Reflectorites
Here is an excerpt from Jonathan Wells' new book:
ICONS OF EVOLUTION: Science or Myth?
Why much of what we teach about evolution is wrong.
by Jonathan Wells
Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2000
ISBN 0895262762
on the Cambrian explosion, which is reposted, with permission, from
another List I am on.
Also below is a webbed review which appeared in a number of Canadian
newspapers.
Steve
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Saving Darwin's theory
There are three ways some biologists have attempted to salvage Darwin's
theory in the face of the Cambrian explosion. One is to argue (as Darwin
did) that the apparent absence of Precambrian ancestors is due to the
fragmentary fossil record. Another is to claim that even if the record were
continuous the Precambrian ancestors would not have fossilized -either
because they were too small, or because they were soft-bodied. A third is
to override the fossil evidence with molecular comparisons among living
organisms that point to a hypothetical common ancestor hundreds of
millions of years before the Cambrian.
Is the fossil record sufficiently fragmented to explain the absence of
Precambrian ancestors for Cambrian animals? Most paleontologists don't
think so. Enough good sedimentary rocks from the late Precambrian and
Cambrian have now been found to convince paleontologists that if there
had been ancestors, and they had fossilized, they would have been
discovered by now. According to James Valentine and Douglas Erwin: "the
sections of Cambrian rocks that we do have (and we have many) are
essentially as complete as sections of equivalent time duration from similar
depositional environments" in more recent rocks. Yet "ancestors or
intermediates" are "unknown or unconfirmed" for any of the phyla or
classes appearing in the Cambrian explosion. Valentine and Erwin conclude
that the "explosion is real; it is too big to be masked by flaws in the fossil
record."
Several recent surveys of the quality of the fossil record from the Cambrian
to the present support this view. Although older strata are clearly not as
well-preserved, on average, as younger ones, they are good enough. In
February, 2000, British geologists M. J. Benton, M. A. Wills and R.
Hitchin concluded: "Early parts of the fossil record are clearly incomplete,
but they can be regarded as adequate to illustrate the broad patterns of the
history of life."
Did the ancestors of the animal phyla fail to fossilize because they were too
small, or soft-bodied? The problem with this explanation is that
microfossils of tiny bacteria have been found in rocks more than three
billion years old. Furthermore, the Precambrian organisms found fossilized
in the Australian Ediacara Hills were soft-bodied. "In the Ediacaran
organisms there is no evidence for any skeletal hard parts," wrote Simon
Conway Morris in his 1998 book, The Crucible of Creation. "Ediacaran
fossils look as if they were effectively soft-bodied." The same is true of
many of the organisms fossilized in the Cambrian explosion. The Burgess
Shale, for example, includes many fossils of completely soft-bodied
animals. "These remarkable fossils," according to Conway Morris, "reveal
not only their outlines but sometimes even internal organs such as the
intestines or muscles."
So whatever may be the reason for the absence of ancestors, it is certainly
not that they were small or soft-bodied. As geologist William Schopf wrote
in 1994: "There is only one source of direct evidence of the early history of
life -- the Precambrian fossil record; speculations made in the absence of
such evidence, even by widely acclaimed evolutionists, have commonly
proved groundless." One such speculation is "the long-held notion that
Precambrian organisms must have been too small or too delicate to have
been preserved in geological materials." According to Schopf, this notion is
"now recognized as incorrect."
[the section following this deals with problems in molecular phylogeny]
NOTES
James W. Valentine and Douglas H. Erwin, "Interpreting Great
Developmental Experiments: The Fossil Record," pp. 71-107 in Rudolf A.
Raff and Elizabeth C. Raff (editors), Development as an Evolutionary
Process (New York: Alan R. Liss, 1987), p. 84-85; Valentine, et al.,
Evolutionary Biology 25 (1991): 279-356, p. 318; M. J. Benton, M. A.
Wills & R. Hitchin, "Quality of the fossil record through time," Nature 403
(2000): 534-536, p. 536. See also Mark A. Norell & Michael J. Novacek,
"The Fossil Record and Evolution: Comparing Cladistic and Paleontologic
Evidence for Vertebrate History," Science 255 (1992): 1690-1693. On
three billion year-old microfossils, see Andrew H. Knoll & Elso S.
Barghoorn, "Archean Microfossils Showing Cell Division from the
Swaziland System of South Africa," Science 198 (1977): 396-398; J.
William Schopf & Bonnie M. Packer, "Early Archean (3.3-Billion to 3.5-
Billion-Year-Old) Microfossils from Warrawoona Group, Australia,"
Science 237 (1987): 70-73.
