Natural Selection And The Bible
Bodie Hodge, M.Sc., B.Sc., PEI
Biblical Authority Ministries, July 28, 2025 (Donate)
Well, it’s pretty obvious to any farmer whose raised animals—they
change. From generation to generation, there are usually noticeable variations.
This also occurs out in nature all over the world.
These little changes never change a pig into a moth, a cow
into a dinosaur, a raccoon into a toad, or a bear into deer. Nevertheless, these types of small observed
changes (longer hair, shorter hair, longer beaks, shorter beaks, taller,
shorter, various pelt colors, etc.) are what evolutionists often suggested added
up to big changes over long periods of unobserved time.
But did they? This brings us to the subject of the nature of
how animals change through the generation based their genetics, their
environment, and host of other factors. Of course, there are mutational changes
(discussed here) but I want to discuss a process that is named “natural selection”.
How should we view this process in light of Scripture and the
biblical
age of the earth, and does it do what evolutionists hope it does?
Natural Selection—The Opposite Of Evolution
Natural selection is a real, observable process in
nature—but it does not support molecules-to-man evolution—I’ll dive into the
details of that in a moment. Instead, natural selection is a conservative
mechanism that helps following generations survive in changing
environments.
In our sin-cursed and broken world since Genesis 3, animals die. But they also reproduce and make variant copies of themselves. Some of these variations, for instance can have longer hair or shorter hair. This is determined at a genetic level.
Since dogs exist all over the world, let’s use dogs as our example (even though I could use bears, cats and so on as well).
Dogs with longer hair can thrive better in a region where it gets very cold, whereas dogs with short hair don’t like that and either move away to where it is warmer or die off.
At the same time, dogs with shorter hair might thrive in a
region that is much hotter. The dogs with longer hair are either going to die
off or move away to a place more comfortable for their survival. So, dogs with medium
length fur and can have offspring that have long hair or short hair and they
can expand and do well in different parts of the world. This is the basics of
natural selection.
Notice a couple of key points:
· The information already existed in the genome.
· This process filters and loses information in the genome.
Dogs living in a hotter area with only short hair have lost
the information for long hair and likewise, the dogs living in a colder area have
lost the information for short hair. Unless they breed back, that information
is gone in their local variation.
The point is that it is predicated existing genetic
information, having minor variations rather than creating new kinds of
organisms—in other words dogs stay dogs—whether there are wolves, Great Danes, dingoes,
beagles, or bulldogs. This also means that natural selection works in the opposite
direction of evolution as commonly defined in secular understanding.
Natural selection is the process by which certain traits
become more common in a population because they help individuals survive and
reproduce. For example, in a cold environment, other animals, like the dogs
above, with thicker fur may survive better, and their offspring inherit that
trait.
This is not an example of evolution in the macro
sense (e.g., fish turning into amphibians). Instead, it’s a form of variation within
a kind—a group of organisms that descended from an original created pair and the
limited pairs aboard the Ark during the Flood about 4,350 years ago.
God created the original "kinds" of animals with a
great deal of built-in genetic diversity (God’s brilliant that way!). After the
Fall and the global Flood, our sin-cursed environments changed drastically.
Natural selection helps explain how animals survive in these
new conditions down through the generations due to the existing
information in their genes. No new genetic information is added in the
process—rather, information is often lost or shuffled. In this
way, natural selection results in downward and filtered adaptation, not
upward evolution with new complex information.
For instance, when a population of beetles is exposed to a
new predator, those with camouflaged coloring may survive better. Over
generations, the population might shift to being mostly camouflaged. This
doesn’t mean beetles have evolved into a new kind—it simply means one variation
has become more dominant while the others were eaten! In fact, in many cases,
natural selection leads to a reduction in genetic diversity (though sometimes
it is nearly the same), because traits that don’t aid survival may be removed
from the population (or is so few/recessive in the population it may appear latent.)
Thus, natural selection and evolution go in opposite
directions. Evolution (as defined by Darwinists) requires the gain of
new, functional genetic information over time to turn simple organisms into
complex ones. Natural selection, however, only works with existing
information and typically reduces diversity (e.g., the population of long-haired
dogs living where it is cold can only have offspring with long hair). For
example, a population of wolves may become adapted to arctic conditions, but
this specialization can make them less suited for other climates, which is evidence
of degeneration, not advancement.
Natural selection must not be confused with random
mutations, which are often harmful. Evolutionists claim that over time,
beneficial mutations can add new information, and natural selection favors
these changes. But observed mutations are overwhelmingly either nearly neutral
or harmful, and no known mutation has been shown to add brand-new, organized and
complex genetic information of the type required for sufficient molecules-to-man
evolution.
Furthermore, natural selection is not a creative force.
