The Importance of Natural Selection

For the sake of discussion and clarity, the following definitions for Macroevolution and Microevolution shall be used:

Macroevolution: There exist one phylogenetic tree whereby all creatures living and extinct share a common ancestry (e.g. major morphological transformations occurring within lineages, all emanating from a single initial species that somehow came into existence through an assumed but unknown process known as abiogenesis.

Microevolution: Evolutionary change within a single species and variation around a mean for asexual species.
Creationists accept microevolution, and indeed this has been observed. Creationists reject macroevolution, and this has never been observed.

No scientists has ever demonstrated, either in the lab or in nature, that natural selection plus mutations over time*could* cause macroevolution, much less *does* cause macroevolution. It is a scientific fact that Macroevolution cannot be extrapolated from Microevolution biological processes.

Natural Selection is a creationists idea that was borrowed by Charles Darwin.

Natural selection is known to be an agent for conservation of the species. It tends to produce stasis (i.e. no change in the genetic information of a species). Natural Selection can not provide the genetic innovations necessary for macroevolution. It can only select genetic information that is already existing in the Genes.

Creationists formulated the original concept of natural selection.

Creationist William Paley published argument for selection processes as a natural conservative force by which nature removes unfit individuals from populations, thereby preserving the [genetic] integrity of a species by limiting any sustained drift toward increasingly inferior offspring (William Paley, 'Natural Theology', 1803). Darwin had read Paley's book and was very impressed by it. Others made mention of natural selection also (two papers before the Royal Society in 1813, and another one in 1831).

Creationist Edward Blyth also wrote several articles on natural selection ('Magazine of Natural History', 1836), a periodical to which Darwin subscribed and one year before Darwin claimed he 'thought' of the idea of 'natural selection', Blyth wrote with respect to food: "... the one best organized must always obtain the greatest quantity; and must, therefore become physically strongest and be thus enabled, by routing its opponents, to transmit its superior qualities to a greater number of its offspring."

Stephen Jay Gould correctly points out in his article 'Darwinism and the Expansion of the Evolution Theory' (Science, 216, April 13, 1982, page 380):
"Darwinians cannot simply claim that natural selection operates since everyone, including Paley and the natural theologians, advocate selection as a device for removing unfit individuals at both extremes and preserving intact and forever, the created type. ... The Reverend William Paley's classic work 'Natural Theology', published in 1803, also contain many references to selective elimination."

In creation theory, natural selection acts as a conservative force for preserving a created kind, i.e. a baramin,(e.g.)Cattle, horses, foraminifer, etc.) and maintaining the fitness of each created kind.

Natural selection works with an organism’s ability to change, within genetic limits, so that plants and animals can multiply and fill every possible area of the earth with variations on a theme perfectly suited for that area.

An intelligent Creator designed the creation so that all necessary components were there to provide the balance we see in nature, and He also provided the genetic information necessary to enable each baramin to adapt to changing environments to enhance its survival. At the time of each baramin was created, their genes were in excellent condition and were very rich in information.

For instance, Adam and Eve's offspring would be free of genetic defects (as harmful mutations would not have yet occurred) and they contained all the genetic information necessary to produce all the known human characteristics we observe today in the human races (minus the genetic defects that have accumulated in many species over time due to mutations).

Thus in Adam and Eve's day, the human genetic code was perfect and thus it was permissible for brothers to marry sisters. Today we know all to well what happens in places where inbreeding occurs over extended periods of time. Very bad physical defects, such as haemophilia, get fixed into an inbreeding population.

As God's original `created kinds' (baramins) settled in different areas, natural selection would lead to increasing the expression of those existing traits available in the genes, that give best survival advantage for their new particular environment. Natural selection would eliminate the offspring that were least suited for a particular environment.

By well known genetic principals, a population of a baramin, or its offspring, isolated in a particular environment will lose genetic information (as well as gain some harmful information over time via mutation) and will evolve (or perhaps in most cases `devolve') from other populations in other environments, even to the point where they can no longer interbreed.

In addition, some isolated groups may be able to interbreed, producing an offspring whose combination of genetic information may make them sterile or perhaps fertile but unable to breed with their parental forms. Thus we have speciation as a form of microevolution. Evolutionary Scientists Roger Lewin once stated that the Creationists may well be right when they claim much observed evolution is simply loss of genetic information over time.

For example: Creationists hypothesize that the original Cattle `baramin', or `created kind', contained the genetic information that eventually gave us today’s Jersey cow, Buffalo, Yaks, oxen, etc. The differences between different cattle species is due not to the evolution of new information into the genetic code, but stems from the expression of latent genetic information that is stored in the genome caused by selection pressures being applied on a population by varying environments and ecosystems.

Natural selection will continue as a conserving force on a given adapted population in a given environment, thereby promoting stasis. A corollary of the creationist view of natural selection is that during time periods when the environment puts little stress on a population, that population may vary (permit many genetic characteristics inherent in the genes of a population, including latent characteristics, to be expressed throughout the population) and many sub forms may arise.

However, during stressful times, only those traits most suitable for the environment will tend to be expressed and, if the stress persists for many generations, some traits may become permanently lost from the genetic pool of the population.

When sparrows were introduced in America from England, it took awhile for them to take to living (adapt) in their new environment. When they did, they were much larger than the normal English sparrow. As they spread through America, their size varied with the environment, with temperature in particular. One Scientist collected many of the sparrows that died during a very severe storm. He noted that the dead sparrows differed in size from the norm for sparrows in that area.

Devolution: Salamanders eyesight became defective due to mutation, and the only ones who survived are those that took to Dark caves where they were able to adapt and where their disadvantage of blindness was neutralized by the darkness.

The two cases cited above are predicted by the creationist’s model for natural selection in action.
Limitations to variation:

The fact that there are limitations to variations within species has been brought out in both the fossil record where transitional series (Phylogenies are not to be found, as well as in laboratory experiments such as the guided mutations and natural selection on populations of fruit flies. In the laboratory scientists have been able to create through artificial selection many viable new species of fruit fly.

However, it is clear that these new species are simply proof of microevolution, and not evidence for macroevolution.

Indeed, as one critic has pointed out (evolutionist Norman Macbeth), four such new species of fruit fly looked identical even when examined under a microscope. Other evolutionist, such as Professor Dobzhansky, have conceded that though the fruit fly has been brought through thousands of mutations over thousands of generations, yet it always remains a fruit fly.

Furthermore, they discovered that extreme variations lead to sterilization and that nearly all laboratory variations would never survive in the real world. Even more importantly, the real world itself has shown the immutability of the fruit fly, its natural history is that of stasis (no-evolution), despite thousands of so called speciations.

Breeders have also demonstrated that there are limitations to the variations one can impose on a species.
For example: today we have many more types of Dogs than we had a few hundred years ago. These various types of dogs were derived from selective breeding to obtain purebreds. Selective breeding clearly resulted in deterioration in the gene pool of the purebred’s populations (e.g. German Shepherds tend to inherit defective hips, Daschunds limbs are disproportionate to their body length). The purebreds are brought about not by the addition of new information in the genes, but by elimination of existing information in the genes, and the results have been deleterious.

Post 2

I have just posted a very powerful scientific refutation of abiogenesis. These science facts have been known in scientific circles, but scientists still published, or permit to be published, misinformation and untruths about the significance of the Miller-Urey type experiments, misleading both the public and, even worse, vulnerable students, and thus indoctrinating them into believing falsehoods, again as witnessed by many postings on these type forums. They were most likely influenced by many sources of misinformation such as:

Carl Sagan appearing on a Nova episode about two decades ago declared how the Earth once had an atmosphere consisting mostly of Methane for hundreds of millions of years, ‘a methane world' he called it, a world in which living things breathed methane. Then he spoke of how life as we know it had begun under this reduced atmosphere, and he speculated how life that lived off methane was destroyed by a new poisonous gas that entered the atmosphere caused by this "new life", and replaced the methane: that gas being Oxygen! And his BiaS was all based on the Oparin model and he spoke to the public as if it was scientifically established fact.

Here is another example from the third (1984) edition of a College textbook `Elements of Biology' which still declares, like many others text books, that the Miller-Urey 1953 experiment provides `important support for his [Alexander Oparin] theory' that `living things chemically evolved from inorganic gases ... in the primitive earth atmosphere'. As if this lie was not enough this textbook goes on to state as follows:

"The relative ease with which the amino acids were formed is of great significance. ... In many other experiments that have followed Miller's breakthrough effort, other forms of energy have been successfully used in the laboratory to create not only amino acids but also other critical biological molecules. Thus it appears that no special obstacles would have interfered with the construction of the essential building blocks of life on the primitive Earth, given the amount of time now believed to have passed since the formation of the Earth (see fig 219)[ fig. 219 shows the sun as energy input shining on Earth during `chemical evolution' during Earth's 1st 800 million years, `1st self-replicating molecule or protogene over next 300 million years, `Life' 3.5 billion years ago]. ... these experiments have led many biologists to accept the idea that once air and ground conditions on Earth were suitable for life [Oparin Model], LIFE WAS INEVITABLE." [Emphasis mine]

Here is a more recent example:

Barron's Review Course Series "Let's Review: Biology", Barron's Educational Series, 1995.

"... the [pre-biotic earth over hundreds of millions of years] "filled with inorganic and organic substances such as water (H2O), ammonia (NH3), methane (NH3), hydrogen gas (H2), and various mineral salts. These substances mixed together in a primitive atmosphere and oceans to form a thin hot soup, in which random chemical reactions could occur at a rapid rate. Gaseous oxygen and carbon dioxide are thought NOT to be present in this early stage." P. 246-7.

Barron's "Let's Review: Biology" continues: Scientist Stanley Miller "set up a controlled environment that simulated [THE Pre-biotic Atmosphere in my 1st post]...

After several days of continuous electrical input, Millers experimental flasks contained the precursors (beginning forms) for several simple organic substances, including amino acids, simple sugars, and nucleotides. In later experiments, Sidney Fox, and other scientists demonstrated Miller's precursor’s could be joined together into complex molecular arrangements and grouped to form cell-like structures. ... Increasing structural complexity of cellular aggregates, including the formation of complex proteins and nucleic acids, is thought to have led to the ability to reproduce new cellular aggregates. The ability to reproduce is considered to have represented the last critical step leading to a living condition, marking the difference between mere chemical aggregates and true living cells." P 247-248.

These misleading false statements that show up in textbooks are an outrage. Scientists knew decades before the 1995 publication of Barron’s widely read High School Science Book Review that this whole scenario from beginning to end was false. Science had established that the pre-biotic atmosphere lacked methane and free hydrogen, and had ample oxygen to destroy amino acids and other building blocks needed for life, and that the thin hot soup never existed. That ultra-violet light, oxygen, and the chemicals of the ocean would rapidly destroy any biological building blocks that might form. Scientists knew that the amino acids formed in these experiments were always racemized and thus prevented any formation of proteins.

These public school textbook statements on the Miller-Urey type experiments are FALSE, these type experiments did just the opposite as my prior post demonstrates. They demonstrated just how extremely implausible abiogenesis is. Many informed leading Scientists have known for decades these statements in textbooks are false, so why do these falsehoods still persist in school textbooks?

Abiogenesis, An evolutionist's article of faith!

The evidence for abiogenesis was never good, but it was widely accepted by scientists promoting Evolutionism because it conformed to the philosophy of naturalism.

Nobel Prize laureate Harold C. Urey once stated:
"All of us who study the origin of life find that the more we look into it, the more we feel it is too complex to have evolved anywhere. We all believe as an article of faith that life evolved from dead matter on this planet. It is just that its complexity is so great, it is hard for us to imagine that it did."

F. Dyson, 'Origins of Life' (1985, Cambridge University Press, p. 31):
"The Oparin picture was generally accepted by biologists for half a century. It was popular not because there was any evidence to support it, but rather because it seemed to be the only alternative to biblical creationism."

Yet Dyson admits, and many other evolutionary scientists were fully aware, even in the 1950's and 1960's, that these experiments were not solutions to abiogenesis but rather magnified the problems with any notion of abiogenesis.

Evolutionist A. Cairns-Smith, "Genetic Takeover and the Mineral Origins of Life" 1986. Points out that experiments like Miller-Urey demonstrate that critical prevital nucleic acids are highly implausible:

"But so powerful has been the effect of Miller's experiment on the scientific imagination that to read some of the literature on the origin of life (including many elementary texts) you might think that it had been well demonstrated that nucleotides were probable constituents of a primordial soup and hence the prevital nucleic acid replication was a plausible speculation based on the results of the experiments. There have indeed been many interesting and detailed experiments in this area. But the importance of this work lies, in my mind, not in demonstrating how nucleotides could have formed on the primitive Earth, but in PRECISELY THE OPPOSITE: these experiments allow us to see, in much greater detail than would otherwise been possible, just why prevital nucleic acids are highly implausible." [emphasis mine].

R. Shapiro, Ph.D. Chemistry, "The Improbability of Pre-biotic Nucleic Acid Synthesis" 14 Origin of Life 565, 1984, relates how experiments like Miller-Urey have very limited significance because of the implausible conditions under which they are conducted:

"Many accounts of the origin of life assume the spontaneous synthesis of a self replicating nucleic acid could take place readily. However, these procedures use pure starting materials, afford poor yields, and are run under conditions that are not compatible with one another. Any nucleic acid components that were formed in the primitive earth would tend to hydrolyze by a number of pathways. Their polymerization would be inhibited by the presence of vast numbers of related substances which would react preferentially with them."

Speaking as an evolutionist, and therefore, an apriority believer in abiogenesis, Klaus Dose, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 1988, 13(4) 348. writes:

"More than 30 years of experimentation on the origin of life in the fields of chemical and molecular evolution have led to a better perception of the immensity of the problem of the origin of life on Earth rather than to its solution. At present all discussions on principal theories and experiments in the field either end in a stalemate or in a confession of ignorance."

"Considerable disagreements between scientists have arisen about detailed evolutionary steps. The problem is that the principal evolutionary processes from pre-biotic molecules to pregenotes have not been proven by experimentation and the environmental conditions under which these processes occurred are not known. Moreover, we do not actually know where the genetic information of all living cells actually originates, how the first replicable polynucleotides (nucleic acids) evolved, or how the extremely complex structure function relationships in modern cells came into existence."

Leslie Orgel "The Origin of Life on Earth" Scientific American 271, October 1994. P 77-83.

"It is extremely improbable that proteins and nucleic acids, both of which are structurally complex, arose spontaneously in the same place at the same time. Yet it seems impossible to have one without the other. And so, at first glance, one might have to conclude that life never could in fact have originated by chemical means."

"We proposed that RNA might well have come first and established what is called the RNA world. ... This scenario could have occurred we noted, if pre-biotic RNA had two properties not evident today; a capacity to replicate without the help of proteins, and an ability to catalyze every step of protein synthesis. ..."

"The precise events giving rise to an RNA world remain unclear. As we have seen, investigators have proposed many hypotheses, but evidence in favor of each of them is fragmentary at best. ..."

People ought to reject the Evolution Theory as it is currently taught in most schools.

My 1st response is to Zarrar. I am surprised that Zarrar offered abiogenesis as confirmation of the validity of Evoutionary Theory. Most evolutionary scientists run from it, they do not ant the public to know about it because it completely overturns the materialistic claims of origins of life and of the species. Darwin was wrong!

Evolutionists have distanced themselves from Abiogenesis. The evidence against it is most overwhelming. Famed atheist and long time apologists for the materialistic worldview, gave up being an atheist and adopted a believer in the existence of a God, because Science has clearly shown that abiogenesis can not happen

As with so much of evolution, the misinformation on the topics related to the "spontaneous generation of life", also known as "Abiogenesis", have been so often repeated instead of being deleted, especially in school curriculums and textbooks, not to mention many 'science' sites on the internet, that science fiction has been, for far too long, masquerading as science.

Let's start with famous "Miller-Urey" experiment and update it from there.

An important pioneer in scientific research on abiogenesis is Alexander I. Oparin. In 1924, he determined what chemicals must be in the earth atmosphere for amino acids to be formed (e.g. methane, hydrogen, and ammonia) and what chemicals ought not to be there that will prohibit the formation of amino acids (e.g. Oxygen). Scientists like A.I. Oparin and J.B.S. Haldane proposed a sequence for life's origins in the 1920's, from complicated molecules in an oily liquid he called coacervate droplets, to the first protocell, to enzymes, to finally genes.

Miller prepared an experiment to observe what complicated molecules' might be produced under Oparin-Haldane's proposed ideal pre-biotic atmosphere. Sure enough, in an assumed atmosphere that was DESIGNED to produce amino acids, it was not at all surprising that amino acids formed:

The Products of the Miller Experiment: Tar 85%
Carboxylic acids not important to life 13.0%
Glycine 1.05%
Alanine 0.85%
Glutamic acid trace
Aspartic acid trace
Valine trace
Leucine trace
Serine trace
Proline trace
Treonine trace

Note: Glycine and Alanine are the two simplest amino acids of the twenty (actually 22 last I looked) proteinous amino acids found in living creatures.

Miller's results were well received and widely reported by the mass media to be a major confirmation of evolution and of life arising spontaneously without a Creator. It became a valuable weapon in the evolutionists' propaganda arsenal for brain washing and brow beating the public, and much more so unwary students, into accepting the legitimacy of Evolution.

The Miller-Urey experiment that produced amino acids under laboratory-controlled conditions has been misrepresented in much High school, college and other textbooks. It is often presented that this experiment demonstrates that amino acids, necessary for life, form naturally in a primitive atmosphere. It is usually further asserted or implied that this experiment demonstrates that abiogenesis is highly probable and that this further demonstrates that evolution (Darwinian) is indeed a fact. Of course such textbooks are nonsense; this experiment demonstrates nothing of the kind. In fact, the Miller-Urey experiment demonstrates the opposite; it revealed the overwhelming difficulties that exist with the view that life can form naturally from non-living chemicals.

The key word above is 'controlled'. Intelligent control is what gets one the outcome they are looking for.

In 1953, using a system of glass flasks, Steven Miller attempted to simulate Alexander Oparin's ideal atmospheric conditions. He passed a mixture of H2O, ammonia, methane and hydrogen through an electrical spark discharge. At the bottom of the apparatus was a trap to capture any molecules made by the reaction. This trap prevented whatever chemicals formed from being destroyed by the energy source used to create them. Eventually, Miller was able to produce the above-described mixture, containing the amino acids described above, and the building blocks of proteins.

This was as good as the science ever got for the evolutionists hopes of demonstrating the possibility of abiogenesis. Hereafter things get much worse for the Evolutionists. What the unwary public and students have not been told about is what science actually knows concerning the origin of life.

To achieve his results, Miller had to use something that material evolutionists 'KNOW' did not exist in the pre-biotic earth: intelligence and mental "know-how". He drew on decades of knowledge of organic chemistry in setting up his experiment. The proportions of the various gases used, the actual apparatus, the position of the electrodes, the intensity of the spark, and the chemical trap, were all carefully adjusted to create maximum yield from the experiment.

Several attempts by Stanley Miller failed to produce any amino acids or other building blocks of life.

In an effort to make his Oparin atmosphere to mimic actual atmospheric conditions, Miller arranged for his electrical discharge to simulate lightning. After a week of these lightning type electrical discharges in the reaction chamber, the sides of the chamber turned black and the liquid mixture turned a cloudy red. The predominant product was a gummy black substance made up of billions of carbon atoms strung together in what was essentially tar, a common nuisance in organic reactions.

However, no amino acids used by living systems or other building blocks of life, were produced on these first attempts. In his own words, Miller stated "An attempt was made to simulate lightning discharge by building up a large quantity of charge on a condenser until the spark jumped the gap between the electrodes. ... Very few organic compounds were produced and this discharge was not investigated further." from Robert Shapiro: "Origins, A Skeptics Guide..." P. 103. 1986.

Only by constantly readjusting and fine-tuning his apparatus and by using a continuous electrical charge that Miller eventually obtained the amino acids indicated it above. Even when using the same gas mixture and a continuous electrical discharge, Miller did not obtain any positive results until placing the apparatus in a different order.

Decades after this experiment, Robert Shapiro, Ph.D. Chemistry, noted that with the use of "Intelligence" and "Know How:" on the part of all the “origin of life� experimenters to achieve the results they desired prejudiced the results of their "Origin of Life" type experiments: (P. 102-103)

"Another significant factor also influences the products being formed in an experiment of this type, but is less recognized, selection by the experimenter."

"One clear message should emerge from this discussion. A variety of results may be possible from the same general type of experiment. The experimenter, by manipulating apparently unimportant variables, can affect the outcome profoundly. The data that he reports may be valid, but if only these results are communicated, a false impression may arise concerning the universality of the process. This situation was noticed by Creationist writer, Martin Lubenow, who commented: "I am convinced that in every origin of life experiment devised by evolutionists, the intelligence of the experimenter is involved in such a way as to prejudice the experiment.""

Now the science learned from the Miller-Urey negates rather than support Abiogenesis.

(1). The tar tends to fix the amino acids so that they are not that free to Bond. Bonding between amino acids must happen if theses amino acids are to form any kind of molecular structures leading to a replicating life form.

(2). Miller's amino acids, even if they were capable of bonding, are useless as a basis for abiogenesis. This is because the amino acids formed were racemates. That is, each double-handed amino acid was produced in equal quantities of Dextrorotary (Right handed Molecules) and Levorotary (Left handed) molecules. Furthermore, both right and left handed amino acids bond to each other equally well. However, all of life's proteins are made from left-handed amino acid chains. If just a single right handed amino acid molecule binds to a forming three dimensional chain of left handed amino acids, that right handed amino acid is lethal to the formation of the folding into a three dimensional chain.

"Without exception, all of Miller's amino acids are completely unsuitable for any type of spontaneous generation of life. And the same applies to all and any randomly formed substances and amino acids that form racemates. This statement is categorical and absolute and cannot be affected by special conditions. This is scientific fact." (1)

All amino acids that form by natural causes alone are racemized. Even those found on comets are racemized.

Though the above is fatal to any scenario for abiogenesis, science continues to bring more bad news for the evolutionist’s conception of life's origin.

(3) Oparin's ideal atmosphere of Methane, Ammonia, Hydrogen, and without Oxygen never existed! We've known for at least the past forty years that the pre-biotic atmosphere had oxygen that is lethal to the formation of life's building blocks, and it had at best, only traces of methane, ammonia, and hydrogen.

(4) Ultra-violet light would have destroyed amino acids formed in the atmosphere, and the chemicals of the ocean would have destroyed life's building blocks that ended up there.

(5) When amino acids bond together in pre-biotic experiments, they do so in several different ways using several types of links as the molecular bonds. Yet, only the type of link known as the ‘alpha link’ is used in all proteins of living organisms. In origin of life experiments, the alpha link is greatly outnumbered by the other types of links.

(6) There are 20 amino acids exclusively used in all living organisms. These are called proteinous amino acids. There are hundreds of amino acids that are not proteinous.
Famed Paleotologist Stephen J Gould asks, "Why only a few amino acids in organisms when the [primordial] soup must have contained at least ten times as many." Amino acid molecules can link-up (polymerize) to form polypeptide chains. Those with certain structure and characteristics are called functional proteins. Functional proteins will consist of chains of 90 to 1000+ amino acids. In a soup containing proteinous amino acids and 10 times the number of non-proteinous amino acids (which Gould says must have been there), then getting only the twenty Known proteinous amino acids in any chain is just not going to happen. To acomplish this feat requires a superior intelligence making the selection, intelligence which evolutionists agree did not exist back then.

(7) Handedness is only one of the real big hurdles to overcome on the way to life. Another real big one is the origin of information, which is fundamentally differently to matter and molecules, even if you could get exclusively left handed molecules. We want to know how books get written, not just how paper and ink are formed. Of course if you can't get paper, you can't write anything on it, but the really critical thing is the message, not the medium.

Information expert Hubert Yockey in 1978 did theoretical calculations to determine the information content of cytochrome C while allowing for ambiguity. Mr. Yockey based his calculations on phylogenetic sequence comparisons. His calculations revealed that an undirected search arriving at this a protein has a probability of occurrence of 1 in 10^65, even after assuming the most ideal conditions of all amino acids are left handed, all necessary amino acids are present, that only alpha bonds occurred, and all chemicals and/or energy that could neutralize or destroy the amino acids are not present.

Robert T. Sauer and his M.I.T. team of biologists undertook the scientific research of substituting the 20 different types amino acids in two different proteins. Upon each substitution, the protein sequence was reinserted into bacteria to be tested for function. They discovered that in some locations of the protein's amino acid chains, up to 15 different amino acids may be substituted while at other locations their was a tolerance of only a few, and yet other locations could not tolerate even one substitution of any other amino acid. One of the proteins they chose was the 92-residue lambda repressor.

Sauer et al. calculated that:

"... There should be about 10^57 different allowed sequences for the entire 92-residue domain. ... the calculation does indicate in a qualitative way the tremendous degeneracy in the information that does specifies a particular protein fold. Nevertheless, the estimated number of sequences capable of adopting the lambda repressor fold is still an exceedingly small fraction, about 1 in 10^63, of the total possible 92 residue sequences."

They achieved similar results with another short protein.

Sauer et. al. confirm that this supports Hubert Yockey's (1978) published paper that had obtained a similar result for cytochrome C.

Biologists R.T. Sauer, James U Bowie, John F.R. Olson, and Wendall A.Lim, 1989, 'Proceedings of the National Academy of Science's USA 86, 2152-2156. and 1990, March 16, Science, 247; and, Olson and R.T. Sauer, 'Proteins: Structure, Function and Genetics', 7:306 - 316, 1990.

This hard science is a striking confirmation of Professor Yockey's theoretical work.

Beyond amino acid bonding, there are other scientific facts that drive more nails into the coffin of the concept abiogenesis.

(8) To make life, we need amino acids, sugars, bases, and phosphates. This gives us several catch 22's. You need formaldehyde to make sugars, but formaldehyde fixes amino acids so that they do not react. Methane polymerizes formaldehyde, but must be present to make amino acids. Amino acids plus bases destroys formaldehyde. Calcium and magnesium in our oceans destroy phosphates; you can't get phosphates in oceans. Energy needed to make amino acids also destroys the amino acids.

R. Shapiro, Ph.D. Chemistry, "The Improbability of Pre-biotic Nucleic Acid Synthesis" 14 Origin of Life 565, 1984, relates how experiments like Miller-Urey have very limited significance because of the implausible conditions under which they are conducted:

"Many accounts of the origin of life assume the spontaneous synthesis of a self replicating nucleic acid could take place readily. However, these procedures use pure starting materials, afford poor yields, and are run under conditions that are not compatible with one another. Any nucleic acid components that were formed in the primitive earth would tend to hydrolyze by a number of pathways. Their polarization would be inhibited by the presence of vast numbers of related substances which would react preferentially with them."

The above is much more than enough to convince all informed reasonable scientists that abiogenesis is scientifically unfeasible. Louis Pasteur was correct when he gave us the biogenetic law that states that life only comes from life. It takes intelligence and 'know how' to create life. Non-thoughtful processes cannot create life because those processes are controlled by the Laws of Physics and Chemistry and chance, and they cannot place the necessary boundary conditions on the laws of physics and chemistry to form a self replicating living being.

What the laws of chemistry and physics and chance tell us is that the most profound statement ever written on origin of life is: "In the beginning, God Created...".

(1) Arthur Ernest Wilder-Smith: "The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution", p. 17, (1981, TWFT Publishers).

Long Post (C&P from

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn13620-evolution-24-myths-and-misc onceptions.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=top1_head_Evolution:%2024%20myths%20and% 20misconceptions )


Cover page article in New Scientist. Very long post but very interesting.

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If you think you understand it, you don't know nearly enough about it

It will soon be 200 years since the birth of Charles Darwin and 150 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species, arguably the most important book ever written. In it, Darwin outlined an idea that many still find shocking – that all life on Earth, including human life, evolved through natural selection.

Darwin presented compelling evidence for evolution in On the Origin and, since his time, the case has become overwhelming. Countless fossil discoveries allow us to trace the evolution of today's organisms from earlier forms. DNA sequencing has confirmed beyond any doubt that all living creatures share a common origin. Innumerable examples of evolution in action can be seen all around us, from the pollution-matching pepper moth to fast-changing viruses such as HIV and H5N1 bird flu. Evolution is as firmly established a scientific fact as the roundness of the Earth.

And yet despite an ever-growing mountain of evidence, most people around the world are not taught the truth about evolution, if they are taught about it at all. Even in the UK, the birthplace of Darwin with an educated and increasingly secular population, one recent poll suggests less than half the population accepts evolution.

For those who have never had the opportunity to find out about biology or science, claims made by those who believe in supernatural alternatives to evolutionary theory can appear convincing. Meanwhile, even among those who accept evolution, misconceptions abound.

Most of us are happy to admit that we do not understand, say, the string theory in physics, yet we are all convinced we understand evolution. In fact, as biologists are discovering, its consequences can be stranger than we ever imagined. Evolution must be the best-known yet worst-understood of all scientific theories.

So here is New Scientist's guide to some of the most common myths and misconceptions about evolution.

Shared misconceptions:

Everything is an adaptation produced by natural selection

Natural selection is the only means of evolution

Natural selection leads to ever-greater complexity

Evolution produces creatures perfectly adapted to their environment

Evolution always promotes the survival of species

It doesn't matter if people do not understand evolution

"Survival of the fittest" justifies "everyone for themselves"

Evolution is limitlessly creative

Evolution cannot explain traits such as homosexuality

Creationism provides a coherent alternative to evolution

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We tend to assume that all characteristics of plants and animals are adaptations that have arisen through natural selection. Many are neither adaptations nor the result of selection at all.

Why do so many of us plonk ourselves down in front of the telly with a microwave meal after a tiring day? Because it's convenient? Or because TV meals are "the natural consequence of hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution"?

Stop laughing. You've probably made similar assumptions. For just about every aspect of our bodies and behaviour, it's easy to invent evolutionary "Just So" stories to explain how they came to be that way. We tend to assume that everything has a purpose, but often we are wrong.

Take male nipples. Male mammals clearly don't need them: they have them because females do and because it doesn't cost much to grow a nipple. So there has been no pressure for the sexes to evolve separate developmental pathways and "switch off" nipple growth in males. Some people claim the female orgasm exists for the same reason as male nipples, though this is a far more controversial idea.

Then there's our sense of smell. Do you find the scent of roses overwhelming or do you struggle to detect it? Can you detect the distinctive odour that most people's urine acquires after eating asparagus? People vary greatly when it comes to smell, largely due to chance mutations in the genes that code for the smell receptors rather than for adaptive reasons.

Yet other features are the result of selection, but not for the trait in question. For instance, the short stature of pygmies could be a side effect of selection for early childbearing in populations where mortality is high, rather than an adaptation in itself.

Multiskilled genes
Another reason why apparent adaptations can be side effects of selection for other traits is that genes can have different roles at different times of development or in different parts of the body. So selection for one variant can have all sorts of seemingly unrelated effects. Male homosexuality might be linked to gene variants that increase fertility in females, for instance.

A non-adaptive or detrimental gene variant can also spread rapidly through a population if it is on the same DNA strand as a highly beneficial variant. This is one reason why sex matters: when bits of DNA are swapped between chromosomes during sexual reproduction, good and bad variants can be split up.

Other features of plants and animals, such as the wings of ostriches, may once have been adaptations but are no longer needed for their original purpose. Such "vestigial traits" can persist because they are neutral, because they have taken on another function or because there hasn't been enough evolution to eliminate them even though they have become disadvantageous. Take the appendix. There are plenty of claims that it has this or that function but the evidence is clear: you are more likely to survive without an appendix than with one.

So why hasn't it disappeared? Because evolution is a numbers game. The worldwide human population was tiny until a few thousand years ago, and people have few children with long periods between each generation. That means fewer chances for evolution to throw up mutations that would reduce the size of the appendix or eliminate it altogether – and fewer chances for those mutations to spread through populations by natural selection. Another possibility is that we are stuck in an evolutionary Catch-22 where, as the appendix shrinks, appendicitis becomes more likely, favouring its retention.

Wisdom teeth are another vestigial remnant. A smaller, weaker jaw allowed our ancestors to grow larger brains, but left less room for molars. Yet many of us still grow teeth for which there is no room, with potentially fatal consequences. One possible reason why wisdom teeth persist is that they usually appear after people reach reproductive age, meaning selection against them is weak.

For all these reasons and more, we need to be sceptical of headline-grabbing claims about evolutionary explanations for different behaviours. Evolutionary psychology in particular is notorious for attempting to explain every aspect of behaviour, from gardening to rape, as an adaptation that arose when our ancestors lived on the African savannah.

Needless to say, without solid evidence, claims about how, for instance, TV dinners "evolved" should be taken with a large pinch of salt.

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Much change is due to random genetic drift rather than positive selection. It could be called the survival of the luckiest.

Take a look in the mirror. The face you see is rather different to that of a Neanderthal. Why? The unflattering answer could be for no other reason than random genetic drift. With features that can vary somewhat in form without greatly affecting function, such as the shape of the skull, chance might play a bigger role in their evolution than natural selection.

The DNA in all organisms is under constant attack from highly reactive chemicals and radiation, and errors are often made when it is copied. As a result, there are at least 100 new mutations in each human embryo, possibly far more. Some are harmful and are likely to be eliminated by natural selection – by death of the embryo, for instance. Most make no difference to our bodies, because most of our DNA is useless junk anyway. A few cause minor changes that are neither particularly harmful nor beneficial.

You might think that largely neutral mutations would remain restricted to a few individuals. In fact, while the vast majority of neutral mutations die out, a few spread throughout a population and thus become "fixed". It is pure chance – some just happen to be passed on to more and more individuals in each generation.

Although the likelihood of any neutral mutation spreading by chance is tiny, the enormous number of mutations in each generation makes genetic drift a significant force. It's a little like a lottery: the chance of winning is minuscule but because millions buy a ticket every week there is usually a winner.

As a result, most changes in the DNA of complex organisms over time are due to drift rather than selection, which is why biologists focus on sequences that are similar, or conserved, when they compare genomes. Natural selection will preserve sequences with vital functions, but the rest of the genome will change because of drift.

Drifting through bottlenecks
Genetic drift can even counteract natural selection. Many slightly beneficial mutations can be lost by chance, while mildly deleterious ones can spread and become fixed in a population. The smaller a population, the greater the role of genetic drift.

Population bottlenecks can have the same effect. Imagine an island where most mice are plain but a few have stripes. If a volcanic eruption wipes out all of the plain mice, the island will be repopulated by striped mice. It's a case of survival not of the fittest, but of the luckiest.

Random genetic drift has certainly played a big role in human evolution. Human populations were tiny until around 10,000 years ago, and went through a major bottleneck around 2 million years ago. Other bottlenecks occurred when a few individuals migrated out of Africa around 60,000 years ago and colonised other regions.

There is no doubt that most of the genetic differences between humans and other apes – and between different human populations – are due to genetic drift. However, most of these mutations are in the nine-tenths of our genome that is junk, so they make no difference. The interesting question is which mutations affecting our bodies or behaviour have spread because of drift rather than selection, but this is far from clear.

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In fact, natural selection often leads to ever greater simplicity. And, in many cases, complexity may initially arise when selection is weak or absent.

If you don't use it, you tend to lose it. Evolution often takes away rather than adding. For instance, cave fish lose their eyes, while parasites like tapeworms lose their guts.

Such simplification might be much more widespread than realised. Some apparently primitive creatures are turning out to be the descendants of more complex creatures rather than their ancestors. For instance, it appears the ancestor of brainless starfish and sea urchins had a brain.

Nevertheless, there is no doubt that evolution has produced more complex life-forms over the past four billion years. The tough question is: why? It is usually simply assumed to be the result of natural selection, but recently a few biologists studying our own bizarre and bloated genomes have challenged this idea.

Rather than being driven by selection, they propose that complexity initially arises when selection is weak or absent. How could this be? Suppose an animal has a gene that carries out two different functions. If mutation results in some offspring getting two copies of this gene, these offspring won't be any fitter as a result. In fact, they might be slightly less fit due to a double dose of the gene. In a large population where the selective pressure is strong, such mutations are likely to be eliminated. In smaller populations, where selective pressure is much weaker, these mutations could spread as a result of random genetic drift (see Natural selection is the only means of evolution) despite being slightly disadvantageous.

The more widely the duplicated genes spread in a population, the faster they will acquire mutations. A mutation in one copy might destroy its ability to carry out the first of the original gene's two functions. Then the other copy might lose the ability to perform the second of the two functions. As before, these mutations won't make the animals any fitter – such animals would still look and behave exactly the same – so they will not be selected for, but they could nevertheless spread by genetic drift.

Use your mutations
In this way, a species can go from having one gene with two functions to two genes that each carry out one function. This increase in complexity occurs not because of selection but despite it.

Once the genome is more complex, however, further mutations can make a creature’s body or behaviour more complex. For instance, having two separate genes means each can be switched on or off at different time or in different tissues. As soon as any beneficial mutations arise, natural selection will favour its spread.

If this picture is correct, it means that there are opposing forces at the heart of evolution. Complex structures and behaviour such as eyes and language are undoubtedly the product of natural selection. But when selection is strong – as in large populations – it blocks the random genomic changes that throw up this greater complexity in the first place.

This idea might even explain why evolution appears to speed up after environmental catastrophes such as asteroid impacts. Such events would slash the population size of species that survive, weakening selection and increasing the chances of greater genomic complexity arising through non-adaptive processes, paving the way for greater physical or behavioural complexity to arise through adaptive processes.

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You don't have to be perfectly adapted to survive, you just have to be as well adapted as your competitors. The apparent perfection of plants and animals may be more a reflection of our poor imaginations than of reality.

It's a theme repeated endlessly in wildlife documentaries. Again and again we are told how perfectly animals are adapted to their environment. It is, however, seldom true.

Take the UK's red squirrel. It appeared perfectly well adapted to its environment. Until the grey squirrel arrived, that is, and proved itself rather better adapted to broadleaf forests thanks, in part, to its ability to digest acorns.

There are many reasons why evolution does not produce "designs" that are as good as they could be. Natural selection's only criterion is that something works, not that it works as well as it might. Botched jobs are common, in fact. The classic example is the panda's thumb, which it uses to grasp bamboo. "The panda's true thumb is committed to another role. So the panda must... settle for an enlarged wrist bone and a somewhat clumsy, but quite workable, solution," wrote Stephen Jay Gould in 1978.

As this example shows, evolution is far more likely to reshape existing structures than to throw up novel ones. The lobed fins of early fish have turned into structures as diverse as wings, fins, hoofs and hands. We have five fingers because our amphibian ancestors had five digits, not because five is necessarily the optimal number of fingers for the human hand.

Many groups simply never evolve features that might have made them even more successful. Sharks lack the gas bladder that allows bony fish to control their buoyancy precisely, for example, and instead have to rely on swimming, buoyant fatty livers and, occasionally, a gulp of air. Similarly, mammals' two-way lungs are far less efficient than birds' one-way lungs. And sometimes creatures evolve features that actually reduce their overall fitness rather than increase it, such as the peacock's tail (see Evolution always increases fitness).

Use it or lose it
Continual mutation also means that if you don't use it, you lose it. For instance, many primates cannot make vitamin C, because of a gene mutation. This mutation makes no difference to animals that get plenty of vitamin C in their diet. However, when the environment changes, such loss of function can make a big difference, as one primate discovered on long sea voyages.

Evolution's lack of foresight can produce inherently flawed designs. The vertebrate eye – with its back-to-front wiring and blind spot where the wiring goes through the retina – is one example. Later adaptations have compensated for these problems to a large extent but once natural selection fixes upon a flawed, but workable, design, a species' descendants are usually stuck with it.

An organism's fitness is also relative to its environment, which is usually changing. There is a constant arms race going on between predator and prey, parasite and host. Many species have to evolve continuously just to maintain their current level of relative fitness, let alone get fitter. As the Red Queen says in Through the Looking Glass: "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."

Evolution's peak?
Humans are not running fast enough. Evolving through natural selection is about time and numbers. The number of new mutations that appear, and the number of chances that natural selection has to eliminate the harmful and favour the beneficial ones, depends on the size of a population, the number of offspring each individual has and on the number of generations, among other things.

We might like to think of ourselves as the most "highly evolved" species but, in terms of how many rounds of mutation and selection we've undergone, we are one of the least evolved species.

Around 10 billion new viral particles can be produced every day in the body of a person infected with HIV. By contrast, the total human population on Earth was no more than a few million until a few thousand years ago.

Furthermore, in a decade bacteria can produce 200,000 generations -- about the number of generations of humans there have been since our lineage split from that of chimpanzees. So it's hardly surprising that in less than a human lifespan we’ve seen the evolution of new diseases such as HIV and numerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Although human evolution has sped up in the past 10,000 years, we are changing our environment faster still. As a result, instead of becoming better adapted we are actually becoming less well adapted to the world we are creating. Think of the huge range of modern afflictions, from obesity and allergies to short-sightedness and drug addiction, we suffer from. Viruses and bacteria might approach perfection, but we humans are at best a very rough first draft.

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The phrase "survival of fittest" is widely misunderstood (see 'Survival of the fittest' justifies everyone for themselves). Many wrongly assume it means that evolution always increases the chances of a species surviving.

Evolution sometimes results in individuals or populations becoming less fit and may occasionally even lead to extinction.

There are several ways in which evolution can reduce the overall fitness of individuals or of populations. For starters, natural selection can take place at different levels – genes, individuals, groups – and what promotes the survival of a gene does not necessarily increase the fitness of the individuals carrying it, or of groups of these individuals.

For example, parasitic DNA elements, or transposons, can spread through a population even though they make their host organisms less fit. Transposons are one cause of genetic diseases such as haemophilia.

Similarly, selfish individuals may thrive at the expense of altruistic individuals in a group – making them the "fittest" – even though they make the group as a whole less competitive. Such cheaters can have disastrous consequences.

In 1932, J. B. S. Haldane suggested this could even lead to the extinction of populations – a phenomenon called evolutionary suicide. Models and some experimental evidence suggest he was right.

For instance, when nutrients run low, individual myxobacteria (slime bacteria) may come together to form a fruiting body to produce spores. Lab studies have shown that cheating myxobacteria that only produce spores and never help form the non-spore producing parts of the fruiting body can drive populations to extinction.

Genes capable of driving populations to extinction might have a practical use, however. Biologists are exploring the possibility of releasing engineered parasitic DNA into populations of malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

There is concern that something similar could happen accidentally. Fish that have been genetically modified to produce a growth hormone grow faster and larger, mature earlier and produce more eggs. But they are less likely to survive in the wild than unmodified fish. According to the Trojan gene hypothesis, a gene variant that produces such characteristics could spread rapidly through a wild population despite reducing individual fitness, and eventually drive the population to extinction.

Another way in which evolution can reduce a species' chances of survival is through the accumulation of detrimental mutations. Mutations provide the vital raw material for natural selection, so if the mutation rate is too low a population will not be able to evolve fast enough to keep up with environmental changes.

If, on the other hand, a population's mutation rate is too high, detrimental mutations may accumulate faster than natural selection can eliminate them. Eventually, the number of mutations can exceed the "error catastrophe threshold", again leading to the extinction of a population.

In theory, any species with a very small population could accumulate deleterious mutations faster than it can eliminate them. The problem is especially severe for asexual organisms such as the Amazon molly – an effect known as Muller's rachet.

It is far less of a problem for sexually reproducing species because the exchange of genetic material between chromosomes can separate good and bad mutations. Some unlucky offspring get saddled with lots of nasty mutations and die out, while the lucky ones get hardly any.

In theory, a mutation catastrophe can also occur as a result of linkage. This refers to gene variants that are inherited together because they sit next to each other on a chromosome. Suppose a mutation that greatly increases the mutation rate somehow ends up next to a new mutation that greatly increases fitness. The immediate fitness benefits of the beneficial mutation will initially mask the deleterious effects of the "mutator" mutation, meaning both mutations will rapidly sweep through a population, ultimately with disastrous consequences.

A few doctors hope to exploit mutation accumulation to treat diseases. Certain viruses such as HIV are already close to the error catastrophe threshold. Drugs that increase the mutation rate of the viruses still further might push them over the threshold and drive a population of viruses inside a person's body to extinction.

Finallly, it has long been recognised that the competition between members of the same species to reproduce – sexual selection – can favour traits that reduce a species' overall fitness. Male peacocks with the biggest and brightest tails might get the females' attention, but lugging around a heavy, conspicuous tail reduces their chances of survival.

Studies of threatened bird species suggest that sexual selection can indeed drive populations to extinction. Some biologists go so far as to blame sexual selection for the conspicuous consumption that threatens humanity's future.

According to the handicap principle, features such as peacocks' tails evolve precisely because they are disadvantageous. Consider an individual who is trying to signal to females how fit and strong he is. If the signal is easy to make, weaker males can easily cheat by making the same signal. But if making the signal is costly – such as growing a large, clumsy tail or giving away food – there's no way to cheat.

Proving that any of these phenomena have ever led to extinctions in the wild is far from easy, because any species to which this has happened are, of course, no longer around to study. The indirect evidence is growing ever stronger, though.

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At an individual level, it might not matter much. However, any modern society which bases major decisions on superstition rather than reality is heading for disaster

So your brother or mother is a creationist. Let them believe what they want, you might think. After all, it makes family get-togethers a lot easier and no difference to anyone else.

Or does it? Imagine if Mike Huckabee ends up as vice-president of the US – a mere heart attack away from the top job. Would you feel comfortable if the world's biggest superpower was run by a man who rejects evolution, thanks to the support of tens of millions of people who also refuse to accept the truth?

It is dangerous when leaders prefer dogma to biological reality: Stalin's support for the pseudoscience of Lysenko was a disaster for Soviet agriculture.

Evolving problems
The success of western civilisation is based on science and technology, on understanding and manipulating the world. Its continued success depends on this, perhaps now more than ever.

Any leader who thinks evolution is a matter of belief is arguably unfit for office. How can someone who dismisses the staggering amount of evidence for evolution assembled by researchers in myriad fields possibly evaluate more subtle scientific evidence for, say, climate change?

What's more, evolution is directly relevant to many policy decisions. Infectious diseases from tuberculosis to wheat rust are making a comeback as they evolve resistance to our defences. Antibiotic-resistant superbugs like MRSA are a growing problem. A deadly virus such as H5N1 bird flu or ebola might evolve the ability to spread from human to human at any time, leading to a devastating pandemic. It is not possible to grasp how serious these threats are and plan for them unless you understand the power of evolution.

There are many more subtle areas where understanding evolution matters too. For instance, fishing policies that allow fishermen to keep only large fish are actually leading to the evolution of smaller fish. The tremendous changes we are making to the environment are altering many species, from rats becoming resistant to poisons to urban birds changing their songs to counter noise pollution.

There is our future, too. Modern biology is on the brink of giving us previously unimaginable power over the human body, from reshaping embryos to rewriting the genetic code and delaying the effects of ageing. Societies' views on if and how these powers should be used will inevitably be shaped by people's understanding of their evolutionary origins. Things look rather different depending whether you think we are a perfect, finished product or crude early prototypes thrown up by a desperately cruel process from whose clutches we now have to break free.

This is not to say that evolutionary theory tells us how to run societies (see Survival of the fittest justifies everyone for themselves) or make ethical decisions (see Accepting evolution undermines morality). It doesn't. It is a descriptive science, not a prescriptive one. It does, however, help us to make informed decisions.

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The "fittest" can be the most loving and selfless, not the most aggressive and violent. In any case, what happens in nature does not justify people behaving in the same way

The phrase "survival of the fittest", which was coined not by Darwin but by the philosopher Herbert Spencer, is widely misunderstood.

For starters, there is a lot more to evolution by natural selection than just the survival of the fittest. There must also be a population of replicating entities and variations between them that affect fitness – variation that must be heritable. By itself, survival of the fittest is a dead end. Business people are especially guilty of confusing survival of the fittest with evolution.

What's more, although the phrase conjures up an image of a violent struggle for survival, in reality the word "fittest" seldom means the strongest or the most aggressive. On the contrary, it can mean anything from the best camouflaged or the most fecund to the cleverest or the most cooperative. Forget Rambo, think Einstein or Gandhi.

What we see in the wild is not every animal for itself. Cooperation is an incredibly successful survival strategy. Indeed it has been the basis of all the most dramatic steps in the history of life. Complex cells evolved from cooperating simple cells. Multicellular organisms are made up of cooperating complex cells. Superorganisms such as bee or ant colonies consist of cooperating individuals.

Suicidal cells
When cooperation breaks down, the results can be disastrous. When cells in our bodies turn rogue, for instance, the result is cancer. So elaborate mechanisms have evolved to maintain cooperation and suppress selfishness, such as cellular "surveillance" programmes that trigger cell suicide if they start to turn cancerous.

Looked at from this point of view, the concept of the survival of the fittest could be used to justify socialism rather than laissez-faire capitalism. Then again, the success of social insects could be used to argue for totalitarianism. Which illustrates another point: it is nonsense to appeal to the "survival of the fittest" to justify any economic or political ideology, especially on the basis that it is "natural".

Is cannibalism fine because polar bears do it? Is killing your brother or sister fine because nestlings of many bird species do it? Is murdering your children fine because mice sometimes eat their own pups? Is paedophilia fine because bonobo adults have sex with juveniles?

Powerful grip
Just about every kind of behaviour that most of us regard as "unnatural" turns out to be perfectly natural in some nook or cranny of the animal kingdom. No one can plausibly argue that this justifies humans behaving in the same way.

Yet even though such examples expose the utter absurdity of appealing to what is "natural" to judge right from wrong – the naturalistic fallacy – we seem to have a strange blind spot when it comes to evolution. Survival of the fittest has been claimed to justify all kinds of things, from free markets to eugenics. Such notions still have a powerful grip in some circles.

However, natural selection is simply a description of what happens in the living world. It does not tell us how we should behave.

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It might seem like there is no end to nature's inventiveness but there are some features that could probably never evolve, at least on Earth

It often seems that nature invented pretty much everything that can be invented long before humans arrived on the scene – including the wheel, kind of. There is a salamander living in the Californian mountains that coils itself up and rolls downhill when threatened, for example. The pearl moth caterpillar goes one better and can roll itself along a flat surface for four or five revolutions to escape predators.

Nevertheless, there are structures that would clearly be useful but have never evolved. Zebras with built-in machine guns would rarely be bothered by lions, some point out. So why can evolution invent some things but not others?

This is an extremely difficult issue to tackle: how can we study something that has not happened? One way to approach it is to start with a question used by those who deny evolution and believe that many of nature's inventions, such as the eye or the bacterial flagellum, are simply too complex to have evolved. What use is half a wing, they ask? (see Half a wing is no use)

Very useful, it turns out. The wings of insects might have evolved from flapping gills that were originally used for rowing on the surface of water. This is an example of exaptation – structures and behaviours that evolved for one purpose but take on a wholly new one, while remaining useful at every intermediate stage.

Come in, over
Turn this argument around, however, and it suggests that some features cannot evolve because a half-way stage really would be of no use. For example, two-way radio might be useful for many different animals, for making silent alarm calls or locating other members of your species. So why hasn't it evolved? The recent invention of nanoscale radio receivers suggests it is not physically impossible.

The answer might be that half a radio really is useless. Detecting natural radio waves – from lightning, for instance – would not tell animals anything useful about their environment. That means there will be no selection for mutations that allow organisms to detect radio waves. Conversely, without any means of detecting radio waves, emitting them would serve no useful purpose. Radar might not be able to evolve for similar reasons.

The contrast with visible light could hardly be greater. It is clear that simply detecting the presence or absence of light would be advantageous in many environments, that even a blurry picture is better than nothing at all, and so on right up to hawk-eyed sharpness.

Seaweed skies
Emitting visible light can be helpful too, even for creatures that cannot detect it themselves. For the bioluminescent phytoplankton that light up ocean waves, for instance, it is a way of summoning predators that eat the phytoplankton's enemies. A similar argument applies to sound: it is not hard to see how forms of echolocation evolved independently in groups such as bats, cave swiftlets and whales.

One might also wonder why plants that float in the sky like balloons have never evolved. The idea does not seem too far-fetched at first glance: many seaweeds have floats called pneumatocysts, filled with oxygen or carbon dioxide. Other algae can produce hydrogen. So fill a large, thin pneumatocyst with hydrogen and perhaps a seaweed could fly. Flying plants would beat water and land plants to the light, giving them a big advantage, so why aren't our skies filled with living green balloons?

Perhaps partly because large pneumatocysts with extremely thin membranes would be far more vulnerable to predators and damage from waves, so an intermediate stage could never evolve. What's more, algae produce hydrogen only when there's a lack of sulphur in the water, and in any case the molecules of hydrogen gas are so tiny that they would leak out of any pneumatocyst. Half a hydrogen balloon doesn't look very good for anything, at least on our planet. Even evolution has its limits.

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There are numerous evolutionary mechanisms that might explain homosexual behaviour, which is common in many species of animals

"Simple reasoning shows that evolution cannot explain homosexuality – how would a homosexuality gene get selected for?" "Why have the genetic traits predisposing to homosexuality not been eliminated long ago?"

Such arguments are surprisingly common – and completely wrong.

Homosexual behaviour has been observed in hundreds of species, from bison to penguins. It is still not clear to what extent homosexuality in humans or other animals is genetic (rather than, say, due to hormonal extremes during embryonic development), but there are many mechanisms that could explain why gene variants linked to homosexuality are maintained in a population.

A common assumption is that homosexuality means not having children, but this is not necessarily true, especially in cultures other than our own. Until it became acceptable for same-sex couples to live together in western countries, many homosexual people had partners of the opposite sex. In some traditional societies, various forms of non-exclusive homosexuality were common.

Reasons why
Among animals, homosexual behaviour is usually non-exclusive. For instance, in some populations of Japanese macaques, females prefer female sexual partners to male ones but still mate with males – they are bisexual, in other words.

It has also been suggested that homosexuality boosts individuals' reproductive success, albeit indirectly. For instance, same-sex partners might have a better chance of rising to the top of social hierarchies and getting access to the opposite sex. In some gull species, homosexual partnerships might be a response to a shortage of males – rather than have no offspring at all, some female pairs raise offspring together after mating with a male from a normal male-female pair.

Another possibility is that homosexuality evolves and persists because it benefits groups or relatives, rather than individuals. In bonobos, homosexual behaviour might have benefits at a group level by promoting social cohesion. One study in Samoa found gay men devote more time to their nieces and nephews, suggesting it might be an example of kin selection (promoting your own genes in the bodies of others).

