Transcript Slide 1

Motivation
• In a completely rational world, the theory of
evolution would have disappeared decades ago.
What is not commonly understood is how very
weak the arguments for evolution are, how
overwhelming a number of the arguments
against it are, and how thoroughly the doctrine
has been disproved over the last century.
There are several lines of argument against
evolution which should have killed it off by now,
and I mean that any one of these arguments
alone should have sufficed to kill it.
The List of Such Arguments
Includes:
Arguments from the realm of
mathematics and probability:
•
"The likelihood of the formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a
number with 40,000 noughts after it... It is big enough to bury Darwin and
the whole theory of Evolution. There was no primeval soup, neither on this
planet nor on any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random, they
must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence."
Sir Fred Hoyle
Nature, Nov 12, 1981, p. 148
•
Beginning in the mid 1960s at a number of symposia at the Wistar center in
Philadelphia a number of the world's best mathematicians tried to explain
the nature of reality to evolutionists, who are still in denial:
http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/20hist12.htm
See also:
http://evolutionisimpossible.com/math.html
Fruit fly experiments:
• Fruit flies breed new generations every couple of days, so that
breeding them for 20 or 30 years will involve more generations of
fruit flies than there have ever been of humans or anything
resembling humans on the Earth. This was in fact done in the early
decades of the 1900s in an all out effort to produce macroevolution
in the lab. They subjected the flies to heat, cold, shock, blast,
radiation, noise, and everything else known to produce mutations
and then recombined mutants every possible way, and all they ever
got were fruit flies. The results were so striking that several of the
scientists involved publiclly renounced evolution including the
famous case of Richard Goldschmidt who afterwards claimed he
was being subjected by colleagues to something akin to the 10minute hate sessions which George Orwell described.
http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/10mut10.htm
Questions involving thermodynamics
(our other paper tonight)
The fossil record:
• The fossil record simply does not show the kinds
of intermediate fossils which darwinism
demanded. It shows animal species going for
long periods of time without changing (STASIS),
and the abrupt emergence of new kinds of
animals.
• The recent Gould/Eldredge "punctuated
equilibria" variation of evolution attempts to deal
with this problem but has major kinds of
problems of its own.
Neanderthal DNA studies:
• Studies of neanderthal DNA in the late
1990s have eliminated the neanderthal as
a plausible ancestor for modern man and
all other hominids are further removed
from modern man than the neanderthal.
• This leaves no possible evolutionary
antecedent for modern man on our planet.
Dinosaurs:
• There is now overwhelming evidence that
humans were dealing with at least leftover
dinosaurs just a few thousand years ago, and
then last summer they turned up soft tissue
inside a tyranosaur bone which looks much
like hamburger you'd buy at the grocery store:
• http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7285683/
Tyrannosaur Meat:
Stegosaur petroglyph at Lake Ontario, Agawa Rock
And Today’s Topic:
• Arguments from population genetics, and the
Haldane Dilemma:
Basically, to spread any genetic change (good, bad, or
indifferent) through any large population of animals
would take longer than the Earth has been here:
The Haldane dilemma is named after the mathematical
geneticist J.B.S. Haldane who described the problem in
a paper in 1957. Haldane was a committed evolutionist
who nonetheless turned up a problem for evolution
which many view as fatal.
Biotic Message
• The other name involved with this topic is
that of Walter Remine, author of a book
titled “The Biotic Message”. Haldane
would have been happy to allow his fellow
evolutionists ignore the problem to death
and into oblivion. Remine’s book is the
main thing which has prevented this.
Evolving whole populations
How do you get from here to there?
Rational and Quasi-rational
possibilities:
•
•
•
•
Apes all die, God creates man.
God kills apes, creates man.
Apes are still here, God creates man.
Man genetically re-engineered from apes
or glorified apes (australopithecines).
• Man imported from elsewhere in cosmos,
apes either still here or have died out.
• Etc. etc. etc.
