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The Death Of Evolution
Mr. Johnston confesses that he used to be a believer in Evolution. But reading a book on the subject opened his eyes, and after much study he wrote this present book. He gives both scientific findings and Catholic teaching to show that the theory of Evolution is incompatible with both Catholic teaching and common sense. His reason for studying Evolution, as he quotes one eminent writer, is that "Every attack on the Christian Faith made today has, as its basis, the doctrine of Evolution."
- GenresScienceCreation Science
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 2, 2001
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May 2, 2019
While this book was originally published in the 1980s, it's still one of the best creation science books I've ever read. Mr. Johnson brings up topics I haven't come across in other books. For example, in the chapter on the origin of life, after covering the impossibility of the components of life forming by chance, he points out that none of these individual components (proteins, DNA, etc.) are themselves alive, "just as, in your automobile, there is no automobility in any piece or part, in a spark plug or a carburetor needle . . . life is a super-quality that coheres to the total cell." He also discusses the problems that evolutionists face while trying to explain human culture in Darwinist terms.
Since this book was written by a Catholic, there isn't any Protestant evangelism that's thrown into most creation science books.
Since this book was written by a Catholic, there isn't any Protestant evangelism that's thrown into most creation science books.
March 8, 2023
A CATHOLIC LAYMAN REJECTS EVOLUTION, ENDORSES ‘YOUNG EARTH’
The author, J. Wallace G. Johnson (1916-1989) was an Australian Catholic layman; he wrote in the Foreword to this 1981 book, “I understand sincere evolutionists; I was one. I do not understand those who not only will not listen to counter-argument, but would prevent others from listening. Ten years ago… I read Father O’Connell’s ‘Science of Today and The Problems of Genesis.’ My belief in evolution disintegrated, accompanied by anger… I began to discern evolution’s potential threat to religion. I resolved to equip myself to help others to hear the counter-argument… I studied and lectured… The lecture … was recorded… [and] was converted into a booklet… Out of that booklet has come this small book…”
He noted in the first chapter, “Almost unchallenged for a century, evolution completely changed world thinking and caused havoc in religion. Yet, the counter-attack which has begun is not by religious writers but by scientists… The ranks of anti-evolution scientists are growing; but the mass media IGNORES THEM, or else discredits them by disparagement… A recent remarkable development is that quite a few leading evolutionists are publicly acknowledging serious flaws in Darwinism, and in the propositions on which evolution theory has hitherto been based. Yet, they are still holding to belief in evolution of some sort… It seems that the revolution against evolution is mounted mainly by non-Catholics, while Catholics, by and large, have dropped their defenses. Among Catholics, evolutionism is gaining ground because they are not informed about the Church’s pronouncements and certainly are ignorant of the recent findings of science. As a result there is spreading among Catholics an evolution-based Modernism, and that specially dangerous Modernism, namely the evolution theory of the late Father Teilhard de Chardin.” (Pg. 2-5)
He asserts, “The general theory of Evolution is diametrically opposed to Christian revelation and creed… professedly to clothe Christianity in a garb acceptable to science, there came a Jesuit priest, Father Teilhard de Chardin… his ideas have done more damage to orthodox Catholicism than those of probably any other person in history… Teilhard’s mind was firmly locked into evolutionism on a grand scale… In 1922, he wrote an essay which treated Original Sin in a way contrary to Church teaching…. Teilhard was nearly excommunicated. He was forbidden to teach or preach… He wrote several books formulating a Christianity which bowed to total evolutionism. His books were refused a Church Imprimatur and remained unpublished.” (Pg. 14-15)
He notes, “The hopelessness of mutations to produce evolution was confirmed by classic experiments on the fruit fly… Certainly there was plenty of variation: stunted wing, lack of wings [,etc.]… Never was there the start of a new organ of a different species… Mutations … never produce a new organ…” (Pg. 25)
He observes, “We find that every kind alive today, which appears in the fossil record, appears in fossil form similar to its present living form, unchanged, un-evolved. The fossil record has proved hostile to the very theory it was expected to prove. What the fossil record does show is… perfected kinds separated by unbridgeable gaps. It is striking evidence for the Genesis revelation that creatures were created according to their kind.” (Pg. 34-36)
He states, “Australopithecines are pictured as large-jawed, small-brained… and walking in approximately human fashion… The public would be surprised to know how little fossil evidence there really is… Sir Zolly Zuckerman … made a detailed study… [and his] verdict was that these animal bones gave no evidence of something evolving into a human… discoveries since 1972 have pushed the Australopithecines into a dead end. They are now generally regarded as not ancestral to man.” (Pg. 58-59)
He argues, “The geological column can be seen as a record of the sequence in which creatures were buried by the great flood sediments. At the bottom of the column are the simplest sponges… They lived at the bottom of the sea. They would have been the first ones to be buried by the great flood sediments. The free-swimming fishes were trapped later. Then the amphibians even later, because they lived higher up… The higher animals are more mobile… Birds flew to higher ground… animals such as horses, apes, and … man himself… fled to higher ground as the waters rose… And so they were the last to drown… This would mean that millions of fossils in the rocks are… creatures which lived on earth together… when the Great Flood struck them… This means throwing out evolution geology and its billion-year ages, and we are led back to Deluge geology and a young earth.” (Pg. 102-103)
