THE PRIMITIVE ENVIRONMENT, LIFE DNA PROTEIN
and FOSSILS
Why raw materials on earth cannot produce life
1 - THE PRIMITIVE
ENVIRONMENT
HOW THE THEORY TELLS
IT—According to the evolutionary theory, life began in this way:
(1) There was just the right
atmosphere—and it was totally different than the one we now have.(2) The
ground, water, or ocean where life began had just the right combination of
chemicals in it—which it does not now have.(3) Using an unknown source of just
the right amount of energy, amino acids then formed in sufficient quantities
that—(4) they could combine into lots of proteins and nucleotides (complex
chemical compounds).(5) They then reformed themselves into various organs
inside a main organism.(6) They did some careful thinking (as with all the
other points, beyond the mental abilities of even our best scientists today),
and developed a genetic code to cover thousands of different factors.(7) At
this point, they were ready to start reproducing young. —Of course, this last
point reveals that all the previous six had to occur within the lifetime of
just one bacterium. Since microbes and bacteria do not live very long, this
first one had to think and act fast.
Charles Darwin did a lot of
daydreaming in his letters and in his book, Origin of the Species. Here
was one of his hopeful wishes, as expressed in a letter to a close friend:
"But if (and oh! what a
big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia
and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity etc., present, that a protein
compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex
changes."—*Charles Darwin, in *Francis Darwin (ed.), The Life and
Letters of Charles Darwin (1887 ed.), p. 202 (the parenthetical comment is
his also).
*
"Since Darwin’s seminal
work was called The Origin of Species one might reasonably suppose that his
theory had explained this central aspect of evolution or at least made a shot
at it, even if it had not resolved the larger issues we have discussed up to
now. Curiously enough, this is not the case. As Professor Ernst Mayr of
Harvard, the doyen [senior member] of species studies, once remarked, the ‘book
called The Origin of Species is not really on that subject,’ while his
colleague Professor Simpson admits: ‘
"You may be surprised to
hear that the origin of species remains just as much a mystery today, despite
the efforts of thousands of biologists. The topic has been the main focus of
attention and is beset by endless controversies."—*Gordon R. Taylor, Great
Evolution Mystery (1983), p. 140.
One of the greatest
scientists of the last 200 years said this about the possibility of life making
itself out of water and mud: DARWIN’S FAMOUS "POND"
STATEMENT—Reprinted below is a page from *Charles Darwin’s letter in which he
conjectured as to the possible origin of living creatures. That conjecture was
about as far as he took the process; for nowhere, in his Origin of the
Species, is the origin of the species discussed or even hinted at.
"Mathematics and
dynamics fail us when we contemplate the earth, fitted for life but lifeless,
and try to imagine the commencement of life upon it. This certainly did not
take place by any action of chemistry, or electricity, or crystalline grouping
of molecules under the influence of force, or by any possible kind of
fortuitous concourse of atmosphere. We must pause, face to face with the
mystery and miracle of creation of living things."—Lord Kelvin, quoted in
THE PRIMITIVE
ENVIRONMENT—Finally it was time for life to originate by spontaneous generation
from (according to which theorist is speaking) warm wet dirt, seashore, hot and
dry dirt, ocean water, desert sand, lake, poisonous chemicals or fumes,
electrified mud puddle, a volcanic rim, or something else. An atmosphere of
some type had formed, and occasionally lightning would strike the earth.
Scientists have tried to
analyze what conditions would have had to be like in order for spontaneous
generation of life from non-life to occur. They call this the "primitive
environment."
What were conditions like at
that first moment when life is supposed to have created itself by random chance
out of a mud hole or sloshing seawater? Evolutionists have figured this out. Their
conclusions are not only astonishing; but, in this chapter, we will learn—they
further disprove evolution!
The theorists tell us that
the first life-form developed from nothing about 4.6 billion years ago. But
*Steven Jay Gould of Harvard, one of the leading evolutionary thinkers of the
latter part of the twentieth century, maintains that there would have been very
little time for this highly improbable event to have occurred:
"We are left with very
little time between the development of suitable conditions for life on the
Earth’s surface and the origin of life . . Life apparently arose about as soon
as the Earth became cool enough to support it."—*S.J. Gould, "An
Early Start," in Natural History, February 1978.
*Fred Hoyle wrote in the
2 - THE
ERROR OF LIFE FROM NON-LIFE
SPONTANEOUS GENERATION—Life
from non-living things is the Dark Ages error of "spontaneous
generation," an error which was not fully eliminated until more than a
century ago. Modern evolutionists believe in and teach spontaneous generation,
which they now call biopoiesis, so students will not recognize that they are
still advocating spontaneous generation. (Earlier in the twentieth century, it
was called abiogenesis.)
In contrast, Biogenesis is
the scientific name for the important biological truth confirmed by Louis
Pasteur and others, that life can only come from life.
"Biogenesis is a term in
biology that is derived from two Greek words meaning life and birth. According
to the theory of biogenesis, living things descend only from living things.
They cannot develop spontaneously from nonliving materials. Until comparatively
recent times, scientists believed that certain tiny forms of life, such as
bacteria, arose spontaneously from non-living
substances."—*"Biogenesis," World Book Encyclopedia, p. B-242
(1972 edition).
Spontaneous generation was
believed by many scientists, prior to the careful experiments of Spallanzani
(1780), and Pasteur (1860), which totally disproved that foolish idea. People
thought that fruit flies spontaneously came forth from fruit, geese from
barnacles, mice from dirty clothes, and bees from dead calves. Even Copernicus,
Galileo, Bacon, *Hegel, and *Shilling believed it, but that did not make it
right. Great people believing an error does not make the error truth.
Evolution teaches spontaneous
generation. Think about that for a moment. We’re returning to the Dark Ages!
"Pasteur’s demonstration
apparently laid the theory of spontaneous generation to rest permanently. All
this left a germ of embarrassment for scientists. How had life originated after
all, if not through divine creation or through spontaneous generation?
"They [today’s
scientists] are back to spontaneous generation, but with a difference. The
pre-Pasteur view of spontaneous generation was of something taking place now
and quickly. The modern view is that it took place long ago and very
slowly."—*Isaac Asimov, Asimov’s New Guide to Science (1984), pp. 638-639.
In contrast, true science
teaches biogenesis, which means, in general, that life can only come from life
and, specifically, that species can only come from living parents in the same
species. Speaking of *Rudolf Virchow, the Encyclopedia Britannica tells us:
"His aphorism ‘omnis
cellula e cellula’ [every cell arises from a preexisting cell] ranks with
Pasteur’s ‘omne vivum e vivo’ [every living thing arises from a preexisting
living thing] as among the most revolutionary generalizations of
biology."—*Encyclopedia Britannica, 1973 Edition, Vol. 23, p. 35.
" ‘Spontaneous
generation is a chimera [illusion].’—Louis Pasteur, French chemist and
microbiologist."—*Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations
(1988), p. 193.INSTANT SUCCESS NECESSARY—In order for life to arise from
non-life, there would have to be instant success. All the parts would suddenly
have to be there, and all would have to immediately function with essential
perfection.
In the next chapter (chapter
8), we will learn that, in order for life to occur, DNA and protein would have
to link up with ease into long, extremely complicated coded strings. In
addition, thousands of other complicated chemical combinations would have to be
accomplished within a few moments. How long could you live without a beating
heart? How long without blood? And on it goes, item after item. The situation
would be no different for the simplest of life-forms. Everything would have to
be in place, suddenly,—instantly. In structure, arrangement, coordination,
coding, chemical makeup, feeding, elimination, respiration, circulation, and
all the rest,—everything would have to be perfect—right at the start!
The formation of amino acids,
protein, DNA, enzymes, and all the rest needed to form the first living
creature had to occur within an extremely short amount of time! It would all
have had to occur within far less than a single generation or even half-hour.
It would have had to occur within a single moment! Otherwise the next moment
the organism would be dead. Millions of functions had to come together all at
once.IMMEDIATE REPRODUCTION NEEDED—Biologists are deeply concerned how that
first living cell could have originated; but *Montalenti goes a step beyond
that point and says "what really matters, to start life, is the faculty of
reproduction" (*G. Montalenti, Studies in the Philosophy of Biology, 1974,
p. 13). What good would one amoeba be, if it did not have all the needed DNA
coding and fision ability to divide, or the reproduction ability—and a mate—to
produce offspring?
3 - CHEMICAL COMPOUNDS
CHEMICAL COMPOUNDS AND
LABORATORIES—Complicated chemical compounds are prepared in well-equipped
laboratories, staffed by intelligent, highly skilled workers. They do not work
with the sand in the back lot, but with shipments of specialized chemicals
which arrive at their loading dock.
About all that most
evolutionists offer for the original primitive environment for the first amino
acids, proteins, etc., is dirt or seawater. Yet when scientists want to
synthesize amino acids, they go to a very well-equipped laboratory, with
instruments, gauges, apparatus, chemicals, and machines costing hundreds of
thousands of dollars. They use high-temperatures, special solutions, sparking
devices, and glass traps. They do not go down to the seashore and start
sloshing around in seawater in the hope of producing those amino acids.
Because they are
intelligent and highly trained, they know to do it in million-dollar
laboratories, fitted out with expensive equipment and lots of purified
chemicals. Yet, according to evolutionary theory, seawater somehow did it by
itself.CHEMICAL
COMPOUNDS AND THE LAW OF MASS ACTION— Evolutionists recognize that, if a
life-form suddenly appeared from nothing, it would probably have had to do it
in an ancient sea. It is generally felt that water would have had to be present.
But the Law of Mass Action
would immediately neutralize the procedure and ruin the outcome. This is
because chemical reactions always proceed in a direction from highest to lowest
concentration (assuming that the exact amount of energy is even present to
perform that reaction).
"It is therefore hard to
see how polymerization [linking together smaller molecules to form bigger ones]
could have proceeded in the aqueous environment of the primitive ocean, since
the presence of water favors depolymerization [breaking up big molecules into
simpler ones] rather than polymerization."—*Richard E. Dickerson,
"Chemical Evolution and the Origin of Life," Scientific American,
September 1978, p. 75.
We are told that amino acids
miraculously formed themselves out of seawater. But the seawater needed to make
the amino acids would prevent them from forming into protein, lipids, nucleic
acids and polysaccharides! Even if some protein could possibly form, the law of
mass action would immediately become operative upon it. The protein would
hydrolyze with the abundant water and return back into the original amino
acids! Those, in turn, would immediately break down into separate chemicals—and
that would be the end of it.
"Spontaneous dissolution
is much more probable, and hence proceeds much more rapidly, than spontaneous
synthesis . . [This fact is] the most stubborn problem that confronts
us."—*George Wald, "The Origin of Life," Scientific American,
August 1954, pp. 49-50.
The law of mass action would
constitute a hindrance to protein formation in the sea as well as to the
successful formation of other life-sustaining compounds, such as lipids,
nucleic acids, and polysaccharides. If any could possibly form in water, they
would not last long enough to do anything.
This law applies to
chemical reactions which are reversible,—and thus to all life compounds. Such reactions proceed from reactant
substances to compounds produced in the manner normally expected. But these
reactions tend to reverse themselves more easily and quickly (*"Review
of R. Shubert-Soldern’s Book, Mechanism and Vitalism," in Discovery, May
1962, p. 44).
Not just a few, but hundreds
of thousands of amino acids had to miraculously make themselves out of raw
seawater devoid of any life. But the amino acids would separate and break up
immediately and not remain in existence long enough to figure out how to form
themselves into the complex patterns of DNA and protein. The problem here is
that, as soon as the chemical reaction that made the amino acids occurred,
the excess water would have had to immediately be removed.
"Dehydration
[condensation] reactions are thermodynamically forbidden in the presence of
excess water."—*J. Keosian, The Origin of Life, p. 74.CHEMICAL
COMPOUNDS AND CONCENTRATION—We never find the concentrations of chemicals in
seawater that would be needed for amino acid synthesis. All the elements
are there, but not in the proper concentrations. Most of what is in seawater—is
just water! (*H.F. Blum, Time’s Arrow and Evolution (1968), p. 158).CHEMICAL
COMPOUNDS AND PRECIPITATES—Even if water loss could occur, enzyme inhibitors
would neutralize the results. The problem here is that a powerfully
concentrated combination of chemicalized "primitive water" would be
needed to produce the materials of life,—but those very chemicals would inhibit
and quickly destroy the chemical compounds and enzymes formed (David and
Kenneth Rodabaugh, Creation Research Society Quarterly, December 1990, p. 107).
Even if they could survive
the other problems, many organic products formed in the ocean would be removed
and rendered inactive as precipitates. For example, fatty acids would combine
with magnesium or calcium; and arginine (an amino acid), chlorophyll and
porphyrins would be absorbed by clays.
Many of the chemicals would
react with other chemicals, to form non-biologically useful products. Sugars
and amino acids, for example, are chemically incompatible when brought together.
The chemical compounds within
living creatures were meant to be inside them, and not outside. Outside, those
compounds are quickly destroyed, if they do not first quickly destroy one
another.CHEMICAL COMPOUNDS AND FLUID CONDENSATION—In addition to synthesis
problems, there are also condensation problems. Fats, sugars, and nucleic acids
can come from the proteins only by very careful removal of fluid, amid other
equally complicated activities conducted by the laboratory technicians. Without
water loss, proteins cannot form in water.CHEMICAL COMPOUNDS AND WATER—So most
of the chemicals needed by life could not arise in a watery environment, such
as seawater. In fact, the lab technicians do their work with fluids other
than water! They do not use seawater or even regular water, when they
prepare dead amino acids. (That which they synthesize is always dead; it never
has life in it.)
"Beneath the surface of
the water there would not be enough energy to activate further chemical reactions;
water in any case inhibits the growth of more complex molecules."—*Francis
Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe (1982), p. 65.CHEMICAL COMPOUNDS AND
ENERGY—And then there is the problem of an energy source. Scientists know that
there had to be some form of energy to work the chemical transformations.
They generally think it would have had to be a bolt of lightning, since there
were no wall outlets back in the beginning to plug electrical cords into.
But anything struck by lightning is not enlivened, but killed!
"[Arrhenius] contends
that if actual lightning struck rather than the fairly mild [electrical]
discharges used by Miller [in making the first synthetic amino acids], any
organics that happened to be present could not have survived."—*Report
in Science News,
"First of all, we saw
that the present atmosphere, with its ozone screen and highly oxidizing
conditions, is not a suitable guide for gas-phase simulation
experiments."— *A.L Oparm, Life: Its Nature, Origin and Development, p.
118.
Living plants and animals
only have certain proportions of the 92 elements within their bodies. These
elements are arranged in special chemical compounds. Chemists say they have
been reduced. When the chemicals found in living beings are left in the open
air, they decompose or, as the chemists say, they oxidize. (A
similar process occurs when iron is left in a bucket of water; it rusts.)
In the presence of oxygen,
these chemicals leave the reduced (or chemical combination) state and break
down to individual chemicals again.
"The synthesis of compounds
of biological interest takes place only under reducing conditions [that is,
with no free oxygen in the atmosphere]."—*
"With oxygen in the air,
the first amino acid would never have gotten started; without oxygen, it would
have been wiped out by cosmic rays."—*Francis Hitching, The Neck of the
Giraffe (1982), p. 65.CHEMICAL COMPOUNDS AND SUPPLY—There simply would
not be enough other chemicals available to accomplish the needed task.
Since most biochemicals
contain nitrogen, Gish, a biochemist, has discovered that there never has
been enough concentration of nitrogen, in air and water, for amino acids to
form by themselves. It does not occur naturally in rich enough
concentrations.
Similar studies have been
made on the availability of phosphorus by *Bernal. There would not have been
enough phosphorus available for the many chemical combinations needed.
Phosphorus is needed for DNA and other high-energy compounds. But phosphorus
concentrations are too low.
Even worse news: *Carl Sagan
found that adenosine triphosphate (high-energy phosphate) could not possibly
form under the prebiological conditions.CHEMICAL COMPOUNDS AND RICH MIXTURES—Extremely
rich mixture of chemicals would be required for the alleged formation of
the first living molecule, there ought to be places in the world where such
rich mixtures are found today, but they do not exist.
"If there ever was a
primitive soup, then we would expect to find at least somewhere on this planet
either massive sediments containing enormous amounts of the various nitrogenous
organic compounds, amino acids, purines, pyrimidines, and the like, or
alternatively in much metamorphosed sediments we should find vast amounts of
nitrogenous cokes . . In fact, no such materials have been found anywhere on
earth. There is, in other words, pretty good negative evidence that there never
was a primitive organic soup on this planet that could have lasted but a brief
moment."—*J. Brooks and *G. Shaw, Origins and Development of Living
Systems (1973), p. 360.
4 - PROTEIN AND OTHER
SUBSTANCES
PROTEIN SYNTHESIS—Protein is
a basic constituent of all life-forms. It is composed of amino acids. There are
20 essential amino acids, none of which can produce the others. How were these
made? How could they make themselves?
First, let us examine the
simplest of them: glycine. *
But what about the other
nineteen amino acids? Checking out the others, *
A research team, at
"In the vast majority of
processes in which we are interested, the point of equilibrium lies far over
toward the side of dissolution. That is to say, spontaneous dissolution
[automatic self-destruct process] is much more probable, and hence proceeds
much more rapidly, than spontaneous synthesis [accidental put-together process]
. . The situation we must face is that of patient Penelope waiting for
Odysseus, yet much worse: each night she undid the weaving of the proceeding
day, but here a night could readily undo the work of a year or a
century."— *G. Wald, "The Origin of Life," in The Physics and
Chemistry of Life (1955), p. 17.
In the world of
biochemistry, automatic dissolution is always easier than accidental
once-in-a-thousand-lifetimes putting-together. Regarding this massive obstacle
to the initial formation of life, *Wald says it is "the most stubborn
problem that confronts us" (ibid.).FATTY ACID SYNTHESIS—Scientists are
not able to even theorize how fatty acids could originally have come into
existence.
"No satisfactory
synthesis of fatty acids is at present available. The action of electric
discharges on methane and water gives fairly good yields of acetic and
propionic acids, but only small yields of the higher fatty acids. Furthermore,
the small quantities of higher fatty acids that are found are highly
branched."—*S. Miller, and *L. Orgel, The Origins of Life on the Earth
(1974), p. 98.OTHER SYNTHESES—There is more to a living organism than
merely chemical compounds, proteins, and fatty acids. There are also enzymes,
which scientists in laboratories do not know how to produce. Yet there are
thousands of complicated, very different enzymes in a typical animal!
There are also massive DNA
and other coding problems. Has any scientist ever synthesized even one new
animal code? No, he would have no idea how to accomplish the task successfully.
The emphasis here is on "successful." If he could interject a new
code, it would only damage the organism. Scientists are now able to slightly
adapt existing codes (genetic engineering); but they do not invent brand new
ones. The list of necessities goes on and on.WHAT ABOUT LIFE ITSELF?—But
what about life itself? One minute after it dies, an animal still has all its
chemicals, proteins, fatty acids, enzymes, codes, and all the rest. But it no
longer has life. Scientists cannot produce life; why then should they expect
rocks and seawater to have that ability?
5 - THE
PRIMITIVE ATMOSPHERE
ATMOSPHERE WITHOUT
OXYGEN—Could a non-oxygen atmosphere ever have existed on Planet Earth? It
surely seems like an impossibility, yet evolutionary theorists have decided
that the primitive environment had to have a "reducing atmosphere,"
that is, one without any oxygen. Now, the theorists do not really want such
a situation, but they know that it would be totally impossible for the chemical
compounds needed for life to be produced outside in the open air. If oxygen was
present, amino acids, etc., could not have been formed. So, in desperation,
they have decided that at some earlier time in earth’s history, there was no
oxygen! And then later it somehow got it!
"At that time, the
‘free’ production of organic matter by ultraviolet light was effectively turned
off and a premium was placed on alternative energy utilization mechanisms. This
was a major evolutionary crisis. I find it remarkable that any organism
survived it."—*Carl Sagan, The Origins, p. 253.
But there is a special reason
why they would prefer to avoid a reducing atmosphere: There is no evidence
anywhere in nature that our planet ever had a non-oxygen atmosphere! And
there is no theory that can explain how it could earlier have had a reducing
atmosphere,—which later transformed itself into an oxidizing one! As *Urey
himself admitted, a non-oxygen atmosphere is just an assumption—a flight of
imagination—in an effort to accommodate the theory (*Harold Urey, "On
the Early Chemical History of the Earth and the Origin of Life," in
Proceedings of the
*
A "reducing
atmosphere" could have had carbon dioxide, methane, hydrogen, ammonia, and
nitrogen. An oxidizing atmosphere, such as now exists, would have carbon
dioxide, water, nitrogen, and oxygen.
(1) A reducing
(non-oxygen) atmosphere never existed earlier on our planet; yet, without it,
biological chemicals could not form. (2) If a reducing atmosphere had existed,
so biological chemicals could form (and if they could somehow be injected with
life), they would immediately die from lack of oxygen!
Here are some of the
reasons against a reducing atmosphere:
(1) Oxidized iron. Early
rocks contain partly or totally oxidized iron (ferric oxide). That proves
that the atmosphere had oxygen back then.
(2) Water means oxygen.
A reducing atmosphere could not have oxygen. But there is oxygen—lots of
it—in water and in the atmosphere. According to *Brinkman, this fact alone
disproves the origins of life by evolution (*R.T. Brinkman,
"Dissociation of Water Vapor and Evolution of Oxygen in the Terrestrial
Atmosphere," Journal of Geophysical Research, 74, 1969, p. 5366). Are
the evolutionists daring to tell us that, anciently, our planet did not have
water?
(3) No Life without it.
How long would animals live without oxygen to breath? How long would plants
live without carbon dioxide? Without it, they could not make chlorophyll. When
plants take in carbon dioxide, they give out oxygen. But a reducing
atmosphere has neither oxygen nor carbon dioxide! Therefore no plants could
either live or be available for food.
(4) Deadly peroxides.
In addition, a reduction atmosphere would form, through the photolysis of
water, into peroxides, which are deadly to living creatures (*Abelson, "Some
Aspects of Paleobiochemistry, "in Annals of the New York Academy of
Science, 69, 1957, p. 275).
(5) No ozone layer. If
there were no oxygen in the atmosphere, there would be no ozone either.
Without the ozone layer, ultraviolet light would destroy whatever life was
formed.
(6) Ultraviolet light.
Ironically, it could do more damage in an atmosphere without oxygen. Just
as oxygen in the air would destroy the chemicals of life, ultraviolet light
beaming in through a sky unshielded by ozone would be deadly!
Recent studies of the ozone
layer have revealed that, without it, most living organisms now on our planet
would die within an hour, and many within a second or two!
(7) Not with or without. Evolutionists
are locked into a situation here that they cannot escape from. Spontaneous
generation could not occur with oxygen—or without it!
FORMULA FOR THE PRIMITIVE
ATMOSPHEREOur present atmosphere (the air which we breathe) is composed of
carbon dioxide (C02), nitrogen (N2), oxygen (02), and water (H20).
The generally postulated
primitive atmosphere would have had to have been composed of almost totally
different chemicals: methane (CH4), carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (C02),
ammonia (NH3), nitrogen (N2), hydrogen (H2), and water (H20).INSTANT
ATMOSPHERIC CHANGE—As you might imagine, all this bad news brought evolutionary
origins to something of a crisis, especially the problem about the atmosphere.
So the intransigent
evolutionists came up with the wild theory that at the very instant when life
was created on earth,—at that instant it just so happened that the entire world
changed its atmosphere! It dramatically shifted suddenly from reducing to
oxidizing!
But this possibility
collapsed when a *
However, the plants were not
there at that time, and whatever plants might have been there would all have
died soon after, since they themselves need oxygen for their own cellular
respiration.
In order to avoid the problem
of mass action degradation of amino acids formed in seawater, someone else
suggested that the amino acids were made in dry clays and rocks. But in that
environment either the oxygen or ultraviolet light would immediately destroy
those amino acids.UNUSUAL CHEMICALS—Men began to beat their brains against
the wall, trying to figure out a way for those amino acids to form by
themselves in the primitive environment.
*Sidney Fox suggested that
the amino acids were made on the edges of volcanoes, *Melvin Calvin decided
that dicyanimide (a compound not naturally occurring in nature) did the
job, and *Shramm declared that phosphorus pentoxide in a jar of ether did
it! Another research worker came up with an even more deadly solution: hydrogen
cyanide—as the environment in which all the amino acids made themselves.
But again tragedy struck: It
was discovered that the volcanic heat would ruin the amino acids as soon as
they were formed. Phosphorus pentoxide is a novel compound that could
not possibly be found in earth’s primitive atmosphere. The hydrogen cyanide
would require an atmosphere of ammonia, which geological evidence shows never
existed in our atmosphere. Dicyanimide would not work, because the
original mixture in which the first amino acids were made had to have a more
alkaline pH.
On and on it goes, one
conjecture after another; always searching for the magic mixture and fairyland
environment needed to make life out of nothing.
"Every time I write a
paper on the origin of life, I determine I will never write another one,
because there is too much speculation running after too few facts."—*Francis
Crick, Life Itself (1981), p. 153. [*Crick received a Nobel Prize for
discovering the structure of DNA.]6 - THE LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS
THE MILLER EXPERIMENT—It was
*
The laboratory apparatus he
used to accomplish this consisted of two confluently interconnected, chemical
flasks (or bottles), arranged one above the other. The lower flask was heated
and contained boiling water. The upper flask contained a mixture of gases
including ammonia, methane, hydrogen and water vapor. (The upper flask had the
presumed "primitive atmosphere," since it was known that if oxygen
were present, the experiment would be a failure.)
First, he boiled a mixture of
water, methane, ammonia, and hydrogen gases in the upper bottle, while a small
electric spark continually played over them all. (That was supposed to be
equivalent to a gigantic lightning ball in the primitive environment which
might strike the spot once every so many years, instantly destroying everything
it touched.) The lower bottle of water was kept boiling in order to keep the
mixture in the upper bottle stirred up and circulating. (The "primitive
ocean" must have been pretty hot!) There was a trap in the bottom of the
glass apparatus to catch any soluble organic products, so they would not be
broken down after formation by the spark. (Chemists knew that the Law of Mass
Action would almost immediately have destroyed the amino acids that were
formed, without a trap to catch them in quickly. The "primitive
ocean" must have had similar bottle traps in it.)
THE MILLER APPARATUS
MILLER’S LABORATORY
APPARATUS—This is how *
Here is *Miller’s
simulation of a "primitive environment":
A vacuum pump to continually
circulate the vapors; special tubing to seal off the outside world; special
distilled water inlets and outlets; an electric element producing 212o F. [100o
C.] water temperature; electrical contacts to make a continuous, very
low-amperage spark; and a trap arrangement to immediately siphon off
nitrogenous products before they were destroyed in the boiling water and
resultant vapors.Where in the world could you find such a "primitive
environment"?
