Natural Selection?
x
natural selection
n.
The process in nature by which, according to Darwin's theory of evolution, only the organisms best adapted to their environment tend to survive and transmit their genetic characteristics in increasing numbers to succeeding generations while those less adapted tend to be eliminated. (Dictionary.com)
Much has been said both in posts and comment threads about natural selection. I have posted the definition above and now I am going to study it. Hmmmm. I am looking for the part in the definition that gives natural selection actual intelligence? Not there. Is it considered a force? No. It is a term used to describe a survivability tool built into organisms. Darwinists try to ascribe powers and abilities to natural selection that are not there, when in the end it is simply a description of a characteristic of all living organisms put in place by the Designer.
Now, I do have a problem with the definition since, as we earlier concluded, there is no theory of evolution. Otherwise the definition is a good one. Note the words in bold- "their genetic characteristics." Natural selection works within the confines of the genetic material available.
Some commenters have suggested that my intelligence and/or education must be lacking because I don't agree with them. Some have been condescending. I suspect that is because this is more than a scientific discussion to them. Threatening Darwinism threatens the very religion of some. But for those who cannot understand what I am saying, let's be clear: I understand natural selection, and I disagree with you. Like it, or lump it.
That we disagree doesn't make me smarter than you or you smarter than me. You may or may not have more years in college classes than I and your grade point average may have been higher or lower. It doesn't change anything. We disagree. Many men who are much smarter than you or I stand on both sides of the issue. You still have more on your side, for now. You also know that this is changing and you don't like it. As Malcolm Muggeridge said:
"I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it's been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has."
Quoting from Jonathan Wells - Survival of the Fakest -
"A 1999 booklet published by the U.S. National
Academy of Sciences describes Darwin’s finches as “a
particularly compelling example” of the origin of species.
The booklet cites the Grants’ work, and explains how “a
single year of drought on the islands can drive evolutionary
changes in the finches.” The booklet also calculates that “if
droughts occur about once every 10 years on the islands, a
new species of finch might arise in only about 200 years.”
But the booklet fails to point out that the finches’
beaks returned to normal after the rains returned. No net
evolution occurred. In fact, several finch species now
appear to be merging through hybridization, rather than
diverging through natural selection as Darwin’s theory
requires.
Withholding evidence in order to give the impression
that Darwin’s finches confirm evolutionary theory
borders on scientific misconduct."
The finches illustrated the working of natural selection and yet nothing that was observed had anything to do with macroevolution. The gene pool of the birds allowed for adjustment to conditions and allowed for an adjustment back to status quo. It was already in the gene pool of the organism.
Again, macroevolution is helpless to act within the existing gene pool of an organism. Mutations are the only way the gene pool can be altered and thus change the organism itself. Statistics tell us the odds against this happening are overwhelmingly enormous and it is not something that has been observed to have occurred in nature.
Furthermore, even should the occasional good mutation arise, chance is still in charge of the game. A good mutation must survive and have the ability to pass on that mutation to others who must survive and begin to alter the gene pool of the continuum of that kind of organism, at least within a local population. Darwinists do not care to dwell on the fantastic number of mutations required to change one kind of creature into another because, again, the statistics say it is an impossibility. It was statistically impossible for one true organism to arise from non-life. It was a statistical impossibility for a horse to have evolved from the simplest kind of organism. Now multiply that times every kind of creature on the planet and these are the kinds of odds that Darwinists find favorable.
Even a good mutation might not make it. The survival of the fittest is true generally and statistically but may not be true on a case by case basis. For example:
Kennedys - Joe Kennedy, SR. had four sons. Joseph was his favorite, the one he groomed to be President, but he was killed in WWII. John had many great qualities and had begun making his Presidency one to remember, but he was shot and killed. Robert was someone I personally passed out campaign literature for as I worked to see him elected. He may have been a better leader than JFK. But he was also assasinated. Only Teddy is left. The son who was last on the totem pole intellectually, emotionally and morally is the only Kennedy survivor.
Natural selection has no intellect. It is a description of a process built into the creatures being observed. I say that God designed them that way. I say DNA is God's blueprint for life. I also say that the incredible complexity and brilliance in the design of life is a testament to the Designer.
"If all the DNA in your body were placed end-to-end, it would stretch from here to the Moon more than 500,000 times! In book form, that information would completely fill the Grand Canyon more than 75 times! Yet,if one set of DNA (one cell's worth) from every person who ever lived were placed in a pile, the final pile would weigh less than an aspirin!" (Center for Scientific Creation)
One commenter to this site has a fine sense of humor and uses it dextrously, like a sword, as our beliefs and opinions clash. I quote Dan S - "What's weird is that you accept natural selection, but not the other half of Darwin's and Wallace's insight - the bit about how variation is produced. What, your God is a jealous God, and insists you shall have no other creative forces - no matter how mindless, and conceivably functioning according to laws he may have made - besides him?
