A seven-foot bar in high-jump competition doesn't intimidate world-class athletes. Still, a gold medal leap doesn't extrapolate to prove humans might hurdle the moon a la the proverbial cow. Such conjecture evaporates like fog kissed by the morning sun when the law of gravity speaks its mind.

But the media sometimes bites on postulates equally preposterous!

"...Scientists say evolution is no longer 'just a theory'...It's...a fundamental fact of biology...Scientists have confirmed virtually all of Darwin's postulates."²

At least this was one writer's opinion published by a respected news weekly in the summer of 2002. Not exactly an objective assessment from a rocket scientist in the tradition of a Wernher von Braun. Rather, another knee-jerk nod to the implausible, if not the mathematically impossible.

Big problem here!

In attempts to quench a thirst for facts substantiating evolutionism, anxious Darwinists hijack the real to authenticate the never-was.  Life forms possess an inherent power to survive and preserve identity by activating Intra-Genomic Adaptations (IGA). 

This is not Darwin's evolutionism!

Genetic cards may be reshuffled, genes may be lost or damaged. A genome may adapt to its environment and switch its genes on or off to survive. Genomic survival represents the exact opposite of transition to something other than E. coli. Without new genetic information being added to the deck, no new and life kind evolves.

The journal article extrapolated from laboratory induced E. coli modifications to support the claim that "evolution is a fundamental fact of biology." It reported valid laboratory findings of variations in twelve populations of E. coli bacteria that reproduced "every 3.5 hours or so...The populations were once genetically identical but each has adapted in its own way to the conditions in its test-tube home."

After thousands of generations, the twelve E. coli populations remain E. coli bacteria.  because bacteria possess built-in genetic information enabling heroic feats of adjustment.  Twelve populations of E. coli reproduce more E. coli, but lack of new genetic information prevents an E. coli bacterium evolving to a fruit fly or anything else except E. coli, ad infinitum.

Extrapolating the adaptation real in an attempt to prove the never-was, is nothing more than hocus-pocus, bootstrap science, pushing conjecture's envelope toward philosophical make-believe. Sleight-of-hand pseudo-evidence doesn't match the radical biologic transmutation postulated by Darwin.

Darwin's Evolutionism
Charles Darwin postulated an ambitious supposition that never made it past 1859's first edition of The Origin of Species. 

"I can 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."³ Later he offered a molecule-to-man scenario intending to polish his vision. "...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..."⁴ 

Darwin's theory postulates a transmutation achieved by miniscule increments accrued over eons of time riding on a series of intermediate, unknown transmutants.  He imagines chronic shifting of an unstable genome, in constant transit, en route to an unpredictable "biologic transit stop." In practical terms, Darwin supposed that disparate vertebrates such as the pelican, dolphin, and chameleon, with its sticky, insect-snagging tongue flashing out to 1½ times its body length, evolved from a common ancestor.

When is change enough or complete? Is diversity continuing to diverge mindlessly? Shouldn't the pyramid point upward toward some super, yet-to-début critter?

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?

There is no there, there!

Michael Denton's research sensed this shortfall. His 1985 Evolution: A Theory in Crisis laid the foundation to the Intelligent Design thesis. Pulling no punches, he sees Darwin's "gradual accumulation of random change" as both a "nonsensical claim" and a "flagrant denial of common sense."

"My fundamental problem with the theory is that there are so many highly complicated organs, systems and structures, from the nature of the lung of a bird, to the eye of the rock lobster, for which I cannot conceive of how these things have come about in terms of a gradual accumulation of random changes. 

"It strikes me as being a flagrant denial of common sense to swallow that all these things were built up by accumulative small random changes.  This is simply a nonsensical claim...a huge number of highly complex systems in nature cannot be plausibly accounted for in terms of a gradual build-up of small random mutations..."

