Evidence Disproving Evolution

myself | 10/11/02 | gore3000

[gore3000]

Evidence Disproving Evolution

The basis of a valid scientific theory is that it be able to explain all the scientific data in the field it is concerned with and that no evidence contradicting the theory be true. This is a harsh test, but one which all legitimate scientific theories must pass. This is a test which the theory of evolution has failed in spades as the following abundantly shows.

Religion and Science:

Access Research Network Discovery Institute -- Origins -- Creation Science -- Creation/Evolution Sites -- Creation & Evolution Links from the Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Club -- True Origins -- Answers in Genesis -- Faith Facts -- Center for Renewal of Science and Culture -- Center for Scientific Creation -- Creation Research Society -- Biblical Creation Society -- Christian Apologetics -- Institute for Creation Research

"It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse;. a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows evolution." From: Charles Darwin, "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life"

Intelligent Design:
Darwin's Mistake by Stu Pullen -- Rebuttals of Criticisms of Darwin's Black Box -- Dembski - Another Way to Detect Design -- Behe, Michael J. - ARN Authors Page -- Leadership U. Designer Universe: Intelligent Design Theory of Origins -- Flagellar Structure and regulated transcription of flagellar genes -- Dr. Lee Spetner's continued exchange with Dr. Edward E. Max -- Intelligent Design Research Community -- Intelligent Design Theory Resources -- Intelligent Design. The bridge between science and theology. (William Dembski). -- Evolution vs Creation (Intelligent Design) WorldView -- Detailed defense of "Icons" by Wells -- Dembski on Intelligent Design -- Dembski: No Free Lunch -- Behe's Book -- A True Acid Test:Response to Ken Miller : Behe, Michael -- Intelligent Design Articles -- Phillip Johnson's Page -- Ohio Science Standards - IDN	A Moment in History... That a maker is required for anything that is made is a lesson Sir Isaac Newton was able to teach forcefully to an atheist-scientist friend of his. Sir Isaac had an accomplished artisan fashion for him a small scale model of our solar system which was to be put in a room in Newton?s home when completed. The assignment was finished and installed on a large table. The workman had done a very commendable job, simulating not only the various sizes of the planets and their relative proximities, but also so constructing the model that everything rotated and orbited when a crank was turned. It was an interesting, even fascinating work, as you can image, particularly to anyone schooled in the sciences. Newton's atheist-scientist friend came by for a visit. Seeing the model, he was naturally intrigued, and proceeded to examine it with undisguised admiration for the high quality of the workmanship. "My! What an exquisite thing this is!? he exclaimed. "Who made it?? Paying little attention to him, Sir Isaac answered, "Nobody." Stopping his inspection, the visitor turned and said: "Evidently you did not understand my question. I asked who made this. Newton, enjoying himself immensely no doubt, replied in a still more serious tone. "Nobody. What you see just happened to assume the form it now has." "You must think I am a fool!? the visitor retorted heatedly, "Of course somebody made it, and he is a genius, and I would like to know who he is." Newton then spoke to his friend in a polite yet firm way: "This thing is but a puny imitation of a much grander system whose laws you know, and I am not able to convince you that this mere toy is without a designer and maker; yet you profess to believe that the great original from which the design is taken has come into being without either designer or maker! Now tell me by what sort of reasoning do you reach such an incongruous conclusion?" From: Sir Isaac Newton Solar System Story, "The Truth: God or evolution?" by Marshall and Sandra Hall

