The Facts of Life: Shattering the Myths of Darwinism. A Review.

Every day I get letters, in capitals and obsessively underlined if not actually in green ink, from flat-earthers, young-earthers, perpetual-motion merchants, astrologers and other harmless fruitcakes. The only difference here is that Richard Milton managed to get his stuff published. The publisher - we don’t know how many decent publishers turned it down first - is called ‘Fourth Estate.’ Not a house that I had heard of, but apparently neither a vanity press nor a fundamentalist front. So, what are ‘Fourth Estate’ playing at? Would they publish - for this book is approximately as silly - a claim that the Romans never existed and the Latin language is a cunning Victorian fabrication to keep schoolmasters employed?

A cynic might note that there is a paying public out there, hungry for simple religious certitude, who will lap up anything with a subtitle like ‘Shattering the Myth of Darwinism.’ If the author pretends not to be religious himself, so much the better, for he can then be exhibited as an unbiased witness. There is - no doubt about it - a fast buck to be made by any publishers unscrupulous enough to print pseudoscience that they know is rubbish but for which there is a market.

But let’s not be so cynical. Mightn’t the publishers have an honourable defence? Perhaps this unqualified hack is a solitary genius, the only soldier in the entire platoon - nay, regiment - who is in step. Perhaps the world really did bounce into existence in 8000 BC. Perhaps the whole vast edifice of orthodox science really is totally and utterly off its trolley. (In the present case, it would have to be not just orthodox biology but physics, geology and cosmology too). How do we poor publishers know until we have printed the book and seen it panned?

If you find that plea persuasive, think again. It could be used to justify publishing literally anything; flat-earth, fairies, astrology, werewolves and all. It is true that an occasional lonely figure, originally written off as loony or at least wrong, has eventually been triumphantly vindicated (though not often a journalist like Richard Milton, it has to be said). But it is also true that a much larger number of people originally regarded as wrong really were wrong. To be worth publishing, a book must do a little more than just be out of step with the rest of the world.

But, the wretched publisher might plead, how are we, in our ignorance, to decide? Well, the first thing you might do - it might even pay you, given the current runaway success of some science books - is employ an editor with a smattering of scientific education. It needn’t be much: A-level Biology would have been ample to see off Richard Milton. At a more serious level, there are lots of smart young science graduates who would love a career in publishing (and their jacket blurbs would avoid egregious howlers like calling Darwinism the "idea that chance is the mechanism of evolution.") As a last resort you could even do what proper publishers do and send the stuff out to referees. After all, if you were offered a manuscript claiming that Tennyson wrote The Iliad, wouldn’t you consult somebody, say with an O-level in History, before rushing into print?

You might also glance for a second at the credentials of the author. If he is an unknown journalist, innocent of qualifications to write his book, you don’t have to reject it out of hand but you might be more than usually anxious to show it to referees who do have some credentials. Acceptance need not, of course, depend on the referees’ endorsing the author’s thesis: a serious dissenting opinion can deserve to be heard. But referees will save you the embarrassment of putting your imprint on twaddle that betrays, on almost every page, complete and total pig-ignorance of the subject at hand.

All qualified physicists, biologists, cosmologists and geologists agree, on the basis of massive, mutually corroborating evidence, that the earth’s age is at least four billion years. Richard Milton thinks it is only a few thousand years old, on the authority of various Creation ‘science’ sources including the notorious Henry Morris (Milton himself claims not to be religious, and he affects not to recognise the company he is keeping). The great Francis Crick (himself not averse to rocking boats) recently remarked that "anyone who believes that the earth is less than 10,000 years old needs psychiatric help." Yes yes, maybe Crick and the rest of us are all wrong and Milton, an untrained amateur with a ‘background’ as an engineer, will one day have the last laugh. Want a bet?

Milton misunderstands the first thing about natural selection. He thinks the phrase refers to selection among species. In fact, modern Darwinians agree with Darwin himself that natural selection chooses among individuals within species. Such a fundamental misunderstanding would be bound to have far-reaching consequences; and they duly make nonsense of several sections of the book.

In genetics, the word ‘recessive’ has a precise meaning, known to every school biologist. It means a gene whose effect is masked by another (dominant) gene at the same locus. Now it also happens that large stretches of chromosomes are inert - untranslated. This kind of inertness has not the smallest connection with the ‘recessive’ kind. Yet Milton manages the feat of confusing the two. Any slightly qualified referee would have picked up this clanger.

