Page 740 - Atlas of Creation Volume 1

CHAPTER 2

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE THEORY

he roots of evolutionist thought go back as far as antiquity as a dogmatic belief attempting to deny the

fact of creation. Most of the pagan philosophers in ancient Greece defended the idea of evolution.
T When we take a look at the history of philosophy we see that the idea of evolution constitutes the back-
bone of many pagan philosophies.

However, it is not this ancient pagan philosophy, but faith in God which has played a stimulating role in
the birth and development of modern science. Most of the people who pioneered modern science believed in
the existence of God; and while studying science, they sought to discover the universe God has created and to
perceive His laws and the details in His creation. Astronomers such as Copernicus, Keppler, and Galileo; the
father of paleontology, Cuvier; the pioneer of botany and zoology, Linnaeus; and Isaac Newton, who is re-

ferred to as the "greatest scientist who ever lived", all studied science believing not only in the existence of God
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but also that the whole universe came into being as a result of His creation. Albert Einstein, considered to be
the greatest genius of our age, was another devout scientist who believed in God and stated thus; "I cannot con-

ceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science
without religion is lame." 7
One of the founders of modern physics, German physician Max Planck said: "Anybody who has been seri-
ously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science
are written the words: Ye must have faith. It is a quality which the scientist cannot dispense with." 8

The theory of evolution is the outcome of the materialist philosophy that surfaced with the reawakening of
ancient materialistic philosophies and became widespread in the 19th century. As we have indicated before,
materialism seeks to explain nature through purely material factors. Since it denies creation right from the

start, it asserts that every thing, whether animate or inanimate, has appeared without an act of creation but
rather as a result of a coincidence that then acquired a condition of order. The human mind however is so struc-
tured as to comprehend the existence of an organising will wherever it sees order. Materialistic philosophy,
which is contrary to this very basic characteristic of the human mind, produced "the theory of evolution" in the
middle of the 19th century.

Darwin's Imagination

The person who put forward the theory of evolution the way it is defended today, was an amateur English
naturalist, Charles Robert Darwin.
Darwin had never undergone a formal education in biology. He took only an amateur interest in the subject
of nature and living things. His interest spurred him to voluntarily join an expedition on board a ship named

H.M.S. Beagle that set out from England in 1832 and travelled around different regions of the world for five

738 Atlas of Creation