Creation-Chronicles

THE SEARCH FOR ET & THE DISCOVERY OF EXTRASOLAR PLANETS

October 1, 2016 by Tom Shipley

The search for intelligently created radio transmission signals from extraterrestrial life forms began in earnest in 1960 and has continued more or less uninterrupted since then. Result as of July 2014: ZERO. (Update: Result as of March 2015: ZERO). (Update: Result as of October 2016: ZERO, with 1 false alarm)

Arecibo Radio Telescope Puerto Rico

When this line of investigation began 55 years ago, all estimates of how many planets there were in the cosmos were pure speculation. Statistical guesstimates, assuming the “mediocrity” of our own solar system, postulated that there ought to be billions of planets in the Milky Way alone, although it was impossible to say how many billions—or if, alternatively, our solar system with 9 planets (Pluto was still classified as a planet at the time) was just some kind of quirk or anomaly. For all anyone knew, stars with planets could be an extreme rarity. There was just simply no science to validate or invalidate any of the theories. All estimates were based upon statistical probabilities. Odds were (if you were of the Humanist religion and believed in randomness) in the minds of secular astronomers, that THIS field of investigation would be the one to put the final nail in the coffin of those who believed that the earth was some special place created by some deity.

What was–even then–no theory but an empirical fact was this: with vaster and vaster stretches of the heavens being scanned for intelligently created transmissions in hundreds of thousands of channels, there was an almost chilling silence “out there.” This line of investigation seemed destined to prove the existence of ET out there somewhere—or, most likely, here and there and everywhere. The implications and significance of the complete lack of such findings has been slowly pressing itself upon the secular scientists as time has marched on.

Assuming a naturalistic origin of the universe, and assuming that random chemical processes were the cause of the origin and rise of life, the conclusion seemed inevitable: there MUST be multiple BILLIONS of technologically advanced civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy alone based upon even the most restrictive of scenarios. But if this were so, then the earth ought to be positively DRENCHED in intelligently created radio signals from alien civilizations. Why then the deafening SILENCE screaming at the astronomers from the cosmos?

Secular astronomers believe the universe to be about 15 billion years old, and the earth to be about 4 billion years old. The statistical implications, based upon their premises, are inevitable: there MUST be billions of advanced civilizations, and, therefore, a significant number of radio transmissions from such civilizations reaching the earth. Yet, though about 20% of the expanse of the sky has been thoroughly scrutinized for such signals, 55 years of searching has produced not a single such transmission.

This is very troubling to the secular scientists. The source of the problem, of course, lies in the religious faith of the secularists. And make no mistake about it, their secularism is a religious faith. Their religion is false. The universe did not have a naturalistsic origin, it was created by a Creator. And it is simply IMPOSSIBLE for living organisms to arise on their own by chance chemical processes. As Michael Behe has pointed out (see “Darwin’s Black Box“, living organisms are comprised of IRREDUCIBLY COMPLEX systems at the sub-cellular level. One of the simplest of these is the cilia of protozoans, those hairlike projections that enable locomotion for one celled organisms. These cilia are essentially machines organically attached to the organisms, essentially outboard motors consisting of 39 separate components, all of which are necessary for the functioning of the organism, and without which it cannot survive. Any one of these components attached to the organism alone would be fatal. The coming together of all 39 of these components at 1) the same time and 2) the same place and 3) in just the right sequence is ultimately an idiotic and moronic suggestion.

Conclusion: a staggeringly sophisticated intelligence created life. The truth of this proposition is empirically obvious in the make-up of living organisms but you simply cannot reason with the blind faith of the secularists. They will cling to their secular religion NO MATTER WHAT. And they will labor ceaselessly to devise “explanations” to account for every empirical fact disproving their cherished dogmas, e.g., see the article “The Fermi Paradox,” here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox.

But back to extrasolar planets: as the truth regarding the LACK of intelligently created radio transmissions from the cosmos began to become an established fact of reality, the secularists began to devise alternate explanations to mitigate the embarrassment of this failed and fruitless line of investigation (not that they are not still hoping against hope after all these years).

One of the proffered explanations was that maybe stars with planets are an extreme rarity after all, our solar system being an oddball. And since the rarity of stellar planetary systems was at least plausible, this provided a plausible explanation as to why no such radio signals have been detected. Planetary systems might be rare and, hence, intelligent life in the cosmos rare also. This is the needle in the haystack explanation. The universe seemed simply too large and the distances between the stars too vast to offer any prospect of shedding any light on this question within the lifetime of anyone living. This “explanation” seemed to provide a plausible “escape hatch” against the obvious implications of the negative results of the SETI program(s).

However, God has a way of confounding fools. In 1992, the first extrasolar planets were indeed detected.

The three known planets of the star HR8799, imaged by the Hale Telescope. The light from the central star was blanked out by a vector vortex coronagraph.

Quoting the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exoplanet):

The first confirmed detection came in 1992, with the discovery of several terrestrial-mass planets orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12.[11] The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet orbiting a main-sequence star was made in 1995, when a giant planet was found in a four-day orbit around the nearby star 51 Pegasi. Due to improved observational techniques, the rate of detections has increased rapidly since then.[5]

Star AB Pictoris Image with Large Planet or Brown Dwarf

How rapidly? Quoting again:

As of 21 June 2013, a total of 893 confirmed exoplanets are listed in the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia, including a few that were confirmations of controversial claims from the late 1980s.[5] That count includes 696 planetary systems, of which 133 are multiple planetary systems.[UPDATE: AS OF July 22, 2014, there are 1,811 confirmed exoplanets discovered in 1,126 planetary systems.] Kepler-16 contains the first discovered planet that orbits around a binary star system.[38] [UPDATE: as of 1 September 2016, there have been 3,518 exoplanets in 2,635 planetary systems and 595 multiple planetary systems confirmed.]
As of February 2012, NASA’s Kepler mission had identified 2,321 planetary candidates associated with 1,790 host stars, based on the first sixteen months of data from the space-based telescope.

Scatterplot showing masses and orbital periods of all extrasolar planets discovered through 2010-10-03, with colors indicating method of detection: green:transit, blue:timing, red: direct imaging, brown: microlensing, pale green: astrometry

And:

Astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) reported in January 2013, that “at least 17 billion” Earth-sized exoplanets are estimated to reside in the Milky Way galaxy.

If a planet is detectable by both the radial-velocity and the transit methods, then both its true mass and its radius can be found. The planet’s density can then be calculated.

These projects are in their infancy and these are the confirmed results thus far. So, the commonality of planets around other stars is now an empirical, observable fact! The number of probable planets detected as of June 2013, based upon all of the detection methods, is about 4,500, the vast majority of them within 300 light years of earth.

The statistical conclusion of the “mediocrity” of our solar system has turned out to be correct regarding the number of planets in the universe. Planetary systems are the rule, not the exception. The universe, it turns out, is positively teeming with planets-hundreds of billions of them in our own Milky Way galaxy. This fact only serves to intensify the apparent “discrepancy” (the “Fermi Paradox”) regarding the lack of radio signals coming from ET when there ought (on naturalistic premises) to be billions (or at least millions) of such separate such signals reaching the earth.

The secularists have a serious problem here…a very, very, very serious problem. Will they re-examine their fundamental religious faith undergirding their speculations in the light of these facts? Don’t hold your breath.

The simple fact is that these empirical findings of modern astronomy are consistent with the biblical declarations of the nature and origin of the universe and utterly inconsistent with the prevailing secular view of “what ought to be” based upon their secularistic premises. But don’t expect such a candid admission to be announced on the next episode of Nova, or National Geographic, or Nature, or any other vested establishment media outlet. The makers of these programs, to say nothing of the powers-that-be in our educational systems, are anything but candid. We are already getting their “spin” on these findings of modern astronomy. (See “The Fermi Paradox” at Wikipedia.) They are denying that their ship is sinking and, like a faithful captain of a ship, they will hold out to the end and go down with their ship.

