Slimy Evolution Reporting Continues

Darwin gets credit for more things than his theory deserves, which is very little to begin with.

The name “Darwin” and the phrase “natural selection” appear frequently in the science news, even when the observations reported either have nothing to do with them, or even contradict them. The media seem utterly incapable of thinking critically about the mismatch. It points to a strong bias to maintain the reputation of a man who kicked intelligent design out of biology.

Biologists shed new light on the diversity of natural selection (Phys.org). This article begins with evidence seemingly contrary to natural selection, only to wind up rescuing it.

For nearly 100 years, biologists have argued about how exactly natural selection can possibly work. If nature selects the individuals with the best genes, then why aren’t all organisms the same? What maintains the genetic variation that natural selection acts upon, the genetic variation that has ultimately led to the spectacular diversity of life on Earth today? Recent findings made at Uppsala University suggest that the answer could be sex.

It “could” be sex, which implies it might not be. Frequently we have criticized the notion of natural selection for this very reason: if it were a law of nature, everyone would end up the same. Do these Uppsala scientists have a theory rescue device? They do; readers can get into the weeds of “sex-specific dominance reversal for fitness” in the article, but should note that the idea “met with early skepticism” from other evolutionists, and is being promoted by two Darwinians claiming to have “the first evidence” for it – this, mind you, 159 years after Darwin wrote his book. Even if their idea has merit, it doesn’t account for variability in asexual species. And it doesn’t account for why some sexes display strong dimorphism (e.g., peacocks), and others have very little (e.g., “all ravens are black”).

Fossils key to fulfilling Darwin’s 160-year-old prediction (Phys.org). Darwin be praised! Big Science and Big Media love to say that. What was this prediction? “The time will come I believe when we shall have very fairly true genealogical trees of each great kingdom of nature,” Darwin wrote in a letter to Huxley. Again, this article begins with a contradiction in Darwinism:

Lead author Dr. Robin Beck, said: “For mammals, there are some quite major disagreements about how they are related to each other, depending on whether you use anatomical or genomic data. This has led some people to suggest that anatomy is fundamentally unreliable for working out the evolutionary relationships of mammals, and perhaps of other groups as well.”

For example, molecular data indicates that rhinos are more closely related to hedgehogs than they are to elephants. The anatomical similarities between rhinos and elephants are the result of convergent evolution.

Convergent evolution, we know, results from use of Darwin Flubber in the explanation. So who are you going to believe, Darwin or your elephant eyes? Beck and Baillie, to solve the problem and rescue Darwin, use their own lyin’ eyes to lionize Darwin. They imagine the ancestors that should have been there, but aren’t! This is an amazing trick. Watch the high perhapsimaybecouldness index, and the reliance on futureware, in this Darwin-of-the-gaps explanation:

Beck and Baillie’s study shows that new fossil discoveries might be able to bridge the large anatomical “gap” between rhinos and hedgehogs and so help correctly determine their evolutionary relationships.”

To test this, Beck and his co-author, Ph.D. student Charles Baillie, invented a new method where they first predicted the anatomical features of fossil ancestors that should have existed if the genome-based phylogeny is correct, and then investigated the effect of adding these predicted ancestors into anatomy-based analyses.

Beck added: “We were quite surprised to find that predicted ancestors led to the anatomical analyses matching the genomic phylogeny almost exactly. So, it doesn’t look like there’s anything inherently unreliable about anatomical data – in principle at least.

“It may just be a case of going out and finding enough fossils!”

This is exactly the trick Darwin himself used when confronted with gaps in the fossil record, especially the Cambrian explosion (hear Stephen Meyer talk about that on ID the Future). Darwin thought that further discoveries would fill in the gaps, but millions of fossil finds later, the gaps are still there – some of them even wider now. Beck and Baillie’s trick is even worse, because they are only finding the missing ancestors in their imaginations, knowing that they are still missing long after Darwin played his futureware card (a favorite in his house of cards). The futureware card is a credit card, because Darwinists hope you will trust them to come up with the missing fossils in another 160 years or more. By then we will be dead and won’t be able to sue them for not paying up.

