Dr. Zvi Shkedi
The theory of evolution is the greatest hoax of the 19th and 20th centuries. Evolution research is the art of inventing wishful speculations and presenting them as if they were scientific facts.
This article exposes the colossal intellectual dishonesty of evolution biologists. It teaches the differences between scientific facts, theories, and fiction; primes the reader to understand logical fallacies and deceptive reasoning; and exposes various fraudulent techniques used by evolution biologists to brainwash students, extrapolate data, and invent wishful speculations and present them as facts.
Jean Rostand, the famous French biologist, member of the Academy of Sciences of the French Academy, said: "Transformism (the French term for evolution) is a fairy tale for adults."
Darwin called his theory "a mere rag of an hypothesis with as many flaws and holes as sound parts" and said: "I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science." When Darwin himself admits that his theory is based on non-scientific speculations; when he compares his hypothesis to a poor rag full of flaws and holes and falling apart; no further evidence is necessary to show that the theory of evolution is just an exercise in speculation. An interesting ideology it might be, but, science it is not.
The US is one of the few countries in the world in which the teaching of evolution has been politicized, trying to brainwash students into believing it. J.Y. Chen, a Chinese Paleontologist visiting the USA, said: "In China we can criticize Darwin but not the government. In America you can criticize the government but not Darwin." Like Russia under Stalin, evolution is an academic topic which does not tolerate criticism - those who open their mouth get fired.
The article is written from a purely scientific point of view; cites evolution biologists as references (to avoid accusations of bias); and avoids arguments based on creation or religion. The objective is NOT to prove Creation or to disprove Evolution. The objective is to expose the flaws, fraud, and dishonesty which dominate the field of "Evolution".
The author permits non-commercial copying and distribution of this article in schools to teachers and students. This article does not promote a religion or a religious/creationist point of view, therefore, it is legal to distribute it in USA public schools.
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Preface
Before discussing in detail the subject of neo-Darwinian evolution, it is important to know how Darwin himself rated the merits and consequences of his theory.
"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one." (Charles Darwin [1])Is it legal to teach this quote in US public schools?
"it is almost incredible to me, for I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science." (Charles Darwin [2])
"Thank you heartily for what you say about my Book; but you will be greatly disappointed; it will be grievously too hypothetical... I myself think I see my way approximately on the origin of species. But, alas, how frequent, how almost universal it is in an author to persuade himself of the truth of his own dogmas." (Charles Darwin, [3])
"It is a mere rag of an hypothesis with as many flaws and holes as sound parts." (Charles Darwin, [4])
"my work will be grievously hypothetical, and large parts by no means worthy of being called induction, my commonest error being probably induction from too few facts." (Charles Darwin, [5])
The last quote above touches on the heart of the debate: Can a good hypothesis supersede the facts, or do facts supersede even the best, most logical, hypothesis? Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin's brother, upon reading "On the Origin of Species", expressed the following opinion on the question of hypothesis vs. facts:
"In fact the a priori reasoning is so entirely satisfactory to me that if the facts won't fit in, why so much the worse for the facts."[6]In other words, if the hypothesis is based on good reasoning, we should accept it even if the facts do not fit in. Today, no real scientist will ever give priority to reasoning and theory over facts. But, those days, this was not always the case. Such faith-inspired acceptance has never gone out of fashion, as evidenced by the widespread acceptance of Darwin's hypothesis and speculations.
A note on the significance of quotes:
When a defendant says "I am not guilty" it carries no weight. But, when a prosecutor says "he is not guilty" it carries so much weight that no further defense in necessary.
Likewise, when an opponent says "you are wrong" it carries no weight. But, when insiders admit "we are wrong" it carries so much weight that no further evidence is necessary.When Darwin himself admits that his theory is based on non-scientific speculations; when he compares his hypothesis to a poor rag full of flaws and holes and falling apart; no further evidence is necessary to show that the theory of evolution is just an exercise in speculation. An interesting ideology it might be, but, science it is not. Phillip E. Johnson, called it "The Church of Darwin".[7]
James Shapiro, professor of microbiology at the University of Chicago, wrote in 1996:
"There are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations."[8]Five years later, in 2001, Franklin Harold, professor emeritus of biochemistry at Colorado State University, said the same thing:
"we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical system, only a variety of wishful speculations."[9]Evolution research is the art of inventing wishful speculations and presenting them as facts. The ability to tell the difference between wishful speculations and facts is key to understanding the reality of evolution research. Unfortunately, this ability is being systematically brain-washed out of biology students. "Evolution" has become a powerful anti-religious dogma dominated by "The church of Darwin".
Introduction
Scientific research is a human process. It is a process by which people try, and occasionally succeed, to find answers to questions about the universe. All the knowledge which people tend to describe as "science" or as the "fruit of science" can be classified into four categories:
a) Fact
b) Scientific theory
c) Speculation
d) Imagination
Let's examine each of these categories in detail.
a) A fact is something which is well proven and established by experiments. All experiments yield the same consistent results. All attempts to disprove the fact have failed, and will most likely always fail. It is important to note that most experiments measure the consequences of facts rather than the facts themselves. For example: a mercury thermometer measures the expansion of mercury inside a glass tube. The measured length of the mercury column is a consequence of temperature; it can be correlated with temperature; but, it is not temperature itself. An experimentally measured consequence can be interpreted as a fact only if the connection between the consequence and the fact is so well established that a) it is impossible to make a mistake in the interpretation of the measurement, and, b) it has been well established by other experiments that the same consequence cannot be caused by any other effect. Mistaken interpretations of measured consequences have embarrassed many scientists who neglected to verify that their measured consequences cannot be caused by any other effects.
b) A scientific theory is an attempt to explain an observation in a logical way. Most scientific theories are expressed in the form of mathematical equations or formulas. A scientific theory must be stated in such a way that enables experimental scientists to perform experiments to test the validity of the theory. A claim or opinion which does not avail itself to experimental testing is not a theory - it is just a private opinion or imagination. For example: "Life was brought to earth on a UFO" is not a theory - it is imagination. A scientific theory must be based on facts which support the theory, and, there cannot be any fact or observation which contradicts the theory. However, since the factual basis on which the theory is based is not sufficiently broad or complete, we still call it a theory rather than a fact. When a theory is a) completely free from contradictions; and, b) all experiments trying to prove the theory are consistently successful; c) all experiments trying to disprove the theory are consistently unsuccessful; and d) all predictions made on the basis of this theory are experimentally validated as true; then, the theory might be upgraded by scientists to the status of "well established theory" and sometimes even to the status of "fact". If, on the other hand, scientists find even a single fact or observation which contradicts the theory, the theory gets downgraded to the status of "failed theory".
c) Speculation is an attempt to explain an observation without a sufficient foundation of scientific facts. Such speculation may sound right, may be pleasing to our senses, and may even offer a possible explanation of an observation. However, the observation may also have other possible explanations which can be very different. What makes a theory "speculative" is the possibility of other theories and the lack of sufficient evidence to prove which one of these theories is the right one. For example: When a person does not come home from work at the time his wife expects him to be home, the wife will usually develop a theory as to the reason her husband is not home. There can be many possible theories, but the wife does not know which is the right one. If she chooses to believe in one specific theory, it would be speculation.
Speculations cause a lot of controversy in society. When scientists debate speculations, their objective is usually to find the truth. However, when non-scientists debate speculations, their objective is rarely the truth. Many debates over famous speculations are more about promoting a social, emotional, religious, or anti-religious agenda.
Wishful speculations are the worst of the worst. Wishful speculations always contain a hidden agenda. They are crafted with the intention to prove a pre-determined desirable result. Fragments of information are pieced together in a way that will "prove" a desirable result, while ignoring information which contradicts the desired end result. Wishful speculations can be fabricated to prove the most nonsensical ideas that the human mind can invent. For example:
- A piece of bone that was publicized as being a collarbone of a "five million years old human-like creature", was later discovered to be part of a dolphin rib.
- The Nebraska Man was used to promote the idea of human beings evolving from apes, until it was shown to be based on a single tooth of a peccary (an animal similar to a pig) found by a farmer in his field.
- The Piltdown Man was publicized by evolutionists as the "Missing Link" between man and ape-like species, until it was discovered that it was a hoax, based on a medieval skull combined with a lower jaw from an orangutan and teeth from a chimpanzee. Despite it being exposed a a hoax, textbooks continue to use it as "evidence" of evolution.
To illustrate how all these categories can apply to one specific observation, let's look at the example of "dinosaurs". When a researcher finds a collection of large bones, which are much larger than those of any known animal, the existence of the bones is a fact. When the researcher tries to fit the bones together like a puzzle, he may come up with a skeleton of a large and unknown animal. If the researcher believes in his puzzle and draws a picture of the animal to which these bones used to belong, such an animal could be either a scientific theory or speculation. If all the bones "click" together in only one possible order, and it is impossible to fit the bones together in any other order, the general shape of this animal would be a scientific theory. If, however, it is possible to fit the bones together in more than one order (as is often the case), resulting in different animal shapes, then any shape depicted for this animal would be speculation. When book authors illustrate their books with life-like pictures of dinosaurs, showing details which cannot be derived from bones (e.g. skin color, hair, facial expressions, eyes, ears) such illustrations fall into the category of imagination.
Getting students to blindly accept information made up by others, is not education but indoctrination. The fact that most students today believe that they know exactly what dinosaurs used to look like, is a disgrace to current science education. Authors and teachers alike have yet to learn how to teach students the skill of differentiating between facts, theories, and imagination. Any subject in which speculations and imaginative ideas are presented as if they were scientific facts is pseudo-science, not science. (Pseudo in Greek means false, fake.)
Scientific research is usually divided into two categories, experimental and theoretical. Experimental scientists who publish their research results, devote most of their publications to the experimental procedures and findings. Following the experimental section, it is common to suggest a theory to explain the experimental findings, or to connect the experimental findings with one or more theories suggested by other scientists. Both the authors and the scientists who read the publications know that the theoretical suggestion at the end of an experimental publication is speculative. They know that it is only one of several possible theories which "could make sense". Non-scientists who read such a publication usually don't understand that the theoretical suggestion is speculative. They often misunderstand the theoretical suggestion and believe that the entire purpose of the publication is to "prove" a new scientific theory.
Experienced scientists who read scientific publications know how to identify theories which their authors admit to be speculative. Such speculations are often presented using vague phrases like: "we can infer that ..."; "it is consistent with ..."; "it is possible that ..."; "undoubtedly ..."; "we must conclude that ..."; "it may have occurred at ..."; "there is no doubt that ..."; "it appears to be ..."; etc.
It is sometimes difficult to tell the difference between good-looking false science and real science. Even reputable scientists occasionally fall into this trap. Unfortunately, too many speculations and imaginative ideas are promoted by those who are more interested in publicity or politics than in intellectual honesty. Such theories are often presented as if they are scientific facts, even though they lack the necessary ingredients to be considered scientific.
Logical Fallacies
The understanding of logical fallacies is rarely included in the education of science students. Those who have not been trained to detect logical fallacies can easily be led to believe that they witness a new scientific discovery. Let's start with a simple example - proving the effectiveness of "elephant repellent powder". Can you find the fallacy?
Many years ago, when I visited Brooklyn, I saw a person walking up and down the streets, puffing white powder into the air.The next example includes a series of fallacies. Can you find all of them?
- "What are you doing?" I asked him.
- "I spread elephant repellent powder" he answered, "it keeps the elephants away".
- "But, there are no elephants in Brooklyn", I said.
- "You see, it works!" he replied.
I immediately started spreading this powder in my own town and it really worked. We were never visited by elephants.
Chicken lay eggs with calcium shells even when they are fed a diet with no calcium. From here we learn that chicken have the ability to convert other elements into calcium. Now that we have established that one element can be converted into another, there is no reason why people cannot convert other elements into gold. Indeed, various successful recipes for making gold have been published.The inversion of cause and effect is another common fallacy. The following example shows how an effect can easily be turned into a cause.
A journalist interviewed ladies wearing expensive jewelry. He discovered that all the ladies, or their husbands, earn a high income. The journalist concluded that wearing expensive jewelry causes people to earn a high income.Another type of deceptive logic involves circular reasoning. Circular reasoning (sometimes called circular logic) is the basing of two conclusions each upon the other. The truth of the conclusion is already assumed in the premise. Sometimes circular reasoning also includes intermediate steps. By following a chain of arguments and conclusions, one of the conclusions is presumed by an earlier conclusion. Cleverly designed circular reasoning can sometimes be difficult to detect.
The human eye cannot see infrared light. Infrared light is light with a wavelength longer than 0.8 microns. This proves that the human eye cannot see light with a wavelength longer than 0.8 microns."Infrared light" and "light with a wavelength longer than 0.8 microns" are exactly the same thing. So what did we prove? We proved that the human eye cannot see infrared light because the human eye cannot see infrared light.
The following deception should be easy to detect:
- I bought 4 pounds of groceries
- You bought 6 pounds of groceries
- The store cashier says that we both bought the same groceries
- Therefore, the weight of our groceries is irrelevant and is not indicative of what we bought.
Fallacy Label Sticking
Not every objectionable argument is a logical fallacy. There are many logically-valid arguments which can trigger disagreements. Such arguments cannot be dismissed by sticking a fallacy label on them. Fallacy label sticking is a quick an easy way to dismiss objectionable arguments, but, such label sticking is a mistake. It shows that those who disagree with the argument do not know how to answer it, so, they resort to label sticking instead. The Spanish Inquisition had more than 2000 fallacy labels which they applied to objectionable arguments. The improper use of fallacy labels exposes a weakness - an inability or unwillingness to analyze objectionable arguments and develop proper, logically valid, answers.
Pseudo-scientists err in both directions. On one hand, they use logical fallacies to prove unprovable arguments. On the other hand, they are quick to stick fallacy labels on objectionable arguments which they don't know how to answer. The Church of Darwin, for example, is known to have a long list of fallacy labels (not as long as the Spanish Inquisition) which they quickly apply to any argument raised against the theory of evolution. One of the more popular labels is: "This is a known fallacy".
Evolution Theories - A Historical Perspective
Philosophers and scientists have always tried to understand the differences between various forms of life. They also tried to understand the cause of the differences and the mechanisms through which characteristics of living organisms are transferred from generation to generation. DNA as a material was not discovered until 1869. DNA being the genetic material of heredity was first confirmed in 1953. Lacking any knowledge of molecular biology, chromosomes, and DNA, earlier scientists had no choice but to observe only the large-scale exterior characteristics of animals, and to invent theories based on those observations alone.
Contrary to common belief, Charles Darwin was not the inventor of "evolution". The first one to propose that current species might evolve from previous ones, was the Greek philosopher Anaximander (circa 550 BCE), with his "theory of aquatic descent", proposing that mankind had sprung from an aquatic species of animal. Plato (circa 400 BCE) and Aristotle (circa 300 BCE) further developed the theory of evolution, which they called "development". Those days (and up until 1862 AD), everyone believed in spontaneous generation of life. If life can be spontaneously generated, there should be no reason why organisms which are already alive, cannot change from one species to another. The entire premise of evolution was based on the notion that changing from one life form to another is much simpler and easier than spontaneously generating new life.
Johann Gottfried von Herder, in the eighteenth century, was a pioneer of modern evolutionism. He laid down a philosophical, non-scientific, doctrine of a continuous development in the unity of nature from inorganic to organic, from the stone to the plant, from the plant to the animal, and from the animal to man. To him, the idea of animals evolving into humans was not much different from the idea of stones evolving into plants. It is not clear if he really believed that humans went through several stages of evolution having started from stones.
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, in 1778, proposed ideas about evolution, saying that species must have both "improved" and "degenerated" after dispersing away from a center of creation. He also considered the similarities between humans and apes, and the possibility (i.e. speculation) of a common ancestry. Darwin himself, in his foreword to the 6th edition of his book "On The Origin of Species...", stated that "the first author who in modern times has treated it in a scientific spirit was Buffon".
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, in 1800, published his theory of "inheritance of acquired characteristics". In lamarck's own words: "An alchemical complexifying force drove organisms up a ladder of complexity, and a second environmental force adapted them to local environments through use and disuse of characteristics, differentiating them from other organisms." Lamarck was a firm believer in alchemy, and rejected the modern chemistry of Lavoisier. He was also a firm believer in spontaneous generation of life. In 1802 he wrote: "In the waters of the ancient world, an[d] at the present time, very small masses of mucilaginous matter were collected. Under the influences of light, certain elements, caloric and electric, entered these little bodies. These corpuscles became capable of taking in and exhaling gases; vital movements began, and thus an elemental plant or animal sprang into existence. Possibly higher forms of life, such as infest the intestines, originate in this way. Nature is thus always creating." Those days, there must have been a very blurred line at the border between fact and imagination.
Charles Darwin, in 1868, developed his own theory of inheritance of acquired characteristics - "pangenesis". According to Lamarck's and Darwin's theories, when living organisms acquire new characteristics, they will pass on their new characteristics to future generations through inheritance (heredity). As creatures strive for a better fit to their environment, they move up the evolutionary ladder of complexity (Aristotle's theory), and new organisms arise by spontaneous generation to fill the vacated places on the lower rungs. Darwin, like Lamarck, also believed in spontaneous generation. In Darwin's own words: "Though no evidence worth anything has as yet, in my opinion, been advanced in favour of a living thing being developed from inorganic matter, yet I cannot avoid believing the possibility of this will be proved some day in accordance with the law of continuity" [10].
