Laugh, cry, curl up into a fetal ball and close my eyes…I'm not sure what I want to do. There is a site called The American Thinker which I read for the first time today, and all I can say is that if this is what they call American thinking, we have grounds for a class action suit for libel on behalf of every citizen in the US.

In particular, they've published an article, The case against Darwin, written by a property manager in St. Louis, Timothy Birdnow. It's clear that he's ideologically compatible with far right wing pseudoscience, but reading his essay was a hilarious exercise, rather like reading children's funny exam answers. The science is a mangled mish-mash, almost entirely wrong, delivered with an astoundingly confident tone that disregards its own obvious contradictions.

For instance, Birdnow is confident that DNA could never have come into existence.

What, you may ask, is the connection between Einstein`s proof of atoms [his explanation of Brownian motion] and Darwinism? Darwinism argues that all life evolved from a less complex state. Following the chain of life backwards, one eventually comes to the most basic unit of life-Deoxyribonucleaic Acid (the DNA molecule). The DNA molecule is composed of the even simpler RNA molecule, and is the fundamental building block of life. It is the largest, most complex molecule in nature. According to Einstein`s theory, the original DNA (and RNA) Molecules should not have formed and survived since there are being constantly buffetted by energized atoms. The establishment of life required energy, and that energy meant that the nascent DNA was exposed to more energetic particles which should, logically, have prevented the formation of such a large and complex molecule. That this molecule not only formed but spread suggests different mechanism at work then those proposed by the Darwinists.

• DNA is not made of RNA. They are two molecules with similar structures, but different sugar backbones and a small difference in the bases.
• The phrase "According to Einstein's theory" is dishonest: nothing Einstein ever said suggested that DNA could not form.
• Think about what this guy is saying. Because molecules are in constant motion, DNA could not have formed. Yet this is not a condition that was only true at the beginning of life, but is also the case now. How does he imagine DNA is synthesized now?

Many defenders of evolution try to argue that entropy only applies to a closed system, and that the Earth is not a closed system. This is facetious; entropy increases when systems are mixed, and the first life forms could not have survived except under very particular conditions. They had to have a closed system, or at least a very sheltered system, initially to survive! Any way you look at it, a self-replicating entity had to gain in complexity at the molecular level despite increasing entropic pressures. There has to be a guiding principle involved. You just can`t make order out of chaos! Systems decay.

• "facetious: treating serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humor; flippant." Perhaps he meant "fallacious"? Either way, he's wrong.
• Aww, just read the FAQ. This is just the old "second law of thermodynamics prohibits evolution" canard; it's not true.
• I don't think he understands what a "closed system" is. In a closed system, entropy will increase—without the input of energy, living systems die.
• If systems decay as an invariable and unbreakable rule, where did Mr Birdnow come from?

In fact, genes and chromosomes decay on a regular basis. One of the largest causes of mental retardation is called fragile X syndrome, and it is the result of chromosomal decay where one of the legs of the X has crumbled away. The Chromosome is no longer an X but isn`t a Y either, and this results in numerous problems. Mutations of genetic material happens regularly, and is rarely of any benefit to the unlucky inheritor. A benevolent mutation generally requires an increase in complexity, not a disintigration of the chromosome or gene. Disintigration generally means decay. Decay makes you sick, or dead; it does not make you grow. Evolution claims you can decay your way up!

• I've written a bit about fragile X syndrome. Birdnow doesn't have anything right here.
• It does not cause "crumbling" of the X, nor does it mean the X is something other than an X chromosome. Fragile X is caused by trinucleotide repeat expansion; the excessive repeats stimulate excessive methylation, which inactivates a nearby gene that is important in transducing a synaptic response into a change in protein synthesis.
• Mutations are rarely harmful.
• Mutations can increase complexity.

Another paradox in Darwin`s theory is the lowly virus. A virus is basically a free floating strand of DNA (or RNA for the most ancient varieties like the Filoviruses which cause Ebola) which invades a cell and takes over the cell`s control functions. The virus suddenly comes to life, reproducing at a prodigious rate. After exhausting the cell, the virus returns to it`s quiet slumber.

