hysterical Darwinites panic

The theory of evolution is a tottering house of ideological cards that is more about cherished mythology than honest intellectual endeavor. Evolutionists treat their cherished theory like a fragile object of veneration and worship--and so it is. Panic is a sure sign of intellectual insecurity, and evolutionists have every reason to be insecure, for their theory is falling apart.

The latest evidence of this panic comes in a controversy that followed a highly specialized article published in an even more specialized scientific journal. Stephen C. Meyer, Director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, wrote an article accepted for publication in Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. The article, entitled "The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories," was published after three independent judges deemed it worthy and ready for publication. The use of such judges is standard operating procedure among "peer-reviewed" academic journals, and is considered the gold standard for academic publication.

The readership for such a journal is incredibly small, and the Biological Society of Washington does not commonly come to the attention of the nation's journalists and the general public. Nevertheless, soon after Dr. Meyer's article appeared, the self-appointed protectors of Darwinism went into full apoplexy. Internet websites and scientific newsletters came alive with outrage and embarrassment, for Dr. Meyer's article suggested that evolution just might not be the best explanation for the development of life forms. The ensuing controversy was greater than might be expected if Dr. Meyer had argued that the world is flat or that hot is cold.

Eugenie C. Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, told The Scientist that Dr. Meyer's article came to her attention when members of the Biological Society of Washington contacted her office. "Many members of the society were stunned about the article," she told The Scientist, and she described the article as "recycled material quite common in the intelligent design community." Dr. Scott, a well known and ardent defender of evolutionary theory, called Dr. Meyer's article "substandard science" and argued that the article should never have been published in any scientific journal.

Within days, the Biological Society of Washington, intimidated by the response of the evolutionary defenders, released a statement apologizing for the publication of the article. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the society's governing council claimed that the article "was published without the prior knowledge of the council." The statement went on to declare: "We have met and determined that all of us would have deemed this paper inappropriate for the pages of the Proceedings." The society's president, Roy W. McDiarmid, a scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey, blamed the article's publication on the journal's previous editor, Richard Sternberg, who now serves as a fellow at the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the National Institute of Health. "My conclusion on this," McDiarmid said, "was that it was a really bad judgment call on the editor's part."

What is it about Dr. Stephen Meyer's paper that has caused such an uproar? Meyer, who holds a Ph.D. from Cambridge University, argued in his paper that the contemporary form of evolutionary theory now dominant in the academy, known as "Neo-Darwinism," fails to account for the development of higher life forms and the complexity of living organisms. Pointing to what evolutionists identify as the "Cambrian explosion," Meyer argued that "the geologically sudden appearance of many new animal body plans" cannot be accounted for by Darwinian theory, "neo" or otherwise.

Accepting the scientific claim that the Cambrian explosion took place "about 530 million years ago," Meyer went on to explain that the "remarkable jump in the specified complexity or 'complex specified information' [CSI] of the biological world" cannot be explained by evolutionary theory.

The heart of Dr. Meyer's argument is found in this scientifically-loaded passage: "Neo-Darwinism seeks to explain the origin of new information, form, and structure as a result of selection acting on randomly arising variation at a very low level within the biological hierarchy, mainly, within the genetic text. Yet the major morphological innovations depend on a specificity of arrangement at a much higher level of the organizational hierarchy, a level that DNA alone does not determine. Yet if DNA is not wholly responsible for body plan morphogenesis, then DNA sequences can mutate indefinitely, without regard to realistic probabilistic limits, and still not produce a new body plan. Thus, the mechanism of natural selection acting on random mutations in DNA cannot in principle generate novel body plans, including those that first arose in the Cambrian explosion."

In simpler terms, the mechanism of natural selection, central to evolutionary theory, cannot possibly account for the development of so many varied and complex life forms simply by mutations in DNA. Rather, some conscious design--thus requiring a Designer--is necessary to explain the emergence of these life forms.

In the remainder of his paper, Meyer attacks the intellectual inadequacies of evolutionary theory and argues for what is now known as the "design Hypothesis." As he argued, "Conscious and rational agents have, as a part of their powers of purposive intelligence, the capacity to design information-rich parts and to organize those parts into functional information-rich systems and hierarchies." As he went on to assert, "We know of no other causal entity or process that has this capacity." In other words, the development of the multitude of higher life forms found on the planet can be explained only by the guidance of a rational agent--a Designer--whose plan is evident in the design.

