THE DARWIN PAPERS
VOLUME 1 NUMBER II
EDWARD
BLYTH
AND NATURAL SELECTION(1)
From
The Nebulous Hypothesis:
A
Study of the Philosophical and
Historical Implications of Darwinian Theory
© 1996
by James M. Foard
Editor and
Publisher James M. Foard.
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Daniel Marx
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provided acknowledgement is made
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The entire
Darwin Papers may
be read HERE
| Read about Mark Isaaks' incredible story of the
evolution of the Bombardier Beetle, from
TalkOrigins below Also read about the famous Transitional Vertebrate Fossil FAQ in TalkOrigins, or How Fish Evolved into Land Animals, by Kathleen Hunt, better known as "The Mysterious Case of the Missing Transitional Vertebrate Fossils!" . |
One forgotten chapter in
history,
neglected by most of Darwin's biographers, concerns a
gentleman by the name of Edward Blyth. Blyth was a chemist in South London, 
a
year younger than Darwin, but unlike Charles Darwin, Edward Blyth had not been
born into wealth. His father died when he was ten, leaving his widowed mother to
raise four children. She managed to send her eldest son, Edward, to school where
he excelled in chemistry and natural history, spending his every spare moment at
the British Museum.
His sister said of him, "Never was any youth more industrious; up at three or four in the morning, reading, making notes, sketching bones, coloring maps, stuffing birds by the hundred, collecting butterflies, and beetles-teaching himself German sufficiently to translate it readily, singing always merrily at intervals."(2)
Blyth spoke often at scientific meetings in London in the same circles that Darwin frequented, expounding theories quite similar to Darwin's own later writings. From 1835 through 1837 he published some articles dealing with the subject of natural selection in The British Magazine of Natural History, and it is evident that Darwin recieved copies of this magazine while in Peru in 1835 during his voyage on the Beagle. (3)
Loren Eisely has shown in Darwin and the Mysterious Mr. X. that not only was it obvious that Darwin had been quite familiar with Blyth's writings but that Darwin was to use many of Blyth's ideas years later on when writing his Origin, yet he had given Blyth little or no acknowledgment. (For more on Eisely, see note) (4)
Eisely makes
mention of the fact that all of Darwin's major ideas-the struggle for survival,
variation, and natural selection- were fully expressed in
Blyth's first paper of 1835, yet Darwin was strangely reluctant to give Blyth
any credit at all for this (5)
Here is an
example of Blyth's description of natural selection, which, as opposed to
Darwin's (and other evolutionist's writings), describes it as a process whereby
the original created type of a species has the best chance of surviving
among brute animals: " There
has been, strangely enough, a difference of opinion among naturalists, as to
whether these seasonal changes of colour were intended by Providence as an
adaptation to change of temperature10, or as a
means of preserving the various species from the observation of their foes, by
adapting their hues to the colour of the surface; against which latter opinion
it has been plausibly enough argued, that "nature provides for the preyer as
well as for the prey." The fact is, they answer both purposes; and
they are among those striking instances of design, which so clearly
and forcibly attest the existence of an omniscient great First Cause.
Experiment demonstrates the soundness of the first opinion; and sufficient
proof can be adduced to show that the other is also sound. Some arctic species
are white, which have no enemy to fear, as the polar bear, the gyrfalcon, the
arctic eagle-owl, the snowy owl, and even the stoat; and therefore, in these,
the whiteness can only be to preserve the temperature of their bodies [VI.
79.]; but when we perceive that the colour of nocturnal animals, and of those
defenceless species whose habits lead them to be much exposed, especially to
enemies from above, are invariably of the same colour with their
respective natural haunts, we can only presume that this is because they
should not appear too conspicuous to their enemies.". Blyth,
Magazine of Natural History, 1835 Francis
Hitching mentioned that Eiseley had chronicled quite substantial portions of
Darwin's writings
Large parts of Darwin's personal notes during this
period in 1835 reflected his familiarity with Blyth's writings, yet for some
mysterious reason fifty pages of Darwin's notebook from this time are missing,
with the cryptic reference "All useful pages cut out," (6) added by Darwin in 1856.
This does
not prove that Darwin purposely hid reference to Blyth's writings. You
can draw your own conclusions.
An evolutionist by the name of Roland from a site called "No Answers in
Genesis" claims that Eiseley's charges have been discredited. The
source Roland refers us to is Richard Milner, who makes that claim in his
Encyclopedia of Evolution: Humanity's Search for it's Origins, a
thoroughly evolutionist work with a minimum of any facts actually documenting
evolution.
Milner is a Senior Editor of Natural History magazine, a
major mouthpiece for anti-creationist, evolutionary thought. This
in itself does not discredit his research, although Milner is also a
vigorous opponent of the concept of intelligent design, which after all is
merely affirming that God had a hand somehow in the creation of
species, so of course Milner would be opposed to Blyth's ideas.
Milner
is also the author of "Charles Darwin: The Evolution of a Naturalist",
which is heavily promoted on various "Skeptic" websites critical of
Christianity, and is part of a series of books designed to promote evolution.
On the German Skeptic page where Milner's book is advertised
they describe Darwin, and Milner's book on Darwin: "Richard Milner
offers readers a dazzling new portrait of this extraordinary man's life and
work, from his early day in a small English market town, to his famous voyage on
the HMS Beagle, to his years of unrelenting effort in search of truth about the
evolution of life. Authoritative and capivatingly written, this book tells the
compelling story of a man whose ideas changed the way we think about ourselves -
and all living things."
This worn out yarn of Darwin as the great scientist
is typical and has been spun by evolutionists since 1860. There are a
number of books that have been published over the past few years that explode
this myth. (See Chapter
One of The Darwin Papers for more pertinent information, as well as the
references) Essentially Milner and Roland are defending their icon, their
hero who supposedly disproved the creation story. This entire thing is not about
science, or even
about science versus religion which is a straw man, but about a philosophical
prejudice against the God of the Bible.
Much of Milner's work is merely
a rehashing of the same tired old garbage (I wish I had a better word to
describe it, but I don't. I can certainly think of a few worse ones) that we
read in Dennet's book, Darwin's Dangerous
Idea and Edward Larson's book, Evolution: The
Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory .
Eiseley is certainly not the only source to document Darwin's dependence on Blyth's writings. A history tutor and author in the U.K., Andrew J. Bradbury, has written an excellent online book on the dubious nature of Darwin's "discovery", plainly demonstrating the Blyth connection.
On Darwin and Blyth Bradbury wrote: "Blyth recognised that Darwin had been feeding from him, as from so many others, like some intellectual leech", however Blyth was too kind and of too magnanimous a spirit to take any serious steps of reprisal.(Roland is going to complain now that I called Milner and Larson's books garbage and called Bradbury's book excellent. While the evolutionist books may be well written, it is not the style I am commenting on, but the substance of the argument. I can't apologise for that. They have a bright facade, but it is merely a facade, and if one truly learns to read and think critically one can pierce through their specious reasonings.)
By all accounts Blyth seems to have been quite a remarkable fellow. Nobody had a bad thing to say about him. By contrast, Darwin seemed to have been a "Hail fellow, well met" character with a streak of larceny in him. But with Blyth, in every new piece of evidence I discovered about the man there was nothing that reflected badly on his character. Since I documented this, Roland accused me of spreading propaganda. I challenge Roland to show one bit of evidence to the contrary concerning Blyth before he makes such a scurrilous charge.
Now, compare the description of Milner's book on Darwin above, where they describe Darwin in glowing, almost drooling terms, along with the gushing descriptions of Darwin on the No Answers in Genesis Page and on other evolutionist sites; just compare those fawning tributes of praise to him with the actual man, with what his more current biographers have to say about him - Bowlby, Browne, Desmond and Moore, de Beer, all recorded in Chapter One of The Darwin Papers, along with Darlington a few paragraphs below in this chapter, and Miller in Chapter Three (evolutionists all, so there can be no "creationist bias" creeping in to taint their thinking) - and then you tell me who the real propagandists are.
