Problems with conventional evolutionary theory

[expiated]

Perhaps the vast majority of people believe that Charles Darwin’s theory proposing continual evolution of species published in 1859 and titled On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life fully explains the origins of biological diversity.

However, honest and fair-minded men and women of science such as Denis Noble recognize that Neo-Darwinism ignores much contemporary molecular evidence and invokes a set of unsupported assumptions about the accidental nature of hereditary variation.

More specifically, not only are Neo-Darwinists ignoring important rapid evolutionary processes such as symbiogenesis, horizontal DNA transfer, action of mobile DNA and epigenetic modifications, some have even elevated Natural Selection to a unique creative force that solves all the difficult evolutionary problems without a real empirical basis.

As a believer who has witnessed time again how those who have stated that biblical accounts are not supported by history have often had to "eat their words" as new historical documents and artifacts have been discovered or uncovered which proved otherwise, I would not be surprised to see the same type of phenomena occurring in the area of science as well.

As a career educator, I feel I have a duty and a responsibility to share such developments with students. Unfortunately, virtually all of the science books produced by today’s main textbook publishers—not to mention the general public and even many scientists—are not aware of decades of research in evolutionary science, molecular biology and genome sequencing which contradict Darwin’s explanations for how novel organisms have originated in the long history of life on earth.

I hope to use this thread to begin exploring some of these alternative ideas in language accessible to the average elementary, middle, and high school student in preparation for publishing educational materials of my own—especially on how the DNA record does not support the assertion that small random mutations are the main source of new and useful variations, along with empirical data on areas that have been glossed over by Neo-Darwinian viewpoints.

 

[ph1l]

the DNA record does not support the assertion that small random mutations are the main source of new and useful variations

That's correct.
https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/mutationsanddisorders/evolution

Not all mutations lead to evolution. Only hereditary mutations, which occur in egg or sperm cells, can be passed to future generations and potentially contribute to evolution.

 

[expiated]

Did humans evolve from ape-like ancestors?
(Based on a presentation by Dr. Fazale Rana)

When looked at objectively, the popular notion that human beings evolved over vast periods of time through a series of transitional intermediate forms seems to be at odds with the fossil record, even though many people would argue that such discoveries provide powerful support that human beings did indeed come from monkeys.

But if this evidence is so strong, why did Charles Dawson feel compelled to invent Piltdown Man by assembling a hodgepodge of human and orangutan bones (using dental putty to hold the teeth in place), wearing them down with a file, and staining them with iron and acid to give them the appearance of age?

Why did scientists build an entire ancient hominid labeled the “Nebraska Man” around a misidentified pig’s tooth?

This example of a horrendous misinterpretation of fossil remains and of an outright forgery illustrate how scientists can, in their desperation to find transitional intermediate fossils, be led by preconceived ideas in place of scientific integrity and rigor, or to see what they want to see when it would be more appropriate for them to exercise objectivity and to subject even their own findings to the strongest scientific scrutiny.

Such incidences notwithstanding, there are vast numbers of fossils that have been discovered which really do appear to document the existence of genuine hominid creatures, and in fact, there are probably 15 to 20 different species that have been discovered in East Africa, South Africa, Central Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe which appear between six million years ago to about a hundred thousand years ago (when modern humans appeared on the scene).

But, just because these hominids exist in the fossil record doesn’t mean they necessarily represent transitional intermediates going from ape-like creatures to modern humans. Clearly these creatures once walked the earth, but one cannot simply assume they were our ancestors, for it is possible that they were no different from any number of other creatures that existed on earth for a period of time and then later went extinct.

If these hominids are to be considered true evidence for human evolution, they must satisfy two requirements:

1. They must form a very clear evolutionary pathway through the hominid fossil record connecting an ape-like creature to modern humans.
2. They should serve as clear evidence for transitional forms in the fossil record that document this pathway.

As it turns out however, many of the hominids touted (in student textbooks) as our ancestors—creatures like Lucy, Homo habilis, Homo antecessor, Homo erectus and Neanderthals—are considered by today’s evolutionary biologists to be dead ending evolutionary side branches.

