Does natural selection provide evidence of its creative
power to create new species? Not according to award-winning Finnish
biotechnologist, Matti Leisola. In “Heretic:
One Scientist’s Journey from Darwin to Design,” he observes that:
·
All the textbook examples of natural selection
give no evidence of a far-reaching creative power. Consider the classic example
of color changes.
As an example, Leisola cites the changes in moth coloration
but argues that these minor changes that support natural selection are all
evolutionary dead-ends, as the case of finch beaks demonstrate. During times of
drought, the finches with longer beaks are better able to exploit the limited
available food. However, once the drought lifts, the finches with shorter beaks
once again prevail, suggesting that micro-evolution fails to provide a model
for macro-evolution.
Therefore, Leisola argues that the evidence shows that
natural selection can account for a temporary niche advantages but not for the overall
fitness of a species. Breeding has demonstrated these limitations, namely the
breeding of dogs:
·
Their breeding has sacrificed overall fitness in
pursuit of a niche advantage. Wolves are vastly more fit to survive in the wild
than are greyhounds.
What is the verdict
of probability? Is it likely that probability can account for the powers of
natural selection? Not according to Leisola:
·
Laboratory experiments, computer modeling, and
probability mathematics all confirm that this uniform experience likely is
universally the case—information is the product of mind. Based on this
combination of experience, experimentation, and mathematical analysis, we can
infer that the best explanation for biological information is intelligent
design.
Why then does Darwin’s theory of natural selection continue
to prevail in Western society? Leisola concludes:
·
I’m convinced it’s an outgrowth of the
materialistic paradigm. Those who adhere to the paradigm will not consider the
possibility of intelligent design, and they understand that blind evolution is
the lone alternative for explaining life’s diversity. Most of them are also
convinced that blind evolution requires some version of Darwin’s random
variation/ natural selection mechanism if it is to succeed. Boiled down to its
essence, the logic is simple if starved of evidence: Intelligent design must
not be true, so the chance/ selection mechanism must be adequate.
Does the fossil
record provide support for the gradual change predicted by the mechanism of natural
selection? Matti Leisola claims that the ubiquitous lack of transitional
forms alone casts considerable doubt
upon this theory. In support, he cites Douglas Erwin and James Valentine:
·
“One important concern has been whether the
microevolutionary patterns commonly studied in modern organisms by evolutionary
biologists are sufficient to understand and explain the events of the Cambrian
or whether evolutionary theory needs to be expanded to include a more diverse
set of macroevolutionary processes. We strongly hold to the latter position.
The patterns of disparity observed during the Cambrian pose two unresolved
questions. First, what evolutionary process produced the gaps between the
morphologies of major clades? Second, why have the morphological boundaries of
these body plans remained relatively stable over the past half a billion
years?” (“The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity”
(Greenwood Village, CO: Roberts and Company Publishers, 2013), 416)
This is a conclusion to which even many evolutionists have
come. Leisola is convinced that Darwin’s theory continues to prevail because of
repression and intimidation:
·
The atmosphere in our universities is now
completely different from that of the open discussions that were common in the
’70s and ’80s. Today naturalism controls the universities so completely that
debates about the problems of evolution are rarely tolerated. A good example
was the National Science Days in 2009 in Helsinki University. The theme was
evolution and the days commemorated Darwin’s anniversary. No critical comments
about the theory were allowed.
Why the intolerance among those “committed” to seek out the
truth? Leisola concluded as many others are beginning to conclude:
·
Darwin’s theory won out primarily because it
fills a need: Scientism, with its allegiance to philosophical materialism,
needs mindless evolution to be true, so the proponents of scientism continue to
prop up mindless evolution no matter how many contrary fossils slam against it.
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