THIS IS WHY:
'living Fossils'
Most of the public are unaware that there are literally hundreds of different types of animals and plants which are alive and well and which are essentially unchanged from the way they appear as fossils. Such facts make it difficult to believe that these forms were separated by those imagined millions of evolutionary years.
Each issue of Creation magazine shows you examples, courtesy of Dr Joachim Scheven, who oversees the world’s largest collection of living fossils in his faith-funded creation museum Lebendige Vorwelt at Unterm Hagen 22, D-58119 Hagen, Germany.
Consider the pictures on this page. The living liquidambar (Liquidambar styraciflua) is growing in the eastern United States, and is sometimes planted in Europe for its autumn foliage. The fossil liquidambar leaf is allegedly about 20 million years old on the evolutionists’ time-scale. This specimen is from ‘Miocene’ brown coal in north-western Germany. Yet the leaves are almost identical, showing no evolution.
Below is a living coelacanth (a crossopterygian fish) from Grand Comoro Island in the Indian Ocean. Its fossil counterpart is allegedly 300 million years old. No evolution has taken place.
The overwhelming message of the fossil record is one of staying the same, not evolving. Of course, many types have gone extinct, and so are not found living. These types also show no sign of real evolution throughout their ‘stay’ in the record.
A cat with four ears (not nine lives)
by Don Batten
A kitten born on a farm in Germany has an extra pair of ears!1 ‘Lilly’ is perfectly healthy. The extra ears do not hear; only her usual ears, and they hear quite normally.
Animals, and even humans, can be born with extra toes/fingers/ears, and so on. Evolutionists sometimes use these extra bits, such as an extra pair of wings on a fruit fly, to claim that genetic information has increased spontaneously; that is, without an intelligent Creator.2 As a propaganda tool, this does confuse some people.
However, no new genetic information is involved with making these extras. The cat already has the information for making ears, and the fruit fly already has information for making wings. An error during development has merely caused the information to activate twice instead of once!
If you used a photocopier to make a copy of a document and it malfunctioned and printed two copies, you would not conclude that you had created new information by this accident. It is like this with the extra organs that sometimes appear on animals (and plants). There is no new information created, so it has nothing to do with evolution!
Lilly’s extra ears most likely came about because of a defect during development, rather than inheriting a defective gene from a parent. Chemicals in the environment can cause such defects. Everyone knows about how thalidomide caused many abnormalities in human babies—usually loss of limbs due to suppression of the information for making limbs, for example. Radiation can also cause defects, or they can be spontaneous.
In Lilly, the defect resulted in the expression of the ear-design information twice, resulting in two pairs of ears. However, not all the information activated twice, because apparently only the external parts of the extra ears are present, since the ears do not hear.
We live in a fallen world, and such defects are part and parcel of the fact that God has withdrawn some of His sustaining power from His creation. They have nothing to do with evolution.
References and notes
Four-eared kitten ‘not a monster’, ABC News Online,
, 13 May 2004.
For example, the Public Broadcasting Service’s (PBS) Evolution series in the USA, first broadcast in 2001. See Sarfati, J., Refuting Evolution 2, Answers in Genesis, Brisbane, Australia, chapter 5, 2005
Creation Archive > Volume 17 Issue 4 > The dodo bird ... an example of survival of the fittest
First published:
Creation 17(4):42–44
September 1995
Browse this issue
The dodo bird ... an example of survival of the fittest
by Jerry Bergman
Often pictured as a magnificently overweight pigeon-like bird, the last dodo died in the late 1600s. This non-flying bird which allegedly was ‘obviously unfit’ became extinct as evolution would expect, and is often used as a prime example of natural selection and proof of how evolution works. It lived on the small island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, and is now known from only bony remains plus a preserved foot and head.
A careful recent examination of the dodo has revealed that many common perceptions about the bird are incorrect.1 In the words of John Maddox, of the journal Nature, ‘the dodo deserves a better press.’2 Studies on more than 400 skeletal dodo relics by Livezy, and the work of Kitchener at the Royal Museum of Scotland, have recently radically changed the common view about the bird. In the words of Kitchener, ‘Rivaling the dinosaurs as a symbol of extinction, the dodo is renown for being slow, stupid and fat. Raphus cucullatus was doomed to extinction from the day it was discovered by hungry Dutch sailors in the forest of Mauritius in 1589. Wasn’t it? Maybe not.’3
He then shows how recent thorough evaluations of the dodo reveal that a number of ideas about it are wrong. Kitchener argues that many centuries-old ideas about the dodo will soon go the way of the dodo itself.
The dodo species consisted of three flightless branches—the dodo of Mauritius, the solitaire of Reunion island, and the Rodriguez solitaire that lived on tiny Rodriguez island.
Mauritius, Reunion and Rodriquez are a group of volcanic upthrust islands located in the Indian Ocean between Madagascar and the west coast of Australia. These isolated small islands—Mauritius is only 2,095 square kilometers (809 square miles)—stand alone in a water wilderness thousands of kilometers from any neighbour island or land. In their isolated homeland, the dodoes experienced no animal predators or human hunters to bother them for many years.
The dodoes on Mauritius were discovered in 1507 by the Portuguese, and in only 174 years became extinct. Contemporary accounts claim that men brought as many as 50 large birds on board their ship a day, and often about half were dodoes.4 The slaughter was great because this very ‘remarkable bird ... existed in considerable abundance’ on these islands.5
Kitchener concludes that it was not the dodo’s physical inferiority which caused its extinction, but the ‘rats, pigs, and monkeys which arrived with the sailors and pillaged the dodo’s vulnerable ground nests.’6 One extensive study of extinctions concluded that a number of unfortunate factors are responsible for almost all extinctions.7
Actually, all animals that lay eggs near the ground surface are vulnerable, which is why so many birds have become extinct in modern times. Even birds which have a reputation dramatically opposed to the dodo’s, such as the American eagle, have been threatened with extinction for somewhat similar reasons. The passenger pigeon was the most abundant bird in America (more than 20 billion) and was obviously ‘evolutionarily successful,’ yet became extinct by the twentieth century through wanton human destruction and greed.8 The last one died on September 1, 1914 in the Cincinnati Zoo in Ohio.9
The image of the dodo, though, makes the point about evolution far more effectively than a similarly threatened bird such as the American eagle, which was saved only through the heroic and deliberate efforts of a large number of individuals.
Myth of the fat dodo
The bird’s obesity, slowness and lack of intelligence are commonly given as reasons for its alleged evolutionary inferiority. Dodoes were for years considered not just large, but grossly overweight—to the point that they not only couldn’t fly, but could hardly run from their enemies. Kitchener, though, in studying the written record, found that the earliest dodo drawings showed rather thin birds—only those drawn later show the familiar pudgy variety.10
He found that thin dodoes were drawn by those who had actually visited Mauritius—the plumper birds were drawn mostly by artists in Europe. More than a dozen original pictures (both drawings and paintings) of the dodo now exist.11
Kitchener next evaluated the hundreds of dodo bones that have been unearthed. Using methods developed by criminologists and archaeologists to reconstruct flesh on bones, he was able to determine that the skeletal pattern produced a bird ‘remarkably similar to the first drawing of the dodo.’ Namely the thinner birds.
He concluded that ‘according to four different methods, all based on the dodo’s bones, the famous flightless pigeon weighed between 10.6 and 17.5 kilograms.’12 Evaluation of the cantilever strength of leg bones produces a relationship which can be used to determine the running abilities of different sized animals. This method revealed good evidence for the conclusion that they were indeed ‘swift of foot’—a conclusion which corresponds with eyewitness accounts which stated that the dodo ‘could run very fast.’13
While this analysis is not without problems, it has produced eminently reasonable conclusions, especially since the opposite thesis has little empirical evidence in its favour. Since Kitchener’s first evaluation, original unpublished dodo drawings completed between 1601 and 1602 were rediscovered in a museum in The Hague, the Netherlands. These showed that Kitchener’s conclusions were correct—the dodo was thinner and the femur design was tilted downwards, reducing the bending forces on it and allowing it to shift its center of gravity.14
This evidence demonstrates that the dodo was an effective, fast runner. Kitchener concludes, ‘for more than 350 years the dodo has been thoroughly misrepresented as plump and immobile. The reality is, however, that in the forests of Mauritius it was lithe and active. Like other Mauritian birds it would have undergone a seasonal fat cycle to overcome shortages of food, but never to the extent that those wonderful oil paintings suggest.’15
The last survivors
Since the birds were easy to capture, Dutch colonists, along with sailors and visitors, soon consumed most of the dodo population. Animals they brought with them, especially dogs, cats, and pigs, ate the fledglings and broke the dodo eggs to consume the yolks. By 1681, the dodoes were all gone.
Rather than demonstrate the weakness of the dodo, their history effectively demonstrates the gross irresponsibility of their caretakers. According to Panati, ‘not a single naturalist had attempted to mate any of the captive dodoes; they left no descendants.’16 The last dodo in England was stuffed by English naturalist John Tradescant. When Tradescant died in 1662, his entire natural history collection was bequeathed to an acquaintance, Elias Ashmole. Because of his irresponsibility, the entire collection’s condition greatly deteriorated, and he donated the bird to Oxford University in 1683—two years after the last living dodo was seen on Mauritius. Even Oxford did not take very good care of the bird, and except for the head and foot saved by a farsighted curator, it was later burned as trash in 1755.17 Evidently ‘the museum’s board of directors took one look at the dusty, stupid-looking bird and unanimously voted to discard it.’18
The intrigue over the bird was such that by 1800 ‘professional naturalists were casting doubt on written descriptions of the bird, as well as on extant drawings ... it became scientific vogue to deny the bird’s existence and to challenge the Oxford head and foot as fakes.’19 If it was a genuine bird, the critics reasoned, certainly there would have been extensive efforts to preserve it—or at least a good skeleton.
Search for evidence
A group of zoologists searched in 1850 for evidence, to the extent of traveling to Mauritius looking for bones—and found none. Soon the dodo was denounced as a scientific fraud.20 Evidence did not surface until a resident of Mauritius, George Clark, searched the island and in time discovered numerous scattered bones. His specimens were soon shipped to major museums, and after study were pronounced authentic.
These researchers later attempted to assemble the bone fragments—many in poor condition—into complete dodo skeletons. They are now regarded as real animals, but the many other myths surrounding them have died slowly. These myths were widely believed because they seemed to support the idea of evolutionary naturalism.
Now that the bird has been extensively studied, we realize that the facts do not support the evolutionary myth, but do support the moral bankruptcy of humankind.
References
Paul Hoffman, New and Improved Dodo, Discover 12(4), p. 16, April 1991.
John Maddox, Bringing the extinct dodo back to life, Nature, p. 291, 23 September 1993.
Andrew C. Kitchener, Justice at last for the dodo, New Scientist, p. 24, 28 August 1993.
James C. Greenway, Extinct and Vanishing Birds of the World, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1967.
Philip Henry Gosse, The Romance of Natural History, James Nisbet and Co., London (England), p. 74, 1861.
Ref. 3.
David M. Raup, Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck?, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 1991.
Jerry Dennis, What happened to the passenger pigeon?, Science Annual, Franklin Watts, New York, pp. 202-205, 1993; Doreen Buscemi, There will be pigeons as long as the world lasts, American History Illustrated 13(5), pp. 11-16, August 1978.
Allan W. Eckert, The Silent Sky: The Incredible Extinction of the Passenger Pigeon, Landfall Press, Dayton (Ohio), 1965.
Ref. 3.
Willy Ley, The Lunghsh, the Dodo, and the Unicorn: An Excursion into Romantic Zoology, The Viking Press, New York, p. 230, 1948.
Ref. 3, p. 26.
Andrew C. Kitchener, On the external appearance of the dodo, Raphus culcullatus, (L., 1758), Archives of Natural History 20(2), p. 296, 1993.
Ibid., pp. 297-299.
Ref. 3, p. 27.
Charles Panati; Panati’s Extraordinary Endings of Practically Everything and Everybody, Harper & Row, New York, p. 203, 1989.
Ibid.
David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace, The People’s Almanac #3, Bantam Books, New York, p. 361, 1981.
Ref. 16, p. 203.
Ibid.
JERRY BERGMAN, Ph.D., has served on the faculty at Bowling Green State University (USA), taught at the University of Toledo, and served as associate professor at Spring Arbor College, Michigan. He has authored more than 350 articles and books.
TJ Archive > Volume 17 Issue 1 > Ancon sheep: just another loss mutation
First published:
TJ 17(1):18–19
April 2003
Browse this issue
Ancon sheep: just another loss mutation
by Jerry Bergman
Many examples of mutations that produce phenotypic changes are ‘loss mutations’ in which the mutation causes the loss of a structure. Loss mutations that result in a non-functional protein or structure can be beneficial if the functional protein loss or malformation somehow benefits the organism (or, far more often, humans—as in the case of the loss of seeds in a fruit, producing a convenient seedless fruit).