Quotations are from Conway Morris, The Crucible of Creation, pp. 28, 2.
J. William Schopf, "The early evolution of life: solution to Darwin's
dilemma," Trends in Ecology and Evolution 9 (1994): 375-377, p. 376. See
also Valentine, et al., Evolutionary Biology 25 (1991), and Stefan
Bengston, "The advent of animal skeletons," pp. 412-425 in Stefan
Bengston (editor), Early Life on Earth (New York: Columbia University
Press), 1994).
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http://www.canoe.ca/CalgaryNews/903_n2.html
Calgary Sun
[...]
October 8, 2000
Evolution theories challenged
Natural selection called 'creation myth' of the 20th century
By TED BYFIELD -- Sun Media
If parents check the science textbooks used in Canadian schools they'll see
some familiar illustrations, familiar because much the same art appeared
in their textbooks a generation ago.
There's the "evolution of man" illustration, starting with an ape-like
creature on the left, then progressing to the slightly more erect figure with
arms stretching to the ground, then to a less hairy individual, finally to a
modern human.
There's the upside-down tree illustration, beginning with the blob, the
single cell, at the top and branching out like a tree as it descends
downward to assortments of creeping and crawling things to reptiles,
birds, fish, animals and humans.
Or, there's the fruit fly illustrations, showing how some fruit flies change
to double-winged creatures under certain conditions, or the speckled moth
illustration showing how industrial conditions caused moths to change
from white creatures to black.
Note that there are three points being made here. One is that an amazing
assortment of species have existed over time. The second is that the more
elaborate species were the offspring after many generations of earlier, less
complex species.
The third is that these changes occurred through natural circumstances.
There was no "mind" or plan or design behind them, no God. It was all
pure chance.
When most scientists speak of "evolution" they do not mean the first, nor
even the first and the second. They mean all three, that there was no
Designer, that change happens through "natural selection."
Freak differences occurred in individual members of a species conferring a
natural advantage on the offspring of those individuals. These went on
living, where those without the advantage petered out, the "survival of the
fittest."
This fall, there has appeared a scientifically authoritative book casting
grave doubt on the whole basis of these confident illustrations. Dr.
Jonathan Wells, a molecular and cell biologist from the University of
California at Berkeley who is a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute, in
his Icons of Evolution does more than cast doubt.
He takes 10 so-called "proofs" of evolution offered in current textbooks
and shows where not one of them is in a fact a proof of anything, and
several are actually frauds.
The speckled moths were actually pasted on the trees, not found there.
And while there may be rare instances of species that seem part ape, part
human, there is no evidence the one came from the other.
Why, you wonder, do scientists ascribe credibility to these proofs?
Because, says Wells, every scientist specializes. He may be aware the
particular "proof" offered in his own area of expertise is fundamentally
flawed, but he assumes those in all the other areas are not. In fact, he says,
they all are.
Wells' book is the second in two years to challenge the natural selection
theory. The last one was Darwin's Black Box by the biochemist Michael
Behe. He examines the blob atop the tree illustration.
In Darwin's day the simple cell was a "black box" that could not be
opened. Now, says Behe, we have opened the box; we can see how the
cell is constructed. It's about as simple as a jet engine. It is a masterpiece
of design. There is no possibility, none whatever, he says, that it could
have come about by mere happenstance.
Both these books follow an earlier one by Berkeley law professor Philip
Johnson whose Darwin On Trial put the theory of natural selection before
a make-believe jury, and gave the evidence for it as it would be presented
in court. He shows how the supposed evidence, all of it, fails to vindicate
the theory.
Yet when the Kansas school system last year decided that evolution need
no longer be taught as a scientific fact, but could be advanced as a theory
with the students urged to argue the pros and cons, the response all over
the continent was explosive. Papers like the Edmonton Journal and Globe
and Mail denounced the Kansas board as perverted by superstition and
religious bigotry. They made not a single reference to the scientific basis
of the decision.
Evolution by natural selection, says Johnson, is the "creation myth of the
20th century." Wells agrees.
Perhaps the 21st will get a better one.
[...]
Copyright (c) 2000, Canoe Limited Partnership. All rights reserved.
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"For example the Cambrian strata of rocks, vintage about 600 million
years, are the oldest ones in which we find most of the major invertebrate
groups. And we find many of them already in an advanced state of
evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just
planted there, without any evolutionary history. Needless to say, this
appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists." (Dawkins R.,
"The Blind Watchmaker," [1986], Penguin: London, 1991, reprint, p.229)
Stephen E. Jones | Ph. +61 8 9448 7439 | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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