Category Archives: Darwinism

The Envelope, Please? Doug Axe and Undeniable Are World Magazine 2016 Science Book of the Year! Discovery Institute In 1985 biologist Michael Denton noted in Evolution: A Theory in Crisis that Darwinism was cruising for a bruising. Now he's back with Evolution: Still a Theory in Crisis, which shows with three decades of new research that Darwin's theory ...

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The Envelope, Please? Doug Axe and Undeniable Are World Magazine 2016 Science Book of the Year! - Discovery Institute

by Jerry Bergman

Leading Nazis, and early 1900 influential German biologists, revealed in their writings that Darwins theory and publications had a major influence upon Nazi race policies. Hitler believed that the human gene pool could be improved by using selective breeding similar to how farmers breed superior cattle strains. In the formulation of their racial policies, Hitlers government relied heavily upon Darwinism, especially the elaborations by Spencer and Haeckel. As a result, a central policy of Hitlers administration was the development and implementation of policies designed to protect the superior race. This required at the very least preventing the inferior races from mixing with those judged superior, in order to reduce contamination of the latters gene pool. The superior race belief was based on the theory of group inequality within each species, a major presumption and requirement of Darwins original survival of the fittest theory. This philosophy culminated in the final solution, the extermination of approximately six million Jews and four million other people who belonged to what German scientists judged as inferior races.

Of the many factors that produced the Nazi holocaust and World War II, one of the most important was Darwins notion that evolutionary progress occurs mainly as a result of the elimination of the weak in the struggle for survival. Although it is no easy task to assess the conflicting motives of Hitler and his supporters, Darwinism-inspired eugenics clearly played a critical role. Darwinism justified and encouraged the Nazi views on both race and war. If the Nazi party had fully embraced and consistently acted on the belief that all humans were descendants of Adam and Eve and equal before the creator God, as taught in both the Old Testament and New Testament Scriptures, the holocaust would never have occurred.

Expunging of the Judeo-Christian doctrine of the divine origin of humans from mainline German (liberal) theology and its schools, and replacing it with Darwinism, openly contributed to the acceptance of Social Darwinism that culminated in the tragedy of the holocaust.1 Darwins theory, as modified by Haeckel,2,3,4,5,6 Chamberlain7 and others, clearly contributed to the death of over nine million people in concentration camps, and about 40 million other humans in a war that cost about six trillion dollars. Furthermore, the primary reason that Nazism reached to the extent of the holocaust was the widespread acceptance of Social Darwinism by the scientific and academic community.1,8,9,10

The very heart of Darwinism is the belief that evolution proceeds by the differential survival of the fittest or superior individuals. This requires differences among a species, which in time become great enough so that those individuals that possess advantageous featuresthe fittestare more apt to survive. Although the process of raciation may begin with slight differences, differential survival rates in time produce distinct races by a process called speciation, meaning the development of a new species.

The egalitarian ideal that all people are created equal, which now dominates Western ideology, has not been universal among nations and cultures.11 A major force that has argued against this view was the Social Darwinian eugenics movement, especially its crude survival of the fittest worldview.10,12 As Ludmerer noted, the idea that the hereditary quality of the race can be improved by selective breeding is as old as Platos Republic but:

Nazi governmental policy was openly influenced by Darwinism, the Zeitgeist of both science and educated society of the time.10 This can be evaluated by an examination of extant documents, writings, and artefacts produced by Germanys twentieth century Nazi movement and its many scientist supporters. Keith concluded the Nazi treatment of Jews and other races, then believed inferior, was largely a result of their belief that Darwinism provided profound insight that could be used to significantly improve humankind.14 Tenenbaum noted that the political philosophy of Germany was built on the belief that critical for evolutionary progress were:

The theory of evolution is based on individuals acquiring unique traits that enable those possessing the new traits to better survive adverse conditions compared to those who dont possess them. Superior individuals will be more likely to survive and pass on these traits to their offspring so such traits will increase in number, while the weaker individuals will eventually die off. If every member of a species were fully equal, natural selection would have nothing to select from, and evolution would cease for that species.

These differences gradually produce new groups, some of which have an advantage in terms of survival. These new groups became the superior, or the more evolved races. When a trait eventually spreads throughout the entire race because of the survival advantage it confers on those that possess it, a higher, more evolved form of animal will result. Hitler and the Nazi party claimed that one of their major goals was to apply this accepted science to society. And the core idea of Darwinism was not evolution, but selection. Evolution describes the results of selection.16 Hitler stressed that to produce a better society we [the Nazis] must understand, and cooperate with science.

As the one race above all others, Aryans believed that their evolutionary superiority gave them not only the right, but the duty to subjugate all other peoples. Race was a major plank of the Nazi philosophy; Tenenbaum concluded that they incorporated Darwinism:

In the 1933 Nuremberg party rally, Hitler proclaimed that higher race subjects to itself a lower race a right which we see in nature and which can be regarded as the sole conceivable right, because it was founded on science.15

Hitler believed humans were animals to whom the genetics laws, learned from livestock breeding, could be applied. The Nazis believed that instead of permitting natural forces and chance to control evolution, they must direct the process to advance the human race. The first step to achieve this goal was to isolate the inferior races in order to prevent them from further contaminating the Aryan gene pool. The widespread public support for this policy was a result of the belief, common in the educated classes, in the conclusion that certain races were genetically inferior as was scientifically proven by Darwinism. The Nazis believed that they were simply applying facts, proven by science, to produce a superior race of humans as part of their plan for a better world: The business of the corporate state was eugenics or artificial selectionpolitics as applied biology.18,19

As early as 1925, Hitler outlined his conclusion in Chapter 4 of Mein Kampf that Darwinism was the only basis for a successful Germany and which the title of his most famous workin English My Strugglealluded to. As Clark concluded, Adolf Hitler:

And Hickman adds that it is no coincidence that Hitler:

Furthermore, the belief that evolution can be directed by scientists to produce a superior race was the central leitmotif of Nazism and many other sources existed from which Nazism drew:

The Nazi view on Darwinian evolution and race was consequently a major part of the fatal combination of ideas and events which produced the holocaust and World War II:

Terms such as superior race, lower human types, pollution of the race, and the word evolution itself (Entwicklung) were often used by Hitler and other Nazi leaders. His race views were not from fringe science as often claimed but rather Hitlers views were:

The philosophy that humans can control and even use Darwinism to produce a higher level of human is repeatedly mentioned in the writings and speeches of prominent Nazis.25 Accomplishing the Darwinian goal for the world required ruthlessly eliminating the less fit by open barbarian behavior:

Hitler once even stated that we Nazis are barbarians! We want to be barbarians. It is an honorable title [for, by it,] we shall rejuvenate the world .26 Hitler, as an evolutionist, consciously sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory of evolution.27 Keith adds that:

The German eugenic leadership was originally less anti-Semitic than even the British leadership. Most early German eugenicists believed that German Jews were Aryans, and consequently the eugenicist movement was supported by many Jewish professors and doctors both in Germany and abroad. The Jews were only slowly incorporated into the German eugenic theory and then laws.

