Refuting Darwinism, point by point

WorldNetDaily,com ^ | 1-11-03 | Interview of James Perloff

[DWar]

EVOLUTION WATCH Refuting Darwinism, point by point Author's new book presents case against theory in just 83 pages

Posted: January 11, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern

Editor's note: In 1999, author James Perloff wrote the popular "Tornado in a Junkyard," which summarizes much of the evidence against evolution and is considered one of the most understandable (while still scientifically accurate) books on the subject. Recently, WND talked with Perloff about his new book, "The Case Against Darwin."

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

QUESTION: Your new book is just 83 pages – and the type is large. What gives?

ANSWER: This past March I got a call from Ohio. There has been a battle there to allow critical examination of evolutionary theory in public schools, and a gentleman wanted 40 copies of Tornado to give to state legislators and school board members. I was delighted to send him the books, but I also knew that a state legislator isn't likely to pick up anything that's 321 pages long.

Q: And not just state legislators.

A: Right. We live in an age when parents often don't have time to read anything long, and their kids, who are usually more into video, may not have the inclination.

Q: So what's the focus of this book?

A: I've divided it into three chapters. The first is called "Is Darwin's Theory Relevant to Our Lives?" In other words, is the subject of this book worth my time or not? A lot of people think this is simply a science issue. And to some of them, science is booooring. But actually, it's the teaching of Darwin's theory as a "fact" that starts many young people doubting the existence of God. Once we stop believing in God, we discard his moral laws and start making up our own rules, which is basically why our society is in so much trouble. In short, Darwinism is very relevant – it's much more than a science matter.

Q: You, yourself, were an atheist for many years, were you not, as a result of evolutionary teaching?

A: That's right. I thought evolution had discredited the Bible. In my books, I give examples of notables who became atheists from being taught evolution, such as Stalin and Carnegie. In fact, the atheist Boy Scout who's been in the news reportedly attributes his atheism to being taught evolution.

Q: Why do you think evolution has such a persuasively negative effect on faith?

A: First, it's taught as "scientific fact." When kids hear "scientific fact," they think "truth." Who wants to go against truth? Second, it's the only viewpoint that's taught. After the Supreme Court kicked God out of schools in the '60s, kids heard the evolutionist viewpoint exclusively. It's like going to a courtroom – if you only heard the prosecutor's summation, you would probably think the defendant guilty. But if you only heard the defendant's attorney, you'd think "innocent." The truth is, we need to hear both sides, and kids haven't been getting it on the subject of origins.

Q: OK, then what?

A: The second chapter is "Evidence Against the Theory of Evolution." Let's face it, no matter what Darwinism's social ramifications, that alone would not be a sufficient basis to criticize it, if it were scientifically proven true.

Q: In a nutshell – if that's possible – what is the scientific evidence against Darwinism?

A: In the book, I focus on six areas of evidence. First, mutations – long claimed by evolutionists to be the building blocks of evolutionary change – are now known to remove information from the genetic code. They never create higher, more complex information – even in the rare cases of beneficial mutations, such as bacterial resistance to antibiotics. That has been laid out by Dr. Lee Spetner in his book "Not By Chance."

Q: What else?

A: Second, cells are now known to be far too complex to have originated by some chance concurrence of chemicals, as Darwin hypothesized and is still being claimed. We detail that in the book. Third, the human body has systems, such as blood clotting and the immune system, that are, in the words of biochemist Michael Behe, "irreducibly complex," meaning they cannot have evolved step-by-step. Behe articulated that in his book "Darwin's Black Box." And then there is the whole issue of transitional forms.

Q: What is a transitional form?

A: Darwin's theory envisioned that single-celled ancestors evolved into invertebrates (creatures without a backbone), who evolved into fish, who evolved into amphibians, who evolved into reptiles, who evolved into mammals. Now, a transitional form would be a creature intermediate between these. There would have to be a great many for Darwin's theory to be true.

Q: Are there?

A: There are three places to look for transitional forms. First, there's the living world around us. We see that it is distinctly divided – you have invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles and mammals. But we don't see transitionals between them. If these creatures ever existed, why did none survive? It is too easy to explain it away by saying they all became extinct. And of course, there is the question: Why aren't these creatures evolving into each other today? Why aren't invertebrates evolving into fish today? Why aren't fish growing little legs and so forth?

