Refuting Darwinism, point by point

EVOLUTION WATCH Refuting Darwinism, point by point Author's new book presents case against theory in just 83 pages

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Your points will stand or fall on their own (or is that the problem?)

Indeed it is a problem. The problem is that the differences detailed between egg-laying and live bearing animals are individual only for purposes of detailing, but they very much form a system which requires all the parts to work together:

The joining of the baby to the uterine wall starts the signaling of changes in the mother. In fact, the whole process can be seen as a very careful interaction between the baby and the mother. -me-

Not necessary for the first placenta, although later development of such coordination certainly improves the system.

The above is the evolutionist 'leap of faith' through a chasm the size of the Grand Canyon. The only purpose of a placenta is the transfer of nutrients from the mother to the baby through the uterine wall. This alone requires both changes in the uterine wall of the mother, the attachment of the placenta to the uterine wall, and the non-rejection of the 'foreign' body by the mother. This by itself requires numerous changes in the growing baby and the mother as well as numerous specific proteins to be secreted to achieve a successful change in nutritional system. As the following shows:

The mammalian embryo obtains nutrients directly from its mother and does not rely on stored yolk. This adaptation has entailed a dramatic restructuring of the maternal anatomy (such as expansion of the oviduct to form the uterus) as well as the development of a fetal organ capable of absorbing maternal nutrients. This fetal organ ---the chorion ---is derived primarily from embryonic trophoblast cells, supplemented with mesodermal cells derived from the inner cell mass. The chorion forms the fetal portion of the placenta. It will induce the uterine cells to form the maternal portion of the placenta, the decidua. The decidua becomes rich in the blood vessels that will provide oxygen and nutrients to the embryo.
From: Modifications for Development within Another Organism

Let's look at the above problem more closely:

While the embryonic epiblast is undergoing cell movements reminiscent of those seen in reptilian or avian gastrulation, the extraembryonic cells are making the distinctly mammalian tissues that enable the fetus to survive within the maternal uterus. Although the initial trophoblast cells of mice and humans divide like most other cells of the body, they give rise to a population of cells wherein nuclear division occurs in the absence of cytokinesis. The original type of trophoblast cells constitute a layer called the cytotrophoblast, whereas the multinucleated type of cell forms the syncytiotrophoblast. The cytotrophoblast initially adheres to the endometrium through a series of adhesion molecules. Moreover, these cells also contain proteolytic enzymes that enable them to enter the uterine wall and remodel the uterine blood vessels so that the maternal blood bathes fetal blood vessels. The syncytiotrophoblast tissue is thought to further the progression of the embryo into the uterine wall by digesting uterine tissue (Fisher et al. 1989). The uterus, in turn, sends blood vessels into this area, where they eventually contact the syncytiotrophoblast. Shortly thereafter, mesodermal tissue extends outward from the gastrulating embryo (see Figure 11.27D). Studies of human and rhesus monkey embryos have suggested that the yolk sac (and hence the hypoblast) is the source of this extraembryonic mesoderm (Bianchi et al. 1993). The extraembryonic mesoderm joins the trophoblastic extensions and gives rise to the blood vessels that carry nutrients from the mother to the embryo. The narrow connecting stalk of extraembryonic mesoderm that links the embryo to the trophoblast eventually forms the vessels of the umbilical cord. The fully developed extraembryonic organ, consisting of trophoblast tissue and blood vessel-containing mesoderm, is called the chorion, and it fuses with the uterine wall to create the placenta. Thus, the placenta has both a maternal portion (the uterine endometrium, which is modified during pregnancy) and a fetal component (the chorion). The chorion may be very closely apposed to maternal tissues while still being readily separable from them (as in the contact placenta of the pig), or it may be so intimately integrated with maternal tissues that the two cannot be separated without damage to both the mother and the developing fetus (as in the deciduous placenta of most mammals, including humans).
From: Formation of Extraembryonic Membranes

There are numerous 'little' problems within the above that need to be solved for the system to work properly, one of them is oxygen:

The solution to the fetus's problem of getting oxygen from its mother's blood involves the development of a fetal hemoglobin. The hemoglobin in fetal red blood cells differs slightly from that in adult corpuscles. Two of the four peptides of the fetal and adult hemoglobin chains are identical ---the alpha (α) chains ---but adult hemoglobin has two beta (β) chains, while the fetus has two gamma (γ) chains (Figure 15.11). Normal β-chains bind the natural regulator diphosphoglycerate, which assists in the unloading of oxygen. The γ-chain isoforms do not bind diphosphoglycerate as well and therefore have a higher affinity for oxygen. in the low-oxygen environment of the placenta, oxygen is released from adult hemoglobin. in this same environment, fetal hemoglobin does not give away oxygen, but binds it. This small difference in oxygen affinity mediates the transfer of oxygen from the mother to the fetus. Within the fetus, the myoglobin of the fetal muscles has an even higher affinity for oxygen, so oxygen molecules pass from fetal hemoglobin for storage and use in the fetal muscles. Fetal hemoglobin is not deleterious to the newborn, and in humans, the replacement of fetal hemoglobin-containing blood cells with adult hemoglobin-containing blood cells is not complete until about 6 months after birth.
From: Fetal Hemoglobyn

I could go on and on, however, let's just show the problem of adhesion:

The mouse blastocyst hatches from the zona by lysing a small hole in it and squeezing through that hole as the blastocyst expands (Figure 11.25). A trypsin-like protease, strypsin, is located on the trophoblast cell membranes and lyses a hole in the fibrillar matrix of the zona (Perona and Wassarman 1986; Yamazaki and Kato 1989). Once out, the blastocyst can make direct contact with the uterus. The uterine epithelium (endometrium) “catches” the blastocyst on an extracellular matrix containing collagen, laminin, fibronectin, hyaluronic acid, and heparan sulfate receptors. The trophoblast cells contain integrins that will bind to the uterine collagen, fibronectin, and laminin, and they synthesize heparan sulfate proteoglycan precisely prior to implantation (see Carson et al. 1993). Once in contact with the endometrium, the trophoblast secretes another set of proteases, including collagenase, stromelysin, and plasminogen activator. These protein-digesting enzymes digest the extracellular matrix of the uterine tissue, enabling the blastocyst to bury itself within the uterine wall (Strickland et al. 1976; Brenner et al. 1989).
Implantation

Finally, lets show the developmental system of an egg:

This is a picture of a 4 day quail embryo. It is on the yolk with the some of the egg shell removed. Notice the large vessels which are required to provide the nutrients necessary for the rapid development if the embryo. The heart and eye are evident by somewhat obscured by the presence of a new membrane structure, the allantois. The allantois grows from the umbilicus (belly button) and has two primary functions. First it is a waste storage area for the embryo and it will be the gas exchange organ while the embryo is confined in the egg. After hatching, the chick will leave the allantois in the shell. The heart is the red structure in the middle of the embryo and the eye is visible as a dark area in the head.

Compare the above to the picture of the human developmental system in Post# 257 .

Again, each step requires numerous other steps as well as coordination of all the steps. The reductionism of evolutionists does not cut it. The steps are numerous and have to be precisely timed, they need various genes, proteins and organs.

Perhaps you would be so good as to summarize how genetic variation, the principles of heredity, and the probability of reproductive success manage to provide a framework for astrophysics?

Right after you explain the didactic usefulness of the obfuscation of systematic discontinuities throughout your theory.

Lemme guess... you got a "Word-a-Day" calendar for Christmas? Remember those press conferences after Mike Tyson's handler's got him one. Hee! But to the point I think you were attempting to make, variation, heredity, and reproductive success are the three legs of biology. The mechanisms of each are identifiable and quantifiable, provide a framework for categorizing fossils, justify the use of animal subjects for testing human medical technology, assist geologists in strata identification, and marks the results of comparative genome analysis as more than random noise. What does you theory do?

I contend that the evos' failure to deal with the origin of matter and the Prime Mover disqualifies them from continued building on a defective foundation.

Feel free to contend whatever you wish; your audience is not obligated to agree. Music theory has little to say on the origin of air. Meteorology has little to say on the origin of water. The origin of matter is NOT in the domain of biology.

I contend that it is logically impossible to rule out a Creator.

I agree. It is also impossible to demonstrate the existence of such.

Having destroyed the foundation of your theory, it collapsed. Now you want to continue to discuss your discredited theory?

Hrm, I think I missed that part. You are aware, of course, that saying does not make it so? Tell you what, next time you destroy the theory of evolution, get your special effects guys to rig a couple of firepots, or put a big dramatic chord in the soundtrack so we can better identify it. While you're at it, maybe you could write a spooky "bad guy" theme to play when an evo posts so the lurkers can keep track of the characters.

But back on topic, your contention that the theory of evolution needs to explain the origin of the universe is a pretty silly one. Most off-the-rack creationists only want it to explain the origin of life.

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