Stephen E. Jones

Projects: "Problems of Evolution" (Outline): 9. Mechanisms (2)

[Home] [Site map] [Updates] [Projects] [Contents; 1. Introduction; 2. Philosophy (1), (2), (3), (4) & (5); 3. Religion (1) & (2); 4. History (1), (2) & (3); 5. Science; 6. Environment (1), (2) & (3); 7. Origin of life (1), (2) & (3); 8. Cell & Molecular (1), (2) & (3); 9. Mechanisms (1) & (3); 10. Fossil Record; 11. `Fact' of Evolution; 12. Plants; 13. Animals; 14. Man (1) & (2); 15. Social; 16. Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography A-C, D-F, G-I, J-M, N-S, T-Z]

"PROBLEMS OF EVOLUTION": 9. MECHANISMS (2)
1.	Time
2.	Mutations
3.	Competition
4.	Natural selection
	1.	Metaphor
	2.	"Survival of fittest"
		1.	Tautology (circular reasoning)
		2.	Does not mean fittest
		3.	`Just-so' stories
	3.	Consistent with is not caused by
	4.	Can do nothing without favourable mutations
	5.	Lack of positive
	6.	Can only negatively eliminate, not positively create
	7.	Can only `track' the environment (Red Queen hypothesis)
	8.	Inefficient
	9.	Response of species to environmental change is migration
	10.	Lack of evidence
		1.	Novelty
	11.	Problems with best evidence
		1.	Peppered Moth
		2.	Bacteria resistance to antibiotics
		3.	Insect resistance to insecticides
		4.	Darwin's finches
	12.	Conservative: prevents evolution
		1.	Confers adaptive plasticity
	13.	Complex organs
	14.	Extinction
		1.	Mass extinction-survival of the luckiest
	15.	Sexual selection
		1.	Works at cross-purposes to natural selection
	16.	Assumed because there is no naturalistic alternative
	17.	Dogmatically asserted
	18.	Does not apply to humans
	19.	Unable to produce the end result
	20.	Relative importance
5.	Adaptation
6.	Speciation
7.	Macroevolution
8.	Stasis
9.	Convergence
10.	Contingency (chance)

"PROBLEMS OF EVOLUTION": 9. MECHANISMS (2)
4.	Natural selection
	1.	Metaphor
	2.	"Survival of fittest"
		1.	Tautology (circular reasoning)
A tautology (or truism) is a a statement that is "true by definition", or "true in virtue of its form" (Copi, 1986, 
p.301; Berlinski, 1988, p.303; Hitching, 1982, p.104; Hoyle, 1983, p.32). A tautology's predicate defines the 
subject, so it has logical certainty (Geisler, 1990, p.139). But a tautology lacks material content and gives no 
information about the world (Fearnside & Holther, 1959, p.137; Hitching, 1982, p.104). For example, the 
statement that "all bachelors are unmarried men" is a tautology, because it is true by definition but otherwise 
uninformative and without content (Geisler, 1999, p.714; Leith, 1982, p.30). Tautologies are useful as definitions, 
but not as testable scientific statements since there can be nothing to test in a statement that is true by definition 
(Gould, 1978, p.40; Popper, 1978, p.344).

In its form of "survival of the fittest", which Darwin himself endorsed (Darwin, 1872, pp.83, 104, 118, 170, 181, 
193, 445) is a tautology, a circular definition, "the survival of the survivors" (Kauffman, 1993, p.16; Patterson, 
1978, p.147), which phrase Dawkins actually uses approvingly (Dawkins, 1995, p.22)! Because "If you ask which 
are the fittest, the answer is always those who survive, they're obviously the fittest. And if you ask how do you 
decide they were the fittest, the answer is of course obvious: it's because they survived" (Macbeth, 1982, p.1; 
Johnson, 1995a, p.267). As a tautology, natural selection would then have the intellectual content of a statement 
like "whatever will be, will be" (Berlinski, 1988, p.303). The Neo-Darwinian redefinition of fitness as 
reproductive success does not solve the theory's tautology problem if natural selection, merely amounts to the 
vacuous statement that "the individuals which leave most offspring are those which leave most offspring" 
(Macbeth, 1971, p.65; Koestler, 1983, pp.171,185).

What is needed for natural selection to be not tautologous is an independent criterion of fitness, that does not 
directly or indirectly rely on the mere fact of survival to determine what was the fittest (Macbeth, 1982, p.1; 
Bethell, 1988, p.187). Without such a criterion for fitness defined in advance, "survival of the fittest" makes no 
predictions except "what survives is fit", and so is tautologous, an empty repetition of words that explains nothing 
(Patterson, 1978, p.147; Popper, 1978, p.344; Steele, 1981, p.1). What is fittest is then decided only in retrospect 
by noting what survived (Hitching, 1982, p.105). If and when an independent criterion of fitness is identified, 
then what is needed is solid evidence that the survivors are truly fitter than those that perished, rather than random 
factors (Johnson, 1995a, p.267). (Johnson, 1995a, p.267).

While natural selection can in theory be formulated non-tautologously, in practice it is almost 
always a tautology, since there seems no practical way to identify the fittest other than by looking at the 
survivors (Patterson, 1978, p.147; Eden, 1966, p.109; Johnson, 1989, 1992e, 1993b, p.23; Bethell, 1988, p.187). 
This is evident by leading Darwinists such as Fisher, Waddington, Medawar, Haldane, Mayr, and Simpson 
seemingly being unable to describe natural selection except tautologously (Bethell, 1988, p.188; Hitching, 1982, 
p.107; Bird, 1991, p.91; Johnson, 1993c, pp.20,176; Macbeth, 1971, pp.47-49, 63; Popper, 1978, p.344). 
Darwinian evolution evidently trains the mind to see meaning in tautologies that isn't there, for example as 
Darwinist philosopher Helena Cronin `explains': "Natural selection is simply about genes ... that build bodies that 
do what's needed-seeing, running, digesting, mating-get replicated; and those that don't, don't" (Cronin, 1997, 
p.80)!

Gould admitted that "Bethell's [tautology] criticism applies to much of the technical literature in evolutionary 
theory, especially to the abstract mathematical treatments" (Gould, 1978, p.42; Johnson, 1993c, p.176). But this 
is usually not easy to see, making natural selection a "disguised tautology" (Bethel, 1996; Bethell, 1988, p.198). 
Indeed it is having a tautology at its very heart that gives Darwinian evolution the appearance of logical 
inevitability that provides its illusion of strength (Hitching, 1982, p.262; Johnson, 1993b, p.122). 

Mayr's "a careful analysis can usually determine why certain individuals fail to thrive in a given set of conditions" 
(even if it were true) does not solve the "circular reasoning" problem of "survival of the fittest". What Darwinism 
would have to do is specify in advance what were the factors that would make the "fittest" and then predict their 
survival, such that "natural selection" would be falsified if the prediction failed:

"The phrase `survival of the fittest' was not coined by Darwin. He took it over from Herbert Spencer, 
apparently considering it an improvement on his own natural selection.[Barzun J., `Darwin, Marx, Wagner,' 
Doubleday, 2nd ed., 1958, p.76] It immediately became an integral part of classical Darwinism, much to the 
embarrassment of modern adherents. Survival of the fittest has suffered the same blight as its companion 
shibboleth, struggle-for-existence. It is politically unacceptable. It smells of Hitler, of the laissez-faire 
economists, of savage competition and devil take the hindmost. The biologists, sorry that it was ever 
mentioned, do their best to forget it. Smith, Huxley, and Eiseley say not a word about it. Hardin, whose 
political passions sometimes warp his scientific judgment, mentions it briefly, but even he puts quotation 
marks around the word *fittest*. [Hardin G., `Nature and Man's Fate,' Mentor, 1961, p.57.] I had to look far 
beyond my paperbacks to find out what had happened. I discovered that the phrase had been discredited 
long before the political blight descended upon it. [Mayr E., `Animal Species and Evolution,' Harvard 
University Press, 1963, p.183] Very early, so early that I cannot ascertain the date, someone asked how we 
determine who are the fittest. The answer came back that we determine this by the test of survival; there is 
no other criterion. But this means that a species survives because it is the fittest and is the fittest because it 
survives, which is circular reasoning and equivalent to saying that whatever is, is fit. The gist is that some 
survive and some die, but we knew this at the outset. Nothing has been explained." (Macbeth N., "Darwin 
Retried: An Appeal to Reason," Gambit: Boston MA, 1971, pp.62-63. Emphasis original)

"The concept of natural selection had remarkable power for explaining directional and adaptive changes. Its 
nature is simplicity itself. It is not a force like the forces described in the laws of physics; its mechanism is 
simply the elimination of inferior individuals. This process of nonrandom elimination impelled Darwin's 
contemporary, philosopher Herbert Spencer, to describe evolution with the now familiar term `survival of 
the fittest.' (This description was long ridiculed as circular reasoning: `Who are the fittest? Those who 
survive.' In reality, a careful analysis can usually determine why certain individuals fail to thrive in a given 
set of conditions.)" (Mayr E.W., "Darwin's Influence on Modern Thought," Scientific American, Vol. 283, 
No. 1, July 2000, pp.67-71, p.68) [top]
My response to a comment under "The Problem with God: Interview with Richard Dawkins #2":
It is indeed a "tight little circle" - in multiple ways. For example, Dawkins defines a "gene" as "a unit of 
natural selection":
"If we wish, we can define a single gene as a sequence of nucleotide letters lying between a START and 
an END symbol, and coding for one protein chain. The word cistron has been used for a unit defined in 
this way, and some people use the word gene interchangeably with cistron. ... In the title of this book 
the word gene means not a single cistron but something more subtle. My definition will not be to 
everyone's taste, but there is no universally agreed definition of a gene. Even if there were, there is 
nothing sacred about definitions. We can define a word how we like for our own purposes, provided we 
do so clearly and unambiguously. The definition I want to use comes from G. C. Williams. A gene is 
defined as any portion of chromosomal material that potentially lasts for enough generations to serve as 
a unit of natural selection." (Dawkins R., "The Selfish Gene," [1976], Oxford University Press: Oxford 
UK, New Edition, 1989, p.28)
  