He says, “In their book ‘The Genesis Flood,’ [Henry] Morris and [John\] Whitcomb… report the now well-known … fossilized DINOSAUR FOOTPRINTS AND HUMAN FOOTPRINTS in tracks close to one another… in the bed of the small Paluxy River near Glen Rose in Texas… the evolutionist …is hard put to deny that this evidence shows that dinosaurs lived … contemporaneously with men.” (Pg. 111-113)
He points out, “Science … has not made one speck of life in the laboratory… they did not create LIFE. In every case the experiment began with living cells and manipulating their parts. Genetic engineering is advancing spectacularly; but this is meddling with existing life, not creating new life.” (Pg. 142)
He argues, “The hypothesis of an expanding universe … depends on the Doppler interpretation of the red shift. If it s wrong, modern cosmology falls apart… [in] 1981, a controversial hypothesis has claimed that light has been slowing exponentially. Barry Setterfield … found … a progressive slowing [of light] according to a precise geometrical function…. Extrapolating backwards the curve indicate that the speed of light 6,000 years ago would have been close to infinity, which… coincided reasonably with the date of Creation computed from Biblical chronologies… Evolution-leaning scientists have been hostile. Creation scientists have been divided---some for; some against… some creation scientists who were wary of Setterfield’s hypothesis have now begun to accept it.” (Pg. 150-151)
He concludes, “Today, when the theory of evolution can be shown to be not credible, we behold the paradox of a new surge of evolutionary propaganda flooding the world though the mass media and our educational systems. It must be terribly important to some people to persuade men that they are only animals and that science needs no God.” (Pg. 167)
In an Appendix, he explains the Church’s position: “In 1941… Pope [XII] said that Genesis attested … Man’s essential superiority to other animals because of his spiritual soul… In some way the first woman was derived from the first man… The first man would not have been generated literally by a brute beast … without divine intervention…” (Pg. 168-169)
[NOTE: even creationists such as John Morris of ICR no longer use the Paluxy footprints, which ‘human’ tracks are now seen to be those of a dinosaur. And John Paul II strongly endorsed evolutionary theory in 1996.]
The author, J. Wallace G. Johnson (1916-1989) was an Australian Catholic layman; he wrote in the Foreword to this 1981 book, “I understand sincere evolutionists; I was one. I do not understand those who not only will not listen to counter-argument, but would prevent others from listening. Ten years ago… I read Father O’Connell’s ‘Science of Today and The Problems of Genesis.’ My belief in evolution disintegrated, accompanied by anger… I began to discern evolution’s potential threat to religion. I resolved to equip myself to help others to hear the counter-argument… I studied and lectured… The lecture … was recorded… [and] was converted into a booklet… Out of that booklet has come this small book…”
He noted in the first chapter, “Almost unchallenged for a century, evolution completely changed world thinking and caused havoc in religion. Yet, the counter-attack which has begun is not by religious writers but by scientists… The ranks of anti-evolution scientists are growing; but the mass media IGNORES THEM, or else discredits them by disparagement… A recent remarkable development is that quite a few leading evolutionists are publicly acknowledging serious flaws in Darwinism, and in the propositions on which evolution theory has hitherto been based. Yet, they are still holding to belief in evolution of some sort… It seems that the revolution against evolution is mounted mainly by non-Catholics, while Catholics, by and large, have dropped their defenses. Among Catholics, evolutionism is gaining ground because they are not informed about the Church’s pronouncements and certainly are ignorant of the recent findings of science. As a result there is spreading among Catholics an evolution-based Modernism, and that specially dangerous Modernism, namely the evolution theory of the late Father Teilhard de Chardin.” (Pg. 2-5)
He asserts, “The general theory of Evolution is diametrically opposed to Christian revelation and creed… professedly to clothe Christianity in a garb acceptable to science, there came a Jesuit priest, Father Teilhard de Chardin… his ideas have done more damage to orthodox Catholicism than those of probably any other person in history… Teilhard’s mind was firmly locked into evolutionism on a grand scale… In 1922, he wrote an essay which treated Original Sin in a way contrary to Church teaching…. Teilhard was nearly excommunicated. He was forbidden to teach or preach… He wrote several books formulating a Christianity which bowed to total evolutionism. His books were refused a Church Imprimatur and remained unpublished.” (Pg. 14-15)
He notes, “The hopelessness of mutations to produce evolution was confirmed by classic experiments on the fruit fly… Certainly there was plenty of variation: stunted wing, lack of wings [,etc.]… Never was there the start of a new organ of a different species… Mutations … never produce a new organ…” (Pg. 25)
He observes, “We find that every kind alive today, which appears in the fossil record, appears in fossil form similar to its present living form, unchanged, un-evolved. The fossil record has proved hostile to the very theory it was expected to prove. What the fossil record does show is… perfected kinds separated by unbridgeable gaps. It is striking evidence for the Genesis revelation that creatures were created according to their kind.” (Pg. 34-36)
