The Atheist Blogger

150 years ago today, Charles Darwin published “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life“. A monumental book, considered by biologists around the world to be the foundation of evolutionary biology.

In the 150 years since its publication, evolutionary theory has expanded and grown in ways that Darwin himself could not have imagined. The discovery of the multitude of transitional forms that match Darwin’s original prediction, and the work of others (the prediction and subsequent discovery of Tiktaalik being perhaps the most notable) helped bolster the theory, and firmly establish it as scientific fact.

Not only that, but all discoveries of biology since Darwin proposed his idea have complemented it perfectly, with DNA confirming common ancestry, and the various evolutionary development experiments that have captured evolution in action^[1].

So, happy anniversary to Charles Darwin’s masterpiece! May it inspire many more of the generations to come!

Foreword:

Life sciences has always been a favorite hobby of mine.  It could be the latest genetics book, the zoo, the natural history museum, or even my curiosity on the internet, I love science.  I like how it explains where we are, where we came from, and where we are going.  It almost hurt something deeper inside me when reading the life science section of the In the Beginning creationist textbook that some would want to be taught “side-by-side” in science classrooms to give students a “choice”.

The book does suggests that its research was completed by evolutionists to further their credibility and has been suppressed by the scientific community. When looking at their notes, it appeared to be finessed cut and paste quotations, a wonderfully played sound-byte taken out of context.  Enjoy.

Life Sciences:  We’re All Mutants!

Scene:  Friday Morning, Elementary Science Classroom after new law states that creationism must be taught alongside all other existing science courses.

The new science teacher walks into classroom, “Attention students!  I want you all to write down the two definitions on the board, the first one is macroevolution, the second one is microevolution.  Macroevolution, also known as organic evolution, is a naturally occurring, beneficial change that produces increasing and inheritable complexity.  Microevolution does not involve increasing complexity and it only involves changes in size, shape, color, or other minor differences.

Acquitted characteristics, those gained after birth, cannot be inherited.  For example, large muscles acquired by a man in a weight-lifting program cannot be inherited by his child.  Nor, did giraffes get long neck because their ancestors stretched to reach high leaves.

Like this guy

However, stressful environments for some animals and plants cause their offspring to express various defenses.  New genetic traits are not created; instead the environment can switch on genetic machinery already present.  Natural section cannot produce new genes; it selects only among preexisting characteristics.

The variations Darwin observed among finches on different Galapagos island is another example of natural selection producing micro-evolution.  While natural selection sometimes explains the survival of the fittest, it does not explain the origin of the fittest.  Today, some people think that because natural selection occurs, evolution must be correct.  Actually, natural selection prevents major evolutionary changes.”

That would be a scary and confusing day.  Students would be left to interpret that giraffes were created to eat tall leaves, period, without a cause and effect for their existence.  The idea that new genetic traits are not created and are already present in each being leads to some interesting conclusions.  According to this, if zebras being chased by lions figured out that if they were rainbow colored, the lions could not see them, if zebra species then changed, it was only because they already possessed the gene for rainbow colors.

you can't see me

This logic suggests that every creature already possesses in it’s DNA every evolution it could become and that similarities in species do not point to a common ancestor. The fact that a European Wildcat and your typical house cat both have claws does not suggest anything but they had a efficient designer who couldn’t think of anything else to put at the end of their feet.

Back to the beginning of life, proteins and the first cell, the book goes on and on about how no scientist has ever replicated or even come close to what went down in the primordial soup.  This edition of  In the Beginning was published in 2008, I’m sure it was a casual oversight on the editor’s part to forget to mention the Miller-Urey experiment of 1952.  They created amino acids from virtually nothing but the conditions that were found on Earth before life.  Here, you can even do-it-yourself and learn more about the cool stuff they did.  I hope they include this experiment in the next edition.

Next, is fossils.  Where are all the transitional fossils or living creatures, fish to amphibian, amphibian to reptile, reptile to bird, etc.?  The book exclaims arrogantly that these gaps are real and will never be filled!

Besides this one

or this one...

I could not begin to start laughing because you already found it!  Just a few pages ago the book had a picture of the duckbilled platypus and explained that it was a mosaic species with no logical place in the evolutionary tree.  Wait what?  If something doesn’t make sense you just call it something else and say it wasn’t what, part of the plan?

That just doesn’t happen in science, if something “doesn’t fit” science always investigates and explains it.  In the May 8, 2008 publication of Nature, the draft sequence of the platypus genome, showed that the platypus has more than 80% shared common mammalian DNA, while the other 20% contained reptilian DNA. Many transitional species do die out, while a few rarities do survive, like the platypus.

screwing with your logic

The hardest classifications to accept were the ones used for pre-homo sapiens, the only two explanations given are either the category should have never been created (like homo erectus) or it was actually a human.  That’s right, Neanderthals are just humans who matured at a lower rate.

I'm just a little slow

Earlier, I told you how the book stated, “Natural selection prevents major evolutionary changes.”  It actually goes on to contradict itself when it claims that mutations are the only way new genetic material can be introduced and that almost all observable mutations, “has never produced a form of life having greater complexity and viability to it’s ancestors.”

That’s what this book has a hard time understanding!  We are all mutants!  Every single one of us.  Evolution (or micro-evolution as it’s called in the book) are multiple mutations, one after another, to create new variations and new species.  This book can not accept randomness.  Randomness does not allow for a higher purpose.

There are further attempts at explaining DNA that fall very short and is barely worth mentioning the argument since the book does not believe that mutations exist or that they could be beneficial.

