"Because of the euphoria which attended the triumph of Darwinism, the effect of those experiments on the thinking on evolution was most profound. First, the long-held conjecture that chance alone produced the favourable variations which natural selection preserved was deemed, without any justification, to have been experimentally verified. Then everything that evolved was designated the lucky beneficiary of chance. Enzymes, proteins, and even man himself, were held to be the products of mere chance. In short, the biologists' belief in the creative power of chance soon equalled or surpassed the Christian belief in the creative power of God." (Opadia-Kadima G.Z., "How the Slot Machine Led Biologists Astray," Journal of Theoretical Biology, Vol. 124, 1987, pp.127- 135, p.129)
[top]"The opportune appearance of mutations permitting animals and plants to meet their needs seems hard to believe. Yet: 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, Pierre-P. [former editor of the 28-volume "Traite de Zoologie," for 30 years Chair of Evolution, Sorbonne University, and ex-president of the French Academie des Sciences], "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation," [1973], Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p.103).
[top]"To suppose that the evolution of the wonderfully adapted biological mechanisms has depended only on a selection out of a haphazard set of variations, each produced by blind chance, is like suggesting that if we went on throwing bricks together into heaps, we should eventually be able to choose ourselves the most desirable house." (Waddington, Conrad H. [Professor of Animal Genetics, University of Edinburgh], "The Listener," London, 13 November 1952, in Koestler A., "The Ghost in the Machine," [1967], Arkana: London, 1989, reprint, p127)
[top/A>]"But the roulette analogy hides rather than indicates the fantastic improbability of any major evolutionary advance produced by chance mutations. For such an event to occur, it is not enough that a certain required number, say the 17, should come up on the roulette table - but that it should come up simultaneously on a dozen or so tables in the same establishment, followed by the 18, 19 and 20 simultaneously on all tables. Let me illustrate this by a few examples. The first is very simple and trivial, involving only four roulette wheels. The giant panda has on its front limbs an added, sixth finger. This could be a typical case of a deformation caused by a deleterious chance mutation; it happens to be quite useful to the panda in manipulating bamboo shoots, but it would of course be a useless hindrance if it were not equipped with the requisite muscles, nerves and blood- supply. The chances that among all possible genetic mutations just those which produced the added bones, nerves, muscles and arteries occurred simultaneously and independently from each other are infinitesimally small. And yet in this case we have only four main factors four roulette wheel at work. When it comes to such composite marvels as the vertebrate eye - that classic stumbling block of the Darwinian theory with its retina, rods and cones, lens, iris, pupil and what have you, the odds against the harmonious evolution of its components by independent random mutations, i.e., by 'blind chance', becomes, pace Huxley, absurd. Darwin himself clearly realized this when, in 1860, he wrote to Asa Gray: 'I remember well the time when the thought of the eye made me cold all over.' It still has that effect on the upholders of the doctrine, so they avoid discussing it, or resort to elaborate evasions." (Koestler, Arthur [soldier, writer and philosopher], "Janus: A Summing Up," [1978], Picador: London, 1983, reprint, p.174. Emphasis Koestler's).
[top]"Equally chilling is the idea that some ancestral reptiles became transformed into birds by the small, step- by-step changes caused by random mutations affecting different organs. In fact one gets goose-pimples at the mere thought of the number of Monod's roulette wheels which must be kept spinning to produce the simultaneous transformation of scales into feathers, solid bones into hollow tubes, the outgrowth of air sacs into various parts of the body, the development of the shoulder muscles and bones to athletic proportions, and so forth. And this rewasting of bodily structure is accompanied by basic changes in the internal systems, including excretion. Birds never spend a penny. Instead of diluting their nitrogenous waste in water, which is a heavy ballast, they excrete it from the kidneys in a semi-solid state through the cloaca. Then there is also the little matter of the transition, by 'blind chance', from the cold-blooded to the warm-blooded condition. There is no end to the specifications which have to be met to make our reptile airborne or to construct a camera eye out of living software." (Koestler, Arthur [soldier, writer and philosopher], "Janus: A Summing Up," [1978], Picador: London, 1983, reprint, p.175).
