Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

Dissent from Darwin continued:


Here's what it takes to become a member:

Sign the List

Signatories of the Scientific Dissent From Darwinism must either hold a Ph.D. in a scientific field such as biology, chemistry, mathematics, engineering, computer science, or one of the other natural sciences; or they must hold an M.D. and serve as a professor of medicine. Signatories must also agree with the following statement:

"We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."

If you meet these criteria, please consider signing the statement by emailing contact@dissentfromdarwin.org.

Here's a link to the list of their members, and you'll see that it's all PhDs in Science and medical professors. 

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=660

The list of 514 members includes  scientists from both the US and Russian National Academy of Sciences. There are 154 biologists- the largest single discipline, as you might expect. There are 76 chemists and 63 physicists. Many are professors or researchers at major universities and research institutes such as MIT, the Smithsonian, Cambridge, UCLA (my alma mater) UC Berkeley, and Princeton.

The organization was formed in 2001 in response to a PBS television series called "Evolution" which spewed the usual tripe. PBS actually claimed that "Virtually every scientist in the world believes the Theory of Evolution to be true." So, this is their way of crying, "Bull shit!"  

"Darwinists continue to claim that no serious scientists doubt the Theory of Evolution, yet here are 500 scientists who are willing to make public their skepticism about the theory," said Dr. John G. West, associate director of Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture. "Darwinist efforts to use the courts, the media and academic tenure committees to suppress dissent and stifle discussion are in fact fueling even more dissent and inspiring more scientists to ask to be added to the list."

As you can imagine, I applaud these scientists for their courage and convictions. And I have no doubt that some of them have been hounded and persecuted and pummeled the way JFK researchers have for challenging the official story of JFK. But, I would urge all JFK truthers to take inspiration from these brave scientists, who are, in fact, heroes. 

Of course, I am not academically qualified to belong to that group. If I were, I would join. However, it hasn't stopped me from writing about it. The following is an article I wrote many years ago. It's so long ago, I can't remember exactly when I wrote it; it must have in the 1990s. But, I'm going to post it here.

The Theory of Evolution: A Pretense at Knowledge

By Dr. Ralph Cinque  

I am taking the liberty of writing this article as an end-of-the-year indulgence to myself.  Most of the time, I try to post articles that involve actionable choices for us about health  as we go about living our daily lives and managing our health. This article does not fall into that category, and so I will understand completely if some of you have no desire to read it. Nevertheless, I think it's very important because its ramifications affect medicine, education, public policy, and many other aspects of our lives. The Theory of Evolution is the fundamental principle of biology as it is taught, and that of course includes both medicine and health. The Theory of Evolution is one of the most important scientific ideas that has ever been put forth, and if it's erroneous (as I think it is) then the consequences of that are huge.

First, I have to make an important distinction. There is the assumption of evolution, and the theory of evolution. Evolution the assumption is that very tiny, simple forms of life were the first to appear on Earth, and that the larger, more complex forms that followed are somehow related to the earlier forms. Period. It doesn’t try to explain it. But, evolution the theory tries to explain how evolution happened- what was its motor, what caused it, what drove it, etc.

My dispute is with the theory of evolution and not the assumption that life on Earth underwent changes. What drove the changes? I don’t know, and neither does anyone else. But, whatever it was, it had to stem from the same mysterious, unfathomable “essence” of what life is and how it came to be- which no one understands. The rejection of the theory of evolution is a rejection of the pretense of knowledge which no one possesses.

I am in awe of the mystery of life, as we all should be. And keep in mind that, although I was raised a Catholic, I am not a religious person.

It brings to mind an important distinction concerning the meaning of the word “miracle.” The word "miracle: is used in two ways. First, it is used to describe a highly unlikely and usually fortuitous event, such as a person surviving a plane crash. But when we say that it was a "miracle" that the person survived the crash, we don't mean that the laws of physics and chemistry were broken. We just mean that a rare, unexpected and extremely lucky thing happened. But in the second sense of the word, a miracle is when natural laws are actually broken, that is, when the physically impossible happens.

Well, scientists have to assume that miracles, in that second sense, NEVER happen, and never have happened, and never will happen. And that’s because all of their knowledge and assumptions about the physical universe are based on the existence and recognition of natural laws that are absolutely and totally inviolable. If they could be violated even once, then who in his right mind would ever go up in a space ship or even an airplane? Science is based on the existence of natural laws that can be counted on to always be there, for which there are no exceptions, and which never are broken. Period.

