Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: However, for us, science is still the search for truth.
And as far as we can understand it, thermotherium as a special proof of evolution is contradicted by the facts. But we always underline that factual counter arguments would be welcome.
ID the Future, a podcast about evolution and intelligent design.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Well, how did the giraffe get its long neck? It sounds like a children's bedtime story and it certainly has been that. But it's also a matter of serious scientific debate and the debate continues today.
Welcome to Idea the Future. I'm your host, Andrew McDermott. Helping us unpack this today is retired geneticist Dr. Wolf Eckert Leunick.
In case you're not familiar with the work of Wolf Eckert, let me share some details with you. Mathematician and ID theorist Granville Sewell has described Dr. Lunig as an intelligent design pioneer. That's because for over 50 years Dr. Lunig has been offering robust criticism of Darwinian theory and advocating for intelligent design.
Now, Wolf Eckart went on to earn a PhD from the University of Bonn and worked as a geneticist for over 25 years at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne. He has continued throughout his career and now in retirement to apply critical evaluation to the just so stories of Darwinism and promote the evidence for intelligent design in his writings, several of which have been published in scientific journals.
Dr. Lunig, welcome back.
[00:01:49] Speaker A: Thank you very much for inviting me again. And continuing the interesting questions on the origin of the long necked giraffes.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: Yes, yes, the amazing animal with the long neck is what we're talking about today. And in part one, you unpacked what we might expect under a Darwinian framework regarding the giraffe and then what we actually see in the fossil record. And you, you quoted, I think it was another scientist saying the cardinal and dominant fact of the fossil record.
That is what needs explained and that is the challenge for Darwinian explanations of the giraffe. Now in this episode, we're going to zoom into a fossil known as Samotherium.
And this fossil made a big splash. And there are still scientists who are saying this is a missing link in the line of the giraffe and perfect piece of the puzzle to explain the giraffe on evolutionary terms.
So can you just explain to us what the Sam' Etherium is, what this find is, and why many scientists are calling it the missing link.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: Before I start answering your questions, this and the others on Samotherium, I would like to state that me and my co author, the Mathematician and computer scientist Carl Friedrich Meiss from Bingen, Germany. We have together written this article the Giraffe Evolution the rise and fall of Samotherium Major as an intermediate. Next real missing link.
A real missing link is in quotation marks because it is also a quotation from Nicosolunias. In that article, we strongly raise doubts on the evolutionary interpretations in the paper by Danowitz Tomalsky and the sophical anatomy of Samur theorem and an intermediate natural.
And we would like to emphasize that we have nothing personal against the authors. On the contrary, we really appreciate the empirical work. The emphasis is on their fine empirical work, not on their many evolutionary interpretations.
However, for us, science is still the search for truth.
And as far as we can understand it, Thermotherium as a special proof of neo Darwinian evolution is contradicted by the facts. But we always underline that factual counter arguments would be welcome.
Well, on Samotherium the authors Melinda Danowitz, Rebecca Domadsky and Nicoso Lunas have come to the conclusion that code this taxon's proposed position is a key region in the evolutionary tree of Derapherts, as it represents a transitional stage of neck elongation. Also, they say, both quantitatively and qualitatively, we find that Thermotherium Major, that the Thermotherium Major like to be truly intermediate between the okapi and giraffe. And they say that four times truly intermediate among more than about 28 repetitions in the original paper.
That is speaking of intermediate. And now one would like to know what such an animal would look like.
And I have here a reconstruction of that animal. And you may look at that.
Though it is painted by artists, it is a very fine painting. And now compared to Okapia. And you see there are many similarities, of course, and when you directly compare these two Okapi and the Thermotherium, I've done it on a special page and you can see it here more clearly. You see here the okapi, three different pictures and then the Thermotherium and then the giraffe.
And it's very interesting.
Thermotherium neck is only 14 centimeters longer than that of the ocabia, 14 centimeters longer.
And if you take two hand breaths, this is 14 centimeters.
And this is the difference between male and female giraffes already the male giraffes about 15 centimeters longer. And so this is not very convincing to speak of an intermediate. How long then would it be? But perhaps you have another question.
[00:07:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, and that's a good explanation. They're trying to say that the Sam' l therium is intermediate, meaning in the middle, you know, the fossil that shows this, this progression here. But in the end it boils down to math, you know, and I dare say we, we have math on our side as far as challenging the Samotheirium as a true intermediate. So let's talk about neck length for a few minutes here. How long is the neck of the okapi, the Samotherium and the modern giraffe?
