-----Original Message-----
From: Rasim Basaran [mailto:rasimbasaran@gmx.net]
Sent: Sat 7/20/2002 6:08 PM
To: Alexanian, Moorad
Cc:
Subject: Harun Yahya's Answer to Scientific American
Dear Moorad Alexanian,
You must have heard about Scientific American's recent
article ’Äú15 Answers to
Creationist Nonsense’Äù by John Rennie. I would like to share
with you a writing
authored by Harun Yahya as a reply to the so-called claims
put forward by Scientific
American.
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN'S 15 ERRORS
Harun Yahya's Answer to John Rennie, editor in chief of
Scientific American
HARUN YAHYA
In its July, 2002 issue, the magazine Scientific American
published an article
titled "15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense." Yet that
aggressive piece of writing
actually contained no scientific answers to creationism at
all, and merely demonstrated
the fanaticism and bigotry of the Darwinist establishment
An interesting article appeared in the July, 2002, issue of
Scientific American,
one of the prominent scientific journals. Written by editor
in chief John Rennie,
"15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense" contained important
examples of Darwinist
dogmatism. Beginning with its very title, the article and its
aggressive style
was a living proof of something we have been stating for
years: Darwinists are
tied to the theory of evolution in a totally dogmatic manner.
Their intolerant
reactions to criticism are the result of that philosophical rigidity.
In this essay, you will find the errors, misconceptions and
even the tricks in
the Scientific American article in question.
Avoiding Difficult Questions
If you are going to reply to 15 questions regarding a thesis
you oppose, then
you will be expected to deal with each one in a tangible
manner. If, on the other
hand, you come up with imaginary questions and waste time
with the answers to
them, then your readers will naturally come to doubt your
credibility. Avoiding
getting to grips with the real questions is a sign that you
are trying to deceive
yourself or your readers.
Scientific American's "15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense" is
just such an example
of "avoiding the truth." Right from the start, a number of
those questions reveal
that this is what is going on:
"Evolution is only a theory. It is not a fact or a scientific law."
"Evolution is unscientific, because it is not testable or
falsifiable. It makes
claims about events that were not observed and can never be
re-created."
"If humans descended from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?"
None of the above are objections expressed by critics of the
theory of evolution.
Everyone who offers serious criticism knows what the concept
of "theory" actually
means, and accepts that scientific research into events in
the past cannot be
carried out by means of observation and recreation. In the
same way, no scientists
who seriously criticize the Darwinist thesis as regards the
origin of man would
ever offer such a ridiculous objection as "If humans
descended from monkeys,
why are there still monkeys?"
John Rennie, the author of the article, should no doubt be
well aware of this.
Yet the way that he puts the above three statements forward
as "creationist objections"
and imagines that he has given satisfactory replies to them
shows that he is
"tilting at windmills." If he really wants to "reply to the
creationists" then
he needs to reply to such real questions as how it is that
nearly all animal
phyla suddenly appeared in the Cambrian without any trace of
evolutionary ancestors;
why not one example of a mutation that developed the genetic
information of living
things has ever been encountered; or why no trace has been
found of the billions
of intermediate form fossils that Darwin anticipated.
The truth about the questions that Rennie has tried to reply
to, most of which
can again be seen as "easy questions," is set out below.
Rennie's Misconception About Natural Selection - I (Question 2)
Two of John Rennie's questions are to do with the concept of
natural selection.
In the first of these, (Question 2) he tries to respond to
the objection that
natural selection is a tautology. In the second, (Question
11) he tries to reply
to the objection that natural selection can bring about
micro-evolution but not
macro-evolution.
In the first case, the only reference Rennie is able to
provide is Peter P. Grant's
well known observations of finches in the Galapagos Islands.
Rennie describes
this example as "population shifts in the wild," and counts
it as evidence for
evolution with natural selection. However, Grant's studies
demonstrated only
that the finch populations in the Galapagos Islands
"fluctuated" according to
the changes in natural conditions, in other words, that they
did not develop
in any particular direction. Furthermore, they also revealed
that the 13 different
species identified in the finch population actually came
under a far smaller
number of species, and that the different species in question
were tending to
converge. That means that natural selection has not brought
about evolution (in
other words development in one particular direction and thus
the emergence of
a new species) on the Galapagos Islands.
In his meticulous book Icons of Evolution, biologist Jonathan
Wells considered
all the details of Grant's work and came to the conclusions
we have outlined
above. The fact that Rennie is nevertheless still doggedly
putting forward Grant's
Galapagos observations is nothing less than an admission of despair.
Rennie's Misconception About Natural Selection - II (Question 11)
The sleight of hand in Rennie's second question on natural
selection is particularly
noteworthy. The question reads,
"Natural selection might explain microevolution, but it
cannot explain the origin
of new species and higher orders of life."
Rennie's response to this rests on the concept of "allopatric
speciation" put
forward by Ernst Mayr.
In order to clarify the error here, we need to define the
concept of "allopatric
speciation" and its basic concept, "geographic isolation." It
is well known that
every living species has within it differences stemming from
genetic variation.
If a geographic obstacle arises between members of a species,
in other words
if they are "isolated" from one another, then it is very
probable that different
variations will begin to predominate in the two groups that
are now separated
from each other. Despite being from the same species, such
variations with specific
morphological differences between them (name them as
"variation A" and "variation
B") are called "sub-species."
The claim of speciation that Rennie talks about enters the
equation after that
point. Sometimes, variations A and B that have split from one
another due to
geographic isolation are unable to reproduce when they are
brought back into
contact again. According to contemporary biology's definition
of "species," since
they are unable to reproduce, they are no longer different
"sub-species," but
'different species.' This is called speciation.
Two important points arise here:
1) Variations A and B, isolated from one another, may not be
able to reproduce
when brought together. Yet this generally stems from
"reproductive behavior."
For that reason, they are still, genetically speaking,
members of the same species.
(In fact, for that reason, the concept of "species" continues
to be a matter
of debate in the scientific community)
2) The really important point is that the "speciation" in
question means a loss
of genetic information rather than an increase. The cause of
speciation is not
that new genetic information has been acquired by one or both
variations. There
is no such addition of genetic information. On the contrary,
instead of a population
that previously had a larger gene pool, there are now two
different populations
with reduced gene pools.
That is why the "speciation" that Rennie refers to as an
example of evolution
actually offers the theory of evolution no support at all.
The theory of evolution
claims that all living species developed by chance mutations
and natural selection
from the simple to the complex. In order for the theory to be
taken seriously,
therefore, it needs to propose "mechanisms that create and
increase genetic information."
Having dealt with that matter, let us now turn to Rennie's
second error (or rather
deception).
You will notice that Rennie expresses the "creationist
question" 11 in these
terms, "Natural selection might explain microevolution, but
it cannot explain
the origin of new species and higher orders of life." In
other words, he is speaking
about the origins of both species and "higher orders of life."
Yet in his reply, he only mentions the origin of species!
(And that, as we saw
above, is a totally inadequate account) Rennie never mentions
the origins of
genera, families, orders, classes or phyla, all of which are
higher categories
than species, and offers no explanation at all.
This is in all probability intended to convince less careful
readers. People
who read the "15 questions" but cannot bring themselves to
read the long (but
empty) answers that follow them will imagine that Rennie has
actually responded
to them all.
The way that the proponents of Darwinism resort to such
methods once again reveals
the terrible straits the theory finds itself in.
Rennie's last account on the subject of natural selection
suggested that there
could be evolutionary mechanisms outside natural selection.
The only example
he gave consisted of speculation on the origin of
mitochondria that evolutionists
have long been engaged in. The fact that he resorts to
speculation and not evidence
to support the theory of evolution, which is itself
speculation, is self-explanatory.
The Origin of Man and the Evolutionary Impasse (Question 3)
In the third question, John Rennie touches on the origin of
man, and writes:
... evolution implies that between the earliest-known
ancestors of humans (roughly
five million years old) and the appearance of anatomically
modern humans (about
100,000 years ago), one should find a succession of hominid
creatures with features
progressively less apelike and more modern, which is indeed
what the fossil record
shows.
However, the fact that evolutionists can place creatures that
lived in the past
in an order to suit their theory does not demonstrate that
those living things
actually underwent such a process of evolution. That opinion
is shared by Nature
magazine editor Henry Gee, one of John Rennie's fellow
evolutionists. In his
book In Search of Deep Time, (1999) Gee points 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." He
concludes that conventional
theories of the origin and development of human beings are "a
completely human
invention created after the fact, shaped to accord with human
prejudices", and
adds:
To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a
lineage is not a scientific
hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries
the same validity
as a bedtime story-amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not
scientific. (1)
Recently, Gee also made a very important comment on the new
skull fossil found
in Chad (Sahelanthropus tchadensis) and its implications for
the theory of evolution.
According to Gee, "Whatever the outcome, the skull shows,
once and for all, that
the old idea of a 'missing link' is bunk".(2) He also
explains that the there
is no evidence for the idea of human evolution in the fossil
record; It is simply
a projection created according to evolutionist assumptions:
It is suspected that the last common ancestor of humans and
our closest living
relatives, the chimpanzees, lived around 7m years ago. We
know this not from
direct fossil evidence, but from studying the small
differences in the otherwise
similar genes of humans and chimps, and estimating the time
needed for these
differences to accrue. Looking at the fossil evidence itself,
we see a huge and
frustrating gap. (3)
The closer one examines John Rennie's words, the more
evolutionist frustrations
become apparent.
Why Just A Few Dare to Speak Out? (Question 4)
Another argument offered by Rennie as he tries to defend
Darwinism is that the
theory of evolution is widely accepted by the scientific world.
There are generally two different reasons for an opinion's
commanding widespread
support. Either there is a great deal of evidence for it, or
else the system
somehow imposes it on people. It is the second of these that
applies in the "widespread
scientific support" behind the theory of evolution. The
academic world is laboring
under a heavy misconception in believing that science is
equivalent to materialist
philosophy. The leaders of the scientific establishment
impose that error on
other scientists. In such an environment that regards
opposing evolution as opposing
science, then how are scientists to offer any free criticism
of the theory?
Even John Rennie's own writing bears the traces of this
ideological dictatorship.
The title of his article refers to creation as "nonsense."
