Posted on 01/11/2003 9:53:34 PM PST by DWar
EVOLUTION WATCH Refuting Darwinism, point by point Author's new book presents case against theory in just 83 pages
Posted: January 11, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern
Editor's note: In 1999, author James Perloff wrote the popular "Tornado in a Junkyard," which summarizes much of the evidence against evolution and is considered one of the most understandable (while still scientifically accurate) books on the subject. Recently, WND talked with Perloff about his new book, "The Case Against Darwin."
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
QUESTION: Your new book is just 83 pages – and the type is large. What gives?
ANSWER: This past March I got a call from Ohio. There has been a battle there to allow critical examination of evolutionary theory in public schools, and a gentleman wanted 40 copies of Tornado to give to state legislators and school board members. I was delighted to send him the books, but I also knew that a state legislator isn't likely to pick up anything that's 321 pages long.
Q: And not just state legislators.
A: Right. We live in an age when parents often don't have time to read anything long, and their kids, who are usually more into video, may not have the inclination.
Q: So what's the focus of this book?
A: I've divided it into three chapters. The first is called "Is Darwin's Theory Relevant to Our Lives?" In other words, is the subject of this book worth my time or not? A lot of people think this is simply a science issue. And to some of them, science is booooring. But actually, it's the teaching of Darwin's theory as a "fact" that starts many young people doubting the existence of God. Once we stop believing in God, we discard his moral laws and start making up our own rules, which is basically why our society is in so much trouble. In short, Darwinism is very relevant – it's much more than a science matter.
Q: You, yourself, were an atheist for many years, were you not, as a result of evolutionary teaching?
A: That's right. I thought evolution had discredited the Bible. In my books, I give examples of notables who became atheists from being taught evolution, such as Stalin and Carnegie. In fact, the atheist Boy Scout who's been in the news reportedly attributes his atheism to being taught evolution.
Q: Why do you think evolution has such a persuasively negative effect on faith?
A: First, it's taught as "scientific fact." When kids hear "scientific fact," they think "truth." Who wants to go against truth? Second, it's the only viewpoint that's taught. After the Supreme Court kicked God out of schools in the '60s, kids heard the evolutionist viewpoint exclusively. It's like going to a courtroom – if you only heard the prosecutor's summation, you would probably think the defendant guilty. But if you only heard the defendant's attorney, you'd think "innocent." The truth is, we need to hear both sides, and kids haven't been getting it on the subject of origins.
Q: OK, then what?
A: The second chapter is "Evidence Against the Theory of Evolution." Let's face it, no matter what Darwinism's social ramifications, that alone would not be a sufficient basis to criticize it, if it were scientifically proven true.
Q: In a nutshell – if that's possible – what is the scientific evidence against Darwinism?
A: In the book, I focus on six areas of evidence. First, mutations – long claimed by evolutionists to be the building blocks of evolutionary change – are now known to remove information from the genetic code. They never create higher, more complex information – even in the rare cases of beneficial mutations, such as bacterial resistance to antibiotics. That has been laid out by Dr. Lee Spetner in his book "Not By Chance."
Q: What else?
A: Second, cells are now known to be far too complex to have originated by some chance concurrence of chemicals, as Darwin hypothesized and is still being claimed. We detail that in the book. Third, the human body has systems, such as blood clotting and the immune system, that are, in the words of biochemist Michael Behe, "irreducibly complex," meaning they cannot have evolved step-by-step. Behe articulated that in his book "Darwin's Black Box." And then there is the whole issue of transitional forms.
Q: What is a transitional form?
A: Darwin's theory envisioned that single-celled ancestors evolved into invertebrates (creatures without a backbone), who evolved into fish, who evolved into amphibians, who evolved into reptiles, who evolved into mammals. Now, a transitional form would be a creature intermediate between these. There would have to be a great many for Darwin's theory to be true.
Q: Are there?
A: There are three places to look for transitional forms. First, there's the living world around us. We see that it is distinctly divided – you have invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles and mammals. But we don't see transitionals between them. If these creatures ever existed, why did none survive? It is too easy to explain it away by saying they all became extinct. And of course, there is the question: Why aren't these creatures evolving into each other today? Why aren't invertebrates evolving into fish today? Why aren't fish growing little legs and so forth?
Q: Where else would you look for a transitional form?
A: In the fossil record. And here we have a problem of almost comparable magnitude. We find no fossils showing how the invertebrates evolved, or demonstrating that they came from a common ancestor. That's why you hear of the "Cambrian explosion." And while there are billions of fossils of both invertebrates and fish, fossils linking them are missing. Of course, there are some transitional fossils cited by evolutionists. However, two points about that. First, there should be a lot more if Darwin's theory is correct. Second, 99 percent of the biology of an organism is in its soft anatomy, which you cannot access in a fossil – this makes it easy to invest a fossil with a highly subjective opinion. The Piltdown Man and the recent Archaeoraptor are examples of how easy it is to be misled by preconceptions in this arena.
