If evolution is true, then Yale University needs to significantly up its game.
Or, alternatively, Yale can simply admit explicitly that natural selection is impotent as an explanation for all current life forms.
Creation Reformation published The Natural Selection Paradox earlier this year. In it we showed that natural selection plays no role in explaining the origin or existence of every living being today. Despite invitations to do so, we have received exactly zero attempts at rebutting our findings.
We are beginning to understand why there are no rebuttals. Somewhat surprisingly, we are finding that when we go looking for any information that might rebut our findings, we find instead that leading scientific organizations actually confirm The Natural Selection Paradox.
Last week we showed that the University of California at Berkeley confirms our view that natural selection does nothing to explain the origin or existence of all living things.
We are pleased this week to show that Yale University also agrees with us. To be more specific, Yale joins a growing list of those who–purporting to show how natural selection works–unwittingly confirm the opposite: natural selection does nothing to explain current life forms.
And, as we stated before, this is the unrebutted finding of The Natural Selection Paradox.
Let us explain further.
Below is a screen shot of a Yale University’s slide no. 24 in a series of slides teaching evolution. Slide 24 is entitled, “Modern description of natural selection” and is reproduced in full below:
Follow with us as we go step by step through the four steps of Yale’s modern description of natural selection.
Actually, we need only look at three steps; step 4 is not a step in the process of natural selection, it is simply a description of the result of steps 1-3 repeated over many generations.
Step 1 of Yale’s process does not involve natural selection. Step 1 is merely the necessary starting requirement for a process involving natural selection. In Step 1 the only evolutionary process at work is random mutations that produce genetic variation. Random genetic mutations are required by evolutionary theory to produce anything new in nature, including genetic variations that might produce new traits in modified organisms. The new organisms with new traits are those from which natural selection can “select.” Thus, in Step 1, genetic variation alone explains the origin of any traits or features that might arise in any new individual organisms that appear on earth. And this genetic variation has nothing to do with natural selection except to supply the raw material from on which natural selection can operate.
Steps 2 and 3 of Yale’s process state the same thing, albeit in a way that is poorly communicated. Do not let unfamiliar jargon like “alleles” throw you off. Alleles simply denote variants of a given gene that together make up the set of genetic information that defines a gene; it is a fancy term used to describe the “genetic variation” from Step 1 (think random changes to your DNA with each generation). Step 2 simply notes that the genetic variation received by the random mutations of Step 1 might provide the recipient organism with a survival advantage, and that this advantage can be passed on in the gene pool through reproduction. Step 3 merely restates Step 2 in a different way. Step 3 states that those individuals with beneficial genetic variations (beneficial alleles) are more likely to survive and pass these variations on to the next generation (the future gene pool).
Now, take a breath and consider Yale’s “modern description” of natural selection. In fact, the description is modern only in (A) its confusing language and (B) its breathtakingly underwhelming confidence in natural selection’s ability to do anything necessary to produce entirely new beings on earth.
With respect to (A), Darwin himself taught the exact same steps, noting that there can be a survival advantage for organisms that are born with “favorable variations” and there can be a survival disadvantage to for organisms born with “injurious variations.” With respect to (B), note that the end result of this “modern description of natural selection” is not even any new organisms! The end result is merely a change in “characteristics” of a “population.”
Of course, the unprovable, non-testable response to (B) from Yale evolutionists is that over time these changing “characteristics” will result in new individual organisms, new morphologies, new organs, wings, eyes, tails, and brains. Over time, we are told to believe, these “changing characteristics” produced by random genetic variations can change a sea sponge into a human being.
But why should we believe such conjecture? Consider Yale’s process on its face.
All Steps 2 and 3 are describing is the process of natural selection exactly as described by Darwin. Natural selection operates to “reject injurious variations” (in Darwin’s words) and “preserve favorable variations” (again, in Darwin’s words).
Consider the popular example of the light and dark moths in England during the Industrial Revolution: the unlucky light moths were “rejected” by being eaten by birds. The lucky dark moths were “preserved” in that they were not eaten by birds.
In Yale’s terms, the lucky dark moths were “individuals” who were dark colored as a result of having been born with “beneficial alleles” that made them dark colored. These lucky dark moths, in turn, are more likely to “survive and contribute their alleles” to the next generation.
On and on they go, those “beneficial alleles.” And natural selection had nothing to do with their production, and nothing to do with their continued propagation.
If Yale is correct, then evolution to explain the origin and existence of all living things may indeed happen, but it is not by natural selection: In Yale’s example, natural seletion played no role in the origin or existence of any of the individuals in the “next generation” of the population!
Need we explain further?
Review Yale’s three steps above, and answer this question: What did natural selection do to facilitate either of (1) the origin of, or (2) the continued existence of any of the individuals that made it to the “next generation,” e.g., in Step 3? If it helps, use the concrete example of the light and dark moths: Just what did natural selection “do” for the lucky dark moths that survived and contributed their alleles to the next generation?
You should clearly see that the answer is Nothing!
If you are still not convinced let’s take the inquiry in two steps with two even more simple questions:
Question 1: What role did natural selection play in the origin of the individuals in Yale’s example?
Answer 1: None. All of the individual arose (presumably, according to evolutionary theory) from random mutations producing genetic variation as they descended with modification from prior individuals. Natural selection cannot play any possible role until there is a modified individual to select.
Question 2: What role did natural selection play in the continued existence of the individuals?
Answer 2: None. The only individuals possibly affected by natural selection in Yale’s example are those who did not survive to reproduce to the next generation. Natural selection did nothing for the surviving individuals in Step 3 except to “stand back and watch” (if we are to personify the term as Darwin did) as they happily reproduce unhindered.
The development trajectory of the surviving individuals is unchanged by the presence or absence of natural selection. The lived experience of the surviving individuals is the same whether natural selection acted or not.
Thus, Yale University has demonstrated The Natural Selection Paradox, which Creation Reformation states in an abbreviated form as:
Natural Selection does nothing to expain the origin and existence of all living life forms.The Natural Selection Paradox, Creation Reformation
Yale and Creation Reformation agree: Natural seletion played no role in the origin or existence of any of the individuals in the “next generation” of the population at Step 3.
But why is it that if we show that natural selection does nothing we are dismissed as religoius nut jobs, but if Yale University shows the same thing it is proof of evolution by natural selection?
But more importantly, if, as Yale shows, natural selection plays no role in the origin and existence of all current living life forms, including human beings, why should anyone–religious or not–believe in evolution?
That’s a question for Yale University. Someone ask them.
In the meantime, you think about it.
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