In order to work, this is how it must work
Evolution depends on four great factors which are promoted as mechanisms which enable it to function. They are; chance mutations, natural selection, survival of the fittest and time – lots of time – the more the better. Because it requires vast amounts of time, evolution can only be a theory because in practice we do not have enough time to observe its process. For this reason there are still quite large gaps in the theory which cannot, as yet, be filled. These will be noted as we go along.
Mutations occur as the genetic code for the next generation is being laid down at the formation of each new generation of life, be it animal or plant. It is proposed that although most mutations are hostile to the formation of a new life, and the deformed creature dies out, every so often a mutation occurs which gives an advantage to its host. Because of this advantage the new life type survives better than its parents. This new genetic advantage is then transferred to its progeny so that as the numbers survive better and build up faster, the new strain of plant or animal either survives where the original is disadvantaged or survives alongside the original parent species as a new strain in its own right. It is by this process that life developed from its originally simplest form up to its incredibly complex state of today.
For example, it is quite possible that all bears were originally brown or black, but due to a genetic failure of the pigmentation gene, albino (white) bears appeared. As this pigmentation failure was passed on, the white bears who remained in forests were disadvantaged because they had lost their camouflage. But when they drifted north toward the snow, their white coat then became a camouflage advantage so that they survived in areas where the darker bears were distinctly disadvantaged. And that could well be the origin of polar bears.
Two stages
In order to understand the evolutionary process better I am going to propose that we break it down into two stages. The first stage is its beginnings. How did it actually get up and running in the first place? The second stage is: how does it function to develop new varieties of life? Both stages are essential in order to bring the first small spark of life all the way up to its incredible variety and sophistication which we see today. Now first of all I will deal with the second part of the process, the growth from simplicity to multiple varieties.
The first gap in the theory actually derives from the system of mutations, described previously, which is the foundation of the theory. Mutations are a loss or garbling of genetic information so we may explain how polar bears split off from brown bears, but what about the brown bear which had the gene for melanin in the first place? Where did they get their gene from? Unfortunately, evolutionists have no workable theory or observation which gives us a clue as to how new genes arose in the first place and this becomes a real problem when we realize that we humans have twice as much genetic information as bananas. The theory of evolution, based on mutations, has no suggestions for how an increase in the number of genes might occur and certainly, no observations of such a process.
Now let’s return to the first problem of how the evolutionary process got going in the first place. In order to understand what is going on here, we need to analyse the process more carefully.
First of all, every detail of every living organism is driven by genetic code. Without code nothing new or old appears in the next generation. Indeed, nothing appears at all, there simply cannot be a next generation. Which means that every new growth, good or bad, is the result of code - period. It would not matter if you docked lambs tails for a thousand years, lambs will always be born with tails until a genetic aberration leaves them tailless. It can never be the other way around. Code is never driven by external circumstances – never. Code drives all external developments.
Secondly, these genetic mutations ONLY occur between generations. If there were no next generation requiring its own new code to be written, nothing would ever change. The lottery which forms code by mixing the codes of the two parents only takes place at the conception of plant or animal. It is only this lottery which sometimes makes the mistakes on which mutational change is predicated.
Thirdly, the whole process of generational changeover is itself code driven. When a new generation is born, it only does so because a set of codes directed its birth process. This same set of codes also directs the process of writing a new set of directions into the code of the child in order to direct the construction of the following generation or grandchild which will arise from the child later on. The codes themselves are the result of codes for their own construction.
Fourthly, code driven instructions require a whole series of hardware which demand a full sequence with no detail omitted. To follow a crude analogy, we need a pen to write the code, a surface to write it on, a mechanism for reading it, an interpreting device for converting the information into practical results plus a copying device for writing the directions onto the new slate of the next generation. Which part of this process could be omitted and yet have the plan succeed at all?
Fifthly, the code writing into each new generation must be so perfect as to ensure the survival of the species through thousands of new generations to follow – which has happened. This level of required perfection is so great that only one or two mistakes in the copying process need occur before the new offspring die from malformation. But for the evolutionary process to take place, some mistakes need to be made which are beneficial. The delicate balance between the level of perfection and the level of mistakes must be very finely tuned in order to avoid extinction and allow for progress at the same time.
Finally, several sets of codes need to be written at the same time. Along with the instruction code for the next new code, there needs to be instructions for building the new progeny, for feeding it, for eliminating its waste and for protecting it The harsh original conditions which gave rise to life would also destroy it in its unprotected state. It needed a skin. So now we have several sets of instructions which, if any were missing, the organism could not survive or reproduce in order to evolve. In turn, this means that the very first day that the simplest life form emerged it would have needed all of these several sets of instructions.