When a scientific
journal employs a headline of that sort, can one really say
that the matter in
question is being treated in a climate of free debate? Rennie
grows even more
aggressive in the introduction, and says that defending
creation is as unscientific
as defending "flat earth cosmology." In the body of his
article, he speaks in
terms of "dishonest creationists." (Page 65) In such a
climate of ideological
pressure, how can scientists criticize Darwinism when they
have to publish their
articles in scientific magazines? How many people can take
the risk to say "The
emperor has no clothes"?
Consequently, the graph in Rennie's article which purports to
show that belief
in creation declines with peoples' educational level (Page
65) is nothing more
than a statement of the dictatorship of Darwinist thought.
Nothing could be more
natural than for an education system dominated by Darwinists
to produce Darwinist
individuals.
Yet one good thing about science is that such dogmatism never
succeeds for long.
The cracks in the foundations of the Darwinist temple are a
sign that free science
will soon tear that dogma down.
Why do Evolutionists Confess? (Question 5)
As John Rennie tries to remove all doubts about Darwinism
from his readers' mind,
he brings up the subject of quotations taken from
evolutionist authorities by
creationists, and claims that these are invariably distorted.
In Rennie's view,
scientific authorities whose works are quoted are always
evolutionists, but that
"dishonest creationists" try to portray these people as being
opponents of evolution.
Whereas the truth of the matter is very different.
Creationists do not try to
portray the evolutionist authorities from whom they take
extracts as being opposed
to evolution. Stephen Jay Gould, Alan Feduccia or Henry
Gee’Ķ Nobody claims such
scientists are opposed to evolution. Yet these and many other
similar supporters
of evolution have seen and spoken about the deficiencies in
the theory of evolution.
Nothing could be more natural than for their comments on such
matters to be made
use of.
The reason for the great number of such quotations is that
the theory of evolution
is a mass of speculation. Since there is no concrete evidence
for the theory,
evolutionists engage in speculation on just about every
aspect of it. Since that
speculation does not conform to the available facts, gaps
keep emerging, and
various scientists report on the fact. This is the reason of
why we have so many
quotes doubting evolution in a committed Darwinist establishment.
The Origin of Life and John Rennie's Wriggling (Question 7)
Following all the speculation in the first six of his 15
questions, Rennie finally
comes to an important matter in Question 7; The Origin of
Life. How did the first
living thing emerge?
All that Rennie does in the face of that question is to sum
up in a few sentences
the scenario that evolutionists have been putting forward
ever since the time
of Alexander Oparin in the 1920s. After admitting that "The
origin of life remains
very much a mystery," Rennie tries to make the scenario
credible by saying, "...
but biochemists have learned about how primitive nucleic
acids, amino acids and
other building blocks of life could have formed and organized
themselves into
self-replicating, self-sustaining units, laying the
foundation for cellular biochemistry."
Rennie is quite right to gloss over such an important subject
as the origin of
life in this superficial way, because he has no way of going
into details. If
we analyze the above statement, we can see just how
unrealistic Rennie's claim
actually is:
1) First of all, contrary to what Rennie claims, the question
of how "primitive
nucleic acids, amino acids and other building blocks of life"
emerged in the
primitive atmosphere on earth is a terrible dilemma for
evolutionists. They used
to think the problem had been resolved in the primordial
atmosphere experiments
by Stanley Miller and his successors. Yet in the 1970s it was
realized that the
primordial atmosphere was not based on methane-ammonia and
that it contained
large amounts of oxygen, for which reason it emerged that it
was impossible for
even the simplest organic molecules, such as amino acids, to
be synthesized.
2) If we assume that simple building blocks such as nucleic
acids or amino acids
did somehow synthesize in the primitive atmosphere (or had
come from outer space,
as Rennie claimed after the above lines), that hypothesis
still does not benefit
the theory of evolution in any way. The problem is one of how
these simple organic
compounds came to turn into a living cell of incredible
complexity and containing
genetic information? Contrary to Rennie's claim, organic
molecules have never
been observed to "organize themselves" and turn into
self-reproducing, living
organisms. No observation, experiment or even theoretical
study has ever been
performed that might suggest that could ever happen.
In short, Rennie's argument about the origin of life is quite
worthless. Moreover,
the following lines from the end of the topic are of great
interest, both as
an admission of defeat and an indication of his prejudice
against creation:
"Creationists sometimes try to invalidate all of evolution by
pointing to science's
current inability to explain the origin of life. But even if
life on earth turned
out to have a nonevolutionary origin (for instance, if aliens
introduced the
first cells billions of years ago), evolution since then
would be robustly confirmed
by countless microevolutionary and macroevolutionary studies."
Interesting truths begin to emerge when we analyze these lines:
The Darwinist camp can not go further than Miller's now
refuted experiment.
1) Rennie talks about a "current inability to explain the
origin of life". In
other words, he hopes that the problem is temporary and one
day in the future,
facts in favor of evolution will be discovered. Giving such a
hostage to future
confirms that belief in evolution stems not from scientific
discoveries but philosophical
assumptions. This attitude of Rennie's is no different to
that of the dogmatic
Marxist who sees that Karl Marx's theories totally fail to
fit the current social
and political facts, but who nevertheless expects the awaited
"proletarian revolution"
to happen one day in the future.
