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The following are unclassified quotes added to my database in October 2005. The date format is dd/mm/yy. See copyright conditions at end..
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2/10/2005
"This is a very grave philosophical and truly anthropomorphic error, making selection as an active
and transcendental entity. ... Selection in nature acts upon species to eliminate the `not-so-good,' the flawed,
the disabled. That is its chief role." (Grassé, P.-P., "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New
Theory of Transformation," [1973], Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, pp.128-129. Emphasis original)
2/10/2005
"The `evolution in action' of J. Huxley and other biologists is simply the observation of demographic facts,
local fluctuations of genotypes, geographical distributions. Often the species concerned have remained
practically unchanged for hundreds of centuries! ... The genic differences noted between separate
populations of the same species that are so often presented as proof of ongoing evolution are, above all, a
case of the adjustment of a population to its habitat and of the effects of genetic drift. The fruitfly
(Drosophila melanogaster), the favorite pet insect of the geneticists, whose geographical, biotopical,
urban, and rural genotypes are now known inside out, seems not to have changed since the remotest times."
(Grassé, P.-P., "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation," [1973],
Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p.130)
2/10/2005
"Julian Huxley ... compares selection to a god creating the best and the worst indifferently, the sublime and
the horrible. To substantiate his interpretation, he writes: "We need only think of the ugliness of the
Sacculina, or a bladder-worm, the stupidity of a rhinoceros, or a stegosaur, the horror of a female mantis
devouring its mate or a brood of ichneumon flies slowly eating out a caterpillar" (Huxley, 1945, p. 485).
Huxley's choice of examples does not demonstrate that evolution is defective; they shock our human
preconceptions, logical, moral, or esthetic, but our value judgments have nothing to do with evolution."
(Grassé, P.-P., "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation," [1973],
Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p.137)
2/10/2005
"According to Darwinism, which has adopted the dualistic concept of the body of multicellular organisms as
enunciated by Weismann (1885, 1888), the reaction involves only the perishable part of the individual, the
soma; the germ is inaccessible to alien influence except for the mutagenic agents; hence the notion that the
germ is passive in evolution, registering the random blows which are struck against it. The bodily reaction
leaves it unchanged. Its only possible, and passive, counterattack is that it contains mutated and randomly
preadapted genes. Agreement between genes and environment is a matter of pure chance. The living
creature submits to its fate. Like a rudderless boat, it floats on the ocean of time and docilely and indefinitely
obeys the aleatory movements of the waters supporting it. Such is the Darwinian concept. In my opinion, it
does not correspond to reality."
(Grassé, P.-P., "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation," [1973],
Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p.151)
3/10/2005
"The link between homology and common descent was so central to Darwin's theory that his followers
actually re-defined homology to mean features inherited from a common ancestor. Even after
homology was re-defined, however, the Darwinian account remained incomplete without a mechanism to
explain why homologous features were so similar in such different organisms. When neoDarwinism arose in
the 1930s and 1940s, it seemed to have a solution to this problem: Homologous features were attributed to
similar genes inherited from a common ancestor. Modern Darwinists continue to use homology as evidence
for their theory. In fact, next to the Darwinian tree of life, homology in vertebrate limbs is probably the most
common icon of evolution in biology textbooks. But the icon conceals two serious problems: First, if
homology is defined as similarity due to common descent, then it is circular reasoning to use it as
evidence for common descent. Second, biologists have known for decades that homologous
features are not due to similar genes, so the mechanism that produces them remains unknown." (Wells, J.*,
"Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth?: Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution is Wrong,"
Regnery: Washington DC, 2000, pp.61-62. Emphasis original)
3/10/2005
"So before Darwin (and for Darwin himself), the definition of homology was similarity of structure and
position (as in the bone patterns of vertebrate limbs). But similarity of structure and position did not explain
the origin of homology, so an explanation had to be provided. For pre-Darwinian biologists, the explanation
was derivation from an original pattern, or archetype. Darwin identified `derivation' with biological evolution,
and `archetype' with a common ancestor. But for twentieth-century neo-Darwinists, common ancestry is the
definition of homology as well as its explanation. According to Ernst Mayr, one of the
principal architects of neo-Darwinism: "After 1859 there has been only one definition of homologous that
makes biological sense.... Attributes of two organisms are homologous when they are derived from an
equivalent characteristic of the common ancestor." [Mayr E., "The Growth of Biological Thought," Harvard
University Press: Cambridge MA, 1982, pp.232, 465] In other words, with Charles Darwin evolution was a
theory, and homology was evidence for it. With Darwin's followers, evolution is assumed to be
independently established, and homology is its result. The problem is that now homology cannot be used
as evidence for evolution except by reasoning in a circle. ... to turn around and argue that homologous limbs
point to common ancestry is a vicious circle: Common ancestry demonstrates homology which
demonstrates common ancestry." (Wells, J.*, "Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth?: Why Much of What
We Teach About Evolution is Wrong," Regnery: Washington DC, 2000, pp.62-63. Emphasis original)
3/10/2005
"I get support for my claim from an unexpected source, the famous British evolutionist, Sir Gavin de Beer.
Writing as an evolutionist, de Beer (1971) titles his Oxford Biology Reader, Homology, An Unsolved
Problem. In describing the first problem for evolution, de Beer notes that we have the same kind of
pattern in our arm that we find in the leg of a dog and the wing of a bat. But, he adds, we also find that same
pattern in the human leg. Sure enough, the upper leg has one bone like the upper arm. There are two bones
in the lower leg like those in the lower arm, and the bones in the ankle, foot, and toes rare like those in the
wrist, hand, and fingers. As a college biology major, I was supposed to consider this an evidence of
evolution, called `serial homology.' De Beer says, in effect, `Don't do that.' He says you cannot call that
evidence of evolution, because we cannot imagine that the arm evolved from the leg, or that the leg evolved
from the arm, or that human beings evolved from some creature that had only one kind of limb. Repeated
structures, de Beer says, (including appendages of insects and lobsters) can't be called evidence of
evolution. They could not represent descent from common ancestor. That's the negative side. On the
positive side, repeated structural plans can be explained in terms of creation according to a common plan.
We see in serial homology the "theme and variation" pattern we so easily associate with human creativity,
among both artists and engineers." (Parker, G.E.*, "Creation: the Facts of Life," [1980], Master Book
Publishers: San Diego CA, 1984, Third printing, pp.17-19)
3/10/2005
"The second problem for evolution that de Beer points out concerns corresponding parts between male and
female reproductive systems, something biology students are aught to call `sexual homology.' De Beer
wants to use 'homology" only for evolutionary relationships. He tells us, in effect, not to use that term for
similarities in the basic plan of male and female anatomy. We can't even imagine, he argues, that females
evolved into males, or vice versa, or that human beings evolved from an animal :hat had only one sex. On
the positive side, we seem instead to see the `theme and variation' signature of one who created two
complementary sexes of one flesh--creation according to a common plan." (Parker, G.E.*, "Creation: the
Facts of Life," [1980], Master Book Publishers: San Diego CA, 1984, Third printing, p.19)
3/10/2005
"In modern times, science is highly esteemed. Apparently it is a widely held belief that there is something
special about science and its methods. The naming of some claim or line of reasoning or piece of research
`scientific' is done in a way that is intended to imply some kind of merit or special kind of reliability. But
what, if anything, is so special about science? What is this `scientific method' that allegedly leads to
especially meritorious or reliable results? .. The high regard for science is not restricted to everyday life and
the popular media. It is evident in the scholarly and academic world and in all parts of the knowledge
industry. Many areas of study are described as sciences by their supporters, presumably in an effort to
imply that the methods used are as firmly based and as potentially fruitful as in a traditional science such as
physics. ... The mistaken view of science referred to above will be discussed and demolished in the opening
chapters of this book. Even though some scientists and many pseudo-scientists voice their allegiance to
that method, no modern philosopher of science would be unaware of at least some of its shortcomings.
Modern developments in the philosophy of science have pinpointed and stressed deep-seated difficulties
associated with the idea that science rests on a sure foundation acquired through observation and
experiment and with the idea that there is some kind of inference procedure that enables us to derive
scientific theories from such a base in a reliable way. There is just no method that enables scientific theories
to be proven true or even probably true." (Chalmers,A.F., "What is this thing called Science?: An
Assessment of the Nature and Status of Science and its Method," [1976], University of Queensland Press:
St Lucia Qld, Australia, Second edition, 1994, reprint, pp.xv-xvi)
3/10/2005
"The So-called Scientific Method. It is widely believed that the essence of science is its method. The earlier-
mentioned definition used in surveys of scientific literacy expresses commonly held notions of what the
scientific method is: systematic, controlled observation or experiment whose results lead to hypotheses,
which are found valid or invalid through further work, leading to theories that are reliable because they were
arrived at with initial open-mindedness and continual critical skepticism. ... For our present purpose, it is
sufficient to recognize that these are the salient acknowledged elements of the popular view of being
scientifically methodical: empirical, pragmatic, open-minded, skeptical, sensitive to possibilities of falsifying;
thereby establishing objective facts leading to hypotheses, to laws, to theories; and incessantly reaching
out for new knowledge, new discoveries, new facts, and new theories. The burden of the following will be
how misleading this view-which I shall call `"the myth of the scientific method'-is in many specific
directions, how incapable it is of explaining what happens in science, how it is worse than useless as a guide
to what society ought to do about science and technology." (Bauer, H.H., "Scientific Literacy and the Myth
of the Scientific Method," [1992], University of Illinois Press: Urbana & Chicago IL, 1994, reprint, pp.19-20)
3/10/2005
"So the classical and common view of science misconceives the actual relationship between theories and
facts; and (consequently, inevitably) it misconceives the nature of the scientific method-the things that
scientists actually do. It misconceives the behavior of science and of scientists in the face of surprising
discoveries; and it misconceives much else about science, about technology, and about their interaction
with one another and with the wider society. An important misconception is implicit in the very use of the
terms `science,' `scientists,' `scientific.' To talk of scientists is to imply that astronomers, biologists,
chemists, geologists, and physicists are all somehow much the same in some significant respect. To talk of
science is to imply that astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology, and physics are all much the same sort of
things. When there is talk about being scientific, it is commonly implied that one can be that, scientifically
methodical, irrespective of the particular nature of what is being done; that one can be scientific about
anything ... As soon as one looks in any depth, however, it becomes less and less clear what is really the
same about astronomy and biology, say, or about what astronomers do and what biologists do. Sure
enough, both astronomy and biology (and the other sciences as well) have to do with the study of selected
aspects of nature. Sure enough, their findings are always subject to the commands of reality: false results
are discarded (sooner or later, as their falsity becomes sufficiently obvious). Sure enough, each of the
sciences now offers impressively detailed, coherent, and reliable insights, far more than they did fifty years
ago, vastly more than a century ago, almost unrecognizably more than two centuries ago. But there, or
about there, the identity among the sciences comes to an end. The diversity among them includes that they
vary in the degree to which they use mathematics: physics and astronomy cannot do without high
mathematics, whereas much of biology or geology needs little more than arithmetic, and various bits of
chemistry fall into one or the other of those categories." (Bauer, H.H., "Scientific Literacy and the Myth of
the Scientific Method," [1992], University of Illinois Press: Urbana & Chicago IL, 1994, reprint, p.24)
3/10/2005
"Finally, consider the claim that to be scientific a theory must be testable. As we saw above, neither design
nor descent can meet standards of testability that require strict verifiability. I have also emphasized that
neither can meet standards of testability that depend on notions of repeatability. Yet both can meet alternate
standards of testability, such as inference to the best explanation or `consilience,' that involve notions of
comparative explanatory power. This equivalence was suggested again from the historical nature of the
claims that design and evolutionary theorists make. Like other historical theorists, both make claims about
events they believe occurred in the past that cannot be directly verified and may never recur. Yet like other
historical theories these theories can be tested after the fact by reference to their comparative explanatory
power. To impose stricter standards ignores the limitations inherent in all historical inquiry and thus again
fails to provide grounds for distinguishing the status of competing historical or origins theories." (Meyer,
S.C., "The Methodological
Equivalence of Design & Descent: Can There be a Scientific `Theory of Creation'?," in Moreland J.P.,
ed., "The Creation Hypothesis: Scientific Evidence for an Intelligent Designer," InterVarsity Press: Downers
Grove IL, 1994, p.89)
3/10/2005
"In his testimony to you on July 9th, UT biology professor David Hillis claimed, `There is no debate about
the existence of evolution in scientific circles.' That may be, depending on how you define evolution. But
there is considerable debate in scientific circles about the mechanism of evolution, namely, how it happened.
