2a – False Evidences For Evolution

[1] See Andrew A. Snelling, “Geochemical Processes in Mantle and Crust,” in L. Vardiman, A. A. Snelling, and E. F. Chaffin (eds.), Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth: A Young-Earth Research Initiative (El Cajon/St. Joseph: Institute for Creation Research/Creation Research Society, 2000), chapter 5, pp. 123-304.

[2] At this rate, equilibrium (¹⁴C influx rate = ¹⁴C decay rate) would be reached in approximately 30,000 years, far too quickly for evolutionary timescales [see Willard F. Libby, Radiocarbon Dating (University of Chicago, 1955).].

[3] “There is strong indication, despite the large errors, that the present natural production rate exceeds the natural decay rate by as much as 25 percent.” [Richard Lingenfelter, “Production of C-14 by cosmic ray neutrons,” Reviews of Geophysics 1:51 (February 1963).]; see also Hans E. Suess, “Secular variations in the cosmic-ray produced carbon-14 in the atmosphere and their interpretations,” Journal of Geophysical Research, 70:5947 (1 December 1965).

[4] See Elizabeth K. Ralph and Henry M. Michael, “Twenty-five years of radiocarbon dating,” American Scientist, Sep/Oct 1974; see also two studies which show that the concentration has been increasing for at least 10,000 years in V. R. Switzer, “Radioactive dating and low-level counting,” Science 157:726 (11 August 1967).

[5] Viz.: 1) More ¹²C in the pre-Flood biosphere (i.e. more biomass, leading to higher atmospheric CO₂), while the Flood would have buried much ¹²C, making the post-Flood ¹⁴C/¹²C ratio higher; 2) less ¹⁴C production due to a stronger magnetic field, better deflecting cosmic rays; 3) ¹⁴C starts building up at creation, so it would only have had 1,600 years to build up, nowhere near equilibrium; and 4) Volcanoes emit carbon dioxide with no ¹⁴C, and plants absorb this. [See John Woodmorappe, “Much-inflated carbon-14 dates from subfossil trees: A new mechanism,” Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal 15(3):43-44 (December 2001); archived at http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/1801.]

[6] “For some inexplicable reason, the nuclei of certain elements become unstable and spontaneously release energy and/or particles.” [William D. Stansfield, Science of Evolution (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1977), 82.]

[7] F. Bosch, et al., “Observation of bound-state β-decay of fully ionized ¹⁸⁷Re,” Physical Review Letters 77(26):5190-5193 (1996); see also Woodmorappe, “Billion-fold acceleration of radioactivity demonstrated in laboratory,” Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal 15(2):4-6 (August 2001); archived at http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/1795.

[8] Specifically, potassium and uranium are easily dissolved in water, and so can be leached out of rocks. Likewise, lead atoms diffuse easily and argon, being a gas, moves quite readily. [See Andrew A. Snelling, “Geochemical Processes in Mantle and Crust,” Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, chapter 5, pp. 123-304.]

[9] “It is obvious that radiometric techniques may not be the absolute dating methods that they are claimed to be. Age estimates on a given geological stratum by different radiometric methods are often quite different (sometimes by hundreds of millions of years). There is no absolute reliable long-term radiological ‘clock.’” [Stansfield, Science of Evolution, 84.]

[10] John Woodmorappe, “Radiometric geochronology reappraised,” Creation Research Society Quarterly 16:102-129 (September 1979); for similar tests see R. H. Brown, “Graveyard clocks: Do they tell real time?” Signs of the Times, June 1982,8-9.

[11] Steven A. Austin, “Excess argon within mineral concentrates from the new dacite lava dome at Mount St. Helens volcano,” Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal 10(3):335-343 (Dec.1996); archived at http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/1521/. For a less technical summary, see Keith Swenson, “Radio-dating in rubble: The lava dome at Mount St Helens debunks dating methods,” Creation ex nihilo 23(3):23-25 (June2001); archived at http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/396/#r2.

[12] Geochron Laboratories is a high-quality, professional radioisotope-dating laboratory, one of the most respected commercial dating laboratories in the world. A portion of this sample was crushed and milled into a fine powder. Another piece was crushed and the various mineral crystals were carefully separated out. The “whole rock” rock powder and four mineral concentrates were submitted for potassium-argon analysis. The laboratory was not told that the specimen came from the lava dome at Mount St. Helens and was only 10 years old. The only information provided to the laboratory was that the samples came from dacite and that “low argon” should be expected to ensure that the laboratory would take extra care to keep out any form of contamination during analysis.

[13] Specifically, potassium-argon “ages” for whole rock and mineral concentrate samples are as follows (in millions of years): whole rock (plagioclase)–0.35 ± 0.06; feldspar–0.34 ± .02; amphibole–0.9 ± 0.2; pyroxene–1.7 ± 0.3; pyroxene ultra-concentrate–2.8 ± 0.6. Note also that the results from the different samples of the same rock disagree widely from each other.

[14] Andrew A. Snelling, “The cause of anomalous potassium-argon ‘ages’ for recent andesite flows at Mt Ngauruhoe, New Zealand, and the implications for potassium-argon ‘dating’,” in R. E. Walsh (ed.), Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Creationism (Pittsburgh: Creation Science Fellowship, 1998), 503-525; archived at http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=research&action=index&page=researchp_as_r01. For a less technical summary, see Andrew A. Snelling, “Radioactive ‘dating’ failure: Recent New Zealand lava flows yield ‘ages’ of millions of years,” Creation Ex Nihilo 22(1):18-21 (December1999); archived at http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/242/.

[15] The samples were sent progressively, with one sample from each of the lava flows being sent and received before sending the next set. The laboratory was not given any specific information regarding the source of the rock samples, nor were they given any information as to the expected age of the sample. The samples were only described as probably very young with very little argon.

[16] Specifically their ages were as follows: four dated at “less than 270,000 years old,” one was dated at “less than 290,000 years old,” one was dated at “800,000 years old,” three were dated at “1 million years old,” one was dated at “1.3 million years old,” one was dated at “1.5 million years old,” and the last one was dated at “3.5 million years old.” All were said to have a margin of error of about 20 percent in either direction.

[17] Andrew A. Snelling, “Conflicting ‘ages’ of Tertiary basalt and contained fossilised wood, Crinum, Central Queensland, Australia,” Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal 14(2):99-122 (August 2000); archived at http://www.creationontheweb.com/images/pdfs/tj/tj_v14n2_crinum.pdf. For a less technical summary, see Andrew A. Snelling “Radioactive ‘dating’ in conflict! Fossil wood in ‘ancient’ lava flow yields radiocarbon,” Creation Ex Nihilo 20(1):24-27 (December1997); archived at http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/731/.

[18] Antares Mass Spectrometry Laboratory is a major research laboratory at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), near Sydney, Australia. Neither laboratory was told exactly where the samples came from to ensure that there would be no resultant bias. Both laboratories use the more sensitive accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) technique for radiocarbon analyses.

[19] The specific dates for the wood samples are as follows: 1) >35,620 (Geochron), 44,700 ± 950 (ANSTO); 2) 29,544 ± 759 (Geochron); 3) 37,800 ± 3,450 (ANSTO). The basalt samples are as follows (in millions of years): 1) 44.9 ± 1.1 (AMDEL), 2) 47.9 ± 1.6 (AMDEL), 39.1 ± 1.5 (Geochron); 3) 58.3 ± 2.0 (Geochron); 4) 36.7 ± 1.2 (Geochron).

[20] This measures the amount of another stable carbon isotope, ¹³C, which is about 1 percent of all carbon. Skeptics have questioned these results, but the laboratories’ staff had neither hesitation nor difficulties in calculating the ¹⁴C “ages”. When subsequently questioned regarding the limits of the analytical method for the radiocarbon and any possibility of contamination, staff at both laboratories were readily insistent that the results were within the detection limits and therefore provided quotable finite “ages”.

[21] Steven A. Austin and Andrew A. Snelling, “Discordant potassium-argon model and isochron ‘ages’ for Cardenas Basalt (Middle Proterozoic) and associated diabase of eastern Grand Canyon, Arizona,” in R. E. Walsh (ed.), Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Creationism (Pittsburgh: Creation Science Fellowship, 1998), 35-51; archived at http://www.icr.org/research/index/researchp_sa_r03/. For a less technical summary, see Steven A. Austin, “Excessively old ‘ages’ for Grand Canyon lava flows,” ICR Impact, 1 February 1992; archived at http://www.icr.org/article/353/.

