Fossils – Still Bullshit

The biggest reaction I ever got from this blog was when I stated my opinion that the evidence for evolution is bullshit. Thanks to recent news, it’s time to make that case again, but this time more clearly.

I confess that my writings on this topic in the past have been difficult to comprehend because so much cognitive dissonance kicks in when the average person encounters this topic. This time I plan to fix that by stating my points as clearly as possible.

First, when I say “the evidence for evolution is bullshit,” I’m NOT saying any of the following:

1. Evolution isn’t a scientific fact.
2. All evidence for evolution is false.
3. God created the earth.

What I’m saying is that the evidence for evolution that is available to the casual person of interest, including most students, is simplified to the point of being misleading, false, or useless. In other words, the popular argument for evolution is bullshit, independent of the underlying reality of evolution or the evidence available to experts in the field.

This article on the new complexities of the human evolutionary tree makes my case better than I do.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070902/sc_livescience/humanfamilytreenowatangledmessybush

I remember learning in school about the neat line of human descent and wondering how we can be so sure about that from the relatively few fossil discoveries. It looked like bullshit to me. And now we have a better idea that it was. Some of the most basic so-called facts of human evolution were wrong, it seems. Tools were used before brains got bigger, we walked upright at the same time we did a lot of tree swinging, etc.

Proponents of evolution will angrily argue the following points that I will acknowledge first just to piss them off:

1. Science is dynamic and revises itself. That is its strength. Yay, science!
2. Revising details of evolution doesn’t mean evolution didn’t happen.
3. There is a mountain of good information for evolution.
4. Scott Adams is not a trained scientist. That’s why he doesn’t understand evolution.
5. The stuff in that article has been known to scientists for a long time.

That’s all true, I’m sure. It also has nothing to do with my point. My point is that the average non-scientist has been fed a diet of suspicious evidence for evolution for decades. And much of it turns out to be bullshit. It smelled like bullshit and it was.

My best guess for why scientists get to see the good evidence and non-scientists see bullshit is because we wouldn’t have the training or brains to understand the good stuff. So scientists in the know have two problematic choices when trying to defend their views on evolution:

1. Provide no evidence and let the masses believe God created the universe and scientists are idiots.
2. Simplify the evidence to the point of being bullshit so the gullible masses will buy it.

When you factor in the simplifications the media adds to the mix, and the uncorrected errors in textbooks, the honest errors of interpretation, the rare but publicized frauds, and the scientists looking to make names for themselves by discovering missing links, it would be a frickin’ miracle if the evidence I see for evolution wasn’t bullshit. The system virtually guarantees it.

You don’t need to give me links to web sites that “do an excellent job of answering all your questions.” I’ve been there. They don’t address my point in this post. All they do is point out that scientists themselves have convincing evidence for evolution that non-scientists don’t understand. I’m not debating that point in this post.

My other argument about evolution is that time is an illusion, which makes evolution nothing but a point of view with some utility, and not a feature of reality. But that’s a different argument.

Comments

[Mike Occhipinti]

The wide array of opinions on evolution can be bewildering, its hard to sort the wheat from the chaff. First thing, it seems to me Intelligent Design and Evolution are NOT mutually exclusive. A planet can be evolving for billions of years and then a race can come along and explicitly genetically tinker with its inhabitants. WE are doing that at this very moment, just check with Monsanto and ADM for starters with their Frankenfood forays. Stephen Jay Gould firmly believed that evolution went in fits and spurts. A very slow nudging around punctuated by bursts of intense evolutionary change. I tend to think this is correct to a point and explains the STUNNING LACK of transitional forms.

In addition, there is DEVOLUTION, which is not really addressed; but a form can move from the land to the water and back again depending on environmental factors for example, indicating that more evolved does NOT mean more advanced, just attuned/different.

