Many scientific researchers have been focused on the evolution doctrine’s problems, but it is absolutely clear that the unity of opinion regarding all its provisions has not been achieved yet. A rather general descriptive definition of the term «evolution» is the only aspect that arises no discussions. Many of the evolutionary theory critics drew attention to the low, in their opinion, probability of certain facts and events in the living beings’ development.
Among the number of the Darwinism critics appeared immediately after its appearance, the Russian philosopher N. Ya. Danilevsky is worth paying special attention, who carefully analyzed all the papers by Charles Darwin, as well as the critical papers related to them and introduced his own views on evolution. In his three-volume work, «Darwinism. A Critical Study» (1885), containing almost 1,500 pages, he comprehensively criticized Darwin’s doctrine. He wrote the following: «On the one hand, it is impossible for a mass of accidents not related to each other, to produce order, harmony, and surprising expediency; on the other hand, a talented scientist, having all the data of science and extensive personal experience in hand, shows you in a clear and obvious way how simple, however, it can be done. Only after a long study and even longer consideration I saw the fi st way out of this dilemma, and it was a great joy for me. Then a lot of such exits had been opened so that the entire theory building was riddled with, and fi ally fell apart in my eyes into an incoherent pile of garbage».
Much of written by N. Ya. Danilevsky still remains valid nowadays. In his papers, he provides 15 main incorrect conclusions formulated by Ch. Darwin and 10 logical errors that had led to them. Thus, Ch. Darwin did not indicate any single breed that could have arisen through the minor individual changes’ gradual accumulation, and greatly exaggerated the role of artificial selection in the formation of the plants’ arable forms and cultured animals, and also ignored large spasmodic changes, as this made his theory useless and ruined the natural explanation of organic expediency. He considered it inappropriate to extend the conclusions drawn from the domestic animals and arable plants’ observations to organisms living in natural conditions. Despite the domestic animals’ high degree variability obtained through the artificial selection, it does not go beyond the species. The role of the very artificial selection is greatly exaggerated. Selection is valid only within the species. It is impossible to cross the border between species, and if selection is stopped, the species returns to its original wild form. The thesis regarding treating varieties as «beginning species» is based on facts that cannot lead to such conclusions.
N. Ya. Danilevsky pointed out that free crossbreeding in natural conditions leads to the fact that all individual differences cannot be accumulated and are constantly destroyed. In his opinion, the vitality of an organism in vase of the environmental conditions change depends on the simultaneous change in a large complex of features, and any single change will be harmful, as it disrupts the existing relationships. If the trait turned out to be useful, it should be called not an individual variability, but a significant change in the entire population, i.e., the change should affect the majority of the population at once. Recognition of the changes’ simultaneity equals the recognition of the principle of the development appropriateness by Baer (Karl Ernst Ritter von Baer Edler von Huthorn).
The critical paper author stated that the struggle for existence does not possess selective properties, which means that natural selection will not work. It is confirmed by the absence of transitional forms between both living species and fossil forms.
N. Ya. Danilevsky believed that the numerous facts that species have useless traits for them despite the fact that they are useful for other species contradict the selection theory. Such «useless» signs often include the most significant ones which serve the basis for the taxonomy from genus to type is built. Ch. Darwin, constructing hypothetical examples of the trait advantage’s increase from generation to generation, relied on the usefulness of new traits, taking them in ready-made form presented in the formed species because of the lack of real transitions.
N. Ya. Danilevsky stated in his scientifi papers that development is performed in accordance with the law that while its implementation makes expediency turn out to be a form of some inner plan. The types’ transformations are conceivable only in case of recognition of the internal law of development (every living organism possesses it). It is absurd to think that chance and probability could substitute mind and intelligence. The issue of expediency in nature has a much more important and profound philosophical meaning. In addition, natural selection provides a constant adaptation of species to a changing environment, but the process does not have the gift of foreknowledge; the natural selection responds only to the environment in the present and therefore, evolution cannot have any goals.
