Let's Celebrate Darwin's Anniversary Year

Charles Lyell, Author of the Theory of Uniformitarian Geology, founded this theory with the express goal of overthrowing the then current widely held Biblical Geology of the great flood. His training was as a Lawyer, but upon graduation, he was filled with a passion to overthrow this Geology of the Bible. His aim was to remove God from having anything to do with the origin of the Earth and its' geological formations. In His encyclopedic "Principles of Uniformitarian Geology" Charles Lyell not only undermined the bible's geology, he also come very close to describing the slow evolution of life over long ages through natural selection. Some biographers even questioned why Lyell failed to come to the conclusions that Charles Darwin arrived at some thirty years later. The reason was quite simple, Lyell was overjoyed how his plot to overthrow Biblical geology was advancing and being accepted and feared that an attempt at this time (early 1830's) to remove God from being the author of life would jeopardize the growing acceptance of his alternate fabricated geology to the Noachic Biblical geology.

Charles Lyell was Charles Darwin's mentor. Charles Darwin confessed well after the wide acceptance of his theory that he never gave Lyell enough credit in the founding of his theory, and that much of it came out of the mind of Lyell. It was Darwin's Theory that removed God from being the author of life, and Darwin was very adamant about God having nothing to do with it. Charles Darwin believed Christianity to be a damnable and detestable religion. Now his anti-God evolutionary views are taught as fact in public and Christian schools.

Charles Lyell was studying Law, but his interest in geology and origins was spurred by the lectures of famed geologist Dr. William Buckland at Exeter College in Oxford. Buckland wrote Reliquiae Diluvianae (1823) in which he argued that the evidence of geology alone demonstrated that a great flood had covered the entire globe. This irked young Charles Lyell so much from that moment on so absorbed him that Lyell would soon give up his initial goal of practicing law and instead, dedicate his life to overthrowing the Noachic geology. Lyell embraced the very gradualistic uniformitarian geology ideas of James Hutton, the very same gradualistic uniformitarian concept that would be used in Darwin’s' origin of life scenario. At the time, Charles Lyell had a plan to overthrow the Noachic geology, which he estimated that it would take 50 years to do.

Charles Lyell was not an honest scientist who simply examined the geological evidence that forced him to abandon his cherished Christian scriptural view of Noachic geology. Before doing any research at all, Charles Lyell, along with a small clique of like-minded friends, began to rewrite the past by fabricating a reinterpretation of the geological record in order to undermine the Biblical Noachic geology.

After 5 or 6 years of fabricating evidence and, even more so, argument. Lyell’s well planned deception is revealed in a private letter Lyell sent to personal friend, George Poulette Scrope, as Scrope prepared a review of the newly published first volume of The Principles of Geology for the Quarterly Review:

"If you don't triumph over them, but compliment the liberality and candor of the present age, the bishops and enlightened saints will join us in despising both the ancient and modern physico-theologians. It is just the time to strike, so rejoice that, sinner as you are; the Q.R. is open to you. If I have said more than some will like, yet I give you my word that full half of my history and comments was cut out, and even as many facts; because I, or Stokes, or Broderip, felt that it was anticipating twenty or thirty years of the march of honest feeling to declare it undisguisedly. … I conceived the idea more than five or six years ago. That if ever the Mosaic geology could be set down without giving offence, it would be a historical sketch. … Let them feel it, and point to the moral."

The Life, Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell, (Mrs.) K.M. Lyell (ed.). John Murray, London: 1881. Vol. 1. p.271.


Lyell's work was immensely popular and widely read both by professional geologists and, surprisingly enough, "by the cultivated public whose curiosity about the secrets of the earth was growing."24 However, as one might expect, laymen were confused by Lyell's relatively technical and irregular interpretation of the Deluge. Since orthodox biblical scholarship seemingly held the upper hand in theological circles at the time, laymen expected a refutation or synthesis of Lyell's tranquil, uniformitarian interpretation from Christian biblical scholars. But, much to their consternation, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London and the Bishop of Llandaff in 1831 invited Charles Lyell to be professor of geology at King's College of the Church of England. In a letter Lyell related their attitude toward his work:

"They considered some of my doctrines startling enough, but could not find that they were come by otherwise than in a straightforward manner, and (as I appeared to think) logically deducible from the facts . . . there was no reason to infer that I had made my theory from any hostile feeling toward revelation."25

This seemed outrageous to the orthodox. In fact Lyell's perceptive friend, George Poulette Scrope, quipped:

"If the news be true, and your opinions are to he taken at once into the bosom of the Church, instead of contending against that party for half a century, then, indeed, shall we make a step at once of fifty years in the science-in such a miracle will I believe when I see it performed."26

25Mrs. Lyell, Life, Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell, I, 317. Lyell assured Bishop Capelston of Llandaff "that there was 'no objection to his drowning as many people as he pleased on such parts as can he shown to he inhabited in the days of Noah' " (Gillispie, Genesis and Geology, pp. 140-41).
26Mrs. Lyell, Life, Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell, I, 317.

