MSNBC’s seven signs of evolution all point to creation
by Tas Walker
Published: 28 May 2009(GMT+10)
Spencer Arnold / Getty Images file
In this “Year of Darwin”, to mark the 200th anniversary of
Charles Darwin’s birthday, MSNBC cable-news published an article entitled
Seven signs of evolution in action. It is just one of the multitudes of
articles in the media this year praising Darwin and his theory of evolution. Author
John Roach presented what he describes as “indications that species evolve
through process of natural selection.”
Rather than evolution, the beautifully illustrated examples demonstrate the truth
of creation. Let’s see how.
Roach begins
Scientists around the world are celebrating the 200th birthday of British naturalist
Charles Darwin, who was born on Feb. 12, 1809. Darwin’s groundbreaking 1859
book, “The Origin of Species,” proposed the theory that species evolve
over time through the process of natural selection. Organisms most suited to their
environment survive and reproduce, passing on their advantageous traits to offspring.
Organisms that cannot compete go extinct. Though this theory remains a hot potato
in the culture wars, it forms the foundation of modern biology.1
The fanatical euphoria that has erupted
this year over Darwin seems bizarre considering Darwin is supposed to be
about science—something that most people don’t usually get very excited
about. Roach says that scientists are celebrating, but science is not what unites
the revelers. The
humanists, rationalists, atheists and liberals are also a vocal part of
the crowd that is pushing their Darwin party on us all.
Notice the phrase, “hot potato in the culture wars”. “Culture
wars” is metaphor for the conflict over values that is raging in our society
today—a conflict over issues including abortion, pornography, prostitution,
euthanasia, homosexual union and drugs. “Culture wars” gives the game
away. It suggests that the celebrations over Darwin are not primarily about science
but a strategy to advance one side of the war. That is something that many are beginning
to suspect as they are confronted with all the hoo-ha.2
The first “sign of evolution” is Darwin’s finches
The seed-crushing bills of little songbirds called finches, which were adapted to
various niches throughout the Galapagos Islands, proved integral to the formulation
of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. And the birds haven’t
stopped evolving. For example, the medium ground finch (Geospiza fortis),
shown here, recently downsized its beak to exploit small seeds more efficiently
after a larger finch arrived on its island and began competing for food. The smaller
beaks on the smaller birds allowed them to thrive, while the big birds ate all the
big seeds and nearly went extinct, scientists say.3
B. Rosemary Grant / Science via AP file
Finch bills changing size is totally
uncontroversial. Such variation is an amazing design feature that
allows the original created kinds of creatures to adapt to different ecological
niches.4 But the genetic
processes behind these changes do not support the evolutionist’s claim that
reptiles evolved into birds over millions of years. These tiny variations are not
like the fundamental design modifications needed for
bird evolution, such as changing scales into feathers, heavy reptilian bones
into hollow bird bones, and the reptilian lung into an avian lung. The process affecting
the bills reduces the genetic information in the finches instead of increasing it
as required. Even with millions of years of time it is not going to work because
the process is going in the wrong
direction.
On the other hand, the biblical creation model explains these changes without any
problem. All the finches on the Galapagos Islands are descended from birds that
survived Noah’s Flood on board the Ark, some 4,500 years ago. After the Flood,
the birds multiplied and gradually migrated away from the Middle East. Some eventually
reached the islands where they rapidly diversified into different environmental
niches. Darwin’s finches are not a sign of molecules-to-man evolution but
a sign of creation.
The second sign is “Humans influence natural selection”
CNBC TV
Is human activity “natural”? Scientists say human activity is indeed
affecting the evolution of other species. In one example, the human preference for
large snow lotus plants, which are used in traditional Tibetan and Chinese medicine,
has meant that only the smaller plants go to seed. Hence, the snow lotus is getting
smaller. In another example, scientists have found that human preference for trophy
game such as big fish and caribou is driving these species to become smaller and
reproduce at younger ages.5
Yes, human selection pressures can cause lotus plants, fish and caribou to become
smaller—see, e.g., Smaller fish
to fry. But what evolutionists want you to think is that fish, lotus plants
and caribou evolved from a single celled protozoan over millions of years. It’s
a tactic called “bait
and switch”. They tempt you with a Cadillac but give you a bicycle.
