The preservation of random mutations 

There are many other weaknesses with the classic theory of evolution.  We shall explore only one more.  The theory of evolution holds that minuscule random genetic changes are preserved when they increase survivability/fecundity of an organism.  There are two kinds of mutations, those of reducible complexity, and those of irreducible complexity.  A gradual increase in skin pigmentation by a series of random fortuitous mutations over thousands of years in a sunny climate is reducible.  That is, each step along the way makes the offspring more survivable.  A single step need not be supported by other steps to meaningfully contribute to survivability.

On the other hand, while it is true that a complex coordinated system such as the eye will make a creature more survivable, it is far less clear is whether the incremental changes leading to such an organ increase the survivability of an organism.  The eye, the liver, the heart and circulatory system, the wing, and hundreds of other complex systems appear to be irreducible.  The eye socket is useless without a functional eye.  Worse than useless, it is a liability to survival.  It weakens the front bone structure of the face without providing any meaningful benefit.  Muscles that pull on the lens to focus it are useless until the lens, and the rest of the eye, have evolved.  Imagine an organism that, through random mutation, develops little muscles inside its brain in the spot that might one day attach them to the not yet formed lens of the not yet formed eye.  There is no logical reason why the organism enjoying this mutation should multiply in comparison to other members of its species.  It is not more survivable.  If anything it is less survivable.  An incipient organ presents all of the liabilities but none of the assets of a functional organ.  When an organ has multiple interdependent functions it becomes irreducibly complex. 

Reflecting on this, Denton observes:  "While it is easy to accept that a random search might hit on mutational routes leading to relatively trivial sorts of adaptive ends, such as the best coloration for a stoat or ptarmigan or the most efficient beak forms for each of the different species of Galapagos finch. . . whether the same blind undirected search mechanism could have discovered the mutational routes to very complex and ingenious adaptations such as the vertebrate camera eye, the feather, or the organ of corti or the mammalian kidney is altogether another question."^[1]  Darwin himself muddled over the matter:

Although belief that an organ so perfect as the eye could have been formed by natural selection, is enough to stagger any one. . .

I have felt the difficulty far too keenly to be surprised at others hesitating to extend the principle of natural selection to so startling a length.^[2]

The same picture can be painted of the circulatory system.  Veins and arteries are useless without a heart.  Both are useless without blood, including such marvelously complex things as hemoglobin to carry oxygen and T cells that can analyze almost any intruder and prepare defenses which will be carried about in the blood stream to every part of the body.  If in infinitesimal mutation took the first step toward any one of these individual components, it would not increase the creatures survivability until completion.  According to the theory of evolution, natural selection will only favor an organism if its ability to survive and reproduce has become greater than its peers.  But incremental changes toward an irreducibly complex organ simply do not increase survivability.  Indeed, they should normally be expected to act as a liability and decrease survivability.  (It has been well said, "a good leg becomes a bad leg before it becomes a good wing.")

This problem was not lost to Darwin, who sensed acutely the problem this posed to his theory.  Denton observes:

Not only was he [Darwin] unable to provide empirical evidence for evolution in the existence of intermediate forms, there was in many cases a real difficulty imagining the hypothetical paths through which evolution had occurred.  This was particularly true of various highly specialized organisms and organs, and Darwin concedes: "It is no doubt difficult even to conjecture by what gradations many structures have been perfected. . . although in many cases it is most difficult even to conjecture by what transitions organs have arrived at their present state. . ."^[3]

This is one of the most daunting hurdles evolutionary scientists must clear if their theory is to be received as credible.  Some clearly appreciate the seriousness of the problem.  Because of its complexity however, most seem to ignore it.  Those who do address it speculate on highly circuitous developmental routes by which each incremental change somehow contributed to survival even before the organ was completed.  The speculations however ultimately fail to convince.  Indeed, the paths are so circuitous that evolutionary scientists themselves are unable to even speculatively offer a step by step path for the evolution of a complex organ like the eye wherein each incremental step remains beneficial to the organism.  They normally just assert that some path must have existed.^[4]  The logic, however, is intuitive and obvious.  An eye half way to functionality (still needing another 30 million years), is not an asset, it is a liability.  It cannot see, but it can become infected.  Johnson muses over this problem using the wing as an example.

