Guest guest Posted February 17, 2004 Report Share Posted February 17, 2004 Neither Intelligent nor Designed Evolution succeeds where "Intelligent Design" fails in describing the natural world. Bruce and Frances Martin -- Are you puzzled by the appearance of the words "Intelligent Design" in recent anti-evolution discourse? Most of us lack time to follow the history of this term or its analysis in the expert volumes produced by Robert T. Pennock and others (see references). But as the phrase Intelligent Design shows up more and more often in public debate over science education, skeptical citizens need a handle on this topic. Intelligent Design is a well-worn concept in theological argument. Since ancient times, the harmony and complexity of natural organs and systems have served as "proof" for the existence of God. In modern times before Darwin (1859), William Paley (1802) was the most famous proponent of this idea. Remember the watch found on the heath? Paley supposed that, just as the discovery of such an intricate mechanical setting would be proof of a human designer, so the intricate mechanisms of the natural world, such as the human eye, prove the existence of a benevolent, divine designer. Today design has new currency in the latest anti-evolution thrust. Pennock gives a list of its academic sponsors (Pennock 1999, 29) and cites Philip Johnson as "the most influential new creationist and unofficial general" of the Intelligent Design school. Johnson is a retired professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley and author of Darwin on Trial (1991) and Defeating Darwinism (1997). Since the word design itself implies plan or purpose, it appears redundant to say "intelligent design" unless one means to imply intelligence of the highest order or divine intelligence. Despite its abstract aura, the origin of the term is undeniably religious. By their own definition, creationists believe that the world in general, and mankind in particular, are designed and exist for a divinely ordained purpose (Pennock 2001). Therefore, creationists reject the possibility that new species appear through evolution by common descent, which proceeds without a preordained purpose. They offer as the alternative Intelligent Design: the purposeful fashioning of each species by an intelligent designer-by implication God. Like its forerunner, creation science, this movement presumes that by undermining Darwinism they ensure Intelligent Design reigns as the sole available alternative, ignoring numerous other creation myths. A full defense of evolution is available elsewhere; our purpose in this short article is to cite some cases incompatible with Intelligent Design. Does the real world show evidence of wise, omniscient design? To be plausible, an argument must take all the facts into account. The scientific study of biology shows us that existing species have serious flaws, belying claims of a beneficent creator. Intelligent design spokesmen ignore vestigial organs, anatomical inefficiency, destructive mutation, the sheer wastefulness of natural processes, and the findings of molecular genetics. The constant interplay of random mutations honed by selection pressures during evolution produces many instances of poor design. What follows are a few of the less technical of the hundreds of examples of flaws noted by paleontologists and other students of evolutionary processes. Vestigial Features Darwin was not only convinced by the success of evolution in explaining numerous instances of common descent, but also by its ability to account for vestigial organs, "parts in this strange condition, bearing the stamp of inutility." These organs are of little or no current use to an organism but are probable remnants of an earlier form from which the organism evolved. Intelligent Design has no explanation for these organs. As Stephen Jay Gould has put it, "Odd arrangements and funny solutions are the proof of evolution-paths that a sensible God would never tread but that a natural process, constrained by history follows perforce" (Gould 1980; Gould in Pennock 2001, 670). Let's look at some examples. Cockroaches and other insects may grow an extra set of wings, as did their fossilized ancestors. Unlike most other snakes, boa constrictors possess small vestigial hind legs. Crabs possess small useless tails under their broad, flat bodies, remnants of some ancestral form. Flounders lie flat on the sea floor and in the adult both eyes are on the same side of the head, but when young the eyes are on opposite sides of the head and one moves to the other side! The earlier stage is a clue to an evolutionary path. The result is a wrenched and distorted skull. The frigate, a non-aquatic bird, does not benefit from the webbing on its feet. In flightless birds the number of usable limbs is reduced from four to two with the presence of two non-functional limbs. Penguins possess hollow bones although they do not have the same need for minimal body weight as flying birds. Otherwise fully aquatic animals such as sea snakes, dolphins, and whales must rise to the surface to breathe air. Modern whales exhibit several non-functional vestigial traits. Fetuses of baleen whales bear teeth that are absorbed as the fetus matures; adult baleen whales do not have teeth. Paleontologists proposed that whales had evolved from land mammals with legs, and therefore, in an example of its