Today, I’m offering another short excerpt from Chapter 5, “Concocting Genetic Clues,” in our recently released book The Evolution Conspiracy, Vol 1: Exposing Life’s Inexplicable Origins & The Cult of Darwin by Lisa A. Shiel. (Words in bold are included in the book’s extensive glossary. A complete bibliography is included at the end of each chapter.)
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Phylogenetics: The Guessing Game
The relationships between animals alive today baffles us. What makes a species, if such a designation has any real meaning, along with what genetic similarities and differences actually mean mystify even the most learned of scientists. Chimpanzees share an estimated 99% of their DNA in common with humans, yet that 1% seems to make all the difference. If a tiny distance can produce the dissimilarity between Leonardo da Vinci’s inventive and artistic genius and a chimpanzee who hunts for ants with a stick, then perhaps what we think we know about genetics lies equally as far from the reality of DNA.
In books aimed at a lay audience, and in the media, we hear a lot about the chimp-human kinship. Despite the hoopla, not everyone agrees that chimps and humans share a close relationship. Anthropologist Jeffrey Schwartz of the University of Pittsburgh has remarked that, in some studies of the presumed genetic similarities, scientists had to ignore large amounts of data because it refuted the notion of chimps as our closest living relatives. In 1975 Mary-Claire King and Allan Wilson demonstrated that the tiny genetic difference between chimps and humans cannot account for the morphological differences. Still, King and Wilson stuck with the idea humans and chimps are closely related. Schwartz, however, suggests genetic similarity implies that modern organisms retain primitive genes—garbage leftover from evolution’s workings—rather than evidence of shared heritage.
Even when faced with contradictions like these, scientists cling to the idea of evolution. The evidence against the Darwinian notion that change occurs both gradually and continuously led to an alternate version of evolution. In this version, dubbed punctuated equilibrium or “punk eek” for short (see fig. 5.2), change occurs abruptly. A new species boings into being with the subtlety of a jack-in-the-box when, for unknown reasons, a geographically isolated population that has evolved separately begins to affect other groups. Darwinists stay faithful to the gradualistic model promoted by Darwin himself, though others before him had proposed similar models. The most widely known theory of evolution is Darwinism with its slow, small, ceaseless increments of change driven by natural selection.
When scientists can’t agree among each other, why should we rely on their ideas? They expect us to trust their wild guesses for the same reason parents give their children when the kids question a parental ruling—”because I said so.” Yet scientists can wield a weapon most parents lack. They can flash their PhDs. Trust them because they said so and they have PhDs, which must make them smarter than the rest of us.
Most laymen listen to what scientists say because they assume scientists must have loads of evidence to support their assertions. Scientists adopt catchphrases, such as “evolution is a fact and a theory,” to reinforce the unspoken notion that they know all. Delving a little deeper exposes the naked facts. When it comes to molecular clocks, scientists could use a lesson from Timex.
