EVOLUTION...... OR GOD!
By Roger Patterson
(www.answersingenesis.org)
We have no acceptable theory of
evolution at the present time. There is none; and I cannot accept the theory
that I teach to my students each year. Let me explain. I teach the synthetic
theory known as the neo-Darwinian one, for one reason only; not because it’s
good, we know it is bad, but because there isn’t any other. Whilst waiting to
find something better you are taught something which is known to be inexact,
which is a first approximation …
–Professor Jerome Lejeune, in a lecture given in Paris
on March 17, 1985, translated by Peter Wilders
Textbooks present evolution in two different ways—small,
observable changes (natural selection, speciation, adaptation) and large,
unobservable changes (molecules-to-man evolution). They show evidence for the
former and then conclude that this proves that the latter took place as well.
As our understanding of genetics has improved, it has become increasingly clear
that mutations + time + chance do not equal evolution.
All observed mutations demonstrate a loss of genetic information from the
genetic code, or they are neutral. Evolution claims that the process
has no direction or goal. If you look at the complexity of the “first” organism,
it must be accepted that a massive amount of information has been produced to
explain the variety of life we see today. Mutations cannot generate new genetic
information; so they cannot be used to explain how evolution has proceeded from
a cell with less information than is present in modern cells.
Despite the claims of evolution, the appearance of new
species, antibiotic resistance in bacteria, pesticide resistance, and
sickle-cell anemia are not evidence in favor of evolution. They do, however,
demonstrate the principle of natural selection acting on existing traits—a
concept that creationists and evolutionists agree on. The
creationist model of how life spread across the globe after the Flood of Genesis
uses many of the same principles of natural selection and adaptive radiation
that are used in the evolution model. One of the main differences is that the
biblical creation model recognizes that one kind cannot change into another and
that the changes are a result of variation within the created kinds—not descent
from a single common ancestor. As a result of the Curse, genetic mutations,
representing a loss of information, have been accumulating, but these do not
cause new kinds to emerge. Accepting the idea of a single common ancestor denies
the authority of God’s Word.
What We Really Know about Natural Selection and Evolution
The ideas of natural selection, speciation, adaptation, and evolution are often
used interchangeably by secular scientists. All three of the textbooks reviewed
use the terms in this way. When scientists and authors use evolution to mean
both “change in features over time” and “the history of life on earth,” it is
difficult to know which definition is being used in each instance. This is often
used as a bait-and-switch technique (equivocation). When small changes that
arise as a result of the loss of information are used as evidence for
molecules-to-man evolution, the switch has occurred. Let’s define the terms and
see where the switch is happening.
Natural Selection: the process by which individuals
possessing a set of traits that confer a survival advantage in a given
environment tend to leave more offspring on average that survive to reproduce in
the next generation.
Natural selection is an observable process that falls into the category of
operational science. We have observed mosquitoes, birds, and many microorganisms
undergoing change in relatively short periods of time. New species have been
observed to arise. Biblical creationists agree with evolutionists on most of the
ideas associated with natural selection, except the idea that natural selection
leads to molecules-to-man evolution.
Speciation: the process of change in a population
that produces distinct populations which rarely naturally interbreed due to
geographic isolation or other factors.
Speciation is observable and fits into the category of operational science.
Speciation has never been observed to turn one kind of animal into another.
Lions (Panthera leo) and tigers (Panthera tigris) are both members of the cat
kind, but they are considered different species primarily due to their
geographic isolation. However, it is possible to mate the two. Ligers (male lion
and female tiger) and tigons (male tigers and female lions) are produced (with
varying degrees of fertility). These two species came from the original cat kind
that would have been present on Noah’s Ark.
Adaptation: a physical trait or behavior due to
inherited characteristics that gives an organism the ability to survive in a
given environment.
Evolutionists often look at a characteristic of an organism and assume that it
was produced through a gradual series of changes and call it an adaptation to a
given environment. To an evolutionist, legs on tetrapods are an adaptation that
arose as a fish’s fins became adapted to crawling in a shallow stream, providing
some form of advantage. The fins with more bones were better adapted to a life
partially lived on the land. Fins that developed bones attached to a pectoral
girdle (another set of bones that had to develop) gave an advantage to those
individuals that wandered onto land to find food or avoid predators.
The problems with this scenario are in the amount of
time such a change would require and the lack of a mechanism to cause the
change.
The formation of new species as a result of loss of
information is the opposite type of change required to demonstrate
molecules-to-man evolution. This, and other examples found in the textbooks,
confirms the biblical creationist model of variation within a kind.
Evolutionary biologists assume, based on geologic interpretations, that there
have been billions of years for this process to occur. But if long ages did not
exist, the hypothesis cannot be true.
The other requirement, a mechanism for change, is also
assumed to exist—even though it has never been observed. We
mentioned earlier that natural selection tends to delete information from the
population. If natural selection is the mechanism that explains the successive
adaptations in the fish fin example above, it must provide new genetic
information. To produce the new bones in the fins requires an elaborate
orchestration of biologic processes. The bones don’t just have to be present;
they must develop at the right time in the embryo, have their shape and size
predetermined by the DNA sequence, be attached to the correct tendons,
ligaments, and blood vessels, attach to the bones of the pectoral girdle, and so
on. The amount of information required for this seemingly simple transformation
cannot be provided by a process that generally deletes information from the
genome.
Biblical creationists consider major structures to be part of the original
design provided by God. Modifications to those structures, adaptations, occur
due to genetic recombination, random mutations, and natural selection. These
structures do not arise from the modification of similar structures of another
kind of animal. The beak of the woodpecker, for example, did not arise from the
beak of a theropod dinosaur ancestor; it was an originally designed structure.
The difference in beak shapes among woodpeckers fits with the idea of natural
selection leading to changes within a population of woodpeckers—within the
created kind.
Consider a woodpecker pair getting off the Ark. The pair may contain genes
(information) for long and short beaks. As the birds spread out into the lush
new world growing in the newly deposited soil, they produce offspring that
contain both long-beak and shortbeak genes. (Although the actual control of beak
growth is complex, we will assume that long is dominant over short for this
simplistic example.) Areas populated by trees with thick, soft bark would tend
to select for woodpeckers with longer beaks. Areas where the bark was thinner
and harder would tend to be populated by woodpeckers with shorter beaks. Two new
species, with slightly different adaptations, could arise if the two populations
were geographically separated. The population of short-beaked woodpeckers would
have lost the information for long beaks. No more long-beaked woodpeckers would
be produced without a significant addition of genetic information affecting the
beak length. The long-beaked woodpeckers would still have the ability to produce
short-beaked offspring, but they would be less able to compete, and those genes
would tend to decrease in frequency in the population. Due to their isolation,
two new species of woodpecker would develop, but within their kind.
Observational science supports this type of subtle change within a kind but not
molecules-to-man evolution, as we will see in the next section.
The variation within the woodpecker population is
capable of producing birds with longer beaks, but there is no evidence that new
information has been produced. This explains how the different varieties of
animals and plants that we see today are a result of diversification after the
Flood.
Evolution: ......all life on earth
has come about through descent with modification from a single common ancestor
(a hypothetical, primitive, single-celled organism).
Evolution is generally assumed to happen as a natural consequence of natural
selection. However, no direct observational evidence supports the concept of a
fish turning, however gradually, into an amphibian. Evolutionists will argue
that there has simply not been enough time to observe such changes. Man has only
been recording information that would be useful for a short period of time
relative to the immense amounts of time required by evolutionary theory. This
raises the question, “Is evolution a valid scientific
idea since it cannot be observed in experiments and repeated to show that the
conclusions are valid?”
The fact that evolutionary processes, on the scale of millions of years, cannot
be observed, tested, repeated, or falsified places them in the category of
historical science. In secular science, evaluating historical events is
considered just as acceptable as conducting laboratory experiments when it comes
to developing scientific theories. Since scientific theories are subject to
change, it is acceptable to work within an admittedly deficient framework until
a better or more reasonable framework can be found.
A major problem for evolution, as mentioned above, is the huge increase in
information content of organisms through time. Evolutionary theory accepts
additions and deletions of information as evidence of evolution of a population.
The problem is that through the imagined history of life on earth, the
information content of the genomes of organisms must have increased
dramatically. Beginning with the most primitive form of life, we have a
relatively simple genome compared to the genomes that we see today.
Mutations are said to provide the fuel for the
evolutionary engine. Virtually all observed mutations result in a loss in the
information content of a genome. There would need to be some way to
consistently add information to the genome to arrive at palm trees and people
from a simple single-celled organism—the hypothetical common ancestor of all
life on earth. Evolutionists have failed to answer
the question, “Where did all the new information come from since mutations are
known to reduce information?” You cannot expect evolution, which
requires a net gain in information over millions of years, to occur as a result
of mutation and natural selection. Natural selection, evolution’s supposed
mechanism, causes a loss of information and can only act on traits that are
already present! (The origin of the information is discussed in chapter 5.)
Creationists agree with the idea of “descent with modification” but not with the
notion of a single common ancestor. To accept a common ancestor for all life on
earth requires a rejection of the biblical account of creation recorded in
Genesis and corroborated by many other Scriptures. The order of events of
evolutionary history cannot be reconciled with the account recorded in Genesis
1, without compromising one or the other. The philosophies of evolution and
biblical Christianity are not compatible.
We have observed the change in dogs over time, but that doesn’t mean that
evolution has occurred. You can breed wolves to get to chihuahuas, but you can’t
breed chihuahuas to get wolves—variation in the genetic information has been
lost. Darwin used this type of change as evidence without
an understanding of the limits of genetic change that are known today.
Evolutionists often set up straw man arguments which suggest that creationists
believe life was created just as it is seen today. Evolutionists demonstrate
that there are many examples of change over time in species and suggest they
have disproved creationism. This is an inaccurate description of the biblical
creationist model of life on earth. Creationists accept change in animals over
time—God didn’t create poodles—but within the boundaries of the created kinds
according to Genesis 1.
Using the dog kind as an example, we can see the amazing variety that was
programmed into the DNA from creation. Using basic genetic principles and
operational science, we can understand how the great diversity seen in the dogs
of the present world could have come from one pair of dogs on Noah’s Ark. Using
the genes A, B, and C as examples of recessive/dominant traits in dogs, if an
AaBbCc male were to mate with an AaBbCc female, there are 27 different
combinations (AABBCC … aabbcc) possible in the offspring. If these three genes
coded for fur characteristics, we would get dogs with many types of fur—from
long and thick to short and thin. As these dogs migrated around the globe after
the Flood, they encountered different climates. Those that were better suited to
the environment of the cold North survived and passed on the genes for long,
thick fur. The opposite was true in the warmer climates. Natural selection is a
key component of the explanation of events following the Flood that led to the
world we now see.
This type of speciation has been observed to happen very rapidly and involves
mixing and expression of the preexisting genetic variability. Not only does
natural selection select from already existing information, it causes a loss of
information since unfavorable genes are removed from the population. Mutations
are not able to add new information to the genome. Not a single mutation has
been observed to cause an increase in the amount of information in a genome. The
differences in groups of similar organisms that are isolated from one another
may eventually become great enough so that the populations no longer interbreed
in the wild. This is how new species have formed since the Flood and why the
straw man argument set up at the beginning is a false representation of
creationist interpretations.
No matter how hard evolutionists try, they cannot
explain where the new information that is necessary to turn a reptile into a
bird comes from. The typical neo-Darwinian mechanism of mutation,
chance, and time cannot generate new information. The failure of evolutionary
models to explain how a single cell could have evolved more complex information
by additive mutations challenges the entire concept. If we start from the Bible,
we begin with the idea of specially created organisms possessing large amounts
of genetic variability. These original kinds have undergone mutations—which
cause a loss of information—and have been changed into new species by natural
selection. In this biblical framework, the history of life makes sense.
In the media, textbooks, and scientific literature the occurrence of evolution
has become a “fact.” The definition of the word evolution has also taken on two
different meanings that are not equal. Evolution can be used in the sense of
change in a species by natural selection. This is often referred to as
microevolution and is accepted by evolutionists and creationists alike as good
observational science. This type of evolution allows change within groups but
not between groups. The other meaning of evolution
involves the idea that all organisms on earth share a common ancestor by descent
with modification. This idea is commonly referred to as
macroevolution. (AiG does not endorse using the terms “microevolution” and
“macroevolution.” It is not the amount of change that is different, but the type
and direction of change that is different. These terms do not clarify that
difference.) The two definitions are often used interchangeably. Typically,
textbooks show that new species can form—evolution has occurred—so they argue
that it is obvious that evolution, in the molecules-to-man sense, must have
occurred. The problem is that just because natural selection and speciation have
occurred (and there is strong evidence to support such claims) the claim that
all life has evolved from a common ancestor is based on many assumptions that
cannot be ultimately proven.
People believe the ideas of the evolutionary
development of life on earth for many reasons: it is all that they have been
taught and exposed to, they believe the evidence supports evolution, they do not
want to be lumped with people who do not believe in evolution and are often
considered to be less intelligent or “backward,” evolution has the stamp of
approval from real scientists, and evolutionary history allows people to reject
the idea of God and legitimize their own immorality. Evaluating the
presuppositions behind belief in evolution makes for a much more productive
discussion. Two intelligent people can arrive at different conclusions using the
same evidence; so their starting assumptions is the most important issue in
discussing historical science.
When we deal with the issue of origins, we must realize that no people were
there to observe and record the events. When scientists discuss the origins of
the universe, the earth, or life on earth, we must realize that the discussion
is based on assumptions. These fallible assumptions make the conclusions of the
discussion less valid than if the discussion were based on actual observation.
Almost all biology books and textbooks written in the last two generations have
been written as if these presuppositions were true.
Proponents of the evolutionary worldview expect
everyone to accept evolution as fact. This is a difficult case to make when the
how, why, when, and where of evolutionary history are sharply contested or
unknown by the scientists who insist evolution is a fact.
Evolutionists often claim that creation is not
scientific because of the unprovable assumptions that it is based on. The fact
that evolution is based on its own set of unprovable, untestable, and
unfalsifiable assumptions is recognized by many in the scientific community.
Within the scientific literature, the mathematical and chemical impossibilities
of the origin of the universe and life on earth are recognized. Many notable
scientists, including Sir Fred Hoyle and Sir Francis Crick, have gone so far as
to suggest that life originated on other planets or was brought to earth by an
intelligent being. These ideas are no less testable than special creation but
avoid invoking God as our Creator.
The idea of natural selection was published well before Darwin wrote Origin of
Species. Darwin was most likely exposed to the idea in his days as a student in
Edinburgh, and those ideas were integrated with the information gathered on his
Beagle voyage. Several scholars have suggested that Darwin borrowed ideas from
the works of many of his predecessors and contemporaries. It is suggested that
Darwin failed to give credit to Edward Blyth for seminal ideas because Blyth was
a “special creationist” who viewed natural selection in light of selecting among
preexisting Darwin developed traits. Darwin is credited with the idea of
evolution by natural selection, but it remains impotent in light of modern
genetic concepts of information.
