The ID Report

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

In an article at the BBC News online (September 15, 2008), "Who are the British creationists?", Julian Joyce beautifully demonstrates why legacy media, online or not, are media sources that are best taken with a big bag of sidewalk salt.

He starts with a creation museum in England:

At first glance the Genesis Expo museum, in the naval town of Portsmouth, looks like any other repository of natural history exhibits: fossils of dinosaurs and unusual rock formations.

But focus on the narrative of the information panels alongside them, and you start to realise this is a museum with a difference - one dedicated to the theory of creationism.

As I said when the much glitzier American creation museum opened in Kentucky, it is legal to have a private museum about anything one wishes to. That only shows that one lives in a liberal democracy or constitutional monarchy.

He then informs us,

The revelation that US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin says creationism should be taught in schools, alongside that of evolutionary theory, has raised few eyebrows in the US. ...

Actually, that is a canard put out by the anti-Palin crowd. But Joyce can count on his British readers not to know that.

We are also told that, "And while the Church of England this week issues a formal apology to Charles Darwin, ... " - in fact, there was no formal apology. A church bureaucrat had literally thunk the idea up on his own initiative.

And in a classic display of believing whatever confirms one's prejudices, we read that there is "growing support" for "literal six-day" creationism. The evidence? Get a load of this:

Growing support

Justin Thacker, head of theology for the Evangelical Alliance, says research in 1998 found one third of the Alliance church members were "literal six-day creationists." The other two thirds embraced evolutionary theory to a "greater or lesser degree" he says.

"Since that survey was done, I'd say fewer of our members are out-and-out creationists - it has become more acceptable to embrace some form of Darwinism," he says.

But Keith Porteous Wood of the Secular Society is unconvinced.

"There is no question that creationism is growing," he says. "It is increasingly well funded, and well organised."

In short, creationism is not growing in Britain but both Wood and Joyce need to believe it is - Wood for his fundraising letters and Joyce for his scare story.

Unless ... Joyce really means that Muslim creationism is growing. That is a safe bet because, given that the Muslim population of Britain is growing, any point of view accepted by Muslims might well be growing in consequence. But Joyce does not say that.

He handles this topic by implying that Christian and Muslim creationists are somehow "uniting":

This shared belief in the origins of man - and the universe - is uniting unlikely bedfellows in the anti-evolution cause.

The Rev Greg Haslam, who preaches the creationist Christian creed to his 400-strong congregation at Westminster Chapel in London, welcomes the determination of Muslims to impart a religious-based view of the world.

But that is hardly an example of "uniting", and does not imply that the two groups work together. So far as I have been able to determine, they generally do not.

Anyway, file this one under "Why the legacy mainstream media are losing ground." Basically, it's reached the point that, on some topics, they just can't put out a story any more without a big fat thumb print sticking in it.

See also: "Will Brit "faith and science" heavyweights speak up after education director's firing?"

Also just up at the Post-Darwinist:

Intelligent design and popular culture: Science fiction "must" be anti-ID. Mustn't it?

Want "nice"? Move to Canada. And give UP on human dignity, okay?

Canadian Earth Scientists "extremely concerned" about creationism/ID

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

Hopes of finding a true transitional intermediate between fish and tetrapods were raised in March of 2006 when scientists from the Academy of Natural Sciences, the University of Chicago and the University of Harvard announced the finding of a so-called 'fish-like Tetrapod' in Northern Canada (Ref 1). The new specimen was found in strata dating from 375 million years ago which is close to when the water-to-land transition is believed to have occurred (Ref 1). Tiktaalik rosea, as the specimen is now called, has been hailed as a true 'missing link' that, "helps to fill in a gap in our understanding of how fish developed legs for mobility" (Ref 1). According to its discoverers Edward Daeschler, Neil Shubin and Farish Jenkins, what is most remarkable about these finds is the apparent transitional nature of the skeletal structure in Tiktaalik's front fins (Refs 2-3). As one review in Nature indicated, "the front fins are on their way to becoming limbs [with] the internal skeletal structure of an arm, including elbows and wrists, but with fins instead of clear fingers" (Ref 1). Daeschler and his colleagues postulated that the pectoral fins of Tiktaalik could literally function as fins or limbs (Ref 3). Even the sedimentary deposits in which Tiktaalik was found suggested an aquatic existence (Refs 2-3).

