Mudskippers Defy Darwinian Dogma of Transition from Water to Land

Mudskippers will dry out if they’ll adopt a terrestrial lifestyle. Image courtesy of H. Krisp, Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0).




Joel Kontinen

New research proposes that sea animals might have “evolved the ability to live on land many times,” as a report posted on Science Daily puts it.

This challenges “the perception that this extreme lifestyle shift was likely to have been a rare occurrence in ancient times. New research shows 33 different families of fish have at least one species that demonstrates some terrestrial activity and, in many cases, these behaviors are likely to have evolved independently in the different families.”

This Darwinian optimism might be uncalled for, however:

Convergent evolution has for ages been the standard Darwinian method for explaining away features shared by unrelated species, such as echolocation in bats and dolphins.

However, the transition from land to sea – another Darwinian dogma associated with the jump from sea to land – is likewise fraught with difficulties. Mathematician and philosopher David Berlinski calculates that a cow-like creature living on dry land would have needed at least 50, 000 morphological changes for such a move. From skin to the breathing apparatus, almost everything has to be changed if the cow wants to stay alive in its new watery environment. Like transforming a car into a submarine, it needs an enormous amount of changes.

Moreover, Tiktaalik, once assumed to be the earliest terrestrial creature, has lost its iconic status, as land animals predate it by several million years according to the evolutionary timescale.

Now, evolutionary ecologist Dr Terry Ord, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of New South Wales and a co-author of a new paper published in the journal Evolution, acknowledges that the real threat for sea animals trying to settle on land is drying out:

"The real difficulty in developing a fully-fledged terrestrial lifestyle may be in preventing drying out. This has direct consequences for them breathing on land because they still require their gills, which need to stay moist to function properly."

Mudskippers can jump onto land but if they won’t return to the sea, they will eventually dry out. They are not designed to be terrestrial creatures.

Darwinian stories tend to be entertaining but often a bit fishy.

Source:

University of New South Wales. 2016. Fish out of water are more common than thought. Science Daily. (22 June).

How to get a whale from a cow

Some think Ambulocetus looked like this. Image courtesy of Nobu Tamura, CC BY-SA 4.0.





Joel Kontinen


Darwinists believe that whales moved into the oceans from dry land. The very name of the assumed whale ancestor Ambulocetus means a walking whale. However, this kind of change is anything but simple and hardly the type we can believe in.

Mathematician and philosopher David Berlinski calculates that a cow-like creature living on dry land would have needed at least 50, 000 morphological changes for such a move. From skin to the breathing apparatus, almost everything has to be changed if the cow wants to stay alive in its new watery environment. Like transforming a car into a submarine, it needs an enormous amount of changes.



Doctor Berlinski says that the fossil record does not support the view that such vast changes would ever have occurred in the extent required by Darwinian evolution.

Atheists Attack Straw-Man Christianity

David Bentley Hart, a professor of theology, discusses the religious views of Richard Dawkins and other militant atheists in his new book.




Joel Kontinen

What do militant atheists remember of Christian history? They will mention the Inquisition, witch hunts, religious wars and the crusades, but will probably forget the rest. They seldom speak about the good that the followers of Jesus Christ have introduced to society, such as leper hospitals, orphanages and schools.

They haven’t even heard about equality and freedom that are the fruit of Christianity. In addition, they have created their own myth of the Galileo affair that has next to nothing to do with reality.

In his book Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (Yale University Press, 2009) David Bentley Hart, a professor of theology, takes on militant atheists. Hart, an American Orthodox theologian and philosopher, shows that militant atheists have created their own version of Christianity that is easy to criticise.

In other words, it has little to do with biblical Christianity.

If we were to compare the fruits of Christianity with the products of the Enlightenment, we might soon notice which of them has brought more benefits for mankind. After all, atheists have Stalin and Pol Pot, so they cannot afford to throw the first stone.

According to professor Hart, the post-Christian world values freedom of choice to the extent that it has become more important than that what we choose. Individuals demand the right to decide on abortion, euthanasia and gene technology, for instance.

Their consequences are not always very encouraging.

Hart says that Christianity ”has been the single most creative cultural, ethical, aesthetic, social, political, or spiritual force in the history of the West.” Unlike atheism, Christianity offers us real hope.

As God says in the Book of Jeremiah, He promises to give ”a future and a hope” to those who trust in Him.

Another excellent book discussing the views of militant atheists is being re-issued. Basic Books is publishing Dr. David Berlinski’s The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions in paperback.