And if you insist that a) all variation seen today results from 'microevolution' defined as natural selection working on pre-existing genetic variation within a relatively small number of created kinds, with no new variation allowed, and b) all variation within a kind, for each land-living kind, arose by this process starting with 2, 7, or 8 ancestors within the last few thousand years?"
Yes. The family of Noah that stepped out of the ark consisted of 8 individuals. There is no reason that the information for all races of humanity could not be held within those 8 people. Races are simply variations within kind. All races of human beings mate and procreate with each other, no evolution has taken place in this case.
Let's take dogs as an example. Man has found that he can breed a remarkable amount of variations of dogs, all from one kind of animal, by studying genetics/animal husbandry and applying what has been learned to breed for certain characteristics. The number of diffent breeds known to man has exploded within the last hundred years and this is not evolution, simply variation within kind.
Dan S again - "You silly, silly man! The odds against you specifically being conceived, being carried to term without miscarriage, surviving birth, and living to your current age (and one hopes, a good bit beyond) are enormous. That doesn't mean you're nonexistant or dead (at least I hope not, or else we have another outbreak of Zombie Creationist Bloggers - *sigh* - gonna have to call the antizombie team out again . . ."
Hehe. Very funny....gotta be better than the plot of many of the movies Hollywood has come up with lately. The comparison is wrong, however. There is a process called reproduction which has obviously been tested and observed to occur. Sexual activity between fertile adults can produce a fetus which becomes a small human and some 40 weeks later the little guy (in my case) emerges. Happens every day, happened to you as well, Dan S (aren't you glad you weren't aborted, by the way?). Macroevolution is not observed, not tested and requires a series of steps that are statistically impossible. More fertile parents in this country have children than those that do not. It was likely that my parents would have a child and of course that child would be a human child. I was actually pretty likely to occur. I was a very big child, however, and my mother discovered that childbirth was not her favorite activity, which made subsequent brothers and sisters far less likely to occur!
I said in a comment: "
The responses to Behe are rather lame, the ones I have read anyway. More of that "just-so story" style in which maybe this and maybe that could happen, might happen, could have happened but never is the actual question addressed. Just because my neighbor has red paint it doesn't mean he built my red VW Turbo out in the driveway nor does it mean if the can of paint spills then perhaps eventually a red VW Turbo will appear there."
Dan S- "Imagine you go out for a walk. When you come back, your VW Turbo - which had been sitting in your driveway - is gone! However, there's a black VW Turbo in your neighbor's driveway. There's black paint on your neighbor's clothes, and in drips underneath the car. You can see an open can of black paint in your neighbor's garage. You go over to confront him, but he replies, don't be ridiculous - even if I was the kind of person who would steal their neighbor's car, how on earth could I have carried it from your driveway to mine? It's way too heavy!! Aliens must have transported it away!
Do you a) realize he's right, apologize sheepishly, and walk back to your house wondering why the aliens are always picking on you (this is the 3rd car they've beamed up this year!), or
b) hit him/call the cops/etc."
Again, the motility of automobiles is a known process to me and most people, so it is no problem to imagine that my neighbor has taken my car. Zero points for that.
Responders to Behe will say that there are bits and pieces of complex systems found floating around in nature, and also there are other systems that accomplish much the same job, albeit different. Somehow that makes them believe that because there is a can of red paint laying around that a red VW Turbo will magically appear. No. It is easy to imagine that someone moved my Turbo from my driveway to theirs, but the two scenarios don't even begin to match.
It may be that some Darwinists are going for humor when they try to, for instance, explain how photosynthesis may have evolved. They spin tales of unknown bacteria using unknown and more primitive forms of photosynthesis only it isn't quite photosynthesis because all sorts of complex operations have to occur at the same time for photosynthesis to work. Therefore the unknown organisms need to develop more and more complex systems THAT HAVE NO FUNCTION and yet are coming together to eventually produce photosynthesis! Amazing! Astounding! Impressive! Ridiculous!
Finally, the second law of thermodynamics. This is one of the best laws in all of science. The operations of thermodynmics have been observed and tested for decades without requiring a rewrite. When a creationist points out that macroevolution is moving against the flow of the second law, they glibly reply, "The earth is an open system."
One has to wonder at the massive brain Lord Kelvin had to lug around, to have come up with laws of thermodynamics while laboring under the handicap of living in an open system. How could he ever have observed and postulated systems being in accordance with his hypotheses, which have since become accepted as laws, under such conditions? Surely he had to shut himself away in some dark dungeon, hermetically sealed, to do his work?
