Creation and Science Chronicle

by Walter ReMine
CRS Quarterly, Volume 43 Number 2, September 2006, pp. 111-120.

Abstract:
This paper extends the applicability and accuracy of the cost of substitution beyond its traditional range, and demonstrates a useful calculation method. Using my previous clarification of the fundamental cost concept, this paper derives a method for computing the cost of substitution under wide genetic circumstances, including haploids; and diploids with varying degrees of dominance, inbreeding, and with a sex-linked locus. Unlike the traditional approaches, this method is accurate even under fluctuations in parameter values (such as population size, selection coefficient, dominance, and inbreeding coefficient). To display general- purpose results, the parameters are then held constant, and the total cost of substitution is graphed. This includes cases where the selection coefficient is not small and where the traditional equations become highly inaccurate. It is shown that neither environmental change nor soft selection reduces cost problems, at least in single substitutions.

Note added in publication: This paper offers previously unpublished clarifications, derivations and graphs, and refutes widely accepted solutions to a central problem in evolutionary genetics known as Haldane’s Dilemma. It was submitted to the journal Theoretical Population Biology, where all the peer-reviewers found no errors. Nonetheless, they rejected it from publication on the grounds that it is not a “sufficient advance,” and “there is little interest in this subject today among population biologists; it is one of those subjects which has sunk almost beyond trace.” This has all been very unfortunate, as there continues to be widespread misunderstanding within the scientific community regarding these important matters, even among those who have studied the cost literature for years. It is hoped that the clarifications presented in this paper will eventually reach the greater scientific community.

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by David E. Stoltzmann
CRS Quarterly, Volume 43 Number 1, June 2006, pp. 4-12.

Abstract:
An optical image is a very organized and specified collection of information governed by the laws of optics. The formation of an image, and its correct interpretation by sighted living creatures, is a unique example of the great complexity in the living world. While many other functional features of living organisms are extremely complex and point to the handiwork of a designing God, an optical image demonstrates a unique mapping process of the eye-brain system that is very useful to the organism. The transfer of light from an object scene to a visual detection system involving the eye and brain conveys an enormous amount of information. Unless that information is correctly organized into a useful image, however, the exchange of information is degraded and of questionable use. In this paper I examine the “connections” necessary for images to be interpreted correctly. I also address the additional complexity required for the dual-image mapping involved in stereovision. Statistics are presented for “simple eyes” consisting of a few pixels to illustrate the daunting task facing random-chance, purposeless, undirected evolution in the origin of any form of a functional eye. It is concluded that evolutionary processes cannot account for the perception of images by living organisms and that only a creator could produce complex visual systems.

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by Jerry Bergman, Ph.D.

Mammal body hair is a complex structure that involves several basic parts, including a shaft, a root, and a follicle. The most common theory currently in vogue is that hair evolved from reptile scales. Although both scales and hair preserve well in the fossil record, especially in amber, no evidence of hair evolution has been found after more than a century of searching. Another problem is that all primates have thick, coarse hair called fur, and explanations as to how this fur was lost in human evolution are deficient and contradictory.

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