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Sunday 10 April 2016

Unraveling Pro Darwinian spin

Inherit The Spin
Darwinists Answer "Ten Questions" with Evasions and Falsehoods
Jonathan Wells
Discovery Institute
January 15, 2002


A year ago, I posted "Ten Questions To Ask Your Biology Teacher About Evolution." On November 28, 2001, The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) posted its answers to my questions.

According to the NCSE, many of the claims in my questions "are incorrect or misleading," and they are "intended only to create unwarranted doubts in students' minds about the validity of evolution as good science." It is actually the NCSE's answers, however, that are incorrect or misleading. My original questions (in italics) are posted below; each question is followed by the NCSE's answer (in bold), a brief outline of my response, and then my detailed response. Numbers in parentheses refer to research notes at the end.

Please feel free to copy and distribute this document to teachers, students, parents, and other interested parties.



My Question: ORIGIN OF LIFE. Why do textbooks claim that the 1953 Miller-Urey experiment shows how life's building blocks may have formed on the early Earth--when conditions on the early Earth were probably nothing like those used in the experiment, and the origin of life remains a mystery?

NCSE's Answer: Because evolutionary theory works with any model of the origin of life on Earth, how life originated is not a question about evolution. Textbooks discuss the 1953 studies because they were the first successful attempt to show how organic molecules might have been produced on the early Earth. When modern scientists changed the experimental conditions to reflect better knowledge of the Earth's early atmosphere, they were able to produce most of the same building blocks. Origin-of-life remains a vigorous area of research.

My Response in Outline:

(a) Most biology textbooks include the origin of life--and the Miller-Urey experiment--in their treatments of evolution. If the NCSE feels that the origin of life is really "not a question about evolution," the organization should launch a campaign to correct biology textbooks.

(b) Because the Miller-Urey experiment used a simulated atmosphere that geochemists now agree was incorrect, it was not the "first successful attempt to show how organic molecules might have been produced on the early Earth." When conditions are changed to reflect better knowledge of the Earth's early atmosphere, the experiment doesn't work.

(c) If the origin of life "remains a vigorous area of research," it is only because origin-of-life researchers are dedicated to their work, not because they have discovered anything that demonstrates how life originated.

My Response in Detail:

(a) The NCSE's claim that the origin of life is "not a question about evolution" ignores the fact that most biology textbooks include it--along with the Miller-Urey experiment--in their treatments of evolution. For example, Campbell, Reece and Mitchell's Biology (5th Edition, 1999), one of the most widely used introductory textbooks for college undergraduates, discusses the Miller-Urey experiment in "Unit Five: The Evolutionary History of Biological Diversity." Similarly, Mader's Biology (6th Edition, 1998), Starr and Taggart's Biology: The Unity and Diversity of Life (8th Edition, 1998), Schraer and Stoltze's Biology: The Study of Life (7th Edition, 1999), Guttman's Biology (1999), Audesirk, Audesirk and Byers's Life On Earth (2nd Edition, 2000), and Purves, Sadava, Orians and Heller's Life: The Science of Biology (6th Edition, 2001) all feature the Miller-Urey experiment in their sections dealing with evolution. Alberts, Bray, Lewis, Raff, Roberts and Watson's upper-division textbook for biology majors, Molecular Biology of the Cell (3rd Edition, 1994), discusses it in a chapter titled "Evolution of the Cell." The Miller-Urey experiment is also standard fare in upper division and graduate-level textbooks devoted entirely to evolution, such as Futuyma's Evolutionary Biology (3rd Edition, 1998) and Freeman and Herron's Evolutionary Analysis (2nd Edition, 2001). If the NCSE feels that the origin of life is really "not a question about evolution," the organization should launch a campaign to correct biology textbooks. (1)

(b) The 1953 Miller-Urey experiment used a simulated hydrogen-rich atmosphere of methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water vapor. By 1970, however, geochemists were nearly unanimous in agreeing that the Earth's primitive atmosphere was nothing like this. Excess hydrogen is quickly lost to space because the Earth's gravity is too weak to hold it, so the early atmosphere would almost certainly have consisted of gasses emitted from volcanoes--mainly carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water vapor. When this more realistic mixture is put into a Miller-Urey-type apparatus, the experiment doesn't work. Stanley Miller himself reported in 1983 that the most he could produce in the absence of methane was glycine, the simplest amino acid, and then only if free hydrogen were present. But free hydrogen is precisely what geochemists now agree was essentially ABSENT. So the Miller-Urey experiment was unsuccessful, and NCSE's claim that it was the "first successful attempt to show how organic molecules might have been produced on the early Earth" is false. The NCSE's claim that "when modern scientists changed the experimental conditions to reflect better knowledge of the Earth's early atmosphere, they were able to produce most of the same building blocks" is also false. (2)

(c) If the origin of life "remains a vigorous area of research," it is only because origin-of-life researchers are dedicated to their work, not because they have discovered anything that demonstrates how life originated. As New York Times science reporter Nicholas Wade wrote in 2000: "Everything about the origin of life on Earth is a mystery, and it seems the more that is known, the more acute the puzzles get." (3)




My Question: DARWIN'S TREE OF LIFE. Why don't textbooks discuss the "Cambrian explosion," in which all major animal groups appear together in the fossil record fully formed instead of branching from a common ancestor--thus contradicting the evolutionary tree of life? 

NCSE's Answer: Wells is wrong: fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals all are post-Cambrian--aren't these "major groups"? We would recognize very few of the Cambrian organisms as "modern"; they are in fact at the roots of the tree of life, showing the earliest appearances of some key features of groups of animals--but not all features and not all groups. Researchers are linking these Cambrian groups using not only fossils but also data from developmental biology. 

My Response in Outline:

(a) The NCSE is wrong: Fish DID make their first appearance in the Cambrian explosion.

(b) The "major groups" to which my question refers are the animal phyla. Fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals are sub-groups (classes) of a single phylum. The NCSE is using semantics to give the illusion that the Cambrian explosion never happened.

(c) It is through assumption and extrapolation, not "fossils" and "data from developmental biology," that Darwinists are supposedly "linking" the Cambrian groups.

My Response in Detail:

(a) The fossil record shows that fish were among the animals that made their first appearance in the Cambrian explosion. (4)

(b) Fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals are not the "major groups" to which my question refers. As every biologist knows, animals are classified into a hierarchy of groups: species, genera, families, orders, classes, and phyla. The phyla are the several dozen major categories that distinguish mollusks, arthropods, echinoderms, annelids and chordates, among others. (Modern representatives of the five phyla listed include snails, insects, starfish, earthworms and mammals, respectively.) Fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals are sub-groups (classes) of the chordate phylum. Since fish first appeared in the early Cambrian, this phylum was present in the Cambrian explosion, even though not all of its sub-groups were. Representatives of the five phyla listed here, and most of the other phyla as well--the "major groups" of animals recognized by all biologists--appear in the Cambrian explosion, with no fossil evidence that they evolved from a common ancestor. Berkeley paleontologist James Valentine and his colleagues wrote in 1991 that the Cambrian explosion "was even more abrupt and extensive than previously envisioned" and gives the impression that animal evolution "has by and large proceeded from the 'top down'." This does not fit Darwin's theory that major differences should have evolved over millions of years from minor differences in a single ancestral species--that is, from the "bottom up." By labeling vertebrate classes "major groups," the NCSE uses a semantic trick to give the illusion that the Cambrian explosion never happened, and that the conflict with Darwin's theory doesn't exist. Similarly, most biology textbooks avoid any mention of the Cambrian explosion, and the few that do mention it try to dismiss it. The NCSE, like the textbooks, is concealing a problem with the fossil record so significant that Darwin himself considered it a "valid argument" against his theory. (5)

(c) The NCSE's claim that "researchers are linking these Cambrian groups using not only fossils but also data from developmental biology" is profoundly misleading. First, the principal lesson of the Cambrian explosion is that the fossils needed for "linking" the phyla to a common ancestor are nonexistent. Second, with a few rare exceptions developmental data are available only from living animals. Although embryological similarities and differences can help us to classify living animals into phyla, we can only speculate how most extinct animals developed. Darwinian researchers ASSUME the existence of a common ancestor, and then extrapolate modern similarities and differences hundreds of millions of years into the past to guess what the hypothetical ancestor might have been or how it might have developed. Thus it is through assumption and extrapolation, not "fossils" and "data from developmental biology," that Darwinists are "linking" the Cambrian groups.



My Question: HOMOLOGY. Why do textbooks define homology as similarity due to common ancestry, then claim that it is evidence for common ancestry--a circular argument masquerading as scientific evidence?

NCSE's Answer: The same anatomical structure (such as a leg or an antenna) in two species may be similar because it was inherited from a common ancestor (homology) or because of similar adaptive pressure (convergence). Homology of structures across species is not assumed, but tested by the repeated comparison of numerous features that do or do not sort into successive clusters. Homology is used to test hypotheses of degrees of relatedness. Homology is not "evidence" for common ancestry: common ancestry is inferred based on many sources of information, and reinforced by the patterns of similarity and dissimilarity of anatomical structures.

My Response in Outline:

(a) I thank the NCSE for conceding my main point: Homology (defined by modern Darwinists as similarity due to common ancestry) is not evidence of common ancestry.

(b) Yet many biology textbooks tell students that it is. When the NCSE launches its campaign to correct textbooks that treat the origin of life as part of evolution, it should also correct textbooks that treat homology as evidence for common ancestry.

(c) At the level of the animal phyla, common ancestry is not inferred from "sources of information" such as fossils, molecules or embryos; instead, it is assumed on theoretical grounds.

My Response in Detail:

(a) As the NCSE acknowledges, homology (defined by modern Darwinists as similarity due to common ancestry) is not evidence of common ancestry.