In 1841, Charles Lyell paid a visit to New York's Niagara Falls. Collecting facts from the people who lived in Niagara, it became clear that the rate of erosion was about a meter per year, which implied that the gorge was a little less than 12,000 years old. When Lyell included Niagara Falls in one of his updates to his 'Principles of Geology', he reduced the erosion rate to about 1 foot per year and stated that the Niagara gorge took 35,000 years to erode to its' present state. Today, we know that the gorge only took 3,000 to 4,000 years to erode. So Lyell is known to lie outright with respect to the geological evidence in order to support his efforts to undermine the Bible.

In sum, Lyell using his legal skills would manufacture an opus presenting the alleged evolutionary version of the earth’s geological past. He would lead his readers to doubt the chronology of Moses and the Bible as a whole without directly attacking it and without even naming it. With his Principles of Geology, published when he was only in his early thirties, he succeeded no doubt beyond his wildest dreams. We are not left to wonder if Lyell was conscious of his indirect, deceitful maneuver against the Bible. He employed the same tactic generally, rarely asserting dogmatically what he wanted readers to believe, but cleverly allowing them to reach his conclusions on their own. Indeed, he wrote of his use of this tactic to encourage belief in biological evolution: “I left this rather to be inferred, not thinking it worthwhile to offend a certain class of persons by embodying in words what could only be a speculation” (Lyell, 1881, vol. 1, p. 467).

Darwin, who labeled Christianity as a "Damnable religion', observed Lyell using this tactic:

"Lyell is most firmly convinced that he has shaken the faith in the Noachic Deluge far more efficiently by never having said a word against the Bible than if he had acted otherwise. … I have read lately Morley’s Life of Voltaire and he insists strongly that direct attacks on Christianity (even when written with the powerful force and vigour of Voltaire) produce little permanent effect; real good seems to follow only the slow and silent side attacks " (Himmelfarb, 1968, p. 387).

For his efforts, Lyell was knighted in 1848, and was created a baronet in 1864, in which year he was president of the British Association at Bath. He was elected corresponding member of the French Institute and of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin, and was created a knight of the Prussian Order of Merit. In 1851, Lyell used his influence to bring about educational reform at Oxford, namely by greatly diminishing the influence of Christianity, which he had long 'quietly' opposed. Lyell remained a regular churchgoer throughout his life.

In his The Principles of Geology, Charles Lyell rejected Lamarck's Theory of Evolution, which allowed a roll for a Divine Creator. Lyell just about stated Darwin's theory of Evolution, leaving biographers scratching their heads as to why Lyell did not complete his thoughts on the origin of life to their natural conclusions. But Charles Lyell did not want to endanger the strides he made in overthrowing the Biblical Noachic Flood.

During his voyage on the Beagle, Charles Darwin was greatly influenced Charles Lyell's 'Principles of Geology'. He was given volume 1 as he set sale from England. Volume 2 he received while sailing on the Beagle. When he came back to England on October 2, 1836, Darwin was at a total lost as to his future and what he would be doing. An eager Charles Lyell met Darwin on 29 October and introduced him to the up-and-coming anatomist Richard Owen. Lyell took Darwin under wing. By 1839, Charles Darwin had his 'Theory of Evolution, and the Survival of the Favoured Races, by Means of Natural Selection', formulated. But He did not publish it till twenty years later, and only when the evidence for it was not very strong, nor has it ever been strong. It wasn't until Alfred Russell Wallace, a naturalist working in Borneo, came up with a similar theory about natural selection and the survival of the fittest, that Lyell, Huxley, and Hooker, moved to get Darwin's book out and keep control of the Theory rather than let Wallace be the spokesman for the Theory. Upon receipt of Wallace's first letter in spring of 1856, Darwin was told to finish completion of His book while they started canvassing influential scientists to gain their support of 'Darwin's ideas', and the forthcoming book.

But were they really Darwin's ideas in his book. After all, Lyell seemingly almost stated that same exact Theory in the early 1830's. And in Darwin's own words:

"I really think my books come half out of Lyell's brain," said Charles Darwin, "I see through his eyes."

