SOME BIOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF NATURAL SELECTION THEORY
(Investigator 36, 1994 May)
many difficulties with the natural selection hypothesis are reviewed,
including the problem of extrapolating generalizations from limited
artificial selection research to megaevolution. Using evolutionary
criteria, the hierarchy found is the reverse of that expected by
evolution theory; animals lower on the evolutionary scale were found to
reproduce in greater numbers, and were as a whole more resistant to
variations in the environment. Individual survival after birth tends to
be mostly the result of chance; in most cases natural selection
eliminates only the sick and the deformed. Environmental variations
which cause evolution – temperature, the population of other animals,
and the surrounding plant life, all of which have been fairly stable
for eons – can result in only very limited degree and types of changes.
The natural selection hypothesis also involves circular reasoning; an
extant species survived because it was fit, and must be fit because it
obviously has survived. The commonality of overdesign, or the existence
of complex mechanisms that do not effect survival, but may add much to
the quality of life, also creates a severe problem for the natural
acquainted with the biological world is keenly aware of its incredible
complexities and natural wonders. As to the meaning of these
observations, Macbeth (1971, p. 68) notes, "Bitter controversies rage
over what the demonstrated facts signify, bow they have come about, and
why they are as they are." This paper focuses on the major problems of
positing natural selection as the primary explanation for the
complexity and diversity universally displayed in the living world. The
importance attributed to natural selection as a cause of evolution
varies widely. Some students of nature conclude that it is the only
essential causative factor, others that it is of almost no importance.
One reason why this divergence of views about the importance of natural
selection in megaevolution exists, Macbeth (1971, p. 42) notes, is
because "We are dealing with something invisible. The
operations of natural selection, real or imagined, are not accessible
to the human eye." By natural selection is usually meant, "…the belief
that random variation can, when subjected to selective pressure for
long periods of time, culminate in new forms, and that it therefore
provides an explanation for the origins of morphological diversity,
adaptation, and when extended as far as Darwin proposed, speciation"
(Brady 1982, p. 79). Darwin's definition of natural selection was the
preservation of favorable individual differences and variations, and
the destruction of those which are injurious, and the survival of the
fittest (Johnson, 1976, p. vii).
theory that natural selection is the major driving force of evolution
is based on the fact that not all conceptions result in births, and
only a certain percentage of animals that are born alive survive to
adulthood, and even less are able to successfully reproduce. It is also
assumed that those that survive to reproduce are more likely to be
better adapted to the environment, and are generally biologically
superior. As a result, each generation is assumed to produce animals
that are slightly better adapted to local conditions than the previous
one. Slight genetic mistakes or imperfection called mutations may
result in some new traits. Although most mutations are neutral or
maladaptive, it is believed that a very few may aid a given
population's adaption, and these may eventually change the composition
of the gene pool, slowly producing more and more variety.
process of natural selection is the means of selecting the best of this
variety, causing evolution. As Gould (1977, p. 22) explains, its force
comes from the following logic:
(1) Organisms vary, and these variations are likely inherited by their offspring.
Gould admits that, although Darwin convinced much of the world that
evolution has occurred, the natural selection concept never achieved
much popularity during Darwin's lifetime, and did not prevail as
the putative major cause of evolution until the 1940's. It now
typically forms the core of modem evolutionary theory (Ayala,
1974). As Johnson (1976, p. vii) notes, natural selection is no minor
theory, but is considered "…so fundamental and outwardly simple that
few introductory texts assess the actual evidence and fewer still
describe the methods and assumptions required of its study." The reason
that some of the early evolutionists had difficulty accepting this
concept varied. Ruse (1982, p. 49) notes that Huxley, the most vocal
supporter of evolution in Darwin's day, "always had doubts about the
overall effectiveness of natural selection." As Ruse (1982, p. 51)
notes, the reasons for the resistance to natural selection include:
(2) Organisms produce more offspring than can possibly survive (many do at least).
On the average, offspring that vary strongly in
directions favored by the environment will survive and propagate.
Favorable variations will therefore accumulate in populations by
is one thing to accept selection per se, and it is quite another to
agree that selection can be everything that Darwin claimed for it.
There is much drawing back from selection as an all-powerful
evolutionary mechanism, even by those who were turned into
evolutionists by the Origin. The general feeling was that evolution had
to be powered primarily by something else. Many readers felt that
selection working on blind, small variations simply could not be the
causes of the wonderful adaptations like the hand or the eye.
Therefore, not a few of Darwin's contemporaries, primarily for
religious reasons, supposed that the main cause of evolutionary change
are instantaneous, God-designed 'jumps from one form to another — as
from the fox to the dog. That is, they believed in an evolution powered
the essence of Darwin's contribution lies in his contention that
natural selection is the major creative force or source of
evolution, not just the executioner of the unfit (Gould, 1977).
many researchers conclude that natural selection is the major cause of
evolution, most ascribe varying degrees of importance to other factors.
Some of these include chance recombination of existing genes which
produce positive, negative or neutral characteristics (neutral meaning
of equal survival value compared to the parent gene structure),
population fluctuations due to chance factors, geographical factors
such as oceans or mountains which cause breeding isolation, gene flow,
and changes in the length of reproduction and fertility periods. Each
of these, separately and in combination though, are totally
insufficient to account for evolution (Williams, 1966).
best-known major rivals of the gradual evolution via natural
selection model are vitalism, Lamarckism, mutationism, the neutralists
theory (the theory of evolution by random walk) and Goldschmidt's
hopeful monster theory, all of which have now been largely rejected,
although occasionally books surface that defend one of these
theories, especially vitalism and Lamarckism (Ayala, 1974). The hopeful
monster idea, in a revised form with a modern cover called
punctuated equilibrium, has recently gained rapid acceptance in
the biological world. Many feel that its acceptance is due less to the
evidence supporting the view, but more because the competing theories
contradict the empirical evidence.
major concern of megaevolutionists is to explain the incredible
diversity in the living world. Pandas, elephants and mice are all
biologically basically similar, yet manifest many differences. Even
more different are the reptile, mammal, bird and insect and fish
divisions. A viable theory of origins must explain this often
unexplainable diversity, and the fact that literally millions of
different species of animals and plants exist. The explanation that
each living type was separately created by God in the creative week
de¬scribed by Genesis was historically accepted by most Westerners,
and probably most scientists as well, until the middle 1800's (Gould,
1981). Darwin believed that he had an answer which was beguilingly
simple, and this simplicity partly explained its rapid and often
uncritical acceptance. His answer was that scientists bad for decades
misinterpreted what they found in the fossil record: they actually were
examples of animals that were not survivors and from which today's more
perfectly adapted life forms arose. Darwin taught that those forms that
still exist today were better able to survive climatic changes and the
competition for mates, food, air, and space resources, and that the
predecessors of modern forms were generally weaker, smaller, and less
well adapted than other contemporary animals. In short, the extinct
forms were wiped out by what Darwin called natural selection.
(1958, p. 120) concluded after be read Malthus' work on population
that, "…it at once struck me that under these circumstances favorable
variations would tend to be preserved and unfavorable ones destroyed.
