This is part 8 of a series of commentaries on material presented by Andy McIntosh. This material was presented at a church that I attend. It has been presented other places as well.
For reference, related arguments were presented by McIntosh in the following video:
He seems to be saying that either everything evolves by changing constantly, or his version of young earth creationism is true. There are many other options of course. It could be that evolutionary theory can explain this. It could be that aliens made life on earth. If this were indeed evidence against the current theory of evolution, that would not make it evidence for young earth creationism. Maybe if every species could be shown to be in universal stasis...
Another problem is that the current theory of evolution does not state that all species evolve constantly. What McIntosh calls stasis, science educators tend to refer to as punctuated equilibrium. Species are constantly changing, that is true. But if those changes don't give them benefit, those changes tend to die out. If a species is well-adapted to their environment, evolutionary theory says they will not change. That some species are in stasis for a while is predicted by evolution.
At about 9:05, he shows two feather specimens. One 25 Ma (million years old) and another 125 Ma. His chart shows that there is "no difference". He later states:
Searching for relevant studies, I found:
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/282/1803/20142864
Which states:
For reference, related arguments were presented by McIntosh in the following video:
Stasis
One of McIntosh's main points is the concept of stasis. This means that things don't change for a long time (things like feathers and turtles). It seems the point here is: "so evolution is wrong".He seems to be saying that either everything evolves by changing constantly, or his version of young earth creationism is true. There are many other options of course. It could be that evolutionary theory can explain this. It could be that aliens made life on earth. If this were indeed evidence against the current theory of evolution, that would not make it evidence for young earth creationism. Maybe if every species could be shown to be in universal stasis...
Another problem is that the current theory of evolution does not state that all species evolve constantly. What McIntosh calls stasis, science educators tend to refer to as punctuated equilibrium. Species are constantly changing, that is true. But if those changes don't give them benefit, those changes tend to die out. If a species is well-adapted to their environment, evolutionary theory says they will not change. That some species are in stasis for a while is predicted by evolution.
Evidences of Stasis
As for the evidence of stasis, that is also a little problematic. Sure, for a time, these things don't change. But if you keep looking, you find that they do change. McIntosh also seems to present this evidence himself - showing evidence that contradicts his claim of stasis.Feathers
At about 9:05, he shows two feather specimens. One 25 Ma (million years old) and another 125 Ma. His chart shows that there is "no difference". He later states:
Feathers are no different in the fossil record than feathers that we have today on birds.The oldest feather (in the top left) appears to be "broken up". Feathers have barbs that hold the hairs of the feather together - kind of like Velcro. The barbs aren't holding it together very well. Comparing that with the modern feather at the bottom, that one is a fixed sheet. Now maybe something happened to that feather in the top right, maybe its barbs are just as good as the modern feather. But we don't see that. The evidence we see seems to contradict the idea that these feathers have "no difference".
Searching for relevant studies, I found:
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/282/1803/20142864
Which states:
Although the barb geometry of cutting-edge leading vanes in Mesozoic stem birds is essentially modern, barb geometry throughout the remaining portions of the early Mesozoic flight feather and wing are quantitatively distinct from those of modern birds. Unlike in modern birds, barb angles were relatively small in the trailing vanes of early Mesozoic stem birds (figure 4b).Archaeopteryx was in this study (the oldest feather McIntosh showed in his image above was from one of these). We see that no, these feathers were not the same. There were differences.
Moths
At about 11:15 McIntosh shows a fossilized moth. He doesn't go into it deeply. He does state that they haven't changed much in 50 million years. From what I could tell on a quick read, that's fairly accurate. If you go back further, you can see changes though, we have specimens going back to 190 million years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_Lepidoptera
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_Lepidoptera
Dragonflies
At 14:13, McIntosh is discussing a dragonfly fossil. He states, in one sentence, and on a slide:
Drgaonflies have been found with a wingspan of 3 feet - no evidence of changeWell, which is it? This seems a contradictory statement. Current day dragonflies do not have a wingspan of 3 feet.
Crocodiles
Around 37:00, McIntosh discusses crocodiles. Again, he seems to be using this as an example of stasis, but provides contradictory evidence:
This crocodile is huge. We don't have crocodiles that big today. This seemed to be a consistent (but not universal) story: one thing is said, but the presented evidence seems to contradict that.
Logical Issues
The main issue is that the stasis argument is a strawman due to the fact that McIntosh is claiming stasis is a problem for evolution but evolution predicts stasis. There is a false dichotomy as evidence against evolution is being presented as evidence for young earth creationism. There is cherry picking as young earth creationism predicts all species are in stasis.
Comments
But...
At 3:50 he is laying out the plan of his argument and states "[...] even if you were to take the millions of years and to take the gradual development idea, it doesn't work - because you don't actually find the very things that the evolutionists say are there."
What is it that you don't find that the evolutionists say is there?
One of the things we see him present is the idea of stasis, which is what this post addresses. I did assume that his statements about stasis fit in with his opening argument.