One of the first and most common examples of the latter was an alleged new breed—Huxley called it a race, others labeled it a species—that resulted when Massachusetts farmer Seth Wright noticed in 1791 that he had a very short-legged sheep in his flock.1,2 The story is usually claimed that, realizing the advantages of this trait to sheepherders, Wright bred a ‘flock’ of the short-legged ‘species’ of sheep, all of whom were unable to jump over ordinary stone walls or fences.3,4
Called the Ancon or Otter ‘breed,’ it was believed to reduce the need for tall fences, as well as reducing the number of lost sheep.1 In addition, the short legs limited the sheep’s ability to run so that, as a result, they were less active, more gentle, and gained weight far more readily then other sheep breeds.5
Charles Darwin and Ancon sheep
Charles Darwin was evidently the first person to use the Ancon breed as evidence for evolution. He discussed them at least three times in his published books. In the Origin of Species, first published in 1859, Darwin speculated that some animal variations ‘have probably arisen suddenly,’ or by one step ‘in one generation.’ One example that Darwin used was ‘the turnspit dog.’ He then added that such ‘one step’ rapid evolution also is known ‘to have been the case with the Ancon sheep.’6 In another work, Darwin claimed that in a
‘… few instances new breeds have suddenly originated; thus, in 1791, a ram-lamb was born in Massachusetts, having short crooked legs and a long back, like a turnspit-dog. From this one lamb the otter or ancon semi-monstrous breed was raised; as these sheep could not leap over the fences, it was thought that they would be valuable … . The sheep are remarkable from transmitting their character so truly that Colonel Humphreys never heard of “but one questionable case” of an ancon ram and ewe not producing ancon offspring. When they are crossed with other breeds the offspring, with rare exceptions, instead of being intermediate in character, perfectly resemble either parent; even one of the twins has resembled one parent and the second the other. Lastly, “the ancons have been observed to keep together, separating themselves from the rest of the flock when put into enclosures with other sheep”.’7
Is the Ancon mutation beneficial?
Other evolutionists such as Kenneth Miller have also touted Ancon sheep as an example of evolutionary jumps. But this is deceptive because the condition actually is ‘pathological,’ known as achondroplasia (where cartilage fails to develop, from Greek a–, not; chondros, cartilage; plassein, to mould or form—a form of dwarfism) or a related pathology,8 and
‘… would bring about the extinction of these creatures in a natural environment, rather than an advance through natural selection. The suggestion, by Miller, that the four-winged fly and the Ancon sheep present evolutionary advances was simply a deceptive ploy.’9
Actually, the mutation has proved lethal in a protected environment as well. Gish concludes that Ancon sheep are deformed animals, specifically, the
‘… product of a pathological condition, called achondroplasia. In his presentation, Miller pointed out that these sheep have been bred by sheep breeders because they are short-legged and thus cannot jump fences—an advantage for those who raise sheep. What he did not say was that their condition is caused by a mutation which results in the failure of the cartilage between the joints to develop. There is thus little or no cartilage between the joints of their legs, causing them to be short. This abnormal condition would, of course, result in their rapid extinction in a natural environment and could never be considered an evolutionary advance.’9
The Ancon mutation, in harmony with our general experience with mutations, was harmful to the sheep for many reasons. Achondroplasia is a type of genetic dwarfism characterized by slow limb growth relative to the rest of the skeleton.10
Many other abnormalities aside from short legs have been discovered as a result of Ancon sheep postmortems. These included looser leg joint articulations, abnormal spines and skulls, flabby subscapular muscles, and crooked bent inward forelegs that caused the legs to appear like elbows while the sheep were walking.11,12 This prominent trait is the reason for the term Ancon (ancon is the Latin transliteration of the Greek word for elbow, αγκων). The Ancon legs resemble the clubfeet condition, and, in fact, as adults were clumsy cripples that could neither run nor jump like other sheep.13
Conclusion
A major problem for Darwinists is that the Ancon mutation (a Mendelian recessive), as is true with most other mutations, is a loss mutation. This type of mutation does not result in an information gain, as Darwinism requires, but an information loss (often of a complete structure or protein). A chief difficulty in arguing for macroevolution by mutations is the fact that most expressed mutations are either lethal or semi-lethal. Either they kill the organism outright, or they prove harmful, so that in the ordinary course of life they are eliminated. This includes both mutations in which the fertility rate is reduced as well as mutations that result in the loss of certain structures.
And as shown, even the rare ‘beneficial’ mutation, as some might consider the Ancon to be, are the result of information loss. Therefore they are going in the opposite direction from what goo-to-you evolution requires.14
References
Schwartz, K. and Vogel, J., Unraveling the yarn of the Ancon sheep, Bioscience 44:764–768, 1994. Return to text.
Dodge, R.A. Elements of Biology, Allyn and Bacon, Inc., Boston, 1959. Return to text.
Curtis, H. and Barnes, N.C., Biology, Fifth Edition, Worth Publishers, Inc., 1989. Return to text.
Dodge, Ref. 2, p. 598. Return to text.
Dwight, T., Travels in New England and New York, Volume III, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp. 89–90, 1969. Edited by Barbara Miller Solomon, with the assistance of Patricia M. King. Return to text.
Darwin, C., The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life, Sixth Edition, D. Appleton, New York, p. 34, 1897. Return to text.
Darwin, C., The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, D. Appleton, New York, p. 104, 1896. Return to text.
Maroteaux, P. and Lamy, M., Achondroplasia in man and animals, Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research 33:91–103, 1964. Return to text.
Gish, D.T., Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics, Institute for Creation Research, El Cajon, p. 93, 1993. Return to text.
Chang, T.K., Morphological study of the skeleton of Ancon sheep, Growth 13:269–297, 1949. Return to text.
Schwartz and Vogel, Ref. 1, p. 764. Return to text.
Maroteaux and Lamy, Ref. 8, p. 101. Return to text.
Dwight, Ref. 5, p. 89. Return to text.
Wieland, C., The evolution train’s a-comin’, Creation 24(2):16–19. Return to text.
Refuting Evolution 2
Book index
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Refuting Evolution (1) index
Argument: Some mutations are beneficial
Evolutionists say, ‘Mutations and other biological mechanisms have been observed to produce new features in organisms.’
by Jonathan Sarfati, with Michael Matthews
First published in Refuting Evolution 2
Chapter 5
When they begin to talk about mutations, evolutionists tacitly acknowledge that natural selection, by itself, cannot explain the rise of new genetic information. Somehow they have to explain the introduction of completely new genetic instructions for feathers and other wonders that never existed in ‘simpler’ life forms. So they place their faith in mutations.
In the process of defending mutations as a mechanism for creating new genetic code, they attack a straw-man version of the creationist model, and they have no answer for the creationists’ real scientific objections. Scientific American states this common straw-man position and their answer to it.
10. Mutations are essential to evolution theory, but mutations can only eliminate traits. They cannot produce new features.
On the contrary, biology has catalogued many traits produced by point mutations (changes at precise positions in an organism’s DNA)—bacterial resistance to antibiotics, for example. [SA 82]
This is a serious misstatement of the creationist argument. The issue is not new traits, but new genetic information. In no known case is antibiotic resistance the result of new information. There are several ways that an information loss can confer resistance, as already discussed. We have also pointed out in various ways how new traits, even helpful, adaptive traits, can arise through loss of genetic information (which is to be expected from mutations).
Mutations that arise in the homeobox (Hox) family of development-regulating genes in animals can also have complex effects. Hox genes direct where legs, wings, antennae, and body segments should grow. In fruit flies, for instance, the mutation called Antennapedia causes legs to sprout where antennae should grow. [SA 82]
Once again, there is no new information! Rather, a mutation in the hox gene (see next section) results in already-existing information being switched on in the wrong place.1 The hox gene merely moved legs to the wrong place; it did not produce any of the information that actually constructs the legs, which in ants and bees include a wondrously complex mechanical and hydraulic mechanism that enables these insects to stick to surfaces.2
These abnormal limbs are not functional, but their existence demonstrates that genetic mistakes can produce complex structures, which natural selection can then test for possible uses. [SA 82]
Amazing—natural selection can ‘test for possible uses’ of ‘non-functional’ (i.e., useless!) limbs in the wrong place. Such deformities would be active hindrances to survival.
Gene switches: means of evolution?
William Bateson (1861–1926), who added the word ‘genetics’ to our vocabulary in 1909, found that embryos sometimes grew body parts in the wrong place. From this he theorized that there are underlying controls of certain body parts, and other controls governing where they go.
Ed Lewis investigated and won a Nobel Prize in 1995 for discovering a small set of genes that affect different body parts (Hox or Homeobox). They act like ‘architects of the body.’ Mutations in these can cause ‘dramatic’ changes. Many experiments have been performed on fruit flies (Drosophila), where poisons and radiation induced mutations.
The problem is that they are always harmful. PBS 2 showed an extra pair of wings on a fly, but failed to mention that they were a hindrance to flying because there are no accompanying muscles. Both these flies would be eliminated by natural selection.
Walter Gehring of the University of Basel (Switzerland) replaced a gene needed for eye development in a fruit fly with the corresponding gene from a mouse. The fly still developed normal fly eyes, i.e., compound eyes rather than lens/camera. This gene in both insects and mammals is called eyeless because absence of this gene means no eyes will form.
However, there is obviously more to the differences between different animals. Eyeless is a switch—it turns on the genetic information needed for eyes. But evolution requires some way of generating the new information that’s to be switched on. The information needed to build a compound eye is vastly different from that needed to build a lens/camera type of eye. By analogy, the same switch on an electric outlet/power socket can turn on a light or a laptop, but this hardly proves that a light evolved into a laptop!
All the same, the program says that eyeless is one of a small number of common genes used in the embryonic development of many animals. The program illustrated this with diagrams. Supposedly, all evolution needed to do was reshuffle packets of information into different combinations.
But as shown, known mutations in these genes cause monstrosities, and different switches are very distinct from what is switched on or off. Also, the embryo develops into its basic body plan before these genes start switching—obviously they can’t be the cause of the plan before they are activated! But the common genes make perfect sense given the existence of a single Creator.
Increased amounts of DNA don’t mean increased function
Biologists have discovered a whole range of mechanisms that can cause radical changes in the amount of DNA possessed by an organism. Gene duplication, polyploidy, insertions, etc., do not help explain evolution, however. They represent an increase in amount of DNA, but not an increase in the amount of functional genetic information—these mechanisms create nothing new. Macroevolution needs new genes (for making feathers on reptiles, for example), yet Scientific American completely misses this simple distinction:
Moreover, molecular biology has discovered mechanisms for genetic change that go beyond point mutations, and these expand the ways in which new traits can appear. Functional modules within genes can be spliced together in novel ways. Whole genes can be accidentally duplicated in an organism’s DNA, and the duplicates are free to mutate into genes for new, complex features. [SA 82]
In plants, but not in animals (possibly with rare exceptions), the doubling of all the chromosomes may result in an individual which can no longer interbreed with the parent type—this is called polyploidy. Although this may technically be called a new species, because of the reproductive isolation, no new information has been produced, just repetitious doubling of existing information. If a malfunction in a printing press caused a book to be printed with every page doubled, it would not be more informative than the proper book. (Brave students of evolutionary professors might like to ask whether they would get extra marks for handing in two copies of the same assignment.)
Duplication of a single chromosome is normally harmful, as in Down’s syndrome. Insertions are a very efficient way of completely destroying the functionality of existing genes. Biophysicist Dr Lee Spetner in his book Not By Chance analyzes examples of mutational changes that evolutionists have claimed to have been increases in information, and shows that they are actually examples of loss of specificity, which means they involved loss of information (which is to be expected from information theory).
The evolutionist’s ‘gene duplication idea’ is that an existing gene may be doubled, and one copy does its normal work while the other copy is redundant and non-expressed. Therefore, it is free to mutate free of selection pressure (to get rid of it). However, such ‘neutral’ mutations are powerless to produce new genuine information. Dawkins and others point out that natural selection is the only possible naturalistic explanation for the immense design in nature (not a good one, as Spetner and others have shown). Dawkins and others propose that random changes produce a new function, then this redundant gene becomes expressed somehow and is fine-tuned under the natural selective process.
This ‘idea’ is just a lot of hand-waving. It relies on a chance copying event, genes somehow being switched off, randomly mutating to something approximating a new function, then being switched on again so natural selection can tune it.
Furthermore, mutations do not occur in just the duplicated gene; they occur throughout the genome. Consequently, all the deleterious mutations in the rest of the genome have to be eliminated by the death of the unfit. Selective mutations in the target duplicate gene are extremely rare—it might represent only 1 part in 30,000 of the genome of an animal. The larger the genome, the bigger the problem, because the larger the genome, the lower the mutation rate that the creature can sustain without error catastrophe; as a result, it takes even longer for any mutation to occur, let alone a desirable one, in the duplicated gene. There just has not been enough time for such a naturalistic process to account for the amount of genetic information that we see in living things.
Dawkins and others have recognized that the ‘information space’ possible within just one gene is so huge that random changes without some guiding force could never come up with a new function. There could never be enough ‘experiments’ (mutating generations of organisms) to find anything useful by such a process. Note that an average gene of 1,000 base pairs represents 41000 possibilities—that is 10602 (compare this with the number of atoms in the universe estimated at ‘only’ 1080). If every atom in the universe represented an ‘experiment’ every millisecond for the supposed 15 billion years of the universe, this could only try a maximum 10100 of the possibilities for the gene. So such a ‘neutral’ process cannot possibly find any sequence with specificity (usefulness), even allowing for the fact that more than just one sequence may be functional to some extent.
So Dawkins and company have the same problem as the advocates of neutral selection theory. Increasing knowledge of the molecular basis of biological functions has exploded the known ‘information space’ so that mutations and natural selection—with or without gene duplication, or any other known natural process—cannot account for the irreducibly complex nature of living systems.
Yet Scientific American has the impertinence to claim:
Comparisons of the DNA from a wide variety of organisms indicate that this [duplication of genes] is how the globin family of blood proteins evolved over millions of years. [SA 82]
This is about the vital red blood pigment hemoglobin that carries the oxygen. It has four polypeptide chains and iron. Evolutionists believe that this evolved from an oxygen-carrying iron-containing protein called myoglobin found in muscles, which has only one polypeptide chain. However, there is no demonstration that gene duplication plus natural selection turned the one-chained myoglobin into the four-chained hemoglobin. Nor is there any adequate explanation of how the hypothetical intermediates would have had selective advantages.