The result of this would be the formation of new species." The forces
of drought, wind, animal predators, cold, heat and disease all tend to
kill the weaker animals, leaving the stronger to reproduce. Since most
creatures produce far more offspring than can possibly survive,
"natural" selection can select the best or most fit, and these then
will be likelier to reproduce. Darwin stressed that only the most fit,
the strongest, and the most able survived the vicious competition for
life: only the fastest runners, those with hardier hearts, better eyes
and other sensory organs, stronger or longer legs (enabling them to run
faster), and those with the most effective means of defense – quills on
a porcupine and stink on a skunk – win in the constant struggle of
life. Darwin then went far beyond this truism, expounding that all
life, every-where today and in the past, was created by evolution and
is still evolving by a process that results from a never ending
struggle for survival.
This, in short, is Darwin's theory of evolution, an idea that was by no means new to Darwin. Gould (1977, p. 23) claims that,
to popular belief, evolution was a very common heresy during the first
half of the nineteenth century. It was widely and openly discussed,
opposed, to be sure, by a large majority, but admitted or at least
considered by most of the great naturalists.
simply went farther than most and, importantly, was able to widely
popularize the theory. According to Gould, Darwin's work consisted of
uncompromising philosophical materialism in contrast to other evolution
theories, most of which utilized vitalism or elements of a theistic
evolution. Darwin's claim that, except possibly for the first few life
forms, primarily random variation and natural selection were needed to
account for the estimated over 2,000,000 species of animals and plants
that now exist.
interest existed in Darwin's time in animal breeding and, in spite of
the claim that Darwin obtained his theory primarily from his
observation of the Galapagos Island finches and Malthus' work, the germ
of his idea quite possibly stemmed in part from the logical deduction
that, if we can breed a meatier cow, a faster horse, a fatter chicken,
then we could also produce an even more meaty cow, a still faster
horse, or yet fatter chicken. He then argued, if humans can bring about
such changes in animals, could not nature itself also be constantly
selecting the best by killing the less fit? Is not the bull that earns
the right to breed the most powerful one, the most attractive peacock
the one that has the most right to mate? The major difficulty that
Darwin saw was that the changes obtained by animal husbandry were
small: farmers could improve sheep's wool or make a redder rose, but
obvious limits seemed to exist: Humans could not breed horses from dogs
(some felt they could someday) or wings on dogs (this seemed harder to
comprehend, but not impossible).
most biologists of the time concluded that clear limits to change
existed, Darwin believed on faith that no limit existed. As be stated
in his Origin of Species, "I can see no difference in a race that bears
being rendered, by natural selection, more and more aquatic in the
habits...[and larger and larger] until a creature was produced as
monstrous as a whale." And (1962, p. 63),
though the process of selection may be, if feeble man can do so much
by…artificial selection, I can see no limit to the amount of change, to
the beauty and infinite complexity of the co-adaptations between all
organic beings, one with another, and with their physical conditions of
life, which may be affected in the long course of time by nature's
power of selection.
reasoned that since many mammals – horses, cows, sheep, pigs, dogs,
cats and goats – were all basically similar (each had a backbone, a
brain and skull, four legs, hearts, kidneys, and similar reproductive
systems) if we could breed faster horses, why could we not breed any
mammal (or at least most mammals) from some common ancestor? After all,
as much difference appears to exist between a poodle and a German
shepherd as between a Pekingese and a cat. Darwin (1962, p. 82, 92)
thus developed the opinion that all animals and plants could vary in
any directions to an almost unlimited degree.
all animals differ slightly, even from their own brothers and sisters,
is obvious; in a litter of cats, some are slightly larger than others,
some are solid white, others darker in color. Darwinists believed that
these slight variations gradually, almost imperceptibly, could have
changed a species into a new one. If in each generation the slightly
faster runners, better jumpers, or stinkier stinkers were likelier to
survive, the future generations of these animals would run faster and
faster, or jump higher and higher. Hitching (1982, p. 12) concluded,
idea seem so blindingly obvious, and so satisfying complete that, in
England at least, it quickly replaced the biblical account of creation,
and became a new way of looking at the living world. With a few
hiccups, it has held its place [throughout the scientific world] ever
for natural selection depends heavily upon the validity of its analogy
with artificial selection (Tinkle, 1976). Darwin might have been
justified in utilizing the animal breeding analogy to illustrate a
limited process, but the use of natural selection as the major support
pillar for macroevolution is problematic. In the first chapter of The Origin,
Darwin discusses extensively artificial selection and extrapolates far
beyond what his data warrants (Gale, 1982). The two major problems with
this analogy between artificial and natural selection include:
Almost all the traits that breeders breed for have nothing to do
with survival, and thus nature would not select for them; we breed dogs
for certain appearance traits, horses for speed traits, cows for milk
traits, and chickens for egg traits.
problem, both then and now, was going from the known to the unknown.
Humans have produced many new strains of animals through breeding which
have made our life easier and more pleasant. Although these strains
were different in certain major ways from their predecessors, they
usually soon reverted back to the previous types if allowed to
interbreed with them again. Totally new major traits were never
developed, but existing ones were re-arranged and favorable ones
retained so that certain traits were more pronounced. This type of
evolution (if it could be called such) is often termed microevolution,
as opposed to macroevolution. Breeding solid black horses is
microevolution, breeding winged horses is macroevolution. This
dichotomy is artificial, and a clear distinction cannot always be made
– and what is now macro may be classified as micro, meaning possible.
Microevolution is what we have achieved, thus have experimentally
verified, and this is probably a more realistic definition. Macro is
what we hypothesize could be achieved, or which, according to
fossil evidence and conjecture, might have occurred in the past, given
a set of assumptions about the fossil evidence.
that researchers have a tremendous amount of experience in breeding
animals, it is clear that it can be carried only to a very limited
level, and many traits tend to revert to where we started – fruit fly
traits, after eight to ten generations, tend to revert back to normal
(Tinkle, 1976). The fact is, extensive breeding by millions of
researchers and breeders has not produced a single undisputed new
species in 400 years of experimenting (Johnson, 1991). As Eiseley
(1958, p. 223) noted:
Animal breeders have found that select traits are often lost if
random breeding again occurs, or if breeding for other traits is done.
Few if any permanent changes in the animal usually occur, only the
probability of certain traits appearing is altered.
domestic breeding, whatever it may do to improve the quality of race
horses or cabbages, is not actually in itself the road to the endless
biological deviation which is evolution. There is a great irony in this
situation, far more than any other single factor, domestic breeding has
been used as an argument for the reality of evolution.