Q: Where else would you look for a transitional form?

A: In the fossil record. And here we have a problem of almost comparable magnitude. We find no fossils showing how the invertebrates evolved, or demonstrating that they came from a common ancestor. That's why you hear of the "Cambrian explosion." And while there are billions of fossils of both invertebrates and fish, fossils linking them are missing. Of course, there are some transitional fossils cited by evolutionists. However, two points about that. First, there should be a lot more if Darwin's theory is correct. Second, 99 percent of the biology of an organism is in its soft anatomy, which you cannot access in a fossil – this makes it easy to invest a fossil with a highly subjective opinion. The Piltdown Man and the recent Archaeoraptor are examples of how easy it is to be misled by preconceptions in this arena.

Q: What is the other place where you can look for transitional forms?

A: Microscopically, in the cell itself. Dr. Michael Denton, the Australian molecular biologist, examined these creatures on a molecular level and found no evidence whatsoever for the fish-amphibian-reptile-mammal sequence. He summarized his findings in his book "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis."

The last chapter is "Re-evaluating Some Evidences Used to Support the Theory" of evolution. That would include evidences that have been discredited, and also some evidences presented as proof that in fact rest on assumptions.

Q: What evidences have been discredited?

A: Ernst Haeckel's comparative embryo drawings. The human body being laden with "vestigial structures" from our animal past. Human blood and sea water having the same percentage of salt. Babies being born with "monkey tails." These are not foundational evidences, but they still hold sway in the public mind.

Q: You mentioned assumptions as proofs.

A: Yes. Anatomical similarities between men and animals are said to prove common ancestry. But intelligent design also results in innumerable similarities, as in the case of two makes of automobile. Also, what has been called "microevolution" – minor adaptive changes within a type of animal – is extrapolated as evidence for "macroevolution" – the changing of one kind of animal into another. However, a species is normally endowed with a rich gene pool that permits a certain amount of variation and adaptation. Certainly, those things happen. But the change is ordinarily limited to the confines of the gene pool. It doesn't mean a fish could adapt its way into being a human.

Q: You covered a lot of this ground in "Tornado in a Junkyard." Can readers expect something new from "The Case Against Darwin"?

A: There is a bit of new material, but no, if you've read "Tornado," or for that matter, if you read the July 2001 Whistleblower, where we looked at evolution, you already know most of the points. What's new is the size. This is a book to give to a busy friend, a book for a high-school student to share with his science teacher.

"The Case Against Darwin" by James Perloff is available from ShopNetDaily.

[bondserv]

I certainly think, "where's your evidence?" is a fair question to ask of the creo-crowd.

Let's begin with the creative brilliance of the human spirit. Do you know of anything else in the universe that even approaches our intelligence or inventiveness? Painting, music, literature, engineering, mathmatics etc..

How about loving a stranger at personally great risk (i.e. Christian Missionaries in Taliban ridden Afghanistan before the war). Is there anything else in the universe you have seen doing anything like that. And yes we know there have been confessing Christians that have been beyond cruel. But they obviously weren't following Christ’s teaching very closely.

Do you know of any other living thing that has the power to destroy a planet? Why are there no other evolved creatures that have any of these attributes? We were wonderfully made to do either good or evil unlike any other living thing.

God gave us dominion over this earth "there is some evidence".

[PatrickHenry]

I'm having trouble understanding your post. This "evidence" that you have just mentioned ... what is it supposed to demonstrate? We agree that some people are brilliant, some are compassionate, and we have powerful weapons. What does this prove?

[gore3000]

ID advocates have developed some fairly sophisticated arguments in favor of this proposition, such as irreducible complexity. The evo's answer seems to be: "No, since that would require God". So the evo's, for the most part, are treating ID as being about God and not taking the question seriously, presumably because they are in most cases committed atheists. This is a kind of circular reasoning in my view.

