Refutation Of Darwinism

Scientific American's 15 Errors

2006-11-27T15:02:00.000+03:00

Harun Yahya's Answer to John Rennie,
editor in chief of Scientific American

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… 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:

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.

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 "… 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 Hervé 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 unsurpassable 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:

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

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.

____________________________________________

(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) Hervé 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.

http://harunyahya.com

National Geographic's Darwin Error

2006-11-23T17:45:00.000+03:00

The November edition of National Geographic magazine (NG) posed the question
"Was Darwin Wrong?" on its front cover. Natural scientist David Quammen,
author of the article by the same name, replied "No" to that question from
his own perspective, and claimed that Darwin's theory of evolution was today
backed up by powerful scientific evidence. Quammen repeated the main claims
from Darwin's book The Origin of Species, but overlooked one important
detail.
Darwin added another chapter to his book, one called "Difficulties on
Theory," and openly admitted the existence of difficulties in these terms:
Such is the sum of the several chief objections and
difficulties which may justly be urged against my theory… I have felt these
difficulties far too heavily during many years to doubt their weight. 1
The fact is, however, that the NG article discussed not one of the phenomena
that Darwin regarded as a problem for his theory, and even ignored their
existence. For example, although Darwin referred in his book to the way the
fossil record failed to back up his theory and to the complexity in the eye,
NG magazine did not even touch on such subjects which the theory of
evolution is unable to account for as the Cambrian Explosion, biological
complexity and the origin of genetic information.
Quammen, who thus appears to be more of a Darwinist than Darwin himself,
emerged as the defender not of a theory that can account for difficulties,
but of a "dogma" that needs to be shielded from criticism.
In this article, Quammen's so-called evidence is analysed and the Darwinist
propaganda embarked on by NG magazine refuted.

An Example of NG Turkey's Dogmatic Stance
The English language edition of the NG article "Was Darwin Wrong?" also
devoted space to Harun Yahya's works about the theory of evolution. In the
section describing worldwide reactions against evolution the following words
appeared in reference to Harun Yahya:

Their discomfort is paralleled by Islamic creationists such
as Harun Yahya, author of a recent volume titled The Evolution Deceit, who
points to the six-day creation story in the Koran as literal truth and calls
the theory of evolution "nothing but a deception imposed on us by the
dominators of the world system."
Interestingly though, Harun Yahya did not appear in NG's Turkish version,
and this section was altered, assuming the following form: "This unease
displays a parallelism among those who support the Islamic idea of
creation."
As someone who states his primary aim as being that of describing the
philosophy and scientific invalidity of Darwinism, Harun Yahya has closely
monitored Darwinist propaganda in recent years and has responded, in the
light of scientific findings, to the pro-evolutionist writings and
broadcasts of media organisations, of which NG is one. (see
www.darwinism-watch.com <http://www.darwinism-watch.com/> )
If Darwinism really were supported by a mass of evidence, as claimed in this
NG article, then why is NG Turkey trying to prevent Harun Yahya's scientific
criticisms from being heard? Could it be that NG Turkey was concerned that
Darwinism will be unable to withstand such scientific criticism? In fact,
this attitude by NG's Turkey desk not only shows that the magazine is
unwilling to inform its readers of the source of effective criticism of
evolution, but also confirms the criticism that it is seeking to keep
Darwinism on its feet as an ideology.

NG Is Unwilling to Face the Modern Scientific Facts
There can be no doubt that in order to provide a realistic response to the
question "Was Darwin Wrong?" one needs to look at what Darwin actually said
and to compare this to modern scientific facts. In his book The Origin of
Species, in which he unveiled his theory of evolution, Darwin provided a
very important criterion by which to test his theory. So concrete is that
criterion that in Darwin's own words it could "absolutely break down" the
theory. Darwin wrote:

"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." 2
Darwin maintained that organs evolved during a gradual process. Thinking of
this imaginary process in reverse, it appears that Darwin assumed that these
organs possessed reducibility. However, advances made in the field of
biochemistry, especially over the last 40 years, have revealed that the cell
possesses a superior complexity, the details of which were unknown in
Darwin's time, for which reason it was equated to a "black box," and that
certain structures within the cell actually possess the feature of
"irreducible complexity."
"Irreducible complexity" is a phenomenon based on empirical evidence and
literally constitutes the antithesis of Darwin's theory. The most important
figure to bring this concept onto the agenda of the scientific world is the
biochemist Michael J. Behe from Lehigh University in the USA. In his 1996
book Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution Behe
examines the irreducibly complex natures of the cell and certain other
biological structures, and reveals that these cannot possibly be accounted
for in terms of evolution. Behe sets out the effect that irreducible
complexity has on the claims of Darwinism thus:
"To Darwin, the cell was a 'black box' -- its inner workings
were utterly mysterious to him. Now, the black box has been opened up and we
know how it works. Applying Darwin's test to the ultra-complex world of
molecular machinery and cellular systems that have been discovered over the
past 40 years, we can say that Darwin's theory has 'absolutely broken
down'." 3
Irreducible complexity has demolished Darwinism, and proved that life is the
product of intelligent design, in other words that God has created all
living things. The way that NG seeks to keep this from its readers
constitutes a flight from reality.

NG's biogeographical tales
In his article in NG, Quammen begins his account of the so-called evidence
for Darwinism with biogeography, and it may be of use to provide a
description of this concept at this point. Biogeography is a branch of
science that investigates the geographical distribution of species and seeks
an answer to the question of how they came by these habitat regions by
drawing up maps of their locations on the Earth.
Most books in the field of biogeography are full of facts that say nothing,
neither in favour nor against, the theory of evolution: such as maps of
living species' habitat areas, the features of those areas, questions
regarding the spread of organisms, and the grouping together of species on
the basis of geographical area ... 4
When their distribution on the Earth is examined it can be seen that species
do not generally exhibit a global distribution. Species have rather spread
in large groups in areas possessing specific climatic and environmental
conditions. Ever since Darwin, evolutionists have sought to portray this
spread as evidence for evolution, though with regard to the "fundamental"
living categories of geographical distribution their efforts have failed to
come up with a consistent evolutionary scenario.
In their book Systematics and Biogeography, G. Nelson and N. Platnick of the
New York American Museum of Natural History analysed the studies performed
in this field and set out their conclusion:
We conclude, therefore, that biogeography (or geographical
distribution of organisms) has not been shown to be evidence for or against
evolution in any sense. 5
If evolutionists really wish to offer evidence for their theory then what
they need to do is to abandon their fairy tales about "if this living thing
is found here then it must have evolved here, and if that living thing is
found there then it must have evolved there," and instead scientifically
document their own responses to the question of how living things came into
being in the first place. (It is an indisputable fact that the mechanisms of
random mutation and natural selection cannot account for the origin of
species.)
The fact that evolutionist claims based on biogeography are myths devoid of
any scientific evidence clearly emerge on inspection of NG's claims about
palaeontology. The fossil record clearly reveals that the idea that living
things spread by evolving is a myth.