[22] T. D. Ford, W. J. Breed, and J. S. Mitchell, “Name and Age of the Upper Precambrian Basalts in the Eastern Grand Canyon,” Geological Society of America Bulletin 83:223-226 (1972); see also E. E. Larson, et al., “Lithology, Chemistry, Age and Origin of the Proterozoic Cardenas Basalt, Grand Canyon, Arizona,” Precambrian Research 65:255-276 (1994).

[23] A recent study has reinforced this, showing three different methods producing conflicting “ages” [see Andrew A. Snelling, “Radioisotope dating of rocks in the Grand Canyon,” Creation Ex Nihilo 27(3):44-49 (June2005); archived at http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/4415/.

[24] Obviously no one believes this to be true, but such conflicting ages speaks eloquently of the great problems inherent in radioisotope dating. Because of the relatively widespread knowledge of Dr. Austin’s research, many mainstream geologists have publicly rejected these results, which do not agree with the commonly believed “right age” of the volcanoes. It speaks volumes about the way anomalous “dates” are accepted or rejected by the geological community.

[25] Marvin L. Lubenow, “The pigs took it all,” Creation Ex Nihilo 17(3):36-38 (June1995); archived at http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/1732/; see also Marvin L. Lubenow, Bones of Contention: A Creationist Assessment of Human Fossils, Revised ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2004), 326-329.

[26] Kay Behrensmeyer, an early geologist with Richard Leakey, was the one who actually found the ash layer. The surrounding excavation was named the Kay Behrensmeyer Site, and the layer of volcanic ash, or “tuff,” thus became known as the KBS Tuff. In 1969 Leakey supplied rock samples to F. J. Fitch (Birkbeck College, University of London) and J. A. Miller (Cambridge University)—recognized authorities in potassium-argon (K-Ar) dating.

[27] Concerning this discrepancy, Fitch and Miller said, “From these results it was clear that an extraneous argon age discrepancy was present…” [F. J. Fitch and J. A. Miller, “Radioisotopic age determinations of Lake Rudolf artifact site,” Nature 226:226 (18 April 1970).] How did they know their was “extraneous argon” present in the tuff? The associated fossils told them. In spite of our being assured that dating methods constitute independent confirmation of evolutionary dates, associated fossils had already determined the “acceptable” dates. Under other circumstances, and without fossils to guide them, evolutionary geologists would have accepted the original dates as “good.”

[28] See D. C. Johanson and M. A. Edey, Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981), 240.

[29] However, they are the only ones to seriously question it. For a well-documented demonstration of many fallacies in radiometric dating and documentation of many other discordant “dates”, see John Woodmorappe, The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods (El Cajon: Institute for Creation Research, 1999).

[30] These results are from G. B. Dalrymple, “⁴⁰Ar/³⁶Ar analysis of historic lava flows,” Earth and Planetary Science Letters 6(1):47-55 (1969); other lists are given in D. Krummenacher, “Isotopic composition of argon in modern surface rocks,” Earth and Planetary Science Letters 8(2):109-117 (April 1970); D. E. Fisher, “Excess rare gases in a subaerial basalt from Nigeria,” Nature Physical Science 232(29):60-61 (19 July 1971).

[31] See the 15 other examples citing secular sources in Andrew A. Snelling, “The cause of anomalous potassium-argon ‘ages’ for recent andesite flows at Mt Ngauruhoe, New Zealand, and the implications for potassium-argon ‘dating’,” in R. E. Walsh (ed.), Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Creationism (Pittsburgh: Creation Science Fellowship, 1998), 503-525; archived at http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=research&action=index&page=researchp_as_r01.

[32] The assumption of no radiogenic argon (⁴⁰Ar*) when the rocks formed is usually stated dogmatically as self-evident—“The K-Ar method is the only decay scheme that can be used with little or no concern for the initial presence of the daughter isotope. This is because ⁴⁰Ar is an inert gas that does not combine chemically with any other element and so escapes easily from rocks when they are heated. Thus, while a rock is molten the ⁴⁰Ar formed by decay of ⁴⁰K escapes from the liquid.” [G. B. Dalrymple, The Age of the Earth (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), 91] The blatant disregard for this rule is evidence that the “accepted” dates are based on the presupposed age of the rock.

[33] In summary, rocks are dated by the potassium-argon method (or any other method) according to the following formula: Age of rock ? = ((Ar in sample today) – (Ar in sample originally ? ) / (K in sample today)) x (Halflife of K). The argon in the sample today is observable; the potassium in the sample today is observable; and the half-life of potassium is observable. However, the age of the rock and the amount of argon in the sample originally are not observable. As a matter of basic algebra, a single equation with two unknown variables cannot be solved. If the scientist assumes that there was no argon in the rock when it was originally formed, but there was, then the scientist’s calculation will be far too high.

[1] The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago has one of the largest collections of fossils in the world. Consequently, its former dean, Dr. David Raup, was highly qualified to summarize the situation regarding transitions that should be observed in the fossil record: “Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn’t changed much. The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin’s time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information—what appeared to be a nice simple progression when relatively few data were available now appears to be much more complex and much less gradualistic. So Darwin’s problem has not been alleviated in the last 120 years and we still have a record which does show change but one that can hardly be looked upon as the most reasonable consequence of natural selection.” [David M. Raup, “Conflicts between Darwin and paleontology,” Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin 50(1):25 (January 1979).]

“The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils… We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life’s history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study.” [Stephen Jay Gould, “Evolution’s erratic pace,” Natural History 86:14 (May 1977).]

“But the curious thing is that there is a consistency about the fossil gaps: the fossils go missing in all the important places. When you look for links between major groups of animals, they simply aren’t there; at least, not in enough numbers to put their status beyond doubt. Either they don’t exist at all, or they are so rare that endless argument goes on about whether a particular fossil is, or isn’t, or might be, transitional between this group or that.” [emphasis in original, Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong (New Haven, Connecticut: Ticknor and Fields, 1982), 19.]

[2] “But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them imbedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?” [Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, 6th ed. (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1927), 163.]

“…the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed [must] truly be enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely-graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory [of evolution].” (Ibid., 323.)

[3] “It may, therefore, be firmly maintained that it is not even possible to make a caricature of an evolution out of palaeobiological facts. The fossil material is now so complete that it has been possible to construct new classes and the lack of transitional series cannot be explained as due to the scarcity of the material. The deficiencies are real, they will never be filled.” [N.Heribert Nilsson, Synthetische Artbildung (Lund, Sweden: Verlag CWK Gleerup, 1953), 1212.]

“…experience shows that the gaps which separate the highest categories may never be bridged in the fossil record. Many of the discontinuities tend to be more and more emphasized with increased collecting.” [Norman D. Newell (former Curator of Historical Geology at the American Museum of Natural History), “The nature of the fossil record,” Adventures in Earth History, Preston Cloud ed. (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Co., 1970), 644-645.]

[4] “Although an almost incomprehensible number of species inhabit Earth today, they do not form a continuous spectrum of barely distinguishable intermediates. Instead, nearly all species can be recognized as belonging to a relatively limited number of clearly distinct major groups…” [Robert L. Carroll, Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution (Cambridge Press, 1997), 9.]

[5] Walter E. Lammerts has published eight lists totaling almost 200 wrong-order formations in the United States alone [see “Recorded instances of wrong-order formations or presumed overthrusts in the United States: Parts I–VIII,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, September 1984, p.88; December 1984, p.150; March 1985, p.200; December 1985, p.127; March 1986, p.188; June 1986, p.38; December 1986, p.133; and June 1987, p.46.].

[6] The following examples are taken from Brown, In the Beginning, 11.

[7] Evolutionists have almost as much difficulty believing that horses and dinosaurs lived together as they do man and dinosaurs. Horses allegedly did not evolve until many millions of years after the dinosaurs became extinct. [See Y. Kruzhilin and V. Ovcharov, “A Horse from the Dinosaur Epoch?” Moskovskaya Pravda [Moscow Truth], 5Feb. 1984.]