(1967, p. 636) concludes, "Remarkable things have been done by
cross-breeding…but wheat is still wheat, and not, for instance,
grapefruit. We can no more grow wings on pigs than hens can make
cylindrical eggs." A more contemporary example is the average increase
in male height that has occurred the past century. Through better
health care (and perhaps also some sexual selection, as some women
prefer taller men as mates) males have reached a record adult height
during the last century, but the increase is rapidly disappearing,
indicating that we have reached our limit.
error was in stretching this comparison too far, sooner or later we
reach limits, and no one has yet observed helpful macroevolutionary
changes taking place. Since we do not have several billions of years of
direct observation, we have not been able to directly test this
assumption. Nevertheless, some animals such as fruit flies live a very
short period of time, enabling us to observe multi-thousands of their
life generations. Even with a drastically higher artificial increase in
the number of mutations, which are supposedly the source of variation
which gives rise to the "stuff" from which natural selection can
select, no evidence exists that large changes have, or can, occur
(Lester and Bohlin 1984)
Gould (1977, p. 39) admits, "…although I wear the Darwinian label with
some pride, [I] am not among the most ardent defenders of natural
selection" More blunt is Bethell (1976) who concludes, "Darwin's theory
[of natural selection] I believe is on the verge of collapse… Natural
selection was quietly abandoned, even by his most ardent supporters,
some years ago. Gould, in an article defending natural selection (1977,
p. 40-41) admits that, "Bethell argues quite correctly that Darwin
relied upon analogy to establish it [this definition of survival of the
fittest] a dangerous and slippery strategy." Yet, many scientists are
still struggling not only to define it, but also to demonstrate that it
has a role in megaevolution (Maddox, 1991, p. 653).
assumption that all life and all of its traits owe their existence
primarily to natural selection, thus these traits must be adaptive, is
still supported primarily by thought demonstrations. Natural selection
explanations are often similar to dream interpretations: the
explanation may be logical and fully understandable, yet there is no
way to empirically document it. The logic that any particular character
was or might be adaptive was regarded by many as sufficient proof that
it owes its origin to natural selection, but this evolutionary
speculation has few connections with the concrete facts of cytology and
heredity or with actual experimentation.
The Fossils and Natural Selection
fossil record does not support the case for natural selection. One
excellent summary (Gliedman, 1982, p. 90-91) reflects the current
fossil or other physical evidence directly connects, man to ape… The
problem for gradualists those who support gradual evolution or orthodox
Darwinian evolution is that…these ancestral species remain essentially
unchanged throughout their million-year life spans, yet each of them
differs substantially from its immediate predecessor… Sudden-change
theorists find plenty of support for their point of view in the glaring
list of critical evolutionary events that no gradualist, including
Darwin, has ever explained satisfactorily. In addition to the lack of a
missing link to explain the relatively sudden appearance of modern man,
gradualists cannot easily explain the mysterious 'Cambrian explosion'
600 million years ago. This was an evolutionary leap that transformed
the earth…from a mess of simple microscopic bacteria and blue-green
algae to a planet bursting at the seams with primitive representatives
of every type of multicellular plant and invertebrate animal – from the
lowly proto¬zoans to such complex creatures as the trilobites, …the
best that gradualists can do is point to the ground beneath their feet;
the fossils buried in the earth somewhere, they say, and may someday be
lack of transitional forms is a serious problem that can no longer be
attributed to hypothesized undiscovered fossils (Johnson, 1990; Gould,
1989). All of the multi-millions of fossils so far discovered fit quite
well into existing groups and rarely is it even argued that a fossil
type fits between two orders or even families. Animals have come and
gone, but very few of them meet even the minimal requirements necessary
to claim that their fossil type is one of the many billions of
different transitional forms that must have existed if the gradualist
view is correct. To explain this difficulty, believers in the
punctuated equilibrist's view of Gould postulate that relatively few
links exist, and very few fossils can be found because the rate of
evolution during the ages was geologically rapid. The theory also
argues that the transitional forms were highly unstable, thus rapidly
died off, leaving behind very few fossils. But once an animal was in a
stable slot in the environment, though, it existed for long periods of
time consequently leav¬ing behind many more fossils during this
major problems with the punctuated equilibrium view is that it is based
on almost a total lack of transitional forms; consequently one might
ask, "How do we know that these creatures existed and were unstable if
we have no evidence of them?" The reason that this is concluded is if
they were stable and survived for long periods of time, we would have
abundant evidence of them. Since we do not have this evidence, given
evolution is true, they must have existed, but only for a short while
and this is why no evidence of them now exists. This argument from lack
of evidence is, at best misleading and, at worst, involves the circular
reasoning fallacy. In the punc¬tuated equilibrium view,
multi-millions or more transitional forms must also exist, just fewer
than in the old view. Arguing primarily from lack of evidence is also
true of the gradualist model: none of these links have been discovered
for certain. Hitching (1982, p. 40) concludes that:
most museums and textbooks accept gradualism as readily as they accept
natural selection. Logically, then, the fossil record ought to show
this stately progression. If we find fossils, and if Darwin's theory
was right, we can predict what the rock should contain; finely
graduated fossils leading from one group of creatures to another group
of creatures at a higher level of complexity. The 'minor improvements'
in successive generations should be as readily preserved as the species
themselves. But this is hardly ever the case. In fact, the opposite
holds true, as Darwin himself complained; "innumerable transitional
forms must have existed, but why do we not find them embedded in
countless numbers in the crust of the earth?" Darwin felt though that
the "extreme im¬perfection" of the fossil record was simply a
matter of digging up more fossils. But as more and more fossils were
dug up, it was found that almost all of them, without exception, were
very close to current living animals. Size and shape may have varied,
such as the woolly mammoth compared to elephants today, but the
variations were small.
intermediates are consistently missing in virtually all of the most
important places, and some paleontologists argue that no true, major
transitional forms have been shown to exist, and that all claimed
transitional forms are, at best debatable. Macroevolutionists generally
concede that, although the evidence for intermediates is at present
limited, they have faith that they will be found in the future if we
just keep digging.
limited evidence, such as the few hypothesized transitional form claims
as Archaeopteryx, often do not stand under examination. Archaeopteryx
is probably the best-known and oldest example of a supposed
intermediate, and the creature's traits, as well as where it fits in
the fossil record, are still being hotly debated. Benton (1983, p. 99)
concluded that "no consensus on Archaeopteryx" exists, and that
scientists are still debating even such basic questions as, "can the
bird fly, is it ancestral to birds, did it originate from dinosaurs or
from some earlier stock and, indeed, is it even a bird?" He (1983, 99)
quotes a detailed study on the brain case of Archaeopteryx that
concludes that the "details of the brain case and associated bones at
the back of the skull seem to suggest that Archaeopteryx is not the
ancestral bird, but an offshoot from the early avian stem." The
relationship of Archaeopteryx in the origins of bird controversy is so
controversial that Thulborn and Hamley in an extensive review
identified seven hypotheses concerning the affinities of Archaeopteryx
(Benton, 1983, p. 100).
notorious lack of transitional forms is not due to any shortage of
fossils. Billions have now been unearthed, so many that quality
specimens are often sold to collectors for as little as a quarter.
Petroleum, oil, natural gas, chalk, cement and many other
petrochemicals and minerals are claimed to be products of fossils, thus
are called fossil fuels or minerals. Over 250,000 different species of
fossil plants and animals are known to exist, and almost all of them
are extremely similar to the 1.5 million species now known to be living
on earth (and about one million of these are insects) while the rest
fit into known extinct types (Day, 1989). When a fossil is unearthed,
it most always is known type. Discovery of a new species, whether
extant or extinct, is a once in a lifetime event for many zoologists
that is often rewarded by naming the species after the discoverer.
