DARWIN'S   DILEMMA

Part II - Compound Traits

By

Dr. Robert Gange

In Part I of Darwin's Dilemma, we discussed macro and
microevolution. Macroevolution is presumed to have created
different life-kinds such as sea, land, air and even man, whereas
microevolution is the label given to genetic processes that are
alleged to produce different species within the same kind of
life. For example, consider birds in the finch family. The
warbler finch (4.0 inches) and the large ground finch (6.5
inches) are two of fourteen finch species discovered by Darwin in
the Galapagos and Cocos islands. Although the breeding habits of
these finches are similar, they do not interbreed. Experts who
study birds (ornithologists) are virtually certain that all
fourteen species of finches derived from a finch-like form that
originally colonized the islands.

Different finch species are found around the world. The red-
billed fire-finch (3.5 inches) lives south of the Sahara in
Africa, whereas the habitat of the snow finch (7.0 inches) is on
barren, stony ground in mountains 7000 feet above sea-level in
Southern Europe, Central Asia and the Himalayas. Two genetic
processes that are alleged to produce different species within
the same kind of life are gene movement and genetic spread. In
Part I we said gene motion appears to be a random process, while
genetic spread is a feature of life identified with chemical
information within the genes that helps ensure its survival.

Macroevolution is, however, quite a different concept. It is a
label that pertains to hypothetical events that are alleged to
have created different "kinds" of life. For instance, the
creation of sea life versus air life. The uncritical acceptance
of macroevolution by numerous U.S. academic and professional
societies has discouraged critical examination of Darwin's ideas.
A widely accepted assumption is that if evolution has occurred in
some small degree, then it can occur without limit. But
macroevolution implies that an organism can survive changes to
every component of its biological system. This assumption is
critical to Darwin's proposals and is widely accepted by his
supporters. Yet its validity has never been established. On the
contrary, there are reasons to believe that an organism cannot
survive widespread changes to its various biological components.
Yet the macroevolution proposed by Darwin, and that is accepted
by his followers cannot exist without them. The basic reason that
such widespread changes cannot occur in the manner proposed by
Darwin concerns the complex and intricate way that various parts
of living systems interact with each other. In order to illustrate
the point, let us examine the breathing apparatus that exists in
the human body.
 

BREATHING

We can obtain an appreciation for the bewildering mutual
dependencies that different parts of a living system have on each
other by considering the way oxygen passes through our bodies. It
begins with an involuntary action called "breathing." Each breath
starts when groups of electrical signals from the brain reach a
muscle called the diaphragm. This muscle spans the lower part of
our body above the abdomen. When activated, it moves downward,
thereby lowering pressure within our lungs below that of the
atmosphere (nominally 14.7 pounds per square inch). This pressure
difference causes air to flow into our lungs so that the pressure
may be equalized. Our lungs then begin to expand, much like a
balloon, as the flow of air fills them.
 

DIAPHRAGM BOUNDARIES

But if we were to design this system, what would we need to
know? For example, the forces generated within the diaphragm are
successful in moving it downward only because its boundaries are
fixed. The diaphragm is attached to our breastbone in the front,
our spine in the rear, and to the inside of each of our lower
three ribs on both sides. In order to specify the strength and
location of electrical signals that are appropriate for
breathing, we would need to know the size of the diaphragm, and
just how far its muscle tissue moves in response to the incoming
electrical signals. We would also need to know how much force can
be applied at the points where it is attached along the
breastbone, spine and ribs. Otherwise the diaphragm's motion
might rip these points apart, and cause tissue to undergo self-
destruction.

We have only considered the electrical signals into the
diaphragm, and the motion of muscle tissue that occurs in
response to them. Yet questions that concern the size of the
diaphragm, and the strength of the points at which it is attached
lead us into another system component: the skeleton. The
diaphragm is pinned to the breastplate, the spine and the ribs.
If we can specify the skeleton, we will know their size and
location. The skeleton's specification therefore tells us the
size of the diaphragm, and the maximum force that the muscle
tissue can exert at the points where the diaphragm is attached
before the bone tissue will break. Yet this is only part of the
story.

The details of the location, shape and strength of the bones,
and the size of the diaphragm, and how its muscle tissue responds
to incoming electrical signals require us to know information we
have not yet specified about the lungs. This is also true of the
force that can rupture and break the points where the diaphragm
is attached. To ensure that the electrical signals are not too
strong, or that the motion of the diaphragm exceeds the so-called
"yield strength" of the points where it is attached, we need to
specify certain things about the lungs.