The Darwinian racists views also slowly entered into many spheres of German society which they had previously not affected.9 The Pan German League, dedicated to maintaining German Racial Purity, was originally not overtly anti-Semitic and assimilated Jews were allowed full membership. Many German eugenicists believed that although blacks or Gypsies were racially inferior, their racial theories did not fit Jews since many Jews had achieved significant success in Germany. Schleunes adds that by 1903, the influence of race ideas permeated the Leagues program to the degree that by 1912, the League declared itself based upon racial principles and soon excluded Jews from membership.29

In spite of the scientific prominence of these racial views, they had a limited effect upon most Jews until the 1930s. Most German Jews were proud of being Germans and considered themselves Germans first and Jews second. Many Jews modified the German intelligentsias racial views by including themselves in it. Their assimilation into German life was to the extent that most felt its anti-Semitism did not represent a serious threat to their security. Most Jews also were convinced that Germany was now a safe harbour for them.30 Many still firmly held to the Genesis creation model and rejected the views upon which racism was based, including Darwinism. What happened in Germany later was obviously not well received by Jewish geneticists, even Jewish eugenicists and certain other groups:

Nazi policies resulted less from a hatred toward Jewish or other peoples than from the idealistic goal of preventing pollution of the superior race. Hitler elaborated his Darwinian views by comparing the strong killing the weak to a cat devouring a mouse, concluding that ultimately the Jews must be eliminated because they cause:

Hitler then argued that for this reason, governments must understand and apply the laws of Nature, especially the survival of the fittest law which originally produced the human races and is the source of their improvement. The government must therefore aid in the elimination, or at least quarantine, of the inferior races. Hitler argued:

Hitler was especially determined to prevent Aryans from breeding with non-Aryans, a concern that eventually resulted in the final solution. Once the inferior races were exterminated, Hitler believed that future generations would be eternally grateful for the improvement that his programs brought to humanity:

Individuals are not only far less important than the race, but the Nazis concluded that certain races were not human, but were animals:

As a result, the Darwinist movement was one of the most powerful forces in the nineteenthtwentieth centuries German intellectual history [and] may be fully understood as a prelude to the doctrine of national socialism [Nazism].35 Why did evolution catch hold in Germany faster, and take a firmer hold there than any other place in the world?

Schleunes noted, rather poignantly, that the reason the publication of Darwins 1859 work had an immediate impact in Germany, and their Jewish policy, was because:

The Darwinian revolution and the works of its chief German spokesman and most eminent scientist, Professor Haeckel, gave the racists something that they were confident was powerful verification of their race beliefs.37 The support of the science establishment resulted in racist thought having a much wider circulation than otherwise possible, and enormous satisfaction that ones prejudices were actually expressions of scientific truth.36

And what greater authority than science could racists have for their views? Konrad Lorenz, one of the most eminent animal-behavior scientists then, and often credited as being the founder of his field, stated that:

Lorenzs works were important in developing the Nazi program designed to eradicate the parasitic growth of inferior races. The governments programs to insure the German Volk maintained their superiority made racism almost unassailable. Although King claimed that the holocaust pretended to have a scientific genetic basis,39 the position of the government and university elite of the time was so entrenched that few contemporary scientists seriously questioned it. The anti-Semitic attitudes of the German people were only partly to blame in causing the holocaustonly when Darwinism was added to the preexisting attitudes did a lethal combination result.

The first step in an eugenic program was to determine which groups were genetically superior; a judgment that was heavily influenced by culture. The ideal traits were:

Although superficial observations enable most people to make a broad classification of race, when explored in depth, race status is by no means easy to determine, as the Nazis soon found out. Many of the groups that they felt were inferior, such as the Slovaks, Jews, Gypsies, and others, were not easily distinguishable from the pure Aryan race. In grouping persons into races to select the best, the Nazis measured a wide variety of physical traits including brain case sizes. The Nazis relied heavily upon the work of Hans F.K. Gnther, professor of racial science at the University of Jena. Although F.K. Gnther s personal relationships with the party were stormy at times, his racial ideas were accepted. They received wide support throughout the German government, and were an important influence in German policy.41 Gnther recognized that, although a race may not be pure, its members share certain dominant characteristics, thus paving the way for stereotyping.41

Gnther concluded that all Aryans share an ideal Nordic type which contrasted with the Jews, whom he concluded were a mixture of races. Gnther stressed a persons genealogical lineage, anthropological measurement of skulls and evaluations of physical appearance, were all used to determine their race. Even though physical appearance was stressed, the body is the showplace of the soul and the soul is primary.42 Select females with the necessary superior race traits were even placed in special homes and kept pregnant as long as they remained in the program. Nonetheless, research on the offspring of the experiment concluded that, as is now known, IQ regressed toward the population mean and the IQs of the offspring were generally lower than that of the parents.

Darwinism not only influenced the Nazi attitude toward Jews, but other cultural and ethnic groups as well. Even mental patients were included later, in part because it was then believed that heredity had a major influence on mental illness (or they possibly had some Jewish or other non-Aryan blood in them), and consequently had to be destroyed. Poliakov notes that many intellectuals in the early 1900s accepted telegony, the idea that bad blood would contaminate a race line forever, or that bad blood drives out good, just as bad money displaces good money.43 Only extermination would permanently eliminate inferior genetic lines, and thereby further evolution.

Darwin even compiled a long list of cases where he concluded bad blood polluted a whole gene line, causing it to bear impure progeny forever. Numerous respected biologists, including Ernst Ruedin of the University of Munich and many of his colleagues such as Herbert Spencer, Francis Galton, and Eugene Kahn, later a professor of psychiatry at Yale, actively advocated this hereditary argument. These scientists were also the chief architects of the German compulsory sterilization laws designed to prevent those with defective or inferior genes from contaminating the Aryan gene pool. Later, when the genetically inferior were also judged as useless dredges, massive killings became justified. The groups judged inferior were gradually expanded to include a wide variety of races and national groups. Later, it even included less healthy older people, epileptics, both severe and mild mental defectives, deaf-mutes, and even some persons with certain terminal illnesses.1,44

The groups judged inferior were later expanded to include persons who had negroid or mongoloid features, Gypsies, and those who did not pass a set of ingeniously designed overtly racist phrenology tests now known to be worthless.45 After Jesse Owen won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, Hitler chastised the Americans for even permitting blacks to enter the contests.46

Some evolutionists even advocated the view that women were evolutionarily inferior to men. Dr Robert Wartenberg, later a prominent neurology professor in California, tried to prove womens inferiority by arguing that they could not survive unless they were protected by men. He concluded that because the weaker women were not eliminated as rapidly due to this protection, a slower rate of evolution resulted and for this reason natural selection was less operative on women than men. How the weak were to be selected for elimination was not clear, nor were the criteria used to determine weak. Women in Nazi Germany were openly prohibited from entering certain professions and were required by law to conform to a traditional female role.47

Darwinism not only offered the Germans a meaningful interpretation of their recent military past, but also a justification for future aggression: German military success in the Bismarkian wars fit neatly into Darwin categories in the struggle for survival, [demonstrating] the fitness of Germany. 48 War was a positive force not only because it eliminated weaker races, but also because it weeded out the weaker members of the superior races. Hitler not only unabashedly intended to produce a superior race, but he openly relied heavily upon Darwinian thought in both his extermination and war policies.25 Nazi Germany, partly for this reason, openly glorified war because it was an important means of eliminating the less fit of the highest race, a step necessary to upgrade the race. Clark concludes, quoting extensively from Mein Kampf, that:

German greatness, Hitler stressed, came about primarily because they were jingoists, and thereby had been eliminating their weaker members for centuries.50 Although Germans were no stranger to war, this new justification gave powerful support to their policies. The view that eradication of the weaker races was a major source of evolution was well expressed by Wiggam:

In other words, war is positive in the long run because only by lethal conflicts can humans evolve. Hitler even claimed as truth the contradiction that human civilization as we know it would not exist if it were not for constant war. And many of the leading scientists of his day openly advocated this view: Haeckel was especially fond of praising the ancient Spartans, whom he saw as a successful and superior people as a consequence of their socially approved biological selection. By killing all but the perfectly healthy and strong children the Spartans were continually in excellent strength and vigor. 52 Germany should follow this Spartan custom, as infanticide of the deformed and sickly was a practice of advantage to both the infants destroyed and to the community. It was, after all, only traditional dogma and hardly scientific truth that all lives were of equal worth or should be preserved.18,53

However, the common assumption that European civilization evolved far more than others, primarily because of its constant warmongering in contrast to other nations, is false. War is actually typical of virtually all peoples, except certain small island groups who have abundant food, or peoples in very cold areas.54 Historically, many tribes in Africa were continually involved in wars, as were most countries in Asia and America.

