Creation: The Modern View Stepping Backward II
Gregg & Hallee in Kuwait
A Sunday guest post by my brilliant husband, Gregg.
Every Sunday, my clever husband offers me a “day of rest” by taking over the homemaker duties here. His primary topic, the Biblical Truth of Creation vs. Darwinism, is a subject that has broad reaching scientific, social, and metaphysical implications and is gaining more and more attention in our modern culture. For believers and non-believers alike, the primary purpose is to present scientific, historical, logical, and/or sociological data in an empirical and defensible fashion, as much as possible written in layman’s terms, and in a format suitable for supplementing any homeschool curriculum whether you choose to believe the Biblical account — or secular guesses — about the origins of human life on earth.
Two Approaches to Darwinism
Continuing this unintended series, I was very sincerely looking forward to digging into Information Theory and really getting under the covers of some of the laws, paradigms, and theorems governing Information and Knowledge. But recent events opened my eyes to the fact that a number of my recent detractors are thoroughly ignorant of the actual claims made by modern Darwinists. Much like immature Christians, these spiritually immature Darwinists are ignorant of the core tenets of their secular and materialist religion. Before I can move forward into Information Theory, I felt called to put sufficient factual material into this public forum so that the discussion could rise above the current level of ignorance.
A Multitude of Monolithic Refutations
All things considered, I suppose it would be easier — for my detractors — if I were to passively consent to endlessly repeat myself, isolating my side of the main argument only to very finite details of the Darwinist religion here-and-there, those minuscule items of data with which my opponents have more than a passing familiarity. Then, those tiny little shreds of insignificant points could be held up as straw men amidst the multitude of monolithic refutations I can present, have presented, and will continue to present. Those little nothing straw men could then be ceremonially burned in effigy for the satisfaction of the lemmings, and the spiritually immature Darwinist detractor could then leave the field feeling victorious and even, dare I say, a bit self-righteous.
In spite of how comforting and convenient that would be for my detractors, I am afraid I simply must present a bit more of a challenge. I am going to ask that the Darwinists who visit here each week behave in a little more highly “evolved” and “enlightened” manner. I simply must attempt to confront opponents of a biblical world view with the actual monolithic arguments that refute the grandiose nonsense inherent in Darwinism.
I determined that the easiest way to explain modern Darwinists beliefs for the benefit of my spiritually immature Darwinian detractors was via a two-pronged approach. In last week’s post, I examined the modern Darwinist philosophical beliefs as well as the staunchly defended belief in “micro-evolution” which normal people not afflicted by Darwinism often call “parents having children.” This week, I will cover “Macro-evolution” hopefully in enough detail to satisfy even my most immature detractor.
Next week, I intend to conclude the first part of this series, explaining the Darwinist view from the present working backward, and I intend to work all the way back to the beginning of the universe. After that, I will take a historical view and move forward to the modern day. Hopefully, once I have finished outlining the Darwinian bible, and my Darwinian opponents are all up to speed and have educated themselves about what their literature claims they believe, then I can get back into the Information related material which I, personally, find simply fascinating.
Macro-Evolution! The “Grand Assumption” We Must Accept as FACT!
Famous Icon of Evolution Called the "Walk of Life" is NOT Based on Anything Factual. It Only Exists in the Imagination of Darwinists.
A Darwinists assumes that if we climb his family tree back far enough that somewhere up in his lineage about 50-100,000 years ago you will find a “primitive man,” and about 100,000 years before that some kind of “walking ape,” and several hundred thousand to a few million years before that a full blown ape. This famous “Walk of Life” is an assumption and exists in the imagination of Darwinists — and in middle school and high school textbooks — and doesn’t exist anywhere else. It is not supported by any actual facts, or any operational, observational, or empirical science, but rather is a fictional construct invented solely to support the assumption of the Darwinian Philosophical Bias.
Carrying it back further, Darwinists assumes that a few more million years before that you will find some kind of “mouse-like mammal,” and a few more million years before that some kind of “prehistoric amphibian,” and a few more million years before that some kind of fish, and a few more million years before that some kind of “simple” sea creature, and a few more million years before that some kind of asexually reproducing single celled life form of unknown specificity from which ALL KNOWN LIFE on planet earth “evolved.” It is assumed all live evolved by acts of what is generically and vaguely referred to as “macro-evolution” which term lends a great deal of Scientific Authority and weight to Darwinism as a whole, you see. Because absolutely everything must be seen through the lens of the Philosophical Bias of the Darwinian evolutionary model.
It is important that the tenet “macro-evolution” remain as generic and vague as possible. In this way, in the comforting shade of this giant fuzzy umbrella term, Darwinist do not have to justify the entire religious belief all at once. Instead, they merely have to rationalize a few tiny facets of this incredible assumption as specific objections are raised. Darwinists will often ask skeptics words to the effect, as I have been asked MANY times and repeatedly in the comments of this very blog, “What exactly do you think macro-evolution is? Be as specific and as detailed as possible.” meanwhile, they constantly move the goalpost with respect to exactly what they define macro-evolution to mean.
Logic question. Why should I have to explain what Darwinists believe when I don’t believe it? That isn’t even logical at a fundamental level. Why not explain what you, as a modern Darwinist, believe based on your assumptions and then defend your position with evidence, logic, and facts? Is it that you are unsure of what you are supposed to believe? Or would you rather vacillate in chains over this or that tiny little straw-man, because you know as well as I do that the entire notion is essentially indefensible in terms of operational, observable, and empirical science?
But today, they get your wish. Here is the summary of my understanding of what Darwinists refer to as “macro-evolution.”