After a week of this, the
fluid in the traps were chemically analyzed—and were found to have microscopic
traces of a few L and D (right- and left-handed) nitrogen-containing
compounds—"amino acids," they called them—which had been formed. (Of
course, if both L and D amino acids were formed by chemical action—as they
always are when formed outside of living cells—it would be impossible for the
amino acid which formed to be usable for life purposes.)
Newspapers around the world
heralded the news: "Life has been created!" But no life had
been created, just a few biochemical compounds. Remember that neither
nitrogen compounds nor amino acids are, of themselves, living things. Just
because they are in living things, does not make them living things.
In summary then, *
" ‘This is the primitive
atmosphere,’ said
What does that complicated
lab experiment have to say about the possibility of nature doing it by
accident—without the help of man? Outdoors, it could not be done without his
help, or with it.
"What we ask is to
synthesize organic molecules without such a machine. I believe this to be the
most stubborn problem that confronts us—the weakest link at present in our
argument."—*G. Wald, "The Origin of Life," in the Physics and
Chemistry of Life (1955), p. 9.
The test tube attempts to
"create life" have only resulted in dismal failure.
"In 1953, at the
University of Chicago, Stanley L. Miller and Harold C. Urey mixed ammonia,
water vapor, hydrogen and methane to simulate Earth’s early atmosphere, then
crackled lightning-like electrical sparks through it .
"Unfortunately, as
Margolis admits, ‘no cell has yet crawled out of a test tube,’ and thousands of
similar experiments have produced goopy organic tars, but no recognizable life.
Decades of persistent failure to ‘create life’ by the ‘spark in the soup’
method (or to find such productions in nature) have caused some researchers to
seek other approaches to the great enigma. [Panspermia theories—bacteria flying
in from outer space—are then discussed.]"—*Richard Milner, Encyclopedia
of Evolution (1990), p. 274.NOT LEFT-HANDED AMINO ACIDS—All types of
proteins in the animals are left-handed (L-aminos). None are ever
right-handed (D-aminos). Yet all amino acids synthesized in
laboratories consist of an equal amount of left- and right-handed amino acids (a
racemic mixture). It would require days of work in the laboratory to
separate just a few L from D forms. Researchers cannot figure out how to
produce only the L form. Yet no animals or man could live if they had any of
the D form in them. This is a major problem to the evolutionists. More on
this in the next chapter.NOT THE ESSENTIAL AMINO ACIDS—Out of the hundreds of
possible combinations, there are 20 essential amino acids, yet laboratory
synthesis of amino acids produces only a few of the 20 essential amino
acids—plus a lot of non-essential or even useless ones.THE OPARIN
EXPERIMENT—Prior to *Miller, *A.I. Oparin, a Russian chemist, tried to produce
living cells from coacervates, which are like fat droplets in a bowl of soup.
He carefully kept all oxygen away from the soup and the bowl, and he hoped
that, given enough time, they would join together and, somehow, life would
enter into them! But the outer film kept breaking apart, and no life entered
into them. *Oparin was disappointed. No reputable chemist today considers
Oparin’s theory to be of any value.THE FOX EXPERIMENTS—After Miller’s
experiment, *Sydney Fox in 1960 worked out a different arrangement, but he
began his with left-handed amino acids already formed. He took them from a dead
animal! He claims that his method is how it was done in the primitive
environment. This should have been good news for the evolutionary world; but, when
we learn his complicated procedure, we can understand why few scientists have
any faith in the possibility that the Fox procedure was done by chance in the
ocean, near a volcano, or in a mud puddle.
Here is how nature,
armed with time and chance, is supposed to have produced that first dead amino
acid:
"Typical
panpolymenzation: Ten grams of L. glutamic acid (a left-handed amino acid] was
heated at l75o-l80o C. [347°-356° F.) until molten (about 30 minutes), after which
period it had been largely converted to lactum. At this time, 10 g. [.352 ay.
oz.] of DL-aspartic acid and 5 g. [.176 ay. oz.] of the mixture of the sixteen
basic and neutral (BN) amino acids were added. The solution was then maintained
at 170° + or -2° under an atmosphere of nitrogen for varying periods of time.
Within a period of a few hours considerable gas had been evolved, and the color
of the liquid changed to amber. The vitreous mixture was rubbed vigorously with
75 ml. [4.575 Cu. in.] of water, which converted it to a yellow-brown granular
precipitate. After overnight standing, the solid was separated by filtration.
This was washed with 50 ml. [3.05 cu. in.] of ethanol, and as substance S
dialytically washed in moving Multidialyzers in water for 4 days, the water
being changed thrice daily. (The term dialytic washing indicates dialytic
treatment of a suspension.) In some preparations, the solid was dissolved
completely in sodium bicarbonate solution and then dialyzed. The dialysis sacs
were made of cellulose tubing, 27/32 in., to contain 50 ml. [3.05 cu. in.]. The
nondiffusible material was ninhydrin-negative before the fourth day. The
non-aqueous contents of the dialysis sac were mainly solid A and a soluble
fraction B recovered as solid by concentration in a vacuum dissicator. The
mother liquor of S was also dialyzed for 4 days, and then dried to give
additional solid C."—*S.W. Fox and *K Harada, Journal of the American
Chemical Society, 82(1960), p. 3745.
We commend *Sydney Fox and
his associates for their remarkable intelligence and excellent lab equipment,
days of exhausting work, and the university scientists who trained them to
perform such experiments. But we can make no such commendation of sand, gravel,
and seawater, which is supposed to have done the same thing by itself.
Fox began with a quantity of
left-only (no right) amino acids and made sure no oxygen, sugars, etc. were
present, since they would doom the experiment. Then he underwent a lot of
tedious work that requires a high degree of intelligence, careful planning, and
many adjustments with pH, temperature, cooking time, etc., as he proceeded with
a staff of assistants to help him succeed:
Fox is modest about his
abilities, for he says that random events, in a broad sea or on the slopes of a
volcano, could have done it just as easily. But HE began with pure, left-handed
amino acids, which are available nowhere outside of living things; he did not
begin with pebbles, mud, and water.
Fox then heated the amino
acids for 10 hours at 150°-180° C [302°-356°] for several hours. Pretty hot way
to make amino acids!
Where would you find such
conditions in nature? *
"Such experiments are no
more than exercises in organic chemistry."—*P. Mora, "The Folly Of
Probability," in Origins of Prebiological Systems and their Molecular
Matrices, Ed. *S. W. Fox (1965), p. 41.
Three key ingredients are (1)
proper chemicals in exacting amounts, (2) a continuous energy source (such as a
continuous spark), and (3) quick-dry apparatus. As soon as the amino acids
are made, they must immediately be dried out. (Living tissue never contains
dried out amino acids or comes from it.) Fox tells us the reaction must be
"hot and dry" (op. cit., p. 378).
"To keep a reaction
going according to the law of mass action, there must be a continuous supply of
energy and of selected matter (molecules) and a continuous process of
elimination of the reaction products."—Op. cit., p. 43.
And there is a fourth key
ingredient: Whether done in nature, or by researchers in a high-tech
laboratory, these life substances are always the result of careful organization
with specific purposes by a high-level intelligence. No one tosses the
chemicals into a pan in the laboratory, walks off, hoping it will produce amino
acids all by itself.
A living organism is not
just dried out ocean soup. It is highly integrated, complex, and purposive. —It
has life, which no man can produce. And that living creature had to have all
its parts on Day One of its existence. And it had to have a mate and be able to
reproduce offspring.
Not even *
"
Reputable scientists tell
us that life could neither originate nor continue without intelligence being
involved.
"Any living thing
possesses an enormous amount of ‘intelligence’ . . Today, this ‘intelligence’
is called ‘information,’ but it is still the same thing . . This ‘intelligence’
is the sine qua non of life. If absent, no living being is imaginable. Where
does it come from? This is a problem which concerns both biologists and
philosophers, and, at present, science seems incapable of solving it."—*Pierre-Paul
Grasse, Evolution of Living Organisms (1977), p. 3.
A Nobel Prize laureate wrote
this:
"An honest man, armed
with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some
sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle."—*Francis
Crick, Life Itself, Its Origin and Nature (1981), p. 88 [co-discoverer of the
DNA molecule].
Even *Sydney Fox, the
researcher who went through so much scientific rigmarole to make amino acids
out of amino acids, admits it:
"The present laws of
physics . . are insufficient to describe the origin of life. To him this opens
the way to teleology, even, by implication, to creation by an intelligent agent
. . If he thinks he has shown conclusively that life cannot have originated by
chance, only two rational alternatives remain. The first is that it did not
arise at all and that all we are studying is an illusion."—*S.W. Fox,
The Origins of Prebiological Systems and Their Molecular Matrices (1965), pp.
35-55.
Another Nobel Prize laureate
and, like the others, a confirmed evolutionist made this comment:
"All of us who study the
origin of life find that the more we look into it, the more we feel it is too
complex to have evolved anywhere. We all believe as an article of faith that
life evolved from dead matter on this planet. It is just that its complexity is
so great, it is hard for us to imagine that it did."—*Harold C. Urey,
quoted in Christian Science Monitor,
NOTHING + TIME + CHANCE =
"SIMPLE" CELL
ONE CELL + TIME + CHANCE = MAN
Is this modern science or is
it a fairy tale? It is an astounding thought that all modern biological,
genetic, and geological science is keyed to such a mythical formulation.
One evolutionist explains in
philosophical rhetoric how it all happened:
"Randomness caught on
the wing, preserved, reproduced . . and thus converted into order, rule,
necessity. A totally blind process can by definition lead to anything; it can
even lead to vision itself."—*Bur, quoted in *Jacques Monod, Chance and
Necessity (1972), p. 98.
That is neither true nor
scientific. If randomness can produce such living wonders as are all
about us, then highly intelligent scientists, working in well-equipped
laboratories, ought to be able to produce eyes, ears, and entirely new species
in a few months’ time.
The Great Evolutionary
Myth is that randomness plus time can do anything; the Truth is that
randomness, with or without time, can accomplish almost nothing. And those
changes which it does accomplish will quickly be blotted out by the next random
action or two,—that
is, if they are constructive changes. If they are erosional, they will remain
much longer.
Throughout inorganic nature
we see randomness producing decay and inertness; we do not find it building
houses and, then, installing the plumbing in them.
"All the facile
speculations and discussions published during the last ten to fifteen years
explaining the mode of origin of life have been shown to be far too
simple-minded and to bear very little weight. The problem in fact seems as far
from solution as it ever was."—*Francis Hitching, The Neck of the
Giraffe (1982), p. 68.THE EVOLUTIONARY ORIGIN OF LIFE IN A NUTSHELL—The
origin of life by random means is an impossibility. Only evolutionists and the
authors of children’s fairy tales say otherwise.
The following evolutionary
five-step theoretical program of events consists of little more than armchair
guessing combined with
"Evolution Model for the
Origin of Life on the Earth:
"According to the
evolution model, the story of life on the earth began some five billion years
ago and gradually unfolded through a series of five stages:
"Stage 1. Evolutionists have imagined that the
atmosphere of the early earth was quite different from the present atmosphere.
In contrast to the present oxidizing atmosphere, which contains 21 percent free
oxygen (02), 78 percent nitrogen (N2), and 1 percent of other gases, supposedly
the early earth was surrounded by a reducing atmosphere made up mostly of
methane (CHi), ammonia (NH3), hydrogen (H3), and water vapor (H20).
"Stage 2. Because of ultraviolet light, electric
discharge, and high-energy particle bombardment of molecules in a reducing
atmosphere, stage 2 came about with the formation of small organic molecules
such as sugars, amino acids, and nucleotides.
"Stage 3.
Presuming all of this happened billions of years ago in a reducing atmosphere,
then stage 3 is imagined during which combinations of various small stage 2
molecules resulted in formation of large polymers such as starches, proteins,
and nucleic acids (DNA).
"Stage 4. These large molecules supposedly joined
together into a gel-like glob called coacervates or microspheres. Possibly
these coacervates attracted smaller molecules so that new structures, called
proto-cells, might have formed.
"Stage 5. Evolutionists believe that finally, at
least one of these globs absorbed the right molecules so that complex molecules
could be duplicated within new units called living cells. These first cells
consumed molecules left over from earlier states, but eventually photosynthesis
appeared in cells, in some way, and oxygen was released into the atmosphere. As
the percentage of oxygen in the early atmosphere increased, most of the known
forms of life on the earth today began to appear. Because of the presence of
oxygen, these early life-forms destroyed all the molecules from earlier stages,
and no more chemical evolution was possible."—John N. Moore,
"Teaching about Origin Questions: Origin of Life on Earth," in
Creation Research Society Quarterly, June 1985, page 21.APPLYING MATHEMATICS TO
IT—*Sir Fred Hoyle, the famous British mathematician and astronomer, teamed up
with *Chandra Wickramasinghe in an analysis of the origin of life and the
possibility that it could possibly have begun by chance.
*Hoyle is an evolutionist,
and *Wickramasinghe a Buddhist. They mathematically determined that the
likelihood that a single cell could originate in a primitive environment, given
4.6 billion years in which to do it,—was one chance in 1040000!
That is one chance in 1 with 40 thousand zeros after it! (*Fred Hoyle
and *Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space, 1981, p. 28).
Everything would suddenly
have to be there all at once. It would all have to work perfectly, and it would
have to split and divide into new cells immediately, and reproduce offspring
quickly. And, of course, it would have to be alive!
Living forms are too
awesome to relegate to the tender mercies of time and chance. It took special
design, special thinking, special power to make living beings.
And that brings us to our
next chapter: the incredible wonders of DNA and the impossibility of it
accidentally making itself out of chance, gravel, mud, and water.SEARCH FOR
LIFE IN OUTER SPACE— Evolutionists are rabid about proving their theory. For
over 30 years, working through the National Science Foundation and other
agencies, they have gotten the U.S. Government to spend vast amounts of money
on attempts to achieve their goal. They are searching for life-forms on other
planets.
First, we will tell you of
the multimillion-dollar projects. Then we will give you the warning:
"Bioastronomy"
and "exobiology" are the studies of life in outer space. These
are the only fields of "science" without evidence or subject matter.
Researchers in these fields are trying to detect signals from outer space that
would imply an intelligent source. Here is a brief listing of 15 of the
projects funded by the United States. The search for life was not always the
sole objective of each of these projects:Ozma 1—1960 - $1 million - A Green
Bank radio telescope probe of two nearby stars (Epsilon Eridoni and Tau Ceti)
for signals indicating intelligent life. Result: No signals
detected.Apollo—1969-1972 - $30 billion - Exploration of the moon, in the hope
of finding evidences of life. Result: No life detected.Pioneer 10—1972 - Cost
not available - This interspace probe was sent out beyond our solar system in
the hope that intelligent beings would find it and contact us. A plaque is
inside it. Result: No life/signals detected.Ozma 11—1973 - Cost not available -
500 of the closest stars have been monitored for intelligent radio signals.
Result: No signals detected. Arecibo—1974 - Cost not available - This, the
largest radio telescope on earth, was constructed for the purpose of continuously
monitoring nearby stars for signals. Result: No signals detected. National
Radio Astronomy Observatory—1974 - Cost not available - The NRAO scanned 10
nearby stars for intelligent signals. Result: No signals detected.Two Viking
landers—1977 - $1 billion - These two landers were sent out in the hope of
finding evidences of life on the planet Mars. Result: No life detected. Voyager
1 and 2—1977 - Voyager 1 and 2—1977 - Cost not available -Pioneer Venus—1977 -
$230 million - Probes sent to planet Venus to measure atmospheric conditions
and the possibility of life on its surface. Result: No life detected.Very Large
Array—1980 - $78 billion - 27 radio antennas constructed in New Mexico. They
are probing for evidence of organic molecules in interstellar gas. Result: No
life detected.Mariner—1980 - Cost not available - This probe was specifically
designed to analyze Saturn’s largest moon for signs of life. Result: No
life/signals detected.Hubble Space Telescope—1990 - $1.5 billion - This newly
launched orbiting telescope will be searching for planets circling other
planets. Result: No life/signals detected yet.Cyclops—1990s - $20 billion - A
large array of radio telescopes, each 100 meters [109 yds.] in diameter.
Result: Not constructed yet. "Such an array would detect radio beams of
the kind Earth, is inadvertently leaking at a distance of a hundred
light-years, and should detect a deliberately aimed radio wave beacon from
another civilization at a distance of a thousand light-years."—*Asimov’s
New Guide to Science (1984), pp. 648-649.A WARNING FROM ROSS—Hugh Ross, an
astrophysicist at Caltech, did some checking and, about the year 1989, came up
with an intriguing observation. Immense pressure has been placed on the U.S.
Government and NASA to fund, at enormous expense, a manned voyage to Mars. Ross
has discovered a primary reason for this seemingly senseless waste of money.
As you may know, winds carry
small living creatures, such as microbes and spiders, to high atmospheric
levels. Ross says that solar winds are able to waft particles of formerly
living substances out of our high-level atmosphere—and blow them away from the
sun, outward into space. Ross declares that some of the particles, caught in
Mar’s gravitational field, could well have landed on the surface of Mars.
He believes that
evolutionists are well-aware of this possibility, and that they want to send
that manned flight to Mars to recover those particles. The main objective of
the mission would be to find dead life-forms on the surface of Mars, and then
use that as "evidence" that life once must have independently evolved
on Mars! It is felt that this would provide a powerful boost to the
evolutionary cause.
We have here another example
of evolutionary deceit at work, and such a "discovery" may be made
within the next decade or two.
EVOLUTION COULD NOT DO THIS
Scientists estimate that over
400 million-million horsepower of solar energy reaches the earth every day. Photosynthesis
is the process by which sunlight is transformed into carbohydrates (the
basis of all the food on our planet). This takes place in the chloroplasts.
Each one is lense-shaped, something like an almost flat cone with the rounded
part on the upper side. Sunlight enters from above. Inside the chloroplast are
tiny cylinders, called lamelliae, that look something like the small
circular batteries used in small electrical devices.
Each cylinder is actually a
stack of several disk-shaped thylakolds. Each thylakold is the shape of
a coin. Several of these are stacked on top of each other, and this makes a
single stack, or lamelium. A small narrow band connects each stack to
another stack. They look like they are all wired like a bunch of batteries.
Sunlight is processed by chlorophyll in those stacks, and is then stored (!)
there as chemical energy in the form of sugar molecules.
Chlorophyll, itself, is very
complicated and never exists outside of the plant, just as DNA and ten
thousands of other chemical structures never exist outside plants and/or
animals. If they are not found outside, how did they ever get inside? In many
plants, the tiny discs containing chlorophyll move about within plant cells and
adjust for different light and heat conditions. When the sunlight is too
strong, the little disks turn edgewise. On an overcast day, they lie as
parallel to the sky as they can in order to take in the most light. They have
brains?
STUDY AND REVIEW QUESTIONS
PRIMITIVE ENVIRONMENT-LIFE
1 - List 3 reasons why water
could not change itself into an animal.
2 - Discuss with your class
the reasons why evolutionists are desperately trying to figure out a way that
water could change itself into an animal.
3 - List at least 10 body
organs or functions that would need to instantly be present and fully
operating, in order for a living creature to not die within 3 minutes.
4 - Scientists generally
agree that spontaneous generation of living creatures from non-living materials
cannot happen. Is there any way, other than by spontaneous generation, that
non-living materials could make themselves into a living organism?
5 - Evolutionists only offer
lightning as a possible energy source for the formation of the first living
creature. Why would lightning not be able to accomplish the needed task? Where
would that first living creature afterward be able to find food to give it
nourishment and provide it with an ongoing energy source?
6 - List six reasons why the
oxygen problem (oxygen in water or oxygen in the atmosphere) would eliminate
the possibility of a life-form coming into existence from non-living materials.
7 - Could the oxygen
problem—alone—be enough to doom to failure the chance formation of life?
8 - Declaring that "life
had been created!" the Miller experiment was said to have provided
important evidence about the possibility of [non-living] proteins initially
forming themselves from non-living materials. What did the Miller experiment
actually reveal?
9 - The facts about left- and
right-handed amino acids provide important evidence regarding the possibility
of non-living materials making themselves randomly into protein. Explain why
left-handed amino acids are a great wall forbidding the chance formation of
living protein.
10 - List several reasons why
the Miller experiment could not be duplicated by raw materials out in nature.
DNA AND PROTEIN
Why DNA and
protein could not be produced by random chanceThis chapter is based on pp. 265-313 of
Origin of the Life (Volume Two of our three-volume Evolution Disproved Series).
Not included in this chapter are at least 110 statements by scientists. You
will find them, plus much more, in the 3 Volume Encyclopedia on this site.
One of the most important
discoveries of the twentieth century was the discovery of the DNA molecule. It
has had a powerful effect on biological research. It has also brought quandary
and confusion to evolutionary scientists. If they cared to admit the full
implications of DNA, it would also bring total destruction to their theory.
This chapter goes hand in
hand with the previous one. In the chapter on Primitive Environment, we learned
that earthly surroundings—now or earlier—could never permit the formation of
living creatures from non-living materials. This present chapter will primarily
discuss the DNA code, the components of protein— and will show that each are so
utterly complicated as to defy any possibility that they could have been
produced by chance events.
Yet random actions are the
only kind of occurrences which evolutionists tell us have ever been used to
accomplish the work of evolution.
The significance of all this
is immense. Because of the barrier of the multi-billion DNA code, not only
was it impossible for life to form by accident, —it could never thereafter
evolve into new and different species! Each successive speciation change would
require a totally new and different—but highly exacting code to be in place on
its very first day of its existence as a unique new species.
As with a number of other
chapters in this book, this one chapter alone is enough to completely
annihilate evolutionary theory in regard to the origin or evolution of life.
1 - DNA AND ITS CODE
GREGOR MENDEL—(*#1/7 Gregor
Mendel’s Monumental Discovery*) It was Mendel’s monumental work with genetics
in the mid-19th century that laid the foundation for all modern research work
in genetics. The complete story will be found on our website.
YOUR BODY’S BLUEPRINT—(*#2
The Story of DNA*) Each of us starts off as a tiny sphere no larger than a dot
on this page. Within that microscopic ball there is over six feet of DNA
(deoxyribonucleic acid), all coiled up. Inside that DNA is the entire code for
what you will become,—all your organs and all your features.
The DNA itself is strung out
within long coiling strips. DNA is the carrier of the inheritance code in
living things. It is like a microscopic computer with a built-in memory. DNA
stores a fantastic number of "blueprints," and at the right time and
place issues orders for distant parts of the body to build its cells and
structures.
You have heard of "genes"
and "chromosomes." Inside each cell in your body is a nucleus. Inside
that nucleus are, among other complicated things, chromosomes. Inside the
chromosomes are genes. The genes are attached to chromosomes like beads on a
chain. Inside the genes is the complicated chemical structure we call DNA. Each
gene has a thousand or more such DNA units within it. Inside each cell are tens
of thousands of such genes, grouped into 23 pairs of chromosomes.
Inside the DNA is the total
of all the genetic possibilities for a given species. This is called the gene
pool of genetic traits. It is also called the genome. That is all the traits
your species can have; in contrast, the specific sub-code for YOU is the
genotype, which is the code for all the possible inherited features you could
have. The genotype is the individual’s code; the genome applies to populations;
the entire species.
(For clarification, it should
be mentioned here that the genotype includes all the features you could
possibly have in your body, but what you will actually have is called the
phenotype. This is because there are many unexpressed or recessive characters
in the genotype that do not show up in the phenotype. For example, you may have
had both blue and brown eye color in your genotype from your ancestors, but
your irises will normally only show one color.)
COILED STRIPS. Your own DNA
is scattered all through your body in about 100 thousand billion specks, which
is the average number of living cells in a human adult. What does this DNA look
like? It has the appearance of two intertwined strips of vertical tape that are
loosely coiled about each other. From bottom to top, horizontal rungs or stairs
reach across from one tape strip to the other. Altogether, each DNA molecule is
something like a spiral staircase.
The spiraling sides in the
DNA ladder are made of complicated sugar and phosphate compounds, and the
crosspieces are nitrogen compounds. It is the arrangement of the chemical
sequence in the DNA that contains the needed information.
The code within each DNA
cell is complicated in the extreme! If you were to put all the coded DNA
instructions from just ONE single human cell into English, it would fill many
large volumes, each volume the size of an unabridged dictionary!
DOUBLE-STRANDED HELIX—Deoxyribonucleic
acid (DNA) is a double-stranded helix found within the chromosomes, which are
located inside the nuclei of every living cell. The molecule consists of just
four nucleotide units, one containing adenine, one guanine, one cytosine, and one
either thymine (in DNA) or uracil (in RNA). The sides of the helix consist of
alternating deoxyribose sugars and phosphates.
The illustration shows the
strange shape of DNA. It has that shape because it must fit inside the
chromosome. It does this by squashing an immense length into the tiny
chromosome. It could not do this if it did not have a twisted shape. The
four illustrations show progressively smaller views of a DNA molecule and what
is in it.
DIVIDING DNA—DNA has a
very special way of dividing and combining. The ladder literally
"unhooks" and "rehooks." When cells divide, the DNA
ladder splits down the middle. There are then two single vertical strands, each
with half of the rungs. Both now duplicate themselves instantly—and there are
now two complete ladders, where a moment before there was but one! Each new
strip has exactly the same sequence that the original strip of DNA had.
This process of division
can occur at the amazing rate of 1000 base pairs per second! If DNA did not divide this quickly, it
could take 10,000 years for you to grow from that first cell to a newborn
infant.
Human cells can divide more
than 50 times before dying. When they do die, they are immediately replaced.
Every minute 3 billion cells die in your body and are immediately replaced.
THE BASE CODE— The human body
has about 100 trillion cells. In the nucleus of each cell are 46 chromosomes.
In the chromosomes of each cell are about 10 billion of those DNA ladders.
Scientists call each spiral ladder a DNA molecule; they also call them base
pairs. It is the sequence of chemicals within these base pairs that provides
the instructional code for your body. That instructional code oversees all your
heredity and many of your metabolic processes.
Without your DNA, you could
not live. Without its own DNA, nothing else on earth could live. Within each
DNA base pair is a most fantastic information file. A-T-C-T-G-G-G-T-C-T-A-AT-A,
and on and on, is the code for one creature. T-G-C-T-C-A-A-G-A-G-T-G-C-C, and
on and on, will begin the code for another. Each code continues on for millions
of "letter" units. Each unit is made of a special chemical.
The DNA molecule is shaped
like a coiled ladder, which the scientists describe as being in the shape of a
"double-stranded helix." Using data from a woman researcher (which
they did not acknowledge), *Watson and *Crick "discovered" the
structure of DNA.
UTTER COMPLEXITY—In order
to form a protein, the DNA molecule has to direct the placement of amino acids
in a certain specific order in a molecule made up of hundreds of thousands of
units. For each position, it must choose the correct amino acid from some
twenty different amino acids. DNA itself is made up of only four different building
blocks (A, G, C, and T). These are arranged in basic code units of three
factors per unit (A-C-C, G-T-A, etc.). This provides 64 basic code units. With
them, millions of separate codes can be sequentially constructed. Each code
determines one of the many millions of factors in your body, organs, brain, and
all their functions. If just one code were omitted, you would be in serious
trouble.