Darwin's grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, wrote in "The Temple of Nature"[11]: "Hence without parents, by spontaneous birth, Rise the first specks of animated earth."
Lamarck's and Darwin's theories of "inheritance of acquired characteristics" were not rejected until the early 20th century, after the discovery of DNA. Today's believers in Darwinian evolution fiercely reject these embarrassing theories. To protect Darwin's reputation, they blame it all on Lamarck.
Darwin's Evolution Theories - Two for the Price of One
Between 1842 and 1844, Charles Darwin outlined his theory of evolution by "Natural Selection" as an explanation for adaptation and speciation. (In a letter to Charles Lyell in September 1860, Darwin regrets the use of the term "Natural Selection", preferring the term "Natural Preservation".) He defined "Natural Selection" as the "principle by which each slight variation [of a trait], if useful, is preserved". The concept was simple but powerful - individuals best adapted to their environments are more likely to survive and reproduce [later known as "survival of the fittest", a phrase coined by Herbert Spencer]. As long as there is some variation between them, there will be an inevitable selection of individuals with the most advantageous variations. If the variations are inherited, then differential reproductive success will lead to a progressive enrichment of particular populations within a species.
So far, this description of "Natural Selection" is not in dispute. Evolutionists and creationists alike agree that individuals with the most advantageous variations have a better chance of survival. Slow zebras in the African jungle get eaten by lions. Fast zebras survive. "Natural Selection", so far, refers to enrichment of particular populations WITHIN a species, to form populations with higher survival capabilities. This part of the theory of "evolution within species" is supported by plenty of experimental data. Darwin based his theory largely on "artificial selection" which is his name for the common practice of "selective breeding" - a process used by farmers and breeders to enrich the populations of plants and animals with desired characteristics. Today we know that the improvements achieved through "selective breeding" and "natural selection" are the result of "genetic enrichment" - the increase in the percentage of plants and animals which carry the desirable genes.
The controversy involving Darwin's theory of evolution was ignited by the following extension of his theory: "Populations that evolve to be sufficiently different might eventually become different species." This extension reaches beyond the realm of genetic enrichment within species, and enters the domain of "generating new species" or "generating new genes" - not much different from the, now defunct, theory of spontaneous generation. Darwin never offered an explanation of how new species arise, nor did anyone else ever offer such an explanation.
"Our ignorance of the laws of variation is profound. Not in one case out of a hundred can we pretend to assign any reason why this or that part differs, more or less, from the same part in the parents." [12].The following description by Darwin, of how evolution works, looks like it was taken out of a science fiction book:
"In North America the black bear was seen by Hearne swimming for hours with widely open mouth, thus catching, like a whale, insects in the water. Even in so extreme a case as this, if the supply of insects were constant, and if better adapted competitors did not already exist in the country, I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more and more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale."[13]Darwin omitted this story in other editions because it was received as preposterous, but, later regretted his revision: “I still maintain that there is no special difficulty in a bear's mouth being enlarged to any degree useful to its changing habits."[14]
Darwin himself admitted that his theory has difficulties:
"Long before having arrived at this part of my work, a crowd of difficulties will have occurred to the reader. Some of them are so grave that to this day I can never reflect on them without being staggered." Then, Darwin writes: "To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree."[15]This is not a misquote or a quote out of context, as some try to argue. This is Darwin's intellectual honesty telling us that he himself considers his theory to be speculative and full of inconsistencies. Darwin then goes on to speculate about possible solutions to the difficulties he sees with eye evolution, using terms like: "if...", "reason tells me that...", "could be...", and "make me suspect that...", all within the same paragraph. Such wishful speculations are not a substitute for scientific evidence.
Darwin knew that the extension of his theory to "generating new species" is speculative. Had Darwin known what we know today about chromosomes, DNA, and genetic enrichment, he would have never extended his theory that far. Today we know that it does not matter how successful and beneficial genetic enrichment is. Genetic enrichment works only within the available pool of genes within each species. Natural-selection's and artificial-selection's genetic enrichment are completely devoid of any mechanism capable of generating new genes - something which was not known in Darwin's times. For a rabbit, having four eyes would certainly be more beneficial for its survival than two. Why don't rabbits evolve into species with four eyes? The reason is not that we have not been breeding them for long enough, but rather, that rabbits lack the genetic capacity for this to happen, and, evolution lacks the genetic capacity to generate new species with new genes. Pierre-Paul Grasse, the most distinguished of French biologists who, for thirty years, held the chair for evolution at the Sorbonne, and was president of the French Academy of Sciences, describes this measurable reality:
"In spite of the intense pressure generated by artificial selection (eliminating any parent not answering the criteria of choice) over whole millennia, no new species are born...This is not a matter of opinion or subjective classification, but a measurable reality. The fact is that selection gives tangible form to and gathers together all the varieties a genome is capable of producing, but does not constitute an innovative evolutionary process."[16]Darwin's application of his theory to humans can be found in his book: "Descent of Man". The language Darwin uses in his book, as highlighted in the following quotations, has all the characteristics of an author who knows that his theory is speculative.
"We may infer that some ancient member of the anthropomorphous sub-group (referring to the Catarrhine) gave birth to man". "There can, consequently, hardly be a doubt that man is an off-shoot from the Old World Simian stem, and that under a genealogical point of view, he must be classed with the Catarrhine division". "We have seen that man appears to have diverged from the Catarrhine Old World division of the Simiadae". "We are far from knowing how long ago it was when man first diverged from the Catarrhine stock; but it may have occurred at an epoch as remote as the Eocene period".The terms "appears to ..." and "may ..." are the most frequently used terms by scientists to indicate their limited confidence in the validity of their theory.
There are those who claim, in Darwin's defense, that Darwin never said humans evolved from old-time monkeys or apes. The quotations above are sufficient to refute such claims. However, Darwin deserves to be commended for his intellectual honesty, making it clear to an educated reader, by his choice of language, that his theory is indeed speculative rather than scientific. Darwin was much bothered by not finding any transitional creatures between apes and humans, nor was he (or anyone else) ever able to observe this transition in nature, or to explain how this transition actually occurs.[17]
In a letter to Harvard biology Prof. Asa Grey[2], Charles Darwin writes: "I am quite conscious that my speculations run beyond the bounds of true science." Then, in a letter to Prof. Thomas Henry Huxley[4], he writes: "It is a mere rag of an hypothesis with as many flaws and holes as sound parts. My question is whether the rag is worth anything? ... I fear that you will give the poor rag such a devil of a shake that it will fall all to atoms; a poor rag is better than nothing to carry one's fruit to market in." When Darwin himself admits that his theory is based on non-scientific speculations; when he compares his hypothesis to a poor rag full of flaws and holes and falling apart; no further evidence is necessary to show that the theory of evolution is just an exercise in speculation. An interesting ideology it might be, but, science it is not.
Since Darwin's time, there has not been a single piece of evidence to show that natural selection causes living things to evolve. Colin Patterson, the senior paleontologist of the British Museum of Natural History in London and a prominent evolutionist, stresses that natural selection has never been observed to have the ability to cause things to evolve:
"No one has ever produced a species by mechanisms of natural selection. No one has ever got near it."[18]Natural selection is a selection process - a filter - a filter which selects certain individuals and rejects others. A filter, as every chemist knows, can select and separate only what is already there. A filter is completely devoid of the ability to synthesize something new.
The Ernst Haeckel Hoax
The German scientist Ernst Haeckel was one of the most notable scientists who used fraudulent material to promote the theory of evolution [19]. Stephen J. Gould, professor of biology, geology, and history of science at Harvard , admitted in an article in the March 2000 issue of Natural History:
"Haeckel’s forceful, eminently comprehensible, if not always accurate, books appeared in all major languages and surely exerted more influence than the works of any other scientist, including Darwin…in convincing people throughout the world about the validity of evolution."To prove evolution, Haeckel invented the idea that from conception to birth (or hatching), every animal passes through an evolutionary "climb" identical to the process of evolution from one-celled animals to advanced life-forms. In other words, every animal embryo "evolves" from a microscopic mass of cells to a fish, then to an amphibian, then to a reptile, and so on. To prove his claim, Haeckel created drawings of embryonic fish, salamanders, tortoises, chickens, pigs, dogs, and humans, all placed side by side. His drawings showed each species starting its fetal existence looking exactly like all the others, and then undergoing an individual evolutionary ascent identical to that which Darwin had proposed for the entire animal kingdom. The problem with Haeckel’s "proof" of evolution was that his drawings were a hoax. Even Gould admitted that:
"Haeckel had exaggerated the similarities [between embryos of different species] by idealizations and omissions. He also, in some cases - in a procedure that can only be called fraudulent - simply copied the same figure over and over again... Haeckel’s drawings never fooled expert embryologists, who recognized his fudgings right from the start."
