And so we will begin this chapter with a very famous old sketch of the evolved Charles Darwin. One could even ask what happened to some of the genetic material he should have inherited from his father and genius great-grandfather Erasmus. The more we study Darwin the more we see a man with luxuries and choices many around him did not have, a chance to be someone and choose his own destiny. Unfortunately, even with such a favorable environment that should keep any species from changing much, in depth of mind and honesty of inquiry Charles’ was but a fragment of the intellect of his immediate ancestors. Why hasn’t Darwin evolved? Granted, evolution of Man does not occur quite this quickly (Lamarck, again, might have something to say about this…), but my point is not just to punish a dead man with a popular theory in need of disposal, or at least, huge overhaul. My point is that change itself cannot just be due to chance, or due to brute force, as Darwin put it, as even he admitted to some type of Design, as we have already observed.
I therefore wish to start this summary of the modern Evolution Theory we espouse today by questioning a bit the very important idea of diversification, or Evolution’s reason for the different types of species. Why does change occur at all? Why wasn’t slime good enough, why wasn’t being slime satisfying enough for Life, or Nature? In what direction is this Evolution heading?
Last post we noted that Darwin’s theory “…established evolutionary descent with modification as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature”. This is the supposed fact accepted by Science today. We can begin by thinking about what this means. It means that the foundations of Evolution rest upon the premise that diversification in Nature, the reason we have so many different species of plants and animals, is due to this very “evolutionary descent with modification”.
As we have shown previously, if Evolution be correct then all species in a certain environment should be the same, or tending to the same structure and abilities. That this is not the case cannot be denied, and the way Evolutionists attempt to get around this obstacle is by saying that everything works by slow change, and so they try to tell us that the tadpole, the fish, the squirrel, snake, and bear in the same forest just haven’t had enough time to adapt.
The various peoples in all parts of the world have different skin colors, hair types, facial features, and statures which is indicative of a microevolution, the same microevolution discussed by dozens of others prior to Darwin. But such a Truth is in no wise proof of macroevolution, as all us humans, regardless of our location or appearance, can still breed one to another, we are all still human, still Homo Sapiens, and similarly, chimps are still chimps, and lizards, lizards. Our human characteristics have changed as much as our style of dress, our customs, our laws. But we still dress, we still have semblances of customs (in America, not so much…), and we still have laws. If the next step in this progression be the Super-man, the evolved-further human being, the Ubbermensch of Nietzsche, it will not be in physical form, it will be in mental and ethical development. This pursuit in mind, Evolution, as it attempts to account for species, is a retardation.
Indeed, what is Nature breeding? It is not strength, as compared to the animals Man is weak. It is not age, as compared to the tree Man dies in a flash. Neither is it speed, or stamina, or height, weight, or girth. What is the goal? To what are we all gravitating to, to what ideal? A lofty rise, or a speedy demise?
And here is the key. Man is frail, but the most intelligent of creatures, in fact unique. Despite his size he can move mountains, create megalithic buildings and structures, fly like the bird and swim like the fish, but none of these advancements are due to the way modern Evolution works, or explained away by either diversification or natural selection.
Diversification and de Vries
So let’s revisit this, and see if there is anything we missed. Diversification occurs by the modification of descent. This means that we get our various species from the same primordial slime because genetic structure, or the DNA, let’s say, goes through modifications and mutations. For more on this, let’s bring in the work of Darwin’s soul-mate, the flower man of Haarlem, Hugo de Vries.
Hugo de Vries‘ book Intracellular Pangenesis (1889) was based on Darwin’s own Pangenesis published in 1868. We can see in this alone how current “accepted” science works by building on what came before more than by postulating and proving new ideas. Regardless of the weakness of the foundation, the seen cracks, the scientific theorists nevertheless carry their Babelic Tower ever-higher, never mindful of the impending consequences. In this vein de Vries’ experiments have come to be known as evidence for Evolution. We should therefore try to find out what this evidence is.
“Pangenesis“, we discussed previously, literally means “all-created”; genesis means “the beginning”, “the creating”, or “the Origin”; and pan means “across-all” or “everything”. According to de Vries, actual pangenes, or small particles, carry specific messages and carry these traits down through the generations. Later, this term became shortened to genes. This is pretty much where we stand today, and Science tells us that characteristics or traits of organisms come through “messages” transmitted through genes or “messengers”, perhaps through chemical reactions, or maybe by electricity, as with the execution of computer code.
It was de Vries’ work with manipulating the genes of flowers that gave Holland the basis for its beautiful varieties of tulips, and this spirit of “improving the stock” that still guides many Dutch growers (of many strains), as well as food producers and farmers throughout the world. We increase yield, genetically mutate food to grow stronger and more resistant to disease, largely through the work done by deVries. We can now create hybrids and unite the desirable qualities of different variations of species. Much of this is due to the practical science done by not only de Vries but it also owes quite a bit to the work done Mendel and Pasteur.
This is science and its Truth need not be denied. Evidence of mutated species and forced hybrids in the plant and animal world are all around us. We ought here though, like pharmaceutical adverts, at least mention the side-effects of such genetically-altered foodstuffs. What goes into our vegetables and meats, and even ornamental plants, are no longer all known commodities, and their possible adverse effects to human health, by such genetic engineering, are only now beginning to come to light. We do not know long-term what will happen even by our making the marigold more cold-hardy, let alone injecting grapes with mammalian DNA code, or cows with antibiotics… or aging men with Viagra. We can no longer even be sure, lest we grow it ourselves, of the content of a normal apple. Between the quality of the water, the pesticides, medicines, fungicides, herbicides, and the like, it is quite possible our “healthy” apple today is no better for us than a pack of cigarettes, no more nutritious than a sugar cookie coated with corn syrup.
While we cannot doubt the science involved here, specifically the claim that genetic code is real, neither does such an admission explain much, and is no different than any other intermediary. It is just another process; we have found the messenger, and possibly the message, but this helps us little in finding out where the message comes from, or how it really works. No one yet, to my knowledge, has bothered to ask how a combination of sub-atomic particles can come together in just the right combination to form just the variety of elements of the Periodic Table, let alone how these elements “know” how and why to combine to form even simple amino acids, never mind specific DNA chains, or how these chromosomes communicate the code, how genes store, carry, and transfer actual orders for action, and so on. We have no clue as to how the elements necessary for any growth, and change in growth patterns, are actually brought together by the “message” it carries. We have not yet deciphered the hieroglyphics of the DNA language.
Again, de Vries shows us the avenues, hints as to how diversification appears to work, but all we are really doing is splitting hairs. We do not know yet which comes first, the DNA cart or the trait horse. Was it to give the giraffe a longer neck that the DNA changed, or did the genes change because the giraffe’s neck grew? We have found parts of the clock, and can see them running and operating efficiently without our conscious input, but we have not found the power source, and have not yet figured out how those parts work. Neither have we found the clockmaker, nor deciphered yet how the clockmaker gets everything operating and keeps such good time, nor the switch of power that keeps everything moving at all.
Also of some importance is that de Vries noticed that various species can have genes in common. So, for example, the gene for 6 petals in one flower is the same as that in another flower, and he found out that distinct species could be crossed by manipulation of these commonly held genes. Orthologous genes, for example, allow cross-breeding in this way. Interestingly, these genes are said to be inherited from a common ancestor.
True crossbreeding of separate species, though, is still unknown, various claims to such being limited to an alleged horizontal gene transfer found in simple organisms, viruses and bacteria. There is good evidence of a lion and tiger mating to produce the liger, and some new research about baboons and gibbons mating to produce viable offspring. All we should conclude by this, as I have said before, is that we have a major problem with our classificatory system, the way we organize animals into genera and species. The cats are obviously all related, as well as the apes, enough for them to interbreed with their kind. Properly they then cannot be separate species, but rather variations or sub-groups of one single species. By the way, such capabilities among ancient apes can do much to explain some of the strange skulls and other fossils we have found, and without much proof assigned as proto-humans. They could just be the result of two related simians mating, which would also explain why so many of these skulls are one of a kind. More on this next section.
