Articles

Let’s Squash Natural Selection

By Karl C. Priest 11-8-2008 (revised 5-6-22)

(Originally titled “Let’s Select Out Natural Selection” on 23 October 2007)

To an atheist “Natural Selection” takes the place of the all-powerful God.

“Natural selection”* is a vital (perhaps the most vital*) premise upon which evolution depends. In their own words: “Natural Selection: applies to all organisms but insects provide perhaps the best model.” (college science class lecture http://ucdnema.ucdavis.edu/imagemap/nemmap/ENT10/slides1.htm)

The change in coloration of peppered moths, to use a phrase from Dr. Jonathan Wells, is an “icon of evolution”. That "icon" is just a stick figure with no substance. For comprehensive information about peppered moths see my article “Moth Marathon”.

The observable phenomenon of insect development of resistance to various chemicals was probably the first argument I heard supporting evolutionism. It was presented by an individual in an audience of intellectuals at the University of Charleston in one of the first engagements of my local creation group (the Kanawha Creation Science Group). The “intellectuals” were mostly evolutionists who thought the creationists would be humiliated if given an opportunity to present our case. The fellow who spouted this attempt to rebut us “ignorant” creationists probably had read something like this: “Insects become resistant to chemical insecticides very rapidly. This can happen in as few as five generations – natural selection at work.” (http://www.biotechnologyonline.gov.au/foodag/concernresistance.html)

It doesn’t take much to respond to this “major proof” of evolution. We start out with a particular insect (a grain beetle for example) and you end up with a grain beetle that is immune to the effects of a particular insecticide. Let me say this s-l-o--w-l-y for the benefit of evolutionists. It...was...and...is...a...grain... beetle.

It works like this. A few of the original beetles have a gene that is resistant to the chemical. The next population of insects will have those individuals and some will be more resistant than others. The third population will have those that are the most resistant and so on.

Evolutionists preach the doctrine of “natural selection” in all kinds of scenarios. Following are two examples that could easily be placed in my article “BWAH HAH HAH HAAAA!”.

“By moving some insects from their customary host plant and protecting others from predators, Nosil found that colour pattern alone could initiate speciation, while natural selection on other traits (like the ability to detoxify host-plant chemicals) were needed to complete the creation of a new species.” (http://www.science.ubc.ca/news/95)

“When a blood-sucking insect 'bites' a sensitized host it must, if it is to survive, depart before the host is alerted by the irritation that accompanies or precedes the 'immediate' reaction. There is a safety period between initial salivary injection by the insect and onset of irritation in the host during which the insect's meal must be completed; immunity from attack by the host must, therefore, depend partly on the speed at which the insect can tap the blood supply and complete its meal, and partly on an adequate delay in the onset of irritation in the host. In mosquitoes, and other insects that depend on a blood meal for egg production, only those that complete the meal within the safety period can lay a full complement of eggs; the others will either be killed or injured by the host before egg development begins, or they will be disturbed before completion of the meal and so lay fewer eggs. Thus, fast feeders and those producing a delay in the onset of irritation will tend to lay more eggs, and these two properties will be maintained by natural selection, with the onset of irritation in the host acting as the main selection force.” (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1967RSPSB.167..316G)

Poor old Charles Darwin used insects as a major explanation (using his immense imagination) of natural selection in the evolutionist bible, Origin of Species. In Chapter IV Darwin wrote, “Thus I can understand how a flower and a bee might slowly become, either simultaneously or one after the other, modified and adapted to each other in the most perfect manner, by the continued preservation of all the individuals which presented slight deviations of structure mutually favourable to each other…Natural selection acts only by the preservation and accumulation of small inherited modifications, each profitable to the preserved being; and as modern geology has almost banished such views as the excavation of a great valley by a single diluvial wave, so will natural selection banish the belief of the continued creation of new organic beings, or of any great and sudden modification in their structure.”

Actually, the evidence supports a “diluvial wave” (i.e. Noachian flood) and there is no evidence for evolution—even by chanting the magic words “natural selection” three times while standing in the middle of a pentagram.

In Chapter VII Darwin is at his best at spinning yarns, but makes some telling admissions which I have placed in bold print in the following quotation. “I have now explained how, I believe, the wonderful fact of two distinctly defined castes of sterile workers existing in the same nest, both widely different from each other and from their parents, has originated. We can see how useful their production may have been to a social community of ants, on the same principle that the division of labour is useful to civilised man. Ants, however, work by inherited instincts and by inherited organs or tools, while man works by acquired knowledge and manufactured instruments. But I must confess, that, with all my faith in natural selection, I should never have anticipated that this principle could have been efficient in so high a degree, had not the case of these neuter insects led me to this conclusion. I have, therefore, discussed this case, at some little but wholly insufficient length, in order to show the power of natural selection, and likewise because this is by far the most serious special difficulty which my theory has encountered.” (See my article “Ants Make Evolutionism Sterile”.)

Darwin is dead and the concept of “natural selection” needs to die a natural death.

In "Going to Extremes: The Design Question" (http://www.science-spirit.org/article_detail.php?article_id=148) a leading apologist for evolutionism, Michael Ruse, attempts to debunk Paley's argument for design Ruse says, "So much for tradition. Darwin exploded a bomb right under it. Not so much thanks to evolution per se but rather because of the mechanism of natural selection." "Selection shows why it is that you have teleology (Ruse defines teleology as the "distinctive aspect of organisms — that they invite a form of forward-looking thought") in the living world without the need for recourse to supernatural origins."

Then he quotes Richard Dawkins, arguably the most prolific evolutionist propagandist, from The Blind Watchmaker: "Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker."

After sharing Dawkins' thoughts about adaptation ("the appearance of design"), Ruse states unequivocally, "You cannot get adaptive complexity without natural selection." (12)

Ruse offers support for a theistic evolutionist (TE) position by claiming, "If you do not want to believe in the existence of God, then natural selection shows that you are not compelled to do so on grounds of design." Then he explains how Dawkins would counter a TE: "Natural selection is a mechanism dependent on the struggle for existence — and this means pain and despair. How then could it be that the Christian God — all loving and all powerful — makes the world in a way that necessarily causes evil?"

That opens up the always used atheist argument of "The Problem of Evil" to which Ruse uses Dawkins' conclusion (based upon natural selection) that "The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

He says Dawkins has argued, "that adaptation is the mark of the living and that the only way to bring life about was through natural selection. In other words, since God cannot do the impossible, the only way in which God could have created the living world — including us humans — was through natural selection, that is to say through a process causing pain and misery."

In his concluding remarks Ruse clearly equates Natural Selection and Darwinism. "Natural selection (Darwinism) (bolds are mine-KCP) is pertinent, showing that (if anyone ever would claim this) you simply cannot say that such teleology in itself necessitates a belief in the Christian God (or a god with some of the Christian attributes). However, it does not make belief in such a god impossible, and there are Christian traditions (the Augustinian particularly) which might welcome the evolutionary approach." Ruse's thesis is wishy-washy, but that is not the subject of my argument.

In "Rebelling Against Our Selfish Genes" (http://www.beliefnet.com/story/136/story_13698_1.html) Dawkins adds weight to my argument that Christians should avoid using the term "Natural Selection". He says, "As Darwin clearly understood, blindness to suffering is an inherent consequence of natural selection..." Then goes on to elaborate, "A process of trial and error, completely unplanned and on the massive scale of natural selection, can be expected to be clumsy, wasteful and blundering." Dawkins stresses that "natural selection is the dominant force in biological evolution...As an academic scientist I am a passionate Darwinian, believing that natural selection is, if not the only driving force in evolution, certainly the only known force capable of producing the illusion of purpose which so strikes all who contemplate nature."