The one argument in the Life Science section that didn’t even have to do with something breathing, and as far as I’m concerned, is the boldest statement I have read in this book so far.  It says, there is no evidence that languages have evolved.  I can understand and sometimes sympathize with the beliefs and misunderstanding of a species evolving and mutating, however, this statement says that one of the fundamental roots of culture never evolved.  The book says that simple languages did not evolve into complex ones or vice versa.

Language may not have the complex DNA and organ systems that you have a hard time understanding, but instead a collection every culture’s way of encoding and decoding information, that will always be evolving.  Maybe that’s what this book can not accept, something quite simple and sophisticated, continuously changing over time.

They liked to quote Darwin out of context during this section, so I will try to repair and sum up his idea of randomness over time, the concept this book can not grasp, ”…from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.”

For Next Time:

After much thought, I have decided not to tackle the second part of the book and split up the first part of the book into two sections.  It would be impossible in the amount of time that I have been given for this guest blog to argue with this book the following subjects (since they dissect each one at great length and in order to accept their conclusion, you would have to first accept that a great flood caused all of these):  the Grand Canyon, Mid-Oceanic Ridge, Continental Shelves and Slopes, Ocean Trenches and Ring of Fire, Earthquakes, Magnetic Variations on the Ocean Floor, Submarine Canyons, Coal, Oil, Methane Hydrates, Ice Age, Frozen Mammoths, Major Mountain Ranges, Overthrusts, Volcanoes and Lava, Geothermal Heat, Strata and Layered Fossils, LImestone, Metamorphic Rock, Plateaus, The Mohorovicic, Salt Domes, Jigsaw Fit of the Continents, Changing Axis Tilt, Comets, Asteroids, and Meteoroids.

If I am invited back, I would be more than happy to write about anyone’s favorite.

Find me around.

Dear Fans Of Atheist Blogger,

As Adrian has let you know, he’s on holiday and has asked  S. A. Alenthony and myself to guest blog in his absence.   A little background on myself before I get started, my name is Samantha, twenty-something from Chicago anywhere.  I’m a self-described avid reader, critical thinker, and video game addict. I like meeting creative people who have strong opinions of their own. Sometimes I visit museums, occasionally find myself on the internet, and I found my doppelganger when I wasn’t ever trying.

My doppelganger and I have very much in common, we even share the same name, we only differ in two ways – he’s a he and he believes in Jesus.  For us to have so much in common and only have it divided by such a harsh difference seemed to be a terrible shame.  I am (and as is he) very open to each other’s points of views and continue to challenge each other in new and exciting ways.  This time, he takes the cake.

About a month ago, I thought that maybe my doppelganger was not informed as well as he could have been since he had a different background from mine, so I took him to the Field Museum of Natural History.  Where else is such a brief time could someone absorb the knowledge they did not possess?

Sam vs. Sam

“Which of us is the evil twin?” my doppelganger began to ponder after our visit to the museum.  He thought, “What if I send her my beliefs and my understanding to her?  Sam, why isn’t my side taught in public schools.”

“Tell educators, publishers, museums, and the media to educate themselves and stop perpetuating misinformation and bad science.”

You would have thought that last statement was something that I said, but it’s actually In The Beginning (Compelling Evidence  for Creation and the Flood) by Walt Brown, Ph.D. preface, sent curiosity of my doppelganger.  You can see it on Amazon as well.

Now, as I begin to read this book, the introduction mentions the book contains three parts:  Part I – The Scientific Case for Creation, Part II – Foundations of the Great Deep, Part III Frequently Asked Questions.

This will be the first section of my project and during the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th I will take an unbiased approach to what the book is suggesting during it’s three separate parts and finally during my 5th and last section of this guest blog spot, I will critique and use your critiques from comments you posted on the book’s message.

Please keep in mind when referencing this book it refers to it’s intended reader to be anyone interested in the subject in the origin of life.  The ultimate goal of this book, as from reading the introduction, is to educate public school teachers.

A challenge had begun.  The first challenge being, even though I am an accomplished reader, how I was going to swallow over 400 pages of creationism.  It’s a lot easier when one-sentence epitaphs are yelled from across the internet at you, but 400 pages of my undivided attention, this was going to be a big one.

Wish me luck, a sample of the next post, here is the first diagram on the first page of chapter one.

Source

Earlier this month, Ray Comfort agreed (well, the second time) to a discussion with Thunderf00t. The rules were simple: the two men, one room, and one camera. Any questions were on the floor for discussion, and each man would get a copy of the video to use as they wished. As it turned out, Ray Comfort had a separate cameraman (for higher quality video I guess) in the room, but overall the debate was as stipulated.

Thunderf00t has uploaded the entire discussion, uncut from start to finish, and if you have a spare 90 or so minutes, I advise you watch it all! Ray Comfort’s points are torn apart in front of him one by one, as Thunderf00t explores the deeper meaning of Ray’s arguments (evidently not done by Ray himself) such as the “how do you know it is creation?” rebuttal to any claim of the kind “creation needs a creator” in reference to the universe itself.

Here is the entire debate as a YouTube playlist, so sit back and watch the Bananaman get defeated by common sense and logic, as played by Thunderf00t.

Enjoy!

The Royal Mint commissioned a special edition £2 coin in honour of Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday. The coin is a limited edition of 25,000, and mine arrived this morning!

Presentation Pack

The presentation pack (above) has a short but detailed biography of Charles Darwin, as well as information about Evolution, and of course the coin itself. I think the front of the coin is pretty awesome:

Darwin vs. Monkey

There are still coins available if you want to buy one. They cost £7.99 each (plus shipping), and well worth it if you want a nice souvenir of Darwin’s 200th year. You can buy the coin from the Royal Mint website.