[8] Richard Monastersky, “A walk along the lakeshore, dinosaur-style,” Science News 136:21 (8 July 1989).

[9] Edwin D. McKee, The Supai Group of Grand Canyon, Geological Survey Professional Paper 1173 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1982), pp.93-96, 100.

[10] Alexander Romashko, “Tracking Dinosaurs,” Moscow News, No.24, 1983, p.10. [For an alternate but equivalent translation published by an anti-creationist organization, see Frank Zindler, “Man—A contemporary of the dinosaurs?” Creation/Evolution 6(1):28-29 (1986).]

[11] Paul O. Rosnau, et al., “Are human and mammal tracks found together with the tracks of dinosaurs in the Kayenta of Arizona?” Parts I and II, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol.26, September 1989, pp.41-48 and December 1989, pp.77-98; see also Jeremy Auldaney, et al., “More human-like track impressions found with the tracks of dinosaurs in the Kayenta Formation at Tuba City Arizona,” Creation Research Society Quarterly 34:133-146 (December 1997).

[12] Andrew Snelling, “Tasmania’s fossil bluff,” Creation Ex Nihilo 7(3):6-10 (March 1985); Carol Armstrong, “Florida fossils puzzle the experts,” Creation Research Society Quarterly 21:198-199 (March 1985); Pat Shipman, “Dumping on Science,” Discover, December 1987, p.64.

[13] Francis S. Holmes, Phosphate Rocks of South Carolina and the “Great Carolina Marl Bed” (Charleston, South Carolina: Holmes’ Book House, 1870); Edward J. Nolan, “Remarks on Fossils from the Ashley Phosphate Beds,” Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (1876), 80-81.

[14] A.C.Noé, “A Paleozoic Angiosperm,” Journal of Geology 31:344-347 (May-June 1923).

[15] R. M. Stainforth, “Occurrence of pollen and spores in the Roraima Formation of Venezuela and British Guiana,” Nature 210:292-294 (16April 1966); A. K. Ghosh and A. Bose, “Spores and Tracheids from the Cambrian of Kashmir,” Nature 169:1056-1057 (21June1952).

[16] George F. Howe, et al., “A pollen analysis of Hakatai Shale and other Grand Canyon rocks,” Creation Research Society Quarterly 24:173-182 (March 1988).

[17] Carl Zimmer, “A Secret History of Life on Land,” Discover, February 1998, pp.76-83; see also Brown, In the Beginning, footnote 25, p. 57.

[18] Dong Ren, “Flower-Associated Brachycera Flies as fossil evidence for Jurassic Angiosperm origins,” Science 280:85-88 (3April 1998).

[19] “The intelligent layman has long suspected circular reasoning in the use of rocks to date fossils and fossils to date rocks. The geologist has never bothered to think of a good reply, feeling that explanations are not worth the trouble as long as the work brings results. This is supposed to be hard-headed pragmatism.” [J.E. O’Rourke, “Pragmatism versus materialism in stratigraphy,” American Journal of Science 276:47 (January 1976).] Although O’Rourke attempts to justify current practices of stratigraphers, he recognizes the inherent problems associated with such circular reasoning: “The rocks do date the fossils, but the fossils date the rocks more accurately. Stratigraphy cannot avoid this kind of reasoning, if it insists on using only temporal concepts, because circularity is inherent in the derivation of time scales.” (Ibid., 53.)

“It cannot be denied that from a strictly philosophical standpoint geologists are here arguing in a circle. The succession of organisms has been determined by a study of their remains embedded in the rocks, and the relative ages of the rocks are determined by the remains of organisms that they contain.” [R.H. Rastall, “Geology,” Encyclopaedia Britannica 10:168 (1954).]

“The charge that the construction of the geologic scale involves circularity has a certain amount of validity.” [David M. Raup, “Geology and creationism,” Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin 54:21 (March 1983).]

[20] “Ever since William Smith [the founder of the index fossil technique] at the beginning of the 19th century, fossils have been and still are the best and most accurate method of dating and correlating the rocks in which they occur… Apart from very ‘modern’ examples, which are really archaeology, I can think of no cases of radioactive decay being used to date fossils.” [Derek V. Ager, “Fossil frustrations,” New Scientist 100:425 (10 November 1983).]

[21] Evolutionists reasoned that the coelacanth, or a similar fish, crawled out of a shallow sea and filled its lungs with air, becoming the first four-legged, land animal. Thus, millions of students had been erroneously taught that this fish was the ancestor of all amphibians, reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, and mammals, including people.

[22] “Few creatures have endured such an immense span of time with so little change as coelacanths. The cutaway drawing of a present-day specimen seems almost identical with the 140-million-year-old fossil found in a quarry in southern West Germany. … Why have coelacanths remained virtually unchanged for eons … 30 million generations?” [Hans Fricke, “Coelacanths: The Fish That Time Forgot,” National Geographic 173(6):833 (June 1988).]

“Throughout the hundreds of millions of years the coelacanths have kept the same form and structure. Here is one of the great mysteries of evolution—that of the unequal plasticity of living things.” [Jacques Millot, “The Coelacanth,” Scientific American 193:37 (December 1955).]

[1] “We are only kidding ourselves if we think that we have anything like a complete succession for any part of the stratigraphical column in any one place.” [Derek V. Ager, The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record, 3rd ed. (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1993), 48.]

[2] John Woodmorappe, “The essential nonexistence of the evolutionary-uniformitarian geologic column: a quantitative assessment,” Creation Research Society Quarterly 18:46-71 (June 1981).

[3] See John D. Morris, The Young Earth (Master Books, 1994), 98-100.

[4] Living things are divided by biologists into such fundamental groups as plants, animals, fungae etc., which are then subdivided into different “phyla.” There are about 35 different animal phyla, which are distinguished primarily by physical structure.

[5] Darwin was fully aware of this problem: “There is another…difficulty, which is much more serious. Iallude to the manner in which species belonging to several ofthe main divisions of the animal kingdom suddenly appear in thelowest known [Cambrian-age] fossiliferous rocks…If the theorybe true, it is indisputable that before the lowest Cambrian stratumwas deposited, long periods elapsed…and that during these vastperiods, the world swarmed with living creatures… [But] to thequestion why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belongingto these assumed earliest periods before the Cambrian system,I can give no satisfactory answer. The case at present must remaininexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument againstthe views here entertained.” (The Origin of Species, ChapterX) Darwin believed that this problem was only apparent because “only a small portion of the surface of the earth has been geologically explored,” assuming that further fossil hunting would provide the missing evidence. However, further exploration has only aggravated Darwin’s problem rather than alleviating it.

[6] “A half-billion years ago… the remarkably complex forms of animals we see today suddenly appeared. This moment, right at the start of Earth’s Cambrian Period, some 550 million years ago, marks the evolutionary explosion that filled the seas with the world’s first complex creatures.” (Richard Monastersky, “Mysteries of the Orient,” Discover, April 1993, p. 40.)

“The Cambrian Explosion occurred in a geological moment, and we have reason to think that all major anatomical designs may have made their evolutionary appearance at that time. …not only the phylum Chordata itself, but also all its major divisions, arose within the Cambrian Explosion. So much for chordate uniqueness… Contrary to Darwin’s expectation that new data would reveal gradualistic continuity with slow and steady expansion, all major discoveries of the past century have only heightened the massiveness and geological abruptness of this formative event…” [Stephen J. Gould, Nature 377:682 (October 1995).]

[7] S. A. Bowring, J. P. Grotzinger, C. E. Isachsen, A. H. Knoll, S. M. Pelechaty, and P. Kolosov, “Calibrating rates of Early Cambrian evolution,” Science 261:1293-1298 (1993).

[8] As Chinese paleontologist Chen Junyuan has explained, “compared with the 3-plus-billion-year history of life on earth, the period [of the explosion] can be likened to one minute in 24 hours of one day.” [Cui Lili, “Traditional Theory of Evolution Challenged,” Beijing Review (March 31-April 6, 1997), p. 10.]

