Icons of Evolution: A Science or a Myth? - Author's Introduction

Icons of Evolution: A Science or a Myth? - Author's Introduction Preface During my years as a university student in the physical sciences, and then as a graduate student in the biological sciences at UC Berkeley, I believed almost everything I read in the literature. I knew that books contained some typographical errors and a few real ones, and I was skeptical of philosophical claims beyond the evidence, but I thought that most of what I was learning was absolute truth. However, as I was finishing my Ph.D. in developmental and cellular biology, I noticed that all references to evolutionary biology contained scandalous falsifications; published drawings of vertebrate embryos, showing similarities presumably evidence of regression from a common ancestor, but as an embryologist I knew those drawings were fakes. They not only misrepresented the embryos they displayed, but also omitted to mention the advanced stages in which the embryos appeared to be different from each other. I confirmed my assessment of embryonic drawings in 1997, when the British embryologist Michael Richardson and his colleague published an article in Anatomy and Embryology to compare the drawings published in textbooks to real embryos. Richardson’s words were well-regarded in Science: “It seems to be one of the most famous lies in biology.” Since then, I’ve discovered that many reference drawings and textbooks skew evidence in favor of evolution as well. At first, I couldn’t believe it. How could all those references contain all those distortions for so long? Why didn’t you notice? At the very least, it suggests that Darwinism encourages distortions of the truth. The number of distortions that have occurred unintentionally, and the number that have occurred intentionally, remains worth considering. To document it, I quote the peer-reviewed work of hundreds of scientists, many of whom believe in Darwinian evolution. To quote them, this does not mean that I want to show them as rejectionists of Darwin’s theory, and most of them do not. I avoided technical language as much as I could, but for those who would like to see more details, I included at the end of the book extensive notes for scientific references. Of course, the notes are not intended to be exclusive, except for the list of sources of quotations, but to help readers who want to expand on the case. The icons were followed by two appendices: one that holds up to ten widely used bio-references in universities and high schools, and the other that suggests cautionary phrases such as those used on cigarette packs that schools might want to put on teaching materials to warn of these distortions. Some of those who helped me with the technical details of certain sections or chapters include: Lydia McGraw (Introduction), Dean Kenyon and Royal Truman (The Yuri Miller Experiment), John Wester (Cambrian Explosion in Darwin's Tree of Life Chapter), W. Ford Doolittle (The Evolution of the Molecular Varieties in Darwin's Tree of Life Chapter), Brian K. Hall (Symmetry in the Peripherals of Decay). My mention of these here does not mean that they agree with my views. On the contrary, many of them will disagree with my conclusions and recommendations. But for these wonderful people, science is a search for the truth, and I owe it to them to help me get the facts straight. And of course, any mistake that may have remained is mine and not them. As for those who had the patience to read and comment on large parts of the book, some of them (alphabetically speaking) could have helped: Tom Bethel, Roberta T. Bediner, Bruce Chipman, Willem Dembski, David K. DeWolf, Mark Hartwig, Philip Johnson, Paul Nelson, Martin Boweny, Jay Weasley Richards, Erica Rogers, and Jodie F. Sjorn (who did most of the drawings). I am also grateful for the research assistance I received from many people, especially Winslow G. Gerrish and William Kvasnikoff, and from the Natural and Medical Sciences Libraries team at the University of Washington in Seattle. I was generously funded by the Center for Cultural and Scientific Renewal (www.crsc.org) at the Discovery Institute in Seattle. Introduction “Science is the search for truth,” said chemist Linus Pauling (the two Nobel Prize winners). Bruce Alberts (current president of the National Academy of Sciences) agreed in May 2000, when, quoting Shimon Peres, he said: “Science cannot coexist with lies.” For most people, myth is the antithesis of science. A myth is a myth that satisfies a subjective need or reveals something profound about the human psyche, but, as in usage, it is not an explanation of objective truth. Roger Lewin, the former scientific editor, says: “Most scientists fail when the word “myth” is applied to what they see as truth, but of course science has mythological elements, because all the projects that human beings undertake are capable of doing so.” When the closest thing we have to a correct understanding of the natural world is provided, science has provided us with a safer, healthier and more productive life; if science were not the search for truth, our bridges would not have carried the weight we put on them, our ages would not have lasted, and modern technological civilization would not have existed. Without stories, we don’t have any culture, but we don’t call on storytellers to build bridges or perform surgeries, preferring people who are experienced in understanding the realities of metals and bodies. Natural Science as a Disciplined Practice Philosophers of natural science have answered this question in different ways, but one thing is very clear: any theory that claims to be scientific must somehow be compared to the results of observations or experiments. According to the Handbook of Science Education, published by the National Academy of Sciences in 1998, “science would test and retest explanations by putting them to the test of the natural world.” Theories that pass repeated tests may be a temporary correct description of the world, but if there is a constant conflict between theory and evidence, the theory should be subject to what the evidence dictates, as the 17th-century philosopher of science Francis Bacon said: We must obey nature to be able to harness it. The examination of theories in the light of evidence is a never-ending process, and the American National Academy of Sciences handbook correctly stated that: "All knowledge belonging to the natural sciences is subject to change as new evidence becomes available", it does not matter how long a theory is adopted, nor how many scientists believe in it at the moment; because if the contradiction between the evidence arises, we must re-evaluate the theory, or abandon it altogether. This process is known within the scientific community as peer review, and some scientific hypotheses are so specialized that they can only be correctly evaluated by individuals specializing in the same field, and in such cases peer reviewers are few experts. But in many cases, the average person may have the efficiency to judge the evidence to match the efficiency of the experienced scientist, for example, if a theory of gravity predicts that heavy objects will not need to be attracted to the top The manual of the US National Academy of Sciences acknowledged this in its opening phrase, adapted from Thomas Jefferson’s call: “To spread knowledge among the people, no firmer foundation can be laid than this to preserve the freedom and happiness of the people.” U.S. District Judge James Graham asserts the wisdom of Jefferson in the Ohio Journal in May 2000: "Science is not an unfathomable priestly thing. Anyone with a reasonable intelligence can with some perseverance understand and evaluate scientific theory.” The pamphlet of the US National Academy of Sciences and Judge James’s press article have been written in the context of the current debate over the theory of evolution, but the booklet was written to defend the theory of evolution, while the other was written to defend some of the critics of the theory; In other words: Its defenders and critics alike appeal to the wisdom and intelligence of the American people to resolve this disagreement. This book is based on the conviction that scientific theories in general, and Darwinian evolution in particular, can be evaluated by any intelligent person who can obtain evidence. But before looking at the evidence of evolution, we must first know what evolution means. What's evolution? Bioevolution is the theory that all living things have descended from a common ancestor that lived in the distant past, and that the author and reader of these lines have descended from ape-like ancestors, and that these ancestors have in turn descended from more primitive animals. This is the basic meaning of evolution for biologists. "Biodiversity means that organisms have common ancestors, and over time evolutionary changes cause new species, and Darwin called this process "Descent with Modification." For Charles Darwin, the theory of evolution was the origin of all existing organisms after the first. He wrote in The Origin of Species: "I see that all beings did not exist by their own creation, but that they were descendants of a few other beings" who lived in deep time. Darwin believed that the reason for the great differences we currently see between organisms was not simply change through natural selection, or the law of survival for the fittest. Only the existence of change over time will not find people arguing about this theory at all, as no one believes that biological evolution is just a change over time. To be sure, this happens, because all beings within a species are bound together by a regression with change; we see this in our families, and farmers and plant- and animal-breeding people notice it, but this is beside the point of real contention. The real conflict is whether regression with change explains the emergence of new species, or rather all species. Like the idea of change with time, the idea of regression with change within a single species is not at all controversial; Darwinian evolutionary theory claims more than that, arguing that regression with change explains the emergence and diversity of all living things. The only way to test the validity of this claim is to examine it in the light of observations or experiments, and, like all other scientific theories, Darwinism must be constantly presented with evidence. If you disagree with it, it is re-evaluated or abandoned; otherwise, science becomes a myth. Evidence of Evolution When asked to enumerate the evidence for Darwinian evolution, most people, including biologists, answer with the same set of evidence; they all take it from the same few methodological references. 1) A laboratory vessel that simulates the Earth's primordial atmosphere and the result of passing an electrical spark in which the chemical units necessary to build living cells are produced. 2) The tree diagram of the evolution of life; which was drawn based on a large and growing amount of molecular and fossil evidence. 3) The similarity of bone structure between a bat wing, a dolphin fin, a horse man and a human hand indicates the evolutionary origin of a common ancestor. 4) Images showing similarities between early embryos, proving that amphibians, reptiles, birds and humans are descended from fish-like animals. 5) Archaeopteryx; a fossil bird with teeth in its jaws and claws in its wings, represents the missing link between ancient reptiles and modern birds. 6) Peppered English moths; they hide their new color corresponding to the color of tree trunks and avoid predatory birds, which is the most famous example of natural selection. 7) Darwin's sparrows in the Galapagos Islands; 13 separate species descended from a single origin, natural selection produced changes in their beaks, and this evidence inspired Darwin's theory. 8) Fruit flies with an extra pair of wings prove that genetic mutations can provide us with the raw material for evolution. 9) The branching tree model of horse fossils, which refutes old ideas that evolution is directed. 10) Drawings of ape-like creatures that evolve into humans, proving that we are just animals, and that our existence is only a marginal product of natural causes and not a purpose behind them. These examples are commonly used as evidence to prove the theory of evolution, so much so that most have been called icons of evolution, but all of them are just distortions of the truth in some way. Science or superstition? In Stephen Jay Gould’s words, “they embody concepts masquerading as neutral descriptions of nature,” some hide behind the broad scientific debate among biologists that deeply threatens the theory of evolution. Most biologists are not aware of these problems, as most work in fields far removed from biological evolution, and most of their knowledge of evolution is limited to what they have learned from the same books, magazine articles, and television documentaries that are presented to the general public. These books and public presentations rely mainly on evolution icons; therefore most biologists see icons as real evidence of evolution. Some biologists are aware of the difficulties surrounding a particular icon because it is related to their field of research. They are aware of its contradiction with scientific evidence through their specialized knowledge, and the scientist can clearly see when reading research in his field that it is false or incorrect, but he may think it is just a simple problem isolated, especially when he is sure that Darwin's theory is supported by a large amount of evidence directly in other areas. On the other hand, if the sounds of these concerns come out, others will not listen to them, because the criticism of Darwinian evolution is not favored among English-speaking biologists, and perhaps this is why knowledge of the problems of evolution icons is not widely spread, and therefore many biologists are surprised as well as the public when they learn the truth of the problems of these icons (evidence). In the coming chapters, we will show evolution icons on the published scientific evidence, and we will reveal how much error we teach our students about evolution. This fact raises a serious question about the status of the theory of evolution: if these icons are the best evidence we have to prove Darwinian evolution, and all of them proved to be wrong or false, what is the correct description of the theory? Dr. Jonathan Wells PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology - Dr. Jonathan Wells. — Source: Brahin Center website - Posted on 2015-01-22 (archived at the Internet Archive) https://braheen.com/publications/intros/أيقونات-التطور-مقدمة-المؤلف