Major Evolutionary Premise Fails In Real-life Test
The behavior of species as diverse as crickets, peacocks
and red deer among others, reveals flaws in Darwinian evolution.
Charles
Darwin’s theory of “sexual selection—that females of a species choose to mate
with males having the best genes—has been held up as a fundamental pillar of
evolution in classrooms and science texts for well over a century. Many
generations of students have been taught that this is the way evolution works.
After
all, from an evolutionary standpoint, it makes perfect sense—females should
mate with the highest-quality males of their species to best ensure the survival
of their offspring, and this leads to ever-stronger, ever-smarter,
ever-improving members of the species, driving the process of evolution ever
onward.
There’s
just one problem: It’s not true. Researchers have
proved that while the theory may sound good, things don’t work that way in real
life.
The
Wall Street Journal, in
an article titled “Darwin Revisited:
Females Don’t Always Go for Hottest Mate,” summarizes findings from some
research projects designed to test Darwin’s hypothesis.
In a 24-year study spanning multiple
generations of collared flycatchers (a bird species), Swedish researchers found
that females who mated with prime-quality males ended up with fewer and
less-attractive offspring. The reason? “The studs
were so busy mating they had no time to raise offspring, causing their health
and fecundity to suffer. Homelier birds were better dads, raising sons who had
more mating success.” In other words, the results were the
opposite of what evolutionary theory would have predicted.
Crickets
are another notable exception to Darwin’s theory. Female crickets mate with
nearly any male, making no attempt to choose the “best” available. In so
doing, “they increase the genetic diversify of their offspring, improving the
chances that some will survive no matter what pathogens and enemies the kids
encounter.”
The Wall Street Journal article also points out that “other females are not as enamored of sexy
traits as (the) theory claims. While big-antlered red deer are busy fighting
each other to show a female who has the best rack, the doe sneaks off to mate
with less well-endowed
stags. Female red-winged blackbirds are
not easily impressed, either. Having the most macho plumage has no detectable
effect on how many offspring a male sires.”
The article cites Stanford University biologist Joan Roughgarden as saying: “In a number of species, reproductive
behavior does not conform to Darwin’s theory of sexual selection. The idea that
females choose the genetically best males is wrong. Instead of choosing mates
who will increase the genetic quality of their offspring, females make choices
that will increase their number of offspring.”
The
article also highlights a significant problem with Darwin’s ideas about sexual
selection—namely, “it fails to explain
the persistence of, shall we say, homely males.”
In other words, if females do indeed choose to mate with males who have the
most genetically desirable attributes, “then
after enough generations every peacock should have a tail to die for. But, they
do not. Every flock has studs and duds.”
From the
Good News Magazine
Evolution vs. Creation: Origins
In the Evolution vs. Creation conflict,
Evolutionists do quite well in terms of theoretical science, but fail to find
empirical evidence. Evolutionists theorize that the universe, with all that it
contains (space, time, matter and energy), exploded from nothing. This is
contrary to the First Law of Thermodynamics. Where did space, time, matter and
energy come from in the first place? Thus, for Evolutionists, the ultimate
question of Origins remains unsolved. To complicate the Evolutionary position,
this original explosion of everything from nothing is unable to explain all of
the complexity and fine-tuning in the universe, including cosmic "voids" and "clumps", retrograde motion of
the galaxies, etc. Despite numerous problems, this explosion from nothing has
been dubbed the "Big Bang" and is the accepted theory among the majority of
Evolutionists. Evolution is a very unique "science." Typically,
scientists observe evidentiary data and then formulate their conclusions.
Evolutionists have formulated their conclusion, and now look for the missing
data.