Evil-ution

[MANTI5 10+ year member]

"There is, however, an area where many would say that modern science and the Bible are hopelessly at odds. Most scientists believe the theory of evolution, which teaches that all living things evolved from a simple form of life that came into existence millions of years ago. The Bible, on the other hand, teaches that each major group of living things was specially created and reproduces only “according to its kind.” Man, it says, was created “out of dust from the ground.” (Genesis 1:21; 2:7) Is this a glaring scientific error in the Bible? Before deciding, let us look more closely at what science knows, as opposed to what it theorizes.

The theory of evolution was popularized during the last century by Charles Darwin. When he was on the Galápagos Islands in the Pacific, Darwin was strongly impressed by the different species of finches on the different islands, which, he deduced, must all have descended from just one ancestral species. Partly because of this observation, he promoted the theory that all living things come from one original, simple form. The driving force behind the evolution of higher creatures from lower, he asserted, was natural selection, the survival of the fittest. Thanks to evolution, he claimed, land animals developed from fish, birds from reptiles, and so forth.

As a matter of fact, what Darwin observed in those isolated islands was not out of harmony with the Bible, which allows for variation within a major living kind. All the races of mankind, for example, came from just one original human pair. (Genesis 2:7, 22-24) So it is nothing strange that those different species of finches would spring from a common ancestral species. But they did remain finches. They did not evolve into hawks or eagles.

Neither the various species of finches nor anything else Darwin saw proved that all living things, whether they be sharks or sea gulls, elephants or earthworms, have a common ancestor."

 

[MANTI5 10+ year member]

"Many find it hard to accept this creation account. They contend that it is drawn from the creation myths of ancient peoples, primarily those from ancient Babylon. However, as one recent Bible dictionary noted: “No myth has yet been found which explicitly refers to the creation of the universe” and the myths “are marked by polytheism and the struggles of deities for supremacy in marked contrast to the Heb[rew] monotheism of [Genesis] 1-2.”3 Regarding Babylonian creation legends, the trustees of the British Museum stated: “The fundamental conceptions of the Babylonian and Hebrew accounts are essentially different.”

From what we have considered, the Genesis creation account emerges as a scientifically sound document. It reveals the larger categories of plants and animals, with their many varieties, reproducing only “according to their kinds.” The fossil record provides confirmation of this. In fact, it indicates that each “kind” appeared suddenly, with no true transitional forms linking it with any previous “kind,” as required by the evolution theory.

All the knowledge of the wise men of Egypt could not have furnished Moses, the writer of Genesis, any clue to the process of creation. The creation myths of ancient peoples bore no resemblance to what Moses wrote in Genesis. Where, then, did Moses learn all these things? Apparently from someone who was there.

The science of mathematical probability offers striking proof that the Genesis creation account must have come from a source with knowledge of the events. The account lists 10 major stages in this order: (1)*a beginning; (2)*a primitive earth in darkness and enshrouded in heavy gases and water; (3)*light; (4)*an expanse or atmosphere; (5)*large areas of dry land; (6)*land plants; (7)*sun, moon and stars discernible in the expanse, and seasons beginning; (8)*sea monsters and flying creatures; (9)*wild and tame beasts, mammals; (10) man. Science agrees that these stages occurred in this general order. What are the chances that the writer of Genesis just guessed this order? The same as if you picked at random the numbers 1 to 10 from a box, and drew them in consecutive order. The chances of doing this on your first try are 1 in 3,628,800! So, to say the writer just happened to list the foregoing events in the right order without getting the facts from somewhere is not realistic.

However, evolutionary theory does not allow for a Creator who was there, knew the facts and could reveal them to humans. Instead, it attributes the appearance of life on earth to the spontaneous generation of living organisms from inanimate chemicals."

 

[MANTI5 10+ year member]

"However, is the fossil record complete enough for a fair test of whether it is creation or evolution that finds support? Over a century ago, Darwin did not think so. What was “wrong” with the fossil record in his time? It did not contain the transitional links required to support his theory. This situation caused him to say: “Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely-graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory.”

The fossil record in Darwin’s day proved disappointing to him in another way. He explained: “The abrupt manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appear in certain formations has been urged by several paleontologists .*.*. as a fatal objection to the belief in the transmutation of species.” He added: “There is another and allied difficulty, which is much more serious. I allude to the manner in which species belonging to several of the main divisions of the animal kingdom suddenly appear in the lowest known fossiliferous rocks. .*.*. The case at present must remain inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the [evolutionary] views here entertained.”

Darwin attempted to explain these huge problems by attacking the fossil record. He said: “I look at the geological record as a history of the world imperfectly kept, .*.*. imperfect to an extreme degree.” It was assumed by him and others that as time passed the missing fossil links surely would be found.

Now, after well over a century of extensive digging, vast numbers of fossils have been unearthed. Is the record still so “imperfect”? The book Processes of Organic Evolution comments: “The record of past forms of life is now extensive and is constantly increasing in richness as paleontologists find, describe, and compare new fossils.” And Smithsonian Institution scientist Porter Kier adds: “There are a hundred million fossils, all catalogued and identified, in museums around the world.” Hence, A Guide to Earth History declares: “By the aid of fossils palaeontologists can now give us an excellent picture of the life of past ages.”

After all this time, and the assembling of millions of fossils, what does the record now say? Evolutionist Steven Stanley states that these fossils “reveal new and surprising things about our biological origins.” The book A View of Life, written by three evolutionists, adds: “The fossil record is full of trends that paleontologists have been unable to explain.” What is it that these evolutionary scientists have found to be so “surprising” and are “unable to explain”?

What has confounded such scientists is the fact that the massive fossil evidence now available reveals the very same thing that it did in Darwin’s day: Basic kinds of living things appeared suddenly and did not change appreciably for long periods of time. No transitional links between one major kind of living thing and another have ever been found. So what the fossil record says is just the opposite of what was expected.

Swedish botanist Heribert Nilsson described the situation this way, after 40 years of his own research: “It is not even possible to make a caricature of an evolution out of palaeobiological facts. The fossil material is now so complete that .*.*. the lack of transitional series cannot be explained as due to the scarcity of material. The deficiencies are real, they will never be filled.”

 

[MANTI5 10+ year member]

"Let us take a closer look at the evidence. In his book Red Giants and White Dwarfs Robert Jastrow states: “Sometime in the first billion years, life appeared on the earth’s surface. Slowly, the fossil record indicates, living organisms climbed the ladder from simple to more advanced forms.” From this description, one would expect that the fossil record has verified a slow evolution from the first “simple” life forms to complex ones. Yet, the same book says: “The critical first billion years, during which life began, are blank pages in the earth’s history.”

Also, can those first types of life truly be described as “simple”? “Going back in time to the age of the oldest rocks,” says Evolution From Space, “fossil residues of ancient life-forms discovered in the rocks do not reveal a simple beginning. Although we may care to think of fossil bacteria and fossil algae and microfungi as being simple compared to a dog or horse, the information standard remains enormously high. Most of the biochemical complexity of life was present already at the time the oldest surface rocks of the Earth were formed.”

From this beginning, can any evidence at all be found to verify that one-celled organisms evolved into many-celled ones? “The fossil record contains no trace of these preliminary stages in the development of many-celled organisms,” says Jastrow. Instead, he states: “The record of the rocks contains very little, other than bacteria and one-celled plants until, about a billion years ago, after some three billion years of invisible progress, a major breakthrough occurred. The first many-celled creatures appeared on earth.”

Thus, at the start of what is called the Cambrian period, the fossil record takes an unexplained dramatic turn. A great variety of fully developed, complex sea creatures, many with hard outer shells, appear so suddenly that this time is often called an “explosion” of living things. A View of Life describes it: “Beginning at the base of the Cambrian period and extending for about 10*million years, all the major groups of skeletonized invertebrates made their first appearance in the most spectacular rise in diversity ever recorded on our planet.” Snails, sponges, starfish, lobsterlike animals called trilobites, and many other complex sea creatures appeared. Interestingly, the same book observes: “Some extinct trilobites, in fact, developed more complex and efficient eyes than any living arthropod possesses.”20

Are there fossil links between this outburst of life and what went before it? In Darwin’s time such links did not exist. He admitted: “To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system, I can give no satisfactory answer.” Today, has the situation changed? Paleontologist Alfred S.*Romer noted Darwin’s statement about “the abrupt manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appear” and wrote: “Below this [Cambrian period], there are vast thicknesses of sediments in which the progenitors of the Cambrian forms would be expected. But we do not find them; these older beds are almost barren of evidence of life, and the general picture could reasonably be said to be consistent with the idea of a special creation at the beginning of Cambrian times. ‘To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system,’ said Darwin, ‘I can give no satisfactory answer.’ Nor can we today,” said Romer."

