The Evils of Evolutionary Theory

Talk given at an Intelligent Design conference on the horrible effects of evolutionary theory in history, from racial genocie to abortion to anti-humanity movements.



Fact is, all these evils do logically follow from the ToE even if everybody wants to deny them today.

I'm not a fan of Intelligent Design although I think their arguments for the necessity of design in nature are good. Of course I like my own arguments which are more in the biblical Creationist camp.

Sean McDowell and Steve Miller on Near-Death Experiences: They Prove a Little but Deceive a Lot

OK I listened to more of the Sean McDowell interview of Steve Miller about Near-Death Experiences. They are talking about scientific studies of these phenomena, thousands of such expeiences all around the worle it turns out.



What most seems to fascinate them is the separation of the soul from the body. I tend to get impatient with this kind of focus because I long ago answered that question for myself, both from scripture and personal experiences, and some books too I think, but I realize that's probably unfair of me. Most people, including Christians, are so immersed in the materialism of our day, or naturalism or whatever the best term is, they need proof of claims that there is something beyond the physical world. Even saying that, however, I'm thinking that if we are Christians we believe ON FAITH what the Bible teaches. But then I remember that "Doubting Thomas" wanted evidence before he'd believe, and Jesus willingly gave it, so there's the answer to that. But on the other other hand Jesus said that although he showed His wounds to Thomas, it is better if we believe what the witnesses tell us, which Thomas had refused to do. But if some people need more evidence, and it's available, there's nothing wrong with pursuing it. Leave it at that.

Materialist secularists, who have been thoroughly brainwashed against the idea of anything existing beyond this physical universe, can't be expected to understand UFOs, for instance, in any terms other than physical. It's got to be some kind of advanced technology. NDEs and apparitions on the other hand they just attribute to some kind of psychological state of the person experiencing them. About UFOs, however, Jacques Valleee's work should go some distance toward disabusing them of their physicalistic bias, but I suppose they can shrug that off too just because the materialist bias is so solidly entrenched. Vallee isn't even a Christian, or religious at all as far as I know.

But once you've accepted the idea of another world and the spearation of soul from body, I do still think that Christians should have been taught to be alert to the possibility of demonic deception and it's appallling to find out they aren't. So far Miller has only spoken of these scenarios as something God brings about. Maybe by the end of the discussion I'll have a different impression. I can hope I guess. She said without much conviction.

Miller gives the general outline of what he says is a pretty consistent scenario experienced in NDEs. it starts with dying on the operating table, then floating above the scene and watching what's going on, then going somewhere else which is a beautiful landscape, seeing familiar people who had died, often seeing one's own life reviewed, then being told it's not yet their time and they are to return to their body.

Such experiences are had around the world, in many different cultures, and the scenario is pretty much the same although terms and sights are different in occordance with the cultural expectations of the person. Muslims forf instance see "Allah" although even these supposed Christians assume that's the true God they are seeing under a different name, which is simply false. It's the same with Hindus who may see one or another of their multiple gods.
Shouldn't this fact alone alert a Chrsitian that there's something wrong here, that these experiences cannot be coming from God? Even the different clothing that is seen should mean they aren't all visiting the same place. Miller says it seems that they are seeing what "the people on the other side" want them to see, and I'm sure that is very true. The "people on the other side" are putting on a show, a performance, for the purpose of deceiption. This is very similar to what Jacques Vallee concluded about the phenomena that seem so similar to UFOs in their behavior down through history, despite their very different appearance in accordance with the technology and cultural expectations of the time and place. That is, he concluded that they are the work of invisible beings designed to deceive people. They can fabricate NDE landscapes and impersonate familiar people just as they can fabricate vehicles appropriate to a particular time and place, now the UFOs seen today, and an apparition of "Mary" and so on. They are masters of illusion.


McDowell says the most convincing information comes from those who met deceased family members on the other side and bring back information they couldn't have known without that experience, including information about someone who was there who just died but nobody knew it yet. I'm sorry, Sean, this is SO naive of you. Demons impersonate people all the time. That's what "ghosts" are. That's why the Witch of Endor was shocked when the prophet Samuel himself actually appeared to talk to King Saul rather than the impersonation she was expecting. And demons would have information about people that we might not have so they can use it to convince a person he's been to heaven. Please, Church, please please wake up. We can't afford this kind of naivete.

