Category Archives: Darwinism

Statue of a young Charles Darwin, Shrewsbury School, by Ailurus~frwiki / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0).

Editors note: We are delighted to introduce a new series by biologist Jonathan Wells on the top scientific problems with evolution. This is the first entry in the series, excerpted from the new bookThe Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith: Exploring the Ultimate Questions About Life and the Cosmos. Find the full series so far here.

In 1973, biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote that nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.1In 1989, biologist Richard Dawkins wrote, It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet someone who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane (or wicked, but Id rather not consider that).2

But whatisevolution?

The wordevolutionhas many meanings. In one sense, it simply means change over time. In another it refers to the history of the cosmos, or the progress of technology, or the development of culture. No sane person believes that nothing changes over time, or that the cosmos, technology, and culture have no history. In these senses,evolutionis uncontroversial.

In biology,evolutioncan refer to the fact that many plants and animals now living are different from those that lived in the past. It can also refer to the fact that minor changes occur within existing species; we see such changes in our own families. But these uncontroversial meanings of biological evolution were not what Dobzhansky and Dawkins had in mind when they used the word. They meantDarwinianevolution.

Charles Darwin called his theorydescent with modification, by which he meant that all living things are descended from one or a few common ancestors that lived in the distant past. The ancestors were then modified by unguided processes such as small variations and natural selection (survival of the fittest). Darwin wrote inOn the Origin of Species,I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long ago, and that Natural Selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification.3He also wrote in hisAutobiography, There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings, and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.4

In the modern version of Darwins theory, often calledneo-Darwinism, accidental DNA mutations are considered to be the primary source of new variations. I will useevolutionto mean neo-Darwinism throughout the rest of this chapter.

Likeevolution,sciencehas several meanings. In this chapter, I will usescienceto refer toempiricalscience: the enterprise of searching for the truth by comparing hypotheses with evidence. So the question is: What are the top problems with the evidence for neo-Darwinism?

Following Darwins termdescent with modification, I will first consider the evidence for descent (the hypothesis that all living organisms are descended from common ancestors). Specifically, I will focus on homology, fossils, and molecular phylogeny. Then I will consider the evidence for modification (the hypothesis that organisms have evolved by strictly unguided natural processes). I will focus on natural selection, mutation, and speciation (the origin of new species).

Tomorrow, the problem of homology.

Read the original here:

Top Scientific Problems with Evolution - Discovery Institute

The reality is that the pandemic has seeped into our lives molding our norms and warranting uncomfortable changes which were previously unprecedented. Nevertheless, the chaotic influx of infections and new variants have perplexed people and scientists alike.

Just when the situation seems to be on the way to finding some relief, we find ourselves being bombarded with other haphazard revelations about the pandemic.

Following the Delta variant, with higher transmissibility and more severe infections, the vaccine administration became more critical. To ensure their effectiveness doctors recommended boosters and abidance of standard covid protocols like mask-wearing and social distancing.

Despite the sensitivity of the issue at hand, public negligence of health protocols has been a major concern. The primary way of achieving herd immunity against the virus is to have all individuals vaccinated which will prevent the virus from finding any vulnerable host and thus help eliminate it.

Michael Avenatti Found Guilty of Defrauding Stormy Daniels

This isnt as easy as it sounds because conspiracies about covid and the vaccine have caused imminent reservations in people who are now reluctant to get themselves administered with the shot.

This, however, is their personal choice and despite the regulations from the government if some people arent getting themselves administered they should be extra careful with their interactions and wear masks.

However, Im not against vaccines and in fact, would prefer if the masses were vaccinated because that would allow the health demographic to substantially get better. In a surprising statement by the director of DC mayors office of veteran affairs, Eliot Tommingo, he presented his extreme stance on unvaccinated individuals.

Which in my opinion was a tad too far-fetched and very unwarranted. Screenshots of his conversation were found by Brietbart showing his distaste for unvaccinated individuals. The post to which Elliot responded t was by Jonathen Lubecky who was ranting about being somewhere where the restrictions were lenient and in his own words didnt have stupid mandates.

His frustration stems from the strict reinforcement of SOPs endorsed by the mayor, Muriel Bowser, which restricts access for unvaccinated individuals at almost all public indoor places including restaurants, libraries, auditoriums, etc. Surprisingly even places of worship require proof of vaccination.

This imminent discrimination has been policing peoples movement to all public places and has been effective from January 15th. Even the mask mandate has been extended another month. In response to the criticism of the DC mandate, Eliot Tommingo responded with a rather absurd narrative.

Tommingo tells the man if he travels somewhere else he would happily accompany him but the problem is people are not ready to stop getting influenced by celebrities and unless they get themselves administered with the vaccine and stop eating their own piss or horse dewormer the mandates wouldnt have to be imposed for so long.

Tommingo also added its a necessary evil that those who are too negligent about their health and fail to protect themselves by resisting the imposition of vaccines would be killed off by Darwinism.

Lubecky responded to his statement and called on the stats which show 48 percent of the population is unvaccinated black citizens and his statement claims that all of them should be erased or killed off by Darwinism.

In a recent report, 43.4 percent of individuals are fully vaccinated which means a major sum are not, and according to Tommingos statement they should be dead by Darwinism as they are too foolish.

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This is a bit hard to digest because not only is it very privileged but doesnt take into account the mental trauma and personal reasoning that might cause a reluctance to get vaccinated.

Health officials have continually made promises of vaccines being effective but its the truth that the side effects have been shadowed leading to increased confusion and anxiety in Americans.

We are far from returning to a pre-pandemic era, and this is exactly why everyone is frustrated. If vaccines were the cue to a pre-pandemic lifestyle why are the mandates still strict and not being lifted off? Its been two years to this entirely different lifestyle and getting accustomed to wearing masks, getting tested, showing proof of vaccinations, and whatnot.

These frustrations are likely to grow with time and DCs mandate and absolute foolish replies will not help the cause. A bit of empathy and regard would work way better than Tommingos discriminatory disregard for the secrecy of human life.

More here:

Allowing 'Darwinism to Kill Off' the 'Foolish' Unvaccinated is a 'Necessary Evil,' According to a D.C. Mayor's Office official - The Lee Daily...

Image: Isaac Newton, via Wikimedia Commons.

Editors note: We have been delighted to present a new series by Neil Thomas, Reader Emeritus at the University of Durham, Charles Darwin and the Ghost of Epicurus. This is the fifth and final article in the series.Look here for the full series. Professor Thomass recent book isTaking Leave of Darwin: A Longtime Agnostic Discovers the Case for Design(Discovery Institute Press).

In 1838 Charles Babbage, the Cambridge mathematician and originator (with Lord Byrons daughter, Ada Lovelace) of the first rudimentary computer, claimed that the mysteries of nature could in all cases be more credibly explained by natural laws than by supernatural acts. That thesis had in the earlier part of the same decade already been successfully tested by Charles Lyell in his demonstration that currently observable causes in the terrestrial environment, acting at modest rates throughout the immensity of geological time, could build the full panoply of earthly events, from seas to mountains to volcanoes.1According to the new doctrine of geological uniformitarianism there was no longer any need for a divine hand to push up mountain ranges overnight.

Once the Newtonian paradigm in cosmology had won acceptance, there then followed a predictable amount of follow-my-leaderism as it came to be thought that all scientific explanations should henceforth remain congruent with that paradigm. After all,did not Darwinian theory dovetail satisfyingly with those other naturalistic approaches to the universe which had been gathering momentum in the late 18th and early 19th centuries and which, cumulatively but sometimes insensibly, were edging Britain towards a post-Christian era? Newton having satisfactorily explained the starry heavens above, and Lyell having explained the inanimate, geological realm, the sights of scientific research were now refocused on organic lifeby use of the same methodological means. The direction of the scientific quest now turned to finding a solution to the riddles of the terrestrial world in wholly natural terms: how had its plant and animal life developed?

It was at just this time that Darwin made his grand entrance on to the public stage to give people the kind of answer they would have wanted atpreciselythe time they would have wanted to hear it. He could not have timed it better, for now Darwin came to be seen as marching in triumphantly to provide a crowning consummation of Newton and Lyell. So it was that by the mid to late 1860s, Darwins theory began its irresistible integrationintothat great, overarching metanarrative of the age which reduced all things to natural causes, his intervention in history commonly viewed as a completion of the unfinished Cartesian revolution that demanded a mechanical model for all living processes.2

Once sheltered under the aegis of that mighty scientific metanarrative, Darwinism could be inducted with little more ado into the domain labelled science, no further questions asked (however pertinent), protesters being reduced to voices crying in the wilderness. It was in vain that Sir Charles Lyell protested that the application of his geological doctrine of uniformitarianism was not a valid analogy when applied to the sentient domain such constituting nothing less than a colossal philosophical category-error in Lyells view. It was in vain that early reviewers of theOrigin of Speciesalmost to a (wo)man remained unconvinced by Darwins speculations3or, even more remarkably, that Darwins proverbial bulldog, Thomas Huxley, could not accept the postulated mechanism of natural selection even to the end of his days.

Despite having no truly scientific, that is, empirical proof to recommend it, Darwinism was able to triumph because it synchronized with that spirit of the age which, after it had reached a certain momentum or critical mass, became, it appears, irresistible. At length it began tofeelright to people who, then as now, had no objective means of assessing whether it was right or wrong. So they simply capitulated to subjective gut-instincts in response to their vague intimations and anticipations of the ambient zeitgeist.

People chose to believe what they wanted to believe in obedience to the then reigning intellectual fashion. Or as Richard Hofstadter put the matter in his foundational study of the reception of theOrigin of Speciesin America, discoveries as (purportedly) revolutionary as Darwinism command so much interest and acquire so much prestige within the literate community that almost everyone feels obliged to at the very least bring his world-outlook into harmony with their findings.4Ultimately it was this would-be intellectual keeping up with the Joneses melded with the familiar Victorian wavering of faith which enabled people to transfer credence souncriticallyto an unprovable and improbable theory which, when viewed dispassionately, carried far less conviction than those philosophical understandings which had guided the steps of their forbears for more than two millennia within the Western tradition.

Excerpt from:

Darwin and the Newtonian Metanarrative - Discovery Institute

Concept of Social Darwinism?

Social Darwinism is referred to the group of theories which propagate the notion that society exists and survives on the same line as biological natural selection and survival of the fittest, as propagated by Charles Darwin. It was popularized by Richard Hofstadter in 1944.

The term social darwinism was coined by Thomas Henry Huxley in his review of Darwins On the Origin of Species in 1860. However, the modern concepts of social Darwinism did not evolve until the 1940s and 1950s with the advent of ideologies like fascism. It was used to support laissez faire and political conservatism as an opposition to the rise of fascism. The main proponents of social darwinism are Herbert Spencer, Thomas Malthus and William Graham Sumner. However, none of them explicitly used the term social darwinism to describe their work.

Beliefs

Social Darwinism propagates the belief that society, as an organism, survives by eliminating the weak, in this case the poor, while the stronger units, that is, the rich, survive as the fittest. Thus, the rich grew over the poor and the weak. Since there were natural inequalities among people, class stratification was the natural outcome. The rich had control over property and was perceived to possess superior qualities such as industriousness, morality, and temperance. Even though social Darwinists focused on the concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest, their arguments had very little to do with Darwins biological concepts of evolution. In fact, it is used more in terms of sociological and political context.

Social Darwinism and the Ideologies

Social Darwinism was used to propagate ideologies of colonialism, imperialism, eugenics and racism. Since the natural processes demand that the weak be eliminated, state intervention is seen as detrimental to this process. Free trade and competition are important for natural selection. The poor are weak and considered unfit and hence, should be helped in survival because they are destined to die. The rich, who are the strongest, will survive over the poor because they have the means to do so.

Herbert Spencers thoughts on Social Darwinism

Herbert Spencer was a popular figure in the discipline of evolutionary studies in the field of society. He propagated that human evolution would lead to the benefits of cooperation and community. He believed that individual freedom led to an evolving society. Thus, state intervention stunted the natural evolution of society. If free completion is allowed, then the population would result in the best competitors, which lead to an improvement in society and, in turn, the overall population.

Criticism

Social Darwinism has been severely criticised by scholars for its contribution to fascism and Nazism. Not only has it propagated imperialist and nationalist notions of power and subjugation but its belief in the survival of the fittest eventually led to the Nazi policy of pure race and Aryan superiority. Social Darwinists claimed that strong nations where the white people who could conquer and ruled over other nations and thus, expand. Other weaker nations consisted of people who were of lesser breeds and had to be eliminated. Thus, European colonialists rarely adopted and bothered to learn the language and culture of other nations.

See the rest here:

Social Darwinism - Communication Theory

Photo: Detail of Darwin statue, Natural History Museum, London, by Rept0n1x (Own work) [GFDL or CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Editors note: We have been delighted to host a series by Neil Thomas, Reader Emeritus at the University of Durham: The Return to the God Paradigm, of which this article is the fifth and final entry. Thomas has been reviewing three books:Is Atheism Dead?, by Eric Metaxas;Return of the God Hypothesis, by Stephen Meyer; andGod of the Details, byCristian Bandea.Find the full series here. Professor Thomass recent book isTaking Leave of Darwin: A Longtime Agnostic Discovers the Case for Design.

As Stephen Meyer makes abundantly clear in his meticulously thorough study,Return of the God Hypothesis, it is simply not possibleon strictly logical groundsto wave away the theory of the God hypothesis. Materialist science, on the other hand, taking up the contra-logical position that the universe createditselfby dint of natural law, has only the crypto-magical postulate of an effect without a cause to offer. Evolutionary psychologist Steve Stewart-Williams recently endorsed the purposeless automatism postulated by Darwinism in the following terms:

Over incomprehensibly vast stretches of time, the slow accumulation of serendipitously advantageous traits really adds up. It can result in the formation of complex adaptations (such as eyes and wings and the elephants trunk and the human brain). And ultimately it can result in the genesis of entirely new species.1

I find such abracadabra argumentation (which of course reflects Darwinism 101 to a tee) logically incoherent and more prone to produce laughter in me than to garner my assent. Ithaseven been charged that the use of such arguments, by eliding so many necessary links in the chain of reasoning, constitutes a form of intellectual fraud insofar as the narrative skips the difficult part in order to get to the resonant part.2

In his book,God of the Details, Cristian Bandea contends that an attempt is commonly made to forestall peoples logic-based inferences to a first cause: Science is trying to suppress that fundamental intuition and it uses its own fictions to do so. (p. 55) What he means by this is that Darwinism has been illegitimately instrumentalized to bounce people of faith into forsaking their considered beliefs. Such a totalitarian expropriation of individual rights, whilst not being actionable in a court of law, is still in the view of this reviewer amorallyculpable abuse of peoples individual rights and freedoms. Hence the tactical use of Darwinism as leverage to prise people away from those dispassionate empirical inferences we call our personal convictions and beliefs can in my view only be glossed as a fraudulent abuse of science rather as if a judge were to misdirect a jury in a crucially important trial. Thankfully, the forensic evidence itself is not so easily expunged, being preserved in the aspic of the public record and fully visible in the public domain as a standing reproach against the judicial misdirection.

In the early 19th century, the poet Shelley rather grandiloquently proclaimedpoetsto be the unacknowledged legislators of humanity, but as the century wore on that messianic role became increasingly one claimed (no less grandiloquently) by scientists of this or that stripe. However, the benefit of hindsight and historical reappraisal have joined to recategorize some of the more notable of such (would-be) legislators as mistaken messiahs. Post-1989 neither Marxs earthly utopia purportedly achievable by political prescription nor Freuds theories about endemic humanangstbeing curablevia talking therapieshave any longer been accorded the status of science.3Seen against the intellectual context of the displaced messianisms of Communism and Freudianism,4it might be expected that the overreaching explanatory ambitions of Darwinism would now be read as a comparable form of (secular) apocalyptic yearning promising more the hope of enlightenment than its reality. Yet Darwinism has been permitted to escape that fate by a variety of quite remarkable face-saving maneuvers.

When Darwins ignorance of genetics became clear after the belated rediscovery of Mendelism in the first decade of the 20th century, there was some talk of Darwinisms eclipse5and yet a slow but concerted move was initiated to save Darwins scientific honor by enshrining him as the foundation of what in 1942 was proclaimed to be the New Synthesis effectively melding older Darwinian ideas with the new science of genetics. Similarly, when in the early 1970s Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge advanced their theory of punctuated equilibrium to challenge Darwins ideas of strict biological gradualism, they claimed with whatever plausibility and verbal finessing they could muster that theirs wasnotan assault on Darwins theory since neither chose to challenge Darwins foundational mechanism of natural selection. Both in the 1940s and in the 1970s, then, a firm determination revealed itself to hold Darwin within the scientific embrace as an untarnished icon despite any and every difference of opinion. It appeared that Darwin, that very quintessence of the English gentleman in his own person, has been blessed with some decidedly gentlemanly (and/or self-interested) opponents in the 20th century. The net result of this sedulous Darwinian ring-fencing has been that, although other would-be gurus such as Marx and Freud have been toppled from their pedestals, Darwins acolytes still speak with all the unassailable confidence of 19th-century men of science and empire,6and this despite well-substantiated opposition from the intelligent design community plus numerous others not formally associated with that scientific grouping.