Quite correct. It should be noted that Darwin thought it necessary to try to refute Paley's intelligent design argument when proposing his theory. ID tries to battle evolution not on theology but on scientific grounds and the evolutionists are trying to withdraw from the battle. This shows to me that they themselves know that evolution is false and only keep repeating 'evolution is science' like it is some Budhist mantra which by repetition will make it true.

[bondserv]

No other living things that can be proven scientifically are even relatively close to having the special attributes of man.

We should be digging up cities full of evidence of other intelligently evolved life forms. Or are we the only ones who have evolved to our level. Show us remnants of a city of the Lizard King. Or the underwater markings of the Dolphin King.

Was there only enough time for us to evolve and no other life forms.

Gen 1:26-27

26Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

You will find evidence for the scripture listed above just by looking at the truth of reality. No animals rule over the fish, as well as the birds, as well as every living creature that moves on the ground.

Why? Because the Creator became a Man and lived among us. Jesus Christ is creating a better place for us presently. Why do we believe this? Because everything else he told us and showed us is true. It's that simple.

[PatrickHenry]

I understand you better now. Thanks.

[lasereye]

Sort of like the evos being constantly asked to explain the beginning of life, when they want to explain how life evolves after it already exists.

The scientific objections to evolution ask them to explain, among other things, how random mutations can add complexity, when there's no evidence that they can.

Why wouldn't a church-going Christian ask the same questions? If you believe in God, and your belief extends to knowing that He created everything, then of course everything is designed, and it's designed by God, so what is ID good for?

There's nothing wrong with asking this question, but it has no bearing on the validity of the theory. ID is scientific theory which says life shows evidence of having been designed period. Either life shows evidence of design or it doesn't. People can supply their own answers to who is the designer. Of course the designer is God (in my view), but the theory doesn't attempt to prove that, nor should it be required to. The evos say that because the designer must be God, therefore life shows no evidence of design, which is a total non-sequiter and is circular or backward reasoning.

I think that Behe (irreducible complexity) and Dembski (specified complexity) are barking up the wrong tree with this idea. Human design (which the only design we can be certain of) tends toward irreducible simplicity.

Irreducible complexity doesn't refer to the thought processes of the designer, so I don't know what you're talking about there.

If you take ID at face value, AND you assume that it's NOT about God, then the designer's NOT God. How is that better?

ID doesn't say the designer's not God, it just doesn't say it is God. There's a difference. Again, the question of who the designer is is beyond the theory. Either life shows evidence of design or it doesn't. The atheist evos say that it leads inevitably to the idea that there is a God (True). They then use that as a basis for immediately dismissing the entire idea. This is not a scientific basis however, it is their atheist philosophy.

[Anchoragite]

In physics, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, also known as the law of entropy, is clear....

I love when people (mis)quote science to disprove science. "Scientific thought is invalid, and I'll prove it with this scientific principle...."

Just love it....

[Anchoragite]

Again, the question of who the designer is is beyond the theory. Either life shows evidence of design or it doesn't.

Simple question, though. Okay, we say that life is too complicated to have occured naturally, indicating that it must have been designed by a designer....

Wouldn't that designer be way, way too complicated to occur naturally? And wouldn't that indicate that the designer had been designed to design? And what about *that* designer? And that designer's designer.... Before long, the universe is filled with designers who can create life out of nothingness, as it could be no other way.... By concluding that complexity=design, we conclude that those complex designers must have been created by even more complex designers, ad infinitum.

[KMJames]

I appreciate your argumentation in post #361 and #364.

This observable reality cannot be "scientifically" refuted.

[Dan Day]

Totally false. There is no such evidence at all. Before one can make such a claim one has to show that even one single mutation has created greater complexity in any organism. There is no such proof.

Here we see the creationists' core tactic in a nutshell: "When presented with evidence which contradicts our claims, simply deny its existence without bothering to even a) look at it or b) refute it.".

Or as the old college joke goes, "if the data do not fit the theory, they must be disposed of".

Come back when you're willing to be intellectually honest, "gore3000".

[balrog666]

Come back when you're willing to be intellectually honest, "gore3000".

It's going to be cooooooooold tonight but Hell is not going to freeze over.

[whattajoke]

HaHa, Dan, I haven't seen you around these threads, so to get you up to speed, Gore3000 is the most intellectually dishonest person on these threads, bar none.

