As we saw at the outset, evolution requires a constant supply of variations for natural selection to work on – but where do variations come from? Darwin assumed that they just happened, and that was good enough – and also that those variations could go on accumulating and extending ad infinitum, given a good slice of “deep time”.

Hugo de Vries
In 1900 Hugo de Vries suggested a modification of Darwin’s theory called “Mutationism”. Although other evolutionists, such as Haldane, rushed to discredit him, de Vries had concluded from his observations of nature that there are two distinct and very different kinds of variation in organisms:

The first kind were “Ordinary” variations, such as the tiny differences found in a litter of kittens or the offspring of any organism. According to de Vries, Natural Selection working on these “ordinary” variations could never, under any circumstances, even in millions of years, “lead to a transgression of species”, as he put it.

The second kind were “Mutations” which were caused, he suggested, by spontaneous and mysterious alterations in the genes, and which yielded significant modifications of the organism. These, he speculated, might eventually lead to new species. . [Ed: So Hugo was making the same assumption as Darwin and Lamarck, right? i.e. limit-less variation.]

According to de Vries, mutations, which result in wholesale, coordinated modifications of in the DNA of organisms rather than miniscule variations, never arise gradually, little by little, by the accumulation of small changes, but come about suddenly without any visible preparation or transition – a fact consistently confirmed in the fossil record, and still a source of dissension among evolutionists today as they ponder the problem of “punctuated equilibrium”.

[Ed: I think it was Hugo who said: “Natural selection may explain the survival of the fittest, but it cannot explain the arrival of the fittest”? I’ll check it out in his book: “Species and Varieties: Their Origin by Mutation”.]

Although Darwin was aware of “mutations” as exploited by plant breeders of the day, he had no credible explanation for them, and therefore preferred to focus on “ordinary” variations. Dr. Dawkins and his devotees, however, even in the light of modern discovery, still expect us to believe that even these meaningful “mutations” in the incredible complexity of the cell mechanism are conveniently created by the fortuitous and coordinated accumulation of random DNA copying errors. . [Ed: Doesn’t that imply, G-Man, that every plant and animal we admire got here by accident, by mistake, and should not really exist? If so, then why is a human being any more important than a cabbage, except they can do more useful things than a cabbage can? ]

Polygenes
Even De Vries’ “ordinary” variation in organisms such as puppies, for example, is not as simple as Darwin supposed, because it depends on two different factors. Part of the variation is simply due to factors such as the health of the mother, the nutritional intake of the puppies before and since birth, and even the position of a particular puppy in the womb. All of which, de Vries pointed out, can have no kind of evolutionary knock-on effect because the effect is not inherited by the next generation.

According to current theory, the remainder of this “ordinary” variation is due to the action of “polygenes”. In contrast to traits such as eye colour which may be under the control of a single “major” gene, quantitative variations, such as height or the size of a particular bone, are thought to be controlled by the cumulative action of several genes. [Ed: Careful, G-Man. That’s the theory as of lunchtime today, but they might change their minds tomorrow.] If this were not the case, then, after allowing for environmental variation, all members of a population would have identical dimensions.

Such is the complexity of the chromosome structure, which is still poorly understood, the several polygenes for a given trait may be located far apart, with “junk” genes interspersed between. The polygene team players may even be located on different chromosomes—and may even help influence other traits as well. [Ed: You cannot be serious, G-Man!]

Whilst some polygenes tend to maximise (+) a trait, others will tend to minimize it (-)
With just a few polygenes at work (+ and -), a range of say a dozen discrete dimension values might be possible for a particular feature because of the possible combinations. However, when the environmental/nutritonal factor is blended in, the illusion of a continuous height range is created.

Natural interbreeding will shuffle the distribution of the polygenes in a given population of organism, resulting in a typical average size with a range of sizes above and below. By selective breeding of taller members of a population, however, a tall breed could be created, which would have only the (+) polygenes in their sex cells for a particular trait, their “genotype”. At that point, however, unless a mutation occurs, no further increase will be possible.

Hairy Stuff!
The action of polygenes has been investigated using the Drosophila Melanogaster fruit fly, which is used in such studies because it breeds so rapidly – being able to produce a new generation every 12 days, or 30 times a year. One particular study focused on the number of bristles on the flies’ bodies, which was found to vary in a certain population from 26 up to 55, with an average of 40. According to theory, those with more hairs had mostly (+) polygenes for hair count and those with fewest had mostly the (-) type. [Ed: Is it really true, G-Man, that the name Drosophila Melanogaster means “black bellied honey lover”?]

