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Genetic Information 1 Information never self-assembles. The genetic information in the DNA of each human cell is roughly equivalent to a library of 4,000 books (a). a. Carl Sagan showed, using straight-forward calculations, why one cell’s worth of genetic information is the equivalent of 4,000 books of printed information. Each of Sagan’s 4,000 books had 500 pages with 300 words per page. {See Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden (New York: Random House, 1977), p. 25.} Each book would have a volume of about 50 cubic inches. An adult human’s body contains about 10^14 (10 to the 14th power) cells. About 800 cubic miles have been eroded from the Grand Canyon. Therefore, we can say that if every cell in one person’s body were reduced to 4,000 books, th ey would fill the Grand Canyon 98 times. The Moon is 240,000 miles from Earth. If the DNA in a human cell were stretched out and connected, it would be more than 7 feet long. If all this DNA in one person’s body were placed end-to-end, it would extend to the Moon 552,000 times. The DNA in a human cell weighs 6.4 x 10^-12 (10 to the –12 power) grams. [See Monroe W. Strickberger, Genetics, 2nd edition (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1976), p. 54.] Probably less than 50 billion people have lived on earth. If so, one copy of the DNA of every human who ever lived—enough to define the physical characteristics of all those people in microscopic detail—would weigh only 6.4 × 10^-12 × 50 × 10^9 = 0.32 grams. This is less than the weight of one aspirin. “... there is enough information capacity in a single human cell to store the Encyclopaedia Britannica, all 30 volumes of it, three or four times over. ... There is enough storage capacity in the DNA of a single lily seed or a single salamander sperm to store the Encyclopaedia Britannica 60 times over. Some species of the unjustly called ‘primitive’ amoebas have as much information in their DNA as 1,000 Encyclopaedia Britannicas.” Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, pp. 116–117. [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/ReferencesandNotes32.html#wp1056004]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

Genetic Distances 3 Humans vs. Chimpanzees. Evolutionists say that the chimpanzee is the closest living relative to humans. For two decades (1984–2004), evolutionists and the media claimed that human DNA is about 99% similar to chimpanzee DNA. These statements had little scientific justification, because they were made before anyone had completed the sequencing of human DNA and long before the sequencing of chimpanzee DNA had begun. Chimpanzee and human DNA have now been completely sequenced and compared. The overall differences are far greater and more complicated than evolutionists suspected (g). Divergencies include about “thirty-five million single-nucleotide changes, five million insertions or deletions, and various chromosomal rearrangements (h).” Although it is only 4% of the DNA, a vast DNA chasm of critical differences separates humans from chimpanzees. Moreover, differences between the male portion of the human and chimpanzee sex chromosome are huge! More than 30% of those sequences, in either the human or the chimpanzee, do not match the other at all, and those that do, contain massive rearrangements (i). The genetic differences are comparable to those between the nonsex chromosomes in chickens and humans (j). Finally, evolutionary trees, based on the outward appearance of organisms, can now be compared with the organisms’ genetic information. They conflict in major ways (k). g. After sequencing just the first chimpanzee chromosome, surprises were apparent. “Surprisingly, though, nearly 68,000 stretches of DNA do differ to some degree between the two species…Extra sections of about 300 nucleotides showed up primarily in the human chromosome…Extra sections of other sizes—some as long as 54,000 nucleotides—appear in both species.” Bruce Bower, “Chimp DNA Yields Complex Surprises,” Science News, Vol. 165, 12 June 2004, p. 382. “Indeed, 83% of the 231 coding sequences, including functionally important genes, show differences [even] at the amino acid sequence level….the biological consequences due to the genetic differences are much more complicated than previously speculated.” H. Watanabe et al., “DNA Sequence and Comparative Analysis of Chimpanzee Chromosome 22,” Nature, Vol. 429, 27 May 2004, pp. 382, 387. h. Tarjei S. Mikkelsen et al., “Initial Sequence of the Chimpanzee Genome and Comparison with the Human Genome,” Nature, Vol. 437, 1 September 2005, p. 69. i. “Surprisingly, however, >30% of chimpanzee MSY [male-specific portion of the Y chromosome] sequence has no homologous, alignable counterpart in the human MSY, and vice versa. ... Moreover, the MSY sequences retained in both lineages have been extraordinarily subject to rearrangement ... .” Jennifer F. Hughes et al., “Chimpanzee and Human Y Chromosomes Are Remarkably Divergent in Structure and Gene Content,” Nature, Vol. 463, 28 January 2010, p. 537. j. “... the difference in MSY gene content in chimpanzee and human is more comparable to the difference in autosomal gene content in chicken and human, at 310 million years of separation.” Ibid. p. 538. k. “Instead, the comparisons [using DNA] have yielded many versions of the tree of life that differ from the rRNA tree and conflict with each other as well.” Elizabeth Pennisi, “Is It Time to Uproot the Tree of Life?” Science, Vol. 284, 21 May 1999, p. 1305. [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/ReferencesandNotes31.html#wp1057949]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

Not until they accept the facts.

Genetic Distances 2 DNA and RNA. Comparisons can be made between the genetic material of different organisms. The list of organisms that have had all their genes sequenced and entered in databases, such as “GenBank,” is doubling each year. Computer comparisons of each gene with all other genes in the database show too many genes that are completely unrelated to any others (d). Therefore, an evolutionary relationship between genes is highly unlikely. Furthermore, there is no trace at the molecular level for the traditional evolutionary series: simple sea life, fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals (e). Each category of organism appears to be almost equally isolated (f). (d). Gregory J. Brewer, “The Imminent Death of Darwinism and the Rise of Intelligent Design,” ICR Impact, No. 341, November 2001, pp. 1–4. Field, pp. 748–753. (e). Denton, p. 285. (f). “The really significant finding that comes to light from comparing the proteins’ amino acid sequences is that it is impossible to arrange them in any sort of evolutionary series.” Ibid. p. 289. “Thousands of different sequences, protein and nucleic acid, have now been compared in hundreds of different species but never has any sequence been found to be in any sense the lineal descendant or ancestor of any other sequence.” Ibid. pp. 289–290. “Each class at a molecular level is unique, isolated and unlinked by intermediates. Thus molecules, like fossils, have failed to provide the elusive intermediates so long sought by evolutionary biology.” Ibid. p. 290. “There is little doubt that if this molecular evidence had been available one century ago it would have been seized upon with devastating effect by the opponents of evolution theory like Agassiz and Owen, and the idea of organic evolution might never have been accepted.” Ibid. pp. 290–291. “In terms of their biochemistry, none of the species deemed ‘intermediate’, ‘ancestral’ or ‘primitive’ by generations of evolutionary biologists, and alluded to as evidence of sequence in nature, show any sign of their supposed intermediate status.” Ibid., p. 293. [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/ReferencesandNotes31.html#wp1057949]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

Genetic Distances 1 Similarities between different forms of life can now be measured. Proteins. “Genetic distances” can be calculated by taking a specific protein and examining the sequence of its components. The fewer changes needed to convert a protein of one organism into the corresponding protein of another organism, supposedly the closer their relationship. These studies seriously contradict the theory of evolution (a). An early computer-based study of cytochrome c, a protein used in energy production, compared 47 different forms of life. This study found many contradictions with evolution based on this one protein. For example, according to evolution, the rattlesnake should have been most closely related to other reptiles. Instead, of these 47 forms (all that were sequenced at that time), the one most similar to the rattlesnake was man (b). Since this study, experts have discovered hundreds of similar contradictions (c). a. Dr. Colin Patterson—Senior Principal Scientific Officer in the Palaeontology Department at the British Museum (Natural History)—gave a talk on 5 November 1981 to leading evolutionists at the American Museum of Natural History. He compared the amino acid sequences in several proteins of different animals. The relationships of these animals, according to evolutionary theory, have been taught in classrooms for decades. Patterson explained to a stunned audience that this new information contradicts the theory of evolution. In his words, “The theory makes a prediction; we’ve tested it, and the prediction is falsified precisely.” Although he acknowledged that scientific falsification is never absolute, he admitted “evolution was a faith,” he was “duped into taking evolutionism as revealed truth in some way,” and “evolution not only conveys no knowledge but seems somehow to convey anti-knowledge, apparent knowledge which is harmful to systematics [the science of classifying different forms of life].” “Prominent British Scientist Challenges Evolution Theory,” Audio Tape Transcription and Summary by Luther D. Sunderland, personal communication. For other statements from Patterson’s presentation see: Tom Bethell, “Agnostic Evolutionists,” Harper’s Magazine, February 1985, pp. 49–61. “... it seems disconcerting that many exceptions exist to the orderly progression of species as determined by molecular homologies ...” Christian Schwabe, “On the Validity of Molecular Evolution,” Trends in Biochemical Sciences, July 1986, p. 280. “It appears that the neo-darwinian hypothesis is insufficient to explain some of the observations that were not available at the time the paradigm [the theory of evolution] took shape….One might ask why the neo-darwinian paradigm does not weaken or disappear if it is at odds with critical factual information. The reasons are not necessarily scientific ones but rather may be rooted in human nature.” Ibid., p. 282. “Evolutionary trees constructed by studying biological molecules often don’t resemble those drawn up from morphology.” Trisha Gura, “Bones, Molecules ... or Both?” Nature, Vol. 406, 20 July 2000, p. 230. b. Robert Bayne Brown, Abstracts: 31st International Science and Engineering Fair (Washington D.C.: Science Service, 1980), p. 113. Ginny Gray, “Student Project ‘Rattles’ Science Fair Judges,” Issues and Answers, December 1980, p. 3. While the rattlesnake’s cytochrome c was most similar to man’s, man’s cytochrome c was most similar to that of the rhesus monkey. (If this seems like a contradiction, consider that City B could be the closest city to City A, but City C might be the closest city to City A.) c. “As morphologists with high hopes of molecular systematics, we end this survey with our hopes dampened. Congruence between molecular phylogenies is as elusive as it is in morphology and as it is between molecules and morphology.” Colin Patterson et al., p. 179. [From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]

That is the point.

Barriers, Buffers, and Chemical Pathways Living cells contain thousands of different chemicals, some acidic, others basic. Many chemicals would react with others were it not for an intricate system of chemical barriers and buffers. If living things evolved, these barriers and buffers must also have evolved—but at just the right time to prevent harmful chemical reactions. How could such precise, seemingly coordinated, virtually miraculous, events have happened for each of millions of species (a)? All living organisms are maintained by thousands of chemical pathways, each involving a long series of complex chemical reactions. For example, the clotting of blood, which involves 20–30 steps, is absolutely vital to healing a wound. However, clotting could be fatal, if it happened inside the body. Omitting one of the many steps, inserting an unwanted step, or altering the timing of a step would probably cause death. If one thing goes wrong, all the earlier marvelous steps that worked flawlessly were in vain. Evidently, these complex pathways were created as an intricate, highly integrated system (b). a. This delicate chemical balance, upon which life depends, was explained to me by biologist Terrence R. Mondy. b. Behe, pp. 77–97. [From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]