Meyer's article was enough to cause hysteria in the evolutionists' camp. Knowing that their theory lacks intellectual credibility, the evolutionists respond by raising the volume, offering the equivalent of scientific shrieks and screams whenever their cherished theory is criticized--much less in one of their own cherished journals. As Dr. John West, Associate Director of the Discovery Institute explained, "Instead of addressing the paper's argument or inviting counterarguments or rebuttal, the society has resorted to affirming what amounts to a doctrinal statement in an effort to stifle scientific debate. They're trying to stop scientific discussion before it even starts."

When the Biological Society of Washington issued its embarrassing apology for publishing the paper, the organization pledged that arguments for Intelligent Design "will not be addressed in future issues of the Proceedings," regardless of whether the paper passes peer review.

From the perspective of panicked evolutionists, the Intelligent Design movement represents a formidable adversary and a constant irritant. The defenders of Intelligent Design are undermining evolutionary theory at multiple levels, and they refuse to go away. The panicked evolutionists respond with name-calling, labeling Intelligent Design proponents as "creationists," thereby hoping to prevent any scientific debate before it starts.

Intelligent Design is not tantamount to the biblical doctrine of creation. Theologically, Intelligent Design falls far short of requiring any affirmation of the doctrine of creation as revealed in the Bible. Nevertheless, it is a useful and important intellectual tool, and a scientific movement with great promise. The real significance of Intelligent Design theory and its related movement is the success with which it undermines the materialistic and naturalistic worldview central to the theory of evolution.

For the Christian believer, the Bible presents the compelling and authoritative case for God's creation of the cosmos. Specifically, the Bible provides us with the ultimate truth concerning human origins and the special creation of human beings as the creatures made in God's own image. Thus, though we believe in more than Intelligent Design, we certainly do not believe in less. We should celebrate the confusion and consternation now so evident among the evolutionists. Dr. Stephen Meyer's article--and the controversy it has spawned--has caught evolutionary scientists with their intellectual pants down.

Pointing to what evolutionists identify as the "Cambrian explosion," Meyer argued that "the geologically sudden appearance of many new animal body plans" cannot be accounted for by Darwinian theory, "neo" or otherwise.

Meyer is clearly vastly ignorant on this subject. But then, that's pretty much a prerequisite for being an anti-evolutionist (since most folks who actually *learn* the fundamentals of the field and bother to look at the evidence supporting it end up going, "oh, *now* I see...").

Not only can the "Cambrian explosion" be "accounted for by Darwinian theory, 'neo' or otherwise" -- it can even be accounted for by DARWIN HIMSELF, back in 1859. Why are creationist nitwits *so* far behind in their knowledge?

Here's what I posted the last time an anti-evolutionist had been reading too much creationist nonsense on the "Cambrian explosion", and not enough science journals... Now pay attention, class, there may be a quiz later.

For the next 3 billion years, little else but single- celled life forms ruled the planet. Then suddenly, in the Cambrian geological period, the earth is populated with a huge diversity of complex multicellular life forms.
Actually, there are many precambrian multicelled fossils. And in the Cambrian, there was much more diversity, but calling it a "huge diversity" is overstating the case. Life then was not even a large fraction as diverse as today's life.
This has always looked suspiciously like some form of creation event, and paleontologists frequently seemed rather embarrassed by the reality of the Cambrian Explosion.
I know of no paleontologists who are "embarrassed" by the Cambrian Explosion. And it only looks "suspiciously" like "some form of creation event" if you're actively looking to find one somewhere. It should also be noted that it looks "suspiciously" *NOT* like any kind of "creation event" mentioned in Genesis, so it's hardly any comfort to those hoping to confirm the Biblical account.
So, where is the documentation for the long history of the evolution of these creatures? The usual answer is that the necessary fossil layers prior to the Cambrian period have not been discovered yet. The fossils are just missing! Hmmm. . . . how convenient!
And how... expected! Fossils of *any* sort from 500+ million years ago are far and few between, for all of the obvious reasons. Strata from that ancient period are mostly deeply buried, destroyed by erosion, or destroyed by subduction. And the few samples which are reachable from the surface are seldom of the type suitable for fossilization of whatever may have lived then. Furthermore, Cambrian life was *ocean* life, and the fossil records of the critical events of those times may still be deep under some ocean today, making their discovery unlikely. So we have very few "snapshots" of life from that period, taken at instants in time at slivers of geography. It's no surprise that the key events of the Cambrian Explosion have not (yet?) been found.
This, after all, was Darwin's excuse and many evolutionists after him followed suit.
For the reasons given above. The author's sarcasm is offensive.
Well, recent discoveries from Canada, Greenland, China, Siberia, and Namibia document quite clearly that this period of biological creativity occurred in a geological instant virtually all around the globe. So, the usual excuse no longer holds water.
The fossils found to date in no way invalidate "the usual excuses", and in no way "document quite clearly that this period of biological creativity occurred in a geological instant virtually all around the globe".
They do indicate that in *those* locations, the creatures typical of the "Cambrian Explosion" SHOWED UP at those locations "in a geological instant". But that does NOT "document quite clearly" that the "period of biological creativity" occurred that quickly.
Even Darwin in 1859 realized that appearance in the fossil record does not necessarily indicate time of production -- so what excuse do the creationists have for forgetting this over and over again? From Darwin:
But we continually over-rate the perfection of the geological record, and falsely infer, because certain genera or families have not been found beneath a certain stage, that they did not exist before that stage. We continually forget how large the world is, compared with the area over which our geological formations have been carefully examined; we forget that groups of species may elsewhere have long existed and have slowly multiplied before they invaded the ancient archipelagoes of Europe and of the United States. We do not make due allowance for the enormous intervals of time, which have probably elapsed between our consecutive formations, -- longer perhaps in some cases than the time required for the accumulation of each formation. These intervals will have given time for the multiplication of species from some one or some few parent-forms; and in the succeeding formation such species will appear as If suddenly created.
I may here recall a remark formerly made, namely that it might require a long succession of ages to adapt an organism to some new and peculiar line of life, for instance to fly through the air; but that when this had been effected, and a few species had thus acquired a great advantage over other organisms, a comparatively short time would be necessary to produce many divergent forms, which would be able to spread rapidly and widely throughout the world.
I will now give a few examples to illustrate these remarks; and to show how liable we are to error in supposing that whole groups of species have suddenly been produced.
[many excellent examples snipped for length -- Darwin lists several examples from even his own day of fossils which were thought to have first appeared "suddenly" in certain formations with "no" prior appearance of fossils, only later to discover precursors in earlier formations]
Some few families of fish now have a confined range; the teleostean fish might formerly have had a similarly confined range, and after having been largely developed in some one sea, might have spread widely. Nor have we any right to suppose that the seas of the world have always been so freely open from south to north as they are at present. Even at this day, if the Malay Archipelago were converted into land, the tropical parts of the Indian Ocean would form a large and perfectly enclosed basin, in which any great group of marine animals might be multiplied; and here they would remain confined, until some of the species became adapted to a cooler climate, and were enabled to double the southern capes of Africa or Australia, and thus reach other and distant seas.
-- Charles Darwin, "On the Origin of Species", 1859
Another factor which Darwin could not have known about is continental drift -- lands have not only raised and lowered, as Darwin realized, but have also literally moved around on the face of the Earth and over time have opened or closed many land bridges, landlocked seas, and so on.
One of the most likely scenarios for the Cambrian Explosion, which creationists never seem to mention, is that the Cambrian life could have evolved in an inland sea for eons, and then finally continental drift broke open that sea to the wider oceans, "spilling" those life forms out to spread and populate the whole worldwide oceans. Any fossil formations from those oceans would show the "instant" appearance of those life forms out of "nowhere", just as Darwin pointed out 140+ years ago concerning animal migrations of various sorts.
Indeed, there are two lines of evidence which *strongly* support this scenario:
1. DNA evidence indicates that the various animal phyla had accumulated roughly 100 million years of independent evolution between their last common ancestor and the Cambrian era. So life did not diverge "suddenly" around the time of the Cambrian Explosion, it had been diverging for 100 million years already, somewhere.
2. The Cambrian was a period of the breakup of a "supercontinent". Most of the Earth's continental masses were jammed together for millions of years prior to the Cambrian, but during the Cambrian they were breaking up and drifting apart into separate continents. This is *exactly* when one would expect an inland sea (or inland "ocean") to break open and join up with the oceans as a whole, and it may thus be no coincidence that this is when the Cambrian "explosion" is seen to have occurred.