(b) Why, then, do many biology textbooks tell students that homology is evidence of common ancestry? For example, Starr and Taggart's Biology: The Unity and Diversity of Life (8th Edition, 1998), states that the "pattern of macroevolution - that is, change from the form of a common ancestor - is called morphological divergence... Homology [is] a similarity in one or more body parts in different organisms that share a common ancestor.... Homologous structures provide very strong evidence of morphological divergence." In a section on "The Evidence for Evolution" in the teacher's edition of Johnson's Biology: Visualizing Life (1998), students are told that "homologous structures are structures that share a common ancestor," and an accompanying note tells the teacher that "such structures point to a common ancestry." According to Campbell, Reece and Mitchell's Biology (5th Edition, 1999), "similarity in characteristics resulting from common ancestry is known as homology, and such anatomical signs of evolution are called homologous structures. Comparative anatomy is consistent with all other evidence in testifying [to] evolution." Raven and Johnson's Biology (5th Edition, 1999), in a section titled "The evidence for macroevolution is extensive," includes the following: "Homology: Many organisms exhibit organs that are similar in structure to those in a recent common ancestor. This is evidence of evolutionary relatedness." A few pages later, the same textbook explicitly defines homologous structures as "structures with different appearances and functions that all derived from the same body part in a common ancestor." Audesirk, Audesirk and Byers's Life On Earth (2nd Edition, 2000) calls homology "evidence of relatedness" in a section titled "Comparative Anatomy Provides Structural Evidence of Evolution." The textbook tells students: "Internally similar structures are called homologous structures, meaning that they have the same evolutionary origin despite possible differences in function. Studies of comparative anatomy have long been used to determine the relationships among organisms, on the grounds that the more similar the internal structures of two species, the more closely related the species must be, that is, the more recently they must have diverged from a common ancestor." When the NCSE launches its campaign to correct textbooks that treat the origin of life as part of evolution, it should also correct textbooks that treat homology as evidence for common ancestry. (6)

(c) According to the NCSE, "common ancestry is inferred based on many sources of evidence." As we have seen, however, at the level of the animal phyla the fossil record does not support such an inference. Neither does the molecular evidence. As biologist Michael Lynch wrote in 1999: "Clarification of the phylogenetic [i.e., evolutionary] relationships of the major animal phyla has been an elusive problem, with analyses based on different genes and even different analyses based on the same genes yielding a diversity of phylogenetic trees."  And as the next question demonstrates, the embryological evidence does not support common ancestry even at the level of the vertebrate classes, much less at the phylum level. At these levels, common ancestry is assumed on theoretical grounds, not inferred from evidence. (7)

My Question: VERTEBRATE EMBRYOS. Why do textbooks use drawings of similarities in vertebrate embryos as evidence for their common ancestry--even though biologists have known for over a century that vertebrate embryos are not most similar in their early stages, and the drawings are faked?

NCSE's Answer: Twentieth-century and current embryological research confirms that early stages (if not the earliest) of vertebrate embryos are more similar than later ones; the more recently species shared a common ancestor, the more similar their embryological development. Thus cows and rabbits--mammals--are more similar in their embryological development than either is to alligators. Cows and antelopes are more similar in their embryology than either is to rabbits, and so on. The union of evolution and developmental biology-- "evo-devo" --is one of the most rapidly growing biological fields. "Faked" drawings are not relied upon: there has been plenty of research in developmental biology since Haeckel--and in fact, hardly any textbooks feature Haeckel's drawings, as claimed.

My Response in Outline:

(a) Far from confirming the NCSE's claim that the early stages of vertebrate embryos are more similar than later ones, embryological research confirms that the claim is false.

(b) The NCSE's claim that "the more recently species shared a common ancestor, the more similar their embryological development" is also false.

(c) Textbooks claim that the various CLASSES of vertebrates resemble each other in their early stages. By focusing on taxonomic levels below classes, the NCSE is attempting to evade the issue.

(d) Although the NCSE claims that "faked" drawings "are not relied upon," a simple examination of biology textbooks shows that the NCSE is wrong.

My Response in Detail:

(a) Contrary to the NCSE's claim, the early stages of vertebrate embryos are generally NOT more similar than later ones. Early vertebrate embryos actually look very different from each other, then they converge somewhat in appearance midway through development before diverging again--a pattern known to embryologists as the "developmental hourglass." Birds and mammals, for example, have fundamentally different patterns of early cell divisions (called "cleavage"), yet the two classes look somewhat similar for a short time midway through development. In the 1860's, German Darwinist Ernst Haeckel produced drawings of vertebrate embryos that not only exaggerated their similarities at the midpoint of development, but also omitted the strikingly different stages that preceded the midpoint. The drawings gave the impression that vertebrate embryos are most similar in their early stages, suggesting common ancestry; but the drawings were faked, and the impression is false. In 1976, embryologist William Ballard wrote that it is "only by semantic tricks and subjective selection of evidence," by "bending the facts of nature," that one can argue that the cleavage and gastrulation stages of vertebrates "are more alike than their adults." (Gastrulation refers to the cell movements that follow the cleavage stage.) In 1987, developmental biologist Richard Elinson noted that the early embryos of frogs, chicks and mice "are radically different in such fundamental properties as egg size, fertilization mechanisms, cleavage patterns, and [gastrulation] movements." Thus "twentieth-century and current embryological research" confirms that the NCSE is wrong. (8)

(b) The NCSE further claims that "the more recently species shared a common ancestor, the more similar their embryological development." As a general description of vertebrate embryos, however, this is also false. For example, the pattern of development in some frog species looks very much like that in birds, but no one thinks those frogs are more closely related to birds than to other frogs. (9)

(c) The standard textbook claim is that the various CLASSES of vertebrates resemble each other in their early stages. Yet in its answer, the NCSE compares representatives of only one class, mammals. No one doubts that the embryos of mammals tend to resemble each other more than they resemble the embryos of reptiles, but Haeckel's drawings fraudulently portrayed the embryos of ALL vertebrate classes as though they were alike. Just as the NCSE evaded my question about the "tree of life" by focusing on classes instead of phyla, here the NCSE evades my question about vertebrate embryos by focusing on taxonomic levels below classes. The NCSE thereby resorts to exactly the sort of "semantic tricks and subjective selection of evidence" criticized by Ballard in 1976.

(d) According to the NCSE, "faked" drawings "are not relied upon," and "hardly any textbooks feature Haeckel's drawings." Yet two college textbooks, Starr and Taggart's Biology: The Unity and Diversity of Life (8th Edition, 1998) and Guttman's Biology (1999) feature slightly redrawn versions of Haeckel's faked originals. Three high-school textbooks, Biggs, Kapicka and Lundgren's Biology: The Dynamics of Life (1998), Schraer and Stoltze's Biology: The Study of Life (7th Edition, 1999), and Miller and Levine's Biology (5th Edition, 2000), contain stylized drawings that improve only slightly on Haeckel, and perpetuate Haeckel's misrepresentation of the midpoint of development as the first stage. Worse yet, two advanced textbooks for college biology majors feature Haeckel's original drawings: Alberts, Bray, Lewis, Raff, Roberts and Watson's Molecular Biology of the Cell (3rd Edition, 1994), and Futuyma's Evolutionary Biology (3rd Edition, 1998). It was textbooks like these that prompted Harvard evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould to write in 2000: "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." (10)


My Question: ARCHAEOPTERYX. Why do textbooks portray this fossil as the missing link between dinosaurs and modern birds--even though modern birds are probably not descended from it, and its supposed ancestors do not appear until millions of years after it?

NCSE's Answer: The notion of a "missing link" is an out-of-date misconception about how evolution works. Archaeopteryx (and other feathered fossils) shows how a branch of reptiles gradually acquired both the unique anatomy and flying adaptations found in all modern birds. It is a transitional fossil in that it shows both reptile ancestry and bird specializations. Wells's claim that "supposed ancestors" are younger than Archaeopteryx is false. These fossils are not ancestors but relatives of Archaeopteryx and, as everyone knows, your uncle can be younger than you!

My Response in Outline: 

(a) If the notion of a "missing link" is out of date, why do biology textbooks continue to use it? When the NCSE launches its long-overdue campaign against misconceptions in biology textbooks (such as calling the origin of life part of evolution, or using homology as evidence for common ancestry), it can add "missing link" to its list.

(b) If Darwin's theory is true, there must have been organisms in the past that were transitional links between ancestors and descendants--yet most of them are missing from the fossil record. So the notion of "missing link" is no more "out-of-date" than evolutionary theory itself.

(c) Archaeopteryx is not preceded by fossils showing how reptiles "gradually acquired" bird-like features. Furthermore, without fossils of the appropriate age, the NCSE has no grounds for saying "Wells's claim that "supposed ancestors" are younger than Archaeopteryx is false."

(d) Bird-like dinosaurs are not just younger than their supposed relative, but millions of generations younger, so it makes no sense to call them "uncles" of Archaeopteryx.

My Response in Detail:

(a) Many biology textbooks call Archaeopteryx a "link" that once was missing but now is found. Starr and Taggart's Biology: The Unity and Diversity of Life (8th Edition, 1998) calls Archaeopteryx "the first of the "missing links". Mader's Biology (6th Edition, 1998), describes this fossil as "a transitional link between reptiles and modern birds." Schraer and Stoltze's Biology: The Study of Life (7th Edition, 1999) calls it "an evolutionary link between reptiles and birds." And according to Raven and Johnson's Biology (5th Edition, 1999), Archaeopteryx is an example of a fossil "linking" major groups. If the NCSE ever launches a campaign against misconceptions in biology textbooks (such as calling the origin of life part of evolution, or using homology as evidence for common ancestry), it can add "missing link" to its list. (11)

(b) In any case, the NCSE's claim that "missing link" is a misconception is odd, since if Darwin's theory is true there MUST have been organisms in the past that were transitional links between ancestors and descendants. Transitional links are a logical consequence of evolutionary theory, yet most of them are missing from the fossil record. Archaeopteryx is famous precisely because it is one of the few supposed links that have been found. So the notion of "missing link" cannot possibly be any more "out-of-date" than evolutionary theory itself. Of course, whether any PARTICULAR fossil can be determined to be a transitional link is open to serious doubt. According to Henry Gee, chief science writer for Nature, "the intervals of time that separate fossils are so huge that we cannot say anything definite about their possible connection through ancestry and descent." But if the NCSE is suggesting, like Gee, that NO fossil can be identified as transitional between its ancestors and descendants, why does it call Archaeopteryx a "transitional fossil" that shows "reptilian ancestry" as well as bird-like features? (12)

(c) Archaeopteryx is the oldest bird in the fossil record. It appears fully formed, and it is not preceded by fossils showing gradual transitions from reptiles to birds. So the NCSE's claim that it shows "how a branch of reptiles gradually acquired" bird-like features is false. If the NCSE is suggesting that this gradual transition is seen in bird-like dinosaurs (a view passionately--and controversially--defended by NCSE's president, Kevin Padian), the problem is that these supposed ancestors do not appear in the fossil record until tens of millions of years AFTER Archaeopteryx. Without fossils of the appropriate age, the NCSE has no grounds for saying "Wells's claim that "supposed ancestors" are younger than Archaeopteryx is false." (13)

(d) Calling bird-like dinosaurs "uncles" instead of "ancestors" of Archaeopteryx merely obscures the problem: Although an uncle isn't the ancestor of his nephew, and the former can be younger than the latter, the two--by definition--are no more than a generation apart, and they are members of the same species. Yet according to the fossil record, Archaeopteryx is millions of generations older than the bird-like dinosaurs. Furthermore, the two are not in the same species--in fact, they're not even in the same genus, family, order or class! It makes no sense to call David Ben-Gurion the "uncle" of Abraham--much less to call bird-like dinosaurs the "uncles" of Archaeopteryx.



My Question: PEPPERED MOTHS. Why do textbooks use pictures of peppered moths camouflaged on tree trunks as evidence for natural selection--when biologists have known since the 1980s that the moths don't normally rest on tree trunks, and all the pictures have been staged?

