Vicki,   Please forward the following essay to your lists.

Thanks,   Stephen
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Science or science? by David Wolfe, Nature's First Law

Copyright 1997
Nature's First Law
PO Box 900202
San Diego, CA  92190 USA
1-800-205-2350
The World's Premier Catalog of Raw-Food Diet Books, Booklets, Videos & Audio
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Sections:
1. Introduction
2. The Fossil Record
3. Common Ancestors?
3. The Species Boundary And Natural Selection
4. Macromutation
5. Embryology
6. Response To Ward Nicholson
7. The Challenge
8. A New Paradigm
9. References

Introduction

"As the creation myth of scientific naturalism, Darwinism plays an
indispensable ideological role in the war against fundamentalism.  For that
reason, the scientific organizations are devoted to protecting Darwinism
rather than testing it, and the rules of scientific investigation have been
shaped to help them succeed." -- Phillip Johnson, Darwin On Trial

Scientists believe that scientific investigation is either the exclusive path
to knowledge or at least by far the most reliable path, and that only
material phenomena are real; thus, what science cannot study is essentially
not real.  Let's assume this is true and from a strictly scientific
materialistic view analyze the theory of evolution.

Both the theory of evolution and creationism are forms of pseudo-science.
 However, the creationists are for more objective in confronting and
attempting to explain the facts of Life as they exist on Earth.  The
Darwinists are far more interested in protecting their theory: they hide the
facts; they try to explain them away.  The Darwinist imagination has played
an important role in construing the evidence to support the Darwinian theory.

First, one must consider the economic, political, and cultural aspects of the
Darwinian theory.  The story of human evolution is not simply a scientific
hypothesis; it is the (un)scientific (un)naturalist materialistic equivalent
of Adam and Eve, and a matter of massive cultural significance.  Propagating
the story of gradual evolution via micromutations and natural selection
requires books, television shows, museums, etc.  It also requires the Science
priesthood, in the form of thousands of white-clad researchers, professors,
and graphic artists who fill in the unexplainable "gaps" in the fossil record
with imaginative stories and pictures so as to carry on the charade to the
general public.  The needs of the established profession and now the public
ensure the confirming evidence "must be found" (or will be made to fit).
 Darwinists have consistently taken basic life principles, such as natural
selection within a species, claimed it as proof of evolution (that natural
selection has turned insects into humans over millions of years) and then
they have ignored all the difficulties.  Only an analysis done by those not
committed to the Darwinian framework can objectively determine whether the
evidence supports the theory, because to Darwinists, evolution is a fact
beyond question, an article taken upon faith without scientific support.

Second, to clarify: Science must be separated from science.  What is the
difference?  Let us look at an example: Darwinism states biological
diversification is the product of an accumulation of micro-adaptations
through natural selection.  But the creative power of this theoretical
mechanism has never been shown.  The philosophically important part of the
Darwinian theory, its mechanical mechanism for creating complex things which
did not previously exist, is not a part of science at all (it has not been
demonstrated by the scientific method), rather it is a philosophical
deduction from (un)scientific (un)naturalist materialism or Science.

And this is the important point: Science includes science AND philosophical
deductions which are not science and are not supported empirically.

Another example is the common ancestor idea, which sounds great to a
materialistic mind, but is not supported by the fossil record.  The common
ancestor idea contains science (quantifiable similarities between species)
AND Science the philosophical deduction that they share a common ancestor
which has not been shown empirically.

What makes me oppose the theory of evolution is that I point out the
difference between science and Science, and oppose the latter when it comes
disguised in the former.

Most scientists do not understand there is a difference between science and
Science.  One reason they are not able to see the difference is because they
fear the spread of religious fanaticism if the power of Science is weakened.
 Thus, they become fanatical about Science and feel compelled to force the
choice: Science or Religion?

Additionally, most people outside the fields of biology, anthropology,
paleontology, and related fields have had little opportunity to discover how
much philosophy is being taught to them in the name of scientific fact.
 Darwinists are teaching philosophy -- not facts -- about common ancestors,
transition types, natural selection generating new species, etc.