As expected, by carefully interbreeding those with average bristle counts, and selecting out those offspring with a higher count, scientists found that they could quickly create a population with the maximum possible number of 55, but no more – an interesting illustration of “micro-evolution”, better described as simple variation. Without some kind of new mutation occurring, that was the limit of the variation for that particular trait.

Question Time
At this point, readers might like to test their understanding of polygenes by explaining the following historical fact: “Over a 75 year period starting in 1800 selective breeding of sugar beet plants was able to increase the sugar content from 6% to 17% -- but there the improvement stopped, and further selection did not increase the sugar content any further.”

Allelomorphs and Polymorphism
A major gene that controls a feature such as colour will be located at a specific position on a chromosome called its “locus”. In the snail Cepaea nemoralis, for example, there are several genes for shell colour extant in a typical snail population, including brown, pink and yellow -- but since the chromosomes are in pairs there will only be two “loci” available for colour genes to occupy in a particular snail. As a result, no single snail can in theory carry the genetic information for all possible shell colours. Such a feature or locus is said to be “polymorphic”, a term which simply means “many shapes or forms” – and the alternative genes for a given trait are called “alleles”.or “allelomorphs”. [Ed: We should warn readers, G-Man, that they will be tested on the spelling of important terms at the end of this book!]

Since in many organisms, such as insects and flowers, some 30 to 50% of the loci on the chromosomes may be polymorphic, the potential variety of combinations is vast – so that in a field of sunflowers, for example, which are visibly and evidently the same variety, no two individual plants might be identical in every detail – such as height, stem thickness, surface texture, petal width, shade of colour, etc., etc., etc.

As a result, a plant breeder let loose on our field of sunflowers could soon start “out-breeding” features he didn’t want, and “inbreeding” to select those he did want – probably being rewarded along the way by a few interesting mutations generated by the creative action of the “self-developing genome” that has apparently been engineered into every organism.

By combining the action of allelomorphs and polygenes and a steady stream of mutations, a vast amount of variation is possible, again as demonstrated by dogs – but all of it within the basic design or “bauplan” of the “kind” of organism concerned, and none of it “evolution” in the deluded Darwinian sense, which is why Sheppard frankly admits: “No mutation converting one species into another has ever been observed”. [Ed: The Prof actually put that in writing, G-Man? Wow!]

Mutation or Mutation?
In 1927, De Vries idea of variation by “mutation” as the mechanism of evolution was further developed by Russian entomologist Iurii Filipchenko, in a book entitled “Variability and Variation”, where he introduced the terms “micro-evolution” and “macro-evolution”, useful descriptors which we have already employed in our discussion.

The idea was that “Micro-evolution” described the mutational variation within a species or “kind” of organism, such as those observed and exploited by plant and animal breeders – and that “Macro-evolution” described the massive variation that evolutionists assume must have happened in order for fish, for example, to have developed legs and turned into land animals, etc., etc.
In summary, micro-evolution is a well established and useful fact of life designed to give mankind a creative handle on the earth’s ecology, but macro-evolution is a creation myth in the minds of evolutionists, a Darwinian delusion.

A Royal Society Statement
Prompted by demands of creationists to have Intelligent Design (ID) taught in schools along side evolution, the Royal Society in London issued a statement condemning ID. The extract that follows illustrates yet again the infantile Darwinian delusion of failing to distinguish between the reality of limit-ed micro-evolution and the myth of limit-less macro-evolution, as well as repeating Darwin’s basic mathematical error of unwarranted extrapolation beyond the range of available data :
Quote: “The process of evolution can be seen in action today, for example in the development of resistance to antibiotics in disease-causing bacteria, of resistance to pesticides by insect pests, and the rapid evolution of viruses that are responsible for influenza and AIDS. Darwin's theory of evolution helps us to understand these problems.” For “evolution” here, read “variation within their Genesis kind” or “micro-evolution”.

Intelligent Design
Incidentally, ID, which is now seen as the major threat to the evolutionary establishment, is well described in the same Royal Society statement which continues: “Some proponents of an alternative explanation for the diversity of life on Earth now claim that their theories are based on scientific evidence. One such view is presented as the theory of intelligent design. This proposes that some species are too complex to have evolved through Natural Selection and that therefore life on Earth must be the product of a 'designer'. “

Notice, in that Royal Society statement, in the phrase “evolved through Natural Selection”, the misleading and actually un-Darwinian implication that Natural Selection somehow creates variation or mutations in organisms , rather than simply screening or acting on it.