NCSE's Answer: These pictures are illustrations used to demonstrate a point--the advantage of protective coloration to reduce the danger of predation. The pictures are not the scientific evidence used to prove the point in the first place. Compare this illustration to the well-known re-enactments of the Battle of Gettysburg. Does the fact that these re-enactments are staged prove that the battle never happened? The peppered moth photos are the same sort of illustration, not scientific evidence for natural selection.

My Response in Outline:

(a) The NCSE's first point is technically correct: The textbook pictures are illustrations, not actual evidence.

(b) The NCSE is using this technical point, however, to obscure the real issue: The textbook pictures misrepresent the natural resting-place of peppered moths and conceal serious flaws in the standard story.

(c) Staged peppered moth photos are not comparable to re-enactments of the Battle of Gettysburg, because the former misrepresent the truth.

(d) If using staged photos and re-telling a flawed story "demonstrate a point," as the NCSE claims, the point is that students cannot trust what they read in their biology textbooks.

My Response in Detail:

(a) True, the textbook pictures are illustrations, not actual evidence. It would have been more accurate for me to write "examples of" or "illustrations of" instead of "evidence for."

(b) The NCSE uses this technical point, however, to obscure the fact that textbook pictures misrepresent the evidence and conceal serious flaws in the peppered moth story. Two hundred years ago, almost all peppered moths in the U.K. were light-colored. During the industrial revolution, dark-colored moths became much more common--especially in the polluted woodlands around major cities. According to theory, the shift occurred because dark-colored moths were better camouflaged against pollution-darkened tree trunks, and thus less likely to be eaten by predatory birds. In the 1950s, Bernard Kettlewell released light and dark-colored moths onto nearby tree trunks in polluted and unpolluted woodlands, and watched as birds ate the more visible ones. The story, and Kettlewell's experiments, became the classic textbook example of natural selection. When pollution-control legislation resulted in cleaner air after the 1950s, light-colored moths became more common again, as the theory predicted. Contrary to the theory, however, this occurred BEFORE tree trunks reverted to their former light color. In the 1980s, biologists discovered that peppered moths don't normally rest on tree trunks, and many began to question the classic story about camouflage and bird predation. In 1998, Theodore Sargent, Craig Millar and David Lambert wrote in Evolutionary Biology: "There is little persuasive evidence...to support this explanation at the present time." And as University of Chicago evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne wrote in Nature, the fact that peppered moths do not normally rest on tree trunks "alone invalidates Kettlewell's experiments, as moths were released by placing them directly onto tree trunks." (14)

(c) The NCSE's comparison of staged peppered moth photos with re-enactments of the Battle of Gettysburg is inappropriate, because the former misrepresent the facts. The appropriate comparison would be with FALSE re-enactments of the Battle of Gettysburg--such as re-enactments staged in Chancellorsville (where the other side won). Scientific illustrations, like historical re-enactments, should portray the truth.

(d) Instead of telling students the truth about peppered moths, most biology textbooks repeat the classic story and illustrate it with staged pictures--many of them made by pinning or gluing dead moths to tree trunks. For example, Johnson's Biology: Visualizing Life (1998), Guttman's Biology (1999), Schraer and Stoltze's Biology: The Study of Life (7th Edition, 1999), and Miller and Levine's Biology (5th Edition, 2000) all use staged photos and summaries of Kettlewell's experiments to convince students that peppered moths are a classic demonstration of natural selection in action. Mader's Biology (6th Edition, 1998) goes even further, using Kettlewell's experiments as the paramount example of how to do science: "The scientific method consists of forming a hypothesis, testing it, and coming to an conclusion...In order to examine the scientific method in more detail, we will consider research performed by British scientist H.B.D. Kettlewell." If these illustrations "demonstrate a point," as the NCSE claims, the point is that students cannot trust what they read in their biology textbooks. (15)



My Question: DARWIN'S FINCHES. Why do textbooks claim that beak changes in Galapagos finches during a severe drought can explain the origin of species by natural selection--even though the changes were reversed after the drought ended, and no net evolution occurred?

NCSE's Answer: Textbooks present the finch data to illustrate natural selection: that populations change their physical features in response to changes in the environment. The finch studies carefully--exquisitely--documented how the physical features of an organism can affect its success in reproduction and survival, and that such changes can take place more quickly than was realized. That new species did not arise within the duration of the study hardly challenges evolution!

My Response in Outline:

(a) The NCSE is evading the question, which is not whether the finch data demonstrate natural selection (they do), but whether those data explain the origin of new species (they don't).

(b) To the extent that scientific theories are supposed to rely on evidence, the finch study DOES challenge Darwin's theory of the origin of species by natural selection. No one doubts that natural selection occurs, but every time it has been observed (as in the finches) it has occurred only within existing species. 

My Response in Detail:

(a) The question is not whether the finch data demonstrate natural selection, but whether those data explain the origin of new species. In the 1970s, biologists Peter and Rosemary Grant watched as a severe drought killed 85% of a particular finch species on one island in the Galapagos archipelago. The survivors had (on average) slightly larger beaks, enabling them to crack the hard seeds that had weathered the drought; but average beak size returned to normal after the rains returned. There was no net change, and no new species emerged. In fact, several species of Galapagos finches now appear to be merging through hybridization--the exact opposite of producing new species. Yet some textbooks--and a publication of the U. S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS)--make it sound as though the finch studies showed how new species can originate. Miller and Levine's Biology: The Living Science (1998) tells students: "It might take only between 12 and 20 droughts to change one species of finch into another!" According to Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences (1999), the Grants' observations showed that "if droughts occur about once every ten years on the islands, a new species of finch might arise in only about 200 years," making the Galapagos finches "a particularly compelling example of speciation [a technical term for the origin of new species]." Both the Miller-Levine textbook and the NAS booklet neglect to mention that the data actually points to oscillating selection with no net change, and not to the merging of species through hybridization. The question is not whether the Grants observed natural selection--they did--but why the evidence is exaggerated to make it appear to show much more. The NCSE fails to answer this question. (16)

(b) The fact that no new species arose in the course of the Grants' study does not refute the theory of evolution. It certainly "challenges" it, however, because scientific theories need to be supported by evidence. Darwin's theory, as expressed in the title of his 1859 book, was The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, and the Galapagos finches are held up by our nation's premier science organization as a "particularly compelling example" of this. Yet the finch data do not show cumulative changes in beak size, much less the origin of species through natural selection. No one doubts that natural selection occurs, but every time it has been observed (as in the finches) it has occurred within existing species. For example, natural selection has often been observed in bacteria. Because of their rapid generation times, bacteria ought to be the easiest organisms in which to observe the origin of species through natural selection. Yet as British bacteriologist Alan H. Linton wrote in 2001: "Throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another." Faced with this lack of evidence for a key element of Darwin's theory, some defenders of the theory--even in the prestigious NAS--have taken to exaggerating the finch data. Although this does not refute the theory, it hardly inspires confidence in it. As Berkeley law professor and Darwin critic Phillip E. Johnson wrote in 1999: "When our leading scientists have to resort to the sort of distortion that would land a stock promoter in jail, you know they are in trouble." (17)




My Question: MUTANT FRUIT FLIES. Why do textbooks use fruit flies with an extra pair of wings as evidence that DNA mutations can supply raw materials for evolution--even though the extra wings have no muscles and these disabled mutants cannot survive outside the laboratory?

NCSE's Answer: In the very few textbooks that discuss four-winged fruit flies, they are used as an illustration of how genes can reprogram parts of the body to produce novel structures, thus indeed providing "raw material" for evolution. This type of mutation produces new structures that become available for further experimentation and potential new uses. Even if not every mutation leads to a new evolutionary pathway, the flies are a vivid example of one way mutation can provide variation for natural selection to work on.

My Response in Outline:

(a) The four-winged fruit fly is found in a lot more than "very few" textbooks.

(b) The mutations that produce the four-winged fruit fly lead to the LOSS of important structures--and to their replacement by duplicates of structures already present elsewhere in the fly--not to "new structures that become available for further experimentation."

(c) Mutations must be advantageous to the organism in order to provide raw materials for evolution--otherwise, natural selection will tend to eliminate them. Yet the four-winged fruit fly is seriously disabled, so it is not "a vivid example of one way mutation can provide variation for natural selection to work on."

My Response in Detail:

(a) More than a few textbooks use the four-winged fruit fly. Mader's Biology (6th Edition, 1998), Raven and Johnson's Biology (5th Edition, 1999), Guttman's Biology (1999) and Purves, Sadava, Orians and Heller's Life: The Science of Biology (6th Edition, 2001) all use pictures of four-winged fruit flies to illustrate how mutations can affect development--after telling students that gene mutations are the raw materials of evolution. Two advanced textbooks for biology majors, Futuyma's Evolutionary Biology (3rd Edition, 1998) and Freeman and Herron's Evolutionary Analysis (2nd Edition, 2001), include pictures of four-winged fruit flies in their discussions of how mutations supposedly provide raw materials for evolution. (18)

(b) Contrary to the NCSE's claim, the extra wings in the four-winged fruit fly are not "novel structures," but pathological duplications of body parts already present elsewhere in the fly. The mutations that produce the four-winged fly damage a gene that normally enables the fly to develop "balancers"--tiny structures behind the wings that help to stabilize the insect in flight. Unable to form balancers, the mutant fly sprouts a second pair of normal-looking (though not normal-functioning) wings by default. In other words, the mutations lead to a LOSS of important structures, not to "new structures that become available for further experimentation." (19)

(c) In order for a mutation to provide raw materials for evolution, it must be advantageous to the organism--otherwise, natural selection will tend to eliminate it. Although most mutations are harmful, a mutation occasionally benefits an organism by increasing its resistance to an antibiotic or a pesticide--usually by damaging a molecule that would otherwise react with the antibiotic or pesticide. Such mutations, however, affect only single molecules, while Darwinian evolution requires changes in anatomy as well as biochemistry. But advantageous anatomical mutations are never observed. The four-winged fruit fly is a case in point: The second set of wings lacks flight muscles, so the useless appendages interfere with flying and mating, and the mutant fly cannot survive long outside the laboratory. Similar mutations in other genes also produce various anatomical deformations, but they are harmful, too. In 1963, Harvard evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr wrote that the resulting mutants "are such evident freaks that these monsters can be designated only as "hopeless." They are so utterly unbalanced that they would not have the slightest chance of escaping elimination" through natural selection. So the NCSE's claim that four-winged fruit flies "are a vivid example of one way mutation can provide variation for natural selection to work on" is false. (20)




My Question: HUMAN ORIGINS. Why are artists' drawings of ape-like humans used to justify materialistic claims that we are just animals and our existence is a mere accident--when fossil experts cannot even agree on who our supposed ancestors were or what they looked like?