Science has stole the show and few realize its pervasive religious influence.
 Science is not fact and neither is its creation story, the theory of
evolution.  When we state the theory of evolution as a hypothesis requiring
empirical confirmation, the supporting evidence is absent.  Let us break it
down piece by piece...

The Fossil Record

"A large number of well-trained scientists outside of evolutionary biology
and paleontology have unfortunately gotten the idea that the fossil record is
far more Darwinian than it is.  This probably comes from the
oversimplification inevitable in secondary sources: low-level textbooks,
semi-popular articles, and so on.  Also, there is probably some wishful
thinking involved.  In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find
predictable progressions.  In general, these have not been found -- yet
optimism has died hard, and some pure fantasy has crept into textbooks..."
[later he wrote] "We actually may have fewer examples of smooth transitions
[between species] than we had in Darwin's time, because some of the old exampl
es have turned out to be invalid when studied in more detail." -- David Raup,
one of the world's most respected paleontologists, based at the University of
Chicago and the Field Museum.

"The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly
inconsistent with gradualism:

1. Stasis.  Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on
earth.  They appear in the fossil record looking pretty much the same as when
they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless.

2. Sudden appearance.  In any local area, a species does not arise gradually
by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and
'fully formed.'"

-- Stephen J. Gould, Darwinian developer of the evolutionary "punctuated
equilibrium" theory which deals with the embarrassing fact that the fossil
record is devoid of transition types.

All those who have been taught in school that the fossil record was a bulwark
for evolution, will be surprised to find out it is a liability which needs to
be explained away by Darwinists.  Modern paleontologists seem to think it is
their duty to protect us from the conclusions we might draw if we knew the
actual state of the evidence.  Gould described "the extreme rarity of
transitional forms in the fossil record" as "the trade secret of
paleontology."  The rather objective Darwinist, Steven Stanley explained that
the doubts of paleontologists about gradualistic evolution were for long
years "suppressed."

What of the gaps between the major groups: phyla, classes, orders?
 "Punctuated equilibrium" might explain a lack of many fossils, but it cannot
explain a lack all transition fossils!  The gaps are pervasive and immense.
 Is evolution so punctuated and ingenious that it left NO trace in the fossil
record spanning these gaps?

Another fact of the fossil record, Gould failed to mention is inconsistent
with gradualism, was catastrophic extinction.  Extinction has occurred
primarily by catastrophe rather than gradual elimination.

The great French scientist Cuvier, the father of paleontology, believed the
geological record showed a pattern of catastrophic events involving mass
extinctions, which were followed by periods of creation in which new forms of
life appeared without any trace of evolutionary development.

According to Gould, paleontologists have known about catastrophic "great
dyings" such the Permian extinction which wiped out 90 percent of all species
(245 million years ago) and the "K-T" extinction which finished off the
dinosaurs (65 million years ago) all along.  But they have tried to minimize
their importance because "our strong biases for gradual and continuous change
force us to view mass extinctions as anomalous and threatening."

Common Ancestors?

"Darwinists assume that the relationship between, say, bats and whales is
similar to that between siblings and cousins in human families.  Possibly it
is, but the proposition is not self-evident...We observe directly that apples
fall when dropped, but we do not observe a common ancestor for modern apes
and humans.  What we do observe is that apes and humans are physically and
biochemically more like each other than they are like rabbits, snakes, or
trees.  The ape-like common ancestor is a hypothesis in a theory, which
purports to explain how these greater and lesser similarities came about.
 The theory is plausible, especially to a philosophical materialist, but it
may nonetheless be false.  The true explanation for natural relationships may
be something much more mysterious." -- Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin On Trial

Based on the fossil record, the general picture of animal history is a burst
of general body forms followed by stasis or extinction.  We may hypothesize
that relationships between these forms comes from common ancestors, or from
ancestors which were transformed by some means other than the accumulation of
small mutations, or from some process altogether beyond the scope of human
understanding at this point.  If Darwinists truly wanted to be scientific
they would have to define the common ancestry idea as an empirical fact
rather than as a "logical" deduction from material classifications.  No
common ancestors have been found between any species on Earth. The common
ancestry idea remains a hypothesis to this day -- not a fact -- no matter how
strongly it appeals to a materialist's reasoning.  As a hypothesis it
deserves our attention and after rigorous testing for nearly 140 years it
fails due to a lack of empirical scientific proof in the laboratory and in
the fossil record.