There are other errors from which any reader capable of thought would have saved this book. Stating correctly that Immanuel Velikovsky was ridiculed in his own time, Milton goes on to say "Today, only forty years later, a concept closely similar to Velikovsky’s is widely accepted by many geologists - that the major extinction at the end of the Cretaceous ... was caused by collison with a giant meteor or even asteroid." But the whole point of Velikovsky (indeed, the whole reason why Milton, with his eccentric views on the age of the earth, champions him) is that his collision was supposed to have happened recently; recently enough to explain Biblical catastrophes like Moses’s parting of the Red Sea. The geologists’ meteorite, on the other hand, is supposed to have impacted 65 million years ago! There is a difference - approximately 65 million years difference. If Velikovsky had placed his collision tens of millions of years ago he would not have been ridiculed. To represent him as a misjudged, wilderness-figure who has finally come into his own is either disingenuous or - more charitably and plausibly - stupid.

In these post-Leakey, post-Johanson days, creationist preachers are having to learn that there is no mileage in ‘missing links.’ Far from being missing, the fossil links between modern humans and our ape ancestors now constitute an elegantly continuous series. Richard Milton, however, still hasn’t got the message. For him, "...the only ‘missing link’ so far discovered remains the bogus Piltdown Man." Australopithecus, correctly described as a human body with an ape’s head, doesn’t qualify because it is ‘really’ an ape. And Homo habilis - ‘handy man’ - which has a brain "perhaps only half the size of the average modern human’s" is ruled out from the other side: "... the fact remains that handy man is a human - not a missing link." One is left wondering what a fossil has to do - what more could a fossil do - to qualify as a ‘missing link’?

No matter how continuous a fossil series may be, the conventions of zoological nomenclature will always impose discontinuous names. At present, there are only two generic names to spread over all the hominids. The more ape-like ones are shoved into the genus Australopithecus; the more human ones into the genus Homo. Intermediates are saddled with one name or the other. This would still be true if the series were as smoothly continuous as you can possibly imagine. So, when Milton says, of Johanson’s ‘Lucy’ and associated fossils, "the finds have been referred to either Australopithecus and hence are apes, or Homo and hence are human," he is saying something (rather dull) about naming conventions, nothing at all about the real world.

But this is a more sophisticated criticism than Milton’s book deserves. The only serious question raised by its publication is why. As for would-be purchasers, if you want this sort of silly-season drivel you’d be better off with a couple of Jehovah’s Witness tracts. They are more amusing to read, they have rather sweet pictures, and they put their religious cards on the table.

"You mean that radioactive elements decay at a set rate? Do you realize the implications in claiming (albeit, backhandedly) that radioactive elements decayed far more rapidly in the past?"

No, you misunderstood, my comments on the rate of decay were applied only to the original posters claims regarding carbon dating. With regard to radiometric dating see below

Why Methods in General are Inaccurate

I admit this is a very beautiful theory. This would seem to imply that the problem of radiometric dating has been solved, and that there are no anomalies. So if we take a lava flow and date several minerals for which one knows the daughter element is excluded, we should always get the exact same date, and it should agree with the accepted age of the geological period. Is this true? I doubt it very much. If the radiometric dating problem has been solved in this manner, then why do we need isochrons, which are claimed to be more accurate?

The same question could be asked in general of minerals that are thought to yield good dates. Mica is thought to exclude Sr, so it should yield good Rb-Sr dates. But are dates from mica always accepted, and do they always agree with the age of their geologic period? I suspect not.

Indeed, there are a number of conditions on the reliability of radiometric dating. For example, for K-Ar dating, we have the following requirements:

For this system to work as a clock, the following 4 criteria must be fulfilled:

1. The decay constant and the abundance of K40 must be known accurately.

2. There must have been no incorporation of Ar40 into the mineral at the time of crystallization or a leak of Ar40 from the mineral following crystallization.

3. The system must have remained closed for both K40 and Ar40 since the time of crystallization.

4. The relationship between the data obtained and a specific event must be known.

The requirements for radiometric dating are stated in another way, at the web site http://hubcap.clemson.edu/spur geon/books/apology/Chapter7.ht ml:

“But what about the radiometric dating methods? The earth is supposed to be nearly 5 billion years old, and some of these methods seem to verify ancient dates for many of earth’s igneous rocks. The answer is that these methods, are far from infallible and are based on three arbitrary assumptions (a constant rate of decay, an isolated system in which no parent or daughter element can be added or lost, and a known amount of the daughter element present initially).”

Here are more quotes about radiometric dating from http://www.parentcompany.com/h andy_dandy/hder12.htm:

“All of the parent and daughter atoms can move through the rocks. Heating and deformation of rocks can cause these atoms to migrate, and water percolating through the rocks can transport these substances and redeposit them. These processes correspond to changing the setting of the clock hands. Not infrequently such resetting of the radiometric clocks is assumed in order to explain disagreements between different measurements of rock ages. The assumed resettings are referred to as `metamorphic events’ or `second’ or `third events.’ ”

And again,

“It is also possible that exposure to neutrino, neutron, or cosmic radiation could have greatly changed isotopic ratios or the rates at some time in the past.”