Much of the opposition to the eugenic movement came from German Christians. Although Hitler was baptized a Catholic, he was never excommunicated, and evidently considered himself a good Roman Catholic as a young man, and at times used religious language. He clearly had strong, even vociferous, anti-Christian feelings as an adult, as did probably most Nazi party leaders. As a consummate politician, though, he openly tried to exploit the church.55 Hitler once revealed his attitude toward Christianity when he bluntly stated that religion is an:

His beliefs as revealed in this quote are abundantly clear: the younger people who were the hope of Germany were absolutely indifferent in matters of religion. As Keith noted, the Nazi party viewed Darwinism and Christianity as polar opposites. Milner said of Germanys father of evolution, Ernst Haeckel, that in his Natural History of Creation he argued that the church with its morality of love and charity is an effete fraud, a perversion of the natural order.57 A major reason why Haeckel concluded this was because Christianity:

The opposition to religion was a prominent feature of German science, and thus later German political theory, from its very beginning. As Stein summarized Haeckel in a lecture titled On evolution: Darwins Theory:

Martin Bormann, Hitlers closest associate for years and one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany, was equally blunt: the church was opposed to evolution and for this reason must be condemned, but the Nazis were on the side of science and evolution. Furthermore, Nazi and Christian concepts are incompatible because Christianity is built:

Bormann also claimed that the Christian churches have long been aware that:

As Humber notes, Hitler believed that Blacks were monstrosities halfway between man and ape and therefore he disapproved of German Christians:

A literature review shows that German racism would have had a difficult time existing if the historical creation position, void of race curse theories, had been widely accepted. One of these biblical theories was the claim that Genesis teaches that two types of men were originally created; Adam and Eve, the superior race line, and the beasts of the earth, the inferior black race line.62,63 Few people, though, accepted this idea.

Relatively few scientific studies exist which directly deal with Darwinism and Nazismand many evolutionists avoid the subject because evolution is inescapably selectionist. One of the best reviews of Darwinism and Nazism documents clearly that Nazism felt confident that their programs of extermination was firmly based on evolution science.64 Recently, a number of popular articles have covered this topic in a surprisingly candid and honest way.65 The source of the worst of Nazism was in Darwinism and we must first understand history to prevent its repeat. Paraphrasing the words of Hitler, those who ignore the lessons of history are condemned to repeat it.66 Admittedly, some persons who did not accept evolution espoused non-evolution theories which accommodated or even espoused racism. Nonetheless, these persons were few and the theories that were developed seem to be mostly in response to preconceived ideas or to justify existing social systems.

From our modern perspective, many persons have concluded that World War II and its results ensued from the ideology of an evil madman and his equally evil administration. Hitler, though, did not see himself as evil, but as humanitys benefactor. He felt that many years hence, the world would be extremely grateful to him and his programs which lifted the human race to genetically higher levels of evolution by stopping race pollution by preventing mixed marriages with inferior races.

Hitlers efforts to put members of these inferior races in concentration camps was not so much an effort to punish but, as his apologists repeatedly stated, was a protective safeguard similar to quarantining sick people to prevent contamination of the rest of the community. In Haass words, the Nazis believed that killing Jews and others was in fact a scientific and rational way of serving an objectively greater good.68 Or, as Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz, adds, such a struggle, legitimized by the latest scientific views, justifies the racists conceptions of superior and inferior people and nations and validated the conflict between them.69 Many in Germany recognized the harm of Darwinism, and Nordenskild claimed the Prussian Minister of Education, even for a time in 1875 banned, its teaching:

An interesting question is, would the Nazi holocaust have occurred if this ban had remained in effect? Haeckel was at the center of this fight and garnered much support from:

A biologist writing the above today would certainly drop as they deserve because Haeckel is today acknowledged as an unscrupulous forger who played no small role in the horrible events that occurred in the 1930s and 1940s.

The well documented influence of Darwinism on the holocaust has been greatly downplayed by the mass media. Current writers often gloss over, totally ignore, or even distort the close connection between Darwinism and the Nazi race theory and the policies it produced, but as Stein admonishes:

He adds that there is also little doubt that this contemporary self-protecting attitude is based on a:

Darwin was not just responding to his culture as often alleged. In Hulls words we have all heard, time and time again, that the reason Darwins theory was so sexist, and racist is that Darwins society exhibited these same characteristics. Hull answers this change by noting that Darwin was not so callow that he simply read the characteristics of his society into nature.72

Nazism is often used as a warning example of the danger of religious zeal, yet only occasionally is the key role of the eugenics of Francis Galton, based on the theory of natural selection espoused by his cousin, Charles Darwin, mentioned. Eugenics is still alive in the world today. As late as 1955, a Canadian professor of zoology, notes that possibly the most significant fact is that he [Darwin] finally freed humanity from a great measure of church proscription and won his fellow men a freedom of thought that had been unknown for centuries. 73 He then argues that reducing the churches influence in society allowed the discovery of, not only the means of evolution, but the knowledge that man had the means and that we can either direct evolution or let it take place on its own or, worse, stop it by counteracting the forces which propel it, causing devolution.

Rowan argued that man has, tragically, chosen the latter selection is still as vital to human progress as it has ever been. The great Darwinian principle remains. Then he added, When man acquired intellect, he started on an entirely new path without precedent in the animal world, the course of which now depends, not on further physical changes, but on intellectual and equally intellectual selection.74 Unfortunately, he concludes, humans are saving the intellectually inferior and have failed to order their affairs according to the laws of biology.74 This discussion, although tactful, is clear: those whom evolutionists judge as less fit need to be eliminated, or at the least our efforts in saving them, should be limited and we should let nature do its work. Not to do so will result in the eventual doom of the human race.

Firmly convinced that Darwinian evolution was true, Hitler saw himself as the modern saviour of mankind. Society, he felt, would some day regard him as a great scientific socialist, the benefactor of all humankind. By breeding a superior race, the world would look upon him as the man who pulled humanity up to a higher level of evolutionary development. If Darwinism is true, Hitler was our saviour and we have crucified him. As a result, the human race will grievously suffer. If Darwinism is not true, what Hitler attempted to do must be ranked with the most heinous crimes of history and Darwin as the father of one of the most destructive philosophies of history. An assessment by Youngson concluded that the application of Darwinism to society, called eugenics, produced one of the most tragic scientific blunders of all time:

I wish to thank Wayne Frair, Ph.D., John Woodmorappe, M.A. and Paul Humber, M.A. for their insight and comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

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Darwinism and the Nazi race Holocaust - creation.com

Ahead of tomorrow night's Academy Awards ceremonies, Doug Axe has an excellent post up at The Stream on the film Hidden Figures and the engineering challenge to Darwinism. The film, with several nominations including Best Picture, is the story of African-American women who were math prodigies, or "computers," at NASA.

