07.04. The Origin of the Species

The Origin of the Species Genesis 1:11-13 ; Genesis 1:20-25

How did we get so far down the road from what the Bible reveals concerning the beginning of the species of life on the earth? We make the mistake in thinking that at one time everyone believed that God created all things. We think that evolution replaced special creation beliefs of people. I submit to you that men have always ignored God and chosen to believe in other things or nothing at all instead of God.

Lets look at a far-fetched scenario of events. You notice that the family dog that has the run of the neighborhood and countryside seems to be gaining weight. You realize she is pregnant. As the days progress your family is getting exciting. The day of delivery come and the family gathers around to see what they will be, no not if they are boys or girls but if they will even be dogs. Perhaps she will have a fawn or a litter of cats. But to your relief they are puppies. It is impossible to be anything else.

We often hear the only thing certain is death and taxes. This is not true however. There are a few more things that are certain as well. Cats will always have kittens and a dog will always have pups. There is a law of nature that is certain and it is the law of biogenesis. Ten times in the first chapter of Genesis we hear the words, "After its kind."

I- And Then Came Darwin:

Perhaps the most famous book ever written on the subject of evolution is the book by Charles Darwin called On the Origin of Species. Did Darwin unlock the secret of where the species came from? This work was published in 1859. If you look at the work itself chapter 6 is called, "Difficulties of the theory." Darwin asked many questions that to this day are not answered satisfactory. He stated concerning the fact that the reader would have thought of many difficulties he states, "Some of them are so serious that to this day I can hardly reflect on them without being in some degree staggered."

Let’s look at few exerts from the objections that Darwin raised about his own theory. Darwin says:

"First, why, if species have descended from other species by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion, instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?

Secondly, is it possible that an animal having, for instance, the structure and habits of a bat, could have been formed by the modification of some other animal with widely different habits and structure? Can we believe that natural selection could produce, on the one hand, an organ of trifling importance, such as the tail of a giraffe, which serves as a fly-flapper, and, on the other hand, an organ so wonderful as the eye?

Thirdly, can instincts be acquired and modified through natural selection? What shall we say to the instinct which leads the bee to make cells, and which has practically anticipated the discoveries of profound mathematicians?

Fourthly, how can we account for species, when crossed, being sterile and producing sterile offspring, whereas, when varieties are crossed, their fertility is unimpaired?"

We would like to know the same things as well Mr. Darwin, even some almost 150 years later.

II- Biogenesis or Spontaneous Generation:

    Along about the time of Darwin there lived another great French scientist named Louis Pasteur. He was a skeptic of Darwin and proved that life never comes from non-life. There was a supposed scientific thought that life would rise from nonlife. It was called spontaneous generation.

Let me take us to a lecture of Louis Pasteur given on April 7, 1864 at the "Sorbonne Scientific Soiree." Mightn’t matter, perhaps, organize itself? Or posed differently, mightn’t creatures enter the world without parents, without forebears? This is the question I seek to resolve.

It must be acknowledged that the belief in spontaneous generation has been with us throughout the ages; universally accepted in antiquity, it has become more disputed in modern times…

Pasteur then gives some examples of a celebrated man alchemical physician Van Helmont who lived in the 17^th century (1600) "When water from the purest spring is placed in a flask steeped in leavening fumes, it putrefies, engendering maggots. The fumes which rise from the bottom of a swamp produce frogs, ants, leeches, and vegetation….Carve an indentation in a brick, fill it with crushed basil, and cover the brick with another, so that the indentation is completely sealed. Expose the two bricks to sunlight, and you will find that within a few days, fumes from the basil, acting as a leavening agent, will have transformed the vegetable matter into veritable scorpions…."

Yea right! But it gets better still.

"Or take the following passage, bearing in mind that Van Helmont affirms having conducted the experiment described therein… If a soiled shirt is placed in the opening of a vessel containing grains of wheat, the reaction of the leaven in the shirt with fumes from the wheat will, after approximately twenty-one days, transform the wheat into mice. Van Helmont adds that the resulting mice are adults, male and female, and that they may continue to reproduce their species by copulation." It is obvious that the experiment allowed mice to enter unknown to Helmont and reproduce therefore allowing him to claim spontaneous generations. I submit to you that even the most ignorant today would not believe such.

III- Scopes Monkey Trial:

    Dateline: July 10-25, 1925, Dayton Tennessee. Event: Scopes Monkey Trial.

By 1925 many southern states had passed laws that prohibited the teaching of evolution in the classroom. Among them were Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and in Tennessee the Butler Law was passed in ’25. Enter the ACLU and a man named George W. Rappelyea who was from Dayton. On May 5, Rappelyea and other local leaders met at F.E. Robinson’s drug store and hammered out the details of their plan. All they needed was a teacher to test the law, and they found him in John T. Scopes, a 24-year old science teacher and football coach. In addition to Scopes you had two other major players and the judge, who read the first . The trial was not to decide if evolution was true or not but only if Scopes had been guilty of teaching it and thus in violation of the Butler Law. One attorney was Clarence Darrow and the other attorney was William Jenning Bryan. Bryan was known as, "The Great Commoner" and had been a presidential candidate 3 times and secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson. Darrow was a brilliant lawyer and specialized in defending the underdogs. The judge did not allow any expert testimony from anyone. He based his ruling on the claim that neither religion nor evolution was on trial but only if Scopes had taught evolution. After calling Bryan to the stand and humiliating him the trial went to jury which took 8 minutes to bring back a guilty verdict. Darrow, the defense attorney wanted a guilty verdict so he could appeal it and test the Butler Law. Another interested side show was the bringing of two chimpanzees and a man who was called "the missing link." He turned out to be a man named Joe Viens who was originally from Burlington Vermont. He was 51 years old and 3 ½ feet fall with a receding forehead and protruding jaw and had a funny shuffling walk.

IV- The Great Chain of Being:

    So had the teaching of evolution replaced the teaching of special creation? Well not exactly. Remember we always assume that everything has always been as it is today.

Marvin Lubenow in a work called Bones of Contention, says, "It is not unusual for people to begn with a wrong idea of what the Bible teaches, reject that view, and then reject the entire Bible because ’the Bible is unscientific.’ This is what Darwin did. Most people believe that Darwin disproved biblical creationism and proved evolution….Darwin did not reject biblical creation; he knew nothing about it." (Marvin Lubenow, Bones of Contention, Baker Books, p 94.) So what was the though of the day in which we have the teachings of Darwin coming from? Notice again Marvin Lubenow. "To step back into the nineteenth century would cause us culture shock in many ways. One of the shocks would come when we realized what was commonly believed about creation. Before evolution became popular, creation was the accepted scientific model of the universe and of humans. However, it was a type of creationism that few of us would recognize and not biblical creationists did or would endorse. The concept was known and the Great Chain of Being, patterned not after Moses but after Plato. According to this concept the Almighty had created a great ladder or chain of living things, from single-celled organisms all the way to humans, each organism being a bit more complex than the one below it. All of nature fit into this ascending organizational scale… …The concept of the Great Chain of Being by its very nature became a ’setup’ for evolution. All one had to do was to change this static chain to a dynamic one, with the forms gradually evolving upward one into another, and one has the basic evolutionary scenario." (Ibid. pgs 93, 95) Speaking of Darwin later he says, "His purpose was to ’ungod’ the universe. Darwin was a positivist. This is the philosophy that the only true knowledge is a scientific knowledge; no other type of knowledge is legitimate….Darwin accomplished one of the greatest feats of salesmanship in the history of the world. He convinced scientists that it was unscientific to deal with God or creation in any way. To be scientific, they must study the world as if God did not exist." (Ibid., p 191)

V- So What is a Species?

     It is important that we understand that the Bible does not use the word species. It simply says each after it’s kind. In Genes, Genesis, and Evolution J.W. Klotz has a chapter called "The Species Problem" there is a section, Generally Accepted Criteria. While stating that no clear definition has ever been arrived at by scientist he says, "…several criteria seem to run through all of them." Notice what he gives as these criteria.

"First of all, there is considerable emphasis on the idea that to belong to the same species tow organisms must be capable of interbreeding…A second criterion is that the offspring itself must be fully fertile…Third, the group must have a definite geographical range which can be marked off or delimited…Finally, the member of one species are usually separated by differences of structure and appearance from members of another species." (J.W. Klotz, Genes, Genesis and Evolution, Concordia Publishing House, Saint Louis, 1972, p 48-49) Henry Morris said, "Many evolutionists have tried to argue that humans are 99% similar chemically to apes and blood precipitation test do indicate that the chimpanzee is people’s closest relative. Yet regarding this we must observe the following: ’Milk chemistry indicates that the donkey is man’s closest relative.’ ’Cholesterol level test indicate that the garter snake is man’s closest relative.’ ’Tear enzyme chemistry indicates that the chicken is man’s closest relative.’ ’on the basis fo another type of blood chemistry test, the butter bean in man’s closest relative." (Morris, Henry M. The Twilight of Evolution, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1967, p. 362) Some will say that a few new species have risen since creation. One such I understand is that cauliflower and broccoli came from the same root but now cannot pollinate each other. We also hear today about genetically engineered foods such as corn. I remind us that this also speaks of a creator because these required an intelligent being to manipulate them to produce different things. God was the originator however of the things we only manipulate.