Any attempt to demonstrate the sheer untenability of Darwinian postulates is just met with an ever-closer circling of the wagons. By the same token, despite the overwhelming counter- arguments presented by the trio of books considered above, I cannot see the position changing any time soon since I doubt, alas, that such books are read much by the man or woman on the street. Hence there exists a clear gap in the market for more popular and easily accessible (cartoon-based?) books or other media forms to plug this gap. Theoretically this should be as easy as kicking a soccer ball through a set of open goalpostssansgoalkeeper given the comic logical deficiencies of Darwinism. But who out there feels (s)he possesses the creative/satirical gifts to step up to the plate and answer this challenge?

Read more:

Materialist Science as Paternalistic Propaganda - Discovery Institute

Photo: Archaeopteryx, by H. Raab (User: Vesta), CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons.

In hisreviewofReturn of the God Hypothesis, I was struck by Leonard Saxs quote from Friedrich Nietzsche, the year before Darwins death. Nietzsche reflected on the meaning of Darwinism for man:

Formerly one sought the feeling of the grandeur of man by pointing to his divine origin: this has now become a forbidden way, for at its portal stands the ape, together with other dreadful beasts, grinning knowingly as if to say: no further in this direction!

The image of dreadful beasts blocking the way is vivid and seemed correct at the time. The fossil record, in particular a record of beasts (and other life forms) that lived and died has often been presented by Darwinists as confirmation of their theory. Charles Darwin himself recognized that the voices of the dead were not entirely with him. Events like the Cambrian Explosion were not at all what was predicted by his theory of gradual, unguided change over time.

As geologist Casey Luskin explains in a bonus video accompanying the latestScience Uprisingvideo, the fossils speak with an increasing insistenceagainstDarwinian evolution. Darwin could predict that the fossil record was incomplete and that with time and additional digging, it would vindicate him.

Not so, however. Luskin notes that the so-called collectors curve tells us that the fossils are complete enough now to draw a conclusion. They reflect multiple genuine explosions of new forms, from the Cambrian to the abrupt rise of ourgenusHomo, while the expected transitional forms are either rare or totally lacking. On the other hand, population genetics and the waiting time problem are decisive in indicating that something beyond an unguided material process must be involved.

The dreadful beasts, grinning knowingly, have a message for evolutionists: no further in this direction! They are, in their way, part of theScience Uprising. If you missed the latest episode, watch it now:

Link:

The Dead Talk Back to Darwin - Discovery Institute

Jerry A. Coyne is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at The University of Chicago. In Why Evolution is True, he summarizes Darwinism the modern theory of evolution as follows: Life on earth evolved gradually beginning with one primitive species perhaps a self-replicating molecule that lived more than 3.5 billion years ago; it then branched out over time, throwing off many new and diverse species; and the mechanism for most (but not all) of evolutionary change is natural selection.1

Coyne further explains that evolution simply means that a species undergoes genetic change over time. That is, over many generations a species can evolve into something quite different, and those differences are based on changes in the DNA, which originate as mutations. The species of animals and plants living today werent around in the past, but are descended from those that lived earlier.2

According to Coyne, however, if evolution meant only gradual genetic change within a species, wed have only one species today a single highly evolved descendant of the first species. Yet we have many How does this diversity arise from one ancestral form? It arises because of splitting, or, more accurately, speciation, which simply means the evolution of different groups that cant interbreed.3

If Darwinian theory were true, we should be able to find some cases of speciation in the fossil record, with one line of descent dividing into two or more. And we should be able to find new species forming in the wild. Furthermore, we should be able to find examples of species that link together major groups suspected to have common ancestry, like birds with reptiles and fish with amphibians. Finally, there are facts that make sense only in light of the theory of evolution but do not make sense in the light of creation or design. These include patterns of species distribution on the earths surface, peculiarities of how organisms develop from embryos, and the existence of vestigial features that are of no apparent use. Coyne concludes his introduction with the bold statement that all the evidence both old and new leads ineluctably to the conclusion that evolution is true.4

Of course, evolution is undeniably true if it means simply that existing species can change in minor ways over time, or that many species living today did not exist in the past. But Darwins claim that all species are modified descendants of a common ancestor, and Coynes claim that DNA mutations and natural selection have produced those modifications, are not so undeniably true. Coyne devotes the remainder of his book to providing evidence for them.

Coyne turns first to the fossil record. We should be able, he writes, to find some evidence for evolutionary change in the fossil record. The deepest (and oldest) layers of rock would contain the fossils of more primitive species, and some fossils should become more complex as the layers of rock become younger, with organisms resembling present-day species found in the most recent layers. And we should be able to see some species changing over time, forming lineages showing descent with modification (adaptation). In particular, later species should have traits that make them look like the descendants of earlier ones.5

In The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin acknowledged that the fossil record presented difficulties for his theory. By the theory of natural selection, he wrote, all living species have been connected with the parent-species of each genus, by differences not greater than we see between the natural and domestic varieties of the same species at the present day. Thus in the past the number of intermediate and transitional links, between all living and extinct species, must have been inconceivably great. But Darwin knew that the major animal groups which modern biologists call phyla appeared fully formed in what were at the time the earliest known fossil-bearing rocks, deposited during a geological period known as the Cambrian. He considered this a serious difficulty for his theory, since if the theory be true, it is indisputable that before the lowest Cambrian stratum was deposited long periods elapsed and that during these vast periods the world swarmed with living creatures. And to the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system, I can give no satisfactory answer. So the case at present must remain inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained.6

Darwin defended his theory by citing the imperfection of the geological record. In particular, he argued that Precambrian fossils had been destroyed by heat, pressure, and erosion. Some of Darwins modern followers have likewise argued that Precambrian fossils existed but were later destroyed, or that Precambrian organisms were too small or too soft to have fossilized in the first place. Since 1859, however, paleontologists have discovered many Precambrian fossils, many of them microscopic or soft-bodied. As American paleobiologist William Schopf wrote in 1994, The long-held notion that Precambrian organisms must have been too small or too delicate to have been preserved in geological materials [is] now recognized as incorrect. If anything, the abrupt appearance of the major animal phyla about 540 million years ago which modern biologists call the Cambrian explosion or biologys Big Bang is better documented now than in Darwins time. According to Berkeley paleontologist James Valentine and his colleagues, the explosion is real, it is too big to be masked by flaws in the fossil record. Indeed, as more fossils are discovered it becomes clear that the Cambrian explosion was even more abrupt and extensive than previously envisioned.7

What does Coynes book have to say about this?

Around 600 million years ago, Coyne writes, a whole gamut of relatively simple but multicelled organisms arise, including worms, jellyfish, and sponges. These groups diversify over the next several million years, with terrestrial plants and tetrapods (four-legged animals, the earliest of which were lobe-finned fish) appearing about 400 million years ago.8

In other words, Coynes account of evolutionary history jumps from 600 to 400 million years ago without mentioning the 540 million year-old Cambrian explosion. In this respect, Coynes book reads like a modern biology textbook that has been written to indoctrinate students in Darwinian evolution rather than provide them with the facts.

Coyne goes on to discuss several transitional forms. One of our best examples of an evolutionary transition, he writes, is the fossil record of whales, since we have a chronologically ordered series of fossils, perhaps a lineage of ancestors and descendants, showing their movement from land to water.9

The sequence begins, Coyne writes, with the recently discovered fossil of a close relative of whales, a raccoon-sized animal called Indohyus. Living 48 million years ago, Indohyus was probably very close to what the whale ancestor looked like. In the next paragraph, Coyne writes, Indohyus was not the ancestor of whales, but was almost certainly its cousin. But if we go back 4 million more years, to 52 million years ago, we see what might well be that ancestor. It is a fossil skull from a wolf-sized creature called Pakicetus, which is bit more whalelike than Indohyus. On the page separating these two paragraphs is a figure captioned Transitional forms in the evolution of modern whales, which shows Indohyus as the first in the series and Pakicetus as the second.10

But Pakicetus as Coyne just told us is 4 million years older than Indohyus. To a Darwinist, this doesnt matter: Pakicetus is more whalelike than Indohyus, so it must fall between Indohyus and modern whales, regardless of the fossil evidence.

(Coyne performs the same trick with fossils that are supposedly ancestral to modern birds. The textbook icon Archaeopteryx, with feathered wings like a modern bird but teeth and a tail like a reptile, is dated at 145 million years. But what Coyne calls the nonflying feathered dinosaur fossils which should have come before Archaeopteryx are tens of millions of years younger. Like Darwinists Kevin Padian and Luis Chiappe eleven years earlier, Coyne simply rearranges the evidence to fit Darwinian theory.)11

So much for Coynes prediction that later species should have traits that make them look like the descendants of earlier ones. And so much for his argument that if evolution were not true, fossils would not occur in an order that makes evolutionary sense. Ignoring the facts he himself has just presented, Coyne brazenly concludes: When we find transitional forms, they occur in the fossil record precisely where they should. If Coynes book were turned into a movie, this scene might feature Chico Marx saying, Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?12

There is another problem with the whale series (and every other series of fossils) that Coyne fails to address: No species in the series could possibly be the ancestor of any other, because all of them possess characteristics they would first have to lose before evolving into a subsequent form. This is why the scientific literature typically shows each species branching off a supposed lineage.

In the figure below, all the lines are hypothetical. The diagram on the left is a representation of evolutionary theory: Species A is ancestral to B, which is ancestral to C, which is ancestral to D, which is ancestral to E. But the diagram on the right is a better representation of the evidence: Species A, B, C and D are not in the actual lineage leading to E, which remains unknown.

It turns out that no series of fossils can provide evidence for Darwinian descent with modification. Even in the case of living species, buried remains cannot generally be used to establish ancestor-descendant relationships. Imagine finding two human skeletons in the same grave, one about thirty years older than the other. Was the older individual the parent of the younger? Without written genealogical records and identifying marks (or in some cases DNA), it is impossible to answer the question. And in this case we would be dealing with two skeletons from the same species that are only a generation apart and from the same location. With fossils from different species that are now extinct, and widely separated in time and space, there is no way to establish that one is the ancestor of anotherno matter how many transitional fossils we find.

In 1978, Gareth Nelson of the American Museum of Natural History wrote: The idea that one can go to the fossil record and expect to empirically recover an ancestor-descendant sequence, be it of species, genera, families, or whatever, has been, and continues to be, a pernicious illusion.13 Nature science writer Henry Gee wrote in 1999 that no fossil is buried with its birth certificate. When we call new fossil discoveries missing links, it is as if the chain of ancestry and descent were a real object for our contemplation, and not what it really is: a completely human invention created after the fact, shaped to accord with human prejudices. Gee concluded: To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime story amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific.14

So evolutionary theory needs better evidence than the fossil record can provide. Coyne correctly notes: When he wrote The Origin, Darwin considered embryology his strongest evidence for evolution. Darwin had written that the evidence seemed to show that the embryos of the most distinct species belonging to the same class are closely similar, but become, when fully developed, widely dissimilar, a pattern that reveals community of descent. Indeed, Darwin thought that early embryos show us, more or less completely, the condition of the progenitor of the whole group in its adult state.15

But Darwin was not an embryologist. In The Origin of Species he supported his contention by citing a passage by German embryologist Karl Ernst von Baer:

The embryos of mammals, birds, lizards and snakes, and probably chelonia [turtles] are in their earliest states exceedingly like one another. In my possession are two little embryos in spirit, whose names I have omitted to attach, and at present I am quite unable to say to what class they belong. They may be lizards or small birds, or very young mammals, so complete is the similarity in the mode of formation of the head and trunk in these animals.16

Coyne claims that this is something von Baer wrote to Darwin, but Coynes history is as unreliable as his paleontology. The passage Darwin cited was from a work written in German by von Baer in 1828; Thomas Henry Huxley translated it into English and published it in 1853. Darwin didnt even realize at first that it was from von Baer: In the first two editions of The Origin of Species he incorrectly attributed the passage to Louis Agassiz.17

Ironically, von Baer was a strong critic of Darwins theory, rejecting the idea that all vertebrates share a common ancestor. According to historian of science Timothy Lenoir, von Baer feared that Darwin and his followers had already accepted the Darwinian evolutionary hypothesis as true before they set to the task of observing embryos. The myth that von Baers work supported Darwins theory was due primarily to another German biologist, Ernst Haeckel.18 Haeckel maintained not only that all vertebrate embryos evolved from a common ancestor, but also that in their development (ontogeny) they replay (recapitulate) their evolutionary history (phylogeny). He called this The Biogenetic Law: Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.

In Why Evolution Is True, Coyne writes that the recapitulation of an evolutionary sequence is seen in the developmental sequence of various organs. Each vertebrate undergoes development in a series of stages, and the sequence of those stages happens to follow the evolutionary sequence of its ancestors. The probable reason for this is that as one species evolves into another, the descendant inherits the developmental program of its ancestor. So the descendant tacks changes onto what is already a robust and basic developmental plan. It is best for things that evolved later to be programmed to develop later in the embryo. This adding new stuff onto old principle also explains why the sequence of developmental stages mirrors the evolutionary sequence of organisms. As one group evolves from another, it often adds its developmental program on top of the old one. Thus all vertebrates begin development looking like embryonic fish because we all descended from a fishlike ancestor.19

Nevertheless, Coyne writes, Haeckels Biogenetic Law wasnt strictly true, because embryonic stages dont look like the adult forms of their ancestors, as Haeckel (and Darwin) believed, but like the embryonic forms of their ancestors. But this reformulation of The Biogenetic Law doesnt solve the problem. First, fossil embryos are extremely rare,20 so the reformulated law has to rely on embryos of modern organisms that are assumed to resemble ancestral forms. The result is a circular argument: According to Darwins theory, fish are our ancestors; human embryos (allegedly) look like fish embryos; therefore, human embryos look like the embryos of our ancestors. Theory first, observation later just as von Baer had objected.

Second, the idea that later evolutionary stages can simply be tacked onto development is biologically unrealistic. A human is not just a fish embryo with some added features. As British embryologist Walter Garstang pointed out in 1922, a house is not a cottage with an extra story on the top. A house represents a higher grade in the evolution of a residence, but the whole building is altered foundations, timbers, and roof even if the bricks are the same.21

Third, and most important, vertebrate embryos are not most similar in their earliest stages. In the 1860s, Haeckel made some drawings to show that vertebrate embryos look almost identical in their first stage but his drawings were faked. Not only had he distorted the embryos by making them appear more similar than they really are, but he had also omitted earlier stages in which the embryos are strikingly different from each other. A human embryo in its earliest stages looks nothing like a fish embryo.

Only after vertebrate embryos have progressed halfway through their development do they reach the stage that Darwin and Haeckel treated as the first. Developmental biologists call this different-similar-different pattern the developmental hourglass. Vertebrate embryos do not resemble each other in their earliest stages, but they converge somewhat in appearance midway through development before diverging again. If ontogeny were a recapitulation of phylogeny, such a pattern would be more consistent with separate origins than with common ancestry. Modern Darwinists attempt to salvage their theory by assuming that the common ancestry of vertebrates is obscured because early development can evolve easily, but there is no justification for this assumption other than the theory itself.22

Although Haeckels drawings were exposed as fakes by his own contemporaries, biology textbooks used them throughout the twentieth century to convince students that humans share a common ancestor with fish. Then, in 1997, a scientific journal published an article comparing photos of vertebrate embryos to Haeckels drawings, which the lead author described as one of the most famous fakes in biology. In 2000, Harvard evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould called Haeckels drawings fraudulent and wrote that biologists should be both astonished and ashamed by the century of mindless recycling that has led to the persistence of these drawings in a large number, if not a majority, of modern textbooks.23

But Coyne is not ashamed. He defends Haeckels drawings Haeckel was accused, largely unjustly, Coyne writes, of fudging some drawings of early embryos to make them look more similar than they really are. Yet we shouldnt throw out the baby with the bath water.24 The baby is Darwins theory, which Coyne stubbornly defends regardless of the evidence.

Darwin argued in The Origin of Species that the widespread occurrence of vestigial organsorgans that may have once had a function but are now uselessis evidence against creation. On the view of each organism with all its separate parts having been specially created, how utterly inexplicable is it that organs bearing the plain stamp of inutility should so frequently occur. But such organs, he argued, are readily explained by his theory: On the view of descent with modification, we may conclude that the existence of organs in a rudimentary, imperfect, and useless condition, or quite aborted, far from presenting a strange difficulty, as they assuredly do on the old doctrine of creation, might even have been anticipated in accordance with the views here explained.25

In The Descent of Man, Darwin cited the human appendix as an example of a vestigial organ. But Darwin was mistaken: The appendix is now known to be an important source of antibody-producing blood cells and thus an integral part of the human immune system. It may also serve as a compartment for beneficial bacteria that are needed for normal digestion. So the appendix is not useless at all.26

In 1981, Canadian biologist Steven Scadding argued that although he had no objection to Darwinism, vestigial organs provide no evidence for evolutionary theory. The primarily reason is that it is difficult, if not impossible, to unambiguously identify organs totally lacking in function. Scadding cited the human appendix as an organ previously thought to be vestigial but now known to have a function. Another Canadian biologist, Bruce Naylor, countered that an organ with some function can still be considered vestigial. Furthermore, Naylor argued, perfectly designed organisms necessitated the existence of a creator, but organisms are often something less than perfectly designed and thus better explained by evolution. Scadding replied: The entire argument of Darwin and others regarding vestigial organs hinges on their uselessness and inutility. Otherwise, the argument from vestigiality is nothing more than an argument from homology, and Darwin treated these arguments separately recognizing that they were in fact independent. Scadding also objected that Naylors less than perfectly designed argument was based on a theological assumption about the nature of God, i.e. that he would not create useless structures. Whatever the validity of this theological claim, it certainly cannot be defended as a scientific statement, and thus should be given no place in a scientific discussion of evolution.27

In Why Evolution Is True, Coyne (like Darwin) cites the human appendix as an example of a vestigial organ. Unlike Darwin, however, Coyne concedes that it may be of some small use. The appendix contains patches of tissue that may function as part of the immune system. It has also been suggested that it provides a refuge for useful gut bacteria. But these minor benefits are surely outweighed by the severe problems that come with the human appendix. In any case, Coyne argues, the appendix is still vestigial, for it no longer performs the function for which it evolved.28

As Scadding had pointed out nearly thirty years ago, however, Darwins argument rested on lack of function, not change of function. Furthermore, if vestigiality were redefined as Coyne proposes, it would include many features never before thought to be vestigial. For example, if the human arm evolved from the leg of a four-footed mammal (as Darwinists claim), then the human arm is vestigial. And if (as Coyne argues) the wings of flying birds evolved from feathered forelimbs of dinosaurs that used them for other purposes, then the wings of flying birds are vestigial. This is the opposite of what most people mean by vestigial.29

Coyne also ignores Scaddings other criticism, arguing that whether the human appendix is useless or not, it is an example of imperfect or bad design. What I mean by bad design, Coyne writes, is the notion that if organisms were built from scratch by a designer one who used the biological building blocks or nerves, muscles, bone, and so on they would not have such imperfections. Perfect design would truly be the sign of a skilled and intelligent designer. Imperfect design is the mark of evolution; in fact, its precisely what we expect from evolution.30

An even better example of bad design, Coyne argues, is the prevalence of dead genes. According to the modern version of Darwinism that Coyne defends, DNA carries a genetic program that encodes proteins that direct embryo development; mutations occasionally alter the genetic program to produce new proteins (or change their locations); and natural selection then sorts those mutations to produce evolution. In the 1970s, however, molecular biologists discovered that most of our DNA does not encode proteins. In 1972 Susumu Ohno called this junk, and in 1976 Richard Dawkins wrote: A large fraction of the DNA is never translated into protein. From the point of view of the individual organism this seems paradoxical. If the purpose of DNA is to supervise the building of bodies, it is surprising to find a large quantity of DNA which does no such thing. From the point of view of Darwinian evolution, however, there is no paradox. The true purpose of DNA is to survive, no more and no less. The simplest way to explain the surplus DNA is to suppose that it is a parasite, or at best a harmless but useless passenger, hitching a ride in the survival machines created by the other DNA.31

Like Dawkins, Coyne regards much of our DNA as parasitic. He writes in Why Evolution Is True: When a trait is no longer used, or becomes reduced, the genes that make it dont instantly disappear from the genome: evolution stops their action by inactivating them, not snipping them out of the DNA. From this we can make a prediction. We expect to find, in the genomes of many species, silenced, or dead, genes: genes that once were useful but are no longer intact or expressed. In other words, there should be vestigial genes. In contrast, the idea that all species were created from scratch predicts that no such genes would exist. Coyne continues: Thirty years ago we couldnt test this prediction because we had no way to read the DNA code. Now, however, its quite easy to sequence the complete genome of species, and its been done for many of them, including humans. This gives us a unique tool to study evolution when we realize that the normal function of a gene is to make a proteina protein whose sequence of amino acids is determined by the sequence of nucleotide bases that make up the DNA. And once we have the DNA sequence of a given gene, we can usually tell if it is expressed normally that is, whether it makes a functional protein or whether it is silenced and makes nothing. We can see, for example, whether mutations have changed the gene so that a usable protein can no longer be made, or whether the control regions responsible for turning on a gene have been inactivated. A gene that doesnt function is called a pseudogene. And the evolutionary prediction that well find pseudogenes has been fulfilled amply. Virtually every species harbors dead genes, many of them still active in its relatives. This implies that those genes were also active in a common ancestor, and were killed off in some descendants but not in others. Out of about thirty thousand genes, for example, we humans carry more than two thousand pseudogenes. Our genome and that of other species are truly well populated graveyards of dead genes.32

But Coyne is dead wrong.

Evidence pouring in from genome-sequencing projects shows that virtually all of an organisms DNA is transcribed into RNA, and that even though most of that RNA is not translated into proteins, it performs essential regulatory functions. Every month, science journals publish articles describing more such functions. And this is not late-breaking news: The evidence has been accumulating since 2003 (when scientists finished sequencing the human genome) that pseudogenes and other so-called junk DNA sequences are not useless after all.33 Why Evolution Is True ignores this enormous body of evidence, which decisively refutes Coynes Darwinian prediction that our genome should contain lots of dead DNA. Its no wonder that Coyne falls back again and again on the sort of theological arguments that Scadding wrote should be given no place in a scientific discussion of evolution.

Theological arguments are also prominent in The Origin of Species. For example, Darwin argued that the geographic distribution of living things made no sense if species had been separately created, but it did make sense in the context of his theory. Cases such as the presence of peculiar species of bats on oceanic islands and the absence of all other terrestrial mammals, Darwin wrote, are facts utterly inexplicable on the theory of independent acts of creation. In particular: Why, it may be asked, has the supposed creative force produced bats and no other mammals on remote islands? According to Darwin, on my view this question can easily be answered; for no terrestrial mammal can be transported across a wide space of sea, but bats can fly across.34

But Darwin knew that migration cannot account for all patterns of geographic distribution. He wrote in The Origin of Species that the identity of many plants and animals, on mountain-summits, separated from each other by hundreds of miles of lowlands, where Alpine species could not possibly exist, is one of the most striking cases known of the same species living at distant points without the apparent possibility of their having migrated from one point to the other. Darwin argued that the recent ice age affords a simple explanation of these facts. Arctic plants and animals that were nearly the same could have flourished everywhere in Europe and North America, but when the warmth had fully returned, the same species, which had lately lived together on the European and North American lowlands, would again be found in the arctic regions of the Old and New Worlds, and on many isolated mountain-summits far distant from each other.35

So some cases of geographic distribution may not be due to migration, but to the splitting of a formerly large, widespread population into small, isolated populations what modern biologists call vicariance. Darwin argued that all modern distributions of species could be explained by these two possibilities. Yet there are many cases of geographic distribution that neither migration nor vicariance seem able to explain.

One example is the worldwide distribution of flightless birds, or ratites. These include ostriches in Africa, rheas in South America, emus and cassowaries in Australia, and kiwis in New Zealand. Since the birds are flightless, explanations based on migration over vast oceanic distances are implausible. After continental drift was discovered in the twentieth century, it was thought that the various populations might have separated with the landmasses. But ostriches and kiwis are much too recent; the continents had already drifted apart when these species originated. So neither migration nor vicariance explain ratite biogeography.36

Another example is freshwater crabs. Studied intensively by Italian biologist Giuseppe Colosi in the 1920s, these animals complete their life cycles exclusively in freshwater habitats and are incapable of surviving prolonged exposure to salt water. Today, very similar species are found in widely separated lakes and rivers in Central and South America, Africa, Madagascar, southern Europe, India, Asia and Australia. Fossil and molecular evidence indicates that these animals originated long after the continents separated, so their distribution is inconsistent with the vicariance hypothesis. Some biologists speculate that the crabs may have migrated by transoceanic rafting in hollow logs, but this seems unlikely given their inability to tolerate salt water. So neither vicariance nor migration provides a convincing explanation for the biogeography of these animals.37

An alternative explanation was suggested in the mid-twentieth century by Lon Croizat, a French biologist raised in Italy. Croizat found that Darwins theory did not seem to agree at all with certain important facts of nature, especially the facts of biogeography. Indeed, he concluded, Darwinism is by now only a straitjacket a thoroughly decrepit skin to hold new wine. Croizat did not argue for independent acts of creation; instead, he proposed that in many cases a widespread primitive species was split into fragments, then its remnants evolved in parallel, in separate locations, into new species that were remarkably similar. Croizat called this process of parallel evolution orthogenesis. Neo-Darwinists such as Ernst Mayr, however, pointed out that there is no mechanism for orthogenesis, which implies contrary to Darwinism that evolution is guided in certain directions; so they rejected Croizats hypothesis.38

In Why Evolution Is True, Coyne (like Darwin) attributes the biogeography of oceanic islands to migration, and certain other distributions to vicariance. But Coyne (unlike Darwin) acknowledges that these two processes cannot explain everything. For example, the internal anatomy of marsupial mammals is so different from the internal anatomy of placental mammals that the two groups are thought to have split a long time ago. Yet there are marsupial flying squirrels, anteaters and moles in Australia that strikingly resemble placental flying squirrels, anteaters and moles on other continents, and these forms originated long after the continents had separated.

Coyne attributes the similarities to a well-known process called convergent evolution. According to Coyne. Its really quite simple. Species that live in similar habitats will experience similar selection pressures from their environment, so they may evolve similar adaptations, or converge, coming to look and behave very much alike even though they are unrelated. Put together common ancestry, natural selection, and the origin of species (speciation), add in the fact that distant areas of the world can have similar habitats, and you get convergent evolution and a simple explanation of a major geographic pattern.39

This is not the same as Croizats orthogenesis, according to which populations of a single species, after becoming separated from each other, evolve in parallel due to some internal directive force. According to Coynes convergent evolution, organisms that are fundamentally different from each other evolve through natural selection to become superficially similar because they inhabit similar environments. The mechanism for orthogenesis is internal, whereas the mechanism for convergence is external. In both cases, however, mechanism is crucial: Without it, orthogenesis and convergence are simply words describing biogeographical patterns, not explanations of how those patterns originated.

So the same question can be asked of convergence that was asked of orthogenesis: What is the evidence for the proposed mechanism? According to Coyne, the mechanism of convergence involves natural selection and speciation.

Coyne writes that Darwin had little direct evidence for selection acting in natural populations. Actually, Darwin had no direct evidence for natural selection; the best he could do in The Origin of Species was give one or two imaginary illustrations. It wasnt until a century later that Bernard Kettlewell provided what he called Darwins missing evidence for natural selection a shift in the proportion of light- and dark-colored peppered moths that Kettlewell attributed to camouflage and bird predation.40

Since then, biologists have found lots of direct evidence for natural selection. Coyne describes some of it, including an increase in average beak depth of finches on the Galpagos Islands and a change in flowering time in wild mustard plants in Southern California both due to drought. Like Darwin, Coyne also compares natural selection to the artificial selection used in plant and animal breeding.

But these examples of selection natural as well as artificial involve only minor changes within existing species. Breeders were familiar with such changes before 1859, which is why Darwin did not write a book titled How Existing Species Change Over Time; he wrote a book titled The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Darwin called his great work On the Origin of Species, wrote Harvard evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr in 1982, for he was fully conscious of the fact that the change from one species into another was the most fundamental problem of evolution. Yet, Mayr had written earlier, Darwin failed to solve the problem indicated by the title of his work. In 1997, evolutionary biologist Keith Stewart Thomson wrote: A matter of unfinished business for biologists is the identification of evolutions smoking gun, and the smoking gun of evolution is speciation, not local adaptation and differentiation of populations. Before Darwin, the consensus was that species can vary only within certain limits; indeed, centuries of artificial selection had seemingly demonstrated such limits experimentally. Darwin had to show that the limits could be broken, wrote Thomson, so do we.41

In 2004, Coyne and H. Allen Orr published a detailed book titled Speciation, in which they noted that biologists have not been able to agree on a definition of species because no single definition fits every case. For example, a definition applicable to living, sexually reproducing organisms might make no sense when applied to fossils or bacteria. In fact, there are more than 25 definitions of species. What definition is best? Coyne and Orr argued that, when deciding on a species concept, one should first identify the nature of ones species problem, and then choose the concept best at solving that problem. Like most other Darwinists, Coyne and Orr favor Ernst Mayrs biological species concept (BSC), according to which species are groups of interbreeding natural populations that are reproductively isolated from other such groups. In Why Evolution Is True, Coyne explains that the biological species concept is the one that evolutionists prefer when studying speciation, because it gets you to the heart of the evolutionary question. Under the BSC, if you can explain how reproductive barriers evolve, youve explained the origin of species.42

Theoretically, reproductive barriers arise when geographically separated populations diverge genetically. But Coyne describes five cases of real-time speciation that involve a different mechanism: chromosome doubling, or polyploidy.43 This usually follows hybridization between two existing plant species. Most hybrids are sterile because their mismatched chromosomes cant separate properly to produce fertile pollen and ovaries; occasionally, however, the chromosomes in a hybrid spontaneously double, producing two perfectly matched sets and making reproduction possible. The result is a fertile plant that is reproductively isolated from the two parentsa new species, according to the BSC.

But speciation by polyploidy (secondary speciation) has been observed only in plants. It does not provide evidence for Darwins theory that species originate through natural selection, nor for the neo-Darwinian theory of speciation by geographic separation and genetic divergence. Indeed, according to evolutionary biologist Douglas J. Futuyma, polyploidy does not confer major new morphological characteristics [and] does not cause the evolution of new genera or higher levels in the biological hierarchy.44

So secondary speciation does not solve Darwins problem. Only primary speciation the splitting of one species into two by natural selection would be capable of producing the branching-tree pattern of Darwinian evolution. But no one has ever observed primary speciation. Evolutions smoking gun has never been found.45

Or has it?

In Why Evolution Is True, Coyne claims that primary speciation was observed in an experiment reported in 1998. Curiously, Coyne did not mention it in the 2004 book he co-authored with Orr, but his 2009 account of it is worth quoting in full:

We can even see the origin of a new, ecologically diverse bacterial species, all within a single laboratory flask. Paul Rainey and his colleagues at Oxford University placed a strain of the bacteria Pseudomonas fluorescens in a small vessel containing nutrient broth, and simply watched it. (Its surprising but true that such a vessel actually contains diverse environments. Oxygen concentration, for example, is highest on the top and lowest on the bottom.) Within ten days no more than a few hundred generations the ancestral free-floating smooth bacterium had evolved into two additional forms occupying different parts of the beaker. One, called wrinkly spreader, formed a mat on top of the broth. The other, called fuzzy spreader, formed a carpet on the bottom. The smooth ancestral type persisted in the liquid environment in the middle. Each of the two new forms was genetically different from the ancestor, having evolved through mutation and natural selection to reproduce best in their respective environments. Here, then, is not only evolution but speciation occurring in the lab: the ancestral form produced, and coexisted with, two ecologically different descendants, and in bacteria such forms are considered distinct species. Over a very short time, natural selection in Pseudomonas yielded a small-scale adaptive radiation, the equivalent of how animals or plants form species when they encounter new environments on an oceanic island.46

But Coyne omits the fact that when the ecologically different forms were placed back into the same environment, they suffered a rapid loss of diversity, according to Rainey. In bacteria, an ecologically distinct population (called an ecotype) may constitute a separate species, but only if the distinction is permanent. As evolutionary microbiologist Frederick Cohan wrote in 2002, species in bacteria are ecologically distinct from one another; and they are irreversibly separate.47 The rapid reversal of ecological distinctions when the bacterial populations in Raineys experiment were put back into the same environment refutes Coynes claim that the experiment demonstrated the origin of a new species.

Exaggerating the evidence to prop up Darwinism is not new. In the Galpagos finches, average beak depth reverted to normal after the drought ended. There was no net evolution, much less speciation. Yet Coyne writes in Why Evolution Is True that everything we require of evolution by natural selection was amply documented by the finch studies. Since scientific theories stand or fall on the evidence, Coynes tendency to exaggerate the evidence does not speak well for the theory he is defending. When a 1999 booklet published by The U. S. National Academy of Sciences called the change in finch beaks a particularly compelling example of speciation, Berkeley law professor and Darwin critic Phillip E. Johnson wrote in The Wall Street Journal: When our leading scientists have to resort to the sort of distortion that would land a stock promoter in jail, you know they are in trouble.48

So there are observed instances of secondary speciation which is not what Darwinism needs but no observed instances of primary speciation, not even in bacteria. British bacteriologist Alan H. Linton looked for confirmed reports of primary speciation and concluded in 2001: None exists in the literature claiming that one species has been shown to evolve into another. Bacteria, the simplest form of independent life, are ideal for this kind of study, with generation times of twenty to thirty minutes, and populations achieved after eighteen hours. But throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another.49

Darwin called The Origin of Species one long argument for his theory, but Jerry Coyne has given us one long bluff. Why Evolution Is True tries to defend Darwinian evolution by rearranging the fossil record; by misrepresenting the development of vertebrate embryos; by ignoring evidence for the functionality of allegedly vestigial organs and non-coding DNA, then propping up Darwinism with theological arguments about bad design; by attributing some biogeographical patterns to convergence due to the supposedly well-known processes of natural selection and speciation; and then exaggerating the evidence for selection and speciation to make it seem as though they could accomplish what Darwinism requires of them.

The actual evidence shows that major features of the fossil record are an embarrassment to Darwinian evolution; that early development in vertebrate embryos is more consistent with separate origins than with common ancestry; that non-coding DNA is fully functional, contrary to neo-Darwinian predictions; and that natural selection can accomplish nothing more than artificial selection which is to say, minor changes within existing species.

Faced with such evidence, any other scientific theory would probably have been abandoned long ago. Judged by the normal criteria of empirical science, Darwinism is false. Its persists in spite of the evidence, and the eagerness of Darwin and his followers to defend it with theological arguments about creation and design suggests that its persistence has nothing to do with science at all.50

Nevertheless, biology students might find Coynes book useful. Given accurate information and the freedom to exercise critical thinking, students could learn from Why Evolution Is True how Darwinists manipulate the evidence and mix it with theology to recycle a false theory that should have been discarded long ago.

See the original post here:

Why Darwinism Is False | Discovery Institute

Survival of the Fittest

It was Herbert Spencer, not Darwin, who coined the phrase 'survival of the fittest' due to the fact that he believed human behavior was designed in a way that strives for self-preservation. Darwin later used the term 'survival of the fittest' in his edition of Origins of the Species.

The theory of social Darwinism created the thinking of the 'survival of the fittest' as that the strongest and the fittest should survive and flourish in society, and the weak should be allowed to die out. This allowed Spencer to believe that the rich and powerful became so because they were better-suited to the social and economic climate of the time. He believed it was natural or normal that the strong survived at the cost of the weak.

The negative side of believing in social Darwinism is a false concept that if something naturally happens then it is alright or good that humans do it as well. On the extreme side, this thinking is part of what led to the rise of the practice of eugenics with the Nazi party in Germany or the American eugenics movement of 1910-1930. On the positive side, social Darwinism led to the creation of programs that allowed deserving participants to receive resources that would help them change their dire circumstances.

Spencer is one of the top three sociologists who influenced the thinking of the structural-functional perspective. This influence is placed right alongside those of Auguste Comte, the founder of sociology, and Emile Durkheim.

In helping to explain the structural-functional perspective, which simply believes that society is made up of various structures (or parts) and that each has a function (or a job) to perform, we see that when all the structures are performing their functions correctly, then society as a whole runs stable and smooth.

Spencer equated this perspective to the human body: the body is made up of the structural parts like the skeleton, muscles and internal organs. Each of these structures serves a function, and the body runs smoothly if all functions are running correctly.

However, have one structure not functioning correctly, and the body as a whole becomes affected.

Spencer was a self-taught man of philosophy, religion, ethics, anthropology, psychology and sociology. He became a columnist for various journals who did not have any strong religious affiliations but radical political views. His writings were translated into numerous languages around the world. By 1870, he was the most famous philosopher of his time. In 1902, he received a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature. Later in life, Spencer became more reserved and lived a rather lonely life. However, he has remained one of the most argumentative yet most discussed English thinkers of the Victorian era.

Spencer used Darwin's theory of evolution to help explain that society was like a living organism in that it will evolve and change over time. He even coined the term 'survival of the fittest' to explain how society was made up for the more powerful and strong to be in control and survive, while the weak would stay poor or even die.

Spencer was a major contributor to the structural-functionalist perspective in that he believed that society is made up of various structures that each have a function to do. If all structures are functioning correctly, then society runs smoothly. However, if one structure is not functioning correctly, then society as a whole is not stable. Herbert Spencer is known for his writing and as one of the greatest philosophical thinkers of his time.

At the end of the lesson, you should be able to:

Continued here:

Herbert Spencer: Theory & Social Darwinism - Video ...

Social Darwinism and the Poor

by Peter Dobkin Hall, School of Public Affair, Baruch College, City University of New York

The impact of British biologist Charles Darwins Origin of Species (1859), The Descent of Man (1871), and other writings went well beyond the audience of natural scientists to whom it was addressed. Throughout the western world, journalists, academics, and social reformers were quick to appropriate Darwins theories about the evolution of life forms to explain trends in social and economic life.

Under the circumstances, this is not surprising. The world was in the midst of vast and frightening changes industrialization, urbanization, immigration, class war, and mass poverty which no one understood and to which no one could offer solutions. Extrapolations from Darwinism, with its emphasis on evolutionary progress, offered reason for hope that a new and better social order could emerge from the turbulence. At the same time, by highlighting competition and the survival of the fittest as the drivers of evolution, it seemed to explain both the emergence of the fittest fabulously wealthy elites and giant corporations, as well as the unfit the masses of poor in the teeming city slums.

Social Darwinism, as it came to be known, served the purposes of both liberals and conservatives. Because conservatives believed that many of the traits associated with unfitness propensities for idleness, criminality, sexual misbehavior, and alcoholism were passed along from generation to generation by heredity, much like hair and eye color, they grimly predicted the growth of a permanent criminal underclass unless steps were taken to prevent it. They were particularly concerned with the impact of sentimental and impulsive charity on the poor. Spontaneous responses to suffering attracted impostors and vagrants from every direction to enjoy the public benefaction, drawing to the cities the floating vagrants, beggars, and paupers, who wander form village to village throughout the State. The streets of New York became thronged with this ragged, needy crowd; they filled all the station-houses and lodging places provided by private charity, and overflowed into the island almshouses. Street-begging, to the point of importunity, became a custom. Ladies were robbed, even on their own doorsteps, by these mendicants. Petty offenses, such as thieving and drunkenness, increased. One of the free lodgings in the upper part of the city, established by the Commissioners of Charities, became a public nuisance from its rowdyism and criminality (Pauperism 1874, 18-19).

Poor relief, conservatives believed, destroyed the work ethic that motivated the poor to work. The public example of alms induce many to be paupers who were never so before, while they do not at all relieve the truly deserving, who hesitate to be exposed to such publicity. They are, in fact, an especial assistance to the idle, and a reward to the improvident (Pauperism 1874, 18).

Preventing the growth of this criminal class called for strict measures, beginning with a thorough and discriminating supervision of all charities, public and private; the most careful attention to the education and employment of the poor and their children; the placing of pauper children in good families, at a distance, if possible, form degrading associations; a rigid and exact system of in-door relief, accompanied with labor; the reduction of out-door relief in cities, and the encouragement of emigration to rural districts from the crowded centres of poverty and crime, which most of our largest cities have now become. The position of New York in this respect is exceptional, because it yearly receives a quarter of a million immigrants from foreign countries, and this exposes it to peculiar evils and dangers. While this should be borne in mind, it should not be made an apology for neglect nor an occasion for abuses, but should lead to increased vigilance and activity on the part of magistrates and citizens (26).

In a word, conservatives (then as now) not only blamed the poor for their poverty, but also the dispensers of indiscriminate and sentimental charity, whose well-intentioned, but ill-informed benevolence served both to perpetuate the sufferings that they sought to ameliorate and to compound them by encouraging the survival of the unfit.

By the turn of the nineteenth century, the most extreme of the conservatives, combining ideas drawn from Darwin, with those of his contemporary Francis Galton, produced theories which urged actions to prevent the disabled and other unfit people from perpetuating their kind by segregating them from society in almshouses, asylums, and other congregate institutions and through sterilization. These practices were enacted into law by many states and were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, with Justice Holmes memorably defending governments right to incarcerate and sterilize by declaring three generations of imbeciles is enough! (Buck v. Bell 1927).

Although liberals also drew on Darwinism, they did so in a very different spirit. Where the conservatives emphasized the role of nature competition, natural selection, and heredity in shaping evolution, liberals stressed the role of nurture humanitys ability to manipulate the environment to foster evolutionary progress. They believed that education, good nutrition, and healthy living conditions could eliminate poverty and criminality. As steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, one of the countrys leading social Darwinists put it, The best means of benefiting the community is to place within its reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise free libraries, parks, and means of recreation, by which men are helped in body and mind; works of art, certain to give pleasure and improve the public taste; and public institutions of various kinds, which will improve the general condition of the people; in this manner returning their surplus wealth to the mass of their fellows in the forms best calculated to do them lasting good. (Carnegie 1889, 19)

Carnegie echoed the conservatives criticism of sentimental philanthropy. One of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race, Carnegie declared, is indiscriminate charity. It were better for mankind that the millions of the rich were thrown into the sea than so spent as to encourage the slothful, the drunken, the unworthy. Of every thousand dollars spent in so called charity to day, it is probable that nine hundred and fifty dollars is unwisely spent so spent, indeed, as to produce the very evils which it hopes to mitigate or cure. (1889, 16)

Carnegie believed that the inequality that inevitably resulted from industrial capitalism was not inherently bad. Competition in society, as in the natural world, sorted people out according to their abilities. But this inequality did not preclude everyone, from millionaire to industrial worker, from playing a useful part in the collective task of human progress.

In the last decades of the nineteenth century, as charities reformers and philanthropists began to systematically study the poor and the causes of poverty, a more discerning perspective on these issues began to emerge which drew on both the liberal and conservative variants of social Darwinism. Amos G. Warners American Charities: A Study in Philanthropy and Economics (1894), which became the standard text for social workers in the first quarter of the twentieth century, broke down the causes of poverty into those pertaining to the individual, which included race, ethnicity, family, sex, age, habits and personal characteristics, and disease, and those pertaining to environment, which included climate, accidents, unhealthful occupations, work of women and children, abode (housing), involuntary idleness (unemployment), diet, clothing, and lack of medical care (Warner 1894, 56). He envisioned two basic approaches to addressing these causes, therapy (by which he meant such things as medical treatment, the elimination of child labor, and the improvement of working conditions) and hygiene, (which included remedies ranging from improvements in conditions of life through institutionalization and sterilization of the unfit.

As a charity reformer, Warner was harshly critical of the almshouse as a means of addressing poverty, disability, and dependency, scorning their undifferentiated approach to a wide range of problems that were products of different causes. The almshouse, he wrote, acts as the charitable catch-all for the community. Idiots, epileptics, incurables, incompetents, the aged, abandoned children, foundlings, women for confinement, and a considerable number of the insane, the blind, and the deaf and dumb are all dumped together. (Warner 1894, 141)

Such institutions served only to perpetuate criminality, poverty, and deviance.

Warner and other early twentieth century reformers championed the establishment of specialized institutions that could classify, treat, supervise, and reform the dependent and disabled. The chief task of these new institutions was to differentiate the dependent and disabled according to the nature and sources of their problems, separating all those requiring special scientific treatment including the defective classes of teachable age, the deaf, the dumb, and the blind, as well as the insane, identifying those whose problems were not amenable to therapy the feeble-minded and epileptic and channeling them into custodial institutions (Warner 1894, 198). Similarly, orphaned and abandoned children, who constituted a substantial proportion of the almshouse population would have to be sorted according to their needs and abilities. Sequestration, and discipline first, wrote a Connecticut physician in 1902, then education in its present day comprehensive sense, are the rational steps towards an ideal standard for the management of youngsters in need of care and supervision (Down 1902, 221-222).

Reformers did not confine their energies to treating the dependent and disabled. They were also actively engaged in changing the conditions of life for the poor, advocating for the elimination of slums, the enactment of public health legislation, crusading for the elimination of child labor, championing mandatory school attendance laws, and fighting for the creation of parks and playgrounds all this premised on the Darwinist idea that a healthy, orderly, and just society fostered the conditions for social, political, and economic progress.

Social Darwinism never constituted a formally articulated philosophy; it was used in a variety of often contradictory ways by writers and thinkers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Regardless of the social and political agendas it gave rise to, the one thing all had in common was a scientific data-based approach to defining and offering solutions to social problems. Whether used to justify laissez-faire or activist public policies, social Darwinism provided a vocabulary and set of concepts that facilitated the emergence of the social sciences and their application to such pressing problems as poverty and social justice.

REFERENCES

Carrie Buck v. James Hendren Bell, Superintendent of the Virginia Colony for Epileptics and Feeble Minded. 274 U.S. 200 (1927)

Andrew Carnegie. 1889. Wealth. North American Review 148, 653-664 and 149, 682-698.

Edwin A. Down. 1902. Care of Female Misdemeanants In Connecticut Medical Society, Proceedings of the Connecticut Medical Society 1902. Bridgeport: The Farmer Publishing Company.

Richard Hofstadter. 1955. Social Darwinism in American Thought. Boston: Beacon Press.

Pauperism in the City of New York. In American Social Science Association, Conference of Public Charities Held at New York, May 20 and 22, 1874 (Cambridge, MA: Printed for the American Social Science Association, 1874).

Amos G. Warner. 1894. American Charities: A Study in Philanthropy and Economics. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Company.

Source: Disability History Museum, http://www.disabilitymuseum.org/dhm/edu/essay.html?id=61

How to Cite this Article (APA Format): Hall, P.D. (n.d.). Social Darwinism and the poor. Social Welfare History Project.Retrievedfromhttp://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/issues/social-darwinism-poor/

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Photo: Titanokorys gainesi, by Jean-Bernard Caron & Joseph Moysiuk, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons.

Here are three unrelated but surprising discoveries that will be of interest to the intelligent design community.

Scientists atFlinders Universityin Australia found that our DNA spreads up to a meter around us without even touching anything. Were leaving breadcrumbs of genetic code everywhere we go!

A person can leave DNA on a surface without directly touching it, a Flinders University study has found, with the longer someone spends in a room the more likely they are to leave a trace of themselves behind.

The researchers placed DNA collection plates half a meter to five meters apart in offices that had been sanitized.

Without anyone directly touching the collection plates,DNA from multiple people was present after only one day, with the DNA profiles stronger thecloserthe plates were to an individual and thelongerthey stayed out. [Emphasis added.]

They published their findings inForensic Science International Genetics.

This discovery will be alarming to criminals, as they learn that police can follow their trail even without fingerprints. For the rest of us, it illustrates two things: (1)Forensics is an example of intelligent design in action, and (2) Our earth is indeed a privileged planet. It is loaded with complex specified information! What other world in our solar system can boast of such a distinction? Think of it: coded information is everywhere in our world: inclouds, onrock walls, in thesoil, and even under theseafloor. Code not only inhabits life; itmakes the world habitable, traveling onglobal transportationsystems.

We share our personal CSI everywhere we go, resembling the character Pig-Pen in the oldPeanutscartoons, who walked with a cloud of dust around him except that our dust is the most densely packed information in the known universe. Presumably our whole genome could be reconstructed from invisible particles that float off our skin and breath, as if we are sharing copies of our biography everywhere we go a biography so information-rich that if printed in 130 volumes would require 95 years to read (University of Leicester).

Remember when fossil hunters foundMarble Canyon, a fossil bed in Canada that surpassed the Burgess Shale in extent and species richness? Scientists have extricated another amazing fossil there: a giant predator unlike anything seen before. NamedTitanokorys gainesiby the Royal Ontario Museum, it is half a meter long, almost as big as the famousAnomalocaris.

The sheer size of this animal isabsolutely mind-boggling, this isone of the biggest animals from the Cambrian period ever found, says Jean-Bernard Caron, ROMs Richard M. Ivey Curator of Invertebrate Palaeontology.

LikeAnomalocaris, it has a toothed round mouth characteristic of radiodonts (round teeth). And like all the Cambrian animals, there is no evidence of transitional forms.Titanokoryscarried a big carapace over its soft parts, including its enormous head and a suite of complex organs.

Like all radiodonts,Titanokoryshadmultifaceted eyes, a pineapple slice-shaped,tooth-lined mouth, a pair of spinyclawsbelow its head to capture prey and a body with a series of flaps forswimming.

Live Sciences coverage begins with a 3D animation of the animals body plan. Thats a pretty big and complex animal to explode into the fossil record. Marble Canyon, remember, is thought to be earlier than the Burgess Shale. Remember, too, that avertebrate fish calledMetasprigginawas discovered there.

Proteins communicate long distance through DNA, announces theWeizmann Wonder Wandersite. This may provide new theories about how proteins activate genes, contrary to the old central dogma that taught one-way communication from DNA to protein.

Proteins cancommunicate through DNA, conducting a long-distance dialoguethat serves as a kind of genetic switch, according to Weizmann Institute of Science researchers. They found that the binding of proteins to one site of a DNA moleculecan physically affect another binding site at a distant location, and thatthis peer effect activates certain genes.This effect had previously been observed in artificial systems, but the Weizmann study is the first to show it takes place in the DNA of living organisms.

The research also bears on the interesting discovery of horizontal gene transfer occurring in DNA libraries in the soil (see Non-Mendelian Inheritance Undermines Neo-Darwinism). A team at the Weizmann Institute of Science was looking into how some bacteria can enrich their genomes by taking up bacterial gene segments scattered in the soil around them, when they tapped into a long-distance conversation on DNA. When two copies of a transcription factor called ComK bind to DNA, they transmit a signal down the wire that facilitates binding by ComK at another remote binding site. The activation of all four copies surpasses a threshold, switching on the bacteriums gene scavenging ability.

We weresurprisedto discover thatDNA, in addition to containing the genetic code, acts like a communication cable,transmitting information over a relatively long distancefrom one protein binding site to another, Rosenblum says.

What is the physical mechanism for this kind of information transmission? They suggest it might involve twisting tension in the double helix. Perhaps, though, that is just the carrier signal on which higher-level information is transmitted.

They found that the sites must be at a specific distance from each other and have the same orientation, but that the intervening sequence of DNA letters had little effect. Perhaps this finding will unveil more function in so-called junk DNA.

Long-distance communication within a DNA molecule isa new type of regulatory mechanism one that opens up previously unavailable methods for designing the genetic circuits of the future, Hofmann says.

Their paper inNature Communicationsby Rosenblumet al. dispenses with the obligatory Darwin formalities briefly. Whether natural promoters evolved to efficiently transmit allosteric signals across many nanometres remained largely unclear, they say. Maybe its unclear because Darwinism puts static on the line.

Shared code, another Cambrian giant, and DNA communication all fit within intelligent design expectations, but challenge traditional Darwinism. The more that design advocates can present better explanations for surprising discoveries like these, the faster some researchers may pay attention to thedesign revolutionthat is clearly underway.

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Three Stunners Challenge Traditional Darwinism | Evolution ...