The First Cell 2 There is no evidence that any stable states exist between the assumed formation of proteins and the formation of the first living cells. No scientist has ever demonstrated that this fantastic jump in complexity could have happened—even if the entire universe had been filled with proteins (b). b . “The events that gave rise to that first primordial cell are totally unknown, matters for guesswork and a standing challenge to scientific imagination.” Lewis Thomas, foreword to The Incredible Machine, editor Robert M. Pool (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Book Service, 1986), p. 7. “No experimental system yet devised has provided the slightest clue as to how biologically meaningful sequences of subunits might have originated in prebiotic polynucleotides or polypeptides.” Kenyon, p. A-20. “If we can indeed come to understand how a living organism arises from the nonliving, we should be able to construct one—only of the simplest description, to be sure, but still recognizably alive. This is so remote a possibility now that one scarcely dares to acknowledge it; but it is there nevertheless.” George Wald, “The Origin of Life,” p. 45. Experts in this field hardly ever discuss publicly how the first cell could have evolved. However, the world’s leading evolutionists know this problem exists. For example, on 27 July 1979, Luther D. Sunderland taped an interview with Dr. David Raup, Dean of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. This interview was later transcribed and authenticated by both parties. Sunderland told Raup, “Neither Dr. Patterson [of the British Museum (Natural History)] nor Dr. Eldredge [of the American Museum of Natural History] could give me any explanation of the origination of the first cell.” Dr. Raup replied, “I can’t either.” “However, the macromolecule-to-cell transition is a jump of fantastic dimensions, which lies beyond the range of testable hypothesis. In this area all is conjecture. The available facts do not provide a basis for postulating that cells arose on this planet.” David E. Green and Robert F. Goldberger, Molecular Insights Into the Living Process (New York: Academic Press, 1967), pp. 406–407. “Every time I write a paper on the origins of life I swear I will never write another one, because there is too much speculation running after too few facts, though I must confess that in spite of this, the subject is so fascinating that I never seem to stick to my resolve.” Crick, p. 153. This fascination explains why the “origin of life” topic frequently arises—despite so much evidence showing that it cannot happen by natural processes. Speculations abound. [From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]

The First Cell 1 If, despite virtually impossible odds, proteins arose by chance processes, there is not the remotest reason to believe they could ever form a membrane-encased, self-reproducing, self-repairing, metabolizing, living cell (a). a. “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.Dawkins, pp. 1, 43. Yet, after such acknowledgments, Dawkins, an avowed atheist and perhaps the world’s leading Darwinian, tries to show that life came about by chance without an intelligent designer. Dawkins fails to grasp the complexity in life. We have seen that living things are too improbable and too beautifully ‘designed’ to have come into existence by chance.” Ibid, p. 43. Here Dawkins states that natural selection, not chance, accounts for this “apparent” design. While natural selection accounts for microevolution, it certainly cannot produce macroevolution. [See "Natural Selection" on page 8.] “The complexity of the simplest known type of cell is so great that it is impossible to accept that such an object could have been thrown together suddenly by some kind of freakish, vastly improbable, event. Such an occurrence would be indistinguishable from a miracle.” Denton, p. 264. “Is it really credible that random processes could have constructed a reality, the smallest element of which—a functional protein or gene—is complex beyond our own creative capacities, a reality which is the very antithesis of chance, which excels in every sense anything produced by the intelligence of man? Alongside the level of ingenuity and complexity exhibited by the molecular machinery of life, even our most advanced artefacts appear clumsy. We feel humbled, as neolithic man would in the presence of twentieth-century technology. It would be an illusion to think that what we are aware of at present is any more than a fraction of the full extent of biological design. In practically every field of fundamental biological research ever-increasing levels of design and complexity are being revealed at an ever-accelerating rate.” Ibid. p. 342. “We have seen that self-replicating systems capable of Darwinian evolution appear too complex to have arisen suddenly from a prebiotic soup. This conclusion applies both to nucleic acid systems and to hypothetical protein-based genetic systems.” Shapiro, p. 207. “We do not understand how this gap in organization was closed, and this remains the most crucial unsolved problem concerning the origin of life.” Ibid. p. 299. “More than 30 years of experimentation on the origin of life in the fields of chemical and molecular evolution have led to a better perception of the immensity of the problem of the origin of life on Earth rather than to its solution. At present all discussions on principal theories and experiments in the field either end in stalemate or in a confession of ignorance.” Klaus Dose, “The Origin of Life: More Questions Than Answers,” Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, Vol. 13, No. 4, 1988, p. 348. [From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]

I am not sure I get your point. Science does absolutely prove things, for example, the shape of Earth, the content of water and other materials, etc. And yes, weather forecasting is a science. By studying God's creation, science has produced many benefits. It has also produce nuclear weapons, which can destroy all life on earth, and will, unless Christ ends our madness, which He will (Mt. 24).

Amen!!

