The book reviewed here first appeared in print
in 1973, in the French language. It is the 1977 English translation
which is reviewed here (Academic Press).

Pierre-Paul Grassé is a renowned French scientist
and past President of the Academie des Sciences. He is editor
of the 35-volume "Traite de Zoologie" published by Masson, Paris.
During his long life as a zoologist and biologist, Dr. Grassé
has written several books and many papers in his chosen field.

Grassé’s purpose in writing his book is concisely
stated in his own words: "Today our duty is to destroy the myth
of evolution, considered as a simple, understood, and explained
phenomenon which keeps rapidly unfolding before us. Biologists
must be encouraged to think about the weaknesses and extrapolations
that theoreticians put forward or lay down as established truths.
The deceit is sometimes unconscious, but not always, since some
people, owing to their sectarianism, purposely overlook reality
and refuse to acknowledge the inadequacies and falsity of their
beliefs."¹

This is not to say that Grassé has abandoned
evolution as a viable hypothesis. On the contrary, he says "Zoologists
and botanists are nearly unanimous in considering evolution
as a fact and not a hypothesis. I agree with this position and
base it primarily on documents provided by paleontology, i.e.,
the history of the living world ... Naturalists must remember
that the process of evolution is revealed only through
fossil forms. A knowledge of paleontology is, therefore, a prerequisite;
only paleontology can provide them with the evidence of evolution
and reveal its course or mechanisms ... that is why we constantly
have recourse to paleontology, the only true science of evolution.
From it we learn how to interpret present occurrences cautiously;
it reveals that certain hypotheses considered certainties by
their authors are in fact questionable or even illegitimate."²

Grassé is then one of the current intellectual
majority who believes evolution to be true. His book is a call
for this majority to put its house in order by casting out those
ideas not founded on or even contradicted by observed facts
or by observed laws of science and mathematics.

Origins

In several places in his book, Grassé reveals
that he considers the subject of origins to lie outside
the field of science, at least as far as present knowledge is
concerned. In his Introduction, he says, "Any living thing possesses
an enormous amount of ‘intelligence’… Today, this 'intelligence'
is called 'information,' but it is still the same thing ...
This ‘intelligence’ is the sine qua non of life. If absent,
no living being is imaginable. Where does it come from? This
is a problem which concerns both biologists and philosophers,
and, at present, science seems incapable of solving it."³

A creationist of course attributes the source
of the 'intelligence' to the Creator, a position apparently
shared by Grassé, but which evolutionists are usually prohibited
from taking, according to the convention of the majority of
intellectuals of our day. He expresses his views in the following
curiously contradictory analogy: "When we consider a human work,
we believe we know where the 'intelligence' which fashioned
it comes from; but when a living being is concerned, no one
knows or ever knew, neither Darwin nor Epicurus, neither Leibnitz
nor Aristotle, neither Einstein nor Parmenides. An act of faith
is necessary to make us adopt one hypothesis rather than another.
Science, which does not accept any credo, or in any case should
not, acknowledges its ignorance, its inability to solve this
problem which, we are certain, exists and has reality. If to
determine the origin of information in a problem is not a false
problem, why should the search for the information contained
in cellular nuclei be one?" One notes two contradictions:

(1) He says "science" does not accept a credo or should
not, yet the implicit credo contained in that
position is a credo that God does not exist or if He
does, that one is not permitted to acknowledge His existence
in scientific thought.

(2) He says that "science" is unable to solve this
problem of the origin of "intelligence," and yet says that determining
that origin is not a "false problem."

Grassé’s meaning in (2) above is found in the
closing sentence of his book: "Perhaps in this area biology
can go no farther: the rest is metaphysics."

I close this section on "origins" by quoting
from page 107 of the book: "To insist ... that life appeared
quite by chance and evolved in this fashion is an unfounded
supposition which I believe to be wrong and not in accordance
with the facts." As far as origins are concerned, Grassé appears
to believe in a Creator.

