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Evo’s Dark Secret

Extrapolated Mythology

“…The ‘General Theory of Evolution’ and the evidence that supports it is not sufficiently strong to allow us to consider it as anything more than a working hypothesis.”
George A. Kerkut¹ 

     Are you an evolutionist?  Whether you think you are or not, try this test on yourself. You just might change your perception. 

     Do any of these statements represent scientific fact?  Answer with a “yes” or “no.”

     The size and shape of finch beaks may adapt over time?
     Descendant bacteria can display immunity to antibiotics?
     Mutations can alter the number of fruit fly wings and legs?

     Chances are you answered “yes” to all three questions!  So you consider yourself an evolutionist?  Think again!  Believers in a literal seven-day creation week also say “yes.”

     So what’s the big deal?

     Each life is vested with built-in survivability using the adaptation potential powered by its own genetic code!  While the three examples are sometimes cited as evo proof, they are nothing of the kind---finches remain finches forever; bacteria change but never mutate into any other life form than bacteria; and after thousands of generations, pesky fruit fly descendants remain stuck with the less than auspicious fruit fly pedigree.  

     Now, one final clincher!

     Do you believe a fish is the ancestor of your own family?

     A “yes” to that one puts you in the inner sanctum of evolution’s pantheon of the make-believe!  So does this mean that gourmet quality Cajun style salmon steak will come off your menu? 

Evolutionism Darwin Style

     Darwin made no attempt to explain the origin of first life.

     So what ground-breaking thought did he propose that so polarized minds and crowned him “king” of science?   

     His idea came into play after the first living cell managed to miraculously début in some warm little pond. He imagined that from this dubious beginning, millions of gradual transitions led from the simple to the increasingly complex life kinds, over eons of time. 

     He postulated simple-to-complex intermediate forms climbing up an imagined taxonomic tree.  He envisioned transmutants resulting from millions of miniscule increments accrued over eons of time riding into reality on the backs of unknown intermediates.  He believed in the chronic shifting of an unstable genome, in constant flux, en route to an unpredictable “biologic transit stop.”

     Allegedly, natural selection powered this evolutionary, molecule-to-man scenario.   

     During his high-seas odyssey, Darwin spotted Galapagos finches sporting beaks of different lengths, shapes and sizes. He seized upon the phenomena as evidence supporting his evolving theory. 

     The variable shaped finch beaks that caught Darwin’s eye  contributed to his speculation that he could “…see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more and more aquatic in their habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale.”²

     So Charles Darwin was right?  A “whale” from a “bear?”  

     While this “bear” postulation never made it past 1859’s first edition of The Origin of Species, he nevertheless frosted his vision with a rather unpalatable molecule-to-man scenario. “…Early progenitors of man were no doubt once covered with hair, both sexes having beards; their ears were pointed and capable of movement; and their bodies were provided with a tail…”³

     While Galapagos finches displayed versatility inherent in the finch genome, they remained and continue to remain finches, albeit with a variety of beaks. Finches continue as finches forever---never eagles, hummingbirds or robins, much less flying squirrels!  The same with pigeons. Different traits could be developed by breeding but no eagles took to the skies from Darwin’s coop---only pigeons.

     Evolutionism can’t be proven because it never happened!  

Intra-genomic Adaptability Using “Genetic Reserves”

     No question about it, species possess the power to adapt, enhancing survivability.  Change relying on information already present in the genome demonstrates genetic versatility that may shift descendants laterally or downward, exhibiting diversity at the species and sub-species levels.

     Adaptive change within a genome does not validate Darwin’s dream!  Intra-Genomic Adaptability (IGA) supporting survival of a genome doesn’t authenticate evolutionism’s microbe-to-man idea!   

     But beware of the semantics game. 

     This capacity for genetic adaptability doesn’t transit to another kind of life confirming evolutionism’s fantasies.  The natural selection process, relied on by neo-Darwinism as the engine driving evolutionary change, acts to eliminate the less fit but does nothing to create an entirely new and different kind of the more fit.

     When is change enough or complete? Is diversity continuing mindlessly? Shouldn’t the pyramid point upward toward some super, yet-to-début critter rather than slipping laterally or down?

     What happens if a pelican and chameleon evolve only partway there? Could a pelican fish without its capacious bill?  What if the chameleon’s tongue is neither long enough or sticky enough to snag a meal?  Could it hunt without glue at the end of its tongue?

     IGA offers no refuge for Darwinian theory.  There is no there, there!

