file:///E:/Harun%%20Yahya%%20-%%20An%%20Invitation%%20to%%20The%%20Truth.htm
The neo-Darwinist model, which we shall take as the mainstream theory
of evolution today, argues that life has evolved through two natural
mechanisms: "natural selection" and "mutation". The theory basically
asserts that natural selection and mutation are two complementary
mechanisms. The origin of evolutionary modifications lies in random
mutations that take place in the genetic structures of living things.
The traits brought about by mutations are selected by the mechanism of
natural selection, and by this means living things evolve.
When we look further into this theory, we find that there is no such
evolutionary mechanism. Neither natural selection nor mutations make
any contribution at all to the transformation of different species
into one another, and the claim that they do is completely unfounded.
Natural Selection
As process of nature, natural selection was familiar to biologists
before Darwin, who defined it as a "mechanism that keeps species
unchanging without being corrupted". Darwin was the first person to
put forward the assertion that this process had evolutionary power and
he then erected his entire theory on the foundation of this assertion.
The name he gave to his book indicates that natural selection was the
basis of Darwin's theory: The Origin of Species, by means of Natural
Selection...
However since Darwin's time, there has not been a single shred of
evidence put forward to show that natural selection causes living
things to evolve. Colin Patterson, the senior paleontologist of the
British Museum of Natural History in London and a prominent
evolutionist, stresses that natural selection has never been observed
to have the ability to cause things to evolve:
No one has ever produced a species by mechanisms of natural
selection. No one has ever got near it and most of the current
argument in neo-Darwinism is about this question.13
Natural selection holds that those living things that are more suited
to the natural conditions of their habitats will prevail by having
offspring that will survive, whereas those that are unfit will
disappear. For example, in a deer herd under the threat of wild
animals, naturally those that can run faster will survive. That is
true. But no matter how long this process goes on, it will not
transform those deer into another living species. The deer will always
remain deer.
When we look at the few incidents the evolutionists have put forth as
observed examples of natural selection, we see that these are nothing
but a simple attempt to hoodwink.
"Industrial Melanism"
In 1986 Douglas Futuyma published a book, The Biology of Evolution,
which is accepted as one of the sources explaining the theory of
evolution by natural selection in the most explicit way. The most
famous of his examples on this subject is about the colour of the moth
population, which appeared to darken during the Industrial Revolution
in England. It is possible to find the story of the Industrial
Melanism in almost all evolutionist biology books, not just in
Futuyma's book. The story is based on a series of experiments
conducted by the British physicist and biologist Bernard Kettlewell in
the 1950s, and can be summarised as follows:
According to the account, around the onset of the Industrial
Revolution in England, the colour of the tree barks around Manchester
was quite light. Because of this, dark-coloured (melanic) moths
resting on those trees could easily be noticed by the birds that fed
on them and therefore they had very little chance of survival. Fifty
years later, in woodlands where industrial pollutionhas killedthe
lichens, the barks of the trees had darkened, and now the light-
coloured moths became the most hunted, since they were the most easily
noticed. As a result, the proportion of light-coloured moths to dark-
coloured moths decreased. Evolutionists believe this to be a great
piece of evidence for their theory. They take refuge and solace in
window-dressing, showing how light-coloured moths "evolved" into dark-
coloured ones.
However, even if we assume these to be correct, it should be quite
clear that they can in no way be used as evidence for the theory of
evolution, since no new form arose that had not existed before. Dark
colored moths had existed in the moth population before the Industrial
Revolution. Only the relative proportions of the existing moth
varieties in the population changed. The moths had not acquired a new
trait or organ, which would cause "speciation". In order for one moth
species to turn into another living species, a bird for example, new
additions would have had to be made to its genes. That is, an entirely
separate genetic program would have had to be loaded so as to include
information about the physical traits of the bird.
This is the answer to be given to the evolutionist story of Industrial
Melanism. However, there is a more interesting side to the story: Not
just its interpretation, but the story itself is flawed. As molecular
biologist Jonathan Wells explains in his book Icons of Evolution, the
story of the peppered moths, which is included in every evolutionist
biology book and has therefore, become an "icon" in this sense, does
not reflect the truth. Wells discusses in his book how Bernard
Kettlewell's experiment, which is known as the "experimental proof" of
the story, is actually a scientific scandal. Some basic elements of
this scandal are:
* Many experiments conducted after Kettlewell's revealed that only
one type of these moths rested on tree trunks, and all other types
preferred to rest beneath small, horizontal branches. Since 1980 it
has become clear that peppered moths do not normally rest on tree
trunks. In 25 years of fieldwork, many scientists such as Cyril Clarke
and Rory Howlett, Michael Majerus, Tony Liebert, and Paul Brakefield
concluded that "in Kettlewell's experiment, moths were forced to act
atypically, therefore, the test results could not be accepted as
scientific".
