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.

Criticism is "allowed" all the time. What makes you think it's not? Hell, the whole process of peer-review is to *invite* criticism, loads of it, as much as people can think of.

Creation doesn't fear criticism nor does it demand the removal of the evolutionary theory from schools.

Did I leave out the word "public?" Those right-wing fundamentalists, People for the American Way commissioned a survey within the last two years that showed parents who favored creation wanted both views taught in schools while parents who favored evolution wanted evolution only. Now doesn't that tell you something about the indefensible nature of evolution?

Hume (1711-1776) lived before almost all modern science, and all of evolutionary theory, so I'm not sure he's the best person to look to for a balanced consideration of religion versus science.

You're contradicting your buddies.

Peppered moths aren't "fake", they're perfectly real.

Why are you defending a proven fraud? Peppered Moths were glued on a tree to prove evolution was happening before our eyes. This is well known. Search on "Peppered+Moths+Fraud."

This is why Hume, after he said it is reasonable to believe in a Creator, also said that because there is no Creator reason must be unreliable.

I think that, at best, Hume might have agreed that it was useful to believe in a Creator, not reasonable. And while Hume certainly said that some sorts of reason - determining causal relationships in particular - were logically unreliable, this is hardly the same as suggesting that all reason is unreliable, nor is it predicated at all on his belief in the absence of a Creator - his discussion of the limits of reason neither requires the presence or absence of a Creator.

"An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding"
"Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion"

Okay, I'm back. I saw pink unicorns, what did you see?

Now how should I characterize this smug remark? Arrogance? Avoiding the question? Maybe you're serious.

The Straw Man fallacy is pretty basic

If I had time I'd go back to the beginning of this thread to see how many times the straw man has been invoked. It seems like that is the canned answer to all objections to evolutionary guesswork.

Okay, *thirty* yard penalty for overweening conceit...

It's not bragging when it's true. I not only charge that amount and get it, I am extremely selective of my clientelle. Is it conceit on my part or class envy on yours?

What have you got? "Well, it says here in this book written from Nth-generation oral histories that might have gotten a bit garbled along the way..."

Now this particular display of myopia is one of the reasons evos have trouble debating. Which is it? You don't understand the position of your opponents or you don't want to understand them.

Phaedrus, for example, does not take Genesis into account. Evolution's problems are myriad; logical, philosophical, physical, metaphysical, evidential, scientific and political.

You You should know better than to devote so much time to so many bags of atoms that are happy to exchange six millennia of widespread common sense for a century and half of "new science."

Me Are you by chance a member of the Flat Earth Society?

You No. Are you by chance trying to say evolution "science" was responsible for proving the earth to be a slightly malformed sphere? What's your point? What shall we all believe from the Fictitious Evolution Society? What do you really know for sure with all that static between your antennae?

Nope. I was attempting to point out how absurd you first statement was. Just because something has been "common" knowledge for centuries does not mean that it is correct.

Heck, if a better theory replaces evolution because of newly discovered data, I am all for it. However, evolution is the best model we have to date to fit the current data set.

BTW, I do not "believe" in evolution. I accept the data that has been uncovered to date.

I'm commenting below on your posts to Dataman. I don't think he will mind.

We were discussing cosmology (e.g., origin of the universe), not evolution. Evolution would still be a science whether the universe was made by the Big Bang, by God, or by the pink unicorns.

Evolution depends as little on where matter "originally" came from as does meteorology, rocket science, or auto repair.

If cosmology has nothing to do with Evolution, then the two recent prime proponents of Evolution, Dawkins and the late Gould, should be entirely written off. This because Dawkins concludes, firmly, that there is no God on the basis of his "understanding" of Evolution. Or he's a liar. There is no doubt that he's an Atheist. And Gould because he was a huge proponent of the universe, everything, having arisen by chance. As science, the "chance" so-called argument is just plain garbage. This is blatently obvious to anyone to makes any sort or remote claim to some measure of intelligence.

If you can suggest, even flippantly, that the universe was made by pink unicorns, and that this issue of origins relates not at all to the grand claims made by Evolutionists, then you are running on pure unadulterated ego. The credibility of all aspects of science depends upon where matter came from and what it is. All aspects. And do you really believe that all that elegant math and all those elegant physical laws that the mathematicians and physicists spend lifetimes discovering "just happened"? If you do, then you are a pure fool. "Just happened" has no scientific meaning, or any other for that matter. It is an expression of ignorance.

Evolution does indeed depend upon what matter is and where it came from. But at the heart of all material is the immaterial. Ask the physicists, those with an intimate knowledge of quantum mechanics, not your average auto mechanic or Evolutionist. Ask them about John Bell and Alain Aspect. Here's some news to all of biology from the world of the physicists. Billiard Ball Materialism is stone dead, as dead as yesterday's coffee. Stone dead. Those who continue to express their faith in it, and that's all that it is, are exhibiting their ignorance. And that is also why the Evolutionists are sometimes accused of operating on the basis of faith.

Define Evolution for us, hotshot, and if it's anything more than "change over time", which means nothing, we'll have a hard look at it. It's a good thing, if true, that Evolution is backing away from grand claims about origins and abiogenesis but someone should inform the Talk Origins website people. I don't believe it's true.