[9] “Compared with the 30 or so extant phyla, some people estimate that the Cambrian explosion may have generated as many as 100.” [Roger Lewin, “A lopsided look at evolution,” Science 241:291-293 (15 July 1988)] Lewin asks the obvious and unanswerable question standing before evolutionism, “Why, in subsequent periods of great evolutionary activity when countless species, genera, and families arose, have there been no new animal body plans produced, no new phyla?” (p. 291)

[10] “[The Cambrian pattern] creates the impression that evolution has by and large proceeded from the ‘top down.’” [James W. Valentine, et al., “The biological explosion at the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary,” Evolutionary Biology 25:279-356 (1991).]

[11] “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.” [Phillip E. Johnson, “Darwinism’s Rules of Reasoning,” in Buell Hearn, Darwinism: Science or Philosophy (Foundation for Thought and Ethics, 1994), 12.]

Evolutionists generally respond to the Cambrian explosion in one of three ways: 1) the apparent absence of Precambrian ancestors is due to the fragmentary fossil record (the “artifact theory”), 2) even if the record were continuous the Precambrian ancestors would not have fossilized—either because they were too small, or because they were soft-bodied, or 3) override the fossil evidence with molecular comparisons among living organisms that point to a hypothetical common ancestor hundreds of millions of years before the Cambrian period. All three fail to overcome the obvious.

[1] “The primary scientific evidence is a pitifully small array of bones from which to construct man’s evolutionary history. One anthropologist has compared the task to that of reconstructing the plot of War and Peace with 13 randomly selected pages.” [Constance Holden, “The politics of paleoanthropology,” Science 213:737 (14 August 1981).]

“The entire hominid collection known today would barely cover a billiard table.” (John Reader, “Whatever happened to Zinjanthropus?” New Scientist, 26 March 1981, p. 802.)

[2] Kenneth P. Oakley, Bernard G. Campbell, and Theya I. Molleson, Catalogue of Fossil Hominids, 3 Vols., (London: Trustees of The British Museum—Natural History, 1968-1976). The first volume (2^nd edition published in 1977) deals with fossil hominids from Africa; volume 2 deals with Europe and the USSR (published in 1971); and volume 3 covers the Americas, Asia, and Australasia (published in 1975). It was intended to serve as a reference for information on the fossil hominids, and its scholarship and authority are beyond reproach. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to find, even in the largest universities or city libraries, and thus generally only highly trained paleoanthropologist know of it.

Since it only answers the question of approximately how many hominid fossils had been discovered up to 1969-1976, it is difficult to nail down an exact number of present finds. However, Ian Tattersall and Jeffrey Schwartz are engaged in a project of bringing the hominid fossil discoveries up to date (the first volume, Extinct Humans, was published in 2000, and a second volume, Extinct Non-Humans, may not be published for some time because of the difficulty in gaining access to the newer discoveries), so 7000-8000 is a conservative estimate that most paleoanthropologists (i.e. those familiar with the Catalogue) would agree upon.

[3] Of course no evolutionist would acknowledge a hominid fossil over 100K years old as Homo sapien, but when looked at morphologically, they are virtually identical (see Marvin L. Lubenow, Bones of Contention, 338-340.).

[4] Lubenow, Bones of Contention, 48.

[5] “…existing phylogenetic hypotheses about human evolution [based on skulls and teeth] are unlikely to be reliable.” [Mark Collard and Bernard Wood, “How reliable are human phylogenetic hypotheses?” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97(9):5003 (25April 2000).]

[6] “Fossil evidence of human evolutionary history is fragmentary and open to various interpretations. Fossil evidence of chimpanzee evolution is absent altogether.” [Henry Gee, “Return to the Planet of the Apes,” Nature 412:131 (12 July 2001).].

[7] This section is primarily taken from Brown, In the Beginning, 11-12; see also Duane T. Gish, Battle for Creation, Vol.2, Henry M. Morris ed. (San Diego: Creation-Life Publishers, 1976), 193-200, 298-305.

[8] Speaking of Piltdown man, prominent paleoanthropology historian Roger Lewin admits a common human problem even scientists have: “How is it that trained men, the greatest experts of their day, could look at a set of modern human bones—the cranial fragments—and “see” a clear simian signature in them; and “see” in an ape’s jaw the unmistakable signs of humanity? The answers, inevitably, have to do with the scientists’ expectations and their effects on the interpretation of data.” [Roger Lewin, Bones of Contention (New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1987), 61.]

[9] Steven J. Gould, “An essay on a pig roast,” in Bully for Brontosaurus (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1991), 432-447.

[10] Allen L. Hammond, “Tales of an Elusive Ancestor,” Science 83:37-43 (November 1983).

[11] Adrienne L. Zihlman and J.Lowenstein, “False start of the human parade,” Natural History 88:86-91 (August 1979).

[12] “The dethroning of Ramapithecus—from putative [supposed] first human in 1961 to extinct relative of the orangutan in 1982—is one of the most fascinating, and bitter, sagas in the search for human origins.” [Lewin, Bones of Contention, 86.] See also Hammond, “Tales of an Elusive Ancestor,” 43.

[13] “Pithecanthropus [Java man] was not a man, but a gigantic genus allied to the Gibbons, superior to its near relatives on account of its exceedingly large brain volume, and distinguished at the same time by its erect attitude… Thus the evidence given by those five new thigh bones of the morphological and functional distinctness of Pithecanthropus erectus furnishes proof, at the same time, of its close affinity with the gibbon group of anthropoid apes.” [Eugene Dubois, “On the fossil human skulls recently discovered in Java and Pithecanthropus Erectus,” Man 37:4-5 (January 1937).]; see also Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong (New Haven, Connecticut: Ticknor and Fields, 1982), 208-209.

[14] Marcellin Boule and Henri V. Vallois, Fossil Men (New York: The Dryden Press, 1957), 145; see also M. Bowden, Ape-Men: Fact or Fallacy? 2^nd ed. (Bromley, England: Sovereign Publications, 1981), 90-137.

[15] “[The reanalysis of Narmada Man] puts another nail in the coffin of Homo erectus as a viable taxon.” Kenneth A.R. Kennedy, as quoted in “Homo erectus never existed?” Geotimes, October 1992, p.11.

[16] Donald C. Johanson, et al., “New partial skeleton of Homo habilis from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania,” Nature327:205-209 (21May 1987).

[17] “We present a revised definition, based on verifiable criteria, for Homo and conclude that two species, Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis, do not belong in the genus [Homo].” [Bernard Wood and Mark Collard, “The human genus,” Science 284:65 (2April 1999).]

[18] Dr. Charles Oxnard and Sir Solly Zuckerman were leaders in the development of a powerful multivariate analysis procedure. This computerized technique simultaneously performs millions of comparisons on hundreds of corresponding dimensions of the bones of living apes, humans, and the australopithecines. Their verdict, that the australopithecines are not intermediate between man and living apes, is quite different from the more subjective and less analytical visual techniques of most anthropologists. However, this technique has not been applied to the most famous australopithecine, commonly known as “Lucy”: “…the only positive fact we have about the Australopithecine brain is that it was no bigger than the brain of a gorilla. The claims that are made about the human character of the Australopithecine face and jaws are no more convincing than those made about the size of its brain. The Australopithecine skull is in fact so overwhelmingly simian as opposed to human that the contrary proposition could be equated to an assertion that black is white… 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.”[Solly Zuckerman, Beyond the Ivory Tower (New York: Taplinger Publishing Co., 1970), p.78, 93.]

“Let us now return to our original problem: the Australopithecine fossils. I shall not burden you with details of each and every study that we have made, but… the conventional wisdom is that the Australopithecine fragments are generally rather similar to humans and when different deviate somewhat towards the condition in the African apes, the new studies point to different conclusions. The new investigations suggest that the fossil fragments are usually uniquely different from any living form…” [Charles E. Oxnard, “Human fossils: New views of old bones,” The American Biology Teacher 41:273 (May 1979).]

[19] “Among the fossil hominids, the australopithecines show great-ape-like proportions [based on CAT scans of their inner ears] and H. erectus shows modern-human-like proportions.” [Fred Spoor, et al., “Implications of early hominid labyrinthine morphology for evolution of human bipedal locomotion,” Nature 369:646 (23June 1994).]

[20] “The closest parallel today to the pattern of dental development of [australopithecines] is not in people but in chimpanzees.”[Bruce Bower, “Evolution’s youth movement,” Science News 159:347 (2June 2001).]