He states, “Australopithecines are pictured as large-jawed, small-brained… and walking in approximately human fashion… The public would be surprised to know how little fossil evidence there really is… Sir Zolly Zuckerman … made a detailed study… [and his] verdict was that these animal bones gave no evidence of something evolving into a human… discoveries since 1972 have pushed the Australopithecines into a dead end. They are now generally regarded as not ancestral to man.” (Pg. 58-59)
He argues, “The geological column can be seen as a record of the sequence in which creatures were buried by the great flood sediments. At the bottom of the column are the simplest sponges… They lived at the bottom of the sea. They would have been the first ones to be buried by the great flood sediments. The free-swimming fishes were trapped later. Then the amphibians even later, because they lived higher up… The higher animals are more mobile… Birds flew to higher ground… animals such as horses, apes, and … man himself… fled to higher ground as the waters rose… And so they were the last to drown… This would mean that millions of fossils in the rocks are… creatures which lived on earth together… when the Great Flood struck them… This means throwing out evolution geology and its billion-year ages, and we are led back to Deluge geology and a young earth.” (Pg. 102-103)
He says, “In their book ‘The Genesis Flood,’ [Henry] Morris and [John\] Whitcomb… report the now well-known … fossilized DINOSAUR FOOTPRINTS AND HUMAN FOOTPRINTS in tracks close to one another… in the bed of the small Paluxy River near Glen Rose in Texas… the evolutionist …is hard put to deny that this evidence shows that dinosaurs lived … contemporaneously with men.” (Pg. 111-113)
He points out, “Science … has not made one speck of life in the laboratory… they did not create LIFE. In every case the experiment began with living cells and manipulating their parts. Genetic engineering is advancing spectacularly; but this is meddling with existing life, not creating new life.” (Pg. 142)
He argues, “The hypothesis of an expanding universe … depends on the Doppler interpretation of the red shift. If it s wrong, modern cosmology falls apart… [in] 1981, a controversial hypothesis has claimed that light has been slowing exponentially. Barry Setterfield … found … a progressive slowing [of light] according to a precise geometrical function…. Extrapolating backwards the curve indicate that the speed of light 6,000 years ago would have been close to infinity, which… coincided reasonably with the date of Creation computed from Biblical chronologies… Evolution-leaning scientists have been hostile. Creation scientists have been divided---some for; some against… some creation scientists who were wary of Setterfield’s hypothesis have now begun to accept it.” (Pg. 150-151)
He concludes, “Today, when the theory of evolution can be shown to be not credible, we behold the paradox of a new surge of evolutionary propaganda flooding the world though the mass media and our educational systems. It must be terribly important to some people to persuade men that they are only animals and that science needs no God.” (Pg. 167)
In an Appendix, he explains the Church’s position: “In 1941… Pope [XII] said that Genesis attested … Man’s essential superiority to other animals because of his spiritual soul… In some way the first woman was derived from the first man… The first man would not have been generated literally by a brute beast … without divine intervention…” (Pg. 168-169)
[NOTE: even creationists such as John Morris of ICR no longer use the Paluxy footprints, which ‘human’ tracks are now seen to be those of a dinosaur. And John Paul II strongly endorsed evolutionary theory in 1996.]
November 29, 2025
88/100 (= 5.2/6) ≈ 5 Stars
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Kudos to TAN Books for publishing books like these. This brings discussion of Evolution to the Catholic family home, and gives day-to-day Catholics sufficient knowledge to defend themselves on this topic (first showing why it matters so much -- with almost every attack on the Catholic Church these days being based in some way on Evolution). Very aptly shows how science itself has long since abandoned Darwinism and points out hundreds of problems with theories of long ages. Textbooks and popular consensus continue to spout the "we have evolved to..." nonsense, despite what the real giants of science have been trying to say for the past 100 years. Evolution has simply been disproven, as have long ages, and this book explains why in down to earth terms, written by an author who was once a sincere evolutionist. There is a massive anti-evolution literature, and the author says he wanted lay people to know about it! Planning to follow this up with Gerard Kean's "Creation Rediscovered" (also TAN), which appears to be a great companion to this one (looks like more details). This is a great place to start for anyone interested!
-----------------------------------------
Kudos to TAN Books for publishing books like these. This brings discussion of Evolution to the Catholic family home, and gives day-to-day Catholics sufficient knowledge to defend themselves on this topic (first showing why it matters so much -- with almost every attack on the Catholic Church these days being based in some way on Evolution). Very aptly shows how science itself has long since abandoned Darwinism and points out hundreds of problems with theories of long ages. Textbooks and popular consensus continue to spout the "we have evolved to..." nonsense, despite what the real giants of science have been trying to say for the past 100 years. Evolution has simply been disproven, as have long ages, and this book explains why in down to earth terms, written by an author who was once a sincere evolutionist. There is a massive anti-evolution literature, and the author says he wanted lay people to know about it! Planning to follow this up with Gerard Kean's "Creation Rediscovered" (also TAN), which appears to be a great companion to this one (looks like more details). This is a great place to start for anyone interested!
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