(1959) admitted that few, if any, examples of micro changes (which he
calls transpecific evolution) exist in the fossil record. He added
hopefully that finding intermediates in the future should not yet be
regarded as impossible. Most research areas along this line have turned
out to be dead-end roads which have diverted biologists from other far
more promising areas of research. Darwin's explanation for the lack of
transitional forms, the alleged extreme imperfection of the geological
record due to our poor search efforts, can no longer be used to explain
away the evidence. We now have enough fossils to be assured that we
have a fairly good idea of the variety of past animal life, especially
those types with hard parts. We can even make some reasonable
conclusions about the extinct forms and variety of animals, such as
jelly fish and bacteria, which are not preserved either as well or as
often as animals with hard parts.
good knowledge of many ancient insects is partly due to the many types
that are preserved in amber or other substances which prevent the decay
of the soft, fragile parts (Reid, 1985). These were described
eloquently by Zahl (1978, p. 237):
in a laboratory at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, I focused a
magnifying glass on a clear marble-sized sphere in which a tiny fossil
fly hung suspended… This elegant piece of tea-hued amber, along with
its elfin inclusion, was only one of several thousand stored in drawers
stacked from floor to ceiling in the Museum's Department of Fossil
Insects… In each was a fly, ant, grasshopper, beetle, or spider, all
perfectly lifelike as though some magic wand had cast the spell of
frozen sleep upon them…embalmed you might say, fifty million years
earlier; yet its tenants looked singularly like the fly, ant,
grasshopper, beetle, or spider in my own garden. Had evolution
overlooked such genera during the intervening fifty thousand millennia?
although long extinct, have been studied extensively and we now know a
great deal about the morphology, growth, molting, appendages and
internal anatomy of the 60 known species. We even have good insight
into how their holochroalic eyes work. Enough is known about the past
living world to produce a fairly good picture of it. And, this picture
selection, although it "explains" minute changes, is far less viable in
explaining the events called for by the theory of punctuated
equilibria. Many of the challenges to Darwinian evolution are
specifically challenges to natural selection. And these are such that
the theory at the very least requires severe modification (Leigh,
1971). As Hitching (1982) stated, "Darwin's explanation of evolution is
being challenged [today] as never before, not just by creationists, but
by his fellow scientists." The fact is that: "…for all its acceptance
as the great unifying principle of biology, Darwinism, after a century
and a quarter, is in a surprising amount of trouble."
reason is because Darwinism or its modern version, neoDarwinism, "…has
not, contrary to general belief, and despite very great efforts, been
proved." Given the above, why then is natural selection accepted?
Macbeth (1971, p. 77) attempts an answer:
the evidence mean that Darwinism is correct? No. Sir Julian Huxley
said, once the hypothesis of special creation is ruled out,
adaptation can only be ascribed to natural selection, but this is
utterly unjustified. He should say only that Darwinism is better than
the other. But when the others are no good, this is faint praise. Is
there any glory in outrunning a cripple in a foot race? Being
best-in-field means nothing if the field is made up of fumblers"
changes have occurred in nature and in animals, no informed person
doubts. Nor does anyone deny that species have arisen and disappeared
–the dinosaurs and trilobites are the most prominent of thousands of
good examples. Many creatures that once roamed the earth no longer
exist today, and some species around today evidently did not exist a
long time ago. The concern is that microevolution is labeled evolution,
then based on the evidence for microevolution the claim is made that
evolution has occurred. Microevolution has been well documented and
creationists have no difficulty with this fact; they stress that we
should go only as far as the empirical data carries us (Johnson, 1991).
The fact is, the docu¬mented changes are minor and fully
explainable by innate variation laws. Most creatures that are around
now are close to identical to their ancestors who lived far back in
time – some even from almost the very beginning of the fossil record,
such as many types of bacteria, insects, jelly fish, reptiles and fish.
Natural Selection and the Origin of Cells
long standing major difficulty with the selection hypothesis relates to
the hypothetical earliest levels of evolutionary development. For
selection to occur, a living organism must exist that is capable of
successfully reproducing, and also of ingesting, assimilating, and
processing food. Secondly; a stable supply of food must be available
which it can use to manufacture the various complex elements and also
produce the chemical reactions necessary to obtain the energy needed to
insure the organism's survival.
many have tried, explanations of the origin of single cells by
selection theory are still wanting. For selection to take place, even
at the cellular level – a structure consisting of dozens of complex
interrelated, functioning organelles must first exist. Many complex
sub-cellular structures must somehow spontaneously form in conditions
much different from today, and then resist the push toward entropy.
Most all would dis¬integrate, but evolutionists must assume that
some did not. These few must also have had a means to prevent
destruction by too rapid atrophy, and also, among other things, must be
able to ingest, to respirate, and also to effectively reproduce. Only
when all of this has occurred could selection select the animal which
survived best and produced more offspring.
Reproduction Rates and Bacterial Evolution
organism which had a highly effective repro¬ductive system and a
longer reproductive life span to produce more of its offspring would be
favored. A major result of the survival of the fittest force would be
the length of the reproduction period, an effect that Darwin called
differential mortality and today is often called differential
reproduction. No selection advantage exists in living after one can no
must keep always in mind that by the 'fittest' Darwin meant the one
with the largest surviving progeny. This can be and often is a
comparatively weak individual. In this sense rabbits are 'fitter' than
lions, since they have been able to reproduce and occupy a larger area,
in spite of man, than lions, which are fighting a losing battle against
man. (Solbrig, 1966, p. 9)
Differential reproduction is so important that, in Simpson's (1967, p. 138) words:
all the individuals in the population lived for precisely the same
length of time, with no elimination of the unfit...hence no Darwinian
selection… Suppose further that [one species had] a hereditary fondness
for apples [and] had twice as many offspring as those without this
characteristic. Then there would be very strong, clearly non-Darwinian
the fact that small mammals tend to have different survival rates, it
would seem the one that consistently had the largest litter would
eventually dominate the others. Put another way, given two identical
animals except that animal A has an average of 10 litters of four
animals each during its reproductive lifetime, and the other an average
of six litters with three animals each, this trend would eventually
result in animal A predominating and the demise of animal B. Evolution
would therefore seem to consistently select for longer reproductive
lengths – first years, then centuries, etc. – presumably without limit,
although increases could well be smaller and smaller as time
progressed, similar to the half-life phenomena. Obviously, this has not
Natural selection would, in short, favor primarily those animals that
1) produce more offspring,
that on the average live longer but have shorter fertility periods are,
according to evolution, at a disadvantage in the long run. These three
factors all facilitate the events which fit the standard definition of
"survival of the fittest." The data as a whole also reveal that natural
selection is not functioning to any significant degree anywhere so as
to change these features. According to the current evidence, the number
of offspring, longevity, and length of the fertility period of most
animals have been remarkably stable for the past several thousand years
(Prince, 1980; Tributsch, 1984; Johnson, 1991). Since natural selection
has evidently not changed even these three simple characteristics very
much, all of which would seem to be highly influenced by it, the
mechanism would not be expected to select in the direction of
developing extremely complex mechanisms for animals, such as those
found in the bombardier beetle or the archer fish. Conversely, it would
select structures which directly or indirectly facilitate that which is
defined as evolutionary success, namely the number of offspring living
at any given time. As Miller and Van Loon note:
2) have longer fertility periods,
3) and live longer, thus having more time and opportunity to reproduce their kind.
gradually became apparent…that the influence [of natural selection] was
much more subtle, and that it was more a question of differential
reproduction rather than differential survival and that what counted
was not so much the life or death of certain individuals, but the
extent to which any particular type could outbreed its competitors.
