From
the perspective of Darwinian theory, mankind may be
seen as the winner of a preposterous survival lottery
which, we are told, given the incredible odds should
not have occurred even once. Thus, the logical deduction
from Darwinian theory is that if the humanoid form evolved
from the great ape lineage on planet Earth, the mathematical
odds are incredibly against the possibility of that
same chain of random and incremental steps, contingent
upon an interplay with a similar biological environment,
occurring elsewhere in the Universe. Therefore, the
assumptions of Darwinian evolution presuppose the humanoid
form to be an entirely Earth-based phenomenon.
An
example of this common presumption is illustrated in
an interview in Paranoia magazine's Winter 1997
issue. In D. Guide's interview with Henry Stevens of
the German Research Project, Stevens asserts, "If
a creature has two arms, two legs, walks bipedally and
has stereoscopic vision, it is a human or a human derivative
in my book. Parallel evolution would not produce such
a close analog on another world."
The
aim of this article is to debunk Darwinian evolution
as a testable and falsifiable scientific hypothesis
from which to argue mankind's singularity or uniqueness
in the Universe. We will begin by defining "scientism"
as an emotional attachment to the materialist worldview,
which corrupts the genuine scientific process. As Charles
Tart writes, "Since scientism never recognizes
itself as a belief system, but always thinks of itself
as true science, the confusion is pernicious."
Tart believes a scientist should first observe, without
rationalizing, then devise theories about the meaning
of those observations, without becoming emotionally
committed to them. He writes: "If a theory has
no empirical, testable consequences, it may be a philosophy
or religion or personal belief, but it's not a scientific
theory. Science has a built-in rule to help us overcome
our normal tendency to become emotionally committed
to our beliefs." (Journal of Near Death Studies,
1997)
Indeed,
according to philosopher of science, Karl Popper, all
scientific theories must be "falsifiable,"
that is, subject to prediction, testing and falsification.
In his book, Conjectures and Refutations, he
explains, "There will be well-testable theories,
hardly testable theories, and non-testable theories.
Those which are non-testable are of no interest to empirical
scientists. They may be described as metaphysical."
According
to the above definition, Darwinian evolution is "scientism."
It is a metaphysical genesis tale of life on Earth.
As a history of life on Earth, should not be mistaken
for a testable and falsifiable empirical hypothesis.
It is an emotional commitment to a highly-touted philosophy
of Western materialism and naturalism, which has the
major backing of Earth's reality engineers for reasons
which seem apparent (financial and emotional investment),
but which ultimately remain elusive. Such a furtive
agenda is the subject of a wholly different research
paradigm (belonging to the realm of conspiracy theory)
which we touch upon separately in this website.
For the instant, this article will show that Darwinian
evolution constitutes a tautology: a self-contained
system of circular proofs, which are always true in
a self-contained system of circular proofs. If it can
be shown that Darwinian evolution is not a valid testable
and falsifiable scientific theory, it follows that any
extrapolation derived from it (i.e., bipedal humanoids
can only exist on Earth) is of questionable value.
It
must be pointed out that creationism and evolutionism
have one main factor in agreement: they are Earth-centric
genesis tales. Both oppose the idea of intelligence
at large in the Universe, including the idea of space
travelers. In both theories, WE are IT! However, astronomer,
Tom van Flandern, has noted the erroneous assertion
that the 'probability' of extraterrestrial intelligence
(ETI) visiting our solar system is 'extremely small.'
He notes that since this presumption is not a known
scientific fact, the probability of ETI visitation is
actually 'unknown.' Therefore, I submit that Darwinian
evolution cannot properly be used as a framework from
which to argue against the cosmic co-existence of the
humanoid form, or human-like intelligence, since it
likely places the cart before the horse. It is merely
an extrapolation from an unproven theory based on an
Earth-centric bias.
How
do we know the human form isn't a universal phenomenon?
Do we actually know that this form didn't spread outward
from a more "central" part of the Universe,
either by Fred Hoyle's passive theory of "ballistic
panspermia," or by Francis Crick's deliberate theory
of "directed panspermia," via fertilized eggs
sent in spaceships by an existing technological civilization?
To put it bluntly, would not the appearance of ET humanoids
in our skies make short work of both Darwinian evolution
and the Biblical Genesis tale, both of which tell us
the Earth was created just for us?
Philosopher
William James asserted that empiricism demands that
we "look at a range of experience seriously and
open-mindedly, and consider what is the best way to
describe it, rather than defining it in advance in ways
designed to outlaw alternative descriptions or forms
of it which we find inconvenient." As logical empiricists
with our minds wide open, let us now attempt an examination
into Charles Darwin's theory of the natural selection
and evolution of Earth species, and its extrapolation
as a cosmic constant.
A
Chain of Accidents
As
an undergraduate anthropology major at a southwestern
desert university, my first physical anthropology course
was quite an experience. It was the first meeting of
the class that I will never forget. In the midst of
jokes such as "noses run in my family," there
was an unsettling undercurrent. The instructor was not
so jovial about one thing: that Darwinian evolution
was a fact and not a theory. She warned us in no uncertain
terms that she would entertain no questions with regard
to the facticity of evolution. What struck me as odd
at the time was her tone of exasperation at even the
anticipation of an underling wasting her time arguing
this 'fact.'
Well,
noses run in my family too. I knew, right off the proverbial
bat wing, that something smelled fishy, but it took
me several years to realize that she was only one of
the countless college professors, biologists, science
writers, scientific researchers, philosophers, and publishers
with a vested psychological, emotional and financial
interest in Darwinian evolution. Evolutionary theorists
bank on the hope that this theory is too complicated
for most of us to fathom, and that we will not ask questions
out of fear of appearing ignorant of the supposed facts.