2) Rennie admits that intelligent design could account for
the origin of life
and that science may well reach that conclusion, but for some
reason he chooses
to suggest aliens as the source of that design. The "aliens"
theory turns up
again in Rennie's article (in his reply to Question 3). The
interesting thing
is that Rennie is quite happy to admit the possibility of the
existence of an
intelligent design created by aliens, but totally rejects the
intervention of
a metaphysical Creator. This once again reveals that Rennie's
devotion to Darwinism
and his reaction to the concept of creation actually stem
from his philosophical
prejudices against Theism.
3) Rennie's acceptance that intelligent design might be
behind the origin of
life but his rejection of it during the subsequent course of
natural history
is a thoroughly prejudiced and unscientific position. That is
because there is
just as much evidence for intelligent design in the origin of
very many other
complex organic systems as there is for that of life itself.
Rennie's use of
such expressions as "robustly confirmed" in order to gloss
over these facts but
still to impress his readers, are no solution at all.
Rennie's Dawkins-Style Tricks (Question 8)
The theory of evolution's greatest error of all is the idea
that living things
are the product of unconscious natural mechanisms. Rennie
attempts to deal with
that objection in Question 8, but merely ends up
disappointing himself. Rennie's
response to the objection that the complexity in living
things cannot be explained
by chance takes this form:
"Chance plays a part in evolution (for example, in the random
mutations that
can give rise to new traits), but evolution does not depend
on chance to create
organisms, proteins or other entities. Quite the opposite:
natural selection,
the principal known mechanism of evolution, harnesses
nonrandom change by preserving
"desirable" (adaptive) features and eliminating "undesirable"
(nonadaptive) ones."
That is no answer at all, since it is something known to
everyone. According
to the theory of evolution, all living things were produced
by "chance" (mutations)
and natural selection, which is presumed to select the most
beneficial of these.
The problem is this: Natural Selection is not a conscious
mechanism. If it is
therefore to select a chance change, this has to provide the
organism with an
effective advantage. Yet many complex organs in living things
provide no advantage
at all unless they are fully formed. It is therefore
impossible for natural selection
to make a selection in that direction. (It also remains to
say that natural selection
played no part in the origin of life because there was no
life or competition
around in the so-called "prebiotic soup".)
Rennie tries to cover up this gaping hole in the theory of
evolution, and employs
the same trick as those of Richard Dawkins. The example he
gives is that the
phrase 'TOBEORNOTTOBE' was formed by a computer using the
selection method in
336 goes.
Do evolutionists really believe in such examples? Or are they
compelled to employ
them in order to save face in front of not well informed
readers? One wonders
... The above example is banal and based on an evident
deception. The computer
that came up with 'TOBEORNOTTOBE' was programmed to do so.
The ultimate result
was predetermined from the start. The programme places
letters into 13 blank
spaces at random, but it selects a letter when it moves into
its pre-ordained
position. In other words, it knows that the first letter is T
before 'TOBEORNOTTOBE'
comes into being, selects T when one appears in that
position, and leaves it
there.
In short, there is a predetermined plan and a selection
mechanism working consciously
according to this plan. However, the theory of evolution
maintains that living
things emerged with no predetermined plan and by an
unconscious selection mechanism.
Therefore, Rennie's argument is, at least, ridiculous.
Rennie's Misconceptions About The Second Law of
Thermodynamics (Question 9)
Evolutionists' claims regarding thermodynamics are based on a
classic case of
error and deception, and John Rennie repeats them.
The first error consists of ignoring the difference between
ordered and organized
systems. Rennie cites the examples of mineral crystals and
snowflakes, and says
that these "complex structures" emerge spontaneously through
natural processes.
Yet these are not complex systems, but organized ones.
We can make this clear with an example. Imagine a completely
flat beach on the
seashore. When a strong wave hits the beach, mounds of sand,
large and small,
form bumps on the surface of the sand. This is a process of
"ordering". The seashore
is an open system, and the energy flow (the wave) that enters
it can form simple
patterns in the sand, which may look regular. From the
thermodynamic point of
view, the wave can set up order here where before there was
none. But we must
make it clear that those same waves cannot build a castle on
the beach. If we
see a castle there, we are in no doubt that someone has
constructed it, because
the castle is an "organized" system.
Charles B. Thaxton, Walter L. Bradley and Roger L. Olsen, in
their book titled
The Mystery of Life's Origin, explain why analogies from
self-ordering cases
(like the snow flake) does not account for the origin of
biological complexity:
... such analogies have scant relevance to the origin-of-life
question. A major
reason is that they fail to distinguish between order and
complexity... Regularity
or order cannot serve to store the large amount of
information required by living
systems. A highly irregular, but specified, structure is
required rather than
an ordered structure. This is a serious flaw in the analogy
offered. There is
no apparent connection between the kind of spontaneous
ordering that occurs from
energy flow through such systems and the work required to
build aperiodic information-intensive
macromolecules like DNA and protein. (4)
John Rennie's claim regarding open systems is also a classic
evolutionist error.
Yes, entropy may decrease in open systems that receive energy
from the outside,
but specific mechanisms are needed to make the energy
functional. For instance,
a car needs an engine, a transmission system, and related
control mechanisms
to convert the energy in oil to work. Without such an energy
conversion system,
the car will not be able to use the energy stored in oil.
The same thing applies in the case of life as well. It is
true that life derives
its energy from the sun. However, solar energy can only be
converted into chemical
energy by the incredibly complex energy conversion systems in
living things (such
as photosynthesis in plants and the digestive systems of
humans and animals).