(1982, p. 169)
by this standard, because some insects give birth daily to thousands of
offspring, they are for this reason far more successful evolutionarily
speaking than mammals, most who give birth to only a few offspring
a major problem with the survival of the fittest theory is that
reproductive rates often are the opposite of what evolutionary theory
predicts. Animals that have supposedly evolved to the highest rungs on
the evolutionary ladder in terms of the number of changes from the
original hypothesized unicellular ancestor often have the lowest
reproduction rates (Ortner, 1983). Most mammals give birth to one or
two litters for only a few mating seasons. Many female mammals, if
impregnated, have only one or two offspring per mating season. The
creatures on the bottom of the so-called "evolutionary scale," such as
bacterium and viruses, have by far the highest reproduction rates.
reproduction fecundity is a main criterion of evolutionary "success,"
bacteria and viruses are without question among the most successful
living organisms. Cholera bacteria reproduce at such a rate that a
single pair can produce an estimated 700,000,000,000,000,000,000 (700
quintillion) offspring in a mere 24 hours, fully 3,000 tons worth.
Further, an offspring reproduction rate such as this would seem to
provide an almost inexhaustible gene pool for mutations. Thus, if so
many mutations occur per 1,000,000 organisms, the higher the number of
organisms, all other factors being equal, the greater the total amount
of mutations (and the more mutations, the greater the probability of
favorable ones). The far higher reproduction rate of bacteria coupled
with their short life span would result in more offspring and more
total generations per year. Given this, they would produce far more
mutations than the majority of animal types and, therefore, have the
greatest chances for the occurrence of a favorable one, thus evolution.
would also seem, given evolutionary assumptions, that a state of
equilibrium would never occur among bacteria. A few bacteria out of the
multi-trillions living at any one time are bound to be blessed with a
difference that produces a slight selection advantage which could in
turn gradually alter the entire gene pool. The result would seem to be
a greater likelihood of improving their adaption state, and thus should
have caused it to evolve to a "higher" evolutionary level. The weaker
bacteria forms would eventually become extinct, and only if new
bacteria were somehow "spontaneously generated," or life at an
even "lower' level was occasionally formed and able to evolve to the
higher bacteria level, could this type continue to exist. If so, the
bacteria existing today would have to be a recent result of this
progress. Research on natural selection and mutations as a variation
source has recently found that frequencies of genes that control
certain traits of some micro¬organisms can be influenced. We have
by this means, though, not yet produced a single major beneficial
change in the physical structure of any organism, only weeded out
undesirable one (Lester and Bohlin, 1984).
bacteria should have evolved at a much faster rate then the "higher"
animals, no evidence exists that they have undergone evolutionary
change in recent (or even ancient) history. The so-called Archae
bacteria are not a pre- or primitive bacteria such as their name
implies, but only "… a distinct and separate group of prokaryotes," and
even this claim is a matter of definition and debate. The earliest
bacteria thus far discovered, estimated to be two billion years old,
"…closely resemble the micro-colonies of certain modern soil bacteria"
(Schopf, 1965, pp. 1365-1366). Borchgrave (1988, p. 62) noted that an
Oberlin College team of biologists concluded that the evidences which
that the single-celled organism with¬out nuclear membranes has
changed little since it originated 2 billion years ago. The
organism…has several of the same characteristics as today's
myxobacterium, found in abundance in soil. The size of the slime's
cells, its spores and the cysts that house the spores appear to be
similar [to] the myxobacterium of 2 billion years ago, like its
present-day counterpart, was not photosynthetic but instead derived its
energy from organic compounds of decomposed materials in the
enormous reproduction level of bacteria noted above does not occur due
to a rapid depletion of available food and moisture, and also an
accumulation of toxic metabolic waste products in the animal's
environment. Yet, the sheer number of bacteria produced should
eventually result in mutations that will enable them to overcome even
these problems. Evolution predicts that the organisms will eventually
evolve so that their own waste products were not toxic. They might be
expected to evolve selective membranes, toxic neutralizers or another
means to protect themselves against the poisons. If bacteria have
existed on earth for two-billion or more years – longer than most every
other living thing – plenty of time should have been available for the
necessary mutations to have occurred. As zoologist Grasse (1977, p. 87)
notes, the question of why they did not evolve these innovations poses
a major problem for evolution:
the organisms which, because of their huge numbers, produce the most
mutants. This is why they give rise to an infinite variety of species,
called strains, which can be revealed by breeding or tests. Like
Erophila verna, bacteria…exhibit a great fidelity to their species. The
bacillus Escherichia coli, whose mutants have been studied very
carefully, is the best example. The reader will agree that it is
surprising, to say the least, to want to prove evolution and to
discover its mechanisms and then to choose as a material for this study
a being which practically stabilized a billion years ago! What is the
use of their unceasing mutations, if they do not [produce evolutionary]
change? In sum, the mutations of bacteria and viruses are merely
hereditary fluctuations around a median position; a swing to the right,
a swing to the left, but no final evolutionary effect. Cockroaches,
which are one of the most venerable living insect groups, have remained
more or less unchanged since the Permian, yet they have undergone as
many mutations as Drosophilia, a Tertiary insect.
of the thousands of examples that illustrate why mutations have been
unable to ring about major changes is illustrated by yeast cells. The
process needed to manufacture many alcoholic beverages involves using
yeast to produce carbon dioxide, alcohol (both yeast cell waste
products) and the energy necessary for its own growth, all from the
fruit on which it parasitically lives. But when the alcohol content
reaches about 14%, the yeast's own waste product begins to kill the
yeast. The many millions of years that evolutionists believe is
available has not been able to overcome this simple problem. Similar
examples of this inability of evolution by mutations to overcome
limitations abound in the worlds of viruses, mycoplasms, rickettsia,
fungi, nematodes and even class insecta.
Mutations and Evolution
are usually viewed as the major source of the variation that natural
selection selects to cause evolution. It is universally recognized that
the vast majority are clearly neutral or harmful, most always resulting
in no change or a weakened or even deformed creature (Williams, 1977).
Goldschmidt (1942) who postulated an early punctuated equilibrium
theory, observed mutations in fruit flies for many years. The changes,
he lamented, were almost all small so that if a thousand mutations were
combined in a single fruit fly, a new species would not result but, at
most, only a weird fruit fly which probably would not survive birth
(Goldschmidt, 1952, p. 94).
few examples exist for which any case can be made for a major favorable
result from a mutation, and even these few examples are debatable. Even
the assumption that weakened or deformed creatures are far more apt to
be eliminated by natural selection is not valid; weaker creatures are
often eliminated only if they are so severely deformed that they cannot
live. Many spontaneous abortions and early infant deaths are due to
this factor. Inferior creatures, especially among the higher mammals
such as the primates are often protected by the group and,
consequently, not uncommonly survive. Medicine has improved
tremendously the infant mortality rate, and consequently many of the
"weak" humans who would normally not survive are now living as long or
beyond the normal life expectancy. A defect in humans, to be of
selection value often must be so great that it causes the individual
with it to be highly unlikely to survive the child bearing years, let
alone compete in the natural selection game.
discovery of the mechanism of heredity by Gregor Mendel in 1866, and
the extant research on mutations, gives clear evidence mostly for
deevolution. If the creature survives a mutation which is not harmful
enough to impede early survival, it will likely be passed on to one's
offspring. In this way, all species slowly accumulate mutations with
each passing generation. Some evidence exists that the number of
natural mutations has been increasing in humans, causing more diseases
such as hemophilia (bleeding disease). Over 4,000 diseases are now
known that are caused by past mutations, most of which were not in the
human family several thousand years ago. Their victims have survived
long enough to reproduce and pass on what was likely a mutation to
their offspring. This is evidence, though, for deevolution, the
opposite of evolution. As Mayer (1964, p. 296) admits, it
a considerable strain on one's credulity to assume that finely balanced
systems such as certain sense organs (the eye of vertebrates, or the
bird's feathers) could be improved by random mutation. This is even
more true for some of the ecological chain relationships (the famous
yucca moth case, and so forth). However, the objections of random
mutations have so far been unable to advance any alternative
explanation that was supported by substantial evidence.
inadequacy of arguing from reasoning that an idea is valid because it
is a "better explanation" compared to competing ones, Macbeth (1971, p.