The term “macro” evolution first appeared in 1937 with the publication of Genetics and the Origin of Species by Theodosius Dobzhansky who, along with notables such as Ernst Mayr, was one of the architects of what is called the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis which is the type of evolution currently and predominantly preached in textbooks to innocent children. What they seem to leave out is Dobzhansky’s very precise and rather telling definition.
“There is no way toward an understanding of the mechanism of macroevolutionary changes, which require time on a geological scale, other than through a full comprehension of the microevolutionary processes observable within the human lifetime. For this reason we are compelled at the present level of knowledge reluctantly to put a sign of equality between the mechanisms of micro- and macro-evolution, and proceeding on this assumption, to push our investigations as far ahead as this working hypothesis will permit.” Theodosius Dobzhansky, Genetics and the Origin of Species, 1937, (emphasis added)
Understand that this deeply held assumption of “macro-evolution” as fact is staunchly defended even though 1) there is no possible way that the massive amounts of highly specific and enormously complex genetic information needed to make these kinds of enormous and rapid speciation changes can randomly be infused into the genome by way of any reasonable or recognized “evolutionary” engine on time and in the correct order and 2) operational, observable, and empirical science do not now nor have they ever supported the assumption, and 3) there is a complete absence of any kind of transitional forms in the fossil record for ANY species on planet earth, let alone amoeba to man to support the assumption. Darwin himself acknowledged this.
“Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate[1] links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such fine graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory [2 read: assumption].” Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life [1]intermediate: being or occurring at the middle place, stage, or degree or between extremes [2] in this context the word theory is not intended to mean a scientific theory, but rather an assumption made for the sake of argument, in this case an assumption that the fossil record will hopefully be brimming with transitional forms
Darwinists will often argue the fossil record issue citing skeletons of birds and insisting that they are lizards for instance, and sometimes point to micro-evolutionary straw-men such as speciation events to fallaciously address the observable science point, but they never intelligently argue the complexity point, falling back on “randomness” and “chance mutation” as the engine for such structured change.
But table these facts for a moment, please. Turn your logical brain off. Understand that “Macro-evolution” is THE PRIMARY and rather Grand Assumption that is required in order to then accept every other possible form of evolution in the Darwinian evolutionary model. If one can merely accept that “macro-evolution” is a fact – ignoring all of the logic that argues against it, all of the absence of evidence to support it, and all of the evidence that flatly refutes it — and somehow come to the conclusion that “macro-evolution” takes place in our world, then the rest of the Darwinian fairy tale suddenly becomes much more palatable.
Neo-Darwinism, Phyletic Gradualism, Anagenesis: No transitional forms, cannot be confirmed by observational, operational, empirical science
Darwinists believe this primary tenet of their religion, the assumption of “macro-evolution” as fact, based on one of two hypotheses.
Hypothesis number 1
Hypothesis number 1 is called Neo-Darwinism. The term Neo-Darwinism first appeared in 1895 (or 1896, there seems to be some dispute) used by George Romanes who coined the term Neo-Darwinism to refer to the version of evolution advocated by Alfred Russel Wallace and August Friedrich Leopold Weismann. Those gentlemen staunchly refuted the Larmarkism advocated in the first editions of Darwin’s racist book and leaned more strongly toward natural selection as the true evolutionary engine. The bottom line is that Neo-Darwinism emphasizes slow, gradual changes over millions (now billions) of years by means of natural selection.
Neo-Darwinism is the hypothesis firmly embraced by such notables as Richard Dawkins who describes evolution as a long, gradual climb up a very, very long but gentle slope. With typical authoritative sounding aplomb, this is called “Phyletic Gradualism.”
The “Phyletic Gradualism” hypothesis asserts that “macro-evolution” generally occurs uniformly and by the steady and gradual transformation of entire lineages and that is called — now, get this –”Anagenesis.”
In this view, Darwinian evolution is seen as generally smooth and continuous and taking a very, very long periods of time. ”Anagenesis” is basically uniformitarianism taken to the extreme.
Hypothesis number 2
Punctuated Equilibrium, Saltation, Cladogenesis: The complete lack of evidence is the evidence
Hypothesis number 2 is called Punctuated Equilibrium. Punctuated equilibrium is the hypothesis which proposes that species experience very little net [macro-]evolutionary change for most of their “geological history,” remaining in an extended state of little or no net change called (with all due Scientific sounding Authority, mind you) “stasis.” Punctuated equilibrium proposes that “stasis” is broken by rare events of very large net change, characterized by rapid events of branching speciation called — okay, now you have to get this — called “Cladogenesis.”
Stop laughing. They are very serious about this stuff.
Now, “Cladogenesis” is the process by which species very suddenly– and as a result of as yet unknown or unidentified “evolutionary forces” –will split into two distinct species, rather than one species gradually transforming into another over long periods of time.
“Punctuated equilibria is a model for discontinuous tempos of change [in] the process of speciation and the deployment of species in geological time.” Stephen Jay Gould & Niles Eldredge, “Punctuated equilibria: the tempo and mode of evolution reconsidered,” 1977
Dr. Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.
Often, a Darwinist will staunchly defend either one or the other hypothesis, seemingly at random or at will, apparently depending entirely upon which hypothesis looks to be less foolish in the argument at hand. But whichever hypothesis the Darwinist chooses to believe in at the time, it is important to understand that both rely upon obscenely weak assumptions in addition to the Grand Assumption that this type of evolution can even ever occur in the first place.
