So I am a day late. 
Still a awesome post!
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Still a awesome post!
:first:jobeth said:One of the many objections I have to the theory of evolution is the direction it claims life is going. They tell us that species and especially humans are evolving upwards and for the better through beneficial genetic mutations over the course of eons of time and generations of sexual reproduction.
I disagree with the projections of evolutionary theory. I think the gene pool is degenerating, rather than improving.
All mutations are bad for the organism that has them. You may have been told otherwise, but people with sickle-cell anemia are very sick people. Mutating viruses must have been around forever, but for some reason, humans, and other species, are unable to adapt and fend off new diseases as readily as they did in times past. Could it be that rather than assuming that viruses are become super-viruses, we might assume that our immune systems are becoming less and less efficient with each passing generation?
Humans are maturing at a much faster rate than in times fast. For instance, Girls begin menses and boy's voices are dropping at much earlier ages than in times past. Beethoven had a boy's choir filled with 16 and 17 year-old boys whose voices had not yet changed. In the classic book “Little Women”, Louisa May Alcott tells a story about 16 year-old girls who were playing with dolls and no one at the time thought that was odd like they would today. The boys and girls of even 100 years ago were much more immature than a same-age child of today. These are just a few instances of how our rates of maturation are much more rapid today than they were in the past. Any scientist will tell you that rapid-maturation rates are NOT a good thing for any organism.
And the further back we look the more contrast we find. Hagar, Sarah’s handmaiden, carried her son Ishmael on her hip into the desert and walked away from him so she wouldn't hear him cry. (Gen 21:14, 17) How many women do you know today who can carry their 13+ year-old son around like a baby? Sarah was pregnant for nearly a year, much longer than the 9 months pregnancies last today. Did the bible get the facts wrong, or did children mature much more slowly back then than they do nowadays?
Male sperm count is declining on a world-wide scale. No one knows what is causing this phenomenon, but the most obvious candidates, like contaminated food supplies, known toxins, clothing practices, etc have all been ruled out. Could it be another example of the gradual degeneration of the human gene pool? Bryan Sykes documents the phenomenon of declining male sperm in his book “Adam’s Curse”. He says on page 276-177:
“In the 1940s, 50 per cent of the men in the surveys had over a hundred million sperm per milliliter; that had dropped to 16 per cent of men by the 1990s. Conversely, the percentage of men with fewer than 20 million sperm per milliliter of semen climbed from 6 per cent in the 1940s to 18 per cent by the 1990s. These were all normal men with no history of infertility. Wherever you look, the sperm count is falling fast. Though most of the surveys which were included in drawing up the chart were carried out in the United States or Western Europe, they were not exclusively from these regions. Low sperm counts were found in men from places as far apart as Peru, India, Libya, and Nigeria. In fact, they have generally fallen so far that the lower limit for a ‘normal’ sperm count in infertility centers has had to be revised downwards from 60 million to 20 million per milliliter.” He then goes on to entertain the notion of a world without any men, which he sees as inevitable.
Hum... Could it be that the phenomena we observe and call "Evolution" is actually more insidious than anyone could guess? Perhaps the phenomena of gradual mutations we observe over time might more properly be called "De-volution"? By de-volution, I mean that the cumulative effect of all these observable genetic mutations is worse rather than better for the species.
Amphibians are genetically de-generating and becoming mutated beyond recognition at a rate that is alarming enough to cause some to predict the extinction, not merely of a species, or of a family, but of the entire class of amphibians. Could it be that the global amphibian declines are due to genetic de-evolution? When scientists first started noticing these declines, they assumed the decline was the result of direct human activities in that particular region. “Then, in the mid-eighties something new happened in the mystery--scientists became especially troubled because population declines were documented in wilderness areas, with little or no human disturbance. Both the Gastric Brooding Frog of Australia and the Golden Toad of Costa Rica have disappeared from relatively untouched, or pristine, places.” says the Center for Global Environmental Education website. Could other animals, including mammals, follow suit in the future?
I think that most so-called "vestigial" organs that are claimed to be unnecessary for modern humans would be beneficial rather than detrimental. Humans are apparently gradually shedding certain body parts that while not essential to life would be in every case better off with them than without them.
For instance, we can look at vestigial organs and body parts and see whether these are in fact currently useless and rudimentary or useful and beneficial. Both the appendix and the tonsils were once considered useless, vestigial organs, but are now known to perform important functions for digestion and for producing white blood cells which aid in fighting diseases and infections. There are many more body parts classified as “vestigial” or rudimentary which may or may not be quite as “useless” as we once thought. Can the Paranasal Sinus Cavity which give a heightened sense of smell, makes the head lighter and helps to warm and moisten the air we breathe really be considered “useless and rudimentary”? I don’t think so, and yet it is one you will find listed among vestigial organs in most anatomy classes. Is a person born without their Plantaris Muscle, as about 9 percent of the human population lack, and which is useful for grasping things with your feet a better or worse specimen of the human species? Some of us while retaining the Extrinsic Ear Muscles, but lacking Darwin’s Point, which is a small folded point of skin at the top of each ear, are unable to wiggle our ears, which probably makes us less able to focus distant sounds. Are those who of us who lack that ability more evolved than those of you who can? At the same time, I, like about 40% of the population, am genetically missing my wisdom teeth. Does that then mean that I am in fact further along in the genetic evolution of the human species and so cancel out my throw-back inability to wiggle my ears? If my children inherit both my genetically missing teeth and my inability to wiggle my ears, and also cannot grasp things with their feet as I can, then does that prove they are genetically superior or inferior to me?
I find it hard to accept that species, through genetic mutations cumulated over thousands of generations, are becoming in any way superior physically or mentally to the specimens of humans from whom we are descended. I submit that humans are not smarter or physically more fit today than humans of thousands of years ago, from whom we received our watered-down genes. If it can be demonstrated that they matured at a slower rater, had a higher and more vital sperm count, could see in the dark, and hear sounds and frequencies that we are no longer able to discern, could run faster, and longer, crawl better, grasp things with both their feet and their hands, digest cellulose and plant material more efficiently, and in every conceivable way perform better than we can, then how can we continue to propagate the myth that the human species, as a whole, is improving?
I think that Darwin’s theory about vestigial organs ought to be put in the dustbin with Ptolemy’s epicycles. Both of these theories were celebrated in their time but rather than improving our understanding of the world they served to hinder us from the truth for more than 100 years.
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