The Great Dothan Debate
Do Humans Have an Evolutionary Origin?
Published: 6 April 2009(GMT+10)
On Nov 27, 2007, in front of a packed house, CMI’s Dr. Robert Carter debated
Mr. Rick Pierson in Dothan, Alabama, on the subject “Do Humans Have an Evolutionary
Origin?”
Each debater gave introductory comments, then a rebuttal of the other’s comments.
They then asked three open-ended cross-examination questions each before wrapping
up with closing comments.
Carter’s opening statement
Carter opened by frankly stating that evolution is impossible, and that one must
believe in the miracle of the big bang and the miracle of spontaneous generation
in order to hold to evolution. He made the case that, while evolution depends on
life being simple, life is complex at all levels. After pointing out the “chicken
and egg” problem of the necessity of the DNA repair and copying mechanism
to be coded into the DNA before DNA can exist in the cell, he stated that “complexity”
is the Achilles’ heel of evolution. He then brought up the idea of “information”
and stated that information is the nail in the coffin of evolutionary theory. He
split the definition of evolution, disagreeing that it simply means “change”,
for the creationist believes in change and yet does not believe in evolution. In
fact, it was a creationist, Edward Blyth, who first came up with the idea of natural
selection. (See Don’t fall for the bait
and switch.) He concluded with an appeal to the audience to put everything
they were about to hear into the context of these introductory comments, for this
is a debate about worldview, not scientific data.
Pierson’s opening statement
Pierson started by listing what he considered the eight best evidences for human
evolutionary origins, but he mentioned several of these only briefly and did not
go into much detail. He focused on three of these eight as his main arguments. His
first argument was the existence of “pseudogenes”, their number, and
the fact that humans, chimps, and gorillas share several “lesions” that
render an otherwise functional gene inoperable. His second argument was that of
the reputed fusion of two ancestral chimp chromosomes to produce human chromosome
2. His third argument was for the retention of ancestral embryonic structures. If
embryos from diverse organisms all follow the same development pattern, he claimed
this would be evidence for common ancestry. He brought up the existence of “pharyngeal
slits” (“gill slits”), and the presence of “aortic arches”
(supposedly harking back to our fish ancestors) in the human embryo. He mentioned
the fossil record of hominids, but ran out of time before saying any more on the
subject.
Carter’s rebuttal to Pierson’s opening statement
Carter rebutted each of Pierson’s main arguments. He pointed out that the
99% similarity between human and chimp is an outdated idea (see “What about
the similarities between monkey and human DNA?” in
Genetics Questions and Answers). He then said that the idea of pseudogenes1 is also outdated. He discussed
“Haldane’s Dilemma” (see
Haldane s dilemma has not been solved) and how it led to the idea of “Junk
DNA” (see Vestigial Organs Questions
and Answers), but that the ENCODE Project (see
Astonishing DNA complexity update) demolished the idea of Junk DNA and
makes Haldane’s Dilemma much worse. ENCODE showed that 99% of the human genome
is functional, contrary to old expectations (based on Junk DNA theory) that 97%
was non-functional, with massive amounts of RNA transcription occurring along those
supposedly junk sections of DNA. He went on to point out that the pseudogene argument
is akin to the old vestigial organ argument (
Vestigial Organs Questions and Answers). As an argument from silence (one
of the classic logical fallacies), it is not a sound scientific statement.
Carter went on to discuss the fusion hypothesis for the origin of human chromosome
2. There is a diversity of opinion within the creationist community about whether
or not it actually happened, yet it proves nothing for the evolutionist. They claim
common descent because one of our chromosomes looks like two of the ape chromosomes.
But they would also claim common descent if we had the exact same number of chromosomes.
Also, if it were true, it was a near-extinction event for humanity.
On the subject of homology, Carter brought up Haeckel’s fraudulent drawings
(see Ernst Haeckel: Evangelist for evolution and apostle of deceit)
and compared them to those from a recent paper.2,3 He claimed that an embryologist
can tell the difference between the various organisms, but a lot depends on the
developmental state of the embryos. He asserted that there are no gill slits in
the human embryo and that the pharyngeal pouches perform no
respiratory function. He showed that the “post-anal tail” is a misnomer
and why it only appears to be a tail, as embryologists know (see
Embryonic Recapitulation and Similarities Questions and Answers).