And he denies that mutation (or anything else) can be directed, and then assumes (since by his 
definition there is nothing else left) that "It is selection, and only selection, that directs evolution":
"There is a fifth respect in which mutation might have been nonrandom. We can imagine (just) a form of 
mutation that was systematically biased in the direction of improving the animal's adaptedness to its life. 
But although we can imagine it, nobody has ever come close to suggesting any means by which this 
bias could come about. It is only in this fifth respect, the 'mutationist' respect, that the true, real-life 
Darwinian insists that mutation is random. Mutation is not systematically biased in the direction of 
adaptive improvement, and no mechanism is known (to put the point mildly) that could guide mutation 
in directions that are non-random in this fifth sense. Mutation is random with respect to adaptive 
advantage, although it is non- random in all sorts of other respects. It is selection, and only selection, 
that directs evolution in directions that are nonrandom with respect to advantage." (Dawkins R., "The 
Blind Watchmaker," [1986], Penguin: London, 1991, reprint, p.312. Emphasis in original) [top]
		2.	Does not mean fittest
"I am a believer that some of the basic statements of neo-Darwinism are vacuous; and I think there is a 
confusion here, possibly, about whether we are talking about Darwinism or neo-Darwinism. Dr. Medawar 
mentioned this phrase, `the survival of the fittest,' and it is a very elementary, oldfashioned, long outdated 
concept; but, of course, this is what Darwin was talking about. By `fittest,' he meant best able to carry out 
the functions of life, best adapted to some environmental situation and some way of life. By a fit horse, he 
meant a horse that could gallop fastest and escape best from wolves, or whatever it might be. That is a real 
theory which is perfectly capable of refutation. What has happened to it since, in the process of turning this 
into a lot of mathematics, is that `fitness' has been redefined, leaving out anything to do with way of life, 
simply in terms of leaving offspring. So the theory of neo-Darwinism is a theory of the evolution of the 
changing of the population in respect to leaving offspring and not in respect to anything else. Nothing else is 
mentioned in the mathematical theory of neo-Darwinism. It is smuggled in and everybody has in the back of 
his mind that the animals that leave the largest number of offspring are going to be those best adapted also 
for eating peculiar vegetation, or something of this sort; but this is not explicit in the theory. All that is 
explicit in the theory is that they will leave more offspring. There, you do come to what is, in effect, a 
vacuous statement: Natural selection is that some things leave more offspring than others; and you ask, 
which leave more offspring than others; and it is those that leave more offspring; and there is nothing more 
to it than that. The whole real guts of evolution-which is, how do you come to have horses and tigers, and 
things-is outside the mathematical theory."(Waddington, 1966, pp.13-14).

"The admission that Darwin's theory of natural selection was tautological did not greatly bother the 
evolutionary theorists, however, because they had already taken the precaution of redefining natural 
selection to mean something quite different from what Darwin had in mind. Like the philosophical debate of 
the past decade, this remarkable development went largely unnoticed. In its new form, natural selection 
meant nothing more than that some organisms have more offspring than others: in the argot, differential 
reproduction. This indeed was an empirical fact about the world, not just something true by definition, as 
was the case that the fittest survive. The bold act of redefining selection was made by the British statistician 
and geneticist R. A. Fisher in a widely heralded book called The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection. 
Moreover, by making certain assumptions about birth and death rates, and combining them with Mendelian 
genetics, Fisher was able to quantify the resulting rates at which population ratios changed. This was called 
population genetics, and it brought great happiness to the hearts of many biologists, because the 
mathematical formulae looked so deliciously scientific and seemed to enhance the status of biology, making 
it more like physics. But here is what Waddington recently said about this development: `The theory of 
neo-Darwinism is a theory of the evolution of the population in respect to leaving offspring and not in 
respect to anything, else.... Everybody has it in the back of his mind that the animals that leave the largest 
number of offspring are going to be those best adapted also for eating peculiar vegetation, or something of 
this sort, but this is not explicit in the theory.... There you do come to what is, in effect, a vacuous statement: 
Natural selection is that some things leave more offspring than others; and, you ask, which leave more 
offspring than others; and it is those that leave more offspring, and there is nothing more to it than that. The 
whole real guts of evolution- which is how do you come to have horses and tigers and things-is outside the 
mathematical theory.' [Waddington C.H., in Moorhead P.S. & Kaplan M.M., ed., "Mathematical Challenges 
to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution:," The Wistar Institute Press: Philadelphia PA, 1967, p.14] 
Here, then, was the problem. Darwin's theory was supposed to have answered this question about horses 
and tigers. They had gradually developed, bit by bit, as it were, over the eons, through the good offices of 
an agency called natural selection. But now, in its new incarnation, natural selection was only able to explain 
how horses and tigers became more (or less) numerous-that is, by `differential reproduction.' This failed to 
solve the question of how they came into existence in the first place." (Bethell T., "Darwin's Mistake," in 
"The Electric Windmill: An Inadvertent Autobiography," Regnery Gateway: Washington DC, 1988, pp.188-
189. Emphasis original)
"It has never been possible to break out of the circle by finding a better word than fittest. But, since 
something had to be done to restore logical respectability, a new meaning was foisted on the old word. 
Fitness was redefined to mean "having the most offspring." Mayr says: "...those individuals that 
have the most offspring are by definition...the fittest ones." [Mayr, 1963, p.183] ... Simpson, the dean of the 
evolutionists, nails the point down even more firmly, stating that among geneticists fitness has nothing to do 
with the common understanding of the term: "If genetically red-haired parents have, on an average, a larger 
proportion of children than blondes or brunettes, then evolution will be in the direction of red hair. If 
genetically left-handed parents have more children, evolution will be toward left-handedness. The 
characteristics themselves do not directly matter at all. All that matters is who leaves more descendants over 
the generations. Natural Selection favors fitness only if you define fitness as leaving more descendants. In 
fact geneticists do define it that way, which may be confusing to others. To a geneticist fitness has nothing 
to do with health, strength, good looks, or anything but effectiveness in breeding." [Simpson, 1964, 273] 
(Macbeth, 1971, pp.63-64. Emphasis and ellipses in original).
"Natural selection favors fitness only if you define fitness as leaving more descendants. In fact geneticists 
do define it that way, which may be confusing to others. To a geneticist fitness has nothing to do with 
health, strength, good looks, or anything but effectiveness in breeding." [Simpson, 1964, p.273] The 
explanation by Simpson just quoted indicates why it is not easy to formulate the theory of natural selection 
other than as a tautology. It may seem obvious, for example, that it is advantageous for a wild stallion to be 
able to run faster, but in the Darwinian sense this will be true only to the extent that a faster stallion sires 
more offspring. ... In all such cases we can presume a characteristic to be advantageous because a species 
which has it seems to be thriving, but in most cases it is impossible to identify the advantage independently 
of the outcome. That is why Simpson was so insistent that "advantage" has no inherent meaning other than 
actual success in reproduction. All we can say is that the individuals which produced the most offspring 
must have had the qualities required for producing the most offspring." (Johnson, 1993, pp.20-21).  [top]
		3.	`Just-so' stories
A good example of how "evolutionary theory" can explain anything (and its opposite), by inventing 
an ad hoc `just-so story!:

"The Left-Handed Advantage: They May Have Higher Health Risks, But Lefties Enjoy Element of 
Surprise ABCNEWS By Amanda Onion Feb. 17, 2005 - It's not easy being a lefty. Statistics show left-
handed people are more likely to be schizophrenic, alcoholic, delinquent, dyslexic, and have Crohn's disease 
and ulcerative colitis, as well as mental disabilities. They're also more likely to die young and get into 
accidents. So if evolutionary theory dictates survival of the fittest, why do lefties still exist? According to 
new theories, what left-handed people (and other animals) may lack in fitness, they make up by being 
different. Researchers in France recently took an interest in the disproportionately high number of left-
handed athletes who thrive in sports involving direct one-onone contact, such as baseball (think Babe 
Ruth), tennis (think John McEnroe) and boxing (think Oscar de la Hoya or the fictional Rocky Balboa). 
Charlotte Faurie and Michel Raymond ... figured the same reason so many left-handed people are successful 
in such sports could also explain a possible higher success rate among lefties in primitive combat. ...  [top] 
	3.	Consistent with is not caused by
"But if we come to the conclusion that natural selection is probably the main cause of change in a 
population, we certainly need not go back completely to Darwin's point of view. In the first place, we have 
every reason to believe that new species may arise quite suddenly, sometimes by hybridisation, sometimes 
perhaps by other means. Such species do not arise, as Darwin thought, by natural selection. When they have 
arisen they must justify their existence before the tribunal of natural selection, but that is a very different 
matter." (Haldane, 1932, p.75). See also Fallacy of False Cause [top]

	4.	Can do nothing without favourable mutations
Darwin admitted in his Origin of Species that "natural selection can do nothing until favourable 
individual differences or variations [i.e. mutations] occur" (Darwin, 1872, pp.160,82). This is still the case in 
modern evolutionary theory, as Dawkins acknowledges, "selective breeders experience difficulty ... because after 
some generations of selective breeding the available genetic variation runs out, and we have to wait for new 
mutations" (Dawkins, 1986, p.247). But then as one of Darwin's contemporary critics rightly pointed out, "The 
'Origin of Variation,' whatever it is, is the only true 'Origin of Species'" (Butler, 1878, p.263; Himmelfarb, 1959, 
p.321)! And as a more recent critic of Darwin observed, "if variations are missing, natural selection is impotent, a 
circumstance which may menace the credibility of his [Darwin's] theory" (Lovtrup, 1987, pp.113,225). 

