Evolution Does Not Work

Or, What I Learned from a Possom

How did the rhino get his horn?

If you were to ask a biologist this question, or even some random person on the internet who fancies themselves smart, you will hear more or less the following explanation:

A long time ago there was an ancestor of the rhinoceros. He was of vaguely similar morphology to the modern rhinoceros but he had no horn. Then however, due to random mutations in the genes that occur when breeding, one particular rhino ancestor was born with a small protrusion on his snout. This protrusion was just a small bulbous bump most likely, but it conferred some advantage to him in some way such that he was able to make more babies that carried his snout bump gene. His babies likewise had the snout bump, and this gave them likewise an advantage, and so they also had more children. Over time then, the snout bump not-quite-rhinos out-bred the not-quite-rhinos that were sans snout bump. And, if a little of something is good, a lot is better, and so those who had random mutations to make their snout bumps marginally larger were even better at having more children. So the genome of the species gradually drifted towards a version that had larger and larger snout bumps that also become more and more pointed and sharp as the generations passed. This continued until we arrived at the species we know as the rhinoceros today. This process took several million years.

There are many problems with this story. One, like all stories about how species came to be it is without evidence. Nobody was there to witness all this happen, we have no record of it. The “missing link” species that Darwin anticipated when he formulated his theory have largely gone undiscovered. We do not, in fact, see a fossil chain of not-quite-rhinos with progressively larger horns. There are a few fossils, maybe, sometimes, that might be construed as such. But on the whole, these links are not present. Moreover, the narrative about the rhinoceros horn was never validated in a laboratory, nor could it ever be. It is rather a “just-so” story that we are presented. Something to be taken on faith.

Two, why the narrative would even work as presented is unexplainable. The whole thing rests on the assumption that somehow a tiny misshapen bump on the snout of one single rhino gave that rhino such a competitive advantage that his offspring completely dominated the entire genome of the species. Does it really seam feasible that one small bump on the end of one’s nose could do that? What advantage does the bump give them? Is the male with the misshapen bump able to better fight with it? How? The not-quite-rhinos are not engaged, presumably, in snout to snout battle. They have no horns. They would be head-butting like rams or something. Perhaps kicking each other like donkeys. And, even if it did somehow confer a minuscule advantage to the bumped rhino in battle, is that bump really enough to overcome the advantage of another male who weighs, say, 10% more? Doubtful. Additionally, as a general rule the females of species are not overly attracted to deformities. And, prior to the horn fully evolving, it would be a deformity on the face of the animal. A clear signal that his genome was not stable. It had indeed mutated, and almost all mutations are bad. This is what is known scientifically as, “not sexy.” Women do not actually line up to have sex with a man with a grossly misshapen nose. Why would lady rhinoceri? Does the slightly raised bump on his nose confer him such greater combat or foraging abilities that he is able to completely override these other negatives and become the rhinoceros version of Genghis Khan?

Doubtful.

When you look, you find that all evolutionary just-so stories are like this. They all claim that the slight mutations which lead to this or that feature in a species gave them some advantage in breeding or survival. But the advantages sighted are never present until the new organ is actually fully formed. Yes, I grant you very much that if there were 100 bird like creatures and 10 of them could fly because they had wings and the other 90 still had arm like appendages then those 10 might well do better at escaping predators. But that’s only true when the wings are fully finished! A half-cooked wing still 500,000 years from allowing you to take flight isn’t good for anything. Better to have a regular old arm when confronting or running away from an enemy. At least it’s bones wouldn’t be hollow! Until the new organ is actually in its final shape it offers ***no*** survival advantage to the individual in question. A nose with a horn is a nice weapon, sure. A nose with a vague misshapen protrusion that’s not particularly sharp is not. Human beings having a huge brain is great for our survival. But until we’re actually smart enough to use tools we would’ve been better off devoting all our calories to building muscle. In the short term, which is going to compete better, a gorilla that has a 0.1% smarter brain, or one that is 15 pounds heavier. The 15 pounds heavier one is going to breed more. He’s going to beat up the nerd gorilla who, I don’t know, is marginally better at finding coconuts or something. Until that other ape has grown smart enough to make a spear his bigger brain is of little use. The just-so stories of organ development in species imply a long term plan, as though somehow the species is engaging in an investment strategy. “Well, this bump won’t be worth much today, but in a million years of product development it will really pay off!” That’s now how it works. If a mutation does not offer direct reproductive advantages in the present it is not selected for.