More often than not, however, the questions most people
have about evolution are very appropriate and intelligent.
The truth is, some logic and a little horse sense is
really all you need to understand what Darwin was trying
to say. It's the mess his followers, so-called neo-Darwinists,
have made of it that often takes real patience to decipher.
The
theory of evolution essentially views the human form
as merely an accident in a chain of accidents. For instance,
Stephen Jay Gould argues that the evolution of the human
form is not a "repeatable occurrence." In
the Journal of British Interplanetary Society
(1992), E.J. Coffey also argues that "the evolutionary
pattern shows rapid diversification followed by decimation
with perhaps as few as five percent surviving,"
and further that "the survivors resemble the winners
of a lottery rather than creatures better designed than
the unlucky majority who do not survive."
For
quite the same reasons as above, British astronomer,
Sir Fred Hoyle, proponent of the Modern Theory of Panspermia,
has mathematically dismissed the chance of evolution
being an actual occurrence, arguing that "even
if the whole Universe consisted of organic soup ...
the chance of producing merely the basic enzymes of
life by random processes without intelligent direction
would be about 1 over a 1 with 40,000 zeros after it;
a probability too small to imagine." Hoyle concludes
that "Darwinian evolution is most unlikely to get
even one polypeptide sequence right, let alone the thousands
on which living cells depend for survival."
Given
that there are trillions of different kinds of cells
in the body, all in delicate balance with each other,
each of these varied cellular structures would also
have to develop by chance. In a Times-Advocate
interview in December 1982, Hoyle declared that this
mathematical impossibility is well known to scientists,
yet nobody seems willing to "blow the whistle"
on the absurdity of Darwinian theory. Hoyle claims "most
scientists still cling to Darwinism because of its grip
on the educational system," and because they don't
want to be branded as "heretics."
Taking
the Super Out of Supernatural
The
first assumption Charles Darwin made in his research
into genetic variation between parent populations and
their descendants was that species are not immutable
but, rather, "descent with modification" is
the norm within species. He proposed that this process
of change could account for all, or nearly all, the
diversity of life. He thought it would one day be proven
that all living things descended from a common ancestor,
and perhaps even a single microscopic ancestor. As a
mechanism for this process, Darwin proposed the concept
of "natural selection." He later regretted
use of the word "selection," since it seemed
to suggest "teleology" was at work. Teleology,
in Greek philosophy, is a doctrine which holds that
the existence of everything in nature can be explained
in terms of purpose. Teleology indicates creative purposeful
design and, as we shall see, is in opposition to Darwinian
evolutionary theory.
The
National Academy of Sciences has told the Supreme Court
that the most basic characteristic of science is "reliance
upon naturalistic explanations," as opposed to
"supernatural means inaccessible to human understanding."
That's funny. Human beings have cultivated a comfortable
relationship with things "supernatural" over
the course of their days on Earth, while it might be
said that the relatively newfound theory of Darwinian
evolution has made itself very inaccessible to human
understanding indeed. In fact, the theory of natural
selection offers very little in terms of a detailed
explanation for mankind's existential situation as an
animal with self-awareness. From a materialist perspective,
the "evolution" of consciousness still remains
a baffling mystery, as does the enigmatic and sudden
appearance of language, race and culture.
Since
its miniscule and incremental steps are impossible to
conceptualize, the evolution drama is, by necessity,
a panorama. It is, and can only be, an outline of a
shadowy metamorphosis from animal in-the-world to Overlord
of all planetary life forms. The evolution 'story' dramatizes
the 'natural' transfiguration of mankind through a linear
procession of metamorphoses that eventually separate
him from the animals of his ancestry. Evolution is Western
man's totem. Various worldwide creation myths illustrate
a similar motif, but, as a scientific theory there is
very little concern over the missing details. This is
where its faith-based attributes are most evident.
In
order to illustrate the faith-based dimension of evolutionary
theory, it is important that the concerns of the National
Academy of Sciences are addressed rationally on both
sides. Therefore, the term "supernatural"
should be applied to any invisible force that purportedly
drives evolution toward any ultimate goal, for instance,
greater complexity or the ideal of human consciousness,
or, for that matter, in any direction at all. For this
was Darwin's clear directive: there is no ultimate purpose
or direction to the evolution of forms. Therefore, the
same theories that try to force a square peg (Darwin)
into a round hole (the fossil record) should be scrutinized
for their 'supernatural' underpinnings as well.
What
is Naturalism?
In
keeping with the proclamations of Earth's academies
and courts, the paradigm of natural selection is the
only explanatory route allowed to remain after official
slicing and dicing of deductive reasoning cuts out the
elusive 'super' in supernatural. But the Empire's empiricism
on this count is peculiarly lax. There is no plausible
theory that can support an empirical test of the elusive
'natural' in 'selection.' For, in placing our confidence
in so-called "naturalistic explanations" over
those "supernatural," we have simply created
a meaningless category. We are merely playing word games.
How
do we construe something to be naturalistic? As Professor
William P. Alston asks, does this term "wear its
meaning on its face"? He explains, the Encyclopedia
of Philosophy defines a natural object in terms
of natural causes, and defines natural processes in
terms of natural objects and natural causes. It is a
closed loop, which rather handily embraces the scientific
method as the only source of knowledge of the world
of natural causes. This begs the question of whether
reality is only limited to what science can reveal about
it. Alston asserts, "I have been proceeding on
the assumption that those who set out to forge a 'naturalistic'
account of some subject matter are working with some
distinctive concept, one that is distinct from those
expressed by other familiar labels in the neighborhood."