"Darwin seems to have given no experimental illustrations of the operation of this principle of natural 
selection. Indeed in his chapter on the subject, his examples are purely imaginary. Under the hands of man 
artificial selection has proved a strong force in producing new varieties of organisms. Darwin asks the 
question whether or not this principle of selection could operate in nature also. He finds that it can and 
does. A point which Darwin emphasizes, first made by Hooker and Asa Gray, is that man, even with the 
organisms under his control, does not cause the origin of the variations on which he works through 
selection. All he can do is to take the fortunate variations as they occur, select and accumulate them. The 
same applies to natural selection. "Some have even imagined that natural selection induces variability, 
whereas it implies only the preservations of such variations as occur and are beneficial to the being under 
its conditions of life." [Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species," [1872], 6th Edition, J.M. Dent & Sons: London, 
1928, reprint, p.81] Herein, of course, lies the fundamental weakness of the whole theory." (Fothergill P.G., 
"Historical Aspects of Organic Evolution," Hollis & Carter: London, 1952, p.114) [top] 
It is not "Natural selection" but random mutation and "Natural selection". And, as Darwin's contemporary 
critic Samuel Butler pointed out, "the `Origin of Variation [what biologists today call mutation],' whatever it 
is, is the only true 'Origin of Species':

"The question is not concerning evolution, but as to the main cause which has led to 
evolution in such and such shapes. To me it seems that the `Origin of Variation,' whatever 
it is, is the only true 'Origin of Species,' and that this must, as Lamarck insisted, be looked 
for in the needs and experiences of the creatures varying. Unless we can explain the origin 
of variations, we are met by the unexplained at every step in the progress of a creature 
from its original homogeneous condition to its differentiation, we will say, as an elephant; 
so that to say that an elephant has become an elephant through the accumulation of a vast 
number of small, fortuitous, but unexplained, variations in some lower creatures, is really 
to say that it has become an elephant owing to a series of causes about which we know 
nothing, whatever, or, in other words, that one does not know how it came to be an 
elephant." (Butler S., "Life and Habit," [1910], Wildwood House: London, 1981, pp.263-
264) 
Himmelfarb comments on this, "Natural selection ... might account for the persistence of 
some variations and the disappearance of others, but it did not account for the origin of 
the variations themselves. And only an explanation of the origin of the variations would 
constitute a vera causa [true cause]":

"If in one respect natural selection may be criticized for trying to explain too much; in 
another it may be thought to explain too little. Even at the time of its publication, a 
common charge brought against the Origin was its failure to establish a vera causa [true 
cause] for evolution. As Samuel Butler later put it: `The 'Origin of Variation,' whatever it 
is, is the only true 'Origin of Species.'' [Butler S., `Life and Habit,' London, 1878, p.263]. 
Natural selection, critics complained, might account for the persistence of some variations 
and the disappearance of others, but it did not account for the origin of the variations 
themselves. And only an explanation of the origin of the variations would constitute a 
vera causa. One critic compared Darwin unfavorably, in this respect, with his 
predecessors, Lamarck and the author of the Vestiges, who, however benighted, at least 
had the forthrightness to propose specific explanations for the origin of the variations. 
And even in his own camp Asa Gray and others confessed themselves troubled by this 
inadequacy in the theory." (Himmelfarb G., "Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution," 
[1959], Elephant Paperbacks: Chicago IL, 1996, reprint, pp.321-322) 
And as Denton points out, is just a naturalistic assumption by Darwinists, based on a 
handful of experiments on bacteria that "all mutations in all organisms throughout 
the entire course of 4 billion years of evolution have all been entirely spontaneous", i.e. 
random, and "There is simply no experimental means of demonstrating that they were ...":

"The idea of the spontaneity of mutation is taken as a proven fact by a great many 
biologists today. And this is the fundamental assumption upon which the whole 
Darwinian model of nature is based. If it could be shown that some mutations, even a 
small proportion, are occurring by direction or are adaptive in some sense, then quite 
literally the whole contingent biology collapses at once. What is very remarkable about 
this whole issue is that, as is typical of any `unquestioned article of faith,' evidence for the 
doctrine of the spontaneity of mutation is hardly ever presented. Its truth is nearly always 
assumed. In nearly all the texts on genetics and evolution published over the past four 
decades, whenever the author attempts to justify the doctrine of the spontaneity of 
mutation, he refers back to a series of crucial experiments carried out in the late forties 
and early fifties on the bacterium E. coli that were associated with the names of Salvador 
Luria, Max Delbruck, and Joshua Lederberg. But the fact that some mutations in bacteria 
are spontaneous does not necessarily mean that all mutations in all organisms 
throughout the entire course of 4 billion years of evolution have all been entirely 
spontaneous. ... During the course of the past 4 billion years of evolution, countless 
trillions of changes have occurred in the DNA sequences of living organisms. There is 
simply no experimental means of demonstrating that they were all spontaneous." (Denton 
M.J., "Nature's Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe," Free 
Press: New York NY, 1998, pp.285-286. Emphasis in original) 
In fact Dawkins admits that the "beneficial" mutations which Darwinists assume "give 
rise to evolutionary change", are too tiny too be noticed even "in genetics laboratories" in 
the present!:

"The argument over whether macromutations such as antennapaedia could ever be 
beneficial (or at least could avoid being harmful), and therefore whether they could give 
rise to evolutionary change, therefore turns on how 'macro' the mutation is that we are 
considering. The more 'macro' it is, the more likely it is to be deleterious, and the less 
likely it is to be incorporated in the evolution of a species. As a matter of fact, virtually all 
the mutations studied in genetics laboratories - which are pretty macro because otherwise 
geneticists wouldn't notice them - are deleterious to the animals possessing them 
(ironically I've met people who think that this is an argument against Darwinism!)." 
(Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker," [1986], Penguin: London, 1991, reprint, p.233) 
Johnson comments on this, that "The advantageous micromutations postulated by neo-
Darwinist genetics" being "tiny, usually too small to be noticed ... there would have to be 
a great many of them ...of the right type coming along when they are needed to carry on 
the long-term project of producing a complex organ":

"The advantageous micromutations postulated by neo-Darwinist genetics are tiny, usually 
too small to be noticed. This premise is important because, in the words of Richard 
Dawkins, `virtually all the mutations studied in genetics laboratories-which are pretty 
macro because otherwise geneticists wouldn't notice them-are deleterious to the animals 
possessing them.' (Dawkins R., `The Blind Watchmaker,' [1986], Penguin: London, 1991, 
reprint, p.233) But if the necessary mutations are too small to be seen, there would have 
to be a great many of them (millions?) of the right type coming along when they are 
needed to carry on the longterm project of producing a complex organ. The probability of 
Darwinist evolution depends upon the quantity of favorable micromutations required to 
create complex organs and organisms, the frequency with which such favorable 
micromutations occur just where and when they are needed, the efficacy of natural 
selection in preserving the slight improvements with sufficient consistency to permit the 
benefits to accumulate, and the time allowed by the fossil record for all this to have 
happened." (Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial," [1991], Second Edition, InterVarsity Press: 
Downers Grove IL, 1993, p.38)  
But "The only reason to believe that mutations of the kind and quantity needed for blind 
watchmaker evolution actually occur is that the theory requires them":

"Can blind watchmaker evolution as described by Dawkins actually produce complex 
adaptive improvements like the bat's wings? The answer depends on the validity of the 
factual assumptions that underlie the model. Several conditions must be met before 
evolution of the blind watchmaker sort can occur, and each one is highly problematical. 
First, gene mutations of the necessary complexity-building type must occur sufficiently 
frequently to build the improvement. Unfortunately, mutations having a favorable effect 
on the organism are extremely rare. Dawkins himself says that the mutations in question 
would probably have to be too small in effect to be observable, because `virtually all the 
mutations studied in genetics laboratories-which are pretty macro because otherwise 
geneticists wouldn't notice them-are deleterious to the animals possessing them.' (Dawkins 
R., "The Blind Watchmaker," [1986], Penguin: London, 1991, reprint, p.233) The 
mutations that the blind watchmaker model requires must be not only favorable, but 
favorable in the very strong sense that they provide exactly what is needed for the next 
stage of the wing-building project. That each individual mutation is supposed to produce 
only a slight effect in the desired direction implies that there will have to be an enormous 
number of exactly the right kind of mutations to finish the job-and wings are only one of 
myriad alterations needed to modify a tree climber into a bat. The only reason to believe 
that mutations of the kind and quantity needed for blind watchmaker evolution actually 
occur is that the theory requires them." (Johnson P.E., "Reason in the Balance: The Case 
Against Naturalism in Science, Law and Education," InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove 
IL, 1995, pp.80-81) 
It is a fundamental tenet of Darwinist materialist-naturalist faith that "no mechanism is 
known ... that could guide mutation in directions that are non-random":

"There is a fifth respect in which mutation might have been nonrandom. We can imagine 
(just) a form of mutation that was systematically biased in the direction of improving the 
animal's adaptedness to its life. But although we can imagine it, nobody has ever come 
close to suggesting any means by which this bias could come about. It is only in this fifth 
respect, the 'mutationist' respect, that the true, real-life Darwinian insists that mutation is 
random. Mutation is not systematically biased in the direction of adaptive improvement, 
and no mechanism is known (to put the point mildly) that could guide mutation in 
directions that are non-random in this fifth sense. Mutation is random with respect to 
adaptive advantage, although it is non- random in all sorts of other respects. It is 
selection, and only selection, that directs evolution in directions that are nonrandom with 
respect to advantage." (Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker," [1986], Penguin: London, 
1991, reprint, p.312) 
But of course an Intelligent Designer/God "could guide mutation in directions that are non-random". As 
Phillip E. Johnson put it, "Theism is by definition the doctrine that something else was available":

