Eerie Emanations From the Human Body?

"The exteriorization of sensibility" is a term used for one of the strangest effects ever observed. Albert de Rochas wrote a 300-page book on the topic, one entitled "L'Extériorisation de la sensibilité: étude expérimentale & historique." The book is in French, and has apparently never been translated into English. But by using the Google Translate utility, I can get English translations of whatever pages I want.  I will quote some very interesting passages. My links will go to pages in French,  but by using Google Translate on such pages you can get text like the text I quote below.

In some of the quotations below, the French word "effluve" (meaning "vapor," "steam," or "emanation") has been poorly translated by Google Translate as "effluvia," a word meaning an unpleasant odor, secretion or discharge. Since the text specifically refers to colors of this "effluve" (to use the French word), I believe a better translation in this context is the word "emanation" (a term that vaguely means something that flows out of something else).  So I will substitute "emanation" for "effluvia" in the quotes below.  

Near the beginning of the book we have the very interesting claim that people hypnotized (referred to below as somnambulists) often report seeing a kind of aura or foggy energy surrounding the person who hypnotized them (called a "magnetizer" in the account below). We read this:

"Most somnambulists see, says Delcuse (2), a luminous and brilliant fluid surrounding their magnetizer and going out with it. At the beginning of this century, Dr. Despine in Aix-les-Bains and Dr. Charpignon in Orléans confirm the preceding observations and furthermore establish by numerous experiments that certain somnambulists could perceive, like a fog more or less luminous, not only the radiations, obscure for us, of static or dynamic electricity, but also the emanations which escaped from some bodies and in particular from magnets, gold, money."

On page 24 we read this interesting set of claims about observations made by hypnotized people:

"According to the observations of M. Luys with the aid of Albert L., the right side of the human body presents, in general... a blue coloration. The eyes, the ears, the nostrils, the lips give off irradiations of the same colors, and the irradiations are all the more intense as the subject is more vigorous. The left side releases red emanation from the sense organs, and their intensity varies similarly with the state of the subject.  Pushing his experiments in the direction of his professional occupations, Dr. Luys observed that, in male and female hysterical subjects, the coloring of the emanation of the right side becomes violet and that, in cases where there is paralysis by disappearance of the nervous activity, the luminous colorings...are sprinkled with black points. He also observed that the emanations from the eyes remain for a few hours after death, and that, if one opens the cone of a living animal, the right lobe of the brain appears of a beautiful blue...until the life completely disappears, which shows that there is no intercrossing in this kind of action of the brain as for its motor and sensitive actions."

On page 259 we read this, in which "the master" seems to refer to a hypnotist:

"Note furnished by M. Bodroux, doctor of sciences, at Poitiers. I had three remarkable subjects in which I perfectly provoked the externalization of sensibility.

The first was a 30-year-old woman..the second a student of special mathematics, M.B.; the third a girl...I have easily obtained this experience three times; I have only had experience with the customers of other subjects.

All three, in a state of rapport, saw the emanations coming out of the master's body. blue on the left, red on the right...while Mrs. A. and Mrs. C. described them as [flames], H. B. described them as ribbons."

The witnesses described such emanations as reaching between about thirty and fifty centimeters from a human body.

The author cites experiments he did with this strange effect called the exteriorization of sensibility. Due to translation difficulties and a lack of a concise clear description, I won't cite these accounts. On page 261 the author cites another investigator who gives a clear concise description of the exteriorization of sensibility. The effect is one in which the hypnotized subject will not respond to a pin prick to his skin, but will respond (just as if his own skin had been pricked) to a pin prick applied to the water in a glass of water he is holding. We read this astonishing account:

 "The subject who has been kind enough to lend himself to these experiments is a very hypnotizable subject. It was easy for me to make him pass into catalepsy and, in this phase of hypnosis, I obtain fascination, which indicates a very great suggestability....My subject very quickly develops into third-degree somnambulism, a state in which he is insensitive to all the stimuli coming from outside, but he is in direct communication with me, he hears me and will respond to me if I give it to him. He is essentially suggestible, he executes unconsciously, involuntarily, the suggestions that I make to him, he will likewise execute the post-hypnotic suggestions: in a word, his responsibility has completely disappeared. He will have amnesia when he wakes up. Such being the state of the subject, I first ascertain his absolute insensitivity by sharply pricking the skin at various points of the body with a pin; I note that there is a complete [anesthesia] everywhere. I then place a glass filled with water between the hands of the subject....I then prick the surface of the water contained in the glass with a pin and immediately my subject, by the expression of his face and by an involuntary movement, testifies that he feels pain. I then ask him what he feels and he replies: You pricked my left hand. I then press the tip of my pin against the outer wall of the glass, not touching the water, the subject expresses no sensation; I push my pin into the water again without touching the glass in any way, immediately the subject repeats to me: You prick my left hand. The experiment is repeated several times, each time I prick the glass, the subject feels nothing."

Later the same writer states, "He said: 'You prick me' each time I stuck the pin in the water, and 'you pinch me' each time I pinched the water with my fingers." This anomaly seems inexplicable under conventional assumptions about the body, but might be explicable under the assumption that humans have some aura surrounding their body, one that might be sensitive to touch. If an aura extends a few inches beyond a body, and a person under hypnosis has an enhanced sensitivity of such an aura, the person might report someone else performing pinches and pin-pricks in a glass of water the hypnotized person is holding. 

Regarding the book's claim about auras, some other books make similar claims.  In one book we read, "Clairvoyants can see flashes of color, constantly changing in the aura that surrounds every person, each thought, each feeling thus translating itself in the astral world, visible to the astral sight."  In the same book we read this interesting claim:

" 'Various observers have noticed that the aura of an Adept is not only silvery bright and intense, radiating infinitely farther into space than the aura of the ordinary man, but it is constantly pulsating and arranging itself into geometrical figures.' Colonel Olcott, who writes this (Theos. XVII, 142), seems to be rather dubious of the correctness of the fact; yet, from the observations gathered by the writer, it appears that these geometrical pulsations are not by any means confined to the auras of Adepts, but are common property; only in ordinary people, they are so faint as to be nearly invisible, even to expert seers, while in good moral persons of active intelligence, with tendencies towards occultism, they become quite apparent without the owner having any pretension to Adeptship.' "

In one of the most astonishing cases in medical history, physicians reported a blue glow coming from the body of a living woman. The woman (Anna Monaro) was called "the luminous woman of Pirano." A book gives this account:

"Signora Anna Monaro was an asthma patient, and over a period of several weeks she would emit a blue glow from her breasts as she slept. Many doctors came to witness the phenomenon, which was visible for several seconds at a time."  