First, what do we see in scripture about heaven? Not pretty landscapes. We are shown the throne room of God and innumerable angels worshipping God. In one story Jesus told we are shown a rich man in Hades suffering from the flames while a poor man he had mistreated during his life was happily embraced in "the bosom of Abraham." There's no pretty landscape shown here for anybody, but sinners are given to expect that they will go to a place of torment. How is it then that unbelievers see the same pleasant scene as believers? Also, Jesus told the thief on the cross beside Him who recognized Him as the Messiah, that he would be in Paradise with Him. Paradise is understood to be the holding place of the souls of the righteous dead, a part of Hades, the other part being where the rich man was tormented. There is simply nothing to lead us to expect to go to a beautfiul peaceful landscape, certainly not unbelievers, and not even believers as far as scripture reveals. "Paradise" MIGHT have such a landscape but the general biblical idea is that we will be among millions of believers, not in a quiet landscape with a few friends and family members, and we wouldn't see unbelieving friends and family members there anyway. According to the Bible they are in the place of torment, so all the unbelievers who have these nice bucolic visions or visits are being deceived, lured into a passive expectation from which they are going to be rudely shocked when they meet the reality, if they don't repent and seek the salvation of Christ.

Surely this is a demonic deception to keep people lulled by wrong ideas about God and the afterlife. People who trust in such experiences are not going to be looking for salvation in Christ, they'll just accept the illusion of a nice place they are going to. Many change their lives, try to be better people after such experiences, but that for an unbeliever is a "salvation by works" idea and is contrary to the biblical doctrine. The fact that people all over the world in many different cultures have similar experiences creates the impression that there is nothing special about the biblical revelation. It's just another religion, while the "reality" they see is that all people go to the same place no matter what they're religion or belief, including atheists, who also have these experiences. Nothing here about one life followed by the Judgment that is taught in the Bible.

Finally, near the end, Miller talks about some NDEs that teach a false theology according to the Bible. He acknowledges that there can be deceptive experiences. But he nevertheless holds onto the idea that the NDE phenomena themselves come from God, so that it must be some aberration in the personality that experiences them rather than in the experience itself. And Sean McDowell seems not to see the majority of them as inconsistent with the Biblical revelation of Heaven. This I don't understgand at all. There is simply nothing in scripture that fits with these peaceful landscapes with a few angels and familiar people around or sometimes even completely unpopulated.

It doesn't seem to occur to either of them that the experiences themselves are fabricated, that it could be the work of demonic beings. That never gets mentioned at all, but it is the most likely explanation of all of it to my mind. The lack of similarity to the biblical accounts, the seeing of family members, the fact that atheists and believers in false religions have similar experiences. Seems to me this ought to alert a Christian that these are simply NOT coming from God.

If the main concern is whether or not such experiences are real, whether the soul can and does leave the body under some circumstances, which does seem to be the main part of their concern, I think these studies and the testimonies themselves do confirm this reality. But when it comes to the experiences of "heaven," it all looks like a monumental deception and I'm appalled if not exactly surprised that Christians fall for it so easily. I get why atheists and believers in other religions fall for it, but not biblically educated Christians.

Demons are calling the shots in these pretty stories, just as they are calling the shots about UFOs, , and poor gullible fallen humanity, and sadly, Christians too, either deny the obvious reality of them or eat up the lies the demons tell about them. Oh my poor aching head.

More "Heaven" Experiences Claptrap. Along with UFOs and False Prophets the Demonic world is Hard at Work In These Last Days,

When I run across something I wasn't looking for, twice in this case, I feel I'm supposed to write about it. That's what happened recentlyh with a couple of stories of Near Deathn Experiences. I watched one, can't even remember the guy's name, he was interviewed twice and i watched both. Threw it out though, just not interested in writing about it. Then this morning I ran across Sean McDowell interviewing someone who has studied NDEs. Only watched a few minutes of it, again not really interested, but then he mentioned the title of one of the books I'd posted about some years ago, Heaven is for Real, and I decided OK, sigh, guess I have to do another post on this.

All I can manage at the moment is a quick overview off the top of my head. If I continue to watch the McDowell interview I may have to come back and make some corrections but I'll try to avoid saying things I'll have to correct.

McDowell is the son of Josh McDowell, well-known Christian apologist whose books were widely read in the nineties. I read them. He's a Christian. So why on earth doesn't he know that
1) Yes NDEs are real supernatural experiences (some are anyuway, some may be frauds)
2) No,they don't come from God; they are demonic manifestations.