NG's palaeontology deception
NG makes a generalisation about the fossil strata, telling its readers that
so-called closely related species are generally found side by side in
consecutive strata, and that a life form going back millions of years in one
stratum is followed by a similar, though not identical, one in the
subsequent stratum. As an example of this generalisation it cites the equine
sequence that even evolutionists abandoned years ago; it maintains that the
modern-day horse emerged at the end of the sequence Hyracotherium,
Orohippus, Epihippus and Mohippus, fossils of which are found in consecutive
strata.
What NG is doing here consists of a blatant deception. The equine sequence
is an unfounded one, the invalidity of which has now been demonstrated. That
being the case, putting it forward as a generalisation regarding the fossil
record cannot be described as anything else than an attempt to verify that
generalisation with a deceptive example.

Life forms emerged with no evolutionary progenitors, but in a single moment,
and with flawless bodily structures
Darwin, who maintained that living things emerged through graduated
evolution and who hoped that the fossil record to confirm that claim would
be obtained in future excavations, was mistaken. The fossils obtained in
endless excavations carried out by palaeontologists all over the world have
produced findings that openly refute the idea of gradual change in
consecutive strata. These facts concern the phenomena of sudden appearance
and stasis.
Species emerge suddenly, with no evolutionary progenitors but with flawless
bodily structures. In his 1999 book Fossils and Evolution, Tom Kemp, Curator
of the Zoological Collections in Oxford University Museum of Natural
History, admits this:
In virtually all cases a new taxon appears for the first
time in the fossil record with most definitive features already present, and
practically no known stem-group forms. 6
Fossils hundreds of millions of years old that bear no trace of evolution
invalidate
neo-Darwinism
Furthermore, species exhibit no gradual change as suggested in the NG
generalisation. Species with natural histories of hundreds of millions of
years exhibit a "stability" demonstrating a permanency throughout geological
strata. The shark, coelacanth, ant, salamander and many other species,
fossils of which have been found and which have remained unchanged for
hundreds of millions of years, have led to palaeontologists accepting stasis
as one of the most striking aspects of the fossil record. This phenomenon
refutes Darwinism's prediction of gradual change and invalidates the theory.
Professor of Geology Peter J. Williamson describes this in Nature magazine:
The principal problem is morphological stasis. A theory is
only as good as its predictions, and conventional neo-Darwinism, which
claims to be a comprehensive explanation of evolutionary process, has failed
to predict the widespread long-term morphological stasis now recognized as
one of the most striking aspects of the fossil record. 7
In short, NG's claim of graduated change throughout geological strata is a
myth supported in the face of the science of palaeontology. The way that NG
seeks to support that myth with the equine sequence only makes matters
worse.

The truth in the equine sequence that NG seeks to conceal from its readers
The equine sequence is based on various hoofed fossils unearthed in North
America. Darwinists set these out in such a way as to establish a sequence,
according to the fossils' dental characteristics and numbers of toes, and
for years put this forward as evidence for Darwinism. Continuing
palaeontological excavations, however, definitively revealed the
inconsistencies within that series. NG, known for its blind devotion to
Darwinism, has no qualms about concealing this development from its readers
and writing that the alleged evolutionary ancestors of the horse follow one
another in consecutive geological strata.
Former BBC science editor Gordon Rattray Taylor describes how the equine
sequence constitutes no evidence for Darwinism:
But perhaps the most serious weakness of Darwinism is the
failure of paleontologists to find convincing phylogenies or sequences of
organisms demonstrating major evolutionary change... The horse is often
cited as the only fully worked-out example. But the fact is that 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
they were actually ranged in this order in time. 8
At a meeting in November 1980 at the Chicago Museum of Natural History,
attended by 150 evolutionists, one speaker, Boyce Rensberger, stated that
there was no basis in the fossil record for the scenario of equine
evolution, and that no gradual equine evolution ever took place:
The popularly told example of horse evolution, suggesting a
gradual sequence of changes from four-toed fox-sized creatures living nearly
50 million years ago to today's much larger one-toed horse, has long been
known to be wrong. Instead of gradual change, fossils of each intermediate
species appear fully distinct, persist unchanged, and then become extinct.
Transitional forms are unknown. 9
Discoveries that living things included in the imaginary sequence of equine
evolution actually lived at the same time, and even together, totally refute
Quammen. One of the most striking examples of this came to light in 1981.
Fossils of thousands of living things, 10 million years old, that had been
buried under lava as the result of a volcanic eruption and whose skeletons
had been preserved down to the present day, were dug up in the US state of
Nebraska. With that discovery it emerged that three- and single-toed equines
assumed to have lived at different periods and to have ancestral
relationships with one another in the framework of evolutionists' imaginary
equine sequence, actually lived side by side. Interestingly the source of
this information is NG magazine. 10

The myth of whale evolution
I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered,
by natural selection, more and more aquatic in their structure and habits,
with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as
a whale. 11
>From watching bears fishing along a river bank, Darwin set out his ideas on
the origin of whales in these words in his book The Origin of Species,
though he elected to remove that section from subsequent editions of the
book. Yet evolutionists who came after Darwin had no hesitation over
adopting this myth, with various minor amendments, that came down as a
monument to the unrestricted nature of his imagination. They continued to
propagate the myth that the whale evolved not from the bear but from other
land mammals, as if this were a scientific fact.
It can now be seen that NG, one of the main representatives of Darwinian
mythology, is behaving no differently, and is seeking to portray this great
myth, supported for the sake of the dogma of evolution, as representing
evidence for evolution.
There are enormous differences, in terms of such basic physiological
characteristics as water conservation, sight and communication, between
whales and the land mammals alleged to have been their progenitors. Let us
now consider the scientific dilemma facing the myth of evolution by
examining the design in whales:

The special water conservation design in whales' bodies
Although they live in water, whales are unable to meet their water
requirements from salty sea water. They need fresh water to live. Although
it is not known exactly how they meet their water needs, it is thought that
a large part of it is obtained by eating sea creatures that contain levels
of salt that are 30% lower than those of the ocean water.In such an
environment, where fresh water is exceedingly scarce, the maximum
conservation of water in living things' bodies and minimum consumption
thereof are critical. Water levels are of great importance to whales, for
which reason, just like camels, whales do not perspire. Their kidneys
regulate urine concentration in such a way as to supply water.