The evolutionary theory supporters believe that it is confirmed by the fossil evidence (fossils), the age of which approximately stands for 3.5 billion years. They show a story of the diversity’s gradual complication and expansion, which has led to a great diversity of life forms that inhabit Earth today. There are now doubts that there is a strict order in the geological strata, and the typical fossils are detected in various layers. Sedimentary rocks typically occur in layers, so the deeper layers contain fossils formed at an earlier period. The evolutionary theory’s supporters draw their conclusions about the main directions of the living organisms’ evolution while comparing fossil forms of the successive layers. When the evolutionary theory became the scientific Orthodoxy (dogma), any fossils found by paleontologists, were a priori adjusted to the generally accepted points. Their interpretation in any other way was treated as unscientific one.
However, these were the data accumulated in paleontology that hit the evolutionary theory. While examining the remains and layers of Earth’s crust, one can be sure that many organisms appeared on Earth all of a sudden. For example, remains were found in the Cambrian layer that belonged to such complex invertebrates as snails, Trilobite, sponges, worms, Aurelia aurita, starfish, floating crustaceans and sea lilies. An interesting fact is that all these species, different from each other, appeared at the same time and had a complex structure. Therefore, this amazing phenomenon was called the «Cambrian explosion» in Geology.
According to the concept by Ch. Darwin, there had been minor changes for a long time that being «accumulated», gradually led to the evolution of simple species into more complex ones. Judging from such an assumption, paleontological excavations eventually should have detected transitional forms from one species to other. Their number should have been huge and should have demonstrated how various species, classes, orders and families had been evolving. However, Cambrian rocks lack transitional forms from primitive organisms to organisms with a complex perfect structure. In geological deposits, it is not the stepwise appearance of new species, genera, and families in the process of evolution that is observed, but their sudden occurrence. They are not preceded by any transitional forms. For example, there are no traces of ciliary worms, the class of which unites more than 3,500 species.
The living organisms found in the Cambrian layer possess such developed and complex physiological systems as the eyes, gills, and circulatory system, which do not differ much from modern ones. These complex invertebrates are by no means associated with unicellular, which were the only living organisms preceding them. The trilobite has complex eyes (consisting of hundreds of hexagonal fragments) that have a two-lens system and, as David Raup, professor of geology, said, «Have a design that can be developed by a well-educated and gifted contemporary optical engineer». Moreover, such organized and complex animals have nothing to do with the simplest unicellular organisms that were the only living inhabitants of Earth prior to invertebrates. This fact clearly refutes the evolutionary theory point that living organisms evolved from primitive into complex ones. It should be noted that nowadays dragonflies and bees have the similar system of the trilobite eyes’ structure.
The Mesozoic era also impresses one by the sudden transition of reptiles to the mammals period, many of which are already significantly different from each other despite the fact that they appeared within the same geological period.
The alleged transitional forms were found only for the phylogenetic series from Hyperion to modern horse. The archaeopteryx’s discovered remnants, according to some experts, can be considered an intermediate form between reptiles and birds with significant part of a hypothesis. The fossils’ state indicates that Archaeopteryx had feathers, wings and a beak, like a bird. However, this fossil representative had signs that gave palaeontologists the grounds to suggest its affinity for reptiles − teeth on its beak and claws on its wings. None of these two features confirms that Archaeopteryx evolved from reptiles. In addition, according to radiometric dating, Archaeopteryx cannot be considered the missing link between reptiles and birds.
Nowadays it has become apparent to many palaeontologists that the fossils do not contain any alleged transitional forms at all. No transitional links’ sequential series, as well as individual random transitional forms, have ever been found among the minerals. At the same time, long periods of the same organisms’ stable existence within a relatively short time gave way to the new species’ rapid formation; they appeared completely formed in the fossil record. Despite the lack of continuity in the fossil record, which is strong evidence to oppose the theory of the new species’ formation through gradual evolutionary changes, fossil evidences do confirm the progressive increase in the organisms’ complexity.
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