Transformed: The plant whose sex life fascinated Charles Darwin (Science Daily). Lots of people like primulas, so why does Darwin get trucked into this story? The press release from the John Innes Centre brings up a fancy word for a characteristic of some flowering plants: “Heteromorphy (or heterostyly) is a phenomenon in which plants exhibit two or three distinct forms of flowers based on the position of the male and female sex organs.” The phenomenon “enthralled Darwin,” we are told, but it worried him, too, because it left secrets that eluded him. It also worried famous evolutionists William Bateson and JBS Haldane. To the rescue! Now, with the gene editing tool CRISPR/Cas9, his current priesthood can hold up a divination tool in order to look authoritative.

Now, some of the secrets that eluded Darwin could be revealed following the biotechnological success announced by researchers from the John Innes Centre, the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the Earlham Institute….

Co-author Mark Smedley, of the John Innes Centre says: “It is not every day you get to work on a paper that references Darwin. This is a fundamental story that scientists have been trying to unravel for 200 years.”…

It’s a piece of research that would have excited Darwin….

Let’s try to understand this Darwin worship service. Heteromorphy has nothing to do with Darwinism. It’s an observation, not an explanation. If Darwinism explained it, it would not have eluded Darwin, nor would it have taken 200 years for his disciples to figure it out. The article attempts this explanation:

Darwin, in a landmark paper of 1862, worked out the functional significance of the different anatomical formations: they made the plants self-incompatible. This is Nature’s way of promoting cross-pollination to maintain genetic variation in the population, driving natural selection.

Heteromorphy is thus an intelligent design. It has functional significance. It promotes cross-pollination (which would cause extinction, not innovation). Saying that Darwinism has something to do with it is false: it’s basically saying, “It exists; therefore it evolved.” There is no origin of species here. There is no random mutation leading to the functional design. Capitalizing “Nature” makes the embedded wisdom in the flower seem like a kind of god or intelligently-directing agent. And there is no connection between said “Nature” and natural selection, Darwin’s baby: if this were a law of nature, there would not be so many exceptions to it. Many plants do not have heteromorphy; are they “fit” in the battle for survival? The only thing these scientists have explained is their own inebriation with Darwine.

These ‘useless’ quirks of evolution are actually evidence for the theory (The Conversation). Here’s another Darwin-only disciple, Ben Garrod, out to do a magic show to top David Copperfield. He sets up the impossibility that should kill Darwinism, before standing up to do a miracle and raise it from the dead:

Evolution is a fascinating field but can be rife with misunderstanding. One misconception is that evolution has some innate sense of direction or purpose. In reality, evolution is a mindless, plan-free phenomenon, driven into endless possibilities by random mutations, the most successful of which win out.

People also often think that every aspect of every living creature has a function, that it helps the organism survive in some small way. But there are some areas of evolutionary biology where benefits are murkier and, in some instances, where traits seem to make no sense at all. This is the realm of sexual selection, vestigial traits and evolutionary spandrels.

As important as the concept of survival of the fittest is to evolution, there are many examples that seem to undermine this idea. In fact, various aspects of evolutionary biology may seem counterintuitive and could even be seen as a reason to reject evolution as a whole. In fact, they strengthen our understanding rather than diminish it. Here’s how.

With this opening flourish, admitting as he does that evolution amounts to chance and is mindless and plan-free, he’s going to pre-empt anyone in the audience from becoming a creationist. But his answers are all tired, worn-out Darwin-only talking points, never subjected to critical analysis: Sexual selection supports Darwinism (except when it doesn’t). Vestigial organs are leftovers of evolution (except when we discover they had a function after all). Your chin is a spandrel, a byproduct of evolutionary forces for diet that had nothing to do with evolving a chin (except for every other animal that had to eat).

You should ask for your money back.

Christmas Shoppers, beware! Do not buy Darwin Flubber for your children. It’s toxic!