Now, the virus must predate the cellular organisms, and yet there is no way a virus can reproduce without a host. We have no examples of self-replicating viruses, viruses which can exist on their own. What we see is reverse evolution; the virus is evolved to feed on the more complex organism.

It is possible that early viruses were able to exist without a host, and that the change in the Earth`s atmosphere killed them. Perhaps none of them could tolerate oxygen. One would still expect to find remnants of these ancient viral life forms in sheltered places. We don`t, and regular viruses require a host. The problem is that there doesn`t appear to be any way for these organisms to have flourished.

• Viruses do not "come to life". They consist of short gene sequences that are translated by the cell, and carry out functions that use cellular machinery to reproduce themselves.
• Viruses almost certainly do not predate cellular organisms. They are parasitic sequences that evolved to take advantage of cells. (Although there most probably were prebiotic equivalents of viruses that parasitized early replicators, I suspect.)
• The existence of viruses that live independently of any host is a contradiction in terms.
• Mr Birdnow should read a simple summary of virus evolution, because he has got everything wrong. Again.

Next we come to the problems with the fossil record. Everyone has heard of the missing link; the transition creature between Man and the Apes. We`ve never really found him-in fact, we`ve never really found any link between one species and another. Scientists have found species with similarities, but the transitions are simply not there. It is inherent in Darwinism that species make a smooth, seamless transition from one form to another. The reality is that we see no such transitions in the fossil record, and evolutionists struggle to hide or explain away this embarrasing fact.

• We have many transitional fossils.
• We don't expect all transitions to occur by simple, detectable phyletic gradualism.

Furthermore, we don`t even see crossovers between the 5 Phylla (classes of animals) anywhere, at any time. Where are the giant mammaried mosquitos? Where are the snakes which deliver live young? I haven`t seen too many feathered fish around lately! The species remain distinct, and they shouldn`t if Darwin is correct. Consider the Permian Triassic Extinction, the so called ``Great Dying``, 250 million years ago,in which 9 out of 10 marine creatures and 7 out of 10 land creatures died. Before the Great Dying five phylla walked the Earth; insects, mammals, birds, fish, and reptiles. After the Great Dying we had the same 5. If Darwin`s concept of Natural Selection is correct we should have seen numerous crossovers as species from all branches competed to fill in the newly vacated gaps in the ecology. That we can find no evidence of any crossover is damning of Darwin`s theory.

• There are approximately 30 animal phyla (and it's spelled with one "l").
• Many snakes, including the common garter snake, are live-bearers.
• "Crossovers"? Mammaried mosquitos? The absence of chimeras is a piece of evidence for evolution. We do not expect mosquitos and dairy cows to ever hybridize.
• There were no mammals or birds before the Permian extinction, nor were there any for about 100 million years after.

Another point to consider is the matter of the size of animal life on Earth. During the Jurassic, Dinosaurs grew to enormous sizes, fueled by plentiful food and a high atmospheric oxygen content. Yet we see mammals grow large during the Pleistocene, with Mastadons, giant beavers, Saber-Toothed Tigers all being larger than creatures today. This was an era of scarcity and lower oxygen, yet we witness the same response to the environment. Why? If Natural Selection is correct, the most successful creatures during the Ice Age would be the smaller ones. We see the same biological response to two radically different conditions.

• The idea that animals grew larger because of higher oxygen content is simplistic and wrong. It sounds like someone's been reading the creationist, Carl Baugh.
• The most successful creatures during the Jurassic, the Ice Ages, and modern times were and are the smallest ones: the bacteria.
• Mastodons are not the same as diplodocids. Obviously, we did not witness the same responses in the Mesozoic and the Cenozoic.