That is the impression I get from his opening remarks. If I hear more and he says something different I'll come back and correct this.

One way you can tell they are false, maybe THE way you can tell they are false, is that they have nothing to do with Christ. He may be mentioned but only as a remote figure off somewhere in the background of the scenario. The scenario is usually a pastoral sort of landscape, pretty and peaceful, with beautiful colors, flowers etc. In the case of the book "Heaven is for Real" the boy who had the experience was introduced to a sister he didn't know he had, who had died in the womb before he was born, and to a grandfather he never knew. This kind of experience is very confincing. Well, it's convinding that something supernatural did indeed happen, he really did get information he couldn't otherwise have known.

But these are Christians. They should know better. We are told in scripture that the devil often appears "as an angel of light." He likes to impersonate God Himself after all.

What would be Satan's motive for deceiving people in this way? It's really prettyh clear: it's to get people focused on experience instead of on Christ and scripture. Our faith is to be in Christ, not in our experiences, and those of us who have had supernatural experiences are definitely susceptible to putting our trust in them rather than in Jesus. I've had to fight my own tendency in this direction.

But NDEs are experienced by all kinds of pewople, not just Christians. A Mormon woman wrote a book about hers a couple decades ago that became quite popular. So in that case it confirmed her in her false Mormon beliefs, not something that would comew from God, clearly a demonic delusion.

The first man I mention above clearly puts all his faith that he will be going to heaven when he dies in his NDE experience. It was so real, so amazingly peaceful. When someone asked if he's a Christian he said yes but then he spoke of Jesus as someone he takes as a model, NOT AS THE SAVIOR OF HIS SOUL even though he gave lip service to that idea. Clearly his heart is with the experience, not with Christ.

These experiences are just part of the End Times demonic delusions that have beem proliferating over the last few decades. They include the apparitions of Mary that keep Catholics in thrall when they should be pursuing salvation in Christ; they include the very recent revival of interest in UFOs, now called UAPs, that I've written posts about recently. All these things are stage shows put on by demons to dazzle and deceive human beings and turn us awau from God. The "heaven" stories I wrote about years ago, listed in the right margin here, are also NDEs.

I also recently wrote about a woman "prophet" who has posted a lot of her prophecies, in the form of visions and dreams, She keeps putting up more of them. The few I looked at in any detail are so clearly incompatible with the biblical Christ it's depressing to think that she, with her extensive church experience, can't see through them. But she's only one among many such "prophets" these days. All professing Christians. Jan Markell's latest "Understanding the Times" radio show addresses this phenomenon. Some forty such "prophets" predicted last Fall that Donald Trump was going to win the election. The prophet I mentioned here said the same thing. Only a few of them have apologized for their error, others have tried to rationalize it away.

Such "prophecies" are clearly just another distraction from our need to keep our eyes upon Jesus Himself, especially now when the signs are coming so fast and furious that His return can't be far off. All this stuff comes from the devil. Today's "prophets" are part of the charismatic movement that was pretty soundly debunked by John MacArthur's "Strange Fire" conference some years ago, which I link in the right margin. There is no way the phenomena being experienced by charismatics has anything to do with the "gifts of the Spirit" described in scripture. The conference set me free from some lingering doubts of my own, but unfortunately many in the charismatic movement rejected the message and criticized MacArthur for it.

I'm just tossing this off but I may come back and add some links and make any corrections that seem necessary. I'm doing it this way because when I spend time collecting evidence, links etc., I sometimes just accumulate half-written posts that never make it onto the public blog. That's happened quite a bit recently. I'm still hoping I'll get some of them posted but in any case I wanted to be sure this one did. We're SO close to the Rapture, SO close. I've been yearning more and more to leave this planet which is getting more wicked, perverse, irrational and upside down every day.

IGNORE NDEs. They are demonic deceptions designed to produce a false "faith" that is not of God.
IGNORE APPARITIONS OF "MARY." This is an old demonic delusion by now. May many Catholics wake up.
IGNORE UFOs or UAPs They are not physical, they are not "technology," they are otherworldly beings.
IGNORE THE SO-CALLED "PROPHETS." They are deceived deceivers.

The Controversy Over John MacArthur's Denunciation of Religious Freedom

I don't even support religous freedom. To spport religous freedom is to send people to hell. It's to support idolatry.