Why is whale milk fatty?
Another delicate balance with regard to water needs appears in the fat level
in the female whale's milk. The mother whale feeds her young with a very
thick milk, of the consistency of cheese. This milk is ten times fattier
than human milk. There is a chemical reason why this milk contains such a
high level of fat. Water is produced as a side product as fat is processed
after being consumed by the baby. In this way the mother meets her
offspring's need for water with minimal water loss.

The design in whales' eyes
There are complex arrangements in the design of the whale eye and its
communication systems, no examples of which are to be found in terrestrial
mammals. Land mammals have eyelids to protect against dust and impact.
Whales, on the other hand, have a hard layer to protect against a different
danger, the pressure under the sea. Moreover, the refractive index in the
design of the whale eye makes it possible for a killer whale to leap up and
catch a fish six metres above the water level in an amusement park with
considerable accuracy. In addition, whales' eyes are on either side of the
head, unlike terrestrial mammals, thus protecting them from the current.
Thanks to the levels of rod and cone cells in the eye, their sensitivity
levels to light, colour and other details are very high. In addition to that
ratio, the presence of phosphorus in the eyes is a design that facilitates
their ability to see in the dark depths of the oceans.

The mathematical calculation employed by whales
The sense used by whales in the location of sources of food and of one
another is not actually sight, but rather hearing. Many whales hunt at the
dark regions at the bottom of the sea thanks to a form of natural "sonar."
The whale's brain emits clicking sounds, in a way not yet fully understood
by scientists. The distance of an object is determined by means of a
mathematical calculation. The whale brain multiplies the speed at which the
sounds it emits strike an object and bounce back by the time necessary for
this, and divides the result by two. The result is the distance of the
object from itself. Furthermore, the whale also possesses the ability to
focus the sound waves with its brain on a specific point and to emit these
like a light impulse. The returning waves are analysed and interpreted in
the animal's brain. This interpretation determines the shape of the body in
front of it, its size, speed and position. The animal's skull is
sound-proofed to protect it from the bombardment of powerful sound waves it
constantly emits and which could even seriously damage the brain itself. The
sonic system in the animal is unbelievably sensitive, so much so that the US
Navy imitates the sonar design in sea mammals in developing its own
technology. 12

Special designs for whale calves
The perfect designs in whales are by no means limited to these. The shape of
a whale calf's mouth has been designed in such a way as to be ideally suited
to fit its mother's teats, so that the calf is able to suckle without losing
a drop of milk and without taking in a drop of sea water. Moreover, they
possess lungs capable of storing high levels of oxygen for protracted dives
and an ear membrane designed to protect them from high pressure.
These arrangements, every one of which indicates an evident design, are
particular to whales and are not to be found in any terrestrial mammal. NG,
however, expects it readers to set reason aside and believe that these all
came about by chance. NG denies that whales were intelligently designed,
maintaining instead that one fine day a land mammal decided to live in the
sea, and that the whale evolved as the result of unconscious mechanisms such
as random mutations and natural selection.
Yet what mutation could possibly produce sonar in a mammal that was
allegedly the progenitor of the whale? Bearing in mind the effect of
mutations and the importance of the brain to the whale's survival, it is
clear that mutations would damage the brain, crippling or killing the whale.
Could the brain, that produces sound waves, be able to focus these on a
particular point and determine the location of objects using a mathematical
calculation, acquire a perfect sonar in an area that would be damaged during
this random process? By what coincidence could it produce sonar of such a
high quality that even the US Navy's technology development units have been
unable to match it? What mutations could turn a land mammal's feet into fins
and a tail capable of propelling several tons of weight?
There is no doubt that these questions may also be asked with regard to the
systems that make it possible to use water so productively, the suckling
system and the protective systems in the eye and ear. However, NG has no
reasonable response to give to these questions. There is but one answer.
Whales were created fully formed in a single moment. God created whales to
be flawless, endowed with all the systems for their needs, just as He did
all other living things. In one verse of the Qur'an it is revealed that:
Mankind! remember God's blessing to you. Is there any
creator other than God providing for you from heaven and earth? There is no
god but Him. So how have you been perverted? (Qur'an, 35: 3)
(For a more detailed reply to NG's fantastical whale story see
http://www.harunyahya.com/70national_geographic_sci29.php
<http://www.harunyahya.com/70national_geographic_sci29.php> )

NG's error regarding embryology
Another error in Quammen's article in NG is the repetition of a myth once
known as the "law of recapitulation." This belonged to the German biologist
Ernst Haeckel and in his claim regarding embryology Darwin was to a large
extent "inspired" by Haeckel. The law of recapitulation maintains that the
embryological development of living things repeats the imaginary stages
undergone during the descent of the alleged evolutionary ancestors.
The fact that Quammen devotes space to this in his article reveals a wide
gap of knowledge on his part. Objections along the lines that Haeckel's
claims were devoid of any scientific justification and that the evidence he
offered was forged began 136 years ago13, and the end of the law of
recapitulation as the subject of scientific debate came as far back as 80
years ago 14. Even George Gaylord Simpson, one of the founders of
neo-Darwinism, admitted this fact 42 years ago in the words:
Haeckel misstated the evolutionary principle involved. It is
now firmly established that ontogeny does not repeat phylogeny. 15
Moreover, the myth of recapitulation, which NG has no qualms over
recapitulating itself, involves what one British embryologist referred to in
1997 as "the best known fraud in the history of biology." In his book
Natürliche Schِpfungsgeschichte (The History of Natural Creation), written
in 1868, Haeckel deliberately distorted the pictures of human, monkey and
dog embryos in such a way as to support his claim.
One striking aspect of this fraud is that it also constitutes a "centennial
monument" to Darwinist dogmatism. Until recently, a number of Darwinist
sources, including text books, continued either to use the counterfeit
drawings as they were, or else to repeat the myth of recapitulation. The
Harvard University professor and evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould displayed
great common sense and offered the following criticism:
… [W]e do, I think, have the right to be both astonished and
ashamed by the century of mindless recycling that has led to the persistence
of these drawings in a large number, if not a majority, of modern textbooks!
16
NG has not used counterfeit drawings. Yet it has no hesitations over using
recapitulation, the invalidity of which emerged at least 80 years ago, as
support for Darwinism.
We urge NG to consider Stephen Jay Gould's words.

