II.
And so the uniting factor characteristic of both the beginning and the end of the time period we are studying is reductionism. Born as one direction taken by scholastics of the Middle Ages, it threw off its religious garb and took the form of a scientific outlook which created the theoretical foundation of contemporary society. Thus, as a first hypothesis it is natural to set forth the following assertion: that the essence of the spiritual process in Europe during the last millennium has been the formation of the scientific outlook.
A historian of biology will quickly agree with such a hypothesis. For him the epitome of this millennium indeed consists of the fact that science has come to replace ignorance and superstition. However, before we make a final decision, we should specify what science is.
It seems easiest to do this with the help of a dictionary. Opening the encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron, we read the following definition: "Science is the systematic combination and recording of objectively proven facts, whose content is maximally verified." In other dictionaries the definition may vary slightly, but everywhere science is characterized as an absolute objective study, conducted for the sole purpose of discovering the truth. In many cases the result of research will be unexpected and even unwanted, but a scientist is obliged to accept the results, not attempting to change or juggle them. Science cannot give preference to one hypothesis above another – everything is decided by "His Majesty the experiment." It is impossible to have double criteria for the truth.
How wonderful it would be if these admirable qualities were indeed characteristic of science, upon which so much in our lives depends. However, there is a wise rule: one should not judge people by what they say of themselves. Dictionary definitions of science are written by scientists themselves, so they should be checked impartially. Let us begin with "the content which is maximally verified." What is its level, for instance, with respect to the six concepts which were included in our contemporary "creed"?
The answer is amazing. In each category – excluding physics, concerning which we shall speak later – already at the moment they became public there were obvious contradictions of fact and logic of such magnitude that by the official standards of science itself they would be considered absolutely unacceptable.
The theory of the creation of the solar system by means of condensation of a gaseous cloud stumbles on the difficulty that Uranus orbits the sun in the opposite direction from all other planets, and also opposite to the direction of the sun's rotation on its axis. At the very core of the reductionist theory is the supposition that the original gaseous cloud was simple, therefore the moment of impulse should have been distributed equally. Then it is difficult to understand how a gigantic planet such as Uranus could have momentum opposite to all the rest.
The theory of social progress which holds history to be a consecutive transition of formations which are more productive is totally contradicted by the fact that the Roman Empire was replaced by the early feudal society which, in terms of organization of labor, and the level of technology, was much more primitive. Here a step was taken backward, not forward, for some reason. This anomaly is even more substantive than the contrary rotation of Uranus.
Freud's psychoanalysis, which claims that the impetus of every noble feeling or deed is some sort of lower impulse, contains an absurdity in its central point: its thesis that love is hidden [sublimated] sexual attraction. Of course the motive for a certain form of love, or, better to say, amorousness, is sexual instinct. However, if A is the reason for B, then we are still unable to call B a "sublimated A." If the trigger is the reason for the gunshot, we cannot deduce that the gunshot is a sublimated trigger! And secondly, one must literally force one's tongue to call one's love for a dog, a child, an elderly person, a nationality, a native land, etc., something other than love. For it is in these elevated human feelings that love expresses itself in its fullness and is devoid of all lower impulses, so that this word is most applicable in these cases. But can this love be the sublimation of the sort that psychoanalysts discuss with maniacal persistence?
Let us now take the concept that the most ideal form of government is a parliamentary democracy. Looked at closely, this concept does not contain even a hint of scientific theory: proofs are not presented, strict definitions are not given. It turns out that we simply believe in the merits of elective democracy, but never ask ourselves what those merits are. And if this question is asked, it immediately gives rise to logical difficulties. It is apparent that through the summation of foolish judgements it is impossible to obtain a wise one, but we accept the premise that, having polled as many of the ready-available populace as possible, one can arrive at not only a sensible, but also the only correct solution to any problem. The only excuse for this practice of the plebiscite would be "the voice of the people is the voice of God," which assumes that when a nation begins to vote it receives some sort of enlightenment from on high, which assists it in making a proper choice. Yet when we begin to travel this path of explanation, it is much more natural to suppose that divine enlightenment will descend upon the chosen soul of an Anointed One of God, as opposed to a million souls at once, and in that case, one must become not a supporter of democracy, but a convinced monarchist.
