Scientific American threatens AiG : Demands immediate removal of Web rebuttal

AIG ^ | 2002/07/11 | AIG

[ZGuy]

The prominent magazine Scientific American thought it had finally discredited its nemesis—creationism—with a feature article listing ‘15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense’ (July 2002). Supposedly these were the fifteen best arguments that evolutionists could use to discredit the Bible’s account of Creation. (National Geographic TV also devoted a lengthy report to the article.)

Within 72 hours, Dr Jonathan Sarfati—a resident scientist at Answers in Genesis–Australia—had written a comprehensive, point-by-point critique of the magazine article and posted it on this Web site.

So Scientific American thought it would try to silence AiG with the threat of a lawsuit.

In an e-mail to Dr Sarfati, Scientific American accused him and AiG of infringing their copyright by reproducing the text of their article and an illustration. They said they were prepared to ‘settle the matter amicably’ provided that AiG immediately remove Dr Sarfati’s article from its Web site.

AiG’s international copyright attorney, however, informed Scientific American that their accusations are groundless and that AiG would not be removing the article. Dr Sarfati’s article had used an illustration of a bacterial flagellum, but it was drawn by an AiG artist years ago. AiG had also used the text of SA’s article, but in a way that is permissible under ‘fair use’ of copyrighted materials for public commentary. (AiG presented the text of the SA article, with Dr Sarfati’s comments interspersed in a different color, to avoid any accusations of misquoting or misrepresenting the author.)

Why the heavy-handed tactics? If AiG’s responses were not valid, why would Scientific American even care whether they remained in the public arena? One can only presume that Scientific American (and National Geographic) had the ‘wind taken out of their sails.’ Dr Sarfati convincingly showed that they offered nothing new to the debate and they displayed a glaring ignorance of creationist arguments. Their legal maneuver appears to be an act of desperation. (AiG is still awaiting SA’s response to the decision not to pull the Web rebuttal.)

[JediGirl]

If you believe in God(Creator)...the evo option is gone---over!

If you believe in God(Creator)...the round earch option is gone---over!

[EBUCK]

Could the combination of male and female genes (result of mating) be sometimes incomplete? Would that leave an option, not for the creation of, but for the aquisition of new genes as well as chromosomes in an offspring?

EBUCK

[f.Christian]

Atheism morphs God out...God morphs---erases evolution completely(unless you're schizoid)!

[JediGirl]

f.Christian morphs his mind out..(was it ever there)---erases brain cells completely(must be schizoid)!

[Dominic Harr]

If you believe that species adapt to their surroundings, then you're an evolutionist.

Period.

'Micro' and 'macro' -- the only difference is time. The 'amount' of adaption involved. Enough small adaptions, and you have a new species.

Now if you want to have discussions about the age of the Earth, that's another topic. But you need to come to terms with the truth.

Ya'll do believe in evolution.

[f.Christian]

10. Mutations are essential to evolution theory, but mutations can only eliminate traits. They cannot produce new features.
On the contrary, biology has catalogued many traits produced by point mutations (changes at precise positions in an organism’s DNA)—bacterial resistance to antibiotics, for example.

This is a serious mis-statement of the creationist argument. The issue is not new traits, but new genetic information. In no known case is antibiotic resistance the result of new information. There are several ways where an information loss can confer resistance—see Anthrax and antibiotics: Is evolution relevant? We have pointed out in various ways how new traits, even helpful, adaptive traits, can arise through loss of genetic information (which is to be expected from mutations). See for example, Beetle bloopers.

Mutations that arise in the homeobox (Hox) family of development-regulating genes in animals can also have complex effects. Hox genes direct where legs, wings, antennae and body segments should grow. In fruit flies, for instance, the mutation called Antennapedia causes legs to sprout where antennae should grow.

Once again, there is no new information! Rather, a mutation in the hox gene results in already-existing information being switched on in the wrong place. See also Hox (homeobox) Genes — Evolution’s Saviour? and Hox Hype — Has Macro-evolution Been Proven? The hox gene did not produce any of the information that results in the complex structure of the leg, which in ants and bees includes a very complex mechanical and hydraulic structure by which these insects stick to surfaces—see Startling stickiness.