 

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Some argue that Precambrian rocks were too altered by heat and pressure to retain fossil links, or that no rocks were deposited in shallow seas for fossils to be retained. “Neither of these arguments has held up,” say evolutionists Salvador E.*Luria, Stephen Jay Gould and Sam Singer. They add: “Geologists have discovered many unaltered Precambrian sediments, and they contain no fossils of complex organisms.”

These facts prompted biochemist D.*B.*Gower to comment, as related in England’s Kentish Times: “The creation account in Genesis and the theory of evolution could not be reconciled. One must be right and the other wrong. The story of the fossils agreed with the account of Genesis. In the oldest rocks we did not find a series of fossils covering the gradual changes from the most primitive creatures to developed forms, but rather in the oldest rocks, developed species suddenly appeared. Between every species there was a complete absence of intermediate fossils.”

Zoologist Harold Coffin concluded: “If progressive evolution from simple to complex is correct, the ancestors of these full-blown living creatures in the Cambrian should be found; but they have not been found and scientists admit there is little prospect of their ever being found. On the basis of the facts alone, on the basis of what is actually found in the earth, the theory of a sudden creative act in which the major forms of life were established fits best.”

 

[Spike243 10+ year member]

I'd like to see them. Don't "of course" me like that was a known. Nobody stated it yet. There should be some clear summations of what each entails. That's all I'm asking for. That is a reasonable request. If it is not, then a discussion on it is surely unreasonable.

How can you explain the fact that there is diversity in every species that is known on the planet if you say the theory of evolution is flawed? There clearly had to be a biological change that resulted in differences between the same organisms. Earlier you stated that there was no noticeable difference in humans for thousands of years. What about the differences such as skin color and body types between the races? I just dont understand how you can deny the fact that things change over time and evolution has occured no matter what beliefs you think

 

[MANTI5 10+ year member]

"In the layers above that Cambrian outburst of life, the testimony of the fossil record is repeatedly the same: New kinds of animals and new kinds of plants appear suddenly, with no connection to anything that went before them. And once on the scene, they continue with little change. The New Evolutionary Timetable states: “The record now reveals that species typically survive for a hundred thousand generations, or even a million or more, without evolving very much. .*.*. After their origins, most species undergo little evolution before becoming extinct.”

For example, insects appeared in the fossil record suddenly and plentifully, without any evolutionary ancestors. Nor have they changed much even down to this day. Regarding the finding of a fossil fly that was labeled “40*million years old,” Dr.*George Poinar,*Jr., said: “The internal anatomy of these creatures is remarkably similar to what you find in flies today. The wings and legs and head, and even the cells inside, are very modern-looking.” And a report in The Globe and Mail of Toronto commented: “In 40*million years of struggling up the evolutionary ladder, they have made almost no discernible progress.”

A similar picture exists for plants. Found in the rocks are fossil leaves of many trees and shrubs that show very little difference from the leaves of such plants today: oak, walnut, hickory, grape, magnolia, palm and many others. Animal kinds follow the same pattern. The ancestors of those alive today appear in the fossil record suddenly and were much like their living counterparts. There are many variations, but all are easily identified as the same “kind.” Discover magazine notes one such example: “The horseshoe crab .*.*. has existed on earth virtually unchanged for 200*million years.” Those that became extinct also followed the same pattern. Dinosaurs, for example, appear suddenly in the fossil record, with no links to any ancestors before them. They multiplied greatly, then became extinct.

On this point the Bulletin of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History states: “Species appear in the sequence very suddenly, show little or no change during their existence in the record, then abruptly go out of the record. And it is not always clear, in fact it’s rarely clear, that the descendants were actually better adapted than their predecessors. In other words, biological improvement is hard to find.”

 

[MANTI5 10+ year member]

"New Scientist noted that evolution “predicts that a complete fossil record would consist of lineages of organisms showing gradual change continuously over long periods of time.” But it admitted: “Unfortunately, the fossil record does not meet this expectation, for individual species of fossils are rarely connected to one another by known intermediate forms. .*.*. known fossil species do indeed appear not to evolve even over millions of years.” And geneticist Stebbins writes: “No transitional forms are known between any of the major phyla of animals or plants.” He speaks of “the large gaps which exist between many major categories of organisms.” “In fact,” The New Evolutionary Timetable acknowledges, “the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another. Furthermore, species lasted for astoundingly long periods of time."

 

[MANTI5 10+ year member]

This agrees with the extensive study made by the Geological Society of London and the Palaeontological Association of England. Professor of natural science John N.*Moore reported on the results: “Some 120 scientists, all specialists, prepared 30 chapters in a monumental work of over 800 pages to present the fossil record for plants and animals divided into about 2,500 groups. .*.*. Each major form or kind of plant and animal is shown to have a separate and distinct history from all the other forms or kinds! Groups of both plants and animals appear suddenly in the fossil record. .*.*. Whales, bats, horses, primates, elephants, hares, squirrels, etc., all are as distinct at their first appearance as they are now. There is not a trace of a common ancestor, much less a link with any reptile, the supposed progenitor.” Moore added: “No transitional forms have been found in the fossil record very probably because no transitional forms exist in fossil stage at all. Very likely, transitions between animal kinds and/or transitions between plant kinds have never occurred.”

Thus, what was true in Darwin’s day is just as true today. The evidence of the fossil record is still as zoologist D’Arcy Thompson said some years ago in his book On Growth and Form: “Darwinian evolution has not taught us how birds descend from reptiles, mammals from earlier quadrupeds, quadrupeds from fishes, nor vertebrates from the invertebrate stock. .*.*. to seek for stepping-stones across the gaps between is to seek in vain, for ever.”

 

[MANTI5 10+ year member]

"However, it has often been said that at least the horse is a classic example of evolution found in the fossil record. As The World Book Encyclopedia states: “Horses are among the best-documented examples of evolutionary development.” Illustrations of this begin with a very small animal and end with the large horse of today. But does the fossil evidence really support this?

The Encyclopædia Britannica comments: “The evolution of the horse was never in a straight line.”37 In other words, nowhere does the fossil evidence show a gradual development from the small animal to the large horse. Evolutionist Hitching says of this foremost evolutionary model: “Once portrayed as simple and direct, it is now so complicated that accepting one version rather than another is more a matter of faith than rational choice. Eohippus, supposedly the earliest horse, and said by experts to be long extinct and known to us only through fossils, may in fact be alive and well and not a horse at all—a shy, fox-sized animal called a daman that darts about in the African bush.”

Placing little Eohippus as the ancestor of the horse strains the imagination, especially in view of what The New Evolutionary Timetable says: “It was widely assumed that [Eohippus] had slowly but persistently turned into a more fully equine animal.” But do the facts support this assumption? “The fossil species of [Eohippus] show little evidence of evolutionary modification,” answers the book. It thus concedes, regarding the fossil record: “It fails to document the full history of the horse family.”

So, some scientists now say that little Eohippus never was a type of horse or an ancestor of one. And each type of fossil put into the horse line showed remarkable stability, with no transitional forms between it and others that were thought to be evolutionary ancestors. Nor should it be surprising that there are fossils of horses of different sizes and shapes. Even today, horses vary from very small ponies to large plow horses. All are varieties within the horse family.

 

[MANTI5 10+ year member]

When we let the fossil record speak, its testimony is not evolution-oriented. Instead, the testimony of the fossil record is creation-oriented. It shows that many different kinds of living things suddenly appeared. While there was great variety within each kind, these had no links to evolutionary ancestors before them. Nor did they have any evolutionary links to different kinds of living things that came after them. Various kinds of living things persisted with little change for long periods of time before some of them became extinct, while others survive down to this day.

“The concept of evolution cannot be considered a strong scientific explanation for the presence of the diverse forms of life,” concludes evolutionist Edmund Samuel in his book Order: In Life. Why not? He adds: “No fine analysis of biogeographic distribution or of the fossil record can directly support evolution.”

Clearly, the impartial inquirer would be led to conclude that fossils do not support the theory of evolution. On the other hand, fossil evidence does lend strong weight to the arguments for creation. As zoologist Coffin stated: “To secular scientists, the fossils, evidences of the life of the past, constitute the ultimate and final court of appeal, because the fossil record is the only authentic history of life available to science. If this fossil history does not agree with evolutionary theory—and we have seen that it does not—what does it teach? It tells us that plants and animals were created in their basic forms. The basic facts of the fossil record support creation, not evolution.” Astronomer Carl Sagan candidly acknowledged in his book Cosmos: “The fossil evidence could be consistent with the idea of a Great Designer.”

 

[MANTI5 10+ year member]

FOSSILS give tangible evidence of the varieties of life that existed long before man’s arrival. But they have not produced the expected backing for the evolutionary view of how life began or how new kinds got started thereafter. Commenting on the lack of transitional fossils to bridge the biological gaps, Francis Hitching observes: “The curious thing is that there is a consistency about the fossil gaps: the fossils go missing in all the important places.”

The important places he refers to are the gaps between the major divisions of animal life. An example of this is that fish are thought to have evolved from the invertebrates, creatures without a backbone. “Fish jump into the fossil record,” Hitching says, “seemingly from nowhere: mysteriously, suddenly, full formed.” Zoologist N.*J.*Berrill comments on his own evolutionary explanation of how the fish arrived, by saying: “In a sense this account is science fiction.”

 

[MANTI5 10+ year member]

"It was the backbone that distinguished the fish from the invertebrates. This backbone would have had to undergo major modifications for the fish to become amphibian, that is, a creature that could live both in the water and on land. A pelvis had to be added, but no fossil fish are known that show how the pelvis of amphibians developed. In some amphibians, such as frogs and toads, the entire backbone would have had to change beyond recognition. Also, skull bones are different. In addition, in the forming of amphibians, evolution requires fish fins to become jointed limbs with wrists and toes, accompanied by major alterations in muscles and nerves. Gills must change to lungs. In fish, blood is pumped by a two-chambered heart, but in amphibians by a three-chambered heart.

To bridge the gap between fish and amphibian, the sense of hearing would have had to undergo a radical change. In general, fish receive sound through their bodies, but most toads and frogs have eardrums. Tongues would also have to change. No fish has an extendable tongue, but amphibians such as toads do. Amphibian eyes have the added ability to blink, since they have a membrane they pass over their eyeballs, keeping them clean.

Strenuous efforts have been made to link the amphibians to some fish ancestor, but without success. The lungfish had been a favorite candidate, since, in addition to gills, it has a swim bladder, which can be used for breathing when it is temporarily out of the water. Says the book The Fishes: “It is tempting to think they might have some direct connection with the amphibians which led to the land-living vertebrates. But they do not; they are a separate group entirely.” David Attenborough disqualifies both the lungfish and the coelacanth “because the bones of their skulls are so different from those of the first fossil amphibians that the one cannot be derived from the other.”

 

[MANTI5 10+ year member]

"Trying to bridge the gap between amphibian and reptile poses other serious problems. A most difficult one is the origin of the shelled egg. Creatures prior to reptiles laid their soft, jellylike eggs in water, where the eggs were fertilized externally. Reptiles are land based and lay their eggs on land, but the developing embryos inside them must still be in a watery environment. The shelled egg was the answer. But it also required a major change in the process of fertilization: It called for internal fertilization, before the egg is surrounded by a shell. To accomplish this involved new ****** organs, new mating procedures and new instincts—all of which constitute a vast gulf between amphibian and reptile.

Enclosing the egg in a shell made necessary further remarkable changes in order to make possible the development of a reptile and, finally, its release from the shell. For example, within the shell there is the need for various membranes and sacs, such as the amnion. This holds in the fluid in which the embryo grows. The Reptiles describes another membrane called the allantois: “The allantois receives and stores embryonic waste, serving as a sort of bladder. It also has blood vessels that pick up oxygen that passes through the shell and conduct it to the embryo.”