NCSE's Answer: Drawings of humans and our ancestors illustrate the general outline of human ancestry, about which there is considerable agreement, even if new discoveries continually add to the complexity of the account. The notion that such drawings are used to "justify materialistic claims" is ludicrous and not borne out by an examination of textbook treatments of human evolution.

My Response in Outline:

(a) The field of human origins is actually one of the most contentious in biology, because individual researchers interpret the relatively meager evidence on the basis of different biases and preconceptions.

(b) Darwin's followers--like Darwin himself--agree that humans evolved from ape-like animals. This theoretical consensus, however, owes less to the evidence than to materialistic philosophy.

(c) One consequence of this philosophy is the claim that there has been no purpose or direction in the history of life. Many biology textbooks promote this view and use drawings of ape-like humans to convince students that we are no exception to it.

My Response in Detail:

(a) Contrary the NCSE's claim of "considerable agreement," the field of human origins (paleoanthropology) is actually one of the most contentious in biology. According to experts in the field, this is because of subjective interpretations of the relatively meager evidence. Berkeley evolutionary biologist F. Clark Howell wrote in 1996: "There is no encompassing theory of [human] evolution... Alas, there never really has been." According to Howell, the field is characterized by "narrative treatments" based on little evidence, so "it is probably true that an encompassing scenario" of human evolution "is beyond our grasp, now if not forever." Arizona State University paleoanthropologist Geoffrey Clark was equally pessimistic in 1997: "Scientists have been trying to arrive at a consensus about modern human origins for more than a century. Why haven't they been successful?" Clark is convinced it is because paleoanthropologists proceed from different "biases, preconceptions and assumptions." And in 1999 Henry Gee, chief science writer for Nature, pointed out that all the evidence for human evolution "between about 10 and 5 million years ago--several thousand generations of living creatures--can be fitted into a small box." According to Gee, the conventional picture of human evolution as lines of ancestry and descent is "a completely human invention created after the fact, shaped to accord with human prejudices." (21)

(b) Of course, Darwin's followers--like Darwin himself--agree that humans evolved from ape-like animals. This agreement, however, represents a theoretical consensus. It does not emerge from the evidence--not the meager evidence for human origins, nor (as we have seen) the evidence from four-winged fruit flies, Darwin's finches, peppered moths, vertebrate embryos, comparative anatomy, or the fossil record of the animal phyla. On what, then, is this theoretical consensus based?

(c) It seems to me that it is based largely on a philosophical commitment--specifically, a commitment to materialism, the philosophical doctrine that the physical universe is the only reality; God, spirit and mind are illusions. One consequence of this doctrine is the claim that there has been no purpose or direction in the history of life. According to the NCSE, the notion that textbooks use drawings of supposed human ancestors to justify this claim is "ludicrous." Yet Guttman's, Biology (1999) tells students that living things have developed "just by chance," by a roll of the "cosmic dice," through "the action of random evolutionary forces." Miller and Levine's Biology (5th Edition, 2000) asserts that "evolution works without plan or purpose," so "evolution is random and undirected." Purves, Sadava, Orians and Heller's Life: The Science of Biology (6th Edition, 2001) states that "evolution is not directed toward a final goal or state." And all three of these textbooks include fanciful drawings of ape-like humans that help to convince students we are no exception to the rule of purposelessness.

(d) Some biology textbooks use other kinds of illustrations as well as interviews with famous Darwinists to persuade students that human beings are merely accidental by-products of purposeless natural processes. Raven and Johnson's Biology (5th Edition, 1999) depicts a speculative reconstruction of the famous "Lucy" fossil after treating students to an interview with Harvard professor Stephen Jay Gould, who tells them: "Humans represent just one tiny, largely fortuitous, and late-arising twig on the enormously arborescent bush of life." Campbell, Reece and Mitchell's Biology (5th Edition, 1999) uses drawings of reconstructed fossil skulls rather than whole animals, and features an interview with Oxford professor Richard Dawkins, who declares: "Natural selection is a bewilderingly simple idea. And yet what it explains is the whole of life, the diversity of life, the complexity of life, the apparent design of life"--including human beings, who "are fundamentally not exceptional because we came from the same evolutionary source as every other species." Our existence was not planned, however, because natural selection is "totally blind to the future"--the "blind watchmaker." For further reading, students are referred to Dawkins's book of that name, in which he writes: "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." (22)




My Question: EVOLUTION A FACT? Why are we told that Darwin's theory of evolution is a scientific fact--even though many of its claims are based on misrepresentations of the facts?

NCSE's Answer: What does Wells mean by "Darwin's theory of evolution"? In the last century, some of what Darwin originally proposed has been augmented by more modern scientific understanding of inheritance (genetics), development, and other processes that affect evolution. What remains unchanged is that similarities and differences among living things on Earth over time and space display a pattern that is best explained by evolutionary theory. Wells's "10 Questions" fails to demonstrate a pattern of evolutionary biologists' "misrepresenting the facts."

My Response in Outline:

(a) Darwin called his theory "descent with modification." Defenders of the theory often refer to descent from a common ancestor as a "fact," and reserve the term "theory" for ideas about the mechanisms of modification. This distinction is found in most biology textbooks that deal with evolution.

(b) Yet some of the best evidence for the "fact" of evolution comes from the fossil record, homology, and embryology--and as we have seen, there are serious problems with all three. The claim that evolution is a fact, like the claim that humans evolved from ape-like ancestors, owes more to materialistic philosophy than to empirical science.

(c) If anything demonstrates "a pattern of evolutionary biologists' "misrepresenting the facts," it is the NCSE's evasive and false answers to my Ten Questions.

My Response in Detail:

(a) Darwin called his theory "descent with modification." He wrote in 1859: "I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings" which lived in the remote past, and he considered natural selection "the main but not exclusive means of modification." Thus from the very beginning the theory of biological evolution has had two elements: the pattern of descent from a common ancestor, and the processes by which descendants have been modified. As the NCSE points out, ideas about the processes of evolution have been augmented by modern research, but the idea of an underlying pattern of descent from a universal common ancestor has remained unchanged since Darwin's time. Defenders of Darwin's theory often refer to universal common ancestry as a "fact," reserving the term "theory" for ideas about process. (23)

(b) This distinction is found in most biology textbooks that deal with evolution. For example, Futuyma's Evolutionary Biology (3rd Edition, 1998) tells students: "Descent with modification from common ancestors is a scientific fact, that is, a hypothesis so well supported by evidence that we take it to be true. The theory of evolution, on the other hand, is a complex body of statements, well supported but still incomplete, about the causes of evolution." Guttman's Biology (1999) makes the same distinction: "The concept of evolution actually has two faces - one fact, one theory. If we ask how all the organisms on Earth have reached their present forms, the answer is that they have evolved. This answer is based on such an enormous, coherent body of evidence that we must take it as a fact. By contrast, the other face of evolution, the complex body of ideas about how evolution occurs, is a theory."  According to Audesirk, Audesirk and Byers's Life On Earth (2nd Edition, 2000), evolution means that "modern organisms descended, with modification, from pre-existing life-forms." The book then asserts: "Virtually all biologists consider evolution to be a fact. Although debates still rage over the mechanisms of evolutionary change, exceedingly few biologists dispute that evolution occurs. Why? Because an overwhelming body of evidence permits no other conclusion." Yet the textbooks claim that some of the best evidence for the "fact" of evolution comes from the fossil record, homology, and embryology--and as we have seen, there are serious problems with all three. Why, then, are we still told that evolution is a fact? (24)

(c) It seems to me that this claim, like the claim that humans evolved from ape-like ancestors, owes more to materialistic philosophy than to empirical science. Audesirk, Audesirk and Byers's Life On Earth (2nd Edition, 2000) tells students: "Over the course of human history, two approaches have been taken to the study of life and other natural phenomena. The first assumes that some events happen through the intervention of supernatural forces...In contrast, science adheres to the principle of natural causality: All events can be traced to natural causes." The claim that "all events can be traced to natural causes" is not a methodological statement limiting science to the study of natural phenomena, but a sweeping metaphysical statement about the whole of reality: It is an affirmation of materialism. Guttman's Biology (1999), as we saw above, promotes materialism in its statements that evolution is purposeless and undirected. And Futuyma's Evolutionary Biology (3rd Edition, 1998) tells upper division and graduate students: "By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous." Futuyma concludes that it was Darwin's theory of evolution, together with Marx's view of history and Freud's view of human nature "that provided a crucial plank to the platform of mechanism and materialism" that "has since been the stage of most Western thought." (25)

(d) According to the NCSE, my Ten Questions fail to "demonstrate a pattern of evolutionary biologists' "misrepresenting the facts"." Yet the NCSE's evasive and false answers to my questions clearly demonstrate such a pattern. The NCSE's evasions include: using "major groups" to denote vertebrate classes rather than animal phyla, thus side-stepping the challenge to Darwin's theory posed by the Cambrian explosion; listing embryos from only one vertebrate class to give the illusion that similarities among the embryos of ALL classes provide evidence for common ancestry; and comparing staged photos of peppered moths that misrepresent the truth to historical re-enactments of events that actually happened. Furthermore, the NCSE makes numerous false claims about the scientific evidence, such as the following: the Miller-Urey experiment succeeded in showing how organic molecules might have been produced on the early Earth (it didn't); when the experiment is repeated using a more realistic mixture of gasses, it still produces most of the same building blocks (it doesn't); fish do not appear in the Cambrian explosion (they do); the early stages of vertebrate embryos are generally more similar than later stages (they're not); and anatomical mutations in fruit flies produce novel structures that provide raw materials for evolution (they don't). The NCSE also makes statements about biology textbooks that are demonstrably false, for example: textbooks do not rely on faked embryo drawings; very few textbooks feature the four-winged fruit fly; and textbooks do not use drawings of ape-like humans in the context of promoting materialistic philosophy. Simple examination shows that many textbooks do these very things. To see a pattern of evolutionary biologists' misrepresenting the facts, one needs only to read the NCSE's answers to my "Ten Questions To Ask Your Biology Teacher About Evolution."

CONCLUSION:

The NCSE introduces its answers to my Ten Questions by calling many of my claims "incorrect or misleading," and by maintaining that they are "intended only to create unwarranted doubts in students' minds about the validity of evolution as good science." The evasions and falsehoods listed above, however, make it clear that it is the NCSE's answers that are incorrect or misleading. If students have doubts about the scientific validity of evolution, their doubts are amply warranted not only by the systematic pattern of misrepresentations in biology textbooks, but also by the false and evasive statements the NCSE makes in defense of those misrepresentations.

Good science is the search for truth, and it searches for truth by comparing theories with the evidence. A good science education should present the evidence truthfully--especially the evidence for and against a theory as influential as Darwin's. Yet biology textbooks invariably present this evidence with a pro-Darwin spin, indoctrinating students rather than educating them. It seems that the National Center for Science Education, despite its title, wants students to inherit the spin.