These abnormal limbs are not functional, but their existence demonstrates that genetic mistakes can produce complex structures, which natural selection can then test for possible uses.

Amazing—natural selection can test for ‘possible uses’ of ‘non-functional’ (i.e. useless!) limbs in the wrong place. Such deformities would be active hindrances to survival.

Moreover, molecular biology has discovered mechanisms for genetic change that go beyond point mutations, and these expand the ways in which new traits can appear. Functional modules within genes can be spliced together in novel ways. Whole genes can be accidentally duplicated in an organism’s DNA, and the duplicates are free to mutate into genes for new, complex features.

Gene duplication, polyploidy, insertions, etc. do not help — they represent an increase in amount of DNA, but not an increase in the amount of functional genetic information—these create nothing new. Macroevolution needs new genes (for making feathers on reptiles, for example).

In plants, but not in animals (possibly with rare exceptions), the doubling of all the chromosomes may result in an individual which can no longer interbreed with the parent type—this is called polyploidy. Although this may technically be called a new species, because of the breeding isolation, no new information has been produced, just repetitious doubling of existing information. If a malfunction in a printing press caused a book to be printed with every page doubled, it would not be more informative than the proper book. (Brave students of evolutionary professors might like to ask whether they would get extra marks for handing in two copies of the same assignment.)

Duplication of a single chromosome is normally harmful, as in Down’s Syndrome. Insertions are a very efficient way of completely destroying the functionality of existing genes. Biophysicist Dr Lee Spetner in his book Not By Chance (see graphic, right) analyses examples of mutational changes that evolutionists have claimed to have been increases in information, and shows that they are actually examples of loss of specificity, which means they involved loss of information (which is to be expected from information theory).

The gene duplication idea is that an existing gene may be doubled, and one copy does its normal work while the other copy is redundant and non-expressed. Therefore it is free to mutate free of selection pressure (to get rid of it) . However, such ‘neutral’ mutations are powerless to produce new genuine information. Dawkins et al. point out that natural selection is the only possible naturalistic explanation for the immense design in nature (not a good one, as Spetner et al. have shown). The proposal is that random changes produce a new function, then this redundant gene becomes expressed somehow, thus comes under the selective process and is tuned.

It’s all a lot of hand-waving. It relies on a chance copying event, genes somehow being switched off, randomly mutated to something approximating a new function, then being switched on again so natural selection can tune it.

Furthermore, mutations do not just occur in the duplicated gene; they occur throughout the genome. Consequently, all the deleterious mutations have to be eliminated by the death of the unfit. Mutations in the target duplicate gene are extremely rare—it might represent only 1 part in 30,000 of the genome of an animal. The larger the genome the bigger the problem. This is because a larger the genome, the lower the mutation rate that can be sustained without error catastrophe, which means one has to wait longer for any mutation, let alone a desirable one, in the duplicated gene. There just has not been enough time for such a naturalistic process to account for the amount of genetic information that we see in living things.

Dawkins and others have recognised that the ‘information space’ possible within just one gene is so huge that random changes without some guiding force could never come up with a new function. There could never be enough experiments (mutating generations of organisms) to find anything useful by such a process. Note that an average gene of 1,000 base pairs represents 41000 possibilities — that is 10602 (compare this with the number of atoms in the universe estimated at ‘only’ 1080). If every atom in the universe were an experiment every millisecond for the supposed 15 billion years of the universe, this could only try a maximum 10100 of the possibilities. So such a ‘neutral’ process cannot find any sequence with specificity (usefulness), even allowing for the fact that there may be more than just one sequence that is functional to some extent.

So Dawkins and company have the same problem as the neutral selection theory advocates. Increasing knowledge of the molecular basis of biological functions has exploded the known ‘information space’ such that mutations and natural selection, with or without gene duplication, or any other known natural process, cannot account for the irreducibly complex nature of living systems.

Comparisons of the DNA from a wide variety of organisms indicate that this is how the globin family of blood proteins evolved over millions of years.

