4f) Is Evolution really Good Science?
The "theory" of evolution is frequently taught as though it were an established scientific fact. It is also misunderstood as an explanation for the origins of life from pre-existing non-life. Actually, evolution is a process of change over time based on random events that have a net positive effect, ie that tend to generate more complex structures and life forms. Do not confuse this with "horizontal" evolution, by which animals or plants can be bred to produce different varieties within the same kind. This is an established and scientifically verifiable fact. The original concept of "vertical" evolution depended on accidental mutations to generate more sophisticated beings, which could survive better than their predecessors. For this to happen quickly has always been considered absurd.
However, this theory depends on enormous spans of time so that minute steps can be taken very slowly, driven by random events not intelligence. Unfortunately there is a clear lack of hard evidence that this has or even can happen. Some key observable facts are:
- Natural selection only
eliminates varieties;
- We have no examples of any process as yet that can produce new genetic
material.
- We have no fossils that show the missing links between animal kinds.
- Even the simplest organisms are incredibly complex and cannot be derived from
simple forms, so this means that all organisms have been complex from the
beginning. Fact is that wherever cells are found, they are extremely complex.
There is no evidence of a simple cell anywhere.
- All evolution models begin with a big Question Mark. We have absolutely no
scientific evidence that life can come from non-life regardless of how much
time we allow.
- We have absolutely no scientific evidence for how the first non-life arose or
where the "Big" in the Big Bang came from. ["First there was
nothing, and then it exploded" just doesn't fit the scientific method any
better than saying "God did it"]
- The second Law of Thermodynamics states that Entropy increases, ie the
natural course of a system left on its own is to go from a state of order to
one of disorder. [If you see a movie of a splattered egg on the floor rising up
into its perfect shell and resting on the kitchen counter, you know immediately
that the movie is being played in reverse.]
All theories involving evolution by mutation are totally unscientific. These are the real facts and all a scientist has to do to prove that evolution is scientific, is to produce evidence that these facts are incorrect. Let's expand on some of these a bit, for the record:
1. Genetics research indicates that no new genes have been produced.
· What is claimed to be evidence
for evolution is the fact that every organism has parents and there was a time
when no life existed. Hence, life should have come from non-life.
· The science of genetics shows that such change is impossible.
· Main argument is that small mutations occur in the reproduction cells and are
retained by natural selection. They say that these mutations accumulate and
over time cause a species to gradually change into another species.
· All labs have never produced improvements through mutations. All mutations
are neutral or harmful. Natural processes will attempt to correct any mutation
in the next reproduction.
· The varieties come from recombination. From the mixing of genes during sexual
reproduction. Organisms adapted to a set of conditions re-concentrate into an
environment that has these conditions. By interbreeding they will form a
different "variety" of the same species.
· If by accident a population is isolated, some features may concentrate in
that population and give it a distinct appearance, which we call "genetic
drift".
· These varieties do not indicate evolution. Some genes have been sorted out
and the remaining population is impoverished, with fewer genes. No new genes
have been formed. No new genetic information has been created.
· By selection and isolation, we obtain new varieties of the existing plants
and animals. We select those we find useful, but these populations are
restricted in the genetic pool and are dependent on the conditions we have
legislated. Without our control they will either die out or return to their
wild state.
· Natural or unnatural mixing of genes does not produce new genes. There is no
process (isolation, selection, breeding, or mutation) known to science that
will produce new genes.
· Evolutionists cannot provide any ideas on how new genetic information can be
produced by mutation or time. They are unwilling to accept the fact that genes
contain such a mass of information that they could not arise from chance
events.
o The simplest living organism
is so vastly more complicated that any non-living molecular structure, that the
gap is too difficult to leap in a single, accidental step.
o Never in the past could there have been a "simple" organism. The
very complex DNA, RNA, and protein replicating system in the cell must have
been perfect from the start, or life systems could not exist.
o Every microscopic cell is so precisely programmed that an intelligence must
have created it.
2. Some believe that fossils indicate that life evolves from non-life, but this is not supported by the paleontological evidence.
· The theory is that something
triggered a primordial soup to create a living cell; that cells gathered into more
complex organisms and eventually evolved into man
· All forms of life from blue-green algae to man appear abruptly in the fossil
record without any evidence of links.
· There are no known examples of the missing links. All fossils found to date
are either: Man or Ape, Fake or Mistake.
· If evolution were a fact, the evidence would be in great abundance and
clearly irrefutable. Museums would be full of missing link fossils. All
evidence to date is very far from conclusive
· The evidence of man evolving from Apes is totally without supporting
evidence.