Blyth seems to have been a man of sterling character, while the greasy little details of Darwin's life are finally, slowly dripping out, and because I have documented this Roland claims that I am spreading propaganda, without showing the slightest bit of evidence to back up his claim.
Many of Roland's arguments are really petty and spurious, for instance I originally failed to make mention of the fact that Eiseley was an evolutionist - a small oversight which would actually help my argument so I have since included this information; thank you Roland; - also anyone who disagrees with Darwin apparently has "an ax to grind".
Perhaps so, but if it is a legitimate ax, then what is the
problem with that?
Roland makes the typical evolutionist
accusations against creationists on his site. He roundly
condemns myself and other creationists who have the temerity to question
Darwin's theory and who would question the sacrosanct theory of
evolution.
Roland doesn't like it when I quote evolutionists because I must be quoting them out of context. He is also upset when I quote creationists because they must be biased. Sometimes you just can't win.
Flinging around wild charges such as Roland does ("Many creationists loathe Darwin", as if to disagree with Darwin is to loathe him; "Foard is guilty of omission" regarding the so-called investigation and dismission of Eiseley's claim; "Foard uses innuendo to support his claim" regarding Darwin's hiding his notes to conceal his debt to Blyth - that was the claim of Eiseley and Hitching, noted evolutionist scholars, if I am guilty it is of getting my information from them, so now, at least according to Roland, Eiseley and Hitching are also guilty of inuendo, and perhaps they also loathe Darwin; "Foard is a propagandist" etc. etc. "Foard was responsible for the burning of Rome" [my quote], and so on).
All of this type of arguing is known as an ad hominem
attack; and in Roland's case it is a classic example of using propaganda to
attack one's opponent.
(Adjective:
ad hominem ad
'howmi nem 1. Appealing to personal considerations rather than fact
or reason.)
Roland also concedes correctly that natural selection is an idea that goes back to the ancient Greeks, but then says that "It was Darwin and Wallace who demonstrated how the idea could be used to explain the origin of species and step outside of Biblical literalism."
Sorry to break the news to you Roland, but the ancient Greeks
were not Biblical literalists.
For that matter, neither were most of the
writers on evolution or natural selection before Darwin.
He then pads Darwin's resume' with the typical overstament of his accomplishment: "However, it was Darwin who did the hard work, collected the evidence and argued with it to demonstrate that the theory just could not be ignored. Until Darwin and Wallace came along, the ideas of the Greeks, Wells, Blyth, Lamark, Erasmas Darwin, Mathews, etc., were little more than curious or perhaps interesting ideas."
Evolution was little more than an interesting idea for
centuries, along with spontaneous generation, (the currently accepted
theory by evolutionists for the origin of life, called abiogenesis, disproved
over a century ago by Pasteur) it never gained any ground for centuries because
there was never any proof for it.
And now Darwin has been
built up as the great pioneer in proving evolution, and yet he never
came up with any valid proof for it either. In his entire Origin he has
not submitted one single shred of evidence to support his theory. In
light of this, we have to ask ouselves, in all seriousness, who are the real
propagandists here?
Darwin has advanced numerous fantastic imaginary possibilities for the theory of evolution, but with no actual facts to back up his claims. In his entire Origin he does not give one single example of an evolutionary transitional form, either from fish to amphibian, amphibian to reptile, reptile to mammal, reptile to bird, or ape to man. He presents no evidence of insect evolution either and hardly touches on the subject of plant evolution. Indeed, he actually admitted that most of the available evidence, both in contemporary living species and in fossil form argued against evolution! (See Chapters 4 and 5 of The Darwin Papers)
And since Darwin's time evolutionists have still
failed to bring valid evidence for their theory (Evolutionists will
complain that some of the quotes on this link are dated. Well in that case, lets
throw out Darwin's Origin of Species, which is much older than any of
these quotes are. If your an evolutionist you probably don't have to pay any
attention to them anyway, since they all must be taken out of context. Point of
fact, a hostile witness, who admits what he doesn't want to have to admit is a
fact, is considered one of the best sources of evidence in legal jurisprudence).
As far as the fanciful tale of whales, which is practically the
evolutionist's last resort, this story of pigs, or horses or some other sort of
quadruped wandering around in the surf and gradually developing flippers, losing
their hair and growing a thermodynamically conditioned outer skin for warmth and
protection in the ocean, while losing their ears and developing a
sonar echo location system by pure chance, with their breathing system
being moved from the nose to the blowhole in the top of the head through blind
evolutionary processes belongs more in the category of science fiction than
science. Most of the so-called transitional forms for whale evolution amount to
little more than mere artistically enhanced drawings of what really amounts to a
few scattered bones that they have dug up spread out over millions of years with
dubious hypothetical ancestry. One might as well believe that surfers would
eventually grow blowholes and flippers. (Why yes, of course, that makes
perfectly good sense. Now, according to my theory, if surfers stayed out in the
ocean for millions of years . . .)
Roland writes "In dealing with Wells, the naturalist whom Darwin did later recognize as having been influential, Foard dismisses him as contributing nothing original because "the basic concept of natural selection had been around since ancient Greek time" (page 5). But Blyth was not an ancient Greek. So if Blyth "thought" of the idea of natural selection, then why does Foard not dismiss him equally? The answer is clear. Blyth was an "ardent creationist".
That is precisely my point. There was nothing original about what Wells or Darwin had written, the ancient Greek philosophers were well versed in naturalistic evolution, the only reason to mention Blyth is because Darwin took the ideas of a creationist and then turned them around to make them fit his evolutionary theory. Far from "dismissing" Wells, I merely point out that he was simply one person in a long chain of evolutionary writers dating back to the ancient Greeks. He certainly didn't originate the concept of natural selection or evolution. If pointing this out is "dismissing" 'Wells, then we might just as well dismiss Darwin, and good riddance. In point of fact, this is the main premise in Chapter Three; that the idea of evolution and natural selection has been around for centuries. Darwin was by no means an original thinker.
The origin of the evolutionary theory is not the result of some great breakthrough in technology or research. It is a mere philosophical presumption that has been around for over two millennia, lingering on the sidelines of true scientific thought, glibly accepted by those such as Roland because they were taught that it was a fact by their teachers in school and they never learned to think critically enough to question the dogma.
The reason that I don't use the ancient Greeks as direct references for
Darwin's ideas is because Darwin himself never mentioned them extensively, if at
all. (Darwin did not read or speak Greek, he was incapable of learning any
foreign or ancient languages, by his own admission, and he was also incapable of
learning higher mathematics. Blyth, on the other hand was a genuine scholar who
probably did read the ancient sources, but realised the inadequacy of
the purely evolutionary explanation for the origin of species enunciated
by the ancient Greek philosophers)
Given the dubious nature
of his intellectual studies, it is highly improbable that Darwin had
extensive acquaintance with the ancient sources of evolutionary thought,
but they did influence his more immediate predecessors, and that is whom he
relied on heavily for his ideas. Darwin makes numerous references in his
Origin to other contemporary and recent evolutionists to bolster up his
theory, as well as in his notes, but one can search in vain for even a scant
reference to Aristotle, Plato, Dioscordes, or any of the ancient classical
sources. Darwin was an intellectual
lightweight with a remarkable way with words, nothing more (See de
Beer's opinion of Darwin's academic career in Chapter One, and de Beer's
opinion is by no means unique, nor is it written by some creationist who
"loathes" Darwin; see Darlington below.).
Roland and his evolutionist colleagues don't actually want to
know the real Charles Darwin, they are satisfied with the myth. Darwin has
reached an almost cultic status among atheists, agnostics, assorted infidels and
others who want to reject the God of the Bible. To have to come face to face
with the man behind the myth would upset their world view, and that they will
cling to as tenaciously as a junkyard dog who will fight to protect a rusted old
car frame from intruders. After all is said and done, read Roland's site,
read my entire book, and you decide who is spreading the propaganda: Fair and
balanced.