Irrational possibilities:
• “Beneficial” point mutations are substituted
into the herd of chimps or “ape-like
ancestors” over a long period of time until,
five or ten million years later, all that is left
is a herd of humans.
• Evolutionites live in a sort of a fantasy
universe in which magical creatures
like “beneficial mutations” and
“balancing deaths” walk about freely.
• Bestiary creatures will be marked in red in
this presentation.
The word “bestiary” stopped one of our leaders at first.
600 Years ago common people like ourselves did not
own books. One of the more common things you’d
have found in the collections of those who did own
books would be a bestiary, basically a book describing
all of the mythical animals which supposedly lived on far
islands or in far Asia. Like the “beneficial mutation”
leading in the direction of a change in animal kind, the
creatures of the bestiary did not actually exist.
Page from a medieval bestiary
Beneficial Mutations
• In the real world, the common English
term for “mutation” is “birth defect”, and
virtually all mutations have names. None
of them are terribly beneficial:
• The Wikipedia (very long) list of genetic
disorders (another term for
“mutations”):
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genetic_disorders
Two more evolutionite bestiary creatures)
Remine: Nearly three decades ago, new techniques
allowed measurement of genetic variation for the first
time. The results were a surprise. In most populations,
each gene has many versions (known as alleles). In fact,
there is much more genetic variation than can be
reconciled with the classical selection theory. This
unanticipated result prompted various theoretical
developments to accommodate it.
The selectionists modified their theory by adding several
mechanisms for actively maintaining genetic diversity.
These mechanisms are called heterozygote advantage
and balancing selection. These special types of
selection work to keep variation.
Neutral Selection…
• Another evolutionite bestiary creature.
• Want to ruin an evolutionite’s day? Ask
him if he’d ever considered the possibility
that “neutral selection” might be an
oxymoron…
Harvard geneticist, Richard Lewontin:
– “For many years population genetics was an
immensely rich and powerful theory with virtually no
suitable facts on which to operate. It was like a
complex and exquisite machine, designed to process
a raw material that no one had succeeded in mining.
Quite suddenly the situation has changed. The
mother-lode has been tapped and facts in profusion
have been poured into the hoppers of this theory
machine. And from the other end has issued nothing. It is not that the machinery does not work, for
a great clashing of gears is clearly audible, if not
deafening, but it somehow cannot transform into a
finished product the great volume of raw material that
has been provided. The entire relationship between
the theory and the facts needs to be reconsidered.”
(Lewontin, 1974, p 189)
Military Acronyms
• FUBAR (Fouled Up Beyond Any
Recognition).
• FUBAR appears to be a good description
of the situation Lewontin is describing.
Terminology:
Remine: substituted traits are simple
changes having arisen by mutation, which
include DNA inversion, gene duplication,
or deletion, or a new location of a gene on
a chromosome but, according to the neoDarwinian synthesis, are typically a new
version of a gene - an allele. The new
substituted gene typically differs from the
old gene by one newly mutated nucleotide.
The Haldane Dilemma: Higher Arithmatic
•
Walter Remine (email):
•
Haldane's calculation goes something like this (when all the logic is filled in).
Take the reproduction rate of a higher vertebrate (especially the problematic
species with low reproduction rates, such as cows, humans, apes, whales,
elephants). Next, subtract the reproduction rate that must account for
random loss in the population (anything that affects the fit and unfit alike.
That would include large components of the losses suffered in floods, fires,
diseases, famines, and much more). Next subtract 1.0, which is the
reproduction rate required merely to continue the population into the next
generation. Next subtract the reproduction rate that must account for
harmful mutations (because many of the fit progeny suffer harmful mutation
too). Next subtract the reproduction rate that must account for the
maintenance of polymorphisms in the population. And so forth down the list
of costs. When you're all done, you have a reproduction rate of 0.1 leftover
(according to Haldane) for paying the cost of substitution. Then, if the total
cost is 30, and it is paid in installments of 0.1 per generation, then it takes
300 generations to complete one substitution.
