RSS feeds of science news sites

As mentioned in the previous post,

[Graphic: RSS (file format), Wikipedia]

here are RSS feeds of science news sites that I have migrated from Pluck to FeedReader:

ABC Sci-Tech
ABC Science
ABC USA
Arts & Letters Daily
Australian
BBC
Boston Globe
CBC
CBS
CNews
CNN
CSM
Discovery
EurekAlert!
FOXNews
Google
Guardian
Independent
IOL
LA Times
LiveScience
MSNBC
National Geographic
Nature
Newswise
NY Times
Reuters
ScienceDaily
ScienceNOW
Scientific American
Seattle P-I
SPACE.com
Telegraph
USA Today
Yahoo!

This is not wholly altruistic as I had been meaning to save my science news RSS feeds somewhere, because I knew if Pluck was down (which it still is), I would have to find the feeds again (which I have had to do).

The above may not always be the literal names of the site, as I have shortened and modified some of them. In particular, "ABC USA" is to distinguish the American Broadcasting Company's site from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's two sites.

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
`Evolution Quotes Book'

RSS feeds of pro-ID blogs

As the Pluck RSS reader site seems to be having major "server busy" problems, I am migrating my RSS feeds over to FeedReader, which on my admittedly limited use of it, so far seems OK.

[Graphic: FeedReader screenshot (click here to enlarge)]

Here are RSS feeds for ID blogs that I have migrated:

CreationEvolutionDesign
Design Watch
Doubting Darwin
Evolution News & Views
ID in the UK
ID.Plus
ID Report
ID: the Future
ID Update
Intelligent Reasoning
Post-Darwinist
Research on ID
Teleological Blog
Telic Thoughts
The Design Matrix
Uncommon Descent
Wittingshire

I will post science news RSS feeds that I have migrated in a further post.

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
`Evolution Quotes Book'

Comments have now been turned off

Note: this post has been superseded. Comments have been turned back on.

I had in a previous post announced that comment moderation had been turned on.

I had assumed that I would received from Blogger notification of any comments pending moderation, as I used to receive on my Yahoo list.

When I received no such notification, I assumed that there had been no comments.

However, only tonight for the first time I noticed a "Moderate Comments" tag, and on clicking on it I found a page full of notifications of pending comments. Most of them were from the time-waster I mentioned when I turned comments moderation on. After rejecting those and reading a few others of what I considered to be low quality, I felt it would be a waste of time responding to them.

There were probably some good quality comments that I did not read, but before I got to them, I realised that just don't have time to do justice to comments (it takes me all my spare time to research and publish my blog posts and write my book).

Unfortunately I found that Blogger only gave me two choices: Reject or Publish, not a third Delete. Yet, after reading some of the comments, I found I had dilemma: I did not want to publish them and then feel I had to respond to them, which would waste my already scarce time, but if I rejected them it would probably cause hurt feelings.

So I decided to cut my losses and turn comments off, which I now have done. I had thought that Blogger would then remove the comments screen, but it didn't, so I then rejected all those that were left.

My apologies to those who posted comments (even the time-waster), before I belatedly realised that Blogger was not notifying me of them.

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
`Evolution Quotes Book'

The origin of whale baleen: Yet another problem for Darwinism #2

No gentle giant, ABC/Reuters, August 16, 2006. ...

[Continued from part #1.

Graphic: Baleen Jaw Cross Section.

The origin of baleen in whales was among the examples of "The Incompetency of Natural Selection to Account for the Incipient Stages of Useful Structures" that one of Darwin's strongest contemporary critics, St. George Jackson Mivart "gathered, and illustrated `with admirable art and force":

"Mivart gathered, and illustrated `with admirable art and force' (Darwin's words), all objections to the theory of natural selection-`a formidable array' (Darwin's words again). Yet one particular theme, urged with special attention by Mivart, stood out as the centerpiece of his criticism. This argument continues to rank as the primary stumbling block among thoughtful and friendly scrutinizers of Darwinism today. No other criticism seems so troubling, so obviously and evidently `right' (against a Darwinian claim that seems intuitively paradoxical and improbable). Mivart awarded this argument a separate chapter in his book right after the introduction. He also gave it a name, remembered ever since. He called his objection `The Incompetency of Natural Selection to Account for the Incipient Stages of Useful Structures.' If this phrase sounds like a mouthful, consider the easy translation: We can readily understand how complex and fully developed structures work and how their maintenance and preservation may rely upon natural selection-a wing, an eye, the resemblance of a bittern to a branch or of an insect to a stick or dead leaf. But how do you get from nothing to such an elaborate something if evolution must proceed through a long sequence of intermediate stages, each favored by natural selection? You can't fly with 2 percent of a wing or gain much protection from an iota's similarity with a potentially concealing piece of vegetation. How, in other words, can natural selection explain the incipient stages of structures that can only be used in much more elaborated form?" (Gould, S.J., "Not Necessarily a Wing," in "Bully for Brontosaurus: Further Reflections in Natural History," [1991], Penguin: London, 1992, reprint, pp.140-141)

Mivart conceeded that once baleen had attained a sufficient size that it would be useful to a whale, then natural selection could preserve and augment it, but how could natural selection favour "the beginning of such useful development?" (my emphasis):

"The development of whalebone (baleen) in the mouth of the whale is another difficulty. A whale's mouth is furnished with very numerous horny plates, which hang down from the palate along each side of the mouth. They thus form two longitudinal series, each plate of which is placed transversely to the long axis of the body, and all are very close together. On depressing the lower lip the free outer edges of these plates come into view. Their inner edges are furnished with numerous coarse hair-like processes, consisting of some of the constituent fibres of the horny plates-which, as it were, fray out, and the month is thus lined, except below, by a network of countless fibres formed by the inner edges of the two series of plates. This network acts as a sort of sieve. When the whale feeds it takes into its mouth a great gulp of water, which it drives out again through the intervals of the horny plates of baleen, the fluid thus traversing the sieve of horny fibres, which retains the minute creatures on which these marine monsters subsist. Now it is obvious, that if this baleen had once attained such a size and development as to be at all useful, then its preservation and augmentation within serviceable limits would be promoted by `Natural Selection' alone. But how to obtain the beginning of such useful development?" (Mivart, St.G.J., "On the Genesis of Species," Macmillan & Co: London, Second edition, 1871, pp.45-46. My emphasis)

Darwin's response to Mivart's criticism, in the 1872 sixth and final edition of his Origin of Species was that "the early progenitors of the whales with baleen have possessed a mouth constructed something like the lamellated beak of a duck":

"With respect to the baleen, Mr. Mivart remarks that if it `had once attained such a size and development as to be at all useful, then its preservation and augmentation within serviceable limits would be promoted by natural selection alone. But how to obtain the beginning of such useful development?' In answer, it may be asked, why should not the early progenitors of the whales with baleen have possessed a mouth constructed something like the lamellated beak of a duck? Ducks, like whales, subsist by sifting the mud and water; and the family has sometimes been called Criblatores, or sifters. I hope that I may not be misconstrued into saying that the progenitors of whales did actually possess mouths lamellated like the beak of a duck. I wish only to show that this is not incredible, and that the immense plates of baleen in the Greenland whale might have been developed from such lamellæ by finely graduated steps, each of service to its possessor." (Darwin, C.R., "The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection," Sixth Edition, 1872, Senate: London, 1994, p.183)

Then after about two pages of examples of variations between the beaks of ducks and geese, Darwin cited an actual whale example of Hyperoodon bidens (pygmy sperm whale) which he claimed is "destitute of true teeth in an efficient condition" and its "palate is roughened ... with small, unequal, hard points of horn":

"The Hyperoodon bidens is destitute of true teeth in an efficient condition, but its palate is roughened, according to Lacèpede, with small, unequal, hard points of horn. There is, therefore, nothing improbable in supposing that some early cetacean form was provided with similar points of horn on the palate, but rather more regularly placed, and which, like the knobs on the beak of the goose, aided it in seizing or tearing its food. If so, it will hardly be denied that the points might have been converted through variation and natural selection into lamellæ as well-developed as those of the Egyptian goose, in which case they would have been used both for seizing objects and for sifting the water; then into lamellæ like those of the domestic duck; and so onwards, until they became as well constructed as those of the shoveller, in which case they would have served exclusively as a sifting apparatus. From this stage, in which the lamellæ would be two-thirds of the length of the plates of baleen in the Balænoptera rostrata, gradations, which may be observed in still-existing Cetaceans, lead us onwards to the enormous plates of baleen in the Greenland whale. Nor is there the least reason to doubt that each step in this scale might have been as serviceable to certain ancient Cetaceans, with the functions of the parts slowly changing during the progress of development, as are the gradations in the beaks of the different existing members of the duck family." (Darwin, Ibid., pp.185-186)

which 1) in typical "slippery" Darwin style "which is not to be reconciled with even average intellectual integrity" (Darlington, C.D., "Darwin's Place in History," Basil Blackwell: Oxford UK, 1959, p.60), Darwin rhetorically begged the question at issue by asserting, "it will hardly be denied that the points might have been converted through variation and natural selection into lamellæ as well-developed as those of the Egyptian goose" (my emphasis); and 2) presumably hoped that no reader would notice that his chosen example of Hyperoodon bidens had not developed baleen!

The bottom line is this fossil shows that Darwin was wrong in his claim that "the early progenitors of the whales with baleen ... possessed a mouth constructed something like the lamellated beak of a duck." It shows that in fact "the early progenitors of the whales with baleen ... possessed a mouth" with "a large set of teeth with no evidence of the comb-like fringes used by other baleen whales to filter their food from seawater" (New Scientist).

Moreover, since natural selection did not provide this baleen whale with baleen, then something other than natural selection must be the true explanation of why one lineage of baleen whales developed baleen and another lineage didn't.

That something other was, as some of Darwin's contemporary critics pointed out, whatever caused "variation" (i.e. mutation) in the first place. As one of those critics, Samuel Butler put it, "The `Origin of Variation,' whatever it is, is the only true 'Origin of Species'":

"If in one respect natural selection may be criticized for trying to explain too much; in another it may be thought to explain too little. Even at the time of its publication, a common charge brought against the Origin was its failure to establish a vera causa [true cause] for evolution. As Samuel Butler later put it: `The "Origin of Variation," whatever it is, is the only true "'Origin of Species."' [Butler, S., "Life and Habit," London, 1878, p.263]. Natural selection, critics complained, might account for the persistence of some variations and the disappearance of others, but it did not account for the origin of the variations themselves. And only an explanation of the origin of the variations would constitute a vera causa. One critic compared Darwin unfavorably, in this respect, with his predecessors, Lamarck and the author of the Vestiges, who, however benighted, at least had the forthrightness to propose specific explanations for the origin of the variations. And even in his own camp Asa Gray and others confessed themselves troubled by this inadequacy in the theory." (Himmelfarb, G., "Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution," [1959], Elephant Paperbacks: Chicago IL, 1996, reprint, pp.321-322. My parenthesis)

That is, as Butler also pointed out, Darwin's theory of natural selection was "an Origin of the Species with the `Origin' cut out" because it only stated that "those traits which are favourable will be selected," but did not explain the origin of those favourable traits:

"In suggesting an explanation for adaptation, the theory of natural selection provides at most a partial explanation for evolution. It is not enough to say that those traits which are favourable will be selected. We have also to explain how they arise, that is, to account for the set of alternatives from which the selection is made. Otherwise we have, in Samuel Butler's (1911) words, 'an Origin of the Species with the "Origin" cut out' [Butler, S., "Evolution Old and New," A.C. Fifield: London, 1911]." (Saunders, P.T., "Development and Evolution," in Ho, M-W. & Saunders, P.T., eds., "Beyond Neo-Darwinism: An Introduction to the New Evolutionary Paradigm," Academic Press: London, 1984, p.243).

That is, Darwin's theory (including its modern Neo-Darwinian "footnotes"):

"This book is written in the conviction that our own existence once presented the greatest of all mysteries, but that it is a mystery no longer because it is solved. Darwin and Wallace solved it, though we shall continue to add footnotes to their solution for a while yet." (Dawkins, R., "The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design," W.W Norton & Co: New York NY, 1986, p.xiii)

does not explain the origin of the "variations" (i.e. mutations) which caused the favourable traits to arise in the first place.

To be continued in part #3.

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
`Evolution Quotes Book'

The origin of whale baleen: Yet another problem for Darwinism #1

No gentle giant, ABC/Reuters, August 16, 2006. ...

[Graphic: paleontologist Erich Fitzgerald inspects the skull of Janjucetus hunderi, Sydney Morning Herald

This post will be in two parts: this part #1, being news items and my comments on a primitive baleen whale that had no actual baleen and part #2, how this does not fit Darwin's explanation of the origin of baleen by "natural selection" in "finely graduated steps, each of service to its possessor."

I had planned to have as part #3, a further clarification of my Theory of Progressive Mediate Creation by the supernatural intervention of God through mutations, but I have decided to post that at a later date in a post (or series of posts) with a subject line that better reflects that topic.]

Blue whale ancestor 'was no gentle giant' A ferocious-looking fossil with sharp teeth found in Australia shows that ancestors of today's toothless blue whales were not all "gentle giants", a report says. The 25 million-year-old fossil is of an early type of baleen whale that was probably up to 3.5 metres long. This group of whales includes modern humpback whales, minke whales and blue whales. The animals feed via baleen - comb-like plates in their mouths that filter plankton from sea water. "This bizarre, new baleen whale did not even have baleen," Erich Fitzgerald, of Monash University in Australia, said. "It had teeth and was a powerful predator that captured large fish, perhaps sharks, maybe even other whales. "Some of the early baleen whales weren't gentle giants." Most scientists have believed that baleen whales quickly evolved baleen for feeding on tiny fish and plankton after breaking from a common ancestor with toothed whales almost 40 million years ago. Modern toothed whales include dolphins, killer whales and sperm whales - the species made famous as the bane of Captain Ahab in Herman Melville's Moby Dick. "This rewrites the picture of baleen whale evolution," Mr Fitzgerald said. The fossil was found near Jan Juc in Victoria and has been dubbed "Janjucetus". The report, which has been published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, says its sharp teeth were about three centimetres long . It also had large eyes, which were apparently suited for hunting. Blue whales, which can exceed 150 tonnes and grow longer than 30 metres, are the largest creatures ever to inhabit the earth - bigger than any dinosaur. Whales evolved from land mammals, where their closest relative is the hippopotamus. ... [Note: 1) it was previously "believed that baleen whales quickly evolved baleen ... after breaking from a common ancestor with toothed whales almost 40 million years ago;" yet 2) ~15 million years later, this "25 million-year-old fossil" of a "baleen whale did not even have baleen" (my emphasis).]

Discovered: Aussie T-rex of the deep, Sydney Morning Herald , August 16, 2006 ... A fossil of a creature with huge razor-sharp teeth that used to "chomp" through its prey off Australia's southern coastline about 25 million years ago has been found. But what has excited Australian paleontologists and prompted a re-drawing of the world's evolutionary charts is the fact this ancient predator was a baleen whale - the species that today catches tiny shrimps and krill using only a sieve of coarse hair. ... The complete skull was unveiled today at the Melbourne Museum, where it was also labelled one of the most important marine mammal fossil finds in Australia. "It literally rewrites our understanding of the evolution of baleen whales," Mr Fitzgerald, 25, said today. "It is an ancient baleen whale, so primitive, so primeval, that it has teeth, and it was not a passive gentle giant like today's blue whale or the humpback whale but a voracious predator that captured large fish." ... [Note: 3) that this was an "ancient baleen whale, so primitive, so primeval, that it has teeth" will require "a re-drawing of the world's evolutionary charts" because of 4) "the fact this ancient predator was a baleen whale." (my emphasis).]

Whale fossil sports fierce teeth, BBC, 16 August 2006, Elli Leadbeater ... The small, large-eyed baleen whale used a fully developed set of teeth to hunt its prey. Scientists had thought that two groups of ancient whales evolved drastically different eating habits more than 34 million years ago. They believed ancient whales that fed by filter feeding evolved to become today's enormous but passive baleen whales, and those that hunted became the ocean's giant predators, the toothed whales. Toothed whales include the killer whale, sperm whale and dolphin, whereas baleen whales are typified by the humpback and blue whale. The new specimen shows that ancient baleen whales probably hunted prey like their toothed relatives. ... Baleen is made of a substance called keratin, just like our fingernails and hair. ... lead researcher Erich Fitzgerald [said] .... "Surprisingly, it appears that the original features of baleen whales did not include the filter-feeding apparatus." ... "It's always been known that ancient baleen whales had teeth, but this fossil is very important because it looks like the teeth were not used for filter feeding," commented Mark Uhen, head of research at the Cranbrook Institute of Science in Michigan, US. ... [Note: 5) that "the original features of baleen whales did not include the filter-feeding apparatus." (my emphasis).]

The sharp-toothed past of filter-feeding whales, New Scientist, 16 August 2006, Emma Young ? The discovery of Janjucetus hunderi provides a new insight into the evolution of the two modern whale groups. ... "This provides us with a really good idea of what the most ancient baleen whales were like," says researcher Erich Fitzgerald ... And it had a large set of teeth with no evidence of the comb-like fringes used by other baleen whales to filter their food from seawater. ... This new species is not the ancestor of modern baleen whales, however. The most ancient baleen whale fossil, found in Antarctica, is 10 million years older. Instead, J hunderi belongs to an unrecognised evolutionary sidetrack, which no one had suspected existed. [Note: 6) the claim that "This new species is not the ancestor of modern baleen whales" because; 7) "The most ancient baleen whale fossil ... is 10 million years older" (my emphasis). As an aside, this would then rule out the Cretaceous ~120 mya `feathered' dinosaurs of China being ancestral to birds which date from Archaeopteryx in the Jurassic ~145 mya. ]

A bizarre new toothed mysticete (Cetacea) from Australia and the early evolution of baleen whales, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Erich M.G. Fitzgerald ? Extant baleen whales (Cetacea, Mysticeti) are all large filter-feeding marine mammals that lack teeth as adults, instead possessing baleen, and feed on small marine animals in bulk. The early evolution of these superlative mammals, and their unique feeding method, has hitherto remained enigmatic. Here, I report a new toothed mysticete from the Late Oligocene of Australia that is more archaic than any previously described. Unlike all other mysticetes, this new whale was small, had enormous eyes and lacked derived adaptations for bulk filter-feeding. Several morphological features suggest that this mysticete was a macrophagous predator, being convergent on some Mesozoic marine reptiles and the extant leopard seal (Hydrurga leptonyx). It thus refutes the notions that all stem mysticetes were filter-feeders, and that the origins and initial radiation of mysticetes was linked to the evolution of filter-feeding. Mysticetes evidently radiated into a variety of disparate forms and feeding ecologies before the evolution of baleen or filter-feeding. The phylogenetic context of the new whale indicates that basal mysticetes were macrophagous predators that did not employ filter-feeding or echolocation, and that the evolution of characters associated with bulk filter-feeding was gradual. [Note that this 8) "refutes the notions that all stem mysticetes were filter-feeders," and 9) that the origins and initial radiation of mysticetes was linked to the evolution of filter-feeding" (my emphasis).

I don't include it as a point, Fitzgerald's claim that this fossil is evidence that "the evolution of characters associated with bulk filter-feeding was gradual," as it shows the exact opposite, at least in the Darwinian sense of "slow gradualism" :

"To 'tame' chance means to break down the very improbable into less improbable small components arranged in series. No matter how improbable it is that an X could have arisen from a Y in a single step, it is always possible to conceive of a series of infinitesimally graded intermediates between them. However improbable a large-scale change may be, smaller changes are less improbable. And provided we postulate a sufficiently large series of sufficiently finely graded intermediates, we shall be able to derive anything from anything else, without invoking astronomical improbabilities. We are allowed to do this only if there has been sufficient time to fit all the intermediates in. And also only if there is a mechanism for guiding each step in some particular direction, otherwise the sequence of steps will career off in an endless random walk. It is the contention of the Darwinian world-view that both these provisos are met, and that slow, gradual, cumulative natural selection is the ultimate explanation for our existence. If there are versions of the evolution theory that deny slow gradualism, and deny the central role of natural selection, they may be true in particular cases. But they cannot be the whole truth, for they deny the very heart of the evolution theory, which gives it the power to dissolve astronomical improbabilities and explain prodigies of apparent miracle." (Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker," Norton: New York, 1986, pp.317-318. My emphasis)

If there was evidence of a sequence of "finely graduated steps" of "filter-feeding" from the earliest baleen whales, along the lines that Darwin argued for (see part #2) then this would support that claim. But since this is the most morphologically "ancient baleen whale, so primitive, so primeval, that it has teeth" yet it was still in existence ~25 mya, i.e. ~15 my after the presumed toothed (odontocetes)-baleen (mysticetes) whale split-which I accept happened, then this is evidence that the origin of baleen occurred in a shorter timeframe, and therefore was not, or at least less, "gradual" in the above Darwinian sense. As the first article says,before this find, "Most scientists have believed that baleen whales quickly evolved baleen for feeding on tiny fish and plankton after breaking from a common ancestor with toothed whales almost 40 million years ago" (my emphasis)!]

Continued in part #2

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
`Evolution Quotes Book'

U.S. Lags World in ... Acceptance of Evolution #1

U.S. Lags World in Grasp of Genetics and Acceptance of Evolution, LiveScience, Ker Than, 10 August 2006 ...

[Graphic: The Emperor's New Clothes, Wikipedia]

A comparison of peoples' views in 34 countries finds that the United States ranks near the bottom when it comes to public acceptance of evolution. Only Turkey ranked lower. [Of course whether one thinks it is "bottom" or "lower" depends on whether one thinks that "evolution," i.e. "the standard scientific theory that `human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process'" (my emphasis):

"In one of the most existentially penetrating statements ever made by a scientist, Richard Dawkins concluded that `the universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.' Facing such a reality, perhaps we should not be surprised at the results of a 2001 Gallup poll confirming that 45 percent of Americans believe `God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so'; 37 percent prefer a blended belief that `human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process'; and a paltry 12 percent accept the standard scientific theory that `human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process.'" (Shermer, M.B., "The Gradual Illumination of the Mind," Scientific American, February 2002. My emphasis)

is true. Because if God did in fact have a part in the process of the origin of man, then "the standard scientific theory" of "evolution" is false. Then in that case the USA and Turkey would be top and higher in relation to the truth than those other countries who have been deceived by Darwinist propaganda not to notice that its emperor has no clothes (see graphic above).

But in fact, the result of the survey may owe more to the usual Darwinist tactic of manipulating that all-flexible word, "evolution" (see future part #2).]

Among the factors contributing to America's low score are poor understanding of biology, especially genetics, the politicization of science and the literal interpretation of the Bible by a small but vocal group of American Christians, the researchers say. [This in itself sounds like Darwinist propaganda. It is difficult to believe that the USA is at the bottom of 34 countries in its "understanding of biology, especially genetics."

And as for "the politicization of science," it is hypocrisy (or self-deception) if the Darwinists don't accept responsibility for their part in same. John Durant, who was later to become Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Imperial College in London, referring to a "deification of Darwinism in the twentieth century" amounting to "idolatry," noted that "much of the energy of the creationist movement arises from a sense of moral outrage at the advance of an evolution-centred worldview that has the audacity to parade its secular, liberal values as if they were the objective findings of science" and warned that "Here creationism has a point of which the scientific community might do well to take heed" (my emphasis):

"One of the most ironic aspects of the deification of Darwinism in the twentieth century has been the encouragement that such idolatry has afforded to the forces of religious anti-evolutionism. I have argued that in the 1920s the association between evolutionism, on the one hand, and secularism and liberalism, on the other, helped to fan the flames of popular anti-evolutionary sentiment. Significantly, the same association appears to be playing its part in the current battle between evolutionists and so-called `scientific creationists' in the United States. ... All that needs to be said here is that this phenomenon is as deeply ideological today as it was 60 years ago. In the foreword to the bestknown textbook of scientific creationism, for example, the authors declare that, `in the name of modern science ... a nontheistic religion of secular evolutionary humanism has become, for all practical purposes, the official state religion promoted in the public schools' (Morris, ed., ["Scientific Creationism"] 1974, p.iii). To learn more about this religion we have only to read on, for at various stages in the book it is linked with atheism, materialism, mechanism and liberalism, as well as with behaviourism, libertinism, racism and communism (Morris, ed., 1974, pp.196-201, 252). Obviously, none of these labels is intended as a compliment, but it would be wrong to dismiss them as nothing more than a cheap exercise in mud-slinging. For much of the energy of the creationist movement arises from a sense of moral outrage at the advance of an evolution-centred worldview that has the audacity to parade its secular, liberal values as if they were the objective findings of science. Here at least, if not in matters of biological fact and theory, creationism has a point of which the scientific community might do well to take heed." (Durant, J.R., "Introduction," in "Durant, J.R., ed., "Darwinism and Divinity: Essays on Evolution and Religious Belief," Basil Blackwell: Oxford UK, 1985, pp.33-34)]

"American Protestantism is more fundamentalist than anybody except perhaps the Islamic fundamentalist, [This is the usual Darwinist poisoning of the well "official caricature" that anyone who doubts "evolution" must be a "fundamentalist who insist that the earth is no more than ten thousand years old and the fossil beds were laid down in Noah's flood":

"A laudatory review of Weiner's book (The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time) appeared in the Time book review section a week later. Like Weiner's essay, it began by commenting on the astonishing persistence of biblical creationism among persons who appear to be otherwise perfectly reasonable. The reviewer attributed this to a lack of knowledge of the overwhelming proof of evolution which scientists have discovered. ... The Weiner article and book review illustrate what I would call the `official caricature' of the creation-evolution debate, a distortion that is either explicit or implicit in nearly all media and textbook treatments of the subject. According to the caricature, `evolution' is a simple, unitary process that one can see in operation today and that is also supported unequivocally by all the fossil evidence. Everyone accepts the truth of evolution except a disturbingly large group of biblical fundamentalists, who insist that the earth is no more than ten thousand years old and the fossil beds were laid down in Noah's flood. These baffling persons either are uninformed about the evidence or perhaps choose to disregard it as a temptation placed before us by God to test our faith in Genesis. There is no conceivable intellectual basis for their dissent, because the evidence for evolution is absolutely conclusive." (Johnson, P.E., "Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law and Education," InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL, 1995, pp.72-73)

But as the above quote by Shermer shows (and I expect Miller's own survey of other countries would have shown if the question was put that way), the majority of the public in the USA reject "evolution," when it is defined as "the standard scientific theory that `human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process'" (my emphasis). Indeed, since even the strictest "biblical fundamentalist" can accept much natural process in the history of life, but Miller, Scott, Shermer and their atheistic/agnostic ilk cannot accept any supernatural process, the latter are the real "fundamentalists"!]

which is why Turkey and we are so close," said study co-author Jon Miller of Michigan State University. [This is "Jon D. Miller" a Professor of Political Science. He seems to be closely allied to the NCSE's Eugenie Scott who was a co-author of the paper in Science that this is a report of. That alone should indicate that Miller is a partisan on the pro-evolution side and not an impartial surveyor.

As is evident from the following quote, Miller was the organizer of a recent AAAS symposium falsely called "Science Under Attack" (no one is attacking science itself - what is being attacked is, as Durant above quoted Henry Morris, "in the name of modern science ... a nontheistic religion of secular evolutionary humanism [that] has become, for all practical purposes, the official state religion promoted in the public schools" - my emphasis):

Designed to create controversy, San Diego Union-Tribune, Bruce Lieberman, February 16, 2006 While scientists have refused to speak with believers of intelligent design and creation science, politicians have long courted them, said Jon D. Miller, a professor at Northwestern University Medical School who studies the public's understanding of science. Miller is the organizer of "Science Under Attack," a Saturday session at the conference in St. Louis. In his view, the struggle over teaching evolution in schools has been fueled largely by religious conservatives hoping to secure office in Republican-dominated states. "There's a very pragmatic reason why these (debates) reappear, and it's not at all accidental that they appear right before major primary elections," Miller said. "These issues become in right-wing politics a very powerful tool, because it's a way of mobilizing a base. . . . It's a litmus test, and besides, it's kind of a throwaway issue. It doesn't really make any economic difference to anybody." The tactic is hardly new in American politics, Miller said. For years, he noted, Democrats in the South exploited the politics of race to win elections.

A report of his talk at that AAAS symposium was in Skeptical Inquirer, May-June, 2006, titled "U.S. 'out on a limb by ourselves' in evolution rejection, Jon Miller tells AAAS" which presumably is also what the gist of Miller's Science paper is (I don't have access to the full text) and therefore of this Livescience article.

But if Miller was a true political scientist (as opposed to a scientist being political), he would have even-handedly noted that a "struggle over teaching evolution in schools" has to have two sides (including two political sides)!

Besides, it is simply false to portray it as "the struggle over teaching evolution in schools" (my emphasis). It is actually the "the struggle over teaching" nothing else but "evolution in schools," which is what Miller, Scott and their ilk want it to continue to be!

The fact is that no mainstream IDist or creationist group is arguing (and has not argued for at least a quarter-century) that evolution should not be taught in schools. Indeed the ID movement's position is that more about evolution should be taught in schools! And polls consistently show that the public want evolution to be taught alongside its main alternatives, including ID (see US Today, LifeSiteNews, WorldNetDaily, etc).]

To be continued in part #2.

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
`Evolution Quotes Book'

Snake Threat May Have Spurred Evolution of Primate Eyes

Snake Threat May Have Spurred Evolution of Primate Eyes, National Geographic, Stefan Lovgren, August 10, 2006 ...

[Graphic: Coquerel's Sifaka lemur, Duke University Primate Center]

The ability to detect threatening snakes may have shaped the visual system of our primate ancestors, a new study says. In a sort of evolutionary arms race, primates kept improving their eyesight to help spot and avoid snakes as the snakes became more dangerous, suggests Lynne Isbell, a behavioral ecologist at the University of California, Davis. "The initial change in primate [eyes] ... occurred when they had to deal with constricting snakes, probably about 90 million years ago," Isbell said. "That ended up with primates that have forward-facing eyes, whereas other mammals tend to have eyes on the sides of their heads." Forward-facing eyes allow better depth perception. When poisonous snakes evolved about 60 million years ago, primates further specialized their visual systems. "That resulted in the anthropoid primates-which we are one of-which had better vision all around, compared to the earlier primates that only had to deal with constricting snakes," Isbell said. The study is published in the July issue of the Journal of Human Evolution. Modern mammals first appeared about a hundred million years ago. Snakes were probably their first major predator-species with mouths big enough to eat mammals show up in the fossil record at about this time. "Snakes evolved a variety of ways to get their food, including widening their mouths enough to eat some mammals," Isbell said. And venomous snakes raised the stakes even further, forcing primates to get better at detecting the predators by, for example, developing excellent color vision and pattern recognition. [See also LiveScience. This "Just-So" Story ("How the Primate Got its Eyes!") highlights the unfalsifiability of Darwinian evolutionary explanations. Of course it might indeed have been that those primate ancestors which had better vision to detect snakes were the ones who survived to reproduce and pass on their genes for better vision to the next generation, so driving the gradual improvement of primate eyes. But then again it might have been better vision to detect anything (including other predators, width of branches, fruit, etc). Or, if all else fails it might be explained as sexual selection for "forward-facing eyes"! Indeed, it might have been all of the above! As Walter ReMine observed, "Evolutionary theory is a smorgasbord: a vast buffet of disjointed and conflicting mechanisms waiting to be chosen by the theorist":

"The central illusion of evolution lies in making a wide array of contradictory mechanisms look like a seamless whole. There is no single evolutionary mechanism-there are countless. Evolutionary theory is a smorgasbord: a vast buffet of disjointed and conflicting mechanisms waiting to be chosen by the theorist. For any given question, the theorist invokes only those mechanisms that look most satisfying. Yet, the next question elicits a different response, with other mechanisms invoked and neglected. Evolutionary theory has no coherent structure. It is amorphous. It is malleable and can readily adjust to disparate patterns of data. Evolution accommodates data like fog accommodates landscape. In fact evolutionary theory fails to clearly predict anything about life that is actually true." (ReMine, W.J., "The Biotic Message: Evolution Versus Message Theory," St. Paul Science: Saint Paul MN, 1993, p.24)

But then the problem is, how could this ever be tested?

