My previous posts have been calling the materialists’ processes to create life to be “blind” physical processes. My dear readers can rightfully protest and say ‘The processes that lead to life are not blind! They are called Evolution’.
I think Darwinism may be more specific to our discussion. It is the theory of biological evolution popularized by Charles Darwin’s book “On the Origin of Species” in 1859. Darwin is not the first one to propose evolutionary ideas, but he suggests a specific mechanism to explain how different species originated. That mechanism is called “Natural selection”. What is “Natural selection”?
According to my favorite book in Apologetics: “Natural selection” is an unintelligent process without purpose. Nature picks organisms that evolve adaptively and reproduce abundantly, and it kicks away the unfit species. The fittest survive and reproduce. With long enough time, this process of Natural selection leads to the development of new species through a gradual process of incremental changes. A simple and well-known summary is:
Survival of the fittest
There are a lot to discuss in the topic of Darwinism and biological evolution in general. However, I would like to draw your attention to one quick observation:
There is neither the “fittest” nor the “unfit” if there is nothing to start with! How did the first organism come about?
It is certainly not Darwin’s fault not to explain how the first organism came about. His publication has the title of “On the Origin of Species”. His focus is on how and why one kind of living thing can diversify into different species. It is NOT about how the ancestors, from which different species come, come about themselves. "Natural selection" hypothesizes how nature selects the fittest and kicks away the unfit, so that the fit survives and the unfit disappears on Earth. Yet, it never tells us why and how there was something on Earth for it to select from.
In order for “Natural selection” to select the fittest and kick away the unfit species, something has to be there first to be selected.
Darwinism does not provide the answer to the origin of life. It suggests a reason for the diversification of different species out of the common ancestor. However, it does not claim to know anything about the real source of life.