In fact, the proposed evolution of hemoglobin is far more complicated than Scientific American implies, though it requires a little advanced biology to understand. The α- and β-globin chains are encoded on genes on different chromosomes, so they are expressed independently. This expression must be controlled precisely, otherwise various types of anemia called thalassemia result. Also, there is an essential protein called AHSP (alpha hemoglobin stabilizing protein) which, as the name implies, stabilizes the α-chain, and also brings it to the β-chain. Otherwise the α-chain would precipitate and damage the red blood cells.
AHSP is one of many examples of a class of protein called chaperones which govern the folding of other proteins.3 This is yet another problem for chemical evolutionary theories—how did the first proteins fold correctly without chaperones? And since chaperones themselves are complex proteins, how did they fold?4
Identifying information-increasing mutations may be a small part of the whole evolutionary discussion, but it is a critical ‘weak link’ in the logical chain. PBS, Scientific American, and every other pro-evolution propaganda machine have failed to identify any evidence that might strengthen this straw link.
References and notes
See D. Batten, Hox (homeobox) Genes—Evolution’s Saviour? and D. DeWitt, Hox Hype—Has Macro-evolution Been Proven?.
See J. Sarfati, Startling Stickiness, Creation 24(2):37 (March–May 2002).
A. Kihm et al., An Abundant Erythroid Protein That Stabilizes Free-haemoglobin, Nature 417(6890):758–763 (13 June 2002); comment by L. Luzzatto and R. Notaro, Haemoglobin’s Chaperone, same issue, p. 703–705.
See S.E. Aw, The Origin of Life: A Critique of Current Scientific Models, TJ 10(3):300–314, 1996.
Beetle bloopers
Even a defect can be an advantage sometimes
by Carl Wieland
A big obstacle for evolutionary belief is this: what mechanism could possibly have added all the extra information required to transform a one-celled creature progressively into pelicans, palm trees, and people? Natural selection alone can’t do it—selection involves getting rid of information. A group of creatures might become more adapted to the cold, for example, by the elimination of those which don’t carry enough of the genetic information to make thick fur. But that doesn’t explain the origin of the information to make thick fur.
For evolutionists there is only ‘one game in town’ to explain the new information which their theory requires—mutations. These are accidental mistakes as the genetic information (the coded set of instructions on the DNA which is the ‘recipe’ or ‘blue-print’ specifying the construction and operation of any creature) is copied from one generation to the next. Naturally, such scrambling of information will tend to either be harmful,1 or at best neutral.2
However, evolutionists believe that occasionally, a ‘good’ mutation will occur which will be favored by selection and will allow that creature to progress along its evolutionary pathway to something completely different.
The wrong type of change
Are there ‘good’ mutations? Evolutionists can point to a small handful of cases in which a mutation has helped a creature to survive better than those without it. Actually, they need to take a closer look. Such ‘good’ mistakes are still the wrong types of changes to turn a fish into a philosopher—they are headed in precisely the wrong direction. Rather than adding information, they destroy information, or corrupt the way it can be expressed (not surprising, since they are random mistakes).
For example, beetles losing their wings. A particular winged beetle type lives on large continental areas; the same beetle type on a small windy island has no wings.
What happened is easy to imagine. Every now and then in beetle populations, there might be a mutational defect which prevents wings from forming. That is, the ‘wing-making’ information is lost or scrambled in some way.
The damaged gene (a gene is like a long ‘sentence’ carrying one part of the total instructions recorded on the DNA) will then be passed to all that beetle’s offspring, and to theirs, as it is copied over and over. All these descendant beetles will be wingless.
If a beetle with such a wingless defect is living on the Australian mainland, for example, it will have less chance to fly away from beetle-eaters, so it will be more likely to be eliminated by ‘survival of the fittest’ before it can leave offspring. Such so-called ‘natural selection’ can help to eliminate (or at least reduce the buildup of) such genetic mistakes.
Blown away
However, on the windy island, the beetles which can fly tend to get blown into the sea, so not having wings is an advantage. In time, the elimination of all the winged ones will ensure that only those of this new ‘wingless’ variety survive, which have therefore been ‘naturally selected.’ ‘There!’ says the evolutionist. ‘A favorable mutation—evolution in action!’ However, it fails to make his case, because though beneficial to survival, it is still a defect—a loss or corruption of information. This is the very opposite of what evolutionists need to demonstrate real evolution.
To support belief in a process which has allegedly turned molecules into man would require mutations to add information. Showing that information-losing defects can give a survival advantage is irrelevant, as far as evidence for real evolution is concerned.
In short,
Evolutionary theory requires some mutations to go ‘uphill’—to add information.
The mutations which we observe are generally neutral (they don’t change the information, or the ‘meaning’ in the code) or else they are informationally downhill—defects which lose/corrupt information.
The rare ‘beneficial’ mutations to which evolutionists cling, all appear to be like this wingless beetle—downhill changes, losses of information which, though they may give a survival advantage, are headed in precisely the wrong direction for evolution.
All of our real-world experience, especially in the ‘information age,’ would indicate that to rely on accidental copying mistakes to generate real information is the stuff of wishful thinking by ‘true believers,’ not science.
Notes
Thousands of hereditary diseases in people, for instance, are caused by just such inherited mutational defects.
That is, having no effect on the outcome, or the expressed meaning of the code. Using English as an (admittedly limited) analogy, assume a message were transmitted saying ‘the enemy is now attacking,’ which accidentally suffers a one-letter substitution changing it to ‘the enemy is not attacking.’ The result is potentially disastrous, like a harmful mutation. Whereas a change to ‘tha enemy is now attacking’ would be neutral; a change, but not affecting the end resultAnswers in Genesis: Upholding the Authority of the Bible from the Very First Verse
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Creation Archive > Volume 27 Issue 1 > The breath of life
First published:
Creation 27(1):42–45
December 2004
Browse this issue
The breath of life
God’s gift to all creatures
by David Demick
One of the best-known verses in the Bible is Genesis 2:7, ‘And the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living soul.’ This verse sets a pattern for the rest of the Bible, where breath is often equated with life itself. In fact, references to breath or breathing are frequent in the Bible, with many allusions to God as the giver of breath (and life) to man and animals.
The respiratory system has many distinctive design features, which show forth the providence of God. Breathing also illustrates our human vulnerability and complete dependence upon God. One easy experiment to show this is to try to hold our breath. For most of us, air hunger becomes painful well within a minute, and we would die in just a few more minutes if completely deprived of air. So, our breathing apparatus is one of our most vital systems—absolutely necessary to sustain us from moment to moment. How does it work?
Designed to breathe
Respiration in humans begins with the nose. Our nasal passages are much more than just a source of discomfort when cold and flu season comes around. They are a high-tech air conditioning and purification system. They filter out the larger dust particles and microbial spores by focusing incoming air onto the mucous membrane lining the nasal cavity. The cells of this lining secrete sticky mucus, where impurities are trapped and disposed of. The nasal passages also provide air warming and humidification, through a rich blood supply just beneath the mucous membrane. (This is why nosebleeds happen fairly easily.) The blood supply also acts as a chemical cleanser of the air, and gives the nose design features in common with modern air-cleaning antipollution devices:
‘In an engineer’s terms, the nose is said to function like a scrubbing tower supplied with fresh [cleaning] fluid at successive levels. Despite a fractional-second contact time with the nasal mucosa, the inspired air is efficiently cleared of ozone, sulfur dioxide, and other water-soluble pollutant gases, far better than it is cleared by the oropharynx [by breathing through the mouth].’1
After being warmed up and cleaned, air passes into the main windpipe, or trachea. From there it goes into two large branches, the main bronchi (singular bronchus) where further cleaning, by removal of finer particles, takes place. These progressively branch into increasingly smaller bronchi, with the very small ones being called bronchioli.2 The mucous membrane lining the bronchi also has cells with cilia, tiny whip-like hairs which can beat directionally. These waving hairs move a layer of mucus ever upwards toward the throat, where the layer and its entrapped particles can be swallowed. This air-cleaning system is called (appropriately) the ‘mucociliary escalator’.
Just before each bronchiolus ends in a tiny air sac called an alveolus, the cells lining it change. Instead of making mucus, they have enzymes to dissolve it, and thus the smallest are kept from being plugged by the protective mucus.
Each alveolus is shaped like a tiny room, with thin surrounding walls, and a doorway coming from a bronchiolus.3 Within the walls (like water pipes in the walls of a house) travel tiny blood vessels, or capillaries. The walls are ultra-thin, and tightly packed with these capillaries, so that gas exchange by simple diffusion can take place. ‘Used’ blood coming into the lungs (from the body’s veins via the heart) has a surplus of carbon dioxide, which is exchanged for oxygen through the alveoli. The oxygenated blood is then returned to the heart for circulation to the rest of the body. The renewed oxygen, in turn, drives the metabolic reactions which give our cells energy (and life).
The specialized cells of the alveoli are fascinating. The lining cells flatten themselves out like pancakes, to make the alveolar walls as thin as possible. In the corners of the alveolar ‘rooms’, there are cells secreting a soapy substance called surfactant,4 which keeps the moist alveoli from being collapsed by water’s surface tension. Also, there are patrolling white blood cells called macrophages (meaning ‘big eaters’). These body-defence cells are found in many tissues, but the kind in the lungs are super-specialized.5 Like the alveolar lining cells, they are flattened, but unlike the lining cells, they are mobile. They rove across the alveolar walls like flatfish on the ocean bottom, eating any fine contaminants which have escaped the air cleaners above. When they are ‘full’ they work their way up the mucociliary escalator, to be recycled and replaced. If the macrophages are overwhelmed by an infectious invasion, then white blood cells migrate into the alveoli to help them. Widespread lung infection is called pneumonia.
Terminating toxins
Why the great emphasis on air-cleaning in the respiratory system? For one thing, the warm, wet climate of the alveoli makes them an ideal place for microbes to grow, and the air is full of microbes and their spores. We would all die of pneumonia in a few days without our built-in air-cleaning systems.
Another reason is that otherwise the lungs would soon fill up with inhaled dust. Finally, toxic inhalants need to be cleared out before they can permanently disable the delicate alveolar cells.
The lung damage and death caused by tobacco smoking is a good example of the issues involved. Despite the cleaning mechanisms, some smoke, dust and toxins will reach the alveoli. The lungs and airways can temporarily overcome the injuries of smoking, sometimes for many years. However, various degrees of permanent lung damage will eventually ensue and, while smoking continues, will progress. Such damage can often cause early death.6
Human lungs can generally withstand disease for a long time because of the abundance of functional reserve built into them. Studies have shown that people, on average, must lose nearly ¾ of their lung tissue before serious respiratory difficulty develops.7
This high degree of functional reserve is also found in most other human body organs (e.g. we can cope with only one kidney). It is in keeping with the providence we should expect of a good and generous God.
Does the respiratory system show any signs of evolution? No, none at all. Evolutionists cannot explain marked differences in respiratory design among the vertebrates.8 Furthermore, mutations have not been shown to provide any benefit to this system (see panel below).
Breathing is also part of a much larger design—the entire balance of life on Earth. People and animals must consume oxygen to live, giving off carbon dioxide as a waste gas. But plants mostly do the exact opposite. They take in CO2 and give off O2. This provides a constantly renewing balance in the atmosphere, so that the oxygen we need is never used up. It also provides us with a dependable and pleasing environment of greenery, flowers and food.
Could there be an even more important reason why God created our bodies so that we must breathe? Breath is used in the Bible as a powerful symbol of the life-giving presence of God. Like God Himself, the air we breathe is invisible, odourless and tasteless—it cannot be perceived at all unless it moves. It is usually peaceful and still, but it is a reservoir of enormous power. The air is a massive ocean—invisible, yet completely necessary for our life, for we are quickly dead without it. It seems reasonable to suggest that one reason God created the air—and respiration—was to show us graphically how great and immediate is our need for Him.
Eastern mystics teach meditation upon one’s breath as a way of controlling body functions and gaining inner peace. Christians could also benefit from meditating upon breath, but in a different way. They should recognize that the breath of life is a great gift from God, and a powerful biblical metaphor used to speak of His very presence.
Even as we study it scientifically, the knowledge we gain should generate continual thanksgiving, so that we might join the psalmist in praising God along with ‘everything that has breath’ (Psalms 150:6).
Lung fact file
Did you know?
Your lungs have about 800 million alveolar air sacs (see main text)
It only takes about 1½ seconds for your heart to spread blood over a lung area of half a standard tennis court and then shunt it back into circulation. This happens about 100,000 times every day, usually totally automatically.
The weight of the total blood circulated through your lungs each day is around 8 tonnes. In an average lifetime, this is double the weight of the giant aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. Yet:
The work of breathing at rest only takes some 3–5% of the body’s energy consumption.
To ensure smooth breathing without gasps, the basic nerve impulse controlling it is a ‘ramp’ signal that begins weakly and increases steadily for about two seconds, then stops for three.
Jerry Moore M.D.
Uss Nimitz Aircraft Carrier (right)
Overall length: 332.85 m (1,092 ft)
Displacement: Approx. 98,556.67 tonnes (97,000 tons) full load
Aircraft: 85
Cost: Approx. 4.5 billion US dollars
Power source: Two nuclear reactors, four shafts
Date deployed: 3 May 1975
Breath, spirit and life
Genesis 1:2 tells us that ‘the Spirit [Hebrew ruach] of God moved upon the face of the waters’. Ruach can also mean ‘breath, air or wind.’ In Job 38, there is the striking image of God’s speaking to Job out of the ‘whirlwind’.
The idea continues in Ezekiel’s vision (Ezekiel 37:5) of dry bones, where God says, ‘I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live’. In the New Testament, the word for ‘spirit’ becomes the Greek word pneuma, with the same range of meaning as its Hebrew counterpart. In John 20:22, when the risen Jesus appears to his disciples, John records a remarkable event: ‘He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.’’’ This is a reminder to us of who first breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life.
