Volume 1, Number 4

December 1985

A publication for the members of SOR

THE COMET CONNECTION

I had decided that I was not going to be sucked into the over-

commercialization of a big ball of ice and dirt that flies by the

earth millions of miles away once every 76 years or so. Then I

attended a lecture by space engineer and amateur astronomer,

Harrison Sarrafian.

Mr. Sarrafian pointed out that other comets

with shorter cycle times have been observed to decrease in

brightness as time goes on. This makes sense since it does not

take much to deteriorate an ice ball hurling through space. The

catch is that extrapolating these observed deterioration rates back

in time 4.5 billion years results in the original comets having a

mass several times that of our sun.

The question for evolutionists is where do comets come from if

they did not originate with the solar system?

Several hypotheses were discussed

by Mr. Sarrafian, including the most popular which

is a big pool of comets somewhere in the universe that occasionally

kicks out a new comet. He also went on to discuss the obvious

problems with most of the evolutionary scenarios.

An interesting source of documentation on the observed decay

rates of comets is a paper entitled, Brightness in Changes in

Periodic Comets by Fred L. Whipple and Diarmaid H. Douglas-

Hamilton. If you would like a copy send $5.00 to Smithsonian

Institution, Astrophysical Observatory Cambridge, Massachusetts

02138 and ask for SAO Special Report Number 181, August 9, 1965.

Since Halley's comet is such a media event, I suddenly

realized that the comet could provide many opportunities to discuss

theories of origins with people we come in contact with every day.

So I ran out and bought some inexpensive 7x50 binoculars and copy

of Astronomy magazine. So far I've been able to spot the comet 3

times. Its not much to look at right now, just a little fuzzy ball,

but I'll be ready for March and April when we are supposed to get

the best view of Halley's comet.

-Dennis Wagner, Executive Director

A TRIP TO SACRAMENTO

Textbook publishers have come under pressure from the

California State Curriculum Commission to increase their coverage

of evolution or face rejection of their science textbooks. Because

of the national impact that California has on textbooks, we felt it

was imperative to testify before the State Board of Education.

The focus of our testimony was the insufficiency of the neo-

Darwinian mechanism to account for anything but microevolution, and

an explanation of how natural selection leads to stasis, not

gradualism, on a macroevolutionary scale.

We recommended that the Board select textbooks that:

1. clearly distinguish between microevolution and

macroevolution.

2. explain that the key features of the fossil record are

stasis and sudden appearance.

3. admit that a mechanism may not exist that can:

a. overcome the stabilizing effects of natural selection

on a macroevolutionary level.

b. overcome the deleterious effects of mutation.

c. overcome the genetic error correcting mechanisms found

in genetic systems.

4. expose our students to the serious problems that exist in

evolutionary theory so that they will be motivated to

develop better theories.

In addition, a copy of my essay "Resolving the conflicts

between natural selection and paleontology" was provided to each

member of the Board. The essay gave detailed documentation of the

thesis that natural selection is a contributing factor to

biological stasis.

The Board of Education voted 10-0 to reject the more than 20

textbooks under consideration unless coverage of evolution was

increased.

Their justification was couched in terms of "quality of

instructional materials." Until the textbook writers admit the

inadequacy of the current evolutionary mechanisms, and better

explain what biologists and paleontologists know to be true

regarding stasis, it is our opinion that "quality" will take a

backseat to "quantity" in the textbook coverage of evolution in the

near future.

A copy of my essay along with newspaper articles covering the

textbook controversy are available to SOR members upon request.

- Art Battson, Director of Campus Activities

NOTES FROM PETER GORDON

Recent work from Germany. Squids (Order Teuthoidea of the

Class Cephalopoda) are among the most interesting and distinctive

of the ocean's animals, with their streamlined, torpedo-shaped

bodies, and great variation in size (the Giant Squid, genus

Architeuthis, can reach 24 meters in length).

Now a report in Nature, vol.

