The Evolution Impasse II 2

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Schindewolf, Otto

Otto Schindewolf, a European paleontologist, is known for the “Hopeful Monster” theory he proposed in the 1930s. 208 (See The Hopeful Monster Fantasy.)

Schindewolf suggested that living things evolved through sudden and giant mutations, rather than by the small step-by-step mutations advocated by neo-Darwinists. As an example of his theory, Schindewolf claimed that the first bird in history emerged from a reptile egg through a gross mutation—a giant, random mutation in its genetic structure.

According to the theory, certain large terrestrial animals might have suddenly turned into whales as a result of sudden and comprehensive changes. Schindewolf’s fantastical theory was later adopted in the 1940s by the geneticist Richard Goldschmidt of Berkeley University. Yet so inconsistent was the theory that it was swiftly abandoned.209

Second Law of Thermodynamics (The Law of Entropy)

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that left to themselves and abandoned to natural conditions, all systems in the universe will move towards irregularity, disorder and corruption in direct relation to the passage of time. This is also known as the Law of Entropy. In physics, entropy is a measurement of the irregularity within a system. A system’s passage from a regular organized and planned state to an irregular, disordered and unplanned one increases that system’s entropy. This means that the more irregularity in a system, the higher its level of entropy.

If you abandon a car to natural conditions, it will age, rust and decay. In the same way, in the absence of a conscious order, all systems in the universe tend towards chaos. This is an inescapable law of nature.

This is something we all observe during the course of our daily lives. For example, if you leave a car in the desert and go back to it some months later, of course you can’t expect it to have become more advanced and better maintained. On the contrary, you will find the tires have gone flat, the windows are cracked, the metalwork has rusted and the battery is dead.. Or if you leave your home to its own devices, you will see that it becomes untidier and dustier with every passing day. That process can be reversed only by conscious intervention—by your tidying and dusting it.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics, or the Law of Entropy, has been definitively proven by theory and experiment. Albert Einstein, described it as the first law of all the sciences. In his book Entropy: A World View, the American scientist Jeremy Rifkin says:

The Entropy Law will preside as the ruling paradigm over the next period of history. Albert Einstein said that it is the premier law of all science: Sir Arthur Eddington referred to it as the supreme metaphysical law of the entire universe. 210

You can not think of a high-end car that you find among trees to be the out come of the randomly coming to gether of the various elements in the forest in millions of years. Since the sudden and perfect appearance of a complex structure is a sign that it is created by a conscious will power.

The Law of Entropy definitively invalidates the materialist view that the universe is an assembly of matter closed to all forms of supernatural intervention. There is evident order in the universe, although the universe’s own laws should work to corrupt that order. From this, two conclusions emerge:

1) The universe has not, as materialists suggest, existed for all time. Were that the case, the Second Law of Thermodynamics would long ago have done its work, and the universe would have become a homogeneous collection of matter with no order to it at all.

2) The claim that after the Big Bang, the universe took shape with no supernatural intervention or control is also invalid. In the universe that initially emerged in the wake of the Big Bang, only chaos ruled. Yet the level of order in the universe increased, and the universe eventually attained its present state. Since this took place in violation of the law of entropy, the universe must have been ordered by way of a supernatural creation.

The order in the universe reveals the existence of Allah, sublime ruler of the universe. The Nobel Prize-winning German physicist Max Planck describes this order:

At all events we should say, in summing up, that, according to everything taught by the exact sciences about the immense realm of nature in which our tiny planet plays an insignificant role, a certain order prevails—one independent of the human mind. Yet, in so far as we are able to ascertain through our senses, this order can be formulated in terms of purposeful activity. There is evidence of an intelligent order of the universe. 211

Materialism, which maintains that the universe has existed for ever and has never been ordered in any way, is today in an impasse in the face of the universe’s great equilibrium. The well-known British physicist Paul Davies says:

Everywhere we look in the Universe, from the far-flung galaxies to the deepest recesses of the atom, we encounter order. . . Central to the idea of a very special, orderly Universe is the concept of information. A highly structured system, displaying a great deal of organised activity, needs a lot of information to describe it. Alternatively, we may say that it contains much information.

In order for the energy in a car's fuel to be converted, there is a need for transmission systems and control mechanisms to operate them, is because energy entering a system from the outside is not enough to make that system an ordered, efficient one.

We are therefore presented with a curious question. If information and order always has a natural tendency to disappear, where did all the information that makes the world such a special place come from originally? The Universe is like a clock slowly running down. How did it get wound up in the first place? 212

Einstein said that the order in the universe was something unexpected and stated that it needed to be regarded as a miracle:

Well, a priori one should expect that the world would be rendered lawful [obedient to law and order] only to the extent that we [human beings] intervene with our ordering intelligence... [But instead we find] in the objective world a high degree of order that we were a priori in no way authorized to expect. This is the “miracle” that is strengthened more and more with the development of our knowledge.213

The order in the universe, which contains such enormous information, was brought into being by a supreme Creator and Lord of the universe. To put it another way, Allah has created and ordered the entire universe.

“Selfish Gene” Theory, The

The altruistic behavior seen in living things cannot be explained by evolutionists. (See Altruism.) For example, male and female penguins defend their offspring literally to the death. The male penguin keeps its young chick between its feet for an uninterrupted period of four months, eating nothing during that time. Meanwhile, the female penguin swims through the sea hunting for food for her offspring, and carries what she finds in her craw. Such altruistic behavior, of which a great many examples can be seen in nature, undermines the fundamental premise of the theory of evolution.

Male and female penguins defend their offspring literally to the death. . Suchal truistic behavior, of which a great many examples can be seen in nature, under mines the fundamental premise of the theory of evolution.

Indeed, the well-known evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould describes “the vexatious problem of altruism”214 in nature. The evolutionist Gordon Rattray Taylor writes that the altruistic behavior in living things “has long presented a challenge for Darwinism,” 215making it clear what a dilemma evolutionists face in the area. Nature contains instances of altruism and affection, which are completely non-material values, which deals a mortal blow to the materialist view that sees all of nature as random interactions of matter.

However, unwilling to admit the invalidity of evolutionary scenarios, some evolutionists came up with the so-called Selfish Gene Theory. According to this claim, whose leading proponent was Richard Dawkins, one of the most avid present-day proponents of evolution, behavior that appears to be altruistic actually stems from selfishness, in exhibiting altruistic behavior, animals are actually thinking of preserving their genes rather than of helping another living thing. In sacrificing her own life for that of her offspring, a mother is actually protecting her own genes. If her offspring survive, there will be a greater chance of her genes being handed on to the subsequent generations.

According to this perspective, all living things, human beings included, are gene machines. And every living thing’s most important task is to be able to hand on its genes to later generations.

Evolutionists say that living things are programmed to continue their own bloodlines and to wish to pass on their genes, and so behave in a manner appropriate to that programming. The following quote is an example of the classic evolutionist account of animal behavior:

What could account for potentially self-destructive behavior? At least some altruistic acts are reputed to stem from so-called selfish genes. Parents that work themselves ragged to feed insatiable offspring or go without food as long as a predator is near are probably carrying out genetically programmed behavior—behavior that increases the chances of parental genes within the offspring being passed on to yet another generation. These innate, instinctive responses to predators may seem “purposeful” to the human observer, but in fact they are behavioral programs triggered by sights, sounds, odors, and other cues. 216

Consequently, evolutionists say that at first sight, the behavior of living things may appear to be deliberate. But in fact, living things engage in such behavior unconsciously, not in a manner directed towards a particular objective, but because they are programmed to do so. Yet the genes proposed as the source of this programming consist of coded packages of information, with no ability to think. Therefore, if an animal’s genes possess an instruction that predisposes it to altruistic behavior, then the source of that instruction cannot be the gene itself. That a living thing is programmed to engage in altruistic behavior to transmit its genes on to subsequent generations clearly shows the existence of a Power possessed of reason and knowledge to program those genes in such a way, and therefore clearly demonstrates the existence of Allah.

Self-Ordering Error, The

Evolutionist claims and concepts are generally employed in a deceptive manner. One of these misrepresentations is the deliberate confusion of the concepts of “ordered” and “organized.”