"...Everybody knows the lung of the bird is unique in being a circulatory lung rather than a bellows lung.  I think it doesn't require a great deal of profound knowledge of biology to see that an organ, which is so central to the physiology of any higher organism, its drastic modification in that way by a series of small events is almost inconceivable.  This is something we can't throw under the carpet again because, basically, as Darwin said, if any organ can be shown to be incapable of being achieved gradually in little steps, his theory would be totally overthrown."⁵

Intra-genomic adaptation leads to the precise opposite of finding Darwinian theory as "fact".  Case-by-case analysis suggests the dynamic genome possesses inherent flexibility to accommodate its

environment to survive and to preserve its unique identity - not to surrender and transmute to a entirely different life kind.

So what's going on here?

Genetic Reserves
The public is persistently fed a diet of illegitimate "proof" of evolutionism masquerading as legitimate genetic adaptability.

Evolutionists extrapolate adaptation, the obvious real, to prove evolution, the never was and never will be. Regardless, the public can be dazzled by the rhetoric.

Goldfinch shift cyclically to and from a brilliant yellow-gold in the summer to winter's dull gray-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. 

Far from confirming evolution as fact, the proven reality of adaptive change does not and can't equate evolution.  Cyclical intra-genomic adaptation is not Darwin's evolutionism!

Dr. Joseph Mastropaolo sees genomic versatility attributable to what he identifies as "genetic reserves."  Genetic reserves are manifest (1) sequentially, (2) cyclically, by (3) arousal and through a (4) combination tied to response, adaptation, acclimation, and acclimatization. Genetic reserves contribute to survival and quality of life - never transforming one prototype genome to a new and different kind.  Mastropaolo charges "...'macroevolution' as an extension of 'microevolution' is a fraudulent misrepresentation that has never been seen..."⁶

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.

"Punctual and Precise Cyclical Genetic Reserves" enables the rock ptarmigan to "draw from its genetic reserves to display feathers of mottled reddish-brown in spring, then brownish-gray in fall, then white in winter...These periodicities are from the organism's cyclical DNA genetic reserves and go on repetitively for its lifetime.

 "...If its cyclical genetic reserves were not engineered for precision and punctuality, it could not survive one season.

"Exercise in the heat arouses the genetic reserve to synthesize heat-shock proteins that enable activity in the hot environment...An increased concentration of red blood cells and 2,3-diphospho-glycerate are aroused by sojourns at high altitude, then lost by a return to sea level...New bone cells are aroused by fractures..."  These are a few samples of the "...innumerable genetic reserves manifested by arousal built into each life form. 

Dr. Mastropaolo's astute candor emphasizes that these 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 carry the capacity to coordinate and "function at once".  The heart responds with an increased rate to exercise.  "If a person trains for weeks with that exact exercise," then the heart rate will adapt to a lower rate.  "From a store of arousal genetic reserves in the DNA, that configuration dynamically masters new requirements."

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." ⁶

Intra-Genomic Adaptations
Life projects a kaleidoscope of change; vibrant variations display the essence of life. Versatility exists in each genome, inherent from

the beginning. Of course a life form can shift to preserve its survivability. Call this natural selection, but this is not evolution. 

Century twenty-one media tends to flak evolutionism's hype, shilling for neo-Darwinism's obsolete myths, and offering blizzards of prolific clichés. No voice reiterates "gravity is a fact" or "planet earth orbits the sun in predictable cycles."  Evolutionism alone pleads for reassurance, if not exaltation, in the proven pantheon of scientific reality.

Facts have a way of disappearing at the hands of artful spinmeisters capable of whitewashing redundancies, affixing labels and wrapping unproven conjecture in a mantle of authenticity.

End of story?  Not hardly!

Every prototype organic life existing on Planet Earth carries a staggering stash of genetic information, in place from the git-go, guaranteeing descendant diversity.

Loss or scramble of information, but nothing new.  Take a card out of a deck, modifies future hands, diminishing possibilities. No new genetic information has been introduced to the genome. Instead, the genetic card deck, present from the beginning, has simply been shuffled to bolster the genome's survivability and to preserve its identity. 

