Reconstructing my notes for Dr. Charles Jackson‘s lecture was a bit difficult. His presentations did not really follow the outline provided in the registration packet. Daniel Hopkins, president of the Kanawha Creation Science Group who hosted the conference, warned me tongue-in-cheek that Dr. Jackson’s outlines are a fluid concept – a continually updated work-in-progress, if you will. This in no way detracts from the engaging nature of his lectures. You just find yourself so engrossed in his presentations that you forget to write anything down!
Dr. Jackson has been announcing the Death of Darwin, a conscious distancing of darwinists from Darwin’s original defunct theory, since 2005. As a further point of irony, this year’s 150th anniversary of Origins [coinciding with Darwin's 200th birthday] will also mark the need of the latest revision of this stillborn theory. Whether that qualifies Dr. Jackson as a prophet or simply as an insightful observer remains to be seen.
The point of his lecture was that though darwinist proponents present a public picture of overwhelming evidence [if the evidence for evo is so overwhelming, why am I so underwhelmed?], they are much more candid and critical amongst themselves. Dr. Jackson notes that, “They apparently don’t read each other’s mail, but I do!”
He began by relating a few pertinent quoptes from evolutionists on the limitations of their theory:
“Natural selection may explain the survival of the fittest, but it cannot explain the arrival of the fittest.”
- Hugo deVries quoting Dr. J. Arthur Harris, Species and Varieties: Their Origin by Mutation, 1905.
“[Natural selection] may have a stabilizing effect, but it does not promote speciation. It is not a creative force as many people have suggested.”
-Daniel Brooks, as quoted by Roger Lewin, “A Downward Slope to Greater Diversity,” Science, Vol. 217, 24 September 1982, p. 1240.
He might well have including the following one as well [though he did not]:
“His [Darwin’s] general theory that all life on earth had originated and evolved by a gradual successive accumulation of fortuitous mutations, is still, as it was in Darwin’s time, a highly speculative hypothesis entirely without direct factual support and very far from that self-evident axiom some of its more aggressive advocates would have us believe.” – Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis.
One of the problems with Darwinism is that Charles Darwin claimed that natural selection was a creative force, given the uniformitarian presumptions of Lyell’ s geology. Natural selection was documented more accurately by creationist Edward Blyth 20 years prior to Darwin as a passive, stabilizing force. Blyth’s natural selection is more in line with the Genesis account, where God creates animals ”after their kind.”
Dr. Jackson gave a nod to Dr. Mastropaolo, noting that since Redi and Pasteur have disproven spontaneous generation, naturalistic darwinism has no foundation.
He also noted the discovery of dinosaur contents in the stomache of repenomamus robustus, a opposum-sized mammal. It’s cousin repenomamus giganticus was the size of a pit bull. He notes how this discredits the picture of tiny shrew-sized mammals of no more than 1 meter scurrying and hiding in the shadow of the dinosaurs. Apparently, mammals were further on than the evo picture would like!
He also noted that missing links are still a problem for evolutionists. He elaborated on this point first by showing us an illustration featured in the March 19, 2007 issue of Newsweek magazine [entitled "The Evolution Revolution"] of the alleged “family bush” of ape-to-man evolution [featured on page 56 and entitled, "Origins of Humankind"]. He then demonstrated that while the illustration shows a clear path from ape to ape-man to man and while the article makes dogmatic statements about evolutionism, in actuality the entire scenario has been falsified. Several of the proposed missing links were actually identical species that had been given different names, but somehow they represented ancestral forms to themselves! In fact, when critics noted that one of the more recent [allegedly closer to human] links was more ape-like than its proposed ancestor [the exact opposite of how it's supposed to work!], the Church of Darwin said, “No problem. Evolution just went backwards for about a million years.” In fact, another ad hoc suggestion is that man-ape bipeds mated back with ape quadrupeds [ew!] for a while before the tow groups finally parted ways. [Again, ew!] Anyway… As for the rest, many were ruled out as ape-men after further analysis revealed they were either fully ape or fully human. When the dust settled, no ape-men remained as candidates for the missing link. [You can use the following link to view a portion of this presentation, used with Dr. Jackson's permission: dr-jackson-ppt-on-ape-to-human-family-bush]
He then turned his attention from the fossil record to genetics, noting that molecular clocks don’t really work and that DNA similarities as evidence for evo is a farce. He noted it is only natural that we should have more similar DNA with chimpanzees since we look the most alike – not because they’re our ancestors!
At the end of his lecture, Dr. Jackson discussed the up-coming Extended Evolutionary Synthesis [EES], which will be unveiled during next year’s Darwin celebrations. EES is slated to replace the Modern Synthesis [MS] more commonly called neo-Darwinism, that was patched together by the likes of Dobzhansky. He noted the need for significant revisions to Darwin’s stillborn theory is due to the fact that observational science is once again making a shipwreck of evo. To keep the naturalistic [pipe] dream alive, they are proposing a further revised darwinism which, according to Dr. Jackson, will not concentrate on genes or fossils. The meeting of the so-called Altenberg 16 led by Massimo Pigliucci was a concentrated effort to come up with a criterion fro what EES might look like. While Pigliucci denounces the idea is a theory in crisis, one can’t help but wonder why the Big Overhaul is necessary if it’s so solid?