Darwin developed his ideas over many years after his
journey aboard the Beagle. The idea of natural selection was recognized by
creationists before Darwin used it to remove the glory from God.
Darwin grew up in an England that acknowledged a biblical worldview. When he
wrote On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The
Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, he had witnessed a
world full of death and disease. How could this be the world created by the God
of the Bible? Evolutionary ideas offered people an alternative to a supernatural
Creator. Life may appear to be designed, but it is just a product of random
changes over millions of years of earth history. This
offered people a “scientific” means to reject God and believe in a naturalistic
view of the universe. Michael Denton suggests that the chief impact
of Darwin’s ideas was to make atheism possible and respectable in light of the
evidence for a Designer. Darwin’s ideas fostered an environment where God was no
longer needed—nature was all that was necessary. Darwin’s ideas ushered in a
pagan era that is now reaching a critical point. The idea that the appearance of
design suggests a designer became an invalid argument in the eyes of
evolutionists.
Poodles and all other current breeds of dogs are descended from a dog kind. The
varieties of dogs that we see today, from wolves to coyotes to poodles, are all
descendants of the dog kind that came off Noah’s Ark. As populations of wild
dogs were spreading across the globe, the environment shaped their
characteristics through natural selection. As humans began to domesticate dogs,
they artificially selected the traits that they desired in populations. The
breeds of modern domestic dogs are a result of the diversity that was programmed
into the DNA of the original dog kind. All domestic dogs belong to the same
species Canis familiaris and can interbreed.
Purebred dogs have many genetic problems that result from close breeding of
individuals over time to concentrate desirable traits. Many breeds have hip
dysplaysia, vision problems, and blood disorders. We know that these dogs could
not have been in the Garden of Eden because God called His creation “very good”
and He would not have included these genetic mutations in that description. We
do know that all of the breeds did come from a very narrow gene pool, and this
is confirmed by secular scientists. In the journal Science, November 22, 2002,
researchers reported, “The origin of the domestic dog from wolves has been
established… . We examined the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequence variation
among 654 domestic dogs representing all major dog populations worldwide, …
suggesting a common origin from a single gene pool for all dog populations.” It
is still important to remember that no new information exists in these mutant
forms, only a loss of information from the population, resulting in distinct
traits.
Evolutionists use the idea of “descent from a common ancestor” to explain why
the forearm bones of a penguin, bat, and human are so similar. This explanation
works for traits in your family, but can it be applied to the history of life on
earth? The fact that we use such characteristics to classify organisms into
groups does not mean that they are related to a common ancestor. The equally
valid alternative is that all of these organisms were created by a common
Designer who used the same design principles to accomplish similar functions.
Although either explanation may appear equally valid, some instances make the
case for a Creator clear.
When structures that appear to be similar to one another develop under the
control of genes that are not related, the common ancestor idea fails. Evolution
would predict that the structures would be formed from a derived gene that has
undergone modification through mutation and natural selection. Frogs and humans
supposedly share a common ancestor that would account for the similarity of the
limb structures. The problem is that when a frog’s digits develop, they grow out
from buds in the embryonic hand. In humans, the digits begin as a solid plate
and then tissue is removed to form the digits. These entirely different
mechanisms produce the same result, but they are not the result of the same
genes.
Another challenge to evolutionary explanations is when two structures appear to
be homologous but evolutionists know they don’t share a common ancestor. Such
cases are called “convergent evolution.” The eyes of squids and vertebrates are
an example where the eyes would be called homologous, but there is no common
ancestor to account for the similarities. The common designer argument can once
again be used to more easily explain the similarities.
The opposite occurs in “divergent” structures where organisms that appear to be
evolutionary cousins have drastically different mechanisms that cannot be
explained by a common ancestor. Different light-focusing methods in shrimp
provide an example. These systems accomplish the same goal with different and
intricate design features— more evidence of their Creator.
Abandoning proof of evolution based on the similarities
in large structures, many now look to the similarity in molecular and genetic
structure to support evolution. The sporadic presence of hemoglobin in the
evolutionary branches of invertebrates is one example. If evolution had
occurred, we would expect a predictable pattern—that pattern does not exist. The
hemoglobin must have evolved, despite its intricacies, in each of these groups
independently. The facts confirm the creationist model of created kinds with
great genetic variety and deny evolution from a common ancestor.
The alleged 98% similarity of human and chimp DNA, for example, is often touted
as proof of the evolutionary closeness of the two. The 2% difference actually
translates into about 60 million base pair differences.
The small differences in the genes are actually turned into a large difference
in the proteins produced.
The evidence supports the idea of a matrix of specially created organisms with
traits occurring where and when they are needed. Discovering the details of this
predictive pattern may someday strengthen the validity of the creationist
perspective in the minds of skeptics.
Evolutionists commonly point to the amazing similarity of muscle, bone, and cell
structure and function among living things as evidence that all life on earth
evolved from a common protocell ancestor some 3.5 billion years ago. Connecting
existing animals to the fossil record extends the comparison back to the alleged
beginning of time. The idea of homology as proof for evolution is present in
almost every high-school or college text on the subject. Evolutionists argue
that the only naturalistic explanation for homology is that all of the organisms
evolved from a common ancestor. Design arguments are dismissed in naturalistic/
materialistic scientific explanations—even though a common designer can explain
the similarities as well.
Before Darwin, creationists used the idea of “ideal archetypes” as evidence for
a common designer. The features of comparative anatomy were later reinterpreted
by evolutionary biologists to argue for descent from a common ancestor. The real
question is: “Does the similarity prove that one structure evolved into
another?” Since the requirements are similar for living things, homologous
structures would be predicted based on a common designer—structures appear
similar because they were designed to accomplish the same task. Tires on
bicycles look like tires on motorcycles, with design modifications. Kidneys in a
skunk look similar to kidneys in a human because they perform the same task and
were designed by a common Designer. Evolutionists tend to accept homologies that
fit within the evolutionary framework and set aside those that do not support
their predictions; supporting structures are called “homologous,” while those
that don’t fit the theory are called “analogous.” The existence of similar body
plans in organisms that are not considered to be closely related in evolutionary
terms is said to demonstrate convergent evolution. The body plan works, so it
evolved independently in the two organisms. There are also many exceptions and
there is no way to trace many components back to their alleged ancestors due to
the incomplete nature of the fossil evidence. Homologous structures cannot
exclude the idea of design.
The idea of convergent evolution of analogous structures has trouble explaining
exactly how these structures have evolved at different times to be analogous.
Wings are supposed to have evolved in at least four different groups as
analogous structures. Another example of convergent evolution is the striking
similarity between dogs and the Tasmanian tiger (a marsupial). Evolutionists
must say that the two evolved independently of one another even though the
homology indicates otherwise. Convergent evolution is used as a way to explain
away homologies that appear in organisms that aren’t supposed to be closely
related.
Evolutionists use embryological development, the presence of vestigial organs,
and biochemical and genetic homologies to argue for descent from a common
ancestor. Yet the patterns expected from the Darwinian model of evolution are
not seen in most instances. On the other hand, homologies confirm the
creationist model of a common Designer, the Creator God of the Bible.
The presence of homologous structures can actually be interpreted as evidence
for a common designer. Contrary to the oversimplified claim in this figure, the
forelimbs of vertebrates do not form in the same way. Specifically, in frogs the
phalanges form as buds that grow outward and in humans they form from a ridge
that develops furrows inward. The fact that the bones can be correlated does not
mean that they are evidence of a single common ancestor.
