by
Joan d’Arc
from
Biped Website
Contents
Part One:
Darwin and the Origin of the Humanoid Form
How humanity’s solitary confinement
to the Earth is incorrectly extrapolated from Darwin’s defunct
thesis
There may be good reasons for being an atheist, but the
neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution isn’t one of them.
- Lee Spetner,
Not By Chance
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.
- Joan d’Arc,
Space Travelers and the Genesis of the Human Form
|
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 Report
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?"
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.
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:
-
Genetic rearrangements appear to be non-random Ð they occur with
precision
-
Mutations in higher animals are infrequent
-
Rarity of copying errors, low error rates in
DNA copying
-
NDT (neo-Darwinian
Theory) allows only the smallest mutation rate. A mutation must be both
beneficial and must also add a little bit of information to the
genome, but not too much information
-
In order to explain all the complexity around us, a mutation must
add information. There are no known, clear examples of a mutation
that has added information
-
The mutation that leads to the improvement must be a dominant gene,
that is, must be expressed in the phenotype even if it’s on only one
of the two chromosomes that carries the gene. Otherwise, the
male and female (if it were a recessive gene) would have to find
each other to mate
-
A mutation, even if favorable, has a
small chance of establishing itself in the species if it occurs
only once. Slight individual improvements have a tendency to
disappear in the population
-
Small populations promote the survival of a single gene more than
large ones do. This poses a problem for the NDT.
As Spetner writes, "The events necessary for cumulative selection
are much too improbable to build a theory on. The events needed for
the origin of life are even more improbable." Spetner concludes,
"There may be good reasons for being an atheist, but the
neo-Darwinian Theory of evolution isn’t one of them."
References and Suggested Reading
-
Alston, William, "What is Naturalism, That We Should be Mindful of
It?"
http://www.origins.org/articles/alston_naturalism.html
-
Barrow, John, and Frank Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological
Principle, Oxford Paperbacks
-
Behe, Michael, Darwin’s Black Box : The Biochemical Challenge to
Evolution.
-
Behe, Michael, et al. Science and Evidence for Design in the
Universe.
-
de Chardin, Teilhard, The Phenomenon of Man.
-
Dembski, William, The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest
Questions about Intelligent Design. See also,
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/dembski/menus/articles.html
-
Dembski, William and Michael J. Behe, Intelligent Design : The
Bridge Between Science & Theology.
-
Dembski, William (Ed.) and James Kushiner (Ed.), Signs of
Intelligence : Understanding Intelligent Design.
-
"Design vs. Descent: A War of
Predictions" (www.acs.ucsd.edu/~idea/falsify.htm)
-
Hamilton, William,
http://home.earthlink.net/~xplorerx2/ASTROGENESIS.htm
-
Hoyle, Fred, et al., A Different Approach to Cosmology: From a
Static Universe Through the Big Bang Towards Reality.
-
Johnson, Phillip, Darwin on Trial, and The Wedge of Truth :
Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism.
-
Margulis, Lynn, In Context,
http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC34/Margulis.htm
-
Overman, Dean and Wolfhart Pannenberg, A Case Against Accident and
Self-Organization.
-
Spetner, Lee, Not by Chance.
-
Sheldrake, Rupert, The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance & the
Habits of Nature, also see Interview, Morphogenetic Fields and
Beyond,
http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC12/Sheldrak.htm.
-
Wells, Jonathan, Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth?.
-
See also:
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