A bone to pick: Missing link is evolutionists' weakest

It has been said that if anyone wants to see something badly enough, they can see anything, in anything. Such was the case recently, but unlike some ghostly visage of the Madonna in a coffee stain, this was a vision of our ancestral past in the form of one recently discovered prehistoric skull, dubbed Sahelanthropus tchadensis.

Papers across the globe heralded the news with great fanfare. With words like "scientists hailed" and "startling find" sprinkled into the news coverage, who couldn't help but think evolutionists had finally found their holy grail of missing links?

For those of us with more than a passing interest in such topics as, "Where did we come from? And how did we get here?," this recent discovery and its subsequent coverage fall far short of its lofty claims. A healthy criticism is in order.

Practically before the fossil's discoverer, the French paleoanthropologist Michel Brunet, could come out of the heat of a Chadian desert, a number of his evolutionary colleagues had questioned his conclusions.

In spite of the obvious national pride, Brigitte Senut of the Natural History of Paris sees Brunet's skull as probably that of an ancient female gorilla and not the head of man's earliest ancestor. While looking at the same evidence, such as the skull's flattened face and shorter canine teeth, she draws a completely different conclusion.

Of course, one might be inclined to ask why such critiques never seem to get the same front-page coverage? It's also important to point out that throughout history, various species, such as cats, have had varying lengths of canine teeth. That does not make them any closer to evolving into another species.

A Washington Post article goes on to describe this latest fossil as having human-like traits, such as tooth enamel thicker than a chimpanzee's. This apparently indicates that it did not dine exclusively on the fruit diet common to apes. But apes don't dine exclusively on fruit; rather, their diet is supplemented with insects, birds, lizards and even the flesh of monkeys. The article attempted to further link this fossil to humans by stating that it probably walked upright. Never mind the fact that no bones were found below the head! For all we know, it could have had the body of a centaur, but that would hardly stop an overzealous scientist (or reporter) from trying to add a little meat to these skimpy bones. Could it not simply be a primate similar to today's Bonobo? For those not keeping track of their primates, Bonobos (sp. Pan paniscus) are chimpanzee-like creatures found only in the rain forests of Zaire. Their frame is slighter than that of a chimpanzee's and their face does not protrude as much. They also walked upright about 5 percent of the time. Sound familiar?

Whether it is tooth enamel, length of canines or the ability to walk upright, none of these factors makes this recent discovery any more our ancestral candidate than it does a modern-day Bonobo.

So why does every new fossil discovery seem to get crammed into some evolutionary scenario? Isn't it possible to simply find new, yet extinct, species? The answer, of course, is yes; but there is great pressure to prove evolution.

That leads us to perhaps the most troubling and perplexing aspect of this latest evolutionary hoopla. While on one hand sighting the evolutionary importance of this latest discovery, a preponderance of these articles leave the notion that somehow missing links are not all that important any more.

According to Harvard anthropologist Dan Lieberman, missing links are pretty much myths. That might be a convenient conclusion for those who have been unable to prove evolution via the fossil record. Unfortunately for them, links are absolutely essential to evolution. It is impossible for anything to evolve into another without a linear progression of these such links.

The prevailing evolutionary view of minute changes, over millions of years, is wholly inadequate for the explanation of such a critical piece of basic locomotion as the ball-and-socket joint. Until such questions can be resolved, superficial similarities between various species are not going to prove anything. No matter how bad someone wants to see it.

Farmer is a professional artist living in Houston. He can can be contacted via his Web site, www.theglobalzoo.com

Max, who is a M.D., and has a Ph.d -- I'm not sure in what by I'll assume a hard science, is disputing positions by biochemist Dr. Duane Gish; peditrician Ross Olson and Dr. Lee Spetner.

You might say that Edward E. Max wrote the book on Immunology, Immunopathology, and Immunity. For sure, Gish doesn't specialize in B-lymphocyte research and I gather neither does Olsen. From the article:

As described below, Gish has rejected the idea of somatic mutation of antibody genes, stating at a public debate with me that "a sick person would die" before high-affinity mutated antibodies could evolve. This claim reveals Gish's ignorance of immunology.

More on the same exchange:

I challenged Gish to explain the flaws in these published experiments or to cite a single scientific study that contradicted them. As I expected, Gish could do neither; moreover, he could not offer any support for his claim that somatic mutation is controversial. I then lamented the fact that Dr. Gish could claim expertise in biochemistry and yet deny a phenomenon so important and well-accepted that it is taught to first-year biochemistry students; I had found discussions of antibody mutation in all five introductory biochemistry textbooks that I examined in a recent visit to a local bookstore. Gish responded that the question of antibody genes was a deep mystery and that anyone who solved it would get the Nobel prize. I then pointed out that a Nobel Prize had in fact been awarded to Susumu Tonegawa several years ago for exactly that achievement. Gish appeared to be ignorant not only of somatic mutation but also of the basic biochemistry of antibody genes that received considerable publicity in newspapers, magazines and TV when Tonegawa's award was announced.

Gish likes to "win" debates by bamboozling the credulous faithful who pack his audiences. He opens his mouth and pops out with something like his responses above to answer the guy who makes his living studying the immune system. Joe Bozo in the crowd whoops with delight.

I haven't yet read through Spetner's debate with Max but Max's article is right on the money.

The creationists argue that a beneficial mutation has never been observed in a human. Max says "so what" they happen in bacteria, and nobody ever had a reason to look for them in people, anyway. He does admit they are rare.

I think he means they occur less commonly than harmful ones. But they're the ones that stick and spread, so they're what the genome tends to be made of: stuff that was historically an improvement at one point.

The conclusion is nobody seems to knock anybody out. I would give the win to the creationists but that may be my bias.

You also think gore's not doing too badly.

I was impressed with Max. He agreed that "macro-evolution" has never been observed.

I notice he's using "macro-evolution" at the level of perhaps taxonomic order. From the debate link:

I agree that there are no definitive examples where a macroevolutionary change (such as the development of cetaceans from terrestrial mammals) has been shown to result from a specific chain of mutations. And I agree with your further comment that "we have no way of observing a long series of mutations." But you go on to say that "our inability to observe such series cannot be used as a justification for the assumption that the series Darwinian theory requires indeed exist." An equally reasonable conclusion, in my view, would be that our inability to observe such series cannot be used as a justification for the assumption that such a series of mutations did NOT occur.

We can't trace mutations in the genomes of any but the most recent fossils. You're impressed that he concedes that? OK. I'm not impressed when creationists want too much for the absence of certain kinds of evidence that could not possibly be expected to survive.

Now one might say that if evolution were hung up on a local Maximum, a large genetic change like a recombination or a transposition could bring it to another higher peak. Large adaptive changes are, however, highly improbable. They are orders of magnitude less probable than getting an adaptive change with a single nucleotide substitution, which is itself improbable. No one has shown this to be possible either.

I haven't waded through that debate yet, but if you think this is a killer you're not thinking. "Hung up on a local maximum" is just what it says. Creationists swear that evolution is falsified by the coelacanth or cyanobacteria that testify to long periods of evolutionary stasis. Stasis happens because local maxima happen.

One of your wildmen once in an argument with me tried to claim that evolution is falsified because dragonflies haven't evolved human-sized brains although they've had the time to do so. Being a small-brained dragonfly allows very good flying that features speedy darting or effortless rock-steady hovering. Growing too big of a head messes all that up and forces you get another way to make a living.

Evolution seems to happen most rapidly when there's pressure to find a new way to get along. In other words, it happens fastest in local minima, just as you'd expect.

Further, as I quoted from your study the mutation was helpful only in the particular circumstance the ebg functioned worse in normal situations so as a matter of survivability, it was less prone to survive than before the mutation.

What a load of nonsense.

The bacteria survived far BETTER in the new environment. How they survive under previous conditions is irrelevant. Any reasonable person can see this example fulfills the definition of evolution. Novel mutations (in more than one gene) gave rise to the information to metabolize lactose. Period. Paragraph.

BTW - this is similar to the case of the nylon bacteria.

Yes this is evolution. The selection of mutations which give rise to novel traits. You must be a closet Darwinist.

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