Alston suggests the term 'naturalism' may simply be
a buzz-word for 'materialism' or' physicalism' that
has a less dogmatic sound to it. Scientific naturalism
is simply materialism in disguise, and not a very good
disguise at that. The Natural Academy of Sciences is
merely promoting materialist science as its religion.
According
to the foremost proponent of Intelligent Design Theory,
William Dembski, "Naturalism is the view that the
physical world is a self-contained system that works
by blind, unbroken natural laws. Naturalism ... says
that nothing beyond nature could have any conceivable
relevance to what happens in nature. Naturalism's answer
to theism is not atheism but benign neglect. People
are welcome to believe in God, though not a God who
makes a difference in the natural order."
In
his book, The Design Revolution, Dembski also
explains, "Naturalism allows no place for intelligent
agency except at the end of a blind, purposeless material
process. Within naturalism, any intelligence is an evolved
intelligence. Moreover, the evolutionary process by
which any such intelligence developed is itself blind
and purposeless. As a consequence, naturalism makes
intelligence not a basic creative force within nature
but an evolutionary byproduct. In particular, humans
(the natural objects best known to exhibit intelligence)
... are an accident of natural history."
I.D.
Theory, according to Dembski, posits that "intelligence
is a fundamental aspect of the world and that any attempt
to reduce intelligence to natural mechanisms cannot
succeed." As he charges, "For the naturalist,
the world is intelligible only if it starts off without
intelligence and then evolves intelligence. If it starts
out with intelligence and evolves intelligence because
of a prior intelligence, then somehow the world becomes
unintelligible."
The
Hatfields and McCoys of Evolutionary Theory
In
his well-known books and articles on evolution, popular
science writer, Stephen Jay Gould, has attempted to
steer Darwinian theory away from natural selection as
the lone process involved in evolution. A 10/3/97 Boston
Globe article entitled, "Survival of the theorists,"
outlines the crux of the argument within the evolution
and evolutionary biology factions. The article quotes
Gould as saying, "too many biologists, psychologists,
and philosophers are buying the notion that natural
selection is the be-all and end-all of evolution."
He warns that this situation is "bad for science"
and, further, is "fueling the growth of evolutionary
psychology, a field full of 'narrow, and often barren
speculation' about how and why humans behave as they
do."
"In
a sort of modern-day Darwinian adaptation," proclaims
Globe journalist, John Yemma, "sociobiologists
evolved into evolutionary psychologists and animal behaviorists
in order to survive the intellectual onslaught."
Gould asserts this way of seeing evolution "puts
natural selection on a pedestal not even Charles Darwin
would have wanted it on." Addressing one of these
evolutionary psychologists, Daniel Dennett, Gould describes
Dennett's faction as "Darwinian fundamentalists"
with a "propensity for cultism and ultra-Darwinian
fealty." He further assesses Dennett's book, Darwin's
Dangerous Idea, as an "influential but misguided
ultra-Darwinian manifesto."
In
response, Dennett argues that Gould has created "artificial
distinctions." He claims that, because Gould is
such a prolific and capable popular science writer,
"the public may be getting misled into thinking
there is fire beneath all the smoke he is blowing."
Dennett asserts the public needs to know that Gould's
views are not widely shared by evolutionary biologists.
Could he be taking heat for labeling the "extreme
rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record"
as "the trade secret of paleontology"?
In
a review of Dennett's book, British biologist, John
Maynard Smith, states that most evolutionary biologists
see Gould as "a man whose ideas are so confused
as to be hardly worth bothering with." The reason
this faction had not attacked Gould earlier, Smith adds,
was because they figured he was "on their side
against the creationists." The author of the Globe
article, Yemma, asserts, "depending on whose argument
is being made here, there may be crucial scholarly distinctions
at stake. It is hard to tell." If it's so hard
to tell, the Globe should have put someone else
on the story. Puffing himself up like a blowfish, he
adds, "the public could be excused for seeing this
as one of those perplexing academic arguments that in
an earlier age would have involved angels dancing on
the head of a pin."
Why
should the public be excused from understanding the
basis of this 'scholarly' argument? Why couldn't this
author have explained the argument, even in abbreviated
form? Is it because the writer can't express it himself,
or is it because the media wish to maintain a barren
distance between the public and scientific theory? In
effect, what we see on brazen display here is the media
attitude that the public is not expected to understand
evolutionary theory and is enjoined, instead, to reel
around on the head of a pin until confusion sets in
and they have to sit down.
Finally,
Yemma writes, "just in case creationists are listening
in, all parties take pains to point out that this fight
has nothing to do with God, religion, the Bible or,
as Gould put it, attempts to smuggle purpose back
into biology." It is, the contenders say, "an
argument well within the world of secular science."
Apparently this writer thinks that "creationists"
can't read the newspaper, and those who can, he bargains,
will be unable to see through his smug coverage of this
important topic.
How
could this argument possibly not have anything to do
with God or religion? There is no getting around the
fact that the evolution tiff is a war between atheist
and religious contingents. Atheism is the zeal behind
all of this rhetoric. I can personally attest to the
fact that atheists get high on Darwinian dogma. It is
nothing short of Acada-Media mind control. The mind-numbing
fear of all those involved in this 'survival of the
theories' is the fact that the evolutionary record is
incompatible with Darwinian natural selection and compatible
with purposeful design. Clearly, it is just this "smuggling
of purpose" into evolutionary theory that is the
Devil to the Hatfields and McCoys of Evolutionary
Theory for, as we shall see, it is the only truce for
which they are willing to put down their shot guns.