Darwin posed this question to himself: "...why, if species have descended
from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see
innumerable transitional forms?  Why is not all nature in confusion instead
of the species being, as we see them, well defined?"

Darwin also wrote: "Nature may almost be said to have guarded against the
frequent discovery of her transitional and linking forms."

Pre-Darwinian classifiers cited the lack of intermediaries as a conclusive
reason for rejecting biological evolution.

Darwin's theory predicted not only that transition types would be found, but
that the fossil record would be mostly transition types!  His theory also
predicted a pattern of extinction even more gradual than the pattern of
emergence.  Both of these predictions clearly contradict the stasis of the
fossil record.

The Species Boundary and Natural Selection

The natural selection theorem goes: variations with favorable effects on
reproduction will succeed, those with unfavorable effects will fail, and by
survival of the fittest organisms will change.

This theorem does not actually establish that organisms will change.  The
range of hereditary variations may be slim, and the variations which survive
may be just favorable enough to keep the species the same -- this is
homeostasis, one of the basic life principles.  The effect of natural
selection may be to keep a species from changing and this is supported by the
prevailing characteristics of the fossil record which is stasis or the
absence of change.

Natural selection, as observed in operation, permits variation only within
species boundaries.  It operates also to preserve those boundaries.  The
theory that natural selection has the creative power necessary to fuel the
changes necessary to turn one species into another is unsupported by the
empirical scientific evidence (to believe so is an article taken on faith --
Science religion). No case has ever been observed of a species "adapting"
itself to change its anatomy or physiology, which "adaptation" then resulted
in more "fitness" and was passed on by heredity with the result of a new
species.

Darwinists claim however, they can demonstrate "evolution in action."  This
idea is simply the observation of local fluctuations of genotypes within a
single species.  Fluctuations as a result of circumstances, with prior
modification of the genome, do not imply evolution.  We have definite proof
of this in many species which have existed unchanged for eons and still exist
and are studied today.

To be more specific, we know certain circumstances favor drug-resistant
bacteria, or big birds as opposed to little birds, or black gypsy moths as
opposed to white gypsy moths.  In such circumstances, the population of
drug-susceptible bacteria, small birds, and white gypsy moths may become
reduced as long as circumstances prevail, but they do not disappear.  If
circumstances change their portion of the genome could again come to
predominate and the population would fluctuate back.

The Darwinian creation of species is no more observable than supernatural
creation by God.  Natural selection exists, but no one has evidence it can
accomplish anything remotely resembling the creative ability to form a new
species.  The Darwinian Theory, which explains complex life as the product of
small genetic mutations and "survival of the fittest," is known to be valid
only for variations within the biological species.  The idea that Darwinian
evolution can gradually transform one kind of species into another is merely
a biological hypothesis -- not a fact.

Macromutation

"A very large yet undefined extension may safely be given to the direct and
indirect results of natural selection; but I now admit...that in the earlier
editions of my "Origin of Species" I probably attributed too much to the
action of natural selection or the survival of the fittest...I had not
formerly sufficiently considered the existence of many structures which
appear to be, as far as we can judge, neither beneficial nor injurious, and
this I believe to be one of the greatest oversights as yet detected in my
work." -- Charles Darwin, The Descent Of Man

Darwinists and Darwin himself, have consistently stated natural selection is
not the exclusive means of evolution, but they have been totally vague about
what else is allowable and how important it could be.

