15AR20-33

( - previous issue - )

AR 20:33 - The suspiciously rapid advance from ape to human

Apologia Report 20:33 (1,262)

September 23, 2015

In this issue:

ORIGINS - are scientists botching the math for the time necessary for apes to evolve into humans?

PSYCHOLOGY - a survey of concerns endemic to its research thinking and published studies

------

ORIGINS

Ancestors in Our Genome: The New Science of Human Evolution, by molecular anthropologist Eugene E. Harris [1] -- Ann Gauger uses her review to discuss two views on human origins and "biology's blind spot." Gauger, a senior research scientist at Seattle's Biologic Institute <www.biologicinstitute.org>, summarizes that "Harris provides an accurate and accessible exposition of current scientific opinion concerning human origins. However, one of his assumptions makes much of what he says about evidence from the human genome no better than hypothetical: common descent." Gauger discusses Harris on fossils and draws upon the history of disputed findings.

"Despite his clear statement of the problems of fossil interpretation, Harris does not see that many of the same problems apply to the DNA data. ... In the case of DNA comparisons, there are actually two hidden assumptions that must be preserved. One is common descent and the other is that we are what our DNA makes us to be. What follows from these two assumptions is the conclusion that DNA similarity indicates common descent." Gauger notes that "the math of population genetics says that the human population would have to be very large - larger than our human population historically has been - for natural selection to have shaped us instead of random genetic drift. ... As a consequence, natural selection cannot be invoked as the cause of most things in our evolution, especially things that require many mutations before a benefit is achieved. ...

"The expectation based on common descent is that gene and species trees should show the same relationships. Yet gene trees drawn often disagree with species trees - a version of molecular homoplasy that is common." In response, evolutionary scientists offer an ad hoc explanation - a response that Gauger finds too convenient and utilized too often. She also notices that Harris uses the species relationship tree illustration based on fossils even though he admits that "fossils are poor sources of information."

And with modern man having "appeared about 100,000 to 70,000 years ago.... By 40,000 years ago, he was [already] making artistic cave paintings" - a suspiciously rapid advance. Gauger gives Harris credit because here he "admits that there is no direct evidence that natural selection is responsible." And that is her point: "we simply *could not have evolved* in the time scientists assign to our split from chimps, about six million years ago. Many coordinated changes are required to turn an ape into a human. ...

"Mathematicians Richard Durrett and Deena Schmidt calculated that to get a *single mutation* ... would take six million years, as much time as we've got to evolve from ape to us" if we accept the current development range consensus. Gauger concludes that "the book is a good review of current scientific literature concerning our origins, but with a blind spot. If assumptions of common descent and the power of natural selection are false, if problems of homoplasy and discordant gene and species trees are common, and if estimates of how long it would take to get a single regulatory mutation are true, then the ancestors hidden in our genome may not be the ancestors Harris thinks they are." Christian Research Journal, 38:4 - 2015, pp41-44.

---

PSYCHOLOGY

Psychology Gone Wrong: The Dark Side of Science and Therapy [2], by Tomasz Witkowski and Maciej Zatonski, founders of the Polish Skeptics Club <sceptycy.org> -- reviewer Harriet Hall (a retired Air Force physician and flight surgeon) explains that the authors "uncover distressing flaws in psychology research" - both in thinking and in studies - showing that "many commonly accepted psychological principles are based on myths, [and] argue that psychotherapy is a business rather than an effective evidence-based medical treatment, and question whether psychotherapy should even exist - since in many cases it offers no advantage over talking to a friend about one's problems, and it can cause harm. ...

"They discuss problems with peer review, editorial policy, poor research design, non-publication of negative studies, and failure to replicate positive studies. They show how these have created a situation where psychological theories are virtually unkillable.

"Psychoanalysis, they argue, is a castle built on sand. Investigation has shown that Freud falsified or fabricated the details of every case he used to build his theories. His approach was not scientific. He never tested his ideas with experiments that might have falsified his beliefs, and he ignored facts that contradicted his beliefs. Many of his supposed original ideas came from other authors. ...

"Witkowski and Zatonski also tackle the contentious issue of child sexual abuse. The typical consequence of childhood sexual abuse is not psychopathology but resilience. Studies have found no correlation with adult mental disorders, even when abuse is frequent or extreme, and that less than 10 percent of victims experienced the abuse as traumatic or shocking at the time it occurred." (How's THAT for a loaded statement? - PC)

"Psychotherapeutic interventions, the authors note, in general have been remarkably unsuccessful. Only one of the many varieties of psychotherapy is supported by acceptable evidence: cognitive-behavioral therapy. There is no correlation between a therapist's training or experience and patient outcomes. Amateurs get equal results. ...

"Psychotherapy is more business than medicine, and bogus therapies abound. The authors devote two entire chapters to neurolinguistic programming (NLP), showing how it developed and flourished without any basis in reality, how the scientific literature served as theater decoration for a pseudoscientific farce, how it infiltrated academia, and how the scientific community irresponsibly failed to denounce it. ...

"In another chapter, one of the authors describes how ... he got a bogus article published about a new therapy he invented based on Rupert Sheldrake's pseudoscientific concept of 'morphogenetic fields.' He invented and plagiarized outrageously and offered clear hints about what he was doing, but the editors didn't notice. They had some questions, but he made up nonsense answers, and they bought his explanations. ...

"In the concluding chapter, Witkowski and Zatonski describe strategies employed by scientists with regard to pseudoscience." Skeptical Inquirer, Jul/Aug '15, pp59-61.

-------

SOURCES: Monographs

1 - Ancestors in Our Genome: The New Science of Human Evolution, by Eugene E. Harris (Oxford Univ Prs, 2014, hardcover, 248 pages) <www.goo.gl/7TJWdx>

2 - Psychology Gone Wrong: The Dark Side of Science and Therapy, by Tomasz Witkowski and Maciej Zatonski (Brown Walker, 2015, paperback, 306 pages) <www.goo.gl/gixxz0>

------

( - next issue - )