Most evolutionary biologists do not believe that these creatures are part of the direct evolutionary ancestry of modern humans. In fact, evolutionary biologists cannot point to hominids in the fossil record that clearly have a direct connection to modern humans. Again, the hominid fossil record does not show direct connection to modern humans. There is an absence of clear transitional forms and there is no clearly documented evolutionary pathway that exists in the fossil record that can account for the origin of humanity.

Yet another requirement is for there to be the gradual emergence of brain size, the ability to walk erect (bipedalism), and advanced human culture, given that these are defining features of human beings. Again, if these emerged through an evolutionary process, we should see a gradual increase in brain size, a gradual emergence of the ability to walk erect, and the gradual emergence of a sophisticated culture.

But the fossil record does not exhibit gradualism. Rather, it evidences sudden appearances. For example, the evolutionary model has long held that when hominids were forced from a woodland environment into the open savanna, this drove the ability of these creatures to stand erect, and then begin to walk around on two feet to promote their survival.

Now, going from a knuckle-walking ape to a creature that can stand erect and move around through bipedal locomotion requires a wholesale reworking of the anatomy, and one would expect this reworking of the anatomy to take place over a vast period of time.

But instead of seeing a gradual emergence, bipedalism appears rather suddenly, with the very first hominids able to walk erect living in a woodland environment—not in an open savanna—meaning there is no identifiable evolutionary driving force one can assign responsibility for the origin of bipedalism.

And not only does bipedalism turn up rather suddenly, once it does, it appears to undergo vast periods of stasis, with no evolutionary change.

Scientists used to think that creatures like Lucy were walking around with a very crude form of bipedalism, and that it was only later in the natural history of hominids with the emergence of Homo erectus that the type of bipedalism modern humans use appeared.

But it now turns out that Lucy seems to have been walking erect just like Homo erectus, Neanderthals and modern humans. In other words, there is not a progression from crude bipedalism to sophisticated bipedalism. Rather, bipedalism appears all at once and in a very sophisticated form at its earliest appearance. (This does not match what one would predict from the evolutionary model.)

And finally, regarding the origin of sophisticated human behavior…though it is true that hominids such as Homo habilis, Homo erectus and Neanderthals made tools and had a culture of sorts; the types of tools they made were crude and cumbersome. In fact, what they did is comparable to what we observe chimpanzees and gorillas doing in the wild today. Their behavior was no more sophisticated than that of today’s great apes.

And when they made these tools, when these new “technologies” appeared on the scene, they remained unchanged for up to a million years in some instances without any kind of appreciable development or advancement.

On the other hand, when humans appear on the scene, suddenly we see an incredibly sophisticated tool kit, along with incredibly sophisticated manufacturing practices. And we see art for the first time, as well as music, religious expression and the capacity for symbolic representation and thought (known as the “sociocultural big bang”). It happens explosively virtually out of nowhere as soon as modern humans appear on the scene.

So in conclusion, when we look at the hominid record, while it’s clear that these creatures did indeed exist, it is extremely difficult to argue that they somehow demonstrate the validity of human evolution.

 

[FortuneTeller]

So what is the point of this thread? To prove that a God created man out of thin air?

 

[ph1l]

How does one explain this evidence?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Human_timeline

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Life_timeline

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Nature_timeline

 

[expiated]

So what is the point of this thread? To prove that a God created man out of thin air?

I hope to use this thread to begin exploring some of these alternative ideas in language accessible to the average elementary, middle, and high school student in preparation for publishing educational materials of my own—especially on how the DNA record does not support the assertion that small random mutations are the main source of new and useful variations, along with empirical data on areas that have been glossed over by Neo-Darwinian viewpoints.

 

[expiated]

Did humans evolve from ape-like ancestors?
PART II
(From a presentation by Dr. Fazale Rana)

Many people are convinced that there is overwhelming scientific evidence for human evolution. But the irony is that some of the latest advances in understanding the origin of humanity are actually providing incredibly provocative evidence that suggests the human race may have indeed originated from a single man and woman.

