Convergent evolution - Lightning striking again and again and again!

There’s a common saying that lightning never strikes twice in the same place.  That’s not literally true.  When people say it, they mean if something improbable happens, it likely won’t happen again.  The odds of anyone winning the lottery, for example, are very small.  The same person winning the lottery two times in a row is virtually impossible.  Such a thing might happen in the realm of theoretical statistics, however most people understand that it wouldn’t happen in the real world.  But then again, since when does evolution operate in the real world?!

I’m talking about the idea of convergent evolution.  According to Grokipedia - by the way, I’ve started moving away from the left-leaning Wikipedia - anyway, according to Grokipedia, “Convergent evolution is the process whereby distantly related species independently develop similar traits or characteristics, typically in response to comparable environmental pressures or selective forces.”  In a recent post (here), I discussed how koala fingerprints are indistinguishable from human fingerprints.  Koalas are marsupials, and according to the theory of evolution, marsupial mammals supposedly diverged from placental mammals more than 150 million years ago.  In other words, koalas cannot be “closely related” to humans.  So why do both species share this very unusual characteristic?  Evolutionists claim it’s an example of convergent evolution.  You know, because koalas and humans live in nearly identical environments with all the same selective pressures.  Excuse me while I roll my eyes!

The idea of convergent evolution is little more than a rescue device for evolutionists.  They love, love, love to point out similarities between, say, chimps and humans, and say their similarities are evidence they share a recent common ancestor.  But any similarity between humans and koalas is merely a coincidence - a case of convergent evolution.  Evolutionists can’t see the special pleading in their argument.  In fact, they’ve become so comfortable with the idea of convergent evolution, they wave it around like an end-of-discussion solution anytime traits don’t follow any predictable pattern on the so-called, “tree of life.”  

I’ve discussed the appendix before so let’s start with that.  According to evolution, the appendix evolved in some ancestor of humans and once served an important function (or at least it evolved to serve some function). Since we are descended from this supposed ancestor, we have inherited that structure but, over the many generations of mutation and selection leading from the non-human ancestor to us, the appendix has lost its original function. For this reason, it's sometimes called an “evolutionary leftover.”

Humans are not the only creatures with an appendix. Dozens of mammals have appendixes – but not every mammal.  According to the theory of common descent, we should be able to trace the appendix along the so-called “nested-hierarchy” where all the animals which have an appendix also share a common ancestor. The problem is, there is no predictable pattern among the mammals with appendixes. The appendix appears in some species of primates, rodents, and even marsupials but is absent from the intermediate groups linking these species. It's not at all what we would expect if evolution were true.

Failed predictions are usually considered evidence against a scientific theory. However, the fact that the presence of the appendix follows no predictable pattern hardly raises an eyebrow among evolutionists. As is often the case, they invent ad hoc theories to explain the failed prediction. Here is a quote from Sciencemag.org:

In a new study, published online... in Comptes Rendus Palevol, the researchers compiled information on the diets of 361 living mammals, including 50 species now considered to have an appendix, and plotted the data on a mammalian evolutionary tree. They found that the 50 species are scattered so widely across the tree that the structure must have evolved independently at least 32 times, and perhaps as many as 38 times. [Bold added]

So let me get this straight: The appendix appears in no discernible pattern on the so-called “tree of life” which calls into question the entire concept of common descent. They try to say it evolved independently in all these different species but why would the selective pressures that drive convergent evolution create a similar organ over and over, when most creatures that have one don't need it?!  

Next, let’s talk about the eye.  In his infamous book, Darwin said this about the eye (source):

To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree. 

Of course, Darwin still believed the eye was evolved and went on to describe how evolution, by gradual steps, could produce such a remarkably complex organ.  However, Richard Dawkins, in his book, River out of Eden, had this to say about the eye:

[T]he time needed for the evolution of the eye... turned out to be too short for geologists to measure! It's a geological blink." And, "it is no wonder the eye has evolved at least forty times independently around the animal kingdom 

There are many, many creatures in the animal kingdom that have eyes.  I’ve written before (here) about the similarity between human eyes and those of an octopus.  Both creatures exist in radically different environments and are not supposed to be closely related according to evolution.  They are examples of what Dawkins was talking about, one of dozens of examples where the eye has evolved independently in different creatures.   But do you see the shift in tone from Darwin to Dawkins?  Darwin claims the eye is so complex it seems a wonder how it could have evolved, to Dawkins saying it’s so easy it happens all the time!

Finally, there is the topic of abiogenesis.  The odds of random chemicals coming together to create life are astonishingly small.  We’ve never observed it happen.  We’ve never been able to create life artificially in a lab, despite decades of trying.  However, evolutionists argue that in such a large universe even something very improbable will eventually happen.  Carl Sagan once said this: 

“... [T]he time available for the origin of life seems to have been short, a few hundred million years at the most. Since life originated on the earth, we have additional evidence that the origin of life has a high probability.” 