Despite the fact that Haeckel’s embryo drawings have been exposed as fraudulent, dishonest evolutionists still present his artwork as "proof" of Darwin’s theory. This is how Gould describes the continued propagation of Haeckel's hoax:
"Haeckel’s drawings, despite their noted inaccuracies, entered into the most impenetrable and permanent of all quasi-scientific literatures: standard student textbooks of biology... Once ensconced in textbooks, misinformation becomes cocooned and effectively permanent, because…textbooks copy from previous texts.... We do, I think, have the right to be both astonished and ashamed by the century of mindless recycling that has led to the persistence of these drawings in a large number, if not a majority, of modern textbooks!"The continued propagation of Haeckel’s hoax demonstrates the colossal dishonesty of evolution biologists, as well as the widespread nature of this dishonesty. Even a militant evolutionist such as Gould admitted that one of the major pieces of evidence for evolution is fraudulent, yet, it is presented to unsuspecting students as if it were a scientific fact.
The Ploy of Vague Definitions
There are two factors which complicate an honest discussion of evolution. The first factor is the misleading use of the same name - "evolution" - to describe two distinct and different processes: a) "genetic enrichment of populations within species", and b) "generation of new species". Perhaps using the name "enrichment" to describe the first process, and the name "generation" to describe the second process will resolve the confusion caused by using the same misleading name for both. Evolution-biologists, however, resist such a separation. They also resist using the more common practice of calling the first process "micro-evolution" and the second process "macro-evolution". Using one name for both processes is convenient for extrapolating evidence for the first process (which is not disputed by anyone) to prove the existence of the second. When biologists say "evolution is fact" they base it on the first process, but, they hope that the unsuspecting audience will think of the second.
The second factor is the lack of agreement among biologists on the definition of "species". Studying evolution without knowing what defines a species is about as valid as studying biology without knowing what defines a cell or studying chemistry without knowing what defines a molecule.
- Charles Darwin: "I was much struck how entirely vague and arbitrary is the distinction between species and varieties."[20]
- Henry Alleyne Nicholson: "No term is more difficult to define than "species," and on no point are zoologists more divided than as to what should be understood by this word".[21]
- Theodosius Dobzhansky: "Of late, the futility of attempts to find a universally valid criterion for distinguishing species has come to be fairly generally, if reluctantly, recognized."[22]
- Jody Hey: "The species problem is the long-standing failure of biologists to agree on how we should identify species and how we should define the word 'species'."[23]
All the biologists with whom the author communicated, have abruptly discontinued the communication as soon as the misleading nomenclature and the vague definitions were mentioned. Did they feel like they were caught red-handed?
In philosophy, items can be identical, similar, or different. In mathematics, this distinction is expressed as a percentage of overlap. Zero percent overlap means "different". 100 percent overlap means "identical". Everything in between means "similar" due to partial overlap. In the presence of partial overlap it is practically impossible to set sharp boundaries. For example: Wolves and lions are considered different species under all the definitions, yet they both have identical body parts - the only difference being shape and size. The thirteen varieties of finches discovered by Darwin in the Galápagos islands are cited by biologists as evidence of evolution of different species, due to minor differences between their beaks. Yet, the arctic Eskimos and the Australian Aborigines, despite all the differences between them, are considered by the same biologists as same-species humans. How much genetic overlap or difference do these biologists require for species to be called "same" or "different"? Science, unlike politics, is based on precise and clear definitions, not on vague and politically motivated games with words.
Organisms which look very different and have a different number of chromosomes are most likely considered different species under most of the definitions. Zebras are an interesting exception. Are different varieties of zebras with different numbers of chromosomes considered same species or different species? Most people cannot tell the difference between wolves and certain dogs, yet they are considered by biologists different species (both have 78 chromosomes). At the same time, an English mastiff, a poodle, and a chihuahua are considered same-species dogs. Are wolves a breed of wild dogs? Are dogs a breed of domesticated wolves? The only thing that can be uniformly agreed upon is that, if two groups are considered different species under all the definitions, then they are, most likely, different species indeed.
Chromosomes
Wishful thinking plays a major role in the interpretation of experiments and observations. Present-day biologists, lacking Darwin's intellectual honesty, often argue that "Evolution is a fact. You just don't know enough of biology to understand it." It is difficult to overlook the similarity to an older argument, by the forefathers of present-day biologists - "Spontaneous generation is a fact. You just don't seem to understand it." When Louis Pasteur proved that spontaneous generation of life does not exist, he was mocked by biologists of his generation for being a quack and someone who does not understand biology.
Most teachers and professors, when teaching their classes on evolution, tend to overlook and avoid the problems raised by the fact that the numbers of chromosomes in organisms do not correspond with the "generation of new species" theory. To circumvent the embarrassment and to cover up the deception, they argue that chromosomes and evolution have nothing to do with each other. That's about as absurd as arguing that species identity and DNA have nothing to do with each other. The deception works as follows:
- Apes have 48 chromosomes.
- Humans have 46 chromosomes.
- Darwin says that apes and humans are evolution cousins.
- Therefore, the number of chromosomes is irrelevant.
There is no known fundamental scientific reason why aborigines in Australia and Eskimos at the north pole should have the same number of chromosomes. Yet, the fact is that there has never been an observation of a creature or species changing its number of chromosomes and remaining survivable. For such a mutation to occur, a few males and a few females who live in the same location would have to undergo exactly the same beneficial mutation at the same time, and they would have to produce survivable offspring who can continue mating with each other. Even if we allow millions of years for species to "evolve", there is not enough time and not a sufficient number of creatures in the world for such a multiple-creature mutation to occur simultaneously in one location. As we will see later, it will take more than a trillion trillions (10^24) of mammals, mutating and procreating ten thousand times per second for more than a trillion trillions of years, to randomly evolve one survivable creature of a new mammal species.
Anything that demonstrates deception in evolution theories is automatically labeled by biologists as "irrelevant" or as "this is a known fallacy". Along the lines of "The theory is correct because we say so. If any facts contradict the theory, the facts are irrelevant." As Erasmus Darwin said: "In fact the a priori reasoning is so entirely satisfactory to me that if the facts won't fit in, why so much the worse for the facts."[6] Evolution biologists love to apply "labels" to facts and arguments that embarrass them. This seems to be the key to keeping the theory free of contradictions.
The following table shows a list of organisms and their corresponding number of chromosomes:
2 Penicillium
6 Mosquito
8 Drosophila Fly (Fruit fly), Hawkweed plant
10 Arabidopsis thaliana plant
12 House Fly, Tomato
14 Pea, Barley, Rye
16 Honey Bee
18 Lettuce
20 Marijuana, Corn, Carrot
22 Opossum, Redwood, Kidney Bean
26 Frog
32 Alligator, Onion
34 Apple
36 Starfish, Earthworm
38 Cod Fish, cat
40 Soybean, Mouse
42 Wheat, Oat, Rat, Wolverine
44 Bat, Rabbit, Syrian Hamster
44-62 Zebra, depending on specific species
46 Human, Hare
48 Tobacco, Chimpanzee, Monkey, Potato
50 Amoeba, Striped Skunk
52 Cotton
56 Silkworm
60 Cow, Bengal Fox, Goat, Sable Antelope
62 Donkey
64 Horse, Spotted Skunk
78 Chicken, Dog, Duck, Coyote, Dingo, Wolf
82 Turkey
90 Sweet Potato
94 Goldfish
100 Carp
138 White Ash Tree
148 Algae
480-800 Ferns
Can we find any order in this list? The simplest form of evolution should occur between species with the same number of chromosomes. It is always less complex to change a genetic code without also changing the number of chromosomes. So, did the House Fly (12), evolve from the Tomato (12)? Did the Alligator (32) evolve from the Onion (32)? Did the Human (46) evolve from the Hare(46)? Did the Monkey (48) evolve from Tobacco (48) or Potato (48)? Did the Horse (64) evolve from the Spotted Skunk (64)?
A Drosophila fly, a house fly, and a mosquito have much more in common than a fly and a Hawkweed plant. Why then would the Drosophila fly (8), the house fly (12), and the mosquito (6) have a different number of chromosomes, while the Drosophila fly (8) and the Hawkweed plant (8) have the same number? Biologists don't have an answer to this question, therefore, the number of chromosomes is conveniently declared to be "irrelevant". In the computer field, data stored in a database is sequence-insensitive. Changing the sequence of data files is usually irrelevant. Commands in a computer program, on the other hand, are extremely sequence-sensitive. The slightest change is a bug in the program. Even evolution biologists agree that the genetic code is a program, not a data-base.