The following Wikipedia articles, along with some related links and searches, are the source of my information.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrasolar_planet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

LIBERALISM, EVOLUTION AND ORIGINAL SIN

August 23, 2016 by Tom Shipley

Adan and Eve Expelled from the Garden — Adam and Eve Expelled from the Garden

The Western world today typically divides itself into one of two camps in a multitude of arenas, typically identifying themselves either as “liberal” or “conservative.” But what do these words, “liberal” and “conservative,” actually mean and denote in terms of the actual, real underlying ideological forces animating and driving them?

I am here to tell you something you will never hear on any major television network or any major news network: the inner fundamental essence of modern so-called “liberalism,” political, religious and otherwise, is philosophical atheism. This philosophical atheism is not rationally derived as its proponents would like everyone to believe. Rather, it is the outworking and manifestation of a psychopathology–original sin. The particulars of this psychopathology have been codified by believers in the religion of Naturalism, complete with a sectarian Confession of Faith (see The Humanist Manifesto of 1933).

Original sin in the Biblical sense is, at its deepest root and core, the drive and impulse to autonomy (i.e., “auto” = self, and “nomos” = law), that is, the will to be a law unto one’s own self, which is, practically speaking, the drive to be one’s own God in defiance of the only true and eternal Law Giver.

Modern conservatism, in its essence, is grounded in the proposition that there is a God (“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created…”), the Creator, and that He is the ground and source of all objective morality and ethics. This was the faith of virtually all of the Founding Fathers of America, regardless of what their personal fidelity may have been, and it is the reason why Jesus Christ is referred to in Article VII of The Constitution of the United States of America as “our Lord.” Virtually all of the conflict within the Western world (and much of the rest of the world, for that matter) is the outworking and manifestation of these two opposing forces. There are a multitude of variations and shades and places along the spectrum, but never doubt that this dichotomy is the central core of all the conflict; these are the two opposing poles from which all of the other particulars flow.

The favorite and most cherished dogma of the faithful devotees of Liberalism (notice I have now switched to a capital “L”) is Evolution. Next to the proposition of atheism itself, Evolution is “liberals” most dearly beloved Article of Faith. Make no mistake about it, Liberalism is a religion (its real name is Naturalism), and Evolution is veritably an Article of Faith. It is founded upon unproven and unprovable philosophical presuppositions about the ultimate nature of reality and is at variance and conflict with all empirical knowledge (one example of which I will get to below),

There are many deceivers among the faithful of this religion who actively try to subvert the faith of theists. You run into them in almost every corner saying, “I believe in God and I also believe in Evolution.” When you hear a man say such a thing, mark that man as a liar. Such a man is dishonest to the core.

It behooves every Christian, at some point in life, preferably earlier, to devote a significant portion of time to the study of the Creation-Evolution controversy to the point where the highlights of the issue can be accurately articulated to others. (I have created a YouTube page with a collection of videos which you can think of as a kind of quick crash course on the subject and I will include a list of recommended reading at the end of this article.)

In particular, and perhaps primarily, every Christian should be aware that the fossil record emphatically does NOT give evidence in support of the evolutionary religion, a fact evolutionists know and confess themselves (or not, if they think the general public is listening in). Charles Darwin’s prediction that the (in his day) fairly young discipline of archaeology-paleontology would in time uncover the multiplied thousands or millions of minute variations that “must” have lead from one species to another has failed – and failed miserably. The only thing that can be found in the fossil record are distinct species. Period. Living organisms are all biologically isolated at the species level. And absolutely no one, especially any paleontologist, now holds out any hope at all that any line of nearly infinite gradations ever WILL be found, Charles Darwin’s failed prediction notwithstanding. There are, of course, variations within species, but all varieties of the cat species, for example, are distinct and biologically isolated from all varieties of the dog species, and all varieties of cattle, and all varieties of horses, etc. (For obvious reasons, I accept neither the nomenclature nor the classification scheme of modern taxonomy or “cladism.”)

Consider this extraordinarily revealing admission from Niles Eldredge, the preeminent paleontologist from Columbia University who, along with Harvard’s Stephen J. Gould and Johns Hopkins’ Steven M. Stanley, brought the evolutionary establishment into the new age of “punctuated equilibrium”:

“We paleontologists have said that the history of life supports [the story of gradual adaptive change], all the while really knowing that it does not.” –quoted by Philip E. Johnson in “Darwin on Trial,” pg. 59, from Eldredge’s book, “Time Frames.” —emph. supp.

Dear reader, did you get that? This is a candid admission from an evolutionary insider at the very top of the evolutionary academic establishment, an evolutionist of evolutionists, that the entire evolutionary establishment has not been honest about the facts of their profession!!! There is no apology here, just a simple reporting of the fact!

Eldredge elaborates further:

“Each new generation, it seems, produces a few young paleontologists eager to document examples of evolutionary change in their fossils. The changes they have always looked for have, of course, been of the gradual, progressive sort. More often than not their efforts have gone unrewarded–their fossils, rather than exhibiting the expected pattern, just seem to persist virtually unchanged…This extraordinary conservatism looked, to the paleontologist keen on finding evolutionary change, as if no evolution had occurred. The studies documenting conservative persistence rather than evolutionary change were considered failures, and, more often than not, were not even published.”–emph. supp.

Bear in mind, this is not a biblical creationist speaking but one of the high priests of the evolutionary academic establishment. Eldredge’s oblique reference to the studies that never were published refers, in many cases, to the fact that the paleontologists were not able to get their studies published due to the stringent and pervasive evolutionary censorship mechanism in place in the academic world. It starts with self-censorship motivated by fear: if you are able by some miracle to get past the strict peer review process which is under the control of the Great Darwinian Propaganda Machine, publication of such studies places one in jeopardy of being refused application for Ph.D. programs, denial of Ph.D.s after being earned, loss or denial of tenure, de-funding of one’s department, or even job termination if one is brash enough to publish studies contrary to evolutionary dogma in defiance of the evolutionary establishment.

It cannot be stressed too strongly that this total and complete lack of any intermediate forms is not a guess, it is not speculation, it is not deduction; it is empirical fact. Those who continue to adhere to the evolutionary religion are painfully aware of this reality. This is why since the 1970’s more and more of those of this religion have converted in droves to the “Punctuated Equilibrium” model of evolution.

For those not familiar with all of this, basically Punctuated Equilibrium (or Equilibria) says that biological organisms go on for thousands and millions of generations without changing very much until —voila!, rabbits out of the hat!–suddenly, and without any recognizable cause, virtually miraculous transformations take place over a relatively short period of time, leading to all sorts of new species. Evolutionists call it “allopatric speciation”—as if giving the concept an academic-sounding name somehow bestows more credibility upon the concept. Basically, it is the idea that evolution happens in quick bursts of “adaptive radiation” over a relatively short period of time in small populations that get isolated from the parent group and evolve separately, and this is supposedly why transitional forms are never found in the fossil record. Moreover, punctuated equilibrium is basically equivocation as far as the dialogue about evolution is concerned, confusing and conflating a real phenomenon (variation within species) with an imaginary one (fundamental transformation into different kinds of organisms). This is basically where the academic evolutionary establishment hangs its proverbial hat today.

It should be noted that this new brand of evolutionary thinking did not come about due to any additional evidence whatsoever. It is simply a reinterpretation of the existing fossil and geological data on the part of evolutionists trying to explain WHY there is no indication of evolution in the fossil record (or among living organisms, for that matter: why don’t we see any existing sequential spectrum of life among living organisms? Why isn’t the living world of species one great blur?). This is true even if the geologic strata containing fossils is interpreted as representing long geological ages in the millions of years, rather than the obvious interpretation that they are the result of rapid deposition over a short period of time as a result of a flood.The evolutionists have been struggling greatly with this lack of evidence all along and the proposition of some kind of rapid evolution was proposed, to my knowledge, as long ago as 1940 by renowned geneticist Richard Goldschmidt, whose theory was self-dubbed as the “hopeful monster” theory. Goldschmidt was very severely ridiculed and ostracized by his contemporary evolutionists, the scientific and educational establishments, for introducing this heresy into their religious dogma. After all, everyone “knew” that evolution happened by innumerable small gradations over millions and billions of years.