NG's errors with regard to morphology
Quammen exhibits a most thought-provoking attitude in that section in which
he deals with Darwin's claims on the subject of morphology. The way that a
zoo is organised into birds, monkeys, big cats, crocodiles or fish in the
aquarium is interpreted as evidence for evolution. According to Quammen, the
fact that living things can be classified under a hierarchical system in
families, orders and kingdoms must be the product of an evolutionary
process.
However, Quammen's portrayal of hierarchical classification as evidence for
evolution is nonsensical. That is because the fact that forms of life can be
classified hierarchically is not a prediction first put forward by
evolutionists and then subsequently confirmed. The Swedish scientist Carl
Linnaeus, the father of the modern system of classification, was a scientist
who believed in creation from nothing and regarded that classification as
the product of intelligent design. That is compatible with what we see with
our own eyes and is grounded in common sense. The ability to be
hierarchically classified is a well known hallmark of intelligent design.
Means of transport, for example, can be classified as land, air and sea
vehicles, and may be broken down into subcategories and even smaller
subgroups. Yet this classification does not show that the modes of transport
in question came into being through evolution.
Indeed, in an article published in the magazine New Scientist, the prominent
evolutionist Mark Ridley makes the following statement:
The simple fact that species can be classified
hierarchically into genera, families, and so on, is not an argument for
evolution. It is possible to classify any set of objects into a hierarchy
whether their variation is evolutionary or not. 17
Quammen's preconception
In the same way that what Quammen writes on this subject are far from
supporting his claim, it also reveals how he relies on preconceptions rather
than scientific evidence:
Such a pattern of tiered resemblances?groups of similar
species nested within broader groupings, and all descending from a single
source?isn't naturally present among other collections of items. You won't
find anything equivalent if you try to categorize rocks, or musical
instruments, or jewelry. Why not? Because rock types and styles of jewelry
don't reflect unbroken descent from common ancestors. Biological diversity
does. The number of shared characteristics between any one species and
another indicates how recently those two species have diverged from a shared
lineage. (p. 13)
Quammen placed the hierarchical categorisation in living things in a
separate place, on the grounds that it reflects a continual chain of descent
from a common ancestor. That term, however, is helpless labelling in
Quammen's desperate attempts to prove Darwin right.
As is made clear above, there is no fossil record capable of being proposed
as evidence of any evolutionary link between living categories. The words of
the prominent evolutionary palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould that "The
evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and
nodes of their branches" are an admission of the fact that there is actually
no evidence for the evolutionary links assumed to exist among living things.
18
In short, the origin of the evolutionary chain of descent that Quammen
claims exists among living categories is not scientific fact such as the
fossil record, but rather his own dogmatic mentality.