Convinced that there is a high probability of the origin of life, then it's no great leap to imagine that other life began in space as well. His faith in extra-terrestrial life inspired groups like SETI to search for signs of life beyond our planet. Today, with NASA’s interest in exploring Mars, people speculate that life could have evolved on Mars as well.  So even though we’ve NEVER observed abiogenesis, evolutionists suffer under the delusion it happens everywhere. 

Evolutionists are somewhat cavalier about what is credible. They waive the term “convergent evolution” around and suddenly the impossible becomes commonplace. A fully functioning eye evolving from a light sensitive spot on the skin?  No problem!  Life springing from non-living matter? Happens all the time!  

As was said at the start of this post, people in the real world know the odds of any improbable event happening twice is highly unlikely.  Evolutionists, on the other hand, would have us believe that lightning strikes in the area of the improbable like a timpani! 

Proof for evolution?

I came across an article a while ago on Futurism.com titled, “Three Pieces of Evidence That Prove Evolution is a Fact.” You'll notice the article is a few years old but I'm sorry – it's a big world wide web and I haven't gotten to all of it yet.  Even so, the “proof” presented in the article is the same stuff I continue to hear so I thought I'd write a post discussing it.  I'll address the three pieces of evidence briefly at the end of this post but there’s a lot I want to say about the article just from its opening paragraphs. I think they shed a lot of light on the attitude of its author. 

First, there's the title: “prove evolution is a fact.” Really? Prove? I thought science doesn't ever prove anything. Actually, let me quote another article from Futurism.com, “Don’t ever say around me that science has “proven” something unless you want an ear full. Understanding why that phrase is problematic is essential to understanding the most important tool humans have ever devised to understand reality – science.” Isn't that a hoot? The same website that warns us to never say science “proves” anything turns right around and says the evidence has proven evolution!

Moving on, the first paragraph starts by saying, “For over 150 years—since the time of Charles Darwin—the Theory of Evolution has been through more scrutiny and rigorous investigation than just about any other scientific claim.” Hmm. “Investigation”? Maybe. “Scrutiny”? Please! I’ve said many times before that most scientists proudly boast how they only ever consider natural explanations. Regarding our origins, evolution is the only natural explanation so they don't scrutinize it. No matter how weakly it might explain some phenomenon, no matter how little evidence there is for some point of the theory, no matter how absurd some of its explanations are, they will never question the theory itself because the only alternative is supernatural creation which they've disqualified in advance.

The article continues, “And the theory has only been strengthened as more evidence has been accrued.” I wouldn't say the theory has been strengthened but, rather, it has been fleshed out as more evidence is found. It's a case of having a theory and then seeking out evidence for it. You see, every time they think they have some part of evolution figured out, some new discovery is made that forces them to rethink everything. I've asked before, how many times are they allowed to redraw the tree?  How many times will different points of the theory be proven wrong before people begin questioning the theory itself?

Next, the article says, “While there are many that people who, for ideological reasons, want to make it seem like evolution is not widely accepted within the scientific community, this is not actually the case.” Of course that's not the case and no one says it is. Creationists might sometimes point out a contention in the scientific community about some point of evolution but that's only to show that evolution is not the neat package that's being presented to the lay public. However, we completely understand that, even though scientists might disagree on different points of evolution, they don't question the theory itself. Where creationists disagree with evolutionists is over whether evolution is true, not whether evolutionists really believe it!

“Across universities, research institutions, and scientific organizations, evolution is not only nearly universally accepted,...” Yes, “the science is settled” and most scientists do not question the theory of evolution. By the way, there is an oft quoted statistic that 99.9% of all scientists accept evolution but I've never seen a scientific survey to support that. Regardless, how many scientists believe evolution isn't evidence for evolution. Scientists – even the majority of scientists – can be wrong. Before Galileo, for example, the majority of people believed the sun orbited the earth. Anyway, back to the point, “... [evolution] is also the basis upon which active, exciting, and important research is being done. Indeed, the scientific fact that is evolution is the basis of most of biology.” Wrong, wrong, wrong! Evolution is the basis only for research into evolution; it's completely irrelevant to any other field of science.

If you were to google, “how evolution helps research,” you'll find plenty of articles by people trying to convince you that understanding evolution is critical to scientific research. Here's another exercise to try: see if you can find any invention, scientific advancement, or life improving technology whose discovery hinged upon evolution being true. I sometimes call evolution, “the trivial pursuit branch of science.”  From a survey into the relevance of evolution to academia, we have this quote:

The message that Darwinists convey to the public is often very different than what they recognize as true among themselves. Although they state to the public that, “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution,” most scientists can “conduct their work quite happily without particular reference to evolutionary ideas”.... One “notable aspect of natural scientists in assembly is how little they focus on evolution. It’s day-to-day irrelevance is a great ‘paradox’ in biology”.