Cambridge paleontologist Simon Conway Morris, writing for the premier biology journal Cell, remarks:
`When discussing organic evolution the only point of agreement seems to be: "It happened." Thereafter,
there is little consensus....' (Jan. 7, 2000) Despite that, the illusion of consensus is all we get in the textbooks.
What's more, pro-Darwinian lobbyists, like Eugenie Scott, strive to maintain that illusion. In an interview
with Salon (May 4, 2001), Scott tells us why. According to her, for textbooks to admit the lack of consensus
over how evolution happened will "confuse kids about the soundness of evolution as a science." Whatever
happened to science education nurturing the capacity of young minds for critical thought? Whatever
happened to exposing students to as much information as required to form balanced scientific judgments?
All the textbooks under consideration grossly exaggerate the evidence for neo-Darwinian evolution,
pretending that its mechanism of natural selection acting on random genetic change is a slam-dunk. Not so."
(Dembski W.A.*, "William Dembski Testimony for Textbook Hearing, Austin, Texas, September 10, 2003,"
Texas State Board of Education, September 10, 2003. Discovery Institute: Seattle WA.)
3/10/2005
"John E Haught, professor of theology at Georgetown University, also uses ideas from process theology in
his formulation of a theology of evolution. Like Miller, Haught professes to be a Christian and an
evolutionist. Haught makes no attempt to justify evolution, for he takes evolution to be a fact that science
has uncovered. Darwin's appeal to nature's evils is, for Haught, not an unscientific liability but a challenge
for anyone trying to reconcile God and evolution. Evolution is a fact, so its metaphysics must be
acknowledged and explained. Haught tries to do just that by constructing a complicated system based on
the idea of an autonomous creation and a humble Creator. What science detects as evolution, according to
Haught, is really the world's ongoing process of self-creation. The world is `self -ordering' and `self-creative'
as it moves `into an always free and open future.' [Haught J.F., "God after Darwin," Westview: Boulder CO:
2000, pp.53-54] This process appears random and unguided to evolutionists because God does not control
his creation, for true love is not coercive but persuasive. God has more of a vision than a fixed plan as he
entices the world with opportunity rather than manipulating the world with smothering love. The Scriptures
speak of God's rescuing a fallen world, but for Haught the human sin condition is not particularly
threatening. The sin so deplored in Scripture is not so much our actual evil acts as the `intractable situation
that has come to prevail' as a result of humanity's `indifference to its creative mission in the cosmos.' [p.139]
In Haught's system the biblical doctrine of original sin refers to how `each of us is born into a still
unfinished, imperfect universe .' [p.138] Therefore God need not be seen as the take-charge sort of God who
rescues the world. Instead the Christian view is better represented by a vulnerable, defenseless Creator who
respects the world. `God's unobtrusive and self-absenting mode of being,' explains Haught, invites the world
to swell forth continually.' [p.54] It is, paradoxically, the `hiddenness of God's power in a self-effacing
persuasive love, that allows creation to come about and to unfold freely and indeterminately in evolution.'
[p.97] In fact, God's love is so `outrageously 'irrational` that Haught wonders if intelligence might have first
arisen in the evolution of humankind. [p.113] In Haught's system, God is in humble retreat.' He is
unobtrusive, self -concealing, self withdrawing, and under eternal restraint. Haught has rescued God from
evil, not by moving God upward toward transcendence but by moving him downward toward subservience.
God's humility and selflessness are accompanied by a loss of control and responsibility. This is exactly what
we should expect, argues Haught, because this is how true love works. One result of Haught's system is that
science need not concern itself with the actions of God, for his account in no way interferes with purely
scientific explanations of evolutionary events.' The `God hypothesis,' [p.53, 55.] Haught reassures the
scientist, need not be considered." (Hunter, C.G., "Darwin's God Evolution and the Problem of Evil," Brazos
Press: Grand Rapids MI, 2001, pp.172-173)
4/10/2005
"The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press signaled ID's growing importance in January, issuing an
805-page anthology titled `Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics.' That book title depicts ID as a
variant of creationism, which reads Genesis literally and says the Earth was formed thousands of years ago -
rather than billions - all species appeared immediately and a flood engulfed the globe. Yet ID actually insists
on none of that. And while creationists are mostly conservative Protestants, ID theorists come from a wider
range of faiths and some are nonreligious. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled creationism is too biblical for
public schools, and ID proponents sought to distinguish themselves from that label in a long Utah Law
Journal article arguing that ID is fit for public schools. University of Wisconsin historian Ronald L.
Numbers, an ID opponent and author of `The Creationists,' agrees the creationist label is inaccurate when it
comes to the ID movement. But, he adds, its `the easiest way to discredit intelligent design.'" (Ostling R.N.,
"Ohio School Board
Debates Teaching 'Intelligent Design'," The Washington Post, March 14, 2002)
4/10/2005
"Other natural phenomena have fooled archaeologists into producing complicated explanations. For
example, the suggestion of the cave bear cult was based upon the discovery of cave bear skulls in
Drachenloch Cave (Chase 1987). Further examination of other caves and study of the natural behavioral
patterns of modern bears indicated that the cave bear skulls were in fact natural cave accumulations, not
evidence of prehistoric ritual (Jequier 1975)" (Pelcin,A., "A Geological Explanation for the Berekhat Ram
Figurine", Current Anthropology, Vol. 35, December 1994, pp.674-675)
4/10/2005
"During the years 1917 to 1921 Emil Bachler, of the museum in St. Gallen, Switzerland, dug the Drachenloch
Cave ... The cave, at an altitude of 7,335 feet (2,240 meters) above sea level, forms a deep tunnel running
more than 200 feet (70 meters) into the cliff. The deposit in the cave turned out to contain an immense
number of cave bear remains, including several well-preserved skulls and complete limb bones. At that
elevation, the site would have been inaccessible during the glaciation; thus the bears must date from the
interglacial, the time of early Neandertal man in Europe. To his surprise, Bachler came to realize that the
skulls and bones were by no means scattered haphazardly. On the contrary, they seemed to be oriented
rigidly in certain preferred directions. Could they have been deliberately placed by man? Soon there were
further discoveries that made Bachler sure. The finds in the Drachenloch were reported by Bachler ... The
most remarkable find was that of a large stone coffin or chest, containing a group of cave bear skulls and
covered by a large stone slab. All of the skulls were pointing the same way. The coffin was about three feet
(1 meter) high; the sides consisted of limestone slabs, which, like the cover, had originally fallen down from
the ceiling of the cave. Unfortunately, in the course of the excavation, workmen destroyed the chests, and
no photographs were taken. ... Is there, then, any other evidence of the presence of man, apart from this
curious arranging of the bones? In fact they are precious few. There are no flint implements. There are no
burnt bones. There are no butchering cuts on the bones. All there is are some hearths, indicating that an
occasional visitor or group made a brief stop. Any prolonged stay would certainly have been reflected in the
sprinkling of numerous flints. But how could such elaborate structures as the suggested stone coffins have
come about if not erected by man? And the alignment of the bones? ... It is evident that repeated pushing of
such elongate objects as skulls, jaws, and long bones into niches or along walls will inevitably tend to align
them in the same direction, suggesting that they were positioned by intent. In fact, all of the pushing,
trampling, gnawing, biting, swallowing and regurgitating, pounding by falling rocks, and so on, which the
bones undergo in a well-frequented cave ... is likely to produce, from time to time, the most peculiar results.
And we must remember that such freaks or oddities are precisely the ones that tend to be selected for
survival by natural agencies. For instance, skulls in niches are likely to be preserved, while skulls in the
middle of the cave floor will be trampled to fragments and survive only as isolated teeth and pieces of bone
pushed down into the earth. It is estimated that some 30,000 to 50,000 bears died in the Dragon Cave near
Mixnitz, but only some 76 good skulls were found. One skull out of 500 or thereabouts! No wonder skulls in
bear caves look as if somebody had put them in a safe place. Taking this possibility into account, it
now seems impossible to accept the evidence for deliberate burials of bear skulls and other bones in the
Drachenloch Cave near Vattis. The same goes for other sites, such as the Petershohle in southern Germany,
the Dragon Cave near Mixnitz in Austria, and the Wildenmannisloch in Switzerland, where deliberate
positioning of skulls and bones has been claimed though not in actual `chests.' ... Enthusiasm for the `bear
cult' is naturally contagious. Secondhand and thirdhand quotations from the original works often tend to
glorious embellishment-to be found even in the writings of such a sober prehistorian as the Abba Breuil
himself, who once referred to the Petershohle as a Paleolithic `tabernacle.' ... The most trivial occurrences
have been cited as evidence for the cult of the cave bear. ... I believe that we must conclude, with Koby, that
there is no real evidence for a cave bear cult among the Neandertal men who inhabited Europe in the last
interglaical and the earlier part of the last glaciation. There may have been a bear cult-but we have no
proof." (Kurten,B., "The Cave Bear Story: Life and Death of a Vanished Animal," Columbia University Press:
New York NY, 1976, pp.83-84, 86, 89-91. Emphasis original)
5/10/2005
"The humblest creature often poses evolutionary problems in stark terms that cannot be escaped by mere
rhetoric. None is more `antichance' than the ant lion larva, for it offers the naturalist an exceedingly rich
collection of coaptations and in all its organs pushes specialization, both morphological and physiological,
to an extreme. Its head is flat and its mouth has become a slit hermetically closed by a double lock, two
astonishing coaptations of parts formed independently of one another during ontogeny. The
forward edge of the head is bent back underneath to form the upper lip, while a hexagonal plate whose real
edge is welded to the wall of the skull forms the lower. The roof of the buccal slit has a triangular projection
that fits into a preexisting hollow of the lower lip, the whole forming a kind of pushbutton. A second,
complementary locking device is a dovetail assembly in which a sideways and forward projection of the
floor of the pharynx is lodged in a corresponding groove in the roof of the mouth. A closed mouth is
admittedly not conducive to absorption of food, and rules out all solids, but the ant-lion larva has adopted a
very special means of nourishment: It pumps out the body fluids of its victims. Because of the locking of the
buccal orifice, the mandibles and maxillae are pushed laterally rearward from the oral cavity to the edges of
the slot. They are highly elongated and their free extremities curve inward to form sharp-edged pincers. The
mandibles have a longitudinal groove on their inner face running as far as the root of the appendix, thus
communicating with the buccal cavity. The maxilla, reproducing on a smaller scale the curve of the mandible,
runs parallel to its inner side; externally it has a gutter, which fits extremely snugly to the groove in the
mandible. The superimposed trench and gutter form, edge to edge, a capillary channel: Coaptation is perfect.
The ant lion larva ... digs its buccal pincers into the body of its prey. It first injects a paralyzing poison
secreted by a gland and kept ready in a small basilar swelling of the maxilla; the poison travels not down the
capillary channel but along a longitudinal gap between epidermis and cuticle; thus, it does not mingle with
the digestive juices. Once the prey is paralyzed, the ant lion injects into it, via its maxillomandibular capillary
tube, digestive juices that attack and liquefy viscera and muscles. The juices can be withdrawn and then the
body juices of the prey sucked off by conversion of the pharynx to a reciprocating pump. The larva's
sensory equipment includes numerous organs capable of recording the tiniest mechanical vibration of the
support. Let but a grain of sand trickle down the walls of its tunnel, and the larva, instantly alerted, gets
ready to leap on the possible prey with its mandibles gaping wide. To struggle with the prey, the hunter
needs to get a firm grip on the substratum. It is able to do so because the rear end of its abdomen bears
chitinous hooks that bite like teeth into the substratum and prevent slipping. The ant lion's habitat does not
support a plentiful fauna, and starvation often occurs. For days on end the sedentary larvae lie hidden in the
sand at the bottom of their funnel-shaped trap, on the lookout for possible prey, ant or other insect. But
their physiology enables them to fast for long periods without dying. Since the larva lives in very dry sand,
often sheltered from the rain, it can only survive by avoiding all losses of moisture. Its excretory function
operates economically and resorbs the water containing its urine and other waste. What is more, the
digestive tract ends at the junction of intermediate and lower intestines so that all defecation becomes
impossible and the water absorbed with the food is totally conserved. In addition, the ant lion larva is
protected against evaporation by exceedingly impermeable integuments Obliteration of the rectum from the
digestive system enables it to be transformed into an organ having a new functions that of silk tank and
spinner. It dilates into a blister whose tip forms a fold into which the free extremities of the excretory organs
or Malpighian tubes (cryptonephridism) penetrate, an arrangement facilitating resorption of the water in the
urine. The segments of the Malpighian tubes nearest to their insertion into the intestine alter in function, no
longer excreting waste but secreting silk made of proteins and accumulated in the reservoir of if the ex-
rectum. Through the very narrow anus, which serves as a spinneret, the fully grown larva ejects the silk and,
like a caterpillar, spins a cocoon in which, a few weeks later, it undergoes metamorphosis into a perfect
imago. So we now have to turn to the Darwinians and ask: `Have you ever seen a mutation simultaneously
affecting two separate components of the body and producing structures that fit one another precisely? Tell
us, have you ever beheld three, four, or five simultaneous mutations with matching structures producing
coordinated effects? And yet you have observed and described thousands upon thousands of mutations.