Another lesson, more pragmatic, occurred to me as the drama unfolded. Having migrated in my own career from the measurable-fact culture of engineering to the more descriptive culture of biology, I felt a tinge of nostalgia as I watched a roomful of nerds with their calculators and chalk boards working together to find the answer to a pressing question: How can we bring an orbiting astronaut back safely to Earth?

Notice the very pre-post-truth essence of that phrase find the answer. Engineers have always taken for granted that clearly posed questions have uniquely correct answers -- there to be found by anyone with the skill to find them, and unambiguously recognized as correct when found. The joy of Hidden Figures is that it sweeps away our prejudicial attitudes as to who might have these requisite skills.

Celebrating National Engineers Week here yesterday, Sarah Chaffee observed, "[E]ngineering and medicine differ from evolutionary biology in that they focus on how things work. Evolutionists can seem at times to disregard function, but doctors and engineers never can." Yes, there's a blurred, fudging quality to much of evolutionary thinking.

By contrast, Dr. Axe admires the steely, unforgiving nature of an engineer's calculations:

Of course, those who've turned fuzziness into a paid profession are apt to sense more threat here than beauty. A famous 1960s meeting demonstrated this, convened under the heading Mathematical Challenges to the neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution. There, a group of slide-rule toting engineering types, unconcerned with matters of etiquette, tried to put the slippery blob of evolutionary theory through the grinder gears of hard reality. Among the Darwinists present was Harvard's Ernst Mayr, who (in protest) titled his talk: "Evolutionary challenges to the mathematical interpretation of evolution." Stick that in your gears, you nerdy engineers!

This is rather unforgiving of Dr. Axe:

The evolutionary explanation of life cannot stand up to NASA-style engineering scrutiny.

If you doubt this, please join me in testing it. Hand pick your Darwin sympathizers from the most esteemed places. It doesn't matter who they are, because all the pomp and prestige of the academic world is powerless to change hard facts. All claims of Darwin having discovered the only scientifically valid explanation of life get torn to tiny bits when you put them in the grinder.

The response to this challenge is sure to be either silence or protest. There won't be a nerdy evolutionary biologist who marches up to the chalkboard and does the math that saves the theory. The math has been done; the theory undone. Nor will there be a lab test that shows natural selection to be a worker of wonders. We've been there. Too many tests to count, and the blind watchmaker never showed up.

The protest will be familiar, organized around the usual defensive themes. Different sciences work differently! -- they'll say. It isn't reasonable to hold a historical science to engineering standards! -- they'll say. No practicing evolutionary biologist would accept your proposal as valid! -- they'll say.

Let them speak. Then remind them that the difference is simply one of seriousness. When we really need to know that something will work, tested-and-approved certainty has always been the standard. Evolutionists ignore that standard because they can. Storytelling works for them because they're all telling stories together. Their grand stories are all wrong, but as long as no one is dying in orbit, most people are content to let them carry on.

Merciless, but true. Evolutionary theory's authority rests on muzziness as to details, and on the public's being willing to overlook and forgive it, despite what Axe identifies in his book Undeniable as our universal intuition of intelligent design in nature.

"Trust us," Darwinists in effect say. Trust our massive extrapolation to a grand theory from a spray of trivial observations (finch beaks, smaller voles, etc.). "Trust" is not a factor in engineering. Either you bring the astronaut safe and alive back to Earth, or you do not. There's no fudging that.

Photo credit: 20th Century Fox.

I'm on Twitter. Follow me @d_klinghoffer.

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Doug Axe: Hidden Figures and the Engineering Challenge to Darwinism - Discovery Institute

Forbes

Astronomers Use Darwinism To Plot Stellar Family Tree Forbes In a paper appearing in the journal, The Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the authors report that they have taken a page from the work of Charles Darwin in an effort to do stellar genealogy on a sampling of stars within our own galaxy. and more »

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Astronomers Use Darwinism To Plot Stellar Family Tree - Forbes

Pierre, SD -- This year, South Dakota has an opportunity to encourage more scientific inquiry in the classroom. The state's legislature is considering an academic freedom bill, SB 55, introduced by Senator Jeff Monroe. As noted here last week, the bill seeks to thwart censorship, yet ironically is opposed by the National Coalition Against Censorship. The group has misrepresented its contents, comparing mainstream exploration of weaknesses in Darwinian theory with Holocaust denial.

The text of SB 55 says just this:

No teacher may be prohibited from helping students understand, analyze, critique, or review in an objective scientific manner the strengths and weaknesses of scientific information presented in courses being taught which are aligned with the content standards established pursuant to 13-3-48.

A prominent South Dakota scientist we heard from gets it, applauding the bill as a means to foster critical thinking. "SB 55, under consideration by the South Dakota legislature, is a promising step forward for South Dakota science education," said William S. Harris, PhD. Dr. Harris is the President of OmegaQuant Analytics, LLC (Sioux Falls, SD), and an NIH-funded biomedical researcher with over 300 scientific publications.

Under this legislation, students would have the opportunity learn more about scientific topics, practice critical thinking, and engage with scientific questions facing researchers today. One of those questions pertains to the origin of biodiversity.

Harris commented:

Scientific controversy over the ability of Darwin's version of evolution (i.e., natural selection acting blindly on random mutations) to explain the expanse of life on this planet continues to grow with each new revelation of the exceeding complexity of even the "simplest" life forms, not to mention humans. In my view, it is very important for today's students to understand the evidence for and against important scientific theories like Darwinism and to honestly consider challenges even to such long-held dogmas.

"South Dakota students can only benefit from such an approach -- and hopefully, legislators will seize this occasion to promote scientific inquiry," added Harris. If the bill is enacted, South Dakota would join Louisiana, Tennessee, and at least five other states with science standards or laws recognizing the role of teaching scientific strengths and weaknesses in the classroom.

The law has been a target for activists and journalists spreading misinformation about what SB 55 would permit. We have addressed false claims from Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Washington Post, which merit being described as fake news, here and here.

Photo: William S. Harris.

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Disregarding Fake News from Darwin Promoters, South Dakota Scientist Applauds Academic Freedom Bill - Discovery Institute

Otis Gardner

The big news item of this week was the resignation of Mike Flynn, the presidents brand new National Security advisor. I thought he was an excellent choice but fell victim to a self-inflicted sexual error, a major screw-up.

Flynn lied to Vice President Pence about having contact with a Russian official causing Pence to pass that lie as truth in a TV interview. Thats an absolutely unacceptable transgression by any measure so Trump asked for his resignation and Flynn dutifully fell on his sword.

He had to go and Im glad it was done quickly without a lot of dancing around. Trump got elected in part because he didnt use nuances, parsing or obfuscations. Hes a black and white guy and did what needed to be done. Bang.

Im anxious for Trump put his agendas in gear and move the Trump Train forward. I want him rolling as soon as possible because his performance clock is ticking.

I see his presidency divided into two distinct halves. In the first two years if he accomplishes noteworthy progress involving border security, illegal criminal aliens, manufacturing job creation, tax and regulation relief, then the mid-term election may well be cataclysmic for Democrats.

If in 2018 Republicans increase their Senate majority, the far left will be on life-support. Theyll still make a lot of noise but itll sound more and more like a death-rattle.

Conversely, if Trump falls too short on accomplishments in those first two years, the mid-terms may very well flip the Senate. As much as I detest liberal governance, Id understand the inevitability of the pendulum swinging back to the left in the absence of clear progress.

Before the November vote, I didnt believe Id have the pleasure of speculating about a President Trump administration so consider myself fortunate. Im a very happy camper, thankful the country got a reprieve and hoping it isnt brief.

Ive heard more than one commentator say that Democrats lost the election and now theyre on their way to losing their minds. I disagree their minds are becoming unhinged.

Truth be told, they must make as much noise and cause as much disruption as possible. And I think the reason they hate Trump so much is not so much about defeat of Hillary and more about what theyre seeing in their political crystal ball.

Democrats viscerally hate Trump because his policies are designed to kill so many of their sacred cows. He wants border security, Democrats dont. He wants restrictive vetting of refugees from countries that breed terrorism. Democrats dont. Trump wants energy independendence. Democrats dont.

And as bad as all those changes would be for them, it gets even worse. He actually wants to allow parents to send their kids to schools of their choice instead of being locked into dysfunctional piles of bricks that are passed off as schools by liberal politicians. School choice is kryptonite to the teachers unions, therefore by extension, to Democrats.

Liberals must challenge President Trump at every possible turn and do anything they can to stop him. Their very political existence is at stake so theyre in survival mode.

I dont object to their efforts. Charles Darwin demands it.

Otis Gardners column appears here weekly. He can be reached at ogardner@embarqmail.com.

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COLUMN: Trump Train driving a new type of Darwinism - Jacksonville Daily News

Darwinism is replete with salesmanship, some of it thoroughly deceptive. Pushing the false dichotomy of evolution versus Young Earth Creationism, as if there were no alternative to these two, is one way that evolutionists bully and mislead non-scientists. Sadly, they are joined in this by some creationists.

Tom Bethell, author of Darwin's House of Cards: A Journalist's Odyssey Through the Darwin Debates, points out that from Darwin himself on up to today, advocates of the theory have habitually played down the conflict between their materialism, on one hand, and religious belief on the other.

Similarly, only the most perilously candid evolutionists are in your face about another straightforward inference from materialism: the denial of free will. Bethell again:

This bleak vision, the human being as meat machine, is on vivid display, though mixed with a clumsy childlike enthusiasm, in the writing of emeritus University of Chicago evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne. On Darwin Day, for instance, he chided me for the hope that evidence of design will overcome Darwinian censorship: "I'm sorry to say that, I think, Klinghoffer will go to his Maker (disassociated molecules) before a teleological view of life permeates evolutionary biology."

Imagine trying to sell "disassociated molecules" to the public, with their human intuitions, fears, and longings. Darwinists like Coyne or Dawkins, Bethell observes, are their own worst enemies.

To these thoughts, add our colleague Jonathan Witt's observation for Valentine's Day over at The Stream. From Darwinian materialism, he notes, a denial of the reality of love must follow:

Dissolve those things and there's no room for romantic love to be anything very exalted.

Biologist E.O. Wilson is just as blunt. When Darwinian science conquers all, we will view the human brain as just the "product of genetic evolution by natural selection." And the mind "will be more precisely explained as an epiphenomenon of the neuronal machinery of the brain."

But surely we can rescue things like art, religion and poetry, right? No, Wilson insists. Evolution teaches us that all of it was "produced by the genetic evolution of our nervous and sensory tissues."

Evolving Away Love

So what becomes of Valentine's Day, of all of those romantic longings and pledges to love, honor and protect, maybe even till death do us part? Yes, glands and instincts are involved. Only a gnostic would deny that, and Christianity threw Gnosticism out on its ear at the Incarnation and the Resurrection.

But Darwinian science goes further. It insists the stuff of Valentine's Day is all glands and instincts, and beneath those, all brain chemistry -- a soulless concoction of matter and energy stirred up in the alchemist's lab we call evolution.

Of course, it would have to be that way. A materialist understanding of evolution robs us of virtually everything that makes life rich and worth living, if we're honest about it with ourselves. What, really, is left? Eating? Animal rutting? Pursuing status or dominance in a manner hardly different from the way chimps and chickens do?

But Darwinists, devoted salesmen that they are, often seem freaked out about the implications of their theory, and so try to take those back, sometimes in the space between one paragraph and the next. Dennett, for one, preaches the illusion of consciousness. But just as we know that love is real and not only a matter of glands in action, and as we know that are our will is ultimately free, we also have a strong sense that our inner lives are genuine.

So here is neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga giving a reverent review to Dennett's new book, From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds, in the Wall Street Journal and getting tangled up in the consciousness question. On one hand, says Gazzaniga:

But most Wall Street Journal readers are going to have a hard time with the idea of their "interior experience" as a trick their brain pulls on them. The notion is thus walked back by Dr. Gazzaniga in the very next paragraph:

Consciousness for Dennett is "an illusion," yet "He never doubted consciousness itself." He never doubted an illusion? I haven't read the book, but the review of it makes not sense.

Darwinism asks us to doubt, to deny, our own intuitions and experiences. Intelligent design cheerfully affirms them. The former, says Jonathan Witt, overwhelms resistance "by endlessly recycling evidence long discredited even by scientists in [Darwinists'] own ranks" (referring to the "icons of evolution" made famous by Jonathan Wells).

Meanwhile, intelligent design is not permitted to make its own scientific case. Or when it does so, ID scientists are put down by censors or drowned out by media spokesmen with endless chants of "creationist, creationist, creationist." What a mad world!

Image: smiltena -- stock.adobe.com.

I'm on Twitter. Follow me @d_klinghoffer.

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What Darwinists Don't Tell You: Valentine's Day Edition - Discovery Institute

The often-heard assertion that a scientific "consensus" exists in favor of orthodox Darwinian theory is true on the surface, but otherwise deceptive. Yes, a large majority of scientists if pressed, especially in public, would hastily affirm that neo-Darwinism explains the development of complex biological forms.

We know, however, that this apparent agreement conceals a great deal of intellectual and personal turmoil, just behind the facade. The unanimity is maintained by a tight discipline that includes outright censorship. That's why every year Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture recognizes a Censor of the Year, an outstanding example of a person or institution that contributed to this pro-Darwin "consensus" through intimidation, agitation, or professional retaliation.

Now, with the debate about intelligent design (ID) taking place on an increasingly international stage, we reach across the Atlantic to name Germany's Natural History Museum in Stuttgart as our 2017 Censor of the Year.

If you follow us at Evolution News, you'll already have an inkling of the story that lies behind this choice. On Friday we announced a new Senior Fellow with the CSC, the distinguished German paleo-entomologist Gnter Bechly, formerly curator of amber and fossil insects at the Natural History Museum. In welcoming Dr. Bechly, a specialist in dragonflies, we left out one thing. After coming out as an ID sympathizer in 2015, following his private exploration of the evidence for design in nature, Bechly was the victim of retaliation and censorship by his institution. Though the addition of Dr. Bechly to our scientific community is a wonderful boon to us, the ensuing parting of the ways with his museum came with heavy personal, professional, and health costs.