The pelvic bone in whales serves as an important anchor for muscles of the
reproductive organs. Contrary to the claim in this figure, a structure cannot
“show structural change over time.” The change over time must be inferred from
assumptions about the fossil record and evolution. To know if an organ is
vestigial, you must know its ancestors and exactly how the organ was used by
those ancestors.
The idea of vestigial organs has been passed on for over 100 years. Vestigial
organs are said to be remnants of organs that were used by an organism’s
ancestors but are no longer needed, or they function in a reduced capacity in
the modern organism. The human appendix is one of the
most used, or misused, examples. Just because we do not understand the function
of an organ doesn’t mean that it serves no function. The appendix was once
thought to be an evolutionary leftover, but today we know it serves an important
immunological function. Most of the organs that were once thought to be
vestigial have been shown to have functions.
Evolutionists predict the presence of billions of transitional life forms that
have existed in earth’s history. Despite the presence
of 250,000 fossil species, clear transitional forms, which would bolster
evolutionary theory, are virtually absent. The situation of
transitional forms is glaringly obvious in the case of whales and other marine
mammals. The gap in transitional forms was supposedly filled by a partial fossil
specimen named Pakicetus inachus. Even though the fossil was only a fraction of
the skull and a few teeth, the media and scientists portrayed it as a whale-like
transitional form. The fact that it was found in a deposit that was likely from
a river area puts the interpretation of Pakicetus in doubt. (More complete
specimens have been found that show Pakicetus as a dog-like land animal.)
Fossils of Ambulocetus natans were later discovered, and this creature was
considered to be a walking whale. Despite the lack of a pelvic girdle (a partial
pelvis was found in later specimens), Ambulocetus is described as having walked
on land much as sea lions do and swimming with a combined motion much as otters
and seals do. Why a whale would have hooves on its rear feet and be living near
the seashore are questions that are not answered by the fossils.
The deposits containing Ambulocetus were found 400 feet higher than where
Pakicetus was found, but both are supposedly 52 million years old. Pakicetus is
called the oldest whale (cetacean), but Ambulocetus is supposed to display
transitional features as land animals turned into whales. Based on teeth alone,
several other wolf-like carnivores (mesonychids) are thought to be ancestors as
well. The exact arrangement of these groups is disputed, and some consider the
mesonychids to be a branch separate from whales.
This interpretation of scant fossil evidence is very imaginative and totally
necessary to support the notion that whales evolved from land animals. Such
imaginative claims of evolutionary history have been claimed in the past only to
be shown false. Further evidence will certainly change the current thinking in
drastic ways.
There is little agreement about the evolutionary ancestor of whales. Some
believe it was an ancestor of hippos and pigs, while others believe it was a
group known as mesonychids. The contrary nature of the evidence and the lack of
transitional forms in the fossil record strengthen the case for distinct groups
of created organisms.
This chapter of War of the Worldviews details the common mechanisms of genetic
mutation and explains how the mechanisms actually provide examples of a loss of
information rather than the creation of new information necessary to explain
molecules-to-man evolution. In evolutionary theory, mutations are described as
the mechanism that fuels the engine of natural selection, creating new organisms
as a result. However, the vast majority of mutations are either neutral or cause
a loss of information in the genetic code of an individual.
Recent advances in the mechanisms of genetics have made
it even clearer that the complex information system found in every living cell
must be the result of a Designer. Mutations
cannot explain how new information can be formed over time.
Evolution teaches that mutations have accumulated over millions of years to
increase the complexity of organisms on the earth. The Bible teaches that, as a
result of Adam’s sin, all of creation is in a downward slide—including the
genetic information that is in every living cell. The law against
marrying close relations was not given to Israel until Leviticus 18. Up to this
point, the accumulation of genetic mistakes was apparently not significant
enough to cause genetic disorders in the offspring of close family members.
Today, with thousands of years of accumulated genetic mistakes in the human gene
pool, intermarriage would be much more likely to produce children with genetic
disorders. So it seems that the explanation of a genetic degradation since the
Curse of Adam actually fits the evidence better than the evolution model of
increasing complexity.
While on his journey aboard the Beagle, Darwin had an extended stay in the
Galapagos Islands. He observed a group of finches that were similar to ones he
had seen on the mainland 600 miles away. Darwin concluded that these birds were
related to the birds on the mainland but had developed unique traits suited to
the islands. The structure of the beaks was one of the key characteristics he
studied. This interpretation was contrary to some creationists of his day who
believed species could not change.
Darwin’s conclusion concerning finches matches that of
the modern creationist models and demonstrates the variation within a kind that
is observed in nature—the finches are still finches. Studies by Drs.
Peter and Rosemary Grant over the past decades have shown that the beak size of
the finches changes with the climate of the islands they inhabit. Beaks got
larger during droughts and smaller during wet periods. All the while, the birds
were observed to interbreed. This cannot be considered evidence of evolution in
the molecules-to-man sense because there was no net change in the population,
even though rapid changes in beak size were observed. The Grants’ work is an
example of a good study using the principles of operational science arriving at
a faulty interpretation based on evolutionary presuppositions.
Often cited as evidence for evolution, the finches of
the Galapagos actually demonstrate variation within a kind and the limits of
change. Note that the graph shows no net change in the beak size of the finch—it
leaves off right where it started. This is certainly evidence that populations
can change but not that they can change into new kinds.
The Grants began studying the finch population of the Galapagos Islands in 1973.
They monitored breeding, feeding, and physical data in the birds. The finches’
beak shape and size are the main characteristics that are used in classifying
them. Even this is difficult with the variability seen in the beaks. One of the
biggest problems for the finch studies is the extensive hybridization that
occurs between the alleged species. The fact that these hybrids also reproduced
should suggest that the three interbreeding species are actually one species.
This conclusion was set aside to suggest that hybridization is essential for and
accelerates the rate of evolutionary change. The standard species concept was
rejected to promote evolution. The hybridization demonstrates the common gene
pool that these finches all share and the high degree of variability that was
present in the first birds on the islands. The branches and stems in the finch
tree of life seem to be more like a thicket with interconnecting lines (termed
reticulate evolution). The range of explanations for the process of evolution—it
is a “fact” that it has occurred— now includes rapid or gradual, directed or
undirected, tree or thicket. The creationist model can still be said to
accommodate the data in a much more complete way. Variation within the created
kind is confirmed in Darwin’s finches.
The most persuasive—and dangerous—definition for evolution is “change through
time.” Just because organisms can be observed to change over a period of time
does not mean that all life has a common ancestor. If we think of the classic
peppered moth example, we started with light and dark moths (Biston betularia)
and ended up with light— and dark—colored moths of the same species in different
proportions. This exemplifies the creationist idea of variation within a kind.
The natural selection that produces the variety of living things we see today
began after Adam rebelled against God. The concept of
natural selection was published in a biblical context by Edward Blyth 24 years
before Darwin published Origin of Species. Blyth is forgotten and Darwin is
remembered because of the philosophic and religious implications of his idea,
not the scientific applications.
Natural selection has been shown to change organisms but always within the
boundaries of the created kinds. This type of change is often termed
“microevolution,” and the hypothetical type of change that turns fish into
philosophers is known as “macroevolution.” The large-scale changes through time
are simply dramatic extrapolations of the observed phenomenon of natural
selection. This degree of extrapolation has no basis in operational science.
There are limits to the amount and type of genetic change that can occur—no
matter what amount of time is allowed. As an illustration: if you can pedal a
bicycle at 10 mph, how long would it take to reach the moon? Bicycles have
limits that would make this goal impossible regardless of the time you have to
accomplish it.
When we look at the world, we see a complex interaction between living things,
from bacteria to grizzly bears; all life depends on other life around it. The
complexities of relationships in the ecosystems that make up the earth are just
as complex as those seen inside each living cell. Biodiversity and the
relationships that it incorporates are a hallmark of the design of the Creator.
The more diverse and complex an ecosystem is, the more stable it is. Each
species in an ecosystem provides a service, but often providers of that service
overlap and each species may perform several services. Removal of one of the
species has an impact on all other species. This interdependency is supposed to
demonstrate how organisms have evolved alongside one another. But how did the
first organism survive without the second, and vice versa?
Being created together is a simple explanation, and
evolution has great difficulty explaining the many instances of species that
absolutely depend on one another for their survival. When cells were
described as simple blobs of jelly, it was easy to imagine that they arose
spontaneously. Today, the complexity of a single cell defies an origin from
simple matter. As we understand more about ecological interactions, it is
apparent that the evolutionary relationships that were once assumed to be
simplistic are now known to have many layers of complexity. The co-evolution of
complex symbiotic relationships required the existence of relationships. This
provides no answer to the origin of the relationships. If the two organisms were
created to coexist, a fine-tuning of the relationship would be expected in the
creationist framework. Predators and parasites developed in response to the
degraded world after the Flood. The created kinds may have changed, but the
general relationships present before the Fall probably remained intact to some
degree. The relationships seen are a testament to the Creator who instilled
order and flexibility into the system. Evolutionary views cannot adequately
explain the symbiotic nature of all living things.
Mendel and Darwin were contemporaries whose theories were formulated in
different ways and clashed with one another. Mendel used careful observations of
traits and calculations to develop his theory of inheritance, while Darwin’s
ideas were based on erroneous ideas about inheritance. Four factors can be
considered in genetic variation: environment, recombination, mutation, and
creation. It has long been known that environmental effects on individuals
cannot be passed on to offspring as the information is not contained in the DNA.
Mendel recognized the constancy of traits with variation, while Darwin, to some
degree, accepted environmental influence on variation. This is evident from
Darwin’s discussion of the giraffe’s neck becoming longer by “the inherited
effects of the increased use of parts.”
Mendel showed that traits are reorganized independently when they are passed on
to offspring. The variation would not always be evident, but it would only
reappear if the trait was present in a previous generation. The amount of
variation is limited by the information in the parents. Darwin’s finches offer
an example of this recombination of traits. Mutations are rare in a given gene,
and the cell has elaborate machinery to correct mistakes when they occur.
Mutations, when they do occur, tend to be neutral but others are harmful. In the
creation model, mistakes in the DNA would be expected to have harmful effects.
In evolution, these mistakes are supposed to increase information even though in
over 3,000 known fruit fly mutations not one produces a fly that has a survival
advantage. Examples of mutations that are beneficial to the individual or
population are shown to be a loss of information. Natural selection acts to
preserve or eliminate traits that are beneficial or harmful, as the creation
model would predict. Creation of organisms by a divine
Creator is the only mechanism that is adequate to account for the variation seen
in the world today. Each of the created kinds started with considerable genetic
variability that has caused the variety of life we see today.
Molecules-to-man evolution requires the production of large amounts of new
genetic information. In searching for possible mechanisms, evolutionists have
sometimes pointed to the ability of cells to make, and retain, multiple copies
of their DNA. If this were the source of evolution, one would expect to find a
general increase in the amount of DNA as you move up the evolutionary tree of
life. This, however, is not the case. Humans are certainly more complex
organisms than bacteria and plants, but they have less DNA in general. The
organism with the most DNA is actually a bacterium (Epulopiscium fishelsoni)
that has at least 25 times as much DNA as a human cell. There are also 85,000
copies of one of its genes per cell. If these extra copies of genes were indeed
the raw material for evolutionary mechanisms to act on, this bacterium should be
a hallmark of evolutionary adaptation—but it is still a bacterium.
Evolutionists suggest that evolution is a meaningless,
undirected process and that humans are a mere accident with no purpose or
meaning in the universe. If humans evolved, then there is no eternal life and no
God. This obviously flies in the face of Christian beliefs; we were created in
the image of God. This view of creation gives our life meaning and purpose.
Without God, there is no foundation for morality and each person can do what
seems right at the time with no real consequences regarding eternity— eternity
does not exist. Man shares characteristics with both animals and
God. The Bible equates man and animals on a certain level, but the presence of a
spirit and the ability to communicate ideas are attributes man shares with God.
We also see God’s attributes in human creativity, reasoning, and the ability to
express love and pursue the holiness that existed before sin entered the world.
The impulse to survive seen in every living thing cannot be described in
biological terms; a divine Creator must have instilled this desire in each
organism. Evolutionists suggest that the hope of an afterlife is a coping
mechanism that has developed as a response to the bleakness of our existence,
but God says it is a promise to all.
“Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and
clear … . There are no gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind.
There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am
going to be dead. That’s the end for me. There is no ultimate foundation for
ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either.” —Dr.
William B. Provine, Professor of Biological Sciences, Cornell University
The definition of the “fittest” individuals makes the notion of natural
selection true based on circular reasoning. The fittest are the ones that
survive, and you can tell which are the fittest by seeing which ones survive.
(The fact that survival of the fittest is based on circular reasoning does not
necessarily mean that the idea is false.) Fitness is controlled by many factors
that allow the organism to survive and reproduce. The fastest zebra may be deaf
and have a poor sense of smell. This combination would tend to eliminate his
genes from a population. The only way to understand fitness is to study the
first generation and then track the presence of those traits through time as
successive generations are born.
Numerical values can be used to represent the fitness of individuals based on
the ratio of individuals with different traits. These numbers can explain
fitness, but they have no predictive power—you can only determine the fittest
after they survive. Mice that hold still to avoid being seen by a soaring hawk
are better able to survive, except when it is safer to run to their burrows to
avoid being eaten—each may provide an advantage. If the fact that the survivors
survived is used to prove evolution, the circular reasoning becomes a logic
problem.
Another misconception is that the fittest variety must be increasing in number.
Natural selection can still be acting on a population as its numbers are
declining. There is no direction implied in natural selection—you can be the
highest scorer (most fit) on the losing team. Competition happens between
species (inter-specific competition), but natural selection acts within species
(intra-specific competition). The struggle for survival is not between lions and
zebras, it is within the zebra population. This intra-specific struggle allows
for change within kinds, but not from one kind to another.
One shortcoming is that natural selection cannot plan ahead—an advantage one day
may become a hindrance as the environment changes. This can ultimately lead to
the extinction of a population despite its current success in the environment.
Natural selection favors specialization into distinct niches; when the
environment changes, the specialization becomes a disadvantage. It seems
impossible that this process of undirected elimination could lead to an increase
in variety and complexity.
The complex system of proteins involved in the
blood-clotting reaction makes up an “irreducibly complex” system. If any one of
the pieces is missing, the system fails. Evolution cannot adequately explain how
such systems could arise.
Adaptations are usually presented in a way that makes them seem like a natural
extension of natural selection. There is limited evidence to suggest that
natural selection can lead to new adaptations, but ample evidence shows that
adaptations can lead to natural selection. An adaptation must appear before
natural selection can act on it. Evolution cannot
explain the appearance of these traits, but the Creator provided the variety
needed in the original created kinds.
The presence of irreducible complexity in biological systems is another
roadblock for naturalistic theories of evolution. It is hard to imagine how you
could get to the top of the Empire State Building if you had to jump, but the
task becomes easier when you learn that there are stairs. This slow and gradual
idea is how evolutionists explain the molecules-to-man idea that once seemed
impossible to imagine. This works if all of the steps can be used to build on
one another, but what if this were not the case?