Darwin postulated simple-to-complex leading up the imagined taxonomic tree, molecule-to-man.  Instead, changes move laterally or down within a kind, never upward toward a new phyla - the precise opposite of Darwin's postulates.

Where is the evidence of even one transition triggered by genetic mutations having ever activated changes in the genome resulting in an upward evolutionary sequence leading to family, order, class or phylum.  Yawning, genetic chasms separating distinct kinds of organic lives have never been bridged by the much sought-after mutation/natural selection combo promised by evolutionism.

Galapagos finches observed by Darwin produced offspring endowed with different shaped beaks!  But capacity for genetic adaptability doesn't extrapolate to confirm evolution's fantasies. Finches remain finches forever - never eagles, hummingbirds or robins, much less flying squirrels!

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!!!

Intra-genomic adaptability within a prototype life? Yes!!!
Molecule-to-man? That dog won't hunt - even in a bazillion!!!!!

Pantheon of the Make-Believe
Intra-genomic adaptations flourish! But extravagant extrapolation from this reality doesn't suffice to bolster the unscientific. 

Micro change in the genome comes in multiple forms: Death from aging or extinctions; deterioration from large to small (white shark, fossil eighty feet compared to today's forty-footer), temporary cyclical change (ptarmigans seasonal colors); mutations; hybrids (tangelo and the English weed); genetic mix (two parents); gene split (involves intelligent intervention); genes turned on and off by regulatory switches; and other intra-genomic shifts in which nature shuffles the previously present genes to preserve survival.

All these shifts involve no new information introduced by natural selection; the range of change is predicable; and no mega-million time chunk is required for the modification.  Significant bottom line: nothing here duplicates the blind leap to an entirely new and different life kind as predicted by Darwin. 

No one disputes that a butterfly emerges from a worm/larvae, a bird from an egg, or a flower from a seed, proves evolutionism. Nor can the immunity developed by humans or the ability of blood to clot to seal a wound be characterized as evolution. The moth, fruity fly, and bacteria adapt to the extent enabled by the information already existing within their respective genomes.  The moth changes color but never becomes a bird; the fruit fly never becomes a butterfly; and the bacteria can mutate and multiply to its heart content but is stuck in its bacteria mode.

"...Bacterial antibiotic resistance, insect pesticide resistance, industrial melanism [peppered moth], sickle-cell anemia, and increased fitness in irradiated populations of Drosophila..."⁷ are favorite touts, extrapolated then recycled by neo-Darwinists as proofs of evolution.  Instead, the recycled litany builds a pantheon of the make-believe.

Bacteria: E. coli rates front-and-center billing in the roster of extrapolated "proofs." With new bacteria generations emerging every three or four hours, bacteria immune to antibiotics continue to remain bacteria. The ability of an E. coli to shuffle its genes falls far short of Charles Darwin's grand scheme imagining a "race of bears" transforming itself to something "as monstrous as a whale."

"An experiment which forced E. coli bacteria to adapt or perish showed that, in a pinch, they were capable of  improvising a novel molecular tool to save their lives...The bacteria used in the experiment were forced to use a protein called thioredoxin - which normally destroys disulfide bonds - to make the bonds instead."  James Bardwell, University of Michigan Associate Professor observed the ability of the E. coli to "do something it doesn't normally do," concluding, "We caught evolution in the act."⁸

This impressive display of IGA (Intra-genomic adaptability) doesn't' meet Darwin's evolution threshold.  The versatile bacteria survived but remaind E. coli.  It doesn't stand alone in the pantheon of make-believe proofs of evolution.

Insects: 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.⁹

When the insecticide is no longer used, the population might revert back to the non-immune brand of the same bug.  Whatever the modifications, the insect pest population remains insect.

Peppered "myth" (moth): 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 "fact." The textbook favored peppered moth still comes in multi-hued gray and white colors, but continue as peppered moths - never parenting grasshopper descendants.  