With
regard to this ongoing feud, Gould wrote in The New
York Review that "we will not win this most
important of all battles if we descend to the same tactics
of backbiting and anathematization that characterize
our true opponents." The "true opponents"
of this atheistic bunch are obviously religious creationists,
but let's widen the fray, as we draw that line in the
sand, to include all B.I.P.E.D.s (Beings for Intelligent
Purpose in Evolutionary Design), those who have the
feeling that 'we didn't get here from there' and are
experiencing a little Darwinian Dissent. To arm ourselves
for this gentleman's duel, let's zoom in on the head
of that pin.
The
Shape of a Seductive Idea
In
his book, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, philosopher
Daniel Dennett tries to downplay typical feuds such
as the one portrayed in the Globe article. He
contends that the "relatively narrow conflicts"
which have arisen among theorists have been blown out
of proportion (oh, no, we're not fighting). Dennett's
attitude toward non-believers is telling when he arrogantly
asserts, "Anyone today who doubts that the variety
of life on this planet was produced by a process of
evolution is simply ignorant - inexcusably ignorant
- in a world where three out of four people have learned
to read and write."
First,
it's doubtful Dennett's global statistics are accurate.
Nonetheless, what he is saying is, if you know how to
read and write (i.e. regurgitate scientific propaganda),
you should know that the prevailing worldview
is Darwinian evolution, and you would be stupid - rather,
inexcusably ignorant - to argue the fine points.
Needless to say, Dennett is sure that no controversy
could affect Darwinism, which is about as "secure
as any idea in science."
If
science is all about security, the alarm for this potential
breach in security was perhaps pushed by NASA in 1960
when it paid The Brookings Institute to think through
the implications of the possible discovery of extraterrestrial
intelligence (ETI) on the scientific world. In part,
the Brookings Study (www.enterprisemission.com/brooking.html)
noted that "scientists and engineers might be the
most devastated by the discovery of relatively superior
creatures, since these professions are most clearly
associated with mastery of nature." The study also
noted, "Advanced understanding of nature might
vitiate all our theories... ." Since the entire
realm of modern biology and chemistry is based on the
Darwinian paradigm, what other discovery could completely
shatter the Darwinian mythology of humanity's purely
accidental climb out of the muck of our local habitat
Earth?
Dennett,
our modern-day Huxley, propagandist for Darwin, goes
on to state that "Darwin's fundamental idea of
natural selection has been articulated, expanded, clarified,
quantified, and deepened in many ways, becoming stronger
every time it overcame a challenge." In spite of
stating emphatically at the beginning of his book that
he could provide numerous examples of how the Darwinian
"Modern Synthesis" has overcome the shortcomings
of Darwin's theory, Dennett accomplishes no such feat.
Instead, on the last page of Darwin's Dangerous Idea,
he admits: "I have learned from my own embarrassing
experience how easy it is to concoct remarkably persuasive
Darwinian explanations that evaporate on closer inspection."
Dennett explains that his book has "sacrificed
details" in order to provide a better appreciation
of the "overall shape of Darwin's idea," proclaiming
the truly dangerous aspect as its "seductiveness."
This
seductiveness is indeed very dangerous. It is what compels
people to fight tooth and nail on the side of an unverifiable
scientific hypothesis which they consider a fact. Dennett
insists that natural selection is best explained at
the level of a "blind, mechanical and algorithmic
process," dependent on chance alone. He explains
that the "mindless" steps of Darwin's natural
selection are the outcome of "a cascade of algorithmic
processes feeding on chance." Anyone who has "learned
to read and write" can see that alluding to "algorithms"
is simply an abstraction used to explain another abstraction.
Dennett's
'cascade of abstractions' resolves none of the quandaries
of Darwinian natural selection. As William Dembski illustrates
in "Intelligent Design as a Theory of Information":
"To determine how life began, it is necessary to
understand the origin of information. Neither algorithms
nor natural laws are capable of producing information.
The great myth of modern evolutionary biology is that
information can be gotten on the cheap without recourse
to intelligence."
Dennett
goes further to state, "the only way to answer
questions about such huge and experimentally inaccessible
patterns is to leap boldly into the void with the
risky tactic of deliberate oversimplification,"
asserting that "oversimplified models often actually
explain just what needs explaining." He
also asserts, "when what provokes our curiosity
are the large patterns in phenomena, we need an explanation
at the right level." He adds, "if science
is to explain the patterns discernible in all this complexity,
it must rise above the microscopic view to other
levels, taking on idealizations when necessary so
we can see the woods for the trees." Finally, he
proclaims, "could anyone imagine how any process
other than natural selection could have produced
all these effects?" (Italics added)
The
experimentally inaccessible patterns - the overall shape
of Darwin's seductive idea - which can only be explained
by oversimplified models, are part and parcel of the
speciation problem. Darwinists have not been able to
zoom in on any proofs of the evolution of any one species
into another, nor have they been able to point to an
adaptive mutation that resulted in an increase in information.
(see Spetner) So instead they construct seductive dramas.
Dennett's ultimate proof is to maintain that Darwinist
theory is so on the mark it constitutes "a complete
reversal of the burden of proof."
So,
now we need to prove evolution didn't happen? This preposterous
reasoning confirms Phillip Johnson's assertion, in Darwin
on Trial, that most scientists are looking for "confirmation
of the only theory one is willing to tolerate."
"Could anyone imagine" any other explanation
for Dennett's peculiar line of logic? To outline the
shape of a seductive idea does not describe the practice
of science.