After having said all this, let’s look quickly at the highly touted evidence that’s supposed to “prove” evolution is true:

Common Traits. Common Ancestor.

Think about your family. You and your closest relatives look more alike than you and your cousins. Likewise, you look more like your cousins than you do more distant relatives, and more like distant relatives that people on the other side of the globe. The closer you are related, by-and-large, the more similarities you share.... This patterning, like in your family, extends throughout all life on Earth.

It's true that evolution could explain similar features in closely related species. Of course, created things can also have common traits. Consider this illustration. This bicycle and this scooter obviously have features in common but neither has evolved from the other.. Their only relationship is that they were designed to perform similar functions. Some of their similarities, the blue frames and the black tires and accessories are merely the preferences of the designers. Likewise, similar features among different creatures could be evidence they were designed by a Creator and reflect his purpose and preferences.  Since both theories explain common traits, common traits can’t be used to prove evolution.

We See Species Changing Over Time

One of the most important discoveries that lead to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution was extinct animals found as fossils. Early paleontologists, like Charles Lyell and George Cuvier, noticed a very simple fact: Species that lived in the past are very often drastically, wildly different from anything alive today. Trilobites, dinosaurs, giant sloths, baculites, etc., they all suggest that life on Earth has changed quite a bit.

I like to use dogs as an example of change in populations because most people are familiar with dogs and know they come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. The problem with evolution is that dogs never come in new shapes, sizes, and colors. Take color, for example. Dogs can be white, brown, black, blonde, and red. However, they aren't green or blue. Why not? It's because the “change” we observe in species are merely rearrangements of traits already present in the population.

Natural selection can only ever select from traits that already exist – hence, we call it, “selection.” For evolution to be possible, creatures have to acquire new traits. For a dinosaur to become a bird, you would have to add feathers. For a fish to become a frog, you would have to add legs. To turn a bacterium into a basset hound would require a millions of years long parade of new traits being added generation after generation. We don't see any new traits. We see changes among animal populations; we don’t see evolution.  Natural selection is the opposite of evolution!

The Remnants of Past Generations

Turn over a manufactured product today, and you are likely to see a small sticker or tag that says what country it was made in. Like those tags, species bear the marks of where they came from. These signs of origin might come in the form of repurposed traits, traits that hurt a species chances of surviving or reproducing.

The author appears to be talking about vestigial organs. The champion of all vestigial organs ever touted by evolutionists is the appendix. I've discussed above how the appendix being present in some mammals but absent in the species that are supposed to link them is evidence against common ancestry. What I didn't mention above is, if the appendix is vestigial, it's even more difficult for evolution to explain how it would evolve independently in different species. Put another way, why should I believe the appendix served some function so well that “nature” created it in several different species of mammal but now it's nothing more than a useless leftover?

In conclusion, the article should have been titled, How Evolution Can Explain These Three Observations.  These three things certainly don’t “prove” anything.  Actually, evolution is even a poor explanation of them!

Are humans “naked apes”?

This is a picture of me. Really. My blog is not about me even though I constantly write in the first-person voice and often use myself as an example to make a point. In this post, I again intend to use myself as an example to make a point.

Over my lifetime, I've worn my facial hair in a variety of styles. My hair grows fairly quickly so I could literally change it from week to week if I wanted. There have only been a couple of times in my adult life that have I been clean shaven. From the time I graduated high school until I was about 35, I wore a mustache. On a couple of occasions during that time, I grew a full beard. For the last couple of years, I've worn a goatee off and on. Actually, I think the correct term for a goatee and a mustache is a Van Dyke but I'm starting to ramble. Let's get back to the point.

So, a while back, I was watching a YouTube video and the speaker flashes a picture of a chimp on the screen. It was a tight shot of just the chimp's face and I noticed something that I hadn't noticed before. Compare the picture of the me to the picture of the chimp below. Ignore the difference in resolution for a moment – do you notice anything different about our hair? In case the answer isn't immediately obvious, let me point it out:

Men grow facial hair on their upper lip, jaw, and chin. We also have hair on our brow ridge (aka, our eye brows). Chimps have virtually no hair around their mouth nor on their brow ridge. Isn't that interesting? It goes further than that though. Chimps have heavy coats on their backs and shoulders but thinner hair on their chests. In this picture, you can also see that chimps have thinner hair in their arm pits. Human males, on the other hand, have thicker hair on their chests and under their arms but much thinner hair on their shoulders and arms.