This is an inference from similarities interpreted under the materialistic paradigm. There is no actual demonstration that hemoglobin (with four polypeptides) evolved from myoglobin (with one polypeptide), or any adequate explanation of how the hypothetical intermediates would have had selective advantages. In fact, it’s far more complicated than Rennie implies. The a- and b-globin chains are encoded on genes on different chromosomes, so they are expressed independently. This expression must be controlled precisely, otherwise various types of a disease called thallassemia result. Also, there is an essential protein called AHSP (Alpha Hemoglobin Stabilizing Protein) which, as the name implies, stabilizes the a-chains, and also brings it to the b-chains. Otherwise the a-chains would precipitate and damage the red blood cells. AHSP is one of many examples of a class of protein called chaperones which govern the folding of other proteins.12 This is yet another problem for chemical evolutionary theories—how did the first proteins fold correctly without chaperones, and since the chaperones themselves are complex proteins, how did they fold? See The Origin of Life: A Critique of Current Scientific Models (PDF file).

[EBUCK]

Here is evidence of exactly what I put forth....

An egg did not correctly divide and retained the full diploid value of 28(2n) chromosones. The egg then united with a normal sperm (14(1n) chromosones) from the opposite species.The combination was accepted and a new zygote formed containing all 3 sets of chromosones for a full triploid value of 42(3n). The resultant animal survived and prospered and gave rise to a whole new species of all female salamanders. The Tremblay salamander (Ambystoma.tremblayi) is a result of 28 chromosones from the Blue-spotted salamander and 14 chromosones from the Jefferson Salamander. And the Silvery salamander (Ambystoma.platinium) is a result of 28 chromosones from the Jefferson salamander and 14 chromosones from the Blue-spotted salamander.

Here is the link....here

EBUCK

[Right Wing Professor]

Nonsense. Baloney. We are supposed to accept these ex cathedra pronouncements on the basis of your authority? Why?

I am telling you, as a working scientist - my c.v. is on line - who researches and publishes actively, teaches biophysics, and actively interacts with thousands of other scientists, that if you don't accept evolution, in my community you're considered either ignorant or a fruitcake. You can accept or reject that as you like; it's as good as any other first hand testimony. Evolution is *the* way we analyze how genomes came to be. It's no more controversial among biomolecular scientists than quantum mechanics or relativity is among physicists.

I'm curious; what's your basis for thinking that you have the intellectual wherewithal to expressed an informed opinion on evolution? How familiar are you with genetics, or comparative anatomy, or geology? Would you feel similarly qualfied in critiquing relativity without knowing any higher mathematics?

[berned]

I am a Catholic. Neither I, nor my Pontiff, considers there to be a conflict between evolution and a moral God. And John Paul II, for one, shows no sign he's frightened of being judged by a moral God.

You are a Catholic. And you disbelieve the Bible? If the Genesis account is a lie, then how do you know the Gospels are not also a lie? If Genesis is merely a vague allegory, then what makes you think Jesus Christ ever did or said the miracles and teachings He is credited with? If Genesis can be easily shrugged off, why not the Gospels, also?

[aruanan]

They don't have any facts or ideas of their own. They can only ask "questions", and attempt to poke holes in other people's points, without making any affirmative argument of their own position.

Thanks for just revealing your depth of thought.

[f.Christian]

11. Natural selection might explain microevolution, but it cannot explain the origin of new species and higher orders of life.
A straw man, because creationists accept new species arising within the kind, since reproductive isolation can be the result of information loss. See What is the Biblical creationist model? for more discussion on kinds and speciation.

Evolutionary biologists have written extensively about how natural selection could produce new species. For instance, in the model called allopatry, developed by Ernst Mayr of Harvard University, if a population of organisms were isolated from the rest of its species by geographical boundaries, it might be subjected to different selective pressures. Changes would accumulate in the isolated population. If those changes became so significant that the splinter group could not or routinely would not breed with the original stock, then the splinter group would be reproductively isolated and on its way toward becoming a new species.