"Theists who accommodate with scientific naturalism therefore may never affirm that their God is real in 
the same sense that evolution is real. This rule is essential to the entire mindset that produced Darwinism in 
the first place. If God exists He could certainly work through mutation and selection if that is what He 
wanted to do, but He could also create by some means totally outside the ken of our science. Once we put 
God into the picture, however, there is no good reason to attribute the creation of biological complexity to 
random mutation and natural selection. Direct evidence that these mechanisms have substantial creative 
power is not to be found in nature, the laboratory, or the fossil record. An essential step in the reasoning that 
establishes that Darwinian selection created the wonders of biology, therefore, is that nothing else was 
available. Theism is by definition the doctrine that something else was available." (Johnson P.E., "What is 
Darwinism?" Lecture at a symposium at Hillsdale College, November 1992. 
http://www.arn.org/docs/johnson/wid.htm). 
This was in fact a respectable scientific theory by Darwin's contemporary and friend, Harvard botanist Asa 
Gray, that "variation has been led along certain beneficial lines": 

"Wherefore, so long as gradatory, orderly, and adapted forms in Nature argue design, and at least while the 
physical cause of variation is utterly unknown and mysterious, we should advise Mr. Darwin to assume, in 
the philosophy of his hypothesis, that variation has been led along certain beneficial lines. Streams flowing 
over a sloping plain by gravitation (here the counterpart of natural selection) may have worn their actual 
channels as they flowed; yet their particular courses may have been assigned; and where we see them 
forming definite and useful lines of irrigation, after a manner unaccountable on the laws of gravitation and 
dynamics, we should believe that the distribution was designed." (Gray A., "Darwiniana: Essays and 
Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism," Dupree A.H., ed., The Belknap Press: Cambridge MA, 1963, pp.121-
122). 
But this was rejected on materialist-naturalist philosophical grounds by Darwin (and therefore by his 
philosophical descendants):

"In the midst of social triumph, however, a note of discord appeared under the surface. For the year 1868 
marked the end of Gray's long effort to prevent the complete demise of the doctrine of design in its new 
Darwinian setting. In 1860 a strong possibility had existed that Gray's adaptation of design to Darwinism, or 
at least the neutrality of Darwinism in its bearing on ultimate questions, might be the major answer put forth 
to counteract the onslaughts of Bishop Wilberforce. Darwin had, however, rejected Gray's argument 
privately. In 1868, Darwin took the final step not only of rejecting the design argument in a very 
conspicuous place but specifically of linking the rejection to Gray. On the last page of Variation of Plants 
and Animals under Domestication, he concluded, `However much we may wish it, we can hardly follow 
Professor Asa Gray in his belief' in lines of beneficent variation." (Darwin C.R., "Animals and Plants under 
Domestication," New York, 1868, Vol. II, p.516, in Dupree A.H., "Asa Gray: American Botanist, Friend of 
Darwin," [1959], The Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore MD, 1988, reprint, p.339) . 
And indeed that is far more plausible in the building of complex organs than a stream of "thousands and 
thousands of lucky, appropriate events" as the great French zoologist Pierre Grasse realised that "the 
Darwinian theory ... demand[ed]" which itself required that "miracles would become the rule": 

"The opportune appearance of mutations permitting animals and plants to meet their 
needs seems hard to believe. Yet the Darwinian theory is even more demanding: A single 
plant, a single animal would require thousands and thousands of lucky, appropriate 
events. Thus, miracles would become the rule: events with an infinitesimal probability 
could not fail to occur. Much as in The Swiss Family Robinson, which I used to read in 
my childhood, rescue would always occur at the right moment, and this would have had to 
have happened throughout the ages." (Grasse P.-P., "Evolution of Living Organisms: 
Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation," [1973], Academic Press: New York NY, 
1977, p.103) [top] 

	5.	Lack of positive
It is not enough for Darwinians to claim that natural selection negatively removes the unfit, since natural 
theologians like Paley claimed that before Darwin (Gould, 1980, p.158; Gould, 1982, p.380; Gould 1987, 
p.171). The essential claim of Darwinism is that natural selection positively creates the fit (Gould, 1980, 
p.158; Gould, 1982, p.380). Yet, "Despite its biological importance, positive selection is seldom observed at 
work in nature" and only a few, relatively trivial, examples are cited (Kimura, 1983, p.118), such as industrial 
melanism in moths and increases of DDT resistance in insects" (Kimura, 1976, p.260). 

	7.	Can only negatively eliminate, not positively create
Indeed, Darwinian philosopher Anthony Flew points out that in his Origin of Species, "Darwin 
draws too positive an inference," since "Natural selection does not positively produce anything," but "only 
eliminates, or tends to eliminate, whatever is not competitive" and this, "Darwin's mistake ... is perhaps 
consequent upon his employment of the expressions 'natural selection' or 'survival of the fittest'" (Flew, 
1984, pp.25-26).

Swedish biologist Lovtrup quotes Darwin himself where he stated that "extinction and natural selection go 
hand in hand" (Darwin, 1872, p.157) and observes that "in fact elimination is all that natural selection can 
accomplish" (Lovtrup, 1987, p.127).

"To avoid misunderstandings: no critic would of course deny that biological misfits, incapable of coping 
with life's demands, would be eliminated in the course of evolution. But the elimination of deformity does 
not explain the evolution of higher forms The action of a weedkiller is beneficial, but it does not explain the 
emergence of new plant species. It is a common fallacy among evolutionists to confuse the process of 
elimination of the unfit with the process of evolution towards some undefinable ideal of 'fitness' The 
defenders of the synthetic theory could easily put an end to this confusion by replacing the discredited term 
'natural selection' by 'selective elimination'. However, they only went as far as replacing the slogan 'survival 
of the fittest' by the less offensive 'differential reproduction' - but that, as we have just seen, provided no 
escape from the labyrinth of tautologies." (Koestler, 1983, p.171) 

That is, natural selection is an entirely negative process and so cannot itself positively 
create anything. All that natural selection can do is select by negative elimination of that which has 
been positively added by mutation. And mutation can be one of three types: 1) random (i.e. undirected); 2) 
neutral; and 3) directed. But evolutionists just rule out in advance on materialist-naturalist philosophical 
grounds that there even can be 3) directed mutations, and since 2) neutral mutations by 
definition cannot positively add anything, so all that evolutionists are left with is 1) random (i.e. 
undirected) mutations, so they just assume that some combination of random (undirected) mutations 
and natural selection must have done the creating! [top]

	7.	Can only `track' the environment (Red Queen hypothesis)
"If ecological niches can be specified only by the organisms that occupy them, evolution cannot be described as 
a process of adaptation because all organisms are already adapted. Then what is happening in evolution? One 
solution to this paradox is the Red Queen hypothesis, named by Leigh Van Valen of the University of Chicago 
for the character in Through the Looking Glass who had to keep running just to stay in the same place. Van 
Valen's theory is that the environment is constantly decaying with respect to existing organisms, so that natural 
selection operates essentially to enable the organisms to maintain their state of adaptation rather than to improve 
it. Evidence for the Red Queen hypothesis comes from an examination of extinction rates in a large number of 
evolutionary lines. If natural selection were actually improving the fit of organisms to their environments, then 
we might expect the probability that a species will become extinct in the next time period to be less for species 
that have already been in existence for a long time, since the long-lived species are presumably the ones that 
have been improved by natural selection. The data show, however, that the probability of extinction of a species 
appears to be a constant, characteristic of the group to which it belongs but independent of whether the species 
has been in existence for a long time or a short one. In other words, natural selection over the long run does not 
seem to improve a species- chance of survival but simply enables it to "track," or keep up with, the constantly 
changing environment. " (Lewontin R.C., "Adaptation," Scientific American, Vol. 239, No. 3, September 1978, 
pp.157-169, p.159)  [top]
	8.	Inefficient
"Natural selection, which has over the last few hundreds of millions of years produced the bone material and 
bones that we see now, has been able to work only by choosing what happens to survive. This is an 
extraordinarily inefficient way to proceed, but that's all there is; there is no other way." (Currey J.D., "Bones: 
Structure and Mechanics," Princeton University Press: Princeton NJ, 2002, p.380)  [top]
 

	9.	Response of species to environmental change is migration
"To the question, `What happens to species when environments change?', the standard post-Darwinian answer 
became, `They evolve.' Species become transformed to meet the new conditions-provided, of course, they are 
well stocked with the necessary genetic variation on which natural selection may act to effect suitable 
evolutionary change. Failing that, the fate is extinction. Here we have imagination colliding with common 
senseand, worse, with empirical reality. Given the benefit of some 130 years of post-Darwinian scrutiny of the 
natural world, it has become abundantly clear that by far the most common response of species to environmental 
change is that they move -they change their locus of existence." (Eldredge N., "Reinventing Darwin: The Great 
Evolutionary Debate," Phoenix: London, 1996, p.64) [top]
 
	10.	Lack of evidence
		1.	Novelty
"No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It seems never to happen. Assiduous 
collecting up cliff faces yields zigzags, minor oscillations, and the very occasional slight accumulation of 
change over millions of years, at a rate too slow to really account for all the prodigious change that has 
occurred in evolutionary history. When we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually shows 
up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the organisms did not evolve elsewhere! Evolution 
cannot forever be going on someplace else. Yet that's how the fossil record has struck many a forlorn 
paleontologist looking to learn something about evolution." (Eldredge N., "Reinventing Darwin: The Great 
Evolutionary Debate", [1995], Phoenix: London, 1996, p.95). 