The huge populations of animals and humans bear witness to their frequency. In any man the number of
mutated genes is extremely high. The mutations are nondescript, monstrous, or pathological, and are
invariably, repeat, invariably incoherent. And yet it is by that that you claim to explain the biological order,
and make evolution intelligible?' These are vital questions that demand an answer. There is no way of
getting around them, or evading the issue. Every biologist who wants to know the truth must answer them,
or be considered a sectarian and not a scientist. In science there is no `cause' to be defended, only truth to
be discovered. How many chance occurrences would it have taken to build this extraordinary creature that
braves the burning sands of the Sahara, endures prolonged fasting, economizes water, detects the slightest
vibration in the ground, lies in wait for days on end at the bottom of a funnel, or goes forth, freely, to hunt
down its prey? It is not enough for a property to appear, it has to come at the right time. These accidents,
always fortunate of course, produced their effects by occurring in a certain order, for, out of order and
untimely, they would have remained imperative. What scientist would venture to estimate the chances of
such a cascade, such an avalanche, of coordinated and mutually adjusted chance occurrences? The odds
are infinitesimal. Please remember, too, that the case of the ant lion is not at all an exceptional one, chosen to
support a thesis; such an accumulation of adaptations and coaptations is the rule." (Grassé, P.-P.,
"Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation," Academic Press: New York
NY, 1977, pp.161-163. Emphasis in original.)
6/10/2005
"ANT LIONS, name given to the larvae of a group of insects belonging to the Neuroptera and related to the
Lacewing flies. The larval Ant lion digs itself a small conical pit in sand or soft soil and buries itself at the
bottom of it. Ants and other small insects wandering across the ground fall into the pit and are seized by the
Ant lion before they are able to escape up the loose soil of the pit walls. Ant lions, Myrmeleon spp,
are common in southern Europe and the family is very widely distributed in tropical and subtropical regions.
The adult Ant lion fly bears a superficial resemblance to the thin-bodied dragonflies, from which it is easily
distinguished, however, by its long clubbed antennae and two prominent parallel veins in the wings which
have no cross veinlets between them. Some of the tropical species may have a wing-span of up to 4 or 5 in
(10-12˝ cm). Their wings are usually of equal size, translucent with mottled patches. Some tropical species
have enormously elongated hindwings drawn out at the ends so that they are shaped roughly like a squash
racquet. Ant lions are nocturnal and their weak flight, achieved with their seemingly oversized wings, makes
them conspicuous as they fly around lights. The larvae generally have pear-shaped bodies with enormous
curved mandibles. Some species in Southeast Asia have a greatly elongated prothorax which gives the
impression of a very long neck and therefore a rather bizarre appearance. FAMILY: Mymeleontidae,
SUBORDER: Planipennia, ORDER: Neuroptera, CLASS: Insecta, PHYLUM: Arthropoda." (Fisher R.C., "Ant
lions," in "Encyclopedia of the Animal World," [1977], Bay Books: Sydney NSW, Vol. 1, 1982, reprint, pp.84-
85)
6/10/2005
"How about things that have evolved only once, or not at all? ... I put the challenge to my Oxford colleague
the entomologist and naturalist George McGavin, and he came up with a nice list, but still a short one
compared with the list of things that have evolved many times. ... Ant lions are insect larvae of the order
Neuroptera. Like many larvae, they look nothing like their adults. With their huge jaws, they could be good
casting for a horror film. Each ant lion lurks in sand, just be the surface at the base of a conical pit trap which
it digs itself. It digs by flicking sand vigorously outwards from the centre - this causes miniature landslides
down the sides of the pit, and the laws of physics do the rest, neatly shaping the cone. Prey, usually ants,
fall into the pit and slide down the steep sides into the ant lion's jaws. ... They are sometimes knocked down
into the pit by the particles of sand." (Dawkins, R., "The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of
Evolution," Houghton Mifflin Co: Boston MA, 2004, pp.592-593)
6/10/2005
"* I was interested by finding here the hollow conical pitfall of the lion-ant, or some other insect: first a fly
fell down the treacherous slope and immediately disappeared; then came a large but unwary ant; its
struggles to escape being very violent, those curious little jets of sand, described by Kirby and Spence
(Entomol., vol. i., p. 425) as being flirted by the insect's tail, were promptly directed against the expected
victim. But the ant enjoyed a better fate than the fly, and escaped the fatal jaws which lay concealed at the
base of the conical hollow. This Australian pit-fall was only about half the size of that made by the European
lion-ant." (Darwin C.R., "The Voyage of the 'Beagle'" [1845], Edito-Service: Geneva, n.d., reprint, p.442)
7/10/2005
"All the great metaphysical `Arguments' which use aspects of the laws of Nature-the Design Argument, the
Ontological Argument, the Cosmological Argument-are just arguments; that is they begin from some
assumptions, and deduce a conclusion. That conclusion is worth no more and no less than the initial
assumptions, and can never be independent of them. They are not disproved by counter-arguments of the
Kantian sort, any more than they are proved by those of the Newtonians. Although, for example, the form of
Newton's laws of motion excludes any teleological notions, and replaces final causes by initial causes and
algorithms for computing the subsequent states which follow from them, one should not draw far-reaching
metaphysical conclusions from this image. In 1748 Maupertuis showed that Newton's laws of motion could
be derived by the application of a teleological principle. It is possible to define a mathematical quantity, the
action, which involves the product of mass, velocity, and distance travelled by bodies. Maupertuis's
Principle, which we now call the Principle of Least Action, was that `If there occurs some change in Nature,
the amount of action necessary for this change must be as small as possible.'" (Barrow J.D. "The World
Within the World," Oxford University Press: New York NY, 1988, pp.80-81. Emphasis original)
7/10/2005
"Maupertuis's Principle, which we now call the Principle of Least Action, was that `If there occurs some
change in Nature, the amount of action necessary for this change must be as small as possible.' This elegant
idea turns out to be equivalent to the Newtonian laws of motion (although it is more powerful in the sense
that it can be used to derive the equations of motion in other areas of physics once the appropriate action is
identified). But, unlike the formulation of Newton, it is teleological. It says that, of all the paths that could be
taken by a body moving from A to B, it actually takes that path for which the associated action is a
minimum. This path is therefore determined by both the initial and the final states. Maupertuis attached
great metaphysical significance to this result, regarding it as a 'proof of existence of Him who governs the
world'. Formerly, arguments of the sort that we lived in the `best of all possible worlds' were open to the
objection that we did not know any other worlds with which to draw such a comparison, but Maupertuis
claimed that the other worlds were those in which motion occurred with non- minimal action. Our world was
optimal in this well-defined sense, and moreover there existed a teleological aspect to the laws of Nature ..."
(Barrow J.D. "The World Within the World," Oxford University Press: New York NY, 1988, p.81)
7/10/2005
"The Design Argument would be overthrown, not by philosophical objections to its logical soundness, but
by the idea of Darwinian evolution. Darwin was able to provide another explanation, itself rooted in detailed
observations, for the mass of detailed observations supporting apparent design in the make-up of the
natural world. It was because he provided an alternative explanation for the naturalists' observations that he
carried the day, not because he undermined the logic of the Design Argument." (Barrow J.D. "The World
Within the World," Oxford University Press: New York NY, 1988, p.82)
7/10/2005
"In 1813 an expatriate American physician employed at St Thomas's Hospital in London read an
extraordinary paper to the Royal Society. The name of the physician was William Wells, the title of the
paper, An Account of a White Female, Part of Whose Skin resembles that of a Negro. In it Wells proposed
what we now call the process of `natural selection' as an explanation for the existence of extant physical
characteristics in living things. He derived the hypothesis from his case study of the adaption of human skin
coloration to climate. He argued, in contradiction to the prevailing view, that artful design was unnecessary
in order to explain the remarkable adaption of living things to their environments. If we could effect adaption
by the artificial selection imposed by breeding then this adaption could be achieved `with equal efficiency,
though more slowly, by nature'. Moreover, Wells appreciated that there was no such thing as the
`uniformity of Nature'; the natural world was in a state of perpetual change, and the process of adaption
could never be complete. Wells's paper was published in 1818. These views were both important and radical.
One might have expected them to have fomented all manner of opposition and public comment. Not so: they
influenced nobody; they were cited by nobody; they attracted neither praise nor approbation. It is difficult
to determine why this was so. Wells was a respected scientist, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and the winner
of the Society's Rumford medal in 1814 for his classic analysis of dew-drops. It is just possible that by
publishing his paper on natural selection merely as an appendix to his Rumford prize-essay he actually
ensured that it was overlooked, since the essay was widely cited by philosophers of science as a classic
example of the scientific method at work. Whatever the reasons for Wells's original neglect, he appears
eventually in the later editions of Darwin's Origin of Species, acknowledged as the originator of the idea of
natural selection, after Darwin's attention was finally drawn to his work by an unknown American scientist
in 1860." (Barrow J.D. "The World Within the World," Oxford University Press: New York NY, 1988, p.83)
7/10/2005
"Darwin and Alfred Wallace went much further than Wells in gathering evidence for the mechanism of
natural selection as an explanation for the existence of order in the organic world. Through their work a new
type of explanation became legitimate. If all possible variants arise at random in a reproducing system, then
those variations which most enable the system to reproduce will subsequently survive with greater
probability than those which do not. Those reproductions that are best adapted to survive in the
environment in which they find themselves will do so more readily that those that are ill-adapted. Hence,
time and chance can produce the remarkable match between the living creature and its environment. By this
means the spontaneous evolution of order can be explained without recourse to final causes or explicit
supernatural design. This evolution through the `survival of the fittest' completely undermined the
traditional argument from design in the biological realm, although it did not undermine those Design
Arguments based upon the advantageous character of the laws of Nature themselves." (Barrow J.D. "The
World Within the World," Oxford University Press: New York NY, 1988, pp.83-84)
7/10/2005
"But even if continuous evolution could be proved as a fact, the significance of the evidence of intelligent
order and contrivance would not be in the least affected. It would only establish a method or system of
means, but could in no degree alter the nature of the effect, nor the attributes of the real cause disclosed by
them. (1.) The laws of abiogenesis, of reproduction, of sexual differentiation and reproduction, of heredity,
of variation, such as can evolve sensation, reason, conscience, and will out of atoms and mechanical
energy, would all still remain. to be accounted for. (2.) Laws are never causes, but always complicated modes
of action resulting from the co-action of innumerable unconscious agents. Instead, therefore, of being
explanations they are the very complex effects for which reason demands an intellectual cause. (3.) All
physical laws result from the original properties of matter acting under the mutual condition of certain
complicated adjustments. Change the adjustments and the laws change. The laws which execute evolution,
or rather into which the process of evolution is analyzed, must be referred back to the original adjustments
of the material elements of the fire-mist. These adjustments, in which all future order and life is by
hypothesis latent, must have been caused by chance or intelligence. Huxley in his `Criticisms on Origin of
Species,' p. 330, founds the whole logic of Evolution on chance thus: It has been `demonstrated that an
apparatus thoroughly well-adapted to a particular purpose, may be the result of a method of trial and error
worked out by unintelligent agents, as well as of the direct application of the means appropriate to that end
by .an intelligent agent.' `According to Teleology, each organism is like a rifle bullet fired straight at a mark;
according to Darwin organisms are like grape-shot, of which one hits something and the rest fall wide.' The
modern scientific explanation of the processes of the universe by physical causes alone, to the exclusion of
mind, differs from the old long-exploded chance theory, only by the accidents (a) of the juggling use of the
words `laws of nature,' (b) and the assumption that chance operating through indefinate duration can
accomplish the work of intelligence. But as no man can believe that any amount of time will explain the form
of flint knives and arrow heads, in the absence of human agents, or that any number of throws could cast a
font of type into the order of letters in the plays of Shakespeare, so no man can rationally believe that the
complicated and significantly intellectual order of the universe sprang from chance. (4.) In artificial breeding
man selects. In `natural selection' nature selects. Hence, if the results are the most careful adjustments to
effect purpose, it follows that that characteristic must be stamped upon the organisms by nature, and hence
nature itself must therefore be intelligently directed, either (a) by an intelligence immanent in her elements, or
in her whole as organized, or (b) by the original adjustment of her machinery by an intelligent Creator."