Horizontal Gene Transfer
While standard genetic transfer is considered vertical, in that traits, characteristics, and other information get transferred through parenting, ancestry and actual lineage – from parent species to their children, or blood lines – horizontal gene transfer speculates that such genetic information may also be communicated across populations and without such direct physical inheritance:
According to Gogarten, Horizontal Gene Transfer or HGT leads to a radical new organizing principle. Gogarten’s and his colleagues work shows that genetic information is not only handed down from ancestor to descendant, but also is exchanged horizontally among and between contemporaries; even among different species and sometimes even between species belonging to different domains. Because evolution was first discovered and studied in animals and plants, the standard belief in biology has been that genes would mainly be transferred vertically, but in the microbial world, this paradigm does not appear to be the best way to explain what occurs. The frequent exchange of genetic information among organisms requires a reassessment of traditional ideas.
Gogarten believes that HGT is more frequent and pervasive than most biologists could even imagine a decade ago. He suggested that a microbial species might look similar to one another not because of a relationship through vertical inheritance but rather because the frequency of HGT between them. In fact, Gogarten stated that if the full data of complete genome sequences is taken into account, the genomic history of all bacterial life could be explained exclusively through HGT without any reference to vertical inheritance at all. [source]
This is an interesting proposition at this point in our search for the origin of Man. If we extend this theory to its implications for the human race, as extremists like us are wont to do, this would mean that we also acquire traits and characteristics handed down by the world-at-large. Are such magical metamorphoses again a comment on Nature versus Nurture? Heredity versus education, or experience? Let’s see if we can understand the evidence for this claim of horizontal gene transfer. Please keep in mind that Gogarten’s conclusions were drawn by examining events at the nearly the molecular level:
Gogarten’s and his colleagues’ work shows that genetic information is not only handed down from ancestor to descendant, but also is exchanged horizontally among and between contemporaries; even among different species and sometimes even between species belonging to different domains…[ibid.]
This is the claim. Is this simply nurture, the effect of the environment, culture, experience, and education on the individual? The evidence that led to this came from the study of:
1) Bacteria (sometimes known as Eubacteria).
2) Archaea (aka Archaebacteria), and
3) Eucarya (eukaryotic life forms which have a cell nucleus housing their DNA).In 3) Prokaryotes the genetic information is not separated by a membrane from the rest of the cell” (ibid.).
Ah, our old friends the prokaryotes and eukaryotes are back again, and by their study our dear scientists make more metaphysical claims. Good videos about the types of bacteria, and their classification (or lack thereof) may be found here.
Let us be clear about this “evidence”. It is quite possible that the classification of these four creatures (eukaryotes, archaebacteria and the bacteria particularly) is simply wrong, and that what has been accepted as definitive characteristics of the species are not. They are all a type of bacteria, and researchers have mistakenly considered as distinct species what are but sub-types of the same species; they are mistaking a species for a genus. Going by physical structure is no good argument either, as a Pug looks nothing like a Chihuahua, they are both dogs nonetheless.
Now there is nothing wrong with saying that our environment influences us. Common sense should grant the respect to Nurture it deserves. We spend this time considering horizontal gene transfer at all because of its association with Evolution and as an illustration of the too-often-backward motion of contemporary science. Millions are employed in the type of research we are now discussing, building upon sand structures of straw, few producing anything of human benefit as a result of the expense. This is Mental Masturbation, a search-less, cannibalistic quest for Knowledge with no ideas of benefit or advance, feasting on itself and then regurgitating often putrid, mostly partially-digested matter as revelations, as “advances” and indicative of “progress”. Today, quite keeping with the times, the masturbator is rewarded with applause, and even requests for encores.
Bacteria and their Kin
Getting back to the immediate concern, and so considering the division of these bacteria we have been asked to accept, we are told that genetic traits cross not only between related species, but also between species “of different domains”. This, remember, is concluded from studying the genetic structure of these micro-organisms, some of them being not much more than just “genetic structure”. By “across domains” Gogarten and the others mean across the imaginary lines they have drawn between these types of bacteria. Its implications for Evolution are clear:
Because evolution was first discovered and studied in animals and plants, the standard belief in biology has been that genes would mainly be transferred vertically, but in the microbial world, this paradigm does not appear to be the best way to explain what occurs. [ibid.]
