For Charles Darwin, natural selection was the key natural law driving evolution, as reflected in the title, On the Origin of Species, by Means of Natural Selection. Natural selection was envisioned as the mechanism for the origin of species—evolution.

Darwin declared – “I do believe that natural selection will generally act very slowly, only over long periods of time…. natural selection acts slowly by accumulating slight, successive, favorable variations.” In essence, natural selection was simply founded on a belief.

Darwin was very clear; natural selection was developed as an extension of a philosophical belief in evolution, not the result of scientific analysis of the evidence. Natural selection was not based on scientific observations since Darwin knew that even the fossil record evidence actually contradicted his theory –

Why, then, is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be argued against my theory.

Natural selection, amazingly, was simply developed from fabricated evidence. Darwin explains how this worked –

In order to make it clear how, as I believe, natural selection acts, I must beg permission to give one or two imaginary illustrations.

Darwin was forced to abandon the Scientific Method to propose natural selection as a natural law of evolution even though the Scientific Method had been established in academic circles for more than 200 years by Francis Bacon. Use of “imaginary illustrations” is only suitable for science fiction, not for scientific analysis.

Since the laws of nature are autonomous from human reasoning, the underlying tenet of the Scientific Method in the discovery of natural laws is inductive reasoning, not deductive reasoning. But, Darwin abandoned inductive reasoning. In a letter to Asa Gray at Harvard University, Darwin honestly set his record straight -

What you hint at generally is very, very true: that my work is grievously hypothetical, and large parts are by no means worthy of being called induction.

While Darwin was concerned about his hypothetical deductive approach, he garnered widespread support, anyway. Even his older brother, Erasmus, just a week before the publication of The Origin of Species, consoled Darwin in a letter –

In fact, the a priori reasoning is so entirely satisfactory to me / that if the facts won’t fit, why so much the worse for the facts, in my feeling.

The Origin of Species was certainly not a scientific work based on scientific principles; amazingly, even Darwin makes this point very clear –

I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science.

As a consequence, during the 20 years while working on The Origin of Species, Darwin developed a litany of contradictions and highlighted in Darwin, Then and Now. In the final analysis, even Darwin recognized fundamental problems with natural selection as a mechanism for evolution -

Natural selection… is by far the most serious special difficulty which my theory has encountered.

Even Charles Lyell, Darwin’s good friend and originator of old earth uniformitarianism with the book Principles of Geology, never endorsed natural selection, much to the distain of Thomas Huxley, Darwin’s 19^th century bulldog. Darwin and Lyell were not alone, 20^th century scientists agree. Conrad H Waddington, a renowned evolutionary paleontologist, spells it out -

There, you do come to what is, in effect, a vacuous statement: Natural selection is that some things leave more offspring than others; and you ask, which leave more offspring than others; and it is those that leave more offspring; and there is nothing more to it than that.

Natural selection is the big Black Box of evolution. No one knows what it is, where it came from, or how it even works. Italian geneticist Giuseppe Sermonti agrees with Waddington -

Natural selection could perhaps be invoked as a mechanism accounting for the survival of the species. But the claim that natural selection is creative of life… can only leave one dumbstruck.

In the 2010 book entitled What Darwin Got Wrong, even “card-carrying” atheists, Jerry Fodor and Massimo Palmarini, came to the very same conclusion –

We have both spent effort and ink… to show that Darwin’s theory of natural selection is fatally flawed.

In the book, The Altenberg 16: An Expose of the Evolution Industry, Suzan Mazar explores the mechanism of natural selection with “esteemed Harvard evolutionary geneticist Richard Lewontin in a phone conversation what role natural selection plays in evolution, he [only] said, ‘Natural selection occurs.’”

During the interview with Mazar, Lewontin only described the mechanism of natural selection by means of the following capitalism analogy -

Well, that where Darwin got the idea from, that’s for sure… He read the stock market every day… How do you think he made a living?

Mazar, in an interview with Anthony Lima-de-Faria, the award winning Swedish cytogeneticist, posed the question – “You’ve called natural selection ‘the opium of the biologist for over 100 years.’ … So why are most biologists and textbooks and scientific academies still embracing natural selection?”

Lima-de-Faria answered -  “Selection is a political not a scientific concept. At the time of Darwin it fitted perfectly the expanding colonialism of Victorian England.”

Bruce Runnegar, paleontologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, and director of NASA’s Astrobiology Institute, cuts to the chase -

Natural selection is not a mechanism.

Natural selection was then, as it is now, irrelevant to the origin on species and, more importantly, the origin of life.

Contrary to popular opinion, The Origin of Species was not a scientific work, and Charles Darwin makes that point very clear –

I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science.

Rather, Darwin called The Origin of Species “one long argument”—not a scientific showcase. Darwin makes this point because he knew what differentiates science from logic.

More than 200 years before the publication of The Origin of Species, English scientist Francis Bacon formalized what is now known as the Scientific Method – the only proven method of scientific inquiry for discovering natural laws.

As a founding member of the Royal Society, Bacon was quoted by Darwin in the preamble of The Origin of Species. The Scientific Method had earlier been used by Copernicus and Galileo overturning the geocentric worldview, and later by Isaac Newton that lead to the discovery of the natural laws of motion and gravity.

The Scientific Method eliminates bias and pre-conceived ideas. A classic example of a pre-conceived idea was the Greek philosophy Aristotle popularized that the Earth is the center of the universe. Aristotle founded the geocentric worldview based on logic—not by analysis of scientific evidence.

Deductively viewing the Earth as of the great importance in the universe, the Roman Catholic Church embraced Aristotle’s geo-centric logic, until challenged by and overturned by Copernicus and Galileo. Natural laws are not necessarily logical.

The power of the Scientific Method is the separation fact from fiction, science from non-science, and science from faulty or unfounded logic.

With the Scientific Method, the evidence is the primary factor that controls the development of the hypothesis. This process of reasoning is known as inductive logic. Only the evidence can derive the hypothesis.

With logic, the process of reasoning is reversed—the hypothesis is the primary factor that controls the selection of the evidence. This process of reasoning is known as deductive logic – or, deductive reasoning.

The big downside of deductive logic is that the evidence can be manipulated to support the hypothesis. Deductive reasoning then can be easily infected with philosophy, bias, and pre-conceived ideas—like, Aristotle’s belief in a geo-centric worldview.

By using deductive reasoning, Darwin was free to use analogies and “imaginary illustrations” to develop his theory of natural selection—rather than by scientific analysis of only the evidence. Darwin had replaced the Scientific Method with his deductive “I Think” approach.

In place of the Scientific Method, Darwin called his approach a “scientific point of view”. This allowed Darwin to replace science with his own philosophy, bias, and pre-conceived ideas.

Despite known scientific problems and widespread criticism, however, natural selection was eventually accepted in the evolution industry largely due to the powerful influence of the emerging new X Club intellectuals of the nineteenth century. 

In fact, Darwin was actually forced to abandon the Scientific Method in order to propose natural selection as a natural law. In a letter to Asa Gray at Harvard University, Darwin set the record straight -

What you hint at generally is very, very true: that my work is grievously hypothetical, and large parts are by no means worthy of being called induction, my commonest error being / probably induction from too few facts. 

While, Darwin was concerned about his deductive approach he garnered widespread support, anyway. His older brother, Erasmus, just a week before the publication of The Origin of Species, consoled Darwin in a letter –

In fact, the a priori reasoning is so entirely satisfactory to me that if the facts won’t fit, why so much the worse for the facts, in my feeling.

The legacy of the evolution industry continues. Darwinism remains rooted in philosophy—not science. In the 2010 book entitled What Darwin Got Wrong, even “card-carrying” evolutionary atheists, Jerry Fodor and Massimo Palmarini are dealing with Darwin’s “scientific point of view” rather than the Scientific Method - 

We have both spent effort and ink… to show that Darwin’s theory of natural selection is fatally flawed.

Evolution, once a theory in crisis, is now in crisis without a theory. Evolution is a fact, only in the realm of philosophy.

“No other work of mine was begun is so deductive a spirit as this; for the whole theory was thought out on the west coast of S. America before I had seen a true coral reef.”

Darwin’s theory was “thought out”—even before Darwin had seen the evidence. This is Darwin’s “I Think” approach. Darwin was caught swinging on the pendulum between the scientific method and logic, a popular trend in certain nineteenth century circles. 

At the time, use of inductive reasoning was being challenged by the popular British philosopher – John Stuart Mill. Mill promoted the use of deductive reasoning over the scientific method. In ascribing to Aristotelian logic, Darwin argues –

“How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observations must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!”