The diaphragm works in concert with the lungs, and the size
and interface of each must match. Also, the diaphragm's motion
cannot be too extensive. Otherwise the lung tissue will rip. The
amount that it does move cannot exceed the lung tissue's elastic
limit. Otherwise irreversible loss in lung elasticity will
result, and lung tissue will be destroyed.
 

THE LUNGS

How large must the lungs be? The answer depends on the
percentage of oxygen in the air, and the efficiency with which it
passes through lung tissue and into the blood. For example, if
our lungs were to pass one half their oxygen to the blood, they
would only be 50 percent efficient. Fortunately, they are much
more efficient than this. Our atmosphere has 21 percent oxygen by
volume, and we typically breathe about 20 cubic feet of air
daily. But these numbers work in our favor because they
organizationally harmonize with the parameters above (and some we
have as yet to discuss).

Lung tissue consists of about 600 million tiny sacs called
"alveoli." Although each is only 4 thousandths of an inch in
diameter, in total, they represent an area the size of a racket
ball court. Each sac is a highly complex machine that processes
air it receives from inside the lung, extracts the oxygen, and
then passes the oxygen into the blood. Millions of these
remarkable "sacs" work at very high efficiency to give us a lung
size that is practical. But does this end the story? If we knew
the lung size, and could specify the alveoli's extraordinary
properties, could we then design this system? All that we have
discussed: the electrical signals, diaphragm muscle, lung tissue,
skeletal structure, and the various properties of each including
size, location, response, strength, efficiency and so forth are
all part of a very complicated system. Each parameter works in
harmony with each of the others as an optimized, balanced system.
The final goal is to burn oxygen in each of billions upon
billions of body cells - a process called "metabolism."
 

THE BLOOD

But to burn oxygen, we must get it to the cells. Oxygen isn't
easily carried by a liquid. It prematurely burns by reacting with
virtually everything that it contacts. This premature burning
disables oxygen from being burned at its final destination in
cells. But the blood that flows through our body is no ordinary
liquid. It has truly remarkable properties that allow large
quantities of oxygen to be transported from the lungs, and to
countless billions of body cells.

The blood in each of our bodies contains about 30 trillion
cells. These differ from normal body cells in that they have no
nucleus (except when they first form).

Each of these 30 trillion "red blood cells" have about 270
million very special, highly intricate chemical structures called
"protein molecules." Totaling almost ten thousand million
trillion, they each contain a ring that is composed of carbon,
nitrogen and hydrogen. The rings are afloat in the blood stream,
and a cluster of four iron atoms sits at the center of each of
the rings. This cluster, in turn, provides a seat for two very
privileged guests: a pair of oxygen atoms that sustain life by
ultimately being burned in the cell they are destined to reach.
But the cluster of iron atoms surrounds the oxygen in a way that
protects it from premature burning until it reaches its final
destination!

This incredibly designed molecule is called "hemoglobin," and
it enables an amazing amount of oxygen to be carried from the
lungs, and to the body cells by the blood. Were it not for the
astounding orchestration of numerous electrical, mechanical and
chemical properties that have been interwoven among trillions of
these intricate, microscopic structures, our hearts would need to
pump 50 thousand gallons of blood through our bodies each day at
almost 5 times atmospheric pressure. Since our bodies disallow
this, a change in blood fluid properties would necessitate
changes in the electrical signals, diaphragm muscle, lung tissue,
skeletal structure, and so forth. Why? because each component
interacts with all others. It is a system problem.

Yet, specifying all of these things (including the blood)
still does not permit us to design the system. Even given all
these things, we still need to know how quickly the blood is
carrying oxygen to our body cells. The present rate is about 2000
gallons per day. But if it were half this number, we would then
need to readjust all of the other systems' parameters to satisfy
the demand for oxygen by the cells. It would do us no good to
change just one of the parameters, say, lung size or atmospheric
oxygen content. The reason is that each system component is
functionally related to all the others and quantitatively impacts
the way they perform. A change anywhere means a change
everywhere.
 

THE HEART AND ARTERIES

To specify the flow rate of blood, we must know the number,
diameter and distribution of all the arteries. Our body has an
arterial network which, in total, covers about 60,000 miles. Yet
even if we could enumerate all of the branches, and calculate the
turbulence at each of the forks, and compute back-pressure near
the valves, and catalog the manner of its distribution - knowing,
for example, that 500 gallons pass through 140 miles of arteries
in the kidneys daily - it would still be of little value. We must
also have full knowledge of the pump that is driving the system -
it's size, impedance and flow characteristics. As incredible as
it sounds, a typical heart is just larger than a fist and weighs
only eleven ounces! Yet, on average, it reliably pumps 2000
gallons of blood daily for over 70 years.
 

