SHATTERING the MYTHS of DARWINISM RICHARD MILTON • = Park Street Press Rochester, Vermont Park Street Press One Park Street Rochester, Vermont 05767 www.gotoit.com Copyright© 1992, 1997 by Richard Milton First U.S. edition published by Park Street Press in 1997 Originally published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate Limited All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photo­ copying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. LIBRARY oF CoNGREss CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Milton, Richard, 1943- [Facts of life] Shattering the myths of Darwinism I Richard Milton. p. em. "Originally published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate Limited"- T.p. verso. Originally published: Facts of life : London : Corgi Books, 1993. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and indexes. ISBN 0-89281-732-1 (alk. paper) 1. Evolution (Biology)-Philosophy. I. Title. QH360.5.M55 1997 576.8'2-DC21 97-9962 CIP Printed and bound in Canada 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Text design and layout by Kristin Camp This book was typeset inJ anson with Lucida Sans as the display typeface Park Street Press is a division of Inner Traditions International Distributed to the book trade in Canada by Publishers Group West (PGW), Toronto, Ontario Contents Preface lX PART ONE: CHAOS 1. A National Tr easure 2 2. Through the Looking Glass 7 3. A Matter of Conjecture 15 4. The Key to the Past? 25 5. Rock of Ages 37 PART TWO: CLAY 6. Ta les from Before the Flood 58 7. Fashioned from Clay 67 8. An Element of Unreality 80 9. \Vhen Worlds Collide 87 10. The Record of the Rocks 96 PART THREE: CHANCE 11. Survival of the Fittest 122 12. Green Mice and Blue Genes 132 13. The Beak of the Finch 143 14. Of Cabbages and Kings 154 15. The Ghost in the Machine 167 PART FOUR: CREATION 16. Pandora's Box 178 17. Paradigm Lost 185 18. Down from the Tr ees 196 19. Hopeful Monsters 209 20. The Facts of Life 220 AFTERWORD: CONTROVERSIES 21. The Evolution of Evolution 236 22. On Being Thick Skinned 245 23. The Fish That Walked 252 24. Angels Versus Apes 259 25. Old Theories Never Die 273 Notes 279 Bibliography 283 General Index 293 People Index 302 Species Index 305 For Julia Preface "l X THEN THE FIRST EDITION OF THIS BOOK was published, in 1992, V V it was greeted with a storm of controversy no less fervent than the debate that met the publication of Darwin's theory of evo­ lution one hundred and thirty years ago. On one hand, according to a leading article in The Times; "Ri­ chard Milton's Shattering the Myths of Darwinism . ..could shake the 'religion' of evolution as much as Honest to God shook popular Christianity 30 years ago."1 While on the other, according to a review by Darwinist Rich­ ard Dawkins, the book is "loony," "stupid," "drivel" and its author a "harmless fruitcake" who "needs psychiatric help."2 When Shattering the Myths of Darwinism was published, I ex­ pected it to arouse controversy, because it reports on scientific re­ search that is itself controversial and because it deals with Darwin­ ism-always a touchy subject with the biology establishment. I didn't expect science to welcome an inquisitive reporter, but I did expect the controversy to be conducted at a rational level, that people would rightly demand to inspect my evidence more closely and question me on the correctness of this or that fact. To my hor­ ror, I found that instead of challenging me, orthodox scientists sim­ ply set about seeing me off "their" property. Richard Dawkins, a reader in zoology at Oxford University, wrote his review for the New Statesman magazine "lest the paper commission someone else who would treat it as a serious scientific IX Preface X treatise."3 Dawkins devoted two-thirds of his review to attacking my British publishers, Fourth Estate, for their irresponsibility in daring to accept a book criticizing Darwinism and the remainder to assassinating my own character in the sort of terms quoted above. Dawkins is employed at one of Britain's most distinguished universities and is responsible for the education of future genera­ tions of students. Yet this is not the language of a responsible sci­ entist and teacher. It is the language of a religious fundamentalist whose faith has been profaned. Nature magazine, probably the most highly respected scien­ tific magazine in the world, scented blood and joined in the frenzy. Its editor, John Maddox, ran a leading article that described me as believing science to be a myth (I don't), evolution to be false (I don't), and natural selection to be a pack of lies (I don't).4 It also magisterially rebuked the Sunday Times for daring to devote most of one of its main news