If you accept the bait then you will think they can explain everything according
to the laws of nature without any need for God creating. It’s a strategy in
the cultural war designed to make people abandon their Christian heritage.
As explained above, the process of variation and natural selection is going
in the wrong direction for bacteria-to-biologist evolution. It points to
the fact that lotus plants, fish and caribou are derived from the separate kinds
of organisms that were created at the beginning.
The third sign is “Human evolution speeding up?”
With more people crowding into ever more ecological niches over the past 10,000
years, humans appear to be evolving more rapidly than in the distant past, according
to scientists. What’s more, as people adapt to different regions, cultures
and diets, they are becoming increasingly different from people elsewhere. For example,
Europeans have evolved a tolerance for dairy products into adulthood, whereas people
in China and most of Africa have not.6
Hulton Archive / Getty Images file
These sorts of cultural differences provide absolutely no support to Darwin’s
suggestion that humans evolved from apes.7
All the people alive today
are descended from the original human population of eight individuals that survived
the global Flood, and later from those that migrated across the earth after the
confusion of languages at the tower of Babel. That we are all “one blood”
is supported by the latest genetic findings, and demonstrated by the fact that individuals
from different cultures and different continents can marry and have children. The
reason that many people in China and Africa cannot tolerate milk is that their genes
controlling lactase production are functioning as originally designed, i.e. to switch
off lactose production after weaning. In stark contrast, adult milk-drinkers are
“mutants”—see Can’t
drink milk? You’re normal! A mutation is a
loss of information—just the opposite of what is needed in order
to specify new design features in organisms. A random change in a complicated piece
of machinery will degrade its performance, not enhance it. (So, in this case, the
ability to digest lactose in adulthood is the result of a loss of information,
not a gain.) And there are thousands of genetic mutations that have accumulated
and cause diseases within humans since the time the original pair were created,
perfect, about 6,000 years ago.
Human genetics is a sign of creation, not evolution.
Sign #4: “Butterflies rapidly evolve resistance to killer bacteria”
Sylvain Charlat / Science
A population of tropical butterflies on a South Pacific island evolved resistance
to a killer bacteria in the span of a single year – a blink of the eye in
evolutionary time. The bacteria infects females and selectively kills males before
they hatch. The strategy reduced male Blue Moon butterflies to just 1 percent of
the population. But just 10 generations later – a year’s time –
males made up nearly 40 percent of the population. Scientists said the rebound is
due to the evolution of a so-called suppressor gene that keeps the killer bacteria
in check.8
Genetic variation is always present within any population of organisms. That’s
the starting point for natural selection. In other words, some of this population
of butterflies was already
resistant to the “killer bacteria” when it was introduced, so
they survived. The butterflies did not wait until after the killer bacteria
were introduced before evolving the resistant gene, otherwise they would have all
died. From the 1% of individuals that survived the number of resistant butterflies
quickly multiplied until they repopulated the island.
In other words, no new genetic information was produced by this event. In fact,
the genetic information within the non-resistant butterflies was lost. If natural
selection removes genetic information then how did the genetic information get into
the butterflies in the first place? And it all happened quickly, within a few generations.
Insect resistance is a sign that points to creation.
Sign #5 is “Toxic toad evolves longer legs”
A toxic toad, introduced in 1936 to wipe out a beetle species wreaking havoc on
Australia’s sugar cane crop, has become an uncontrollable pest itself, evolving
longer legs to help it hop across the country at an ever-increasing clip. For their
first 20 years or so in the country, they spread at a pace of 6 miles per year.
They now cruise at about 30 miles per year. Why? Researchers found that the toads
leading the cross-country march had legs that were 6 percent longer than those of
the stragglers. The added length gives more speed, which permits the long-legged
toads to secure the best habitat at the newly conquered terrain.9
Ben Phillips
A toad with longer legs is
just a toad. It is not evolution—I.e, a process of unlimited change,
with the capacity for adding lots of new information (and thus potentially turning
a toad into something radically different in time). It’s clear that all that
is happening is a simple genetic shift in the proportion of a population having
a particular characteristic that already exists in that population—in
this case, long legs. The genetic information for long-leggedness has not appeared
out of nowhere (i.e. evolved) but is part of the variation built into the toad kind
at Creation.