[00:07:38] Speaker A: Well, perhaps a word on the topic intermediate. What is intermediate in evolution?
[00:07:45] Speaker B: Okay, yeah.
[00:07:47] Speaker A: The AI, for example, says intermediate is also called in evolutionary terms transitional. I would certainly emphatically say that intermediate and transitional are two different topics. Not everything that is intermediate is transitional.
Transitional is already an interpretation in many cases of evolutionary biologists of intermediate. And you just mentioned the length of the neck.
And before I come to that point, I would emphasize that the authors themselves state that the okapi does not belong to the ancestral group of the long necked giraffe, and Samotherium major is not an ancestor of the giraffe or the okapi.
And I would like to add that neither are there true, real valid continuous series of transitional links of any of the evolutionary imagined lines of defects. So, like, draw to the links.
I've already quoted the authors that both quantitatively and.
Sorry, both quantitatively and qualitatively, we find the Samurai Major next to be truly intermediate between the Ocapia and the Riaf. And I've also mentioned that they use the term intermediate about 28 times and through the intermediate four times.
Well, my comment is the Moetherium major is neither quantitatively nor qualitatively a truly intermediate neck trail.
As I've already pointed out, its entire neck is only slightly longer, about 13cm than that of the Okapi.
A truly intermediate would have to be at least half a meter longer, half a meter longer than the okapia.
And I've already said in our first interview that the average of difference in the neck lengths between male and female giraffes is even a bit big, larger than the difference between the neck length of Ocapia and Samotheria.
So you ask for simple maths. This is a graph by mathematician Frederick Weiss. And we have also included variation in the okapi. We came to the conclusions. About 83 centimeters long, the okapi neck. And a famous giraffe researcher told me that it's about one meter. About one meter. And we Took several lengths differences of lengths to find out what would the length of a perfect intermediate be. And you see that is totally different is much smaller than that of a truly intermediate link. You can check the numbers in detail on our article on the Internet where we have give the formula for it which can be used for any such intermediate question for evolutionary theory. So I would say it is neither quantitatively nor qualitatively a truly intermediate and a truly. If you take, if you add these numbers, the length of the neck would be about 149 centimeters in clear contrast to the 97.5 centimeter neck length. 97.5 centimeter neck length of Thermotheria.
And if we take the female giraffe, it would be at least.
Truly intermediate would have 141.5 centimeter indefinite contrast again to semotherium 97.5 centimeters.
Now and this has already happened some one may nevertheless argue this was a question which was sent to me too that even only 14 centimeters in Samothrium's neck is still a little longer than that of the Okapi and thus a bit of an intermediate. I would quote in quotation marks a bit of an intermediate.
However, considering the fact that the entire body of Samotherium is definitely larger than that of the okapi, also its necks may be correspondingly somewhat longer than in the latter.
For example, this bigger animal, the Samotherium, must also reach the ground for eating plants from the ground, so the neck must be correspondingly a bit longer.
So this has nothing to do with an evolutionary missing link which has now definitely been found.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. So it turns out it's not just about neck length, although that is one of the key things here. But based on these numbers, the key problem seems to be that Simultheum is not fitting the role of a true intermediate.
Now, apart from neck length, you've pointed out some other anatomical features in Samulthurium that also cause problems. You say the body size in general. What other things would you point to? What other anatomical features would you point to that also cause problems?
[00:14:09] Speaker A: Well, the authors themselves have in their paper mentioned several things. Coat again, Semotherium major exhibits several unique morphological features that are absent in the long dictatory of the Giraffa Cambello paulus or Ocapia johnstoni cervical vertebrae in Samosirium major, the cranial most aspect of the spinous process of C2 position. Now it's of course anatomical language is positioned caudally to the dens, whereas in Giraffa Camelopardalis and Ocapia johnsoni. It reduces the level of the dense.
A few little explanations.
What is the spinous process of C2? C2. These are the vertebrae called C1T2 and so on. This is 2, and this is positioned caudally. That means inferior to the dense. That is a process of C2 and that is a spinous process of the vertebra. C2 vertebra. The axis is a strong, prominent and typically a bifid bony projection at the top of the cervical spine. And so on. I went down to long because our audience will fall asleep if I try to explain all these. Let it be clear that the authors themselves mentions several atypical features. Again, a little quotation. While Thermotheria major shares many features with the two extended geographids, this extinct taxon also demonstrate characteristics atypical of giraffes and ruminants in general. So all these features, these atypical features are not intermediate between ocapia and giraffe.
[00:16:18] Speaker B: So much so that even the scientists who study Samotherium, as you say, are saying or admitting that it's not an ancestor of the giraffe. Now, you described Samotherium as a mosaic form. What does that mean? And why is it different from a transition?
[00:16:35] Speaker A: Well, that's a good question.
I have can show you this picture and here is it is.
I will explain it by that mosaic, namely the famous archaeopteryx. You perhaps have thought about that it's called a missing link, has been called for a long time as a missing link. It's now a doubtful.
And you see on that side, that's a magpie shown in the same position as the archaeopteryx found in interduberitic layers. And you see that the archaeopteryx has a fully developed feathers and it's really even longer than in the magpie.
On the other hand, you see that has a long vertebrate tail and several features as already fully developed. And others are looking like the tails of some reptiles or amphibians and later some mammals.
And so this is a mosaic. Some features fully developed, others features in their basic state.
Okay, perhaps this explains. So this Samotherium has also derived and new features and also features which it has in common with the giraffe and the okapi. But as I have already emphasized, that the giraffe and the giraffe, according to the authors themselves, have nothing to do with the phytogenetic tree directly of the origin of the giraffe.
Hmm.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: Interesting. Well, here's another question. This sort of points to the larger pattern. Is Samothurium an isolated case or does it reflect a broader pattern in the giraffe fossil record?
[00:19:05] Speaker A: So it is fully in agreement with all the rest of the family of the different genera appearing in the fossil record. So it appears they appear abruptly the Oucopia as well as the long necked giraffe. And there is no fossil record of any of the many thousands of intermediate links which would be necessary on Darwin's small changes in evolution, where he spoke of all these things, these infinitesimally small steps and so on.
[00:19:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So you're saying the infinitesimal amount of examples in the fossil record just are not there.
Now, stepping back, what does the giraffe and its fossil record suggest about the limits of Darwinian explanations to you?
[00:20:03] Speaker A: Well, as I noted in my book on the giraffe in 22, I would say it in that interview again, you can look at that book. The full book is on the Internet. You can check it there. And that in the meantime, many things have happened in giraffe's research and you have asked many fine questions about that.
I would say again that in detail, numerous, precise, interdependent, anatomical and physiological special characteristics of the giraffe.
This super complex sin organization, specific construction of the vertebrae, the heart, the blood circulation, the skin, the muscles are in my opinion sufficient to rule out accidental, haphazard, random mutations and natural selection as the primary causes of the origin of the long neck giraffe.
Cuyer had already the famous anatomist and paleontologist who have founded the branch of anatomy. He said, every organized being constitutes a whole, a single and complete system whose parts mutually correspond and occur by their reciprocal reaction to the same different definitive end.
None of these parts can be changed without affecting all the others, and consequently each taken separately, decades and gives all the rest. This is what we see is practicing today. Many of these giraffe fossils are really in a broken situation. The fossils are broken and we hardly can find an entire skeleton. We always have little parts and we can reconstruct the entire enemy on the basis of some little path already in full agreement with QV's node. I would like to add that the living beings are in fact highly integrated functional system, all parts being correlated with limited space or tolerance concerning functional variations, which I can say is a mutation geneticist. We have the same situation. Plants, you cannot endlessly, indefinitely produce entirely new basic body plans.
There are limits of variation and this limit, these limits permits micro evolution.
Generating somewhat intermediate forms to a certain extent, but precludes infinite transformations. I would emphasize that point this variation variations are fine but they are not limitless.
There are no way to produce infinite transformation. Evolution has limits.
[00:23:17] Speaker B: Yep, plain and simple. Now what better explanation do you think fits the evidence as opposed to a Darwinian framework?
[00:23:25] Speaker A: Before I come to that interesting point, in 2006 and 2011 they had made some predictions what would be found in the fossil record.
And I said a gradual series of intermediates in Darwin sense infinitesimally small variations and so on has never existed and hence will never be found.
And considering Samotherium and Palaeotragus, Palaeotragus by means and in English and English ancient goat which belong to those genera which appear to display, to use the words of Dr. X, some differences in the short vertebrae.
A few further such mosaics might be discovered which are a bit longer, a bit larger.
But as mosaics they will not unequivocally be connecting any of the fossil Texa to the long necked giraffes. What is really true? It's what these authors themselves have said and I added that nevertheless gradualists would as triumphantly as ever proclaim them to be new proofs of their assumptions. Then there's another interesting one.