Not so! He was inspired by what he saw all around him. Even within the "open system" in which we are doomed to exist, Kelvin saw his peers growing old, weeds invade gardens, clothes become stained, on and on....he saw everything around him going from order to disorder. He also saw that organized energy had to be focused on a system to reverse that trend. I can walk into a teenager's room and jump up and down screaming, thus bringing energy to bear on the situation. But unless that energy is focused and directed at the teenager, who then focuses and directs his energies into cleaning the room, it will remain a pigsty (and he will remain grounded!)
It just happens to be the natural tendency of all things to be in the process of becoming more entropic. Macroevolution has to trudge uphill against this Universe-wide tendency. That is just another point against it.
I say that God gave organisms variations within the gene pool so that they could adjust to changing conditions and survive despite the operations of thermodynamics. Populations can lose genetic information when they go through this process and some genetic information encoded into creatures has likely been lost over the years. Some entire kinds of animals may have become extinct. But God made life with failovers in place. Redundancies, if you will, so that there are many kinds of herbivores rather than one, many kinds of marine animals rather than one, etc.
Macroevolution should result in one triumphant kind of creature, the most "evolved" and best suited, for each environment: One herbivore, one carnivore, one carrion-eater, and so on. This is not what we see on earth, but rather a huge variety of animals AND YET we also know that many that once were have perished. The number of different species seem to be growing, because we keep encountering those not previously listed. Yet by the fossil record it seems that once there were more species than are found today and so the second law of thermodynamics rears it's ugly head yet again.
OPINION - Neither Dan S or myself is the source of all wisdom and we both depend on the scientific findings of others to help us decide what we will believe. His trusted sources are not mine, his foundational beliefs are not mine. Therefore our opinions are very different. But Dan's opinions are very mainstream, in line with the orthodoxy of old-line Darwinists who still dominate in the scientific community. If he is right, creationists will someday diminish and disappear and among believers they will be replaced by those who believe that God is the author of evolution. If I am right, the creationists and ID'ers will slowly grow in numbers and influence among the very best of scientists and then their numbers will begin to grow among the rank and file. So I guess there is only one kind of evolution we are able to agree on - the evolution of ideas!
natural selection
n.
The process in nature by which, according to Darwin's theory of evolution, only the organisms best adapted to their environment tend to survive and transmit their genetic characteristics in increasing numbers to succeeding generations while those less adapted tend to be eliminated. (Dictionary.com)
Much has been said both in posts and comment threads about natural selection. I have posted the definition above and now I am going to study it. Hmmmm. I am looking for the part in the definition that gives natural selection actual intelligence? Not there. Is it considered a force? No. It is a term used to describe a survivability tool built into organisms. Darwinists try to ascribe powers and abilities to natural selection that are not there, when in the end it is simply a description of a characteristic of all living organisms put in place by the Designer.
Now, I do have a problem with the definition since, as we earlier concluded, there is no theory of evolution. Otherwise the definition is a good one. Note the words in bold- "their genetic characteristics." Natural selection works within the confines of the genetic material available.
Some commenters have suggested that my intelligence and/or education must be lacking because I don't agree with them. Some have been condescending. I suspect that is because this is more than a scientific discussion to them. Threatening Darwinism threatens the very religion of some. But for those who cannot understand what I am saying, let's be clear: I understand natural selection, and I disagree with you. Like it, or lump it.
That we disagree doesn't make me smarter than you or you smarter than me. You may or may not have more years in college classes than I and your grade point average may have been higher or lower. It doesn't change anything. We disagree. Many men who are much smarter than you or I stand on both sides of the issue. You still have more on your side, for now. You also know that this is changing and you don't like it. As Malcolm Muggeridge said:
"I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it's been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has."
Quoting from Jonathan Wells - Survival of the Fakest -
"A 1999 booklet published by the U.S. National
Academy of Sciences describes Darwin’s finches as “a
particularly compelling example” of the origin of species.
The booklet cites the Grants’ work, and explains how “a
single year of drought on the islands can drive evolutionary
changes in the finches.” The booklet also calculates that “if
droughts occur about once every 10 years on the islands, a
new species of finch might arise in only about 200 years.”
But the booklet fails to point out that the finches’
beaks returned to normal after the rains returned. No net
evolution occurred. In fact, several finch species now
appear to be merging through hybridization, rather than
diverging through natural selection as Darwin’s theory
requires.
Withholding evidence in order to give the impression
that Darwin’s finches confirm evolutionary theory
borders on scientific misconduct."