Biology Disproving Evolution
Alternative Splicing -- Scientists snap first 3-D pictures of the "heart" of the transcription machine -- Molecular Biology Book -- Cell Interactions in Development -- Oldest Living Plant -- Fruit Flies Speak Up -- The Nature of Nurture: How the environment shapes our genes -- Nanobes (Nanobacteria) are crystals -- Regulation of the Cell Cycle 2001 Nobel Prize -- Amniota - Problems with the Philogeny of -- Basic Principles of Genetics Mendel's Genetics -- Photosynthesis -- Population Variability and Evolutionary Genetics -- Fossil Hominids mitochondrial DNA -- Genetics Glossary AB -- Genomics and Its Impact on Medicine and Society 2001 Primer -- The molecular clock -- Cell Signaling: The Inside Story on MAP Kinases -- Protein Synthesis -- Watching genes at work -- Cell snapshot spots cancer -- Development protein atracts and then repels muscle tissue -- Evolution of the Genomes of Mammals and Birds -- Gene Silencing - Study shows plants inherit traits from more than gene sequence alone -- Gene silencing - Environmental Stress reactions -- Bio-Tech Info - Gene Silencing Articles -- Advances In "Micro" RNA Exploring Process Of Life -- Monkeys and Men - gene expression -- Chimps, Humans and Retroviruses -- Gene activity in human brain sets us apart from chimps -- Pros and Cons of Inbreeding -- Inbreeding and desth of species -No Need to Isolate Genetics -- How Organisms Protect Themselves Against Transposons -- Uses of transposons -- Cell Suicide -- Protein Transforms Sedentary Muscles Into Exercised Muscles, Researchers Report -- Gene insertion in Transgenic Animals -- "50,000 Genes, and We Know Them All (Almost)"	While evolution continues to tell us that species transform themselves in a simple almost magical manner, modern biology shows this not to be the case. Organisms are so complex that for them to transform themselves into different ones would require a theory of COevolution. The random processes assumed by evolutionary theory deny such a possibility. Genes are just information encoded along a long string of the chemical DNA; they cannot do anything themselves. David Baltimore, Nobel Prize Winner

Mutations:
A Scientific Defense of a Creationist Position on Evolution -- Evolutionist View of Evolutionary Biology -- Creation, Selection, And Variation -- Population Genetics, Haldane's Dilemma and the Neutral Theory of Evolution -- Haldane Rebuttal -- Point_Mutations -- Inbreeding and Population Genetics -- Introduction to Evolutionary Biology -- Neutral Mutations -- Computational Geneticists Revisit A Mystery In Evolution -- Mutations - organisms fixes them itself -- Mutations	Funny thing about mutations, it is almost impossible for them to spread throughout a species. In addition, mutations which either transform a species into another or which add any kind of greater complexity have not been seen in spite of the daily experimentation going on in thousands of research labs daily.

Junk DNA:
The Human Genome Project -- Junk DNA in man and mouse -- Junk DNA - Over 95 percent of DNA has largely unknown function -- JUNK dna and transpositions -- Junk DNA Tips Off Tumor Comeback -- Transgenics, Junk DNA, Evolution and Risks: Reading Through Rows	Evolutionists are always making assumptions. They assumed that the tonsils and the appendix were remnants of previous species from which humans had evolved and were totally useless. They were wrong about that. When the human genome was sequenced and it was found that only 5% of it was used in genes they immediately assumed that the 95% not in genes was 'junk'. They were wrong again of course. The now called 'non-coding' DNA is the source of what makes humans tick and a marvel of creation in itself.

Abiogenesis:
RNA World: A Critique -- Evolution and the Origin of Life -- Thermodynamics and the Origin of Life - Part II -- The Mystery of Life's Origin -- Message Theory/Remine -- Bruce Lipton, Insight Into Cellular Consciousness	There is a tremendous amount of proof against abiogenesis. First of all is Pasteur's proof that life does not come from inert matter (and this was of course at one time the prediction of materialists). Then came the discovery of DNA and the chemical basis of organisms. This poses a totally insurmountable problem to abiogenesis. The smallest living cells has a DNA string of some one million base pairs long and some 600 genes, even cutting this number by a quarter as the smallest possible living cell would give us a string of some 250,000 base pairs of DNA. It is important to note here that DNA can be arranged in any of the four basic codes equally well, there is no chemical or other necessity to the sequence. The chances of such an arrangement arising are therefore 4^250,000. Now the number of atoms in the universe is said to be about 4^250. I would therefore call 4^250,000 an almost infinitely impossible chance (note that the supposition advanced that perhaps it was RNA that produced the first life has this same problem). The problem though is even worse than that. Not only do you need two (2) strings of DNA perfectly matched to have life, but you also need a cell so that the DNA code can get the material to sustain that life. It is therefore a chicken and egg problem, you cannot have life without DNA (or RNA if one wants to be generous) but one also has to have the cell itself to provide the nutrients for the sustenance of the first life. Add to this problem that for the first life to have been the progenitor of all life on earth, it necessarily needs to have been pretty much the same as all life now on earth is, otherwise it could not have been the source of the life we know. Given all these considerations, yes, abiogenesis is impossible.