(Hodge A.A., "Outlines of Theology," [1879], Banner of Truth: Edinburgh, Second edition, 1983, reprint,
pp.40-41)
7/10/2005
"Many scientists and others have regarded Christianity as an absurd belief system, or at best as a "religious
" and by that they mean non-rational, faith. Why? Often it is because the book on which Christianity is
based, the Bible, has been said to date the origin of the universe at 4004 B.C., or some such recent date.
Seldom considered and discussed are the dozen or more different indicators from the Bible that a literal
reading of Genesis demands an ancient, rather than a recent, creation date. early biblical scholarship Many
of the early church fathers and other biblical scholars interpreted the creation days of Genesis 1 as long
periods of time. The list includes the Jewish historian Josephus (1st century); Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons,
apologist, and martyr (2nd century); Origen, who rebutted heathen attacks on Christian doctrine (3rd
century); Basil (4th century); Augustine (5th century); and, later, Aquinas (13th century), to name a few.
The significance of this list lies not only in the prominence of these individuals as biblical scholars,
defenders of the faith, and pillars of the early church (except Josephus), but also in that their scriptural
views cannot be said to have been shaped to accommodate secular opinion. Astronomical, paleontological,
and geological evidences for the antiquity of the universe, of the earth, and of life did not come forth until
the nineteenth century. (Ross H.N., "The Fingerprint of God," [1989], Promise Publishing Co: Orange CA,
Second Edition, 1991, pp.141)
7/10/2005
"THE WHEEL is the proverbial human invention. Take apart any machine of more than rudimentary
complexity and you'll find wheels. ... Whenever humans have a good idea, zoologists have grown
accustomed to finding it anticipated in the animal kingdom. ... Why not the wheel? ... There is one revealing
exception to my premise. Some very small creatures have evolved the wheel in the fullest sense of
the word. The wheel may even have been the first locomotor device ever evolved, given that for most of its
first 2 billion years, life consisted of nothing but bacteria. Many bacteria, of which Rhizobium is
typical, swim using thread-like spiral propellors, each driven by its own continuously rotating propellor
shaft. It used to be thought that these `flagella' were wagged like tails, the appearance of spiral rotation
resulting from a wave of motion passing along the length of the flagellum, as in a wriggling snake. The truth
is much more remarkable. The bacterial flagellum is attached to a shaft that rotates freely and indefinitely in a
hole that runs through the cell wall. This is a true axle, a freely rotating hub. It is driven by a tiny molecular
motor which uses the same biophysical principles as a muscle. But a muscle is a reciprocating engine, which,
after contracting, has to lengthen again to prepare for a new power stroke. The bacterial motor just keeps on
going in the same direction: a molecular turbine. ... Evolutionary improvement is like climbing a mountain.
You can't jump from the bottom of a cliff to the top in a single leap. Sudden, precipitous change is an option
for engineers, but in nature the summit of the evolutionary mountain can be reached only via a gradual ramp
upwards from the starting point. The wheel may be one of those cases where the engineering solution can
be seen in plain view, yet be unattainable in evolution because it lies on the other side of a deep valley:
unevolvable by large animals but within the reach of bacteria because of their small size. ... " (Dawkins, R.,
"The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution," Houghton Mifflin Co: Boston MA, 2004,
pp.543, 545,547-549. Emphasis original)
7/10/2005
"How about things that have evolved only once, or not at all? As we learned from the Rhizobium's
Tale, the wheel, with a true, freely rotating bearing, seems to have evolved only once, in bacteria, before
being finally invented in human technology. Language, too, has apparently evolved only in us: that is to
say at least 40 times less often than eyes. It is surprisingly hard to think of `good ideas' that have evolved
only once." (Dawkins, R., "The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution," Houghton Mifflin
Co: Boston MA, 2004, p.592)
7/10/2005
"Many scientists and others have regarded Christianity as an absurd belief system, or at best as a "religious
" and by that they mean non-rational, faith. Why? Often it is because the book on which Christianity is
based, the Bible, has been said to date the origin of the universe at 4004 B.C., or some such recent date.
Seldom considered and discussed are the dozen or more different indicators from the Bible that a literal
reading of Genesis demands an ancient, rather than a recent, creation date. early biblical scholarship Many
of the early church fathers and other biblical scholars interpreted the creation days of Genesis 1 as long
periods of time. The list includes the Jewish historian Josephus (1st century); Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons,
apologist, and martyr (2nd century); Origen, who rebutted heathen attacks on Christian doctrine (3rd
century); Basil (4th century); Augustine (5th century); and, later, Aquinas (13th century), to name a few.
The significance of this list lies not only in the prominence of these individuals as biblical scholars,
defenders of the faith, and pillars of the early church (except Josephus), but also in that their scriptural
views cannot be said to have been shaped to accommodate secular opinion. Astronomical, paleontological,
and geological evidences for the antiquity of the universe, of the earth, and of life did not come forth until
the nineteenth century. (Ross H.N.*, "The Fingerprint of God," [1989], Promise Publishing Co: Orange CA,
Second Edition, 1991, pp.141)
7/10/2005
"Doesn't Genesis 2 present a different creation order than Genesis 1? Genesis 2 does not present a creation
account at all but presupposes the completion of God's work of creation as set forth in chapter 1. The first
three verses of Genesis 2 simply carry the narrative of chapter 1 to its final and logical conclusion, using the
same vocabulary and style as employed in the previous chapter. It sets forth the completion of the whole
primal work of creation and the special sanctity conferred on the seventh day as a symbol and memorial of
God's creative work. Verse 4 then sums up the whole sequence that has just been surveyed by saying,
`These are the generations of heaven and earth when they were created, in the day that Yahweh God made
heaven and earth.' Having finished the overall survey of the subject, the author then develops in detail one
important feature that has already been mentioned: the creation of man. Kenneth Kitchen says, `Genesis 1
mentions the creation of man as the last of a series, and without any details, whereas in Genesis 2 man is the
center of interest and more specific details are given about him and his setting. Failure to recognize the
complementary nature of the subject-distinction between a skeleton outline of all creation on the one hand,
and the concentration in detail on man and his immediate environment on the other, borders on
obscurantism (Ancient Orient, p. 117). ... From the survey of the first fifteen verses of chapter 2, it
becomes quite apparent that this was never intended to be a general creation narrative. Search all the
cosmogonies of the ancient civilizations of the Near East, and you will never find among them a single
creation account that omits all mention of the formation of sun, moon, and stars or ocean or seas-none of
which are referred to in Genesis 2. It is therefore quite obvious that Genesis 1 is the only creation account to
be found in the Hebrew Scripture and that it is already presupposed as the background of Genesis 2. ... The
structure of Genesis 2 stands in clear contrast to every creation account known to comparative literature. It
was never intended to be a creation account at all, except insofar as it related the circumstances of man's
creation as a child of God, fashioned in His image, infused with His breath of life, and brought into an
intimate personal relationship with the Lord Himself. Quite clearly, then, chapter 2 is built on the foundation
of chapter 1 and represents no different tradition than the first chapter or discrepant account of the order of
creation." (Archer,G.L.*, "Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties," Zondervan: Grand Rapids MI, 1982, pp.68-69)
8/10/2005
"The `Wedge' Document Devours Bandwidth. In 1998, an inhouse draft document was stolen in some way
from the Discovery Institute. It became known as the `Wedge' document because it outlined a strategy that
followed up on Phillip Johnson's use of the term `the Wedge' in the mid-1990s. Johnson had described
himself as a wedge because he was trying to open doors for younger scientists whose dissent from
Darwinism raised career obstacles. One biologist explained it this way: `Phil is the 'sharp edge' and the rest
of us are the ever-widening shank.' The document, a list of the sort of unrealizable goals that are typically
generated by think tanks, was never published or formally accepted by Discovery, but it created a furore
among Darwin pressure groups. For example it stated `Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of
Science and Culture seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies. Bringing
together leading scholars from the natural sciences and those from the humanities and social sciences, the
Center explores how new developments in biology, physics, and cognitive science raise serious doubts
about scientific materialism and have reopened the case for a broadly theistic understanding of nature.' Of
course, most North Americans have never given up a `broadly theistic' understanding of nature, as polls
consistently show. Discovery's real target is the metaphysical naturalism and narrow Darwinism of the
current science establishment, which the author of the document hoped to replace within two decades by
intelligent design theory. That is a pretty ambitious project. ... In any event, there is no conspiracy.
Johnson's book, The Wedge of Truth, provides a public statement of his own social goals for the
Wedge. For example: `The Wedge has important things to say about science, but it has much more
important things to say about the nihilism that infects intellectual life outside of experimental science....
Technology is at the flood tide of rationalist optimism, whereas the fields we call `the humanities' are at the
ebb tide of nihilism.' [p.168]" (O'Leary D., "By Design or by Chance?: The Growing Controversy on the
Origins of Life in the Universe," 2004, pp.224-225)
8/10/2005
"It should be noted that there are no contradictions between [Genesis] chapters 1 and 2. ... According to
chapter 2 the order of creation is said to be man (v. 7), vegetation (v. 9), animals (v. 19), woman (v. 21f.). But
in answer to this it should be noted that the order of statement is not chronological. Can we seriously think
that the writer in intended us to understand that God formed man (v. 7) before there was any place to put
him? To insist upon a chronological order in chapter 2 is to place a construction upon the writer's words that
was never intended. In reality, chapter 2 declare nothing regarding the relative priority of man and
vegetation. Nor does chapter 2 teach the creation of man before the animals. Here again, the chronological
order is not stressed. The chapter has described the formation of Eden and the placing of man in the garden.
It now speaks more particularly of man's condition, showing his need of a help meet for himself, and that
such a help meet was not found among the animals. Verse 1 may rightly be paraphrased, `and the LORD
GOD having formed out of the ground every beast of the field, and every fowl of heaven, brought them unto
the man.'" (Young, E.J.*, "An Introduction to the Old Testament," [1949], Tyndale Press: London, 1958,
reprint, p.55)
8/10/2005
"In order to interpret the primeval prologue with the same intent and purpose as the ancient author, one
must examine its literary genre. What kind of literature is this? How does the author intend himself to be
understood? These questions must be asked to avoid giving the author's words a meaning that was not in
his mind. ... Literary device also is found in the names used. The correspondence of the name with the
person's function or role is striking in several instances. Adam means `mankind' and Eve is `(she who gives)
life.' Surely, when an author of a story names the principal characters Mankind and Life, something is
conveyed about the degree of literalness intended! Similarly Cain means `forger (of metals)'; Enoch is
connected with `dedication, consecration' (4:17; 5:18); Jubal with horn and trumpet (4:21); while Cain,
condemned to be a nad, a `wanderer,' goes to live in the land of Nod, a name transparently
derived from the same Hebrew root, thus the land of wandering! This suggests that the author is writing as
an artist, a storyteller, who uses literary device and artifice. One must endeavor to distinguish what he
intends to teach from the literary means employed." (La Sor W.S.*, Hubbard D.A.* & Bush F.W.*, "Old
Testament Survey: The Message, Form, and Background of the Old Testament," [1982], Eerdmans: Grand
Rapids MI, 1987, reprint, pp.70,72)
8/10/2005
"The Darwinians have coined the terms pseudoteleology [apparent design] and teleonomy to designate the
finality which they at the same time deny. Appearances are deceptive, they say; the materials of life are
always the work of chance. What some take for finality is only the result of the ordering of random materials
by natural selection. ... Actually, the terms pseudoteleology and teleonomy are the homage paid to finality,
as hypocrisy pays homage to virtue. Giard (1905), himself a shrewd scholar but blinded by a foolish
anticlericalism, went so far as to abjure Lamarckism and write, `To account for the wondrous adaptations
such as those we observe between orchids and the insects that fertilize them, we have hardly any choice but
the bare alternative hypotheses: the intervention of a sovereignly intelligent being, and selection.' He
cannot have seriously subjected his supposed dilemma to critical scrutiny or he would have seen that he
was substituting for the dethroned divinity just such another, a sorting and finalizing, in sum
transcendental, agent, natural selection. Paul Wintrebert, a convinced and even intractable atheist, did not
fall into the same trap but realized perfectly that Giard's alternative involves, whatever opinion be held,
recognizing the intervention of a purposive guiding agent." (Grassé, P.-P., "Evolution of Living Organisms:
Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation," [1973], Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, pp.165-166.