It is known that neutrinos interact with atomic nucleii, so a larger density of neutrinos could have sped up radioactive decay and made matter look old in a hurry. Some more quotes from the same source:

a. In the lead-uranium systems both uranium and lead can migrate easily in some rocks, and lead volatilizes and escapes as a vapor at relatively low temperatures. It has been suggested that free neutrons could transform Pb-206 first to Pb-207 and then to Pb-208, thus tending to reset the clocks and throw thorium-lead and uranium-lead clocks completely off, even to the point of wiping out geological time. Furthermore, there is still disagreement of 15 percent between the two preferred values for the U-238 decay constant.

b. In the potassium/argon system argon is a gas which can escape from or migrate through the rocks. Potassium volatilizes easily, is easily leached by water, and can migrate through the rocks under certain conditions. Furthermore, the value of the decay constant is still disputed, although the scientific community seems to be approaching agreement. Historically, the decay constants used for the various radiometric dating systems have been adjusted to obtain agreement between the results obtained. In the potassium/argon system another adjustable “constant” called the branching ratio is also not accurately known and is adjusted to give acceptable results.

Argon-40, the daughter substance, makes up about one percent of the atmosphere, which is therefore a possible source of contamination. This is corrected for by comparing the ratio argon-40/argon-36 in the rock with that in the atmosphere. However, since it is possible for argon-36 to be formed in the rocks by cosmic radiation, the correction may also be in error. Argon from the environment may be trapped in magma by pressure and rapid cooling to give very high erroneous age results. In view of these and other problems it is hardly surprising that the potassium/argon method can yield highly variable results, even among different minerals in the same rock.

c. In the strontium/rubidium system the strontium-87 daughter atoms are very plentiful in the earth’s crust. Rubidium-87 parent atoms can be leached out of the rock by water or volatilized by heat.

All of these special problems as well as others can produce contradictory and erroneous results for the various radiometric dating systems.

So we have a number of mechanisms that can introduce errors in radiometric dates. Heating can cause argon to leave a rock and make it look younger. In general, if lava was heated after the initial flow, it can yield an age that is too young. If the minerals in the lava did not melt with the lava, one can obtain an age that is too old. Leaching can also occur; this involves water circulating in rock that can cause parent and daughter elements to enter or leave the rock and change the radiometric age.

Thus it is easy to rationalize any date that is obtained. If a date is too old, one can say that the mineral did not melt with the lava. (Maybe it got included from surrounding rock as the lava flowed upward.) If the date is too young, one can say that there was a later heating event. One can also hypothesize that leaching occurred.

But then it is claimed that we can detect leaching and heating. But how can we know that this claim is true, without knowing the history of rocks and knowing whether they have in fact experienced later heating or leaching?

The problems are compounded because many of the parent and daughter substances are mobile, to some extent. I believe that all parent substances are water soluble, and many of the daughter products as well. A few sources have said that Sr is mobile in rock to some extent. This could cause trouble for Rb-Sr dating. In fact, some sources say that Sr and Ar have similar mobilities in rock, and Ar is very mobile.

Especially the gaseous radiometric decay byproducts such as argon, radon, and helium are mobile in rock. So if a rock has tiny cracks permitting gas to enter or escape or permitting the flow of water, the radiometric ages could be changed substantially even without the rock ever melting or mixing.

For example, suppose that 1/300,000 of the argon in a rock escapes in one day. Then in 1000 years the rock will have less than 1/(2.7) of its original argon. In 5000 years the rock will have less than 1/(2.7^5) of its original argon. Now, there is probably not much argon in a rock to start with. So the loss of a tiny amount of argon can have significant effects over long time periods. A loss of argon would make the rock look younger.

In a similar way, argon could enter the rock from the air or from surrounding rocks and make it look older. And this can also happen by water flowing through the rock through tiny cracks, dissolving parent and daughter elements. It would be difficult to measure the tiny changes in concentration that would suffice to make large changes in the radiometric ages over long time periods.

I also question the assertion that argon, for example, is excluded from certain minerals when they crystallize and never enters later on. Geologists often say that ages that are too old are due to excess argon. So it must be possible for that excess argon to get in, even though the crystal is supposed to exclude it. Here is one such reference, although this is to a mineral that does not exclude argon:

“As in all dating systems, the ages calculated can be affected by the presence of inherited daughter products. In a few cases, argon ages older than that of the Earth which violate local relative age patterns have even been determined for the mineral biotite. Such situations occur mainly where old rocks have been locally heated, which released argon-40 into pore spaces at the same time that new minerals grew. Under favourable circumstances the isochron method may be helpful, but tests by other techniques may be required. For example, the rubidium-strontium method would give a valid isotopic age of the biotite sample with inherited argon.”