Hell, he has yet to answer how old he thinks the earth is (it has been asked of him a million times) because it traps him and drives him nuts. Go ahead, ask him that question.

[Condorman]

You are here.

[bondserv]

Let us say that you programmed a complex computer program, which has characters with artificial intelligence. Say you terraform, via computer software, a land for these characters to abide in.

Naturally the computer characters would be limited by the rules/laws dictated by you. In no way would you be bound by those rules/laws. (i.e. the gravity is such that the characters can jump 15ft into the air. The oxygen necessary to maintain the characters is only 1%).

The world you program can be different and far less complicated than our world.

With the knowledge we have about ourselves the greatest statement we can make is an agnostic one. For we don't have all knowledge (complexity), individually, or as a group, therefore making the statement that "there is NO God" is assumptious. If anyone thinks Man understands all there is to know, then they have problems grasping reality!

But the God and creator of the bible, who by definition would have to know all things in His creation, unassumptiously pronounces to us that there are no other Gods before or after Him.

So like us, if there is knowledge (complexity) "at His level" that is outside of His understanding, he would be forced to take an agnostic position. Assuming that he is capable of creating the spectacular universe we life in, He isn't likely to make the mistake of saying there is no God before Him.


Isa 43:10
10 “You are my witnesses,” declares the LORD, “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am He. Before Me no God was formed, nor will there be one after Me.

Isa 45:5-9
5 I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged Me,

6 so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting men may know there is none besides Me. I am the LORD, and there is no other.

7 I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things.

8 “You heavens above, rain down righteousness; let the clouds shower it down. Let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up, let righteousness grow with it; I, the LORD, have created it.

9 “Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker, to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘He has no hands’?

[bondserv]

Did you know that when Mt. St. Helens erupted, megatons of mud were projected in one direction? These layers of mud created a gigantic natural dam on a river nearby.

The river continued to fill behind the mud dam until it crested. When it crested it began quickly eroding the layers of newly layered mud.

Today there is a canyon there that is many hundreds of feet deep. It remarkably resembles the Grand Canyon (Layers of sedimentary mud of a variety of rock types appearing to be millions or billions of years old).

Special note: The Mt. St. Helen layers of ground contained no bones of dinosaurs. The bone graves created by the flood tended to pool together, and some of these same graves have been found containing human bones mixed in with the dinosaur bones. And for some reason the bones didn't oxidize and rot do to the sediment from the flood quickly covering them. AAAAWWW More tales of Dragons scaring damsels again.

[bondserv]

Quick question relating to this thread.

If you pack 1.44MB of information on a 3.5 in floppy disk, can you transfer that information wirelessly to another computer or floppy disk?

Science describes something that is real but has no mass as eternal. Massless information is by definition eternal (outside the constraints of time). Not all things that are real have mass.

The hardware of the floppy disk is much like the hardware of our bodies. The uniqueness of individual people is based on their unique eternal information (Spirit).

Why, in the face of the evidence, is it so hard to believe we can be transferred "wirelessly" from here to heaven or hell when we die?

When they understand that the eternal information (Spirit) for a life is contained in the embryo, at the point of conception, maybe then they will know why we fight like zealots to protect those children.

We have been programmed to have a relationship with God, accept Jesus and turn on your wireless transmitter.

[Dan Day]

HaHa, Dan, I haven't seen you around these threads,

They're a guilty pleasure of mine, but I try not to participate too often, as they're immensely time-consuming. And like potato chips, once I get started, it's hard to stop at "just one".

so to get you up to speed, Gore3000 is the most intellectually dishonest person on these threads, bar none.

Sadly, I've seen worse... But he is certainly right up there.

Hell, he has yet to answer how old he thinks the earth is (it has been asked of him a million times) because it traps him and drives him nuts. Go ahead, ask him that question.

I can do better than that. See my next post...

[Dan Day]

Well, the above shows very good imagination, but has quite a few problems scientifically which cannot be resolved by gradual change. Let me show you:

Without that entire system in place, the new organism cannot be fed. That entire system involves changes in the nutrition of the baby as well as a completely new way for the mother to provide the nutrition to the baby. It also requires a separate system of blood transmission which does not have oxygen in it and a complete separation of the blood of the infant from that of the mother. It is obvious that all the changes necessary for this to happen could not have happened stochastically in a single generation.