Darwin and His Theory:
Charles Darwin - The Truth -- Darwin's Racism -- Darwi n's Family -- Malthus and evolutionists -- Darwin's Environment -- Darwin, Racism, Evil -- Ascent of Racism -- Talk.Origins and the Darwin/Hitler Test -- Darwin's finches Evolution in real time -- Effects of the 1998 El Niño on Darwins finches on Daphne -- Punctuated Equilibrium at Twenty -- Homology A Concept in Crisis. Origins & Design 182. Wells, Jonathan -- Darwin's Creation Myth -- David Berlinsky 'The Deniable Darwin	Evolutionists try to paint Darwin as a quiet scientist working hard on writing his theory. However, this is a totally false statement. Yes, he was a recluse. However, he was neither a scintist not a very nice person as the following quote shows: With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed. From: Charles Darwin, "The Descent of Man", Chapter V.

Evolutionist Censorship:
Scientists Censored for Publicly Exposing Flaws in Evolution - Suite101.com -- Science and Fairness -- Duane Gish Responds to Joyce Arthur's Critique -- Do Creationists Publish in Notable Refereed Journals? -- Censorship of Information on Origins -- Professor Rigid on Evolution (must "believe" to get med school rec)	Evolutionists almost since the start have tried to silence opponents. While they constantly claim to be scientists, it seems that instead of following the principles of science - questioning, discussion, and challenging of existing theories, they follow the principles of ideology - silencing and destroying opponents.

Species Disproving Evolution:

Morphology of the Archaea -- Humans Are Three Percent Puffer Fish -- JGI Fugu v2.0 Home -- Cyanobacteria not changed in 4 billion years -- Platypus -- Platypus Web Sites -- Eosimias ankle bone proves human descent! -- euglena -- Textbook Fraud: Hyracotherium dawn horse eohippus, mesohippus, meryhippus -- - On the Alleged Dinosaurian Ancestry of Birds - -- Fruit Flies Disprove Darwin -- Hymenopimecis Wasp: Parasite's web of death -- Haploid False Spider Mites -- Cambrian Explosion: Biology's Big Bang -- Cambrian Explosion: Origin of the Phyla -- Kangaroo and platypus not related

Top: Euglena, Hymenopimesis Wasp, Butterfly, Platypus Bottom: Bat, Fugu, Cambrian species

