Standard 'Evidence' for Evolution Found Lacking Time and Again Shattering
the Icons of Dogmatic Darwinism
By Angus Menuge

"[H]aving first determined the question according to his will, he then
resorts to    experience, and bending her into conformity with his placets
leads her about like a  captive in a procession"

Francis Bacon, The New Organon, LXIII

In this powerfully written book, Jonathan Wells critiques 10 of the
leading icons that have been used to support Darwinism. An icon is a
representation or likeness, and so it is something either true or false,
helpful or unhelpful. Icons are not necessarily bad, but they can
exaggerate the certainty of science. In Stephen Jay Gould's words, "ideas
passing as descriptions lead us to equate the tentative with the
unambiguously factual."

An icon can also be a devotional picture, an expression of religious or
ideological veneration. In that case, misplaced zeal may enshrine an icon
that falsifies reality.

The icon may become what Francis Bacon called an idol of the mind, a
prejudice that obstructs understanding of the natural world. Most
dangerous are what Bacon calls the idols of the theater, preconceptions
derived from "the various dogmas of philosophies and also from wrong laws
of demonstration" leading to "so many stage plays, representing worlds of
[scientists] own creation after an unreal and scenic fashion" (The New
Organon, XLIV). Wells' thesis is precisely that the icons of evolution
have become idols that distort the facts and lead to "scenic" explanations
disconnected from reality.

Indeed, Wells critique of dogmatic Darwinism parallels Bacon's attack on
Aristotelian science. Bacon advised that "Nature, in order to be
commanded, must be obeyed" (The New Organon, III). Obeying nature means
listening to what it is really saying. Wells agrees. Scientists should no;
be tied to a dogmatic starting point such as Dobzhansky's maxim that
"nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" (Wells,
245).

Rather, they should assert that "nothing in biology makes sense except in
the light of evidence" (Wells, 248). Bacon blasted the Aristotelian
approach because it "flies from the senses and particulars to the most
general axioms, and from these principles, the truth of which it takes for
settled and immovable, proceeds to judgment" (The New Organon, XIX).

This is precisely the criticism Wells levels against the Darwinist who
"starts with a preconceived idea and distorts the evidence to fit it"
(Wells, 247). As Imre Lakatos argued, real science does not immunize a
theory from falsification by "monster barring." Rather, it shatters myths
that attempt to anticipate nature and lets the evidence speak. This is
illustrated by each of the 10 icons Wells examines.

In 1953, the Miller-Urey experiment seemed to show how the building blocks
of life could arise from lightning in earth's primordial atmosphere.
Diagrams of the apparatus used are a continuing icon in contemporary
college textbooks. Yet geochemists have known for over 10 years that the
experiment makes false assumptions about the earth's atmosphere.

The experiment works only in the absence of oxygen, but geochemists have
found evidence that oxygen was present. Instead of accepting this
difficulty, dogmatists have claimed that since chemical evolution of life
must have happened this way, the early atmosphere must have lacked oxygen!
As Bacon put it in his day, "The logic now in use serves rather to fix and
give stability to the errors . . . than to help the search after truth"
(The New Organon, XII).

Textbooks also portray Darwin's tree of life, showing all species as the
result of descent with modification from common ancestors. Unfortunately,
this icon has been dislodged by both fossil and molecular evidence. The
fossil record shows an extraordinary explosion of distinct body plans in
the early Cambrian, which has not changed with the discovery of
pre-Cambrian fossils.

Attempts to save Darwin's tree using molecular evidence have shown instead
that life is better represented as a complex thicket. If Darwinism were
really advancing a testable theory, these facts would falsify it. Instead,
they are treated as "problems" that will eventually be explained away.

This kind of answer is uncomfortably reminiscent of Marxism: when
predictions of capitalist downfall repeatedly failed, an endless cast of
extenuating circumstances was paraded before us.

Theory Affirmed Regardless of Facts

Another favorite image depicts homologous limbs in vertebrates.
Empirically defined, "homology" means structural similarity, and it is a
fact that the bones in the  forelimbs of bats, porpoises, horses and
humans are remarkably similar.

Unfortunately, instead of considering a range of possibilities, dogmatic
Darwinists insisted that the only possible explanation for homology was
common descent. Very soon homology was defined as similarity due to common
descent. (This is like a bad detective whose first question is how a dead
person was murdered, as if no other explanations for death are possible.)

Yet Darwinists continue to claim that homology is evidence of common
descent, that is, that a result of common descent is the result of common
descent. As Karl Popper long ago warned, a scientific theory cannot be a
tautology.