Without an energy conversion system, the sun is nothing but a
source of destructive
energy that burns, parches, or melts.
The Ultimate Problem About Mutations (Question 10)
In question 10, John Rennie tries to give the appearance of
having answered one
of the most fundamental questions facing the theory of
evolution. The problem
is that mutations never increase living things' genetic
information. Rennie,
naturally enough, maintains the opposite, and suggests that
mutations can bring
about such an increase (and therefore evolution itself). Of
course he needs to
find examples if that is to be taken seriously, but the ones
he comes up with
are not valid.
Rennie's first example is bacterial resistance to
antibiotics. That is in any
case one of the most popular themes in evolutionist
propaganda. But it is flawed.
It is true that bacteria can sometimes develop a resistance
to antibiotics by
means of mutations, but these mutations do not add the
bacteria any new genetic
information. On the contrary, they lead to morphological
degeneration in them.
As with the case of immunity to streptomycin revealed in
great detail by the
Israeli biophysicist Dr. Lee Spetner: Bacterial resistance to
streptomycin stems
from a mutation that affects the ribozome and structurally
damages it. Even if
this mutation benefits the bacteria in terms of antibiotic
immunity, it nevertheless
represents a genetic reduction that reduces the functioning
of the ribosome.
As Dr. Spetner has made clear, mutations such as these are
not what the theory
of evolution needs. (5)
The invalidity of Rennie's second example on the subject of
mutations can be
seen from his own words:
"In fruit flies, for instance, the mutation called
Antennapedia causes legs to
sprout where antennae should grow. These abnormal limbs are
not functional, but
their existence demonstrates that genetic mistakes can
produce complex structures,
which natural selection can then test for possible uses."
Everybody is aware that mutations can bring about major
morphological changes
in living things. The question is this: Do the morphological
changes brought
about by these mutations grant living things any increase in
genetic information
and beneficial features? No! There are no such examples. In
fact, Rennie confesses
that, and says that the mutations in question produced
non-functional (in other
words crippled) legs growing from where the antennae should
have been in flies.
How can anyone believe that a process that cripples creatures
could have led
them to evolve? And how can Rennie suggest that as evidence
for evolution?
In his last paragraph on mutations, Rennie speaks of greater
genetic changes
going beyond point mutations. Yet the question is still the
same. Such changes
have never been observed to increase the genetic information
in a living thing.
In this case, Rennie does not even try to offer an example.
What he has to say about globin is nothing but a reflection
of evolutionist speculation.
This speculation begins with comparative analyses of the DNA
in living things,
and comes up with an evolutionary connection in their globin
structures. On close
inspection however, this turns out to be circular reasoning.
The evolutionary
family relationships built on these comparative DNA analyses
rest on the assumption
that living things descended from a common ancestor.
Portraying these theoretical
relationships, which are constructed on the assumption that
evolution is true,
as evidence for evolution is simply expressing the same claim
in another way,
a tautology
The Question of Transitional Forms (Question 13)
In question 13, John Rennie attempts to deal with the problem
of transitional
forms, one of the major stumbling blocks facing the theory of
evolution, and
is similarly unable to provide a satisfactory response. The
following shows the
true position of the "intermediate forms" he suggests:
Archaeopteryx: Rennie writes that Archaeopteryx, a candidate
for the title of
the greatest transitional form of all time, was an
intermediate form between
reptiles and birds, but that "creationists" refuse to accept
this, calling it
"just an extinct bird with reptilian features." The fact is,
however, that it
is not only "creationists" who say that, but also
world-renowned ornithologists
who have examined the matter in great detail. Alan Feduccia,
one of the foremost
names in ornithology, shares that view regarding Archaeopteryx.
"Feathered Dinos" were not feathered at all, like the fossil
forgery above, Archaeoraptor
In fact, a considerable body of evidence has emerged to
demonstrate the invalidity
of the claim that Archaeopteryx was a transitional form. As
Feduccia has stated,
"Most recent workers who have studied various anatomical
features of Archaeopteryx
have found the creature to be much more birdlike than
previously imagined," and
"the resemblance of Archaeopteryx to theropod dinosaurs has
been grossly overestimated."(6)
Another problem regarding Archaeopteryx is that the theropod
dinosaurs, which
many evolutionists regard as its ancestors, emerge after
Archaeopteryx in the
fossil record, and not before it.
On the other hand, the tale of "feathered dinosaurs" that
John Rennie refers
to is nothing more than evolutionist speculation. All of the
fossils that have
been put forward as "feathered dinosaurs" in the last 10
years are debatable.
Detailed studies have revealed that the structures portrayed
as "feathers" are
actually collagen fibers.(7) Such speculation all stems from
evolutionist prejudice.
As Feduccia has said, "Many dinosaurs have been portrayed
with a coating of aerodynamic
contour feathers with absolutely no documentation."(8) (One
of the so-called
'feathered dinosaurs' in question, namely Archaeoraptor,
turned out to be a fossil
forgery). Feduccia sums the position up in these terms,
"Finally, no feathered
dinosaur has ever been found, although many dinosaur mummies
with well-preserved
skin are known from diverse localities." (9)
Horse Series: The horse series that John Rennie portrayed as
an important proof
of evolution is actually a terrible blunder on his part. That
is because the
horse series that makes up a so-called evolutionary process
from Eohippus to
the present-day horse (Equus) has actually been accepted as
erroneous by a great
many evolutionist authorities. For example, evolutionist
science writer Gordon
R. Taylor acknowledged that "’Ķ the line from Eohippus to
Equus is very erratic.
