National Geographic’s Darwin Error
National Geographic’s Darwin Error
The November edition of National Geographic magazine (NG) posed the question “Was Darwin Wrong?” on its front cover. Natural scientist David Quammen, author of the article by the same name, replied “No” to that question from his own perspective, and claimed that Darwin’s theory of evolution was today backed up by powerful scientific evidence. Quammen repeated the main claims from Darwin’s book The Origin of Species, but overlooked one important detail.
Darwin added another chapter to his book, one called “Difficulties on Theory,” and openly admitted the existence of difficulties in these terms:
Such is the sum of the several chief objections and difficulties which may justly be urged against my theory… I have felt these difficulties far too heavily during many years to doubt their weight. 1
The fact is, however, that the NG article discussed not one of the phenomena that Darwin regarded as a problem for his theory, and even ignored their existence. For example, although Darwin referred in his book to the way the fossil record failed to back up his theory and to the complexity in the eye, NG magazine did not even touch on such subjects which the theory of evolution is unable to account for as the Cambrian Explosion, biological complexity and the origin of genetic information.
Quammen, who thus appears to be more of a Darwinist than Darwin himself, emerged as the defender not of a theory that can account for difficulties, but of a “dogma” that needs to be shielded from criticism.
In this article, Quammen’s so-called evidence is analysed and the Darwinist propaganda embarked on by NG magazine refuted.
An Example of NG Turkey’s Dogmatic Stance
The English language edition of the NG article “Was Darwin Wrong?” also devoted space to Harun Yahya’s works about the theory of evolution. In the section describing worldwide reactions against evolution the following words appeared in reference to Harun Yahya:
Their discomfort is paralleled by Islamic creationists such as Harun Yahya, author of a recent volume titled The Evolution Deceit, who points to the six-day creation story in the Koran as literal truth and calls the theory of evolution “nothing but a deception imposed on us by the dominators of the world system.”
Interestingly though, Harun Yahya did not appear in NG’s Turkish version, and this section was altered, assuming the following form: “This unease displays a parallelism among those who support the Islamic idea of creation.”
As someone who states his primary aim as being that of describing the philosophy and scientific invalidity of Darwinism, Harun Yahya has closely monitored Darwinist propaganda in recent years and has responded, in the light of scientific findings, to the pro-evolutionist writings and broadcasts of media organisations, of which NG is one. (see www.darwinism-watch.com)
If Darwinism really were supported by a mass of evidence, as claimed in this NG article, then why is NG Turkey trying to prevent Harun Yahya’s scientific criticisms from being heard? Could it be that NG Turkey was concerned that Darwinism will be unable to withstand such scientific criticism? In fact, this attitude by NG’s Turkey desk not only shows that the magazine is unwilling to inform its readers of the source of effective criticism of evolution, but also confirms the criticism that it is seeking to keep Darwinism on its feet as an ideology.
NG Is Unwilling to Face the Modern Scientific Facts
There can be no doubt that in order to provide a realistic response to the question “Was Darwin Wrong?” one needs to look at what Darwin actually said and to compare this to modern scientific facts. In his book The Origin of Species, in which he unveiled his theory of evolution, Darwin provided a very important criterion by which to test his theory. So concrete is that criterion that in Darwin’s own words it could “absolutely break down” the theory. Darwin wrote:
“If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” 2
Darwin maintained that organs evolved during a gradual process. Thinking of this imaginary process in reverse, it appears that Darwin assumed that these organs possessed reducibility. However, advances made in the field of biochemistry, especially over the last 40 years, have revealed that the cell possesses a superior complexity, the details of which were unknown in Darwin’s time, for which reason it was equated to a “black box,” and that certain structures within the cell actually possess the feature of “irreducible complexity.”
“Irreducible complexity” is a phenomenon based on empirical evidence and literally constitutes the antithesis of Darwin’s theory. The most important figure to bring this concept onto the agenda of the scientific world is the biochemist Michael J. Behe from Lehigh University in the USA. In his 1996 book Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution Behe examines the irreducibly complex natures of the cell and certain other biological structures, and reveals that these cannot possibly be accounted for in terms of evolution. Behe sets out the effect that irreducible complexity has on the claims of Darwinism thus:
“To Darwin, the cell was a ‘black box’ — its inner workings were utterly mysterious to him. Now, the black box has been opened up and we know how it works. Applying Darwin’s test to the ultra-complex world of molecular machinery and cellular systems that have been discovered over the past 40 years, we can say that Darwin’s theory has ‘absolutely broken down’.” 3
Irreducible complexity has demolished Darwinism, and proved that life is the product of intelligent design, in other words that God has created all living things. The way that NG seeks to keep this from its readers constitutes a flight from reality.
NG’s biogeographical tales
In his article in NG, Quammen begins his account of the so-called evidence for Darwinism with biogeography, and it may be of use to provide a description of this concept at this point. Biogeography is a branch of science that investigates the geographical distribution of species and seeks an answer to the question of how they came by these habitat regions by drawing up maps of their locations on the Earth.
Most books in the field of biogeography are full of facts that say nothing, neither in favour nor against, the theory of evolution: such as maps of living species’ habitat areas, the features of those areas, questions regarding the spread of organisms, and the grouping together of species on the basis of geographical area … 4
When their distribution on the Earth is examined it can be seen that species do not generally exhibit a global distribution. Species have rather spread in large groups in areas possessing specific climatic and environmental conditions. Ever since Darwin, evolutionists have sought to portray this spread as evidence for evolution, though with regard to the “fundamental” living categories of geographical distribution their efforts have failed to come up with a consistent evolutionary scenario.
In their book Systematics and Biogeography, G. Nelson and N. Platnick of the New York American Museum of Natural History analysed the studies performed in this field and set out their conclusion:
We conclude, therefore, that biogeography (or geographical distribution of organisms) has not been shown to be evidence for or against evolution in any sense. 5
If evolutionists really wish to offer evidence for their theory then what they need to do is to abandon their fairy tales about “if this living thing is found here then it must have evolved here, and if that living thing is found there then it must have evolved there,” and instead scientifically document their own responses to the question of how living things came into being in the first place. (It is an indisputable fact that the mechanisms of random mutation and natural selection cannot account for the origin of species.)
The fact that evolutionist claims based on biogeography are myths devoid of any scientific evidence clearly emerge on inspection of NG’s claims about palaeontology. The fossil record clearly reveals that the idea that living things spread by evolving is a myth.
NG’s palaeontology deception
NG makes a generalisation about the fossil strata, telling its readers that so-called closely related species are generally found side by side in consecutive strata, and that a life form going back millions of years in one stratum is followed by a similar, though not identical, one in the subsequent stratum. As an example of this generalisation it cites the equine sequence that even evolutionists abandoned years ago; it maintains that the modern-day horse emerged at the end of the sequence Hyracotherium, Orohippus, Epihippus and Mohippus, fossils of which are found in consecutive strata.
What NG is doing here consists of a blatant deception. The equine sequence is an unfounded one, the invalidity of which has now been demonstrated. That being the case, putting it forward as a generalisation regarding the fossil record cannot be described as anything else than an attempt to verify that generalisation with a deceptive example.
Life forms emerged with no evolutionary progenitors, but in a single moment, and with flawless bodily structures
Darwin, who maintained that