Getting back to definitions, let me define the word duplicitous. In the last 20 years or so, modern-day Darwinists suddenly started to define “macro-evolution” to include “speciation” but Dobzhansky specified that “macro-evolution” encompassed the assumed unobservable evolutionary Phyletic changes, and he and all of the other architects of the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis had already observed speciation taking place at the time of that writing. But despite that, just in the last quarter century or so, duplicitous Darwinists decided to move the goalpost and make the big fuzzy umbrella definition of “macro-evolution” significantly larger so that it now encompasses elements of “micro-evolution.”
Dogs have a common ancestor ... a dog
Obviously, speciation occurs. Dogs turn into dogs. Lizards turn into lizards. Birds turn into birds. Equally obvious is that believers in the Biblical account of Creation have always, since the beginning, recognized and affirmed the processes Darwinists traditionally refer to as “micro-evolution” which normal people not afflicted with Darwinism more often call “parents having children,” which processes include natural selection and speciation because these are observable phenomenon. As it happens, this is described in Genesis and encompass the concept of a “created kind” which generally is observable at the Family level.
There was even an abortive effort by Darwinists in the late 1990′s to stop using the terms macro and micro in describing evolution. The claim, at the time, was that the terms were “invented” by “those expletive expletive Creationists” and not a term that had been used to form the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis, never terms that were discussed in the modern classroom. This effort died out, in large part I think because of better channels of communicating factual information.
Again, it goes without saying that Darwinists borrow Dobzhansky’s “Grand Assumption” in defending “macro-evolution” but I’ll be more specific. Neo-Darwinism assumes that there is time, even in the net billions of years Darwinists believe in, to “evolve” every living thing by means of, pardon me I have to say it, “Anagenesis!” The fact is there isn’t enough time even given every possible mathematical concession, to form even a single protein, much less a single entire living organism.
Three-D Proteins
Scientific fact time. First, an amino acid is a highly specific and very complex molecule that can be composed of combinations of Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Sulfur. There are more than a hundred amino acids that are known to naturally occur. Only “L” for laevorotatory or left-handed amino acids make up life on planet earth. In human beings, only 22 L amino acids are used in various metabolic functions including construction of proteins. Only 8 of those are deemed “essential” to life, because we cannot manufacture those 8 and must obtain them via nutrition.
So, half of the possible amino acids, the right handed or “D” for dextrorotatory amino acids are useless to life on earth and in many cases are actually toxic to life. Many other L amino acids outside of the 22 needed to live are also toxic to life, for example the formaldehyde and tars produced by the Urey Miller experiment. One second after death, all amino acids in our body begin to return to a racemic mixture, meaning half D and half L, which racemic mixture is likewise not consistent with life.
Second, proteins are highly specific and very complex chains composed of many hundreds and sometimes thousands of VERY specific amino acids in a VERY specific order with a HIGH DEGREE of complexity in that arrangment. Because a protein is actually a 3 dimensional object that must “fit” together with other proteins absolutely precisely, this highly complex specificity is vital and 100% unforgiving 100% of the time. Thus, any single mistake in the very long sequence of amino acids, one transcription error in the code, results in a completely useless protein.
Now, with that understanding, the smallest known theoretical cell is hypothetically made up of 239 proteins. However, the simplest known non-theoretical self-reproducing organism we actually know of is the H39 strain of PPLO (mycoplasma) containing 625 proteins — a whopping 504% more proteins than the theoretical cell — with an average of 400 amino acids in very specific sequences in each and every protein. The H39 is a tiny thing even in terms of microscopic life. The tiniest, in fact. The average single celled organism has well over 900 proteins and some have well over 2000.
Let’s stick to theoretical cell. At least 124 different very specific types of proteins are needed for this theoretical cell to hypothetically become a living thing. Any single mistake in any single sequence in any single protein results in a non-living mass of organic material, not in a living organism.
Math is Fun!
Okay — so now that you know all about aminos, proteins, and single celled life forms, here are my points.
The fact is that the probability of the natural occurrence of the smallest possible theoretical life form by means of Darwinian evolution is only 1 chance in 10119,879. That is, one chance out of the number 10 followed by 119,879 zeros.
The years required for the smallest theoretical life form to have evolved would be 10119,841 years — or 10119,831 times the Darwinist assumed 4.2 billion year age of planet earth.
The probability of the smallest theoretical cell — of only a mere 239 proteins evolving without the needed 124 different types of proteins it needs in order to “evolve” this “helpless group of non-living molecules” in less than 500 billion years, not the assumed mere 14.5 billion year old age of the entire universe, is only 1 chance in 10119,701.
In summary, it is beyond ridiculous to assert that there has been enough time for “macro-evolution” to have taken place even to form one living cell, much less every species, on this or any other planet in the entire universe.
Fictional Creatures of Neo-Darwinism
Further, Neo-Darwinism assumes that there is some perfectly reasonable but as yet unknown or unidentified explanation for the complete absence of ANY evidence for this hypothesis in the fossil record. We find tons of lizards changing into — you guessed it — lizards. We never find lizards changing into birds. The mythical transitional forms between lizard and bird only ever exist in well conceived works of art, the imaginations of Darwinists, middle school and high school textbooks, and absolutely never in the fossil record.
Further still, Neo-Darwinism cannot account for the fact that fossils that are found and allegedly dated at millions of years old still somehow have high amounts of Carbon 14 in them when the truth is that after a scant 57,300 years (or 10 half-lives), there would be hardly any left. Why is there C-14 in diamonds? A recently discovered T-Rex femur even still had soft tissue inside. Yet it is supposed to be 65 million years old!? That is some really tough soft tissue!
