Posted on 12/01/2009 6:39:06 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
Need evidence for Darwinian evolution? Just make it up.
Thats the lesson of Donald Protheros book, Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). Prothero is a professor of geology at Occidental College in Los Angeles. On November 30, he teamed up with atheist Michael Shermer (founding publisher of Skeptic Magazine) to debate Stephen Meyer and Richard Sternberg of the Discovery Institute.
Shermer wrote the foreword to Protheros book, calling it the best book ever written on the subject. In fact, Dons visual presentation of the fossil and genetic evidence for evolution is so unmistakably powerful that I venture to say that no one could read this book and still deny the reality of evolution.
Of course, evolution can mean many things, most of which nobody would deny even without Protheros book. For example, evolution can mean simply change over time, or minor changes in existing species (microevolution), neither of which any sane person doubts. Both Shermer and Prothero, however, make it clear that by evolution they mean Darwins theory that all living things are descended from a common ancestor, modified principally by natural selection acting on unguided variations (macroevolution).
The modern version of the theory asserts that new variations originate in genetic mutations. Some of the most dramatic mutations occur in Hox genes, which can determine which appendages develop in various parts of the body. On page 101 of his book, Prothero shows pictures of two Hox gene mutations: antennapedia, which causes a fruit fly to sprout legs instead of antennae from its head, and ultrabithorax, which causes a fruit fly to develop a second pair of wings from it midsection. But both of these are harmful: A fruit fly with legs sticking out of its head is at an obvious disadvantage, and a four-winged fruit fly has no flight muscles in its extra pair of wings, so it has trouble flying and mating. Both mutants can survive only in the laboratory; in the wild they would quickly be eliminated by natural selection.
Some Darwinists have suggested that ancestral four-winged fruit flies could have evolved by mutation into modern two-winged fruit flies. But this explanation doesnt work, because a two-winged fly hasnt simply lost a pair of wings; it has acquired a large and complex gene (ultrabithorax) that enables it to develop halteres, or balancers. The halteres are located behind the flys normal pair of wings and vibrate rapidly to stabilize the insect in flight. So the two-winged fly represents the gainnot lossof an important structure. (See Chapter 9 of my book Icons of Evolution).
Prothero ignores the evidence and suggests that ancestral four-winged flies simply mutated into modern two-winged flies. Modern four-winged mutants, he writes on page 101, have apparently changed their regulatory genes so that ancestral wings appeared instead of halteres.
Not only does Prothero ignore the evidence from developmental genetics, but he also invents an imaginary animal to complete the story he wants us to believe. Page 195 of his book carries an illustration of an eighteen-winged dragonfly next to a normal four-winged dragonfly, with the following caption: The evolutionary mechanism by which Hox genes allow arthropods to make drastic changes in their number and arrangement of segments and appendages, producing macroevolutionary changes with a few simple mutations.
Yet there is no evidence that eighteen-winged dragonflies ever existed. There are lots of dragonflies in the fossil record, but none of them remotely resemble this fictitious creature.
No matter. In what Michael Shermer calls the best book ever written on the subject, Donald Prothero simply makes up whatever evidence he wants.
I’d love to have an 18 winged dragonfly for a pet. Maybe someday they’ll discover an artist’s conception of one sealed in tree sap, and using that and the magic that is evolution we can all wish hard enough and it will pop back into existence. Just like every other amazing creature on Earth did.
Well seeing how it is being billed as “the best book ever written on the subject, I would not be surprised if it is required reading in many college and university classes already.
You would be interested in considering actually commenting on the article instead of starting off on a personal attack on GGG, would you?
Like, what do you think about the guy making up stuff like 18 winged dragonflies to posit his theory?
Or why evos would suggest the existence of a four winged fruit fly as an ancestor to the two winged one with nothing to support it? And why, if the two winged one works so well, the four winged one evolved in the first place?
So you mean to tell me the scientists were wrong for the past oh, 100 years? Because I’m pretty sure it was pushed as the gospel that the dinosaurs were wiped out by some cataclysmic event.
Wow...untold eons to accidentally develop all that you are, and then you die out in what amounts to a blink of an eye in geological terms. Evolution pretty stupid for a genius.
All your picture seem to be some form of intelligent design. Or were they once Volkswagen bugs that became flying machines?
I, on the other hand...am just stupid for a person of average intelligence.
Should have read...Evolution is pretty stupid for a genius...
You seem awfully confident about the dinos going extinct as a result of starvation. On what basis do you conclude that this is a historical fact?
It’s Dino Week on The Discovery Channel.
Ah, there is nothing quite like Discovery Channel just-so storytelling!
Hit and run. Happens all the time.
Ok, so on what basis are you concluding that the extinction of the dinos by malnutrition and disease is an historical fact?
Not your teacher!!!
Fer cryin’ out loud! Can’t an evo ever answer a simple question?!?!?!
This is literally the most retarded exchange involving evolution I think I’ve ever seen. “Not your teacher” indeed.
I truly believe that the rank and file who believe in evolution do so because they’re too dimwitted to grasp the wonderful engineering and seemingly impossible variety of life.
Obviously not! But I’m not asking you to teach, I’m asking you to justify your blanket statement that the dinos went extinct as a result of starvation and disease.
Stop the childish name calling stupid. What in hell is an EVO anyway: When you finish these get back to me; http://web.me.com/dinoruss/publications.html
Stop the childish name calling stupid. What in hell is an EVO anyway: When you finish these get back to me; http://web.me.com/dinoruss/publications.html
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