The finches illustrated the working of natural selection and yet nothing that was observed had anything to do with macroevolution. The gene pool of the birds allowed for adjustment to conditions and allowed for an adjustment back to status quo. It was already in the gene pool of the organism.
Again, macroevolution is helpless to act within the existing gene pool of an organism. Mutations are the only way the gene pool can be altered and thus change the organism itself. Statistics tell us the odds against this happening are overwhelmingly enormous and it is not something that has been observed to have occurred in nature.
Furthermore, even should the occasional good mutation arise, chance is still in charge of the game. A good mutation must survive and have the ability to pass on that mutation to others who must survive and begin to alter the gene pool of the continuum of that kind of organism, at least within a local population. Darwinists do not care to dwell on the fantastic number of mutations required to change one kind of creature into another because, again, the statistics say it is an impossibility. It was statistically impossible for one true organism to arise from non-life. It was a statistical impossibility for a horse to have evolved from the simplest kind of organism. Now multiply that times every kind of creature on the planet and these are the kinds of odds that Darwinists find favorable.
Even a good mutation might not make it. The survival of the fittest is true generally and statistically but may not be true on a case by case basis. For example:
Kennedys - Joe Kennedy, SR. had four sons. Joseph was his favorite, the one he groomed to be President, but he was killed in WWII. John had many great qualities and had begun making his Presidency one to remember, but he was shot and killed. Robert was someone I personally passed out campaign literature for as I worked to see him elected. He may have been a better leader than JFK. But he was also assasinated. Only Teddy is left. The son who was last on the totem pole intellectually, emotionally and morally is the only Kennedy survivor.
Natural selection has no intellect. It is a description of a process built into the creatures being observed. I say that God designed them that way. I say DNA is God's blueprint for life. I also say that the incredible complexity and brilliance in the design of life is a testament to the Designer.
"If all the DNA in your body were placed end-to-end, it would stretch from here to the Moon more than 500,000 times! In book form, that information would completely fill the Grand Canyon more than 75 times! Yet,if one set of DNA (one cell's worth) from every person who ever lived were placed in a pile, the final pile would weigh less than an aspirin!" (Center for Scientific Creation)
One commenter to this site has a fine sense of humor and uses it dextrously, like a sword, as our beliefs and opinions clash. I quote Dan S - "What's weird is that you accept natural selection, but not the other half of Darwin's and Wallace's insight - the bit about how variation is produced. What, your God is a jealous God, and insists you shall have no other creative forces - no matter how mindless, and conceivably functioning according to laws he may have made - besides him?
And if you insist that a) all variation seen today results from 'microevolution' defined as natural selection working on pre-existing genetic variation within a relatively small number of created kinds, with no new variation allowed, and b) all variation within a kind, for each land-living kind, arose by this process starting with 2, 7, or 8 ancestors within the last few thousand years?"
Yes. The family of Noah that stepped out of the ark consisted of 8 individuals. There is no reason that the information for all races of humanity could not be held within those 8 people. Races are simply variations within kind. All races of human beings mate and procreate with each other, no evolution has taken place in this case.
Let's take dogs as an example. Man has found that he can breed a remarkable amount of variations of dogs, all from one kind of animal, by studying genetics/animal husbandry and applying what has been learned to breed for certain characteristics. The number of diffent breeds known to man has exploded within the last hundred years and this is not evolution, simply variation within kind.
Dan S again - "You silly, silly man! The odds against you specifically being conceived, being carried to term without miscarriage, surviving birth, and living to your current age (and one hopes, a good bit beyond) are enormous. That doesn't mean you're nonexistant or dead (at least I hope not, or else we have another outbreak of Zombie Creationist Bloggers - *sigh* - gonna have to call the antizombie team out again . . ."
Hehe. Very funny....gotta be better than the plot of many of the movies Hollywood has come up with lately. The comparison is wrong, however. There is a process called reproduction which has obviously been tested and observed to occur. Sexual activity between fertile adults can produce a fetus which becomes a small human and some 40 weeks later the little guy (in my case) emerges. Happens every day, happened to you as well, Dan S (aren't you glad you weren't aborted, by the way?). Macroevolution is not observed, not tested and requires a series of steps that are statistically impossible. More fertile parents in this country have children than those that do not. It was likely that my parents would have a child and of course that child would be a human child. I was actually pretty likely to occur. I was a very big child, however, and my mother discovered that childbirth was not her favorite activity, which made subsequent brothers and sisters far less likely to occur!