"Paleontologists had long been aware of a seeming contradiction between Darwin's postulate of gradualism, 
confirmed by the work of population genetics, and the actual findings of paleontology. Following phyletic 
lines through time seemed to reveal only minimal gradual changes but no clear evidence for any change of a 
species into a different genus or for the gradual origin of an evolutionary novelty. Anything truly novel 
always seemed to appear quite abruptly in the fossil record." (Mayr E., "Toward a New Philosophy of 
Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist," Harvard University Press: Cambridge MA, 1988, pp.529-530) 
"Here we face another curious consequence of Darwin's way of looking at life: despite the power of 
molecular genetics to reveal the hereditary essences of organisms, the large-scale aspects of evolution 
remain unexplained, including the origin of species. There is 'no clear evidence ... for the gradual 
emergence of any evolutionary novelty' says Ernst Mayr, one of the most eminent of contemporary 
evolutionary biologists (Mayr E., "Toward a New Philosophy of Biology," Harvard University Press: 
Cambridge MA, 1988, pp.529-53). New types of organism simply appear upon the evolutionary scene, 
persist for various periods of time, and then become extinct. So Darwin's assumption that the tree of life is a 
consequence of the gradual accumulation of small hereditary differences appears to be without significant 
support. Some other process is responsible for the emergent properties of life, those distinctive features that 
separate one group of organisms from another, such as fishes and amphibians, worms and insects, horsetails 
and grasses. Clearly something is missing from biology. It appears that Darwin's theory works for the 
smallscale aspects of evolution: it can explain the variations and the adaptations within species that produce 
fine-tuning of varieties to different habitats. The large-scale differences of form between types of organism 
that are the foundation of biological classification systems seem to require a principle other than natural 
selection operating on small variations, some process that gives rise to distinctly different forms of 
organism. This is the problem of emergent order in evolution, the origins of novel structures in organisms 
that has always been a primary interest in biology." (Goodwin B., "How The Leopard Changed Its Spots: 
The Evolution of Complexity," [1994], Phoenix: London, 1995, reprint, pp.x-xi).  [top]
	11.	Problems with best evidence
		1.	Peppered Moth
It is noteworthy how the claimed best evidence of natural selection have developed serious problems. For 
example, the rise and fall of the dark (melanic) form of the peppered moth (Biston betularia paralleling 
the rise and fall of industrial pollution in England, was claimed to be "Darwin's missing evidence" (Kettlewell, 
1959), "the most spectacular evolutionary change ever witnessed and recorded by man" (Jones & Karp, 1986, 
p.271), "the prize horse in our stable of examples ... the paradigm of natural selection and evolution occurring 
within a human lifetime" (Coyne, 1998). Many leading biology textbooks have cited the peppered moth as prime 
evidence of natural selection (e.g. Keeton, et al., 1986, p.873; Mader, 1990, p.321; Raven & Johnson, 
1995, p.388; Solomon, et al., 1993, pp.9,418-419; and Starr & Taggart, 1998, p.286), as have 
evolutionary biology textbooks (e.g. Dobzhansky, et al., 1977, pp.122-123; Futuyma, 1986, p.158; 
Ridley, 1993, pp.72-73; 103-105; and Strickberger, 2000, p.541). From the 1830s butterfly collectors in the 
highly polluted woodlands around Manchester began noticing a dark form of the usually speckled grey peppered 
moth (de Beer, 1970, p.23; Hooper, 2002, p.16; Kettlewell, 1959; Ridley, 1993, p.105). By 1895, the melanic 
form was an estimated 98% of the total peppered moth population around Manchester (Archer, 1988, p.31; 
Keeton, et al., 1986, p.873).

In 1896, a British entomologist, J.W. Tutt, proposed a Darwinian natural selection theory that the increased 
relative frequency of the dark versus the grey peppered moth was due to the former being better camouflaged 
from predatory birds against the soot darkened trees (Grant, 1999; 2002; Hooper, 2002, pp.32-33; Wells, 1999; 
2000, p.140). However, Tutt's theory was not widely accepted because no one had observed birds preying on 
peppered moths (Hooper, 2002, p.33; Majerus, 1998). In the 1920s, J.W. Heslop Harrison of Newcastle 
University rejected Tutt's Darwinian theory and proposed a Lamarckian alternative theory that industrial 
melanism resulted from the caterpillar stage of insects eating vegetation contaminated with industrial pollutants, 
which they then passed on as a heritable trait to their offspring (Hooper, 2002, p.65; Wells, 1999; 2000, p.141). 
Harrison claimed to have confirmed his theory by experiments but others could not replicate his results and he 
had not experimented on peppered moths (Grant, 1999; Huxley, 1942, pp.458-459; Kettlewell, 1959). 
Nevertheless, Harrison's theory dominated the field for many years because at least it was open to experimental 
investigation (Watson, 1929).

However, in the 1930's Darwinism was on the rise again as Harrison's Lamarckism declined (Hooper, 2002, p.65; 
Wells, 2000, p.141). In 1937, E.B. Ford of Oxford University proposed a new version of Tutt's Darwinian 
camouflage and bird predation theory of industrial melanism in the peppered moth, but with the intervention of 
World War II, and the immense difficulty of capturing and breeding sufficient peppered moths, it was not until 
1953 that the Tutt-Ford Darwinian natural selection theory was experimentally tested by Ford's recruit, the gifted 
but self-taught butterfly collector Bernard Kettlewell (Hooper, 2002, p.67ff; Wells, 2000, p.141). In June 1953 
Kettlewell carried out a mark-release-recapture experiment using melanic and non-melanic (typical) forms of the 
peppered moth in a dark polluted woodland near Birmingham, and reported recapturing 27.5% of the melanic and 
only 13% of the typicals (Hooper, 2002, p.115; Wells, 2000, p.141). That is, Kettlewell purportedly shown 
experimentally that the dark moths survived twice as well as light moths in a polluted woodland (Hooper, 2002, 
p.115). 

Then in 1975, after the implementation of clean air laws in the 1959's, a decline in the melanic form began, 
and by 1985 it represented only 60% of the peppered moth population around Manchester (Cherfas, 1986, p.17). 
 [to be continued] [top]

		2.	Bacteria resistance to ntibiotics
"It is a genuine case of natural selection, survival of the fittest. Those bacteria without the mutant gene don't survive 
and the next generations increasingly have the resistant gene. But often there is a loss of information in that the 
mutant gene is inferior in a normal environment. And it is not always descent with modification from a common 
ancestornecessarily Darwinian. The resistant genes is often acquired by lateral gene transfer from different species 
of bacteria, which more specialised plants and animals normally cannot/do not do. 

Also, if common ancestry is true, all living things would have descended from a single-cell (bacterium?) common 
ancestor. So why did that bacterium give rise to everything else, yet modern bacterium, despite uncountable
trillions of generations, are not evolving?" [to be continued] [top]

		3.	Insect resistance to insecticides [top]

		4.	Darwin's finches
"Writing in Science in 1992, the Grants noted that the superior fitness of hybrids among populations of 
Darwin's finches `calls into question their designation as species.' [Grant, P.R. & Grant, B.R, 
"Hybridization of Bird Species," Science, Vol. 256, 1992, pp.193-197] The following year, Peter Grant 
acknowledged that if species were strictly defined by inability to interbreed then `we would recognize 
only two species of Darwin's finch on Daphne,' instead of the usual four [Grant, P.R., "Hybridization of 
Darwin's finches on Isla Daphne Major, Galapagos," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 
of London B, Vol. 340, 1993, pp.127-139]. `The three populations of ground finches on Genovesa would 
similarly be reduced to one species,' Grant continued. `At the extreme, six species would be recognized 
in place of the current 14, and additional study might necessitate yet further reduction." (Wells, J., 
"Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth?: Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution is Wrong," 
Regnery: Washington DC, 2000, pp.172, 312n)

"But field studies have proved notoriously inconclusive when it comes to natural selection. After three 
decades spent observing Darwin's finches in the Galapagos, P.R. and B.R. Grant were in the end able to 
state only that `further continuous long-term studies are needed.' [Grant, P.R. & Grant, B.R., 
"Unpredictable evolution in a 30-year study of Darwin's finches," Science, Vol. 296, April 26; 2002, 
pp.707-711] It is the conclusion invariably established by evolutionary field studies, and it is the only 
conclusion established with a high degree of reliability." (Berlinski, D., "On the Origins of the Mind," 
Commentary, Vol. 118, No. 4, November 2004)!
Darwin's finches show how man harms evolution, The Independent, 4 May 2006, Steve Connor   They 
were the birds that were said to have inspired Charles Darwin to formulate his theory of evolution more than 
10 years after his famous visit to the Galapagos Islands. Darwin's finches iconically depicted how biological 
diversity and natural selection lead to the origin of new species - but now scientists have detected signs of 
evolution "in reverse". Biologists have found that one of Darwin's finches living in the remote Pacific 
archipelago has begun to revert to an earlier form because of interference caused by a growing human 
population. Humans are causing evolution to slip into reverse for one of the finch species that lives on the 
islands. Scientists have found that the finch is losing the distinguishing trait that was causing it to split into 
two different species - its beak. The medium ground finch [Geospiza fortis] is normally found in two distinct 
forms - one with a larger beak the other with a smaller one - but when humans come to live alongside the 
finch, this "bimodal" beak size tends to disappear. The scientists believe that the arrival of people on the 
islands may be causing evolution to run in reverse by causing the two extreme versions of the ground finch 
to revert to individuals with intermediate beak sizes. In effect, people appear to be unwittingly eliminating 
the evolutionary disadvantage of having a beak that is half-way in size between the two extremes, according 
to a study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. As yet the researchers do not understand 
why people are having this effect but the implications are that the influx of tourists and migrants to the 
Galapagos is helping to eradicate a source of biological diversity that has made the islands famous. 
Professor Andrew Hendry of McGill University in Montreal, who led the study, said: "We need to make 
more effort to enable those species that are in the process of diversifying to continue to diversify and 
thereby generate new species. It is appropriate to describe it as evolution in reverse. It's an evolutionary 
split within a species that is being reversed and we think human activity is responsible," he said. ... 
 [top]

