Author Topic: THE CASE AGAINST EVOLUTION - EXCERPTS (Read 12119 times)

cantatedomino · « **on:** February 23, 2014, 11:29:22 AM »

This thread is dedicated, not to serializing, but to publishing excerpts from the book entitled The Case Against Evolution. It was written by Fr. Barry O’Toole back in the 1920’s.

It is available online at multiple sites. You just need to google it.

Here is one link:

http://archive.org/stream/caseagainstevolu00otoo/caseagainstevolu00otoo

Fr. O'toole's credentials, taken from the book:

George Barry O’Toole, Ph.D., S.T.D.
Professor of Theology and professor Emeritus of Philosophy, St. Vincent Archabbey;
Professor of Animal Biology, Seton Hill College

I used this book extensively while trying to convince an atheist high school student, who was avowedly evolutionist (hence his atheism). I learned a lot from it but did not read the whole thing, using it more as a reference text. Now I am going to read it cover to cover.

What I love about the book is its wonderful synthesis of Thomistic principles and biological science. This synthesis is exactly what the modern world, awash in science fiction, is crying out for.

There is, however, one problem with this book. Fr. O’Toole works from the presupposition that the copernican theory is empirical reality. He states in his forward as follows:

Thus all resistance to the theory of evolution is deprecated by Father Wasmann and Canon Dorlodot on the assumption that the ultimate triumph of this theory is inevitable, and that failure to make provision for this eventuality will lead to just such another blunder as theologians of the sixteenth century made in connection with the Copernican theory. Recollection of the Galileo incident is, doubtless, salutary, in so far as it suggests the wisdom of caution and the imperative necessity of close contact with ascertained facts, but a consideration of this sort is no warrant whatever for an uncritical acceptance of what still remains unverified. History testifies that verification followed close upon the heels of the initial proposal of the heliocentric theory, but the whole trend of scientific discovery has been to destroy, rather than to confirm, all definite formulations of the evolutional theory, in spite of the immense erudition expended in revising them.

The belief that the Church got it wrong in the Galileo trial definitely colors his approach, but I know that this book still contains many sound arguments that we can put to good use.

My intention with this thread is to post those same arguments.

cantatedomino · « **Reply #1 on:** February 23, 2014, 11:31:05 AM »

O'TOOLE: For the philosophers and scientists of the day, evolution is evidently something which admits of no debate and which must be maintained at all costs. These thinkers are too intent upon making out a plausible case for the theory to take anything more than the mildest interest in the facts opposed to it. If they advert to them at all, it is always to minimize, and never to accentuate, their antagonistic force. For the moment, at any rate, the minds of scientific writers are closed to unfavorable, and open only to favorable evidence, so that one must look elsewhere than in their pages for adequate presentation of the case against evolution.

cantatedomino · « **Reply #2 on:** February 23, 2014, 11:32:29 AM »

O'TOOLE: Assent to evolution as a dogma is advocated not only by materialists, who see in evolutionary cosmogony proof positive of their monism and the complete overthrow of the idea of Creation, but also by certain Catholic scientists, who seem to fear that religion may become involved in the anticipated ruin of fixism.

cantatedomino · « **Reply #3 on:** February 23, 2014, 11:34:26 AM »

O'TOOLE: In the present work, we shall endeavor to show that evolution has long since degenerated into a dogma, which is believed in spite of the facts, and not on account of them.

cantatedomino · « **Reply #4 on:** February 23, 2014, 11:36:07 AM »

O'TOOLE: There are other forms of evolution besides Darwinism, and, as a matter of fact, not Darwin, but Lamarck was the originator of the scientific theory of evolution.

cantatedomino · « **Reply #5 on:** February 23, 2014, 11:37:57 AM »