AN ASTOUNDING CLAIM—The
evolutionists applied their theory to the amazing discoveries about DNA—and
came up with a totally astonishing claim:
All the complicated DNA in
each life-form, and all the DNA in every other life-form—made itself out of
dirty water back in the beginning! There was some gravel around, along with
some dirt. Nearby was some water, and overhead a lightning storm. The
lightning hit the dirty water and made living creatures complete with DNA. They
not only had their complete genetic code, but they were also immediately able
to eat, digest food, move about, perform enzymatic and glandular functions, and
all the rest.
Instantly, they
automatically knew how to produce additional cells, and their DNA began
dividing (cells
must continually replenish themselves or the creature quickly dies), their
cells began making new ones, and every new cell could immediately do the myriad
of functions that the first creature, an amoeba, can and must do.
That same stroke of
lightning made both a male and a female pair and their complete digestive,
respiratory, and circulatory organs. It provided them with complete ability to
produce offspring and they in turn more offspring. That same stroke of
lightning also made their food, with all its own DNA, male and female pairs,
etc., etc.
And that, according to this
children’s story, is where we all came from! But it is a story that only very
little children would find believable.
"Laboratory experiments
show that the basic building blocks of life, the proteins and organic
molecules, form pretty easily in environments that have both carbon and
water."—*Star Date Radio Broadcast,
In this chapter we will not
consider most of the above points. Instead we will primarily focus on the DNA
and protein in each cell within each living creature.
TRANSLATION PACKAGE NEEDED AT
BEGINNING—The amount of information in the genetic code is so vast that it
would be impossible to put together by chance. But, in addition, there must be
a means of translating it so the tissues can use the code.
"Did the code and the
means of translating it appear simultaneously in evolution? It seems almost
incredible that any such coincidences could have occurred, given the
extraordinary complexities of both sides and the requirement that they be
coordinated accurately for survival. By a pre-Darwinian (or a skeptic of
evolution after Darwin) this puzzle surely would have been interpreted as the
most powerful sort of evidence for special creation."—*C. Haskins,
"Advances and Challenges in Science" in American Scientist 59 (1971),
pp. 298.
Not only did the DNA have
to originate itself by random accident, but the translation machinery already
had to be produced by accident—and also immediately! Without it, the information in the DNA
could not be applied to the tissues. Instant death would be the result.
"The code is meaningless
unless translated. The modern cell’s translation machinery consists of at least
fifty macromolecular components which are themselves encoded in DNA [!]; the
code cannot be translated otherwise than by products of translation. It is the
modern expression of omne vivum ex ovo [‘every living thing comes from an
egg’]. When and how did this circle become closed? It is exceedingly difficult
to imagine."—*J, Monod, Chance and Necessity (1971), p. 143.
This translation package has
also been termed an "adapter function." Without a
translator, the highly complex coding contained within the DNA molecule would
be useless to the organism.
"The information content
of amino acid sequences cannot increase until a genetic code with an adapter
function has appeared. Nothing which even vaguely resembles a code exists in
the physio-chemical world. One must conclude that no valid scientific
explanation of the origin of life exists at present."—*H. Yockey,
"Self Organization Origin of Life Scenarios and Information Theory,"
in Journal of Theoretical Biology 91 (1981), p. 13.
"Cells and organisms are
also informed [intelligently designed and operated] life-support systems. The
basic component of any informed system is its plan. Here, argues the
creationist, an impenetrable circle excludes the evolutionist. Any attempt to
form a model or theory of the evolution of the genetic code is futile because
that code is without function unless, and until, it is translated, i.e., unless
it leads to the synthesis of proteins. But the machinery by which the cell
translates the code consists of about seventy components which are themselves
the product of the code."—*Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution (1984),
p. 147 [emphasis his].
DESIGNING CODES—*Sir Arthur
Keith, a prominent anatomist of the 1930s (and co-producer of the Piltdown man
hoax), said: "We do not believe in the theory of special creation because
it is incredible." But life itself and all its functions and designs
are incredible. And each true species has its own unique designs. A single
living cell may contain one hundred thousand million atoms, but each atom will
be arranged in a specific order.
Yet all this is based on
design, and design requires intelligence—in this case an extremely high order
of intelligence.
Man’s most advanced thinking and planning has produced airplanes, rockets,
personal computers, and flight paths around the moon. But none of this was done
by accident. Careful thought and structuring was required. Design blueprints
were carefully crafted into products.
The biological world is
packed with intricate, cooperative mechanisms that depend on encoded and
detailed instructions for their development and interacting function. But
complexity, and the coding it is based on, does not evolve. Left to themselves,
all things become more random and disorganized. The more complex the system,
the more elaborate the design needed to keep it operating and resisting the
ever-pressing tendency to decay and deterioration.
DNA and other substances like
it are virtually unknown outside living cells. Astoundingly, they both produce
cells and are products of cells; yet they are not found outside of cells. DNA
is exclusively a product of the cell; we cannot manufacture it. The closest we
can come to this is to synthesize simple, short chains of mononucleotide
RNA—and that is as far as we can go, in spite of all our boasted intelligence
and million-dollar well-supplied, well-equipped laboratories.
MESSENGER RNA—Special
"messenger RNA" molecules are needed. Without them, DNA is useless in
the body. Consider the story of s-RNA:
"The code in the gene
(which is DNA, of course) is used to construct a messenger RNA molecule in
which is encoded the message necessary to determine the specific amino acid
sequence of the protein.
"The cell must synthesize
the sub-units (nucleotides) for the RNA (after first synthesizing the sub-units
for each nucleotide, which include the individual bases and the ribose). The
cell must synthesize the sub-units, or amino acids, which are eventually
polymerized to form the protein. Each amino acid must be activated by an enzyme
specific for that amino acid. Each amino acid is then combined with another
type of RNA, known as soluble RNA or s-RNA.
"There is a specific
s-RNA for each individual amino acid. There is yet another type of RNA known as
ribosomal RNA. Under the influence of the messenger RNA, the ribosomes are
assembled into units known as polyribosomes. Under the direction of the message
contained in the messenger RNA while it is in contact with polyribosomes, the
amino acid-s-RNA complexes are used to form a protein. Other enzymes and key
molecules are required for this.
"During all of this, the
complex energy-producing apparatus of the cell is used to furnish the energy
required for the many syntheses."—Duane T. Gish, "DNA: Its History
and Potential, "in W.E. Lemmerts (ed.), Scientific Studies in Special
Creation (1971), p. 312.
THE LIVING COMPUTER—DNA
and its related agencies operate dramatically like an advanced computer.
"All this is strikingly
similar to the situation in the living cell. For discs or tapes substitute DNA;
for ‘words’ substitute genes; and for ‘bits’ (a bit is an electronic
representation of ‘yes’ or ‘no’) substitute the bases adenine, thymine, guanine
and cytosine."—*Fred Hoyle and *C. Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space
(1981), p. 106.
Everywhere we turn in the
cell we find the most highly technical computerization. Electrical polarity
is a key in the DNA. This is positive and negative electrical impulses,
found both in the DNA and about the cell membrane, cytoplasm, and nucleus. The
result is a binary system, similar to what we find in the most advanced
computers in the world, but far more sophisticated and miniaturized. In
computer science, a "byte" is composed of eight bits and can hold 256
different binary patterns, enough to equal most letters or symbols. A byte
therefore stands for a letter or character. In biology the equivalent is three
nucleotides called a codon. The biological code (within DNA) is based on
these triplet patterns, as *Crick and *Brenner first discovered. This triad is
used to decide which amino acid will be used for what purpose.
THE BIOLOGICAL COMPILER—The
code in both plants and animals is DNA, but DNA is chemically different than
the amino acids, which it gives orders to make. This code also decides
which of the 20 proteins the amino acids will then form themselves into. There
is an intermediate substance between DNA and the amino acids and proteins. That
mediating substance is t-DNA. But now the complexity gets worse: Each of
the 20 proteins requires a different intermediate t-DNA! Each one works
specifically to perform its one function; and chemically, each t-DNA
molecule is unlike each of the other t-DNA molecules.
The biological compiler that
accomplishes these code tasks is t-DNA. It changes DNA code language into a
different language that the cells can understand—so they can set about
producing the right amino acids and proteins. Without these many t-DNA
molecules, the entire code and what it should produce would break down.
DNA INDEXING—Information that
is inaccessible is useless, even though it may be very complete. Every computer
requires a data bank. Without it, needed information cannot be retrieved and
used. Large computer data banks have libraries of disc storage, but they
require an index to use them. Without the index, the computer will not know
where to look to find the needed information.
DNA is a data bank of massive
proportions, but indexes are also needed. These are different than the translators.
There are non-DNA chemicals, which work as indexes to specifically locate
needed information. The DNA and the indexes reciprocate; information is cycled
round a feedback loop. The index triggers the production of materials by
DNA. The presence of these materials, in turn, triggers indexing to additional
productions. On a higher level of systems (nervous, muscular, hormonal,
circulatory, etc.), additional indexes are to be found. The utter complication
of all this is astounding. The next time you cut your finger, think of all the
complex operations required for the body to patch it up.
CELL SWITCHING—"What is
most important; what should be done next?" Computers function by following
a sequential set of instructions. "First do this, and then do that,"
they are told, and in response they then switch from one subroutine to another.
But how does the cell switch its DNA from one process to another? No one can
figure this out.
"In bacteria, for
example, Jacob and Monod demonstrated a control system that operates by
switching off ‘repressor’ molecules, i.e., unmasking DNA at the correct ‘line
number’ to read off the correct (polypeptide) subroutines. With eukaryotes [a
common type of bacteria], Britten and Davidson have tentatively suggested that
‘sensor genes’ react to an incoming stimulus and cause the production of RNA.
This, in turn, activates a ‘producer gene,’ m-RNA is synthesized and the
required protein eventually assembled as a ribosome. Many DNA base sequences
may thus be involved, not in protein or RNA production, but in control over
that production—in switching the right sequences on or off at the right
time."—*Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution (1984), p. 124.
THE FIVE CHEMICALS IN DNA AND
RNA—DNA is an extremely complex chemical molecule. Where did it come from? How
did it form itself back in the beginning? How can it keep making copies of
itself? There are two kinds of bases in the DNA code: purines (adenine and guanine)
and pyrimidines (thymine or, in RNA, uracil; and cytosine). Where did these
five chemicals come from? Charlie, you never told us the origin of the
species; now help us figure out the origin of DNA!
Do you desire fame and
fortune? If you want a Nobel prize, figure out how to synthesize all five DNA
chemicals. If you want a major place in history, figure out how to make living,
functioning DNA. If sand and seawater did it, our highly trained scientists
ought to be able to do it too.
Scientists eventually devised
complicated ways in expensive laboratories to synthesize dead compounds of four
of these five, using rare materials such as hydrogen cyanide or cyanoacetylene.
(Thymine remains unsynthesizable.) Sugar can be made in the laboratory, but the
phosphate group is extremely difficult. In the presence of calcium ions, found
in abundance in oceans and rivers, the phosphate ion is precipitated out. In
life-forms enzymes catalyze the task, but how could enzymatic action occur
outside of plants or animals? It would not happen.
Then there are the
polynucleotide strands that have to be formed in exactly the fit needed to
neatly wrap about the DNA helix molecule. A 100 percent exact fit is required.
But chemists seem unable to produce much in the way of synthesized
polynucleotides, and they are totally unable to make them in predetermined
sizes and shapes (*D. Watts, "Chemistry and the Origin of Life,"
in Life on Earth, Vol. 4, 1980, p. 21).
If university-trained
scientists, working in multimillion-dollar equipped and stocked laboratories,
cannot make DNA and RNA, how can random action of sand and dirty water produce
it in the beginning?
NON-RANDOM: ONLY FROM
INTELLIGENCE—Non-random information is what is found in the genetic code. But
such information is a proof that the code came from an intelligent Mind.
Those searching for
evidence of life in outer space have been instructed to watch for non-random
signals as the best evidence that intelligent people live out there. Ponnamperuma says that such a
"non-random pattern" would demonstrate intelligent extraterrestrial
origin (*C. Ponnamperuma, The Origins of Life, 1972, p. 195). *CarI
Sagan adds that a message with high information content would be "an
unambiguously artificial [intelligently produced] interstellar message" (*Carl
Sagan, Cosmos, 1980, p. 314).
"To involve purpose is
in the eyes of biologists the ultimate scientific sin . . The revulsion which
biologists feel to the thought that purpose might have a place in the structure
of biology is therefore revulsion to the concept that biology might have a
connection to an intelligence higher than our own."—*Fred Hoyle and
*Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space (1981), p. 32.
EACH CHARACTERISTIC
CONTROLLED BY MANY GENES—The more the scientists have studied genetics, the
worse the situation becomes. Instead of each gene controlling many different
factors in the body, geneticists have discovered that many different genes
control each factor! Because of this, it would thus be impossible for the basic
DNA code to gradually "evolve." The underlying DNA code had to be
there "all at once"; and once in place, that code could never change!
"However it gradually
emerged that most characters, even simple ones, are regulated by many genes:
for instance, fourteen genes affect eye color in Drosophila. (Not only that.
The mutation which suppresses ‘purple eye’ enhances ‘hairy wing,’ for instance.
The mechanism is not understood.) Worse still, a single gene may influence
several different characters. This was particularly bad news for the
selectionists, of course . . In 1966 Henry Harris of London University
demonstrated, to everyone’s surprise, that as much as 30 per cent of all
characters are polymorphic [that is, each character controlled several
different factors instead of merely one]. It seemed unbelievable, but his work
was soon confirmed by Richard Lewontin and others."—*G.R. Taylor, Great
Evolution Mystery (1983), pp. 165-166.
(A clarification is needed
here about the basic DNA code in a true species which never changes: Chapter
11, Animal and Plant Species, will explain how the DNA gene pool within a given
true species can be broad enough to produce hybrids or varieties. This is why
there are so many different types of dogs or why some birds, when isolated on
an island—such as Darwin’s finches on the Galapagos,—can produce bills of
different length. This is why there are two shades of peppered moth and various
resistant forms of bacteria.)
In order to make the
evolutionary theory succeed, the total organic complexity of an entire species
somehow had to be invented long ago by chance,—and it had to do it fast, too
fast—within seconds, or the creature would immediately die!
2 - MATHEMATICAL POSSIBILITIES
OF DNA
SCIENTIFIC NOTATION—This is a
number plus a small superscript numeral. Using it, small numbers can be written
to denote numbers that are so immense that they are both incomprehensible and
can only with difficulty be written out. Thus, 8 trillion (8,000,000,000,000)
would be written 8 x 1012, and 1 billion (1,000,000,000) would be
written simply as 109. Here are a few comparisons to show you the
impossible large size of such numbers:
Hairs on an average head 2 x
106
Seconds in a year 3 x 107
Retirement age (0 to 65) in
seconds 2 x l09
World population 5 x 109
Miles [1.6 km] in a
light-year 6 x 1010
Sand grains on all shores 1022
Observed stars 1022
Water drops in all the oceans
1026
Candle power of the sun 3 x
1027
Electrons in the universe 1080
It is said that any number
larger than 2 x 1030 cannot occur in nature. In the remainder of
this chapter, we will look at some immense numbers!
MATH LOOKS AT DNA— In the
world of living organisms, there can be no life or growth without DNA. What
are the mathematical possibilities (in mathematics, they are called
probabilities) of JUST ONE DNA molecule having formed itself by the chance?
"Now we know that the
cell itself is far more complex than we had imagined. It includes thousands of
functioning enzymes, each one of them a complex machine itself. Furthermore,
each enzyme comes into being in response to a gene, a strand of DNA. The
information content of the gene in its complexity must be as great as that of
the enzyme it controls.
"A medium protein might
include about 300 amino acids. The DNA gene controlling this would have about
1000 nucleotides in its chain. Since there are four kinds of nucleotides in a
DNA chain, one consisting of 1000 links could exist in 41000
different forms.
"Using a little algebra
(logarithms) we can see that 41000 is equivalent to 10600.
Ten multiplied by itself 600 times gives the figure 1 followed by 600 zeros!
This number is completely beyond our comprehension."—*Frank Salisbury,
"Doubts about the Modern Synthetic Theory of Evolution," American
Biology Teacher, September 1971, pp. 336-338.
So the number of possible
code combinations for an average DNA molecule is the numeral 4 followed by 1000
zeros! That is
not 4000 (4 followed by 3 zeros), but 4 followed by a thousand
zeros! How could random action produce the right combination out of that many
possibilities for error?
LIFE REQUIRED—In addition to
DNA, many other materials, such as proteins, enzymes, carbohydrates, fats, etc,
would have to be instantly made at the same time. The beating heart, the
functioning kidneys, the circulatory vessels, etc. They would all need to be
arranged within the complicated structure of an organism,—and then they would
have to be endued with LIFE!
Without LIFE, none of the raw
materials, even though arranged in proper order, would be worth anything.
One does not extract life
from pebbles, dirt, water, or a lightning bolt. Lightning destroys life; it
does not make it.
GOLEY’S MACHINE—A
communications engineer tried to figure out the odds for bringing a non-living
organism with few parts (only 1500) up to the point of being able to reproduce
itself.
"Suppose we wanted to
build a machine capable of reaching into bins for all of its parts, and capable
of assembling from those parts a second machine just like itself."—*Marcel
J.E. Goley, "Reflections of a Communications Engineer," in Analytical
Chemistry, June 1961, p. 23.
Likening a living organism to
a machine that merely reached out and selected parts needed to make a duplicate
of itself, Goley tried to figure the odds for 1500 needed items—requiring 1500
right choices in a row. Many different parts would be needed, and Goley assumed
they would all be lying around near that manufacturing machine! Goley assumes
that its mechanical arm will have only a 50-50 chance of error in reaching out
and grabbing the right piece! Such a ratio (1500 50.50 choices) is preposterous
(it ought to be one chance in a hundred million for EACH of the correct 1500
selections from among 1500 items), but Goley then figures the odds based on
such a one-in-two success rate of reaches. But even with such a high success
rate, Goley discovered that there was only one chance in 10450 that
the machine could succeed in reproducing itself! That is 1 followed by 450
zeros!
Far smaller are all the words
in all the books ever published. They would only amount to 1020, and
that would be equivalent to only 66 of those 1500 50-50 choices all made
correctly in succession!
TOO MANY NUCLEOTIDES—Just the
number of nucleotides alone in DNA would be too many for Goley’s machine
calculations. There are not 1500 parts to work out the probabilities on—there
are multiplied thousands of factors, of which the nucleotides constitute one
factor.
(1) There are 5,375
nucleotides in the DNA of an extremely small bacterial virus (theta-x-174). (2)
There are about 3 million nucleotides in a single cell bacteria. (3) There
are more than 16,000 nucleotides in a human mitochondrial DNA molecule. (4)
There are approximately 3 billion nucleotides in the DNA of a mammalian cell.
(People and most animals are mammals.)
Technically, a "nucleotide"
is a complex chemical structure composed of a (nucleic acid) purine or
pyrimidine, one sugar (usually ribose or deoxyribose), and a phosphoric group. Each
one of those thousands of nucleotides within each DNA is aligned sequentially
in a very specific order! Imagine 3 billion complicated chemical links, each of
which has to be in a precisely correct sequence!
NOT POSSIBLE BY CHANCE—Many
similar mathematical comparisons could be made. The point is that chance cannot
produce what is in a living organism, —not now, not ever before, not ever in
the future. It just cannot be done.
And even if the task could be
successfully completed, when it was done, that organism would still not be
alive! Putting stuff together in the right combination does not produce life.
And once made, it would
have to have an ongoing source of water, air, and living food continually
available as soon as it evolved into life. When the evolutionist’s organism
emerged from rock, water, and a stroke of lightning hitting it on the head,—it
would have to have its living food source made just as rapidly.
The problems and hurdles are
endless.
"Based on probability
factors . . any viable DNA strand having over 84 nucleotides cannot be the
result of haphazard mutations. At that stage, the probabilities are 1 in 4.80 x
1050. Such a number, if written out, would read:
480,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
"Mathematicians agree
that any requisite number beyond 1050 has, statistically, a zero
probability of occurrence (and even that gives it the ‘benefit of the doubt’).
Any species known to us, including ‘the smallest single-cell bacteria, have
enormously larger numbers of nucleotides than 100 or 1000. In fact, single cell
bacteria display about 3,000,000 nucleotides, aligned in a very specific
sequence. This means, that there is no mathematical probability whatever for
any known species to have been the product of a random occurrence—random
mutations (to use the evolutionist’s favorite expression)."—*I.L.
Cohen, Darwin was Wrong (1984), p. 205.
Wysong explains the
requirements needed to code one DNA molecule. By this he means selecting out
the proper proteins, all of them left handed, and then placing them in their
proper sequence in the molecule—and doing it all by chance:
"This means 1/1089190
DNA molecules, on the average, must form to provide the one chance of
forming the specific DNA sequence necessary to code the 124 proteins. 1089190
DNAs would weigh 1089147 times more than the earth, and would
certainly be sufficient to fill the universe many times over. It is estimated
that the total amount of DNA necessary to code 100 billion people could be
contained in ½ of an aspirin tablet. Surely 1089147 times the weight
of the earth in DNAs is a stupendous amount and emphasizes how remote the
chance is to form the one DNA molecule. A quantity of DNA this colossal could
never have formed."—R.L. Wysong, The Creation-Evolution Controversy, p.
115.
A GEM OF A
QUOTATION—Evolutionists claim that everything impossible can happen by the most
random of chances,—simply by citing a large enough probability number. *Peter
Mora explains to his fellow scientists the truth about evolutionary theorizing:
"A further aspect I
should like to discuss is what I call the practice of avoiding the conclusion
that the probability of a self-reproducing state is zero. This is what we must
conclude from classical quantum mechanical principles, as Wigner demonstrated.
"These escape clauses
[the enormous chance-occurrence numbers cited as proof by evolutionists that it
could be done] postulate an almost infinite amount of time and an almost
infinite amount of material (monomers), so that even the most unlikely event
could have happened. This is to invoke probability and statistical
considerations when such considerations are meaningless.
LEFT- AND RIGHT-HANDED
AMINO ACID MOLECULE
"When for practical
purposes the condition of infinite time and matter has to be invoked [in order
to make evolution succeed], the concept of probability [possibility of its
occurrence] is annulled. By such logic we can prove anything, such as that no
matter how complex, everything will repeat itself, exactly and
innumerably."—*P.T. Mora, "The Folly of Probability," in
*S.W. Fox (ed.), The Origins of Prebiological Systems and of Their Molecular
Matrices (1965), p. 45.
3 - AMINO ACIDS AND PROTEIN
PROTEIN NEEDED ALSO— Now
let’s look at protein:
Putting protein and DNA
together will not make them alive; but, on the other hand, there can be no life
without BOTH the protein and the DNA. Proteins would also have had to be
made instantly, and in the right combination and quantity,—at the very
beginning. And do not forget the sequence: Protein has to be in its proper
sequence, just as DNA has to be in its correct sequential pattern.
Proteins come in their own
complicated sequence! They have their own coding. That code is "spelled
out" in a long, complicated string of materials. Each of the hundreds of
different proteins is, in turn, composed of still smaller units called amino
acids. There are twenty essential amino acids (plus two others not
needed after adulthood in humans). The amino acids are complex assortments of
specifically arranged chemicals.
Making those amino acids out
of nothing, and in the correct sequence,—and doing it by chance—would be just
as impossible, mathematically, as a chance formation of the DNA code!
ONLY THE LEFT-HANDED ONES—We
mentioned, in (Inaccurate Dating Methods), the L and D amino acids. That
factor is highly significant when considering the possibility that amino acids
could make themselves by chance.
Nineteen of the twenty amino
acids (all except glycine) come in two forms: a "D" and an
"L" version. The chemicals are the same, but are arranged differently
for each. The difference is quite similar to your left hand as compared with
your right hand. Both are the same, yet shaped opposite to each other. These
two amino acid types are called enantiomers [en-anti-AWmers]. (Two other
names for them are enantiomorphs and sterioisomers). (On the accompanying
chart, note that they are alike chemically, but different dimensionally. Each
one is a mirror image of the other. One is like a left-handed glove; the other
like a right-handed one. A typical amino acid in both forms is illustrated.)
For simplicity’s sake, in
this study we will call them the left-handed amino acid (the
"L") and the right-handed amino acid (the "D").
Living creatures have to have
protein, and protein is composed of involved mixtures of several of the 20 left
amino acids. —And all those amino acids must be left-handed, not right-handed!
(It should be mentioned that all sugars in DNA are right-handed.)
(For purposes of
simplification we will assume that right-handed amino acids never occur in
living amino acids, but there are a few exceptions, such as in the cell walls
of some bacteria, in some antibiotic compounds, and all sugars.)
"Many researchers have
attempted to find plausible natural conditions under which L-amino acids would
preferentially accumulate over their D-counterparts, but all such attempts have
failed. Until this crucial problem is solved, no one can say that we have found
a naturalistic explanation for the origin of life. Instead, these isomer
preferences point to biochemical creation."—Dean H. Kenyon, affidavit
presented to U.S. Supreme Court, No. 85-15, 13, in "Brief of
Appellants," prepared under the direction of William J. Guste, Jr.,
Attorney General of the State of Louisiana, October 1985, p. A-23.
TOTAL IGNORANCE—Scientists
have a fairly good idea of the multitude of chemical steps in putting together
a DNA molecule; but, not only can DNA not be synthesized "by nature"
at the seashore, highly trained technicians cannot do it in their
million-dollar laboratories!
"The evolution of the
genetic machinery is the step for which there are no laboratory models; hence
we can speculate endlessly, unfettered by inconvenient facts."— *R.
Dickerson, "Chemical Evolution and the Origin of Life," in Scientific
American, September 1978, p. 70.
Dozens of inherent and
related factors are involved. One of these is the gene-protein link. This had
to occur before DNA could be usable, yet no one has any idea how it can be made now, much less
how it could do it by itself in a mud puddle.
"None has ever been
recreated in the laboratory, and the evidence supporting them all [being produced
by random chance in the primitive environment] is very thin. The emergence of
the gene-protein link, an absolutely vital stage on the way up from lifeless
atoms to ourselves, is still shrouded in almost complete mystery."—*A.
Scott, "Update on Genesis," in New Scientist,
4 - SYNTHESIZED PROTEIN
THE MILLER EXPERIMENTS—In
1953, a graduate biochemistry student (*Stanley Miller) sparked a non-oxygen
mixture of gases for a week and produced some microscopic traces of non-living
amino acids. We earlier discussed this in some detail in chapter 7, The
Primitive Environment (which included a discription of the complicated
apparatus he used), showing that *Stanley’s experiment demonstrated that, if
by any means amino acids could be produced, they would be a left-handed and
right-handed mixture—and therefore unable to be used in living tissue.