To clarify this, imagine a long, straight stretch of sand along the seaside. The wind produces sand dunes large and small. This is an ordering process. Yet that same wind cannot make a sandcastle. If you see a sandcastle, you can be are sure that somebody has made it, because a castle is an organizedsystem, possessing information organized in a specific form. It has been made by someone with advanced planning.

Complex and organized systems can never come about through natural processes. Even if simple ordering does occur from time to time, this never exceeds certain specific bounds.

Yet evolutionists say that self-ordering phenomena emerging spontaneously as a result of natural process are significant evidence of evolution and are examples of self-organization. (See The Self-Organization Nonsense.) They then suggest that living systems can come into being as a result of natural phenomena and chemical reactions.

But while ordered systems feature simple sequences and repeated structures, organized systems contain exceedingly complex and inter-related structures and processes. Consciousness, information and organization are essential for them to emerge. This important difference is described by the evolutionist scientist Jeffrey Wicken:

“Organized” systems are to be carefully distinguished from “ordered” systems. Neither kind of system is “random,” but whereas ordered systems are generated according to simple algorithms and therefore lack complexity, organized systems must be assembled element by element according to an external “wiring diagram” with a high information content . . . Organization, then, is functional complexity and carries information. 217

In their book The Mystery of Life’s Origin, the American scientists Thaxton, Bradley and Olsen clarify the issue:

The widespread recognition of the severe improbability that self-replicating organisms could have formed from purely random interactions has led to a great deal of speculation—speculation that some organizing principle must have been involved. In the company of many others, Crick has considered that the neo-Darwinian mechanism of natural selection might provide the answer. An entity capable of self-replication is necessary, however, before natural selection can operate. Only then could changes result via mutations and environmental pressures which might in turn bring about the dominance of entities with the greatest probabilities of survival and reproduction.

The weakest point in this explanation of life's origin is the great complexity of the initial entity which must form, apparently by random fluctuations, before natural selection can take over. 218

“Self-Organization” Nonsense, The

Evolutionists use the concept of self-organization to claim that inanimate matter can so organize itself as to produce a living entity. This belief flagrantly ignores all experiments and observations that have shown that matter possesses no such ability. Sir Fred Hoyle, the famous British astronomer and mathematician, describes how matter cannot spontaneously give rise to life with an example:

To press the matter further, if there were a basic principle of matter which somehow drove organic systems toward life, its existence should easily be demonstrable in the laboratory. One could, for instance, take a swimming [pool] to represent the primordial soup. Fill it with any chemicals of a non-biological nature you please. Pump any gases over it, or through it, you please, and shine any kind of radiation on it that takes your fancy. Let the experiment proceed for a year and see how many of those [vital] 2,000 enzymes have appeared … I will give the answer, and so save the time and trouble and expense of actually doing the experiment. You would find nothing at all, except possibly for a tarry sludge composed of amino acids and other simple organic chemicals.219

The two famous advocates of the punctuated model of evolution; Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge.

The evolutionist biologist Andrew Scott admits the same thing:

Take some matter, heat while stirring and wait. That is the modern version of Genesis. The “fundamental” forces of gravity, electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces are presumed to have done the rest . . . But how much of this neat tale is firmly established, and how much remains hopeful speculation? In truth, the mechanism of almost every major step, from chemical precursors up to the first recognizable cells, is the subject of either controversy or complete bewilderment. 220

Yet evolutionists insist on advocating such an unscientific scenario as the self-organization of matter. Their motive for this lies hidden in materialist philosophy, the basis of the theory of evolution. Materialist philosophy, accepting only the existence of matter, therefore must produce an explanation for life based on matter alone. The theory of evolution was born of that need and, no matter how much it may violate scientific findings, it is advocated solely for the sake of that requirement.

Robert Shapiro, a professor of chemistry and DNA expert from New York University, describes the materialist dogma underpinning evolutionists’ belief in matter organizing itself it:

Another evolutionary principle is therefore needed to take us across the gap from mixtures of simple natural chemicals to the first effective replicator [DNA or RNA]. This principle has not yet been described in detail or demonstrated, but it is anticipated, and given names such as “chemical evolution” and “self-organization of matter.” The existence of the principle is taken for granted in the philosophy of dialectical materialism, as applied to the origin of life by Alexander Oparin. 221

Seymouria

The creature that was long proposed as the ancestor of reptiles was the extinct amphibian species Seymouria. However, it then emerged that Seymouriacould not be an intermediate form, since reptiles were living on Earth 30 million years before Seymouria first appeared. The oldest Seymouria fossils date back to the Lower Permian stratum of 280 million years ago. Yet Hylonomus, the oldest known reptile species (310 million years old) and Paleothyris (300 million years old) have both been found in Early Pennsylvanian strata, dating back 330 to 315 million years.222

It is of course impossible for the ancestor of reptiles to have lived long after reptiles themselves.

Evolutionists once claimed that the Seymouria fossil above was an intermediate form between amphibians and reptiles. According to this scenario, Seymouria was the primitive ancestor of reptiles. But subsequent fossil discoveries proved that reptiles were living on Earth 30 million years before Seymouria. This meant that evolutionists were forced to withdraw their claims regarding Seymouria.

Shapiro, Robert

Robert Shapiro

Robert Shapiro, a New York University professor of chemistry and DNA expert, calculated the probability of the 2,000 types of proteins in a simple bacterium coming into existence by chance. (The human cell contains around 200,000 different types of proteins. .) The figure obtained is a probability of 1 in 1040,000.223 (This is the astronomical figure of 1 followed by 40,000 zeroes.)

A bacterium’s complexity refutes chance and clearly points to the existence of a Creator. But this evident truth is still denied because of blind devotion to the materialist world view. Robert Shapiro, a researcher into the origin of life, reveals this irrational materialist stance in these words:

Similarly, the existence of bacteria and other living beings, all of which are much more complex than a watch, implies the existence of a creator, as only a higher being could design creatures so fit for their function. We will not take this escape route in our book, for we are committed to seeking an answer within the realm of science . . . We must look for another solution if we wish to remain within science. 224

Sickle Cell Anemia

The sole example of a “useful mutation” that evolutionist biologists refer to is the disease sickle cell anemia, in which the hemoglobin molecule responsible for transporting oxygen becomes deformed and changes shape. As a result, its ability to transport oxygen is seriously impaired.

Victims of sickle cell anemia suffer increasing respiratory difficulties. Yet this example of mutation, discussed under blood diseases in medical textbooks, is regarded as advantageous by some evolutionist biologists.

The shape and function of red blood cells are distorted in sickle cell anemia. Their ability to transport oxygen is thus impaired.

Sufferers from this disease enjoy a partial immunity to malaria, and this is described as an evolutionary adaptation. Using that kind of inconsistent logic, one could say that the genetically lame were spared being killed in traffic accidents since they could not walk, and that lameness is a useful genetic trait..

It is clear that mutations have only destructive effects. Pierre Paul Grassé, former president of the French Academy of Sciences, compares mutations to spelling mistakes during the copying of a written text. Like spelling mistakes, mutations add no further information, but rather damage what is already there. Grassé goes on to say:

Mutations, in time, occur incoherently. They are not complementary to one another, nor are they cumulative in successive generations toward a given direction. They modify what preexists, but they do so in disorder, no matter how . . As soon as some disorder, even slight, appears in an organized being, sickness, then death follow. There is no possible compromise between the phenomenon of life and anarchy [disorder]. 225

Single Cell to Multi-Cell Transition Myth, The

According to the evolutionist scenario, primitive single-celled organisms that came into existence by chance were the original ancestors of all living things. Over the course of time, these organisms that formed multiplied and gave rise to multi-celled organisms.

Despite being very small, bacteria possess exceedingly complex features, in terms of both structure and function.

According to evolutionists, this was the first step in the passage from one cell to many. Organisms at this stage of development became genuinely multi-cellular with the division of labor among cells in their colony. Cells lost the ability to exist independently once they gave rise to multi-cellular organisms.

The scenario continues thus: . At this stage of the evolutionary process, as the need to act independently decreased—or as their chances of survival improved by living as a group—, the differences between cells grew more distinct. For whatever reason, cells continued differentiating and increasing their division of labor, giving rise to increasingly multicellular organisms.