As told in the documentary Revolutionary (see an excerpt below), his doubts on evolution were first stirred in 2009 when he organized an exhibition to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Origin of Species and the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth. The exhibit included a display of a "scale" weighing the Origin against a collection of ID books by Michael Behe, Stephen Meyer, William Dembski, and others. Bechly's "mistake" was to actually read those books.

This commenced a journey for him, motivated by scientific curiosity, not religion. As he recalls in the film, he had no religion to begin with, but only a love of and fascination with nature and animals.

He kept his interest in and support of ID private until October 2015, when he broached the subject on Facebook and a personal web page. Even then, Gnter kept his ID writing strictly separate from his work for the museum. But word got out. He has shared it all with us, though some must be kept back, including names and positions, to protect innocent parties.

It began with strange smiles from colleagues, icy faces, and backstabbing gossip, moving on finally to open hostility. Without warning, his applications to acquire new fossil material -- say, a collection of mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber -- were blocked by unprecedented bureaucratic obstacles. He learned that a position he relied on, his amber preparator (handler), was proposed to go unfilled after its previous occupant retired.

Emails among his fellow scientists asked, "Have you already heard that Bechly has become a creationist? How shall we react and what can we do about it?" Conspiratorial meetings took place behind his back, as a colleague wondered, "How can we help Gnter?" as if he were unwell. Co-workers placed phone calls to scientists outside the museum to ask if they knew about Bechly's turn to "creationism."

He was told that the large amber collection he was responsible for as curator would be moved away from his office. He was directed to resign from a position as ombudsman for the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation), a research-funding group.

A colleague sought to draw out evidence of his heresy in a seemingly friendly email exchange, after which Gnter was summoned for a discussion of his future at the institution. Says Dr. Bechly, he was told that "as a big threat to the credibility and reputation of the museum," he was "no longer welcome, and that it would be appreciated if I would decide to quit." The museum also informed him that colleagues no longer want to collaborate with him.

To reinforce the impression that Bechly would no longer enjoy a comfortable, supportive, and productive professional life there, the museum deleted his webpages (which made no mention of ID) and erased him from its own website. It dismissed him as scientific head of a major exhibition he had conceived and designed, "Life in the Amber Forest." Dr. Bechly was now forced to report as an underling to a colleague with no expertise in his area. He asked if he was being accused of any misconduct, and received the answer that, no, that certainly wasn't the case. On the contrary, his 17 years of work at the museum had been exemplary.

Seventeen years of fine work! And he was being gradually forced out over privately held views. "After a few days of soul searching and long discussions with my wife," says Bechly, "I decided that it did not make sense anymore to continue working in a hostile environment that makes productive research and collaboration with colleagues impossible." He resigned this past December, and now joins us.

"It was offensive, humiliating, and unfair," Bechly concludes in an apt summary. A few weeks after his resignation he received a troubling medical diagnosis of severe heart problems. He faces heart surgery later this month.

His story reminds us of many other cases, some involving past Censors of the Year. It recalls in particular evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg's experience at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. That was after Dr. Sternberg published a peer-reviewed article by ID proponent Dr. Stephen Meyer in a journal that Sternberg edited, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. (I wrote about that in the Wall Street Journal and at National Review Online.) For his offense -- editing an article! -- Sternberg suffered retaliation including being denied access to specimen collections, having his master key taken away from him, and an internal investigation of his religious and political belief. As with Bechly, colleagues refused to work him, and he was eventually forced out of his position.

This is how the "consensus" for Darwinian evolution is maintained. Oh, not only or primarily through outright censorship. Vanity is the single most effective tool that ensures uniformity of opinion. Men are monsters of vanity -- males especially, but women too. The pressure to be on the prestige side of any significant disagreement is intense, a fact often unacknowledged unless you are pretty honest with yourself. This holds across science, the media, education, politics, religion, and other fields.

Dr. Bechly was among the contingent of ID-friendly scientists present at the Royal Society meeting ("New Trends in Evolutionary Biology") in London last November. Another scientist on hand, we noted, a senior figure with views on Darwin overlapping with ours but allergic to ID itself, was visibly skittish about even being seen talking with us. So it goes.

Doubts about Darwin are also held in check by fear of what will happen to you if the suspicion gets around that you're in league with the "creationists." That word alone -- a masterpiece agitprop tool in the hands of Darwin enforcers, applied to everyone from Biblical literalists to the most sophisticated scientists examining objective evidence of design in nature -- does all the work of intimidation needed to keep most people in line.

But fear of punishment is a major factor too. When a scientist really does cross the line, as Gnter Bechly did, the hammer almost always comes down, ruthlessly. So it proved at Stuttgart's Natural History Museum.

Gnter's case, like others, is revealing. We know of many science professionals whose career or research would be endangered if we said a word here about their ID sympathies. Instances like that come to our attention all the time, and prudence keeps us from saying more.

Someday, a tipping point will come. Numerous closets will open in a swell of confessions: "I've doubted the straight Darwin story for years." "I've long suspected that design or teleology of some kind must have played a role in evolution, but I would never admit it till now." And at that time we'll stop giving out Censor of the Year awards. But that day has not yet arrived.

I'm on Twitter. Follow me @d_klinghoffer.

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Happy Darwin Day! German Natural History Museum Is Our 2017 Censor of the Year - Discovery Institute

The Darwinian theory considers as a driving force in evolution the adaptation to the environment derived from the combined effect of the natural selection and of the random mutations.

There is a brief description of the Theory of Darwin in chapter 9.

Despite the generally acceptation of Darwinism, since its start, it has posed quite a few problems from the scientific point of view and there have always been a criticism of Darwinism.

Before getting into enumeration of the main points of criticism of Darwinism, I would like to analyze why it beat onto the Theory of Lamarck or other evolutionary theories. At the end of this section, after the cited enumeration, I will discuss the current difficulties for its rejection or substitution.

In the second half of the 19th century, the humanist rationalism had extended into all of the scientific circles and found itself in full peak. There were already sufficient indications that the Earth was much older than what had been thought; a scientific theory was needed that would position the human being in the planets history.

Of course, the new theory had to comply with a seemingly scientific condition, and had to completely and radically remove itself from the religious ideas that had hindered the scientific development so much. The old problems of Galileo and Miguel Servet had not been forgotten by the scientific community. Lets hope they never forget!

The Theory of Lamarck seems very logical and reasonable, but it suffered a problem: it was given a leading role in the life outside of the human dimension. There was something inside the plants and animals that, faced with environmental modifications, evolved consciously and guidingly.

On one side, the powerful influence of the religious ideas, still existing today, could not allow losing monopoly of spirituality; and, on the other, the scientific community was not going to openly struggle with the religious powers that be in order to shift conscious and intelligent life on an internal scale to the live organisms different from themselves. Moreover, there wasnt any scientific proof of their existence. In this case, we could talk about thesis, antithesis and synthesis; any theory that resolves the contradictions of the era with a minimum of rigor in its approaches would undoubtedly triumph.

In this context, emerged the Darwinian Theory clearly showing the effects of the evolution of the species and, from the scientific point of view, there was no reasonable doubt that man descended from the ape, and, that we know of, no one has questioned it outside of the strictly religious realm such as the Creationist Theory or Creationism. In fact, even the predominantly religious confessions do not directly attack the Darwinian Theory or pose a strong criticism of Darwinism.

Another interesting aspect is that the title of Darwins work comes about referring to the "evolution of species" and not to the "life evolution" for which it avoids having to define life; this should not be anything easy because it is not well-known whether the existence of life has scientific or rather a philosophical nature.