As for the theory of natural selection, here "the content which is maximally verified" is in a totally unique position. From the very beginning it stumbled on so many facts which contradicted it that, following the example of Jerome K Jerome, let us name the only fact which, by a great stretch of the imagination, can be brought forth in support of this theory. This fact is the observation that selectionists, with the help of artificial selection, can create new species of dogs, pigeons, cows, etc. However, dogs of different breeds, with all their external differences, still remain dogs; the topology or organs, their biochemistry, physiology, mannerisms, and illnesses are all typically "dog-like." And can one believe without additional argument that if we drown one kind of puppy long enough, and let another type live, we will eventually come up with a cat? If one hits a black and white television with one's fist it may begin to function better, but beat as much as you will, the improvement will never cause it to become a color television. Darwin, in his imagination, skipped from species to kind, family, and even genotype, but does he not remind us of that boy who, on discovering that during the construction of a bridge a house was moved a few yards away from the expressway, exclaimed: "Oh, how wonderful that houses can drive – and so this summer we can go south to the sea right in our own house!"
Out of the countless arguments against Darwinism we shall mention the most general and the principle ones. In accordance with this teaching the development of life on earth was probably a process known in mathematics as "random wandering," which consisted of random mutations and natural selection directed towards adaptation. Yet the picture which is presented through the excavations of anthropologists has nothing to do with the trajectory of random wandering, which must be uninterrupted. The most typical fact of paleontology is the absence of "missing links." Not only the existence of gaps but also their location is paradoxical. There are no transitory forms between major units of the system: fish and amphibians, amphibians and reptiles, arthropods and all other creatures, and the gap between reptiles and birds is filled with one [only!] – "archeopterics," and even in this case it was recently announced on the news that its imprint is a fraud. Yet the graph line which continuously joins distant forms should be longer, so the probability of finding its fragments should be highly likely. For evolutionists it is a matter of life and death to have griffins, chimeras, and centaurs, with which our ancestors smoothed over the discontinuity of life form which seemed strange even to them; but, unfortunately, they never existed.
Now concerning mutations: according to evolutionists, they are a primary activist in the enhancement of forms. But elementary logic shows that in most cases they are harmful to plants and animals, and for higher forms they are simply fatal. For example, the swallowing mechanism of a mammal consists of carefully synchronized action of more than 10 different muscles of the tongue, jaws and throat. According to Darwin's postulate of changeability, some of the links of the swallowing reflex will be different in the offspring than in the parents. Some muscles will contract at a different rate, or with different force. This will inevitably lead to the newborn's choking and dying. For such complicated apparati as those found in an animal, random mutations must be a destructive factor, for they throw off their delicate mechanisms, whereas Darwinists claim that they are a creative factor. This is the same as insisting that by randomly twisting the pegs of a well-tuned guitar, one can tune it even better. One can compensate for the destructive effect of mutations in only one way: a great number of specimens must undergo mutation. If the offspring are very numerous, then, perhaps one of the newborn may end up being better than his parents. But in well developed animals their rate of procreation must be much greater than usual, for the probability of random improvement is less likely the more complex an organism is. Here selection must be provided with more variants for rejection. In other words, if giraffes or elephants wish to perfect themselves, they must procreate much more intensively than bacteria...
In general, there is no point in seeking argumentation for the theories of nominalist reductionism. The proofs have been laughably insufficient since their inception. And how do we stand in terms of "objectively proven facts," i.e., with the absence of prejudice and double criteria? Apparently no better than with "the content which is maximally verified." Let us for clarification once again turn to biology. Naturalists constantly stumble upon characteristics of various species, the origin of which cannot be explained by the action of natural selection, since they have no functional value. Such are the horns of many insects and their larvae, the exquisite coloration of animals that have to color vision, the useless mimicry of certain flies, the characteristic false flowers of gymnospermous plants, the ability of a number of birds to mimic the human voice, etc. On the back of one moth there is the clear illustration of the human skull, and on the wings of other butterflies, with the help of a magnifying glass, all the letters of the Latin alphabet were discovered. Cases were known where a negative characteristic was developed well ahead of time, thus contributing to the extinction of the species, as in the case of the Irish elk, which entangled itself in the branches of trees with its enormous antlers. It is understandable that science cannot totally ignore these facts, and it is forced to explain them somehow. These "explanations" are always the same: "As yet we do not know what concrete mechanism in natural evolution led to the formation of these characters, but since they appeared, such a mechanism must have existed." The logic of this statement is as follows: "Since this appeared, and since nothing can appear on its own, we conclude that it all appeared on its own." This is called "scientific proof." Alas, if we axiomize the given postulates, we can come to no other conclusion. But scientists, usually very particular about the correctness of solutions, swallow this strange notion. And now let us imagine that some author sent a paper to a biological magazine, in which the following thought is expressed: "Animals have certain non-adaptive characteristics; therefore, evolution cannot be based only on natural selection and, therefore, it must be postulated that it is influenced by a thought process hitherto unknown to us, directing it toward a certain goal." Of course, such a work would be deemed "unscientific" and it would not be printed. It turns out that "since it occurred, it occurred by chance" is convincing, and "since it occurred, it could not have occurred by chance," is not convincing. This is how objective the scientific approach is.