Ironically, what the proponents of Punctuated Equilibrium have done is to introduce magic and the miraculous into their schema! There are some who remain faithful to the old Darwinian gradualism despite the lack of fossil evidence but the inertia within the ranks of the evolutionary religion is definitely in this direction. After all, the fossil record has to be explained (away) somehow and the stasis of organisms found there is simply too embarrassing for evolutionists. Some explanation is needed no matter how preposterous. They would rather believe another lie, or a variation of the lie, than embrace the obvious truth that there never has been any evolution of one species into another. (The implications are just too unacceptable!) The sheer weight and magnitude of this empirical and factual consideration, and its obvious relevance to the issue, and the nature of the schema to avoid the obvious meaning and implications of the lack of transitional forms, reveals the nature of the denial as a psychopathology. There is simply no rational reason to believe in evolution on the part of anyone actually acquainted with the science of the matter. The underlying cause of this evasion of reality is a moral and ethical sickness, the manifestation of original sin.

BOOK REVIEW OF “DARWIN’S CREATION MYTH” BY ALEXANDER MEBANE , PART 3

August 15, 2016 by Tom Shipley

In Parts 1 and 2 we reviewed evolutionist Alexander Mebane’s commentary on the “disconfirmations” of Darwinian evolution. We continue here beginning with #5 (a).

5a. First Taxonomic Disconfirmation: Cladistic Iconoclasm

In perusing the internet for definitions of “cladism” and “cladogenesis,” some of the definitions one will find are as follows:

the theory that cladistic methods based on shared characteristics of organisms yield their true evolutionary relationships and provide the basis for a natural biological classification;
Cladistics is an approach to biological classificationin which items are grouped together based on whether or not they have one or more shared unique characteristics that come from the group’s last common ancestor and are not present in more distant ancestors. …
noun, Biology 1.
the cladistic method of classification.
a method of classifying living organisms, often using computer techniques, based on the relationships between phylogenetic branching patterns from a common ancestor
Cladogenesis definition, evolutionary change by the branching off of new speciesfrom common ancestral type
Cladogenesis is an evolutionary splitting eventin a species in which each branch and its smaller branches forms a “Clade”, an evolutionary mechanism and a process of adaptive evolution that leads to the development of a greater variety of sister species.

This should be sufficient to inform the reader of the nature of this section of Mebane’s thesis. It would appear, then, that cladism is more or less the equivalent of “taxonomy” or “systematics.” This is a highly telling and significant section of Mebane’s book.

“Well, what is meant by taxonomy?…It is the classification of organisms in a biologically-realistic fashion, which historically goes back to Linnaeus (1707-1778)….Linnaeus concerned himself only with displaying the interrelationships between plants and animals now living but when fossil remains of many others now extinct began to be recognized, a need was felt to introduce the time dimension…Although Linnaeus had taken it for granted that [note well—T. S.] species are by nature ‘fixed’, evolutionists soon arose…who would deride that idea as a naïve old superstition…they declared that all present species are in fact only… ‘twigs’ of a single vast genealogical tree…the task of taxonomists was now to assign to every living or dead life form…its proper position on the great genealogical Tree of Life.” –pg. 29

Carolus Linnaeus by Hendrik Hollander 1853

Note well that Linnaeus, the founder of zoological taxonomy, believed in the biblical view of the “fixed” nature of living organisms. This deserves to be emphasized. This whole scenario is an example of what I mentioned at the beginning of this article about what is essentially a Judeo-Christian pursuit being highjacked by the priests of Secular Humanism. And it was never an honest endeavor to begin with–not on the part of Darwin nor on the part of many other evolutionists who were all fully aware that the existing evidence from paleontology and animal husbandry were contrary to their speculations. The “theory” of evolution was never about the actual evidence, it was always about the anticipated evidence that evolutionists hoped to find some time in the future. It has always been a theory in spite of the evidence.

Now to the focus of this section:

“(S)ince 1965 a vigorous ‘reform’ movement called ‘cladism’ has arisen, which argues that it is a logical mistake for a taxonomist to concern himself with ancestor-descendant relationships…and abstain altogether from genealogical speculation…But this inevitably led to the far more radical claim…that it is…impossible to discover genuine ancestor-descendant relations, for the very fundamental reason that the whole classic ‘Evolutionary Tree’ picture is an unreal and merely imaginary schema, none of which can be verified in the real world!…leading taxonomists, experts in their field…have become so totally iconoclastic as to expressly repudiate not only Darwin’s, but all theories of ‘natural evolution’.”—pg. 29

A couple pages later, Mebane observes:

“The sudden casting off of this old scheme looks, then, like a belated revolt of empirical facts against the dead hand of the Stalinistically-enforced orthodoxy, exactly as has happened in paleontology, where the old pretence that the evidence ‘supported Darwin’ was violently overthrown in Europe by Schindewolf in 1950, and in America by Gould and Eldredge in 1972.”—pg. 31

The reader should understand that this revolution has been done by the hand of the evolutionists themselves feeling the juggernaut-force of overwhelming empirical facts. Pretense can only be carried so far. There comes a point where taking pretense even further manifests oneself as a bald-faced liar, and this is something the taxonomists have been unwilling to do. This does not mean that the evolutionists are ready and willing to declare that all the available evidence points to the creation of life by the hand of an intelligent, omnipotent God (although the evidence certainly does precisely that). This is why you do not see these facts brought out, front-and-center, for public display. Don’t expect to see the next episode of “Nature” or “National Geographic” or “Nova” or “Discovery” trumpeting the fact that all existing theories of evolution are now known definitively to be false. This would require our academic and scientific establishments to muster up more honesty and integrity than they possess. This situation is, in essence, a test of the limits of their honesty.

Mebane says:

“The complete absence of verification of all of the necessary ancestors must inevitably lead to skepticism about the real historical existence of a ‘tree’ whose basic skeleton consists of deduced, but in fact unknown, taxonomic groupings.”—pg. 30

I have a question: what other field of “science” would be given a free pass on producing empirical evidence in its support? Yet, the paleontological and biological sciences have been given precisely that on the subject of evolution. I say bluntly it is high time (actually LONG PAST high time) to put up or shut up. 155 years of vain, baseless speculations which have proven false is ENOUGH! Way more than enough! Yet, since the underlying religious tenets of the prophets of the religion of Secular Humanism are at stake here, the lies and the falsehoods are given free reign to go on, year after year, decade after decade, without being called to account.

Mebane finishes up this section thusly:

“Why has this revolution remained a ‘quiet’ one, which has not been noised about and brought to public attention? My conjecture is that the iconoclasts have naturally been asked what ‘truer’ picture of biological history they would now put in the place of the rejected genealogical one, and have found that an exceeding awkward question to answer…but one can hardly blame the taxonomists if, rather than publicly affirm such a conclusion, they have preferred to say nothing at all.”—pg. 31

Translation: “The truer picture of biological history is that the biblical one of distinct species created by an omnipotent God is the only coherent picture conceivable, but we simply can’t concede this fact. Silence is better!” The taxonomists (or “cladists” or “systematicists”, or whatever term your prefer) understand quite well that a single word from a prominent evolutionist can forebode the end of their academic funding or career. Silence is literally gold! Silence is the price for the continuation of a taxpayer-funded paycheck and retirement pension.

5b. Second Taxonomic Disconfirmation: Observed Non-Genealogical Relationships

“There is also a continual reassignment of more closely studied organisms to new locations on the ‘phylogenetic tree’, because they are now realized to possess features incompatible with the earlier placement. And in this shifting about, it not uncommonly happens that insoluble dilemmas arise…What we are seeing…is abundant proof that cladists are right in calling genealogical trees imaginary schematizations, which cannot be fitted to the real facts of ‘Nature’…The fact is that taxonomists have been dutifully attempting to carry out an inherently impossible task.”—pgs. 32-33, emph. supp

We have all seen illustrations of these “phylogenetic trees” endlessly paraded before us, first when we were children in school textbooks, in popular books, on television programs, in trade publications, on internet sites, and in natural history museums as if these representations are the assured and final conclusions of paleontology and biology. Yet how many times have the purveyors of these representations alerted their readers, watchers and visitors that the taxonomists themselves do not believe in them? And that the specifics of these imaginary trees are continually shifted around? And that the vast gulf between one notch on the tree and the next notch is so vast that no academician hopes to ever fill the gaps? Until these facts are prominently highlighted to the general public, the charge of deliberate misrepresentation of the data must be levelled against all who publish and disseminate these phylogenetic representations.