How accepted is Neo-Darwinism among secular scientists? In a paper predicting the emergence of a new general theory of evolution, one based on the “macromutational” speculations of the Berkeley geneticist Richard Goldschmidt, Stephen J. Gould admitted that neo-Darwinism is “effectively dead.” His hope was that the new theory could fix the time problem and introduce a rescuing device for the other problems like the complete lack of fossil evidence.
Historical Note: When the new theory did not arrive as anticipated, Gould faced the untenable alternatives of either sticking with Dobzhansky, Mayr et. al.’s version of neo-Darwiniam Synthesis, or conceding that biologists still cannot point to a reasonable naturalistic mechanism of any kind which could possibly produce specific biological order and complexity that would account for “macro-evolution.” Gould beat a hasty retreat back to classical Darwinism, thus avoiding giving further aid or comfort to the enemies of Methodological Naturalism and the secular world view.
Regardless, the notions of Neo-Darwinism and “Anagenesis” are touted loud and stridently even today because of a philosophical bias that has nothing to do with empirical science, scientific facts, any kind of scientific observation, or a clear understanding of probabilities and simple math.
Punctuated Equilibrium, the second hypothesis, assumes that some as yet unknown or unidentified “evolutionary force” (which sounds an awful lot like “magic” to me) can lead to, excuse me but I simply must, can lead to “Cladogenesis!” This notion states that, basically, a lizard can “evolve” into an avian, such as a finch, in the space of a scant 50 to 70 thousand years and leave absolutely no trace of having done so in the fossil record. This entire hypothesis was formed and relies upon a void, a negative, an unprovable notion that has never been and can never be observed in operational or empirical science.
So, the irony is that a complete absence of evidence in the fossil record is actually supposed to be the evidence for this hypothesis. Isn’t that convenient?
Q: “Is this hypothesis really true?”
A: “Well of course it is. Look at the complete absence of evidence! Any fool can’t see a shred of proof! How can you question the complete lack of anything suggesting it has ever been observed!?!?”
Dr. Richard Dawkins, Ph. D. -- Evangelical Atheist
Detractors include, surprisingly, Richard Dawkins who said that punctuated equilibrium has been “oversold by some journalists”, and contends that the theory “does not deserve a particularly large measure of publicity. It is a minor gloss [an] interesting but minor wrinkle on the surface of neo-Darwinian theory.”
In the case of Punctuated Equilibrium, Gould and Niles obviously rely upon Dobzhansky’s “Grand Assumption.” Gould then creates a magical “sudden and rapid” and of course “evolutionary” change from a lizard to a bird, and throws in the escape mechanism of “saltations” in the fossil record to account for the absence of any true transitional forms.
Now, on this point of transitional forms, I must simply accuse my detractors of either gross and/or willful ignorance. While arbitrarily arguing that I would refuse to acknowledge a transitional form no matter what due to my Christian beliefs, often my detractors simply ignore the fact that believers in the Biblical account of Creation affirm observable speciation, but also take note that the plasticity of any kind of plant or animal has observable limits.
Punctuated Equilibrium Relies Upon Massive Voids
These very real genetic limits within plant and animal kinds are verifiable via observable, operational, and empirical science. They were first hypothesized by Joseph Kölreuter, then by Carl Freidrich von Gärtner, and finally documented by the father of modern genetics, Gregor “Johann” Mendel.
Mendel documented these observable limits in the form of what he noted as “constants.” In his short treatise, Experiments in Plant Hybridization, Mendel describes “constant” characters, “constant” offspring, “constant” combinations, “constant” forms … in total applying the adjective “constant” nearly seventy times in his original paper. Mendel concluded that the laws of heredity he discovered strongly corroborated Carl Freidrich von Gärtner’s conclusion
“Gärtner, by the results of these transformation experiments, was led to oppose the opinion of those naturalists who dispute the stability of plant species and believe in a continuous evolution of vegetation. He perceives in the complete transformation of one species into another an indubitable proof that species are fixed with limits beyond which they cannot change.” Gregor Mendel, 1865
In other words, a dog is still a dog, and always recognizably so, whether it is a Wolf, a Dingo, an English Bulldog, a Great Dane, or a Dachtsund. A lizard is always a lizard, a bird is always a bird, a tulip is a tulip, and a pea is a pea.
Biblical Account of Created Kinds: No inconsistencies. Verifiable by observable, operational, empirical science
Not surprisingly, I am not a believer in either one of these “macro-evolution” hypotheses because I do not believe the grand assumption upon which all macro-evolution is based to be a fact. It has never been shown to be factual. I believe that all living things had original ancestors that were very similar in their genetic make-up to the living species we find on earth today. For example, I believe all dogs came from some kind of original dog pair.
Furthermore, I believe that Adam and Eve had lots of children and that among their descendants were guys named Noah, Ham, Jepeth, and Shem and their wives, and all of them went on a long boat ride. Those guys can be found in my family tree a scant few thousand years ago. I don’t believe there are any “primitive” men or apes in my bloodline anywhere at all. And I don’t think a complete lack of evidence can prove or disprove anything other than that there exists no evidence for either hypothesis.
The Truth
Darwinists might sneer while worshipping their hypothetical ylem and say, “Oh, yeah? Well, who made your god [sic], then? Who gave him [sic] instructions on how to make the universe?”
And the answer is, okay, an even more mighty God — a “goddier God” if you will — created that Creator of the universe.
So, the ping-pong argument would continue, who made that “goddier God” then and who told him how to make the creator?