Evolution has not accounted for other complex differences involved. Embryos in fish and amphibian eggs release their wastes in the surrounding water as soluble urea. But urea within the shelled eggs of reptiles would kill the embryos. So, in the shelled egg a major chemical change is made: The wastes, insoluble uric acid, are stored within the allantois membrane. Consider this also: The egg yolk is food for the growing reptile embryo, enabling it to develop fully before emerging from the shell—unlike amphibians, which do not hatch in the adult form. And to get out of the shell, the embryo is distinctive in having an egg tooth, to help it break out of its prison."

Much more is needed to bridge the gap between amphibian and reptile, but these examples show that undirected chance just cannot account for all the many complex changes required to bridge that wide gulf. No wonder evolutionist Archie Carr lamented: “One of the frustrating features of the fossil record of vertebrate history is that it shows so little about the evolution of reptiles during their earliest days, when the shelled egg was developing.”

 

[MANTI5 10+ year member]

"Reptiles are cold-blooded animals, meaning that their internal temperature will either increase or decrease depending upon the outside temperature. Birds, on the other hand, are warm-blooded; their bodies maintain a relatively constant internal temperature regardless of the temperature outside. To solve the puzzle of how warm-blooded birds came from cold-blooded reptiles, some evolutionists now say that some of the dinosaurs (which were reptiles) were warm-blooded. But the general view is still as Robert Jastrow observes: “Dinosaurs, like all reptiles, were cold-blooded animals.”

Lecomte du Noüy, the French evolutionist, said concerning the belief that warm-blooded birds came from cold-blooded reptiles: “This stands out today as one of the greatest puzzles of evolution.” He also made the admission that birds have “all the unsatisfactory characteristics of absolute creation” unsatisfactory, that is, to the theory of evolution.

While it is true that both reptiles and birds lay eggs, only birds must incubate theirs. They are designed for it. Many birds have a brood spot on their breast, an area that does not have any feathers and that contains a network of blood vessels, to give warmth for the eggs. Some birds have no brood patch but they pull out the feathers from their breast. Also, for birds to incubate the eggs would require evolution to provide them with new instincts—for building the nest, for hatching the eggs and for feeding the young—very selfless, altruistic, considerate behaviors involving skill, hard work and deliberate exposure to danger. All of this represents a wide gap between reptiles and birds. But there is much more.

Feathers are unique to birds. Supposedly, reptilian scales just happened to become these amazing structures. Out from the shaft of a feather are rows of barbs. Each barb has many barbules, and each barbule has hundreds of barbicels and hooklets. After a microscopic examination of one pigeon feather, it was revealed that it had “several hundred thousand barbules and millions of barbicels and hooklets.”10 These hooks hold all the parts of a feather together to make flat surfaces or vanes. Nothing excels the feather as an airfoil, and few substances equal it as an insulator. A bird the size of a swan has some 25,000 feathers."

 

[MANTI5 10+ year member]

If the barbs of these feathers become separated, they are combed with the beak. The beak applies pressure as the barbs pass through it, and the hooks on the barbules link together like the teeth of a zipper. Most birds have an oil gland at the base of the tail from which they take oil to condition each feather. Some birds have no oil gland but instead have special feathers that fray at their tips to produce a fine talclike dust for conditioning their feathers. And feathers usually are renewed by molting once a year.

Knowing all of this about the feather, consider this rather astonishing effort to explain its development: “How did this structural marvel evolve? It takes no great stretch of imagination to envisage a feather as a modified scale, basically like that of a reptile—a longish scale loosely attached, whose outer edges frayed and spread out until it evolved into the highly complex structure that it is today.” But do you think such an explanation is truly scientific? Or does it read more like science fiction?

Consider further the design of the bird for flight. The bird’s bones are thin and hollow, unlike the reptile’s solid ones. Yet strength is required for flight, so inside the bird’s bones there are struts, like the braces inside of airplane wings. This design of the bones serves another purpose: It helps to explain another exclusive marvel of birds—their respiratory system.