If new-species evolution is associated with an increase or decrease in the number of chromosomes, then which one is more evolved - the Pea (14) or the Fern (480)? If we add one chromosome pair to a Bat (44) or a Rabbit (44) we get a Human (46). If we remove one chromosome pair from Tobacco (48), Monkey (48), or Potato (48) we also get a Human (46). Who exactly evolved from whom?
If Humans (46) evolved from Monkeys (48) while losing one pair of chromosomes, then, did Monkeys (48) evolve from Striped Skunk (50) or Amoeba (50) while losing a pair? Did Bats (44), Rabbits (44), and Syrian Hamsters (44) evolve from Humans (46) while losing a pair?
Needless to say, Darwin knew nothing about chromosomes and DNA. Had he known about it, he would have quickly trashed the "generation of new species" part of his theory.
A variant of the "generation of new species" theory claims that humans and monkeys are both descendants of a common ancestor. This is a nostalgic return to Leclerc's theory from 1778 who proposed common ancestry of humans and monkeys. If this is so, then, how many chromosomes did the common ancestor have, 46 or 48? If 48, then it was a monkey. So, how exactly did this common ancestor lose a pair of chromosomes and mutate into a human? Why didn't it loose another pair and mutate into a zebra, a bat, a rabbit, or a Syrian hamster? If the common ancestor had 46 chromosomes, than it was a human. So, how exactly did this common ancestor gain a pair of chromosomes and mutate into a monkey? Why didn't it gain another pair to mutate into an amoeba or a striped skunk? If monkeys could have mutated into humans, why couldn't humans mutate into monkeys? After all, monkeys are known to better survive in the jungle than humans.
Evolution biologists don't have good answers to these questions. All they have is insults and attacks on those who ask the questions. "You don't understand evolution" they argue. To avoid embarrassment, they argue that evolution and chromosomes have noting to do with each other. In that case, why have we never observed a species of monkeys with 46 chromosomes, or a species of humans with 48 chromosomes?
Adaptation
Adaptation is the process whereby an organism becomes better suited to survive in its environment. For example, thirteen varieties of finches live on the Galápagos, the famous island group visited by Charles Darwin in the 1830s. The finches have a variety of bill shapes and sizes, all suited to their varying diets and lifestyles. The explanation given by Darwin was that they are all the offspring of an original pair of finches, and that natural selection is responsible for the differences. The popular theories of how long it took for Darwin’s finches to "evolve" from their parent population, range from one million to five million years. However, Princeton zoology professor Peter Grant performed a study of all the Galápagos finches. He showed that all the variations between finches developed following changes in food supply within less than 18 years, and sometimes after only one generation.[24] These variations in the finches, demonstrate the well known effects of genetic enrichment. Yet many evolutionists fraudulently cite such observations as proof of "evolution in action".
Raymond Huey et al. at the University of Washington in Seattle, discovered that populations of fruit flies on three separate continents have independently evolved identical gene changes within just two decades (that's 20 years, not 20 million years), apparently to cope with global warming.[25]
The Lenski experiment, showing E. coli bacteria learning how to metabolize citrate[26], has been publicized by evolutionists as evidence of evolution in action. Careful reading of the original publication (not journalistic interpretations of it) reveals that in this experiment, E. coli bacteria developed the ability to transport citrate across the cell wall under oxic conditions. The existence of E. coli strains in nature, which can metabolize citrate, is known and is acknowledged in the Lenski publication. This experiment succeeded in variating an E. coli strain which feeds exclusively on glucose, into a strain which can also feed on citrate, like the other citrate-feeding strains in nature. This experiment did NOT evolve a new species.
The researchers claim that each of the 12 populations in this experiment experienced billions of mutations, far more than the number of possible point mutations in the 4.6-million-base-pair genome. This ratio implies that each population tried, on average, every possible one-step mutation many times. Yet, no new species emerged. No fish, no frogs, not even flagellates, appeared in the populations. This experiment took 12 separate populations with 44,000 generations each, to cause a minor variation in only one of the populations, after 31,500 generations, under extremely stressful conditions where only 1% of each population was allowed to survive each day due to lack of food and space.
Adaptations by mutations under stress are a well known phenomenon. If such adaptations are the result of totally random mutations, as evolutionists suggest, each resultant population must be different. However, repeating the final stages of this experiment on samples preserved from earlier generations of the original population, before it developed the citrate-feeding capability, resulted in identical citrate-feeding populations, all of which emerged after the same total number of generations.
The fact that identical genetic changes as in Darwin's finches were duplicated within a short time; the fact that the genetic changes in the fruit flies on three separate continents were identical; and the fact that many samples of early generations of E. coli produced the same adaptations and identical populations, prove that:
- the ability to adapt is pre-programmed into the genetic codes;
- such genetic changes and their final destinations are governed by the pre-programmed genetic codes; and,
- these genetic changes are not the result of random mutations. (If they were random, the results would not have been identical.)
The existence of such pre-programmed genetic codes, which quickly (in 20 years, rather than 20-million years) and independently produce identical changes in different populations and different geographical locations, is sufficient to prove the existence of a very clever programmer who can foresee the future needs of organisms. Nobody can even come close to imagining how an evolutionary process would develop such an ability to foresee a future need.
Mutations
The Drosophila fly (also known as fruit fly) is the most studied organism in biological research, particularly in genetics and developmental biology. Thousands of generations and millions of individual flies have been studied. Despite all attempts to do so, not a single case of a mutation or any other change was ever observed leading to the generation of a new (really new, under all the definitions) species. Mutations done in the lab usually yielded defective body parts, not new species. Even a change to the Hawkweed plant, with the same number of chromosomes (8) was never observed. Increasing the number of chromosomes of this fly by one pair will yield a plant. Decreasing the number of chromosomes by one pair will yield a Mosquito. The most we can hope for, is for someone to develop it as a plot for a science-fiction book.
Mutations that took place in the genes of living organisms were always harmful. All experiments trying to produce "advantageous mutations" ended in complete failure. No mutation whatsoever improves the genetic information or adds new information to it. Mutations only degrade genetic information. Every effort to "generate a useful mutation" has resulted in failure. For decades, evolutionists carried out many experiments to produce mutations in fruit flies. Thousands of generations of these flies were mutated, yet no useful mutation was ever observed. The evolutionist geneticist Gordon Taylor writes:
"It is a striking, but not much mentioned fact that, though geneticists have been breeding fruit-flies for sixty years or more in labs all around the world - flies which produce a new generation every eleven days - they have never yet seen the emergence of a new species."[27]Another researcher, Michael Pitman, comments on the failure of the experiments carried out on fruit flies:
"Morgan, Goldschmidt, Muller, and other geneticists have subjected generations of fruit flies to extreme conditions of heat, cold, light, dark, and treatment by chemicals and radiation. All sorts of mutations, practically all trivial or positively deleterious, have been produced. Man-made evolution? Not really: Few of the geneticists' monsters could have survived outside the bottles they were bred in. In practice mutants die, are sterile, or tend to revert to the wild type."[28]The evolutionist Warren Weaver comments on the report prepared by the Committee on Genetic Effects of Atomic Radiation, which had been formed to investigate mutations that might have been caused by the nuclear weapons used in the Second World War:
"Many will be puzzled about the statement that practically all known mutant genes are harmful. For mutations are a necessary part of the process of evolution. How can a good effect - evolution to higher forms of life - result from mutations practically all of which are harmful?"[29]When insiders admit that random mutations are always harmful and never produce new species, we do not need to look any further.
The probability of a random advantageous mutation that can create a new species is less than once in millions of years. What is the probability that exactly the same advantageous random mutation would occur twice, at the same time, in a male and a female who live in the same location, and then, these exact male and female will mate to produce viable offspring? Even if we accept the theory that the universe exists for billions of years, there is not sufficient universe time for this to happen randomly. If it were to happen, it would prove Godly guidance and a common designer much more than it would prove evolution.
The Probability of Evolution by Mutations
All DNA is encoded with four nucleotide bases which serve as the gene-coding building blocks. The genetic codes of two closely related yet different species of mammals have an information contents difference of thousands of nucleotide base locations. A difference in less than 100 locations can produce different individuals within the same species or slight variations within a species; such a difference is not sufficient to produce a new species. The following analysis will demonstrate a probability calculation based on the information contents carried by 100 nucleotide base locations. There is nothing fundamental about the number 100. It is used only as a model for a lower limit. The genetic difference between different species is much larger than 100 base locations - of the order of thousands of base locations. Therefore, the actual probabilities are much lower than what the following analysis demonstrates. This calculation follows the same principles of calculating the probability of abiogenesis - spontaneous generation of life from non-living matter[30].