It is alleged to show a continual increase in size, but the
truth is that some
variants were smaller than Eohippus, not larger. Specimens
from different sources
can be brought together in a convincing-looking sequence, but
there is no evidence
that these were actually ranged in this order in time." (10)
The Origin of Whales: Rennie also includes the scenario
concerning the evolution
of whales as an example of proven evolution. Yet that, too,
is nothing more than
evolutionist speculation. There are great morphological
differences between the
land mammal Ambulocetus and such archaic whales as
Rodhocetus, the alleged descendant
of the former. The details of the matter were examined in my
article "A Whale
Fantasy from National Geographic"
The Origin of Molluscs: This, also glossed over by Rennie as
an example of evolution,
is actually another dilemma facing the theory. These shelled
creatures that make
up the phylum Mollusca are divided into eight separate
classes, and all of these
emerged suddenly in the Cambrian Period, just like most
living phyla and classes.
Even the determinedly evolutionist Encyclopedia Britannica
accepts that there
is no fossil evidence for the evolution of molluscs in the
words: "The fossil
record gives little clue as to how the molluscs originated
and how the eight
classes differentiated in Precambrian times. The evolutionary
pathway must thus
be largely inferred from comparative anatomy and development." (11)
The Origin of Man: Rennie claims that 20 or more hominids
fill the gap between
Lucy and modern man. Yet the truth is that there is no line
from Australopithecus
to man (Homo sapiens).
One indication of this is that the categories between
Australopithecus and Homo
sapiens (like Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis or Homo erectus)
are exceedingly
speculative and debatable. An article by the evolutionary
paleoanthropologists
Bernard Wood and Mark Collard, published in Science in 1999,
maintained that
the Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis categories were
imaginary, and that the
fossils ascribed to them needed to be transferred to the
genus Australopithecus.(12)
Milford Wolpoff of the University of Michigan and Alan Thorne
of the University
of Canberra are of the belief that Homo erectus is an
imaginary category, and
that the fossils ascribed to it are actually variations of
Homo sapiens.(13)
This means that there are no other hominids between
Australopithecus, an extinct
species of ape, and Homo sapiens, including modern man and
his racial variations.
In other words, mankind has no evolutionary origins.
Another fact that invalidates the claim of a direct line
between Australopithecus
and modern man (Homo sapiens), is that the categories alleged
to have followed
one another actually lived at the same time. The latest
evidence to demonstrate
that was the discovery published in Science magazine that
fossils named as Homo
habilis, Homo ergaster and Homo erectus have lived at the
same time. Reid Fleming,
of the University of North Texas, who led the research, sums
up the significance
of that discovery in this way, "This was completely
unexpected, because until
now, prevailing scientific views placed habilis, ergaster and
erectus into an
evolutionary sequence." (14)
Molecular Biology and the Evolutionary Family Tree: Rennie
must have been aware
of the feeble nature of his claims on fossils, since he then
sought to find support
from molecular biology in his search for evidence of
evolution. His argument
was based on genetic similarities and he claimed that,
"structures of these genes
and their products diverge among species, in keeping with
their evolutionary
relationships."
Yes, that is indeed what evolutionists expect from molecular
biology - in other
words that living things closely related according to the
theory of evolution
will have very similar molecules. Yet the facts demonstrate
the exact opposite.
Recent molecular discoveries have produced results totally at
odds with the 150-year-old
evolutionary family tree.
According to a 1999 article by French biologists Hervˆ©
Philippe and Patrick Forterre,
"with more and more sequences available, it turned out that
most protein phylogenies
contradict each other as well as the rRNA tree." (15)
Neither the comparisons that have been made of proteins, nor
those of rRNAs or
of genes, confirm the premises of the theory of evolution.
Carl Woese, a biologist
from the University of Illinois, admits that;
No consistent organismal phylogeny has emerged from the many
individual protein
phylogenies so far produced. Phylogenetic incongruities can
be seen everywhere
in the universal tree, from its root to the major branchings
within and among
the various (groups) to the makeup of the primary groupings
themselves. (16)
The fact that results of molecular comparisons are not in
favor of, but rather
opposed to, the theory of evolution is also admitted in an
article called "Is
it Time to Uproot the Tree of Life?" published in Science in
1999. This article
by Elizabeth Pennisi states that the genetic analyses and
comparisons carried
out by Darwinist biologists in order to shed light on the
"tree of life" actually
yielded directly opposite results, and goes on to say that
"new data are muddying
the evolutionary picture" (17)
In short, molecular comparisons between living things all
work against the theory
of evolution, in total contrast to what John Rennie claims.
The Origin of the Eye and the Non-Evolution of the
Evolutinary Theory (Question
14)
In Question 14, Rennie enters the field of irreducible
complexity and mentions
the origin of the eye, which has always been an insurpassable
hurdle for evolutionists.
Rennie's account is nothing but a repetition of speculation
put forward by Charles
Darwin 150 years ago: The claim that "primitive" eyes with
very poor vision existed
in nature and that more complex eyes might have evolved from these.
