Darwin Theory Opposed

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31769, 28 August 1968, Page 17

Darwin Theory Opposed

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) JOHANNESBURG, Aug. 27.

The never-ending debate between the fundamentalists and the evolutionists on the origin of life has flared into a first-rate row in South Africa.

The controversy there began when the journal of the Calvinistic Dutch Reformed Churches, “Kerkbode,” called for a halt to the teaching of the Darwin theory of the evolution of species in the country’s schools and universities, branding the doctrine as pernicious and its propagators as subversives.

The chief target of the fundamentalist wrath of “Kerkbode” was a newspaper article headed “Evolution Link Found in India,” which “Kerkbode” said, took for granted something which had never been proved. From there the debate spread to the pulpit, where the evolutionary explanation of the origin of man was denounced as the crude work of the devil; and particular scientists were singled out for scorn.

The row, although mostly about the literal meaning of the Book of Genesis, has now spread to an examination of Afrikaner intellectual life in general, and has touched on the political divisions within the Afrikaner Nationalist Party. The main argument of the Dutch Reformed Churches is that the existence of primitive man' cannot be proved from fossil remains, which the devil deliberately planted

to discredit the story of Adam and Eve, and to seduce man into believing the evolutionary doctrine The theological argument is that man is not related to the animals physically or spiritually, but is the result of a separate and purposeful act of creation by God. All arguments by Christian biologists that evolution was the method God chose to create man have been waved aside as rejecting the evidence of the Bible. To add to the churches’ alarm, the National Museum in Bloemfontein, shrine of traditional Afrikaner culture,

has announced a permanent evolutionary exhibition. This will show a panorama of growing intelligence in a direct line from baboon to ape-man to modern man, with no hint of any intervention by God. .Although the Calvinist churches are strong, most of the writers of the letters that have filled the Afrikaans’ newspapers in recent weeks support evolution.

One writer commented that most prospective ministers should be forced to study elementary biology, while another said ignorance should have no place in the pulpit