THE BRAIN

But given all of this, we would still need to know the rate at
which the heart pumps the blood. A typical heart beats over
100,000 times each day. This totals about 2 billion beats in a
lifetime. However, the rate at which these complex cycles of
contractions and expansions occur is controlled by electrical
signals from the brain. Thus we need to know aspects of brain
operation not only in regard to electrical signals to the
diaphragm muscle, but also with respect to its signals to the
heart. And even if all of these things were known - we would
still have inadequate information to design this system. We also
require details of the burning process once the oxygen reaches
its destination. This includes the rate of the metabolism, and
the feedback signals from the cells to the brain controlling the
release of sugar products within the liver, insulin from the
pancreas and digestive chemistry within the stomach.
 

COMPOUND INTERACTIONS

This myriad of parameters undergoes cooperative interactions
that stagger the mind. A trivial system with, say, five
components displays twenty basic kinds of interactions. Compound
interactions increase this number to sixty four (1). But even a
simple biological system such as a single-celled amoeba must move
around, acquire food, process oxygen, eliminate waste, interact
environmentally and reproduce itself. It contains hundreds of
components with base and compound interactions that number in the
tens of thousands, and millions, respectively. Darwin's belief in
biological change through the natural selection of certain
evolutionary changes were, for him, sensible because the
variations that he saw were small. But his idea that special
combinations survive to produce new kinds of life had no data,
whatever, to support it. Macroevolution has been defended for
over one hundred years. Yet nothing has been found showing
natural selection created even one new life kind (2)! However,
despite this fact the idea remains popular.
 

MACROEVOLUTION

Macroevolution implies changes to every component of the
biological system. Considering the countless interactions that
exist in real living systems, how can an organism that is forced
to undergo natural selection endure? Any change into a new life
kind must disrupt millions of coadaptive interactions within the
organism. To survive, countless other modifications that have not
yet occurred would need to be simultaneously selected. Also,
separate life kinds such as fish or birds exist as distinct
complex systems. What data teaches that countless graduations of
modified hybrids differing slightly from one another exist
between them? To modify a fish into a bird requires changes that
create the bird essentially in its final form.

Thus the idea that random changes and natural selection create
new life kinds is both simplistic and inadequate - a view
published some time ago by the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences. They
noted that existing genetic variations are negligible compared to
what is necessary to create new life kinds. They further said
that the functional adjustment of an organism's parts into a new
life kind requires that the blueprint of the new life kind be in
existence prior to its creation. The reason is clear:

Natural selection is not a mechanism that can
simultaneously modify an organism's parts into an
integrated system with coadaptive interactions
that yield the desired functionality.

Despite this fact, Darwinian believers herald 'descent with
modification' as the source of new life kinds. However, the
unwritten creed to which they are truly paying homage is design
with modification. Each life kind represents, as far we can tell,
an optimally designed system. A characteristic of such systems is
that a change in any one of its components degrades overall
system performance. To illustrate the point, let us consider some
of the systems that we design. Consider a color TV picture. In
principle, we can create this using only three components:
glass, metal and phosphor. But properly organizing these
components brings into existence something that lies outside the
properties of glass, metal or phosphor considered separately. A
color TV picture is familiar to all of us. Yet it exists as the
collective interplay of numerous exchanges of energy that arise
from the way that the various pieces of hardware are organized.
A television picture truly is a system property, and thus
represents a dimension of being totally apart from any one of its
components considered separately.

The TV picture doesn't stem from the properties of glass, or
metal, or phosphor. Instead, it arises as an organizational
property of their mutual interactions. This occurs through a
myriad of complex, microminiaturized integrated circuits that
have been creatively designed and meticulously assembled by
hundreds of trained, skilled thinking people in an optimized and
balanced way. But if a change occurs in one of the components,
the picture doesn't improve. On the contrary, it deteriorates. In
like manner, living things exist as a consequence of the vastly
complex, organized interplay of myriads of nonliving parts. Our
bodies consist of chemicals that are organized to live in an
optimal way. And when an unintended change occurs in one of these
components, we call it disease.

Another system that we design is an airplane. It is composed
of parts that are organized to fly. But no one component of the
airplane can fly by itself, just as no part of a TV can produce a
black and white or color picture. If, during flight, an airplane
component were to undergo change, would the airplane fly better -
or would it crash?