Sadly, perhaps as a consequence of the narrow specialisation that necessarily denies virtually all scientists a comprehensive overview of the whole field, the spokesman for the august body then trots out the following favourite falsehood, claiming that ID supporters “make only selective reference to the overwhelming scientific evidence that supports evolution”. [Ed: I wonder if the Royal Society knows, G-Man, that the Discovery Institute (www.Discovery.org) has lists of hundreds of highly qualified and enlightened engineers, doctors, geologists, etc., who now refute the existence of that “overwhelming evidence”?]

A Wise Move
It is interesting that although creationists clearly see the errors of evolution, evolutionists also clearly see the key error of “creationism”, namely the unscriptural claim that the earth is no more than six thousand years old, an easy target which they attack with attack with enthusiasm.

The Intelligent Design movement has therefore been very wise in re-engineering the debate, so to speak, and removing barriers to the acceptance of their criticisms by confining their attention to the errors of evolution without making any counter claims regarding Genesis, the age of the earth, or even identifying God as the Intelligent Designer. Instead they focus on the fact that the infantile claims of Darwin and Dawkins, which are an affront to the common sense of any right-thinking person, that the mind-boggling complexity of life on earth somehow created itself accidentally by the endless accumulation of DNA copying errors.

Synthetic Evolution
The year Filipchenko published his book, a brilliant young member of his research team, Theodosius Dobzhansky migrated to the United States where he gained fame as the champion of the concept of “synthetic evolution”—which was a blend of Darwin’s natural selection and Mendel’s discoveries in genetics that had been developed a few years earlier by geneticists such as as J.B.S. Haldane and R.A. Fisher, but published in such abstruse mathematical terms that most biologist simply could not understand what they were talking about.

What Dobzhansky did, in a book of his own entitled “Genetics and Origin of Species”, was to explain the concepts much more simply, and attempt to apply them to practical problems of interest to evolutionists.

As a result, by1950 Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection was universally believed by biologists, and the Synthetic theory version in particular had become widely adopted.

Note, however, that biologists at that time still had little notion of the massive complexity that was to be revealed by the scanning electron microscope and the research of Watson and Crick – and even less understanding of how mutations could possibly arise. They simply let their imaginations take flight, assuming, like Darwin himself, that since “micro-evolution” was a fact of life, that any and all organisms therefore had the inbuilt potential for the infinite variation required by “macro-evolution”.

Modern evolutionists, such as Derek Hough, however, know better and openly admit that although they accept evolution as a faith, they still have no clue, when confronted by the mind-boggling complexity of the cell, as to how it could possibly have arisen or developed.

It Ain’t Necessarily So!
Jumping forwards a few decades, evolutionists of the 1960’s, still pretty ignorant of the utter inner complexity of any and all living organisms, firmly believed and confidently taught an updated version of Darwinism – namely, that evolution takes place by the steady accumulation, over vast eras of time, of small changes in the genes – claiming that the fossil record proved it.

So convincing was their specious reasoning, at least to young college students, that Stephen J. Gould, who later became a hero of the evolutionary cause, said: “I well remember how the ‘synthetic theory’ beguiled me with its unifying power when I was a graduate student in the mid-1960’s” - but added: “Since then I have been watching it slowly unravel as a universal description of evolution . . . I have been reluctant to admit it — since beguiling is often forever — that the theory, as a general proposition, is effectively dead, despite its persistence as textbook orthodoxy.” .” [Ed: I know you shouldn’t belive all you read in the newspapers, G-Man, but science textbooks too? That’s a bit worrying, old chap. ]

Punctuated Equilibrium
In 1972, a more mature Stephen J. Gould, along with Niles Eldredge, published a paper challenging the synthetic model of evolution as a gradual process, proposing instead a “punctuated equilibrium” model, whereby, as apparently evidenced by the fossil record, major evolutionary changes took place step-wise in limited gene pools after radical climate changes – not at all in the way Darwin envisioned or could possibly explain.

As often happens in science, Gould’s term of punctuated equilibrium cleverly describes or labels a phenomenon without actually explaining it – namely the fact that the fossil record continues to show sets of distinct and fully formed organisms rather than the gradual gradation demanded by Darwin. What Gould clearly imagined was that after a stable period of millions of years in which certain organisms thrived in a certain form, “evolution” somehow leapt into explosive action and mutated them into dramatically new and different forms.