     Intra-genomic expression kicks-in to accommodate the survivability of each genome.  Versatility, relying on genetic reserves inherent in every life kind, serves to preserve that life form, rather than to promote something radically different.  The genetic card deck has simply been shuffled to bolster the genome’s survivability and to preserve its identity. 

     This is not evolutionism. 

     Natural selection works for survivability of the genome, overriding or avoiding hazards rather than launching a life kind on the road to some entirely new creature. Built-in genetic flexibility, protective of survival, is 180º the opposite from evolutionism’s theoretical, transitional step toward offspring destined to ultimately supercede the parent generation.

     Genetic information may be lost or scrambled, but without new information, finches, fruit flies and bacteria continue as finches, fruit flies and bacteria---ad infinitum!   

     Joseph Mastropaolo sees genomic versatility attributable to what he   identifies as “genetic reserves.” Noting the entire life span of the Monarch butterfly “can be observed,” he traces the transition from egg that hatches in three days to a sixteen-legged caterpillar and ultimately to a six-legged butterfly capable of flight, eating and mating---all in an elaborate, 60-day sequence directed by the expression of genetic reserves.⁴

     Dr. Mastropaolo’s analysis emphasizes that genetic reserves “…may be aroused in a matter of hours, not millions of years.  They cannot be incorporated by evolution because the organism cannot experience what is needed until the event, and it will not survive unless the need is immediately satisfied.”

     Genetic reserves “…provide each life form with remarkable arrays of morphological, functional, and behavioral mechanisms to meet punctually and precisely the variabilities of any environment and to survive the extremes.  And they do it right the first time…Calling any of these evolution misleads us because the immediate response is an attribute of the current physiological configuration from the DNA.”⁵

     The Jamaican click beetle shifts color from “yellow-green to orange in the ventral light organs, and green to yellow-green in the dorsal organs.”⁶ While the color shift demonstrates dynamic versatility, the Jamaican beetle remains a beetle.

     Goldfinches shift cyclically from brilliant yellow-gold in the summer to winter’s dull green. Burnished crimson canopies envelope fall landscapes like clockwork, painting forests in a riot of blazing hues.  Come spring, the cycle repeats, swallowing the woods with a shower of blossoms and the bright green shoots shouting life renewed. Our senses devour nature’s theater presented for our pleasure. We revel in the predictable cycle, science on parade. 

     Cyclical adaptation is not evolutionism!  

Downstream Not Upriver

     Streams flow downhill, feeding rivers that merge with oceans.  No voice argues that flowing water defies gravity, reverses its natural course, and flows uphill.  Change in the natural world is obvious---water moves, the earth rotates shifting its position, tides rise and fall and radically different sizes and shapes of dog breeds descend from a common gene pool.

     This is not the kind of change conjectured by evolutionism.  Genomic versatility assures diversified breeds, sub-species and species.  The change moves descendants either laterally or downstream from a given ancestor kind---never upstream against the genetic current to an entirely different order, class or phyla as envisioned by Darwin’s “tree of life.” 

     The canine genome never reverses course producing cats.

     “Fido,” the friendly family dog that licks your hand and barks in wild ecstasy when you return from wherever, is living proof of the versatility potential within a genome.  Whether a “Heinz 57” or an AKC registered blue ribbon winner at next year’s Westminster show, man’s best friend descended from a common canine ancestor with every other dog breed champion or otherwise.  The dog genome, deciphered in 2005, demonstrates that all dog breeds originate from the same gene pool with slight DNA differences. 

     “All dogs from the smallest Chihuahua to the biggest Great Dane emerge from the same basic set of genes.  At the DNA level, two randomly chosen dogs differ by only about as much as two randomly chosen people do, yet the variation in appearance, size and behavior in dogs is ‘just mind-boggling’…”⁷

     Not only do all dog breeds claim common ancestry but also coyotes and wolves likely have been cut from the same bolt of genetic cloth.  The fact that a German Shepherd and an English Bulldog were selectively bred from the same gene pool demonstrates eye-popping change!  Remarkable thought it be, this genetic flexibility has nothing to do with evolutionism!    

     According to the Westminster Kennel Club, an estimated four-hundred species of dogs claim descent from a single canine ancestry.  Courtesy of select gene mixing, collies and poodles look different, but are still dogs. The marvelously diverse dog breeds lack the genetic wherewithal to parent cats. All descendant dog species answer to the same family heritage---never producing a feline!  And never authenticating evolutionism!

     Without introducing new genetic information to an ancestor gene pool, an entirely new and different kind of life form doesn’t happen in a laboratory supervised by human intelligence much less accidentally in nature. 

     Mutations, or genetic mistakes, don’t move the genetic stream uphill toward a radically different genome!  This reality anchors one of the most misunderstood and misconstrued issues in the creation/evolution debate. 

     The law of gravity dictates that water changes position and moves only downstream, toward an ocean, never retreating backwards to higher terrain in defiance of the law of gravity.  So also, the laws of genetic descent dictate that offspring from a common gene pool only move downstream, never reversing course and jumping to an entirely new and different body plan without adding new information.  

Pantheon of the Make-Believe

     Century twenty-one media hypes evolutionism, shilling obsolete myths buried in blizzards of clichés. Facts have a way of disappearing in the hands of spinmeisters adept at whitewashing redundancies, affixing labels and wrapping unproven conjecture in mantles of authenticity. Evolutionism theory pleads for reassurance in the pantheon of scientific respectability.

     Science magazine touted “Evolution in Action” as 2005’s “Breakthrough of the Year.” Saluting the dogma as “the foundation of all biology,” the assessment opined “…every discovery in biology and medicine rests on it, in much the same way that all terrestrial vertebrates can trace their ancestry back to the first bold fishes to explore land.”⁸ Attempting to fortify the case, the authors referenced the ability of the marine stickleback fish “…to adapt rapidly to a new environment.”  Warblers, corn borers, butterflies, crickets, cichlids, and, of course, the ever favorite fruit fly, were also cited as prime “breakthrough” examples.

     Big problem here! Each change referenced represents a genome’s adaptability, not evidence of evolutionism. 

The “breakthrough” creatures remained fish, warblers, corn borers, butterflies, crickets, cichlids, and fruit flies respectively! None emerged as some new and entirely different life kind. 

     Dazzling diversity, for sure!  Up-the-down staircase to entirely new and different families, orders, and classes topped with a giant leap to a different phylum? 

     Never!

     Playing the semantics game doesn’t alter reality. Adaptation using the information already present within any genome from its beginning, never move it beyond the its genetic limits.  Intra-genomic change doesn’t reverse direction leading up the taxonomic tree of life toward a new and different phylum.  Intra-Genomic Adaptation is real, assuring diversity and survival.  One of evolutionism’s dark secrets is insistence that IGA reality corroborates Darwinian projections. 

     The demonstrated diversity potential within a single genome proves its inherent adaptability not evolutionism. Prolific varieties of finches, orchids, and dog breeds derive from genetic information built into the DNA of their respective genomes.  IGA assures dazzling diversity in every basic plant and animal form but has nothing to do with radical transitions to new and different life forms envisioned by neo-Darwinism.

     IGA relies on genes already present in the organism to show off its dynamic versatility within its own body plan.  Evolutionism conjecture builds on multitudes of mutations, genetic abnormalities that theoretically lead to an entirely new and different genome given enough time.  Debilitating mutations downgrade the genome. No mega-million-year time chunk is required.  Nothing here illustrates the leap to an entirely new and different life kind.  Yawning, genetic chasms separating distinct kinds of organic lives have never been bridged by the much sought-after mutation/natural selection combo.

     No one alleges that the human ability to build immunity to disease certifies evolutionism.  “…Bacterial antibiotic resistance, insect pesticide resistance, industrial melanism [peppered moth], sickle-cell anemia, and increased fitness in irradiated populations of Drosophila…”⁹ are favorite touts, extrapolated then recycled by neo-Darwinists as proofs of evolution.  In reality, this recycled litany builds a pantheon of the make-believe.

     Bacteria can mutate and multiply to their heart’s content but are stuck in their bacteria mode. The ability of bacteria to adapt to changed circumstances and to shuffle genes to build descendants immune to antibiotics falls far short of Darwin’s grand scheme imagining a “race of bears” transforming itself to something “as monstrous as a whale.” 

     When a news journal described evolution as a “fundamental fact of biology,” it extrapolated from laboratory induced E. coli modifications to support the claim.  It relied on laboratory findings of variations in twelve populations of E. coli bacteria that reproduced “every 3.5 hours or so.”  After thousands of generations, the once genetically identical populations had “adapted in its own way to the conditions in its test-tube home.”¹⁰

     End of story?  Hardly!

     E. coli populations remain E. coli because of built-in genetic information enabling heroic feats of adjustment.  E coli parents produced nothing but E coli offspring.

      Genetic cards may be reshuffled; genes may be lost or damaged; and a genome may adapt to its environment and switch its genes on or off to survive. Survival of the modified E. coli represents the opposite of transition to some radically new and different life kind.