The point is, airplanes fly because of the interplay among the
designs of the wing, engine, rudder and other parts of the plane.
Each is optimally designed and assembled in special relation to
all of the others. It is the organizational balance and interplay
that yields the final result, and if a change occurs anywhere it
signals disaster, not delight. Living systems are similar, except
that they are vastly more complicated. No one chemical in our
body has life in and of itself. Instead, the chemistry is so
configured as to have been organized to live. Changing any part
of a biological system changes the interaction of that part
with virtually all other components throughout the system. This
doesn't create a new life kind any more than changing a radio
creates a television set, or changing a car creates an airplane.
Changing optimally configured parts degrades the overall system
performance, and makes for a guaranteed worst result.

The interactions among glass, metal and phosphor yield
something new: a color TV picture. Likewise interactions among
airplane parts produce something new: A flying object. Now let's
consider just one interaction. Two gases (hydrogen and oxygen)
that combine at room temperature to create water, a liquid that
at lower temperatures becomes a solid (ice), and at higher
temperatures changes into a gas (steam). This one interaction
creates a new substance. Regardless of whether the water is
liquid, solid or gas, each represents a form with properties

different from the two gases that created it. But can we improve
on the properties of water by making a change in either the
hydrogen or oxygen gas whose sole interaction created it? The
answer is no. Instead of improving it, making a change in either
gas destroys the very special liquid we know as water. With this
in view, why would we believe that a change in the component of a
living system would create an improved, new life kind? The
"newness" of even the simplest of organisms contains vast numbers
of components undergoing vast numbers of interactions. When
examined in detail, these "components" emerge as highly complex
entities with millions of balanced energy exchanges that
functionally coadapt into a system that "lives." The organism
thus exists through the strategic interplay of its nonliving
components, and not through the hokum of some ill-defined
circumstance.
 

SURVIVAL VALUE

Sometimes it is argued that the basis for selecting an
"optimum" change can be found in the survival of the organism.
But, of itself, no one component in which the change occurs has
survival value. Survival has meaning only in terms of the
organism taken as an entire system. It is a system property. The
organism exists through coadaptive interactions among its
components. But natural selection operates at the component
level. For example, what survival value does an eyelid have
without muscles to operate it? Or a retina without the lens? Or
the duct glands without the pupil? Or any one of these things
without any of the others?

Yet the eye is but one of a number of subsystems within the
body. Natural selection explains none of them. Or consider the
acoustic sending and receiving mechanisms in a dolphin or a
porpoise or a platypus. How can natural selection create either
mechanism without the other? For instance, of what possible
survival value is the sending unit without a way to receive the
echo? And of what possible survival value is either mechanism in
the absence of interpretive brain centers to guide the organism?

Compound traits are found in all living things, many at unseen
levels. One example is enolase, versus triose isomerase, versus
2,3 diphosphoglyceric acid in glycolytic metabolism. A more
familiar example is the ductus venosus versus the umbilical vein
in fetal blood circulation. In this case the right ventrical is
connected to the aorta, thereby bypassing lungs that otherwise
remove CO2. Therefore, although an organism may undergo random
changes, those that favor a new life kind are only known in terms
of survival criteria that pertain to the entire organism. This is
also true for individual subsystems that display compound traits,
such as the eye. Survival is an organizational property. Thus any
mechanism imagined to create new life kinds must be global in
scope. Conversely, natural selection operates at the component
level. It is a local mechanism and cannot, therefore, explain the
advent of new kinds of life.
 

ORGANIZATIONAL COMPLEXITY

Examination of any biological structure shows that its
chemical building blocks are located in strategic places that
create vast numbers of constructive, harmonious, life-sustaining
interactions. These channel energy along countless numbers of
intricate, very special pathways. Therefore, biological
components are organized to "live," in that they are separated
into a highly complex configuration that has virtually no order.

Its descriptive blueprint requires vast amounts of information.
But simple gases create water by combining into a configuration
that constitutes a highly ordered state with virtually no
complexity. Its descriptive blueprint is complete with very
little information. Mixing the gases creates paths of energy
reduction typical to that which occur in all natural processes.

But organizing parts to "live" requires a plan of energy ex-
change that specifies, controls and stabilizes the
unnatural simultaneous cooperation of millions of intricate,
self- sustaining interactions. Since this plan of life
provides the only criteria by which the collective selection of
millions of random changes can survive, how can its existence be
explained by the natural selection of favored random changes? In
effect, we have a chicken-egg situation. For natural selection
to create a meaningful new life kind, the plan must first
exist to tell it what changes are favorable i.e., that
identify the changed components that are to be retained. The
plan cannot, therefore, be the product of natural selection.
Moreover, virtually all of the components would need to
undergo simultaneous change to ensure the survival of the new
life kind.