Lucky lung mistakes?
Large numbers of inherited (genetic) mistakes—i.e. mutations—are known which affect respiratory function, virtually all harmful. Not a single beneficial one, let alone one which adds any information, has been described in relation to the respiratory system.
For example, the common genetic disease of cystic fibrosis has been traced to mutations of a single gene regulating cell membrane electrochemistry. Hundreds of mutations of this gene alone have been found so far, with none of them being beneficial.1 Also, one form of a mysterious lung disease called ‘interstitial pneumonia’ has recently been traced to mutations of a gene regulating surfactant production in alveolar cells.2
Mutations affecting respiratory cilia (see main text) leave the airways vulnerable to chronic severe infection (the ‘immotile cilia syndrome’). Again, a wide variety of mutations affecting cilia have been found, with none of them beneficial.3 The respiratory system shows every sign of being a complex optimally designed system—all randomly introduced changes decrease, rather than increase, its efficiency. Breathing is a strong witness to intelligent design.
Photo by Jerry Moore References
Cotran, R.S. et al., Robbins Pathologic basis of disease, 5th edition, W.B. Saunders Company, Philadelphia, USA, pp. 451–454, 1994.
Nogee, L.M. et al., A mutation in the surfactant protein C gene associated with familial interstitial lung disease, New England Journal of Medicine 344(8):573–579, 2001.
Stryer, L., Biochemistry, W.H. Freeman and company, 3rd edition, New York, USA, p. 943, 1988.
Left: Photomicrograph of normal lung (630x magnification). This shows how much of the lung is air-filled space. Walls of the alveolar sacs are ultra-thin. Though capillaries surround the alveolar sacs, the vessels themselves are so thin as to be inconspicuous at this magnification.
About the author
David Demick, M.D., is a qualified medical pathologist who has had an interest in the history and philosophy of science ever since his undergraduate years. Return to top.
References and notes
Weis, L., Histology, Cell and Tissue Biology, Elsevier Science Publishing Co. Inc., 5th edition, New York, USA, p. 791, 1983. Return to text.
The smallest ones, which carry air without exchanging it, are called the terminal bronchioli. Return to text.
Called the alveolar duct. Return to text.
In other contexts, the word ‘surfactant’ can be used (as an adjective) to refer to the property of reducing surface tension, or (as a noun) to a whole group of substances with this property. I.e. soap is a ‘surfactant’ as it has ‘surfactant properties’. But doctors use it to describe the particular surfactant substance found in the human lung. Return to text.
Ref. 1, pp. 836–843. Return to text.
Likewise, industrial smog and pollutants have a bad effect on lungs as well as the environment, and Christians should be concerned about the environmental stewardship and health-care issues involved. Return to text.
Guyton, A.C., Textbook of Medical Physiology, 8th edition, W.B. Saunders Company, Philadelphia, USA, pp. 427–428, 1991. Return to text.
Denton, M., Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Adler and Adler, Maryland, USA, pp. 210–213, 1985. Return to text.
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Creation Archive > Volume 20 Issue 2 > Focus: news of interest about creation and evolution
First published:
Creation 20(2):7–9
March 1998
Browse this issue
Focus: news of interest about creation and evolution
Man ‘apes’ sea cucumber
The sea cucumber, popular in Asian cooking, has the peculiar ability to vary its stiffness at will. It can make itself floppy or stiff, as the occasion demands. Under stress they can become so floppy that they break up when handled.
Research has shown that the sea cucumber is made like fibre-reinforced plastic (FRP)—commonly known as ‘fibreglass’—except that the ‘plastic’ is the protein collagen, and the fibres are of course not glass and are only 0.2 millionths of a metre (eight millionths of an inch) long. The sea cucumber changes its stiffness by rapidly changing the chemical property of the collagen in such a way that its shear strength is altered.
Engineers are now working on resins for carbon fibre-reinforced structures which can mimic the sea cucumber’s ability. Such a material may be very useful in designing an aircraft wing that could be caused to change its shape rather than having to rely on ailerons and flaps for control.
Professional Engineering, 23 July 1997, p. 36.
Once again, brilliantly engineered living things are being copied by human engineers.
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No message from space
Nearly 30 years ago, Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the double-helix structure of DNA, recognised the impossibility of life arising on earth by natural processes. So he proposed the idea of ‘directed panspermia’.1 He proposed that life in the form of bacterial spores was sent here by intelligent beings from somewhere else in the universe. He surmised that the spores would have had to have been like those of Bacillus subtilis or similar bacteria because of their extreme resistance to damage from radiation and desiccation (drying).
Someone else suggested that if an extra-terrestrial civilisation was responsible, then they would surely have encoded a message on the DNA of such an organism. If only we could decode the sequence of this DNA, we could learn the secrets of the universe.
Well, the DNA of Bacillus subtilis has now been decoded. The 151 collaborators who did the work did not see any messages. They did find a lot of complex coded genetic information—over four million ‘letters’ of the genetic code, equivalent to over 1,000 pages of typing.2
And we now know that even the simplest living cell could not have made itself, even ‘out there, elsewhere’. Life was undoubtedly created.
1. Nature 390(6657):237–238, 20 November 1997.
2. Reference 1, pp. 249-256.
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Blood is hard to beat
The Bible teaches ‘For the life of the flesh is in the blood’ (Leviticus 17:11). Loss of blood can quickly prove fatal, but fortunately we can tranfuse other people’s blood to save lives. But donated blood doesn’t last long, even in a fridge. So medical scientists are trying to find substitutes.
One key function of blood is carrying oxygen. This is the job of hemoglobin, which makes blood red. This absorbs oxygen very well, but also gives it up at the right time to the body parts that need it. So some researchers are looking at hemoglobin as a blood substitute. But this is normally stored in red blood cells—280 million molecules per cell. This is important—free hemoglobin is quickly broken down and clogs up the kidneys, and the red blood cells also contain chemicals to make it release oxygen at the right time. Genetically engineered hemoglobin overcomes some of these problems, but half of it still decays every 12 hours.
Other proposed substitutes are chemicals called perfluorocarbons, related to Teflon. But they are not nearly as good at oxygen transport as hemoglobin.
New Scientist 156(2110):46–49, 29 November 1997.
We should admire this excellent, potentially life-saving research, but even more should we admire the Creator of hemoglobin and red blood cells. Conversely, evolutionists have no explanation as to how the complicated hemoglobin molecules and red blood cells arose by time and chance.
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Another blow to Mars ‘life’ claim
Evolutionary ‘true believers’ who crowed in triumph about alleged microscopic fossils in a rock from Mars have had to endure many setbacks since. The most recent is a Nature report of a team led by Dr John Bradley, of the Georgia Institute of Technology.
They looked again at the alleged ‘nanofossils’ under transmission electron microscopy (TEM), tilting them at different angles, and found that they were nothing but inanimate magnetite whiskers plus artefacts of TEM. The NASA team attempted to rebut the report, but not very convincingly.
Undaunted, their David McKay has announced that they have found, in the original rock, something which looks like a thin film of slime similar to that laid down by modern bacteria. Others are unimpressed.
Nature 390(6659):ix, 454–456, 4 December 1997.
Science 278(5344):1706–7, 5 December 1997.
At this point, most of the appropriate experts no longer support the original claims of ‘life’ evidence in the Mars rock.
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Professor: ‘Our brains are shrinking’
University of Adelaide anatomist Maciej Henneberg, convener of a conference on Human Evolution in South Australia, thinks humans are still evolving.
As proof, he claims a 10% reduction in brain size over the last 10,000 years. He thinks this is because, thanks to technology, we no longer need as much muscle to survive. Brain size, he says, is not related to intelligence but to muscle mass.
The Australian, 2 December 1997 p. 3.
Odd. When it suits evolutionary theorizing, brain size supposedly relates to intelligence, as everyone taught about ‘apemen’ will confirm.
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Scientists say ‘Eve’ data might show recent origin
There has been much debate on the evidence from mitochondrial DNA pointing to a ‘mother of all’. Evolutionists have hastened to point out that they do not mean that she was the only woman alive, just that these hypothetical other women made no contribution to our mitochondrial DNA.
Creationists have countered that the evidence is nonetheless exactly consistent with a real, literal Eve, also that it at least confirms the essential genetic relatedness of all modern humans, as descended from one small original population.
However, evolutionists have said that the genetic evidence shows she lived some 70,000 to 800,000 years ago, thus excluding the biblical explanation. One of the assumptions used in arriving at such dates is the rate at which this mitochondrial DNA mutates.
However, recent research on living people indicates that these mutation rates may in fact be about 20 times higher. This means, according to a recent scientific paper, that Eve could have ‘lived about 6,500 years ago—a figure clearly incompatible with current [evolutionary] theories of human origins’.
Trends in Ecology and Evolution 12(11):422–423, November 1997.
Recent assertions that Neandertals were a different species were also made on the basis of mitochondrial DNA; this discovery makes those claims seem shaky, too.
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CIA’s Ararat photos to be released
Legal moves under the Freedom of Information Act, by a University of Richmond professor, have caused America’s Central Intelligence Agency to agree to release its Ararat Anomaly file soon.
The file was started in 1949 when photos by a U.S. spy plane, bound for the then Soviet Union, showed clearly ‘what appeared to be the outline of an ancient vessel’ on the edge of a glacier on Mt Ararat, at 5,000 metres.
Subsequent missions over the next 40 years seemed to confirm suspicions that these were likely the remains of Noah’s Ark, but the CIA says it ‘did not relish ... a religious and diplomatic furore’.
According to one report, a former official claimed that close-ups of 26 years ago showed ‘what looked like three large curved wooden beams protruding from the snow’.
One newspaper report has confused the issue by referring to ‘drogue stones’ etc., a feature of the Ron Wyatt/Jonathan Gray ‘find’. The CIA photos appear to relate to a glacier on the south-eastern section near the top of greater Mt Ararat, whereas the Wyatt site, which was conclusively debunked in Creation 14(4):26–38, 1992, is a considerable way from the mountain.
Sydney Daily Telegraph, 22 November 1997.
BSM release, 12 December 1997.
Though fascinating, more details should be awaited. Others in the CIA have claimed the dimensions do not match the Bible’s account, and it may be just a rock or shadows on ice. However, if confirmed, it should be possible to locate the object, which is only exposed during periods of glacial melt-back, for close-up inspection by ground-based researchers.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jurassic Park—wrong about dino necks too?
A Cambridge University team led by Tim Pedley has concluded, from work on giraffes, that dinosaurs like Brachiosaurus and Diplodocus with necks up to 15 metres (50 feet) long could not have lifted their heads to browse from treetops, as in the film Jurassic Park.
He says that their hearts would have had to be nearly as big as their entire chest cavity. Analyses of fossil teeth have suggested that these large sauropods stripped leaves from trees.
However, Pedley believes that the long necks were used to browse weeds on river and lake bottoms.
New Scientist 155(2100):24, 20 September 1997.
Interestingly, the sauropod described in Job chapter 40 is said to eat grass and to lie among reeds in swampy areas.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elephants losing tusks
In Uganda, around 15% of elephants are now born without tusks. This is the result of an inherited defect, a mutation which prevents tusks from developing. Normally less than 4% of African elephants are born with this defect. Selection is a logical explanation; elephants with tusks are more likely to be shot by ivory poachers, thus favouring the ‘tuskless’ defect. If continued, it could result in tusks being lost altogether.
Illogically, it has been called ‘clear evidence of Darwin’s theory’, even though no new genetic information is added.
International Express, 7 October 1997, p. 22.
Seeing the effects of selection acting so rapidly is good news for the creation model, which incorporates many examples of loss of information (or ‘devolution’) in the centuries since the Flood—eyeless fish in caves, for example.
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Fossil in ‘wrong’ place
A tiny jawbone found in Australia is causing substantial debate among researchers. The jawbone appears to be that of a mammal, but of a placental mammal (as opposed to a marsupial, like kangaroos).
The problem is that it is in rock which is allegedly around 115 million years old. However, placental mammals were not supposed to be in Australia until around five million years ago, by evolutionary reasoning.
Science 278(5342):1438–1442, 21 November 1997.
Sydney Morning Herald website, 22 November 1997.
Another clue that current concepts do not fit the facts was the find at Murgon, Australia (reported in Creation 14(2):6, 1992), of a single placental mammal tooth, in rock allegedly 55 million years old.
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Seeing red?
An Australian biophysicist, Andrew Parker, found that the special cell structures which produce the iridescent sheen of some small crustaceans called ostracods are also present in fossils.
These organisms are known from fossils supposedly 350 million years old, which are little different from the living ones of today (yet another example of things reproducing after their kind!).
Parker also found black, red and silver pigment cells (chromatophores) in various fossils, including red pigment along the top of the body of a fossil placoderm claimed to be 370 million years old. This research raises the possibility of working out the colours of other organisms for which we only have fossil specimens—such as dinosaurs.
New Scientist 155(2097):11, 30 August 1997.
This raises the question also of the presumed age of the fossils. There is strong evidence that organic compounds will break down after only thousands of years.
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Answers magazine is the Bible-affirming, creation-based magazine from Answers in Genesis. In it you will find fascinating content and stunning photographs that present creation and worldview articles along with relevant cultural topics from different authors. Each quarterly issue includes a detachable chart, a pullout children’s magazine, a unique animal highlight, excellent layman and semi-technical articles plus bonus content from the AnswersMagazine.com website. Our purpose is to equip you, our reader, with practical answers so you can confidently communicate the gospel and biblical authority with accuracy. Why wait? Subscribe today!