There is a new area of anthropology known as molecular anthropology where scientists are comparing the genetic variability of people around the world from different people groups, and this genetic variability tells them information about the origin of humanity.

For example, by looking at DNA sequences, the similarities and differences of DNA sequences taken from people around the world, they can construct the history of human beings from the very beginning. They can get information about when human beings were likely to have originated (the approximate date and general location of humanity’s origin), an estimation of the population size of the first humans, and the early migration pattern for humanity’s spread around the world.

So, when scientists compare the genetic variability of people across the globe, what they conclude is that humanity must have originated relatively recently on the order of about a hundred thousand years ago (not a couple of million years ago as held by the traditional evolutionary models), that humanity originated in a single location (which was most likely East Africa), and that humanity originated from a very small population of individuals.

Moreover, in looking at mitochondrial DNA—at small pieces of DNA found in the organelle known as mitochondria which has an inheritance going from mother to daughter and traces the maternal lineage of humanity—it appears as if humanity originates from a single individual who scientists call "Mitochondrial Eve."

And when looking at the Y-chromosomal data—a piece of DNA that is inherited from father to son and traces the paternal lineage of humanity—scientists see the same type of result. It looks as if humanity originated from a single male individual who the scientific community refers to as "Y-chromosomal Adam."

Again, it looks as if humanity originated relatively recently, in a single location, from a very small population, traceable back to a single man and woman. In other words, the genetic data seems to support the idea that humanity originating from a primordial pair, and this is fundamentally at odds with the evolutionary paradigm.

 

[ph1l]

Again, it looks as if humanity originated relatively recently, in a single location, from a very small population, traceable back to a single man and woman. In other words, the genetic data seems to support the idea that humanity originating from a primordial pair, and this is fundamentally at odds with the evolutionary paradigm.

Maybe not according to https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelmarshalleurope/2018/11/26/no-humans-are-probably-not-all-descended-from-a-single-couple-who-lived-200000-years-ago

No, Humans Are Probably Not All Descended From A Single Couple Who Lived 200,000 Years Ago

Michael MarshallFormer Contributor
Science
I write about evolutionary biology, earth science and the environment

The idea that humanity started with a single couple has been around for a while

GETTY
"All humans are descended from just TWO people and a catastrophic event almost wiped out ALL species 100,000 years ago, scientists claim". "Scientists Claim Humans Are Descended From Two People". "New Research Has Concluded That All Humans Are Descendants Of Just One Couple Who Lived 200,000 Years Ago".

Those headlines give the impression that science has produced evidence to support the story of Adam and Eve. But the study they rest on does not demonstrate anything of the kind, and other lines of evidence strongly suggest that past human populations were always much larger than two.

The study in question was actually published in May and received coverage at the time, but has been picked up again. Its authors were Mark Stoeckle of Rockefeller University in New York and David Thaler of the University of Basel in Switzerland. It appeared in the journal Human Evolution, and it is "open access" so anyone can read it.



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The study is about DNA barcoding: the technique of reading a small chunk of an organism's DNA and using that to identify its species. To identify an animal, geneticists usually look at a gene called cytochrome oxidase 1 (CO1). This gene is not part of the "main" genome held in the nucleus of animal cells, but instead is carried in the mitochondria: tiny sausage-shaped organelles that swarm inside animal cells and provide them with energy.

DNA barcoding is not a perfect method of identifying species, but it works pretty well. That's because, as the study observes, animals belonging to one species tend to have near-identical CO1 genes, which reliably differ from animals of other species.

Because CO1 genes are so similar within species, regardless of how many individuals there are, Stoeckle and Thaler argue that something must have made them that way. Either evolution is somehow pushing each species to have its own version, which seems unlikely, or each species has had almost all its genetic diversity purged - which implies that its population was once very small.

What's more, these population bottlenecks seemingly all occurred between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago.

