We live in a world intellectually dominated by the unfounded boasts and triumphal legends of scientists and materialists. One of those triumphal legends is the "Darwin explained it all" legend:
As an antidote to such misleading claims, it is a good for a person to keep a "no, they didn't" list. Below are some items that should be put on such a list.
#1: No, They Didn't Ever Make Any Important Progress in Explaining What Caused the Origin of the Universe
The Big Bang theory is a theory describing the origin of the universe. The theory describes the universe suddenly beginning in a state of basically infinite heat and density about 13 billion years ago. But the theory is not an explanation of the origin of the universe in the sense of giving us an explanation of what caused the universe's origin. The Big Bang theory offers no explanation for what caused the Big Bang.
#2 No, They Didn't Ever Create a Predictively Successful Theory Describing the Origin of the Universe
The Big Bang theory is often described as one that makes successful predictions, on the grounds that (1) it predicts the cosmic background radiation that has been observed, and (2) it predicts a distribution of elements similar to the observed distribution of elements in the universe. But it is a huge falsehood to claim that the Big Bang is predictively successful. The fact is that the Big Bang theory does not predict a universe anything like the one we observe. It instead predicts a universe of either pure energy, or a universe that has 50% of its matter as antimatter. We live in no such universe.
Scientists believe that when two very high-energy photons collide, they produce equal amounts of matter and antimatter, and that when matter collides with antimatter, it is converted into high-energy photons. Such a belief is based on what scientists have observed in particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider, where particles are accelerated to near the speed of light before they collide with each other. But such conclusions about matter, antimatter and photons lead to a great mystery as to why there is any matter at all in the universe.
Let us imagine the early minutes of the Big Bang about 13 billion years ago, when the density of the universe was incredibly great. At that time the universe should have consisted of energy, matter and antimatter. The energy should have been in the form of very high energy photons that were frequently colliding with each other. All such collisions should have produced equal amounts of matter and antimatter. For example, a collision of high energy particles with sufficient energy creates a matter proton and an antimatter particle called an antiproton. So the amount of antimatter shortly after the Big Bang should have been exactly the same as the amount of matter. But whenever a matter particle touched an antimatter particle, both would have been converted into photons. The eventual result should have been a universe consisting either of nothing but photons, or some matter but an equal amount of antimatter. But only trace amounts of antimatter are observed in the universe. A universe with equal amounts of matter and antimatter would have been uninhabitable, because of the vast amount of lethal energy released when even a tiny bit of matter comes in contact with a tiny bit of antimatter.
- "One cannot ignore the deep, unanswered question concerning the origin of the baryonic component because baryons and antibaryons should have annihilated almost completely, leaving only a negligible abundance today. Yet we observe a far greater concentration than the standard model of particle physics and the first and second laws of thermodynamics should have permitted. So where did baryons come from?" Astronomer Fulvio Melia, "A Candid Assessment of Standard Cosmology," 2022.
- "We believe the big bang produced the same amounts of matter and antimatter. These should have annihilated each other, leaving a universe made of electromagnetic radiation and not much else.” -- Professor Stefan Ulmer, a scientist at CERN (link).
- "The Big Bang should have created equal amounts of matter and antimatter in the early universe. But today, everything we see from the smallest life forms on Earth to the largest stellar objects is made almost entirely of matter. Comparatively, there is not much antimatter to be found." -- "The matter-antimatter asymmetry problem," a page on the CERN web site describing the European Organization for Nuclear Research projects (link).
Some of the worst examples of phony-baloney "science news" comes when the topic of abiogenesis is discussed. Abiogenesis is the idea that life can naturally arise from non-life. Everything we know about the complexity and amount of organization in living things argues against this idea. Even the simplest living thing is a cell that requires hundreds of different types of protein molecules to exist and reproduce. Each of those types of protein molecules is a separate complex invention as unlikely to arise by chance as a well-written 100-word paragraph from a random arrangement of shells and pebbles and seaweed at a seashore.