To return to our topic of Blyth and Darwin's "borrowing" much
of his theory, Darwin's own copy of Magazine of Natural History in 1837 showed
that he made use of Blyth's paper of that year, the same year when he first
claimed to have come up with the idea of natural selection on his own,(7)wherein Blyth
had written essentially the same basic doctrine that Darwin took credit
for.(8)
Eiseley wrote, "At that moment, probably in 1837, the Origin was born."
William Wells
had actually written of natural selection in 1813 (as had many others, however
it was Blyth's writing that Darwin clearly was impressed by during his voyage,
and it was Blyth who saw natural selection in a creationist context)
but Darwin claimed that he was unfamiliar with Well's writings at the time of
the original publication of The Origin of Species.
Later on,
after being brought to task by certain individuals for taking credit for an idea
that was not his own, Darwin gave Wells credit for the idea; however Wells
originated nothing novel either: as noted, the basic concept of natural
selection had been around since ancient Greek time. (Although it
is a bit like pulling teeth, evolutionists are finally having to admit that
there was really nothing original in what Darwin wrote, however they still
insist that he somehow proved evolution. Very few of them can actually
cite evidence for this. For more on this century old fable, see Chapter Four
of The Darwin Papers)
The significant difference between the writings of Charles Darwin and Edward Blyth was that Blyth was an ardent creationist; (other evolutionists had written of natural selection before Blyth, it's really a pretty simple concept and was nothing new when Darwin wrote about it either, as can be seen from this website), the uniqueness of Blyth's writing was that he saw natural selection within a creationist perspective, not from a purely naturalistic one, and his papers simply flowed with his sense of awe and reverence for the God of creation who had so wonderously and wisely made all of His creatures. Blyth showed that natural selection actually worked better within a creationist framework. Thus, with this major pillar destroyed, the theory of evolution didn't have a leg to stand on, except for the ongoing propaganda campaign conducted by those such as Roland that lends the momentum to continure the charade.
Francis Hitching, an evolutionist, wrote: "Darwin took everything Blyth had said and used it to support an opposite conclusion"(10) i.e. the denial of the miraculous and of special creation. Darwin changed natural selection around to mean evolutionary descent of all beings from a common ancestor, which was never Blyth's original contention at all.
Janet Browne wrote of Darwin: "There was a sliver of ice inside enabling him to make the most of all the advantages he possessed and the circumstances in which he found himself." (Janet Browne is a noted historian. According to Roland she must have loathed Darwin also, or is it only creationists that loathe Darwin when they speak critically of him? (11) Alfred Russel Wallace was a college of Darwin's who, prior to Darwin's presentation of his paper before a group of scientists shortly before the publication of the Origin, had written a nearly identical paper on evolution, at least in substance. After Darwin read Wallace's paper he hurriedly published his own and read his paper first. Years later, Wallace refused to go to Darwin's funural)
Samuel Butler
was a contemporary of Darwin and was the grandson of Darwin's old headmaster at
Shrewsbury. He had been a former admirer of him until he read the work of
earlier evolutionists like Lamarck and Buffon, then he launched an attack on
Darwin's early claim to having originated his
theories on his own, first in a book titled Evolution Old and New
published in May of 1879, then in a letter to the Athenaeum on the 31st of
January, 1880. Later he renewed the attack in another book titled Unconcious
Memory, in which he documented Darwin's "borrowing" much of his work from
others. (There are legitimate axes to grind, and Butler definitely had one.
Blyth was relatively unknown, died in obscurity and poverty, and his theories
were from an entirely different outlook, creationism, not evolution, thus Butler
had no ax to grind with Blyth).
World famous geneticist and anthropologist C.D. Darlington, an evolutionist (I have put his credentials here because his qualifications definitely carry weight, and should counter the tired evolutionist argument that no serious scientists question Darwin), although he doesn't come right out and say it, still comes about as close as one could get to accusing Darwin of plagiarism without actually spelling it out. He said that Darwin "was able to put across his ideas not so much because of his scientific integrity, but because of his opportunism, his equivocation and his lack of historical sense. Though his admirers will not like to believe it, he accomplished his revolution by personal weakness and strategic talent more than by scientific virtue" (Did Darlington, a noted evolutionist, have "an ax to grind" with Darwin? Apparently so, and a legitimate one.) (16)
Blyth was eventually appointed as the curator of the Museum of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, in India, where he lived for many years on a meager stipend. His personal life was marred with tragedy. In 1854 he married a Mrs. Hodges, a young widow visiting relatives in India, whom he had known previously in England when she had been single. She was to die within the space of three years after their wedding.
Arthur Grote, Blyth's friend and collegue, wrote "In December 1857, Blyth had the misfortune to lose his wife. His short married life had been of the happiest, and the blow fell heavily on him. His letters to his sister for the early months of 1858 are painful to read. The shock proved too much for him, and brought on a serious attack of illness . . .(17)
A few years after the death of Blyth's wife, when Darwin was famous and wealthy from the publication of his Origin and from his family inheritance while Blyth was living in obscurity and poverty, Darwin casually mentioned Blyth's situation in a letter to his friend Lyell in 1860: "I have had a letter from poor Blyth of Calcutta, who is much disappointed at hearing Lord Canning will not grant any money . . ." and then he made this remarkable admission ". . . Blyth says (and he is in many respects a very good judge) that his ideas on species are quite revolutionary.. ."(18)
Blyth never fully recovered from the loss of his wife. He remained in poor health for the rest of his days. Blyth was incapable of any harsh feelings, even towards Darwin, with whom he corresponded. He was remembered by his contemporaries as having a prodigious memory, and his friend Grote wrote eloquently of him in a eulogy: "The warmth and freshness of his feelings which first inspired him with the love of nature clung to him through his chequered life, and kept him on good terms with the world, which punished him . . . Few men who have written so much have left in their writings so little that is bitter. No man that I have ever known was so free as he was from the spirit of intolerance; and the absence of this is a marked feature in all his controversial papers. All too that he knew was at the service of everybody . . ." (19)
Loren Eisely
wrote: "But let
the world not forget that Edward Blyth, a man of poverty and bad fortune, 
shaped a
key that dropped half-used from his hands when he set forth hastily on his own
ill-fated voyage. That key, which was picked up and reforged by a far greater
and more cunning hand, was no less than natural selection."(20)
When Blyth
died in London on December 27, 1873, found among his papers was a fragment of an
old manuscript that he had once been preparing, titled "On the Origination of
Species". (21)
Natural
selection is the main
process that Darwin said accounted for his theory of evolution to work. As
can be seen from Darwin's own writing, the presence of transitional forms
providing proof for his theory are extremely rare, practically
non-existant, because the law of natural selection would tend to exterminate
them. That was Darwin's reason why those bothersome
missing links weren't found to support his theory This should
come as no surprise from a man whose favorite pastime during his college years
was shooting birds at random, and who went on a bloody spree clubbing birds to
death during his voyage on the Beagle He further
wrote in his Origin: "As natural selection acts solely by the preservation of
profitable modifications, each new form will tend in a fully-stocked country to
take the place of, and finally exterminate, its own less improved parent-form
and other less favoured forms with which it comes into competition.
Thus
extinction and natural selection go hand in hand." (Origin, Chapter
Vl, On the Absences or Rarity of Transitional Varieties, pp.80, Benton
Edition, 1952). Thus we have
Darwin's sentence on the baby harp seals, the blue whale, African rhino and
the mountain gorilla: they will all get beaten into extinction during the course of
"further modification and improvement."
How did Darwin say that this process of natural selection takes
place? Let all of those who are concerned with protecting endangered species and
animal rights pay attention to this, straight from the pen of Charles Darwin,
where he expounds on his idea of the process by which natural selection takes
place:
" I
endeavoured, also, to show that intermediate varieties, from existing in lesser
numbers than the forms which they connect, will generally be beaten out
and exterminated during the course of further modification and
improvement." (Origin, Chapter
Ten: On the Imperfection of the Geologic Record: On the absence of
intermediate varieties at the present day) (22)
(The Darwin Papers;
Chapter's 4 - 6), and this was his sentence on other forms of life that aren't
fit enough to compete with other species in his struggle for survival; they get
wiped out, and Darwin considered this an "improvement."
