Forwarded from Nature's First Law
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For anyone interested in the anthropological side of diet, the following is a
paper that further destroys the idea that we are meat-eaters.
The God In The Gaps (Or The Devil In The Details)
by David Wolfe
Nature's First Law
PO Box 900202
San Diego, CA 92190 USA
Contents:
1. Introduction
2. Evolution Is Not A Law
3. The Fallacy Of Omnivorism
4. Acquired Characteristics
5. Geographic Morphism
6. Natural Selection Is Weak
7. Genetic Homeostasis
8. Smooth Transitions?
9. Are Species Real?
10. Faulty Mathematics
11. Shattering The Old Paradigm
12. The Fallacy Of Radio-Isotope Dating
13. Neo-darwinism: Is It Reasonable?
14. Conclusion
"Life is a mystery, so grand, so vast.
Origins are hidden, deep in the past.
Worn out, eroded,
Are they:
Hopelessly unsuited?
Nothing is more fantastic,
Is anything more farfetched
Than slates of fossil stone
Which reality once etched?"
Introduction
The Earth does not easily reveal its secrets. This paper has been designed to
unveil the dehumanizing fatalism of evolution.
Evolutionists and omnivorists get nervous about having their theories
questioned because they actually have a religious belief in neo-darwinism,
which, when overturned leaves them spiritually undirected and filled with fear
-- which paradoxically is what they claim keeps the creationists from
abandoning their theory. They do not know how to react to someone who takes
on all the assumptions and propositions of neo-darwinism. I am one such
person, and I make a strong statement that I am coming directly at the glass
towers of evolution where hypotheses are based on hypotheses and fact and
fiction are mingled in an ever-deeper confusion.
I am rendering wide open the gaps in the theories of biological history, and
attacking the irascible evolution theory, piece by piece and assumption by
assumption. The creationists, at least, invoke God to fill the gaps of
biological history, the neo-darwinists are far more arrogant; they fill the
gaps with unsupportable assumptions and explanations without facts. The gaps
in the biological history of the Earth are details which neo-darwinists cannot
explain. While continuing to claim otherwise, neo-darwinian philosophy is
scientifically in great trouble and the neo-darwinists are trying desperately
to save it from the ashbin of history.
Evolution Is Not A Law
Some people believe the laws which are invoked to operate motor vehicles and
machinery, the laws which stand behind chemistry, physics, mathematics, etc.
actually support neo-darwinism. The logic goes that if we employ the
predictable laws of chemistry and physics in our cars then why should we deny
other "laws" operating such as evolution by natural selection as promoted by
neo-darwinists. But darwinists fail to understand evolution by natural
selection is not scientific nor is it demonstrable by the scientific method.
If science and the scientific method mean anything at all, in any field, they
mean the ability to predict the future based on data presently available. For
example, in chemistry, if we combine two substances like sodium (Na) and
chlorine (Cl) we'll create a third substance (salt or NaCl) by the predictable
reaction. The reaction is predictable because the laws which describe
chemistry are well known -- and fairly accurate for most simple phenomena. In
physics, if we shoot a rocket missile from California to the south Pacific, we
can predict the final destination of the rocket missile based upon the pre-
determined initial conditions of the launch (velocity, gravitation, mass,
etc.) by Einstein's equations of movement (which adjusted Newton's equations
with the effect of relativity).
What is interesting is that the theory of evolution by natural selection
cannot predict what will happen in the future. We cannot say, based upon the
initial conditions now, in any biological population, which traits are the
fittest and which traits will come to predominate a population over time. We
also cannot say: if, when, or how one species will be transformed through
natural selection into another species. Assuming natural selection can create
new species, it is totally unpredictable. Darwinists use tautological
hindsight to justify their arguments.
I will ask, "Which of the following population will survive?" They will
reply, "The fittest." "But who are the fittest?" "The ones able to leave the
most offspring." "And which are those?" "The ones who survive." The answer
to these questions cannot be ascertained in advance for any natural biological
population existing in Nature. It can only be answered in hindsight. Survival
of the fittest means the prolific breeding of the most prolific breeders --
regardless of their respective characteristics. This provides us with no
useful information. It is impossible to define the fit in any other way than
as those who succeed.
