Discovery Institute: Human Evolution Is Infeasible

About three weeks ago we wrote You Are a Mutant, in which we described some research showing that only about thirty mutations are transmitted from each parent to its child, considerably less than the average of 100 to 200 that had been estimated previously. If confirmed, this suggests that human evolution is happening more slowly than had been thought, which means revising the timescale of our divergence from our pre-human ancestors.

We’ve been expecting a reaction from creationists, and now we’ve got one from the neo-theocrats at the Discovery Institute‘s creationist public relations and lobbying operation, the Center for Science and Culture (a/k/a the Discoveroids, a/k/a the cdesign proponentsists).

At the Discoveroids’ blog we find Less Mutations Means More Time. It has no author’s name, so it’s one of their institutional offerings. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us. First they tell us what their “theory” is all about:

Evolutionary theory incorporates several ideas: Adaptation to the environment, speciation, random mutations coupled with natural selection, and common ancestry. ID addresses the part of evolutionary theory that assumes mutations coupled with natural selection results in novel traits, and through this mechanism life, once it emerged, then formed the diverse biological structures that we see today.

In other words, their “theory” attacks the basic (and often observed) mechanism of evolution. Let’s read on:

ID assumes that biological structures are designed with the end in mind and therefore cannot be the result of a random process.

There you have it in a nutshell. The Discoveroids assume that their magical designer is planning things. We continue:

As a point, common ancestry, the idea that all life is related by a common ancestor, can be compatible with intelligent design and need not to have occurred via this bottom up approach of randomly adding pieces to simple structures.

The Discoveroids’ “theory” is conveniently consistent with the observed evidence, but it arbitrarily adds the unobserved, unnecessary, and untestable premise that some kind of mystical purpose is driving it all.

That was very useful. Then, after discussing the research about which we’ve previously written, they somehow conclude something we didn’t notice before:

This study seems to show that these are not necessarily random mutations, but mutations that occur for some reason.

Really? Here’s more:

[T]here is another implication to their studies that the popular press focused on in their interview, and the authors briefly mentioned in their paper: The study implies that humans must have evolved slower than was thought because there are fewer (at least half) de novo germline mutations passed from parents to offspring. For this rate of mutation to be consistent with the prevailing theories of human-chimpanzee divergence from a common ancestor, the authors contend that the human-chimp divergence must have occurred 7 million years ago …

What of it? Moving along:

This study, based on mutations in the genome, assumes that humans evolved slower than was once thought, but time lines based on other fossil data show a rapid evolutionary transition in skull size and body structure. To say that human-chimp divergence needs to be pushed back to seven million years implies re-thinking some of the other criteria used to determine human origins and its time line.

But were does the magical designer fit in? Another excerpt:

There’s another issue that has not been fully addressed. These 60 mutations per generation are very few mutations for natural selection to work with. But humans have a very long generational time. … The question is, is this really enough mutations and enough time for natural selection to produce novel body plans? Is this even enough time to see the changes that have occurred in an evolutionary model of the Homo lineage?

Are they serious? Do they think there’s only one family producing the mutations? That’s the Adam & Eve model; and it’s also the Noah model. But in any breeding population there are numerous individuals, and each one has his own set of 60 mutations. In a group of, say, 1,000 individuals there would be 60,000 mutations per generation. And then, probably not too far away, there’s another population that might breed with the first, and so on, throughout the range of their population.

In a million years there are 40,000 generations (each 25 years long), and even with only 1,000 people in each of those 40K generations, that’s still 40 million individuals during those one million years, each with his own set of 60 mutations. Our population figures are undoubtedly too low, but even so, that seems like enough material for natural selection to work with. Not enough for the Discoveroids? Oh well, on with the article:

Human ancestry is a highly contentious subject. The fossil record interpretations seem to be full of presuppositions, while the genetic studies seem to go back-and-forth between a fast human-chimp divergence and a slow one.

Among scientists, the subject is neither as contentious nor as chaotic as the Discoveroids would have us believe. And now we come to the end:

With only 60 mutations per generation [BWAHAHAHAAH! -- that's 60 per person, but there's more than one person in a generation], even given that some families may mutate more and others less, it does not seem feasible that mutations coupled with natural selection has enough time to create the divergence that we see today.

It may not seem feasible in the fantasy world of the Discoveroids, but that’s their problem, not ours. What does seem feasible to them? They propose that their magical designer somehow manages to flit around and get everything done, but he never leaves us any evidence of his activities or even his existence, and the result of his work is entirely consistent with evolution and common descent. That’s what they think is feasible.

Copyright © 2011. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.

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