predictive power, the theory of evolution forecast that legs would be found on fossilized whales. In recent years the evolution of whales from now extinct land mammals has become well documented through newly found fossils from the Eocene epoch, about 50 million years ago (Wong 2002). The fossilized whales contain well-defined feet and legs. In modern adult whales, the front legs have evolved into flippers and the rear legs have shrunk so that no visible appendages appear. Hindlimbs still appear in the fetuses of some modern whales but disappear by adulthood. Externally invisible, vestigial diminished pelvic bones occur in modern adult whales. Evolution accounts for these useless vestigial elements as leftovers in the development of whales from land mammals, but they remain unaccounted for by Intelligent Design. Anatomical Inefficiency Some anatomical features that may be useful to a creature do not show efficient design one could term intelligent. They testify instead to the process of natural selection. Tails have a widely varied role in mammal bodies. They appear essential for monkeys, but the small, wispy tail in a large elephant seems useless. Tails are absent in adult apes and humans, except they appear in early embryos and are residual in the coccyx at the end of the vertebra. In some human babies a residual tail is clipped at birth. Why should moles, bats, whales, dogs, and humans among others possess forelimbs based on the same bones that have been adapted in each case unless inherited from a common ancestor? Starting from scratch, an engineer could do a better job in each case. In pandas a normally small bone in the wrist has undergone significant enlargement and elongation so it is opposable as a thumb to the other five fingers, enabling them to strip leaves from a bamboo stalk (Gould 1980; Gould in Pennock 2001, 669). To achieve this feat, the thumb muscles normally assigned to other functions have been rerouted. It is difficult to see how this anatomical architect would receive another commission. The early embryos of most animals with backbones have eyes on the sides of the head. In those such as humans that develop binocular vision, during development the eyes must move forward. Sometimes this forward movement is incomplete and a baby is born with the eyes too far apart. In mammals the recurrent laryngeal nerve does not extend directly from brain to larynx, but upon reaching the neck bypasses the larynx and drops into the chest where it loops around a lung ligament and only then retraces up to the larynx in the neck. While a one-foot length of nerve would be required for the direct route from brain to larynx in giraffes, the actual length of the doubled-back nerve from the chest of giraffes may reach twenty feet (K.C. Smith in Pennock 2001, 724-725). There are many features of human anatomy we might wish were better designed. Our jaws are a little small to accept wisdom teeth that are often impacted and may need pulling. The openings of our tubes for breathing and swallowing are so close that we often choke. In humans the appendix serves no apparent purpose, but it is infection-prone, leading to inflammation and potentially fatal appendicitis. In men the testes form inside the abdomen and then drop through the abdominal wall into the scrotum, leaving two weak areas that often herniate, requiring surgery to relieve pain. Also in men the collapsible urethra passes though the prostate gland that enlarges in later life and impedes urine flow. Anatomists cite many more examples of such inefficient or useless structures, such as nipples in male primates. Creationists often cite the human eye as a model of perfection for which Darwinism cannot account, claiming that such a complex organ could not be created by natural selection. But throughout the animal kingdom eyes have evolved many times, presumably beginning with plentiful photosensitive material followed by a stepwise incremental buildup over generations to the current organs. And the human eye is far from a model of perfection. In all vertebrate eyes the "wire" from each of three million light-sensitive retinal cells passes in front of the retina, and the collection is bundled into the optic nerve, creating a blind spot. This set-up is just the reverse of what any designer would construct: wires leading away from the backside, not light side, of the light-sensitive cells (Dawkins 1987). On the other hand, the wires do lead from the backside of the separately evolved eyes of the squid, octopus, and other cephalopods. Why does the designer favor squid over humans? Instead of the efficiency and elegance one expects from Intelligent Design, we see numerous vestigial characteristics and instances of poor design. Such anomalies are both expected and accommodated by evolution. Only evolution offers a self-contained explanation of why more than 99 percent of the species that have lived on Earth are extinct. What sport does a benevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent deity receive from visiting on humans and other mammals all sorts of afflictions including parasitic bacteria, viral diseases, cancer, and genetic diseases? These and many other examples suggest that any Intelligent Design must have been undertaken by a committee of fractious gods who could not agree. Taken at face value, invocation of Intelligent Design supports an argument for polytheism. Of