     Biologist Jonathan Wells writes that “…Mutations and natural selection are significant factors at the molecular level, especially in rendering bacteria resistant to antibiotics, or insects and other pests resistant to pesticides…Like antibiotic resistance, most insecticide resistance is due to inactivating enzymes,” or “spontaneous mutations…Raw materials for large-scale evolution must be able to contribute to fundamental changes in an organism’s shape or structure.”   Biochemical mutations don’t affect the shape or structure alleged in evolution.¹¹ When the insecticide is no longer used, the population could conceivably revert back to the non-immune brand of the same bug.  Whatever the modifications, the insect pest population remains insect.

     For decades, the public has endured repetitious media pronouncements and waded through biology textbooks citing population swings of gray and white peppered moths as evidence that evolutionism is real. The textbook favored peppered moth still comes in multi-hued gray and white colors, but continue as peppered moths---never parenting a completely different brand of descendant.  Change within a genome is real.  But this kind of adaptive change within a genome’s genetic limits is not the fish-to-man evolutionism contemplated by Charles Darwin. 

     While studying the rainforest fruit fly’s ability to adapt, a team of Australian scholars from Victoria’s La Trobe University encountered the stark reality of the limits to change imposed by the Drosophila birchii’s genetic material.

     Ary A. Hoffmann’s scientists tested the limits of the fruit fly’s ability to adapt to an increasingly dry environment.  Starting with the most “desiccation resistant…they subjected the insects to very dry conditions until 90 percent had died, and then they bred the survivors.”

     The remaining more hardy ten percent, were bred further for fifty more generations. The researchers expected to produce “even more dryness-tolerant flies.  But what they got were flies basically no different from the ones straight out of the rainforest.”¹²

     Hundreds of generations of those ubiquitous fruit flies, subjected to laboratory induced mutations, may add or subtract wings and legs but continue relentlessly producing fruit flies, ad infinitum---never butterflies or dragonflies!

     Ecologists at Auburn University Alabama, studied two populations of house finches that had recently moved into new habitats. One group of birds moved from New York to Alabama, the other from California to Montana. Each group rapidly adapted to its new climate and after thirty years the two populations were quite different in appearance and behavior.

     In Alabama males grew faster than females and display wider bills and longer tails. In Montana females grew faster and were larger. The differences occurred because mother birds can control the order in which they lay eggs containing male and females. The result in both places was an increased survival rate for the offspring overall. According to David Resnick, evolutionary biologist from the University of California, Riverside, the study indicates “A Time scale of decades (not centuries) is really enough for animals to evolve.”¹³

     No matter how its sliced, diced, and hyped, the pantheon of the make-believe demonstrates Intra-Genomic Adaptation (IGA) in action, not the evolutionism envisioned in Darwin’s dream.

Hybrids

     So what about those hybrids?  Does a mule, the offspring of a horse and a donkey, pass muster as evolutionism in action?

     The canny Clarence Darrow laced the 1925 Scopes trial record with the clever ruse that hybrids confirm evolutionism. 

     The written testimony of one scientist cited a plant breeder’s skill at modifying vegetables or flowers as “evolution…occurring today…under man’s control.”¹⁴ Maynard M. Metcalf, an early twentieth century zoologist with a Johns Hopkins University Ph.D., rode the coattails of hybridization as proof of evolution’s change over time.

     “Not only has evolution occurred; it is occurring today and occurring even under man’s control.  If one wishes a new vegetable or a new flower it is within limits, true that he can order it from the plant breeder and in a few years he will produce it…This is evolution of just the sort that has always occurred…” Winterton C. Curtis, another zoologist with a Johns Hopkins doctorate shared this misinterpretation view.¹⁵

     Given the research of Gregor Mendel and Luther Burbank, extrapolation of the reality of hybridization represents science in action but does nothing to prove Darwinian theory.

     Hybrids happen when intelligent minds manipulate genetic information.  The hybrid Honey Bell tangelo is seedless, a hybrid cross from the Dancy tangerine and the Duncan grapefruit, shaped like a bell, fiery-gold in color, sweeter than an orange.  The hybrid Honey Bell remains a citrus fruit!

     Pre-existing genes produced a hybrid weed in nature---a result comparable to the hybrid garden peas Gregor Mendel produced in his garden experiments and the multi-hued poinsettia hybrids developed by a California nursery.  The London Times announced its début but erroneously tagged it with evolutionism’s label. 

     Richard Abbott, St Andrews University, Scotland-based plant evolutionary biologist, checked the DNA of a weed found in York, and identified the plant as a natural hybrid between the common Groundsel and the Oxford Ragwort. Since it breeds true, produces fertile offspring, and does not breed with parent species The Times reported the process as “evolution in action.” The daily gleefully crowed that, “Charles Darwin was right and the creationists are wrong…the first new species to have evolved naturally in Britain the past 50 years.”¹⁶

     According to evolutionary biologist Alan Feduccia, “The corn in Mexico, originally the size of the head of a wheat plant, has no resemblance to modern-day corn.  If that’s not evolution in action, I don’t know what is.”¹⁷ But the corn is still corn, not the mega leap to entirely different kind of plant as envisioned by Darwin.

     Remarkable change, of course.  Evolution in action?  Hardly!

     The English hybrid weed continues as a weed just as California’s dazzling hybrid poinsettias reproduce only descendant poinsettias and modified Mexican corn reproduces as just another corn variety.  Despite the headlines, extravagant extrapolation from hybrid reality doesn’t bolster the otherwise impossible.

Extrapolation

     Extrapolating from a genome’s inherent genetic ability to adapt utilizing “genetic reserves” as evidence of the radical, across-the-board type of changes essential to confirm neo-Darwinism represents evo’s deep, dark secret.

     IGA has yet to be demonstrated sending a descendant’s body plan upwards toward a radically new and entirely different Phylum.  Neo-Darwinism is dead wrong in extrapolating reality as proof that a fish or an ape-like animal could evolve eventually into a Homo sapiens! 

    The public is persistently fed a diet touting a genome’s ability to adjust to survive as proof of evo.  Extrapolating the obviously real to prove the never-was and never will be proves nothing!  

     Street shops in India sell “Earnest Hemmingway” novels for a pittance.  But when the swindled purchaser looks inside, the text can be anything but a Hemmingway best-seller. 

     In retailing, bait-and-switch deceives.  In science, the technique dances to the semantics game. Confronted with evidentiary shortfall, evo apologists hijack intra-genomic changes in dog breeds, orchids and finches in attempts to demonstrate evolutionism in action.¹⁸

     Evolutionist George A. Kerkut recognized and addressed the extrapolation issue point blank with a rhetorical question and answer.  “…Why can’t one extrapolate and say this has in effect led to the changes we have seen right from the Viruses to the Mammals?  Of course one can say that the small observable changes in modern species may be the sort of thing that lead to all the major changes, but what right have we to make such an extrapolation?” ¹⁹

     Extrapolation pushes conjecture’s envelope over the brink to wallow in the realm of philosophical make-believe.  It corrupts science, proving nothing more than shoddy conjecture covering for evidentiary gaps.  “Darwinian theory, which explains complex life as the product of small genetic mutations and ‘survival of the fittest,’ is known to be valid only for variations within the biological species.”²⁰

     Artful exploitation of semantics can’t conceal bait-and-switch.  Or in the quaint vernacular of down-home Texans, “You can bake your boots in the oven but that doesn’t make them biscuits.”

     There is no evidence that metamorphic transition to an entirely new and different life-form by mutation and natural selection has occurred in the last 4,000 years.  If not in four thousand years, how then in four million?  Does deep time render the impossible, possible?

     Despite a century of public misperception, the natural limits to biological change continue to stymie Darwin’s dream. “…evolution is not a formulation of the true scientific method…(it is) the initial formation of unknown organisms from unknown chemicals produced in an unknown atmosphere…of unknown composition under unknown conditions, which organisms have then climbed an unknown evolutionary ladder by an unknown process leaving unknown evidence.”²¹

     “Nowhere was Darwin able to point to one bona fide case of natural selection having actually generated evolutionary change in nature.”²²  Or as emphasized by a team of four science scholars, “Biological change occurs within basic ‘kinds’ and not between them.”²³

Confined to a whiff of time and a sliver of space, humans reach for evidence correlating our genesis with today and an infinity of tomorrows. Even granted the best scenario, evidence supporting neo-Darwinism seems miniscule, hiding in some as yet undiscovered never-never land.  It isn’t happening now as a current, newsworthy event; it hasn’t happened in the recent past; it just never happened---even in a bazillion years.

     Forget the knee-jerk mantra asserting life’s emergence from primordial soup with a mindless march from the sea. Beginning with an unexplained, primitive single-cell and continuing with a sequence leading to multi-celled, invertebrates, vertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals and eventually to Homo sapiens---it never happened!!!

     Giuseppe Sermonti, retired Professor of Genetics at the University of Perugia, makes the point artfully.  “…All the currently envisioned physical causes of evolution are either degenerative or conservative; therefore not one of them guarantees passage from the simple to the complex, from the inferior to the better.”²⁴

     Change within a prototype life kind? Yes, of course!!!