Various Topics:
A Critique of '29 Evidences for Macroevolution' -- Blind Atheist -- Freeper Views on Origins -- Freeper Views on Origins - Patriarchs -- Creation/Evolution Debate -- Homology -- 15 Answers to John Rennie and SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN's Nonsense (by Bert Thompson and Brad Harrub> -- Sir Karl Popper "Science as Falsification," 1963 -- Pope John Paul II: Truth Cannot Contradict Truth (Statement on Evolution - 1996) -- Evolution Shams -- A Critique of PBS's Evolution -- Evolution of a Creationist -- Evolution, Creation, and Thermodynamics -- God, Humanity and the Cosmos Book Section Evolutionary Biology and Theology -- The Revolution Against Evolution -- Sexual Reproduction A Continuing Mystery to Evolutionists -- Splifford FAQ (How talk.origins and sci.bio.evolution really work -- Mathematics vs Evolution -- Evolution vs Logic -- Natural Selection an Agency of Stasis, not Change -- Evolution as Anti-Science -- Critique of Gould -- Radiocarbon dating things which should not radiocarbon date... -- Evolution or Christianity -- Funding for Evolution -- Scientists find biological reality behind religious experience [Free Republic] -- Doctors increasingly find introducing prayer helps calm patients and speeds recovery -- The healing power of prayer. -- There is power in prayer [Free Republic] -- Micro vs Macroevolution -- Science Design Kit -- 50 Reasons to Leave Evolutionism -- The Evolution of Truth -- Fossils and dating -- - Talk.Origins: Deception by Omission -- Talk Origins - FAQ or Fiction? -- McCluskey, E. S. --- Which Vertebrates Make Vitamin C? -- Vitamin c Pseudogene -- Snapshots of God -- Critics of Evolution - Book Reviews	While evolution claims to explain the descent of one species from another, it has never been able to do so. The original explanation for how evolution transforms species, natural selection, has things backwards. Natural selection kills, it does not create anything. For evolution to be true it needed to propose a creative force which would have been able to add new traits, new functions to the simplest creatures and gradually transform them into more complex ones. The original proposal by Darwin, the melding of features from the parents, did not answer this problem, nor does the more modern version of the exchange of genetic information that occurs in procreation. Such methods do not add any information either, they just reshuffle the information which already exists in the species. Clearly this cannot be the source of increased complexity either. With the re-discovery of genetics in the 20th Century, the Darwinists finally accepted the incorrectness of the melding theory and proposed mutations as the agent of creation of new information. They ran into the problem that with individuals receiving half their genes from each parent and half the genes of each parent being passed on to the progeny, the chances of a new mutation, even one which might be favorable, had not only a very small chance of surviving more than a few generations, but also had an almost impossible chance of spreading throughout a species. They therefore proposed that most mutations were neutral ones and by gradual accumulation they would change the species. This explanation did not even solve the problem of how difficult it was for any mutation to survive, let alone spread throughout a species. The discovery of DNA made the above possibility, already quite unlikely and totally unproven, just about totally impossible. The high complexity of a gene and more importantly experiments showing that changing even one of the thousand DNA bases of a gene are likely to destroy functioning completely and are extremely unlikely to enhance it, presented another serious problem for evolution. This was 'solved' by proposing that gene duplication would create new functions without destroying necessary functioning. Of course, as before, this was only theory and no experimental proof of it was found to support it. The same problem of it being hard to change a gene favorably applied to such genes, the only explanatory gain was that incorrect mutations would not be deadly. Even then, this was insufficient explanation for the transformation of species. Similar genes, which are fairly common, only accomplish similar functions. The vast changes required for complete species transformation, are unexplainable without the creation of totally new genes. With the discovery that genes themselves are just factories and are controlled by other DNA in the organism, and that a single gene often produces many proteins, this explanation was rendered inadequate. Now a new function, which was already known to most likely require more than a single new gene, would require a whole complex of DNA outside the gene to make it work when and if needed. This makes the evolutionary explanation of random, non-directed species change totally untenable and indeed biologists are beginning to call the developmental process of an organism a program. Like all programs, those for life are not made at random.

[gore3000]

This means that if a coelocanth of today has drifted far enough away from a coelocanth of 100 million years ago that they would be unable to mate, then the two are genotyped as different species even if their phenotypes are virtually identical.

That is exactly why speciation is totally insufficient to prove that evolution has occurred. If there are no changes in functioning, in abilities, in complexity, then no evolution has occurred because evolution requires increased functioning, increased abilities and increased complexity in order for man to have descended from bacteria.

[AntiGuv]

This is a flat out lie on its face. The concept of 'lower races' had existed since time immemorial and justified such things as slavery. It did not require Darwinism. The concepts of 'eugenics' & 'natural selection' had existed since time immemorial and justified anything from infanticide to concepts of miscegenation. They did not require Darwinism. Most of humanity had been intuitive enough to figure such things out even before Darwin put them into scientific application and Mendel established their rudimentary operation. Of course, history has also been replete with those ignorants who cannot accept the obvious even when it's slapping them upside the head.