There has also been much excitement raised over the possibility that Tiktaalik had wrist bones, these being critical for a land-based lifestyle although this finding remains highly controversial (Ref 4). Other discoveries since Tiktaalik have lead to the rather contentious conclusion that we now have at our disposal some of the key 'staging posts' in the sea-to-land transition (Ref 5). More recent studies of fossils of another specimen called Panderichthys have led Uppsala University scientist Per Ahlberg and colleagues to claim that primitive finger and toe bones were already present in some fish prior to the sea-to-land transition (Ref 6). Problematic for the evolutionary picture is the finding that Tiktaalik, considered to be further along the transition than Panderichthys, lacked any such bones (Ref 7).

While Tiktaalik appeared superficially to be a triumph for evolutionary biologists, the specimen still did not provide a clear picture of how a soft anatomy suitable for life on land could have evolved. The coelacanth- the fish that Daeschler and colleagues called, "the closest living relatives of tetrapods" (Ref 3), for example, has been found to have a soft anatomy far removed from what would be expected for a terrestrial ancestor (Ref 8). Biologist Paul Ciesieleski from the University of Florida, has reviewed some of the enormous barriers to survival that a fish-like tetrapod would have faced in its initial stages of life on land (Ref 9). Such an animal would have had to have found new ways of obtaining food and water, as well as novel mechanisms for preventing body water evaporation, and specialized structures for breathing oxygen (Ref 9). In short, many of the changes in the way that animals supposedly adapted to a terrestrial form of living would have had to have occurred concurrently if survival in the new habitat were to have been possible.

From their own studies Daeschler and his colleagues admit that Tiktaalik represents a 'major departure' from any of the fish fossils that have previously been found (Ref 2). In fact the cladograms that Daeschler and his colleagues drew up revealed tremendous differences in not only the bones of fins in specimens that are purported to be evolutionarily antecedent but also the tetrapods that are supposed to have evolved from Tiktaalik (Ref 3). We see how arguments for the transitional status of Tiktaalik resemble much of the saltationary incantations of evolutionary biologist Richard Goldschmidt who suggested that organisms, through nothing more than sheer good fortune, could undergo sudden, large changes in their anatomy and physiology that would allow them to lead new ways of life in habitats that would have otherwise been inaccessible to them (Ref 10, p.188). Whether such dramatic changes are viable is questionable and they are certainly not what Darwin would have wished for in his demand for a gradual turning of evolution.

We are still left with the question of what selective pressures would have been operational to drive creatures from water to land. Paleontologist John Maisey has chosen the 'Escape-from-Predator' scenario to explain why fish would have ever evolved into tetrapods. By hauling itself temporarily onto land, Maisey says, an early tetrapod would have been able to escape from potential hunters (Ref 1). Indeed based on some of its externally visible features, Daeschler and his colleagues have suggested that Tiktaalik might have had both gills and lungs for breathing and a head shape that would have been ideal for feeding on land and making a quick get away (Ref 2). Yet details on the soft anatomy of Tiktaalik remain speculative and raise more questions than they answer on how the water-to-land transition supposedly took place. Darwin explained such transitions by assuming that natural selection could adopt already existing structures and organs for novel functions (Ref 11, p.234). In the case of lungs, for example, Darwin conjectured that they may have originated from swim bladders that, he hypothesized, had served the function of flotation in fish (Ref 11, p.234).