- The transformation of an ensemble of appropriately chosen biological monomers (e.g. amino acids, nucleotides) into a primitive living cell capable of further evolution appears to require overcoming an information hurdle of superastronomical proportions (Appendix A), an event that could not have happened within the time frame of the Earth except, we believe, as a miracle (Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, 1981, 1982, 2000). All laboratory experiments attempting to simulate such an event have so far led to dismal failure (Deamer, 2011; Walker and Wickramasinghe, 2015)." -- "Cause of Cambrian Explosion - Terrestrial or Cosmic?," a paper by 21 scientists, 2018.
- "Biochemistry's orthodox account of how life emerged from a primordial soup of such chemicals lacks experimental support and is invalid because, among other reasons, there is an overwhelming statistical improbability that random reactions in an aqueous solution could have produced self-replicating RNA molecules." John Hands MD, "Cosmo Sapiens: Human Evolution From the Origin of the Universe," page 411.
- "The ongoing insistence on defending scientific orthodoxies on these matters, even against a formidable tide of contrary evidence, has turned out to be no less repressive than the discarded superstitions in earlier times. For instance, although all attempts to demonstrate spontaneous generation in the laboratory have led to failure for over half a century, strident assertions of its necessary operation against the most incredible odds continue to dominate the literature." -- 3 scientists (link).
- "The interconnected nature of DNA, RNA, and proteins means that it could not have sprung up ab initio from the primordial ooze, because if only one component is missing then the whole system falls apart – a three-legged table with one missing cannot stand." -- "The Improbable Origins of Life on Earth" by astronomer Paul Sutter.
- "Even the simplest of these substances [proteins} represent extremely complex compounds, containing many thousands of atoms of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen arranged in absolutely definite patterns, which are specific for each separate substance. To the student of protein structure the spontaneous formation of such an atomic arrangement in the protein molecule would seem as improbable as would the accidental origin of the text of Virgil's 'Aeneid' from scattered letter type." -- Chemist A. I. Oparin, "The Origin of Life," pages 132-133.
- "The expected number of abiogenesis events is much smaller than unity when we observe a star, a galaxy, or even the whole observable universe." -- Scientist Tomonori Totani, "Emergence of life in an inflationary universe," a paper confessing we would not expect one natural origin of life (abiogenesis) even in the entire observable universe (link).
- "We now know not only of the existence of a break between the living and non-living world, but also that it represents the most dramatic and fundamental of all the discontinuities of nature. Between a living cell and the most highly ordered non-biological system, such as a crystal or a snowflake, there is a chasm as vast and absolute as it is possible to conceive." -- -- Michael Denton, MD and biochemistry PhD, "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis," page 250.
If someone defines a fertilized human egg as a human being, a definition that is very debatable, you might be able to say, "I understand the physical origin of a human being," and merely refer to a sperm uniting with an egg cell as such an origin. But a bigger question is whether anyone understands the physical origin of an adult human being. The physical structure of an adult human being is a state of organization millions of times more complex than a mere fertilized speck-sized egg cell. (A human egg cell is about a tenth of a millimeter in length, but a human body occupies a volume of about 75 million cubic millimeters.) So you don't explain the physical origin of an adult human being by merely referring to the fertilization of an egg cell during or after sexual intercourse.
We cannot explain the origin of an adult human body by merely using words such as "development" or "growth." Trying to explain the origin of an adult human body by merely mentioning a starting cell and mentioning "growth" or "development" is as vacuous as trying to explain the mysterious appearance of a building by saying that it appeared through "origination" or "construction." If we were to find some mysterious huge building on Mars, we would hardly be explaining it by merely saying that it arose from "origination" or by saying that it appeared through "construction." When a person tries to explain the origin of a human body by merely mentioning "growth" or "development" or "morphogenesis," he is giving as empty an explanation as someone who tells you he knows how World War II started, because he knows that it was caused by "historical events."
There is a more specific account often told to try to explain the origin of an adult human body. The account goes something like this:
"Every cell contains a DNA molecule that is a blueprint for constructing a human, all the information that is needed. So what happens is that inside the body of a mother, this DNA plan for a human body is read, and the body of a baby is gradually constructed. It's kind of like a construction crew working from a blueprint to make a building."