Darwin and others have noted that there are no closely-spaced transitional creatures between species. There are many wishful speculations but no evidence for evolution of new species in small steps (as opposed to genetic enrichment within a species). Theoretically, there may be many viable mutations possible. But, in order to be a different species, in the absence of closely-spaced survivable transitional creatures, the irreducible minimum of information-contents difference must be greater than 100 nucleotide base locations. (This does not mean that there is only one survivable solution with a difference in 100 nucleotide locations. What it means is that the total number of possible random permutations divided by the number of survivable solutions has a lower limit equal to the information-contents equivalent of 100 nucleotide substitutions.) Therefore, the probability of randomly mutating one species to another, without external guidance, is less than one chance in 4^100 trials. 4^100 equals 10^60. Without external guidance, it will take more than a trillion trillions (10^24) of mammals, mutating and procreating ten thousand times per second for more than a trillion trillions of years, to randomly evolve one survivable creature of a new mammal species. In probability terms, it means that the probability of evolving one survivable creature of a new mammal species is less than 4^-100=10^-60.
Richard Dawkins disputed the validity of such calculations. He argued that evolution does not happen in large steps, but in many small steps. Let's explore this possibility. The smallest possible step in an evolutionary process is the survivable substitution of one nucleotide. If the irreducible minimum of a change from one species to another is the survivable substitution of 100 nucleotides, then, the change can be accomplished in 100 single-substitution steps. Such a process seems to be very intuitive and easy to follow, except for one complication - it requires an intelligent road guide. With the help of a road guide, each step has a probability of 1 to be correct. Obtaining 100 correct steps with the help of a road guide has a probability of 1^100=1. On the other hand, without a road guide, each step is random. Since we are calculating the lower limit of the irreducible minimum, each random step has a probability of 1 out of 4 choices to be correct. Natural selection, acting as a filter, will filter out the 3 wrong substitutions and keep (survive) the right one. The laws of probability dictate that if each step has a probability of 4^-1 to be correct (without assistance from a road guide), then, 100 consecutive steps have a probability of (4^-1)^100=4^-100=10^-60. We end up with the same result as shown before. (Every student who studied probability knows that, when tossing coins, the probability of getting all "heads" by throwing 100 coins at once or by throwing one coin 100 times without cheating, is exactly the same. An attempt to obtain all "heads" will statistically take the same length of time, regardless of whether all coins are tossed at once or one at a time.)
As we can see, we have here a binary choice - the one-step-at-a-time change can occur either with a road guide or without a road guide. There is nothing in between. If a road-guide guides the process, it implies the presence of a Creator. If the road guide is built into the DNA code, being able to predict which future substitution will be the survivable one, it requires a prophetic designer to design the DNA with such prophetic capabilities. If the process occurs as a natural-selection filter without a road guide, it has a probability of 4^-100=10^-60 to be correct, which brings us back to the results of the original calculation.
This calculation does not prove the existence of a Creator. What this calculation does prove is that it would take many trillions of years to obtain the irreducible-minimum change without a Creator, regardless of whether the change occurs in one big step or in many small steps. Current estimates of millions or billions of years, which are based exclusively on geological (rather than biological) considerations, do not allow sufficient time for such a random change to occur or to accumulate.
There are no organisms which can procreate ten thousand times per second. Planet earth never contained a trillion trillions of mammals. (The volume of planet earth is 10^21 cubic meters. 10^24 average mammals would occupy a volume greater than the entire volume of planet earth.) And, as far back as we can remember, the universe does not exist for a trillion trillions of years. Therefore, the hypothesis as if species can evolve into new species through the accumulation of random mutations, without external guidance, is nothing but a wishful speculation based on ignorance.
Pierre-Paul Grasse understood the consequences demonstrated by this calculation:
"The opportune appearance of mutations permitting animals and plants to meet their needs seems hard to believe. Yet the Darwinian theory is even more demanding: A single plant, a single animal would require thousands and thousands of lucky, appropriate events. Thus, miracles would become the rule; events with an infinitesimal probability could not fail to occur. ... There is no law against day dreaming, but science must not indulge in it."[31]Based on his vast encyclopedic knowledge, Grasse summarized all the known measurable facts in this field:
"In spite of the intense pressure generated by artificial selection (eliminating any parent not answering the criteria of choice) over whole millennia, no new species are born... This is not a matter of opinion or subjective classification, but a measurable reality."[31]With a probability of less than 10^-60, it is not a surprise that "no new species are born". This is the only measurable reality available in the field. All other arguments are nothing but opinions, wishful speculations, and subjective classifications designed to support the ideology.
Another possible objection to the validity of this calculation is that evolution may have occurred one step at a time by preserving (surviving) each new successful substitution. Once the first successful substitution occurs, call it strain #1, it is preserved. The second substitution attempt will begin with strain #1. After a small number of random attempts, a second base location will be correctly substituted to form strain #2. Then, strain #3, #4, etc. At first sight it appears that the strains will quickly progress towards #100 which is the new species we think we are going to achieve. Such a "quick" evolutionary process needs, however, to overcome two challenges:
a) It requires that each new strain be survivable. If such an evolutionary process, takes, say, one million years, then, on average, each new strain must survive for at least 10,000 years. We should see in nature, some evidence of a complete continuum of strains, what Darwin calls "transitional creatures", between the old species and the new species. Darwin admitted that such a continuum of transitional creatures was never observed. Up until today, such a continuum of transitional creatures was never observed. Lacking such a continuum of survivable strains, the "quick" evolutionary process cannot occur.
b) Once we get to strain #25, a new unexpected phenomenon will occur. The probability of correctly substituting a new base location will be equal to the probability of damaging a previously substituted location. The probability of correctly substituting each new base location is 1/4. Multiplying 1/4 by 75 available not-yet-substituted locations yields a "correct" substitution rate of 18.75 per unit of time. The probability of damaging each previously substituted location is 3/4. Multiplying 3/4 by 25 correctly-substituted locations yields a "damaging" substitution rate of 18.75 per unit of time. The "correct" substitution rate and the "damaging" substitution rate will reach an equilibrium. At this point, the random substitution process will fluctuate up and down around the 25% point. The probability of reverting back to the original species, traveling a distance of 25% of the road, is much higher than the probability of reaching the new species, traveling a distance of 75% of the road. The new species will never be reached. (It is important to note that this 25% barrier is independent of the number of base locations we are trying to substitute. An arbitrary number of 100 base locations was chosen as the lower limit for the model calculation. However, the 25% barrier will occur regardless of the number of base locations in this calculation.) The process will keep fluctuating up and down around the 25% point. It will never reach its destination.
We can almost hear everyone screaming: "But, evolution does not have a destination!" True, evolution does not have a destination. This 25% point might as well be a de-facto end point. We will now have a species which varies randomly up and down around this 25% point. It may sometimes revert back to the beginning of the road, and, with an equal probability travel as far as 50% of the road. Fluctuating up and down an equilibrium point is exactly what the theory of evolution calls "variation within a species". No new species are born.
Pierre-Paul Grasse was familiar with all reported observations and experiments in this field. No one could have better summed up these observations and experiments:
"the mutations of bacteria and viruses are merely hereditary fluctuations around a median position; a swing to the right, a swing to the left, but no final evolutionary effect."[32]The Lenski experiment[26] demonstrated that E. coli bacteria developed the ability to transport citrate across the cell wall under oxic conditions. This experiment subjected more than 10^11 cells per generation to extreme starvation conditions. 11 populations failed to develop this ability for 44,000 generations (per population), while one population developed it after 31,500 generations. That's a rate of one out of 515,000 generations. The authors acknowledge in their publication that "the mutation rate of the ancestral strain from Cit- to Cit+ is immeasurably low." In humans, 515,000 generations would take 10 million years. It would take that long in humans if the human population size was equal to the experiment population size. However, in the Lenski experiment the cell population size was 10^11 per generation, while in the early days the human population size was less than 10^7. Therefore, it would take humans a factor of 10,000 longer. It would take humans 100 billion years (10 million X 10,000), under extreme starvation conditions, just to evolve an equivalent improvement in the ability to absorb a more abundant food. At this rate, under natural conditions which are not that extreme, it would take many trillions of years to evolve more complex biological/ biochemical systems and a higher brain capacity.
Even the most "religious" evolutionists do not believe that humans evolved more than 2 million years ago. Evolution biologists never agreed with probability calculations showing that complex systems would take many trillions of years to evolve. With the Lenski experiment, evolution biologists have experimentally verified the correctness of these calculations. Yes, some evolutionary changes are fact, but, it would take many trillions of years to evolve a complex system or one animal from another.
If "evolution is fact", as evolutionists claim, then, geologists have a "trillions of years" problem to solve...
Cetaceans, Atavism, Vestigials, Ring species, ERVs, etc.