Another problem is explaining why primates "ended up with forward-facing eyes, whereas other mammals tend to have eyes on the sides of their heads"? The same natural selection should have applied to all mammals, which the article says snakes preyed upon. Therefore, since natural selection cancels out, the true explanation must be, as Darwin's contemporary Samuel Butler pointed out, the variations (or in modern terms mutations) which were then naturally selected. That is (without endorsing Butler's Lamarckian answer) he was correct in his claim that "the `Origin of Variation,' whatever it is, is the only true 'Origin of Species'" (my emphasis):

"The question is not concerning evolution, but as to the main cause which has led to evolution in such and such shapes. To me it seems that the `Origin of Variation,' whatever it is, is the only true 'Origin of Species,' and that this must, as Lamarck insisted, be looked for in the needs and experiences of the creatures varying. Unless we can explain the origin of variations, we are met by the unexplained at every step in the progress of a creature from its original homogeneous condition to its differentiation, we will say, as an elephant; so that to say that an elephant has become an elephant through the accumulation of a vast number of small, fortuitous, but unexplained, variations in some lower creatures, is really to say that it has become an elephant owing to a series of causes about which we know nothing, whatever, or, in other words, that one does not know how it came to be an elephant." (Butler, S., "Life and Habit," [1910], Wildwood House: London, 1981, pp.263-264. Emphasis original)

As Darwin himself admitted, unless there was "the occurrence of profitable variations. ... natural selection can do nothing" (my emphasis):

"We have good reason to believe, as shown in the first chapter, that changes in the conditions of life give a tendency to increased variability; and in the foregoing cases the conditions have changed, and this would manifestly be favourable to natural selection, by affording a better chance of the occurrence of profitable variations. Unless such occur, natural selection can do nothing." (Darwin, C.R., "The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection," Sixth Edition, 1872, Senate: London, 1994, p.64)

So what Darwinism needs to explain, but doesn't, is why a series of mutations occurred in a line of primates towards forward-facing, better eyes, which could then be naturally selected?

In the absence of something better than just "random" because, to the atheists who dominate evolutionary biology there is nothing that they would accept, "that could guide mutation in directions that are non-random":

"There is a fifth respect in which mutation might have been nonrandom. We can imagine (just) a form of mutation that was systematically biased in the direction of improving the animal's adaptedness to its life. But although we can imagine it, nobody has ever come close to suggesting any means by which this bias could come about. It is only in this fifth respect, the 'mutationist' respect, that the true, real-life Darwinian insists that mutation is random. Mutation is not systematically biased in the direction of adaptive improvement, and no mechanism is known (to put the point mildly) that could guide mutation in directions that are non-random in this fifth sense. Mutation is random with respect to adaptive advantage, although it is non-random in all sorts of other respects. It is selection, and only selection, that directs evolution in directions that are nonrandom with respect to advantage." (Dawkins, R., "The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design," W.W Norton & Co: New York NY, 1986, p.312. Emphasis original)

a Christian theist (like me) can consider as the true explanation, the theory of Harvard Professor of Botany and fellow Christian theist Asa Gray, "that variation [i.e. mutations] has been led along certain beneficial lines":

"Wherefore, so long as gradatory, orderly, and adapted forms in Nature argue design, and at least while the physical cause of variation is utterly unknown and mysterious, we should advise Mr. Darwin to assume, in the philosophy of his hypothesis, that variation has been led along certain beneficial lines. Streams flowing over a sloping plain by gravitation (here the counterpart of natural selection) may have worn their actual channels as they flowed; yet their particular courses may have been assigned; and where we see them forming definite and useful lines of irrigation, after a manner unaccountable on the laws of gravitation and dynamics, we should believe that the distribution was designed." (Gray, A., "Natural Selection Not Inconsistent With Natural Theology," Atlantic Monthly, October 1860, in Dupree, A.H., ed., "Darwiniana: Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism," [1861], Belknap: Cambridge MA, 1963, pp.121-122)

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
`Evolution Quotes Book'

Daniel's prophecy of the five kingdoms (Dan 2:31-45)

With all the "nations in anguish and perplexity" and "Men faint[ing] from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world" (Luke 21:25-26. my emphasis), with "Nation[s] ris[ing] against nation, and kingdom against kingdom" (Mat 24:7; Mark 13:8; Luke 21:10), I am comforted by my understanding of Daniel's prophecy of the five (four human and one God's) kingdoms (or world-empires) in Daniel 2:31-45 and Daniel's complementary prophecy of the four beasts in Daniel 7:1-27.

Graphic: The dream of the statue of king Nebuchadnezzar (translated from French)]

I regard these prophecies as the key to world history, including where we are right now.

Here are my comments (following each passage) on the former prophecy, and I hope to in a future post comment on the latter:

Daniel 2:31-45 (NIV) "³¹'You looked, O king, and there before you stood a large statue-an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance.

The prophet Daniel is in Babylon in ~604 BC when king Nebuchadnezzar's has a dream, and not only demands that his wise men (which included Daniel) interpret the dream for him, but tell him what the dream was (2:1-7)! God makes known to Daniel what the dream was and its interpretation (2:19-23,27-28). The first point is that what the king saw was one "large enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance." That is, this is one world history from then, ~604 BC down through our present day, and on to the end of this present world (see below).

³²The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, ³³its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay.

As Daniel interprets this in 2:37-38, this "head of the statue made of pure gold" is the first of four human kingdoms, starting with the then current Neo-Babylonian Empire (~626-539 BC). See below for my comments on the other kingdoms.

³⁴While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands.

This "rock cut out not by human hands," is of supernatural origin, i.e. is Christ (Mat 7:24-25; 16:18; Rom 9:33; 1 Cor 10:4; 1 Pet 2:8).

It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them.

Christ at His second coming will destroy the last kingdom (Ps 2:9; 1 Cor 15:25; 2 Thess 2:8; Rev 2:26-27; 11:15; 14:8; 16:19; 17:5; 18:2) and therefore all of them. See below my comments on Daniel's interpretation in 2:44-45.

³⁵Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were broken to pieces at the same time and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace.

Not even a "trace" will remain of these human kingdoms.

But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth.

By contrast, the fifth kingdom, Christ's kingdom, which is "not of this world" (John 18:36), will keep growing and replace those human kingdoms (Rev 11:15).

³⁶`This was the dream, and now we will interpret it to the king.

See above, God had revealed toDaniel not only the interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, but even the dream itself!

³⁷You, O king, are the king of kings. The God of heaven has given you dominion and power and might and glory; ³⁸in your hands he has placed mankind and the beasts of the field and the birds of the air. Wherever they live, he has made you ruler over them all. You are that head of gold.

So the first of the four human world-empires represented by the statue's "head of gold" (2:32) is Nebuchadnezzar's Neo-Babylonian Empire (~626-539 BC). It corresponds with the first beast in Dan 7:4, "like a lion, and it had the wings of an eagle".

³⁹`After you, another kingdom will rise, inferior to yours.

Each kingdom is made of inferior metal to the previous one, signifying degeneration from God's perspective. The second of the four human empires represented by the statue's "chest and arms of silver" (2:32) is Cyrus the Great's Medo-Persian Empire (~539-330 BC), which replaced the Neo-Babylonian Empire in ~539 BC. It corresponds with the second beast, in Dan 7:5, "like a bear. ... raised up on one of its sides [with] ... three ribs in its mouth between its teeth".

Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth.

This third world-empire which in turn replaced the Medo-Persian Empire, was Alexander the Great's Greek Empire (330 - 63 BC), represented by the statue's "belly and thighs of bronze" (2:32). It corresponds with the third beast, in Dan 7:6, "like a leopard [with] four wings like those of a bird [and] four heads."

⁴⁰Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron-for iron breaks and smashes everything-and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others.

This is the fourth and final human world-empire, the Roman Empire (~63 BC-) which succeeded the Greek Empire when the Roman general Pompey defeated the Seleucid Empire in 63 BC. This fourth and final world-empire is represented in Dan 7:7 by a "fourth beast-terrifying and frightening and very powerful ... [which] had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left" but "was different from all the former beasts, and it had ten horns." What is different about this fourth and final world-Empire, the Roman Empire, is that it never was succeeded by another world-empire but instead spawned many lesser kingdoms, represented by "ten horns" ("ten" being a symbolic number for many, and "horns" a symbol of ruling power-see Dan 7:7,20,24 & Rev 12:3; 13:2; 17:3,7; 17:12).

⁴¹Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay.

The Roman Empire was weakened by internecine wars between rival military leaders, emperors and powerful families in the senate.

⁴²As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. ⁴³And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay.

This part-iron/part clay disunity in unity is a feature of the many kingdoms ("ten horns") that were the offshoots of the Roman Empire. It is those "ten" (i.e. many) divided ("iron mixed with baked clay") human kingdoms that we are living in and under today.

⁴⁴`In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.

This fifth kingdom, the kingdom of God will be established "In the time of those kings," i.e. while the four world empires considered as a unit in the statue of Nebuchadnezzar's dream was still in existence. And in fact, Jesus established His kingdom in 26-30 AD (Mark 1:14-15; John 19:30) during the reign of Roman Emperor Tiberius (14-37 AD), and He is still increasing it (Acts 1:3; 8:12; 19:8; 28:23) during the time of the "ten horns" and up to the time of Jesus' return (Dan 7:23-27; Mat 24:14; Rev 7:9; 12:10).

