Evolution Letters

The debate between evolution and creation continues to feature in these pages and I would like to add a brief comment. This is not my field, but as a scientist I can offer an interesting perspective.

Darwin was undoubtedly a genius: his prose and objective analysis was magnificent. (My favourite is The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, 2nd ed., 1901.) However I have come to see that there are serious problems with evolution theory, which the media, for whatever reason, promotes as if it were beyond dispute.

The probability of a single, living, viable cell emerging from the “primordial soup” has been likened to having our entire solar system filled with sand and finding a specific single grain among those trillions of tons. Spontaneous assembly of a cell, the very simplest form of life, is countless trillions of times (to the power 10!) less likely than winning the lottery on a single play. Yes, it is theoretically possible, but in reality, on any reasonable view, it is impossible.

Applied to psychology, of which I am more qualified to speak, there is little doubt that evolutionary theory works. I have observed specific behaviours evolve “in real time.” Behaviour is constantly developing, but what we see in our own time-frame is existing instincts, of quite long age, being expressed in novel ways. Advantageous instincts are applied to new situations, and as they adapt they advance. The engine of the behaviour is the underlying, long-standing instinct. Ultimately these instinctive procedures are biological, with hormones playing a large part.

I might add that something is definitely going on when people like Richard Dawkins rail against creationism and preach evolution like it was the new gospel. Shakespeare was truly the psychologist when he observed “The lady doth protest too much.”

It seems obvious that behaviour evolves. However evolutionary theory as applied to the natural, physical world presents serious difficulties. There are profound, apparently insurmountable problems accounting for the origin of life, irreducibly complex systems (insect life-stages, blood) and the gross mutation of one species to another, to name just three. I discussed this with a friendly woman once and she said “Does this mean there’s a man in heaven with a long white beard behind everything?” “Well” I replied, “it’s as good an explanation as any.”

Simon Sheppard, Yorkshire
H&D 92, Sept.-Oct. 2019

Sir – Given his previous writing, I was surprised to read Simon Sheppard (in H&D 92) invoke Yahweh – the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – as a “good explanation as any” for life, the universe and everything. Call it prejudice, if you like, but I would prefer not to credit that tribal deity with anything. Fortunately, Mr Sheppard employed the so-called teleological argument on which to posit Yahweh’s existence, for which there is a standard refutation. This argument (also used by Mr Wyle in H&D 85) states that life is just too complex to have happened by sheer accident. There must have been a creator to account for this complexity, therefore, God exists.

The problem with this is that it seeks to solve complexity by introducing a creator who is even more complex and unlikely than that which he is supposed to explain. Of course the same question could then be applied to the creator as it does to the creation: Who created the creator? In which case you get an infinite regress and according to Ockham’s razor we should not needlessly multiply entities. Generally, when constructing a theory, we don’t want to appeal to anything we are not sure actually exists. The only way to be sure that something actually exists is if your theory can’t do without it.

I’m more inclined to agree with Mr Sheppard’s comment that something is “definitely going on” with Richard Dawkins’s proselytising of atheism and evolution. It is well to remember that Dawkins was the University of Oxford’s Professor for Public Understanding of Science. Part of his remit seems to have been a series of sermons on the wonders of Darwinism. It is interesting to note, in this context, that Darwinism is mentioned in The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, where, under the subtitle “Destructive Education,” its dissemination is described approvingly as having a disintegrating effect on the mind of the Goyim.

Unfortunately, The Protocols don’t go into more detail on this disintegration. It could be a consequence of the reduction of human life to an animal level. Man, instead of being the pinnacle of creation, is just another species whose ascendancy is temporary and is subject to the inevitable reversal of pure chance. Human life is without direction, being governed be the mechanistic law of evolution. Darwinism itself ultimately leads to relativism as there is no truth, only the struggle for existence.

Although some nationalists, writing in H&D, have claimed that Darwinism underpins their political philosophy, and doubtless a case could be made for such, unfortunately, a case could also be made for Darwinism to underpin almost any political ideology. (Perhaps conservatism could be an exception as that tends to eschew a theoretical base.) As an example, Marx (whose theories presumably few readers of this journal would endorse) was an early advocate of Darwinism, as it could be used to give scientific sanction to the idea of class struggle. None of this is intended as a denial of the scientific status of the theory of evolution but rather to point out that it is unavailable as a premise for one’s political philosophy.

Yours sincerely
Christopher Nason, London
H&D 94, Jan.-Feb. 2020

Sir – I thank Christopher Nason for his thoughtful response to my short piece on the “working theory” of evolution in H&D 94. This debate isn’t going to go away, and I will quite understand if our erstwhile editor chooses not to publish this, to lay the matter to rest and avoid its extension ad infinitum.

A religious person could say that the modern dismissal of religion is a result of “gaslighting”: that we have been conditioned not to accept the evidence of our own eyes. The great beauty of nature, its many complex wonders and the impossibility of random creation of even a single living cell are, in the religious view, obvious testimony to intelligent design.

Whether we envisage a bearded man seated on a heavenly throne or whatever, these are mortal attempts to somehow, falteringly, comprehend the infinite and the transcendental. Human curiosity makes us want to know things that are essentially unknowable. This problem has existed for millennia, and science only deepens the mysteries, because it is truly said that the more you know, the more you realise you don’t know. The ultimate beginning of the Universe and the meaning of our existence in it are perennial human quandaries.

In the media narrative, evolution is promoted uncritically. That alternative perspectives are omitted from debate is itself a valid ground for suspicion. The media’s consistent undermining of Christianity in particular (rarely Islam and never, heaven forbid, Judaism) is also telling. It is plain that antipathy toward Christians is being encouraged. I believe the media-controllers fear a spiritual and religious renaissance, because White transcendency is awesome. Thus I think it is wrong to suggest that this issue has no bearing on nationalism.

For myself, I have become an adherent of logos, which is truth, logic, the natural law. One can believe in logos and not believe in God, but in old-fashioned religious terms, to defy logos is to defy God. If you go against logos, it will always come back and bite you.

Putting it in commonplace, everyday terms, someone who habitually runs across the road without looking may get away with it a few times, but surely, inevitably he will one day be splattered by a heavy moving object. A man who has a rough time at work arrives home and takes it out on his wife; the wife takes it out on the kids; the kids take it out on the dog and the dog takes it out on the cat. All gets taken out and at the end, harmony is restored. This is the natural order, and if this is not allowed to happen the instincts come out all wrong.

Incidentally, some who are wont to quote the Bible say that many of the fundamental precepts of Christianity, such as the Ten Commandments, in their proper sense, only refer to one’s own people. That the neighbour one should love is a member of one’s own nation, not others, but this is for scholars and theologians to debate.

Back in the real world, it is certain that the status quo, reliant as it is on money-printing, unlimited debt and widespread denial of reality, cannot be sustained. To invoke logos again, that which cannot be sustained will not be.

Yours etc.
Simon Sheppard, Yorkshire
H&D 95, Mar.-Apr. 2020