course creationists might respond to these and other examples by saying that the ways of God are mysterious and inscrutable, and that we are not wise enough to comment on the means by which he achieves his ends. If anyone offers this argument, what gives him license to propose Intelligent Design as the means by which God achieves his ends? Such a personal view is patently religious, and does not belong in any science classroom. Destructive Mutations The study of molecular evolution strongly reinforces and extends the classic whole animal conclusions for evolution, while appearing whimsical at best for an intelligent designer. Modern evolutionary theory regards genetic mutation in the DNA of a species as the source of favorable variations that nature selects for their value in aiding the survival of an individual. But mutation occurs randomly, and in most cases the variation is harmful and results in miscarriage, deformity, or early death. Such mutations are passed from one generation to the next, sometimes lurking in recessive genes until they meet a recessive partner. One example is cystic fibrosis, which causes mucus buildup in lungs, liver, and pancreas. Sickle cell anemia results in poor blood circulation, general weakness, and when inherited from both parents, painful crises owing to sickling and clumping of the red cells. Phenylketonuria prevents infant brain development. Muscular dystrophy wastes muscles and often leaves the victim helpless. In other cases such mutations are dominant. Huntington's Disease causes gradual deterioration of brain tissue in middle age. Hypercholesterolemia causes heart disease due to cholesterol build-up. Neither intelligence nor design seems at work in producing such cruel mutations, though modern evolutionary theory fully accounts for nature's fickleness. Discoveries of Molecular Genetics In the genetic material, DNA, the sequence of four nucleic bases furnishes three-letter code words for the sequence of twenty amino acids that occur in proteins. Owing to similarities among the properties of some of the twenty amino acids, substitutions may occur without consequence for proper protein folding and function. For many animals it has proved possible to follow the sequences of both nucleic bases in DNA and amino acids in proteins to spot the changes that have occurred over time. One example is the blood protein hemoglobin, which is a tetramer composed of two alpha and two beta chains working in concert to bind four oxygen molecules. For the beta chain of hemoglobin, the number of amino acid differences compared to that in normal adult humans of 146 amino acids appears in parentheses after the listed animal: gorilla (1), gibbon (2), rhesus monkey (8), dog (15), horse and cow (25), mouse (27), chicken (45), frog (67), and lamprey (125) (Campbell 1987). Clearly, species more closely related to man have fewer differences from humans in their hemoglobin. Since each amino acid substitution requires millions of years to occur, a time scale for branching descent from a common organism according with evolutionary theory is more probable than creation by an intelligent designer. The known library of DNA and protein sequences is now so huge that numerous comparisons between organisms are possible. If evolution had not already been elaborated by Darwin, we would be led to it by the more recent results of substitutions in molecular sequences. Many amino acid substitutions result in inactive mutant proteins that are not further elaborated by the organism, if it survives the mutation. On the other hand, many substitutions do not impair function and result in amino acid sequence variation of a functional protein, as in the example of the beta chain of hemoglobin above. Furthermore, in humans there are more than 100 amino acid substitutions in the 146-amino-acid beta chain of normal adult human hemoglobin that still yield a functional protein, and most carriers are unaware that they bear a hemoglobin variant. On the other hand, the substitution of only the third amino acid in the beta chain of human hemoglobin gives rise to an aberrant hemoglobin that aggregates within and produces sickling of the red cell with consequent reduced oxygen-carrying capability. This kind of trial-and-error probing involving numerous inter- and intra-species amino acid substitutions has evolution written all over it; it is very difficult to ascribe any design or anything intelligent to this process. Human Nature Is it any more than an overweening human ego that proposes intelligent design for such a poorly designed creature? In this egoism, creationists confirm in a perverse way that they have great difficulty rising above their animal origins. It is by reducing influence of ego that the nobler aspects of human nature emerge in humanistic values, values which have been appropriated by some religions. Of course, evolutionary history fails to induce the warm and fuzzy feeling inspired by Intelligent Design. People would rather believe in a benevolent creator who cares for them. Evolution offers no mercy for the individual or species that lack the traits enabling them to compete in the struggle for food or adapt to changing environments. Fossil evidence shows the number of species that have failed these trials. An Intelligent Designer would create only successful species, but evolutionary theory can account for the many unsuccessful ones. If