Last modified on September 26, 2018, at 15:51

Evolution of the gaps

Evolution of the gaps represents dogmatic inferences to adaptive just-so stories, stated with absolute conviction and marked with an extensive usage of buzzword 'evolution' that serves as camouflage for complete lack of any scientific explanation or observational evidence for postulated unknown alien phenomena under the investigation.[1] For example, Stephen Jay Gould admitted his own functionalist biases as he was once criticized by Francis Crick for hastily attributing a certain phenomenon to evolution, expressed in form of an adaptive story invented with alacrity and agility, even prior to finding out the real mechanism behind it.[2] Szostak provided the following explanation why evolutionists are condemned to make the frequent inferences to evolution of the gap: As they do not feel smart enough to design things, they prefer to resort to alien unknown mechanism of evolution "to do the hard work" and only afterwards they attempt to figure out what happened.[3] Whenever anyone asserts that this or that organ or organisms developed by means of evolution, the speaker or writer is in fact using a cliché to express his ignorance about what had happened in unobservable past.[4]

Evolution of the gaps as anti-theory

John C. Lennox criticizes the partisans of Evolutionism for their "evolution did it" approach as intellectual laziness camouflaging the absence of evidential basis and lack of knowledge. He makes his point by referring to warnings by Nobel laureate physicist and expert on origin of life Robert Lughlin, who regards an 'explanation' that has no implication and that cannot be tested for a key symptom of ideological thinking.[1][note 1] Laughlin calls such logical dead ends anti-theories, because they have exactly opposite effect of real theories: they stop thinking rather than stimulate it.[note 2] He points out that the Darwinian Evolution by natural selection has come to function as such anti-theory, called upon to cover up embarrassing experimental shortcomings and legitimize just-so stories that are at best questionable and at worst not even wrong. He states with irony that buzzword-involving claims such as "evolution did it!" and "evolution!" are loosely applied on phenomena like protein defying the laws of mass action and "complicated mess of chemical reactions turning into chicken," [note 3] respectively; and "evolution is the cause" is misused as simplistic answer to question related to human brain operating on logical principles no computer can emulate.[6]

Malcolm Muggeridge mused that the so-called theory of evolution will be one of the greatest jokes in the history books of the future and posterity will feel astonished that so very flimsy and dubious claims could be accepted with the incredible credulity they implore. Uncritical acceptance of 'evolution of the gaps' - idelogical thinking may lead to such state of intellectual laziness as one portrayed by Michael Egnor, professor of neurosurgery and pediatrics at State University of New York, according to whom Darwinists have never asked scientifically whether random mutation and natural selection can generate the information content in living things.[7]

Typical examples

  • Evolution of the eye during the so called Cambrian explosion. It is assured that "Complex eyes appear to have first evolved within a few million years, in the rapid burst of evolution known as the Cambrian explosion. There is no evidence of eyes before the Cambrian, but a wide range of diversity is evident in the Middle Cambrian." The Cambrian explosion is postulated as replacement for the gap in any scientific explanation of what have allegedly happened and alien faculties for rapid innovation in fine-scale anatomy as well as gross morphology are attributed to it, resulting in what is presented as "great evolutionary event".[8]
  • 2011 Nobel Prize interview on description of immune system.[9]
    • Participants in interview take effort to impose into the discussion the buzzword 'evolution':
      • The expression "This is really 'evolution' at work" is associated with following phenomena: the fight between bacteria and immune system: "the bacteria are trying to get around our immune system and the immune system is trying to work against them". Immune defense response has however nothing to do with any known definition of evolution whatsoever and the association with its simple description is far-fetched. Pasteur perceived processes of this kind as hallmarks of design in nature by Creator: "If God had not seen to it that the organic laws governing the mutations of tissue and liquids in living bodies prevent microscopic beings' propagation, at least in the normal conditions of life and health, we would live under the constant threat of being overwhelmed by them."[10]
      • "If something is conserved through 'evolution', its probably very important". First of all the discovery describing how immune system works at present time provided no evidence whatsoever that evolution played any role in the history of immune system let alone any grounds are given that even if it would be so, the expressed dogmatic faith in its importance is substantiated. The statement "something is conserved through 'evolution'" simply reads like religious belief in something aesthetically very plausible and as something that crosses the gap in knowledge what took place in [in principle] unobservable past.[note 4]
    • Dogmatic claims stated with absolute conviction without providing any further details on research design how one landed at such figure:
      • The bold expression "we have kept our immune system for more than 600 million years" simply crosses the gaps in absolute lack of any idea of what have actually happened. Even though Hoffman discovered the immune system in flies and it is amazing the same type of system operates in us, "in you and me", it still does not logically follow the system is "more than 600 million years old".[note 5]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ cf. "In England, Darwin, Huxley and their allies cooperated effectively to acquire leading positions in scientific community which they held for necessary to impose naturalism as an ideology of science" in Establishing and Activities of the Club X
  2. ↑ The page on University of California, Berkeley contains sources criticising a liberally biased educational system as resembling to "a sanctuary for a narrow ideological segment of the spectrum of social and political ideas" that does not help students learn how to think, but rather teaches them what to think.
  3. ↑ For exploring overly simplistic views from this category, cf. External source: CBS News documentary 60 Minutes Presents: B-Rex.[5]
  4. ↑ cf. Origin science, Historical science and Paleoscience
  5. ↑ cf. Goebbels' maxim