[]"But what kind of mutations could bring about the major changes I have described? Could cause a tube to roll up into a helix? Could cause other tubes to form semi-circular canals accurately set at right angles to each other. Could grade sensory hairs according to length? Could cause the convenient deposit of a crystal in the one place it will register gravity?...It just doesn't make sense." (Taylor, Gordon Rattray [former Chief Science Adviser, BBC Television], "The Great Evolution Mystery," Abacus: London, 1983, p106)
[ top]"Evolution by natural selection is, as stressed above, in essence merely a special case of problem solving by trial and error. This implies that every evolutionary route followed during the course of evolution to every adaptive end must have been initially discovered and traced out as the result of a process which is in the end nothing more nor less than a gigantic random search. While it is easy to accept that a random search might hit on mutational routes leading to relatively trivial sorts of adaptive ends, such as the best coloration for a stoat or ptarmigan or the most efficient beak forms for each of the different species of Galapagos finch. But as to whether the same blind undirected search mechanism could have discovered the mutational routes to very complex and ingenious adaptations such as the vertebrate camera eye, the feather, the organ of corti or the mammalian kidney is altogether another question. To common sense it seems incredible to attribute such ends to random search mechanisms, known by experience to be incapable, at least in finite time, of achieving even the simplest of ends." (Denton, Michael J. [molecular biologist], "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis," Burnett Books: London, 1985, p.61).
[top]"Some contemporary biologists, as soon as they observe a mutation, talk about evolution. They are implicitly supporting the following syllogism: mutations are the only evolutionary variations, all living beings undergo mutations, therefore all living beings evolve. This logical scheme is, however, unacceptable: first, because its major premise is neither obvious nor general; second, because its conclusion does not agree with the facts. No matter how numerous they may be, mutations do not produce any kind of evolution." (Grasse, Pierre-P. [former editor of the 28-volume "Traite de Zoologie," for 30 years the Chair of Evolution, Sorbonne University, and ex-president of the French Academie des Sciences], "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation," Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p.88).
[top]"I am convinced it is this almost trivial simplicity that explains why the Darwinian theory is so widely accepted, why it has penetrated through the educational system so completely. As one student text puts it, `The theory is a two-step process. First variation must exist in a population. Second, the fittest members of the population have a selective advantage and are more likely to transmit their genes to the next generation.' What of the situation that bad mutations must enormously exceed good ones in number? ... The essential problem for the Darwinian theory in its twentieth century form is how to cope with this continuing flood of adverse mutations ... Supposing a favourable mutation to occur among the avalanche of unfavourable ones, how is the favourable mutation to advance against the downward pressure of the others?" (Hoyle, Fred [late mathematician, physicist and Professor of Astronomy, Cambridge University], "Mathematics of Evolution," [1987], Acorn Enterprises: Memphis TN, 1999, pp.8-9).
[top]"Panchronic species, which like other species are subject to the assaults of mutations remain unchanged. Their variants are eliminated except possibly for neutral mutants. In any event, their stability is an observed fact and not a theoretical concept. ... What is the use of their unceasing mutations, if they do not change? In sum, the mutations of bacteria and viruses are merely hereditary fluctuations around a median position; a swing to the right, a swing to the left, but no final evolutionary effect. ... It is important to note that relict species mutate as much as others do, but do not evolve, not even when they live in conditions favorable to change (diversity of environments, cosmopolitianism, large populations)." (Grasse, Pierre-P. [former editor of the 28-volume "Traite de Zoologie," for 30 years Chair of Evolution, Sorbonne University, and ex-president of the French Academie des Sciences], "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation," [1973], Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p.87).
[top]"Bacteria, the study of which has formed a great part of the foundation of genetics and molecular biology, are the organisms which, because of their huge numbers, produce the most mutants. This is why they gave rise to an infinite variety of species, called strains, which can be revealed by breeding or tests. Like Erophila verna, bacteria, despite their great production of intraspecific varieties, exhibit a great fidelity to their species. The bacillus Escherichia coli, whose mutants have been studied very carefully, is the best example. The reader will agree that it is surprising, to say the least, to want to prove evolution and to discover its mechanisms and then to choose as a material for this study a being which practically stabilized a billion years ago!" (Grasse, Pierre-P. [former editor of the 28-volume "Traite de Zoologie," for 30 years Chair of Evolution, Sorbonne University, and ex-president of the French Academie des Sciences], "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation," [1973], Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p.87).