At the beginning of this fantastical view lie single-celled organisms that are regarded as primitive and simple. Yet single-celled organisms are not simple life forms, as evolutionists suggest, but neither do they have the consciousness with which to make decisions and assume new duties. Single-celled organisms may have a simpler structure than multicellular ones, but by itself is not evidence that they are primitive. Indeed, although a single-celled bacterium still possesses a complexity that amazes those who investigate it.

Sir James Gray, the well-known British zoologist, says this about the bacteria that Darwinists described as “simple”:

A bacterium is far more complex than any inanimate system known to man. There is not a laboratory in the world which can compete with the biochemical activity of the smallest living organism. 226

The evolutionist James A. Shapiro admits that these highly detailed characteristics features make bacteria a complex form of life:

Although bacteria are tiny, they display biochemical, structural and behavioral complexities that outstrip scientific description. In keeping with the current microelectronics revolution, it may make more sense to equate their size with sophistication rather than with simplicity...227

Social Darwinism

One of the theory of evolution’s most basic claims is that the development of living things is based on a struggle for survival. According to Darwin, there was a ruthless eternal conflict in nature. The strong always vanquished the weak, thanks to which progress became possible. The subtitle to his book OnThe Origin of Species summed up his view: By Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life.

Darwin’s source of inspiration on this subject was the British economist Thomas Malthus’s book An Essay on the Principle of Population, which implied a rather gloomy future for the human race. Malthus calculated that, left to itself, the human population would grow very fast, doubling every 25 years. However, food resources could not increase at nearly that quickly. The human race would therefore face a constant shortage of food. The main factors keeping population under control were such disasters as war, famine and disease. In short, some people would have to die while others lived. Survival meant constant war.

Darwin admitted that he had drawn the idea of the struggle for survival in nature from Malthus:

In October, 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic inquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long continuous observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances, favourable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work. 228

Influenced by Malthus, Darwin applied this view to the whole of nature and suggested that in this conflict, the strongest and fittest would survive. Darwin’s claim covered all plants, animals and human beings. Moreover, he particularly emphasized that the struggle for survival was a legitimate, unchanging law. He encouraged people to abandon their religious believes by denying creation, and thus targeted all those moral criteria that might stand in the way of the ruthless struggle for survival.

For that reason, Darwin’s theory acquired a great deal of support from the moment he announced it—first from the established order in Britain, and then from that in the wider Western world. The imperialists, capitalists and other materialists delighted in a theory that scientifically justified the political and social order they had established, and lost no time in supporting it.

In a very short time, the theory of evolution became the sole criterion in every field of concern to human societies, from sociology to history and from psychology to politics. The basic idea in all spheres was the slogan “survival of the fittest,” and nations, political parties, administrations, businesses and individuals all began behaving in light of them. Since the ideologies that dominated society had lined up behind Darwinism, open and covert Darwinist propaganda appeared in all fields, from education to art and from politics to history.

These photos reflect a very small part of the tragedies inflicted on humanity by Social Darwinism. Conflicts in the name of racism, fascism, communism or imperialism assumed a scientific guise with Social Darwinism. Conflict was claimed to exist among animals and nature, and was regarded as being inherent in human beings, too. Powerful states used this flawed logic and the slogans of Darwinism to oppress weaker nations and try to eliminate them.

Attempts were made to link everything to Darwinism and to account for everything in Darwinian terms. As a result, even if people were ignorant of Darwinism, societies that lived the kind of life it foresaw began to emerge.

Darwin himself approved moral conceptions based on evolution and their application to the social sciences. In a letter to H. Thiel written in 1869, he wrote:

You will readily believe how much interested I am in observing that you apply to moral and social questions analogous views to those which I have used in regard to the modification of species. It did not occur to me formerly that my views could be extended to such widely different, and most important, subjects.229

With the adoption of the idea that the conflicts in nature also existed in human societies, in the forms of racism, fascism, communism and imperialism, the powerful nations’ attempts to crush those they regarded as weaker acquired a supposedly scientific justification. Those who carried out barbaric slaughter, who began wars, who denigrated others because of their race, who caused businesses to close due to unfair competition, and those who refused help the poor were now not to be criticized or restrained—because they acted in conformity with a law of nature.

This new, supposedly scientific theory assumed the name of Social Darwinism.

The American paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, one of the leading present-day advocates of the theory of evolution, admits as much:

Subsequent arguments for slavery, colonialism, racial differences, class struggles, and sex roles would go forth primarily under the banner of science.230

In his book Darwin, Marx, Wagner, the professor of history Jacques Barzun analyzes the scientific, sociological, and cultural reasons for the terrible moral collapse in the modern world. These comments in Barzun’s book are noteworthy in terms of Darwinism’s impact on the world:

. . . in every European country between 1870 and 1914 there was a war party demanding armaments, an individualist party demanding ruthless competition, an imperialist party demanding a free hand over backward peoples, a socialist party demanding the conquest of power, and a racialist party demanding internal purges against aliens—all of them, when appeals to greed and glory failed, or even before, invoked Spencer and Darwin, which was to say, science incarnate . . . Race was biological, it was sociological, it was Darwinian. 231

Despite being an evolutionist, Robert Wright, author of The Moral Animal, summarizes the disasters that the theory of evolution inflicted on the mankind:

Evolutionary theory, after all, has a long and largely sordid history of application to human affairs. After being mingled with political philosophy around the turn of the century to form the vague ideology known as “social Darwinism,” it played into the hands of racists, fascists, and the most heartless sort of capitalists. 232

Speciation

—See Allopatric Isolation.

Spencer, Herbert

Herbert Spencer was the main theoretician of Social Darwinism, who adapted Darwin’s principles to the life of society. He wrote that if someone was poor, that was his own fault: No one should help anyone else to improve themselves. If someone is rich, even if he had acquired that wealth immorally, that was due to his own talent. Therefore, while the poor are eliminated, the rich live on. This view dominates just about all modern societies, and is the essence of capitalist morality. (See Social Darwinism.)

Spencer, an advocate of that morality, completed his study entitled Social Statistics in 1850. In this he opposed all forms of state assistance, health-protection measures, state schools and compulsory vaccinations. That was because, in the view of Social Darwinism, the social order was based on the principle of the survival of the fittest. Supporting the weak and keeping them alive to propagate was a violation of that principle. The rich were rich because they were more fit, and some nations governed others because they were superior. Some nations had come under the yoke of others because the latter were more intelligent.

Spencer strongly advocated the adaptation of this thesis to human societies, summing up the Social Darwinist view in these words:

If they are sufficiently complete to live, they do live, and it is well they should live. If they are not sufficiently complete to live, they die, and it is best they should die. 233

Spontaneous Generation

—See Abiogenesis.

Stasis

The fossil record shows that living species emerged in a single moment with all their different structures fully formed, and that they remained unchanged over very long geological periods of time.

Had any evolution actually taken place, then living things would have appeared on Earth through gradual changes and should have continued to change. Yet the fossil records demonstrate the exact opposite. Different living classes emerged suddenly with no ancestors even remotely resembling them and remained in a state of stasis, undergoing no change at all, for hundreds of millions of years.

Struggle For Survival, The

The fundamental assumption of the theory of natural selection is that every living thing thinks only of itself in the struggle to the death. In proposing this idea, Darwin was influenced by the theories of Thomas Robert Malthus, a British economist. Malthus said that food resources increased arithmetically, while the human population increased geometrically—for which reason it was inevitable that humans should wage a constant fight for survival. Darwin applied this concept to nature and claimed that the result of this struggle wasnatural selection.

Subsequent research, however, showed that there was no such struggle for survival of the kind that Darwin had postulated. Lengthy studies on animal populations in the 1960s and ’70s by the British zoologist Wynne-Edwards showed that animal communities balanced their populations in very interesting ways, to prevent competition for food.

Animal communities generally regulate their populations in accordance with the available food supplies. Population is controlled not by such “eliminators of the unfit” as starvation and epidemic diseases, but by control mechanisms instinctively present in animals. In other words, animals stabilized their populations not by the life-or-death competition to the death postulated by Darwin, but by restricting their own reproduction.234

Even plants exhibited signs of self-regulation, rather than competition through natural selection as proposed by Darwin. Observations by the botanist A.D. Bradshaw proved that as plants multiplied, they behaved according to their density in the area they grew in—and that as plant numbers increased, reproduced declined.235

In addition, the examples of altruism encountered in such communities as ants and bees represent a model that is the exact opposite of Darwin’s concept of a struggle for survival. (See Altruism.)