Below is a 1934 newspaper story of this event, from the London Times, one entitled "The Luminous Woman":

Whether such a report has any relation to claims of a human aura is unknown. In the bottom of the story above, some doctor is speculating about a kind over mind-over-matter effect producing the woman's blue glow, which is a sign of how baffled physicians were by this case. The book The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism states this: "There are so many stories of holy priests who lit up a dark cell or a whole chapel by the light which streamed from them or upon them, that I am strongly inclined in adhere to the more literal interpretation." The book then gives several accounts similar to this case of the "luminous woman of Pirano," although even more dramatic. 

A book called The Human Atmosphere by Walter John Kilner which can be read here claimed that "chemical screens" could be used to make invisible human auras visible. The author tells us on one page that an aura has three parts: an "etheric double," an Inner Aura, and an Outer Aura. On the same page the author tells us that the "etheric double" part "is, as a rule, from one to three-sixteenths of an inch in width." Below is an illustration from the book. 

A 1995 book states the following:

"Auras have been seen at UCLA by Dr. Valerie Hunt, a professor emeritus of physics. Using special instruments, she has measured the electromagnetic aura surrounding the human body and has found it changes in intensity with variations in our health. These have been captured on X-ray film by a Swedish radiologist named  Bjorn Nordenstrom. Because they resemble the corona of the sun, Nordenstrom calls them corona structures. His research shows that these electrical fields exist throughout the body." 

In a very interesting parapsychology paper "Neglected Near-Death Phenomena," we read this on page 138:

"Another type of observation is that in which different sorts of 'emanations' have been seen emerging from the bodies of dying persons. Robert Crookall...has mentioned many cases of this sort."  

Robert Crookall (a PhD) was an extremely thorough and diligent scholar of reports of the paranormal, focusing mainly on out-of-body experiences. On page 37 of Robert Crookall's book Out-of-Body Experiences: A Fourth Analysis, we have this statement:

"We note the concordant evidence of numerous clairvoyants from all over the world, and covering many centuries, to the effect that everyone possesses not only a physical body, but also a 'semi-physical' vehicle of vitality (given a variety of names) and a 'super-physical' Soul Body (which also has various names). The vehicle of vitality is described as interpenetrating the body and extending beyond it for an inch or two (forming an inner and a denser 'aura'), while the Soul Body is described as interpenetrating both the physical body and the vehicle of vitality and extending beyond them, as an ovoid (forming a middle and a subtler 'aura')."  

On the next page Crookall states this::

"Excellent accounts of the human 'aura,' with colored illustrations, were given by C. W. Leadbeater...His descriptions, and the significance that he attributed to the various 'colors' of the 'aura," agree essentially with those given by Dr. Gerda Walther, Eileen J. Garrett, Phoebe Payne, and many others, including a number of children who cannot possibly have obtained details from books, articles, or other reports. "

Speaking of eerie emanations from the human body, in a history of abnormal hypnotic phenomena we read the following account:

"In his paper, which is entitled ' Astralnoe Telo ' [The Astral Body], he states that the experiment took place at 2 p.m. on 5 August 1892 in Tsarskoe Selo in the presence of trustworthy witnesses. Five persons were present : two of them were deeply hypnotized and shortly afterwards a spot of light appeared near the right hand of one of the subjects. This became gradually wider and brighter and seemed to be an extension from his hand. It took a pencil from the table and wrote, ' This is an astral body.'  After making a few experiments, the subjects were awakened. After drinking some tea, they repeated the experiment ; one of the subjects was again deeply hypnotized and the astral matter around him again became visible, so that the whole room was illuminated, although a lamp was already burning there."

In her very interesting 1967 book Breakthrough to Creativity: Your Higher Sense Perception, Shafica Karagulla MD discusses interviews she had with quite a few doctors who claimed to have special healing abilities or paranormal diagnostic abilities.  Typically such a doctor would say little or nothing publicly about such abilities, but would be willing to discuss the use of such abilities if anonymity was guaranteed by the author.  We read this on page 79:

"One of the things that intruiged me most and was most baffling as I talked with gifted physicians was their mention of an energy field around the body and interpenetrating the body.  Some of them saw this energy field in much more detail than others did.  They were able to note variations in the field that assisted them in diagnosis.  There were a few who saw vortices of energy at certain points along the spine, connected with or influencing the endocrine system.  This energy field which they described as a living, moving web of frequency intimately connected with conditions in the physical body began to emerge as an important project for research."  

A 1974 book states this about a survey of people who claim to see human auras:

"According to a Fate Magazine study conducted by Louis J. Vacca, respondents see first a narrow dark band,  one quarter inch wide next to the skin. Beyond this, projecting for two to four inches, they see a second aura, the inner aura, which they said was very clear.  Past this region of the energy envelope they perceived a third aura, misty and without sharp outlines, extending out six to eight inches. The two-to-four inch inner aura is only faintly colored  -- silvery, greenish or golden, they told the pollsters." 

Five things may be relevant to such claims:

(1) A type of high-frequency photography called Kirlian photography shows some kind of energy extruding slightly from the body of humans, animals and plants. The nature of this energy is a matter of debate. 

(2) In the Soviet Union, there was reported a "phantom leaf" effect whereby if a leaf was photographed using Kirlian photography, and the leaf had one section removed, a photo might show something that looked like the removed section was still there.  Some scientists in the US reported being unable to reproduce the effect. But in the paper here, the effect is reported as being well-replicated, with the effect occuring in 96 out of 137 plants. 

(3) Most people who have lost a limb or a finger due to accident or amputation may report a strange sense of "phantom pain" occurring, as if the lost limb or finger still existed. The phantom limb pain effect (PLP) reportedly occurs in a majority of amputees.  

(4) The well-documented medical effectiveness of acupuncture (in some treatments such as pain-relief) is extremely hard to explain under all mainstream theories, but such a success may not be surprising under some theory of a human aura or some mysterious human body energy (sometimes called chi or qi by the Chinese).  Some related studies can be found in the book Galaxies of life: The Human Aura in Acupuncture and Kirlian Photography which can be read here. 

(5) Among the thousands of photos I have taken of mysterious orbs, which include 800+ photos of mysterious striped orbs, more than 75 seemed to show a kind of aura protruding from the orbs.  A striking example is my photo below, where we see sky orbs that not only seem to share the same stripe, but also have a similar-looking orange emanation. 

On a page of the Galaxies of Life book, discussing Kirlian photography, we read this:

"V. M. Inyushin (1968), in a long theoretical paper, has opted for the term 'bioplasma body' as descriptive of the emanations and internal structure of the objects photographed, quoting such authorities on bio-energetics and bio-electronics as Szent-Gyorgy and Presman. In conversation with Inyushin, Moss learned that he conceives of the 'bioplasma body' as similar, if not identical,  to the 'aura' or 'astral body' as defined in Yogic literature." 

At the page here, you can see a very interesting series of Kirlian-type photos of rose leaves at different time intervals. The photo taken just after the leaves were cut shows an aura-like emanation protruding strongly from the rose-leaves.  The photo taken seven hours later shows such aura-like emanations at about half their original strength. The photo taken 14 hours after the rose leaves were cut show a much-diminished effect only about a fourth as strong as the original effect. On the page here, an expert named Jack R. Worsley is asked about the phantom leaf effect. He states this, apparently referring to Kirlian-type photography of humans:

"We can see the shape of a lost limb following amputations. The more pronounced the 'phantom pains' are in an amputee, the more visible is the amputated part of the body."

The idea that there is a human aura not visible to the eye of most humans may not seem so fantastic after you ponder two points. First, humans can perceive only a small fragment of the electromagnetic spectrum. Electromagnetic radiation may be any of many forms of radiation, and most of these forms (such as gamma rays, x-rays, ultraviolet rays, microwaves and radio waves) are invisible to the human eye. So clearly there is not any principle in nature that eyes can see everything that's out there. 

Secondly, mainstream scientists such as cosmologists and physicists  assert that each of us is surrounded by invisible energy: what they call dark energy. They tell us that such energy exists not just in outer space but everywhere, unseen by our eyes, and not directly observed by any scientific instrument. A major science magazine puts it this way:

"Dark energy is everywhere – and when we say everywhere, we mean everywhere. It suffuses every corner of the cosmos, absolutely dominating everything in it. It dictates how the universe behaves now and how it will end. What a pity, then, that we have no clue what it is."

It makes no sense to rule out the possibility of some invisible mysterious aura energy associated with humans and undetectable by instruments when so many mainstream scientists are claiming an invisible mysterious energy undetectable by instruments exists everywhere. If one such energy exists, we may reasonably suspect that two or more such energies may exist. Just as we have no idea whether there are other dimensions that we cannot observe, we have no idea whether our planet or our bodies involve some type of radiation or energy other than electromagnetic energy. 

When Scientific Theories Fail, the Flop News Is Often Buried

A recent NASA press release announces some report based on 30 years of observations from the Hubble Space Telescope. You would never guess from the press release that the report is one finding a gigantic failure of one of the top theories of modern physical science, the Lambda Cold Dark Matter theory. The failure is also all-but-buried by the corresponding scientific paper, which refers to the observations with the Hubble Space Telescope, and compares them to predictions from the Lambda Cold Dark Matter theory, telling us this (using some jargon that I will translate):

"The inclusion of high-redshift SNe Ia yields H0 = 73.30 ± 1.04 km s−1 Mpc−1 and q0 = −0.51 ± 0.024. We find a 5σ difference with the prediction of H0 from Planck CMB observations under ΛCDM, with no indication that the discrepancy arises from measurement uncertainties or analysis variations considered to date."

The "5σ difference" is a big five sigma difference between the Hubble constant (H0, the universe's expansion rate) as determined by the Hubble telescope observations and the Hubble constant as predicted by the Lambda Cold Dark Matter theory, cryptically referenced as "ΛCDM." On page 54 we are told that the "5σ difference" is one that we would expect to get by chance only one time in a million. 

So the Lambda Cold Dark Matter theory has flopped big time. What the theory predicts about the universe's expansion rate does not match the latest and greatest measurements of that rate. But you cannot find a plain English mention of that flop in either the press release or the scientific paper. The scientific paper mentions the failure of the  Lambda Cold Dark Matter theory, but in a way that could only be understood by a physicist or a cosmologist (or someone like myself who has read cosmology papers for decades). The NASA press release makes no mention of a failure of theory, and fails to even mention the Lambda Cold Dark Matter theory. The NASA press release attempts to suggest the discrepancy may suggest "new physics," rather than frankly telling us that the results suggest we have bad old flopping physics theories.  

Are science journalists filling in the gap by telling us that the Hubble  observations amount to a flop for the Lambda Cold Dark Matter theory? No, they're pretty much burying the flop news. But they are using the matter as an opportunity for more clickbait stories, like this one entitled "Ghostly Unseen 'Mirror World' Might Be Cause of Cosmic Controversy With Hubble Constant." An example of the bury-the-flop coverage is a CNN story which refers to a discrepancy between the observed expansion rate of the universe and the "predicted expansion rate," without telling us which theory made such a prediction (the Lambda Cold Dark Matter theory).

For decades scientists "bet the farm" on the Lambda Cold Dark Matter theory, a move which made little sense. There were never any direct observations of any such thing as cold dark matter, so scientists had to claim it was invisible.  And even though cosmologists and astrophysicists believed in it with a fervor, cold dark matter never had any place in the Standard Model of Physics. How ironic that scientists often blast people for having faith in important invisible realities, when they have put such unquestioning faith in things they say are important, invisible and never directly observed: dark matter and dark energy.  Maybe their thinking is: "you can believe in important invisibles but only OUR important invisibles." 

Galaxies as seen by Hubble (Credits: NASA, ESA, Adam G. Riess (STScI, JHU))

What is mentioned above is a kind of a "burying the bad news" affair like what would be going on if your doctor were to say something like "probabilistic modeling now yields a decay in the trajectory of your personalized actuarial  projection curve" rather than telling you, "Joe, you're going to die pretty soon." Scientists often bury any news they may have that their favorite theories are flopping. Even though scientists waste decades pursuing bad theories, you will never read in a science publication a story with a blunt headline such as "We Are Wasting Our Time." 