Emphasis in original)
8/10/2005
"With more modesty than the Darwinians, we do not claim to know the author of that finality, which in fact
goes far beyond the putative work of natural selection since we encounter it at every level in every living
creature. Life is seen to be dependent on the finalization of a complex and architected physicochemical
system, which still does not exclude next-best things, or even failures. Without quibbling about its nature
and justification, let us note that, far from abolishing or eluding determinism, immanent biological finality
implies one that is strictly channeled and utterly opposed to chance. The notion of physiological function
implies the performance by an organ or system of organs of something precise, definite, constant, on which
the living creature's survival depends. If the function is not performed, life stops. Immanent finalization is, in
our opinion, self-evident. ... Immanent finality is an intrinsic property of all living creatures; without it
they would not exist. Regarded as autonomous functional units, their component parts (organs, tissues, or
isolated cells), just as much as any other property (feeding, defense of the organism, growth, and
reproduction), are subordinated to an end. In the case of these properties, there is no argument, but just
pronounce the word finality and every biologist is up in arms, most likely because biologists do not
distinguish between de facto, immanent, and transcendental finality. On the latter they have little or nothing
to say; it is a matter of metaphysics." (Grassé, P.-P., "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New
Theory of Transformation," [1973], Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, pp.166-167. Emphasis in original)
8/10/2005
"Let us understand one another; the living creature is not a mere sum of physicochemical
phenomena but, rather, much more nearly an integral of them. The architecture, the spatial and temporal
organization, animate a whole which forms a coherent system of tightly coordinated parts. ... You cannot
compare two states-inert matter and the living creature-that differ profoundly but yet conform to the same
laws of physics and chemistry. It is a worse mistake than comparing a stone on the road with the Chateau of
Versailles. ... The living creature, as an autonomous system with its parts rigorously integrated in a whole,
born of another system identical with itself, functions by itself, with no need of any engineer or mechanic.
Death, the differentiator, and the bonus of survival: these are the tools of natural selection, which, according
to the Darwinian dogma, is a reasoning entity responsible for maintaining the well-made, the properly
functional, in the world of living things. It separates the useless from the useful, the wheat from the chaff. It
determines the end of every living creature, of every population. Here we are, up to our ears in
transcendence: Any organization or function is controlled by it. The building blocks for making living
creatures are utilized by it. Thus, the entire world of living beings is transcended by phenomena that create
finality. Natural selection working for the continuance and welfare of animals, plants, and man himself, is
seen to be the grand law which organizes the living universe. So the Darwinians, who fancied they had
exorcized finalism and transcendency but forgot to analyze critically the idea of natural selection, failed to
see its implications or metaphysical consequences. They thought they were absolved from giving any
finalization or deistic interpretation by decreeing that on earth all is but deceptive appearances; finality is a
sham, guided evolution illusory. How is it possible to understand such an attitude? We cannot pretend that
nature (with a capital or a small "n") copies man, the latest of its creations. So we are forced to admit,
according to the Darwinian view, that nature acts blindly, unintelligently, but by an infinitely benevolent
good fortune builds mechanisms so intricate that we have not even finished with analysis of their structure
and have not the slightest insight of the physical principles and functioning of some of them." (Grassé, P.-
P., "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation," [1973], Academic Press:
New York NY, 1977, pp.167-168. Emphasis in original)
9/10/2005
"IMAGINE A NANOTECHNOLOGY MACHINE far beyond the state of the art: a microminiaturized rotary
motor and propeller system that drives a tiny vessel through liquid. The engine and drive mechanism are
composed of 40 parts, including a rotor, stator, driveshaft, bushings, universal joint, and flexible propeller.
The engine is powered by a flow of ions, can rotate at up to 100,000 rpm ... and can reverse direction in a
quarter of a rotation. The system comes with an automatic feedback control mechanism. The engine itself is
about 1/100,000th of an inch wide -- far smaller than can be seen by the human eye. Most of us would be
pleasantly surprised to learn that some genius had designed such an engineering triumph. What might come
as a greater surprise is that there is a dominant faction in the scientific community that is prepared to defend,
at all costs, the assertion that this marvelous device could not possibly have been designed, must have
been produced blindly by unintelligent material forces, and only gives the appearance -- we said
appearance! -- of being designed. As you may have guessed, these astonishingly complex, tiny, and
efficient engines exist. Millions of them exist inside you, in fact. They are true rotary motors that drive the
"bacterial flagellum," a whip-like propulsion device for certain bacteria, including the famous E. coli
that lives in your digestive system." (Peterson D.*, "The Little Engine That Could...Undo
Darwinism," The American Spectator," 8 May 2005)
9/10/2005
"As a Catholic, Behe was taught that evolution could be viewed as God's way of creating. What forced
Behe to change his mind about the truth of Darwinism and to propose intelligent design was not religion,
but scientific discoveries in his own field. ... For his doctoral studies, Behe, Moved across town to the
University of Pennsylvania. There he plugged away for four years and, after completing his Ph.D. in
biochemistry in 1978, attained an appointment to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.
One of his colleagues in the genetics laboratory at the National Institutes of Health was a fellow Catholic
biochemist, Jo Ann Nichols. Rarely did their work touch on evolution, but Behe recalls one day when the
issue did arise, as a matter of joint speculation between them during a break. The question was this: `If the
first life did arise by random naturalistic processes from a chemical soup, as all textbooks are saying, what
exactly are the minimum systems that are required for life?' Together they ticked off a mental list of the
minimum requirements: a functioning membrane, a system to build the DNA units, a system to control the
copying of DNA, a system for energy processing. Suddenly, they broke off their speculation, looked at each
other, and smiled, jointly muttering, `Naaah--too many systems; it couldn't have happened by chance.'"
(Woodward T.*, "Meeting Darwin's
Wager," Part 2 of 3, Christianity Today, April 28, 1997)
9/10/2005
"From observable features of the natural world, intelligent design infers to an intelligence responsible for
those features. The world contains events, objects and structures that exhaust the explanatory resources of
undirected natural causes and that can be adequately explained only by recourse to intelligent causes. This
is not an argument from ignorance. Nor is this a matter of personal incredulity. Precisely because of what we
know about undirected natural causes and their limitations, science is now in a position to demonstrate
design rigorously. " (Dembski W.A.*, "Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology,"
InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL., 1999, p.107)
9/10/2005
"Argumentum ad Ignorantiam (argument from ignorance) The fallacy of argumentum ad ignorantiam ... is
committed whenever it is argued that a proposition is true simply on the basis that it has not been proved
false, or that it is false because it has not been proved true. But our ignorance of how to prove or disprove a
proposition clearly does not establish either the truth or the falsehood of that proposition. ... A qualification
should be made at this point. In some circumstances it can safely be assumed that if a certain event had
occurred, evidence for it would have been discovered by qualified investigators. In such a case it is
perfectly reasonable to take the absence of proof of its occurrence as positive proof of its nonoccurrence.
Of course, the proof here is not based on ignorance but on our knowledge that if it had occurred it would be
known. For example, if a serious security investigation fails to unearth any evidence that Mr. X is a foreign
agent, it would be wrong to conclude that their research has left us ignorant. It has rather established that
Mr. X is not one. Failure to draw such conclusions is the other side of the bad coin of innuendo, as when
one says of a man that there is `no proof' that he is a scoundrel. In some cases not to draw a conclusion is
as much a breach of correct reasoning as it would be to draw a mistaken conclusion." (Copi I.M.,
Introduction to Logic," [1953], Macmillan: New York, Seventh Edition, 1986, pp.94-95)
11/10/2005
"The Privatization of God. ... This leaves science free to go about its investigations without having to
consider the God hypothesis, and it has the effect of separating God from the world. ... This separation of
God and the world is one aspect of Gnosticism. It is not surprising that these ideas are encouraged by
evolution. As I discussed in Darwin's God, Gnostic ideas predated and influenced the development
of evolution, and the wide acceptance of evolution, in turn, strengthened modern Gnosticism. Today, these
ideas have had the effect of privatizing God. Evolution has helped to advance the notion that matters of
faith should be kept private and out of public life. The reason is that if God is separate from the world and
cannot be objectively verified, then what we believe about God is strictly subjective-a matter of opinion.
Those who promote this view claim it is neutral and fair to all, for those who wish to believe are free to do
so. Likewise, those who wish not to believe are free from unsolicited exposure to religious ideas. God need
not be acknowledged in public, for faith is a private affair. Indeed, God should not be acknowledged
in public, for this inevitably would force one person's religion on another person. In America these ideas
have resonated with the secularization of the government. There is now firmly entrenched a doctrine of
separation of church and state. It is commonly interpreted as the idea that the government may not support
or allow any type of religious activity. And the government includes everything from the White House to
the local elementary school. God has now been privatized in America. The problem with this view is that it is
not religiously neutral as claimed. It is in fact, wedded to its gnostic roots as firmly as ever. What is more, its
advocates are not generally able to understand the religious bias that is woven into their view. They are
apparently so deeply Gnostic that they cannot perceive their own religious position. To them their position
seems to be religiously neutral. Why is the privatization of God not religiously neutral? The simple answer is
that it presupposes that God can be privatized. While its advocates think they are being neutral
because they are allowing for the existence of God, they are allowing only for a God who isn't involved in
the daily matters of our lives. This is the god of Gnosticism, a god who is disjointed from the world. ... Far
from embracing a separation of church and state, America has embraced a nonbiblical religion. And this is
why the criticism of ID is so harsh. For the premise behind ID is that design is detectable in creation. Even
though ID is careful not to describe a creator, it nonetheless violates Gnostic assumptions about God and
the world. By claiming that design is detectable, ID violates the Gnostic premise that God must be separate
from the world and not detectable, an object of pure faith. " (Hunter, C.G.*, "Darwin's Proof: The Triumph of
Religion Over Science," Brazos Press: Grand Rapids MI, 2003, p.119. Emphasis original)
11/10/2005
"The notion of biological necessity is further classified if viewed from an evolutionary standpoint. It is
certainly a truism to say that the first living thing, formed of prebiotic materials, fully satisfied the
"necessary" conditions for life, conditions immutable and fulfilled in both kingdoms. There is no harm in
repeating this self-evident truth, because it shows where genuine necessity lies, the one which is a sine
qua non for life. Once biogenesis occurred, evolution no longer dealt with the absolute but rather the
contingent; in other words, what was useful took the place of what was necessary. Some biochemists who
have written about evolution have failed to understand this. In all living things we distinguish three
categories of characteristics: the necessary, the useful, and the indifferent (harmful, on occasion). The first
is absolutely indispensable, the second contingent and inconstant, and the third scattered irregularly among
the species populating the various environments of our planet. Thus, against an immutable and necessary
backdrop evolution has diversified the two kingdoms ad infinitum. As to whether the diversity of
plans of organization and forms was useful or not, that is something else. It enabled the various
environments to be conquered ... but did it? Bacteria and Phanerogamia are found everywhere, regardless of
the uniformity of their structure." (Grassé, P.-P., "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory
of Transformation," [1973], Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, pp.172-173. Emphasis original)
11/10/2005
"Let us go a step further. What need do reptiles have for a secondary palate, a mandible reduced to a
dentary only, suitable for mammals? Lizards, snakes, and tortoises have gone on living with no partition in
their buccal cavity, no complexly structured mandible. Besides, the palate is found, with no other
premammalian characteristics, in the crocodile, which is certainly out of place in the genealogy of mammals.
Thus we see the difference, biologically speaking, between the necessary and the useful. There was no
necessity for theriodonts to acquire a secondary palate, which really served a purpose only in the case
of mammals by creating in the splanchnic skull two superimposed and separate stories, one for respiration
and another for food. ... In the case of the theriodont we might speak, as Cuenot did with respect to other
animals, about prophetic organs, whose genesis is chiefly due to internal factors." (Grassé, P.-P.,
"Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation," [1973], Academic Press:
New York NY, 1977, pp.173-174. Emphasis original)
11/10/2005
"Evolution as revealed by fossil remains of plants and animals does not bear the characteristics attributed to
it by theory. From one parental stock we get variants that are perpetuated in their offspring in one or more
lines, but in numerous offshoots, classes, or orders the original stock or types also persist.