I don't think that's an exact quote but it's the gist of what pastor John MacArthur said in a sermon a few months ago, which has become a hot topic.


This was his response to being told by a representative of the Biden administration that he should be happy to hear that the administration supports religious freedom. This assurance relates to the events of the last year when MacArthur's church was under legal assault for meeting against the rules in force during the pandemic.

To review that story: the church complied with the order not to meet and MacArthur delivered his sermons to an empty church for a few weeks. Then people started trickling back to church as the threat of the disease turned out to be much less than anticipated. Over the next few weeks more and more people showed up until finally the state of California acted with various threats against the church. There were court cases and MacArthur won them all in the teeth of the continuing threats.

Since his legal wins rest on American law including the right of assembly, religious freedom and so on, it seems surprising that he would make the statement he made, seeming to condemn such laws. I should add here that he did make the comment during the legal assault that he'd be happy to go to prison, that he'd never had a prison ministry and that would be a wonderful opportunity for him. He's good at making Christian lemonade out of antiChristian lemons. To the state's threat to deprive the church of a parking area and set up a homeless camp there he said he welcomed such an opportunity to send their seminary students over to evangelize them. The parking lot was taken away although the homeless camp was not set up, but a synagogue not far from the church gave the church their parking lot for Sunday services.

In a way it sounds like MacArthur relishes the thought of persecution, and in a way that makes sense. The church always thrives during times of persecution. He went on in his statement against freedom of religion to say that Christians need to understand that in this world "we lose." We aren't supposed to win. I suppose he might have added the quote from ... Athanasius? I may have the author wrong -- "Theblood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church." At least I assume that's in the ballpark of what he meant. (Later: Google says it was Tertullian, not Athanasius.)

However, he's also at times expressed appreciation for the church's continuing ability to meet because of the legal wins in their favor. So I don't think it's as clear as it seems on the face of it what exactly he had in mind when he made that statement against religious freedom He has received much criticism for the statement, but to this point I haven't found any answer he's made to it. I suppose eventually he will as the criticism seems to be increasing.

I have to think he can't have been denouncing the founding documents of America when he said that, he must have had a specific frame of reference in mind that isn't quite what we heard, but again I suppose that eventually we'll find out. Nevertheless I've had my own struggles with the idea of religious freedom granted by our Constitution that this gives me an opportunity to write about.

Since the country was settled by Protestants fleeing persecution in Europe, the freedoms they wrote into their governing documents during the colonial period, then carried over into the federal Constitution, cannot possibly have been intended to support any religion that opposes Protestantism. They would of course support individual conscience in matters of religious belief, but even that probably extended only to the various Christian sects and not to other religions in its original conception. Even if that was the predominant view, those of a different opinion also existed at least by the time of the Declaration of Independence, and had an unfortunate infljuence on the interpretation of these concepts. The problem is that freedom of religion has been interpreted over time to grant freedom to practice a religion such as Islam with its outright suppressive and persecutorial tenets. When members of such religions have political positions it's just a matter of time before they promote those tenets. Roman Catholicism is another potential threat, as it still maintains its doctrine of the Inquisition which murdered millions of Christian dissidents (early Protestants) among others during the Middle Ages; and they still have their long list of curses against Protestant doctrines on the books. Dare I suggest they're just biden their time until the undermining work of their Jesuit army has brought about the opportune moment to reinstate it all. (No I'm not talkinga about rank and file Catholics, I'm talking about the papal system.) Somehow the very foundations of the nation have been twisted against themselves to favor the very threats and opposition they meant to deny.

How could this have happened? Why wasn't it prevented by the laws intended to safeguard the legal and political framework of the nation? It's the same question as how freedom of speech got extended to such an abomination as pornogrphy and other obscenities and irrelevancie3s, and how such an abomination as abortion became a "right." And such an abomination as "gay marriage." By now there is so much water under the bridge in the direction fo these perversions of the Constitution there seems to be no way back. And now we are seeing the full-throttle assault of the Marxism that has been a big part of the push in this direction as crime and criminals are protected while the police are restricted and law-abiding citizens are denied freedom of speech, sued for refusing to support gay marraige, arrested for protecting their property from thieves and invaders, in Canada arrested for gathering for church during COVID restrictions, and having their second amendment right threatened.