Creation Archive > Volume 20 Issue 2 > Genetics: no friend of evolution
First published:
Creation 20(2):20–22
March 1998
Browse this issue
Genetics: no friend of evolution
A highly qualified biologist tells it like it is.
by Lane Lester
Genetics and evolution have been enemies from the beginning of both concepts. Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, and Charles Darwin, the father of modern evolution, were contemporaries. At the same time that Darwin was claiming that creatures could change into other creatures, Mendel was showing that even individual characteristics remain constant. While Darwin’s ideas were based on erroneous and untested ideas about inheritance, Mendel’s conclusions were based on careful experimentation. Only by ignoring the total implications of modern genetics has it been possible to maintain the fiction of evolution.
To help us develop a new biology based on creation rather than evolution, let us sample some of the evidence from genetics, arranged under the four sources of variation: environment, recombination, mutation, and creation.
Environment
This refers to all of the external factors which influence a creature during its lifetime. For example, one person may have darker skin than another simply because she is exposed to more sunshine. Or another may have larger muscles because he exercises more. Such environmentally-caused variations generally have no importance to the history of life, because they cease to exist when their owners die; they are not passed on. In the middle 1800s, some scientists believed that variations caused by the environment could be inherited. Charles Darwin accepted this fallacy, and it no doubt made it easier for him to believe that one creature could change into another. He thus explained the origin of the giraffe’s long neck in part through ‘the inherited effects of the increased use of parts’.1 In seasons of limited food supply, Darwin reasoned, giraffes would stretch their necks for the high leaves, supposedly resulting in longer necks being passed on to their offspring.
Recombination
This involves shuffling the genes and is the reason that children resemble their parents very closely but are not exactly like either one. The discovery of the principles of recombination was Gregor Mendel’s great contribution to the science of genetics. Mendel showed that while traits might be hidden for a generation they were not usually lost, and when new traits appeared it was because their genetic factors had been there all along. Recombination makes it possible for there to be limited variation within the created kinds. But it is limited because virtually all of the variations are produced by a reshuffling of the genes that are already there.
For example, from 1800, plant breeders sought to increase the sugar content of the sugar beet. And they were very successful. Over some 75 years of selective breeding it was possible to increase the sugar content from 6% to 17%. But there the improvement stopped, and further selection did not increase the sugar content. Why? Because all of the genes for sugar production had been gathered into a single variety and no further increase was possible.
Among the creatures Darwin observed on the Galápagos islands were a group of land birds, the finches. In this single group, we can see wide variation in appearance and in life-style. Darwin provided what I believe to be an essentially correct interpretation of how the finches came to be the way they are. A few individuals were probably blown to the islands from the South American mainland, and today’s finches are descendants of those pioneers. However, while Darwin saw the finches as an example of evolution, we can now recognize them merely as the result of recombination within a single created kind. The pioneer finches brought with them enough genetic variability to be sorted out into the varieties we see today.2
Mutation
Now to consider the third source of variation, mutation. Mutations are mistakes in the genetic copying process. Each living cell has intricate molecular machinery designed for accurately copying DNA, the genetic molecule. But as in other copying processes mistakes do occur, although not very often. Once in every 10,000–100,000 copies, a gene will contain a mistake. The cell has machinery for correcting these mistakes, but some mutations still slip through. What kinds of changes are produced by mutations? Some have no effect at all, or produce so small a change that they have no appreciable effect on the creature. But many mutations have a significant effect on their owners.
In a fallen world, predators like this tiger, by culling the more defective animals, may serve to slow genetic deterioration by screening out the effects of mutation. Right: The ‘naked rooster’ mutation—no feathers are produced. Such mutational defects may rarely be ‘beneficial’ (e.g. if a breeder were to select this type to prevent having to pluck pre-roasting?) but never add anything new. There is no mutation which shows how feathers or anything similar arose.
Based on the creation model, what kind of effect would we expect from random mutations, from genetic mistakes? We would expect virtually all of those which make a difference to be harmful, to make the creatures that possess them less successful than before. And this prediction is borne out most convincingly. Some examples help to illustrate this.
Geneticists began breeding the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, soon after the turn of the century, and since 1910 when the first mutation was reported, some 3,000 mutations have been identified.3 All of the mutations are harmful or harmless; none of them produce a more successful fruit fly—exactly as predicted by the creation model.
Is there, then, no such thing as a beneficial mutation? Yes, there is. A beneficial mutation is simply one that makes it possible for its possessors to contribute more offspring to future generations than do those creatures that lack the mutation.
Darwin called attention to wingless beetles on the island of Madeira. For a beetle living on a windy island, wings can be a definite disadvantage, because creatures in flight are more likely to be blown into the sea. Mutations producing the loss of flight could be helpful. The sightless cave fish would be similar. Eyes are quite vulnerable to injury, and a creature that lives in pitch dark would benefit from mutations that would replace the eye with scar-like tissue, reducing that vulnerability. In the world of light, having no eyes would be a terrible handicap, but is no disadvantage in a dark cave. While these mutations produce a drastic and beneficial change, it is important to notice that they always involve loss of information and never gain. One never observes the reverse occurring, namely wings or eyes being produced on creatures which never had the information to produce them.
Natural selection is the obvious fact that some varieties of creatures are going to be more successful than others, and so they will contribute more offspring to future generations. A favourite example of natural section is the peppered moth of England, Biston betularia. As far as anyone knows, this moth has always existed in two basic varieties, speckled and solid black. In pre-industrial England, many of the tree trunks were light in colour. This provided a camouflage for the speckled variety, and the birds tended to prey more heavily on the black variety. Moth collections showed many more speckled than black ones. When the Industrial Age came to England, pollution darkened the tree trunks, so the black variety was hidden, and the speckled variety was conspicuous. Soon there were many more black moths than speckled [Ed. note: see Goodbye, peppered moths for more information].
As populations encounter changing environments, such as that described above or as the result of migration into a new area, natural selection favours the combinations of traits which will make the creature more successful in its new environment. This might be considered as the positive role of natural selection. The negative role of natural selection is seen in eliminating or minimizing harmful mutations when they occur.
Creation
The first three sources of variation are woefully inadequate to account for the diversity of life we see on earth today. An essential feature of the creation model is the placement of considerable genetic variety in each created kind at the beginning. Only thus can we explain the possible origin of horses, donkeys, and zebras from the same kind; of lions, tigers, and leopards from the same kind; of some 118 varieties of the domestic dog, as well as jackals, wolves and coyotes from the same kind. As each kind obeyed the Creator’s command to be fruitful and multiply, the chance processes of recombination and the more purposeful process of natural selection caused each kind to subdivide into the vast array we now see.
References
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, 6th Edition, John Murray, London 1902, p. 278. Darwin did see natural selection acting on this and other causes of variation as an important factor in giraffe neck evolution, but not many are aware of his reliance on inheritance of acquired characteristics. Return to text.
The different species of Galápagos finches have been observed interbreeding at times, clear evidence that they belong to the same created kind. Return to text.
Dan L. Lindsley and E.H. Grell, Genetic Variations of Drosophila melanogaster, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication No. 627, 1967. Return to text.
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Has evolution really been observed? (Summary article)
What about wingless beetles, antibiotic resistance, peppered moths and beneficial mutations?
Molecules-to-man evolution is the theory that everything made itself, and that no creator was necessary. But this requires that non-intelligent processes could produce vast quantities of functional complex information. Even the simplest free-living organism carries the equivalent information of a 500-page book; humans have as much information as a thousand 500-page volumes.
A big obstacle for evolutionary belief is this: What mechanism could possibly have added all the extra information required to transform a one-celled creature progressively into pelicans, palm trees, and people? Natural selection alone can’t do it—selection involves getting rid of information. A group of creatures might become more adapted to the cold, for example, by the elimination of those which don’t carry the genetic information to make thick fur. But that doesn’t explain the origin of the information to make thick fur.
Also, natural selection by definition is the survival of the fittest, meaning those who leave the most surviving offspring. Therefore it requires self-reproducing entities to start with. So it is powerless to explain the origin of the vast quantities of information of the first self-reproducing cell.
For evolutionists there is only ‘one game in town’ to explain the new information which their theory requires—mutations. These are accidental mistakes as the genetic (DNA) information (the coded set of instructions which is the ‘recipe’ or ‘blueprint’ specifying the construction and operation of any creature) is copied from one generation to the next.
Naturally, such scrambling of information will often be harmful—thousands of hereditary diseases in people, for instance, are caused by just such inherited mutational defects. At best they may be neutral—having no effect on the outcome, or the expressed meaning of the code. Using English as an (admittedly limited) analogy, assume a message were transmitted saying ‘the enemy is now attacking’, which accidentally suffers a one-letter substitution changing it to ‘the enemy is not attacking’. The result is potentially disastrous, like a harmful mutation. Whereas a change to ‘tha enemy is now attacking’ would be neutral; a change, but not affecting the end result.
This is not surprising—an analogy: new computer programs do not arise from old computer programs by copying errors. Instead, the resulting program usually jams.
However, evolutionists believe that occasionally, a ‘good’ mutation will occur which will be favoured by selection and will allow that creature to progress along its evolutionary pathway to something completely different.
The wrong type of change
Are there ‘good’ mutations? Evolutionists can point to a small handful of cases in which a mutation has helped a creature to survive better than those without it. Actually, they need to take a closer look. Such ‘good’ mistakes are still the wrong types of changes to turn a fish into a philosopher—they are headed in precisely the wrong direction. Rather than adding information, they destroy information, or corrupt the way it can be expressed (not surprising, since they are random mistakes).
Wingless beetles
(Adapted from Beetle Bloopers)
For example, beetles losing their wings. A particular winged beetle type lives on large continental areas; the same beetle type on a small windy island has no wings.
What happened is easy to imagine. Every now and then in beetle populations, there might be a mutational defect which prevents wings from forming. That is, the ‘wing-making’ information is lost or scrambled in some way.
The damaged gene (a gene is like a long ‘sentence’ carrying one part of the total instructions recorded on the DNA) is then going to be passed to all that beetle’s offspring, and to their offspring, as it is copied over and over. All these descendant beetles will be wingless.
If a beetle with such a wingless defect is living on the Australian mainland, for example, it will have less chance to fly away from beetle-eaters, so it will be more likely to be eliminated by ‘survival of the fittest’ before it can leave offspring. Such so-called ‘natural selection’ can help to eliminate (or at least reduce the buildup of) such genetic mistakes.
However, on the windy island, the beetles which can fly tend to get blown into the sea, so not having wings is an advantage. In time, the elimination of all the winged ones will ensure that only those of this new ‘wingless’ variety survive, which have therefore been ‘naturally selected’.
‘There!’ says the evolutionist. ‘A favourable mutation—evolution in action!’ However, it fails to make his case, because though beneficial to survival, it is still a defect—a loss or corruption of information. This is the very opposite of what evolutionists need to demonstrate real evolution.
To support belief in a process which has allegedly turned molecules into man would require mutations to add information. Showing that information-losing defects can give a survival advantage is irrelevant, as far as evidence for real evolution is concerned.
Similarly, many animals in caves are blind, with shrivelled eyes. A mutation causing shrivelling of the eye and loss of sight would not harm the individual in a cave with no light to see by anyway. And it would even be beneficial, since there is less chance of injuring a delicate eyeball. But in the light, such blind mutants would be eliminated by natural selection.
Antibiotic resistance
Some antibiotic resistance was already present in the bacterial population, as shown by specimens frozen before the development of antibiotics. So natural selection only selected from pre-existing variation. But nothing new was produced. Similarly, myxomatosis-resistant rabbits were already present in the population. When myxomatosis was introduced to Australia, non-resistant rabbits were selected against. But this processes caused the loss of information from the bacteria and rabbit population due to the loss of genetic diversity.
Also, a loss of information can cause bacterial antibiotic resistance, e.g. penicillin resistance in Staphylococcus can be due to a mutation causing a regulatory gene’s loss of control of production of penicillinase (an enzyme which destroys penicillin). The resulting overproduction of penicillinase increases resistance to penicillin. But in the wild (away from artificial environments swamped with penicillin), the Staphylococcus would be less ‘fit’ because it wastes resources producing heaps of unnecessary protein.
Another common cause of antibiotic resistance is mutational defects which hinder the bacterium’s ability to transport substances through its cell membrane. Such a defect means that the antibiotic is less readily absorbed, so it is less likely to kill the bacterium. But in the wild, it would be unable to compete with bacteria with properly working cell membrane pumps which take up nutrients into the cell.
Of the many cases of antibiotic resistance studied, none have involved the production of new functionally complex information, such as a new enzyme. This would be real evolution, but such has not been found. Sometimes bacteria have acquired resistance genes from other species via viruses or by direct transfer through tiny tubes, but this is not the addition of new information to the biosphere as a whole. Bacteria only produce bacteria ‘after their kind’, not a different type of creature.
See also Superbugs not super after all.
Viruses are sometimes said to ‘evolve’, but what really happens is that mutations cause the changes to their protein coats. There is no increase in complexity, but sometimes the changes mean that antibodies do not recognise them. So the viruses are ‘fitter’, but there is still no increase in information.
A similar case is a recent discovery that some antibiotic-resistant bacteria have abnormally high mutation rates. This is caused by a mutation in the genes for the sophisticated genetic proof-reading mechanisms present in all life. This means there is more chance of errors not being corrected. Sometimes one of these defects happens to result in antibiotic resistance, as explained above.
See also Has AIDS evolved?
Peppered moths and breeding
One common fallacy promoted by evolutionists is that variation within a kind somehow proves particles-to-people evolution. The examples commonly cited, e.g. peppered moths and the Galàpagos finches, are indeed examples of natural selection. But this is not evolution, since not new information has arisen. Given a pre-existing gene pool, different combinations of the genes arise through sexual reproduction and some of those may be better able to survive. So natural selection can account for the formation of different varieties, but cannot account for the origin of moths or finches. With the peppered moths, even were we to grant the truth of the story, all it would show is that natural selection changed the ratios of black and peppered forms. They were already present in the population, so nothing new was produced. And more recently, the whole story has been shown to be based on faked photos of moths glued on to tree trunks—the moths almost never rest there in real life. See Goodbye, peppered moths: A classic evolutionary story comes unstuck.