REFERENCES

Note: More detailed information on all ten questions is available in my book, Icons of Evolution (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2000; paperback edition 2002).

(1) The relevant page numbers in the cited textbooks are: Campbell, Reece and Mitchell's Biology (5th Edition, 1999), p. 494; Mader's Biology (6th Edition, 1998), p. 325; Starr and Taggart's Biology: The Unity and Diversity of Life (8th Edition, 1998), p. 335; Schraer and Stoltze's Biology: The Study of Life (7th Edition, 1999), pp. 590-591; Guttman's Biology (1999), p. 603; Audesirk, Audesirk and Byers's Life On Earth (2nd Edition, 2000), p. 271; Purves, Sadava, Orians and Heller's Life: The Science of Biology (6th Edition, 2001), p. 451; Alberts, Bray, Lewis, Raff, Roberts and Watson's Molecular Biology of the Cell (3rd Edition, 1994), p. 4; Futuyma's Evolutionary Biology (3rd Edition, 1998), p. 167; Freeman and Herron's Evolutionary Analysis (2nd Edition, 2001), p. 481.

(2) For the consensus among geochemists that the Miller-Urey experiment did not realistically simulate the Earth's early atmosphere, see Heinrich D. Holland, "Model for the Evolution of the Earth's Atmosphere," pp. 447-477 in A. E. J. Engel, Harold L. James and B. F. Leonard (editors), Petrologic Studies: A Volume in Honor of A. F. Buddington (Geological Society of America, 1962), pp. 448-449; Philip H. Abelson, "Chemical Events on the Primitive Earth," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 55 (1966), 1365-1372; Marcel Florkin, "Ideas and Experiments in the Field of Prebiological Chemical Evolution," Comprehensive Biochemistry 29B (1975), 231-260, pp. 241-242; and Sidney W. Fox and Klaus Dose, Molecular Evolution and the Origin of Life, Revised Edition (New York: Marcel Dekker, 1977), pp. 43, 74-76. Concerning the failure of the Miller-Urey experiment when a realistic "atmosphere" is used, see Gordon Schlesinger and Stanley L. Miller, "Prebiotic Synthesis in Atmospheres Containing CH4, CO, and CO2: I. Amino Acids," Journal of Molecular Evolution 19 (1983), 376-382; and John Horgan, "In the Beginning...," Scientific American (February 1991), 116-126, p. 121.

(3) Nicholas Wade, "Life's Origins Get Murkier and Messier," The New York Times (Tuesday, June 13, 2000), pp. D1-D2.

(4) Philippe Janvier, "Catching the first fish," Nature 402 (November 4, 1999), pp. 21-22; D-G. Shu, H-L. Luo, S. Conway Morris, X-L. Zhang, S-X. Hu, L. Chen, J. Han, M. Zhu, Y. Li and L-Z. Chen, "Lower Cambrian vertebrates from south China," Nature 402 (1999), 42-46; Jun-Yuan Chen, Di-Ying Huang and Chia-Wei Li, "An early Cambrian craniate-like chordate," Nature 402 (1999), 518-522; Fred Heeren, "A Little Fish Challenges a Big Giant," The Boston Globe (May 30, 2000), E1.

(5) James W. Valentine, Stanley M. Awramik, Philip W. Signor and Peter M. Sadler, "The Biological Explosion at the Precambrian-Cambrian Boundary," Evolutionary Biology 25 (1991), 279-356; Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (1st Edition, 1859), Chap. IX.

(6) The relevant page numbers in the cited textbooks are: Starr and Taggart's Biology: The Unity and Diversity of Life (8th Edition, 1998), pp. 318-319; Johnson's Biology: Visualizing Life (1998), p. 178; Campbell, Reece and Mitchell's Biology (5th Edition, 1999), p. 424; Raven and Johnson's Biology (5th Edition, 1999), pp. 412, 416; Audesirk, Audesirk and Byers's Life On Earth (2nd Edition, 2000), p. 236.

(7) Michael Lynch, "The Age and Relationships of the Major Animal Phyla," Evolution 53 (1999), 319-325, p. 323.

(8) William W. Ballard, "Problems of gastrulation: real and verbal," BioScience 26 (1976), 36-39, p. 38; Richard P. Elinson, "Change in developmental patterns: embryos of amphibians with large eggs," pp. 1-21 in R. A. Raff and E. C. Raff (editors), Development as an Evolutionary Process, vol. 8 (New York: Alan R. Liss, 1987), p. 3; Rudolf A. Raff, The Shape of Life: Genes, Development, and the Evolution of Animal Form (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 208; and M. K. Richardson, J. Hanken, M. L. Gooneratne, C. Pieau, A. Raynaud, L. Selwood, and G. M. Wright, "There is no highly conserved embryonic stage in the vertebrates: implications for current theories of evolution and development," Anatomy and Embryology 196 (1997), 91-106.

(9) E. M. del Pino and R. P. Elinson, "A novel developmental pattern for frogs: Gastrulation produces an embryonic disk," Nature 306 (1983), 589-591; James Hanken et al., "Cranial Ontogeny in the Direct-Developing Frog, Eleutherodactylus coqui (Anura: Leptodactylidae), Analyzed Using Whole-Mount Immunohistochemistry," Journal of Morphology 211 (1992), 95-118.

(10) The relevant page numbers in the cited textbooks are: Starr and Taggart's Biology: The Unity and Diversity of Life (8th Edition, 1998), p. 317; Guttman's Biology (1999), p. 718; Biggs, Kapicka and Lundgren's Biology: The Dynamics of Life (1998), p. 433; Schraer and Stoltze's Biology: The Study of Life (7th Edition, 1999), p. 583; Miller and Levine's Biology (5th Edition, 2000), p. 283; Futuyma's Evolutionary Biology (3rd Edition, 1998), p. 653; Alberts, Bray, Lewis, Raff, Roberts and Watson's Molecular Biology of the Cell (3rd Edition, 1994), pp. 32-33. The Gould quotation is from pp. 44-46 of his essay, "Abscheulich! Atrocious!" Natural History (March, 2000), pp. 42-49.

(11) The relevant page numbers in the cited textbooks are: Starr and Taggart's Biology: The Unity and Diversity of Life (8th Edition, 1998), p. 278; Schraer and Stoltze's Biology: The Study of Life (7th Edition, 1999), p. 761; Mader's Biology (6th Edition, 1998), p. 296; Raven and Johnson's Biology (5th Edition, 1999), p. 413.

(12) Henry Gee, In Search of Deep Time (New York: The Free Press, 1999), p. 23.

(13) See Kevin Padian and Luis M. Chiappe, "The origin and early evolution of birds," Biological Reviews 73 (1998), 1-42. For a thorough and expert critique of the view advocated by Padian and other cladists, see Alan Feduccia, The Origin and Evolution of Birds (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), pp. 45-91.

(14) Theodore D. Sargent, Craig D. Millar and David M. Lambert, "The "Classical" Explanation of Industrial Melanism: Assessing the Evidence," Evolutionary Biology 30 (1998), 299-322, pp. 318; Jerry A. Coyne, "Not black and white," a review of Michael Majerus's Melanism: Evolution in Action, Nature 396 (1998), 35-36. See also Jonathan Wells, "Second Thoughts about Peppered Moths," The Scientist (May 24, 1999), 13.

(15) The relevant page numbers in the cited textbooks are: Johnson's Biology: Visualizing Life (1998), p. 182; Guttman's Biology (1999), pp. 35-36; Schraer and Stoltze's Biology: The Study of Life (7th Edition, 1999), pp. 618-619; Miller and Levine's Biology (5th Edition, 2000), pp. 297-298; Mader's Biology (6th Edition, 1998), pp. 11-12, 306.

(16) For details of the Grants' research, see Peter R. Grant, Ecology and Evolution of Darwin's Finches (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), and Jonathan Weiner, The Beak of the Finch (New York: Vintage Books, 1994). The Miller-Levine quotation is from Biology: The Living Science (Prentice-Hall, 1998), pp. 254-255. The NAS quotation is from Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1999), "Evidence Supporting Biological Evolution," p, 2, http://books.nap.edu/html/creationism/evidence.html.

(17) Alan H. Linton, The Times Higher Education Supplement (April 20, 2001), p. 29; Phillip E. Johnson, "The Church of Darwin," The Wall Street Journal (August 16, 1999), p. A14.

(18) The relevant page numbers in the cited textbooks are: Mader's Biology (6th Edition, 1998), pp. 304, 921; Raven and Johnson's Biology (5th Edition, 1999), pp. 394, 1154; Guttman's Biology (1999), pp. 34, 437; Purves, Sadava, Orians and Heller's Life: The Science of Biology (6th Edition, 2001), pp. 439-445; Futuyma's Evolutionary Biology (3rd Edition, 1998), pp. 48-49; Freeman and Herron's Evolutionary Analysis (2nd Edition, 2001), pp. 588-590.

(19) E. B. Lewis, "A gene complex controlling segmentation in Drosophila," Nature 276 (1978), 565-570; Mark Peifer & Welcome Bender, "The anterobithorax and bithorax mutations of the bithorax complex," EMBO Journal 5 (1986), 2293-2303.

(20) On the absence of flight muscles in the second pair of wings, see J. Fernandes, S. E. Celniker, E. B. Lewis & K. VijayRaghavan, "Muscle development in the four-winged Drosophila and the role of the Ultrabithorax gene," Current Biology 4 (1994), 957-964; Sudipto Roy, L. S. Shashidhara & K. VijayRaghavan, "Muscles in the Drosophila second thoracic segment are patterned independently of autonomous homeotic gene function," Current Biology 7 (1997), 222-227. The Mayr quotation is from Ernst Mayr, Populations, Species and Evolution, an abridgement of his 1963 book, Animal Species and Evolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), pp. 251-253.

(21) F. Clark Howell, "Thoughts on the Study and Interpretation of the Human Fossil Record," pp. 1-39 in W. Eric Meikle, F. Clark Howell & Nina G. Jablonski (editors), Contemporary Issues in Human Evolution, Memoir 21 (San Francisco: California Academy of Sciences, 1996), pp. 3, 31; Geoffrey A. Clark, "Through a Glass Darkly: Conceptual Issues in Modern Human Origins Research," pp. 60-76 in G. A. Clark & C. M. Willermet (editors), Conceptual Issues in Modern Human Origins Research (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1997), pp. 60-62; Henry Gee, In Search of Deep Time: Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life (New York: The Free Press, 1999), pp. 32, 202.

(22) The relevant page numbers in the cited textbooks are: Guttman's Biology (1999), pp. 36-37, 774-777; Miller and Levine's Biology (5th Edition, 2000), pp. 658, 762-764; Purves, Sadava, Orians and Heller's Life: The Science of Biology (6th Edition, 2001), pp. 3, 597-598; Raven and Johnson's Biology (5th Edition, 1999), pp. 15, 448-450; Campbell, Reece and Mitchell's Biology (5th Edition, 1999), pp. 412-413, 660. The Dawkins quote is from Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design (New York: W. W. Norton, 1986), p. 6.