78) explains as follows:
such a theorist makes a suggestion that is better than other
suggestions, or better than noth¬ing, he feels that he has
accomplished something even if his suggestion will obviously not hold
water. He does not believe that he must meet any objective standards of
logic, reason or probability. This is a curious state of affairs, but
if the reader…can view it as a possibility he will feel less surprised
in the frequent cases where he finds the theorists propounding ideas of
Attempts to Rank Animals by an Evolutionary Scale
"higher" or "lower" (or more or less evolved) classification used by
evolutionists is a distortion of reality and for this reason is avoided
by informed biologists. Animals clearly appear to be designed for a
certain type of life, and each one "fits" quite well into its own
habitat. The severe difficulties in "ranking" animals in an
evolutionary hierarchy, given the limitations of molecules and the
built in flexibility found in all living structures, from cells to
organs (plus the fact that all of them are perfectly designed and every
organ perfect if not diseased) has resulted in a new taxonomy system
called cladistics (Duncan and Stuessy, 1984). All organisms face the
same needs, and all are normally capable of doing what is necessary to
meet these needs. A luxury airplane is not necessarily more fit or
better able to fly than a small Lear jet; both are well designed for
their respective purposes.
made between humans and animals show that many of the so-called "lower"
animals are more "highly" developed in some areas than humans. A 170
pound man expending energy at the rate equivalent to that of a ruby
throated hummingbird would burn about 300 thousand calories daily,
requiring consuming 285 pounds of hamburger, about double his weight,
daily. He would also need to evaporate about 100 pounds of sweat each
hour just to keep his skin temperature slightly below the boiling point
of water. Hummingbirds, famous for their speed, can fly about 60 miles
an hour. They also can effectively "hover" like a helicopter, a feat
which requires a wing movement of over 200 beats per second (a speed
which cameras could not freeze until the advent of high speed film).
For this reason, their wings appeared blurred in most older photos. The
extremely fast wing movement also enables them to fly backwards,
sideways or in any direction that they wish (Cause, 1969).
it is well-known that the "simplest" living things are actually
extremely complex, the supposedly oldest living things are also as
fully "developed" as their modern counterparts. These microfossils of
cell chains that resemble a string of beads were discovered in rocks
collected from a desolate corner of Western Australia. Paleobiologist
Schopf (1965, p. 1365) noted that these bacteria-like organisms that
lived at the bottom of the shallow sea were"…surprisingly complex." In
his words, "…these microfossils tell us that life was a whole lot more
complex at that time [three and a half billion years ago, only about a
billion years after the earth was supposedly formed] than any of us had
really guessed. At least five fossil varieties of this type of bacteria
were identified by the team of scientists which gathered at UCLA to
argue about their origins of life views.
further concluded that this discovery also indicates that life existed
a "…billion years older than expected." This leaves much less time
available for life to have arisen after the earth began. Over 80
percent of the four and a half billion years of the earth's assumed
existence (at least three and a half billion years) contained life, an
assumption which creates serious problems for evolution.
The Case of Insects
are also near the bottom of the evolutionary scale, but are likewise
extremely successful according to evolutionary criteria. Almost a
million species are now known, and hundreds of new ones are being
discovered each year – this compares to less than 36,000 types of
mammals, fish, and birds. Farb (1962, p. 11) estimates that the total
number of insect species may reach
of one million, and one authority believes the number may be as high as
ten million. But even now the total already known is about three times
the number of all other animal species on the Earth combined. There are
reasons for the high level of success of insects.
of the many reasons for their obvious success, including their
incredible ability to live in a wide variety of inhospitable
is scarcely a place on the planet Earth that is not home to least one
kind of insect. Some 40 kinds of insects live in the bleak
Antarctica.... Wherever they live, insects…endure with a unique kind of
indestructibility. Some of them have been frozen solid at temperatures
more than 30 degrees below zero F and still lived; other kinds inhabit
hot springs where temperatures reach 120 degrees F. Still others
survive in as great a vacuum as man has the power to create…many
insects can endure long periods without water; they possess fuel
reserves and can get the water they need by burning these reserves.
This is so-called metabolic water; it is produced by the burning of
carbohydrates in the body, where they are broken down into water and
carbon dioxide. (Farb, 1962, p. 11)
flea is an excellent example which illustrates how many insects, in
contrast to most vertebrates, can tolerate drastic environmental
changes. Fleas can typically survive for as long as 17 months without
blood, their main diet, until they find a host. One flea type which
preys on humans can exist as long as 500 days without nourishment. Of
the 1,200 species of fleas that exist (only about 200 make their home
in North America) some types can exist in a frozen state for months
and, after thawing out, are usually as healthy as before. After being
buried under thick layers of snow in the frigid Antarctic for as long
as nine months or more, as soon as they are freed they look for a
"host" on which to survive parasitically.
the infant fleas hatch, they spin cocoons in which to grow and mature.
Then, after becoming fully developed, they lie dormant within their
cocoons patiently waiting for a person or animal to pass by. When one
is discerned, usually by smell, the flea bursts rapidly from its cocoon
and "jumps" onto the host if it is within 36 inches (proportionate to a
human jumping about 550 feet). The flea, known for its great strength,
can pull 400 times its own weight. Farb (1962, p. 22) notes that fleas
are remarkable, but no living creature matches the beetle, the most
successful order of animals on earth:
total number of beetle species may be as high as 250,000… By
comparison, all the species of vertebrate animal – fish, amphibians,
reptiles, birds and mammals – total fewer than 36,000. At least three
characteristics contribute to this unparalleled success… Complete
metamorphose…an effective shield, protecting the soft body underneath
and the beetles have kept their primitive mouth parts, designed for
chewing abundant soft foods.
examples vividly illustrate the difficulty in developing an
evolutionary hierarchy as required by the theory. Rather than a
classical tree relationship as among animals, we find a variety that
defies any overall ranking system.
Intelligence and Survival
brain becomes more and more complicated as we go up the animal kingdom
scale. Vertebrates, animals with spines, have more nerves than
spineless creatures, and their brain is larger and more complex. This
enables vertebrates to effectively carry more messages from its more
complex body to its brain, which in turn must be more complex to deal
with this quantity and quality of information. The brain and most of
the body structures in "higher" animals are far more complex, requiring
many more neurons and their supportive neuroglia cells. This complexity
does not necessarily increase the animals' survival advantage, but it
often actually makes survival more precarious because more structures
exist to break down. Animals with more complex brains are also often
less able than lower forms to withstand some of the major environmental
pressures that supposedly originally caused their evolution, especially
temperature and food supply pressures (Colinvaux, 1978).
to what is often assumed, intelligence does not necessarily facilitate
survival, at least in the animals below humankind (Colinvaux, 1978).