It cannot plan, innovate, or direct evolution—it only filters traits that
already exist. Some may get confused because of the name, but nature does not
select—it doesn’t have a mind. It is merely name given to an observed process based
on the offspring variation and the environments in which they organism lives (or
tries to live) which was also designed by God, albeit cursed design
since the Fall.
Nevertheless, this filtering process aligns with a biblical
worldview: after sin entered the world, death, disease, and environmental
pressures began to shape the survival of species. Natural selection helps
explain how animals have adapted since the Flood, but always within the
boundaries of their created kind.
- Natural
selection is a real, observable process that helps explain why
organisms survive in changing or different environments.
- The
process operates on existing genetic information and usually
results in the loss of diversity.
- The
process leads to downward and filtered adaptation within a kind,
not the onward and upward evolution of new kinds.
- Electron-to-engineer
evolution requires the addition of brand-new complex and usable genetic
information over time, which natural selection does not provide.
- The
process actually works in the opposite direction of evolution, as
it conserves or reduces genetic information instead of creating it.
Darwin, Blyth, And Natural Selection
As the Bible-believer might have already noticed, natural
selection fits well within a biblical framework of a world that has changed
since creation but does not confirm the unobserved evolutionary suggestion of
life developing from a common ancestor through random processes over millions
of years.
For those in the know, it wasn’t Charles Darwin, who first articulated
natural selection. Though I must give credit to Darwin for naming the process.
A couple of decades before Darwin, a Christian names Ed
Blyth articulated the process in journal articles. These papers influenced
Darwin. Historically and rather well-known was that Darwin had hand written
notes on his copies of Blyth’s papers—these were kept on his desk at Down House
(where Darwin lived for 40 years) and visitors could see them sitting there
even into recent times on tours of the home.
But unlike Blyth who recognized the conservative nature of
the process, Darwin hopes this idea of natural selection would lead to evolution.
Darwin dedicated his life attempting to make natural
selection work as the mechanism for evolution. But Darwin backed off his “gung-ho”
view of natural selection later in his life. He became much more tentative about
natural selection wondering if there was another mechanism that could actually
help evolution.
Naturally after Darwin, Hugo
DeVries suggested mutations were the mechanism as opposed to natural selection.
In modern times, the neo-Darwinian religious view incorporated mutations
and natural selection, but both processes have been shown to go in the wrong
direction for evolution. So, learned evolutionists are still looking for a
mechanism that would make evolution work.
Who Was Ed Blyth?
Edward Blyth, an English zoologist and chemist,
significantly contributed to the initial understanding of what would later be
called “natural selection”, even though he did not formulate or name the process.
It was Charles Darwin that gave the name “natural selection”.
Blyth's contributions appeared in a series of published
papers in The Magazine of Natural History between 1835 and 1837, where
he discussed the role of natural processes in preserving the fitness of animal
populations. Some of his papers are online here (off site):
·
On the Psychological
Distinctions Between Man and All Other Animals - Part 1
·
On the Psychological
Distinctions Between Man and All Other Animals - Part 2
·
On the Psychological
Distinctions Between Man and All Other Animals - Part 3
·
On the Psychological
Distinctions Between Man and All Other Animals - Part 4
In his writings, Blyth discussed the idea that variations
occur within kinds and that nature acts to conserve the type rather than
change it. He observed that in the wild, weaker or less fit individuals often
died, while the stronger and better-adapted ones survived.
This process, he believed, helped maintain the stability and
health of species by removing individuals that deviated too far from the norm.
For Blyth, this "conservative" principle served as a natural
mechanism to preserve species in a sin-broken world, not transform them
into new kinds.
In his 1835 paper titled “An Attempt to Classify the
‘Varieties’ of Animals,” Blyth described how domesticated animals often change
under human control (this is called artificial selection by the way),
but in the wild, the reverse happens—wild animals retain their typical traits
because of environmental pressures.
In later articles, especially in 1837, he expanded on this
concept by suggesting that predators and harsh conditions serve as natural
checks that weed out the unfit, ensuring that only well-adapted individuals
reproduce.
Though Blyth did not advocate for evolution, his
descriptions of this natural "pruning" process what Darwin would
later call natural selection. Darwin himself openly acknowledged Blyth’s work
in On the Origin of Species, noting Blyth's valuable data and insights,
though he diverged sharply from Blyth's belief that kinds
were fixed and created by God.
Blyth contributed detailed documentation of how
environmental pressures influence survival and reproduction in wild
populations. While he framed these observations within a creationist, species-fixity
(i.e., fixity of kinds) worldview, the mechanisms he described helped lay
the groundwork for the concept of natural selection by showing how weaker
individuals die out leaving that more fit left to survive.
Conclusion
When natural selection is understood, it meshes very well in
a biblical worldview. Yet, it is a process that goes in the wrong direction for
an evolutionary worldview. It’s that simple.