Even some evolutionists have taken issue with the concept of Natural Selection. In The Great Evolution Mystery (Gordon Rattray Taylor Harper & Row 1983) we find the following.

135: "In an earlier chapter we came across cases where new structures seemed to have appeared before they were needed. If this really happens it completely explodes the theory of natural selection and we need no further evidence to undermine it. What we need is a new theory."

142: "The word 'adaptation' is therefore ambiguous, since it is cheerfully used to mean fitting better into a niche and, on the other hand, modifying, to fill some different niche as when we say, for example, that the mole is adapted for a life underground."

182: "Such cases must mean one of two things, either fatal to the concept of a slow accumulation of variations. Either the same mutations occur repeatedly (in which case they can hardly be due to chance), or the genes are there all the time, but are unmasked in appropriate circumstances."

Pierre P-Grasse' (Evolution of Living Organisms-For A New Theory of Transformations, Academic Press. 1977) devoted an entire chapter to Natural Selection. From that chapter I found the following criticism of Natural Selection.

107 “Directed by all-powerful selection, chance becomes a sort of providence, which, under the cover of atheism, is not named but which is secretly worshiped.”

109 “Natural selection remains the foundation of Darwinism, which postulates its universality and makes of it the agent responsible for the evolution of all living organisms.”

115 “In some environments and for some species it takes a great deal of imagination to discover selection at work”.

121 “Natural selection acts as a regulator of the genotype, performing a function of genetic hygiene. As to its role as effective agent of evolution, this is not certain. In fact, if it had the full power attributed to it, it would soon stop evolution.”

128 “Assigning to natural selection the effective execution of evolution means explicitly and implicitly attributing to it a meaning and end.

138 “If selection consciously oversees evolution, how is it possible that, through the ages, so many lines have taken paths which endangered them?”

Someone on the Creation Research Society listserv (CRSnet) once proposed that we avoid the use of the term "microevolution". A good summation of that argument is in the article "Avoid Using These Terms" (http://creationwiki.org/Macroevolution#Avoid_Using_These_Terms under the theme). The author points out, "While either use of microevolution or macroevolution by creationists might be true for some specific examples, as a general rule, the use of these terms should be done with care. Many creationists caution against using either term on the grounds that they detract from the real issue, the gain or loss of information, and are misleading in talking about the size of the change instead of the direction of the change...many evolutionists argue that there is no real difference between the two terms." (There is much more on this subject at the aforementioned link and Answers in Genesis supports this strategy.)

I concur with the need to avoid the use of "microevolution" and add that we now should follow the same strategy with "Natural Selection". (Note: I capitalize "Natural Selection" because it is actually the deity of evolutionists.) But, using Natural Selection as an adjective, I propose that Natural Selection is to Supernatural Creation as atheism is to theism.

Two November 2005 Live Science articles reveal just how important Natural Selection is to evolutionism. Under the title "Behind the Controversy: How Evolution Works" (http://www.livescience.com/othernews/051109_evolution_science.html) Ker Than asserts “Darwin's theory of evolution by Natural Selection is one of the best substantiated theories in the history of science, supported by evidence from a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including paleontology, geology, genetics and developmental biology.”

Mr. Than elaborates that in order to “understand the origin of whales, it's necessary to have a basic understanding of how natural selection works: It is the process by which organisms change over time as a result of changes in heritable physical or behavioral traits. Changes that allow an organism to better adapt to its environment will help it survive and have more offspring.”

Mr. Than points out the obvious observation that organisms have variations (“Natural selection can change a species in small ways, causing a population to change color or size over the course of several generations. This is called "microevolution.") and provides support for my argument that “Natural Selection” should suffer the same fate as “microevolution”.

Not willing to stop with a semblance of scientific rationality, Mr. Than proceeds to make an incredible claim: “But natural selection is also capable of much more. Given enough time and enough accumulated changes, natural selection can create entirely new species. It can turn dinosaurs into birds, apes into humans and amphibious mammals into whales.”

In a separate article ("Darwin's Natural Selection Still at Work in Humans" http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/051102_natural_selection.html) Mr. Than personifies the concept of Natural Selection by claiming “Darwin's natural selection is the process by which nature rewards those individuals better adapted to their environments with survival and reproductive success. It works at the level of genes, sections of DNA that encode for proteins serve as the software of life.” Finally Mr. Than attempts to bolster Natural Selection with a quote from a Cornell biologist who says, “"Our study suggests that natural selection has played an important role in patterning the human genome."

Dr. Joseph Mastropaolo, in private correspondence with me, provides the fatal blow to the need to use the term Natural Selection. I provide Dr. Mastropaolo’s reasoning verbatim and heartedly say, "Amen!” to his final sentence.

“There is no natural selection because the environment has no effect on the hereditary material. The hereditary material produces vast variation, no two are the same, and that provides for some always surviving.”

“God designed the DNA (and other genetic material) to yield a population with vast variation for each life form. Each individual carries the blueprint for the whole population so that if even one breeding pair survives, the whole population may be reconstituted. It does not matter whether conditions favor big dogs for several decades, then small dogs for several decades, then repeated in any pattern whatsoever, because every dog carries the plan for the entire population."

“There is no 'natural selection' that comes from what the environment does and supposedly directs the "evolution" of the life forms. The plan is in every life form and it could care less what the environment will do because some individuals will survive and from them the whole vastly variable population will survive.”

“This is proven by the definition of lethal, which is the demise of 50% of the population. It takes too long to try to kill 100%. Besides the vastness of the variation in the population, the reason is that each individual is dynamically designed. If the environment turns hot, then unmanifested heat shock proteins will be synthesized from built-in genetic reserves to permit survival in the heat. As the environment changes, the individual appropriately manifests new proteins from its genetic reserves because it is dynamically, not statically, designed."

“All of the above can be experimentally verified with commonplace observations and only God could even conceive of such engineering, let alone make one iota of it work."

"Natural selection is all evolutionist brainwashing." (See pp. 6-20, Biology for the 21st Century.)”

Let’s squash “natural selection”.

*A genetic analysis is unpicking the mysteries of one of the best-known examples of natural selection — the dark form of the peppered moth, which spread rapidly in nineteenth-century Britain's industrial, sooty environment… A greater understanding of the peppered moth's genetics will "complete the package" of research on "the best example of adaptation involving natural selection that we have.” (4-14-11 emphasis added) http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110414/full/news.2011.238.html

**Natural selection:  process that results in the adaptation of an organism to its environment by means of selectively reproducing changes in its genotype, or genetic constitution. (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/406351/natural-selection)

Natural selection is the gradual process by which biological traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of the effect of inherited traits on the differential reproductive success of organisms interacting with their environment. It is a key mechanism of evolution. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection)

Natural selection is one of the basic mechanisms of evolution, along with mutation, migration, and genetic drift. (http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_25)

Also see item 15 below.

Addendum

1. Sincere Young Earth Creationists and Intelligent Design Advocates fear they will be maligned by scientists if they (YEC’s and IDers) express doubt about the purported powers of Natural Selection (As stated above, I capitalize the term because Natural Selection is deified by Darwinists.) First of all, the two groups (who represent real science verses the anti-science of evolutionism) could hardly be mocked much more maliciously than they are already. Secondly, YEC’s and IDers need to realize that compromise leads to confusion and continues to collusion. For example, the original Methodists would never have imagined how far the denomination has slide since their first compromise with standing for truth.