To this list we can also add Human Chromosome 2. These and other observations pose questions to which biological research does not yet have good answers. Evolution biologists, on the other hand, have all the answers they need.
In every other field in science when something novel or unusual is observed, it triggers a search for facts that will help understanding. Evolution biology is the only field in which this process is inverted. First, the "understanding" is instantly acquired by divine prophecy as being the result of evolution. Then, the players in the field invent theories and arguments to prove the correctness of the "understanding". Once good theories and arguments have been concocted, they are immediately used as "evidence" that the original prophetic "understanding" was correct. To avoid the need to show refutable experimental evidence, a time scale of "millions of years" has been adopted. Finally, we find in textbooks: "These observations are evidence of evolution, and here is the proof..."
One common prophetic "understanding" is that certain unused or unnecessary body parts are remnants from earlier evolutionary stages. Such "understanding", if it is to be given any consideration, gives rise, then, to the following question: "Why do men have nipples?" Did men evolve from women? Obviously, they did not. So, how do evolutionists resolve the contradiction?
The presence of the same ERVs in different species gave rise to the prophetic "understanding" that these different species have descended from a common ancestor. Nathan Wolfe et al.[33] found that retroviruses can jump from monkeys to humans by handling and consumption of infected meat. If one species is infected, other species who consume their meat also get infected. Nothing can be simpler than that. This observation alone is sufficient to refute the "understanding" that the presence of the same ERVs in different species is the result of "common descent". So, again, how do evolutionists resolve the contradiction?
Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin's brother, provided a very clever answer:
"the a priori reasoning is so entirely satisfactory to me that if the facts won't fit in, ... so much the worse for the facts."[6]In other words, the prophetic "understanding" is too good to be refuted by unfavorable facts. Let the reasoning stand, and if the facts do not fit in, too bad.
The use of commonality to "prove" common descent has some unexpected consequences. Humans are 100% similar to bacteria - both use the same chemicals, same molecules, and same nucleotides in the DNA. So, does it prove that humans evolved from bacteria? Did bacteria evolve from humans? (Bacteria are known to be much more survivable...) Did both humans and bacteria evolve from a common ancestor?
Another example of prophetic "understanding" is the argument that "ring species" prove evolution. The lack of interbreeding is used as evidence that the end populations in "ring species" are different species. At the same time, neighboring populations which do interbreed are also called different species. Do evolution biologists really believe that people are that stupid to not notice this inherent contradiction?
That's why Grasse said:
"Through use and abuse of hidden postulates, of bold, often ill-founded extrapolations, a pseudoscience has been created."[34]
Survival of the Fittest?
The term "survival of the fittest" is tautology - it says the same thing twice, and claims that one is a consequent of the other. The fittest, by definition, are those who survive better than others. So, what exactly is the meaning of "survival of those who survive"?
Survival of the fittest also means that those who are the fittest survive - first they are the fittest, then, they survive. It is a one way street - those who are not fit for survival do not survive and never get a chance to evolve. Slow runners can never evolve into fast runners because they get eaten by predators before they have a chance to evolve. The fastest runners, on the other hand, already have it in them and they don't need to evolve. They already ARE the fittest. So, "survival of the fittest" is the essence of genetic enrichment, and is a contradiction to "generation of new species".
Blood clotting and the immune system provide the ultimate proof that "survival of the fittest" and "natural selection" cannot be the driving force behind evolution. According to evolution theory, the ability of blood to clot at an injury and the ability of the immune system to cure infections are mechanism which had to evolve somehow. They must be perfectly balanced mechanisms - too little, and the animal will not survive an injury or an infection; too much, and the animal will destroy itself. What exactly would be the driving force to cause such adaptive evolutionary improvements of survivability? Before an animal is injured or before an infection occurs, there is no reason to adaptively evolve. After an animal is injured or after an infection occurs, it is too late.
The other possibility, according to evolution theory, is to acquire these abilities by chance, through random mutations. However, for most animal species, there are no animals in nature which don't experience at least one injury or infection once they are born. Therefore, all animals within any given population must have these abilities from the moment they are born, otherwise they will not survive their babyhood. As soon as one animal in a population gets infected, all animals will quickly get infected. The survival rate of most animal species without these abilities would be 0%, and the species will be extinct before it had a chance to get started. Differential reproductive rates in favor of animals which acquire such an ability by chance, will never have a chance to get started because their parents, if they were to lack these abilities, would have never survived. This is also why all females must have the ability of blood clotting from their early existence. All females experience natural blood loss before giving birth to their first offspring. Without blood-clotting ability, they will never reach an opportunity to give birth, and will definitely not survive giving birth. There is no time to adaptively evolve such an ability when the need arises, and there is no reason to adaptively evolve such an ability before the need arises. Differential reproductive rates will, again, not help because ALL females in the population must already have this ability before giving birth. This seems to be an uncrossable barrier to the evolution of these abilities.
There are many publications which present wishful speculations about the sequence or pathway in which such mechanisms "could have evolved". (Wishful speculations and "could have evolved" are fiction, not science.) The issue is not the sequence, or the pathway, or the complexity, but the lack of a driving force behind it (for adaptive evolution) and the lack of opportunity for differential reproductive rates to get started. Publications on the subject completely ignore this uncrossable barrier.
The ability to survive an injury, or giving birth, or an infection, or the lack of such an ability, is a binary state. There is nothing in between. This is true not only for individuals, but, also for entire populations, because without it, survival rates would be 0%. It is not like running speed which can be slowly developed over time and give an advantage to fast runners. The ability to survive an injury, or giving birth, or an infection, must be there from the very beginning, or else it is too late. There is no grace-period in nature to allow for its evolution over time or by chance.
This is an uncrossable barrier to evolution. It provides the ultimate proof that these essential survival abilities were not acquired through evolution.
Exposing the Intellectual Dishonesty of Evolution Biologists
Biologists generally refuse to discuss or even answer questions related to evidence against the "generation of new species" theory. Their general attitude is: "We are satisfied with the theory, don't annoy us with the facts." Questions are either ignored or fetch personal insults. A common response is: "you don't understand evolution", but no explanation follows. Such personal insults, and the lack of answers, are the best confirmation one can obtain to prove that evolution biologists know that the "generation of new species" theory is indeed speculative. Admitting it, however, would endanger their academic status and their livelihood. It is only a matter of time before this theory ends up in the same waste-basket where similar theories like "inheritance of acquired characteristics", "spontaneous generation of life", "the aether", "alchemy", and "the flat earth", ended up.
The probability of mutually beneficial mutations occurring randomly and simultaneously in multiple chromosomes of a single cell is extremely low. The probability of the same mutations occurring simultaneously in all cells of a multi-cell organism, is even lower. No one ever observed a rabbit evolve into a lion or into a species with four eyes. Neither did anyone ever observe a lion or a four-eyed rabbit being born to a regular rabbit. The probability of such mutations is low beyond imagination. To compensate for the low probability, biologists tend to take the approach of "given enough time it might happen." That's about as convincing as saying that given enough time, a monkey with a typewriter will type all the 26 letters of the abc in the correct order. At a typing speed of a million letters per second, 400 billion monkeys will have one chance in 400 billion years to get it right. How much longer will it take to correctly mutate thousands of genes? With this premise, biologists have developed various imaginary models which yield "xx million years" as the time necessary for "evolutionary mutations" to occur and spread into the population. (Why million? why not billion or trillion? Probability calculations show that it would take many trillions of years.) Then, once such a time length has been calculated, we find in biology texts statements like: "Humans and monkeys evolved from a common ancestor xx million years ago", as if this was a well established scientific fact. The next step in this deceptive cyclical logic is a statement like: "The common ancestry of humans and monkeys proves that the world is at least xx million years old."
What happened to intellectual honesty? What's wrong with admitting, like Darwin did, that it is just speculation? Not all biologists are intellectually dishonest:
- Jean Rostand, the famous French biologist, member of the Academy of Sciences of the French Academy, said: "Transformism (the French term for evolution) is a fairy tale for adults."[35]
- Paul Lemoine, director of the National Museum of Natural History, wrote in the French Encyclopedia, volume 5: "Evolution is a kind of dogma which its own priests no longer believe."
- Sharon Begley, in her article: “Science Contra Darwin: Evolution’s founding father comes under new attack,”[36] quotes famous evolution biologists as follows: "Richard Lewontin of Harvard, a biologist of impeccably secular views, accuses Darwinists of telling “Just So” stories when they try to show how natural selection explains such novelties as long-necked giraffes. The editors of a new book assert that when it comes to accounting for life on earth, natural selection should be “relegated here to the [explanation of] last resort. ”Some critics go so far as to liken Darwinism to creationism because of its slipperiness: it does not make specific predictions about what sorts of organisms evolution will produce, they charge, and so is never vulnerable to disproof. Like creationism, Darwinian evolution “can equally well explain any evolutionary history,” says ichthyologist Donn Rosen of the American Museum of Natural History in New York in a recent book [37]... So heated is the debate that one Darwinian says there are times when he thinks about going into a field with more intellectual honesty: the used-car business."
