312 VINCENT E. SMITH 



may be regarded as evolutionary for the additional reason that, 

 as manifested by the constitution and history of our earth,^^ 

 it leads to the appearance and survival of the self-replicating 

 macromolecules which are living things. Surely this process is 

 a build-up; it is progressive; it is an evolution, and according 

 to biologists, it leads, after living things finally appear, to 

 higher and higher species. It is proper to speak of the Big 

 Bang theory,^^ held by Lemaitre, Gamow, and von Weizsaecker, 

 as an evolutionary account. 



Before considering entropy, the down-hill drive in our uni- 

 verse, mention must be made of the so-called steady-state 

 theory which has grown up in Great Britain and is held by 

 such cosmologists as Gold,^* Bondi,^^ Hoyle,^'' and Lyttleton.^^ 

 According to this hypothesis, the universe never had a begin- 

 ning and therefore did not have to undergo the differentiation 

 from a primeval atom. The work done in the never-ending 

 expansion of the universe is accounted for by a continuous 

 creation. Hydrogen, the " No. 1 element " in the cosmos, is 

 created at the rate of one atom per litre of volume every billion 

 years. This is Bondi's figure.^^ From hydrogen, other and 

 heavier elements are then built up. Bondi further states: 



The expansion of the universe, which can be inferred either from 

 thermodynamics or from astronomical observations, would seem to 



that, by the laws of logic, we are dealing only with hypothesis — the best positive 

 account we can so far give of how things come to be as they are. We are not dealing 

 with fact, as in the proposition, " Man is a rational animal." Yielding to current 

 conventions, we have simply used the term " evolution " without grammatically men- 

 tioning the logical qualification to be put upon it as only a very strong hypothesis. 



^' Cf. A. Holmes, The Age of the Earth (London, 1937) ; H. Jeffreys, The Earth 

 (Cambridge, Eng., 1952) ; E. Bullard, The Interior of the Earth (Chicago, 1953) . 



'^^ "After the full complement of the atomic species had been formed during the 

 first hour of expansion, nothing of particular interest happened for the next 30 

 million years." Gamow, op. cit., p. 74. 

 p. 142. 



'* Cf. E. Mascall, Christian Theology and Natural Science (New York, 1956) 



^^ H. Bondi, Cosmology (Cambridge, Eng., 1952) . 



'* F. Hoyle, The Nature of the Universe (New York, 1950) . 



*' Op. cit. 



'^Cosmology, p. 143. 