The five-digit skeletal structure error
Quammen maintains that the way that various vertebrates such as the bat, the
dolphin and human beings all share the feature of having five digits stems
from descent from a common ancestor. This claim rests on the fact that
although there is the same basic plan in the front and rear legs of the
living things in question, these can still be easily differentiated (the
homological claim). This claim of Quammen's can of course only deceive those
readers who are unaware of the facts of modern science. Advances in the
field of molecular biology definitively invalidate this morphology-based
claim. One striking discovery that led to this is that the production of
these organs, assumed to be a legacy from a common ancestor, is in fact
controlled by different genes in different creatures.
The evolutionary biologist William Fix describes the collapse of the
evolutionary thesis concerning pentadactylism (having five digits) in this
area in the face of this discovery:
The older textbooks on evolution make much of the idea of
homology, pointing out the obvious resemblances between the skeletons of the
limbs of different animals. Thus the `pentadactyl' limb pattern is found in
the arm of a man, the wing of a bird, and flipper of a whale, and this is
held to indicate their common origin. Now if these various structures were
transmitted by the same gene couples, varied from time to time by mutations
and acted upon by environmental selection, the theory would make good sense.
Unfortunately this is not the case. Homologous organs are now known to be
produced by totally different gene complexes in the different species. The
concept of homology in terms of similar genes handed on from a common
ancestor has broken down. 19
NG's vestigial Darwinism
Quammen displays a striking determination not to grasp the fact that
Darwin's claims have been demolished by modern science. One of the
indications of this is his repetition of the claim regarding vestigial
organs, a claim which is utterly illusory. It is maintained in the article
that organs such as the male nipple, structures claimed to be the vestiges
of rear legs in certain snakes, or the covered wings in coleoptera that are
not actually used, are redundant, functionless organs left over from the
evolutionary process. Quammen is clearly ignoring the definitive results
from scientific developments:
The list of up to 180 supposed vestigial organs at the beginning of the 20th
century eventually shrank to almost none in the face of discoveries from
scientific research. One by one it emerged that a great many organs, such as
the appendix and the plica semilunaris, once supposed to be vestigial
organs, do actually have functions.20 "Science" is in any case the process
by which human beings come to know what was previously unknown. The gradual
emergence of the functions of organs that were once regarded as vestigial
shows that, logically, the functions of the last few remaining organs whose
functions are still unknown will soon be revealed.
Indeed, a great many present-day evolutionists have admitted that the myth
of "vestigial organs" is an argument rooted in ignorance. In an article
headed "Do Vestigial Organs Represent Evidence for Evolution?" published in
the journal Evolutionary Theory, the evolutionary biologist S. R. Scadding
admits this fact:
Since it is not possible to unambiguously identify useless
structures, and since the structure of the argument used is not
scientifically valid, I conclude that 'vestigial organs' provide no special
evidence for the theory of evolution. 21
Evolutionists' claim on the subject of vestigial organs stem not from any
vestigialism in these organs, but from the vestigial nature of their own
perspectives. The existence of any living thing proves only the existence of
God, its creator. The way that inanimate and unconscious atoms combine to
produce a hearing, smelling, touching and seeing human being is proof of
God's flawless creation. That it is because it is impossible for atoms,
which cannot smell, hear or see, to wish to have perception and to combine
together for that purpose. For a collection of matter to stand and look at
itself in front of a mirror, or for matter to taste and touch itself, has no
place in evolutionary logic. These feelings can only be explained in terms
of a superior creation, in other words the existence of God and His flawless
creation. Despite this self-evident truth, evolutionists hold to the
irrational and blind belief that they themselves are the product of matter
and blind chance, which shows that their claim regarding vestigial organs is
one based on this prejudiced and dogmatic perspective.
The realisation that the organs regarded by evolutionists as vestigial do
actually have functions is a proof of this. For example, the structures
portrayed as the vestiges of rear legs in certain species of snake are now
known to help them to grip one another during mating. To regard the male
nipple as the product of an evolutionary process also rests on a distorted
logic. If the male nipple were a leftover from an evolutionary process then
males must have evolved from a population consisting solely of females,
which is a scenario so unimaginable that no evolutionist has felt able to
accept it. Coleoptera, another example cited by Quammen, also constitute no
evidence for evolution. Insect species which do not develop a functional
wing are generally seen in open habitats with strong winds, such as ocean
islands. In an environment where strong winds blow and surrounded by large
masses of water, insects' being able to fly is by no means an advantage, and
may even represent a danger. That is because insects flying in the air are
exposed to the effects of the wind and can be hurled into trees or rocks,
ending up crippled or dead. There may, therefore, have been a tendency for
them to move towards a ground-based lifestyle. Over time, the insect
population that lives near the ground comes to consist of individuals that
do not develop fully fledged wings. That is because, unlike flying insects,
mutations that prevent insects that live near to ground level developing
wings may not be damaging to the insect (on the provision that they do not
cause a total interruption in its physiology).
A mutation that prevented wing development in a flying insect living in a
habitat uninfluenced by winds would be harmful and maybe even lethal. That
is because normally an insect that uses its wings to feed and to avoid
predators would possess functionless wings because of that mutation and
would be unable to survive and thus eliminated from the population.
On the other hand, in insects living in a habitat affected by winds and that
used their feet to move about in the same way as non-flying insects, a
mutation in the wings might not have lethal consequences. That is because
the insect will already have grown accustomed to a life style in which it
does not use wings, and it will make no difference whether its wings are
healthy or else lose their function due to mutation (as long as the mutation
in question is not one that affects the insect's general physiology). In
short, a destructive mutation leading to the loss of an insect's wings may
not be lethal in an environment where wings are in any case of no
consequence.
However, it cannot be said that the coleoptera that are assumed to have
undergone such a process represent evidence of evolution. The theory of
evolution proposes that organs gradually assume a more complex form. The
genetic change proposed in support of this claim must be of such a kind as
to add new genetic information to creatures' DNA. It is evident, however,
that coleoptera do not gain any new genetic information during this process
and that, on the contrary, they suffer a loss of information in the genes
that control wing development.
Can this acquisition of genetic information, which is not seen in
coleoptera, be observed in any other living thing? Definitely not.
Evolutionists have been unable to show the emergence of a new organ, or even
a new protein, by means of random mutations.
In short, the theory of evolution maintains that living things acquire new
organs with the addition of new genetic information to their DNA, but the
vestigial organ argument is one that concerns a loss of function, in other
words a loss of genetic data. Therefore, vestigial organs provide no
scientific support for the theory of evolution. The reason for
evolutionists' determination to place this claim on the scientific agenda is
psychological rather than scientific. Their display of blind devotion to
materialism leads them to adopt a vestigial perspective towards the evident
truth of creation. (You can read Harun Yahya's article that demolishes
evolutionists' vestigial viewpoint here.
http://www.darwinism-watch.com/hurriyet_science0407.php
<http://www.darwinism-watch.com/hurriyet_science0407.php> )
James P. Gills, M.D., founder of St. Luke's Cataract and Laser Institute in
Tarpon Springs, Florida, is a creationist scientist. He is also a
world-renowned ophthalmologist. In his book Darwinism Under the Microscope,
Gills cites a great many proofs of creation that totally undermine
evolution, and writes that the only reason why scientists still insist on
evolution is the spiritual cataract of thinking of themselves as the product
of blind chance. 22

The error of thinking that resistance to antibiotics and DDT is evidence of
evolution
The NG article seeks to show that bacterial immunity to antibiotics and
insects' resistance to such pesticides as DDT constitutes evidence for
evolution. On the subject of the resistance that microbes appear to develop
to drugs Quammen confidently states:
There's no better or more immediate evidence supporting the
Darwinian theory than this process of forced transformation among our
inimical germs. (p. 21)
However, Quammen's excitement in portraying bacterial immunity as evidence
for evolution is totally misplaced. It is explained below why these two
phenomena do not represent evidence for Darwinism.
The first of the "deadly molecules" employed against micro-organisms was
penicillin, discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928. Fleming discovered a
molecule that killed the Staphylococcus mould bacterium, after which
antibiotics taken from micro-organisms were used against various bacteria.
Although it appeared at first that definitive results had been obtained, the
truth later emerged: bacteria gradually acquire resistance to antibiotics.
The great majority of bacteria exposed to antibiotics die, but since a small
minority remain unaffected this rapidly multiply and eventually come to
constitute the entire population. Thus the entire population becomes
resistant to the antibiotic.
However, there is no question of bacteria developing through mutation here,
because the bacteria already possess the characteristics in question before
being exposed to antibiotics. Despite being an evolutionist publication,
Scientific American magazine admitted these facts in its March 1998 edition:

Many bacteria possessed resistance genes even before
commercial antibiotics came into use. Scientists do not know exactly why
these genes evolved and were maintained. 23
Insects acquire resistance to pesticides such as DDT in the
same way, and, again in the same way, this represents no evidence for
evolution.
The prominent evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala accepts the truth of
this in the words:
The genetic variants required for resistance to the most
diverse kinds of pesticides were apparently present in every one of the
populations exposed to these man-made compounds. 24
One of those to carry out the most detailed research on this subject is the
Israeli biophysicist Dr. Lee Spetner. In his book Not by Chance, published
in 1997, Spetner showed that bacterial immunity is brought about by two
different mechanisms, but that these offer no support for the theory of
evolution. For more detail on this subject see
http://www.harunyahya.com/20questions05.php#q19
<http://www.harunyahya.com/20questions05.php> and
http://www.darwinismrefuted.com/embryology_01.html
<http://www.darwinismrefuted.com/embryology_01.html> )
Another so-called piece of evidence in the NG article, in addition to the
resistance in bacteria and insects, concerns genetic similarities.