Such things have happened even in relatively "recent" times. Just 5.4 million years ago the Strait of Gibralter shifted enough apart to allow the Atlantic Ocean to pour in, filling what is now the Mediterranean Sea, causing the "sudden" appearance of Atlantic fish in the fossil record of that region.
While evolutionists are not exactly joining a creationist wave of conversion, they are being forced to ask tough questions concerning the nature of evolutionary change.
No they aren't. See above.
Darwin did not envision major evolutionary change happening this fast. Darwinism has always been characterized by slow gradual change that is imperceptible in our time frame.
Actually, no. On the same subject ("sudden" appearance of fossil forms), Darwin wrote:
We shall, perhaps, best perceive the improbability of our being enabled to connect species by numerous, fine, intermediate, fossil links, by asking ourselves whether, for instance, geologists at some future period will be able to prove, that our different breeds of cattle, sheep, horses, and dogs have descended from a single stock or from several aboriginal stocks [...] are really varieties or are, as it is called, specifically distinct. This could be effected only by the future geologist discovering in a fossil state numerous intermediate gradations; and such success seems to me improbable in the highest degree.
Here Darwin was pointing out that new breeds can appear in just dozens or hundreds of years, and yet representative fossils of the transitions are unlikely to be produced or preserved, because they are so few in number (and fossilization is a rare event requiring special circumstances).
Even so, Darwin's pessimism was overstated. Countless transitional fossils, including many gradual sequences, have been found, wonderfully supporting evolution in both large and small scopes. But Darwin's points still stand and explain why we'll likely never be able to recover *all* (or even a large majority) of such sequences.
Not, of course, that that will stop the creationists from pointing to any gaps in the fossil record, no matter how small, and sniggering about "missing links", no matter how many others have been found.
But the Cambrian explosion is anything but gradual, and identifiable intermediates are totally absent. Where are the ancestors?
See above. If they still exist (i.e, were actually fossilized, and the fossils have survived), they are in the localized strata underlying some ancient landlocked sea, wherever it may have been. In time, we may find it -- or not. The fossil record is neither complete nor perfect nor fully reachable by humanity.
What conditions could have prompted this frenzy of creativity? Is there some form of unknowable evolutionary mechanism at work?
Only if the things which Darwin wrote in 1859 are "unknowable"... Which I suppose it is to creationists, who perpetually seem unaware of what he actually wrote before they set out to "disprove" it.
All the known phyla, except one, along with the oddities with which I began this discussion, first appear in the Cambrian period.
Errrrnnntt!! Actually many phyla "first appear" long after the Cambrian.
There are no ancestors.
The author is invited to explain how he "knows" that the pre-cambrian creatures known from fossils are *not* the ancestors of the Cambrian fauna...
Fossil experts used to think that the Cambrian lasted 75 million years. But even that seemed to be a pretty short time for all this evolutionary change. Eventually the Cambrian was shortened to only 30 million years. And if that wasn't bad enough, the time frame of the real work of bringing all these different creatures into existence was limited to the first five to ten million years of the Cambrian. This is extraordinarily fast!
Yet again, the *appearance* in the fossil record (the parts we know, that is) occurred over a "short" period. But this (AGAIN) does not prove that the *development* necessarily occurred in such a short time. See above.
The potential answers to that dilemma are only creating more questions, questions that evolutionists may never be able to answer.
Yawn. Or they may already have and the author is unaware of it.
This notion of the gradualness of the evolutionary process was deeply reinforced with the discovery of DNA and the genetic code. DNA operates as an informational code for the development of an organism from a single cell to an adult and also regulates all the chemical processes that go on in cells. Mutations, or mistakes in the code had to have very minor effects. Disruption of the blueprint would be very sensitive. The small changes brought about by mutations would have to be cumulative over very long periods of time to bring about significant evolutionary changes.
This is hogwash. If anything, understanding of DNA has revealed how relatively *large* changes can occur due to small DNA mutations.
This necessity of gradualism
There is no such "necessity".
How could animals as diverse as arthropods, molluscs, jellyfish, and even primitive vertebrates all appear within a time span of only 5-10 million years with no ancestors and no intermediates?
They could "appear" (note even the author has to admit that this is only an *appearance* of speed) in the fossil record within a short timespan via migration -- just as Darwin pointed out in 1859.
Evolution just doesn't work this way.
Someone needs to read their Darwin again.
Fossil experts and biologists are only beginning to wrestle with this thorny dilemma. Some think that genes which control the process of development from a fertilized egg to an adult, the so- called Hox genes, may have reached a critical mass which led to an explosion of complexity.
Hey, I thought the author just claimed that DNA "proves" that mutations can only bring about "gradual" change? *smirk*.
Genetic information does not just spontaneously arise from random DNA sequences.
Through evolution, it most certainly does.
In fact, a question that is just as perplexing as how this explosion of diversity could occur so fast, is why hasn't such drastic change ever happened in the 500 million years since? The same basic body plans that arose in the Cambrian remain surprisingly constant ever since. Apparently, the most significant biological changes in the history of the earth occurred in less than ten million years, and for 500 million years afterward, this level of change never happened again. Why not?
Oh, puh-leaze.... Creationists like to harp on the "body plan" mantra as if it somehow has Huge Significance, but tell me this -- which shows more "significant biological changes" -- the difference between a Cambrian spineless worm and a Cambrian worm with a (very primitive) spinal column (two of the "body plans" creationists get excited about)... or the difference between a Cambrian worm with a very primitive spinal column and, say, a modern Golden Retriever dog (one of the chordate worm's distant descendants)?
This may seem like a simple question, but it is far more complicated than it appears.
Actually, it appears not just simple, but overly simplistic.
The speculations will therefore be wild and uncontrollable since there will be no way to test these theories. Fossils leave no trace of their genetic organization. We may never be able to know how this marvelous burst of creativity occurred.
Utter horse manure!
Fossils most certainly do "leave traces of their genetic organization" -- in their living descendants.
The author is obviously totally ignorant of the vast numbers of scientific papers which reconstruct early evolution by examining similarities and differences in the DNA of modern living things.