(23) The Darwin quotations are from Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (1st Edition, 1859), Introduction and Conclusion.

(24) The relevant page numbers in the cited textbooks are: Futuyma's Evolutionary Biology (3rd Edition, 1998), p. 15; Guttman's Biology (1999), p. 8; Audesirk, Audesirk and Byers's Life On Earth (2nd Edition, 2000), pp. 8-9, 12, 235.

(25) The relevant page numbers in the cited textbooks are: Audesirk, Audesirk and Byers's Life On Earth (2nd Edition, 2000), pp. 8-9, 12, 235; Guttman's Biology (1999), pp. 36-37; Futuyma's Evolutionary Biology (3rd Edition, 1998), p. 5.




Worthy of serious enquiry?

A clash of titans XIII

Golgotha:The Watchtower Society's commentary.

GOLGOTHA

Golʹgo·tha) [Skull [Place]].

The place outside, although near, the city of Jerusalem, where Jesus Christ was impaled. (Mt 27:33; Joh 19:17-22; Heb 13:12) A road and a garden tomb were nearby. (Mt 27:39; Joh 19:41) “Golgotha,” or “Skull Place,” is also called “Calvary” (Lu 23:33, KJ, Dy), from the Latin calvaria (skull). The Biblical record does not state that Golgotha was on a hill, though it does mention the fact that some observed the impalement from a distance.—Mr 15:40; Lu 23:49.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre now stands on the traditional site of Golgotha and Jesus’ tomb. In the fourth century C.E., Emperor Constantine assigned the task of determining the place of Jesus’ impalement and his tomb to Bishop Macarius, who decided that Hadrian’s then-existing temple of Aphrodite (Venus) had been erected on the site. Constantine therefore ordered the demolition of this temple and the construction of a basilica that later underwent expansion and modification, becoming the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Archaeological excavations done since 1960 indicate that the area was used as a burial ground, and it is thought that this was true in the first century C.E. Though located within the present walls of Jerusalem, the site is believed to have been outside the city walls in Jesus’ day.

Another location that was proposed as the site of the impalement of Jesus is a promontory 230 m (755 ft) NE of the Damascus Gate, now known as Gordon’s Calvary. It was suggested in 1842 as the true location of Golgotha and Jesus’ tomb. In 1883 the location was endorsed by General C. G. Gordon, a British military hero. The identification was based on conjecture. On the basis of archaeological evidence available, Gabriel Barkay states that the nearby Garden Tomb that is frequently pointed out to tourists as being the burial place of Jesus was originally hewn and used some time in the eighth or seventh century B.C.E. That would not fit the description at John 19:41 of “a new memorial tomb, in which no one had ever yet been laid.”—Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 1986, p. 50.


Identification of Golgotha has often become an emotional religious issue. There is, however, no archaeological evidence that “Gordon’s Calvary” is the place. As for the location marked by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, its identification takes into account archaeological findings but is based largely on tradition that dates to the fourth century. Regarding the latter location, Biblical Archaeology Review (May/June 1986, p. 38) states: “We may not be absolutely certain that the site of the Holy Sepulchre Church is the site of Jesus’ burial, but we certainly have no other site that can lay a claim nearly as weighty.” So the identification remains conjectural.

Another failed Darwinian prediction XVI

Structures do not evolve before there is a need for them

A fundamental premise of evolutionary theory is that evolution has no foresight. It is a blind process responding to current, not future, needs. This means that biological structures do not evolve before they are needed. But many examples of this have been discovered in recent years. For instance, in the embryonic stages of a wide variety of organisms, the development of the vision system is orchestrated by similar control genes known as transcription factors. As one paper explained, “All eyes, invertebrate and vertebrate, develop through a cascade of similar transcription factors despite vast phylogenetic distances.” (Wake, Wake and Specht) Because these transcription factors are so prevalent across the evolutionary tree, they must have evolved in the very early stages of evolution, in an early common ancestor. But that was before any vision systems had evolved. The vision system is just one of several such examples showing that the genetic components of many of today’s embryonic development pathways must have been present long before such pathways existed. Evolutionists now refer to the appearance of these genetic components, before they were used as such, as preadaptation:

Genome comparisons show that the early clades increasingly contain genes that mediate development of complex features only seen in later metazoan branches. … The existence of major elements of the bilaterian developmental toolkit in these simpler organisms implies that these components evolved for functions other than the production of complex morphology, preadapting the genome for the morphological differentiation that occurred higher in metazoan phylogeny. (Marshall and Valentine)

Such preadaptation extends beyond embryonic development. For example, several key components of the human brain are found in single-celled organisms called choanoflagellates. Therefore these key components must have evolved in single-celled organisms, long before animals, brains and nerve cells existed. As one evolutionist explained, “The choanoflagellates have a lot of precursors for things we thought were only present in animals.” (Marshall)

Another example is the molecular machines for protein transport across the mitochondria inner membrane which must have evolved long before mitochondria existed. (Clements et. al.) As one evolutionist explained, “You look at cellular machines and say, why on earth would biology do anything like this? It’s too bizarre. But when you think about it in a neutral evolutionary fashion, in which these machineries emerge before there’s a need for them, then it makes sense.” (Keim)

References

Clements, A., D. Bursac, X. Gatsos, et. al. 2009. “The reducible complexity of a mitochondrial molecular machine.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106:15791-15795.

Keim, Brandon. 2009. “More ‘Evidence’ of Intelligent Design Shot Down by Science.” Wired Aug. 27. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/reduciblecomplexity/

Marshall, Michael. 2011. “Your brain chemistry existed before animals did.” NewScientist September 1.

Marshall C., J. Valentine. 2010. “The importance of preadapted genomes in the origin of the animal bodyplans and the Cambrian explosion.” Evolution 64:1189-1201.

Wake D., M. Wake, C. Specht. 2011. “Homoplasy: from detecting pattern to determining process and mechanism of evolution.” Science 331:1032-1035.

On the end of technology.

The holy scriptures on anihilationism

How I.D brings order from chaos

What Has a Volcano Done for You Lately?
Evolution News & Views 

Volcanoes are common in the solar system. Remnants of ancient lava flows are plentiful on Mercury and Venus. Our moon has large "seas" (maria) of solidified lava. Mars has the largest extinct volcano known in the solar system, Olympus Mons -- a single volcano as big across as Arizona. Beyond Jupiter, evidence of cryovolcanic activity has been detected on some of Saturn's icy satellites, especially Enceladus, which erupts salty ice water out of over 100 fissures at its south pole. Saturn's Titan and Neptune's Triton may have ice volcanoes, too, and a large cryovolcano may still be active on Pluto.

Only two bodies in the solar system, however, have hot-lava volcanoes that are erupting now, as far as we can tell: Earth and Jupiter's moon Io. Comparing these two worlds, can we find a story of intelligent design related to this powerful geological force that can toss material upward for miles against gravity and cover vast areas of real estate with hot lava, rocks, and dust?

Fraser Cain wrote an intriguing article for Universe Today, "What Are the Benefits of Volcanoes?" -- a jolting headline for those of us picturing residents fleeing for their lives from pyroclastic flows, mummified remains under Pompeii from Mt. Vesuvius, houses in Hawaii being swallowed up by hot lava, or other disasters in the news. Actually, though, we owe much to volcanoes. As frightening as they can be up close, they are mere pimples on Earth's skin as seen from space. And they provide a remarkable delivery system from the depths of the Earth to the surface. Cain lists the ways volcanoes enhance the habitability of the Earth.

Soil enrichment. In addition to the noxious vapors and silica, volcanic debris often contains minerals high in iron, magnesium and potassium. "As a result, regions that have large deposits of volcanic soil (i.e. mountain slopes and valleys near eruption sites) are quite fertile." In Italy, he says, much of the land is limestone, yielding poor soil. By contrast, the volcanic plains around Mt. Vesuvius are very fertile because of weathered volcanic ejecta. The same is true on the Hawaiian islands and in many other locales.

Land expansion. Volcanoes expand the habitable area of the Earth. "In addition to scattering ash over large areas of land, volcanoes also push material to the surface that can result in the formation of new islands," including the Hawaiian chain, the Aleutian islands, many areas in Micronesia and the south Pacific, and other places. Interestingly, early human civilizations made their marks on volcanic islands in the Mediterranean, like Cyprus, Crete and the Aegean islands. (The inhabitants of Santorini, however, were in the wrong place at the wrong time.) In recent years we have seen volcanic islands like Surtsey rise from the ocean, then become rapidly colonized by plants, birds and other animals, as were the Galapagos Islands in prehistoric times.

Volcanic minerals and stones. Humans make many useful products from volcanic ejecta, everything from pumice for hand soap to road material. Cain has lots of examples to share:

The finest grades of these volcanic rocks are used in metal polishes and for woodworking. Crushed and ground pumice are also used for loose-fill insulation, filter aids, poultry litter, soil conditioner, sweeping compound, insecticide carrier, and blacktop highway dressing.
That's just for starters. He mentions that the roof of the Pantheon in Rome was made from concrete that includes volcanic tuff, making it light and strong. From roofing material and plaster to the walls of nuclear reactors, volcanic materials find their ways into well-designed structures, and have since the dawn of civilization. But that's not all; there are riches from the depths of the Earth delivered by volcanoes.

Precious metals that are often found in volcanoes include sulfur, zinc, silver, copper, gold, and uranium. These metals have a wide range of uses in modern economies, ranging from fine metalwork, machinery and electronics to nuclear power, research and medicine. Precious stones and minerals that are found in volcanoes include opals, obsidian, fire agate, flourite, gypsum, onyx, hematite, and others.
He doesn't mention diamonds. Did you know that diamonds are delivered from deep in the mantle at high speed through explosive eruptions called kimberlite intrusions? Think about that the next time you watch the groom place a sparkling gem on his bride's finger.

Global cooling. The ash clouds from volcanoes also play a role moderating Earth's climate. "When volcanic ash and compounds like sulfur dioxide are released into the atmosphere, it can reflect some of the Sun's rays back into space, thereby reducing the amount of heat energy absorbed by the atmosphere," Cain says. The Pinatubo eruption of 1991 caused measurable temperature drops for years -- all from one volcano.

Hot springs and geothermal energy. Many countries rely on geothermal energy associated with recent volcanic activity. Yellowstone's geysers are a popular tourist attraction. From free energy production to enjoyment of a soak in a natural hot spring, heat close to the surface of the planet has proven a benefit to many. There are even macaques in Japan that soak in hot springs. Molecular biologists who study "thermophiles," bacteria that thrive in hot springs, are learning about heat-tolerant enzymes that inspire numerous applications in technology and medicine (example at PubMed).