The deception that evolution can be observed

NG claims that evolution can actually be witnessed in nature and in the
laboratory. This, however, is a fantastical and groundless claim. In an
article titled "How Are New Species Formed?" published in the 14 June, 2003,
edition of New Scientist, George Turner made the following significant
"admission":
Not long ago, we thought we knew how species formed. We
believed that the process almost always started with complete isolation of
populations. It often occurred after a population had gone through a severe
"genetic bottleneck," as might happen after a pregnant female was swept off
to a remote island and her offspring mated with each other. The beauty of
this so-called "founder effect" model was that it could be tested in the
lab. In reality, it just didn't hold up. Despite evolutionary biologists'
best efforts, nobody has even got close to creating a new species from a
founder population. What's more, as far as we know, no new species has
formed as a result of humans releasing small numbers of organisms into alien
environments. 25
As we have seen, evolutionists do not actually know how new species are
formed. In other words, Quammen's claim about being able to witness
evolution in action is totally unfounded. The fact that the long years of
study carried out by the Grants into chaffinch beak lengths on the Galapagos
islands is cited in support is the result of Darwinism misrepresenting
variations to represent evidence for itself. (For further information, see
http://www.harunyahya.com/nas04.php <http://www.harunyahya.com/nas04.php> )

Conclusion
As we have seen, Darwin was wrong. National Geographic's posing the question
whether he was wrong is as ridiculous as asking "Was Freud wrong?" or "Was
Marx wrong?" That is because, like Freudianism and Marxism, Darwinism is a
theory that has come to the end of its life. We call upon NG magazine to
abandon its support for this outdated myth and to accept that creation is
the true origin of life.
What NG needs to do is to set its preconceptions to one side and cease
supporting Darwinism as a dogma, and to face up to the scientific evidence
that undermines this theory. Discoveries in the last 40 years in particular
have definitively revealed the invalidity of the naturalist philosophy at
the heart of Darwinism. If NG does face up to that fact it will see that the
organised complexity of life and the genetic information on which it depends
point to intelligent design, in other words that life did not evolve on its
own through chance and natural events, but was "created."
NG - and all other Darwinists - have so far avoided facing up to this, and
may therefore have resorted to covering up the difficulties facing their
theory. Yet they must be aware that this avoidance will be of no use in
keeping their theory alive. That is because a major development in the world
of science is serving notice that the age of sweeping matters under the
carpet has come to an end.
The way that the intelligent design movement, that has been sweeping through
the USA over the last 10 years, has one by one unmasked the dogmas of
Darwinism, has made it the focus of wide interest. The intellectual basis of
this movement is the "Theory of Intelligent Design." The theory in question
maintains that complex biological structures containing large amounts of
information can only be explained in terms of intelligence-based causes, and
that these causes can be empirically studied in the field of biology. 26
One indication that the intelligent design movement may represent the
dynamic for major cultural changes is the way it is effectively and in a
widespread manner revealing that the evidence for so long taught as evidence
for Darwinism in schools actually consists of mythology, deception,
misrepresentation and even fraud. California Berkeley University's Professor
Phillip E. Johnson, the leader of the movement, stresses that Darwinism will
pass into the dustbin of history sometime in this century. 27
It will be of use here to remind NG of the damage from a determined
persistence in its policy of uncritical defence of Darwinism. It will be
remembered that NG announced the discovery of the Archaeoraptor fossil
discovered in China as definitive proof that birds evolved from dinosaurs,
without waiting for it to be described in referred scientific journals.
Later, however, it was realised that the fossil did not represent a missing
link at all, but was a counterfeit "produced" by a Chinese peasant.26
Because of its blind devotion to Darwinism NG had no hesitation in embracing
this fossil as "proof" by unscientific methods, and later found itself in
"modern paleontology's greatest embarrassment." 29
According to the ornithologist Dr. Storrs Olson, "National Geographic has
reached an all-time low for engaging in sensationalistic, unsubstantiated,
tabloid journalism." 30
The portrayal of the claim of recapitulation, which died at least 80 years
ago, as evidence for evolution in NG's article "Was Darwin Wrong" shows that
it is devoid of the seriousness required by science and is continuing with
its "unsubstantiated, tabloid journalism." NG is not behaving intelligently.
Maintaining this approach does not provide any support for Darwinism. On the
contrary, NG is documenting its own dogmatism in an ever more obvious way.
We invite NG to consider these points and to accept that creation is the
true origin of life.
There is no doubt that the Lord of all living things, on Earth, in the Sky,
and between, is God. In one verse of the Qur'an God reveals that:
Your God is One God. There is no god but Him, the
All-Merciful, the Most Merciful. (Qur'an, 2: 163)

1. Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or
the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, Electronic Text
Center, University of Virginia Library.
2.Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition,
Harvard University Press, 1964, p. 189.
3. Michael Behe, Darwin's Black Box, 1996
4. For more information about the evolutionist theses on biogeography,
please see Walter J. Remine, "The Biotic Message: Evolution Versus Message
Theory", Saint Paul Science; 1st ed edition, 1993. page 538.
5. G. Nelson & N. Platnick, Systematics and Biogeography: Cladistics and
Vicariance, Columbia University Press, 1981, p. 223.
6. Fossils and Evolution, Dr TS Kemp - Curator of Zoological Collections,
Oxford University, Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 246.
7. Peter G. Williamson, "Morphological stasis and developmental constraint:
real problems for neo-Darwinism," Nature, vol. 294, 19 November 1981, p.
214; Stephen E. Jones, http://members.iinet.net.au/~sejones/
8. Gordon Rattray Taylor, The Great Evolution Mystery, Abacus, Sphere Books,
London, 1984, p. 230.
9. Boyce Rensberger, Houston Chronicle, November 5, 1980, p. 15.
10. Voorhies M.R., "Ancient Ashfall Creates a Pompei of Prehistoric
Animals," National Geographic, Vol. 159, No. 1, January 1981, pp.67-68,74 ;
"Horse Find Defies Evolution" Creation Ex Nihilo 5(3):15, January 1983,
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/3723.asp
11. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First
Edition, Harvard University Press, 1964, p. 184.
12. Spotting Mines With Dolphin Sonar , ScienceNOW 1998: 2
13 L. Rutimeyer, "Referate," Archiv fur Anthropologie, 1868
14 Keith S. Thompson, "Ontogeny and Phylogeny Recapitulated", American
Scientist, vol. 76, May / June 1988, p. 273
15 G. G. Simpson, W. Beck, An Introduction to Biology, Harcourt Brace and
World, New York, 1965, p. 241.
16 Stephen Jay Gould, "Abscheulich! - Atrocious! - the precursor to the
theory of natural selection," Natural History, March 2000, p. 45.
17 Mark Ridley, "Who Doubts Evolution?" New Scientist, vol. 90 (25 June
1981), p. 832.
18 Gould S.J, "Evolution's Erratic Pace," Natural History, May 1977, p.
13-14.
19 William Fix, The Bone Peddlers: Selling Evolution, Macmillan Publishing
Co., New York, 1984, p. 189.
20 J. Bergman & G. Howe, Vestigial Organs are Fully Functional, CRS Books,
Terre Haute, IN, 1990.
21 S. R. Scadding, "Do 'Vestigial Organs' Provide Evidence for Evolution?,"
Evolutionary Theory, vol. 5, May 1981, p. 173.
22 James P.Gills, M.D. & Thomas Woodward, Ph.D., Darwinism under the
Microscope, Charisma House, 2002, p. 39.
23 Stuart B. Levy, "The Challenge of Antibiotic Resistance," Scientific
American, March 1998, p. 35
24 Francisco J.Ayala, "The Mechanisms of Evolution," Scientific American,
vol. 239, September 1978, p. 64
25 George Turner, "How Are New Species Formed?," New Scientist, vol. 178,
issue 2399, 14 June 2003, p. 36
26 http://www.arn.org , http://www.discovery.org/csc/
27 Phillip E. Johnson, "Mothballed Science," Touchstone Magazine, December
2003
28 For more information about Archaeoraptor forgery, please see
http://www.harunyahya.com/20questions03.php#q7
29 Tim Friend, "The 'missing link' fossil that wasn't", USA Today,
02/01/2000
30 Open Letter to National Geographic Society by Storrs L. Olson, Curator of
Birds, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

http://www.harunyahya.com <http://www.harunyahya.com/>

The Latest Developments Regarding Flores Man

2006-11-15T06:29:00.001+03:00

The evolutionist claim that Homo floresiensis represents a separate species to modern-day man continues to retreat in the face of increasing objections. The Times Online, the Internet edition of The Times and The Sunday Times newspapers, summarised the latest developments on the subject in these terms:

"A find heralded as the greatest discovery in anthropology for a century has degenerated into one of its greatest rows." (1)

The development that fuelled the flames was the way that other experts have supported the views of Indonesian scientists who object to H. floresiensis being depicted as a separate species from Homo sapiens. Heading the list of these are the Australian scientists Dr. Maciej Henneberg and Dr. Alan Thorne, and researchers from Chicago's Field Museum in America.

The new objections, like those of the Indonesian scientists, stress that Flores Man may have suffered from the neurological disease known as microcephaly. One important piece of support for this view came from Professor Maciej Henneberg, an anatomist and expert palaeopathologist of 32 years' standing. Henneberg, head of the Department of Anatomical Sciences, the University of Adelaide, Australia, first examined the Flores Man skull measurements published on the Nature magazine website. At that point another skull with a similar structure came to the scientist's mind. The skull in question was a 4,000-year-old Homo sapiens specimen unearthed on the island of Crete. This skull, belonging to a H. sapiens individual, possessed rather small dimensions, and scientists examining it had already described it in terms of microcephaly.

As a result of statistical comparisons he performed on 15 skull measurements, the Australian scientist revealed that there was "no significant difference" between the two. Henneberg, whose objections were reported in the well-known US journal Science (2), concluded that the Flores Man skull measurements stemmed from microcephaly. The researcher also noted that Flores Man's facial anatomy was within H. sapiens limits.

Another study by Henneberg that revealed striking results regarding Flores Man was his calculations regarding a forearm (radius) bone found in a cave. From the length of the bone, determined as 210 mm (8.3 inches), Henneberg calculated that its owner would have been between 151 and 162 cm (4.9 - 5.3ft) tall. These figures were rather greater than the 1 metre (3ft) attributed to Flores Man, and were within bounds considered normal for present-day human beings. Henneberg announced the conclusion he had reached as a result of these analyses:

"Until more skeletons of the purported 'new species' are discovered, I will maintain that a well-known pathological condition was responsible for the peculiar appearance of the skeleton." (3)

Another eminent human evolution researcher, the anthropologist Dr. Alan Thorne from the Australian National University, stated that the Flores Man finding merely showed that "no one would have predicted that something like that was out there," and noted that it was stretching the facts to claim that H. floresiensis represented a separate species. (4)

Robert Martin, a primatologist from Chicago's Field Museum, and the archaeologist James Phillips made the following statement in support of the microcephaly theory with regard to Flores Man's small brain volume:

"The lone skull came from a woman who had microcephaly, a rare disorder that causes a tiny head and brain. Microcephaly causes the face to grow at a normal rate, but not the head. People wind up with a sloping forehead and no chin -- just like Hobbit." (5) (Hobbit: The nickname given to Flores Man taken from the film The Lord of the Rings.)

In the face of these objections, the groundlessness of the description of Flores Man as a separate species from H. sapiens was once again revealed. Henneberg's analyses were certainly largely responsible for this: given that the 4,000-year-old H. sapiens individual was announced to have suffered from microcephaly, why should Flores Man, with identical skull measurements, be described as a different species?