In the very rare cases in which science journalists present stories discussing the failures of popular theories of today's scientists, they will usually try various ways to sweeten up the bad news. One approach is the "we're getting there" story, in which failure is presented as part of the process of discovery, with various suggestions that important progress is occurring here and there, no matter how off-course scientists may seem.  There may be sound bites suggesting we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, even when all signs suggest the authorities are marching in the wrong direction.  Another approach is the "promising newcomer" story, in which it is confessed that there are big problems with the existing theory, but with the heartening suggestion this shortfall may be fixed by some new theory. Usually the new theory has just as many problems or inadequacies as the failing theory, but you may not realize that from reading the article. 

An example of a theory with a failure we don't hear about is the theory that memories are stored in brains. If the theory were true,  scientists should be able to read memories from brain tissue, either tissue surgically removed from a living patient, or tissue studied in the corpse of a person who recently died. But no such memories have ever been found by a microscopic study of brain tissue. Scientists have not been able to find the slightest trace of any stored information in brain tissue, other than the genetic information in all flesh, which is merely low-level chemical information. Even when examined with state-of-the-art microscopic equipment allowing scientists to see things a million times too small to be seen by the naked eye, brain tissue always look like mere flesh rather than some place where episodic memories or learned facts are stored. Scientists studying brain tissue with microscopes don't even claim that there is some complex information they can see in extracted brain tissue but cannot understand, rather like 17th century scientists staring at Egyptian hieroglyphics they did not understand. But you'll never read a science news headline such as "Scientists STILL Can't Find Memories in Brain Tissue."

Symmetry Magazine is a magazine trumpeting the work of theoretical physicists. An article recently appearing in that magazine reveals an example of how scientists keep spending year after year trying to flog dead horses. We read the following:

"In 1996 theorist Jonathan Feng attended a seminar about searches for new particles predicted by the mathematically elegant theory of Supersymmetry. The speaker was optimistic that researchers would find the particles at massive colliders such as the Tevatron, then in operation at the US Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, or the Large Hadron Collider, then under construction at CERN....The Tevatron never found the predicted particles, and the LHC has yet to find any evidence of their existence. Yet Supersymmetry is still a popular theory. The search term 'Supersymmetry' generates 15,107 results on scientific paper repository arXiv.org. That’s an average of 1.3 papers per day since 1991, when arXiv.org was launched. (The most recent paper was submitted 2 days ago.) Why does Supersymmetry continue to thrive after decades of null results? According to theorist Flip Tanedo, it’s because, 'it’s a great theory.'  'A great theory doesn't need to be "correct,"' says Tanedo, an assistant professor at the University of California, Riverside."

How's that? A great theory doesn't need to be correct? Something went seriously wrong here. 

"Shun the Spooky" Rule Makes Scientists Shackled Sherlocks

The average person may occasionally read about the paranormal, and may get the impression that it is some extremely rare thing, based on how infrequently it is reported. But there are reasons for thinking that what you read about the paranormal is just the tip of the tip of the iceberg. Instead of being a “blue moon” type of thing, the paranormal may be extremely common. Various factors may have caused you to think of the paranormal as being something extremely uncommon, when it actually may be very common.

Let's look at what some of these factors may be. One factor is that probably the overwhelming majority of people who have paranormal experiences do not publicly report them. There are several reasons why someone having a paranormal experience may not report it publicly. He may fear being ridiculed, or he may fear that if he reports a paranormal experience he may be thought of as weird or flaky or a liar, and that this may hurt his job prospects. Or someone may not report a paranormal experience simply because there was not any physical evidence he can present to show the incident occurred. 

Of the people who do publicly report their paranormal experiences, probably the great majority simply make some social media entry that you are very unlikely to ever hear about. My guess is that 99% of all paranormal experiences are not reported in a way that would be likely to end up in a news story that you might ever read. Corporations are masters of milking the media for news coverage, but what is the chance that some person having a paranormal experience will then spam the news media (or issue a press release) in the right way to get good news coverage? Almost zero.

Another reason why the paranormal may be vastly more common than you might imagine is that your college or university probably failed to teach you anything about it. Modern colleges and universities are bastions of materialist thinking that like to exclude and denigrate the paranormal. When you took that psychology course in college, you should have learned all about the years of very substantial and methodical observational reports on the paranormal, particularly ESP, clairvoyance, medium activity and apparition sightings. But you probably learned very little or nothing on the topic, leaving you with the impression that there isn't much there.

The problem lies with our science professors. Science professors are often members of a conformist belief community in which there are hallowed belief dogmas and very strong taboos.  We fail to realize how often science professors are members of tradition-driven church-like belief communities, because so many of the dubious belief tenets of such professor communities are successfully sold as "science," even when such tenets are speculative or conflict with observations. Fairly discussing reports of the paranormal is a taboo for science professors, who are typically men whose speech and behavior is dominated by moldy old customs and creaky old taboos.  There are many other socially constructed taboos such as the taboo that forbids saying something in nature might be a product of design, no matter how immensely improbable its accidental occurrence might be. The main reason why science professors shun reports of the paranormal is that such reports tend to conflict with cherished assumptions or explanatory boasts of such professors. Also, reports of the paranormal clash with the attempts of vainglorious science professors to portray themselves as kind of Grand Lords of Explanation with keen insight into the fundamental nature of reality. 

One of the rules of today's typical science professor is: shun the spooky. So when people report seeing things that scientists cannot explain, the rule of today's scientists is: pay no attention, or if you mention it, try to denigrate the observational report, often by shaming, stigmatizing or slandering the observer. Following the "shun the spooky" rule, science professors typically fail to read hundreds of books they should have read to help clarify the nature of human beings and physical reality, books discussing hard-to-explain observations by humans.  

It is a gigantic mistake to assume that when a science professor speaks against the paranormal, he is stating an educated opinion.  Based on their writings, it seems that 99% of today's science professors have never bothered to seriously study the paranormal.  A physics professor denigrating the paranormal no more states an educated opinion than a taxi driver offering an opinion on quantum chromodynamics. The fact that a person has studied one deep subject requiring the reading of hundreds of long volumes for a fairly good knowledge of the subject is no reason for thinking that the same person has studied some other deep subject (such as paranormal phenomena) requiring the reading of hundreds of long volumes for a fairly good knowledge of the subject, particularly when studying such a subject seriously is a taboo for that type of person. Serious scholars of paranormal phenomena can tell when someone speaking or writing on a topic has never studied it in depth, and low-scholarship indications are typically dropped in abundance when science professors write about the paranormal (things such as a failure to reference or quote the most relevant original source materials).   

The scientist following a "shun the spooky" rule a rule is rather like Sherlock Holmes wearing handcuffs behind his back. Sherlock Holmes was the most famous fictional detective in literary history. In a series of stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes would attempt to uncover the truth behind a crime, using every tool he could muster. Like Sherlock Holmes, a scientist attempts to uncover the truth, using a variety of tools and methods. But imagine if Sherlock Holmes tried to solve crimes wearing handcuffs that prevented him from using his hands.  He would probably fail to solve many of his harder crime cases, and would often come up with wrong answers. 

The scientist following a "shun the spooky" rule is like a man wearing handcuffs that prevents him from using his hands. A large fraction of the most important clues that nature offers are things that appear to us as spooky things, because we cannot understand them.  A scientist refusing to examine such clues will be likely to reach wrong conclusions about some of the most important issues a scientist can study. 

It is a great mistake to think that a scientist following a "shun the spooky" rule will merely end up getting wrong ideas about paranormal topics. Following such a rule, the scientist will tend to also end up with wrong ideas about important topics that are not normally thought of as paranormal. The person who fails to study the paranormal will tend to end up with wrong ideas on topics such as the relation between the brain and the mind and the origin of man.  Similarly, he who fails to properly study mathematics may end up with wrong ideas on topics outside of mathematics, such as physics and biology; and he who fails to study history may end up with bad ideas about politics, current affairs and public policy.

The "shun the spooky" rule causes neglect of all kinds of important things beyond what is considered paranormal. So, for example, scientists may avoid studying John Lorber's cases that included cases of above-average intelligence and only a thin sheet of brain tissue, finding such results too spooky. Such results are "wrong way" signs nature is putting up, telling neuroscientists some of their chief  assumptions are wrong. The "shun the spooky" rule may lead to wasted billions and bad medical practices. Doctors and scientists may focus on ineffective treatments stemming from incorrect assumptions, while neglecting effective treatments because the results are too spooky for them.    

When I was a small child, younger than 10, I would read in a children's magazine a series of educational cartoons that were called the Goofus and Gallant series. The Goofus and Gallant series of cartoons would try to teach small children good principles of behavior, by showing bad behavior by Goofus and good behavior by Gallant. I can never recall hearing a word about the Goofus and Gallant series in the past 50 years, nor can I recall ever thinking about such a series in the past 50 years. My ability to accurately remember such details from well over 50 years ago is one of many reasons why I reject prevailing neuroscientist claims about synaptic memory storage, claims that are untenable because synapses don't last for decades, and the proteins in synapses last only about a thousandth (.001) of the longest length of time that humans can accurately retain memories.

I can use the Goofus and Gallant approach to illustrate some of the differences between bad professor behavior and good professor behavior when dealing with reports of spooky phenomena.  Here is one attempt:

Here is another such attempt:

Here is one more such attempt:

And here is the last such attempt:

Very sadly, the science departments of our universities are all stuffed with guys like Professor Goofus. To these self-shackled Sherlocks, I say: ditch your shackles, and start studying all of the evidence relevant to the claims you make, including the things discussed in my 100+ posts here and the list of books given at the beginning of the post here.

Yes, You Can Do Math Clarifying the Chance of Accidental Biological Innovations

At the Skeptical Inquirer we have a recent article by Jason Rosenhouse attempting but failing to effectively rebut mathematical arguments against the credibility of Darwinist origins claims. The article begins by citing an imaginary example of a mathematical argument against the accidental origin of a gene.  Apparently trying to make the mathematical improbabilities look vastly smaller than they are, the author gives us a faulty example that no competent critic of Darwinism would actually use, because it does not involve an accurate idea of the number of base pairs in human genes. Rosenhouse imagines someone arguing from a gene that is only 100 base pairs long, with such a person saying that such a sequence would have a random likelihood of 1 in 100 to the fourth power, too unlikely to have occurred by chance. 

But according to the site here, "The typical confirmed human gene has 12 exons of an average length of 236 base pairs each, separated by introns of an average length of 5,478 base pairs." Counting only the exons, this gives us an average number of base pairs in a human gene of 12 times 236, which is 2832.  No one would argue from a gene of only 100 base pairs in length when the average human gene has something like 2832 base pairs. A base pair can have any of four values. The number of ways you can arrange the base pairs in a gene of only 100 base pairs is 4 to the 100th power, which is about 10 to the 60th power. The number of ways you can arrange the base pairs in an average human gene of about 2832 base pairs is a vastly larger number, which is 4 to the power of 2832, which is about 10 to the 1705th power, or 10 followed by 1704 zeros. 

Funny how these kind of convenient errors of gigantic complexity understatement keep cropping up in the work of writers trying to assure us about the feasibility of a Darwinian evolution of protein molecules. Similar goofs happened in a paper by professor Luca Peliti (discussed here),  where Peliti incorrectly spoke as if the typical number of amino acids in an enzyme protein molecule is 100 (it's more like 400), and also made a convenient math error claiming that 20 to the hundredth power is about ten to the thirtieth power (20 to the hundredth power is actually roughly ten to the 130th power).  

Such numbers come up when considering genes and proteins. A gene specifies the amino acid sequence of a particular type of protein molecule. The human genome includes roughly 20,000 to 25,000 different protein-coding genes, each of which specifies what amino acids make up a particular type of protein molecule. Each protein molecule is highly specialized to accomplish a particular task in the body.  Just like a computer subroutine of about 400 characters has to be done in a very particular way for the subroutine to work, a protein molecule has to have a very specific arrangement of amino acids to perform its task.

It is known that protein molecules are highly sensitive to small changes. Experiments have repeatedly shown that protein molecules are fragile, and become nonfunctional when only a small fraction of their amino acids are removed.  A biology textbook tells us, "Proteins are so precisely built that the change of even a few atoms in one amino acid can sometimes disrupt the structure of the whole molecule so severely that all function is lost." And we read on a science site, "Folded proteins are actually fragile structures, which can easily denature, or unfold." Another science site tells us, "Proteins are fragile molecules that are remarkably sensitive to changes in structure." Referring to protein molecules that have an average of about 400 amino acids each, a biology textbook tells us, "Proteins are so precisely built that the change of even a few atoms in one amino acid can sometimes disrupt the structure of the whole molecule so severely that all function is lost." Protein molecules are not functional if only a half or a third of their amino acids exist.  Typically we have no credible explanation for why the first half or the first third of any protein molecule would have ever originated.

After giving his ridiculously unrealistic or untypical example of a gene with only 100 base pairs, Whitehouse attacks those who point out the vast improbability of getting a gene from accidental processes.  He accuses such people of ignoring natural selection.  He says, "Natural selection is a non-random process, and this fundamentally affects the probability of evolving a particular gene." 

Misleading language is being used here in two different ways. First, it is misleading (as always) to use the term "natural selection," which refers to a survival-of-the-fittest effect that is not actually selection. Selection means a choice made by an agent, and when biologists describe natural selection, they are not describing any such choice. As Charles Darwin wrote, "In the literal sense of the word, no doubt, natural selection is a false term." Second, it is extremely misleading to claim that natural selection is a non-random process. 

The first definition of "random" given by the Cambridge Dictionary is "happening, done, or chosen by chance rather than according to a plan." Natural selection meets that definition of random.  Natural selection can be described like this: random changes occurring in organisms, with a preservation of lucky changes causing increases in survival or reproduction. It is extremely misleading to describe such a thing as a "non-random" process, since it is something centered around mere chance and not at all following any plan or design. 

Does natural selection (or evolutionary ideas in general) help explain the origin of genes, and the origin of protein molecules corresponding to them? No, such ideas are of very little help in explaining the origin of genes or protein molecules.  The problem is that genes and protein molecules are usually not useful if you only have half or a third of the gene or the protein molecule.  This is because of the extreme sensitivity of protein molecules to small changes (mentioned by the quotes above). Change at random 10% of the amino acids in a protein molecule, and the protein will no longer be able to fold, and will be functionally useless. Protein molecules require a very special kind of three-dimensional structuring called folding, and very small changes in molecules ruin their ability to do such folding, making them useless. 

Accordingly, we cannot explain the origin of genes through some gradualism approach that imagines that first there was one third of the gene that was useful for one purpose, and then there was two thirds of the gene that were useful for some other purpose, and then finally we got the version of the gene that humans now have.  Human genes with only half of their base pairs or a third of their base pairs are not useful, and their corresponding protein molecules are not useful with half of their amino acids. 

There are two other reasons why some "natural selection/gradualism" approach does not actually reduce the fantastically slim likelihoods that arise when discussing the probability of the accidental origin of genes and functional protein molecules:

(1) Anyone arguing for the impossibility of novel genes arising through any known process can refer to additional improbability factors which more than make up for any improbability reduction achieved by evoking "natural selection" or gradualism or more primitive antecedents. For example, suppose you try to reduce the improbability of a gene of 1000 base pairs appearing by appealing to some possibility that an antecedent of that gene would have required only 500 base pairs. I can then counter by pointing out that a large fraction of all proteins (partially specified by genes) are useless unless they are part of what are called protein complexes (involving two or more genes working in a team), or unless they are associated with "chaperone proteins" required for their folding.  These factors increase by very many times the improbability of a gene and its co-dependent genes arising, which more than make up for any improbability reduction achieved by you speculating about simpler gene antecedents. 

(2) Speculations about natural selection and evolution are of no value in explaining the origin of hundreds of genes and protein types necessary for the origin of life (because you cannot have natural selection unless life already exists).  So there's no way to escape the prohibitive math arguing against the impossibility of a natural origin of life.  Natural selection does not fix the impossible odds prohibiting the natural origin of hundreds of genes and protein types needed at the very beginning, at the origin of life, before Darwinian evolution has started. A team of 9 scientists wrote a scientific paper entitled, “Essential genes of a minimal bacterium.” It analyzed a type of bacteria (Mycoplasma genitalium) that has “the smallest genome of any organism that can be grown in pure culture.” According to wikipedia's article, this bacteria has 525 genes consisting of 580,070 base pairs. The paper concluded that 382 of this bacteria's protein-coding genes (72 percent) are essential. 

Rosenhouse misinforms us greatly when he states, "The set of all possible gene sequences is incredibly vast, but this is irrelevant because natural selection shifts the probability distribution dramatically toward the functional sequences and away from the nonfunctional sequences."  Of course, the size of the set of all possible arrangements of the building blocks of a gene or protein molecule is something of the most basic and fundamental importance in realistically estimating the chance of accidental gene innovations. To call such a thing irrelevant is every bit as untrue and misleading as saying that the number of digits you have to match to get a winning lottery ticket is irrelevant, or that the number of parts needed to make something is irrelevant.  The very accomplished biologist Hugo de Vries told us the truth when he stated this:

"Natural selection is a sieve. It creates nothing, as is so often assumed; it only sifts." 

A simple linear increase in the number of amino acids produces an exponential increase in the number of ways in which such amino acids can be arranged, resulting in a vast combinatorial explosion. When you double the number of amino acids in a useful protein molecule, you do not just double the improbability of such a sequence accidentally appearing; instead, you increase such an improbability by very many times.  Below we see some of the numbers involved in this combinatorial explosion.  

Functional protein sequences are so rare in the vast combinatorial space of all possible amino acid sequences with a length less than 1000 that such functional protein sequences are as rare as combinations of 1000 random characters that make long, useful, grammatical and correctly spelled paragraphs. The math here involves the kind of prohibitive odds that blow up into a million pieces the kind of explanatory boasts Rosenhouse wishes to make. So it is no surprise that he tries to discourage us from doing the math.  He states this:

"Establishing complexity requires carrying out a probability calculation, but we have no means for carrying out such a computation in this context. The evolutionary process is affected by so many variables that there is no hope of quantifying them for the purposes of evaluating such a probability....There is no way to carry out a meaningful calculation, and adding 'specificity' to the mix does nothing to improve the argument."  

To the contrary, we do have everything we need to do probability calculations in this context.  Specifically:

(1) We know how many base pairs would have to be arranged correctly to get a particular human gene corresponding to a functional protein (an average of roughly 1200, with many genes requiring a special arrangement of more than 2000 base pairs). 

(2) We know how many amino acids would have to be arranged correctly to get a particular type of protein (an average of about 400, with many proteins having more than 1000 such specially arranged amino acids).

(3) We know how many protein coding genes there are in the human genome (roughly 20,000 to 25,000 or more). 

(4) We know that there are four types of gene base pairs and twenty types of amino acids used by living things. 