Darwin was shielded from the public. He was not trusted with defending his theory except in updates of his palimpsest book on origins, which his friends guided him through.

Darwin's 'Origin of the Species' was well received. The fruit of Lyell, Darwin, and friends has born its' ungodly fruit. The Bible was relegated to be merely a book of ancient fables, and Christianity rapidly diminished, and non-Christian ideas flourished; all to the point that led to Europe became a Bastion of Secularism. It gave way to moral relativism, Aryanism, Eugenics and abortion. Last to fall, America resisted the works and ideas of Lyell and Darwin until FDR took control of government, our courts, and surrendered our schools and colleges over to the secularists. With God's word removed as the measure of human values, the whole world has now gone into moral decline and philosophical chaos.

Lyell, who rewrote science, was wrong. To protect the gains in the acceptance of his uniformitarian geology, Charles Lyell refused to endorse Darwin’s book until he was able to discern that the lies Lyell produced in ‘Darwin’s ‘Origins’ book was being widely accepted and presented no danger to his own widely accepted Geological lies.

As for Lyell and Darwin's works, Stephen Jay Gould points out:

“Charles Lyell was a lawyer by profession, and his book [Principles of Geology, 1830-1833] is one of the most brilliant briefs ever published by an advocate ... Lyell relied heavily upon two bits of cunning to establish his uniformitarian views as the only true geology. First, he set up a straw man to demolish. ... In fact, the catastrophists were much more empirically minded than Lyell. The geologic record does seem to require catastrophes; rocks are fractured and contorted; whole faunas are wiped out. To circumvent this literal appearance, Lyell imposed his imagination upon the evidence. The geologic record, he argued, is extremely imperfect and we must interpolate into it what we can reasonably infer but cannot see. The catastrophists were the hard-nosed empiricists of their day, not the blinded theological apologists.

Lyell's 'uniformity' is a hodgepodge of claims. One is a methodological statement [see previous paragraph] that must be accepted by any scientist, catastrophist and uniformitarian alike. Other claims are substantive notions that have since been tested and abandoned. Lyell gave them a common name and pulled a consummate fast one: he tried to slip the substantive claim by with an argument that the methodological proposition had to be accepted..."

Stephen Jay Gould, “Catastrophes and Steady-State Earth, in Natural History, February, 1975, pp. 16, 17.

“[Darwinian] Gradualism was never ‘proved from the rocks’ by Lyell and Darwin, but was rather imposed as a bias upon nature. … Has had a profoundly negative impact by stifling hypotheses and by closing the minds of a profession toward reasonable empirical alternatives to the dogma of gradualism. …Lyell won with rhetoric what he could not carry with data.”

Gould, S. J., ‘Toward the Vindication of Punctuational Change’. In: W. A. BERGGREN & J. A. VAN COUVERING (Eds.): Catastrophes and Earth History: The New Uniformitarian, Princeton University Press, Princeton (New Jersey), pp. 14-16, 1984.

Steven J. Gould, Lecture at Hobart and William Smith College
"Is a New and General Theory of Evolution Emerging?" 14-Feb-1980

Here are quotes from the above:

"The fossil record is full of gaps and discontinuities, but they are all attributed to the notorious imperfection of the fossil record. The fossil record is imperfect, but I think that is not an adequate explanation...one thing it does show that cannot be attributed to its imperfection is that most species don't change...They may get a little bigger or bumpier but they remain the same species and that's not due to imperfection and gaps but stasis. And yet this remarkable stasis has generally been ignored as do data. If they don't change, it's not evolution so you don't talk about it."


In answer to the question "What role do mutations play in speciation?" Gould answered:

"A mutation doesn't produce major new raw material. You don't make a species by mutating the species...That's a common idea people have; that evolution is due to random mutations. A mutation is NOT the cause of evolutionary change. Something else than natural selection brings about species at new levels, trends and direction."

When asked if there was not stratigraphic evidence indicating gradualism, Gould replied:

" The fundamental reason why a lot of paleontologists don't care much for [Darwinian] gradualism is because the fossil record doesn't show gradual change and every paleontologist has known that ever since Cuvier. If you want to get around that you have to invoke the imperfection of the fossil record. Every paleontologist knows that most species, most species, don't change. That's bothersome if you are trained to believe that evolution ought to be gradual. In fact it virtually precludes your studying the very process you went into school to study.

Again, because you don't see it [Darwinian Evolution], that brings terrible distress."

fay3z: "please do enlighten me since I have yet to come across a scientist or an article written by one who actually regards evolution as FACT."