Disconfirmation by Prohibitive Improbability of “Accidentally” Producing Observed Results
Mebane cites the mathematical computations of French physicist Lecomte Du Nouy regarding the chance possibilities of random chemical processes producing even the simplest of proteins. Suffice to say the possibility is so staggeringly and mind-boggling small that the odds against such chance occurrence are astronomically high and then some.

“This number is so invisibly tiny…that the natural formation…is thus demonstrated to be strictly impossible. This amounts to a proof that, even when making the most favorable assumptions conceivable, one is simply forbidden to take seriously the proposition that ‘Life on Earth must have arisen spontaneously, in some natural and unintentional way’.”—pg. 36

The reader should linger long over this consideration. Though arguments from mathematics are abstract to most people and lack the tangibility of rocks and fossils, the real world of atoms and elements and chemicals is completely subject to these mathematical limitations. And these mathematical limitations tell us that it is simply impossible for living organisms to originate by random, unintentional processes. This consideration by itself is completely sufficient to validate Divine, intelligent creation of life as a truly scientific theory.

This state of affairs can be looked at from a slightly different perspective as I did in another article, “The Search for ET” (to be posted here in the near future). In the real world of living organisms, even single-celled organisms consist of irreducibly complex components (as Michael Behe has pointed out). In other words, remove any one part of the structure and the organism dies. Or, starting from the bottom, add one of the parts to the organism without the others and the organism dies. This state of affairs virtually screams intelligent design. It also shouts of the power to manipulate the component parts in tandem with the intelligence to know what to do in order to create a living organism. The power by itself would be in vain without the knowledge of what is necessary to create a viable living organism. Conversely, the knowledge of what is required to create a living organism would be in vain without the power and ability to coordinate the components. When we look at the details of living organisms, myriads of irreducibly complex systems with a purpose, intelligent design and a staggeringly immense power both stare us in the face. Irreducible biological complexity, as with a watch or an automobile, is a hallmark of a powerful, intelligent, conscious creator. There is no other known source of irreducible complexity except intelligent manipulation. Blind, natural processes never produced trains, planes and automobiles—or living beings.

So what is the reaction of secularists to the reality of intelligent design of living organisms by some immensely powerful agency staring them in the face? Mebane observes:

“Shapiro discreetly refrains from drawing attention to the consequence of this disproof for the credibility of Darwinism: he calls, not for the necessity of intelligent design, but for the discovery of ‘some new natural principle’ (pg. 298) capable of simulating intelligent design (the same appeal made by Wesson in his Beyond Natural Selection…”—pg. 36

This is nothing less than the suppression of the truth. This may possibly be an example of sinking into a state of psychological denial. Both Shapiro and Wesson clearly recognize that living organisms are constituted in such a manner that they admit of no other known mechanism and explanation for their creation except that of intelligent design. So, instead of following the evidence and investigating the clear fact staring them in the face, they engage in subversion and sabotage of the truth. Like Darwin before them, relying on hoped-for intermediate forms to show up in the fossils in the future to refute the non-evolutionary picture actually there in the fossils, Shapiro and Wesson are relying on hoped-for evidence to be found in the future to refute the clear evidence actually before them in the present. Thus, the clear implications of the actual, real-world evidence that we actually possess is denied in favor of a flight of fancy.

How conscious is all of this on the part of evolutionists? Are they simply incapable of seeing the plain truth before them? Or, is their denial of the truth more calculated, deliberative, willful? I suppose it depends of which particular evolutionist is in question. I find it very hard to believe that the evolutionists who admit the failure of the evolutionary model in private but then present a different face in public do so inadvertently.

An example from Luther Sunderland’s book, Darwin’s Enigma, is illuminating. On pages 89-95, Sunderland relates an incident regarding Niles Eldredge. Niles Eldredge may properly be regarded, along with Stephen Jay Gould, as one of the two High Priests of the religion of Secular Humanism, being one of the two co-founders of the “punctuated equilibria” revolution. This is yet another example of evolutionists’ proclivity, from no less a personage than Niles Eldredge himself, to a knee-jerk resort to prevarication when the true status of the “theory” of evolution is in jeopardy of being disclosed to the general public. In 1979, Eldredge, as Curator of the American Museum of Natural History, went on record in an interview with Sunderland calling the famous horse evolution depictions “the best example of a lamentable imaginary story being presented as though it were literal truth,” and that, “I admit that an awful lot of that has gotten into the textbooks as though it were true.”—pg. 90

Then on February 14, 1981, during the Seagraves evolution textbook trial in California, Eldredge, on the ABC national television program “20/20,” being interviewd by Sylvia Chase, proclaimed before the world at large and 20 million viewers the horse evolution myth as evolutionary fact after already going on record calling the horse series “a lamentable imaginary story.” Eldredge was simply carrying on the Darwinian tradition here with this kind of deceit. Let me state the obvious: Eldredge is willing to twist and distort the facts of paleontology to the world at large when the chips are down (i.e., when influencing public opinion in favor of evolution), rather than plainly tell the truth that the fossils provide no evidence for evolution. But in doing so, he forfeits his own credibility and integrity.

That this was all cynical public posturing on Eldredge’s part is manifest on its face. Eldredge’s statements on ABC television have no more credibility—or integrity—than something we might hear from the U. S. President’s Press Secretary defending the President in the aftermath of some sex scandal. This is on the same level as President Clinton saying, “I did not have sex with that woman.” Eldredge should have been made to walk around with a scarlet “L” on his forehead for a year. This is Eldredge fornicating with Princess Prevarication.

But I digress.

Transmutation of one species into another by random processes is simply not possible. This has been well understood for a very long time now by evolutionary biologists, for well over a hundred years, ever since the fruit fly experiments of Thomas Hunt Morgan and others. It is not something that there is even any genuine debate about. Nor is there even a speck of empirical (or even theoretical) validity for the “theory” which has replaced it, Eldredge’s and Gould’s “punctuated equilibria,” which proposes (ironically) miracles of transformation, magic out of biological hats, naturalistic rapid evolution (note well) on the scale of divine creation, with not even a remotely-dreamed-of potential mechanism to accomplish the feat. We are asked by the evolutionists to accept their fairy tales by faith.

(Sensed) Aesthetic Disconfirmation

In this section, Mebane lists esthetic beauty in his list of disconfirmations of naturalistic, gradualistic, Darwinian evolution. In other words, would we not expect randomness to produce not beauty and form and symmetry, but ugliness or blandness and disorder? Yet the real world we occupy has “vast carpets of georgeous wildflowers of various hues” and “the quite unnecessary beauty…of birds like peacocks…the grace and beauty of cats” etc. which “ for utilitarian purposes would have been just as viable (…or even more viable) without them,” (pg. 44). Mebane goes on to cite the beauty of seashells and “the inhabitants of coral reefs” whose brilliant hues could never be seen by anyone until the scuba was invented by Jacques Cousteau.

“The explanation that this wonderful feast of naturally invisible colors was provided by some benign Designer expressly for the delectation of late twentieth century humans seems too absurd to take seriously—but even more absurd…is the Darwinist’s explanation that all of this amazing hidden beauty was produced unintentionally, purely by accident!…

“I cannot point to any ‘reasonable’ resolution of these misgivings; I believe that no one could; but, speaking for myself, the manifest presence of aesthetic beauty in ‘Nature’ is the only argument for the agency of a ‘God’ that I have ever been able to take seriously.”—pg. 45

Thus Mebane concludes his series of disconfirmations of Darwinistic evolution. Mebane asks:

“If Darwinism would seem to be the only scientific explanation of life’s history—but has nonetheless proven to be a thoroughly false one—what then?”—pg. 54

Yes, indeed, what then?