Carter broached the subject of hominids, but only managed to state they were fully
human (see Anthropology and Apemen Questions
and Answers) before time ran out.
Pierson rebuttal to Carter’s opening statement
Pierson dismissed Carter’s statement that the evolutionist must believe in
miracles, specifically the two Carter brought up. He claimed the big bang was not
evolution, neither was the abiogenic origin of life. He claimed that evolution was
simply "biological change" [Carter warned about this deceptive definition in his
opening comments].
Regarding the origin of life, Pierson claimed the RNA World hypothesis is a suitable
explanation, using RNA’s centrality to life and the experimental formation
of ribosome ligases from random chemical reactions to back up his claim. He also
correctly outlined the difference between spontaneous generation and abiogenesis
[see Origin of Life Questions and Answers].
He went on to discuss the big bang, giving a list of evidences, including the expanding
universe, red shifts, experimental verification of the predicted amounts of helium
and hydrogen in the universe, and the presence of the cosmic microwave background
radiation (CMB). He also introduced the inflationary big bang model, claiming it
solved three problems in the older model. [Apparently, he is unaware of the groundbreaking
work by two CMI scientists on the subject. See “What are some of the problems
with the ‘big bang’ hypothesis?” in
Astronomy and Astrophysics Questions and Answers.]
He then attempted to discount Carter’s analogy of computer parts randomly
coming together to form a functional computer, claiming that a single replicating
molecule can be both hardware and software. [For a detailed rebuttal, see
Information Theory Questions and Answers.]
In an attempt to discredit Christianity, he briefly brought up ethics, referring
to the Old Testament and mentioning mass murder before running out of time.
Cross-examination questions
1. Carter: “Can you please give the audience a reasonable process whereby
random natural events can produce the necessary but non-random information needed
for evolution, including the evolution of new genes and new, complex biochemical
pathways?”
Pierson’s answer to the origin of information dealt with gene duplication
(giving trichromatic vision in old world monkeys as an example), and exon shuffling
(e.g., serine proteases in the blood coagulation pathway). He claimed that a complex
biological process like the production of the bacterial flagellum can be explained
easily since the 24 core proteins are almost all slightly modified duplicates of
one another (see Germ’s miniature motor has
a clutch).
2. Pierson: He started his question with the claim that Carter stated in a talk
the previous evening that there were no transitional fossils between reptiles and
mammals or between fish and amphibians. He referenced a book that mentioned the
Tiktaalik fossil and other similar species, then asked why Carter did not mention
them during his talk?
Carter replied that he did not say there were “no” transitional fossils
[The majority of the audience had not been present at his talk the previous evening
so there was no way to verify either statement. There was also no way to see the
context in which this statement was made.]. He used Pakicetus, once thought
to be perfectly intermediate between land and aquatic mammals, as an example and
showed how it was determined later to have no aquatic features when more of the
skeleton was discovered. He showed a slide that illustrated the diversity within
the ceratopsid dinosaur group and compared it to the fossil record of the rhinoceros.
He showed another slide of an evolutionary tree and claimed it lacked the predicted
links, that the ones used today were not used earlier, and that the transitional
status of claimed intermediates is always debatable. Darwin wanted innumerable transitional
fossils, but we only find a few and there is no evidence to fill in the largest
gaps, which are represented by the fewest number of fossils. This is contrary to
Darwin and contrary to evolutionary predictions. He finished by using the various
families of stony coral families as an additional example of species stasis. (see
“Are there really missing links?” in
Fossils Questions and Answers) (For specific details about Tiktaalik
and other similar species, see Panderichthys
a fish with fingers? and the list of related article links on the bottom
of that page.)
3. Carter: After referencing the ENCODE Project and saying it kills the idea of
junk DNA, he asked, “With only 100,000 generations since the human-chimp split,
would you please explain one of the following: a) The fixation of the 5 million
indel mutations covering 90 million base pairs that separate our species; b) the
fixation of the 35 million point mutations; or c) the fixation of the approximately
1,000 beneficial mutations that might have accumulated in our two separate lineages
since we diverged?” He stated these were intractable problems and that there
has not been enough time in evolutionary history to account for all these changes.