(5) As suggested by the quotes on protein sensitivity and protein fragility made above, we know that each gene and its corresponding protein molecule are highly sensitive to small changes, with small changes breaking their functionality, partially because of the very sensitive and special requirements for the very hard-to-achieve feat of successful protein folding. A very relevant scientific paper is the paper "Protein tolerance to random amino acid change." The authors describe an "x factor" which they define as "the probability that a random amino acid change will lead to a protein's inactivation." Based on their data and experimental work, they estimate this "x factor" to be 34%. It would be a big mistake to confuse this "x factor" with what percentage of a protein's amino acids could be changed without making the protein non-functional.  An "x factor" of 34% actually suggests that almost all of a protein's amino acid sequence (an average of roughly 400 amino acids) must exist in its current form for the protein to be functional.  

Further evidence for such claims can be found in this paper, which discusses very many ways in which a random mutation in a gene for a protein molecule can destroy or damage the function or stability of the protein.  An "active site" of an enzyme protein is a region of the protein molecule (about 10% to 20% of the volume of the molecule) which binds and undergoes a chemical reaction with some other molecule.  The paper states, "If a mutation occurs in an active site, then it should be considered lethal since such substitution will affect critical components of the biological reaction, which, in turn, will alter the normal protein function." The paper follows that sentence with a mention of quite a few other ways in which random mutations can break protein molecules, making them nonfunctional. For example, we read that "an amino acid substitution at a critical folding position can prevent the forming of the folding nucleus, which makes the remainder of the structure rapidly condense," which is a description of how a single amino acid change (less than a 1% change in the amino acids in a protein molecule) can cause a protein molecule to no longer have the 3D shape needed for its function. Referring to random tiny changes in the amino acids in a protein (mutations), a scientific paper stated, "We predict 27–29% of amino acid changing (nonsynonymous) mutations are neutral or nearly neutral (|s|<0.01%), 30–42% are moderately deleterious (0.01%<|s|<1%), and nearly all the remainder are highly deleterious or lethal (|s|>1%).”  This amounts to an estimate that a random change to the amino acid sequence of a protein has about a 30% chance of breaking the protein's functionality. As a biology textbook tells us, "Proteins are fragile, are often only on the brink of stability."

(6) Using such numbers, we can calculate that the chance of each novel functional protein molecule or each novel functional gene arising during a random combination of its chemical components is no greater than about 1 in 10 to the 500th power. 

(7) Considering the possibility of fractions of such protein molecules being useful, we can calculate that even under the extremely generous assumption that halves of protein molecules are useful (very probably untrue because of the protein fragility considerations listed above), this would still leave you with prohibitive numbers such as a particular combination of the chemical subunits succeeding to make functional protein molecules only about once in about 10 to the 250th power combinations of the components. 

(8) Considering that a large fraction of all protein molecules are functional only as parts of  protein complexes requiring multiple coordinated protein molecules or with the help of additional chaperone protein molecules that aid in the protein folding process, we can calculate that the improbability increase from such factors is roughly the same or greater than any improbability decrease produced by imagining fractions of such protein molecules being useful.

(9) Knowing roughly the number of molecules on the surface of a planet such as ours and the length of time that planets have existed (a few billions of years), we can calculate the total number of chemical combinations that would have occurred in the history of a planet such as ours, which is some number much less than 10 to the seventieth power. 

(10) Judging the total amount of chemical component combinations that would have occurred in the history of planet Earth, and the improbabilities discussed above, and the estimated number of planets in our galaxy (roughly a trillion), we can reasonably calculate that we would never expect any novel average-sized functional protein molecule or any novel average-sized functional gene to have ever accidentally appeared by any known natural processes either in the history of planet Earth or any planet in our galaxy, assuming a trillion planets in our galaxy, and that such an accidental appearance would have been not merely unlikely, but enormously unlikely. It is possible that our galaxy is filled with large organisms, but only if something vastly greater than Darwinian evolution is occurring to allow that. 

Rosenhouse's claim that you cannot do the math here is clearly incorrect.  We have numbers that allow us to calculate that the odds against the accidental appearance of novel functional genes and novel functional protein molecules are utterly prohibitive.  Reasonable calculations from such numbers indicate that Darwinist claims to have explained biological origins are unfounded boasts. If you cannot credibly explain the origin of genes and protein molecules, you have no business claiming that you understand the origin of a species. Besides failing to credibly explain the origin of our genes and protein molecules, Darwinists fail to credibly explain the origin of the visible anatomy and vastly organized hierarchical structure of large organisms, because (contrary to frequent misstatements on this topic) neither DNA nor its genes specify any kind of blueprint for anatomy or even instructions on how to make cells, but merely low-level chemical information such as which amino acids make up a protein. Such theorists also fail to explain the origin of human minds (which are not credibly explained by brains, as discussed in the posts here). 

Calculations by Darwinism skeptics about the improbability of natural gene origination are very similar to calculations about the improbability of natural abiogenesis, life originating from non-life. Very similar calculations are done by mainstream scientists, and their work appears in mainstream journals and is sometimes favorably discussed in mainstream publications.  

In their excellent Journal of Theoretical Biology paper "Using statistical methods to model the fine-tuning of molecular machines and systems," which discusses quite a few things relevant to the discussion of this post, Steinar Thorvaldsen and Ola Hossjer state the following about one scientist's calculation of the probability of a transition from the RNA World scenario to a  "proteins and cells" level of life:

"Eugene Koonin...has made a theoretical study of the path from a putative RNA world to an explicit translation system (like a 'DNA-protein world'). He found this path to be incredibly steep (Koonin 2012, p. 376), even under the best-case scenario."

We are told in Thorvaldsen and Hossjer's paper that Koonin calculated that the chance of such a transition occurring would be less than 1 in 10 to the thousandth  power.  That's less than the chance of you correctly guessing the telephone numbers of 100 consecutive strangers.  In the scientific journal Nature there was published a paper by Totani entitled “Emergence of Life in an Inflationary Universe.” We read the following in the LiveScience.com article discussing Totani's paper:

“But researchers have found that the random formation of RNA with a length greater than 40 is incredibly unlikely given the number of stars — with habitable planets — in our cosmic neighborhood. There are too few stars with habitable planets in the observable universe for abiogenesis to occur within the timeframe of life emerging on Earth.”

