18th AND 19th century scientists Pt 5

*Charles Lyell (1797-1875). Like *Charles Darwin,
Lyell inherited great wealth and was able to spend his time
theorizing. Lyell published his Principles of Geology in
1830-1833, and it became the basis for the modern
theory of sedimentary strata,—even though 20th-century
discoveries in radiodating, radiocarbon dating,
missing strata, and overthrusts (older strata on top of
Brief History of Evolutionary Theory 23
more recent strata) have nullified the theory.

In order to prove his theory, Lyell was quite willing
to misstate the facts. He learned that Niagara Falls had
eroded a seven-mile [11 km] channel from Queenston,
Ontario, and that it was eroding at about 3 feet [1 m] a
year. So Lyell conveniently changed that to one foot [.3
m] a year, which meant that the falls had been flowing for
35,000 years! But Lyell had not told the truth. Three-foot
erosion a year, at its present rate of flow, would only take
us back 7000 to 9000 years,—and it would be expected
that, just after the Flood, the flow would, for a time, have
greatly increased the erosion rate. Lyell was a close friend
of Darwin, and urged him to write his book, Origin of
the Species.

*Alfred Russell Wallace (1823-1913) is considered
to be the man who developed the theory which *Darwin
published. *Wallace was deeply involved in spiritism at
the time he formulated the theory in his Ternate Paper,
which *Darwin, with the help of two friends (*Charles
Lyell and *Joseph Hooker), pirated and published under
his own name. *Darwin, a wealthy man, thus obtained the
royalties which belonged to Wallace, a poverty-ridden
theorist.

In 1980, *Arnold C. Brackman, in his book, A
Delicate Arrangement, established that Darwin plagiarized
Wallace’s material. It was arranged that a paper by Darwin
would be read to the Royal Society, in London, while
Wallace’s was held back until later. Priorities for the ideas
thus having been taken care of, Darwin set to work to prepare
his book.

In 1875, Wallace came out openly for spiritism and
Marxism, another stepchild of Darwinism. This was
Wallace’s theory: Species have changed in the past, by
which one species descended from another in a manner
that we cannot prove today. That is exactly what modern
evolution teaches. Yet it has no more evidence supporting
the theory than Wallace had in 1858 when he devised the
theory while in a fever.

In February 1858, while in a delirious fever on the
island of Ternate in the Molaccas, Wallace conceived
the idea, “survival of the fittest,” as being the method
by which species change. But the concept proves
nothing. The fittest; which one is that? It is the one that
survived longest. Which one survives longest? The fittest.
This is reasoning in a circle. The phrase says nothing
about the evolutionary process, much less proving it.
In the first edition of his book, Darwin regarded “natural
selection” and “survival of the fittest” as different concepts.

By the sixth edition of his Origin of the Species, he
thought they meant the same thing, but that “survival of
the fittest” was the more accurate. In a still later book (Descent
of Man, 1871), Darwin ultimately abandoned
“natural selection” as a hopeless mechanism and returned
to Lamarckism. Even Darwin recognized the
theory was falling to pieces. The supporting evidence just
was not there.
http://www.bible-tube.com/creation-evolution-debates-hovind-infidel-guy.php
http://www.bible-tube.com/creation-evolution-debates-hovind-rainbow.php
http://www.bible-tube.com/design-and-logos-in-biology.php