	12.	Conservative: prevents evolution
What evidence there is for natural selection is that it is primarily a conservative force, that 
prevents evolution. "As a matter of fact, most of natural selection is concerned with preventing 
evolutionary change rather than with driving it" (Dawkins, 1986, p.125). "Natural selection is indeed a strong 
force. But, for the most part, it is a conservative one: As organisms chase suitable habitats around as the 
environment changes, they survive just fine pretty much in the state their ancestors were in originally" 
(Eldredge, 1991, p.11). "Natural selection ... plays a conservative rather than an innovating role. The 
mutations which diverge from the wild type or from the privileged genotype are swept away when the 
environment changes; hence the stability of the species." (Grasse, 1973, 1977, p.87). "As pointed out by 
Haldane ([Haldane, 1959, p.117-124]), elimination of deviants to keep the status quo (in the form of 
"centripetal selection") is the most common type of natural selection. Also a remarkably conservative nature 
of natural selection has been brought to light by Ohno ([Ohno, 1970]) in his discussion on the role of gene 
duplication in evolution. What has been revealed by recent studies of molecular evolution is again the 
prevalence of this type of natural selection." (Kimura, 1976). "This is an example of centripetal phenotypic 
selection, a weeding out cf extremes. ... There are enough similar examples to show that centripetal selection 
is of very general occurrence. If this fact had been discovered about 1860 we can imagine some of Darwin's 
opponents writing as follows: `In view of Weldon and Rendel's findings Mr Darwin's absurd speculations 
may now be relegated to the obscurity from which they should never have emerged. He postulated the 
existence of natural selection to account for the evolution in whose existence he believed. He doubtless 
deserved some credit for stimulating others to carry out accurate measurements. Natural selection was in fact 
found to occur. But so far from causing species to change, it actually prevents such change. Not only does it 
preserve the type of a species by eliminating deviants. It eliminates hybrids between species, which, if they 
are not too weak to be capable of development, are sterile.'" (Haldane, 1959, pp.123-124)

		1.	Confers adaptive plasticity
Natural selection is claimed to be the explanation of the adaptive plasticity observed in a species of Australian snakes,
individuals of which can vary their jaw size depending on the size of the food each encounters in its lifetime (Skatssoon, 2004; 
Aubret, et al., 2004). But this very plasticity would prevent evolution, by cushioning a species against 
environmental change. It also may call into question whether the fluctuations in beak sizes in Darwin's finches on the 
Galapagos were the result of natural selection or just individual birds being able to vary their beak size in their own 
life-time, depending on the size of seeds available. [top]

	13.	Complex organs
There is no evidence that the natural selection of random mutations have (or even could) build what 
Darwin called "Organs of extreme Perfection and Complication," such as the eye (Darwin, 1872, p.167). Grasse 
observed that "Darwin ... recognized the weaknesses of his theory," writing "to his friend the botanist Asa Gray: 
`To this day the eye makes me shudder, but when I think of the fine known gradations, my reason tells me I ought 
to conquer my fear'" (Grasse 1977, p.105; Darwin, 1898, p.ii.67). Grasse continued, "We fully understand 
Darwin's fears and wonder what they would have been, had he been confronted with the anatomical and 
cytological complexity that is revealed by modern biology ... the diversity of the transparent parts ... The 
complexity of the retina, of the sheaths, etc." (Grasse, 1977, p.105). Moreover, as Grasse points out, "In 1860 
Darwin considered only the eye, but today he would have to take into consideration ... all the cerebral 
connections of the organ. The retina is indirectly connected to the striated zone of the occipital lobe of the 
cerebral hemispheres: Specialized neurons correspond to each one of its parts-perhaps even to each one of its 
photoreceptor cells" (Grasse, 1977, p.105). Grasse points out that "In fact, the picture we have just sketched is 
even more complex; we did not consider the molecular structure ... and we have neglected entirely the chemistry 
of a complex organ capable of multiple adjustments." (Grasse, 1977, p.105).

Behe takes up where Grasse left off, summarising the molecular biology of vision:

"When light first strikes the retina a photon interacts with a molecule called 11-cis-retinal, which 
rearranges within picoseconds to trans- retinal. (A picosecond is about the time it takes light to 
travel the breadth of a single human hair.) The change in the shape of the retinal molecule forces a change 
in the shape of the protein rhodopsin, to which the retinal is tightly bound. The protein's metamorphosis 
alters its behavior. Now called metarhodopsin II the protein sticks to another protein, called 
transducin. Before bumping into metarhodopsin II, transducin had tightly bound a small 
molecule called GDP. But when transducin interacts with metarhodopsin II, the GDP falls off, and a 
molecule called GTP binds to transducin. (GTP is closely related to, but critically different from, 
GDP). GTP-transducin-metarhodopsin II now binds to a protein called phosphodiesterase, located 
in the inner membrane of the cell. When attached to metarhodopsin II and its entourage, the 
phosphodiesterase acquires the chemical ability to `cut' a molecule called cGMP (a chemical relative of 
both GDP and GTP). Initially there are a lot of cGMP molecules in the cell, but the phosphodiesterase 
lowers its concentration, just as a pulled plug lowers the water level in a bathtub. Another membrane 
protein that binds cGMP is called an ion channel. It acts as a gateway that regulates the number of sodium 
ions in the cell. Normally the ion channel allows sodium ions to flow into the cell, while a separate protein 
actively pumps them out again. The dual action of the ion channel and pump keeps the level of sodium ions 
in the cell within a narrow range. When the amount of cGMP is reduced because of cleavage by the 
phosphodiesterase, the ion channel closes, causing the cellular concentration of positively charged sodium 
ions to be reduced. This causes an imbalance of charge across the cell membrane that, finally, causes a 
current to be transmitted down the optic nerve to the brain. The result, when interpreted by the 
brain, is vision. If the reactions mentioned above were the only ones that operated in the cell, the supply of 
11-cis-retinal, cGME and sodium ions would quickly be depleted. Something has to turn off the 
proteins that were turned on and restore the cell to its original state. Several mechanisms do this. First, in 
the dark the ion channel (in addition to sodium ions) also lets calcium ions into the cell. The calcium is 
pumped back out by a different protein so that a constant calcium concentration is maintained. When cGMP 
levels fall, shutting down the ion channel, calcium ion concentration decreases, too. The phosphodiesterase 
enzyme, which destroys cGMF, slows down at lower calcium concentration. Second, a protein called 
guanylate cyclase begins to resynthesize cGMP when calcium levels start to fall. Third while all of this is 
going on, metarhodopsin II is chemically modified by an enzyme called rhodopsin kinase. The modified 
rhodopsin then binds to a protein known as arrestin, which prevents the rhodopsin from activating more 
transducin. So the cell contains mechanisms to limit the amplified signal started by a single photon. 
trans-retinal eventually falls off of rhodopsin and must be reconverted to 11-cis-retinal and 
again bound by rhodopsin to get back to the starting point for another visual cycle To accomplish this, 
trans-retinal is first chemically modified by an enzyme to trans-retinol- a form containing 
two more hydrogen atoms. A second enzyme then converts the molecule to 11-cis-retinol. Finally, a 
third enzyme removes the previously added hydrogen atoms to form 11-cis-retinal a cycle is 
complete." (Behe, 1996, pp.18-21) 

To add to evolution's problems, Wolfram gives reasons why natural selection's "power is remarkably limited 
... [it] can only operate in a meaningful way on systems or parts of systems whose behavior is ... simple," 
(Wolfram, 2002, p.392). But, as Grasse pointed out, "In mammals, all sense organs evolved almost 
simultaneously" (Grasse, 1977, p.105. Emphasis in original). [top]

	14.	Extinction
		1.	Mass extinction-survival of the luckiest
"Survival of the luckiest. Perhaps the most far-reaching effect of this revival of catastrophist thinking has 
been the dawning realization that mass extinction makes a nonsense of natural selection as a 'creative' force. 
David Raup of Chicago's Field Museum has calculated that in the half-dozen major extinctions, up to 
ninety-six per cent of all life forms were destroyed. [Raup D.M., "Conflicts between Darwin and 
Paleontology," Bulletin of the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago IL, Vol. 50, January 1979] 
Now if only four per cent of living things managed to survive such cataclysms, the question of fitness is 
largely irrelevant. It is much more a question of chance. Instead of survival of the fittest, you get the 
survival of the luckiest. The worst catastrophe, everyone agrees, was at the end of the Permian period some 
225 million years ago. It established the ancestry of most of today's life forms, for since then there has been 
little change in the basic pattern of types. But as Stephen Gould has observed, it wasn't necessarily the best-
adapted Permian plants and creatures that lived through the disaster: `If anywhere near 96 per cent of 
species died, leaving as few as two thousand forms to propagate all of later life, then some groups probably 
died and others survived for no particular reason at all. There are few defences against a catastrophe of such 
magnitude, and survivors may simply be among the lucky four per cent...our current panoply of major 
designs may not represent a set of best adaptations, but fortunate survivors.' [Gould S.J., 'The chance that 
shapes our ends," New Scientist, 5 February 1981, p. 349]" (Hitching F., "The Neck of the Giraffe: Or 
Where Darwin Went Wrong," Pan: London UK, 1982, pp.166,170. Emphasis original) 