However, clear evidence to disprove that claim has emerged
since Darwin's day:
Evolutionists are still leaning on Darwin's primitive
arguments on the complexity of nature.
1) Natural history reveals that the first eye identified on
earth was not primitive
at all, but actually had an extraordinarily complex
structure. That eye structure
in question was the double-lens compound eyes of the
trilobites. The nuclear
physicist and trilobite aficionado Levi-Setti states that:
"the refracting interface
between the two lens elements in a trilobite's eye was
designed in accordance
with optical constructions worked out by Descartes and
Huygens in the mid-seventeenth
century".(18) The most striking feature of these eyes,
described as a marvel
of optical design, is that they have no primitive form behind
them, but rather
emerged suddenly.
2) Even light-sensitive cells that Darwin referred to as
"primitive eyes" actually
possess an extraordinarily complex structure. Even the most
"primitive" eye is
an irreducibly complex system requiring a light-sensitive
cell, extraordinarily
complex biochemical mechanisms within that cell,(19) nerves
linking that cell
to the brain, and a visual center to interpret these. That
cannot come about
in stages. For that reason, the theory of evolution is unable
even to account
for the origin of the most "primitive" eye, let alone use
that as a basis to
account for more complex ones.
Rennie writes that "Today's intelligent-design advocates are
more sophisticated
than their predecessors." Yet the sad fact is that the
proponents of the theory
of evolution are still leaning on Darwin's invalid theses
from 150 years ago.
The fact that they still put forward the myth that the origin
of the eye lies
in "evolution from primitive eyes" shows that the theory of
evolution has not
evolved at all in the last 150 years.
Helplessness in the Face of Irreducible Complexity (Question 15)
In the final section of his article, John Rennie attempts to
criticize the evidence
put forward by such proponents of intelligent design as
Michael J. Behe and William
Dembski. The first thing he does is to cite the objections of
evolutionists Kenneth
R. Miller and Russell F. Doolittle, who are critical of Behe.
The fact is, however,
that Dr. Behe has comprehensively responded to and refuted
these objections.
(See Behe's responses to critics)
The paragraph that really shows Rennie's total helplessness
in the face of irreducible
complexity reads:
The key is that the flagellum's component structures, which
Behe suggests have
no value apart from their role in propulsion, can serve
multiple functions that
would have helped favor their evolution. The final evolution
of the flagellum
might then have involved only the novel recombination of
sophisticated parts
that initially evolved for other purposes.
In short, Rennie is saying that the flagellum might have come
about "with the
recombination of parts that initially evolved for other
purposes." Yet that is
the whole essence of the matter. What are those "other
purposes"? For what purposes
could the molecules that make up the flagellum have come
about? Saying that "might
have come about in other stages we are unaware of" without
clearly defining these
stages is simply a repetition of Darwinist dogma.
Rennie's effort to portray the organelle that Yersinia pestis
uses to inject
toxins into cells, which partly resembles the flagellum, or
flagella with simpler
structures as evolutionary stages of the flagellum itself is
also hopeless. That
is like using a car or a glider to account for the alleged
"evolutionary" origins
of a jet plane. There may be certain similarities, but that
does not show that
the vehicles in question evolved from one another as the
result of blind coincidences.
They are all separately designed structures.
When we come to Rennie's objection to Dembski's thesis, we
see that it only consists
of reference to studies by the Santa Fe Institute. Yet just
like those of their
precursors such as Ilya Prigogine, these theoretical studies
do not carry the
concept of "self-organization" any further than merely being
a materialist belief.
(The invalidity of the idea of self-organization is set out
in detail in Dembski's
2002 book No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot be
Purchased Without
Intelligence). It must nevertheless be made clear that the
evolutionists from
the Santa Fe Institute display more common sense than John
Rennie does. While
Rennie tries to portray the concept of intelligent design as
an unscientific
thesis, Stuart Kauffman, the pre-eminent self-organizational
theorist of the
Santa Fe Institute, publicly admitted that intelligent design
was a legitimate
intellectual and scientific project. (20)
Rennie's Dogmatic Commitment to Materialism
Following his objections regarding intelligent design, Rennie
unwillingly admits
that the complexity in nature cannot be accounted for by
evolutionary mechanisms,
and to resolve this he elects to give a hostage to future:
"Some of the complexity seen in organisms may therefore
emerge through natural
phenomena that we as yet barely understand. But that is far
different from saying
that the complexity could not have arisen naturally."
Rennie's logic displays a blind dogmatism. If he thinks that
he can account for
the biological complexity in nature by means of evolution,
then he needs to identify
these mechanisms. When he is unable to find any mechanism, he
suggests the existence
of mechanisms that "we as yet barely understand." Yet if
these mechanisms are
not understood, then how can Rennie be sure they actually
exist? What difference
is there between believing in the existence of such
mysterious evolutionary mechanisms
and believing in an "alchemical mechanism" that can turn base
metals into gold?
What difference, therefore, is there between believing in
evolution and believing
in alchemy?
All these questions demonstrate that Rennie's and other
determined Darwinists'
belief in the theory of evolution is the result of their
dogmatic belief in materialism.
Even Darwin behaved in a less biased manner when he said, "If
it could be demonstrated
that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have
been formed by
numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would
absolutely break
down."(21) John Rennie and other contemporary Darwinists
choose to give hostages
to future rather than accept the collapse of the theory when
faced with just
the kind of irreducibly complex organs described by Darwin.