Source:

Kirkpatrick, Kate. 2009. Reframing Human History. Christianity Today (23 September) http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/september/33.81.html

The “Fact” of Evolution: When Is a Fact Not a Fact?

Could “a change in allele frequency in a population over time” have changed the cousin of this fellow into a blogger writing on the wonders of evolution?



Joel Kontinen

It seems that this blog has recently caused a considerable amount of displeasure to some readers, especially to Austin Cline of About. com, whose name I happened to mention in an earlier post.

You might guess that this displeasure stems from my reluctance to admit that Darwinian evolution is a universally acknowledged fact. Austin Cline quickly posted a reply on About.com in which he repeated his earlier thesis that belief in evolution is not dogmatic.

Cline says:

The statement "evolution is a fact" is no more a dogma than "gravity is a fact" or "plate tectonics is a fact" are dogmas. Saying that evolution or gravity is a fact is simply a recognition of reality.

Actually, creationist scientists played major roles in the discovery of both gravity and plate tectonics. Few Bible-believing scientists would doubt them. The problem is with the ideology beginning with the e-word.

Cline’s chief witness is no other than the late Stephen J. Gould, who wrote an article for Discoverer magazine in 1981 entitled Evolution as Fact and Theory.

Like Humpty Dumpty, evolutionists want to set the rules of the semantic game: “When I say a word it means exactly what I want it to mean.” For Cline, evolution is “the change in allele frequency in a population over time”.

Now, this was not the definition I was referring to, as he could easily have found out by reading some of the earlier posts I have written on this blog. No creationist that I know of doubts that animals have changed over time and do change.

What they do doubt, however, is the “goo-to-you-via-the-zoo” version in which we are all the descendants of a primeval unicellular being. That, if anything, is very dogmatic since there is no real evidence for it but it is assumed a priori.

Otherwise, they would have a Divine foot at the door. And that is something that would definitely spoil their day.

But let us return to where we began, i.e. Austin Cline’s statement on evolution being as well attested in science as gravity or plate tectonics. In his excellent book The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions (2008), Dr. David Berlinski says:

Although Darwin’s theory is very often compared favorably to the great theories of mathematical physics on the grounds that evolution is as well established as gravity, very few physicists have been heard observing that gravity is as well established as evolution. They know better and they are not stupid. (p. 191)

Sources:

Berlinski, David. 2008. The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions. New York: Crown Forum.

Cline, Austin. 2009: Joel Kontinen: Acknowledging Reality is Being Dogmatic. About.com. (21 July).
http://atheism.about.com/b/2009/07/21/joel-kontinen-acknowledging-reality-is-being-dogmatic.htm

The Devil’s Delusion - A Profoundly Witty Book By David Berlinski

David Berlinski takes on militant atheists in his new book

Joel Kontinen

Militant atheists have left their bunkers and began a fierce assault on religion in their best-selling books. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens have certainly not been shy about their lack of belief.

Now David Berlinski takes on militant atheists in his new book The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions and finds the inherent weaknesses in their views. Berlinski, a secular Jew living in France, is a philosopher and mathematician. He has written a highly readable book that is both extremely witty and scientifically profound.

Berlinski, who has a Ph. D from Princeton University, shows that no one has ever provided proof of God's inexistence. Attempts to do so betray more about the militant atheists' beliefs and lack of knowledge than about anything else.

The book makes for delightful reading. Much of his ammunition is targeted at Darwinian evolution which seems to be the sine qua non of modern atheism. Doctor Berlinski quotes a number of evolutionists. For instance, Robert Carroll says, “most of the fossil record does not support a strictly gradualistic account” of evolution. Berlinski adds, “A ‘strictly gradualistic’ account is precisely what Darwin’s theory demands: It is the heart and soul of the theory.” (page 189)

Later, Berlinski goes to say, “Although Darwin’s theory is very often compared favorably to the great theories of mathematical physics on the grounds that evolution is as well established as gravity, very few physicists have been heard observing that gravity is as well established as evolution. They know better and are not stupid.” (page 191)

The Devel’s Delusion shows that the atheists’ basic premises are all but logical. While I might not agree with his view of biblical inerancy – I take the Bible to be the Word of Truth – I would not hesitate to recommend this book for all who are interested in one of the greatest issues of our day.

Source:

Berlinski, David. 2008. The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions. New York: Crown Forum.