And just as no scientist today would try to explain a modern phenomenon by saying that "it's a miracle," likewise they don't have the intellectual right to say that "way back when" miracles happened.

In other words, the physical universe has always been subject to natural laws.

Please understand, I am not trying to step on anybody's religion.  If you want to believe in Genesis literally, you certainly can, but there is no cause to talk about it scientifically. And I realize that many scientists are religious. But science and religion are separate things, and there really is no junction between them. They don't cross paths. A scientist is either wearing his scientific hat or his religious hat, but he can't wear them both at the same time.

So, to reiterate, life on Earth happened; it underwent changes; we don’t know how the changes occurred; but, however it was, it wasn’t by miracles. That’s all we know.  To claim to know and understand the basis, the mechanism, and the whole driving force behind the changes to life on Earth is a huge leap, and it is the greatest pretense at knowledge in the history of human thought.

Now, let’s look at this pretense at knowledge known as the Theory of Evolution as it is commonly taught. Keep in mind that the theory itself has "evolved" over the years, but what it has come to mean is that the changes to life on Earth took place because of random genetic mutations (due to radiation and other causes) that resulted in changes in inheritable physical traits that were "naturally selected" by the harsh struggle to survive. In other words, the changes gave a survival advantage to some which allowed that subset within a species to survive better and longer and reproduce more often and more successfully, thus passing those traits along and increasing their number. And ultimately, the less advantaged ones without the lucky mutation would eventually die out completely. But it's important to remember that the genetic mutations were supposedly completely and totally "random" meaning accidental, undirected, haphazard, aimless, chance, unplanned, etc. There was no guiding force, no organizing principle. And the changes were also very gradual and incremental. Nothing happened all at once. And this is key: every step along the evolutionary path had to provide a distinct survival advantage, in and of itself, apart from any eventual, recognizable outcome, in order to be "naturally selected." That, in a nutshell, is the theory that supposedly explains how life evolved on Earth.

So, what's wrong with the theory? First, I have to point out that large volumes have been written challenging the Theory of Evolution, so I'm not going to be able to make all the points within the context of a single article. However, I will recommend one book that I have read, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, by the Australian physician and researcher, Dr. Michael Denton. Keep in mind that Dr. Denton is a scientific dissident and not a religionist.  But you may be wondering, if so many books have been written that challenge the Theory of Evolution, including by prominent, respected scientists, why haven't you heard of them? The answer is that they are not allowed in schools. Remember, we have government-run schools in this country, and the educational establishment prefers to keep controversy out of the classroom, and even the private schools are so dependent on government for funding, that they are like government schools as well. There are extremely few schools outside the system. And the system controls and dictates the content of the textbooks.

You know that’s true for the subject of History, right? Don’t the History textbooks only have official versions of historical events? Well, unfortunately, it’s also true for Biology, which is dominated by the Theory of Evolution.

If you open a Biology text, you'll find an explanation for the Theory of Evolution that is very matter-of-fact. You’ll find no mention of the fact that there are dissidents among scientists who don't buy the theory, and they are not afraid to say so.

It’s unfortunate that the debate is usually framed as Evolution vs. Creationism. Which of the two should be taught in school? But, why does either have to be taught?  

And the usual assumption is that you must believe one or the other. Either you accept Neo-Darwinian Evolution OR you believe literally in the Book of Genesis, and that’s it. No other options exist. But, how about just saying that we don’t know? The idea that "life is a mystery, and we don’t know how it came about and unfolded” is never offered as an alternative. Yet, scientifically, it is the only mature and responsible position.  

OK, now let's get down to brass tacks. I am not going to cover all the points that Denton makes because I can't state it better than he did, and the book is well worth reading. I would rather deal with one single issue that I think is crucial. Keep in mind, first of all, that Denton has no problem with "microevolution." An example of that is what Darwin himself pointed out about the finches on the Galapagos Islands acquiring different physical characteristics stemming from their different environments. BUT, THEY STILL ALL REMAINED FINCHES!  That’s the clincher. So, the debate about Evolution only pertains to so-called "macroevolution" which is where one species supposedly "evolves" into another distinctly different one.

