SCIENCE OR PSEUDOSCIENCE

The scientific world has been in decline for a long time.  Precisely when science stopped being empirical and became faith based is hard to pin point but I think it started with the popularization of science by Carl Sagan.  Science – real science – is very complicated, technical, and thus hard to follow.  Because of this Carl Sagan in the brief time allotted to him by TV began to state various theories as facts when in fact they not.  From that time on things that had been postulated slowly morphed into facts ignoring the very basis of science which is empirical proof.  This erosion of science started with cosmology but rapidly infected other portions as well, especially the Theory of Evolution.  The very idea that Evolution is theoretical has disappeared.  Darwin reigns supreme even though the proofs demanded by Darwin have been ignored.  What Darwin observed and described is environmental adaptation not speciation.  No where in his seminal book “The Origin of Species” does he describe the origin of species and from that day to this how species originate is unproven and undemonstrated.  Many theories exist but none have been demonstrated.  This problem has plagued science for years but the scientific community is convinced that evolution is real even though they can’t actually prove it.

The evolutionary problem begins with the Cambrian Explosion.  The Pre-Cambrian is that period from the origin of the Earth to the fossil rich Cambrian and the beginning of the Geologic record.  Due to some unexplained process or event – non-divine event – life began in the Pre-Cambrian.  This life – based on limited evidence – was primitive bacterial life that evolved into something like pond scum and possibly simple worms.  But the Cambrian teems with fossils of complex life forms -- creatures with eyes, ears, organs, and complex bodies and ecologies.  How did these come to be and to be so diverse without any indication of their origin?  No transitional fossils exist – a criteria demanded by Darwin. 

The lack of transitional fossils is described as Stasis meaning a particular species exists unchanged in the fossil record for millions of years and then another species suddenly appears without any transitional fossils.   However, on close inspection these new species are really just examples of environmental adaptation by the same species.  That is the new trilobite is similar to the old trilobite, the new brachiopod is similar to the old brachiopod.  This pattern is repeated throughout the geologic record with new species looking like the preceding one, but are these truly new species or merely new versions of the same species much like a race horse looks different from a Clydesdale or a donkey but they are all equines.  How the ancestor of the horse divided into separate and distinct species remains an article of faith rather than a demonstrated fact.  The fossil record is devoid of transitional forms so to address this problem scientists have decided on Punctuated Equilibria.

This theory claims that no transitional fossils can be found in the geologic record because the separation between species happened at an accelerated rate requiring merely thousands of years rather than millions.  Because of this rapid evolution no transitional fossils were created because there wasn’t time.  That is a rather silly argument because the existing fossils were created one at a time and within the life time of the living fossil.  So while Punctuated Equilibria may sound like a viable theory it really doesn’t explain the absence of transitional fossils anywhere in the hundreds of millions of years of the geologic record.

This brings us to the descent of man – from pond scum to interstellar explorer.  Current thinking is that modern man has descended from a primitive ape that lived in Africa approximately three million years ago.  This original human (?) ancestor consists of a handful of bone fragments from which a proto-human has been constructed.  With this as a starting point additional bone fragments have been found in various places which has led the construction of the tree of human evolution which shows various species that have branched off and remained in the animal kingdom while others are shown to have continued their evolution into homo-sapiens and modern apes like the Chimpanzee. 

Whether or not this evolutionary tree of human development is true or not may be arguable but the real point is that this evolutionary span is approximately 3 million years and these various bone fragments can be argued to be transitional fossils.  If this is true then it seems logical that the geological record would contain transitional fossils of other life forms and whether Punctuated Equilibria is true or not-- it wouldn’t preclude finding transitional fossils.  The reality is that throughout the geological record new life forms suddenly appear with the most recent being Cro-Magnon man.  The question of speciation remains open and Darwin’s criteria for proof of his theory remains unanswered.

Science Evolution and Magic

Somewhere I once read that the American Indians had a saying that “to name a thing is to know it”. This is a pretty profound statement especially when you view it in terms of science. The field of science is littered with terms that are little more than names because no one really knows what they are or how they work, among these we find gravity, magnetism, black holes, great force, weak force, and of course evolution. Of course most scientists toss these terms about as if they really understood what they are and how they work but the reality is that they are actually describing the effect of these things without actually understanding what they are or how they work. This is especially true of Evolution which we are assured by the most reputable of scientists is a factual reality. In support of this we are offered numerous examples of “evolution” which on inspection turn out to be examples of adaptation. That is the species is modified but remains the same species. The reality is that there are no examples of one species becoming another and that there are no transition fossils found in the fossil record.