Demonstrating that gore3000 needs to learn more biology before he tries to discuss it...

Before getting into the particulars of gore3000's argument, I'd like to make a more general point, which bears strongly on what follows.

When setting out to argue for or against a particular proposed evolutionary sequence (or for or against *any* scientific proposal, for that matter) a sensible person would first make sure that they understood the field well enough to make sure that they weren't overlooking something obvious, or arguing a point that already had a substantial amount of evidence for/against it.

Specifically in this case, someone arguing for/against the evolutionary plausibility of an egg-laying species evolving live birth via placental methods would, if they had any brains at all, make sure that they fully understood what mechanisms egg-laying animals use for embryonic development, and then how placental animals do it, and carefully examine the similarities and differences between the two so that they could then talk with some knowledge about what step(s) might be necessary to convert one mechanism into the other. They would furthermore be advised to examine various members of the animal kingdom to see whether any "in-between" stages *already* existed to prove/disprove the workability of "stepping-stone" transitions. Only then could they hope to discuss the topic with any degree of believability and/or assurance that their points bore any passing resemblance to actual biology and/or animal life cycles.

Creationists, on the other hand, have a dismal track record of not even bothering to check the most basic information on the subjects upon which they choose to pontificate. Often the errors and false presumptions in their arguments can be corrected with about ten minutes of checking via a web browser. Why didn't *they* bother to check their own presumptions? What's sad is that this is not only a pattern for off-the-cuff online postings, even creationist books (which one would have hoped would be better researched) contain real howlers based on ignorance or lack of fact-checking.

Even worse, creationists all too often misunderstand or misrepresent evolution itself, and end up arguing against a ridiculous "straw man" form of evolution instead of the real thing. The first requisite to rebutting a position is to actually understand the position correctly in the first place.

Now on to gore3000's specific presumptions about the egg-laying -> placental transition...

The basis for his argument is the common creationist tactic of: "I don't see how that could be done, therefore it couldn't, therefore you're wrong, therefore all of evolution is impossible, therefore I'm right, so there, neener neener". Note the lack of any actual evidence. Note the lack of real connection between one step and the next (i.e., the consequent does not necessarily follow from the antecedent).

In order to actually *prove* that the transition couldn't happen, gore3000 would have to map out every possible transition, show that *each* could not possibly happen, *and* show that he could not have possibly *missed* any conceivable transition. Needless to say, he has not done any of that.

He simply *presumes* that "you can't get there from here", declares victory, and calls it a day. Nice try. Typical for creationists, though.

Scientists, on the other hand, don't allow themselves such lazy luxuries. If they want to prove/disprove something, they have to go through the laborious procedure of learning the field in question, making sure they understand the processes they're trying to discuss, then go hunting for evidence or experiments which help make their case. In other words, they know that armchair, ivory-tower speculation is one thing, but sooner or later you have to do a reality-check and see whether your ideas actually *work* or not (in experiments, or when measured against the real-life evidence). In fact, it's not inaccurate to say that the entire "scientific method" is a recipe for how to do reality checks to test ideas against each other and against the real world.

Check a listing of the scientific papers published in a year and you'll be absolutely buried by them. Even in evolutionary science alone there are tens of thousands of papers published. Why? Because the scientists are all out there doing various kinds of reality checks and then publishing the results.

Now note how seldom creationists do this... In fact, they haven't even bothered to actually test some of their most basic "theories". Here's a list of suggestions for how they might begin to remedy that deficit: Creation Research Projects. It's written tongue-in-cheek, but it makes many valid points. More basic unanswered questions will be found in the related The Whole Silly Flood Story. If creationists spent one percent of the time on proving their own theory as they do on trying to argue against evolution, maybe they'd have some actual results of their own. Or maybe not...

Now let's examine gore3000's errors individually...

His argument is that when it comes to getting from an egg-laying configuration to a placental method of giving birth, "you can't get there from here". He claims as his "proof" that in order to make the "leap" to a placental birth, a species would have to develop all of the following in, he says, "one generation":

1. "Changes in the nutrition of the baby".