Remine’s Simple Version:
• Imagine a population of 100,000 apes or “protohumans” ten million years ago which are all
genetically alike other than for two with a
“beneficial mutation”. Imagine also that this
population has the human or proto-human
generation cycle time of roughly 20 years.
• Imagine that the beneficial mutation in question
is so good, that all 99,998 other die out
immediately (from jealousy), and that the pair
with the beneficial mutation has 100,000 kids
and thus replenishes the herd.
• Imagine that this process goes on like that for
ten million years, which is more than anybody
claims is involved in “human evolution”. The
max number of such “beneficial mutations”
which could thus be substituted into the herd
would be ten million divided by twenty, or
500,000 point mutations which, Remine notes, is
about 1/100 of one percent of the human
genome, and a miniscule fraction of the 2 to 3
percent that separates us from chimpanzees, or
the half of that which separates us from
neanderthals.
• In a rational world, that should be as far as
most people need to read.
• That basically says that even given a rate
of evolutionary development which is
fabulously beyond anything which is
possible in the real world, starting from
apes, in ten million years the best you
could possibly hope for would be an ape
with a slightly shorter tail.
• But nobody ever accused evolutionites of
being rational. Surely, they will argue, the
problem might be resolved by having
many mutations being passed through the
herd simultaneously.
• Most of the answer involves the fact that
the vast bulk of all mutations are harmful
or fatal. ANY creature which starts
mutating willy nilly will perish.
A 100,000 Kid Family??
The “COST” of the scenario above was 50,000, i.e.
the birth rate you’d have to have to do it.
Haldane tried to resolve the problem by supposing
that the cost of substitution is being paid in
installments rather than having one woman have
100,000 kids.
This involves picturing a hose or pipeline
representing 10,000,000 years, with apes
walking in at one end, and humans walking out
at the other.
Aside from the question of intermediate fossils, there is also the question of why
we do not see creatures of all stages of such a process still walking around…
• In this hose or pipeline, at every stage as
a new trait is substituted into the herd, the
old stock dies out, as the substitution of
the new trait leads to “genetic death” of the
old stock.
• This is in fact the thing which Hitler and
other nazis were assuming to be the basic
reality of life and which became the core of
their doctrine.
• The nazis in fact were not promulgating any
failure of logic.
• In other words, if the rise of a new and
supposedly better genotype is going to cause
the old stock to die out one way or the other,
then you are clearly not doing the old stock any
favors to prolong the agony. Likewise Curtis
LeMay noted regarding the fire raids in WW-II
that (his words more or less) you’re not doing a
dog with a cancerous tail any favors to cut the
tail off in slices.
Remine: Differential survival is required for
selective gene substitution, and this
causes genetic death. There is no way
around it. Some individuals must live, and
others must die without heirs. The
substitution of a gene incurs some number
of genetic deaths. We divide this by the
number of survivors who reproductively
'pay' for the genetic deaths, and the ratio
is called the cost of substitution. In the
100,000 ape example, the cost was
enormous: 49,999.
Problems with the 1-generation
100,000-ape switch scenario above
Remine cites a number of problems with the simplistic scenario above:.
• Selection in nature is not perfect. It is rarely as intense as this
example. When selection is weaker, the substitution requires more
time.
• Beneficial mutations are not easily produced. They are rare. A
population of 100,000 is not likely to receive a major one every
generation.
• The effect of harmful mutations has not been counted. These must
be eliminated by differential survival, and this raises the cost of the
process.
• The notion of “stasis” has not been accounted for.
• Fifth, to get past fitness barriers,
evolutionists have proposed the shifting
balance hypothesis which would add to
the cost of the process.
• Often the initial traits are not directly
replaced by the final traits. There would be
many intermediate steps along the way, so
traits would typically be substituted many
times to achieve the final result.
The 100,000-kid problem…
• The most major problem:
• There is no possible way for females to
produce an average of 100,000 offspring
each.