We are not trying to deny or diminish the great contribution of Darwins theory to modern thought in anthropology, but rather to make a positive criticism of Darwinism delimiting the extension of the theory and to avoid erroneous or defective implications having negative effects in the development of society. It is worth pointing out that any theory of evolution has countless consequences on philosophical and social thinking that pervade any number of individual attitudes and acts; for example, different approaches to certain problems of social justice or to the efficiency of a certain educational system.

The weak points allowing the criticism of Darwinism are numerous and interrelated; nonetheless, we are going to try to indicate them in order of importance from a methodological perspective even if it means repeatedly mentioning some topic by presenting problems of a different nature:

The Darwinian Theory of natural selection tries to explain the disappearance of non-optimal genetic modifications by lesser, or lack of, adaptation of individuals to the environment, but it does not say anything about the origin of modifications or about the processes in which they are carried out.

This is the first argument of criticism of Darwinism because it is implicitly denying or limiting the slightest expression of the very concept of evolution, given that the new beings have the same genetic information as their ancestors with supposed mutations that can have a positive as well as negative effect. (Let us think about the idea of all humans been born with the same potential of intelligence)

The process of evolution is not in the changes in the genetic information but rather the disappearance of the less favorable changes. In Darwins time, there was no genetic knowledge, but they knew that something goes from some generations to others.

Likewise, it is indirectly assumed that where there is no natural selection there is no evolution.

The second issue of criticism of Darwinism is that the main argument of natural selection, or putting it another way: "that which exists is because it has survived and hasnt disappeared" is a tautology for which there is no humanly way to deny it. The only possible criticism is to point out the total lack of scientific severity in it.

The Spanish mountain cats, direct descendants of the wild cats of 20,000 years ago, see better during the day than the domestic cats...

...but its true importance lies in that it proposes a new mechanism of rapid adaptation of the species in very few years (between 15,000 and 20,000) in evolutionary terms.

...The adaptation of animals to their environment takes place by means of the death of certain cells, in this case: neurons, during the second half of fetal development...

El Pas 15-01-1993. Journal of Neuroscience

The model, designed the way it is, only works in long-term in our physical scale. Later, it eliminates short-term evolution and thats the way ideas emerge, reaching completely into present day, like the Homo sapiens in their beginning moments who practically had the same intellectual capacity as nowadays. With that, all that is achieved is unnaturally intensifying the problems of evolutionary leaps.

Implicitly, the Darwinian Theory accepts the randomness of genetic modifications, hence the generally used name of "random mutations", denying the existence of a real driving force of evolution without any scientific proof on this matter, when logic appears to indicate the contrary. The lack of evidence it clear a subject of the criticism of Darwinism.

...complete sequencing of the small human Y chromosome...

...The surprise has been that a fourth are long palindromes: genetic sequences that are read equally from left to right as right to left and consist of two arms.

The investigators think that the palindromes, which contain all of the genes from the testicles, allow the interchange of information within the same chromosome and that thus the mutations are repaired or transmitted.

El Pas 21-06-2003.

Obviously, Darwin did not scientifically show the randomness in all of the cases of the variation in genetic information, nor was it shown later; it is become an axiom.

As far as I know, modern Neo-Darwinism still have not told us which statistical distribution the random mutations follow; it could be the uniform or normal distribution, that of Poison or that of Fisher. Without a doubt, it is a great secret of science or a metaphysical mystery.

Under certain assumptions, the method of evolution by means of random mutations or modifications can be acceptable. We know that some bacteria produce different bacteria in an extremely small proportion. If there were a change in the environmental conditions, such as the acidity of the environment in which they live, those bacteria would be the ones that would survive. After numerous generations, these bacteria would be the ones that make up the new population. At the same time, would produce an extremely small population of bacteria like the initial one that, where appropriate, they would again allow the survival of the species.

This is the common example that used to "prove" Darwins theory of evolution, but it is a very special case, in which generations change at an extremely fast rate with enormous quantities of descendants.

This example of Neo-Darwinism is not completely free of criticism, since the attempted random mutations or modifications are not random modifications of so many elemental letters or units of DNA. But rather that they could easily be understood as pre-established modifications and generated in one or various parts of DNA that make up an efficient set in regard to the different characteristics of the new being and preserving the structural code in its totality. That is, the fact of definitely using the mechanism of natural selection doesnt itself imply that other mechanisms arent used to create diversity in the descendants.

The mysterious origin of the resistance of bacteria.

It is not known yet from where the genes that bacteria borrow to make themselves resistant to antibiotics, for example, really come from. The results of the search for these genes on different grounds have shown to be negative, as explained by professor Jorge Laborda.

El Pas 24-11-2010

Moreover, natural selection does not manage to eliminate the supposedly less adapted variant, given that this evolutionary line is maintained as the same example shows.

However, the most serious issue of the criticism of Darwinism here is the fact that after accepting as proven that the mutations are random, it is also accepted that the contrary is proven. That the mutations are random but by perfectly delimited groups and with specific points of entrance which would be completely incompatible with the first randomness so "proven" according to the scientific method.

In its day, there were criticisms of Darwinism about the lack of the scientific method of this theory; specifically, it is a theory supported by the inductive reasoning from the observation of certain facts and making inferences about generality.

The inductive reasoning is perfectly valid but the generalization that it makes should comply with certain requirements. One of requirements is that whatever example not satisfying the theory implies its refutation. In this respect, we can cite the following cases:

The genetic changes that are obtaining the new techniques do not have a random but guided nature; moreover, the mechanism of the natural selection is not bringing about the appearance of the new beings like in the agriculture field. It could be argued whether these changes made by humans are natural or not, but we have to keep in mind that we humans, except for contrary evidence, make up a part of nature just like the viruses do.

Likewise, we are aware that the viruses make changes in the DNA of the invaded cells, in order to reproduce themselves. It would not be surprising if they could perform another type of changes; for example, with the intention of cheating the immune system in the future, that not even one of these modifications would be transmitted or that one of the reactions would not be transmitted in the genetic sphere as a defense against these aggressions.

Recently, new knowledge of genetic evolution has been emerging that openly contradicts the Darwinian Theory of evolution. They are so numerous that they cannot be mentioned, but some of them are distributed throughout this book in the form of literal quotes from biology news that have been appearing subsequent to the initial formulation of the General Theory of the Conditional Evolution of Life (GTCEL) and, in the majority of the cases, of the very redaction of the book.

More than 200 of the identified human genes seem to be the result of the direct or horizontal transference of the genes of bacteria (without passing through another organism in the evolution)

El Pas 19-02-2001. Conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Darwinism has, on one hand, significant shortcomings when it comes to explaining reality. Darwin tried, unsuccessfully, to give sexual differentiation a broader sense than that of pure specialization of certain tasks because he sensed that it was necessary to do so; but his theory did not offer any explanation, except that of having to be one of the best methods of evolution, and for that reason it exists.

Of course, it does not explain why in superior animals the descendants of very genetically close individuals, such as in the case of siblings, is not feasible or presents serious defects.

I have the impression sexual selection, about which Darwin wrote a book, goes conceptual and directly against natural selection. The first one explains the evolutionary tendency while the second one only explains the deletion of some branches of the real evolutionary process.

Any farmer knows perfectly the preeminence of sexual selection versus natural selection. It makes sense that Darwin needed to go to Galapagos Islands to convince about the non-relevance of sexual selection; obviously, no farmer could correct him because they were not in Galapagos Islands.