(See Chapter 1).
We find Darwin's outlook on his role as a naturalist and what he thought of the delicate balance of nature when he wrote in 1856, upon beginning his Origin: "What a book a devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low and horridly cruel works of nature." (25)
In contrast to
Darwin's gray, dreary,
brutal vision of the natural world (read the four
previous quotes above) we find Edward Blyth's observations of the
cooperation of many species inhabiting a similar ecosystem. A comparison of
Darwin's and Blythe's writings will show that Blyth did not see natural
selection as having the capacity to originate any species, it could only
preserve and protect the integrity of already existing species, thus Blyth was
correctly in line with what modern
scholarship has to say about it.
Natural selection is merely a
sorting process. It is like a shaker tray on a treadmill in a
food processing plant that sorts out various peanuts by size and lets the
smaller ones drop through the holes while the larger ones are passed on for
consumption. The shaker tray did not create the peanuts, which
were grown from other peanuts, it merely selected and separated the peanuts by
size.
According to Darwin though, and his coterie of evolutionist followers, you could take certain peanuts that have novel features, such as a larger peanut, and plant it, and then select the largest peanut from that bunch and plant that, and eventually have a really, really big peanut with more survival value, say a 50 lb. peanut, or a 500 lb. peanut. Or you could grow a smarter, faster peanut, or a peanut that might start to sprout wings, or a peanut that might decide to return to the sea like they claim whales did, or it could develop some other ingenious feature that would help it survive, until finally you would have an entirely new species that wouldn't be a peanut at all. After all, that is how they claim we all arrived here from some type of primitive bacteria. This is all nonsense of course, we have bred animals to certain sizes, along with plants, and there have always been certain limits to the amount of variation that can be produced through selective breeding.
It was Blyth who articulated and developed natural selection within a creationist context and who showed that the original kind within a species had a much better chance of survival than the more exotic varieties did (this is an overall generalisation; through variation and migration certain breeds began to inhabit different locales that were more favorable for them, such as polar bears in the arctic, but as noted with the peanut, variety has it's limits), and it is Blyth from whom Darwin took his major ideas from and then turned them around to deny the special, miraculous creation of species by God. We find from Blyth's writings that he was also an early ecologist and conservationist, evidently concerned for the welfare of our ecosystem and man's role in preserving it. He expressed these sentiments well over one hundred years before the birth of the modern ecology movement when he wrote of ". . . the system which the existence of one species is necessary to that of another, and which binds each race to it's locality; where the presence of each is alike necessary to preserve the equilibrium of organic being around." (26)
Also in stark
contrast to Darwin's view of the "clumsy,
wasteful, blundering, low . . . works of nature", Blyth
wrote: "How beautifully do we thus perceive, as in a thousand other
instances the balance of nature preserved" (27) and then he
left us with this stern admonition: "In his vanity
(man) is apt to imagine that all were made for him . . . yet how ardently does
he labor to exterminate every portion of that creation . . ." (28)
There were four important distinctions that we should look at between Darwin's writings and Edward Blyth's.
Blyth also touched on the subject of comparative anatomy of creatures with outwardly similar morphology (ex. Men and apes): "I must venture, however, to differ from the majority of them [evolutionary minded naturalists] in opposing the prevalent notion, that the extreme modifications of diverse types blend and inosculate by direct affinity [common evolutionary descent]; contending however closely these may apparently resemble, the most similar modifications of diverse types are not, in a physiological sense, more nearly related to each other than are the more characteristic examples of the same." (31) He wrote in another section: ". . . every species is esentially distinct and separate from every other species; otherwise it would not be a species but a variety. The most similar species, therefore, are only allied to each other in consequence of the resemblence of their general organization." (32)
Thus, men and
apes simply resemble each other, that does not in itself prove any type of
common descent.
As far as
certain DNA similarities, humans have more in common genetically with chickens
than we do with rats, a mammal to whom we are supposedly more related to in
evolutionary terms. (Humans are genetically more similar to chickens than
rats; Wageningen International
Studies Paper; Whisp'r Archive, Issue 31 - 26.10.2000 Page 05) Some
marsupials are remarkably similar to certain Eutheriatic (non-pouched) mammals,
in fact they resemble some Eutheriatic mammals more than other Eutheriatic
mammals resemble each other, however their method of weaning their young clearly
sets them apart as another order of living beings entirely. He wrote in
another treatise: "The same awful
(awesome) Being who first awakened man into existence in common with the meanest
atom, who appointed his destiny upon earth to be so diverse from that of his
other creatures, who endowed him alone to reflect upon his Makers goodness and
power . . ." (35) These are
some of the very important differences between Blyth's majestic vision of God's
beautiful creation and of man's role to play in it contrasted with Darwin's
evolutionary theories of some furtive creature struggling to survive by
eliminating his competitors as they ascend out of primordial slime. Let us see whether Darwin's
ideas of chance evolution or Blyth's ideas of an intelligent designer make more
sense in light of some observations of nature. Darwin did The pig
shark, so named
because it has a nose and mouth section remarkably resembling a pigs, does
something quite unique among any creature of the animal Kingdom, there is no
evidence of anything like it at all in any other animal, fossilized or modern.
It's eggs are shaped like perfectly formed auger-like screws, precision fitted
as though from a tool-makers machine shop, and then it drills these egg capsules
into rock crevices, where the embryo develops safe and secure from predators for
the space of a year! Nothing like
it exists at all in any other species of shark, there is no evidence of
evolution having produced this marvel, it speaks for design from a creative
intelligence, not blind chance and random chemicals mixing together. (37)
In a
comparative study of the hearts of the four types of living reptiles; lizards,
snakes, turtles, and crocodiles,
we find that there are major structural differences between them all, with no
indication of any type of an intermediate form ever existing, in fact, an
intermediate form between a crocodile's heart and that of any other reptile
would undoubtedly spell instant death to the creature. In lizards,
snakes, and turtles we have the right atrium and the left atrium situated next
to each other, on the same side of the heart, to the left of the two aorta,
while the pulmonary artery is on the right side of the heart. The crocod Among the
three remaining types of reptiles, a lizards heart has both aortas and both
atria connected to the left
ventricle, while in a turtles heart only the right aorta and the two atria are
connected the left ventricle, the left aorta is connected to the right
ventricle. In a snakes heart only the left atrium opens into the left ventricle,
both of the aortas and the right atrium open into the right ventricle. None of
these creatures could have survived unless their hearts were perfectly formed as
they are from the beginning of their existence, an intermediate form would spell
instant doom for an animal, and yet none of these reptiles have hearts that are
alike in the slightest. The amphibian
has a heart unlike that of any reptilian heart. Instead of a four chambered
heart like that found in reptiles, with an amphibian's heart there are only two
atria that pass into a single ventricle, and a fish only has one atrium and one
ventricle connected to the gills. There is definitely a progression in
complexity from the heart of the fish to the reptile, but there is nothing like
an intermediate stage to be found, an intermediate stage would be fatal for any
creature. A heart must be completely functional and fully developed for the
creature to survive. An
evolutionist by the name of Lenny Flank has disputed this and attempted to claim
that there are transitional forms for the hearts of the four types of reptiles.