While writers such as Rosenhouse attempt to stigmatize writers making probability arguments based on biological complexity, we find in mainstream science papers (like those I just discussed) the appearance of similar-approach arguments reaching similar conclusions, showing that math along these lines is quite possible and quite legitimate.  And occasionally mainstream scientists will confess that biologists don't really understand the things biologists so often brag about understanding. For example, in  Scientific American a biologist confessed, "While scientists are still working out the details of how the eye evolved, we are also still stuck on the question of how intelligence emerges in biology.” Note the "we are also still stuck" phrase, which has a floundering sound to it. A paper co-authored by a Cal Tech scientist involved in biological engineering confesses, "Biological systems have evolved to amazingly complex states, yet we do not understand in general how evolution operates to generate increasing genetic and functional complexity." A Harvard scientist confesses, "A wide variety of protein structures exist in nature, however the evolutionary origins of this panoply of proteins remain unknown." Referring to the origin of species (speciation), Cambridge University biology professor K. D. Bennett says this on page 175 of his book Evolution and Ecology: The Pace of Life : "Natural selection has been shown to have occurred (for example, among populations of Darwin's finches), but there is no evidence that it accumulates over longer periods of time to produce speciation in the Darwinian sense."  Phillip Ball (for 20 years a physical science editor at the leading mainstream journal Nature) stated the following in a publication of a leading science organization:

"It is not obvious a priori that small mutational steps should permit adaptation rather than simply inevitable loss of function. Nor is it clear why such a mechanism should permit genuine evolutionary innovation rather than being confined to a sort of timid tinkering with existing functionality."

The misunderstanding of writers such as Rosenhouse about natural selection is very great. Something (so-called natural selection) that is at best a propagation effect or preservation effect is spoken of by such writers rather as if it were some magic talisman that provided infinite luck, allowing unlimited miracles of accidental construction.  Such are the very false ideas that can arise in one century partially because people started using language incorrectly centuries earlier, such as using the word "selection" for something that involves no real selection, no real choice.  

As a quick-and-dirty analogy, you can think of natural selection as a mere sieve or filter that preserves lucky results. But perhaps a better analogy is if we think of natural selection as being like a computer printer.  Darwinists believe that a novel gene originates when some incredibly lucky random change occurs in a single organism, and that natural selection causes such a new gene to slowly spread across the gene pool of a species during multiple generations (because the gene produces  a survival benefit or reproduction benefit, causing an organism that has it to be more likely to spread its genes).  According to such a description, natural selection is acting like a computer printer that can make unlimited copies of some page or pages.  But it is a gigantic mistake to think that we can explain the origin of the gene by appealing to natural selection. At best natural selection is like a computer printer, and computer printers don't author things.

Within the context of explaining the origin of novel genes and novel  proteins, there is actually every reason to believe that the idea of natural selection is a very misleading one (beyond the mere fact that no real selection is occurring because agent is choosing). Why is that? Natural selection is basically the idea that nature preserves some great miracle of biological luck when it occurs. But let us imagine that random mutations were to produce a novel innovation by accidentally making a new type of functional protein molecule. With 99.99% likelihood such a thing would not be preserved in a gene pool for many generations, for the simple reason that it would only be one element when many other miracles of protein innovation or phenotypic innovation would be needed to actually produce a survival benefit or a reproduction benefit.  This is because the requirements for improvements in survival or reproduction are usually incredibly complicated, typically involving a requirement for quite a few coordinated and very complicated changes in different places. Such requirements are vastly underestimated by Darwinism enthusiasts who fail to study the gigantically diverse and complex requirements for successful biological improvements, which often involve multiple very complex "chicken or the egg" cross-dependencies. Just as inventing a CPU chip in 17th century France would not have got you anywhere (because countless other not-yet-invented things would also be needed for a computer), in general some accidental miracle of luck producing a functional new type of protein molecule would almost certainly be futile, because many other simultaneous (or nearly simultaneous) miracles of luck would be needed to produce a benefit in survival or reproduction.   

Reading Rosenhouse's "you can't do the math here" argument, I'm reminded of that old saying about lawyers. They say that if a lawyer has the law or the facts on his side, then he argues the law or the facts. But if he doesn't have the law or the facts on his side, then the lawyer shouts and beats his fists on the table. Similarly, when biological theorists have the math on their side, then they make probability arguments using math. But when they don't have the math on their side, then they just try ignoring mathematics (as Darwin did) or make very lame claims that you can't do the math (as Rosenhouse has done). 

Postscript: In the original post I failed to mention a bit of utterly fallacious sophistry by Rosenhouse in which he compares the origin of a protein molecule to getting a series of 100 "heads" coins when coin flipping. It's another case of vastly underestimating the improbability.  Flipping 100 coins and getting all heads has a likelihood of 1 in 10 to the 30th power,  but getting a random arrangement of 400 amino acids to make a functional protein molecule has a likelihood of about 1 in 10 to the 520th power. Rosenhouse tries to suggest that natural selection can easily do something like getting 100 coins that are all heads, on the grounds that it saves the successful fragments on each try, like someone who tosses 100 coins and then saves each "heads" coin, then flipping again only the coins that landed "tails."  The insinuation is false. Neither evolution nor natural selection would have any way of knowing that scattered fragments of a random arrangement of amino acids are fragments of successful protein molecules.  Having no knowledge of the target molecule (an extremely rare successful arrangement of 400 amino acids producing a biological benefit),  neither evolution nor natural selection would ever know that some amino acid in a particular position in the linear series was a fragment (about 1/400th) of a successful solution (a functional protein molecule of about 400 amino acids).  Even an intelligent human could never build a new not-yet-invented successful subroutine of 400 characters by generating 400 random characters and then saving the random characters that are fragments of a successful solution, continuing the process through various iterations. If you don't know the exact solution, there would be no way to tell whether there is a match to the solution at a particular position in the linear sequence. Rosenhouse's fallacy here is the same as in Dawkins famous "Methinks it is like a weasel" sophistry, in which an appeal is made to the ease of positional matching to an exact target, of a type which would be impossible within nature because the target would be unknown. 

We see the same faulty type of reasoning endlessly repeating in the literature of Darwinism apologetics: analogical comparisons in which a blind, mindless process (called either evolution or natural selection) is compared to some type of intelligent agent, in an attempt to assure us that evolution or natural selection has adequate inventive powers. So, for example, evolution or natural selection may be compared to a tinkering inventor, or an engineer, or a person making wise selections or a person matching scattered fragments of a linear sequence to a target, or some mountain climber choosing the best paths to the mountain top, or a blind watchmaker, or some other kind of human. All such comparisons are very fallacious, because they involve comparing willful and intelligents agents to some natural process that has no will, no ideas and  no intelligence.  As a general rule of thumb, you should be extremely suspicious the instant you read anyone making an analogy about evolution or natural selection, and remember that Darwinism apologists have a long history of making fallacious analogies.