False Ideas About Truth - Part 28 - Muncaster’s 3 Key Questions

References:
(1) When Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, evolutionists combined the system of Carole Linnaeus developed in 1735 of classifying organisms based on the idea that common body structures belong in the same category. Humans have elbows as do apes, chickens, dogs, and bats — so Lennaeus placed them all in the same category. Darwin APPLIED Linnaeus’s classification, but MODIFIED it to support his own thesis that the species with organisms with similar body plans have the same COMMON ANCESTOR.
(2) Muncaster continues, “Since evolution is based on Darwin’s concept of NATURAL SELECTION, it’s not surprising that evolutionists now use such similarities — even such ANTIQUATED ONES as those proposed 300 years ago by Linnaeus — as EVIDENCE for evolution today. But does this MAKE SENSE? It’s actually CIRCULAR REASONING — we assume that commonality of body parts means common ancestors, because of [Linnaeus’] classification system that takes as its basis commonality of body parts.” I don’t see the circularity here, but I do believe it is CONFUSED THINKING.
(3) “Just because bats, chickens, dogs, [apes,] and men all have elbows, does that imply that they all come from the same ancestor? Isn’t it MORE LIKELY that a Designer DECIDED, that ‘elbows work’? Might not such a Designer decided to apply them to several types of mechanisms? For instance, human design engineer might say something like, ‘Let’s apply wheels to roller skates, bicycles, and cars — that system works for those things.’ Sometimes we try to make SIMPLE THINGS too complex.”
(4) Muncaster suggests 3 KEY QUESTIONS about Darwin’s evolutionary tree and the geological column:
(a) Is there any scientific basis for the neo-Darwinian tree of life? Or is it simply ARBITRARY?
(b) Does the fossil record SUPPORT the TREE OF LIFE? Does it start with a few very primitive organisms from which others gradually appear over time?
(c)Is the geologic column a TRUSTWORTHY GAUGE of time to begin with?
(5) Muncaster begins to answer his 3 questions:
(a) Is the tree of Life Scientific? Although the tree of life enjoyed much support for many years, recent knowledge from molecular biology and the analysis of species has CALLED INTO QUESTION the idea that evolution followed the path shown by it. (Muncaster wrote his book Dismantling Evolution in 2003. In that book he said, “However, textbooks have not yet caught up with this.” In my own experience, it is likely to still be true today.)
Muncaster says, “Based on the above remarks, one would EXPECT the neo-Darwinist Mayr to REFUTE THE IDEA OF EVOLUTIONARY TREE OF LIFE.” However, in 1991, Mayr boldly stated, “There is probably no biologist left today who would QUESTION that all organisms now found on the earth have descended from a single origin of life.”
Muncaster reports that in the years since Mayr made this statement, the support for it has been SHATTERED. He addresses the molecular problems in depth in 2 chapters of his book, “The Complexity of Living Cells” and “Chirality: There’s No Solution in Sight.” Due to limited time, I will not address these 2 chapters at this time.
(b) The second question is whether or not the fossil record supports the concept of the evolutionary tree of life. Even in Darwin’s day, fossil evidence had been REVEALED that the Cambrian Explosion of life showing that a vast introduction of life included a broad variety of many FULLY FORMED phyla and classes of animals.

Darwin was troubled by this revelation. He observed in his 1859 book Origin of Species: “IF numerous species, belonging to the same genera or families, have really started into life ALL AT ONCE, the fact would be FATAL to the theory of descent with slow modification through natural selection.”
Well, that is exactly what has happened. Many paleontologists are NOW CONVINCED that the major groups of animals REALLY DID APPEAR ABRUPTLY in the Cambrian Explosion. The fossil evidence is SO STRONG, and the EVENT SO DRAMATIC, that the Cambrian Explosion has now become known as “biology’s big bang.”
(c) Can we trust the geologic column as a gauge of time? The concept of the geologic column is mostly OBSERVATION. Though it is found in many textbooks, the interesting thing is that there really is NO SINGLE OBSERVABLE GEOLOGICAL COLUMN.
(6) Since Darwin recognized the problems in substantiating his theory of evolution from the fossil record, so he tried a different tack. He hypothesized that evidence of EMBRYONIC SIMILARITIES would support his claims. Darwin and his followers believed that the basic life forms which existed in our past multi-million years of evolution are REPEATED IN HUMAN EMBRYOS during the first few months between conception and birth. In other words, as the human embryo develops, it passes through most of the major past evolutionary STAGES from which it was believed to have evolved.
And almost by miracle the German biologist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) gave drawings that seemed to show similarities between embryos of various species. From the drawings, CONCLUSIONS were made that supported Darwinian evolution.
(7) Since Darwin recognized the problems in substantiating his theory of evolution from the fossil record, so he tried a different tack. He hypothesized that evidence of EMBRYONIC SIMILARITIES would support his claims. Darwin and his followers believed that the basic life forms which existed in our past multi-million years of evolution are REPEATED IN HUMAN EMBRYOS during the first few months between conception and birth. In other words, as the human embryo develops, it passes through most of the major past evolutionary STAGES from which it was believed to have evolved.
And almost by miracle the German biologist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) gave drawings that seemed to show similarities between embryos of various species. From the drawings, CONCLUSIONS were made that supported Darwinian evolution.
(8) Since Darwin recognized the problems in substantiating his theory of evolution from the fossil record, so he tried a different tack. He hypothesized that evidence of EMBRYONIC SIMILARITIES would support his claims. Darwin and his followers believed that the basic life forms which existed in our past multi-million years of evolution are REPEATED IN HUMAN EMBRYOS during the first few months between conception and birth. In other words, as the human embryo develops, it passes through most of the major past evolutionary STAGES from which it was believed to have evolved.
And almost by miracle the German biologist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) gave drawings that seemed to show similarities between embryos of various species. From the drawings, CONCLUSIONS were made that supported Darwinian evolution.
(9) This theory — also commonly known by what Haeckel’s called “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.” This NOTION later became known simply as RECAPITULATION or THE BIOGENIC LAW. Let me state the law in different words: individual development repeats evolutionary descent, which means the development of the individual repeats the evolution of the RACE.
The biogenic law was cited as one of the MAJOR PROOFS of Darwinian evolution for over a century. But as I have previously said these drawings and conclusions were shown to be FRAUDULENT. Mid-20th century discoveries in embryology and re-evaluation of the evidence showed that Haeckel’s theory was completely without foundation, and is now discarded by embryologists. Don’t you think that is appropriate to discard a theory when it is a fraud?
This is episode 295.