2. The rationale for believing in Natural Selection is that a great Christian scientist, Edward Blyth, is the one who first proposed the concept. But, did he? If he did, does it help the creationist cause?

The evolutionists could easily embrace Blyth as having first described the basis of Darwinism. One already has, as reported in the Institute for Creation Science article “ Natural Selection - A Creationist's Idea” (http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=412). “According to Loren C. Eiseley, Benjamin Franklin Professor of Anthropology and the History of Science at the University of Pennsylvania before his death, ‘the leading tenets of Darwin's work — the struggle for existence, variation, natural selection, and sexual selection — are all fully expressed’ in a paper written by creationist Edward Blyth…Eiseley, not a creationist, wrote that ‘Blyth is more than a Darwinian precursor, he is, instead, a direct intellectual forebear. . . ." In Eiseley's estimation, Blyth ‘belongs in the royal line . . . one of the forgotten parents of a great classic’…Darwin for some reason chose not to credit creationist Blyth with the key element in his theory — natural selection.”

Blyth “never actually used the term ‘natural selection’” (Dobzhansky, Theodosius 1959. "Blyth, Darwin, and natural selection". The American Naturalist 93 (870):204-206). Other evolutionists try to separate Blyth’s view of selection from Darwin’s. "Blyth's theory was clearly one of elimination rather than selection. His principal concern is the maintenance of the perfection of the type. Blyth's thinking is decidedly that of a natural theologian..." One prominent evolutionist claimes that Blyth “became a strong friend and supporter of Darwinian evolution”. (John Wilkins (2003). "Darwin's precursors and influences: 4. Natural selection" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Blyth) Even if the last claim is false, there is still no reason for creationists to compromise with a tenet so vital to evolutionism.

Then there is the argument that “William Wells had actually written of natural selection in 1813…(but), the basic concept of natural selection had been around since ancient Greek time.” http://www.thedarwinpapers.com/oldsite/Number2/Darwin2Html.htm)

It is unfair to saddle scientist Blyth with laying the foundation upon which anti-scientist Darwin built.

Blyth was talking about the same thing as Dr. Mastropaolo was quoted at the conclusion of the above article. Consider how Blyth referred to the Creator.

Blyth’s concept of what he observed was the antithesis of Darwin’s. What Blyth saw pointed to “design , which so clearly and forcibly attest the existence of an omniscient great First Cause”.

(Bold and italics are mine. KCP)

(http://www.thedarwinpapers.com/oldsite/Number2/Darwin2Html.htm)

3. I propose that creationists quit playing into the hands of evolutionists. We need not prop up the false science that props up the anti-science of evolutionism.

Dr. Joseph Mastropaolo coined (To the best of my knowledge he is the originator.) “omniscient originality”. That is the correct creationist and scientific term to describe the observations of the survival of living things.

The following are some snips from Dr. Mastopaolo’s explanation of “omniscient originality”.

“The law of omniscient originality states that each living organism is an original. No living organism was identical to it in the past and no living organism will be identical to it in the future.  Further, each of its parts is an original. Furthermore, each entity in the nonviable universe is an original and each of its parts is an original.

“The only question remaining may be the source of the omnipresent bounded omniscient originality fact. Evolution cannot do it. It has no brain and omniscient originality requires mega-intelligence. Nature can't do it because it has no brain either and every event devolves, degenerates, the opposite of what is wanted. What is wanted is continual unlimited novelty that is constrained and functional not only for the individual but also for its population and for the byproduct sharing requirements for the survival of the interdependent biosphere.

“There is only one candidate omnipresent omniscient originator.”

4. More evolutionists see problems with Natural Selection.

Dr Pagel said that the research shows speciation is the result of rare events in the environment, such as genetic mutations, a shift in climate, or a mountain range rising up. Over the long term new species are formed at a constant rate, rather than the variable rate Pagel's team expected, but the constant rates are different for different groups of species.

The work suggests that natural selection may not be the cause of speciation, which Pagel said "really goes against the grain" for scientists who have a Darwinian view of evolution. The model that provided the best fit for the data is surprisingly incompatible with the idea that speciation is a result of many small small events, Pagel said.

http://www.physorg.com/news179737267.html

5. I often see variations of the following declared by sincere creationists.

“Evolutionists have the same scientific evidence as creationists. The difference is in the interpretation.”

Creationists need to discard that line because it gives evolutionists some semblance of credibility and even a thread of reality. It is like a stadium full of sober people with expert eyesight and hundreds of professionally manned video cameras watching a pro-football team defeat a midget league team (manned by mostly little girls) by a score of 10,000 to 0 yet the sports writer declares the pro team lost the game.

6. The Institute for Creation Research published a 2011 article hammers it home. (As) (Daniel Dennett) and the following evolutionists avow, evolution has no life apart from natural selection… “The theory of natural selection as proposed by Darwin and Wallace became the cornerstone of the modern interpretation of evolution.”… Stuart Kauffman, a proponent of the idea that complexity arises via selection and self-organization, explained: Biologists now tend to believe profoundly that natural selection is the invisible hand that crafts well-wrought forms… Cast aside any doubt. The heart and soul of evolution is “selection”—because it’s ultimately the controlling “mind” behind the entire hypothetical evolutionary process… Analogy to artificial selection allowed Darwin to sweep God’s intelligence out of nature’s design with one hand, and sweep in a natural source of intelligence—a substitute god—with the other… The power of “natural selection” to imprison minds must always be taken seriously—as it’s only in the mind that “selection” actually occurs… Replacing “selection” with the truth that organisms are programmed with powerful potential capabilities—namely, to reproduce with variable, heritable traits, enabling them to fill earth’s environments—can liberate one’s mind… “Selection” is cleverly—but illegitimately—used to attribute intelligence to an unthinking environment to explain nature’s design… Instead of convincing people that “selection” is real but really weak, it would be wiser to show them that “selection” is not really real. Ascribing glory to the Creator, and not to “natural selection,” should itself be motivation enough. “Darwin's Sacred Imposter: How Natural Selection Is Given Credit for Design in Nature ” (http://www.icr.org/article/darwins-sacred-imposter-how-natural/).

The Institute for Creation Research explains how the term “natural selection” is confusing in “The Language of Evolution”. To my knowledge, ICR has not rejected use of the term.

7. Another major creationist organization came close (Feb. 2012) to admitting the nothingness of natural selection. “We at Answers in Genesis, like most biblical creationists, fully affirm the observable reality and the importance of natural selection (though we submit the term “natural selection” is a poor choice of words to describe the phenomenon; nature does not have a mind and can’t be a 'selector'). But natural selection acts only on existing information; it cannot create new genetic information to produce new kinds of organisms.” AiG would rather save face with evolutionist “scientists” than slam facts home with evangelical supporters. (http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2012/02/18/news-to-note-02182012#one)

However, Answers in Genesis argues in favor of “natural selection see “ Is Natural Selection the Same Thing as Evolution?”.

8. The Mirage of Mimicry

Professor Tom Sherratt says, “Mimicry of harmless species pretending to be dangerous ones in order to avoid being eatenis one of the best celebrated examples of the outcome of evolution by natural selection. Good examples of mimicry are highlighted in biology text books, but many mimics are poor and their emergence remains something of a puzzle...Mimicry provides some of the most exquisite examples of the power of natural selection.” (http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112499793/researchers-look-into-hoverfly-disguises/) Bold font added.