And the answer is, an even more “goddier God” with even more godlike power made that one. And you know what we can do? We can chase that logical rabbit all the way down into the hole, and we can keep inventing more and more powerful beings to create the beings who you don’t see as all powerful and all mighty, and we can follow that chain of causality all the way back. Because an infinite regress of causality is impossible, we can follow it to its conclusion, to what Saint Thomas Aquinas called a “first cause,” what Aristotle referred to as a “prime mover,” and to what must be universally recognized as a Being of absolutely infinite knowledge and absolutely infinite power; a Being who knows absolutely the entire future and the entire past and every grain of sand and every atom in every star, and who exists eternally in eternity — and that Holy, Holy, Holy Being, in answer to the original question, is that whom we can absolutely call God.
And that Creator is the one who created everything by the power of His will. And that Designer is the one who killed me and resurrected me without any of the sins of my past, an absolutely new creation. And that almighty God, by the power of His word, took on human form and became a living sacrifice in atonement for my once very wicked ways. And that amazing Healer rose from the grave and sent a helper to live in the temple of my body. And that Redeemer can do the very same thing for you if you don’t know Him. He can do it RIGHT NOW because absolutely NOTHING is beyond His power.
I commit to you that I will publish every single comment that meets this blog’s commenting criteria. You may want to review that criteria before adding your opinion here.
God Bless you and yours.
Gregg
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I really do not have time to read your very long, very scattered post. I can skim it and i have one very broad question.
It seems that your whole argument against Evolution is that current understanding of science cannot fully explain it or recreate it, so it must not be true. And thus, God must have magically created it all without any structure, completely ignoring scientific laws that govern our known universe.
Why the leap from science to magic? obviously you recognize value in science, evidenced by all your gathered knowledge.
You said, “I really do not have time to read your… post.”
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Yet you had time to leave a comment, I see.
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No, that is not my argument.
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My argument, in short, is that there is a great deal of evidence that refutes the Darwinist models, yet they persist as a paradigm in spite of these known contradictions.
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Also, your remark is logically arbitrary. I could be just as easily equally arbitrary and note that a great deal of the Darwinist models are merely very authoritative sounding arguments from ignorance. As in, “There isn’t any way this could be the result of special creation by a supernatural God, therefore it must have been magically created as an act of nature though this completely ignores all known scientific laws that govern the universe.”
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Your observation is only less logically sound when one considers that God created all of nature, including all known laws that govern our universe, and therefore is not Himself bound by His creation any more than you are bound to behave only in an identical manner to anything you create. If you bake a cake, you are not bound to behave henceforth only as a cake, are you?
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A large number of the Darwinist apologetic depends upon an assumption of of a supernatural event taking place as a result of a natural act. I call that magic.
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Thanks for taking the time to comment.
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God Bless,
Gregg
i have had this type of conversation with you before. i find your posts to be too long and too broad. I would love to focus on one issue and talk about that. we could just start with your hypothesis that everyone believes in Darwinian Evolution. From anything i have read that is no longer the primary focus in the scientific community. They fully admit that there are flaws in it. The vague theory of evolution is still possible.
For the record, i do believe in God as the creator. I just don’t believe in his creation by magically “poof” = things exist.
…”Because a protein is actually a 3 dimensional object that must “fit” together with other proteins absolutely precisely, this highly complex specificity is vital and 100% unforgiving 100% of the time. Thus, any single mistake in the very long sequence of amino acids, one transcription error in the code, results in a completely useless protein.”
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Well, thats false.
Is it? I don’t think so. It either creates a protein with a different surface area or a useless protein, either of which cannot be used in the way that the original protein was intended. I realize that I wasn’t very specific, but the post isn’t really about protein synthesis.
Many proteins have different parts to their structure. Some of those parts can require a precise sequence of amino acids to function correctly. But other areas can be more accepting of variation. A change in amino acids in those regions could have no effect on the function. Or it might have an effect that would still allow the protein to function but with some change so that it might work better or worse in different conditions. In some regions you could add on amino acids or remove them without preventing the protein from functioning.
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(e.g. different isoforms in fetus, adult, different tissues. Splice variants. Polymorphisms. Proteins in different species which have the same function and very similar but not identical sequence of amino acids. Genetic engineering.)
You said, “Some of those parts can require a precise sequence of amino acids to function correctly. ”
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Yes, I know. And if they are not arranged in the exact highly specific order, they are 100% useless.
You said this:
“Any single mistake in any single sequence in any single protein results in a non-living mass of organic material, not in a living organism.”
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That is NOT the same thing as saying that some subsection of a protein cannot have a single mistake but that other sections of that same protein can vary without a loss of function.
I think it’s an important distinction.
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(and if the organism has two chromosomes, it might not matter if there’s an error in an allele of a gene on one chromosome, depending on the gene and the error)
Once again — the post isn’t about protein synthesis. And while I appreciate your specificity, the fact remains that an error in transcription in large key parts of the protein results in a useless protein. This is 100% factual. Like you said, parts of protein chains “… require a precise sequence of amino acids to function correctly.” That is all I am saying. If you feel I was intentionally trying to mislead, then make your case. If you feel I was completely lying, as your first statement, “Well, that’s false” kind of indicates, then make your case.
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I understand the distinction. I believe my remarks are accurate in context, and I adjourn from further defense of my remarks.
When I read the statements in your post – using words like 100% – I did not think you were lying; I thought you were uninformed. And when you said in response to my comment a protein could not serve the same function if there were a change, I thought you were still misinformed.
But now I get the idea that you were not misinformed but rather that you were simplifying. And maybe you think I’m quibbling over a detail.
But to me it is an important point. If no amino acid in a protein can ever change without death to the animal (or a completely useless protein), then mutation could not be a source of evolution. Howvere if mutations in some parts of a protein can change its function without making it useless, then mutation CAN be a source of evolution. So to me the distinction is worth pointing out.
