Further Critique of Evolutionism

“They ask us: 'Since blind chance may, amidst the infinite multitude of its experiments, happen upon any results whatsoever, why may it not at times happen upon some results wearing these appearances of orderly adaptation?' I answer: the question puts the case falsely. Sometimes? No. Always. The fact to be accounted for is, that Nature's results have always an orderly adaptation. The question we retort, then, takes this crushing form: How is it that in every one of Nature's results, in every organ of every organized creature, which is known in living or fossil Natural History, if the structure is comprehended by us, we see the orderly adaptation? Where are Nature's failures? Where the vast remains of that infinite mass of her haphazard, aimless, orderless efforts? On the evolution theory, they should be myriads of times as numerous as those structures which received some successful adaptation. Let us recur to the illustration of the Frenchman employing an eternity in throwing a basket of printer's type abroad blindly, until, after perhaps an infinite number of throws, he happened to get precisely that collocation which composed the martial poems of Ennius. Why might it not happen like at last? Suppose, I reply, that the condition of his experiments were this: that he should throw a different basket in each trial, and that a considerable part of all the types thrown in vain should remain heaped around him; then, he and his experiments would have been buried a thousand times over beneath the rubbish of his failures long before the lucky throw were reached. But this is the correct statement of the illustration. The simple making of this statement explodes the whole plausibility, leaving nothing but a bald absurdity. For, as has been already stated, Evolution must admit the teachings of Paleontology. But the later asserts that the organized beings of vast ages still exist, in the form of fossils. Now, will the Evolutionist pretend that the durable remains of the hurtful variations were less likely to continue in the strata than those of the naturally selected? Not one whit. Then, there should be, on his supposition, as large a portion of the printer's types from every unsuccessful 'throw' left for our inspection as from the sole successful one. Where are they?”

R.L. Dabney, The Sensualistic Philosophy of the Nineteenth Century Considered, Chapter 9