[21] William L. Jungers, “Lucy’s limbs: Skeletal allometry and locomotion in Australopithecus Afarensis,” Nature 297:676-678 (24June 1982); Jack T. Stern Jr. and Randall L. Susman, “The locomotor anatomy of Australopithecus Afarensis,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 60:279-317 (March 1983).

[22] Adrienne Zihlman, “Pigmy chimps, people, and the pundits,” New Scientist 104:39-40 (15 November 1984).

[23] “At present we have no grounds for thinking that there was anything distinctively human about australopithecine ecology and behavior. … [T]hey were surprisingly apelike in skull form, premolar dentition, limb proportions, and morphology of some joint surfaces, and they may still have been spending a significant amount of time in the trees.” [Matt Cartmill, et al., “One hundred years of paleoanthropology,” American Scientist 74:417 (July–August 1986).]

“The proportions calculated for africanus turned out to be amazingly close to those of a chimpanzee, with big arms and small legs. … ‘One might say we are kicking Lucy out of the family tree,’ says Berger.”[James Shreeve, “New skeleton gives path from trees to ground an odd turn,” Science 272:654 (3May 1996).]

[24] Francis Ivanhoe, “Was Virchow right about Neanderthal?” Nature 227:577-578 (8August 1970); William L. Straus, Jr. and A.J.E. Cave, “Pathology and the posture of Neanderthal man,” The Quarterly Review of Biology 32:348-363 (December 1957).

[25] Jack Cuozzo, Buried Alive: The Startling Truth about Neanderthal Man (Green Forest: Master Books, 1998); Jack Cuozzo, “Early orthodontic intervention: A view from prehistory,” The Journal of the New Jersey Dental Association, 58(4):33-40 (1987).

[26] See Boyce Rensberger, “Facing the past,” Science 81:49 (October 1981).

[27] “Detailed comparisons of Neanderthal skeletal remains with those of modern humans have shown that there is nothing in Neanderthal anatomy that conclusively indicates locomotor, manipulative, intellectual, or linguistic abilities inferior to those of modern humans.” [Erik Trinkaus (Neanderthal authority at Washington University, St. Louis), “Hard times among the Neanderthals,” Natural History 87(10):58 (December 1978).]

[28] “One of the most characteristic features of the Neanderthals is the exaggerated massiveness of their trunk and limb bones. All of the preserved bones suggest a strength seldom attained by modern humans. Furthermore, not only is this robustness present among the adult males, as one might expect, but it is also evident in the adult females, adolescents, and even children.” [Ibid., p. 58.]

“Neanderthal was far more powerful than modern humans. Whereas archaeologists can experimentally duplicate the wear pattern on tools such as were used by people from the Upper Paleolithic (the people that followed Neanderthal…), the wear patterns on Neanderthal’s tools cannot be duplicated. We do not have the strength to do it. Neanderthal’s skeleton reflects a supremely powerful musculature.” [Valerius Geist, “Neanderthal the hunter,” Natural History 90(10):30 (January 1981).] Thus, these were probably transitional post-Flood inhabitants whose bodies had not fully digressed to the present modern state.

[1] See R.C. Mernll and R.W. Spencer, “Sorption of sodium silicates and silicate sols by cellulose fibers,” Industrial Engineering Chemistry 42:744-747 (1950); R.W. Drum, “Silicification of Betula woody tissue in vitro,” Science 161:175-176 (1968); Anne C. Sigleo, “Organic Geochemistry of Silicified Wood, Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona,” Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 42:1397-1405 (September 1978); G. Scurfield and E.R. Segnit, “Petrification of wood by silica minerals,” Sedimentary Geology, 39:149-167 (1984).

[2] H. Akahane, T. Furuno, H. Miyajima, T. Yoshikawa, and S. Yamamoto, “Rapid wood silicification in hot spring water: An explanation of silicification of wood during the earth’s history,” Sedimentary Geology 169(3-4):219-228 (15 July 2004). Though published in a secular geology journal, their report actually quoted an article by Dr. Andrew Snelling from Creation magazine years earlier [see Andrew A. Snelling, “‘Instant’ petrified wood,” Creation Ex Nihilo 17(4):38-40 (September 1995); archived at http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/1752.].

[3] For an overview of the work, see Andrew A. Snelling, “Rapid petrification of wood: an unexpected confirmation of creationist research,” Impact 379 (January 2005); archived at http://www.icr.org/article/13/; and Tas Walker, “Wood petrified in spring: Creationist’s rapid claims recognized,” Creation Ex Nihilo 28(3):18-19 (June 2006); archived at http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/5179/.

[4] See Walt Brown’s summary of petrification, In the Beginning, 155-156.

[5] Silica dissolves only 6 parts per million in pure water at 77°F (25°C). As temperatures rise, more silica goes into solution. At 300°F (150°C), silica concentrations reach 140 parts per million. (See Sigleo, “Organic Geochemistry of Silicified Wood.”)

[6] “…one of the most controversial points is how long it takes for a cave such as S.P. [Kartchner Caverns in Arizona] to form. What geologists used to believe was fact, in terms of dating a cave, now is speculation, [cave expert, Jerry] Trout says… From 1924 to 1988, there was a visitor’s sign above the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns that said Carlsbad was at least 260 million years old… In 1988, the sign was changed to read 7 to 10 million years old. Then, for a little while, the sign read that it was 2 million years old. Now the sign is gone. In short, he says, geologists don’t know how long cave development takes. And, while some believe that cave decorations such as S.P.’s beautiful icicle-looking stalactites take years to form, Trout says that through photo-monitoring, he has watched a stalactite grow several inches in a matter of days.” [Marilyn Taylor, “Descent,” Arizona Highways 69(1):10-11 (Jan. 1993).]

[7] “In the centuries after the flood, acidic groundwater, more plentiful than ever in the centuries after the flood, frequently seeped into cracks in limestone rocks, dissolved limestone, and formed underground caverns. As ventilation in caverns improved and plant growth removed CO₂ from the atmosphere, CO₂ escaped from this groundwater. Large quantities of limestone precipitated, rapidly forming stalactites and stalagmites worldwide.” (Brown, In the Beginning, 153.)

[8] L. S. Helmick, J. Rohde, and A. Ross, “Rapid growth of dripstone observed,” Creation Research Society Quarterly 14:13-17 (June 1977); see also Ian T. Taylor, In the Minds of Men (Toronto: TFE Publishing, 1984), 335-336.

[9] Peter Read and Andrew Snelling, “How old is Australia’s Great Barrier Reef?” Creation Ex Nihilo 8(1):6-9 (November 1985); Ariel A. Roth, “Coral reef growth,” Origins 6(2):88-95 (1979); see also J. T. Verstelle, “The growth rate at various depths of coral reefs in the Dutch East Indian Archipelago,” Treubia 14:117-126 (1932). Recently, coral was found growing firmly attached to a modern shoe (assessed to be less than four years old) between Cebu and Bohol in the Philippine Islands. It was displayed at an international shell-collector’s fair in Wattenschied, Germany, in the autumn of 1992 [see “Coral on a shoe,” Creation Ex Nihilo 16(3):15 (June1994); archived at http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/915/.

[1] Though the idea was first put forth vaguely by Darwin, that the earth was a “warm little pond” [Charles Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. II, Francis Darwin ed. (New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1887), 202], it wasn’t until the 1920s that the Russian scientist A. I. Oparin and the British scientist J. B. S. Haldane put forward the idea that the building blocks of life could have been formed by the action of lightning on the atmosphere of the early Earth (composed primarily of methane, ammonia and hydrogen). These organic chemicals could have dissolved in the oceans to form what they called a “hot dilute soup” (later termed “primordial soup”), which later gave rise to the first living cells having evolved by random chance. [See A. I. Oparin, Origin of Life (Moscow, 1924; trans. by S. Morgulis and published by Macmillian in 1938); J. B. S. Haldane, Rationalist Annual 148:3-10 (1928).]

[2] The yield of glycine was a mere 1.05%, of alanine only 0.75%; the next most common amino acid produced amounted to only 0.026% of the total—so small as to be largely insignificant. In Miller’s own words, “The total yield was small for the energy expended.” [S. L. Miller, “A production of amino acids under possible primitive Earth conditions,” Science 117:528 (1953).]

