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Evolution: Fighting the Wrong Battle

February 8, 2010 Lisa A. Shiel Leave a comment

The debate over evolution is often portrayed as the battle between science and religion, or faith vs. reason. This clever ploy paints evolutionists as warriors for logic and sanity whose sole opponent is blind belief in a higher power. No one could doubt evolution for any other reason, evolutionists insinuate or flat-out proclaim. But the real battle for evolution, the one its proponents studiously avoid, is the evidence itself. Anytime someone points out a flaw in the evidence for evolution, diehard evolutionists respond with a non-answer—usually an angry personal attack on the person pointing out the flaw. This is an evasion tactic, and one evolutionists have practiced for quite some time. To take the heat off the evidence, and the need to defend evolutionary theories, evolutionists simply avoid the discussion altogether.

They are fighting the wrong battle—on purpose.

Categories: Conspiracy Headquarters Tags: ,

The Rotten State of Evolution

February 3, 2010 Lisa A. Shiel 2 comments

The evidence for evolution falls into two key categories: genetics and fossils. Evolutionists have constructed a “tree of life” showing the evolutionary relationships between living things, a messy diagram that purports to tell us which species are ancestral to which and how closely related groups of living things are. In recent years evolutionists have filled out the tree of life using molecular clocks, a process of tracing genetic mutations back in time to when each of them supposedly first emerged. Molecular clocks are based on the assumption that mutations occur like clockwork and therefore can be predicted accurately. Evolutionists calibrate their molecular clocks using information from the fossil record.

Without fossils we would have virtually no information about the history of life on earth. But how much can fossils really tell us, and how accurate is that information? The results of a new study suggest a dismal answer.

Paleontologists from the UK’s University of Leicester studied chordates, a wide-ranging category of living things that includes human beings. The team killed creatures called amphioxus and lampreys, then observed how their bodies decayed. The scientists discovered that the traits which make each species unique from each other vanished first, before their more primitive shared characteristics. As the bodies decayed they began to appear more and more primitive, as if they were regressing through their supposed evolution from a common ancestor.

The relationships between fossils are determined based on their appearance. If the decay process can make living things seem to regress, then fossils which appear primitive may not have been so primitive after all. These new findings call into question the entire tree of life.

References

Cressey, Daniel. “Something Rotten in the State of Paleontology.” Nature News, 31 January 2010. <http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100131/full/news.2010.45.html>

Categories: About Evolution, Conspiracy Headquarters, Diversity of Life, Fossil Evidence, News Stories, Origins of Life Tags: ,

Human Culture Appeared before Humans?

January 8, 2010 Lisa A. Shiel 2 comments

Modern humans (aka Homo sapiens) evolved about 200,000 years ago. Society and culture arose sometime much later. So goes the accepted story, but there’s a problem. New discoveries in Israel suggest that someone started to arrange open-air living spaces into discrete sections used for different purposes as early as 790,000 years ago. Inhabitants of the site had also mastered fire. Use of “a formalized conceptualization of a living space” is generally considered a hallmark of modern humans. Since modern humans weren’t supposed to be around 790,000 years ago, archaeologists must presume that a prehuman species such as Homo erectus inhabited the site. Yet no skeletal remains of the site’s occupants have turned up, leaving their identity a matter for debate.

Scientists seem to have no better handle on the intricacies of cultural evolution than they do on the details of physical evolution. Any evidence modern humans might have existed prior to 200,000 years ago is rejected out of hand or pasted onto prehuman species. Instead of adapting evolutionary theories to the evidence, scientists jam everything into their preconceived notions about evolution—even if they have to distort the evidence to make it fit.

Reference

Wilford, John Noble. “Excavation Sites Show Distinct Living Areas Early in Stone Age.” New York Times, 22 December 2009. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/science/22archaeo.html>

Categories: Human Origins, Lost Civilizations, News Stories Tags: ,

Evolving without DNA?

January 6, 2010 Lisa A. Shiel Leave a comment

Evolution dictates that living things adapt to their environments via genetic changes (mutations) that can be passed down from generation to generation (they are heritable). This is natural selection, a concept first brought to public attention by Charles Darwin. Natural selection relies on heredity and mutations—in other words, it relies on genetics. Evolutionary research, and the very concept of evolution itself, therefore relies on genetics too. Yet new research has shown that proteins can evolve in the absence of genetic material.

Prions, proteins that cause diseases such as mad cow disease, have no genetic material. Researchers from the Scripps Research Institute have discovered, however, that natural selection seems to act on prions as they adapt to their environments. Despite lacking the keystone of evolution—mutations—prions still manage to evolve by natural selection.

“It’s clear that you do not need nucleic acid (DNA or RNA) for the process of evolution.”—Charles Weissmann, Scripps Research Institute.

Evolutionary theories depend on genetics. If you don’t need genetic material for natural selection to occur, then perhaps evolution is not what its proponents think it is.

Reference

“‘Lifeless’ Prions Can ‘Evolve’.” BBC News, 1 January 2010. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8435320.stm>

Categories: About Evolution, Genetic Evidence, Natural Selection, News Stories Tags: ,

Did the Year of Darwin Change Your Mind?

December 31, 2009 Lisa A. Shiel Leave a comment

Whether you believe in evolution or doubt it, this year gave you plenty to ponder. I daresay many people experienced Darwin overload as worship of evolution’s god reached fanatical proportions. In 2009 Darwin fans marked a double anniversary, the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his book The Origin of Species. Yet this year also marked another anniversary, the 100th birthday of the Burgess Shale, a collection of some of the most stunning fossils from the Cambrian Period (which dates back over 500 million years). Despite the passage of a century, the Burgess Shale fossils still add fuel to the fire that singed Darwin too. How can evolution explain the Cambrian Explosion? Darwin couldn’t answer the question in his book, and neither can scientists 150 years later.

Officially dubbed the Year of Science, the past 12 months felt more like the Year of Worshiping Darwin. Films, TV documentaries, and articles in newspapers, magazines, and websites all focused on Charles Darwin. There was even a Darwin-themed art exhibit!

Did all the hoopla produce any new converts? Polls conducted this year consistently showed that the majority of the public doubts evolution, in spite of the Darwin blitzkrieg. Darwinists partied and ranted but changed few minds.

Categories: Conspiracy Headquarters, News Stories Tags: , , ,