Paleontology

In spite of his insistence that paleontology
is "the only true science of evolution," Grassé does not provide
much evidence to show that paleontology actually provides observable
data in support of evolution. On the contrary, there are numerous
references to gaps in the paleontological record. For example,
in discussing "Chronological Order Of Appearance" of Chordata,
he says: "Accurately naming the group of invertebrates from
which the phylum Chordata arises is another matter. Some zoologists
hold that the metamerism of prospective mesodermal structures
and the relationship of the excretory system and the gonads
with the mesodermal cavities (coelom) relate vertebrates to
annelids. These conclusions are no doubt very impressive but
they do not bridge the immense gap between polychaete annelids
and Amphioxus. How many missing links are there between the
two of them? Nobody can tell. We find it unnecessary to survey
the other hypotheses put forward by phylogenists; they are not
satisfactory since they are not based on any paleontological
data."⁴

With regard to the paleontological record relative
to the origin of the phyla, Grassé says there is "the almost
total absence of fossil evidence." He goes on to say that "it
follows that any explanation of the mechanism in creative evolution
of the fundamental structural plans is heavily burdened with
hypotheses. This should appear as an epigraph to every book
on evolution. The lack of direct evidence leads to the formation
of pure conjectures as to the genesis of the phyla; we do not
even have a basis to determine the extent to which these opinions
are correct."⁵

Even when he makes statements such as "For instance,
the genesis of mammals from reptiles is rather well known,"
Grassé goes on to say, "In paleontology, however, the discovery
of a new fossil can considerably modify our views and make interpretations
obsolete which were previously thought to be definitive."⁵
This same view is repeated with regard to fossils of birds.
"Numerous species have only been found in fossil form in the
Pleistocene (22 families); but the discovery of a fossil does
not always indicate the date when its species, genus, or family
appeared."⁶

Fossils of mollusks are said to demonstrate "evolution"
which is "hardly noticeable,"⁷ because they are so
much like modern mollusks. But while fossils of mollusks and
insects are said to demonstrate little if any "evolutionary"
change, Grassé also notes "explosions" in the fossil record
which show the "sudden appearance" of a wide variety of different
organisms for which no evolutionary ancestors are found in the
paleontological record.

Random chance mutations are generally considered
by Darwinian evolutionists to provide the opportunity for evolutionary
steps. Grassé disagrees vigorously, and says that mutations
have nothing to do with evolution. His summary statement is,
"Some contemporary biologists, as soon as they observe a mutation.
talk about evolution. They are implicitly supporting the following
syllogism: mutations are the only evolutionary variations, all
living beings undergo mutations, therefore all living beings
evolve. This logical scheme is, however, unacceptable: first,
because its major premise is neither obvious nor general; second,
because its conclusion does not agree with the facts. No matter
how numerous they may be, mutations do not produce any kind
of evolution."⁸ He goes on to point out that bacteria—the
subject of study of many geneticists and molecular biologists—are
organisms which produce the most mutants. Yet bacteria are considered
to have "stabilized a billion years ago!"⁹ He regards
the "unceasing mutations" to be "merely hereditary fluctuations
around a median position; a swing to the right, a swing to the
left, but no final evolutionary effect."⁹ He asks,
"How does the Darwinian mutational interpretation of evolution
account for the fact that the species that have been the most
stable—some of them for the last hundreds of millions of years—have
mutated as much as the others do? Once one has noticed microvariations
(on the one hand) and specific stability (on the other), it
seems very difficult to conclude that the former (microvariation)
comes into play in the evolutionary process."¹⁰

Grassé compares a mutation to "a typing error
made in copying a text."¹¹ He says "Mutations have
a very limited 'constructive capacity;' this is why the formation
of hair by mutation of reptilian scales seems to be a phenomenon
of infinitesimal probability; the formation of mammae by mutation
of reptilian integumentary glands is hardly more likely (integuments
of reptiles show very few integumentary glands; Gabe and Saint-Girons,
1967), etc."¹² He goes on to say, "Mutations, in
time, occur incoherently. They are not complementary to one
another, nor are they cumulative in successive generations toward
a given direction. They modify what preexists, but they do so
in disorder, no matter how. Derivation obviously does not demand
that variations be coherent and follow preferential paths. Evolution,
however, followed courses to which it faithfully adhered over
very long periods of time. Although everything is not as it
should be, the living world is not at all chaotic and life results
from a very well-defined order. As soon as some disorder, even
slight, appears in an organized being, sickness, then death
follow. There is no possible compromise between the phenomenon
of life and anarchy."¹³