Moreover, if the only thing that is at play here is reproductive success then life should’ve stopped at the amoeba. Nothing is better at reproduction than single cell life and bacteria. In a few days, one bacterium can turn into several tens of thousands. It takes larger animals, like polar bears, decades to do the same. Why would selection pressures force species down a path of slower reproductive rates? The answer cannot be because those species with slower reproductive rates survived better long term because they didn’t. Bacteria are still here with us, now, today. As are amoebas. By contrast many larger species have since gone extinct. Which is more likely to continue for the next million years, salmonella or the American Buffalo? Clearly the safe bet is on the simpler species. It reproduces a billion times for ever single new generation of buffalo. There is no selection pressure to move beyond the bacteria phase. None. There would have been no advantage to multi-celled organisms evolving when single celled ones were doing the job just fine.

Another point…

This is impossible:

Composite Rendering of a Cell, Source Here.

This image of a cell is complex beyond imagination. And this doesn’t even do the cell justice, as the authors of this rendering readily admit they were not able to capture the fullness of a cell’s complexity. It simply defies belief to say that this highly advanced microscopic being came into existence through random processes. Frankly, it is insane. More insane than my post about stopping the ocean. Within any given cell is a network of biological sensors and machinery that boggles the mind. Each piece appears to be vital to the life of the cell and its continuation. Any small mutation from this cellular template would surely destroy the whole thing, and yet the premise of evolution is precisely that such mutations cannot only be in some cases beneficial but can lead to the creation of entirely new cellular forms. How this would actually work, is never explained. It is merely hand-waved away while the speaker chants “millions of years” over and over again, hoping you won’t notice that he has nothing to back up his claims. No one has ever seen one species evolving into another. No one has ever seen cells emerge from lighting striking primitive ooze. The entirety of academic prehistory rests on nothing more than half-remembered fever dreams and intellectual fancy.

Look at a butterfly. Go ahead. You can quite easily walk up and catch one. They have no defenses and they are often bright yellow. They do not run away when you approach them. They may not even register you as existing. And yet, somehow, in the dog-eat-dog world of interspecial competition described for us by biologists, it survives. How? How is this easy, defenseless source of calories overlooked by all the other species on the planet. If evolution were true, ignoring the aforementioned issues with moving from single cell to multicellular life, multicell life, once it did exist, should have morphed into hideous monsters. Life should nothing but blob creatures coated in poison and covered with spikes to kill and maim all competitors. Simultaneously, they ought be spewing sperm into the air 24/7 to have the maximum chance at reproduction. Likewise, all females of all species would be ovulating all the time and be nothing more than gelatinous masses of sperm receptacles, again, to maximize reproduction.

But that isn’t what happened. That’s not the actual world.

No. Instead, we have bluejays. Instead we have leopards. Instead we have dolphins. Is it not therefore obvious that life is pursuing beauty and joy instead of cold utilitarian pragmatism? The theory of evolution was born in the social climate of the industrial revolution and is more a commentary on the mindset of the men of that time than it is on nature. Men were engaged in a hyper competitive dog-eat-dog survival of the fittest battle for resources and read that mindset and behavior into the whole of nature. They held up a mirror, and declared their grotesque reflection natural law.

Last night I had a brief conversation with a possum. It was dark, I was out on the deck working and I saw something moving on the ground below. I turned my flashlight on it and the possum froze. He didn’t run though. He didn’t need to. He knew life was not like the biologists say. That not everything larger than him is out to kill and eat him all the time. He lives in a world of wolves and coyotes and wildcats. Yet, here he was, a large healthy adult strolling nonchalantly through my yard. He was not stressed because he knew the truth. The truth that, at base, the world is good. The world was not out to get him and neither was I. I said good evening to him. He looked and me for about thirty seconds and then waddled off into the bushes. Presumably, if the evolutionists are correct, he’d gone to find a female possum to rape and impregnate against her will. That would, after all, be what a selfish gene would do.

But I doubt he did that. He probably went and found some berries and chilled on a branch. The “experts” of our age have painted an ugly picture of the world for you. One that is uncaring, trying to kill you, one where if you do not strive with all your might 24/7 you will die for lack of food, or of disease, or of poverty. This isn’t real. You’re lost in a fiction. A lie. Look in the mirror at the beauty and wonder of your own eyeball and come home. The world is good.