Through the first six parts of this examination of Darwin’s natural selection we have learned that the concept of it being a real thing is really hard to grasp. To me it is like sitting in a grove of trees on a sunny and windy day and trying to grasp a handful of leaf shadows. As a result of this difficulty, and the requirement for Bible-deniers to have a replacement for God, Neo-Darwinists added mutations to Darwin’s evolutionary story. But, mutations have been shown unable to provide the positive adaptations needed to match the complexity and variety actually seen in the creation.
Nevertheless, evolutionists continue to talk about natural selection. Many try to give it validity by calling it a metaphor as if that would nail it to the reality wall. What is a metaphor? “[A metaphor is] a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest an analogy between them (as in the ship plows the sea).” [Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, 1979.]
So according to a common evolutionary theme, natural selection is a metaphor that suggests an analogy to something else. What can we learn from what evolutionists have written about natural selection as a metaphor? Let’s take a look at some or their quotations.
“In evolutionary discussions, it is often stated that ‘selection pressure’ resulted in the success or elimination of certain characteristics. Evolutionists here have used terminology from the physical sciences. What is meant, of course, is simply that a consistent lack of success of certain phenotypes and their elimination from the population result in the observed changes in a population. It must be remembered that the use of words like force or pressure is strictly metaphorical, and there is no force or pressure connected with selection, as there is in discussion in the physical sciences.” [Mayr, E., What Evolution Is, Basic Books, New York, NY, 2001, Page 281.]
“I believe that a large part of our difficulty in avoiding the invocation of agency and direction in evolutionary processes is our persistent inability to define natural selection in terms of physical laws and processes…In the meantime, anthropomorphic terminology in evolution might persist just because scientists like using it. But it is one of the worst things we can do, given widespread public misunderstanding of the fundamental principles of evolution. And I bet that it even leads scientists astray sometimes.” [Moore, Andrew, Editor in Chief, “We need a new language for evolution,” Bioessays, 33: 237, 2011.]
“Nothing creates more misunderstanding of the results of scientific research than scientists’ use of metaphors. It is not only the general public that they confuse, but their own understanding of nature that is led astray. The most famous and influential example is Darwin’s invention of the term ‘natural selection,’ which, he wrote in On the Origin of Species, ‘is daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good’…Unfortunately, even modern evolutionary biologists, as well as theorists of human social and psychological phenomena who have used organic evolution as a model for general theories of their own subjects, are not always conscious of the dangers of the metaphor. Alfred Russel Wallace, the co-inventor to our understanding of evolution wrote to Darwin in July 1866 warning him that even ‘intelligent persons’ were taking the metaphor literally.” [Lewontin, Richard C., “Not so Natural Selection,” New York Times Book Review, 2010.]
“Evolutionary biologists routinely speak of natural selection as if it were an agent [and]…many evolutionary biologists, in fact, assure us that the idea of a selecting agent is ‘only a metaphor’—even as they themselves succumb to the compelling force of the metaphor…And so we are to believe that natural selection, which ‘is not an agent, except metaphorically,’ manages to design artifacts; and the organism…is not, after all, a creative or originating agent itself. Its [the organism’s] agency has been transferred to an abstraction [natural selection] whose causal agency or ‘force’ is, amid intellectual confusion, both denied and universally implied by biologists. Natural selection becomes rather like an occult Power of the pre-scientific age…” [Talbott, Stephan L., “Can Darwinian Evolutionary Theory Be Taken Seriously?” natureinstitute.org, 2016.]
“[It] is for people in all ages and cultures to create neologisms or ad hoc linguistic formulations for a whole variety of vague ideas and fancies. In fact, it seems all too easy to fashion words to cover any number of purely abstract, at times even chimerical notions, the more convincingly (for the uncritical) if one chooses to append the honorific title of ‘science’…Many terms we use in everyday life are, and are widely acknowledged to be, notional rather than factual…what are sometimes termed ‘airy nothings.’ These are factually baseless terms existing ‘on paper’ but without any proper referent in the real world because no such referent exists. In a similar vein one might, with Charles Darwin, theorize that the development of the biosphere was simply down to that empirically unattested sub-variant of chance he chose to term natural selection. Since no empirical evidence exists for any of the above conjectures, they must inevitably remain terms without referents or… empty signifiers.” [Thomas, Neil, “Why Words Matter: Sense Nonsense in Science,” Posted on evolutionnews.org on April 7, 2022.]
In that series of quotes, we saw a lot of complicated words arranged in complicated sentences that depict a common thread. Evolutionists have no idea what natural selection is, but most still believe it exists. Please notice phrases such as: “no force or pressure connected with selection,” “persistent inability to define natural selection,” “leads scientists astray,” “dangers of the metaphor,” “natural selection an abstraction,” “intellectual confusion,” “ad hoc linguistic formulations,” “vague ideas and fancies,” “chimerical notions,” “airy nothings,” and on and on. Do these sound like descriptions of coherent explanations of science papers?
So I must conclude Part 7 this way: Natural selection is dead and was dead at its inception. I am amazed that some creationists still say natural selection is real: “Mutation and natural selection are real. But these mechanisms could never result in microbes-to-man evolution.” [CMI INFObytes, emailed promotion for their DVD “Creatures Do Change—but it’s Not Evolution.” August 12, 2022.] I must ask, what is the mechanism and what does it do?
In Part 8 we will attempt to determine why Darwin devoted so many years of his life to his bankrupt evolution through natural selection idea.
J.D. Mitchell
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. [Romans 1:18-20 NIV.]