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Most mutations are nuetral or lethal. Very, very rarely are mutations “beneficial.” Mutation isn’t a source of so called macro-evolution.
Keep up the good work Gregg. Thanks for your post.
My pleasure.
Gregg,
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I also don’t have time to read the whole thing at the moment, but I will get into it in more detail later. Regarding an early portion of your post, though, you claim that there is no evidence for different forms of life (e.g. man, ape-like ancestor of man, “mouse-like animal”) being found further back in time.
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The evidence that modern science claims here would first and foremost be the sequential nature of the fossil record. For example, we’ll never find human fossils in strata past a certain age, and we’ll never find dinosaurs in strata younger than approx. 65 mya. Do I take it that the reason you’re dismissing this because you don’t accept dating methods? Or do you have some other reasoning behind this dismissal?
You said, “…you claim that there is no evidence for different forms of life (e.g. man, ape-like ancestor of man, “mouse-like animal”) being found further back in time.”
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I make no such claim. Obviously, fossils exist in the present.
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I make the rather sound claim that there is no evidence that human beings came from those animals — or any other animals for that matter — that they are not part of our lineage.
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Thanks for your comment,
Gregg
So in general you agree that different kinds of organisms exists in different rock layers of different ages, you’re just saying there is no ancestral connection between them. Remains of modern homo sapiens can be found in the most recent layers, something between man and an ape-like ancestor in the somewhat older layers, something further removed from man and closer to an ape-like ancestor yet further back, and so on. So you’re on board with these different forms having lived at different times. Did I understand that right?
No.
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There are NO intermediate forms between man and ape or between lizard and bird or between amphibian and reptile or between fish and mammals.
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No, I do not agree. Where are you reading that?
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I do agree that there are fossils of all kinds of dead things, many varieties of living things, that exist in the present geological layers. I utterly disagree that thousands of unfounded assumptions can be made by unearthing them. Finding a dead thing can give you one assumption that is sound — it died. Other than that, one cannot assume that a dead thing ever successfully reproduced in its lifetime, what its parents looked like, etc. To assume that a monkey turned into a man “just add time” is not an assumption I ever agree with.
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Thanks for your comment,
Gregg
Ah, I thought you were just disputing the connection between different remains, not the existence of the remains themselves. So would you claim that, for example, no fossil remains of Australopithecus have ever been found? Or homo ergaster?
May I ask precisely what I wrote that brought you to that conclusion?
If you’ll notice, it wasn’t a conclusion, but a question.
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You said there were categorically no intermediate forms between man and ape. While that in itself is true, since man did not descend from apes, but instead both man and ape share a common (ape-like) ancestor, what I gather you meant to say is that man did not descend from ape-like ancestors.
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Since there is evidence that indicates that man did descend from ape-like ancestors, I’m trying to figure out on what basis you dismiss this evidence. Is it that you agree that the fossils exist and that the dating methods don’t work, or that the fossils don’t exist, or that the fossils do exist but no ancestral relationship between them has ever been proven?
Actually, I just noticed you seem to have misread my previous comment, for example this bit: “in general you agree that different kinds of organisms exists in different rock layers of different ages”. I did not say that you agreed there were intermediate forms.
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A certain progression can be discerned, however, from for example Australopithecus, some of the early homos to our current homo sapiens. Seeing as these were found in layers of different, successive ages, I was wondering on what basis you do not see a progression here.
My basis for believing that human beings did not evolve from so called “lower life forms” is that there is no proof that human beings evolved from lower life forms.
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It is almost universally recognized that Austrolopithecus is not related to human beings in any way.
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http://www.halleethehomemaker.com/2010/12/creation-darwinian-evolutionary-frauds-pt-xiv/
Hm, that’s the second time in succession that you responded with a non sequitur.
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It seems to me that your claim “It is almost universally recognized that Austrolopithecus is not related to human beings in any way” is not supported by facts, as just about any source you can read on this sees Australopithecus as being related in a very specific way, namely that it is an ancestor of homo sapiens”.
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The article you link to doesn’t back up your claim either. There are two general claims:
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1. Lucy is ape-like rather than human-like. Given that she’s not meant to be human, but an ape-like human ancestor, this is hardly a problem or even surprising.
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2. The skeleton is said to consist of parts from two different skeletons. This appears to be false. The 40% of Lucy that were found are all said to stem from the same skeleton. There is an unsubstantiated rumor that the knee came from 3 km away (and from different strata), but that was a reference to a different find that was never claimed to be part of Lucy. Johnson’s own writings clarify this.
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Be that as it may, I don’t see how this backs up your claim that “It is almost universally recognized that Austrolopithecus is not related to human beings in any way”. But perhaps you didn’t mean for this article to confirm that.
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To get back to the question, do you agree in general that different kinds of organisms exists in different rock layers of different ages?
“To get back to the question, do you agree in general that different kinds of organisms exists in different rock layers of different ages?”
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No.
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I agree that there are fossils but they do not exist in different ages. They exist in the present.
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I agree that fossils are found at different levels in sediment.
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I try not to make unfounded assumptions based on those facts.
Since we’ve apparently reached the maximum depth of comments, this is in response to Gregg’s comment that may appear below this one.
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“I agree that there are fossils but they do not exist in different ages. They exist in the present.”
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Yes, they exist in the present. I did not say that they “existed in different ages”, though that is certainly a reasonable conclusion to draw, based on the evidence. What I did say was that they “existed in different rock layers of different ages”.
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As I suspected (and indicated in previous comments), I suspect that your issue is with the validity of dating methods themselves. You “agree that fossils are found at different levels in sediment”. Your explanation for not accepting that these layers represent different ages is that you “try not to make unfounded assumptions based on those facts”.