The wing, which exists in quite distinct forms in insects, birds, and bats, is the other most frequently cited puzzle.  Would the first "infinitesimally small inherited modification" in the direction of wing construction confer a selective advantage?  Dawkins thinks that it would, because a small flap or web might help a small creature to jump further, or save it from breaking its neck in a fall.  Eventually such a proto-wing might develop to a point where the creature would begin gliding, and by further gradual improvement it would become capable of genuine flight.  What this imaginative scenario neglects is that forelimbs evolving into wings would probably become awkward for climbing or grasping long before they became very useful for gliding, thus placing the hypothetical intermediate creature at a serious disadvantage.^[5]

Geneticist Richard Goldschmidt, a Professor at the University of California at Berkeley, has given no little thought to this daunting problem.  He has listed "a series of complex structures from mammalian hair to hemoglobin that he thought could not have been produced by the accumulation and selection of small mutations."^[6]  There simply does not appear to be a linear sequence of minuscule steps that would be advantageous to an animal at each step, while all along moving in the direction of the formation of a complex organ or design.  The evolution of the eye, the brain, the liver or the wing %u2014 not only have these things never been observed, the process cannot even be imagined!  In the words of the National Academy of Sciences, such a process is beyond the realm of science since it is "inaccessible to human understanding."^[7]  For the faithful, however, such daunting problems are but a test of their faith, temptations posed by creationists to divert them from their path.

The likelihood of a random mutation to be a liability rather than an asset %u2014 even when headed toward the development of a complex structure, is illustrated by modern engineering.  When one considers massive engineering and building projects, it is noted that gigantic scaffoldings and other support devices (which will eventually be torn down), must first be erected to permit erection of the suspension bridge or skyscraper.  And yet common sense tells us that these scaffolding are costing the construction company money each day they are being erected, and long before the advantage of the bridge is realized.  This same principle is true of clean-rooms for the manufacture of microprocessors, and just about any other product of engineering one might consider.  The design, development and production are always and without exception a liability before they are an asset.  Capital must be laid out, and inconveniences incurred.  Before sky scrapers can be erected, streets are blocked off to permit construction.  Water mains and electricity and phone service are re-routed.  In our society, we have a vast aggregate of experience in design engineering.  In this great mass of experience, we have observed that expenses and inconveniences of the design and building phase are always and without exception a liability.  Advantage is realized only when the product is complete and put into useful service. Yet for evolution to be true, each incremental step must not only avoid being a liability, it must confer some specific advantage on the survivability of the organism.  In that this is contrary to all that has ever been observed in the history of design engineering, evolution must be accepted by faith as the one great exception of this rule. . . an exception that necessarily occurred not only once, but has occurred for every infinitesimal step of every organ or appendage that has ever evolved.  It boggles the mind!  For evolution's faithful, it is a logical necessity in preserving the doctrine of incrementalism.  For the rest of us, it is a leap of faith only possible for truest of true believers.

An analogy from information theory and noise 

        Even if we accept, arguendo, that circuitous routes (the equivalent of erecting scaffolding and building clean rooms) were somehow accomplished in a way that did in fact not confer a disadvantage, but in fact a slight advantage, there is a mathematical question of whether such theoretical advantages are ever realized.  In information theory there is something known as noise.  If a signal is so small that random disturbances in the medium overwhelm it, the signal is irretrievable.  The same is true with sampling a digital signal.  Only portions of the signal need be sampled, but if the sampling rate drops below the Nyquist rate, the signal cannot be reproduced.  By analogy, let's return to Johnson's discussion of a wing.  In our consideration of the mathematics of saltationism, we have already established mathematically that only the smallest genetic mutations hold any promise at all of being beneficial.  So as a ground squirrel turns into a flying squirrel on his way to becoming a bat, this must be accomplished by infinitesimally small incremental steps.  But, even if we ignore Johnson's dilemma of how such a tiny fold of skin would not be a liability, the question remains: "How does it confer advantage?"  The increased gliding ability of such a tiny fold of skin is nil.  Dawkins belief that it might confer some small advantage is a wish and a prayer.  It is not reality.  Looking at information theory by analogy, the "noise" overpowers the signal.  It would be hard to imagine a height from which a normal squirrel would fall and kill himself that a squirrel with the tiniest fold of skin could fall from and walk away whole.  Given the infinitely more important variables, the terrain onto which the squirrel was falling, the strength of the squirrel's bones, etc., it would take millions of squirrels jumping off cliffs for eons to begin to differentiate the smallest difference in survivability.  The variables such as terrain are equivalent to "noise", and render the advantage invisible.  On top of this, a squirrel's existence is not limited to jumping off trees or cliffs to see who will survive.  Indeed, probably only the smallest percent of squirrels would die in this manner.  Most will be eaten, die of disease, or whatever.  Even matters like terrain, which, as "noise", drowned out the advantage of the little fold of skin, are themselves drowned out by the "noise" of predators and disease.  All of these other factors act as "noise" by analogy.  For such a tiny fold of skin to confer an advantage in survival would be like asking a man standing under a roaring jet engine to whisper maintenance instructions to an airplane mechanic one quarter mile away who was himself standing under a roaring jet engine.  Even if there is valuable information in the whisperings, they are drown out into meaningless by the surrounding noise.  The same would be true for our tiny fold of skin on our mutated squirrel.  The advantage, even if it did exist, would be so small, it would be rendered invisible and swallowed up by the environment.