Such simple shifting of relative gene frequencies can go either way. A year after
the invasion front arrived at their research site near the city of Darwin, researchers found
that the average fell back to 40% of body length, as the shorter-legged toads caught
up.10
A long-legged toad is still an amphibian and is not evolving into something else,
such as a reptile, as the evolutionists claim happened in the past. Think of the
fundamental design changes needed to transform an amphibian into a reptile. For
example, toads grow from tadpoles whereas lizards hatch straight from eggs. A toad
with longer legs is no closer to becoming a new species than a human with longer
arms. The remarkable life cycle of the toad is an example of intelligent design
and points to creation.
Sign #6: “Intermediate form supports flatfish evolution”
Flounder, sole, halibut and other flatfish have long struck biologists as evolutionary
oddities: Both their eyes are on one side of the head, an adaptation that allows
them to lie flat on the ocean bottom while keeping their eyes on the lookout for
passing prey. The transition happens in the youth of flatfish, one eye migrating
up and over the top of the head. Opponents of evolution argued that this curious
anatomy could not have evolved gradually, as suggested by the theory of natural
selection. That’s because there would be no advantage for an intermediate
form –a fish with an only partially migrated eye. But now scientists have
found those intermediate forms in museum collections. The 50 million-year-old fossils,
including Heteronectes chantei shown here, have a partially displaced eye.11
When flatfish die today they are not generally fossilized. Scavengers continue to
eat their remains until there is nothing left. To fossilize a flatfish you need
to bury it under sediment quickly. If a young flatfish was suddenly buried when
its eye had only migrated part of the way around its head it would look just like
the fossil pictured. It would not be a new species.
The sedimentary rocks of the world are filled with fossils that
point to rapid burial. One example is a fish entombed in the act of swallowing
another fish. Another is an ichthyosaur snap frozen in sediment while
giving birth. The global Flood described in the Bible explains why we find
so many fossils buried in sediment laid down by water all over the earth. Buried
only 4,500 years ago, not 50 million years, sign # 6 is a powerful sign for creation.
The last sign, #7, is “Lizards lose limbs”
Mark Hutchinson
Australian lizards called skinks are dropping their limbs to become more like snakes.
And, according to a genetic family tree, some skinks have gone snaky in just 3.6
million years, relatively fast in evolutionary time. Scientists said the skinks’
lifestyle appears to be driving the change: They spend most of their time swimming
through sand or soil. Limbs are not only unnecessary for this, they may be a hindrance.
Once a skink goes snaky, they never go back, the researchers add. One of the snakelike
skinks is shown here.12
If amoebas are going to evolve into avocados and archaeologists the organisms continually
need to produce new structures. For natural selection to change a fish into an amphibian,
for example, it needs to put legs on a fish. But here we see a process,
a mutation that takes legs off. Mutations also
remove eyes from fish. Mutations are going the wrong way. So, how did the
legs get on the lizard in the first place? Not by natural selection. Note too that
it does not take millions of years for a lizard to lose its legs. Just one mutation
in one generation will do the trick. The loss of legs on lizards is consistent
with, and thus points to the truth of, the biblical account of how the world came
to be the way it is today—lizard leg loss is not a “sign of
evolution”.
Related articles
Recommended Resources
References
- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29040024/?pg=1#Tech_EvolutionInAction
Return to text.
- Butt, R., Half of Britons do not believe in evolution, survey
finds, The Guardian, 1 Feb 2009, <guardian.co.uk/science/2009/feb/01/evolution-darwin-survey-creationism>
Return to text.
- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29040024/?pg=2#Tech_EvolutionInAction
Return to text.
- Williams, A., Facilitated variation: A new paradigm
emerges in biology, Journal of Creation 22(1):85–92,
2008. Return to text.
- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29040024/?pg=3#Tech_EvolutionInAction
Return to text.
- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29040024/?pg=4#Tech_EvolutionInAction
Return to text.
- That was Darwin’s view, although today the claim is
that both apes and humans evolved from a now-extinct common ancestor.
Return to text.
- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29040024/?pg=5#Tech_EvolutionInAction
Return to text.
- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29040024/?pg=6#Tech_EvolutionInAction
Return to text.
- Leggier cane toads step up efforts to conquer Australia,
New Scientist 189(2539):21, 18 February 2006.
Return to text.
- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29040024/?pg=7#Tech_EvolutionInAction
Return to text.
- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29040024/?pg=8#Tech_EvolutionInAction
Return to text.
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