Some recent research has revealed that altruistic behavior can be found even in bacteria. These organisms have no brain or nervous system, and thus lack any ability to think. Yet when invaded by viruses, they commit suicide in order to protect other bacteria. 236

These examples invalidate the concept of the struggle for survival, which is the fundamental hypothesis of natural selection. (See Malthus, Thomas andSocial Darwinism.)

Synthetic Evolution Theory, The

—See Neo-Darwinism Comedy, The.

Systematic

—See Taxonomy.

T

Taung Child Fossil, The

All Australopithecus fossils have been unearthed in the southern part of the African continent. The reason why this species has been given the nameAustralopithecus, meaning “South African ape,” is that these animals have features very similar to those of present-day apes.

The first fossils claimed to belong to this species were found in a coal mine in the Taung region of South Africa in 1924. The first fossil described asAustralopithecus consisted of a young ape’s face and lower jaw bones, and a skull of 410 cubic centimeters in volume. The discoverers of the fossil took it to Raymond Dart, an anthropologist.

The Taung Child fossil

Based on the skull’s fine structure and thinking that its teeth resembled human teeth, Dr. Dart suggested that the fossil belonged to a hominid. Shortly afterwards, he published an article in Nature magazine titled “Australopithecus: Ape-Man in South Africa.” Scientists who said that the fossil actually belonged to a chimpanzee did not take Dart seriously. Yet he persisted with the idea that the fossil was a hominid and convinced Dr. Robert Bloom, a famous physicist, of this, devoting the rest of his life to finding support for the new species he had found. Even then, scientific circles began jokingly referring to the fossil he had found as “Dart’s baby.” Evolutionists then lined up behind the fossil, inventing a new species to which they had given the nameAustralopithecus. The first fossil discovered was given the full name Australopithecus africanus.

Following the discovery of this fossil, which was given the nickname of “the Taung Child” because it was thought to belong to a young individual, other paleontologists—especially the Leakey family—stepped up their own research. In the 1950s, other fossils regarded as belonging to Australopithecus were found in digs financed by National Geographic magazine in Kromdraai, Swartkrans and Makapansgat in South Africa. Some of these ape fossils had a coarser structure, while others were smaller and finer. The coarser ones were bulkier and heavier than the others, with a larger bottom jaw and bony protrusions over the eyebrows being their most distinguishing features.

Although these are all typical examples of gender differences between modern-day male and female monkeys, scientists persisted in regarding them as separate species.

After Dart presented the fossil given the name Australopithecus africanus, he received substantial criticism from scientists. Arthur Keith, one of the most prominent anatomists to comment on the fossil, said:

[Dart's] claim is preposterous, the skull is that of a young anthropoid ape . . . and showing so many points of affinity with the two living African anthropoids, the gorilla and chimpanzee, that there cannot be a moment’s hesitation in placing the fossil form in this living group. 237

According to evolutionists, what Australopithecines shared with human beings was they had left the trees and adapted to bipedalism (walking upright). Dart concluded that the Taung Child he had found was able to walk on two legs, since according to him, that part of the spinal cord known as the magnum was further back than that in humans, but further forward than in monkeys. On the basis of this, Dart then claimed that the animal was capable of standing on its two hind legs. This theory was not accepted by scientists at the time, but was supported until the 1950s. However, no part of the skeleton that might permit an estimation of bipedalism was available. The only specimens consisted of the skull and a few fragmented thigh, hip and foot bones. Yet evolutionists still insisted on their claims regarding bipedalism.

Lord Solly Zuckerman had carried out perhaps the most detailed studies of the Australopithecines family. Despite being an evolutionist, Zuckerman thought that Australopithecus was nothing more than an ape. Together with a four-member team, Zuckerman used the most advanced methods of anatomical investigation, which began in 1954 and lasted for several years. In the wake of these investigations, he declared that these creatures had not walked on two legs and were not an intermediate form between humans and apes. The concluding report by Zuckerman and his team read:

For my own part, the anatomical basis for the claim that the Australopithecines walked and ran upright like man is so much more flimsy than the evidence which points to the conclusion that their gait was some variant of what one sees in subhuman Primates, that it remains unacceptable. 238

These judgments, published by Zuckerman in the mid-1950s, were confirmed by subsequent researchers. Dean Falk, a specialist in neuroanatomy, declared that the Taung skull belonged to a young monkey. “In his 1975 article, Dart had claimed that the brain of Taung was humanlike. As it turned out, he was wrong about that. . . . Taung's humanlike features were overemphasized,” claimed Falk, who went on to say:

Like humans, [apes and monkeys] go through stages as they grow up. In his analysis of Taung, Dart did not fully appreciate that infant apes have not had time to develop features of the skull, such as thickened eyebrow ridges or attachment areas for heavy neck muscles, that set adult apes apart from human. Apparently he did not carefully consider the possibility that Taung’s rounded forehead or the inferred position of the spinal cord might be due to the immaturity of the apelike specimen rather than to its resemblance to humans. 239

The protrusions over the eyebrows, the most important feature that led to Australopithecus africanus being described as a hominid, can be seen in young gorillas today. From all this, it appears that the skull ascribed to Australopithecus africanus by evolutionists did not belong to an ancestor of man but in all probability, to a young ape.

Taxonomy

Biologists divide living things into specific classes. This classification, known as taxonomy, dates back to Carolus Linnaeus in the 18th century. The classification system that Linnaeus constructed has been expanded and revised, but is still in use today.

This system of classification contains hierarchical categories. Living things are first divided into kingdoms, such as the animal and plant kingdoms. Kingdoms are then subdivided into phyla, which are then further subdivided. Classification takes the following form, in descending order:

kingdom

phylum (plural phyla)

class

order

family

genus (plural genera)

species

Most biologists today accept the existence of five separate kingdoms. In addition to the plant and animal kingdoms, they regard fungi, monera (single-celled organisms with no cell nucleus, such as bacteria) and protista (cells with a nucleus, such as algae) as separate kingdoms.

The most important of these is without doubt that animal kingdom. The major divisions within the animal kingdom are its various phyla. In the classification of these phyla, their differing bodily structures are considered. Arthropods, for example, constitute a separate phylum, and all the creatures within that phylum have a similar body plan. The phylum known as Chordata consists of creatures with a central nervous system. All the animals familiar to us such as fish, birds, reptiles and mammals are included in the vertebrate category, a subdivision of the Chordata.

Tetrapod Finger Structure, The

—See, Five Finger Homology.

Theory

A hypothesis that can be supported with large numbers of observations and experiments is known as a theory. To put it another way, a theory is a deep-rooted hypothesis. However, although a theory is proven with experiments, it may also be disproved.

For example, the claim that “The atom is the smallest known component of matter,” known as Dalton’s atomic theory, today has lost all validity.240Advances in science and technology have revealed the existence of much smaller particles than the atom and even the proton, such as the quark.

A scientific theory is an attempt to explain certain phenomena occurring in nature. A frequently occurring phenomenon may be explained in terms of a theory, a fact, or a law. Gravity, example, is a fact. Even if we cannot perceive gravity directly, we can still see its effect when we drop something. There is also a theory of gravity that answers the question of how this takes place. Even if we do not know exactly how gravity works, there are theories that seek to account for it. The law of gravity formulated by Isaac Newton is one such.

In summary, a scientific fact is an observable natural law, and a scientific theory is a mathematical description of how a scientific law works.

