When Science and Magic Combine: The Shameless Fraud known as Darwinian Evolution

“The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof.” – Psalm 24:1

When Science and Magic Combine: The Shameless Fraud known as Darwinian Evolution

By Jeremy James

www.zephaniah.eu

March 31, 2012

Like most college students in our modern, materialistic world, I was taught to believe in the so-called science of evolution. All the usual proofs were trotted out and we were expected to accept that the staggering diversity of life that we see around us was simply the product of a long series of random genetic mutations. This seemed a rather naive way of explaining phenomena which, even to my limited understanding, seemed incredibly complex. Given sufficient time, could an elephant really evolve from a primitive micro-organism through multiple stages of ever-increasing complexity?

The leap from one level to another seemed far too great for such an explanation to be tenable. But the experts alleged – and science claimed to prove – that any life-form could develop from a more primitive antecedent provided the right sequence of purely random changes at a chemical level had sufficient time to occur.

After graduation I continued to give thought to this question. It puzzled me that many so-called experts in the field, such as Dawkins and Gould, could make such far-reaching claims about the origin and design of the living world using the most nebulous forms of evidence. Their presumed proofs of evolution were interwoven with so many cozy assumptions and unproven connections that at times it was difficult to tell which elements of their argument were hard science and which were pure conjecture.

They continually shied away from the hard test of reality, rather like an architect who feels entitled to ignore the law of gravity when designing an ambitious structure. Despite their bluster, they never seemed quite able to convince themselves – let alone their readers – that evolution was true, that an extremely long series of purely random events at a microscopic level could really produce ever-higher degrees of self-sustaining, self-replicating complexity.

A Massive Logical Hole

There was one problem in particular that bothered me, a problem which none of the experts seemed willing to address, or even acknowledge: If millions of chance mutations are needed before one truly beneficial mutation can emerge, then what becomes of those mutations that are not immediately fatal to the organism and are passed on to the next generation?

Such deleterious mutations would, from a statistical standpoint, far exceed the number of supposedly beneficial ones. Thus their inevitable entry into the gene pool would result in the progressive deterioration of a species and its eventual demise.

If Dawkins, Gould and the others were right, then the very mechanism that they were using to explain evolution must lead inexorably, not to the creation of a new species, but to the destruction of existing ones! Even if this were the only logical problem with this so-called science, it would destroy it completely. But there are many others.

In fact, the theory of evolution contravenes so many well-established principles of physics, chemistry and mathematics that it is difficult to understand why so many otherwise rational men and women continue to believe in it. This paper tells the story behind the story, the true nature and purpose of the elaborate pseudo-science known as Evolution.

The Rat’s Nest

The theory of evolution would be easy to defend if it were truly scientific, but because it is fundamentally irrational it must be reinforced, reinterpreted and reinvented almost continually. In addition, all kinds of distractions are employed by its most radical adherents in order to deflect attention from a rat’s nest of embarrassing facts.

Here are just a few of these facts:

1. Salt-polluted oceans. The evolutionary process needs millions of years to operate successfully. However, even if the earth were just 10 million years old – a small fraction of the time required for ‘evolution’ to take effect – the oceans of the world would be so heavily laden with salt and other soluble mineral deposits that they would be as lifeless as the Dead Sea.

2. Total erosion. By the same token, at existing rates of weathering and erosion, the great mountain ranges of the world would have completely worn away and the earth's surface would now be a soil-depleted wasteland. Furthermore, the accumulation of alluvium from the world’s rivers over such a long period would have covered the ocean floors with a uniform carpet of silt several miles deep. Since obviously neither is the case, we know that the earth must be thousands, not millions, of years old.

3. The radical gap between life and non-life. It has never been demonstrated that life of any kind can emerge from inanimate chemical constituents. Scientists have not even developed a theoretical model of how this might be achieved. In the so-called Miller-Urey experiment of 1953 a number of amino acids were synthesized from a mixture of water, methane, ammonia and hydrogen using high-voltage discharges. This rudimentary chemical reaction did not produce life of any kind, so the argument that it ‘came close’ or that a life-forming mechanism had been identified was pure humbug.

4. The deliberate trivialization of complexity. Life cannot develop except in the form of a living cell, the smallest possible self-sustaining, self-reproducing organic unit. The early evolutionists, including Darwin himself, regarded the cell as a fairly simple structure, rather like a tiny protoplasmic clockwork device.

This allowed them to employ a concept of ‘life’ that could be explained in fairly primitive mechanical terms. Of course, an evolutionary explanation is much easier to sustain if the fundamental components of life are defined in a trivial way. Scientific advances over the past 100 years or so have confirmed that the cell is many millions of times more complex than the simple mechanism that Darwin and his contemporaries had imagined.

Even the most primitive cell is now known to contain dozens of types of organelles which move around in a highly structured manner performing an amazing array of intricate functions. The cell is in reality an immensely complex chemical factory, with hundreds of discrete processes taking place at the same time. Among its many highly sophisticated components are DNA, RNA, cytoplasm, ribosomes, enzymes, mitochondria, proteins, locomotive cilia, and an elaborate system of cytoplasmic membranes, sacs and vesicles.

In addition, the mitochondria are known to possess their own DNA and RNA, which is completely different from the DNA and RNA found elsewhere in the cell. And since they are self-replicating, they are produced only by an earlier generation of mitochondria – the cell nucleus itself cannot produce them. Thus, in order to function properly, a cell must contain an energy-producing organelle which cannot survive outside the cell and which the cell itself cannot produce!

To believe that something this complex could have arisen by chance is disingenuous in the extreme. Statistically it could never happen, no matter how much time was allowed to elapse.

5. The complete absence of intermediary forms in the fossil record. For a new species to evolve gradually over a long period of time, it would have to pass through a number of intermediary stages before a fully functioning, survival-enhancing attribute could be added to its genetic code. Dozens of transitional body forms would conceivably be required before this new state was attained. These in turn should appear with great frequency in the fossil record. Evolutionists in the 19^th century, who lacked fossil evidence of this kind, were confident that such intermediary forms would soon be identified, but this never happened. All species – whether they are fish, crustaceans, reptiles, mammals, marsupials, insects, or birds – appear suddenly in the fossil record, fully formed, without any intermediary stages whatsoever. In a proper scientific discipline an anomaly of this magnitude would quickly consign a theory to the trash heap, but in the strange world of evolution – where principles like causality, proof and evidence are applied only when they support the outcome one is seeking – such an obvious outcome is not even considered.

6. Recourse to circular reasoning. Some of the key concepts in evolutionary theory are actually based on circular reasoning. For example, evolution is meant to guarantee the survival of the fittest, but the fittest are never defined in any meaningful way. They are simply the individuals who survive! This kind of reasoning is depressingly silly, but it is quite common among the Darwinian elite who dominate the biological sciences today. We have already seen how a cell cannot function without the mitochondria that supply it with essential energy, but its own DNA cannot produce the necessary mitochondria. No cell, no mitochondria; no mitochondria, no cell. Such interdependent relationships cannot be explained in evolutionary terms – unless one resorts to some form of circular reasoning. Let's take another example. The age of a fossil is determined by the rock stratum in which it is found, but these strata in turn are assigned a position in the geological column by reference to the fossils they contain. If you are not already familiar with the strange world of evolution, you may think I am making this stuff up, but incredibly I am not.

7. Conflict with other branches of science. All branches of science – with one exception – recognize and accept the second law of thermodynamics. This law states that all orderly processes in the universe are continually moving into a less ordered state. In short they are decaying. The most obvious example is progressive heat loss. Every object, large or small, terrestrial or interstellar, is losing heat through radiation. This can never be recaptured in its totality, which means that every ordered system will eventually lose heat and die unless more is added from another source. This law commands respect in every branch of science except evolutionary biology. Why? Because it refutes a fundamental tenet of evolution, namely, that an ordered system can advance, purely by chance, into a more ordered state. In short, the second law of thermodynamics, sometimes known as the law of entropy, guarantees that nothing can ever evolve. Therefore, unless several other branches of science are seriously defective, the so-called science of evolution is completely bogus.

8. Uniformitarianism. Since evolution needs hundreds of millions of years to take effect, the fossil record must reflect this. The sedimentary rock strata in which fossils are embedded must therefore have accumulated in an extremely slow, uniform manner across all regions of the earth’s crust. If changes in rock strata took place over a short period of time, then any fossils they contain must have ‘evolved’ over an equally short period of time, which would conflict with the theory of evolution.

For this reason the sister science of geology has postulated that all transformative processes on the earth’s surface for eons past have been very slow and very gradual, much like those we see today. This completely excludes the possibility of a catastrophic event which may have radically altered the profile and composition of rock strata across large parts of the earth’s crust. This assumption – for it is nothing more – is known as uniformitarianism.

Even though there are countless geological phenomena that cannot be explained satisfactorily in accordance with a uniformitarian mechanism, it continues to dominate the science of geology. These include the formation of the Grand Canyon in Colorado, the existence of truly massive boulders in locations far removed from their place of origin, and the radical misalignment of rock strata which supposedly accumulated along uniformitarian lines on a continental scale over millions of years.

Uniformitarianism is such an orthodox dogma of geology that it has remained virtually immune to criticism for nearly two hundred years. Despite extensive evidence that the earth’s crust has been subjected to significant upheaval in the recent past, the possibility is simply dismissed.

9. The geological column. Uniformitarian principles require that rock strata develop slowly over long periods of time, with layers of distinct morphology and composition accumulating one on top of another. The logic of this model requires that the sequence be consistent on a continental scale since otherwise no meaningful conclusions could be drawn about the time epoch in which they were laid down. All layers of the same type should therefore denote the same segment of geological time. Geologists have analysed these layers in a wide variety of locations around the globe and compiled what is known as the ‘geological column’, a kind of universal timepiece for determining the age of each layer. We have already noted a major problem with the geological column, namely that the age of each layer was initially calculated by reference to the fossils that it contained, while the age of the fossils was determined largely by reference to the layer in which it was found. But there is another remarkable problem with the geological column – it doesn’t actually exist! Not one extant example of the column may be found anywhere on earth. Furthermore, in many places where segments of the alleged column do exist, the sequence of layers differs from the one ‘approved’ by the scientific community. Given that each layer was meant to have accumulated along uniformitarian lines over millions of years, it is difficult to explain how even one layer could appear out of sequence.

10. Fossilisation.. There is no doubt that an astonishing variety of species, many of which are now extinct, may be found in the fossil record. Their authenticity is not disputed. But a truly unusual fact is often overlooked, namely that uniformitarian model has no way explaining how they got there! The natural world has an abundance of species which live off carrion, which scavenge for dead and dying animals, and which leave no respectable remnant to be fossilised. Even those few fragments that escape the scavengers are shortly thereafter consumed by insects, bacteria and a multiplicity of micro-organisms.

According to the evolutionary theorists we are expected to believe, not just that intact carcasses can remain untouched for many weeks or months, but that they can retain their integrity for such long periods that soil and other debris have sufficient time to accumulate and entomb them.

Even scientists who explore the ocean floor in regions rich in marine life are unable to find even a vestige of the material that would be needed to form a fossilised carcase or skeleton. In short, organic matter cannot survive long enough, either in the soil or in the sea, to be amenable to the ultra-slow process of fossilisation – yet another glaring flaw with the uniformitarian model and the theory of evolution.

11. Fossil abundance. If the earth is as old as the evolutionists maintain, and fossilisation proceeds in accordance with the uniformitarian model, then one ought to find an abundance of fossils in all sedimentary rocks – without exception. A hundred million year is a truly enormous period of time, during which virtually every square mile of the earth’s surface should have accumulated hundreds, if not thousands of tons of fossilised material. But fossil troves are relatively rare and the widespread distribution that one would expect is simply not found.

12. Fossil graveyards. Evolutionists play down an intriguing (and anomalous) aspect of fossil deposition, namely the frequency with which they are found in ‘fossil graveyards’, large aggregations of the fossilised remains of a wide variety of species. Many of these ‘graveyards’ – also known as bone beds or lagerstätten – contain a bewildering diversity of animals. For example, the Maotianshan Shales in Yunnan Province, China, has 185 different species among its fossilised fauna, comprising an amazing 15 phylums.

It’s as though several sections of a large zoo had been frozen in time. The rate of fossilization was so rapid that even the antennae and other soft body parts of the trilobites were preserved. A process of slow fossilization could not have achieved either of these outcomes. Soft body parts would have decayed long before detail of this quality could have been preserved, while the statistical probability that so many different species should come together seriatim in this one location over thousands, if not millions, of years and just happen to get fossilized, is are sounding nil.

The phenomena observed at Maotianshan could only have resulted from a short traumatic event which killed all of the specimens at the same time, perhaps even the same day, and embalmed them in mud. Furthermore, the diversity of the species found in the shales would suggest that many of them had originated across a wide geographical area and were transported to the ‘graveyard’ in a massive flood of some kind. In short, fossil graveyards offer no evidence of evolution and make a laughingstock of the uniformitarian model.

13. Human population. According to the evolutionists, mankind evolved in the Great Rift Valley in north-east Africa about 200,000 years ago. Now let’s consider for a moment the severe practical implications of this. If we assume that the rate of population increase among early man was broadly similar to the rate obtaining today – a little over 1 percent – and if we assume that the total human population of the earth 200,000 years ago was a mere 100 individuals, then it would have grown to several trillion (not billion) in less than ten thousand years!

Perhaps a global annual rate of increase of 1 percent is too high. However, even if we use a lesser rate, we still get an astronomical expansion in the population in just a few thousand years. For example, some historians reckon that the population of the planet as a whole at the time of Christ was around 100 million. Based on a current (2012) world population of 7 billion, this represents a long-run annual increase of slightly over one fifth of one percent (0.212%). If we apply the same annual rate of increase to our Rift Valley population, it would have grown from 100 individuals to 157 billion in just 10,000 years. After a few more millennia, there would have been no space on the planet for even one more person.

As you can see, the Great Rift Valley theory is sheer nonsense. It should not even be dignified with the epithet ‘theory’ .

If we extrapolate backwards from today’s population using only as lightly higher (but still very conservative) annual growth rate – 0.302% instead of 0.212% – we find that a starting population of 100 people would have increased to seven billion, the current population of the world, in about 6,000 years. This is fully consistent with the timeframe found in the Bible.

14. Simultaneous evolution of sexual opposites. Evolutionists regularly rhapsodize over the ingenious way ‘nature’ has achieved optimum genetic diversity through cross-pollination and sexual reproduction. But they give little attention to the serious problem that this poses for evolutionary theory. The actual transmission of genetic material from the male to the female is a remarkably complex process, both chemically and behaviourally, in a vast number of species. For example, in many species the male must emit certain chemical triggers to which the female must respond in a very specific way. Unless his signal and her response are exactly right, they will not mate. But, according to the theory of evolution, the reproductive mechanisms in both the male and the female must have evolved independently. Therefore evolutionists actually believe that the genes which enable these two highly complex, complementary processes to operate just happened to evolve in exactly the right way at exactly the same time in exactly the same location.

Of course, this is utterly impossible – a complete fantasy. But it is fairly typical of the evolutionary mindset, where an astronomical series of improbably accidents is deemed to occur, not once but twice, and produce two perfectly adapted, sexually compatible organisms of dazzling complexity. It’s as though eons of time were a kind of pixie dust that can bring order out of chaos.

15. Mutation of Fruit-Flies. Evolutionists insist that a series of random mutations must eventually give rise to one which somehow confers an actual or potential advantage on a species, however small the change may be. In their determination to provide experimental evidence of this, they have bred countless generations of fruit-flies (drosophila melanogaster) under controlled laboratory conditions and induced random mutations in their genetic code through irradiation and other methods. Since the fruit fly can produce a new generation every two weeks or so, scientists have been able to observe the outcome across hundreds of generations. So how many new species have been produced by this process? How many new proteins? How many new enzymes?

The answer: Not one.

We could cite many more jaw-dropping anomalies in evolutionary theory, but these ought to be sufficient. The list is long and getting longer as more and more scientists are beginning to regain their sanity and asking fairly obvious questions about this absurd pseudo-science.

Many scientists who reject evolutionary theory have a background in mathematics, informatics, chemistry or engineering, where convenient assumptions are anathema, where experimental rigour is essential, and where woolly reasoning is ruthlessly exposed. They also understand such basics as the laws of probability, the second law of thermodynamics, and the destructive effect of chance events on organised systems. They also tend on the whole to be more intelligent – one doesn’t need to be all that smart to collect rocks and insects for a living .

Why do so many scientists continue to believe in evolution?

It should be apparent by now that one must be willing to make a great many assumptions in order to believe in evolution. A well-developed ability to ignore unpalatable facts is also a great advantage.

Having said that, most of those who accept evolution are sincere and well-meaning in their convictions. They have been taught the ‘science’ at mainstream academic institutions and have no reason to doubt the integrity of their professors. Should some aspects of evolutionary theory appear less than convincing, diligent students are expected to find solace in the knowledge that such a powerful explanatory paradigm must of necessity have elements that are difficult to understand. Besides, if everyone else believes it to be fundamentally true, then it must be okay. After all, the only real alternative is to believe that God created everything –which, in an age of rampant scepticism, is a step too far.

Evolutionists have used a wide range of tricks down the years to deceive and beguile the unwary. We have already discussed one of them – the Simple Cell trick – which trivializes complexity and conceals the very phenomena that evolution is supposed to explain.

Another is the Endless Time trick which, when all else fails, allows any problem to be solved, no matter how intractable, by simply immersing it for millions of years in the mystical pool of pure chance. The following table lists some of the most common swindles employed by evolutionists to circumvent the laws of logic:

1.      The Simple Cell Trick – Dramatically understates the incredible complexity of the living cell.

2.      The Big Number Trick – Disguises or ignores the reality of statistical impossibilities.

3.      The Order-out-of-Chaos Trick – Ignores the Second Law of Thermodynamics which states that order can never increase by chance.

4.      The Pig’s Tooth Trick – Draws major inferences from trivial data and assumes non-existent connections. [So called because evolutionists once argued for a new species of hominid using a pig’s tooth!]

5.      The Similarity Trick – Assumes that things which look the same really are the same, whether structurally or functionally.

6.      The Endless Time Trick – Assumes that, given enough time, virtually anything can happen.

7.      The Circular Reasoning Trick – Uses A to prove B and B to prove A.

8.      The Rat’s Nest Trick – Ignores uncomfortable facts and contradictory evidence.

One of the most popular Darwinian parlour games is the Big Number trick which exploits the common inability, even among experienced scientists, to comprehend the magnitude of really large numbers. We can all form a mental picture of a collection of ten thousand objects, for example the total number of seats in a football stadium. This figure (10,000) can be expressed another way, as 10 to the power of 4 (which may be denoted as 10*4). This is 10 multiplied by itself 4 times [10x10x10x10 = 10,000].

But we run into difficulty when we try to come up with similar mental pictures for much larger numbers. For example, how would you envisage 10*100 grains of sand? As a long beach, perhaps, or a huge quarry? An astute individual might opt for an object as large as the earth. But even he would be way off the mark. Physicists have calculated that the total matter in the universe – over 80 billion galaxies – contains approximately 10*80 atoms. This means that not even the universe itself could contain our pile of sand!

We call these tricks rather than fallacies because they have been exploited shamelessly for decades by atheistic materialists to deceive their victims.

Is deceive too strong a word? Well, if a set of known logical fallacies are continuously exploited in a systematic way to achieve a particular outcome, then we are talking about deception. Not bad science, not ideological bias, but deception.

T H Huxley, who was probably the most ardent public advocate of Darwin’s theory in the period following the publication of The Origin of Species (1859), had no qualms about exploiting both the Simple Cell trick and the Big Number trick. During some of his famous public debates he claimed that, given enough time, a team of 100 monkeys typing on a 100 typewriters, day and night, without stopping, would eventually type out Psalm 23.

"The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil:

for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:

thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:

and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever."

Psalm 23

To most of his audience this seemed a fairly plausible proposition. After all, if the monkeys just keep hammering away they are bound to get there eventually –aren’t they?

Let’s take a closer look. The whole question is one of probability. Just how long would they have to keep typing to produce the intended outcome? Psalm 23 (in the King James Version) contains 461 characters (For the sake of simplicity we’ll ignore spaces and capitalisation. We’ll also be kind to the monkeys and give them typewriters with just 26 keys).

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