I said in a comment: "
The responses to Behe are rather lame, the ones I have read anyway. More of that "just-so story" style in which maybe this and maybe that could happen, might happen, could have happened but never is the actual question addressed. Just because my neighbor has red paint it doesn't mean he built my red VW Turbo out in the driveway nor does it mean if the can of paint spills then perhaps eventually a red VW Turbo will appear there."
Dan S- "Imagine you go out for a walk. When you come back, your VW Turbo - which had been sitting in your driveway - is gone! However, there's a black VW Turbo in your neighbor's driveway. There's black paint on your neighbor's clothes, and in drips underneath the car. You can see an open can of black paint in your neighbor's garage. You go over to confront him, but he replies, don't be ridiculous - even if I was the kind of person who would steal their neighbor's car, how on earth could I have carried it from your driveway to mine? It's way too heavy!! Aliens must have transported it away!
Do you a) realize he's right, apologize sheepishly, and walk back to your house wondering why the aliens are always picking on you (this is the 3rd car they've beamed up this year!), or
b) hit him/call the cops/etc."
Again, the motility of automobiles is a known process to me and most people, so it is no problem to imagine that my neighbor has taken my car. Zero points for that.
Responders to Behe will say that there are bits and pieces of complex systems found floating around in nature, and also there are other systems that accomplish much the same job, albeit different. Somehow that makes them believe that because there is a can of red paint laying around that a red VW Turbo will magically appear. No. It is easy to imagine that someone moved my Turbo from my driveway to theirs, but the two scenarios don't even begin to match.
It may be that some Darwinists are going for humor when they try to, for instance, explain how photosynthesis may have evolved. They spin tales of unknown bacteria using unknown and more primitive forms of photosynthesis only it isn't quite photosynthesis because all sorts of complex operations have to occur at the same time for photosynthesis to work. Therefore the unknown organisms need to develop more and more complex systems THAT HAVE NO FUNCTION and yet are coming together to eventually produce photosynthesis! Amazing! Astounding! Impressive! Ridiculous!
Finally, the second law of thermodynamics. This is one of the best laws in all of science. The operations of thermodynmics have been observed and tested for decades without requiring a rewrite. When a creationist points out that macroevolution is moving against the flow of the second law, they glibly reply, "The earth is an open system."
One has to wonder at the massive brain Lord Kelvin had to lug around, to have come up with laws of thermodynamics while laboring under the handicap of living in an open system. How could he ever have observed and postulated systems being in accordance with his hypotheses, which have since become accepted as laws, under such conditions? Surely he had to shut himself away in some dark dungeon, hermetically sealed, to do his work?
Not so! He was inspired by what he saw all around him. Even within the "open system" in which we are doomed to exist, Kelvin saw his peers growing old, weeds invade gardens, clothes become stained, on and on....he saw everything around him going from order to disorder. He also saw that organized energy had to be focused on a system to reverse that trend. I can walk into a teenager's room and jump up and down screaming, thus bringing energy to bear on the situation. But unless that energy is focused and directed at the teenager, who then focuses and directs his energies into cleaning the room, it will remain a pigsty (and he will remain grounded!)
It just happens to be the natural tendency of all things to be in the process of becoming more entropic. Macroevolution has to trudge uphill against this Universe-wide tendency. That is just another point against it.
I say that God gave organisms variations within the gene pool so that they could adjust to changing conditions and survive despite the operations of thermodynamics. Populations can lose genetic information when they go through this process and some genetic information encoded into creatures has likely been lost over the years. Some entire kinds of animals may have become extinct. But God made life with failovers in place. Redundancies, if you will, so that there are many kinds of herbivores rather than one, many kinds of marine animals rather than one, etc.
Macroevolution should result in one triumphant kind of creature, the most "evolved" and best suited, for each environment: One herbivore, one carnivore, one carrion-eater, and so on. This is not what we see on earth, but rather a huge variety of animals AND YET we also know that many that once were have perished. The number of different species seem to be growing, because we keep encountering those not previously listed. Yet by the fossil record it seems that once there were more species than are found today and so the second law of thermodynamics rears it's ugly head yet again.
OPINION - Neither Dan S or myself is the source of all wisdom and we both depend on the scientific findings of others to help us decide what we will believe. His trusted sources are not mine, his foundational beliefs are not mine. Therefore our opinions are very different. But Dan's opinions are very mainstream, in line with the orthodoxy of old-line Darwinists who still dominate in the scientific community. If he is right, creationists will someday diminish and disappear and among believers they will be replaced by those who believe that God is the author of evolution. If I am right, the creationists and ID'ers will slowly grow in numbers and influence among the very best of scientists and then their numbers will begin to grow among the rank and file. So I guess there is only one kind of evolution we are able to agree on - the evolution of ideas!