Pierson struggled giving his answer. He started by claiming only 5–8% of the genome
is under functional evolutionary constraint [This comes from a separate paper4 that compared the human, mouse,
and rat genomes and is not part of the ENCODE results. It is also based on evolutionary
assumptions of common descent and the idea that long stretches of DNA shared by
diverse organisms must be functionally constrained.], and that the rest can accumulate
mutations at will. He brought up the results of another study in which megabases
were removed from the mouse genome, with no ill effects to the mice [This was a
tremendous surprise to evolutionists,5,6 who expected strongly conserved
sequences to be highly functional.]. He stated only 1.5–2% of the human genome is
protein coding, and that most of the genome is composed of repetitive sequences
[this avoided the question that had been asked]. In saying this he showed that he
was not up to date with the science (e.g., the ENCODE project outlined earlier by
Carter).
In an attempt to rebut the ‘fixation of mutations’ question, he mentioned
Haldane’s Dilemma and claimed it was flawed. He also mentioned James [sic,
Walter] ReMine’s book,
The Biotic Message, and claimed the author made invalid assumptions [see
Carter’s rebuttal below]. Thus, he claimed, Haldane’s Dilemma is no
longer a problem.
As far as the 35 million point mutations that have been fixed in the few generations
since humans and chimps split, he said, “You can’t answer everything,”
then noted that his lack of an answer looks bad. [Note: this is the crux of Haldane’s
Dilemma and he did not have the ability to address the details.]
To address the assumed fixation of 1,000 beneficial mutations, he said something
about different selective pressures in different environments, then split the 1,000
figure to include only 500 per lineage. [The careful observer would have noted he
was only asked to answer one of the three possibilities and that he did not answer
any!]
4. Pierson: This next question rambled a little before he got to the point. He started
off with the claim that CMI takes Genesis as a science book instead of allegory
[this is not an accurate portrayal of our position, see
What we believe and The Bible and hermeneutics].
He then said that Genesis makes only a few predictions, including that man is made
from the dust of the earth, which would mean man is made of silicon dioxide, and
that men should have one less rib than woman, which he (correctly) claimed is also
false, and that if we are created in God’s image, and if you take this literally,
then God looks like us, “with two eyes, and all this kind of stuff.”
For his question, he asked why the two predictions the Bible makes about humans
are not correct, and if Carter didn’t think God looks like us, “anthropomorphic,
with eyes, legs, and that kind of stuff,” then isn’t he “interpreting
that part where it says we are created in God’s image, instead of taking it
literally?”
Carter dismissed part of this as not being germane to the debate. Whether or not
man is made in the image of God is philosophy and does not pertain to the debate
at hand. Also, the definition of the word “image” is a religious question
(see Made in the image of God).
He disagreed that the Bible taught men should have one less rib than women. He said
even primitive man knew that if you lost your finger, your future children would
still be born with 10 fingers [thus, Pierson’s assertion is actually a straw
man argument, one of the classic logical fallacies]. He also pointed out that the
rib is the only bone that will re-grow when removed (see
Regenerating ribs).
He went on to give additional examples of predictions that can be derived from Genesis
that Pierson failed to mention. He discussed the evolutionary tale of human migration
out of Africa, as tracked by mitochondrial DNA, and how this depends on the assumptions
underlying the neutral model of evolution. He then claimed the data better support
the Tower of Babel story, with a single migration of humanity, out of the Middle
East, traveling in small people groups, from a small original population, into uninhabited
territory, in the recent past. He said the three main mitochondrial lineages found
throughout the world might very well correlate to the three daughters-in-law of
Noah, and that the geographic localization of Y chromosome haplotypes does not make
much sense evolutionarily, but easily reflects the fact that there was only one
Y chromosome on the Ark.
5. Carter: This question dealt with a recent paper that claimed the earliest fossil
apes walked upright and that modern apes lost the ability. The claim that apes walked
upright 21 million years ago disagrees with 150 years of evolutionary storytelling
and “throws it in the trash.” His question: “Please give the audience,
based on this new information, a plausible story on the origin of humans.”