At this point, you may be wondering if we are going to assert that volcanoes are intelligently designed. No. Cain's last bullet point in his "benefits of volcanoes" will lead to the issue we want to focus on.

Outgassing and atmospheric formation. To Cain, this is "by far" the most beneficial aspect of volcanoes: the role they have played in forming Earth's atmosphere. But here, he brings in Mars, Venus, Mercury, and Io, saying:

And Io, Jupiter's volcanically active moon, has an extremely tenuous atmosphere of sulfur dioxide (SO²), sulfur monoxide (SO), sodium chloride (NaCl), sulfur monoxide (SO), atomic sulfur (S) and oxygen (O). All of these gases are provided and replenished by the many hundreds of volcanoes situated across the moon's surface.
As you can see, volcanoes are actually a pretty creative force when all is said and done. In fact, us [sic] terrestrial organisms depend on them for everything from the air we breathe, to the rich soil that produces our food, to the geological activity that gives rise to terrestrial renewal and biological diversity. [Emphasis added.]

Io's volcanoes plaster its surface with lava and give it an atmosphere, but nothing lives there. Nothing benefits from all that heat and energy. The only ones who benefit from volcanoes are living things that have a genetic code. The intelligent design is not in the volcanoes, but in the code that can build an organism, whether an archaeal microbe, a macaque, or a human being that knows what a "benefit" is. An organism can take a force of nature and use it for a function. Everything on Io is dead. Nobody benefits, except the scientist who studies Io's volcanoes from spacecraft intelligently designed for understanding the forces of nature.

But on Earth, volcanoes are a resource. We can find an aspect of design in the fine-tuning of the forces of nature that make our universe and Earth habitable. Beyond that, volcanoes are not examples of complex specified information (CSI). They are unguided forces that possessors of CSI can harness. Where there is no life, volcanoes -- as impressive as they look -- are mere scars of undirected energy.

Let's end with one more remarkable example of design harnessing undirected forces. You probably have seen jewelry with palladium in it. You probably also use platinum, an "extremely rare metal," every day. One source says that "one-fifth of everything we use either contains platinum or requires platinum in its manufacture." We already know that human beings can intelligently design things with these metals. But here's something really interesting that came to light recently. Scientists at the University of Adelaide have discovered that we find platinum on the surface of the Earth because bacteria bring it to us!

"Traditionally it was thought that these platinum group metals only formed under high pressure and temperature systems deep underground, and that when they were brought to the surface through weathering and uplift, they just sat there and nothing further happened to them," says Dr Reith.
"We've shown that that is far from the case. We've linked specialised bacterial communities, found in biofilms on the grains of platinum group minerals at three separate locations around the world, with the dispersion and re-concentration of these elements in surface environments.

"We've shown that nuggets of platinum and related metals can be reformed at the surface through bacterial processes."


Now that is uncanny. We might not have found these useful metals to apply our design skills on them if it had not been for the fact that "the entire process of formation of platinum and palladium was mediated by microbes." And what do microbes have embedded within them, class? Complex specified information.

Who's being antiscience now?

"Anti-Science" Revisited as Adult Stem Cells Prevent Heart Failure Deaths
Wesley J. Smith 

Remember when adult stem cell advocates were called "anti-science" by the embryonic stem cell lobby for arguing that we could have our regenerative medicine and non-contentious ethics too?

I do. Well, the so-called anti-scientists had it far more right than their accusers. Adult stem cells from patients' own bodies have been shown in studies to halve deaths from heart failure in comparison to patients receiving placebo. From the Telegraph story:

Stem cells can repair a damaged heart and potentially halve the number of people dying from heart failure, scientists have shown, in a major breakthrough for regenerative medicine...

Now, in the largest trial ever conducted, doctors in the US have proven that even the most serious cases of heart failure can be repaired using stem cells harvested from a patient's own bone marrow.

End-stage patients, whose only hope was a heart transplant, were treated with stem cells in a single operation. Doctors found the group were 37 per cent less likely to have been admitted to hospital in the 12 months following the operation and half as likely to have died than those on placebo.

I did a Google search and found very few stories covering this wonderful breakthrough. How telling about media bias, still in the tank for the embryonic approach.


Indeed, if this had been an embryonic stem cell breakthrough, you would have heard the headlines. Don't be surprised if the next embryonic stem cell animal study brings greater news coverage than this very hopeful story of an ethical technique now alleviating great human suffering.

Yet more on the plagiarism of the original technologist.

Biomimetics -- Where the Action Is, Continued

Evolution News & Views 


We pick up where we left off last week ("Biomimetics -- Where the Action Is") with more examples of design-based science from around the world.

Gecko astrobot. Get a grip! NASA just launched a space hero to the International Space Station. You could call him Supergecko. Actually, it's a new material inspired by this superhero among animals, the lizard that can cling to anything. New Scientist says, "In a few years, the exterior of the International Space Station could be crawling with geckos."

It's not an alien invasion, or the plot of a low-budget sci-fi movie. The robotic geckos could follow from an experiment NASA launched to the International Space Station on Tuesday aboard an uncrewed Cygnus spacecraft.
The Gecko Gripper devices use tiny artificial hairs that replicate the ones geckos use to climb walls. They are designed to help astronauts to keep track of objects in zero gravity, and enable robots to crawl around a spacecraft to inspect and repair it. [Emphasis added.]

The bots have been tested and are able to grab and manipulate 100-kilogram objects. Instead of using adhesives, geckos adhere to almost anything using atomic van der Waals forces thanks to tiny hairs on their foot pads. "Geckos are nature's most amazing climbers," a JPL scientist says. "They go from the floor to the ceiling in 2 seconds."

Lignin plastic. The woody material in plants, lignin, is finding a new use. In a new alloy with rubber, it's replacing plastic with a biodegradable, "green" thermoplastic material to replace the petroleum-based plastics used in headgear and Lego pieces. Oak Ridge National Laboratory tells how this new material, using 50 percent renewable content, does not require solvents in its manufacture. It's a "meltable, moldable, ductile material that is at least ten times tougher than ABS" (the petroleum-based plastic used in many products from car bumpers to kitchen appliances). Another advantage is that it can put the waste from pulp and paper mills to good use. In this case, scientists are not imitating lignin as much as using their own intelligence to combine lignin's well-designed properties with soft rubber, producing a new material that takes advantage of the plant's built-in molecular wizardry.

Nature-inspired nanotubes. Thinking about how proteins assemble and fold, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory were inspired to copy that "design principle" in the manufacture of nanotubes.

The research is the latest in the effort to build nanostructures that approach the complexity and function of nature's proteins, but are made of durable materials. In this work, the Berkeley Lab scientists studied a polymer that is a member of the peptoid family. Peptoids are rugged synthetic polymers that mimic peptides, which nature uses to form proteins. They can be tuned at the atomic scale to carry out specific functions.
One can't fail to notice that man's best efforts to date fail to "approach the complexity and function of nature's proteins," but they think it's a good start getting just a tube to form. "But building nanostructures is difficult," they say. "And creating a large quantity of nanostructures with the same trait, such as millions of nanotubes with identical diameters, is even more difficult." The simplest bacterium has this solution nailed down pat, from coding to manufacture.

Flagellum bots. Inspired by bacteria that swim with their outboard flagellar motors, scientists have created "soft microrobots whose body shapes can be controlled by structured light, and which self-propel by means of travelling-wave body deformations similar to those exhibited by swimming protozoa," Nature says. Such remote-controlled "microswimmers" could revolutionize medicine by unclogging arteries, fixing immotile sperm, or delivering drugs on demand to specific locations in the body. Microbes, of course, already meet all the design requirements for a microswimmer:

Designing a robust microscopic robotic swimmer that can navigate complex environments and perform useful functions is a key component of the quest. To operate autonomously or on demand, a microswimmer should be able to harvest energy, propel itself through fluid towards its target and respond to external signals. Energy is needed both to overcome the friction of the fluid and to maintain motion for a long time -- up to an hour for some biomedical applications.
One team publishing in Nature Materials has succeeded in designing biomimetic "soft microbots" that can swim, driven by structured light. It's not as fast as a paramecium, but it's a start at the JV track team. Nature compares a paramecium's speed with the dolphins we saw in Living Waters swimming in massive pods:

Nature has mastered highly effective means of micrometre-scale propulsion, exemplified by the rotation of helical bacterial flagella, and the wavy beating of the cilia (tiny hair-like structures) that cover Paramecium. This metachronal wave -- the sequential movement of thousands of cilia -- enables paramecia to swim at astounding speeds, up to ten body lengths per second. (For comparison, a dolphin barely makes two to three body lengths per second when in a hurry.)
Another paper in Nature Communications discusses the subject of microswimmers. First sentence: "Interactions of microswimmers with their fluid environment are exceptionally complex." Bacteria manage the complexities with ease using their flagella. "This mechanism does not require any active sensing in contrast with fish rheotaxis," the paper says, speaking probably of salmon fighting their way upstream against the current.

Human epigenetics. This last example is so striking, and so foreboding, as to raise serious questions about the future of biology and of the human race. Scientists at MIT are boasting about a new programming language they invented to program DNA. MIT biological engineers have created "a programming language that allows them to rapidly design complex, DNA-encoded circuits that give new functions to living cells."

Using this language, anyone can write a program for the function they want, such as detecting and responding to certain environmental conditions. They can then generate a DNA sequence that will achieve it.
"It is literally a programming language for bacteria," says Christopher Voigt, an MIT professor of biological engineering. "You use a text-based language, just like you're programming a computer. Then you take that text and you compile it and it turns it into a DNA sequence that you put into the cell, and the circuit runs inside the cell."

They plan to make the design interface available on the Web. Anyone will be able to create genetic programs -- no experience needed.

"You could be completely naive as to how any of it works. That's what's really different about this," Voigt says. "You could be a student in high school and go onto the Web-based server and type out the program you want, and it spits back the DNA sequence."
On the one hand, this accentuates the case for intelligent design, because it shows that the existing circuits in life represent programs coded for function on a hierarchical scale. On the other hand, can this kind of technology be trusted in the hands of morally challenged humans? What would this technology mean for bioterrorists and rogue nations seeking to employ biological warfare? Could a high school student release a dangerous microbe by mistake?


For now, we'll defer such discussions to ethicists and theologians. One thing all these examples show, however, is that the imitation of nature depends on design thinking. Think about that.

On Darwinism and the deprivileging of human life.

New Poll Reveals Evolution's Corrosive Impact on Beliefs about Human Uniqueness:

Evolution News & Views 


From the earliest days of civilization, humans have considered themselves exceptional among living creatures. But a new survey by Discovery Institute of more than 3,400 American adults indicates that the theory of evolution is beginning to erode that belief in humanity's unique status and dignityAccording to the survey, 43 percent of Americans now agree that "Evolution shows that no living thing is more important than any other," and 45 percent of Americans believe that "Evolution shows that human beings are not fundamentally different from other animals."