An idea may be powerfully evoked even if it is not explicitly portrayed.
Haeckel, a contemporary of Darwin, made famous drawings of embryonic
development. They only represent ontogeny the development of individuals.
But they suggest the biogenetic law that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny
(the evolutionary history of the species).

According to Haeckel's drawings, in their early stages, there is virtually
no difference between the embryos of fish, salamander, tortoise, chick,
hog, calf, rabbit and human. This is what Darwinism would predict since it
claims these species arose from common descent.
However, we now know that the early embryos are very different and that
Haeckel's drawings were faked.

Scientists of the time were not eager to check out Haeckel's work so the
biogenetic law was "deduced from evolutionary theory rather than inferred
from the evidence" (Wells, 87) and even today, "since Darwin's theory is
affirmed regardless of the facts  biology textbooks continue to teach it"
(Wells, 101).

Darwin's theory of gradualistic evolution predicted a multitude of
transitional forms and, when they were not found, this was put down to an
imperfect geological record. Still, some were needed, and Archaeopteryx,
discovered in 1861, seemed to be the clincher. In fact, modern
paleontologists do not think this bird was the ancestor of any modern
bird, and its own origins are disputed. Darwinists have tried to find
better fossils, and their desperation has led to credulity, fueling a
cottage industry devoted to the manufacture of counterfeit relics of the
Darwinian faith.

In 1999, scientists announced the discovery of Archaeoraptor, which turned
out to be "a dinosaur tail glued to the body of a primitive bird" (Wells,
124). Then it was trumpeted that a sample of Triceratops DNA was similar
to the DNA of modern turkeys. Actually, it was 100% identical, prompting
the suggestion that the sample had been contaminated by a turkey sandwich.
"This isn't science. This isn't even myth. This is comic relief" (Wells, 134).

Surely the peppered moths or Darwin's finches are unassailable? Not so.

It had been claimed that darker peppered moths would have an adaptive
advantage if they rested on tree trunks blackened by pollution since they
would be better camouflaged from predators. The problem is that peppered
moths don=92t rest on tree trunks, but hide under branches. Like the dead
parrot of Monty Python that is nailed to its perch, textbook pictures show
dead moths stuck to tree trunks.

By contrast, Darwin's finches do provide evidence of natural selection.
During a drought on the Galapagos Islands, the average beak size of
finches increased, enabling them to eat the larger, drought resistant
seeds. By extrapolation, it was claimed that a new species of finch might
develop within 200 years. Unfortunately, when the rains came, the beak
sizes returned to normal, and the evidence only supports oscillating
natural selection with no net evolutionary change.

Fruit Flies Became Less Well Adapted

It is well known that bacteria gain resistance to antibiotics and that
insects adapt to insecticide. However, these changes do not affect
morphology: they do not create a new body plan, and this is what is needed
for a new species to arise.

It seemed that fruit flies would change all this. With a series of
controlled mutations, it is possible to develop fruit flies with four,
rather than two wings. Unfortunately, the new wings lack flight muscles
and replace the fruit fly's stabilizers so the result is less well
adapted.

At one time the fossil record seemed to show a clear, linear transition
from ancient four-toed horses to modern single-toed horses. Later, it
seemed there was more branching, and this was used by neo-Darwinists to
claim that evolution is an undirected process. However, this is really a
philosophical claim and, as Wells documents, it is disturbing how much
materialist philosophy is taught under the guise of science.

Even more speculative, and a good example of Bacon's idols of the theater,
are the accounts of human evolution offered by paleoanthropologists. Here
it becomes obvious that certain stories are appealing for ideological
reasons and that the fossils are placed "into preexisting narrative
structures" (Wells, 223). One can hear Winston Churchill made biologist:
"Never in the field of science have so many based so much on so little"
(Wells, 225).

Overall, Well=92s book is very well written and meticulously researched.
Icons of Evolution does biologists and citizens a great service by
exposing the overblown claims and unwarranted cultural power enjoyed (and
abused) by dogmatic Darwinists.

"Biologists, most of whom are truth-seekers rather than dogmatists, will
presumably want to take the lead in cleaning their own house" (Wells,
244). The top-10 buckets of Darwinism are all leaky, so the theory doesn't
hold water. If scientists don=92t want to look like turkeys, they had better
start bringing home the Bacon.

________________
Mr. Menuge is associate professor of Philosophy at Concordia University in
Wisconsin.
Human Events, 2000

Oryginal: http://www.humaneventsonline.com/articles/12-01-00/menuge.html