FEAR IS THE GLUE THAT HOLDS THE EVOLUTION ESTABLISHMENT TOGETHER

I have heard this from other sources. In Heretic, Finnish biologist Matti Leisola also claims that scientists are fearful to speak openly about their doubts regarding the theory of evolution:

• The conversation was an instance of something I ran into frequently: scientists willing to have frank, open-minded conversations with me about evolutionary theory, but only in private. I came to understand through my many international connections that neo-Darwinism, while little valued among mainstream biologists who spent any time thinking about the theory, was treated by them as a third rail—too dangerous to touch. Many who understand one or more of the problems with it are afraid to share their views for fear of losing their positions.

As an example of one brave nay-sayer, Leisola cites:

• [Biochemist Branko] Kozulić [who] analyzed the literature on sequenced genomes and concluded that each species has hundreds of what are termed ORFan genes or singleton genes. These are genes with no resemblance to those found in other taxa (categories of organisms such as species, genera, and families).

The finding of ORFan genes presents a major problem for Darwinian gradualism, since there is no evidence of any gradual appearance of these unique genes. Leisola therefore asks:

• Could blind evolution possibly make a great leap from one gene to a very different ORFan gene, and so eliminate the need for a series of small random mutations and an extended series of intermediates? In 2015 Kozulić and I made a careful analysis of studies by Nobel laureate Jack Szostak’s group, and we concluded that even with extremely generous assumptions the probability of a random process landing on functional activities among random RNA or protein sequences is so low that it represents a practical impossibility.

In order to rectify this problem by producing evidence of macroevolution, biologist Richard Lenski had cultivated more than 68,000 generations of rapidly reproducing E. coli bacteria. Leisola reports that:

• ...in 2008, a prominent science journal reports that a lab [Lenski’s] has uncovered the first evidence of evolution’s ability to innovate in an impressive way.

However, Leisola cites biochemist Michael Behe’s assessment that Lenski’s findings fall far short of their claim:

• Nothing fundamentally new has been produced. No new protein-protein interactions, no new molecular machines.… some large evolutionary advantages have been conferred by breaking things. Several populations of bacteria lost their ability to repair DNA. One of the most beneficial mutations, seen repeatedly in separate cultures, was the bacterium’s loss of the ability to make a sugar called ribose, which is a component of RNA. Another was a change in a regulatory gene called spoT, which affected en masse how fifty-nine other genes work, either increasing or decreasing their activity. One likely explanation of the net good effect of this very blunt mutation is that it turned off the energetically costly genes that make the bacterial flagellum, saving the cell some energy. Breaking some genes and turning others off, however, won’t make much of anything.

Leisola concludes that “this is ‘evolution’ by losing or damaging genes.” Besides, “there is a strict limit to what unguided evolutionary processes can achieve.” In light of the mounting problems, why are there still evolutionists? Leisola claims that the evolution establishment is held together by fear:

• I know several successful academic biologists willing to concede all this, and to puzzle over all of it in stimulating conversations in the hallways of international conferences. But very few of them are willing to do so in public. The enforcers of Darwinian orthodoxy still have the power to threaten careers and, in some situations, to deliver on those threats. This is how the guardians of the old orthodoxy defend the citadel—not with fresh evidence but with fear.