As a matter of fact, so much instruction information is necessary to the formation, survival and reproduction of life that the very simplest form of life on earth, capable of living or evolving contains ten trillion letters of information in its code. This is a single cell creature which exists in our own gut.
This gives rise to the question as to how life could spontaneously arise by the formation of first one letter, then another letter or even subsequent bunches of letters when the instructions for generating letters, writing letters and reading the letters had not been written.
This is how evolution must work. The first protein enzyme magically possesses one letter of instruction. Then without sufficient letters of instruction to tell it to reproduce, it reproduces - many generations until it finds another letter which produces an advantage and so on until thousands of generations later it has enough instruction to feed and grow itself and finally to reproduce itself. Which begs the question, how did it do all those things before it had the written instructions to do so? Be reminded that evolution requires many generations to develop even one letter of instruction, let alone all the vast amount of information which does exist.
How did those early generational evolvements take place without the mistakes and successes programme necessary for the construction and trialing of new developments?
Because evolution has no beginning mechanism, it is very hard to figure out a method for its origin. In theory, it might work if the organism is already in existence with its generational instructions, but until early construction had built up an organism capable of profiting from the evolutionary programme how could such a programme get running in the first place?
To illustrate this futility I will take an example from a documentary I recently watched on the US court defeat of the idea of “Intelligent Design.” One of the Counsels presented the evidence for chances of advantage in the lottery of fertilization by shuffling a pack of cards then laying them out in the resultant sequence. He proposed that chance had produced a sequence which was unique and mathematically almost unrepeatable, thus proving that chance could produce anything. He carried the court with him because of the old trick of concentrating on one function alone to the exclusion of all other factors.
Now here’s the rub. To illustrate this point he needed to have cards in the first place. These cards had to be printed, plasticized, cut out, checked for correct numbers, packaged, sold, bought and transported to the courtroom. They then required the actions of a competent shuffler, followed by a reader who understood cards and an intelligent brain which could process and approve the results. But wait a minute - there is more. What about the construction of the printing press for printing the cards, the process of running it, the cutting machine for shaping the cards, the designing and manufacture of the inks, the designing of playing cards in the first place, etc. Now tell me this, which part of that whole process could be omitted and his experiment be successful? What if there was no printing, no cutting, no shuffling or monkeys were asked to do the reading at the end? Where would his point be then? This is why he had to confine the court room to a blinkered consideration of only one aspect of the process.
For the process of shuffling of genes to produce a new detail we must consider the whole scene, not the narrow view. For a shufflable code to exist it needs to be written on some sort of slate surface – the chromosome. To be useful there already needs to be some way of reading the code, then some mechanism for interpreting it, then some way of transferring its directions into real objects and processes resulting in a child of the parent, then next a method of growing and sustaining that entity to the point where a new slate could be formed then a method of copying the instructions onto that new slate. Which part of that process could be omitted and evolution still take place?
What I have said is that just like with the playing cards, a very fancy infrastructure needs to exist just to make shuffling possible, let alone the lottery of what might transpire from that shuffling.
As a method for beginning things, evolution is impossible. Initially there is not enough infrastructure in place to allow the copying process to occur which makes it possible to generate mistakes, beneficial or otherwise. Without such mistakes no evolving can occur. Evolution is based on changeover, changeover results from code. What established the code which directs the process by which evolution works? Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Only if an organism can reproduce can it evolve because evolution only takes place during the process of reproducing. So how did it develop the clever mechanism of reproduction in order to evolve the clever mechanism of reproduction?
Coming backwards
This whole process is like having to scale a cliff face. The face is so sheer that it can only be scaled by pulling oneself up by a rope. The trick is to get the rope secured at the top so that it can be climbed up so that a rope can be secured at the top, so that it can be climbed…..etc, etc. Evolution can only work backwards. We find the rope already in place, but no one knows how it got up there in the first place. The process of evolution can only be described after that point where its clever machinery is already set up. How evolution took place before that clever machine was in place is impossible to describe because it is humanly impossible to describe a process which doesn’t work.
I was once given a calendar of drawings by an artist who created these two dimensional pictures which appeared perfectly feasible until you tried to create them in three dimensions. One was of water falling into a channel which flowed out the other end into another channel and so on until the water actually fell into the original waterfall. It looked OK, but anyone trying to make it in real life would be stumped. That’s how evolution works, alright on paper but try transferring that to reality.
I can as easily explain the evolutionary process as I can explain how the earth is flat or how perpetual motion works. One cannot explain what cannot work. The impossibility of evolutionary function reflects the degree of desperation in a mind excessively anxious to avoid a god. |