The problem with this account is that while it has been told very many times, the story is just plain false. There is no such blueprint for a human being in human DNA. We know exactly what is in human DNA. It is merely low-level chemical information such as the sequence of amino acids that make up polypeptide chains that are the starting points of protein molecules. DNA does not specify anatomy. DNA is not a blueprint for making a human. DNA is not a recipe for making a human. DNA is not a program or algorithm for making a human. Not only does DNA not specify how to make a human, DNA does not even specify how to make any organ or appendage or cell of a human. There are about 200 types of cells in human beings, each an incredibly organized thing (cells are so complex they are sometimes compared to factories or cities). DNA does not specify how to make any of these 200 types of cells. Cells are built from smaller structural units called organelles. DNA does not even specify how to make such low-level organelles.
Here are a few relevant quotes by authorities:
- On page 26 of the recent book The Developing Genome, Professor David S. Moore states, "The common belief that there are things inside of us that constitute a set of instructions for building bodies and minds -- things that are analogous to 'blueprints' or 'recipes' -- is undoubtedly false."
- Biologist Rupert Sheldrake says this "DNA only codes for the materials from which the body is constructed: the enzymes, the structural proteins, and so forth," and "There is no evidence that it also codes for the plan, the form, the morphology of the body."
- Describing conclusions of biologist Brian Goodwin, the New York Times says, "While genes may help produce the proteins that make the skeleton or the glue, they do not determine the shape and form of an embryo or an organism."
- Professor Massimo Pigliucci (mainstream author of numerous scientific papers on evolution) has stated that "old-fashioned metaphors like genetic blueprint and genetic programme are not only woefully inadequate but positively misleading."
- Neuroscientist Romain Brette states, "The genome does not encode much except for amino acids."
- In a 2016 scientific paper, three scientists state the following: "It is now clear that the genome does not directly program the organism; the computer program metaphor has misled us...The genome does not function as a master plan or computer program for controlling the organism; the genome is the organism's servant, not its master.
- In the book Mind in Life by Evan Thompson (published by the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press) we read the following on page 180: "The plain truth is that DNA is not a program for building organisms, as several authors have shown in detail (Keller 2000, Lewontin 1993, Moss 2003)."
- Developmental biologist C/H. Waddington stated, "The DNA is not a program or sequentially accessed control over the behavior of the cell."
- Scientists Walker and Davies state this in a scientific paper: "DNA is not a blueprint for an organism; no information is actively processed by DNA alone...DNA is a passive repository for transcription of stored data into RNA, some (but by no means all) of which goes on to be translated into proteins."
- Geneticist Adam Rutherford states that "DNA is not a blueprint," a statement also made by biochemistry professor Keith Fox.
- "The genome is not a blueprint," says Kevin Mitchell, a geneticist and neuroscientist at Trinity College Dublin, noting "it doesn't encode some specific outcome."
- "DNA cannot be seen as the 'blueprint' for life," says Antony Jose, associate professor of cell biology and molecular genetics at the University of Maryland, who says, "It is at best an overlapping and potentially scrambled list of ingredients that is used differently by different cells at different times."
- Sergio Pistoi (a science writer with a PhD in molecular biology) tells us, "DNA is not a blueprint," and tells us, "We do not inherit specific instructions on how to build a cell or an organ."
- Michael Levin (director of a large biology research lab) states that "genomes are not a blueprint for anatomy," and after referring to a "deep puzzle" of how biological forms arise, he gives this example: "Scientists really don’t know what determines the intricate shape and structure of the flatworm’s head."
- Ian Stevenson M.D. stated "Genes alone - which provide instructions for the production of amino acids and proteins -- cannot explain how the proteins produced by their instructions come to have the shape they develop and, ultimately, determine the form of the organisms where they are," and noted that "biologists who have drawn attention to this important gap in our knowledge of form have not been a grouping of mediocrities (Denton, 1986; Goldschmidt, 1952; B. C. Goodwin, 1985, 1988, 1989, 1994; Gottlieb, 1992; Grasse, 1973; E. S. Russell...Sheldrake, 1981; Tauber and Sarkar, 1992; Thompson, 1917/1942)."
- Biologist B.C. Goodwin stated this in 1989: "Since genes make molecules, genetics...does not tell us how the molecules are organized into the dynamic, organized process that is the living organism."
