Archive: Dinosaur Feathers, Out of Africa, Hamilton, Music

Here are some of our final articles from March 2002 recovered from archives.

All subsequent articles are still available online.

The Real Feathered Dinosaur Found?   03/07/2002
If optimistic reports in the March 7 Nature are correct, a dromeosaur with unequivocal impressions of modern feathers has been found in a museum in northern China. Mark Norell and colleagues name the specimen BPM 1 3-13. The feather impressions are pinnate and modern-looking, and cover the entire body of a pheasant-size fossil. To the researchers, this proves feathers evolved before flight. Larry Martin of the University of Kansas, a skeptic of the bird-dino link, is reported in New Scientist to have reminded people there have been fakes in the past and this new one needs to be confirmed by others.

Well, maybe believers have their smoking gun, and maybe not. Many questions remain; why would a dinosaur have feathers? Is the identification of this specimen truly dinosaurian, or is it a primitive bird? How or why would scales transform into complex feathers and appear abruptly? Is this fossil dated prior to other known fossil birds, or after? Is it another hoax? The arrangements of these fossilized animals into family trees are based on evolutionary assumptions. If even other evolutionary paleontologists are reserving judgment, surely it is too early to concede their claim. See also these counter arguments raised by Answers in Genesis.

Early Man Walked Out of Africa Three Times?    03/07/2002
The latest theory by Alan Templeton in the March 7 Nature is that early man emerged out of Africa at least three times, and interbred with other species of Homo like Neandertals. National Geographic weighs in on what this controversial theory might mean.

Pay no attention. Whatever you learn from this story you will undoubtedly have to unlearn in the next issue. Even National Geographic, the showcase of evolving ape-men, admits that the human origins debate “has been highly charged for at least 15 years” (try 150). Human evolution theory is not science; it is more like professional wrestling.

Prominent Darwinist Leaves Disconcerting Legacy   03/07/2002
The final papers of W. D. Hamilton, influential evolutionary biologist, just published in Volume II, Evolution of Sex, are reviewed by Olivia P. Judson in the March 7 Nature. She finds the book “disconcerting and discomfiting.” Hamilton gave Darwinism the theories of inclusive fitness and led to game theory as explanations of altruism. In this book, which represents his last thoughts before dying in March 2000, Judson finds “a thorny and unweeded thicket of scientific advocacy, political manifesto, broken intellectual taboos, self-revelation and apocalyptic vision.” He explains genocide, for instance, as products of differential birth rates between groups, and views all aspects of human behavior, including racism, xenophobia and “differences in intellectual ability between men and women,” as genetically driven.

More disturbing, Hamilton believed that humans are posed for genetic meltdown unless they return to natural selection: i.e., prolonging the lives of those with genetic defects is harming the species. Judson points out that “…well, more natural selection equals more death, which is hardly something to agitate for.” She feels that “After all, it is self-evident that the human psyche has been shaped by natural selection; and it is certainly possible that the shape is an ugly one. But I feel – and this is where I completely disagree with Hamilton – that, although understanding how natural selection has acted on humans will help us to understand why we are the way we are, it tells us nothing about what we would like to become.”

Judson is having a hard time coming to grips with the bitter fruit of Darwinist thinking. Hamilton was more honest. Darwin’s world is a world of struggle and death, where morals do not exist, and the heroes (if this concept has any meaning) are those who emerge on top of the boneyard. How can Darwinism speak at all of “what we would like to become”? We are all products of selfish genes, mindlessly playing games with human bodies as their pawns. If this scene is too horrifying, dear reader, please allow us to introduce you to a Creator and Redeemer who described, and demonstrated, true sacrificial love. The fittest gave Himself for the survival of the weakest and guiltiest.  Greater love hath no gene.

Why Does Music Move Us?   03/07/2002
Allison Abbott, writing in the March 7 Nature, explores the mystery of why humans enjoy music, since it does not appear to have survival value. What is music for? She speculates (emphasis added):

After all, an appreciation of music confers no glaringly obvious advantage in the darwinian struggle for survival. Various theories have been put forward – that music promotes social cohesion, for example – but so far, none represents more than a plausible ‘just so’ story. Our love of music might merely be a pleasurable side-effect of the evolution of other perceptual abilities – representing, as cognitive neuroscientist Steven Pinker of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has put it, “auditory cheesecake.” . …

… More fancifully, some scientists have even suggested that a mother’s singing can cause her baby’s hair to stand on end and so keep it warm.

Whatever the function, many of the neuroscientists studying music are convinced that it is the product of evolutionary design [sic]. “The emotional processing of music probably does have an evolutionary basis” says Altenmuller. “The chills can be so profound, so biological, it seems very likely that the evolutionary point is about social cohesion.”

Pinker remains unconvinced, arguing that our appreciation of music and our musicianship are by-products of the way our auditory system analyses sounds, combined with our tool-making skills. “The problem with most of the theories put forward is that they are circular” he says.

The true answer may never be known. “We can’t do the experiment to re-evolve ourselves,” observes Halpern. Thankfully, we don’t need to understand the evolutionary significance of music, nor the details of how it is processed in the brain, for it to continue to work its magic. As Elvis Presley once said: “I don’t know anything about music. In my line you don’t have to.”

The article quotes several neurobiologists and explores how they try to decipher the brain’s processing of music by comparing the tone-deaf with skilled musicians, but reaches no definitive explanations for why music would ever evolve.

In the same issue, David Juritz emotes praise and exasperation at William Benzon’s new book Beethoven’s Anvil, which seeks to explain music as the evolution of hunting calls. When Benzon compares Beethoven’s Ninth arriving at its Ode to Joy theme to a group of baboons selecting the dominant male, Juritz has a fit.

A clearer case of a priori reasoning could hardly be found. Reductionist Darwinians are so convinced that music must fit into the evolutionary paradigm of survival of the fittest, they feel no guilt in telling just-so stories and arguing in circles to stuff music into the evolutionary box. The end result is always groups of evolutionists fighting each other about whose just-so story is better, with the reporter concluding that maybe we’ll figure it out someday, or maybe the true [evolutionary] answer will never be known. And it won’t, on their watch. As Billy Joel croons, it’s all about soul. Evolutionists don’t understand soul; in their line of work, they don’t have to.

Making the baby’s hair stand on end to keep warm; good grief. For that to fit Darwinist theory, every baby that did not have this lucky mutation would have to die until only the lucky babies that kept warm enough could grow up and have more babies like themselves. Meanwhile, the mothers of babies without the mutation were too stupid to hold them a little closer, and just watched them freeze to death. Go put on a good CD and forget this nonsense.