into this method.| email - May 2005 |
Mike asks us questions evolutionists should answer.
Mike's email is remarkable for its confused honesty. Clearly, he wrote it in haste which, in this case, turns out to be a virtue because it is a revealing stream-of-consciousness in which questions turn into statements, and thoughts are unfinished. It gives great insight into what he is thinking.
His questions really should be addressed to evolutionists, but there isn't much chance he would get any answers from them. So, we will do what we can. Here is what he wrote to us:
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Hello, I am not well versed on the evolutionary theory, mostly because there really isn't one and I simply cannot keep up with all of them. However, the overall idea, that life somehow generated over billions of years through macro (not micro)evolution. Has any revolution [we think he means, "evolution"] ever been proven? I mean, people have taken bone fragments, gotten great artists['] depictions of how these bones, some found several hundred feet apart from one another, and said that life is proven by evolutionary means. But, no one has really found any true intermediary. Second, there is still question as to whether certain skulls are monkey, or human. Can't the science community test the skulls, or whatever, for DNA? I mean, I know they have had skeletons that weren't fossilized, which they claim are "humanoids", so why can't they do some sort of DNA study and see how their genetic code matches up? Third, I cannot understand how life generates from a form that rejects oxygen: plants, fish, and others, only to need oxygen. Plants thrive in their natural habitats, and they have never needed oxygen, nor do they eat twigs and berries, or meat. Instead, and I think that people fail to see this because plants do not move, or consume "food", plants simply aren't discussed. Could you tell me what the current evolutionist theory on how plants compare to animals. And if life started from micro bacteria, or organisms, or whatever, how do these organisms change from organisms that need to consume to organisms that produce? I am find my self [sic] really confused about how plants fit into the evolutionary schemata. Because all life started from a barren planet, only to become one full of diverse life (plants produce oxygen and most other life forms consume it), how is that possible? This, to me, is more confounding than any transformation of species. Because, if people came from monkeys, monkeys still breathe oxygen and consume "food," while on the other hand, plants still exist, sucking up Carbon Dioxide to produce oxygen. This is not based any religious viewpoint either, as I think that science is simply against evolution. Faith or not, how can life be so diverse (and remain so, even though survival of the fittest is still a mainstay of common evolutionary theory). Thanks for your time, and I look forward to your response. Sincerely, Mike |
Mike's first question is about transitional forms of creatures. Are there any transitional forms?
The only way to answer this question is to define what a transitional form is. How would you know a transitional form if you found one? As far as we know, evolutionists have never defined any criteria that must be satisfied for a creature to be classified as "transitional." Mike thinks it has something to do with artists' conceptions based on recreations from fragmentary fossil data, and practically speaking he is right. From an evolutionary point of view, there is no objective definition of a transitional form. There is only a subjective definition. That subjective definition allows anything that advances the theory of evolution to be hailed as a transitional form. It isn't very scientific. It is just an opinion.
That's why we proposed specific criteria for transitional forms in Parent of the Apes - Part 2 (October, 2001). Those criteria include similarity, timing, progression, and geography. There are no fossils that meet all our criteria, so we say there are no transitional forms.
Evolutionists may disagree with our criteria. If so, then let them propose their own criteria and tell which fossils meet them. We don't expect that to happen because that would force them to say, "A fossil is transitional just because we think it is."
Mike's second question involves classification of skulls as human or ape. Traditionally, brain size has been used. If the brain is smaller than 750 cc, it is an ape 1. If it is larger, it is a human. The recent discovery of Homo florensis (which is classified as human) with a small brain (413 cc) has thrown a "monkey wrench" into this method.
DNA can't be used for several reasons. First, it degrades too quickly. Any DNA that one might obtain from old bones would be too degraded to classify. Remember, evolutionists claim that chimpanzee DNA is more than 98% the same as human DNA. So, if there is less than 2% difference in perfectly preserved DNA, how could one possibly tell if deteriorated DNA came from a human or an ape? Of course, as we have shown in a previous newsletter, chimp DNA isn't really 98% the same as human DNA. Evolutionists just fudge the numbers to make it appear to be similar to strengthen their claim that there really isn't much difference between humans and apes.
