A "Natural Levitation" Book Like That Famous Biology Book

Let us imagine a writer named Scamson who writes a book trying to sell the far-fetched thesis that people can jump to the top of tall skyscrapers, very tall buildings such as exist in New York City. The only way in which someone could defend such a claim would be to use sophistry and trickery. But we can imagine some shady tricks the author might use to seem to give a little weight to his far-fetched claim. One trick would be to make a slippery use of vague language. 

The author could try to make much use of the vague phrase "natural variations." The author could vaguely say that there are natural variations in human abilities, and give examples such as the fact that some people can run faster than others, and some people can lift more weight than others.  The author could say that variations in jumping ability are another example of such "natural variations."  We can imagine some of the language that might be used:

"A fundamental fact of life is that there are natural variations in ability. Some people can run much faster than others. Some people can sing much better than others. Some people are much stronger than others. So while it may seem incredible that some people can make the kind of jumps needed to jump to the top of tall skyscrapers, such an idea does not seem so hard to believe when we consider that some people can jump much higher than other people."

Such words would be an example of sophistry based on vague language. It is true that there are variations in human ability, but such variations are relatively small. Some people can run 50% faster than most people, and some people can jump 50% higher than most people. But there are no humans than can run 500% faster than most people, and no humans that can jump 500% higher than most humans. If we force the writer to speak exactly, and state by how much jumping and running abilities vary,  the writer could never get away with suggesting that better jumping ability can help explain how people could jump to the top of tall skyscrapers. But as long as the writer is allowed to use vague language, he might be successful in insinuating that better jumping ability can help explain jumping to the top of skyscrapers. 

Another sleazy trick the author could employ would be to try to suggest that jumping to the top of skyscrapers isn't all that hard, because the jumper can make use of intermediate steps. We can some of the language that might be used. 

"It may be claimed that the jumping to the top of tall skyscrapers is too hard, because there would have to be jumps going too high up into the air. But it should be remembered that setbacks and step-like structural features often appear in skyscrapers. So it would not be necessary for the jumper to jump all the way from the ground to the top. He could first jump from the ground to some flat surface part of the way to the top, and could then jump from that surface to some other surface a little higher up, and so forth. Through such a gradual progression, never making too high a jump, the jumper could jump all the way from the ground to the top of the skyscraper." 

We can imagine how the author might back up such misleading reasoning with some carefully selected "cherry-picked" photos. Such photos might show skyscrapers that could be scaled relatively easily by a jumper. So the book might have quite a few photos showing towers like this one:

With such photos and by making certain claims, the author might try to insinuate that skyscrapers typically have a structure that allows someone to scale them by jumping. This would be an example of faulty generalization or faulty insinuation. The vast majority of skyscrapers do not have any structure that allows someone to scale them by jumping.  For example, in the Manhattan skyline shown below, we see quite a few skyscrapers, none of which could be scaled by jumping:

The tricks mentioned above would probably not be sufficient to get the author to persuade much of anyone that people can jump to the top of skyscrapers. But the author might persuade a lot more if he could come up with some misleading but powerful-sounding term to describe his theory. It might be a masterstroke of misleading labeling if the author were to use the term "natural levitation" to describe his theory.  So the title of the book might be something like "How to Jump to the Top of Very Tall Buildings Using Natural Levitation."

It would not at all be honest for him to use such a term, for his theory would not at all involve any real levitation.  But if the author used the term "natural levitation" in his title and used the term very often in his book, he might convince many more people.  There might be very many people who might think something like, "Well, I first thought your idea was kind of crazy, but when I heard that term 'natural levitation' it sounded more reasonable; I guess if nature can levitate things, then it can raise people up the outer sides of very  tall buildings." 

The hypothetical Scamson author I have described is very much analogous to Charles Darwin, and Scamson's book very much resembles Darwin's book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,  or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Both books involve the same type of fallacious reasoning, and the same type of misleading labeling. 

Just as Scamson made a vague mention of variations in jumping ability, without telling us the specific fact that jumping ability in humans does not vary by more than about 100%, Darwin relied very heavily on a vague mention of natural variations in organisms.  He vaguely told us that some animals are born with variations, the kind of claim that might lead many to think that maybe some organisms are born with useful visible inheritable innovations, such as maybe one third of a new organ, or one third of a new limb.  If Darwin had spoken accurately on this topic, he would have told us that the variations in natural organisms are either birth defects or merely minor variations such as slight differences in color, strength, size or speed. 

The reality is that no one has ever observed any inheritable visible complex structural innovations originating in any organism. It never happens that some organism gets an inheritable visible complex structural innovation originating as a result of mere natural variation, being the first member of its species to have such a variation. So, for example, if a species does not have a wing, it could never happen that one member of that species would be born with a wing, or even half a wing or a third of a wing, and that such an innovation would be passed on to its descendants. To give another example, if a species does not have a particular useful organ, it will never occur that one member of the species may be born with such an organ, or even a third or a half of such an organ, and pass on such a useful innovation to its descendants. 

Natural variation does occur, but it has only been observed to a minor degree that is much less than the kind of variation that would make possible macroevolution, the natural appearance of dramatic new structural innovations in organisms. Such a truth was never told by Darwin, whose very vague mentions of natural variation (and misleading insinuations about it) led his readers to imagine all kinds of phantasmagorical examples of natural variation of a type that humans have never observed. 

We can imagine another example of a man using vague language to create a misleading impression, an example similar to Darwin speaking vaguely about natural variations, and Scamson speaking about variations in jumping ability. Knowing that his income has varied by 10% over the past five years, a manual laborer such as a moving company laborer might try to make his financial prospects look more appealing by vaguely referring to such variation, and speaking like this:

"An important fact is that my income is subject to variations, and my income is not the same each year. Given such variations, it could well be that within a few years I will have an income variation under which I earn  a billion dollars a year." 

Just as Scamson made use of faulty generalization, cherry-picking some very rare easy-to-scale skyscrapers, and trying to insinuate that such easy-to-scale tall buildings are typical skyscrapers, Darwin made use of faulty generalization. He tried very hard to cherry-pick  some rare cases in which nature could have reached a very complex and impressive result through a series of gradual changes that each would produce a benefit.  He failed to tell us that for every such case that might be found in nature, there are more than a hundred cases in which a very complex and impressive result in nature could never be achieved through a series of gradual changes that would each  produce a benefit. As we have learned more and more about the enormous levels of organization and functional complexity at all levels of all organisms, it appears more and more that even the supposedly easy-to-achieve cases cherry-picked by Darwin mostly have previously unimagined depths of organization and functional complexity, meaning that they actually would have been incredibly hard or impossible to naturally arise through any means that Darwin imagined.   

Since Darwin's time we have learned that humans have more than  20,000 different types of protein molecules, each of which is a separate complex invention seemingly impossible to reach through any gradual set of steps, each producing a benefit.  If you change only a small percentage of the amino acids in a protein molecule, the molecule will no longer be able to fold, and will no longer be functionally useful.  Our bodies contain many thousands of different complex inventions that could not have been reached through some "each step gives a reward" process; and so it is for most organisms. The animal kingdom contains more than a billion different types of protein molecules, each its own different type of complex invention apparently impossible to achieve through Darwinian gradualist processes. 

Just as Scamson resorted to the deceptive trick of using the term "natural levitation" for his idea of people jumping to the top of skyscrapers (an act that does not actually involve levitation), Darwin resorted to the deceptive trick of using the phrase "natural selection" to describe what involved no actual selection. The word "selection" refers to when a conscious agent makes a particular choice.  The so-called "natural selection" imagined by Darwin did not actually involve any selection, for this random variation and survival-of-the-fittest effect  does not involve any choices made by conscious agents. Every time someone uses the phrase "natural selection" to describe merely Darwinian processes, that person is like someone calling an equilateral triangle a circle. 

Despite all of its slick tricks, a book like Scamson's book on "natural levitation" would probably not be successful. This is because there is no natural constituency with a predisposition or desire to believe in the idea that people can reach the top of tall buildings by jumping up their outer sides. But Darwin was much luckier. When he wrote his main works there were many people with a very strong desire to believe in any scientist claiming to have a natural theory of biological origins. Using the modern phrase "we got this," which means "we have mastered this," I have called such people the yearning-to-say-we-got-this guys. 

Some of the yearning-to-say-we-got-this guys were scientists and professors eager to crown themselves with glory by annointing themselves as grand Lords of Explanation who understood the great mystery of biological origins.  There were also very many atheists or agnostics eager to accept any theory of natural biological origins, as a kind of analgesic to relieve their annoyance about people talking about the enormous organization and seemingly purposeful fine-tuning of biological organisms.  With so many yearning-to-say-we-got-this guys eager to hail as a triumph any modern theory of natural biological origins, Darwin was able to win fawning accolades from the customer base of his pre-existing constituency, despite all the glaring flaws in his logic and the weakness of his evidence.