In general, changing only one part of a biological system
leads to disastrous consequences. The advent of nuclear reactors,
for example, created a convenient source of radiation to which
plant life and insects (e.g., fruit flies) have been exposed in
experiments conducted over a period of at least two decades. In
each case the mutations deteriorated the species. In other
experiments fifty roses of the Queen Elizabeth variety were
neutron irradiated at a strength equivalent to several million
lifetimes of the rose. All of them became weaker or defective. Or
consider the hemoglobin discussed earlier. Natural mutations have
created at least forty variants of this incredible molecule. Yet
all of them carry less oxygen than normal hemoglobin. Why?
Because changing an optimally design system degrades it.

Human cells, for example, contain twenty-three pairs of
chromosomes. Each pair contains over three thousand microscopic
genes. On average, about six of these are "defective" in every
person alive. This means that each of us carry about six genes
that, in one way or another, have undergone abnormal change.
Fortunately, these genes are suppressed and the "change" is
unexpressed. But what would occur if these changes were to impact
our genetic machinery, such as is alleged to occur in
macroevolution? Would we improve as a species? To the contrary,
we would undergo a range of genetic disorders including cancer,
sickle-cell anemia, hemophilia and Huntington's disease. Male
babies born with an extra Y chromosome, for instance, tend toward
extreme violence, have lower IQ's, and are ten times more likely
to end up in a maximum security prison. Families with markers
along chromosome 15 are identified with dyslexia. The most common
form of mental retardation in males (1 in 2000) occurs from a
change at a fragile site along the X chromosome, and a single
base substitution in the complementary DNA for a certain enzyme
(ornithine transcarbamylase) leads to sparse fur and skin
abnormalities in mice, and to metabolic and neurological
disorders in humans. The point is this: As a practical matter,
life on earth constitutes biological systems that are optimally
designed. Rather than creating new and more complex life kinds,
unintended genetic changes destroy these systems.

From a scientific perspective, this does not mean that natural
selection does not occur. Neither does it mean that natural
selection may not have been responsible for the advent of some
new species among very similar kinds of life. But what it does
mean is that if macroevolution occurred, then natural selection
is an inadequate explanation. The data that supports natural
selection pertains to micro, and not macroevolution. Therefore,
to suppose that macroevolution exists in nature, or that it
somehow created new kinds of life seems to be an exercise in
faith based upon neither science nor sound reason.
 

SUMMARY

We have discussed macro and microevolution. Evolutionists say
that the first - macroevolution, is what created the different
kinds of life - such as sea, land and air. On the other hand
microevolution is identified with genetic processes that are said
to produce different species within the same kind of life. One
good example is different species of birds in the finch family.
However, the uncritical acceptance of macroevolution by many
academic and professional societies has served to keep Darwin's
ideas from being critically examined. Many assume that if any
evolution has occurred, even in some small degree, then it can
occur everywhere and without limit.

These ideas not only require changes to occur in virtually
every biological component of an organism, but also that the
organism will survive these changes in a beneficial way. The
reasons why this will not happen were discussed in Part II of
Darwin's Dilemma. Survival is an intricate compound trait i.e.,
it depends upon the complex yet harmonious interplay of literally
millions of separate living parts. To illustrate the point, we
turned to the breathing apparatus of the human body and examined
the consequences of making even a small change to the diaphragm.

We saw that this implied changes to the muscles and ligaments
that attached the diaphragm to the breastbone, spine, and ribs.
It affected the location, shape, size and strength of skeletal
structure bones. Lung size, cell efficiency, heart rate, blood
flow, artery networks , brain signals-- all must be included as
part of a vastly complicated system where details of the oxygen
burning process including metabolism rates and feedback signals
from the cells to the brain control the release of sugar products
in the liver, insulin from the pancreas and the digestive chemis-
try of the stomach. This functionality rests upon an astounding
orchestration of innumerable electrical, mechanical and chemical
properties that underlie trillions of intricate interwoven parts.

When one believes that a significant mutation brings anything but
catastrophe to this system, one has accepted a dogma that lies
outside the realm of science and rational thought.

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1. These arise when nonlinearities create functional dependencies
between: (i) a system component, and (ii) the joint combination
of two or more of the other components of the system.

2. The five kinds of life are: sea, air, land, soil and man.