He brought up the pachyrhachis, a fossilised snake, and a fossil amphibian
called Acanthostega as some sort of proof for transitional forms. Unfortunately
for Flank, it is doubtful that they would provide information on any
transitional forms of reptilian hearts since we do not have any remains at all
of the hearts of these two extinct species. Furthermore, even if we did, their
hearts would in all probability be the same as the hearts of modern snakes and
amphibian salamanders; after all the pachyrhachis was simply a snake with unique
claspers probably used in mating, and the Acanthostega was a salamander, no
more, no less. Flank also
has a website up devoted to Ichthyostega,
a supposed transitional species in the fossil record bridging the gap between
marine creatures and land animals. He stated "The creationists are fond of
stating that there are 'no transitionals in the fossil record'. One of the best
fossil transitionals, however, is that of Icthyostega, which combines the traits
of both fishes and amphibians, and represents the transition between aquatic and
terrestrial vertebrate life.". There are
some serious problems with Flank's Ichthyostega though, the first being that he
has had the name of the creature misspelled on his web page heading for at
least eight years (circa 1995-2003). Although there are two acceptable ways to
spell Ichthyostega (Icthyostega) in English, Flank has either spelled
it purposely in Spanish, in which case he might have spelled it that way in
the rest of his document, which he has not, or else he misspelled it and never
noticed it. The second
problem with Flank's argument is that Kathleen
Hunt of talk.origins has said that Ichthyostega, along with Flank's
Acanthostega were probably never in the ancestral lineage of later land animals,
thus they had no place in the supposed evolutionary transition from marine
creatures to land animals at all. Aside from these two minor problems Flank's
page makes interesting reading. I've always been a science fiction fan since my
youth. (For more detailed information on fish-amphibian-reptilian evolution see
The
Creature from the Black Lagoon) There are quite
a few different methods of
reproduction in the fish world. Some fish mate by coupling with their partners,
there are some fish species where the females simply lay their eggs in a certain
region while the male swims by and squirts his sperm over the eggs. In some
species the male fish have no external sexual organ, in other species the male
fish have two, with the female having two corresponding areas on her body for
the male to conjoin with, however the seahorse is perhaps the most remarkable
innovator in the field of reproduction.
While male seahorses have no external male sexual organ, the females
do, and it corresponds in the mating process in the same manner that a
male organ does on other species, except that instead of ejecting sperm, she
ejects eggs into the male seahorses sperm pouch, which serves as a womb
where the male seahorse carries and nurses the fertilised eggs, much as a female
of other species does with her young. The eggs attatch themselves to the walls
inside of the pouch through which they receive oxygen and nutrients.
The seahorse is also the only known fish that mates for life, or until
the death of one of the partners. When both partners meet each other after a
brief separation, their colors brighten, they engage in greetings, they nuzzle
each other, and then they link tails and swim together from one blade of
seagrass to another in a beautiful dance. The sea-dragon, similar to the
seahorse, engages in the same method of reproduction, except that instead of
having a pouch the male sea-dragon carries the eggs under his tail.
Ants
and aphids get along wonderfully. In fact it
might even be safe to say that the aphid is the ants best friend. Ants raise
aphids, much as we raise cattle and sheep, herding them and tending to their
needs, defending them from predators, even mulching and tending the plant that
the aphids live on and providing for their young. Remember“The Wind in the Willows”? How about “The
House at Pooh Corner”? In these
enchanting stories from our youth we read of Toad and Frog and other of natures’
denizens commingling happily together in animal society as they faced the trials
and triumphs of everyday life. Pure fantasy? Consider
Alpheas, the snapping shrimp and his six-inch long friend with an almost longer
Latin name, Cryptocentrus
coeruleopunctatus, the goby fish. Alphy and Goby are friends, in
fact they are room-mates together, safely tucked away in a snug little burrow
that Alphy digs in the sand with his claws. Sometimes Goby takes Alphy for a
walk, or Alphy takes Goby for a swim, take your pick. Anyway, when they leave
their little burrow and wander around the ocean floor foraging for food, as
Alphy skuttles along he stays in physical contact with Goby, who swims just
above him, with one of his antenna, which acts as a sort of “leash”. This works
out very well, since Alphy is very nearly blind and cannot detect the presence
of predators. Not to worry though. Darwin even wrote
of the
previously mentioned process of aphid and ant symbiosis in his Origin, of
course not from his own research but from the work of Pierre Huber. He had no
good answers as to how this came about through evolutionary means either.
Elsewhere in his
Origin he makes mention of the slave making ants, where he again refers
to the work of Huber, who found that there is a species of ant that depends
entirely on its slaves, to the extent that "without their help, the species
would become extinct within a single year." How such a condition could
gradually develop through random, natural selection and evolution is unanswered,
and Darwin doesn't even attempt to answer it either. He wrote, "By what steps
the instinct of F. sanguines originated I will not pretend to
conjecture." Further on in the Origin, Darwin wrote of some bees that do
not have the pollen collecting ability to save up food for their young, so they
lay their young in the nests of other bees who raise them. Again, he had no idea
how this came about through his theory. There are many
wonders in nature that speak
for intelligent design, not blind, random, haphazard evolutionary processes. The
Iracundus signifer, a species of scorpion fish known as the decoy fish, manages
to accomplish a feat that is quite remarkable. When food in the form of a
smaller fish swims nearby, it lays quite still on the seafloor, even slowing its
breathing down and altering its pigment to merge in with the surrounding
seascape. This in itself may not seem altogether too remarkable, except that it
engages an additional member of its body with an added trick to entice the fish
near. It raises its
dorsal fin. What make
this particular trick so unique is that its dorsal fin resembles an even smaller
fish, even having a black spot between the second and third membranes of the fin
that resembles an eye, while a notch between the first and second membranes of
the fin resembles a mouth. Thus while it lays quite still on the ocean bottom,
blending in with its surroundings, its dorsal fin becomes quite conspicuous,
even mimmicking the movements of a fish, and attracting predators, which show up
thinking to enjoy a snack, but instead they wind up being swallowed by the decoy
fish, making his sudden appearance. Could mindless evolution produce this?
(38) Ever had a
problem with stomach gas? In mastering the phenomena of flatulence, none can
match that remarkable insect, the bombardier beetle. The German chemist
Schildknecht studied the amazing defense system of this noxious insect, which
makes use of two extremely dangerous gasses that the beetle conjures up within
his abdomen, hydroquinine and hydrogen peroxide. This explosive mixture of
chemicals would blow the beetle to bits were it not for an added chemical that
prevents the reaction from occuring. Whenever an
enemy in the form of a larger insect or animal shows up to feast on the little
critter, he turns his hind quarters towards the predator, squirts both of these
chemicals from within a chamber in his hinquarters, discharging a small
explosion when the predator is ready to gulp him down. Evolutionary
theory would postulate that thousands upon thousands of intermediate forms led
up to this novel invention over millions of years, However, even if we assume
that the beetle somehow managed to evolve these chemicals at the same time they
would still be useless for thousands of generations. As Huse (39) (a
creationist scientist) points out, "But what would be the motivation for such a
disastrous, trial and error, piecemeal evolution? Everything in evolution is
supposed to be beneficial and have a logical purpose, or else it would never
develop. But such a process does not make any sense, and to propose that the
entire defense system evolved all at once is simply impossible." Mark Isaak, a writer for the evolutionist website
talk.origins, disagrees with this and has made the odd assertion that former
Berkeley biochemist Dr. Duane Gish (a celebrated creationist scientist) is
mistaken in his view that the bombardier beetle is a good example of intelligent
design in nature. (See Talk.Origins, Bombardier Beetles and
the Argument of Design, by Mark Isaak) "Gish is
wrong," Isaak claims, "a step by step evolution of the bombardier beetle is
really not that hard to imagine." Isaak then proceeds to take us on his fifteen
step process that he claims might have produced the bombardier beetles amazing
system of defense. He pieces together various facts concerning arthropods and
beetles from a variety of sources, but he injects them with the usual
evolutionist logical errors and assumptions in his interpretation of these
facts. Let us
investigate what Isaak wrote to see where truth leaves off and bias
begins.
Amazingly
though, after all is said and done, we find out that Isaak was making the whole thing
up! He is simply storytelling and he admits as
much. In fact, according to Isaak, it could have happened any one of a
number of ways, take your choice! "The scenario
above is hypothetical; the actual evolution of the bombardier beetles probably
did not happen exactly like that." In fact, he actually admits that "nature is not constrained by any persons lack of
imagination." Thus
Isaak actually hasn't got the foggiest notion of how the
bombardier beetle developed his marvelous defensive mechanism, and yet after
spinning this fantasy he uses
this as evidence for evolution! Well, if your
going to make up your own stories out of whole cloth and then use that as proof,
I suppose not! Anything could be possible with this type of logic.The
entire story told above is 90% fantasy, cleverly
woven together with a few observations of natural phenomena thrown in to lend it
the look of scientific respectability! "Their features, behaviors, and distribution nicely fit the kinds
of patterns that evolution
creates."? Isaac has
created this scenario; he made it all up and then neatly called it
evolution, but there was never any evidence of an evolutionary sequence for the
creation of the Bombardier Beetle in the first place! Isaac is simply assuming
God out of the picture and then giving evolution the deific power of
creation itself, despite his duplicitous attempt later in his FAQ to ameliorate
those who want to believe in evolution but keep God in the
picture. He then
states: "Nobody has yet found anything about any bombardier beetle which is
incompatible with evolution." He says that since some of the
intermediate stages do exist in living populations of beetles, "No
improbable events are needed." Indeed? Isaak
calls this evolution. I think that a better word for it (without intelligent
design involved, that is) might be Alakazam, or Bippidy Boppidy
Boo! Isaac sums up
his little story with "This does not mean, of course, that we know everything
about the evolution of bombardier beetles; far from it." He goes on:
"But the gaps in our knowledge should not be interpreted as meaningful in
themselves. Some people are apparently uncomfortable with the idea of
uncertainty, so uncomfortable that they try to turn the unknown into the
unknowable" This is
exactly what Isaac has done with his fantastic story of the Beetles
evolution; he has culled the entire thing out of the Twilight Zone.
And these Uncle Remus
"Just So" stories are used by evolutionists to string together their scenarios
of "how the leopard got his spots" to regale their audiences, while they heap
scorn on creationists who would dare to presume that some of these marvels of
nature show evidence of design!
say that his
theory would be totally discredited if a trait could be shown not to have arisen
by gradual evolutionary processes: "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." (36)
ile's heart, on
the other hand, is not anything like this at all. His right atrium and left
atrium are on opposite sides of the heart: the right atrium is placed where the
pulmonary artery is in the other reptiles, while the pulmonary artery and two
aorta are situated in between the two atria. 
It is similar to having four distinct types of internal combustion
engines: a V-6 gasoline engine; a single piston motorcycle engine; an in-line
diesel engine; and a rotary engine. Although all of these engines use similar
chemical, electrical, and mechanical principles in their operation, they all
have quite distinct designs for a particular, unique purpose. None of these
engines "evolved" into the other engines, each one would have to be perfectly
functional, with the correct specifications, timing, and design features from
the start for them to operate.
Indeed, this problem of the evolution of the reptiles' heart
is such an unsolvable conundrum that I have decided to call it Flank's
Dilemma, in honor of Lenny Flank, a self professed expert on reptilian
anatomy.
After the eggs have gone through the progressive stages of embryonic
development within the pouch, the male gives birth to a hoard of tiny,
squiggling seahorses, even going through labor pains during delivery. In other
respects, male seahorses exhibit male characteristics, even challenging other
seahorses for the females attention in pre-nuptial rituals.
There is no known evolutionary explanation for the development of the
seahorse’s unique method of copulation, nothing like it is found in any other
species of animal, no hint of “gradual development”of chance favorable
modifications.
What do the ants get
in return? Honeydew, a tasty delicacy made of plant sap that the aphid ingests
and then secretes for the ant to lap up. Recent study has shown that the ants do
not need this snack to survive, but that they cultivate it for pleasure!
One study has shown that some aphids will not secrete this chemical normally
without the ants encouragement, even when stimulated to do so.
Some ants
are ranchers, other ants like to farm. The Acromyrmex
octospinosus, leaf cutter
ants of Paraguay, grow fungus to feed upon, often harvesting it in huge
plantations, even mulching the soil with dead organic matter and using
caterpillar waste as manure. They have hanging gardens of the fungus within
widened chambers inside of their nests, and obtain all of their dietary
nutrition from it. Could such a remarkable condition have come about through
blind evolutionary chance?
When danger approaches, Goby signals
Alphy with a wriggle of his body and a swish of his fins, and Alphy then dashes
back into the safety and security of their burrow, followed closely by Goby.
This is how Goby earns his rent, by assuming the role of “guard fish” for the
nearsighted Alphy.
Pretty neat arrangement. Instead of “survival of the
fittest” it would seem that “survival of the friendliest” would be a more apt
description for this set of affairs. How could evolution account for this?
When Darwin observed the well
developed hierarchy in ant society, he wrote, "The castes, moreover, do not
commonly graduate into each other, but are perfectly well defined: being as
distinct from each other as are any two species of the same genus, or
rather as any two genera of the same family." In other words, he could cite no
evidence of gradual modification from one species changing into
another. So he could provide no evidence for the evolution of ants.
Even then evolutionary scientists toyed with the "hopeful monster"
theory because of the missing transitional forms, which seemed as likely an
explanation, in fact infinitely better, than natural selection, and
the fossil record bears this out as well, as we shall see., Darwin lamely agrees
in the conclusion of his section in the Origin on Objections To My
Theory: "To admit all this is, as it seems to me, to enter into the realms
of miracle, and to leave those of Science."
No wonder Professor J.P.
Lehman of France wrote: “Darwinism in its ancient and classical form has
broken down.'" [i]
According to
Darwin, a morphological (physical) or behavioral trait has to confer some
specific advantage for survival to have any value to be passed on to it’s
offspring, but this brings up the question of neutral characteristics.
Some plants have leaves that are bi-polar, they sprout out on opposites sides of
the stem at the same height, while others in the very same ecosystem have leaves
that alternate at different levels on each side, yet both varieties of plants co-exist
equally well, neither genetic trait would seem to confer any specific survival
advantage. Some traits would seem positively deadly to their owners, yet they
are passed on from generation to generation. It would seem that birds that can
camouflage themselves from predators would have a selective advantage to others
that are conspicuous, yet the female peacock is attracted to the male with
the largest, brightest plumage, looking as if he's calling the nearest fox
over for dinner.
In his second work, The Descent of Man Darwin
noted this same fact in his section on Insects,where he stated that a
characteristic unfavorable for survival seemed to be the dominant trait:
"From the several foregoing facts it is
impossible to admit that the brilliant colours of butterflies, and of some few
moths, have commonly been acquired for the sake of protection. We have seen that
their colours and elegant patterns are arranged and exhibited as if for
display. Hence I am led to believe
that the females prefer or are most excited by the more brilliant males . . . "
thus we see that what should be a trait for natural selection to single out and
remove from a species according to Darwin’s thesis, by his own admission does
not happen in nature.
Despite the fact that Darwin was never able to
come up with any plausible solution as to the origin of any species, he was
absolutely enthralled with the concept of extinction. He wrote: “Hence rare
species will be less quickly modified or improved within any given period; they
will consequently by beaten in the race for life by the modified and
improved descendants of the commoner species.” Another selection, among
many, illustrates his favorite principle of survival of the fittest: “From these
several considerations I think it inevitably follows that as new species in the
course of time are formed through natural selection, others will become rarer
and rarer, and finally extinct. The forms which stand in closest competition
with those undergoing modification and improvement will naturally suffer most.
And we have seen in the chapter on the Struggle for existence that it is the
most closely-allied forms,-varieties of the same species, and species of the
same genus or of related genera,- which, from having nearly the same structure,
constitution, and habits, generally come into the severest competition with each
other; consequently, each new variety or species, during the progress of its
formation, will generally press hardest on its nearest kindred, and tend to
exterminate them.” (Origin, pp.52, Benton Pub., 1952)
It
would seem to me, perhaps to any reasonable thinking person, that
extinction is just the opposite of the origin of a species.