2. "A completely new way for the mother to provide the nutrition to the baby."

3. "A separate system of blood transmission which does not have oxygen in it"

4. "A complete separation of the blood of the infant from that of the mother"

He further argues that "Without that entire system in place, the new organism cannot be fed."

The problem is that his lack of knowledge of basic biology causes nearly every one of these assertions to be in error.

First, if he knew anything about the mechanism of egg-laying, and embryonic development in an egg, he'd know that his item #4 ("A complete separation of the blood of the infant from that of the mother") is ALREADY PRESENT in the egg-laying method. So it hardly has to "develop" in order to reach a placental method.

A similar type of ignorance leads him to erroneously state as his central premise, "Without that entire system in place, the new organism cannot be fed." The obvious problem with this is that egg-layers manage to do just fine "without that entire system" (thanks to the yolk and the entire embryonic system of blood vessels, chorion, amnion, and allantois) so during a transitional state between "egg-birth" and placental birth, the simple retention of the yolk during the transition would *alone* be enough to feed the embryo "without that entire system" which is present in placental animals. OOPS! There goes his fundamental premise. Better luck next time. But there's more...

Again, a prudent person (i.e., one who wanted to make sure that he wasn't making a fool of himself) would have checked to see whether there were *already* animals which got along just fine in a "transition" state between egg-laying and placental live birth, since examination of such animals would shed light on the subject of what's possible and what's not, and how.

Reality-check time! Roughly half of all shark species lay eggs, the other half give live birth. Hmm, sounds like a good place to look to learn something about how an animal might possibly move from one method to the other, eh? When sharks lay eggs, they do it in a fashion analogous to how a chicken does it (albeit with many variations on the theme, needless to say) -- they produce a yolk-packed ovum, fertilize it, wrap it with albumin and other "packing material", slap a shell around it, and dump it out to finish embryonic development in a "self contained" package. However, like all egg-laying, this introduces a number of risks: The egg can get eaten, crushed, end up in adverse environmental conditions, etc. etc. So it's generally to a species's advantage to retain and "nurture" the egg internally by some method or another. So many sharks do. The problem is that if you "hold" the egg internally too long, the yolk in the egg runs out, and you either have to lay/birth the egg at that point, or find some alternative method of feeding it. Various shark species have managed come up with various novel ways of doing this, many involving abandoning the eggshell entirely even from the start.

Some shark species have developed ways to exude a nutritious substance from their uterine walls to feed their embryos, like a "uterine milk". Some species begin producing a stream of unfertilized eggs which the already developing embryos eat for food. Some produce a large brood of embryos and let the strongest just eat the weakest for food while still inside the uterus (whoa!).

But some do something even more interesting. Enter the whaler shark and the closely related hammerhead shark...:

The most advanced form of embryonic nutrition occurs in the whaler sharks (Carcharhinidae) and in the closely-related hammerheads (Sphyrnidae). About one-third through their 10-16 month gestation, the whaler and hammerhead pups have used most of their yolk supply. At this stage, the yolk sac undergoes a remarkable transformation: vascularization increases dramatically in density and complexity and the distal portion folds and 'wrinkles' in such a way that allows it to interdigitate with the lining of the mother shark's uterus. This structure facilitates an intimate connection between fetal and maternal blood streams, allowing dissolved nutrients to pass from mother to offspring and nitrogenous wastes from pup to mother. The yolk sac has become a placenta, astonishingly like that of mammals in form and function.

Shark placentas, however, are not exactly like mammalian placentas. In eutherian mammals, the placenta is formed from the embryonic tissues known as 'amnion' and 'chorion', whereas in higher carcharhiniform sharks the placenta is formed directly from the yolk sac. Because of this fundamental difference in tissue derivation, some developmental biologists prefer to term this form of fetal-maternal connection a 'pseudoplacenta'. But since in every other respect the shark placenta is entirely analogous to the mammalian version, I prefer to term that of sharks a 'yolk-sac placenta'. Regardless of which terminology one prefers, it is remarkable that mother whaler and hammerhead sharks independently derived almost precisely the same solution to the challenges of embryonic nutrition as mammalian mothers .... Although, it might be pointed out that sharks 'invented' the placenta some 100 million years before mammals did.