Haldane’s model
• Births = Survivors + Genetic Deaths
• Birth = Survivors
+ Mutation Deaths
+ Segregation Deaths
+ Balancing Deaths
+ Substitution Deaths
+ Random Deaths
Divide through by # of survivors:
B -1 =PM+ PX + PB+ PS + PR
B = births per survivor
PS = B - 1 - PM - PX - PB - PR
The quantity PS is the relative number of births available to
pay the cost of substitution, i.e. it is what remains of the
birth rate after subtracting all other payments. The other
P quantities represent the average payments made each
generation toward the costs of mutation, segregation,
balancing, and random death, respectively.
Haldane estimated that over a variety of
circumstances the substitution of a gene
incurs an average cost of thirty (genetic
deaths). That means that for one person
to receive the “beneficial mutation” and the
whole pipeline scheme work, thirty people
have to die without heirs. Costs rise very
rapidly for recessive genes, and also for
fast evolution schemes.
Remine: Haldane then surveyed the capacity of higher vertebrate
species to pay the various costs. He estimated that averaged over
the long term these species have a reproductive excess of one
tenth (0.1). This means the typical higher vertebrate can reproduce
an additional one tenth its population size each generation and
devote this excess specifically (and with perfect efficiency) to paying
the cost of substitution.
In summary, the cost of substitution is 30 and it is paid off in
installments of 0.1 each generation. At that rate it takes 300
generations to pay the cost of substituting one gene. Haldane's
conclusion was clear: over the long term, the average rate of gene
substitution is no better than one gene every 300 generations.
This is the source of the 1700 substitutions in 10,000,000 years
figure you read, and of the use of the term “quadrillions of years” in
the literature.
• Walter Remine noticed that Haldane’s
presenting the theory in terms of “genetic
death” was unnecessary and offered
evolutionites ways to argue the case which
are basically not legitimate and which they
don’t really deserve to have. He (Remine)
has a new paper available which presents
the theory purely in terms of birth rates,
and which offers no room for arguments
involving “soft selection” or any such.
Let’s take a bit more of a look at that
idea of a “balancing death”…..
From “Biotic Message:
• There turned out to be much more genetic variation in
our species than selection theory would allow for.
• The original claim was that heterozygote advantage, for
example, actively prevents genetic variation from being
removed from the population. Heterozygote advantage
occurs due to the mixing of genes from two parents by
sexual reproduction. This mixing (known as Mendelian
segregation) creates homozygotes and heterozygotes
each generation. Heterozygote advantage is when the
heterozygote genotype has a survival advantage over
the homozygotes. The classic case of heterozygote
advantage is sickle-cell anemia.
• …others pointed out that selectionists
were employing this explanation too much.
It was single-handedly incurring a cost too
high for any mammalian species to pay.
“If 2000 overdominant loci are segregating,
each with 1% heterozygote advantage, and if
the selection is carried out by premature
death of less fit homozygotes, each individual
must produce on the average roughly 22,000
young in order to maintain the population
number constant from generation to
generation. (Kimura)
• Soon the selectionists had developed an
alternate mechanism for maintaining high
levels of genetic variation. The new
mechanism, generally called balancing
selection, relies on four types of selection.
It involves traits whose survival values
change depending on environmental
conditions of time, space, population
density, or gene frequency...
Pseudoscience
• The defining characteristic of what scholars refer to as a
“pseudoscience” is unfalsifiability. That is, if it is not
possible to devise a test which would falsify a theory or
doctrine, the theory is basically outside the realm of
science.
• In the case of an ideological doctrine like evolution, when
overwhelming disproofs and a long history of nothing but
surprises and reversals utterly fails to evoke anything
other than further intellectual contortions and gymnastics
from the doctrine’s adherents, then a reasonable person
assumes the definition of “pseudoscience” has been
met.