Darwin recognized this limit and acknowledged it in Origin of Species. In his
book Darwin’s Black Box, Michael Behe describes the biochemical details of
several systems that need all of their parts present to function. Since removing
one of the proteins involved in blood-clotting causes catastrophic results, the
system has irreducible complexity. This irreducible complexity is not only
present within living organisms but also between them in ecological
interactions. The interaction of fish and shrimp in cleaning symbiosis is one
example. A large fish allows a small fish or shrimp to
clean parasites from its mouth and then swims off without eating the cleaner.
How could this relationship, and other irreducibly complex systems, have evolved
one step at a time?
Even if Darwin’s ideas can explain the maintenance of traits and variation
within a kind, they do not address the actual origin of the traits in the first
place. Darwin used the phrase “from use and disuse, from the direct and indirect
actions of the environment” to describe the origin of traits. This is exactly
the view held by Lamarck, who is often contrasted with Darwin. Using a trait
does not mean it will be passed to the offspring in a different form (stretching
giraffe necks is often used as an example). As science has gathered more
information about heredity, the idea of use and disuse has been shown to be
false.
The origin of this new information is thought by neo- Darwinists to occur by
random mutation—random mutations are the raw material for evolution.
The cases of fruit fly mutation and flu virus are often
used as examples to support evolution. However, these mutations cannot explain
the increase or origin of information in living systems. The
creationist model—that information was created by the Supreme Designer—fits the
observations much better than naturalistic evolution.
A Scientific American article admits (way back in 1991) that the “chicken and
egg” problem of DNA and proteins has not been solved by the RNA hypothesis. DNA
requires proteins to function, and proteins are made from DNA. The actual
laboratory observations are highly artificial with a “great deal of help from
the scientists.” Miller’s and Fox’s experiments on the origin of proteins and
proteinoids, which supposedly produced “protocells,” are essentially dead ends.
Clever attempts at producing life in the lab only demonstrate that life can be
produced by intelligence. The stories of life originating in clay crystals and
deep-ocean vents are just stories, with no observational data to confirm them.
In all, much more research is needed to even begin to answer the question of the
origin of life in a materialistic framework. Creationists need only accept that
God has created life and study the changes that have occurred since the
creation.
An amazing discovery in genetics has shown that a certain plant (Arabidopsis
thaliana) can actually fix a mutation in a recessive allele even when it doesn’t
have a copy of the correct sequence in its genome. In a well-designed study, the
mutation was shown to be corrected in a “template-directed process,” not by
random mutations. Organisms that have a better DNA correction system would have
a survival advantage, but the irreducible complexity of the system makes it
highly improbable that it evolved. This correction mechanism has never been seen
before and seems to defy evolution by natural selection. How do you select for
the ability to fix a mutation that you don’t have? This trait could easily be
lost from the population by genetic drift or random mutation in organisms that
lack the mutation (assuming it is a DNA-encoded trait). A system that fixes
random mutations would stop, or at least slow down, the evolutionary process.
The authors of the study suggest stress induces the repair. Stress has been
shown to change mutation rates in certain bacteria, but in the other
direction—more mutations are produced to create a variant that can survive the
stress. RNA is a candidate for the correction mechanism, but many properties of
RNA make it improbable. The RNA may be acting with other proteins, but more
research needs to be done. Evolution is such a plastic theory that a “just so”
story will probably come about as a result of this correction mechanism. The
problem is that it would be just as likely to fix beneficial mutations as it
would harmful ones. A creationist can accept this new mechanism as another way
of maintaining the created kinds in light of genetic variability.
In order for DNA to be transcribed, many proteins
must interact with the DNA. The problem is that DNA is needed to make the
proteins that are used to transcribe the DNA—a classic example of the “chicken
and the egg” dilemma. Evolution cannot explain how such a system could have
evolved by random processes acting over time. DNA was created fully functional.
Resistance to antibiotics and other antimicrobials is often claimed to be a
clear demonstration of “evolution in a Petri dish.” However, analysis of the
genetic events causing this resistance reveals that they are not consistent with
the genetic events necessary for evolution (defined as common “descent with
modification”). Rather, resistance resulting from horizontal gene transfer
merely provides a mechanism for transferring pre-existing resistance genes.
Horizontal transfer does not provide a mechanism for the origin of those genes.
Spontaneous mutation does provide a potential genetic mechanism for the origin
of these genes, but such an origin has never been demonstrated. Instead, all
known examples of antibiotic resistance via mutation are inconsistent with the
genetic requirements of evolution. These mutations result in the loss of
pre-existing cellular systems/activities, such as porins and other transport
systems, regulatory systems, enzyme activity, and protein binding. Antibiotic
resistance may also impart some decrease of “relative fitness” (severe in a few
cases), although for many mutants this is compensated by reversion. The real
biological cost, though, is loss of pre-existing systems and activities. Such
losses are never compensated, unless resistance is lost, and cannot validly be
offered as examples of true evolutionary change.
It is important to note that antibiotic resistance selects for traits that are
already present in the population. Since there is no
new information generated, it cannot be claimed that evolution is occurring.
Richard Dawkins used the idea of a “blind watchmaker” to describe how genetics
can create new features in organisms through evolutionary processes. Actual
observations show that natural selection acts more like a “blind gunman” as
mutations occur. Mutations occur when the genetic code of DNA changes and come
in many different forms. Only the mutations in the germ cells (eggs and sperm)
can be considered in inherited diseases. In a large protein, a mutation at many
positions in a gene may cause a defective protein to be formed. In one
cholesterol disorder, 350 disease-producing mutations have been documented to
cause various problems with cell membrane receptors.
Cystic fibrosis (CF) is caused by a group of mutations in an ion pump in the
cell membrane. The protein consists of 1,480 amino acids and the deletion of
three bases at codon 508 causes most cases of CF. Nearly 200 other mutations
have been shown to cause CF as well. Cancer is another disease that demonstrates
the danger that mutations can cause to organisms. Many types of germ-line and
somatic (body) cell mutations cause the cells to grow without the normal
regulations on size and cell division.
If evolution has led from microbes to man, there should
be some evidence that mutations can cause such an increase in information.
Sickle-cell anemia is often used as an example to support Darwinian evolution,
but the mutation clearly causes a loss of normal function with no new ability or
information. Cancer cells are fitter than other cells around them but can hardly
be considered as proof of evolution. The fact remains that observational science
shows that mutations cause negative effects without a single example of a
mutation that improves the function of a protein in support of evolution.
If we start from the Bible, the effects of mutations and the continued decay of
the human genome is a clear example of the Curse that resulted from Adam’s sin.
The human genome will become increasingly corrupted as time passes. Christ’s
return and the fact that He conquered death offers the world hope for the
future.
When deciding if the fossil record actually supports the evolution of life on
earth, many factors need to be considered. Animals and plants appear very
abruptly in the fossil record. Evolution would predict the fossils we find
should show a vast array of transitional forms—few if any are found. Despite the
extensive number of fossils found, it is believed that few new fossil types will
be discovered. The lack of order in the geologic layers presents another
challenge for evolutionists. The fossil record is much
more consistent with the occurrence of a global Flood and special creation than
with an evolutionary history.
Many of the dating techniques that can be used to
determine the age of the universe and the earth point to a maximum amount of
time less than the billions of years required by naturalistic evolution.
Galaxies wind themselves up much too fast to be billions of years old. There are
too few visible supernova remnants. Comets disintegrate too rapidly and have no
mechanism to reform. There is too little sediment on the sea floor to account
for erosion and not enough sodium in the sea to account for billions of years.