Pierson did not see why this was a problem, for it did not counter the pseudogene
argument, nor did it deal with embryonic similarities. He dismissed the question
by stating that walking is a behavior and that the question does not deal with DNA
similarities. He said we already knew that Australopithecus afarensis walked
upright 3–4 million years ago and that science progresses, sometimes making mistakes,
and that just because something is published does not make it a fact. He saw no
reason why pushing back walking a few million years was a problem and then noted
that Carter does not believe in the dates to which he was referring anyway. [We
suppose he failed to realize that the reputed date of upright walking is before
the human-chimp divergence and, if it turns out to be true, the whole evolutionary
story of the origin of man is up in the air.]
6. Pierson: The final question was another rambling statement and returned to the
pseudogene argument. Pierson claimed that pseudogenes can no longer perform their
original function [note that this is an assumption], due to frame shift mutations,
premature stop codons, and initiator sequence mutations. He claimed Carter believed
all pseudogenes to be functional [he doesn’t], and that, if so, we have 20,000
pseudogenes that are functional in our genome that arose by mutation. He claimed
this destroys all arguments based on information and that it is easy to add information
to a genome by just throwing mutations at it. He also claimed this destroys all
arguments about specified complexity, all arguments about information, because information
is “trivially easy”, and also the “isolated great gap between
functional DNA sequences”.
To address the pseudogene idea, Carter stated the old adage that “absence
of evidence is not evidence of absence” and that just because we do not know
the function does not mean they do not have a function. He said pseudogenes possibly
have many functions, including the ability to translate (sic, “be transcribed
into”) RNA that can then bind to the gene in the target area and repress it.
He gave an example of a supposed pseudogene that humans, chimps and gorillas share.
He then mentioned a common rule of thumb in biology that “form follows function”.
If pseudogenes have a form, he argued, and this form is consistent among lineages
that supposedly diverged 10 million years ago, the sequence in question certainly
has a function (see
Potentially decisive evidence against pseudogene shared mistakes ).
Regarding the results of the ENCODE project that Pierson attempted to dismiss, Carter
said the purpose of ENCODE was to test how much of the genome was functional and
that they found massive amounts of transcription all over the genome. To make matters
even worse, they found many places with overlapping RNA codes that do completely
different things. The conclusion was that the bulk of what was considered to be
junk DNA is now known not just to be functional, but polyfunctional. He
stated that evolution and natural selection cannot handle polyfunctionality and
that the ENCODE Project answers the question of pseudogenes.
Pierson closing statement
Pierson returned to his main argument that pseudogenes prove the evolutionary origin
of man. He said that transcription does not equate to biological function and that
you can’t say something has a function until you find it [This violates the
general rule of biology that form follows function, as mentioned earlier].
He said the ENCODE Project found that a majority of DNA is transcribed, not that
it has a function [We feel that this begs the question]. That only 5–8% of the genome
is under functional constraint. He then backed up Carter’s claim that the
pseudogene shared between human, chimp, and gorilla discussed earlier may be an
example of functional constraint, but that it is only one example and the rest of
the genome is free to accumulate mutation since it is mostly repetitious. He claimed
this refutes the specified complexity argument and the information argument, because
these repetitious sequences have no meaning. He restated his belief that it is easy
to add information to a genome.
He went on to discuss the efficiency of information storage in the DNA molecule
and that human technology can store data more compactly and that computers can copy
information much faster than the cell. Even though DNA is amazing, he claimed, “to
put it up on a pedestal above what humans can do is not accurate.” [Note:
nobody was arguing this point, but humans have achieved this information storage
technology using intelligence; evolutionists claim that the incredible information
storage system of DNA came about without any intelligence.]
Returning once again to the pseudogene argument, he claimed shared mutations are
a basic prediction of evolutionary theory [true], and that the opposing view that
CMI presents is independent origins [not true, he is assuming no design and no function
for pseudogenes]. He then went into a probability argument before bringing up a
few additional examples, including an apparent shared mutation that prevents humans
and great apes from synthesizing vitamin C (see
Why the shared mutations in the Hominidae exon X GULO pseudogene are not evidence
for common descent).
He took exception to Carter’s claim that the 96–99% identity value between
chimps and humans is invalid and cited several measures CMI has reported on their
website [but much of what he said was the point CMI was trying to make in the article]
(see Human/chimp DNA similarity, >98% Chimp/human
DNA similarity? Not any more, and Decoding
the dogma of DNA similarity).
