Page 710 - Atlas of Creation Volume 4

DARWIN’S DILEMMA: THE SOUL

The theory of evolution is silenced by the existence of the
human soul

harles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, two bi ol o gists in Victorian England, claimed that all
liv ing spe cies were de scend ed from one an oth er as a re sult of chance proc ess es, and that they

C con tin ued de vel op ing by those same chan ges un til hu man be ings fi nal ly emerged.
The first study on ev o lu tion by way of nat u ral se lec tion was joint ly pre pared by Darwin and
Wallace. Instead of com pet ing with one an oth er on the sub ject of the the o ry of ev o lu tion, each ad mit ted
the oth er’s con tri bu tion to this fantastical the o ry. Wallace even sup port ed Darwin’s the o ry of nat u ral se -

lec tion in his book en ti tled Darwinism.
When he heard of the book, Darwin’s re sponse was, “You should not speak of Darwinism for it can
as well be called Wallacism.” 116
However, the two bi ol o gists were short ly to take dif fer ent paths with re gard to their il lu so ry the o ry.

The the o ry of ev o lu tion main tains that living species de scend ed from one an oth er, with all their dif -
fer ing an a tom i cal and phys i cal char ac ter is tics, by way of nat u ral se lec tion—a chance and there fore un -
con scious proc ess. According to this claim, life that be gan with a bac te ri um gave rise to the whole va ri -
e ty of more than a mil lion life forms ex ist ing today. (For de tailed in for ma tion, see The Evolution Deceit

by Harun Yahya.)
Darwin be lieved that the prin ci ple of nat u ral se lec tion did not ac count for on ly the emer gence of
mor pho log i cal fea tures such as toes or the nose, but that it al so de ter mined brain struc ture and there -
fore, men tal ca pac i ties. In Darwin’s view, nat u ral se lec tion was the force that al tered and de vel oped hu -

man be ings’ abil i ties in mu sic, art and lit er a ture and which in flu enced their abil i ty to think and take ra -
tion al de ci sions. However, Wallace did not share that view. He thought that Darwin’s prin ci ples could
ac count for fin gers and toes or sim pler fea tures, but be lieved that it was im pos si ble for su pe ri or hu man
abil i ties such as math e mat ics and mu sic to be the work of blind co in ci dence.

The main rea son why Wallace op posed the idea that blind co in ci dence could be the source of a
Mozart’s abil i ties was the el e ment that can be de scribed as “po ten tial in tel li gence.” Wallace sug gest ed
that we im ag ine that we have taken a young mem ber of Aborigines unable to read or write. Let us then
ed u cate that young ster in a mod ern state school in Rio, New York or Tokyo. There will of course be no

dif fer ence be tween that young ster and chil dren brought up in those cit ies. As Professor Vilayanur
Ramachandran ex plained: “According to Wallace, this means that the aborigine or Cro-Magnon
pos sess es a po ten tial in tel li gence that vas tly ex ceeds any thing that he might need for
cop ing with his nat u ral en vi ron ment. This kind of po ten tial in tel li gence can

708 Atlas of Creation Vol. 4