When one reads Pigliucci’s notes of the A-16 meeting, we’re left with the possibility that EES will incorporate some sort of vitalism. At the very least, we are sure to be treated to some sort of magical “self-organizing principle” to explain the specified complexity of nature. This is sure to be a wide open door for more eco-nuttery. It’s possible that we’ll see some sort of a Gaia synthesis bordering on a religious philosophy. When I asked Dr. Jackson hypothetically if this became the case that EES would start having obvious pantheistic or vitalist religious overtones, if he thought we might be able to use the Establishment Clause to remove antiscience darwinism from USAmerican schools, he stated that he believed that under such a hypothetical situation, darwinism would still be taught from the secular angle in lower education. He thought that it might be introduced in graduate school perhaps. I think they’d soft sell it with a ”Save our Mother Earth” eco-nuttery approach at first, to get past the First Ammendment restriction, and get only into the more religious or philosophical portions in college or perhaps high school.
Speculation aside, one thing is clear: Despite Pigliucci’s objections to the contrary, Darwinism is again dead. While the public face of Darwinism protests, “Wait! There’s life in the old broad yet!” there is an other picture behind the scenes. They’re scrambling around the emergency room table, trying to pump new life into a theory that’s been dealt lethal doses of scientific truth. They forget that Darwin’s original Frankenstein theory was stillborn at best, but that won’t keep them from altering it beyond recognition while using fuzzy/slippery terms to claim that it’s really just the same old theory with some interesting new add-ons.
EEC is just more proof that the speculative nature of Darwinism makes it unfalsifiable.
“Why Granma, what a big imagination you have!”
“The better to dupe you with, my dear!”
Who’s afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf? Not me! I’m a bricklayer, baby!
–Sirius Knott
I wish you people really understood what you are talking about before writing nonsense, but I guess that really would be a miracle…
I hate to be a Doubting Thomas, but it seems like the Massimo Pugliucci I’ve read over at Rationally Speaking would make his objections more cogent. Just how exactly is what I’ve written nonsense?
-Sirius Knott
Fodor, part of the Alt-16 group, wrote a series of articles critical of the term “natural selection”.
He assumed Darwin said it was an effect, but Darwin actually said “…. it is a power incessantly ready for action….”
Many say natural selection is an effect; others, that it is a cause. They are all confused.
Natural selection, like the word fitness, isn’t a concept but a symbol string which is used by conscious individuals to encode their intent. All communication is encrypted, the symbol string “natural selection” is used to decode the intent.
But natural selection is a piece of grammatical gargoyle. Like a square circle, it can’t possibly exist – there is no such thing. This is what Young Earth Creationists, Intelligent Design theorists and Evolutionists just don’t understand, which is why this debate will never end. Our whole language has become undefined.
Nobody is scrambling about trying to prop up evolution even as it crumbles. This erroneous idea has been floating around for decades; I guess ‘Darwinism’ is falling apart really slowly.
‘Darwin 3.0 is about to be announced’? Do you think that science works according to press releases? I mean, will they get Steve Jobs to come up and announce all of the new features? Is that what you’re picturing?
The eyeless fly example is neither new or shocking, and I’m frankly amazed that you think it’s either. Does Mr. Hitchings cite where the experiments were carried out and in what journal the findings were published? Because I’ll gladly look it up and cover it fully on my blog.
I’m not sure why you think the development of a theory is a sign that it’s ‘weak’. That’s how science works. It might seem bizarre to someone who’s more comfortable with eternal, primitive ‘truths’, but that’s why nobody expects much out of the modern Creationist camp.
Why are you talking about pop science so much? Wouldn’t it make more sense to focus on the ‘primary’ sources?
Even a paradigm shift is not some sort of repackaged ‘version’ of evolution that will get shipped by a centralised body. What I’m refuting is not that such a shift may take place (in fact I’d be extremely interested if it did), but that this represents some sort of weakness in evolution or the scientific method.
As I’ve already told you, I don’t have enough money to buy superfluous books. Does the author you’re citing name the scientific paper he’s getting his information from or not?
The “fact” (said sooo loosely) rather imagination that “man-ape bipeds mated back with ape quadrupeds [ew!] for a while before the tow groups finally parted ways. [Again, ew!]” sounds so wrong.
I just wanted to also add EWWWW. This is natural selection at it’s finest? This is survival of the fittest? Well, for evolutionist sake they better hope they are right and that there is no Hell because I could see their vision of Hell (I like the use of Vision of Hell as Dante might have put it [although Dante was more imaginative than fact]) would probably have them having sex with apes to keep mankind alive!
Also, I would ponder what Ms. Noodle would say to this hypothesis especially when you take that into account with the fall of man, the need for a savior, the rest of Genesis…..well you get the idea.