Mebane is hindered from the truth at this juncture because he has not yet discovered the fact that the academic establishments of Europe and the Americas have subverted truth for a very long time now, not only in regard to Darwinian evolution, but also in regard to many other related aspects of archaeology, geology, biology and—surprise!—biblical studies. The bogus “discipline” of “higher criticism” of the Bible reigns supreme (perhaps we should say runs rampant) throughout the religion departments of virtually every college and university in the developed world, and is just as rigidly dogmatic and (regrettably) pervasive in its reach as is the discipline of naturalistic evolution. Sad but true, the academic con-artists run the show. Mebane, unfortunately, is one of their unwitting victims. He may as well have never escaped the academics’ delusion-inducing Great Darwinian Propaganda Machine. He is still a prisoner chained to the wall in the dungeon of deceit.

The Bottom Line

So what is it all about? What are the underlying motivating factors that animate and motivate the evolutionists? Mebane should know because he remains one of them:

“It seems fairly safe to predict that the great majority of professionals will continue (at least in public) to pretend that ‘Darwin’s theory of evolution has been verified as true’, even if they are consciously aware that that asseveration is a lie—exactly as Thomas Huxley did more than a century ago…

“Two powerful pragmatic motivations exist for adhering to that seemingly ‘scandalous’ justification: one is political, the other psychological. In this country…any public admission that the history of life defies scientific explanation would simply open the floodgates to the zealots who would put the Bible back in the classroom….Anyone with the slightest inclination to critical thinking must turn cold at the thought of such a victory for the forces of overt irrationalism. That is the political motivation—a compelling one. The lie is a ‘lesser evil’ than the truth would prove to be.”—pg. 73, bold emphasis supplied

And, No, that is not your humble narrator putting words in someone else’s mouth. That is a verbatim quote. I could not have levelled the accusation any more pointedly myself.

Mebane concludes his book:

“Faced with so dismaying an alternative, thinkers on this topic will understandably continue to persuade themselves—just as Huxley did, so long ago now—that, ‘Even if Darwinism is not the correct answer, it is a scientific one; so we must hold onto it, as a stop-gap, until the true scientific solution finally comes to light.’ So far as I can see, this ‘psychologically necessary’ rationalization, having persisted for more than thirteen decades, may well persist forever.”—pg. 74

It cannot be stressed too strongly that the proponents of evolution tell willful, deliberate, conscious lies about the subject for the purpose of obstructing the truth of God. Let them consider the Word of God:

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools.—Romans 1:18-21

So where do things stand today? At the time of the writing of this review (2014), Darwinian gradualism is as dead as the dodo bird, as extinct as the tyrannosaurus. The “punctuated equilibria” of Gould and Eldredge has won the day among the faithful devotees of evolution and now prevails over the kingdom of Secularism. This is not what evolutionists had hoped for. They fought it tooth and nail for a century. But 100 plus years of ever-mounting and overwhelming disproofs of evolution have taken their toll and the retreating forces of Secular Humanism have retreated into what may very well be their last refuge, the sanctuary of “rapid evolutionary change.”

This shift away from the proposed gradualistic mechanism, however, comes with a very heavy price for them to pay: how does one explain this casting off of the old Darwinism when there is absolutely zero empirical evidence for the new punctuated equilibria hypothesis? This does not bode well for public relations even with the entire academic and media establishments on their side of the issue. It looks, even to the casual uninterested eye suspiciously like rationalization and a Last Ditch Attempt to avoid surrender to the forces of supernaturalism—whether that supernaturalism comes in the form of historic biblical creationism, or, alternately, the Vitalism of the pantheists. There is not even an inkling of any realistic theory about the biochemical basis for such rapid evolution. Moreover, punctuated equilibria differs in essence not one whit in kind from creationism. It proposes a miraculous transformation of living animals into new species. The new evolutionary orthodoxy has been forced to borrow from the creation model in order to maintain a touch of reality.

BOOK REVIEW OF “DARWIN’S CREATION MYTH” BY ALEXANDER MEBANE, PART 2

August 8, 2016 by Tom Shipley

In Part 1, we reviewed evolutionist Alexander Mebane’s commentary on the “disconfirmations” of Darwinian evolution. We resume here reviewing disconfirmations #2 – #4.

#2 First Paleontological Disconfirmation: Observed Non-Evolution

Says Mebane:

“But the paleontologists of (Darwin’s) time immediately raised objections to this Darwinian ‘scenario,’ saying that what they actually found did not conform at all to Darwin’s imaginary description…it was provably untrue that a species was ‘merely an ephemeral manifestation,’ since many species could be found unchanged throughout the whole thickness of a geological stratum that must have been deposited over very great stretches of time.”—pg. 8

Note well that this was PROVABLY untrue (based upon the premise of geologic strata representing great stretches of time), something of which Darwin was thoroughly aware.

Darwin’s response was: go back to the rocks and collect fossils for another hundred years and his thesis would be confirmed.

“Darwin’s word was taken as law for more than a century thereafter. Incredibly enough, when paleontologists actual findings persisted in ‘failing’ to confirm his prediction, it was not the prediction that suffered, but the paleontologists! Evolutionists began to vilify them as lazy fellows, mere ‘stamp collectors’ unworthy of the name ‘scientist’…Paleontology in England and America became a frustrating and unrewarded activity, in which publication of non-‘ideologically correct’ findings was often impossible.”—pg. 9, emphasis supplied

Such was the state of “open inquiry” in academia then (and now).

Mebane goes on to cite the example of German Paleontologist Otto Schindewolf who, in 1950, declared that the record of the rocks was clear—new life forms appeared suddenly, not by Darwin’s “insensible degrees” and then remain permanently static. This announcement made Schindewolf the object of ridicule by evolutionists. Says Mebane:

“The ‘normal evolutionary process’ existed only in the minds of evolutionists: in the real world, no species ‘evolves.’ It will remain unchanged for as long as it is able to survive.” –pg. 11

Such is the state of the understanding of paleontologists and biologists about the subject today. There are still some meager number of old-school Darwinists and neo-Darwinists persisting in the old fairy tales, but they have now been so totally discredited by the admitted lack of any intermediate forms in the fossil record that the pendulum will never swing back in their direction. Since the Stephen J. Gould/Niles Eldredge revolution of 1972, “Punctuated Equilibria” is the new orthodoxy. It’s domination of the academic establishment is nearly as thorough today as was the old Darwinism in the 1930’s. There can be no turning back.

The irony of this situation is that the average educated person is mostly ignorant of this revolution. They have no idea how fundamentally the old orthodoxy has been overturned, discarded and replaced. They still believe for the most part that the academic establishment believes in the magic formula of natural selection + random mutation + eons of time = the production of new species. They could not be more mistaken about the actual state of affairs.

Mebane concludes this section thusly:

“I hope it will not be thought unduly ‘cynical’ of me to remind the reader here that all varieties of evolutionary theory, no matter how else they might differ, were at least in agreement on onefundamental thesis: namely, that ‘the doctrine of the fixity of species’ was a baseless, now-outmoded old superstition.” –pg. 11

Knowing the extreme discomfort this admission must cause Mebane I suppose we can forgive him for not being as pointed and explicit in this admission as a creationist might be. As confessions from evolutionists go, this is not bad. This is far more candid than anything which ever came from Darwin. I’ll give Mebane a B+ and articulate in my own words what Mebane simply cannot bring himself to say: the biblical creationists were right, after all. Once a species comes into existence, it will not change. Of course, the “comes into existence” part of the equation is something that Mebane is not willing to concede to divine creation. He is still looking to existing species as the seedbed from which new species emerge. He is simply not expecting any natural process to do the job.

