The ID Report

By Robert Deyes

Today cladistics is used as an analytical approach for grouping organisms through evolutionary relationships (Ref 1). The resulting picture or cladogram is thus, "an evolutionary tree [that] shows the relationship of a group of species based on the fewest number of shared changes that have occurred from generation to generation" (Ref 1). While this definition raises important questions, given that it is the very existence of such an evolutionary tree that we must seek to demonstrate, it is the definition used by evolutionary biologists today. By measuring the total 'fit' between 1000 morphological cladograms and the fossil data, for example, Mathew Wills and colleagues from the University of Bristol concluded that the fossil evidence correctly documented the appearance of species through history in a way that was consistent with the 'evolutionary tree' concept of modern cladistics (Ref 2). As they later stated, "there is evidence that published morphological and molecular phylogenetic trees are probably generally close to the truth" (Ref 2). What they did not state was that cladistics, as an analytical tool, is fraught with problems that make such assertions difficult to justify. Firstly, the current debacle over what truly are homologous (evolutionary-related) anatomical structures is likely to make the interpretation of supposed cladistic relationships confusing (Ref 3, pp.178-179). Erroneous interpretations on what are and what are not true phylogenetic relationships are likely to occur simply because much of evolutionary biology is subjective. As paleontologist Simon Conway Morris noted:

"at the moment it is still very difficult to decide between characters that are of genuine use in determining evolutionary relationships as against those that have arisen by convergence from unrelated ancestors" (Ref 3, p.179).

As he subsequently commented, "any cladogram is merely a hypothesis, although too often cladograms are presented as being the last word in the debate" (Ref 3, p.180). A given cladogram is only one out of a number of possible evolutionary solutions. Biologist Rebecca Cann expounded on how cladistics involves selecting the evolutionary solution that requires the least number of transformations of a given set of characters (Ref 4, p.1008). Camilo J. Cela-Conde and Francisco J. Ayala similarly wrote of cladistics as a technique that selects those evolutionary solutions that require the fewest transitional intermediates (Ref 5). In other words, the shortest route of evolution is chosen as the most likely route. It was the 14th Century Franciscan Monk William of Ockham who proposed that, "when confronted with two seemingly equal explanatory hypotheses, the simplest or most economical explanation should be granted logical deference" (Ref 6). Philosopher Kenneth Richard Samples rightly questioned whether Ockham's principle could stand alone as the final answer to an evolutionary problem. As Samples pointed out, the simplest solution or pathway might be, "simplistically inadequate", for explaining the phenomenon in question (Ref 6). It becomes unreasonable to seek the simplest explanation on how life has come to be as we see it today because we fail to recognize the complexity involved in transitioning between the life forms we find in our favorite evolutionary models (Ref 6).

As a case in point, cladists concluded that the elusive ancestor of three of the 'ancient birds', Sinosauropteryx, Protopteryx and Archaeopteryx, would most likely have been a two-legged dinosaur (Ref 7). Small dinosaurs such as velociraptor and oviraptor had previously been considered as strong candidates for a dinosaur-origin of birds on the basis that they were not only two legged but had a clavicle or 'wishbone' just like birds (Ref 7). And yet paleontologists such as Alan Feduccia and Larry Martin who do not consider dinosaurs to be ancestral to birds, were deeply troubled by the fact that velociraptor and oviraptor had lived deep in the Cretaceous period- almost 85 million years after the earliest birds (Ref 7). Storrs Olson, head of ornithology at the National Museum of Natural History, likewise accused others of engaging in "ideological mumbo-jumbo" amidst claims that feathers had the same evolutionary origin as hair-like integuments found on dinosaur fossils (Ref 7).

Evolutionists may be right in their claim that fossilization is a rare event (Ref 8, p.8). Yet once again we place our convictions on blind faith when through cladistics we claim that some time ago intermediate forms linking the dinosaur scale with the avian feather must have existed. Many still live in hope. As vertebrate paleontologist Dale Alan Russell asserted, "when the common feathered ancestors [of birds] are found, probably in lake deposits of the middle Jurassic, [they] may well resemble a large, flightless archaeopteryx" (Ref 9).

It was Mark Norell, Peter Makovicky and Julia Clark from the American Natural History Museum who wrote that, "science is about discovery" and that, "by assuming less, we discover more"(Ref 7). We learn an important lesson here- maybe if we were to assume less when making cladistic interpretations and keep a more open mind about what discoveries really show us, we would unearth the foundations upon which all of life came into existence.

References
1. Definition of Cladistics provided in the Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2002 , 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved

2. M.J. Benton, M.A. Wills and R. Hitchin (2000), Quality of the fossil record through time, Nature, Volume 403 pp.534-537

3. Simon Conway Morris (1998), The Crucible of Creation; The Burgess Shale And the Rise of Animals, 1st Ed, Oxford University Press

4. Rebecca L Cann (2000), Talking trees tell tales, Nature, Volume 405 pp.1008-1009

5. Camilo J. Cela-Conde and Francisco J. Ayala (2003), Genera of the human lineage, Proc Nat Acad Sciences USA, Volume 100, pp.7684-7689

6. Kenneth Richard Samples (2004), Does Ockham's Razor Support Naturalism? Connections, Volume 6 (2) pp.6-7

7. Rex Dalton (2000), Feathers fly in Beijing, Nature, Volume 405 p.992

8. Caroline Arnold (2001) Dinosaurs With Feathers: The Ancestors of Modern Birds, Clarion Books, New York

9. Dale Alan Russell (2002), Archaeopteryx, Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2002. 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved