EVOLUTIONISTS ADMIT THEIR PROBLEMS BUT CONTINUE IN FAITH

In his new book, Christianity for Doubters, Granville Sewell takes on natural selection (NS). Quoting Harvard paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson, Sewell questions whether the fossil record can support evolution by NS:

·       “It is a feature of the known fossil record that most taxa appear abruptly. They are not, as a rule, led up to by a sequence of almost imperceptibly changing forerunners such as Darwin believed should be usual in evolution.... This phenomenon becomes more universal and more intense as the hierarchy of categories is ascended. Gaps among known species are sporadic and often small. Gaps among known orders, classes and phyla are systematic and almost always large. These peculiarities of the record pose one of the most important theoretical problems in the whole history of life: Is the sudden appearance of higher categories a phenomenon of evolution or of the record only, due to sampling bias and other inadequacies?”

If the fossil record doesn’t show it, why believe it! Sewell quotes French biologist Jean Rostand, in A Biologist's View, showing that NS lacks the muscle to bring about complex changes:

·       “It does not seem strictly impossible that mutations should have introduced into the animal kingdom the differences which exist between one species and the next... [H]ence it is very tempting to lay also at their door the differences between classes, families and orders, and, in short, the whole of evolution. But it is obvious that such an extrapolation involves the gratuitous attribution to the mutations of the past of a magnitude and power of innovation much greater than is shown by those of today.”

In short, our present understanding of random mutation and NS is unable to account for major structural changes. Nevertheless, Rostand remains a believer:

·       "However obscure the causes of evolution appear to me to be, I do not doubt for a moment that they are entirely natural."

Why does he not doubt? It is not because the evidence has relieved him of doubt.

Sewell points out another problem. The ultimate proof-criterion or rationale of evolution – commonalities prove common descent – fails repeatedly. There are many instances where commonalities do not reflect common descent, and this undermines the entire rationale of evolution. For this, Sewell quotes Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig and Heinz-Albert Becker article on carnivorous plants in Nature Encyclopedia of Life Sciences:

·       “...carnivory in plants must have arisen several times independently of each other... the pitchers might have arisen seven times separately, adhesive traps at least four times, snap traps two times and suction traps possibly also two times.... The independent origin of complex synorganized structures, which are often anatomically and physiologically very similar to each other, appears to be intrinsically unlikely to many authors so that they have tried to avoid the hypothesis of convergence as far as possible.”

"Convergence" admits that commonalities do not have to be the product of common descent. Instead, evolutionists admit that common structures arise independently and by chance. Sewell concludes:

·       The probability of similar designs arising independently through random processes is very small, but a designer could, of course, take a good design and apply it several times in different places, to unrelated species.

Notice that evolution has rigged all the “evidence” in their favor. Where commonalities clearly do not possibly arise from common descent, the evolutionist calls it “convergent evolution” and claims a victory. Where there exists a possibility that commonalities had come from common descent, again, evolutionists claim a victory. No matter the findings, the evolutionist claims that his theory is a proven fact. Heads I win; tails you lose.

DARWINISTS REMAIN DARWINISTS

If macro-evolution (major changes including new organs) is an historical fact, there should be an historical record – the fossil record. However, according to many evolutionists, this is the very thing that we don’t find:

·       “What is missing [in the record] are the many intermediate forms hypothesized by Darwin, and the continual divergence of major lineages into the morphospace between distinct adaptive types.”  Robert L. Carroll, “Towards a New Evolutionary Synthesis,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 15 (2000): 27

·       “I wish only to point out that [gradualism] was never ‘seen’ in the rocks.”  Stephen Jay Gould, “Evolution’s Erratic Pace,” Natural History 86 (May 1977), 14

·       “Stasis [remaining the same] is now abundantly well documented as the preeminent paleontological pattern in the evolutionary history of species.”  (Niles Eldredge, “Reinventing Darwin: The Great Evolutionary Debate” (New York: John Wiley, 1995), 77) http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/denton-introduction/

Instead, the fossil record is damning to the theory of evolution. Instead of providing evidence for gradual Darwinian change over time, this record shows that frogs remain frogs, and apes remain apes, and Darwinists remain Darwinists.

WHAT DOES THE ABSENCE OF TRANSITIONAL FORMS SAY ABOUT DARWIN’S THEORY?

If macro-evolution is true, then gradual descent should be documented by the fossil record through “numberless transitional links.” Interestingly, Darwin confessed “the extreme imperfection of the geological record” – the utter absence of the necessary transitional forms. However, he believed that this “imperfection” would be corrected by subsequent fossil finds:

·       But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record. http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/darwins-view-of-the-fossil-record/

·       He who rejects these views on the nature of the [fossil] geological record, will rightly reject my whole theory. For he may ask in vain where are the numberless transitional links which must formerly have connected the closely allied or representative species, found in the several stages of the same great formation.

Sadly, for Darwin and today’s evolution establishment, this “extreme imperfection” has become even more extreme to the point that some admit that the transitional forms just aren’t there.

Science and Scripture: Methods Determine Findings

Our lens determines what we see. If we approach life with a grey lens, everything will have a grey tint. An up-side-downs lens will make the world appear up-side-down. So too our investigative lenses. To a great extent, our methods will determine our findings.

The physical world is objective, but the ways we interpret it reflect a lot of subjective seeing. Our interpretations of the fossil record vary, largely depending upon the lens through which we regard it. While some believe that this record supports evolution, others strongly contend that the huge gaps disqualify macro-evolution.

Biblical interpretation is also vulnerable to our differing lenses. We tend to interpret the text differently. This doesn’t mean that the text lacks an objective message but simply that there often exists a great gap between our subjective impressions and the objective meaning of the text.

In light of the interpretative problems in both areas – scientific inquiry and the Bible – what then should be our starting point? Should we strive to bring the findings of science into conformity with our interpretation of the Bible or to bring our interpretation of the Bible into conformity with our interpretation of the scientific findings?

Does science claim that everything, namely the Bible, must be brought into conformity with its findings? No! In fact, many scientists confess that science is merely an attempt to understand reality and that it must continually re-examine its theories.

Does the Bible claim to be the starting point unto which more uncertain forms of knowledge must conform? Yes:

• When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? Consult God’s instruction and the testimony of warning. If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. (Isaiah 8:19-20)

• The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Cor. 10:4-5)

The Christian is therefore mandated to bring other forms of revelation into conformity with Scripture. We are not free, in this regard, to bring Scripture into conformity with the present scientific consensus.

This doesn’t mean that we are science deniers. Rather, it was Christians who brought about this latest and greatest budding of science. However, we recognize, along with the scientific community, that our theories are not absolute, especially in the softer sciences, and are therefore expected to change. Why then bring what is the unchanging Revelation of Scripture into conformity with what admittedly is subject to change? If we truly receive Scripture as God’s unchanging Word, then we must resist compromise.

This also doesn’t mean that we cannot use our experience – and this includes science – to help us better interpret Scripture. However, it does mean that we cannot allow experience to override Scripture.

Evolution: The Walking Dead?

If macro-evolution is a fact, this should be illustrated by the fossil record and how its patterns of common descent are paralleled by accompanying genetic similarities. In other words, common structures should have common genes if common descent is a reality. We should be able to detect a genetic and morphological pattern of lineal descent, not a hodge-podge of common traits (homologies) or structures found in unrelated species.

This assumption is so fundamental to the theory of evolution that Linus Pauling and Emile Zuckerkandl predicted that there would be no difficulty in demonstrating that common structures and their assumed common ancestry – as reflected in the Darwinian tree of life – should coincide with the tree of life generated from molecular (genetic) studies:

• If the two phylogenic trees [one constructed based on common morphology and the other on common genetics] are mostly in agreement in respect to the topology of branching, the best available single proof of the reality of macro-evolution would be furnished. (Evolutionary Divergence and Convergence of Proteins, 1965, 101)

While the undertaking was reasonable, the results were damning. Biochemist, W. Ford Doolittle confessed:

• Molecular phylogenists will have failed to find the “true tree,” not because their methods are inadequate or because they have chosen the wrong genes, but because the history of life cannot properly be represented as a “tree.”

• It is as if we have failed at the task that Darwin set for us: delineating the unique structure of the tree of life.

Doolittle’s conclusions agree with those of many other biochemists. Michael Syvanen had examined 2000 genes across different phyla in an attempt to establish a lineal consistent pattern or tree. However, he found that different genes told “contradictory evolutionary stories”:

• We just annihilated the tree of life. It’s not a tree any more; it’s a different topology entirely.

Casey Luskin summarizes these dismal findings:

• Biological similarity is constantly being found in places where it wasn’t predicted by common descent, leading to conflicts between phylogenetic trees. (Salvo, Issue 27, 50. All of these quotations have been taken from Luskin’s article.)

If this is true, this undermines the evolutionist’s claims of common descent based on either common morphology or common molecules. But how extensive is this problem? Luskin cites a 2012 paper that claims that it is truly extensive:

• Phylogenetic conflict is common and frequently the norm rather than the exception.

Luskin cites another paper from the journal of Biological Theory (2006):

• Overall similarity reflects degree of relatedness…Review of the history of molecular systematics and its claims in the context of molecular biology reveals that there is no basis for the “molecular assumption.”
  
  

“No basis?” However, Darwinism requires a tree – molecular and morphological - that can illustrate some kind – any kind - of lineal descent! No tree, no evidence of common  descent! But the tree seems to be non-existent. Then, perhaps also macro-evolution?

Is the theory of evolution a dead man who is still walking, meanwhile threatening and banishing opposition, in a vain attempt to circumvent its inevitable demise?

What the Fossils Say about Darwin

If common descent has taken place, it should most directly be demonstrated in the fossil record, as one paleontology textbook asserts:

• Fossils are the only direct record of the history of life.

However, the fossil record refuses to conform to evolutionary orthodoxy. Darwin even admitted his uneasiness about this evidence. However, he expected that future finds would eventually fill in the gaps by unearthing transitional forms, but these hopes have never been realized. Instead, the gaps have been further highlighted, as the finds have consistently lined up on only one side of the gap. One evolutionist acknowledged:

• Most of the animal phyla that are represented in the fossil record first appear “fully formed”…The fossil record is therefore of no help with respect to understanding the origin and early diversification of the animal phyla. (Barnes, et al., The Invertebrates: A New Synthesis, 3^rd Edition, 9-10)

Darwin had thought that the absence of predecessors – ancestral forms – was due to their not being fossilized because, being softer, they couldn’t be fossilized as easily. However, since Darwin, many tiny soft-bodied fossils have been unearthed below the “fully formed” phyla. Stephen C. Meyer explains the devastating implications of these finds for the theory of evolution:

• If paleontologists can find tiny fossilized cells in these far older and rarer formations, shouldn’t they also be able to find some ancestral forms of the Cambrian animals in younger and more abundant sedimentary rocks. (Darwin’s Doubts)

The late Stephen Jay Gould refers to this absence as “the embarrassment of a record that seems to show so little of evolution.” Casey Luskin points out that this same absence of predecessors is also found among flowering plants…:

• As one paper states, “Angiosperms appear rather suddenly in the fossil record…with no obvious ancestors”…Many mammals orders appear in a similarly explosive way. Paleontologist Niles Eldredge explains that “there are all sorts of gaps: absence of gradationally intermediate ‘transitional’ forms between species, but also between larger groups – between, say, families of carnivores, or the orders of mammals.” A prominent ornithology textbook observes the “explosive evolution” of major living bird groups.

Luskin summarizes the findings:

• A straightforward reading of the fossil record consistently shows a pattern of abrupt explosions of new types of organisms. (Salvo, Fall 2013, 51)