Inserting Darwin Where He Doesn’t Belong

Chuck-in-the-Box keeps popping up in scientific literature having nothing to do with his theory.

Chuck-in-the-Box pops up in unexpected places.

[Note: ‘Darwin’ is being used here as a symbol or icon to represent his fundamental view about biology: specifically, his belief that all life diversified from microbes to man by a series of mistakes without any guidance or purpose. His current disciples may dispute some aspects of Darwin’s theory, but all continue to agree on that point. Many of them openly admire Darwin and use his terminology of ‘natural selection’ to explain everything.]

As you peruse the following news items, ask yourself what on earth they have to do with Darwinian evolution. The observations neither require nor support evolution, and sometimes contradict it. Yet the authors crank their Chuck-in-the-Box toys anyway, and the Joker pops up, scaring the children and distracting the reader. Perceptive analysts may rightly ask, ‘What is Charlie doing here?’

In First Things (Nov 2000), Michael Behe noted,

The relationship between Darwinism and real science is parasitic. The theory’s main use is for Darwinists to claim credit for whatever biology discovers. If research shows that humans are selfish, Darwinism can explain that. If science shows we are unselfish, why, it can explain that too. If we are a combination of both — no problem. If cells are simple or complex, if sexual reproduction is common or rare, if embryos are similar or different, Darwinism will explain it all for you. The elasticity of the theory would make Sigmund Freud blush.

Here are some recent examples in the news.

Bedbugs evolved more than 100 million years ago – and walked the earth with T. rex (University of Sheffield). In this article with video, Mike Siva-Jothy announces that the old story of bedbug evolution was off by 100%. His team estimates that bedbugs ‘evolved’ 100 million years ago, twice the age of the bats evolutionists used to think were their hosts. This means bedbugs must have preyed on dinosaurs like T. rex, which they admit seems ‘unlikely.’ Do the early bedbugs look primitive? No; they were already specialized for feeding on individual hosts, and look just like modern bedbugs. The paper in Current Biology gives no indication that they evolved from imaginary pre-bedbugs. Siva-Jothy admits,

To think that the pests that live in our beds today evolved more than 100 million years ago and were walking the earth side by side with dinosaurs, was a revelation. It shows that the evolutionary history of bed bugs is far more complex than we previously thought.

But they didn’t evolve! They were bedbugs; they are bedbugs. The evolutionary story is now more ‘complex’ and incredible than it was before. Where is any repentance for having misled the public all this time? What’s Charlie got to do with it? Get him out of here!

Dolphin ancestor’s hearing was more like hoofed mammals than today’s sea creatures (Vanderbilt University). Underneath the pompous headline, we learn that echolocating dolphins have fewer spiral turns in their inner ear cochlea than some land mammals. That’s it. CT scanning of fossil bones is fine, but even if one were to grant the tale that toothed whales (including dolphins) evolved from hoofed mammals by chance, the evidence shows devolution – not evolution – of the cochlea. Plus, it says absolutely nothing about how the irreducibly complex phenomenon of echolocation originated, as animated beautifully in Illustra Media’s nature film Living Waters. What’s Darwin got to do with it?

Dolphin echolocation is a highly-complex, integrated system of many matched parts with extremely-precise performance. It is beyond the reach of chance or gradual, stepwise natural selection, because if any component were missing, it would not work. (Illustra Media, Living Waters)

Because echolocation is useful for navigating dark waters, natural selection likely came into play with its development in the branch that survived, she said. The findings appear today in The Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

“It’s useful, therefore it evolved.” That’s absurd. They’re using their assumption of evolution as evidence of evolution. This is the kind of parasitic Darwinism that Behe complained about, taking credit for anything and everything after the fact. Moreover, the paper appeals to the Darwin-Flubber ingredient of “convergence” in order to save Darwinism from falsification, illustrating Behe’s quip that Darwinism is so elastic it would make Sigmund Freud blush. With this in mind, watch the short video clip in the press release, and groan over two brainwashed young biologists trained to speak Darwinese when the actual evidence opposes their belief.

The structure of musical harmony as an ordered phase of sound (Science Advances). What could be more a proof of human intelligent design than music? (Well, some music). In this dubious paper, published in a peer-reviewed open-access AAAS journal, Jesse Berezovsky attempts to explain the evolution of music from the bottom up. He says, “an effective system of music must have some degree of complexity to provide a sufficiently rich palette from which to compose.” OK. He continues, “A recognition of this idea has led to work on quantifying complexity in music, including by computing the entropy S of music in the context of information theory” – still OK so far; “or by considering musical systems to be self-organizing via an evolutionary process.” What? How did Darwin sneak in here?

No Bach needed. Music can emerge by self-organization, claims Jesse Berezovsky.

Just as in physical systems where ordered phases with lower symmetry (e.g., crystals) emerge across transitions from higher-symmetry disordered phases (e.g., liquids), we observe ordered phases of music self-organizing from disordered sound. These ordered phases can replicate elements of traditional Western and non-Western systems of music, as well as suggesting new directions to be explored.

[Note: self-organization is a variation on Darwinism that tries to invoke physics to fill in gaps in traditional Darwinism.] A gadfly could have some fun with this notion by testing it on Berezovsky’s own composition. A modern Socrates might joke, “Just as in physical systems snowflakes emerge from disordered water molecules, scientific papers can self-organize from scrambled letters in the same way tornadoes emerge from air currents.” This means Berezovsky is out of a job, because texts about the emergence of music can self-organize by the same physical process as crystallization. And since semantics or concepts are superfluous to this worldview, papers stating opposite positions can also self-organize by an evolutionary process. [Cue sound of implosion.]

Cartoon by J. Beverly Greene commissioned by CEH. All rights reserved.

Short Takes:

Cannabis plant evolved super high (on the Tibetan Plateau) (New Scientist). Colin Barras notes that the cannabis exists on the Tibetan Plateau. Conclusion: it must have evolved there. What? Who  invited Charlie to the pot party?

Scientists suss out the secrets of human screams (Medical Xpress). Some people scream. Conclusion: it must be an evolved behavior.

Screaming is well-studied in animals, where it’s thought the behavior has evolved as a way to startle an attacking predator and provide a chance to escape, or, in social animals, to recruit help when in trouble. Surprisingly, much less is known about how human screams function in communication, or how similar or different human screams are from those of other species.

Let’s try to comprehend this. Screaming exists, so it must have evolved, even though much less is known about human screams, which must have evolved from animal screams, because they evolved, too, “it’s thought” – by whom? Darwinists.

That incessant Chuck-in-the-Box jingle followed by the inevitable pop-up Joker is enough to make you scream. “Half a pound of Stuff Happens Law / Half a pound of mutants / That’s the way the storyline goes / Pop! Goes the eyeball.” *

*See the Popeye Theory of Evolution, 1 Aug 2018.