It’s also important to note that rapid speciation, involving no gain of genetic information, is in fact a prediction of the creation model. It explains how many varieties could arise from comparatively few ‘kinds’ on board the Ark. See Darwin’s finches: Evidence for rapid post-Flood adaptation, Speciation conference brings good news for creationists and Brisk biters: Fast changes in mosquitoes astonish evolutionists, delight creationists.
The different breeds of cattle and dogs are quite consistent with creation of separate types—e.g. a canine kind and a bovine kind, with large amounts of information. Man chose the animals with the characteristics he wanted, and bred from them. Thus the information for certain desired characteristics was concentrated in smaller selected populations. But the resulting breeds have all lost the information for the characteristics not wanted by man. Therefore, these breeds have less information than the wild type, so again the change is not of the right sort for molecules-to-man evolution. And they are still cattle and dogs, not different types of creature.
Summary
Evolutionary theory requires some mutations to go ‘uphill’—to add new information.
The mutations which we observe are generally neutral (they don’t effectively change the information, or the ‘meaning’ in the code) or else they are informationally downhill—defects which lose/corrupt information.
The rare ‘beneficial’ mutations to which evolutionists cling all appear to be like wingless animals, blind cave animals, and many examples of antibiotic resistance. They are downhill changes, losses of information which, though they may give a survival advantage, are headed in precisely the wrong direction for evolution.
The examples commonly cited as ‘evolution happening today’ usually involving adaptation by natural selection, are without exception instances in which the net result is a loss of information in the population—either by mutation or by way of reduced genetic variety.
All of our real-world experience, especially in the ‘information age’, would indicate that to rely on accidental copying mistakes to generate real information is the stuff of wishful thinking by ‘true believers’, not science.
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Privacy policy Affiliates Press kit Jobs About us Contact us Translations Mobile version Sitemap Link to us Make us your homepage TJ Archive > Volume 14 Issue 1 > The history of the teaching of human female inferiority in Darwinism
First published:
Technical Journal 14(1):117–126
April 2000
Browse this issue
The history of the teaching of human female inferiority in Darwinism
by Jerry Bergman
Summary
A review of the most prominent late 19th century writings by biologists focusing on Charles Darwin reveals that a major plank of evolution theory was the belief that women were intellectually and physically inferior to men. Female inferiority was a logical conclusion of the natural selection worldview because men were exposed to far greater selective pressures than women, especially in war, competition for mates, food and clothing. Conversely, women were protected from evolutionary selection by norms which dictated that men were to provide for and protect women and children. Darwinists taught that as a result of this protection, natural selection operated far more actively on males, producing male superiority in virtually all skill areas. As a result, males evolved more than females. The female inferiority doctrine is an excellent example of the armchair logic that has often been more important in establishing evolutionary theory than fossil and other empirical evidence.
Introduction
The central mechanism of Darwinism is natural selection of the fittest, requiring differences in organisms from which nature can select. As a result of natural selection, inferior organisms are more likely to become extinct, and the superior groups are more likely to thrive and leave a greater number of offspring.1
The biological racism of late 19th century Darwinism is now both well documented and widely publicized. Especially influential in the development of biological racism was the theory of eugenics developed by Charles Darwin’s cousin, Sir Francis Galton.2,3
Less widely known is that many evolutionists, including Darwin, taught that women were biologically and intellectually inferior to men. The intelligence gap that Darwinists believed existed between males and females was not minor, but of a level that caused some evolutionists to classify the sexes as two distinct psychological species, males as homo frontalis and females as homo parietalis.4 Darwin himself concluded that the differences between male and female humans were so enormous that he was amazed that ‘such different beings belong to the same species’ and he was surprised that ‘even greater differences still had not been evolved.’5
Sexual selection was at the core of evolution, and female inferiority was its major proof and its chief witness. Darwin concluded that males were like animal breeders, shaping women to their liking by sexual selection.6 In contrast, war pruned weaker men, allowing only the strong to come home and reproduce. Men were also the hunting specialists, an activity that pruned weaker men. Women by contrast, ‘specialized in the “gathering” part of the primitive economy.’7
Male superiority was so critical for evolution that George stated:
‘The male rivalry component of sexual selection was “the key,” Darwin believed, to the evolution of man: of all the causes which have led to the differences … between the races of man … sexual selection has been the most efficient.’ 8
Natural selection struggles existed between groups, but were ‘even more intense among members of the same species, which have similar needs and rely upon the same territory to provide them with food and mates.’9 For years, evolution theorists commonly taught that the intense struggle for mates within the same species was a major factor in producing male superiority.
Darwin’s ideas, as elucidated in his writings, had a major impact on society and science. Richards concluded that Darwin’s views about women followed from evolutionary theory, ‘thereby nourishing several generations of scientific sexism.’10 Morgan added that Darwin inspired scientists to use biology, ethnology and primatology to support the theories of women’s ‘manifestly inferior and irreversibly subordinate’ status.11
The reasons justifying the belief in the biological inferiority of women are complex, but Darwinism was a major factor, especially Darwin’s natural and sexual selection ideas. The extent of the doctrine’s effect can be gauged by the fact that the inferiority-of-women conclusion has heavily influenced theorists from Sigmund Freud to Havelock Ellis, who have had a major role in shaping our generation.12 As eloquently argued by Durant, both racism and sexism were central to evolution:
‘Darwin introduced his discussion of psychology in the Descent by reasserting his commitment to the principle of continuity … [and] … Darwin rested his case upon a judicious blend of zoomorphic and anthropomorphic arguments. Savages, who were said to possess smaller brains and more prehensile limbs than the higher races, and whose lives were said to be dominated more by instinct and less by reason … were placed in an intermediate position between nature and man; and Darwin extended this placement by analogy to include not only children and congenital idiots but also women, some of whose powers of intuition, of rapid perception, and perhaps of imitation were “characteristic of the lower races, and therefore of a past and lower state of civilization”’ (Descent 1871:326–327).13
Darwin’s personal life
Darwin’s theory may have reflected his personal attitudes toward women and non-Caucasian races. When Darwin was concerned that his son Erasmus might marry a young lady named Martineau, he wrote that if Erasmus married her he would not be:
‘… much better than her “******.”—Imagine poor Erasmus a ****** to so philosophical and energetic a lady … . Martineau had just returned from … America, and was full of married women’s property rights … . Perfect equality of rights is part of her doctrine … . We must pray for our poor “******” … Martineau didn’t become a Darwin.’14
Among the more telling indications of Darwin’s attitudes toward women were the statements he penned as a young man, which listed what he saw as the advantages of marriage, including children and a
‘… constant companion, (friend in old age) who will feel interested in one, object to be beloved and played with—better than a dog anyhow—Home, and someone to take care of house—Charms of music and female chit-chat. These things good for one’s health (emphasis mine).’ 15
Conflicts that Darwin perceived marriage would cause him included: ‘how should I manage all my business if I were obligated to go every day walking with my wife—Eheu!’ He added that as a married man he would be a ‘poor slave … worse than a negro’ but then reminisced that ‘One cannot live this solitary life, with groggy old age, friendless and cold and childless staring one in one’s face … .’ Darwin concluded his evaluation on the philosophical note: ‘There is many a happy slave’ and shortly thereafter, in 1839, he married his cousin, Emma Wedgewood.16
To Brent, Darwin’s comments revealed a low opinion of women: ‘It would be hard to conceive of a more self-indulgent, almost contemptuous, view of the subservience of women to men.’17 Richards’ analysis of Darwin’s thoughts was as follows:
‘From the onset he [Darwin] embarked on the married state with clearly defined opinions on women’s intellectual inferiority and her subservient status. A wife did not aspire to be her husband’s intellectual companion, but rather to amuse his leisure hours … . … and look after his person and his house, freeing and refreshing him for more important things. These views are encapsulated in the notes the then young and ambitious naturalist jotted not long before he found his “nice soft wife on a sofa” … (although throughout their life together it was Charles who monopolized the sofa, not Emma).’18
The major intellectual justification Darwin offered for his conclusions about female inferiority was found in The Descent of Man. In this work, Darwin argued that the ‘adult female’ in most species resembled the young of both sexes, and also that ‘males are more evolutionarily advanced than females.’19 Since female evolution progressed slower then male evolution, a woman was ‘in essence, a stunted man.’20 This view of women rapidly spread to Darwin’s scientific and academic contemporaries.
Darwin’s contemporary anthropologist, Allan McGrigor, concluded that women are less evolved than men and ‘… physically, mentally and morally, woman is a kind of adult child … it is doubtful if women have contributed one profound original idea of the slightest permanent value to the world.’21 Carl Vogt, professor of natural history at the University of Geneva, also accepted many of ‘the conclusions of England’s great modern naturalist, Charles Darwin.’
Vogt argued that ‘the child, the female, and the senile White’ all had the intellectual features and personality of the ‘grown up Negro,’ and that in intellect and personality the female was similar to both infants and the ‘lower’ races.22 Vogt concluded that human females were closer to the lower animals than males and had ‘a greater’ resemblance to apes than men.23 He believed that the gap between males and females became greater as civilizations progressed, and was greatest in the advanced societies of Europe.24 Darwin was ‘impressed by Vogt’s work and proud to number him among his advocates.’25
Sexual selection
Darwin taught that the differences between men and women were due partly, or even largely, to sexual selection. A male must prove himself physically and intellectually superior to other males in the competition for females to pass his genes on, whereas a woman must only be superior in sexual attraction. Darwin also concluded that ‘sexual selection depended on two different intraspecific activities: the male struggle with males for possession of females; and female choice of a mate.’26 In Darwin’s words, evolution depended on ‘a struggle of individuals of one sex, generally males, for the possession of the other sex.’27
To support this conclusion, Darwin used the example of Australian ‘savage’ women who were the ‘constant cause of war both between members of the same tribe and distinct tribes,’ producing sexual selection due to sexual competition.28 Darwin also cited the North American Indian custom, which required the men to wrestle male competitors in order to retain their wives, to support his conclusion that ‘the strongest party always carries off the prize.’29 Darwin concluded that as a result, a weaker man was ‘seldom permitted to keep a wife that a stronger man thinks worth his notice.’29
Darwin used other examples to illustrate the evolutionary forces which he believed produced men of superior physical and intellectual strength on the one hand, and sexually coy, docile women on the other. Since humans evolved from animals, and ‘no one disputes that the bull differs in disposition from the cow, the wild-boar from the sow, the stallion from the mare, and, as is well known to the keepers of menageries, the males of the larger apes from the females,’ Darwin argued similar differences existed among humans.30 Consequently, the result was that man is ‘more courageous, pugnacious and energetic than woman, and has more inventive genius.’31
Throughout his life, Darwin held these male supremacist views, which he believed were a critical expectation of evolution.32 Darwin stated shortly before his death that he agreed with Galton’s conclusion that ‘education and environment produce only a small effect’ on the mind of most women because ‘most of our qualities are innate.’33 In short, Darwin believed, as do some sociobiologists today, that biology rather than the environment was the primary source of behaviour, morals and all mental qualities.34 Obviously, Darwin almost totally ignored the critical influence of culture, family environment, constraining social roles, and the fact that, in Darwin’s day, relatively few occupational and intellectual opportunities existed for women.35
Darwin attributed most female traits to male sexual selection. Traits he concluded were due to sexual selection included human torso-shape, limb hairlessness and the numerous other secondary sexual characteristics that differentiate humans from all other animals. What remained unanswered was why males or females would select certain traits in a mate when they had been successfully mating with hair covered mates for aeons, and no non-human primate preferred these human traits? In this case Darwin ‘looked for a single cause to explain all the facts.’36 If sexual selection caused the development of a male beard and its lack on females, why do women often prefer clean-shaven males? Obviously, cultural norms were critical in determining what was considered sexually attractive, and these standards change, precluding the long-term sexual selection required to biologically develop them.37,38
Proponents of this argument for women’s inferiority used evidence such as the fact that a higher percentage of both the mentally deficient and mentally gifted were males. They reasoned that since selection operated to a greater degree on men, the weaker males would be more rigorously eliminated than weaker females, raising the level of males. The critics argued that sex-linked diseases, as well as social factors, were major influences in producing the higher number of males judged feebleminded. Furthermore, the weaker females would be preserved by the almost universal norms that protected them.
A major reason so few women were defined as eminent was because their social role often confined them to housekeeping and child rearing. Also, constraints on the education and employment of women, by both law and custom, rendered comparisons between males and females of little value in determining innate abilities. Consequently, measures of intelligence, feeblemindedness, eminence, and occupational success should not have been related to biology without factoring out these critical factors.
The arguments for women’s inferiority, which once seemed well supported (and consequently were accepted by most theorists), were later shown to be invalid as illustrated by the changes in western society that occurred in the last generation.39 Hollingworth’s103 1914 work was especially important in discrediting the variability hypothesis. She found that the female role as homemaker enabled feebleminded women to better survive outside an institutional setting, and this is why institutional surveys located fewer female inmates.