[3] In successive versions of the experiment there are small changes in the design of the equipment and variations in the mixture of gases used. Yet, after hundreds of replications and modifications, scientists have only been able to produce small amounts of less than half of the 20 amino acids required for life. The rest require much more complex synthesis conditions.

[4] See James F. Coppedge, Evolution: Possible or Impossible? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing, 1973), 71-72;

“Whether one looks to mutations or gene flow for the source of the variations needed to fuel evolution, there is an enormous probability problem at the core of Darwinist and neo-Darwinist theory, which has been cited by hundreds of scientists and professionals. Engineers, physicists, astronomers, and biologists who have looked without prejudice at the notion of such variations producing ever more complex organisms have come to the same conclusion: The evolutionists are assuming the impossible. Even if we take the simplest large protein molecule that can reproduce itself if immersed in a bath of nutrients, the odds against this developing by chance range from one in 10⁴⁵⁰ (Marcel Goulay in Analytical Chemistry) to one in 10⁶⁰⁰ (Frank Salisbury in American Biology Teacher).” [William R. Fix, The Bone Peddlers: Selling Evolution (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1984),196.]

“…the visible universe has fewer than 10⁸⁰ atoms in it… To claim life evolved is to demand a miracle. The simplest conceivable form of single-celled life should have at least 600 different protein molecules. The mathematical probability that only one typical protein could form by chance arrangements of amino acid sequences is essentially zero—far less than 1 in 10⁴⁵⁰. To appreciate the magnitude of 10⁴⁵⁰, realize that the visible universe is about 10²⁸ inches in diameter.” (Brown, In the Beginning, 14-15.)

French mathematician, Emile Borel, argued that any occurrence with a chance of happening less than one in 10⁵⁰ is an occurrence with such a slim probability that it is statistically considered to be zero. [See Probability and Life (Dover, 1962), translated from the original, Les Probabilite et la Vie (Presses Universitaire de France, 1943).]

[5] 85% of the product was an insoluble toxic carcinogenic mixture called “tar” or “resin,” 4% was formic acid, and 2.7% was equal parts (0.9% each) of three other caboxylic acids. [See Robert Shapiro, Origins: A Skeptic’s Guide to the Creation of Life (New York: Summit Books, 1986), 104-108).]

[6] Genetic material (DNA and RNA) is composed of “nucleotides” (made up of nucleic acids), which in living things are always “right-handed” (so called because polarized light passing through them rotates like a right-handed screw). Conversely, proteins, or “polypeptides” (made up of amino acids), are almost always “left-handed.” Laboratory experiments, such as Miller and Urey’s, produce amino acids which are half right-handed and half left-handed. No known process can isolate either the left-handed or right-handed varity. The mathematical probability that chance processes could produce merely one tiny molecule with only left-handed amino acids is virtually zero. (See James F. Coppedge, Evolution: Possible or Impossible?, 71-79.)

[7] Siegfried Scherer, “Could life have arisen in the primitive atmosphere?” Journal of Molecular Evolution 22(1):91-94 (1985); R. T. Brinkmann, “Dissociation of water vapor and evolution of oxygen in the terrestrial atmosphere,” Journal of Geophysical Research 74(23):5355-5368 (20 October 1969).

[8] C. Thaxton, W. Bradley, and R. Olsen, The Mystery of Life’s Origin; Reassessing Current Theories (New York: Philosophical Library, 1984) ch. 5; Philip Morrison, “Earth’s Earliest Biosphere,” Scientific American 250:30-31 (April 1984); Charles F. Davidson, “Geochemical Aspects of Atmospheric Evolution,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 53:1194-1205 (15 June 1965); Erich Dimroth and Michael M. Kimberley, “Precambrian Atmospheric Oxygen: Evidence in the Sedimentary Distributions of Carbon, Sulfur, Uranium, and Iron,” Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 13(9):1161 (September 1976).

[9] Harold Urey, The Planets: Their Origin and Development (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1952), 153.

[10] Michael Denton, a molecular biologist and Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Otago in New Zealand, summarizes the situation: “In the presence of oxygen any organic compounds formed on the early Earth would be rapidly oxidized and degraded. For this reason many authorities have advocated an oxygen-free atmosphere for hundreds of millions of years following the formation of the Earth’s crust. Only such an atmosphere would protect the vital but delicate organic compounds and allow them to accumulate to form a prebiotic soup. Ominously, for believers in the traditional organic soup scenario, there is no clear geochemical evidence to exclude the possibility that oxygen was present in the Earth’s atmosphere soon after the formation of its crust… But even if there was no oxygen, there are further difficulties. Without oxygen there would be no ozone layer in the upper atmosphere which today protects the Earth’s surface from a lethal dose of ultraviolet radiation. In an oxygen-free scenario, the ultraviolet flux reaching the Earth’s surface might be more than sufficient to break down organic compounds as quickly as they were produced. Significantly, the absence of organic compounds in the Martian soil has been widely attributed to just such a strong ultraviolet flux which today continuously bombards the planet’s surface. What we have then is a sort of ‘Catch-22’ situation. If we have oxygen we have no organic compounds, but if we don’t have oxygen we have none either.” [Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (Bethesda: Adler & Adler Publishing, 1985), 261-262.]

[1] Darwin knew that his theory was highly unstable because it rested on the future discovery of intermediary fossils. Because of this he also looked to other disciplines of study for evidence, and it was the field of embryology that most excited him. Darwin considered it “by far the strongest single class of facts in favor of [his theory]”. [Charles Darwin, “September 10, 1860, letter to Asa Gray,” The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. II, Francis Darwin ed. (New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1896).]

[2] Haeckel coined the terms “ontogeny,” designating the embryonic development of the individual, and “phylogeny,” designating the evolutionary history of the species. He believed that embryos “recapitulate” their evolutionary history by passing through ancient adult forms as they develop. In other words, the development of an embryo (ontogeny) is a speeded-up replay of the evolution of the species (phylogeny), which he deemed “the biogenetic law.” “Politics is applied biology” is another of Haeckel’s most famous statements. However, since the Nazi propaganda movement used this statement as a slogan to justify their “religion of the blood,” it has fallen out of use in the last half century.

[3] Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, Modern Library reprint ed. (New York: Random House, 1936), Chapter XIV, 345.

[4] Haeckel’s contemporaries repeatedly criticized him for these misrepresentations to no avail—most notably by Wilhelm His, professor of anatomy at the University of Leipzig, in 1874. [See J. Assmuth and E. R. Hull, Haeckel’s Frauds and Forgeries (Bombay: Examiner Press, 1915); and Jane M. Oppenheimer, “Haeckel’s Variations on Darwin,” 123-135, in H. M. Heonigswald and L. F. Wiener (eds.), Biological Metaphor and Cladistic Classification (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1987).]

[5] Michael K. Richardson, et al., “There is no highly conserved embryonic stage in the vertebrates: implications for current theories of evolution and development,” Anatomy & Embryology 196 (1997), 91-106; see also Michael K. Richardson, et al., “Somite number and vertebrate evolution,” Development 125:151-160 (1998).

Michael Richardson (a prominent British embryologist) stated bluntly in an interview with Science after publishing his critique of Haeckel’s drawings, “It looks like it’s turning out to be one of the most famous fakes in biology.” [Elizabeth Pennisi, “Haeckel’s Embryos: Fraud Rediscovered,” Science 277:1435 (1997).] The question naturally arises, “Why are these pictures still in the textbooks of almost every school in the Western world?” There is a clear eschatological demonic purpose for such delusion.

[6] See Jonathan Wells, “Haeckel’s embryos and evolution: Setting the record straight,” The American Biology Teacher 61:345-349 (May 1999); Lewis Wolpert, The Triumph of the Embryo (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 12.

[7] If it is actually true that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” then the various classes would be most similar during fertilization and diverge in similarity through the cleavage and gastrulation stages and on to adulthood, yet this is not the case. Rather, vertebrate embryos start out looking very different, converge in appearance midway through development (though not at the same time), then become increasingly more different as they continue to adulthood. This pattern has been described as the “developmental hourglass” [see Rudolf A. Raff, The Shape of Life: Genes, Development, and the Evolution of Animal Form (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996), 197.].