Scientists once tried to compare Neanderthal DNA with modern human DNA . If there is only 2% difference between humans and apes, imagine how little difference there must be between Neanderthals and modern humans. How could scientists possibly think they could tell the difference? The results were controversial, as we reported at the time.
When you get right down to it, the only way to tell if individuals of two populations are the same species is to see if they can mate and produce viable offspring. Since bones never produce any offspring, you can't use that test.
Humans walk upright, and apes are knuckle-walkers. Therefore, evolutionists generally use upright posture as a criterion for separating humans from apes. They try to guess posture based on neck, hip, knee, and foot bones. Experts often disagree about posture, especially if the fossils are fragmentary and incomplete.
It all comes down to something that evolutionists don't like to admit--it is all a matter of opinion, not science! A member of the scientific elite, who knows more than you do, estimates the intelligence and posture of a creature that nobody has ever seen, based on a few fragmentary fossils, and decides if that creature is human or not. If you don't accept that decree without question, then you are disrespecting the scientific intelligentsia. It is more of an issue about ego than science.
So, the short answer to Mike's second question is, "They don't really know."
Mike's third question is about the origin of life. This is where the evolutionists don't even begin to have any answers. Anything we say here will be criticized by evolutionists as not correctly reflecting the evolutionists' position because evolutionists are all over the map on this issue.
The prevailing opinion today seems to be that billions of years ago the Earth had an atmosphere very different from the one it has today. Today the atmosphere is about 80% nitrogen and about 20% oxygen, with all other gasses combined (carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, helium, argon, hydrogen, methane, ammonia, etc.) accounting for less than 1%. This is one instance in which the evolutionists' mantra, "The present is the key to the past," is ignored. They believe there was no oxygen in the air because oxygen would have prevented the formation of the simple organic compounds needed to create life. They believe this despite the fact that our planet consists of air, water, and rock. The air today is 1/5 oxygen. Water contains oxygen (it is H2O). Most rocks contain oxygen (look up the chemical formulas for calcium carbonate, quartz, feldspar, etc.). There isn't any reason to believe that the atmosphere was oxygen-free, except that it had to be for life to begin.
But, as Mike has correctly observed, the atmosphere had to evolve from one that consisted mostly of methane, hydrogen, and ammonia, to one that consists mostly of nitrogen and oxygen. At the same time, living things had to evolve from things that could not survive in oxygen to things that survive in a 20% oxygen environment. Not only that, many of those living things evolved so that they can't live without oxygen. It doesn't make sense to Mike because it doesn't make sense period.
He is also confused about the evolution of plants and animals, as well he should be. The difference between a plant and an animal is that a plant makes its own food (usually using photosynthesis), but an animal has to eat other animals or plants to obtain its food. Therefore, animals could not have evolved before plants. What would the first animal have eaten if there were no other animals or plants? It would have starved to death before it could reproduce.
Therefore, the first living things had to be plants. (We don't usually consider bacteria to be plants, but ...) Evolutionists suppose that algae evolved early on, followed by invertebrate animals (sponges, etc.) The question that never seems to occur to evolutionists is, "Why would a plant (which can make its own food) evolve into an animal (which is dependent upon other plants or animals for food)? What is the survival advantage in that?" Evolutionists also have some amusing fairy tales about how flowering plants and insects coevolved at the same time (because the insects needed the plants for food, and the plants needed the insects for pollination). One should not blame Mike for not being able to make sense of the insensible.
Mike's teachers aren't much help because science teachers who believe in evolution don't have any answers for his questions, and science teachers who don't believe in evolution are afraid to discuss evidence against evolution because they might lose their jobs. Roger Hart is the classic example of a teacher who was fired for allowing evidence against evolution into the classroom. The current Topeka controversy is a direct result of the current restriction and censorship of the science curriculum, which discourages teachers from answering questions like Mike's. That's why Mike has to turn to people like us to give him the answers.
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Footnotes:
1
Tattersall (1995) The Fossil Trail page 73
(Ev)