[AntiGuv]

No, this is not. I have already acknowledged that a substantial proportion of the 100 million BC coelocanth population will have undergone changes in functioning, in abilities, in complexity, and so on. The difference is that the progeny of those coelocanths would for the most part no longer look anything even remotely like a coelocanth. In much the same fashion, while some populations of prokaryotes have undergone evolution, that obviously has not prevented other populations of prokaryotes from remaining virtually unchanged. Those coelocanths which fit their niche remained in their niche; those which did not evolved into other species which evolved into other species and so on. For all I know, humans are the direct descendents of some primordial group of coelocanths....

[gore3000]

Heliocentric cosmology is a materialistic explanation of the universe.

And your whole post in no way addresses the point I made in #206 about evolution requiring that there not be an intelligent designer for it to be true.

The heliocentric theory does not require that there not be a God. Evolution does because as I said, an intelligent designer is a much more reasonable explanation for the transformation of species than materialism once it has been established that there is an intelligent designer which created life. So yes, abiogenesis is essential for the theory of evolution to be true.

[AntiGuv]

And your whole post in no way addresses the point I made in #206 about evolution requiring that there not be an intelligent designer for it to be true.

No, quite the contrary. My entire post addresses just that point for anyone not so dim that they cannot infer the obvious. Evolution no more requires the absence of an intelligent designer than heliocentric cosmology does. As for "abiogenesis" that is not essential for the evolutionary model to be true.

[gore3000]

The horrors of the 20th Century (Communism, Nazism) can reasonably be laid at the door of atheism and/or man's inherent sinfulness, but not Darwinism.

One of the insanities of Stalin's Russia was actually the repudiation of Darwinism.

As a famous Darwinist said "Darwin made atheism respectable". So yes, it can be laid at his door. Darwin was an atheist, his friends were atheists, the modern spokesmen of evolution are atheists. So yes, Darwinism is the scientific foundation for atheism. Marx wanted to dedicate Das Kapital to Darwin, but Darwin wishing to keep his atheism and his intentions hidden, refused. The founder of the idea of the master race, Haeckel, was highly lauded by Darwin and Darwin adopted many of his 'scientific' pronouncements (see the opening of the Descent of Man) as well as Haeckel's phony drawings. If the above were not enough the eugenics, the theory of inferior species, the idea of war for survival, the idea that it is okay to help natural selection by murdering people all came from Darwin. So yes, Darwin is the philosophical foundation for the horrors of Nazism and Communism.

[gore3000]

Finally, your post #208 makes a reasonably strong point that we shouldn't want Darwinism to be true. It says nothing at all about whether it is in fact so.

I think it does indeed. A society without morals, a society where life is not valued, a society where man's life has no intrinsic value cannot thrive. We saw this pretty well in Soviet Russia.

[AntiGuv]

So what? Christianity was the philosophical foundation for the horrors of the Inquisition. Does this mean we should all discard Christianity because people who wish to do harm will wrap themselves in the cloak of whatever the prevailing ideology they might twist to their ill intentions?

[gore3000]

Very well, then. Feel free to alter my original statement to read: "...genetic drift under natural selection pressures." I had assumed that I could leave the caveat unspoken, but I forgot in that moment that I'm debating with an obscurantist.

Not so fast. The theory of neutral drift, which is what you were arguing in your post is false. Adding natural selection to it does not help evolution because evolution does not create anything, it does not create new genetic information, new genes, new anything. Natural selection only destroys so adding -2 to 0 does not give you 4. What it does give you is a theory which is total nonsense - evolution.

[AntiGuv]

I was discussing natural selection - not neutral drift - and I have explicitly stated so. You can persist in thinking whatever you wish to think "just because" and I will find that of no great consequence. I do not bargain with irrationality and I do not expect to persuade you of anything. Nonetheless, you are again quite wrong. Evolution is a process, not a zero-sum game.