The problem is that some insects do quite well with poor mimic features. To explain this, evolutionists dream up a just-so story involving hoverflies. Pointing out that some hoverflies look almost identical to bees (which they do) and claiming it is because they have evolved that feature (which there is no evidence they have) the evolutionist claim that the big hoverflies (which are the closest mimics) must have evolved that way because they are big which makes them a better target. Evolutionists’ attempts to explain this phenomenon through their preconceived notion of evolutionism is rolling-on-the-floor laughable. I use my bias toward an Intelligent Designer (the God of the Bible) and say they the lager hoverflies were created to resemble wasps because they are the species that is closest to the wasp in size. The Creator obviously designed the hoverfly to have variation in color both as a means to keep the balance of the ecosystem, but also (as exhibited throughout the insect kingdom—especially in beetles and butterflies) for plain old artistic purposes.

World renowned butterfly taxonomist and phi­losopher of science, Bernard d'Abrera , has does not mince words about mimicry. “Their (butterfly, although it applies to all creators) continuing existence as species over time depends on the survival of the individuals. Within creat­ed sentient nature, the individuals are programmed to do the best within their mental and physical capacity, in order to survive and ensure the continuation in time of their kind.” (40) “ (E)very species (of butterfly) has locked into its genome its singular and strictly limited capacity to reproduce only its own kind or cease to exist (survive) as a species. Because of its inbuilt and secure genetic pro­gramming, it cannot change (mutate) into another species. But while it can have within that program the genetic capacity to produce individuals that permanently resemble other species (to human eyes at least)... There are two principal kinds of mimicry, Batesian and Mullerian, but it hardly matters what they are called, because the point is that if the butter­flies are not personally responsible for acquiring the capacity for protective resemblance or mimicry (and we are all agreed that it is a neat (intelligent) trick), then who or what intelligence put it there? For it to happen in a single species once through chance, is math­ematically highly improbable. But when it occurs so often, in so many species, and we are expected to apply math­ematical probability yet again, then either mathematics is a useless tool, or we are being criminally blind.” (45) “I repeat, they are simply a built-in or programmed response of a spe­cies or kind to extrinsic dynamic change.” (46) (Bernard d'Abrera Metamorphosis: The Case for Intelligent Design in a Chrysalis . Klinghoffer, David, ed. Seattle: Discovery Institute Press, 2011.) For a hilarious slam of evolutionism by Dr. d'Abrera see “Evolution is a Lie”.

9. Sadly premier creationist and intelligent design organizations, believe just as strongly in “natural selection” as the evolutionists. For example: “Creationists, like evolutionists, observe natural selection in nature. Natural selection here enables survival of varieties of hoverflies, not the evolution of new kinds of organisms. Natural selection cannot create new genetic information but only acts on traits that already exist.” (http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2012/03/31/news-to-note-03312012#one) and “Some aspects of biology changes may very well be the result of Darwinan evolution (i.e. the mutation-natural selection mechanism), but some aspects of life may be due to design.” (http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1153) Any thinking person can see the dilemma. If “natural selection” is true then it evolved on its own or a god put it in place and let it evolve.

10. Everyone knows the spiritual deception Darwin had once he (for whatever reason) rejected God and accepted “natural selection.” Alfred Russel Wallace, the co-discoverer of “natural selection” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Russel_Wallace) embraced spiritualism (the belief that the dead can communicate with the living) and “natural selection” came to him while hallucinating during a fever.

“Although I did not think much about the existence of a personal God until a considerably later period of my life, I will here give the vague conclusions to which I have been driven. The old argument from design in Nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered.” Charles Darwin. The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887) Edited by his son Francis Darwin, pg. 309 (online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=326&itemID=F1452.1&viewtype=image)

The full title of Darwin’s book was On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Darwin argued that Natural Selection was valuable in the progress of civilization. Calling the “ Caucasian races” the most civilized, Darwin wrote, “Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilised races throughout the world .”

11. Answers in Genesis reported that Dr. Alex Kacelnik’s team stated that ant rescue behavior was “designed by natural selection to benefit another.” AiG said it “accept that he didn’t really intend to imply that natural selection was an actual intelligence that designed anything.” AiG is being too nice. That is exactly what Dr. Kacelnik has to believe.
(http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2012/08/25/news-to-note-08252012#one)

12. The word “adapted” and its forms is often used by evolutionists. It is actually a component of design. “All observed adaptations are actually the ability of living things to change in structure and/or function in order to cope with changes in its environment. However, adaptations only work if the organism already has the necessary genetic information for the altered structure or function. Adaptation is therefore a design feature that must be built into the plant prior to experiencing any environmental challenges.” John MacKay 9-26-12 newsletter Creation Research http://www.creationresearch.net/

The definition of a daptation is: a change in a plant or animal that makes it better able to live in a particular place or situation. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/adaptation

Evolutionists pervert reality by claiming that “An adaptation is maintained and evolved by means of natural selection. Adaptation refers to both the current state of being adapted and to the dynamic evolutionary process that leads to the adaptation. Adaptations contribute to the fitness and survival of individuals.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptation#Definitions)

13. For a scholarly nix of “Natural Selection see Guliuzza, R. 2011.

Darwin’s sacred imposter: Recognizing missed warning signs Acts & Facts 40, no. 5:12–15

Darwin’s sacred imposter: How natural selection is given credit for design in nature Acts & Facts 40, no. 7:12–15

Darwin’s sacred imposter: The illusion that natural selection operates on organisms Acts & Facts 40, no. 9:12–15

Darwin’s sacred imposter: Natural selection’s idolatrous trap Acts & Facts 40, no. 11:12–15

Darwin’s sacred imposter: Answering questions about the fallacy of natural selection Acts & Facts 41, no. 2:12–15

14. See “Here Come Those Mathematicians Again” at the Lesson Addendum.

15. Without natural selection, evolution is dead.  This process has become almost a deity to the more ardent followers of evolution, though of course they are entirely unaware of this.  One often finds a bit of worship tucked in at the end of a scientific article.  A writer, after waxing eloquent about some beautiful adaptation, will often end his dissertation in some such way as in this example: "We shall forever marvel at the astonishing truth that beings as intricate as ourselves can be produced by the long operation of natural selection."
http://creationsafaris.com/epoi_c05.htm#ec05f02

16. What is meant by evolution?

All life on Earth is descended from a last universal ancestor that lived approximately 3.8 billion years ago. (http://sciencepenguin.com/evolution-1/)

Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection provided the first, and only, causal-mechanistic account of the existence of adaptations in nature. As such, it provided the first, and only, scientific alternative to the “argument from design”. That alone would account for its philosophical significance. (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-selection/)

Evolution is change in the inherited characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins. (http://biologypop.com/evolution-video/)

After over 5000 words the NCSE concluded: To summarize, we can see that the concepts expressed by the word "evolution" have themselves evolved. There is change, there is phylogeny (the multiplication and extinction of lineages), there is selection and drift (the dynamics of reproducing populations), and there is the genetic and biological basis that underlies all these changes — all these (and more) have fallen under the rubric "evolution". (http://ncse.com/rncse/21/1-2/defining-evolution )

17. Probably the main platform for evolutionism is TalkOrigins (TO) which admits that even scientists are confused over what evolution means:

Most non-scientists seem to be quite confused about precise definitions of biological evolution. Such confusion is due in large part to the inability of scientists to communicate effectively to the general public and also to confusion among scientists themselves about how to define such an important term.