The first and most important requirement of empirical (experimental) science is that the object or phenomenon we wish to investigate should be observable. The second condition is that the object or phenomenon should be repeatable. Any observable and repeatable event must be capable of being tested. This enables us to determine whether or not an experiment validates a theory. If the explanation that someone postulates regarding a phenomenon is one that cannot be tested or validated, then this is not a theory, but a belief.241

Evolutionists say that the main evolutionary changes take place very slowly, or so rarely that people cannot observe them during their lifetimes. According to the evolutionist Theodosius Dobzhansky, even when evolutionary changes occur, they are events that by nature are rare, unrepeated and irreversible. Paul Ehrlich, a well-know evolutionist, maintains that the theory of evolution cannot be refuted by any observation, for which reason it needs to be regarded as being outside the scope of empirical science.242

On the other hand, by suggesting that evolution takes place in two ways—observable micro-evolution and unobservable macro-evolution—evolutionists attempt to portray this imaginary evolutionary process as a scientific fact. (See The Invalidity of Micro-Evolution and The Macro-Evolution Myth.) According to evolutionists, macro-evolution is the process of infinite variation necessary for reptiles to turn into birds, or apes into human beings. Yet nobody has ever observed this happening.243

Micro-evolution, on the other hand, again according to evolutionists, is a limited process of variation of a specific species that we can observe and that produces divergence. However, the changes postulated as micro-evolution cannot produce a new species or a new characteristic. Therefore, they are not, as is claimed, mechanisms with any evolutionary power. In addition, micro-evolution is raised in order to imply that it is a dorm of variation that gives rise to macro-evolution. (See Variation.) This is mere conjecture regarding a phenomenon that cannot be observed and which lacks any evidence.

Evolution cannot be observed and cannot be repeated, and for these reasons, is therefore not a scientific fact or theory. Neither is it an evident scientific fact, as some circles imagine or as they seek to portray it.244 On the contrary, when the theory of evolution is compared with scientific findings, a great contradiction emerges. In terms of the origin of life, population genetics, comparative anatomy, paleontology and biochemical systems, the theory of evolution is in a state of crisis, as the famous biochemist Michael Denton puts it.245

Theropod Dinosaurs

The theory of evolution claims that birds evolved from a small, carnivorous reptile known as the theropod dinosaur. In fact, however, a comparison of birds and reptiles shows that these classes are very different from one another and that no evolution can have taken place between them. (See The Origin of Birds.)

An examination of the anatomies and fossil records of birds and reptiles also shows no evidence that evolution ever happened. In an article titled “Demise of the ‘Birds Are Dinosaurs’ Theory,” the American biologist Richard L. Deem writes:

The results of the recent studies show that the hands of the theropod dinosaurs are derived from digits I, II, and III, whereas the wings of birds, although they look alike in terms of structure, are derived from digits II, III, and IV . . . The second study shows that the theropod dinosaurs did not possess the correct skeletal structure or lung structure to have evolved into birds. The evolution of theropods into birds would have required the introduction of a serious handicap (a hole in their diaphragm), which would have severely limited their ability to breathe. As Dr. Ruben said, such a debilitating mutation “seems unlikely to have been of any selective advantage.” 246

It is impossible for birds to have evolved from theropod dinosaurs, because there is no mechanism capable of overcoming the enormous differ ences between the two life forms.

It is impossible for birds to have evolved from theropod dinosaurs, and there is no mechanism to support such an illusory claim.

There are other problems regarding the “Birds Are Dinosaurs” theory. In comparison with Archaeopteryx, theropods’ front legs are very small in relation to their bodies. (See Archaeopteryx.) Bearing in mind the body weight of these animals, the development of any proto-wing appears impossible. The majority of theropod dinosaurs have no semilunatic wrist bone (which is found in birds), and possess other wrist components that are absent in Archaeopteryx. In all theropods, the VI nerves leave the skull from the side, together with various other nerves. In birds, however, the same nerves leave the skull through a hole, which is unique to them, in the front of the skull. Another problem is that a great many theropods emerged after Archaeopteryx. 247

Another major distinguishing feature between theropod dinosaurs and birds is the structure of these dinosaurs’ hip bones. Dinosaurs are divided into two kinds, depending on their hip bone structure:Saurischian (with reptile-like hip bones) and Ornithischian (with bird-like hip bones). In members of the Ornithischian group, the hip bones really do closely resemble those of birds, hence their name. However, in other respects they bear no resemblance to birds whatsoever. For that reason, evolutionists are forced to regard Saurischian dinosaurs (those with reptile-like hip bones), which include the theropods, as the ancestors of birds. Yet as can be seen from their description, the hip bone structure in these dinosaurs bears absolutely no resemblance to that in birds. 248

In short, it is impossible for birds to have evolved from theropod dinosaurs, because no mechanism exists that could possibly overcome the enormous differences between the two classes.

Transition From Jungle to Open Savanna Myth, The

Since the science of genetics and the laws of heredity were not fully known in the 19th century, Darwin and the early evolutionists who followed him regarded bipedalism as something easy to account for. The most popular theory was that apes living in the African savanna grew more upright in order to be able to see over the surrounding grasses.249 However, it did not take long to realize that this Lamarckist theory was completely wrong.

Modern-day evolutionists have only a single thesis with which they seek to account for the origin of bipedalism. According to the theory of transition from jungle to open spaces,, the ancestors of humans and apes once lived together in the jungle. Due to jungle shrinking or for some other reason, some of them moved over to open plains, and bipedalism was born as a result of adaptation. Both the apes in the trees and the bipedal human beings began evolving in their own separate directions.

When examined, however, this thesis, dreamed up under the logic of “making the best of a bad job,” is seen to be just like its predecessors, very far from being able to account for bipedalism. It is impossible at the molecular level for there to be such an adaptation. Even if such a thing is assumed to have taken place, there is no evidence of it in the fossil record. Moreover, according to this theory, the East African jungles must have begun shrinking 10 to 15 million years ago. Yet research carried out proves the exact opposite, and no such development ever took place in East Africa. 250 The plants observed in the region have remained unchanged for millions of years. In short, the transition from jungle to the open plains never happened.

Even when considered in logical terms, the theory in question about the origin of bipedalism is unacceptable. In the event of trees disappearing, the most natural course would be for apes to migrate to another region, or be wiped out with the elimination of their natural habitat. There is no basis for the theory that monkeys adapted to living on the ground.

Uluğ Nutku, who holds evolutionist views, describes why the account based on the shrinking of the jungles is insufficient:

It may be suggested that the shrinking of the jungles was the factor that initiated the phenomenon of humanization. This is a palaeontological fact. Napier’s thesis is compatible with this, but it leaves out the following question: While one animal species was leaving the jungle and setting out on the path to becoming human, why did its closest relative, the ape, remain in the jungle? The less speculation, the harder it is to find an answer. The answer given by Hermann Klaatsch, in the early part of the century, when anthropology was in its infancy, was very interesting. According to Klaatsch, hominid apes also attempted to become human, but theirs was ‘an unfortunate endeavour.’ They were unable to rise up in the process of evolution, and withdrew into the ‘protective darkness of the jungles.’ But then the question of ‘Why were apes unsuccessful?’ comes to mind. 251

There were a great many other questions apart from “Why were apes unsuccessful?”, and they are all unanswered.

Transition from Land to Air Myth, The

Since evolutionists believe that birds evolved in some way, they claim that they are descended from reptiles. One of the theories they propose to account for the origin of flight is that reptiles developed wings while attempting to catch flies. In fact, however, birds have totally different structures from those in terrestrial animals. No physical mechanism can be accounted for in terms of gradual evolution.

First of all, the flawless structure of the wing, the evolutionary main distinguishing feature of birds, represents a major dilemma for evolutionists. The question of how the wing could have developed as the result of consecutive random mutations is one that evolutionists cannot answer. Evolution is unable to explain how a reptile’s front legs could have turned into wings as the result of some mutation arising in its genes. No new organ can form as the result of mutations, and any reptile would be naturally disadvantaged if its forelegs lost functionality. (See The Origin of Wings and The Origin of Flight.)

In addition, simply possessing wings is not enough to turn a terrestrial animal into a bird. Land dwellers lack many of the structural mechanisms that birds use to fly. For example, avian bones are much lighter than those of terrestrial creatures. Their lungs have a wholly different structure and function. Birds have different muscular and skeletal structures, as well as far more specialized heart and circulatory systems—mechanisms that cannot form gradually, being added to one another.

Evolutionists who maintain that dinosaurs developed wings while chasing flies cannot explain how those flies developed wings in the first place. Yet according to their own claims, the flies’ wings in their most complex forms must have come into being through various mutations. This clearly demonstrates that the claims of evolutionists are simply fictional. In addition, no fossil record confirms this unscientific tale. There are thousands of perfectly formed bird fossils, but not a single example of bird-like creatures, with half-developed wings, has ever been found.