O'TOOLE: Of the second group, some, like Osborn, distinguish between the law of evolution and the theoretical explanations of this law proposed by individual scientists. The existence of the law itself, they insist, is not open to question; it is only with respect to hypotheses explanatory of the aforesaid law that doubt and disagreement exist. The obvious objection to such a solution is that, if evolution is really a law of nature, it ought to be reducible to some clear-cut mathematical formula comparable to the formulations of the laws of constant, multiple, and reciprocal proportion in chemistry, or of the laws of segregation, assortment, and linkage in genetics. Assuming, then, that it is a genuine law, how is it that to-day no one ventures to formulate this evolutional law in definite and quantitative terms?

cantatedomino · « **Reply #6 on:** February 23, 2014, 11:41:57 AM »

O'TOOLE: Others, comprising, perhaps, a majority, prefer to distinguish between the fact and the causes of evolution. Practically all scientists, they aver, agree in accepting evolution as an established fact; it is only with reference to the agencies of evolution that controversy and uncertainty are permissible.

To this contention one may justly reply that, by all the canons of linguistic usage, a fact is an observed or experienced event, and that hitherto no one in the past or present has ever been privileged to witness with his senses even so elemental a phenomenon in the evolutionary process as the actual origin of a new and genuine organic species.

If, however, the admission be made that the term "fact" is here used in an untechnical sense to denote an inferred event postulated for the purpose of interpreting certain natural phenomena, then the statement that the majority of modem scientists agree as to the "fact" of evolution may be allowed to stand, with no further comment than to note that the formidable number and prestige of the advocates fail to intimidate us. :boxer:

cantatedomino · « **Reply #7 on:** February 23, 2014, 11:42:58 AM »

Uh Oh!!!

Gotta get ready for church!!!!

Later!!!!

cantatedomino · « **Reply #8 on:** February 23, 2014, 04:46:51 PM »

O'TOOLE: Evolution, or transformism, as it is more properly called, may be defined as the theory which regards the present species of plants and animals as modified descendants of earlier forms of life.

Evolution, in the sense of transformism, is opposed to fixism, the older theory of Linne, according to whom no specific change is possible in plants and animals, all organisms being assumed to have persisted in essential sameness of type from the dawn of organic life down to the present day. The latter theory admits the possibility of environmentally-induced modifications, which are non-germinal and therefore non-inheritable. It also admits the possibility of germinal changes of the varietal, as opposed to the specific, order, but it maintains that all such changes are confined within the limits of the species, and that the boundaries of an organic species are impassable.

Transformism, on the contrary, affirms the possibility of specific change, and assumes that the boundaries of organic species have actually been traversed.

cantatedomino · « **Reply #9 on:** February 23, 2014, 05:01:22 PM »

O'TOOLE: What, then, is an organic species? It may be defined as a group of organisms endowed with the hardihood necessary to survive and propagate themselves under natural conditions (i.e. in the wild state), exhibiting a common inheritable type, differing from one another by no major germinal difference, perfectly interfertile with one another, but sɛҳuąƖly incompatible with members of an alien specific group, in such wise that they produce hybrids wholly, or partially, sterile, when crossed with organisms outside their own specific group.

Now let's turn this over in our mind for a moment. This was written in 1925, before the onset of the GMO industry. GMO plants, such as corn, soy, and cotton, are infertile. That's the mad genius of the enterprise. The farmer must buy seed from the company (and pay a licensing fee) every crop year because his yield is sans seed. It is serfdom/slavery because he never owns the means of production (seed) even if he owns land.

The dogma of evolution takes away the dignity of man, as having been created ex nihilo in the image and likeness of Almighty God on the Sixth Day of Creation. The dogma of evolution wipes out the image of God in man and posits man as an entirely material being, without a spiritual ensoulment. If man is an animal, then he does not have to be treated with dignity. Hence, in the dog-eat-dog world of post-evolutionism economics, the cooperate player that subjects the most human beings to indentured servitude is the winner on the Monopoly board.

Evolution is directly tied in to the satanic, тαℓмυdic nєω ωσrℓ∂ σr∂єr, as its underlying philosophical paradigm.