Charles Darwin was a product of his time. His Theory of Evolution was clearly an extrapolation of the Charles Lyell’s Theory of Uniformitarianism, which postulates that things change gradually and that those changes occur over long periods of time. This geologic theory held sway for a very long time but as the science of paleontology matured it became obvious that the geologic periods ended in abrupt – catastrophic changes with mass extinctions. This gave rise to the Theory of Catastrophism which vied with Uniformitarianism but these quickly and easily melded together to form a picture where geologic processes were uniform for long periods but then each period ended abruptly with catastrophic events. What triggered these abrupt changes was unknown but recent discoveries indicate that some of these if not all, were triggered by collisions with meteors or large volcanic eruptions. So these findings go a long way toward explaining the mass extinctions and abrupt endings to geologic epochs but it really doesn’t address the creation of life, evolution, or speciation.

The Pre-Cambrian is almost devoid of fossils and what fossils there are tend to be slime, tracks, or other similar evidence of simple worm like animal forms. But in the Cambrian we find some very sophisticated life forms with trilobites being the most well known. And from this point on every geologic epoch is filled with ever increasingly complex life forms, some of which go extinct while others live on, like the shark or ant, into modern times. Evolution doesn’t address the origin of life but simply addresses how life has divided and subdivided into this myriad of life forms ranging from worms to mankind. At this point it is important to note that Evolution may in fact be true, but the issue is that it remains a unproven theory and is not a demonstrated fact. Certainly, Evolution is not supported by the fossil record and therein lays the problem, which plagues paleontologists. If the fossil record does not show any transitional life forms, such as something between the Pre-Cambrian worms and the Cambrian Trilobite, then evolution as a process remains simply a possibility and with some significant hurdles for the paleontologists.

To solve this problem of no transitional fossils, Gould and his protégé Eldredge have postulated punctuated equilibria. Essentially this new theory says that a species splits off from the parent species in a very short span of time – no more than a few thousand years so no fossils are likely to be found. But the punctuated equilibria theory does allow for older forms of a species to co-exist with newer forms, which conveniently eliminates the problem with Eohippus. Initially Eohippus was cited as an example of evolution because it could be demonstrated that the horse evolved from a relatively small mammal into the current horse. Unfortunately it turned out the early fossils of Eohippus were not related to the horse and that older forms as well as newer forms of the horse co-existed. Although it was ignored the fact was that even if the fossils were all related they would all still be horses and not an example of one species becoming another. But scientists valiantly carry on because evolution cannot be abandoned without having to answer some very difficult questions regarding the origin of life, so the current effort is to demonstrate that punctuated equilibria is really evolution at work.

The primary thrust of this argument is that even members of the same species are not identical and variations occur. This is described as stasis meaning that variations occur and that these variations advance and reverse through time, which accounts for some of the variations in the fossil record which show recent fossils may be more primitive than earlier ones. This observation is then used to point out that these variations may be of the moment and not carried through time, but some are and it is these variations that lead to speciation Essentially the theory is that these variations lead to identifiable groups within a species that reproduce within their own sub-group but elect to not mate with closely related members of the same species and gradually this leads to a new species which is unable to reproduce with members of its parent species. This process is theorized to occur over a relatively short period of time – perhaps thousands of years rather than millions. It is this short period of time which is believed to account for the lack of any transitional fossil forms and to explain the sudden appearance of various life forms in the fossil record. In essence we can take a Hippopotamus lay our imaginary hand on its forehead and utter the magic word EVOLVE and we have an elephant. But this is more extreme than the theory postulates.

Essentially the Punctuated Equilibria Theory points out that the fossil record indicates that a species through time will develop sub-species and these do not reproduce with each other, hence we have variations with the species that lead to new species. Alas while this argument may be sound the reality is a trilobite is still a trilobite, a mollusk is still a mollusk, and a bird is still a bird. However, this is the foundation of the argument that man, ape, and chimpanzee all are related and that mankind has indeed split off from a common ancestor that was in fact an ape. The problem of where did that first ape come from remains and in fact if we start with primordial life in the Pre-Cambrian we must accept that we are slime derived, essentially our most ancient ancestors were pond scum.

So there is no explanation offered for the explosion of highly developed life forms in the Cambrian and there are no transitional life forms in the fossil record to indicate exactly how pond scum became fish or fish became reptiles and reptiles became mammals. Certainly Punctuated Equilibria may provide an explanation as to how animals species have so many variations and sub-species but it really doesn’t explain the march of life from the simplest forms to mankind. The conclusion can only be that Evolution remains a theory and that Punctuated Equilibria is a theory that offers a partial explanation for speciation but it too must remain a theory. The only conclusion we can draw is that science has many theories for the origin of life but they have no solid proof. And as Puck observes in “Midsummer’s Night” “Oh what fools these mortals be”.