- An article in the journal Nature states this: "The manner in which bodies and tissues take form remains 'one of the most important, and still poorly understood, questions of our time', says developmental biologist Amy Shyer, who studies morphogenesis at the Rockefeller University in New York City."
- Timothy Saunders, a developmental biologist at the National University of Singapore, says, "Fundamentally, we have a poor understanding of how any internal organ forms.”
- In an essay pointing out the vast complexities and interlocking dependencies of even simpler aspects of biology such as angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels), Jonathan Bard of Oxford University states, "It is pushing the boundaries of belief too far to believe that it is helpful to see the genome as holding a program."
- A paper by Stuart A. Newman (a professor of cell biology and anatomy) discussing at length the work of scientists trying to evoke "self-organization" as an explanation for morphogenesis states that "public lectures by principals of the field contain confidently asserted, but similarly oversimplified or misleading treatments," and says that "these analogies...give the false impression that there has been more progress in understanding embryonic development than there truly has been." Referring to scientists moving from one bunk explanation of morphogenesis to another bunk explanation for it, the paper concludes by stating, "It would be unfortunate if we find ourselves having emerged from a period of misconceived genetic program metaphors only to land in a brave new world captivated by equally misguided ones about self-organization."
- Referring to claims there is a program for building organisms in DNA, biochemist F. M. Harold stated "reflection on the findings with morphologically aberrant mutants suggests that the metaphor of a genetic program is misleading." Referring to self-organization (a vague phrase sometimes used to try to explain morphogenesis), he says, "self-organization remains nearly as mysterious as it was a century ago, a subject in search of a paradigm."
- Physician James Le Fanu states the following:"The genome projects were predicated on the reasonable assumption that spelling out the full sequence of genes would reveal the distinctive genetic instructions that determine the diverse forms of life. Biologists were thus understandably disconcerted to discover that precisely the reverse is the case. Contrary to all expectations, there is a near equivalence of 20,000 genes across the vast spectrum of organismic complexity, from a millimetre-long worm to ourselves. It was no less disconcerting to learn that the human genome is virtually interchangeable with that of both the mouse and our primate cousins...There is in short nothing in the genomes of fly and man to explain why the fly has six legs, a pair of wings and a dot-sized brain and that we should have two arms, two legs and a mind capable of comprehending the history of our universe."
The lack of any specification for building a human in DNA is only one of two major reasons why a reading from DNA cannot explain the physical origin of a newborn baby or an adult. The second major reason is that there is nothing in the human body that would be capable of reading a DNA specification for making a human, if such a thing happened to exist. Consider what goes on when a house is built. Dumping some building materials and a blueprint will never cause a house to be built. The house can only get built if there are intelligent blueprint readers smart enough to read the complex blueprints, and carry out their instructions. With about 200 types of cells, each so complex they are often compared to factories, a human body is something a million times harder to build than a mere house. If there were some instructions for building a human in DNA, such instructions would be so complex that they would require something extremely intelligent to interpret such instructions and carry them out. But we know of no such intelligence existing in a human womb where a baby grows.
The "DNA as blueprint" idea is further disproved by the C-value paradox under which many relatively simple organisms have genomes much larger than more complex organisms. For example, a certain flower from Japan has a genome 50 times longer than the human genome, and quite a few amphibians have genomes 10 times bigger than the human genome.
There is no blueprint or recipe or program for making a human in human DNA, and there is nothing intelligent enough in a human womb to read and execute such immensely complicated instructions if they happened to exist. So the physical origin of each full-sized human body is a miracle far beyond our understanding.
We lack any understanding of how the supremely hierarchical organization of an adult human body arises. Consider all the different levels of organization. Subatomic particles are organized into atoms, which are organized into amino acids, which are organized into protein molecules, which are organized into protein complexes, which are organized into organelles, which are organized into cells, which are organized into tissues, which are organized into organs, which are organized into organ systems, which are organized into the human body. There is nothing in a speck-sized human egg that explains how most of those different levels of organization could arise.