But, the reader will ask, if there is no natural cause for evolution, and Mebane will not allow for divine creation by an omniscient and omnipotent God, what else is there? I am jumping ahead of Mebane to his conclusory remarks at the end of his book: Mebane maintains two possibilities: 1) that of a less-than-omnipotent god or 2) what Mebane believes is the best theory to fit the known facts, “sporadic productions by subdivine designers (daemones),” the fashioning of new species from existing species by “invisible intelligent DNA designers.” –pg. 69-70

Before scoffing at Mebane, I will step in in his defense here to defend his logic. His conclusion is not bad—if you accept his premises. I just have problems with his premises. His view is premised upon the proposition of a four billion year old earth, and the belief that rocks and fossils can actually be reliably dated. Remove these propositions from Mebane’s premises and he winds up in a very different universe than he thinks he inhabits. He then winds up in—horror of horrors!—a universe in which there might actually be an omnipotent creator God. I’ll make a prediction: Mebane will not entertain the possibility that accepted dating techniques are fatally compromised by faulty presuppositions which skew the dating results.

#3 Historical Disconfirmation: Observed DNA Conservation

Mebane’s third disconfirmation of Darwinism and neo-Darwinism is the simple impossibility of chance, random mutations producing a new species as was empirically demonstrated in the fruit fly experiments of Thomas Hunt Morgan and of Richard Goldschmidt, which also revealed embedded mechanisms to restore the organism to its original form!!! The reason for this impossibility is so simple that even a child can grasp it. Reorganization of DNA on the scale necessary to create an actual new species would require, not single random point mutations in the DNA, but numerous, coordinated, and strategic (i.e., intelligently directed) mutations all in the proper places—and all simultaneously. This is a simple fact of biology and it is utterly devastating to any chance model of evolution. Even Darwin and the biologists of Darwin’s time understood this, though they had no idea of just how staggeringly complex living organisms really are. The difficulty of this problem for evolutionists has multiplied astronomically since then. Darwinism and neo-Darwinism are both thoroughly founded on the idea of random, chance mutations slowly building up over time and producing new species. That such extensive random occurrences will ever result in a viable organism is not only vastly improbable but logically impossible. Time, in fact, is a dis-organizing, dis-integrating factor making the possibility of evolution even more unlikely as time passes. If evolution is going to happen, it needs to happen fast. There is no escape for the evolutionists from this conundrum. This has long been known and understood by evolutionary scientists. They’ve just preferred to keep quiet about the fact. Says Mebane:

“It is now quite openly acknowledged by experts that this inherent immunity to Darwinian evolution is, in fact, characteristic of all forms of Earthly life. We have thus witnessed the independent confirmation, on the most sweeping scale possible, of the genetic ‘impotency principle’ that Goldschmidt had inferred from the observed impossibility of experimentally transmuting a tiny fruit fly into a new viable species.”—pg. 12

And:

“Even under the most favorable of all conditions—deliberate human attempts to bring it about—successful natural species-transmutation is an event that is simply unable to happen…these coordinated changes are just what accidental knocking-about is inherently unable to provide, because chance events are subject to stringent probability limitations.”—pg. 13-14

These stringent probability limitations are precisely what make big money for casinos and insurance companies. Mebane then goes on to do the math of these probabilities, from which I will spare the reader all but the conclusion: the odds of a successful string of random mutations (“successful” meaning resulting in a viable organism) are “one in 200 billion billion.” Mebane concludes:

“Darwin’s microevolutionary route to macroevolution is simply not a passable one.”—pg. 16

I’ll toss in Arthur Koestler’s observations from his book, Janus:

“Now according to the Darwinian schema, all these changes must have been gradual, each small step caused by a chance mutation. But it is obvious that each step, however small, required simultaneous, interdependent changes affecting all the factors….They are all interdependent within the organism—which is a functional whole, not a mosaic. The doctrine that the coming together of all requisite changes was due to a series of coincidences is an affront not only to common sense but to the basic principles of scientific explanation.” –pg. 176

For those not acquainted with Koestler, Koestler was also an evolutionist. What Koestler and hundreds of biologists could not seriously entertain was the untenable chance schema upon which the dogma was based. Koestler’s book, The Ghost in the Machine, published in 1965, was a kind of popular precursor to Gould’s and Eldredge’s theory of Punctuated Equilibria. Koestler’s book may very well be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back and made it thinkable for the Darwinian establishment to entertain alternate theories about the supposed mechanism of evolution.

The problem, of course, is not with the mechanism but with the fundamental proposition itself.

Second Paleontological Disconfirmation: Observed Absence of Intermediates

Mebane’s fourth disconfirmation is the trade secret of evolutionary paleontologists, namely, there are simply no transitional forms to be found among the fossils–zero. We certainly should have expected to have found transitional forms in vast abundance if the Darwinian schema were correct. In fact, it should be impossible to discern where one species leaves off and another begins. The fossil record (and, indeed, the living world) should be one great blur, a continuous spectrum. We have vast numbers of some species preserved in fossils covering all of the land area of the earth (95% of which are marine invertebrates…hmmm) but no “great chain of descent” to be found anywhere. Darwin predicted otherwise but his prediction has failed. Darwin himself said that if the fossils did not eventually produce the intermediate forms, then this would be the greatest proof possible that his theory was false. Darwin’s worshipful disciples are not willing to be so candid about the actual state of affairs. They are attempting to validate other mechanisms as a cause of evolution.

Enter Stephen J. Gould and Niles Eldredge. Mebane says:

“Stephen Jay Gould has told us without equivocation, in his book, The Panda’s Thumb (p. 181) that ‘the extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology’…and that, in fact, ‘the fossil record, with its abrupt transitions, offers no support for gradual change’.(Panda’s Thumb, p 188.) Darwin’s old rationalization, that the gaps were ‘due to extreme imperfection of the fossil record’, is by this time utterly untenable (ibid. p. 182) ‘The fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another’ (Stanley, New Timetable, p. 95). Eldredge has made the same flat statement: ‘No one has found any ‘in-between’ creatures: the fossil evidence has failed to turn upany ‘missing links’, and many scientists now share a growing conviction that these transitional forms never existed.’”—pg. 18

It appears to me that Gould’s statement about the “extreme rarity of transitional forms” is another example of the willful disingenuousness of evolutionists who simply cannot bring themselves to speak the truth plainly. It seems evident to me that Gould, by this phraseology, hopes to convey to the mind of the reader that there are in fact at least some proven transitional forms in the fossils, when, in fact, by “extreme rarity” he means zero! Yes, zero is extreme, indeed! Why not just plainly say so?

Educated laity need to disabuse themselves of the false notion of the objective scientific neutrality of evolutionary biologists and paleontologists. These scientists are NOT neutral. They are more aptly described as zealots on a fervent mission. They have an agenda. That agenda is to salvage the theory of evolution at all costs despite the fact that objective evaluation of the evidence points powerfully and overwhelmingly to intelligent Divine creation. That agenda is to persuade the general public that rocks and fossils can be reliably dated at billions and millions of years when there is plenty of evidence for a young earth, and empirical demonstrationof the unreliability of radiometric dating of rocks. That agenda is NOT to follow the scientific evidence wherever it might lead.

Secular scientists are committed to a faith, the faith of Secular Humanism (which the U. S. Supreme Court recognized as a religion in the Torcaso v Watkins case (367 US 488, 1961). In faith, they commit themselves to a materialistic, naturalistic view of reality. They are committed to unproven and unprovable presuppositionsabout the ultimate nature of reality. This faith preconditions what conclusions they are willing to entertain about scientific evidence. This faith determines what conclusions they are not willing to entertain about scientific evidence.