For your health
Or perhaps homosexuality is neutral, neither reducing nor boosting overall fitness. Attempts to find an adaptive explanation for homosexual behaviour in macaques have failed, leading to suggestions that they do it purely for pleasure.

Even if homosexuality does reduce reproductive success, as most people assume, there are plenty of possible reasons why it is so common. For instance, gene variants that cause homosexual behaviour might have other, beneficial effects such as boosting fertility in women, as one recent study suggests, just as the gene variant for sickle-cell anaemia is maintained because it reduces the severity of malaria. Homosexuality could also be a result of females preferring males with certain tendencies – sexual selection can favour traits that reduce overall fitness, such as the peacock's tail (see Evolution always increases fitness).

Given that, until recently, homosexual behaviour in animals was ignored or even denied, it's hardly surprising that we cannot yet say for sure which of these explanations is correct. It could well turn out that different explanations are true in different species.

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The only thing that creationists agree on is that they don't like evolution. Even Genesis gives two contradictory accounts of creation

If someone tells you that creationism provides a better explanation for life on Earth than the theory of evolution, ask them which version of creationism.

Among creationists, there is an extraordinary range of beliefs about how life came to be. A few creationists accept that evolution produced the great diversity of life on Earth – apart from humans. Others think all life evolved but that the process was guided by a supernatural being.

Other creationists accept that evolution can lead to minor changes (microevolution) but deny that lots of little changes can result in new species or even new groups of organisms (macroevolution). Some think a deity created the very first life but then left it to evolve by itself.

Then there's the vexed issue of timing. "Young Earth Creationists" regard the Genesis account as "inerrant" despite its contradictions (see Evolution is wrong because the Bible is inerrant), and claim the planet was created about 6000 years ago. "Old Earth Creationists" meanwhile accept the hundreds of lines of evidence suggesting otherwise.

God, amok
This schism is just the beginning. Some don't dispute the earth's apparent age but believe it is an illusion (the omphalos hypothesis, which some summarise as "God faked it"). Yet others claim that the planet itself is billions of years old but that life on it was created only recently.

Creationists do at least all believe in a creator. But who is it: God, Allah, Yahweh, Brahma, Zeus, Olorun, aliens or a giant hermaphrodite?

Those who have studied our planet and the life on it, however, have come to very clear conclusions: the Earth is around 4 billion years old and all the life on it gradually evolved from much simpler forms. There is no evidence of any kind of outside intervention, and no need to invoke it to explain what is known. Yes, there are many debates among biologists, geologists and cosmologists over the finer details, but these will be resolved sooner or later by new discoveries or experiments. Reality is the ultimate arbiter.

By contrast, there is no way to resolve the often vast differences between the numerous forms of creationism. Anyone can come up with their own version of creationism (and many do). How do you convince the followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, for instance, that his noodle is not the real creator?

Re: # 601
Well Nkg...
I have already said that religon is dogma....
And a problem is that dogma also tries to explain the evolution of the universe....
And those who profess faith unfortunately would try to profess beleif in its explanations...
You see the evolution or the qustion of being is he basic premise on which every religon stands...
It holds true for Islam, Christianity as well as Hinduism....

Re: # 595
Admitting and declaring openly who one is without being afraid is not KUFR!

I did so because I did not want anyone to ask me what I believed in.

As for your disappointment with the doctor who deals with the brain-dead, well, he revealed who he really is, didn't he?

Pray for the cryogenically frozen editors of CHOWK, the vile satanic interacters, and their supporters. That's all one can do for them.

Peace.

Zeemax...
Enough. You ugly hindoo achoot, now go home and lie down with your ugly wife and produce ugly babies to populate your hindia.

Shut up now.

Ans: Ha ha ha...true muslim/scoundrel/barbarian....

Skeptical...
Khair I think the central problem is that religon is based upon unquestionable faith and those who profess to adhere will always be offended if its basic tenanats are questioned....

Ans: If you know that it is pure faith accept it. Don't try to prove that as truth with uttermost arrogance...There is no better explanation than evolution theory about the animal and plant world. Bible/Genesis can not explain existance of human life in South America, North America, Japan, Australia, China,North Europe, through this Adam & Eve theory. Human existance in these places are more than 5000 years old.
...
Coming to identity; it should not make people narrow minded. Broader the identity people take, better he/she becomes...

Well the amount of heat this article has generated is enormous....
Khair I think the central problem is that religon is based upon unquestionable faith and those who profess to adhere will always be offended if its basic tenanats are questioned....
The funny thing is that their lives are full of contradictions of the preaching of religon.....
They dont often practice the those teaching which require moulding of the lives...
And yet are ferocious when a basic tenanat is even indirectly questioned......
Any how even then I think religon should not be abused on websites because it will also strenghten the reactionary elements..
Religon like ethinicity is identity....
or at least a part of identity...
After all even Einstien became proud of his faith despite being Athiest when jews were attacked...

Re: # 598; Tahir

so I am a 'monkey' or a 'pig' now, am I? you need to get over your paranoia first before we can talk civily. I think there is enough of that on this site as it is.

Take care; just don't get carried away with negative emotions my friend

Dear brothers in faith,

Don't let CHOWK's new look fool you into thinking that some 'new management' has taken over and that things will suddenly improve. If they do at all, let it be known that I have repeatedly requested CHOWK editors to MODERATE and control the RAW-agents who have nothing better to do than analyse Pakistani news and then stoop to abusing Islam and the Prophets by pretending to be interacters!

There is deathly silence at the editor's desk. Surprised? Not only this, they are guilty of killing quite a few of my articles over the years! I beleive, they still have not received the 'security clearance' to publish them.

One door closes but many others will open. CHOWK is not the final frontier; that it has degenerated into a hate-site should not come as a surprise to those who have turned it into one.

One evening's worth of search reveals that these anti-Islam half-humans will not reform. They are nicely linked; most 'kufr' is anyway. That goodnes stands squabbling amongst itself is a sad situation and I expect that born-Muslim interacters here will remember who they are, where they come from, and where they might be headed if they join hands with 'highly-educated satans'.

Indeed, the Qur'an calls all such persons who lapse into utter unbelief 'monkeys' and 'pigs'. Why? Because the outward behaviour and moral decadence begins to resemble that of such animals.

I must thank those who stood up for me, and those who even thought of doing the same but were afraid of being ridiculed or abused.

There are three kinds of men in this world; fighters, collaborators, and traitors.

See where you fit!

Regards.

Re: # 595; Zeemax

only after his assertions about the kadianis; fair dos I have no love lost but don't like bringing in the jews to blaim everytime the Ummah has issues!

#578 Posted by izuber on April 11, 2008 11:55:53 am


Mirzai's the seedling sowed by British Jews!
How could a person who died in the toilet head down be considered a spiritual leader of the level he and his cronies claim to be?


what about a child rapists who married his daughter in law?

akcheema,

Did you call taher saheb an imbecile? Didn't expect that from you - since after all, I thought you had some class amongst garbage. I hope I wasn't wrong.

nkg,

Enough. You ugly hindoo achoot, now go home and lie down with your ugly wife and produce ugly babies to populate your hindia.

Shut up now.

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=31858
Those who blame American conspiracy etc...please check...

Tahir...
Little more...
I have stayed in a muslim house for more than 2 years. They had no son. I was (to what ever possible extent) ingrained within the family. Neither they have objected my Saraswati Puja, nor I have taunted them for animal sacrifice...
Coming to Muhammed matter, the similar opinion you will find about Bal Thackery & Siv Sena; Advani and his various Ratha Yatras; CPI(M) and their corruptions. Public figures will always be subject to scrutiny. I am not sure, whether you have access to watch "Devil's Adviocate" of CNN-IBN. Mocking our Gods (Krishna, Rama etc...) are very popular in many part of India. Unfortunately, people like you are also gaining ground in India (Baroda art galary, Taslima Nasreen etc...)...