[top]"If you isolate a small number of individuals from the main population and prevent them from interbreeding with the main population, then, after a time, the distribution of genes in the gene pool of the new population will differ somewhat from that of the original population. This will happen even if selection pressures are completely absent. Moritz Wagner, a contemporary of Darwin, and of course a pre- Mendelian, was aware of this situation. He therefore introduced a theory of evolution by genetic drift, made possible by reproductive isolation through geographical separation. In order to understand the task of natural selection, it is good to remember Darwin's reply to Moritz Wagner. Darwin's main reply to Wagner was: if you have no natural selection, you cannot explain the evolution of the apparently designed organs, like the eye. Or in other words, without natural selection, you cannot solve Paley's problem." (Popper, Karl R., [Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of London], "Natural Selection and the Emergence of Mind," Dialectica, Vol. 32, Nos. 3-4, 1978, pp.339-355, p.345).
[top]"Despite a close watch, we have witnessed no new species emerge in the wild in recorded history. Also, most remarkably, we have seen no new animal species emerge in domestic breeding. That includes no new species of fruitflies in hundreds of millions of generations in fruitfly studies, where both soft and harsh pressures have been deliberately applied to the fly populations to induce speciation. And in computer life, where the term "species" does not yet have meaning, we see no cascading emergence of entirely new kinds of variety beyond an initial burst. In the wild, in breeding, and in artificial life, we see the emergence of variation. But by the absence of greater change, we also clearly see that the limits of variation appear to be narrowly bounded, and often bounded within species." (Kelly, Kevin [Executive Editor of Wired Magazine], "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines," [1994], Fourth Estate: London, 1995, reprint, p.475).
[top]"In the midst of his outpouring of anger at and dismissal of Goldschmidt, Dobzhansky neglected to consider the fact that while Goldschmidt's systemic mutations may not have been observed, neither had the mechanisms of speciation that he, or anyone else, for the matter, had proposed. Rather, Dobzhansky, as others did and would do, took for granted that, with enough time, the kinds of small mutations and changes that were observed in laboratory experiments on fruit-fly population genetics were also capable of producing the degrees of differences that seem to characterize species in the wild. To be sure, there was a certain logic in the belief that it was unnecessary to postulate another mechanism for evolutionary change when one already appeared to exist. This logic also seemed to benefit from the assertion that not only had no other mechanism been observed but that no other mechanism had yet produced species. Nevertheless, it was and still is the case that, with the exception of Dobzhansky's claim about a new species of fruit fly, the formation of a new species, by any mechanism, has never been observed." (Schwartz, Jeffrey H. [Professor of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, USA], "Sudden Origins: Fossils, Genes, and the Emergence of Species," John Wiley & Sons: New York NY, 1999, pp.299-300).
[top]"There are a number of problems with hypothetical schemes capable of producing rapid, large, coherent changes in phenotypes. Equally large immediate changes in the genotype might be needed, and any large change in genotype or phenotype must surely be sufficiently disruptive to be lethal. And where would a large change in a phenotype or genotype come from? Moreover, suppose an oddity were to be produced, how would a population be established and maintained?" (Thomson, Keith Stewart [Professor of Biology and Dean of the Graduate School, Yale University, USA], "The Meanings of Evolution," American Scientist, Vol. 70, pp.529-531, September-October 1982, p.530).
[top]"The drawback for scientists is that nature's shrewd economy conceals enormous complexity. Researchers are finding evidence that the Hox genes and the non-Hox homeobox genes are not independent agents but members of vast genetic networks that connect hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other genes. Change one component, and myriad others will change as well--and not necessarily for the better. Thus dreams of tinkering with nature's toolbox to bring to life what scientists call a "hopeful monster"-such as a fish with feet--are likely to remain elusive." (Nash, J. Madeleine [Senior science and technology correspondent], "Where Do Toes Come From?," Time, Vol. 146, No. 5, July 31, 1995. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/archive/1995/950731/950731.science.html).
[top]* Authors with an asterisk against their name are believed not to be evolutionists.
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