Proteins 3 Furthermore, the proposed energy sources for forming proteins (earth’s heat, electrical discharges, or solar radiation) destroy the protein products thousands of times faster than they could have formed (f). The many attempts to show how life might have arisen on earth have instead shown (a) the futility of that effort (g), (b) the immense complexity of even the simplest life (h), and (c) the need for a vast intelligence to precede life. f. “The conclusion from these arguments presents the most serious obstacle, if indeed it is not fatal, to the theory of spontaneous generation. First, thermodynamic calculations predict vanishingly small concentrations of even the simplest organic compounds. Secondly, the reactions that are invoked to synthesize such compounds are seen to be much more effective in decomposing them.” D. E. Hull, “Thermodynamics and Kinetics of Spontaneous Generation,” Nature, Vol. 186, 28 May 1960, p. 694. Pitman, p. 140. Duane T. Gish, Speculations and Experiments Related to Theories on the Origin of Life, ICR Technical Monograph, No. 1 (El Cajon, California: Institute for Creation Research, 1972). g. “An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.” Crick, p. 88. Francis Crick, a Nobel Prize winner and the co-discoverer of the DNA molecule, did not give up. He reasoned that if life could not have evolved on earth, it must have evolved somewhere else in our galaxy and been transported to earth—an old theory called panspermia. Just how life evolved on a distant planet is never explained. Crick proposed directed panspermia—that an advanced civilization sent bacteria to earth. Crick (p. 15) recognized that “it is difficult to see how viable spores could have arrived here, after such a long journey in space, undamaged by radiation.” He mistakenly thought that a spacecraft might protect the bacteria from cosmic radiation. Crick grossly underestimated the problem. [See Eugene N. Parker, “Shielding Space Travelers,” Scientific American, Vol. 294, March 2006, pp. 40–47.] h. Robert Shapiro, Origins (New York: Bantam Books, 1986). The experiments by Harold Urey and Stanley Miller are often mentioned as showing that the “building blocks of life” can be produced in the laboratory. Not mentioned in these misleading claims are: Organic molecules in life are of two types: proteins and nucleic acids (DNA and RNA). Nucleic acids, which are incredibly complex, were not produced, nor would any knowledgeable person expect them to be produced. The protein “building blocks” were merely the simpler amino acids. The most complex amino acids have never been produced in the laboratory. (In 2011, several more amino acids were found in Miller’s old experimental materials, but the more complex amino acids found in life were still missing. See Eric T. Parker et al., “Primordial Synthesis of Amines and Amino Acids in a 1958 Miller H2S-Rich Spark Discharge Experiment,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 21 March 2011, pp. 1–6.) Amino acids are as far from a living cell as bricks are from the Empire State Building. Half the amino acids produced have the wrong handedness. [See: [Handedness: Left and Right ] Urey and Miller’s experiments contained a reducing atmosphere, which the early earth did not have, and components, such as a trap, that do not exist in nature. (A trap quickly removes chemical products from the destructive energy sources that make the products.) All of the above show why intelligence and design are necessary to produce even the simplest components of life. “The story of the slow paralysis of research on life’s origin is quite interesting, but space precludes its retelling here. Suffice it to say that at present the field of origin-of-life studies has dissolved into a cacophony of conflicting models, each unconvincing, seriously incomplete, and incompatible with competing models. In private even most evolutionary biologists will admit that science has no explanation for the beginning of life.” Behe, “Molecular Machines,” pp. 30–31. Rick Pierson, “Life before Life,” Discover, August 2004, p. 8. [From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]

Proteins 2 To form proteins, amino acids must also be highly concentrated in an extremely pure liquid (c). However, the early oceans or ponds would have been far from pure and would have diluted amino acids, so the required collisions between amino acids would rarely occur (d). Besides, amino acids do not naturally link up to form proteins. Instead, proteins tend to break down into amino acids (e). c. “It is difficult to imagine how a little pond with just these components, and no others [no contaminants], could have formed on the primitive earth. Nor is it easy to see exactly how the precursors would have arisen.” Francis Crick, Life Itself (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981), p. 85. d. “But when multiple biopolymers must all converge at the same place at the same time to collectively interact in a controlled biochemical cooperative manner, faith in ‘self-organization’ becomes ‘blind belief.’ No empirical data or rational scientific basis exists for such a metaphysical leap.” Abel and Trevors, p. 9. e. “I believe this [the overwhelming tendency for chemical reactions to move in the direction opposite to that required for the evolution of life] to be the most stubborn problem that confronts us—the weakest link at present in our argument [for the origin of life].” George Wald, “The Origin of Life,” p. 50. [From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]

