Evolution - The Assumptions Dominate

Assume Everything

As I've been debating some atheists online and reading up on a lot of the evolutionary studies and data supposedly promoting a number of Neo-Darwinisms core beliefs, I've come to a frustrating realization. The assumptions or beliefs dominate the interpretation of the data. This is something I've known for a long time, but now I'm really seeing it clearly. I'll show you what I mean.


Similarity And Common Ancestry

The idea of common ancestry is based upon the belief/assumption that similarity equals common ancestry except when it's extremely obvious that it doesn't. This means that whenever a characteristic of a living organism is similar to another organism, the immediate assumption is that this similarity exists because both organisms descended from the same ancestral "parent" somewhere in the distant past. But similarity does NOT automatically mean common descent!

Trying to point this out to an evolutionist is almost impossible, however, because they are so heavily bound by this belief that they can't even consider that it isn't absolutely true. The assumption or belief dominates their interpretation of the data so that all similarities immediately mean common ancestry, except in the cases where it's extremely obvious that it can't possibly be explained by that (this is called convergence, when two greatly separated organisms come up with the same characteristics independently).

Similarity, at it's core, just means that the characteristics are similar. That's it! They're SIMILAR! It's the extrapolation and the assumption that interprets and converts this hard data into the story of common ancestry. This belief often completely ignores what has been proven to be naturally possible by physics, chemistry, and genetic mutation, because they believe it so strongly that it overrides the evidences that say, "This can't actually be the best explanation for this."

The assumption dominates the interpretation of the data. Similarity almost always equals common ancestry, no matter what the natural processes of biology say about this being a valid hypothesis or belief.


Gene Duplication

Gene duplication is another prime example of the assumption dominating the interpretation.

Gene duplication is currently the "best" explanation for how new genetic data and functions arise in living organisms over time. You see, scientists for a long time have seriously struggled with the realization that there is far too much complex genetic instructions in living organisms to have simply arisen by small point mutations. Point mutations (single "letter" mutations in a gene) simply cannot create such large scale changes and sets of new novel data without being considered harmful garbage and culled by natural selection. So evolutionists have latched onto "Gene Duplication" as the explanation for the huge size of the genetic library in organisms, and use it as the explanation for how new functionality can arise over time. It basically saves Evolutionism from the obvious limitations of nature "coming up" with new genes and genetic data.

But since this idea has taken off, now EVERYTHING is considered a duplication event! That gene looks a lot like that gene. That means that one of them was accidentally duplicated, mutated, and became imbedded in the genome adding new unique functionality... This means that now similarity ALSO means (assumed) its a result of gene duplication. But this doesn't just stop at highly similar whole genes. This is also taken on the miniscule level of segments of genes. These two pieces of a gene are similar, and so they're a "partial gene duplication". So up and down the analysis of entire genomes, scientists are matching similar chunks of genetic code and declaring them to be examples of gene duplication. Why? Because they're similar, and they have to have an explanation for how all this additional genetic data came about.

However, just like with the argument of similarity equaling common ancestry, this is entirely an interpretation based upon an assumption, that similarity in the genetic code represents an instance of gene duplication. But it only works that way so long as you believe it to be the reality, because once again similarity is assumed to mean something that it doesn't have to mean. These people must build an evolutionary structure to all of life and so these two fundamental beliefs (one old and one new) dominate the entire interpretation of the existing data. The believed "story" explanation takes precedence over all else.


Final Thoughts

Similarity does not automatically mean common ancestry or gene duplication. There are many equally plausible explanations for similarity, none of which point to Evolutionism.

For example, the letter A is similar to the letter H in a number of ways. The shape of the letter, the fact that it uses straight lines, the fact that both are letters in the English alphabet, etc. However this does not automatically mean that we must assume that A beget (is the parent or grandparent of) H. The similarity between them does not mean common ancestry from A to H.  It's simply similarity and that's all.

The same can be pointed to with regards to computer programming code. Computer code uses the exact same core functions and systems to accomplish everything from your web browser to the latest high tech 3D computer/console game. It's all using the exact same kinds of computer code. But because the code is similar (using the same things like variables, IF...THEN statements, and LOOPS), it doesn't mean that your web browser automatically and naturally (without any intelligent involvement at all) gave birth to the game Call of Duty. Or that simple duplication of code from your web browser is the prime explanation for the fact that the code between both programs is essentially quite similar when all is said and done. Similarity does NOT mean common ancestry and does NOT mean a duplication event.

Now obviously these two examples cannot reproduce on their own like a living organism can, however the points still stand. The only time the assumptions listed above stand is when they are used upon living organisms because it's assumed (again, another assumption) that reproduction and time can solve anything. It can't. All of this is a dramatic example of very creative reaching for explanations that circumvent the plausible reality.

They are so bound and determined to explain all of this by way of materialistic reproduction that they completely reject and ignore the possibility of common design (common programming) by an intelligent designer. The more in depth you go into all of this, the more you see that nature has some extreme limitations and barriers that simply can't be ignored, yet they are, by way of these two dominant assumptions (common ancestry and gene duplication). Intelligent Design as an explanation, however, is NOT handicapped by the need for these assumptions and interpreted explanations because it isn't required that all life accidentally just happened. Intelligent Design says that this is all intelligently designed, at least from the start, that the programming is similar not because of common ancestry or gene duplication but because of a common programming language being used and a common "programmer" having written all the code.