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 John C. Lennox (2009). God's undertaker. Has science buried God?. Oxford, England: Lion Hudson, 157-8. ISBN 978-0-7459-5371-7. “It is also very easy to say 'evolution did it' when has not got the faintest idea how, or has simply cobbled up a speculative just-so story with no evidential basis. INdeed, as we have seen, a materialist has to say that natural processes were solely responsible, since in his or her book, there is no admissible alternative. As an result it is just as easy to end up with an 'evolution of the gaps' as with a 'God of the gaps'. One might even say that it is easier to end up with an 'evolution of the gaps' than a 'God of the gaps' since the fromer suggestion is likely to attract far less criticism than the latter}. ... How can we, then, avoid the charge of intellectual laziness...” 
  2. ↑ Stephen J. Gould (1995). Adam’s Navel. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-146-000-478. “I well remember something that Francis Crick said to me many years ago, when my own functionalist biases were strong. He remarked, in response to an adaptive story I had invented with alacrity and agility to explain the meaning of repetitive DNA: ‘Why do you evolutionists always try to identify the value of something before you know how it is made?’” 
  3. ↑ Artificial Life Closer Than You Think. cbsnews; originally The Associated Press (February 11, 2009). “"We aren't smart enough to design things, we just let evolution do the hard work and then we figure out what happened," Szostak said.”
  4. ↑ Randal Hedtke (2010). Secrets of the Sixth Edition. Master Books, 89. ISBN 978-0-89051-597-6. 
  5. ↑ 60 Minutes Presents: B-Rex. CBS News. Retrieved on May 30, 2015. “And the stakes are high. If blood vessels can survive 80 million years, what about DNA? ... Jack Horner is sceptical that the full Dinosaur DNA sequence will ever be found. But that hasn't stopped him. He's come up with the whole new idea for his dream of making a dinosaur: The best way is just to use a modern dinosaur - the chicken. Because evolution works, birds are actually carrying ancestral DNA. Horner has written a book proposing a plan to mind that ancestral DNA as a way to reverse-engineer a chicken into what he calls a dino-chicken.”
  6. ↑ Robert B. Laughlin (2008). A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics From the Bottom Down. Basic Books, 169. ISBN 978-0-7867-2218-1. “Your protein defies the laws of mass action - evolution did it! Your complicated mess of chemical reactions turns into a chicken - evolution! The human brain works on logical principles no computer can emulate? Evolution is the cause!” 
  7. ↑ A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism. Discovery Institute. Retrieved on May 30, 2015.
  8. ↑ Lee M.S.Y., Jago, J.B., Garcia-Bellido, D.C., Edgecombe, G.E., Gehling, J.G, Paterson, J.R. (30 June 2011). Modern optics in exceptionally preserved eyes of Early Cambrian arthropods from Australia 631–634. Nature (journal). Retrieved on August 4, 2013.
  9. ↑ Interview about 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Nobelprize.org. “...So this is really evolution at work, I mean the bacteria are trying to get around our immune system and the immune system is trying to work against them. Exactly, that is what it is and you mentioned the word evolution - it's amazing that we have kept our immune system for more than 600 million years. Hoffman discovered the immune system in flies. Amazingly, the same type of system operates in us, in you and me. I got it that it's actually the same gene that works in fruit flies and in us. Yes, it's a very similar gene which indeed to us means that something is important. If something is conserved throughout evolution, its probably very important.”
  10. ↑ Pasteur on The Descructive Role of Microscopic Beings

External links