By the same token Martin Brazeau and Per Ahlberg wrote how bones within the ear of terrestrial vertebrates might have evolved from structures that had previously been used for breathing in fish (Ref 12). Curiously, these structures were also found in Tiktaalik (Ref 12). A review of Brazeau's and Ahlberg's work notes how in fish a channel called a spiracle links up the roof of the skull with the mouth in a way that, Brazeau and Ahlberg contend, resembles the tube connecting the outer and inner sections of mammalian ears (Ref 12). Others such as biology professor Michael LaBarbera disagree (Ref 12). But even if there were such a connection, we still lack any of the important details of how hearing itself might have evolved. Evolutionary biologists such as Jennifer Clack have made hand-waving attempts at answering this particular enigma by supposing that ears formed when bones shrunk in size and got lodged into holes (Ref 12). Such explanations clearly skirt over the most important details of the biology of hearing- details that are so necessary if we are to take the idea of evolutionary transitions seriously.

The most recent versions of Darwin's 'swim bladder' model suggest that rather than giving rise to lungs, the swim bladder might in fact have appeared as a later adaptation, having evolved from lungs in fish that already had developed gills as an alternative breathing mechanism (Ref 13, pp.107-108). Such a reversal of ideas proposes that, with the arrival of gills, many of the specialized breathing structures of the lung became redundant and therefore disappeared as its new function of flotation evolved (Ref 13, pp.107-108). Clearly in the absence of soft anatomy data in support of structural transitions, evolutionary biologists are free to let their imaginations wonder where they wish and to assert what they like about what evolved from what and how natural selection played its role. But still we have no model for how the lung might have originated through gradual steps.

By ignoring the complexity of a soft anatomy we can continue our 'a priori' commitment to a naturalistic origin of animals like Tiktaalik on the basis that superficially they may look attractive as intermediates and temporally they fall exactly where they should. Although on this latter point, even if Tiktaalik had been found in strata dating millions of years later, new cladistic interpretations would have been possible that would still place it close to the base of the terrestrial evolutionary tree. At least one other example of such cladistic 'jiggering' exists elsewhere in the vertebrate sequence (Ref 14). Without the detail, anything goes.

References
1. Rex Dalton (2006), The fish that crawled out of the water, Nature News, 3rd April, 2006

2. Edward B. Daeschler, Neil H. Shubin and Farish A. Jenkins, (2006), A Devonian tetrapod-like fish and the evolution of the tetrapod body plan, Nature 440, pp. 757-763

3. Neil H. Shubin, Edward B. Daeschler, Farish A. Jenkins (2006), The pectoral fin of Tiktaalik roseae and the origin of the tetrapod limb, Nature 440, pp. 764-771

4. Casey Luskin (2008) An "Ulnare" and an "Intermedium" a Wrist Do Not Make: A Response to Carl Zimmer, see http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/08/an_ulnare_and_an_intermedium_a.html

5. Matt McGrath (2008) Fossil fills out water-land leap, See http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7473470.stm

6. Catherine A. Boisvert, Elga Mark-Kurik, Per E. Ahlberg (2008), The pectoral fin of Panderichthys and the origin of digits, Nature (21 Sep 2008), Letters to Editor

7. Jeanna Bryner (2008), Fish Fingers: Your Digits Used to Be Fins http://www.livescience.com/animals/080921-fish-fingers.html

8. The discovery of the coelacanth was outlined in the PBS' NOVA documentary 'Ancient Creature Of The Deep' which aired on Wisconsin Public Television on the 21st of January, 2003

9. The lecture notes on tetrapods by Paul F. Ciesielski can be found at
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/pciesiel/gly3150/fish_to_amphibians.html

10. Stephen Jay Gould (1992), The Panda's Thumb, More Reflections in Natural History, Published by W.W Norton and Company Inc, New York

11. Charles Darwin (1859), The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection Or The Preservation of Favored Races, In the Struggle For Survival, Modern Library Paperbacks Edition (1998), New York

12. John Rennie (2006), Ears that Breath and Eight Toed Feet, Scientific American, 21st January, 2006

13. Stephen Jay Gould (2002), The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts

14. See the following excerpt from Alan Feduccia's discussion on the use of cladograms to claim a dinosaur/bird lineage, in http://www.pnas.org/content/96/9/4740.full?ck=nck:"Aside from criticism concerning the cursorial origin of avian flight, there are problems related to the geologic, temporal occurrence of putative dinosaurian ancestors, which occur some 30 to 80 million years after the appearance of the earliest known bird Archaeopteryx"