This raises the following question: What necessity is there for the stock to vary since it flourishes and has
persisted in its unvaried form from the most ancient times? Relict species insistently pose the same
question. They cannot have been so badly adapted as is imagined, since they have endured. Sometimes
the ancestor cohabits with its own progeny" (Grassé, P.-P., "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence
for a New Theory of Transformation," [1973], Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p.176. Emphasis original)
11/10/2005
"The changeover from aquatic to terrestrial life was probably preceded, in the case of rhipidistian
Crossopterygii, by a long evolution preparatory to adaptation to the new environment and involving
internal factors. It had to affect not an isolated characteristic, but the organism as a whole, since the
variations had to be coordinated if they were to be meaningful and effective, and consequently could not
depend on chance." (Grassé, P.-P., "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of
Transformation," [1973], Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, pp.180-181)
11/10/2005
"We are that much less inclined to accept the story of the little `Magellan of evolution' fish since the
mudskippers Periophthalmus and Boleophthalmus very specifically reproduce its
`experiment'; they hop about on the mud, climb onto the roots of the mangroves, and stand upright on their
pectoral fins, as if on short legs. For millions of years they have lived like this and although they are
hopping around all the time, however clumsily, their fins are still fins and do not turn into legs. How terribly
unaccommodating of these animals! Quite recently one of my colleagues drew my attention to the fact that
Periophthalmus and Boleophthalmus, long accustomed to walking and skipping along on
their fins beneath the mangroves, are completely satisfied to do so and will not at any price give up a
tradition that suits them so nicely. Are they afraid that if they alter their ways they will get too big a boost
from the pressure of selection?" (Grassé, P.-P., "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory
of Transformation," [1973], Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p.181)
11/10/2005
"The action of the environment, even when associated with a change of habits, cannot, to my mind, set
evolution in motion unless certain internal factors come into play ... Whoever regards necessity as the
raison d'etre of evolution is liable to slip into anthropomorphism. Another problem is that of
detecting and measuring the needs of beings living millions of years ago in an environment of which we
have only a few fossils and the sediments in which they are enclosed, to help us in their reconstruction."
(Grassé, P.-P., "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation," [973],
Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p.181)
11/10/2005
"What need did the diploblastic animals have to acquire a third layer? We can try to find out, since we can
put down on paper whatever we like, but arriving at the truth is quite another matter. And these
diploblastics, although engendering triploblastics, still continue with no sign of abatement. Even the
usefulness of the change remains obscure. Here we are back where we started from. From whatever angle
one considers necessity as an efficient agent of evolution, its role is dubious, subject to the one reservation
we have regarding the fundamental functions linked to the very manifestation of life (citric acid cycle,
genesis of proteins, etc.)." (Grassé, P.-P., "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of
Transformation," [973], Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p.181)
11/10/2005
"Our consideration of panchronic and artificial forms has shown the very serious difficulties which prevent
us from assigning to necessity a determining role in evolution. There are many other obstacles to the
theory." (Grassé, P.-P., "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation,"
[1973], Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, pp.180-181. Emphasis original
11/10/2005
"Evolution went on; the necessity inherent in the achievement of the living creature was fully satisfied. But
who shall tell us what necessity there was for life to appear on earth at all? This question is not addressed to
the biologists, for it concerns the transcendental: let the philosopher or theologian answer it, if he can."
(Grassé, P.-P., "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation," [1973],
Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, pp.180-181. Emphasis original)
13/10/2005
"The search for a rigorous criterion for demarcating the scientific from the metaphysical and ungroundable
has been a major quest in the philosophy of science in this century. Some would even say that the
discovery of an ironclad method for severing the scientific from the metaphysical is the very purpose of the
philosophy of science. Nonetheless, it is now generally accepted that we can never have a perfectly
rigorous demarcation criterion. Similarly, it is generally agreed that science can never have at its disposal a
method for arbitrating competing scientific theories possessing the persuasive force that logic possesses in
mathematics. It may be that both the demarcation criterion and the method of arbitration owe their
impossibility to the fact that science, unlike mathematics, does not derive its truthfulness solely from its own
internal consistency, but from an external system (`nature') as well." (Goldberg S., "When Wish Replaces
Thought: Why So Much of What You Believe Is False," Prometheus Books: New York NY, 1992, p.155)
13/10/2005
"Classical Darwinian theory, in the view of many logicians, faces an even more severe problem: Its central
hypothesis that the `fittest' species survive is ungroundable, and therefore `unscientific,' by virtue of
tautology. (The summarization of Darwinian theory as `survival of the fittest' was Herbert Spencer's, but
Darwin acknowledged the accuracy of this view and preferred it to his own, `natural selection.') The problem
with Darwinian theory, according to these logicians, is the fact that `fittest' is defined in terms of survival. If
dachshunds survive and dinosaurs don't, then dachshunds are declared to have been fit; if dinosaurs
survive and dachshunds don't, then dinosaurs are declared to have been fit. The same problem obtains
within species that does between species: those dachshunds, donkeys, and doves that survived-and
passed on their genes-are claimed to have done so because they were `fit,' while those dachshunds,
donkeys, and doves that did not failed because they were not `fit.' This logical criticism does grant
as `scientific'-though of course incorrect-such hypotheses as `survival of the biggest' or smallest or
greenest. These claims are clearly falsifiable; the fact that we can say that they are incorrect demonstrates
this. The central problem with `survival of the fittest' is that its tautological nature precludes in
principle its being tested. Similarly, when applied to specific species, such claims are clearly not
only testable, but often correct. But such claims are not theories of evolutionary survival in general (as is
Darwin's); they are theories that explain in terms of a specified, nontautological property why one or
another specified species survived and another did not (or why some members of a specified species
survived and other members of that species did not). In other words, no one questions the logical validity of
a theory that dachshunds survived because they had specified property A, donkeys because they
had specified property B, etc. (The same can be said for a theory that those dachshunds that
possessed and passed on the gene for property A survived, while those that did not, did not.) Many
attempts to rebut the logical criticism we discuss mistakenly invoke such theories of the survival of a
specific species. Such rebuttals prove that which need not be proved; no one ever claimed that there is any
logical problem with theories of the survival of specific species (or members of a specific species). Such
theories are unobjectionable as long as the property seen as being responsible for survival is defined
independently of survival. However, such theories do not validate Darwin because Darwin attempts to
specify a property that claims to explain survival of species in general. Since no independent
property is associated with species survival in general, so the criticism goes, Darwin had to select a
`property' that was no more than a word for `those who survive.' This charge is not repelled by substituting
`most adaptable' or `best designed,' etc., for `fittest,' because these too are determined by survival. (That is,
how do we determine that a species, or members of a species, is `most adaptable' or `best designed'? By the
fact that it survived.) As the reader might guess, the argument over the scientific validity of Darwinian
theory has gotten increasingly convoluted over the past century. Suffice it to say here that biologists have
tended to argue that it is groundable and scientifically valid, while logicians have tended argue that it is not
scientifically meaningful as the umbrella theory it is usually accepted as being. (However, even these
logicians acknowledge its value as an ordering model directing the biologist to examine the requirements of
survival of specific species.) Contemporary geneticists tend to agree that there was a problem when
the issue concerned macroscopic properties, but argue that there are testable genetic hypotheses that
describe species in general. Some contemporary logicians accept this as stated. Others accept it but see
such hypotheses as a far cry from anything that could be called `Darwinian.' Still others argue that close
analysis of the genetic `property' alleged to explain the survival of species in general still exposes
tautology. ... The key questions determining whether the Darwinian claim meets the logical requirements of
science are: (1) Is the claim one attempting to explain the survival of species in general (or members of a
species in general); if the claim is attempting merely to address a given species (and if the requirement of (2)
is met), then there is clearly no logical problem; and (2) Is the property specified defined nontautologically
(i.e., independently of `survival'); the evidence that this requirement is met is the ability of the claim to
provide a way, at least in principle, in which it can be shown to be incorrect if it is incorrect? (If it can not,
then it is tautological and scientifically unacceptable; in science, if you can't lose, you can't win.)" (Goldberg
S., "When Wish Replaces Thought: Why So Much of What You Believe Is False," Prometheus Books: New
York NY, 1992, pp.156-157. Emphasis original)
13/10/2005
"tautology, n. (from Greek tautos the same, logos that which is said) a repetition of, or saying the same as,
something already said. In propositional LOGIC (concerned with the connections between
PROPOSITIONS), a tautology is any formula that comes out true for any distribution of truth-values for its
constituents. Thus 'p or not-p' is a tautology, since it is true whether p be true or false. " (Vesey G. &
Foulkes P., "Collins Dictionary of Philosophy," HarperCollins: Glasgow UK, 1990, p.281)
13/10/2005
"tautology ... (Gr. to auto legein to say the same) n. 1 (in grammar) a pleonasm, redundancy of expression,
needless repetition, as in `to descend down', `people's democracy', `binary dichotomization'. 2 (in logic) a
formula which takes the value true for all assignments of truth-values to its atomic expressions. A
simple example is the tautological formula (p v ~ p). Also, a statement in ordinary language which exemplifies
a tautological formula can be called a tautology. Thus, `It is raining or it is not raining' is said to be a
tautology, since it exemplifies (p v ~ p). All tautologies are necessary truths, but the view that all necessary
truths are tautologies is open to serious doubt. 3 The theorems of propositional logic (p & p) = p and (p v p)
= p are sometimes called laws of tautology." (Mautner T., "The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy," [1996],
Penguin: London, Revised, 2000, pp.556-557. Emphasis original)
13/10/2005
"tautology Technically, a formula of the propositional calculus that is true whatever the truth-value
assigned to its constituent propositional variables. (A tautology is thus valid, or true in all interpretations.)
In more informal contexts a tautology is often thought of as a proposition that `says nothing', or merely
repeats a definition." (Blackburn S., "The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy," [1994], Oxford University Press:
Oxford UK, 1996, p.373)
14/10/2005
"Coyne's conclusion that design is unfalsifiable, however, seems to be at odds with the arguments of other
reviewers of my book. Clearly, Russell Doolittle (Doolittle 1997), Kenneth Miller (Miller 1999), and others
have advanced scientific arguments aimed at falsifying ID. (See my articles on blood clotting and the "acid
test" on this web site.) If the results with knock-out mice (Bugge et al. 1996) had been as Doolittle
first thought, or if Barry Hall's work (Hall 1999) had indeed shown what Miller implied, then they correctly
believed my claims about irreducible complexity would have suffered quite a blow. And since my claim for
intelligent design requires that no unintelligent process be sufficient to produce such irreducibly complex
systems, then the plausibility of ID would suffer enormously. Other scientists, including those on the
National Academy of Science's Steering Committee on Science and Creationism, in commenting on my book
have also pointed to physical evidence (such as the similar structures of hemoglobin and myoglobin) which
they think shows that irreducibly complex biochemical systems can be produced by natural selection:
"However, structures and processes that are claimed to be 'irreducibly' complex typically are not on closer
inspection." (National Academy of Sciences 1999, p. 22) Now, one can't have it both ways. One can't say
both that ID is unfalsifiable (or untestable) and that there is evidence against it. Either it is unfalsifiable and
floats serenely beyond experimental reproach, or it can be criticized on the basis of our observations and is
therefore testable. The fact that critical reviewers advance scientific arguments against ID (whether
successfully or not) shows that intelligent design is indeed falsifiable." (Behe, M.J.*, "Philosophical
Objections to Intelligent Design: Response to Critics," Discovery Institute, July 31, 2000)
14/10/2005
"In fact, my argument for intelligent design is open to direct experimental rebuttal. Here is a thought
experiment that makes the point clear. In Darwin's Black Box (Behe 1996) I claimed that the bacterial flagellum
was irreducibly complex and so required deliberate intelligent design. The flip side of this claim is that the
flagellum can't be produced by natural selection acting on random mutation, or any other unintelligent
process. To falsify such a claim, a scientist could go into the laboratory, place a bacterial species lacking a
flagellum under some selective pressure (for mobility, say), grow it for ten thousand generations, and see if a
flagellum-or any equally complex system--was produced. If that happened, my claims would be neatly
disproven.(1) How about Professor Coyne's concern that, if one system were shown to be the result of
natural selection, proponents of ID could just claim that some other system was designed? I think the
objection has little force. If natural selection were shown to be capable of producing a system of a certain
degree of complexity, then the assumption would be that it could produce any other system of an equal or
lesser degree of complexity. If Coyne demonstrated that the flagellum (which requires approximately forty
gene products) could be produced by selection, I would be rather foolish to then assert that the blood
clotting system (which consists of about twenty proteins) required intelligent design." (Behe, M.J.*, "Philosophical
Objections to Intelligent Design: Response to Critics," Discovery Institute, July 31, 2000. Emphasis
original)
14/10/2005
"Let's turn the tables and ask, how could one falsify the claim that, say, the bacterial flagellum was produced
by Darwinian processes? (Professor Coyne's remarks about a Precambrian fossil hominid are irrelevant since
I dispute the mechanism of natural selection, not common descent. I would no more expect to find a fossil
hominid out of sequence than he would.) If a scientist went into the laboratory and grew a flagellum-less
bacterial species under selective pressure for many generations and nothing much happened, would
Darwinists be convinced that natural selection is incapable of producing a flagellum? I doubt it. It could
always be claimed that the selective pressure wasn't the right one, or that we started with the wrong
bacterial species, and so on. Even if the experiment were repeated many times under different conditions and
always gave a negative result, I suspect many Darwinists would not conclude that the claim of its Darwinian
evolution was falsified. Of complex biochemical systems Coyne himself writes "we may forever be unable to
envisage the first proto-pathways. It is not valid, however, to assume that, because one man cannot imagine
such pathways, they could not have existed." (Coyne 1996) If a person accepts Darwinian paths which are
not only unseen, but which we may be forever unable to envisage, then it is effectively impossible to make
him think he is wrong." (Behe, M.J.*, "Philosophical
Objections to Intelligent Design: Response to Critics," Discovery Institute, July 31, 2000. Emphasis
original)
14/10/2005
"Kenneth Miller announced an `acid test' for the ability of natural selection to produce irreducible
complexity. He then decided that the test was passed, and unhesitatingly proclaimed intelligent design
falsified ('Behe is wrong'; Miller 1999, 147). But if, as it certainly seems to me, E. coli actually fails the
lactose-system `acid test,' would Miller consider Darwinism to be falsified? Almost certainly not. He would
surely say that the experiment started with the wrong bacterial species, used the wrong selective pressure,
and so on. So it turns out that his `acid test' was not a test of Darwinism; it tested only intelligent design.