Evolution was NEVER about science. It as always nothing more or less than total war against Christ and Christendom.

cantatedomino · « **Reply #10 on:** February 23, 2014, 05:12:48 PM »

O'TOOLE: David Starr Jordan has wisely called attention to the requisite of viability and survival under natural conditions. "A species," he says, "is not merely a form or group of individuals distinguished from other groups by definable features. A complete definition involves longevity. A species is a kind of animal or plant which has run the gauntlet of the ages and persisted . . . A form is not a species until it has stood." (Science, Oct. 20, 1922, p. 448.)

We are in the heart of Metaphysics now. Matter is actuated by form. An individual belonging to a species of plant or animal is under the actuating governance of a substantial form.

Theology and common sense teach that the substantial forms of all animals and plants were created by God, ex nihilo, in toto. They did not come about through a process. Creation is not a process, but a Divine Act.

If we believe in the random occurrence - as result of material process - of all the substantial forms of plants and animals in existence on Earth, then we give to matter the power of creation. Evolution divinizes matter. It makes matter the First Cause of all things, which is impossible, as demonstrated by the Five Arguments for the Existence of God from Reason.

Only the Divinity can create.

Evolution is pure science fiction.

cantatedomino · « **Reply #11 on:** February 23, 2014, 05:30:31 PM »

O'TOOLE: sɛҳuąƖ (gametic) incompatibility as a criterion of specific distinction, presupposes the bisɛҳuąƖ or biparental mode of reproduction, namely, syngamy [the fusion of gametes resulting in the formation of a zygote, which develops into a new organism], and is therefore chiefly applicable to the metista, although, if the view tentatively proposed by the protozoologist, E. A. Minchin, be correct, it would also be applicable to the protista. According to this view, no protist type is a true species, unless it is maintained by syngamy (i.e. bisɛҳuąƖ reproduction) — "Not until syngamy was acquired," says Minchin, "could true species exist among the Protista." ("An Introduction to the Study of the Protozoa," p. 141.)

[The lower organisms consist of single cells or of aggregates of similar cells; the higher ones consist of complicated arrangements of those dissimilar aggregates of cells which we call tissues. The former we call Protists, distinguishing between Protozoa and Protophytes, according as the mode of existence is animal or plantlike; the higher animals and pkants we term Metazoa and Metaphytes respectively, the appropriate conjoint term 'Metists' not having been coined by any recognized authority. (Natural Science: A Monthly Review of Scientific Progress, Volume 11, Macmillan & Company, 1897, p. 234)]

cantatedomino · « **Reply #12 on:** February 23, 2014, 05:44:03 PM »

O'TOOLE: To return, however, to the metista, the horse (Equus caballus) and the ass (Equus asinus) represent two distinct species under a common genus. This is indicated by the fact that the mule, which is the hybrid offspring of their cross, is entirely sterile, producing no offspring whatever, when mated with ass, horse, or mule. Such total sterility, however, is not essential to the proof of specific differentiation; it suffices that the hybrid be less fertile than its parents. As early as 1686, sterility (total or partial) of the hybrid was laid down by John Ray as the fundamental criterion of specific distinction.

Hence Bateson complains that Darwinian philosophy flagrantly "ignored the chief attribute of species first pointed out by John Ray that the product of their crosses is frequently sterile in a greater or lesser degree." (Science, Jan. 20, 1922, p. 58.)

Accordingly, the sameness of type required in members of the same species refers rather to the genotype, that is, the sum-total of internal hereditary factors latent in the germ, than to the phenotype, that is, the expressed somatic characters, viz. the color, structure, size, weight, and all other perceptible properties, in terms of which a given plant or animal is described. Thus it sometimes happens that two distinct species; like the pear-tree and the apple-tree, resemble each other more closely, as regards their external or somatic characters, than two varieties belonging to one and the same species. Nevertheless, the pear-tree and the apple-tree are so unlike in their germinal (genetic) composition that they cannot even be crossed.

