Just as it is impossible for life to arise on earth by chance, so is it for species to transform themselves into other species. For no such power exists in nature. What we call nature is the sum of unconscious atoms that make up the soil, rocks, air, water, and everything else. This lifeless heap of matter has no power to transform an invertebrate creature into a fish, then make it climb on land and turn into a reptile, and then turn it into a bird and make it fly, and finally make it a human. Claiming just the opposite, Darwin put forward a single concept as an "evolutionary mechanism": Natural Selection. Natural selection centres around the idea that the strongest creatures that are best fitted to their habitat will survive. For instance, in a deer herd threatened by wild animals, those that can run faster will survive. Yet certainly, this mechanism would not cause deer to evolve – it would not transform them into another living species, for instance, elephants.
No one has ever produced a species by mechanisms of natural selection. No one has ever got near it and most of the current argument in neo-Darwinism is about this question.17 |