The Emperor that's hanging around with no clothes is Natural Selection and Random Mutations. The numbers don't add up, there is not nearly enough mutations or time to allow for the kind of evolution these proponents claim. Its NONSENSE. Where are all the mutations? where are the 3 arms people, or people with an eyeball in the center of their forehead? Sorry folks, this theory is nonsense, obviously, if an organism possesses the traits to survive, they might have an advantage in passing down their genes, but the ONLY mechanism that can explain evolution is that the genes being passed around about being tinkered with and rewritten DURING the organism's lifetime, there may be random elements, but evolution is targeted and intelligent. Its been recently determined that messenger RNA is modifying the genes in a man's sperm and this provides the mechanism for adapting to the environment. There were two scientists, one Russian, who were proponents of this theory, but for a look at an argument AGAINST Natural Selection check out this link.

[Mike Occhipinti]

The wide array of opinions on evolution can be bewildering, its hard to sort the wheat from the chaff. First thing, it seems to me Intelligent Design and Evolution are NOT mutually exclusive. A planet can be evolving for billions of years and then a race can come along and explicitly genetically tinker with its inhabitants. WE are doing that at this very moment, just check with Monsanto and ADM for starters with their Frankenfood forays. Stephen Jay Gould firmly believed that evolution went in fits and spurts. A very slow nudging around punctuated by bursts of intense evolutionary change. I tend to think this is correct to a point and explains the STUNNING LACK of transitional forms.

In addition, there is DEVOLUTION, which is not really addressed; but a form can move from the land to the water and back again depending on environmental factors for example, indicating that more evolved does NOT mean more advanced, just attuned/different.

The Emperor that's hanging around with no clothes is Natural Selection and Random Mutations. The numbers don't add up, there is not nearly enough mutations or time to allow for the kind of evolution these proponents claim. Its NONSENSE. Where are all the mutations? where are the 3 arms people, or people with an eyeball in the center of their forehead? Sorry folks, this theory is nonsense, obviously, if an organism possesses the traits to survive, they might have an advantage in passing down their genes, but the ONLY mechanism that can explain evolution is that the genes being passed around about being tinkered with and rewritten DURING the organism's lifetime. Its been recently determined that messenger RNA is modifying the genes in a man's sperm and this provides the mechanism for adapting to the environment. There were two scientists, one Russian, who were proponents of this theory, but for a look at an argument AGAINST Natural Selection check out this link

[Steven McDaniel]

“@Steven McDaniel
Communist regime were nonreligious to direct worship to the state and not a deity. It's still totalitarianism, which is what the anti-theist is against.” Samuel

Yer what? Oh, well, I was with you right up to ‘/ \.../ /.’ So let me point you to the following website where you can see some comments on your subject I posted to the BBC Have Your Say forum that got censored by them in regards to my now ‘famous’ altercation with atheists on this very subject under their question, ‘Are you getting away this Easter?’
http://www.newssniffer.co.uk/bbc/comments/search
Just put Steven McDaniel in the search box…

[Samuel]

Wait. I don't know how much you know about evolution, but not only has this been known a long while, but it's actually been expected. Evolution is not simply a linear, gradual change: ie: Horses didn't evolve from the infamous dawn horse, to modern horse, without bumps, twists, and a general maze-like series of breaks and spits in the evolutionary tree. Let me show you in picture form, without specie names, cause that's irrelevant:
Taught in school:
\ /
.\./
..|.../
...\|/
....|
Actuality:
../
\/..\/.|
.|/ //\|/
..\|/._|_|/
...\|/
....|

When lines stop that represents extinction. The reason its simplified in schools is because of how trivial and unimportant the extra-species and subspecies really are when being taught the origin of man. All we 'need' to teach are the line leading to us, and other major branches, instead of the frivolous twigs that are essentially meaningless to evolution, and are just the result of jumbled, hierarchal cladistics.

@Steven McDaniel
Communist regime were nonreligious to direct worship to the state and not a deity. It's still totalitarianism, which is what the anti-theist is against.

[Steven McDaniel]

"...God is a fantasy believed by those unwilling to accept their mortality, to instill fear in children and used as a reason for the most horrible of mass murder (war)..."
jEFF bRISSON

jEFF - Just a little wake up call. Move your finger if you can hear me. Try and understand this: Stalin, Pol Pot, Chairman Mao, Ho Chi Min, Fidel Castro, Enva Hoxa and many more were atheists despots who shared your view that religion was bad. They also murdered more people in the name of atheism (see Human Rights Watch) in the 20th century (and still today) than all the religious nut jobs in all the preceding centuries in history (including our friends from the religion of peace). So you'd better refuse to read your own writings as well as Mr Adams', seeing as you endorse a view that has generated unprecedented mass murder as a method of government.