Humans have been called, “naked apes.” As the name suggests, humans are considered by evolutionists to be merely another species of ape – one which has lost its heavy coat of fur. It's a little more complicated than that though. You see, evolution is supposed to be about descent with modification. If humans and chimps share a common ancestor, evolution should predict that we have hair patterns similar to our ancestor. But we don't. The closest similarity is the top of our heads. Everywhere else, where chimps have the most hair, we have the least and where we have the most, chimps have the least.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to have noticed this. I've heard it suggested that humans have facial hair for warmth because our clothes cover our bodies but not our faces. Such an explanation is blatantly circular. Why would we need to start wearing clothes in the first place except that we lost our fur? And even if we accept the explanation, it still doesn't explain why humans have heavier hair under their arms.

Good theories are supposed to make predictions. If evolution were true, we should see similar hair patterns between humans and chimps. The ad hoc explanations about why it isn't this way are “just so” stories invented simply to ignore another failed prediction of evolution.

Why the appendix is NOT evidence for evolution

Ordinarily, I would never consider a sit com to be representative of any group but I'm going to use a scene from The Big Bang Theory as the backdrop for a discussion about the appendix. I'm doing this for a couple of reasons. First, I don't think anyone would argue that a vast majority of evolutionists consider the appendix to be vestigial so it's not like the show misrepresents this attitude. Second, it's just a funny scene and I'm going to exploit it for the sake of making my blog more interesting.

Enjoy!

Isn't that hilarious? Anyway, back to business. As I've already said, the appendix has been touted by evolutionists as the champion of vestigial organs. The theory of evolution virtually demands that there be vestigial organs and so, when the label of “vestigial” can be attach to some structure, they are quick to trumpet it as evidence for their theory. I cannot recall ever having a discussion of vestigial organs without the appendix being used by evolutionists as an example.

https://unsplash.com/@atlaskadrow

By way of definition, a structure is considered vestigial if it has lost all or most of its original function. Even if the structure has function, it can still be considered vestigial if it doesn't perform its original function. That definition is somewhat circular because it assumes the organ once had another function. The wings of flightless birds, for example, have been called vestigial only because they are believed to be descended from flying birds. If the wings were never used for flying, then they can't be vestiges of flying wings, can they? I believe penguins' wings have always been used for swimming. Do evolutionists believe penguins once flew? I guess they do but it's only because they believe penguin ancestors could fly that makes penguin wings vestigial. Thus I say their evidence is circular. //sigh//

Every definition I've heard of vestigial suffers from a range of weaknesses but I'm not going to quibble over the definition of vestigial now. Instead, I'm going to question the idea that the appendix is evidence for evolution at all.

According to evolution, the appendix evolved in some ancestor of humans and once served an important function (or at least it evolved to serve some function). Since we are descended from this supposed ancestor, we have inherited that structure but, over the many generations of mutation and selection leading from the non-human ancestor to us, the appendix has lost its original function. For this reason, it's sometimes called an “evolutionary leftover.”

Humans are not the only creatures with an appendix. Dozens of mammals have appendixes – but not every mammal. Here's where the theory starts to get thorny. According to the theory of common descent, we should be able to trace the appendix along the so called “nested-hierarchy” where all the animals which have an appendix also share a common ancestor. The problem is, there is no predictable pattern among the mammals with appendixes. The appendix appears in some species of primates, rodents, and even marsupials but is absent from the intermediate groups linking these species. It's not at all what we would expect if evolution were true.

Failed predictions are usually considered evidence against a scientific theory. However, the fact that the presence of the appendix follows no predictable pattern hardly raises an eyebrow among evolutionists. As is often the case, they invent ad hoc theories to explain the failed prediction. Here is a quote from Sciencemag.org:

In a new study, published online... in Comptes Rendus Palevol, the researchers compiled information on the diets of 361 living mammals, including 50 species now considered to have an appendix, and plotted the data on a mammalian evolutionary tree. They found that the 50 species are scattered so widely across the tree that the structure must have evolved independently at least 32 times, and perhaps as many as 38 times. [Bold added]

Give me a break. The structure “must have” evolved 30+ times? There's another possibility, you know. Namely that the seeming random appearance of an appendix is evidence that the creatures on the “tree of life” are not related in an evolutionary sense. I wonder if the scientists even considered that possibility.

When creatures that aren't closely related share similar features, it's attributed to convergent evolution. According to this idea, there is sometimes a “best” solution to make a creature better adapted to its environment and “nature” will happen on that same solution time and time again. In the case of mammal digestion, the appendix must have fit some important need so well that “nature” created one on at least 30 occasions! But that “just so” story, that the appendix evolved so often because it was the “best solution,” stretches credulity when many evolutionists claim the appendix is vestigial in most of the creatures that have one!

So let's wrap this up: The appendix appears in no discernible pattern on the so called, “tree of life” which calls into question the entire concept of common descent. We have to believe the appendix is so important that it evolved independently 30+ times but it's also so unimportant that most creatures that have one don't need it.

Hmmm. Please explain to me again: how is the appendix evidence for evolution?