Before mocking creations TO offers a definition from “on e of the most respected evolutionary biologists:

In the broadest sense, evolution is merely change, and so is all-pervasive; galaxies, languages, and political systems all evolve. Biological evolution ... is change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual. The ontogeny of an individual is not considered evolution; individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are inheritable via the genetic material from one generation to the next. Biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportion of different alleles within a population (such as those determining blood types) to the successive alterations that led from the earliest protoorganism to snails, bees, giraffes, and dandelions.
(http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-definition.html )

18. A major propagandist essayist of evolutionism, Richard Dawkins, truly believes that:

All this diversity stems from successive branchings, starting from a single bacterium-like ancestor, which lived between 3 and 4 billion years ago. Each branching event is called a speciation…

In an article beyond the best at BWAH HAH HAH HAAAA! Dawkins said:

Darwinian natural selection can produce an uncanny illusion of design.

To get around the mathematical improbability of evolution, Dawkins claimed:

When cascades of small chance steps accumulate, you can reach prodigious heights of adaptive complexity. That cumulative build-up is evolution. Its guiding force is natural selection.” Deluded Dawkins thinks that “Natural selection is quintessentially non-random…Evolution by natural selection is the only workable theory ever proposed that is capable of explaining life, and it does so brilliantly. (http://www.noanswersingenesis.org.au/dawkins_evolution.htm )

19. Evolutionists even personify the non-entity by claiming: Natural selection has evolved systems that endow organisms and their species with a degree of plasticity which facilitates adaptation to an ever-varying or variable environment as an alternative to extinction. (http://www.darwinvsdawkins.com/)

20. Stuff Happens Law (SHL):  the natural law that the Law of Natural Selection reduces to.  When a scientist says “stuff happens,” he or she basically gives up, abandoning any attempt at scientific explanation.  The SHL is the antithesis of science’s goal to understand the world, but since mutation and natural selection (the elements of neo-Darwinian theory) are both unguided and random, they reduce to the SHL. (http://crev.info/darwin-dictionary/)

21. "If reason is a product of natural selection, then how much confidence can we have in a rational argument for natural selection? ... Evolutionary biology cannot invoke the power of reason even as it destroys it." Leon Wieseltier (http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/03/why_evolutionar094171.html)

22. “Natural Selection: Assessing the Role it Plays in our World” ( Dr. Jean Lightner   March 4, 2015 https://answersingenesis.org/natural-selection/natural-selection-assessing-role-it-plays-our-world/) snips: Natural selection has not played a significant positive role in the history of life on earth for sexually reproducing animals such mammals and birds. Statistical tests, which are a valid means to screen for natural selection and comprise the one line of evidence that often seems to support its occurrence in adaptation, have not been validated; many of the non-random patterns detected probably have little to do with the action of natural selection… Given the importance of natural selection within the popular-level neo-Darwinian explanations of evolution, it is a surprise to many to find out that the concept is controversial among evolutionists.  There are atheistic scientists who propose that Darwin was wrong about natural selection and that the concept isn’t even scientific (Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini 2010)…  I have argued that creationists have been far too quick to accept natural selection as an explanation when it has not actually been demonstrated (Lightner 2010a). Guliuzza has gone further equating natural selection with phantasm (Guliuzza 2012)… “Magical Descriptions and Powers”

23. Let's replace NS with Design. All living things are designed to be able to adjust to environmental pressures horizontally and within observable limits.

24. In 2015, someone much more intelligent and articulate than me, wrote “Time to Ditch Natural Selection?”.

25. True Believers in Evolutionism (TBEs) misuse and confuse the term “natural selection”. “(A) rtificial selection is the polar opposite of natural selection. Artificial selection involves choice, goals, and intelligent design…Ascribing logic to Darwinian selection is like calling ‘stuff happens’ a scientific explanation.” See more wit and wisdom about the wriggling of TBEs.

26. “Nothing is caused by natural selection. No evolutionist predicts natural selection…The way evolutionists use the term is the same way they accuse creationists of answering everything with ‘God did it.’.. (Natural seledtion) is jargon masquerading as science. Evolutionists assume that anything that is conserved has been selected, whether or not they know what it does for the organism. But anything not conserved has also been selected, they say. If everything is selected; nothing is selected; it’s the old Dodo bird verdict from Malice in Blunderland: ‘everybody has won, and all must have prizes.’.. If it’s natural, it’s not selection. If it’s selection, it’s not natural. Selection implies intelligent design, the very thing Darwin tried to get away from.  The phrase is self-contradictory…Pantheism is a frequent subtext in their writings, as if nature is an entrepreneurial spirit, wanting to expand and fill every available niche. NS is their “tinkerer” and their “blind watchmaker” even while they insist they are materialists…NS commits intellectual suicide. One might as well said that blind, unguided, irrational processes caused their brains to write a paper arguing that natural selection is blind and unguided…NS theory is so convoluted, so imprecise, so vacuous, as to easily qualify for the worst theory in the history of science because it duped so many people for so long. Countering that NS is real is no more satisfying than saying ‘Stuff Happens’ is real. What does such an empty concept have to offer anyone of learning?” http://crev.info/2015/10/op-ed-time-to-ditch-natural-selection/

27. In Darwin’s own word: “ On this doctrine of the extermination of an infinitude of connecting links, between the living and extinct inhabitants of the world, and at each successive period between the extinct and still older species, why is not every geological formation charged with such links? Why does not every collection of fossil remains afford plain evidence of the gradation and mutation of the forms of life? We meet with no such evidence, and this is the most obvious and forcible of the many objections which may be urged against my theory … I can answer these questions and grave objections only on the supposition that the geological record is far more imperfect than most geologists believe. ” (Chapter 14 of Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life by Charles Darwin.
http://literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/chapter-14.html) To this day, that remains one of the major reasons why Natural Selection is only a figment of Darwin’s deluded imagination.

28. Skateboarding and Darwinism

29. Even in 2016 Nature said, “There is perhaps no better example of natural selection in action than the case of the peppered moth”and Science Daily called the peppered moth an “iconic textbook example of evolution by natural selection”. See The MOTH MARATHON for more about the moth mirages.

30. Evolutionists Blunder on Natural Selection

31. Atheist philosopher Jerry Fodor wrote “ Why Pigs Don’t Have Wings” to point out the flaws of natural selection. He wrote, “(A) n appreciable number of perfectly reasonable biologists are coming to think that the theory of natural selection can no longer be taken for granted…(T)he explication of natural selection by appeal to selective breeding is seriously misleading, and that it thoroughly misled Darwin. Because breeders have minds…(T)he classical Darwinist account of evolution as primarily driven by natural selection is in trouble on both conceptual and empirical grounds. Darwin was too much an environmentalist. He seems to have been seduced by an analogy to selective breeding, with natural selection operating in place of the breeder. But this analogy is patently flawed; selective breeding is performed only by creatures with minds, and natural selection doesn’t have one of those.”
(https://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n20/jerry-fodor/why-pigs-dont-have-wings) Along with scientist Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini , Fodor wrote What Darwin Got Wrong to exted the argument of the "Why Pigs Don't Have Wings" piece.