"Amino acids synthesized
in the laboratory are a mixture of the right-and left-handed forms."—*Harold
Blum, Time’s Arrow and Evolution (1968), p. 159.
Even if a spark could
anciently have turned some chemicals into amino acids, the presence of the
right-handed ones would clog the body machinery and kill any life-form they
were in.
(1) There are 20 amino acids.
(2) There are 300 amino acids in a specialized sequence in each medium protein.
(3) There are billions upon billions of possible combinations! (4) The right
combination from among the 20 amino acids would have to be brought together in
the right sequence—in order to make one useable protein properly.
(5) In addition to this, the
ultra-complicated DNA strands would have to be formed, along with complex
enzymes, and more and more, and still more.
IMPOSSIBLE ODDS—What are the
chances of accomplishing all the above—and thus making a living creature out of
protein manufactured by chance from dust, water, and sparks? Not one chance in
billions. It cannot happen.
Evolutionists speak of
"probabilities" as though they were "possibilities," if
given enough odds. But reality is different than their make-believe numbers.
There are odds against your
being able to throw a rock with your arm—and land it on the other side of the
moon. The chances that you could do it are about as likely as this imagined
animal of the evolutionists, which makes itself out of nothing and then evolves
into everybody else.
A mathematician would be able
to figure the odds of doing it as a scientific notation with 50 or so zeros
after it, but that does not mean that you could really throw a rock to the
moon! Such odds are not really "probabilities," they are
"impossibilities!"
The chances of getting
accidentally synthesized left amino acids for one small protein molecule is one
chance in 10210. That is a number with 210 zeros after it! The number is so
vast as to be totally out of the question.
Here are some other big
numbers to help you grasp the utter immensity of such gigantic numbers: Ten
billion years is 1018 seconds. The earth weighs 1026
ounces. From one side to the other, the universe has a diameter of 1028 inches.
There are 1080 elementary particles in the universe (subatomic
particles: electrons, protons, neutrons, etc.). Compare those enormously large
numbers with the inconceivably larger numbers required for a chance formulation
of the right mixture of amino acids, proteins, and all the rest out of totally
random chance combined with raw dirt, water, and so forth.
How long would it take to
walk across the 1028 inches from one side of the universe to the
other side? Well, after you had done it, you would need to do it billions of
times more before you would even have time to try all the possible chance
combinations of putting together just ONE properly sequenced left-only amino
acid protein in the right order.
After *Miller’s amino acid
experiment, researchers later tried to synthesize proteins. The only way they
could do it was with actual amino acids from living tissue! What had they
accomplished? Nothing, absolutely nothing. But this mattered not to the media;
soon newspaper headlines shouted, "SCIENTISTS MAKE PROTEIN!"
"The apparatus must
consist of a series of proteins as well as nucleic acids with the ‘right’
sequences."—*R. W. Kaplan, "The Problem of Chance in Formation of
Protobionts by Random Aggregation of Macromolecules," ín Chemical
Evolution, p. 320.
5 - MORE PROBLEMS WITH PROTEIN
ALL 20 - BUT IN 39 FORMS—The
evolutionists tell us that, at some time in the distant past, all the proteins
made themselves out of random chemicals floating in the water or buried in the
soil.
But there are approximately
20 different essential amino acids. Each of them, with the exception of
glycine, can exist in both the L (left-handed) and D (right-handed) structual
forms. In living tissue, the L form is found; in laboratory synthesis, equal
amounts of both the L and D forms are produced. There is no way to synthesize
the L form by itself. TRYPTOPHAN SYNTHETASE A—Here is the amino acid
sequence of just one protein in your body. The amino acid units (written from
left to right) are connected. If separated, they would read like this:
methionyl, glutaminyl, arginyl, etc.
TRYPTOPHAN SYNTHETASE A
Here are all 39 forms. What a
hodgepodge for the random accidents of evolution to sort through—and come up
with only the L forms. Each one has its own complicated sequence of amino
acids:1 - Glycine
2a - L-Alanine 2b - D-Alanine
3a - L-Valine 3b - D-Valine
4a - L-Leucine 4b - D-Leucine
5a - L-Isoleucine 5b -
D-Isoleucine
6a - L-Serine 6b - D-Serine
7a - L-Threonine 7b -
D-Threonine
8a - L-Cysteine 8b -
D-Cysteine
9a - L-Cystine 9b - D-Cystine
10a - L-Methionine 10b -
D-Methionine
11a - L-Glutamic Acid 11b -
D-Glutamic Acid
12a - L-Aspartic Acid 12b -
D-Aspartic Acid
13a - L-Lysine 13b - D-Lysine
14a - L-Arginine 14b -
D-Arginine
15a - L-Histidine 15b - D-Histidine
16a - L-Phenylalanine 16b -
D-Phenylalanine
17a - L-Tyrosine 17b -
D-Tyrosine
18a - L-Tryptophan 18b -
D-Tryptophan
19a - L-Proline 19b -
D-Proline
20a - L-Hydroxyproline 20b -
D-Hydroxyproline
WHY ONLY THE L FORM—You might
wonder why the D form of protein would not work equally well in humans and
animals. The problem is that a single strand of protein, once it is constructed
by other proteins (yes, the complicated structure of each protein is
constructed in your body cells by other brainless proteins!), it immediately
folds into a certain pattern. If there was even one right-handed amino acid in
each lengthy string, it could not fold properly.
6 - ORIGINATING FIVE SPECIAL
MATERIALS
We are omitting this
section from this paperback. It consists of detailed information on the
step-by-step requirements needed to produce proteins, sugars, enzymes, fats,
and DNA. The
complexity of all this is fabulous. Over three large pages are required just to
list the steps! You will find this on pp. 280-283 of Vol. 2 of the three-volume
Evolution Disproved series set or on our internet site, evolution-facts.org.7 -
ADDITIONAL MATHEMATICAL IMPOSSIBILITIES
ALL BY CHANCE—Earlier in this
chapter, we said that the possible combinations of DNA were the number 4
followed by a thousand zeros. That tells us about DNA combinations; what about
protein combinations?
The possible arrangements
of the 20 different amino acids are 2,500,000,000,000,000,000. If evolutionary theory be true, every
protein arrangement in a life-form had to be worked out by chance until it
worked right—first one combination and then another until one was found that
worked right. But by then the organism would have been long dead, if it ever
had been alive!
Once the chance arrangements
had hit upon the right combination of amino acids for ONE protein—the same
formula would have to somehow be repeated for the other 19 proteins. And then
it would somehow have to be correctly transmitted to offspring!
THE STREAM OF LIFE—The
primary protein in your red blood cells has 574 amino acids in it. Until
that formula was first produced correctly by chance, and then always passed on
correctly, your ancestors could not have lived a minute, much less survived and
reproduced.
You have billions upon
billions upon billions of red blood cells ("RBCs," the scientists
call them) in your body. This is what makes your blood red. Each red blood cell
has about 280 million molecules of hemoglobin, and it would take about 1000 red
blood cells to cover the period at the end of this sentence. (Hemoglobin is the
iron-carrying protein material in RBCs, which carries oxygen from the lungs to
the tissues, and carbon dioxide from the tissues to the lungs.) Both in complexity
and in enormous quantity, your red blood cells are unusual. Several large books
could be filled with facts about your red blood cells.MAKING PROTEIN BY CHANCE—The
probability of forming 124 specifically sequenced proteins of 400 amino acids
each by chance is 1 x 1O64489. THAT is a BIG number! If we
put a thousand zeros on each page, it would take a 64-page booklet just to
write the number!
The probability of those 124
specifically sequenced proteins, consisting of 400 all-left-amino acids each, being
formed by chance, if EVERY molecule in all the oceans of 1031 planet earths was
an amino acid, and these kept linking up in sets of 124 proteins EVERY second
for 10 billion years would be 1 x 1078436. And THAT is another BIG
number! That is one followed by 78,436 zeros!
As mentioned earlier, such
"probabilities" are "impossibilities." They are fun for math games, but nothing
more. They have nothing to do with reality. Yet such odds would have to be
worked out in order to produce just 124 proteins! Without success in such odds
as these, multiplied a million-fold, evolution would be totally impossible.
Throughout this and the
previous chapter, we have only discussed the basics at the bottom of the ladder
of evolution. We have, as it were, only considered the first few instants of
time. But what about all the development after that?
More total impossibilities.
ENZYMES—*Fred Hoyle wrote in
New Scientist that 2000 different and very complex enzymes are required for a
living organism to exist. And then he added that random shuffling processes
could not form a single one of these in even 20 billion years! He then added
this:
"I don’t know how long
it is going to be before astronomers generally recognize that the arrangement
of not even one among the many thousands of biopolyers [enzymes, proteins,
hormones, etc.] on which life depends could have been arrived at by natural
processes here on the earth.
"Astronomers will have a
little difficulty in understanding this because they will be assured by
biologists that it is not so; the biologists having been assured in their turn
by others that it is not so. The ‘others’ are a group of persons [the
evolutionary theoreticians] who believe, quite openly, in mathematical miracles.
"They advocate the
belief that, tucked away in nature outside of normal physics, there is a law
which performs miracles (provided the miracles are in the aid of biology). This
curious situation sits oddly on a profession that for long has been dedicated
to coming up with logical explanations . . The modern miracle workers are
always found to be living in the twilight fringes of [the two laws of]
thermodynamics."—*Fred Hoyle, "The Big Bang in Astronomy," in
New Scientist,
*Taylor says that proteins,
DNA, and enzymes—all of which are very complicated—would all be required as
soon as a new creature was made by evolution.
"The fundamental
objection to all these [evolutionary] theories is that they involve raising
oneself by one’s own bootstraps. You cannot make proteins without DNA, but you
cannot make DNA without enzymes, which are proteins. It is a chicken and egg
situation. That a suitable enzyme should have cropped up by chance, even in a
long period, is implausible, considering the complexity of such molecules. And
there cannot have been a long time [in which to do it]."—*G.R. Taylor,
Great Evolution Mystery (1983), p. 201.
Enzyme systems do not work
at all in the body—until they are all there.
"Dixon [a leading
enzymologist] confesses that he cannot see how such a system could ever have
originated spontaneously. The main difficulty is that an enzyme system does not
work at all until it is complete, or nearly so. Another problem is the question
of how enzymes appear without pre-existing enzymes to make them. ‘The
association between enzymes and life,’ Dixon writes, ‘is so intimate that the
problem of the origin of life itself is largely that of the origin of enzymes.’
"—*Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution (1984), pp. 144-145.DIXON-WEBB
CALCULATION—In 1964 *Malcolm Dixon and *Edwin Webb, on page 667 of their
standard reference work, Enzymes, mentioned to fellow scientists that in
order to get the needed amino acids in close enough proximity to form a single
protein molecule, a total volume of amino-acid solution equal to 1050 times
the volume of our earth would be needed! That would be 1 with 50 zeros
after it multiplied by the contents of a mixing bowl. And the bowl would be so
large that planet earth would be in it!
After using the above method
to obtain ONE protein molecule, what would it take to produce ONE hemoglobin
(blood) molecule which contains 574 specifically coded amino acids? On page
279 of their Introduction to Protein Chemistry, *S.W. Fox and *J.F.
Foster tell how to do it:
First, large amounts of
random amounts of all 20 basic types of protein molecules would be needed. In
order to succeed at this, enough of the random protein molecules would be
needed to fill a volume 10512 TIMES the volume of our entire known
universe! And all of that space would be packed in solid with protein
molecules. In addition, all of them would have to contain only left-handed
amino acids (which only could occur 50 percent of the time in synthetic
laboratory production).
Then and only then could
random chance produce just the right combination for ONE hemoglobin molecule,
with the proper sequence of 574 left-handed amino acids!
Yet there are also
thousands of other types of protein molecules in every living cell, and even
if all of them could be assembled by chance,—the cell would still not be
alive.BEYOND DNA AND PROTEIN—We have focused our attention on DNA and protein
sequence in this chapter. Just for a moment, let us look beyond DNA and protein
to a few of the more complicated organs in the human body. As we do so, the
requirements which randomness would have to hurdle become truly fabulous.
Consider the human brain, with its ten billion integrated cells in the cerebral
cortex. How could all that come about by chance? Ask an expert on ductless
glands to explain hormone production to you. Your head will swim. Gaze into the
human eye and view how it is constructed, how it works. You who would cling to
evolution as a theory that is workable give up! give up! There is no chance!
Evolution is impossible!COMPUTER SIMULATION—Prior to the late 1940s, men had to
work out their various evolutionary theories with paper and pencil. But then
advanced computers were invented. This changed the whole picture. By the 1970s,
it had become clear that the "long ages" theories just did not work
out. Computer calculations have established the fact that, regardless of how
much time was allotted for the task,—evolution could not produce life-forms!
Evolutionists can no longer
glibly say, "Given enough time and given enough chance, living creatures
could arise out of seawater and lightning, and pelicans could change themselves
into elephants." (Unfortunately, evolutionists still say such things,
because the ignorant public does not know the facts in this book.)
But computer scientists can
now feed all the factors into a large computer—and get fairly rapid answers.
Within a dramatically short time they can find out whether evolution is
possible after all!
Unfortunately, the
evolutionists prefer to stay away from such computer simulations; they are
afraid to face the facts. Instead they spend their time discussing their dreamy
ideas with one another and writing articles about their theories in scientific
journals.
A computer scientist who
spoke at a special biology symposium in Philadelphia in 1967, when computers
were not as powerful as they are today, laid out the facts this way:
"Nowadays computers are
operating within a range which is not entirely incommensurate with that dealt
with in actual evolution theories. If a species breeds once a year, the number
of cycles in a million years is about the same as that which one would obtain
in a ten-day computation which iterates a program whose duration is a hundredth
of a second . . Now we have less excuse for explaining away difficulties [via
evolutionary theory] by invoking the unobservable effect of astronomical
[enormously large] numbers of small variations."—*M.P. Schutzenberger,
Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution
(1967), pp. 73-75 (an address given at the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and
Biology Symposium).
*Schutzenberger then turned
his attention to the key point that scientists admit to be the only real basis
of evolution: gradual improvements in the genetic code through beneficial
mutations, resulting in new and changed species:
"We believe that it is
not conceivable. In fact, if we try to simulate such a situation by making
changes randomly at the typographic level—by letters or by blocks, the size of
the unit need not matter—on computer programs, we find that we have no chance
(i.e., less than 1/101000) even to see what the modified program
would compute; it just jams!’
"Further, there is no
chance (less than 1/101000) to see this mechanism (this single
changed characteristic in the DNA) appear spontaneously and, if it did, even
less [chance] for it to remain!
"We believe that there
is a considerable gap in the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution, and we believe
this gap to be of such a nature that it cannot be bridged within the current
conception of biology."—*Ibid.
There is a one in 1/101000
chance that just one mutation could be beneficial and improve DNA. Now
1/101000is one with a thousand zeros after it! In contrast, one
chance in a million only involves six zeros! Compare it with the almost
impossible likelihood of your winning a major multimillion-dollar state lottery
in the United States: That figure has been computed, and is only a relatively
"tiny" number of six with six zeros after it. Evolution requires
probabilities which are totally out of the realm of reality.THE DNA
LANGUAGE—Another researcher, *M. Eden, in attendance at the same Wistar
Institute, said that the code within the DNA molecule is actually in a
structured form, like letters and words in a language. Like them, the DNA
code is structured in a certain sequence, and only because of the sequence can
the code have meaning.
*Eden then goes on and explains
that DNA, like other languages, cannot be tinkered with by random variational
changes; if that is done, the result will always be confusion!
"No currently existing
formal language can tolerate random changes in the symbol sequences which
express its sentences. Meaning is invariably destroyed."—*M. Eden,
"Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theory," in
op. cit., p. 11.
And yet evolutionary theory
teaches that DNA and all life appeared by chance, and then evolved through
random changes within the DNA!
(For more information on
those special evolutionary conferences, see chapter 1. History of
Evolutionary Theory.)THE MORE TIME, THE LESS SUCCESS—Evolutionists imagine
that time could solve the problem: Given enough time, the impossible could
become possible. But time works directly against success. Here is why:
"Time is no help.
Biomolecules outside a living system tend to degrade with time, not build up.
In most cases, a few days is all they would last. Time decomposes complex
systems. If a large ‘word’ (a protein) or even a paragraph is generated by
chance, time will operate to degrade it. The more time you allow, the less
chance there is that fragmentary ‘sense’ will survive the chemical maelstrom of
matter."—*Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution (1984), p. 233.ALL AT
ONCE—Everything had to come together all at once. Within a few minutes,
all the various parts of the living organism had to make themselves out of
sloshing, muddy water.
"However, conventional
Darwinian theory rationalizes most adaptations by assuming that sufficient time
has transpired during evolution for natural selection to provide us with all
the biological adaptations we see on earth today, but in reality the adaptive
process must by necessity occur rather quickly (in one or at the most two
breeding generations)."—*E. Steele, Somatic Selection and Adaptive
Evolution (2nd ed. 1981), p. 3.
"So the simultaneous
formation of two or more molecules of any given enzyme purely by chance is
fantastically improbable."—*W. Thorpe, "Reductionism in
Biology," in Studies in the Philosophy of Biology (1974), p. 117.
"From the probability
standpoint, the ordering of the present environment into a single amino acid
molecule would be utterly improbable in all the time and space available for
the origin of terrestrial life."—*Homer Jacobson, "Information,
Reproduction and the Origin of Life," American Scientist, January 1955, p.
125.
"To form a polypeptide
chain of a protein containing one hundred amino acids represents a choice of
one out of 1O130 possibilities. Here again, there is no evidence suggesting
that one sequence is more stable than another, energetically. The total number
of hydrogen atoms in the universe is only 1078. That the probability of forming
one of these polypeptide chains by change is unimaginably small; within the
boundary of conditions of time and space we are considering it is effectively
zero."—*E. Ambrose, The Nature and Origin of the Biological World
(1982), p. 135.
"Directions for the
reproduction of plans, for energy and the extraction of parts from the current
environment, for the growth sequence, and for the effector mechanism
translating instruction into growth—all had to be simultaneously present at
that moment. This combination of events has seemed an incredibly unlikely
happenstance, and has often been ascribed to divine intervention."—*Homer
Jacobson, "Information, Reproduction and the Origin of Life,"
American Scientist, January 1955, p. 121.BACTERIA DISPROVE EVOLUTION—Let us
go beyond DNA molecules and pieces of protein, and consider one of the simplest
of life-forms. Scientists have studied in detail the bacterium, Escherichia
coli. These bacteria are commonly found in the large bowel.
Under favorable conditions
bacterial cells can divide every 20 minutes. Then their offspring immediately
begin reproducing. Theoretically, one cell can produce 1020 cells in
one day! For over a century researchers have studied E-coli bacteria. All
that time those bacteria have reproduced as much as people could in millions of
years. Yet never has one bacterium been found to change into anything else.
And those little creatures do not divide simply. The single chromosome
replicates (makes a copy of itself), and then splits in two. Then each daughter
cell splits in two, forming the various cells in the bacterium. These tiny
bacteria can divide either sexually or asexually.
Escherichia coli has about
5000 genes in its single chromosome strand. This is the equivalent of a million
three-letter codons. Yet this tiny bacterium is one of the "simplest"
living creatures that exists.
Please, do not underestimate
the complexity of this, a creature with only ONE chromosome: First, that one
chromosome is a combination lock with a million units, arranged in a definite
sequence. Second, each unit is made up of three sub-units (A-C-C, G-T-A, etc.).
Third, the sub-units are combined from four different chemical building blocks:
A, G, C, and T. What are the possible number of combinations for that one
chromosome? Get a sheet of paper and figure that one out for yourself.FRAME
SHIFTS—Then scientists discovered an even "simpler" creature that
lives in the human bowel. It is called the theta-x-174, and is a tiny virus. It
is so small, that it does not contain enough DNA information to produce the
proteins in its membrane! How then can it do it? How can it produce proteins
without enough DNA code to produce proteins! Scientists were totally baffled
upon making this discovery. Then they discovered the high-tech secret: The
answer is but another example of a super-intelligent Creator. The
researchers found that this tiny, mindless creature routinely codes for that
protein thousands of times a day—and does it by "frame shift."
To try to describe it in
simple words, a gene is read off from the first DNA base to produce a protein.
Then the same message is read again—but this time omitting the first base and
starting with the second. This produces a different protein. And on and on it
goes. Try writing messages in this manner, and you will begin to see how
utterly complicated it is: "Try writing messages / writing messages in /
messages in this / in this manner." That is how the simplest of viruses
uses its DNA coding to make its protein!
Does someone think that the
virus was smart enough to figure out that complicated procedure with its own
brains? Or will someone suggest that it all "just happened by chance?"
With all this in mind, *Wally
Gilbert, a Nobel prize winning molecular biologist, said that bacteria and
viruses have a more complicated DNA code-reading system than the "higher
forms of life."THE CENTRAL DOGMA—*Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of the
structure of DNA, prepared a genetic principle which he entitled, "The
Central Dogma":
"The transfer of
information from nucleic acid to nucleic acid, or from nucleic acid to protein
may be possible, but transfer from protein to protein, or from protein to
nucleic acid is impossible."—*Francis Crick, "Central Dogma,"
quoted in *Richard Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 77.
The Central Dogma is an
important scientific principle and means this: The complex coding within the
DNA in the cell nucleus decides the traits for the organism. But what is in the
body and what happens to the body cannot affect the DNA coding. What this means
is this: Species cannot change from one into another! All the members in a
species (dogs, for example) can only be the outcome of the wide range of
"gene pool" data in the DNA, but no member of that species can,
because of the environment or what has happened to that individual, change into
another species. Only changes in the DNA coding can produce such changes;
nothing else can do it.
"It [the Central Dogma]
has proved a fruitful principle, ever since James Watson and Crick discovered
the double-helix structure of DNA in the 1950s. DNA is the blueprint; it gives
instructions to the RNA and to proteins about how to arrange themselves."—*Richard
Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), ibid.
"An honest man, armed
with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some
sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many
are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it
going."—*Francis Crick, Life Itself (1981), p. 88.
BLUE GENE—As we near press
time on this paperback, announcement has been made that IBM has begun work on
their largest computer to-date. It is called "Blue gene"; and it must
be powerful, for they have been building ever larger supercomputers since the 1940s.
This one will be 100 times more powerful than Big Blue, the computer used to
defeat Kasparov in chess several years ago.
They are trying to figure out
something which is so utterly complicated that no lesser computer can handle
the task. No, not something simple like computing a trip to Saturn and back.
Their objective is solving something far more complicated. —It is figuring
out how a protein folds!
In every cell in your body,
brainless proteins assemble more proteins from amino acids. They put them into
their proper sequence (!), and then, as soon as the task is ended, the new
protein automatically folds down into a clump, as complicated as a piece of
steel wool. IBM is trying to figure out the fold pattern instantly made by this
microscopic piece of mindless, newborn protein!
The computer will cost $100
million, and Stanford University is trying to get people to let them use their
home computers to help with the task (go to standford.edu for details). They
say they need the information to figure out drugs to counteract HIV and other
viruses. So far, they can only get the protein to wiggle; they cannot get it to
fold (NPR, Wednesday evening,
As we go to press: It has
recently been discovered that the terrible plague of mad cow disease (initially
brought into existence by cannibalism) is caused by eating meat containing
proteins that do not fold correctly, or by being injected with raw glandulars
containing them.
For more on proteins and how
they do their work in the cell, go to our website, evolution-facts.org, and
locate a special study on protein which we have prepared. It contains a
remarkable collection of facts.
EVOLUTION COULD NOT DO THIS
The teeth of a rat are
designed so the top two front teeth go behind the bottom two, at just the right
angle to produce self-sharpening teeth. Engineers at General Electric wanted to
design a self-sharpening saw blade in order to obtain exactly the right angle
in relation to the metal it is cutting; so they studied the teeth of a rat.
They found there was no other way it could be done as efficiently. As it slices
through the metal, small pieces of the new blade are cut away by the metal,
thus always keeping the blade sharp. That self-sharpening blade lasts six times
longer than any other blade they had previously been able to make. All because
the trained researchers studied the teeth of a rat.
STUDY AND REVIEW QUESTIONS
DNA AND PROTEIN
1- Prepare a diagram of a DNA
molecule. Use different colors to show the different parts.
2 - Research the story of how
DNA was discovered and write a report on it.
3 - Would it be easier for
DNA to be made by randomness or by researchers in a laboratory? Could living
DNA be made in either place?
4 - Research into what is in
a blood cell, and then write about the different parts. Underline those parts
which could be produced by random action (called "natural selection").
5 - There are 20 essential
amino acids, 300 special-sequence amino acids in each medium-sized protein, and
billions of possible sequences. What do you think would happen in your body if
just one of those sequences was out of place?
6 - Can "non-random
patterns" be produced randomly? Codes are made by intelligent people. Can
they be produced by chance?
7 - Find out how DNA divides,
and write a brief report on how it happens.
8 - Random production of
amino acids always produce a 50-50 mixture of left- and right-handed forms of
them. Could the randomness of evolution produce living tissue with only
left-handed amino acids?
9 - Why is it that
evolutionists do not give up trying to prove that impossible things can happen?
10 - There are 26 reasons why
DNA cannot be originated outside of living tissue. List 10 which you consider
to be the most unlikely to be accomplished synthetically.
11 - Briefly explain one of
the following: translator package, messenger RNA, biological compiler, codon,
nucleotide, t-DNA.
12 - Write a report on the
mathematical possibilities (probabilities) that amino acids, protein, or DNA
could be accidently produced by random activity in barrels of chemicals which
filled all of space throughout the universe.
Fossils and Strata
Why The fossil/strata theory is a remarkable hoax
Fossil remains provide evolutionists with
their only real evidence that evolution might have occurred in the past. If the
fossils do not witness to evolution in the past, then it could not be occurring
now either.
The only substantial evidence
that evolution has taken place in past ages, if there is such evidence, is to
be found, in the fossils. The only definite evidence from the present,
that there is a mechanism by which evolution could occur—past or present—if
there is such evidence, is to be found in natural selection and mutations.
The subject may seem to be complicated, but it is not. We will begin this
present chapter with an introduction and overview of some of the fossil
problems. Then we shall give enough attention to each of those problems—and
more besides—to provide you with a clear understanding of principles and
conclusions.
And when you obtain it, you
will be astounded at the amount of overwhelming evidence supporting the fact
that there is absolutely no indication, from the fossil record, that
evolution has ever occurred on our planet!
"We still do not know
the mechanics of evolution in spite of the over-confident claims in some
quarters, nor are we likely to make further progress in this by the classical
methods of paleontology or biology; and we shall certainly not advance matters
by jumping up and down shrilling, ‘Darwin is god and I, So-and-so, am his
prophet.’ "—*Errol White, Proceedings of the Linnean Society, London,
177:8 (1966).
1 - INTRODUCTION
DEFINITIONS—(*#1/9
Introduction*) Most people know very little about any aspect of geology.