Speaking of Dinosaurs, why are they all gone? Dinosaurs came in all sizes, some quite small and nimble. Birds are the last remnants of the beasts which once ruled the Earth. Why? Granted, the large ones were unfit to survive, but the small ones should have been able to adapt without having to develop flight. We should still see some of the smaller ones like Procompsognathus. They were every bit as nimble, as fit, to survive as their mammalian rivals. Yet they are gone. Why did they all turn into birds? Evolutionary theory suggests that the surviving dinosaurs should have scattered in all directions genetically after their extinction. They didn`t; they went in only one direction, while mammals evolved to fill their former niches.

• The best current explanation for the absence of the dinosaurs is a catastrophic extinction event triggered by a massive meteor impact. The effects of the impact had long term ecological effects that destroyed most species on the planet.
• All of the dinosaurs except one lineage, a group that led to the birds and that evolved tens of millions of years before the end of the Cretaceous, were killed. They did not survive. There were no scattered bands of survivors that all independently evolved into birds.
• The 'dinosaurs' that survived the extinction were already birds.

Any way you look at the issue, Darwinism is on the ropes. The supporters of Darwin have resorted to frauds in the past to prove their theory-Piltdown Man was a combination of human and ape remains. Remember the famous Moth hoax where evolutionists claimed they had found moths in London which had changed from white to black because industrial soot had made being black safer? Turns out they faked their evidence. Now the evolutionists are trying to silence any competing theories through scholastic bans and mockery. They seem desperate.

I wonder why?

• Piltdown was a fraud that was exposed by scientists. It was not a significant part of the evidence for human evolution, however, and Mr Birdnow must ignore all the genuine evidence to make his point.
• Peppered moths weren't faked. The story still stands as a valid, but complex, example of evolution.

Evolutionists aren't desperate—we're exasperated. We have to deal with appalling levels of ignorance like Mr Birdnow's; I think it's only appropriate that we respond with mockery. I've tried to point out some of the more glaring errors of fact in his essay (there's much more—I've been slightly selective), and it should be clear that his work is embarrassingly uninformed, revealing a complete lack of any competency in biology, of a level comparable to what I might expect from a fifth grader…although no fifth grader I've ever met has the arrogance to think he is an authority in science. What he has written is garbage, and it's been published as if it were a serious piece of scholarship by a right-wing online rag, and I've had to waste 45 minutes picking apart a fraction of the egregious errors present in it.

The only appropriate response here is to point out that Birdnow is an idiot. He's a gumby. He's a particularly outrageous example of the creationist morons who want to dictate our schools' curricula from a position of utter ineptitude.

We "evolutionists" are not interested in "scholastic bans" of ideas. I do think it entirely fair that we have scholastic standards that reject rank stupidity of the kind Mr Birdnow offers.

I'm a right wicked bastard. Birdnow discussed revisiting this subject in another article, so I hit him with a challenge. Creationists typically dance from error to error, keeping the balls juggling so fast that you can't keep up, and definitely can never pin them down. So I picked one point in his article and told him to explain it. Here's my challenge:

By the way, if you do revisit this subject, please address this one point from your article.

Consider the Permian Triassic Extinction, the so called "Great Dying", 250 million years ago,in which 9 out of 10 marine creatures and 7 out of 10 land creatures died. Before the Great Dying five phylla walked the Earth; insects, mammals, birds, fish, and reptiles. After the Great Dying we had the same 5.

You should be aware that in those 3 sentences, you made 4 immense errors.

1. There are many more than 5 phyla; about 30.
2. Mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and insects are not separate phyla. The first four all belong to one phylum (Chordata) and the last belongs to another (Arthropoda).
3. There were no mammals or birds in the Permian.
4. There were no mammals or birds in the Triassic.

In other words, your entire point was wrong in multiple ways. Those are simple errors of fact that show you have no knowledge at all of the subject about which you were babbling.

Consider this a challenge. If you can't address those gross errors when you revisit the subject, I'm going to point out the fact with great amusement.

I wonder what will happen? Dodge, weasel, stonewall, or do some kind of spastic flibbertigibbet dance?