Natural selection is the most famous element in Darwinism, but it may not be
the most important element.  Selection merely preserves or destroys something
that already exists.  The mutation element has to provide the favorable
innovations before natural selection can retain and encourage them.
 Mutations are thought to stem from random errors in copying the commands of
the DNA's genetic code.  To suppose that such random errors could reconstruct
even a single complex organ like a heart or lung is as reasonable as saying a
dictionary could result from a print shop explosion.

Just how the unique respiratory system of birds could have evolved gradually
through natural selection and mutation from the standard vertebrate design is
fantastically difficult to imagine or prove.  Especially when we bear in mind
that the maintenance of respiration is absolutely vital to the life of the
organism -- even the slightest malfunction leads immediately to death.

One eminent scientist of the mid-twentieth century, who concluded Darwinian
evolution had fallen apart, was the geneticist Professor Richard Goldschmidt
of the University of California at Berkeley.  Goldschmidt issued a now famous
challenge to the Darwinists, listing a series of complex structures from
mammalian hair to hemoglobin which he concluded could not have been produced
by the accumulation and selection of small mutations. Goldschmidt found
Darwinian evolution could not account for more than variations within the
species boundary; he thought evolution beyond that point must have occurred
in single jumps through macromutations (many other eminent scientists and
mathematicians have come to understand this as well and have been categorized
as saltationists, including: Pierre Grasse and Professor Richard Thompson and
the mathematicians Schutzenburger and D.S. Ulam). Goldschmidt described that
the decisive step in evolution, the first step towards macroevolution, the
step from one species to another, requires another method than the sheer
accumulation of micromutations.  The idea that an accumulation of
micromutations leads to new organs and species is a mathematical
impossibility.

The theory of natural selection is inadequate to account for macroevolution
-- it explains no mechanism by which macroevolution can occur.  Because
Darwinian gradualism is incapable of explaining macroevolutionary leaps and
the origin of complex organs, an unknown factor has been introduced by
materialist science itself into materialist philosophy (Science).  This
strikes at the very core of the "religious" materialist beliefs of so-called
scientists.  Science does conflict with science, because Science, as a
philosophical religion is not empirical.

Scientists might consider questioning their belief that the Laws of Nature
are always and everywhere uniform.  They fail to understand that the rules
which govern science at one level of magnitude differ from the rules which
govern science at another level of magnitude, we see this in physics,
relativity, quantum mechanics, etc.  With this in mind the Darwinists need to
supply a scientific theory as to how macroevolution  occurs.

Embryology

If evolution were correct, then we should find that the embryonic development
of animals would retrace the evolutionary picture.  Organisms should start
out in life as relatively similar organisms and then form their differing
features later.  This picture is so pleasing to evolutionists, generations of
students have been taught this as fact.  But it is anything but a fact.

In reality, the embryonic patterns represent a monumental puzzle for the
evolutionary theory.  Although it is true that different vertebrate types
pass through an embryonic stage at which they resemble one another, they
develop to this stage very differently.  Each vertebrate egg, upon
fertilization undergoes cell divisions and movements characteristic of its
class: fish follow one pattern, amphibians another, birds another, and
mammals yet another.

It is well known among embryologists that vertebrate embryos develop along
different lines which converge in appearance midway through the process, then
diverge again until they finally develop -- in totally different ways --
similar organs, limbs, and bones.

Darwin thought embryology was a guide to evolutionary genealogy, if that is
so, then embryology is telling us vertebrates have multiple origins and did
not inherit similar characteristics from a common ancestor.

Consider the mammals.  It is very difficult to pick a specific common
ancestor for all mammals as it is to pick any therapsid ancestors.  This
situation has led some paleontologists to consider a disturbing theory that
mammals, long assumed to be a natural "monophyletic" group (descendants of a
common mammalian ancestor) were actually several groups which had evolved
separately from different lines of therapsids -- multiple origins.  The
notion that mammals as a group evolved from reptiles as a group through a
broad clump of diverse therapsid lines (the type of transformation suggested
by embryology) is not Darwinism.  Darwinian transformation requires a single
line of ancestral descent.

End of Part 1