As president of the Centre des Etudes et de Prospective sur la Science (CEP), I would like to present some arguments which, I suggest, indicate that evolution theory is about to collapse. The centre is a 700-strong Catholic organisation linked to scientists contesting evolution.
Pope Pius XII (Humani Generis, 1950) mandated that arguments both for and against evolution theory should be discussed with all fairness and restraint by experts in both theology and science. A commission has yet to be formed to discuss the matter. When it does, it will have to address the following situation:
1) No empirical proof exists that macro-evolution (that is, evolution from one distinct kind of organism into another) is occurring at present, or has ever happened in the past. No one, throughout recorded history, has ever seen it.
Evolutionist anthropologist Jeffrey H. Schwartz stated in his 1999 book Sudden Origins . . . that with the exception of Dobzhan sky's claim about a new species of fruit fly (micro-evolution, not macro-evolution), the formation of a new species, by any mechanism, has never been observed.
2) No transitional fossils. If evolution had taken place there should have been a great many transitional structures preserved in fossilised form recording the stages of development from one type of organism to another type.
For instance, invertebrates are supposed to have transformed into vertebrates, having passed through many intermediate stages. The fossil record does not document such transitions.
Yet there are countless millions of fossils, all of which are non-transitional. Prof Schwartz claims that instead of filling in the gaps in the fossil record with so-called missing links, most paleontologists found themselves facing a situation in which there were only gaps in the fossil record, with no evidence of transformational intermediates between documented fossil species. Not only are the links missing, but professional evolutionists now admit they cannot even imagine how one species could be linked with another.
In the American Scientist review of the book In Search of Deep Time by Henry Gee, Peter J. Bowler writes: "We cannot identify ancestors or `missing links', and we cannot devise testable theories how particular episodes of evolution came about.
"Gee is adamant that all the popular stories about how the first amphibians conquered the dry land, how the birds developed wings and feathers for flying, how the dinosaurs went extinct, and how humans evolved from apes are just products of our imagination, driven by prejudices and preconceptions" (vol 88, March-April 2000, p169).
3) There is no evidence of evolution at the molecular level. Even with DNA sequence data, we have no direct access to the processes of evolution, so objective reconstruction of the vanished past can be achieved only by creative imagination (N.A. Takahata, Genetic Perspective on the Origin and History of Humans - Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics; vol 26, 1995, p34).
DNA and other genetic evidence as proof of evolution are found to be inconsistent with the fossil record and comparative morphology of the creatures.
Anthropologist Dr Roger Lewin has commented: "The overall effect is that molecular phylogenetics is by no means as straightforward as its pioneers believed . . . The Byzantine dynamics of genome change has many other consequences for molecular phylogenetics, including the fact that different genes tell different stories" ("Family Feud", New Scientist, vol 157 January 24th, 1998, p39).
4) Geological timescale questioned. Evolution theory depends upon the great age of rocks calculated by the geologic timescale. This scale was based upon principles of geology recently invalidated by laboratory experiments. (French Academy of Science 1986, 1988, Geological Society 1993, Fusion, May-June 2000).
If this fact had been known in the 19th century, Darwin could never have formulated his theory. Evolution depends upon geological formations taking millions of years to form, and Darwin's geologist friend Charles Lyell provided those years with his principles of geology. It is these principles that now stand refuted.
New knowledge of geology allows the reconstruction of the original conditions in which the rocks were formed. These original conditions include the time taken for formation. In reconstructions, the time taken is shown to have been in weeks or even days rather than millions of years (see www.geology.ref.ac/berthault)
5) Evolution ignores laws of physics. The supposed evolutionary process breaks the most universal and best-proved law of physics, the law of increasing entropy, known as the second law of thermodynamics.
It applies not only in physical and chemical systems, but also in biological and geological systems, in fact all systems, without exception. The law stipulates that all systems tend to lose order. They go towards disorganisation and loss of complexity.
The law of increasing entropy therefore precludes evolution, because all evolutionary systems are expected to increase in order and complexity.
Physicists E.H. Lieb and Jacob Yngvason explain: "No exception to the second law of thermodynamics has ever been found, not even a tiny one. Like conservation of energy [the `first law'], the existence of a law so precise and so independent of details of models must have a logical foundation that is independent of the fact that matter is composed of interacting particles" ("A Fresh Look at Entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics", Physics Today, vol 53, April 2000, p32).
Despite the above, and many other facts, a naturalistic origin of mankind and the cosmos continues to be justified by evolution theory. The idea taught to students, that everything evolved, even religion, has led to a massive decline in faith and rampant materialism. The plentiful contrary arguments are withheld.