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Do I have this right so far?
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Now, is it possible to draw conclusions based on facts, for example, the relative layering of different types of rocks and fossils, accompanied by, say, radiometric dating methods?
It is also possible to conclude that the layers were laid down rapidly as a result of hydro-logic sorting which would account for fossilized objects that span several hundred or thousand layers.
“When the secular argument is that God had to be “created” or “taught” how to do the things He does (like create the universe), then the argument simply chases that back logically to conclude in an all knowing and all mighty being we call God.”
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I think you have this argument precisely backwards. The argument that the universe must have been created, therefore God must have created it (as a first cause), an easy response is that something in turn must have created God. Does this lead to the conclusion that it really must be God, or does it lead to the conclusion that there is something fishy with the argument to begin with?
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Without any prejudice to whether God exists or not, I submit that the argument itself is faulty, and that there is no physical nor philosophical basis on which it can be claimed that there must have been a first cause.
“It is also possible to conclude that the layers were laid down rapidly as a result of hydro-logic sorting which would account for fossilized objects that span several hundred or thousand layers.”
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1. Such a conclusion would mean first of all a denial of abundant evidence to the contrary from dating methods. Is there an alternate explanation for the results obtained using radiometric dating that does not indicate an old Earth?
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2. Such a conclusion does not take into account the peculiar and highly consistent sorting of fossils in the respective strata. You mention “hydro-logic sorting”, but does this provide any verifiable explanation that accounts for the positioning of the fossils?
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Barring these, it doesn’t seem like a very sound conclusion to me.
….”There are NO intermediate forms between man and ape or between lizard and bird or between amphibian and reptile or between fish and mammals.”
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okay, again I mention Tiktaalik… what is your definition of intermediate form that excludes Tiktaalik as an intermediate between fish and tetrapods?
Tiktaalik is a fish. You can HOPE and have FAITH that it isn’t but it is a fish.
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Fish experts, and avid Darwinists Ahlberg and Clack concede that “in some respects Tiktaalik and Panderichthys are straightforward fishes: they have small pelvic fins, retain fin rays in their paired appendages and have well-developed gill arches, suggesting that both animals remained mostly aquatic.” Ahlberg, P.E. and Clack, J.A., News and Views, Nature 440(7085): 747–749), 6 April 2006.
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Furthermore, if Tiktaalik is supposed to be the evidence for the transition from a swimming fish to a fish that walked around on two fins, then four-footed walking animals predated it by several hundred thousand years according to other Darwinists. Quote, “…the Polish tracks suggest that elpistostegids were an evolutionary dead-end.”
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http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/01/06-02.html
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You can say that if I don’t accept this fish as a transitional form, then I will never accept anything as a transitional form, but that is an arbitrary accusation. I could as easily be arbitrary and state that you see transitional forms in every fish that looks like it might be able to walk around on its fins.
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Gill structures and lungs are radically different. How do you explain Tiktaalik being able to respire both air and water if that is the hypothesis?
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Gregg
The fish quote is not relevant IMO – having a combination of characteristics is exactly what you would need to see some transitional feature.
The tracks info is interesting. I didn’t read it or forgot the details. It does imply that Tiktaalik was either not in the direct line or else the line to tetrapods branched off of it (or its cousins) a long time before the date of the Tiktaalik fossils. So Tiktaalik might have been a offshoot of the ancestor rather than an ancestor (which was always an accepted possibility).
The timing doesn’t change the fact that the Tiktaalik fossil shows the tetrapod forelimb bone structure and neck structure within a fish body. This shows the transition. Other fish could perhaps drag themselves along by their fins, but the important thing about Tiktaalik is the bone structure. Whether the original change in bone structure happened at an earlier time than the Tiktaalik fossils does not change that. This is a fish fossil with a tetrapod forelimb bone structure instead a fin bone structure, which makes it an example of an intermediate form between fish and tetrapods.
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I forget the details of gill and lung but they can both occur at the same time. Lungs did not evolve from gills but from the swim bladder IIRC. There are examples of this in lungfishes and also some amphibians e.g. tadpoles and axolotls. Being able to get oxygen from the air is an advantage to fish living in murky water near the surface and some fish without lungs get oxygen from the air by taking it into their mouths and/or swim bladder or gut ( I forget details) where some oxygen is absorbed across the moist surface of those tissues.
Of course the fish quote is relevant.
Maybe relevant wasn’t the right word.
If you’re using that quote to say that Tiktaalik doesn’t count as a fish-tetrapod intermedate because it is a fish, again, I would ask how you would recognize an intermediate form as intermediate if it didn’t have some features of each? If it had no fish-like qualities, wouldn’t you reject it as an intermediate?
Your quote says that IN SOME RESPECTS Tiktaalik and Panderichthys are straightforward fish. A few sentences in 6the article after that quote is this line: “Tiktaalik is clearly a transitional form, more tetrapod-like than Panderichthys in its breathing and feeding apparatus, but with similar locomotory adaptations.”
If you meant to imply that these “fish experts” were rejecting Tiktaalik as a transitioonal form in that quote when they said the two species were IN SOME RESPECTS straightforward fish, you would be incorrect.
You put in a quote by Dohzhanzky from his book in 1937. Referring to the second sentence in that quote, which I include below, you said this:
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….” What they seem to leave out is Dobzhansky’s very precise and rather telling definition.”
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And you put an emphasis on the word “assumption in that sentence:
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….”For this reason we are compelled at the present level of knowledge reluctantly to put a sign of equality between the mechanisms of micro- and macro-evolution, and proceeding on this assumption, to push our investigations as far ahead as this working hypothesis will permit.” (Dobzhansky, 1937.)