Here are some of the major areas of geologic study. Of the geologic terms
defined below, you will want to give special attention to those in bold
italic:Here are several of the major branches of Physical Geology: (1) Geochemistry
is the study of the substances in the earth and the chemical changes they
undergo. (2) Petrology is the study of rocks, in general. (3) Minerology
is the study of minerals, such as iron ore and uranium. (4) Geophysics is
the study of the structure, composition, and development of the earth. (5) Structural
geology is the study of positions and shapes of rocks very deep within the
earth.Both physical and historical geology include three areas:
(1) Geochronology is the study of geologic time. (2) Earth Processes
is the study of the forces that produce changes in the earth. (3) Sedimentology
is the study of sediment and the ways it is deposited.
Historical geology has at least four main fields: (1) Paleontology
is the study of fossils, and paleontologists are those who study
them. (2) Stratigraphy is the study of the rock strata in which the
fossils are found. (3) Paleogeography is the study of the past geography
of the earth. (4) Paleoecology is the study of the relationships between
prehistoric plants and animals and their surroundings.
Fossils are the remains of living creatures,
both plants and animals, or their tracks. These are found in sedimentary
rock. Sedimentary rock is composed of strata, which are layers of stone
piled up like a layer cake. (Strata is the plural of stratum.) Sedimentary
rock is fossil-bearing or fossiliferous rock.
Fossil hunters use the word taxa
(taxon, singular) to describe the basic, different types of plants and animals
found in the fossil record. By this they generally mean species, but sometimes
genera or more composite classifications, such as families or even phyla. Taxa
is thus something of a loose term; it will be found in some of the
quotations in this chapter. Higher taxa would mean the larger creatures,
such as vertebrates (animals with backbones).
"The part of geology
that deals with the tracing of the geologic record of the past is called historic
geology. Historic geology relies chiefly on paleontology, the study
of fossil evolution, as preserved in the fossil record, to identify and
correlate the lithic records of ancient time."—*O.D. von Engeln and
*K.E. Caster, Geology (1952), p. 423.
These fossil remains may
be shells, teeth, bones, or entire skeletons. A fossil may also
be a footprint, bird track, or tail marks of a passing lizard. It can even include rain
drops. Many fossils no longer contain their original material, but are
composed of mineral deposits that have infiltrated them and taken on their
shapes.
Fossils are extremely
important to evolutionary theory, for they provide our only record of plants
and animals in ancient times. The fossil record is of the highest importance
as a proof for evolution. In these fossils, scientists should be able to find
all the evidence needed to prove that one species has evolved out of another.
"Although the
comparative study of living animals and plants may give very convincing
circumstantial evidence, fossils provide the only historical documentary
evidence that life has evolved from simpler to more complex forms."—*Carl
O. Dunbar, Historical Geology (1949), p. 52.
"Fortunately there is a
science which is able to observe the progress of evolution through the history
of our earth. Geology traces the rocky strata of our earth, deposited
one upon another in the past geological epochs through hundreds of millions of
years, and finds out their order and timing and reveals organisms which lived
in all these periods. Paleontology, which studies the fossil remains, is
thus enabled to present organic evolution as a visible fact."—*Richard
B. Goldschmidt, "An Introduction to a Popularized Symposium on
Evolution," in Scientific Monthly, Vol. 77, October 1953, p. 184.
PALEONTOLOGISTS KNOW THE
FACTS—(*#3/25 The Experts Speak*) The study of fossils and mutations
ranks as the two key evidences of evolution: The fossil evidence proves or
disproves whether evolution has occurred in the past; mutational facts prove or
disprove whether it can occur at all.
This is probably why, of
all scientists, paleontologists and geneticists are the most
likely to publicly repudiate evolutionary theory in disgust (*A.H. Clark, *Richard Goldschmidt,
*Steven Gould, *Steven Stanley, *Colin Patterson, etc.). They have spent their
lives fruitlessly working, hands on, with one of the two main factors in the
very center of evolution: the evidence (fossils) or the mechanism by which it
occurs (mutations), and that part of the body within which it must occur (DNA).
THE FOSSIL HUNTERS For over a
century, thousands of men have dedicated their lives to finding, cleaning,
cataloguing, and storing millions of fossils. The work they do is
time-consuming, exhausting, yet it has not provided the evidence they sought.
NO EVOLUTION TODAY—Evolution
(one type of animal changing into another) never occurs today.
"No biologist has
actually seen the origin by evolution of a major group of organisms."—*G.
Ledyard Stebbins, Process of Organic Evolution, p. 1. [Stebbins was a
geneticist.]
EVERYTHING HINGES ON
FOSSILS—Clearly, then, because no evolution is occurring now, all that the
evolutionists have to prove their theory is fossil evidence of life-forms
which lived in the past. If evolution is the cause of life on earth, then there
ought to be thousands of various partly evolved fossil life-forms. For
evolution to occur, this had to occur in great abundance. The fossils
should reveal large numbers of transmuted species—creatures which are half
fish-half animal, etc.
Throughout these studies, we
shall refer to the basic types or kinds of plants and animals as
"species." However, as discussed in chapter 11, Animal and Plant
Species, biologists frequently classify plants and animals as
"species," which are subspecies.
UNIFORMITARIANISM— A
basic postulate of evolution is the concept of uniformitarianism.A
basic postulate of evolution is the concept of uniformitarianism
According to this theory, the way everything is occurring today is the way
it has always occurred on our planet. This point has strong bearing on the
rock strata. Since no more than an inch or so of sediment is presently being
laid down each year in most non-alluvial areas, therefore no more than this
amount could have been deposited yearly in those places in the past. Since
there are thick sections of rock containing fossils, therefore those rocks and
their contents must have required millions of years to be laid down. That is
how the theory goes.Naturalists, working in Paris a few years before *Charles
Lyell was born, discovered fossil-bearing rock strata. *Lyell used this
information in his important book, Principles of Geology, and divided
the strata into three divisions. He dated one as youngest, another as older,
and the third as very ancient.
*Lyell and others worked
out those strata dates in the early 19th century, before very much was known
about the rock strata and their fossils! Some strata in England, Scotland,
and France were the primary ones studied. *Lyell based his age-theory on the
number of still-living species represented by fossils in each stratum. If a
given stratum had few fossils represented by species alive today, then *Lyell
dated it more anciently.
It has since been
established that *Lyell’s theory does not agree with reality; the percentage of still-living species
is very, very high throughout all the strata, and varies from place to place
for each stratum in different localities. Nevertheless, after quarreling over
details, Lyell’s followers extended his scheme; and, though they changed his
initial major strata names, they held on to his mistake and elaborated on it.
Although some of the strata names changed later in the 19th century, scientists
in the 20th century have been stuck with this relic of early 19th-century error.
It is what they are taught in the colleges and universities.
THE ERAS—The fossil-bearing
rock strata are said to fall into three major divisions, called "eras."
At the top are the Cenozoic
Era rocks. Below that comes the Mesozoic Era levels. Next comes the Pa!eozoic
Era strata. At the bottom we find the Cambrian, which contains the
lowest fossil-bearing rocks. Beneath that is the Precambrian. (Cenozoic
means "recent life," mesozoic means "middle life," and
paleozoic means "ancient life.")
DATES WHEN GEOLOGICAL TIME
SCALES ORIGINATED—This fossil/strata theory is genuinely archaic. The basics of
the theory were devised when very little was known about strata or fossils. But
geology and paleontology have been saddled with it ever since. Here are the
dates when the various geological time scales were first developed:
THE PERIODS:
Quaternary - 1829
Tertiary - 1759
Cretaceous - 1822
Jurassic - 1795
Triassic - 1834
Permian - 1841
Carboniferous - 1822
Devonian - 1837
Silurian - 1835
Ordovician - 1879
Cambrian - 1835
THE ERAS:
Cenozoic - 1841
Mesozoic - 1841
Paleozoic - 1838
Perhaps the most ridiculous
part of this is that radiodating of rocks, which did not exist when the
19th-century theories were devised, is forced to fit those 19th-century strata
dates! It is done by using only a few test samples which fit the 19th century
dates. The rest are discarded. (See chapter 6, Inaccurate Dating Methods,
for more on this.)
EVIDENCE OF EVOLUTION—If
evolution was a fact, we should find in present events and past records abundant
evidence of one species changing into another species. But, throughout all past
history and in present observations, no one has ever seen this happen. Prior to
written history, we only have fossil evidence. Scientists all over the world
have been collecting and studying fossils for over a hundred years. Literally
millions have been collected!
THE GEOLOGIC COLUMN—Much of
this, especially the dates, are imaginary. The complete column almost nowhere.
The laying down of fossil strata primarily occurred below the Pleastocene,
mountain building during it, and post-Flood after it. Coal is mainly in the
Carboniferous.
Geologic time scale Macmillan Dictionary, p. 430
CLICK TO ENLARGE
In all their research, this
is what they discovered: (1) There is no evidence of one species having
changed into another one. (2) Our modern species are what we find there,
plus some extinct ones. (3) There are no transitional or halfway forms
between species.
Yes, there are extinct creatures
among the fossils. These are plants and animals which no longer live on the
earth. But even scientists agree that extinct species would not be an evidence
of evolution.Yet evolutionists parade dinosaur bones as a grand proof of
evolution—when they are no proof at all! Extinction is not evolution!
Before proceeding further
in this study, we should mention two points that will help clarify the problem:
WHY SO VERY COMPLEX AT THE
BOTTOM?—As we already mentioned, the lowest strata level is called the Cambrian.
Below this lowest of the fossil-bearing strata lies the Precambrianthe
lowest strata level is called the Cambrian. Below this lowest of the
fossil-bearing strata lies the Precambrian
The Cambrian has invertebrate
(non-backbone) animals, such as trilobites and brachiopods. These are
both very complex little animals. In addition, many of our modern animals and
plants are in that lowest level, just above the Precambrian. How could such
complex, multicelled creatures be there in the bottom of the Cambrian strata?
But there they are. Suddenly, in the very lowest fossil stratum, we find
complex plants and animals—and lots of them, with no evidence that they evolved
from anything lower.
"It remains true, as
every paleontologist knows, that most new species, genera and families, and
that nearly all categories above the level of families, appear in the [fossil]
record suddenly and are not led up to by known, gradual, completely continuous
transitional sequences."—*George G. Simpson, The Major Features of
Evolution, p. 360.
Paleontologists (the
fossil hunters) call this immense problem "the Cambrian
Explosion," because vast numbers of complex creatures suddenly appear in the
fossil strata—with no evidence that they evolved from any less complicated
creatures!
We will discuss the
Precambrian/Cambrian problem later.
What caused this sudden,
massive appearance of life-forms? What caused the strata? Why are all those
fossils in the strata? What is the solution to all this?
THE GENESIS FLOOD—The answer
is that a great Flood,—the one described in the Bible in Genesis 6 to
9—rapidly covered the earth with watera great Flood,—the one described in
the Bible in Genesis 6 to 9—rapidly covered the earth with water. When it did, sediments
of pebbles, gravel, clay, and sand were laid down in successive strata,
covering animal and plant life. Under great pressure, these sediments turned
into what we today call "sedimentary rock." (Clay became shale;
sand turned into sandstone; mixtures of gravel, clay and sand formed
conglomerate rock.) All that mass of water-laid material successively
covered millions of living creatures. The result is fossils, which today are
only found in the sedimentary rock strata.
IS ENOUGH EVIDENCE
AVAILABLE?—Before we proceed further, it is vital that we know whether there is
enough evidence available to decide the fossil problem? Can we at the
present time really know for sure whether or not, according to the fossil
record, evolution has or has not occurred?
Yes, we CAN know! Men have worked earnestly, since the
beginning of the 19th century, to find evidences of evolution in the fossil
strata.
"The adequacy of the
fossil record for conclusive evidence is supported by the observation that 79.1
percent of the living families of terrestrial vertebrates have been found as
fossils (87.7 percent if birds are excluded)."—R.H. Brown, "The
Great Twentieth-Century Myth," in Origins, January 1986, p. 40.
"Geology and
paleontology held great expectations for Charles Darwin, although in 1859 [when
he published his book, Origin of the Species] he admitted that
they [already] presented the strongest single evidence against his theory.
Fossils were a perplexing puzzlement to him because they did not reveal any
evidence of a gradual and continuous evolution of life from a common ancestor,
proof which he needed to support his theory. Although fossils were an enigma to
Darwin, he ignored the problem and found comfort in the faith that future
explorations would reverse the situation and ultimately prove his theory
correct.
"He stated in his book, The
Origin of the Species, ‘The geological record is extremely imperfect and
this fact will to a large extent explain why we do not find intermediate
varieties, connecting together all the extinct and existing forms of life by
the finest graduated steps. He who rejects these views, on the nature of the
geological record, will rightly reject my whole theory.’ [Quoting from the
sixth (1901) edition of Darwin’s book, pages 341-342.]
"Now, after over 120
years of the most extensive and painstaking geological exploration of every
continent and ocean bottom, the picture is infinitely more vivid and complete
than it was in 1859. Formations have been discovered containing hundreds of
billions of fossils and our museums now are filled with over 100 million
fossils of 250,000 different species. The availability of this profusion of
hard scientific data should permit objective investigators to determine if
Darwin was on the right track."—Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin’s Enigma
(1988), p. 9 [italics ours].
"There are a hundred
million fossils, all catalogued and identified, in museums around the world.—*Porter
Kier, quoted in New Scientist,
There are one hundred
million fossils housed in museums and other collections! That ought to be enough to locate the
missing links and prove evolutionary theory! That ought to be enough to locate
the missing links and prove evolutionary theory!
Yes, enough information is
now available that we can have certainty, from the fossil record, whether
evolution ever did occur in our world! The present page will provide you with a
brief summary of those facts.
"The reason for abrupt
appearances and gaps can no longer be attributed to the imperfection of the
fossil record as it was by Darwin when paleontology was a young science. With
over 200,000,000 catalogued specimens of about 250,000 fossil species, many
evolutionary paleontologists such as Stanley argue that the fossil record is
sufficient."—W.R. Bird, The Origin of Species Revisited (1954), p. 48
[italics ours].
"In part, the role of
paleontology in evolutionary research has been defined narrowly because of a
false belief, tracing back to Darwin and his early followers, that the fossil
record is woefully incomplete. Actually, the record is of sufficiently high
quality to allow us to undertake certain kinds of analysis meaningfully at the
level of the species."—*S. Stanley, "Macroevolutíon," p. 1
(1979).
"Over ten thousand
fossil species of insects have been identified, over thirty thousand species of
spiders, and similar numbers for many sea-living creatures. Yet so far the
evidence for step-by-step changes leading to major evolutionary transitions
looks extremely thin. The supposed transition from wingless to winged insects
still has to found, as has the transition between the two main types of winged
insects, the paleoptera (mayflies, dragonflies) and the neoptera (ordinary
flies, beetles, ants, bees)."—*Fred Hoyle, "The Intelligent
Universe: A New View of Creation and Evolution," 1983, p. 43.
150 YEARS OF COLLECTED
EVIDENCE—In spite of such an immense amount of fossil evidence,
*Heribert-Nilsson of Lund University in Sweden, after 40 years of study in
paleontology and botany, said the deficiencies—the missing links—will never be
found.
"It is not even possible
to make a caricature [hazy sketch] of an evolution out of paleobiological
facts. The fossil material is now so complete that . . 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 (The Synthetic Origin of Species)
(1953), p. 1212.
More than a century ago,
enough evidence had been gathered from the study of fossils that it was already
clear that the fossil gaps between Genesis kinds was unfillable. Even *Charles Darwin admitted the
problem in his book.. Even *Charles Darwin admitted the problem in his book.
". . intermediate links?
Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic change, and
this is perhaps the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged
against the theory [of evolution]."—*Charles Darwin, Origin of the
Species, quoted in *David Raup, "Conflicts Between Darwin and
Paleontology," in Field Museum Bulletin, January 1979.
For over a century, hundreds
of men have dedicated their lives, in an attempt to find those missing links!
If the transitional forms, connecting one species with another, are really
there—they should have been found by now!
Sunderland, quoted above,
said "Our museums now are filled with over 100 million fossils
of 250,000 different species." Here, in two brief paragraphs, is a
clear description of the enormity of this missing link problem:
"The time required for
one of these invertebrates to evolve into the vertebrates, or fishes, has been
estimated at about 100 million years, and it is believed that the evolution of
the fish into an amphibian required about 30 million years. The essence of the
new Darwinian view is the slow gradual evolution of one plant or animal into another
by the gradual accumulation of micro-mutations through natural selection of
favored variants.
"If this view of
evolution is true, the fossil record should produce an enormous number of
transitional forms. Natural history museums should be overflowing with
undoubted intermediate forms. About 250,000 fossil species have been collected
and classified. These fossils have been collected at random from rocks that are
supposed to represent all of the geological periods of earth’s history.
Applying evolution theory and the laws of probability, most of these 250,000
species should represent transitional forms. Thus, if evolution is true, there
should be no doubt, question, or debate as to the fact of evolution."—Duane
T. Gish, "The Origin of Mammals" in Creation: the Cutting Edge
(1982), p. 76.
The above quotation provides
an excellent summary of the fossil gap problem. The fossil record purportedly
contains a record of all the billions of years of life on earth. If it takes
"100 million years" for an invertebrate to evolve through
transitional forms into a fish, the fossil strata should show vast numbers of
the in-between forms. But it never does! Scientists discuss these facts
among themselves; they have a responsibility to tell them to the public.
The evidence supports the
information given in the oldest extant book in the world: the book of Genesis.
2 - DATING THE STRATA AND FOSSILS
HOW ARE ROCKS DATED?—There
are vast quantities of fossils, scattered in various sedimentary strata
throughout the world. Yet how are the rocks and the fossils dated? In this
section we are going to learn that the rocks, from the fossils, and the fossils
are dated from their theories about the dating of the rocks!
"We can hardly pick up a
copy of a newspaper or magazine nowadays without being informed exactly how
many million years ago some remarkable event in the history of the earth
occurred."—*Adolph Knopf, quoted in Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and
Nature Quotations, p. 62 [Knopf was an American geologist].
Let us examine this dating
process more closely:
REAL HISTORY—Real history
only goes back about 4,500 years. The First Dynasty in Egypt has left
us records that date back to about 2200 B.C. (that is the corrected date as
determined by scholars; Manetho’s account reaches to 3500 B.C. See chapter 21, Archaeological
Dating. Moses began writing part of the Bible about 1480 B.C. He wrote of
events going back to about 4000 B.C.
NOT DATED BY APPEARANCE—Rocks
are not dated by their appearance, for rocks of all types (limestones,
shales, gabbro, etc.) may be found in all evolutionary "ages." Rocks
are not dated by their mineral, metallic, or petroleum content; for any
type of mineral may be found in practically any "age."
NOT DATED BY LOCATION—Rocks
are not dated by the rocks they are near. The rocks above them in one
sedimentary sequence may be the rocks below them in the next. The "oldest
rocks" may lie above so-called "younger rocks." Rocks
are not dated by their structure, breaks, faults, or folds. None of this
has any bearing on the dating that evolutionists apply to rocks. Textbooks,
magazines, and museum displays give the impression that it is the location of
the strata that decides the dating, but this is not true.
"It is, indeed, a
well-established fact that the (physical-stratigraphical) rock units and their
boundaries often transgress geologic time planes in most irregular fashion even
within the shortest distances."—*J.A. Jeletzsky, "Paleontology,
Basis of Practical Geochronology," in Bulletin of the American Association
of Petroleum Geologists, April 1956, p. 685.
NOT DATED BY VERTICAL
LOCATION—Rocks are not dated by their height or depth in the strata, or
which rocks are "at the top," which are "at the
bottom," or which are "in the middle." Their vertical
placement and sequence has little bearing on the matter. This would have to be
so, since the arrangement of the strata shows little hint of uniformity
anywhere in the world. (Much more on this later in this page.)
NOT DATED BY RADIOACTIVITY—The
rock strata are not dated by the radioactive minerals within them. The dating
was all worked out decades before anyone heard or thought of radioactive datingThe
rock strata are not dated by the radioactive minerals within them. The dating
was all worked out decades before anyone heard or thought of radioactive
dating. In addition, we learned in the chapter on Dating Methods, that
there are so many ways in which radiometric dating can be incorrect, that we
dare not rely on uranium and similar minerals as reliable dating methods.
Index Fossils
INDEX
FOSSILS—Are you able to pick up a seashell, and know it died 52½ months earlier?
Evolutionists can pick up a fossil shell and tell you it died 525 million years
ago!
The fact is that rocks are not dated by any physical characteristic at all. What then ARE they dated by?
DATED BY FOSSILS?—The
strata are said to be dated by FOSSILS! Well, now we have
arrived at something concrete. The strata are all mixed up, piled on top or
under where they should go, or totally missing. But at least we can date by all
their fossils.
But wait a minute! We
cannot even use 99 percent of the fossils to date them by, since we can
find the same type of fossils in one stratum as in many others! And in each
stratum are millions of fossils, representing hundreds and even thousands of
different species of plant and/or animal life. The result is a bewildering maze
of mixed-up or missing strata, each with fossil prints from a wide variety of
ancient plants and animals that we can find in still other rock strata.
Yet, amid all this confusion,
evolutionists tell us that fossil dating is of extreme importance. That is very
true, for without it the evolutionary scientist would have no way to try to
theorize "earlier ages" on the earth. Fossil dating is crucial to
their entire theoretical house of cards.But if rocks cannot be dated by most
of the fossils they contain,—how are the rocks dated?
ROCKS ARE DATED BY INDEX
FOSSILS—(*#5/6 Index Fossils*) The strata are dated by what the
evolutionists call "index fossils." in each stratum
there are a few fossils which are not observed quite as often in the other
strata. As a pretext, these are the fossils which are used to "date"
that stratum and all the other fossils within it!
It may sound ridiculous, but
that is the way it is done. What are these magical fossils that have the power
to tell men finding them the DATE—so many millions of years ago—when they
lived? These special "index" fossils are generally small marine
invertebrates— backboneless sea animals that could not climb to higher
ground when the Flood came!
Their presence in a sedimentary stratum is supposed to provide
absolutely certain proof that that stratum is just so many millions of years
"younger" or millions of years "older" than other strata!
These special "index" fossils are generally small marine invertebrates—
backboneless sea animals that could not climb to higher ground when the Flood
came! Their presence in a sedimentary stratum is supposed to provide absolutely
certain proof that that stratum is just so many millions of years
"younger" or millions of years "older" than other strata!
But then, just as oddly, the magic disappears when the index
fossil is found alive:
"Most of the species of maidenhair are extinct; indeed they
served as index fossils for their strata until one was found alive."
"The youngest fossil coelacanth is about sixty million years old. Since
one was rediscovered off Madagascar, they are no longer claimed as ‘index
fossils’—fossils which tell you that all other fossils in that layer are the
same ripe old age."—Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution (1984), pp. 186,
198.
In reality, within each stratum is to be found an utter confusion
of thousands of different types of plants and/or animals. The evolutionists
maintain that if just one of a certain type of creature (an "index
fossil") is found anywhere in that stratum, it must automatically be given
a certain name,—and more: a certain date millions of years ago when all
the creatures in that stratum are supposed to have lived. Yet, just by
examining that particular index fossil, there is no way to tell that it lived
just so many millions of years ago! It is all part of a marvelous theory, which
is actually nothing more than a grand evolutionary hoax. Experienced
scientists denounce it as untrue.
Any rock containing fossils of one type of trilobite (Paradoxides)
is called a "Cambrian" rock, thus supposedly dating all the
creatures in that rock to a time period 120 million years long and beginning 60
million years in the past. But rocks containing another type of trilobite (Bathyurus)
are arbitrarily classified as "Ordovician," which is claimed to
have spanned 45 million years and begun 480 million years ago.
—But how can anyone come up with such ancient dates simply by
examining two different varieties of trilobite? The truth is that it cannot be
done.
Add to this the problem of mixed-up index fossils—when "index
fossils" from different levels are found together!
That is a problem which paleontologists do not publicly discuss. As we analyze
one aspect after another of evolution (stellar, geologic, biologic, genetic,
etc.), we find it all to be little more than a carefully contrived science
fiction storybook.
FOSSILS ARE DATED BY A THEORY—But now comes the catch: How can
evolutionary geologists know what dates to apply to those index fossils? The
answer to this question is a theory! How can evolutionary geologists know
what dates to apply to those index fossils? The answer to this question is a
theory! Here is how they do it:
Darwinists theorize which animals came first—and
when they appeared on the scene. And then they date the rocks according to
their theory—not according to the wide mixture of fossils creatures in
it—but by assigning dates—based on their theory—to certain "index"
fossils.
—That is a gigantic, circular-reasoning hoax!
"Fossils provide the only historical, documentary evidence
that life has evolved from simpler to more and more complex forms."—*Carl
O. Dunbar, Historical Geology, 2nd edition (1960), p. 47.
The conclusions about which fossils came first are based on the
assumptions of evolution. Rock strata are studied, a few index fossils are
located (when they can be found at all), and each stratum is then given a name.
Since the strata are above, below, and in-between one another, with most of
the strata missing in any one location,—just how can the theorists possibly
"date" each stratum? They do it by applying evolutionary speculation
to what they imagine those dates should be.
This type of activity classifies as interesting fiction, but it
surely should not be regarded as science. The truth is this: it was
the evolutionary theory that was used to date the fossils; it was not the
strata and it was not "index fossils."
"Vertebrate paleontologists have relied upon ‘stage of
evolution’ as the criterion for determining the chronologic relationships of
faunas. Before establishment of physical dates, evolutionary progression was
the best method for dating fossiliferous strata."—*J.F. Evernden, *O.E.
Savage, *G.H. Curtis, and *G.T. James, "K/A Dates and the Cenozoic
Mammalian Chronology of North America," in American Journal of Science,
February 1964, p. 166.
"Fossiliferous strata" means
fossil-bearing strata. Keep in mind that only the sedimentary rocks have
fossils, for they were the sediments laid down at the time of the Flood, which
hardened under pressure and dried into rock. You will find no fossils in
granite, basalt, etc.
"The dating of each stratum—and all the fossils in it—is
supposedly based on index fossils, when it is actually based on evolutionary
speculations, and nothing more.
"The more one studies paleontology, the more certain one
becomes that evolution is based on faith alone."—Randy Wysong, The
Creation-Evolution Controversy (1976), p. 31.
The "index fossils" are dated by the theory. Amid all
the confusion of mixed up and missing strata, there would be no possible way to
"date" rocks—or fossils—by the catastrophic conditions found in
sedimentary strata. It is all utter confusion. So the evolutionists apply a
theory to the strata.They decided that certain water worms in one stratum are
80,000 years older than certain water worms in another stratum,—and then they
date all the other fossils in those same strata accordingly! (That is a little
foolish, is it not? How can you date a water worm as being so many hundred
million years ago?)