The paper, later described as a “time bomb”, was apparently ignored by orthodoxy for some five years, until a second paper was published, the outcome of which was a special conferenece in Chicago where, according to a report in “Science” magazine: “Clashes of personality and academic sniping created palpable tension”. ”. [Ed: Apparently the men in white coats had to call in some men in even whiter coats who palpated their collars.]

Much of the evidence for the new theory was provided by our old friends the Trilobites – since in passing from one rock strata to the next, dramatically different fossil forms appeared. However, even today, Trilobite buffs are still cracking open lumps of rock and shuffling fossil bits about hoping to discover evidence of some kind of gradual development of one trilobite variety into the next. . [Ed: Once a trilobite, always a trilobite, G-Man.]

Speaking of such extinct organisms, Gould said: “They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear” – and even more specifically: “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’. . [Ed: Pow!!! Splat!!! Take THAT Big D!]

Incidentally, puncutated equilibrium seems to have been a simple reversion to the early days of evolution when two schools of thought emerged – the “continous” school who thought like Darwin that evolution had occurred in tiny steps, and the “discontinous” who saw change occuring in large steps, i.e. meaningful mutations.

Absolute Faith
Despite his rejection of the synthetic theory, however, Gould reaffirmed the “Faith”, commenting that “Evolutionary theory is now enjoying this uncommon vigor. Yet amidst all this turmoil no biologist has been led to doubt the fact that evolution occurred; we are debating how it happened. We are all trying to explain the same thing: the tree of evolutionary descent linking all organisms by ties of genealogy. Creationists pervert and caricature this debate by conveniently neglecting the common conviction that underlies it, and by falsely suggesting that evolutionists now doubt the very phenomenon we are struggling to understand.” [Ed: Keep talking and struggling, fellas. I’m putting the kettle on. What you need is a good hot cup of “conviction”!]

The “Creeps” versus the “Jerks”
The embarrassing intellectual debacle of evolution to which Gould contributed was well reported recently in the prestigious British news magazine the “Economist” (December 2006 issue, article “Repeat after me”) which described the two current and conflicting schools of thought. On the one side we have the “Creeps” who believe, like Darwin and Dawkins, that evolution must have taken place gradually and over vast ages of time in order to lend the process any shred of credibility — and on the other side we have the “Jerks” , the “punctuated equilibrium” pundits who think that evolution must have taken place in jumps, in order to explain the absence of “intermediate” or “unfit” forms in the fossil record that Darwin required as the crucial proof of his theory.

Forget the Fossil Record!
Meanwhile, G-Theory suggests that the bulk of the fossil record, from the trilobite to the age of the dinosaurs, from the Cambrian to the Upper Cretaceous, represents the flora and fauna of a previous, pre-Adamic world – organisms that did not evolve into present day plants and animals, because they were catastrophically destroyed and made extinct. If that is so, then the findings of the fossil record become almost irrelevant to any discussion of the origins of present-day organisms.

The View of Gregor Mendel
Slipping back in time, Austrian monk, Gregor Mendel, “father of modern genetics”, published his findings in the transactions of the “Brunn Natural History Society” in 1866, and was busy carryingout his brilliant investigations into the genetic properties of garden peas at the very time Darwin was busy developing his theory of evolution.

One year earlier, and evidently somewhat aware of the various evolutionary ideas that were brewing up, and the challenge being posed to the Genesis account of creation, Mendel made the following comments in a lecture: “No one will seriously maintain that in the open country the development of plants is ruled by other laws than in the garden bed. Here, as there, changes of type must take place if the conditions of life be altered, and the species possesses the capacity of fitting itself to its new environment. [However,] nothing justifies the assumption that the tendency to form varieties increases so extraordinarily that the species speedily lose all stability, and their offspring diverge into an endless series of extremely variable forms.”

[Ed: Gregor seems to be suggesting that a change in environment can stimulate a creative response in a plant. Interesting idea, G-Man. Didn’t Lamarck have a similar idea?]

Notice that Mendel clearly perceived the Darwin delusion – understanding that although God had engineered into organisms the ability to adapt or “fit” themselves to altered “conditions of life” in “new environments”, “nothing justifies the assumption” that “extraordinary” and “endless” variation can take place. [Ed: Evolutionists love assumptions, G-Man.You should know that. The bigger the better.]