The same one-way testing was employed by Russell Doolittle. He pointed to the results of Bugge et
al. (1996) to argue against intelligent design. But when the results turned out to be the opposite of what
he had originally thought, Professor Doolittle did not abandon Darwinism. It seems then, perhaps
counterintuitively to some, that intelligent design is quite susceptible to falsification, at least on the points
under discussion. Darwinism, on the other hand, seems quite impervious to falsification. The reason for that
can be seen when we examine the basic claims of the two ideas with regard to a particular biochemical
system like, say, the bacterial flagellum. The claim of intelligent design is that `No unintelligent
process could produce this system.' The claim of Darwinism is that `Some unintelligent process
(involving natural selection and random mutation) could produce this system.' To falsify the first claim, one
need only show that at least one unintelligent process could produce the system. To falsify the second
claim, one would have to show the system could not have been formed by any of a potentially infinite
number of possible unintelligent processes, which is effectively impossible to do. I think Professor Coyne
and the National Academy of Sciences have it exactly backwards. A strong point of intelligent design is its
vulnerability to falsification. (Indeed, some of my religious critics dislike intelligent design theory precisely
because they worry that it will be falsified, and thus theology will appear to suffer another blow from
science. See, for example, (Flietstra 1998).) A weak point of Darwinian theory is its resistance to falsification.
What experimental evidence could possibly be found that would falsify the contention that complex
molecular machines evolved by a Darwinian mechanism?" (Behe, M.J.*, "Philosophical
Objections to Intelligent Design: Response to Critics," Discovery Institute, July 31, 2000. Emphasis
original)
14/10/2005
"Professor J. C. Fentress of the University of Rochester observed that one species of vole (a mouse-like
rodent) `froze' when it observed a moving object overhead, while another species ran for cover. The species
that froze in its tracks lived in the woodland, while the species which ran for cover lived in the open field.
Professor Fentress told his colleagues about his observation, but he purposely reversed the facts, telling
them that the woodland species ran for cover and that the meadow voles froze in their tracks. The other
zoologists were able to give very elaborate and satisfactory explanations why the woodland species ran and
the meadow species froze, based upon conventional ideas of evolutionary theory." (Davidheiser B.,
"Evolution and the Christian Faith," Presbyterian & Reformed: Nutley NJ, 1969, p.194)
14/10/2005
"Briefly, Darwinian evolution is concerned with the changes in form and function that arise over succeeding
generations in populations of organisms. The crux of the theory is that these changes occur because,
whatever is behind them, they ensure that individuals who possess the attributes tend to survive
and reproduce successfully. Those that do not, tend to leave fewer surviving offspring or none at all. ...
Life's progress entails a great deal more than battling for sustenance, the vulgar meaning put on `survival of
the fittest'. Nor is fitness a sort of muscularity of the playing field cum cunning of the biological `market
place'. Quite simply, an individual is fit with its environment if it survives long enough to produce offspring,
if its progeny are similarly fit, and on and on, as the environment perpetually changes. ... All in all, fitness is
expressed in how many fertile offspring are produced (the individual's fecundity) and how likely those
offspring are to survive (their viability)." (Drury S.A., "Stepping Stones: The Making of Our Home World,"
Oxford University Press: New York NY, 1999, p.69. My emphasis)
14/10/2005
"Is intelligent design falsifiable? Is Darwinism falsifiable? Yes to the first question, no to the second.
Intelligent design is eminently falsifiable. Specified complexity in general and irreducible complexity in
biology are within the theory of intelligent design the key markers of intelligent agency. If it could be shown
that biological systems like the bacterial flagellum that are wonderfully complex, elegant, and integrated
could have been formed by a gradual Darwinian process (which by definition is non-telic), then intelligent
design would be falsified on the general grounds that one doesn't invoke intelligent causes when purely
natural causes will do. In that case Occam's razor finishes off intelligent design quite nicely. On the other
hand, falsifying Darwinism seems effectively impossible. To do so one must show that no conceivable
Darwinian pathway could have led to a given biological structure. What's more, Darwinists are apt to retreat
into the murk of historical contingency to shore up their theory. For instance, Allen Orr in his critique of
Behe's work shortly after _Darwin's Black Box_ appeared remarked, `We have no guarantee that we can
reconstruct the history of a biochemical pathway.' What he conceded with one hand, however, he was quick
to retract with the other. He added, `But even if we can't, its irreducible complexity cannot count against its
gradual evolution.' The fact is that for complex systems like the bacterial flagellum no biologist has or is
anywhere close to reconstructing its history in Darwinian terms. Is Darwinian theory therefore falsified?
Hardly. I have yet to witness one committed Darwinist concede that any feature of nature might even in
principle provide countervailing evidence to Darwinism. In place of such a concession one is instead always
treated to an admission of ignorance. Thus it's not that Darwinism has been falsified or disconfirmed, but
that we simply don't know enough about the biological system in question and its historical context to
determine how the Darwinian mechanism might have produced it." (Dembski W.A.*, "Is Intelligent Design Testable?,"
Access Research Network, January 24, 2001)
15/10/2005
"tautology, a proposition whose negation is inconsistent, or (self-) contradictory, e.g. 'Socrates is Socrates',
'Every human is either male or non-male' ... Tautologies are logically necessary ... Epistemically, every
proposition that can be known to be true by purely logical reasoning is a tautology ... a tautology is said to
be true in virtue of form ... Since tautologies do not exclude any logical possibilities they are
sometimes said to be `empty' or `uninformative'; and there is a tendency even to deny that they are genuine
propositions and that knowledge of them is genuine knowledge. ... Tautologies ... are sometimes said to be
`useless,' ... " (Corcoran J., "tautology," in Audi R., ed., "The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy," [1995],
Cambridge University Press: Cambridge UK, 1996, reprint, pp.788-789. Emphasis original)
16/10/2005
"Intelligent Design. In the past decade, many groups advocating different forms of creationism (than we
have previously discussed) have become popular. These groups argue that science and science education
should include concepts that they call, among other things, `intelligent design theory,' `initial complexity
theory,' and `theistic science.' Similar to groups that advocate some form of scientific creationism or
progressive creationism, the intelligent design (ID) groups contend that there are compelling scientific
arguments and evidence that would lead rational thinking people to conclude that evolution did not occur in
the manner normally taught in science classes. However, unlike the typical proponents of the creationisms
discussed previously, most ID proponents strongly distance themselves from the label `creationist' and
often from any overt connections to religious motivations or rationales for their ID conclusions. ... To some
extent, the strategy of intelligent design groups has already been successful. Financial support of their
endeavors appears to be growing. Large numbers of people have attended talks by ID leaders, who
sometimes draw audiences of up to nearly one thousand. Copies of Phillip Johnson's book Darwin on
Trial, an anti-evolution book that has been praised by leaders of the ID movement, have been sent to
biology teachers throughout the state of Alabama, courtesy of the state's governor. And for the first time in
recent history, a major trade book publisher (The Free Press, A Division of Simon & Schuster Inc.) has
published overt intelligent design material. The book is Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box. In
summary, all creationisms are not alike. Creationists' ideas vary significantly with regard to both their
religious and nonreligious rationales for rejecting evolution. Likewise, creationists' ideas vary considerably
in the extent to which they reject evolution. A better knowledge of these views may provide science
instructors with a deeper understanding of their students' rejection of the fundamental concept in the life
sciences, which in turn should allow for improved pedagogy." (Alters B.J. & Alters S.M., "Defending
Evolution in the Classroom: A Guide to the Creation/Evolution Controversy," Jones & Bartlett Publishers:
Sudbury MA, 2001, pp.54-55)
16/10/2005
"Major Features of the Fossil Record. In the absence of eyewitness testimony the fossil record provides
circumstantial evidence to paleontologists and biologists. There are three notable features of the fossil
record that must be considered in attempting to find out how life began and came to exist in its profusion of
forms. 1. The vast majority of the known animal phyla (over 95%) are either known or believed to have
appeared within a geologically `brief ' period (estimates range from 10 to 40 million years). Thereafter, new
phyla stop appearing throughout the geological record. The phyla are the major groups of life forms, based
upon large differences in morphology, especially basic body plans. 2. After fossils first appear in the record
they persist largely unchanged through many strata (a phenomenon called stasis)..., then frequently they
suddenly disappear from the record. 3. Fossil species are fully formed and functional when they first appear
in the record. There is a conspicuous lack of evidence for graded series of in-between fossils. Instead,
numerous gaps exist throughout the fossil record. " (Davis P.* & Kenyon D.H.*, "Of Pandas and People:
The Central Question of Biological Origins," Foundation for Thought and Ethics: Richardson TX, Second
Edition, 1993, p.92)
17/10/2005
"New species have been obtained by upsetting the chromosomal set, either by hybridization or by
treatments breaking down the chromosomes. Most such novelties occur in the plant kingdom; they are due
to hybrids of different species or genera. The classic instance is the kohlrabi created by Karpechenko (1928).
This hybrid of two crucifers (cabbage and radish) is sturdy; it has the large, smooth leaves of the cabbage
but is sterile. It has 18 chromosomes, 9 from the cabbage and 9 from the radish, which, not being strictly
uniform, do not pair off during meiosis; hence, the production of normal reproductive cells is not possible.
But among them Karpechenko found one or two fertile plants that yielded seeds with 4n chromosomes and
thus originated a systematic unit reproduced in no other case and constituting a new species. The doubling
of the number of chromosomes (called allopolyploidy in the case of hybrids) occurs accidentally before
meiosis in the ovary and parent cells of the pollen or, alternatively, in the growing point of a bud. ... In
animals, tetraploid or, more generally, polyploid breeds seem to originate accidentally during meiosis or a
fusion of nuclei right at the start of embryogenesis. So far, we know of no authentically allopolyploid animal
species. ... These new species studied are the product of a combination of preexisting characteristics and
not of creation. They do not involve creative evolution. They show that under certain conditions
(compatibility of chromosomes with cytoplasm in parents of differing species), with hybridization followed
by man-controlled selection, new combinations of genes can be achieved that correspond to systematic
units of a lower order, subspecies and species. The mechanisms described here are not operative in creative
evolution. Evolutionary strains remain pure throughout history. Paleontology provides no examples of
interphyletic hybridization." (Grassé, P.P., "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of
Transformation," [1973], Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, pp.200-201)
17/10/2005
"Their success among certain biologists, philosophers, and sociologists notwithstanding, the explanatory
doctrines of biological evolution do not stand up to an objective, in-depth criticism. They prove to be either
in conflict with reality or else incapable of solving the major problems involved." (Grassé, P.-P., "Evolution
of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation," [1973], Academic Press: New York NY,
1977, p.202)
17/10/2005
"Nobody can be sure that evolution consists of acquiring characteristics by use or direct influence of the
environment. Nobody can prove that phyla, classes, orders, and families have their origin in random
mutations similar to those undergone, at all times and in all places, by living plants and animals. Nobody can
assert that the organizational schemes are the work of natural selection." (Grassé, P.-P., "Evolution of Living
Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation," [1973], Academic Press: New York NY, 1977,
p.202)
17/10/2005
"Confining our attention exclusively, and for the sake of sound logic, to panchronic species, which abound
and which for tens and even thousands of millions of years have been mutating without any noteworthy
change, we should still be forced to deny any evolutionary value whatever to the mutations we observe in
the existing fauna and flora." (Grassé, P.-P., "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of
Transformation," [1973], Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p.202)
17/10/2005
"After impartial investigation, which I have carried on for years, I am in a position to conclude that: 1. The
Lamarckian and Darwinian theories, in whatever form, do not resolve the major evolutionary problem-that of
the genesis of the main systematic units, the fundamental organizational schemes. 2. They fail to account for
a great many fundamental aspects and phenomena of evolution. 3. We have not yet obtained from the fossil
record all the information it is capable of yielding." (Grassé, P.-P., "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence
for a New Theory of Transformation," [1973], Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p.203)
17/10/2005
"Freeing our minds of theoretical notions, wherever they may have come from, let us take an honest look at
the phenomenon of evolution and, in all objectivity, set aside the accepted doctrines, notably every form of
Darwinism. I have provided [proved?] that evolution is not ... the product of natural selection." (Grassé, P.-
P., "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation," [1973], Academic Press:
New York NY, 1977, p.203)
17/10/2005
"Moreover, it may be taken as proved that since adaptation is seldom perfect, the living creature makes do
with a compromise in respect to its environment (in the broadest sense); it survives, despite its comparative
inadaptation, provided its physiological balance sheet is sound .. interspecific competition is very far from
being universal ... death is more often blind and unselective than it is discriminating." (Grassé, P.-P.,
"Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation," [1973], Academic Press:
New York NY, 1977, p.203. Ellipses mine)
17/10/2005
"It is untrue to claim that evolution, guided by natural selection, is always favorable to the species or
lineage. It leaves in its aftermath a huge graveyard of failures and mistakes. The `better adapted' no more
displaces the `ill adapted' than the higher necessarily eliminates the lower. Panchronic species, as variable as
those of more recent times, demonstrate that evolution and mutagenesis are two independent phenomena.