So here we see a species (several, actually) that feeds its embryos in the "traditional" egg-laying method (via a yolk), and then managed to *extend* the embryonic period to its advantage via post-yolk conversion to a placental technique. Hmm, looks like gore3000 was wrong when he presumed that the transition would have to be between classic egg laying in generation N and full placental in generation N+1, *bang*.

With traditional yolk-feeding of the embryo, a species would have *however many generations it took* to develop placental feeding as an "add on" to extend gestation, without the embryos "starving to death" during the development of the placenta. Until the placenta method became viable, the species would just eject the baby as usual when the yolk ran out, *until* a method developed which allowed the extension of gestation.

Furthermore, once the placenta became viable, succeeding generations could get by with smaller and smaller yolks (with a correspondingly earlier transition from yolk->placenta), until finally it gave up on making a yolk at all and just triggered the placenta from the start.

And there's *STILL* more wrong with gore3000's presumptions...

His point #1 was that it required "changes in the nutrition of the baby". Well, no, not as much as you'd think. In true eggs the embryo is already getting its nutrition from "predigested" external sources. The yolk sac already absorbs the yolk "external" the embryo and "pipes" it through blood vessels to the embryo itself. It's hardly a big "change in the nutrition of the baby" for nutrients to instead be absorbed from the mother's womb instead of the external yolk -- the blood vessel "pipeline" is already there in the egg, as well as tissues which perform nutrient absorption. Slap them against the uterine wall instead of a yolk and they require very little modification to keep feeding the embryo. (And note that the "baby-side" layers of the placenta are formed from EMBRYONIC tissues.)

Gore3000's point #2 is that the transition requires "a completely new way for the mother to provide the nutrition to the baby". Again, not nearly as much as you'd think. Certainly not a "complete" change by any means. Uterine tissues even in egg-laying species already have a very thick blood supply, and are built to transport and secrete nutrients in the form of albumin ("egg white"), shell membrane, shell, etc. Plus blood vessels in general are built to allow nutrient and oxygen and waste diffusion through their walls (that's how they feed all the tissues of the body). It doesn't take much for an embryo to "leech" off the same *pre-existing* mechanism.

Gore3000's point #2 is "It also requires a separate system of blood transmission which does not have oxygen in it".

Um, what? "...does not have oxygen in it"? Could we get that again in a way that makes sense?

First, it doesn't require a "separate system of blood transmission", since the umbilical/placental blood system is the SAME ONE that embryos in eggs use to a) get nutrients from the yolk, b) dump waste products to the allantois, and c) receive oxygen from outside the shell (again via the allantois). In placental animals the allantois just interfaces with the mother's uterine wall instead of the inside of the egg shell (the allantois *is* the inner half of the placenta in placental animals).

Second, if by "blood transmission which does not have oxygen in it" gore3000's is clumsily trying to say there needs to be veins which carry waste products (including carbon-dioxide) away from the embryo to be dumped to the mother's bloodstream, then *again*, these veins are *already present* in egg-laying species -- they allow the embryo in the egg to unload carbon dioxide through the porous eggshell, and tuck away other kinds of waste products in what amounts to an in-the-egg "latrine" (although once a placental hookup is formed, those blood-borne waste products are easily unloaded to the mother's bloodstream, since as previously mentioned blood vessel walls are *already* configured to absorb waste products from all bodily tissues so they can be removed).

So in summary, gore3000's "big change" points #1-#2 represent *minor* modifications of systems which are *already* present in egg-laying species, #3-#4 represent *no* change -- it's hardly an oversimplification to say that the only major steps necessary to convert from an egg-layer to a placental animal is to a) lose the shell, and b) slap the existing chorioallantoic membrane against the uterine wall:

And gore3000's presumption that the changes had to fully occur in a *single* generation is proven moot by animals which use *both* methods (making a transition a piece of cake -- gain method #2, however long it takes, then phase out method #1, however long it takes).