The earth’s magnetic field is decaying too rapidly. Rock layers are bent to
extreme degrees, suggesting they folded rapidly while still soft. DNA and other
biologic materials should decay and not be found in fossils—bacteria alleged to
be 250 million years old should have no intact DNA left, yet they were able to
grow.
Radioactive halos present in rocks show a time of rapid radioactive decay in the
past. Too much helium resides in minerals that are supposed to be very old.
Carbon-14 is found in diamonds and coal that are supposed to be millions or
billions of years old. There are too few skeletons of Stone Age humans to
support the alleged 200,000-year timespan. Agriculture and historical writings
have been around for too short a period. In combination, this short list
demonstrates that many dating methods defy the billions of years needed to
support evolution’s house of cards.
The peppered moths used as an example in many textbooks have actually been
exposed as a fraud. Dead and sedated moths were placed on tree trunks where the
moths were never observed to rest. Despite the fraud, this is a clear example of
natural selection, not evolution.
Darwin based his idea of natural selection on the changes he observed in
selective breeding by farmers and animal breeders. It can be observed that
artificial selection can lead to the expression of hidden traits. Darwin
suggested that if man can produce such changes in a short time, over millions of
years natural selection could produce entirely new species.
Darwin was right about the ability of natural selection to change
populations, but he was wrong about the extent of change that could occur.
A popular example in textbooks is the case of the peppered moth. The proportion
of moths of different color was shown to change as pollution changed the
environment they lived in. It has also been recently revealed that the photos of
moths showed dead or stunned moths glued to trees and that the moths do not land
on the trunks. Despite the fraud, the concept still fails to prove evolution in
the molecules-to-man sense.
There are three limits to accepting mutations as a
mechanism for molecules-to-man evolution.
First, there are mathematical limits to the probability of
evolution occurring. Mutations occur once in every 10 million
duplications of DNA, so it is very likely that every cell in your body contains
at least one mutation since you were born. The problem for evolution is that you
need multiple, related mutations to cause a change in a structure. If mutations
occur at a rate of one in 107, the odds of getting two related mutations is
1014. The likelihood of evolution quickly becomes unreasonable. In bacteria that
are resistant to four different antibiotics, the probability would be 1 in 1028.
It has been shown that the bacteria already had the information for resistance
built into them—the trait was selected for, not created by mutations. Those
bacteria that do become resistant by mutation are less fit and don’t survive
outside relatively sterile environments. This is not evidence for evolution.
Second,
mutations are moving in the wrong direction to support the advancement of
complexity required by evolution. Almost every mutation we know of
has been identified based on the disease it causes. Mutations explain the
decline seen in genetic systems since the Fall of mankind in Adam. The time,
chance, and random mutations simply serve to tear things apart. Shortly after
creation, there would have been few genetic mistakes present in the human
population, and marrying a close relative would not have been a problem. Today,
the likelihood of a shared mutation causing a disease is too great a risk to
allow close marriages.
The advantage of avoiding severe malaria symptoms by those with sickle-cell
anemia is often given as evidence of beneficial mutations. The overall effect of
the mutation is not beneficial to the human race, however, and will not lead to
a more fit population.
Third,
mutations can only act on genes that already exist.
Natural selection cannot explain the origin of genes because there was no
information for natural selection to act on. Mutation and natural
selection simply produce variation within a kind—just as the biblical creation
model suggests. No genetic mechanism can increase the amount of information that
is needed to demonstrate evolution from particles to people. Mutations do not
add information to an organism’s genome. Thousands of mutations would need to
add information to change even “simple” cells into more complex cells. Even when
genes mutate, they still pair up with similar alleles and are controlled by the
same regulators. Mutations may affect the degree of a trait, but they do not
cause new traits.
It is not the amount of time or the number of
mutations, but the direction of change and the origin of information that are
the biggest stumbling blocks for evolution. All of the evidence continues to
point to the design and information originally provided by the Creator.
One of the popular stories of evolution tells of how land animals evolved into
whales and their cousins. Darwin suggested that a race of bears became more and
more aquatic until they were whales. Other stories are full of details that have
no basis in any facts. To produce whales from small land mammals would require
countless changes. These gradual changes are not preserved in the fossil record
to any degree.
There are many suggested ancestors to the whales, from wolf-like creatures to
hippos. All require amazing changes that must have happened at an astonishing
rate to fit the evolutionary timescale. Blubber, temperature regulation, special
metabolism, countercurrent blood flow, and other functions would have to be
present before natural selection could act on these traits. The development of
one- or two-holed breathing structures stretches the limits of the evidence in
fossils. Whale tails move up and down, while the alleged ancestors did not have
this ability. The pelvis would have to be minimized while the flukes were
expanded. The fossils to document these changes are absent.
The lack of consistency between molecular data and
morphological data is a strike against evolution in general. The
inconsistency is evident where certain proteins suggest whales and hippos should
be grouped together, while the fossils suggest a carnivorous ancestor for
whales. Neither natural selection nor mutations are sufficient to explain the
alleged transformation from anything to a whale. The biblical model still
provides the best explanation.
The presence of similar structures in human and bird embryos are supposed to be
evidence for a common ancestor. However, a common designer using certain design
features to accomplish different functions is also a legitimate explanation.
Many embryologists have abandoned the idea of “embryonic recapitulation, ” but
it still remains in the textbooks as evidence for evolution.
It is commonly asserted and taught that human embryos go through various
evolutionary stages during the first few months of development. This idea has
been presented for decades and used to justify abortion of the “fish” growing in
the womb. This idea, called embryonic recapitulation, was developed by Haeckel
in the 1860s. He produced fraudulent drawings to show the imaginary similarities
between vertebrate embryos at a certain stage of development. Most informed
evolutionists in the past 80 years have realized that the recapitulation
hypothesis is false. Despite this, the idea that embryos look similar is still
used as evidence for evolution. The “common knowledge” of similarities rests on
Haeckel’s fraudulent drawings. A published study by Michael Richardson noted
that no one had studied the similarities in detail. When the information was
gathered in photographs, the stages shown by Haeckel are amazingly different
from one another. The fraud of Haeckel has been exposed, but the idea is
perpetuated in nearly every biology text produced. Is this continuation a fraud
as well?
Homeobox (hox) genes are the switches that control where and when a feature
develops. Evolutionists use hox genes to describe how major evolutionary changes
could have occurred—six-legged insects could have evolved from shrimp if the
genes that control leg development were mutated. A
reduction in the number of legs over time fits within the creationist framework
of loss of information, but it does not explain the origin of the legs in the
first place. Hox gene mutations that cause flies to grow extra wings
are not accompanied by the muscular and other changes needed to make those wings
functional—the extra wings would actually hinder the fly from flying, and the
defect would be eliminated from the population. No
matter how dramatic the changes may seem, losing or misplacing parts cannot
explain the gain of information needed for molecules- to-man evolution.
Those who have seen fireflies are familiar with bioluminescence— a phenomenon
found throughout the biological world. The chemical reaction that produces this
“living light” is found in algae, worms, insects, fungi, and genetically
modified organisms. Evolutionists attempt to explain the broad array of living
things that have this ability with convergent evolution. This ability, which
involves at least two chemical reactions and several compounds, would have had
to evolve independently at least 30 different times to explain its existence in
living things. The separate lines of descent would have to have undergone the
same random changes at hundreds of genetic steps—statistically impossible. The
convergence of this and other traits is solid evidence for a Creator who used a
common design.