32.
Darwinians Cannot Agree on What Natural Selection Is
New Version of Natural Selection Goes Mystical

33. Natural selection was a major reason for Darwin’s downfall: “The old argument from design in Nature, as given by Paley,” he wrote in his Autobiography, “which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered….There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings, and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.”
https://evolutionnews.org/2018/08/for-alfred-russel-wallace-natural-selection-opened-the-door-to-teleology/

34. In a series of Acts & Facts articles, Dr. Randy J. Guliuzza clearly explains the unnatural “science” of “natural selection.”

4-29-11

Darwin's Sacred Imposter: Recognizing Missed Warning Signs

Do the words “natural” and “selection” in any verifiable way accurately describe observable interactions between an organism and its environment? Have the words “natural” and “selection” been effectively employed to divert attention away from recognizing where the power to solve environmental problems really resides—i.e., strictly within well-designed innate capabilities of organisms? Is there a fixation on the apparent self-evident “selection” impacting a population of organisms, with disregard for the fact that the “selector” is simply a mental perception and not grounded on reality?

Since no ideas are exempt from scrutiny, it does help that those ideas grounded on false conjectures are frequently surrounded by warning signs.

Warning 1: Natural Selection Mysteriously Defined

“Natural selection does not select anything; it simply happens.” 8 Is the conclusion “it happens” scientifically satisfying? Shouldn’t that raise red flags about the validity of selection? And shouldn’t researchers be prompted to look for better explanations?

Warning 2: Natural Selection Contradicts Biblical Truth

Striking squarely at God the Designer, natural selection is the evolutionist’s way to explain the origin of life’s design without appealing to God. Natural selection isn’t merely something to explain biological diversity. It plainly asserts that there is no intelligent design, that claims to such are lies, and what people see that looks like real design is all an illusion of design.

Warning 3: Ascribing Intelligence Where None Exists

People know that to “select” something is presumptive evidence of volition—a special choice-making capacity implicit in intelligence. Therefore, the word “select” is supremely important to Darwinism. By it, intelligence is appropriated from the living world and ascribed to non-thinking (but now selective) nature. His stroke of genius deflected attention away from an organism’s God-given power to reproduce heritable and variable traits that happen to fit changing environments, and invalidly labeled that as a selection of “nature.”…

However, two major problems oppose this thinking. First, “selection” doesn’t have a real mind analogous to a human breeder. Second, falsely ascribing choice-making ability to environments is the only believable way to promote the creative illusion that nature really does have a type of intelligence. And not just a simple intelligence, nature is portrayed as somehow thinking—a talented stand-in god that always “selects” the best traits and “saves” them to “build” things.

Warning 4: Metaphor Replaces Empirical Evidence

There is no evidence lacking that organisms generate traits that fit changing environments. But evidence is absent for a real “selector” or real selecting actions, given that “select” is the key word that gives natural selection its power. Lacking this evidence, evolutionary proponents of selection will, like Darwin, inevitably ease acceptance by appealing to the powerful analogy of artificial selection to natural selection. However, without evidence for a real selector, a continuous use of metaphors should be another warning for creation scientists to begin re-evaluation.

Warning 5: Admissions That Natural Selection Is Not Literally True

Since the publication of Origin, scientists have seen that the power of evolutionary scenarios to leap over any biological obstacle resides in how natural selection “acts” like a literal human agent. Discerning that it possesses nothing analogous to a human mind prompted early criticisms that “selection” was not literally true.

A Better Approach

Continuing to argue against natural selection from within its false paradigm ignores the wise counsel of Proverbs 26:4: “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.”…

An organism-based paradigm is biblical. This explains how the process of organisms programmed to fit environments and fill them is the outworking of an intelligent plan, and not the product of an imaginary environment-based selector that “just happens.”

But the power that selection has to captivate a mind must never be underestimated—as it is only in the mind that this kind of “selection” actually takes place….

After 150 years, Darwin’s sacred imposter—natural selection—still stands as the only accepted alternative to the design of God in nature. It is presented in most schools as absolutely true in spite of its ill-defined basis, its invisible operation, and the fact that there is no real “selector”—because attributes inherent to organisms actually do all the work. These warnings should influence creation scientists to step back and re-evaluate this convoluted evolutionary idea.

Those who extol the Creator must at some point reject any idea that robs God of His glory.

http://www.icr.org/article/6046/

6-30-11

Darwin's Sacred Imposter: How Natural Selection Is Given Credit for Design in Nature

(W)hy do knowledgeable scientists, including creation scientists, routinely state, “Nature selects the fittest organisms”? Several scientific and theological reasons show why “selection” inappropriately describes what transpires at the organism-environment interface on every level. I call them the “Seven I’s.” (We’ll deal with four in this article.)

Indispensable: “Nature Selects” Is the Heart of Evolution

Cast aside any doubt. The heart and soul of evolution is “selection”—because it’s ultimately the controlling “mind” behind the entire hypothetical evolutionary process.

Intelligence: Falsely Credited to “Nature”

(Darwin)successfully deflected attention from an organism’s God-given capacity to reproduce offspring with heritable, variable traits that turn out to be suitable to environments, and invalidly terms that as a selection of “nature.” Thus, intelligence is misappropriated from the living world and ascribed to unintelligent—but now “selective”—nature.

Illegitimate: “Selection” Literally Applied Apart from a Real “Selector”

Since “selection” only happens in someone’s mind, word usage is very important. So when Darwin states, “Natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing…every variation…rejecting that which is bad…silently and insensibly working,” or Kauffman says, “Natural selection is the invisible hand that crafts,” or Coyne asserts, “Natural selection builds features that benefit individuals,” or creationists say that selection “works on,” “favors,” or “punishes,” can someone really discern how much convincing is being accomplished through literal or metaphorical use rather than evidence?

Imposter: “Selection” Given Credit for Organism’s Capabilities

If modern descriptions of “selection” are of a process, a study of prerequisites from either evolutionist or creationist advocates unfailingly includes three organism-centered conditions: 1) reproduction of traits, 2) which differ vitally in ability to solve environmental problems, 3) which are heritable. Just like Darwin, conditions specified to be environmental “selection” are really the unfolding of genetic abilities programmed into organisms themselves…

The power of “natural selection” to imprison minds must always be taken seriously—as it’s only in the mind that “selection” actually occurs…

When such a mind sees offspring possessing traits they generate, enabling them to pioneer into changed environments, paradoxically their mind “sees” the environment “select for” an organism—a conclusion opposite to real external stimuli. 2 That mind just ascribed intelligent action, “selection,” to unintelligent natural forces. Even worse, it did not ascribe proper credit to the Lord. Replacing “selection” with the truth that organisms are programmed with powerful potential capabilities—namely, to reproduce with variable, heritable traits, enabling them to fill earth’s environments—can liberate one’s mind…

If the evidence points to the fact that “natural selection” is merely a figure of speech, and thus impotent, should not honest scientists put aside their passionately held beliefs and accept reality?...