Intelligent Design fails so badly to account for the real world, aside from the emotional appeal of a wise providence, is there any justification for its continued promotion? Addendum: The Law of Evolution We end with a comment on the status of evolution-as fact, "just a theory," or something in between. In the physical sciences there are many observations or facts that have given rise to generalizations: two of these are the law of conservation of matter and the law of definite proportions (which states that when two or more elements combine to form a compound they do so in definite proportions by weight). The statements of facts and their convenient generalization to laws are expressed in terms of macroscopically observable and weighable quantities. The overarching explanation for these laws is achieved in atomic theory, which is expressed in terms of invisible atoms and molecules. No one thinks that atomic theory is "just a theory," for it possesses extraordinary explanatory power and provides the context in which many of the conveniences of our civilization depend. Thus we proceed from many observations or facts to their generalization in terms of laws, both levels macroscopic, to a theory expressed in terms of invisible entities. If we now apply this scheme to biology, we see that the concept of evolution is at the law level, as it summarizes the results of a large number of observations or facts about organisms. The analogous theory is natural selection or other means by which evolution is achieved. Unknown nearly 150 years ago to Darwin, explanations of macroscopic evolution in terms of microscopic genes and molecular sequences of nucleic bases in DNA are known to us. Placing the concept of evolution at the law level clarifies its status; it is not a theory. In contrast, the premise of Intelligent Design fails to meet even the most fundamental elements of rational inquiry. By being able to account for everything by divine edict, Intelligent Design explains nothing. [urlhttp://www.csicop.org/si/2003-11/in...ent-design.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 19, 2004 Report Share Posted February 19, 2004 The point is not so much that evolution is 'impossible', but that it simply is not evidenced by our experience. All the "scientific" discussion in the world can't change personal belief or perception. On one hand evolutionists profess to be 'logical', 'scientific' etc, but when one actually reads the 'evidence', the whole theory is shockingly empty of 'proof' of any sort. I'm not trying to critisize you, we're all entitled to our opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 20, 2004 Report Share Posted February 20, 2004 http://www.arn.org/ also In 1997 two scientists, John Walker of the UK and Paul Boyer of the USA, won a joint Nobel Prize for the discovery of a tiny motor whirring away in every cell of all plants and animals. The motor is found in the enzyme ATP-synthase and rotates at a speed of about one hundred revolutions per second (6,000 rpm.) This tiny motor is 200,000 times smaller than a pinhead. Every cell in your body, and those of all living things, has hundreds if not thousands of these motors. A human body is estimated to contain over 10,000,000,000,000,000 of them (that's ten quadrillion.) The ATP-synthase motor's job is making energy for living cells. It does so by making the molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP) from adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and phosphoric acid, a synthesis which requires an input of energy. The ATP produced breaks down to ADP again, giving up the energy by coupling itself to another chemical process within the cell which requires the energy in order to react. Energy is directed and all the products of the process are then recycled. ATP supplies the energy for the functioning of the brain, the beating of the heart and contraction of all muscles. Dr. Walker say, "We require our body weight in ATP every day. We are turning over that amount of ATP to keep ourselves thinking and walking around." On a lazy day we might use only half our body weight, but during hard work up to a ton of ATP could be recycled in a day. It was Dr. Walker who in 1994 provided the first detailed picture of how the motor works. He used X-rays and an electron microscope to take an ‘atomic snapshot'. In 1997, M. Yoshida attached a tiny fluorescent filament so that the motor can be seen spinning under the microscope. Every cell contains power packs known as mitochondria (chloroplasts in plant cells). Embedded in the membrane of each mitochondrion are the rotating disks of the ATP-synthase enzymes. The disk (think of it as the armature of the motor) consists of so-called C protein sub-units, the exact atomic structure of which are yet to be resolved - this may take another decade of research. Projecting from the armature or disk and rotating with it is a bent shaft called the gamma protein sub-unit. The free end of the shaft engages with a "hat" - a ring of six protein sub-units - three alpha and three beta units, which do not rotate but are attached to the membrane. The motor disk is driven by the flow of hydrogen ions through the membrane of the mitochondrion. An ADP molecule and a phosphate ion enter each of the beta sub-units of the ‘hat' (which is shaped to facilitate the combination.) The bent axle turns eccentrically, squeezing each beta sub-unit