We take for granted the miracle of a speck-sized egg growing into a human body a million times more organized than such a cell. Why is that? Mainly because it is something that happens most of the time. It seems that we will not be astonished by any transformation, no matter how inexplicable it may seem, as long as it happens most of the time. Imagine if you lived on a planet in which you could plant acorns in the ground, and they would grow into three-story houses complete with electricity and running water. You would not think such a thing was very marvelous if it happened most of the times that acorns were planted in the ground, and if such a thing had been happening for as long as your race could remember. The arising of a full-sized human body from a speck-sized fertilized egg millions of times less complex and organized is a marvel a thousand times more impressive than a three-story house with electricity and running water arising from an acorn planted in the ground. We do not at all understand how this marvel happens. We do not understand the physical origin of any adult human body. In a section entitled "Developmental Biology," a paper by a University of Oxford biologist confesses, "We...rarely understand what is going on in any detailed way."
- "The origins of major morphological novelties remain unsolved...No one has satisfactorily demonstrated a mechanism at the population genetic level by which innumerable very small phenotypic changes could accumulate rapidly to produce large changes: a process for the origin of the magnificently improbable from the ineffably trivial." Keith Stewart Thomson, "Macroevolution: The Morphological Problem"
- "Selection based on survival of the fittest is insufficient for other than microevolution. Realistic probability calculations based on probabilities associated with microevolution are presented. However, macroevolution (required for all speciation events and the complexifications appearing in the Cambrian explosion) are shown to be probabilistically highly implausible (on the order of 10−50) when based on selection by survival of the fittest. We conclude that macroevolution via survival of the fittest is not salvageable by arguments for random genetic drift and other proposed mechanisms...Evolution of a few flowers on a hillside is reasonably explained by mutation and selection; it stretches logic to explain the millions of extremely diverse species seen currently and in the fossil record...Microevolution is probabilistically realistic; macroevolution is not, and this is documented empirically." -- Olen R. Brown and David A. Hullender, "Neo-Darwinism must Mutate to survive," 2022, (link).
The table below discusses some human mental capabilities, common and uncommon, and why they cannot be explained as being caused by brain activity.
Human Mental Capability or Mental Characteristic or Mental Phenomenon | Why It Cannot Be Explained as a Brain Effect or Explained Under a “Brains Create Minds” Assumption |
Humans have a unified sense of self, which usually persists with great constancy throughout a human's life. | There is no reason why the fluctuating stream of neuron electrical activity or chemical activity (billions of little microscopic events every second) should ever give rise to a unified sense of self. |
Humans can instantly form new long-term memories after a single exposure to sensory phenomena (as you can see by the fact that you will have a good chance of remembering the plot of some movie you saw only once). | There is no theory of memory storage that properly accounts for the instant creation of new memories. Prevailing ideas such as “synapse strengthening” describe a process that would never work instantaneously, and would require at least several minutes for the formation of a new memory. |
After hearing a single word or seeing a single image, humans can instantly remember something they learned very long ago. | Instant recall is totally inexplicable under the idea of a brain storage of memories. From human work in constructing computers that can instantly retrieve information, humans know the kind of things a brain would need to have to be capable of instant recall: things such as indexes or a coordinate system or a position notation system. The brain has no such things. The very strong slowing factor of synaptic delays should make instant recall of a brain-stored memory impossible. |
Humans can remember very well things they learned 50 or more years ago, and they can remember very well things that they experienced 50 or more years ago. | The preservation of memories for more than a few weeks is inexplicable under the idea of a brain storage of memories. The proteins that make up synapses (claimed to be a storage place of memories) have an average lifetime of only a few weeks. There is no place in the brain that is a credible site for the storage of memories lasting decades. |
Humans can form new abstract ideas. | Nothing that we know about the brain can explain the phenomenon of abstract idea creation. |
Humans can form memories of very diverse types: episodic memories, sensory memories, emotional memories, physical skill memories, and memories of learned information of many different types (verbal, visual, musical, algorithmic, historical and conceptual). | No one has ever found any credible evidence of memory information in brain tissue; we cannot read any memories from dead people; and no one has any credible theory of how episodic memories or information learned in school could be translated into neural states or synapse states. Neither in the genome nor in the brain is there any sign of any neural code by which memories could be translated into neural states or synapse states; but if there was such a code, it would have a massive "footprint" that would have resulted in its detection decades ago. |