Incidentally, I worked a period of time for the U.S. Embassy in Soviet Russia and where your above description may've characterized its government, it certainly did not characterize its people. In any case, I could apply the exact same characterization to any number of theistic governments quite easily. Doing so would not serve to establish anything of value about their underlying religious pretenses.

[gore3000]

Arguably, the absence of God makes morality obsolete, although plenty of atheist philosophers argue otherwise

A personal morality and situational ethics are totally insufficient to restrain the basest instincts of man. This is what we saw in the 20th century and this is what we see in many of the ugliest behavior of modern times. Look what is going on in what used to be called Souther Rhodesia now. The theory of survival of the fittest, of might makes right is totally destroying the country and resulting in the starvation of those for whom the murderous agenda is supposedly being carried out.

[DWPittelli]

A personal morality and situational ethics are totally insufficient to restrain the basest instincts of man. This is what we saw in the 20th century and this is what we see in many of the ugliest behavior of modern times. Look what is going on in what used to be called Souther Rhodesia now. The theory of survival of the fittest, of might makes right is totally destroying the country and resulting in the starvation of those for whom the murderous agenda is supposedly being carried out.

At best, you have shown that religion is useful for keeping people moral. (A debatable position.) You have not shown it to be true. And you are even farther afield from showing miraculous creationism to be true. A belief in a Santa Claus who knows who's naughty and who's nice is useful for keeping children good (at least in December). It does not make Santa real.

[gore3000]

Since you here present utilitarian grounds for traditional morality, you yourself show that even an atheistic utilitarian can accept that your morality is of benefit to society.

You are finally getting my point. Materialism destroys the basis of a good society by destroying belief in God. So, like the saying went, materialism plants the seeds for the destruction of us all. Now this can in no way be called progress, or advance or helpful to the human species. Therefore the scientific materialism which evolution proposes is false. It does not lead to betterment, it leads to destruction. So again we see that truth and morality go together.

[AntiGuv]

You should grab yourself a good Medieval or Early Modern history text and you'll discover that an absolute morality and absolute ethics are similarly insufficient to restrain the basest instincts of man. This is what we saw in the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries after the broad conversion to Christianity and before Darwin. Look what was going on in what used to be called the Holy Roman Empire just for starters. All those murderous agendas were supposedly carried out in the name of Christianity.

[AntiGuv]

Now this can in no way be called progress, or advance or helpful to the human species.

Well, it certainly cannot be called regress or decline or destructive to the human species at least insofar as the fashion that you imply. Refer to aforementioned history text...

[gore3000]

Although I'm still confused at why gore3000 is so anti-science.

Excuse me. Who says I am anti-science. I am completely for science. Being against the pseudo-science of evolution does not make me anti-science, it makes me pro-science. You have plenty of scientific facts which are known to be true in the article and links above. They show quite well that there is abundant scientific facts contradicting the theory of evolution and in my mind they overwhelmingly disprove the theory. If you disagree with my position, then disprove the facts I have laid out instead of making baseless assertions.

[Alamo-Girl]

To keep things in perspective, here's some information for the discussion on democide: Murder by Government

[AntiGuv]

Well, you can already tell from my moniker that I'm not fond of governments as a general rule... Thanks for an interesting link, though!

[gore3000]

Scientists Spy Dozens of New Frog Species in Sri Lanka.

So what? They found some supposedly new species of frogs in Sri Lanka by doing an exhaustive search. That's why they did the search is it not? To discover something new. Why this should be considered evolution is only in your eyes.

BTW - unScientific American again shows the total stupidity of its editorial staff. It is a wonder these idiots even got a high school diploma. They state as one of the reasons for considering these frogs as new species:

By comparing the specimens to Sri Lankan samples stored in museums around the world and analyzing differences in appearance, genetics and behavior (including the animals's telltale croaks).

How can you tell the 'croak' of a frog that has croaked?

[AndrewC]

My point, however, is that when two populations can never produce viable offspring via natural means, then they are invariably of different species.

So a eunuch is a different species?

And in case you didn't know it, llamas and camels, which diverged 30 million years ago, can produce viable offspring which may be fertile.