* Scientists who tested Kettlewell's conclusions came up with an
even more interesting result: Although the number of light moths would
be expected to be larger in the less polluted regions of England, the
dark moths there numbered four times as many as the light ones. This
meant that there was no correlation between the moth population and
the tree trunks as claimed by Kettlewell and repeated by almost all
evolutionist sources.
* As the research deepened, the scandal changed dimension: "The
moths on tree trunks" photographed by Kettlewell, were actually dead
moths. Kettlewell used dead specimens glued or pinned to tree trunks
and then photographed them. In truth, there was little chance of
taking such a picture as the moths rested not on tree trunks but
underneath the leaves.14
These facts were uncovered by the scientific community only in
the late 1990s. The collapse of the myth of Industrial Melanism, which
had been one of the most treasured subjects in "Introduction to
Evolution" courses in universities for decades, greatly disappointed
evolutionists. One of them, Jerry Coyne, remarked:
My own reaction resembles the dismay attending my discovery, at
the age of six, that it was my father and not Santa who brought the
presents on Christmas Eve.15
Thus, "the most famous example of natural selection" was relegated to
the trash-heap of history as a scientific scandal which was
inevitable, because natural selection is not an "evolutionary
mechanism," contrary to what evolutionists claim. It is capable
neither of adding a new organ to a living organism, nor of removing
one, nor of changing an organism of one species into that of another.
Why Cannot Natural Selection Explain Complexity?
There is nothing that natural selection contributes to the theory of
evolution, because this mechanism can never increase or improve the
genetic information of a species. Neither can it transform one species
into another: a starfish into a fish, a fish into a frog, a frog into
a crocodile, or a crocodile into a bird. The biggest defender of
punctuated equilibrium, Stephen Jay Gould, refers to this impasse of
natural selection as follows;
The essence of Darwinism lies in a single phrase: natural
selection is the creative force of evolutionary change. No one denies
that selection will play a negative role in eliminating the unfit.
Darwinian theories require that it create the fit as well.16
Another of the misleading methods that evolutionists employ on the
issue of natural selection is their effort to present this mechanism
as conscious. However, natural selection has no consciousness. It does
not possess a will that can decide what is good and what is bad for
living things. As a result, one cannot explain biological systems and
organs that possess the feature of "irreducible complexity" by natural
selection. These systems and organs are composed of a great number of
parts cooperating together, and are of no use if even one of these
parts is missing or defective. (For example, the human eye does not
function unless it exists with all its components intact). Therefore,
the will that brings all these parts together should be able to
foresee the future and aim directly at the advantage that is to be
acquired at the final stage. Since natural selection has no
consciousness or will, it can do no such thing. This fact, which
demolishes the foundations of the theory of evolution, also worried
Darwin, who wrote: "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ
existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous,
successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break
down." 17
Through natural selection, only the disfigured, weak, or unfit
individuals of a species are selected out. New species, new genetic
information, or new organs cannot be produced. That is, living things
cannot evolve through natural selection. Darwin accepted this reality
by saying: "Natural selection can do nothing until favourable
variations chance to occur".18 This is why neo-Darwinism has had to
elevate mutations next to natural selection as the "cause of
beneficial changes". However as we shall see, mutations can only be
"the cause for harmful changes".
13 Colin Patterson, "Cladistics", Interview with Brian Leek, Peter
Franz, March 4, 1982, BBC.
14 Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Why Much of
What We Teach About Evolution is Wrong, Regnery Publishing, 2000, p.
141-151.
15 Jerry Coyne, "Not Black and White", a review of Michael Majerus's
Melanism: Evolution in Action, Nature, 396 (1988), p. 35-36.
16 Stephen Jay Gould, "The Return of Hopeful Monsters", Natural
History, Vol 86, July-August 1977, p. 28.
17 Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First
Edition, Harvard University Press, 1964, p. 189.
18 Ibid, p. 177.
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