The
philosophical hoops that dramatize the evolution story
may fool most of the people all of the time, but such
dramas are actually contrary to currently accepted science
concerning natural selection. Why do fantastic metaphorical
dramas attend the theory of evolution? According to
Mary Midgely, in Evolution as a Religion, taken
literally and without personal meaning, the theory of
evolution is hardly within reach of human imagination.
While we can try to invent terminology that approximates
such a vast cosmological scheme, she explains, the 'facts'
involved in such a complex theory have very little in
common with the present.
Darwinian
Hindsight
Geneticist
Steve Jones has made the remark that "if there
is one thing which Origin of Species is not
about, it is the origin of species." Nonetheless,
in spite of the fact that Darwin's manifesto has trouble
even defining the concept of species, his followers
believe "the fact of speciation itself is incontestable."
Of course, winding backward from the fact that species
exist, any mechanism whatsoever can be postulated. The
practice of Darwinian Hindsight is far from scientific.
"Whatever the mechanisms are that operate,"
writes Dennett, "they manifestly begin with the
emergence of variety within a species, and end, after
modifications have accumulated, with the birth of a
new, descendant species." Beneath this doublespeak
lies the simple reiteration that, via an unknown mechanism,
variety within species eventually leads to speciation.
This statement merely repeats Darwin's thesis after
a century and a half has passed. This is progress?
The
fact is, Darwin never quite defined his terms. He was
unable to securely pin down this process from "well-marked
variety" to "subspecies" and on to "well-defined
species." As Darwin wrote in Origin of Species,
"it will be seen that I look at the term species
as one arbitrarily given for the sake of convenience
to a set of individuals closely resembling each other,
and that it does not essentially differ from the term
variety, which is given to less distinct and more fluctuating
forms." Darwin's attitude throughout Origin
of Species is that "varieties" are simply
"incipient species." Forever teetering on
the edge of potentiality, species are always in a hapless
phase of becoming. Suspension of actuality is
the Darwinist's specialty.
How
have we based an entire cosmological scheme on such
ill-defined terms? Darwin never purported to explain
the origin of the first species, or the origin of biological
forms, or of the Universe itself. He merely began in
the middle and tried to work his way back utilizing
a circular motion inside of a box. These are the footprints
all Darwinists seem to follow, for this is the only
methodology possible.
The
enclosure surrounding the natural selection tautology
does not seem to bother most Darwinists as they respond
to intelligent criticism with rhetorical statements
aimed at a person's educational level. In this case,
the education itself is nothing more than the indoctrination
of a pervasive materialist mindset within the confines
of a "specialist" caste system. But, tautologies
in scientific paradigms are not new to Thomas Kuhn,
author of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
Kuhn assures us that such circular arguments typical
of scientific paradigms cannot be made logically compelling
"for those who refuse to step into the circle."
It would appear that this oddity of science is an enigma
explainable only by the motto: "For those who believe,
no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe,
no explanation is possible."
If
Darwin himself never quite defined his terms, how can
we be sure we are talking about the same thing? We can't.
The only fully agreed-upon definition of "species"
in Origin of Species is Darwin's discussion of
"reproduction isolation," the inability of
groups to interbreed. Problematically, interbreeding
would re-unite groups which are ostensibly in the act
of splitting apart genetically, thus frustrating the
process of speciation, if such an event occurs at all.
As Dennett notes, "if the irreversible divorce
that marks speciation is to happen, it must be preceded
by a sort of trial separation." Dennett admits
that "the criterion of reproductive isolation is
vague at the edges." The entire Darwinian mythos
is vague at the edges.
The
Fitness Test
The
idea of natural selection is fundamentally different
from artificial selection or breeding. Since Darwin
did not have any examples of natural selection with
which to illustrate his assertion, he used examples
of artificial selection or breeding, assuming the same
process was at work. But Darwin's analogy to artificial
selection, Johnson points out in Darwin on Trial,
is problematical in many aspects. He argues, "plant
and animal breeders employ intelligence and specialized
knowledge to select breeding stock and to protect their
charges from natural dangers. The point of Darwin's
theory, however, was to establish that purposeless natural
processes can substitute for intelligent design."
The
fundamental assumption of Darwin's idea of natural selection
is that it is a process which maintains the genetic
fitness of a population by ensuring that the most fit
individuals survive to produce the most offspring. Pay
particular attention to the terms fit and offspring.
A biological species is a group that is capable of interbreeding
to produce viable offspring; that is, offspring that
can reproduce. The breeding of a new or distinct species
that is incapable of reproducing does not constitute
a viable species.
Creatures
who do not survive to produce offspring do not supply
the gene pool with their genes which, we may presume,
were somehow deleterious rather than genetically advantageous
or fit. But here we are simply making presumptions after
the fact. Darwin's concept of natural selection simply
defines the fittest as the individuals that survive;
the fittest organisms are, plain and simple, the ones
that produce the most offspring. We can presume a characteristic
to be an advantage because a species which has it (wings,
eyes, large brain, claws, fur, bipedalism, language,
etc.) seems to be thriving, but it is impossible to
identify the particular characteristic or advantage
which has produced the coveted outcome of survival.
In Darwin's theory, advantage means nothing more than
success in reproducing, or increasing the population
for survival of the species as a whole.
We
can surmise, then, that the individuals which survived
to produce the most offspring are doing something right,
but that is all we can do. We do not know, specifically
or empirically, what they are doing right, but we presume
that they must have had the qualities required for producing
the most offspring. Therefore, such assumptions always
rely on a bizarre retrospective stance (i.e. it must
have been the fur that made the grade, or it must have
been the large brain, etc.). Problematically, there
is no way to test these hypotheses.