Peppered moths aren't "fake", they're perfectly real. It might help if you learned more about the topic before you expose more of your ignorance. And it might help your case if your proferred "evidence" against evolution didn't turn out to be mostly imaginary prejudice.

Yes, peppered moths is a fake example of Evolution, either Macro or so-called Micro. Within their genetic structure are genes for the expression of either mostly black or mostly gray wings and which predominated at any time was an apparent function of the environment. Nothing new, certainly no new species and NOT an example of Evolution. So, forget it AND take it out of the textbooks. Here you are exposed as the ignorant one.

Glib crap is just glib crap, no matter what its length. That is what you're producing, in volume.

BTW, I do not "believe" in evolution. I accept the data that has been uncovered to date.

Good point. One can "believe" in the existence of the tooth fairy, but one does not -- in the same sense of the word -- "believe" in the existence of his mother. Belief in the first proposition (tooth fairy) requires faith, the belief in something for which there is no evidence or logical proof. The second proposition (mother) is that kind of knowledge which follows from sensory evidence. There is also that kind of knowledge (like the Pythagorean theorem) which follows from a logical proof. In between mother and the Pythagorean theorem are those propositions we provisionally accept (or in common usage "believe"), like relativity and evolution, because they are scientific theories -- logical and falsifiable explanations of the available data (which data is knowledge obtained via sensory evidence).

Simple question, though. Okay, we say that life is too complicated to have occured naturally, indicating that it must have been designed by a designer....

Wouldn't that designer be way, way too complicated to occur naturally? And wouldn't that indicate that the designer had been designed to design? And what about *that* designer? And that designer's designer.... Before long, the universe is filled with designers who can create life out of nothingness, as it could be no other way.... By concluding that complexity=design, we conclude that those complex designers must have been created by even more complex designers, ad infinitum.

The complexity of life is not in itself the reason ID advocates say it shows evidence of design. It has to do with specific characteristics, such as the bacterial flagellum that create significant problems if you assume it arose by random mutations. See post 366.

Let's be honest now Dan. Criticism by peers isn't the issue. Criticism of the theory is discouraged and even enforced by law in the public schools. A system as sound and proven as evolution shouldn't be afraid of criticism. You people feel free to criticize creationism. Now what if we used the power of the government to stop critcism and smugly claim that peers criticize the system regularly? Where is your sense of fairness? Double standards seem to be the rule here.

Creation doesn't fear criticism nor does it demand the removal of the evolutionary theory from schools.

Did I leave out the word "public?" Those right-wing fundamentalists, People for the American Way commissioned a survey within the last two years that showed parents who favored creation wanted both views taught in schools while parents who favored evolution wanted evolution only. Now doesn't that tell you something about the indefensible nature of evolution?

Let's get real, shall we?

Parents who want creationism taught in SCIENCE class are clueless about what science is.

Science is about facts, and evidence.

When you say god did this, Creationism/ID, you are talking about religion, NOT SCIENCE. No matter how many times you restate, fall back etc, it comes down to the same crap.

Creationists, who are clueless about science, Literal creationists that is, want their "theory" taught in science class. Sorry there Dataman, but creationism is NOT science and therefore should NOT be taught in science class.

If you have a TRUE SCIENTIFIC theory that would compete with evolution for scientists attention, I will be the first one to say, GREAT, let's do it, because the students should be allowed to see competing SCIENTIFIC Theories.

Problem is, YOU DON'T HAVE ONE!! ID is a religious theory, there is NO evidence of a grand designer, scientifically. You Idr's just say, ohh, that's so complicated, must be designed.

That's like me looking at my car and saying, oohhh, that's too complicated, god must have done it. Come on, all I have to do is study a bit, and what do you know, I can understand my car. Well, REAL scientists look at an organism, and go ohh, isn't that complicated, let's see how that might have come to be.

You take comfort in creationism, WONDERFUL, then teach it to your kids, but it is NOT science, no matter how many different ways you say it.

Please see my tag line.

It's an easy, easy thing to understand, all it takes is a little LOGIC.

Evolution's problems are myriad; logical, philosophical, physical, metaphysical, evidential, scientific and political.

Let's pretend your statement had merit. (It doesn't). Let's then insert "The Genesis storty" for "Evolution."
Logical? Um, magic deity (Christian only, please) zaps life into existence from nothing a short while ago. 4-5 billion humans today say, "nope."
Philosophical? 4-5 billion humans today say, "nope."
Physical? I don't really know what the "physical" parameter entails, but if its in regards to what we see on earth, after 2000 years, there are lots of people waiting to see some physical evidence of anything supernaturally christian. Heck, even christians say their beliefs are faith based.
Metaphysical? you win that one, as science stays away from all things metaphysical.
Evidential? Again, the Genesis account fails rather miserably. I mean c'mon, so far evidence of creationism is a resounding null set. All you creationists do is pick on evolutionary ideas (which you dont even understand) rather than put forth any evidence of your own.
Scientific? wow, that's odd. I'm pretty sure, despite LBB's silliness, 99.9% of the scietific community is pretty secure with the voluminous facts supporting evolution. The .1% is made up of guys who knowingly lie to make money on their books and videos from the uneducated flock.
Political? Not applicable, as evolution has no politics. Period.

This is another of those ridiculous posts that creationists blithely post, smile, cross their arms, and say, "hurumph." Sorry, buddy, but it doesn't fly here.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.