The Faith of Charles Darwin

Saltations are sudden jumps in the development of organisms, resulting in the appearance of a new type in a generation. Another term for this is "systemic macromutation," meaning a large set of mutations occurring simultaneously to produce a significant variation, such as the gain of an organ or faculty. The concept is hard to accept in the naturalistic scheme given the great complexity of living things, for how do all the necessary parts change in unison?

Remember that Darwin had taken a copy of the first volume of George Lyell's work on geology with him on his voyage on HMS Beagle. Darwin was committed to applying Lyell's joint theories of uniformitarianism and gradualism to biology. Hence, Darwin eschewed saltationism--it was the equivalent of a miracle and that could not be allowed. Macromutations were out of order. Darwin could accept only tiny variations that accumulate slowly over time. His theory required the existence of a very large number of transitional forms, a sequence of successive generations of organisms showing only small variations, but over time the accumulation of these variations would lead to the formation and appearance of new species.

The problem for Darwin is that evidence or corroboration for his theory was lacking in the fossil record. The known fossils during his lifetime did not demonstrate the gradual intermediary transitional forms. At the time, he got around this by supposing that the fossil record was incomplete. Scientists simply hadn't unearthed sufficient fossils to prove him correct.

"Faith is the assurance of things hooped for, the conviction of things not seen," right? I apologize for taking Hebrews 11:1 out of context, but Darwin's position here certainly sounds some people's ideas of faith. In actuality, Darwin indulged in something more akin to wishful thinking.