Indeed, creationists point out that the allopatric model would explain the origin of the different people groups (‘races’) when the confusion of languages at Babel induced a separation of small population groups which spread out all over the Earth. See How could all the races come from Noah and his family? and One Blood (right). Of course, the different people groups are NOT reproductively isolated and are still a single biological species.

Creationists also point out that the montane (mountainous) topography of the Ark’s landing place would also be ideal for geographical isolation. This would allow much post-Flood diversification from comparatively few (~8,000) kinds of land vertebrates, by splitting up the original high genetic variety.

Note that the reproductive isolation is an informationally negative change, even if beneficial, because it blocks the interchange of genetic information between populations.

Natural selection is the best studied of the evolutionary mechanisms, …

Yes, it is the best studied, but these studies show that it has nothing to do with evolution of more complex life forms! All we observe it doing is removing information, not adding it.

… but biologists are open to other possibilities as well. Biologists are constantly assessing the potential of unusual genetic mechanisms for causing speciation or for producing complex features in organisms. Lynn Margulis of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and others have persuasively argued that some cellular organelles, such as the energy-generating mitochondria, evolved through the symbiotic merger of ancient organisms.

But this endosymbiosis theory has many problems, e.g. the lack of evidence that prokaryotes are capable of ingesting another cell and keeping it alive, and the large differences in genes between mitochondria and prokaryotes. See Did cells acquire organelles such as mitochondria by gobbling up other cells?

Thus, science welcomes the possibility of evolution resulting from forces beyond natural selection. Yet those forces must be natural; they cannot be attributed to the actions of mysterious creative intelligences whose existence, in scientific terms, is unproved.

Mainly because evolutionists reject the possibility of proof of the supernatural a priori—see these admissions from evolutionists Lewontin and Todd.

[Right Wing Professor]

I have no interest in a rehash of the reformation. The Pope's most recent statement of evolution is here. Read it for yourself, and be sure to tell us all how John Paul II is not a Christian.

[berned]

I asked you a simple question. Please answer it.

[balrog666]

Time for a re-post:

This has been going on for centuries. The damage fundamentalists have done to religion is far, far greater than anything science might have done. They are destroying the house in which they dwell, but are too blinded by their own self righteousness to see it.

Be very suspicious of organised religion and its zealots. It is not a path to God; far too often, it is a path away from God.

106 Posted on 05/28/2001 17:39:14 PDT by John Locke

[Seeking the truth]

Piltdown Man was not an extrapolation, it was a fraud. It was exposed once it was subjected to scientific scrutiny.

Let's see. Piltdown Man was regarded as the "missing link" as soon as it was discovered in 1912. The hoax was uncovered in 1953!

For over 40 years, Piltdown was in textbooks in that famous "scientific" evolutionary tree.

Then it no longer was the "missing link"

[JediGirl]

bump

[foolish-one]

Nice volley. Succinct, to the point and yet, not derogatory. I like your style.

[f.Christian]

"As a result, the theories of evolution which, because of the philosophies which inspire them, regard the spirit either as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a simple epiphenomenon of that matter, are incompatible with the truth about man. They are therefore unable to serve as the basis for the dignity of the human person."

Do you have some kind of reality deficiency disorder?

[gdani]

If the Genesis account is a lie, then how do you know the Gospels are not also a lie? If Genesis is merely a vague allegory, then what makes you think Jesus Christ ever did or said the miracles and teachings He is credited with? If Genesis can be easily shrugged off, why not the Gospels, also?

Which is exactly the type of thinking & insecurity that leads people who believe the Bible to be inerrant to think that woman being created from man's rib, the story of Adam & Eve, people living to be several hundred years old, etc should be taught in science classes.

[berned]

I am a Catholic. Neither I, nor my Pontiff, considers there to be a conflict between evolution and a moral God. And John Paul II, for one, shows no sign he's frightened of being judged by a moral God.

You are a Catholic. And you disbelieve the Bible? If the Genesis account is a lie, then how do you know the Gospels are not also a lie? If Genesis is merely a vague allegory, then what makes you think Jesus Christ ever did or said the miracles and teachings He is credited with? If Genesis can be easily shrugged off, why not the Gospels, also?