Remember what I said earlier that supposedly, the random genetic changes were "naturally selected" when they provided "survival advantages" which they had to do EVERY STEP OF THE WAY along the long course of evolution. That last clause is of paramount importance.

An example that evolutionists love to use is the evolution of the eye. They postulate that it may have started with just a tiny strip of cells that happened to become more sensitive to light, so that they could vaguely tell the difference between night and day. Yes, I can see that that would have had a huge survival advantage. And then every step along the evolutionary way, as the visual discernment improved, the advantages increased concomitantly, and therefore they were naturally selected, and so on and so forth. It all makes sense. It all works out. But that's a very convenient example.

But let's take another example, one that the evolutionists don't explain very well: the evolution of the mammary gland. Supposedly, according to the evolutionists, the mammary gland "evolved" from sweat glands on the torso. But why, in the initial stages, were they naturally selected? We can't assume that it went from there being sweat-producing glands to milk-producing glands in one giant genetic leap. Sweat is sweat, and milk is milk. Two different things. Two different purposes.

According to Evolution, the transformation of sweat glands into mammary glands must have been slow and gradual. But, whatever initial changes took place in those sweat glands at the very beginning of the process, why would they have been "naturally selected" if there was no milk? I'm just using the same logic that they use to explain the evolution of the eye, but I hope you can see that it doesn't work so well when applied to the mammary gland as it does for the eye.

However, there are other unanswered questions because, at the beginning, not only was there no milk, there was no milk-drinking infant either. The milk-drinking infant had to evolve too, at the same time, and it involved totally different genes. But wait: a baby either drinks milk or it doesn't. There is nothing in-between. Not only can we not explain and identify "intermediary forms" when it comes to milk-drinking babies, we can't possibly even conceive or picture such a transition. It's beyond bizarre. Some things in life are black or white and do not involve shades of gray. A mammalian baby is a "milk-processing machine" in a very comprehensive way. It's whole digestion and nutrition and metabolism and immunology etc. are totally adapted to a diet of its mother's milk. What would have driven those changes before the milk-making process was complete? But that doesn't cover it all either because it's not just the female breasts that changed (evolved), but also the female pelvis where the offspring spends its embryonic life. Supposedly, mammals evolved from animals that still reproduced like reptiles, meaning that they laid eggs. How do you go from that to warm-blooded, hairy animals that give birth to live young and nurse them and accomplish all of that in incremental steps driven by blind, random changes, all the steps of which were somehow useful? It's untenable. It's unfathomable. It's ridiculous. You can’t get there that way. It doesn’t work. You can’t even get from A to B, never mind to C,D, E,F,G, H, I, J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z.

If you know a Biology teacher or anyone else who believes in the Theory of Evolution, and who thinks he or she can explain it, hit them up with this problem of the evolution of the mammalian breast and see what they say. They'll strut and stutter and talk around it in banal generalities, but they'll never deal with it directly. Because they can't. And that's where the irony lies because it turns out that believing in the Theory of Evolution is as much a religion as any religion.

I want to stress that the official theory about how life got started on Earth is just as specious as the Theory of Evolution. The claim that there was a "primordial soup" that contained all of the elements of life, and that passive processes enabled certain organic compounds to form spontaneously, such as amino acids, does not begin to explain the origin of life. It is completely and totally vacuous. The truth is that we don’t know how life on Earth got started, and that’s pretense at knowledge too.

In closing, I have to ask: why is there this pretense at knowledge? Why is it heresy within Science to even challenge the Theory of Evolution, even though it is completely nonsensical?  The answer, I think, comes down to one word: power. Science is about knowing and understanding and explaining the physical universe, which includes living things, and consider the power and prestige that goes along with knowing and understanding and explaining the very origin and development of life on Earth. Can you think of anything that is more God-like than claiming to know and understand the origin and development of life? How great our Science is! How high and mighty! But imagine if they were to admit, "We have no idea how life got started on Earth or what drove its changes.” How impotent they would seem. How, dare I say, mortal and human.

I repeat: the Theory of Evolution is the prevailing and controlling theory of all Biology, including Medicine. But if they could be wrong about the Theory of Evolution, how possible is it that they are wrong about taking statin drugs for cholesterol?

One last point: consider the old conundrum about which came first, the chicken or the egg. But don't just chuckle over it. Really think about it. Can you solve it? Could any scientist? It shows: they don't know anything about how life developed on Earth. Nothing at all.