The Failure of Macro-Evolution
One day I ran into this commentary from Stephen Myers:
Bill Nye: The Perfect Talking Head for a March Against Science.
The commentary mentioned climate change and then evolution and a
conference on evolution sponsored by the Royal Society of London.
Myers had this to say about the conference:
This past November I attended a conference of the prestigious Royal
Society of London. The meeting was called to address this problem.
Speaking first, biologist Gerd Müller listed the "explanatory
deficits" of neo-Darwinism. He said those include its failure to
explain the "origin of biological complexity" and the origin of
major morphological "novelties". It also doesn't predict their
abrupt appearance in the fossil record.
Other biologists echo his concerns. They argue that mutation and
selection can account for "the survival, but not the arrival of the
fittest." That is, minor, but not major, changes in the history of
life.
I thought this was a fine little item to post in a Facebook Atheism
vs. Theism discussion group. I got the usual complaints from
atheists. So I thought I'd look up the conference and see for
myself what they said. I searched for information on Gerd Müller
and that meeting. Gerd Müller gave the introductory talk.
Wikipedia has this to say about him:
Gerd B. Müller (born 1953) is an Austrian biologist who is professor
at the University of Vienna where he heads the Department of
Theoretical Biology in the Center for Organismal Systems Biology
Pretty good credentials, wouldn't you say? The Royal Society has his
introductory talk online at:
http://downloads.royalsociety.org/events/2016/11/evolutionary-biology/muller.mp3.
At about the 7:00 minute mark Müller begins discussing population
genetics. If you've ever discussed evolution with an atheist, it is
likely they will bring up population genetics. They will claim this
explains all of evolution. QED. You lose. They win. End of
story. You're an ignorant fool. Well, at the 9:45 mark Müller says
that population genetics:
...explains very well what it is designed to explain, namely
variations, genetic variations in evolving populations...
but moving on to 10:10 Müller says:
...however what it does not explain are all these, ah, complex
levels of evolution that I had mentioned at the beginning, ah, such
as the origin of these body plans but also complex, ah, behaviors,
complex physiology, development ...
This is, of course, what critics of evolution have been saying all
along. The critics are OK with micro-evolution but not with
macro-evolution. Müller then goes on to say how they are looking for
ways to explain how macro-evolution can happen.
One can only hope (and pray!) that this message gets out to the general
population. But don't expect atheists to accept this. They won't
pay any attention to eminent biologists. Your average atheist
listens to Bill Nye.
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