The broad claim of the Fact of Evolution is often expressed by the term common descent. The intended meaning is that all observable life forms are descended from a common ancestor. The proposed Evolutionary mechanism for universal common descent is that a large set of genetic mutations has been guided by natural selection to form all observable life forms (both plant and animal) from a single common ancestor.
It is always possible to accept the empirical facts of scientific research and to reject the speculative conclusions derived from those facts. For example, consider this statement from a Discovery Institute petition entitled A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism:
We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life.[1]
The scientists who signed this petition aren’t skeptical about either random genetic mutations or the process of natural selection. However, they are skeptical that they can be combined to prove common descent. In other words, neither the existence of random genetic mutations nor the principle behind natural selection is in doubt. Rather, their skepticism concerns what random mutations and natural selection can accomplish.
Even believers in a literal 6-day creation (as in the Genesis account[2]) support the validity of natural selection. In fact, they rely on natural selection to describe how the feature set of organisms can change through the loss of genetic information rather than through the gain of genetic information. For example, consider Carl Wieland’s description of how natural selection actually works (quoting from Creation.com):
Say a population of plants has a mix of genes for the length of its roots. Expose that population over generations to repeated spells of very dry weather, and the plants most likely to survive are the ones which have longer roots to get down to deeper water tables. Thus, the genes for shorter roots are less likely to get passed on (…). In time, none of these plants will any longer have genes for short roots, so they will be of the ‘long root’ type. They are now better adapted to dry conditions than their forebears were.
...
It cannot be stressed enough that what natural selection actually does is get rid of information. It is not capable of creating anything new, by definition. In the above example, the plants became better able to survive dry weather because of the elimination of certain genes; i.e. they lost a portion of the information which their ancestors had. The information for the longer roots was already in the parent population; natural selection caused nothing new to arise in, or be added to, the population.
The price paid for adaptation, or specialization, is always the permanent loss of some of the information in that group of organisms. If the environment were changed back so that shorter roots were the only way for plants to survive, the information for these would not magically ‘reappear’; the population would no longer be able to adapt in this direction. The only way for a short-rooted variety to arise as an adaptation to the environment would be if things began once more with the ‘mixed’ or ‘mongrel’ parent population, in which both types of genes were present.[3]
In this passage, Wieland makes the point that natural selection adds no information to the genome of a species. In fact, Wieland describes how natural selection works to remove information from the genome of a species. In essence, natural selection adapts species to their environment by removing the genetic information for variants of the species that suffer from a survival disadvantage.
The Disney Fairy Tinker Bell story is analogous to how Evolution is alleged to work.[4] In such an analogy, the genetic mutations function as fairy-dust and natural selection functions as a magic-wand. Sprinkling magical fairy dust (genetic mutations) on a common ancestor and waving the magic wand (natural selection) turns a comparatively simple common ancestor into a variety of highly complex life forms – Presto Change-o.
Even if natural selection functions like a magic wand, it still needs the magic fairy dust of constructive genetic mutations. However, there is a lot of evidence that genetic mutations are rarely, if ever, constructive. This is even true for mutations with positive consequences, such as immunity from malaria. This quote from Henry Morris and Gary Parker’s What is Creation Science describes the destructive nature of this mutation:
“Sickle cell anemia” is often given as an example of a positive mutation, because people carrying sickle cell hemoglobin in their red blood cells (Ss) are immune to malaria. But the price of the protection is high – 25% of the children of carriers will probably die from anemia (ss), and another 25% are subject to malaria. The gene will be automatically selected where the death rate for malaria is high, but evolutionists themselves admit that short term advantages – all that natural selection favors – can produce “mischievous results” detrimental to long term survival.[5]
In the Edge of Evolution, Michael Behe talks extensively about the assorted mutations that provide humans immunity to malaria.[6] Behe’s argument is that such mutations may prevent malaria, but all of them reduce the normal function of the mutated gene, rather than enhancing it:
Here’s the bottom line: They are all damaging. Some are worse than others, but all are diminishments; none are constructive. Like sickle hemoglobin, they are all acts of desperation to stave off an invader.[7]
Evolutionists often cite the same basic set of examples in an attempt to demonstrate the Fact of Evolution in action.[8] For example, here are three commonly cited examples: peppered moths, wingless beetles, and antibiotic resistance. However, an article from Answers in Genesis (AIG) points out that none of these examples prove that genetic mutations have increased the information content of a species genome.[9]
In the case of the peppered moths, the ratio of light-colored moths to dark-colored moths appears to change based on environmental conditions. The 1990 Science Framework issued by the California State Board of Education described this as an example of natural selection, rather than an example of evolutionary change:
Students should understand that this is not an example of evolutionary change from light-colored to dark-colored to light-colored moths because both kinds were already in the parent population. This is an example of natural selection … [10]
The evidence of peppered moths fits very well with the belief that natural selection can impact which variant of a species thrives. But examples of natural selection in action are insufficient to demonstrate that particles-to-people or molecules-to-man Evolution has occurred.[11] As Carl Wieland has pointed out, Evolution can be false, even if Darwin’s Finches shared a common ancestor.[12]
The existence of wingless beetles is commonly cited as another example of Evolution in action. However, Evolution requires a set of genetic mutations that produce a gain of genetic information. Perhaps wingless beetles are an example of a loss of genetic complexity rather than a gain of genetic complexity. Kenneth Patman describes this possibility in this quote from an Answers in Genesis (AIG) article:
Darwin called attention to wingless beetles on the island of Madeira. For a beetle living on a windy island, wings can be a definite disadvantage, because creatures in flight are more likely to be blown into the sea. Mutations producing the loss of flight could be helpful. The sightless cave fish would be similar. Eyes are quite vulnerable to injury, and a creature that lives in pitch dark would benefit from mutations that would replace the eye with scar-like tissue, reducing that vulnerability. In the world of light, having no eyes would be a terrible handicap, but it is no disadvantage in a dark cave. While these mutations produce a drastic and beneficial change, it is important to notice that they always involve loss of information and never gain. One never observes the reverse occurring, namely wings or eyes being produced on creatures which never had the information to produce them.[13]
Because of this alternate possibility for how wingless beetles may have originated, simply citing their existence does not prove that beetles evolved wings through information-gaining mutations. Without knowing for sure that new genes were created (to make wings) or old genes were lost (to lose wings), any conclusion about how wings developed is premature (as in the Porsche example from Chapter 1).[14]
Without citing what genetic information was gained in the transformation from wingless to winged beetles, the hypothesis of positive genetic mutations forming wings lacks empirical evidence. Similarly, without citing what genetic information was lost in the transformation from winged to wingless beetles, the hypothesis of lost genetic information also lacks empirical evidence. Both conclusions are premature.
As was stated in Chapter 1, much about the exact process for forming physical features through genetic instructions is still a mystery. There is simply a lack of detailed scientific knowledge about how genes form physical structures such as beetle wings. For example, this quote from Jonathan Marks’ What it means to be 98% Chimpanzee describes the lack of knowledge regarding the genetic control of human height:
But let us focus on the genes for height. No such genes have been found or mapped, but it has been estimated that there are about eight of them. And maybe there are.[15]
The case of antibiotic resistance in bacteria is another example commonly cited to prove Evolution in action. However, some forms of bacterial resistance to antibiotics were present in the bacterial population before antibiotics were ever developed. This quote from an Answers in Genesis (AIG) article argues that such bacterial resistance is best explained by pre-existing genetic variety rather than by Evolutionary development:
Some antibiotic resistance was already present in the bacterial population, as shown by specimens frozen before the development of antibiotics. So natural selection only selected from pre-existing variation. But nothing new was produced.[16]
Other examples of antibiotic resistance in bacteria can be caused by a damaging loss of genetic information. For many of these mutations, devastating side effects exist. Consequently, natural selection would likely not preserve these mutations in populations of bacteria that live in an antibiotic-free environment. This quote from an Answers in Genesis (AIG) article describes reasons why this is so:
Also, a loss of information can cause bacterial antibiotic resistance, e.g. penicillin resistance in Staphylococcus can be due to a mutation causing a regulatory gene’s loss of control of production of penicillinase (an enzyme which destroys penicillin). The resulting overproduction of penicillinase increases resistance to penicillin. But in the wild (away from artificial environments swamped with penicillin), the Staphylococcus would be less ‘fit’ because it wastes resources producing heaps of unnecessary protein.
Another common cause of antibiotic resistance is mutational defects which hinder the bacterium’s ability to transport substances through its cell membrane. Such a defect means that the antibiotic is less readily absorbed, so it is less likely to kill the bacterium. But in the wild, it would be unable to compete with bacteria with properly working cell membrane pumps which take up nutrients into the cell.[17]
These examples of antibiotic resistance indicate that some mutations can appear to be positive even though they can have a negative side effect. However, the loss of genetic information has consequences. For example, a single defect in the 6th slot of the 574-slot hemoglobin protein is the cause for sickle-cell anemia in humans.[18] Nevertheless, this single defect is often cited as positive because it also provides immunity to malaria.
It is very misleading to allege that human immunity to malaria or the resistance of bacteria to antibiotics provides any sort of proof for the hypothesis of common descent. All these examples prove is that genetic mutations do occur and that natural selection can preserve them – even when they are damaging. But the evidence that such mutations are capable of producing fantastic new biological designs – such as wings – is non-existent.
To understand why a typical mutation is destructive, consider the analogy of a lock and key. One can easily imagine using a metal file on a common door key to alter its shape so that it no longer fits the door lock that it was designed for. But this is a far different task than taking a metal file to a raw piece of metal and creating a functional key that fits in the door look, with no knowledge of the specific key pattern required.
In an analogous way, typical genetic mutations can alter the shape of a biochemical key so that it no longer fits a biochemical lock. For example, a single amino-acid change in the hemoglobin protein alters the entire shape of a human blood cell.[19] This simple mutation provides human beings with immunity to malaria. But it also creates sickle-cell anemia – as the altered red blood cells clog the flow of blood and lead to anemia.[20]
This form of human immunity to malaria offers empirical evidence that genetic mutations happen – and nobody disputes this. It also provides empirical evidence that natural selection can keep altered genetic information – and nobody disputes this. But it is hard to imagine why this provides any proof at all for the common descent of all organisms from a single ancestor.
The sickle-cell mutation provides immunity to malaria occurs because the parasitic organism is no longer able to digest the modified Hemoglobin molecule.[21] In essence, this single-site mutation has altered the shape of a biochemical key so that it no longer fits a biochemical lock. However, this mutation is hardly a reason to proclaim that particles-to-people or molecules-to-man Evolution has been proven a fact.
There is a huge distance between a random collection of atoms and the complex biochemical systems of human beings. Biochemist Bruce Alberts has described the cell as a factory that contains an “elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines.”[22] According to Alberts, biochemical systems often involve “assemblies of 10 or more protein molecules” that combine to make a “protein machine.”[23]
Alberts has indicated that scientists have “always underestimated cells; undoubtedly we still do today.”[24] If one examines this quote from Alberts’ Biology Past and Biology Future, it is very clear that scientists are a long way from understanding the detailed operation of complicated cellular mechanisms:
There are many exciting challenges ahead for biologists. Living organisms are so complicated that we will need new methods of analysis to achieve any deep understanding of their molecular mechanisms. To take just one example, large organisms like ourselves are formed from thousands of billions [i.e., trillions] of cells, which join together to form an elaborate cell cooperative. Because each cell in this cooperative must behave in a manner appropriate for the organism as a whole, the cells must constantly read the signals from their surroundings to decide whether to remain quiescent (the normal state for most of them), to multiply to create more identical cells, to both multiply and differentiate to produce cells of a different type, or to die for the good of their neighbors. Rarely, mistakes are made; some cause diseases such as cancer, destroying the whole cooperative. There are therefore both intellectual and practical reasons for scientists to concentrate on understanding how a cell makes decisions, a process that we might loosely refer to as “cell thinking.”[25]
Why have scientists always underestimated cells? I would suggest that it is because they have assumed that Evolution is true before many biochemical details of living organisms were ever known. Hence, they have taken a simple-cell for granted. But we now know that cells are very far from simple blobs of organic chemicals. As Alberts has described, cells are like a complex factory filled with microscopic protein machines.
The case for Evolution is often made with rhetorical arguments. Rhetorical arguments often assume things. For example, Richard Dawkins has assumed a light sensitive spot as a starting point in a rhetorical account of how the eye may have evolved.[26] However, light sensitive spots are highly complicated biochemical objects. A head-spinning description by biochemist Michael Behe clearly demonstrates this.[27]
Scientists have now gathered much knowledge about the complicated biochemical process behind cellular mechanisms, such as light sensitive spots. Given the complexity of such cellular mechanisms, it is hard to imagine why their naturalistic origin should be taken for granted. To do so amounts to an act of blind faith, rather than the establishment of a scientific fact based on empirical evidence.
Citing numerous single-site genetic mutations simply does not prove that Evolution created enough genetic information to build “an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines.” Such complexity goes overwhelmingly beyond the analogy of blinding filing on pieces of metal to create a functional key for a lock. It goes even further beyond the analogy of wrecking the functionality of a mechanical key with a metal file.
Universal common descent is a broad claim that requires an enormous amount of proof. It requires evidence that each living species can be connected to a common ancestor through a sequence of small mutations, with each mutational step providing some survival benefit to a transitional species. This is the essential hypothesis of the Fact of Evolution. This is the broad hypothesis that provokes such skepticism among critics.
How can scientists be certain that a long sequence of hypothetical mutations will create viable organisms that have an increasing ramp of survival advantages? They can’t. Science currently lacks detailed knowledge about how genetic instructions build organisms. Ignorance about the details of genetic construction prohibits any claim that such hypothetical paths are supported by empirical proof.
In the world of engineering, you normally have to demonstrate that you can walk before somebody will believe that you can run. That is why many engineering designs require a pilot project to demonstrate their feasibility. Consider a real-world engineering project with a goal of mutating a single-celled organism into a human being. What type of pilot project would be required to demonstrate a possible Evolutionary path existed?
It is likely that the first step in such a pilot project would be to demonstrate that a single-celled organism could be turned into a multi-cellular organism through a verifiable path of simple mutations. Without any empirical evidence for this first evolutionary step, it seems rather pointless to argue that the remaining steps in the long evolutionary sequence to a human being are a sure thing – i.e., a fact.
However, this first step creates a major problem for the hypothetical engineering team. As Alberts has described, we currently lack a detailed understanding of many complicated cellular mechanisms. In order to figure out an empirical mutational sequence for turning a single-celled organism into a multi-celled organism, a human engineering team would first need to understand the intricate details of cellular operations.
An appropriate simulator is often required to work out the details of a complex engineering project. Such simulators are vital to designing computers, aircraft, bridges, skyscrapers, and many other engineering projects. Our hypothetical engineering team would likely require a biological-simulator. However, our current lack of understanding about cellular mechanisms makes building such a biological-simulator impossible.
But assume we had such a biological-simulator. Its function would be to simulate the construction of a virtual-organism from a set of DNA (i.e., an input genome). A hypothetical team of engineers would be able to feed mutated genomes into such a biological-simulator and analyze the resulting virtual-organism to see if it had enhanced survival capability.
In each step of the design process, the hypothetical engineering team would introduce a proposed mutation into the starting genome and run the biological-simulator to verify that a functional organism with survival advantages would be produced. If the simulation demonstrated that the mutated organism had survival advantages, the mutated genome would become the starting genome for the next step in the design process.
The ultimate result of this exercise would be a long sequence of genomes that transitioned a single-celled organism into a multi-cellular organism. In order to verify that the biological-simulator actually matched life forms in the real world, a sub-set of the genomes would need to be turned into real-world organisms. The behavior of these real-world organisms would then be compared with the computer-simulated organisms.
If Evolutionists were able to demonstrate a real-world engineering project of this nature, it would provide empirical evidence that a simple mutational path from single-celled to multi-cellular organisms exists. However, this first step of Evolution has not been substantiated with a set of computer-simulated genomes or with a set of real-organisms created from these genomes. This means that it is a hypothetical first step.
In the computer world, some products are classified as hardware and some products are classified as software. Other products are jokingly referred to as vaporware.[28] A vaporware product is one that has not yet been built, and may never be built because of unforeseen technical issues. From the perspective of an engineering design, the first step of Evolution is best described as vaporware.
Anybody with significant engineering experience knows that there are many potential pitfalls that can come up during the design of a complex project. Theoretically feasible ideas at the start of an engineering project often run into real world roadblocks that appear as the details of the design are worked out. It is very plausible that the Fact of Evolution would run into such roadblocks, if analyzed at the level of technical details.
The concept that Evolution built complex interlocked networks of biochemical components one small mutation at a time is a hypothesis and not an empirically proven fact. Because biochemical systems require multiple interlocked components to perform their function, there is reason to doubt this hypothesis. To understand why this is so, consider a common jigsaw puzzle built with interlocking pieces.
Imagine a jigsaw puzzle with say 1000 pieces. Now imagine picking a piece out of the center of the puzzle. Imagine that you want to change the shape of this piece to modify the puzzle. Because the puzzle pieces fit together tightly, changing the shape of one puzzle piece without making simultaneous changes to other puzzle pieces is impossible. You can’t add a bump to any piece without making an indentation on another piece.
When you add a zig to one piece in an interlocking network you normally need to add a corresponding zag to another piece. Changes to interlocked networks tend to have stages of ripple effects. That is one reason why software programmers dread making changes in complicated programs. What seems like a simple change in one place often requires corresponding changes in numerous other places to maintain functionality.
Changing multiple pieces simultaneously is something that Evolution needs to avoid for it to be a plausible theory. This is because there is little chance of making two random changes to a complicated interlocked network, such that the changes not only maintain the functionality of the interlocked network, but improve it. A long sequence of matching random changes of this nature is extremely unlikely.
Evolution would require a long sequence of small beneficial changes to get from a simple cell to a human being. As an analogy, imagine attempting to change an early Intel microprocessor like the 8086 into a modern Pentium microprocessor by adding one transistor at a time. This process would require increasing the number of transistors from about 20,000 in the 8086[29] to about 3.1 million transistors in the earliest Pentiums[30].
The concept that you could change an 8086 into a Pentium by adding one random transistor at a time – and create a functionally improved microprocessor with each new transistor – is a laughable one. Even if a highly intelligent computer engineer added non-random transistors, it is questionable whether such a design target could ever be met. Yet this is analogous to the gradual-change hypothesized by the Fact of Evolution.
Without any empirical proof for mutational pathways that will incrementally increase complexity, the creative power of natural selection rests on unproven rhetoric. Nevertheless, the rhetorical power of Natural Selection to climb high mountains of improbability one-step at a time is widely trumpeted. This is illustrated by a quote from Richard Dawkins’ Climbing Mount Improbable:
This is another way of saying that objects such as these cannot be explained as coming into existence by chance. As we have seen, to invoke chance, on its own, as an explanation, is equivalent to vaulting from the bottom to the top of Mount Improbable's steepest cliff in one bound. And what corresponds to inching up the kindly, grassy slopes on the other side of the mountain? It is the slow, cumulative, one-step-at-a-time, non-random survival of random variants that Darwin called natural selection.[31]
The rhetorical problem of gradual change connecting all life forms only gets worse if one stops to consider that the assumed starting point is a functional organism. As the quotes in Chapter 1 indicated, the naturalistic origin of life is a highly speculative proposition. For example, this quote from Francis Crick indicates that even getting to the starting point of a common ancestor seems like a miracle:
The origin of life appears to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to be satisfied to get it going.[32]
If one believes in Magic Wands and Magic Fairy Dust, miraculous transformations are clearly possible. But the Fact of Evolution is supposed to be about concrete proof rather than rhetorical stories about magical changes. However, instead of providing empirical proof, some Evolutionists claim that simple mutations can lead to complex changes. For example, consider this quote from a Scientific American article by John Rennie:
Mutations that arise in the homeobox (Hox) family of development-regulating genes in animals can also have complex effects. Hox genes direct where legs, wings, antennae and body segments should grow. In fruit flies, for instance, the mutation called Antennapedia causes legs to sprout where antennae should grow. These abnormal limbs are not functional, but their existence demonstrates that genetic mistakes can produce complex structures, which natural selection can then test for possible uses.[33]
At first sight, a simple Hox gene mutation appears capable of miraculously producing complex features such as legs and wings. But there is a simple explanation behind this false interpretation of what is happening. The Hox genes don’t create the genetic information to produce a leg. They simply enable it to be turned on. Unless the genetic information was there to begin with, a Hox gene mutation is useless.
Jonathan Sarfati of Creation Ministries International describes why the creative power of the Hox gene mutation isn’t as miraculous as Rennie promotes it to be:
Once again, there is no new information! Rather, a mutation in the hox gene results in already-existing information being switched on in the wrong place. … The hox gene did not produce any of the information that results in the complex structure of the leg ….
Amazing—natural selection can test for ‘possible uses’ of ‘non-functional’ (i.e. useless!) limbs in the wrong place. Such deformities would be active hindrances to survival.[34]
Note that Sarfati does not dispute the factual details of the Hox gene mutation. Instead, Sarfati explains that the Hox gene mutation did not create the genetic instructions to build a fruit fly leg. Sarfati points out that the genetic information to build functional legs was already present in the fruit flies prior to the mutation. Hence, the Hox gene mutation simply used existing genetic information to build a fruit fly leg in the wrong place.
The fly leg built in the wrong place had no functionality, because the Hox gene mutation created none of the connections needed for a functional leg. It is analogous to changing one piece in the center of a jigsaw puzzle. In contrast to what Rennie implies, Sarfati points out that a useless limb would be a hindrance to survival rather than a benefit. Hence, natural selection would tend to eliminate it rather than preserve it.
There are other cases where Evolutionists believe mutations can produce large-scale effects. For example, gene duplication is a mutational process where whole genes may be inadvertently duplicated. This is described in another quote from Rennie’s Scientific American article:
Whole genes can be accidentally duplicated in an organism's DNA, and the duplicates are free to mutate into genes for new, complex features.[35]
There is certainly factual evidence that huge numbers of duplicated genes can occur in some organisms. This Alexander Williams quote from an Answers in Genesis (AIG) article shows Biblical Creationists are not afraid to admit that gene duplication exists:
But surprisingly, the all-time champion of genetic multiplication is a super-giant bacterium. Epulopiscium fishelsoni is the world’s largest bacterium. It is half a millimetre long and weighs in at a million times the mass of a typical bacterium. In fact no-one believed it was a bacterium until genetic tests proved it. And it has a whopping 25 times as much DNA as a human cell. The number of multiple copies of one of its genes has been counted and found to be no less than 85,000.[36]
However, what empirical evidence demonstrates that such duplicated genes produce amazing new features? The 85,000 duplicate copies of the above gene don’t seem to be making this bacterium into a super-intelligent bacterium, or a flying bacterium, or a bacterium with a complex vision system. In effect, the 85,000 duplicated copies of the above gene don’t appear to have any kind of magically creative powers.
Skeptics of the Fact of Evolution don’t deny that Gene Duplication exists. They just dispute its power to create new genetic information. For example, Sarfati argues that doubling each page in a book doesn’t double the information in the book.[37] Sarfati also points out that having a duplicate copy of a gene in a DNA stream doesn’t necessarily mean that the natural selection may guide its mutational path.[38]
For example, nobody disputes that duplicated genes may be “free to mutate.” But there is more to the story. Cells use the code stored in genes to produce the amino acid sequence for a protein. But the protein manufacturing process is turned on and off through a process called gene expression.[39] If a duplicate gene is not expressed, then the cell will not use it to manufacture a protein, and it will be functionally useless.
There is no survival advantage in mutating switched off genes. An unexpressed duplicate gene may be free to mutate, but natural selection will have no way to guide its mutation process. Consequently, Evolution through gene duplication means climbing Mount Improbable without guidance from natural selection. As Dawkins has pointed out, this is highly improbable.
Mutations to such inactive genes are labeled neutral mutations because they can receive no help from natural selection. Even if an unexpressed gene could miraculously claw its way up the impossibly steep slopes of Mount Improbable without any help from natural selection, it would still have a fundamental issue to overcome. After this magical transformation, the protein production for the mutated gene would need to be turned on.
Claiming that Gene Duplication has created complex biological features is not unlike claiming that a magic wand sprinkled with magic fairy dust can perform magical feats. If Gene Duplication produced miracles, they were performed behind a curtain, where nobody could witness the magical creation of anything like the step-by-step creation of an “elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines.”
In the Wizard of Oz movie, the dog Toto pulls back a curtain to reveal that the Wizard of Oz is an ordinary man with no magical power. In seeking to keep his lack of magical power a secret, the man responds: “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”[40] However, once the curtain was pulled, the huff and puff of the great and powerful Wizard was gone. Perhaps it is the same way with the magical powers attributed to Evolution.
Acknowledgments
Endnotes are contained in the following section. The following shorthand notation connects the numbered endnotes to permission statements:
N(x, y, z, …) indicates endnotes numbered ‘x’, ‘y’, ‘z’.
I gratefully acknowledge permission to reproduce quotes from the following copyrighted material:
N(3, 34, 37, 38): Used with the permission of Creation Ministries International – www.creation.com.
N(5, 21): From What is Creation-Science by Henry Morris and Gary Parker, 19th printing, July 2004. Used with permission from the publisher – Master Books, Green Forest , AR
N(2): Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
N(9, 11, 13, 16, 17, 36): Used with the permission of Answers in Genesis – www.answersingenesis.org.
N(15): Jonathan Marks, What It Means To Be 98% Chimpanzee: Apes, People, and Their Genes. (c) 2002 by the Regents of the University of California University of California University of California Press
N(24, 25): Bruce Alberts, “Biology Past and Biology Future: Where have we been and where are we going?,” http://www.interacademies.net/?id=7642. Used with the permission of the author – Bruce Alberts.
N(27): The Access Research Network permits this document to be reproduced in its entirety for non-commercial use: Michael Behe, "Molecular Machines – Experimental Support for the Design Inference”, 1997, http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_mm92496.htm.
N(37): From Refuting Evolution 2 by Jonathan Sarfati, 4th printing, April 2005. Used with permission from the publisher – Master Books, Green Forest , AR
Notes and References
[1]. “A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism,” Discovery Institute, January 2010, http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=660.
[2]. See Genesis 1-2 at BibleGateway.com: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201-2&version=NIV.
[3]. Carl Wieland, “Muddy Waters - Clarifying the confusion about natural selection,” Creation 23(3):26–29, June 2001, http://creation.com/muddy-waters.
[5]. Henry M. Morris and Gary E. Parker, What is Creation-Science, 19th printing (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 1987), p. 104.
[8]. Phillip Johnson, Darwin on Trial, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL.: Intervarsity Press, 1993), pp. 24-28.
[9]. “Has Evolution really been observed?” Answers in Genesis, http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/508.asp.