Hidden
within the natural selection hypothesis is a meaningless
tautology, which essentially states that "those
organisms which leave the most offspring, leave the
most offspring." Darwin's fitness test is an all-inclusive
theory that sits in a box by itself, in its own universe
of facts, and explains nothing outside of the box. This
is the definition of a classic tautology. All of its
assumptions have to be true, since they cannot be tested
empirically. Furthermore, it is always true that in
any population some individuals will leave more offspring
than others, whether the population is not changing,
or is headed for extinction. As geneticists have noted,
species would actually change more if the least favored
individuals most often succeeded in reproducing their
kind.
Natural
selection, therefore, while seeming to be a theory which
supports genome variety, may in actuality result in
narrowing the possibilities of variation. As a matter
of fact, according to Darwinist, Stephen Jay Gould,
the prevailing character of the fossil record just happens
to be stasis: forms remain the same over long periods
of time, being abruptly replaced by completely different
forms. Furthermore, in Wedge of Truth, Phillip
Johnson equates natural selection with non-random
death. Nature is supposedly selecting one form over
the other for blind algorithmic reasons we do not understand.
How does this seemingly purposeful and supernatural
process make sense in Darwin's ultimately random naturalistic
scenario?
In
his book, A New Science of Life, Rupert Sheldrake
has written that "the evolutionary changes which
have actually been observed over the last century or
so for the most part concern the development of new
varieties or races within established species."
There is, in fact, no evidence which confirms the hypothesis
that the concept of natural selection is an evolutionary
process capable of producing innovative designs in organs
and organisms. In fact, asserts zoologist Pierre Grasse,
such "proofs" of evolution-in-action are simply
"observation of demographic facts, local fluctuations
of genotypes and geographical distributions." Such
fluctuations, he asserts, do not assert an innovative
evolutionary process.
As
John Davidson writes in The Web of Life: "Evolutionary
theory presents one of the most explicit examples of
a priori reasoning, and even blind faith, ever
seen in a supposedly scientific hypothesis. Books on
evolution are full of the prior assumption that evolutionary
theory is correct. The facts are then presented to fit
the theory. And although many other interpretations
of these facts are also possible, it is a rare biologist
who dares to be a dissenter or to even suggest that
other interpretations and explanations are also possible."
The
Whole and Its Parts
Darwin
was, in effect, a gradualist, believing that every major
transformation in form was the end result of a cumulative
process of incremental change and adaptation. As Phillip
Johnson points out, Darwin asserted that natural selection
was a process of "preservation and accumulation
of infinitesimally small inherited modifications, each
profitable to the preserved being."
Darwin's
theory emphatically avoided any leaps or jumps in evolution,
called "saltations," which resulted in a new
species in one generation. Such a leap being equal to
a miracle, or an act of creation, Darwin asserted that
he would have to throw out his baby with the bath water
were it ever proven that evolution required saltations,
or systemic macro-mutations as they are called today.
Systemic macro-mutations are considered impossible,
since complex assemblies of parts cannot change simultaneously
as a result of random mutation. Such a large and visible
occurrence of mutation would be murderous to the organism.
In
the last several decades, biochemists have discovered
awesome complexity in the cellular world, a finding
which indicates that the more parts in a system, the
more unlikely it could have evolved gradually. Complex
entities don't evolve piece by piece, asserts microbiologist,
Michael Behe, they have to be designed from the start.
In his book, Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical
Challenge to Evolution, Behe outlines a number of
biochemical systems, such as cilium, flagellum and blood
clotting, that cannot be explained by Darwinist gradualist
explanations.
For
instance, Behe writes, if the shape of a protein is
warped, it simply fails to do its job. He explains,
the shape and folding of a protein and the precise positioning
of different amino acid groups allow the protein to
work. If the job of one protein is to bind to another
specific protein, Behe explains, their two shapes must
fit each other correctly in all respects. For instance,
if there is a positively charged amino acid on one protein,
it will fit only with a negatively charged amino acid.
Likewise, the shape of an enzyme must match the shape
of its chemical target, and enzymes have amino acids
precisely positioned to cause chemical reactions.
In
short, the work of every cell in the body requires teams
of proteins, made up of amino acids, and each member
of the team carries out just one part of the task. Not
one of these chemical reactions is allowed to go out
of kilter in a functioning system. Behe concludes that
complex systems cannot evolve in Darwinian fashion.
The whole system has to be put together at once. He
explains: "You can't start with a signal sequence
and have a protein go a little way towards the lysosome,
add a signal receptor protein, go a little further,
and so forth. It's all or nothing." In his analysis
of complex parts of various biological systems, Behe
concludes, "it is extremely implausible that components
used for other purposes fortuitously adapted to new
roles in a complex system."
This
is also true according to Information Theory. Diagrams
constructed by Hubert Yockey indicate that DNA is an
analog of a computer instruction set, which triggers
the message to build proteins of specific varieties
that result in a living organism. He writes, "There
is no doubt that the information complexity in biological
entities is very high and that the probability of random
mutations leading to more highly structured life forms
has the appearance of being impossible." (Hamilton,
"Astrogenesis")
In
fact, human and animal bodies contain an array of interrelated
systems containing organs, tissues and chemical components
in intricate order. How would it be possible to build
into this system random micro-variations during each
tiny step which are at the same time profitable to
the preserved being? Surely some of the these incremental
changes would be detrimental at some place along the
way to the cumulative result, which is at the same time
supposed to have no goal toward greater complexity.
Furthermore, such infinitesimal changes would not necessarily
be of any immediate advantage unless other parts needed
for it to function also appeared with it. What we need
to imagine here, Phillip Johnson points out, is "a
chance mutation that provides a complex capacity all
at once, at a level of utility sufficient to give the
creature an advantage in producing offspring."
Richard
Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene, is quoted
as saying that "virtually all the mutations studied
in genetics laboratories, which are pretty macro because
otherwise geneticists wouldn't notice them, are deleterious
to the animals possessing them." In order to pass
all these tests simultaneously, followers of Darwin
have "evolved an array of subsidiary concepts capable
of furnishing a plausible explanation for just about
any conceivable eventuality," states Johnson.
Problematically,
since macromutations are always maladaptive, Darwinists
assert that complex and similar organs must have evolved
independently, over and over again in many different
organisms, by the accumulation of tiny micromutations
over a long span of time. One example is the evolution
of the eye. Did the eye evolve separately at first,
and if so was it useful for some purpose other than
vision? Did the neural capacity for vision evolve in
incremental steps along with the eye? What good is 5%
of an eye, and what good is any percent of it without
the neural capacity to process the information it records?
Evolutionary
biologists use the fossil record to indicate a plausible
series of intermediate eye designs, but the problem
is the designs belong to different animals and involve
vastly different types of structures (some having just
a pinhole eye with no lens or some being set in a cup,
for instance) rather than a similar structure which
added to its complexity over time. There is no evidence
that it is structurally the same eye design at all.
Furthermore, it has been noted that no fossils of animals
now extant indicate an earlier or less complex eye structure.
For instance, the nautilus sea creature, given hundreds
of millions of years, has not evolved a lens for its
eye despite having a retina "practically crying
out for this particular simple change."
Punctuated
Equilibrium
It
has been noted by paleontologist, Niles Eldredge, that
certain restrictions make it difficult to pursue a successful
"career" as a Darwinist. Ironically, those
restrictions arise from the fossil record. He writes
that the pressure for positive results is enormous.
The various schema which these stressed-out researchers
must juggle is Darwin's insistence on gradualism on
one hand and, on the other, the findings in the fossil
record which point to saltation (creation), as well
as to a pre-history of Earth catastrophism, including
devastating catastrophes which occurred during the lifetime
of humankind. Johnson quotes Eldredge in Darwin on
Trial: "either you stick to conventional theory
despite the rather poor fit of the fossils, or you focus
on the empirics and say that saltation looks like a
reasonable model of the evolutionary process, in which
case you must embrace a set of rather dubious biological
propositions."
Thus,
it is clear that paleontologists who are tethered to
neo-Darwinism are not free to draw apt conclusions to
which their "dubious" evidence points. In
order to operate within the neo-Darwinist boundaries,
and at the same time achieve success with their projects
(not to mention future funding and paychecks), another
subsidiary theory called "punctuated equilibrium"
was hatched by Eldredge and Gould. This theory posits
that organisms remain the same over long periods of
time and that evolutionary changes take place rather
abruptly.
Punctuated
equilibrium predicts that speciation would take place
in isolated populations and that we would, thus, be
less apt to come upon the transitional forms we are
looking for. Incredibly, one of the predictions of this
theory is that evidence of change will not be
found! This theory is unfalsifiable, yet it's a very
popular catch-all. As I recall, my professor in my first
anthropology class was mesmerized by this theory and
used it to swiftly punctuate and equilibrate any objections
from students. Punctuated equilibrium is actually an
attempt to strike a balance between what Darwin hoped
would be discovered in the fossil record and what has
actually been found since 1859. Darwin is aging badly.
How
different is punctuated equilibrium from saltation or
creation? Despite an enormous amount of fossil hunting,
according to Gould, "the history of most fossil
species includes two features particularly inconsistent
with gradualism." Those two features are stasis
and sudden appearance. Gould writes that most species
exhibit no directional change during their time on Earth,
and that they appear in the fossil record looking
morphologically the same as when they depart. He
also indicates that species do not arise in a local
area by steady and gradual transformation but, rather,
species appear all at once and fully formed.
As Niles Eldredge also states, in Reinventing Darwin,
"No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution
for so long. It never seemed to happen... When we do
see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually
shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence
that the fossils did not evolve elsewhere! Evolution
cannot forever be going on somewhere else."
Yet,
in spite of the fossil record essentially displaying
saltation, Gould and other neo-Darwinists remain devout
apologists for the theory of natural selection. Johnson
succinctly points out the problem in Darwin on Trial:
"natural selection is a guiding force so effective
it could accomplish prodigies of biological craftsmanship
that people in previous times had thought to require
the guiding hand of a creator."
In
his essay entitled, "The Intelligent Design Movement:
Challenging the Modernist Monopoly of Science,"
(in Dembsky, Signs of Intelligence), Phillip
Johnson states, "Dissenters are often astonished
that so many scientists cannot see that there is a genuine
scientific case against Darwinism and that widespread
dissent cannot be dismissed out of hand as the product
of ignorance or prejudice." Johnson asks, "Why
can't eminent scientists seem to grasp the obvious point
that finch beak variation does not even remotely illustrate
a process capable of making birds in the first place?"
In
dogmatically helping to prop up the scientific naturalist
paradigm, scientists cannot and do not want to see the
forest for the trees, or the genesis of the birds therein.
They are not looking hard enough, for they feel they
already have the answer. The answer has been discovered
for them, they only need to follow the money, for their
livelihoods are at stake should they do anything but
maintain the prominence of the scientific naturalist
paradigm.
The
Beaks of Certain Finches
Under
fire from Darwinian dissenters, neo-Darwinists tend
to shift the burden of proof to the skeptics. They ask
us to prove evolution didn't happen, when they still
haven't proven it has happened. Then they point out
a certain population of finches beaks. The beaks of
certain finches in question, those found in the Galapagos
Islands where Darwin did his uncanny five weeks of research,
indeed do indicate there is variation in the gene pool
in the context of certain environmental factors. This
is an example of what is now taught in schools as microevolution:
variety and adaptation within a species. Yet, none of
the neo-Darwinists seem excessively burdened to prove
how this extrapolates to macroevolution: one species
becoming another.
In
fact, since Darwin performed his apparently infectious
tour of duty, there has not been discovered any genetic
mechanism that could explain Darwin's thesis that all
animal forms on Earth derived from earlier forms. That
genetic mechanism, random mutation, is under a lot of
scrutiny these days by scientists in physics and information
theory. One of those scientists is Dr. Lee Spetner,
who claims the Darwinian idea of cumulative selection
involves too much luck.
Too
Much Luck
In
playing cards and buying lottery tickets, we wish each
other "good luck." One might well ask, Can
you ever have too much luck? Well, yes, in testing the
mathematical odds of the occurrence of a specific event
or a defined set of circumstances, a mathematician might
come to the conclusion that there is so much luck involved
that the outcome is so near improbable it might as well
be impossible. In his book, Not By Chance, Spetner
explains that the probability of a long series of random
and advantageous mutations being selected and surviving
in the population is very low. This physicist and information
theory specialist explains, "Only since the 1960s
have we been able to estimate the chance of a mutation.
The rarity of copying errors is a problem for the neo-Darwinian
Theory (NDT)."
According
to Spetner's complex math, the problem with the concept
of "cumulative selection" is that there's
too much luck involved. As he explains, copying
errors in the DNA sequence are random, but they do not
occur very frequently. He explains, "For cumulative
selection to work, a lot of good mutations have to occur
by chance." Spetner claims that the rate of copying
errors for organisms other than bacteria is very small.
(Spetner 91) The reason for this, Spetner explains,
is that the cell has a "proofreading" mechanism
that corrects the errors made in transcription of DNA.
This proofreading activity keeps the rate of mutation
low.
If
mutation isn't the cellular mechanism we are looking
for in evolution, are there any other cell mechanisms
that may "propel evolution"? Dr. Spetner queries
whether genetic rearrangements - insertions and inversions
of DNA segments - could be the mechanism that neo-Darwinists
need to explain this supposedly random mechanistic process.
Spetner questions whether the process of inverting and
inserting segments of DNA could even be considered a
random process: "inversions [of DNA] seem to have
important roles to play in both cells and organisms,
but we don't yet know what those roles are. We do know,
however, that they are not just genetic mistakes. The
rearrangements seem to be deliberate acts performed
on the part of the cell (or the organism). They do not
seem to be the random stuff that the NDT says propels
evolution."
As
Spetner explains, such inversions and insertions of
DNA segments can indeed switch the gene off, and can
be reversed to turn the gene back on. Yet, if they didn't
act with nearly absolute precision, they would turn
genes off at random, wreaking havoc in the genome. Moreover,
the chance that "a random deletion will precisely
take out a previous insertion is very small." (Spetner
89) The chance is also small for a random inversion
to reverse a previous inversion, Spetner argues. The
problem is, in higher animals, mutations that are beneficial,
as opposed to murderous to the organism, do not occur
frequently enough, according to Spetner and others.
Some
of the events of evolution claimed by the NDT, Spetner
explains, are "about ten times less likely than
having your number come up on a roulette wheel 17 times
in a row." In addition, speaking of a 1930 study
by Sir Ronald Fisher, Spetner points out that the concept
of a point mutation was then unknown, and "there
was no appreciation of how small the chance is of getting
one." Fisher even noted at that time, "if
evolution is to work, many adaptive mutations have to
appear." (Spetner 102)
Darwin's
Many Errors
Numerous
books could be written about Darwin's many errors, and
many excellent books have been written (see book list
on this website). Another of Darwin's significant errors
was actually the basis for his natural selection hypothesis:
that is, the "struggle for existence." Darwin
drew an analogy from Thomas Malthus's view of the human
"struggle for existence" to animals in the
wild, claiming that animals fight for the same "niches."
Darwin proposed that due to this struggle animals were
forced to evolve into subsidiary forms in order to survive
in different niches. In fact, as we now know from a
profusion of animal studies, animal populations do not
conform to this prognosis. As Lee Spetner notes, "Darwin
erred in the insight that led him to his theory of evolution.
Animals do not hug the brink of disaster. Population
size is not controlled by starvation, disease or predation.
Populations are kept in check ... by intrinsic forces
built into the animals themselves." There is no
struggle for existence in the animal world. As we shall
see in part two of this article, this point is also
made starkly clear in James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis's
Gaia Theory.
Darwin's
second error, according to Spetner, is that if positive
mutations occurred often enough, they "may readily
become established in the populations." As Spetner
notes, this has been shown to be wrong. "Darwin
erroneously thought that even the smallest improvements
would be selected," in individuals and saved in
the population like hitting the "saved" button.
In fact, paleontologist, George Gaylord Simpson, acknowledged
that "a single mutation has little chance of staying
in the population." Spetner points out a common
error in popular Darwinist writings that might lead
to this misconception. Darwinists tend to transpose
the language of "transmission genetics" (how
individuals pass on their genes to descendants) into
the language of "population genetics" (how
gene frequencies change in a population) without noting
that they are talking about two different things. (Spetner,
56) Following is a list of just some of the problematic
assumptions of the NDT that Spetner magnificently highlights:
