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    August 28, 1883

    “Is Evolution Science?” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 60, 35, p. 547.

    BY ELD. ALONZO T. JONES

    IN the Independent of May 27, 1880, appeared an article by President Gregory, of Lake Forest Univeristy, Ill., on the question, “Is Evolution Science?” in which occurred the following quotation, and comment:—ARSH August 28, 1883, page 547.1

    “Take, as illustration of the quality of the so-called science, the well-known passage from Mr. Darwin: ‘The early progenitors of man were, no doubt, covered with hair, both sexes having beards. Their ears were pointed and capable of movement, and their bodies were provided with a tail.... The foot ... was prehensile, and our progenitors, no doubt, were arboreal in their habits, frequenting some warm, forest-clad land.... At an earlier period the progenitors of man must have been aquatic in their habits.’ARSH August 28, 1883, page 547.2

    “When men laud this as ‘advanced science,’ we have to say that it is a double ‘no doubt,’ and a ‘must have been’ resting on a hypothesis which is conceivable, but has not a fact to support it. We protest, in the name of sound thinking, against the almighty must-be-ity with which the evolutionist constructs his system; and we do it for the same reason that we protest against the equally patent must-be-ity and per se-ity of the speculative philosophers and theologians.... Let us have real science, and not sham science.”ARSH August 28, 1883, page 547.3

    Now we will append to this an extract from Geikie’s Geology, in comparison with the above from “Darwin’s Descent of Man,” and see whether President Gregory’s “protest” will not lie with equal weight against both.ARSH August 28, 1883, page 547.4

    The third paragraph under Part III., Drynamical Geology, reads as follows:—ARSH August 28, 1883, page 547.5

    “At an early time in the earth’s history, anterior to any of the periods of which a record remains in the visible rocks, the chief sources of geological action probably [italics mine] lay within the earth itself. The planet still retained a great store of its initial heat, and in all likelihood, was the theatre of great chemical changes, giving rise, perhaps, to manifestations of volcanic energy somewhat like those which have so marvelously roughened the surface of the moon. As the outer layers of the globe cooled, and the disturbances due to internal heat and chemical action became less marked, the influence of the sun, which must always have operated, would then stand out more clearly, giving rise to that wide circle of superficial changes wherein variations of temperature and the circulation of air and water over the surface of the earth came into play.”ARSH August 28, 1883, page 547.6

    So on this we too would say, “When men laud this as ‘advanced science,’ we have to say that it is simply” a “probability” linked with a “likelihood” and sustained by a “perhaps,” and all supported by a “must have operated,” with not a fact to underlies any of it, because it is all concerning periods of which there is no “visible record.” In the words of President Gregory, “we protest, in the name of sound thinking against the almighty ‘probabilities,’ and ‘perhaps’s,’ and ‘must have’s, with which the geologist constructs his system.” And with him we say, “Let us have real science, and not sham science.”ARSH August 28, 1883, page 547.7

    But as evolution, with all its “no doubts” and “must have been’s” has never been able to give, as Mr. Darwin says, an explanation of the “loss of the tail” by “man,” so on the other hand, geology with all its probabilities,” etc., cannot tell whether its changes have been wrought by the means conjectured, or by other, and totally different means and at the same time much rapidly than is allowed in any of the calculations of geologists. And therefore we, as evolutionists, are willing to admit as a “working hypothesis” that man, as man, was created, and created without a tail. And as geologists, we will admit as a “working hypothesis” that “once upon a time” “the windows from on high were opened, and the fountains of the great deep were broken up,” and that “a flood of waters covered the whole face of the earth.” And the “probabilities” are, “no doubt,” that, “in all likelihood,” we, as evolutionists and geologists, “must be” just as near right about these things as “perhaps” are the evolutionists and geologists of the “advanced science” school.ARSH August 28, 1883, page 547.8

    Farmington, W. T., Aug. 4.ARSH August 28, 1883, page 547.9

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