pages to reporting the book's disclosures.5 These intemperate responses betoken more than a squabble between an inquisitive journalist and a couple of reactionary aca­ demics. They raise a number of important questions of general public interest. Who do you have to be to have a voice about scien­ tificresearch on which large sums of public money are spent? Who decides who you have to be? In what forum, or by what mechanism, can the voices of dissent ever be heard in science? It is not just outsiders who cannot be heard, it is dissenting members of the scientific professions themselves. In my mailbox are letters from biologists who are concerned by the teaching of Darwinism as holy writ and frommedical men whose practices have led them to make medical discoveries having a bearing on evolu­ tionary biology. They have sought to publicize these discoveries in journals such as Nature but have been universally rejected because their discoveries are anti-Darwinian in implication and hence counter to the ruling ideology in the life sciences. They have ap­ pealed to me-a nonscientist-to help them gain publicity. It is worrying to learn that in countries like Britain and the United States, thought to be among the most civilized on Earth, some professional scientists can feel so isolated and ignored that they have to take their case directly to the public via the popular press. Equally, it is depressing to discover that in countries which Xl PREFACE pride themselves on their intellectual tolerance, it is impossible to voice scientific dissent without attracting this kind of response from those who perceive themselves to be the guardians of orthodoxy. In seeking to defend the ideological citadel of Darwinism, the most vociferous critics of this book have allowed their emotions to mislead them so far as to attack me for advocating beliefs that I have never held and do not support. Both Richard Dawkins and Nature have tried to suggest that I do not believe in evolution and that I believe the Earth is merely a few thousand years old. To forestall any repetition of false claims like these, let me make my position clear on both issues fromthe outset. I accept that there is persuasive circumstantial evidence for evolution, but I do not accept that there is any significant evidence that the mechanism driving that evolution is the neo-Darwinian mechanism of chance mutation coupled with natural selection. Second, I do not believe that the Earth is only a few thousand years old. I present evidence that currently accepted methods of dating are seriously flawed and are supported by Darwinists only because they provide the billions of years required by Darwinist theories. Because radioactive dat­ ing methods are scientifically unreliable, it is at present impossible to say with any confidence how old the Earth is. PART ONE CHAOS CHAPTER 1 A National Treasure Y THE RIVERTHAMES AT TEDDINGTON, west of London, straggles Ba cluster of nondescript factory buildings that seem an unlikely home for a national treasure. Yet the buildings are of national im­ portance to everyone in the United Kingdom because of a few pieces of metal kept there. The buildings are those of the National Physical Laboratory, and the pieces of metal are platinum standards kept at strictly regu­ lated temperature in air-conditioned chambers to act as the indis­ putable authority for Britain's national weights and measures, the pound and the kilogram, the yard and the meter. Paradoxically, these standards are never used for everyday pur­ poses. No one goes to Te ddington to measure out a meter of cloth or a foot of parcel string. But their mere existence-unchanging and unchallengeable-is the nation's guarantee that standards ex­ ist: that should it ever be necessary, it is theoretically possible to make a physical comparison with the accepted measure and say with absolute certainty that the subject under test either is or is not of the stated weight or length. It's not easy for members of the public to visit the National Physical Laboratory, because it is a busy government research es­ tablishment and the repository of many secrets. But it is certainly possible. Those fortunate enough to be given access to the NPL will see the famous platinum kilogram standard and the atomic 2 A National Treasure 3 clock that is the authority for Greenwich Mean Time. You can check your wristwatch and, in principle at least, check up on your 12- inch ruler and the weights of your kitchen scales. A few miles to the east of Te ddington stands the very much more imposing structure of the British Museum of Natural His­ tory, famous to generations of schoolchildren for its dinosaurs and dramatic reconstructions of the Earth's geological history.