Arthur Koestler, in his book, Janus, published in 1978, states:

“One of the crumbling citadels of orthodoxy…is the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution…The contradictions and tautologies of the synthetic theory have actually been known even longer, as a kind of open secret, and yet the dogma has been and still is strenuously defended by the academic community, with the penalty of discreet but effective ostracism for heretics. The reason for this paradox seems to be twofold: firstly, commitment to scientific theory can be as charged with emotion as a religious credo—a subject much in evidence throughout the history of science; secondly, the absence of a coherent alternative to neo-Darwinism makes many biologists feel that a bad theory is better than no theory at all.”—pg. 165

Mebane goes on to cite the famous archaeopteryx, often touted as a transitional form, as “part bird and part dinosaur.” Mebane agrees with this description but argues that it is not comprehensible as any kind of transitional form, which, indeed, it is not, even if the description is correct. I don’t want to get too far off topic to debate Mebane’s classification of this animal; my focus in this section is on transitional forms. My own research has satisfied me that archaeopteryx was a true bird. There has been much ado over the fact that archaeopteryx had teeth, and claws on its wings. While there are no living birds with teeth, there are a few extinct species, indisputably birds, which had teeth and there are living birds with wing claws. Mebane sides with the view that archaeopteryx was flightless but I suspect this to be erroneous also as this view is based on the absence of a sternum—but archaeopteryx also had an especially strong furcula which provided the necessary support for a strong pectoralis muscle required for the downstroke in flight (see Evolution: the Challenge of the Fossil Record by Duane T. Gish, Ph.D.).

Mebane’s next statements regarding the “Cambrian Explosion” are significant:

“The manner in which complex life first appeared on this planet must surely be considered the most glaring of all refutations not only of Darwinism, but of all theories of evolution. Early in the Cambrian period…we suddenly find abundant fossils of practically all the marine life forms that have ever existed.”—pg. 22, emphasis supplied.

And a few pages later:

“Advances in paleontology have only served to prove—far more conclusively than was possible in Darwin’s day—that what happened in Cambrian times was in fact nothing less than a fresh creation of a world of new organisms that had no preexisting ancestors: an event that is totally irreconcilable with Darwin’s—or, for that matter with any sort of ‘evolutionary’—conceptions of what ‘really happens’ in this world.”—pg. 25-26, emphasis is Mebane’s

Let the reader note well that this evidence, once again, is precisely the same as the biblical claim. Why not, then, quite frankly admit that divine creation by an omnipotent God is just as much a scientific proposition as creation by “who-knows-what-or-whom”? Mebane himself admits a couple pages later that “this process was a good deal closer to a truly-saltatory or ‘Biblical’ one” (pg. 28), and defies any natural explanation.

We must at least give credit to evolutionist Mebane for his frank admissions here. This kind of forthrightness on the part of evolutionists is seldom put forward in a book intended for the general public.

We will resume in Part 3 with Mebane’s additional “disconfirmations” of Darwinism.

BOOK REVIEW OF “DARWIN’S CREATION MYTH” BY ALEXANDER MEBANE

August 1, 2016 by Tom Shipley

Part 1

“Even if Darwinism is false above the microevolutionary level, it is nevertheless the only scientific theory of cladogenesis now available; and that is more important than the question of truth or falsity.” –Thomas Henry Huxley, quote from pg. 73, “Darwin’s Creation Myth” by Alexander Mebane

Until the time of Charles Darwin and the publication of “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life,” scientific investigation had been essentially a Christian endeavor, conducted mainly by Christians within the context of a larger Judeo-Christian civilization. The heartbeat of scientific investigation had been the desire to know and understand the nature of God’s created order. Truth and facts were all-important. Secularists often distort this history. For example, the famous confrontation between Galileo and the Roman Catholic Church is routinely portrayed by the propagandists of secularism as a debate between Christianity and secularism–whereas the reality is Galileo was a Christian with a better understanding of the Bible and nature disputing with other Christians with a lesser understanding of the Bible and of nature. Galileo contended that heliocentrism was consistent with the Bible. The only real question in the matter of Galileo is which Christian perspective was the truer one. Secularism was entirely irrelevant to the dispute. Examples of such distortion by secularists can be multiplied ad infinitum. In reality, the situation with Galileo was considerably more complex: Galileo had both supporters and detractors both in the Church and in academia. You would never know this reading a typical treatment of Galileo by secular commentators.

With the advent of Darwin’s assertion of natural evolution as the source of living species, and the highjacking of scientific pursuits by the priests of the religion of Secular Humanism, something was introduced into scientific investigation which had not existed previously: falsification. Make that deliberate falsification. (I am using the term “falsification” here to denote either outright fabrication of evidence or misleading interpretation of the evidence.) In addition to his scientific legerdemain, Darwin also tried to take credit as the originator of the theory, which was far from the truth. Darwin’s own grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, was an evolutionist before Sir Charles. Erasmus Darwin’s influence on Charles Darwin is conspicuously absent in anything Charles Darwin ever wrote. Curious. Moreover, Michael Denton noted in Evolution: A Theory in Crisis that among the Greek philosophers Anaximander, Empendocles, Democritus and Epicurus “”the two basic concepts which underlie modern evolutionary thought [i.e., variation and natural selection–T.S.] had been clearly formulated,” (see Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, pg. 37-40). In a more contemporary setting, it is well-known that Darwin manipulated a “one-upmanship” upon Alfred Wallace when he learned that Wallace was about to put forward essentially an identical hypothesis as his own. In brief, Darwin’s actions and claims in regard to his place and role in the hypothesis are not altogether on the level.

Many people naively assume that falsification among evolutionists has occurred only in isolated examples such as the Piltdown Man hoax (which was promulgated as fact in school textbooks for 50 years), or Ernst Haeckel’s phony embryo depictions (which are, to this day, being utilized in some school textbooks) or the Midwife Toad hoax, or the Nebraska Man hoax. The simple fact of the matter is, nearly the entire cadre of secular evolutionists, animated by their faith in the religion of Secular Humanism, have strenuously endeavored to keep the general public in ignorance of the significance of the facts of paleontology, geology, biology, biochemistry, etc., pretty much right from the beginning, starting with Darwin himself. Deliberate misrepresentation of the evidence by evolutionary scientists goes far, far deeper than crude manufacturing of evidence such as Piltdown Man. It involves their handling of, and explication of, the facts of paleontology, geology, biochemistry, genetics, etc. to the general public, and their pervasive repression of any contrary evidence (see, for example, Jerry Bergman’s book, “The Criterion” and this video by Mike Fischer of the Geochronology Group, and this egregious example here.)

You do not have to take my word for it. There is a veritable cornucopia of admissions of this fact regarding many particulars on the part of the Secular Humanists themselves, as for example the quote at the head of this article by Thomas Huxley, adoringly known as “Darwin’s bulldog” by the zealots of this religion, and see Dr. Alan Feduccia’s remarks here. (Consult also, for example, “The Ghost in the Machine” or “Janus” by Arthur Koestler, for a candid perspective on this.) Additionally, arch-evolutionist Niles Eldredge indicted the entire profession of paleontology by making this amazing confession in his book, Time Frames:

“We paleontologists have said that the history of life supports that interpretation” (i.e., “the story of gradual adaptive change”) “ALL THE WHILE REALLY KNOWING THAT IT DOES NOT.”-pg. 144, emph. supp.

This is an utterly amazing admission, coming as it does from the very top of the evolutionary food chain, from Niles Eldredge, ardent evolutionist (who called for a “gloves off” treatment of creationists) and Curator of the American Museum of Natural History. Here Eldredge accuses the entire profession of paleontology of knowingly misrepresenting the facts of paleontology to the world in order to advance evolutionary claims. Eldredge may wish he had never published those words, but they are there in permanent written form for anyone to investigate.

Examine Thomas Huxley’s statement well and meditate upon it. To state the matter bluntly, what Huxley meant in plain terms is that he was willing to engage and entertain ANY proposition about the origin of life and the history of life on earth, no matter how preposterous the proposition might be–provided that a supernatural God and intelligent design were not included in the list of propositions. Truth or falsehood be damned! God and intelligent design were to be ruled out of court, a priori, as inadmissible conclusions no matter how strongly the evidence might point in that direction. Atheism and evolution (by any and all means) are the axioms of the disciples of Darwin, the guiding premises of all thought, the sacrosanct and unquestionable presuppositions of every proposition which it is heresy and blasphemy to call into question.

My task in this series is to review a short book by one of their own, “Darwin’s Creation Myth,” by Alexander Mebane.