He wrapped up his closing statement by attempting to restate several things Carter
said in the debate and in the prior evening’s talk, asking if evolution is
racist and whether or not you are immoral if you believe it [see comments by Carter
below]. He ended by saying that evolution simply describes the world; it says what
is, not what should be.
Carter’s closing statement
Carter began by tying up some loose ends. He returned to the ENCODE argument, saying
that the fact that so much RNA transcription occurs is an indication of function,
for evolution would predict some degree of efficiency and it would make much more
sense if the useless transcription eventually got turned off. He agreed that the
genome has much repetitive material, but that does not mean it is useless info.
In fact, he said, repeats are probably structural.
He agreed that the human and chimp genomes are similar, but that there are many
portions we cannot align and there are many genes we do not share. These genes cannot
be explained by evolution because there is not enough time to evolve them. Getting
back to duplication as an engine for evolution, he said duplicated genes should
tend to be weeded out over time. They should be destroyed if they have no function.
He also brought up the existence of evolutionary modeling programs (see
From ape to man via genetic meltdown: a theory in crisis) and concluded
that our genomes are doomed to extinction due to the accumulation of deleterious
mutations that natural selection cannot weed out.
Carter: ‘there is nothing to say that raping and pillaging is wrong, for there
is no higher power in evolutionary theory to whom one can appeal’
To address Pierson’s claim that Carter said evolution is immoral, he countered
by saying that there is no judge between right and wrong in evolutionary theory
and so the proper term is amoral. He raised the example of Genghis Khan,
an evolutionary success story by all measures since he is the ancestor to 1 out
of every 200 people alive today7
, and pointed out that there is nothing to say that raping and pillaging is wrong,
for there is no higher power in evolutionary theory to whom one can appeal (see
Morality and Ethics Questions and Answers).
He claimed Haldane’s dilemma was not the consequence of errors in his work
on this, which work was actually used to generate the idea of junk DNA. He also
said he had had personal conversation with Walter ReMine, who explained to him what
his detractors have said about his work is wrong (see
The Biotic Message: Evolution versus Message Theory).
He noted that Pierson did not bring up the creationist position often [and it seems
he misstated it when he did] and how he (Carter) tried to stay on the evolutionists’
turf to make a point. He pointed out how Pierson tried to stay away from origins,
how Darwinian evolution fails mathematically, and then discussed the fact that evolution
is really a smokescreen for the worldview battle that is raging behind it. In fact,
Darwin and his friends rejoiced that they were attacking Christianity. He then gave
his personal testimony about how creationist analysis helped him keep his faith
while in his undergraduate training.
Briefly, he addressed the big bang, claiming inflation theory is a magic wand and
that it defies all known laws of physics. He wrapped this up with this quote, “If
you have to resort to unknown mechanisms to explain the most important part of your
theory, one wonders how solid your theory is in the first place.”
Regarding human evolution [the topic of the debate], he stated his belief that we
came from recent origins, and gave a list of evidences from genetics.
In his final few minutes, Carter encouraged the audience to dig deeper into the
subject and asked them not to turn away from God if they heard him calling.
Related resources
References
- Type pseudogenes into the search engine window on this site
(creation.com). Return to text.
- Pennisi, E. 1997. Haeckel’s embryos: fraud rediscovered.
Science 277(5331):1435. Return to text.
- Richardson et al. 1997. There is no highly conserved
embryonic stage in the vertebrates: implications for current theories of evolution
and development. Anat. Embryol. 196:91–106.
Return to text.
- Cooper, G.M. 2004. Characterization of evolutionary rates
and constraints in three mammalian genomes, Genome Res. 14:539–548.
Return to text.
- Ahituv N., et al. 2007. Deletion of ultraconserved
elements yields viable mice. PLoS Biology 5(9):1906–1911.
Return to text.
- Gross, L. 2007. Are “Ultraconserved” genetic elements
really indispensable? PLoS Biology 5(9):1839. Return
to text.
- Zerjal, T., et al. 2003. The genetic legacy of the
mongols. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 72:717–721. See also “Genghis
Khan a Prolific Lover, DNA Data Implies” at http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/02/0214_030214_genghis.html.
Return to text.
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