Q: What is the other place where you can look for transitional forms?
A: Microscopically, in the cell itself. Dr. Michael Denton, the Australian molecular biologist, examined these creatures on a molecular level and found no evidence whatsoever for the fish-amphibian-reptile-mammal sequence. He summarized his findings in his book "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis."
The last chapter is "Re-evaluating Some Evidences Used to Support the Theory" of evolution. That would include evidences that have been discredited, and also some evidences presented as proof that in fact rest on assumptions.
Q: What evidences have been discredited?
A: Ernst Haeckel's comparative embryo drawings. The human body being laden with "vestigial structures" from our animal past. Human blood and sea water having the same percentage of salt. Babies being born with "monkey tails." These are not foundational evidences, but they still hold sway in the public mind.
Q: You mentioned assumptions as proofs.
A: Yes. Anatomical similarities between men and animals are said to prove common ancestry. But intelligent design also results in innumerable similarities, as in the case of two makes of automobile. Also, what has been called "microevolution" – minor adaptive changes within a type of animal – is extrapolated as evidence for "macroevolution" – the changing of one kind of animal into another. However, a species is normally endowed with a rich gene pool that permits a certain amount of variation and adaptation. Certainly, those things happen. But the change is ordinarily limited to the confines of the gene pool. It doesn't mean a fish could adapt its way into being a human.
Q: You covered a lot of this ground in "Tornado in a Junkyard." Can readers expect something new from "The Case Against Darwin"?
A: There is a bit of new material, but no, if you've read "Tornado," or for that matter, if you read the July 2001 Whistleblower, where we looked at evolution, you already know most of the points. What's new is the size. This is a book to give to a busy friend, a book for a high-school student to share with his science teacher.
"The Case Against Darwin" by James Perloff is available from ShopNetDaily.
I don't believe that abortion is the *right* thing to do either, but Dan raises an interesting point. If the only thing these aborted souls have lost is time on the paradise we call Planet Earth, what have they really lost? Pain and suffering, war, poverty, sickness, divorce, etc., etc.???
Ideally, yes. Unfortunately, it seldom rises to that level. I've debated this issue with far too many creationists who didn't have the slightest idea what the facts were, but by gosh, they *knew* I was wrong anyway, and probably a pawn of the devil as well.
The facts themselves are not in dipute.
Surely you jest. Creationists very frequently dispute the facts when they raise uncomfortable questions about their position. For a recent example, see post #301:
"Totally false. There is no such evidence at all. Before one can make such a claim one has to show that even one single mutation has created greater complexity in any organism. There is no such proof."And on the flipside, creationists often make wild claims as if they were fact, like the ICR pamphlet that for several years claimed, "The billions of fossils found are all of highly complex forms of life." This is not only wrong, it is blatantly contrary to the known facts.
The assumption of the evolutionary biologist, that homology implies common ancestory, most certainly is.
By itself, certainly, homology can only *imply* common ancestry, and reasonable people can disagree about some particular homologies. Conversely, it would take an *unreasonable* person to disagree about more clear-cut homologies.
*However*, when coupled with evidence from DNA and other molecular analysis in their various forms, fossil features, present and past geographic distribution, stratigraphic distribution, intermediate forms, ontogeny and developmental biology, genetic change rates, and so on -- when all these divergent lines of evidence converge to the same answers, one has to be dogmatically stubborn to avoid admitting the obvious.
In your treatise, you have made salient points regarding the anatomy and physiology of certain shark species, points that are not in dispute. You can thank the hard work of many scientists over many years for that summary. However, it is a great leap to suggest that isolated similarities between a vast array of disparate animals can be hand selected as if from a buffet, in hopes of reconstructing an orderly transition from one organ system to another, even less one species to another.
All well and good, but that's not what I was doing.
What I was doing -- and I believe I was quite clear on this -- was demonstrating that gore3000's "can't get there from here" claim falls flat since there *are* plausible gradualistic "baby steps" from his "before" picture to his "after" picture, and not only are they simply arguably plausible, the intermediate steps demonstrably ACTUALLY WORK because they *do* work in various species.
The fact that the mammalian range of placental types (and the lack thereof) shows the sort of gradation one would expect from an evolutionary sequence was just icing on the cake and offerred as food for further thought. In order to "prove" the sequence further types of evidence would be necessary, including DNA analysis, fossil intermediaries, etc. etc. But since you bring it up, I'll mention that all the evidence to date strongly supports the obvious -- that mammals evolved their present-day placentas from ancestors which did not have them.