Darwin continues –

“In fact the a priori reasoning is so entirely satisfactory to me that if the facts won’t fit, why so much the worse for the facts, in my feeling.” 

Ironically, the facts were irrelevant to Darwin. The major problem with deductive reasoning is that the conclusions can be misleading, inconclusive, and even erroneous. Darwin even concedes in The Origin of Species –

“For I am well aware that scarcely a single point (evidence) is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions (hypothesis) directly opposite to those at which I have arrived.”

Darwin did not use the scientific method, a fact he acknowledged. Two years before the publication of The Origin of Species, in writing to a friend, Darwin succinctly states –

“I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science.”

Newton applied the scientifc method. Discovery of the natural laws of gravity and motion by Newton over the centuries have been steadfast and practical. By contrast, in abandoning the scientific method with speculations, Darwin developed a theory that continues to be widely contested.

Do you think Darwin would have developed a different theory using the scientific method?

“Men have sought to make a world from their own conception and to draw from their own minds all the material which they employed, but if, instead of doing so, they had consulted experience and observation, they would have the facts and not opinions to reason about, and might have ultimately arrived at the knowledge of the laws which govern the material world.”

Bacon differentiated between “concepts” drawn from the “mind” and the “facts” drawn from the “evidence.” Concepts drawn from the mind can be influenced by prior knowledge, preconceived ideas, and traditions. Inductive reasoning limits the influence of bias.

In dedication to the estabishment of inductive reasoning, Bacon established the British Royal Society. Later in the nineteenth century, emphasis on the importance of inductive reasoning was further championed by William Whewell, a contemporary of Charles Darwin. To align with inductive reasoning, Darwin opens The Origin of Species with quotations from both Whewell and Bacon.

The question is, then, what is the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning? The difference between the scientific method and Aristotelian logic centers on determining the primary and secondary factors – also known as independent and depenent factors, respectively. The primary factor is the independent variable and controls the secondary (dependent) variable.

With inductive reasoning, the evidence is the primary factor and the hypothesis is the secondary, or dependent, factor. This means that the evidence takes precedence over the hypothesis – rejecting the influence of the bias.

This is the Scientific Method and the only approach proven to discover the laws of nature. Expressed in another way, the evidence with inductive reasoning is a free agent, and hypothesis becomes a slave to the evidence. The evidence trumps subjectivity.   

Deductive reasoning takes the inverse approach and the evidence becomes a slave to the hypothesis. This is known as Aristotelian logic where subjectivity can trump the evidence. Bias can rule. These diffences can be illustrated in a table format.

Scientific Method and Aristotelian logic are antithetical methods of inquiry. The next question is – what approach did Darwin take?

 Copernicus, by taking careful measurements to gather evidence, demonstrated that the Earth was not the center of the universe – rather, the Earth revolves around the sun. What made the key elemental difference was - the evidence. The evidence contradicted Aristotelian logic that had even crept into the Roman Catholic Church. The Scientific Revolution developed in concert along with a larger movement known as the Age of Enlightenment. In part, the movement was seeking to overthrow the Roman Catholic Church, which by the sixteenth century had even embraced Aristotle’s geocentric worldview.

 Driven to understand the universe as an act of the Creator, Copernicus wrote -  

 “The mechanisms of the universe, wrought for us by a supremely good and orderly Creator… the system best and most orderly artist of all framed for our sake.”

 Copernicus died in 1543 almost immediately after publishing his findings in the epochal book entitled On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres.

 While Copernicus’ escaped Roman Catholic Church rule, Galileo after confirming Copernicus’ findings was found guilty of “heresy” by the Inquisition in 1632. Thereafter, Galileo spent the last 10 years of his life under house arrest.

 Isaac Newton, after studying the evidence later in the eighteenth century, verified Copernicus’ and Galileo’s findings by using the scientific method. Newton is also known for discovering the laws of motion and gravity. When scientists at Britain’s Royal Society were asked in 2005 about who had the greater effect on the history of science, Newton or Albert Einstein – the vote went to Newton.

 The question is – what made the Scientific Revolution a revolution? The answer is – the system of reasoning. Aristotle logic was based on deductive reasoning. The Scientific Revolution was based on inductive reasoning.

 We will be exploring these differences in this series of blogs. What do you think is the difference between inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning? Is the difference important?