When one examines Rennie's article, one sees that one
fundamental idea underlies
all this dogmatism. The following lines are particularly enlightening:
"...science welcomes the possibility of evolution resulting
from forces beyond
natural selection. Yet those forces must be natural; they
cannot be attributed
to the actions of mysterious creative intelligences whose
existence, in scientific
terms, is unproved."
In the first sentence here, Rennie says that certain forces,
the existence of
which is quite unproven, may contribute to evolution. Yet he
imposes a condition
in the sentence that follows: These forces must be natural.
Therefore, he rejects
the existence of a conscious Creator, because the existence
of a conscious Creator
is, in scientific terms, "unproven." Yet in the previous
sentence, Rennie admits
the possibility of unproven forces. Elsewhere in his article,
as we have seen
above, he also speaks of evolutionary mechanisms that have
not yet been discovered,
but which he hopes will be in the future. This means that
Rennie's problem is
not one of whether the existence of intelligent design has
been proven or not,
but that such design conflicts with the materialist
philosophy he holds.
Rennie is of course free to believe as he wishes. Some people
believe in materialist
philosophy. Others believe in astrology, and others in
alchemy. The problem is
that Rennie and materialists like him are trying to portray
their dogma as actual
science. That is a hypocritical deception. But one whose days
are numbered.
Conclusion: Congratulations to John Rennie
John Rennie deserves appreciation for displaying Darwinist dogmatism.
Actually, we should be congratulating Scientific American
editor John Rennie
on his article. By failing to provide any response to the
proofs of creation,
by ignoring a great deal of that important evidence as he
flounders, and by exhibiting
nothing but rage and fanaticism, he has only served to
highlight the collapse
that Darwinism is currently undergoing.
In the collapse of Lamarckism, as well as the successes of
such great scientists
as Mendel, the terrible fiascoes of such Lamarckists as
Lysenko also played a
major role. In the same way today, alongside the successful
work of scientists
who support the idea of intelligent design, the logical and
scientific rout of
dogmatic Darwinists will also play a major role in the
collapse of Darwinism.
Those who read about these debates in a few decades' time
will see the truth
of this much clearer, and will be amazed that so many people
from the scientific
community could have been taken in by such a myth as Darwinism.
NOTES
____________________________________________
(1) Henry Gee, In Search of Time: Beyond the Fossil Record to
a New History of
Life, New York, The Free Press, 1999, p. 126-127.
(2) "Face of yesterday : Henry Gee on the dramatic discovery
of a seven-million-year-old
hominid", The Guardian, July 11, 2002
(3) Ibid.
(4) Charles B. Thaxton, Walter L. Bradley & Roger L. Olsen,
The Mystery of Life's
Origin: Reassessing Current Theories, 4th edition, Dallas,
1992, chapter 9, p.
134.
(5) Lee Spetner, Not By Chance, Judaica Press, 1997. Also
see, Dr. Lee Spetner,
"Lee Spetner/Edward Max Dialogue: Continuing an exchange with
Dr. Edward E. Max,"
2001, http://www.trueorigin.org/spetner2.asp
(6) Alan Feduccia, The Origin and Evolution of Birds, Yale
University Press,
1999, p. 81
(7) Ann Gibbons, "Plucking the Feathered Dinosaur", Science,
volume 278, Number
5341 Issue of 14 Nov 1997, pp. 1229 - 1230
(8) Alan Feduccia, The Origin and Evolution of Birds, Yale
University Press,
1999, p. 130
(9) Alan Feduccia, The Origin and Evolution of Birds, Yale
University Press,
1999, p. 132
(10) Gordon Rattray Taylor, The Great Evolution Mystery,
Abacus, Sphere Books,
London, 1984, p. 230.
(11) "Mollusk", Evolution and Paleontology, Encyclopedia
Britannica, 2002
(12) Bernard Wood, Mark Collard, "The Human Genus", Science,
vol. 284, No 5411,
2 April 1999, pp. 65-71
(13) Pat Shipman, "Doubting Dmanisi", American Scientist,
November- December
2000, p. 491
(14) "Fossil Discovery Upsets Theories On Human Origins",
Associated Press, http://www.msnbc.com/news/776334.asp?cp1=1
(15) Hervˆ© Philippe and Patrick Forterre, "The Rooting of
the Universal Tree
of Life is Not Reliable", Journal of Molecular Evolution, vol
49, 1999, p. 510
(16) Carl Woese, "The Universel Ancestor", Proceedings of the
National Academy
of Sciences, USA, 95, (1998) p. 6854
(17) Elizabeth Pennisi, "Is It Time to Uproot the Tree of
Life?" Science, vol.
284, no. 5418, 21 May 1999, p. 1305
(18) Levi-Setti, R. Trilobites. 1993. (University of Chicago
Press, Chicago).
p.54.
(19) The extraordinarily complex structure of these
mechanisms is illustrated
in Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box. As Behe maintains, even
the chemical make-up
in the retinal cell alone is enough to disprove Darwin
(20) "Dembski and Kauffman Square Off in New Mexico", Philip
Johnson's Weekly
Wedge Update, November 19, 2001; www.arn.org
(21) Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species: A Facsimile of
the First Edition,
Harvard University Press, 1964, p. 189.
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