A file by the name of ‘Evolution: Five Big Questions’ was carried in the June 14, 2003 edition of the British magazine New Scientist. The file consisted of five articles written by five different scientists, all proponents of the theory of evolution: Michael Russell, Andrew Pomiankowski, George Turner, Paul Rainey and Robin Dunbar. In other words, the impression was given that the questions concerned had been fully ‘answered.’
The truth is, however, that none of the articles in New Scientist actually provide any ‘answer’ at all. All they provide is speculation. Let us consider them one by one:
1) "How Did Life begin?"
This was the first question. Michael Russell, who ‘answered’ it, examined the invalidity of all the evolutionist thesis put forward on the subject of the origin of life throughout the 20th century. According to Russell, the ‘proteins emerged first’ scenario, equated with the Miller Experiment, and the ‘RNA World’ thesis which followed it, were far from accounting for the origin of life.
Russell said, “I"m not convinced by any of this.” This was an admission that none of the evolutionist thesis concerning the origin of life were meaningful.
So, did Russell have an answer? Although writing as if he had, close inspection of what he wrote revealed that he in fact had no answer at all. ‘My view,’ he wrote ‘is that the origin of life is not a biological but a geological issue.’ He then made some comments concerning various chemical environments that might have brought the ‘building blocks’ of life together on the primitive earth. According to Russell, the acidic springs on ocean ridges or alkaline seepages on the ocean floors could have been an ideal environment for life to emerge. He particularly concentrates on the alkaline seepages, suggesting that in these environments amino-acids, ribonucleic acids and sugars could have been synthesized, and claiming that these could have polymerized nucleic acids and amino-acids could have turned into RNA and peptides.
However, this geo-chemical scenario benefits evolutions not at all with regard to the origin of life.
Nor could it, because Russell is deliberately failing to understand one very important point: the origin of life is linked to the question of how the complex information which makes life possible emerged. The question of the existence or otherwise of the simple organic molecules used in organisms – the amino-acid, ribonucleic acids and sugars referred to by Russell – is irrelevant. Even if the entire world were demonstrated to be full of amino-acids and other organic molecules, that would still take us no further regarding the origins of a living organism. That would be like someone who claimed that a skyscraper built itself saying, ‘Look, there are four-cornered stones everywhere, that means the skyscraper came about of its own accord when these all joined to together’ and submitting that as ‘proof.’
The question is how the genetic information encoded in DNA or RNA emerged, how the enzymes to read that information formed and how the design of the other molecules which comprise the living cell came about. Russell’s proposed ‘geology-centred view’ offers not the slightest explanation of any of these. The origin of life therefore continues to be a closed book for evolutionists.
2) "How Do Mutations Lead to Evolution?"
This is the second of New Scientist’s five questions. However, it would actually have been more consistent to ask, ‘Do mutations really lead to evolution?’ That is because the idea that mutations, one of the two mechanisms proposed by neo-Darwinism, bring about ‘evolution,’ in other words that they bring new genetic information to living things, is nothing but a dogma, which has never been observed and for which no evidence has even been encountered.
The only solution that Andrew Pomianowski, author of the question and its ‘answer,’ can come up with on behalf of evolution on this hopeless subject is to speculate on the Hox genes which are present in just about all living things and which shape their basic body plans. The existence of these genes is a fact, and we know that mutations affecting these genes lead to great morphological changes in living things. Yet this benefits the theory of evolution nothing. The observed effects of mutations on Hox genes is the same as those of other mutations: a loss of genetic data, deformities, handicaps.
In order to believe that mutations affecting Hox genes bring about evolution, develop living species and produce new species, classes, sets and phyla, one needs to have a blind belief in the theory of evolution. Anyone looking at the issue without preconceptions, rather than with such a dogmatism, will see that neither mutations in the Hox genes nor mutations anywhere else in the genomes can lead to evolution.
3) "How are New Species Formed?"
George Turner, who responds to this question, begins with a series of admissions, saying, ‘Not long ago, we thought we knew how species formed.’ ‘We believed,’ he says, ‘that the process almost always started with complete isolation of populations.. It often occurred after a population had gone through a severe "genetic bottleneck", as might happen after a pregnant female was swept off to a remote island and her offspring mated with each other.
The beauty of this so-called model, the ‘founder effect,’ he says, is that it could be tested in the laboratory. In fact, however, it failed. Despite all the best efforts of evolutionary biologists, nobody even came close to creating a new species from a founding population. Moreover, he continues, so far as we know, no new species has ever formed from a few organisms being deposited into alien environments by man.
This is an admission of the bankruptcy of the Darwinist dogma concerning ‘the origin of species,’ which has been attempted to be defended for a century or so. It is an important admission.
As one might expect, however, Turner is determined to maintain his belief in Darwinism, and goes looking for new speculations. The examples he adopts are those of the ‘speciation’ of stickleback fish in Canadian lakes and of cichlids in Africa’s great lakes. However, these represent what biologists call ‘microevolution,’ in other words the formation of different variations of existing species in which no new genetic information is produced, these variations being referred to as separate ‘species.’ It is a known fact, and is even accepted by evolutionists, that microevolution cannot produce ‘macroevolution,’ new organs, new characteristics and new bodily plans. For that reason, the question of how new species form, considered here by Turner, also remains a mystery to evolutionists.
4 and 5: Speculation Built on Dogma
The fourth and fifth of the ‘five big questions’ in New Scientist are speculation from individuals who have adopted evolution as an unquestionable dogma. In the fourth question, Paul Rainey asks whether evolution can be ‘predictable,’ in other words whether this imaginary process he believes in moves in a particular direction. In the fifth question, Robin Dunbar suggests that belief in God emerged at a particular point in the imaginary evolutionary process, and offers comments based on that unrealistic claim.
Conclusion: Ostrich Policies
It is interesting that New Scientist, which considers the theory under the heading of ‘the five great questions of evolution,’ touches on none of the objections or evidence offered by scientists all over the world who criticize the theory of evolution.
For example, such crucial questions as;
• How can the origin of irreducibly complex structures be explained?
• How can the fact that all living phyla emerged in the Cambrian period be explained?
• Why does the fossil record not reveal the ‘countless transitional forms’ expected by Darwin?
• How can ‘information,’ the most important element in the origin of life, be explained?
Are completely ignored by New Scientist.
Ignoring a threat, however, does not eliminate it.
This ‘ostrich policy’ displayed by its devotees is insufficient to eliminate the threat facing Darwinism. That is because the threat to it comes from science itself. Darwinism is being demolished by the discoveries revealed by science, and neither New Scientist nor any other Darwinist source can conceal this by hiding its head in the sand.2003-06-14 00:00:00