A human can fall deeply in love with another human, and stay in love with that person for years; or a human may develop some bitter hatred that persists for many years. | Being subject to such high levels of rapid molecular turnover and rapid structural remodeling on the low levels of synapse proteins and dendritic spines, a brain has no characteristics that would explain stable, long-lasting emotions persisting for many years. |
Humans are capable of extremely deep philosophical thinking and very complex mathematical thinking. | Nothing in a brain can explain such a thing, nor is there any kind of “natural selection” reason why humans would have such capabilities, which do nothing to improve human survival. |
Very many humans (as many as 10% to 25% or more) have out-of-body experiences in which they have kind of floated out of their bodies, and seen their own bodies from a position above their bodies. | This phenomenon is completely inexplicable under claims that your brain is the source of your mind, and the phenomenon directly contradicts such claims, strongly suggesting they are false. |
Humans can form beliefs that persist for decades. | There is no understanding of how a brain could cause the formation of long-lasting beliefs, nor is there any evidence that beliefs can be changed by any surgery on brains or by taking drugs that modify the chemistry of brains. For example, there is no pill or surgery that will cause you to switch from being a Christian to being an agnostic, or cause you to switch from Republican political beliefs to some other political views. |
Some "math savant" humans with "hypercalculia" (such as Zerah Colburn and Jacques Inaudi) can or could do very complex and accurate math calculations "in their heads" at extremely high speeds. | The unreliability of synaptic transmission (in which there is only a 50% or smaller chance of a signal crossing a synapse) should prevent very accurate and complex mental calculation if it was performed in your brain. While some signals (such as pain signals and sensory signals) can travel at fast speeds, synaptic delays should mean that the average brain signal moves too slowly to allow for very fast thinking. |
Human memories and acquired knowledge are often well preserved after half of a brain is surgically removed in hemispherectomy operations to stop very frequent epileptic seizures. | This result is very much inconsistent with claims that memories are stored in the brain. |
Humans can recall with 100% accuracy very large bodies of memorized information, such as when Hamlet actors or Wagnerian tenors recall perfectly all words of their very lengthy roles, or when Islamic scholars recall every word of their holy book. | A variety of very severe sources of signal noise in the brain (discussed here and here) should prevent any such thing from happening if memories are brain stored. |
As discussed here, here, here, here and here, we have two hundred years of accounts of people (particularly hypnotized subjects or subjects in a trance) who displayed clairvoyance, often being able to accurately describe places they had never visited or heard about. | This phenomenon is completely inexplicable under the hypothesis that the brain is the source of the human mind. |
There are hundreds of cases of normal people who saw an apparition of someone who died, and then later learned the person had died at the same time of the apparition sighting. | Such a reality is not explained by any theory that brains create our minds, and is not credibly explained by any theory of hallucination, as each case would require a fantastically improbable coincidence. |
There are many cases of the same apparition being seen by multiple witnesses at the same time. | Such a reality is not explained by any theory that brains create our minds, and is not credibly explained by any theory of hallucination, as each such case would require a fantastically improbable coincidence. |
Some humans who have lost the great majority of their brains because of diseases such as hydrocephalus have average or above-average intelligence, as documented by Lorber. | This reality is completely inexplicable under current assumptions that the mind is merely the product of the brain. |
When the corpus callosum (the band of nerve fibers connecting the two brain hemispheres) is severed, this does not result in split-personality persons with two selves. There still remains a single unified self. | This result is the exact opposite of what we would expect from the idea that the brain makes the mind. |
Some rare humans such as autistic savants have displayed powers of memory many times greater than an average human, such as Kim Peek who knew very well the contents of 10,000 + books he had read, savants who can play back perfectly any song they hear, a person such as Stephen Wiltshire who can make accurate drawings of skylines he has seen only once, and those with hyperthymesia who can remember almost every day of their adult life. | Such effects are inexplicable under the "brains make minds" idea, since the people displaying such abilities do not have larger brains, and sometimes have severely damaged brains. |
#8: No, They Didn't Ever Figure Out the Composition of the Universe
