Abraham Lincoln liked to ask, “If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?” (The sly answer is “four,” since calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it one.)
Something like the “tail-leg” story has been going on for decades with respect to evolution – among educators, textbook publishers, big media, and politicians. Evolution is holy writ; it is beyond question; doubters get ridiculed or professionally trashed. Thus, President Bush got the “har-de-har-har” treatment for answering a reporter’s question about Intelligent Design. Mr. Bush said children should learn “different schools of thought” on biology. Commentators joked about re-opening the Scopes Monkey Trial, with some suggesting that Mr. Bush’s evolutionary train had gone off the rails.
The cognoscenti “know,” of course, that evolution is supported by a multitude of facts. Columnist Charles Krauthammer called evolution “settled science” and the “foundation of biology,” while admitting it has “gaps.” He said religion (i.e., Intelligent Design) should stay away from science. Mr. Krauthammer had a medical education, so his views can be expected to carry some weight.
Most commentators (Mr. Krauthammer excepted) wouldn’t know one thing from another, scientifically. They either accept Darwin’s theory uncritically, or treat it as an opinion-poll topic. Academics and textbook publishers with vested financial and career interests stoutly maintain that Darwinism is “factual.” But, as with the dog-tail, saying so doesn’t make it so.
Darwinians say evolution is so obviously supported by fact that doubters must be either ignorant or dishonest. But even Darwin admitted that his theory was based on “inference and analogy,” not hard facts. Darwin expected evidence to emerge, but it has not. Reporters and many teachers seem ignorant of this.
Darwin developed his theory after observing changes produced by selective breeding of animals. He bred pigeons extensively, producing wide variations. Seeing remarkable changes in a short time, he extrapolated backward to infer that change at that constant rate must have produced new species over eons of time.
Darwin’s pigeon-breeding produced only pigeons. New birds – or entirely different animals – never resulted. Likewise, thousands of years of selective breeding of wolves have produced many varieties of dogs, but nothing else. All dogs – from Great Dane to Chihuahua to nondescript mongrel to wolf – can breed with each other. They are the same species.
Such variations are certainly facts, but this is not the cross-species evolution Darwin projected, and these facts are not the conclusive proof he expected. There is great confusion among the public on this point because evolution-devotees constantly tout facts. Either they don’t understand the theory themselves, or they are trying to mislead others.
There are no supporting facts because Darwin’s theoretical reasoning was mathematically flawed. He assumed that a constant rate of change across eons of time produced new species of animals (and plants) from earlier species. That assumption was incorrect. Modern experiments have shown that gene-selective change is fairly rapid at first. But it soon levels off, then reaches an uncrossable boundary. All variations are within-species. Each life-form remains true to type.
When botanists began experimenting with sugar-beets, the vegetable yielded only 6% sugar. Over seventy-five years of selective breeding, scientists increased the sugar-yield to 17%. But further efforts were ineffectual. 17% was the limit, and only sugar-beets were produced.
The fruit fly is another favorite “proof” of evolution. It reaches sexual maturity in five days, so several generations can be observed during a school semester. By selective breeding, red-eyed or green-eyed flies can be produced. Also, white flies, flies with fuzzy wings, and other variations. But millions of students have never produced anything except fruit flies.
Darwinism’s “holy grail” – so earnestly sought – is a species-crossover in the “fossil record” to fill the “gaps” Mr. Krauthammer spoke of. But the quest has failed. Occasionally a jawbone or fragment of a hip, etc., has been eagerly proclaimed as evidence of a long-sought “missing link.” These hopes died when the artifact traced to one species or another, never to an intermediate.
The fossil record contains only fully formed organisms – variations around a “mean,” not the transitions Darwin predicted. Some famous discoveries thought to be missing links – e.g., Piltdown Man (supposedly a primitive hominid found in England in 1912), Nebraska Man (predicated entirely on a single tooth from a rare pig), and Neanderthal Man (the stooped ape-man later found to be simply a diseased man) – were frauds or errors. Still shown in some textbooks, these and other hyped “finds” have confused generations of teachers and students.
To get round the problem of life-forms stubbornly holding to type, Darwinians theorize that favorable genetic mutations must have occurred over time. The fossil-record should show this, but it does not. Experts say cross-species transitions would require multiple mutations whose cumulative probability of occurrence is incomprehensibly small – for practical purposes, zero.
This mathematical reality informs the biological construct of “irreducible complexity” – first introduced in 1993 by Lehigh University Professor of Biochemistry Michael Behe. Prof. Behe explains his concept using the mousetrap as an example. The device, he notes, cannot be assembled gradually. You can’t catch a few mice with just a wooden platform; add a spring to catch more mice; add the hammer, etc. – with each new addition improving the device’s efficiency. Unless fully assembled, with all essential parts in place, the trap will not function at all. It is irreducibly complex.
Most organisms are like this. All parts must be present and fully functional for the organism to work or survive. The eye is a classic example. This exceedingly complex organ – a marvelous system of special cells and proteins – is useless unless all parts are fully formed and working. The slightest alteration from correct form destroys its functionality. How could it possibly evolve by slight alterations over time? Even in Darwin’s time, the eye was cited as proof against his theory.
Darwin believed complex organisms came about gradually, but he saw that irreducible complexity could crash his theory: “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.”
Some scientists say irreducible complexity is indeed the Darwin-buster. The probability of the eye developing spontaneously has been estimated at 1/10123 – a probability of essentially zero. The mind-boggling denominator (1 with 123 zeroes following) far exceeds the number of nanoseconds in the universe’s age (3.15 x 1026) or total molecules in the universe (~1078). Even the probable number of atoms in the universe – as many as 1082 – comes nowhere near 10123.
An automated factory with computers, robots and machinery all timed and coordinated is less complex than a single cell. That scientists did not comprehend this in Darwin’s time is one reason his theory gained acceptance. That educators don’t comprehend it now is why the theory persists.
Intelligent Design is not science, as it can’t be proven or demonstrated. But microbiology and an emerging understanding of irreducible complexity suggest that Darwin’s theory won’t be proved, either. People who “believe” in evolution are not scientists.
So the issue can’t be decided scientifically. But consider these questions:
- Did irreducibly complex organisms develop randomly, defying infinitesimal probabilities (e.g., 1/10123)?
- Or did a “creative intelligence” design them?
One chance in 10123 that the eye evolved, fully formed. Would you bet on those odds?
My hope for education is that a generation of students will finally realize that the whole evolution shtick is complete rubbish, and that intelligent design is the only plausible explanation for life as we know it.
1 comment
Dear Woody,
This is exceptionally good! How true it is when the scripture says, “the FOOL has said in his heart, there is no God!”