"Because of the sterility of its concepts, historical
geology, which includes paleontology [the study of fossils] and stratigraphy
[the study of rock strata], has become static and unreproductive. Current
methods of delimiting intervals of time, which are the fundamental units of
historical geology, and of establishing chronology are of dubious validity.
Worse than that, the criteria of correlation—the attempt to equate in time, or
synchronize, the geological history of one area with that of another—are
logically vulnerable. The findings of historical geology are suspect because
the principles upon which they are based are either inadequate, in which case
they should be reformulated, or false, in which case they should be discarded.
Most of us [geologists] refuse to discard or reformulate, and the result is the
present deplorable state of our discipline."—*Robin S. Allen,
"Geological Correlation and Paleoecology," Bulletin of the Geological
Society of America, January 1984, p. 2.
Big names and big numbers have been assigned to various strata,
thus imparting an air of scientific authority to them.
Common people, lacking expertise in the nomenclature of paleontology, when
faced with these lists of big words tend to give up. It all looks too awesome
to be understood, much less challenged. But the big words and big numbers just
cover over an empty theory which lacks substantial evidence to support it.
CIRCULAR REASONING—(*#6/10 Circular Reasoning*) When we
examine it, we find that the strata-dating theory is based on circular
reasoning."Circular reasoning" is a method of false logic, by
which "this is used to prove that, and that is used to prove
this." It is also called "reasoning in a circle."
Over a hundred years ago, it was described by the phrase, circulus in
probando, which is Latin for "a circle in a proof."
There are several types of circular reasoning found in support of
evolutionary theory. One of these is the geological dating position that "fossils
are dated by the type of stratum they are in while at the same time the stratum
is dated by the fossils found in it." An alternative evolutionary
statement is that "the fossils and rocks are interpreted by the theory of
evolution, and the theory is proven by the interpretation given to the fossils
and rocks."
Evolutionists (1) use their theory of rock strata to
date the fossils, (2) and then use their theory of fossils to date the rock
strata!
A number of scientists have commented on this problem of circularity.
"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,
March 1983, p. 21.
"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 the 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 and Stratigraphy," American Journal of Science, January 1976,
p. 48.
"Are the authorities maintaining, on the one hand, that
evolution is documented by geology and on the other hand, that geology is
documented by evolution? Isn’t this a circular argument?"—*Larry Azar,
"Biologists, Help!" BioScience, November 1978, p. 714.
The professor of paleobiology at Kansas State University wrote
this:
"Contrary to what most scientists write, the fossil record
does not support the Darwinian theory of evolution, because it is this theory
(there are several) which we use to interpret the fossil record. By doing so,
we are guilty of circular reasoning if we then say the fossil record supports this
theory."—*Ronald R. West, "Paleontology and
Uniformitarianism," in Compass, May 1968, p. 216.
*Niles Eldredge, head of the Paleontology Department at the
American Museum of Natural History, in Chicago, made this comment:
"And this poses something of a problem. If we date the rocks
by their fossils, how can we then turn around and talk about patterns of
evolutionary change through time in the fossil record?"—*Niles
Eldredge, Time Frames: The Rethinking of Darwinian Evolution, 1985, p. 52.
The curator of zoological collections at Oxford University wrote
this:
"A circular argument arises: Interpret the fossil record in
the terms of a particular theory of evolution, inspect the interpretation, and
note that it confirms the theory. Well, it would, wouldn’t it?"—*Tom
Kemp, "A Fresh Look at the Fossil Record," New Scientist 108,
A DOUBLE CIRCLE—Circular reasoning is the basis, not only of
the fossil theory,—but of the whole theory of evolution!
First, reasoning in a circle is the basis of the
"evidence" that evolution has occurred in the past. (The
fossils are dated by the theory of strata dating; the strata are
then dated by the fossils are dated by the theory of
strata dating; the strata are then dated by the fossils).
Second, reasoning in a circle is the basis of the
"mechanism" by which evolution is supposed to occurred any time. (The
survivors survive. The fittest survive because they are fittest,—yet,
according to that, all they do is survive! not evolve into something
better!) (See chapter 9, Natural Selection).
Throughout this set of books, we shall find many other examples of
strange logic on the part of the evolutionists: (1) Matter had to
come from something, therefore it somehow came from nothing (chapter 2, The
Big Bang and Stellar Evolution). (2) Living creatures had to come from
something, therefore they somehow came from dirt that is not alive (chapter
7, The Primitive Environment).By the use of circular reasoning,
evolutionary theory attempts to separate itself from the laws of nature!
Limiting factors of chemical, biological, and physical law forbid matter or
living creatures from originating or evolving,Actually, the entire theory of
evolution is based on one vast circularity in reasoning! Because they accept
the theory, evolutionists accept all the foolish ideas which attempt to prove
it.
"But the danger of circularity is still present. For most
biologists the strongest reason for accepting the evolutionary hypothesis is
their acceptance of some theory that entails it. There is another difficulty.
The temporal ordering of biological events beyond the local section may
critically involve paleontological correlation, which necessarily presupposes
the nonrepeatability of organic events in geologic history. There are various
justifications for this assumption but for almost all contemporary
paleontologists it rests upon the acceptance of the evolutionary
hypothesis."—*David G. Kitts, "Paleontology and Evolutionary
Theory," in Evolution, September 1974, p. 466.
FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS—As we study the fossil record, we come upon a
variety of very serious problems which undermine the strata/fossil theory. Three
of the most important are these: (1) At the very bottom of all the strata
(the geologic column) is the Cambrian strata, which is filled with
complex, multi-celled life. This is termed the "Cambrian
explosion" of sudden life-forms all at once. (2) There are no
transitional species throughout the column. This problem is also called fossil
gaps or missing links. (3) (3) Mixed-up and out-of-order strata are
regularly found. Singly or together, they destroy the evolutionary argument
from the rock strata. But there are many more problems.
3 - COMPLEXITY AT THE BEGINNING
SIMPLEST JUST AS COMPLEX—Because the waters of the Flood first
covered the creatures which were not able to rapidly escape to higher ground,
some of the "simplest animals" are found in the lowest of the
sedimentary strata. Yet those creatures have complicated internal structuresBecause
the waters of the Flood first covered the creatures which were not able to
rapidly escape to higher ground, some of the "simplest animals" are
found in the lowest of the sedimentary strata. Yet those creatures have
complicated internal structures.
One of the most common creatures found in the lowest—the
Cambrian—strata, are the trilobites. These were small swimming
creatures belonging to the same group as the insects (the arthropods). Yet
careful study reveals that they had extremely complex eyes. The mathematics
needed to work out the lens structure of these little creatures is so
complicated, that it was not developed until the middle of the last century!
Here is how an expert describes it. *Norman Macbeth, in a speech
at Harvard University in 1983, said this:
"I have dealt with biologists over the last twenty years now.
I have found that, in a way, they are hampered by having too much education.
They have been steeped from their childhood in the Darwinian views, and, as a
result, it has taken possession of their minds to such an extent that they are
almost unable to see many facts that are not in harmony with Darwinism. These
facts simply aren’t there for them often, and other ones are sort of suppressed
or distorted. I’ll give you some examples.
"First, and perhaps most important, is the first appearance
of fossils. This occurs at a time called the ‘Cambrian,’ 600 million
years ago by the fossil reckoning. The fossils appear at that time [in the
Cambrian] in a pretty highly developed form. They don’t start very low and
evolve bit by bit over long periods of time. In the lowest fossil-bearing
strata of all [the Cambrian, they are already there, and are pretty complicated
in more-or-less modern form.
"One example of this is the little animal called the
trilobite. There are a great many fossils of the trilobite right there at the
beginning with no buildup to it [no evolution of life-forms leading to it].
And, if you examine them closely, you will find that they are not simple
animals. They are small, but they have an eye that has been discussed a great
deal in recent years—an eye that is simply incredible.
"It is made up of dozens of little tubes which are all at
slightly different angles so that it covers the entire field of vision, with a
different tube pointing at each spot on the horizon. But these tubes are all
more complicated than that, by far. They have a lens on them that is optically
arranged in a very complicated way, and it is bound into another layer that has
to be just exactly right for them to see anything . . But the more complicated
it is, the less likely it is simply to have grown up out of nothing.
"And this situation has troubled everybody from the
beginning—to have everything at the very opening of the drama. The curtain goes
up [life-forms first appear in the Cambrian strata] and you have the players on
the stage already, entirely in modern costumes."—*Norman Macbeth,
Speech at Harvard University,
Remember, we are here discussing one of the most common creatures
at the very bottom of the fossil strata. Science News declared that the
trilobite had "the most sophisticated eye lenses ever produced by
nature." (*Science News 105,
"In fact, this optical doublet is a device so typically
associated with human invention that its disovery in trilobites comes as
something of a shock. The realization that trilobites developed and used such
devices half a billion years ago makes the shock even greater. And a final
discovery—that the refracting interface between the two lense elements in a
trilobite’s eye was designed ["designed"] in accordance with optical
constructions worked out by Descartes and Huygens in the mid-seventeenth
century—borders on sheer science fiction . . The design of the trilobite’s eye
lens could well qualify for a patent disclosure."—*Riccardo Levi-Setti,
Trilobites, 2nd ed., University of Chicago Press, 1993, pp. 54, 57.
Extremely complicated creatures at the very beginning, with
nothing leading up to them; that is the testimony of the strata.
The rocks cry out; they have a message to tell us. Are we listening?
THOSE MARVELOUS TRILOBITES—There are enormous numbers of complex
trilobites in the Cambrian strata, yet below the Cambrian there is hardly
anything that resembles a fossil. As mentioned above, these little creatures
had marvelously complicated eyes. But they also had other very advanced
features: (1) Jointed legs and appendages, which indicate that they had a
complex system of muscles. (2) Chitinous exos`````````keleton (horny substance
as their outer covering), which indicates that they grew by periodic ecdysis,
a very complicated process of molting. (3) Compound eyes and antennae,
which indicate a complex nervous system. (4) Special respiratory organs, which
indicate a blood circulation system. (5) Complex mouth parts, which indicate
specialized food requirements.
(Another of the many types of creatures, found in great numbers in
the Cambrian strata, are segmented marine worms. As with trilobites, we find
that they also had a complex musculature, specialized food habits and
requirements, blood circulatory system, and advanced nervous system.)
NOT SIMPLE TO COMPLEX—The evolutionists maintain that the
fossil record goes from the simple to the complex. But researchers have
discovered that the simple creatures were also complexThe evolutionists maintain
that the fossil record goes from the simple to the complex. But researchers
have discovered that the simple creatures were also complex. In fact, there are
actually few examples in the fossil record of anything like "from simple
to complex" progression. This is partly due to the fact that the fossils
suddenly appear in great numbers and variety,—too much so for much
simple-to-complex progression to be sorted out.Included here are complex
organs, such as intestines, stomachs, bristles and spines. Eyes and feelers
show the presence of nervous systems. For example, consider the specialized
sting cells (nematocysts) in the bodies of jellyfish, with their coiled,
thread-like harpoons which are explosively triggered. How could this evolve?,
such as intestines, stomachs, bristles and spines. Eyes and feelers show the
presence of nervous systems. For example, consider the specialized sting cells (nematocysts)
in the bodies of jellyfish, with their coiled, thread-like harpoons which
are explosively triggered. How could this evolve?
EVERY PHYLUM IN THE CAMBRIAN—The startling fact is that every
phylum is represented in the lowest sedimentary strata of all: the Cambrian.
The "Cambrian explosion" is, for evolutionary theory, a catastrophe
from which it will never recover.
Every phylum in the Cambrian
Let no one say that the Cambrian level only has "simple,
primitive," or "half-formed" creatures.
4 - SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF LIFE
CAMBRIAN EXPLOSION—(*#7/52 The Cambrian and Precambrian
Problem*) The lowest strata that has fossils is the Cambrian. Below
that is the Precambrian which has no fossils, other than an occasional
algae on its surface. Paleontologists call that amazing situation the "Cambrian
explosion."
Beginning with the very lowest of the fossil strata—the Cambrian,—we
find a wealth of fossil types. But each type—each species—of fossil in the
Cambrian is different from the others. There is no blending between them!
It requires evolving—blending across species—to produce evolution, but this
never occurs today, and it never occurred earlier. Look at the fossils: in the
ancient world there were only distinct species. Look at the world around you:
in the modern world there are only distinct species.
There are vast numbers—billions—of fossils of thousands of different
species of complex creatures in the Cambrian,—and below it is next to nothing. The
vast host of transitional species leading up to the complex Cambrian species
are totally missing!
EVERY MAJOR LIFE GROUP HAS BEEN FOUND IN THE CAMBRIAN—In the
Cambrian we find sponges, corals, jellyfish, mollusks, trilobites,
crustaceans, and, in fact, every one of the major invertebrate forms of life.
In 1961, *Kai Peterson wrote:
"The invertebrate animal phyla are all represented in
Cambrian deposits."— *Kai Peterson, Prehistoric Life on Earth, p. 56.
That means there, in the Cambrian fossil strata, is to be found at
least one species from every phyla of backboneless animal. Only one phylum had
been missing: the vertebrates.
At the time when Peterson wrote, it was believed that no
vertebrates (animals with backbones) appeared until the Lower Ordovician (just
above the Cambrian). But in 1977 that belief was shattered, when fully
developed fish (heterostracan vertebrate fish fossils) were discovered in the
Upper Cambrian strata of Wyoming. Reported in Science magazine for May 5, 1
978,—this discovery placed every major animal phylum group in the
Cambrian rocks! Although never discussed in school textbooks, this news
came as a distinct shock to the professional world. For evolutionists, the
situation continues to get worse.
With the "Cambrian Explosion" suddenly appears every
major type of living thing. This fact totally devastates the basis of
evolutionary theory. Plants and every type of animal have been found in the Cambrian
strata. Although evolutionists prefer not to discuss it, the truth is that
at least one representative of EVERY PHYLUM has been found in the Cambrian!
"Until recently, the oldest fish fossils known were from the
Middle Ordovician Harding Sandstone of Colorado. These were of ‘primitive’
heterostracan fishes (Class Agnatha) which are jawless. The Vertebrates
were the only major animal group not found as fossils in Cambrian rocks.
"[The 1976 discovery of heterostracan fish fossils in
Cambrian is discussed in detail] . . This discovery of fishes (vertebrates) in
the Cambrian is without question the most significant fossil discovery in the
period 1958-1979. The evidence is now complete that all of the major categories
of animal and plant life are found in the Cambrian."—Marvin L. Lubenow,
"Significant Fossil Discoveries Since 1958," in Creation Research
Society Quarterly, December 1980, p. 157.
Not only complex animal life, but complex plant life is
represented in the Cambrian! Flowering plants are generally considered to be
one of the most advanced forms of life in the plant kingdom. Spores from
flowering plants have also been found in Cambrian strata.
"Spores attributed to terrestrial plants have been found in
Precambrian and Cambrian rocks in the Baltic. Whether some of these are from
bryophytes is uncertain."—*Robert F. Scagel, et. al., Plant Diversity:
an Evolutionary Approach (1969), p. 25.
During the Genesis Flood, plants would tend to have washed into
higher strata, but their pollen could easily have been carried into the
earliest alluvial layers: the Cambrian and even the Precambrian.
"Just as fossils of most of the other land plants have been
discovered in Cambrian deposits, so it is with the flowering plants. In 1947,
Ghosh and Bose reported discovering angiosperm vessels with alternate pitting
and libriform fibres of higher dicotyledons from the Salt Pseudomorph Beds and
the Dandot overfold, Salt Range, Punjab, India. These are Cambrian deposits.
They later confirmed that further investigation confirmed their original
report, and the same results were obtained from the Cambrian Vindbyan System,
and the Cambrian of Kashmir—these Kashmir beds also contained several types of
trilobites. The review articles of Axelrod and Leclercq acknowledge these
findings."—Marvin L. Lubenow, "Significant Fossil Discoveries
Since 1958," in Creation Research Society Quarterly, December 1980, p. 154.
5 - NO LIFE BELOW THE CAMBRIAN
PRECAMBRIAN—In contrast, there is next to nothing answering to
life-forms beneath the Cambrian!
The Cambrian rocks contain literally billions of the little
trilobites, plus many, many other complex species. Yet below the
Cambrian—called the "Precambrian,"—we find almost nothing in
the way of life-forms. The message of the rock strata is
"SUDDENLY abundant life; below that, NO LIFE!" Where this terrific
explosion of abundance of life begins—in the Cambrian,—we find complexity, not
simplicity of life-forms.
Multicellular animals appear suddenly and in rich profusion in the
Cambrian, and none are ever found beneath it in the Precambrian (*Preston
Cloud, "Pseudofossils: A Plea for Caution," in Geology, November
1973, pp. 123-127).
It is true that, in a very few disputed instances, there may be a
few items in the Precambrian, which some suggest to be life-forms. But a
majority of scientists recognize that, at best, these are only algae. Blue-green
algae, although small plants, are biochemically quite complex; for they
utilize an elaborate solar-to-chemical energy transformation, or
photosynthesis. Such organisms could have been growing on the ground when the
waters of the Flood first inundated it.
STROMATOLITES—The only macrofossils that are of widespread
occurrence in the Precambrian are stromatolitesThe only macrofossils
that are of widespread occurrence in the Precambrian are stromatolites.
These are reef-like remnants usually thought to have been formed from
precipitated mineral matter on microbial communities, primarily blue-green
algae, growing by photosynthesis. So stromatolites are
remnants of chemical formations—and never were alive!
"Further analysis of the world’s oldest rocks has confirmed
that microscopic inclusions are not the fossilized remains of living
cells; instead they are crystals of dolomite-type carbonates, rusted by water
that has seeped into the rock."—*Nigel Henbest, "‘Oldest Cells’
are Only Weathered Crystals," in New Scientist,
Two years later, an update report in New Scientist on
"the world’s oldest (Precambrian) rocks" in Greenland said this:
"Geologists have found no conclusive evidence of life in
these Greenland rocks."—*Chris Peat and *Will Diver, "First
Signs of Life on Earth," in New Scientist,
Scientists have remarked on how there seems to be a sudden vast
quantity of living creatures as soon as the Cambrian begins. All this favors
the concept of Creation and a Genesis Flood, not that of slowly occurring
evolution over millions of years.
6 - NO TRANSITIONAL SPECIES
THE GAP PROBLEM—(*#8/55 No Transitions: Only Gaps*) In
this section we will deal with three specific problems, but we will frequently
intermingle them in the discussion:
(1) There are no transitional species preceding or leading up to
the first multi-celled creatures that appear in the Cambrian, the lowest
stratum level.
(2) There are no transitional species elsewhere in the fossil
record.
(3) The species that appear in the fossils are frequently found
in many different strata.
(4) The great majority of the species found in the fossils are
alive today.
NO TRANSITIONS—The Cambrian explosion is the first major problem
with the fossil record. The lack of transitions is the second. But of all the
problems, this lack of transitional creatures—halfway between different
species—is, for the evolutionist, probably the biggest single crisis in the
geologic column. Indeed, it is one of the biggest of the many crises in
evolutionary theory!
"Evolution requires intermediate forms between species, and
paleontology does not provide them."—*D.B. Kitts, Paleontology and
Evolutionary Theory (1974), p. 467.
Throughout the fossils, we find no transitions from one kind of
creature to another. Instead, only individual, distinctive plant or animal
kinds..
"It is a feature of the known fossil record that most taxa
appear abruptly. They are not, as a rule, led up to by a sequence of almost
imperceptible changing forerunners such as Darwin believed should be usual in
evolution."—*G.G. Simpson, in The Evolution of Life, p. 149.
To make matters worse, in the fossil record we find the very
same creatures that we have today, plus a few extinct types which died out
before our time! Neither now nor earlier are there transitional forms,
halfway between true species.
"When we examine a series of fossils of any age we may pick
out one and say with confidence, ‘This is a crustacean’—or starfish, or a
brachiopod, or annelid, or any other type of creature as the case may
be."—*A.H. Clark, The New Evolution: Zoogenesis, p. 100.
In the rock strata, we find horses, tigers, fish, insects, but no
transitional forms. For example, we find large horses and small horses, but
nothing that is part horse and part something else.
After giving years to a careful examination of the fossil record,
comparing it with that of species alive today, a famous biologist on the staff
of the Smithsonian Institute wrote these words:
"All the major groups of animals have maintained the same
relationship to each other from the very first [from the very lowest level of
the geologic column]. Crustaceans have always been crustaceans, echinoderms
have always been echinoderms, and mollusks have always been mollusks. There is
not the slightest evidence which supports any other viewpoint."—*A.H.
Clark, The New Evolution: Zoogenesis (1930), p. 114.
"From the tangible evidence that we now have been able to
discover, we are forced to the conclusion that all the major groups of animals
at the very first held just about the same relation to each other that they do
today."—*Op. cit., p. 211.
FOSSIL GAPS—This glaring fact is a repudiation of evolutionary
theory. Evolutionists even have a name for the problem: they call it "fossil
gaps." No creatures that are half fish and half bird, or
half pig and half cow are to be found—only distinct animal and plant types such
as we know today.
A related problem is the fact that great numbers of fossils
span across many strata, supposedly covering millions of years. This means
that, throughout the fossil record, those species made no changes during those
"millions of years."
THE OCTOPUS—Here is an excellent example of what we are talking
about: the squid and octopus are the most complex of the
invertebrates the squid and octopus are the most complex of the
invertebrates the squid and octopus are the most complex of the
invertebrates (animals without backbones). The eye of the octopus is extremely
complicated, and equal to the human eye! Checking carefully through the fossil
record, you will find only squid and octopi, nothing else. There was nothing
evolved or evolving about them; they were always just squid and octopi. (You
will also find an extinct species, called the nautiloids. But they seem
to have been even more complex!)
Checking into this more carefully, you will find that octopi first
appear quite early in the fossil strata. The reason for that would be simple
enough: When an octopus is frightened, it may curl up in a cave or corner
someplace, or it may shoot out quickly using jets of water. For this reason,
some octopi would be buried early while others would be buried in higher
strata. Checking still further, you will find that the octopus is found in
nearly every stratum, from bottom to top! Many octopi continued to jet their
way to the top of the waters as they rose.
(Later, after the Flood was finished, the balance of nature worked
against the nautiloid and they were devoured by their enemies. Today there are
none. Darwin’s "survival of the fittest" [the fittest will
survive better than the others] apparently did not apply to the nautiloids,
which were distinctly different than the octopi and squid, but apparently more
capable than either.)
Checking still further, you will find that octopi and squid in all
strata are identical to octopi and squid today.
MISSING LINKS—(*#11/133 Searching for Transitions [over a
hundred quotations!]*) (*#11/133 Searching for Transitions [over a hundred
quotations!]*) [It should be mentioned here that Appendix 11, at the
back of our Fossils and Strata chapter on our website
(evolution-facts.org), is the largest quotation appendix of all. It has 25
categories and 133 quotations. There are enough quotations here to form the
basis for a major thesis.]
The links are missing. Nearly all the fossils are just our present
animals, and the links between them are just not there.
Few scientists today are still looking for fossil links between the major
vertebrate or invertebrate groups. They have given up! The links just do not
exist and have never existed..
Evolutionists know exactly what those transitional forms should
look like, but they cannot find them in the fossil record! They
are not to be found, even though thousands of men have searched for them since
the beginning of the 19th century! Everywhere they turn, the paleontologists
(the fossil hunters) find the same regular, distinct species that exist today,
plus some that are extinct. The extinct ones are obviously not transitional
forms between the regular species. For example, the large dinosaurs are not
transitional forms, but are just definite species which became extinct in
ancient times—probably by the waters of the Flood.
(Contrary to the lurid paintings of dinosaurs which evolutionists
like to display as proof of their theory—extinction of a distinct species is
not evolution, and provides no evidence of it.)
The search to find the missing links and fill the gaps between the
distinct kinds has resulted in enormous collections of fossils. Recall to mind
the earlier statements by Sunderland and *Kier, that 100 million fossils have
been examined by paleontologists around the world.
"There is no need to apologize any longer for the poverty of
the fossil record. In some ways it has become almost unmanageably rich, and
discovery is outpacing integration . . The fossil record nevertheless
continues to be composed mainly of gaps."—*T. Neville George,
"Fossils in Evolutionary Perspective," in Science Progress, January
1960, pp. 1, 3.
If there are no transitional forms in the fossil record, there has
been no evolution
Fossils and Strata
continued
7 - ABRUPT APPEARANCE
ABRUPT APPEARANCE OF THE HIGHER TAXA—(*#9/22 Abrupt
Appearance*) The smaller, slower-moving creatures appear suddenly in the Cambrian.
Above the Cambrian, the larger, faster creatures appear just as suddenly! And
when these life-forms do appear—they appear by the millions! Tigers, salmon,
lions, pine trees, gophers, hawks, squirrels, horses, and on and on!Evolution
cannot explain this sudden emergence, and competent scientists acknowledge the
fact.
"The abrupt appearance of higher taxa in the fossil record
has been a perennial puzzle. Not only do characteristic and distinctive remains
of phyla appear suddenly, without known ancestors, but several classes of a
phylum, orders of a class, and so on, commonly appear at approximately the same
time, without known intermediates."—*James W. Valentine and *Cathryn A.
Campbell, "Genetic Regulation and the Fossil Record," in American
Scientist, November-December, 1975, p. 673.
"In spite of these examples, it remains true, as every
paleontologist knows, that most new species, genera, and families, and that
nearly all categories about the level of families, appear in the record
suddenly and are not led up to by known, gradual, completely continuous
transitional sequences."—*G.G. Simpson, The Major features of Evolution
(1953), p. 360.
"The sudden emergence of major adaptive types as seen in the
abrupt appearance in the fossil record of families and orders, continued to
give trouble. The phenomenon lay in the genetic no-man’s land beyond the limits
of experimentation. A few paleontologists even today cling to the idea that
these gaps will be closed by further collecting . . but most regard the observed
discontinuities as real and have sought an explanation."—*D. Dwight
Davis, "Comparative Anatomy and the Evolution of Vertebrates," in
Genetics, Paleontology, and Evolution (1949), p. 74.
8 - STASIS
UNCHANGING SPECIES—(*#13/17 Stasis*) An important principle
noted by every paleontologist who works with fossils is known as stasis. Stasis
means to retain a certain form, to remain unchanged; in other words, not to
change from one species to another! An important principle noted by every
paleontologist who works with fossils is known as stasis. Stasis means
to retain a certain form, to remain unchanged; in other words, not to change
from one species to another! An important principle noted by every
paleontologist who works with fossils is known as stasis. Stasis means
to retain a certain form, to remain unchanged; in other words, not to change
from one species to another! The problem for the evolutionists is the fact that
the animals in the fossil record did not change. Each creature first appears in
the record with a certain shape and structure. It then continues on unchanged
for "millions of years"; and is either identical to creatures
existing now or becomes extinct and disappears. But all the while that it
lived, there was no change in it; no evolution. There were no evidences of what
paleontologists call gradualism, that is, gradual changes from one
species to another. There was only stasis. The gap problem (no
transitional forms between species) and the stasis problem (species do
not change) ruin evolutionary theories.