We frequently watch media programs that tell us all about the great extinctions
that have taken place throughout ancient history, (although it is more
reasonable to relate all or the majority of these extinctions to one actual
event, or to a closely related series of events such as a universal tectonic
upheaval and flood which were not separated by millions of years in time, they
were all world-wide in scope and similar in pattern), thus a documentary on the
extinction of the dinosaurs is somehow meant to provide explicit proof that
evolution somehow occurred, never mind the fact that the extinction of the
dinosaurs throws absolutely no light on their origin.
Amazing
Story of the Evolution
of
the
Bombardier Beetle in 15 Steps
or
THE TALE OF HOW THE
BOMBARDIER BEETLE GOT HIS
SCENT
This is a genuine Darwin Evolutionary Tale
made up by talk.origins
Hurry
Hurry! Step right up ladies and gentlemen to the talk.origins
travelling sideshow! You will see sites that will enthrall you, you will
listen to stories that will astound you, you will witness daring feats of
verbal sophistry that will bend the very laws of nature and will
leave you speechless (step aside kid, your crowding me, no we don't have
any transitional fossils), and it's all here for your viewing, and all
that you need is your computer screen and an internet connection.
And
now, for our first attraction, the fantastic, the incredible, the
world famous, one-and-only story of HOW THE BOMBARDIER BEETLE GOT HIS
SCENT!(This
story is based on the actual observations of Mark Isaak. Well, he really
didn't observe any of this, and admitted that he made it all up,
however it has been referred to by many evolutionists at talk.origins as
genuine evidence that evolution has occurred)
i)
First of all, Isaak notes that certain epidermal cells produce quinones
for tanning the cuticle. True enough, although Isaak skips over how these
quinones developed through evolutionary processes, or how evolution
produced these complex chemicals in the right place for the correct
function, this is merely assumed. He goes on from here to a highly
speculative journey of assumptions, mixing facts with storytelling; ii) He
then notes that some of the excess quinones are used as protection by
various arthropods such as beetles and millipedes. Still true, but no
evidence on how they evolved. Now we get into the really interesting
stuff, and it all just happened, without any intelligent design:
iii)
then invaginations (folds in the epidermis) conveniently develop at just
the right place on the body to hold more quinones; iv) then muscles
re-arrange themselves so they can help the invaginations dispell quinones;
v) two invaginations turn into reservoirs while the others disappear; vi)
some predators have "evolved" defenses against quinones so brand new
chemicals appear for the beetles defense, one of which is hydroquinone;
vii) next more cells develop to produce more hydroquinone; channels neatly
develop between the cells allowing the hydroquinone to reach the
reservoir; viii) the channels become ducts
"specialised for transporting the chemicals!", then "secretory
cells withdraw from the surface, ultimately becoming a
separate organ" !! (all by
chance evolution - no room for design in Isaak's universe). Although
certain beetles do have this feature, the question is not whether they
exist, but how this amazing specialised organ came to be
by blind evolutionary processes, and Isaak does plenty of assuming for the
readers benefit; ix) then, without any design, mind you,
muscles (again) adapt to close off the
reservoir and prevent chemicals from leaking when not in use; x) next hydrogen peroxide mixes with
hydroquinones, the reaction producing a mixture of quinones and
hydroquinones for defense; xi) Then, Isaak reasons that since
catalases exist in most cells, and peroxidases are common in plants and
animals, "Cells secreting a small amount of catalases and
peroxides appear along the output passage of the reservoir"(!) outside
of the valve, thus ensuring more quinones in secretions used for defense,
with these chemicals conveniently concentrated in just the right location
(of which Isaak totally fails to explain why this should happen), xii)
more catalases and peroxidases are produced, with a warmer, more volatile
reaction, xiii) the walls of the output passage become strong enough to
withstand the heat and pressure generated by the reaction; xiv) More
peroxidases and catalases are produced and the walls of the output
passage"shape into a reaction chamber";
xv) and finally, remarkably, the apex of the abdomen of the beetle
lengthens and becomes pliant so that the beetle can aim the discharge in
different
directions!
And all of these marvelous innovations, Isaak would have
you believe, came about by chance, blind, evolutionary processes! No room
for design here.
"The scenario does show, however, that the evolution of a complex
structure is far from impossible."
Isaac
actually has the hubris to state, based on this fantasy: "Do bombardier beetles
look designed? Yes; they look like they were designed by evolution ["designed by
evolution", by definition a mindless process, not designed by an intelligent
God. Were Isaac to admit that an Intelligence was involved in a hands on manner
his whole case would be destroyed]. Their features, behaviors, and distribution
nicely fit the kinds of patterns that evolution creates."
Actually we
know nothing about the evolution of the Bombardier Beetle.
Then in a
remarkable display of the pot calling the kettle black, Isaak accuses the
creationists of hubris!
"There has
never been any evidence that bombardier beetles could not have evolved, but just
because they couldn't explain exactly how the beetles evolved, lots of people
jumped to the conclusion that an explanation was impossible. In fact, their
conclusion says a lot more about themselves than about the beetles. To make such
a conclusion based only on a lack of knowledge is a kind of
arrogance."
Isaak is nothing if not cunning in his presentations, much like his predecessor Darwin. Thus when creationists have pointed out the utter absurdity of all of the above events happening as he has described them by blind chance, or for that matter any evolutionist event ever happening at all, he accuses the creationists of misrepresenting evolution, or at least of misrepresenting the evolutionists definition of evolution.
He says that
they (the creationists) are wrong in stating that evolution, according to
the evolutionists, is supposed to proceed by mere chance. Yet Isaak himself,
after making that accusation, barely half a paragraph later states that chance
is the main ingredient in forming new genetic
material, again, according to the evolutionists: "Chance,
in the form of mutations, provides genetic variation, which is the raw material
that natural selection has to work with. From there, natural selection sorts out
certain variations."
(Mark Isaak:http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html)
Granted,
Isaak claims that natural selection plays a part in sorting out
variations supposedly produced by chance, but he has to admit that natural
selection itself cannot create anything new. Natural selection is not a factor
in originating anything, as will be more fully shown in the next chapter, The
Origin of Evolution.
Thus, even by Isaak's own words, chance alone,
through mutations, produces all of the new material by which evolution is
supposed to proceed with. And yet chance, or random natural selection cannot
account for the complexity that we find in living systems.
Later on in his FAQ Isaac throws a bone to those who want to believe in evolution and creation, i.e. theistic evolution, that it was "God's method" for creating species. You just have to believe that somewhere way, way back there in time, in the beginning of the whole process, God kick started the whole thing but then left it alone.
But Isaac
argues against any purpose in evolution. Thus we would have a God who created
everything but then Who had no purpose in creating anything, just like
throwing some paint onto a canvass. SPLOT! It all happened by chance. No
purpose, no design, an almighty intelligent Being just tossed a bunch of stuff
out into a universe He created and let fly. Then again, if you want to believe
that evolution was God's method, do you mean to say that you believe that God
created evolution? Is His hand involved in the details of evolution
itself?
If so, if purpose is involved, then chance and natural selection
have no role to play in it, and it is no longer
evolution.
In the second FAQ, Isaak also makes the claim that talk.origins has produced observed evidence of speciation, as well as transitional fossils providing proof that evolution has occured. I would refer the reader to Chapter Six of The Darwin Papers, where both of these ludicrous claims are dealt with.
Isaak is generally so far out of the ballpark with his illustrations and arguments that it should embarass talk.origins to still keep him posted at their site, were it not for the fact that his material is actually representative of most of the arguments used by the rest of the evolutionists there as well.
Fred Williams
has mathematically demonstrated the impossibility of chance mutations' role
in creating a new species, a new organ, a new anything, thus putting the nail in
the coffin of Isaak's arguments.
http://www.evolutionfairytale.com/articles_debates/mutation_rate.htm.
Now according to Isaac,
you have some organism going about its daily business when
suddenly ZAP! A
stray cosmic ray, or a mistake in cell reproduction produces a beneficial
mutation. Isaac states that "chance ensures that such beneficial mutations will
be inevitable". But mutations are mistakes! By their very nature, and by Isaak's
definition they are not the product of any intelligent design. They are
accidents! And a cell is amazingly complicated, more complicated than the
largest computer ever built.