Again we should think in terms of Metaphysics here. Genotype seems to signify that sine qua non material principle of potency belonging to the hylomorphic composite which is common to all individuals in a species - 'horseflesh,' so to speak; while phenotype seems to signify those accidental forms/beings particular to individuals, so that one horse is roan, another tall, another spotted, etc.

cantatedomino · « **Reply #13 on:** February 23, 2014, 05:52:19 PM »

O'TOOLE: According to all theories of transformism, new species arise through the transformation of old species, and hence evolutionists are at one in affirming the occurrence of specific change. When it comes, however, to assigning the agencies or factors, which are supposed to have brought about this transmutation of organic species, there is a wide divergence of opinion. The older systems of transformism, namely, Lamarckism and Darwinism, ascribed the modification of organic species to the operation of the external factors of the environment, while the later school of orthogenesis attributed it to the exclusive operation of factors residing within the organism itself.

Lamarckism, for example, made the formation of organs a response to external conditions imposed by the environment. The elephant, according to this view, being maladjusted to its environment by reason of its clumsy bulk, developed a trunk by using its nose to compensate for its lack of pliancy and agility. Here the use or function precedes the organ and molds the latter to its need. Darwinism agrees with Lamarckism in making the environment the chief arbiter of modification. Its explanation of the elephant's trunk, however, is negative rather than positive. This animal, it tells us, developed a trunk, because failure to vary in that useful direction would have been penalized by extermination.

Wilson presents, in a very graphic manner, the appalling problem which confronts evolutionists who seek to explain the adaptations of organisms by means of environmental factors. Referring, apparently, to Henderson's Fitness of the Environment, he says, "It has been urged in a recent valuable work . . . that fitness is a reciprocal relation, involving the environment no less than the organism. This is both a true and suggestive thought; but does it not leave the naturalist floundering amid the same old quicksands? The historical problem with which he has to deal must be grappled at closer quarters. He is everywhere confronted with specific devices in the organism that must have arisen long after the conditions of environment to which they are adjusted. Animals that live in water are provided with gills. Were this all, we could probably muddle along with the notion that gills are no more than lucky accidents. But we encounter a sticking point in the fact that gills are so often accompanied by a variety of ingenious devices, such as reservoirs, tubes, valves, pumps, strainers, scrubbing brushes, and the like, that are obviously tributary to the main function of breathing. Given water, asks the naturalist, how has all this come into existence and been perfected? The question is an inevitable product of our common sense." (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1915, p. 405.)

cantatedomino · « **Reply #14 on:** February 23, 2014, 06:10:26 PM »

O'TOOLE: Impressed with the difficulty of accounting for the phenomena of organic adaptation by means of the far too general and unspecific influence of the environment, the orthogenetic school of transformism . . . . repudiated this explanation, and sought to explain organic evolution on the sole basis of internal factors, such as 'directive principles,' or germinal determinants. According to this conception, the elephant first developed his trunk under the drive of some internal agency, and afterwards sought out an environment in which the newly-developed trunk would be useful. In other words, orthogenesis makes the organ precede the function, and is therefore the exact reverse of Lamarckism.

You know, it is really helpful to go back and visit these old books. The fraud is so clear!!! There were no computer graphics around back them to mesmerize the audience into believing bullhockey. Everything was based upon observations, demonstration, and argumentation.

How do ridiculous explanations such as these survive the violation of observation, measurement and common sense, let alone philosophy? The answer lies in the diabolical disorientation that began with the wholesale acceptation by the Church of heliocentrism - another colossal fraud that violates both Faith and Reason.

Without the copernican revolution, the darwinian could not have achieved liftoff.

We see in this book the pusillanimous sycophancy of otherwise reasonable men, who kowtow to the scientist priesthood, as if it has real authority of some kind, rather than a mere penchant for spewing forth absurdities under its guise - the men of the Age of Surrender granted to scientism an apparent authority greater than that of Divine Revelation and the Church!