"The history of most fossil species includes two features
particularly inconsistent with gradualism:
"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.
"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.’ "—*Steven Jay Gould,
"Evolution’s Eratic Pace," in Natural History, May 1977, p. 14.
9 - NO CHANGE FROM PAST TO PRESENT
FOSSILS SAME AS THOSE NOW ALIVE—All of the fossils can be
categorized into one of two groups: (1) Plants and animals which became extinct
and (2) Plants and animals which are the same as those living today. Neither
category provides any evidence of evolution, for there are no transitional
forms leading up to or away from any of them. All are only distinct species.
Some creatures became extinct at the time of the Flood or shortly
afterward. But all creatures which did not become extinct are essentially
identical—both in fossil form and in their living counterparts today! This is a
major point. No species evolution has occurred! The fossils provide no evidence
of species evolution!
10 - NOT ENOUGH SPECIES
SHOULD BE MORE SPECIES—According to evolutionary theory, a massive
number of species changes had to occur in ancient times, but we do not find
evidence of this in the rocks. In order for one species to change into another,
we should find large numbers of transitional species, partway between one
species and another. But this is not found. A leading paleontologist explains:
"There are about 250,000 different species of fossil plants
and animals known . . In spite of this large quantity of information, it
is but a tiny fraction of the diversity that [according to the theory] actually
lived in the past. There are well over a million species living today and . .
[it is] possible to predict how many species ought to be in our fossil
record. That number is at least 100 times the number we have found."—*David
M. Raup, "Conflicts between Darwin and Paleontology," in Field Museum
of Natural History Bulletin, January 1979, p. 22.
(1) The fossil evidence does not have enough different species,
and (2) it reveals no successively evolving species in ancient times.
But, in addition, the fossil experts admit that far too many
"new species" names have been applied to fossils which have been
found. Consider this:
CONFUSION IN NAMES—At this point we shall mention a technical
point that only adds to the confusion as paleontologists try to search for the
truth about the fossils. It also gives the impression of far more extinct
species in the fossil record than there actually are.Fossil hunters have the
practice of giving different names to the same species if it is found in rocks
of different periods! *Dr. Raup, head paleontologist at the Field Museum of
Natural History in Chicago, says that as much as 70 percent of all the
"new" fossil species found, are misnamed.
"Dr. Eldredge [American Museum of Natural History, New York
City] was asked, ‘Do paleontologists name the same creatures differently when
they are found in different geological periods?’ He replied that this happens,
but they are mistakes. When asked the same question, Dr. Patterson [British
Museum, London] replied, ‘Oh, yes, that’s very widely done.’ Next he was asked,
‘That doesn’t seem quite honest. You wouldn’t do that, would you?’ He said that
he hoped he wouldn’t . .
"Would not this practice make a lot more species? Dr. Raup
[Chicago Museum] said it would; perhaps 70 percent of the species described [in
the fossil rocks] are later found to be the same as existing species. So 70
percent of the new species named should not have been [given new names but
were], either through ignorance or because of the ground rules used by the
taxonomists."—L.D. Sunderland, Darwin’s Enigma (1988), pp. 130-131.
Obviously, such a practice deepens the problem for the experts. In
this chapter our concern will be with underlying facts and principles, yet the
doubling and tripling of names for the same fossil species only makes it harder
for the experts to extract themselves from their Darwinian muddle.
"An assistant of Dr. Eldredge, who was studying trilobite
fossils at the American Museum, explained to the author how he made the
decision on naming a new species: ‘I look at a fossil for about two weeks and
then if I think it looks different enough, I give it a new name.’ So it is
simply a mailer of judgment with no firm ground rules."—Op. cit., p.
131.
The experts tell us there are "millions of species,"
when there are not that many. Taxonomists are the men who classify and
give names to plants and animals. Among them, the "splitters" are
the ones who find it easier to make up new names than to go to the trouble of
properly identifying a specimen in hand.
"We all know that many apparent evolutionary bursts are
nothing more than brainstorms on the part of particular paleontologists. One
splitter in a library can do far more than millions of years of genetic
mutation."—*V. Ager, "The Nature of the Fossil Record,"
Proceedings of the Geological Association, Vol. 87, No. 2, 1976, p. 132
[Chairman of the Geology Department, Swansea University].
(See chapter 11, Plant and Animal Species, for more on
this.) It is well-known among the experts that there are far more splitters
out there than lumpers,—simply because applying a new name for a fossil
is easier and brings more fame than going through all the drudgery of
researching into who had earlier named it.
*Edward Cope and *Othniel Marsh were two major museum fossil
collectors in Western U.S. They fiercely hated one another, and for decades
consistently double-named specimens—which had already been named earlier. (See
chapter 11, Animal and Plant Species, for more.)
"Sadly, in the later bitter rivalry between Cope and Marsh,
Leidy [an earlier fossil collector] was all but forgotten. Paleontologist Henry
Fairfield Osborn, director of the American Museum of Natural History, recalled
that many of the Eocene and Oligocene animals had been given three names in the
scientific literature: the original Leidy name and the Cope and Marsh
names."—*Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), pp. 272-273.
11 - LARGER ANCIENTLY THAN TODAY
LARGER FOSSILS ANCIENTLY—It is an intriguing fact that, if the
fossil evidence supported any species modification, it would be devolution—not
evolution! Ancient plants and animals were frequently much larger than any now
living. Not only do we find no crossing over the species line among fossils,
but we also discover that species are not evolving, but degenerating with the
passing of time.A cardinal principle of evolutionary theory is that creatures
must evolve into more complexity as well as bigger size. But the fossil record
bears out neither theory. There is clear evidence of the complexity to be found
in invertebrates, the supposedly "lowest" form of life. But there is
a size differential as well:
"[Edward Drinker] Cope is known to many students only for ‘Cope’s
Law,’ which asserts, roughly speaking, that everything goes on getting
bigger . . Alas, it is not generally true. The modern tiger is smaller
than the sabre-toothed tiger of the last ice age . . The horsetails of our
ditches are tiny compared with the sixty-foot [18 m] horsetails of the
Carboniferous. And where are the giant snails of the early Cambrian or the
giant oysters of the Tertiary?"—*G.R. Taylor, Great Evolution Mystery
(1983), p 122.
The Bible indicates that in ancient times, people lived longer and
were much larger. So it should not be surprising that extinct creatures were
frequently larger than those alive today. They probably lived longer too. Among
the fossils we find the following:
Plants: (1) Enormous plants once existed, far
exceeding anything alive today. (2) Fifty-foot [152 dm] high ferns with 5-6
foot [15-18 dm] fronds. (3) Scouring rushes grew to a width of 12 inches [30.48
cm] in diameter. (4) One-hundred-foot [30.4 dm] high scale trees, with
trunks 4-6 feet [12-18 dm] in diameter are found only in fossil form. None are
alive today.
Small sea life: (5) Giant trilobites up to
18 inches [45.72 cm] long, with none alive today, and the creatures now living
and most similar to them are quite small. (6) Fifteen-foot [457 cm] long
straight-shelled cephalopods (Enckiceras proteiforme), and [9-foot 1274
cm] sea scorpions (Euryprids) once lived. Nothing of such immense sizes
is found among them today. Those fossil Euryprids were the largest
arthropods that ever lived.
Insects: (7) Some insects were 4 to 8 inches
[10.16-20.32 cm] in length. Dragonflies had a wingspread of 29 inches [73.66
cm], and some centipedes were 12 inches [30.48 cm] in length.
Amphibians: (8) Today’s amphibians are small
salamanders or frogs. But in the past, there were the giants of Stegocephalia,
of which Onychopus gigas alone weighed 500 pounds [226.8 kg].
Larger marine life: (9) How would you like to
meet a shark with jaws 6 feet [183 cm] across? That is what sharks were like in
ancient times. (10) Basilosaurus was a marine mammal with a 4-foot [12
dm] head, 10-foot [30 dm] long body, and 40-foot [12.2 m] tail.
Birds: (11) Diatiyma looked somewhat like
an ostrich, but was 7 feet [21 dm] tall and had a head as big as a horse. (12)
The Phororhacos was nearly 8 feet [24 dm] tall with a skull 23 inches
[58.42 cm] across. (13) Dinornis was 10-feet [30.5 dm] tall, and was the
largest bird that ever lived.
Larger mammals: (14) The Mongolian
Andresarchus had a skull 2½ feet [76 dm] long, and was one of the largest
carnivores ever to live. (15) Imagine meeting a long-horned rhinoceros 14 feet
[4.3 m] tall? Another rhinoceros, Baluchiterium, was 13 feet [40 dm]
high and 25 feet [76 dm] long. (16) There were huge wooly mammoths, gigantic
hairy mastodons, and 14-foot [43 dm] tall imperial mammoths. (17) Giant
armadillos once lived, and ground sloths as big as elephants. (18) Pigs (Entelodonts)
were 6 feet [18dm] high. (19) One bison (Bison latifrons) had a
6-foot [18 dm] horn spread.
Reptiles: (20) Crocodile-like phytosaurs were
25 feet [76 dm] long, and dolphin-like ichthyosaurs were 30 feet [91 dm]
in length. (21) There were 35-foot [171 dm] long marine reptiles (Mosasaurs)
and 11-foot [34 dm] marine turtles (Archelon). (22) The Pteranodon
had a 25-foot [76 dm] wingspread. (23) And then there were gigantic land
reptiles, including the 45-foot [137 dm] Tyrannosaurus Rex, the 65-foot
[189 dm] long Brontosaurus, the 10-ton [9,072 kg] Stegosaurus, and
the 80-foot [244 dm] long Diplodocus. The Brachiosaurus was 50 feet [152
dm] tall, 100 feet [305 dm] in length, and weighed 80 [72.5 mt] tons. That
would make it approximately three times as large as the largest dinosaur now
known, and place it in the range of size of the blue whale—called the largest
creature on earth.
In 1971, three specimens of the largest bird were found in Texas
by *Douglas Lawson. The Pterosaur had an estimate wingspan of 51 feet
[155 dm], twice as large as any flying reptile previously discovered. By way of
contrast, the bird with the largest wingspan, the wandering albatross, measures
11 feet [33.5 dm], and the McDonnell Douglas F-15A jet fighter has a wingspan
of 43 feet [131 dm].
12 - REVIEWING THE BASIC FOSSIL EVIDENCE
THE MISSING TREE—The fossil record does not present a "family
tree"; for there is no trunk and no branches; only twigs! The fossil
record does not present a "family tree"; for there is no trunk
and no branches; only twigs! If you remove the connecting links of a tree—the
trunk and the branches,—what will you have left? only twigs lying all over
the ground! That is the picture we find in plant and animal species living
today. That is the same picture we find in the geologic column. No trunk, no
branches—only distinct twigs, each one different than the others.
"So far as we can judge from the geologic record, large
changes seem usually to have arisen rather suddenly, in terms of geologic time.
Fossil forms intermediate between large subdivisions of classification, such as
orders and classes, are seldom seen."—*Paul A. Moody, Introduction to
Evolution (1962), p. 503.
WOODMORAPPE’S WORLD RESEARCH PROJECT—Since early childhood, we
have all been exposed to these charts of rock strata and fossils, with the
impressive dates alongside. It is called a "Geologic Column" chart.A
correlative scientific analysis, remarkable for its in-depth thoroughness and
worldwide coverage, was published in the December 1983 issue of Creation Research
Society Quarterly. Authored by John Woodmorappe, the 53-page article
contains 807 references, 17 very detailed charts and graphs, 35 world maps, and
2 regional maps.
In this lengthy article, Woodmorappe validates several interesting
points, among which are the following:
(1) Fossils do not tend to overlay one another in successive
strata; instead they tend to be mixed together in successive strata. One third
of them span three or more strata levels.
(2) There is not an orderly progression of strata, from bottom to
top. Successively "higher" index fossils are not found in
"higher" strata as they are supposed to be. Index fossils do not tend
to overlay one another in successive strata; instead they are generally found
here and there on what approximates a chance arrangement! Such fossils are
often clumped at a great horizontal distance from the index fossils they are
supposed to overlay. More than 9500 global occurrences of major index fossils
were marked on 34 world maps in order to analyze overlay occurrences. Great
care was taken to be sure that the data on these maps would be as accurate as
possible. After preparing maps for each type of index fossil, Woodmorappe
overlaid them on a light table in order to compare and tabulate instances in
which index fossils were above each other in harmony with classical
evolutionary rock strata theory.
Table 3 was then prepared to compare the 34 world maps of index
fossils. Using it, you can make xeroxes of these maps and make your own overlay
analyses on a light table. Or you can make copies onto overhead projector
transparencies—and show them to students and other audiences.
"Table 3 has been drafted to show the results of superposing
Maps 1-34 against each other. There are 479 cross-comparisons; every fossil
versus every other that belongs to another geologic period. It can be seen that
only small percentages of all localities of any given fossil overlie, or are
overlain by, any other single fossil of another geologic period. Thus fossils
of different geologic periods invariably tend to shun each other
geographically, and this in itself may be taken as prima facie evidence
that all fossils are ecological and/or biogeographic equivalents of each other—negating
all concepts of evolution, geologic periods, and geologic time. To the
Diluviologist, this tendency of any two different-‘age’ fossils to be
geographically incompatible allows an understanding of fossils in light of the
Universal Deluge [the Genesis Flood]."—John Woodmorappe, "A
Diluviological Treatise on the Stratigraphic Separation of Fossils," in
Creation Research Society Quarterly, December 1983, p. 150 [bold type ours].
Table 4 was prepared to show possible multiple fossil overlays
rather than just two as with Table 3. The results of this presentation are
disastrous for evolutionary theory.
"There does not appear to be any trend for individual fossils
to be exceptionally commonly juxtaposed or non-juxtaposed with others."—Op.
Cit., p. 151.
As we have earlier explained, it is the "index fossils"
which are relied on as the proof of the evolutionary theory of fossil strata
placement and dating. Here is Woodmorappe’s conclusion in regard to these
so-called "index fossils":
"A total of over 9500 global occurrences of major index
fossils have been plotted on 34 world maps for the purpose of determining
superpositional tendencies. 479 juxtapositional determinations have shown that
only small percentages of index fossils are juxtaposed one with another. Very
rarely are more than one-third (and never more than half) of all 34 index
fossils simultaneously present in any 200 mile (320 kilometer) diameter region
on earth."—Op. cit., p. 133].
(3) Beginning on page 151 of his article he considers possible
causes and Flood mechanisms, as possible solutions to why these fossils are to
be found in such a confused pattern.
(4) Woodmorappe concludes with an extensive discussion, on pages
167-171, of why so few mammal, bird, and human fossils have been found.
You may wish to obtain a copy of his article to read through and
make transparency charts to share with others. The Creation Research Society
Quarterly is one of the best publications in its field.
ASKING THE EXPERTS—Let us briefly pause in our examination of
the strata/fossil evidence and what it reveals. We will now journey to three of
the largest paleontological museum holdings in the world:
We will first go to the British
Museum of Natural History. *Dr. Colin Patterson is in charge of its large paleontology
(fossil) collection.
After publishing his 1978 book, Evolution, *Dr. Colin
Patterson of the British Museum of Natural History was asked why he did not
include a single photograph of a transitional fossil. In reply, Dr. Patterson
said this:
"I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct
illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil
or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist
should be used to visualise [portray] such transformations, but where would he
get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it.
"[Steven] Gould [of Harvard] and the American Museum people
are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. As a
paleontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of
identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record. You say that I should at
least ‘show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was
derived.’ I will lay it on the line—there is not one such fossil for which one
could make a watertight argument. The reason is that statements about ancestry
and descent are not applicable in the fossil record. It is easy enough to make
up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages
should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of
science, for there is no way of putting them to the test."—*Dr. Colin
Patterson, letter dated
Let us now leave *Dr. Colin Patterson in London, and go to the
Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. It is one of the largest
and oldest natural history museums in America—and probably in the world, and
houses 20 percent of all fossil species known. Having had opportunity to
carefully study these materials for years, *Dr. David Raup the leading
paleontologist at this Field Museum, is in a position to speak with authority.
He begins a key article summarizing what the fossil evidence reveals by saying:
"Most people assume that fossils provide a very important
part of the general argument made in favor of Darwinian interpretations of the
history of life. Unfortunately, this is not strictly true."—*David
Raup, "Conflicts between Darwin and Paleontology," in Field Museum of
Natural History Bulletin, January 1979.
*Dr. Raup then quotes a well-known statement by *Charles Darwin
that he (*Darwin) was "embarrassed" by the lack of fossil evidence
for origins (the Cambrian problem) and transitions (the gap problem) in his
day. Then *Raup declares that the situation today is even worse—for we now have
so much more fossil evidence which tells us the same message it told *Darwin!
Noting that *Darwin wrote that he hoped that future discoveries would unearth fossils
which would fill the gaps and provide the missing links, *Raup then says:
"We are now about 120 years after Darwin, and 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."—*Dr. David Raup, in op. cit.
We will now leave Chicago and journey to one of the largest
museums in the nation, the American Museum of Natural History
in New York City, where *Dr. Niles Eldredge is in charge of its massive
fossil collection.
While attending a science writers’ convention in Gatlinburg,
Tennessee in November 1978, *Dr. Eldridge was asked by a reporter for evidence
from the fossil record of transitional changes from one species to another. A
report of his reply was printed shortly afterward in the Los Angeles Times:
"No one has found any such in-between creatures. This was
long chalked up to ‘gaps’ in the fossil records, gaps that proponents of
gradualism [gradual evolutionary change from species to species] confidently
expected to fill in someday when rock strata of the proper antiquity were
eventually located. But all the fossil evidence to date has failed to turn up
any such missing links.
"There is a growing conviction among many scientists that
these transitional forms never existed."—*Niles Eldredge, quoted in
"Alternate Theory of Evolution Considered," in Los Angeles Times,
Drs. *Patterson, *Raup, and *Eldredge spent a lifetime in fossil
analysis before giving the above statements. Together, they have been in charge
of at least 50 percent of the major fossil collections of the world. They have
the evidence, they know the evidence, they work with it day after day.
Figuratively, they sit on top of the largest pile of fossil bones
in the world! They know what they are talking about. Their conclusion:
"There are no transitional forms."
But WITHOUT transitional forms there can be NO evolution—for THAT
IS what evolution is all about! Evolution is not copper
changing into sulphur, it is not air changing into sunlight, nor is it wolves
changing into German shepherds. It would be a true species change.
Evolution is one basic type of plant or animal changing into
another basic type of plant or animal (apple trees into oak trees
or goats into cows). There should be fossil evidence of those changes. The
evidence would be "transitional forms" filling the "gaps"
between the basic types. But such transitions are nowhere to be found.
THE FISH THAT BECAME OUR ANCESTOR. According to one of the legends
of evolutionary theory, a critical point in our ancestry came one day, when a
fish decided to crawl out of the water and start walking. He found it all so
exciting that he turned into a land animal. The rest is evolutionary history:
amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, and man resulted. So you have a lot to
thank that fish for.
In the 1980s, Luther Sunderland interviewed the head
paleontologists of five of the largest natural history museums in the United
States, overseeing at least 60 percent of the fossil collections in the world.
One of the questions he asked them was about that fish that came out on land
and began walking around. Another question was about whether they knew of any
transitional species. The answer to both questions, by the five men, was either
studied silence or an embarrassed sidestepping of the matter.
DARWIN’S GREAT CONCERN—Over a hundred years ago, *Charles Darwin
recognized the importance of the problem of fossil gaps (lack of transitional
halfway species) in the strata. The gaps were already well-known in his time.
Charles Darwin recognized the importance of the problem of fossil gaps (lack of
transitional halfway species) in the strata. The gaps were already well-known
in his time. Realizing that those gaps immensely weakened his general theory,
he wrote this:
"This perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which
can be urged against the theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the
extreme imperfection of the geological record."—*Charles Darwin, Origin
of the Species, 6th edition (1956), pp. 292-293.
But *Darwin expressed hope that the gaps would later, after his
death, be filled.
Since his time (*Darwin died in 1882), a major campaign has been
underway for over a century to close up those "imperfections." But
the hundreds upon thousands of fossils which have been found and examined only
reveal with deeper clarity and distinctness merely the species we now have
today, plus some extinct ones.
WORSE THAN BEFORE—*Charles Darwin speculated that, in our modern
world, natural selection is changing species into brand new ones. But we find
that *Darwin was wrong.
*Darwin also said that the fossil record ought to show that
natural selection had being doing this in the past, and that later discoveries
of additional fossils would show his idea to be true. But the fossils show that
*Darwin was wrong. *Raup says that the fossil situation is now even worse than
it was in the days of *Darwin. Other experts agree with him. The desperate
straits of the evolutionists are caused by their frenzied search to prove
evolution true! It has only brought to view a vast wealth of fossil data able
to bury the theory. And it would bury it too, IF we all knew the truth of the
situation. But the textbook and popular magazines continue churning out the
statement, "evolution has now been proven to be a fact," and
then vindicating those statements by referring to the peppered moth and
recapitulation as proofs of evolution!. Whether it be the fossil past or
the natural world around us today; the only variations are within the
true species, never across them. We can breed new varieties of roses, pigeons,
or dogs, but they remain roses, pigeons, and dogs. Genetic studies clearly show
that mutation and natural selection—working alone or together— cannot produce
evolutionary change. Fossil evidence confirms this.
WHAT IT TAKES TO SURVIVE—Speak of "survival of the
fittest"! The long survival of evolutionary theory disproves the phrase!of
"survival of the fittest"! The long survival of evolutionary theory
disproves the phrase! Here we have survival of the weakest, most
foolish, and most easily disproved of "scientific" concepts.
Evolution as a theory survives because (1) the public
does not know what is going on, (2) most scientists are working in very narrow
fields and do not see the overall picture that you are learning in this
website, and (3) many conscientious researchers dare not speak up lest they be
relieved of their positions and salaries.
Yes, the scientists are working in narrow fields—
• The biologists and geneticists bemoan the lack of evolutionary
evidence in their fields (living species and genetic research), but then
comfort themselves that, perhaps, the fossil evidence has established it.
• The paleontologists and stratigraphers bemoan the void of
evolutionary evidence in the fossil strata (species which earlier lived on the
earth) but conclude that, surely, the startling advances in species
discoveries and genetics research upholds it.
The scholars and researchers attend their own narrowed scientific
meetings and rarely have time to check with those in other fields of study. The
experts in each scientific specialty imagine that other experts elsewhere have
solidly proven evolution, even though in their field of study it is ready to
fall through the floor.So much is known about so little in the sciences today
that few experts can see the BIG picture. And the general public is given the
WRONG picture. Evolution is as dead as the Dodo bird of the Mascarene Islands
that died nearly two hundred years ago, and most people in the modern world are
not aware of it.
SOME OF THE PROBLEMS—Here are a few of the key problems with
the fossils in the strata. Here are a few of the key problems with the
fossils in the strata. These problems are serious enough that any one of them
is enough to overthrow the evolutionary theory in regard to paleontology and
stratigraphy:
(1) Life suddenly appears in the bottom fossil-strata level, the
Cambrian, with no precursors.
(2) When these lowest life-forms appear (they are small
slow-moving, shallow-sea creatures), they are extremely abundant, numbered in
the billions of specimens, and quite complex.
(3) No transitional species are to be found at the bottom of the
strata, the Cambrian.
(4) Just below the Cambrian, in the Precambrian, there are no
fossil specimens.
(5) No transitional species are to be found below the lowest
stratum, in the Precambrian.
(6) No transitional species are to be found above the bottom
stratum, from the Ordovician on up.
(7) Higher taxa (forms of life) appear just as suddenly in the
strata farther up. These higher types (such as beavers, giraffes, etc.)
suddenly appear with no hint of transitional life-forms leading up to them.
(8) When they appear, vast numbers of these life-forms are to be
found.
13 - THE FOSSILS
IMMENSE NUMBER OF FOSSILS—One of the most startling facts about
the sedimentary strata around the world is the vast quantities of fossils they
contain. Without a worldwide Flood, it would be impossible for such huge
amounts of plants and animals to have been rapidly buried. And without rapid
burial they could not have fossilized.
Yes, there are immense numbers of rapidly buried fossils; read
this:
About one-seventh of the earth’s surface is tundra—frozen
mud,—containing the fossil remains of millions of mammoths and other large and
smaller animals. Then there are the log jams of dinosaur bones found in many
places in the world. Over 300 different kinds of dinosaurs have been excavated
from one place in Utah. Vast fossil beds of plants exist in various places. We
today call them coal beds. In Geiseltal, Germany, were found the remains of
6,000 vertebrates. Great masses of amphibians have been found in the Permian
beds of Texas. Elsewhere in Texas huge masses of fossil clams have been
unearthed—yet never are living clams so tightly packed together as we find
here. Examining them, we find clamshells that are closed! When a clam
dies, its shell opens—unless before death it is quickly buried under the
pressure of many feet of soil and pebbles. In one area alone in South Africa,
there are about 800 billion fossils of amphibians and reptiles in an area
200,000 miles square [517,980 km2].
Old Red Sandstone in England has billions upon billions of fish,
spread over 10,000 square miles [25,899 km2], with as many as a thousand fish
fossils in one square yard. Trilobites are among the smallest of the fossils.
They are found at the bottom of the strata, in the Cambrian. And the
Cambrian—with its trilobites—is also found 7,000 feet high in the mountains.
Yet trilobites were small shallow-sea creatures! What flood of waters
carried them up there?These vast beds of sedimentary fossil-bearing strata cover
about three-fourths of the earth’s surface, and are as much as 40,000
feet thick.
COLLECTED HEAPS—There are heaps and heaps of fossil specimens in
the collections of paleontologists and museumsThere are heaps and heaps of
fossil specimens in the collections of paleontologists and museums.
Men have searched for fossils since the beginning of the 19th
century, and the facts are now available: there is no evidence of evolution in
the fossil record.Forty-three hundred years ago, a great catastrophe, the
Flood, overspread the world.
In our own day, a great catastrophe has inundated evolutionary
theory. No less an authority than a Smithsonian paleontologist describes the
basis of the problem:.
"There are a hundred million fossils, all catalogued and
identified, in museums around the world."—*Porter Kier, quoted in New
Scientist,
*David Raup, head paleontologist of the Field Museum of Natural
History in Chicago, describes the heart of the problem:
"So the geological time scale and the basic facts of
biological change over time are totally independent of evolutionary theory. In
the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions.
In general, these have not been found—yet the optimism has died hard, and some
pure fantasy has crept into textbooks."—*David M. Raup, "Evolution
and the Fossil Record," in Science,
NOT MADE NOW—Several years ago, two scientists tried to make some
fossilsSeveral years ago, two scientists tried to make some fossils. According
to the school textbooks, it should not be hard to do. *Rainer Zangerl and
*Eugene S. Richardson, Jr., placed dead fish in wire cages and dropped them
into several Louisiana lagoons and bayous. When the men returned six and a half
days later, they found that bacteria and scavengers had consumed all the soft
parts of the fish and had scattered the bones in the cages.Sedimentary strata
are filled with fish fossils, yet when a fish dies today, it never fossilizes;
it bloats, floats, and then is eaten by scavengers and other small creatures.
