Re: Would Jesus stoop to quotemining? #3

AN (cc. CreationEvolutionDesign)

----- Original Message -----
From: AN
To: Stephen E. Jones
Sent: Saturday, June 10, 2006 12:30 AM
Subject: Would Jesus stoop to quotemining?

>The incomprehensible creationist - the Darwin "eye" quote revisited
John Stear, 7 March 2004
[Updated 16 May 2005]

Continued from part #2.

>The quote, in its entirety, is taken from The Origin of Species, Chapter 6, "Organs of extreme perfection and complication".

To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated; but I may remark that several facts make me suspect that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which produce sound.

Darwin was just bluffing. There was no way that in the 19th century, he could have known that "gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist."

And in fact "gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple"can not "be shown to exist." Even between two types of shrimps (i.e. Euphausiid shrimps" i.e. krill "classified as close 'cousins' to true shrimps), one of the world's foremost authorities on the eye, Prof. Michael Land, wrote that "a refracting optical system, with refractive index crystalline cones, could not evolve into a reflecting system with squared multilayer-coated surfaces, nor vice versa" and "Both are successful and very sophisticated image-forming devices, but I cannot imagine an intermediate form that would work at all" (my emphasis):

"Darwinism does not look you squarely in the eye. It insists on faith in the unseen conversion of one type of eye into another. Upon this faith a humble shrimp imposes considerable strain. Moths, fireflies and Euphausiid shrimps, creatures all active in the dark, have special compound eyes which include a retina on which the multiple lenses focus at a common point to form an upright image. These shrimps, which seem to be, and are, classified as close 'cousins' to true shrimps, employ lens cylinders which smoothly bend the incoming light so that it all focuses at a common point, rather than forming multiple images as most compound eyes do. This feat of optical engineering has only been duplicated by humans in the last decade. If this were not enough, Michael Land, a biologist from Sussex University, has observed that other shrimps have eyes which employ a different principle of physics, reflection from mirrors. The eyes have squared facets employed as radially arranged mirrors. It requires precise geometry to align such mirrors so that incoming rays are all reflected to focus at a common point, forming an image there. In an article entitled 'Nature as an Optical Engineer' Dr Land wrote: `I would guess that a refracting optical system, with refractive index crystalline cones, could not evolve into a reflecting system with squared multilayer-coated surfaces, nor vice versa. Both are successful and very sophisticated image-forming devices, but I cannot imagine an intermediate form that would work at all.' [Land, M., "Nature as an Optical Engineer," New Scientist, Vol. 84, October 1979, p.13] No common ancestors or series, leading up to these two very different sorts of eyes in the same shrimp-like body, are known. Confronted with the evidence, I believe a reasonable Mr. Darwin would have opted for a theory of design. Over one hundred years ago he wrote: `To suppose that the eye ... could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.'" (Pitman, M., "Adam and Evolution," Rider & Co: London, 1984, pp.217-218)

And Darwin, by his admission that he was not explaining, "How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light," thereby evaded the main issue, in that he is not then explaining how the eye arose, because he is starting with an already fully-functioning eye! Just as in "how life itself first originated", the real challenge for Darwin's theory, is to get from nothing (i.e. no life, no eye) to something (life, an eye).

And there are in fact, no "very imperfect and simple" eyes. All eyes are very complex, just that some are more very complex than others! As an irreducible minimum an eye has to: 1) capture individual photons of light; 2) transduce each photon into a chemical signal; 3) pass it along an optical nerve to a brain; 4) the brain has to interpret those signals; and 5) tell the animal what they mean; so that 6) it can take the appropriate action.

As I mentioned not long ago, Richard L. Gregory, Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychology at the Department of Experimental Psychology, Bristol University, another expert on the eye, even though he is an evolutionist who accepts that "the human eye and brain have come about through slow painful trial and error," regards "The problem of how eyes have developed" as "a major challenge to the Darwinian theory of evolution by Natural Selection" because then "each step must confer some advantage upon its owner, to be selected and transmitted through the generations." But then "what use is a half-made lens?" and "What use is a lens giving an image, if there is no nervous system to interpret the information?" and "How could a visual nervous system come about before there was an eye to give it information?":

"The problem of how eyes have developed has presented a major challenge to the Darwinian theory of evolution by Natural Selection. We can make many entirely useless experimental models when designing a new instrument, but this was impossible for Natural Selection, for each step must confer some advantage upon its owner, to be selected and transmitted through the generations. But what use is a half-made lens? What use is a lens giving an image, if there is no nervous system to interpret the information? How could a visual nervous system come about before there was an eye to give it information? In evolution there can be no master plan, no looking ahead to form structures which, though useless now, will come to have importance when other structures are sufficiently developed. And yet the human eye and brain have come about through slow painful trial and error." (Gregory, R.L., "Eye and Brain: The Psychology of Seeing," [1966], Weidenfeld & Nicolson: London, Second edition, 1972, p.25)

And Darwin was also wrong in his assumption that "any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to light". As leading geneticist and Dawkins opponent, Gabriel Dover, pointed out, the fact is that all true eyes are based on the Pax-6 master gene:

"The Pax-6 gene of mammals is interchangeable with the equivalent Pax-6 gene of Drosophila. The experiment of getting Pax-6 switched on in tissues not normally expressing Pax-6 can be done using either the fly's own Pax-6 gene or one taken from a mouse. Either way, the results are quite startling - eyes are produced on several unusual parts of the fly's body, such as legs and wings. Insect eyes and mammalian eyes are constructed in different ways. The insect eye is a many-sided compound eye in which each 'eyelet' and its lens can be said to be equivalent to the single mammalian eye. So what should we be expecting from our gene-swopping experiments? We might guess that the Pax-6 of Drosophila produces patches of compound eye wherever Pax-6 is operating. But what of the Pax master gene from a mouse? Will it produce an insect or mouse eye when turned 'on' in different Drosophila tissues? The answer is that it produces a Drosophila compound eye on legs, wings, halteres and antennae. Moreover the antenna eyes generate the same electric impulses as the normal eyes showing that they are functional. Eyes cannot be induced in any tissue; the foreign eye master gene has to be active at the appropriate stage of insect development. Nevertheless, the mouse Pax-6 can successfully interact with the estimated 2,500 target genes lying dormant in many different Drosophila organs. Pax-6 genes exist in such diverse species as amphibians, squid worms and planariums, as well as mammals and insects. Some of these have also been shown capable of inducing extra eyes in Drosophila. What these experiments tell us is that Pax-6 really can be considered a master control gene that has been conserved over a huge distance of evolutionary time, probably predating the Cambrian epoch of 550 million years ago. " (Dover, G.A., "Dear Mr Darwin: Letters on the Evolution of Life and Human Nature," [1999], University of California Press: Berkeley CA, 2000, reprint, pp.170-171)

[Graphic: New Scientist] which only arose once and codes for all "the widely different structures and operations of eyes (eye cup, pinhole, camera-type with single lens, mirror and compound)" which "goes against a hundred years of insistence" by Darwinists falsely that the these "different ... eyes ... arose independently, at least forty and maybe up to sixty-five times" to emphasize "the repetitive ease with which natural selection could" allegedly "produce an eye":

"The Pax-6 story tells us that there has been just one origin and one evolutionary line of progression, from the earliest patches of light-sensitive cells to the variety of advanced eye-forms around us. This unavoidable conclusion, Charles [Darwin], goes against a hundred years of insistence that the widely different structures and operations of eyes (eye cup, pinhole, camera-type with single lens, mirror and compound) arose independently, at least forty and maybe up to sixty-five times. Our old friend Richard Dawkins devoted a chapter in one of his books to 'the forty-fold path to enlightenment', emphasizing the repetitive ease with which natural selection could produce an eye, and so relieving you of the 'cold shudder' you experienced whenever you grappled with this problem." (Dover, 1999, p.172) .

Note Dover's subtle irony. Darwin can now, posthumously, be relieved "of the 'cold shudder'" he "experienced whenever" he "grappled with this problem" of how "natural selection could produce an eye," because it didn't!

Concluded in part #4.

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

Re: Would Jesus stoop to quotemining? #2

AN

----- Original Message -----
From: AN
To: Stephen E. Jones

Sent: Saturday, June 10, 2006 12:30 AM
Subject: Would Jesus stoop to quotemining?

[Graphic: Dr George Matsumoto, BioForum, California Academy of Sciences.]

Continued from part #1. As before, this is being copied to my blog, CreationEvolutionDesign, minus your personal identifying information and some further changes. In fact it is really intended for my blog's readers, not to you (since all you did was send me John Stear's web page criticism of me with no comment from you, except the subject line). For added clarity, my words are in bold, to distinguish them from Stear's.

>The incomprehensible creationist - the Darwin "eye" quote revisited
John Stear, 7 March 2004
[Updated 16 May 2005]

John Stear is the owner of the "No Answers in Genesis" website. Wikipedia describes him as an "Australian atheist and skeptic ... a retired civil servant." There is no mention that Stear has any science or other relevant qualifications.

Being an atheist, Stear has no option but to believe in some form of fully naturalistic evolution, irrespective of the evidence. As Christian geneticist David Wilcox observed, "One can be a theistic `Darwinian,' but no one can be an atheistic `Creationist'":

"I conclude that the easy acceptance of neo-Darwinism as a complete and adequate explanation for all biological reality has indeed been based in the metaphysical needs of a dominant materialistic consensus. One can be a theistic `Darwinian,' but no one can be an atheistic `Creationist.'" (Wilcox, D.L., "Tamed Tornadoes," in Buell, J. & Hearn, V., eds., "Darwinism: Science or Philosophy? ," Foundation for Thought and Ethics: Richardson TX, 1994, p.215)

>I've had an interesting albeit frustrating exchange with West Australian old Earth creationist (OEC), Steve Jones. Mr Jones hosts a web site that includes a collection of quotes, one of which is the infamous Charles Darwin quote concerning the evolution of the eye. The quote is often used by YECs in an effort to convince their credulous followers that Darwin had doubts about some aspects of evolution. [...]

As far as I can recall, Stear sent me one message on 7 March 2004, to which I responded (copy to my discussion group) the same day. And by "frustrating," presumably Stear means that I did not roll over and admit he was right, including his claim that I "lie" and am "disingenuous":

"I must say that the most surprising thing about creationists is their ability to lie and mislead in a vain attempt to get their point across ... It's unlikely I'll investigate your site further as I'm sure it's contents will be, in the main, as disingenuous as your selective use of quotes."

As I responded to Stear, "Nothing like an open-minded evolutionist!" At least Stear notes that I am an "old Earth creationist."

As for Stear's "effort to convince their credulous followers that Darwin had doubts about some aspects of evolution," either Stear is ignorant of Darwin's writings (which is not unusual for evolutionists-my namesake British geneticist Steve Jones wrote that he has "never met a biology undergraduate who has read The Origin of Species"):

"I have never met a biology undergraduate who has read The Origin of Species. Even scientists, familiar as they are with its contents (or what they believe them to be), honour it in the breach rather than the observance." (Jones, J.S., "Almost Like a Whale: The Origin of Species Updated," Doubleday: London, 1999, p.xxvii)

or he must think that Darwin was being disingenuous or lying when he wrote of his doubts about some aspects of evolution, e.g. 1) in his Origin of Species that "the eye with all its inimitable contrivances ... could have been formed by natural selection" :

"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree." (Darwin, C.R., "The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection," 1872, Sixth Edition, Senate: London, 1994, pp.142-143. My emphasis)

2) in his private correspondence, which was only published after Darwin's death, Darwin admitted to his American confidant, Harvard botanist Asa Gray, a few months after the publication of his Origin of Species, that he agreed that his "attempt to account for the formation of ... eyes ... by natural selection" was one of the "weak points" in his book and confided that "The eye to this day gives me a cold shudder" (my emphasis):

"Well, what seems to me the weakest point in the book is the attempt to account for the formation of organs, the making of eyes, &c., by natural selection." [Gray A., letter to Darwin C.R., January 23rd, 1860] "...About the weak points I agree. The eye to this day gives me a cold shudder, but when I think of the fine known gradations, my reason tells me I ought to conquer the cold shudder." (Darwin C.R., Letter to Asa Gray, February, 1860, in Darwin, F., ed., "The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," [1898], Basic Books: New York NY, Vol. II., 1959, reprint, pp.66-67)

3) in another private letter about the same time, Darwin wrote to another of his confidants, geologist Charles Lyell, that Cambridge botany professor John Henslow, "also shudders at the eye":

"Henslow is staying here; I have had some talk with him; he is in much the same state as Bunbury, I and will go a very little way with us, but brings up no real argument against going further. He also shudders at the eye! " (Darwin, C.R., Letter to Charles Lyell, February, 15th, 1860, in ibid., p.79)

4) in 1844, in a sketch of his theory discovered after his death, Darwin wrote (presumably in the margin because I cannot see it in the webbed copy) that the origin of "the eye ... was `the greatest difficulty to the whole theory":

"In July 1844, when Annie was three, Charles wrote a note for Emma: `I have just finished my sketch of my species theory. If, as I believe ... my theory is true, and if it be accepted even by one competent judge, it will be a considerable step in science. I therefore write this, in case of my sudden death, as my most solemn and last request, which I am sure that you will consider the same as if legally entered in my will, that you will devote £400 to its publication: He showed the essay to Emma and she found time to read it carefully, noting a few places where she did not understand his train of thought. She also questioned one important point in his argument. Paley in his Natural Theology and generations of naturalists before him had found the structure and functioning of the eye the most persuasive of all the proofs of the existence of God `from design: It was clearly the contrivance of a Creative mind, and Paley claimed it was impossible to imagine how such a complex mechanism could have developed by a chance succession of small steps from an organ with another function. Charles recognised that if he was to persuade others to accept his theory, he must be able to show that the structure could have evolved in this way by a purely natural process. He wrote in the essay that this was `the greatest difficulty to the whole theory' and offered an ingenious suggestion as to how the development might have occurred. But Emma was not persuaded by his argument, and wrote in the margin 'A great assumption - E.D.' Charles's suggestion was, indeed, a `great assumption', and Emma knew that it was a key part of the argument for the theory which he hoped would be a major contribution to science. It was only ever a conjecture; the evidence for it was widely scattered, indirect and fragmentary. For Emma to question the point in the direct way that she did was to strike at the heart of the theory." (Keynes, R., "Annie's Box: Charles Darwin, His Daughter and Human Evolution," Fourth Estate: London, 2001, p.79-80. Ellipses Keynes')

It is by the way not only creationists who take Darwin at his word that he had doubts about some aspects of evolution. Evolutionist anthropologist Barbara Noske wrote that "Even Darwin himself was occasionally seized by doubt while contemplating organs of extreme perfection" and citing Darwin's admission that "The eye gives me a cold shudder":

"Bypassing the recent wave of Creationism in the US and its criticism of Darwin's theory, a number of objections can be made against the notion of natural selection, some of which I will mention here. Such intricate changes have arisen in nature, involving such immensely complex series of mutations that mathematicians find it almost impossible to attribute these to blind chance. Rattray Taylor mentions several instances of features which evolved long before they were of any advantage so that they hardly can have been caused by natural selection. Even Darwin himself was occasionally seized by doubt while contemplating organs of extreme perfection. `The eye gives me a cold shudder,' he wrote." (Noske, B., "Humans and Other Animals: Beyond the Boundaries of Anthropology," Pluto Press: London, 1989, p.65)

This part #2 has become too long for my blog, so I will continue it in part #3.

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

Re: Would Jesus stoop to quotemining? #1

AN

----- Original Message -----
From: AN
To: Stephen E. Jones
Sent: Saturday, June 10, 2006 12:30 AM
Subject: Would Jesus stoop to quotemining?

[Graphic: Dr George Matsumoto, BioForum, California Academy of Sciences.]

Thank you very much for your message - or rather, just sending me John Stear's "The incomprehensible creationist - the Darwin "eye" quote revisited" criticism of me for the following quote of Darwin on the eye one of my web pages:

Darwinism (including Neo-Darwinism) #4 - Difficulties: [...]
* Eye
o Darwin admitted it seemed "absurd in the highest degree" that the eye could have been formed by natural selection

"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree." (Darwin, Charles R. [English naturalist and founder of the modern theory of evolution], "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," [1872], Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons: London, 6th Edition, 1928, reprint, p.167)

As is my normal practice when I receive a private message on a creation/evolution/design topic, I have copied my response to my blog CreationEvolutionDesign, after removing your personal identifying information (and making some further changes by way of clarification).

Please don't interpret this as an invitation to debate this issue-it isn't. As I have explained many times before: 1) it is my long-standing policy not to get involved in private discussions on creation/evolution/design issues; and 2) after more than a decade (1994-2005) of publicly debating evolutionists on Internet discussion groups, I closed down my own Internet discussion group in order to post to my blog and write my book "Problems of Evolution" (and more recently to take a ~1-year detour classify my ~10,000 online quotes into an `Evolution Quotes Book'). So this is almost certainly my first and last response to you.

The reason why I thank you very much for your message, is that while Googling I had noticed Stear's criticism of me and I had thought of posting a response to my blog, and now you have given me the opportunity to do so.

Because of its length, I will divide this post into four parts, this part #1 dealing with your allegation of "quotemining" and whether Jesus would "stoop" (using your word) to it; and parts #2, #3 & #4, responding to Stear's page about Darwin's `explanation' of the eye.

So, first, a comment on your subject line question: "Would Jesus stoop to quotemining?" If by "quotemining" you mean "quote ... to speak or write (a passage) from another usually with credit acknowledgment" + "mining ... to extract from a source " (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary), then I enthusiastically plead guilty! Especially since I presume evolutionists real concern is one of Webster's alternative definition of "mining ... to dig under to ... cause the collapse of (an enemy position)"!

There is nothing wrong with selecting out from a larger body of writing, a quote to make a specific point. In fact both Jesus and the Apostles did it. For example, in Acts 17:22-33, the Apostle Paul addressed the Athenian philosophers and in v.28 quoted from their own pagan philosopher-poets, as my NIV Study Bible comments:

"ACTS ... 17:28, some of your own poets. There are two quotations here: (1) `In him we live and move and have our being,' from the Cretan poet Epimenides (c. 600 B.C.) in his Cretica, and (2) `We are his offspring,' from the Cilician poet Aratus (c. 315-240) in his Phaenomena, as well as from Cleanthes (331-233) in his Hymn to Zeus. Paul quotes Greek poets elsewhere as well (see 1Co 15:33; Tit 1:12 and notes)." (Barker, K., et al., eds., "The NIV Study Bible," Zondervan: Grand Rapids MI, 1985, p.1680).

And, as it happens, in my morning devotions about a week ago, in which I am going through the Messianic prophecies of Old Testament, I came to Isaiah 61:1-2:

"¹ The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, ² to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn,"

which Jesus part-quotes from in Luke 4:18-19, stopping mid-sentence to make His specific point:

¹⁸"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, ¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

My NIV Study Bible comments:

"ISAIAH ... 61:2 year of the LORD'S favor. Corresponds to the `day of salvation' in 49:8 (see note there) and the `year of my redemption' in 63:4. Christ ended his quotation at this point (Lk 4:19-20), probably because the `day of vengeance' will not occur until his second coming. day of vengeance. See 34:2,8 and notes." (Barker, 1985, p.1106) .

Now, no doubt Paul's and Jesus' opponents of that day (and indeed their modern equivalents) could, to avoid having to deal with the substance of their arguments, claim that Paul and Jesus "selectively," quote-mined," "out-of-context"!

Fearnside and Holther in their book "Fallacy: The Counterfeit of Argument," identify two criteria for determining whether a quote is "out of context": 1) "to make out through a suitable manipulation of the text that an authority is on his side" and 2) "omitting distinctions, exceptions or qualifying remarks, or by otherwise distorting the text":

"There is a special misuse of authority which is notorious under the name of quoting out of context. This may be done in either of two ways that seem especially attractive to the unscrupulous. The first is for one to make out through a suitable manipulation of the text that an authority is on his side. This is done by omitting distinctions, exceptions or qualifying remarks, or by otherwise distorting the text. The second is to treat the opponent as a sort of authority of his own position and to pounce upon something he has said that can be used against him-if the rest is ignored." (Fearnside, W.W. & Holther, W.B., "Fallacy: The Counterfeit of Argument," Prentice-Hall: Englewood Cliffs NJ, 1959, Twenty-fifth printing, pp.88-89)

Neither applies in this instance: 1) It should go without saying that I do not make out that Darwin is on my side (indeed an important point in quoting evolutionists with problems over aspects of evolution is that they are evolutionists):

"One more thing needs to be said. Evolutionists have often protested unfair to quoting an evolutionist as if he were against evolution itself. So let it be said from the outset that the vast majority of authorities quoted are themselves ardent believers in evolution. But that is precisely the point, and the value of The Revised QUOTE BOOK. The foundations of the evolutionary edifice are hardly likely to be shaken by a collection of quotes from the many scientists who are biblical creationists. In a court of law, an admission from a hostile witness is the most valuable. Quoting the evolutionary palaeontologist who admits the absence of in-between forms, or the evolutionary biologist who admits the hopelessness of the mutation/selection mechanism, is perfectly legitimate if the admission is accurately represented in its own right, regardless of whether the rest of the article is full of hymns of praise to all the other aspects of evolution." (Snelling, A., "The Revised Quote Book," [1984], Creation Science Foundation: Brisbane QLD, 1990, inside cover. Emphasis original)

And I do not manipulate the text, "omitting distinctions, exceptions or qualifying remarks, or by otherwise distorting the text." As always, I quote directly, with references, from Darwin's (and other evolutionists') own writings to show that Darwin really did have an ongoing problem in believing that the eye could have been formed solely by the natural selection of "slight, successive, favourable variations" (or random micromutations in Neo-Darwinism):

"As natural selection acts solely by accumulating slight, successive, favourable variations, it can produce no great or sudden modifications; it can act only by short and slow steps. Hence the canon of `Natura non facit saltum,' [nature does not make leaps] which every fresh addition to our knowledge tends to confirm, is on this theory intelligible." (Darwin, C.R., "The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection," 1872, Sixth Edition, Senate: London, 1994, pp.413-414. Parenthesis mine).

2) As for treating Darwin as an "authority of his own position," clearly he is in this context of his own explanation of the origin of the eye solely by the natural selection of random micromutations in his Origin of Species. If evolutionists want to concede that Darwin's explanation of the eye was inadequate, then they have conceded my point. But their problem then is that after ~150 years, there is nothing better, and indeed the problem (as with other long-standing problems of evolution) has only become worse (since if it really happened fully naturalistically, then science should have by now discovered it). Then there would be no need for claims of "quotemining." All evolutionists would need to do is produce the fully naturalistic explanation. Indeed, the more evolutionists employ such "shoot the messenger" defences, the more they show that the critics are right!

In respect of "to pounce upon something he has said that can be used against him-if the rest is ignored," in this context I am only dealing with Darwin's explanation of the eye in his Origin of Species, and I have not ignored anything in respect of that. As will be seen in part #4, on at least two different Internet discussion groups when this issue came up, I quoted Darwin's entire explanation in his Origin of Species of the origin of the eye, interspersed with my critical comments, and invited my evolutionist opponent(s) to debate it with me in detail but there were no takers!

Of course, I do not expect committed evolutionists to concede that I am not "quote-mining," i.e. "dishonestly," "selectively," "quoting out of context" Darwin (or any other leading evolutionists with probems of aspects of evolution). In my experience most (not all) evolutionists work on the principle that: 1) It just simply cannot be that Darwin did not explain the eye (or any other major evolutionist claim); and therefore 2) the critic who presents evidence to that effect by quoting from the original source(s), must be guilty of (deliberately) misquoting Darwin (or other leading evolutionists). QED! It is always easier to "shoot the messenger" than to accept the bad news he brings (but unfortunately that does not change matters if the bad news is real)!

I will now begin to deal with the substance of Stear's argument in part #2.

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

Big bang in Antarctica - killer crater found under ice #4

Big bang in Antarctica - killer crater found under ice, EurekAlert!, 1-Jun-2006, Pam Frost Gorder, Ohio State University ... [Graphic: Gravity fluctuations and radar images in the Wilkes Land region of East Antarctica, Spaceflight Now]

[Continued from part #3 ... But as anthropologist Matt Cartmill pointed out, in what I consider to be the most amazingly perceptive article I have ever seen by an evolutionist, that when "Stephen Jay Gould argue[d] that the evolution of human beings was fantastically improbable and that a host of unlikely events had to fall out in just the right way for intelligent life to emerge on this planet," then "One might well take this as a sign of God's hand at work in the evolutionary process":

"Evolutionists seem to be especially prone to this mistake. The claim that evolution is purposeless and undirected has become almost an article of faith among evolutionary biologists. For example, the official `Statement on Teaching Evolution' from the National Association of Biology Teachers describes evolution as `an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable, and natural process.' That pretty much rules God out of the picture. One popular book on evolution, Richard Dawkins's Blind Watchmaker, is subtitled Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design. In his book Wonderful Life, Stephen Jay Gould argues that the evolution of human beings was fantastically improbable and that a host of unlikely events had to fall out in just the right way for intelligent life to emerge on this planet. One might well take this as a sign of God's hand at work in the evolutionary process. Gould, however, bends his argument to the opposite conclusion that the universe is indifferent to our existence and that humans would never evolve a second time if we rewound time's videotape and started over. But to reach this conclusion, you have to assume the very thing that you are trying to prove: namely, that history isn't directed by God. If there is a God, whatever he wills happens by necessity. Because we can't really replay the same stretch of time to see if it always comes out the same way, science has no tests for the presence of God's will in history. Gould's conclusion is a profession of his religious beliefs, not a finding of science. The broad outlines of the story of human evolution are known beyond a reasonable doubt. However, science hasn't yet found satisfying, law-based natural explanations for most of the details of that story. All that we scientists can do is admit to our ignorance and keep looking. Our ignorance doesn't prove anything one way or the other about divine plans or purposes behind the flow of history. Anybody who says it does is pushing a religious doctrine." (Cartmill, M., "Oppressed by Evolution," Discover, Vol. 19, No. 3, March 1998)

As a tournament chess player in my misspent youth, I was impressed at the time by 1996 this perceptive article on Deep Blue - Kasparov, 1996, Game 1, the first serious chess game won by a computer against a reigning world chess champion. In particular, the observation that, "The omniscient have no fear," referring to Deep Blue taking what seemed to human grandmasters, "crazy chances," indeed "insane" moves:

"What is Deep Blue's secret? Grand master Yasser Seirawan put it most succinctly: `The machine has no fear.' He did not just mean the obvious, that silicon cannot quake. He meant something deeper: because of its fantastic capacity to see all possible combinations some distance into the future, the machine, once it determines that its own position is safe, can take the kind of attacking chances no human would. The omniscient have no fear. In Game 1, Blue took what grand master Robert Byrne called `crazy chances.' On-site expert commentators labeled one move `insane.' It wasn't. It was exactly right. Here's what happened. Late in the game, Blue's king was under savage attack by Kasparov. Any human player under such assault by a world champion would be staring at his own king trying to figure out how to get away. Instead, Blue ignored the threat and quite nonchalantly went hunting for lowly pawns at the other end of the board. In fact, at the point of maximum peril, Blue expended two moves-many have died giving Kasparov even one-to snap one pawn. It was as if, at Gettysburg, General Meade had sent his soldiers out for a bit of apple picking moments before Pickett's charge because he had calculated that they could get back to their positions with a half-second to spare. In humans, that is called sangfroid. And if you don't have any sang, you can be very froid. But then again if Meade had known absolutely-by calculating the precise trajectories of all the bullets and all the bayonets and all the cannons in Pickett's division-the time of arrival of the enemy, he could indeed, without fear, have ordered his men to pick apples. Which is exactly what Deep Blue did. It had calculated every possible combination of Kasparov's available moves and determined with absolute certainty that it could return from its pawn-picking expedition and destroy Kasparov exactly one move before Kasparov could destroy it. Which it did. It takes more than nerves of steel to do that. It takes a silicon brain. No human can achieve absolute certainty because no human can be sure to have seen everything. Deep Blue can. Now, it cannot see everything forever-just everything within its horizon, which for Deep Blue means everything that can happen within the next 10 or 15 moves or so." (Krauthammer, C., "Deep Blue Funk," Time, South Pacific edition, February 26, 1996, pp.70-71)

Humans chessplayers, even the best, have to have informal rules of thumb, based on centuries of accumulated experience, e.g. taking pawns with your queen far over on the opponent's queenside, while your king is under attack on your kingside, is suicidal. This is because, as the article says, "No human can achieve absolute certainty because no human can be sure to have seen everything." But, as the article continues, "Deep Blue can ... see everything within its horizon" with absolute infallibility.

Now this is (to me at least) a good analogy of how the omniscient God can, and does, do things that may seem to limited humans as "crazy" and even "insane." God, the Bible tell us, has "the plan determined for the whole world" that encompasses "all nations" (Isa 14:26). In this plan God "works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will,"(Eph 1:11). Therefore God could (and I firmly believe did) create humans "from the dust of the ground" (Gen 2:7) by using as his `potter's clay' (Isa 29:16; 45:9; 64:8; Jer 18:4,6; Rom 9:21) any of the resource of His universe. Being truly omniscient God does not need rules, and so His plan looks to the unbeliever like:

" there was nothing preordained about the emergence of Homo sapiens on the plains of Africa ... The sobering conclusion is that even when everything else in the environment was perfect, blind chance still ruled the development of intelligent life" (Taylor, S.R., "Destiny or Chance: Our Solar System and its Place in the Cosmos," [1998], Cambridge University Press: Cambridge UK, 2000, reprint, pp.191-192)

This plan includes (if in fact it is what happened) a giant meteor impact ~250 mya in East Gondwana, which in turn was a causal factor in: 1) Australia beginning its separation from Antarctica ~100 mya as the final stage of breakup of Gondwana; 2) creating the Antarctic Circumpolar Current; 3) causing global temperatures to cool; 4) including Africa; which, together with other tectonic movements including the opening of the Great Rift Valley in Africa, 5) "led to a diversification of local climates that encouraged adaptation and speciation among the higher apes," including "more open, savanna vegetation" which was a factor in the emergence of "bipedalism and other human adaptive traits":

"These shifts were the result of longer-term changes than those produced by astronomical fluctuations, and were almost certainly related to plate tectonics. The build-up of ice in the Northern Hemisphere may have resulted from the uplift of the Tibetan and Colorado plateaus disturbing global atmospheric circulation (Tibet has risen by some two vertical kilometres during the Plio-Pleistocene). Glaciation in Antarctica was probably initiated by the final breakup of the great southern continent, Gondwanaland. So long as Antarctica was joined to Australia and South America, cold polar ocean currents were deflected northwards towards the Equator and returned as warmer tropical waters. Once the link was broken, however, a circum-Antarctic current developed around the South Pole, isolating it thermally. The opening of Drake Passage between Tierra del Fuego and the Antarctic peninsula from about 22 million years ago may have been critical. Tectonic changes were also important in determining regional environmental histories. The compression of the zone between the European and African tectonic plates, for example, led to the temporary closure of the Straits of Gibraltar during the Miocene. As a result, Atlantic waters no longer flowed into the Mediterranean Sea, which progressively dried up to become a series of giant salt lakes - the so-called Messinian salinity crisis. Another region where tectonic and climatic histories were intertwined was East Africa. Here the opening of the Rift System during the later Cenozoic led to a diversification of local climates that encouraged adaptation and speciation among the higher apes. West of the rifts, rainfall was high enough to support tropical moist forest, but to the east, and in the rifts themselves, the climate became drier and more open, savanna vegetation came to dominate. Whether a move down from the trees encouraged bipedalism and other human adaptive traits is hard to know. However, it may be significant that Plio-Pleistocene hominids and modern chimpanzees and gorillas have disjunct distributions in tropical Africa; the apes are found only in moist forests and adjacent wood lands whereas the hominids lived in the savanna lands within and to the east of the rift system." (Roberts, N., "Human evolution in a geological context," in Jones, J.S., Martin, R. & Pilbeam, D., eds., "The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Evolution," Cambridge University Press: Cambridge UK, 1992, p.178)!]

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

Big bang in Antarctica - killer crater found under ice #3

Big bang in Antarctica - killer crater found under ice, EurekAlert!, 1-Jun-2006, Pam Frost Gorder, Ohio State University ... [Continued from part #2

Graphic: "Gravity fluctuations beneath East Antarctica measured by GRACE satellite," SPACE.com

Which gets me, eventually to the connection between this claimed giant meteor impact ~250 mya that it is claimed eventually helped cause Australian to split off from Antarctica ~150 million years later ~100 mya!

Australian planetary scientist, Professor Emeritus Stuart Ross Taylor (who I had quoted from in this previous post), has some other great quotes in his book, "Destiny or Chance: Our Solar System and its Place in the Cosmos" (1998) about how rare Earth is, and therefore "the odds of finding 'little green men' elsewhere in the universe decline to zero." But as a (presumed from the tone of the book) atheist/agnostic, he comforts himself that "even on this well-endowed planet, there was nothing preordained about the emergence of Homo sapiens on the plains of Africa," and "even when everything else in the environment was perfect, blind chance still ruled the development of intelligent life":

"However, despite this great flowering of life, intelligence seems to have developed only among the vertebrates, and there, rarely. Among the 24 orders of mammals, high intelligence seems to have arisen in only one, in primates. Why is this so? Clearly high intelligence has little evolutionary advantage, for it has appeared once in tens of billion attempts. As Ernst Mayr ... the biologist, has pointed out, [Mayr, E.W., "Does It Pay To Acquire High Intelligence?," Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, Vol. 37; No. 3, 1994, pp.150-154] even the development of high intelligence may not lead to the ability to communicate with distant planets. Only one of the 20 or so civilisations that have arisen on Earth in the past 5000 years has developed the technology to communicate with other possible life forms elsewhere. But even on this well-endowed planet, there was nothing preordained about the emergence of Homo sapiens on the plains of Africa. Three separate continents were available on the Earth on which the later stages of the evolution of land animals could evolve. [Pollard, W.G., "The prevalence of Earthlike planets," American Scientist , Vol. 67, November-December, 1979, pp.653-659, p.654] All these vast areas shared the benign conditions on this planet that make it such a comfortable environment for life. When life first invaded the land in the late Silurian and Devonian Periods about 400 million years ago, the scattered continents were slowly uniting into a single land mass, which we call Pangaea. During the next few hundred million years, as plants and animals evolved and the dinosaurs became dominant, this great mass began to split up. A large southern continent, called Gondwana (after an historic region of central India), sailed away. This in turn slowly fragmented into familiar pieces that now appear on our maps of the world. Australia, Antarctica and South America, carrying their cargo of animals and plants, broke away leaving Africa in isolation. Australia separated from the frozen southern continent and departed northward. Africa and India also travelled north at a rate of a few centimetres a year, finally ramming into Europe and Asia and creating from this titanic collision the mighty mountain chains of the Alps and Himalayas. So were formed the three continental masses on which the later evolution of land animals proceeded independently. Australia, isolated from the rest of the world, produced the weird marsupial animals that puzzled early explorers. In South America, the land animals and their fossil ancestors intrigued Charles Darwin by their differences from his familiar European species, but the South American monkeys, primates like us, never left the trees. Africa, in addition to the splendid array of lions, antelopes, zebras, giraffes and the rest that we all admire, managed to produce another unique species, Homo sapiens. On the other continents no species remotely resembling us arose. The sobering conclusion is that even when everything else in the environment was perfect, blind chance still ruled the development of intelligent life. When the remote possibilities of developing a habitable planet are added to the chances of developing both high intelligence and a technically advanced civilisation, the odds of finding 'little green men' elsewhere in the universe decline to zero." (Taylor, S.R., "Destiny or Chance: Our Solar System and its Place in the Cosmos," [1998], Cambridge University Press: Cambridge UK, 2000, reprint, pp.191-192)

Taylor (evidently not realising the contradiction), had earlier cited Laplace's famous reply to Napoleon who asked where God fitted into Laplace's mathematical model of the origin of the Solar System, that he had "no need for that hypothesis":

"The orbits of the planets, although elliptical as every schoolchild now is told, are in fact nearly circular. This regular arrangement led Laplace to the concept that the system had arisen far in the past from a primitive rotating cloud, the `solar nebula'. This idea has survived. This was in contrast to the ideas of Newton, who had believed that the Solar System had been created in its present form only a few thousand years earlier. Laplace however was an inhabitant of the Age of Enlightenment. Born into what we would now call a middle-class farming family, he had survived the French Revolution and was a distinguished member of the French scientific establishment at the beginning of the nineteenth century. He was able to show that the apparent variations in the orbits of the planets were self-correcting and so God was not needed to adjust the system. Laplace gave a copy of his famous book to Napoleon, to whom he had taught mathematics when the Emperor had been an artillery cadet. Bonaparte, seeing no mention of God, presumably the designer of the system, asked Laplace about this omission. Laplace, having solved the problem that had bothered Newton, made his famous reply that he had `no need for that hypothesis' [Brush, S.G., "A History of Modern Planetary Physics," Vol 1. Cambridge University Press, 1996, p.20] A watershed had been crossed. Now the solar system could be considered as having arisen by the operation of natural processes from a primitive beginning, rather than being created perfect in the instant. This marks the beginning of modern attempts to understand how the Sun and the planets came into being." (Taylor, 1998, p.15)

But as Taylor had written in the article I had cited in that previous post, Laplace was wrong as "attempts to find some general formulae for recreating the detail of the Solar System are likely to be on the wrong track" since "Local accidents have predominated over general theories":

"These new discoveries reinforce the message from our own system. Nothing resembling our Solar System has been discovered. The conditions that existed to make our set of planets are not easily reproduced elsewhere. Indeed, no two planets in the Solar System are alike. Likewise, the 80-odd moons are also odd characters that defy efforts to put them into pigeonholes. So it should have come as no surprise that when nature tried elsewhere to build planets the end result was different. We are left with the conclusion that attempts to find some general formulae for recreating the detail of the Solar System are likely to be on the wrong track. Local accidents have predominated over general theories, just as some overlooked detail of the landscape may ruin the course of a battle that was planned according to the best principles of military strategy." (Taylor, S.R., "The Solar System: An Environment For Life?," in Walter, M., ed., et al., "To Mars and Beyond: Search for the Origins of Life," Art Exhibitions Australia: Sydney & National Museum of Australia: Canberra, Australia, 2001, p.67)

Earlier in the same article he noted that "Many unique and unrepeatable events occurred as the planets were put together. So the formation of planets like the Earth is not an inevitable result that could be repeated like a gigantic computer program":

"HOW ARE PLANETS MADE? The most popular current theory is that planets are built up `brick by brick' from smaller bodies called planetesimals. This is usually referred to as the planetesimal hypothesis. There is a lot of evidence for the former existence of planetesimals during the formation of the Solar System. For example, the large tilts of many planets (the Earth's is 23.5 degrees) have been caused by collision with very large bodies well over 1000 kilometres in diameter. The rapid 24-hour spin of the Earth is probably due to a giant impact that probably formed the Moon as a by-product. Venus, in contrast, has almost zero tilt and is rotating very slowly backwards, taking 243 Earth days for one rotation. Perhaps Venus never experienced a giant impact. The large icy giant, Uranus, 14 times more massive than the Earth, is lying on its side. A body the size of the Earth would be needed to tip Uranus over, while collisions with a body between three and 10 Earth masses would be needed to produce the 27-degree tilt of Saturn. All the planets spin. All the planets spin at different rates. These observations all point to the growth of planets in our system from a series of large bodies rather than from dust or small - less than 10 kilometre diameter - bodies. The ultimate significance is that many chance collisions occur randomly while planets are growing. Many unique and unrepeatable events occurred as the planets were put together. So the formation of planets like the Earth is not an inevitable result that could be repeated like a gigantic computer program, but partly depends on random events during the early history of the nebula. Venus, Earth and Mars (we have no data for Mercury at present) all appear to have lost volatile elements such as lead, sodium, potassium as well as water. This appears to be typical of the entire inner Solar System. The most plausible model is that early violent solar activity swept away not only the gaseous elements, but also ices and volatile elements that had not condensed." (Taylor, 2001, p.59. Emphasis original)

This is a good (or bad!) example of atheist/agnostics' `heads-atheism-wins-and-tails-God-loses' thinking. If the Solar System arose as the result of simple natural laws, then science has "no need for that [God] hypothesis." But if the Solar System arose as the result not of simple natural laws, but by a series of unique events, then again, science has "no need for that [God] hypothesis"!

[Concluded in part #4]

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

Big bang in Antarctica - killer crater found under ice #2

Big bang in Antarctica - killer crater found under ice, EurekAlert!, 1-Jun-2006, Pam Frost Gorder, Ohio State University ...

[Graphic: ScienceDaily

Whatever caused the Permian extinction - not to mention the other four of the `Big Five' mass extinctions - the bottom line is that without it (and indeed all of them) we would not be here! ... Continued from part #1

I was reading a 1982 essay by the late Ernst Mayr on the unlikelihood that there is extraterrestrial intelligent life and therefore that SETI was a waste of time. I knew that Mayr had in 1988 pointed out that because "each step leading to the evolution of intelligent life on earth was highly improbable and that the evolution of the human species was the result of a sequence of thousands of these highly improbable steps", therefore "It is a miracle that man ever happened, and it would be an even greater miracle if such a sequence of improbabilities had been repeated anywhere else" (my emphasis):

"Looking at the SETI project from a biologist's point of view ... I demonstrate that each step leading to the evolution of intelligent life on earth was highly improbable and that the evolution of the human species was the result of a sequence of thousands of these highly improbable steps. It is a miracle that man ever happened, and it would be an even greater miracle if such a sequence of improbabilities had been repeated anywhere else." (Mayr, E.W., "Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist," Harvard University Press: Cambridge MA, 1988, p.5)

Here are just three in that "sequence of thousands of highly improbable steps," which if they had not happened, we would not be here:

1) "an astonishing, unique event 1800 million years ago the first eukaryote originated, a creature with a well-organized nucleus and the other characteristics of `higher' organisms":

"After the origin of life, i.e. 3.8 billion years ago, life on Earth consisted for 2 billion years only of simple prokaryotes, cells without an organized nucleus. These bacteria and their relatives developed surely 50-100 different (some perhaps very different) lineages, but none of them led to intelligence in this enormously long time. Owing to an astonishing, unique event that is even today only partially explained, 1800 million years ago the first eukaryote originated, a creature with a well-organized nucleus and the other characteristics of `higher' organisms. From the rich world of the protists (consisting of only a single cell) there eventually originated three groups of multicellular organisms: the fungi, the plants and the animals. But none of the millions of species of fungi and plants was able to produce intelligence." (Mayr, E.W., "The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence," in Zuckerman, B. & Hart, M.H., "Extraterrestrials: Where Are They?," [1982], Cambridge University Press: New York, Second edition, 1995, pp.153-154)

2) the origin of higher intelligence in only one phylum "the chordates," in only one lineage of chordates' "the vertebrates," in only one lineage of vertebrates, "the mammals," in only one order of mammals, the primates (not mentioned by Mayr):

"The animals (Metazoa) branched out in the Precambrian and Cambrian to about 60-80 lineages (phyla). Only a single one of them, that of the chordates, led eventually to genuine intelligence. The chordates are an old and well-diversified group, but only one of its numerous lineages, that of the vertebrates, eventually produced intelligence. Among the vertebrates a whole series of groups evolved, types of fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Again it was only a single lineage, that of the mammals, that led to high intelligence. The mammals had a long evolutionary history which began in the Triassic, more than 200 million years ago, but only in the latter part of the Tertiary, i.e. some 15-20 million years ago, did higher intelligence originate in one of the c. 24 orders of mammals." (Mayr, 1995, p.154)

and 3) from that one order of primates, only one species, "Homo sapiens " out of a total of "perhaps as many as 50 billion species, since the origin of life," "achieved the kind of intelligence needed for the establishment of a civilization":

"The elaboration of the brain of the hominids began only about 3 million years ago, and that of the cortex of Homo sapiens only about 300 000 years ago. Nothing demonstrates the improbability of the origin of high intelligence better than the millions of phyletic lineages that failed to achieve it. How many species have existed since the origin of life? This figure is as much a matter of speculation as the number of planets in our Galaxy. But if there are 30 million living species, and if the life expectancy of a species is about 100 000 years, then one can postulate that there have been billions, perhaps as many as 50 billion species, since the origin of life. Only one of these achieved the kind of intelligence needed for the establishment of a civilization." (Mayr, 1995, p.154)

Which reminds me, that Julian Huxley, co-founder of the Neo-Darwinian Modern Synthesis, also pointed out in 1941 that "not merely has conceptual thought been evolved only in man: it could not have been evolved except in man," there being "but one path of unlimited progress through the evolutionary maze" and so "The course of human evolution is as unique in the profounder sense of being the only path that could have achieved the essential characters of man":

"We are now in a position to define the uniqueness of human evolution. The essential character of man as a dominant organism is conceptual thought. And conceptual thought could have arisen only in a multicellular animal, an animal with bilateral symmetry, head and blood system, a vertebrate as against a mollusc or an arthropod, land vertebrate among vertebrates, a mammal among land vertebrates. Finally, it could have arisen only in a mammalian line which was gregarious, which produced one young at a birth instead of several, and which had recently, become terrestrial after a long period of arboreal life. There is only one group of animals which fulfils these conditions-a terrestrial offshoot of the higher Primates. Thus not merely has conceptual thought been evolved only in man: it could not have been evolved except in man. There is but one path of unlimited progress through the evolutionary maze. The course of human evolution is as unique as its result. It is unique not in the trivial sense of being a different course from that of any other organism, but in the profounder sense of being the only path that could have achieved the essential characters of man." (Huxley, J.S., "The Uniqueness of Man," in "The Uniqueness of Man," Chatto & Windus: London, 1941, Third impression, pp.15-16)]

[Concluded in part #3]

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

Big bang in Antarctica - killer crater found under ice #1

Big bang in Antarctica - killer crater found under ice, EurekAlert!, 1-Jun-2006, Pam Frost Gorder, Ohio State University ...

[Graphic: "Airborne radar image of land elevation in East Antarctica," Ohio State University]

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Planetary scientists have found evidence of a meteor impact much larger and earlier than the one that killed the dinosaurs -- an impact that they believe caused the biggest mass extinction in Earth's history. [Also at: ABC, BBC, Nature, PhysOrg.com, SPACE.com & Sydney Morning Herald.]

The 300-mile-wide crater lies hidden more than a mile beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. And the gravity measurements that reveal its existence suggest that it could date back about 250 million years -- the time of the Permian-Triassic extinction, when almost all animal life on Earth died out. [I was inclined to accept this, but after reading the Nature article where most geologists contacted seemed to be sceptical, I had second thoughts. A problem is when and where it was (see below).

Its size and location -- in the Wilkes Land region of East Antarctica, south of Australia -- also suggest that it could have begun the breakup of the Gondwana supercontinent by creating the tectonic rift that pushed Australia northward. [This was not when Gondwana "began to break up in the mid- to late Jurassic (about 167 million years ago)," i.e. 84 million years after the Permian extinction, which was ~251 million years ago!

And the crater is not where Gondwana began to break up, which was between Antarctica, South America, Africa, and India [Graphic: "East African and Kuungan Orogens",Wikipedia]; whereas the claimed crater is between Australia and Antarctica, which as this article points out, that split was "100 million years ago", i.e. 150 million years after the Permian extinction!

However, if this does turn out to be a crater, then it may well have been a factor in creating a fault line that later, after Gondwana had been breaking up for ~70 million years, Australia and Antarctica later separated along. Perhaps that is all that is being claimed?]

Scientists believe that the Permian-Triassic extinction paved the way for the dinosaurs to rise to prominence. The Wilkes Land crater is more than twice the size of the Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan peninsula, which marks the impact that may have ultimately killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. [As the Nature article notes, most geologists consider it was "when a vast volcanic eruption released a flood of lava to create the Siberian Traps - an area of basalt that covers an area larger than Europe" which was "the biggest volcanic event of all time, and coincide precisely with the extinction." Although if this turns out to have been a be a "300 miles wide" crater, then its shock waves could well have been the trigger for that eruption, as according to this map, Antarctica and Siberia seem to have been then roughly opposite through the centre of the globe.]

The Chicxulub meteor is thought to have been 6 miles wide, while the Wilkes Land meteor could have been up to 30 miles wide -- four or five times wider. "This Wilkes Land impact is much bigger than the impact that killed the dinosaurs, and probably would have caused catastrophic damage at the time," said Ralph von Frese, a professor of geological sciences at Ohio State University. He and Laramie Potts, a postdoctoral researcher in geological sciences, led the team that discovered the crater. Approximately 100 million years ago, Australia split from the ancient Gondwana supercontinent [See above on the timing mismatch] and began drifting north, pushed away by the expansion of a rift valley into the eastern Indian Ocean. The rift cuts directly through the crater, so the impact may have helped the rift to form, von Frese said. [Or alternatively, the rift caused an eruption that left a circular lava magma dome?

Whatever caused the Permian extinction - not to mention the other four of the `Big Five' mass extinctions:

"When a paleontologist is asked how many mass extinctions there have been, the invariable answer is five: one each in the Ordovician [~450 mya], Devonian [~365 mya], Permian [~250 mya], Triassic [~200 mya], and Cretaceous [~65 mya] periods-events known as the Big Five. When asked what went on in between, he or she usually replies that there was a continuous, low level extinction called `background' with, perhaps, a few pulses above background but not large enough to be called mass extinctions." (Raup, D.M., "Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck?," [1991], Oxford University Press: Oxford UK, 1993, reprint, pp.65-66. Parentheses mine)

the bottom line is that without it (and indeed all of them) we would not be here! I base this on the Capra-Gould "Wonderful Life" principle that even "small and apparently insignificant changes lead to cascades of accumulating difference":

"The greatest expression of contingency-my nomination as the holotype of the genre-comes near the end of Frank Capra's masterpiece, it's a Wonderful Life (1946). George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) has led a life of self-abnegation because his basic decency made him defer personal dreams to offer support for family and town. His precarious building and loan association has been driven to bankruptcy and charged with fraud through the scheming of the town skinflint and robber baron, Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore). George, in despair, decides to drown himself, but Clarence Odbody, his guardian angel, intervenes by throwing himself into the water first, knowing that George's decency will demand another's rescue in preference to immediate suicide. Clarence then tries to cheer George up by the direct route: `You just don't know all that you've done'; but George replies: `If it hadn't been for me, everybody'd be a lot better off.... I suppose it would have been better if I'd never been born at all.' Clarence, in a flash of inspiration, grants George his wish and shows him an alternative version of life in his town of Bedford Falls, replayed in his complete absence. 'This magnificent ten-minute scene is both a highlight of cinematic history and the finest illustration that I have ever encountered for the basic principle of contingency-a replay of the tape yielding an entirely different but equally sensible outcome; small and apparently insignificant changes, George's absence among others, lead to cascades of accumulating difference. Everything in the replay without George makes perfect sense in terms of personalities and economic forces, but this alternative world is bleak and cynical, even cruel, while George, by his own apparently insignificant life, had imbued his surroundings with kindness and attendant success for his beneficiaries. Bedford Falls, his idyllic piece of small-town America, is now filled with bars, pool halls, and gambling joints; it has been renamed Pottersville, because the Bailey Building and Loan failed in George's absence and his unscrupulous rival took over the property and changed the town's name. A graveyard now occupies the community of small homes that George had financed at low interest and with endless forgiveness of debts. George's uncle, in despair at bankruptcy, is in an insane asylum; his mother, hard and cold, runs a poor boarding house; his wife is an aging spinster working in the town library; a hundred men lay dead on a sunken transport, because his brother drowned without George to rescue him, and never grew up to save the ship and win the Medal of Honor. The wily angel, clinching his case, then pronounces the doctrine of contingency: `Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives, and when he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he? ... You see, George, you really had a wonderful life." (Gould, S.J., "Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History," [1989], Penguin: London, 1991, reprint, pp.287-288)]

[Continued in part #2]

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

Big Bang may have been a Big Bounce #3

Big Bang may have been a Big Bounce, ABC / Discovery News, Larry O'Hanlon, 24 May 2006 ...

[Graphic: "The Eyeballs in the Sky," The Perishers]

The Big Bang may have been a Big Bounce, say theorists searching for what preceded the birth of our own universe. ... [In fact I think there are Biblical reasons for thinking that the Big Bang was not the absolute beginning ... Continued from part #2]

The graphic is from a British cartoon series which ran in Australian newspapers (but maybe not in the USA?) called "The Perishers," about a boy Wellington and his dog Boot. Once a year (presumably coinciding with the British summer holidays), Boot would look into a seaside rock pool in which were crabs, complete with a preacher who would announce the return of "The Eyeballs in the Sky".

It was really quite profound. The surface of the rock pool was the event horizon of the crabs' "Pooliverse," beyond which they could not ever see nor go. They could forever only speculate, from what they could see on its surface, what might be beyond it. The cartoonist's point was that we humans (including cosmologists) are in the same position as those crabs. Scientifically we can never get beyond this Universe to see for ourselves what is there. All we have is endless speculation, that at best can only be consistent with minimal information contained at the interface between the surface of our "Pooliverse" and what lies beyond.

Now having said that, Christianity claims to have by Divine revelation in the Bible, information (albeit not scientific) about what lies beyond the Universe. And it is not necessarily the Christian position that the Big Bang was the absolute beginning. For starters there is the problem of when did God create the angels, since they were created (Ps 148:2-5; Col 1:16), but nothing is said about them in Genesis 1. The 19th century evangelical theologian, W.G.T Shedd, pointed out in 1888 (well before the discovery of the Big Bang in the 1920's) that "The doctrine of all immense time, prior to the six creative days, was a common view among the fathers and schoolmen" (i.e. the early to medieval Christian theologians / philosophers):

"Between the single comprehensive act of the creation of the angels and of chaotic matter, mentioned in Gen. 1:1, and the series of Divine fiats in the six days, described in Gen. 1:3-31, an interval of time elapsed. This is the old patristic interpretation. The very common assertion, that the church has altered its exegesis, under the compulsion of modern geology, is one of the errors of ignorance. The doctrine of all immense time, prior to the six creative days, was a common view among the fathers and schoolmen. So also was the doctrine of the rarefied and chaotic nature of matter in its first form, a patristic tenet. Kant's gaseous chaos filling the universe, adopted by La Place and Herschel, was taught, for substance, by Augustine, in the following positions taken in Confessions, XII. viii. 1. God created a chaotic matter that was `next to nothing;' that is, the most tenuous and imponderable form of matter. 2. This chaotic matter was made from nothing `before all days;' that is, in that prior period marked by the worlds `in the beginning.' 3. This chaotic unformed matter was subsequently formed and arranged, in the six days that are spoken of after Gen. 1:1. Augustine's exegesis of the first chapter of Genesis is substantially this: In the beginning, that is, in a time prior to the six days, God created ex nihilo, the angelic world, or `the heaven,' and chaotic inorganic matter, of `the earth.' Then in the six days he formed (not created) chaotic inorganic matter into a cosmical system, solar, stellar, and planetary, and upon the planet earth created (not formed) the organic vegetable, animal, and human species. This was the interpretation generally accepted in the patristic and middle ages. " (Shedd, W.G.T., "Dogmatic Theology," [1888], Zondervan: Grand Rapids MI, 1969, Vol. I, reprint, pp.474-475)

A thought had occurred to me (which I have not yet been able to confirm from any source) is that the Biblical term, "foundation of the earth" and especially "before the foundation of the earth" (see verses below) may sometimes, at least in some contexts, correspond to what we today call the laws and constants underlying the physical universe.

The idea of a foundation is the hidden part of a building upon which the visible structure rests (e.g. the foundations of a temple (1 Ki 5:17); a city (1 Ki 16:34); or a prison Acts 16:26). Here are what seem to me to be the relevant instances of the term "foundations of the earth" in the Bible.

In the Old Testament, the "foundations of the earth" (Heb. yacad 'erets) seem to be the underlying ultimate physical reality (2 Sam 22:16; Ps 18:15); which are "everlasting" (Mic 6:2); and cannot "be searched" (Jer 31:37). God "marked out the foundations of the earth" (Pr 8:29); "set the world" on them (1 Sam 2:8); such that "it can never be moved" (Ps 104:5). God "laid the earth's foundation" (Job 38:4), by His "own hand" (Isa 48:13); "by wisdom" (Pr 3:19); "in the beginning" (Ps 102:25). When He "stretched out the heavens" (Isa 51:13; Zec 12:1) and "set the heavens in place" (Isa 51:16).

In the New Testament, the "foundations of the earth" (I have to use the KJV because the NIV overtranslates as "creation of the world" the original Greek katabole = "laid down," "foundation" + kosmos = "ordered system," "world"), can mean the same as in the Old Testament, e.g. Heb 1:10 quoting Ps 102:25, "In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth." That is, as a synonym for the beginning, e.g. God's "works were finished from the foundation of the world" (Heb 4:3); "the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world" (Lk 11:50).

But the "foundations of the earth" can also refer to events before the creation of the physical universe. For example, the kingdom that the saved will inherit was prepared for them "from the foundation of the world" (Mt 25:34). There was a time "before the foundation of the world" in which the Father loved the Son (Jn 17:24); Jesus "was foreordained before the foundation of the world" (1 Pet 1:20); Jesus is "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev 13:8); Christians were chosen by God "before the foundation of the world" (Eph 1:4); their names "written in the book of life from the foundation of the world" (Rev 17:8).

I conclude with an adaptation of part of a post that I sent to a private Old-Earth creation list I am on, where the subject was multiple universes, but it is relevant to the question of universe(s) before this Universe.

The bottom line for me as a Christian, is the same as it was for the Apostle Paul, who was faced with a pagan culture that had a hierarchy of creators and creations (just as we have a pagan culture with a hierarchy of universes). Paul's strategy was not to waste his time trying to explain away each one (and by that stage he had been debating with pagan philosophers for ~30 years and so knew from experience it was impossible!), but instead use the formula: whether or not X exists, it was included in the "all things" that were created by God through Christ:

1 Cor 8:5-6: "For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many "gods" and many "lords"), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live." (my emphasis)

Col 1:16: "For by him [Christ] all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him."(my emphasis)

See also:

John 1:3: "Through him [Christ] all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made."

Heb 1:2: "but in these last days he [God] has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe."

That is, for me, whether there is only one universe, a cyclic universe, many universes, a multiverse, or a universe(s) before this universe, God through Christ created it/them!

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

Big Bang may have been a Big Bounce #2

Big Bang may have been a Big Bounce, ABC / Discovery News, Larry O'Hanlon, 24 May 2006 ...

[Graphic: Ashtekar's looped spacetime theory, Matthew E. Hogan, Earlham College.]

The Big Bang may have been a Big Bounce, say theorists searching for what preceded the birth of our own universe. ... [Continued from part #1] 'That's not to say we will never learn more about the earlier universe. [Assuming, for the sake of argument, that there was an "earlier universe," as astrophysicist Robert Jastrow pointed out in part #1, in the unimaginable compression and heat of the Big Bang singularity, there was a loss of information of what (if anything) existed before it (also assuming for the sake of argument, that there can be a "before" the Big Bang).

So there is a permanent limit, to what cosmologists can learn about any "earlier universe" (as opposed to what the late Robert M. Gacoigne, an Australian Christian biochemist turned historian of science called "a plethora of theoretical speculations" about it):

"Causes can be very difficult to find however. For the past dozen years or so intense theorizing has been going on about the very earliest instants of the Big Bang and about how it may have originated. [e.g. Davies, P., "The Mind of God," Simon & Schuster: London, 1992] It is very difficult to imagine how such theorizing can be subjected to experimental testing, except perhaps in highly indirect ways and even then the practical difficulties could well be enormous (and enormously expensive). A number of critics have expressed concern about this situation. One of them, after reviewing some of the current theory in this field, remarked: `The above mentioned far reaching speculations, practically removed from observational and experimental scrutiny and often dealing with essentially untestable propositions, are becoming increasingly fashionable in the scientific community, notwithstanding frequent formal declarations that testability and verifiability is the conditio sine qua non of science' [Pacholczyk, A.G., "The Catastrophic Universe," Pachart: Tucson AZ, 1984, p.89]. Another critic predicted that "increasing numbers of theorists will lose track of the essential role that experiment has played in shaping their science, and wander off into uncharted regions of philosophy and pure mathematics." [Chodos, A., "String Fever," American Scientist, 74, 1986, p.254] That seems to be what has happened. Though there is a plethora of theoretical speculations about the origin of the Big Bang there are no findings of any scientific solidity." (Gascoigne, R.M., "The History of the Creation: A Christian View of Inorganic and Organic Evolution," Fast Books: Sydney NSW, Australia, 1993, p.53)]

Astronomers are discovering patterns in the cosmic background radiation that appear to be the inflated remnants of electron-sized irregularities in the first instant of the Big Bang. Could those irregularities, combined with loop quantum gravity, reveal patterns inherited from the earlier universe? "There may be certain hints left behind," says Pullin. ... [See in part #1 on the problem of equifinality. There could be (and no doubt are) many, mutually exclusive theories that start from observed "patterns in the cosmic background radiation," and then theorise that these are "inflated remnants of electron-sized irregularities in the first instant of the Big Bang." But then how could they, when "combined with" another theory of "loop quantum gravity, reveal patterns inherited from the earlier universe"? Even assuming that there can be a meaningful "earlier" than time itself, how could such a series of theories, built on other theories, ever be tested? All the `heavy lifting' is in the theories themselves!

However, having said that, what if there was a universe before (assuming that has any meaning) the Big Bang? Gascoigne, although he thinks the Big Bang was the actual beginning, concedes that, "We cannot say however that the Big Bang was an absolute beginning" and there is a "possibility that the universe may have existed in some completely unknown way before the Big Bang":

"We cannot say however that the Big Bang was an absolute beginning. Science can provide no warrant for such a conception. We have to allow as a conceivable, if remote, possibility that the universe may have existed in some completely unknown way before the Big Bang. All we can say is that in terms of present knowledge it seems very likely that the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe and of time, so there was no 'before'. With this understanding it can now be asked whether the Big Bang has any significance for the Judeo-Christian doctrine of creation. We saw ... that there are several components of the doctrine, the most fundamental of them, and the one most emphasized in the theological tradition, being the ontological dependence of the universe on the Creator. The concept of time is simply not relevant to this article of the doctrine; consequently the fact, if it is a fact, that the universe began with the Big Bang about 15,000 million years ago is not relevant either. We also saw, however, that the idea that the universe had a beginning is also an element of the doctrine. Acceptance of the Big Bang as the beginning of the universe, then, is consistent with this part of the doctrine." (Gascoigne, 1993, pp.50-51. Emphasis original)

It is also worth remembering Gascoigne's point above that Christian theology for most of its history, has emphasised the "ontological dependence of the universe on the Creator," while also affirming "that the universe had a beginning" and that "The concept of time is simply not relevant to this article of the doctrine."

That is why it is not heretical in Christianity to believe that the Universe is ~10,000 years old (Young-Earth Creation) or that the Universe is ~14 billion years old (Old-Earth Creation). Christianity affirms that the Universe was created by God, not when it was created, except that it was "in the beginning" (Genesis 1:1) .

In fact I think there are Biblical reasons for thinking that the Big Bang was not the absolute beginning, but it would make this post too long. So ... to be concluded in part #3]

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