Solonius, that very fine researcher that who has then published many fine works which I really appreciate has the hypothesis that in the origin of giraffe a duplication of the cervical vertebra has taken place and then loss of one thoracic vertebra.
But if that would be true, if that were true, it would exclude by definition a gradual evolution in many such steps that Darwin and neo Darwinians imagine.
Well, I predicted in 2006 and 2011 two or three mosaic forms with some intermediate features will be found, but not a continuous year in Darwin sense. And as mosaics they will not unequivocally be connecting any of the fossil Texa togirafa to long degrowth.
Yes, the morphologic space within the families, like geography day generally is not infinite.
[00:25:57] Speaker B: So given all of that, you're firmly convinced that a Darwinian evolutionary explanation is not satisfactory for the giraffe as well as other animals, the origin of them. So what kind of explanation do you think fits the evidence better?
[00:26:14] Speaker A: Well, what fits the evidence better? That's a good, very fine question. I would say if one is prepared to break away from the prohibition of materialistic philosophy, one could for example accept the following reasoning by the Austrian self physiologist Siegfried Strugga. He was professor of botany and at the University of Munster.
He said the cell is the most perfect cybernetic system on earth in comparison to the cell. All automation of human technology is only a primitive beginning of man in principle to arrive at a biotechnology. Well, cybernetics is the science of communications and automatic control systems in both machines and living things.
And I now repeat that sentence, putting in some of the recent discoveries made in biology, especially in Genetica.
The cell is the most perfect cybernetic system on earth, usually consisting of thousands of spatio temporally precisely matched gene functions, gene interactions, cascades and pathways, and a steady state network of ingeniously complex physiological processes characterized by specified as well as often irreducible complexity, including an abundance of informations of at least to the gigabyte or English gigabyte, gigabyte or terabyte range more and more in comparison to the cell. All automation of human technology is really only a primitive beginning of man.
Sorry, principle in principle derived biotechnology.
Now, if the first steps on the way the path to the ingenious level of cybernetic complexities of the cell, the primitive beginning in Stoker's formulation, demands conscious action, imagination, perception, intelligence, wisdom, mental concepts, spirit and mind, all already being absolutely necessary for the basic start.
So how much more so does this have to apply to the origin of the thousand times more complex cybernetic systems of life, of the life souls themselves, including all the specified and irreducible complex factors inescapable for the origin of man? Not to speak of the giraffe and thousands of other further lifestyles.
See please more concerning this question in our interviews, which you personally have made with me on the pandasam and on my homepage, especially on the origin of human beings.
[00:29:19] Speaker B: Yeah, and that is a powerful argument in itself. You know, looking at the cell and how complex and integrated it is and how well engineered it is, all the processes that go on in it, and then extrapolating that to the organisms that are trillions of cells in depth, you start to see the magnitude of what needs to be explained, the orders of magnitude of information and engineering in organisms. And what we're trying to say then basically is that this is way beyond the limits of Darwinian processes to accomplish. And you've, you've put it very beautifully, Wolf Eckart, in what you've said there.
Well, audience, we hope you've enjoyed this discussion into the origins of the giraffe. Obviously it could go on. There's lots to say, lots of detail.
It's not something that we can spend hours on simply because of the short form of this podcast.
But it is great to get a taste of it. Michael Behe in his work says in order to understand why a Darwinian process cannot account for these things, you've got to bite the bullet of complexity and really get a taste of the detail involved in producing these animals, in the origin of these animals.
So here we have the giraffe, that singular animal that speaks to the amazing diversity of living things on earth. And it's been great to unpack the evidence and what it suggests. And I think we're seeing that the just so stories of Darwinian evolution, though ever hopeful and neat, are missing key evidence and very guilty of assumption. Well, thank you again, Wolf Eckart, for your time and your effort in sharing these details with us today.
[00:30:58] Speaker A: Thank you very much too for inviting me again and we hope that will help to clear and to give in fine overview of what happened concerning the fossil record of the giraffe and especially on that so called missing link, which is definitely not a missing link.
Simulterium Major.
[00:31:24] Speaker B: Yeah. And you've literally written a book here on this topic, reviewing all of the debate and the evidence and compiling it into a user friendly format. And you've got papers as well and articles. So we're going to include links to Wolf Eckert's coverage of the giraffe evolution debate in the show Notes for this episode. So look out for that. Well, until next time, I'm Andrew McDermott for ID the Future. Thanks for joining us.