As Nietzsche pointed out, survival of the fittest happens, but is meaningless
most of the time, because the vast majority of organisms do not fight, do not
kill for food, and do not compete for territory in such a way that its
competitors die out.
Natural selection is a tautology, it can be made to explain anything. For
example, evolutionists claim coral-mimicry among fish is adaptive and will be
selected for, but they also claim that warning-warrior colorations such as
fish stripes are adaptive and will be selected for. Yet if both these
hypotheses are true, any kind of coloration on the fish will have some
adaptive value and will be selected for. Natural selection cannot make unique
predictions, but is used retrospectively to explain every outcome.
The Fallacy Of Omnivorism
Omnivorists believe that just because an animal can chew something up, swallow
it, and live long enough to tell others about it, then that animal is an
omnivore. For example, the herbivorous cow has been fed the flesh of other
dead cows, mixed in with its feed, for hundreds of years by the cattle
industry. Cows still continue to survive on such food. Yet, an omnivorist
would argue that the cow is no longer an herbivore, but is now an omnivore,
because it can eat something aside from common grass. Almost any animal, can
eat just about anything, and still live, but that does not mean it has
"evolutionarily adapted" to or is designed for that food!
And what is adaptation to food anyway? Consider the following: Northern
Europeans are much more tolerant of cow's milk than other ethnic groups.
Middle Easterners and Mediterraneans are much more tolerant of goat's milk
than other ethnic groups. This is obviously due to the fact that over periods
of several thousand years, those groups drank those milks. Each ethnic group
has developed a tolerance for the milk, but does that now mean each group has
adapted to it? Whereas I demonstrate each group has adapted to tolerate the
foreign substance, omnivorists claim each group not only has adapted to it,
but now requires it nutritionally.
Omnivorist philosophers, instinktive eaters, paleo-dieters are all following a
path leading inevitably into the toxic abyss of cancer, confusion, animal-fat
addiction, headaches, parasitic infections, weakness, uncertainty, doubt, and
misery. Exposing the evolution fraud opens the minds of those caught in the
conditioning of a civilization on self-destruct.
Acquired Characteristics
Neo-darwinists believe characteristics acquired during the lifetime of an
organism cannot be inherited by the offspring. Darwinists claim genetic
information cannot be purposefully affected by the environment. The 19th
century philosopher and scientist, Lamark, was the first to claim openly that
the environment does affect genetic factors. The philosophy of acquired
characteristics leading to genetic changes has been termed Lamarkism.
Genetic pioneer Alan Durrant of the University College of Wales demonstrated
in 1962 that changes induced by changing fertilizers for different groupings
of flax plants led to inheritable genetic changes in those plants. The plants
in the more vigorous fertilizer continued to be more vigorous in later
generations and vice versa. These differences became genetically inheritable.
(See Durrant, Alan, "The environmental induction of heritable changes in
Linum" Heredity, 17:27-61). This simple experiment proves that outside
mechanisms can induce genetic changes in organisms without natural selection.
Since we are dealing with issues of nutrition and cries of deficiency,
consider the results of the following experiments conducted on E. Coli
bacteria. Researchers Dr. John Cairns and Dr. Barry Hall independent of each
other confirmed that when bacteria are deprived of certain nutrients such as
the amino acids tryptophan and cysteine, they are able to, under hostile
conditions, give rise to offspring which can internally synthesize these
nutrients. This is a directed mutation. (See Cairns, J., "The origin of
mutants," Nature, 335:142-145 and Hall, B., "Spontaneous point mutations that
occur more often when advantageous than when neutral," Genetics, 126:5-16,
September 1990). If bacteria can synthesize their own nutrients, imagine what
humans can do!
Geographic Morphism
Environmental factors directly affect the structure of living organisms --
this phenomena I have termed geographic morphism. Within each landscape, the
forms of plants and animals have local characteristics which can and often are
picked up by transplants of plant and animal strains and stocks from other
landscapes. For example, in the 19th century it was discovered that for any
given inhabited area of the world there was an average cephalic index of the
human population. More important, it was learned, through measurements on
immigrants to America from all over Europe, and on their American-born
offspring, that this cephalic index corresponds to the geographical location,
and immediately makes itself manifest in the new generation. Thus long-headed
sephardic jews and short-headed ashkenazi jews, when arriving in America,
produced offspring with a specifically American cephalic index.