Perhaps the most striking interpretation of this debate over Flores Man came from Robert Matthews, an experienced science writer for the British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph. Supporting the microcephaly view, Matthews criticised the desire to describe Flores Man as a separate species, and cited the Nebraska Man affair, one of the greatest scandals in the history of paleoanthropology, in revealing how baseless that desire was. Under the headline "Big Claims, meagre evidence; welcome to palaeontology," Matthews wrote:

"Another week, and another spat between scientists over some old bones and claims to have found yet another new, further, different species of human. This time the controversy centres on the discovery of 18,000 year old bones belonging to a 3ft-tall type of human on Flores island in Indonesia.

... the scientists who dug them up had a paper in the journal Nature, declared them to be a new species of human, and given them a fancy-sounding Latin name: Homo floresiensis.

Then, in time-honoured tradition, other scientists lined up to dismiss the claim as premature. One leading expert on palaeoanatomy told the rival journal Science that the 18,000 year-old grapefruit-sized skull was similar to a skull found on Crete belonging to a 4,000 year-old specimen of boring old Homo sapiens with secondary microcephaly, a condition characterised by an abnormally small skull.

... Secondary microcephaly has a host of causes, from viral infection during pregnancy to injury or malnutrition shortly after birth. The specimens were found in an cave on an island. Who is to say that the island hadn't been swept by an viral epidemic 18,000 years ago that had caused an outbreak of the condition? Or perhaps the occupants had fallen prey to it elsewhere in the Indonesian archipelago, and been banished to Flores because of their odd appearance.

Nor is it inconceivable that those with secondary microcephaly could survive and even breed: the condition is not ineluctably linked to low intelligence. Indeed, neither is small brain size per se: the most important factor is the amount of grey matter. As this is not preserved in fossil remains, we have no idea whether those "hobbits" were bright, stupid or indifferent. What is clear is that palaeontologists are worryingly keen to base big claims on decidedly meagre evidence. It is a penchant that has not served them well in the past. In 1922, the American fossil expert Henry Fairfield Osborn made headlines by announcing the discovery of what he declared to be the first anthropoid ape ever found in America, which he named Hesperopithecus ("Ape from the Land of the Evening Sun").

The distinguished anatomist Professor Grafton Elliot Smith of London University went further, insisting that Hesperopithecus was nothing less than "the earliest and most primitive member of the human family yet discovered". And what was the basis of these dramatic claims ? A single fossilised tooth found in Nebraska.

Prof Smith's response to those doubting the wisdom of relying on so little evidence was remarkably similar to that now being wheeled out by the discoverers of the Hobbit-Men of Flores: "One would regard so momentous a conclusion with suspicion", Prof Smith opined, "if it were not for the fact that the American savants' authority in such matters is unquestionable".

Such bluster did not deter the American Museum of Natural History from searching for more evidence. It duly turned up in Nebraska, and revealed "Hesperopithecus" to be nothing more than an extinct pig. Prof Smith later distinguished himself by creating the popular image of Neanderthals as knuckle-grazing morons, while backing claims that skull fragments found in England in 1912 belonged to the earliest-known ancestor of H. sapiens. It later emerged that Smith's "typical" Neanderthal was actually a decidedly atypical male forced to stoop by severe arthritis. As for the skull fragments, they came from a quarry in Sussex known as Piltdown; need one say more.

None of this appears to have dulled the enthusiasm of palaeontologists for dangling ever more "species" off the family tree of mankind. All one needs is some unusual bone fragments plus a decent Latin dictionary and a place in palaeontological history is assured.

It all appears to hang on whether or not the bone fragments are deemed so "unusual" that they lie outside the limits of any known species. One shudders to think what conclusion palaeontologists would reach if presented with the bones of a modern-day pygmy and a Texan oilman." (6)

Conclusion:

The fact revealed by both the latest scientific developments regarding Flores Man and by Matthews' warning lesson from history is this: Evolutionist scientists and media share a great desire to describe and report newly discovered fossils as new species. As a result, just about every fossil discovery is announced to the accompaniment of a huge media furore and sensationalism, although these claims are then silently refuted in the period that follows.

These words by Robert Locke, executive editor for the magazine Discovering Archaeology, regarding research in the field of palaeoanthropology are like a description of the uncertainty and fanatical propaganda that pervade studies in this sphere:

"Perhaps no area of science is more contentious than the search for human origins. Elite paleontologists disagree over even the most basic outlines of the human family tree. New branches grow amid great fanfare, only to wither and die in the face of new fossil finds." (7)

However, the imaginary scenario of human evolution, maintained by means of propaganda, demagogy, distortion and even falsehood, is condemned to be eliminated in the face of modern scientific findings. That is because concrete scientific discoveries reveal that life is too complex to have emerged by chance, and that the mechanisms of random mutation and natural selection cannot account for the existence of the genetic information in species' DNA. The claims of evolution in that regard are left with no foundation in the face of discoveries made on an almost daily basis. It is therefore inevitable that the endeavours of those who imagine that recounting imaginary tales regarding the past based on similarities between bones is science will end in failure.

Man is a being created by God, together with all his flawless systems. This is revealed by God in the Qur'an:

He Who has created all things in the best possible way. He commenced the creation of man from clay; then produced his seed from an extract of base fluid; then formed him and breathed His Spirit into him and gave you hearing, sight and hearts. What little thanks you show! (Qur'an, 32: 7-9)

1- Nigel Hawkes, "Kidnap marks the latest chapter in Hobbit's story," Times Online, December 4, 2004; online at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1386936,00.html
2- Michael Balter, "Skeptics Question Whether Flores Hominid Is a New Species," Science, Vol 306, Issue 5699, 1116 , November 12, 2004
3- Maciej Henneberg, "Why The 'Hobbitt' May Not Be a New Species of Humans;" online at: http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/000884.html
4- Heather Catchpole, "Tiny Human a Big Evolutionary Tale," October 27, 2004; online at: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/afp/20041025/tinyhuman.html
5- Jim Ritter, "Experts here knock claim of new 'Hobbit' species," Chicago Sun-Times, November 16, 2004; online at: http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-human16.html
6- Robert Matthews, "Big claims, meagre evidence; welcome to palaeontology," The Telegraph, December 8, 2004; online at: http://gardening.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2004/12/08/ecrqed08.xml
7- Robert Locke, "Family Fights," Discovering Archaeology, July/August 1999, pp. 36-39

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