318: 53-55, 7 Nov. 1985, indicates that one form may

be a "living fossil" as well. W. Sturmer has discovered a fossil

in the Hunsruck slate (Lower Devonian) which is quite close in

appearance to a living species of squid. The fossil, designated

Eoteuthis elfriedae, "is very similar to the living Alloteuthis

africana of the Loliginidae [a family of squids]." Sturmer

continues:

This specimen of E. elfriedae shows that

Alloteuthis-like animals have not changed much

over the past 400 Myr [million years], and means that

previous concepts of the appearance of such forms must

be revised.

Just another living fossil, you say? Maybe, but here are Sturmer's

concluding remarks:

If we consider the timetable and the fact that the

fossil record shows few closely related forms

[of cephalopods], then more questions arise,

especially as to the origin of these animals. How

long did it take to evolve from a primitive

nautiloid to Eoteuthis, and where might one hope to

find connecting forms?

A new history of the Creation/Evolution Controversy in

America. Edward J. Larson (Ph.D., History of Science, University

of Wisconsin) has written a richly documented history of the

American legal and legislative battles over the questions of

origins.

The book, Trial and Error: The American Controversy Over

Creation and Evolution (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1985, 222

pp.), may soon become a standard reference for the history of the

debate. The text is scrupulously fair, and refreshingly free of

the ridicule and ax-grinding which have often marred other books on

the subject.

Larson, who also holds a law degree from Harvard, has

as his central thesis the failure of law to resolve the

controversy: Because the creation-evolution controversy remains

unresolved in popular opinion, it could not be settled in law...

In the long run...the law will be changed or ignored."

Another book to watch for. Mary Midgley is a philosopher at

the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in England who writes on

human nature. Her newest book, Evolution as a Religion: Strange

hopes and stranger fears, (London: Methuen, 1985, 196 pp.) is

described by the publisher as follows:

In this controversial study Mary Midgley takes

issue with a number of bizarre scientific doctrines

which are often mistakenly viewed as part of Darwin's

theory. While assessing the dangers inherent in

such distortions, the book, though not an attack on

science, raises important questions about the nature

of both science and religion and their relation to

each other.

American publisher found. In my last "Notes" I mentioned a

new book, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, by Australian molecular

biologist Michael Denton; I was uncertain whether the book had an

American publisher.

Well, I am pleased to report that Denton's

book will be published in April 1986 by Adler and Adler,

Washington, D.C. I learned this from a "review" (the word is used

loosely) in Nature (vol. 318: 124 - 125, 14 Nov. 1985), wherein

Mark Ridley, a zoologist at Oxford, discusses three creationist

books and one by Robert G.B. Reid, an evolutionist. One can almost

predict what such a review will contain, and sure enough, there it

is: creationists have "closed minds"; they "sift" through

evolutionary writings, "seize upon bits that look like difficulties

for Darwinism, and ignore everything else. Then, after surrounding

the difficulties with schoolroom rhetoric, sub-Kuhnian

psychobabble, and suitably simplified Victorian history, they send

the whole to press." (Sub-Kuhnian psychobabble?!)

Nowhere in the review does Ridley suggest that neo-Darwinism

might--just might--be less than adequate as an explanation. He

defends Darwin's position (e.g. Darwin's miserably ad hoc

explanation of the gaps in the fossil record) with dogged

consistency. So...let me encourage professor Ridley to take the

train to Cambridge, and pay a visit to the lab of geneticist

Gabriel Dover. Here's what Dover might have to say"

The writings of Darwin, and indeed those that

contributed to the formulation of the neo-Darwinian

synthesis in the 1930's, are not Old Testament tracts

to be pored over by the armchair exegesists. They

cannot supply, without resorting to too many ad hoc

assumptions, all the answers to the multiple causes

of the ebb and flow of evolution...Physics moved on

from Newton, and biology might need to move on from

Darwin, if we are to explain, satisfactorily, all

that we observe. (Dover, G. "Shadow boxing with

Darwin" Nature, vol. 318: 19-20, 7 Nov. 1985)

Finally, let me encourage both Ridley and Dover to consider that

biology might need to move on, not only from Darwin, but from the

general theory of organic evolution as well.

- Peter Gordon

 

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