So, herein lies the issue: homology need not imply common origin. If it did, one might assume that botanical phloem, complete with specialized cells with seive function and companion cells were more primative versions of fenestrated vascular endothelium supported by pericytes. An absurd notion to be sure,
Homology "need not" imply common origin, sure. But it's a confirming piece of evidence when combined with dozens of other independent lines of evidence.
And so far I'm not aware of a single homology which clearly *violates* a presumed common ancestry. (Note the use of the word "clearly" in that last sentence -- things which merely appear similar but have fundamental differences, like your example above, don't count.)
but no less so than the cladistic hierarchy of binary fission to hammerhead yolk-sac placenta to platapus pouch to human placenta to astronaut. Regards.
I quite clearly indicated that hammerhead placentas were derived independently from mammalian placentas (and marsupial placentas idependently from mammalian placentas as well), so take your straw man elsewhere.
It's also quite clear that the fundamentally *different* nature of the hammerhead/marsupial/mammalian placentas preclude them from being mistaken for being homologous, so again your cautionary tale misses its mark. If you meant to throw doubt on *valid* examples of homology, and the evidence they provide for common descent, you have failed and appear to be acting disingenuously.
‘I am the truth. . ..’(John 14:6)
"For most of time, men and women have assumed that the truth was there to be found out. This began to change in the 19th century and the change gathered pace in the 20th. As people began to question the existence of God, it became obvious to some, that the existence of truth requires the existence of God. With God dismissed, it became impossible to conceive of truth in any absolute sense. This has resulted in the humiliation of truth. Truth is now whatever you would like it to be."
"Truth's demise has filtered down through the great centers of learning, the arts, and on into streets and homes. Everything is possible with truth gone. Everything is permissible. Musicians make music that doesn't sound musical. Painters paint pictures that are incomprehensible to normal folk. Playwrights write plays that are nonsense, and architects design buildings that no one can understand. All this is put forward as legitimate, but what does it all mean?"
"No matter how much... popular culture---is encouraged to believe in the relativity of truth, no one can build a decent life on such a notion."
"Inevitably proponents of freedom from God, and from absolute truth, are obliged to reach outside of their own system, and borrow something from theism in order to make their lives work. The person who believes that everything is valid, will soon find that he is condemned to meaninglessness. Christ is a standing offer of escape from such a hell as this To believe that truth is like Christ, is salvation indeed."
All my life I've been in awe of the female breast because I knew it was irreducibly complex and therefore intelligently designed. You have taken away the one thing I cared about, believed in, was certain of, depended upon. Now I am set adrift in your devil's world of eeee-vo-lou-shun.
</flaming idiot mode>
To: PatrickHenry Hey Patrick, when are you ever going to say something regarding the issues instead of insulting opponents? 100 posted on 01/12/2003 5:06 PM CST by gore3000 [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 82 | View Replies |
The yolk-sac (Figs. 22 and 23) is situated on the ventral aspect of the embryo; it is lined by entoderm, outside of which is a layer of mesoderm. It is filled with fluid, the vitelline fluid, which possibly may be utilized for the nourishment of the embryo during the earlier stages of its existence. Blood is conveyed to the wall of the sac by the primitive aortæ, and after circulating through a wide-meshed capillary plexus, is returned by the vitelline veins to the tubular heart of the embryo. This constitutes the vitelline circulation, and by means of it nutritive material is absorbed from the yolk-sac and conveyed to the embryo. At the end of the fourth week the yolk-sac presents the appearance of a small pear-shaped vesicle (umbilical vesicle) opening into the digestive tube by a long narrow tube, the vitelline duct. The vesicle can be seen in the after-birth as a small, somewhat oval-shaped body whose diameter varies from 1 mm. to 5 mm.; it is situated between the amnion and the chorion and may lie on or at a varying distance from the placenta. As a rule the duct undergoes complete obliteration during the seventh week, but in about three per cent. of cases its proximal part persists as a diverticulum from the small intestine...
Furthermore, more recent studies indicate that the yolk-sac in humans is vital for the survival of the embryo, Early Human Nutrition:
Early human nutrition and chorionic villous vascularization. Babette A.M. Lisman, M.D., Niek Exalto, M.D., Ph.D.
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Spaarne Ziekenhuis Haarlem and Division of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Academisch Medisch Centrum, Amsterdam
ABSTRACT
The yolk sac plays an active and important role in embryonic nutrition and organogenesis, and therefore can not be considered a vestigial organ. Since the last decade the functional significance of the placental circulation during the first trimester is discussed because of an absent maternal intervillous circulation during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. The development of the embryo takes place in an oxygen poor environment and the yolk sac turned out to be important for the intercession of embryonic nutrition during the developmental period. Furthermore, the human yolk sac is the main source of numerous proteins and its biosynthetic activity plays an important role in haematopoiesis. Experiments on animals have demonstrated that the yolk sac can be damaged by various substances resulting in embryonic malformations. Ultrasonic studies examining the secondary yolk sac size do not appear to be a sensitive predictor of embryonic integrity and pregnancy outcome. Apart from implantation and organogenesis the development of the placenta tales place during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy but will not be functional until thereafter. The development of the chorionic villous vascular system in first trimester pregnancies is characterized by maturation of luminized vessels from primitive hemangioblastic cords and margination to a situation of peripherally located vessels. Normal chorionic villous vascularization is essential for the undisturbed development of pregnancy. Deficient vasculogenesis may play a role in pathological pregnancy. More clinical studies in this field should be performed to investigate chorionic villous vascularization in complicated pregnancy and its consequences.
From your post: In the human, the "yolk sac" appears only after fertilization adn during embriologic development. It remains a fluid filled sac only briefy before rapidly becoming the primary source of fetal blood cells and vascular conduit.
In view of the above abstract, your contentions that the human yolk-sac is only superficially similar to avian yolk-sacs, and appears only "briefly" before morphing into a structure that becomes "the primary source of fetal blood cells and vascular conduit" is incorrect. According to this research, the yolk-sac is vitally important for the survival of the embryo until the placenta is fully functional after the first 12-weeks of pregnancy.
That's why evolution is classified as either theistic or atheistic. Most of the evo defenders on FR are of the atheistic type. Aric2000 claimis his own messiah will appear in the next 4 years so he must fall into the theistic camp. Junior claims to be theistic but sometimes I wonder.
Whether theistic or atheistic, the theory of evolution has been flawed from the beginning and continues to be fatally flawed in all its mutated forms. The presuppositions necessary for the theory as taught in our schools are impossible for a reasonable person to believe. Perhaps this is why only half of public school students believe it. The presuppositions are those of the materialist worldview, the most basic of which is "matter and its motion are all there is." This presupposition rules out the existence of God.
Yet it is absurd at face value:
Matter exists but its origin is ignored.
Matter moves but there was no first motion.
Do you understand the absurdity?
If a materialist says, Matter and its motion are all there is," he has just limited the origin of the matter to matter itself. He has also made the Prime Mover matter itself. Of course matter cannot be self-creating. Self creation is a logical absurdity since something must exist before it can create itself.
The motion of matter is the other problem for the materialist. We all learned in junior high about inertia; that mass in motion tends to stay in motion and that mass at rest tends to stay at rest. What set the first matter in motion? "The Big Bang" is not an answer. What caused the Big Bang, what made it explode? We know from science that things don't explode by themselves. There has to be a set of contributing circumstances all of which require motion.
So that's the long answer for why we find the majority of evos to prefer atheism. I do find it rather amazing (perhaps amusing too) how they will rail against what they think is an absurd theism yet will embrace absurd physics.
Hmm. I don't suppose you could show us a placenta that demonstrates the transition from "non-deciduate" to "deciduate" qualities, could you? And then, could you please explain the mechanism that drove this change?
Hmmm. Looks like a giant "leap of faith" to me, and a leap backwards from common sense at that.
Cold callous comments like the above greatly grieve my spirit. We just adopted two boys who were the third and fourth children of the same woman. The biological mother of our boys lost all four of her kids because of some poor life choices.
The boys were 7 months old and 5 years old and living completely separate lives one day, yet both became available to us within hours of each other nearly two years ago through events that baffled the agency. The boys bring us great joy in our lives and now we're looking to adopt a girl.
If they were aborted (very possible due to the biological mothers history) what would they have lost? They would have lost their entire lives. We would have lost the joy of knowing, raising and home schooling the boys.
My 6-year-old in the first grade is reading at the third-fourth grade level. He has memorized over 50 Bible verses and a few poems by Robert Frost and others. He has a life. He has parents that love him deeply. He has family and friends. He knows God.
Before he turned two last September, our baby knew all but 2 letters of the alphabet and their sounds, had a vocabulary of over 500 words, could put complex sentences together and count to 14.
Both boys amaze everyone who meets them. What would they have lost? Their lives. Their entire lives and the world would have missed out on two very special boys who just may come up with a cure for a disease that might be taking your own life someday.
Yes, those comments are chilling. They are chilling because it illustrates a self-centered and shallow understanding of reality. From where is the authority derived to judge the worth of a human life? Could not one of us, using the same basis of authority, judge PW's life not worth living? The lack of absolutes in the evolutionist's world allow us to do that. How fortunate for them that absolutes actually exist though they deny them!
Facetious? Um, no. She was referring to Dan Day's comment:
Why not then say, "abortion is no big deal, the little guys are just sent to Jesus sooner, hallelujah".Callous is a nice word to describe the taking of an innocent life that could some day save your own.
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