This provides for what I would call a “crutch” for Evolution, meaning a way whereby the theory might advance, or get along, despite its obvious handicaps. Using such a device diversification of species can now be accounted for by other than purely physical means; in fact, almost by absorption, the mutations, and even the species emerge! From this point on, when the huge gaps that occur in the scientific explanation for the origin of Man, or Evolution, are exposed for the chasms of unsurety that they are, those gaps may be filled by this artificial plaster of Paris prospect of “horizontal genetic transfer”; it explains for Evolution the inexplicable. So finally, and pay close attention to this:
Gogarten believes that HGT is more frequent and pervasive than most biologists could even imagine a decade ago. He suggested that a microbial species might look similar to one another not because of a relationship through vertical inheritance but rather because the frequency of HGT between them. In fact, Gogarten stated that if the full data of complete genome sequences is taken into account, the genomic history of all bacterial life could be explained exclusively through HGT without any reference to vertical inheritance at all. [ibid.]
That similar-looking creatures might not be related, especially by considering remote descendants, is a demonstrable fact, and that we separate and consider distinct many sub-species that closely resemble each other, especially the tiny animals of the waters, and plants, goes without saying. But, as alluded to last chapter, something from either within or from outside the elements must invigorate them to action.
Eukaryote Structure; prokaryotes look like bacteria
How does all this help our quest for the origin of Man? Not a bit. By written history we have evidence of a Man that has remained virtually unchanged in physical structure for at least 10,000 years. The same animals domesticated by the Babylonians are still domesticated today. Despite vertical and, let us accept for the moment, horizontal Evolution, much has remained as it ever was. Our digestive tract may have adapted to chemically-altered water, our teeth so much worse for the corn, but we have always been the same humans. Only the toys around us, created by us, have changed.
Those toy makers, they are good people. They have given us many things, some good, some bad, all choices nonetheless, and so we are advanced by the variety, the opened horizons. While we study these bacteria on a theoretical level, and also these viruses which so perplex our best doctors medical and non, though, we must observe and state that no real practical scientific work is being done, for example to eliminate the bad viruses, the cancers, the e-coli. We have not even been able to eradicate the common cold, or cure the Flu.
The reasons for this ineptitude are many, ranging from incompetence and ignorance to laziness, pride, and greed. Mostly, though, it is from attempting to make all new development fit in, or conform to current thought, accompanied by an unwillingness to dump fruitless ideas. What has NASA given us? What about it has made our lives better?
Artist’s Conception, Spiral Motion of bacteria E-Coli
Evolution Today
So finally what exactly is Evolution then, and according to it, what is the origin of Man? Today, Evolution is two things, something that ought to be borne in mind when its proponents wonder why some people refuse to believe it and less can understand it. Is Evolution “a theory and a fact” as its priests say?
Certainly it is a theory, as any guess may be a theory, specifically in that it attempts to explain something, in this case biological change. It is claimed to be fact, but we should have to say that this it is not. Its claims to Truth is based on observed changes in organisms over time, and while this may be true, the change is not on a scale necessary for new species to occur. It is also true that species can undergo change, as we have admitted already several times, but it is far from fact that this same type of change can account for the diversification of species. As for its claims that diversity of species can occur by the same process as mutations within species, this is simply unproven and just metaphysical speculation based on prior assumed facts, or bad premises.
This following logic is assumed by those who say Evolution is true and a fact:
Fruit flies, which have a short lifespan, can be observed as changing from generation to generation.
The process of change from one generation to the next is called Evolution.
Therefore, Evolution is fact.
As any half-wit should be able to discern, this conclusion “Evolution is fact” does not immediately follow from the given (assumed) premises. All that really follows logically, if we accept the first two premises above, is:
Therefore, those observed fruit flies can be said to have evolved.