It is commonly believed that the abnormally high presence of sickle-cell anemia
(SCA) in African populations is evidence of evolution. It is true that
individuals with SCA do not suffer as severely when they contract malaria
because the blood cells are not as suitable for the malaria pathogen. This does
not mean that there are not other factors (marriage customs, diet, viral
infections, and social factors) that influence the occurrence of SCA in these
populations. Using natural selection alone ignores the other social implications
and leads to a misunderstanding of the true nature of the disease. Natural
selection plays a part in the high frequency of those who carry the SCA gene,
but it is not the only factor. Even though natural selection is shown to be a
factor, it does not demonstrate the type of uphill evolution required to
validate evolutionary theory.
The fact that sickle-cell anemia occurs at a higher rate in populations where
malaria is common does not provide evidence for the type of changes required for
molecules-to-man evolution.
If animals have evolved from a common ancestor, there
should be a multitude of missing links to demonstrate the gradual changes. One
commonly cited example is Archaeopteryx. Archaeopteryx appears to have a blend
of reptilian and bird characteristics—exactly what evolution would predict. The
features of Archaeopteryx can be found in various birds, and the presence of
wings and feathers doesn’t tell you how—or if—they evolved from other
structures. These complex features appear suddenly and fully formed in the
fossil record. Archaeopteryx is a true bird with odd features, not a missing
link.
The fraudulent “feathered dinosaur” (Archaeoraptor) that was published in
National Geographic is another example of a missing link that has been
abandoned. Many of the other Chinese fossils that are supposed to be the
ancestors of birds actually occur too high in the rock layers. To be included as
a transitional form, fossils must be in the right sequence and have intermediate
features. Of the thousands upon thousands of transitional forms that must have
existed, only a handful of fossils are possibilities.
Recognizing the failure of the fossil record to display the gradual nature of
Darwinian evolution, Stephen J. Gould resurrected the idea of evolution in big
jumps known as “punctuated equilibrium.” Major remodeling of body plans could
occur if regulator genes caused multiple changes at once. This would explain
gaps in the fossil record, but it is not supported by observational science.
Even if these creatures were born, what would they mate with? The exact
mutations would have to occur simultaneously and in close proximity—a highly
improbable situation. Those scientists who support this idea at least admit that
the links are missing.
Gradualists say that punctuated equilibrium is absurd and evolution cannot
happen that fast. Punctuational evolutionists point to genetic limits and fossil
gaps and say that evolution didn’t happen slowly. The creationist can simply
agree that both are correct—life was designed by the Creator. The variation that
we see within created kinds supports this notion.
The fruit bat has teeth that are designed for eating fruit, not meat. Evolution
would say that the bat evolved from a meat-eating ancestor, but that is based on
assumption. Many other animals that are predominantly herbivores have a similar
tooth structure.
Vertebrates are classified as carnivores based on their skull
and tooth structure. The problem with this classification is that many
“carnivores” are not—they have diets of strictly or mainly plants. The kinkajou
(Potus flavus) is one such “carnivore.” Scientists tried to catch them in traps
baited with chicken, assuming that they ate meat because of their tooth
structure. Bananas were finally used and were successful. Kinkajous, as it was
later found, are exclusively vegetarian, even with a vicious-looking set of
teeth. Many other animals (including fruit bats, grizzly bears, and pandas) have
teeth that appear to be designed for eating meat but are actually used to eat
mainly plants. So if we find a dinosaur, Velociraptor for instance, that has
teeth that appear to be designed for eating flesh, it may be that they were used
to rend the flesh of melons rather than the flesh of other dinosaurs. We know
that all animals were originally to eat only plants (Gen. 1:29–30). The teeth
that today, in our fallen world, are used to rip flesh may have once been used
to strip leaves from branches or shred plants to be eaten.
Humans have developed the technology to manipulate the genetic code of many
different organisms, but is it evidence for evolution? The ability to change a
virus used to deliver gene therapy was recently described as “directed
evolution.” By selecting for viruses that could evade the immune system and then
copying those with intentional mistakes, scientists produced a virus that
avoided immune defenses. Since the viruses already had
the information to avoid the immune system, this cannot be considered evidence
for molecules-to-man evolution—no new information was produced. The
advantage provided by genetic mistakes in viruses in nature does not demonstrate
that new information is added but that the preexisting information is selected
for or against by the environmental conditions. This research did not rely in
any way on evolutionary principles but the observed properties of genetic
information that fits consistently in the creationist model of life.
The bird flu, caused by a type A influenza virus, has been in the media, and
many are afraid that it will “evolve” into a form that will cause a pandemic in
humans. The virus that causes disease is made up of eight RNA segments which
code for its protein components. The bird flu spreads so rapidly because it is
often present in migrating birds that show no symptoms. These birds pass the
virus to domestic birds that do not have a natural immunity, which leads to
outbreaks in the domestic populations. The ability of the virus to constantly
change its protein coat makes vaccination virtually useless. The genetic
variation within the virus is observable, but it does not support evolution in
the molecules- to-man sense. The genes are simply slight variations that code
for a protein that performs the same function. Viruses
can change, but they cannot evolve to become anything other than viruses.
Questions to Consider
What mechanisms do scientists use to explain how mutations can produce new information to make organisms more complex, when virtually all mutations cause a loss of information or no change at all?
Since information cannot be created from matter by purely natural mechanisms and since it is not a part of the material universe, how did information originate?
By what mechanism is new information added to genomes in evolutionary history?
Can the information gain be demonstrated experimentally?
What direct fossil evidence is there that fish could have evolved into amphibians?
Could the alleged transitional fossils be interpreted in multiple ways?
When two lines of evidence contradict each other (e.g., if DNA suggests one evolutionary relationship and anatomy suggests a different relationship), how do scientists decide which line of evidence is more compelling?
Why is evolution the key to understanding biology?
Why is it necessary to know where the eye evolved from to understand how it works and how to treat it when it has a disease?
Why do examples of natural selection get equated with evolution when evolution is not observable and natural selection is?
Why do biology textbooks include the photo of the peppered moth when scientists have shown it to be a fraud?
Should we accept everything that the text tells us about evolution when the textbooks are constantly being changed and updated?
If evolution is not directed by a purpose, would it be safe to say that human existence is purposeless?
What is the basis for truth and morality if human life is a byproduct of evolutionary processes (random interactions of lifeless chemicals)?
Are humans more special or important than any other organism if there is no such thing as higher and lower animals in an evolutionary framework?
Is it possible to know the original function of an organ that is called vestigial, like the appendix, when most tissues are not preserved in fossils and the ancestor cannot be examined? It would seem that there are many assumptions involved in making such a claim.
Does evolution predict stasis or progress? Why are so many “living fossils” found that have remained the same for hundreds of millions of years while other species have evolved relatively rapidly?
There seem to be many different definitions of evolution; do all scientists agree on what evolution is? Which view of evolution is correct (punctuated equilibrium, neo-Darwinism, Darwinism, etc.)?
Why do scientists consider homologous structures evidence of a common ancestor when they seem to fit the expected pattern, but scientists call them examples of convergent evolution when they don’t fit the pattern?
What types of evidence would evolutionists accept as evidence against evolution?
Tools for Digging Deeper
The New Answers Book by Ham, et al.
The Biotic Message by Walter ReMine
Creation: Facts of Life by Gary Parker
Darwin on Trial by Phillip Johnson
Darwin’s Black Box by Michael Behe
Darwin’s Enigma by Luther Sutherland
Evolution: A Theory in Crisis by Michael Denton
Evolution: The Fossils Still Say No! by Duane Gish
If Animals Could Talk by Werner Gitt
In Six Days by John Ashton
In the Beginning Was Information by Werner Gitt
Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome by John Sanford
The Lie: Evolution by Ken Ham
Not by Chance by Lee Spetner
On the Seventh Day by John Ashton
War of the Worldviews by Ham, et al.
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