"When a fish dies its body floats on the surface or sinks to
the bottom and is devoured rather quickly, actually in a matter of hours, by
other fish. However, the fossil fish found in sedimentary rocks is very often
preserved with all its bones intact. Entire shoals of fish over large areas,
numbering billions of specimens, are found in a state of agony, but with no
mark of a scavenger’s attack."—*lmmanuel Velikovsky, Earth in Upheaval
(1955), p. 222.
The strata have lots of animals in them, but when an animal dies
today, it never fossilizes; it rots if the buzzards do not find it first. Dead
animals do not normally produce fossils.
"The buffalo carcasses strewn over the plains in uncounted
millions two generations ago have left hardly a present trace. The flesh was
devoured by wolves or vultures within hours or days after death, and even the
skeletons have now largely disappeared, the bones dissolving and crumbling into
dust under the attack of weather."—*Carl O. Dunbar, Historical Geology
(1949), p. 39.
There is an abundance of fossilized plant life in the strata; yet,
when a weed, bush, or tree dies, it turns back to soil; it does not harden into
a fossil.
It requires some very special conditions to produce fossils. Those
conditions occurred one time in history. The evidence is clear that it was a
worldwide phenomenom, and that it happened very, very quickly...
RAPID BURIAL—A striking fact about the fossils is that they were
obviously all laid down at the same time—and very, very rapidly!
Where are the bison today? As we just read, most were slain by
buffalo hunters in the Plains States of America over a hundred years ago. But
where are their fossils? None are to be found. Millions of bison died, but
there are no fossil remains. They rotted, were eaten by scavengers, decayed,
and slowly returned back to the earth.The fact is that fossils never form at
the present time, yet in the sedimentary strata we find literally billions of
them! Examination of the strata bearing them reveals it was obviously laid down
by a massive flood of water.The sheer immensity of these fossil graveyards is
fantastic. And to think that it never happens today! Speaking about sedimentary
deposits that he found in the Geiseltal, in central Germany, *Newell says:
"More than six thousand remains of vertebrate animals and a
great number of insects, molluscs, and plants were found in these deposits. The
compressed remains of soft tissues of many of these animals showed details of
cellular structure [with] well-preserved bits of hair, feathers and scales . .
The stomach contents of beetles, amphibia, fishes, birds and mammals provided
direct evidence about eating habits."—*N.O. Newell "Adequacy of
the Fossil Record," in Journal of Paleontology, May 1959, p. 496.
It would be impossible for vast numbers of plants and animals to
be suddenly buried under normal circumstances. Yet we find that the fossils
were buried so quickly that the food could be seen in many of their stomachs.
Even the delicate soft parts of their bodies are visible, so rapid had been the
burial. Quick, high compression adds to the evidence for extremely rapid
burial. All of the life-forms were suddenly flattened out. Sharks have been
found flattened to ¼ inch in thickness with the tail still upright, suggesting
sudden catastrophic burial. It took rapid action to do that.
"Robert Broom, the South African paleontologist, estimated
that there are eight hundred thousand million skeletons of vertebrate animals
in the Karro formation."—*Op. cit., p. 492.
Describing herring fossils in the Miocene shales of California, a
U.S. Geological Survey expert tells us:
"More than a billion fish, averaging 6 to 8 inches in length,
died on 4 square miles [10.36 km2] of bay bottom."—*Harry S. Ladd,
"Ecology, Paleontology, and Stratigraphy," in Science,
What happened? Some terrible catastrophe occurred that suddenly
overwhelmed the earth! Fossil seashells have been found in the highest
mountains of the planet, including the highest range of them all, the
Himalayas, which reaches in an arc across central Asia.
FISH SWALLOWING FISH—Princeton University scientists were working
in Fossil Lake, Wyoming, when they found a fossil fish that was swallowing
another fish. Because both fish had been pressed flat by the sudden burial, the
paleontologists could see one fish inside the other with only the tail sticking
out of the larger one’s throat. It was a perch swallowing a herring.
Obviously, this required a very sudden event to capture and kill a
fish swallowing a fish! Nothing like this happens today.
In the Hall of Paleontology, at Kansas State University, can be
seen a 14-foot fish that has swallowed a 6-foot fish. The fish that was
swallowed was not digested,—and then both had been suddenly entombed.
FOSSIL FOOTPRINTS—Leonard Brand and James Florence did some
excellent research! They gathered together the great majority of fossil
footprint records from approximately 800 published papers, as well as from data
in five major paleontological museums. This information was then correlated
with burial records on the fossils themselves.
Comparing it all, they came up with some surprising conclusions:
(1) Birds and mammals were buried on about the same levels as the
footprints of their species were found. This was in the Quaternary and Tertiary
at the very end of the Flood.
(2) But, below these top strata, the footprints of
amphibians, non-dinosaur reptiles, and dinosaurs were made well below the
levels where the bulk of their bodies were buried!
That second discovery is rather astounding. If long ages had
occurred during each strata, then the footprints and bodies should be found
together. But if a worldwide single Flood was responsible for all the
strata, then we would expect to find large numbers of amphibians, reptiles, and
dinosaurs walking around earlier in the Flood, yet buried later in it!
For further data and charts on this, see the reference given below:
"During the early to middle part of the Flood large numbers
of amphibians and reptiles were moving about, and thus producing footprints.
Later as the Flood progressed (upper Jurassic and Cretaceous) there were very
few live amphibians or reptiles to produce footprints, except for the large
dinosaurs. During the Cretaceous when the only footprints preserved were the
large dinosaur tracks, there were many amphibian and reptile bodies that were
being buried to produce the abundant Cretaceous body fossils. During the
Cenozoic almost no amphibian or reptile footprints were preserved.
". . During the flood the birds and mammals were in the
uplands, away from the depositional basins, because of ecological differences
and/or more adaptable behavioral responses to the unusual biological crisis
caused by the flood."—Leonard Brand and James Florence,
"Stratigraphic Distribution of Vertebrate Fossil Footprints Compared with
Body Fossils" in Origins, Vol 9, no. 2 (1982), p. 71.
PLANTS AND ANIMALS NOT TOGETHER—According to the theory, over a
period of millions of years, plants and animals died, dropped to the ground and
changed into fossils (even though such fossilization never occurs today).
Gradually, they were covered with dirt as, over the centuries, falling leaves
turned into dirt.
But in reality, it is only rarely that we find plants and animals
together in the fossil beds! That is why "Minium’s Dead Cow Quarry"
in Kansas is so very much appreciated by paleontologists: it is an exception to
the rule and does have plants and plant seeds in the same rock with animals (*R.
Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution 1990, p. 307).
Why would plants and animals normally not be found together in the
fossil strata? The reason is simple enough. They were all washed into place by
the worldwide Flood. The water tended to sort them out, resulting in rafts of
vegetation being floated into place, which became our present coal beds, while
other pockets in the strata became filled with "fossil graveyards" as
animals were washed into other locations.
IN WHAT FORM ARE THE FOSSILS?—There are millions upon millions of
fossils. You may wonder what those fossils are like. Here are the seven
primary types of fossils:
(1) Hard parts (the bones and shells) of some plants and
animals were preserved.
(2) Carbon alone was preserved. This is where our coal beds
came from.
(3) The original form is preserved only in casts and molds. The
original material dissolved away and a cast of its shape was preserved. This
would also require sudden burial.
(4) Sometimes petrification of wood occurred. An excellent
example of this would be the Petrified Forest in Arizona, where we find entire
tree trunks that have turned to stone. After sudden burial, each cell in the
wood was gradually replaced by minerals from an underground flow of water.
(5) There are prints of animal tracks. Thousands of animal
tracks have been found preserved in stone, and the prints are always shown
running away from something. In Glen Rose, Texas, and several other places,
prints of giant humans have been found. In the same bed with the human
footprints have been found dinosaur tracks! This shows that the dinosaurs lived
when man did, and not millions of years earlier, as the evolutionists claim.
(Much more information on this will be found in chapter 13, Ancient Man.)
(6) Ripple marks and rain drop splashes. Ancient
hail imprints (which are quite different than raindrops) have never been found.
The weather must have been consistently warm when the Flood began (*W.H.
Twenhofel, Principles of Sedimentation (1950), p. 621).
(7) Worm trails, droppings, feathers, chemicals, and even
fish odor were preserved by sudden burial!
CAMBRIAN FOSSILS IN FINE DETAIL—Before concluding this section on
what is included in "fossils," we should mention that the soft parts
of the plants and animals are at times clearly traced in the rocks. One
excellent example of this is the Burgess Pass fossils.
In 1910, a pack train loaded with supplies was struggling over a
mountain path high in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, near the Burgess
Pass, when a horse kicked a dark rock and stumbled. One of the men examined the
rock and found that it had fine, exquisitely detailed fossil markings. Later,
the Smithsonian Institute sent out paleontologists and workmen who quarried out
tons of rock from the side of that and nearby mountains, and sent 35,000
fossils to be analyzed and housed in our national museum in Washington, D.C.
These specimens were primarily bottom-dwellers from ancient seas,
such as worms, trilobites, brachiopods, lampshells, and more. Here, in these
very high mountains, the soft parts of these creatures are from Cambrian
deposits (the lowest of all strata) were clearly visible. Even delicate
internal organs were traced on the stone. The transitional species leading
up to those common Cambrian specimens ought to have been found, but they were
not. Yet Burgess Pass, and nearby digging sites (such as Mount Stephen),
ultimately yielded almost copious amounts of fossils of nearly every major type
of life-form.
POLYSTRATE TREES—Here are two views of upright, fossilized trees
in sedimentary strata. One is a drawing; the other a photograph.
Polystrate trees could not possibly occur if the strata were
slowly laid down over millions of years, as the evolutionists claim.
Polystrate trees
"These went further [than merely including fossil bones]—with
the outline of the body, even the soft internal organs were often traceable
like miniature X-ray films. Among the many fossils found are a wide range of
major kinds. I already referred to three main kinds—brachiopods, worms and
arthropods (the trilobites). Almost every major kind of animal has been found
there, except those with backbones."—Harold O. Coffin, "Famous
Fossils from a Mountaintop," in Origins,
BURIED FORESTS—Another dramatic evidence of a catastrophic flood
of massive proportions—as the cause of the sedimentary strata—is the buried
forests.
Coal beds, of course, are one such example of buried forests. They
will be discussed in more detail later in this chapter.
One of the best places to see buried forests is Specimen Ridge in
Yellowstone Park, in Montana. You will there find a succession of petrified
tree layers. The uniformitarian evolutionists claim that the trees grew there,
died, and were gradually covered by soil deposits over oncoming ages as the
dead trees stood there. Gradually, after tens of thousands of years, additional
trees died and were covered over by more millennia of soil deposits!
But careful analysis of the entire ridge reveals a unity of age,
burial conditions, and surrounding deposits. A succession of strong currents,
interspersed with flows and volcanic showers from another direction, washed the
sedimentary strata into place.
Stop and think of it a minute: Would a vertical tree die and stand
there for half a million years while rock strata gradually covered it? Yet we
find polystrate trees in the strata and even in coal beds.
NON-EXTINCT FOSSILS—The great majority of animals and plants that
lived long ago were just like those alive today, with the exception of some
extinct species. Here is a sampling of what you will find in the complete
strata of the "geologic column"—but remember that this
"complete" strata is to be found in its entirety nowhere in the
world. Beginning at the bottom, and proceeding to the top, this is what we find:
Precambrian . . . . . . algae, bacteria, fungi
Cambrian . . . . . . . . sponges, snails, jellyfish
Ordovician . . . . . . . . clams, starfish, worms .
Silurian . . . . . . . . . . . scorpions, corals
Devonian . . . . . . . . . sharks, lungfish
Carboniferous . . . . . ferns, cockroaches
Permian . . . . . . . . . . beetles, dragonflies
Triassic . . . . . . . . . . pines, palms
Jurassic . . . . . . . . . . crocodiles, turtles
Cretaceous . . . . . . . . ducks, pelicans
Paleocene . . . . . . . . . rats, hedgehogs
Eocene . . . . . . . . . . . lemurs, rhinoceroses
Oligocene . . . . . . . . . beavers, squirrels, ants
Miocene . . . . . . . . . . camels, birds
Pliocene . . . . . . . . . . horses, elephants
Pleistocene . . . . . . . . man
(Later in this chapter, under the section, "Mixed-up
Fossils," we will learn that the fossils are not neatly contained in
certain strata; they are often far above or below their assigned strata.)
It is obvious from the above list, that the species we had before,
we have now. Those fossils are just like their counterparts living today. Yes,
there are some extinct species, for some kinds have died out. But it is of
interest that even a number of the anciently extinct species—have in recent
years been found to be still living!
Here are some of the thousands of creatures alive today that are
totally identical to what they looked like millions of years ago: Cockroach (250
million years); starfish (500 million years); shark (181 million
years); sea urchin (100 million years); ginkgo tree (200 million
years); dragonfly (170 million years); bacteria (600 million
years).
Consider the bat: All the fossil bats look just like the ones that
fly around now. It was reported that *Jepsen had found the oldest fossil bat
ever! (*G.L. Jepsen reported in Science, for
LIVING FOSSILS—(*#17 Living Fossils [coelacanth and
plesiosaur]*) [Appendix 17 on our website has stories, four photographs,
and more, but no quotations.]There are species found only in rock
strata, and supposedly millions of years old, which have been declared
"extinct for millions of years." This has been considered another
"proof" of evolution, although extinction is no evidence of
evolution; evolving into new life-forms is. Yet in recent decades a number
of these "extinct for millions of years" species have been
found to not be extinct after all!
The BIG question is this: Where then were they all those
"millions of years" they were missing from the upper rock strata?
"Long before I began to research the subject in any detail, I
had brooded about a number of puzzling features—things which didn’t seem to fit
the [evolutionary] argument—which the textbooks largely ignored.
"There is, for example, the fact that some creatures fail to
evolve but chunter on quite successfully as ‘living fossils.’ Bees preserved in
amber from the Tertiary period are almost identical with living bees. And
everyone has heard of the coelacanth, supposed to have been extinct since the
beginning of the Cretaceous period. The plant world also offers living fossils,
such as the gingko, with a leaf unlike that of any modern tree."—*G.R.
Taylor, Great Evolution Mystery (1983), pp. 25-26.
So many of these "living fossils" have been found that
scientists have given a name to the study: Cryptozoology, the study of
"hidden animals." According to evolutionary theory, they were once alive,
then got hidden for millions of years, and continue living today. Here are some
of these "living fossils," all of which are alive today:
(1) Coelacanth fish: The crossopterygian
fish—"extinct" since Cretaceous. It has not been found in the strata for
the past "50 million years"—yet is alive today.
(2) Metasequoia: The "dawn redwood"—
"extinct" since Miocene; not in the strata for the past "60
million years," yet it is alive today.
(3) Tuatara: A beakheaded reptile—"extinct" since
Cretaceous; not found in the strata for the past "135 million
years"—but today is alive.
(4) Neopilina: A segmented deep-sea mollusk—
"extinct" since Devonian. Although missing from the strata for the
past "500 million years," it is alive now.
(5) Lingula: A brachiopod shellfish—"extinct"
since Ordovician; not in the strata for the past "500 million years,"
yet it is happily living today.
The now-famous Coelacanth was a large fish known only from
its fossil and allegedly extinct for 50 million years. Extinct, that is, until
several specimens were found in the ocean! The first was found in a fisherman’s
net off the coast of Madagascar on
It only requires a moment’s thought to arrive at a startling fact:
How could the Coelacanth have become extinct 50 million years ago, and
then be found now? In order to be declared "extinct" such a long time
ago, the creature would obviously have had to have been found by
paleontologists in older strata—and then not found at all in more recent
strata. Why is the Coelacanth not in those more recent strata? Did it decide to
hibernate for 50 million years?This is clear-cut evidence that the sedimentary
strata was the result of a rapid laying down of sediments during the
Flood,—rather than the tortuously slow "inch a hundred years"
deposition pattern theorized by the evolutionists.Interestingly enough, some of
these "living fossils" formerly were used by evolutionists as
"index fossils" to prove the ancientness of certain rock strata! As
you will recall, most index fossils are small marine organisms. They live so
deep in the ocean that many of them (trilobites, graptolites, ammonites, etc.)
may still have living representatives alive today, since we have but only
slightly explored the ocean bottoms. There are scientists who believe they
will find living trilobites before long (see "Start Search for Living
Trilobites," Science Digest, September 1959), and one living fossil,
very close to the trilobite has already been discovered (see "Living
Fossil Resembles Long-extinct Trilobite," Science Digest, December 1957).
Many other examples could be cited. Here are two:
"In the 19th century, hunters reported tales among Congo tribesmen
of a large, cloven-hoofed animal with a giraffe-like head and zebra stripes on
its hindquarters and legs. Most zoologists dismissed it as a local legend, but
Sir Harry H. Johnston was fascinated when he read about this unknown beast of
the deep forest. Years later, he launched an expedition in search of the
creature, which the natives called okapi (o-CAP-ee).
"After a nearly disastrous series of misadventures, he
finally captured an okapi in 1906. One of the few large mammals discovered in
the 20th century, the okapi turned out to be a living representative of a genus
(Palaeofragus) known from fossils and believed by zoologists to have been
extinct for 30 million years."—*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution
(1990), p. 102.
"According to Science News (June 9, 1990, p. 359), a
species of dogwood tree, the Diplopanax stachyanthus, was believed by
botanists to have died out about 4 million years ago. Apparently only fossil
records remained of this tree.
"But now a botanist at Washinton State University has
examined the fossil fruit of trees believed to be 15 million years old and
found them to be essentially identical to the fruit of a dogwood family
discovered in China in 1928.
"But wait a minute. If evolution is driven by the survival of
the fittest, then I would expect older and inferior species to die out and be
replaced by newer and better evolved species. If that be the case, what is a 15
million year old tree doing hanging around today? It should have died out long
ago. Or else the figure of 15 million years is grossly wrong. In either case,
something is evidently wrong with the theory of evolution."—Bob Vun
Kannon, "A Living Fossil," The Adventure, September 1990.
The existence of "living fossils" is a serious one for
the evolutionist. Evolutionary theory is based on several concepts, two of
which are violated here: (1) If a species becomes extinct, it cannot come back
to life. (2) Species evolve upward, and can never return back to an earlier
form. If that particular species has not existed for the past 15 million years,
how then could it exist today?
THE EXTINCT DINOSAUR—Ever since *Charles Lyell, the extinct
dinosaur has been considered an outstanding example of evolution. Yet all
that it proves is that animals can become extinct; there are
no facts related to dinosaurs which prove evolution (species change) in
life-forms. That which extinct dinosaurs do prove is that the uniformitarian
theory (which is the basis of evolution) is incorrect. Some massive catastrophe
overwhelmed and destroyed the dinosaurs.In order for the dinosaur to prove
evolution, there would have to be transitional forms leading up to them. But
the dinosaurs are like everything else: distinct species.
LIVING DINOSAURS—Evolutionists are anxious that it be thought that
no dinosaurs are alive todayEvolutionists are anxious that it be thought that
no dinosaurs are alive today. According to their theory, dinosaurs lived during
the Mesozoic era—from about 225 million years ago to 65 million years ago. If
some of them were to be found alive today, then evolutionists think this would
weaken their theory. But actually that would neither prove nor weaken their
theory, since dinosaurs—past or present—present no evidence of the evolutionary
process.In museums all over the world, dinosaur-bone displays are exhibited as
a proof of evolution. Their very extinction is supposed to establish it. —But
did you know that a living dinosaur has been found?
In April 1977, a Japanese fishing vessel caught a 4,000 pound
[1814 kg] dead creature in its nets off the east coast of New Zealand. It was
photographed, sketched, carefully measured, and flipper samples were kept for
tissue analysis. It has every appearance of being a Plesiosaur, or
sea-dwelling dinosaur—which prior to 1977 had only been found in fossil form!
Japanese scientists are convinced it was indeed a Plesiosaur. Japan even
printed a postage stamp of the creature, in honor of the find. (A photograph
and sketch of one is shown on page 107 of Ian Taylor’s excellent book, In
the Minds of Men.)
But there are other living creatures which answer to the
description of "dinosaurs." What is a dinosaur? Very simply, it is a
large reptile. Crocodiles, alligators, and caiman are large reptiles.
"Although they are now 99 percent extinct and seldom exceed
twelve feet in length, the American alligator attained lengths of nearly twenty
feet as recently as the turn of the century (see National Geographic
Magazine, January 1967, p. 137). Only about 500 years ago the aepyornis,
a dinosaur bird nearly ten feet [30 cm] tall and weighing half a ton [456
kg], still lived on the island of Madagascar (see National Geographic
Magazine, October 1967, p. 493)."—John C. Whitcomb, World that
Perished (1988), p. 30.
"Because the huge skeletons that were built up out of
fossilized remnants were clearly reptilian in nature, they were called
‘terrible lizards,’ which in Greek is dinosauria, by the
nineteenth-century zoologist Sir Richard Owen. But the ancient giant reptiles
are more closely related to alligators than to lizards, and should have been
named dinocrocodilia."—*Asimov’s Book of Facts (1979), p. 136.
We have both small and large alligator-type creatures alive today.
Some extinct dinosaurs were as small as a chicken, but some modern alligator-type
creatures are quite large. Some crocodiles alive today (Crocodylus porosus),
can reach a length of 33 feet [100.6 dm]; all are large, heavy, fierce
reptiles.
The komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis) is another large
reptile and looks very much like a dinosaur. It was discovered in 1912; and,
although evolutionists tried to explain it away by calling the komodo a
"lizard," it surely is more than that! Consider the following
description:
"The body is covered with small scales; the neck is thick and
the head broad and elongated. The huge mouth contains teeth ½ in [1 cm] long
and deeply cleft tongue 12-16 in [30-40 cm] long. The legs are well developed
and there are long claws on the toes. The muscular tail has no fracture planes
and is somewhat laterally compressed.
"The Komodo dragon is the biggest predator on the islands [in
Indonesia] where it lives. It hunts hog, deer, wild pig, macaques, and rats,
and digs up the eggs of mound birds . . It can run as fast as a man for short
stretches. Smaller specimens are said to lurk in trees above tracks used by
game and jump onto the backs of deer or pigs."—*Great Book of the
Animal Kingdom (1988), p. 152.
The komodo dragon, truly a reptilian giant, attacks and kills
large hogs has a lifespan of 25 years, is 10 feet [30 dm] long, and has a
weight of 350 pounds [158.76 kg]! It is decidedly larger than some of the
extinct reptiles, called "dinosaurs." (There was a wide variety of
extinct dinosaurs: some of the extinct ones were quite small; some ran rapidly
like ostriches and caught birds with their front paws, and some flew like
birds.)
The komodo dragon is the biggest of the monitors, of which there
are 31 species. Some are quite large. Most live in the islands north of
Australia. One of these, the Papua monitor (Varanus salvadori) is longer
than the komodo dragon—over 13 feet in length—although it is not as bulky.A
number of prominent scientists, including *Myer, consider crocodiles and
alligators to be "living fossils."
"Nile crocodiles and American alligators belong to a group of
reptiles called broad-nosed crocodilians. In the warmer parts of the world,
broad-nosed crocodilians are the largest predators to walk on land. They are
living fossils in the sense that they resemble ancient forms in the shapes and
the ruggedness of their heads and bodies."—*Ernst Myer,
"Crocodilians as Living Fossils," in Living Fossils (1984), p. 105.
EXTINCT FOSSILS—What about the fossilized creatures which are now
extinct? All that extinct fossils—such as dinosaurs—prove is that animals can
die out. Extinction is not evolution, and provides no evidence of evolution.
In addition to the dinosaurs, a number of other animal and plant
species became extinct also. Interestingly enough, the extinct species were
generally more complex than plants and animals now living!
NONE OF THE FOSSILS OR STRATA ARE ANCIENT—Fossils from every level
of sedimentary strata have been analyzed by amino acid dating methods (see
chapter 6, Inaccurate Dating Methods.)
Scientists have been shocked to discover that both the
"youngest" as well as the "oldest" fossils (even those of
the Cambrian!) reveal traces of amino acids! This is astounding news, and runs
counter to evolutionary theory. This means that, instead of being hundreds of
millions of years apart, ALL of the fossil-bearing strata were laid down fairly
recently at about the same time! In order to "save the fossils" as
a trophy of evolution, there has been speculation that amino acids in the
"oldest" fossils are merely contaminants that somehow got there at
some recent time.Shells from as far back as the Jurassic strata, which is
supposed to be 135-180 million years old, have been found to have amino acids
still locked into protein structures. Shells from as far back as the Jurassic
strata, which is supposed to be 135-180 million years old, have been found to
have amino acids still locked into protein structures. The amino acid residues
came from inside those shells—so the shells cannot be more than a few thousand
years old!
Amino acid studies in the fossil-bearing sediments reveal that
there are no ancient fossil strata!
HUMAN REMAINS IN ANCIENT DEPOSITS— Near the end of chapter 13, Ancient
Man, we will describe a number of instances in which evidences of human
beings have been found in what evolutionists consider to be extremely ancient
rocks and coal. That information clearly disproves the geologic column dating
theories, so we will summarize some of that information here. For more detailed
coverage, we refer you to the chapter on Ancient Man.Evidence from
chapter 4, Age of the Earth, and the last part of chapter 13, Ancient
Man, reveals that both the planet and mankind are quite young—and have not
been here over 6,000-10,000 years.
Here is a summary of some of the data found near the end of the Ancient
Man chapter:
(1) Guadaloupe Woman: The almost-complete skeleton of a
woman was found in limestone which is supposed to be 28 million years old. The
limestone sheet, in which the skeleton was encased, was hard, thick, and over a
mile [1.609 km] in length.
(2) Calaveras Skull: A completely mineralized human skull
was found in Pliocene stratum which dates to over 2 million years old.
(3) Human footprints: Human footprints have been found in
various sites in the United States, as well as in Laetoli, Africa. These would
include:
[1] Glen Rose tracks: Children’s and adult footprints, up
to 15 and 21½ inches [38-54.6 cm] in length, have been regularly found in Early
Cretaceous rock throughout most of this century on the former riverbed of the
Pulaxy River in Texas. Children’s tracks always accompany those of adults,
tracks go across very large dinosaur tracks and have been found above them, and
all tracks are running. These tracks are in Early Cretaceous formations, which
date to 120 million years ago.
[2] Antelope Springs tracks: William Meister and others
have found sandaled human tracks stepping on trilobites in Cambrian strata (570
million years old), in Utah.
(4) Evidence in coal: Human remains and relics of various
kinds have been found in coal, dating to millions of years ago. This includes a
human skull, two giant human teeth, a gold chain, gold thread, steel nail,
metal screw, wedge-shaped object, and an iron pot.