Transition from Sea to Land Thesis, The

—See Transition from Water to Land Dilemma, The.

Transition from Water to Land Dilemma, The

According to the theory of evolution, life began in the seas, and the first advanced vertebrate animals were fish. Again according to the theory, these fish began to move toward dry land and in some way, came to use feet instead of fins and lungs instead of gills!

Many books on evolution never consider the how of this major claim, whose baselessness is glossed over in most scientific textbooks in some summary like “. . . and living things moved from the water to dry land.”

If one fish that moved out of the water onto dry land couldn’t survive for longer than a minute or two, then any of the other fish that did so would also die within a few minutes. Even if fish kept making the same attempts for millions of years, the end result would always be the same: All the fish would die. No organ as complex as the lung can emerge suddenly, by way of mutation. Yet a half-lung would serve no purpose at all.

1. immaginary transition to winged dinasours

2. immaginary transition from dinasours to birds

Both fossil findings and physiological studies totally disprove the claim that fish are the ancestors of terrestrial animals. The huge anatomical and physiological differences between marine and terrestrial animals cannot possibly be bridged by gradual evolution based on chance. Among the most evident of these differences:

1) Weight bearing: Marine creatures do not face the problem of having to support their own weight, so their bodily structures are not directed towards such a function. Those living on land, however, expend 40% of their energy just in moving around. Any water dweller about to pass onto dry land needs to develop new muscles and a new skeletal structure to meet that need—but it is impossible for such complex structures to form through random mutations.

Evolutionists imagine the coelacanth and other similar fish to be the ancestors of terrestrial animals because of the bony nature of their fins. They assume that these bones gradually developed into weight-bearing feet. Yet unlike the feet of land dwellers, the bones in a fish’s fins are not connected directly to their backbone. This means they cannot perform a weight- bearing function, as do the leg bones in terrestrial animals. Therefore, the claim that these fins slowly evolved into feet is groundless.

2) Heat protection: On land, temperatures can change very fast and within a wide range. A terrestrial animal’s metabolism allows it to adapt to these temperature changes in. In the sea, however, temperatures change very slowly, and do not range as widely as on land. A creature accustomed to the sea’s even temperatures therefore needs to acquire a protective system appropriate to the temperature swings on land. It would be ridiculous to claim that fish acquired such a system through random mutations as soon as they emerged onto dry land.

3) Use of water: Water is an essential requirement for living things, and on land, its availability is limited. For that reason water, and even moisture, must be used economically. For example, skin must prevent water loss and evaporation, and land dwellers must be able to feel thirst when they need water. Yet underwater creatures have no sense of thirst and their skins are not suited to a dry environment.

4) Kidneys: Due to the abundant water in their environment, marine creatures can immediately filter and expel their bodies’ waste products, particularly ammonia. On land, however, water must be used at minimum levels. For that reason these living things have kidneys, thanks to which ammonia is filtered out as urea and stored in the bladder, and the minimum amount of water is used when it is expelled. In addition, there is a need for new systems that enable the kidneys to function. In order for a transition from water to land, creatures without kidneys will need to develop them immediately.

The KIDNEY BARRIER

Fish release harmful byproducts in their bodies directly into the water. Terrestrial animals, however, need kidneys. Therefore, any animal that makes the transition from water to land requires kidneys before making the change. However, kidneys have a highly complex structure. Moreover, a kidney has to be fully formed and flawless if it is to function. Only 50%, or 70% or even 90% of a kidney will serve no purpose. Since the theory of evolution is predicated on the idea that organs that are not used disappear over time, a kidney that is 50% lacking will be eliminated from the body at the first stages of evolution.

5) Respiratory system: Fish breathe the oxygen dissolved in water through their gills. Out of the water, however, they are unable to survive for more than a few minutes. In order to live on dry land, they need to acquire a pulmonary system.

It is of course impossible for all these physiological changes to take place by chance and all at the same time.

 

The "transition from water to land" scenario portrayed in many imaginative illustrations like the one above, is based on Lamarckist logic and conflicts even with the theory of evolution's own hypotheses.

According to the evolutionist scenario, fish first evolved into amphibians. Yet there is no evidence for that scenario: Not a single fossil has been found to show that half-fish, half-amphibian creatures ever existed.

Robert L. Carroll, the well-known evolutionist and author of Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution, admits this, albeit reluctantly: “We have no intermediate fossils between rhipidistian fish and early amphibians.” 252 (See Amphibians.)

The evolutionist paleontologist Barbara J. Stahl wrote a book, Vertebrate History: Problems in Evolution, in which she says:

Although the relationship of the rhipidistians to the amphibians will be discussed in greater detail in the next chapter, it should be said here that none of the known fishes is thought to be directly ancestral to the earliest land vertebrates. Most of them lived after the first amphibians appeared, and those that came before show no evidence of developing the stout limbs and ribs that characterized the primitive tetrapods. 253

Transitional Forms, The (The Transitional Species)

The theory of evolution claims that all living species on Earth, past and present evolved from one another. The transformation from one species to another, according to this theory, occurred slowly and in stages. Therefore, there must have been at least several transitional forms between two successive species, exhibiting characteristics of each. For example, there must have been creatures with both gills and lungs, fins and feet, alive during the millions of years between the time that fish first left the water and became amphibians. Evolutionists call these imaginary creatures “transitional forms.”

There is no gradual change in the fossil records of the kind envisaged by Darwin. Different living species emerged suddenly with all their unique characteristics. Evolutionists deny this, trying to back up their claims with groundless and speculative images of the kind shown here.

If this theory were true, there would have to be millions, even billions of such creatures that lived in the past, and some of these monstrosities must have left remains in the fossil record. But so far, the fossil record has revealed not one single transitional form. In his book The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin writes these words in his chapter entitled “Difficulties on Theory”:

Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined? . . . But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth? . . . 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 gravest objection which can be urged against my theory. 254

Taking their lead from these words, evolutionist paleontologists since the 19th century have been scouring the globe in search of these transitional forms. In spite of all their efforts, they have not found any. All the findings from their research and excavations have revealed, contrary to their expectations, that living creatures appeared on Earth all at once and fully formed.

The evolutionist Gordon R. Taylor, points out in his book, The Great Evolution Mystery:

Professor G. G. Simpson is an ardent Darwinist, but he goes so far as to say: ‘The absence of transitional forms is an almost universal phenomenon.’ This is true of invertebrates as well as vertebrates and also of plants. He adds: ‘The line making connection with common ancestry is not known even in one instance.’ The rodents, he notes, appear suddenly, already equipped with their specialized gnawing teeth. As to the mammals, ‘In all 32 orders of mammals, the break is so sharp and the gap so large that the origin of the order is speculative and much disputed.’ 255

Today, there are more than 100 million fossils in thousands of museums and collections all over the world. All these are divided from the others by definite demarcations, and all have their own unique structures. No fossils of semi-fish/semi-amphibian, semi-dinosaur/semi-bird, semi-ape/semi-human and similar life forms of the kind so optimistically expected by evolutionists have ever been unearthed. The absence of a single intermediate form among such a rich fossil record shows, not that the fossil record is lacking, but that the theory of evolution is untrue.

As the noted biologist, Francis Hitching, writes this in his book, The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong:

If we find fossils, and if Darwin’s theory was right, we can predict what the rock should contain; finely graduated fossils leading from one group of creatures to another group of creatures at a higher level of complexity. The ‘minor improvements’ in successive generations should be as readily preserved as the species themselves. But this is hardly ever the case. In fact, the opposite holds true, as Darwin himself complained; “innumerable transitional forms must have existed, but why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?” Darwin felt though that the “extreme imperfection” of the fossil record was simply a matter of digging up more fossils. But as more and more fossils were dug up, it was found that almost all of them, without exception, were very close to current living animals. 256

The fossil record shows that living species came into being all at once, fully formed in all their variety, and remained unchanged throughout long geological periods. A noted evolutionist paleontologist at Harvard University, Stephen Jay Gould, acknowledges this fact:

The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism:

1) Stasis—most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless;

2) Sudden appearance—in any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and “fully formed.” 257

In general, evolutionists deliberately use the concept of transitional forms to mislead. The term “transitional form” refers to a developing creature midway between two species with insufficient and partly formed organs. Sometimes, because they misunderstand the idea of a transitional form, Darwinists impute transitional-form characteristics to a creature that is not transitional at all. For example, the fact that one group of living creatures exhibits characteristics commonly found in another group, does not imply that the first group is a transitional form.