The influence of Darwin on society
The theory of the natural and sexual selection origin of both the body and mind had major consequences on society soon after Darwin completed his first major work on evolution in 1859. In Shields’ words, ‘the leitmotiv of evolutionary theory as it came to be applied to the social sciences was the evolutionary supremacy of the Caucasian male.’40
One of the then leading evolutionists, Joseph LeConte, even concluded that differences between male and female resulting from organic evolution must also apply to distinct societal roles for each sex.41 Consequently, LeConte opposed women’s suffrage because evolution made women ‘incapable of dealing rationally with political and other problems which required emotional detachment and clear logic.’42
Their innate belief in the inferiority of females was strongly supported by biological determinism and the primacy of nature over nurture doctrine. After reviewing the once widely accepted tabula rasa theory, in which the environment was taught to be responsible for personality, Fisher noted that Darwinism caused a radical change in society:
‘… the year in which Darwin finished the first unpublished version of his theory of natural selection [1842], Herbert Spencer began to publish essays on human nature. Spencer was a British political philosopher and social scientist who believed that human social order was the result of evolution. The mechanism by which social order arose was “survival of the fittest,” a term he, not Darwin, introduced. In 1850, Spencer wrote “Social Statistics,” a treatise in which he … opposed welfare systems, compulsory sanitation, free public schools, mandatory vaccinations, and any form of “poor law.” Why? Because social order had evolved by survival of the fittest. The rich were rich because they were more fit; certain nations dominated others because these peoples were naturally superior; certain racial types subjugated others because they were smarter. Evolution, another word he popularized, had produced superior classes, nations, and races.’43
Fisher added that the early evolutionist’s teaching included not only ideas of superior race but also superior sex; conclusions that the male sex dominated and controlled females due to evolution. Darwin taught that a major reason for male superiority was that males fought and died to protect both themselves and their females.44 As a consequence, males were subjected to a greater selection pressure than females because they had to fight for survival in such dangerous, male-orientated activities as war and hunting.
In the late 1800’s, the inferiority-of-women doctrine was taken for granted by most scientists to be a major proof of evolution by natural selection. Gould claimed that ‘almost all scientists’ then believed that Blacks, women, and other groups were intellectually inferior, and biologically closer to the lower animals.45 Nor were these scientists simply repeating their cultural prejudices. They attempted to support their belief of female inferiority with supposedly empirical research as well as evolutionary speculation.
Female brain capacity believed inferior
One approach seized upon, to scientifically demonstrate that females were generally inferior to males, was to prove that their brain capacity was smaller. Researchers first endeavoured to demonstrate smaller female cranial capacity by skull measurements, and then tried to prove that brain capacity was causally related to intelligence—a far more difficult task.46 Darwin justified this approach for proving female inferiority by explaining:
‘As the various mental faculties gradually developed themselves, the brain would almost certainly become larger. … the large proportion which the size of man’s brain bears to his body, compared to the same proportion in the gorilla or orang, is closely connected with his higher mental powers … . … that there exists in man some close relation between the size of the brain and the development of the intellectual faculties is supported by the comparison of the skulls of savage and civilized races, of ancient and modern people, and by the analogy of the whole vertebrate series.’47
One of the most eminent of the numerous early researchers who used craniology to ‘prove’ intellectual inferiority of women was Paul Broca (1824–1880), a professor of surgery at the Paris Faculty of Medicine. He was a leader in the development of physical anthropology as a science, and one of Europe’s most esteemed anthropologists. In 1859, he founded the prestigious Anthropological Society.48 A major preoccupation of this society was measuring various human traits, including skulls, to ‘delineate human groups and assess their relative worth.’49 Broca concluded that in humans, the brain is larger in
‘… men than in women, in eminent men than in men of mediocre talent, in superior races than in inferior races50 … Other things equal, there is a remarkable relationship between the development of intelligence and the volume of the brain.’51
In an extensive review of Broca’s work, Gould concluded that Broca’s conclusions only reflected ‘the shared assumptions of most successful white males during his time—themselves on top … and women, Blacks, and poor people below.’52 How did Broca arrive at these conclusions? Gould responded that ‘his facts were reliable … but they were gathered selectively and then manipulated unconsciously in the service of prior conclusions.’ One would have been that women were intellectually and otherwise demonstratively inferior to men as evolution predicted. Broca’s own further research and the changing social climate later caused him to modify his views, concluding that culture was more important than he had first assumed.53
A modern study by Van Valen, which Jensen concluded was the ‘most thorough and methodologically sophisticated recent review of all the evidence relative to human brain size and intelligence,’ found that the best estimate of the within-sex correlation between brain size and I.Q. ‘may be as high as 0.3.’54,55 A correlation of 0.3 accounts for only 9% of the variance between the sexes, a difference that may be more evidence for test bias and culture than biological inferiority. Schluter showed that claimed racial and sexual differences in brain size ‘are accounted for by a simple artifact of the statistical methods employed.’56
Overturning the inferiority-of-women doctrine
Although some contemporary critics of Darwin effectively argued against his conclusions, the inferiority-of-women doctrine and the subordinate position of women was long believed. Only in the 1970s was the doctrine increasingly scientifically investigated as never before.57,58 Modern critics of Darwinism were often motivated by the women’s movement to challenge especially Darwin’s conclusion that evolution has produced males and females who were considerably different, and men who ‘were superior to women both physically and mentally.’59 Their critiques demonstrated major flaws in the evidence used to prove female inferiority and, as a result, identified fallacies in major aspects of Darwinism itself.60 For example, Fisher argued that the whole theory of natural selection was questionable, and quoted Chomsky, who said that the process by which the human mind achieved its present state of complexity was
‘a total mystery … . It is perfectly safe to attribute this development to “natural selection,” so long as we realize that there is no substance to this assertion, that it amounts to nothing more than a belief that there is some naturalistic explanation for these phenomena.’ 61
She also argued that modern genetic research has undermined several major aspects of Darwin’s hypothesis—especially his sexual selection theory. In contrast to the requirement for Darwinism, in reality, even if natural selection were to operate differentially on males and females, males would pass on many of their superior genes to both their sons and daughters because most ‘genes are not inherited along sexual lines.’ Aside from the genes which are on the Y chromosome, ‘a male offspring receives genes from both mother and father.’62
Darwin and his contemporaries had little knowledge of genetics, but this did not prevent them from making sweeping conclusions about evolution. Darwin even made the claim that the characteristics acquired by sexual selection are usually confined to one sex.63 Yet, Darwin elsewhere recognized that women could ‘transmit most of their characteristics, including some beauty, to their offspring of both sexes,’ a fact he ignored in much of his writing.64 Darwin even claimed that many traits, including genius and the higher powers of imagination and reason, are ‘transmitted more fully to the male than to the female offspring.’65
The contribution of Darwin to sexism
Even though Darwin’s theory advanced biologically based racism and sexism, some argue that he would not approve of, and could not be faulted for, the results of his theory. Many researchers went far beyond Darwin. Darwin’s cousin, Galton, for instance, concluded from his life-long study on the topic, that ‘women tend in all their capacities to be inferior to men (emphasis mine).’66 Richards concluded that recent studies emphasized ‘the central role played by economic and political factors in the reception of evolutionary theory,’ but Darwinism also provided ‘the intellectual underpinnings of imperialism, war, monopoly, capitalism, militant eugenics, and racism and sexism,’ and therefore ‘Darwin’s own part in this was not insignificant, as has been so often asserted.’67
After noting that Darwin believed that the now infamous social-Darwinist, Spencer, was ‘by far the greatest living philosopher in England,’ Fisher concluded that the evidence for the negative effects of evolutionary teaching on history were unassailable:
‘Europeans were spreading out to Africa, Asia, and America, gobbling up land, subduing the natives and even massacring them. But any guilt they harbored now vanished. Spencer’s evolutionary theories vindicated them … . Darwin’s Origin of Species, published in 1859, delivered the coup de grace. Not only racial, class, and national differences but every single human emotion was the adaptive end product of evolution, selection, and survival of the fittest.’ 68
These Darwinian conclusions of biology about females
‘… squared with other mainstream scholarly conclusions of the day. From anthropology to neurology, science had demonstrated that the female Victorian virtues of passivity, domesticity, and greater morality ( … less sexual activity) were rooted in female biology.’ 69
Consequently, many people concluded that: ‘evolutionary history has endowed women with domestic and nurturing genes and men with professional ones.’70
The conclusion of the evolutionary inferiority of women is so ingrained in biology that Morgan concludes that researchers tended to avoid ‘the whole subject of biology and origins,’ hoping that this embarrassing history will be ignored and scientists can ‘concentrate on ensuring that in the future things will be different.’71 Even evolutionary women scientists largely ignore the Darwinian inferiority theory.72,73
Morgan stresses that we simply cannot ignore evolutionary biology because the belief of the ‘jungle heritage and the evolution of man as a hunting carnivore has taken root in man’s mind as firmly as Genesis ever did.’ Males have ‘built a beautiful theoretical construction, with himself on top of it, buttressed with a formidable array of scientifically authenticated facts.’ She argues that these ‘facts’ must be reevaluated because scientists have ‘sometimes gone astray’ due to prejudice and philosophical proscriptions.74 Morgan states that the prominent evolutionary view of women as biologically inferior to men must still be challenged, even though scores of researchers have adroitly overturned this Darwinian theory.
The influence of culture on the Darwinists’ view of women
Culture was of major importance in shaping Darwin’s theory.75 Victorian middle-class views about men were blatant in The Descent of Man and other evolutionists’ writings. The Darwinian concept of male superiority served to increase the secularization of society, and made more palatable the acceptance of the evolutionary naturalist view that humans were created by natural law rather than by divine direction.76 Naturalism was also critically important in developing the women-inferiority doctrine, as emphasized by Richards:
‘Darwin’s consideration of human sexual differences in The Descent was not motivated by the contemporary wave of anti-feminism … but was central to his naturalistic explanation of human evolution. It was his theoretically directed contention that human mental and moral characteristics had arisen by natural evolutionary processes which predisposed him to ground these characteristics in nature rather than nurture—to insist on the biological basis of mental and moral differences … .’ 77
A major method used to attack the evolutionary conclusion of female inferiority was to critique the evidence for Darwinism itself. Fisher, for example, noted that it was difficult to postulate theories about human origins on the actual brain organization
‘… of our presumed fossil ancestors, with only a few limestone impregnated skulls—most of them bashed, shattered, and otherwise altered by the passage of millions of years … [and to arrive at any valid conclusions on the basis of this] evidence, would seem to be astronomical.’ 78
Hubbard added that ‘Darwin’s sexual stereotypes’ were still commonly found
‘… in the contemporary literature on human evolution. This is a field in which facts are few and specimens are separated by hundreds of thousands of years, so that maximum leeway exists for investigator bias.’ 79
She then discussed our ‘overwhelming ignorance’ about human evolution and the fact that much which is currently accepted is pure speculation. Many past attempts to disprove the evolutionary view that women were intellectually inferior, similarly attacked the core of evolutionary theory itself. A belief in female inferiority is inexorably bound up with human group inferiority, which must first exist for natural selection to operate. Evaluations of the female inferiority theory have produced incisive, well-reasoned critiques of both sexual and natural selection and also Darwinism as a whole.80
Evolution can be used to argue for male superiority, but it can also be used to build a case for the opposite. The evolutionary evidence leaves so many areas for ‘individual interpretation’ that some feminist authors, and others, have read the data as proving the evolutionary superiority of women by using ‘the same evolutionary story to draw precisely the opposite conclusion.’81 One notable, early example is Montagu’s classic 1952 book, The Natural Superiority of Women. Some female biologists have even argued for a gynaecocentric theory of evolution, concluding that women are the trunk of evolution history, and men are but a branch, a grafted scion.82 Others have tried to integrate reformed ‘Darwinist evolutionary “knowledge” with contemporary feminist ideals.’83
Hapgood even concludes that evolution demonstrates that males exist to serve females, arguing that ‘masculinity did not evolve in a vacuum’ but because it was selected. He notes many animal species live without males, and the fact that they do live genderlessly or sexlessly shows that ‘males are unnecessary’ in certain environments.84 It is the woman that reproduces, and evolution teaches that survival is important only to the degree that it promotes reproduction. So Hapgood argues that evolution theory should conclude that males evolved only to serve females in all aspects of child bearing and nurturing. This includes both to ensure that the female becomes pregnant and that her progeny are taken care of.
Another revisionist theory is that women are not only superior, but society was once primarily matriarchal. These revisionists argue that patriarchal domination was caused by factors that occurred relatively recently.85 Of course, the theories that postulate the evolutionary inferiority of males suffer from many of the same problems as those that postulate women’s inferiority.
The use of Darwinism to justify behaviour in conflict with Christianity
Some argue that many of the views Darwin developed should be perpetuated again, to produce a moral system based on the theory of evolution.86 For example, Ford concluded that the idea of eliminating sexism is erroneous:
‘… the much-attacked gender differentiation we see in our societies is actually … a necessary consequence of the constraints exerted by our evolution. There are clear factors which really do make men the more aggressive sex, for instance … .’ 87
After concluding that natural selection resulted in female inferiority, it was often implied that what natural selection produced was natural, and thus proper. It at least gave a ‘certain dignity’ to behaviours that we might ‘otherwise consider aberrant or animalistic.’ 88 For example, evolutionary success was defined as leaving more offspring, and consequently promiscuity in human males was a selected trait.
This explanation is used to justify both male promiscuity and irresponsibility, and argues that trying to change ‘nature’s grand design’ is futile.89 Fox even argues that the high pregnancy rate among unmarried teenage girls today is due to our ‘evolutionary legacy,’ which ‘drives’ young girls to get pregnant.90 Consequently, the authors conclude that cultural and religious prohibitions against unmarried teen pregnancy are doomed to fail.