“Selection” is cleverly—but illegitimately—used to attribute intelligence to an unthinking environment to explain nature’s design. As a label applied to the normal outworking of organisms’ innate programming that enables them to fill environments, it steals credit from the organism and ultimately from the Lord. Just using the word in any way as an explanation is self-defeating, since it always feeds the beast of some substitute designer. Instead of convincing people that “selection” is real but really weak, it would be wiser to show them that “selection” is not really real. Ascribing glory to the Creator, and not to “natural selection,” should itself be motivation enough.

http://www.icr.org/article/6199/

8-31-11

Darwin's Sacred Imposter: The Illusion That Natural Selection Operates on Organisms

All supporters of natural selection assign some external “selecting” agent that “selects for or against,” “operates on,” “pressures,” or “favors” as the power behind an organism’s traits to solve environmental problems. “Nature selects” bears a presumption of inherent intelligence that assigns an operative agency external to the organism—famously popularized by Darwin, who targeted the word “selection” to introduce into organism-environment interactions an intelligence-based power that could “work on” organisms. “Natural” indicates that God is not the source of this power…

The disconnect that is almost universally missed is this extraordinarily clever ploy: Use “selection” as an external “pressure,” but define it as a “process” whose interrelated elements are, strangely, the actual outworking of the organism’s own innate capacities to reproduce variable heritable traits. In this critical regard, evolutionist and creationist literature advocating “selection” is identical. So, a non-quantifiable and totally imaginary exogenous “selecting agent” gets credit for the success of endogenous systems that bear hallmarks of being designed into organisms.

There are several reasons why it is scientifically and theologically inappropriate to apply “selection” in any way to describe what transpires at the organism-environment interface. In a previous article, the first four were summarized (see above)…

Illusion: “Selection” Only Exists as a Mental Construct

Natural selection is used to explain why life looks like it is composed of well-designed parts selected by a designer. 1 It carries evolution’s explanation for “apparent design.” By definition, it “selects” and, therefore, fills the bill of substitute intelligence…

How can minds “see” things in direct opposition to reality, but not see that it is the mice’s sophisticated endogenous systems with the power to produce traits that may overcome problems of certain ecological niches?...

For many people, once the fact that natural selection is shown as simply a mental construct that actually “steals” credit for what organisms are programmed to do, the illusion is obvious. Others zealously defend “selection.” Why? It is no accident that knowledgeable evolutionists need power centered in the environment—via natural selection—so an exogenous “force” analogous to human intelligence is available to “work on” organisms. “Selection” is the heart of evolutionary theory since it is the only plausible mechanism external to the organism that can and must explain design as if by the “Blind Watchmaker.” However, apply a reality check to their criteria—especially contrasting design mechanisms of a real designer versus natural selection—and the illusion of selection is clear…

Arguing against selection from within its illusory paradigm ignores this wise instruction. Just as starting with belief in the Big Bang and an ancient earth derails a person from true explanations, belief in the idea that “nature selects” cannot be used to accurately describe reality. It exists as a mental construct, a way of looking at organism-environment interactions that attributes selection ability to non-tangible selectors, uses two illegitimate and false descriptors, and furthers evolutionary thinking as a deceptive figure of speech.

As an exogenous power, it is exactly what evolutionary thinking needs to uncouple the Creator-creature connection and, unsurprisingly, is the exact opposite of reality. It, therefore, fails to give the Lord credit by acknowledging the endogenous power He has masterfully programmed into His creatures.

http://www.icr.org/article/6258/

10-31-11

Darwin's Sacred Imposter: Natural Selection's Idolatrous Trap

Living organisms fit into their environments extremely well because they have suitable intricately arranged parts that look as though they were chosen for specific purposes. Darwin knew people thought the cause of the obvious design in nature was God. He needed a mechanism, an inanimate substitute god with that one essential attribute—the perceived ability to “think.” Nature did not need to really think. It only needed to seem like it could think in order to plant in people’s minds the thought that nature’s design only looked like it was real—though it wasn’t. He struck on a clever solution: Take something within nature, living organisms, and when certain heritable traits appear in their offspring that solve environmental stresses (yet another part of nature), depict them as being “selected for” by those same environmental stresses—voilà, Nature selects.

When fully developed, these reasons detail why it is scientifically and theologically inappropriate to describe in any way what transpires at the organism-environment interface as “selection.” Two other important reasons are considered below.

Irrelevant: Meager Measurements of Selection Suggest It’s Not Real

Certainly, thousands of scientific papers do invoke selection as a convenient anecdote capable of leaping over any biological or probabilistic hurdle. But if natural selection were both real and as important as evolutionists claim, then it would be reasonable to predict that there would be numerous studies actually measuring its significant influence. But, this is not the case. One initial challenge is that anything being measured must first be defined. The slippery definition of “natural selection” itself is a huge problem, but so is the definition of its sister concept, “fitness” or “the fittest.”…

The relevance of selection is not in actual field studies. So where do researchers find selection relevant? In laboratory studies where intelligent humans with a real volition actually make choices…

(A)rtificial selectors have always observed limits to variability (after millennia of breeding for speed, there are no 100-mile-per-hour horses). Second, scientists have never created two fundamentally different kinds of organisms from a common ancestor. If intelligent selectors cannot obtain fundamentally different kinds due to innate limits to change, what evidence exists that environments can…?

Idolatry: Ascribing Selective Ability to Inanimate Environmental Stresses

It is annoying when atheists are ahead of creationists in exposing false atheistic thinking. Such is the case with natural selection. Why? Because selection is not atheistic enough for thoughtful atheists. These take their faith seriously and can see that Darwin just replaced God as a supernatural cause for origins with a mystical agent, natural selection—a criticism applicable to creationist articles purporting to show “Natural Selection in Operation.” God-like capabilities accorded to selection pour from both peer-reviewed and popular evolutionary literature…

If someone held up a statue and ascribed to it powers to select, naturalists would see this as mysticism and Christians would see this as idolatry. But, in a mental disconnect, identical but more subtle attributions toward a water table instead of a statue are labeled by evolutionists and creationists alike as an “operative force” that can “favor,” “act on,” “pressure,” or “punish” organisms…

Creationists should also seriously consider what is really explained scientifically by merely saying that a trait was “selected for” or “selected against.” Those magical phrases cannot truly be expected to reveal why certain traits originate and exist in populations…

Selection is idolatrous in the basest of ways. Not only does it ascribe intelligence-like powers to unconscious environmental features, like any other idol, but it induces people not to give the Lord credit for the incredible intelligence and machinery He has built into His creatures that enable them to adapt to environmental features.

http://www.icr.org/article/darwins-sacred-imposter-natural-selections/

35. Brace yourself. We’re going to say that natural selection is useless for science. Secular scientists will scream. Even some creationists will harrumph. But you need look no further than scientific journals and science news sites to see that it is true. Natural selection is a storytelling plot that contributes nothing to real, useful knowledge about nature. It’s like colorful frosting, but not the cake.  It’s like graffiti on a wall that does nothing to hold the building up. It’s like a gaudy patterns on a hot-air balloon, but not the heat engine that lifts it.

If scientists ditched the phrase  natural selection entirely, science would go on just fine. In fact, it would go on better without all the distractions offered by this empty, useless phrase that Darwin invented. Here’s our challenge: can you name any one, true, real thing that “natural selection” has added to our understanding of the world? While we wait for a response, it’s time to back up our audacious claim with specific examples from the science news.

36. Natural Selection: The Ghost Idol of Biology
“A spirit that works in mysterious ways. Biologists cannot nail it down, but insist it can turn bacteria into biologists. You could give Natural Selection (NS) a different name, and it would be as useless for explaining nature as NumbSkull, the spirit that explains everything according to a mythical caveman community. NumbSkull make mammoth come. NumbSkull make sky rain. NumbSkull make fire hot. Like NumbSkull, natural selection—or selection for short—is the default explanation for every observation. This ghostly spirit with mystical powers, able to take an RNA molecule and evolve it into a biochemist, works miracles, given millions of years.” 