Evolution is an observed fact because over the past several years, organisms have actualy been observed evolving over a few generations. Indeed, a major thrust of modern medicine is to take evolution into account in combating disease.

Read the Scientific American for last month (dedicated to Evolution) for more on this. Then read Stephen Gould's magesterial book on "the structure of evolutionary theory" if you want a more in-depth analysis of this subject. But dont listen to pakistani sources like that clown ghamdi (who I heard spreading his ignorance and lies on Geo TV claiming that modern science had rejected evolution!!).

Re: # 28
thanks sattar for your insight.

The fact that people like you make up the educated, broadminded, liberal /progressive sect of the typical southasian society today is what is highly disappointing. It is quite clear that some major growing up needs to be done..not phyiscally but in the mindsets, before topics like these can be adequately discussed. A point to ponder for the smart asses here is that I came with an open mind provided references, facts and proof while all I got in return was racist Islamist abuse.
As far as us being stuck in the 7th century is concerned the only reason why Man is where he is today is progress due to advances in Science? Let me inform your very uninformed selves that the basis or fundamentals that science exists on today were laid down by Muslim scientists. They made the early inroads in biology, physics, astronomy, chemistry you name it. So no, as far as the evolution of the minds are concerned we managed that thank you very much. Although I must say your ignorance did give me a good laugh.
Anyway point of my post being, this is the end of my involvement in this childish debate. I am out.
God is Great!

Re: # 28
sattar

those who talk about abrham etc...there is nothing evolution in this....whatever you may try to prove...

at least puranas put some perspective of evolution through the various of avatars...
pieces-reptile-mammal-primitive man-pygmy....upto buddha...then muslas arrived india and puranas become static...


fay3z...
...cockroaces, like muslas, have not evolved for last thousands of years...that may be the reason, US marines are treating muslas and cockroaches in the same animal category...

Re: # 2
VRV...
"mainstream...."
do you mean Times of India or 24/7 news channels?
Nope, they are not supposed to do such...they are meant to copy CNN and produce sh**...
But I know, popular Bengali news paper published articles on Dawin and Lamark and there were healthy discussion too...

Re: # 23
fayz3...

you are partialy correct...
you muslas don't evolute, rather go back to the 7th century arabs and stick to that....but that is not generic for all creatures...

fay3z,

I once posted responses on Quranic take on evolution … responses #135 and #273 under the following article:

http://www.chowk.com/articles/8651

The answer is somewhat fuzzy and not at all clear-cut …

fay3z

No. I don't disagree.

But you missed my post's last paragraph.
Anyway.
-E

to everyone involved. i would suggest a read through of the following:

http://www.sultan.org/articles/QScience.html

and please let me reiterate to certain people here especially tahmed. i am here to have an educated mature discussion about the topic. If you feel the need to get personal or childish please resort to something like facebook or whatever it is you kids use these days.

surely humans have lived for billions of years havent they? or is that another fact you disagree with?

fay3z

For proof you will have to live for millions of years, don't you think? :)

On a different note, let me see if you want a proof of speed of light from any scientist, let alone an enthusiast of science like me.

Theoretical statements are proven wrong or right based on certain experiments conducted in light of a proposed theory. That's normal practise of scientists. And now I don't think I should enlighten you on the experiments conducted in the light of Darwin's theory. Google them right away, my love!

-E

eveolution? a fact? please do enlighten me since I have yet to come across a scientist or an article written by one who actually regards evolution as FACT. In te millions of years of our existance we humans have yet to observe evolution. However, we have seen cenertain species go extinct. Extinction = fact. Evolution = theory. If you think otherwise please provide me with proof I am always prepared to read.

#20
Tahir,
naming after prophets does make up a defensive argument for you, I think. What you are missing here, my friend, is what and who are prophets named after.

besides, you are enlightened enough to know Allah Mian didn't suggest their names to their mothers. (Is this a blasphemous statement?)

Let's be the kind of ape-evolved humans, because the theory-cum-fact keeps us attached to Earth, and does not force us to dive into mythical explainations of divinity's existence.

I say: If He exists, does He even care if we humans believe in His existence? I think He doesn't. Maybe, you have a high opinion of yourself and so you would say: He does. Who cares.

Let humans and their explainations be simple and rational.

Cheers.
-E

It is amazing to see how many of the bloggers are arguing against Darwin and evolution down here. All these people have been able to connect to the internet and post in English, so it is reasonable to presume they got some education.

What an utter waste of an education if they didn't get one of the most basic theories of life into their heads !!!

Isa Daudpota,

You my friend must ask yourself why your parents named you after prophets Isa and Daud (may Allah bless them both)!

Do that right away.