If Evolution be just about species changing qualities, and so if we are talking about Aristotelian category changes regarding Substance, then this Evolution can indeed be considered correct. However, the mistake made even here is the presumption that what works for fruit flies also works for sheep, lizards, and humans. This may be the case, but may not be the case. We cannot apply the truths of a particular willy-nilly to the group. Because one person changes under X therapy, does not mean ALL people will change under X therapy. Indeed, not even all fruit flies change as expected, or at all, and most, like mutated plants, eventually tend to revert to their original genetic structure. What is actually created by these experiments is not new flies, just new variations of the same flies. Along these lines we should note that it takes many generations just for hybrids of plants to breed true from seed.
If all modern Evolution wants to claim is that species undergo change, and can be made or forced to undergo alterations, we can, despite the logical problems, agree. This is again old science, its workings and results have been observable to the layman for ages. But here again let’s consider the side effects of such experimentation. What damage have we caused, in the long-term, just by our experiments with these flies…let alone with microbes? What combinations have we introduced that might alter the future course of Life?
It is rather macroevolution that everyone thinks of when they think about the Theory of Evolution. This is, again, the belief that new species come about in the same manner as changes within species. It is considered an alternative to Creation, which we have shown, it is not, regardless of what it pretends to be.
We are now where the ancient Plotinus was when considering these types of questions. He wrote that:
Clearly, everything that we call being is composite, whether man-made or nature. The man-made is not achieved until skill, by the induction of a Form, has turned it into a statue or house or bed. The natural, however, is even more complicated—I mean what we call a compound, the sort of thing that can be analyzed into constituent elements and form, as Man for example, into soul and body. [Elmer O’Brien’s Essential Plotinus, 1964, Hackett, p. 48]
All we need to do is substitute “DNA” or “genes” for “soul” in the following passage, and Plotinus’ Neoplatonic view will be seen as scientific a proposition, at least in theory, as any we have yet so far considered:
Now, finding everything to be made up of materials and a shaping Form (of itself the matter of the elements is formless), one naturally asks whence comes the shaping form? And one has questions of a similar sort about the soul [from here on I substitute the words “genes” and “DNA”]. Is it partless? Is it, on the contrary [the DNA], composite? Has it something representing matter, and something else representing Form? Is the Intelligence within it the equivalent of the shape of the statue and [/or] the sculptor giving it shape? Adopting the same method in regard to the cosmos, one will once more end up with an Intelligence and think it the true Maker and Demiurge. The matter, then, is [the elements]. Formation comes from yet another being, soul Genes, or DNA. The soul Genes gives them their cosmic pattern. But the Intelligence provides them the seminal reasons much as skill gives the soul Genes or DNA of the artist norms of performance. For there is an intelligence that is the Form of the soul Genes themselves, the DNA. And there is The Intelligence that gives the form to the soul DNA, like the sculptor who gives shape to the statue…[ibid. et. seq., my emphases and brackets]
I will close this section with a quote from UCLA. I believe it summarizes the background of Evolution’s problems pretty accurately, and makes notice of the questions we have been asking, for which we have yet to receive valid answer.
Evolution is in principle hard to model precisely, since the changes it describes usually takes place over time periods that are inaccessible to human beings. Consider the related situation in astronomy. Changes in the movement of the stars are slow, and until very recently were too slow to be detected within the lifetime of an individual. However, with the help of a continuous series of observations dating back to the fifth century BC, Copernicus was able to formulate a detailed model that fit two thousand years of data. Unfortunately, in the case of biology, two thousand years of continuous observation would in most cases reveal very little. We must thus rely in indirect evidence, such as fossil remains and systematic structural similarities and differences in living forms. This evidence leaves room for a variety of possible interpretations of past events, and thus of the mechanisms of change that underlie them.
That there are a variety of explanations for the origin of Man is doubtless. Next time around, we get poignant, we leave Evolution Minor (microevolution) as a fact, and render as accurately as we can this origin as understood by macroevolution, or Theory of Evolution Major. Giving it one final chance, we will let it try to show us how Man has descended from an ancestor we share with the chimpanzee…and how knowing this helps us to find anything of merit, for us, at least, about the origin of Man.
Updated 2-2019
Truthopia 