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What if Darwin's theory of natural selection is inaccurate? What if the way you live now affects the life expectancy of your descendants?

New species might arise as a result of single rare events, rather than through the gradual accumulation of many small changes over time, according to a study of thousands of species and their evolutionary family trees. This contradicts a widely accepted theory of how speciation occurs: that species are continually changing to keep pace with their environment, and that new species emerge as these changes accrue. Known as the 'Red Queen' hypothesis, it is named after the character in Lewis Carroll's book Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There who tells a surprised Alice: "Here, you see, it takes...

Dec 3, 2009 — In the previous entry, Darwin inspired some geologists, even though he was wrong. Here are some news stories showing nature inspiring engineers with wonders right under their noses...

ScienceDaily: “Slowing Evolution to Stop Drug Resistance” --snip-- For years, evolutionists have pointed to antibiotic resistance as proof of evolution in action. The argument often amounts to this (in simplified form): the fact that certain organisms grow resistant to certain antibiotics is evidence for the evolutionary idea that all animals must have descended from a single ancestor. Collapsing the argument does make it seem a bit silly, but that’s our point. We certainly don’t want to belittle the very real threat of dangerous organisms becoming immune to the best drugs we now have (though the vast majority of microbes are...

Not to mince words - the modern synthesis is gone --snip-- "The discovery of pervasive HGT and the overall dynamics of the genetic universe destroys not only the tree of life as we knew it but also another central tenet of the modern synthesis inherited from Darwin, namely gradualism. In a world dominated by HGT, gene duplication, gene loss and such momentous events as endosymbiosis, the idea of evolution being driven primarily by infinitesimal heritable changes in the Darwinian tradition has become untenable." ...

Darwin’s theory that species originate via the natural selection of natural variation is correct in principle but wrong in numerous aspects of application. Speciation is not the result of an unlimited naturalistic process but of an intelligently designed system of built-in variation that is limited in scope to switching ON and OFF permutations and combinations of the built-in components. Kirschner and Gerhart’s facilitated variation theory provides enormous potential for rearrangement of the built-in regulatory components but it cannot switch ON components that do not exist. When applied to the grass family, facilitated variation theory can account for the diversification of...

Oct 16, 2009 — It’s called “a fresh theoretical framework” but it undermines the popular conception of natural selection.  It’s called a “dense and deep work on the foundations of evolutionary biology” but it criticizes as simplistic and false the ideas of Richard Dawkins, one of the most outspoken proponents of natural selection as “the greatest show on earth.”  It produces a new scheme for how natural selection works, but raises more questions than it answers.  What is it?  It’s a new book by Harvard philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith, Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection (Oxford, 2009), reviewed mostly positively by Jay...

News to Note, May 23, 2009: A weekly feature examining news from the biblical viewpoint (READ THE FOLLOWING STORIES AND MUCH MORE BY CLICKING THE EXCERPT LINK AT BOTTOM) 1. ICR: “‘Missing Link’ Ida Is Just Media Hype”The news media has been awash this week in hype over an alleged missing link fossil nicknamed Ida. As it turns out, the fossil wasn’t fraudulent, but the hype definitely was. 2. The Telegraph: “New ‘Super Rats’ Evolve Resistance to Poison”Is this “super rat” an example of evolution in action, or the result of an information-reducing mutation? 3. Gallup: “More Americans ‘Pro-Life’ than...

While driving into work recently, I had a near encounter with a squirrel. I'm sure most of you have had one too. What generally seems to happen is this. The squirrel goes to the edge of the road, and looks around. Then, just when your car gets within range, the squirrel darts in front of you, seemingly trying to see how close it can get to being squished, without actually dying. As an added bonus, sometimes, just as you break, or swerve the other way, it will change course. If you are really lucky, sometimes the critter will zigzag three...

“Charles Darwin and his followers have shown how all life on the planet evolved from a single source. The mechanism they call evolution by natural selection means competition, extinction and the emergence of new life forms without the need for a director or conductor. The Creator shimmers and vanishes like a mirage.” So says political pundit Andrew Marr, one of the BBC’s most senior journalists, in the first of his three BBC2 programmes celebrating evolution and its legacy during the last century and a half. While there was much to agree with in this thought-provoking series, Marr is careful to...

Slouching Toward Columbine: Darwin's Tree of Death April 20, 2009 David Klinghoffer I've long been fascinated by the image of the Tree of Death, parallel to the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden and cryptically referred to in mystical texts explaining the Hebrew Bible: And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the Tree of Life also in the midst of the garden, and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 2:9). Come and behold: as soon as night falls, the...