The latter is continuous, the former is not.." (Grassé, P.-P., "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a
New Theory of Transformation," [1973], Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p.203)
17/10/2005
"... I have shown with a great many facts how far mutations fall short of the evolutionary variations that
gave rise to phyla, classes, orders, etc. ... In order to create, evolution demands new materials, such as genes
formed de novo, or untried patterns of overprinted codons. It is not at all the same gene that, from
one class of vertebrates to another, induces the tegumentary ectoblast and its mesenchymatous lining to
form ganoid, placoid, or cycloid scales in fishes, epidermal osseous scales in reptiles, feathers in birds, hair
in mammals. Every novelty demands its own genes, which are themselves also novelties.(Grassé, P.-P.,
"Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation," [1973], Academic Press:
New York NY, 1977, pp.203-204)
18/10/2005
"Argumentum ad Baculum (appeal to force) The argumentum ad baculum is the fallacy committed
when one appeals to force or the threat of force to cause acceptance of a conclusion. It is usually resorted
to only when evidence or rational arguments fail. The ad baculum is epitomized in the saying `might makes
right.' The use or threat of `strong-arm' methods to coerce political opponents provides contemporary
examples of this fallacy. Other appeals to nonrational methods of intimidation may of course be more subtle
than the open use or threat of concentration camps or `goon squads.' The lobbyist uses the ad baculum
when he reminds a representative that he (the lobbyist) can influence so many thousands of voters in the
representative's constituency, or so many potential contributors to campaign funds. Logically these
considerations have nothing to do with the merit of the legislation the lobbyist is attempting to influence.
But they may be, unfortunately, very persuasive. On the international scale, the arguments ad baculum
means war or the threat of war. " (Copi I.M., Introduction to Logic," [1953], Macmillan: New York, Seventh
Edition, 1986, pp.91-92. Emphasis original)
18/10/2005
"The fallacy of appeal to fear [As the Latin word for stick or staff is baculum, this argument is
known in Latin as argumentum ad baculum] is an argument that uses the threat of harm to advance
one's conclusion. It is an argument that people and nations fall back on when they are not interested in
advancing relevant reasons for their positions. Also known as swinging the big stick, this argument seldom
resolves a dispute. This argument should be distinguished from an all-out threat. If someone should hold a
gun to your back and say, `Your money or your life,' it would not do to reply, `Ah ha! That's a fallacy!' It is
not a fallacy because it is not an argument. Although the gunman is appealing to your sense of fear, and
even offering a reason why you should do what he tells you, he is not offering evidence in support of the
truth of some statement. He is not arguing with you; he is simply ordering you. ... An appeal to fear
therefore offers fallacious evidence. In some cases the evidence will be brief and implicit ... in other cases it
may run to pages or even volumes. ... We may encounter the appeal to fear in language like the following: ...
Don't argue with me. Remember who pays your salary. ... You don't want to be a social outcast, do you?
Then you'd better join us tomorrow. ... This university does not need a teacher's union, and faculty members
who think it does will discover their error at the next tenure review. These arguments are crude forms of the
fallacy. They are explicit about the threats being issued. The fallacy also lends itself to veiled threats. ...
Appeals to fear tend to multiply during periods of stress or conflict, both among nations and among
individuals. ... As in all fallacies of irrelevance, the object of the argument is an appeal to emotion rather than
to reason." (Engel S.M., "With Good Reason: An Introduction to Informal Fallacies," St. Martin's Press: New
York NY, Fourth edition, 1990, pp.216-220. Emphasis original)
18/10/2005
"Argument ad Baculum (appeal to force). This type of argument does not even attempt to be
relevant. It simply says, `Accept this argument, or I'll beat you up!' It seeks to persuade by force. It is a
threat, reasoning through blackmail, argument by intimidation. It assumes that might makes right. What does
that have to do with logic? "... they had nothing to say in reply.... And when they had threatened them
further, they let them go (finding no basis on which they might punish them).... and after calling the apostles
in, they flogged them and ordered them to speak no more in the name of Jesus...." [Acts 4:14, 21; 5:40]"
(Geisler N.L.* & Brooks R.M.*, "Come, Let Us Reason: An Introduction to Logical Thinking," Baker Book
House: Grand Rapids MI, 1990, p.93. Emphasis original)
18/10/2005
"Creeping toward Clotting. Why is the blood clotting system incompatible with a nonintelligent
evolutionary view of nature? Macroevolution means a change from a simpler to a more complex state. Let us
try to envision such a change for blood clotting. Assume that we initially start with an organism that
contains just a primitive version of thrombin and fibrinogen. The thrombin would immediately cut all the
fibrin, causing a massive clot and the speedy death of the organism. Suppose instead we started with
fibrinogen and prothrombin. In this case there is nothing to initiate clotting when a cut occurs and the
organism would bleed to death. We may try many smaller sets of components to get started-fibrinogen,
prothrombin, activated Stuart factor and proaccelerin, or inactive Stuart factor and
proaccelerin, or inactive Stuart factor or proaccelerin, or fibrinogen plus an imaginary protein that
cleaves fibrinogen to fibrin-death is nearly always the certain result. In fact, having a primitive, poorly
controlled clotting system would probably be more dangerous to an animal, and therefore less
advantageous, than having no such system at all! Thus the blood clotting system cannot have emerged
piecemeal. Like a car or a sentence, it requires the cooperative interaction of pre-existing components to
work. How do Darwinists explain the origin of the blood clotting system? They don't, at least not in any
detailed, step-by-step fashion. It is important to realize that no one has ever offered a credible hypothesis to
explain how the blood clotting system could have started and subsequently evolved. Nor have they
explained how a single protein molecule could be formed by gradual chance events. Instead, Darwinists are
content to point to resemblances in protein sequences, as discussed earlier and simply assume that such
resemblances mean that gradual evolution somehow occurred. This is the same defense that Darwinists
offer at the whole-organism level: similarities among different types of animals are assumed to support the
occurrence of Darwinian evolution, but no detailed, testable explanation is offered for how the many
integrated biological systems may have arisen. No answer has been forthcoming to the person who asks for
details. We have closely examined the blood clotting system in this chapter and shown that it exhibits
characteristics strongly suggestive of intelligent design. It is not unique in this respect: virtually all
biochemical systems, large and small, exhibit coherent integration of distinct parts to give a whole entity
with a separate purpose. This includes photosynthesis, cell replication, carbohydrate, protein, and lipid
metabolism, vision, the immune system, and numerous others. Like a car engine, biological systems can only
work after they have been assembled by someone who knows what the final result will be. There is both
elegance and astonishing complexity in even one such biochemical system. Each of these specialized
functions traces back to the molecule's amino acid sequence. The amino acids in the suite of blood clotting
proteins vary from roughly 300 to 3,000 residues. Some of them share discrete regions of their sequences
with some others. Does this mean that they derived from one another? It may, but consider that even if this
were the case, all of the proteins had to be present simultaneously for the blood clotting system to
function. (Davis P. & Kenyon D.H., "Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological
Origins," [1989], Foundation for Thought and Ethics: Richardson TX, Second Edition, 1993, pp.145-146.
Emphasis original)
19/10/2005
"To many the notion of the Big Bang was loaded with overtones of a supernatural event-the creation, the
beginning of the universe. The prominent physicist A.S. Eddington probably spoke for many in voicing his
utter disgust with such an idea: `Philosophically, the notion of an abrupt beginning to the present order of
Nature is repugnant to me, as I think it must be to most; and even those who would welcome a proof of the
intervention of a Creator will probably consider that a single winding-up at some remote epoch is not really
the kind of relation between God and his world that brings satisfaction to the mind.' [Eddington A.S., "The
End of the World from the Standpoint of Mathematical Physics," Nature, Vol. 127, 1931, p.450] Nonetheless,
despite its religious implications, the Big Bang was a scientific theory that flowed naturally from
observational data, not from holy writings or transcendental visions. Most physicists adopted the Big Bang
theory and set their research programs accordingly. ... Scientists such as Einstein, Eddington, and Hoyle
fudged and twisted in their efforts to resist a scientific theory that flowed naturally from the data because
they thought they would be forced to accept unpleasant philosophical or theological conclusions. They
weren't; they had other options. ... The success of the Big Bang model had nothing to do with its religious
implications. It seemed to agree with the Judaeo-Christian dogma of a beginning to the universe; it seemed
to disagree with other religions that believed the universe to be eternal. But the theory justified itself by
reference to observational data - the expansion of the universe - and not by invoking sacred texts or the
mystical experiences of holy men. The model came straight from the observational evidence; it was not fit to
a Procrustean bed of religious dogma. But it should also be noticed that the Big Bang, although friendly to a
religious point of view, does not forcibly compel that belief. No person is required by dint of logic to reach
any particular supernatural conclusion solely on the basis of scientific observations and theories. This is
seen initially in Einstein's and Hoyle's attempt to come up with alternative models that would fit the
observational data and avoid the unpleasant thought of a start to the universe. ... The point of the above
discussion is that even though the Big Bang hypothesis may appear at first blush to support a particular
religious idea, no scientific theory can compel belief in a positive religious tenet by sheer force of logic.
Thus, to explain the universe a person can postulate unobservables, like the theory that there are infinitely
many universes and the theory that ours is just a bubble in a larger universe. Or one can hold out the hope
that theories that look implausible today, such as the steady-state theory or the theory of the oscillating
universe, might look more plausible tomorrow when calculations are redone or new measurements are taken.
Or one can simply abandon the principle of causation, as seen in theories that propose that the universe
came into being uncaused. Most other people may regard the ideas as pretty giddy; nonetheless, they don't
violate the observational evidence." (Behe, M.J.*, "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to
Evolution," Free Press: NY, 1996, pp.244-248)
21/10/2005
"By creation we mean the bringing into being of the basic kinds of plants and animals by the process of
sudden, or fiat, creation described in the first two chapters of Genesis. Here we find the creation by God of
the plants and animals, each commanded to reproduce after its own kind using processes which were
essentially instantaneous. We do not know how God created, what processes He used, for God used
processes which are not now operating anywhere in the natural universe. This is why we refer to divine
creation as special creation. We cannot discover by scientific investigations anything about the creative
processes used by God." (Gish D.T.*, "Evolution: The Fossils Say No!," [1972], Creation-Life: San Diego
CA, Second edition, 1973, Third printing, 1976, pp.24-25)
21/10/2005
"Compared with mousetraps, biochemical systems are incredibly intricate, as illustrated by the blood-
clotting system. Clots are meshworks of one protein, fibrin, whose molecules rapidly link together into a fine
web. To prevent inappropriate clotting, fibrin is made as an inactive precursor. Another protein, thrombin,
cleaves the precursor to liberate fibrin when clotting is needed. As a fail-safe backup, thrombin itself is made
as an inactive precursor whose activation in response to tissue damage requires a cascade of half a dozen
proteins, sequentially cleaving and activati