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I bought a copy of this book from Amazon used, and without realizing it I ordered the 3rd edition, published in 1951, rather than the 1937 edition that you had used. The first sentence you quoted from Dobzhansky appears essentially unchanged But in the 1951 edition, Dobzhansky has removed the sentence that you quoted above from that paragraph (the one containing the word “assumption”). He added some more paragraphs after it which include this section:
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“A geneticist can approach macroevolutionary phenomena only by inference from known microevolutionary ones. It is obviously impossible to reproduce in the laboratory the evolution of, for example, the horse tribe, or for that matter the genus Drosophila. All that is possible is to examine the evidence bearing on macroevolution which has been accumulated by paleontologists and morphologists, and to attempt to decide whether it agrees with the hypothesis that all evolutionary changes are compounded of microevolutionary ones. This difficult but important task has been brilliantly accomplished in recent years by Simpson (1949) for paleontological and by Schmalhausen (1949) and Rensch (1947) for comparative anatomical and embryological evidence. The three authors find nothing in the known macroevolutionary phenomena that would require other than the known genetic principles for causal explanation. The words “microevolution” and “macroevolution” are relative terms, and have only descriptive meaning; they imply no difference in the underlying causal agencies.”
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(and I should have added that 1951 was before Watson and Crick figured out the DNA molecule. It was many years before our current ability to sequence whole genomes and to compare their sequences, as well as the ability to investigate genes and gene expression in embryos. These add new dimensions to our ability to investigate the relationship between species at different taxonomic levels. Comparing sequences gives us a window into the past which we didn’t have before.)
Good point. Crick has some interesting quotes, too.
So, your assumption is that evolution is true, therefore commonalities in the gene code point to a common ancestor.
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My assumption is that commonalities in the gene code point to a common DESIGNER.
I’ve been wanting to respond to this point about a common designer. I think the evidence doesn’t actually point that way. It depends a bit on what kind of designing process you would envision. I haven’t put together a good reponse yet.
Suppose you are right and that all ‘kinds’ were created separately in a couple of days. What we see in the genomes fits with the idea of evolution. So the rats and mice look very similar in their sequences. The primates – humans, apes, monekys – look similar. Carnivores look more similar to each other than the other lines. If a designer planned all this, it was planned in a way that fits closely with the idea of evolution. But maybe you would say that the designer used some kind of carnivore design plan to make the carnivores and some kind of primate design plan to make the primates, even though each primate kind was actually created separately.
But it isn’t as simple as that. The similarities are not just in the functional genes but in the nonfunctional introns where mutations can accumulate over time. And the patterns of change in synonymous sequences for amino acids within the genes fit the idea of evolution. It is hard to see why a designer would produce this kind of sequence – unless there was a lot of accumulated error in the actual design process (maybe the designer farmed the project out to a bunch of error-prone angel teams).
I would like to do a better comment with some examples of this, but I haven’t done it yet, and I feel bad about that, but maybe someone else will do it. Or maybe this will come up in more detail when you do the posts about information.
(also I think a source of info is the location of SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms). And also the arrangement og genes on the different chromosomes.)
Interesting that he recanted. So, essentially, with the final sentence he now also equivocates his earlier definition of macro with micro just as neo-Darwinists do.
I think ‘recanted’ does not fit as a description here. First, it is a loaded word IMO. I think it has overtones of, first, being about religious beliefs, and this book is not about religion. Despite the definitions you want to use, science is not religion, and in particular this consideration of macro and microevolution has nothing to do with religious beliefs. Second, to me it suggests beliefs that are given up as a result of weakness – either a belief held that the person denies because of being pressured, or a belief given up because it wasn’t a true conviction. Either way I think it suggests some kind of insincerity and weakness. So I dislike the use of that particular word. (Also the word ‘equivocates’ in my opinion is another word with overtones of lying or insincerity or uncertainty, another loaded word.) But even if my sense of the overtones of this word as you used it is not correct, I still don’t see how it fits. I don’t see that he is withdrawing from a position he formally held. I think the increased evidence which he cited has strengthened his position, so that he has stated it more strongly. (Also if he is the first one to use the term macroevolution, as you said, and if he is one of the sources of the Modern Synthesis, then if he defined the word, I don’t see how he could be recanting.) Anyway – not important, but this is one reason why it’s hard for me to respond to a whole post – even one word can carry extra freight and your posts are very long.
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I looked at a talkorigins post on the definition of macroevolution which eventually got way too philosophical for me to follow. But the idea I got from it was that the word macroevolution was used in different ways, with not that much concern for an exact definition. As far as I’m concerned, if that’s true, the easiest thing would be not to give too much significance to that word. Instead of talking about how the evolutionary biologists are shifting the goalposts or whatever, concentrate on the meaning you’re interested and not whether the word ‘macroevolution’ is applied to it.
I don’t understand the last part of your article where you say you can tell people that a goddier God made God, and so on. I’ve never heard anything like that in the Bible or from a person. To me, God just has always been. He has no beginning or end. Thank you for the article.
It is not biblical nor is it my belief.
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I put that together to demonstrate how silly the belief that there is no God who is all knowing, all mighty, and all powerful is when one applies logic. The “goddier God” argument is simply a logical argument to counter the secular argument that there is no God. When the secular argument is that God had to be “created” or “taught” how to do the things He does (like create the universe), then the argument simply chases that back logically to conclude in an all knowing and all mighty being we call God. Personally, I have trouble relating to the secular world view myself.
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Thanks for your comment.
Gregg