>From intuitive observation, it is apparent that the landscape exerts an
influence on the plant and animal life within its bounds. The mechanism of
this influence is beyond our scientific understanding at this time. The
source of it, however, we know: it is the cosmic unity of the totality of
things, a unity which shows itself in the rhythmic and cyclic movement of
Nature. All movement in Nature is rhythmic -- the movement of streams and
waves, of winds and currents, of appearance and disappearance of living
individuals, of species, of Life itself.
Darwinism attempts to solve the riddle of Life materialistically and thus
cannot even understand, let alone explain, the cosmic beats of Life which
manifest themselves in geographic morphism. These beats affect the form and
actuality of all living organisms. They are cosmic or spiritual, not
materialistic -- yet they are visible and felt.
Natural Selection Is Weak
Neo-darwinists have tried to change the definitions of evolution by claiming
that natural selection leads to microevolutionary steps (small changes) which
accumulate to suddenly cause macroevolution. There is no proof that this is
true in living biological systems, nor in the fossil record.
Natural selection is capable only of causing genetically damaged or ill-
equipped organisms to die -- leading to the fluctuation of population
characteristics or extinction; it is not a mechanism which can make two
species populations which are geographically distant eventually produce
sterile offspring -- these changes are caused by directed mutation and/or
geographic morphism. Directed mutation and geographic morphism have caused
changes within species, and can even effect a quantum or macro-change in the
structure of an organism (i.e. a change in the leg length and structure of the
Anolis lizard -- see Wade, Nicholas, "Lizard experiments show evolutionary
change can occur quickly" New York Times, May 1, 1997 ). However, these
changes do not indicate a new species has formed or that the type of evolution
is happening which can transform worms into whales. In fact, these changes
could just as likely reverse or disappear in another environment.
Genetic Homeostasis
There is circumstantial evidence which the evolutionists have used to support
their theory (homology -- anatomical correspondence between species), but
there is no significant evidence that the process behind evolution is chance
mutation coupled with natural selection. Think about it logically: natural
selection implies the selection of certain traits from a larger pool of traits
within a group, thus, over time, it is a mechanism which reduces biological
diversity. Obviously, the diverse natural world itself represents the
opposite.
Experiments have shown the extent of genetic change by natural selection is
limited. Also, experiments have shown bacteria can mutate in beneficial ways
-- without natural selection.
How far can a new species vary? Consider this fact: no one has yet bred a new
species artificially. Species have inherent biological limits. The
hybridization of the beet vegetable is instructive. Wild beets have a sugar
content of less than 4%. Hybrids were developed from wild strains which
increased the sugar yield to 17%! However, biologists have never been able to
get beets of a higher than 17% yield. By breeding high-yield varieties
together they would often get throw-backs of the wild stocks. 17% is a
barrier. Harvard's Ernst Mayr has titled this barrier, "genetic homeostasis"
or the limit on the amount of genetic variability in a species.
The German philosopher Goethe recognized the principle of genetic homeostasis
in living organisms. He saw that Nature has to economize in one area in order
to expand in another area. This is a basic law of compensation which limits
variability. This opposes evolutionary theory which suggests each organism
has an infinite genetic plasticity which coupled with mutation and natural
selection can stretch a bacteria into a human given enough time -- no account
is taken for the species barrier, which is ignored by evolutionists. The
truth is, each organism is limited in that a favorable variation in one
characteristic typically detracts from another characteristic.
Smooth Transitions?
Quantum physics tells us things do not change slowly over time -- they make
quantum leaps. We jump from one level of experience to another. Neo-
darwinists are trying to demonstrate smooth transitions through punctuated
equilibrium or some other method, but never demonstrate what a smooth
transition is -- they never define it. A transition of macro-form should be
demonstrated somewhere in a long sequence, say 50, 30, or at least 10
successive fossils in transition. Yet with all the billions of fossils on
Earth, no one has met this simple criteria for a fossil sequence.