In Chris Pinto's most recent documentary, The True Christian History of America, in the last section of the film, Political Protestantism, he quotes from various Supresme Court Justices in the early years to the effect that America was certainly intended to be founded on the Christian religion, meaning the Law of God laid out in the Bible. Justice Joseph Story is quoted saying that the first amendment was certainly not intended to put Christianity on an equal footing with the false religions.

The undermining of the original intent of the Constitution should have been thwarted long ago but the forces of evil prevailed. There was a time that atheists were not allowed even to give testimony in a court of law, the overturning of which would certainly get loud applause from all the unbeleivers today. Seems pretty clear from the original Christian worldview held by most Americans that the nation was to be governed by the rule of God's Law. Kind of takes the breath away to contemplate how completely that conception has been destroyed.

When a Representative recently read from Deuteronomy 22 about God's law against men dressing as women and women dressing as men, Representative Nadler responded contemptuously that there is no place in our government for that religious opinion that hurts trangender people. Or something like that. In the original conception of the government a Nadler would not have been allowed to hold office. Too late now. They've got the upper hand, they've reinvented America to suit themselves and overturned the original founding, and now it's the Christians and conservatives who are being denied our freedoms. We're silenced on the social media, arrested for protecting our poperty, sued for refusing to endorse gay marrige, having our secdon amendment rights threatened. It's only going to get worse. The devil knows what he is doing and we really aren't very bright when it comes to navigating this fallen world.

MacArthur is right that Christians are not going to win in this life. I still don't know exactly what he had in mind with his statement against freedom of religion. Did he mean to oppose the original intent of the law to protect true Christianity? As his critics have been pointing out, those Constitutional freedoms have given Christians a platform for spreading the gospel. Maybe he has the radical view that the gospel spreads more effectively when opposed and he really does object to American political protections of Christianity. But what exactly did he mean? I suppose eventually we'll get an answer.

Body Plan as Definitive of the Kind; Hox Genes as Iimmutable: Evidence against Species-to-Species Evolution.

The body plan of a creature seems to me to be definitive of the original created Kind that shows the impossibility of evolution from one Species or Kind to another. Something I read suggested that the body plan is not genetically coded in the DNA itself but it some other part of the fertilized cell. However the usual idea seems to be that it is in fact part of the DNA, that it is governed or regulated by a certain set of genes called Hox genes, or homeobox or homoeotic genes, and I'm not at all clear about the differences among these terms.

Homeobox genes were apparently discovered in fruit fly experiments in which changes to this particular set of genes would alter the body structure of the fruit fly, such as by locating the antennae on the lower body instead of the head. These genes occur on different chromosomes and are found in the DNA of most animals.

Googling around this topic I found at least one source that says mutations to these genes distort the body structure, such as in the case of the relocated antennae of the fruit fly, and that most mutations to this set of genes are lethal.

That being the case I'd think it makes evolution impossible. You can't get changes to the body plan that are at all beneficial, and the body plan to my mind is definitive of the creature itself. The body plan of a cat is absolutely recognizably distinct from the body plan of a dog for instance, also the body plan of a chimp from that of a human being though I'm sure we'd have quite a discussion about that one. If each creature has a distinctive defining body plan and changes to the genes that govern it are always deleterious, evolujtion from one species to another, from one Kind to another, is genetically impossible. I make a different case for the genetic impossibility of evolution in the post before last, so this is another way it's genetically impossible.

A common discussion of these things focuses on the supposition that they evolved to be what they are, through the whole history of supposed evolution from one species to another. This is taken for granted although of course there has never been any proof of this and can never be, it is simply assumed based on the Theory of Evolution. The actual facts, such as this one that mutations have only destructive effects on the hox genes or the body plan genes, seem to belie the whole theory but they'll of course go on asserting it as if it were true anyway.

As I recall I originally got interested in the body plan or structure or morphology of a creature as the definition of the Kind when I was thinking about the trilobites in the fossil record. Trilobites are found in most of the geological time periods all the way up the ladder, each time period containing its own perculiar type of trilobite. Of course these differences up the time scale ladder are taken as evidence of evolution from one type of trilobite to another, just one of the many supposed evidences of the reality of evolution itself.

Looking at the different kinds of trilobites it's quite clear that what they all have in common despite some radical variations, is their body plan or basic morphological structure. They are all clearly Tri- Lobe-ites, they all have the spines that usually though not always wrap around the side lobes and they all have the head and eyes in the same place. The variations in that respect are clearly extremely minor. Nothing has changed the basic nature of the trilobite itself over those supposed hundreds of millions of years of "evolution" up the geological time scale ladder.

Of course to my mind this is to be expected since from the biblical creationist perspective a trilobite is a trilobite is a trilobite and there is no such thing as evolution, but it's nice to have this kind of confirmation from the fossil record. In other words what we see in the fossil record is the enormous number of variations on the trilobite theme built into the trilobite genome. The variations are quite dramatic, which one would expect from a pre-Flood creature. After the Flood although we still get some pretty dramatic variations, the loss of all but a pair or seven individuals of a Kind would have to mean that the variations possible after the Flood are dramatically decreased from theose before the Flood. As I've argued many times, I think this must be expressed at the genetic level in a great loss of heterozygosity or genetic diversity in each creature including human beings but I don't want to get off on that topic here.

This observation that the trilobite body plan is a constant no matter how great the number of variations that differ from population to population, got me thinking about how body plan is likely the way to definte the Kind, meaning the individual creature scrupture presents as having been separately created. Often believers in evolution make this a big challenge, suggesting that there is so much similarity, which they take as part of the vidence for common descent, defining the Kind would be impossibly difficult. Nevertheless I have no problem calling Cat a Kind, or Dog. But it was the trilobite's consistent definitng morphology that showed me it is the body plan I'm seeing as definitieve of the Kind. The cat body plan is absolutely distinctive. A cat is a cat is a cat, from the lion to the housecat. The catness of cats. Likewise the dog body plan is definitively distinctive. And it includes wolves and foxes and dingoes.

The Linnaean system of classifivation confuses these things. It classifies according to morphology but not in this definitive way that struck me with the trilobite and dots and cats. It breaks down "Aves" in a way that obscures the fact, for instance, that the entire group of "Aves" all share the same body plan. A Bird is a Bird is Bird. I had to look at the skeletons of some ambiguous representatives such as the penguin and the ostrich, and sure enough the body plan Bird is shared by them too. Except for the webbed feet of ducks and swans so do the swimming birds, and the bill instead of a beak, though they are the only subgroup that gives me pause about its placement in the Kind. Probably shouldn't, the body plan is quite evidently Bird.

Since I'm going blind I'm not too likely to be spending much time on other creatures to see which should be classified as a Kind. I don't see any need for most of the Linnaean cateogries, Order, Family etc etc. Seems to me we have a Kind which could also be called a Species, and many subspecies. I have to figure out how to divide the Unbulates, compare body plans of cattle, sheep, deer and so on. If they share a body plan they are all of the Kind. Off the top of my head the bovine Kind must be separate from whatever the deer-elk Kind is, but I immediately think of objections to that idea. .

Current politics is driving me crazy so I'm probably going off on evolution to take a rest from it. Not that I've stopped thinking about it bit O don't want to write about it right now.

Maybe tomorrow.

Not Germane to my Main Argument but a Side issue, on Proteins and Gene loci and Douglas Axe.

Douglas Axe is a member of the Discovery Institute, a proponent of Intelligent Design, and from the following video snippet and an interview I heard recently I gather that his main scientific focus has been on trying to find out how likely it is that evolution could come up with a new function, which apparently means a new protein. He doesn't use the term mutation but he must mean that such a transformatiion would come about through mutations. So he's testing the idea of random mutations as a main driver of evolution.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZiLsXO-dYo

How many changes, i.e. mutations I assume, to a given protein, would have to occur to bring about a completely new protein with a completely new function? He says he and his colleague concluded that it's outside the realm of possibility.

It seems like a good question but it raises further questions in my mind. isn't the locus, the stretch of DNA that defines a gene, determine the function? Doeesn't it govern the production of only two proteins if it's heterozygous, only one if homozygous> Mutations usually don't change the function of the protein at all despite changing the chemical sequence. These are "neutral" mutations. "Deleterious" mutations do something that interferes with the normal functioning protein which I don't understand on the genetic level, and the occasional "beneficial" mutation apparently changes the expression of the protein, but again I don't know what this means on the genetic level. It would be nice to be able to ask Douglas Axe to explain these things to me.

Is it the protein or the locus that determines the phenotypic expression? I've thought of it as primarily the locus, the space occupied by the gene on the DNA strand, that determines what it produces phenotypically. Perhaps I'm not appreciating the role of the protein, this is another question. Clearly the protein directly produces the phenotypic expression but I think of this as occurring within the determining space occupied by the gene. The very same protein if produced at a differeint locus would result in a different phenotypic expression determined by that different location. That's how I've been thinking about it. So Axe's focus on the structure of the protein as the determiner of function apparently apart from the locus or the gene itself, is a puzzle to me.

Thinking of it this way I think of the gene itself, the locus, the space occupied on the DNA strand, as the determiner of a very specific phenotype and this seems to fit everything I've read about this. We have a gene that determines, say, fur color. The protein gives the formula for WHICH fur color but it's the gene that says it has to be a fur color that is produced, it isn't going to be anyh other trait. It isn't going to produce a new fur texture if that gene is for color for instance.

So what is Axe thinking of when he investigates the likelihood of producing a new protein with a new function. Wouldn't any changes still be only an expression of whatever the gene locus governs? That is, changing the function of the protein isn't going to change anything that would further evolution. You'd get a novel fur color perhaps but you couln't really get anything deserving of the idea of new function.

But of course maybe I have this wrong in some important way.

But then my model is God's perfect Creation that has been corrupted by the Fall. In the original Creation DNA would function perfectly and not be subject to mistakes in replication, i.e. mutations. Mutations are part of the disease processes brought about by the Fall. If they sometimes produce something "beneficial" this is purely a fluke due to the fact that the whole system involves sequences of chemicals so that occasionally a beneficial sequence, which I suppose is most likely to be the recovery of an earlier function that had been lost in the mutational assault, but in general mutations are a disease process. Mercifully they usually have a neutral effect, not changing the function of the protein even if they change part of its sequence.

But overall mutations are destructive. I hypothesize that junk DNA is the result of the assault, as it were, of many mutations on a particular gene locus, ultimately rendering it completely unable to function. Mercifully, again, although this must have resulted over time in the loss of many valuable functions in the body, usually a given trait or function is the expression of many genes, not just one, so if one dies and enters the junk DNA cemetery as it were, the phenotypic function itself is not lost.

This is a different level of argument than I got into in my previous post which I'd normally avoid here but Axe's comments were intriguing.

Evolutionary Theory is the Emperor's New Clothes, but We're Good at Hallucinating Clothing.

Nothing new here, just reminded of the falsenesss of evolutionary theory and the certainty believers in it have,that will go with most of them to their graves. the reminder came from a former Christian, now atheist, saying science and history deconverted him -- oh hear the applause; and a talk show host's vacation in the Southwest USA among the dramatic buttes and arches and other such geological formations.

They let the science and history of the fallen mind take them away from God. History that is really prehistory that can't be accurately timed or properly interpreted either, from the present, unlike the history that works from known facts through multiple witnesses. The kind of science that is also about prehistory for which they have no witnesses and rely completely on mental constructs. They ignore of course the witness of the Bible. In fact they let the conjurings of the fallen mind discredit it.

Nothing new here, just reminded of the wonderful formations of the Southwest and how they scream "Flood" to my mind, but for some reason to others seem to be a certain debunking of anything biblical. To my mind the sedimentary strata themselves, so particularly visible all over the Southwest, are clear evidence of the worldwide Flood of Noah. How they manage to convince themselves they were laid down over long ages of time, one kind of sediment followed by a different kind of sedimenbt, in itself demonstrates the fallenness of the fallen mind. But the Southwest also exhibits sculpted formations that scream "water" again to my mind. My biblically informed mind. Why can't they see it? Mostly sandstone swirled into something that's even called a "wave." "Arches" that are carved out of once-wet sandstone, eroded by wind and weather over millennia into those shapes but clearly originally the work of a huge volume of moving water. The "hooddoos" that were originally a stack of stratified sediments that over time eroded into those spooky-looking humanlike forms. Made up of strata differentially eroded according to the hardness of the particular layer of sedimetary rock. The monuments of Monument Valley and all the other buttes scattered around the West. Like the Tepui of South America. Obviously, yes obviously, originally deposited by the Flood in enormous sheets of different sediments, segments of which were then left standing as the receding Flood waters carved away the surrounding deposition. Or possibly water draining from one of the gigantic lakes left after the Flood, which is one theory. The draining lakes do explaibn the badlands to the north so they may also explain the Grand Canyon and the Monuments and other buttes, but the draining Flood water itself is just as likely in some cases. Earthquakes caused by tectonic shifting as a result of the Flood lifting the land and breaking dams etc. etc. etc.

Anyway, just LOOK at the formations. WATER formed them. Just LOOK at Planet Earth wherever the geology is exposed to view: it's a wrecked planet. All geology demonstrates the wreckage. I've written about this for years and then I saw a creationist film by Del Tackett in which he said he sees the world as wrecked. Does he really or did he plagiarize it from me? (In the same film he used the phrase "the catness of cats" which I originated on the EvC forum. Did he come up with it independently or did he see it at EvC and like it and steal it?) I've never heard anyone else talk about the earth in such terms and most people want to affirm the beauties of Earth because it is God's creation and don't like the idea of its wrecked character, although that was due to human sin and not the original Creation. Once I saw the wreckage I saw only the wreckage. The beauty is in living things, in plant life and animal life, and in human creations, architecture, art. The geological foundation itself is nothing but wreckage to my eye. Proves nothing of course, but to my mind it should. You should be able to see it as I see it.

There's plenty of evidence in the geological facts too that can be argued one by one, but that overview works for me without the rest of it. Besides the strata the fossil contents of the separate sedimentary layers even more loudly screams "Flood." The Bible says the Flood was intended to kill all things living on the land and there it is, confirmed in the rocks. Some sea life survived the Flood although most of that died too, but the land life was wiped out, and there it all is in the rocks. How do you look at flat layers of different kinds of sediment with different kinds of fossils in them and manage to cconvince yourself they represent great ages of time in which those fossils were living things? How? It's absurd beyond absurd. If the mere fact of it isn't absurd enough, try thinking through how strata full of fossils that span huge swathes of the planet, even whole continents, could have formed at all. Think it through honestly. It's impossible on the idea of geological ages.

Oh well. They are going to go on believing the impossible. This fallen world is going to go lumbering on until God brings it all to justice in the end.

It was the formations of the Southwest that I wanted to write about but since we're talking about evolutionary theory the biological side of it should also be mentioned. Just mentioned. As with the geological evidence, there's tons of biological evidence as well, but I always like to find the bottom line if I can. In the biological arena I think it's in the fact that evolution itself leads to a condition in which further evolution becomes impossible. I use two examples, domestic breeding and endangered species. Endangered species are often endangered because they are no longer able to produce genetic variations. The cheetah is endangered for that reason. And what this means is that genetically it possesses too many "fixed loci" or homozygous traits. In the case of the cheetah this came about because of a genetic bottleneck, that is, the entire population of cheetahs is descended from a very few individuals.

Domestic breeding used to work toward "purebred" animals which are characterized by the same condition of fixed loci for the chosen traits. Homozygosity for the salient traits of a breed was practically the definition of a purebred. This is a stable condition that guarantees that those traits will remain constant in the populaton as it continues to grow and interbreed, that unwanted traits won't show up in the breed. In this fallen world this is an unhhealthy situation for the animal, often produces genetic diseases and weaknesses so when they finally realized that they stopped aiming for purebred status and now introlduce other animals into the breed to improve its health, sacrificing perfectioh of traits.
'
My argument is that these examples demonstrate what evolution really is. In nature you get variations within a species because new populations form that are more or less isolated from the main population which permits new traits to become characteristic that distinguish it from the original population. Darwinism explains these variations as brought about by Natural Selection or the survival of the fittest. In actuality there is no survival problem in most cases, you just get a new population that happens to develop its own characteristics because it is reproductively isolated from the original population. Adaptations certainly occur but more by a natural gravitation to appropriate environmental supports than by any selective pressure. It's a form of selectioh in a sense but it's a random selection in the wild.

Each new population should demonstrate a tendency toward a reduction of genetic diversity, with those formed from the smallest number of individuals demonstrating the extreme reduction of genetic diversity in the number of fixed loci or homozygous traits.

Yeah I repeat myself about all this, over and over and over. I've argued it in great detail too, this is just an overview. The point is pretty obvious, though, it seems to me. Variation, which isn't evolution but gets called that, or "microevolution," always tends toward decrease in genetic diversity. This is the evidence that species are desigend to vary and that variation decreases genetic possiblities of further variation. Evolution is, quite simply, genetically impossible. No, mutation isn't the answer. If it were the cheetah would not be endangered and purebred aimals would not be stable but always morphing into something else which they never do.

Yeah it's been proved. But as in today's currupt politics if they don't want it to be true they won't let it be true.