- Henry M. Morris writes: "... even though the fossil record is interpreted in terms of evolution, there is no evidence of evolution in the fossils themselves, for they all fit neatly into families, orders, phyla, and other categories of the same classification system used for present-day plants and animals, and these are not evolving! Of course, there are many extinctions revealed in the fossils (e.g., the dinosaurs), but extinction is the polar opposite of evolution! In fact, there have been thousands of species’ extinctions during human history, but no new species evolved. Evolution seems to be going in the wrong direction!"[38]
- The most significant feature about the fossil record is the absence of any true evolutionary transitional forms. Leading paleontologist S. M. Stanley, of John Hopkins, writes: "The known fossil record fails to document a single example of phyletic evolution accomplishing a major morphological transition."[39]
- Dr. Colin Patterson, Senior Paleontologist, British Museum of Natural History, London was tape recorded during a lecture given by him: "I've been putting a simple question to various people and groups of people. Question is: Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing that is true? I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural History and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology Seminar in the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, and all I got there was silence for a long time and eventually one person said, 'I do know one thing - it ought not to be taught in high school.' "[40]
How ironic it is that Louis Pasteur - the father of modern medicine, the scientist who discovered the antibiotic effect, the inventor of sterilization, the inventor of the vaccine for rabies, and the scientist who finally proved that spontaneous generation of life does not exist - was mocked by biologists of his generation for being a quack and someone who does not understand biology. What does this teach us about who are the real quacks in this field?
Quacks too have a desire to survive. Therefore, they cleverly maintain and exploit different, vague, and contradictory definitions; extrapolate evidence from one domain to another; label minor variations as "new species"; invent wishful speculations and present them as if they were facts; label unfavorable facts as irrelevant; defend favorable reasoning even when it is contradicted by unfavorable facts; invent prophetic "understandings" of observations; insult anyone who disagrees with them; and expel from academia anyone who contradicts the official party line - all in an effort to survive as a unique species of quacks who pretend to be biology scientists.
Only quacks can present wishful speculations as if they were experimentally verified facts. The same species of quacks that used insults against Louis Pasteur and told him: "You don't understand biology", is still using insults and now tells scientists: "You don't understand evolution".
Suggested Definition of Species
To avoid the problem of having to deal with multiple and/or vague definitions of species, and to prevent the opportunity to exploit such vague definitions, the following definition of "species" is proposed:
Species is an irreducible group of creatures which is bound by its available pool of genetic material within the members of the group; plus all natural variations which are enabled by or pre-programmed in the available DNA; plus random mutations which have a measurable, non-negligible, probability.
Genetic changes which would require external intelligence in order to obtain, or which have an infinitesimal non-measurable probability, would be outside this genetic pool.A different species is a group of creatures which cannot be reached by natural variation within a given genetic pool. Crossing the border from one species to another would require the innovative intelligent synthesis of new genes or a number of random trials which would exceed available time and/or available stock. Crossing the border from one species to another is something which a filtering process, like natural or artificial selection, cannot do. A filter can select and separate existing material; a filter is completely devoid of the ability to synthesize new material.
Some biologists propose a definition of species based on interbreeding. According to this definition, two animals which cannot mate belong to different species. Such a definition is, however, not always applicable because there are animals which clearly belong to different species, yet can interbreed, like horses with donkeys or lions with tigers. This definition does not account for hybridization, where two different species produce a new creature, and, this definition cannot be applied to asexually reproduced organisms. This definition can also not account for members of the same species which do not mate, like an English Mastiff and a chihuahua dog. Interbreeding, therefore, is more a test with limited applicability than it is a definition. Interestingly, the lack of interbreeding is used as evidence that the end populations in "ring species" are different species, while neighboring populations are also called different species even though they do interbreed.
Conclusion
Natural selection is a selection process - a filter - a filter which selects certain individuals and rejects others. A filter, as every chemist knows, can select and separate only what is already there. A filter is completely devoid of the ability to synthesize something new.
Most publications which claim to report observations of speciation, refer to minor changes in appearance or behavior. Such changes are not different from variations between white people and black people, or between friendly dogs and vicious dogs. Such variations do not represent new species; they are merely variations between populations within species.
Ernst Haeckel, with his fraud-based books, had more impact on the teaching of evolution than any other author in the field. His fraudulent drawings and descriptions were copied into almost every student textbook of biology. A century of mindless copying of fraudulent information from textbook to textbook has led to the persistent poisoning of students' minds with fraudulent drawings and descriptions being presented as if they were scientific facts. It is not a surprise, then, that almost every evolutionist responds to criticism with the same argument - first a personal insult, then: "Evolution is fact, you just don't understand evolution."
No one could have summed up the built-in fallacies of neo-Darwinian evolution theory better than Pierre-Paul Grasse[41]:
"...Some contemporary biologists, as soon as they observe a mutation, talk about evolution. They are implicitly supporting the following syllogism: mutations are the only evolutionary variations, all living beings undergo mutations, therefore all living beings evolve.
...This logical scheme is, however, unacceptable: first, because its major premise is neither obvious nor general; second, because its conclusion does not agree with the facts. No matter how numerous they may be, mutations do not produce any kind of evolution.
...Present-day ultra-Darwinism, which is so sure of itself, impresses incompletely informed biologists, misleads them, and inspires fallacious interpretations. ... Through use and abuse of hidden postulates, of bold, often ill-founded extrapolations, a pseudoscience has been created. It is taking root in the very heart of biology and is leading astray many biochemists and biologists, who sincerely believe that the accuracy of fundamental concepts has been demonstrated, which is not the case.
...Biochemists and biologists who adhere blindly to the Darwinism theory search for results that will be in agreement with their theories and consequently orient their research in a given direction ... This intrusion of theories has unfortunate results: it deprives observations and experiments of their objectivity, makes them biased, and, moreover, creates false problems. ... Assuming that the Darwinian hypothesis is correct, they interpret fossil data according to it; it is only logical that they should confirm it: the premises imply the conclusions. The error in method is obvious.
...It follows that any explanation of the mechanism in creative evolution of the fundamental structural plans is heavily burdened with hypotheses. This should appear as an epigraph to every book on evolution. The lack of direct evidence leads to the formation of pure conjectures as to the genesis of the phyla; we do not even have a basis to determine the extent to which these opinions are correct.
...Today, our duty is to destroy the myth of evolution, considered as a simple, understood, and explained phenomenon which keeps rapidly unfolding before us. Biologists must be encouraged to think about the weaknesses of the interpretations and extrapolations that theoreticians put forward or lay down as established truths. The deceit is sometimes unconscious, but not always, since some people, owing to their sectarianism, purposely overlook reality and refuse to acknowledge the inadequacies and the falsity of their beliefs."
Blood clotting and the immune system provide the ultimate proof that "survival of the fittest" and "natural selection" cannot be the driving force behind evolution. Animals had to have this ability from their very beginning, or else, they would have never survived. There is no grace-period in nature to allow for its evolution over time or by chance.
Evolution biologists never agreed with probability calculations showing that evolution of complex systems would take many trillions of years. With the Lenski experiment, evolution biologists have experimentally verified the correctness of these calculations. Yes, some evolutionary changes are fact, but, it would take many trillions of years to evolve a complex system or one animal from another.
In recent generations, biology students were brainwashed so well into believing what they were taught, that most of them lost the ability to tell the difference between facts, theories, and fiction. The teaching of wishful speculations as if they were scientific facts, played a key role in this brainwashing process. No students are ever informed of Darwin's own admission that his theory is founded on speculations full of flaws and holes. If you are a student, and you have not been brainwashed yet, ask your teacher: "Can you tell me one thing you know about evolution of new species (to the exclusion of variation within a species) that is an experimentally measured and verified fact?" (not an argument, not a play with definitions, not extrapolation, not speculation, and not a theory, but a real scientific fact.) Chances are you will be thrown out of the class.
References
- Charles Darwin, "On The Origin of Species", 6th edition, p.429, the closing paragraph of the Conclusion
- Charles Darwin in a letter to Harvard biology professor Asa Gray. 18 June 1857.
- Charles Darwin, letter to George Bentham, 1 December 1857.
- Charles Darwin in a letter to Prof. Thomas Henry Huxley, 2 June 1859.
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http://leaderu.com/pjohnson/churchofdarw in.html - James Shapiro, National Review, 16 September 1996
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http://torah-science.blogspot.com/2009/05/can-life-be-initiated-randomly-in.html - Pierre-Paul Grasse, "Evolution of Living Organisms", 1977, p.103-104
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