The transition from fish to amphibian by standard neo-darwinian methods would
take at least 500, or more reasonable probably 5,000 individual steps -- each
representing a generation. If we assume Julian Huxley's one in a million rate
of mutation to be true then one would expect millions (more likely billions)
of transition types to have once existed. We do not find this in the fossil
record however, what we find are immense gaps. We also do not find ANY
genetic mistakes (one-shot mutations which failed) in the fossil record which
is impossible if random mutation through natural selection (trial and error)
is true. Life is NOT boldly innovative as neo-darwinism would predict, but is
mysteriously conservative.
By far the most abundant fossils in the world are the 14 types of ammonites --
little shelled snail-like ocean species -- which have existed essentially
since the beginning of time. Literally billions of these fossils have been
found, but never have there been discovered any transition types or smooth
transitions between any of these 14 types: billions of samples -- no
transition types, just 14 distinct species.
Evolutionists continue to argue the tired line that humans smoothly
transitioned from one form to another and assume modern homo sapiens arose
merely 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. Discover magazine (December 1997)
recently reported the findings of a Spanish team working in Gran Dolina, Spain
who uncovered an 800,000 year-old skull with remarkably modern features. The
discoverer, Juan Luis Arsuaga Ferreras, stated, "It is so surprising we must
rethink human evolution to fit that face." Discover magazine stated: "The
Gran Dolina face is 800,000 years old and yet distinctively ours. It is
almost that of a modern human."
The evolutionists would have us believe smooth transitions actually take place
between one species and another. We know how precarious this idea is when
viewed intently under the microscope from our own experience with human
origins. Any scientist could easily take homo habilis, homo neanderthalis,
homo ergaster, homo erectus, homo antecessor, homo sapien, homo sapien sapien
and group them in that order as a smooth transitional flow to modern homo
sapien sapien based on comparative skeletal structure and the assumptions of
evolution. However, as the 800,000 year-old boy alludes to, the picture is
not that simple. The other homo forms could just as well be de-evolved types
of homo sapien sapien. The evidence is showing and will continue to show that
modern humans have been around much, much longer than the 100,000 to 200,000
years naively claimed by nescient researchers. It could be that all the homo
forms have existed together for millions of years without the gradual
evolution through common ancestry concept. It could be that each homo form is
all actually one species -- it has not even been conclusively demonstrated all
the varieties of homo are actually different species. I remember one famous
quote from an anthropologist who stated (roughly paraphrasing), "We wouldn't
be able to distinguish a Neanderthal Man walking down the streets today from
everyone else."
Consider the case of homo habilis: Since 1964, the fossils of the initial
homo habilis find have been reevaluated. One of the hand bones was found to
be a piece of vertebra, two more bones belonged to a monkey, six others
probably came from another unidentifiable hominid -- but what remains of homo
habilis is still distinctly homo and not ape. Most likely homo habilis
fossils are actually much younger fossils of African pygmies who, to this day,
live only a few hundred miles away from the homo habilis bones discovered at
Olduvai Gorge. What a joke the whole thing is.
In terms of fossils, all the ape-like remains (Australopithecus, etc.) and the
hominid remains (Homo) found on Earth are still distinctly different, and
bridging that gap to find a missing link remains elusive. After 140 years,
the missing link is still missing.
Indeed, the living world, at present, consists mostly of gaps between species.
The fossil record demonstrates all the past ages of the Earth also consisted
of immense gaps between species. Darwinists have failed again and again to
find credible sequences of fossilized species being formed. These gaps have
been a perpetual thorn in the foot of evolution. Fossils are found which are
similar, as between say Eohippus and Mesohippus (supposedly in the horse
lineage), but their differences are greater still. The gaps are being filled
in by speculation instead of by science. For example, again we'll look at the
horse lineage. Consider the words of George Simpson author of Horses, "As far
as I know, there are no mounted skeletons of Epihippus, Archaeohippus,
Megahippus, Stylohipparion, Nannihippus, Calihippus, Onohippidium, or
Parahipparion, and none in the United States of Anchitherium or Hipparion."
Even with the scanty fossils for ancient horse-types which could not possibly
allow for an anatomical verification within reason, the horse's evolutionary
picture is painted in as if it is a fact.
Darwinists should remember the Archaeopteryx fiasco, this supposed reptile-
bird transition-type was thrown up for grabs by Protoavis texensis, a
pheasant-bird fossil said to date to 75 million years before Archaeopteryx.
End of Part I
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