"Scientific thinking about extinctions has strayed far from the Darwinian principles that still define 
orthodoxy in the life sciences as a whole. According to Raup, the Darwinian theory that extinctions result 
from the slow and steady effects of biological competition is `appealing, and has been learned by 
generations of biology students.' Nonetheless, `Its verification from actual field data is negligible.' [Raup, 
1991, pp.184-185] ... Darwinian evolution is best known as a theory about the origin of species, but it is 
equally a theory about how species become extinct. ... Species neither appeared nor disappeared suddenly, 
according to Darwin's classic On the Origin of Species. Rather, they evolved step by tiny step from 
earlier forms, owing to the accumulation of tiny favorable variations through natural selection. Species 
declined to extinction equally gradually, as they were supplanted by modified descendants or by competing 
species that were more proficient at surviving and reproducing. If Darwin was right, both the origin and the 
extinction of living forms occurred through the slow and steady action of forces-reproduction, inheritance 
and competition-that we see operating in everyday life. Creation by natural selection and extinction by 
natural selection are not two separate processes but two aspects of the same process. In Darwinian terms, 
superior fitness means superior ability at leaving descendants. If evolution has furthered the development of 
capabilities like strength, vision and intelligence, it is only because organisms possessing these (inheritable) 
qualities have consistently left more descendants than have competing organisms that lack them. The more 
fit crowd out the less fit by definition, and there is no such thing as natural selection unless they do. ... 
Darwin cited this logical relationship between evolution and extinction to refute one of the most formidable 
objections to his theory. `Evolution' implies a continuous process of change, but nature is organized in 
discrete groups that seem isolated from one another. How could the same organism be the ancestor of both 
an insect and a vertebrate except by miraculous transformation? Where in the living world are the 
intermediate links that ought to exist if continuous change occurred? The answer, Darwin wrote, is that `as 
natural selection acts solely by the preservation of profitable modifications, each new form will tend in a 
fully stocked country to take the place of, and finally to exterminate, its own less-improved parent or other 
less-favoured forms with which it comes into competition. Thus extinction and natural selection will, as we 
have seen, go hand in hand. Hence, if we look at each species as descended from some other unknown form, 
both the parent and all the transitional varieties will generally have been exterminated by the very process of 
formation and perfection of the new form.' [Darwin, 1872, pp.156-157] .... It is therefore an essential 
element of Darwinism that species continually became extinct because they were less fit than their 
descendants or other rivals. And because superior fitness itself emerges very gradually, extinction of a 
competing species should also proceed gradually. What is true of individual species should be still more 
true of groups of species-families, orders, classes and so on. Because of this logic, Darwin insisted that 
Cuvier's theory of periodic catastrophes had been thoroughly discredited and that, on the contrary, `there is 
reason to believe that the complete extinction of the species of a group is generally a slower process than 
their production:' [Darwin, 1872, p.323] According to Darwin, the struggle for existence is so finely tuned 
that `the merest trifle would often give the victory to one organic being over another.' [Darwin, 1872, p.75] 
He continued, `Nevertheless so profound is our ignorance, and so high our presumption, that we marvel 
when we hear of the extinction of an organic being: and as we do not see the cause we involve cataclysms to 
desolate the world:' [Darwin, 1872, p.75] In short, Darwin maintained that earlier geologists had attributed 
extinctions to catastrophes not because that was a reasonable interpretation of the fossil evidence but 
because they were ignorant of the higher law of natural selection. If one wanted to subject Darwin's theory 
to empirical testing, one way to do it would be to examine the history of extinctions. Does the evidence 
confirm that biological competition was frequently the cause of extinctions? Can the occurrence of a 
Darwinian extinction by competition from a closely related rival-be confirmed in even a single case? To put 
the point the other way around: Have the paleontologists, despite their best efforts to see fossil history in a 
Darwinian light, found that Cuvier was much closer to the truth after all? The answers couldn't be clearer. 
The story starts with the famous `K-T' (Cretaceous-Tertiary) extinction of sixty-five million years ago. ... 
Was the K-T extinction (or were the Big Five as a group) an exception to a general Darwinian pattern of 
gradual extinctions by competition? Raup thinks that environmental disasters triggered by large meteor 
impacts may have caused most extinctions other than those caused by human beings.' But then what 
becomes of Darwinism? Raup answers that attributing extinctions to bad luck rather than bad genes does 
not discredit Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection `natural selection remains the only viable, 
naturalistic explanation we have for sophisticated adaptations like eyes and wings. We would not be here 
without natural selection. Extinction by bad luck merely adds another element to the evolutionary process, 
operating at the level of species, families, and classes, rather than the level of local breeding populations of 
single species. (p.192) ... The trouble with that disclaimer is that in Darwin's theory survival of the fittest 
and extinction of the less fit are the same thing, not two separable processes. When Darwinists say that 
natural selection preserves favorable mutations, they mean it selectively kills off organisms not possessing 
the favorable mutation. To allow mutation to make new eyes and wings step by step, natural selection has to 
be constantly eliminating parent organisms without eyes and wings, or with inferior eyes and wings. 
Darwinists have always considered extinct fossil species to be evidence that natural selection operates as the 
theory requires. If that is not the case, then where is the evidence that natural selection has ever done more 
than produce relatively trivial variations in local breeding populations? A natural selection that only creates 
and never destroys is a logical impossibility, because it wouldn't be doing any selecting." (Johnson, 1998b, 
pp.41-47)  [top]
	15.	Sexual selection 
		1.	Works at cross-purposes to natural selection 
"Sexual selection. This mechanism was less rigorous than natural selection but was basically nonadaptive or 
maladaptive." (Provine W.B., "Sewall Wright and Evolutionary Biology," University of Chicago Press: 
Chicago IL, 1986, p.209) 

"The advantage of sexual selection was that it did not have to prove utility; what was patently not useful, 
and therefore not subject to natural selection, could be regarded, by a sufficient exercise of imagination, as 
sexually attractive. Indeed, sexual selection could not only account for those characteristics that were 
useless; it could also account for those that were actually injurious. Darwin now admitted that sexual 
selection could work at cross purposes with natural selection, the objects of sexual admiration interfering 
with the more elementary struggle for existence." (Himmelfarb G., "Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution," 
[1959], Elephant Paperbacks: Chicago IL, 1996, reprint, p.367) 
"However, Darwin saw also-and again much more clearly than any of his contemporaries-that not all 
selection leads to improved adaptation, as this term is currently understood. An individual might contribute 
more genes to the next generation not through physiological efficiency or any other component of viability, 
but simply through being more successful in reproduction. This kind of selection Darwin called sexual 
selection. He further realized that there was a potential conflict between these two kinds of selection, 
the natural one for improved fitness (in the vernacular meaning of this word) and the sexual one for mere 
reproductive success of individuals. A purely egotistical selection for reproductive success might favor the 
evolution of traits that do not add to fitness (as traditionally understood) but might actually make the species 
more vulnerable. It leads to the gorgeous plumes of the birds of paradise, the extraordinary tail of the 
peacock, and the gigantic size of the elephant seal bulls. Darwin devoted almost two thirds of the text of his 
The Descent of Man (1871) to the discussion of sexual selection. Yet this important process was largely 
ignored during the ensuing 200 years ... The existence of selfish selection for reproductive success poses a 
dilemma for the evolutionary biologist. Classical natural selection ordinarily resulted in genotypes that were 
adaptively superior. This was so obvious that it was even suggested to define an adaptation as anything that 
was a "product of selection. " However, this definition does not fit sexual selection at all. Is the gigantic size 
of the elephant seal bulls of adaptive value for this species? Is the survival of birds of paradise enhanced by 
the brilliant plumes of the adult males? Surely not. On the contrary, it is quite possible that an excessive 
development of certain characters favored by sexual selection contributed to the extinction of some 
species." (Mayr E.W., "Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist," Harvard 
University Press: Cambridge MA, 1988, pp.104-105. Emphasis in original)
"But the problem goes still deeper. Even if there is such a process as sexual selection (which is arguable) 
and even if it produces the structures and behavior in question (which is very doubtful), what it has really 
brought forth is a monumental challenge to natural selection, the keystone of the whole Darwinian theory. 
In the peacock and the Argus pheasant (favorite subjects of discussion in this field), we have conspicuous 
and appetizing animals that cannot run, fly, fight, or hide. As Sir Julian Huxley says: "... the display-
characters may even be clearly disadvantageous to the individual in all aspects of existence other than the 
reproductive, as in the train of the peacock, the wings of the argus pheasant, or the plumes of some birds of 
paradise." [Huxley J.S., "Evolution: The Modern Synthesis," Allen & Unwin: London, 1942, p.427] By all 
reasonable standards (and who can really cleave to the doctrine that we should not set up standards or 
assume to judge fitness?) natural selection should never have allowed such animals to come into existence. 
But they have not only come into existence, they have stayed there and have not become extinct. Have the 
birds, through their patterns of sexual choice, established a system in which the race is not to the swift and 
the battle is not to the strong? If so, they have shaken the whole structure of Darwinism. ...Thus we may 
have understated the case when we said that sexual selection has been a disappointment. It has not only 
failed to solve the problems to which Darwin applied it; it has called attention to a glaring weakness in 
natural selection. It has emphasized the existence of things which, under a reasonable view of that theory, 
simply cannot be."(Macbeth N., "Darwin Retried: An Appeal to Reason," Gambit: Boston MA, 1971, 
pp.84-85) [top]
	16.	Assumed because there is no naturalistic alternative
"Natural selection, which has over the last few hundreds of millions of years produced the bone material and 
bones that we see now, has been able to work only by choosing what happens to survive. This is an 
extraordinarily inefficient way to proceed, but that's all there is; there is no other way." (Currey J.D., "Bones: 
Structure and Mechanics," Princeton University Press: Princeton NJ, 2002, p.380)  [top]
 
	17.	Dogmatically asserted
Despite (or maybe because) of the above problems of natural selection, it is usually just dogmatically asserted
by evolutionists. For example, Trivers just asserts that, "Chimp and human, lizard and fungus, we have all evolved over 
some three billion years by a process known as natural selection" (Trivers, 1976, p.vii). [top]

	18.	Does not apply to humans
Evolutionists themselves admit that natural selection does not now apply, at least not in any significant way, to humans. 
For example, "Steve Jones, a geneticist from University College London, .. says ... nature has lost its power to select"
in human beings" (Walker, 2004; Jones, 1992, p.284). "Now that we have eliminated many of the worst infectious diseases 
from our cities ... we are no longer subject to the destiny of natural selection" and evolutionists themselves question 
whether "For 21st-century human beings... evolution [may] have come to a full stop?" (Walker, 2004). 