A fine example is the Australian platypus. This creature is a mammal but lays eggs like a reptile, and also has a beak like a duck’s. Scientists call the platypus and other such animals “mosaic creatures.” Noted paleontologists such as Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge state that evolutionist paleontologists do not count the platypus as an example of a transitional form.258 (See Platypus.)

Tree of Life

According to Darwinism, the course of evolution resembles a tree, starting from a single stem and then diverging into branches. Indeed, this hypothesis is strongly emphasized in Darwinist sources, where the concept of the tree of life is frequently used. According to this imaginary metaphor, phyla, one of the basic classifications into which living things are divided, must have “branched out” in stages.

According to Darwinism, a single phylum must first have appeared, and other phyla must then have emerged slowly through small changes and over very long periods of time. (See Phylum.) According to this hypothesis, there must have been a gradual rise in the number of animal phyla. Illustrations made on this subject show a gradual rise in the number of phyla, in conformity with Darwinist expectations that the living things should have developed this way. But the fossils refuse this imaginary tree of life. The true picture that emerges from the fossil record is that species have been thoroughly different and very complex, ever since the period when they first appeared.

The imaginary tree of life drawn up by the evolutionist biologist Ernst Haeckel in 1866.

All the animal phyla known today appeared suddenly on Earth in a geological age known as the Cambrian Period.

Berkeley University’s professor Phillip Johnson, one of the world’s major critics of Darwinism, states that this fact revealed by paleontology is in clear conflict with the theory of evolution:

Darwinian Theory predicts a “cone of increasing diversity,” as the first living organism, or first animal species, gradually and continually diversified to create the higher levels of taxonomic order. The animal fossil record more resembles such a cone turned upside down, with the phyla present at the start and thereafter decreasing. 259

In the Pre-Cambrian Period, there were three phyla consisting of single-celled organisms. In the Cambrian Period, however, nearly 60 animal phyla emerged all at once. Some of these phyla then became extinct in the period that followed, and only a few phyla have survived down to the present day.

The well-known evolutionist paleontologist Roger Lewin refers to this extraordinary state of affairs that demolishes all the assumptions of Darwinism:

The most important evolutionary event during the entire history of the Metazoa, the Cambrian explosion established virtually all the major animal body forms—Bauplane or phyla—that would exist thereafter, including many that were “weeded out” and became extinct. Compared with the 30 or so extant phyla, some people estimate that the Cambrian explosion may have generated as many as 100. 260

Trilobites

Trilobites are one of the most interesting living groups that suddenly emerged in the Cambrian Period and subsequently became extinct. They belong to the phylum Arthropoda, and are very complex creatures with hard shells, segmented bodies and complex organs. The fossil records have allowed a great deal of information to be obtained regarding the trilobite eye. It consisted of scores of tiny cells, each of which contains a pair of lenses. This eye structure is a marvel of creation.

Richard Fortey, an evolutionist paleontologist from London’s Natural History Museum, says this about the extraordinary number of lenses possessed by some trilobites:

One of the most difficult jobs I ever attempted was to count the number of lenses in a large trilobite eye. I took several photographs of the eye from the different angles and then made enormous prints magnified large enough to see individual lenses. I started counting as one might “one, two, three, four” . . . and so on to a hundred or two. The trouble was that you had only to look away for an instant, or sneeze, to forget exactly where you were, so it was back again to “one, two, three.”261

More than 3,000 lenses means the animal received more than 3,000 images. This clearly shows the scale of the complexity in the eye and brain structure of a creature that lived 530 million years ago, and displays a flawless structure that cannot have come into existence through evolution.

David Raup, a professor of geology from Harvard, Rochester and Chicago universities, says: “the trilobites 450 million years ago used an optimal design which would require a well trained and imaginative optical engineer to develop today.” 262

This extraordinarily complex structure in trilobites is by itself sufficient to invalidate Darwinism. No comparable complex creature existed in earlier geological periods, which shows that trilobites emerged with no evolutionary stages behind them.

The above fossils are trilobites, some of the highly complex invertebrates that appeared suddenly in the Cambrian Period, some 500 million years ago. The most significant feature in trilobites, and one that represents a major quandary for evolutionists, is their compound eyes. These eyes, which are highly advanced and complex, possess a multi-cell system. This system is identical to that found in modern spiders, bees, flies and other creatures. The fact that such a complex structure emerged abruptly in creatures living 500 million years ago demolishes evolutionist claims based on the idea of coincidence.

This extraordinary state of affairs in the Cambrian period was more or less known when Charles Darwin wrote his book The Origin of Species. It had been observed in the fossils from that period that life emerged suddenly in the Cambrian, and that trilobites and certain other invertebrates made a spontaneous appearance. That is why Darwin had to refer to the situation in his book. At that time, the Cambrian Period was known as the Silurian Period. Darwin touched on the subject under the heading, “On the sudden appearance of groups of allied species in the lowest known fossiliferous strata,” and wrote the following about the Silurian Period:

. . . I cannot doubt that all the Silurian trilobites have descended from some one crustacean, which must have lived long before the Silurian age, and which probably differed greatly from any known animal . . . Consequently, if my theory be true, it is indisputable that before the lowest Silurian stratum was deposited, long periods elapsed, as long as, or probably far longer than, the whole interval from the Silurian age to the present day; and that during these vast, yet quite unknown, periods of time, the world swarmed with living creatures. To the question why we do not find records of these vast primordial periods, I can give no satisfactory answer. 263

Trilobite fossils from the Cambrian Period

Fossils from the Cambrian Period show that both trilobites, with their complex bodies, and other living things with very different anatomy all emerged suddenly, thus demolishing Darwin’s conjectures. In his book, Darwin wrote: “If numerous species, belonging to the same genera or families, have really started into life all at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of descent with slow modification through natural selection.” 264 Some 60 different classes began life suddenly and simultaneously in the Cambrian Period. This confirms the picture described by Darwin as a “fatal” blow.

Turkana Boy Fossil, The

The most famous Homo erectus fossil discovered in Africa is the Nariokotome homo erectus or Turkana Boy fossil found near lake Turkana in Kenya. It has been determined that this fossil belonged to a 12-year-old male who would have reached around 1.83 meters (5'6" feet) in height when fully grown. Its upright skeleton is identical to that of any modern human. The American paleoanthropologist Alan Walker says that he doubted that the average pathologist could tell the difference between the fossil skeleton and that of a modern human265, because Homo erectus is in fact a modern human race.

The Turkana Boy's fossilized skull

Professor William Laughlin of Connecticut University spent years researching Eskimos and the inhabitants of the Aleut islands and observed a striking level of similarity between them and Homo erectus. Laughlin’s conclusion was that all these different races in fact belonged to Homo sapiens (human):

When we consider the vast differences that exist between remote groups such as Eskimos and Bushmen, who are known to belong to the single species of Homo sapiens, it seems justifiable to conclude that Sinanthropus [an erectus specimen] belongs within this same diverse species. 266

U

Urey, Harold

Harold Urey

Harold Urey was the teacher of the American researcher Stanley Miler at Chicago University. Because of Urey’s contribution to Miller’s 1953 experiment on the origin of life, this is also known as the Urey-Miller Experiment. This experiment is the only “proof” used to supposedly confirm the molecular evolution thesis, which is put forward as the first stage in the evolutionary process. However, the experiment was never able to offer any findings to support evolutionist claims regarding the origin of life. (See The Miller Experiment.)

Urey-Miller Experiment,

—See Miller Experiment, The.

V

Variation

Variation is a term used in genetic science, and concerns the emergence of different varieties, or species. This genetic phenomenon causes individuals or groups within a given species to possess different features from others. For example, all human beings on Earth possess essentially the same genetic information. But thanks to the variation potential permitted by that genetic information, some people have round eyes, or red hair, or a long nose, or are short and stocky in stature.

