, were largely ignored.
The strata layers identified in Lyell’s book remain in literature to this day, over time more have been added. Starting from the top post-tertiary layers down to the Cambrian layer in the Paleozoic.
Dating the Geologic Strata
For modern students, one question surfaces; how did these Old Earth theorists determine the age of the Earth when radiometric dating wasn’t invented until 1896?
Assumptions and Beliefs
The belief in a uniformitarian system was the primary factor that drove old earth theorists to believe in the long ages of the earth and the slow processes observed were the only contributing factor to the strata layers. It was all a belief based on what they were observing and applying it to the past.
Measurable substances or processes would be measured and then compared to a total, a constant rate would be assumed and the calculation would give the results, i.e. the salination rate of the ocean compared to the current total salinity, gives a number that would be used to estimate the timeframe that salinity has been added to the ocean.
The temperature of the Earth was another estimation calculated by Scientists such as Lord Kelvin and Comte De Buffon. Beginning with the assumption, if the Earth started as a molten sphere, how long it would take to cool down to its current temperature based on its current cool-down rate? Depending on the calculation inputs, the result would typically come out between 50k – 200k years.
Index Fossils
The concept of dating the layers of the strata using index fossils was believed to be a critical factor for some old earth theorists. This idea was employed by Charles Lyell and James Smith, but however rejected as useless by many other old earth idealists, such as Conchologist John Grey (1800-1875), Geologist Robert Bakewell, Geologist Macculloch (1824), and the President of the Geologic Society George Greenough. This was because there was no clear indication as to how or when any fossil, chosen to be an index, ended up in any layer of strata.
i.e. Calico Scallops (index fossil for 1.8M yrs ago for the Quatemary Layers) are still alive today. Trilobites (index fossils for the Cambrian Layers) are found in layers of Cambrian (538-485Mya), Ordovician (485-443Mya), and Devonian (420-358Mya).
Radiometric Dating
Radioisotopes were discovered in 1896 by French Physicist Henri Becquerel (1852 – 1908). The heat from their decay seemed to support the idea of the Earth’s age being hundreds of millions of years. In 1903 New England Physicist Ernest Rutherford (1871 – 1937) determined isotopes could be used to date rocks.
History of Charles Darwin
Darwinian Evolution and Neo-Darwinism
Charles Darwin (1809-1882) began his education in 1825 at Edinburgh Medical School; however, he found a great distaste for the field and after only 2 years and went to study theology at Cambridge University to become a priest, receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1831.
Origin of the Species – Darwin’s Finches
If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case. – Charles Darwin – The Origin of Species
Botanist John Henslow was invited to join Captain Fitzroy as an education class companion on a voyage to the Galapagos Islands. However, John chose to have his student, Charles Darwin, a recent graduate, go in his stead. Darwin was deeply inspired by Charles Lyell’s book ‘Principles of Geology,’ and became indoctrinated by the idea of Darwinian evolution, or change, over long periods of time (or deep time). It was from these principles that he applied the idea of long ages or Darwinian evolutionary changes over time to biology as he studied the finches of the Galapagos Islands.
Origin of Macro or Darwinian Evolution
Darwin observed what we know today as micro-evolutionary changes while examining the finches on the Galapagos Islands. Microevolution is also known as changes within the already existing DNA code of a specific kind of animal that allows for variations to adapt to their surroundings. The finches adapted various beak sizes to be able to catch insects from their environment more efficiently, thus demonstrating the theory of evolution by natural selection.
Darwin mistakenly confused these small evolutionary changes with the nonscientific idea that one kind of animal can gradually, over time, become a different kind of animal. His observations were of finches, which already had the variables encoded in their DNA that would allow for different beak sizes to adapt to different types of environments. Finches do not have anything encoded in their DNA that would cause them to become anything other than finches (birds).
Darwin admitted that as he read Charles Lyell’s book on the ‘Principles of Geology,’ he slowly began to lose his faith in the Bible. At the end of his life, Charles Darwin wrote a letter to Francis McDermott admitting he did not believe in the Bible. Charles Darwin gave up his beliefs in the Bible to create a new religious belief system of Darwinian Evolution, a system based on faith.
“Disbelief crept over me on a very slow rate, but at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress.” – Charles Darwin in his letter to Russell Wallace in 1868, Published by in the World’s Greatest Letters
“Dear Sir, I am sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible as a divine revelation & therefore not in Jesus Christ as the son of God” – Charles Darwin – Letter to Francis McDermott 1880
References – Darwinian Evolution
Oxford University Press – Academic – Darwinian Evolutionism as a Religion – Michael Ruse
Answers in Genesis – History of the Development of the Geologic Column
Institute for Creation Research – Ten Misconceptions about the Geologic Column
https://www.grisda.org/origins-15075
Principles of geology : Lyell, Charles : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
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