[Jef Brisson]

I may believe you arguments if there were such a thing as this god you speak of. God is a fantasy believed by those unwilling to accept their mortality, to instill fear in children and used as a reason for the most horrible of mass murder (war). I have been a fan of Dilbert since I first read the strip. No longer will I read it. I respect any view you may have on your god but you should have just kept them to yourself.

Cheers,

jEFF bRISSON

[Steven McDaniel]

Rob says:
"Scott:

Dilbert is funny.
Your science ramblings: not funny."

Rob, I couldn't agree more! Now for real laughs I go to the evolutionists' websites.

[Steven McDaniel]

Patrick M says:
'..a little late, but this might persuade you that Darwin is indeed right despite the alleged fossil issue. I cant speak to the fossil issue directly, but im sure you are wrong, i just dont have the time to prove it ;).."
http://www.wired.com/medtech/genetics/magazine/15-09/st_3smart

OK, Patrick, I looked up the website, and found this ingenious (sorry for the pun) observation:

"3. Important genes usually exist in multiple copies, in case one iteration gets damaged. This results in lots of leftover, deactivated genes from up the evolutionary tree — solid molecular proof that Darwin was right — birds have genes for teeth; humans share genes with gorillas."

Thank you for providing me with an ideal example of the way you evolutionists treat any details you find with the circular argument that evolution is, of course, true, and therefore anything similar you find out about organisms that triggers off that circular argument in your predisposed little minds is proof of it, that should at last convince us unbelievers.

How do you know that there might not be sub-microscopic distinctions you have not yet discovered between the genes that are 'for teeth in birds', etc, and the ones that produce teeth in animals that actually have them? Thank you for this prime example of how you evolutionists invariably romance with the truth. You are interpreting 'evidence' from a philosophical perspective, not an empirical perspective. That, boys and girls, is not science.

As one of the contributors to the very website you gave the link to said:
"To interpret this new understanding of genes as support for darwin is not much different than: my house and my sawhorse are both made of wood, so somehow my house came from a sawhorse!! Come on...."

The only 'proof' that evolution is science is that the Supreme Court of the same justice system that let off O.J. said it is, and any people who doubt it are redneck creationists who watch NASCAR and make moonshine, 'and don't teach any doubts about it in school.' And who said blind faith should not be taught in schools?

[Rob]

Scott:

Dilbert is funny.
Your science ramblings: not funny.

[Patrick M]

a little late, but this might persuade you that Darwin is indeed right despite the alleged fossil issue. I cant speak to the fossil issue directly, but im sure you are wrong, i just dont have the time to prove it ;)

http://www.wired.com/medtech/genetics/magazine/15-09/st_3smart

[David Kimball]

Evolution can answer the question of "what" something is as fact. But it can only answer the questions of "how" and "why" as story or metaphor. It cannot present those answers as fact.

[Steven McDaniel]

Mark Wales states:
"...However, I disagree that no one has made the effort to really explain evolution without dumbing it down. There are many books on the subject that are brilliantly written but not dumbed-down. The early works of Richard Dawkins......"Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale And The Nature Of History" by Stephen Jay Gould..."

Mark, I would never ask, as you said others do: "Why haven't monkey's evolved into humans then?" This is because I know, as you so clearly explained, that we both evolved separately from 'whatever.' ["..whatever common ancestor we share"]. Some compelling specifics there, and they are no doubt incontrovertibly substantiated by artists' impressions in tomes on evolution everywhere.

But, I would like to bring to your attention what your recommended authors have said, in reference to a couple of insurmountable objections I do have to evolution:

1) In regards to the question you hate me to ask: 'Why are there no transitional fossils??'

Actually, first I quote from the Origin of Species, the book that started it all, written by Father Charles Darwin himself:
"…Why, if species have descended from other species by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion, instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?… But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?… But in the intermediate region, having intermediate conditions of life, why do we not now find closely-linking intermediate varieties?.."
And as I know you will say his ideas here are out of date, I will next quote your recommended modern author Stephen Jay Gould:
“The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology...The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism...Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth...In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and ‘fully formed.’’’

2) As regards to my contention that the order in which fossils appear actually totally contradicts the order in which we were supposed to have evolved, (ie, from 'goo' to you):

I quote your other recommended author, Stalin-botherer Richard Dawkins, famous for saying that evolution has 'made the world safe for atheists.' In response to the 'Cambrian Explosion' where all sorts of fossils were found where they should never be according to the order in time evolution would require Dawkins said:
'It is as though they were just planted there, without evolutionary history.' (Ya really think??)

Of course, the opposition between your recommended authors Dawkins and Gould is perhaps the most well known intellectual stand-off in modern science (read 'Dawkins vs Gould: Survival of the Fittest', by Kim Sterelny). Dawkins and Gould argue over the purported abundance of or lack of 'transitional fossils' respectively. The lack of transitional fossils Gould said would have to be explained by the secular miracle of 'punctuated equilibrium', actually known as 'punk-eek' in scientific circles, where all evolutionary processes would have had to occur in short bursts of geological time too brief to leave fossil evidence, interspersing gazillion year periods of 'stasis' where no evolution occurred.

Whether in short bursts in geological time, or over a billion gazillion years. it is still statistically impossible for evolution to have occurred anyway, but the alternative explanation, which would have to involve a Supreme Intelligence is so abhorrent to today's society that they even ban it's discussion in schools through the courts, saying, basically, if it doesn't exclude the concept of 'God', it's not science. Thanks for the opportunity for dissidents to have a voice here Scott, you are doing freedom of speech a service. Please never change that!

[Mark Wales]

I agree with your point to some extent. The average person's knowledge of evolution often leaves much to be desired. For example, it is not too uncommon that I get asked "Why haven't monkey's evolved into humans then?" when I'm telling people about evolution. And this is a question that could only be asked by someone that didn't fully understand evolution (the answer to the question, of course, being that monkeys are as evolved as we are from whatever common ancestor we share and that humans are not the aim of evolution, so why should monkeys turn into us?). But these are all university educated people. So there clearly is a problem with how evolution is taught.
However, I disagree that no one has made the effort to really explain evolution without dumbing it down. There are many books on the subject that are brilliantly written but not dumbed-down. The early works of Richard Dawkins are a perfect example of this. "River Out of Eden", "The Selfish Gene", and "The Blind Watchmaker" are all excellent explanations of evolution (I would read them in the order I gave them in). Another great book is "Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale And The Nature Of History" by Stephen Jay Gould. All of these books explain evolution and point out the normal misunderstandings. They also point out where evolution has its gaps. I would thoroughly recommend them to anyone wishing a fuller understanding of evolutionary theory.

[Monica]

evolution is not a theory. phylogenetic trees are theories.

[Gekkobear]

"And fine, you can tell me to piss off and stop reading your online ramblings if I don't like them, but as an intelligent person, don't you want to feel that you have presented a watertight argument, rather than something that could be printed next to topless girls in newspapers mostly made up of horoscopes and football scores...? (At least in the UK)"

Hang on, there are newspapers with topless girls, and you've noted that it's primarily horoscopes and football scores? Really?

I guess someone does just read the articles in Playboy... that changes my entire worldview... I didn't think people like this really existed.

And yes, that's what I took away from your post. :)

[Joe]

Scott,

You're totally right -- most of the evolution 'story' provided for popular consumption is oversimplified hogwash. Not unlike many other stories we're provided in place of science, hard evidence and well-falsified theorems.

I also like your point about time. Godel did some work with Einstein in the forties and was able to use the field equations to show time didn't exist. You know what happened next? Nothing. For sixty years. Physicists STILL don't have a real solution to the provable lack of absolute time, certainly not one you or I could understand.... Phillip K Dick writes like this sometimes. From this perspective, it's true that evolution would only be a useful 'tool' for understanding what we are observing.

However, if time itself is the illusion, then the question becomes not about randomness vs directedness, but about complexity. Which is exactly where I think the question about evolution can be most clearly discussed.

I think another reason there's a lot of difficulty in educating people more broadly about evolution is that it's not just a statement about human life, but about ecosystems. It's a theory which embraces the whole biosphere as a unified whole. It's because evolution is shamelessly about sex and death at once, but yet it's not making any kind of moral claim about one species being objectively better than another.

The only claim evolution makes that's even remotely moral is that we depend on, and indeed developed out of a biosphere which includes billions and billions of other species. Yet somehow this position strikes many people as too "disinterested," and of course many scientists consciously desires to appear more "objective" than the religious folks, so their very *position* ends up sounding elitist. So the real point is lost, and the whole debate circles round once more...

Joe

[Steven McDaniel]

Robert Welles says:
"..I am stunned that you advocate ID which is clearly [BS] concocted by lawyers, our most prolific [BS'ers], to circumvent USSC decisions which prevent teaching creationism in public schools..."

Robert, Robert, you've obviously been stunned for quite a while. You think ID is BS, we and the scientists that put forth ID think evolution is BS. Fair enough, Scott allows open discussion from both viewpoints on this forum here, and kudos to you for promoting democracy and freedom of speech, Scott. But, Robert, for you to have the temerity to bring lawyers into the discussion?? Robert, whose lawyers have succeeded in using the Supreme Court to make sure if a teacher even whispers 'ID' in school, that school gets shut down or forced to pay up to a million dollars in legal fees. Just don't mention lawyers again, please.

[Steven McDaniel]

Duckman 1957 says (quoting yours truly):
".." ' One simple fact remains however, the fossils are found in layers that give a fair idea of their order.' "
Steven McDaniel
That gives a fair idea of their order if one assumes that the order they're found in is the order they evolved/lived in. It's called "begging the question" and it's a no-no.
'As I said before, get another theory.'
Steven McDaniel
Sure thing. It's called Intelligent Design theory. And while there is some overlap, it is hardly the same thing as Creationism. And it's becoming a bigger challenge to Evolutionary theory every day. Something which the evolutionists will soon no longer be able to ignore. (Better brush up on your math and information science, folks. It's the coming thing.)"

Heinz 57 (sorry I couln't resist it - I read too many MAD magazines!), I think you are mistakenly quoting a 'point' I myself was quoting from another post and was arguing passionately against. I agree with everything you say in yours, by the way. Whatever order the fossils show up in, the evolutionists will modify their 'theory' to fit it. It's called, 'Science is dynamic and revises itself. That is its strength. Yay, science!' Take their response to the 'Cambrian explosion' which I referred to in my post you were quoting my quote from. I seriously believe Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four got his super powers from reading the evolutionists' revision of their theory over the decades in response to changes in the fossil record and other scientific discoveries. Of course they haven't been able to revise the schoolbooks on evolution as quickly as they have constantly revised their articles in peer-pressure-reviewed 'scientific' journals, so the BS promulgated in the 'scientific' community ('scientific' is the term used by the US justice system for believers in evolution when they are censoring school reading materials) is more fluid than the BS in school materials. When will the sleeping masses wake up to this? Soon, I hope!

[GNZ]

I think evolution is fundamentally a set of trends taken out of context. The term itself draws lines of demarcation that have no real world basis. Bad enough that things like time can break down when you look at them closely let alone vague things like evolution. So we are crippled from the start in explaining to the average man what evolution is.

Ideally you would explain everything about how the universe is and the question of 'does evolution exist' would not need to be asked, it would be obvious.

As it is, a position like ID invites a counter argument and a school child invites a concept they can grasp. As a result all sorts of memes will be created and will mutate in the public sphere in a sort of Chinese whisper. Those that sell themselves best will tend to emerge in their own sort of evolution. Setting up some unstable (although possibly true) memes would be like trying to flood the planet with small flightless birds.