Darwinists, however, seek to portray variation within a species as evidence for evolution. The fact is, however, that variations constitute no such thing, because variation consists of the emergence of different combinations of genetic information that already exists, and cannot endow individuals with any new genetic information or characteristics.

Variation is always restricted by existing genetic information. These boundaries are known as the gene pool in genetic science. (See The Gene Pool.) Darwin, however, thought that variation had no limits when he proposed his theory267, and he depicted various examples of variation as the most important evidence for evolution in his book The Origin of Species.

All human beings on Earth share basically the same genetic information, but thanks to the variation potential permitted by this genetic information, they often look very different from one another.

According to Darwin, for example, farmers mating different variations of cow in order to obtain breeds with better yields of milk would eventually turn cows into another species altogether. Darwin’s idea of limitless change stemmed from the primitive level of science in his day. As a result of similar experiments on living things in the 20th century, however, science revealed a principle known as genetic homeostasis. This principle revealed that all attempts to change a living species by means of interbreeding (forming different variations) were in vain, and that between species, there were unbreachable walls. In other words, it was absolutely impossible for cattle to evolve into another species as the result of farmers mating different breeds to produce different variations, as Darwin had claimed would happen.

Luther Burbank, one of the world’s foremost authorities on the subject of genetic hybrids, expresses a similar truth: “there are limits to the development possible, and these limits follow a law.” 268 Thousands of years of collective experience have shown that the amount of biological change obtained using cross-breeding is always limited, and that there is a limit to the variations that any one species can undergo.

Indeed, in the introduction to their book Natural Limits to Biological Change Professor of Biology Lane P. Lester and the molecular biologist Raymond G. Bohlin wrote:

That populations of living organisms may change in their anatomy, physiology, genetic structure, etc., over a period of time is beyond question. What remains elusive is the answer to the question, How much change is possible, and by what genetic mechanism will these changes take place? Plant and animal breeders can marshal an impressive array of examples to demonstrate the extent to which living systems can be altered. But when a breeder begins with a dog, he ends up with a dog—a rather strange looking one, perhaps, but a dog nonetheless. A fruit fly remains a fruit fly; a rose, a rose, and so on.269

Variations and their various changes are restricted inside the bounds of a species’ genetic information, and they can never add new genetic information to species. For that reason, no variation can be regarded as an example of evolution.

The Danish scientist W. L. Johannsen summarizes the situation:

The variations upon which Darwin and Wallace placed their emphasis cannot be selectively pushed beyond a certain point, that such variability does not contain the secret of “indefinite departure.” 270

The fact that there are different human races in the world or the differences between parents and children can be explained in terms of variation. Yet there is no question of any new component being added to their gene pool. For example, no matter how much you seek to enrich their species, cats will always remain cats, and will never evolve into any other mammal. It is impossible for the sophisticated sonar system in a marine mammal to emerge through recombination. (See Recombination.) Variation may account for the differences between human races, but it can never provide any basis for the claim that apes developed into human beings.

Vestigial Organs Thesis

One claim that long occupied a place in the literature of evolution but was quietly abandoned once it was realized to be false is the concept of vestigial organs. Some evolutionists, however, still imagine that such organs represent major evidence for evolution and seek to portray them as such.

A century or so ago, the claim was put forward that some living things had organs that were inherited from their ancestors, but which had gradually become smaller and even functionless from lack of use.

The tonsils, which evolutionists long sought to define as vestigial organs, have been found to play an important role in protecting against throat in fections, particularly up until adulthood.

Those organs were in fact ones whose functions had not yet been identified. And so, the long list of organs believed by evolutionists to be vestigial grew ever shorter. The list of originally proposed by the German anatomist R. Wiedersheim in 1895 contain approximately 100 organs, including the human appendix and the coccyx. But the appendix  was eventually realized to be a part of the lymph system that combats microbes entering the body, as was stated in one medical reference source in 1997:

Other bodily organs and tissues—-the thymus, liver, spleen, appendix, bone marrow, and small collections of lymphatic tissue such as the tonsils in the throat and Peyer’s patch in the small intestine—are also part of the lymphatic system. They too help the body fight infection. 271

The tonsils, which also appeared on that same list of vestigial organs, were likewise discovered to play an important role against infections, especially up until adulthood. (Like the appendix, tonsils sometimes become infected by the very bacteria they seek to combat, and so must be surgically removed.)  The coccyx, the end of the backbone, was seen to provide support for the bones around the pelvic bone and to be a point of fixation for certain small muscles.

In the years that followed, other organs regarded as vestigial were shown to serve specific purposes: The thymus gland activates the body’s defense system by setting the T cells into action. The pineal gland is responsible for the production of important hormones. The thyroid establishes balanced growth in babies and children. The pituitary ensures that various hormone glands are functioning correctly.

Today, many evolutionists accept that the myth of vestigial organs stemmed from sheer ignorance. The evolutionist biologist S.R. Scadding expresses this in an article published in the magazine Evolutionary Theory:

Since it is not possible to unambiguously identify useless structures, and since the structure of the argument used is not scientifically valid, I conclude that ‘vestigial organs’ provide no special evidence for the theory of evolution.272

Evolutionists also make a significant logical error in their claim that vestigial organs in living things are a legacy from their ancestors: Some organs referred to as “vestigial” are not present in the species claimed to be the forerunners of man.

For example, some apes have no appendix. The zoologist Professor Hannington Enoch, an opponent of the vestigial organ thesis, sets out this error of logic:

Apes possess an appendix, whereas their less immediate relatives, the lower apes, do not; but it appears again among the still lower mammals such as the opossum. How can the evolutionists account for this? 273

The scenario of vestigial organs put forward by evolutionists contains its own internal inconsistencies, besides being scientifically erroneous. We humans have no vestigial organs inherited from our supposed ancestors, because humans did not evolve randomly from other living things, but were fully and perfectly created in the form we have today.

1.Coccyx, 2.Appendix

It has now been realized that the appendix (below), which evolutionist biologists imagined to be vestigial, plays an important role in the body's immune system. The lowest bone in the spinal column, known as the coccyx, is al so not vestigial, but a point for muscles to at tach to.

W

Wallace, Alfred Russell

Alfred-Russell-Wallace

The British natural historian Alfred Russell Wallace (1823-1913) is known for the idea that species emerged through natural selection. In a paper he wrote in 1855 titled “On the Law Which Has Regulated the Introduction of New Species,” Wallace maintained that all species were extensions of other species to which they were closely related.

Despite developing his thesis at approximately the same time as Darwin, Wallace held different views on a number of points. As a believer in the human soul, Wallace believed that Allah had created by means of evolution, and maintained that human mental capacities could not be explained in terms of natural selection and similar naturalistic mechanisms. In contrast to Darwin, he believed that non-biological factors outside natural selection were responsible for the emergence of human physical traits and mental capabilities.274

 

Watson, James

The famous American biologist James Watson is best known for his work in the field of molecular biology. He and Francis Crick revealed the extraordinarily complex structure in DNA as a result of their joint work in 1955.

Watson and Crick’s discovery of nucleic acids—DNA and RNA, for short—gave birth to new problems for the theory of evolution. With their discovery of the structure of DNA, they also revealed that life was far more complex than had previously been imagined.

The theory of evolution seeks to account for the origin of life in terms of coincidences, but cannot provide any consistent explanation regarding the existence of the most basic molecules. And these advances in genetic science represented a major impasse facing evolutionists.

When Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA, they revealed that life had a far more complex structure than had previously been imagined.

Z

Zinjanthropus

THREE SEPARATE RECONSTRUCTIONS FROM THE SAME FOSSIL

1. The drawing is dated April 5, 1964 Sunday Times

2. Maurice Wilson, drawing

3. N. Parker's drawing. N. Geographic, September 1960

These three totally different reconstructions based on the fossil Zinjanthropus are an excellent example of how imaginatively evolutionists often interpret fossils.

So far have evolutionists gone in their adoption of evolution as a dogma that they can even ascribe very different faces to the same skull to provide supposed evidence for their theories.

The three totally different reconstructions produced for the fossil known as Australopithecus robustus (Zinjanthropus) are a well-known example of this attitude. (See Australopithecus.)

They said, "Glory be to You! We have no knowledge except what You have taught us. You are the All-Knowing, the All-Wise." (Surat al Baqara, 32)