[8] Pharyngeal folds are never even rudimentary gills, and they are never “gill-like” except in the superficial sense that they form a series of parallel lines in the neck region. The only way to see “gill-like” structures in human embryos is to read evolution into development. Moreover, gills are not embryological structures, not even in fish. “Seeing” them in other classes of vertebrates is to read an adult structure back into the embryo.

[9] To Haeckel the only major difference between man and ape was that men could speak and apes could not. He therefore postulated a missing link which he called Pithecanthropus alalus (“speechless apeman”) and even had an artist, Gabriel Max, draw the imaginary creature, although there was not a scrap of evidence to support a single detail in the drawings.

[10] To fill the gap in this between inorganic non-living matter and the first signs of life, he invented a series of minute protoplasmic organisms which he called Monera (plural of Moneron), which were “not composed of any organs at all, but consist entirely of shapeless, simple homogeneous matter…nothing more than a shapeless, mobile, little lump of mucus or slime, consisting of albuminous combination of carbon.” [Ernst Haeckel, The History of Creation, 3^rd ed., Vol.1, translated by E. Ray Lankester, Kegan Paul (London: Trench & Co., 1883), 184.] Unfortunately university academia and the public were duped by these detailed descriptions and elaborate drawing for over 50 years, even though these “life particles” were totally fictional and non-existent.

[1] Originally, homology was used as an aid to biological classification. However, because it was so central as evidence for Darwin’s theory, in time it actually got re-defined to mean features inherited from a common ancestor: “common structures reveal a common ancestor.”

[2] For example, consider the classic example of homologous structures in the forelimbs of vertebrates (i.e. bat, porpoise, horse, and human). A neo-Darwinist who wants to determine whether vertebrate forelimbs are homologous must first determine whether they are derived from a common ancestor. To then turn around and argue that homologous limbs point to common ancestry is a vicious circle: common ancestry demonstrates homology which demonstrates common ancestry.

[3] J.H. Woodger, “On Biological Transformations,” 95-120 in W.E. Le Gros Clark and P.B. Medawar (editors), Essays on Growth and Form Presented to D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1945), 109; Alan Boyden, “Homology and Analogy,” American Midland Naturalist 37 (1947), 648-669; Robert R. Sokal and Peter H.A. Sneath, Principles of Numerical Taxonomy (San Francisco: Freeman, 1963), 21.

Especially notable is Ronald Brady, a professor of philosophy from New Jersey’s Ramapo College, who wrote in 1985: “By making our explanation into the definition of the condition to be explained, we express not scientific hypothesis but belief. We are so convinced that our explanation is true that we no longer see any need to distinguish it from the situation we were trying to explain. Dogmatic endeavors of this kind must eventually leave the realm of science.” [Ronald H. Brady, “On the Independence of Systematics,” Cladistics 1 (1985), 113-126.]

[4] Generally not a popular option, since questioning the fact of evolution is socially unpopular and professionally dangerous.

[5] Despite their extraordinarily complex structures, it is quite inconsistent to maintain that this similarity came about as the result of chance mutations. If, as evolutionists claim, the squid eye emerged by chance, how is it that exactly the same coincidences took place in the vertebrate eye? Well-known evolutionist Frank Salisbury, who pondered this question long and hard, writes, “Even something as complex as the eye has appeared several times; for example, in the squid, the vertebrates, and the arthropods. It’s bad enough accounting for the origin of such things once, but the thought of producing them several times according to the modern synthetic theory makes my head swim.” [Frank Salisbury, “Doubts About the Modern Synthetic Theory of Evolution,” American Biology Teacher (September 1971), 338.]

This is especially difficult if it is true that the eye evolved independently as many as 60 times! [See Richard Dawkins, Climbing Mount Improbable (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996).]

[6] Mammals are generally characterized by: the production of milk in females for the nourishment of young; the presence of hair or fur; specialized teeth; the presence of a neocortex region in the brain; and endothermic or “warm-blooded” bodies—and they are divided into three categories: placentals, marsupials, and monotremes.

[7] See Dean Kenyon and Davis Percical, Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins (Dallas: Haughton Publishing, 1993), 33.

[8] According to evolution, completely independent mutations twice chanced to produce these living things in exactly the same way, which evolutionists call “convergent evolution.” However, this seems to be a stretch of common sense reason.

[9] E.B. Wilson wrote in 1894, “It is a familiar fact that parts which closely agree in the adult, and are undoubtedly homologous, often differ widely in larval or embryonic origin either in mode of formation or in position, or in both.” [Edmund B. Wilson, “The Embryological Criterion of Homology,” 101-124 in Biological Lectures Delivered at the Marine Biological Laboratory of Wood’s Hole in the Summer Session of 1894 (Boston: Ginn & Company, 1895), 107.]

Prominent British biologist Gavin de Beer stated in 1958, “The fact is that correspondence between homologous structures cannot be pressed back to similarity of position of the cells in the embryo, or of the parts of the egg out of which the structures are ultimately composed, or of developmental mechanisms by which they are formed.” [Gavin de Beer, Embryos and Ancestors, 3^rd ed., (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), 152.]

Twenty years ago eminent developmental biologist Pere Alberch likewise said, “[It is] the rule rather than the exception that homologous structures form from distinctly dissimilar initial states.” [Pere Alberch, “Problems with the Interpretation of Developmental Sequences,” Systematic Zoology 34 (1):46-58 (1985).]

Recently, evolutionary developmental biologist Rudolf Raff, having studied two species of sea urchin which had reached almost identical forms by way of very different paths, expressed the same difficulty: “Homologous features in two related organisms should arise by similar developmental processes . . . [but] features that we regard as homologous from morphological and phylogenetic criteria can arise in different ways in development.” [Rudolf Raff, “Larval homologies and radical evolutionary changes in early development,” 110-121 in Novartis Symposium 222 (Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, 1999), 111.]

[10] For example, the hands and feet of a frog, lizard, squirrel, monkey, birds, bats, etc., all have this same structure.

[11] Gavin De Beer, Homology: An Unsolved Problem (London: Oxford University Press, 1971); quoted in Richard Milton, Shattering The Myths of Darwinism (Park Street Press, 1997), 180.

[12] The difference is so striking that some biologists have argued that the evolutionary history of salamanders must have been different from all other vertebrates, including frogs [see Neil H. Shubin and Pere Alberch, “A morphogenetic approach to the origin and basic organization of the terapod limb,” Evolutionary Biology 20:319-387 (1986); and Neil H. Shubin, “History, Ontogeny, and Evolution of the Archetype,” 249-271, in Brian K. Hall (ed.), Homology: The Hierarchial Basis of Comparative Biology (Academic Press, 1994), 264-266.]

[13] See Rudolf A. Raff, The Shape of Life: Genes, Development, and the Evolution of Animal Form (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996).

[14] In 1971, famous evolutionist Gavin de Beer wrote, “It is now clear that the pride with which it was assumed that the inheritance of homologous structures from a common ancestor explained homology was misplaced… [it] cannot be ascribed to identity of genes.” (Gavin De Beer, Homology: An Unsolved Problem, 15-16.)

Australian biologist Michael Denton states, “The evolutionary basis of homology is perhaps even more severely damaged by the discovery that apparently homologous structures are specified by quite different genes in different species.” (Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, 145.)

[15] Gavin De Beer, Homology: An Unsolved Problem, 15-16. Another example given by De Beer is the gene known as sex-lethal, necessary for sex determination in the fruit fly, though not required for the emergence of males and females in other insects.

[16] Distal-less is so named because a mutation in it blocks limb development in fruit flies (“distal” refers to structures away from the main part of the body).

[17] Genes similar to Distal-less in fruit flies have also been found in mice, sea urchins, spiny worms (members of the same phylim as earthworms), and velvet worms (another phylum entirely) [Grace Panganiban, et al., “The origin and evolution of animal appendages,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 94:5162-5166 (1997); Gregory Wray, “Evolutionary dissociations between homologous genes and homologous structures,” 189-203, in Homology (Novartis Symposium 222; Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, 1999), 195-196. Panganiban, et al. remarked, “These similarities are puzzling,” while Gregory Wray found “surprising” the association between Distal-less and “what are superficially similar, but non-homologous structures.” He concluded: “This association between a regulatory gene and several non-homologous structures seems to be the rule rather than the exception.”