An English weed: 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 ubiquitous poinsettia debuts in a profusion of dazzling shapes and color shades every Christmas season. Brilliant tinkering by artificial selection generates exploding variety, but the end product continues to be a poinsettia.  Not even the most ardent evolutionist cites this change as a "fact" of evolutionism.

The London Times announced a hybrid weed but erroneously tagged it with evolutionism's label.  Hybrids are a far cry from evolution.   The English weed continues as a weed as do Gregor Mendel's garden peas and California's poinsettias. 

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."¹⁰

Hybrids:  What about those hybrids?  The English weed is not the first attempt to extrapolate from this scientific reality to validate Darwinian theory!  The canny Clarence Darrow laced the 1925 Scopes trial written record with the ruse.

Maynard M. Metcalf, an early twentieth century zoologist with a Johns Hopkins University Ph.D., rode the coattails of hybridization as proof of evolution. "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..." The court record reveals Winterton C. Curtis, another zoologist with a doctorate from Johns Hopkins shared this view.¹¹

Despite the Metcalf and Curtis views circa 1925, given the research of Gregor Mendel and Luther Burbank, extrapolation of the scientific fact of hybridization doesn't prove Darwinian theory. The HoneyBell 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 - but still a citrus fruit.

Click beetle: 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."¹² Although clearly still a click beetle, the color shift is enough to qualify it to join the list of changes within a genome cited as proof of evolution in action.

Mexican corn: 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."¹³ 

But the corn is still corn, not the mega leap to entirely different kind of plant as envisioned by Darwin. Even the most astute human minds are susceptible to cultural tradition and intense, repetitious touting of a party line.  Authoritarian regimes exploit this reality.

Dogs: The Westminster Kennel Club recognizes a long list of diversified dog breeds.  Courtesy of select gene mixing, collies and poodles look different, but are still dogs. An estimated four-hundred species of dogs claim descent from a single canine ancestry, compliments of a single genome.  All descendant dog species answer to the same family heritage - never producing a feline!  And never authenticating evolutionism!

Fruit flies: 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."¹⁴

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."

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

Finches: During his high-seas odyssey, Charles Darwin spotted Galapagos finches sporting beaks of different lengths, shapes and sizes, pronouncing the phenomena as evidence supporting his evolving theory.  Despite his fondest wishes, the finches displayed versatility inherent in the genome, and remained and continue to remain finches, albeit with a variety of beaks. The same with Darwin's pigeons. Different traits could be developed by breeding but no eagles took to the skies from his coop - only pigeons.

Ecologists at Auburn University 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 30 years the two populations were quite different in appearance and behavior.

In the Alabama university research, males grew faster than females and have 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."¹⁵

Changed bacteria continue to be identified as bacteria.  Same with insects resistant to pesticides; peppered moths; English weeds, click beetles, Mexican corn, dogs, fruit flies, finches, and pigeons. This roster of evolutionism's proofs represent nothing of the sort! 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.

Displays of the dynamic genome demonstrate the flexible power of a life form to adapt and to survive through the expression of genes already present in the genome.  The changes are internal, serving the essentials of genomic survival.  No new information is introduced; no entirely new and different life form emerges.  Insistence that expression of genetic reserves confirms evolutionism, misleads the public and corrupts science.

The adaptive change potential in every plant and animal kind is limited to the expression of its own, pre-existing genetic information.  Genetic exuberance thrives, activating the genetic adjustments essential to the survivability of the genome's identity.

Thousands of generations can be observed since the changes don't take millions of years to occur.  Lack of new information coupled with a "shortage of useful genes" imposes barriers to radical, evolution-style change.  No radical transformation to an entirely new life kind occurs.  Reversion to the original genetic expression is possible with bacteria, moths, insects and finches.

Perspective
Lemmings march mindlessly off cliffs in a mysterious dance of death. Still, the marvelously more sophisticated human mind is vulnerable to multiple brands of cultural coercion. Hitler youth matured, emerging as a jack-booted army of goose-stepping marionettes, marching off to destroy and to die in sieg heil allegiance to the malevolent whim of malignant evil.  

