Letters

Evolutionism

Fr G.H. Duggan SM

Contents - Feb 2006 - Buy a copy now Editorial: Catholic schools: how much accountability? - Michael Gilchrist Cardinal Arinze on the Liturgy: the Mass is not entertainment - Cardinal Francis Arinze News: The Church Around the World Catechesis: Latest research on Catholic school leavers - Michael Gilchrist Education: Catholic Church and her schools face a 'wake-up call' - Bishop Geoffrey Jarrett Liturgical Music: The spiritual impact of Msgr. Richard Schuler's priestly leadership and example - Fr John T. Zuhlsdorf Priestly vocations: the key role of bishops - John Mallon New Age paganism's creeping influence within the Church - Wanda Skowronska Blessed Charles de Foucauld: seeking nothing but God's will - Dr Frank Mobbs The Church of England: beyond satire? - Rev Peter Mullen Letters: Clerical Celibacy (letter) - Fr Adrian Head Letters: All Saints Day (letter) - M & L Morrissey Letters: Ars priests retreat - Fr Robert Markey Letters: Wrong chord? (letter) - John Daly Prayer: The Abandonment Prayer of Charles de Foucauld Letters: Beautiful music (letter) - Josephine Landsberg Letters: Cardinal von Galen (letter) - Denise M. Cameron Letters: Survival of the fittest (letter) - Arthur Negus Letters: Evolutionism - Fr G.H. Duggan SM Letters: Intelligent design (letter) - Paul MacLeod Letters: Homilies (letter) - Robert Prinzen-Wood Letters: Catholic magazines needed in India - Fr A. Joseph Letters: EWTN tapes available - Harry and Antoinette Zwaans Books: Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church - Peter Westmore (reviewer) Books: The Pope Benedict Code, by Joanna Bogle - Michael Gilchrist (reviewer) Books: For the Life of the World:St Maximilian and the Eucharist, by Fr Jerzy Domanski - Michael Gilchrist (reviewer) Books: CATHOLIC FAMILY CATECHISM: Disciples' Edition and Apostles' Edition, Fr Tierney - Michael Gilchrist (reviewer) Events: Virtus - Retreat for Young Men Events: Lecture on the Compendium of the Catechism - Msgr Peter Elliott Books: Stimulating reading from AD Books Reflection: The hidden treasure of the Holy Mass - St Leonard of Port Maurice

Evolutionism, or, as the Europeans prefer to call it, Transformism, is the theory that the organic world of plants and animals has come into being by a process of change by which a small number of ancestral types in each kingdom, perhaps only one - as Darwin surmised - have given rise to the variety that now confronts us.

It may be extreme, as with Darwin, or moderate, as with Wasmann, L.S. Berg or L. Viaaletin, who postulate a great number of ancestral types, whose descendants form a group of limited size, such as the land Carnivira. But all evolutionists reject Fixism, the theory of Linnaeus that species remain ever the same.

However, Darwin's theory that the variations have resulted from the accumulation of minute variations from the parent stock is incompatible with the fact, established by palaeontology, that the various forms appear suddenly in the strata, fully formed, often in great variety, with no identifiable ancestral type or transitional form which could link them with another group.

To end with a story. The earliest fossiliferous strata are the Cambrian. One day two geologists were working on a 60 foot block of Cambrian shale, which contained 56 different genera of invertebrate animals, all fully formed, with no intermediate forms. "Well Bill", said one man to his colleagues, "it looks mighty like instantaneous creation, doesn't it?"

FR G.H. DUGGAN SM
Silverstream, New Zealand

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 19 No 1 (February 2006), p. 15