The highest levels of support for the idea that evolution shows that humans aren't fundamentally different from other animals are found among self-identified atheists (69 percent), agnostics (60 percent), and 18 to 29 year-olds (51 percent).

The theory of evolution is also reshaping how people think about morality. A majority of Americans (55 percent) now contend that "Evolution shows that moral beliefs evolve over time based on their survival value in various times and places."

"Since the rise of Darwin's theory, leading scientists and other thinkers have insisted that human beings are just another animal, and that morality evolves based on survival of the fittest," says historian Richard Weikart, author of the new book The Death of Humanity: And the Case for Life (Regnery).

What this new survey shows is just how pervasive these ideas have become in our culture. Many people no doubt continue to believe that humans are unique, but most do not think that evolution supports that position. Many critics of my earlier scholarship will be disconcerted to see this data, which powerfully supports my arguments about the way that Darwinism devalues human life, a key point I explain further in my new book.

Weikart is a professor of history at California State University, Stanislaus, and a Senior Fellow with Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture.

The data for this survey was collected from March 17-20, 2016, using SurveyMonkey Audience, a nationally representative panel of more than 6 million people recruited from the 30+ million people who take SurveyMonkey surveys each month.

The SurveyMonkey platform has been used for public opinion surveys by NBC News, the Los Angeles Times, and other media organizations. Survey respondents were randomly sampled from members of SurveyMonkey Audience in the United States who are 18 or older, and the survey included 3,427 completed responses.
The poll report is available as a free download here.

Saturday 9 April 2016

Darwinism as lottery

More on Randomness in Natural Selection and Evolution

A common objection to neo-Darwinian evolution highlights the fact that the theory is based to a large extent on chance events, or chance in general. For decades now there has been an extraordinary volume of grim polemics against that objection. I wrote about this here last week in the context of a dispute between Richard Dawkins and Stephen Meyer. To my earlier comments, I would add the following.
Huxley stated in 1962, p. 44:
The frequent assertion that biological evolution is based on chance is entirely untrue. "Chance" events furnish its raw material but the process itself is directional, self-steering, but automatically steering itself in a definite direction. This is because...natural selection is not a random but an "ordering" mechanism.
Ridley 1985, p. 124, concurred:
How can I hope to succeed with three authors (Denton, Hayward, and Pitman) who, like the Victorian astronomer Sir John Herschel, think that evolution by natural selection is the "law of higgledy-piggledy" -- a "random search mechanism" (Denton), of "pure chance" (Hayward and Pitman)?
And up to the present, authors including Lorenzen, Mayr, Krauss (2016), and Dawkins (2016) have made similar statements (see here for Stephen Meyer's response to Dawkins).
Now, let's assume for a moment that the frequent assertion that biological evolution is based on chance is itself "entirely untrue." Assume instead that the process is, in fact, "directional" and "self-steering," truly an ordering mechanism.
In that case, what is the biological basis for the "survival of the fittest"? The survival is very clearly dependent on the functionality of the anatomical, physiological, genetic (and more) structures, synorganized and cooperating in the organism (including its behavior or conduct), about whose origin we just asked. How did these structures and functions evolve?
A hare runs faster, a lion jumps farther, a zebra senses a carnivore better, an eagle spots prey at a greater distance, a chimp responds more effectively than his or her conspecifics. Why? Because -- according to the neo-Darwinian doctrine -- the chance events of mutation and recombination have equipped them as needed, with all structures originating until then as well as the newly gained improvements. All this occurs in a continuous process of evolution. Thus, chance events determine everything in evolution: form and function of all structures dominating natural selection in the struggle for life and hence the entire phylogeny of plants and animals.
There is, of course, even according to neo-Darwinian theory, no selection without form and function of already existing and subsequently improved structures. Let me emphasize: all must be generated by random micro-mutations with "only slight or even invisible effects on the phenotype."
Hence, natural selection is in itself neither self-steering nor an ordering mechanism, etc. Instead it is the result of structures, features, forms, functions, and capabilities altogether produced by the chance events of accidental mutations alone, including the overproduction of descendants.
It is the habitual method of many supporters of the modern synthesis to disconnect or decouple natural selection from chance events, but this is totally unjustified. For me this disconnection or detachment appears to be part of a wily and widespread propaganda effort, seeking to manipulate public and scientific opinion to make neo-Darwinian evolution more acceptable and digestible. For evolution by an almost infinite series of fortunate strokes of small serendipities seems to be, prima facie, implausible to most thoughtful people.
And yet, consistent with evolution, the entire world of organisms has to be, in fact, traced back to pure chance events and random occurrences. Nobel laureate Jacques Monod seemed to belong to a minority of evolutionists who fully comprehend the consequences of the synthetic or neo-Darwinian theory. He wrote concerning mutations:
We call these events accidental; we say that they are random occurrences. And since they constitute the only possible source of modifications in the genetic text, itself the sole repository of the organism's hereditary structures, it necessarily follows that chance alone is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution: this central concept of modern biology is no longer one among other possible or even conceivable hypotheses. It is today the sole conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with observed and tested fact. [Italics by Monod.]
Yet, Monod's assertions on the origin of the biosphere are essentially all wrong. See here, please, for the facts and inferences in my encyclopedia article about natural selection. For references, see here.

Sunday 3 April 2016

Once saved always saved?:The Watchtower Society's commentary

Does the Bible Teach ‘Once Saved, Always Saved’?

The Bible’s answer

No, it does not teach the doctrine of ‘once saved, always saved.’ A person who has gained salvation by faith in Jesus Christ can lose that faith and the salvation that comes with it. The Bible says that maintaining faith requires great effort, a “hard fight.” (Jude 3, 5) Early Christians who had already accepted Christ were told: “Keep working out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”—Philippians 2:12.

Bible verses that disprove the teaching of ‘once saved, always saved’

The Bible warns against serious sins that will keep a person from entering God’s Kingdom. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11; Galatians 5:19-21) If salvation could not be lost, such warnings would be meaningless. Instead, the Bible shows that someone who has been saved can fall away by returning to a practice of serious sin. For example, Hebrews 10:26 states: “If we practice sin willfully after having received the accurate knowledge of the truth, there is no longer any sacrifice for sins left.”—Hebrews 6:4-6; 2 Peter 2:20-22.
Jesus emphasized the importance of maintaining faith by giving an illustration in which he likened himself to a vine and his followers to branches on that vine. Some of them would at one time demonstrate faith in him by their fruits, or actions, yet would later fail to do so and be “thrown out like a [fruitless] branch,” losing their salvation. (John 15:1-6) The apostle Paul used a similar illustration, saying that Christians who do not maintain their faith “will be lopped off.”—Romans 11:17-22.
Christians are commanded to “keep on the watch.” (Matthew 24:42; 25:13) Those who fall asleep spiritually, whether by practicing “works belonging to darkness” or by not fully performing the works that Jesus commanded, lose their salvation.—Romans 13:11-13; Revelation 3:1-3.
Many scriptures show that those who have been saved must still endure faithfully to the end. (Matthew 24:13; Hebrews 10:36; 12:2, 3; Revelation 2:10) First-century Christians expressed joy when they learned that fellow believers were enduring in their faith. (1 Thessalonians 1:2, 3; 3 John 3, 4) Does it seem reasonable that the Bible would stress faithful endurance if those who did not endure would be saved anyway?

Only when his death was imminent did the apostle Paul feel that his salvation was assured. (2 Timothy 4:6-8) Earlier in his life, he recognized that he could still miss out on salvation if he gave in to fleshly desires. He wrote: “I pummel my body and lead it as a slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself should not become disapproved somehow.”—1 Corinthians 9:27; Philippians 3:12-14.

File under "well said." XXII

He that gives should never remember, he that receives should never forget.
 The Talmud

Saturday 2 April 2016

A clash of titans. XII

Is Roman Catholicism beyond redemption?Pros and Cons.

Another failed Darwinian prediction XV

Complex structures evolved from simpler structures

“To suppose that the eye,” wrote Darwin, “could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.” But Darwin argued that we must not be misled by our intuitions. Given natural selection operating on inheritable variations, some of which are useful, then, if a sequence of numerous small changes from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, and if the eye is somehow useful at each step, then the difficulty is resolved. (Darwin, 143) The key was to identify “a long series of gradations in complexity, each good for its possessor” which could lead to “any conceivable degree of perfection.” (Darwin, 165)

But ever since Darwin the list of complex structures in biology, for which no “series of gradations in complexity” can be found, has continued to grow longer. Both the fossil record and genomic data reveal high complexity in lineages where evolution expected simplicity. As one evolutionist explained:

It is commonly believed that complex organisms arose from simple ones. Yet analyses of genomes and of their transcribed genes in various organisms reveal that, as far as protein-coding genes are concerned, the repertoire of a sea anemone—a rather simple, evolutionarily basal animal—is almost as complex as that of a human. (Technau)

Early complexity is also evident in the cell’s biochemistry. For instance, kinases are a type of enzyme that regulate various cellular functions by transferring a phosphate group to a target molecule. Kinases are widespread across eukaryote species and so they must persist far down the evolutionary tree. And the similarity across species of the kinase functions, and their substrate molecules, means that these kinase substrates must have remained largely unchanged for billions of years. The complex regulatory actions of the kinase enzymes must have been present early in the history of life. (Diks)

This is by no means an isolated example. Histones are a class of eukaryote proteins that help organize and pack DNA and the gene that codes for histone IV is highly conserved across species. So again, the first histone IV must have been very similar to the versions we see today. An example of early complexity in eyes is found in the long-extinct trilobite. It had eyes that were perhaps the most complex ever produced by nature. One expert called them “an all-time feat of function optimization.” (Levi-Setti, 29) Reviewing the fossil and molecular data, one evolutionist explained that there is no sequential appearance of the major animal groups “from simpler to more complex phyla, as would be predicted by the classical evolutionary model.” (Sherman) And as one team of evolutionists concluded, “comparative genomics has confirmed a lesson from paleontology: Evolution does not proceed monotonically from the simpler to the more complex.” (Kurland)

References

Darwin, Charles. 1872. The Origin of Species. 6th ed. London: John Murray.
http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F391&viewtype=text&pageseq=1

Diks, S., K. Parikh, M. van der Sijde, J. Joore, T. Ritsema, et. al. 2007. “Evidence for a minimal eukaryotic phosphoproteome?.” PLoS ONE 2.

Kurland, C., L. Collins, D. Penny. 2006. “Genomics and the irreducible nature of eukaryote cells.” Science 312:1011-1014.

Levi-Setti, Riccardo. 1993. Trilobites. 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Sherman, M. 2007. “Universal genome in the origin of metazoa: Thoughts about evolution.” Cell Cycle 6:1873-1877.
Technau, U. 2008. “Evolutionary biology: Small regulatory RNAs pitch in.” Nature 455:1184-1185.