Intolerant, lock-step conformity survives in century twenty-one - even University classrooms that tout academic freedom sometimes hesitate to "teach the controversy!"  When respected professors advise students that evolutionism is a fact, the easiest route is to buy the line.

Neo-Darwinist conjecture contends the mud-to-molecule-to-man scenario explains the origin of all living things. Still, 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."¹⁶

"...The salient fact is...evolution...is totally bereft of scientific sanction. Now, to be sure, given the multitude of extravagant claims about evolution promulgated by evolutionists with an air of scientific infallibility, this may indeed sound strange. And yet the fact remains that there exists to this day not a shred of bona fide scientific evidence in support of the thesis that macroevolutionary transformations have ever occurred."¹⁷

"...One day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science."¹⁸

Evolutionism never happened - even in a bazillion years!  Never!

Then what about the claim that scientists have confirmed "virtually all of Darwin's postulates"?²  Scientist Michael Denton answers: "...Nowhere was Darwin able to point to one bona fide case of natural selection having actually generated evolutionary change in nature."¹

What exactly did Charles Darwin "postulate" that "scientists have confirmed"?  Objective analysis could reasonably conclude that if his postulates were a publicly traded stock, it might be prudent to discard before a market collapse.

1.  Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crises (Bethesda, Maryland: Adler & Adler, 1986) pp. 62, 358.
2.  Thomas Hayden, "A Theory Evolves," U.S. News & World Report, July 29, 2002, p. 42-44.
3.  Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, p. 184 (1859), as quoted by Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried, p. 30, 1971.
4.  Charles Darwin, Descent of Man, vol I, p. 206.
5.  Michael Denton, "An Interview with Michael Denton," Access Research Network, Origins Research Archives, Vol. 15, Number 2, July 20, 1995.
6.  Joseph Mastropaolo, The Rise and Fall of Evolution, A Scientific Examination, 2003, pp. 115-123.  a manuscript in revision. 
7.  Lane P. Lester & Raymond G. Bohlin, The Natural Limits to Biological Change, Probe Books, 1989, p. 73.  This resource offers related scientific data in depth.   
8.  "Evolution Caught in the Act," Science Daily.com, March 2, 2004, adapted from a University of Michigan news release describing a report in Science, February 20, 2004.
9.  Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2000) pp. 182, 245.  Dr. Wells holds Ph.D.s from both Yale University and the University of California at Berkeley.
10.  Anthony Brown, Environment Editor, The Times (London, UK) 20 February 2003; reported by info@creationresearch.net, February 27, 2003.
11.  The Scopes Trial, Cincinnati: National Book Company, 1925, pp 253, 258; as republished by The Legal Classics Library, Birmingham, 1984.
12.  Gilbert Chin, "Ecology/Evolution," Science, 9 January 2004, p. 146.
13.  Alan Feduccia, evolutionary biologist, University of North Carolina as quoted by Kathy A. Svitil, "Discover Dialogue," Discover, February, 2002, p. 16.
14.  David Brown, "Limits to Genetic Evolution," The Washington Post, July 7, 2003, p. A7.
15.  Reported in Science, vol. 295, p. 25, 11 Jan 2002.
16.  Randy L. Wysong, The Creation-Evolution Controversy: Implications, Methodology and Survey of Evidence Toward a Rational Solution (East Lansing, Michigan: Inquiry Press, 1976) p. 434; as cited by Duane Arthur Schmidt, And God Created Darwin (Fairfax, Virginia: Allegiance Press, 2001) p. 84, quoting from John Ankerberg and John Weldon's, Darwin's Leap of Faith.
17.  Wolfgang Smith, Teilhardism and the New Religion (Rockford., Ill.: Tan Books, 1988), pp. 5‑6. Dr. Smith, taught at MIT and UCLA. 
18.  Søren Løvtrup (Swedish biologist), Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth (New York: Croom Helm, 1987), p. 422.

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