VI-Origin of the Species:

    We now turn our attention back to the Genesis account. It says that creation was given the ability to reproduce only within the bounds of the Creator.

    Genesis 1:11-13 says, "And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. ¹² And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. ¹³ And the evening and the morning were the third day."

    The third day God created the plant life and set it in motion to reproduce. "Three main order of plant ’life’ are mentioned: grasses, herbs, and trees…The term ’grass’ is intended to include all spreading ground-covering vegetation; ’herbs’ includes all bushes and shrubs; ’trees’ includes all large woody plants, including even fruit-bearing trees." (Henry Morris, The Genesis Record, Baker House, p 62-63)

Morris also states, "Each type of organism has its own unique structure of the DNA and can only specify the reproduction of that same kind." (Ibid.) An interesting pattern is found in nature that argues strongly for a special Divine Creator. It is know as the Fibonacci numbers. Its shows up in many place but especially in the plant kingdom. Have you ever noticed that 4 leaf clovers are rare and 3 are common. Poison Ivy had 3 leaves and tame ivy has five. Fibonacci numbers are derived at with the following pattern. 0+1=1, 1+1=2, 1+2=3, 2+3=5, 3+5=8, 5+8=13, 8+13=21 etc. Using this pattern we know the Fibonacci numbers are 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,etc. Notice the pattern on plants I found on the internet. "On many plants, the number of petals is a Fibonacci number: buttercups have 5 petals; lilies and iris have 3 petals; some delphiniums have 8; marigolds have 13 petals; some asters have 21 whereas daisies can be found with 34, 55 or even 89 petals." Not only did God create plant life, He also put His signature of order upon it. These numerical pattern show up in nature in many places. The cones of honeybees, spirals of seashells, branching patterns of plants and trees, petal of flowers, seed head of flowers, pine cones spirals, leaf arrangements on plants. On the fifth day we see God created the animal of the air and sea.

Genesis 1:20-23 "And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. ²¹ And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. ²² And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. ²³ And the evening and the morning were the fifth day."

Animal life was created for the sea and air. Notice it says that they were to produce after their kind again. Evolution says animals evolved into birds then into other things. God says He created them specialized. On the sixth day we see the creation of land animals. Genesis 1:24-25 "And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. ²⁵ And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good."

Again we see they were given boundaries within which they could procreate. Each after its kind. We do not have time to explore the different animals that look alike but cannot reproduce such as the fox and the dog. You might say how about the mule, which is a cross breed between the horse and a donkey. The male mule cannot reproduce.

There is another set of genetic laws known as Mendel’s Laws. Mendel discovered that genes are merely reshuffled from one generation to another. Different combinations are formed, not different genes. The different combinations produce the many variations within each kind of life, such as in the dog family. A logical consequence of Mendel’s lawas is that there are limits to such variations." God simply said, each after it’s kind.

VII- Our Friend the Platypus:

    As we conclude let’s look at a wonder of creation, the Platypus. You can only find it in Tasmania and eastern Australia. When European scientist studied the first platypus specimens they thought it was a hoax from some clever taxidermist. They thought that based on evolution it should be similar to other animals from which it evolved.

"The duckbill platypus, has organs completely unrelated to their alleged evolutionary ancestors. The platypus has fur, is warm-blooded, and suckles its young like mammals. It lays leathery eggs, has a single ventral opening (for elimination, mating and birth), and has claws and a shoulder girdle like most reptiles. The platypus can detect electrical currents (a.c. and d.c.) like some fish, and has a fill like a duck (a bird). It has webbed forefeet like an otter, a flat tail like a beaver, and the male can inject poisonous venom like a pit viper. Such "patchwork" animals and plants, called mosaics, have no logical place on the evolutionary tree." (unknown internet source) And guess what, when the platypus produces offspring in it unique way, you guessed it, it is always a platypus. "Each after it’s kind." What a God we serve.