Conclusion 

There are only two options for biological evolution %u2014 saltationism and incrementalism.  Unless one is sojourning in cloud land, a probability of a bird coming out of a reptilian egg is beyond absurdity.  (We offered 100,000^1,000,000 as a "guestimate.")  The only real possibility for evolution to occur is by incrementalism, the classic expression of the theory by Darwin.  Random genetic mutations filtered by natural selection over vast amounts of time produce new complex organs and organisms.  The problems with this theory however are manifold and insurmountable.  No argument has ever been presented to logically demonstrate why the incremental steps on the way to complexity should be beneficial to the survival of an organism.  Indeed, all design engineering has demonstrated that an incipient design is a liability until it becomes functional.  Although we have never seen an exception to this rule, we are asked to believe that the process of evolution, at every incremental step, continually finds a way to circumvent this principle.

Then, of course, there is the fossil record.  It has been a thorn in the side of evolutionists since the days of Darwin, and remains so today.  It is the only real empirical evidence we have of the evolutionary process, and it has served to falsify the theory of evolution.  It remains however a delight to creationists in general, and a particular delight to biblical creationists in particular, who note the exact correlation the fossil record holds to the predictions made by their theory.

These problems with the evolutionary theory are not peripheral issues latched onto by obfuscationists in the creation science camp.  These problems are the evolutionary theory.  It is a theory which cannot conform to the fossil record.  It is a theory which violates all we know about design engineering of systems of irreducible complexity.  It is a theory marked by ad hoc reformulations such as 'punctuated equilibrium' which themselves make no predictions, and are, in fact, mathematical absurdities.  When measured by the scientific method, such ad hoc reformulations are the unmistakable sign of it is a theory in decay.  No wonder Colin Patterson, senior paleontologist at the British Natural History Museum and author of that museum's standard text on evolution, in lecturing at the American Museum of Natural History, compared creationism (not the study of creation science, but bare creationism) to evolution, "and characterized both as scientifically vacuous concepts which are held primarily on the basis of faith."  Speaking to an audience of fellow experts in the field, we read this humorous, but telling account:

Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing. . . that is true?  I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural History and the only answer I got was silence.  I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology seminar in the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, and all I got there was silence for a long time and eventually one person said "I don know one thing %u2014 it ought not to be taught in high school."^[8]

The theory of evolution is not simply in a state of crisis, it is moribund.  To survive, it has had to seek help from the courts to maintain its monopoly since it is increasingly unable to compete in the market place of ideas.  And finally, as the failures become more than it can bear, it has found it necessary to sweep its failures under the rug, far away from the trusting eyes of the faithful.

************************

Visitors arrived every day at the court and one day there came two men who called themselves weavers, but they were in fact clever robbers.  They pretended that they knew how to weave cloth of the most beautiful colors and magnificent patterns.  Moreover, they said, the clothes woven from this magic cloth could not be seen by anyone who was unfit for the office he held or who was very stupid.

"Well, Sir Minister," said one of the weavers, still pretending to work.  "You did not say whether or not the stuff pleases you!"  "Oh!  It is most beautiful!"  said the Minister quickly, peering at the loom through his spectacles.  "This pattern and the colors!  Yes, I will tell the Emperor without delay how very wonderful I think them."

And at once he turned to the knaves and praised the material he could not see, saying he was delighted with both colors and patterns.

"How splendid His Majesty looks in his new clothes!  And how well they fit!"  everyone cried out.  "What design!  What colors!  They are indeed royal robes!"

So now the Emperor walked under his high canopy in the middle of the procession right through the streets of his capital city.  And all the people standing by and those at the windows cried out, "Oh, how beautiful are our Emperor's new clothes!  What a magnificent train!  And how gracefully the scarf hangs!"  In fact, no one would admit that he could not see these clothes which everyone seemed to think so beautiful for fear he would be called a simpleton or unfit for his office.

"But the Emperor has nothing on at all!!!"  said a little child.  "The child tells the truth," said the father.  And so it was that what the child said was whispered from one to another until all knew and they cried out altogether, BUT HE HAS NOTHING ON AT ALL!"

The Emperor felt very silly for he knew that the people were right%u2014but he thought, "The procession has started and it must go on now!"  So the Lords of the Bedchamber held their head higher than ever and took greater trouble to pretend to hold up the train which wasn't there at all.

The Emperor's New Clothes   by     Hans Christian Anderson

"It is, indeed, a very curious state of affairs, I think, that paleontologists have been insisting that their record is consistent with slow, steady, gradual evolution where I think that privately, they've known for over a hundred years that such is not the case.

Niles Eldridge, Leading Evolutionary Scientist,

Nova, Nov. 1, 1981

Chapter 10: Biology and Evolution Continued