Much of the coverage has interpreted this as implying some sort of global event, an unspecified catastrophe that slashed the population of pretty much every animal species. However, Stoeckle and Thaler do not argue that, saying instead that species experience bottlenecks every few hundred thousand years due to the rough and tumble of life.

Thaler was quoted by Fox News saying that "all of animal life experiences pulses of growth and stasis or near extinction on similar time scales". He listed possible explanations: "ice ages and other forms of environmental change, infections, predation, competition from other species and for limited resources, and interactions among these forces".

The finding of a population bottleneck also applies to humans. The human genetic data, according to the study, is "consistent with the extreme bottleneck of a founding pair".

The idea of humans being reduced to a population of two, who then had to repopulate the planet, has understandably drawn people's attention. But this idea is almost certainly wrong, for a host of reasons.

First, we should always be hesitant about drawing big conclusions from mitochondrial DNA, and especially from a single gene - even if that gene has been examined in hundreds of species. Mitochondrial DNA is only inherited from one's mother, so it necessarily only tells us about the female line. More importantly, because there is so little of it, it often misleads us. When the mitochondrial genome of Neanderthals was sequenced, it showed no sign that humans and Neanderthals had interbred. The interbreeding was only revealed when the Neanderthal nuclear genome was read.

Second, there is no trace in the geological record of any global event in the last 200,000 years. Any event that slashed populations that significantly would surely have led to a noticeable spike in the extinction rate, and there isn't one. There are of course the extinctions linked to humans, but those occurred at separate times and locations, not simultaneously across the planet.

Indeed, the study's finding that the event occurred between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago is too vague to imply a single event. It's a bit like saying that the Napoleonic Wars happened after the fall of Mycenaean Greece but before 9/11. The suggested timespan is so vast, there is no reason to invoke a single event at all.

The whole pattern can be explained much more easily by saying that a lot of new species evolved over the last few hundred thousand years. That would not be surprising, because most species are indeed fairly young.

We don't know for sure how long the average species lasts, partly because the fossil record is imperfect and partly because we don't have a firm definition of what a species is anyway. But it's been estimated that species typically last somewhere between 500,000 and 10 million years. It follows that a lot of species on Earth must have originated in the last few hundred thousand years. For instance, polar bears have been estimated to be about 400,000 years old as a species.

Stoeckle and Thaler's findings would have us believe that 90 per cent of species are less than 200,000 years old. I don't think their mitochondrial DNA data is enough to show that, and studies of whole genomes and fossils will give us more reliable dates that I would expect to be older. But they won't be that much older. Given that the planet has been in and out of glacial periods over the last 2.5 million years, plus all the upheavals caused by humans and our extinct relatives, the finding that most species alive today are fairly young shouldn't surprise us.

What about our own species? First, Stoeckle and Thaler only ever said that their data was "consistent" with the existence of a founding pair. That doesn't mean much, and they immediately conceded that the same pattern could have arisen "within a founding population of thousands that was stable for tens of thousands of years". The fact is, genomic data doesn't do a great job of revealing the sizes of past populations except in broad-brush terms. The human population was probably pretty small for a long time, but there is no reason to think it was two.

Finally, the archaeological record tells a different story. It used to be thought that our species was about 200,000 years old, which would fit Stoeckle and Thaler's data. However, in 2017 fossils uncovered at Jebel Irhoud in Morocco turned out to belong to our species, and they were around 300,000 years old. What's more, our lineage split from that of the Neanderthals (our closest extinct relatives) roughly 500,000 years ago, so arguably our species is 500,000 years old. 200,000 years ago does not appear to have been a particularly special time in the history of our species.

 

[Ayn Rand]

Maybe not according to https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelmarshalleurope/2018/11/26/no-humans-are-probably-not-all-descended-from-a-single-couple-who-lived-200000-years-ago

You are quoting a Creationist - Dr. Fazale Rana.

I am of the opinion that evolutionary biology has fundamental problems but they are not the ones you are highlighting.

A convenient way to contemplate the debate is

Evolutionary Biology = No Help Intelligent Design (Creationism) = Help

1. A strong argument for common descent is the reduction in chromosomes in Homo Sapien from 48 chimapanzees to 46 Homo Sapien. The strength in this evidence is that there is a very strong match between chimp chromosomes #12 annd #13 and human #2.

#2 being a combination of #12 and #13.

This would support a linkage between chimp and human.

2. There are still many problems with evolutionary biology. Strictly it states that all biological change is brought about solely by random mutation and natural selection.

The random mutation aspect is the most troublesome.

A confusing aspect is that natural selection does work in the small but there are many problems with mutation and natural selection accounting for all biological change in the large.

Example - You can have a gene for color - red or blue. Natural selection will work on the color, selecting either red or blue depending on environmental factors,but how you get the gene for color in the first place is not obvious.

Natural selection is like sandpaper. Once a trait has been established it further refines the trait. Natural selection is not the origin of the trait.

The biggest obstacle in this No Help - Help debate is the origin of the Help. Some acknowledge the need for help and when pressed for a name use God. Actually God is a vague notion.

There does seem to be a molecular logic at work in all biological processes. What you call it is up to you.

 

[expiated]

This would support a linkage between chimp and human.

But there are also problems with hypothesizing that two ancestral chimpanzee chromosomes fused to give rise to a human chromosome (i.e., ancient telomere-telomere fusion).

For one thing, two teams of synthetic biologists who successfully performed multiple telomere-telomere fusions to produced functional organisms in brewer’s yeast found it necessary to undertake the kind of extensive and precise gene editing that would be extremely unlikely to occur by means of random processes, such that one could argue their work actually undermines the chimpanzee-to-human hypothesis.

Of course there are always those who will say: "Anything can happen if given enough time!" So, what would be the result if such a fusion actually did occur?

One function of telomeres is to prevent intact chromosomes from fusing with either broken chromosome fragments or other intact chromosomes. So, if they were to fail in this function such that fusion of intact chromosomes could occur, there would have to be the kind of genomic instability that, according to a 2013 article in Nucleic Acids Research, might underlie early tumourigenesis and possible carcinogenesis, leading to cancer.

Even if there were no cancer, since human gametes each have 23 chromosomes and chimpanzee gametes have 24, during the reproductive process—given that the evolving chimpanzee would generate a sperm or ovum gamete with 23 chromosomes—what would it mate with? What is the likelihood that the same thing happened spontaneously with another chimpanzee of the opposite sex and that this pair with the new human chromosome just happened to reproduce with each other? It is not very probable. More likely, the 23-chromosome gamete would have had to have joined with a 24-chromosome chimpanzee gamete. So, what is the probable outcome of such a mating?

In the 1920s, Russian zoologist Ilia Ivanov, seeking to create an ape-human hybrid with the backing of the Russian Bolshevik government and the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism, succeeded in inseminating three female chimpanzees with human sperm, but no successful fertilization occurred. (His efforts went no further due to his becoming a victim of the Stalinist purge.)

Of course, this does not necessarily prove that one cannot unite a 23-chromosome gamete produced by telomere-telomere fusion with a normal 24-chromosome chimpanzee gamete, but it does bring to mind how mating a male donkey (31 pairs of chromosomes) with a female horse (32 pairs) produces mules that are unable to reproduce, or who reproduce so infrequently that when it does happen, it is regarded as a near miracle. Moreover, an extra copy of chromosome 21 in humans results in Down syndrome, again making it unlikely that the above ancient chimpanzee union could have produced a viable human.

The unlikelihood is also borne out by synthetic biologists who found that reducing yeast chromosomes resulted in a reduction in gamete production and viability in meiosis in the yeast cells with the reduced numbers of chromosomes—and these modified yeast cells were unlikely to reproduce with unmodified yeast. In short, the fusion of yeast chromosomes in the lab makes it difficult to conclude that unguided evolutionary processes in nature could ever successfully fuse two chromosomes (including the above-cited human chromosome from chimpanzee chromosomes) end on end.

And even if such a fusion event did occur, there is not a lot of evidence supporting the idea that it would have been viable, resulting in the reproduction of human beings.