in turn, expelling the newly formed ATP molecules. Three ATP molecules are formed with each revolution of the motor. At about 100 revolutions per second these motors recycle roughly ones body weight daily, however as demand for energy increases, the flow of hydrogen ions through the mitochondrial membrane increases the speed of the motor to meet the demand for more energy. All this to keep our bodies and brains functioning, thus making life possible - no wonder ATP-synthase is called ‘the motor of life'. As Dr. Walker comments, "It is incredible to think of these motors of life spinning around in our bodies!" Of course, the same amazing, ultra-miniature motors are spinning away in all living things, including plants, fungi and bacteria. Did this motor evolve? The fact that the enzyme is the same in single-celled bacteria and in man, as well as all other forms of life, indicates that it was in perfect working order from the beginning of life on Earth. The ATP-synthase motor is very complex. Could natural selection have perfected this enzyme in the first ‘proto-cells', as evolutionists must believe? Either the motor works or it doesn't work. (Its malfunction is the cause of one form of heart disease, where the motor runs in reverse and breaks down ATP.) If the motor does not work, ATP is not made, and there is no source of energy for the cell. The motor could not have gradually grown. It is composed of many proteins that are precisely shaped and with chemically active sites exactly where they have to be. Take away just one protein and the motor is useless, it had to be perfect from the outset. The membrane of the mitochondrion that holds the motors had to as well be perfectly formed to house the motors, otherwise the cell could not live. So who designed this motor? Chance processes stumbling along making billions of little motors that failed repeatedly along the path of blind natural selection, or an intelligent being? Information Theory tells us that information is corrupted by chance processes. Information only derives from an intelligent source. The plan for this irreducibly complex motor is coded for by information on genes. The genetic information is translated and the motor is manufactured and assembled by a series of mechanisms which are, in total, even more irreducibly complex than the motor itself. ----------------------- another good book is http://www.geraldschroeder.com/new.html this guy writes great books, although his bang bang theory is outdated, his other stuff is great. Gerald Schroeder earned his BSc, MSc and PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His doctorate is in the Earth Sciences and Nuclear Physics. Dr. Schroeder's yeshiva studies were guided by Rabbi Chaim Brovender at ITRI, and before that by the late Rabbi Herman Pollack. He is the author of Genesis and the Big Bang, the Discovery of Harmony between Modern Science and the Torah, published by Bantam Doubleday (now in six languages). His second book, The Science of G-d, published by Free Press of Simon & Schuster, was on the Barnes & Noble bestseller list for three months. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife (the author Barbara Sofer) and their five children. Professor Schroeder served in the IDF, as do his two sons, who are officers. -------------------------- here is a sample on the topic of this thread Evolution: Rationality vs. Randomness At the basis of the theory of neo-Darwinian evolution lie two basic assumptions: That changes in morphologies are induced by random mutations on the genome; and, that these changes in the morphology of plant or animal make the life form either more or less successful in the competition to survive. It is by the aspect of nature's selection that evolutionists claim to remove the theory of evolution from that of a random process. The selection is in no way random. It is a function of the environment. The randomness however remains as the basic driving force that produces the varied morphologies behind the selection. Can random mutations produce the evolution of life? That is the question addressed herein. Because evolution is primarily a study of the history of life, statistical analyses of evolution are plagued by having to assume the many conditions that were extant during those long gone eras. Rates of mutations, the contents of the "original DNA, " the environmental conditions, all effect the rate and direction of the changes in morphology and are all unknowns. One must never ask what the likelihood is that a specific set of mutations will occur to produce a specific animal. This would imply a direction to evolution and basic to all Darwinian theories of evolution is the assumption that evolution has no direction. The induced changes, and hence the new morphologies, are totally random, regardless of the challenges presented by the environment. With this background, let's look at the process of evolution. Life is in essence a symbiotic combination of proteins (and other structures, but here I'll discuss only the proteins). The history of life teaches us that not all combinations of proteins are viable. At the Cambrian explosion of animal life, 530 million years ago, some 50 phyla (basic body plans) appeared suddenly in the fossil record. Only 30 to 34 survived. The rest perished. Since then no new phyla have evolved. It is no wonder that Scientific American asked whether the mechanism