Eberhard notes that the physical aggressiveness of males is justified by sexual selection, and that: ‘males are more aggressive than females in the sexual activities preceding mating (discussed at length by Darwin 1871 and confirmed many times since …).’ 91 Further, the conclusion ‘now widely accepted … that males of most species are less selective and coy in courtship because they make smaller investments in offspring’ is used to justify male sexual promiscuity.92 Male promiscuity is, in other words, genetically determined and thus is natural or normal because ‘males profit, evolutionarily speaking, from frequent mating, and females do not.’ The more females a male mates with, the more offspring he produces, whereas a female needs to mate only with one male to become pregnant.93 Evolution can progress only if females select the fittest male as predicted by Darwin’s theory of sexual selection. Males for this reason have ‘an undiscriminating eagerness’ to mate whereas females have ‘a discriminating passivity.’93
Conclusions and implications
The Darwinian conclusion that women are inferior has had major unfortunate social consequences. Darwin hypothesized that sexual selection was important in evolution, and along with the data he and his followers gathered to support their inferiority-of-women view, it provided a major support for natural selection.94 Therefore, the disproof of women’s inferiority means that a major mechanism that was originally hypothesized to account for evolutionary advancement is wrong. Today, radically different conclusions are accepted about the intelligence of women, despite using data more complete but similar to that used by Darwin to develop his theory. This vividly demonstrates how important both preconceived ideas and theory are in interpreting data. The women’s evolutionary inferiority conclusion developed partly because:
‘Measurement was glorified as the essential basis of science: both anatomists and psychologists wanted above everything else to be “scientific,” … . Earlier psychological theory had been concerned with those mental operations common to the human race: the men of the nineteenth century were more concerned to describe human differences.’ 95
These human differences were not researched to understand and help society but to justify a theory postulated to support both naturalism and a specific set of social beliefs. The implications of Darwinism cannot be ignored today because the results of this belief were tragic, especially in the area of racism:
‘… it makes for poor history of science to ignore the role of such baggage in Darwin’s science. The time-worn image of the detached and objective observer and theoretician of Down House, remote from the social and political concerns of his fellow Victorians who misappropriated his scientific concepts to rationalize their imperialism, laissez-faire economics, racism and sexism, must now give way before the emerging historical man, whose writings were in many ways so congruent with his social and cultural milieu.’ 96
Hubbard went further and charged Darwin guilty of ‘blatant sexism.’ She placed a major responsibility for scientific sexism, and its mate social Darwinism, squarely at Darwin’s door.97 Advancing knowledge has shown many of Darwin’s ideas were not only wrong but also harmful. Many still adversely affect society today. Hubbard concluded that Darwin ‘provided the theoretical framework within which anthropologists and biologists have ever since been able to endorse the social inequality of the sexes.’98 Consequently, ‘it is important to expose Darwin’s androcentricism, and not only for historical reasons, but because it remains an integral and unquestioned part of contemporary biological theories.’99
Male superiority is critical for evolution. George states that:
‘… the male rivalry component of sexual selection was the key, Darwin believed, to the evolution of man; of all the causes which have led to the differences in external appearance between the races of man, and to a certain extent between man and the lower animals, sexual selection has been the most efficient.’ 100
A critical reason for Darwin’s conclusion was his rejection of the biblical account, which taught that man and woman were specific creations of God, made not to dominate but to complement each other. Darwin believed the human races ‘were the equivalent of the varieties of plants and animals which formed the materials of evolution in the organic world generally,’ and the means that formed the sexes and races were the same struggles that Darwin concluded animals underwent to both survive and mate.101 Having disregarded the biblical view, Darwin needed to replace it with another one, and the one he selected—the struggle of males for possession of females and food—resulted in males competing against other males. He concluded that evolution favoured the most vigorous and sexually aggressive males and caused these traits to be selected because those with these traits usually left more progeny.102
Darwin’s theory of female inferiority was not the result of personal conflicts with women but from his efforts to explain evolution without an intelligent creator. In general, a person’s attitude towards the opposite sex results from poor experiences with that sex. From the available information, this does not appear to have been the situation in Darwin’s case. His marriage was exemplary. The only major difference between Darwin and his wife was in the area of religion, and this caused only minor problems: their devotion to each other is classic in the history of famous people. Further, as far as is known, he had an excellent relationship with all of the other women in his life: his mother and his daughters. Much of Darwin’s hostility to religion and God is attributed to the death of his mother when he was young and to the death of his oldest daughter in 1851, at the age of ten.
Summary
The Christian teaching of the equality of the sexes before God (Gal. 3:28), and the lack of support for the female biological inferiority position, is in considerable contrast to the conclusions derived by evolutionary biology in the middle and late 1800s. In my judgment, the history of these teachings is a clear illustration of the negative impact of social Darwinism.
References and notes
Darwin, C., The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, 1896 edition, D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1871. Return to text.
Bergman, J., Eugenics and the Development of Nazi Race Policy, Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 44(2):109–123, June 1992; Darwin and the Nazi race Holocaust, TJ 13(2):101–111, 1999. Return to text.
Stein, G.J., Biological Science and the Roots of Nazism, American Scientists 76:50–58, Jan–Feb 1988. Return to text.
Love, R., Darwinism and Feminism: The ‘Women Question’ in the Life and Work of Olive Schreiner and Charlotte Perkins Gilman; in: Oldroyd and Langham, The Wider Domain of Evolutionary Thought, D. Reidel, Holland, pp. 113–131, 1983. Return to text.
Rosser S.V., Biology and Feminism; A Dynamic Interaction, Twayne Pub., New York, p. 59, 1992. Return to text.
Richards, E., Darwin and the Descent of Women, pp. 78, 57–111; in: Oldroyd, D. and Langham, I. (eds), The Wider Domain of Evolutionary Thought, D. Reidel, Holland, 1983. Return to text.
Dyer, G., War, Crown Publishers, Inc., New York, p. 122, 1985. Return to text.
George, W., Darwin, Fontana Paperbacks, London, p. 136, 1982. Return to text.
Reed, E., Woman’s Evolution: From Matriarchal Clan to Patriarchal Family, Pathfinder Press, New York, p. 45, 1975. Return to text.
Richards, E., Will the real Charles Darwin please stand up? New Scientist 100:884–887, 1983. Return to text.
Morgan, E., The Descent of Woman, Stein and Day, New York, p. 1, 1972. Return to text.
Shields, S.A., Functionalism, Darwinism, and the psychology of women; a study in social myth, American Psychologist 30(1):739–754, 1975. Return to text.
Durant, J.R., The Ascent of Nature; in: Darwin’s Descent of Man; in: The Darwinian Heritage, Kohn, D. (ed.), Princeton University Press, NJ, p. 295, 1985. Return to text.
Desmond, A. and Moore, J., Darwin, Warner Books, New York, p. 201, 1991. Return to text.
Darwin, C., The Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809–1882, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, pp. 232–233, 1958. Return to text.
Darwin, Ref. 15, p. 234. Return to text.
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Richards, Ref. 10, p. 886. Return to text.
Kevles, B., Females of the Species: Sex and Survival in the Animal Kingdom, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, p. 8, 1986. Return to text.
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McGrigor, A.J., On the real differences in the minds of men and women, Journal of the Anthropological Society 7:210, 1869. Return to text.
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Lewin, R., Bones of Contention, Simon and Schuster, New York, p. 305, 1987. Return to text.
Richards, Ref. 6, p. 75. Return to text.
Richards, Ref. 6, p. 74. Return to text.
George, Ref. 8, p. 69. Return to text.
Darwin, C., The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, 1897 edition, D. Appleton and Company, New York, p. 108, 1859. Return to text.
Darwin, Ref. 1, p. 561. Return to text.
Darwin, Ref. 1, p. 562. Return to text.
Darwin, Ref. 1, p. 563. Return to text.
Darwin, Ref. 1, p. 557. Return to text.
Richards, Ref. 10, p. 885. Return to text.
Darwin, Ref. 15, p. 43. Return to text.
Richards, Ref. 6, p. 67–68. Return to text.
Williams, G.C., Sex and Evolution, Princeton University Press, NJ, 1977. Return to text.
George, Ref. 8, p. 71. Return to text.
Millman, M., Such a Pretty Face: Being Fat in America, W.W. Norton and Company, NY, 1980. Return to text.
Beller, A.S., Fat & Thin: A Natural History of Obesity, McGraw Hill, New York, 1977. Return to text.
Shields, Ref. 12, pp. 741–745. Return to text.
Shields, Ref. 12, p. 739. Return to text.
Stephens, L.D., Evolution and women’s rights in the 1890s: the views of Joseph LeConte, The Historian 38(2):241, 1976. Return to text.
Stephens, Ref. 41, p. 247. Return to text.
Fisher, H.E., The Sex Contract: The Evolution of Human Behavior, William Morrow and Company, Inc., New York, pp. 115–116, 1982. Return to text.
Darwin, Ref. 1, p. 563. Return to text.
Gould, S.J., The Mismeasure of Man, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, p. 56, 1982. Return to text.
Van Valen, L., Brain Size and Intelligence in Man, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 40:417–423, 1974. Return to text.
Darwin, Ref. 1, p. 54. Return to text.
Fee, E., Nineteenth-Century Craniology: The Study of the Female Skull, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 53:415, 1979. Return to text.
Gould, Ref. 45, p. 83. Return to text.
Gould, Ref. 45, p. 83 (original in French). Return to text.
Gould, Ref. 45, p. 83 (original in French). Return to text.
Gould, Ref. 45, p. 85. Return to text.
Ellis, H., Man and Woman. A Study of Secondary and Tertiary Sexual Characteristics, Heineman, London, 1934 (first published 1896). Return to text.
Jensen, A., Bias in Mental Training, The Free Press, New York, p. 361, 1980. Return to text.
Van Valen, Ref. 46, p. 417. Return to text.
Schluter, D., Brain size differences, Nature 359(6392):181, 1992. Return to text.
Rosser, Ref. 5, pp. 56, 59. Return to text.
Fee, Ref. 48, p. 415. Return to text.
Rosser, Ref. 5, p. 58. Return to text.
Alaya, F., Victorian science and the ‘genius’ of women, Journal of the History of Ideas 38:261–280, 1977. Return to text.
Chomsky, N., Language and Mind, Harcourt, Brace and World, New York, p. 97, 1972. Return to text.
Fisher, E., Woman’s Creation: Sexual Evolution and the Shaping of Society, Anchor Press/Doubleday, Garden City, NY, p. 112, 1979. Return to text.
Crook, J.H., Sexual Selection, Dimorphism, and Social Organization in the Primates; in: Campbell B. (ed.), Sexual Selection and the Descent of Man 1871–1971, Aldine Pub. Co., Chicago, 1972. Return to text.
Darwin, Ref. 1, p. 597. Return to text.
Darwin, Ref. 1, p. 565. Return to text.
Shields, Ref. 12, p. 743. Return to text.
Richards, Ref. 6, p. 88. Return to text.
Fisher, Ref. 62, p. 116. Return to text.
Steinem, G., Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, p. 133, 1992. Return to text.
Hubbard, R., Henifin, M.S. and Fried, B., Women Look at Biology Looking At Women: A Collection of Feminist Critiques, Schenkman Publishing Co., Cambridge, MA, p. 208, 1979. Return to text.
Morgan, Ref. 11, p. 2. Return to text.
Margulis, L. and Sagan, D., Origins of Sex: Three Billion Years of Genetic Recombination, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1986. Return to text.
Tanner, N. and Zihlman, A.Z., Women in evolution. Part I: Innovation and selection in human origins, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 1(3):585–608, 1976. Return to text.
Morgan, Ref. 11, p. 2–3. Return to text.
Rosser, Ref. 5, p. 56. Return to text.
George, Ref. 8. Return to text.
Richards, Ref. 6, p. 97. Return to text.
Fisher, Ref. 62, p. 113. Return to text.
Hubbard, R., Have only men evolved? in: Women Look at Biology Looking At Women, Ed. by R. Hubbard, et al., Boston, p. 26, 1979. Return to text.
Shepherd, L.J., Lifting the Veil: The Feminine Force in Science, Shambhala, Boston, 1993. Return to text.
Love, Ref. 4, p. 124. Return to text.
Hill, M.A., Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The Making of a Radical Feminist 1860–1896, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1980. Return to text.
Hill, Ref. 82, p. 263. Return to text.
Hapgood, F., Why Males Exist: An Inquiry Into the Evolution of Sex, William Morrow and Company, Inc., New York, pp. 23–24, 1979. Return to text.
Reed, Ref. 9, pp. 43–74. Return to text.
Goldberg, S., The Inevitability of Patriarchy: Why the Biological Difference Between Men and Women Always Produces Male Domination, William Morrow & Company, Inc., New York, 1973. Return to text.
Ford, B.J., Patterns of Sex: The Mating Urge and our Sexual Future, St. Martin’s Press, New York, p. 8, 1980. Return to text.
Symons, D., The Evolution of Human Sexuality, Oxford University Press, New York, p. 61, 1980. Return to text.
Symons, Ref. 88, p. 162. Return to text.
Fox, R., The Red Lamp of Incest, E. P. Dutton, New York, 1980. Return to text.
Eberhard, W.G., Sexual Selection and Animal Genitalia, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, p. 67, 1985. Return to text.
Eberhard, Ref. 91, p. 69. Return to text.
Tavris, C., The Mismeasure of Women: Why Women Are Not the Better Sex, the Inferior Sex, or the Opposite Sex, Simon and Schuster, New York, p. 214, 1992. Return to text.
Mosedale, S.S., Corrupted—Victorian biologists consider ‘the women question,’ Journal of the History of Biology 9:1–55, 1978. Return to text.
Fee, Ref. 48, p. 419. Return to text.
Richards, Ref. 10, p. 887. Return to text.
Hubbard, et al., Ref. 79. Return to text.
Richards, Ref. 38, p. 60. Return to text.
Hubbard, et al., Ref. 79, p. 16. Return to text.
George, Ref. 8, p. 136. Return to text.
Richards, Ref. 6, p. 64. Return to text.
Hubbard, et al., Ref. 79. Return to text.
Hollingsworth, L.S., Variability as related to sex differences in achievement, American Journal of Sociology 19:510–530, 1914.
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