Page 579 - Atlas of Creation Volume 3
P. 579
Harun Yahya
THE CLAIM THAT "LIFE IS STRUGGLE" IS UNTRUE
Out of devotion to Malthus and Darwin, some have carried the idea that "life is struggle" to the ul-
timate extremes, claiming that not just animals, but all living things compete with one another. The
German embryologist Wilhelm Roux claimed that organs were struggling with each other for nour-
ishment, kidneys against lungs, heart against brain. T. H. Huxley even maintained that all the mole-
cules within each organism were competing with each other!. 1
Biological discoveries of the 20th century showed that no such struggle goes on in nature. Today's
biologists refer not to competition as the basis of the organism, but to cooperation. For example, in
his book The Lives of a Cell, the biologist Thomas Lewis writes:
Most of the associations between the living things we know about are essentially cooperative ones, symbiotic
in one degree or another; when they have the look of adversaries, it is usually a standoff relation, with one par-
ty issuing signals, warnings, flagging the other off... 2
Norman Macbeth, author of Darwin Retried: an Appeal to Reason, describes how Malthus and Darwin
were mistaken and how there are no struggles to the death in nature:
Darwin took it over from Malthus, who was a sociologist (and a grim one) rather than a biologist. It was not
derived from a loving contemplation of plants and animals. Such a contemplation... would not show that "each
organic being was striving to increase at a geometrical ratio" or that there was continual struggle... 3
In his book Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, Peter Kropotkin describes the error into which Darwin
and his supporters fell:
The numberless followers of Darwin reduced the notion of struggle for existence to its narrowest limits. They
came to conceive the animal world as a world of perpetual struggle among half-starved individuals, thirsting
for one another's blood… if we take Huxley… the animal world is on about the same level as a gladiators'
show. The creatures are fairly well treated, and set to, fight hereby the strongest, the swiftest, and the cun-
ningest live to fight another day… But it may be remarked at once that Huxley's view of nature had as little
claim to be taken as a scientific deduction. 4
An article in the Turkish scientific journal Bilim ve Teknik (Science and
Technology Magazine) admits the error in claiming that nature is a battle-
ground:
The problem is why living things help one another. According to Darwin's theo-
ry, every organism carries out a struggle to survive and reproduce. Since help-
ing others would reduce that creature's odds to survive, evolution in the long
term should have eliminated that behavior. It has been observed, however, that
living things can be altruistic. 5
Together, these facts reveal once again that Darwin's theory, produced
under primitive scientific conditions, is filled with errors and decep-
tions. A great many branches of science reveal the invalidity of the
theory of evolution. Those who support it, supposedly in the name
of science, must not ignore the responsibility they assume in sup-
porting such an unscientific theory, and must abandon this error at
once.
Norman Macbeth's book
Darwin Retried: An Appeal to Reason
1. T. D. Hall, Ph.D., "Influence of Malthus and Darwin on the European Elite," 1995, http://www.trufax.org/avoid/manifold.html
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, 1902, Chapter 1; http://www.spunk.org/library/writers/kropotki/sp001503/ch1.html
5. Bilim ve Teknik (Science and Technology Magazine), No: 190, 4.
Adnan Oktar 577