[18] N. Shubin, C. Tabin, and S. Carroll, “Fossils, genes and the evolution of animal limbs,” Nature 388:639-648 (1997); C. J. Tabin, S. Carroll, and G. Panganiban, “Out on a limb: Parallels in vertebrate and invertebrate limb patterning and the origin of appendages,” American Zoologist 39:650-663 (1999).

[1] S. R. Scadding (University of Guelph), an evolutionary zoologist himself, acknowledged this fact: “The ‘vestigial organ’ argument uses as a premise the assertion that the organ in question has no function. There is no way however, in which this negative assertion can be arrived at scientifically. That is, one can not prove that something does not exist (in this case a certain function), since of course if it does not exist one cannot observe it, and therefore one can say nothing about it scientifically. The best we can do is to state that despite diligent effort, no function was discovered for a given organ. However it may be that some future investigator will discover the function. Consequently, the vestigial organ argument has as a premise, either a statement of ignorance (I couldn’t identify the function), or a scientifically invalid claim (it does not have a function). Such an argument, from ignorance, or from negative results, is not valid scientifically, and has no place in observational or experimental science. 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 [beyond that of homology].” [Steve R. Scadding, “Do ‘vestigial organs’ provide evidence for evolution?,” Evolutionary Theory [more recently Evolutionary Theory and Review] 5:173-176 (May 1981).]

[2] This list included: tonsils, coccyx (tail bone), thymus, little toe, male nipples, ear nodes, pineal gland, adenoids, appendix, wisdom teeth, parathyroid, ear muscles, body hair, and the nictitating membrane of the eye. At the historic Scopes Trial (1925), an evolutionist witness testified: “There are, according to Wiedersheim, no less than 180 vestigal [sic] structures in the human body, sufficient to make of a man a veritable walking museum of antiquities. Among these [is] the…appendix… These and numerous other structures of the same sort can be reasonably interpreted as evidence that man has descended from ancestors in which these organs were functional. Man has never completely lost these characters; he continues to inherit them though he no longer has any use for them.” [Ken Ham and Carl Wieland, “Your appendix…it’s there for a reason.” Creation Ex Nihilo 20(1):41 (December 1997); archived at http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/709/.]

[3] See Jerry Bergman and George Howe, “Vestigial Organs” Are Fully Functional (Terre Haute, Indiana: Creation Research Society Books, 1990).

[4] Scadding suggests that “Wiedersheim was largely in error in compiling his long list of vestigial organs. Most of them do have at least a minor function at some point in life… As our knowledge has increased the list of vestigial structures has decreased. Wiedersheim could list about one hundred in humans; recent authors usually list four or five. Even the current short list of vestigial structures in humans is questionable.” (“Do ‘vestigial organs’ provide evidence for evolution?”, 175.)

[5] “The appendix is not generally credited with substantial function. However, current evidence tends to involve it in the immunologic mechanism.” [Gordon McHardy, “The Appendix,” Gastroenterology, Vol. 4, J. E. Berk ed. (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1985), 2609.]

“Long regarded as a vestigial organ with no function in the human body, the appendix is now thought to be one of the sites where immune responses are initiated.” [Roy Hartenstein, Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia (Grolier Electronic Publishing, 1995).]

[6] Bergman and Howe, “Vestigial Organs” Are Fully Functional, 45.

[7] See Jerry Bergman, “Do any vestigial organs exist in humans?” Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal 14(2):95-98 (August2000); archived at http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/1663.

[8] Biologist Hannington Enoch (Professor of Zoology at Presidency College in Madras, India), who challenged the theory of vestigial organs, expressed this logical error as follows: “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? … However, the alter absurdity of calling the appendix ‘vestigial’ in man is apparent above all from this fact: that its function is unknown not only in man but also in every other species of animal that possess it. It kooks as though evolution has produced a totally useless organ all through the animal world… In order to prove this theory the evolutionists ought to show the existence of ‘nascent organs’ which did not exist in their ancestors.” (Hannington Enoch, Creation or Evolution (London: Evangelical Press, 1966), 18-19.)

[1] Though labeled “Darwin’s Finches,” Darwin himself paid little attention to the birds, making only one passing reference to them in his diary and never even mentioning them in The Origin of Species [Charles Darwin, Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the various countries visited by H.M.S. Beagle, (1839), Facsimile reprint of the 1^st Ed. (New York: Hafner Publishing, 1952), 475]. It wasn’t until the rise of neo-Darwinism in the 1930s that the Galápagos finches were elevated to their current prominence. Thus, the “Darwin” in Darwin’s Finches is largely mythical. [See Percy Lowe, “The Finches of the Galápagos in relation to Darwin’s Conception of Species,” Ibis 6 (1936), 310-321; David Lack, Darwin’s Finches (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1947).]

[2] Peter R. Grant, “Natural Selection and Darwin’s Finches,” Scientific American 265 (October 1991), 82-87.

[3] “The number is surprisingly small: about 20 selection events would have sufficed. If droughts occur once a decade, on average, repeated directional selection at this rate with no selection in between droughts would transform one species into another within 200 years. Even if the estimate is off by a factor of 10, the 2,000 years required for speciation is still very little time in relation to the hundreds of thousands of years the finches have been in the archipelago.” (Ibid.)

[4] Likewise, horse racers have bred horses for hundreds of years based on speed, yet there has been absolutely no fundamental change in the animal, because they are genetically bound by the parameters of “kind.”

[1] This section is primarily taken from Wells, Icons of Evolution, 137-157.

[2] See J.W. Tutt, British Moths (London: George Routledge, 1896), who argued that as the pollutants increased around industrial cities, the light colored lichen on the trees died and the trees became progressively darker. Thus, the light colored “typical” moths lost there natural camouflage against predatory birds, and the “melanic” forms survived because they were better hidden on the darker tree trunks.

[3] See J.W. Heslop Harrison, “Genetic studies in the moths of the geometrid genus Oporabia (Oporinia) with a special consideration of melanism in the Lepidoptera,” Journal of Genetics 9 (1920), 195-280; J.W. H. Harrison, “The experimental Induction of Melanism, and other Effects, in the Geometrid Moth Selenia Bilunaria esp.,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 117 (1935), 78-92.

[4] See H. B. D. Kettlewell, “Selection experiments on industrial melanism in the Lepidoptera,” Heredity 9:323-342 (1955); H. B. D. Kettlewell, “Further selection experiments on industrial melanism in the Lepidoptera,” Heredity 10:287-301 (1956).

[5] H. B. D. Kettlewell, “Darwin’s Missing Evidence,” Scientific American 200:48-53 (March 1959).

[6] Kettlewell not only did his experiments in Birmingham and Dorset, but near heavily polluted Manchester, for example, where typicals should have been completely replaced, the proportion of melanics was never as high as predicted. In rural Wales, the frequency of melanics was higher than expected, and likewise in rural East Anglia, melanism was 80% despite lichen-covered tree trunks. South of latitude 52˚N melanism actually increased after the introduction of pollution control, and on the Wirral Peninsula, melanism began decreasing before lichens returned to the trees [see Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution, 145, note Figure 7-2.].

[7] See Kauri Mikkola, “On the selective forces acting in the industrial melanism of Bison and Oligia moths (Lepidoptera: Geometridae and Noctuidae),” Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 21:409-421 (1984).

[8] Peppered moths are night-fliers and normally find their resting places for the daytime on trees before dawn. However, Kettlewell released his moths directly onto tree trunks in the morning. Thus, they remained there docile and exposed on the trucks, becoming easy targets for predatory birds. If the reason for the typical moths’ decline was based on their being camouflaged on the tree trunk, then the fact that they don’t normally rest on trunks completely invalidated Kettlewell’s experiment.

[9] Staged photos may have been reasonable when the biologists thought they were simulating the normal resting places of peppered moths. By the late 1980s, however, this practice should have stopped. Unfortunately, it has not. Defenders of the classical story argue that, despite being staged, the photographs illustrate the true cause of melanism. The problem is that it is precisely the cause of melanism that is in dispute.

[10] The issue at hand is not providing evidence for variation (microevolution), but rather providing evidence for universal common descent (macroevolution), which ultimately requires new genetic information to be added in the process. This is the ultimate crisis facing evolutionism: direct observable evidence for the addition of positive genetic information.