[10]. “Science Framework,” California State Board of Education, 1990, p. 103, as quoted from the website: “The Peppered Moth Story: Prime Example of Evolution,” http://www3.telus.net/csabc/PepperedMoth.html.
[11]. “Molecules-to-man” and “Particles-to-people” are phrases used by Answers in Genesis (AIG) to emphasize the broad claim associated with the Fact of Evolution. See the website: “Has Evolution really been observed?” Answers in Genesis, http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/508.asp.
[12]. Carl Wieland, “
[13]. Kenneth Patman, “Genetics: no friend of evolution”, Creation 20(2):20–22, March 1998, http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i2/genetics.asp.
[14]. See Chapter 1 of “The Fact of Evolution?” at the website: http://sites.google.com/site/factofevolution/.
[15]. Jonathan Marks, What it means to be 98% chimpanzee (
[16]. “Has Evolution really been observed?” Answers in Genesis, http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/508.asp.
[17].“Has Evolution really been observed?” Answers in Genesis, http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/508.asp.
[18]. “Creation Column: Evolutionary Probabilities,” The Forerunner, December 2007, http://www.forerunner.com/forerunner/X0728_Evolutionary_Improba.html
[20]. “What is Sickle Cell Anemia”, National Institutes of Health, August 2008, http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/Sca/SCA_WhatIs.html.
[21]. Henry M. Morris and Gary E. Parker, What is Creation-Science, 19th printing (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 1987), p. 105.
[22]. Bruce Alberts, “The Cell as a Collection of Protein Machines: Preparing the Next Generation of Molecular Biologists,” Cell 92(3):291-4, 6 February 1998, p. 291, as quoted from the website: Science Direct, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6WSN-419K592-1/2/fc6ab6ca1e175d970b76c6a10ad6e81a.
[23]. Bruce Alberts, “The Cell as a Collection of Protein Machines: Preparing the Next Generation of Molecular Biologists,” Cell 92(3):291-4, 6 February 1998, p. 291, as quoted from the website: Science Direct, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6WSN-419K592-1/2/fc6ab6ca1e175d970b76c6a10ad6e81a.
[24]. Bruce Alberts, “Biology Past and Biology Future: Where have we been and where are we going?” http://www.interacademies.net/?id=7642.
[25]. Bruce Alberts, “Biology Past and Biology Future: Where have we been and where are we going?” http://www.interacademies.net/?id=7642.
[27]. Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box (New York: Free Press, 1996), pp. 18-21. For a similar discussion, see “The Eyesight of Man” at the website: Michael Behe, "Molecular Machines – Experimental Support for the Design Inference”, 1997, http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_mm92496.htm.
[32]. Francis Crick, Life Itself (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981) as quoted in the book: Lee Strobel, The Case For Faith (
[33]. John Rennie, “15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense,” Scientific American, 287 (1):78–85, July 2002, Item 10, http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=15-answers-to-creationist&page=4.
[34]. Jonathan Sarfati, “15 ways to refute materialistic bigotry,” Item 10, http://creation.com/15-ways-to-refute-materialistic-bigotry.
[35]. John Rennie, “15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense,” Scientific American, 287 (1):78–85, July 2002, Item 10, http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=15-answers-to-creationist&page=4.
[36]. Alexander Williams, “Copying confusion: Does duplication of existing DNA help evolution?” Creation 25(4):15, September 2003, http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v25/i4/DNAduplication.asp. Technical details used in this quote were cited from this article: James Randerson, “Record breaker,” New Scientist, 8 June 2002, http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg17423461.600.
[37]. Jonathan Sarfati, Refuting Evolution 2, 4th printing (
[38]. Jonathan Sarfati, “15 ways to refute materialistic bigotry,” Item 10, http://creation.com/15-ways-to-refute-materialistic-bigotry.
[40]. “The Wizard of Oz – Movie Script,” Copyright © 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer, http://www.wendyswizardofoz.com/printablescript.htm.
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