[from the Online Encyclopedia Britannica article, “Geochronology: The Interpretation and Dating of the Geologic Record, Potassium-argon methods.”]

Another problem is that the crystal structure typically has imperfections and impurities. For example, different kinds of quartz have different colors due to various impurities that are included but not part of the repetitive unit of the quartz crystal. So even if the crystal excludes the daughter element, it could be present in impurities. Thus crystals, as they form, may have tiny imperfections that accept parent and daughter products in the same ratios as they occur in the lava, so one can inherit ages from the lava into minerals in this way. It is also possible that parent and daughter elements could be present in boundaries between regular crystal domains. I don’t know how we can be sure that a crystal will exclude argon or other daughter substances except by growing it in the laboratory under many conditions.

There can also be argon or other daughter products added from the air or from other rocks. One could say that we can detect whether the daughter is embedded in the crystal structure or not. But this would require an atom by atom analysis, which I do not believe is practical.

There's almost nothing esotoric in the Bible...it is very plain---Evangelical!

Refusal to accept the divine "theory" or doctrine of representation in and by another, indicates in many cases mere indifference to the blessing to be received; in others, resentment of the way in which that doctrine utterly sets aside all excellency or merit on our part. Men will win the kingdom for themselves; they will deserve eternal life; they will not take forgiveness or righteousness freely from another's hands; or be indebted to a Substitute for what they are persuaded they can earn by their personal doings. Because the plan of representation or substitution is distasteful and humbling, they call it absurd and unjust. They refuse a heavenly inheritance on such terms, while perhaps at the very moment they are accepting an earthly estate on terms as totally irrespective of their own labor or goodness."

"If the Christ of God, in His sorrowful life below, be but a specimen of suffering humanity, or a model of patient calmness under wrong, not one of these things is manifested or secured. He is but one fragment more of a confused and disordered world, where everything has broken loose from its anchorage, and each is dashing against the other in unmanageable chaos, without any prospect of a holy or tranquil issue. He is an example of the complete triumph of evil over goodness, of wrong over right, of Satan over God,-one from whose history we can draw only this terrific conclusion, that God has lost the control of His own world; that sin has become too great a power for God either to regulate or extirpate; that the utmost that God can do is to produce a rare example of suffering holiness, which He allows the world to tread upon without being able effectually to interfere; that righteousness, after ages of buffeting and scorn, must retire from the field in utter helplessness, and permit the unchecked reign of evil. If the cross be the mere exhibition of self-sacrifice and patient meekness, then the hope of the world is gone. We had always thought that there was a potent purpose of God at work in connection with the sin- bearing work of the holy Sufferer, which, allowing sin for a season to develop itself, was preparing and evolving a power which would utterly overthrow it, and sweep earth clean of evil, moral and physical. But if the crucified Christ be the mere self-denying man, we have nothing more at work for the overthrow of evil than has again and again been witnessed, when some hero or martyr rose above the level of his age to protest against evils which he could not eradicate, and to bear witness in life and death for truth and righteousness,-in vain."

"As for him who, conscious of unfitness to draw near to God by reason of personal imperfection, is willing to be represented by the Son of God, and to substitute a divine claim and merit for a human; let him know that God is willing to receive him with all his imperfection, because of the perfection of another, legally transferred to him by the just God and Judge; that God is presenting to him a righteousness not only sufficient to clear him from all guilt, and to pay his penalty to the full, but to exalt him to a... new rank and dignity---such as he could not possibly acquire by the labors or prayers of goodnesses of ten thousand such lives as his own."

"Labour therefore diligently, that not only out of the time of temptation, but also in the danger and conflict of death, when thy conscience is thoroughly afraid with the remembrance of thy sins past, and the devil assaulteth thee with great violence, going about to overwhelm thee with heaps, floods, and whole seas of sins, to terrify thee, to draw thee from Christ, and to drive thee to despair; that then, I say, thou mayest be able to say with some confidence, Christ the Son of God was given, not for the righteous and holy, but for the unrighteous and sinners. If I were righteous, and had no sin, I should have no need of Christ to be my reconciler, why then, O thou peevish holy Satan, wilt thou make me to be holy, and to seek righteousness in myself, when in very deed I have nothing in me but sins, and most grievous sins? Not feigned or trifling sins, but such as are against the first table; to wit, great infidelity, doubting, despair, contempt of God, hatred, ignorance, and blaspheming of God, unthankfulness, abusing of God's name, neglecting, loathing, and despising the word of God, and such like."-LUTHER

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