of evolution has changed in a way that prohibits all other body phyla. It is not that the mechanism of evolution has changed. It is our understanding of how evolution functions that must change, change to fit the data presented by the fossil record. To use the word of Harvard professor Stephen Jay Gould, it appears that the flow of life is "channeled" along these 34 basic directions. Let's look at this channeling and decide whether or not it can be the result of random processes. Humans and all mammals have some 50,000 genes. That implies we have, as an order of magnitude estimate, some 50,000 proteins. It is estimated that there are some 30 million species of animal life on Earth. If the genomes of all animals produced 50,000 proteins, and no proteins were common among any of the species (a fact we know to be false, but an assumption that makes our calculations favor the random evolutionary assumption), there would be (30 million x 50,000) 1.5 trillion (1.5 x10 to power of 12) proteins in all life. (The actual number is vastly lower). Now let's consider the likelihood of these viable combinations of proteins forming by chance, recalling that, as the events following the Cambrian explosion taught us, not all combinations of proteins are viable. Proteins are coils of several hundred amino acids. Take a typical protein to be a chain of 300 amino acids. There are 20 commonly occurring amino acids in life. This means that the number of possible combinations of the amino acids in our model protein is 20 to the power of 300 (that is 20 multiplied by itself 300 times) or in the more usual ten-based system of numbers, 10 to the power of 390 ( Ten multipled by itself 390 times or more simply said a one with 390 zeroes after it!!!!!) . Nature has the option of choosing among the possible 10 to the power of 390 proteins, the the 1.5 x (10 to power of 12) proteins of which all viable life is composed. Can this have happened by random mutations of the genome? Not if our understanding of statistics is correct. It would be as if nature reached into a grab bag containing a billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion proteins and pulled out the one that worked and then repeated this trick a million million times. But this impossibility of randomness producing order is not different from the attempt to produce Shakespeare or any meaningful string of letters more than a few words in length by a random letter generator. Gibberish is always the result. This is simply because the number of meaningless letter combinations vastly exceeds the number of meaningful combinations. With life it was and is lethal gibberish. Nature, molecular biology and the Cambrian explosion of animal life have given us the opportunity to study rigorously the potential for randomness as a source of development in evolution. If the fossil record is an accurate description of the flow of life, then the34 basic body plans that burst into being at the Cambrian, 530 million years ago, comprise all of animal life till today. The tree of life which envisioned a gradual progression of phyla from simple forms such as sponges, on to more complex life such as worms and then on to shelled creatures such as mollusks has been replaced by the bush of life in which sponges and worms and mollusks and all the other of the 34 phyla appeared simultaneously. Each of these bush lines then developed (evolved) a myriad of variations, but the variations always remained within the basic body plan. Among the structures that appeared in the Cambrian were limbs, claws, eyes with optically perfect lenses, intestines. These exploded into being with no underlying hint in the fossil record that they were coming. Below them in the rock strata (i.e., older than them) are fossils of one-celled bacteria, algae, protozoans, and clumps known as the essentially structureless Ediacaran fossils of uncertain identity. How such complexities could form suddenly by random processes is an unanswered question. It is no wonder that Darwin himself, at seven locations in The Origin of Species, urged the reader to ignore the fossil record if he or she wanted to believe his theory. Abrupt morphological changes are contrary to Darwin's oft repeated statement that nature does not make jumps. Darwin based his theory on animal husbandry rather than fossils. If in a few generations of selective breeding a farmer could produce a robust sheep from a skinny one, then, Darwin reasoned, in a few million or billion generations a sponge might evolve into an ape. The fossil record did not then nor does it now support this theory. The abrupt appearance in the fossil record of new species is so common that the journal Science, the bastion of pure scientific thinking, featured the title, "Did Darwin get it all right?" And answered the question: no. The appearance of wings is a classic example. There is no hint in the fossil record that wings are about to come into existence. And they do, fully formed. We may have to change our concept of evolution to accommodate a reality that the development of life has within it something exotic at work, some process totally unexpected that produces these sudden developments. The change in paradigm would be similar to the era in physics when classical logical Newtonian physics was modified by the totally illogical (illogical by human standards of logic) phenomena observed in quantum