Any further questions?

Why is it that folks who wouldn't dream of thinking that they knew enough to attempt to identify any flaws in (for example) quantum physics, have no problem at all feeling "qualified" to "disprove" or outright dismiss just about *everything* in evolutionary biology?

Ironic. God asks the same question

God Shows Job's Ignorance
^(A) ¹ Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said:
       ²"Who is this who darkens counsel
       By words without knowledge?
       ³Now prepare yourself like a man;
       I will question you, and you shall answer Me.
       ⁴"Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
       Tell Me, if you have understanding.
       ⁵Who determined its measurements?
       Surely you know!
       Or who stretched the line upon it?
       ⁶To what were its foundations fastened?
       Or who laid its cornerstone,
       ⁷When the morning stars sang together,
       And all the sons of God shouted for joy?
       ⁸"Or who shut in the sea with doors,
       When it burst forth and issued from the womb;
       ⁹When I made the clouds its garment,
       And thick darkness its swaddling band;
       ¹⁰When I fixed My limit for it,
       And set bars and doors;
       ¹¹When I said,
       "This far you may come, but no farther,
       And here your proud waves must stop!'
       ¹²"Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
       And caused the dawn to know its place,
       ¹³That it might take hold of the ends of the earth,
       And the wicked be shaken out of it?
       ¹⁴It takes on form like clay under a seal,
       And stands out like a garment.
       ¹⁵From the wicked their light is withheld,
       And the upraised arm is broken.
       ¹⁶"Have you entered the springs of the sea?
       Or have you walked in search of the depths?
       ¹⁷Have the gates of death been revealed to you?
       Or have you seen the doors of the shadow of death?
       ¹⁸Have you comprehended the breadth of the earth?
       Tell Me, if you know all this.
       ¹⁹"Where is the way to the dwelling of light?
       And darkness, where is its place,
       ²⁰That you may take it to its territory,
       That you may know the paths to its home?
       ²¹Do you know it, because you were born then,
       Or because the number of your days is great?
       ²²"Have you entered the treasury of snow,
       Or have you seen the treasury of hail,
       ²³Which I have reserved for the time of trouble,
       For the day of battle and war?
       ²⁴By what way is light diffused,
       Or the east wind scattered over the earth?
       ²⁵"Who has divided a channel for the overflowing water,
       Or a path for the thunderbolt,
       ²⁶To cause it to rain on a land where there is no one,
       A wilderness in which there is no man;
       ²⁷To satisfy the desolate waste,
       And cause to spring forth the growth of tender grass?
       ²⁸Has the rain a father?
       Or who has begotten the drops of dew?
       ²⁹From whose womb comes the ice?
       And the frost of heaven, who gives it birth?
       ³⁰The waters harden like stone,
       And the surface of the deep is frozen.
       ³¹"Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades,
       Or loose the belt of Orion?
       ³²Can you bring out Mazzaroth^[a] in its season?
       Or can you guide the Great Bear with its cubs?
       ³³Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?
       Can you set their dominion over the earth?
       ³⁴"Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,
       That an abundance of water may cover you?
       ³⁵Can you send out lightnings, that they may go,
       And say to you, "Here we are!'?
       ³⁶Who has put wisdom in the mind?^[b]
       Or who has given understanding to the heart?
       ³⁷Who can number the clouds by wisdom?
       Or who can pour out the bottles of heaven,
       ³⁸When the dust hardens in clumps,
       And the clods cling together?
       ³⁹"Can you hunt the prey for the lion,
       Or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,
       ⁴⁰When they crouch in their dens,
       Or lurk in their lairs to lie in wait?
       ⁴¹Who provides food for the raven,
       When its young ones cry to God,
       And wander about for lack of food?

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