Relevant Web Sites
• Walter Remines Pages dealing with the Haldane
Dilemma”
• http://www1.minn.net/~science/Haldane.htm
• Robert Williams’ “refutation”
• http://www.gate.net/~rwms/haldane1.html
• Fred Williams’ rebuttal
• rebuttalhttp://www.evolutionfairytale.com/articles_debate
s/haldane_rebuttal.htm
• Talk.origins FAQ/FGU:
• http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB121.html
• The Fossil Record and Haldane Dilemma are the two
chief motivations for “Punctuated Equilibria” (Gouldism).
• Consider what Gould and Eldridge et. al. are saying.
Punc-eek amounts to a claim that all meaningful
evolutionary change takes place in peripheral areas,
amongst tiny groups of animals which develop some
genetic advantage, and then move out and overwhelm,
outcompete, and replace the larger herds. They are
claiming that this eliminates the need to spread genetic
change through any sizeable herd of animals and, at the
same time, is why we never find intermediate fossils
(since there are never enough of these CHANGELINGS
to leave fossil evidence).
Obvious Problems (aside from the ones
Remine mentions…)
One, it’s a pure pseudoscience; advocates actually claim
that the lack of evidence (all the missing intermediate
fossils) validates the theory since that is what would be
expected.
Similarly, Cotton Mather claimed that the fact that nobody
had ever seen or heard a witch was proof they were
there (if you could SEE them, they wouldn't BE
witches...). This kind of logic is less inhibiting than the
logic they used to teach in American schools. For
instance, I could as easily claim that the fact that I'd
never been seen with Tina Turner was all the proof
anybody should need that the two of us were secretly
married. In other words, it might not work terribly well for
science, but it's great for fantasies...
Two, PE amounts to a claim that inbreeding
is the most major source of genetic
advancement in the world.
• Three, PE requires these tiny peripheral
groups to conquer vastly larger groups of
animals millions and billions of times,
which is like requiring Custer to win at the
little Big Horn every day, for billions of
years.
Four, PE requires an eternal victory of animals specifically
adapted to localized and parochial conditions over
animals which are globally adapted, which never
happens in real life.
Five, for any number of reasons, you need a minimal
population of any animal to be viable. This is before the
tiny group even gets started in overwhelming the vast
herds. A number of American species such as the heath
hen became non-viable when their numbers were
reduced to a few thousand; at that point, any stroke of
bad luck at all, a hard winter, a skewed sex ratio in one
generation, a disease of some sort, and it's all over. The
heath hen was fine as long as it was spread out over the
East coast of the U.S. The point at which it got penned
into one of these "peripheral" areas which Gould and
Eldredge see as the salvation for evolutionism, it was all
over.
• The sort of things noted in items 3 and 5 are generally
referred to as the "gambler's problem", in this case, the
problem facing the tiny group of "peripheral" animals
being similar to that facing a gambler trying to beat the
house in blackjack or roulette; the house could lose
many hands of cards or rolls of the dice without flinching,
and the globally-adapted species spread out over a
continent could withstand just about anything short of a
continental-scale catastrophe without going extinct, while
two or three bad rolls of the dice will bankrupt the
gambler, and any combination of two or three strokes of
bad luck will wipe out the "peripheral" species. Gould's
basic method of handling this problem is to ignore it.
There's one other thing which should be obvious to anybody attempting to read through
Gould and Eldridge's writings:
•
•
•
•
•
They don't even bother to try to provide a mechanism or technical
explaination of any sort for this "punk-eek"
They are claiming that at certain times, amongst tiny groups of animals living in
peripheral areas, a "speciation event (TM)" happens, and THEN the rest of it takes
place. In other words, they are saying:
ASSUMING that Abracadabra-Shazaam(TM) happens, then the rest of the
business proceeds as we have described in our scholarly discourse above!
Again, Gould and Eldridge require that the Abracadabra-Shazaam(TM) happen not
just once, but countless billions of times, i.e. at least once for every kind of complex
creature which has ever walked the Earth. They do not specify whether this amounts
to the same Abracadabra-Shazaam each time, or a different kind of AbracadabraShazaam for each creature.
Such is the quasi official replacement doctrine for classical Darwinian gradualism….