Mebane begins his short treatise (80 pages, bibliography and all), making sure his readers don’t confuse him with those awful, primitive, knuckle-dragging, Bible-thumping Creationists. Speaking about “anti-evolution” writings, Mebane says:

“Almost 90% of such publications have based their arguments on the axiom that reliable information is to be found in the creation-myths of the ancient Hebrews. Let me make clear at once that this essay is not in that category!” –from the Prefatory Note

And, my dear hominid, don’t dare overlook Mebane’s exclamation point! Mebane cannot emphasize this point too strongly. I am glad Mebane takes pains to distance himself from the likes of poor warped, primitive me. No one can accuse Mebane of being a Bible thumper or seeking to advance the cause of (as some have called it) “fundamentalist creationism,” whatever that is. And that suits my purposes here quite well, thank you, Mr. Mebane.

Just so the reader knows, I was not raised in a Christian home with the Bible being “imprinted” on me by my parents. I was raised in a very secular home with a professing atheist for a father and a mother with zero interest in anything religious. I, myself, am a former atheist and believer in evolution who was somewhat zealous to promote the cause of atheism. The first chinks in my atheist armor began when I was in college. The University of Maryland, where I was a student, had hosted a debate between creationists and evolutionists which I attended. I was very unimpressed at the time with both sides, which motivated me to go look in the University of Maryland library and elsewhere for scientific papers or books on theories regarding the biochemical basis for evolution—and found out that such books and papers did not exist! After over a hundred years of fanatical devotion to the theory on the part of a massive army of secular scientists, you would have thought the shelves of libraries would be overflowing with books outlining plausible biochemical bases for evolution. I was disappointed, but did not attribute much significance to this lack of material on the subject (until much later). This was, as I say, the first chink in my atheist armor. It was also somewhat disconcerting to me at the time that “my” side of the debate did not end with a resounding demonstration of evolution’s superior credibility over the creationists.

In a footnote, Mebane parrots the mindlessly absurd claim of so-called “higher criticism” of the Bible to the effect that there are “two different creation stories” in Genesis, a ridiculous and moronic claim on its face. This is beyond the scope of this article, but as an aside, such an utterly naïve and uninformed statement makes it obvious why Mebane remains mired down in evolutionary speculations. He has yet to discover that he has been duped by the academic snake-oil merchants in other disciplines, though, commendably, he has managed to escape the grip of the Great Darwinian Propaganda Machine. He would do well to investigate what is called “higher criticism” of the Bible with the same focus with which he has focused on the Darwinian and neo-Darwinian evolutionary speculations. He will find, to his disappointment, that the claims of the “higher critics” of the Bible are as utterly devoid of merit as is the Darwinian and neo-Darwinian interpretations of paleontology and geology which he repudiates, if not more so. And while I am commending areas of focus, we should add “How valid are the methods used to determine the ages of rocks and fossils?” to the list. Want to make a guess where that line of investigation will lead?

Mebane goes on to say:

“Darwin’s theory of evolution has never been so acceptable as current popular writers would have you believe (emphasis supplied) …few eminent naturalists ever felt that Darwin’s suggestion had truly solved the problem. Even Wallace himself, the co-inventor of the theory, soon came to realize it could not be correct….Thomas Huxley, Darwin’s chief defender…felt sure that Darwin’s picture must…be a good deal closer to the truth than the ones given us by Moses, but he was by no means the starry-eyed convert that Darwinists like to portray. Well aware that paleontologists could show that real changes had not proceeded by Darwin’s ‘insensible degrees’, and that all breeders insisted that real changes could not proceed ‘indefinitely’, as Darwin required them to do, he explicitly stipulated that he would remain skeptical…until an example of its real operation had been experimentally demonstrated. (As we shall see, it has not yet passed Huxley’s test; and by this time, rather heroic faith would be required to believe that it will ever pass it.”—pg. 1

Note well Mebane’s point here: Wallace and Huxley were not convinced that Darwin got it right about the supposed mechanism of evolution, but they clung to the fundamental proposition of evolution for dear life anyway. Mebane goes on to point out that other prominent evolutionists had misgivings about Darwin’s proposed mechanism, including J. B. S. Haldane, George Gaylord Simpson, Dobzhansky, Gavin De Beer, and Ernst Mayr. They were acquainted enough with the facts to know that the magic formula of “natural selection + random mutations + eons of time = abracadabra, presto: new species evolve,” simply had no empirical support in any direction. Mebane points out that most professionals in the field rejected Darwin’s “accidental and undirected” process of evolution right up until the 1930’s, when Darwin’s proposed mechanism won the day by default. There was simply no other coherent alternative being articulated.

Mebane concludes his introduction by saying:

“After 135 years [now 157 years—T.S.] Darwin’s creation-myth can still claim nothing more than its original attraction of offering us a story less obviously preposterous than the tale of the Hebrews—because, in spite of its superficial plausibility, this story of Darwin’s has consistently and conspicuously failed all of the tests that were expected to demonstrate its validity.”—pg. 2

Mebane’s characterization is, if anything, a gross understatement.

Mebane goes on to point out eight areas of disproof (he calls them “disconfirmations”) of the Darwinian dogma:

Experimental Disconfirmation: Observed Non-transmutability
First Paleontological Disconfirmation: Observed Non-Evolution
Historical Disconfirmation: Observed DNA Conservation
Second Paleontological Disconfirmation: Observed Absence of Intermediates
a. First Taxonomic Disconfirmation; Cladistic Iconoclasm
Second Taxonomic Disconfirmation: Observed Non-Genealogical Relationships
Disconfirmation by Prohibitive Improbability of “Accidentally” Producing Observed Results (i.e., mathematical impossibility)
(Sensed) Aesthetic Disconfirmation

Experimental Disconfirmation: Observed Non-transmutability

Mebane begins with the famous experiments on the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster conducted by Thomas Hunt Morgan which began in 1909. (Arthur Koestler found these experiments to be very significant to the question also. See his “The Ghost in the Machine” and “Janus,” pg. 182-183, 198). The fruit fly was a very suitable creature to use because it was “easy to maintain and of short generation time” and “particularly easy to transmute” by subjecting the insect to “mutation-inducing radiations of different sorts, to chemicals known to be mutagenic.” Mebane says,

“ It appeared virtually certain that the long-drawn-out process of natural species transmutation could be speeded up to the point where an artificially generated new species could, after a few years be triumphantly exhibited to the world….A great many races of melanogaster, some of them weirdly modified, emerged from the experiments, but re-mutating them was most disappointing: the multiply-mutated flies, when viable at all, were either sterile or had reverted to something closer to the original form”!—pg. 6

Conclusion?

“Attempts to push a new genetic trait farther and farther always come up against natural limits to variation, beyond which the overstrained organism must become either sterile or non-viable. It cannot be altered indefinitely without any limit, as Darwin postulated.” –pg. 6, Mebane’s emphasis

“Natural limits to variation”–this is something breeders had known since ancient times. Now, after more than a hundred years later, no one has managed to succeed in producing any other outcome, despite ongoing experiments with the fruit fly and many other organisms. (The renowned geneticist, Richard Goldschmidt, for example, abandoned Darwinism in favor of the “hopeful monster” theory after his own experiments with the fruit fly.) There are built-in barriers inherent in living organisms which prevent transmutation. Neither Mebane nor any other evolutionist seems willing to mention the obvious, namely, that this state of affairs perfectly matches the biblical testimony of the creation of distinct species which produce offspring “after its kind.”

We will follow up in the next two installments with the rest of Mebane’s list and additional comment.

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THE SEARCH FOR ET & THE DISCOVERY OF EXTRASOLAR PLANETS

LIBERALISM, EVOLUTION AND ORIGINAL SIN

BOOK REVIEW OF “DARWIN’S CREATION MYTH” BY ALEXANDER MEBANE , PART 3

BOOK REVIEW OF “DARWIN’S CREATION MYTH” BY ALEXANDER MEBANE, PART 2

BOOK REVIEW OF “DARWIN’S CREATION MYTH” BY ALEXANDER MEBANE

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