A cell has more structured,
detailed information than a library of 1,000 books with each book having
500 pages. A single mutation to any of this, to one word in one page of this
immense library could be, and in most cases is, deadly.
Isaak has
tried to give natural selection some grand role in sorting out these wonderful
beneficial mutations that chance has supposedly produced. As noted,
natural selection is only a sorting process, it contributes nothing towards
a new genome. Isaak makes plenty of assumptions, such as "When the environment
changes, or when organisms move to a different environment, different variations
are selected, leading eventually to different species."
This is an
unqualified statement, backed up by no science, no data whatsoever. He has used
the typical Darwinian technique of extrapolation, using variations within a
species kind, and suggesting that these variations can go on and on until you
have an entirely different "kind" of organism.
By Isaak's reasoning, you could take a hammer to your computer and eventually come up with a better computer, or an improved hard drive. Or you could drive an automobile over a cliff and come up with a newer model.
Essentially, there are three possibilities that can occur when a mutation happens: The mutation can be beneficial (rarely if ever seen in nature); the mutation can be neutral; or the mutation can be harmful (by far the most common effect of mutation, by some estimates this comprises 99.9 % of all mutations, caused by damage from nuclear radiation, overexposure to the sun, toxic chemical effects on the cells, etc).
Thus the chance for a single mutation occuring that would be beneficial are less than 50/50, less than that of tossing a coin. At best, out of the three possibilities listed above it only has a 33% chance of being beneficial. Actually it really has much less of a chance than that, because the beneficial mutation would have to be of a particular type for a particular genome in a particular organism in a particular environment to improve the organisms' genetic code and improve the survival value. In other words, out of the billions of possibilities that could occur, it would have to be a very specific mutation. It would be like hitting the lottery, only a lottery that is composed of billions of possibilities.
Now, here's the problem. For each of the steps listed above by Isaak, there would have to be numerous biochemical substeps; smaller, extremely intricate chemical changes in the genetic code for the main steps to happen. And each time you take a further step the odds against the right genetic mutation occuring after that get smaller and smaller. In Isaak's case the mathematical odds against it are zero, even given hundreds of millions of years for this to have happened, and he does not have that much time either.
Mutations do not occur at a fast enough rate to produce beneficial changes. Remember, the odds are that over time you would have just as many bad mutations as good ones, causing a reversal to any of the steps listed above, along with the numerous unmentioned biochemical substeps. In fact, you would have more, because a "good" mutation has to be a specific mutation out of numberless possibilities most of which would be fatal, to have any benefit. It would be like a blind man hiking through the continent of North America in search of a particular key laying somewhere on the ground, and upon finding that key, out of hundreds of thousands of doors finding the right door to insert the key in. In fact, according to Isaak, it is even worse, because without intelligent design the blind man would not be "searching" for the key, he would just be wandering around and "happen" upon it, and then after picking it up he would just "happen" to fit it into the right slot in the right door. And if he picked up the wrong key, or inserted it into the wrong door, it would spell instant doom. Thus you would eventually, sooner rather than later, have a deadly mutation that would throw the whole thing out of whack and destroy the species.
Thus over time the negative mutations would swamp the beneficial ones, causing an extinction event, not a speciation event, because it only takes one negative mutation to cause the whole thing to stop; not only to halt it temporarily, but to end it forever, to destroy the species entire. Even given a 50/50 chance, there would have to be so many benefical mutations occuring in a row, without any negative ones, that it would be like tossing a coin and coming up heads 100,000 times in a row! And this would never happen in nature. This is a mathematical impossibility, even with natural selection saving the beneficial ones.
And given more time, the scene only gets worse, since the probability of negative mutations occuring are actually greater than positive mutations and would increase over time, this would mean that the scenario described above by Isaak would happen only in your dreams.
Isaak also
makes the same simplistic assumptions regarding the origin of life that he made
with the Bombardier Beetle: "Nor is abiogenesis (the origin of the first life)
due purely to chance. Atoms and molecules arrange themselves not purely
randomly, but according to their chemical properties."
So far what he has
said is true, however he uses this to launch an entirely false premise, unproven
in the natural world, and in fact, statistically impossible. "In the case of
carbon atoms especially, this means complex molecules
are sure to form spontaneously, and these complex molecules can
influence each other to create even more complex molecules. Once a molecule
forms that is approximately self-replicating, natural selection will guide the
formation of ever more efficient replicators."
This is a
leap of faith of incredible proportions. It is also false. NONE of this has
ever been observed in nature, it is entirely based on Isaak's own evolutionary
belief system, not on any hard science at all [even Rebek's artificially
produced replicating molecule in a laboratory setting was created in
conditions that would never be found in nature, where the presence of water,
which is necessary for any life to flourish, would destroy the reaction, and the
gap between what Rebek produced and the smallest genetic code for the simplest
organism, Mycoplasma genitalium is of such gigantic proportions
that it would be impossible to bridge naturally].
Jonathan Sarfati has
noted: "Chemicals obey the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and
do not arrange themselves into self-sustaining metabolic pathways. Living
cells have molecular machinery to channel the chemistry in the right direction
and amounts." http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/3974.asp
Thus you need
to have the living cell FIRST in order to produce a sufficiency of these complex
carbon based molecules necessary to sustain life.
After making his
argument for abiogenesis, Isaak then issues this incredible disclaimer:
"One should also note that the theory of evolution doesn't depend on how the
first life began. The truth or falsity of any theory of abiogenesis wouldn't
affect evolution in the least."
If that were the case, then why did Isaak make such a plea for abiogenesis in the first place? And why do so many other evolutionists at talk.origins and other evolutionist dens spend so much time trying to prove it as well? If abiogenesis is so unimportant to the theory of evolution, then let's just agree that God miraculously created the first cell. Isaac should have no problem with that if it is such an inconsequential item for his theory.
What Isaak has said is simply not true. The truth is that abiogenesis is fundamental to the evolutionists viewpoint, for if you are to accept that something as complex as a single cell could never have been produced by blind chance, thus that a Creator had to have been involved in it's origin, then the Creator could very easily have created all of the other species of life after it as well, and that is why evolutionists have been working tirelessly for over a century, without any success, to prove that abiogenesis is possible, even after Pasteur's experiment in the nineteenth century disproved it, and in spite of the mathematical and chemical statistical odds that show it could never have happened.
To further bolster his argument for evolution, Isaak smoothly assures us "For example, Darwin explained how, under his theory, a few photosensitive cells might evolve gradually into eyes."
In point of fact, Darwin did anything but explain how a few photosensitive cells evolved into eyes. The key word here is might, and even here, in his speculative ramblings, Darwin came nowhere near to explaining in any detail the intricate biochemical steps as to how such a complex and wonderful organ developed. He simply indulged in a wandering and often obtuse game of speculation as to how it might have occured.
Darwin had to admit that the eye developing by natural selection through random evolutionary processes was well-nigh to impossible: "To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems. I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree", yet in a remarkable display of cunning, Darwin still attempted to use this admission of the failure of his theory as a springboard to justify it nonetheless! (Darwin, Origin of Species, Chapter VI: Organs of Extreme Perfection)
One might
think, as I did at an earlier point in my study of Darwin, that here at last we
find him in a rare moment of honesty, but alas, such is not the case. Darwin was
still incapable of a frank admission of the deficiency of his theory; and he
went on to defend his hypothesis with an attempt to compare the lack of evidence
for the evolution of the eye with the incredible argument that since the sun
only appears to revolve around the earth, but in fact it is the earth
that revolves around the sun, then this somehow would show that what only "seems
. . . absurd in the highest degree", the evolution of the eye by natural
selection, actually has some degree of credibility.
Using this type of
fantastic logic, one could go on to claim that the existence of werewolves only
"seems . . .absurd to the highest degree", since one only has to look at the
apparent revolution of the sun around the earth, when in fact it is the earth
that revolves around the sun, for absolute proof tha