Much more at: Natural Selection Is Useless in Science and Natural Selection Is Useless, II: More Evidence

37. Natural selection, everyone knows, is Darwin’s prize theory. With natural selection, he could explain humans from bacteria. But for that much progress to come out of a blind, aimless process* that selects random variations,* it needs to show some true creative ability. Think of the fantastic organs and systems in a bird, a dinosaur, or a human being! What incredible amounts of programmed information must have arisen since the first cell. Surely there must be evidence for awesome creative power in Darwin’s “mechanism” of natural selection.

*Proof that natural selection is equivalent to the Stuff Happens Law:

Stuff Happens Law (SHL) :   the natural law that the Law of Natural Selection reduces to. When a scientist says “stuff happens,” he or she basically gives up, abandoning any attempt at scientific explanation. The SHL is the antithesis of science’s goal to understand the world, but since mutation and natural selection (the elements of neo-Darwinian theory) are both unguided and random, they reduce to the SHL.

(See more at https://crev.info/2019/09/natural-selection-where-is-it/).

38. Darwin deified Natural Selection. He said, “It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and in organic conditions of life.”
Online Variorum of Darwin's Origin of Species: second British edition (1860), page 84
http://darwin-online.org.uk/Variorum/1860/1860-84-c-1866.html

39. “A pernicious, ubiquitous term of confusion in evolutionary biology is “selection.” Even 161 years since Darwin put the word on the title page of the Origin, nobody knows what it means. Who or what is the selector? What is it selecting for? How does the concept of selection support Darwin’s dream of a natural world growing and developing into the rich biosphere without guidance or direction ? ...The only kind of selection potentially able to contribute meaning to Darwinism would be positive selection. Something has to get better — significantly better…

“Positive selection must be significantly greater than tiny steps that might appear to a Darwinist to be an improvement, unless they can be demonstrated to be cumulative. The improvements must also lead to the origin of species and larger taxonomic groups; it cannot occur merely with a species. Look at the variety within the human species; where, though, does history show a landlubber evolving into an Icarus by selection except in fables? No; positive selection, to differentiate Darwinism from random drift or from intelligently-designed front-loading, has to yield mammals from microbes, appealing only to unguided natural processes that “selected” the outcome in hindsight…It would be easy to allege that “selection” is one of the most imprecise terms in all of science. It means whatever it must mean in order to keep those wicked ID people out of the game…

“Naïve students are taught that selection works at the individual level…Selection is a slippery, vague, useless word in evolutionary biology that masks its lack of clarity with gobbledygook…Pick your favorite synonym for gobbledygook. Hooey works just fine.”
https://evolutionnews.org/2021/01/juggling-terms-to-maintain-the-illusion-of-darwinian-selection/

40. (My insertions are marked by-KCP.)

The philosophy of materialism was embraced by Charles Darwin early in life…Toward this goal (debunking design-KCP) he imparted to natural selection God-like creative powers in order to replace the God of biblical tradition as the creator of life — a view widely accepted at the time — with a blind undirected process. This maneuver was clearly described by biologist Francisco Ayala: “It was Darwin’s greatest accomplishment to show that the complex organization and functionality of living beings can be explained as the result of a natural process — natural selection — without any need to resort to a Creator or other external agent.”

The Royal Society meeting exposed the reality, carefully hidden from the public, that leading evolutionary theorists recognize that natural selection has no real creative power.

The current situation harkens back to the famous comment by genetics pioneer Hugo de Vries: “Natural selection may explain the survival of the fittest, but it cannot explain the arrival of the fittest.”

Natural selection is the only mechanism that even in principle could mimic the activity of an intelligent agent in creating anything of at least modest complexity and ingenuity.

But not one shred of evidence was presented (at the Royal Society meeting-KCP) that (natural selection-KCP) could perform any feat beyond such trivial tasks as increasing a plant’s height, changing the number of digits in an animal’s limb, or performing other slight modifications to preexisting traits.

Most materialist biologists will not so easily come to terms with their true predicament since evolution operates not only as a scientific theory but as a sacrosanct creation narrative for secular society. Nevertheless, with natural selection off the table as a designer substitute, the only sensible interpretation that remains for the overwhelming evidence of design in biological systems is that life is the product of an actual designer.

https://evolutionnews.org/2021/06/darrel-falk-downplays-the-ramifications-of-the-royal-society-meeting/

41. Darwin’s theory that life on Earth could have evolved mindlessly due to the unpredictable ministrations of Mother Nature has never ceased to appear improbable, even impossible, to the generality of people. Many, in decoding for themselves the term “natural selection,” have unmasked it as little more than a scientifically pretentious synonym for a phenomenon little superior to blind chance. If nature is (as Darwin insisted it must be) stripped of any teleological function, it can hardly be expected to “select” anything at all since it would be impossible for it to have any telos or aim “in mind.” The notion that the entire diversity of life could have developed by some preternaturally benign concatenation of flukes does not commend itself as an intuitive probability to unbiased observers with no stake in finding a wholly materialistic explanation for all things. Such observers are more likely to view natural selection so defined as a freethinking donnish fantasy harbored by those who simply will there to be a materialist Grand Theory of Everything.

https://evolutionnews.org/2021/12/natural-selection-a-conceptually-incoherent-term/

42. In the Introduction to On the Origin of Species Darwin wrote, “I am fully convinced that species are not immutable.” He continued, “Furthermore, I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification.” But Darwin had no evidence for natural selection. In On the Origin of Species, the best he could offer was “one or two imaginary illustrations.” So instead of direct evidence for natural selection, Darwin (who himself bred pigeons) based his argument on domestic breeding, or what is often called artificial selection…Yet in all the years of domestic breeding, no one ever reported the origin of a new species, much less a new organ or body plan.

https://evolutionnews.org/2022/02/top-scientific-problems-with-evolution-natural-selection/

43. Most devastatingly for Darwinists, the complete failure of (the Miller-Urey experiment) and more recent experiments to find the origins of primitive life forms in hot springs, hydrothermal vents in the ocean floor, et al., have removed the indispensable foundation for the operation of natural selection. By that I mean that any postulated selective mechanism must obviously have something to select. No raw material means no evolution, no nothing. Without an “abiogenetic moment” Darwin’s entire theory of evolution via natural selection falls flat…Yet the urge to find proof for “natural selection” endures. That, I guess, is a powerful reminder that words, even meaningless words, have the power to create their own virtual realities in our minds, with no relation to any definable referent in the world we inhabit.

https://evolutionnews.org/2022/04/existential-implications-of-the-miller-urey-experiment/

44. Nature can’t select—it has no such ability. When Darwin offered natural selection as a means by which creatures change, he invented an unseen intelligent agent—an invisible, undetectable power—that supposedly exerts remarkable creative power. Darwin thus conjured an “invisible hand” that propels living organisms to somehow change in just the right ways to become more fit for survival. But nature has no volition, mind, will, or consciousness. Instead, it’s the creature’s own innate abilities that lead to its adaptation…Darwin’s natural selection is a fictional account of living processes driven by imagination, not observation. As such, it’s a construct, an abstract idea largely dependent on the subject’s mind. By definition, a construct isn’t real and has no true explanatory power, although it’s undemonstrated speculations can be misused as an explanatory cause. Science must be data-driven, not imaginary construct-driven. Darwin’s “invisible hand” of natural selection has no basis in reality and doesn’t measure up to the dictates of science.

https://www.icr.org/article/speculation-invention-and-the-invis-hand/