Chance

Grassé in several different places in his book
provides devastating evidence to show that "chance" cannot account
for evolution. He correctly evaluates the attitude of Darwinists
toward "chance" when he says: "Directed by all-powerful selection,
chance becomes a sort of providence, which, under the cover
of atheism, is not named but which is secretly worshipped. We
believe that there is no reason for being forced to choose between
either randomness or the supernatural, a choice into which the
advocates of randomness in biology strive vainly to back their
opponents. It is neither randomness nor supernatural power,
but laws which govern living beings; to determine these laws
is the aim and goal of science, which should here have the final
say."¹⁴

Natural Selection

Grassé on page 170 provides a summary statement
about natural selection—which he says has nothing to do with
evolution—as follows: "The role assigned to natural selection
in establishing adaptation, while speciously probable, is based
on not one single sure datum. Paleontology (cf.
the case of the transformation of the mandibular skeleton of
the thecodont reptiles) does not support it; direct observation
here and now of the genesis of a hereditary adaptation is nonexistent,
except, as we have stated, in the case of bacteria and insects
preadapted to resist viruses or drugs. The formation of the
eye, the inner ear, of cestodes and the whale, etc., does not
seem possible by way of preadaptation. Besides, paleontology
teaches that the evolution of the stirrup bones of the inner
ear took place exceedingly slowly by the unambiguous addition
of tiny changes, preadaptation had nothing whatever to do with
it.

The role of natural selection in the present
world of living things is concerned with the balance of populations;
it is primarily of demographic interest. To assert that population
dynamics gives a picture of evolution in action is an unfounded
opinion, or rather a postulate, that relies on not a single
proved fact showing that transformations in the two kingdoms
have been essentially linked to changes in the balance of genes
in a population. Circumstances occasionally award a given mutation
a selectivity bonus, but for a variable time, as witness the
heterogeneity of populations due to the abundance of alleles
of a single gene and their composition over time. Studies on
natural populations in their own proper environment show that
the composition of genes is changeable and that dominant species
vary over time. Ford (1971), in his book, says precisely this
and nothing else; as for seeking in it proof of the formation
of new species, there is no such hope."

Summary

Why is this book of importance to creationists?
Isn't the author an avowed evolutionist, albeit a theistic one?
The answer lies in Grassé’s thoroughly buttressed reasoning
which demonstrates the lack of evidence for what the majority
of evolutionists believe to be the principal elements of their
hypothesis, namely (1) origins based upon random or chance events;
(2) evolutionary progress by chance mutations acted upon by
natural selection; and (3) that population dynamics gives a
picture of evolution in action. All of these are demonstrably
false notions, according to Grassé.

Grassé proposes a new approach to the hypothesis
of evolution, reasoning that just as "information" or "intelligence"
is the distinctive feature of all living organisms which can
be observed at present, so it is other "information" or "intelligence"
which has guided all past evolutionary development. He says
that without such "information" or "intelligence" to guide it,
evolution is impossible. Such a position is tantamount to the
creationist position which says that the Second Law of Thermodynamics
makes evolution impossible, unless there is a plan for evolution,
plus an intelligence and a conversion mechanism for putting
that plan into effect. Such pre-existing plans are, of course,
anathema to the conventional Darwinian evolutionist.

One is struck by the fact that the sole proof
for evolution from Grassé's viewpoint lies in the record of
the fossils in the rocks. Yet he himself is not a paleontologist.
Even many evolutionary paleontologists do not claim as much
for the record in the rocks as Grassé is apparently willing
to accept.

REFERENCES

¹ Grassé, Pierre-Paul, 1977, Evolution
of Living Organisms, Academic Press, New York, NY, pg. 8.


² Ibid., pp. 3, 4.

³ Ibid., p. 3.

⁴ Ibid., p. 17.

⁵ Ibid., p. 31.

⁶ Ibid., p. 67.

⁷ Ibid., p. 63.

⁸ Ibid., p. 88.

⁹ Ibid., p. 87.

¹⁰ Ibid., p. 88.

¹¹ Ibid., p. 96.

¹² Ibid., p. 97.

¹³ Ibid., p. 97, 98.

¹⁴ Ibid., p. 107.