Challenges to Darwinism (continued)

• Genetic modeling is the use of mathematical modeling to show how the genetic composition of a population develops over time. A 2016 study conducted by researchers at three institutions (Stockholm University, Sweden; the Biologic Institute, Washington state, USA; and Coventry University, United Kingdom) used DNA variation to compare two models:
  • the common descent model: i.e., the evolutionary model, which assumes a population size of a few thousand homo sapiens, and
  • the unique original model (Adam and Eve).

The researchers concluded that the evolutionary model was full of gaps and weaknesses and that the unique origin model, where humanity arose from one single couple with created diversity, seems to explain data at least as well, if not better.  (https://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2016.3/BIO-C.2016.3)

Ann Gauger (https://www.discovery.org/p/gauger), in the book,  Science and Human Origins, claims that a first couple could have carried sufficient genetic diversity to account for four basic haplotypes. (https://www.discovery.org/m/2019/01/Science-and-Human-Origins.pdf, pp. 117-121)   A haplotype is a set of genes within an organism that was inherited together from a single parent.  (https://www.nature.com/scitable/definition/haplotype-haplotypes-142/)

She further states:

“Adam and Eve have not been disproven by science, and those who claim otherwise are misrepresenting the scientific evidence.” (https://www.discovery.org/m/2019/01/Science-and-Human-Origins.pdf, p. 121, para. 2)

• Even if we assume that a new kind of organism can come about by way of random mutation, did both male and female evolve separately but synchronously with the same new characteristics so that the two lovebirds could mate and propagate the new kind?
• Nowadays, some are citing interbreeding as a method of speciation. Interbreeding is not evolution by any stretch. Rather, it gives an indication of the limits of change within a species. Darwinian evolution assumes a great capacity for change; but interbreeding highlights the robustness of species and resistance to change. For example, when different species mate and successfully reproduce, they usually produce barren offspring, as in the case of the mating of a female horse and male donkey, to produce a mule —which is not able to reproduce.

Dog breeding is another example of how interbreeding can lead to defects rather than advantages. Great Danes, bred for their large size, have bodies too large for their hearts and are prone to develop bone cancer.  (https://www.housemixblog.com/2017/12/19/is-there-proof-god-exists/, Section on Evolution)

Bulldogs —bred to have large heads— have breathing, skeletal and skin problems; and even worse, many can’t naturally mate and need their puppies to be delivered by Cesarean section. (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/07/bulldogs-dogs-animals-science-breeding/, para. 13)

• Many scientists, including Nobel Prize winners, tell us that the simplest living creatures started out whole. Also, the most basic organisms have the same complex cellular structure as complex organisms. Jacque Monod, a 1965 Nobel laureate, in his book Chance And Necessity, says:

We have no idea what the structure of a primitive cell might have been. The simplest living system known to us, the bacterial cell…in…its overall chemical plan is the same as that of all other living beings. It employs the same genetic code and the same mechanism of translation as do, for example, human cells. (https://tinyurl.com/t37nd4v, p. 123)

Figure 2: Complexity in the cell

(https://youtu.be/zU7Lww-sBPg?t=553)

• According to the group The Third Way of Evolution, Darwinism does not present any empirical evidence to solve difficult evolutionary problems and variations in heredity. It ignores much contemporary molecular evidence such as symbiogenesis, horizontal DNA transfer, the action of mobile DNA and epigenetic modifications (https://www.thethirdwayofevolution.com).
• Darwin’s “ Survival of the fittest” does not explain:
  • Why an animal —that matures and gains survival skills quickly— would evolve into a human infant who needs 15 years to reach puberty.
  • Why Man would develop characteristics such as altruism and love of exploration which might hurt his chances of survival.
  • Why we spend a lot of time in superfluous activity which does not aid survival and reproduction such as art, spirituality, philosophy, or the production of contraceptive aids. (The Divine Reality – God, Islam and the Mirage of Atheism, Revised Edition (2019), Hamza Andreas Tzortzis, p. 60)
  • Why there are lifestyles, such as homosexuality, which go against the purpose of reproduction and the survival of species.

Moreover, how did the instinct for survival come about without a creator?

How and why would dead chemicals formulate a plan to preserve the products of their reactions

Why would dead, unfeeling chemicals attach a value to “survival” or care whether they or their products survive or not?

How can chemicals “teach” their products to choose survival?

If the driver for all speciation is the ability to survive, and if creatures are valued in accordance with their fitness for survival, then why do we value a human being over an e-coli bacteria —which has also survived admirably?

• Unbiased natural selection: When asked why marsupials and placentals were very similar in shape even though they were widely separated in the Darwinian classification, some evolutionists came up with the name “convergent evolution,” and attributed the similarity in shape to similar environments. When we found bats and whales living in different environments sharing a common system —echo-location— and cichlid fish in two different environments developing into almost identical varieties, Nature magazine published a report calling for a rethink of evolution theory. (https://www.nature.com/news/does-evolutionary-theory-need-a-rethink-1.16080)

New terms started to make their way into evolution literature such as:

“parallel evolution” (https://www.britannica.com/science/evolution-scientific-theory/Convergent-and-parallel-evolution),

“guided along specific routes” (https://www.nature.com/news/does-evolutionary-theory-need-a-rethink-1.16080),

“evo-devo and constraints” (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7067393_Brakefield_PM_Evo-devo_and_constraints_on_selection_Trends_Ecol_Evol_21_362-368)

So natural selection became “guided” and “constrained”— no longer “random.”

Stephen Gould is an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read authors of popular science of his generation. Gould spent most of his career teaching at Harvard University and working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. According to him:

“Darwin made a mistake in proposing his natural-selection theory and it is fairly easy to detect the mistake. We have seen that what the theory so grievously lacks is a criterion of survival that is independent of survival.” (Bethell T., Darwin’s mistake, Harper’s 1976; 252:1509 (Feb), p. 70)

This is what is called tautology or circular argument. A tautology is a statement that is always true (by necessity). In the case of Natural Selection this translates to: the fittest survive and those that survive are the fittest. The “how” is what natural selection theory is supposed to provide, and mutually inter-defined terms do not do that. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4594354, paras. 9, 16)

Numerous other scientists have also criticized natural selection as a tautology or circular argument, rendering a fatal blow to the theory’s ability to explain the mechanism of biological change.

Early in his career, the legendary philosopher Karl Popper called evolution via natural selection “almost a tautology” and “not a testable scientific theory but a metaphysical research program.” Sir Karl Raimund Popper, 1902-1994,  CH FBA FRS, was an Austrian-born British philosopher and professor, generally regarded as one of the 20th century’s greatest philosophers of science. Attacked for these criticisms, Popper retracted them. But in a 1992 interview, he blurted out that he still found Darwin’s theory dissatisfying: “One ought to look for alternatives!” (https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/dubitable-darwin-why-some-smart-nonreligious-people-doubt-the-theory-of-evolution/)

Jerry Fodor of Rutgers University and the cognitive scientist Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini of the University of Arizona in Tucson, in their book, What Darwin Got Wrong, also say that the theory of natural selection is fatally flawed. They cite, among other things, the large role which contingency plays in evolution and the fact that clusters of genes persist unchanged for eons. (What Darwin Got Wrong, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010. https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/7726352-what-darwin-got-wrong)

…To be continued in Part 17