physics, including the quantized, stepwise changes in the emission of radiation by a body even as the temperature of the body increases smoothly. With the advent of molecular biology's ability to discern the structure of proteins and genes, statistical comparison of the similarity of these structures among animals has become possible. The gene that controls the development of the eye is the same in all mammals. That is not surprising. The fossil record implies a common branch for all mammals. But what is surprising, even astounding, is the similarity of the mammal gene the gene that controls the development of eyes in mollusks and the visual systems in worms. The same can be said for the gene that controls the expression of limbs in insects and in humans. In fact so similar is this gene, that pieces of the mammalian gene, when spliced into a fruit fly, will cause a wing to appear on the fly. This would make sense if life's development were described as a tree. But the bush of life means that just above the level of one-celled life, insects and mammals and worms and mollusks separated. The eye gene has 130 sites. That means there are 20 to the power of 130 possible combinations of amino acids along those 130 sites. Somehow nature has selected the same combination of amino acids for all visual systems in all animals. That fidelity could not have happened by chance. It must have been pre-programmed in lower forms of life. But those lower forms of life, one-celled, did not have eyes. These data have confounded the classic theory of random, independent evolution producing these convergent structures. So totally unsuspected by classical theories of evolution is this similarity that the most prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journal in the Untied States, Science, reported: "The hypothesis that the eye of the cephalopod [mollusk] has evolved by convergence with vertebrate [human] eye is challenged by our recent findings of the Pax-6 [gene] ... The concept that the eyes of invertebrates have evolved completely independently from the vertebrate eye has to be reexamined." The significance of this statement must not be lost. We are being asked to reexamine the idea that evolution is a free agent. The convergence, the similarity of these genes, is so great that it could not, it did not, happen by chance random reactions. The British Natural History Museum in London has an entire wing devoted to the evolution of species. And what evolution do they demonstrate? Pink daisies evolving into blue daisies; small dogs evolving into big dogs; a few species of cichlid fish evolving in a mere few thousand years into a dozen species of cichlid fish. Very impressive. Until you realize that the daisies remained daisies, the dogs remained dogs and the cichlid fish remained cichlid. It is called micro-evolution. This magnificent museum, with all its resources, could not produce a single example of one phylum evolving into another. It is the mechanisms of macro-evolution, the change of one phylum or class of animal into another that has been called into question by these data. The reality of this explosion of life was discovered long before it was revealed. In 1909, Charles D. Walcott, while searching for fossils in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, came upon a strata of shale near the Burgess Pass, rich in that for which he had been seeking., fossils from the era known as the Cambrian. Over the following four years Walcott collected between 60,000 and 80,000 fossils from the Burgess Shale. These fossils contained representatives from every phylum except one of the phyla that exist today. Walcott recorded his findings meticulously in his notebooks. No new phyla ever evolved after the Cambrian explosion. These fossils could have changed the entire concept of evolution from a tree of life to a bush of life. And they did, but not in 1909. Walcott knew he had discovered something very important. That is why he collected the vast number of samples. But he could not believe that evolution could have occurred in such a burst of life forms, "simultaneously" to use the words of Scientific American. This was totally against the theory of Darwin in which he and his colleagues were steeped. And so Walcott reburied the fossils, all 60,000 of them, this time in the drawers of his laboratory. Walcott was the director of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. It was not until 1985 that they were rediscovered (in the draws of the Smithsonian). Had Walcott wanted, he could have hired a phalanx of graduate students to work on the fossils. But he chose not to rock the boat of evolution. Today fossil representatives of the Cambrian era have been found in China, Africa, the British Isles, Sweden, Greenland. The explosion was worldwide. But before it became proper to discuss the extraordinary nature of the explosion, the data were simply not reported. It is a classic example of cognitive dissonance, but an example for which we have all paid a severe price. At this point we must ask the question, what has produced the wonders of life that surround us? The answer may be implied by those very surroundings. In that case the medium would be the message! http://www.biped.info/articles/collins1.html http://www.biped.info/articles/collins2.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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