The irony of the evolution of the life does that to the sexual selection, of stallion or seed, the present engineers, farmers and cattle dealers denominate natural selection. Without a doubt, it must be another conquest or adaptation of the Darwinist Theory.

Another important shortcoming is the almost impossibility of producing the commonly called evolutionary leaps; it is difficult to logically argue a change in the basic structure of the genetic code through mutations. The only option is to resort once again to the long-term evolution with the added advantage that, when we talk about the long-term evolution, we automatically lose the temporal notion. However, the very concept of the evolutionary leap impedes us from using the long-term in evolutionary terms.

Other aspects related to the sexual differentiation and the evolutionary leaps discussed in the section about the objectives of evolution, and that make up part of the main argument of the Conditional Evolution, are completely absent from the approaches of the Darwinian Theory. It makes sense due to the temporal difference of both; but as I will cite much later, the criticism is that neither the Neo-Darwinian Theory nor the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis says anything on this matter. Quite the contrary, they dont exist. The life in the scientific realm has no objective and doesnt make any sense at all!

...that fusion of two bacteria occurred first, and later the mitochondria were added...

... the transition of prokaryotes to eukaryotes' is the greater evolutionary discontinuity in the Earths history. The differences are enormous, and the transition is very sudden.

El Pas 14-03-2001

In view of the previous premises of the criticism of Darwinism, there should be strong reasons for Darwinian Theory of evolution to have lasted throughout the entire 20th century with small conceptual modifications contributed by the trend called Neo-Darwinian and by the Modern Synthetic Theory. In fact, these modifications suppose a mere update of the Darwinian Theory of evolution according to the new scientific discoveries in the subject matter, as we will see when talking about them. For this reason, the theory is still Darwinism for the population in general.

Some of these strong reasons are similar to those that made its acceptance possible. Before I have discussed the formal requirements of a scientific theorys independence from any philosophical or religious approach; nowadays this requirement is still maintained but with an additional problem. To refute the Darwinian Theory now would assume, to a certain extent, that not just rationalism of the 18th and 19th centuries but the whole scientific community of the 20th century have made a serious mistake in embracing an evolutionary theory so weak. Once more, the philosophers are partly right and the scientific method, to which it would have to be added, is not foolproof, especially if it is not correctly applied.

The basic novelty of the General Theory of Conditional Evolution of Life is the consideration of evolution as an internal improvement mechanism of living beings; which transmits to the descendants and that, given the complexity of the involved aspects, uses multiple systems, methods or processes, depending for each case according to its specific conditions.

For a large part of society, the acceptance of the Conditional Evolution, or of any other evolutionary theory assuming the existence of the mentioned internal improvement mechanism of the living beings, would mean a step back. Scientifically recognizing that there seems to be an intelligent evolution guided from the very interior of living beings sounds like a religious idea about life. It distorts the distinction of the human being and attacks the delightful egocentrism of the human species; in other words, it is completely unacceptable on principle.

Another large part of society maintains its religious ideas, and as a result, the comments in the previous paragraph are equally applicable; so in the same words, it is completely unacceptable on principle.

Putting it another way, the Theory of Darwin is a very convenient theory, socially speaking, having a strong idealist component given that denying short-term evolution does not compromise the implanting of certain traits in the genetic sphere related to the desirable equality of opportunities.

In this sense, efforts have been made to keep the essence of the evolutionary theory. However, the mentioned weakness in the previous points 1) and 5) are practically maintained, in spite of the fact that, with the introduction of genetics and the knowledge derived from other advances in science, we can talk about short-term evolution but always on a microscopic scale. These updates have been carried out principally first, by the trend called Neo-Darwinism and, afterwards, by the Modern Synthetic Theory; although the latter tries to distance itself a little more, in my opinion, it does not manage to do it.

The updates have been possible to a great extent due to that we still do not have conclusive proof of the non-random nature of the modification of the genetic information, despite that there well-known are special points of DNA change. In addition, one of the main issues of criticism of Darwinism, that the term "natural selection" has, at times, an almost absurd generalization because of its tautological content.

Everything unknown has come to be considered random a priori, even against logic. This tendency also diminishes or limits itself in the view of the explanations, based on the theory of chaos and the fractal structures, of facts that previously seemed totally random (incidentally, it is the contrary to the famous example of the butterfly)

Despite of the greater comprehension of the sexual differentiation concerning its difference with the germ line evolution and about the sexual equality in society from the scientific point of view; the lack of satisfactory explanations of previous points 7) and 8) allows the criticism of the essence of the Darwinian Theory by methodological means in the fields of biology and genetics. In any case, any rational explanation of the facts to which the mentioned points are referring to will difficult to be compatible with the theory of natural selection.

There have always been authors that do not share the predominant vision, although they have not managed to formulate an alternative evolutionary theory capable of shifting it. And on the other hand, the expression of this attitude conveys of some way, although increasingly less, a professional marginalization and the risk of being described as being close to certain ideologies that have nothing to do with a scientific attitude or the contrary; without a doubt, this is due to the apparent philosophical and social repercussions that can implicate several theories. I say apparent because reality is not going to change by explaining it better one way or another.

The General Theory of Conditional Evolution of Life will suffer this risk largely, by citing the inheritance of intelligence as a recurrent example. I want to take advantage of the occasion to state in defense of this example, which has been, if not the principal, the direct cause of the development of the new evolutionary theory and, therefore, not having been chosen to intentionally attract attention. Furthermore, it is difficult to obtain models of evolution that can be statistically confirmable.

The list of authors would be too long but we can make a special note of Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873), a distinguished English geologist for being one of the first which, regardless of his attack on Darwinian Theory for religious reasons (he was educated in the Creationist Theory which was dominant in his time), after reading his theory, expressed the following:

"You have deserted - after a start in that tram-road of all solid physical truth-the true method of induction..."

It basically says that Darwin, after a beginning in the path of pure physical reality, abandons the true inductive reasoning...

Adam Adam Sedgwick, despite his creationist education, was not opposed to evolution or development in its broad sense. He believed that the Earth was extremely old, as Darwin recognizes in his notes from classes that Adam Sedgwick received at the university.

However, Adam Sedgwick believed in the Divine creation of life during long periods of time Given that, he also said that evolution was a fact of history. His personal objections to the theory of Darwin were the immoral and materialistic nature of natural selection and the abandonment of the scientific method.

In conclusion, the Conditional Evolution understands that natural selection is just one more method of evolution, but it is neither unique, nor general, nor the most important. In addition, from a conceptual point of view, this method is produced in a moment subsequent to the changes in the genetic information that makes up the actual evolution.

On the page on Studies on evolution of intelligence, the EDI Study is explained and its incredible results that confirm the Conditional Evolution are discussed. Besides, the Darwinout experiment is suggested to verify the aforementioned extremes of the new scientific theory, with a much simpler methodology than the one used in the research of the EDI Study, both in its execution and comprehension.

See the article here:

Criticism of Darwinism - MOLWICK

In Mouse and Human Embryo Development, Critical Transition Points Beyond Neo-Darwinism Discovery Institute On a new episode of ID the Future, Sarah Chaffee talks with CSC Senior Fellow Ann Gauger about a recent paper in the journal Cell, and how it seems that the more we look, the more complexity and sophistication we find. Download the episode by clicking ...

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In Mouse and Human Embryo Development, Critical Transition Points Beyond Neo-Darwinism - Discovery Institute