The term intelligence is used here in the classical sense, and does not
refer to inherited instincts, without which almost no animal could
survive. Many animals which have almost no intelligence survive quite
well, including bacteria, insects, coelenterata, platyhelminthes
(flatworms), aschelminthes (roundworms), mollusca, and crustaceans.
Conversely, any animals which possess a comparatively much higher level
of intelligence, such as whales, dolphins and many primates, are now
threatened with extinction. With the exception of humans, a reverse
correlation often exists between the ability to survive and
of the most successful animals from an evolutionary standpoint, the
turkey, is considered one of the more inept members of the animal
kingdom. When frightened by thunder or other loud noises, they
sometimes pile up on top of other turkeys along their coop fence and
smother. They will even drown in their own water trough or stare up at
the sky during the rain storm with their mouths agape until they
suffocate! Although mankind is partly responsible for this condition
because turkey breeders are concerned primarily with size, and
certainly not with intelligence, those in the wild also exhibit most of
these traits. Turkeys may have survived until today partly because the
stiff horny spurs on the back of their legs are a fairly effective
defense against predators, and their mating process is very efficient.
In addition, they display unique behaviors such as creating small "dust
storms" which kill lice, mites, and other parasites that are prone to
live in their feathers. The dust blocks the breathing organs of the
parasites, killing them. Regardless of the reason, in spite of being
dangerously stupid, turkeys actually live longer and are hardier than
many other birds (Masckenzie, 1977).
that temperature and similar environmental factors caused the evolution
of human intelligence, which in turn has aided in our survival, are
common in the literature, but are often nothing more than speculation.
Pendell (1977, p. 76) for example, proposed that: "The population of
Homo erectus in Europe must have been thinned to almost zero by the
Mindel Glaciation. Only the few who boasted an almost Homo sapiens
intelligence could have survived." This conclusion is largely guesswork
which lacks empirical evidence and is also poorly conceived
intellectually. Those specimens that survived this ice age did not need
intelligence nearly as much as a good supply of food, firewood and
animal skins, plus access to warm caves and the insight to huddle
together under thick blankets by the fire. If a few of them possessed
reasonable intelligence, they could likely have directed the process of
locating food and the other necessary things for the whole tribe, or
better yet had known to move south as the climate changed. Humankind
has most always lived in groups and, with some notorious exceptions,
has always taken care of the weaker among them. The
children must be cared for by adults and, except in extreme cases,
rarely perish because of their lack of intelligence. If intelligence
impedes survival, it is often the group's or the tribe's leaders' lack
that causes most of the problems. The high level of group and social
support systems that are typical of primates makes it unlikely that
much winnowing out of the less intelligent generally occurs.
would also expect that the lower forms of life would display a low
level of tolerance for variations in such factors as temperature or
lack of regular food and water, and would need only certain kinds of
food to survive. Darwinian natural selection would also cause us to
expect that those organisms at the higher end would possess better,
often more complex organs which would help them to survive by blessing
them with a greater ability to:
1. Live for longer periods of time without food.
to these criteria, the so-called simpler forms of life tend to be more
evolved. As the law of parsimony (Occam's razor) predicts, if two
structures equally achieve the same results, the simpler structure (or
simpler explanation) is preferable. A simpler structure has fewer parts
to wear out or malfunction, and thus cause a breakdown. A clear
technology advance is the development of a machine which does the same
job with fewer parts, especially fewer moving parts, or with a less
example is the so-called simpler eyes of insects or ears of certain
animals which are more effective than the same structure in humans.
This fact questions the purpose from an evolutionary standpoint of more
complex structures. If a motorcycle will transport one to the next town
as effectively and quickly as a Cadillac, natural selection will not
evolve a Cadillac, even though this mode of transport may be much more
comfortable and luxurious. The functions of life, growth, survival, and
reproduction are all carried out as effectively if not more so in
bacteria, insects and worms as in humans. The major difference is that
humans travel through life with more luxuries. This concept, tailed
"over-design," supports for the creation world view (Bergman and Howe,
and greater ability to survive in spite of food deprivation would seem
to be a major thrust of Darwinian natural selection. Presumably, the
only limits are the ability to survive total deprivation, and to stop
and start one's total biological system at will. That it is possible is
proven in that some animals can evidently survive for centuries in a
state of extreme hibernation without food or water. DeGarmo (1982, p.
19) reported that bacteria brought by ship from earth, Streptococcus
mitis, apparently survived on the moon surface between April 1967 and
November 1969. The organisms were discovered in a piece of insulating
foam in a television camera retrieved from Surveyor 111 by the Apollo
astronauts. The ability to withstand greater and greater temperature
and other environmental changes, which would be determined by the
general ranges which exist in an area, also would evolve. Thus, no need
exists to evolve the tremendously complex organisms with the endless
variety of sense organs, communication and systems of locomotion that
are found everywhere in the real world, both today and far back in the
past. Selection would seem to eventually cause the evolution of the
most possibly fit animal (likely a single-celled organism) which would
eventually literally cover the earth, impeded only by space and the
availability of food – both which would affect only its ability to
reproduce. Even here, though, selection would increase its food
flexibility requirements to the extent that the cell could exist on
only oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and trace amounts of a few other
elements. The fact that this logical outcome of evolution is not found
argues against megaevolution by natural selection.
The Limits of Variation
research has verified that animals and plants can be bred only to a
certain point. Important economic reasons exist behind attempts to
breed prettier flowers and meatier cows, but nowhere are small
improvements as critical as the breeding of faster race horses. At
stake is many millions of dollars which can be gained even if the
breeding produces only a very small advantage. Hill (1988) in a study
of horse breeding concluded that, in spite of enormous efforts by the
leading geneticists, race horses today do not run much faster than
their great-great-grand-sires did, and many of the improvements "cannot
be attributed to genetic change, but to better training, health,
tracks, and wider screening of the population. He notes that "despite
the efforts of breeders," the winning times of thorougbreds in the
English classic horse races "have not fallen substantially over the
past fifty years" (1988, p. 678). This is not due to lack of effort,
but "the lack of improvement is disturbing because the horse-breeding
industry is a large and competitive business, with much attention being
paid to performance and to pedigree…we need to explain the apparent
selection limit…" (1988, p. 678).
it would be premature to conclude, especially in view of genetic
engineering progress, that the industry has exhausted all possibilities
of breeding a faster horse, it is clear that there are definite limits
which are fairly narrow. Breeding a slightly faster horse does not
argue against this, only that the limits may be slightly wider than we
currently assume (Caffney and Cunningham, 1988, p. 722). The Gaffney
and Cunningham study found that the best horses were not getting
faster, but the pack's arithmetic mean was higher. Although the gene
pool was improving, the top horses had reached their physical limit.
melanogaster research has found that excessive breeding of some traits
often produced sterility, thus we could expect that intense natural
selection, as repeatedly confirmed in the laboratory, would result in
sterility or other problems, not a new and better species however it is
Selection as Counter-Evolution
other problems exist with the claim that the animals which supposedly
had a longer evolutionary history and are more complex are the higher
forms, such as the mammals, birds, dinosaurs, etc. and that the lower
forms – insects to bacteria – are "primitive" and have historically
experienced little change. Intensive selection would logically
eventually cause the organism's extinction for the reason that it
results in a higher and higher level of adaption, thus a narrower and
narrower level of specialization, making it increasingly difficult to
survive environmental changes. Flexibility and a low level of adaption
to a specific niche appears to be far more important for survival than
a high level of fitness. Natural selection would then "select" animals
into a slowly narrowing ecological niche in which extinction would be
inevitable. The data cited above support the conclusion that animals
which are "higher" on the evolutionary scale are more likely to become
extinct – inferring that Darwinian "selection" tends to evolve animals
into a position in which they are more likely to be selected out of
existence. In other words, Darwinian selection, as presently
understood, almost invariably leads to extinction.
example of Darwinian natural selection theory carried to its limits and
selecting an animal out of existence, is the saber-tooth tiger. Its
demise is attributed to its large teeth which evolutionists also claim
were originally produced by selection. Their teeth evolved so large
that the cats evidently could not open their jaws wide enough to allow
entry of their normal food. This contradiction exists, it is argued,
because the environmental changes may produce a structure which is
advantageous in one situation but a handicap in another, and new traits
are actively selected for or against if the environment changes. No
known changes in the environment of the sabre-toothed tiger have
occurred to cause this, and both those factors for and those against
the trait would be operating at the same time. Selection must explain
both the existence of these gigantic teeth and the ultimate demise of
the animal (and it is not even clear if they caused the animal's
extinction). It cannot explain these factors for the reason that it can
cause only a fine-tuning of tooth size, not an extreme and, in this
case, non-functional development as Darwinian natural selection teaches.
is likewise hypothesized that the Irish Elks became extinct about
10,000 years ago, largely because of their enormous antlers – a trait
that is claimed was originally formed due to selection. The Irish Elk
(not an elk, but the largest deer known today) lived in Ireland and
also as far east as Siberia and China, and as far south as Northern
Africa. Its antlers were probably the largest of any animal, ever – up
to 12 feet long, sometimes longer than the elk's own body length and
weighed about 90 pounds (Gould, 1977, p. 79). It is assumed that the
antlers developed from selection, and nature continued to select until
the animal with them grossly lacked functional body proportions.
Darwin recognized that the natural selection theory had serious
problems. For example, Gould (1980, p. 32) noted, "Darwin lived to see
his name appropriated for an extreme view that he never held – for
Darwinism has often been defined, both in his day and in our own, as
the belief that virtually all evolutionary change is the product of
natural selection." According to Gould, Darwin openly objected to this
"misunderstanding" of his position. In the introduction of the 1872
edition of his Origins of the Species, Darwin stated:
2. Live on a wider variety and types of food (animals that metabolize most anything are ideal).
3. Live on food types that are abundant (as cellulose).
4. Live in large temperature variances (such as from 0 to 300 degrees Celsius, or close to these extremes.)
5. Resist or develop tolerance to many poisons, ions, acids and bases from a pH of 2 to 12 or wider, etc.
6. Effectively escape or defend themselves against predators of all types and sizes.
my conclusions have lately been much misrepresented, and it has been
stated that I attribute the modification of species exclusively to
natural selection,…in the first edition of this work, and subsequently,
I placed in a most conspicuous at the close of the introduction – the
following words: 'I am convinced that natural selection has been the
main but not the exclusive means of modification.' This has been of no
avail. (Quoted in Gould, 1980, p. 32)
major reason that Darwin took this position, Gould (1980, p. 32)
concludes, was because "…organisms display an array of features that
are not adaptations and do not promote survival directly." Darwin
attempted to explain away, or in some way account for these mechanisms,
but largely failed and he knew this. In respect to Homo sapiens, Grasse
(1977, p. 85-86) pointed out that, although the source of selection,
namely mutations, differentiate individuals, yet
human species, despite the magnitude of its population and the
diversity of its habitats, both of which are conditions favorable for
the evolution of the human species, exhibits anatomical and
physiological stability. In wealthy western societies natural selection
is thwarted by medical care, good hygiene, and abundant food, but it
was not always so. Today in underdeveloped countries, where birth and
death rates are equally high (tropical Africa, Amazon, Pakistan, India,
Patagonia, some Polynesian islands), natural selection can exert its
pressure freely; yet the human type hardly changes. In the population
of the Yucatan, which since the Spanish conquest has been subjected to
terrible vicissitudes, one can find Mayan men and women who are the
exact replicas of their pre-Colombian ancestors from Palanque of
Chicken Itza. For several millennia the Chinese have numbered hundreds
of millions. The conditions of their physical and social environment
have favored intensive selection. To what result? None. They simply
remain Chinese. Within each population, men differ by their genotype,
and yet the species Homo sapiens has not modified its plan or structure
or functions. To the common base are added a variety of diversifying
and personifying ornaments, totally lacking evolutionary value.
many, a key impediment to the acceptance of evolution, according to
Gould, is that Darwin argued that evolution has no purpose, but is
merely a process which both happens to result in increased numbers of
animal types in the future and improves their survival chances, and
were assumed to be the only measure of success. The more successful
species would have more of its offspring around; more would be
reproduced, and more would survive. From this vantage point, bacteria
are far more successful than elephants, thus more evolved. In the
selectionist's view, any harmony and order in the world arises solely
from an incidental and accidental result of individuals universally
selfishly seeking their own advantage – see Wilson (1975). In contrast
to this view, it is obvious that purpose is everywhere, and one who
asks why in the natural world can usually find empirically supported,
logical answers. As Darwin stressed, evolution has no direction, nor
does it inevitably lead to higher or more complex life, although most
evolutionists have written and argued as if it causes only movement
upward, from amoeba to humans. Selection selects only for adaptation to
local environments, and in their view this adaptation is achieved only
by cold cruel selection – some die, others live. Its "goal" is survival
only, and those who are more likely to survive are better adapted, and
thus are more likely to pass on their traits to their better offspring
selection would not evolve upward, for example, bacteria into humans,
but at best would evolve simple bacteria into better adapted bacteria,
or flies into better adapted flies. The fossil record shows no evidence
of anything beyond this. No clear example has ever been found of a
lower clearly less adapted animal in the fossil record which can be
shown to be evolutionarily related to similar, more advanced type of an
animal living today. There exist hypothetical cases and examples of
differences for which reasons for assumed changes are speculated, but
no example exists of an animal that lacks wings, and evolves such step
by step because these wings are clearly an advantage for it in escaping
predators. Not one wingless fly has ever been uncovered, although
millions of modern type flies preserved in amber have been uncovered.
The many examples we have, such as flies trapped in amber or animals
preserved in other ways, finds that, aside from the introduction of a
few mutations producing deevolution, there is virtually no difference
between the fossils and modem examples.
easy-to-grasp and compelling natural selection argument is used to help
explain all biological data, but it may actually explain very little.
Human life consists of many activities which are mentally pleasurable.
Walking in forests, listening to music, creating poems, doing
scientific research, aesthetic enjoyment of nature, and myriads of
other activities are often not related in the least to survival or
adaptation in the Darwinian sense. Some writers have struggled in vain
to "explain" by natural selection the existence of creations like music
and art, all of which involve extremely complex body structures to
accomplish. Music in its many variations is loved the world over, and
yet certain music preferences have not been shown to increase
reproduction rates or to facilitate survival. Many, if not almost all
of our most rewarding activities and "peak experience producers" are
not only unexplainable by this theory, but contradict it.
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