Review of Spetner's book (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, November 17, 2014, 21:11 (3441 days ago)

Dr. Lee Spetner's new book, The Evolution Revolution, is a follow-up to his previous, Not a Chance, 1997 both of which do not accept Common Descent. He has a PhD from MIT in applied physics and has taught information theory. He appears to be a Talmudic scholar and quotes his interpretations of printed Hebrew in the book. He notes that the Big Bang appears to be a creation and mentions this article from New Scientist:
http://tracker.hcsc.net/ScsAppWeb/tracker/TrackerServlet?=gjgZrtbdTAp7XiQsqlszcT1f9A
 
which discusses the BB as having the appearance of a creation. The Talmud quotes refer to 365 original types of organisms which adapted into the current bush of life we see now. The references are over 300 years old. I am sure he is an Orthodox Jew with a strong belief in God. But he also is a highly trained scientist who has studied theories of evolution for many years. He widely quotes the literature to show that random mutations and natural selection cannot explain the development from early life to the plethora of organisms we see today. He thinks all the information needed to adapt is contained in DNA from the beginning, and no information can be developed from random mutation, or in fact, from any mutation. What he does point out is that mutations subtract information when they are effective in making a change. From my own readings, this is exactly what the literature shows and Darwin folks ignore. He calls his theory Non Random Evolutionary Hypothesis (NREH).
Before publication his book was reviewed by James Shapiro, (Jewish) among others such as Cornelius Hunter (Christian). Hunter is a strong doubter of Darwin and considers Darwin followers as practicing a religion of their own. I've referred to him here in the past. Spetner obviously believes there is an inventive mechanism built into DNA probably from the very beginning. And describes his NREH as such.
He carefully eviscerates Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins opinions by direct quotes of their writings, and careful scientific discussion of how and why they are wrong, and often inconsistent in their reasoning.
Of interest to me was his opinion about a balance in nature being absolutely necessary. He describes the fact that “wolves do not exploit the deer population and drive it to extinction, but instead they limit their own population to ensure that the deer continue to serve as food for future wolf generations. The study is referenced.” (pg. 115) There appear to be “intrinsic controls built into the animals”, reference given. This discussion was under the subject of predation and natural selection, which he believes is passive but does work when presented with new forms. Interestingly, the subject came up as an answer to a Dawkins quote that indicates that Dawkins, the zoologist, was unaware of this research on predation.-Both of Spetner's books are well worth reading. His conclusion appears to be that God created the universe and life and put in the required adaptive mechanisms from the beginning.