⁴⁵This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands-a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces.

This supernatural rock, i.e. Christ (see 2:34), will break the fourth and last kingdom "the iron," including its "ten horns" many offshoots, and thereby will also break "to pieces" the entire "statue" of "the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold" representing His crushing defeat of all human kingdoms and their works. Because only this fifth kingdom that "God set up will never be destroyed but will itself endure forever," only work towards building that kingdom of God has lasting value (Mat 6:19-20).

`The great God has shown the king what will take place in the future. The dream is true and the interpretation is trustworthy.'"

Because it is "God" who "has shown" it, therefore it "will take place"!

As an illustration, I was watching a delayed telecast on TV my favourite Australian Rules Football team, the West Coast Eagles, in the 1994 qualifying final. They were doing poorly and I turned off the TV. Then my sister-in-law rang from the country town she was living in, and she exclaimed, "wasn't it great about the Eagles' winning!" She had been watching a real-time telecast available only to rural viewers, and had seen the Eagles fight back and win. So I turned the TV back on and it was an eerie feeling to see the Eagles inevitably pegging back their opponent's lead until they just won in the dying seconds of the game by two points! The Eagles then went on to win the grand final that year.

That is what Jesus `grand final' victory is going to be like. It might look like He is losing, and the opposition are feeling supremely confident that they already have won, but in fact they have inevitably lost, like the opposing team in that delayed telecast!

References
Allis, O.T., "Prophecy and the Church," [1945], Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing Co: Philadelphia PA, 1964, Third printing, pp.123-125.
Archer, G.L., "Daniel," in Gaebelein F.E., ed., "The Expositor's Bible Commentary: Daniel and the Minor Prophets," Zondervan: Grand Rapids MI, 1985, Vol. 7, pp.44-49.
Barker, K., ed., "The NIV Study Bible," Zondervan: Grand Rapids MI, 1985, p.1311.
Pusey, E.B., "Daniel the Prophet," Funk & Wagnalls: New York NY, 1885, pp.115-183.
Young, E.J., "A Commentary on Daniel," [1949], Banner of Truth: Edinburgh, 1972, Reprinted, 1978, pp.69-82.

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
`Evolution Quotes Book'

"Instant" Evolution Seen in Darwin's Finches, Study Says #7

"Instant" Evolution Seen in Darwin's Finches, Study Says, National Geographic, Mason Inman, July 14, 2006 ...

[Graphic: Directional Selection - Galapagos Finches, Dr. Jay Pitocchelli, Saint Anselm College.

Continued from part #6]

.... The situation reached a tipping point when a severe drought hit the island in 2003 and 2004. Both finches suffered, since there were far fewer seeds overall. The dominant large ground finch ate most of the available large seeds. "With the near removal of the supply of large seeds, the large-beaked birds [among] the medium ground finches did not have enough food to survive," Peter Grant said. "They died at a faster rate than the small-beaked members of the population." [Again this cycle of species adapting to the local environment must have happened tens of thousands of times in the past "two to three million years" when the finches "ancestral species ... arrived from the South American mainland," with no net change (after the initial adaptive radiation into between 6 and 14 species)!

In fact, if there has been any net change it is negative, in the sense that there is evidence that there once were more finch species on the Galapagos, as "there are two forms [of Geospiza magnirostris] which have not been recorded since 1835" and "Also among the Beagle specimens are two which ...belong to an unknown form related to the sharp-beaked groundfinch G. difficilis":

"Nearly all the finches collected by Charles Darwin are similar in appearance to those taken by later collectors, but there are two forms which have not been recorded since 1835. First, there are three male and four female specimens obviously referable to the large ground-finch Geospiza magnirostris, but which are considerably larger than any collected since. ... while it would be pleasing to demonstrate measurable evolution on the basis of specimens collected by Darwin, it seems far more probable that these large birds represent an extinct subspecies of G. magnirostris from Charles, where the bird no longer resides. ... Also among the Beagle specimens are two which in my opinion belong to an unknown form related to the sharp-beaked groundfinch G. difficilis. They have a similar shape of beak, though the beak is larger." (Lack, D., "Darwin's Finches: An Essay on the General Biological Theory of Evolution," [1947], Harper Torchbooks: New York NY, 1961, reprint, pp.22-23) ]

The effects of competition are apparent when this event is compared to a drought in 1977, before the large ground finch arrived on the island, the researchers argue. During the earlier drought the medium ground finches' average beak size actually increased. [Who would even bother to "argue" that finch beak size tracks the size of the available seeds? The only things to "argue" about are:

1) is "the medium ground finches' average beak size" increase (i.e. cyclical fluctuation of increase and decrease-since this has been happening for "two to three million years") due to Darwinian natural selection of random micromutations or phenotypic plasticity? and

2) if the former, then this is evidence of the limitations of the Darwinian mechanism, because presumably the same cycle of: a) the large ground finch, G. magnirostris, arriving on Daphne Major; b) the ensuing competition for the larger seeds causing the medium ground finch, G. fortis to specialise on smaller seeds; c) causing the average size of G. fortis' beak to decrease; has happened tens of thousands of times in the past "two to three million years"); or

3) if the latter, then another "icon" of evolution will have to be quietly dropped from the texbooks, with the added embarrassment that these are Darwin's finches! Either way, there is nothing in this for Darwinism!]

... Jonathan Losos is an evolutionary ecologist at Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, who was not involved with the Grants' work. [It was Losos' study on increases in the leg length of Anolis lizards in the Bahamas, in which he concluded that "Macroevolution may just be microevolution writ large -- and, consequently, insight into the former may result from study of the latter" that was criticised by Stephen Jay Gould as "irrelevant" to long-term change in his "Paradox of the Visibly Irrelevant."]

"This study will be an instant textbook classic," he said. [Losos does not say what this "will be an instant textbook classic" of. In his own own Anolis lizard leg length increase paper, he did not argue it was due to "natural selection" but instead claimed it was due to "phenotypic plasticity":

"Whether or not they provide the long-sought smoking gun of evolution, the experiments of Losos, Warheit and Schoener [Losos, J. B., et al., "Adaptive differentiation following experimental island colonization in Anolis lizards," Nature, Vol. 387, 1997, pp.70-73] have the potential to explore the mechanism(s) underlying the processes of adaptation. Darwin's use of `natural selection' is normally considered to mean the sorting of genetic-based variation within a particular environmental context. The authors of the paper do not use the term. Nor do they consider the short-term directional change observed in these lizards to be evidence for founder effect or genetic drift. Instead, the authors of this exciting Anolis study present it as a possible demonstration of the potential `macroevolutionary significance' of `phenotypic plasticity.' They argue for the `adaptive importance of nongenetic environmental effects on morphological size and shape of animals.' By this they appear to mean that if Anolis can adapt rapidly to new environments without the introduction of new genetic variation, perhaps the mode of rapid evolution required for punctuated equilibrium is a possibility. This less-than-traditional interpretation owes more to the ideas of Waddington (for example, genetic assimilation) or Schmalhausen than to the classical population genetics of Dobzhansky." (Thomson, K.S., "Natural Selection and Evolution's Smoking Gun," American Scientist, Vol. 85, No. 6, November-December 1997, p.518)]

"The most intriguing aspect of the study is its nuanced understanding of how and when character displacement occurs," Losos added. [See above re what Losos may mean by "how ... character displacement occurs"!]

"It supports suggestions by the Grants and others that [natural] selection will be most intense during crunch times." [Perhaps Losos is now arguing for natural "selection"? Whatever, Gould included "Darwin's finches of the Galapagos Islands" with "Losos's study on lizard legs" in his examples of visible irrelevance to long-term change."

The point is that if "natural selection" is "most intense during crunch times" (and who would even bother denying that), it then is least "intense" during non- "crunch times," with a net effect of stasis, i.e. no change, just oscillation around a mean (as the above graphic of so-called "directional selection" shows).

Indeed, if anything, the evidence above of extinction, and "fusing" (indicating that they are not true species, but are "as Darwin feared" a "hybrid swarm" of "marked varieties"):

"Peter Grant, Rosemary Grant and their students stand at the other extreme of Galapagos researchers-returning time and again for decades. They too continually find new things. For example, the Grants' increasing recognition of crossbreeding among Darwin's finches suggests that hybridization plays a larger role in evolution than was previously thought. Galapagos ground finches do breed across species, the Grants find, and their hybrid offspring can thrive where conditions favor intermediate types. `The discovery of superior hybrid fitness over several years suggests that the three study populations of Darwin's finches are fusing,' they note, `and calls into question their designation as species.' [Grant, P.R. & Grant, B.R, "Hybridization of Bird Species," Science, Vol. 256, 1992, pp. 193-197] Under strict phylogenetic or breeding-population definitions of species, Peter Grant concludes, only six separate species of Darwin's finches may exist, not the traditional fourteen. Owing to these findings, made more than half a century after David Lack's landmark study, Ernst Mayr once again wonders whether Darwin's finches offer a textbook case of adaptive radiation [Mayr, E.W., Interview with author, 20 April 2000, Cambridge MA]. The ground finches may indeed constitute a `hybrid swarm' with marked varieties, much as Darwin feared and pre-Lack ornithologists surmised. [Lowe, P., "The Finches of the Galapagos in relation to Darwin's Conception of Species," Ibis, Vol. 6, 1936, pp.310-321, p.311]" (Larson, E.J., "Evolution's Workshop: God and Science on the Galapágos Islands," Allen Lane: London, 2001, p.240)

suggests that Darwin's finches have passed their prime of diversification and may now be headed for extinction.]

David Pfennig at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill agrees that the study has important implications. [Pfenning says on his home page: "I am especially interested in testing whether .... diversification is enhanced by developmental plasticity (polyphenism) ... the tendency for genetically identical organisms to produce alternative phenotypes in response to different environmental stimuli" (my emphasis) so his meaning of "the study has important implications" may not be pro-Darwinian.]

For Pfennig, the study's greatest surprise was "the apparent speed with which the character displacement occurs-within a single year!" [Yes. As pointed out in part #1, this is far to rapid to be the Darwinian natural selection of random micromutations. ]

Usually we think of evolution as being a slow grind, he says. [That's because Darwinian "evolution" is "a slow grind"!]

But, Pfennig added, the study suggests that evolution due to competition between closely related species "paradoxically may often occur so rapidly that we may actually miss the process taking place." [Then if "any change measurable at all over the few years of an ordinary scientific study must be occurring far too rapidly to represent ordinary rates of evolution in the fossil record" and hence is "visibly irrelevant" (see part #2):

"Moreover, and with complete generality-the `paradox of the visibly irrelevant' in my title we may say that any change measurable at all over the few years of an ordinary scientific study must be occurring far too rapidly to represent ordinary rates of evolution in the fossil record. ... if evolution is fast enough to be discerned by our instruments in just a few years ... then such evolution is far too fast to serve as an atom of steady incrementation in a paleontological trend. Thus, if we can measure it at all (in a few years), it is too powerful to be the stuff of life's history. If large-scale evolution proceeded by stacking Trinidad guppy rates end to end, any evolutionary trend would be completed in a geological moment, not over the many million years actually observed." (Gould, S.J., "The Paradox of the Visibly Irrelevant," in "The Lying Stones of Marrakech: Penultimate Reflections in Natural History," [2000], Vintage: London, 2001, reprint, p.344)

this "evolution [that] may often occur so rapidly that we may actually miss the process taking place" is invisibly irrelevant! ]

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
`Evolution Quotes Book'

Creation and common ancestry

In the following quote, which I consider to be one of the most important in the creation-evolution struggle,

[Graphic: Molecular phylogenetic tree of life, NASA]

Richard Dawkins (citing Darwin) admits that, God could have supernaturally intervened "at any one stage of descent" in life's history. Indeed, that in fact there were some in Darwin's day (like George Douglas Campbell, Eighth "Duke of Argyll", an eminent natural philosopher who accepted common descent but maintained that God "had intervened repeatedly, at crucial points in" it - as I do). But in that case, it would be "not evolution at all" but "divine creation" (my emphasis)!:

"The Duke of Argyll, for instance, accepted the evidence that evolution had happened, but he wanted to smuggle divine creation in by the back door. He wasn't alone. Instead of a single, once and for all creation in the Garden of Eden, many Victorians thought that the deity had intervened repeatedly, at crucial points in evolution. Complex organs like eyes, instead of evolving from simpler ones by slow degrees as Darwin had it, were thought to have sprung into existence in a single instant. Such people rightly perceived that such instant 'evolution', if it occurred, would imply supernatural intervention: that is what they believed in. .... Darwin perceived this too. He wrote in a letter to Sir Charles Lyell, the leading geologist of his day: `If I were convinced that I required such additions to the theory of natural selection, I would reject it as rubbish...I would give nothing for the theory of natural selection, if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent.' [Darwin, C.R., Letter to C. Lyell, October 11, 1859, in Darwin, F., ed., "The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," [1898], Basic Books: New York NY, Vol. II., 1959, reprint, pp.6-7]. This is no petty matter. In Darwin's view, the whole point of the theory of evolution by natural selection was that it provided a non-miraculous account of the existence of complex adaptations. For what it is worth, it is also the whole point of this book. For Darwin, any evolution that had to be helped over the jumps by God was not evolution at all." (Dawkins, R., "The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design," W.W Norton & Co: New York NY, 1986, pp.248-249. Emphasis original).

That this is no personal foible of Dawkins (apart from the fact that he cited Darwin for support) is evident in that another leading Darwinist, philosopher Daniel Dennett, himself approvingly quotes it:

"Darwin often, and correctly, harped on the claim that evolution could only be gradual (at best, you might say). As Dawkins (1986a, p. 145) says, `For Darwin, any evolution that had to be helped over the jumps by God was not evolution at all. It made a nonsense of the central point of evolution.'" (Dennett, D.C., "Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life," [1995], Penguin: London, 1996, p.290. Emphasis original).

Note that Dawkins' ("the whole point of the theory of evolution by natural selection" - his emphasis) and Dennett's ("the central point of evolution" - my emphasis), and indeed Darwin's ("I would reject ... as rubbish ... the theory of natural selection, if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent" - my emphasis) is religious not scientific.

That is "evolution" is "the standard scientific theory," not just that "human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life" because "God [could have] guided this process" (in which case it would not be "the standard scientific theory") but that "God had no part in this process" (my emphasis):

"In one of the most existentially penetrating statements ever made by a scientist, Richard Dawkins concluded that `the universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.' Facing such a reality, perhaps we should not be surprised at the results of a 2001 Gallup poll confirming that 45 percent of Americans believe `God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so'; 37 percent prefer a blended belief that `human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process'; and a paltry 12 percent accept the standard scientific theory that `human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process.'" (Shermer, M.B., "The Gradual Illumination of the Mind," Scientific American, February 2002. My emphasis)

So this exposes one of the main fallacies supporting evolution, the Fallacy of False Alternative, that common descent is "evolution," and therefore "creation" can only be separate creations. Darwin himself employed this fallacy in his Origin of Species, when he depicted creation as "certain elemental atoms have been commanded suddenly to flash into living tissues":

"Several eminent naturalists have of late published their belief that a multitude of reputed species in each genus are not real species; but that other species are real, that is, have been independently created. But do they really believe that at innumerable periods in the earth's history certain elemental atoms have been commanded suddenly to flash into living tissues?" (Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," Sixth Edition, 1872, Senate: London, 1994, p.423).

But as Christian philosopher Del Ratzsch pointed out, supernatural intervention by God and common ancestry are not mutually exclusive, i.e. "Even were God to intervene directly to inject essential new genetic material at various points in order to facilitate the emergence of new traits that miraculous and deliberate divine intervention would by itself leave unchallenged that all species derive ultimately from some common ancestor," so "Descent with genetic intervention is still descent-it is just descent with nonnatural elements in the process":

"Suppose contemporary evolutionary theory had blind chance built into it so firmly that there was simply no way of reconciling it with any sort of divine guidance. It would still be perfectly possible for theists to reject that theory of evolution and accept instead a theory according to which natural processes and laws drove most of evolution, but God on occasion abridged those laws and inserted some crucial mutation into the course of events. Even were God to intervene directly to suspend natural law and inject essential new genetic material at various points in order to facilitate the emergence of new traits and, eventually, new species, that miraculous and deliberate divine intervention would by itself leave unchallenged such key theses of evolutionary theory as that all species derive ultimately from some common ancestor. Descent with genetic intervention is still descent-it is just descent with nonnatural elements in the process." (Ratzsch, D.L., "The Battle of Beginnings: Why Neither Side is Winning the Creation-Evolution Debate," InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL, 1996, pp.187-188).

It is not surprising that evolutionists seek to maintain their cultural minority rule over creationists by employing this fallacy. But what is surprising is that most creationists meekly (even enthusiastically) accept it! In my debates with creationists and evolutionists, I have called this, "creationists obligingly reading from the script of their part in the play that Darwin wrote for them."

Well, as for me, nearly 40 years ago I determined that I was going to only read from my part in the script of the play that God, not man (i.e. not Darwin, not Henry Morris, etc), wrote for me (one of my earliest tagline quotes in creation/evolution debates was: "Test everything. Hold on to the good." - 1 Thess. 5:21), and He has never let me down.

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
`Evolution Quotes Book'

Blood clots hold nature's most stretchable fibres

Darwinism's problem of explaining by its `blind watchmaker' mechanism of the natural selection of random micromutations, Professor Michael Behe's claimed irreducibly complex blood-clotting cascade just got harder!

[Graphic: Blood clotting cascade, Drexsel University]

It turns out that the fibres (a protein called fibrin) generated to form a clot to plug a bleeding wound, is not just any old fibre, but "nature's most stretchable fibre," having "Extraordinary Extensibility and Elasticity," being even "More Elastic Than Spider's Web" (see below):

Blood clots hold nature's most stretchable fibres, CBC, 03 Aug 2006 ... The tiny fibres in blood clots can stretch to more than six times their length before breaking - a discovery that could help doctors better understand wound healing and heart disease. The results mean the fibres are the most stretchable known in nature, beating the record of spider silk, the team reported in Friday's issue of the journal Science. [Isn't it lucky that the `blind watchmaker' just stumbled onto "nature's most stretchable fibre" (or even - for the sake of argument - the gradual pathway leading to it)?! However, as Richard Dawkins himself conceded, "We can accept a certain amount of luck in our explanations, but not too much (my emphasis)":

"We can accept a certain amount of luck in our explanations, but not too much. The question is, how much? The immensity of geological time entitles us to postulate more improbable coincidences than a court of law would allow but, even so, there are limits. Cumulative selection is the key to all our modern explanations of life. It strings a series of acceptably lucky events [random mutations] together in a nonrandom sequence so that, at the end of the sequence, the finished product carries the illusion of being very very lucky indeed, far too improbable to have come about by chance alone, even given a timespan millions of times longer than the age of the universe so far. Cumulative selection is the key but it had to get started, and we cannot escape the need to postulate a single-step chance event in the origin of cumulative selection itself." (Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design," W.W Norton & Co: New York NY, 1986, pp.139-140)]

The fibres, called fibrin, form a three-dimensional mesh in blood clots that seal wounds. To do its job, a blood clot needs to be strong and flexible enough to withstand the pressure of blood flow. "For all naturally occurring fibres, fibrin fibres are the ones you can stretch the furthest before they break," said one of the study's lead authors, Martin Guthold, a physics professor at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. "This was a stunning revelation because people hypothesized that these fibres stretched but broke much easier." [Note that it was "a stunning revelation," not "we expected it on Darwinian `blind watchmaker' principles. However no doubt after the event, Darwinists will start claiming that!

Abnormal blood clots can cause strokes or heart attacks. [So how could the `blind watchmaker' start with "1 per cent" of clotting and then work its way "on up the gradual, continuous series":

"In a primitive world where some creatures had no eyes at all and others had lensless eyes, the ones with lensless eyes would have all sorts of advantages. And there is a continuous series of Xs, such that each tiny improvement in sharpness of image, from swimming blur to perfect human vision, plausibly increases the organism's chances of surviving. The book [Hitching, F., "The Neck of the Giraffe," Pan: London, 1982, p.103)] goes on to quote Stephen Jay Gould, the noted Harvard palaeontologist, as saying: `We avoid the excellent question, What good is 5 percent of an eye? by arguing that the possessor of such an incipient structure did not use it for sight.' [Gould, S.J., "Ever Since Darwin," Penguin: London, 1978, p.107) An ancient animal with 5 per cent of an eye might indeed have used it for something other than sight, but it seems to me at least as likely that it used it for 5 per cent vision. And actually I don't think it is an excellent question. Vision that is 5 per cent as good as yours or mine is very much worth having in comparison with no vision at all. So is 1 per cent vision better than total blindness. And 6 per cent is better than 5, 7 per cent better than 6, and so on up the gradual, continuous series." (Dawkins, Ibid., p.81)]

It's hoped the findings could lead to better clot-busting treatments, as well as therapies for the opposite problem: fluid that doesn't clot as it should in hemophilia or other blood disorders. [This is why blood-clotting is irreducible complex, i.e. it is inaccessible to a `blind watchmaker', natural selection of random micromutations, process. Blood-clotting has to be (with apologies to "The Story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears"), `not too thick' (otherwise the animal would die of a heart attack or stroke), `not too thin' (otherwise it would bleed to death), but `just right'!] ...

Until now, scientists were unable to study the mechanical properties of individual fibrin fibres because of their size - 1,000 times smaller than the diameter of human hair. Guthold and his colleagues found a way to see and stretch the fibres using a combination of two microscopes. They suspended each dyed fibre across one microscope while using the special tip on an atomic force microscope to stretch it. All the fibres stretched to four times the original length on average, but were able to resist up to six times before breaking, the team found. ... [Note that: "1,000 times smaller than the diameter of human hair" (as they presumably would have to be for the tiniest capilliaries) yet they "were able to resist [being stretched] up to six times before breaking!]

Fibrin Fibers Have Extraordinary Extensibility and Elasticity, Liu, W., et al., Science, Vol. 313, 4 August 2006, p.634, ... Blood clots perform an essential mechanical task, yet the mechanical behavior of fibrin fibers, which form the structural framework of a clot, is largely unknown. By using combined atomic force-fluorescence microscopy, we determined the elastic limit and extensibility of individual fibers. Fibrin fibers can be strained 180% (2.8-fold extension) without sustaining permanent lengthening, and they can be strained up to 525% (average 330%) before rupturing. This is the largest extensibility observed for protein fibers. The data imply that fibrin monomers must be able to undergo sizeable, reversible structural changes and that deformations in clots can be accommodated by individual fiber stretching. ... [Again, "This is the largest extensibility observed for protein fibers"!]

Blood Clot Fibers More Elastic Than Spider's Web, ScienceDaily, August 4, 2006 ... The tiny fibers that comprise blood clots show extraordinary elasticity, on average stretching to almost three times their length while still retaining their ability to go back to their normal shape and expanding to more than four times their length before breaking ... In some cases, fibrin fibers had the ability to be stretched more than six times their length before they broke." Blood clots are a three-dimensional network or mesh of fibrin fibers, stabilized by another protein called factor XIIIa. Because of its important function of stemming the flow of blood in the body, clots have to be both strong and pliable. [So since "clots have to be both strong and pliable" to work at all in the first place, clotting could not have arisen via a Darwinian, step-by-tiny-step, gradual pathway up the smooth slopes of Dawkins' imaginary "Mt Improbable" A blood clot that starts off "1 percent" of "strong and pliable" would not work at all!] ...

"The fibrin fibers need to stop the flow of blood, so there is a lot of mechanical stress on those fibers," Guthold said. [So the very first "1 percent" of blood clot in the putative Darwinian "up the gradual, continuous series" would have to be able to withstand "a lot of mechanical stress" from the outset.]

"Our discovery of these mechanical properties of individual fibrin fibers shows that these fibers likely endow blood clots with important physiological properties. They make blood clots very elastic and very stretchable." .... Roy Hantgan ... said the study findings have significant implications for human health. "Knowing that the fibrin strands that make up a human blood clot are more stretchable than a spider's web helps us to understand how clots can seal wounds tightly and withstand the pressure in our blood vessels," [This is an important point. If fibrin wasn't very stretchable, then blood clots would not only not be able to "withstand the pressure in our blood vessels" but also they would not be able to "seal wounds tightly." A blood clot that did not "seal wounds tightly" would be a contradiction in terms! ...

See also The truth about blood clots? It's a stretch, The Boston Globe/AP, Lauran Neergaard, August 7, 2006 ...

For quotes of Professor Behe's argument for the irreducible complexity of the blood-clotting cascade, which I don't have space to post here, see my post "Pierre Grasse and the `irreducible complexity' of the blood-clotting cascade."]

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
`Evolution Quotes Book'