FURTHERMORE, an examination of placentas even among different mammals shows several "stages" of sophistication, showing that gore3000's "all or nothing" belief is not only pure hogwash, but based on a fundamental ignorance of basic biology -- anyone with any familiarity with existing animals couldn't possibly have made the silly assertions that gore3000 does.

Monotremes (e.g. the platypus) lay actual eggs, even though they are (primitive) mammals.

Marsupials (e.g. kangaroos), for a next step up, are mammals which have abandoned the egg and give live birth, but have not generally developed a placenta for "extended feeding" -- marsupial embryos have to be born when their yolk (yes, mammals with yolks) run out. They are consequently born at a "premature" but viable stage, where they are very tiny and have to be nurtured inside the pouch for many more months before they can survive "out in the open". Interestingly, marsupials supplement the embryo's yolk-feeding in the womb with secretions from the uterine wall ("uterine milk") which is directly absorbed by the embryo. Even more interestingly, a few species of marsupials have developed a primitive "partial placenta" which helps them extend the embryo's time before birth, although it's not well-developed enough to do away with the "pouch gestation" entirely. Marsupial placentas, being adapted from the yolk sac instead of the chorioallantoic membrane (and thus called a chorio-vitelline placenta), represents an "evolutionary dead-end", since it shuts down nutrient transfer from the uterine wall when the yolk is used up. It's a supplement to the yolk but can't be a replacement.

Cows, horses, and such are mammals which have a full placenta, but it's more primitive than the placentas of humans and many other mammals -- it's a "non-deciduate placenta", which is basically just the embryo's allantois laid "flat" against the uterine wall and allowing nutrient absorbtion and waste disposal that way. Humans and many other mammals have a more "developed" placenta which is "deciduate" -- the embryonic allantois and the uterine walls "embrace" and intertwine rather like the fingers of a folded pair of hands, allowing more efficient transfer.

And in addition, the deciduate placenta has lost two tissue layers that were necessary in eggs (to prevent fluid loss through the porous shell), and which are still present in the primitive non-deciduate placenta, but which have been dropped in the more sophisticated deciduate placenta because they're unneccesary. Hmm, looks just like evolution in action.

So, gore3000, what's that you were saying about the placenta having to develop "all at once" in one generation? Looks to me like there are many transitional stages which seem to work just fine, albeit some better than others.

Make sure you know something about biology before you try to make pronouncements about it...

And it's not like this is PhD level stuff. I'm working on what I vaguely remember from high school biology, and from what I researched on the web in about an hour when I decided to double-check your assumptions. So gore3000, what's *your* excuse for not double-checking your *own* assumptions before you smugly declared your wrong conclusions about what's evolutionarily possible and what's not?

If you can't get the easy stuff like this right, how can we trust you with the hard stuff?

And why does this end up being the result every time I set out to simply fact-check a creationist's assertions? For once I wish they'd do their *own* homework, so I don't have to do it for them. But then, maybe they'd undercut all their own arguments and learn something in the process.

Ironically, gore3000 started his post with, "Fairy tales are not science. Science is about facts."

Why yes, yes it is. Please learn some.

It's also about reality-checking your beliefs. Like, say, by comparing them against what's already known in biology instead of just presuming that there's something vastly different about in-the-egg development and in-the-womb versions. Why didn't you already do a survey of existing gestation methods before you spouted off?

Oh, right, because evolution *must* be wrong, therefore you *must* be right when you simply presume any example of it impossible... Careful, that sort of "thought process" (*cough*) will get you into trouble every time.

As gore3000 himself comically stated elsewhere in this thread, "A scientific theory has to be based on the known facts, not on what someone wants to believe." Oh, the irony...

[Dan Day]

Time to start a pool on when World Nut Daily runs its first article touting perpetual motion machines

Too late -- they already did, although I'd have to go digging around to find it.

[PatrickHenry]

Very well done! And now a warning. Whenever one of the hard-core creationists finds himself totally rebutted, the usual tactic is to provoke a flame war, hit the "abuse" button when you respond with vigor, and eventually get the whole thread deleted. That's their pattern. I suggest that you resist being goaded into anything even remotely like a flame war. You've won already. Now just relax and let them squirm.