[Sweet Pea]

Scott, Scott, Scott. A depressing amount of backpedeling from a man who has made the most honest and at the same time, hilarious discusion of Origins theory I've ever seen. Don't bow to the angry masses. Continue to call shit when you see it (lest it land on your head).

[Robert Welles]

It is the word “bullshit” that caught my attention. I recently read my first good philosophy book, On Bullshit by Frankfurt. I grant that there is a lot of bullshit taught about evolution, but that is not the fault of scientists. If your read Science or Nature you will see the debate about human evolution proceeding by citation of evidence, argument and counter argument. The source of the bullshit is innumerate text book authors, school boards, journalists, bloggers, and social “scientists”.

I am stunned that you advocate ID which is clearly bullshit concocted by lawyers, our most prolific bullshitters, to circumvent USSC decisions which prevent teaching creationism in public schools.

I don’t even see the attraction of ID even for those inclined to theism. The Darwinian view is that the universe does the selecting in natural selection, leaving aside questions of the nature and origin of the universe. This seems far more comforting to me than some deity who frivolously wipes out 90+% of species, but hey, that’s just me.

[Steven McDaniel]

Sambobly said:
"What is with people that say there are no "transitional fossils"? Surely, it is possible to see that fossils of fish with leg like limbs are pretty bloody transitional. Also, what do you exactly want in transitional fossils? It seems to me that some people, when they find out there is actually a possible fossil linkage between two species just claims that there are now two more gaps between the species! It is insanity at its greatest."

You know, Sambobly, even if, for instance, something you'd like to say is 'related' to legs shows up on a fish, it is simply insistence on superimposing Darwinian type philosophy on the appearance of such a fossil that would cause anyone to extrapolate the whole evolutionary theory from such fossils. That is not science, it is a no-no. And I don't care if a fish fossil was found with fully formed legs complete with tap dancing shoes - it is too much of a leap of faith for an 'unbeliever' like me, from the logical to the ludicrous, to assume the legs at some wonderful point either developed or sprouted with uncanny synchronicity, complete with associated tissues and musculature designed for locomotion, and a neural network that uncannily interfaced with the brain functions to respond to stimuli and act accordingly, by some random genetic mutations driven only by some kind of 'need for survival' the organism is supposed to have. No one in their right mind would cling to such a belief, let alone call it 'science'. Pretty soon the evolutionists' whole house of cards is going to come tumbling down, because it is a patently untenable proposition, and it will eventually no longer be able to avoid and survive the logical light of day.

[duckman1957]

i've always maintained that ... Darwinism was pushed by the Ruling Class so as to encourage the Masses to identify with animals (presumably so they'd not so.much complain when they're treated as such).

can a good Marxist be a Darwinist? i honestly don't see how...
C.S. Barrios

Didn't you read that book by what's-his-name a few years ago? The one that explained how Dilbert is a safety valve against revolution and how Scott Adams is a tool of corporate America? Your kind ain't welcome around here.

Besides, how can a good Marxist not be a Darwinist? Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, all gave to testimonials to Darwin and his ideas. And Darwin gives great support to materialists, as in "dialetical materialists".

And yeah, the rulers do encourage the view of the rest of us as animals. That's also not unlike the Marxists.

"All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."

"Ignorance is Strength."

Remember to hate Goldstein two minutes every day.

[duckman1957]

One simple fact remains however, the fossils are found in layers that give a fair idea of their order.
Steven McDaniel

That gives a fair idea of their order if one assumes that the order they're found in is the order they evolved/lived in. It's called "begging the question" and it's a no-no.

As I said before, get another theory.
Steven McDaniel

Sure thing. It's called Intelligent Design theory. And while there is some overlap, it is hardly the same thing as Creationism. And it's becoming a bigger challenge to Evolutionary theory every day. Something which the evolutionists will soon no longer be able to ignore. (Better brush up on your math and information science, folks. It's the coming thing.)

[C.S. Barrios]

interesting p.o.v.

i've always maintained that ... Darwinism was pushed by the Ruling Class so as to encourage the Masses to identify with animals (presumably so they'd not so.much complain when they're treated as such).

can a good Marxist be a Darwinist? i honestly don't see how...