Mendel, incidentally, was only an amateur naturalist, which may help explain why he had long forsaken his research work to take on active and arduous duties in the Church and was in fact deceased before his outstanding discoveries were ever properly appreciated by the professional scientific community. [Ed: Did you know, G-Man, that many people, like Darwin, did not even bother to open and read the papers Mendel posted to them?]

Stability and Change
Notice that Mendel was concered with how organisms pass on their already existing features, such as tall and dwarfing growth habits – probably realizing that were it not for a steady flow of mutations, the variety of life would have stagnated long ago. Darwin, however, was more interested in change or “evolution”, a term which first appeared in an anonymous article, possibly authored by his uncle.

Despite the occurrence of mutations, DNA is actually very stable and very resistant to change – with Professor Sheppard pointing out in his book “Natural Selection and Heredity” that there is a “complicated repair mechanism which often restores the molecule to its original form” if a mistake is made in the self-copying process. This, he says, is why mutations are very rare. He then tests our credulity by happily accepting that , “new and striking varieties arise suddenly”—simply as a result of random individual DNA copying errors.

According to G-Theory, all organisms contains versions of the “Self-developing Genome” postulated by Derek Hough, which in addition to a range of ready-made adaptations, to help fit them to purpose and enviornment, after the manner suspected by Lamarck, may also possess the creative power to generate appropriate new mutations in response to need.

[Ed: There’s rumour on the web, G-Man, that that DNA now stands for “Darwinism Not Applicable” .]

Mendel Would Turn in his Grave
It used to be quite easy for evolutionists to hoodwink the scientifically un-initiated with their confident pronouncements as to the origins of man and the universe, but even the general public is now beginning to realize that scientists make an awful lot of mistakes and do an awful lot of changing their minds -- notably in the area of nutrition and health, for example, where what was good to eat yesterday, such as full-fat butter or milk, is supposedly no longer good for us, and what was once bad, such as coffee, may now help keep cancer at bay. . [Ed: According to the Da Vinci translation of the Bible discovered in my brother-in-law’s garden shed last week, Moses actually led the people of Israel a the ‘land of low-fat milk and honey’. What a visionary! How could he know all that stuff?]

A significant recent overturning of a scientific absolute concerns Mendel’s laws of inheritance, which figure prominently in “Neo-Darwinism”

Like people, cats and mice, for example, have “diploid” genes, which means that for each potential body characteristic, such as eye colour, they have two genes, one from each parent. Which gene comes out on top in the ensuing sexual conflict, depends on which is “dominant” and which is “recessive”. [Ed: Mendel invented those terms, G_Man. I suppose you knew that. ]

Thus when two mice mate, the outcome for a particular trait will potentially depend on four genes, the two in each parent prior mating. In a pure breed, all four genes for eye colour, for example, could be the same – so that only one colour would be possible in the offspring. At least that is the theory, as currently taught in text books. [Sorry, G-Man, but I am now a bit wary of what I read in biology textbooks. ]

However, a recent article of the above title in the British “New Scientist” magazine (27 May 2006, page 16 ) says: “Another direct challenge has been posed to one of the cornerstones of biology, Mendel’s laws of inheritance - which state that the characteristics of a particular offspring are dictated by DNA, by the combination of dominant and recessive genes in the two parents”.

Researchers at a university in Nice, in France, have now discovered in breeding experiments involving mice with brown tails and spotted tails that even after several generations, and in direct violation of Mendel’s laws, puppy mice may still be born with spotted tails when neither parent possesses the relevant genes. [Ed: Say it properly G-Man – the spots had been “outbred”.]

The researchers suggest that in addition to DNA, the action of which is governed by Mendel’s laws, molecules of RNA must also be transferred in the reproductive process and be instrumental in passing on genetic information no longer present in the genes, a kind of back-door delivery. How this happens is not yet understood, but the team leader stated that “such oddities are likely to be just the tip of the iceberg”.

Meanwhile, the lay observer could be forgiven for assuming from the confident and highly publicized assertions of evolutionists such as Richard Dawkins, who declare non-believers in the gospel of Darwin to be literally insane, that “Evolution” already has all the answers - even attributing to DNA the creation of mind, personality, consciousness, emotion and instinct, when the simple fact is, as already noted, they do not even understand the function of the bulk of the DNA found in cells, casually dismissing it as so much genetic “junk