· Both have existed "as is" from the beginning.
· Evolution by mutation over time is mythology. If it were a science it would
agree with the observable evidence.
3. The First Law of Thermodynamics is often called the Law of Conservation of Energy. It states that energy (including matter) cannot be created or destroyed; it only changes form according to the formula, E = m c2. Hence matter can change into energy and vice verse, but no "new" energy is created. This natural law of science excludes creation of something out of nothing by any natural process.
4. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that the energy available for useful work is decreasing. It means that systems will naturally tend to get more disordered and chaotic if left uncontrolled by some energy source. This too flys in the face of Evolution by Random Mutations and Time to Increasingly More Complex Forms.
5. Where Creation Theory has an intelligent being as the source of this universe, the evolutionist attributes it to "time". God cannot do it, but time can. Faith is required in each case.
Horizontal
Evolution is a term for
the kind of adaptation we can see all around us. The mixing and recombination of genes during sexual reproduction
causes varieties of organisms.
Organisms adapted to a set of conditions re-concentrate into an
environment that has these conditions.
Each environment encourages a particular variety of the same species to
survive and reproduce and discourages others.
Eventually that environment has naturally selected a particular variety
and suppressed the others – i.e. genetic drift. We clearly observe this result at the macroscopic level as a
variety within a particular “species”*.
These varieties indicate adaptation at the species level, but do not
indicate evolution at the genetic level. This is evidenced by the fact that you
can reverse the process by changing the environment appropriately, as long as
you have not totally purged the species of all but a single variety. No new genes have been formed. No new genetic information has been
created. It is merely that the genetic
building blocks are designed to combine in numerous ways to produce many
varieties each having different survival characteristics. As long as they continue to produce
varieties the organisms they produce will continue to survive in some
form.
However,
those organisms are all of the same “kind” * even though they contain
many varieties. I’m using that term to
indicate that sexual reproduction within the same kind can produce offspring,
whether or not that offspring is fertile itself. Consider the vast variety of
dogs as seen by their macroscopic characteristics, yet they are all dogs – ie
of the same “kind”. All the varieties
of dogs could have come from a single pair, yet you’ll never get a cat by this
same adaptation process we call “horizontal evolution”.
This
natural form of adaptation is not a process, which will explain origins,
because it does not explain the appearance of different “Kinds”. For that we would need to show that “vertical
evolution” is possible, i.e. to change from one kind to a different kind
over time, due to random mutations.
Random mutations have never been shown to create new kinds.
So, what is witnessed is an inherent ability of certain kinds of living organisms to adapt to a changing environment without becoming a new "kind " of organism. Each kind of organism has a particular kind of gene that does not change during the adaptation process. For example, some humans are less sensitive to the toxics in our environment than other humans, so they have a greater likelihood of surviving. However both groups are still human. The survivors of some epidemic could be called a new breed of humans, but you would not feel compelled to say that are no longer human. They all have the same genes, while a chimpanzee has different genes, even though their DNA are 98% identical. This genetic difference precludes any offspring from cross-breeding and that’s why it is not human but is a totally different kind.
Therefore, in
order to prove vertical evolution we would need to see evidence of one kind of
genetic material recombining to form a different kind of genetic material. We’ve never seen that even in lab
experiments. All we find are fossils
with peculiar characteristics indicating yet another variety or perhaps another
species. Nothing in the fossil record
has ever bridged the gap between kinds.
A whale with legs is still a whale and not a horse in the making. The whale with legs is a variation that
adapted to a peculiar environment (eg crawling on the ocean floor or such to
find food), but it was still a whale and it could never breed with a
horse.
Here’s
another example, in my opinion. If a dog cannot breed with a cat and produce
a fertile offspring, then it is not a cat, even if it looks more like a cat
than a dog. This is presuming that it still can breed with other dogs and
produce a fertile offspring. Now if
this is true, then how are we ever going to see one of these new canine species
ever actually switch over to where the opposite is true, ie where it can only
breed successfully with felines and no longer with canines?
_________
* Think of a “Species” as an interbreeding group of animals that can produce fertile offspring under normal conditions and are reproductively isolated from other such units. Different “Kinds” cannot produce any offspring by cross-breeding. All the different domesticated dogs (Collies, poodles, Great Danes, etc) are different varieties of the same species. Coyotes and wolves are each different species, but all three of these species are of the same “kind”.
31 October 2001
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