Proteins 1 Living matter is composed largely of proteins, which are long chains of amino acids. Since 1930, it has been known that amino acids cannot link together if oxygen is present. That is, proteins could not have evolved from chance chemical reactions if the atmosphere contained oxygen. However, the chemistry of the earth’s rocks, both on land and below ancient seas, shows the earth had oxygen before the earliest fossils formed (a). Even earlier, solar radiation would have broken water vapor into oxygen and hydrogen. Some hydrogen, the lightest of all chemical elements, would then have escaped into outer space, leaving behind excess oxygen (b). a. An authoritative study concluded that the early biosphere contained oxygen before the earliest fossils (bacteria) formed. Iron oxides were found that “imply a source of oxygen enough to convert into insoluble ferric material the ferrous solutions that must have first formed the flat, continuous horizontal layers that can in some sites be traced over hundreds of kilometers.” Philip Morrison, “Earth’s Earliest Biosphere,” Scientific American, Vol. 250, April 1984, pp. 30–31. Charles F. Davidson, “Geochemical Aspects of Atmospheric Evolution,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 53, 15 June 1965, pp. 1194–1205. Steven A. Austin, “Did the Early Earth Have a Reducing Atmosphere?” ICR Impact, No. 109, July 1982. “In general, we find no evidence in the sedimentary distributions of carbon, sulfur, uranium, or iron, that an oxygen-free atmosphere has existed at any time during the span of geological history recorded in well-preserved sedimentary rocks.” Erich Dimroth and Michael M. Kimberley, “Precambrian Atmospheric Oxygen: Evidence in the Sedimentary Distributions of Carbon, Sulfur, Uranium, and Iron,” Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, Vol. 13, No. 9, September 1976, p. 1161. “What is the evidence for a primitive methane-ammonia atmosphere on earth? The answer is that there is no evidence for it, but much against it.” Philip H. Abelson, “Chemical Events on the Primitive Earth,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 55, June 1966, p. 1365. b. R. T. Brinkmann, “Dissociation of Water Vapor and Evolution of Oxygen in the Terrestrial Atmosphere,” Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 74, No. 23, 20 October 1969, pp. 5355–5368. [From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]

Chemical Elements of Life 2 Nitrogen. Clays and various rocks absorb nitrogen. Had millions of years passed before life evolved, the sediments that preceded life should be filled with nitrogen. Searches have never found such sediments [f]. Basic chemistry does not support the evolution of life [g]. f. “If there ever was a primitive soup [to provide the chemical compounds for evolving life] , then we would expect to find at least somewhere on this planet either massive sediments containing enormous amounts of the various nitrogenous organic compounds, amino acids, purines, pyrimidines and the like, or alternatively in much metamorphosed sediments we should find vast amounts of nitrogenous cokes. In fact no such materials have been found anywhere on earth. Indeed to the contrary, the very oldest of sediments ... are extremely short of nitrogen.” J. Brooks and G. Shaw, Origin and Development of Living Systems (New York: Academic Press, 1973), p. 359. “No evidence exists that such a soup ever existed.” Abel and Trevors, p. 3. g. “The acceptance of this theory [life’s evolution on earth] and its promulgation by many workers [scientists and researchers] who have certainly not always considered all the facts in great detail has in our opinion reached proportions which could be regarded as dangerous.” Ibid., p. 355. Certainly, ignoring indisputable, basic evidence in most scientific fields is expensive and wasteful. Failure to explain the evidence to students betrays a trust and misleads future teachers and leaders. Readers should consider why, despite the improbabilities and lack of proper chemistry, many educators and the media have taught for a century that life evolved on earth. Abandoning or questioning that belief leaves only one strong contender—creation. Questioning evolution in some circles invites ostracism, much like stating that the proverbial emperor “has no clothes.” [From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]