Natural Selection Studies Based on Bad Statistics March 30, 2009 — Hundreds of studies claiming to show natural selection may be wrong, say scientists from Penn State and Japan.  PhysOrg reported today that “several statistical methods commonly used by biologists to detect natural selection at the molecular level tend to produce incorrect results.”  Many studies of human evolution have relied on these flawed methods.  If the methods were wrong, the conclusions are unreliable.  “Of course, we would never say that natural selection is not happening, but we are saying that these statistical methods can lead scientists to make erroneous inferences,”...

Darwin’s arguments against God How Darwin rejected the doctrines of Christianity by Russell Grigg Charles Darwin Charles Darwin grew up embracing the ‘intelligent design’ thinking of his day—William Paley’s renowned argument that the design of a watch implies there must have been an intelligent watchmaker, and so design in the universe implies there must have been an intelligent Creator.1 Concerning this, Darwin wrote, ‘I do not think I hardly ever admired a book more than Paley’s “Natural Theology”.2 I could almost formerly have said it by heart.’3 Nevertheless, Darwin spent most of the rest of his life attempting to...

Attempts to breed a rare species of duck to avoid extinction in the UK have backfired after the only two remaining males fell for each other.Keepers at a bird sanctuary in West Sussex hoped that the last remaining female Blue Duck in the country - called Cherry - might mate with either of the drakes, Ben or Jerry. But neither male duck appeared interested and are now inseparable at the Arundel Wetland Centre, leaving Cherry to her own devices. Related Articles Endangered bittern returns to Somerset Thai zoo hopes cold spell will put pandas in heat Gay penguins steal eggs...

News to Note, February 28, 2008 (go to link below to read stories) 1. CBC News: “Montreal Scientists Unlock Mystery of Early Molecular Mechanism”. Have Canadian scientists uncovered the key that makes an evolutionary origin of life plausible? 2. Forbes: “The Dangers of Overselling Evolution” Philip Skell, a member of the National Academy of Sciences for more than three decades, cautions against protecting Darwinism through censorship. 3. The Boston Globe: “Cod in the Act of Evolution” Another example of “evolution in action”—-need we even bother examining the reality to confirm this isn’t what Darwin predicted? 4. BBC News: “‘Ghost Peaks’...

...Coyne and Pigliucci tell us (again) that there is such overwhelming evidence for evolution. OK, put up or shut up. They don’t know what a species is, they don’t know what the target of selection is, they don’t know if natural selection is a queen or a jester, they don’t know what adaptive radiation is, they don’t know how speciation operates (the main reason for Darwin’s little storybook), and they can’t connect mutations to any actual benefit to an organism. Other than those little minor matters, evolution is so supported by such mountains of evidence that only a fool with...

Let’s listen in on a hypothetical conversation between a biblical creationist (C) and an evolutionist (E) as they discuss some recent scientific news headlines: E: Have you heard about the research findings regarding mouse evolution? C: Are you referring to the finding of coat color change in beach mice? E: Yes, isn’t it a wonderful example of evolution in action? C: No, I think it’s a good example of natural selection in action, which is merely selecting information that already exists. E: Well, what about antibiotic resistance in bacteria? Don’t you think that’s a good example of evolution occurring right...

Is Natural Selection Losing its Appeal? Jan 28, 2009 — Some recent science reports sound like they are ready to cast Darwin’s key phrase natural selection overboard, or at least demote it from its leading role in evolution. These articles each hint that long-held beliefs are being challenged...

The traditional understanding of DNA has recently been transformed beyond recognition. DNA does not, as we thought, carry a linear, one-dimensional, one-way, sequential code—like the lines of letters and words on this page. And the 97% in humans that does not carry protein-coding genes is not, as many people thought, fossilized ‘junk’ left over from our evolutionary ancestors. DNA information is overlapping-multi-layered and multi-dimensional; it reads both backwards and forwards; and the ‘junk’ is far more functional than the protein code, so there is no fossilized history of evolution. No human engineer has ever even imagined, let alone designed an...

This is the fourth post in a series of articles on the evils and errors of Darwinism. So far, we have postulated that Darwinism, - the tenets of which furnish the philosophical foundation for atheism and materialism (I do know they both preceded Darwin), and for the actions of Stalin and Hitler in exterminating millions, - is correct about some things and wrong about others. That which Darwin got wrong, however, is crucial. We have seen how the DNA code structure argues conclusively for the tenet that we are all related in some way; but that same DNA code also...