Two recent studies have cast doubt on natural selection's applicabilty to man. First, a chromosome inversion called H2 that allows 
each carrier to produce 3.2% (or 0.06) children, representing a huge Darwinian reproductive fitness advantage, and has 
existed for about 3 million years, that is, predating by the emergence of not only _Homo sapiens_, but the genus _Homo_, 
and therefore should have in a fraction of that time completely replaced the original non-inverted genes, is however found in only 
20% of Icelanders and about 21% of all Europeans (ABC, 2005a; MSNBC, 2005a; Choi, 2005; Bohannon, 2005; 
Helgason, 2004). The second was a finding that low population sizes of hominids has caused a reduction in the effectiveness of 
natural selection in humans which contibuted to significantly accelerated size increase in the hominid brain (BBC, 2005a, Keightley,
et al, 2005). These two studies are more evidence that Darwinian evolution by random mutation and natural selection has 
made little, if any, contribution to the emergence of humans. [top]

	19.	Unable to produce the end result
Dawkins compares the Darwinian mechanism of the natural selection of random micromutations with the 
analogy of `evolving' "the first jet engine from an existing propeller engine changing one component at a time, 
nut by nut, screw by screw, rivet by rivet" with the added constraint that "Not only must the end product get off 
the ground; so must every intermediate along the way, and each intermediate must be superior to its 
predecessor." He then, notes that "A jet engine so assembled would be a weird contraption indeed" and that "It 
is hard to imagine that an aeroplane designed in that evolutionary way should ever get off the ground." Dawkins 
then concluded that, given this Darwinian mechanism and its constraints, "far from expecting animals to be 
perfect we may wonder that anything about them works at all" (my emphasis):
 
"The jet engine superseded the propeller engine because, for most purposes it was superior. The designers 
of the first jet engine started with a clean drawing board. Imagine what they would have produced if they 
had been constrained to 'evolve' the first jet engine from an existing propeller engine changing one 
component at a time, nut by nut, screw by screw, rivet by rivet. A jet engine so assembled would be a weird 
contraption indeed. It is hard to imagine that an aeroplane designed in that evolutionary way should ever 
get off the ground. Yet in order to complete the biological analogy we have to add yet another constraint. 
Not only must the end product get off the ground; so must every intermediate along the way, and each 
intermediate must be superior to its predecessor. When looked at in this light far from expecting animals to 
be perfect we may wonder that anything about them works at all." (Dawkins R., "The Extended Phenotype: 
The Long Reach of the Gene," [1982], Oxford University Press: Oxford UK, 1983, pp.38-39)  
The obvious conclusion is that animals (and by extension all organisms) were not produced by such a 
Darwinian mechanism!
The British chemist and early intelligent design theorist Robert E.D. Clark (1906-1984), using the analogy of 
turning "one model of a wireless set into a larger and better one by continuous stages" (let alone a 
wireless into something fundamentally different, like a TV set!) had pointed out more than 30 years before that it 
is actually "impossible" for it to be accomplished by "steady upward rises of the kind demanded by materialistic 
evolutionists" because "Only after passing through the useless stage can it be made more useful than before":
 
"In order to build up a structure by natural selection, it is essential that each stage in the building process 
must make an animal better fitted to its environment than the one before it. An eye that is half developed 
must be more useful to an animal than an eye that is 49 per cent developed, and this in turn, than one, the 
development of which has proceeded to only 48 per cent, and so on. The graph of usefulness against the 
extent of structural organization must show a steady upward rise-otherwise progress must inevitably stop, 
hindered by natural selection itself. If the graph is not a steady upward rise, but has ups and downs, then 
natural selection (which selects usefulness and adaptation), working from either direction, will force the 
organism to the nearest maximum. Today, with our much greater knowledge of and familiarity with complex 
systems, we know that steady upward rises of the kind demanded by materialistic evolutionists are 
unknown to science. Isolated fundamental changes make a machine less efficient than it was before and may 
even make it useless, unless, indeed, numerous other adaptations are made at the same time. The radio 
manufacturer cannot turn one model of a wireless set into a larger and better one by continuous stages-he 
cannot add a new valve, a condenser, a piece of wire, etc., in a series of operations, and hope each time to 
obtain a model that is slightly better than the one before. All the changes must be made at once-or not at all! 
To add an extra valve to a wireless set you must first cut through wires, disconnect the loudspeaker, etc., 
and at once the set becomes useless as a functioning whole. Only after passing through the useless stage 
can it be made more useful than before. It is the same with all arrangements of matter organised as 
functioning units. To ask for a gradual, uniform, improvement is, it seems, to ask for the impossible." (Clark 
R.E.D., "The Universe: Plan or Accident?: The Religious Implications of Modern Science," [1949], 
Paternoster: London, Third edition, 1961, pp.123-124) 
Cambridge University physics professor Brian Josephson, commenting on Dawkins' book,  Climbing Mount 
Improbable (1996), made a similar point when he observed that "there is no ... logical necessity" that there
existed, "a continuous path, leading from the origins of life to man, each step of which is both favored by 
natural selection, and small enough to have happened by chance" except that "commonly made assumptions in 
evolution require the existence of such a path":
"Dawkins's bold claims to tell us how Mount Improbable may be scaled offers no fundamental principles of 
promise regarding how biological information of the scale needed to explain macroevolution might be generated 
and absolutely no empirical support for his thesis that there is a footpath to the top of Mount Improbable with 
sufficiently small steps. In a recent letter to the editor of The Independent Brian Josephson, professor of 
physics at Cambridge University, summarizes Dawkins's approach: `In such books as the Blind Watchmaker, a 
crucial part of the argument concerns whether there exists a continuous path, leading from the origins of life to 
man, each step of which is both favored by natural selection, and small enough to have happened by chance. It 
appears to be presented as a matter of logical necessity that such a path exists, but actually there is no such 
logical necessity; rather, commonly made assumptions in evolution require the existence of such a path." 
[Josephson B., Letter to the editor, The Independent, January 12, 1997]." (Bradley W.L., "Designed or 
Designoid," in Dembski W.A., ed., "Mere Creation: Science, Faith & Intelligent Design," InterVarsity Press: 
Downers Grove IL, 1998, pp.47-48)  
 
What this means is that the Darwinian mechanism, the natural selection of random micromutations, 
cannot produce even a reducibly complex system (analogous to a jet engine from a propeller engine), 
let alone an irreducibly complex system! So when Darwin wrote:

"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by 
numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." (Darwin C.R., "The 
Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," [1872], Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons: London, 
6th Edition, 1928, reprint, p.170)
 
he cunningly shifted the burden of proof from his own theory, to show that "any complex organ existed 
which could ... possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications"  (my 
emphasis) onto his opponents to show an impossibility, the proving of a universal negative: 

"In Darwin's words, `if it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly 
have been formed by numerous successive slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.' 
Darwin argued that all known organs indeed could have evolved in small steps. He took examples of 
complex adaptations and showed how these examples could have evolved through intermediate stages. In 
cases such as the eye ..., these intermediates can be illustrated by analogies with living species; in other 
cases, they can only be imagined. Darwin had to show only that the intermediates could possibly have 
existed. His critics had the more difficult task: they had to show that the intermediates could not have 
existed. It is very difficult to prove negative statements." (Ridley M., "Evolution," [1993], Blackwell: 
Cambridge MA, Second Edition, 1996, Third Printing, 1999, p.342) 
 
But the fact is, as University of Chicago professor of microbiology James Shapiro concedes, "there are 
no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system, only a 
variety of wishful speculations" (and Shairo could have said "any complex system)"!:

"Behe quotes Darwin himself considering this possibility: `If it could be demonstrated that any complex 
organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, slight modifications, my theory 
would absolutely break down.' Surely, then, contemporary Darwinists have answers to rebut critics like 
Professor Behe. In fact, there are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental 
biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations. It is remarkable that Darwinism is 
accepted as a satisfactory explanation for such a vast subject -- evolution -- with so little rigorous 
examination of how well its basic theses work in illuminating specific instances of biological adaptation or 
diversity." (Shapiro J.A., "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. Book reviews," 
National Review, September 16, 1996)
 
Darwin's theory is the modern science equivalent of billionaire Jean Paul Getty's quip that, "If you owe the 
bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem." It would be just 
too embarrassing for modern biology to admit that for the last nearly 150 years, its central theory of 
biology, simply cannot do what it claims to be able to do-convert the biological equivalent of a aeroplane 
propeller engine into a jet engine, step-by-tiny-step, such that each step would not only be fully functional, 
but would be superior to the preceding steps! [top]
	20.	Relative importance
"Darwin's theory essentially says that there is `a naturalistic explanation for things,' Chomsky elaborated. 
Anyone who does not believe in `divine intervention' accepts as much. The difficulty lies in determining what 
the correct naturalistic explanation is. Natural selection is `a factor in determining the distribution of traits 
and properties within these constraints. A factor, not the factor.' Darwin himself had emphasized that 
nonadaptive changes also occur during evolution, Chomsky said." (Horgan J., "The Undiscovered Mind: How 
the Brain Defies Explanation," [1999], Phoenix: London, 2000, p.178. Emphasis original)  [top]