Evolution and Science

The latest claim by the Darwinists is that evolution has just been demonstrated as having occurred – not over millions of years but over a very short span of years. The basis of this claim lies in an experiment done with lizards with no natural predators and confined to a small group of islands. On some of the islands these ground hugging lizards were left alone as a control while a predator lizard was introduced on other islands. The forecast was that the prey lizards would either adapt by moving to the trees or die out. Within a short span of years the population of the prey lizards had been dramatically reduced but the surviving lizards had developed longer legs (as predicted) and had moved into the trees. This is now hailed as dramatic proof that evolution can occur over short periods of time and presumably demonstrating that “punctuated equilibrium” is real.

Of course the flaw in this argument is that this does not illustrate evolution at all because the lizards – while changed – remain lizards and that all this does is demonstrate “adaptation”. Adaptation within a species has never been seriously challenged and has been repeatedly demonstrated. Had these lizards actually changed into a separate and distinct species, one that could not interbreed, then THAT would have been proof of evolution, but alas they did not, they simply remained a long legged version of the same species. This is another – and typical – example of how scientists are desperately clinging to their faith in evolution when it seems everywhere they turn there is growing evidence that the Theory of Evolution is either dead wrong or seriously flawed.

There are several other examples that are quoted in text books and generally cited as “evidence” that evolution has occurred. Perhaps the most common and frequently cited example is that of the horse. Museums and textbooks frequently show Eohippus, (now known as Hyracotherium), Mesoshippus, Merychippus, Pliohippus, and Equus. For this majestic march of evolution to be true would require that these animals would be found in a chronological sequence with the oldest in the lower strata and the earliest in the higher strata. Unfortunately this isn’t the case and in some cases the oldest forms are found above the newest forms and commonly these animals are found to coexist in the strata. To make this example even shakier no full set of bones exist and the examples they do have show that these animals gained ribs and then lost them only to regain them later, so even the anatomy of these animals is fails to meet even the minimum standard for evolution.

The usual descriptions and supporting evidence for evolution almost always cites examples of adaptation, for example the Trilobite. The Trilobite made it’s first appearance in the Cambrian and existed through millions of years, spanning the Ordovician, Devonian, and Silurian periods and eventually becoming extinct. These Trilobites are cited as examples of evolution because they are distinctly different in each epoch and demonstrate evolutionary changes – unfortunately they never became anything other than Trilobites so while they adapted to their changing environments they never became fish, or crabs, or donkeys – just different trilobites. What the scientists who look to the Trilobite for evidence of evolution fail to address the origin of the first Trilobite. In fact, the Pre-Cambrian fossil record is very sparse and consists exclusively of algae, mosses, and some simple worm like creatures. However, at the beginning of the Cambrian the fossil record bursts with evidence of Trilobites and other complex organisms complete with eyes, bodies, digestive tracts, and limbs. So the origin of the Trilobite is not explained, just that once the Trilobite came onto the scene it adapted to the environment and existed for millions of years – as a Trilobite.

It is important to understand that a species “is a group of naturally occurring populations that can interbreed and produce offspring that can interbreed.” This is an important fact because Darwin’s “The Origin of Species” doesn’t address how one species turns into another because different species cannot interbreed. The popular position today is to look to “mutation” as the explanation of how one species changes into another. Alas mutations occur in individuals and are not mass events. So even if a spontaneous mutation were to occur it would affect one individual and not groups. Even if that individual were to reproduce there is no evidence that a whole new species would result, even over extended periods of time. If this were the case then the fossil record would show some evidence of transitional life forms but – unfortunately – it does not and most paleontologists think these transitional fossils will never be found because they don’t exist. This failure of the fossil record to support evolution beyond adaptation, has resulted in a new theory called “punctuated equilibrium” meaning that one species will “evolve” into another species over very short periods of time – perhaps thousands of years rather than millions. This new theory is intended to get around the obvious flaws and failures of evolution as taught by the true believers in the scientific community.

Unfortunately the historic record goes back thousands of years and the alleged ancestors of man go back a million years but once again there is no evidence of any species turning into another. Canines have remained canines, fishes have remained fishes, and apes have remained apes. To circumvent this linear view – called orthogenesis – the newer view is called “branching phylogeny”. In this view animals change (evolve) in fits and starts while some die out and others prosper eventually becoming something quite different from where they started. In this view a simple organism can – through time – become a worm, a fish, an amphibian, a mammal, and a man. To demonstrate this, the horse is once again held up as an example because the fossil record shows that various forms of horses at various levels of sophistication existed simultaneously. Even if this strained view of evolution were accepted as true, there is still no fossil evidence that explains the sudden appearance of sophisticated animals in the Cambrian or evidence that one species actually became another.

The reality is that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is in fact just that – a theory – and one that is increasingly on shaky ground.